"And that was Nike."
Pluto, Saturn and Ryouga faced each other in the cool night breeze. A water fountain, a water fountain - why weren't there any water fountains when you really wanted them? Ryouga sighed. The story of his life, nothing ever seemed to be there when he really needed them...
Uranus, on the other hand, appeared to have at long last succeeded in getting Neptune to talk to her - well, Ryouga could hear both of them talking about something or other, somewhere behind the trees behind the Pluto and Saturn, anyway.
Pluto and Saturn looked at each other, and then back to Ryouga.
"Ah. So that was Nike, but - uh, what about, um, all the others?" Saturn asked hesitently.
"And just how does our Uranus come into it, anyway?" Pluto added.
Ryouga sighed. "Yes, yes, I was just coming to that... I said already that there was a whole bunch of Beings, Senshi and not, who ended up all karmatically tangled up with A*0-1, I think. Well, your Uranus - Linsha, or Kiri or Kina as A*0-1 seems to remember her- was a latecomer, sort of, and started out as an out-and-out enemy of A*0-1 if I remember it right, but later on - well, they tended to end up - closer. Oh, it wasn't just her, most of us were her sibs or even parents at least once, but - well."
Ryouga stopped, coughing. Damn, he was parched...
Saturn and Pluto looked at each other, then, and Saturn started to make rummaging motions in the air.
"I thought it was - a-ha!"
Ryouga blinked as Saturn produced a plastic bottle out of thin air.
"It's chilled herb tea. Do you want some?"
Ryouga wasn't quite sure he actually wanted to eat or drink anything they gave him, not yet anyway, but Saturn's smile was infectious.
"Um, sure. Thanks?"
"You're welcome."
The tea really was quite good, too.
Uranus looked up at the starry skies, sitting next to Neptune.
"For a long, long time, I used to get reincarnated near her, him or it, almost every single time. With a bunch of other people, mind. Sometimes enemies, sometimes friends, sometimes comrades, sometimes all of the above..."
And then, that had... stopped.
With Ha'shel. But she wasn't going to tell Neptune about Ha'shel.
Neptune sighed, then. "Uranus?"
"Yes?"
"... I'm here..."
Darn, he'd emptied the bottle without thinking about it till it was too late. Not that Saturn seemed at all upset about that, but... Ryouga sighed.
"Well, alright, then... Then about the rest of the names they were throwing about. As I said, I don't have the faintest idea about who Ha'shel was, but I do remember Lancran and Benarre. Benarre first, then?"
Ryouga closed his eyes a bit, remembering a small sickly little red-haired girl, and a skinny teenager that had always been running after her, buying her things to eat and drink and carrying heavy things for her.
Uranus sighed, remembering.
"There was this kid called Benarre, once, and she had a shit of a father, or that was what I - the past-me - thought then, though now that I think about it, he really hadn't been there any more for a long time, probably..."
"Hey Benarre, Beni, stop running, you'll collapse again! I'll hold that bag for you..."
"It's just my schoolbag, Kirinath. I can hold it myself...
And the end, all that they had been for each other had come to naught.
"Benarre - she was just a kid and unlucky as hell, and it probably wasn't even half her fault, now that I think about it, but at the time - well, she was the one who'd been 'seeded' with some kind of Chaotic parasite at a rather young age, they got her though her father as I recall, and eventually got totally taken over. The entire planet she was living on then got eaten, as I recall - gaah, she's supposed to be 'Sailor Overkill' and she couldn't even throw a bloody parasite out, or just burn it, all it would have needed was a mere fraction of her power - "
Ryouga stopped, noticing that Saturn had gotten rather green in the face, and Pluto had walked over a couple of steps towards her.
"...You okay?"
"Yes. Please continue."
"...Parasite problems?"
"Well." Saturn mumbled. "Yes."
"Ahh, sorry... Bad memories, eh?"
Pluto gave him a quiet but eloquent glance. Ryouga took the hint.
"Ah, sorry about that - Alright, about 'Kina', then. When A*0-1 was Benare, your Uranus was Kiri, Kirinath to be precise, her elder foster-brother and cousin. They were close, but in the end he could save neither her or the planet, well, none of us could, and - "
Ryouga stopped, noticing both Pluto and Saturn had gone somewhat pale.
"- And what happened?" Saturn asked, eventually.
"To that planet and System, that is." Pluto added.
"I'm - not sure..." Ryouga sighed. It was the last time I reincarnated their, if I recall correctly, and - somebody might have managed a 'reboot', but -"
All three sighed, then.
"And that was Benarre. And Kirinath."
"And so that was Benarre... " Uranus sighed, remembering another lifetime she'd been called 'Kiri' or something close to that.
"But Lancran - well, things didn't turn out as badly then, in the end, but in some ways - "
Uranus remembered Lancran. Long red hair flying behind her, eating ice-cream - or something very much like ice-cream, anyway - like a it was going out of season or something...
Oh, she'd tried to be lady-like, or whatever, but... Uranus chuckled, then, ruefully. Lancran, ladylike.
Suuure.
The breeze was not too cold, which was good, Ryouga thought. At least that...
"Alright - next, Lancran. Well, she was - okay, she was a problem, but it was partially our fault, I suppose - "
Ryouga sighed, remembering a tall slender red-haired girl, dancing in a long ball gown...
"Most of us were Senshi and such, then, but with no proper past memories to speak of, and - we'd thought she had to be the Princess of our plant at first. Your Uranus was called Kiri - yes, yet another Kiri - there, and was a gender-shifter in case you're wondering. Kiri was fighting with Lancran almost from the very first, and was her almost-maybe boyfriend/girlfriend, sort of, and -"
Ryouga remembered Kiri, sighing again. Kiri had looked quite similar in both male and female forms - boyish and short, that is. Well, OK, not so short as a girl, but - "As things turned out, she wasn't the Princess- and she didn't take the news well. ...Neither did the rest of us, to be fair, I supposed. We felt betrayed and wanted her out of our Star System - well, except for the true Princess, she didn't want her exiled - I'm not really sure just how Kiri felt about all that, since I'm pretty sure he felt most betrayed of all in some ways, but in other ways - Oh, well..."
"I'd believed in her, fought for her fought with her, and as it turns out... Not the Princess, not even close. 'Sailor Overkill', bond to a rudding Black Hole, that isn't Lifebearing, that's for sure..."
Uranus coughed, sighing. Neptune leaned over and squeezed her hand.
"But you know - it wasn't her fault. We were the ones who told her she almost certainly had to be the Princess - all that power, what else could she be? Oh, we should have known better, of course, in hindsight - I mean, she had almost no healing or purifying powers to speak of, and always was much better at Breaking then Making - but it's not like there's this list of powers Princess' are supposed to have, anyway, I suppose, and - "
Ryouga looked up at the stars. So did Pluto and Saturn. "And so A*0-1 felt betrayed and wanted her 'proper place back and the imposter Princess gone' were the words I believe, and she ended up blasting a fair part of said planet away. Well actually, what she actually was trying till she came to her senses was destroy everything she didn't like and remake them the way she did like, it seems, but - "
"Uh." Saturn murmured, going green yet again. "What in the world was she thinking of?"
"Did she really think she could break her Link with the Black Hole and reattach it to that planet, or something?" Pluto muttered. "I mean, for her to take the true Princess' place..."
"Well, I dunno - she came to her senses soon enough, right after killing Kiri, actually - "
Saturn groaned.
"And she did try to recreate almost everything she'd blasted, once she did come to her senses, but she'd always been better at Breaking then Making, and didn't really improve matters - Our Princess ended up doing most of the recreating, anyway. Plus, there were a fair amount of Starseeds which had been just blasted away OutSystem, and rather major loss of data and energy, and - well. The only thing good about that little debacle was that she left without making a fuss after that. Which may not really have been such a good thing, as some other nasties came a-calling some time after that, and Kiri was rather noticeably glummer for almost the rest of her/his life even after she/he'd been rebodied, and - "
Ryouga sighed. There was a long silence.
"But that - " Saturn muttered, looking at Ryouga accusingly.
"Oh, yes, we were stupid like a stupid thing too, thank you, I know. Gaaah. Not to mention, what was that word? Uncaring, right. Though the word Lancaran used was 'ungrateful', I believe..."
Ryouga sat down, shaking the plastic bottle forlornly. Not even a drop left...
"And that was Lancran. And Kiri."
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(Posted Sun, 10 Sep 2006 13:37)
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