Oh, it wasn’t that it was unpleasant. In fact, she enjoyed Chicago about as much as any place she performed. It was just... what couldn’t be said.
“Sis!” she heard the cry, and sighed. That word.
“Sis?” she heard the word again, then blinked, both in surprise and fear. She forced a smile to her face, and approached the grinning woman who spoke it.
“Rally-chan!” she ran up to hug her, then whispered harshly in her ear. “What do you think you’re doing, Rally?”
Rally Vincent, gunsmith by trade, just smiled. “A lot’s happened in the past few days, Sis. Mom - yes, MOM - is coming in on another flight later today.” She grinned as she broke away, then turned to Haruka. “Haruka! How are you doing?”
Haruka raised an eyebrow, and fingered the feminine-cut slacks she wore. “Good, all things considered. Wish I could get into better clothes... customs agents tend to get squirrelly when I dress handsomely.”
Michiru pecked her on the cheek. “I don’t care. You’re still my Haruka, no matter what you’re wearing.” She raised an eyebrow. “Besides...”
“Later, dear,” Haruka replied, a promise veiled in the tone, then turned toward Rally. “You seem happy.”
Rally took a deep breath, as though the air didn’t smell like half-purified pollution. “I am. A certain brothel in the Nerima district of Tokyo closed down late last week.”
Michiru blinked. “A certain brothel?” She grasped Haruka’s arm. “You mean, we’re... we’re free?”
Rally nodded. “Free.” She folded her hands together across the back of her head. “Mom said to get tickets for herself and five others for Thursday’s performance; she didn’t give many details, but I think she said that she’d adopted the girls who were still there.”
“Free,” Michiru breathed, unable to believe the term. She could call Rally her older sister... and ‘Auntie Nodoka’ her mom... and... “Are Ranma and Genma coming?”
“I don’t know,” Rally replied. “I hope so... it’d be nice to be a whole family after so long...”
“I know,” Michiru breathed, then added a word she’d been waiting eighteen years to say. “Sis.”
Rally smiled. “Come on. They’re coming in at Terminal C.”
***
Family, Michiru decided, was more than a state of mind. It was a state of existence.
She’d spent the last hour talking with Rally, and it felt so different from anything she’d ever known. The words came without any of the paranoia that had clouded any discussions; that damned brothel was the invisible bogeyman, the spectre that had haunted her family for so long, and it felt invigorating to not have that hanging over herself anymore. It had colored every aspect of her life, from security concerns at performances to her dealings with the other Sailor Senshi to innocent conversations with people she should have called sister and mother.
And now it was just... gone. It felt as though someone had opened the windows and let a fresh breeze into the airport. The colors seemed as sharp as on a chilly December morning; every sounds as clear as the most perfect performance she’d ever given. She was seeing with new eyes, hearing with new ears - ears she should have had from the moment of her birth.
The eyes caught sight of a familiar face, and she stood up. She felt Haruka and Rally rise next to her; were they seeing what she saw?
“Mom...” Her mother talked so freely with the girls around her, so casually; much of the weight of the lie was off her shoulders. Her eyes danced with laughter, now unreserved, without the weight of magic hanging over them all like a guillotine blade.
Her mother’s eyes turned her way, and time stopped. Bright eyes drifted from herself to her beloved to her older sister. She set down her luggage slowly, then let her arms open wide.
Names were said repeatedly, names with power: mother, daughter, sister, love... Michiru said them for all the times when she found herself unable to, for all the times she wished she could call for them. She didn’t know she could cry so hard at such a happy time; just to hear that word, ‘mother’...
For a few precious seconds, she was a child again.
And then she opened her eyes, and wondered if she really was dreaming all this. “Se... Setsuna?”
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(Posted Mon, 06 Jan 2003 08:17)
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