Beginning of part II.  (Of five -- I suspect this will finish up at
~100k words.)  Tsunami certainly seems to have drawn a tough lot in
life.

As always, I'd love to hear from you.

Django Wexler (khaine)
khaine@mindless.com

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist
the
black flag, and begin slitting throats."
                        H. L. Mencken

Part Two: God of Blood, God of Darkness

Chapter Seven
     Tsunami
 

     "Kyoko?  Can you hear me?"

     The green-haired girl's eyes shot open, and she sat up as though
propelled by a spring, looking around wildly.  I put a hand on her
shoulder in what I hoped was a comforting manner.

     She had to blink a few times before she focused on me, her
expression incredulous.

     "Tsu...Tsunami?"

     I sighed with relief.  "Yup.  Glad you're feeling better."

     Kyoko glanced around the tiny cabin -- actually more like a jail
cell, I figured -- still apparently not believing her own eyes.  "We're
not dead, are we?"

     "If we are, Heaven has really let its standards slip.  I mean, look
at this place."  There wasn't much to see, just a double bunk bed, the
bare metal floor, and the sliding door that led to the toilet.  The much
heavier metal blast door that was the exit looked like a part of the
wall, its joins difficult to make out.

     "We might have gone to Hell."

     "I doubt it.  I don't know about you, but I was practically a
saint."

     She chuckled, and I felt the ghost of my old smile return.  Just a
bit, but having a familiar face to talk to helps more than you can
imagine when you're alone and terrified.  I let out a long breath I
didn't realize I'd been holding.

     "No, I'm in one piece."  My hand darted to the back of my neck,
reflexively, and for what seemed like the thousandth time I brushed the
black metal embedded there.  My skin was still numb from the local
anesthetic.  "Pretty much."

     "What happened?  Where are we?"

     "How much do you remember?"

     "We were in Bio, and then the Legionnaires busted in.  And then..."
Her face slowly dropped.  "There was a Senshi!  A real Sailor Senshi.
But she wanted to take you away, so I..."

     "So you did something incredibly stupid," I finished.  "And she
blasted you into next week."

     "Something like that."  Kyoko looked down.  "I guess it didn't help
much, did it.  I'm sorry."

     "Hey, it's your life.  Just try not to get killed defending me,
okay?  I'd feel awful."

     [You were supposed to let her die.  Now our situation has become
much more complicated.]

     The voice was stronger now, and I heard it more clearly than ever.
I gritted my teeth.  [Get out of my mind!]

     "Tsunami?  Are you sure you're okay?"

     I had half-turned, listening to my private demon, and as my hair
fell to the side she must have caught a glimpse of my latest fashion
accessory, courtesy of the Sa'an.  She covered her mouth in horror.

     "Tsunami!"

     My hand slapped onto the back of my neck to cover the thing,
automatically.  It fit in the palm of my hand, a black metal knob about
the size of a walnut and slightly warm to the touch.

     "It's nothing."

     "*Nothing*?  You've got a weird metal thing sticking out of the
back of your head!"

     "I mean...it's just..."  I sighed.  "I don't really know, actually.
They put it in right after we got here, before you woke up."

     "And you just let them?"

     "Jupiter kind of insisted.  I try not to talk back to people with
that many armed guards."

     "I..."  She looked nervous.  "I don't have one, do I?"

     "Nope."  Kyoko's hands rubbed the back of her neck, just to make
sure.

     "Still!  You don't know what kind of strange things that thing
could be doing to you."

     "It can't be that bad."

     "Why not?"

     "Well, first of all -- if they wanted to kill me, they could just
shoot me.  No need for complex subterfuge.  Hell, you're only here
because for some reason they seem to respect what I want.  I'm not sure
why, but I'm using it for all it's worth."

     "You made them take me?"

     I blushed, for some reason.  "Well.  I couldn't just leave you
there."

     Her smile returned, and my blush deepened.  It was a moment before
she spoke again.

     "So where are we?"

     "I'm not sure exactly, but I'd guess we're onboard the cruiser.
They picked us up in one of those transports, but there wasn't a window
or anything."

     "Your lifelong dream has come true."

     I grimaced.  "I liked to imagine rather different circumstances."

     "You should take what you can get."  She looked around again,
observing our environment in a new light.  "So this is the inside of a
spaceship?  Seems pretty dull to me."

     "Pretty much.  The part of it I saw when they hustled me in here
was all black corridors and lots of guards."

     She nodded, taking it all in.  One of the traits I always envy in
Kyoko is her ability to adapt to new surroundings.  She makes it seems
so effortless -- 'Oh, we're on a spaceship, captives destined for
who-knows-what, with not even an inkling of our future?  Okay, I can
handle that.'  I was having to work pretty hard to achieve a carefree
attitude.  Having the back of my head cut open had sort of thrown me off
stride.

     "So what happens now?"

     I shrugged.  "We wait, I guess."  [We formulate a plan to escape
this room, overpower the corridor guards, and attempt to hijack a
shuttlecraft.]  The voice again.  I mentally pictured sticking my tongue
out at it, the best I could do.  "I assume we'll be fed at some point.
Doesn't make much sense to bring us all the way up here and let us
starve.  And there's water in the bathroom."

     "You seem relaxed."

     I wasn't, really, but I'm good at faking that sort of thing.  "I
did all my worrying before you woke up.  Now it's your turn." 

     As though my words had been an invocation, there was a knock at the
door.  A moment later, it shot up into the ceiling along its track,
revealing the black-armored form of a Legionnaire with two covered
trays.  The trooper set them on the floor without a word and turned
around, door hissing to the floor behind him.

     "See?"  I waved a hand.  "They're taking care of us.  Nothing to
worry about."

     "I wonder what kind of food we get?"

     I made a careful move towards one of the trays.  "Probably army
food.  Bread and gruel, and so forth."  I yanked off the top in one
quick movement, in case something leapt out at me.

     "Or...that."

     Kyoko was staring, and I was inclined to agree.  The place setting
underneath the cover wouldn't have looked too bad at the average
five-star French restaurant, except that none of the food was even
vaguely familiar.  There was a big chunk of meat in some kind of heavy
sauce, artfully arranged on the plate with mushrooms and potatoes.
There was a salad, or at least a bowl filled with a green leafy
substance which I couldn't identify, and a variety of other dishes whose
provenance I couldn't even guess.  Kyoko revealed her own tray, which
was set in much the same fashion.  I could feel my mouth watering -- it
had been at least twelve hours since I'd had any food.

     "Well," I said slowly, "Going on the 'They can just kill us at any
time, no need for tricks' theory, I'll assume this stuff is good to eat.
So let's dig in."  I looked over to find Kyoko already wolfing down her
meal without bothering with self-justification.  I followed suit.
Eating a fancy meal was not what I had envisioned after being captured
by the Empire, but since it was apparently what happened, I was
determined to make the best of it.  Before long the plates were empty
and I was licking the last bit of juice from my fingers.

     Kyoko leaned back against the bed in satisfaction.  "So far, so
good."

     I was inclined to agree.  I leaned against the wall myself,
reveling in the pleasant full sensation.  Unfortunately, the pause gave
my invisible friend an opening.

     [Tsunami, will you listen to me for a second?]

     I glanced over at Kyoko, but she'd closed her eyes and seemed to
relaxed too bother.  I resigned myself.

     [Okay.  I'm listening, mysterious voice.  You've got about sixty
seconds to start explaining things.]

     [Why don't you trust me?  I'm trying to keep us alive.]

     [I don't trust you because you told me to kill my best friend.]

     [You could have escaped from the classroom while she was
distracting them.]

     I rolled my eyes.  [Look.  You say you're out to help me.  So what
the hell is going on?]

     [You've been taken captive by the Sa'an.]

     [I figured *that* out, Captain Obvious.  What are they going to do
with me?]

     The voice seemed to hesitate.  [I don't know.]

     [How about this: why *me*?  That Senshi came to school looking for
me, specifically.  I've never heard of the Sa'an doing anything like
that before.]

     [I don't think they have.]  Another pause.  [Tsunami, this may be a
little hard for you to accept.  But you are--]

     He -- I'd gotten to thinking of the voice as 'he' -- was cut off as
the door hissed open again.  I sat up and Kyoko opened her eyes.  Two
Legionnaires entered first, rifles at the ready, followed by the girl
who'd led them back at the school.

     She stood a moment, waiting for the two of us to get settled.  Her
outfit was the same as it had been, an old school uniform fringed in
green.  She was tall, good-looking, athletic, her face expressionless.
A moment before I finally broke the silence, she spoke.

     "Welcome to the fleet.  You're Tsunami"--she inclined her
head--"but I didn't catch your friend's name."

     I didn't see much of a point in hiding it, and neither did she.
"I'm Kyoko."

     "Kyoko."  The Senshi -- that was what she had to be, of course --
nodded.  "My name is Sailor Jupiter.  I'm here to explain things a
little bit."

     "Oh, good."  I forced a smile.  "Maybe now everything will make
sense."

     Jupiter ignored me.  "The first thing you need to realize is how
lucky you are to be here at all.  This is a very abnormal procedure.
You should have either been killed or processed, which means ending up
like them."  She hooked a finger at the silent black figure on her
right.  The Legionnaires might as well have been a couple of statues --
they showed no reaction whatsoever.

     "Is that what happens to everyone else who gets picked up?"

     Jupiter nodded.  I looked for a moment into the trooper's mirrored
visor and shivered.

     "Okay.  So I'm a lucky girl.  What happens now?"

     "You get to work for us.  Perform satisfactorily, and you'll be
well treated."

     "And otherwise?"

     "That's up to the Commander's discretion."

     "Great."  Something occurred to me.  "What about Kyoko?  Why is she
here?"

     "Your actions in the classroom showed that you have a bond with
her.  The Commander decided that bringing her aboard would be useful if
you proved recalcitrant."

     There was a pause while my mind deciphered that.  The threat was
twisted up in there subtly, but it was there.  I glanced at Kyoko; she'd
caught it too.  I considered my next words carefully.

     "If I...work for you, will you let her go?"

     "Tsunami--"  I cut Kyoko off with a raised hand.

     "Well?"

     "Of course not."  Jupiter smiled.  It wasn't a nice smile.  "You're
both here for the duration.  You might as well make the most of it.  As
long as you're obedient, practically anything you want can be yours."

     The question the voice had failed to answer was now at the
forefront of my mind.

     "So why me?"  I was starting to have my suspicions.

     Jupiter waved the door open.  "Come with me."

 

     One area of the cruiser looked pretty much like another.  Whoever
had designed it hadn't been feeling very creative -- he'd picked out a
black-on-black motif and stuck with it.  Kyoko and I marched behind
Jupiter and her guards until we came to another unmarked door that
looked no different from the one we'd just left.  I tried to keep track
of our route, but the twists and turns soon confused me.  The Senshi
seemed to have no trouble, though.

     She opened the door with a wave and indicated that I should go
through.  I did, with Kyoko following, and we found ourselves in a large
room with a padded floor and not much else in the way of features.
Another breed of soldier stood against one wall -- fully enclosed black
armor, just like the Legionnaire's, but of a different cut and color.
It was dull, glossless black that drunk in light like a sponge.  The
figure and its pose stuck in my memory -- it was one of the things from
my dream, the ones I'd called vultures.  It was armed with a weapon that
looked more like a shotgun than the stubby rifles the troopers carried.

     Jupiter followed me in to the room, along with her pair of guards.
I'd noticed on the way that the back of her neck bore the same device as
mine, the little black knob, but my attempt to ask her about it had been
met with stony silence.  Now she waited for the door to close behind her
and then turned, stretching her arms behind her head.

     I looked around.  "So now what?  What kind of a room is this?"  I
prodded the spongy material on the floor with my foot.  "Some sort of a
bedroom?  I mean, I can imagine a situation where you'd need a bedroom
thirty feet square, but I didn't think the Sa'an would be into that sort
of thing."  I saw Kyoko blush, and I turned back to face Jupiter.  "Is
that--"

     That was as much as I got out before her toe slammed into my chin
at the end of a perfect arc.  The force of the kick picked me up and
tossed me a few feet backwards, landing on the padding hard enough to
drive the breath from my lungs.  Or so I surmised, anyway, since in the
moments after it landed my brain ceased to function.  I slowly became
aware that I was still breathing, and that there was blood trickling
from the corner of my mouth.  It didn't even hurt yet.  I felt numb.

     Kyoko screamed, somewhere off to my left, and strong armored hands
lifted me back to a standing position.  My legs wobbled, but when the
trooper let go I managed to stagger backwards and not fall.  I still
couldn't find my voice.

     "It's a training room, Tsunami.  Sa'an officers are required to
train their bodies as well as their tactical skills.  It's in the
regulations."  Jupiter walked forward, and I backed away as fast as my
shaky legs would allow.  "And now it's time for you to fight me."

     I opened my mouth to speak, but didn't get anything except for a
hollow croaking and a glob of spit shot through with blood.  Kyoko
screamed again.

     "She doesn't know *how* to fight!  Stop!"

     "Then her employment with us is going to be very short.  And if she
dies here, you get processed.  So you'd better hope you're wrong."

     I managed to gasp out a few words.  "She...she's
right...I...can't..."

     It was true, more or less.  I'd taken a few self-defense lessons
when I was younger, at my parents' insistence.  They thought a girl
should know these things.  But after the Arrival there didn't seem to be
much point to continuing.

     Jupiter just shrugged.  "Like I said, if you can't fight you're not
much use.  Now come on."

     She moved forward, faster than I could even hope to react, and one
of her hands landed in my gut.  I doubled over with a wheeze and got the
elbow in the back, driving me to my knees.  A numb moment passed before
a roundhouse kick slammed into the side of my head with an unpleasant
crunch and tossed me full-length on the floor.

     I blacked out again, but not for long enough.  I was still lying
flat when my eyes opened, face-down, the mat under me sticky with blood.
I couldn't feel my left arm, and my right seemed to be on fire.  Then I
felt a hand on my shoulder and realized that I was probably going to
die.  I'd never pictured myself as being beaten to death.  It hurt less
than I might have expected.

     Jupiter was behind me, now, and I was being held up more than I was
standing.  She locked one of her forearms across my throat and started
to squeeze, and the thin stream of air I'd been able to pull in died off
into a trickle, then nothing.

     "Stop!"  There were tears in Kyoko's voice.  "You're killing her!
STOP!  Let go of me!"

     Spots bloomed before my eyes, and I started to feel the pain from
Jupiter's blows thudding heavily into my mind.  Her arm pressed more
firmly, and my vision started to fade to a tunnel.

     [Damnation.]

     Him again.  At this, of all times.

     [They're forcing our hand.]  He sounded more annoyed than afraid.

     [I'm *dying*, you idiot!  Help me!]

     [I was trying to avoid giving them what they want.]

     Jupiter's forearm shifted, bone grating against bone.  I could feel
her pressed against my back, leaning close as though to whisper in my
ear.

     "TSUNAMI!"

     Do *something!*

     "I'm sorry."  Jupiter's voice was a whisper I was sure no-one else
could hear..  "I'm...sorry..."

     I could feel him, the voice, stepping forward into my forebrain,
before consciousness fled.  I let him take over, and my lips moved
silently.

     "Saturn...Crystal...Power..."

     I felt Jupiter tense.

     "Make...up!"

     The Senshi leapt backward as light bloomed from nowhere.  I feel to
my knees as my clothes dissolved, gasping huge breaths and wondering
incongruously how many Imperial soldiers were admiring me.  My vision
slammed back into place, and so did the pain.  It was duller, though,
more bearable, and after a moment I struggled to my feet.  Jupiter was
watching with an expression of quiet satisfaction.

     The world felt different.  Clearer, somehow.  I could move freely -
it felt like I'd been trapped in molasses all my life and never realized
it.  I was wearing a school uniform, much like Jupiter's but fringed in
black, and the heavy weight I felt around my hips was a sword-belt, a
thin blade on each side.  The really odd part was that none of this felt
the least bit strange.  Everything was completely natural, even obvious.

     [The die is cast now.]

     [This?]  I questioned him, incredulously.  [Is this what you were
trying to tell me?]

     [Of course.  Now we have to get out of here.]

     [But...]

     I looked around for Kyoko and spotted her against the opposite
wall.  One of the Legionnaires had her arms behind her back, pinning her
helplessly; her eyes were wide with surprise.  Two more guards flanked
Jupiter, who pointed to me with a smile.

     "Take her."

     The Imperial troopers moved instantly and with coordination.  My
body reacted without consulting me, and there was an instant of
confusion and flashing steel.  Then two black-armored forms slid to the
ground, and I realized the paired swords were in my hands, dripping
blood.  Jupiter was still smiling.

     [What are you *doing* to me?  I...I just...]

     [You'll get used to it.]  The voice was grim.  [Finish this Senshi
and let's get the hell out of here.]

     "No!"  I was so agitated I spoke aloud.  The figure in the corner,
dull-armored and menacing, had stepped up to Sailor Jupiter's side.  The
Senshi held up a hand to check his advance and spoke to someone I
couldn't see.

     "Cut her."

     There was a long pause before I realized that nothing was
happening.

     [They think they can cut me off from your body.]  He sounded smug.
[I saw that coming.  They don't realize that I'm not just providing the
power, I've taken up residence.  Now!  Before they realize what's wrong.
Kill them all!]

     [What about Kyoko?  And...]  Jupiter's voice came back to me,
apologizing with her arm on my throat.  [Something's wrong.]

     [Just do it!]

     The whole conversation took place in the space of a single breath.
Jupiter blinked in surprise, but before she could move and gathered
whatever strength I had left and *pushed*.  I felt the voice shriek, and
light bloomed around me again for a moment.  When I looked down, my
bloodstained clothes had returned, and the pain that had thus far
somehow been kept at bay returned in full force.  I collapsed almost
instantly, barely registering my head bouncing off the ground, Kyoko's
shriek, or the Senshi's final words.

     "Experiment successful."


             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'