Aishuu Offers:
Himeno�s Legacy
~A Pr�tear Fanfiction~
shitsui@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: 
Author�s Note: This diverges around� Episode Seven.  
Suppose Himeno had never regained her Pr�tear powers
and even� died?  What if Mawata ended up as her
successor?

Information on Pr�tear can be found at:
http://ming-ling.net/pretear/



Chapter 1: Aftermath

It was Kei, of all the Liefe Knights, who said what
none of them wanted to acknowledge.   �We need to find
a new Pr�tear.�  Kei was the most coolly practical,
and also the coldest.  He hadn�t known Himeno that
well.

	Sasame just looked at him for a second before nodding
quietly.   Goh looked angry at the idea of replacing
Himeno so quickly, but muttered agreement that
protecting the world took precedence over their
feelings, and the three youngest knights agreed easily
enough.  

Predictably enough, it was Hayate who refused.  He had
been half in love with Himeno, and Takako had been in
love with him, so his track record with Pr�tears
wasn�t the best.  �We can handle this by ourselves!�
he insisted.   �Himeno shouldn�t be replaced like a
space tire!�

The Knights waited for Sasame to intervene, since
Sasame was usually the only one who could argue with
the Wind Knight and win.   Sasame, though, remained
quiet as Hayate vanished.  �Aren�t you going to reason
with him?� Kei asked, knowing that of all of them,
Sasame was the only one likely to get through to the
moody Knight of Wind.

�Why should I?� Sasame asked.   �When I�m not even
convinced he�s wrong?�  He looked quietly at the
others before vanishing as well.

Goh looked at the place where the melancholy
silver-haired had vanished.   �This is not good.�

	Kei seemed thoughtful.   He raised a slender hand to
his chin and tapped it thoughtfully.   �Shin, Hajime,
Mannen� you three start looking for the new Pr�tear.  
She should be in this town, still.   Pr�tear is always
near where she is needed.�  

	�But-� Mannen began to protest.

	�Is it too tough for you children?� Kei asked, his
tone slightly condescending.

	�No!�  Mannen said.  �Come on!�  The three youngest
Knights vanished with traces of ice, water and the
scent of flowers.

Goh looked at the blonde knight.   �You�re so cold.  
Was that really such a good idea?   Without Sasame and
Hayate cooperating��

 �They will.   They know their duty.�

	Goh�s temper, never far from the surface, reared its
head.   �Is that all it is?   DUTY?�  He grabbed Kei�s
shirt and lifted the smaller Knight off his feet. 
�Himeno just died!   And you�re trying to force
another Pr�tear onto all of us!  Mannen is right- you
should be the Knight of Ice...� he said, disgust
audible in his voice.

	Kei�s amber eyes suddenly lit, and burned like
lasers.   Goh found himself setting his friend down
without knowing why he felt a surge of fear.  �You
think I don�t miss her?� he asked.  �How can I not?  
How can you Pr�t with a girl and not love her? 
Especially someone like Himeno, who was so full of
life and joy?   But Saihi destroyed her, and there�s
no time in this battle to stop and mourn for the
fallen!  We can mourn later, when we win.�

	�When?� Goh whispered, for once allowing his own
depression show.

	�When.   For Himeno, we must win.   For if we don�t��
Kei trailed off.   The thought was simply too horrid
to say aloud.
	
~*~*~*~*~	

	The sun continued to rise and set, for now.

	For now, Saihi Fehnrir was held in check, but he knew
that it wouldn�t be long until she managed to break
through, and perhaps, perhaps�  They had defeated
Pr�tears who had gone bad before, but this time was
different.

	He hadn�t loved the other ones.

	Sasame looked around the station, nodding at the
people who waved to him.  He had taken a few days off
work because of injury, but he couldn�t avoid it
anymore.   A radio personality had to keep up
regularly, or else lose their audience.   He also had
the pressure of being the station�s prize draw, and
there was currently a deal for national syndication in
the works.   It was the last thing he wanted in the
world he wanted, but he hadn�t been able to come up
with a reasonable explanation on why he was against
it.  Sometimes he wondered why he gave advice, when
all he was able to do was be pushed around.

	�Sasame!� a cheerful voice called.

	He turned around to see his assistant Junko hurrying
up to him.   �You�re doing a four-hour special,
instead of your usual two,� she informed him.   �And
great news!   You�ve been picked up by at least twelve
stations, and two dozen more are interested in you!  
We go nation-wide next week!�

	He blinked, feeling like he�d been hit by a
fast-moving car.   �That�s� great.�

	She frowned at him, placing her hands on her hips.  
�Sasame?   Are you okay?   Are you still ill?�

	He shook his head.   �I�m fine, Junko,� he assured
her.   �Just a little tired.�

	Junko was forty if she was a day, but acted more like
a girl in her teens.   She was Sasame�s
self-proclaimed �# 1 Fan!� and always had enough
energy to fill a room and then some.   Being around
her was refreshing for him- she practical radiated
spare Liefe.   If she had been younger, she would have
made an excellent Pretear.   �Maybe you should sit?  
I can see about-�

Sasame raised a hand to forestall her fluttering
around him like a nervous mother hen.   �I need to get
back to work.  It�ll be good for me- but thanks for
your concern.�

She went still for a second, seeming to wonder if she
should press him before she grabbed his hand and
dragged him into the room that was set up as the
office for his show.   Most of the DJs didn�t have
their own offices, but he was the most popular.   It
might have been a cause for rivalry, if he wasn�t, as
Morning Meiko so accurately put it, �so blasted nice.�

�I assume I have a lot of mail?� he asked, stepping
into the office, then blinked in surprise.   There
were flowers everywhere, along with heaping bags of
mail, boxes of chocolate, and stuffed animals.   He
blinked again.  �Well��

�I already weeded out all the get-well cards, and the
standard teenage angst, love notes, and all that.  On
your desk are the ones I thought you should at least
read, and here,� she said, handing over about ten
cards, �were the ones I thought would make good
material for the show.�

	He took them, smiling slight as he noticed a letter
with familiar handwriting.   It had been neatly slit
along the top with some sort of letter-opener, and he
put the others down to study it.   �A letter?   From
Silk-san?� he asked.  That was unusual� she usually
only sent him postcards, postcards which made him ache
with shared loneliness.

	�You should read it,� Junko said, seriously.   �She�s
hurting.   The other stations really love your
relation you built with her� they want her to keep
writing- think you should encourage her.   Maybe make
it a small section weekly, or something.   About the
pain of a young girl growing up, and all that.�

	�I don�t want to use her like that,� he said quietly.
  �I don�t want her to feel pressured to write me.�  
He pulled the note out, and was surprised that it was
on ordinary paper, rather than the expensive postcards
Silk had always favored before.

	Then again, Silk was also Himeno�s sister.

	He opened the letter up, and was surprised to see how
thick it was- at least ten pages of neat kanji.  �Did
you read this?� he asked.

	�As soon as I realized it was from Silk, I read the
whole thing� did you really meet her?� Junko asked,
sitting down on top of a filing cabinet, which
teetered precariously under her weight.

	�Her sister was a close friend of mine,� Sasame
murmured.  �The world�s a small place, apparently.� 
He adjusted the glasses that he didn�t need but wore
when he was �Sasame� instead of the �Knight of Sound�.
  It helped he remember which persona he was in.  




	Dear Sasame,

	I don�t know why I�m writing this to you, or if I
even should� but you were her friend, too.   Perhaps
you can help me figure out why I feel as though a part
of me is missing, when I barely even knew her�.

	I was never nice to her- not truly nice, the kind of
kindness that comes from the heart.  That bothers me
now, I think.   She always tried to be friendly to me,
but I was never kind in return.   It�s so hard to
accept that I�ll never see her smile at me, and never
again have the chance to smile back.   

	It�s as though with her death, my last chance at
breaking my solitude has been taken away...




	He looked down at the letter, the outpouring of a
lonely girl�s heart, and forced himself to keep from
crying.   Silk had, as always, voiced exactly what he
felt.

~*~*~*~*~

	Mawata supposed that she should know death; after
all, her father had died, and his death had left her
all alone.   One again, the family had been plunged
into mourning, and this time, it was for a child.

	Mawata rested her hand against the doorframe,
listening to her stepfather whisper unintelligibly,
and her mother murmur meaningless words of comfort. 
She knew better than most how empty those words were,
how someone who didn�t understand couldn�t comfort the
heart.   How could Natsue understand what Kaoru was
going through?   She may have lost a husband, but she
had never lost a child.

	How had Himeno, of all of them, died?  How could it
have happened?

	Her gaze lingered on the grieving adults before a
hand pulled her back.   Emerald green eyes met her,
and she looked at Mikage.   �Is dinner ready?� she
asked, amazed that her voice still sounded the same,
as though there was nothing different.

	�Okusama requested that it be served in your rooms�
she wants to spend some time alone with Kaoru-sama.  I
can bring it up whenever you�re ready,� she said.  
�Perhaps after Sasame�s program?   Or during?� the
pretty maid offered.

	�I�m not hungry,� Mawata said softly, before turning
away towards her fifth-floor bedroom.   She liked that
her room was so high above the grounds- it gave her a
great view, even though she rarely looked out her
window anymore.  She hadn�t found much worth seeing on
the vast estates, even though she knew there was
plenty out there she hadn�t a clue existed.   

	She lacked curiosity.  

	Was there some fundamental flaw in her make-up, one
that had been created when her father had died?   Or
had she created it herself, when she had become the
perfect daughter when her mother and sister had been
falling apart?   She had saved them, but who would
save her?

	She had often wondered that.   There were no white
knights left in the world- she had wanted to believe
that Sasame could be hers, for whenever she listened
to him speak, it seemed as though he spoke to her
heart, as though he understood exactly how she was
feeling.   No one else was able to speak to her like
that.

	Still, Sasame was a celebrity and someone far beyond
her reach.   He had been Himeno�s friend, and perhaps
more.   She had seen them around town, laughing
together.   Himeno had been able to make anyone laugh,
simply by being herself.

	She missed Himeno�s smile.   Himeno had always had a
smile ready for her.

	Mawata wondered what happened to her stepsister.  One
day Himeno had suddenly stopped smiling, and within a
week, she had died.   The coroner had said it was as
though the young girl�s heart had simply given out,
but Mawata found that hard to believe.   How could
someone as vibrant as Himeno die, while she continued
to live?   When she wasn�t even sure she wanted her
life?

	She wondered if there was some deity who was laughing
up there.   Take the girl who loved life, and was
loved by everyone, and leave behind the one who would
have given anything to escape.

	Mawata brushed a stray lock of hair away from her
aqua eyes, wondering if she would ever know the truth.
  That bothered her.

	She glanced out a window, wondering why she was so
concerned for someone she had barely known.   It was
true that Himeno had been loveable, but Mawata hadn�t
known her well.   Still, Himeno had been a ray of hope
into her life�

	A shadow of a movement caught her attention, and
suddenly a wild, crazy idea filled her head.   She
tried to dismiss it, but her feet had her racing to
the front door and throwing shoes on before she could.

	Mawata raced across the lawn, panting slightly at the
unfamiliar exertion.   She rarely got excited at
anything, but�

	He was standing there, holding, of all things, a
garden hose as he watered the begonias.   His eyes
seemed impossibly sad as he stared at the window of
the room Himeno had lived in, and around him his hair
swirled free.   He looked more like a prince then a
worker.

	Mawata folded her arms across her chest and stared at
the odd-jobs man Kaoru had hired.   �Hayate-san,� she
said coolly, suddenly aware didn�t know his family
name, �I want to know what happened to Himeno.�

END CHAPTER ONE

Up Next: The Whisper of Truth
Sorry, I know I have enough projects on my plate-
anyway, I was sick of the poor showing of Pr�tear
fanfics.  Anyway, I have the next part of Mystic Eyes
and a Kare Kano oneshot on my comp, I just need to
format them!  Anyway, feedback would be appreciated- I
really feel like I�m throwing fanfic into this giant
pit of no return!


=====
It would be nice if we could
put away and throw out
everything except what really mattered
but reality is just cruel.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Quicksilver/
http://www.midnightrevolution.org/gundam

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