There was silence as Amina ran from the room, the sounds of her going down the metal staircase echoing back to the senshi and dog still inside. Yuuta stared after her, the words she had said suddenly making sense to him. That dream he had that in the hotel in Tokyo, wasn't really a dream. It was a memory that Amina must have accidentally shown him as they slept. Was her childhood really like that? He couldn't even imagine the things that he hadn't already seen...

"Yuuta, stop standing there and go look for her!" Kazaki said, snapping him out of his thoughts. 

"Uh, right!" Just what was wrong with him today? He charged down the stairs and out the garage, looking for any traces of where Amina might have gone. 

"And as for you..." Kazaki said, turning to Kero, just as a brown cat walked in. 

"Hey, what's going on in here? I heard yelling from the"- He stopped short and hissed at the sight of the dog. "What's he doing in here?!" he snarled. 

"This is apparently Amina's guardian," Fuyuko said, closing the door so they wouldn't be overheard. 

"What?" Percy glared at the dog, but sat down. "Explain. She said she didn't have one for years, and you show up now to claim to be hers?"

Kero barred his teeth at the cats challenge to his claim of being Amina's guardian. Of course he was! How could anyone think otherwise? Because you weren't there for most of her life and if she said was true about everything than they have every reason to doubt you, the little reasonable voice in his head said. His ears flattened against his head at the thought. He had failed her, so much more than he thought. How was he ever going to make it up to her? 

"I awoke 20 years ago in Japan. I felt the connection with my charge and set out to find her. I knew she was young, to young to be awoken so I was confused as to why I was awake. Regardless, I set off. As I was closing in on where I felt her..." he stopped, finding it difficult to force the words out. It was every guardians greatest fear as to what happened next. "The bond...it...it broke. I felt it completely shatter. I thought she had died."

Percy looked at the floor, suddenly finding himself sympathetic with Kero. He knew what is was like to feel a bond break and realize that you've completely failed. He remembered the sensation during his last waking moments of the Silver Millennium, when he had realized that his Princess was dead. And if the Galilean Moon Senshi had perished now, he would feel it four more times. Once was bad enough.

"Your bonds are that strong?" Kazaki asked them. Percy nodded. 

"I used mine to find you four in the first place. It would have been impossible to locate you all otherwise," he said. "And you kept searching? After thinking she was gone?" Percy asked Kero.

"I kept hoping she would reincarnate. There had to be a reason she had been awakened in the first place. I wandered all over Japan continuing to search for her. It was until recently I felt the bond come back to life. I figured that she had been reincarnated and she was old enough to need my help. I wasn't expecting her to be an adult...she appears to be around the age the charge I thought I'd lost should be. I confess I'm not quite sure what's going on, or what has happened. I just know that while I'm happy to have found her, she seems not happy to see me." Kero explained, tail between his legs as his mind raced to try and put everything together. How had the bond broken but she was still alive?

"Have you ever heard of anything even similar to a bond breaking but the charge remaining alive?" he asked the other guardian.

"Hm..." Percy thought about how bonds worked and the situation Kero described. His own bond to Sailor Jupiter had only broken when she died, but that had been established for years, and had grown extremely strong. But maybe... "It could have simply been distance. Your bond was so new, it snapped as soon as it was strained. If you had at least seen each other, it might have survived being stretched like that. Amina lived in North America, across the ocean before she came to Japan."


 Fuyuko resisted the urge to go and pet the dog to comfort him. He looked so sad...but she didn't want to interrupt or make Kazaki look like a weak leader. 


"Maybe she came over here briefly and you sensed her," Kazaki offered. "We could ask her right now, but she's kin of gone at the moment. Until we sort this out, you need a place to stay."


"You can stay with me!" Fuyuko blurted out, beaming now. "My parents wouldn't mind another dog."

"Thank you," Kero said, nodding towards Fuyuko. He turned over what Percy had said in his mind. She was living in North America...perhaps she had been visiting Japan and because he hadn't been able to get to her before she left... "It's all my fault, everything she's had to go through, it's my fault." He hung his head in shame. He was a failure of a guardian. 

~~~~~

Leaving the room in a rush, Amina ran, not really caring where she was going. Oh god, she had said too much. There was no way that they would want anything to do with her anymore. She was a broken useless thing. Who would want her? How could she be so foolish to think she'd be able to have any friends? Slowing to a walk, she realized her feet had taken her to the park. Great. Why hadn't her feet taken her home? She was tired and all she wanted to was curl up in her bed and sleep.

"Amina!" Yuuta finally caught up with her. He had seen her disappear into the park and ran after, not wanting to lose her. He pulled her into a hug from behind, holding her in place. "Why did you run away?" he asked.

"I said too much," she said, trying to struggle out of his arms. She knew it was useless. He was stronger than her, even when he was trying not to hurt her. She slumped against him, knowing he could take her weight.

Yuuta stood in place, allowing Amina to rest for a moment. Remembering that she had used him once before as an emotional rock of sorts, he tried his best to feel calm in hopes that it would pass on to her.

"No, you were angry and needed to get something off your chest, it happens. If you don't want to talk about it anymore, that's fine." Yuuta paused. "How about we go back to your house?"

Nodding, they began to walk to her place, which was nearby. She found herself remaining silent, but not for the reason Yuuta may have thought. She had felt him attempting to direct calm emotions towards her, probably in an attempt to help her settle her emotions. It had completely stunned her. Not the fact that he had done it as that was the type of thing Yuuta would do, but the fact that he had been able to do it at all. She didn't know non empaths were able to direct their emotions like that. Not for the first time she wished she had someone to ask about this. You just ran away from your guardian a voice in her head sneered at her. She couldn't help the since that followed. Why did this creature claiming to be her guardian show up now?

So lost in her thoughts, she barely realized they had arrived. Fishing her keys out of her bag she was amazed she remembered to grab, she let them in. She padded to her bedroom, leaving the door partially open letting Yuuta know she'd be back in a moment and changed into more comfortable clothes. Coming out in a tank top and yoga pants, she grabbed her favourite blanket and curled up on the couch.

"I know you're curious."

Yuuta waited on her couch until Amina returned from her room, wondering what she would do next. He really wanted to know exactly what happened, if only to make sure she was okay. The thought of her being locked away somewhere and hurt was horrible to imagine, even if it had already happened. He stayed quiet after her statement, trying to find the right thing to say. 

"...I am, but like I said before, you don't have to talk about it." Yuuta glanced at her before staring at his lap. "What if I...told you something about me instead?"

"Only if you want to," she murmured. She wouldn't mind if he told her something about himself, but she also didn't want him to feel pressured just because something was on her mind and bothering her. Maybe finally sharing what happened to you with someone would be a good thing, a voice whispered in her ear. She tried not to tense up and alert Yuuta. It had been a long time since a Spirit had spoken to her like this when her shields were up. Once she had finally figured out how to strengthen them, she only had communication with spirits when she chose. Perhaps it was right though. Maybe it was time someone knew.

Yuuta grinned and moved  a little closer to Amina's curled up form on the couch. 

"If I didn't wanna talk about it, I wouldn't have offered," he said to her, before he sighed and looked at the floor. Where to start?

"Okay, remember when I told you about how I got my tattoo?" he asked. Without waiting for a response, he continued. "Well, now I'm going to tell you how I got to the point of getting a tattoo just to scare people off. I was around...7 or 8 when kids started picking on me over my height. I wanted to work at my dad's brewery and they thought that was really funny for someone who could barely do a push up." He laughed to himself. 

"I tried everything to get them to stop. I avoided them, yelled, and even tried to fight them one time. They sent me home with a black eye that time. When my dad saw it, he told me that if I was going to try to solve my problems with fights, I might as well start working out so I didn't get hurt."

Amina listened to his story quietly, picking at the threads of her blanket unconsciously. She had always wondered what had caused him to bulk up. 

"So the bullied became to bully?" she asked. She could see how that would happen. You want to protect yourself, to stop any harm from happening, so you hit before you get hit.

Yuuta nodded. "Yeah, I guess that's what happened. I kind of got...carried away. I started working out for the next year, and when the bullies tried to fight me again, I finally won. After that, I just got into the habit of scaring off anyone who looked at me funny. And that just attracted more guys who wanted to prove they were tougher than me. And somewhere in the middle of that, I went and got a tattoo to try and one up them. And then I met Kazaki." Yuuta grinned at the thought.

"I picked a fight with her a couple of years ago, and she ignored me, so I challenged her to a more formal fight after school. We met up in an alleyway, but then a youma interrupted, and she transformed to save me. After seeing her get hurt just to protect a guy who was nothing but a jerk to her, I got my own transformation item from Percy and awakened."

Amina reached out to grasp his hand while Yuuta recounted his story. She wouldn't say it, but the one time she had seen his tattoo, she had thought it to be incredibly hot. The tattoo covered the upper half of his back, spanning the entire width of his body, and ever since she had seen it, she'd be tempted on many occasions to run her hands along it, tracing the exquisite design. It was extremely well done, which was a good thing. If you were going to mark your body for the rest of your life with something, making sure the quality was superb was a key part. Understanding how the tattoo would be a one up on any bullies, with tattoos in the traditional design for Japanese were intrinsically entwined with the Yakuza.  

"You challenged Kazaki to a fight?" she asked. "What even brought any of that on? You guys get along well, I can't imagine you guys even fighting.

"We don't fight like that now, but... Let's just say it took us a while to get used to being partners..." Yuuta said, scratching the back of his head. "Kazaki was really bossy and I wanted to fight the way I was used to. I think we drove Percy crazy with our arguing. We were kind of like Usagi and Rei-san used to be at first. Or at least what they told me in Tokyo."

Amina chuckled as she remembered some of the stories she had been told about Rei and Usagi's famous bickering. She still had a hard time imagining Yuuta and Kazaki like that, but even Rei and Usagi barely acted like that anymore, so she's suppose it was possible. 

"So how did she finally get you to co-operate and not fight how you were use to?"

"I think we finally started to click when we were trying to beat this one youma at a school festival," Yuuta said. "It was called Chimera, and it was way harder to fight than the other ones we handled before. It had the head of a lion and a goat, and a snake for a tail, so we couldn't just charge it head on. I figured that one out the hard way..." he admitted, remembering the beating it had given him years ago. 

"Io couldn't do enough damage to take it out by herself, and I was just getting thrown around, so we were kind of out of options. We either worked together or the Chimera would keep draining energy from the students. So we compromised. I started listening to her plans for once, and she stopped yelling orders at me all the time. After we beat it, we fought with each other a lot less."

She smiled as he explained what a Chimera was. She didn't want to ruin his story by interrupting him to let him know she already knew. 

"I'm glad you guys decided to be less stubborn and began to work together," she said. Her mind went back to the dog in the music studio who claimed to be her guardian. How could any of it be true? Where had he been all this time? If she had a guardian did that mean she belonged to a planet? She shook her head, clearing her thoughts. She didn't want to think about this at the moment. 

"How about we put on a movie and order in some food?" she offered. 

-----

In the next two weeks, Amina kept seeing Kero, or whatever his name was, around. He never approached her, but she could sense him around and occasionally caught a glimpse of him. It seemed to be that now that he found her, he didn't plan on loosing her again. She wasn't sure how to feel about the entire situation other than she felt constantly on edge from being followed.  

She wasn't sleeping well at night and it was beginning to show. Even her concealer wasn't able to hide the bags under her eyes any longer or that her complexion was becoming paler with each passing day, causing her to resemble a ghost. If she ran into a youma, she wasn't super the fight would go well. Something was going to break soon and Amina was worried it would be her sanity again and she wasn't sure she could claw her way out from those depths again.

Ganymede


"Hey, you feeling alright?" Yuuta asked Amina as they walked over to Kazaki's garage. He had started to notice her worsening condition from her lack of sleep. 

"If you don't think you're up to it, I can walk you home...." Kazaki had disappeared from school after lunch, having been caught in a Youma battle with Callisto, and she decided to skip the rest of the day to go home after. She had called the others as soon as school was over to  go over the fight they missed.

"I'm fine," she said, trying to keep her voice in a happy zone but knowing she failed. She knew that Yuuta had a right to be concerned, it was getting pretty obvious that she wasn't ok - several of her students had approached her asking if she was alight- but there wasn't anything they really could do to help. She was having flashbacks in her dreams of her time at the mental institution and she was too scared to tell them what the dreams were about for fear of them being disgusted with her and leaving. She liked having them in her life too much to risk that. 

"I think the better question is, is Kazaki alright? She seemed a little out of it last I saw her, after fighting that Youma. Any of you talked to Callisto, found out if anything happened?"

"Kumo said Kazaki was just tired after the battle," Fuyuko said. "It's been a while since we've fought a youma without at least three of us being there. And I think it managed to get a hit on her too..." Yuuta looked at Amina carefully, but didn't mention what he was thinking. 

"She'll probably explain it all when we get there," he said.

Amina nodded, keeping silent for the remainder of the journey to Kazaki's music studio. When they arrived, she took her normal place on the couch, curling up against the side. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a piece of what looked to be white fur. Picking it up, she examined it. While there was a chance that it was Percy's, knowing he was able to change sizes and species of cats, she had a feeling that it belonged to her so called "guardian". She frowned. What was he still doing around here? Were the others keeping him here and not telling her? She filed the information away for now, turning her concentration back on Kazaki. 

"What what happened at the park? It's not often I see you have to leave after a battle," she asked.

Kazaki shifted uncomfortably in her chair, a bandage peeking out from under her shirt. She had switched out her school uniform for more casual clothes, but she was still moving slower than normal. 

"The stupid youma hit me near the collar bone and it bruised up, so I went home," she said shortly. "It's not broken, but I didn't want to have to explain it to anyone who asked." 

"We beat it though!" Kumoka said, smiling.

"Do you want me to take a look at it? I can probably contract with a spirit for a small healing power to help it along if you'd like," Amina offered, standing up and taking a few steps over to Kazaki. It was unusual that there were youma this time of the day. The ones in Sapporo seemed to generally only come out at night. As far as Amina could figure, they were either nocturnal, or, the night just make it easier for them to move around unnoticed and they preferred the shadows to do their deeds in.

Kazaki moved away slightly, looking irritated. "No, I'm. I iced it down earlier..." she said in a rush. Europa gave her a look. Just why was she so defensive all of a sudden? Kazaki seemed to realize how strange she looked, and untensed herself. "Sorry, I just...I don't want you to tire yourself out over it. It's not a big deal. It'll heal eventually."

"It's no trouble at all, something like that wouldn't tire me out," Amina said, reaching out to put a reassuring hand on Kazaki's shoulder. Something as small as promoting healing wouldn't do anything to drain her powers or even supporting that kind of contract with a spirit. It was one of the easier ones really.

Before Amina could touch her, Kazaki suddenly slapped her hand away. "I said I didn't want your creepy spirit help, alright?!" she yelled. Her eyes flashed red for a moment, but a few seconds after her outburst, she blinked and realized what she had said. The room was completely quiet, the other Galilean Moon Senshi looking at her in surprise.

Amina stood there, the hand that had been slapped held against her chest, in shock as Kazaki's words ran through her head. ...don't want your creepy spirit help... Her worst fears had come true. Kazaki really thought she was creepy, probably hated her to and had been too nice before this to tell Amina otherwise. Tears well up in her eyes and her lip trembled as she fought to not stand there and cry. As the panic welled up in her chest, the need to get away made her skin feel tight. Without conscious decision, she opened her shields, crying out for help, to get away. A gracious spirit answered her call, granting her the gift of teleportation. 

Rest now child you are safe for now, it said, the presence in her mind leaving slowly. It took the blonde a minute to register that she was back in her apartment. Feeling suddenly exhausted, she crawled into bed, pulling the covers tight around her. She lay there for hours, shaking, but too numb for the tears to come.