Nine heads whipped around to stare at the chocolate-brown haired girl at the
doorway to her room. She gulped, slowly backing out.
". . .You. . ." Heero growled, standing and leaving Relena to throw herself
into Hilde's arms and sob.
Miaki started to back out of the room but Heero grabbed her arm.
"Just who the hell are you?" His voice was low and dangerous, as it normally
got when Relena was scared or threatened. But somehow Miaki knew better.
"I'm not telling you anything."
"You'll tell me what I want to know."
Miaki stared straight into his prussian blue eyes with her own and said one
word that made Heero wonder if this girl valued her life.
"No."
In a fit of pure rage Heero pulled out his gun and pointed it at her head.
Miaki blinked while Mulan tried to lunge at Heero. Leun grabbed her and held
her in a lock grip so she couldn't kick or punch him and make him release her.
"You want to kill me? Go ahead. No, you probably want to drag it out, see if
you can get me to tell you anything. Well, you never will." She pushed her
hair back behind her ear with her right hand and Heero's gun nearly dropped
as he saw a huge gash by her hairline, just healing into a scar which
suggested she had gotten it recently, around eight days ago. But Heero had
been watching her for five weeks and she hadn't gotten any gash like that.
The words she recited made his blood run cold.
"I value your life just as much as you value yours."
Tears sprang to her eyes, looking foreign and out of place.
"But I never. . .did. . ." She turned and ran out of the hall before anyone
could stop her. The slamming of a sliding door confirmed she had run outside.
Mulan wriggled around, swung her foot up and kicked Leun in the groin,
forcing him to release her. She ran out of the room.
"Miaki!"
Leun growled in pain. "Damn it. . ." He ran after his sister.
"MULAN!"
Matty blinked and then looked at all the eyes on him.
"Uh. . ." He started to back out of the room and Heero grabbed his arm.
"Your staying here."
Matty gulped. "Uh-oh. . ."

It is said that best friends share a sort of syncronozation, where one is the
other will be there, planned or not. Where one disappears the other will know
where they are. And it is because of that Mulan knew exactly where to find
Miaki, at the Sango bridge, her feet dangling off of the edge carefully.
Mulan slid down beside her and stared at her best friend, chocolate brown
hair hiding scarred prussian blue eyes.
"Anata wa ii-desu?"
"I think so." Was the soft reply.
"Well, Leun's over at the park waiting for us and Matty's not with us. If I
know that weenie he's telling Heero everything."
Mulan sensed more than saw the small smile her attempt at humor had brought.
"They'll probably know by the time we get back."
"Hai. So maybe. . .just maybe. . .we should go back and tell them the whole
story."
Mulan smiled. So she was finally coming to her senses. She stood up and
extended an arm.
"The whole story. From the beginning?"
Miaki smiled and reached up, grasping Mulan's hand firmly in hers.
"From the beginning." Mulan and Miaki both turned around to come face-to-face
with a pair of sky blue eyes with strands of light brown hair falling in
front of them. The newcomer smiled, tucking her long bangs behind her ears,
her long hair reaching about midback.
"Hi! I know this sounds kinda silly, but I'm looking for my younger cousin
and I got kind of lost. . .do you mind telling me where the Mizurei temple
is?" She blushed and smiled.
Mulan started twitching and fell to the ground.
"Doshite. . .doshite. . .doshite?"
Miaki reached down and grabbed Mulan's wrist, starting to drag her across the
ground.
"Sure. Follow me."
"Doshite. . .doshite. . .doshite?" Came the faint chanting from the ground.

Leun scowled and looked at his watch.
"Baka. . .she should be here by-"
"Leun?"
Leun turned around and beheld a sight that never occurs in normal people's
lifetimes. There was Miaki, dragging his sister on the ground. His sister,
however, was chanting 'doshite. . .' and next to Miaki was-
"We're supposed to escort her to the Mizurei temple." Miaki explained. Leun
got a funny look on his face and started to twitch. He fell to the ground
from the pure irony of things. Miaki turned to look at the woman.
"You get that one."

Heero stood over Matty's chair, pure shock frozen on his face. Relena sat a
little ways away from him, still dressed in sweats and shaking her head.
Hilde had a funny look on her face and Duo was trying to comfort her. Trowa
showed no emotion sitting on the couch by Midii who had passed out, Quatre
and Dorothy were clinging to each other, their eyes wide, and Wufei was
twitching on the floor. That was the sight the two sane ones observed when
they walked into the living room.
"Uh. . .Relena?" the woman asked, and Relena looked up from her hands and
stared at her.
"Sally. . .don't ask. . ."
Matty dropped to his knees in front of Miaki.
"I'm sorry but you left me and he had a gun and he threatened to twist me
into a pretzel and leave me for Fat Buu from Dragonball Z to turn me into
something edible and eat me actually I made that up but he had a gun and he
made me tell and please DON'T KILL MEE!"
Miaki rolled her eyes.
"I'm not going to kill you and what would Lynn think if she saw you now?"
Matty blinked and jumped back up.
"That is. . .uh. . .I mean. . ."
"What's. . .going on?" Sally asked, catching sight of her boyfriend on the
ground twitching.
"We need to talk." Miaki said to everyone in the room.

Sally gulped, staring at Miaki and shaking.
"Your. . .not. . .serious?!"
"I'm just about as serious as you can get." Miaki replied.
"But. . .it's not. . p-possible!"
"You would prefer a breakdown of my genetic structure and Relena's? Or
Heero's?"
"But. . ."
Mulan sighed.
"Alright. Don't make me say this."
"S-say what?"
"*ahem* Your blood type is A, your ethnic background is Chinese and you were
born AC 179."
Sally blinked. "Anyone could know that!"
"Okay, you have a heart-shaped birthmark at the base of your neck and a scar
that runs vertical with your shoulder. Wufei, you have a birthmark behind
your left ear and a scar on the back of your ankle. Blood has a hard time
getting to your right wrist because of a constricted artery but that doesn't
matter, does it, since your left handed?"
Silence.
"Sally, you have a scar on your shoulder?"
"Wufei, your left handed?"
Miaki smirked. "And Heero and Relena-"
"Don't!" They cried in unison, holding their hands out in front of them.
Midii shook her head.
"I don't believe this. . .our future. . .children. . .?"
"But. . .how?" Relena almost whispered, unsheathing the question that had
hung in the air for so long.
Miaki lifted her head.
"Maybe you should ask yourself what brings us here?"
Heero bent down beside her and placed a hand on her left shoulder.
"Miaki, I ju-" he stopped short seeing the look of pain on her face.
"Mi. . aki?"
"Don't!" Mulan cried sharply, shoving Heero's hand off of her shoulder. Miaki
cringed over, holding a hand over her shoulder.
"Miaki? Daijobu ka?!"
Sally knelt down beside her.
"Here, let me look at it." She said gently, sliding down the collar of
Miaki's shirt. Removing some of the bandages, she almost gasped. Miaki's
shoulder and half of her forearm were burnt, well past code blue third degree
burns, Sally guessed. The burn glistened with the underskin's natual healing
oils and some skin still stuck to the bandage.
"Oh my-"
"Miaki?!"
"How did you get those burns?!"
Miaki tuned the concerned voices out of her head and closed her eyes.

Gundam-unit operations and constructions test laboratory, Preventers HQ,
Dated AC 219
"Unit 01, stable with no problems. . .unit 02, sta-wait-feedback is flowing
into the negatives. . .internal pressure increasing. . ."
"Abort the procedure now! Tell pilot of 02 to active release-"
"02 is refusing all manual input!"
"What the hell?!" Lillian cried.
"Unable to establish communication with pilot! Heart rate and blood pressure
dropping, brain waves are becoming erratic!"
"Tell pilot of unit 01 to evacuate and to wait for emergency crews in the-"
"W-What?!"
"Doshita no?!"
"Pilot of 01 has activated her release switch and is evacutating the entry
valve!"
"What!? Damn it, Miaki, don't!"
Miaki ran over to 02's entry valve, which had detached itself from 02's main
unit. Reaching up to the hatch she grabbed it and jerked her hands back as
the overheated systems scorched her hands. She placed her hands on the valve
and let out a cry as she pulled open the hatch. Leaning her shoulder up
against it she pushed the hatch open a foot, the heat burning through her
test suit onto her skin.
"Duo?!"
She jumped in, seeing the pilot unconcious, his hand still on the controls.
She pulled his helmet off, paying the pain no mind.
"Duo! D-daijobu ka?!"
"Mi. . .aki?"
"D-duo?!"
"Why do. . .I smell burning. . .burning flesh. . .?"
Miaki held her hands in front of her, looked at the burnt skin and the holes
in her test gloves and only then started to notice the pain in her left
shoulder. For the first time since she was six, a solitary tear slid down her
cheek.

"It seems like. . .so long ago. . ."
I vowed. . .never again. . .
A tear dripped onto the palm of her hand as she fell forward, spiraling into
unconciousness.
And yet. . .once again. . .I cry. . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I got chapter four out! WAII!. . .anyways, here is chapter four of Through
Time and Back. Thank you for encouragement. Once again, domo arigatou to
Sally-chan and Zoe-Sama!!!!!!
C & C kudasai!
Anime1987@AOL.com

_-~*Shino Kaede*~-_