Memory 22

Lita opened her eyes. She quickly shaded her eyes from the bright light that came from the small window and pain immediately burned at her back. She had survived through the night without encountering pneumonia and now her back was sore as hell. Her hands slowly moved to her back to feel the wounds and she slightly winced when the wounds touched with her fingers. The blood had dried but the bruises were swelling bigger than last night.

Bracing herself from the pain, she sat up, stifling a painful wince. She reached out for the piece of clothes, which she hadn’t noticed last night. She carefully wrapped it around her body, to prevent infection. Last night she was too caught up in pains that she hadn’t bothered to look at her surrounding. Now, as she could see clearly, Lita noticed that it still hadn’t changed after all these years and after the biggest destruction.

One thing bothered her was, why was her master accused her for being responsible at what had happened long ago. Master should now that as a slave like her, it would be unlikely for her to cause the enormous destruction. She could remember it vividly. When building started to turn over and the ground started to pull apart, she, at that time, was holding Callisto, protecting her. There was no where she could do anything to destroy the surrounding and killed those people. If she could, she wouldn’t be here right now and got wounds from her master handiwork.

She wondered what her friends would be doing right now. Were they frantic or worried after they had found out that she had missing? Or were they still didn’t go to her apartment and thought that she was still there? It would be likely that they were still mad at her. Then her thought drifted to Nephrite. As usual, her heart gripped tightly in loneliness and longing. She wanted him to be here with her to protect her from her vicious master and comforted her. As far as she knew, Nephrite was the only person who can made her heart turned this crazy. Lita ran her fingers into her tangled hair. She needed Nephrite more than she needed anyone.

Her thought shattered away when she heard unmistakable sound of footsteps. As the sound of footsteps were getting clearer each second, Lita’s breath was caught up in her throat and it suffocating her. Fear gripped her heart. She was not ready to be punished anymore. Her wound hadn’t healed yet and it would be painful if the leather whip encountered with her wounds. She held her breath back as the door being opened and she saw the same irritating and annoying smirk of Vanessa.

“Master wishes to see you, slave.” That was really insulting and at the same time annoying. She was fighting every urge to slap that smirk out of her face and let one big black bruise take over. After all, she wouldn’t want to get anymore blood from her back if her master saw Vanessa’s pathetic face was decorated with bruises.

She stood up and gasped inaudibly as every of her muscle protested. She wouldn’t give Vanessa any satisfying smirk if she saw her pain. Together, they walked out of the room and go through the darkness.

* * * * * *

Molly stood still in front of Serena’s house. She should be searching for Lita not Serena but still she couldn’t resist seeing her friend’s face when she came to her house by surprised. Ever since she had flied to Kyoto, she hadn’t got any news from Serena. Her short red hair teased her soft cheek as the soft wind blew and Molly started to approach the door. She rang the doorbell and held her suitcase firmly.

Molly waited in suspense and anxiety as she waited patiently for the door to be opened. She smoothed her long sleeve jacket that neatly button to close over her dark blue turtleneck shirt. Her black skirt, which was hanging over her knees swayed softly. She wanted to look at her best before she met her long-time-no-see friends.

The door opened slowly and encouragingly and revealed the weary looking blonde with the most unusual style. When the blonde raised her tiring blue eyes, they went huge in surprise. “Molly!”

Immediately, both of the young ladies hugged each other tightly with their eyes shining. “When did you come home from Kyoto? Why are you here suddenly? You come home alone? How…?” Serena started to pour out all the questions as the excited look plastered on her face. Molly let out a giggle. Her best friend had not changed a bit.

“Are you going to let me in?” Molly teased her, which made Serena quickly discovered from her excitement. “Of course! Let me take your suitcase,” she said happily as her hand reached for the bag. They stepped into the living room where Molly saw Serena’s friends that four of them she knew and another four she didn’t know. She looked at the four dashing and remarkable men that were sitting on the sofa.

“Guys! Molly’s here! She had back from Kyoto!” It was like a family reunion. Hugging, laughing and friendly pats on the shoulders were the usual things that happened in family reunion. Except the four generals that were looking at each other with the matching uneasiness on their face. By the look at their faces, it was obvious that they wished that they were somewhere else.

“Molly, this is Kunz…Joseph Stanton!” Serena bit her tongue warningly. “Maxfield Stanton, Matthew Stanton and Zachary Stanton!” The four of them nodded curtly at her with a smile on their face.

“Are they related to each other or it was only a coincident that they have the same family name?” Molly asked at Serena with a teasing smile on her face. “Well, they might look a little bit different from each other by they are undoubtedly from the same family,” Serena said brightly.

A little bit different? They look too different to be brothers. Molly thought. One of them had a silver hair. Yeah…definitely silver because his hair was shining beautifully. Silver hair to match perfectly the silver-gray eyes. But the other man, who had a short blond hair and a pair of dazzling sapphire eyes, was completely different from the silver man. What’s his name…ah yes, Joseph and the short hair was Matthew.

The other mans, Maxfield, with soft and long mahogany hair with a mischievous and glittering pair of blue eyes, startling her. He reminded her of someone whom she couldn’t recall. He obviously looked worried about something. Her gaze drifted to the long and wavy blond hair man. He looked serious as if he never had any fun. Zachary. Even his name seemed serious. And his green eyes…Molly quickly thought about Lita and the real purpose she was here. When she looked around for the second time, she had finally realized that the reason that she came here was not here.

“Where’s Lita?” She asked them but not getting an answer but uneasy atmosphere around them. “You do know Lita, don’t you? The girl with green eyes and long brown hair and she always got into fights. Lita Kino.” Molly tried once again.

“Yes, of course we remember her,” Rei interrupted her. Molly frowned deeply. Something was very wrong here. It was so dull, so quiet, so…frustrated here. “What’s wrong with her?” She asked quietly.

They looked at each other uneasily. They couldn’t possibly tell the Lita had a problem with her past life enemies. Molly would look at them skeptically. Furthermore, Lita had mentioned in her letter that finding Molly would solve all their questions but seeing Molly like this, made them doubted whether she could tell them anything.

Molly tucked a wisp of air behind her ear. With their faces liked that, she knew that Lita had also regained her past life memories. But it still didn’t explain why Lita wasn’t here or why they didn’t tell her where was Lita. “Are you going to tell me or not?”

“Why are you suddenly so concern about Lita?” Ami suddenly asked her. Instantly, Molly felt her blood went cold and she felt very obvious and transparent. They would surely look at her blankly if she told them that she had a connection with Lita in her past life. If not, they would laugh at her crazy stories.

“Just curious, I guess,”

Rei could see that Molly had remembered her past life. First, she was suddenly here, exactly when they were facing a big problem with Lita. Second, she was practically become demanding or perhaps frantic when Lita was not here, as if she had a connection with her in her past life. Thirdly, Molly had changed a bit. Although Serena couldn’t see it, Rei knew Molly had become a little bit decent with the way she wore her clothing and the way she talked or teased. Maybe her past life characteristic had influenced her present life life-style. Curving up a small smile, Rei stood up and walked toward Molly. “I assume that you have regained you memories about your past.”

Molly looked at her with surprise. “How do you know?”

“We’ll tell you later. Right now, I believe you have a story to tell us,” Rei said.

* * * * * *

“Ah, come here, my slave,” her master crooned snidely. Lita slowly walked toward her master with her mind was screaming loudly, warning her and at the same time forbid her from nearing her master. Her head was throbbing and her back was the worst. The vision of her master and Vanessa became blurred each second and her back was on fire as she headed to her master. Lita bit her lower lip, trying to swallow back the pain and slowly shook her head, hoping that the headache will be gone and her vision was back to normal.

Master caressed her bruise cheeks and then pulled a lock of her hair out of her forehead. Lita couldn’t think. She was dying to be in bed right now and nursing her aching back. With her condition like this, she could become unconscious any second. But her master refused to understand her condition.

“My poor slave. Are you hurting?” She was referring to the shallow breaths that sounded almost like gasps, which Lita had caused. Slowly she grasped Lita’s hair. “Last night punishment was nothing,” she hissed as her hand started to grip Lita’s hair tighter. “I’ll become your nightmare. Everyday, I shall punish you until you feel like you don’t want to live anymore.” And she let go her hair.

“Every single minutes I think nothing but you. I kept telling myself that one day, I shall make you pay for trapping me inside this darkness,” she kept talking but Lita couldn’t hear anything. Her master’s voice seemed so far away as she consciousness slipped away slowly. Lita struggled to get back to the surface, wanting no more punishment but failed. She felt like she was falling into dark abyss and she was hopelessly tried to climb up back with a burden on her back. Each step she took, she’d slipped and fell down.

“Master.” The older woman stopped talking and looked at Vanessa annoyingly. “What?” Vanessa chose not to answer. Instead, she pointed her slender finger to unconscious figure on the floor. Instantly, her master eyes narrowed dangerously as her hands tightened into fists. “Take her back to her chamber. Tomorrow, she shall receive a punishment from me. After all…” her mouth turned up into a vicious smile. “…It wouldn’t be fun to whip an injured slave, would it?”

* * * * * *

“So you are Princess Serenity,” Molly said slowly at Serena. Serena nodded her head with a small smile on her face. “I remember that Jupiter had told many things about you guys. But you know, I think I don’t remember the entire things that had happened in the past. It feels that there are something clouding my mind, preventing me from remembering some part.”

“It’s not only you who feels like that.” Mina assured Molly. “I also feel the same way too, right now. But you’ll regain you memories sooner or later,” she said brightly.

“So…uh…We are hoping you could help us find Lita.”

“Of course. After all I came here to see Lita,” Molly said sincerely.

“Lately Lita had bad dreams about, we suspect it was from her past life, little girl being abused and a big destruction…” Molly’s eyes instantly grew big in shock. “What a minute. You said a little girl being abused?” Serena nodded her head slowly. “And a big destruction?” Again Serena nodded.

Molly went silent. So, the Queen of Jupiter was still alive. And she was after Lita for some reason she didn’t know. “Jupiter feared her, which means she couldn’t go there willingly. But why she left a letter? Why the queen is going after Jupiter? Why?” she mumbled softly.

“Molly?” Serena said softly.

“Yes? Oh nothing. Do you know exactly what had happened the night before she had missing?”

“We fought with her. She didn’t go to a fight and when we go her apartment, she started saying that she didn’t want to be a scout anymore. She started to insulting us and we got angry and left the room.” Mina told her softly. Molly went silent once again.

She was trying to put all in order. The queen must be very mad for being trapped underneath the ground and since she was used to release her anger to Jupiter, probably that was the main reason she was chasing Jupiter. Jupiter hated the queen so much that it would be unlikely for her to agree following the queen back to Jupiter. So…Molly curved up a small smile up triumphantly, the queen must had threatened her about something that made Jupiter agreed to follow her back. Her smile vanished when she thought what Jupiter had been through right now. Suddenly, she felt angry at the Moon and Earth.

“Do you have an idea who was she?” Molly drew her eyebrow closed. Obviously, they don’t. “I’ll the very the beginning of the story.”

“Long time ago, Planet Jupiter was peaceful. But something happened that made it chaos, and the people of Jupiter demanded the king, which at that time ruled the entire kingdom, to step down from the throne. And a new ruler was set up. Well, I studied that when I was young. Time passes by and the people were beginning to regret what they had done years ago. The new ruler was not only a cruel woman but she also wasn’t very good at ruling the kingdom.”

“One day, my mother, who was the Dowager Duchess of Callisto, and I went to Jupiter Fortress for some government things and that where I met Jupiter. She was at the same age with me and she looked so innocent and vulnerable. We became a very good friend.”

“I asked her where were her parents and she answered that she didn’t know. She didn’t even know what’s a parent mean. Well, I don’t care about that and I still played with her everyday. Until one day, I saw a big bruise on her thigh and I asked her why. At first she refuse to tell me but I persuaded her and at last she tell me her master did that to her.”

“Wait a minute,” Ami spoke up. “Her…her master?”

“Yes, her master.”

“But…but that would make Lita as a…a slave!” Ami’s eyes widened in shock. “Lita is a slave?”

“Yes. Jupiter is a slave. And I’ll bet, in order to prevent any of you guys from knowing this, she had gone back to her cruel and vicious master,” Molly said angrily. She didn’t know to whom she was angry with - the queen or Lita’s friend. Serena’s eyes started to water and they spilled out freely and uncontrollably.

“I’d once seen her master hit her until she was half to death. When I asked her to leave this place, she said that the queen was the only person that had cared for her. The queen had whipped her half to death and she called that caring? I don’t think at that time she had received any love. Family’s love or friends’ love.”

The room was so silent except the sound of Serena’s sobbing as she hid her wet face into Darien’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m too over-reacting,” Molly let out a sigh. “Go on.” For the first time Molly had heard one of the generals to speak up and it was Nephrite.

“One day, I not sure what had happened, I saw Jupiter being whipped again. But this time was different. The queen was so wild…so angry that I don’t think she had noticed that Jupiter had enough. I couldn’t stand it anymore and I ran to protect her. One hit was hurt as hell I don’t know how Jupiter could stand living with her. I…” Molly’s face turned pink. “…I went unconscious and I woke up, I saw Jupiter hold me protectively. The Fortress was completely destroyed and there was a pillar lying on our legs.”

“I told Jupiter that the queen is dead and I heard that Queen Serenity of Silver Millenium needed four guardian to protect her new-born heir of Silver Millenium. After many arguments, she’d agreed.” Molly paused for a while. She wasn’t used to talk too much. “I think Jupiter is now on Planet Jupiter. God knows what that maniac queen intended to do to Jupiter.”