Chapter Text
In the starry darkness of space, Ichigo lifted her eyes to the skylight to watch the universe glide by in all its daunting, vast majesty. The girl focused on her surroundings – the hum of the engine, the soft blanket enveloping her in its embrace, the tickle of her hair against her cheeks – to ground herself against the unfamiliar background.
So far from home.
“Awake from your cat nap?” Quiche whispered beside her. He was holding a tablet in his hands that illuminated his face in a soft, white glow. Across the expansive, glass and steel room of the cockpit, Pudding’s video game beeped softly – her head resting in Tart’s lap, and to their left on the other pristine, white couch sat Mint and Zakuro curled in a blanket.
Maybe home isn’t so far after all.
“Yeah. How close are we?” Ichigo murmured groggily, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Telling time in space was a lot harder than she’d anticipated – the long hours of nothing but darkness entirely unfamiliar to her, and using watches became meaningless as they traveled at lightspeed without sunrise or sunset.
On the first day, she tried killing as much time as possible studying the luxurious interior of a Cyniclon government ship. It held several bunk beds in the living quarters, a small but serviceable kitchen, a bathroom that gave her flashbacks to her flight-sickness during one of her trips to England, a cockpit filled with an absurd number of screens and buttons all crammed onto one, shiny, black dashboard, and a living room furnished with white couches and a few plants.
It was like an apartment. One that could travel through the cosmos. A very expensive and technologically advanced apartment.
After a rough night of sleep, the group spent the second day trying to entertain themselves, learning about Cyniclon culture, and going over other important information. Cyniclon was, decidedly, on the brink of civil war. Quiche was trying to escape an arranged marriage that originated as a poor effort of quelling said civil war. Being the absolute bastard he is, he also essentially gave the king a literal, royal fuck you and swore himself to a life of playboy-ery, only to send a heads-up message with the other two aliens that boiled down to:
Your Majesty,
We completed our work on the backwater planet you lovingly sent us to. Coincidentally, Pie discovered that our personal communicators were blocking messages from Earth! Funny how that works. He fixed them, and wouldn’t you believe it! Tokyo Mew Mew sent us an SOS because Chimera Animals were appearing on their planet, and they wanted our expertise. Naturally, we showed up, took care of the problem, and invited them to come see Cyniclon while Athyria, Eronye, and Ocyth continue their research on Earth. Seeing as Tokyo Mew Mew are regarded as heroes, this shouldn’t be a problem.
Cheers,
Quiche, Pie, and Tart
So really, there wasn’t much wiggle room for them to get used to the political climate. Tokyo Mew Mew was to enter Cyniclon fully involved in all the intricacies and drama their government had to offer. Shirogane and Akasaka were to pose as the other three aliens by sending messages through one of their communicators, which Pie created a built-in translator for. They needed to be briefed, prepped, and ready for the sly questions that would be peppered into conversations as a way of learning their true intentions. Zakuro and Mint were practically experts at it – the former being a television personality and the latter being a born socialite.
Ichigo, Lettuce, and Pudding required a little more help. The ultimate consensus was to always keep them with one of the boys when possible. If all else failed, they were to plead the fifth. Act like they couldn’t understand the Cyniclon accent. Dodge, divert, redirect.
Ichigo’s head ached by the end of the day from the impromptu cram session.
The last night, she had a nightmare that Deep Blue killed Quiche.
She couldn’t save him. She didn’t sleep much, and so she found herself napping throughout much of the third day.
Quiche leaned forward in his seat and squinted out one of the windows, then a flash of recognition crossed his catlike features. How he could tell anything apart in the blank, darkness of space, she would never know.
“Why don’t you go see how close we are for yourself?” he purred, tucking a stray hair behind her ear. Ichigo’s brown eyes widened, and the girl was hopping out of her seat and barreling toward the cockpit in a moment’s notice.
“This is government ship 4 requesting landing,” Pie’s muffled voice cut through the steel, sliding doors. Ichigo pressed the button next to them, then slid through the crack the second they parted.
Through the windows of the ship, she was greeted by a planet that looked almost like a carbon copy of Earth. Blue water, green land, and white clouds dotted across the atmosphere.
Her breath caught in her throat. A real, alien planet. In her awe, she barely registered Quiche slipping into the seat across from Pie and the rest of the Mews trickling in after her to get the first human glimpse at Cyniclon.
“I’d hold on to something,” Tart murmured, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and stepping into the cockpit with them.
A muffled voice responded on the intercom in perfect Japanese, and within seconds, they were beginning their descent.
It was hard to make sense of anything at first. They were flying through clouds that obscured her vision, but the anticipation beat against her chest, and the butterflies in her stomach refused to settle. The ship lurched upward for a moment, and Ichigo fumbled forward toward Quiche’s seat. He raised a teasing eyebrow at her. She stuck out her tongue, then focused once more on the windshield.
She was overwhelmed by the sight of it – the sun just rising over the horizon of the planet as they sank further down into the orange clouds. Ichigo’s eyes were glued open as they broke the cloud barrier, and then she gasped.
They were flying over the clearest ocean she’d ever seen in her entire life. It looked to be something out of a fantasy movie. It was nearly clear as glass, with a slight turquoise tint that nearly glowed in the morning light. Even as high above as they were, she could see coral reefs vaster and more colorful than anything she could’ve imagined on Earth. In the back of her mind, she remembered Masaya telling her something about coral bleaching back on Earth.
If only he could see this.
In the distance, a vast city speckled soft light blurry in the orange glow of the sunrise, and as they grew closer, she could see buildings built upon the slope of a great cliffside – waterfalls, and rivers trickling over the sides flanked by lush greenery.
Quiche turned around in his chair to look at her with a smile that simultaneously screamed homesickness and trepidatious excitement.
“Welcome to Cyniclon.”
The girl couldn’t muster a response in her slack-jawed awe of being on such a beautiful, clean, healthy planet lightyear away from home. Quiche seemed to understand, for his smile grew wider. It was more beautiful than anything she’d ever seen.
They flew over the city skyline at the base of the cliffside, families pausing to wave to the ship, townspeople hanging their laundry over wires hung between the buildings. People on boats that reminded her of gondolas floated under bridges made from stone and vine. A few children sat on the roof of one of the taller buildings, smiling and laughing as their friends flipped off the side and into one of the larger pools of water.
It seemed almost inconceivable that this was a planet on the brink of civil war. The sun was shining, each face had a bright smile, and life looked calm. How was it possible that such a place could have such a volatile political situation behind the scenes?
Pie tilted the controls up toward a large platform further up the cliffside. Great trees of yellow, blossoming flowers flanked a marble building that towered over the ship. Large, off-white pillars crafted with careful attention to detail led to an open entryway into a building clearly bustling with activity. Guards were stationed at various points of the platform, swords strapped to their sides.
Nerves tugged at Ichigo’s mind as she reminded herself why they were on Cyniclon in the first place. Politics were so unfamiliar. The culture was so unfamiliar.
This time, she was the alien.
But Quiche swiveling around in his chair and smoothing out his uniform reminded her that it wasn’t so unfamiliar. She focused on the slope of his nose, the warm amber of his eyes, and the gloved hand he held out to her as he rose from his chair.
It was familiar. He was familiar.
“Are you ready for your debut in high society, my love?”
Ichigo shivered slightly, a flush settling across her freckled cheeks. His eyes flickered something more predatory. A remnant of the Quiche she’d known long ago.
It wasn’t something she’d forgotten, but it was so much more real now. She was going to pretend to be Quiche’s lover. Hesitantly, she slipped her hand into his, trying to grow used to the feeling, then turned to her allies.
“Tokyo Mew Mew, are we ready?”
“Yup!” Pudding smiled, pulling Tart into a bone-crushing hug.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Lettuce sighed nervously.
“Naturally,” Mint replied.
“Of course,” Zakuro nodded.
Ichigo turned to Quiche. “After you.”
Quiche pulled a level on the control board that started a whir of gears cut by a short jostle to the floor. Then, he stood up from his seat and gestured for them to follow.
“Do I look okay?” Lettuce chattered and covered her cheeks with her hands. Ichigo squeezed her shoulder with a gentle smile as they followed Quiche to the elevator. It was supposed to reassure her friend, but when she looked down at the hand she’d placed on the other’s shoulder, she noticed that she was shaking.
It was impossible to know what it meant to be the first of humanity to visit an inhabited, alien planet. They were making history. Changing what was previously thought possible. Her shoes clacked against the metal floor of the elevator as they shuffled in one-by-one. She glanced down at the clothes she’d chosen to wear for their arrival. Quiche told her that their planet was mostly tropical, so she wore a puff-sleeved, pink dress with ruffled hems hoping that it would look nice enough to make a good first impression without sacrificing comfort in the heat.
The elevator began its descent, and the metal doors parted to let in a blast of humidity and bright light.
Oh. It was really hot.
She blinked a few times to focus her vision, but when she opened her eyes, her mouth fell open slack-jawed as her sparkling irises were met with the sheer beauty of the planet. It was one thing to see it from the ship – but to smell the clean, sweet air like she’d never experienced, feel the pure wind tousle her hair, watch the yellow petals flutter through the afternoon air.
It was utterly overwhelming, but at the same time, it settled her nerves. Something in her heart trembled with simultaneous shame and amazement.
Here’s where the real work begins.
In a series of hurried introductions and rapid discussion in Cyniclon, they were ushered through the great halls of the capitol building. Ichigo tried her best not to let her slack-jawed amazement show at the sight of the high ceilings, greenery slipping through windows, and turquoise water falling across glass walls. She stayed close behind Quiche, watching curiously as various Cyniclons stopped to talk to him, Pie, and Tart, then allowing their focus to rest on the decidedly un-Cyncilonian figures trailing behind.
They moved at a swift pace. Workers and soldiers alike stepped to the side to allow the entourage to get by unhindered. Something about it made Ichigo feel incredibly nervous – the way their eyes burned into the back of her skull with unabashed curiosity at seeing what was, for them, a real-life alien. For once, the roles were reversed.
After a few minutes of walking through twisting corridors, getting distracted by the view that overlooked the city down below, and being stared at with shock, the group stopped at grand double doors that towered over her head, and Ichigo felt small in its shadow. Quiche looked over at her and nodded in confidence, and she remembered in that moment her place as a hero, not to reveal her status as twice a killer of their chosen god.
Ichigo took a deep breath, and with an exhale of breath, she looked up at the slowly parting doors for their entrance. Following in their step, the five Mews entered the room behind the aliens and held their heads high with the knowledge that they were the representative heroes of Earth, having lived to defend it twice from absolute destruction.
When they walked into the reception room, Ichigo was nearly startled out of her mask of absolute confidence by the sound of the doors slamming shut behind her. The guards in the room held tightly to their weapons and stood in front of the double doors. Looking back to her front, Ichigo peered at the draping blue velvet across a raised platform of stairs, which at its peak, was a man who couldn’t be any older than fifty.
He sat clothed in a navy-blue suit decorated with a shining gold embroidery that glistened in the light through the vast glass ceiling, and a black cape was draped over his shoulders, held tight by golden pauldrons. His face, angular as any other Cyniclon she’d seen, had a white scar from the top of his left eyebrow down across his nose and to his right cheek. His bright, yellow eyes bore deep into her soul as he stared at her, and Ichigo instinctually averted her gaze.
His hair, black as night, was pushed back from his face and tucked behind his long ears. A few stray pieces fell across his face, but most of it was held in place by the gold halo of a crown that sprouted from behind his head and into a shape mimicking a rising sun above his head. Wrapped around his pointed ears were delicate, gold jewelry that mimicked lace.
“Your Majesty,” Quiche, Tart, and Pie spoke in unison and settled into a one-knee bow, one hand over their hearts. Remembering their instructions, the Mews followed suit and settled into a low bow.
“Rise,” the man spoke with a deep voice that made Ichigo’s hair stand on end. The team stood on two feet once again.
“Esteemed guests of Earth, we welcome your presence,” the man she now knew to be the king spoke, then rose from his throne at the center of the room. His cape trailed down the stairs of the platform behind him, and he came to a stop in front of the group.
“Please, show me Mew Ichigo,” he spoke, and Ichigo tensed.
She looked down at her clothes – what she thought to be a nice sundress in the presence of royalty felt like rags.
Quiche stepped to the side and held out a hand to her. His mouth was upturned into a smile, but his eyes uttered a warning of caution. Ichigo stepped forward and settled into a low bow.
“My name is Ichigo Momomiya, also called Mew Ichigo. It is a pleasure to meet Your Majesty.”
She rose slowly from her bow and met the King’s eyes. He stared at her with an expression of warmth, but deep in her heart, she knew it to be false.
“Come closer,” he spoke. Ichigo swallowed.
Slowly, she stepped up the staircase and toward his throne, hoping he couldn’t hear her pulse hammering in her ears. The King studied her for a minute. Then, he took her hand in his and, much to her surprise, placed a gentle kiss atop her knuckles. A small blush settled on her cheeks.
“The pleasure is mine, Miss Ichigo. Stories of you will surely be told for generations as a great savior of our people.”
He held pointed eye contact with her as her hand slipped from his gloved hands, and she fought the urge to embarrassedly look away before he swung his arms open in a welcoming gesture.
“And to the rest of Tokyo Mew Mew: I cannot thank you enough aside from wishing you the warmest of welcomes to Cyniclon. Although unexpected,” he said, glancing at the three aliens, “your visit is deeply exciting for my people. Please, feel free to stay for as long as you desire.”
The rest of the girls bowed deeply in response. Ichigo found herself… conflicted over her opinions of the king. She couldn’t help but look over her shoulder slightly at his scarred face as she walked back down the staircase. He seemed so genuinely amicable and charismatic – and if she didn’t trust Quiche with her life, she might not believe him in saying that he held vicious malintent behind his wide smile and generous affection.
“This is my son, Prince Canelé,” he gestured to his right, where a boy around her age rose from his seat and stepped to his father’s side.
His short hair was as black as his father’s, and he was clothed in a navy suit that was cropped in a manner like Quiche’s uniform. Over his shoulders was a black cape in a similar fashion to the king, and atop his head was a simple, gold band that came to a slight point like a tiara. His eyes were a bright blue, and Ichigo shivered at the combination of black hair and blue eyes that she associated with Deep Blue.
“And this is my daughter, Princess Eclair.”
Coming to a stop at the center of the room was a girl who also looked close in age to her. Her long, wavy hair was as white as fresh snow, and it fell over her shoulders in cascades of perfectly styled strands. She, too, had a uniform like the boy in a dark navy blue and decorated with gold embroidery, and a cape that draped over her small shoulders. Atop her head sat a golden tiara.
Her fair face was framed by styled curtain bangs, and although she was being introduced to the group, her bright, golden eyes stared intently at Quiche. The girl caught Ichigo’s gaze with a glint that indicated she was being analyzed, and the Mew looked at her feet in shy surprise.
In tandem, the two bowed deeply, and when they rose, Princess Eclair seemed to break from something that was holding her back and jumped toward Quiche in excitement, wrapping her arms around him. Ichigo tensed in discomfort but didn’t miss the way the girl peeked around Quiche’s shoulder to smile at Ichigo. Something in her made her want to scowl back.
“It’s so wonderful to see you again, Quiche! I missed you while you were on your mission,” she sang, pushing away from his chest to look back up at him. He smiled back and gently patted her shoulder, but after spending so much time with him, Ichigo could tell that the encounter made him uncomfortable. The Mew raised an eyebrow at the two.
“Nice to see you,” Quiche said curtly.
An awkward air hung between the three before the king cleared his throat.
“I suppose now would be the best time to inform you all that I have prepared a banquet for your arrival,” he began, folding his hands behind his back. “I would love nothing more than to demonstrate our thanks with a night in your honor. Speak to my attendant, as he has prepared ladies in waiting for you all.”
“Oh! T-thank you, Your Majesty,” Lettuce said, settling into a soft courtesy before realizing her mistake and placing a hand across her heart.
Ichigo tried her best to give a genuine smile. “We can’t thank you enough for the welcome! We’re so excited to partake in your culture and share our own in turn.”
The princess glanced at her from the corner of her eye. Ichigo felt a shiver run down her spine.
“Of course,” the king said, a smile crossing his face. “We have much to discuss. But for now, let’s get ready for the festivities, shall we?”
He said a few words in Cyniclon before a man came out from a side room and bowed.
“Please follow me,” he said in broken Japanese. “We have people to help you.”
“Quiche, Pie, and Tart. Stay behind to give me a full report of the expedition,” the king spoke. Ichiro’s chest clenched with anxiety. She didn’t want to be separated from them so soon, but when she looked over at Quiche, he gave her a reassuring smile. It’d be okay. It was only a few hours.
Reluctantly, she followed the attendant back into the main hallway. It was just as busy with activity – various workers walking around and chatting. A few stopped to stare, but most were too absorbed in their work to take notice. Ichigo’s eyes landed on a group of women who were waiting outside of the doors. As soon as she locked eyes with one of them, the five bowed in unison.
“Pleased to meet you, Tokyo Mew Mew. We will help you prepare for the celebration.”
Shyly, Ichigo bowed back slightly.
“Thank you so much!”
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed someone in robes staring at her. She tried not to stare back, but something about him unnerved her. He was old. Much older than the king. Long, stringy, grey hair fell over his shoulders. His arms were buried tightly in his large, dark blue sleeves. There was too much dark blue in the capitol building. Too much dark blue on him. People bowed as they walked by. Ichigo frowned.
Someone of high status?
“Ichigo, are you listening?” Mint’s voice cut through her thoughts. Ichigo looked up and blinked a few times.
“Oh, sorry. What happened?”
“They’re asking us to follow them to our room. Seriously, pay more attention!”
Ichigo rolled her eyes but looked back over to where the man was standing one last time. Her expression chilled as she noticed he was no longer standing in the hallway. She wanted to know why he was staring at her so coldly. Maybe it was being separated from the boys that made her feel on edge. Maybe it was something else entirely.
Ichigo shook her head and turned to follow the rest of the group but wrapped her arms around her body, covered in goosebumps despite the hot, humid weather. The palace was gorgeous on the surface, but the fine hairs on her arms stood on end as she began to pick up on a much more sinister underbelly.
There was a lot to discuss with Quiche.