---{//Merging.of.Worlds//}--- Options

[Itena]

ooc: I'm actually a veteran wolf roleplayer, and I've really been wanting to rp MKR for a while. I may have a different roleplaying style than everyone else, so please bear with me.

Also, I'm not too sure of the rules here; so if you find an error, please correct me.

(based on an idea for a fanfiction I have ;P)


Tall gray buildings seemed to ascend forever to the heavens in the gray city that was Tokyo. The few trees that were there did little to help from receiving the constant exposure to the strong UV rays; which seemed to come in violent waves of heat, despite the fact that it was morning; slowing everyone down considerably.

Hikaru Shidou walked slowly towards her school; a grim look on her face as she remembered once again her recent test score that she had received the other day.

"59%..."

She had never received such an incredibly low mark, and it wasn't like she got a hundred percent on everything; but she always was a hard-working student. Hikaru didn't get why her mark had dropped so bad. Of course; there was the fact that her second great mission in Cephiro made her forget everything she had studied. This was a problem.



* * *



As she walked slowly towards the middle school; her negative thoughts swirling through her mind, a familiar warning chill suddenly raced throughout Hikaru's body. Without thinking, her body jumped high in the air, did a forward flip, then landed gracefully a few meters forward on the pavement; a cloud of dust and pebbles accompanying a sliding sound of Hikaru skidding to a stop. Eyes wide with adrenaline and surprise, she looked at disbelief at what was in front of her.

A great monster, in the flesh, was standing before her; a growl being emitted from deep in it's stomach.

[Shiidou Hikaru]

Into the darkness Umi went. It didn't really feel like a swimming or falling sensation, it was more like a complete loss of sensory perception or more accurately - a state of non-existence were there was actually nothing to perceive. Slowly, she had become increasingly distressed but the effects didn't last long and suddenly Umi found herself standing on a raised stone platform or dais. A dim, reddish light, like that of a darkroom, shone around her, but when Umi looked around she could not locate its source. The place she was in had no walls or floor or ceiling or if it did they were so far away as to vanish in the distance. Umi heard no sound of any kind, the air was still as death and only her cloak rustled gently as Umi turned about to view her surroundings.

"Where ... am I? What is this place?" Umi whispered under her breath, but her voice was if she had spoken plainly so deep was the silence around her. "Am I ... dead?" she asked herself nervously.

The reply that came nearly made Umi shriek with surprise. "No." answered the calm and unemotional voice of Ceres. It must have taken Ceres a few moments longer to arrive, but now he also stood in the dimly lighted place with his master, the Sea Knight.

"Ceres! Thank goodness!" Umi responded with relief but quickly returned to her previous musings. "Ceres ... where am I? What is this place?"

"This is my dimension. This is the place where I and my brother Mashins have resided for all eternity." He answered as knowledgeable as always, but didn't elaborate further. However Umi knew that she could get more information from Ceres simply by asking him more questions.

"But, I am not a Mashin Ceres. Why am I here with you? Did something bad happen to me?" Umi asked, eager to understand her situation.

Ceres didn't answer right away, apparently he needed to give some thought to what he would say next so that his mistress to understand. "You are the Sea Knight Umi-sama. You are master of the elements of water and ice and thus you are granted immunity to all effects of any of their magics." Ceres told her at first.

"I see. So that is how you knew I wouldn't be harmed by the freezing." Umi realized.

"Yes, that is correct. And by freezing you have become ice itself and thus you have become as one with your element. You now exist as ice, or more precisely you exist as ice in the mortal realm. However your being remains intact here in our dimension, in our realm of the eternal." Ceres finished.

Umi looked down and rubbed her chin, puzzled. She was only 15 years old so the concept of eternal unending eons of time was a bit challenging for her even though Ceres seemed rather unimpressed with the concept. Unsure of what to ask next, Umi kept going with this idea "So you and Rayearth and Windom have lived in this place forever?"

"Yes." Ceres answered succinctly.

"But ..." she started, but Umi quickly lost what she was going to say. Maybe Ceres and the other Mashins thought this was a normal way to live, but linear time was the only existence that made sense to Umi. Eventually she gave up trying to comprehend eternity in this dim place and asked about going home. "Ceres, I can't just stay here. Hikaru is in trouble, she needs me. The are still problems in Tokyo, my world. I still have work to do there. how do I get back?"

After a minute of silence, Ceres answered "We cannot go back."

Umi stepped back, stunned. With a look of shock Umi stammered "W-what? What do you mean? Ceres! Why can't I go back?"

"Through force of our own will, neither of us can go back. I cannot leave this place unless I am summoned by you, my master. And likewise, as long as you remain as one with the element of ice in the mortal realm, you must remain here in the realm of the eternal. We can't return to your world by our own choosing." Ceres explained.

However Umi soon realized "So if I eventually thaw out, I will be able to go back to Tokyo again Ceres?"

As plain as ever Ceres answered "Yes."

That was all that Umi needed to hear. A wave of relief washed over her and erased her mounting anxiety. Ceres was a nice enough friend, but the thought of losing everyone and everything she had ever known and spending an eternity trapped in the mashin's dark realm had worried Umi greatly. But now it was just a matter of time before she could return.

"I suppose even if no one does anything to get me out, the natural climate would melt that mountain of ice in a few days. I shouldn't have to stay here too long then." Umi reassured herself.

But Ceres added "It is hard to say because time has no meaning here."

However before Umi had enough time to think on that, the dim light of the mashin's dimension vanished once again into the darkness of non-existence. Umi knew that her time to return had come. The first thing that she felt was the piercing needles of ice penetrating every cell of her body. Frozen, she wasn't able to cry out, but Umi soon felt the sensation lessen as she warmed up again. The frost and ice fell from her eyes as she opened them slowly to see the brightness of the sun again, but what was even more welcome was the sight of Rayearth who was holding her, warming her up as Windom looked on. Umi closed her eyes again and for the first time since this whole ordeal had started she felt a great sense of peace to know that the three Magic Knights had been reunited once more.