Ties That Bind

One by one the children stood up and announced their birthplaces. The boy two rows and three seats away from Sai was the size of a small speeder, and when he said, "Corellia!" Sai's ears popped. The first day of school was very uncomfortable for her as she'd never been to a school before. For someone as rambunctious as she was, Sai hid an inner culture. She was taught by private tutors, and received piano lessons from her grandmother every third day. She knew how to be refined and how to present herself to royalty, but she just couldn't sit still in a stifling classroom.

By the time the little golden-skinned girl a seat ahead of her sat down, Sai was all ready tapping her feet and drumming her fingers on her desk.

"Mahou Saikoro?" the Jedi teacher prompted gently.

"Yes?" she answered.

The Jedi teacher looked down through her glasses and smiled warmly. "It's your turn to tell the class where you were born."

"Oh," Sai mumbled. She stood up and straightened her skirt. "Well, I am born sixty-seven years from now inside a bar called the 'Orange Lady' on the planet Nar Shaddaa."

The class erupted in laughter, and the teacher smirked. "Hush! Silence this second, class! Now, Miss Mahou, why don't you try telling the truth this time?"

"It is the truth! I haven't been born yet!"

More laughter and snickers from the other children.

The teacher's spine straightened and she folded her arms. "Perhaps you should wait outside with the water buckets until you decide to tell the truth."

"But... but..." Sai protested, throwing her hands out in front of her.

"Aa-aa," the teacher warned as she wriggled her finger in Sai's face. "If ifs and buts were candy and nuts wouldn't it be a Merry Holiday?"

Sai crinkled her brow. "What does that mean?"

"It means you're standing in the hallway! Go!" she pointed.

Not so reluctantly, Sai walked towards the door. Several of the children rolled their eyes and made strange faces at her. One little girl with iridescent purple hair made some sort of rude gesture with her fingers by fanning them in front of her mouth whilst making a squeaking noise. This was the straw that broke the bantha's back.

Producing her little black magic wand from thin air, Sai aimed it squarely at the mean little girl. A flash of pink smoke and a 'pop' sound later, the little girl's fingers had been tied tightly together with a big red bow, and her mouth had a sign hanging over it which blinked on and off: 'Quiet, please.'

"SAIKORO!" the teacher bellowed. "Change her back immediately!"

Tears welled up in Sai's eyes, but she quickly undid the magic and ran down the hallway with the teacher's calls and children's laughter echoing behind her. She ran out of the Temple and out into the courtyard. Without thinking twice, she tapped herself on the head with her wand, and disappeared.

Annika stretched her arms above her head before rolling over on her side and going back to sleep. She didn't feel the presence of the little girl sitting on the floor.

It had been four hours since Sai had run from the school and as far as they knew, she was hiding in the Temple or the library. In reality, she had been sitting in her bedroom the whole time, watching Annika sleep and playing games with her frog.

"You need a friend, huh, Kentucky?" she whispered to her little green playmate. "How about another frog? Or a rabbit? Annika has a rabbit. No, rabbits are too furry." She lay down on the floor and put Kentucky on her stomach; he sat there blinking at her. "Don't look at me like that!" she pouted.

A little glowing sprite popped out of her sleeping place, the little locket Sai wore around her neck, and sat cross-legged on top of Kentucky's head.

"This can't possibly be the only reason we're here!" she said.

"I know, Pancake. But no one told us our mission... if we even have a mission. We got Obi-Wan and Annika back together, but other than that, we haven't done anything else. And I super do not appreciate being forced to go to school! YUCK!" Sai said that a little too loud, and Annika stirred in her sleep.

"It's ten o'clock!" Pancake said. "Why is her highness still sleeping?"

"She stays up too late," Sai half said, half asked.

"And just where is Obi-Wan Kenobi? Why is the Queen in your bed?"

"Huh?" Sai wasn't listening. "Obi-Wan? He's gone to some planet with Anakin. He needed to be alone with him. Anakin has been showing his true self lately by being a smarty pants and not following Obi-Wan's instructions."

"Early Lord Vader."

"Who else? I wish I could tell them, but I was warned by Xarae not to reveal the future to anyone, no matter what. And that sucks." Her small yet slender fingers played with the locket around her neck. She opened it to reveal a picture of a little baby boy. "I wonder if he's the reason why we're here."

Pancake sighed, her glowing body dimmed. "Sai... you know that can't be. He's not born for many, many years."

"I know. But wait! Wouldn't it be generally wonderful if he's the reason we are here!"

"Sai," Pancake whispered.

At that moment, there was a knock on the door. Pancake flew back inside the locket, and Sai put a pillow over Kentucky.

Annika moaned and pulled the covers over her head. The knock came again, followed by the door opening. Ippin slowly opened the door and walked in. Sai, who was still invisible, crept over to a corner.

"Annika?" Ippin asked the sleeping girl. "Annika? You need to get up. Sai's missing."

Annika opened one eye and frowned. "So? She's probably out playing somewhere."

"No, she ran from the school this morning, and no one has seen her. We've been looking all over the grounds, but none of us can find her."

"Oh, man!" Annika whined. "Okay. I'm up." She threw the pink covers off and stood up into her pink fuzzy slippers. Her pyjamas were white with pink panda bears intermittently dotted in places. She shuffled her way into the lavatory to brush her teeth while Ippin sat in a nearby chair.

Sai bit her lip because Ippin's foot was seriously close to the pillow covering Kentucky; if her foot accidentally moved in the wrong direction, she would see the frog and probably guess that Sai was hidden in the room. Just as Sai's fingers reached the pillow, Annika walked back into the room. She had changed her clothes into a white t-shirt, and over it she wore a pair of pink overalls.

"When was the last time you saw her?" Annika asked while she put on her pink sneakers.

Ippin was looking around the room. "Hmm. Do you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

Sai was increasingly nervous as she sat in the corner. Ippin stood up and walked around the room.

"Ippin? What is it?" Annika asked.

"Oh... well... nothing I guess. Um... the last person to see Sai was her teacher. She ran out of class and down the hall. Apparently it was 'vital stats' day in class, and when Sai told everyone when and where she was born, they all thought she was lying."

"Oh no."

Ippin frowned. "Yeah. So we explained to her teacher, but we still can't find her."

"Well," Annika sighed, standing up, "I suppose I can go out to the upper level and look there. Or... has anyone checked the gardens?"

"Not yet," Ippin said.

"I'll go there when I get back. I'll call you on the communicator if I find her, okay?"

Ippin nodded before they both left. Sai exhaled in grateful relief.

"That was way close!" she said. The pillow concealing Kentucky moved a bit. Laughing, Sai moved it and put the frog back into her pocket. "Come on. We'll meet up with Annika later in the gardens. Let's just explore the Temple for a while, okay?"

Kentucky looked at her. "Kerokero," he said.

The Temple was all but empty, Sai noticed, as she skipped down the hallways. There were lots of closed doors, and the ones that were open led to boring rooms, sparring rooms and training rooms mostly. One door was marked with a strange symbol, which immediately raised Sai's curious nature. She quickly discovered the door was locked, but with a snap of her fingers, the lock sprang open, and Sai slipped inside.

The interior of the room was starkly clean, and coloured in whites and light blues. Long rectangles glowed on the flat walls and they emitted a slight humming sound. For some reason, Sai tapped herself on the head with her wand and became visible again. She would later regret doing that.

Taking a few steps forward, Sai peered into the first long rectangle, and saw nothing. It was empty. She walked over to the other one, and that's when she heard it.

"Well, well, well. Look who it is," the voice said.

Sai spun around to face the opposite wall and opposite set of blue rectangles. That's when she realised that this was a jail, and these rectangles were jail cells.

"Who are you?" Sai asked.

"You don't know me, don't worry."

"Why are you in there?"

"Because I tried to kill someone, a senshi. The Council hasn't decided what to do with me yet, so they've kept me in here. But, see, they don't know something."

"What's that?"

"That I've got a mission; one that has nothing to do with the Jedi or the Senshi. And you're going to help me."

"How?"

"I need out of here. And you can get me out. Can't you, Your Highness?"

Sai gasped and backed against a wall. Her heart beat faster, and her palms got sweaty. She was told not to tell anyone who she was, no one! So how did this girl know she was a Princess? "I don't know what you're talking about," Sai said. Her voice was shaky and she bit her lip, like she usually did when she was scared.

"Okay, let's see then. Your name is Mahou Saikoro, you were born on Nar Shaddaa, the Wizard Maphtet trained you to use your natural magic that you inherited from your mother, you have a brother who was kidnapped almost immediately after his birth, your father is a Jedi, and your mother is an author. Need I go on?"

"H-how did you know t-that?" Sai asked with tears in her eyes.

"I'm from the future too, Sai. And I work for someone very important. If I don't get out of here, that person will kill me. So, I know you can get me out of here. And you're going to, because if you don't, I'll be forced to tell everyone your secret. It is a secret, right? You looked shocked that I knew."

"But... but you're bad. I can't let you out."

"I'm not bad, Sai. I'm misunderstood. I just want to go home to my family, my friends, and my husband. It doesn't really matter though. You either let me out, or I tell who you are."

Sai was biting her lip so hard that a little drop of blood formed under her top teeth. She didn't know what to do.

"The clock is ticking, Sai. What's your answer?"

The future warning from Xarae echoed throughout the little girl's head. With a great deal of fright, she produced a handful of playing cards. She flung them at the glowing blue force field until they had formed a perfect oval shape. Sai took her wand and used magic to open the space between the cards, allowing the woman to walk out.

"Thank you, Princess," she said. "I owe you one."

"Just don't tell anyone about me, please?" she begged.

"No worries. My name is Kyuu, by the way." Kyuu studied Sai and was struck with another thought. "Hey, how far can that magic go?"

"What do you mean?"

"Can you get me off the planet?"

Sai shook her head.

"Damn. But you can get me to the docking bay, can't you?"

"I guess."

"Well then, what are you waiting for?"

A tear slipped down Sai's face, and she prayed that she'd made the right choice. She raised her wand and said a few words, sending Kyuu to the docking bay. As soon as Kyuu was gone, Sai ran from the room and outside, out to the gardens.

The speeder carrying Annika silently zoomed through the many people and streets making up the top level of Coruscant. None of the children she observed looked even close to Sai. When she got out on a sparsely crowded corner, Annika tipped the driver and then began walking down the many streets.

This was a busy time on Coruscant, the height of tourist season, and there were lots of people roaming about the many shops. A man dressed in a purple jacket stood on the corner yelling, "Jedi! Sailor Jedi! Get your official Sailor Jedi merchandise right here! No one has it cheaper, and no one has this many new items!"

Bemused by this sight, Annika walked over to see what he was selling. Her mouth fell open at the selection. There were shirts, notebooks, writing pens, dolls, action figures, posters, and postcards. A sign nearby was scrawled with loopy letters: 'HOT NEW ITEM!' Annika squealed when she saw that it was Sailor Jedi manga!

"You interested in that, little lady?" Mr Purple Jacket asked.

"Yes! Is there only one volume?" Annika asked.

"For now." He leaned in and whispered, "However, I've got connections in the industry, and I hear there are nine volumes planned. Maybe more."

"Only nine?" Annika frowned. She opened the flap and saw that he price wasn't too expensive, so she bought five copies, one for herself, one for Mika, one for Yuki, one for Chikako (especially because her picture was on the back cover), and one for Sai... if she ever found the little girl, that is.

Annika hit all the candy shops and toy stores, but still didn't see Sai. The sun was growing closer to dipping beneath the horizon, so Annika decided to start on her way back to the Jedi Temple. A shadowy figure dressed in a red cloak suddenly stepped in front of her, wearing black, silk gloves and dark sunglasses.

"Here," the figure said, "Please, take this flyer, we're having a grand reopening."

Annika smiled at the girl before taking the flyer and stuffing it in her pocket - she'd look at it later, because she had to hurry if she was going to catch a speeder home.

Luckily there was a speeder sitting on the corner, and Annika made sure to keep her eyes peeled wide looking for any sign of the missing Sai. In the six hours Annika had been gone, she hadn't received any calls on her communicator. That meant no one had found Sai yet.

Annika looked down at her hands. She felt responsible for Sai, and the fact that the girl was missing caused her a lot of worry and stress. She didn't want to call Obi-Wan, because he needed this time with Anakin, and she also didn't want to bring the rest of the Temple into the search for Sai, because they would continue to think that Annika was inept.

The sun had completely fallen by the time the speeder pulled up to the Temple grounds. The driver looked back at Annika.

"You don't look like no Padawan," he said through a mouth full of rotten teeth.

Annika smiled. "I'm not a Padawan."

"Yeah? What is you?"

She thought for a moment, not quite sure what to say. "I'm nobody."

The driver shrugged. "Whatever rocks your socks, lady. That'll be forty-eight hundred credits."

She paid him and started walking towards the gardens. It wasn't completely dark near the Temple - the light from a few close moons and planets cast a soft glow over the grounds. The gardens were getting closer, and Annika stuck her hand in her pocket to retrieve her watch (the band had snapped outside of 'Nana McCruddin's Baked Goods'), and she felt the crumpled up flyer. She shrugged and pulled it out. She dropped her bag of manga when she read it.

"REJOICE FOR THE MOON HAS RISEN AGAIN OVER THE 13TH LEVEL! GATHER AROUND AND HUDDLE IN THE LUSH BEAUTY OF CLUB SELKET. ONCE AGAIN THE LEGEND HAS SURFACED AND WE, THE BELOVED ONES OF NIGHT, HAVE RETURNED TO PITY YOUR LIVES. LAMIA HERSELF PERSONALLY INVITES YOU TO JOIN HER ON THE NIGHT OF THE FULL MOON FOR A GALA LIKE NONE YOU HAVE WITNESSED BEFORE OR SINCE."

Annika gasped. Selket? Lamia? It had never occurred to her that Lamia would return, or that Selket would reopen. This was the last thing she needed. Her life was wonderful, and just like clockwork, something comes along to throw a spanner into the design.

"Annika?" a small, teary voice asked.

Annika looked down and saw Sai looking very pale and almost sick. She quickly forgot about her problem and crouched down to take the girl by the shoulders.

"Sai! What happened? Where have you been? Are you okay?" Annika hugged the child close.

"I'm not okay," Sai answered.

"Come on, let's go to the Healers."

"No!" Sai pulled her hand away and ran deeper into the gardens. Annika followed.

"Wait! Sai!! Wait!!" Annika ran through the maze until she found an exhausted Sai sitting on a bench that was nestled between various shrubberies. She was sniffling back tears.

Annika sat down next to her and stroked her hair. "I know what happened in school today. I'm so sorry. Usually we would have told the teachers about you being special... about you being from the future, but I guess we forgot about it."

Sai shook her head. "It's not that. Well, it is. But it's something else too. I did something very bad."

"What are you talking about?"

Sai turned her green eyes up to face Annika, and after a few deep breaths she told her about what happened with Kyuu in the holding cells. She couldn't tell the part about Kyuu knowing her name and the fact that she was royalty. So she had to lie, and it tore at Sai's heart, but she had no choice. She told Annika that Kyuu threatened to hurt her if she didn't help, and that's why she let her go. When she has done lying, she felt even worse, and the little girl broke down into tears. Annika hugged her.

"It's okay, Sai! Kyuu is just very determined. She wouldn't have really hurt you. We'll tell the Council in the morning, okay? Don't worry."

The reassurances from Annika calmed Sai's nerves and she stopped crying but still sniffled occasionally.

"Hey! I bought you something!" Annika smiled. "Oh! I dropped my bag! I'll have to go and get it."

"Where did you drop it?"

"At the entrance to the gardens."

Sai sniffled once and nestled deeper under Annika's arm, which was looped over her shoulder. She blinked a few times, and then snapped her fingers. The bag suddenly dropped out of thin air and landed in Annika's lap. Annika looked over at Sai. Her eyes were dropping a bit and she yawned.

"Sai? How do you do that?"

"Magic? It's natural. I got it from my mother. My mother is magic too. See... on town on Nar Shaddaa where my mother is from, is really secretive. And some of the people in that town possess a kind of natural magic. No one is really sure why it is that way, but for some reason, we're the only ones. I mean, no one has this power outside of a few people in my town."

"That's amazing!" Annika whispered.

"It gets better, because there is an underground school there where certain people are taught how to use this magic. I was taught there and my mother was taught there."

"Do you know why you're here, Sai?"

She shook her head. "No. I thought I did. Maybe I have more than one reason. I don't really know. No one told me."

"Do you miss your family?"

"Yes. But, look! I'm brave, you know! And I know that I'll see them soon... Mama and Daddy and my grandmother and step-grandfather. I'll see them again soon. I hope I'm home before the baby is born."

Annika's eyes lit up. "Oh! Your mommy is going to have another baby?"

"Nope. My grandmother. It's like her millionth," Sai laughed.

"Your grandmother has a million children???" Annika said, shocked.

Sai laughed louder. "No! Silly! Not really a million! She just has a lot, that's all."

Suddenly Annika sat upright. Sai's hair colour was close to Obi-Wan's... and Annika did have four future children... that she knew of.

"Er... Sai? Usually when children from the future show up here, they are related to one of us. And er... well... you can tell me, you know? Am I your grandmother?"

Sai looked at Annika with a quizzical eye. "You're not my grandmother," she smiled.

"Oh," Annika said. Honestly, and surprisingly, Annika was a bit sad that she wasn't related to Sai. "Are you ready to go back to the Room Behind the Waterfall now?"

Without warning, a scream echoed throughout the area, and Annika jumped to her feet. "Sai! Stay right here, OK? I'll be right back." She placed her bag on the bench, transformed into Sailor Bakura, and took off running in the direction of the scream.

Sai's feet swung over the ground, and she sighed. "No," she said, watching Annika running, "You're not my grandmother." Sai grinned wide and winked, "Not yet, anyway."

She hopped down from the bench and pulled out her henshin wand. "Abracadabra Ante Up!" After a flurry of confetti, streamers, and glitter, Mahou Saikoro was transformed into Sailor Nar Shaddaa. She placed her frog on the bench. "Stay here, Kentucky." Then she tapped herself on the head and vanished.

She reappeared to see a woman being robbed on the street. Sailor Bakura had just arrived. As much as Sai wanted to see her future grandmother in action, she'd much rather use her own attacks. So she jumped out in front of the bad guy and restrained from using her special phrase, lest Annika put two and two together and guessed that Sai from Nar Shaddaa was also Sailor Nar Shaddaa.

The little Soldier took her wand and began her attack. She produced a black hat into her hand and dug her other hand into it. "Tick-Tock," she began, "Confetti!!!" She pulled a handful of multi-coloured paper bits from the hat and took a deep breath. What was a small handful quickly became an unyielding torrent as Sai blew the paper at the thief. Before that attack had died down, Sai began another one. Using the hat once again, she spun it in her hand dramatically and placed it on her head. Little Sailor Nar Shaddaa cupped her hands in front of her mouth and whispered, "Hat Trick." The hat on her head began to wiggle. "Switcheroo!" she yelled. The hat flew off of her head and leapt over to the thief, who was busy rubbing confetti out of his eyes. The hat swelled in size and then plopped down on him; it covered everything except his head. Suddenly, the large hat got really tight on his body until he couldn't move. He toppled to the ground. Sai marched up to him with her hands on her hips.

"Don't you know that it's wrong to steal??" She took her wand and twirled it in the air, making a large pink bow spring up around the hat. She giggled as Coruscant security descended on the scene. Sai ran off into the bushes. Sailor Bakura followed her. The girl looked really familiar.

She stopped. Annika turned in her tracks and raced back to where she left Sai in the gardens. Part of her wanted to believe that Sai was a senshi, but she couldn't be sure. But when Annika, now back in her regular clothes, returned to the bench, she saw Sai sitting exactly where she had been left. Her frog was sitting on her head, and she was reading a copy of the manga Annika had bought.

"Have you been here the whole time?" Annika asked.

Sai nodded. "Why?"

"Hmm. No reason, I guess. Hey. Are you finally ready to go back to the Room Behind the Waterfall?"

"Yeah. I am." Sai got up and stretched. "I'm kinda sleepy. Annika?"

"Yes, love?"

"May I have my own room? I mean... I don't mind sleeping in yours, but I'd just like to have my own little spot... you know? I noticed there is a room next to yours that's empty."

Annika smiled. "Sure! I don't see why that would be a problem! I'll tell you what. Tomorrow, after you get out of school, and after you apologise to your teacher and classmates, we'll go buy you some furniture, okay?"

Sai smiled and took Annika's hand as they walked back home.