Wicked.
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Title: Paradox
Author: Shannello
Pairing: Setsuna&Chibiusa
Genre: Dark fantasty
Rating: M
Squicks: Age difference, yuri, charater death.. Good stuff, eh?
Notes: I was re-reading Sailormoon manga the other day. I read through it pretty fast - kinda skipped through things - but I read the Black Arc really slow. I just love Chibiusa's evil self, and Setsuna, or actually, just Setsuna and Chibiusa. 'Cuz, well, I'm weird that way.
Setting: Starts around Usa's birth, then enters the Black Arc - mostly around Act 20 - 23
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standstill.
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She is alone in the night, suspended between dark and day—she is alone, and cold, and her heart ticks in her chest like a hollow clock.
This is rare.
It occurs to Setsuna that it is time, and this is her moment. For once, the heavy, indestructible bonds of time are loosened.
And now, she is free, but her ankles are shackled to this castle, still, because she is a warrior, and can never leave.
This is my duty. It is forbidden for me to go against my Queen's orders. It is forbidden to trust anyone other than her—even my own heart.
So, here she sits, until the sun rises and spills its slivery light through the crystalline walls of Crystal Tokyo. She sits, and remembers why she is free from her duty, as silver sunlight polishes one side of her sharp face.
She rises, carrying the weight of her duty with her, then—in one beautiful, sinuous movement—drops it.
It falls around her like paper-linked chains.
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The halls are hollow, but full of morning's light, and to Setsuna the light looks like slaughtered ghosts. They follow her as she steps slowly forward, toward the ice colored, glass-like doors; where the screams escape—where she should be.
She walks like she is carrying a princess; one slow step at a time, cautiously, affectionately, cordially.
Another cry breaks her crystal tranquility and Setsuna opens the door.
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She is beautiful.
Not Neo-Queen Serenity, but the child in her soft arms.
Setsuna can barely breathe, and this scares her like nothing has ever before. Her hands—so womanly, so strong, so powerful - begin to shake, and Setsuna watches them in unexplainable terror. She feels like she is falling apart.
"—like to hold her?"
She glances up, suffering something she's never known, and stares at the Queen minutely. Neo-Queen Serenity laughs softly, almost weakly, in her throat, and repeats: "Would you like to hold her?"
Setsuna's hollow-clock-heart ticks faster in her chest as the baby's moved to her—as the world slows down around her—until it shatters, and her heart stops fleetingly.
This is rare, Setsuna thinks, and takes the child into her arms, her movements slow and rounded as she folds her fingers around her tiny hand.
The baby makes a soft noise, and a lance of warmth spreads through her ice-cold body. She's on fire in an instant—I feel as if my world is unright for me.
She feels unexplainably empty when they take Usagi from her arms.
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timeshattered.
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It's been many years since Chibiusa's birth, so many stained centuries, and yet, the princess has not aged a day. Sometimes, Setsuna wonders why it bothers her so much. It is not her duty to agonize over the princess.
Chibiusa visits her everyday, and they talk for hours, tearing Sailorpluto from her responsibility. The line between what she wants to do and what she has to do is blurred and obscure, somewhere, all around her, when Chibiusa steps through her door.
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"You are growing into a beautiful woman, Small Lady," Setsuna tells her, holding her little, white hand in her lithe, dark one. Gingerly, she presses it to her lips.
But Chibiusa is still small, and everyone worries.
"You're very beautiful, and someday, Small Lady, everyone will know." Setsuna's eyes grow very dark, and Chibiusa watches her in curiosity.
"Not only you?"
"Not only me. The entire Kingdom will know."
Chibiusa smiles a smile that scares Setsuna, because its so pure that she's scared it'll cleanse her, purify her to dust. It's so innocent, so delicate, and Setsuna is afraid that it'll fade from her lips and vanish into time.
Setsuna looks away, and when she looks back, Chibiusa is still there, still smiling, and everything is fine.
She smiles back.
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Forgive me, dearest Queen, for I have sinned.
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Many moons have passed over them, and still, the princess returns.
"Pluto, thanks for being my friend," the princess constantly reminds her, and it throbs deep in her bones even after the words have faded. "I like you even more than my Mama."
Don't say that, she aches to whisper, you love your mother, please, don't say that.
But she never does. She presses Chibiusa to her breast, and the princess stays there, listening to the ticking clock inside of her. Setsuna closes her eyes, and half-wishes that she could be born again, in another time, where she could live in amity with her princess, her mistress.
Into her chest, Chibiusa speaks, "Of them all, you're my favorite, Puu."
Setsuna sighs, unsure of what to say, what to do, so she sighs again and thinks.
I feel as if my world is uncomplete, and full of nothing. But, when I hear her voice, I...
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"Everyone hates me, Puu!" cries Chibiusa, burying her face in Setsuna's lap, staining the skirt with her ageless tears. "I'm small… I'll always be small!"
Setsuna takes the princess small chin and lifts it gently, "I don't hate you," she says, her voice ringing true, like fine crystal when tapped. "I will never hate you. No matter how long we are together, or apart—millenniums or longer—I will always care for you."
Chibiusa stares up slowly, unsure, but believing. "Really? Really, you'd love me even after a 1000 years?" Small, silver tears well up in the corners of her pretty, blue eyes.
Setsuna smiles—only for her—and adds gently, "I will always."
Chibiusa laughs softly in elation, and stands higher—on her knees, then her feet—and presses her small, pink lips to Setsuna's.
She smiles sweetly, like a precious child, and tells her, "Thank you, Puu. Without you… I'd be alone with mean people all the time!"
Setsuna tries to laugh, but her mind is running in endless circles, around, around, around the little princess.
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They are close, and everyone worries.
Why do they care so much? We aren't doing anything wrong! I know, Small Lady, but they are allowed to worry. They care about you.
They are close, and still, everyone worries, but they are getting better at forgetting.
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Then, it is only Setsuna she runs to.
There is a bright glow, a strange guide that lights the halls when Chibiusa awakes alone at night. Even in the dark, she would find her.
Estranged in her own castle, the princess of Crystal Tokyo pinches the seams of her dress and lifts it high. Her bare feet stick to the smooth floor as she spills out of her corridors like a flood, farther, to the forbidden part of the castle, into her arms, her only—
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And then everything is cold.
She doesn't remember when she'd become so selfish. She wants, and wants, and really wants.
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coldkisses.
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Time flows quicker than she remembers, and soon, Crystal Tokyo is but a beautiful memory on the wind. The past seems so close, yet so distant, like everyone Setsuna has ever known.
Setsuna is so afraid for Chibiusa that she forgets that there ever were a Neo-Queen Serenity, a King, or regal protectors.
There is an evil, greater than anything this Kingdom has known, and Neo-Queen Serenity from the past has come to save them all. For once, Setsuna wishes that she could leave that miserable post, and fight, and be a warrior in the princess' eyes. Make her proud.
Objectively, she leaves it all to Sailormoon, placing the weight of saving the Kingdom into the arms of a fourteen-year-old girl.
Later, Setsuna waits for her princess at the Gates of Time, but she never comes. Still, the guardian has a duty, and the door stays shut. Even when her clock-heart ticks madly in her chest, and her breath catches somewhere in her neck.
Where is she? Where is my princess?
All warmth ever placed in her by Chibiusa slowly fades away. She doesn't know where the urge comes from, but she cannot help from shouting. "Something is wrong with Small Lady!"
No one is there to listen.
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Setsuna can feel the purity in the princess die down like waves after a storm. She shivers, and leans against her staff as she waits, because that is all she's allowed to do. While Sailormoon is saving the ruins of Crystal Tokyo, Sailorpluto remains, and withers away behind that forbidden door.
Where are they? Sailormoon and the others are gone, and Chibiusa has become something wrong. Setsuna feels torn, and though she wants to save her princess, she cannot.
"Why are you looking so sad?" prods a dark, familiar voice, and Setsuna's heart jumps in place.
"Who dares to disturb this forbidden place?" demands Setsuna, tripping on her words, and there's a shrill laugh.
A slender figure moves from within the shadows where time cannot reach, coming out into the light. "What? You've forgotten? Well, that's fine. I'm not your princess, anymore." She's beautiful, though, with long, pink hair, curves and breasts, and eyes that glisten red. Setsuna steps back when she wants to step forward.
"I am called Black Lady."
She moves closer, stepping like there is blood, spilt across the grounds. Her eyes are cold, indifferent, ravenous. Setsuna thinks her name suits her.
"What do you want with this place?" asks Setsuna, but Black Lady smiles, and her smooth flow of speech is halted.
"Not this place; with you. Something in me wants you. I should relieve it of its misery—"
Black Lady reaches out, and Setsuna readies her staff, but the woman only touches her dark cheek. Her hand sinks down along Setsuna's sharp jaw line to her neck, where she seizes gently, jerking Setsuna closer.
Their lips meet roughly, tongue on tongue, breasts to breasts. Setsuna wavers, thinking she's going to sink into this woman, this familiar stranger, this beautiful nightmare. Black Lady purrs into Setsuna's throat, and the vibrations tickle her tongue.
"I'll make you happy," promises Black Lady, already lowering Setsuna to her knees. "I'll keep making you happy…"
She's undressing her, and Setsuna feels like time is weighing her down, crushing her lips. But the cold emotion that Black Lady leaves on her warm skin makes her twist inside, makes her lust, makes her want more. One erect nipple is free, and Black Lady quickly swallows it with her lips, moving her tongue around it in practiced motions. Setsuna moans and sinks lower into taboo.
The woman's hands roam everywhere, into places Setsuna, herself, hasn't even ventured. Her fingers caress the pit of Setsuna's frustration, the fiery hollow of lust and passion.
"Let me make you happy," breathes Black Lady, as she lowers herself, angrily, "Let me make you happy for centuries to come. We'll live together in that empty castle…" Setsuna listens, half-wishing she could.
"…fucking."
Black Lady—visibly angry, visibly determined—works through the layers of Setsuna's skirt, dissapearing fully inside the patterned miniskirt. There's a smile on her lips that looks poisonous, dangerous, but Setsuna's world is folding in and out around her, her senses waltzing miles away on the timestroked horizon. Black Lady smacks her lips, and slowly strokes Setsuna with her tongue, sharply suckling Setsuna's womanhood, and the Guardian of Time buckles, suddenly awake. Ashamed, she slaps away the dark woman with the inside of her palm, and Black Lady stares at her with a face of pure resentment.
"How dare you come here, attempting to reduce me to someone as vile as you!" Her face is red with anger, and hot with the pleasure that she almost received.
Surprised, and irritated, Black Lady covers her cheek with one hand, pushing off the floor with the other. "You… you wanted me to fuck you. You're just as vile."
"NO!"
Setsuna screams, and everything is very quiet, and very bright for a moment.
It feels like someone is opening the Gates, but Setsuna still can't see through the blinding silver light. Something soft—a pair of dark colored lips—press to hers, and she lets her eyes fall closed.
"We could have been happy, Pluto…"
The doors shuts quietly behind her, and Setsuna sinks down to her knees, her breast still exposed, and sobs.
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enchanted.
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Sailormoon does save her friends, but Setsuna doesn't care anymore. Nothing has been so degrading, so wretched, so close to real passion. She's never felt that hot.
Something peels her from her misery; Sailormoon's battle isn't over, and Prince Diamond has the worst taboo on his side.
"Please, Pluto, I'm small, but I can take your place while you fight," pleads Diana.
Those words. "I'm small…"
A burning pain lances through her chest, and she rises from her grave. "I'll go," she says, her heart still ticking fast, "I'll bring back our princess."
Pluto runs through the Gates of Time, stripping away her violated shell and continuing on as Sailorpluto, beautiful protector of princess Usagi.
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She sees Prince Diamond from a far, and the two Silver Crystal in his hands, and without knowing what she is doing her staff is already in place. She screams out, despite the concerned looks painted on the faces around her, and the confused, hurt look on Black Lady. She freezes time, and the Silver Crystals are saved.
She sinks to the ground, her body seeping life, as her existence slowly returns to the seams of time.
It hurts, everyone, all around her, but she closes her eyes and endures it. She knows she's sinned very badly over these years, but part her doesn't want to believe that. She wants to believe that her love for the princess was pure, and not taboo, and by believing that, she can die in peace.
Sailormoon's tears mark her face, as the future Queen kneels over her, asking her why?
Because. I had a duty. I had to protect the one I loved.
She looks slowly, very slowly, to the side, at Black Lady.
She narrows her eyes, and looks through her, and instead, she looks at Chibiusa, her princess.
Her duty falls around her, no longer needed, because Setsuna has finally understood why. It falls into her hair, behind her eyes, into her heart where an emptiness invaded when she met someone who took her heart, and then, many years later, fucked it.
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Review? Well duh.