Sailormoon: Millennial Earth -- A Sailormoon Fanfic
Sailor Galaxia has been defeated, and the year 2000 has finally arrived. The Sailor Senshi have now joyfully returned to their normal lives, albeit a little clouded with the departure of Mamoru. He now goes to finish his last semester of study abroad at Harvard -- his previouse semester having been sidelined. But nothing ever stays quiet for long. Will the Sailor Senshi have to power up again as Winter seems to linger on? And who is this American girl that Mamoru has grown close to? What adventures await as the new Millennium nears? So begins the next installment of Sailormoon. Millennial Earth.
(Author's Note: This story takes place after the end of Sailormoon Stars (using elements of both the manga and anime).
Prologue
Dust motes danced through the sunlight filtering in through the small window of the attic. But the color belied any warmth that was to be obtained. Em stood in the empty attic, save for one lonely chest, and wrapped her arms around herself, trying not to let the emptiness get to her. Had Mom known she was going to die? she asked herself. She had come home early for winter vacation because of her mother's death. She had found the house neat and clean. Things that had been in storage for as long as she could remember had been given to charities, which she knew of because of old receipts dated a few months earlier. "She had to have known," she whispered, and slowly made her way to the chest.
This was the only thing remaining in the attic left to be taken out. Not that there was much to begin with, but Em figured that her mother must have grown too tired to continue her cleaning. She sighed. "Oh, mom, why didn't you say anything?" New tears sprang up in her eyes, red from days of tears. She wondered why she hadn't felt anything was wrong. "Too caught up in myself!" she berated herself. Her Senior year in college. She'd be graduating in May, and this past fall semester had been busy with those things that she would never get to experience again as a student -- a beautiful fall season on a college campus as a student, Homecoming, the Halloween social, the Winter dance. But she would now trade all those things to have her mother back.
Em slid to the floor by the chest and wept. The emptiness began to creep up on her -- something she had never known. Even when her father had died years ago, her mother had still been there. Em didn't have any close relatives, which she hadn't minded growing up, but now she wished for more. "Please! I don't want to be alone. Mother!" she wailed.
Em gasped as she felt a warmth envelope her, seeming to come from below. A voice as many voices whispered to her. 'Be still, Daughter. Mother. Your final wish is beginning to take fruit. Take heart. You are never alone. The other half waits for you.'
Em blinked to find her tears gone and her cheeks dry. She knew she had heard a voice. And she also knew it was not her mother, and yet, it felt like it. "Who are you?" she asked the empty room. No answer came. She waited a few moments, and sighed. "Just your imagination, Em." She was about to get up to her feet and start dragging the chest to the stairs leading down from the attic, when she felt the urge to look through the chest.
She knew the chest. It contained some of her childhood things, but for some reason her mother had always kept it in an out-of-the-way place. She lifted the lid, more dust motes flying up, like fairies in a dance. She rummaged through, finding blankets, dolls, and scrapbooks. She took everything out and was disappointed that there wasn't more. She almost felt like there was. She carefully sat with a scrapbook and thumbed through it. No baby pictures. Her mother had said those had burned in a fire a long time ago. Somehow, that didn't feel quite right. All of a sudden, the top to the chest fell with a hollow thud. Em's hand flew to her chest in fright, but she quickly calmed down. She then thought a moment. She gently opened the top again and let it fall. Again the hollow thud, but this time she picked up what she thought she had heard before -- a light tinkling, like jewelry. She looked into the chest again to see if she had missed something. It was empty. That's when she noticed that the bottom of the chest was a different color wood than the rest. Her eyes narrowed as she examined it. She chewed on her lower lip for awhile, thinking. She let her fingers trail over the chest, and then, getting up, she heaved it over. The false bottom splintered and cracked from the stress. She reached back into the chest, carefully pulling up the wood. The rest sighed freely from its surroundings, and she laid it aside.
Her eyes went wide as she beheld a simple bound notebook and a small, blue velvet pouch, partially opened, with what looked like a silver necklace falling out. "That's what must have been tinkling," she mused. She reached down, and slid the contents of the pouch into her hand. The necklace slid through her fingers like water as a silver pendant rested in her hands. It was oval shaped, but curved in and out in a simple design. In the middle, a simple rose was engraved. She let a finger run over its smooth, cold surface, and then she hit a small bump on the side. She smiled slightly. It was not a pendant, but a locket. She tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge. She didn't want to break it, so she stopped trying, and instead, picked up the notebook. She opened it and smiled wistfully as her mother's familiar handwriting stared back at her. She began to read.
"A child appeared on our doorstep today. Is she the answer to our prayers? We've given up hope of children, and could never afford some of the advances in medicine that could have helped us conceive. But this lovely child, with eyes the color of the deep sky, and hair an odd shade, almost lavender, like that of the blush of the rarest orchid. A silver pendant hanging off of a silver necklace is the only clue to her, I think, but I can't seem to get it open. And she only looks at me with those eyes and keeps repeating 'Earth. Mother. Earth. Mother.' I don't know what that means, but we've taken to calling her EM. We've contacted the police..."Em swallowed as she stared at the words on the page. She shook her head in disbelief and continued on to the next pages.
"We adopted Em today. Such joy fills my heart, for this precious little girl seems like a gift to me. No one ever came to claim her. I do not think I can tell her all of this. How would I feel that no one had claimed me? Perhaps they thought a child with lavender hair was deformed... Odd how nobody comments on that. The way people are, I was sure they would comment on it."Em let a hand slide over her hair. She knew it was lavender, and yet no one had ever teased her about it. They had made fun of her hairstyle, usually her long hair pulled back, except for two long, curled locks falling on either side of her face freely. But never the color. She then stopped as the words on the page finally hit home. She had been adopted. And worse. No one had claimed her. Her mother was right. "But she really wasn't my mother..." she sighed. Apparently, no one was. 'Child. Mother. You are all.'
She snapped her eyes shut. The voice again. But then the sensation of it was gone. Hadn't she read something about this, about those going through depression? But, she knew that wasn't it. As sure as she knew her mother, or that woman that she knew as her mother was dead, she knew that voice was real. However odd. She flipped to the last page and only saw a few words written, almost as if in haste:
"The pendant is the key. She cannot know. This and it will be put up. I doubt she'll ever see these … "In frustration, Em threw the notebook across the room, startling a moving man as he was walking up the stairs to the attic.
"Uhm, Miss, we've loaded everything up. You said you wanted this loaded into your truck," he said, pointing to the chest.
Em looked at him, a slow blush creeping up her cheeks. What a child she must seem, throwing things across rooms. She sighed and shook her head, trying not to let the tears in her eyes fall. "No, jus- just put it all in with the rest of the stuff to take to storage." She then looked at the pendant resting by the blue velvet pouch. Her fingers bent to it, slowly caressing, and then her hand took it up, gripping it fiercely. "Except this," she whispered. "This is the key to who I am."
"Miss?"
She blinked at the man several times. "Nothing. Please make sure that everything is loaded up." She walked past him, staring at the pendant, and walked down the stairs.
She looked around one final time, through the large empty house that she grew up in. What memories she had, now tainted slightly. She knew her mother loved her, but she wondered why she had never said anything. "I would have liked to have known, Mom." The house seemed to sigh. She walked out the front door, locking it behind her. The movers had already left with the last remaining things to put in storage. That's where she wanted to leave everything forever. But, she would have to deal with it sometime. She was thankful school was starting soon, and she would have to busy herself with that.
A cool gust of wind swept by, making the windchime hanging from the front porch dance slightly with its light tinkling to accompany it. She smiled lightly, remember many evenings spent on the porch, listening to that wind chime. She then sighed. "May you give happy memories to another one, dear friend." And with that, she walked off the porch, and to her car.
