AN: Fair warning, this is pretty dark. I don't know why the plot bunnies had to go this particular route, or why they continue to be UNCONCERNED WITH THE MAJOR PROJECT I'VE BEEN STRUGGLING WITH FOR A YEAR NOW, but this is what popped into my head with no forethought tonight. If you like it, I'm glad. If not, well, I'm not sure what to think either.
Disclaimer: It's probably past being worth saying at this point, but I still don't own Sailor Moon.
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His deep voice had been reduced to nothing more than a soothing rumble beneath her cheek as she let her mind drift, carried by words she no longer heard. A vague recollection said he had been reading her a passage that claimed to know the beauty and ways of her goddess, but she'd chosen to ignore it and bask in his solid presence.
There was nothing else to give her comfort in a world gone dark.
Tearing up at the unwelcome thought, Minako rolled to her feet and hurried to the window, gazing out on the streets of Tokyo. They were almost deserted, its people driven inside by the storm overhead. Kunzite sighed behind her and closed the book but made no effort to bridge the gap between them.
"Your anger cannot undo the horrors of the past."
She didn't respond as she brought a strand of golden hair over her shoulder and twisted it around her fingers so tightly that it cut off circulation. After several seconds of that, he finally got to his feet and undid it before retreating.
"They're gone. How can you be so calm?"
"It has been years, Mina. What else can I do but accept it and move on?"
It made her want to cry again, but she resisted. If she wept every time she considered what had happened, the water of the entire world would already have been spent. No doubt the same was true of the others.
The girls had all been horribly traumatized that night, and the return of the generals they had thought dead had done little to ease it. Rei, volatile as always, chose to throw herself headlong into their old feelings because she could turn off her memories and pain while the passion burned. Ami similarly embraced their presence, particularly his, but because they could be distracted by their need to know more about anything and everything. The passion came later. Makoto had initially withdrawn, running from what had happened, but he followed and persisted until she agreed to indulge in the same escapism of the others. Minako, the self-proclaimed goddess of love, had resisted.
In a way, she still was.
"I wish I could stop loving you," she whispered into the glass.
He heard despite the almost imperceptible volume. "I know. Sometimes I wish the same."
Eight years. Torturous, endless years of pain and desperate wishes that never came true.
They were gone. The people who made their lives worthwhile, who gave them a reason to exist. The prince and princess had died without considering what it would do to their devoted servants, so lost in their love and the overwhelming necessity to save the world.
"I wish you were dead."
"I know."
"I wish – I wish –"
This time when he closed the gap, he stayed. "I know. You do not need to repeat it every time it storms."
She turned into his chest and cried, because his calm understanding made it so much worse. She wanted him to truly not love her, to be dead and gone and forgotten because it was too hard having a reminder in her life day after day even knowing she wouldn't have survived so long without him.
That day eight years ago, after Metallia was freed and the Earth's fate precariously uncertain, Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen had combined their powers to destroy her from the inside, uncaring of what it would do to them as long as they were together. The Senshi, anguished by the loss, sacrificed their ability to transform in hopes of saving them and failed. As though the universe wished to make them suffer more, they were instead granted the lives of the generals they had loved and lost a lifetime ago.
She didn't, couldn't, forgive him for what he had done under Beryl, but she did realize he was the only one of the Shitennou to even attempt to make amends before Metallia was gone and they had no reason to be evil. The leader of the generals had recognized his prince as such and attempted to free them both, only to be caught and subjugated to Beryl's whims entirely, sent on a suicide mission to stop them. She had no regrets for being a part of the attack that had turned him to dust.
"Why can't you just be angry too?" she demanded.
He rubbed his hands up and down her arms, trying to warm her after her prolonged contact with the chilly glass. "I have never claimed to not be angry, Mina. I just see no point in letting it out when I would only be hurting myself."
Because he knew, but he didn't really understand. She had to be angry and hurt so she felt justified in living when they were gone. If she felt that way, she was remembering them, and she owed them that at least.
She leaned into his shoulder. "Don't leave me," Minako whispered.
"I won't," he replied gently, and though he meant it kindly her mind automatically weighed the words as both a promise and a threat.
It was worse for them. The generals were suffering, yes, but they had lost an idea more than anything else. She and the other girls had essentially lost everything, and their will to live along with it. Most of them had scars from the reckless things they'd done in hopes of being free. It wasn't that they'd tried to kill themselves, but they wanted to. Going through the motions of everyday life was more than they could handle during the bad times.
"I don't know who I am now."
"You are you. That is all you can be, and that is all that matters."
She wanted to push him away, fight, scream, but it would have required a strength she no longer had. Sailor Venus was irretrievably gone, and all that was left was a weak human shell that needed him if she was going to remember how to move, or breathe, or anything other than the pain. The fact that he accepted everything she threw at him with silent resignation only made it harder.
The light was gone, and all she could do was follow him through the unending night until it was over.
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AN: So, like I said, dark. Still, please let me know what you think. It feeds the plot bunnies, and hopefully that will convince them to start multiplying in the right direction for a change. I desperately need to get work done on "Death of Stars". As always, thanks for reading, please leave a contribution in the little box and such. Till next time!