This will be my last confession: 'I love you' never felt like any blessing
-Florence + The Machine
This fic is my love song to the first arc of the manga, and my favorite characters. I don't think I could ever do it justice, but this is what I have to offer.
Minako is used to deja vu. This is something else, though, a glitch in her mind as she tries to recognize the sunny school girl she'd been watching for weeks, with the broken, sobbing princess before her.
"Sailor Moon-" she starts, and corrects herself. "Serenity-" It's not right either. But it has to do. "You remember right? About me, Sailor Venus? About how Sailor Venus was the true guardian of your senshi, assigned to protect you? About our kingdom, the Silver Millennium."
Serenity's eyes are red-rimmed, hands shaking. "I remember."
It's what Minako had wanted for so long, but she takes no joy from a truth revealed in sacrifice, stained with blood. Still, she doesn't allow herself the luxury of guilt; there is no time for that now.
"I didn't plan on this to happen," Luna looks agitated, lost. "I never imagined that Tuxedo Mask was Endymion."
Minako is silent. Artemis, too.
A lie of omission is still a lie.
Because who else could he ever have been but Endymion?
Minako doesn't know when Usagi first meets him. For all her surveillance, she must have missed that moment, fleeting as it was.
All she knows, is suddenly he is there. And, for all the random people in Usagi's life, he catches Minako's attention from the start.
The puzzle pieces are supposed to be falling into place, and he fits nowhere in the narrative she can place.
She bristles when Artemis suggests she's reading too much into it, this random acquaintance Usagi doesn't seem to even like. Artemis doesn't notice the flush in Usagi's cheeks, the gleam in her eyes. It screams to Minako like sirens.
This boy - He watches Ami's cram school, he rides on Rei's bus. He speaks to Usagi like he has a secret, his lips curled like he won't tell. His eyes linger on her for longer then they should. He appears where he shouldn't be - in battle, at the embassy ball. He does what he shouldn't do.
Minako doesn't like how familiar it is, the feeling of unease and dislike when she glimpses the blue of his eyes.
Artemis isn't around when Minako goes into Luna's database. The black cat is as suspicious as she is, and already has logged his information. Tuxedo Kamen. Mamoru Chiba. Age, Birthday, Blood Type, all unknown guesses. Currently attends Moto Azabu Private High School.
When Minako first heard Usagi's name, not Princess Serenity, but Usagi Tsukino - it stirred something inside her she couldn't place. Like she'd been waiting to hear it, like she'd dreamed them all before: Ami Mizuno. Rei Hino. Makoto Kino. It's like singing along with a song you'd never heard before, liking peeling back the pages of an old familiar story book, and discovering a new ending.
Mamoru Chiba felt like not recalling the right word, and being forced to change the sentence completely. It feels like something out of her control.
At Azabu, she's disguised as a young male student, and draws no attention. She finds Mamoru sitting under a tree, reading a book all alone.
The memory of Endymion slams into her like a punch in the stomach. She is watching the prince look up from where he is seated beneath a tree. His smile is cocky, almost smug, and she hates it. "Venus," he says, bowing his head but not standing up. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" He looks too at ease and it stings her. He should be more worried, he should be stronger, he should at least be contrite.
He has no right.
Bile rises in her throat and Minako goes home without speaking to him.
She sees Tuxedo Kamen on the news, in the papers. She watches him unravel the secrets she sacrificed so much to protect, watches him put her princess in danger for his own selfish gains.
Minako feels Serenity's hands grasp her arms, hears the princess scream in her ear, tastes smoke in her mouth. It's always like this when the princess is in danger.
She tries to pick apart her emotions before they overwhelm her: anger, determination, even desperation. But mostly all encompassing love, inescapable, in her veins. Love like a purpose. Love like a punishment.
"This is dangerous," she tells Artemis, who agrees.
"Harm may come to the princess," he says. "Drawing them out like this."
"He's Endymion," she spits, and Artemis nods.
"I know."
"I promise, I will never let anything happen to Serenity. I would die first." Endymion depended too much on promises. Made too many. Kept too many. The irony was not lost on her.
The newspaper is crumbled in Minako's fist.
She is there when Sailor Moon heals an entire city block, and she's there when Usagi collapses, when Mamoru picks her up and carries her away.
Minako doesn't realize she's clenching her fists, until she feels the blood in her palms.
"She may be Sailor V, but she is also the heir to the sacred crystal, and the Kingdom of the Moon," Artemis says, "her highness Princess Serenity."
The insignia burns on Minako's forehead like a brand.
"I knew it!" Usagi cries, her eyes shining at Sailor Venus. She blinks, puts a hand to her head as her tiara transforms in a flash of light. "I-" her gaze grows confused, for a moment, like the name jostled something loose. Minako watches without breathing, but a footfall behind her breaks the spell.
"Who is watching us?" She cries, although she already knows. Her love-me chain is let loose without a second thought, and Tuxedo Kamen dodges quickly. For a moment their eyes meet, she can see his expression through the mask. His eyes widen when they meet hers, he looks still surprised, unnerved. Then he is gone.
Minako blinks, and turns. Now is not the time.
She turns to her senshi, tears pricking behind her eyes. They touch, they learn, and for a moment their eyes look clouded, on the verge of a memory not quite there.
Soon, Minako thinks, and Sailor Moon grabs her hand, her arm. She remains close as they go to the arcade, Minako does not move away.
She tells them about their mission, her past, and manages not to cringe whenever they call her 'princess.'
"Such a brave, admirable princess," Usagi murmurs, fingers lacing through hers, "It's almost like you are protecting us." Minako doesn't flinch when she meets Usagi's eyes, but only squeezes her fingers back.
Almost.
Usagi is talking to Mamoru in the park, she's flushed and fumbling with her hands, smiling like she can't stop. He's disarmed her with only a word, even though she was the one who greeted him with a kiss to the temple. His eyes are soft and his smile is genuine. Minako squints an eye closed, sighing.
She doesn't like it, how obviously in love he is. It ends badly, this. She remembers enough to know that.
Luna rolls her eyes and leaves, muttering about they are 'in their own little world'. Minako can't help her lips pulling up, Luna has said the same thing before about them, although she doesn't remember.
It's a while before Usagi leaves, her hands clutching something, like a small child with a new treasure.
Minako waits until Mamoru is seated again, until he replaces his glasses and opens his book, before she strides up and clears her throat.
He looks at her for a long moment before he nods his head, without getting up. "Princess Serenity." His expression is friendly, but he does not smile.
"You can call me Aino," she says. Then, "You were there last night, watching."
His silence is as unnerving as Endymion's constant boasting. Minako feels unsettled and doesn't know why. She does notice his hands tightening on the book he's holding, his knuckles whitening slightly.
"It's thanks to you that s- that everyone is safe," he says. "It's not my place to thank you, but I want to anyway."
"Are you our enemy?" she asks, boldly.
"No," he answers.
Her eyebrow quirks before she can stop it. "Luna told me you said differently, back at the embassy ball."
She is not surprised when he doesn't respond.
"Has something changed?" she asks, but the question is unnecessary, and remains unanswered.
Mamoru is a good three years her senior, but in that moment he looks very young all of a sudden. And she feels so old.
It's the last time she speaks to him before he dies.
Tokyo Tower is the most pivotal point of Minako's life. She looks back on it and feels nothing, violently.
It's Minako's hand that Usagi grabs in panic, it's her neck Usagi throws her arms around. It's her shirt that is dampened with tears when Usagi falls apart, after the black-eyed man with her lover's face pulls too hard at her seams. "He called me the wrong name," she mumbles into into Minako's shoulder.
Minako holds Usagi close and thinks: I have to be the one to kill him.
But in the end, hands more precious than hers wield the final blow.
She kills Beryl, though. Minako tastes metal, and screams at the long-dead moon queen in her mind: is this enough? Is this finally, finally enough?
The princess's blood is still wet on the marble.
It always comes full circle.
The air is heavy, thick with summer.
Minako knows Usagi will be late, so she arrives at the park bench first. This time, Mamoru stands. It takes a moment before Minako extends her hand. He takes it, and it's not quite a handshake. It isn't exactly a truce, but it may be something more.
They let go at the same time.
Minako still doesn't particularly like him. But it's hard not to think of them both as two sides of the same love.
"Mamo-chan! Mina-P!" Usagi is running, her eyes bright and her hair curling in the humidity. She greets Minako first, small hands in hers, and Minako reaches up and runs the pads of her fingers across Usagi's flushed face. The other girl's eyes are a paradox; too clear, too young, for all the centuries beneath them.
It hurts, this love. That's what he'll always understand. They have that in common, at least.
"I was just leaving," Minako says, picking up her bag. The princess is standing beside the prince, her hand curled onto his elbow as if it was created just for that purpose. Blink, and she is just a young schoolgirl in the first flush of love.
Eventually the pieces will fall into place.
Minako has already figured out where she fits.