My contribution for what we over on tumblr started calling "Angstober"s Prompt Fic Party. Prompt being "Consider which member of your OTP wakes up to find the other died in their sleep". This idea was taken from tumblr user spaceformymindspace who created this delightful little AU idea where instead of weapons the Death Busters create a way to physically reach into a victim's body and tear out their heart crystal (message me for link). So I had a bit of fun with that. Enjoy.
Wake up. Wake up!
Her skin screams as it knits itself back together, harmonizing with Neptune's own. Little by little senshi healing spits out the bullets lodged in muscle, nerves fusing back together with small bursts of sharp fire. White-hot threads pull her vocal chords too tight to make noise. Her tongue reemerges from its bloody grave with the prick of iron and heat.
Wake up!
Someone yells, another screams. And screams again. Sharp. Loud. Pitching up and down like their heart is being…
And then there is nothing. A grunt, excited murmuring, and fabric sliding on fabric. That too familiar click of heels on stone. The thump. The heavy thump of dead weight hitting the ground.
No
Green eyes pry themselves open despite the protesting of her eyelid attempting to sew itself back together. Eudial stands over her, back turned as her bare shoulders heave with effort. Something shimmers and glows, haloing the woman with a fiery crown. And on the floor, only barely an arms reach away from Haruka, with her hair falling across her face as she lay crumpled on her side, is Michiru.
No!
Time spins, the world tilts, and when she blinks it back, she's sitting. Upright and bent forward, staring at the sleeve in her hands. How had she gotten it? Hadn't Eudial been wearing it? Or maybe Usagi… Usagi?
Usagi shrieks next to her, sobbing as she shakes Haruka's World. Hiccuping as she begs, pleads, orders Michiru
Wake up please just wake up
But the talisman is gone. Stuffed down the front of Eudial's top like a tacky tip at a bar. The talisman's gone and so is Michiru.
"You're so unfair," Haruka's thoughts find voice as the sleeve slides up her arm, "to leave for a world of your own."
And then pain. Different, yet the same as before. Her fingers dig their way through her chest, inching along. Haruka convulses, her body forcing her hand away. Usagi's there, sobbing and tugging her arm away. But Haruka's determined. Metaphyiscal strings snap, sinew tears away until finally –
It's done.
Shimmering like Michiru's and growing, changing in her hand, Haruka smiles. Her vision goes foggy, her head suddenly heavy. So heavy and sinking now or was it floating? Growing farther and farther away from Usagi's hysterical cries as the roar of the wind and the rush of the waves coaxes Haruka to sleep.
Air forces itself back through her lungs, whacking her chest over and over until it flows more naturally. Like water. Like the sea in her veins once more.
Pluto kneels next to her. Silent and waiting, watching as Michiru – Neptune, the power flowing through her corrects as it so often does – chokes and gasps on her hands and knees.
She'd been dead. Actually, truthfully dead. Her heart quivers and shrinks within her at the memory. Muscles tearing apart, the grip around her heart choking the life out of her, the alien force suddenly gone and leaving her hollow and tinny feeling. The gear removed from the toy soldier's box. And then nothing. Nothing until she convulsed back to life on the cold floor of the cathedral.
Truly it was a shame she didn't remember it, the artist in her thinks. It would have been wonderful inspiration.
But still, she's alive. Her talisman had been removed from her being and yet she still breathes. Her limbs howl, her back aches, and a bullet twinges sharply where it had lodged in her chest but she is alive. She wants to laugh -
but for the uneasy quietness that had settled around the Inners. Mars and Venus are unnaturally silent, Pluto's frame too stiff beside her. And why, she wonders, did she feel like her heart had yet to be replaced when Sailor Moon calls out her name?
Blue eyes rise to answer, her perfect smile in place to show the little ones how to truly deal with pain when air disappears once more from her being. Her smile falters, then cracks, choosing instead to form the name of the too still girl before her.
Blonde hair too tousled, fingers too still, Haruka lies unresponsive, unmoved by Michiru's cries.
Wake up please just wake up
It was too much, Pluto will say later over tea, Haruka ripping out her own heart crystal. Too much strain on the mind, soul, and body. It had been hard enough bringing Michiru back after separating talisman from crystal. There was only so much magic could do. And besides, they all knew. There was only so long a body could go without its heart.
Michiru only kneels over Haruka's body, her soul already agreeing. There's only so long a body can go without its heart.