The Shadow of Death

By: InitialA

Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon.

She'd imagined it would be different, dying in the line of duty.

She had illusions of grandeur. A grand sacrifice, if you would.

The acceptance of her fate all those years ago had tarnished so many dreams. "You will be hopeless at love… Your fate is to keep fighting." No endless strings of lovers, no fame and fortune, no passion, no fire in her life… Her teenage dreams turned to dust overnight. She filled the void where she could, masking her hollowness with cheer and motivating others to achieve their dreams and follow their passions.

Then, one day, she heard two girls her own age on the train talking about Sailor V. Money started coming in from Natsuna, and the merchandise sales the other woman had negotiated for her. Her face was everywhere, on keychains and on TV, in video games and posters. She had been in Akihabara on another afternoon, staring at a giant poster of herself taking out a monster from a fight she couldn't remember—was it real? Was it an artist? Were people creating fan art of her and using it as promotional material? She had to find a café to sit down at and process it all.

Maybe she could have both. Her fate was to keep fighting, but that didn't mean her other dreams had to die completely.

A secret identity was a wonderful thing. At any time she could wander the streets of Tokyo and overhear anyone talking about her. What she was doing right, what needed to change, how people saw her image being used, how people felt about her. She had Natsuna bring in a publicist to curb some of the creepier promotional material out—she never asked how Natsuna had found a publicist willing to work only with a shadow, as Minako never met with the woman herself, but she noticed a positive change in the talk on the streets after a few weeks.

The time she didn't spend looking for her allies, she turned into battle strategy time—not for actual battle, but for her image. Which… was actually the same thing, come to think of it. Her battle stances. Her speeches. Her attacks. Artemis would comment now and again that she was spending an awful lot of time breaking into her school at night to train in the gymnasium, and she would only smile and scratch between his ears in the way he liked it. But it helped. Her poise in battle improved. She didn't fall over as much. Her voice didn't waver, and eventually, no one caught her off guard. The day she anticipated an enemy's attack and moved just as its fist would have dislocated her shoulder was the day she overheard someone say they wouldn't know what they would do if Sailor V was hurt or, God forbid, die in battle.

Her imagination ran away with it. Some distant part of her was horrified at this new, morbid fascination, but the rest of her was consumed by imagining her death. How it would affect people. Would they cry? Would her parents care? Would people throw themselves off the Rainbow Bridge in agony? Would there be a memorial? Her death day immortalized as a day for remembrance—of course, for that she would have to die in a truly heroic way…

For years, she kept this part of herself secret from her friends. After overcoming real death at D-point, alone and no fanfare but the wind's howl, and facing it time and time again, her original girlish fantasies diminished in size, and her fascination with it shrank, however lingered still. On bad days, she'd cheer herself up with a new vision, statues erected in her honor after saving thousands of terminally ill children from an untimely death in a burning hospital before perishing to save one, last, sickly child… On good days, she merely hoped someone would live on in her stead.

The first time she and Serenity switched places, she almost hoped the rumors were true, that an assassin as waiting in the wings. For what nobler way to go than in the guise of their beloved queen, sacrificing herself for the sake of the world's happiness? Serenity would surely call for a memorial that would put all others to shame; Venus would lay in state like a queen herself, with the masses weeping over her still form and praising her bravery, her loyalty to her queen…

Of course, Endymion's security team successfully swept the city and uprooted two men who would be no more of a threat to the Senshi's power than a gnat is to an elephant, but it was nice to get lost in a daydream during the odious process of pinning her hair in Serenity's signature style and stuffing herself into the heavy, cumbersome gown.

Yet in the end, this was all she had. Setting the detonation and giving herself three minutes to get the hell out of there. 'Dying' in the line of duty to protect her sisters. Not even a proper death, just vanishing into the night. No body, the bomb's power would see to it that even Mercury would admit that there was no chance of recovering one. Clean. Neat.

In all her imaginings, Venus had never once thought that she might live to see how the people might react to her death. And perhaps this might be for the best. The others needed her protection, and her death would secure at least a year of it, while she moved in the shadows and took out the enemy from behind.

Maybe she would come back, someday. Venus smiled as she ran. That would be a nice, new start. Imagining the myriad of ways she could come back from the dead. Several fantasies would probably include extensive zombie makeup and prosthetics. Others might include just appearing and taking up her roles in government again as if nothing had happened. Serenity would cry and hold her. Jupiter would punch her a lot. Mercury might actually faint. Mars would absolutely never speak to her again.

Or maybe her true death would claim her, silent and alone, with only the wind to hear her last breath.

And wouldn't that be the most fitting of all? She thought, as the building went up in fire and smoke behind her. She didn't stop to look at her handiwork, just kept running, as silent as the shadow of death.