...
Ami moved gracefully despite her injuries, in a way Makoto secretly admired and Ami probably didn't even notice. She had a feminine air about her that Makoto had never quite mastered. It suited her well, though Ami would never admit it.
They walked in companionable silence. Or rather, the silence between them was companionable. The silence of their surroundings, however, was verging on hostile.
Something about the place had Makoto on edge. It could have been the quiet, or the apparent emptiness, or the endless halls that had to end somewhere because she was so damn sick of walking and waiting for some crazed youma to jump out at her that she could scream.
Or it could have had something to do with falling very far and landing very hard in a reasonably large but entirely unexpected hole in the ground. It seemed fair to assume the place was hostile, if only due to the circumstances that brought them here.
Either way, she was unnerved.
It felt like a lot of time had passed, but Makoto wasn't really sure anymore. Nothing ever seemed to change here. The floor remained checkered and lacquered, and the black granite walls were just as irritatingly shiny as always, as if they were intentionally taunting her, daring her to find out where the light was coming from.
Makoto could see their reflections as they walked, a little blurred, but clear enough. In fact, their reflections were almost all she could see, slithering along every surface, stalking them.
It may not have been so irritating if she didn't look like shit right now. It was just cruel to remind her of it so unrelentingly. Her fuku was a mess, and she was hyperaware of each strand of hair that had fallen from her ponytail, but she had yet to find the motivation to fix it.
They slowed as they reached the end of another hall, faced with the choice of left or right. They started down the right hall without speaking. Ami had suggested they switch each time they had the opportunity, to avoid going in circles, though Makoto couldn't really tell if it was working or not.
The halls seemed to get longer and lead nowhere and she wasn't handling the frustration all that well. It was like being trapped in a cage, she imagined, like a lab rat. Maybe they were unknowingly being tested, experimented on. For what, she didn't know. But it couldn't be anything good.
She felt as though they were being watched.
Of course, she was being watched.
Ami glanced over at her for the twenty-third time and smiled, ever so slightly, as though Makoto had just happened to fall into her line of sight and oh, wasn't that a pleasant surprise. Not that Makoto didn't like it. But she was not so easily fooled. She knew the purpose of every glance was to check up on her, make sure she didn't collapse and die mid-step down another hallway or wander off obliviously, as if Ami didn't trust herself to notice if she did.
The twisting maze was so hypnotic, though, that Makoto could understand Ami's concern. Walking was like falling into a trance.
Even the threads of quartz running through the rock seemed to always look the same—and maybe they were. Maybe they'd really been walking down the same hall all this time, or maybe they weren't in a hall at all and this was some sort of painfully dull mirage.
She couldn't say for sure.
But they were almost certainly being watched.
Makoto's eyes followed the reflection of her boots hitting the ground with every step. For a moment she could have sworn that her reflection fell just a second behind, but she brushed it off. She was admittedly weary enough to have imagined it, and even if she hadn't, she couldn't really blame her reflection for getting tired of following her around.
"I don't think we'll make it to the study group tonight," Ami said, her voice echoing softly through the hall with their footsteps. "I almost wish I hadn't dropped my calculus book during the fight." Ami offered a wry smile, but they both knew the 'almost' was merely pretence.
Ami's footsteps slowed, and Makoto immediately followed suit. They stopped partway down the hall, far enough in that they could see neither end of it. Ami stood very still, a look of concern sweeping away her smile.
"Ami-chan?" Makoto prompted in a whisper.
"Did you feel that?" Ami asked, her voice equally low.
A laugh. A wild, maniacal laugh.
It cut sharply through the stillness, jolting in its intensity.
It wasn't theirs.
Makoto looked around them, finding nothing. The sound swelled, rushing toward them. Ami's hand slipped into hers and Makoto's heart stuttered for a moment in her chest, even as she channelled her focus into identifying the source of the laughter.
She could hear it, louder, and louder, until she was sure it was right beside them. A shapeless form passed across the wall next to her, a shadow, so fleeting she wasn't sure she'd seen it at all. And then the sound was gone, fading as it carried down the hall until the silence reclaimed its space.
"Did you see…?" Makoto asked, waving her free hand at the wall in a vague gesture.
Ami shook her head. "No, did you?"
Makoto nodded. "Just a dark blur. You felt something coming?"
"A breeze, I think. I don't like it here. We aren't getting anywhere by walking around this maze. There's got to be a better way." Ami loosened her grip on Makoto's hand, but she didn't let go.
She seemed to be considering their options, while Makoto's mind wandered as she stared into the dark stone walls. She thought about crazed laughter and red threads and ticking clocks and warm hands, and she wondered how it all connected.
...
"I can't fix it," Ami said, throwing her hands up with a frustration Makoto had rarely ever seen from her. Ami glared at the device on her lap.
Apparently it was the computer that had finally broken through the last reserve of her patience. Both of their communicators lay discarded on the ground next to her, and Ami had found nothing of interest during her very brief and very tentative examination of the watch still looped around Makoto's bow.
"It's that broken?" Makoto asked, genuinely surprised. If Ami was frustrated, it must really be a piece of junk. She could fix anything with screens and hard-drives and...whatever else computers contained.
"That's exactly it, it's not broken. I've run every test I can think of, and none of the diagnostics have shown any errors, and—shake this!"
Ami dropped the minicomputer into her hands. Makoto gave it a tentative shake, not really sure where Ami was going with this, and prayed she didn't accidentally break it even more than it already was—or wasn't, as the case may be.
"It...sounds fine," Makoto ventured. It didn't actually sound like anything, but computers weren't supposed to, as far as she knew. The only notable sound she'd ever heard from one was a whirring groan cut by the shriek of metal against metal. And the school lab's computer promptly caught fire after that, so as far as Makoto was concerned, no noise was generally a good sign.
"See!"
"Yeah..." Makoto didn't see, but she assured Ami of her agreement nonetheless.
Ami took the computer back, flipping it upside down and shaking it a little more. "There doesn't seem to be anything loose inside. But I suppose I'd need to open it up and take it apart to reach any definitive conclusion." She sighed, staring intently at the object in front of her.
Makoto pointedly did not offer to help by lending some force to Ami's project, even though she had to restrain herself from the automatic suggestion—when things needed opening, she opened them, that's just the way she was made. No jar in the house had ever defied her will.
But Ami had made it very, very clear the last time she had computer issues that any objects capable of being used as projectiles or makeshift hammers—including actual hammers—were not to come within ten feet of her computer.
Makoto respected that.
But short of smashing it open against the floor, there wasn't really anything she could do, so she settled for offering some moral support, saying, "You'll figure it out, Ami-chan. Don't worry."
"Thanks. It's just...I don't know. It seems like it isn't the computer itself that's broken, but something is preventing it from functioning normally. Some sort of interference."
"Do you think it's something about this place that's causing the problem?"
"Maybe. Actually, yes. That makes sense. This rock seems—" Ami stilled, then whispered, "You hear that, right?"
Makoto's entire body tensed as she listened, alert and focused.
A rhythm met her ears, a clicking noise similar to the one she'd been listening to for hours as she and Ami walked together through the halls. Only this was heavier, the steps more even and sure. The sound wasn't nearly as fast as the laughter had been. One footstep followed another, keeping perfect time, and they seemed to reverberate like an echo—but not quite.
They had a visitor. Possibly more than one.
She stood. Slowly. Quietly.
Makoto calculated what she could by the sound alone, sizing up her potential opponent. Weight: uniformly distributed. Height: undetermined. Metal footwear: to be avoided. Stiff gait: to be exploited.
She closed her eyes and focused on the rhythm, counted the beats, teased apart the vibrations. There were five distinct sets of footsteps, meaning five opponents, assuming them to each possess two feet.
Five.
They were outnumbered.
Makoto grinned.
Victory was so much sweeter when she got to work for it.
Ami lifted herself from the ground, shifting closer to the corner where their hall and the next merged.
Closer still, until she could peek around it. Nothing had emerged from the shadows yet, but the mirror-like walls would provide fair warning of their approach. Unfortunately, the enemy had the same advantage.
The footsteps halted and Makoto waited, listening.
The air split as an object whizzed by. Ami jumped backward, holding her hand to her face.
The enemy charged in a frenzy of noise. The weapon clattered to the ground somewhere down the adjoining hall, and Makoto looked to Ami, immediately seeing the thin red line across her cheek where something sharp had grazed her.
It flooded her vision.
They would pay for that.
As the enemy advanced, Makoto pushed Ami behind her and watched as their oblong forms became visible in the stone.
She nodded to Ami, who responded with a muttered, "Shabon Spray."
The halls rapidly filled with fog, just the cover Makoto required. All she'd needed was a glimpse of them—white and black, impossibly thin, partly armoured, wielding spears that matched the pattern of their uniforms—and she attacked.
Makoto struck hard and fast, disarming one, then another, before the knight-like creatures could mount a defence. The space was too tight to use her senshi powers, so she appropriated their weapons and used those instead, partly out of utility, partly out of spite.
A short burst of disembodied laughter mixed into the noise, creeping through the mist, barely registering at the edge of her consciousness. A knight slipped past her. Another lunged forward, only to run itself through with the spear in Makoto's hand.
It tore like paper, curling up at the edges and crumbling into ash. Encouraged, she made short work of two more, and turned just in time to see Ami take down the forth.
An arm looped around Makoto's neck, pulling her attention away, and she twisted smoothly, throwing the last knight over her shoulder and onto the ground. Swiftly, it rose up and slammed her against a wall. Makoto winced as the wound on her side tore open, fresh blood spilling down the already dirty fabric of her fuku. She hit the knight, hard, then plunged the spear into its chest.
She was breathing heavily from the exertion. The fog had nearly dissipated.
Makoto griped the spear tightly, only to feel it give way in her hand after a moment, dissolving into a gritty ash like its owners. She felt a twinge in her side. Makoto glanced down and realised that what looked like a deep but innocuous red in the darkness earlier, wasn't red at all.
She brushed a finger across the wound, staining her white glove with something thick like oil and grey like the ashes that littered the ground at her feet. She stared at it for a moment. The word infection fluttered through her thoughts.
When Makoto looked up, Ami was gone.
Panic rippled through her and Makoto spun around, wisps of the remaining mist wrapping around her ankles as she did so. Her eyes searched for Ami's distinctive form in the dark hall.
"Mercury?" she called.
Everything was quiet. She could see nothing in the darkness at either end of the hallway, only shadows. Ami couldn't have simply disappeared. Makoto had seen her only moments before.
She dashed back down to the connecting hall, and froze.
Ami was standing perfectly still a few feet away, very much alive and breathing and not disappeared. But her stillness was out of place.
A sense of foreboding crept across Makoto's skin, leaving an uncomfortable tingling sensation in its wake.
Ami didn't seem to notice Makoto's presence at all. Her hands hung at her sides. She was staring at the blank wall, her gaze vacant and unfocused.
Makoto approached her cautiously. "Ami-chan?"
Ami's expression remained the same.
Makoto reached out and carefully laid a hand on Ami's shoulder.
"Don't touch me," Ami warned, her tone low, possibly even dangerous.
Makoto pulled back her hand, gave Ami some room—because maybe that was all she needed—and wondered if she'd done something wrong.
As Ami turned and looked up at Makoto, lucidity poured back into her eyes.
"Mako-chan?" Confusion tainted her voice.
Makoto wasn't entirely sure how to respond to that, but Ami's posture relaxed and her head was tilted at a familiar angle and Makoto's apprehension slowly ebbed. "Are you okay?" Makoto asked.
After a long moment, she replied, "Yes, I am. Sorry. I just feel a bit odd. Probably the adrenaline."
Makoto nodded as Ami stooped to gather their broken items from where they'd been abandoned on the floor. She handed Makoto her communicator and didn't make eye contact. Makoto fastened the useless thing back onto her wrist.
Ami stared down at her computer, fiddling with the keyboard. In the dim light, Makoto could see where the sharp edge of the spear had brushed her cheek. The cut was thin and already seemed to be healing, but Makoto didn't like the way the blood had marred Ami's skin.
Very little of Makoto's body or clothes could be considered clean right now, but the fabric covering the thumb of her right hand wasn't half bad. Tilting Ami's chin up, Makoto gently wiped away the drying blood, confirming for herself that the injury wasn't serious. It could have been so much worse. They had to be more careful.
It wasn't until a pink hue spread across the skin beneath her thumb that Makoto realised she'd broken the newly instituted do-not-touch rule. Her hand dropped away and the blush on Ami's cheeks was quickly mirrored by her own.
"We should, uh, go left this time," Makoto suggested, aiming for a casual tone. "Those creatures, they had to come from somewhere."
"Sure," Ami agreed. "We must be getting close to something by now." Makoto turned away, but a hand on her arm stopped her and Ami pointed to her side, asking, "What is that?"
Makoto had almost forgotten, and the reminder did nothing to advance that goal. She didn't want to deal with this right now. Later, maybe. Just not now. But Ami wasn't likely to let it go so easily. Makoto sighed. "I don't know."
Ami leaned down to inspect the smeared mess. "Does it hurt?"
Makoto felt awkward, exposed. She shifted from foot to foot. "No more than the rest of me."
Makoto waited for Ami to state the obvious—your blood isn't supposed to look like that, something's wrong—so she could laugh it off and lighten the mood, and maybe just ignore it for a while and hope it went away.
But Ami didn't say anything. Her gaze flickered up to Makoto's, then fell away.
The realization hit Makoto hard.
Ami was scared. Scared to say anything, scared to provoke panic. Something was wrong with her, and Ami didn't know if she would be okay.
Clearing her throat, Ami straightened and gestured to the wound. "It's coagulating just fine, and the laceration doesn't appear too deep."
Makoto played along, for her own sake as much as Ami's, "Like I said, just a scratch."
"Still, I think getting you to a doctor is a priority as soon as we get out of here. It could be infected, and we have no way of knowing how toxic this environment is."
Makoto truly wasn't adverse to the idea at this point, but part of her didn't want to know. "I'll go if you will," she proposed.
"Agreed."
The subject dropped, crumbling into a pile of ash with the dead knights, and Makoto was eager to leave it there.
...
For lack of alternative, they continued to wander through the labyrinth.
The longer they walked, the less sure Makoto was that they would eventually end up in that somewhere they'd been hoping to find. She glanced idly at the pocket watch hanging from her bow. It continued its counter-clockwise spin cycle, clearly unbothered by its lack of helpfulness and utter failure as a teller of time.
She stifled a yawn, beginning to feel a bit drunk with exhaustion. Who knew how many hours had passed since they got here? Maybe time itself had been altered, and Sailor Pluto was lurking around a corner somewhere. Stranger things had happened.
Could time be moving differently where the others were? No, that was silly. The stupid watch probably just busted when they fell, like Ami's computer. That was a totally reasonable explanation. Ami would be proud.
Makoto sighed, looking over at her.
Ami's mother would be missing her soon, but it could take a while for her to notice her daughter's absence.
No one would notice Makoto had disappeared. She wasn't entirely sure if that was beneficial in this situation, or not, but she decided she didn't care. Makoto was more than capable of taking care of herself.
Besides, she was part of a new family now. Usagi, Rei, and Minako would be looking for them both. They'd be worried. Usagi probably had a meltdown by now. Rei would be berating her over it, and Minako would be left to enforce optimism and keep the other two from making the situation worse by killing each other.
Makoto missed them.
Their friends would find a way to get them back.
But she hoped they wouldn't be here long enough for that to matter. Where there was a way in, there was a way out. They just had to find it.
And she had Ami. Everything would work out.
She wondered fleetingly how comfortable the tiled floor would be to sleep on, and concluded that, oh yes, it would be agonizing and glorious and she desperately wanted to test it out. But they couldn't afford that particular luxury right now—she couldn't, not with the menacing prospect of another attack. She wouldn't let Ami get hurt again.
"Ami-chan?" Makoto whispered mid-step, without looking up at her companion.
"Hmm?"
"…If I disappeared, would you look for me?"
It was a stupid question and she didn't even know why she opened her mouth in the first place. She knew the answer. Ami was going to think there was something wrong with her. Worse, she'd think Makoto didn't know the answer, that she doubted Ami's friendship. Idiot, she chastised herself.
Makoto risked a glance to her left.
Ami smiled, her eyes gentle and caring and affectionate. "Why would I? We'd all be much happier that way."
Makoto's breath caught. She halted. "What?"
Ami continued walking. "I said of course I would. That's what friends are for, right?" When Makoto didn't reply, Ami paused and turned to stare back at her. Her brow furrowed. "Mako-chan, are you okay? You look pale. Are you certain you have no other injuries?"
Makoto continued to stare blankly. Maybe there was something wrong with her. Her Ami would never say something intentionally cruel to anyone. Never.
Makoto snapped out of her daze as quickly as she'd fallen into it. "Um...yeah—I mean, no, I wasn't injured...and yes, I'm certain." She cleared her throat just to fill the awkward pause. Ami tilted her head slightly. She looked adorable, but not convinced. "Just a little dizzy, I guess," Makoto amended.
Suddenly Ami looked stricken. "Oh—I wasn't even thinking—you could have a concussion! I didn't—I'm so sorry Mako-chan!" she said, wide-eyed as she rushed forward and put a hand on Makoto's shoulder. "You should sit down."
Makoto blushed despite herself at Ami's sudden, unexpected proximity, and quickly averted her gaze. "No no, I'm not that dizzy—just a little—I mean, I'm fine, honest."
"Please sit?"
Makoto hesitated, then leaned back into the wall and slid to the floor obediently. It couldn't hurt to rest, just for a minute, for Ami's sake, then she'd get back up and keep going. She shifted on the ground, working her body into a more comfortable position as Ami knelt down across from her.
She set about a battery of tests that Makoto assumed were meant to determine the likelihood that her brain had been scrambled from the fall or the fight or whatever. And maybe it had been—she wouldn't be surprised. She was a little dizzy.
Makoto cooperated to put Ami at ease. She knew her name, the date, how to craft the perfect double-layered chocolate cake with butter-crème icing, and yes, she could count backward from one-hundred, and no, Ami was only holding up five fingers, not six—she wasn't that out of it.
Under any other circumstances, the attention would make her uncomfortable and ready to bolt at the earliest opportunity—she was fine, and didn't need any help. But with Ami, she supposed she didn't mind. And really, where was she going to bolt off to?
Ami's lips were pursed sweetly in concentration, and a tiny wrinkle had formed between her brows. She looked like she did whenever she encountered a particularly difficult question while studying, and Makoto found the familiarity soothing.
She knew every expression in Ami's repertoire, especially the studying ones. When Ami was consumed by her studies—a near constant state for her—she never noticed if Makoto stared just a little longer than was appropriate. She waited patiently for the pleased smile and the blissful look of accomplishment that usually followed, but it didn't come.
"Hmm. You seem to be okay, but without the proper equipment, there's no way to be completely certain you aren't concussed." Ami got up and moved to sit next to her on the same side of the wall.
"But I passed the test, right?"
"Yes. You did very well."
Makoto grinned, only half expecting a candy as reward for her good behaviour. Ami was going to make a great doctor. The thought conjured a little bubble of pride in Makoto's chest. She didn't know why.
...
Ami's head shifted from its position on Makoto's shoulder. Her cheek was cool against Makoto's too-hot skin. Ever so slowly, her body started to slide forward, and forward, until she fell softly onto Makoto's lap.
Ami cuddled closer in her sleep, draping one arm over Makoto's legs as Makoto sat very, very still. She couldn't help the small smile that touched her lips. It had been at least an hour since Ami drifted off. She must really have been exhausted to be sleeping so deeply.
Makoto carefully extracted her arm, but paused before resting it over Ami's shoulder. It probably still ached from the dislocation. Instead, she rested her hand lightly on soft blue locks, brushing the fallen ones back from Ami's face.
She couldn't sleep, couldn't let her eyes...drift...closed...—No. She had to be vigilant.
The enemy could attack at any time.
And the possible concussion—that probably wouldn't help things either.
She tilted her head back against the cool granite wall.
Math. She needed math, as much as she was loathe to admit it. The seven-times tables were the worst, so she started with them. As she reached seven times nine and the numbers just wouldn't come to her, she became increasingly convinced that a little sleep—just a minute or two—was unlikely to result in a cataclysmic apocalypse.
She sighed, unimpressed by the chasm of darkness above them, and dropped her head back down, working out the stiffness in her muscles.
Makoto caught a glimpse of her reflection, and stilled. The sleepy haze enveloping her thoughts cleared immediately, blown away and replaced with a shot of pure adrenaline, making her heart pound and her breath rapid.
She stared at her mirror image, only her image was no longer mirrored.
Makoto saw herself, asleep.
Or dead. Her first reaction was a confused burst of outrage that someone, something, had gone and killed her reflection, but she quickly noticed the slow rise and fall of her chest. Not dead, then.
Her head hung and she was slouched forward, hair slightly more dishevelled and covering most of her face. As she stared into the granite, Makoto could just make out her own eyes past her bangs.
They were closed.
But more importantly, Ami's were open.
The Ami-reflection watched her, gaze hard, and blinked.
Startled, Makoto glanced down at the girl in her lap. Her eyes were closed, her face lax as she slept peacefully. Makoto looked back into the polished stone where Ami stared back at her.
It was an illusion. Some sort of light distortion. Her mind, it was playing tricks on her. Maybe she really had fallen asleep after all, and this was all a dream. But it didn't feel like a dream. Makoto blinked rapidly, trying to make the image go away, but nothing changed.
That wasn't Ami in the mirror. Ami was here, safe and real, a solid weight against her.
Only Makoto wasn't so sure anymore. Maybe the Ami lying here wasn't hers.
Makoto looked down at her, slowly drawing her hand away from the silky blue strands of hair.
"Hmm, what…" Ami murmured, her voice thick and hazy with sleep. Her eyes blinked open, as though she could sense Makoto's distress building even in her dreams. Ami stared up at her, her eyes carrying the same kindness and intelligence Makoto always saw there. "Oh," Ami muttered, followed by another, more alert, "Oh!" She pushed herself up, wiping at her mouth. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to fall asleep on you. You should have woke me up."
Makoto was about to shush her and warn her about their reflections, when her gaze flickered back to the wall. They were gone.
In their place sat Makoto, her face ashen but awake, and Ami as she self-consciously extracted herself from Makoto's lap and smoothed the wrinkles from her fuku.
"How long was I asleep?" Ami asked.
"Not long."
"Did I miss anything?"
Makoto considered her answer carefully, wondering if it had all been a dream, and of course it was. Of course it was just a dream. "Nothing important," she decided.
...