"I sometimes wonder if you have a list of common psychiatrist lines that you read from every time I come here."
The queen's laugh, sweet like the ringing of bells, blended with the chirping of colorful birds flying through the palace gardens. "Perhaps, but the question still remains: Tell me about your family."
That's not really a question, I wanted to say, but I held my tongue. A curious habit for a prince, I noticed. Yet the inclination towards civility had only persisted with each of these visits. A part of me knew all too well that this was her goal all this time, for me to let down my guard for her, to trust her. Yet looking back upon those days, I don't know if I ever did trust her, at least trust her in the way I imagined I would trust someone I loved. I don't know if I even respected her. All I knew was that like a cliff face pounded upon century after century by merciless waves, something had to give.
And spending lonely nights roaming the palace halls was a routine I was all too ready to give up.
"You've never asked me about them before," I said, though my voice lacked the guarded tone I had been striving for. Her presence took my words and melted them to butter.
I watched as Neo-Queen Serenity lifted her face to the sun and gazed pensively into its heart, as only a fellow being of light could do without falling blind. "It is Mother's Day, after all," she said, a revelation which took me by surprise. Dates were meaningless on Nemesis. The passing of time was marked by hazy blurs of empty days, sighs stretched into weeks, and her.
"You don't have to talk about your family, you know," she reassured me as she reached for her sixth buttered scone. "Trust me, I know it's hard."
It was the sight of the heavenly goddess of Earth gulping down a scone with zero regards to dignity that broke my stony resolve. "The clan is doing well," I said, then paused. Ever since these dreams had become a daily routine, I chose to remain in solitude most of the time, and when I was with them, we would be discussing plans I would never divulge to the queen.
Serenity seemed to pick up on my hesitation. "I do hope you don't choose to spend all your time sealing yourselves away in a dark chamber, plotting ways to kill me," she said with a laugh, before once again donning that soft, motherly tone that stopped just shy of admonishment. "What about your brother Saphir? How is he doing?"
"He's…." All of a sudden, I felt a burning shame in my cheeks, like a second fiery tongue that would not be held. How was my brother doing? In the few times I had given thought to it, I always assumed he felt just as I did. Hardened, impatient, brooding, calculating, and… lonely, too.
The singing of birds flying overhead was the only sound to break the silence as the queen sipped her tea. "Brothers are complicated at times, aren't they?" A sad, wistful smile tugged at her lips. "I had a younger brother, too, you know. His name was Shingo. Honestly, we didn't get along that well as kids. He'd always make fun of me for my bad grades, and I'd always hate to have him around whenever my friends came over. But…" She set down her china teacup with a tiny chink and sighed, her breath a puff of a long-past summer afternoon. "But we were still siblings, and I know I'd do anything for him, even if I'd never admit it to myself. Even if he'd stick out his tongue and say he could take care of himself without a dumb sister interfering. Siblings are funny that way."
My eyes widened: it was absurd, absolutely unthinkable to imagine that the heavenly queen of Earth could ever have been ridiculed.
Neo-Queen Serenity only shook her head, her bangs rustling like leaves riding a summer wind. "Oh, he never knew about me being destined to become a queen and harness the strongest magic in the solar system. If he had, I hope he would have at least made fun of my ballroom dancing or how I had the table manners of wild ostrich." She reached out a delicate, perfectly manicured hand for a crumpet. "I wish I had thought to bring a camera when I told my family who I was; his face was so ridiculous that I could have teased him about it for decades." Her laughter was like the tinkling of chimes, hollow and short-lived.
I felt myself shift in the chair and lean across the table, my attention fully drawn in by her words. This was history, ancient history, where the only undisputed truth among historians was that all attempts to ask Neo-Queen Serenity for her accounts ended in a resounding "no." But more than that, this was wholly, undeniably personal. I had the tiniest peak into her heart, and it was radiant.
"How was it, telling your Earth family about it?" How young my voice sounded when it was breathless.
By now I knew better than to perceive the shadow that fell over her eyeless face as merely imagined. "Oh, they absolutely refused to believe it when I first told them," she said. "Shingo even laughed in my face. I ended up having to transform into Sailor Moon and show them the Ginzuishou before they took me seriously. Honestly, with my parents, I wish it had been the case where they had already put the pieces together, but I guess you don't look for your lazy, crybaby daughter in the invincible, idolized Sailor Moon."
As she cupped her hands around the warm cup of tea and stared into the tiny, trembling waves, I had to swallow down the strange, irrational urge to wrap my arms around her. "I never liked having to lie to them about where I'd spend all those late nights alone," she continued. "It's way harder than you'd think, having a secret identity. I would have liked for them to know even a little bit earlier, because I never really saw them again after that. I mean, being Neo-Queen Serenity takes a lot of work, you know? But more than that, I don't think they were ever able to see Neo-Queen Serenity and their bothersome crybaby as the same person. They must have thought such awful things, like how they hadn't properly treated a future queen, or that their normal, boring lives couldn't be at all relevant to me. I don't know, honestly. After a few awkward visits to the palace, they stopped coming."
"I'm sorry," I said to fill the empty silence with equally empty words. My fist tightened around the hem of my cape, as if in pain. Maybe it was a feeling of wanting to share her pain, or an effort to keep that traitorous hand of mine from reaching out to hers. "Do you…" I paused, choosing my words carefully. "Do you ever regret it? Becoming who you are today?"
Resting her elbows on the table, the queen cradled her chin in her hands and let out a little sigh, a puff of a warm summer glazed in frost. "Regret's an odd feeling," she said. "It's a better version of me wanting to delete some previous version, even though that would entirely change who I am today. I have a prosperous kingdom, a kind-hearted husband, and a beautiful daughter. Yes," she added, more to herself than to me, "I really do have everything."
"'A defiance of God's laws...'" she whispered as she stared determinedly at her hands clasped in her lap. "You know, there are times when I can't find it my heart to blame you for thinking that way. It's so strange, to be given everything yet feel so… wrong about it. Like I took it somehow, as if God's grace is something you can pluck out of a tree. Maybe, in a way, I did."
She smiled again, and I wondered if those kinds of smiles were the only way she knew how to cry. "I'll tell you a secret," she said. "I've never thought of myself as particularly beautiful. I look so pale and ghostly all the time, no matter how much time I spend outside, and I miss the days when odango buns were a style that people laughed at. But I still remember that day, the day you went away, when I saw Esmeraude look at me for the first time. I don't think anyone, not even you, has hated me that much. And then I realized just what nine hundred years has done… it's bent the world to revolve around me. That's… that's how time feels after a while: it passes you by, it locks you out, and yet it holds you tight in order to prove to itself it's real."
"You…." Like so many times before, I couldn't speak in front of her. She was in a world of self-reflection all on her own. Anything I could say to her would shatter her.
As fate would have it, her words would shatter me.
"Well, at least nothing, even me, is meant to last forever."
Silence, yet screaming. All was quiet in the garden, yet so horribly, impossibly loud. The blood in my ears was deafening, the wind gently caressing the trees an impossibly agony, the rustling of Neo-Queen Serenity's dress too much to bear.
"You're mistaken, Demande," she told me simply, her unseen eyes boring directly into mine. "Whether humans are given one hundred years or one thousand, it's still only one impossibly small slice of eternity. Having a greater slice than the humans of old doesn't make me any more like a deity. If anything, that extra time is just more opportunity for me to make more mistakes, and God knows I haven't failed that principle. We simply can't do everything by ourselves, no matter how much time we're given, which is why we have to simply do what we can, then trust the rest to the future."
Then the queen smiled, sending another shattering blow to my frozen self. "Once Small Lady unlocks her power and reaches her full potential, I'll be able to leave Crystal Tokyo and the Ginzuishou to her. Then, after so long, I'll finally be able to apologize to my mom and dad and Shingo for… well, everything." Her cruel smile at last faded, like the harsh sunlight collapsing into dusk. "And now I'm sorry for you as well," she said, as the edges of the garden began to melt into whiteness. "Yes, now I believe you must hate me."
I was dimly aware of standing up and overturning the tea table, sending pastries whizzing past my head in an absurd display. How surreal it was, to see the queen of Earth stand there and sadly smile as jelly and cream splattered across her silk dress. How stupid. How absolutely stupid.
As always, I only found my voice after it was too late. "No!" I screamed, reaching out my traitorous hand to hold tight to hers. But true to the ghostly complexion she lamented, my hand passed right through to ball into a fist. "You… you're supposed to live forever! You can't die!"
"Cherish your brother," was the queen's only reply. "Otherwise, if I were ever to fall to my knees and beg for you to live forever, you may find just how cruel such a plea really is."
Cherish your brother, her words echoed through the dreary haze of wine-induced stupor. Yes, I thought as yet another booming knock sliced through my skull, I'd be sure to remember to do so… as soon as he fixes the dents he's putting in the door.
"Nee-san! Nee-san!" I heard him shout through five inches of iron and platinum, shaking ever so slightly as he threw his whole weight against the door. "Please, you can't stay in there forever!"
I leaned back and let another sip of wine trickle down my throat. His persistence was admirable, yes, but so too was his obedience, I knew. If Saphir truly wanted to force his way in, then the door, enchanted to withstand all intruders and attacks, would already be blown to smithereens. But the sun would never rise when there arrived a day he would defy me. I watched the violently rattling golden doorknob with a vague interest, then turned my attention to a topic of much, much higher importance.
Neo-Queen Serenity was not one for photoshoots; indeed, not one for leaving her own palace walls. But nine hundred years of being queen of Earth had led to the inevitable reality of portraits and statues and shrines of her prominently displayed in nearly every town, no, every residence on the planet. Regretfully, out of fear of letting her sacred image be horribly desecrated by terrorists (how they would ever find out, God only knows), they had only permitted me a simple holographic picture of her, a poor representation of her beauty by all accounts. Yet memories cling tightly to objects, and the memory of that day was more than enough.
"Nee-san, nee-san! W-Wait! You shouldn't run off without Mama!"
I heard Saphir calling, but I didn't even pause to glance back at him. I knew that sooner or later I'd find him, panting for breath as he ran behind me, with Mama nowhere in sight. Which, come to think of it, might not have been the best situation. It'd be much easier to see the festival from Mama's shoulders. The crowd was far too dense, a forest of legs balancing on tiptoes to see. But the sun was shining, and the air smelled of honey-drizzled sweets, and the whole world seemed to resound with an infectious excitement.
Saphir was still calling me. "Would you quit whining and hurry up?" I called over my shoulder as I darted around a vendor's cart. "We're never gonna get food standing all the way in the back!"
I attempted to cross in front of another cart, but luck wouldn't have it that time around. The cart veered off course and hit a group of tourists, resulting in an impenetrable wall of grumbling and complaints.
As I scurried back and forth, searching for an opening, Saphir caught up to me. "Nee-san, are you okay?"
My eyes glinted with excitement, just like all those around us who fell into excited murmuring as the queen's fanfare began to play, although mine was for an entirely different reason. "Bingo," I said with a toothy grin, my tiny hands scooping up scattered cartons of pocky sticks. My first criminal act, performed in front of Neo-Queen Serenity, no less. The jangling of coins in my pocket showed my honest intentions, but Fate enjoys her irony, I suppose, and little boys enjoy free food.
My brother's chubby face fumed red as he gratefully took his share of the pocky and waddled off to plop himself down under a tree. "We've been standing for hours," he complained as I sat down next to him. "What's so great about seeing the queen anyway?"
"Dunno," I replied, prying open the first carton and digging in. "I guess 'cause she's pretty, but everyone knows that. And you can see her in a museum or a book anytime. Dunno why it's a big deal to see her now."
"Well there are some of us who don't want to miss hearing her," said a young woman, turning around to berate us. "Keep it down, will you?"
Saphir scowled in return. "Hmph!" he said, crossing his stubby little arms and turning to me. "That wasn't very nice of her, was it?" When I didn't answer, he sighed. "Mama had slurpies for us. I wanna go back and get slurpies, nee-san. Pleeeeease? Nee-san?"
I had just enough awareness of his voice to place a finger to my lips and shush him, not even glancing in his direction. Then without another word, I pointed with that same finger up, up to the balcony of the tallest spire of the palace, its peak melting through the clouds into heaven. I pointed up at the queen.
That was the moment when I realized that the queen of our earth had been trapped. Trapped in a world of stillness and stiltedness, of manufactured photographs and statues cold as stone. She had been pressed between the pages of a thousand boring history books, none of which gave rise to the idea that she needed to breathe. It was the first time I had seen how the slow rise and fall of her chest made her hair ripple like water. How her hair framed her face like a halo. She was an angel. And she was definitely high enough to play the part. I had to tilt my head back, so far back that all the blood rushed to my head and made me dizzy and focused and lighthearted all at once.
"She sparkles…" I breathed.
'The most powerful woman in the universe,' they said. For once, I understood what that meant.
"Nee-san…" Saphir whispered in a shaky little voice. "Why… Why are you crying…?"
"Tsukino-san! Tsukino-san, I found them!" shouted our neighbor, Furuhata-san, as he pointed to us and waved emphatically to the young woman pushing through the crowd.
Long navy hair that fell to her waist. Tiny arms laded with bags. Smoothies gripped in her unadorned fingers. Smiling amethyst eyes.
And no one standing beside her.
Saphir understood then.
"She's not the person I knew from that day," I said to myself. "She's less than what I saw, but so much more as well. She's…" I couldn't bring myself to finish, because the words wouldn't make sense. Because she walks like she's treading on thin ice, and she never lets me breathe when she talks, and sometimes her gaze passes right through me, and she has a certain way of smiling that's so much like crying, and she says so much that's important while never opening up her heart. She's spellbinding and radiant and heartfelt while still remaining what she's always been: wholly, undeniably cruel.
But truthful nevertheless.
Effortlessly, the doors swung open, leaving my brother a small, confused shadow against the light streaming in. "I've been lied to, Saphir," I said without turning to him. "I've been lied to all my life. I've been told that Earth had finally met with Paradise, and there's a goddess who dwells in a tower, and Father will always come home for Christmas. That love conquers all, love lasts forever, except when it doesn't. What am I supposed to believe in?"
"Nee-san…." He took one step forward, then another, until he was standing right behind me. "That's why we have to believe in ourselves. Why we have to fight."
A sad, short-lived laugh passed from my wine-stained lips. "We're a pretty messed-up bunch, aren't we? Fighting to feel pain, fighting to forget about the pain. Fighting to restore the glory of human nature, fighting to commit murder, the greatest taboo of humanity. Fighting to die old and decrepit, fighting to cut down the young and ever-beautiful. Fighting to destroy the false goddess. Fighting for love to mean something again. But maybe I'm tired of fighting for those things. Saphir… what if I just want to fight to have her?"
As if to pull me back from some great precipice, Saphir grabbed my hand. "Wh-What are you talking about, nee-san?"
Another laugh, just like the first. "That's just it, Saphir." I could feel my shoulders shaking in my weakness. "I don't know. I don't know what to do about her anymore. She represents everything in Earth I want to destroy, but… I can't bring myself to destroy her. I can't."
I buried my head in my hands, and for the first time in a long, long time, I cried.
My brother screamed.
The compact disk projecting the hologram of Neo-Queen Serenity was reduced to a few scraps of crystal embedded in my brother's fist.
Now came my turn to play the confused, trembling sibling. "Saphir… you're bleeding…."
He shrugged off my hand with more force than I thought him capable of. My voice failed when I saw his fists shake at his sides. "I won't forgive her," he vowed, his dark eyes too bright for the tears I had expected. "I'll never forgive that woman for what she's done to you. 'What if you want to fight to have her?' What about Mama? What about me? Aren't we worth anything? Or are you going to become like Father, so entranced by the Ginzuishou that he tired of a seven-hundred year marriage and went to serve as one of Serenity's idolizing servants? Huh?! Are you?!"
He jerked his head away, as if the sight of me and my pitiful resolve was suddenly too repulsive for him to bear. I couldn't blame him. "The fusion reactor is ready," he said in a cold monotone, all the fiery passion in his words now drained away. "The first monolith can be deployed at any time. We await your word, prince." That was his parting gift before the sound of the heavy doors closing left me alone in the dark again.
"So it's finally come to this," I said, partly to myself, mostly to the newcomer peering over my shoulder.
There was no creak of an opening door, no whoosh of magic to signal his arrival, but his presence was undeniable. I felt him, as if he and I were two musical notes matching each other's pitch.
"I've been waiting," I told him, "to see if your words held true. About the cruel goddess who descended from the sky to exact divine retribution upon you, the day you were banished to this place. And I won't deny its existence, but there's so much more. She's heavenly. She's ruthless. She's fathomless. She wields her heart like a weapon, and leaves me blind."
I saw out the corner of my eye Wiseman's glowing red eyes focusing on me. "Today is a pivotal point in time, not only for you, but the whole of mankind. Today, for the rest of time, can be remembered as the day humanity wholly resigned itself to the idyllic playground of a deity, or the day it rose up to stand alone by its own strength of will. And that decision lies solely with you, young prince."
When I kept my silence, he regarded me with a father's disappointment. "Look at you. You set out to destroy the White Moon Queen, and now, look at how she has destroyed you."
"Yes," I conceded. "I know. But no longer. I won't continue living in this way. Today, I intend to discover the truth."
"A woman or a goddess?" Wiseman said. "That's what the truth comes down to, is it not?"
I set down the wineglass. "Yes. You already know the answer though, I'm sure, and if I'm being honest with myself, I probably know, too. But that doesn't matter. Today, everything comes to an end."
I only saw her face the day she left me in my nightmare.
I opened my eyes and found myself in the same dark stretch of corridor where she had given me the dream crystal. Funny, how life comes full circle. I might have laughed, except I knew this meant goodbye.
I raised my eyes to see the pale pink curtains of the balcony hiding her from view, casting her into a mere silhouette. Her back was turned to me.
"What was the point?" I asked her, my voice low and thick with emotions I didn't care to name. "All of this, this game you've contrived, what was this supposed to accomplish?"
The queen raised her eyes to the sky. "I didn't lie to you, Demande," she said. "I did intend for these meetings to convince you to return to Earth."
"By playing mind games with me? By making me hate you?"
"It's better than having you love me. You're far too dangerous when you love me."
I took a step back. "How dare you talk to me about love. What the hell do you know about love?!"
At this point she was looking at me, her head tilted to one side in curiosity, but I didn't care. After all of her lies, I was going to be the one who would make things plain. "Famine. Poverty. Disease. Age. Untimely death. You've laid ruin to them all, but what's the one power that lies beyond Neo-Queen Serenity, Sailor Moon, the Senshi of Love and Justice? Love. You just can't make sure two people stay in love, can you? Because love just isn't a necessity anymore, is it? 'For richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, and as long as you both shall live.' Wiseman told me about those words. They were the words that used to seal a couple's love. But those don't mean anything anymore, do they? Love doesn't mean anything anymore. And if you don't believe that, tell me about your husband."
"Endymion loves me," she said softly, a cold undercurrent threaded through her words. "He always has loved me. I see his love when he looks at me, when he sees our child, when he holds me close. He's never strayed from me once."
"Of course he wouldn't," I answered bitterly. "That's exactly the point. Who would he possibly choose over you? But I don't know if there's a single man on Earth who wouldn't throw away everyone he supposedly loves if it meant having a chance with you."
"Oh? Every single person? And that would include you, too, would it not?" When I didn't answer her, she ran a worrying hand through her silver hair and sighed, the air from her lungs rustling the curtains. "Despite everything you say about fighting for the glory of humanity, I think you underestimate humans. More than that, I think you underestimate love. And that's why I pity you."
A numb kind of pain shot up my arm when I slammed my fist against a crystal pillar. "Damn you," I spat under my breath, while tears stung in my eyes from the sudden wave of sickly exhaustion. "Do you have any idea what this feels like? What it's like to stand here in front of you, night after night for months on end, and endure you? No, I don't think I'm even enduring you. I'm drowning, for the love of God, and you know it! Do you think this is fair? Do you think someone like me can withstand someone like you? Do you?!"
Even then, I refused to fall to my knees in front of her. All I could do was dig my nails into the pillar to keep myself standing upright while remaining all too aware of how sick and tired I was of the entire charade.
"How does it feel?" I finally asked in a low voice, weighed down with a deep-rooted weariness too much for my age. "To stand in the presence of someone like me?"
"It feels… human."
"Does that surprise you, Demande?" she asked me, as if I had the strength of will to answer her anymore. "That I've forgotten what it feels like?" Her silhouette made a sweeping motion across the veiled horizon. "If you've noticed, we've never met outside the confines of my palace. That's because I've seldom left these walls. And do you know why? Because I'm weak and I'm scared. I told myself that it would be for the best to lock myself away, to merely guide humanity instead of interfere with it, and look at the result. Nine hundred years, and interacting with a human being outside my family is just a distant memory. Somewhere along the line, at least in my mind, I became like the sun that blinds if it gets too close." Her voice fell to a hushed whisper. "I became scared of myself."
"I've been scared of you for a long time, Demande, longer than you know. But I've needed you, too. I've needed someone who doesn't bow to me, who stands up to me, who really hates me—"
"Stop that!"
The sudden silence was drowned out by the blood pounding in my ears. "Stop playing that mind game of yours, because it's not going to work. You think I hate you? I hate the world you've created. I hate everything you stand for. I hate the way you make me feel. But you?" My voice cracked, utterly shattered into the voice of the crying seven-year-old boy seeing his goddess for the first time. "I… I…."
"I want to see you," I said finally. "Just one last time. I want to see you one last time."
Neo-Queen Serenity paused, her hand quaking as it pressed against the curtains. "Very well," she declared, in a whisper so soft it was deadly. Then she yanked down hard, sending the curtain rod clattering to the ground, to let light come spilling through.
There was too much blood in my veins, far too much, as its strength propelled me forward. I heard the echo of each footstep hitting the stair but never felt the impact, not until all the steps were behind me, and I was standing on equal ground with the queen. Then, impact sent all the blood to a sudden, painful halt.
I could read her now, I realized, just by the lilt in her eyebrows and stiffness in her shoulders and the oval shape of her lips. She could see the sickness in me now, I knew. "You really do need me, don't you?" she whispered. Her words were as fearful as she had been that first day, and as cruel as she had been on the last.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry."
There was no room in my heart for hesitation. I placed my hand on the small of her back, placing my fingertips on the bumps of her spine. With my other hand, I touched her cheek, letting my index finger trace a stray lock of silken hair. I memorized the smell of dying lilies, the sensation of her chest brushing against mine with every breath, and the taste of my silent crying.
Slowly, I moved my hand across her face so that it was covering the place where her eyes would have been. She gave a start, but didn't pull away.
There lay her foolishness.
My hand now had purchase on something that shouldn't have been there. Before she could protest, I dragged my hand up to cover the crescent moon on her brow. My hand dragged with it her upper eyelids, revealing two white, pupiless eyes shaking in absolute terror.
"Demande," she gasped while straining to keep her eyes rolled back in her head. "How—?"
I pushed her away, sending her stumbling back against the railing of the balcony. Above, a sunny sky smiled down at us. "You're always the first one to arrive and the first one to leave. That's because we're not inside my head at all. We're in yours, where you can cast a glamour over reality as much as you like. But dreams rely on unawareness, and now that I'm awake in a dream, you can't hide your eyes anymore. And the reason you never showed me your eyes in the first place is because…" A shudder tore through my body, splicing nerves in two and pumping the raw, all-consuming energy that was only a prelude to the Evil Eye. "…you're scared of mine."
"It was self-protection," she retaliated, now squeezing her eyes shut. "You and your clan want to kill me. Who could save me if fell under your control in a dream?"
A harsh red light eclipsed that of the full moon outside. "I suppose we'll find out."
Whoosh!
The queen threw her arms open wide as if to embrace the raging whirlwind she had conjured. Her dress billowed around her, while her streaming hair whipped around her head in a frenzy. In the blazing radiance shining from the crescent moon upon her brow, I could hardly stand, let alone crack open my eyes to see the shimmering outline of an arm rise into the air. Only a loud cry and the sound of something breaking could confirm an impossible truth.
Neo-Queen Serenity had shattered the Ginzuishou.
Or so I thought. But like a planted seed, the crystal shards rose from the ground, sending a mighty shudder through the air. And through it all, just the thought of moving felt absurd, until I found myself trapped on all sides by towering crystal petals of the Ginzuishou.
Opening my eyes was the second foolish act committed during that farewell. The Ginzuishou had me ensnared me in a world of my reflections; a thousand Evil Eyes stared back at me with their crimson light. My own two eyes burned like fire. I fell to my knees screaming.
"So now you understand," she said, her words ringing loud and clear above my agony without her even raising her voice, "what wicked power Death Phantom wields. I suppose between the two of us, one can see all colors of the human race. How high people can rise, and how far they can fall. And now I understand," she added softly. "The past cannot be changed. Indeed, I'm only human."
She waved her hand, and the crystals began to shrink and coalesce into the Ginzuishou. "A goddess who's preparing to die, or a woman who rules the world? That's what you've been asking yourself, right? I suppose you've found your answer, just as I've found all of mine." I heard the click of her shoes approach my prone body, saw the ends of her hair glide just above the ground. Her shadow fell upon me, and at once, I wanted to shout how beautiful she was.
"I've been selfish," she admitted shamelessly, "but curiosity has burned in me from the moment I'll meet you a millennia ago. You fight to bring rise to strife and suffering, to cut your life nine centuries short, to see yourself wrinkle and die, to embrace every human fear from the dawn of time. You're unlike any demon of Chaos I've ever encountered, but I suppose that's the point. You're not born of Chaos. You're a human with a god's pride. Because you can't accept a gift, can you? You hate being indebted, having to rely on someone. It makes me wonder how you can be expected to love anybody. Because to you, nothing's worth having unless you fight for it.
"Perhaps that's why, irrationally, you fight to have me."
My head was still so filled with the memory of that burning light that I could hardly lift it. "My God," I whispered, making sure to articulate each word flawlessly despite being struck so low, "why haven't you just killed me already?"
In the weakness of my mind slipping in and out of darkness, I was visited by the impossible delusion of Neo-Queen Serenity crying.
"I like to think I'm being merciful," she said finally, giving me one of her sad little smiles. My eyes watered from how she was nothing more than light and stars and loveliness. Then in a flurry of moonlight and silk, she turned to leave me one last time.
"No."
I couldn't hear the sound of my heart beating. I could feel the spiking pain shooting through my body. I couldn't see anything as the goddess melted into light. But that didn't matter. I reached up, grabbing her by the wrist, and pulled, hard. She only smiled and brushed it off like it was nothing.
In life, I've learned there are moments, precious little moments, that we carry with us for the rest of our lives. From that day on, until the day of my death, this was mine:
"How sad for the young prince," that tender nightmare said to me. "In the end, he'd never get the chance to kill a goddess. Just little, old, tired, crybaby me."
