Chapter Eight
All colours bleed to red
Asleep on the ocean's bed
Drifting in empty seas
For all my days remaining
[Sting]
Not again, Darien thought despairingly as he felt himself falling through his dreams. Shadows unfolded around him in a whirlwind of black and crimson satin, the heavy weight settling across his shoulders, and he felt the mask materialise as he reached out automatically for the ivory handled cane that fell into his hands. He hefted it once, and vanished it into the dream ether, bracing himself as he was flung ruthlessly into reality.
There had been a moment, back when this charade with Sailor Moon had begun, that he had felt a tiny flicker of hope. Perhaps he was getting closer. Perhaps he might actually find some answers. But the game went on and on, and the demons kept coming, and time after time after time he yanked Sailor Moon out of the messes she got herself into. Tuxedo Mask had stepped out of the dreams, but nothing had changed.
For a brief moment, he knelt on the ground, his eyes closed as he tried to regain his equilibrium. Under his hand, the ground was hard gravel with the smell of warm tarmac, and he drew a slow breath. Was this his life? Chasing dreams and babysitting teenage superheroes? Darien fought back a sense of despair that threatened to swamp him, digging his fingers into the sharp gravel.
Ten years! His thoughts were a silent cry. I've spent ten years of my life, waiting for answers, waiting for a dream to come true. How much longer? But there was no answer.
It would have been easier if I'd died, too.
His head lifted swiftly as Sailor Moon shrieked his name. He was on his feet before he could think, with a rose in his hand. The ground under his feet shook with thunder as a massive plane roared in the darkness, the sound reverberating and growing louder as the jet bore down with frightening speed. At the end of the runway he could see Sailor Moon reach the steep drop down into the black seawater below, and she spun around, her hair a golden maelstrom around her, to face the screaming jet.
Darien sent the rose lancing after it. In the darkness beyond the spotlight, the plane came to a shuddering halt a little too close for comfort, and the metallic whine faded. He flicked a quick glance across the tarmac, and Darien sighed with exasperation and something that might have been relief.
Sailor Moon was scared and shaken, but unhurt.
That established, his attention shifted back to the figure silhouetted behind the huge floodlights. His eyes narrowed grimly as he watched the man in the grey uniform who was staring back at him with a strange, twisted expression. It would be too easy to underestimate this one.
Jedite showed little subtlety, but Darien reminded himself that he wasn't like the monsters they'd fought so far. Jedite was dangerous.
"What a tough guy you are," Darien said dryly. "You're finally stopped hiding behind your lackeys and decided to fight three little girls all on your own."
"And you're next," Jedite snarled, launching himself into the air, straight at Darien. The attack lifted them out over the edge of the runway, hanging for just a moment over the black water. Darien reached for his cane, but too late. Jedite ducked under Darien's defense before he even knew what was happening. Caught off-guard, Darien felt Jedite's hands around his throat as they fell backwards over the edge of the tarmac into the icy seawater below.
Darien felt the cold water close over him, felt the darkness press against him and drag him down, and his hand lifted slowly as fingers closed around him, squeezing tighter. The air bubbled lazily from his mouth.
The hands shoved at his throat, spinning him casually away into the cold black depths.
Darien sank like a stone.
As he fell with an infinite slowness, heavy and cold, he tried to raise an arm. He tried to move against the weight, and it was all too hard. There was an unbearable longing to just let go and sink without a trace. He felt the water pulling him down, and with a noiseless sigh he sank.
"No!"
Darien drifted indifferently, and the bitter water bubbled through his lungs as he drew a slow, painless breath.
"I won't let you do this!"
In the wet darkness he thought he smelt a familiar acrid reek of burning metal, and a faint memory teased at him. Then there was that cry again, sharp through the ringing in his ears and refusing to leave him in peace. Phantom hands caught at him, fighting the weight of the water, and he struggled feebly against the grip.
Why? Even the dull effort of thinking was too hard. What is there to hold on for?
"I need you," the silent voice whispered down his nerves, sharp with fear and a rising desperation. "She needs you. Jedite is just the beginning. Even if she defeats him, if he fails, another will be sent, and another …"
Through the inky waves, Darien looked up to the refracted blur of gold far above. He had the feeling that there was something important he should remember. Sailor Moon. Somewhere up there Sailor Moon was fighting for her life against Jedite, and his heart faltered.
"She can't do it alone," his princess begged, and Darien drew a sharp, ragged breath, coughing up the dark salt water. "I can't do this alone…"
Darien fought. With infinite slowness, he fought to lift a limb, to move, to resist the darkness that wanted to pull him down. He clawed his way through the heavy blackness to where the lights flickered on the waves and dragged himself out of the water, his fingers clinging to the rocks that reached up to the tarmac. For a moment, he hung there, choking and spitting up the water that swilled and roiled in his lungs.
Slowly he looked up. Everything was silent, and he crawled up the rocks. The planes were still, Jedite was gone, and all alone on the vast open runway were three girls.
They had won, and Darien gave a dry laugh, wincing and coughing as it pulled at his ribs. She really did it, he thought with a strange sense of pride.
Somehow, as Darien watched Sailor Moon bury her face in her hands, he didn't think they were as happy as they ought to be over the victory.
Sailor Moon's cat was rubbing her face against the girl's ankle.
"Sailor Moon." The words drifted on the night wind. "I know it's hard, but you'll have to learn to fight without him."
They were talking about him?
"Never!" Sailor Moon wailed.
Darien stood slowly, and straightened, a pained smile twisting at his mouth.
"It's nice to know you care," he said, and Sailor Moon whipped around, her eyes going wide with shock and a joy that insensibly warmed him.
Get a grip, Chiba, he told himself silently. She only cares because she thinks you're some mysterious, romantic hero in a mask.
She started to run towards him, and he stepped back involuntarily, vanishing before she could reach him.
