MINAKO THROUGH THE MIRROR

Chapter 9: "Offensive"

By Bill K.

"Hey, Rei!" they heard a woman shout. Turning to the voice, the two women saw a disheveled short-haired blonde wrapped in a plastic sheet and walking up to them. Both women were puzzled.

"You know her?" Ryoko asked.

"No," Rei scowled, put off by the familiarity this stranger exhibited.

"Rei," Ryoko hissed suddenly. "She fits the description of that woman."

"The one that ran into both Makoto and Artemis," Minako said, finishing their thought out loud. "Since you know about that, and since I don't recognize you, you must be my replacement. You're the right height and hair color."

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about," Ryoko replied stonily.

"Very good," Minako nodded. "Just the way I would have played it. But I know she's Sailor Mars," and Minako nodded to Rei. "So you're more than likely the STAND-IN Sailor Venus."

"Oh, so you're really Sailor Venus?" Ryoko asked cooly.

"Up until about two days ago," Minako nodded, not backing down. "So how long have you been with the team?"

"Just on Earth or did you want me to include Silver Millennium?" Ryoko countered.

"Well, whoever pulled this stunt was really detail oriented," Minako commented, still eyeing Ryoko suspiciously. "You even remember Silver Millennium. Do you have the whole set of memories: Princess Nyan-Nyan, going to China to face Danburite, chasing off to England to track him and Kunzite, everything?"

"Somebody certainly did their homework," Ryoko replied, just as suspicious. Abruptly, Minako turned to Rei.

"So what's the verdict?" she asked. Rei was too startled to answer. Ryoko was surprised as well. "Come on, that's what you've been doing. She gets me talking while you use that priest mumbo-jumbo of yours to tell if I'm lying or not. Am I?"

"It's not 'mumbo-jumbo'!" snarled Rei. For her part, Ryoko was amazed.

"Still touchy as ever," Minako smirked. Rei was about to snarl a reply, but Ryoko held her back. Her friend's presence allowed the priest to rein in her temper.

"Something's wrong here," Ryoko judged. "Rei, if you've never met her, how does she know you so well? How does she know traits that only someone close to you would know? I'm curious. What did you read?"

Rei exhaled. "She believes everything she just said. She's not lying and I don't read any ulterior motive."

"Yes!" Minako exclaimed, pumping her fist. "Finally somebody believes me!"

"I didn't say I believed you," Rei replied stonily. "Just because you believe it doesn't make it the truth."

"But . . .!" Minako gasped.

"I've known this woman for nearly fifteen years," Rei continued, gesturing to Ryoko. "I've fought back to back with her against some of the most intimidating menaces this planet has ever faced. I've laughed with her. I've cried with her. And I've grown up with her. And as far as I'm concerned, SHE'S Sailor Venus - - and SHE'S my friend."

The words and the vehemence behind them stung Minako. She tried not to show it, but she couldn't duck behind her mask quick enough. Ryoko saw it, which meant Rei saw more. Silently the priest chastised herself for her tone, though she meant every word she said and wouldn't apologize for it. But with considerable effort, Minako swallowed her emotion and slid once again behind a mask of quiet confidence.

"Well, you always were a loyal friend," Minako muttered, "and as diplomatic as a boot to the mouth. But the bottom line is this: Somebody's been messing around with reality and playing with everybody's heads. Your head and hers, and everyone else's but me. I know you think I'm nuts or deluded or hypnotized or whatever, but I'm not. I am Minako Aino and up until two days ago I was Sailor Venus also." She paused when a grin forced its way onto her mouth. "And while I wouldn't say we were best friends, we had each other's backs. And I need you to have my back now, Rei. So I'll make you a proposition. Go do one of those fire things you do where you see the past or the future or whatever. Find out if anything happened. If you can't find anything, I'll go and you'll never see me again." A gleam of supreme confidence twinkled in the woman's blue eyes. "But I'm betting you will."

"You're pretty sure of yourself," Rei said archly. "Almost too sure."

"Rei, do it," Ryoko said. "If something did happen, we probably should know about it. I'll stick around and watch her."

"Yeah?" Minako smirked. "Hope you know some interesting stories. I'm betting Rei still doesn't have a TV set."

Rei led the two into the shrine. She left them in the living room, then adjourned to the room where her fire pit was. Minako and Ryoko took seats opposite each other around a round coffee table. Minako glanced around the room.

"Hasn't changed much," she commented. "I remember the last time we were all here." She glanced at Ryoko. "Do you?"

"Testing me?" Ryoko asked. "If you want, we can both write the answers on pieces of paper and compare them."

"You don't back down, do you?" Minako smirked.

"It's something I learned being Sailor V," Ryoko smirked back.

Minako reached over for a pen and paper. "OK, I'm curious," she said and wrote something on the paper. After a moment, Ryoko did the same. When they finished, the two traded papers. Minako read it. It said "Reviewed the police evidence on the hospital slasher case for Superintendent Sakurada". Minako looked up at Ryoko and saw the same amazement on her face that she felt.

"Maybe it is alternate reality," Ryoko whispered.

"Sorry?" Minako asked. "I may be experienced, but I'm a little too blonde to understand that one."

"Ami and Artemis were theorizing an explanation for you," Ryoko related. "They said you might be from an alternate reality."

"Good old Artemis," Minako smiled warmly. "He's always coming to my rescue."

"Yeah, he does have that talent, doesn't he," Ryoko added, looking at Minako in a new light. "So how long did you know Artemis?"

"Since I was thirteen," Minako reminisced. "Oh, and I put that poor cat through ten kinds of Hell. But he kept coming back for more. I wouldn't have been half the senshi I was if it wasn't for him."

"I'll agree with you there," Ryoko replied. "Artemis knows his stuff. But why would you put him through Hell?"

"Ah, I was a hyperactive, boy-crazy, head in the clouds know it all," Minako shrugged. "I was too busy riding the thrills to listen to Artemis half the time. But you know how it was."

"No," Ryoko said. "I listened to everything Artemis told me. He was my mentor. He knew best. Why wouldn't I?"

"Really? Let me guess," Minako smirked. "'A' student, class rep, got into her first choice of college?"

"Pretty good," Ryoko responded with an arch in her voice. "Let me try - - barely 'C' student, class clown, skipped college to become - - oh, an actress?"

"Not bad," Minako nodded competitively.

"I can't imagine why Artemis picked you," they said in eerie unison - - then gaped at the other.

"Well, Rei stands up for you, so you must be pretty good," Minako said finally. "She doesn't dole out praise lightly."

"Yeah," Ryoko nodded. "So, if you don't mind talking about it, do you remember how you got to this world?"

In the room with the fire pit, Rei knelt before the roaring fire. Her hair was tied back with a red ribbon, the sole thing she still had from Yuuichiro's time there. The fire before her strained for the ceiling, snapping and popping with frustration. The bigger the fire, the clearer the vision, though it also depended upon how intently she prayed and how generous the gods were that day. She had developed the talent to speak to smaller flames and get single sentence responses. But this was too important. It required more than a single answer. She needed to see into the past, to call up what had actually happened two days prior. She might not recall things correctly, but the gods knew more than she did and could not be fooled in such a manner.

By now, Toshihiro had joined the vigil in the living room. Ryoko had been initially suspicious of him and hadn't particularly appreciated Minako revealing to him that they were both Sailor Venus. When Minako related the intimate relationship they had up until two days ago, it eased her concern a little.

"I hope you can help her," Toshihiro said earnestly. "I hope you can help us both. I want to know. I want to remember the good times I've had with her. She tells me such wonderful stories about us and - - and it just drives me crazy that I can't recall them." Minako reached out and caught his hand.

"Well," Ryoko began haltingly, "you do realize that - - well, that if she is from another reality - - that the relationship she had was with the other you in that other reality. And if we can find a way to return her to where she came from, she'll be there with the other you and not here with you."

Toshihiro looked down, crestfallen.

"Oh, Toshi, I'm sorry," Minako offered. "I didn't even think of it that way. I didn't mean to get your hopes up."

"Well, that would make sense," he murmured, "if your theory is right." He looked up at her. "At least you'll be back where you belong."

"OH!" Minako cried. She lunged over and hugged Toshihiro. "If I EVER find out who did this to me, I'm going to kick their butt so hard they'll have to walk on their hands!" Ryoko observed this with growing compassion for this stranger. "You've been like a life preserver for me, Toshi. I don't know where I'd be if you hadn't taken me in. I'm going to find some way to make this up to you. I don't know how, but I swear I will."

"Thank you," Toshihiro smiled, caressing the hand Minako left lingering on his chest. "If you are from another reality, I hope that Toshihiro knows how lucky he is to have you."

"You two are being very courageous in the face of this," Ryoko said. "I know if I was separated from my Seiji like this, I'd climb over a pit of fire to get back to him. Don't lose hope, huh? We'll sort this out."

"You know, you're making it awful hard for me to not like you," Minako replied.

In the fire room, another bead of perspiration trickled down the side of Rei's head. It skittered down her chin, lingered for a moment, then was caught by gravity and ran down her neck and over her collarbone. The droplet pooled, then sprang out and ran down her chest, disappearing from sight beneath the robes folded over her breast. Rei scarcely noticed, for she was in a trance. The gods had granted her request and she was following an obscenely beautiful female oni's trek up the side of a mountain. As a disembodied spirit, Rei only had to mentally ask the question and instantly knew it was Mount Akida in the west.

Still availed of her psychic sight, Rei read the oni and sensed the dire thoughts of loss within the creature. She read the creature's burning desire for revenge for being stripped of her companion. Delving deeper, she read the creature's sense of being adrift in life, her only source of passion and pleasure gone forever. It was a swirling mixture of grief and rage and the psychic waves came at the priest like lashing whitecaps on a stormy sea.

And then the oni made a summit and stopped. She looked around, searching for something. Rei sensed, as the oni did, the proximity of something powerful and terrible. A primal fear sprang up in the priest's chest, but she didn't run. She recognized the fear, though. It was the same sort of dread she felt when she was outside of Infinity Academy, trying to hold the soulless energy of Pharaoh 90 at bay. It was the same cold dread she felt when she confronted Sailor Galaxia, moments before the energy burst slammed into her chest and ripped her star seed from her screaming. It was the same nameless dread she felt looking at her mother laying on her bed and realizing that she was never going to wake up. It was the same dread she felt when she was on the fragment of asteroid plummeting into Earth's atmosphere, Sailor Moon's head in her lap, the woman not responding as Mars pleaded with her to open her eyes.

The oni ventured into the cave, but Rei hesitated. She hung back. Couldn't the oni sense what she sensed? Even in spirit form through a vision granted her by the gods, Rei could sense the dreadful spirit power emanating from that cave. It had spirit energy beyond anything she'd encountered, energy rivaling Pharaoh 90. She debated whether to follow the oni in. But the question was rendered pointless. The oni quickly backtracked from the cave. Emerging just behind her was a massive black shape. When the sun illuminated it, Rei gasped. It was a tengu, as large and as powerful a tengu as she'd ever imagined. The great beast-demon dwarfed the oni. At once terrified and enthralled, Rei wondered what would happen next.

"She's taking an awful long time in there, isn't she?" Minako commented as she, Ryoko and Toshihiro waited nervously.

"That's what I was thinking," Ryoko nodded. "It always seems like the longer one of her fire readings goes, the worse the news is."

"Yeah," Minako sighed. Then she forced herself to brighten. "Or maybe she called up a vision of Derek Johnson and she's in there drooling over it."

Ryoko gaped at her. "Do you do that just to lighten the mood or are you really that dense?" Ryoko asked incredulously.

"Got your mind off of it, didn't it?" Minako smirked. Ryoko stared at her for a few seconds, then just shook her head. But she did have a small grin on her mouth. "So what do you do when you're not a kick-ass Sailor Senshi?"

"Sure, why not," Ryoko surrendered. Toshihiro tried to smother his smile. "I work as an operator on a computer help desk. You know, when your computer crashes, you call me and yell a lot in a blind panic and I talk you through fixing the problem. I've got a wonderful husband. We've been married for three years, right about the time Makoto and Sanjuro got married. Usagi was working overtime on the four of us. I like doing sudoku - - of course I'm not as good at it as Ami is. I like going camping. I really love the outdoors and I really love seeing nature. Seiji and I are saving up to buy a house and maybe by that time we'll have some kids."

"That's not a bad life," Minako grinned timidly, suddenly averting her eyes. "Sounds like you've got everything you want."

"Well, not everything," Ryoko shrugged. "But most of it. How about you?"

"I had everything I needed," Minako answered with a growing melancholy. "I had personal success. I'd just achieved a lot of the goals I'd set for myself. But you know, now that I think about it, that isn't what I miss the most. Do I miss being famous? Hell, yes. Do I miss being Sailor Venus? Damn right I do. But seeing Toshi and Artemis, and Rei and Makoto look at me like they'd never seen me before," and she took a moment to gather her emotions, "well, I guess that tells me what I REALLY miss and what's really important."

Toshihiro reached over and grasped her hand. Minako squeezed it tightly.

Through her vision, Rei listened to the oni plead her case to the massive tengu. She heard every word of the sinister plot and with each word her horror grew. It was all there, outlined before her with all the cold, naked thirst for vengeance that the oni could muster. With each word, Rei grew more and more angry that this selfish little beast could so heartlessly wreck an entire life, and collaterally damage the lives of everyone connected with that life. Her first impulse was to rain holy fire down onto this creature from the heavens and obliterate her from the landscape.

Then the tengu lunged and snapped the oni in two. Shock gave way to revulsion as Rei watched the oni be devoured, blood spattering everywhere and bones crunching between massive teeth. When the tengu finished, he muttered something about granting the oni's wish. Rei had seen enough. She started to retreat.

Then the tengu looked directly at her.

"I do not tolerate trespassers," the tengu said to Rei's spirit form in a gutteral growl. Rei felt her blood freeze.

A shrill shriek of pain and horror filled the halls of Hikawa Shrine. Both Minako and Ryoko stared at each other for a moment, their eyes tiny with surprise. Then, galvanized into action by years of experience, the two moved as one, barreling out the door and racing down the hall to where the scream came from. Poor Toshihiro, startled and slow to react, could only bring up the rear. By a fraction of a second, Minako reached the door first and whipped it open. Together, Minako and Ryoko found Rei sprawled on the floor before the roaring fire pit. Her hands covered her eyes.

"Rei!" Ryoko shouted as she and Minako arrived at the priest's side. Gingerly they propped her up between them. Her hands fell away from her eyes and they stared out at something only she seemed to see. Her mouth was open slightly like she'd forgotten how to close it. Her breath came in short gasps. She didn't acknowledge anyone.

"Rei, come on! What happened?" Minako demanded anxiously. The priest ignored her. Minako put her hands on Rei's shoulders and gripped her, staring directly into her face. "Rei, come on! Say something! Even if you tell me to go to Hell, say something!"

The vision finally let go. Rei's gaze dropped to the floor. Her panting slowed some. She still seemed barely aware of her surroundings and who was with her, but she seemed to be coming out of it. Ryoko and Minako held on, but they stopped prodding her. Instead, they waited for her to gather enough of herself to respond. Toshihiro watched nervously from the doorway.

"It's all true," Rei whispered finally, looking first to Ryoko and then glancing to Minako. "Everything. It's all true."

Continued in Chapter 10