THE PATH TO REDEMPTION
Chapter 10: "An Ocean Of Regret"
A Sailor Moon fanfic
By Bill K.
Makoto Ikegami leaned against the counter of her kitchen and expelled a tired breath. The apartment was clean. The laundry was done. Dinner didn't have to start for fifteen minutes yet. Ichiro was resting comfortably for the first time in three days, so the worst of his cold was probably over. She'd made it home with Akiko with time to spare and there hadn't been any loud noises, so the girl was calm for a change. Her hand went up and smoothed back some loose strands of brown hair.
"I think you've earned a few minutes of rest," Makoto told herself with a smile. Of course, not having anything else to do meant she had time to fret about Usagi, where she was and how she was doing. The vision she'd seen had only temporarily allayed her fears.
"Mommy," Akiko said, appearing at the door of the kitchen. Makoto smothered a smile.
"Well that rest didn't last long," she mumbled, turning to her husky young daughter. "What's up, Kiddo?"
"Ichiro's still sick," she proclaimed with distaste, as if it were her brother's fault.
"I told you he was," Makoto told her daughter.
"Why did he have to get sick?" Akiko asked. She seemed disappointed that she didn't have her brother to play with.
"He probably touched something with germs on it," Makoto informed her. "Just like you did last winter when you were sick."
"I didn't get the TV in my room when I was sick," Akiko grumbled.
"Yes you did."
"Well I had to change the channel by myself," Akiko persisted.
"Stop running guilt trips on me, Missy," Makoto smirked. "The way your Daddy spoiled you, I bet you were sorry to get well. So now it's Ichiro's turn to get spoiled."
Akiko digested this for a few moments.
"When's Auntie Usagi coming over?" Akiko asked out of the blue.
"Why? You looking for a candy hand-out?" Makoto asked cynically.
"Well yeah!" Akiko shot back. Makoto almost broke up there and then. "Besides, Auntie Usagi draws me pretty pictures. And she likes the same anime I like. And she plays games with me. I beat her the last time we played."
"You like your Auntie Usagi, don't you?" Makoto smiled.
"Yeah, she's fun! When's she coming over?"
"Maybe not for a while," Makoto said, her mood growing melancholy. "Your Auntie Usagi is busy with something very, very important."
"Is she being Sailor Moon?" Akiko asked, excitement gleaming in her eyes.
"Yeah," Makoto said, taking a chair. She motioned Akiko over and whisked the child up into her lap.
"So why aren't you with her?" Akiko asked curiously.
"It's something she has to do by herself, hon'," Makoto told her.
"Oh," Akiko replied, a little disappointed. "Is she going to be back tomorrow?"
"I don't know," Makoto admitted, brushing black hair out of the girl's forehead.
"I wish she'd come back soon," Akiko stated, trying to keep her disappointment to a minimum.
"So do I, Kiddo," Makoto agreed, squeezing her child to her breast. "Waiting and not knowing is no fun."
"Could something bad happen to her?" Akiko asked innocently, but with a slight undercurrent of dread.
"Well," Makoto began, "something bad can always happen to you. That's why you always have to be careful. And being a senshi, sometimes you have to risk something bad happening to do what you have to do. But your Auntie Usagi has been at this for a long time. And she knows what she's doing - - even if your other aunts and I aren't there to hold her hand. She'll deal with this, and then come home, and then I'll fix her a big old meal three times as big as anything I've ever made before."
"And she'll eat it all up!" giggled Akiko. Makoto hugged her again. The girl's fears were mollified.
Now if only hers would.
Senenthia Om, the one-time Sailor Galaxia, watched it all unfold before her with unbelieving eyes. She watched Sailor Valiant take the news that the love of her life's only hope of restoration was to live his life out as an insect, watched her take the news with all the lack of joy she expected. She watched the senshi draw her energy sword in an expected explosion of fury. She saw Usagi Chiba intercede, trying to calm the tense situation only to have Sailor Valiant backhand her to the ground. It was a blow she still hadn't moved from. And she saw Sailor Valiant charge, swinging her energy sword to decapitate Senenthia.
She'd seen enough.
"Galaxia Super String!" Senenthia Om shouted, gesturing at the charging Sailor Valiant as if she were tossing something at her.
Golden string shot out from Senenthia's hands. It caught Sailor Valiant across the chest and began magically winding around the senshi, up and down her body until her limbs were fused and bound. Her energy sword clattered to the ground as she struggled in the criss-cross cocoon of golden filament. The string was thin, but had great tensile strength and cut deep into her skin. Valiant tried to burst it, but the restraint resisted. All she managed to do was topple awkwardly onto the ground. Still struggling, the senshi quickly realized that she was caught in restraint that seemed inescapable, and that she was at a huge disadvantage to the single most powerful senshi in the universe. She looked up warily. Valiant expected to suffer a counterattack from the fiery haired ex-senshi, and she was wrong. Instead Senenthia ran over to the fallen Usagi.
"Usagi, are you hurt?" Senenthia gasped, emotion heretofore unguessed in the woman bubbling to the surface. She knelt down, her brown robe bunching around her, and cradled Usagi's head in her lap.
As Sailor Valiant struggled to free herself, she watched her foe hold a hand over the Earth senshi's head. Her hand began to glow gold. Instantly Valiant recognized what Senenthia was doing from her own time as Queen Triumphant. She was using her crystal energy to heal Usagi. As she continued to stare, Sailor Valiant puzzled over the ex-senshi's behavior. It was clear she wasn't the vicious destroyer that Valiant remembered. She was different.
But Sailor Valiant's world was still dead. And Kalen Tu was still a disembodied star seed. She kept trying to free herself.
"Ohh," Usagi sighed, stirring at last. "Did I fall asleep?"
"Usagi?" Senenthia asked breathlessly. "How do you feel?"
"Very good," Usagi replied. "You heal quite well, Senenthia. It's something you were born to do." Senenthia gave her a cynical grin.
"I won't let you make Kalen Tu into one of those insects!" shouted Sailor Valiant as she strained against the steely string. "I will stop you!"
"So you'd rather he be a disembodied star seed forever?" argued Senenthia. "There's no other choice for him! And if you'd stop wallowing in your anger and loss, maybe you could see that!"
"I have to fight for him!" Valiant bellowed back. "What else is left for me?"
"You could use your power to help," Usagi offered. "Find another world that needs you and help them. Or help Senenthia with her work. I'm sure she could use . . ."
"Help her?" spat Sailor Valiant. "After what she did?"
"Well, this vicious cycle of revenge and violence won't accomplish anything!" Usagi cried.
"It's all I have left to me," scowled Valiant.
"Oh, stop," sneered Senenthia. "I felt sympathy for you, at first. But not now. What do you know about true misery? Your bright, shiny world is gone? At least you knew a world that was bright and shiny, and not a hell hole of deprivation and despair. Your friends are gone? At least you had friends. Your lover is now a disembodied star seed? My condolences." The woman with the fiery mane clenched her jaw, choking back more unexpected emotion. "At least you had someone who loved you."
Usagi stared up at Senenthia, frightened by the rancor spilling out from her as she recalled her past.
"I grew up on a world where children fought for scraps of food and even the winners often went to sleep hungry. A world where a coin made you a king, a world where love and charity got you exploited or killed," Senenthia continued. "My existence was a series of battles for survival, and the survivors often envied the dead because they didn't suffer anymore. My home world was the first planet I destroyed and it's the only one I'm not going to restore!" The woman seemed almost to shake with fury. "What's worse, Sailor Valiant: To have known joy and lost it, or to have never known joy at all? Well? Answer me, Sailor Valiant! You know so much more than any of us that you have the right to judge me!"
"Senenthia," Usagi said simply, putting her hand on the woman's forearm. Senenthia looked down at the still prone Usagi and saw once again compassion and charity pooled in her blue eyes. "Forgive her, please. It's the heartache talking."
Swallowing to clear her emotion from her throat, Senenthia smiled timidly.
"Of course, Usagi," Senenthia nodded. "I'm sorry." She rose to her feet. A single gesture caused the golden string to disappear from Sailor Valiant's body. "Maybe everybody would calm down if I excused myself for a while."
Senenthia walked away. As she left, the star seeds above them began to dissipate, fading into the limbo they resided in until only one lingered. Usagi got up and went over to Sailor Valiant. The senshi sat in the grass, solemn and thoughtful.
"What hold do you have over her, Sailor Moon?" she asked Usagi. "I felt her power just now. I was helpless before her. Just as I was helpless two - - no, eighteen cycles ago. She could have destroyed me with a thought. And with just a few words, you stopped her. How? How do you bend the single most powerful being in the universe to your will?"
Usagi shrugged. "I'm her friend?"
Sailor Valiant looked at her as if she were a child for a moment. Then she gave up the idea and returned to her melancholy. The single star seed hovered over her.
"It seems ludicrous," Valiant mumbled. "But I have witnessed it with my own eyes. I thought I believed in the power of peace and charity - - before. But you actually make it work." Suddenly she turned to Usagi. "Perhaps you could intercede on my behalf? I haven't done anything to deserve your consideration, but it's not for me! Kalen Tu deserves to live again, as a humanoid and not an insect! All my people do, but him most of all! If you . . .?"
"I'm sorry, Sailor Valiant," Usagi offered. "Some things are beyond us all. Senenthia says she doesn't have the power to construct a human form for the star seeds. It's all she can do to make the insect forms."
Bringing her knees up to her chest, Sailor Valiant pressed her face into them. Usagi felt the woman weeping and placed her arms around Valiant. The star seed moved in closer.
"For all I am, and all I have done," Sailor Valiant keened, "I'm helpless. Helpless when my love and my people need me most!"
The star seed was now level with Usagi's face, hovering slightly above Sailor Valiant.
"Is that him?" Usagi asked. Sailor Valiant looked up and acknowledged the star seed for the first time.
"Yes," she whispered, gently caressing the star seed. "Oh, Sailor Moon, do you know the agony I feel over seeing him this way?"
"Yes, I do," Usagi told her. "Mamo-Chan was like that when Sailor Galaxia came to Earth. Fortunately he came back to me, but the memory of seeing him that way is something that will haunt me forever." She hugged Sailor Valiant again.
"To think of him like this withers my soul - - but the thought of him as a mere insect, his great mind gone is so much worse! What will I do?" Sailor Valiant asked weakly. "Sailor Moon, what will I do?"
"I don't know," Usagi offered. "I'm not very good at solving problems. I'm not that smart." She stroked Sailor Valiant's hair. "The only thing I can suggest is - - perhaps you could think of something if you stop using so much of your energy to hate."
Sailor Valiant didn't answer. Usagi continued to hold her. The star seed of Kalen Tu hovered near her and tried to offer what solace it could.
The next morning, Ami was at the hospital and beginning her shift. She wasn't very eager to be there, though. Usagi's absence still concerned her. There had been no word from her since the sudden vision they had all received from her. Ami had called Mamoru the previous night to check on him and found the man pensive and frustrated that he couldn't get to his wife. And on top of that, the workplace environment was no better. A good portion of the staff resented her either because she'd reported Dr. Yamaguchi, or that she'd reported a staffer at all. Nobody seemed to like a whistle-blower, particularly one that seemed to be better at her job than they were.
So preoccupied with these things was she that Ami nearly missed the soft gasps coming from a patient's room. Turning to the sound, Ami peeked in. It sounded like a possible inhibited airway in a respirator patient.
"Goodness!" Ami gasped.
A thirty-six year old woman was in the bed, her face and neck severely swollen from an allergic reaction. She was semi-conscious and gasping for air. Running up, Ami pressed the emergency call button on the patient's remote while looking at the IV bag feeding into her. The IV was a simple glucose solution, certainly nothing that would cause this reaction. Then she saw the vial on the desk next to the bed.
"Penicillin," Ami murmured as a nurse came in. She turned to the nurse quickly. "Get a cart in here! She's in anaphylactic shock!"
With no time to lose, Ami grabbed a plastic tube from a bed tray. It was the outer housing for a syringe. Forcing the tube down the woman's throat for intubation eased the respiratory problems enough to keep her alive. By that time two nurses and Dr. Yamaguchi had arrived. Ami snatched up a syringe and a vial of epinephrine while one nurse set up an oxygen mask and Dr. Yamaguchi bent over the patient.
"I need an IV of steroid solution here!" he commanded the other nurse. Yamaguchi checked the woman's pulse as Ami administered the injection. Not liking the pulse, Yamaguchi began massaging the woman's arm where Ami injected her. A nurse strapped an oxygen mask over the patient's face. The steroid IV was put in place.
And tense minutes later, their efforts paid off. Her breathing eased and the swelling receded.
"When she's stable," Ami said to one of the nurses, "let her attending physician know that I had to intubate with a hard plastic syringe housing. It will need to be removed and her throat tissue treated. And let the attending know about this, too."
"He already knows, Dr. Mizuno," Dr. Yamaguchi told her, still bent over the patient checking her.
"You?" Ami asked to confirm the statement. "Do you realize what probably caused this?"
"Probably an anaphylactic reaction to the penicillin I gave her," Yamaguchi replied stonily.
"What were you treating her for?"
"She was admitted for a back injury. During tests, we also discovered a," and Yamaguchi hesitated uncomfortably, "gynecological infection." Ami began to respond, but Yamaguchi stopped her. "And before you ask, I had no indication of any allergic history to penicillin." He never looked at Ami, but did add, "By the way - - good catch. Your quick actions allowed us to save her."
"Yours did as well," Ami replied.
Diplomatically she left. But rather than take up her own caseload, Ami went to the nurse's station and got the chart for the woman she'd just left. As she read it, peripherally she noticed Dr. Yamaguchi headed for the locker room to change. But as Yamaguchi entered the elevator, Ami jumped in with him.
"Doctor," Ami began, eying him intently. "I looked at that patient's chart. It clearly states a known allergy to penicillin."
Yamaguchi's eyes popped. Ami instantly deduced that he wasn't aware of it.
"I," Yamaguchi began, his eyes shifting away, "must have missed it."
"Or you forgot to check?" Ami persisted.
"Dr. Mizuno, you can spare me the lecture. I already got it from your mother," bristled Yamaguchi. "I can see now where you get your tenacity from - - and your demanding nature. You and Kaname are very much alike."
"Doctor, the safety of the patients must be the primary consideration here!" Ami argued.
"Don't lecture me about the Hippocratic Oath, Doctor!" snapped Yamaguchi. "You're too young to know what it's like to feel people pushing you toward the door because of your age. When you're thirty, it's a mistake. We all make them. When you're sixty, you're old. You're not competent anymore. You've lost your touch - - getting senile. All right, I forget things - - maybe more often than I used to. But I'm still a good doctor! I can still help people! I'm not ready for the retirement home yet!"
The elevator opened and Dr. Yamaguchi stormed out. Ami stayed behind, watching him roar into the men's locker room like a tsunami coming in off the Pacific. She sympathized with him. She actually did. Ami had seen him in action side by side with her pulling that patient back from the brink. He WAS still a good doctor.
Just not for a hospital setting - - not anymore. With a heavy heart, Ami pushed the button to return to her floor. When she got a chance today, she was going to have to file another report. Maybe this one would force something to happen.
Sailor Valiant sat in the grasses near the thicket. The star seed of Kalen Tu hovered near her, but she was only absently aware of it. Instead, the words of Sailor Moon dominated her mind.
"'Perhaps you could think of something'," she had said to Sailor Valiant, "'if you stop using so much of your energy to hate'."
It was hard. She'd never hated any being in all of her existence more than she hated Sailor Galaxia. And what had acting on that hatred gotten her? From what Sailor Moon had told her, Sailor Moon had almost as much reason to hate Galaxia, and she forgave the woman - - even managed to turn Galaxia from her rampage of destruction. There was wisdom in this seemingly simple woman. Perhaps she did need to spend more time on restoring what she had lost instead of avenging it. There was still hope. Kalen Tu and the others still existed, if only in star seed form.
"And what was that you always told me, dear Kalen?" she whispered, gently stroking the star seed hovering next to her. "'Where there is life, there is hope'." She sighed, teetering on the brink of tears again. "Oh, how I long for you to be a part of me again. I miss you so."
And just like that, Sailor Valiant had an idea. Now the question was: Did she have the power - - and the courage - - to attempt it?"
Continued in Chapter 11