(o)

1
The Writer's Mother

The first ray of sunlight hit me right between the eyes. I groaned and rolled over. The last thing I wanted was to get out of bed. Summer was coming, and already the air was thick and bristly. The next day, we would be changing into our short-sleeved summer uniforms, and normally that would be a cause for excitement: the thrill of a new beginning, a change in routine, with new activities to enjoy, and the holidays to look forward to. But I couldn't enjoy any of that any more. All my thoughts were now caught up in my plans for Usagi's adventures; and those had fallen around me in ruins. I just couldn't carry on without Thetis. She had been my mentor, my voice of reason, and a shoulder to cry on when I needed one, little as she'd wanted to admit it.

I squirmed and wriggled. I had at least achieved something I could be glad about, surely? We'd had some wonderful adventures, and she had grown into her role as Sailor Moon, better than I had ever dared to hope. She still hated fighting, but she got a real kick out of knowing that people were grateful to her for saving them – and never more so than when she saved her favourite idol, Aino Minako, from a pair of assassins. In the space of only two months, she had developed from a timid little girl who cried at the merest scratch, into a strong and confident young woman. And I had made that happen. And she would never know.

And yet, it was hard to make myself feel cheerful about it. I'd wanted so much more. I'd never dared to look ahead and imagine where the adventure might bring us in the end; but I knew that I wanted Usagi to keep on growing under my guidance, all the way until we were adults, and then – well, then I would have created something wonderful. I had no idea how we'd get to that point or what adventures we would have on the way, but there would still be plenty of time to work out all the details. But not any more. It was all over; and the story had only just gotten started.

I lay still for a long time, trying to forget. I knew that at some point I'd have to get up and face the day, but I wanted to put it off as long as possible. Then I heard voices downstairs. The shop wasn't open yet, so it had to be a personal visitor for Mother. Well, that was good; hopefully she'd be kept busy and wouldn't come stomping up to scold me for being still in bed.

Time wore on. My stomach growled. At last I felt I just had to get up and get something to eat, just to keep it quiet. I rolled over, wobbled onto my feet, and looked in the mirror.

Wow. I looked awful. My hair was like a pile of autumn leaves that a dog has been rolling in. My eyes were blurry and wrinkled, and my mouth sagged like Usagi's when confronted with a maths problem.

I sighed. I couldn't go down looking like this, not when there was a visitor in the house. I grabbed the first clothes I found that didn't look awful together, a yellow sleeveless top and an orange skirt. I hastily washed my face and brushed my hair. A little too hastily; I could hear it tearing. Well, at least I was close to presentable. I think Mother has always been disappointed in me. Any jeweller wants to have a drop-dead gorgeous daughter to show off her jewels on.

As I went downstairs, I noted that the voices were still talking; the visitor had been here for quite a while. That was a little unusual; Mother is always so caught up in her work that she doesn't really have any close friends. Perhaps it was a business meeting.

I tiptoed towards the door to the lounge, and knocked.

"Ah, there she is at last!" said Mother. "Come in, Naru!"

I entered the room – and stopped in astonishment when I saw that her visitor was Mizuno Ami. She was neatly arranged on the sofa, taking up very little space, but her smile somehow seemed to fill the whole room. She wore an orange T-shirt and a grass-green skirt, and her hair was pushed back with a polka-dotted band that cast a summery aura over her face. In short, she was every bit the daughter that Mother must have wished she had.

"Good morning, Naru-chan," Ami said with a polite nod.

I was so bewildered that I forgot to bow in return. "Good morning, Ami-chan."

"Oh, you two are on first-name terms already?" said Mother. "Naru, why haven't you ever told me you have such a lovely friend? You should have invited her over!"

"Sorry, Mother. I never knew you were so interested in my friends."

She gave me an icy stare, but her tone remained polite. "Well, sit down. I'm sure you two have a lot to talk about. I'll go and make you both some tea."

I nodded and drifted over to the armchair opposite Ami. Mother strolled away humming to herself; she was in a better mood than I'd seen for quite a while.

Ami remained still and smiling, waiting for me to speak first. At last I said, "Looks like you and Mother also had a lot to talk about."

"Oh, yes!" said Ami. "She's a very interesting woman. I'm so impressed by the way she's built up the shop all by herself since your father's death – oh, sorry, I shouldn't have said that."

"It's all right," I said quickly. "It was years ago."

"That's true," said Ami. "Still, when you lose a parent, the pain never really goes away."

I nodded, and then caught my breath. "Ami, is that..."

"What? Oh..." Ami flushed. "No, my parents are divorced. It's not the same thing."

"I see." I managed a weak smile. "Still, I guess that hurts too."

Ami bowed her head. "They didn't have a big argument or anything. Father just walked out on us one day and moved to Karuizawa. He's a landscape painter. He said life in the city was stifling him and he needed the mountain air. I haven't seen him since then. I just get a painting every year on my birthday, and that's all."

I could see that she was holding back the tears. I wanted to reach out to her, but Mother could have come back at any moment.

"So you've also been brought up by your mother," I said, to fill the silence.

"That's right."

"She must be a remarkable woman."

"Oh, she is." Ami was smiling again; clearly her mother was a subject she liked talking about. "That's why I've always tried my hardest at school, so that she can be proud of me..."

"Why would she not be?" I said. "Top grades in everything, special classes in English... I wish my mother could be proud of me like that."

Ami looked up at me. "Why are you sure she isn't?"

I snorted. "She's so caught up in her work, she just never has time for me. I guess she's disappointed that I don't show more interest, but you know, it's really not my thing." I sighed. "I mean, I like jewellery, but there's got to be more to life. That's why I want to be a writer; I take after my father in that respect."

"Doesn't your mother approve of that?" said Ami. "She must have loved your father..."

"I don't know," I said. "She never talks about him."

"That could just show that she misses him a great deal as well. Or it could be that she thinks you wouldn't want to be troubled with thinking about him."

"Maybe." I yawned and stretched myself. "Anyway, Ami-chan, I'm sure you didn't come here to talk about Mother."

"Well, no." She looked a little sad. "I just think it's a shame you two don't get on."

"Yeah, well, what are you going to do about it?" I grimaced. I knew I shouldn't be so rude, when Ami was only trying to be helpful. But it hurt. It hurt because I knew she was right.

"Sorry." She looked a little nervous. "Naru-chan... I need to talk to you in private."

"Well, sure," I said after a pause. "Let's wait for Mother to bring in the tea, though."

Ami nodded, and we made idle chat for a while. I asked her how she was getting on with the latest assignment – Izumi-sensei had given us another Keats poem to read, and, to be honest, I hadn't even looked at it yet. I was secretly hoping that before Ami left, I could get her to help me with some of the hard words. She smiled; I think she guessed my intention. This was the main reason people wanted to be friends with her, and she was used to it by now. But at least with me and Usagi, she didn't mind it being that way, as she knew there was a lot more to our friendship than that.

When Mother brought in a tray with two cups of tea and two slices of cake, I thanked her and took the tray upstairs. Ami followed me into my room, and carefully shut the door so that we would not be overheard.

I relaxed on the bed. "So, Ami-chan, what was it you wanted to talk about?"

"I think you know that," she said, carefully poising herself on my chair. "What are you going to do next? Now that Thetis has – well, you know –"

"She's dead," I said curtly.

Ami bowed her head and was silent for a while. I turned away and sighed.

"Ami-chan, I just don't know what to say. It all seems so hopeless. I don't know if I can go on with the adventure any more, now that I'm on my own..."

"You're not alone, Naru-chan. You've got me. And Rei-chan."

I was about to make a biting remark about Rei, but I remembered how she'd comforted me on the boat, and I held it back. "Where is Rei, anyway?"

"She's gone to a mountain retreat for purification."

"Oh." I stared at the wall. "I suppose she feels guilty, after –"

"I don't think she blames herself," Ami said gently. "But she has to take responsibility for her own choices. Even if she did the only thing that could be done. So... I don't think it will be a heavy burden, but she has to purge herself of it all the same."

I nodded. "So... should we wait until she comes back?"

"Well..." Ami came to a stop.

I turned to face her again. "What is it?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but... I thought it would be nice to give her a surprise. Have the next adventure already ready for when she gets back. That would let her see that you're coping with things. She's been worried about you."

"Oh, has she?" I snapped. "And I suppose she told you I need to be looked after!"

Ami looked so downcast that my anger melted away in an instant. "Please don't be upset, Naru-chan," she said. "Rei means well. She just wants to know you're okay – because we're friends."

"I guess so," I said with a sigh. "Still, I really don't see how the adventure is supposed to carry on from here."

"Why not?" said Ami.

"Well... Jadeite..." I clenched my fists and looked down at the floor.

"What happened to him?"

"I... I'm sorry, Ami-chan," I spluttered. There was nothing else to be said.

And I think it wasn't until that moment, when I was faced with having to explain it to someone else, that the reality of what I had done finally sunk in. I had killed him. I was... well, no. He hadn't been a person. Whatever else it was, it wasn't murder. He was just one of my fictional characters. I had created him, and I could destroy him at any time I chose.

And yet – it just didn't feel right any more. Jadeite may not have been real, but he had walked and talked and acted just like a real man. And now he was gone. All the possibilities there had been in his character, the potential for him to change and develop – maybe even to redeem himself – that was all gone. It was just as Thetis had warned me, that night when she pleaded with me to let him live. And I hadn't listened. She had been my friend, and even after her death, and I'd taken away from her the one thing she had wanted most.

I must have been lost in tears for a long time. When I came back to my senses, I was in a kneeling position on the floor; my eyes itched, and my head drooped as if it was trying to fall off my shoulders.

Ami was kneeling beside me. She touched me gently on the shoulder. "I understand."

"Do you?" I said bitterly. "How could you understand?"

"I know that you must have mixed feelings about... what you did," she said cautiously. So she knew what I'd done? I suppose it must have been pretty obvious.

"It's natural that you should feel that way," she went on. "Jadeite was the villain, but it still can't have been easy to kill him. You'll never know now what might have happened..."

"Do... do you think I did the right thing, Ami-chan?"

Ami gave a deep sigh. "Naru-chan, most of the time there isn't just one 'right thing'. Sometimes you just have to make your choice and make the best of it. And you have made your choice. Not even the Pen could bring him back now."

I gulped and nodded. "Well, then, it's over, isn't it?"

"Is it?" said Ami. "Listen, Naru-chan. Jadeite was just the starter villain. Do you know what I mean by that?"

I shook my head.

"Well, in most stories, you don't get to see the whole of the enemy hierarchy all at once. That's partly to keep the reader guessing, but also because the heroine is still getting used to her own powers, so the focus should be on her development. So you start with a minor member of the organisation, without much personality of his own. And then –"

I wiped my eyes and looked round at Ami. No matter how much time I spent with her, she could always surprise me with her strange areas of knowledge. This was the kind of thing they don't teach you in school at all. I wondered if she had absorbed it by reading thousands of manga and novels and picking them apart to find out what they all had in common.

"Yes?" I said hesitantly. "And what then?"

"Then it's time for the next villain to appear. Someone who has more of an individual personality than Jadeite. The conflict between Sailor Moon and the Dark Kingdom becomes a clash of strategies as she tries to adjust to this new enemy. In order to win against him, she will have to understand him, even learn to empathise with him..."

"And... does that mean he can be redeemed?"

"It's not impossible. That would be a good ending."

I smiled through my tears. Ami's words had brought back hope when I thought there was none left. Then I caught myself and frowned.

"But, Ami-chan... I don't know how to create someone like that!" I cried. "What should his personality be like? How do I make sure he can be redeemed?"

"Just trust yourself, Naru-chan. I believe in you."

I shook my head. "I can't trust myself any more. Not after what happened to Thetis and Jadeite."

Ami held onto my shoulder. "This time, you have me to help you, remember."

"I know," I said. "Even so, I'm not sure I can..."

"Then," Ami said with a glint in her eye, "may I try?"