A/N: Alright, major against warning. I think I made Makoto a bit aggressive, more so than even I'd normally envision her to get, but, I think given the situation it isn't out of the realm of possibility. Since this chapter got longer than I thought it out to be, this one will remain only for Makoto/Setsuna, however to counterbalance that, the next chapter will be devoted to Rei and Minako's storyline.
I don't own Sailor Moon.
Arc 2, Chapter 9: Tell Me.
"Get away from me.." The warning was one of malice and slight fear. If it hadn't been for the little feral creature Rei would have never left the confines of her room, but it still didn't mean Makoto trusted it fully. Instead she felt hate. She was unsure why, but she dearly wished the Saturn of the past would go away. She kicked at it, making the little Senshi ghost cower in slight fear under the coffee table. She looked at Makoto as if she didn't understand. What had been slight toleration at best, progressed into pure hate. Saturn couldn't figure out why. Again she got closer. A mistake indeed. "No I Said!" Makoto shouted roughly. "Go away." Her voice sound more upset than angry.
"Let her be. She doesn't understand why you're so aggressive. Only that you are." Jupiter's memory was calm and peaceful, although truthfully, her melancholic gaze remained unspoken truth. "Come here kid. No sense in annoying her." Pity was underlying the tone. Jupiter laughed lightly at the confused look that it earned her. "Come along now, she doesn't want you." Saturn looked back at the annoyed teen and like a confused puppy. "We'll go play someplace else." Jupiter called again.
The child obeyed, scurrying her way across Makoto's living room and into the arms of her most unwelcome caregiver. It seemed odd, this child needed constant mothering. Jupiter walked off into the air then, making herself unseen. "Freakish thing." Makoto muttered aggravated. This had gone on for several days now, and she couldn't say she was coping well at all. Sighing she stood finding her shoes. It wouldn't do her any good to just sit around. Leaving her transformation pen inside of a subspace pocket she walked out of her home. As long as that pen wasn't near her, neither was that annoyance of a past life. "The dead should stay dead damn it." Her voice quivered under her breath.
"The dead are where they belong." Hotaru. Why she outside of the apartment building became sickeningly apparent as the little creature of hell sat at her side. "You just can't seem to accept it." Makoto kept walking, ignoring the teen behind her. "Give her back!" Makoto froze. "Give her back. Now. Otherwise I will not be held responsible for my actions." Hotaru sounded hurt, vengefully so. The voice of innocence lost. Darkness seeped into every last word. Even someone as powerful as Makoto knew Hotaru wasn't just playing around.
"You want her?" The question was sincere, but also threatening. Hotaru nodded then, not speaking, only looking. Those pink eyes more than a simple request. "Have it then. I can't take her any longer anyway." Makoto pulled the pen from the pocket and tossed it at Hotaru, the pen landing with a clank on the ground. "Just keep it safe." With that Makoto continued on, she could feel her crystal being used, her memory again becoming something for the eyes. She couldn't say she cared any longer though. She would always be a Senshi, but that was as far as it went. That transformation didn't dictate her life. It never had, and for a long time it still wouldn't. That's what she forced herself to believe.
Even if she could play pretend, it didn't change the facts. Some of them more painful than she cared to admit. There were very few with the answers she needed, even less of those people had the resolve to do so. However if there was one woman who could recall it, would be Setsuna be the one. Even if that were true though, she couldn't help feeling bad for Hotaru. The girl had been hanging around her apartment quite a lot recently. The request came from the barbaric monster that could only be Saturn. "Why do I get stuck with this baggage?" She sighed "I'm the only one who ever deals with it. All of it." It was only a half truth, but the facts weren't easy regardless.
Her walk was slow and labored. Her breathing tense. Unlike Rei's panic attack, Makoto knew fully well what she was doing, what she saw was not only a memory she had refused. No, it would be easy if it had only been that. Trash on the ground, passers by, water fountains...so many things that belonged in daily life she took for granted. Places she saw everyday, people that she knew were nearby residents, this was the life she knew. The life she understood. With her hands in her pockets, her eyes focused on the pavement, she continued her long walk forcing every movement deliberately, feeling that if she didn't, she would fall down and never stand again. Her worries weren't eased at all when she finally came to the steps that signed her fate away. A dotted line that she would etch across in pen, unable to erase her actions or her words.
She knocked on the door, Setsuna wordlessly allowing her in. They didn't really need speech, however, if they were going to converse, they had only one topic of interest. Hotaru. She was the only real concern for either of them, granted the reasons it existed were far different. "You've taken longer than I thought you would. Three days, a new record." Setsuna was softly spoken. "Are you done procrastinating? Or, are you merely here to pick a fight." Her words were troubled, something hidden deeply within them.
"You know why I'm here." Makoto stood the the doorway, fists clenched. It would be so easy to let loose.
"No, I don't, actually." She gestured towards the living room. "If you would like, we may talk in the next room."
Makoto curtly nodded, her agreement unspoken. "You planned this." Still, she was on the offensive.
"You place far too much faith in my abilities." Setsuna sighed. Everyone did that.
"Well, I don't have any reason not to point fingers. You always know everything, even when you have no right to any information." Makoto's eyes were filled with rage, but behind that a small amount of fear didn't help her already raging emotions. "You knew I would come here. You know why I'm angry. There isn't any reason for you to know, I haven't even told you, and yet, I bet you know even more than that. I bet you see more of our lives than you ever let on. Those damned gates show you everything."
"I already told you, I don't know the reason you've come. I'm not lying when I tell you that." Setsuna took a seat, offering for Makoto to do the same. She could almost feel fate becoming angered, almost imploring her to use her powers. "I could be told. I would be told, however, this doesn't concern the time line. Fate could tell me, even wants to tell me, but I'm refusing it's whim right now." She only blinked for a second, knowing more than she wanted, and yet not enough for fate. "I want you to tell me Makoto. I know I could find out, we both know I can have access to that information, but I want to hear it from you."
Makoto sent a hard glare at Setsuna. Her anger dissolving into confusion and bitterness. "You lied." It was as if she was a three year old reprimanding a parent. "You lied to me...to all of us about our past. We fought for Usagi because we believed in her and in ourselves, but those memories...they aren't anything like what we had been told. We never knew just how far things went. What really happened? I have a right to know."
"You're correct, you do have that right." As if testing her words carefully, Setsuna had been tempted to look into the future. It would have been so easy to cheat through this, the call of fate telling her to do so. Instead, defying her keeper, she refused answers for both herself, and the angry teen in front of her. "However, fate wishes me not to say a word. I couldn't possibly tell you, or, I would be abusing the power handed to me. I'm very limited in what I can and can not say, but it is not because I don't want to say it, it's because right now I'm defying orders merely by agreeing with you. It would be very easy to send more lies you're way, and fate wishes me to do just that." Then as if composing herself for something she continued. "However, that doesn't mean I can't point you in the right direction."
"No, I want the right answers." Makoto's voice began to get angry again. "I can't trust many things, or many people. I don't even know if I can trust you either, but right now Setsuna I'm giving you one chance to redeem yourself. One chance at proving your loyalty to me and the rest of the Sailor Senshi. If you can't even do that, then all you'll ever be in my eyes is a threat, and you know what we do to threats Setsuna. Don't make me question your intentions further."
A cynical chuckle wafted through the room, Setsuna eye's sharpened. It was as if she was preparing an attack, defensive or offensive it didn't matter. Her guard had been up from the start of this conversation, her abilities telling her that combat wasn't fatal. Then again, it wasn't ever truly fatal anyway. Only painful. Her mind provoked more answers from fate, ones Setsuna further rejected as she searched emerald green eyes just as malicious. Just as deadly. "I'd like to see you try to attack me. I know your every move. Striking me down will only provoke a battle you can not win, simply because I know what you will do directly before you do it. I can't override information about something that will kill me, and you are strong enough that you could possibly do so."
"Don't act like a god!" Makoto flew from her seat, jumping over the coffee table and onto the sofa Setsuna perched upon. The mage was being pressed down roughly on the fabric, however she didn't fight back. Still, her eyes showed no fear, no remorse. "Don't just sit there damn it. Fight me. Fight me if that's what you want, but don't just sit there looking so smug, like you know every move I do...don't sit there and act so fucking brave when you've told me my entire life is a sham!" Makoto's scream was broken by the tears in her eyes, severed from the dry air forced upon her hoarse voice.
"I'm not god. I'm a slave. I do as I'm told, or I suffer the consequences of my actions gravely. I'm chained in, and no matter how hard I fight, no matter what I do, I'm still only a person forced by command. Fate has my collar and it isn't letting me go. Not until I'm dead by Hotaru's hands." She could feel Makoto squeezing her wrists tightly, the blood flow cutting off, her hands going numb from the force. She knew that feeling well, even if it wasn't tangible that feeling never went away. It always remained in her heart. That guilt gave this feeling, never relenting, never forgiving. "Even if you killed me now, I would come back to life by the hands of my keeper. My time isn't now, and won't be for several thousand years. Even if you strike me until I no longer breathe, I would still return here when fate wishes me to do so."
Makoto didn't speak, her eyes focused on the woman before her. Setsuna had let something down, a wall she seemingly always kept up had fallen from around her. The veil of perfection showing something far more disturbing. A broken, withered woman spoke from those lips. Someone who had seen far too much already, had known more than she had ever wanted. That part had always been hidden from view, but for some reason, Makoto could see it now. That sickly stare almost begging to be abused, begging to be taken away from this earth. "Your lying." Makoto's voice shook. "Stop lying!"
"I'm not." That look was still there, those eyes still open books of truth. "Makoto, honey, I'm telling you what I can." Her voice was softer then, as if she was a mother hen protecting her chick. "I know it isn't what you want to hear, but I'm telling you all I can." She felt the iron like grip ease into nothingness, Makoto's hands at rest as she towered over the Senshi chained into fate. Setsuna wanted nothing more than to ease that confusion, ease that pain she saw there. She pulled Makoto down then, one hand stroking thick locks of auburn hair while the other kept her close. "Your life isn't a sham Makoto. But you know what? I personally think that's the worst part about it."
She broke then. That tall brash girl, the one able to snap most people like a twig fell victim inside of her own memories. Truth and lies muddled and she couldn't see clearly. What had she been told? What had people done? Fate hadn't given her anything near a happy life, and little did she realize that fate happened twice in more ways that it should have, more ways that it normally would have. As if all of her emotions then became her own failures, she hid. Clutching onto Setsuna more afraid than she had even been before, and somehow, even through her own convolution, her own inward pity, she felt a single stray tear fall into her hair.
What ever happened back then, it haunted Setsuna too. Of that Makoto knew.
TBC~~~
Gods, have I ever mentioned how much I like toying with Setsuna? She's such a great villain in her own right. Not because her intentions are bad, but just because of what she can and can't do. She's like the good guy playing devil's advocate, and I don't know why, but I love that part of her...anyway, I digress. Minako/Rei to come later on. I didn't want to make this chapter any longer than it already was or you all would be in for more waiting than necessary since the snow right now is horrendous. We lost power three times today on and off, and before I tempt sod's law again, I'm posting it as it is.
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