A/N: Thanks so much for reviewing! The story is almost finished now, there'll probably be one or two more chapters :)
The world around her was burned and blackened. Dead bodies lay everywhere and she recognized a few of them. Where was she? What had happened here?
"This is the end." She turned towards the vaguely familiar voice. A woman with long dark green hair, wearing a similar uniform as herself – she had seen her before, but only once, only shortly.
"Pluto." Her beloved's voice stated the name she had been looking for. Sailor Pluto.
"Do we really have to?" she spoke herself, sounding lost and tired to her own ears.
"There is nothing to be done. We three must call her to end this world…" And Pluto raised her staff, as she herself raised her mirror and Uranus her sword.
~o~o~
"Nooo!" Her own scream woke her. But as she opened her eyes, she met nothing but darkness. Confused she looked around. Was there no light, anywhere?
She felt disoriented, unsure of where she was and how she had gotten here. Had it just been a dream?
Suddenly warm arms wrapped themselves around her from behind.
"Neptune? Are you alright? Did you have a nightmare?"
"More likely a vision", she replied, her voice sounding raspy and broken. She leaned into the embrace, her hands tightening on the arms which she knew belonged to Uranus.
When she had calmed a little, she turned to face the other woman, who kissed her gently.
"A vision, you say?"
"The world was ending, Uranus, and it was us who ended it – we called her…"
"…yoko-san?"
"Chiyoko-san?"
Confused she looked around. Where did this name come from? It seemed familiar…
"Chiyoko-san! Wake up!"
She forced her eyes open. A young girl was sitting in front of her, shaking her. She knew her name…yes… "Umeha-chan?" she finally managed.
The girl frowned. "Are you alright, Chiyoko-san? I've been trying to wake you up for several minutes…"
She sat up, feeling exhausted like after a long illness. Never before had a dream been as vivid as this. She'd never slipped into her dream persona so deeply, forgotten her own present self so completely…
"Get up quickly, you overslept and we need to leave for our lessons!" Umeha was already back on her legs, running around in the room and gathering Michiru's things. "Are you ill? Is something wrong with you? It's not like you to oversleep…"
She stopped to hand Michiru her clothes and looked at her worriedly. Still dazed, she quickly washed and donned her clothes, leaving the okiya together with the other girls.
Michiru was not able to concentrate on her lessons this day. She had dreamed a dream in a dream, had she not? Was she dreaming this as well? Was she someone else, somewhere else and simply had a long and very unsettling dream? But she could hardly be dreaming her entire life.
The dream worried her. She – or rather Neptune – had seen death and destruction of everything Neptune loved. Was this what had happened to the moon kingdom? Somehow she knew deep down that there was no golden-haired princess dancing on the moon anymore.
Why had she dreamed this now? Was it a dark omen? The party had taken place some weeks ago, but she could still almost feel Haruka's arms around her, see her tall figure and hear her bold words. Let's run away together, she had said. If she only knew where to go and how… how was her beloved supposed to think of something, when she was just as trapped as Michiru was?
~o~o~
Haruka watched the professor write down a number of words on the blackboard and copied them. "Book, letter, envelope", she repeated after him.
Her uncle had been quite surprised when she had asked to switch classes at university again –to English studies. But she had insisted and finally prevailed. She knew that it would be incredibly difficult to follow through with her plan – but if it worked out, English would likely prove useful.
Other than that, her plans had not come very far. The best course of action seemed to be buying a ship passage to the United States or Canada. Once the ship had left the shore, it would be very hard to bring them back and they would be very far away when they arrived. If not too much time passed between Michiru leaving the okiya and boarding the ship, it might just work out. They could pose as a married couple. But ship passages were terribly expensive and she did not know how to acquire the money. She had no access to any resources of consequence… Perhaps she could start with selling some of her jewelry.
When Haruka returned home that day, however, all her plans were quite thoroughly wiped from her thoughts. Yoko had suddenly gone into labor during her absence, only aided by the cook. When her uncle had come home, he had almost fainted from seeing so much blood and had called for a doctor, who had delivered a healthy looking little girl by the time Haruka arrived.
Yoko was terribly pale, however, and Haruka watched her with concern, wondering whether there was supposed to be so much blood. As she looked at the doctor, his worried expression told her that something was horribly wrong. "The bleeding is not stopping", he whispered and shrugged in response to her unspoken question. "There is nothing more that I can do…"
She suppressed her anger with difficulty, feeling quite sure that this wasn't the reaction he would show if some highborn lady was dying, but lashing out at him wouldn't help poor Yoko. She ignored him and sat down by Yoko's head looking down at the young girl and the little child.
"Haruka-sama." Yoko looked up at her and smiled weakly. "I won't live, is that what he said?" Haruka shook her head fervently. "You will live," she replied firmly.
Yoko reached for her hand. "No, he is right. I know I won't." she said softly. "Please, Haruka-sama…will you take care of Hotaru for me?" Haruka nooded, speechless, as little Hotaru opened her eyes and – probably quite unconsciously – moved a chubby little hand into her direction.
~o~o~
Yoko had been right, unfortunately. She had passed away soon afterwards.
Now, a few days later, Haruka was pacing up and down, hoping to calm the child. She fed her regularly – fortunately, the cook had known where to buy powered milk – but the child wouldn't stop crying tonight. That Haruka herself was quite sleep deprived didn't help. „What's wrong, little princess?" she murmured, continuing her pacing.
She had fallen in love with the child the minute she had met her. When her uncle had offered to look for adoptive parents for the little one, she had refused, determined to honor her promise. However, she didn't know how. The past days had taught her quite a lot about taking care of an infant. But what was to become of her plans? How was she going to keep her promise to Michiru? And what was going to happen when her parents returned?
Finally, Hotaru settled and she went back to bed. "You should meet Michiru, little princess", Haruka whispered softly. "I'm sure, you'll like her."
An image crossed her mind, of Michiru, Hotaru and herself. They were in a sunlit garden. Hotaru was older than now, running around happily, and all three were wearing quite strange clothes. Michiru was wearing a short dress, not unlike the uniform she'd seen her wear fighting in her dreams and she herself wore white trousers and a shirt with short sleeves and no collar. She closed her eyes and fell asleep, holding onto the happy picture.
Just in case anyone wondered - milk powder for babys was indeed invented in the latter half of the 19th century (I don't know how good it was though).
To be continued.