Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to Naoko Takeuchi. No copyright infringement intended.
**Based on Sailor Moon Crystal (up to episode 12) and manga (season 2)
Contrition
Noun: sincere penitence or remorse
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Minako's face betrayed nothing; the tension in her elbows and the tightly balled hands at her side did. Her eyes would not leave the placid, calm face of the future Queen. Her thoughts were with her present self- or past, considering she was still in the thirtieth century.
She exhaled and watched as the crystal coffin fogged before her eyes. Her left calf twitched, but the soldier of Venus ignored it. Placing a gloved hand on top of the lid, she traced the outlines of the spiked crystal. With one last sigh, she blinked and walked away. Wishing for her to wake up wouldn't accomplish anything, Minako thought bitterly. Wishing for Usagi to return wouldn't accomplish anything, either. Minako hated not being able to accomplish anything.
"And it only gets worse," she muttered to the empty room, as her blue eyes scanned the four coffins that surrounded the queen's: her sleeping comrades, protecting her even in this icy slumber. Minako circled the first two like a hawk, her lower lip threatening to tremble. She paused to look at Mercury's porcelain white complexion. The brain of the group looked lovely even encased in a crystal coffin, Minako thought with a small grin. She'd have to tell Ami to get some more sunshine when this battle was over. She needed it.
Jupiter looked formidable with her hands crossed over her chest. Her auburn curls were spread around her pretty face like a swimming mermaid's hair. A sad smile crossed Minako's lips as she paid her respects to her strongest soldier.
Her heels echoed in the room as she walked over to the last two coffins. She knew who would be closest to the Queen; Rei didn't like to be outdone. Keeping her eyes focused on the raven-haired beauty, Minako took in a sharp breath. Rei looked as stunning in life as she did in this dreamless state. Her lips were rosy red and her skin milky white against her long, coal black hair. Minako's throat constricted. She longed to reach those tresses of silk and arrange them properly around her shoulders.
Minako closed her eyes, both hands against the crystal lip supporting her weight. She had tried not to give in to her guilt for so long, but having lost Usagi on top of her three friends was beginning to take its toll. How could she lead, if she had no one to follow her?
A sob escaped her lips and her eyes flew open. She covered her mouth with her hands, her baby blue eyes staring around wide. Minako shook her head, reprimanding herself. She had to be strong. Mamoru and Chibi-Usa needed her to be strong. And hadn't Pluto charged her with looking after the small lady?
The small lady; Minako grinned. Despite it all, knowing that the pink-haired little brat was Usagi's daughter was the funniest thing she'd heard since she confronted Artemis over his feelings for Luna.
I should go back, she thought, touching her right hand to her lips and placing the kiss near Rei's cheek. A passing shimmer of light on the last coffin made her stop and look over her shoulder. She bit her lip, unsure. Should she walk over and see what she looked like a century from now? Minako shook her head; it wouldn't be wise, would it? Then again, when had she ever done the wise thing?
Checking to see that nobody was coming to look for her, she tiptoed over to the last coffin. She could feel her heart beating and her skin tingling. It wasn't much, but knowing she could make the decision to look was comforting. She had barely seen a glimpse of gold when a noise stopped her curiosity on its track.
She whirled around, her heart going through the roof and her hands reaching for her chain. "Mamoru?" she called, walking away from the coffins and towards the door. It had come not from the door she had entered, but from a side chamber: a door she hadn't seen before. She mentally kicked herself for not noticing. "Chibi-Usa-chan?" she tried again but no one replied.
She was ready to believe perhaps it had been a figment of her imagination, when she heard it again.
Voices.
Trying her best not to be her clumsy self, Minako tiptoed towards the door. The voices got louder the closer she got; soon she was able to make out what they were saying.
"Be quiet, idiot, she'll hear us," Minako narrowed her eyes. The voice sounded familiar, yet she couldn't tell if it was a feminine or masculine. Or when she had heard it before. She inched closer.
"You are the one who started it!" another voice, this one definitely masculine, replied. Her hand was almost at the doorknob; with her other hand, she held onto her chain. If these were enemies, she wouldn't let them anywhere near her prince and little princess. Her fingers brushed against the silver doorknob when she froze.
Someone else spoke, someone whose voice still haunted her sleepless nights. "Stop it, Jadeite, Zoicite. She's heard us. She is at the door," Minako inhaled sharply as the door swung open, narrowly missing slamming her against the ground.
Well, at least some reflexes still work, she thought.
Standing before her was a man she had seen die not once, but twice. But he wasn't a man. Like the king, Kunzite seemed to resemble a ghost more than a walking, living body. Minako held her position, both hands holding tightly to her chain. He gave her a lazy smile before looking over his shoulder to talk to his companions. "The moment we awake, you two are doing laps around the whole of Crystal Tokyo."
Minako moved her head to the side just in time to catch Jadeite and Zoicite sending each other death glares. "You shouldn't be here," her head snapped back and she readjusted her position. "The king said we weren't supposed to be seen."
"Then you didn't do a good job of that, did you?" Minako replied, lacing each word with a threatening note. "I heard you almost the moment I walked in," she lied and he snorted. Her cheeks reddened, but she paid them no heed.
"Of course you did." Kunzite half-grimaced, half-smiled and Minako knew he could tell she was lying. She grinded her teeth trying her best not to be too obvious, but knowing all along that it was pointless; that man could get under her skin faster than a flu shot.
"Where did your two little minions go?" she asked after a long, awkward moment, stretching her neck to look inside the chamber. Kunzite moved aside and opened the door a little wider. Minako eyed him before walking inside. It was a replica of the chamber she had just been in, with five crystal coffins perfectly arranged.
Minako's heels clicked on the marble floor as she approached the middle coffin. She gasped when she saw Endymion's calm face. "We are all sleeping," Kunzite said, coming to stand beside her. From the proximity, Minako could see past him, into the shadowy outline of the room behind him. "But for some reason, the five of us came back as ghosts, if you would like to call us that."
"Why?"
He shrugged. "I cannot say. Zoicite believes it has to do with the Golden Crystal," Minako looked over her shoulder. She saw the three remaining Shitennou had barricaded themselves against a corner. Jadeite and Zoicite were still arguing while Nephrite's gaze was following her every move, his eyes in a frown. Minako returned the glare. She wondered if he knew that Jupiter had been taken - and that Minako had not been able to save her. She wondered if they all knew how she had failed to protect her princess and her comrades, if they all blamed her for not saving them, for being the only one left.
"Why would the Golden Crystal keep your spirits awake when the Silver Crystal didn't?" she asked, avoiding Kunzite's eyes. He had been tracing the outline of her face and Minako knew instinctively that he could as good as read her thoughts. The pity on her ex-lover's face was not something she was ready to face.
"It kept our spirits alive as rocks," he said simply, taking a step back to give her some space. "If we were on the Moon, perhaps the results would've been reversed."
Minako nodded. Perhaps it would have been. She walked around the five crystal coffins, all tinted golden instead of pearly white. She heard hushed voices, footsteps and the creak of a door that needed its hinges to be oiled. She stopped short, her back facing him. "When were you reborn?"
"Shortly before the Queen ascended the throne," Kunzite replied after a few seconds of silence. Minako did the math in her head. From what she had gathered, Usagi must have become Queen around her twentieth birthday, give or take a year or two. She wasn't certain whether that knowledge comforted her or distressed her further. "Endymion needed his guard as well, once he became King."
She nodded, but kept quiet. What could she say now, to the man she had loved a lifetime before, the man that had killed her then and the man she had not been able to save in this life? How could she face him, knowing she had failed her Princess twice in this lifetime alone? Usagi was a prisoner of an enemy they didn't understand; her fellow soldiers were gone, too. Only Venus remained to hold the fort.
"You shouldn't blame yourself," his voice came closer than before, but further away than she had expected it. Minako closed her eyes and let her shoulders sag. Engrossing herself in a snowstorm of her own doubt and guilt wouldn't help solve the situation; it would only give her wrinkles. "When they attacked we couldn't do anything. You lead your soldiers well; you protected the Queen and the palace. That Crystal Tokyo is asleep and not dead is thanks to your actions."
She bowed her head. "It's never enough, is it?" she said, "I failed her in three different lives, Kunzite."
He placed a hand on her shoulder and her whole body shook. "I know how you feel."
She nodded. Of course he did. He had failed his Prince in three lives too.
When she had first met Kunzite, as a young guardian in the Silver Millenium, she knew they were kindred spirits. She would sigh contentedly, knowing there was another soul in this world who understood the weight of having the world on her shoulders. It was his kindness, his confidence and his surprising sense of humour what had attracted her to him, at first. It was their shared responsibilities, doubts and hopes that bound them together. But, ultimately, it was their shared string of failures that kept them attached. No one else knew what it was like to fail, and be forgiven, only to fail again.
"This too will pass."
"How do you know that?"
"Because you are still standing and fighting," he said. Her eyes opened. Slowly, she turned around to face him. He hadn't changed - and she shouldn't have expected him too either. After all, he had spent the best part of a decade trapped inside a rock.
"Our only hope was taken."
Kunzite shook his head. "Not mine. Mine is right in front of me," Minako smiled, a small, sad smile, a pathetic ghost of her usual brightness. But it was a smile nonetheless and with it came the tiniest glitter of hope.
"Minako?"
Both their eyes darted back towards the main room. Their time was up. "I have to go."
Kunzite didn't look at her as she walked back to the door. "Venus?"
She turned around.
"Don't tell the others about us, Endymion said it may alter time."
She nodded and was almost out of the room when she stopped. "Kunzite?"
"Yes?"
"My hope is standing inside this room, too." She saw him smile before she closed the door behind her.
End of chapter notes:
Just a short piece.
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