"Out of all the moments that we leave behind..."
--------------
A Simple Thing
Chapter VIII - "Ocean and Sky"
Written by Kate "SuperKate" Butler
--------------
We sat down in Michiru's enormous living room, and I found myself
staring at the placid white ceiling above me. It had to be at least twenty
feet high, the smooth paint broken only by a few small skylights. The stars
shone through the panes of glass, smiling down at me in their happy silver way,
just glad to be part of the universe.
I wish I could have felt that glad. For the first time in as long as
I could remember, my palms were sweaty. I felt as though my mouth had just
gone completely dry, as though my body was shaking uncontrollably, and as though
I was a deer caught in headlights.
Perhaps I was.
She smiled at me, and her smile seemed to bring the light of day into
an otherwise dimly lit room. "You wanted to talk, Haruka?" she questioned, her
blue eyes staring intently at me. "Or did you just come here to stare up at
my ceiling?"
I flushed in embarrassment and lowered my face so I could look her in
the eye. What a beautiful woman sat before me! Even in blue jeans and a
sweatshirt, she looked as though she was an angel, stepped right out of Heaven
to bless my life. I resisted the urge to float back off into Never-Never Land
and cleared my throat, readying myself for the hardest thing I would ever do.
Readying myself to tell Kaioh Michiru that... I loved her.
"I do have something to talk about," I began, exhaling shakily as
I gazed at her from across the coffee table. "I was trying to ignore it, but
I can't. But, Michiru, I'm no good at this kind of thing, so you'll have to
bear with me."
Her smile faded slightly, as though she had just realized how very
serious I was. "I understand," she nodded, clasping her hands atop her lap
as she spoke. "Go ahead. I promise you that, whatever it is, nothing bad will
come of it."
Easy for her to say.
I sighed, closed my eyes, and resolved myself to do the only thing I
could: tell the truth. The complete and utter truth, the only truth I knew.
"Since the day I met you, Michiru, strange and wonderful things have
been happening to me. Every time I look at you, my heart races and my mind
struggles to catch up. You have some sort of... Some sort of POWER over me,
Michiru, and I can never quite place my finger on it."
There was no visible change in her expression.
"I mean, we've had a lot of fun together, right? Like when we ditched
the Shakespearean play and ended up caught in the rain, or when we went to the
concert and the party... Even at the funeral, I couldn't help but be amazingly
happy. You just...have the effect on me."
Okay, now there was a change. She beamed at me, absolutely beamed. I
couldn't even remember the last time anyone - family, friend, or otherwise -
had ever smiled so widely in response to something I had said.
But the smile would fade, I knew it. Because I had gotten past the
easy part, past the part about how much I enjoy her company, but now...
Now or never, I had to breach the "L" word.
I leaned back, gulped down the lump in my throat, and willed myself
to continue. "Before I met you, Michiru," I informed her, my voice beginning
to waver dangerously, "I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know where I was
going or had been, and I really didn't care if I found out or not. But you
changed all that. Single-handedly, you've touched my life and have managed to
teach me exactly what I want. Exactly what I need in my soul."
I sighed. "I don't know what you're going to say to all this," I
lamented, closing my gray-green eyes so that I wouldn't have to see her
reaction, "but I don't particularly care. This is something I have to do,
before my entire self just...implodes. Because, as blurry as my mind is on
some things, this one thing is completely and totally clear."
Here it was. The moment of truth. My fists tightened upon my thighs,
and I could feel my heart start to race. It felt as though the pounding in my
chest and ears would never stop but would keep going until I exploded.
"I love you, Michiru."
Silence. Complete, total, and utter silence. A silence that not even
I could explain. Nothing moved, and nothing sounded except the throbbing of my
own heart. I imagined that it was probably loud enough for Michiru to hear,
even though she was sitting halfway across the room. I was that nervous.
Then, I heard it. The soft sound of weight shifting, of fabrics rubbing
together, and the scuffing of footfalls on carpeting. I felt my hope take a
swan dive. She was getting up to show me to the door, wasn't she? She knew what
the implications of my words were, what it meant for me to love her. She could
guess at that much. And, if she WAS getting up to show me the door, that meant
I had lost. My attempt had been in vain, and -
"You can open your eyes, Haruka," spoke a voice, and I was suddenly
cognizant of a warm body sitting beside me on the couch. "I'm not going to hit
you or anything of the sort."
Michiru chuckled gaily and brushed a strand of wavy hair from her blue
eyes as I peeked one and then both eyes open. She had moved to sit next to me
on the couch, her slipper-clad feet resting on the very edge of the coffee
table as she cocked her head to one side and smiled at me.
"Haruka, do you ever get the feeling that we should know one another?"
she asked cautiously, her smile both hopeful and wistful at the exact same
time. "Do you ever wonder if we've met before, in some other place and time,
and that we were more than just co-workers who went out once or twice?"
The lump in my throat was back, and it took all my willpower to force
it away. "Y-yes," I stammered, a bit unsure what more to say. "I get these
visions, like deja vu flashes, and they always feel like they're pieces of
moments that I've known before. Like - "
"The explosion of a helicopter, sitting on stairs and discussing a
painting, riding along the coast in your convertible." I must have registered
some shock on my face, because she nodded curtly, her smile washing from her
face as she did so. "I, too, get these visions. And other visions, too, when
I see certain other people and places."
She rose slowly from the couch and walked across the carpeting a
few steps, toward the hallway that led to her bedroom. "It sometimes feels as
though I have hazy moments in my mind, like maybe... Maybe I've forgotten
important parts of my past." She turned around to glance at me, her blue eyes
meeting mine meaningfully. It sent a shiver down my spine, hearing her talk
about the same things I had felt for so long. Perhaps there was still a chance
that everything that had gone on wasn't just a strange dream.
"And I don't know why you bring back these feelings I shouldn't know
about," she stated plainly, "but I want to show you something."
She began to stride down the hallway that lead to the bedroom, and it
was all I could do to follow her numbly. Had she really felt all those things
I had felt? She described just a few of the visions that I had experienced in
my time knowing her.
What was going on? My mind searched blindly for explanations, but
found none. Could it be that, perhaps, we were classmates from Mugen Gakuen
and just had never noticed this fact? Or maybe something terrible happened to
us on a class trip or something and we had both suffered memory loss due to
our traumatic experience. But wasn't the hole in my consciousness too large to
be caused by just one single event?
I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn't notice Michiru
flicking on her bedroom light and walking into the room. I probably wouldn't
have come out of my pondering, actually, had I not seen what was hanging on
the far wall of her room.
It was a large painting, taking up nearly the span of the entire wall.
Most the colors were variances on gray, black, and brown, with the background
made of a blazing red. A city, dark and stony, stood on the brink of disaster,
a great gray sea rising behind it, ready to swallow it up without warning.
The sky was a fiery red, broken only by the blazing darkness of a black sun.
I swallowed. Hard. Before me was "The End of the World" by Kaioh
Michiru... A painting I had only seen in my dreams.
"I don't know when I painted this, Haruka," she admitted, her hands in
her back pockets as she spoke, "and I honestly don't know what possessed me to
hang it here. But there's something about it..."
"'There's a girl at my school who wants to ride with you in your
convertible...even though she's a girl,'" I quoted, staring blankly at the
painting. I felt Michiru's eyes on me, and I turned to face her. "You really
meant yourself when you said that, didn't you?"
She smiled bashfully and nodded. "I don't remember saying it," she
admitted softly, "but I'm sure I did." I could see her swallow as she gazed
up at me. "If you love me, Haruka, then I love you, too."
I nodded and then, not knowing what else I really could do, I stooped
down and touched my lips to hers.
And somewhere, somewhere in the very back of my mind, I could feel
a long-hidden part of me begin to open up.
---
She sat up in bed, straight up, clutching the sheets to her lithe
form as she gasped for breath. She had been happily dreaming when, out of
nowhere, her mind had been flooded with a million thoughts and memories, things
she couldn't remember and yet, things she could. It frightened her.
Rising to her feet, she padded across the lamp-lit room and moved to
stand before the vanity. Purple eyes, slightly bloodshot, stared back at her.
Dark tresses, neither black nor purple, hung listlessly to her shoulders. She
stared at her reflection, stared intently at the glowing symbol on her
forehead.
It was not a foreign purple mark. She recognized it immediately, both
from her astronomy class and from her memory. Her memory? She did a double
take. How could she remember something that she had never seen before.
There was a flash of light and the marking disappeared, and she
suddenly felt as though a long-hidden part of her had just awakened. In her
mind's eye, she saw a pink-haired girl running after a hat, saw her father
standing behind a pane of glass and speaking to her, saw herself as a grown
woman with black tresses that had no end. She could remember dying at the hands
of the ones she loved, all in the name of a better tomorrow, and being
reawakened by a blonde, odango-headed princess.
Tomoe Hotaru smiled at her reflection, her eyes sparkling.
For, though the symbol of the planet Saturn had disappeared, the
spirit of that planet's warrior had just been reawakened.
---
She paused in her typing, staring blankly into the bright monitor, the
only thing lighting the room. What was that dim red light that was reflecting
onto her medical reports? She didn't even OWN a red light of any sort!
The light flashed and died, and she smiled knowingly. "So, they finally
found each other again," she thought to herself, her fingers resting on the
keyboard. She chuckled inwardly. "It's almost too bad I couldn't have just
told them," she mused, pursing pink lips. "After all, all of us - Moon,
Mercury, Mars, Venus, Saturn, and I - had to wait on their silly memories." She
shrugged. "Ah well. THIS is when things start getting interesting."
Laughing softly to herself, Meiou Setsuna - the Sailor Soldier of
Pluto - returned to her work.
---
I awoke groggily on Tuesday morning to the sound of a very unfamiliar
alarm clock. Groaning, I rolled over in bed, not really wanting to get up.
Why should I? My teaching didn't start until the late morning, anyway, so five
more minutes wouldn't kill me...
Something warm made contact with my body, and the alarm clock suddenly
shut off. My eyes snapped open, and I found myself blinking incoherently.
A warm arm? An unfamiliar alarm clock? Oh, shit!
I sat straight up in bed, and - upon taking a quick look at myself -
burrowed into the sheets a second time. A familiar chuckle floated through the
bedroom, and a robe-clad Michiru smiled down at me. "I have to get ready for
this thing called a full-time job," she quipped, her blue eyes friendly as
she peered down at my sheet-clad form. "You can sleep in if you'd like. I'm
sure your car is still safely sequestered in the parking garage."
Swallowing the funny taste in my mouth, I watched her stride out of the
bedroom and down the hall, no doubt on her way to the bathroom. As soon as the
door clicked shut, I scrambled out of the unfamiliar bed and hurried to get
my clothing.
What had happened? My mind was a blur. The last thing I could really
remember was kissing Michiru and feeling part of my mind start to open up.
The rest of the night was a blur, a blur of passion and emotions never before
known to me, a blur of absolute bliss.
The rest of my memories, however, were NOT a blur, and that was the
frightening part. I tugged on my pants as quickly as I could, a dull and sick
feeling taking over my body as my mind focused on memories I had never before
possessed. I could remember every moment of a life I had never cared for,
every battle as a soldier.
Maybe my name was Ten'ou Haruka, but I was also that pretty sailor-
suited soldier for love and justice, Sailor Uranus. I was reborn of the Silver
Millennium, sent to Earth to protect it, should evil ever resurface. I was
the protector of a princess - Princess Serenity, who walked the world under
the mortal name of Tsukino Usagi - and had a destiny bigger than my wildest
dreams. I had fought to kill Mistress Nine and Pharaoh 90, and had almost
failed. I had found the Messiah, Sailor Moon. I had raised the reborn Sailor
Saturn almost as my own, and battled Sailor Galaxia. I had killed Saturn and
Pluto in an attempt to overcome the evil of that same senshi, but I had
lost my life in the effort.
And so had Michiru. Kaioh Michiru. My love...and my partner in war,
Sailor Neptune.
"How the Hell can I really be Sailor Uranus?" I gaped at myself, my
fingers struggling with the buttons of my dress shirt. "I'm not a Sailor
Senshi! I'm journalist and a gym teacher! I'm meant to do those things! SIMPLE
things! I... I can't..." I plopped down on the edge of Michiru's bed, "The
End of the World" at my back as I buried my head in my hands.
In all my years, I had never imagined that all my hidden memories would
bring such a realization: the realization that I was a soldier. A Sailor
Soldier.
"Haruka?" questioned a familiar voice from the doorway, and I raised
my head to see Michiru, clad only in a towel, standing before me. "Are you
alright?"
I shook my head curtly, climbing to my feet as quickly as I could
manage. "No, Michiru, I'm not." She stared blankly at me, a foreign nervousness
to her face as I rose and gathered my wallet and car keys from her bedside
table. "I realize now, more than ever, exactly what all the memories I lost
meant. It meant a life I don't want to be part of." I sighed, not needing to
look at her face to see the surprise and disappointment that registered across
her pale cheeks. "I hated it, Michiru. I hated being Sailor Uranus, and I
hated all the things that that life meant. I'm not going back. Not when I
have a choice."
Pushing past her, I started down the hallway, only to hear her shaking,
wavering voice behind me. "Please, Haruka!" she called, her footsteps thumping
across the carpeting as she followed me toward the door to her apartment.
"Understand! Perhaps we were given an unfair fate, one we didn't want, but we
were given each other at the same time! Isn't that worth the pain of being a
senshi, Haruka? Aren't wonderful moments - moments like last night - worth that
sorrow and heartbreak?"
I paused, my hand on the doorknob. I remembered smiling down at a
ten-year-old Hotaru and telling her that Michiru and I were happiest with our
life as it was right then, right after the Sailor Starlights had returned to
their distant star.
Was it true? Or had I lied to the child, afraid to tell her all the
hurt and hatred I had felt as a Sailor Senshi?
"No, Michiru," I told her, staring at the wood grain of her door.
"Nothing is worth something as terrible as that."
The close shut loudly behind me.
---
I avoided Michiru at work that day. I had no reason to see or talk to
her, not after everything I had been through. Lunch was spent in a corner,
alone, quite reminiscent of my high school days.
Well, my high school days before I met Michiru. She had been a godsend
for the entirety of our time at Mugen Gakuen, someone for me to talk with, hold,
and love. I wondered over my egg salad and Diet Coke exactly what had gone on
during that year of school. Why had I been chosen as the soldier of the skies?
Why couldn't I have just been normal, instead of a solider? Why was Michiru
the soldier of the sea? Why couldn't we just have fallen in love like a normal
couple, left alone to have our life - and our love - in peace?
The ocean and the sky. She was the sea, I was the air. I remembered a
song I had once heard, a song about wanting to become the wind and run away
from destiny. How did it go? I could hardly remember, but one line stood out
in my befuddled, aching mind.
"From that day onward, it became a distant road that a fighter must
tread."
A distant road, long and far from me.
I could escape my destiny. I only had three weeks left at my temporary
job, and it would be so easy to disappear from the high school and never come
back. Could I do it?
Or did I take Michiru with me, and stay with that person I loved?
There was no answer.
---
I strode into the gym for my last period of the day, both relieved and
apprehensive at the same time. It had been a long day, and my stomach was tying
itself in knots again and again, keeping me from any sense of normalcy. I was
a solider, for God's sake! And the woman I love... She had been there all along,
waiting for me.
It wasn't until I was almost done explaining the rules and regulations
of badminton to my class when I saw a familiar head of aqua hair near the top of
the risers, watching me. There, in her sweater-and-khakis clad glory was Kaioh
Michiru, her hands folded over her knees as she listened to me speak to my class.
I paled and tore my eyes from her, looking back to the girls in front of me. My
mind was made up. I couldn't cope with it. Not now. Not ever.
The students split off and I found myself standing beside the gymnasium
risers, staring out at my busy gym students and watching them chase after their
shuttlecocks idly.
A hand touched my shoulder, and I flinched without trying to. I sighed
and busied myself with looking over my class roisters, not looking up at the
young woman beside me. The hand refused to budge, though, and I could feel my
heart begin to pick up pace.
Michiru. Everything was always Michiru.
"You offered to let me come and sit in on one of your gym classes," she
told me softly, her voice gentle and just a little bit nervous. "So I thought
I would come. After all, you've been avoiding me. When else would I be able to
corner you so well?"
She chuckled slightly, and I couldn't help but smile. My eyes drifted
from my student list toward her face, and I found myself gazing into her bright
blue eyes. They were slightly bloodshot, and I didn't need to ask to know that
she had been crying sometime that day. I pursed my lips together. "What is it
you want to talk to me about?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
She sighed, all signs of a smile wiping away from her face. "Do you
remember when I first found you, Haruka?" she questioned cautiously, almost
afraid to ask such a question. "When we first met, at your track meet, so many
years ago?"
The wheels of my mind started turning, and I remembered. She stood
before me, armed with a sketchbook, and asked politely if she could draw me.
And I? I said no and rushed away, informing her that I had no interest in
something like that.
What was she getting at...?
"You ran, Haruka. You tried desperately to escape the destiny you were
given, and you tried to run away, but you couldn't. You couldn't escape what you
were given." She moved to stand in front of me and stand eye-to-eye with me, her
blue eyes looking me over carefully. "And maybe there were terrible things,
Haruka. I'm not lying about that. But I want you to think of all the good things
that happened, too. The happy moments. The days when Usagi amused us with her
antics, or the times with Hotaru in our house. Think of those, Haruka. And try
to tell me that all those wonderful things don't outweigh the few bad moments,
here and there."
I gulped down the lump in my throat, staring at her. Could she be right?
I remembered all the days of joy, the times riding in my convertible and teasing
the younger senshi, the moments when everything seemed alright. I found myself
smiling. Those things... They might not replace the pain, but weren't they
worth the pain?
"Do you care about me?" I questioned of the young woman, reaching down
to grasp one of her hands in mine. "Do you really care that much?"
She smiled, teary-eyed. "I lost you once, Ten'ou Haruka. I lost my
memories and I lost you with them. I'm not willing to lose you a second time."
I leaned down and gave her a gentle peck on the cheek, not really caring
if my students saw or not.
"What do you say?" I asked with a smile, my hand still squeezed in
hers. "Am I allowed to take a second chance for all this?"
The answer was a simple thing.
---
End Chapter VIII.
---
--------------
A Simple Thing
Chapter VIII - "Ocean and Sky"
Written by Kate "SuperKate" Butler
--------------
We sat down in Michiru's enormous living room, and I found myself
staring at the placid white ceiling above me. It had to be at least twenty
feet high, the smooth paint broken only by a few small skylights. The stars
shone through the panes of glass, smiling down at me in their happy silver way,
just glad to be part of the universe.
I wish I could have felt that glad. For the first time in as long as
I could remember, my palms were sweaty. I felt as though my mouth had just
gone completely dry, as though my body was shaking uncontrollably, and as though
I was a deer caught in headlights.
Perhaps I was.
She smiled at me, and her smile seemed to bring the light of day into
an otherwise dimly lit room. "You wanted to talk, Haruka?" she questioned, her
blue eyes staring intently at me. "Or did you just come here to stare up at
my ceiling?"
I flushed in embarrassment and lowered my face so I could look her in
the eye. What a beautiful woman sat before me! Even in blue jeans and a
sweatshirt, she looked as though she was an angel, stepped right out of Heaven
to bless my life. I resisted the urge to float back off into Never-Never Land
and cleared my throat, readying myself for the hardest thing I would ever do.
Readying myself to tell Kaioh Michiru that... I loved her.
"I do have something to talk about," I began, exhaling shakily as
I gazed at her from across the coffee table. "I was trying to ignore it, but
I can't. But, Michiru, I'm no good at this kind of thing, so you'll have to
bear with me."
Her smile faded slightly, as though she had just realized how very
serious I was. "I understand," she nodded, clasping her hands atop her lap
as she spoke. "Go ahead. I promise you that, whatever it is, nothing bad will
come of it."
Easy for her to say.
I sighed, closed my eyes, and resolved myself to do the only thing I
could: tell the truth. The complete and utter truth, the only truth I knew.
"Since the day I met you, Michiru, strange and wonderful things have
been happening to me. Every time I look at you, my heart races and my mind
struggles to catch up. You have some sort of... Some sort of POWER over me,
Michiru, and I can never quite place my finger on it."
There was no visible change in her expression.
"I mean, we've had a lot of fun together, right? Like when we ditched
the Shakespearean play and ended up caught in the rain, or when we went to the
concert and the party... Even at the funeral, I couldn't help but be amazingly
happy. You just...have the effect on me."
Okay, now there was a change. She beamed at me, absolutely beamed. I
couldn't even remember the last time anyone - family, friend, or otherwise -
had ever smiled so widely in response to something I had said.
But the smile would fade, I knew it. Because I had gotten past the
easy part, past the part about how much I enjoy her company, but now...
Now or never, I had to breach the "L" word.
I leaned back, gulped down the lump in my throat, and willed myself
to continue. "Before I met you, Michiru," I informed her, my voice beginning
to waver dangerously, "I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know where I was
going or had been, and I really didn't care if I found out or not. But you
changed all that. Single-handedly, you've touched my life and have managed to
teach me exactly what I want. Exactly what I need in my soul."
I sighed. "I don't know what you're going to say to all this," I
lamented, closing my gray-green eyes so that I wouldn't have to see her
reaction, "but I don't particularly care. This is something I have to do,
before my entire self just...implodes. Because, as blurry as my mind is on
some things, this one thing is completely and totally clear."
Here it was. The moment of truth. My fists tightened upon my thighs,
and I could feel my heart start to race. It felt as though the pounding in my
chest and ears would never stop but would keep going until I exploded.
"I love you, Michiru."
Silence. Complete, total, and utter silence. A silence that not even
I could explain. Nothing moved, and nothing sounded except the throbbing of my
own heart. I imagined that it was probably loud enough for Michiru to hear,
even though she was sitting halfway across the room. I was that nervous.
Then, I heard it. The soft sound of weight shifting, of fabrics rubbing
together, and the scuffing of footfalls on carpeting. I felt my hope take a
swan dive. She was getting up to show me to the door, wasn't she? She knew what
the implications of my words were, what it meant for me to love her. She could
guess at that much. And, if she WAS getting up to show me the door, that meant
I had lost. My attempt had been in vain, and -
"You can open your eyes, Haruka," spoke a voice, and I was suddenly
cognizant of a warm body sitting beside me on the couch. "I'm not going to hit
you or anything of the sort."
Michiru chuckled gaily and brushed a strand of wavy hair from her blue
eyes as I peeked one and then both eyes open. She had moved to sit next to me
on the couch, her slipper-clad feet resting on the very edge of the coffee
table as she cocked her head to one side and smiled at me.
"Haruka, do you ever get the feeling that we should know one another?"
she asked cautiously, her smile both hopeful and wistful at the exact same
time. "Do you ever wonder if we've met before, in some other place and time,
and that we were more than just co-workers who went out once or twice?"
The lump in my throat was back, and it took all my willpower to force
it away. "Y-yes," I stammered, a bit unsure what more to say. "I get these
visions, like deja vu flashes, and they always feel like they're pieces of
moments that I've known before. Like - "
"The explosion of a helicopter, sitting on stairs and discussing a
painting, riding along the coast in your convertible." I must have registered
some shock on my face, because she nodded curtly, her smile washing from her
face as she did so. "I, too, get these visions. And other visions, too, when
I see certain other people and places."
She rose slowly from the couch and walked across the carpeting a
few steps, toward the hallway that led to her bedroom. "It sometimes feels as
though I have hazy moments in my mind, like maybe... Maybe I've forgotten
important parts of my past." She turned around to glance at me, her blue eyes
meeting mine meaningfully. It sent a shiver down my spine, hearing her talk
about the same things I had felt for so long. Perhaps there was still a chance
that everything that had gone on wasn't just a strange dream.
"And I don't know why you bring back these feelings I shouldn't know
about," she stated plainly, "but I want to show you something."
She began to stride down the hallway that lead to the bedroom, and it
was all I could do to follow her numbly. Had she really felt all those things
I had felt? She described just a few of the visions that I had experienced in
my time knowing her.
What was going on? My mind searched blindly for explanations, but
found none. Could it be that, perhaps, we were classmates from Mugen Gakuen
and just had never noticed this fact? Or maybe something terrible happened to
us on a class trip or something and we had both suffered memory loss due to
our traumatic experience. But wasn't the hole in my consciousness too large to
be caused by just one single event?
I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn't notice Michiru
flicking on her bedroom light and walking into the room. I probably wouldn't
have come out of my pondering, actually, had I not seen what was hanging on
the far wall of her room.
It was a large painting, taking up nearly the span of the entire wall.
Most the colors were variances on gray, black, and brown, with the background
made of a blazing red. A city, dark and stony, stood on the brink of disaster,
a great gray sea rising behind it, ready to swallow it up without warning.
The sky was a fiery red, broken only by the blazing darkness of a black sun.
I swallowed. Hard. Before me was "The End of the World" by Kaioh
Michiru... A painting I had only seen in my dreams.
"I don't know when I painted this, Haruka," she admitted, her hands in
her back pockets as she spoke, "and I honestly don't know what possessed me to
hang it here. But there's something about it..."
"'There's a girl at my school who wants to ride with you in your
convertible...even though she's a girl,'" I quoted, staring blankly at the
painting. I felt Michiru's eyes on me, and I turned to face her. "You really
meant yourself when you said that, didn't you?"
She smiled bashfully and nodded. "I don't remember saying it," she
admitted softly, "but I'm sure I did." I could see her swallow as she gazed
up at me. "If you love me, Haruka, then I love you, too."
I nodded and then, not knowing what else I really could do, I stooped
down and touched my lips to hers.
And somewhere, somewhere in the very back of my mind, I could feel
a long-hidden part of me begin to open up.
---
She sat up in bed, straight up, clutching the sheets to her lithe
form as she gasped for breath. She had been happily dreaming when, out of
nowhere, her mind had been flooded with a million thoughts and memories, things
she couldn't remember and yet, things she could. It frightened her.
Rising to her feet, she padded across the lamp-lit room and moved to
stand before the vanity. Purple eyes, slightly bloodshot, stared back at her.
Dark tresses, neither black nor purple, hung listlessly to her shoulders. She
stared at her reflection, stared intently at the glowing symbol on her
forehead.
It was not a foreign purple mark. She recognized it immediately, both
from her astronomy class and from her memory. Her memory? She did a double
take. How could she remember something that she had never seen before.
There was a flash of light and the marking disappeared, and she
suddenly felt as though a long-hidden part of her had just awakened. In her
mind's eye, she saw a pink-haired girl running after a hat, saw her father
standing behind a pane of glass and speaking to her, saw herself as a grown
woman with black tresses that had no end. She could remember dying at the hands
of the ones she loved, all in the name of a better tomorrow, and being
reawakened by a blonde, odango-headed princess.
Tomoe Hotaru smiled at her reflection, her eyes sparkling.
For, though the symbol of the planet Saturn had disappeared, the
spirit of that planet's warrior had just been reawakened.
---
She paused in her typing, staring blankly into the bright monitor, the
only thing lighting the room. What was that dim red light that was reflecting
onto her medical reports? She didn't even OWN a red light of any sort!
The light flashed and died, and she smiled knowingly. "So, they finally
found each other again," she thought to herself, her fingers resting on the
keyboard. She chuckled inwardly. "It's almost too bad I couldn't have just
told them," she mused, pursing pink lips. "After all, all of us - Moon,
Mercury, Mars, Venus, Saturn, and I - had to wait on their silly memories." She
shrugged. "Ah well. THIS is when things start getting interesting."
Laughing softly to herself, Meiou Setsuna - the Sailor Soldier of
Pluto - returned to her work.
---
I awoke groggily on Tuesday morning to the sound of a very unfamiliar
alarm clock. Groaning, I rolled over in bed, not really wanting to get up.
Why should I? My teaching didn't start until the late morning, anyway, so five
more minutes wouldn't kill me...
Something warm made contact with my body, and the alarm clock suddenly
shut off. My eyes snapped open, and I found myself blinking incoherently.
A warm arm? An unfamiliar alarm clock? Oh, shit!
I sat straight up in bed, and - upon taking a quick look at myself -
burrowed into the sheets a second time. A familiar chuckle floated through the
bedroom, and a robe-clad Michiru smiled down at me. "I have to get ready for
this thing called a full-time job," she quipped, her blue eyes friendly as
she peered down at my sheet-clad form. "You can sleep in if you'd like. I'm
sure your car is still safely sequestered in the parking garage."
Swallowing the funny taste in my mouth, I watched her stride out of the
bedroom and down the hall, no doubt on her way to the bathroom. As soon as the
door clicked shut, I scrambled out of the unfamiliar bed and hurried to get
my clothing.
What had happened? My mind was a blur. The last thing I could really
remember was kissing Michiru and feeling part of my mind start to open up.
The rest of the night was a blur, a blur of passion and emotions never before
known to me, a blur of absolute bliss.
The rest of my memories, however, were NOT a blur, and that was the
frightening part. I tugged on my pants as quickly as I could, a dull and sick
feeling taking over my body as my mind focused on memories I had never before
possessed. I could remember every moment of a life I had never cared for,
every battle as a soldier.
Maybe my name was Ten'ou Haruka, but I was also that pretty sailor-
suited soldier for love and justice, Sailor Uranus. I was reborn of the Silver
Millennium, sent to Earth to protect it, should evil ever resurface. I was
the protector of a princess - Princess Serenity, who walked the world under
the mortal name of Tsukino Usagi - and had a destiny bigger than my wildest
dreams. I had fought to kill Mistress Nine and Pharaoh 90, and had almost
failed. I had found the Messiah, Sailor Moon. I had raised the reborn Sailor
Saturn almost as my own, and battled Sailor Galaxia. I had killed Saturn and
Pluto in an attempt to overcome the evil of that same senshi, but I had
lost my life in the effort.
And so had Michiru. Kaioh Michiru. My love...and my partner in war,
Sailor Neptune.
"How the Hell can I really be Sailor Uranus?" I gaped at myself, my
fingers struggling with the buttons of my dress shirt. "I'm not a Sailor
Senshi! I'm journalist and a gym teacher! I'm meant to do those things! SIMPLE
things! I... I can't..." I plopped down on the edge of Michiru's bed, "The
End of the World" at my back as I buried my head in my hands.
In all my years, I had never imagined that all my hidden memories would
bring such a realization: the realization that I was a soldier. A Sailor
Soldier.
"Haruka?" questioned a familiar voice from the doorway, and I raised
my head to see Michiru, clad only in a towel, standing before me. "Are you
alright?"
I shook my head curtly, climbing to my feet as quickly as I could
manage. "No, Michiru, I'm not." She stared blankly at me, a foreign nervousness
to her face as I rose and gathered my wallet and car keys from her bedside
table. "I realize now, more than ever, exactly what all the memories I lost
meant. It meant a life I don't want to be part of." I sighed, not needing to
look at her face to see the surprise and disappointment that registered across
her pale cheeks. "I hated it, Michiru. I hated being Sailor Uranus, and I
hated all the things that that life meant. I'm not going back. Not when I
have a choice."
Pushing past her, I started down the hallway, only to hear her shaking,
wavering voice behind me. "Please, Haruka!" she called, her footsteps thumping
across the carpeting as she followed me toward the door to her apartment.
"Understand! Perhaps we were given an unfair fate, one we didn't want, but we
were given each other at the same time! Isn't that worth the pain of being a
senshi, Haruka? Aren't wonderful moments - moments like last night - worth that
sorrow and heartbreak?"
I paused, my hand on the doorknob. I remembered smiling down at a
ten-year-old Hotaru and telling her that Michiru and I were happiest with our
life as it was right then, right after the Sailor Starlights had returned to
their distant star.
Was it true? Or had I lied to the child, afraid to tell her all the
hurt and hatred I had felt as a Sailor Senshi?
"No, Michiru," I told her, staring at the wood grain of her door.
"Nothing is worth something as terrible as that."
The close shut loudly behind me.
---
I avoided Michiru at work that day. I had no reason to see or talk to
her, not after everything I had been through. Lunch was spent in a corner,
alone, quite reminiscent of my high school days.
Well, my high school days before I met Michiru. She had been a godsend
for the entirety of our time at Mugen Gakuen, someone for me to talk with, hold,
and love. I wondered over my egg salad and Diet Coke exactly what had gone on
during that year of school. Why had I been chosen as the soldier of the skies?
Why couldn't I have just been normal, instead of a solider? Why was Michiru
the soldier of the sea? Why couldn't we just have fallen in love like a normal
couple, left alone to have our life - and our love - in peace?
The ocean and the sky. She was the sea, I was the air. I remembered a
song I had once heard, a song about wanting to become the wind and run away
from destiny. How did it go? I could hardly remember, but one line stood out
in my befuddled, aching mind.
"From that day onward, it became a distant road that a fighter must
tread."
A distant road, long and far from me.
I could escape my destiny. I only had three weeks left at my temporary
job, and it would be so easy to disappear from the high school and never come
back. Could I do it?
Or did I take Michiru with me, and stay with that person I loved?
There was no answer.
---
I strode into the gym for my last period of the day, both relieved and
apprehensive at the same time. It had been a long day, and my stomach was tying
itself in knots again and again, keeping me from any sense of normalcy. I was
a solider, for God's sake! And the woman I love... She had been there all along,
waiting for me.
It wasn't until I was almost done explaining the rules and regulations
of badminton to my class when I saw a familiar head of aqua hair near the top of
the risers, watching me. There, in her sweater-and-khakis clad glory was Kaioh
Michiru, her hands folded over her knees as she listened to me speak to my class.
I paled and tore my eyes from her, looking back to the girls in front of me. My
mind was made up. I couldn't cope with it. Not now. Not ever.
The students split off and I found myself standing beside the gymnasium
risers, staring out at my busy gym students and watching them chase after their
shuttlecocks idly.
A hand touched my shoulder, and I flinched without trying to. I sighed
and busied myself with looking over my class roisters, not looking up at the
young woman beside me. The hand refused to budge, though, and I could feel my
heart begin to pick up pace.
Michiru. Everything was always Michiru.
"You offered to let me come and sit in on one of your gym classes," she
told me softly, her voice gentle and just a little bit nervous. "So I thought
I would come. After all, you've been avoiding me. When else would I be able to
corner you so well?"
She chuckled slightly, and I couldn't help but smile. My eyes drifted
from my student list toward her face, and I found myself gazing into her bright
blue eyes. They were slightly bloodshot, and I didn't need to ask to know that
she had been crying sometime that day. I pursed my lips together. "What is it
you want to talk to me about?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
She sighed, all signs of a smile wiping away from her face. "Do you
remember when I first found you, Haruka?" she questioned cautiously, almost
afraid to ask such a question. "When we first met, at your track meet, so many
years ago?"
The wheels of my mind started turning, and I remembered. She stood
before me, armed with a sketchbook, and asked politely if she could draw me.
And I? I said no and rushed away, informing her that I had no interest in
something like that.
What was she getting at...?
"You ran, Haruka. You tried desperately to escape the destiny you were
given, and you tried to run away, but you couldn't. You couldn't escape what you
were given." She moved to stand in front of me and stand eye-to-eye with me, her
blue eyes looking me over carefully. "And maybe there were terrible things,
Haruka. I'm not lying about that. But I want you to think of all the good things
that happened, too. The happy moments. The days when Usagi amused us with her
antics, or the times with Hotaru in our house. Think of those, Haruka. And try
to tell me that all those wonderful things don't outweigh the few bad moments,
here and there."
I gulped down the lump in my throat, staring at her. Could she be right?
I remembered all the days of joy, the times riding in my convertible and teasing
the younger senshi, the moments when everything seemed alright. I found myself
smiling. Those things... They might not replace the pain, but weren't they
worth the pain?
"Do you care about me?" I questioned of the young woman, reaching down
to grasp one of her hands in mine. "Do you really care that much?"
She smiled, teary-eyed. "I lost you once, Ten'ou Haruka. I lost my
memories and I lost you with them. I'm not willing to lose you a second time."
I leaned down and gave her a gentle peck on the cheek, not really caring
if my students saw or not.
"What do you say?" I asked with a smile, my hand still squeezed in
hers. "Am I allowed to take a second chance for all this?"
The answer was a simple thing.
---
End Chapter VIII.
---