The Road Less Travelled
Black Beyond
black_beyond@hotmail.com
This is the last part in this series. It's short, and
I apologize for that. But I have achieved the first
finished ficcy I've ever wrote, and I think I ended
it well. Yes, Endymion is dead! Heesh! He's in Elysion.
And... I do have an happyish ending to this... *gag*
The walls of Tokyo's elite district seemed to
shrink away as Shadica and Sailor Moon broke their
apart their swords and retreated a few precious steps,
eyes narrowed, surveying the other, looking for some
sign, some hint, of weakness or distactnment, tryin to
find a way to make the other loose their gaurd, even
for the slightest, most mercury of seconds, too look
away or to be confused. They both knew, that as sure as
liquid water flowed and musical birds sang, they were
matched perfectly in everyway.
Sailor Moon allowed her eyes to steal to the
blade of her sword, a metal so pure and white it was
almost crystal. She saw through the sides of her eyes
how dead the land around them now was, and she smiled.
Purity. What a joke.
A true smile, one that few had ever been given
the priveledge to see. Shadica, though startled by
this, kept her sword ready to move. She felt the
massing of her armies behind her, and knew at her
command, after she properly subdued the creature of
paradox before her, they would rush forward and attack
the earth.
"This is the dead land."
Sailor Moon's voice was loud in the deafening
silence, so loud that Shadica nearly dropped her
weapon, and Sailor Moon ran forward, to attack.
Shadica brought her sword up only just in time to
block the blow.
"This is the cactus land/ Here the stone imagine/
Are raised, here they receive/," Sailor Moon's eyes
were in another place as her sword clashed against
Shadica's like a demonic source of punctuation to each
line of the poem; Shadica furrowed her brow. What
Lunarian trick was this?
"The supplication of a dead man's hand/ Under the
twinkle of a fading star."
They both froze at the new voice, Shadica ready
to overpower Sailor Moon sightly with a low cut.
"T.S. Elliot. The Hollow Men. Good choice, one of
my favorites. But, my Princess, do you really have time
to recite a poem to Shadica?" Sailor Moon cursed
magnificently as she recognized the voice.
"A poem?" Shadica said scornfully. "You attempt
to distract me with a mortals' work?" The blade of her
sword dipped so fast that in the white warrior's moment
of distraction she didn't jerk away in time.
A thin, red line appeared on her arm.
A singular drop of blood, followd by a thicker
steream, trailed from just below her should. Both she
and Shadica watched in shock as it slowly trickled down
to stain the gloves that adorned her hands.
Sailor Moon slowly began to glow, and the Gown Of
Serenity took place of her uniform as she glared venom
at Shadica. Her eyes promised pain.
"I didn't--- I thought-- never--" Shadica
stuttered, before regaining control of herself. "First
to bleed, first to fall, Pretty Princess." She
proclaimed loudly, mocking the line Serenity had once
spat at her in contempt, a forever of minutes ago, on
the first time they had met.
"I may be the first to bleed, but you shall NOT
be the victor of this battle." Each word was bitten off
with the rage she felt. Each word maginifed in the
voice was was Serenity. Each move of the sword a
thousand times more graceful, a thousand times more
sure, a thousand times more natural than they had been
before.
Shadica retreated the smallest of steps. Her eyes
narrowed. Only once had she seen Serenity, the ghostly
princess that was Sailor Moon's true form.
And then she had fallen, lifeblood gushing from
her wounds.
She brushed the fiant imagine away that danced
before her eyes and she held her sword up, a double-
edged formation of darkness, and pointed it at
Serenity's chest.
"Raidon, leave this battleground." Serenity said
in a low hiss. "If I loose this because of your
nonsistant babble, you will know the true reason why
they didn't want me to carry on the name of my mother."
"Fine. I know when I'm not wanted. I shall go
watched activities of your senshi, then. They have all
received the Change."
Outwardly, this had no affect on Serenity. Her
eyes full of cold fire remained deadlocked on Shadica.
But inwardly a great burden was lifted from her
shoulders. If she died, Venus could now take over. Her
cousin, companion, friend. The only one she had ever
really been close to, a thousand years ago when she was
perfect and pure.
"I call upon Selene." She said quietly. "My
Goddess, my Mother, my Savior, and Gaurdian."
Shadica's eyes widened. She didn't know what
Serenity was doing, but she had a sick feeling, a
suspcion of what it could be. With a roar that was
anything but human, she dove at her opponet, and fully
buried her sword into the princess.
Time stopped. Serenity gagged, but continued in a
whisper, the sword that was still clenched in her hand
glowing softly as her lifeblood began to pour from her
body in a scarlet river.
"I call upon you to grant me strength to purify
this planet. To help those that are lost to be found
again. I call upon you to give me power to win. I call
upon you to end this circle of death. I call upon you
to let the fallen angel be granted wings once more."
She found, that as everything began to swirl
before her eyes, she became lighter. Her sword exploded
with light, transforming back into the beautiful
crystal that was her soul's courage.
"I call upon you, Mother, to grant my Sister
Venus the light to continue in my place. I call..."
Shadica backed away in horror as the light began
to burn at her. SHe heard the pain-filled shrieks from
her army of youma and with her dying breath she cursed
the goddess of the moon.
Serenity looked up as the images around her faded
to white and a person she remembered from her first
life appeared before her.
"My Serenity." He said, offering her his hand.
"Endymion!" She found she could move again, and
she stood up and rushed into his arms, not noticing her
body was left upon the cold ground.
"Let's go, Serenity. Your mother and family wish
to see you again. I love you."
"I love you too, Endymion."
Wings of the purest color appeared on her
shoulders as she walked away from her earthly life to
be with those she loved again.
The fallen angel had been lifted.
~'~
Venus froze as the youma they had been fighting
suddenly vanished, shrieking in terror as a strange
light took them. Uranus and Neptune looked curiously at
Pluto, who appeared from a portal, a subdued and
sobbing Saturn at her side. Without explanation, Saturn
flung herself into Neptune's arms, crying in a
language Michiru only vaguely recognized as the
language of Hotaru's home.
"What happened?" Jupiter demanded.
Pluto sighed.
"It's over." She said. "It's over. You, Aino
Minako, Sailor Venus, Warrior of Love... you now take
the place of the Princess."
As the meaning of this statment sunk in, Mars
lifted her eyes to the sky.
"I never knew you well, Usagi." She whispered.
"But I think you were probably the most sane person on
this planet."
She never heard Serenity's scornful reply--
"Of course I was!"