Disclaimer: I do not own any of the SM or DBZ characters.
Tenshi's notes: Minna-chan, I just want to thank everyone for being so patient with me. For those readers who are still slightly confused by who the Master is, it will be explained in this chapter. Not too much longer before the fic is done! That's it really. Big thanks to one of my imouto-chans, Ivory, for always giving me the funniest reviews (that nearly get me fired since I giggle like a fiend at work) and my other imouto-chan, Usa-chan, for holding Give a Reason chapters ransom until we get more reviews for Perfect World. Special thanks also to B-chan, Jade-chan, and Eternal-chan for being so supportive, and my reviewers and emailers. Quick note: Legacy (for those who care) will be updated once this fic is done. And for the few reviewers who actually read One Day at a Time… that one has been postponed indefinitely. I hit a snag with writing the fic, and I'm sorta stuck. *laughs* Anyway, that's it. Ja!
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Goddess: Chapter 10
Minako felt the same exact thing, that they had been pitted against each other right from the start. The outer senshi were basically looking for their princess and out to protect all the inner senshi. The inner senshi wanted their ultimate weapon. And Megami-sama to protect them all. It didn't make sense. How could the princess and Megami-sama be one and the same? When they had found out Usagi was the princess, they had thought nothing of it. They had assumed that since she was the moon princess, that her being Megami-sama was a natural extension. But it didn't make sense. How could the protector be the one they were supposed to protect? And how did Megami-sama come about? Was Usagi born with it? Or… a wild and crazy thought suddenly occurred to her as she gasped aloud, drawing everyone's attention to her.
"What is it, Mina-chan?" Usagi asked.
"What if… what if… Megami-sama was created?"
Sounds of shock spread throughout the room before a silence descended. The word created struck at a memory in Usagi's mind.
"I was created from nothingness, and now I exist. In you." The entity had told her, before continuing. "I was created to be a part of you, but the Master hadn't counted on my evolving. That was a lack of foresight on his part."
"That's just crazy. How can you create something like that? Even for the Master, that's too much. No technology alive could do that…" Haruka muttered.
"No human technology maybe," Vegeta smirked.
"She's right," Usagi whispered softly, her eyes flaring wide with memory.
"Nani??!" Haruka and Vegeta yelled simultaneously.
Looking at her with concern, Trunks asked, "Are you remembering?"
"Not exactly. More like I remember a conversation I had with the entity…"
"What did it say?"
"It was created to be a part of me, and that the Master hadn't counted on it evolving."
Usagi made a choking noise as she realised what was going on. "The Master created it."
Shock thundered through the system of all the senshi present. Somebody else had created Megami-sama for another purpose? She was not meant to protect them? But how could it be? It was foretold and predicted. The question still remained. What purpose WAS she created for then?
"I'm a pawn to be used in someone else's game. My life, everything… everything has been pre-determined. I'm forever dancing to someone else's tune," she whispered. She turned slightly and buried her face in Trunks' chest, as he tightened his hold on her, feeling her pain and her hot tears. He glared at her senshi, her supposed friends.
"You've been using her since day one. All this talk about destiny is really about saving your own asses isn't it? What do you care if the entity within is created for some other purpose? As long as it satisfies your own needs, you really couldn't care less what happens to her."
Vegeta smirked at all of them, proud of his son's outburst. Trunks had echoed his sentiments perfectly. Never too fond of humans to begin with, Vegeta didn't really understand the need to defend them. Her senshi were all users as far as he was concerned. The look of hurt that appeared on their faces shocked him somewhat though.
"How could you say that? I think you have us confused with the Inners. We protect the princess. It's the Inners that want Megami-sama to protect their sorry asses. Koneko-chan… she knows she means the world to me."
"And me," Michiru added. "Before she came along, we were completely tied down by obligations and responsibilities. And then we met her, and she showed us what unconditional love and friendship was. She allowed us to live."
Usagi's sobs quieted as she heard her friends' impassioned speeches.
"Usagi-san is my friend," Hotaru said as her chin quivered slightly. Trunks cursed himself under his breath, drawing Usagi's attention as she laid a hand on his shoulder in reassurance. "She was the only one who didn't treat me like a weak child or a freak."
"I remember how happy I was when I first met her. She just shone with this ray of light, bringing happiness to everyone around her. She was so… lively, and for once, I could relate to someone within the group. She made me feel welcome, and she became my friend." Minako said.
"Minna-chan…" she called out with tears in her eyes.
A willowy woman with dark hair that gleamed green highlights appeared out of nowhere.
"YOU," Haruka growled threateningly, along with Trunks who remembered the woman who kidnapped his love away from him.
"Setsuna!" Usagi called up, brightening up. She noted quickly that Haruka and Michiru were glaring at her guardian. She raised her eyebrow and looked on curiously. Trunks, in the meantime, was brimming with rage against the woman who had put Usagi back in the world that treated her so cruelly. He tensed his arms unconsciously around her, causing the petite blonde to squeal slightly. He snapped out of his murderous thoughts and looked upon her astonished blue eyes.
"Gomen, gomen, Usagi. I didn't mean to… seeing her just…"
"Megami-sama," Setsuna said as she bowed her head. Her eyes widened at the sight of the young blonde girl that had become almost like a daughter being held up by her lavender-haired boyfriend (Trunks if she remembered correctly) beside her. "What's going on?"
"You should ask! Time and time again, you keep interfering, taking Usagi away from us."
"It was her destiny. She had to fulfill it. Or so I was led to believe at the time." Her garnet eyes darkened in hatred. "I had been working for the Master at the time, believing myself to be a person who held very little skill in time manipulation. I had wanted to learn to control my powers and enhance it. And then I found out about the experiments that it had been performing. It believed Earth to be a pathetic planet, not worthy of existing, so it wanted to create a being that would help further its cause for total world destruction. Unfortunately, there were a group of people, both Lunarian and Saiyajin that posed as threats to its wishes. My Master finally came up with the ultimate plan. Once we had found a successful test subject, the child had been reintegrated back into Earth society and in the process, made the senshi believe that she was the ultimate weapon. The intention right from the beginning was to have the entity and the child exist as one. But something went wrong. I had modified the chip that they implanted earlier due to the failsafe mechanism my Master had put in. If it was ever deactivated, she would die, along with the entity in her. It had acted as a homing device, and an accelerant all in one, except we never knew about the latter until now. We had not counted on the entity evolving to a state where she wanted to be separate from its host."
"That child was Usagi, wasn't it?" Minako asked slowly.
"Hai, I had encountered her as one of the test subjects being brought in. I had seen her future, and known that she was destined to be the one. I had told my Master about it, but believing that I could not change her fate, I had never interfered, though I really wanted to. Until now."
The room had grown silent, listening to Setsuna tell her tale. Emotions were running rampant, especially with the senshi. They had been used and manipulated as a part of someone else's plan. They had been set at cross-purposes all along.
"Master believed that if it planted the child as one of them, they would never suspect that the one they thought would save them would be the one to ultimately destroy them." A motherly look crossed her face as she gazed upon the blonde. "But he never counted on the power of Usagi's human self. How she always had the ability to touch everyone around her, affect them, change them in ways that they could never imagine. He never knew that she was Lunarian herself."
"Why until now?" Trunks asked, still stunned by the story she just told.
"He lied to me. He made me believe that the future I saw for Usagi and Earth was the one that would happen no matter what I did. He made me believe that nothing I did mattered. But then again, how was I to know that I would be…"
"The senshi of Time," Haruka interrupted wearily, causing heads to turn and stare at her. "You… you who were at odds with us the whole entire time… you turn out to be our ally. How could I have missed it?"
"I didn't even know myself. You didn't really know my identity, just that I did something with Usagi. I'd be concerned too if I had been in your shoes. You were merely trying to protect the princess just like I was."
"That's why you took her away…" Minako whispered in realisation.
"I wanted to give her a taste of what being normal was like, away from all the tarnished aspects of her life. I also wanted to test my powers. I wasn't sure if Master had been lying to me, and from that trip, I discovered the truth. I did halt time temporarily, and I managed to alter and shift the time lines just a bit. Enough to throw his plans off. Putting her together with the half-Saiyajin was also my idea. I knew she had depths to her powers that went beyond Megami-sama, and how nobody ever bothered to see her past all that. I foresaw their love for each other… and I saw how she could begin healing that world with her energy. Just by her being there, the planet has already begun reviving itself. I knew her love for Mamoru wasn't real; the ties of the past had created the artificial emotion and caused them to remain together. Her heart always belonged to you, Trunks." She paused, and stared at the faces in front of her that were fascinated by her tale. "I will once again tempt fate and attempt to alter time. I will change what he's done to you, and you will get the happiness and normal life that you deserve, my child."
"Setsuna…" Usagi began calling out weakly, rivulets of tears coursing down her cheeks. "You were always like a mother to me. You were always there for me, protecting me as best as you could."
"We now know that as the Senshi of Time, your intentions are like ours. To protect our princess. But we need to know what yours is Minako," Michiru asked, her normally gentle ocean-blue eyes flashing with warning.
"Are your motives like the rest of your Inner Senshi?" Haruka questioned again, as her body tensed up. "Concerned only with having your ultimate weapon?"
"Iie! You should know me better than that, Haruka-san." Minako shot back, hurt that they would even doubt her loyalty to her friend. "Usagi has always been my friend first."
"And you were always mine," Usagi whispered.
"We don't have much time," Setsuna threw in. "I cannot hold off my Master for much longer."
"Who's this Master that you keep mentioning anyway?" Minako asked curiously.
"The ultimate in evil, a creature not from this planet, one bent on destruction."
"Freiza," Vegeta and Trunks echoed solemnly.
All the women present stared at the two men in shock, and though it was a close call, Setsuna's jaw was pretty much hanging at this point.
"Nani?!" They screeched in unison, causing the Saiyajin men (one half-Sayajin) to cringe severely due to their super-sensitive hearing.
"Do these onnas always scream this loudly?" Vegeta asked when his hearing had returned.
"Try having one next to your ear," Trunks replied wryly, pointing to the blonde in his arms at the moment.
"How do you know?" Setsuna inquired, shock written all over her face.
"He's an old enemy. He must've somehow realised what would happen, and returned back into time to tamper with the time lines. He knew that by spawning a god-like creature would save his life," Trunks explained.
"That baka. Didn't he realise we would catch on to his plan?" Vegeta shot out.
"Not soon enough unfortunately, since Megami-sama exists." Minako answered seriously.
"What can we do though?" Haruka demanded.
"Protect her as best as we can," Trunks vowed. "I'll die before I let anything happen to her."
Vegeta nodded at him, along with the rest of the senshi.
"Thank you, my friends." Usagi's eyes became filled with tears once again, and unable to hold back, the dam broke. "Gomen. I'm really tired… I must sleep. Trunks?"
"Of course."
As he helped her into the room, Minako was drawn to the suddenness of Usagi's change in mood. It would not be unlike herself to sacrifice herself to save her friends. She's done it once before. She will do it again.