**DISCLAIMER: Sailor Moon and other characters belong to Naoko Takeuchi, Cartoon Network, etc. None of these characters belong to me. **
Rating: PG
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"Not the glittering weapon fights the fight, but rather the hero's heart."
~ Proverb ~
Silver Eyes
by: The Silver Princess
Usagi grimaced as she scrutinized her appearance. Despite the layers of concealer, the dark purpling shadows were still visible beneath her dull eyes. She sighed wearily, leaning against the counter. Even aided by her significant endurance and stamina, she had found the last few days exhausting. Her muscles ached, and her brain felt muffled and heavy. The temptation of sleep and her mussed bed was all but overwhelming.
Under normal circumstances, the easy acknowledgment of her and Mamoru's new relationship, the friendly welcoming into the group, and the understanding acceptance of her desire to remain unknown would have seemed miraculous and wonderful, would have left her feeling buoyant and almost lighthearted. It was like being accepted into a large, albeit strange, family. They cooperated with her in fights, and afterwards, opened their conferences to her—she no longer had to eavesdrop in hopes of discovering information; they willingly talked and shared with her. Normally, she would be delighted. Exhausted, she sighed again. But these last few days…
Something big was about to happen.
The youma were attacking more frequently, even venturing into the daytime to sate their need for human energy and life. The senshi were on edge; their mystical abilities were warning them as vociferously as possible. Her mind flashed back to the meeting where they had spilled out their concerns, growing increasingly uneasy as each confirmed the danger.
"Rei and I have both been having dreams, the prophetic kind." Mamoru grimly shook his head. His voice was hollow as he continued, "There's ice and darkness, an impenetrable blackness that strangles the planet. It's a short walk to a throne of swirling blood, and a woman is laughing. She's more than mortal, though. There's something evil harbored inside her body."
"My Mirror," Michiru began hesitantly. "The images it shows me correspond with what you say."
"What does it show you?"
"I can't say. It's too—" She broke off as Haruka reassuringly squeezed her hand. "But it's coming soon. An awful hunger to devour our world."
"I'm afraid that I can shed some light on the exact details of what will happen," Ami added unhappily when no one else spoke. "The empirical data that I've gathered demonstrates that the levels of negative energy have skyrocketed. If these statistics continue in their current pattern unchecked, the negative energy will destabilize the planet within a week."
She paused, taking a deep breath before resuming in a carefully academic and dispassionate voice. "My research and findings indicate that the climate will fluctuate dramatically, causing drought and flooding throughout the land. The tectonic plates will shift, causing earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. Hitherto unknown diseases will break out, decimating the human and livestock population. Humanity will be seized by a worldwide panic, and fed by the negativity, their behavior will grow increasing violent until a slaughter begins among the survivors. After a few years, a new ice age will begin. The ice caps will cover all but the tallest mountains, but the temperatures will have plummeted so severely that life as we know it could not survive there anyway."
As Ami spoke, the circle of faces grew increasingly apprehensive and sorrowful. Usagi felt numb as she listened to the tally of disasters. "And," Ami said, her voice dejected and hesitant as though not wanting to worsen the situation, "that's not taking into account the effects of the youma and demons themselves."
Usagi's stomach clenched uncomfortably as she sought to banish her mind's imaginings of the suffering that would come to pass. Silence blanketed the gathering. She lightly brushed her fingers over her mask, a nervous habit she had developed since she began to spend closer time with the senshi. Mamoru noticed and surreptitiously took her hand in his. She smiled at him gratefully.
She looked back at the circle of silent senshi, and her eyes suddenly locked with Hotaru's. Those violet irises were so dark, almost black; haunted, ageless eyes skimmed with ice. The slender, tiny girl was so much colder and quieter than when Usagi had met her. She feels it also, Usagi realized. She feels the approach of the end, and Saturn's power is growing within her, stripping away her identity as a young girl. Then unexpectedly, Hotaru inclined her head and smiled with a ghost of her youthful spirit, acknowledging the concern on Usagi's face.
The silence was very heavy now.
"Setsuna?" Usagi interrupted.
Startled, Setsuna turned towards her, her keen garnet eyes flashing unusually as they always did when she focused on Usagi.
"You're the senshi of time. Can't you tell us anything?"
"I'm not omniscient," Setsuna said dryly. "I can tell you this much: this is an ancient evil that has slept and festered for many millennia. It has not disrupted the space-time continuum to threaten us. As for the future," she shrugged. "We are at a crossroads and my knowledge of the future shifts like quicksand, showing too many possibilities to even begin to examine." Usagi's silver eyes narrowed as she perceived the tension in the green-haired woman's posture and the way her fingers clenched against the chair. This inability to grasp the possibilities of the future was unusual, unnerving, and worrisome to her.
Beside Usagi, Haruka suddenly exploded, "We have to find Serenity-hime! The princess is the only one who can stand a chance. We have to find her!"
Usagi shook her head, banishing the recollection. She dabbed on another layer of concealer and then scrutinized the finishing product. It would have to suffice; otherwise, she would be late for school in actuality. She reluctantly pushed off from the counter, wobbling momentarily with fatigue. Even the little sleep she had been snatching had been restless and disturbed, troubled by dreams that mimicked those of Mamoru's description. She may not have superpowers, but her heart could sense the twisting evil that putrefied fester out of sight.
She wrinkled her nose as she left the apartment building. The newspaper had not recorded any rise in smog levels, yet she could have sworn that the air was heavier and blacker, acrid in her lungs. She coughed once before flicking her pigtails out of her face and beginning her dash to school.
*****
Usagi lightly dozed on her desk, her head pillowed against her arms. A stray wisp of hair tickled at her nose, but she didn't have the energy to bother brushing it away. Ami poked her in the shoulder as she always did when Usagi nodded off, but she simply ignored her. She had faked naps during class often enough; surely a real one couldn't hurt anything. Haruna-sensei was in a very good mood today so she would not pretend to care either.
Gradually as Haruna-sensei murmured on about the difference between that and which in the English language, Usagi's drowsing slipped off into deep slumber. Her head slipped down, until her cheekbone came to rest against the cool wood of the desktop.
When Usagi opened her eyes, she knew she was dreaming. There was a glassy smoothness to her surroundings, which always seemed in danger of metamorphosing into something else. She stood up and her desk vanished into tiny wisps of smoke behind her.
"Who are you?"
"What?" she said, turning towards the voice. She frowned and spun in a circle. There was no one there, just an endless expanse of pale green grass and of pastel blue sky.
"Who are you?"
The voice was feminine, familiar. Usagi frowned trying to place it, to recall whose face accompanied that voice. Its timbre was low and rich, and its tonal quality very serene and regal. Her frown deepened; the memory was niggling at the corners of her mind, hiding in a nearby shadow.
"Who are you?"
"I am Tsukino Usagi," she responded politely. Her hand brushed against the tips of the tall grass. "And you are?"
"You have not yet answered my question to the fullest," the voice insisted. Was that a hint of amusement she heard? "Who are you?"
"I am Tsukino Usagi," she repeated patiently. The voice remained silent. "I am also known by some as Serenity," she added hesitantly. "Not the princess, Serenity-hime, just Serenity."
A light pleased laughter glittered in the air and pastel blossoms suddenly bloomed into being. The meadow was awash with the bobbing heads of large pale flowers. Sunlight drizzled down like golden honey.
"And you are?" Usagi inquired, inferring that she had finally answered the question to the voice's satisfaction.
"Well, I am—"
Usagi waited nervously. "You are?" There was no answer, and the sunlight had dimmed. The sky was darkening becoming a purply blue twilight. "Hello? Hello?"
The flowers shrank away from her hands, wilting and fading into nothingness. The sky above was rapidly approaching blackness.
Usagi's breath was loud in her ears, and she spun around, searching futilely for some discerning landmark.
On the horizon, smoky darkness reared and then shuddered into a fall against the earth. Tendrils of black quickly coursed from it, weaving and expanding, dashing across the landscape. It streamed over every hill, devoured every tree like foul flood of ink.
Usagi gasped. The air was freezing in her lungs; it was difficult to breathe properly. She turned from the hungry, swelling darkness and began to run. Her feet tripped over holes and rocks that she couldn't see. Her lungs labored to pump enough oxygen into her blood. Tiny particles of ice began to blow in the wind, scraping over her cheeks and caking in her eyelashes.
She tripped, stumbled, fell hard. Her palms slapped against the cold hard ground painfully as she sprawled, panting.
Arctic laughter filled the air.
She looked up, not expecting to see anything in this stygian gloom. She blinked in surprise, her eyes watering, as she was met with a dim glow of light.
The light bloomed, illuminating a figure before her.
It was a large high-backed throne, deep blackish red, the color of dried blood. It might have been marble swirled with varying shades of black and crimson, but…she crinkled her forehead, examining it closer. The marbling moved; it churned and swirled like liquid encased in glass. The red light throbbed.
There was a woman standing there, shadow clinging to her like cobwebs, obscuring her features. The only identifying trait was her bright, vibrant shock of scarlet hair. The laughter came from that woman and echoed all around. It was deep laughter, with echoes of another inside it, wormed inside the female voice. Darkness undulated. There was power there, power not native to that woman's body.
"I have been waiting for you to kneel to me, little one," she hissed in her unnatural voice.
Usagi shuddered as the sound scraped over her like razors but forced herself to stand.
Laughter crawled over her again. "Child, haven't you guessed it already? You're just like me. Murderer!"
A form appeared at the woman's left hand. Ikuko, Usagi's mother. "Murderer."
At the right, Kenji, her father. "Murderer."
Shingo materialized in front over, his chest a dark gaping hole. "Murderer!" he accused, his young voice shrill and angry.
Usagi backed away, shaking her head, desperately denying their words.
A hand gripped her shoulder and spun her around. The redheaded man who had shot Shingo. The katana was still embedded deep within him. "Murderer!" he spat.
Usagi screamed, trying to wrench her hands from the handle of the blade, but they refused to budge, stuck as though glued.
"Murderer!" a chorus of voices condemned her.
"Kill her now," the woman ordered negligently.
Mamoru appeared before her, holding a long heavy sword over her head.
"Mamo-chan?"
His eyes were dark and detached. "Murderer," he charged her. The sword swept downward.
Screams began in her head.
Usagi snapped awake, biting her lip to remain silent. Sweat rolled down her neck and under the collar of her shirt.
"Usagi-chan, are you all right? Usagi-chan?"
She jerked to attention. Grinning reassuringly, she responded cheerfully, "Of course, Ami-chan."
Ami gave her one strange, searching look before returning her focus to Haruna-sensei who was now lecturing about adverbial clauses in English. Usagi relaxed in muted relief.
Sighing unhappily at the disruption in her sleep that the dream had caused, Usagi laid her head down again and closed her eyes.
For a moment, she thought she had reentered the dream from the point from which she had left it. Then she realized that the screaming had begun in the classroom.
Her eyes snapped open, her exhaustion falling away like a discarded blanket. Adrenaline surged through her, reviving her like a splash of cold water.
The classroom was chaos. Students were running, Haruna-sensei had already vanished through the door. Only Usagi noted that her four friends had dived through the window instead—presumably to transform and to call the others on their communicators.
Usagi remained in her seat, frozen and unsure. She could not help, not dressed as Odango Atama and bereft of her disguise. Yet, she could not bring herself to abandon them.
Soon the room was empty but for her and the youma.
"I am Sailor Venus!"
"Sailor Mercury!"
"Sailor Mars!"
The list of names continued. They had arrived—all nine of them.
Author's Notes: Hehe, are you excited for the next chapter or what? But don't worry, it's half-written, and it'll be up by the end of the first week of January. Happy New Year! I'll see you soon. And remember to review, I (and my stories) thrive on it ^_^ Ja ne!
