--------------------------------------------------------------------
S.I.U. - The Sailor Investigation Unit
by DARK DAY FOR ANIME (Mark A Page)
Disclaimer - all characters pertaining to the series Bishoujo Senshi
Sailormoon and Silent Mobius are owned by Takeuchi Naoko, Kia
Asamiya, Michitaka Kikuchi, Bandai, Studio Tron, Kadokawa and
Kodansya. All other characters were thought up by me.
Warning - this chapter contains scenes that would be most correctly
described as gruesome. Thusly, I rate this chapter as R.... You
have been warned.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"I love you, Dione.... I love you...."
----o
My name is Nakano Miyuki.
And I am dead.
I killed myself. Put my gun to my head and pulled the
trigger. Moment of pain.... Then nothing. Well, that is how death
is. You don't exist, anymore.... Get used to the idea.... It's
coming to you, one day.
Why did I kill myself? Because I was scared, and I don't like
being scared. I don't like feeling at all.... Perhaps I'll tell
you why....
Perhaps not. My choice.
----o
Part Thirtyone
Dead Under the Bed
----o
There isn't much that goes on in my head. That is not to say
that I don't think very much, I just don't like thinking.... It
leads to that aspect of myself that I most despise.... The aspect
that tries to insert emotions into my mind.
I hate emotions.... They're a nuisance. They get in the way
of everything you do. Everything is so much simpler when you don't
have to feel anything at all.... Especially if you've spent much of
your younger years killing people, like I have.
I think it all started when I first became aware.... Aware of
myself as an individual entity.... It is really quite hard to
define when this occurs. Of course, everyone knows they exist, but
do they truly know they EXIST.... That they are as much a force of
nature, a physical presence, to which everything around them must
navigate in the hope of creating a safe passage.... It was probably
when I was 6 years old that I first became aware of myself, in this
capacity.
Until that time, I existed in a kind of waking dream.... The
kind of existence we all have at that stage.... We are very selfish
creatures when we are young, but there is a point to which we are
not conscious of our actions, and the consequences they have on
other people. The first moment I became aware of my actions, of
myself, and what I was capable of, was when I killed my mother and
father.
Sorry. You'll probably get upset at the thought of a six year
old girl, killing her parents. Perhaps I could make everything
better for you if I start off by mentioning all the nice, warm,
happy moments we shared.... Comfort you as you pick away at my
thoughts.... What few thoughts there are.... In my mind. It's so
much easier to swallow than the nasty ones, despite the typically
voyeuristic nature of human beings.
No.... I've mentioned the fact, already.... Too late to
insert any warm fuzzies, here.... Sensations of love and warmth
that really don't exist. There was no emotional warmth radiating
from either Mama or Papa.... Papa was a salaryman. He worked for a
major corporation. He also had a drinking problem, was dying of
liver and kidney damage, and had a bit on the side. He also had
a debt to a Yakuza loan shark and helped pay for his debt by
providing secret company financial documents to rival corporations.
Mama was a housewife, and an abuser of barbiturates, who liked
nothing more than tormenting young boys, sexually, starting with the
neighbours and moving farther afield for victims. Shotacon out of
control.
And a fun time was had by all.
Of course, it was my DUTY to society to rid them of their
lives. So I cut Mama's throat whilst she lay, doped to the
eyeballs, in bed.... Wasn't going to be much of a struggle,
then....
She did make funny little gurgling noises, afterwards....
Death rattles, probably. Always know someone is on their way when
you hear those.... Kinda amusing, that strange, rasping gurgle
noise.... Seemed to go on forever.... At one point, as I
contemplated the mess on my nightdress, I wondered if I should have
used a sharper knife, rather than one of those serrated-edge
ones.... But then, it was the only knife that Mama or Papa had ever
let me use, for cutting bread and the like, so I was used to the
back and forth motion needed to slice through her flesh.
Hmm.... Now where was I? Oh yes, after that, I then placed a
tripwire across the darkened main hallway of the house for Papa to
fall over as he returned from another "meeting", drunk.
Suffice to say, he didn't notice the string at all.... I
would have thought that someone, even in a state of inebriation,
would notice several coiled strands of household string crossing
their path.... Obviously not. He went butt up and cracked his head
on the floor. I hit it a couple more times with a baseball bat,
just to make sure he was dead.... My nightdress really got kinda
messy about then....
And it was kinda smelly, too.... I didn't know the inside of
a human body could smell so much, especially not the brain bit....
Hmm.... The insides of the human body.... Maybe I had a
fascination with what made people, for want of a better term, run,
so I've spent much of my life deconstructing them to see.... There
was that retired school teacher.... Oh, I'm sorry, I'm getting a
bit carried away, here.... It's so hard not to reminisce about
times like that....
----o
"I'm sorry, Iapetus.... I'm afraid I can't forgive you for
what you've done.... To kill in such a manner, for reasons no
better than to see what it would feel like.... It's a crime beyond
perception.... Beyond humanity...."
"Does it upset you?"
"How could you be so calm about it all? That wasn't just some
object you slaughtered.... It was a human being.... A living,
breathing person."
"I'm sorry, Queen.... I don't see the point."
"WHAT? HOW COULD YOU NOT SEE THE POINT?"
"Political criminal, attempting to escape custody. Had to
die."
"Is that the excuse you are using to justify your actions?"
"Do I need any more?"
"I cannot believe your attitude. Where is your SOUL?"
"Ma'am?"
"Your SOUL.... The thing that makes you human... You do know
what a SOUL is, don't you?"
"Don't see the point of your argument. Punish me, if you
must. I must return."
"TO WHERE?"
"My post. Can't leave for long."
"DAMN YOUR POST! I'M IN THE RIGHT MIND TO HAVE YOU....."
"Banished?"
"I should.... I really MUST..."
"You won't."
"WHAT?"
"No point. Iapetus requires someone like me. Replacement the
same. Cycle begins anew."
----o
So, having killed my mother and father, I took a bath and
washed off the blood. I then went to the fridge, had a midnight
snack and went to bed. Did I mention the fact that Papa's body
smelt? I found it annoying after a couple of hours, so I had to
spray him with air freshener.... It helped a little... but after a
while, the smell, not only from Papa, but Mama as well, just got
worse and worse and worse.... There were also phone calls from
people, worried that they hadn't heard from them.... That Papa
hadn't been to work, and such.... There were even a couple of calls
from the Yakuza....
Maybe I should have gone to school.... That was what gave it
all away.... That and the fact that the food was starting to run
out.... Oh, and the smell had moved from the house to the street
outside, as had I.... Everyone was so nice to me when the
neighbours took me in and phoned the police. It's times like that
that make being a child worthwhile.... Nobody was willing to
believe that a six year old girl could kill her parents, so the
police rounded up the Yakuza and tried them for the murder, after I
told everyone about the threatening calls.... They were convicted,
too, which was kinda funny at the time.
At least, I could see the humour in it all.... Everyone else
was so dour and serious.... Like they were making a big thing of
people dying.... People die every day. So what? The world doesn't
suddenly end when someone ups and carks it.... Well, it does for
the person in question, but that's to be expected.... EVERYBODY
dies.
It was when I realised this, that everybody and everything
must die, including myself, that I first started having the
dreams... Dreams of having lived, and died, before.
......................
I really don't know what to say about these dreams.... It's
kinda hard to say.... I've spent much of my life forgetting the
things I dream.... Of running away from faceless, pursuing enemies,
of travelling through impossibly large and exotic cities, full of
people doing strange things.... Of travelling landscapes and
coastlines that defy description.... Architecture of bizarre form
and shape, tv programs that never existed....
My subconscious mind likes to make up for the lack of passion
in my real life.... One of the reasons I've been doing my best to
ignore my dreams.... They require too much energy from within to
keep alive for very long.... I much prefer to retain that energy
for my existence.
But these dreams.... They frightened me.... On occasions, I
would wake up, screaming, covered in sweat, and mightily embarrassed.
It was like a huge, flashing neon sign that said "she's got problems
in the head department", and I spent many a wasted hour, talking to
a series of psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists and
social workers about it, simply because it worried people. Didn't
worry me. Much. Except when I thought about it.
Then I would be struck with an awful coldness, and everything
that had been solid and predictable would suddenly become ethereal
and ephemeral.... And I knew it to be madness.
I ran from it.... Carving into the population my profession as
a killer.... I had to kill people.... It was the only thing that
really satiated the static state into which I would fall at these
moments.... The extreme drama of such an act.... It's so.... It's
hard to describe.... Everything would suddenly come back into
focus. Everything would suddenly become REAL again, and I would
know, then, that I was REAL.
----o
"There is far too much blood on your hands, now, to turn back
to what you once were.... Stay with me, for a while, and I can,
perhaps, wash some of it off."
"Feeling for me?"
"Iapetus, I have always felt for you.... Even though the
Queen and the other senshi feared and avoided you, I have always
felt for you."
"Dione.... When will we die?"
"Who knows.... They left us behind.... It shows their
typical contempt for us.... We were never a part of THEIR world....
Even in death, they mock us."
"Mock us...."
"Yes.... From whatever afterlife they have found themselves,
they stare upon us who are still within our mortal forms and laugh,
for they feel it is the fate we justly deserve...."
"Always mocked us."
"Even the Queen despised us.... And the Prince and
Princess... They all hated us for what we represented in their
eyes... A dangerous, yet necessary, challenge to their thoughts and
beliefs.... And we shall go on challenging those thoughts and
beliefs for as long as we continue to live."
"Left behind."
"Don't try to think about it for too long.... They know it
shall drive us mad.... To be left behind, rejected. We were the
ones who succeeded in allowing Serenity to do what she did, and our
reward is her eternal contempt."
"Contempt."
"They don't truly understand what love is.... Love is what we
have.... What we have always had.... They merely saw it as an
obsessive feeding of character traits between us...."
"Obsessive love."
"Emotional dependency.... Yes, you have emotions, underneath
your dead exterior, they exist, otherwise why partake in what we
have shared, all these years?"
"Love. Perhaps."
"There is still something we can make of our lives.... What
remains of the human population must be guided.... We shall show
them that we can make something of this world.... That we were,
always, better than them in every way."
"Better...."
----o
But then, there were always those who considered my profession
to be essential.... That was why I ended up with the Shiranui
Yakuza, one of the oldest families in the Tokyo area. I was
admitted into their fold, albeit reluctantly, by their leader, when
I was no older than 14.... because of a job I had done for them....
Silencing a witness to the murder of a police informant. They
didn't want him dead, of course, but that didn't mean killing was
out of the question.... A simple vanishing would have sufficed, but
I promised my boyfriend at the time that I'd bring back the guy's
ear as a gift.
Boyfriend, you ask? yeah, I had one, once.... He was the one
who saw me through into the organisation.... Set me up a meeting
with the old man of the family, Midan. Shiranui Midan is a bastard
of the highest order.... likes to control people through a mixture
of threat, emotion and psychology, and he's good at it, too.... I
think what impressed him the most about me is that he has never been
able to work me out.... That's why he appointed me his daughter's
guardian. She needed one. Was as old as me, and the complete
opposite in personality....
Kimi's mouth works at ten to the dozen, but most of what comes
out is spoken in a kind of code.... She never says anything
straight out.... What she really thinks and feels is a complete
mystery to many people, and she, too, perplexed her father.... Not
half as much as I do, but all the same.... She was an
uncontrollable girl, used to getting her own way. Naturally, I was
going to fall in love with her....
Yeah yeah yeah.... My boyfriend wasn't too pleased. But
then, he was just there for the occasional moment of amusement....
I was genuinely attracted to Kimi.... And Kimi reciprocated these
feelings, especially as I became better and better at reading her
thoughts, actions and words. Kimi likes to be the centre of
attention.... She was a born actress, dressing up in all kinds of
costumes and such, and putting on little performances for people....
Much like her mother did.... Many people considered her mother to
be the true power behind the Shiranui Yakuza. At least, she was in
an operational sense.... She ran the brothels, drug imports and
production and the grafting side of the business, Midan was the
businessman's face. Both Kimi and I knew better, and we knew that,
one day, Midan would cut all strings to his wife's redemption.
The day it happened was the day Kimi and I pledged eternal
allegiance to each other. Kimi had become tired of my ex-
boyfriend's attempts to get me back. So, reeling after the
revelation of her mother's suicide, she had him drugged and bound
in her bedroom, and we ritually slaughtered him, then and there....
Our emotional co-dependence was sealed with his blood, which we
collected in little vials and placed in the meals of everyone in
the household that night, without their knowing. And with the
ingestion of that blood, we vowed that, one day, we would both
inherit control of the Shiranui Yakuza family.
Course, there was another reason Midan appointed me as his
daughter's guardian.... For the very reason he was unable to work
me out, he didn't like to think that there was such a person in this
world, one that was beyond his tricks and controls.... So he wanted
me close, where he could watch me, and use me for what I'm best at.
I've had to enforce his law more than once.... Usually nothing more
than wandering members of the family, and the occasional civilian...
Oh, and there were those politicians. And those seven uniforms....
They HAD to go.... And that shopkeeper.... And those twenty
members of the Aum Shin Rikyo cult that refused to pay the rent at
one of his properties.... Come to think of it, there have been a
hell of a lot of occasions when I've had to enforce his law....
Maybe he really DOES have me worked out, after all.... Or maybe he
thinks my public face is all that there is to me.... He'll be in
for something of a surprise if he continues to think along those
lines.
----o
"Dione. Where are you? I don't want to be left alone like
this.... Alone.... Please.... Answer me.... Where are you, now?
Why did you have to leave me?"
Time.
"I'm not good, alone.... I wander, in mind, spirit and body,
when I'm alone.... I can't run this world, all by myself.... I
don't have it within me.... You are my voice, I am your action....
What is the point of action without words?"
Dark.
"I'm not good at saying what I really think.... You know
that. Now that you're not here, I can say everything, out loud....
But whenever we were face to face.... It was beyond me. At least,
I never needed to talk, when you were around.... You always knew
what I was thinking, what I was feeling, on some instinctive
level...."
Silence.
"Please, don't tell me you're gone, forever.... I can't bear
to think what life would be like, without you.... I have to.... I
have to have YOU beside me.... I need it.... Please, show yourself
to me, on this dark night...."
Emptiness.
"If tears are not enough to get you to return to me, what
will? Must I, too, face the agony of death for us to be reunited?
Nothing has gone the way it should have.... Is this part of THEIR
plan, to mock us from the other side of death..... It is almost too
much to contemplate, that this is what THEY arranged for us upon the
moment of their own passing.... the conflagration that ended
all..."
Death.
"Will there be no happy ending for us? Are we so unworthy of
the gift of love? Are we just monsters, sent to wash others' hands
of the dirtier, immoral choices? What is the point of love at all
if, in the end, that is all it means...."
Forever.
"I love you, Dione.... I love you...."
----o
I love her.... Shiranui Kimi.... But it's all going wrong...
We had plans.... Plans to destroy those who had brought about her
mother's death.... Those freaks of nature, the Sailorsenshi....
Magic? I can't believe in magic.... It's just illogical.... How
can such a thing exist in this world? Even moreso, magic that is
the ultimate, binding force of love.... There is only one kind of
love I understand.... The bond that has formed between Kimi and
myself the few short years we have known each other.... The love
that the Sailorsenshi share is one we shall never know, never be a
part of, for it cannot encompass two whose pasts have been such as
ours.... I am.... Where was I?
No.... Where am I? Where am I, now? I was in a hospital....
But I can't be.... I'm SUPPOSED to be dead.... Is this what lies
beyond death, for one such as I? Wandering as some kind of spirit,
throughout the streets of Tokyo, alone, forever.... That would mean
Kimi is now alone.... Loneliness for Kimi would be worse than a
sentence of death.... She needs me.... She wouldn't be able to
live without me.... Why did I have to kill myself? I know why I
tried.... It was because of HER. It was because of SATURN.
She was prying into my mind, bringing forth the dreams that I
have tried to suppress all this time.... Dreams I had only shared
with Kimi.... For Kimi, too, had had such dreams, of a similar
place and world, and she reciprocated the honour of allowing me into
this private facet of her mind.... To tear these dreams from deep
within my soul.... I can think of no better example of my soul
being raped....
----o
"I cannot believe your attitude. Where is your SOUL?"
"Ma'am?"
"Your SOUL.... The thing that makes you human... You do know
what a SOUL is, don't you?"
----o
Saturn knows me better than any other being on the planet....
In the UNIVERSE. She didn't need to do that to me.... She didn't
need to bring up my private fantasies and thoughts.... Tear them
out of me.... She already KNEW what they were, because she has
always been a part of them.... And the fact that I could see the
recognition, in her own mind, frightened me like I have never been
frightened before, in my life.... I cannot be a part of the love
that surrounds the Sailorsenshi, yet she tells me I am.... I don't
WANT to be part of that. I don't belong there. But she tells me I
must. And so must Kimi.... For if the future is to ever come to
pass, as it should, we MUST be a part of it, regardless of who and
what we are.
And I ran away by killing myself. What would Kimi do? I well
know what she would do.... Exactly the same thing.... But Saturn
doesn't have the power to give her a second chance like she did me.
And if Kimi dies....
----o
"Dione. Where are you? I don't want to be left alone like
this.... Alone.... Please.... Answer me.... Where are you, now?
Why did you have to leave me?"
----o
The streets of Tokyo are cold and wet.... Where am I? How
did I get here? From the hospital.... How did I just appear here?
What did Saturn do to me? What power is it that she has over me?
I have walked many streets, I have seen many things.... Long
periods of time have passed between the two moments where I have
been alive.... Two different Kando Miyukis.... I am but one
version of her, and yet I am not so distinct from what I was, then.
I am patently insane, for no normal human being does, has done, the
things I have.
What am I to do? What was I brought back for?
----o
"What did you do to me? How did you stop my death? My
dying? How did I get here? This hospital.... I feel... I can
feel Kimi.... I can feel her, alone, in the darkness.... Where is
she? Where has she gone? What is her destiny?"
"Dione.... is searching... for her... longtime friend. Are...
you going... to allow her... to meet the... destiny you foresee?
Understand... Iapetus... Understand why... I saved you..."
----o
Somewhere, on the streets of Tokyo, Kimi is alone, and afraid.
Afraid for me, and for herself.... I too, am afraid, and I don't
like the feeling. And I very well know why I am afraid.... I don't
want to feel as alone, with someone as unpleasant as myself, as I
was in the final years of my previous life. Alone, without the one
person who actually meant something to me.
And I shall not let her die again.... To leave me alone,
again, in the throes of madness....
For there has never been anyone else but Kimi, not even
myself, that I have learnt to love. Does there really need to be
another reason?
Didn't think so.
Well, that's my excuse for living. What's yours?
----o
"I love you, Dione.... I love you...."
END OF PART 31
--------------------------------------------------------------------
As unpleasant as some characters can be, they can also be
pathetically tragic.... Obsessive, emotionally dependent love is
as devoid of reason as some madnesses.
----o
Next Chapter - "Conjoining Truths and Untruths"
Preview....
She had landed on the tiled surrounds of a large swimming
pool.... Even larger than the public pool she had often gone to in
her younger days. The pool was set in a large, covered hall, but
alas, there were no windows so she could get a bearing on her
surrounds.
The hall was lit by a simple exit sign above a door at the
other end, giving it a fairly ghostly atmosphere. The only relief
was the gentle buzz of the pool filter in the background.
Usagi got to her feet, rubbing her tailbone and performing a
little dance as she tried to recover movement against the pain she
felt. She stopped when she realised she was alone.
"S... Setsuna-san? Pluto, where are you?" Her voice,
regardless of its deliberate softness, echoed around the hall,
coming back to her as a confirmation that she was, indeed, sans
Setsuna. She shivered for a second. "C... Cthulu-san? Are you
there?"
"Blurkle snorkle...." Came the bubbling reply from the bottom
of the pool.
----o
_________
/ @ \ DDFA (The Right Dishonourable Mark A Page)
/ / ^ ^ \ \ ayanami@internode.on.net
/\
\/ \/
\___________/
/_/ \_\ PU
Version 1.1 - Tuesday September 29th 1998
S.I.U. - The Sailor Investigation Unit
by DARK DAY FOR ANIME (Mark A Page)
Disclaimer - all characters pertaining to the series Bishoujo Senshi
Sailormoon and Silent Mobius are owned by Takeuchi Naoko, Kia
Asamiya, Michitaka Kikuchi, Bandai, Studio Tron, Kadokawa and
Kodansya. All other characters were thought up by me.
Warning - this chapter contains scenes that would be most correctly
described as gruesome. Thusly, I rate this chapter as R.... You
have been warned.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"I love you, Dione.... I love you...."
----o
My name is Nakano Miyuki.
And I am dead.
I killed myself. Put my gun to my head and pulled the
trigger. Moment of pain.... Then nothing. Well, that is how death
is. You don't exist, anymore.... Get used to the idea.... It's
coming to you, one day.
Why did I kill myself? Because I was scared, and I don't like
being scared. I don't like feeling at all.... Perhaps I'll tell
you why....
Perhaps not. My choice.
----o
Part Thirtyone
Dead Under the Bed
----o
There isn't much that goes on in my head. That is not to say
that I don't think very much, I just don't like thinking.... It
leads to that aspect of myself that I most despise.... The aspect
that tries to insert emotions into my mind.
I hate emotions.... They're a nuisance. They get in the way
of everything you do. Everything is so much simpler when you don't
have to feel anything at all.... Especially if you've spent much of
your younger years killing people, like I have.
I think it all started when I first became aware.... Aware of
myself as an individual entity.... It is really quite hard to
define when this occurs. Of course, everyone knows they exist, but
do they truly know they EXIST.... That they are as much a force of
nature, a physical presence, to which everything around them must
navigate in the hope of creating a safe passage.... It was probably
when I was 6 years old that I first became aware of myself, in this
capacity.
Until that time, I existed in a kind of waking dream.... The
kind of existence we all have at that stage.... We are very selfish
creatures when we are young, but there is a point to which we are
not conscious of our actions, and the consequences they have on
other people. The first moment I became aware of my actions, of
myself, and what I was capable of, was when I killed my mother and
father.
Sorry. You'll probably get upset at the thought of a six year
old girl, killing her parents. Perhaps I could make everything
better for you if I start off by mentioning all the nice, warm,
happy moments we shared.... Comfort you as you pick away at my
thoughts.... What few thoughts there are.... In my mind. It's so
much easier to swallow than the nasty ones, despite the typically
voyeuristic nature of human beings.
No.... I've mentioned the fact, already.... Too late to
insert any warm fuzzies, here.... Sensations of love and warmth
that really don't exist. There was no emotional warmth radiating
from either Mama or Papa.... Papa was a salaryman. He worked for a
major corporation. He also had a drinking problem, was dying of
liver and kidney damage, and had a bit on the side. He also had
a debt to a Yakuza loan shark and helped pay for his debt by
providing secret company financial documents to rival corporations.
Mama was a housewife, and an abuser of barbiturates, who liked
nothing more than tormenting young boys, sexually, starting with the
neighbours and moving farther afield for victims. Shotacon out of
control.
And a fun time was had by all.
Of course, it was my DUTY to society to rid them of their
lives. So I cut Mama's throat whilst she lay, doped to the
eyeballs, in bed.... Wasn't going to be much of a struggle,
then....
She did make funny little gurgling noises, afterwards....
Death rattles, probably. Always know someone is on their way when
you hear those.... Kinda amusing, that strange, rasping gurgle
noise.... Seemed to go on forever.... At one point, as I
contemplated the mess on my nightdress, I wondered if I should have
used a sharper knife, rather than one of those serrated-edge
ones.... But then, it was the only knife that Mama or Papa had ever
let me use, for cutting bread and the like, so I was used to the
back and forth motion needed to slice through her flesh.
Hmm.... Now where was I? Oh yes, after that, I then placed a
tripwire across the darkened main hallway of the house for Papa to
fall over as he returned from another "meeting", drunk.
Suffice to say, he didn't notice the string at all.... I
would have thought that someone, even in a state of inebriation,
would notice several coiled strands of household string crossing
their path.... Obviously not. He went butt up and cracked his head
on the floor. I hit it a couple more times with a baseball bat,
just to make sure he was dead.... My nightdress really got kinda
messy about then....
And it was kinda smelly, too.... I didn't know the inside of
a human body could smell so much, especially not the brain bit....
Hmm.... The insides of the human body.... Maybe I had a
fascination with what made people, for want of a better term, run,
so I've spent much of my life deconstructing them to see.... There
was that retired school teacher.... Oh, I'm sorry, I'm getting a
bit carried away, here.... It's so hard not to reminisce about
times like that....
----o
"I'm sorry, Iapetus.... I'm afraid I can't forgive you for
what you've done.... To kill in such a manner, for reasons no
better than to see what it would feel like.... It's a crime beyond
perception.... Beyond humanity...."
"Does it upset you?"
"How could you be so calm about it all? That wasn't just some
object you slaughtered.... It was a human being.... A living,
breathing person."
"I'm sorry, Queen.... I don't see the point."
"WHAT? HOW COULD YOU NOT SEE THE POINT?"
"Political criminal, attempting to escape custody. Had to
die."
"Is that the excuse you are using to justify your actions?"
"Do I need any more?"
"I cannot believe your attitude. Where is your SOUL?"
"Ma'am?"
"Your SOUL.... The thing that makes you human... You do know
what a SOUL is, don't you?"
"Don't see the point of your argument. Punish me, if you
must. I must return."
"TO WHERE?"
"My post. Can't leave for long."
"DAMN YOUR POST! I'M IN THE RIGHT MIND TO HAVE YOU....."
"Banished?"
"I should.... I really MUST..."
"You won't."
"WHAT?"
"No point. Iapetus requires someone like me. Replacement the
same. Cycle begins anew."
----o
So, having killed my mother and father, I took a bath and
washed off the blood. I then went to the fridge, had a midnight
snack and went to bed. Did I mention the fact that Papa's body
smelt? I found it annoying after a couple of hours, so I had to
spray him with air freshener.... It helped a little... but after a
while, the smell, not only from Papa, but Mama as well, just got
worse and worse and worse.... There were also phone calls from
people, worried that they hadn't heard from them.... That Papa
hadn't been to work, and such.... There were even a couple of calls
from the Yakuza....
Maybe I should have gone to school.... That was what gave it
all away.... That and the fact that the food was starting to run
out.... Oh, and the smell had moved from the house to the street
outside, as had I.... Everyone was so nice to me when the
neighbours took me in and phoned the police. It's times like that
that make being a child worthwhile.... Nobody was willing to
believe that a six year old girl could kill her parents, so the
police rounded up the Yakuza and tried them for the murder, after I
told everyone about the threatening calls.... They were convicted,
too, which was kinda funny at the time.
At least, I could see the humour in it all.... Everyone else
was so dour and serious.... Like they were making a big thing of
people dying.... People die every day. So what? The world doesn't
suddenly end when someone ups and carks it.... Well, it does for
the person in question, but that's to be expected.... EVERYBODY
dies.
It was when I realised this, that everybody and everything
must die, including myself, that I first started having the
dreams... Dreams of having lived, and died, before.
......................
I really don't know what to say about these dreams.... It's
kinda hard to say.... I've spent much of my life forgetting the
things I dream.... Of running away from faceless, pursuing enemies,
of travelling through impossibly large and exotic cities, full of
people doing strange things.... Of travelling landscapes and
coastlines that defy description.... Architecture of bizarre form
and shape, tv programs that never existed....
My subconscious mind likes to make up for the lack of passion
in my real life.... One of the reasons I've been doing my best to
ignore my dreams.... They require too much energy from within to
keep alive for very long.... I much prefer to retain that energy
for my existence.
But these dreams.... They frightened me.... On occasions, I
would wake up, screaming, covered in sweat, and mightily embarrassed.
It was like a huge, flashing neon sign that said "she's got problems
in the head department", and I spent many a wasted hour, talking to
a series of psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists and
social workers about it, simply because it worried people. Didn't
worry me. Much. Except when I thought about it.
Then I would be struck with an awful coldness, and everything
that had been solid and predictable would suddenly become ethereal
and ephemeral.... And I knew it to be madness.
I ran from it.... Carving into the population my profession as
a killer.... I had to kill people.... It was the only thing that
really satiated the static state into which I would fall at these
moments.... The extreme drama of such an act.... It's so.... It's
hard to describe.... Everything would suddenly come back into
focus. Everything would suddenly become REAL again, and I would
know, then, that I was REAL.
----o
"There is far too much blood on your hands, now, to turn back
to what you once were.... Stay with me, for a while, and I can,
perhaps, wash some of it off."
"Feeling for me?"
"Iapetus, I have always felt for you.... Even though the
Queen and the other senshi feared and avoided you, I have always
felt for you."
"Dione.... When will we die?"
"Who knows.... They left us behind.... It shows their
typical contempt for us.... We were never a part of THEIR world....
Even in death, they mock us."
"Mock us...."
"Yes.... From whatever afterlife they have found themselves,
they stare upon us who are still within our mortal forms and laugh,
for they feel it is the fate we justly deserve...."
"Always mocked us."
"Even the Queen despised us.... And the Prince and
Princess... They all hated us for what we represented in their
eyes... A dangerous, yet necessary, challenge to their thoughts and
beliefs.... And we shall go on challenging those thoughts and
beliefs for as long as we continue to live."
"Left behind."
"Don't try to think about it for too long.... They know it
shall drive us mad.... To be left behind, rejected. We were the
ones who succeeded in allowing Serenity to do what she did, and our
reward is her eternal contempt."
"Contempt."
"They don't truly understand what love is.... Love is what we
have.... What we have always had.... They merely saw it as an
obsessive feeding of character traits between us...."
"Obsessive love."
"Emotional dependency.... Yes, you have emotions, underneath
your dead exterior, they exist, otherwise why partake in what we
have shared, all these years?"
"Love. Perhaps."
"There is still something we can make of our lives.... What
remains of the human population must be guided.... We shall show
them that we can make something of this world.... That we were,
always, better than them in every way."
"Better...."
----o
But then, there were always those who considered my profession
to be essential.... That was why I ended up with the Shiranui
Yakuza, one of the oldest families in the Tokyo area. I was
admitted into their fold, albeit reluctantly, by their leader, when
I was no older than 14.... because of a job I had done for them....
Silencing a witness to the murder of a police informant. They
didn't want him dead, of course, but that didn't mean killing was
out of the question.... A simple vanishing would have sufficed, but
I promised my boyfriend at the time that I'd bring back the guy's
ear as a gift.
Boyfriend, you ask? yeah, I had one, once.... He was the one
who saw me through into the organisation.... Set me up a meeting
with the old man of the family, Midan. Shiranui Midan is a bastard
of the highest order.... likes to control people through a mixture
of threat, emotion and psychology, and he's good at it, too.... I
think what impressed him the most about me is that he has never been
able to work me out.... That's why he appointed me his daughter's
guardian. She needed one. Was as old as me, and the complete
opposite in personality....
Kimi's mouth works at ten to the dozen, but most of what comes
out is spoken in a kind of code.... She never says anything
straight out.... What she really thinks and feels is a complete
mystery to many people, and she, too, perplexed her father.... Not
half as much as I do, but all the same.... She was an
uncontrollable girl, used to getting her own way. Naturally, I was
going to fall in love with her....
Yeah yeah yeah.... My boyfriend wasn't too pleased. But
then, he was just there for the occasional moment of amusement....
I was genuinely attracted to Kimi.... And Kimi reciprocated these
feelings, especially as I became better and better at reading her
thoughts, actions and words. Kimi likes to be the centre of
attention.... She was a born actress, dressing up in all kinds of
costumes and such, and putting on little performances for people....
Much like her mother did.... Many people considered her mother to
be the true power behind the Shiranui Yakuza. At least, she was in
an operational sense.... She ran the brothels, drug imports and
production and the grafting side of the business, Midan was the
businessman's face. Both Kimi and I knew better, and we knew that,
one day, Midan would cut all strings to his wife's redemption.
The day it happened was the day Kimi and I pledged eternal
allegiance to each other. Kimi had become tired of my ex-
boyfriend's attempts to get me back. So, reeling after the
revelation of her mother's suicide, she had him drugged and bound
in her bedroom, and we ritually slaughtered him, then and there....
Our emotional co-dependence was sealed with his blood, which we
collected in little vials and placed in the meals of everyone in
the household that night, without their knowing. And with the
ingestion of that blood, we vowed that, one day, we would both
inherit control of the Shiranui Yakuza family.
Course, there was another reason Midan appointed me as his
daughter's guardian.... For the very reason he was unable to work
me out, he didn't like to think that there was such a person in this
world, one that was beyond his tricks and controls.... So he wanted
me close, where he could watch me, and use me for what I'm best at.
I've had to enforce his law more than once.... Usually nothing more
than wandering members of the family, and the occasional civilian...
Oh, and there were those politicians. And those seven uniforms....
They HAD to go.... And that shopkeeper.... And those twenty
members of the Aum Shin Rikyo cult that refused to pay the rent at
one of his properties.... Come to think of it, there have been a
hell of a lot of occasions when I've had to enforce his law....
Maybe he really DOES have me worked out, after all.... Or maybe he
thinks my public face is all that there is to me.... He'll be in
for something of a surprise if he continues to think along those
lines.
----o
"Dione. Where are you? I don't want to be left alone like
this.... Alone.... Please.... Answer me.... Where are you, now?
Why did you have to leave me?"
Time.
"I'm not good, alone.... I wander, in mind, spirit and body,
when I'm alone.... I can't run this world, all by myself.... I
don't have it within me.... You are my voice, I am your action....
What is the point of action without words?"
Dark.
"I'm not good at saying what I really think.... You know
that. Now that you're not here, I can say everything, out loud....
But whenever we were face to face.... It was beyond me. At least,
I never needed to talk, when you were around.... You always knew
what I was thinking, what I was feeling, on some instinctive
level...."
Silence.
"Please, don't tell me you're gone, forever.... I can't bear
to think what life would be like, without you.... I have to.... I
have to have YOU beside me.... I need it.... Please, show yourself
to me, on this dark night...."
Emptiness.
"If tears are not enough to get you to return to me, what
will? Must I, too, face the agony of death for us to be reunited?
Nothing has gone the way it should have.... Is this part of THEIR
plan, to mock us from the other side of death..... It is almost too
much to contemplate, that this is what THEY arranged for us upon the
moment of their own passing.... the conflagration that ended
all..."
Death.
"Will there be no happy ending for us? Are we so unworthy of
the gift of love? Are we just monsters, sent to wash others' hands
of the dirtier, immoral choices? What is the point of love at all
if, in the end, that is all it means...."
Forever.
"I love you, Dione.... I love you...."
----o
I love her.... Shiranui Kimi.... But it's all going wrong...
We had plans.... Plans to destroy those who had brought about her
mother's death.... Those freaks of nature, the Sailorsenshi....
Magic? I can't believe in magic.... It's just illogical.... How
can such a thing exist in this world? Even moreso, magic that is
the ultimate, binding force of love.... There is only one kind of
love I understand.... The bond that has formed between Kimi and
myself the few short years we have known each other.... The love
that the Sailorsenshi share is one we shall never know, never be a
part of, for it cannot encompass two whose pasts have been such as
ours.... I am.... Where was I?
No.... Where am I? Where am I, now? I was in a hospital....
But I can't be.... I'm SUPPOSED to be dead.... Is this what lies
beyond death, for one such as I? Wandering as some kind of spirit,
throughout the streets of Tokyo, alone, forever.... That would mean
Kimi is now alone.... Loneliness for Kimi would be worse than a
sentence of death.... She needs me.... She wouldn't be able to
live without me.... Why did I have to kill myself? I know why I
tried.... It was because of HER. It was because of SATURN.
She was prying into my mind, bringing forth the dreams that I
have tried to suppress all this time.... Dreams I had only shared
with Kimi.... For Kimi, too, had had such dreams, of a similar
place and world, and she reciprocated the honour of allowing me into
this private facet of her mind.... To tear these dreams from deep
within my soul.... I can think of no better example of my soul
being raped....
----o
"I cannot believe your attitude. Where is your SOUL?"
"Ma'am?"
"Your SOUL.... The thing that makes you human... You do know
what a SOUL is, don't you?"
----o
Saturn knows me better than any other being on the planet....
In the UNIVERSE. She didn't need to do that to me.... She didn't
need to bring up my private fantasies and thoughts.... Tear them
out of me.... She already KNEW what they were, because she has
always been a part of them.... And the fact that I could see the
recognition, in her own mind, frightened me like I have never been
frightened before, in my life.... I cannot be a part of the love
that surrounds the Sailorsenshi, yet she tells me I am.... I don't
WANT to be part of that. I don't belong there. But she tells me I
must. And so must Kimi.... For if the future is to ever come to
pass, as it should, we MUST be a part of it, regardless of who and
what we are.
And I ran away by killing myself. What would Kimi do? I well
know what she would do.... Exactly the same thing.... But Saturn
doesn't have the power to give her a second chance like she did me.
And if Kimi dies....
----o
"Dione. Where are you? I don't want to be left alone like
this.... Alone.... Please.... Answer me.... Where are you, now?
Why did you have to leave me?"
----o
The streets of Tokyo are cold and wet.... Where am I? How
did I get here? From the hospital.... How did I just appear here?
What did Saturn do to me? What power is it that she has over me?
I have walked many streets, I have seen many things.... Long
periods of time have passed between the two moments where I have
been alive.... Two different Kando Miyukis.... I am but one
version of her, and yet I am not so distinct from what I was, then.
I am patently insane, for no normal human being does, has done, the
things I have.
What am I to do? What was I brought back for?
----o
"What did you do to me? How did you stop my death? My
dying? How did I get here? This hospital.... I feel... I can
feel Kimi.... I can feel her, alone, in the darkness.... Where is
she? Where has she gone? What is her destiny?"
"Dione.... is searching... for her... longtime friend. Are...
you going... to allow her... to meet the... destiny you foresee?
Understand... Iapetus... Understand why... I saved you..."
----o
Somewhere, on the streets of Tokyo, Kimi is alone, and afraid.
Afraid for me, and for herself.... I too, am afraid, and I don't
like the feeling. And I very well know why I am afraid.... I don't
want to feel as alone, with someone as unpleasant as myself, as I
was in the final years of my previous life. Alone, without the one
person who actually meant something to me.
And I shall not let her die again.... To leave me alone,
again, in the throes of madness....
For there has never been anyone else but Kimi, not even
myself, that I have learnt to love. Does there really need to be
another reason?
Didn't think so.
Well, that's my excuse for living. What's yours?
----o
"I love you, Dione.... I love you...."
END OF PART 31
--------------------------------------------------------------------
As unpleasant as some characters can be, they can also be
pathetically tragic.... Obsessive, emotionally dependent love is
as devoid of reason as some madnesses.
----o
Next Chapter - "Conjoining Truths and Untruths"
Preview....
She had landed on the tiled surrounds of a large swimming
pool.... Even larger than the public pool she had often gone to in
her younger days. The pool was set in a large, covered hall, but
alas, there were no windows so she could get a bearing on her
surrounds.
The hall was lit by a simple exit sign above a door at the
other end, giving it a fairly ghostly atmosphere. The only relief
was the gentle buzz of the pool filter in the background.
Usagi got to her feet, rubbing her tailbone and performing a
little dance as she tried to recover movement against the pain she
felt. She stopped when she realised she was alone.
"S... Setsuna-san? Pluto, where are you?" Her voice,
regardless of its deliberate softness, echoed around the hall,
coming back to her as a confirmation that she was, indeed, sans
Setsuna. She shivered for a second. "C... Cthulu-san? Are you
there?"
"Blurkle snorkle...." Came the bubbling reply from the bottom
of the pool.
----o
_________
/ @ \ DDFA (The Right Dishonourable Mark A Page)
/ / ^ ^ \ \ ayanami@internode.on.net
/\
\/ \/
\___________/
/_/ \_\ PU
Version 1.1 - Tuesday September 29th 1998