Treason

14

(Courage in Words)

My vision went red.  All thoughts of myself fled my mind as I witnessed the true horror that we were about to face unfolding before us.  The strain on my arm had long since vanished; instead it was replaced by the light touch of two cold hands.  I turned my attention to the side.  This atrocity had shocked me to the core.  Though my eyes had seen many hardships of war, this was the true epitome of evil.

The blue eyes, filled with love that I had always sought to find comfort in, were now distant and wide.  I couldn't begin to fathom the shear pain that had flooded her mind and heart at this moment… to tell the truth I wasn't sure if I wanted to.  The Earth was silent to my ears, though I was more than sure there was sound still left on it.  The ground shaking beneath my feet was evidence enough of the fury about to be unleashed upon us.

"Chibi-Usa…"  Her breath was cut short as her chest heaved in an unsteady rhythm.  All I could do was stare… too shocked to believe there could be more past this point.  What gave her hope?  What had given her the strength she needed throughout all of her battles up until now?  Mars was right and now her words haunted me.  'Chibi-Moon gives Sailor Moon strength.'

I knew I should say something, do something, anything, but my will was not my own at this moment in time and my limbs didn't answer my call.  I watched as a lone tear made its path down the now dirtied porcelain cheeks of her face and felt as though my own constitution was about to break.  Then he came.  His face mirrored hers exactly.  The devastation that had washed over and clouded her eyes was also apparent in his.  Could they go on?

"Fighter!"  Maker's voice called from behind me and brought my mind to sober.  It felt like I was woken abruptly from a bad dream, I felt the hot tears marring my face and the overwhelming sound saturate my state once again.  The Nebula was coursing and growing, at the same time sending random shots, more powerful than before, out in all directions.  We were in the line of fire.

"We have to move." My voice was weak and I found it questionable whether it was my own.  Not knowing if I had truly spoken them or if it was just a vagrant dream I spoke them again.  "We have to move, NOW!"  I stated taking a firm grip on Sailor Moon's arm pulling her up to her feet.

"No!"  The anger began to build inside of me at his words.  Kamen stood behind Sailor Moon in front of me slicing through me with his eyes.  "We can't back down now."

My eyes darted quickly from his to the blond tenshi before me.  We would surely be killed if we stayed where we were.  My grip didn't loosen and if anything I aimed to pull her more securely into myself.  I wouldn't see her die.  "We have to back down now, we need the others."

"That was my daughter!  That was my reason for fighting!"  Kamen bellowed from his firmly planted spot, his arm thrown haphazardly into the wind in the direction of the Nebula.

Sailor Moon's eyes lifted from the Nebula and turned upward to face me.  "We have nothing left…"  She stated wistfully allowing more tears to silently spill over their barriers.

I didn't try to stop my face from twisting into the scowl that it did, my anger was brimming once again with her words.  "You have nothing?!"  I seethed gripping her arm, perhaps more tightly than I should have.  "You have nothing?!"  Their eyes were fixed on me.  "When all of your friends were gone, when you believed them dead, you still went on, you found hope in something…"  I drew a breath in, in a sense trying to calm myself down to relay my argument.  My hold on her loosened and I gently turned her round by her shoulders to face me indefinitely.  "Sailor Moon… shinjite… find that hope again."

Her eyes shown towards mine and I could see the faint flicker of hope that still lived behind those seemingly dead pools.  "Believe…"  Her lips moved in the most eloquent fashion, trembling slightly with her emotions.

"Believe." 

Kamen dropped to his knees and planted his fists firmly in the ground.  "My daughter… she was my daughter, not just a friend…"

"Believe Sailor Moon…"  I turned her back towards me, trying not to allow her to get sucked into his wallowing once again.  "She's not gone if you still believe."

I didn't hear it, I didn't sense it, but it came anyway.  My energy was focused on the Moon senshi before my eyes leaving me with no warning or defense against the tremendous blast from the Nebula.  My skin was on fire and the wind was knocked out of me.  The darkness was coming as I felt myself slipping into a vacant void in space.  I could hear her voice calling my name in a distant echo, though it was nearly drowned out by the pounding in my mind.  A warmth surrounded my body and I knew that it was her and as much as I wanted, no needed to hold on… I couldn't.

~@~@~@~

It was hard to open my eyes, there had been something crusted over them.  I tried in vain to bring my hand to my face to feel the assailant on my eyes, but my muscles ached with the slightest movement.  It was cold and I was alone.  I questioned myself as to whether or not I was dead or alive.  Wherever I was, it was quiet and there was a damp musky smell in the air.  Faint voices could be heard in the distance and all I could do was lie still and strain my ears to hear them.

"They've collected the bodies of the inners."

"With Fighter and Kamen down that leaves the five of us."

The voices were becoming a bit clearer as my sleep state began to wear off.  I was beginning to make out the tones and who was speaking had become apparent.

"Ano, four of us."  Healer's voice said a bit low with a sad note.  "I don't think it's wise to bring Sailor Moon into this battle."  They were talking about her in the third person.  Had Kamen fallen too, was he dead?

"No, she will come with us."  Neptune's voice was stern and left no room for questions.   "We can't leave her here and she's our only hope."

"What if Fighter and Kamen wake while we're gone?"  Healer retorted.  "She should stay behind and stay safe.  Protect your damn princess!"  Her voice had risen to a shout and if I knew Healer as well as I would like to think I did, I was sure she was on her feet.

"Healer!"  Maker's voice reprimanded her.

To my surprise Neptune's rebuttal never came.  "There are at least twenty-one reborn star senshi."  Pluto seemed to be collected once again as her voice conveyed evenness.

"Seven generations of warriors."  Maker added the facts, though I had already known how many were to come from the Nebula.  Twenty-one, you may not think that would constitute as an army, but these were twenty-one star senshi with a full lifetime's experience behind them.  We were merely minors in their eyes, still senshi in training.  My mentor would be among the ranks of reborn warriors…

"Fighter…"  The voice was closer to me than Healer's and the others', this voice was coming from beside me.  "Gomen ne…"  Sailor Moon's voice trembled and I could tell she was crying.  "What are we going to do?" 

She undoubtedly thought I was still knocked out and was not expecting an answer.  My lips parted to speak but nothing would come out.

"Let her rest."  Kamen's voice came from nearby as well, a little further away than Sailor Moon's but still in the same vicinity.

"I know."

"There is no hope any more."  His tone was hollow as if all emotions had left him.  "They will come and hunt us down.  At least there will be an end."

"There is hope…"  Her voice said though it sounded like she was questioning herself.  "I still have you… and Fighter and everyone else."

"What future are you fighting for?"  His voice hardened a little.  "The future we have known up until now will not exist!"

"I don't care about the future any more!"  Sailor Moon's voice rose to an angry level that I had rarely heard from her lips.  "They've taken everything they could from me so far, the future is not my concern… I want to hold on to what I have now… Right now is all I have… If I can just hold onto what I have now, I can make it through this some how."

"They're going to leave you… you know that right?  You're not going to be able to hold onto her."  Kamen's voice had grown softer and there was no doubt in my mind that he was referring to me.  Leave her?  How could I leave her again?  This time she needed me, I couldn't abandon her now.  At that moment all I wanted to do was tell her that, tell her that I would never leave her side, that I would give my life to her till the very end… but I couldn't.

"I can't keep them.  I know this."

"You mean her."

The room was silent and for the first time I could hear my own breathing as raspy as it was.  There was definitely some blood in my lungs and I struggled to believe that it wasn't from internal bleeding, though my body suggested otherwise.  That left me with a tolled time limit on my life if that was the case.

"I know you love her."

"This isn't exactly the time to be discussing this."  Sailor Moon shot back, cutting his words off from saying any more.

"This maybe the only time we have to talk about this.  There may not be a next time, I just-"  He was cut off once again by her words.

"Then let's leave it where it is."  She said simply.  "I do love her and I don't know what would have come of things, had they been different."

"Usako… things are different, there's no going back anymore."  With that my ears picked up a scuffle and it sounded like he was rising from his resting position to leave the room, or more importantly the conversation at hand.

A heavy sigh escaped her lips but she stayed behind.  I had felt her breath on my exposed shoulder and knew that she was knelt down beside me.  "I wish everything could be as it were before."  Her voice broke at the end of her statement in evidence of the distress the conversation had caused her.  "Remember that time when we met in the park?"  A sad laugh rang through my head.  "The sun was shining and it seemed as though nothing could go wrong, though at the time, to me anyways, it was as if anything that possibly could go wrong had.  If I had only known the darker days that were to come and the hardships we were to endure.  I wish I had truly appreciated all that I had taken for granted that day… especially you."

Warmth came in contact with my shoulder and the lightness of hair tickled my skin.  I sensed that she had laid her head down upon me and though I do not remember willing my hand to do it, or how it had, my own fingers stroked her hair back from its disheveled state.  With my sudden touch the weight of her presence was removed and she sat upright.  I knew this now for my eyes had worked themselves free of the stinging agent that had held them captive.  "Odango…"

"Fighter!"  She said my name but this time with joy behind her words, the sorrow had all but vanished.

"Where are we?"  I asked, though it was not the immediate worries on my mind.

Her answer came in hesitation.  "A bank that had withstood the blasts that Zankou sent out.  It was the only stable place we could find to seek refuge.  Are you alright?"

There was an anxiety in her words and I couldn't help but smile at her concern for me.  I tried to sit up and did so with adequate help from the blond beside me.  "I've seen better days, but I'm still alive."  I tried my best to flash her the smile I had always reserved just for her.  I refrained from telling her the true agony that was flashing in my lungs, there was no need to add more to her stress.

Her eyes had held mine until her head hung down and her gaze turned towards the floor below.  In an effort to comfort her with what strength I had, I took her hands into my own.  "Odango, I'm really sorry for what happened."  Her head nodded but she remained silent.  What words are there to say to express your sympathies in a time of loss such as this?  If there were indeed such words or tidings, they were lost on me at the moment.  "I understand where Mamoru is coming from with his feelings, and this may be a sore time to bring this up, but you have to be strong."

"I just don't know what else there is for me.  I'd like to think that I could be happy again down the road and that I can get over this but there's no guarantee.  I had seen my future and knew how everything was supposedly going to turn out, but now that it is shattered I feel so lost."  Her tears fell silently, surprisingly not followed by the sobs that she had displayed before.

I couldn't help it and wrapped my almost crippled arms around her, drawing her towards myself.  "When I was in prison and felt as though those were to be my last moments in this world there was one thought that made it all seem worth while.  One shining light inside myself that had made all of the pain and suffering that I had to endure seem not so bad, something that gave my life a deeper meaning and happiness, and that was you Odango."  I kissed her forehead and took pleasure in the feel of her skin beneath my lips once again.

"The single fact that I had met someone like you in my life had given it meaning.  Sure I had always had the duty and purpose of serving my princess to give me direction and make me feel as though I was something, but when I found you it was personal satisfaction just to know your warmth and the kindness of your soul.  I hate to see you this way… and I will do everything in my power to…"  I paused wondering if I could truly stand to the words I was about to say, but then the thought of making her happy entered my mind and all other doubts were pushed aside.  "… to get your daughter and your future back."

Her head picked up and her eyes, glistening with tears, shown directly into mine while a small smile played on her lips.  "Fighter!!"  Our moment was broken with the sound of Healer's voice as she entered the room.  "You're awake! How do you feel?"

A little too quickly for my tastes, Sailor Moon moved away from me and back up so that Healer had a direct path towards me.  For the first time I noticed my surroundings.  There was little light; a few flashlights had provided all the visibility that we could have hoped for.  It appeared that I was behind a teller counter of a bank, lying before the door of a giant vault.  Though it was dusty and the majority of the floor was covered in debris, the mahogany wood of the counters still shown with a light of their own.

"I'm fine, just a little sore."  I tried to ease her concerns and raised my hand in a display of my mobility.

Her eyes traced over me trying to sort through my lie but gave up their search when it was apparent that I wasn't to give up more of my condition to her.  "You were hit by the Nebula… you scared us half to death…"  Her voice was quiet and her attempt at a stern glare was faltering quickly.

"I can't believe you for once doubted the thickness of my head."  I laughed trying to lighten the mood, but to no avail.  "They've been reborn… haven't they?"  I guessed the graveness of our situation by the desolation in her green eyes.

Healer's head nodded in a simple gesture and I knew my assumption had been true.  "We're going to move out soon, we can't wait too long."

I agreed with her, if there was to be a battle or any sort of confrontation in the future I refused to sit here on my ass and wait for them to come and invade us.  "Do we have any sort of plan?"

"Eh… What kind of plan do propose we devise to go up against a small army of veteran Star senshi?"  She cocked a brow at me and gave me a look of confusion.  Obviously they did not.

"I had to ask."  I struggled to push myself up off of the makeshift bed they had created for me.  "When do we leave?" 

"We?  Oh no, you're not going anywhere!"  She pushed me down by my shoulder cutting off any further attempts at getting up.  "You're in no condition to go out there."

"You can't leave her here alone, how will she defend herself?"  Sailor Moon asked, voicing her opinions and concerns for the first time since Healer had arrived.

"You're right."  My silver-haired companion started.  "We're not leaving her alone, YOU'RE staying here with her."

"No!" I stated while standing defiantly before Healer.   "We are NOT going to sit here while you fight the battle yourselves.  If I had a choice between dying by the hand of the enemy in here useless or out on the battlefield hoping to make a dent in their defenses, then I choose to go down with a fight."

"I agree with Fighter."  Sailor Moon said.  "I owe Zankou a piece of my mind and he will feel it."

"Then we leave in a few hours after everyone has had some rest."  Pluto's melancholy voice appeared from nowhere as she stood on the opposite side of the teller counter.  "Healer you and Maker have the first watch."

Healer grunted as she hesitantly turned to walk round the counter.  Pluto did not leave immediately as I had expected her to and instead brought her presence closer to me.  "Where is Maker?" I asked, trying to escape her eyes that seemed to be burrowing into my mind.  What power her stare held, it seemed to be searching, scolding and thanking me at the same time.  Such intensity.

"She's talking with Neptune and Kamen trying to come up with some sort of plan."

"I'll go and tell her you're awake."  Sailor Moon left quickly, though I wished she hadn't.  I wanted to talk to her more, she seemed to be on a delicate balance of hope and dismay.  All I wanted to do was give her the strength that I could to go on, to let her know that there would be life after this moment.

No conversation ensued between myself and the senshi of time in Moon's absence.  Not that I had expected any to.  Soon my odangoed blond returned with my brunette partner in trail.  Her eyes preformed the same routine that Healer's had when she had first seen me but I knew I couldn't hide as much from Maker as I could from Healer concerning my physical condition.  "You can go on?"  She asked with little to no emotion to her voice.

I nodded in response.  "Can I speak with you alone?"  I asked passing my glance to Pluto letting her know that I would have appreciated her leaving.  She did so without my asking but Moon was a different story and had never caught onto subtle hints such as these before.  I saw no reason to push her aside now, this was after all partially my fault and this was her planet.

Maker cut straight to the chase and told me what they had come up with so far.  "We believe our only hope is to some how make it to the cannons that are still on and around the tower.  You know as well as I that the Star senshi's powers by far exceed ours even on a good day and we need all of the extra power that we can get."

"And the Nebula?"  I asked, wondering if there were still random blasts of death being discharged from it.

"I has shrunk down and the energy has died off, but there is still time." 

"Time for what?"  Moon asked completely oblivious to the workings of the Nebula. 

My gaze left Maker's and turned to Moon's in an attempt to explain our conversation.  "If we can defeat the Star senshi before the Nebula completely dissipates then they will be returned to their former state of tranquility.  If we cannot, they will be trapped here on Earth to be reborn and lost here.  Though we are fighting against them now, we must still protect and uphold their honor.  After all, it's not their doing that they have become evil."

"Oh."

"Neptune, Pluto and I were going to scout out the tower to see what possible means we have to attain some of their weapons."  Maker restarted our previous discussion.

I looked from Moon and then to Maker, I had a thought in my mind, but wasn't sure how it would fair with either of them.  "Someone should return to Kinmoku."  I stated bluntly.

"What?!  Are you out of your mind?"  Maker asked incredulously while Moon just blinked stupidly at the two of us.

"All senshi have a princess, ne?  What if we brought their princess here?  Kakyuu can control them."  I saw no flaws in my plan except the exertion of energy to make it to Kinmoku.

Maker shook her head and gave me a gold stare.  "No, absolutely not.  First of all, they are no longer under Kakyuu's control, they obey Zankou now that he is responsible for their rebirth, and their loyalty is bound to him.  Secondly you are not about to fetch MY princess to come into the middle of this battle!" 

I had stirred something inside of Maker and in seeing her anger towards me at a simple statement brought mine back to surface.  The gleam of blond hair brought it down a notch as Sailor Moon leaned in a bit and looked up at both of us.  "I think it's worth a shot besides, if someone returns to Kinmoku they could gain more help.  I'm sure Seeker, Chaser and Developer would come to our aide."

"If they were to come to our aide they would have already come."  Maker stood disgruntled, her calm temper breaking with the talk of our princess.  "I will not risk travel to Kinmoku with Star senshi loose here.  Can you imagine what would happen if Zankou sends even a handful of them off after us to Kinmoku?"

"But still-"  I started but was cut off.

"No Fighter, this is something that we are going to have to rely on ourselves for.  We can beat them and in doing so protect our princess at the same time.  If the remaining planetary senshi want to send their princess into battle that is their own choice but I will not allow such a tragedy to befall my own."  And with her final words she stalked off from our sight.

Ok – Time for author note here V_V;; First of all, we'd like to apologize for the extended break we've taken from this fic and hope not to encounter such hindrances again.  Secondly, you have to keep in mind that neither LiR or myself can stand can stand Chibi-Moon/Chibi-Usa… this is just a warning.