Sailor Moon: World Rebirth -Part 3, Hope and Chaos
Episode 20: 'Memories'
Two women sat in the cabin of a ship. One, maybe about 17, the other,
ageless. The younger one, but not as young as most believed spoke first. "We
should tell her the truth."
Her companion was silent.
"The loss is still hurting her; I can see it in her eyes. She shouldn't have
to suffer when it's not necessary.
The other woman gave in. "I suppose so. She has had a great task laid before
her and needs something more in her future to fight for."
**********
Haiku stood at the side of the guardrail on the ship, looking over the side
into the darkness of the night. Fortunately when it came to ships, Haiku
certainly didn't take after her mother. She had loved being out on the ocean
on a swaying ship ever since her first adventure on one. An adventure that
had taken place shortly after she had mastered walking on land and was one
of her and Hotaru's most closely guarded secrets.
Haiku had found that the basis of her adventure as a child on the seas had
originated from this time period. As far as she could figure, later in the
future supposedly she and Hotaru would have become good friends again.
[after sailorstars] During that time Hotaru found out that Chibi-usa really
liked being out on the water. So when Chibi-usa was old enough in the
future, Hotaru decided to take the young Chibi-usa on an ocean cruise
without the queen knowing. To make a long and embarrassing story short,
about halfway through the cruise Chibi-usa got a little too close to the
edge of the ship and when they hit a bump, was thrown over the side. Without
checking to see if anyone else was around or to call for help Hotaru dived
over the edge after the small child. Fortunately Serenity and small lady had
gone swimming before so Chibi-usa was able to keep her head slightly above
the water until Hotaru could get to her, although she still took a good
mouthful of the seawater. Unfortunately no one had seen Hotaru or Chibi-usa
go over the side so the ship just kept on sailing, and no one heard Hotaru's
cries for help. As the ship got farther and farther away Hotaru decided to
swim for the nearest island. It was only a coastal cruise and she was easily
able to get herself and Chibi-usa to land. There she transformed into Sailor
Saturn and ended up swimming with Chibi-usa on her back all the way back to
the mainland. By the time she got Chibi-usa back to the palace everyone was
in a frenzy looking for the princess. Hotaru just made up some excuse about
taking Chibi-usa for a walk and having it take a little longer than she had
originally expected. She apologized for not telling anyone but Uranus and
Neptune had their suspicions when Hotaru went straight to bed in the middle
of the afternoon, although they said nothing. After all, if Sailor Saturn
couldn't protect the princess, who could?
Haiku sighed. No, now it was only her secret. The Hotaru she had known and
loved was gone, from a future that would never exist. Actually, the secret
didn't really mean anything anymore either. No one who would have scolded
her or Hotaru for it was around anymore except for Pluto, but she probably
knew all about it anyway. Haiku sighed again. The overcast sky provided no
stars for her to wish upon.
She had reflected upon it before but it still brought tears to her eyes.
Everything and everyone she had known in her own time were gone. All of her
memories were meaningless; they were of events that would never happen.
Sure, she was with the same senshi but they weren't REALLY the same. They
didn't know her or share any of the memories of Crystal Tokyo of the good
times they had spent with her. Or would have spent with her.
She felt the presence of the woman moving up beside her before she saw them.
Maybe if the other person hadn't been in senshi guise Haiku would not have
noticed, since her sword only resonated with that warm hum when one of the
senshi was nearby. Setsuna always seemed to feel more comfortable as Sailor
Pluto so Haiku could almost always tell when she was near, although she
didn't let Pluto know that.
"I understand what you must be going though," Pluto said quietly. Without a
response she continued. "During the time between the Silver Millennium and
the present I often attempted to live a normal life among the people. It was
probably one of the things that kept me sane. But,... it hurt everytime I
lost someone dear to me. When invading armies came in and slaughtered
everyone I held dear I was forbidden to interfere. At times, it seemed like
all that I had tried to build was in vain." She stopped to consider her next
words. Time to get to the point. "The pain... it does go away eventually."
"But, there must have been something you -we could have done..."
"I, I'm sorry. I failed you and my queen." Sailor Pluto waited for the
response, an accusation of where she had been at the time that Chibi-usa had
made her final journey from the future. The accusation never came.
"No Pluto; it wasn't your fault. There was nothing anyone could have done."
Haiku looked up to her friend. "At first... I blamed you. I thought that if
you had been there you could have saved my parents. But when you weren't
even there to speak with me in the past, and when I realized that the
timeline had been altered, it dawned upon me that even if you had moved my
parents away they still would have disappeared as the rest of my time did,
because it never would have existed in the first place."
It took a minute for what Haiku had actually said and hinted at to register
in Pluto's mind. "What do you mean? If you're so sure that your parents
would have disappeared if I took them out of the timestream, how is it that
you are here? Now that I think about it, if your parents never existed, or
even conceived you, how is it that you are here?!"
Haiku was surprised that Pluto had only now realized her predicament. She
turned her head away from Pluto's glare before answering. "It's; because...,
...I exist outside of the timestream now. Even more so that you."
"Haiku! Do you even have any idea what you are hinting at? What you are
telling me isn't even possible!"
Haiku looked directly at Pluto. "Believe me Pluto, it IS possible." She
looked back down at the water. "I considered the possibility ever since I
left the future. The circumstances were just too weird-"
"You know, you never did tell me how you got back to the past after I sent
you to the future-"
"Please don't cut me off Pluto. I'm trying to explain something I'm not even
sure I understand." Sailor Pluto kept her silence. "A year and a half passed
between the time when you sent me back to the future and when I returned to
the past. That's how long it took for the ripple in time to travel a
thousand years into the future. I'll explain it all later, but basically
when I held the crystal sword in my hands I became a new person. Haiku. The
little girl I had been; she vanished when the future was wiped out and
although she still lives as a part of me, I became of the sword's design on
that day two years ago. As you may have noticed, I even aged a few years in
the process."
"But this still doesn't explain why you are so certain that you exist
outside of the timestream."
"No. At the time I only considered the possibility. It wasn't until I
managed to translate a few words of the time runes that I truly understood
what had hap-"
"What did you say?!" Sailor Pluto was completely alert. "Where did you find
time runes?"
"Oh yeah; with so much on my mind I forgot to mention it to you. There were
time runes on the door to the room with the sword."
"Time runes? Who told you they were time runes?"
"I did," a new voice said. Haiku and Sailor Pluto spun around to find Hotaru
listening in on their conversation. "And they weren't time runes. I just
said that because I knew that you would understand them. "They were actually
mage runes. The type with multiple meanings. Among us only you Pluto would
have a chance at being able to translate all of their meanings."
Haiku wasn't thinking clearly and it didn't occur to her to wonder how
Hotaru knew about what had happened in the future. "You mean, you understood
them?"
"Well, yes. One meaning anyway. Not the same one that Mercury revealed from
them though. It didn't make any sense then, but with what you just said
about being removed from the timeline, it makes perfect sense. I only wish I
had a copy of them here."
"Actually," Haiku said, "I do have a copy of them."
"What!?"
"Mother gave me a memory cube before I left home. It has an image of the
door which had the runes engraved on them. Here, let me show you." Haiku was
just about to reach into her sub space pocket and bring out the memory cube
when something occurred to her. "Hotaru, how is it that you know what
happened to me in the future?"
"Because I AM the Hotaru you know from the future."
Haiku was completely thrown off. "How... how is that possible."
Instead of Hotaru, Sailor Pluto spoke instead. "Haiku, there's something
that happened on that day two years ago that none but she and I are aware
of. The other senshi were right about Sailor Saturn saving Sailor Moon and
then promising that she would be reborn. What they don't know is that Sailor
Saturn was wrong. She was not able to be reborn. The beyonder interfered,
and on that day the spirit of Sailor Saturn died." Haiku was speechless. "I
knew this and I was very surprised to find Sailor Saturn alive and well when
I returned with Usagi and Mamoru from the past."
"I think I now know what happened," Hotaru said. "While I was analyzing the
runes I actually DID get the door to open."
"But how? I was only able to open it when I used the ginzuishou." Haiku
replied.
"I don't know but when I entered that room with the sword in the pedestal
the door shut after me." Hotaru thought for a moment. "Now that I think
about it, there was a circle on the floor around it, and it had the same
eight-pointed star on it that is in the resistance base here, as well as the
same one that we used to bring Usagi and Mamoru back from the past."
"That is curious," Pluto said. "I wonder what it means?"
"I don't know, but I heard the sword calling to me so I went up to it and
touched it. I'm not sure what happened next but I think that when I touched
it it absorbed my spirit."
"But why didn't I see your body then when I entered the room?" Haiku asked.
Hotaru shrugged. "Without even a dead spirit inhabiting it my body
disappeared. Anyway, when you returned to the past my spirit was reborn as a
child. Then later on it was the power of Saturn which caused me to age."
"I'm getting a complicated story with a lot of gaps in it," Pluto said. "I
think Haiku, that you better tell me the whole story about how you returned
to the past."
Haiku sighed. It was not a memory she particularly wanted to remember.
"Well, all right."
Haiku told them how her mother had taken her down beneath the crystal palace
on that night two years ago. How she had seen some runes and an indent which
Neo-Queen Serenity or anyone else hadn't been able to see. "And the
ginzuishou," Haiku said, "It would no longer work for my mother."
"That in itself alone is very serious," Sailor Pluto reflected.
"And then there were the prophecies which Mercury had been able to
translate. I don't remember any of them now but they had all come true.
Although I do remember the last line that my mother read. It scared her the
most. It said: 'Following the departure of the chosen light of hope, the
time from which it shone from, will become a time that could have been,
should have been, but now to never exist again. With the loss of the events
of their memories, the present shall no longer exist.'"
Sailor Pluto didn't even have anything to say that time, and neither did
Hotaru.
"But that's not what I remember most of all. -what the sword spoke into my
mind. I don't think I'll ever forget those words."
"You mean the sword spoke to you? Like it was alive?" Hotaru asked.
Haiku nodded. "When I first touched the sword it said 'Arise Haiku'. Then
when I took the sword out of the pedestal it said 'Become a warrior worthy
of the sword.' After that I aged about five years and then it said 'Fight
with the power of eternity'. " Haiku stopped for a moment. "And then before
it sent me back to the past it said 'Be reborn; as Haiku, the senshi of
time. the last chance for harmony in time.' But it was really weird, because
it wasn't like I was talking to another person. It was as if I was speaking
to myself."
Sailor Pluto shook her head. "I'm sorry Haiku, I don't understand it much
more than you do. May I see the mage runes?"
"Okay," Haiku replied as she removed the memory cube from her sub-space
pocket. She placed it into Pluto's hand. Pluto pressed the top of it and a
life-sized replica of the wall with the runes on it appeared. "Interesting.
I have not seen a language like this since the days of the Silver
Millennium." She made the hologram disappear. "May I hang on to this and try
to translate it correctly?"
Haiku nodded. "I was able to translate a little bit of it but it was just
too much of a bother." With that Sailor Pluto turned and walked away, but
Hotaru stayed. For a moment they both just stood there. "Is it really you
Hota-chan?"
"Of course it is silly," she replied and the two of them embraced.
"Wait," Haiku said. "Prove it."
Hotaru grinned. "Well, do you remember that time when you had mastered
walking and I decided to take you on a boat cruise..."
end eps. 20
Episode 20: 'Memories'
Two women sat in the cabin of a ship. One, maybe about 17, the other,
ageless. The younger one, but not as young as most believed spoke first. "We
should tell her the truth."
Her companion was silent.
"The loss is still hurting her; I can see it in her eyes. She shouldn't have
to suffer when it's not necessary.
The other woman gave in. "I suppose so. She has had a great task laid before
her and needs something more in her future to fight for."
**********
Haiku stood at the side of the guardrail on the ship, looking over the side
into the darkness of the night. Fortunately when it came to ships, Haiku
certainly didn't take after her mother. She had loved being out on the ocean
on a swaying ship ever since her first adventure on one. An adventure that
had taken place shortly after she had mastered walking on land and was one
of her and Hotaru's most closely guarded secrets.
Haiku had found that the basis of her adventure as a child on the seas had
originated from this time period. As far as she could figure, later in the
future supposedly she and Hotaru would have become good friends again.
[after sailorstars] During that time Hotaru found out that Chibi-usa really
liked being out on the water. So when Chibi-usa was old enough in the
future, Hotaru decided to take the young Chibi-usa on an ocean cruise
without the queen knowing. To make a long and embarrassing story short,
about halfway through the cruise Chibi-usa got a little too close to the
edge of the ship and when they hit a bump, was thrown over the side. Without
checking to see if anyone else was around or to call for help Hotaru dived
over the edge after the small child. Fortunately Serenity and small lady had
gone swimming before so Chibi-usa was able to keep her head slightly above
the water until Hotaru could get to her, although she still took a good
mouthful of the seawater. Unfortunately no one had seen Hotaru or Chibi-usa
go over the side so the ship just kept on sailing, and no one heard Hotaru's
cries for help. As the ship got farther and farther away Hotaru decided to
swim for the nearest island. It was only a coastal cruise and she was easily
able to get herself and Chibi-usa to land. There she transformed into Sailor
Saturn and ended up swimming with Chibi-usa on her back all the way back to
the mainland. By the time she got Chibi-usa back to the palace everyone was
in a frenzy looking for the princess. Hotaru just made up some excuse about
taking Chibi-usa for a walk and having it take a little longer than she had
originally expected. She apologized for not telling anyone but Uranus and
Neptune had their suspicions when Hotaru went straight to bed in the middle
of the afternoon, although they said nothing. After all, if Sailor Saturn
couldn't protect the princess, who could?
Haiku sighed. No, now it was only her secret. The Hotaru she had known and
loved was gone, from a future that would never exist. Actually, the secret
didn't really mean anything anymore either. No one who would have scolded
her or Hotaru for it was around anymore except for Pluto, but she probably
knew all about it anyway. Haiku sighed again. The overcast sky provided no
stars for her to wish upon.
She had reflected upon it before but it still brought tears to her eyes.
Everything and everyone she had known in her own time were gone. All of her
memories were meaningless; they were of events that would never happen.
Sure, she was with the same senshi but they weren't REALLY the same. They
didn't know her or share any of the memories of Crystal Tokyo of the good
times they had spent with her. Or would have spent with her.
She felt the presence of the woman moving up beside her before she saw them.
Maybe if the other person hadn't been in senshi guise Haiku would not have
noticed, since her sword only resonated with that warm hum when one of the
senshi was nearby. Setsuna always seemed to feel more comfortable as Sailor
Pluto so Haiku could almost always tell when she was near, although she
didn't let Pluto know that.
"I understand what you must be going though," Pluto said quietly. Without a
response she continued. "During the time between the Silver Millennium and
the present I often attempted to live a normal life among the people. It was
probably one of the things that kept me sane. But,... it hurt everytime I
lost someone dear to me. When invading armies came in and slaughtered
everyone I held dear I was forbidden to interfere. At times, it seemed like
all that I had tried to build was in vain." She stopped to consider her next
words. Time to get to the point. "The pain... it does go away eventually."
"But, there must have been something you -we could have done..."
"I, I'm sorry. I failed you and my queen." Sailor Pluto waited for the
response, an accusation of where she had been at the time that Chibi-usa had
made her final journey from the future. The accusation never came.
"No Pluto; it wasn't your fault. There was nothing anyone could have done."
Haiku looked up to her friend. "At first... I blamed you. I thought that if
you had been there you could have saved my parents. But when you weren't
even there to speak with me in the past, and when I realized that the
timeline had been altered, it dawned upon me that even if you had moved my
parents away they still would have disappeared as the rest of my time did,
because it never would have existed in the first place."
It took a minute for what Haiku had actually said and hinted at to register
in Pluto's mind. "What do you mean? If you're so sure that your parents
would have disappeared if I took them out of the timestream, how is it that
you are here? Now that I think about it, if your parents never existed, or
even conceived you, how is it that you are here?!"
Haiku was surprised that Pluto had only now realized her predicament. She
turned her head away from Pluto's glare before answering. "It's; because...,
...I exist outside of the timestream now. Even more so that you."
"Haiku! Do you even have any idea what you are hinting at? What you are
telling me isn't even possible!"
Haiku looked directly at Pluto. "Believe me Pluto, it IS possible." She
looked back down at the water. "I considered the possibility ever since I
left the future. The circumstances were just too weird-"
"You know, you never did tell me how you got back to the past after I sent
you to the future-"
"Please don't cut me off Pluto. I'm trying to explain something I'm not even
sure I understand." Sailor Pluto kept her silence. "A year and a half passed
between the time when you sent me back to the future and when I returned to
the past. That's how long it took for the ripple in time to travel a
thousand years into the future. I'll explain it all later, but basically
when I held the crystal sword in my hands I became a new person. Haiku. The
little girl I had been; she vanished when the future was wiped out and
although she still lives as a part of me, I became of the sword's design on
that day two years ago. As you may have noticed, I even aged a few years in
the process."
"But this still doesn't explain why you are so certain that you exist
outside of the timestream."
"No. At the time I only considered the possibility. It wasn't until I
managed to translate a few words of the time runes that I truly understood
what had hap-"
"What did you say?!" Sailor Pluto was completely alert. "Where did you find
time runes?"
"Oh yeah; with so much on my mind I forgot to mention it to you. There were
time runes on the door to the room with the sword."
"Time runes? Who told you they were time runes?"
"I did," a new voice said. Haiku and Sailor Pluto spun around to find Hotaru
listening in on their conversation. "And they weren't time runes. I just
said that because I knew that you would understand them. "They were actually
mage runes. The type with multiple meanings. Among us only you Pluto would
have a chance at being able to translate all of their meanings."
Haiku wasn't thinking clearly and it didn't occur to her to wonder how
Hotaru knew about what had happened in the future. "You mean, you understood
them?"
"Well, yes. One meaning anyway. Not the same one that Mercury revealed from
them though. It didn't make any sense then, but with what you just said
about being removed from the timeline, it makes perfect sense. I only wish I
had a copy of them here."
"Actually," Haiku said, "I do have a copy of them."
"What!?"
"Mother gave me a memory cube before I left home. It has an image of the
door which had the runes engraved on them. Here, let me show you." Haiku was
just about to reach into her sub space pocket and bring out the memory cube
when something occurred to her. "Hotaru, how is it that you know what
happened to me in the future?"
"Because I AM the Hotaru you know from the future."
Haiku was completely thrown off. "How... how is that possible."
Instead of Hotaru, Sailor Pluto spoke instead. "Haiku, there's something
that happened on that day two years ago that none but she and I are aware
of. The other senshi were right about Sailor Saturn saving Sailor Moon and
then promising that she would be reborn. What they don't know is that Sailor
Saturn was wrong. She was not able to be reborn. The beyonder interfered,
and on that day the spirit of Sailor Saturn died." Haiku was speechless. "I
knew this and I was very surprised to find Sailor Saturn alive and well when
I returned with Usagi and Mamoru from the past."
"I think I now know what happened," Hotaru said. "While I was analyzing the
runes I actually DID get the door to open."
"But how? I was only able to open it when I used the ginzuishou." Haiku
replied.
"I don't know but when I entered that room with the sword in the pedestal
the door shut after me." Hotaru thought for a moment. "Now that I think
about it, there was a circle on the floor around it, and it had the same
eight-pointed star on it that is in the resistance base here, as well as the
same one that we used to bring Usagi and Mamoru back from the past."
"That is curious," Pluto said. "I wonder what it means?"
"I don't know, but I heard the sword calling to me so I went up to it and
touched it. I'm not sure what happened next but I think that when I touched
it it absorbed my spirit."
"But why didn't I see your body then when I entered the room?" Haiku asked.
Hotaru shrugged. "Without even a dead spirit inhabiting it my body
disappeared. Anyway, when you returned to the past my spirit was reborn as a
child. Then later on it was the power of Saturn which caused me to age."
"I'm getting a complicated story with a lot of gaps in it," Pluto said. "I
think Haiku, that you better tell me the whole story about how you returned
to the past."
Haiku sighed. It was not a memory she particularly wanted to remember.
"Well, all right."
Haiku told them how her mother had taken her down beneath the crystal palace
on that night two years ago. How she had seen some runes and an indent which
Neo-Queen Serenity or anyone else hadn't been able to see. "And the
ginzuishou," Haiku said, "It would no longer work for my mother."
"That in itself alone is very serious," Sailor Pluto reflected.
"And then there were the prophecies which Mercury had been able to
translate. I don't remember any of them now but they had all come true.
Although I do remember the last line that my mother read. It scared her the
most. It said: 'Following the departure of the chosen light of hope, the
time from which it shone from, will become a time that could have been,
should have been, but now to never exist again. With the loss of the events
of their memories, the present shall no longer exist.'"
Sailor Pluto didn't even have anything to say that time, and neither did
Hotaru.
"But that's not what I remember most of all. -what the sword spoke into my
mind. I don't think I'll ever forget those words."
"You mean the sword spoke to you? Like it was alive?" Hotaru asked.
Haiku nodded. "When I first touched the sword it said 'Arise Haiku'. Then
when I took the sword out of the pedestal it said 'Become a warrior worthy
of the sword.' After that I aged about five years and then it said 'Fight
with the power of eternity'. " Haiku stopped for a moment. "And then before
it sent me back to the past it said 'Be reborn; as Haiku, the senshi of
time. the last chance for harmony in time.' But it was really weird, because
it wasn't like I was talking to another person. It was as if I was speaking
to myself."
Sailor Pluto shook her head. "I'm sorry Haiku, I don't understand it much
more than you do. May I see the mage runes?"
"Okay," Haiku replied as she removed the memory cube from her sub-space
pocket. She placed it into Pluto's hand. Pluto pressed the top of it and a
life-sized replica of the wall with the runes on it appeared. "Interesting.
I have not seen a language like this since the days of the Silver
Millennium." She made the hologram disappear. "May I hang on to this and try
to translate it correctly?"
Haiku nodded. "I was able to translate a little bit of it but it was just
too much of a bother." With that Sailor Pluto turned and walked away, but
Hotaru stayed. For a moment they both just stood there. "Is it really you
Hota-chan?"
"Of course it is silly," she replied and the two of them embraced.
"Wait," Haiku said. "Prove it."
Hotaru grinned. "Well, do you remember that time when you had mastered
walking and I decided to take you on a boat cruise..."
end eps. 20