The Dim and Distant Past
Konnichi Wa!
Well, there is not much to tell about this chapter. With this, the first part of the story is finished (wait for some Valentine's Day Interlude ^_-, hope y'all remember impatient Ruka won't be listening forever...). I'm glad I've finished it coz I hate writing this senshi stuff yet I've always wanted to write something about Michiru becoming Sailor Neptune!
This goes out to all readers who'll scream Michiru fall out of character at the end of the story: Imagine the same thing would've happened to you. Wouldn't you loose your self control? Besides, Michiru isn't that cold- blooded Neptune we get to know in the Sailor Moon Super season... she's just a confused Junior High girl (about 15 in age) in this story! But this occurrences might be a reason for her to seem to be that callous later on... Yukio
************************************************************* Part I./III.- The Moment Fate Was Decided
We had started living like a real couple. Not that we actually moved together, but Elza spent almost every day and night in my flat. She only went home to clean up her apartment and fetch the clothing and other stuff she needed.
We were a real couple, but that was just for these few days.
Life wouldn't have been my life if there would have been a time without any troubles.
So about two weeks after my conversation with Elza, I started to have nightmares. Really bad ones.
At the beginning, I saw vague contours of people being killed in a gruesome manner that I couldn't define. There was blood and cut-off mortal remains everywhere. The sky was sort of dark red, a crimson red like the colour of dried blood. Heartbreaking screams filled the air and my ears.
I was standing in the middle of this scene and wasn't able to run. In fact, I wasn't able to move at all. When I tried to speak, the words didn't come out. It was like there was a wall drawn around me that protected yet isolated me from this lethal world.
I woke up every night, completely sleepless. I thought it would've been childish to tell Elza about my dreams that came back night after night so I decided to make some profit out of it and express my feelings.
I started painting pictures totally different from the ones I had done before. I had often sketched Elza the last months but it didn't work anymore. I couldn't paint anything except those extremely sad, depressing, almost dangerous dark paintings.
Depressing, that is the word you'd use to describe my mood in this times. The shapes of the persons in my dreams became clearer from time to time.
One night I woke up screaming, after I had watched a girl having her head cut off. My nightgown stuck to my skin and there was a burning pain in my head. Elza looked turned on the light and looked at me in bewilderment.
"Nightmares?" I just nodded and cuddled up to her in tears.
These weren't just nightmares. The feeling in the dream accompanied me in my everyday life until I couldn't stand having the other girl around me at all.
She must have thought I was going insane. Besides, I was thinking the same.
I just wanted to have some time for me to find out where this strange feeling came from.
When I told Elza I needed some time alone because I didn't feel quite right, she looked anxious but accepted my wishes.
But I soon recognized that this feeling wasn't one I could wipe out with intellectually, so I decided to concentrate on my work. Still these dark paintings, going with heavy sounds on my violin.
Against my own persuasion people liked my 'new artistic style'. For me, it was just sadness and suffering, and it wasn't suffering, like Elza had berated sharply, because I was in love with her.
I still saw Elza every day at school and spent my weekends with her, but there arose a strange distance between us.
One evening after I had practised with an orchestra I had joined recently, I walked home through a beautiful little park.
Well, it had been beautiful by day with its renaissance-like benches and full-blossomed flowers.
But this evening the park didn't look as inviting as usual by far. I already felt a strange aura such I had never felt before when I entered the park through its wide gate.
White lanterns shed light on the narrow footpaths. All of a sudden, I heard a terrible scream such as I had often heard in my dreams. The noise pierced me to the marrow and made me curious yet frightened at the same time. I quickened my steps until I reached a strange pile of people involved in a fight. Accurately, there were two women and a young man. He was lying on the grass unconsciously with a bright shining crystal floating over his breast.
As if this was not enough for my unbelieving eyes, the woman were involved in a kind of fight. But they fought with some strange weapons that seemed to come out of their bodies.
One woman had long red hair and wore a white coat such as doctors and scientists wear while the other had even longer dark green hair and wore a strange suit looking alike the sailor fuku I had to wear at school. They talked about something like they both wanted to have the "pure heart" which I assumed to be the glowing thing in front of the man.
I believed I had gone totally mad now. I still did when the red-haired woman walked towards me.
"Hey, look who has arrived. Didn't your mother tell you not to walk through deserted parks in the evening, kid? Wanna follow this boy's path into death?"
She grinned dangerously when she put a sort of rifle in front of my chest.
"Don't you dare involving this uninvolved girl! Dead scream!"
Once again,a huge purple ball of mist came from of the green-haired girl who seemed to be only about two years older than me. I jumped aside as the ball destroyed everything that was in its course.
The other woman still stood near to me, holding her weapon or whatever this was.
"I won't spare her! She's seen too much of it. And we need every pure heart we can get!"
I wasn't able to speak. I wasn't able to move. It was exactly like in my dreams.
But this time, it was reality and I suddenly felt an unknown power growing inside my body and soul when something on my temple was starting to glow in the colour of aquamarine.
"What's that?" The woman put her gun aside and looked at my with fear. What was happening to me?
The girl in the fuku threw a stick towards me that reminded me of the pen I used at school. It landed next to my feet.
"You're Sailor Neptune. Finally, I've found you. Take this stick to fulfill your destiny!"
I startled. I had no idea what all this was about. The situation was too weird to be real but felt to real to be a dream. All I knew was I had to to something. In a fraction of a second after I had reached the pen, the words that would change my life for all eternity came to my mind.
"Neptune Planet Power, make up!"
I felt the strange power inside me growing bigger. Some positive energy, similar to the feeling I had when I received the audience's applause at the end of a performance, only much stronger. Its light filled the deepest of my body and soul.
At the end I realized myself standing on the grass in the middle of the park again. When I looked down, I noticed I was wearing some fuku like the one the older girl was wearing. The dresses only varied in their colour. While she was wearing high boots, my feet were put in in some high-heels with turquoise ribbons that wound around my ankles.
When I looked up again I saw how the woman who had held the gun before was now trying to carry away her victim's pure heart. Once again, my intuition told me it was my turn to react.
"Deep Submerge!"
A tremendous ball of water was flying from me to the woman who disappeared into nothing just before it could hit her.
And again, I was standing there, staring at hands. What the hell had happened to me? I was clever enough to feel this wasn't a bad dream, but I was too clever to really believe in this crazy things that had occurred in the last quarter of an hour.
The other girl left at the park had picked up the man's pure heart the woman had dropped to the ground while escaping from my weapon and given it back to his body.
Yes, there had been a weapon coming from inside myself. I wiped my hands over my eyes, but the scene was still the same. Suddenly the other girl laid her hand on my shoulder.
"Everything's all right. Let's go somewhere we can talk."
Finally, I lost my self control I had kept while I was in the state of shock just after my transformation. Tears came running down my face.
"I don't need to talk! I have to go home and do my homework and finish my painting and go to sleep early so I'm in a good mood at school tomorrow morning."
"I'm sorry for you, but our enemies don't care about this, Michiru." "How come you know my name?" "I had assumed you to be Sailor Neptune for some time but I thought you'd show who you really are when the right time comes. And this is what just happened..."
One hour later, on the same evening. I was sitting in Setsuna's, so introduced the strange girl herself, apartment and was drinking some tea, my hands still trembling.
I couldn't paint or play the violin with these trembling hands, that was one of the thousands of thoughts running through my head all the time.
"But why do we have to fight those people? I mean, there's the police who should care about those things.
Setsuna sighed. "Once again, Michiru-san. The police would never believe in those strange incidents. Furthermore, they would never have the power to fight our enemy." "But why me?" "It's just your destiny, I didn't choose this myself either. There is no choice."
She laid such a seriousness in her voice supported by the sad expression in her eyes I finally got the meaning of her words.
Michiru wasn't important any longer. Now there was Neptune who had to care about the well-being of the whole world. I put myself upright.
"So what do we have to do?"
"You need to find the three talismans hidden in some people's pure hearts to fight our enemies who want to destroy this world." " I ? You mean, you won't help me?"
"I'm afraid, but I was only sent here to find you. I have to look after the gates of time, but I will always be there if you need me. I'll try to find out somewhat more about our opponents. But don't worry, you don't have to fight on your own when you find the other senshi." "What other one?"
"Sailor Uranus. I 'm sure she'll help you a lot. Only the three of us are able to-" "But how can I find that Uranus girl? You know, she won't wear a shirt with some inscription 'I'm Sailor Uranus' or something like that." "Michiru-san, you know exactly how sensitive you are. You will find her. Just trust your feelings to find the senshi of the wind."
I looked at one of the countless clocks in Setsuna's apartment. She was strange and mysterious, but I felt I could trust her. A feeling told me.
-But it was already after midnight and I had to get up at seven o'clock in the morning!
"I'll do my best, Setsuna. But I really need to go home now."
"I'll call a taxi for you. But Michiru, there is one rule you need to carry out in any case." "I'm listening." "Don't ever tell anybody you're Sailor Neptune."
Half an hour later I was sitting in my living room and listened to the teasing, light-hearted spoken message from Elza on the answering machine again and again.
"Hi Michi! I was phoning because I wanted drop by this night. I'm a little worried you're not back home yet. Alas, might you be keeping some secrets from me? Another lover? Oyasumi, I'll see you at school tomorrow."
She didn't deserve to be betrayed by someone who had to lead a double life. She didn't deserve me any longer.
It was my duty to save the whole of mankind, but who was going to save me? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------- 2003/03/16, 23:52
Wow, the end became kinda depressing... nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed it. Just tell me at skygoddess@gmx.net !
Konnichi Wa!
Well, there is not much to tell about this chapter. With this, the first part of the story is finished (wait for some Valentine's Day Interlude ^_-, hope y'all remember impatient Ruka won't be listening forever...). I'm glad I've finished it coz I hate writing this senshi stuff yet I've always wanted to write something about Michiru becoming Sailor Neptune!
This goes out to all readers who'll scream Michiru fall out of character at the end of the story: Imagine the same thing would've happened to you. Wouldn't you loose your self control? Besides, Michiru isn't that cold- blooded Neptune we get to know in the Sailor Moon Super season... she's just a confused Junior High girl (about 15 in age) in this story! But this occurrences might be a reason for her to seem to be that callous later on... Yukio
************************************************************* Part I./III.- The Moment Fate Was Decided
We had started living like a real couple. Not that we actually moved together, but Elza spent almost every day and night in my flat. She only went home to clean up her apartment and fetch the clothing and other stuff she needed.
We were a real couple, but that was just for these few days.
Life wouldn't have been my life if there would have been a time without any troubles.
So about two weeks after my conversation with Elza, I started to have nightmares. Really bad ones.
At the beginning, I saw vague contours of people being killed in a gruesome manner that I couldn't define. There was blood and cut-off mortal remains everywhere. The sky was sort of dark red, a crimson red like the colour of dried blood. Heartbreaking screams filled the air and my ears.
I was standing in the middle of this scene and wasn't able to run. In fact, I wasn't able to move at all. When I tried to speak, the words didn't come out. It was like there was a wall drawn around me that protected yet isolated me from this lethal world.
I woke up every night, completely sleepless. I thought it would've been childish to tell Elza about my dreams that came back night after night so I decided to make some profit out of it and express my feelings.
I started painting pictures totally different from the ones I had done before. I had often sketched Elza the last months but it didn't work anymore. I couldn't paint anything except those extremely sad, depressing, almost dangerous dark paintings.
Depressing, that is the word you'd use to describe my mood in this times. The shapes of the persons in my dreams became clearer from time to time.
One night I woke up screaming, after I had watched a girl having her head cut off. My nightgown stuck to my skin and there was a burning pain in my head. Elza looked turned on the light and looked at me in bewilderment.
"Nightmares?" I just nodded and cuddled up to her in tears.
These weren't just nightmares. The feeling in the dream accompanied me in my everyday life until I couldn't stand having the other girl around me at all.
She must have thought I was going insane. Besides, I was thinking the same.
I just wanted to have some time for me to find out where this strange feeling came from.
When I told Elza I needed some time alone because I didn't feel quite right, she looked anxious but accepted my wishes.
But I soon recognized that this feeling wasn't one I could wipe out with intellectually, so I decided to concentrate on my work. Still these dark paintings, going with heavy sounds on my violin.
Against my own persuasion people liked my 'new artistic style'. For me, it was just sadness and suffering, and it wasn't suffering, like Elza had berated sharply, because I was in love with her.
I still saw Elza every day at school and spent my weekends with her, but there arose a strange distance between us.
One evening after I had practised with an orchestra I had joined recently, I walked home through a beautiful little park.
Well, it had been beautiful by day with its renaissance-like benches and full-blossomed flowers.
But this evening the park didn't look as inviting as usual by far. I already felt a strange aura such I had never felt before when I entered the park through its wide gate.
White lanterns shed light on the narrow footpaths. All of a sudden, I heard a terrible scream such as I had often heard in my dreams. The noise pierced me to the marrow and made me curious yet frightened at the same time. I quickened my steps until I reached a strange pile of people involved in a fight. Accurately, there were two women and a young man. He was lying on the grass unconsciously with a bright shining crystal floating over his breast.
As if this was not enough for my unbelieving eyes, the woman were involved in a kind of fight. But they fought with some strange weapons that seemed to come out of their bodies.
One woman had long red hair and wore a white coat such as doctors and scientists wear while the other had even longer dark green hair and wore a strange suit looking alike the sailor fuku I had to wear at school. They talked about something like they both wanted to have the "pure heart" which I assumed to be the glowing thing in front of the man.
I believed I had gone totally mad now. I still did when the red-haired woman walked towards me.
"Hey, look who has arrived. Didn't your mother tell you not to walk through deserted parks in the evening, kid? Wanna follow this boy's path into death?"
She grinned dangerously when she put a sort of rifle in front of my chest.
"Don't you dare involving this uninvolved girl! Dead scream!"
Once again,a huge purple ball of mist came from of the green-haired girl who seemed to be only about two years older than me. I jumped aside as the ball destroyed everything that was in its course.
The other woman still stood near to me, holding her weapon or whatever this was.
"I won't spare her! She's seen too much of it. And we need every pure heart we can get!"
I wasn't able to speak. I wasn't able to move. It was exactly like in my dreams.
But this time, it was reality and I suddenly felt an unknown power growing inside my body and soul when something on my temple was starting to glow in the colour of aquamarine.
"What's that?" The woman put her gun aside and looked at my with fear. What was happening to me?
The girl in the fuku threw a stick towards me that reminded me of the pen I used at school. It landed next to my feet.
"You're Sailor Neptune. Finally, I've found you. Take this stick to fulfill your destiny!"
I startled. I had no idea what all this was about. The situation was too weird to be real but felt to real to be a dream. All I knew was I had to to something. In a fraction of a second after I had reached the pen, the words that would change my life for all eternity came to my mind.
"Neptune Planet Power, make up!"
I felt the strange power inside me growing bigger. Some positive energy, similar to the feeling I had when I received the audience's applause at the end of a performance, only much stronger. Its light filled the deepest of my body and soul.
At the end I realized myself standing on the grass in the middle of the park again. When I looked down, I noticed I was wearing some fuku like the one the older girl was wearing. The dresses only varied in their colour. While she was wearing high boots, my feet were put in in some high-heels with turquoise ribbons that wound around my ankles.
When I looked up again I saw how the woman who had held the gun before was now trying to carry away her victim's pure heart. Once again, my intuition told me it was my turn to react.
"Deep Submerge!"
A tremendous ball of water was flying from me to the woman who disappeared into nothing just before it could hit her.
And again, I was standing there, staring at hands. What the hell had happened to me? I was clever enough to feel this wasn't a bad dream, but I was too clever to really believe in this crazy things that had occurred in the last quarter of an hour.
The other girl left at the park had picked up the man's pure heart the woman had dropped to the ground while escaping from my weapon and given it back to his body.
Yes, there had been a weapon coming from inside myself. I wiped my hands over my eyes, but the scene was still the same. Suddenly the other girl laid her hand on my shoulder.
"Everything's all right. Let's go somewhere we can talk."
Finally, I lost my self control I had kept while I was in the state of shock just after my transformation. Tears came running down my face.
"I don't need to talk! I have to go home and do my homework and finish my painting and go to sleep early so I'm in a good mood at school tomorrow morning."
"I'm sorry for you, but our enemies don't care about this, Michiru." "How come you know my name?" "I had assumed you to be Sailor Neptune for some time but I thought you'd show who you really are when the right time comes. And this is what just happened..."
One hour later, on the same evening. I was sitting in Setsuna's, so introduced the strange girl herself, apartment and was drinking some tea, my hands still trembling.
I couldn't paint or play the violin with these trembling hands, that was one of the thousands of thoughts running through my head all the time.
"But why do we have to fight those people? I mean, there's the police who should care about those things.
Setsuna sighed. "Once again, Michiru-san. The police would never believe in those strange incidents. Furthermore, they would never have the power to fight our enemy." "But why me?" "It's just your destiny, I didn't choose this myself either. There is no choice."
She laid such a seriousness in her voice supported by the sad expression in her eyes I finally got the meaning of her words.
Michiru wasn't important any longer. Now there was Neptune who had to care about the well-being of the whole world. I put myself upright.
"So what do we have to do?"
"You need to find the three talismans hidden in some people's pure hearts to fight our enemies who want to destroy this world." " I ? You mean, you won't help me?"
"I'm afraid, but I was only sent here to find you. I have to look after the gates of time, but I will always be there if you need me. I'll try to find out somewhat more about our opponents. But don't worry, you don't have to fight on your own when you find the other senshi." "What other one?"
"Sailor Uranus. I 'm sure she'll help you a lot. Only the three of us are able to-" "But how can I find that Uranus girl? You know, she won't wear a shirt with some inscription 'I'm Sailor Uranus' or something like that." "Michiru-san, you know exactly how sensitive you are. You will find her. Just trust your feelings to find the senshi of the wind."
I looked at one of the countless clocks in Setsuna's apartment. She was strange and mysterious, but I felt I could trust her. A feeling told me.
-But it was already after midnight and I had to get up at seven o'clock in the morning!
"I'll do my best, Setsuna. But I really need to go home now."
"I'll call a taxi for you. But Michiru, there is one rule you need to carry out in any case." "I'm listening." "Don't ever tell anybody you're Sailor Neptune."
Half an hour later I was sitting in my living room and listened to the teasing, light-hearted spoken message from Elza on the answering machine again and again.
"Hi Michi! I was phoning because I wanted drop by this night. I'm a little worried you're not back home yet. Alas, might you be keeping some secrets from me? Another lover? Oyasumi, I'll see you at school tomorrow."
She didn't deserve to be betrayed by someone who had to lead a double life. She didn't deserve me any longer.
It was my duty to save the whole of mankind, but who was going to save me? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------- 2003/03/16, 23:52
Wow, the end became kinda depressing... nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed it. Just tell me at skygoddess@gmx.net !