"Momma? Hey, Momma?"
She could still remember that evening in the courtyards, the stars just
barely visible in the river-blue sky, silver specks of glitter tossed out across
the firmament, twinkling and sweet. Through the pale, off-white satin of her
night attire, her mother's pregnant belly swelled, full and round as the blue
globe that was just beginning to peak above the horizon. She ran up ahead,
twin braids bouncing as her slippers scuffed against the cobblestone
pathways, her youthful excitement as strong as her precocious, stubborn will.
"Yes, Carrie?"
"Momma, when are you gonna have the baby, huh?"
She heard her mother chuckle, but only a bit; she was almost too far
ahead to hear the woman's soft-spoken voice, but it echoed on the breeze
and floated into the girl's ears without too much effort. "Soon, now. A week,
perhaps two." Her mother paused for a moment before speaking again. "Tell
me, Carrie, would you like a brother, or a sister?"
She froze in mid-step, considering this question carefully and with
wide dark green eyes. Hadn't her tutor said that all the new babies born by
all the queens were going to be girls? She had thought that he had said that,
but now, she couldn't be sure…
"A brother," she decided with a stern, confident nod, whirling about to
face the adult. "I want a baby brother."
"I thought you would." The conversation halted and their walk
continued, but her mother was no longer touched with the same, lightly-
amused smile as she had been before. It was as she began to skip that she
heard another question from her mother, this one a bit more urgent than
before. "And what if you have a sister?"
She never missed a beat; her skipping turned to hops and jumps as
she played hopscotch across invisible borders marking the cobblestone.
"Then I won't like her at all."
"What if she wants to play with you, though?"
She twirled as the question reached her ears, just so she could see her
shadow - an exact replica of herself - dance in the setting sunshine and rising
Earthshine. "I won't let her play with me. Ever."
"What if she wants you to help her with something?"
She pulled a bright red bud from a nearby flowering bush, noticing
only too late that the bush was of roses and her flower had thorns. "Then
she'll do it on her own."
Her mother's eyes were wide with fear and surprise as the child turned
to face her, a dark gleam to her usually bright, happy façade. "And you know
what else, Momma?" she questioned, unbothered by the blood dripping from
her clenched fist and by the pain from the thorns. "If she bothers me too
much - "
The drops of blood splashed, ignored, onto the cobblestones below.
" - I'll kill her."
===================
"The Other Side"
A Sailor Moon Fanfiction
Written by Kate "SuperKate" Butler )
===================
"The first day of school is always so boring," whined Tsukino Usagi
rather loudly, fidgeting in her chair as she spoke. "These stupid introductory
speeches just make it go so much longer."
Cherry blossoms rained from the bright blue spring sky on that fine
April morning as Tsukino Usagi complained, appearing almost as pink velvet
teardrops from heaven itself. The students of Juuban District High School -
new and old, from first-years to third-years - milled around outside in
expectation for the initial ceremonies of their new school year to begin,
chatting with friends and lamenting the graduation of the previous years'
students. Usagi and her friends, however, had arrived earlier than normal to
stake out a cluster of six chairs in the back rows, so they could commiserate
through the long introduction ceremonies, rather than be forced to suffer
separately.
"They're meant to get students in the state of mind for a year of
study, Usagi-chan," Mizuno Ami reminded her patiently as she tucked a
bookmark into the text she had been reading and slid it back into her school
bag. "Even if they're long, they're with good intentions."
"Doesn't make them any less boring," argued Aino Minako with a
dramatic and overdone wag of her finger. "Isn't there a saying that goes 'The
road to Kyoto is paved with good intentions'?"
Kino Makoto rolled her green eyes as the other two second-years
stifled a giggle. "That's 'the road to Hell,' Minako-chan."
"Saa, I knew that."
Their laughter echoed merrily into the distance as Minako tried
desperately to force her bright blush to fade, and as her cheeks returned to
their normal color, a hush fell over the group. It was unexpected but yet also
somehow very appropriate, the silence of anticipation and expectation that
came with the beginning of the new school year. Their first year had ended
with a bang, filled with both pain and contemplation, and - with the
departure of the Three Lights and the end of their double lives as Pretty
Soldiers - that set of finals had signaled the end to more than just the school
year. An era had ended, and now they were settled comfortably in the
normality that had been the last three weeks, waiting for their second year of
high school - and the rest of their lives - to begin.
"Tell me, Odango, is there a reason your school bag is taking up its
own seat?" Four pairs of eyes glanced up to see Ten'ou Haruka, third-year
student and avid tease, hovering at the end of the aisle, her hands on her
slender hips. Usagi grinned gleefully and tugged her bag away, allowing the
tomboy access to one of the two empty seats that they had reserved. Haruka
leaned comfortably back into the folding metal chair and looped her arm
loosely around the younger girl, hugging her. "Nice day for some boring
speeches, eh?"
"Where's Michiru-san?" came the obvious question from the blue-
haired girl in the row ahead, her eyes focused on Haruka as the two friends
sitting with her craned their necks in search of the aqua-haired musician. "Is
she coming to school today?"
Haruka snorted. "Coming? She's more than coming; she's giving a
miniature recital to the first-year students after opening ceremonies are
over. She's practicing right now." Despite the edge to her tone, it was
obvious the blonde was simply playing, and the smile that touched her lips
proved this. "It's a bit boring," she admitted after a moment, retracting her
arm from around Usagi's shoulder, "to think that we're not going to be
getting into any more big battles. Reassuring, mind you… But boring, as
well."
"That's not necessarily a bad thing," volunteered Ami as sagely as she
ever did, her hands folded in her lap. "It gives us a chance to spend more
time on our studies. We can all get into very good universities, now, which is
much better than - "
"Ami-chan?" Makoto's voice was like ice as she stared down her friend,
eyes lowered into slits.
"Hai?"
"Shush."
The girls all laughed together again, or at least, four of the five did.
Haruka found herself entirely unable to laugh and instead spent the time
gazing listlessly at the empty presentation platform and the abandoned
podium atop it. Michiru had awoken that morning in a cold sweat, trembling
and mumbling something that her better half could not fully make out, but -
once she had risen more fully and taken a long shower - she refused to talk
about it, shrugging off the attentions of her friends and lover, fleeing instead
to the school early for a rehearsal. The entire incident, no matter how hard
Haruka tried to dismiss it, smacked of the way she'd acted just before the
arrival of Galaxia, and somehow, it frightened the blonde. It, in fact,
frightened her more than she had been able to vocalize to Setsuna and a
hyper, school-excited Hotaru that morning, and more than she could even
vocalize to herself now. And somehow, with the empty podium and stage
before her and the voices of her friends filling her ears, she could not block
out that fright…or the knowledge that with that fright came the possibility of
danger.
She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn't notice anyone
speaking to her until Usagi was tugging on her sleeve and nearly yelling in
her ear, and with a blink she turned her attention to the blonde girl. "Sorry,
Odango," she apologized quickly, shaking her head. "I was thinking about
something. What is it that you wanted?"
"We were wondering if you knew anything about Yashi-sensei," Minako
filled in, earning a raspberry from the attention-loving Usagi. Haruka's
expression must have been one of utmost confusion, because the bow-
wearing blonde quickly produced her class schedule and held it out to the
older girl. "She's our chemistry teacher this year, and none of us have ever
heard of her. Is she a special teacher only for second-years?"
"She's also the instructor for advanced physics," put in Ami helpfully
as Haruka studied the sheet of paper before her. Yashi Sei. Instructor of
chemistry. Room 7b. "Do you know of her?"
She shook her head of short hair and handed the sheet of paper back.
"Can't say that I have," she admitted with a half-shrug. "She's probably new.
Kurama-sensei, who taught chemistry last year, was really old, so it would
surprise me if - "
Clapping drowned out the end of Haruka's comment as, one by one,
the administrative board of the high school and a few select teachers stepped
onto the stage and took their seats, with the principal heading straight to the
microphone. Sighing, the blonde settled into her seat and clapped along with
the crowd, crossing her long legs in a feeble attempt to make herself
comfortable for the duration of what would be a very long string of speeches.
Her third set thereof, considering the fact that she had just started her first
year of high school at Mugen Gakuen when the Death Busters and Sailor
Senshi had fought the battle that, in the end, leveled the school. There was
nothing new or exciting about seeing a line of teachers take their place, or
watching the principal shuffle around his papers before beginning to speak,
and she briefly considered leaning back, closing her eyes, and sleeping
through the ceremonies.
And then, she saw…her. Out of all the administrators and teachers
filing onto the platform and settling into their places, her gray-green eyes
were pulled involuntarily towards the last woman in the line, the only person
she did not recognize. She was of average height and neither particularly thin
nor bulky, but there was a certain muscular tone to her legs as she walked
that made her seem almost awkward in a line of educators. Long, honey-
brown hair hung down her back in a straight tail, held in place at the base of
her neck and fitted with two, long white ribbons that trailed from the clip in
her hair and all the way to her waist. Pinstriped suit pants clinging to
rounded hips and muscular thighs, matched with a fitted white dress shirt
and thin-rimmed glasses, completed the aura of the woman, whose
professional appearance was only belittled by the thick-soled dress shoes she
wore…and by fingernails so bright a blue color that Haruka could see them
clearly from her place in the last row. But those fingernails were the only
truly noteworthy trait of the stranger; otherwise, she was a well-built
business woman surrounded by high school teachers.
And yet, despite the fact that a large part of her mind shrugged off
this stranger, Haruka stared, drawn to her for some mysterious reason, a
moth entranced by flame. Even as the principal began to speak, the same
rabble-rousing, fiery speech about "ganbaru" and bringing honor to the
school that he'd recited the year before, she stared, mesmerized by the
woman's every bored fidget and affirmative half-nod. The fascination with
the brunette tingled through her body, more intense than any romantic urge
she'd ever been struck with; the feeling ran deeper than that, filling her soul
and bringing her to stare.
The others could feel it, too. At least, Usagi could; the blonde had
frozen as soon as the strange, out-of-place woman had appeared on the
platform and had barely moved since, her cerulean eyes alert as she studied
the goings-on. Minako, Ami, and Makoto were visibly more at ease, though
this did not surprise the sandy-haired one; they tended to miss out on some
of the simply intuitive flashes that their princess often picked up on. They
would never, of course, admit to this - Usagi, ahead of them in something?
Never! - but for all their leader's faults, she was a being of great intuition,
and that had carried them through much in the past. And hopefully, it still
would, though Haruka was not yet sure what it was she suddenly depended
on her to carry them through.
It was after a good twenty minutes of watching the stranger play with
the sleeve of her shirt and pick at her fingers dully that the principal finally
stepped away from the podium and allowed Sakurada Haruna, a junior high
teacher recently turned administrator in charge of discipline (this being no
surprise to any of her former students) to take the floor. "I would just like to
pause this morning to introduce you all to a new instructor," she explained,
her hand gestures wild and unnecessary. "Yashi Sei is an excellent educator,
recently graduated from the University of Gotsu City in southern Japan. We
welcome her to Tokyo and Juuban! Yashi-san, would you like to say a few
words?"
Haruka very nearly fell off her chair as the blue-fingernailed business
woman nodded and stood, stalking slowly to the podium with a straight-
forward air about her. Usagi blinked long and hard, and Minako poked
Makoto, signaling that she, too, sensed something strange with the new
teacher. Either that, or they were just excited to discover the identity of the
chemistry teacher they had been wondering about earlier. Haruka could
never honestly tell.
"My name, as Sakurada-san so kindly said, is Yashi Sei." Despite her
appearance, the woman's voice was soft and fairly sweet, and her smile
appeared very genuine. "This is my first year teaching, and I'm looking
forward to it. I'm teaching second-year chemistry and advanced physics.
Ano… What else can I say?"
A few of the students nearby snickered, obviously unimpressed as the
brunette woman glanced up into the cloudless sky, her fingernails drumming
on the top of the podium. "That's about it," she shrugged after a moment's
thought, bowing slightly. "I hope to see many of you second-year students in
my class. Be prepared to study hard! I don't like to make anything too easy."
Usagi, Minako, and Makoto - as well as a handful of other second-
years - groaned at this news and began to whisper to each other,
commiserating the fact that, yes, they would actually have to do school work
in school this year. But Haruka remained unconcerned about studies as she
watched Sei move towards her seat and sit down, still pulled to her.
What was it about the new teacher that made her feel so strange?
Who in the world was Yashi Sei?
Haruka wasn't sure, but she had the fullest intentions to find out.
===
"Eh, Yashi-sensei seemed nice enough to me," thought Usagi aloud,
shrugging as she slurped the last bit of her smoothie from its glass. The
empty container joined six others in the middle of the table as she leaned
back, snuggling into the plush cushion on the back of the booth. Minako,
Makoto, and Ami were each finishing up a second drink as Usagi belched up
the remainder of her third, a content little smile on her face. "She doesn't
look like a teacher, though. I thought she had to be a business woman or
something of the sort."
"Haruka was staring at her." Ami's comment drew all the others' eyes
in her direction, and she shrugged it off casually. "She was. Even after the
ceremony was finished, she kept looking at her. It was very peculiar." Her
cup joined the others. "And you're right, she does not look like any teacher
I've ever had. She has a very precise edge to her."
Makoto snorted. "'Precise'? You mean nasty! She flat-out told me that
my answer was totally wrong. At least I was trying, you know?"
The blonde with the bow, who was seated to her left, snickered. "That
was funny," she giggled, and with that, they began to bicker - albeit playfully
- if Makoto's wrong answer had been funny or not.
Usagi sighed, watching as Ami pulled a book from her bag and began
to flip through it idly. They had agreed to meet Rei in Crown Fruit Parlor half
an hour after school was out, leaving the Catholic student time to run home
and change before dashing off to their obligatory end-of-the-first-school-day
smoothie celebration. But more than an hour had passed since the final bells
had echoed across campus and freed them from their classroom cells, and
still, Rei was missing.
And beyond the missing Shinto - a small and forgivable err in the
grand scheme of things - Usagi felt as though something was just…wrong.
Since the start of the introductory ceremonies that morning, her hands had
been clammy and her mind filled with the strangest worries, worries that
were interrupted only by flashes of the Silver Millennium memories that she
had abandoned so long ago. Usually, those memories appeared only in
dreams, serving as surreal reminds that, beyond being a mortal, she lived as
the reincarnated Princess Serenity, daughter of the Moon Kingdom. But
today, those memories refreshed themselves, constantly, more real than
surreal, and more vivid than she could ever remember them being.
"Gomen, minna, I didn't mean to be so late!" Blue eyes blinked as the
bun-headed girl was pulled from her reverie, not surprised to find a panting
Hino Rei leaning over the table, dressed in a pair of capri pants and a polo
shirt. "Weird things were going on back at the shrine, but I think we finally
got them under control. That's what took so long." As she said this, she slid
into her normal booth spot beside the still-blinking Usagi and, upon flagging
down the server, ordered a diet soda.
The appearance of their previously missing-in-action friend snapped
Makoto and Minako out of their conversation, which had moved from being
bickering to simple, meaningless, teasing chatter. The bow-headed one
frowned slightly, her fingers moving to toy with the straw in her glass.
"Weird stuff?" she questioned, her tongue poking out of her lips as she
studied Rei's face. "What kind of weird stuff?"
Ami sighed and turned a page in her book.
"The Great Fire flared up uncontrollably, and when ojii-san tried to do
a tarot reading, he was getting the strangest results." She shrugged,
chuckling slightly to herself in an almost nervous manner. "It was kind of
funny in a weird way, too, because a lot of the results were very similar to
the cards that surfaced just before our battle with Galaxia." She paused in
her tale as the waitress brought her soda, and then, once the young woman
was out of earshot, she sighed and, shaking her head, continued. "As for the
Great Fire… Kami-sama is restless, I guess."
Frowning, the blue-haired intellectual glanced up from her book,
slender lips pursed in deep thought. "I didn't really want to mention this,"
she finally admitted after a long moment's pause, "but ever since this
morning, I have had the most peculiar feeling in the pit of my stomach. It's
like something is just on the edge of happening, but hasn't yet."
The brunette of the group nodded slightly, crossing her arms over her
chest. "I know what you mean," she chimed in, adding to the confused and
worried expressions that had already overtaken both Rei and Usagi's faces.
"It's really weird, and I can't put my finger on what it is. It doesn't feel as
severe as it did right before Galaxia, just that… Just that something is
wrong."
"Exactly." Minako gritted her teeth as she pushed the quickly-melting
remnants of her smoothie around in the bottom of her glass. "But what can
we do? We don't know what it is. And with Crystal Tokyo lurking in the near
future, maybe it's the start of the ascension?"
Rei scowled. "Minako-chan, if Usagi's ascension makes the Great Fire
do what it did this afternoon, I do not want to live to be part of Crystal
Tokyo."
Something about the statement - perhaps the Shinto's tone of voice,
or just the absurdity of the idea - caused the girls to laugh. At least, it
caused Ami, Minako, Makoto, and the speaker herself to burst out laughing
and move onto more lighthearted topics with very little transition.
But Tsukino Usagi kept on staring blankly at the glasses in the middle
of the table, helplessly lost in her thoughts. Thoughts of coming doom broken
only by memories not of the person she had become, but the person she
once had been.
===
"Is it still bothering you?"
Silverware clinked against china as, just like every odd-numbered
night, Haruka washed the dishes and left her better half to dry them.
Setsuna, bogged down already with the paperwork she - as a high school
nurse - was required to fill out, had retired to the computer room early, and
Hotaru, so frenzied and excited by her first day of junior high, had rushed off
to do her homework. And thus, the two most interconnected members of the
greater Sailor Team stood together in the kitchen of their humble, four-
bedroom house, doing the dishes.
The question was marked by the scrambling of two well-toned hands
trying to keep from dropping a plate, and Haruka frowned. Certainly, she had
seen Michiru unnerved before, but never was the woman unnerved to the
point of clumsiness. At least, not as far as Haruka had seen.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Michiru answered simply,
giving a stern nod as she spoke. The towel whispered against the china as
she dried the almost-destroyed plate with a furious motion. "I told you this
morning, I had a nightmare. Nothing out of the ordinary, that's all. You don't
need to worry about it."
Haruka resisted the overwhelming urge she had to roll her eyes. "If
that was an ordinary nightmare, Michiru, then I am Tomoe Souichi." Michiru's
blue eyes lowered to shoot the blonde a dirty look, but she ignored it and
dropped a handful of clean silverware into the dish drainer. "You can't
pretend that nothing's happening, Michiru. Now, tell me, what's wrong?"
"I honestly don't know." There was fear, anger, hurt, and almost a
twang of resentment, as well, in her tone, and she slammed the damp
silverware onto the counter in frustration as she began drying them. "I don't
even remember what it was about, anymore, but it was AWFUL. A god-awful
dream. It just… Augh, I can't even describe it."
The blonde bit her lower lip and, despite her natural want - arguably
even need - to wrap her arm around the annoyed woman at her side, she
managed to focus her energies on the dishes. "I've had this awful feeling all
day," she admitted after a brief pause, handing the stack of four matching
salad bowls to her better half. "It's the strangest thing, too, because I keep
remembering the past."
"The past?" Michiru chuckled slightly, but it was a forced chuckle, and
her fingers brushed those of her significant other as she reached for the
bowls. "What about the past? How we met, perhaps?"
"No." The flirty sweetness that flitted over the blue irises of the
musician's eyes faded as Haruka looked away, staring at the murky water of
the sink. Perhaps she should just keep what she felt to herself. She could
hide those feelings under the soap-bubble surface of her consciousness,
couldn't she? No one needed to know the memories that flooded the back of
her mind, or the visions that flashed in the darkness when she closed her
eyes.
But soap bubbles popped after sitting stagnantly atop dishwater for
long enough, and the time would undoubtedly arrive when the darkness
laying at the bottom would be revealed. No, there was a right course of
action and a wrong one, and she had no choice but to take the correct course
while she still had the chance.
Her breath rattled in her chest as she exhaled. "Memories," she
informed Michiru, afraid to look at the other woman. "Memories of the Silver
Millennium."
"What?!"
A stack of four bowls crashed loudly against the tile floor, and Haruka
nearly leapt from her after-school outfit of sweatpants and a t-shirt as she
whirled on her heel to see Michiru staring at her, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.
"You can't be having memories, too! No!"
"Too?" She barely registered the two blurs of motion in the doorway
that signified Setsuna and Hotaru's arrivals to the kitchen. "What do you
mean by 'too,' Michiru?"
"Why not make it three?" Setsuna's always-calm voice echoed through
the room, and the other two adults glanced cautiously at her, not surprised
as her red eyes moved away, staring off at the walls and ceiling. A
protective, motherly hand reached to smooth the hair of their precious
thirteen-year-old charge. She sighed. "Hotaru, go wash up for bed."
The girl frowned, shifting her weight and sending the woman a pouty
look. "Setsuna-mama, I'm not six anymore, I - "
"Go wash up."
Hotaru snorted and, with a toss of her dark strands and a roll of violet
eyes, stalked off down the hallway. The slamming of a door - undoubtedly
that of the bathroom - sent a shuddering echo across the small house.
Swallowing hard, Michiru shook her head as though she needed to
clear it of some confusion and crouched down, plucking up large chunks of
china with her bare hands. "This is silly," she scoffed quickly, though her
tone wavered enough that her friends wondered whom exactly she wanted to
convince. "We have all our memories from back then. There's no reason for
us to be thinking of them, or seeing more. All we know is all there is to
know."
"Don't tell me you believe that, Michiru," smiled Setsuna slightly,
settling into a seat at the kitchen table languidly, almost like a lazy cat
would. "Our memories from the past are patchy at the very best. Certainly,
we recall the coming of Metallia and the end of the Moon Kingdom, but do we
remember our parents? Our citizens? Our siblings?"
"Why would we need to know about all of that?" Michiru's voice
cracked as she reached up and tossed the broken pieces of ceramic onto the
counter top, to be disposed of later. "Maybe that's what's bothering me so.
The fact that I'm starting to remember names and faces… Concrete details
about the Silver Millennium." Blue eyes glanced up. "What memories are you
having, Haruka?"
The blonde did not seem to hear her better half, and, despite the fact
her mind registered the question, she found herself wandering in a labyrinth
of words and syllables, some that were tied closely together and some that
seemed totally unrelated. Ideas and gibberish combined beautifully - or
perhaps clumsily - there, building into one form.
A name.
Carrie.
===
She ran.
No, wait. That was not entirely true. She, the she that she knew so
well - Tsukino Usagi, the mortal form of Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon and the
Princess of the Moon - floated somewhere outside of the scene before her,
apart from it all, detached in a simple, almost obvious manner. But the
blonde pigtailed girl below, she ran, brush and sticks whipping at her legs as
she tried to escape what awaited her, head snapping back often to monitor
the progress of her pursuer.
"Carrie, stop it!" she whined loudly, her young voice carrying through
the forest. She could have only been eight or nine, maybe even younger, and
the low-cut white gown, trimmed with golden beading, seemed almost too
mature for her young form. "I want to go back and train with the others,
now!" She stumbled over an exposed root and nearly fell, her elbow
scrapping against the trunk of a tree as she struggled to keep her balance.
"Carrie!"
The other girl laughed, hopping over the root that had nearly caught
her plaything, her red lips curving into an almost vicious smile. She appeared
much older than the other girl - fourteen or fifteen at the youngest - and
already her own fuku fit curves that would some day be voluptuous, her tall
boots hugging the muscular legs of a teen who had been trained in physical
fitness since childhood. Two long, brown-gold braids bounced against her
back as she gave chase through the forest, catching on twigs and branches
but never once eliciting a sound of pain from the older girl; it was as though
she was incapable of feeling such trivial things.
"Awww, is the little princess scared of a game?" teased Carrie,
smirking. "If you ever want to grow up to be as big and strong as I am, you
need to work harder! I'm simply aiding the process!"
"I don't wanna be big and strong, Carrie!" Her foot caught in a hole,
and she shrieked as she wrenched her ankle, falling to the ground with a
scuffling and resounding thump. "I'm happy being little and weak! Just
lemme alone!"
And, with that scream echoing in her ears, and the vision of a
grinning, green-eyed Carrie hovering over the smaller child, Tsukino Usagi
awoke in a cold sweat.
Her heart shuddered in her chest, pushing against her ribcage as
though it hoped to burst free, and she could not help but grasp at her
pajama top just above her heart. She clung to the fabric with a trembling
hand until her knuckles were white, waiting for her pulse rate to return to
some semblance of normal, but the process lasted longer than she had
expected it to and, by the time she could breathe easily again, every one of
her senses was prickling with the fullest alertness.
Outside, beyond the gauze-thin linen draperies of her bedroom
window, the orange-red sun peered over the horizon, gazing out across the
waking city of Tokyo, its rays curious but cautious, afraid to shine too
brightly on the people below. She brushed the draperies away and stared out
across at the world she knew, the buildings she'd grown up with hovering
over the streets and casting long, foreboding shadows on the cars and
sidewalks below. Never before had she had a dream so powerful, or vivid. It
almost did not play out like a dream at all, but rather like a detached
memory, something she'd forgotten so completely about that, now, she could
only see it again in third-person, a scene in the movie of her life.
Her bare feet were soft against the carpeting as she padded into the
bathroom and went through the motions of her daily life, brushing her teeth
and combing out her hair before fitting it back into her normal odango. Pink
pajamas fell to the tile floor, replaced with a pleated navy shirt and its
matching, red-bowed shirt, and - almost as an afterthought - she slipped on
the watch that also served as a communicator with the other senshi. Even
with Chaos restricted and Galaxia gone from their galaxy, Usagi felt naked
without the old familiar trappings of her senshi life. They completed her, and
somehow, she felt as though going without them now would be doing a
disservice not just to herself, but to Tokyo, as well. She clipped her brooch
onto the bow of her uniform and, after gathering up her school papers back
in her room, started down to breakfast.
"'hayou, okaa-san!" she chirped, hopping down the last stair and
starting merrily into the kitchen. Better to give Ikuko the appearance of
being a normal, happy teenage girl, rather than making her worry what was
wrong. She could simply lie and explain that she hadn't been tired, if her
mother asked. But, surprisingly, her mother no longer asked as many prying
questions as she had three years before, when her daughter's transformation
from scatter-brained girl to level-headed woman had begun. Perhaps she
shrugged it off as part of her coming-of-age… Or perhaps she simply
abandoned all hope. Usagi could never be sure.
Her mother, however, was nowhere to be found in the kitchen, and
she frowned as she slipped out of the kitchen and into the family room. Sure
enough, there was her mother, all bundled up in her bathrobe and slippers as
she sat on the very edge of the ottoman, remote control poised in her hand.
Her eyes were so fixated on the television screen that she did not notice her
daughter's arrival into the room.
And, similarly, Usagi did not notice her mother's fascination with the
television. "Ohayou, okaa-san!" she repeated gleefully, once again forcing a
big, happy-Usagi grin as she flopped onto the couch. "What are you - "
"Hush, Usagi. This is important."
Blinking, Usagi focused her sleep-tired eyes on the screen before her,
her heartbeat immediately quickening as she came face-to-face with the
news program her mother was playing. An aerial shot of what a subtitle at
the screen bottom claimed to be a residential area in the northern part of
Juuban district panned across block after block of completely leveled
buildings, the destruction spanning at least six square city blocks. Her mouth
went dry. Northern Juuban? But, Haruka and Michiru lived in -
"As you can see, the aftermath of this earthquake is devastating." The
aerial disappeared and an announcer replaced it, a balding man in his late
forties, garbed in a bad suit and a worse falsely-concerned expression. "But
despite this, only twelve people were killed. Another ninety-seven were sent
to local hospitals for injuries, but again - for a natural disaster of this
magnitude, the mortality rate is surprisingly low.
"Perhaps the most shocking information about this incident is that
there are no reports of seismic activity in any other portion of Juuban. In
fact, residents directly outside of this eight-by-eight zone say that they felt
absolutely nothing. Scientists are looking into - "
Ikuko flicked off the television with a sigh, shaking her head as she
replaced the remote on the coffee table. "Your father called me from traffic
this morning," she explained, rising with her daughter and starting for the
kitchen. "He said that there had been an earthquake in the northern part of
the district, but for - " She paused, frowning, her brown eyes considering her
child carefully. "Usagi, what in heaven's name are you doing up so early? It's
barely seven."
"I got a lot of sleep the night before," she lied, and she took it on fairly
good authority that her mother knew she was lying, too; Shingo had
complained loudly at breakfast yesterday that she had been on the phone
with Mamoru until well into the wee hours. But Ikuko just nodded slightly in
response and began gathering supplies to make breakfast. Usagi pressed on.
"What happened to that part of the city, though?" she questioned urgently, a
bitter mantra playing through her head. Haruka and the others lived in
northern Juuban. Haruka and the others lived in northern Juuban. Haruka -
"They think it was an earthquake," Ikuko reiterated, sounding only
slightly more concerned than the news caster had. An egg sizzled as it
settled into the frying pan. "Survivors claim they heard howling winds and a
lot of crackling noises before the shaking started. I'm surprised so few were
killed." She turned to her daughter, smiling. "Sunny side up today, Usagi?"
The taste of bile burned the back of her tongue, and the blonde teen
shook her head helplessly. "I'm actually not hungry any more, 'kaa-san," she
admitted, hugging herself slightly. "I think, actually, I'm going to go back to
my room."
"Usagi…?"
She could hear her mother calling out to her as she took off up the
stairs, a terrible, painful sensation gnawing at her stomach. Something
definitely felt wrong, now. Even the cool morning air as she threw open the
door to her balcony and rushed out onto the concrete slab barefooted choked
her, and she gasped for breath.
Still, despite her coughing, her cerulean eyes stared out across the
city, gazing northward - always northward.
"Haruka…"
===
"Well, tell Odango we're fine, Minako-chan," Haruka barked into the
cell phone, her footfalls brisk as she paced back and forth across the paper-
thin carpeting. It probably had once been a deep, powerful crimson but now
resigned itself to being a dingy orange, the color of tangerine rind once it had
dried out. Hotaru lay across the floor playing a game on her Sega Game
Gear, kicking her legs idly. Michiru, who had spent the night lying awake as
horrible nightmares plagued her sleep, was curled up in the king-sized bed,
snoring softly. Haruka, too, had found sleep to be a late-coming visitor who
brought terrible gifts, and it was the duality of having both high-school
students awake that had saved the four of them from the most certain of
deaths; a scientist from the university had declared just an hour after the
earthquake that the debris from what once had been their house lay exactly
atop the epicenter.
"No, no, Minako-chan, we're fine. But Setsuna went to see what she
could find out, and so we're going to stick it out here at the Holiday - no, I
did not manage to save the plush toys you gave us two years ago. I'm
sorry." She groaned and leaned against the wall, gray-green eyes glancing
out the window apprehensively; Setsuna had departed almost immediately
after they'd arrived at their new home-away-from-home, three hours earlier.
Where in the world had that woman gone? "This afternoon? At the Shrine?
Yes, yes, that's fine. We'll be there. Ja ne, Minako-chan. And hai. We will be
careful."
Hotaru peered up from the floor as her father-figure struggled to turn
off Michiru's blasted cell phone, violet eyes blinking innocently. "Are the
others worried about this?" she questioned, peering after the blonde even as
she tossed the phone on the nearby desk and proceeded to flop onto the
other, unoccupied bed. "Or do they believe it was only an earthquake, too?"
The adult sent her a sharp look, and she shrugged as she turned back
to her video game. "Natural disasters do occur in Tokyo, Hotaru," Haruka
scolded, staring up at the cracked paint that spanned the ceiling. "Not
everything is supernatural."
"When a single house is the epicenter of an earthquake that spans
eight city blocks, it is," the girl challenged, her tone edged with ice as she
mashed the keys on her hand-held game. "Why do you want so firmly to
believe that everything is absolutely fine, Haruka-papa? I heard you talking
last night when you thought I was in bed. Memories from the Silver
Millennium? Nightmares? And now this?" The click of her shutting off her
game echoed through the room. "I may only be thirteen, but I know when
something strange is going on. And I may not have memories from the Silver
Millennium, but I most certainly know that you are not supposed to be
getting new ones."
As much as it pained her to admit it, the child was right. Haruka
sighed, her chest heaving. No earthquake, no matter how much the news
casters tried to play it down, could be that very precise. And, with that
possibility extinguished, only one remained.
The possibility of foul play.
"Alright, then it's supernatural," acquiesced the adult. She suddenly
felt out of place just laying on the bed, so she slid out of it and began to pace
slowly across the carpeting. "But that doesn't mean that it has anything to do
with us."
Haruka could almost hear Hotaru cock her eyebrow, the skepticism
was so evident in her young tone. "Oh, really? Then tell me, whom does it
concern?" The blonde stopped and her gray-green eyes met lowered violet
ones. "If it doesn't concern the Sailor Senshi, does it really concern anyone?"
Scoffing, she returned to pacing. "Not everything supernatural falls
onto our shoulders," she retorted curtly, though a small part of her mind
argued with that logic. The Sailor Senshi existed, at least partially, to keep
the city safe from the things that the law couldn't handle. That included
earthquakes that probably were not actually earthquakes, didn't it? But
admitting responsibility for quashing this whatever-it-was somehow felt like
it was admitting that something was wrong. And Haruka wasn't certain she
was ready to admit that - to herself or to anyone else - yet.
But Hotaru stared up at her, waiting for an answer, and she threw up
her hands in annoyance. "Do you really expect me to have an answer?" she
shot, receiving a shrugged response. "I'm not in charge of these things,
Hotaru, I just think - "
"That pretending it's not our problem will make it go away." The girl
sighed and turned her Game Gear back on nonchalantly. "You know it's not
going to go away, Haruka-papa. We all do. And the problem isn't going to
wait for you to admit to it." She smirked slightly, a half-smirk that hid behind
the thick hair falling into her face. "I envy you, too," she added after a
moment of silence, the soft MIDI strains of her Sonic the Hedgehog game
tumbling through the stagnant air in the room. "I want memories, too."
"No, you don't." Haruka sank into the plush softness of the bed once
again, finding it comfortable but still not comforting. "You wouldn't like
seeing faces you don't remember, or hearing a name you've never known
and yet still knowing it's your own."
Hotaru chuckled slightly and shrugged. "It's better than nothing," she
replied casually.
The blonde somehow did not have the heart to tell the girl that no, it
was not.
===
"A-ano… Yashi-sensei?"
Even the way she sat appeared too prim and proper a posture to
belong to a teacher. Perched on the very edge of her wheeled desk chair, her
chunky black-booted feet crossed at her ankles and her back stiff, she was…
Intimidating, the student decided with a slight nod to herself. She was simply
intimidating.
Her classmates chattered excitedly at the prospect of being done with
their morning classes and off to lunch as the oh-so-poised chemistry teacher
glanced up from her grade book, her dark green eyes meeting blue. Tsukino
Usagi smiled cordially and bowed, saying nothing, and the adult - unsure
what to make of the gesture - simply nodded before bowing her head and
returning to marking the morning's pop quiz grades into her score book.
Usagi frowned slightly, wrinkling her nose as her teacher lost all
interest in her existence. "A-ano, Yashi-sensei," she stressed, a bit of
urgency in her tone as her classmates shuffled out of the room. "Can I talk to
you?"
"If you want to talk to me, then talk," came the somewhat curt reply
as the woman's eyes peered over the top-most edge of her thin-rimmed
glasses, examining the student as though she were an escaped lab animal.
"Smiling and bowing doesn't really give me any idea of what you want, ne?"
"Hai…" Usagi's frown actually grew in severity, a strange expression on
such a delicate face. "I was curious though, about last night's earthquake.
Can earthquakes really DO what happened last night?"
The disinterest that had marked Sei's manner only seconds before
faded away with the sound of long fingernails snapping the cap onto her
fountain pen, and she leaned forward on her desk. Her face almost had a
conspiratorial look to it, green eyes sparking, and her bright blue nails
drummed against each other as she stared down her student. "What an
interesting topic, Tsukino-san!" she praised, and Usagi let out a sigh of relief
she hadn't been aware that she was holding. "I always am glad when my
students approach me about things outside of our daily curriculum. Tell me,
what exactly is it that you want to know about this earthquake?"
Usagi bit her lower lip, uncertain of what to say. Answering honestly -
that she had an instinctual nagging that argued NO earthquake could do
what had been done the night before - just wouldn't work well, especially not
when paired up against the scientific mind before her. Even Ami-chan, when
the four Juuban-enrolled girls had gathered together that morning to discuss
the disaster, had struggled to understand why Usagi had such a strong "gut
instinct." Of course, the blonde teen hadn't thought to bring up her
nightmare of the little girl - one who, she had realized later, looked entirely
too much like a younger version of herself - being pursued by a taller,
tougher brunette girl. A taller, tougher, brunette SENSHI.
"Tsukino-san?" Blue eyes blinked, and Yashi-sensei frowned slightly at
her student. "What is it you want to know?"
"Oh, hai!" A blush warmed her cheeks as Usagi fidgeted nervously
under the intense gaze of her teacher; Haruna-sensei had never watched her
students the way Sei did, and the young woman's stern concentration on her
face reminded her of the expression Luna wore whenever she stalked a
mouse. "I was just wondering… The earthquake last night, it only focused
very specifically on a small area of the city. No one outside of those eight
blocks could feel any disturbance. Can earthquakes really do that?"
The eager, helpful spark in Yashi Sei's green eyes flitted away as she
glanced curiously at her student, cheeks paling slightly as every hint of a
smile faded from her face. Usagi swallowed, hard, and the young woman
tugged off her glasses, folding in the arms and setting them atop her grade
book carefully. "Do you have time to discuss this now?" she questioned
softly. "I have a period off. Otherwise, we can talk after school."
The blonde frowned. So her gut feeling had been right, after all; there
was more to that morning's earthquake than what met the eye. "I need to
get to lunch," she apologized, stifling a short bow, "or my friends will miss
me. Is after school alright with you?"
"After school is fine," nodded the teacher, her smile returning only
slightly. "I'll meet you in here, all right?"
Usagi, somehow, imagined that she responded to the affirmative, but
she could not be certain; her thoughts already dashed about haphazardly,
trying to touch on all the emotions and ideas that were floating through her
brain. If it wasn't an earthquake, could it be something related to the Sailor
Senshi? Did the girl in her dream have anything to do with it? What would
Yashi-sensei have to say? Why had her smile faded away like it had? Did she
have a bad feeling about something, too?
So wrapped up in her thoughts was she that she didn't notice dark
green eyes peering down the hall and after her, even as she turned the
corner and disappeared out of sight.
===
"What?"
Michiru could very nearly feel the silk whispering against her bare legs
and hear the birds chirping around her, even though she was fairly certain
that she was dreaming. The spring breeze ruffled her calf-length sundress as
they strolled together down the cobblestone path that wove through the
gardens, budding cherry trees hanging low over the path and shedding their
tiny pink flowers on the two teens below. Sunshine and Earthshine rained
through the gaps in the branches as the taller girl - lanky, like a foal that still
needed to grow into a mare - brushed strands of sandy hair from her face.
Navy knickers and a gold blouse fluttered in the breeze as she sighed and
shrugged her shoulders.
"It seems to be what Queen Serenity wants," she admitted slowly,
futilely attempting to coax a few loose tresses back into the barrettes that
had clipped them away from her eyes. "Mother said that she's been worried
about Carrie's behavior towards the other senshi for some time, and now…"
She leaned against the tree trunk, a noncommittal expression crossing her
face. "I don't think it's fair to Carrie, though. She's been training her whole
life, you know?"
"I know…" She trailed off, shivering. The urge to hug herself was too
great to ignore, and so she did just that, her hands icy against her bare
upper arms. "Do you know when the final decision will be made?"
Inwardly, she wondered what in the world they were talking about.
Carrie? Queen Serenity? Training as a Sailor Senshi? Haruka, or the Silver
Millennium incarnation thereof, was the only Sailor Senshi who had spent her
entire life training for the role. Uranus, the planet of the warrior, took great
stock in their princesses, training them in the art of -
Princesses? She frowned. Why had she pluralized that word?
"A week or two from now, I guess." The blonde shook her head
slightly. "Nerissa, I don't know what to do. I don't know even half of what
Carrie knows about being a senshi. How am I to become Sailor Uranus in her
place?"
Michiru shuddered and blinked blue eyes, both relieved and
disappointed when the sight that greeted her was that of the white-painted
hotel room wall. The annoying music of Hotaru's Game Gear tinkled into her
ears, and she sighed, curling up in the blankets. Carrie? That was a name
she had never heard before. And yet it was so familiar…
And what about the Princess of Uranus not being a Sailor Senshi? That
didn't make sense.
She closed her eyes, her stomach turning in somersaults and making
her impossibly nauseous. In the previous dream, the one so terrifying that
she'd fled from the arms of the woman she loved for the comfort of a warm
shower, she had simply been running from a coming shadow, trying to
escape that impenetrable darkness. There had been no names, no faces.
But this time, there was a name. Carrie. And a face. A face rimmed by
long, straight, honey-brown hair. A face whose features were dwarfed by
enormous, dark green eyes. Terrible, shining, gleaming green eyes.
She clung to the sheets as though they were her last comfort on
Earth.
The darkness hadn't been completely black.
The darkness had gleaming green eyes.
===
"Whatever it is, I don't like it," she admitted softly, leaning heavily on
the handle of her broom as she spoke. "It just… It feels wrong. And the tarot
points to something coming."
They huddled together in a close-knit group of six, either leaning
against or perched on the well-worn wooden deck that skimmed the
circumference of Hikawa Shrine on Sendai Hill, their voices lowered carefully
to avoid the risk of being overheard by uninvited ears. As it stood, old Hino-
san had found some excuse to busy himself in the side garden of the temple
every few minutes since the group of Juuban students had arrived, his dark
eyes hawk-like as he watched the six teens - and one black cat - gather
together and discuss one thing or another in quiet tones. After the previous
night's incident, if it could be called that, the bow-headed leader of the Sailor
Senshi had demanded they meet up after classes at the temple to talk, and
no one needed to be invited twice.
Ten'ou Haruka snorted as Rei finished with thinking aloud, leaning
heavily against the post that held the roof to the porch in place. Setsuna had
arrived back at the hotel room just as the two younger women rushed out,
leaving a pouting Hotaru sulking behind. "What is it with everyone assuming
this is some sort of supernatural occurrence?" she demanded tersely, earning
a sharp glance from her better half. She crossed her arms over her chest,
her expression still dubious even as those familiar, sharp eyes reproached
her. "It could just be an earthquake, after all."
"If that was just an earthquake," challenged the dark-haired teen back
in a quick, annoyed tone, "then I believe firmly in Catholic doctrine." The
sandy-haired blonde's eyebrow twitched as Rei tossed her long tresses, and
the other girls chuckled briefly. "I've never seen an earthquake level just one
part of the city…or make the fire flare up like it did. There is something more
to this than what meets the eye."
Swinging her legs gingerly, Ami peeked up from her laptop, eyes
intense over the rims of her glasses. "Whatever - or whoever - did this is
incredibly strong," she pointed out, surveying the group for visible reactions
before bowing her head again and focusing on her gathering of data.
"According to the classified earth science databases at Tokyo University, this
earthquake measured 8.9 on the Richter scale. That's almost two points
higher than the great Hyogo-Ken Nanbu earthquake in the 1990s."
Makoto arched an eyebrow, peering over Ami's shoulder. "Uhm, Ami-
chan… Do you mean to say you hacked into Todai?"
The girl-genius shrugged. "There were only three passwords," she
explained calmly. "Compared to some of the other database codes I've
broken, this one was child's play."
As the brunette's jaw dropped wide open, Michiru cleared her throat
gingerly, catching most attention back to her. "Then I think it's safe to say
that our survival was a miracle," she observed, flicking a strand of hair back
into place. "If I hadn't had that nightmare, then - "
"Nightmare?" Luna, typical to her feline nature, had been busying
herself with sunbathing on the warm, reflective wood, but the musician's
comment caused her ears to perk up and orange-gold eyes to burst open
unexpectedly. "What kind of nightmare, Michiru-chan?"
Michiru frowned slightly, surprised by the cat's interest; she would
have expected Luna to be more concerned with the talk of supernatural
occurrences than with the news that she hadn't been sleeping well. "Very odd
nightmares," she shrugged, "and actually, odd dreams, too. Visions of our
past lives during the Silver Millennium."
The silence was almost palpable, and most of the girls later swore that
they could hear Minako's eyes blinking. "You mean, you've had them, too?"
questioned the blonde. Her posture immediately improved to that of an alert
animal that has sensed a coming predator. "Do you remember names? And
faces?"
Michiru's nod was not alone; three others nodded with hers, though
Ami's never did pop up from its place behind her computer screen. "It's very
peculiar," she admitted after a brief pause, blue eyes glancing towards Luna.
The cat seemed completely awe-struck, the fur of her tail prickled in
anticipation - or was it fright? "Last night and the night before, I dreamt of
this young woman with glowing green eyes, chasing after me, yelling things…
But today, I dreamt of Haruka and I walking through a garden, talking about
the Senshi of Uranus."
"This is not good." Luna's voice could hardly be described as a
whisper, but all energy was wiped from her usually chipper tone as she
glanced up at the four guardian senshi of the Moon Princess, staring. "What
about you girls?"
Rei frowned slightly. "I don't remember them once I wake up," she
admitted with a shrug. "Just a name."
"Carrie." Makoto's comment received a quorum of nods, and as Ami
shut her laptop for the first time that afternoon, the brunette sighed. "I'm
glad I'm not the only one. I thought I was going crazy!"
"Carrie?" There was an intense, distinct tinge of apprehension in
Luna's tone as she hopped to her feet, glancing up at the girls with wide
orange eyes. Her voice startled the nearby Phobos and Deimos, who
squawked a loud, cawing protest. "That's the name you've been
remembering?" Her whiskers drooped as all the girls - even Haruka, who
hadn't responded to the previous interrogation regarding the nightmares -
nodded in the affirmative. "Oh dear. This really IS NOT good."
Growling softly to herself, Haruka glowered down at the cat. "Would
you mind cluing us in on what's going on here, Luna?" she questioned
gruffly, watching as the Guardian of the Moon Kingdom hopped down from
her perch and stretched briefly, working the kinks out of her tired joints.
Luna sighed. "It's too soon for me to know anything for sure, Haruka-
chan," she apologized, shaking her head. "I need to talk to Usagi-chan, first,
and then with Artemis. But I will tell you this much: if all this adds up to
what I think it will, there is a very serious battle looming on the horizon. One
of proportions you girls have only dreamt of."
All four of the present guardian senshi gulped in unison.
"Until then," warned the cat sagely, "try your best to sleep. I have a
feeling that your dreams will not be leaving you any time soon." She took a
few steps down the cobblestones and then paused, turning back towards the
two outer planet senshi almost as an afterthought. "Oh, and Haruka?
Michiru?"
"Hai?"
"Do yourselves a favor and sleep in shifts for the next few nights.
You'll thank me later."
And with that, the cat sped off across the courtyard, startling the
crows a second time until she hopped onto and over the fence surrounding
the shrine and was gone.
===
"Over the course of scientific history, there has never been an
earthquake of this magnitude held to such a confined area." Sei flipped the
tissue-paper thin page of the textbook gingerly, running her long, blue
fingernails under the words in a feeble attempt to skim them more quickly.
"Granted, it's rare that an earthquake this strong hits at all." Her sharp green
gaze snapped up, focusing on the face of her student, who watched her
every motion with a rapt interest, blinking at the pause. "This, Tsukino-san,
is history in the making."
By the time that Tsukino Usagi had been released from her tenth-
period English composition class - a full three minutes late, much to her
annoyance - and had rushed across the entirety of the campus to her science
classroom, her teacher's desk was already covered in books. Most were at
least partially open, with pens and slips of paper jutting out between pages,
a sight that stopped the girl dead in her tracks. When Yashi-sensei did
appear, arms laden with another six or seven books, she was still struggling
to close her gaping jaw.
Sei had laughed, handed her a book, and commanded her to start
reading. That had been three hours earlier.
Usagi frowned at the terminology - "history in the making" sounded
distinctly like something Minako would say about their senshi careers - and
leaned forward in the desk she'd taken over, cupping her chin in her hands.
"But… How did it get stuck in that tiny area?" she questioned carefully.
"Wouldn't a really strong earthquake spread out further than that?"
"That's a very good question," nodded the teacher, her eyes
immediately flipping back to the textbook. "I'm not all through this last book
yet, but from what I can tell… Nothing like this has ever happened before.
Strange, ne?"
The blonde girl simply nodded, glancing away from the desk before her
and towards the windows. Yashi-sensei had drawn the shades when the sun
had first started to dip lower in the sky, but now it was sequestered far
behind the tree line, casting a gold iridescent glow on the sports fields and
cherry trees below. The American football team struggled with their final
drills for the evening, yelling and laughing together. She wondered, idly, if
the senshi meeting that Minako had called together was over yet. She had
heard nothing. Was hearing nothing good, or was it bad?
Haruka and Michiru's house, Ami had reported from behind her laptop
at lunch, lay at the very center of the debris. The epicenter. Certainly, that
meant something…didn't it? The more and more she and her sensei
discussed the history and logistics of earthquakes, the more and more
suspicious Usagi became. Especially since a radio report only an hour earlier
had confirmed the Juuban quake to be the worst earthquake to shake the
country, registering as the second-worst in the history of the known world.
That meant -
"A-HA!" Sei's elation snapped her student from her thoughts with a
start, and she whirled back to face the desk just in time to see the teacher
with one bright blue fingernail poking into the body of the book. "It's not
solid EVIDENCE, but it's a legend that mentions 'the great wrath of the war
princess.'" She turned the volume around, handing it to the blonde-haired
girl. "Read it. It's very intriguing."
Usagi frowned, wrinkling her nose as she focused on the unfamiliar
characters. English. "Ano…" She glanced up from the strange words to see
her teacher watching her expectantly, and she sighed. "Let's see… 'A
thousand years ago, from the Kingdom of War, came a daughter of great
might.'" She attempted to keep from wrinkling her nose, but she failed.
Mythology had always been her least favorite part of English class…next to
spelling and grammar, at least. "'But she was endowed with a blackness of
the great art passed down to daughters of this Kingdom, and - for all the
goodness in the universe - had a heart of darkness.
"'For many years, the rulers of War hoped she could overcome the
blackness in her soul. But this was not to be. The rulers were forced to strip
her of her title and her great art, passing on that which had been given to
the first daughter to the second. And so wrathful was this child that she laid
destruction to the castle, an earthquake constrained only to the castle
grounds.'" Closing the book slowly, Usagi swallowed the lump that had risen
in her throat. "Wow."
"I've always found legend to be an incredible place to search for
truth," Yashi-sensei began to explain with a wag of her finger. "There
probably was no real princess, but perhaps there was some sort of natural
phenomenon that they explained with this legend. Meaning that it did happen
before! Isn't that exciting?"
The blonde girl managed to nod dully, a gesture that allowed her
teacher to continue babbling. She, however, found her eyes drawn again to
the setting sun as a single train of thoughts settled into her mind.
A thousand years ago.
A black-hearted female.
The Silver Millennium.
…Carrie.
===
"Setsuna-mama?"
"Hmm."
"Do you know what's happening? With the dreams and the
earthquake?"
The green-tressed Guardian of Time frowned as she glanced up from
the evening newspaper and glanced towards Hotaru. The girl lay sprawled-
out across the foot of one of the two huge beds that cluttered the hotel
room, her shoulder-length bob of hair trailing off the edge as she stared up
at the ceiling. "What do you mean?" Setsuna asked casually, her paper
rustling as she folded it up and placed it on the bed stand. "Why would I
know what's happening?"
Rolling onto her side, Hotaru shot the adult a somewhat tense look.
"Please don't pretend that I'm a normal, clueless girl," she demanded, setting
her face into a mask of determination. "I want to know what's going on. I
don't have the benefit of Silver Millennium memories. I want to know what's
happening."
Sighing, Setsuna shook her head. "It's not that easy, Hotaru," she
reminded the child in the most parental tone she could muster, earning a roll
of violet eyes in response. "You know very well that I cannot share what I
know with you. It could create a paradox, or lead you to try to prevent
what's left to come."
Hotaru fumbled to sit up, her eyebrows arching in a juvenile curiosity.
"So this DOES involve me!" She watched with a mixture of excitement and
apprehension as the dark skin of the woman's face paled, the color
disappearing in the horror of knowing she had said too much. "I knew that
there was something more to this than what meets the eye! But…" Elation
turned slowly to apprehension. "Destruction?"
"Not of the world, Hotaru," the adult eased, her heart welling up in
pain as the junior high student glanced away, her bright eyes distant. In all
her thousands of years, both as a Sailor Senshi and as a mortal, Meiou
Setsuna had never felt as much empathy and love for another human being
as she did for this dark-haired, optimistic child... Especially knowing that the
child had seen and experienced all manners of pain and suffering in her
young life and would yet live to experience more. "There is much to this
situation that I cannot tell you. It's too soon in the game, one could say, to
begin to move the pawns. I'm sorry."
For a long moment, the girl did not respond, but when she did, her
voice hardly registered in the adult's ears, a whisper so soft that Setsuna
wondered if she had imagined the sound.
"I'm going to hurt someone I love, aren't I?"
Setsuna didn't respond. She didn't need to.
They both knew the answer would be yes.
===
"Dreams?" Usagi set down her hairbrush on the bureau, casting her
cerulean eyes towards her feline companion with a certain cautiousness.
"What about my dreams, Luna?"
Luna's worry about the nature of the girls' shared nightmares had
been multiplied nearly exponentially when Usagi had come home too late for
supper, babbling about legends and earthquakes. The cat, of course, had
avoided any outward manifestation of this worry, but hearing the familiar
legend retold by her excited charge caused her stomach to knot around itself
tightly. But Usagi, thankfully, seemed wholly unconcerned, and it was only as
the teen readied herself for bed that the cat remembered her urgency in
needing to investigate Usagi's dreams.
Hopping up onto the bureau, the cat cast a long glance at the second-
year high school student. "This is very important, Usagi-chan," she stressed,
her tail whipping back and forth in a regular, metered pattern as she spoke.
"You have to trust me when I say that I can't tell you anything, yet. But I
need to know if you have had any unusual dreams, especially ones about the
Silver Millennium."
Blue eyes widened, and it didn't take feline instinct for Luna to know
that she'd hit the nail on the head. The blonde crossed the room and sank
into her bed, her slippers kicked across the room and thumping dully into the
wall furthest from the futon. "I wasn't really having any dreams for a while,"
she admitted, glancing up at her guardian, who was still perched atop the
bureau. "Which was strange for me, because I ALWAYS dream. And then,
last night, I had the weirdest dream I've ever had before."
"What happened in it, Usagi?"
Not surprisingly, the girl shrugged. "I was really little - still in primary
school - and I was running away from a bigger girl. She was a Sailor Senshi,
too, I think, because she was wearing a fuku. But it was black, instead of
white. Isn't that funny?" She chuckled a little, but the orange eyes of her cat
never wavered, and the mirth faded as soon as she recognized Luna's stern,
'this is not a laughing matter' glower. "She wanted to… I don't even know
what she wanted to do, anymore. I think she wanted to hurt me, though, but
before I saw anything more, I woke up." She sighed and shook her head.
"Her name was Carrie, Luna, and I ended up with this feeling that she was
from the Silver Millennium. Is that a bad thing?"
Carrie. Luna frowned and glanced away from the girl, brow furrowing
in contemplation. Even Usagi had been touched by the dreams of Carrie. But
why? Why would memories so long erased have come back now? And how
could Carrie have -
"Usagi-chan, I need you to do something for me."
The girl blinked up at her pet. "Hai, Luna?"
"The next time you have a dream like that," instructed the cat
carefully, "you need to write down everything you remember the instant you
wake up. Don't wait and write it down later. All right?"
Usagi began to protest. "But, Luna, I don't under - "
Luna's voice was stern, strong…and, as much as the cat didn't want to
admit to it, frightened. "Wheels are turning, Usagi-chan, and I need to know
exactly how long it's going to be before all the gears fall into their perfect
positions."
"Okay, Luna." There was doubt in the teen's voice, but the cat felt at
least somewhat vindicated by the fact that she responded in the positive.
Perhaps she had been a better guardian these past few years than she had
originally thought. After all, she had never failed Usagi in her duties.
…well, at least not yet.
===
She stumbled through the darkness, stubbing her toes on the chairs
that had been overturned in the doorway, groping in the pockets of her light,
knit summer robe for a book of matches or a candlestick. Her fingers closed
only around emptiness, but this somehow failed to surprise her. She'd fled
from her room in haste, her handmaiden calling after her, the echoed
pleading of "Marcella! Don't go down there!" ringing in her ears. Soon
enough, she realized, her mother would send a guard or two to come get
her, and it would be over.
As if it wasn't already over.
Thunder crackled in the distance, and lightning exploded on the
horizon, its brilliance spreading, briefly, into the room and allowing her the
previously foreign luxury of making out her surroundings.
The room lay in shambles. Fine sitting chairs had been overturned in
the doorway, legs cracked and upholstery shredded, hanging limply from its
wooden skeleton, the stuffed innards hanging out and cluttering the floor.
The wardrobe gaped open, the midnight blue silks and velvet gowns from
within strewn about, joined on the floor by the remnants of torn and
discarded draperies. But before she could further examine the room, the
lightning died.
Worry, worry paired with fear, welled up in her stomach, constricting
her throat until she wondered if she would be able to speak at all. When her
handmaiden had told her of Queen Serenity's decision, she had been so
horrified! But now…
Now, perhaps, she could attest to Serenity being right.
"Carrie?" Her voice squeaked in her throat as her feet slid off the rug
and slapped against marble, the cool stone biting her bare skin. She shivered
involuntarily, hugging the robe closer to her lithe, almost boyish form. Even
though it was only the very beginning of fall, the palace felt somewhat like
an icebox, and the chill throbbed through her veins until her skin crawled and
demanded warmth. Warmth, she realized, she did not have.
A broken sob echoed through the room, and she frowned, venturing
another step forward. The lightning flashed a second time, and she could
finally see it - a huddled, hunched form, balled in a fetal position, lying in the
very center of the enormous canopy bed. Her heart cried out to the other girl
as she drew closer and closer still, until her fingers brushed against the soft
bedspreads.
"Carrie? Carrie, are you alright?"
A flash of lightning, a flash of movement, green eyes that shone in the
darkness -
- and the beeping of the alarm clock.
Haruka's weary gray-green eyes burst open at the repeated honking of
the hotel alarm clock and her arm immediately shot out from under the
pillow, smacking at the buttons until it shut off. 3 a.m. Michiru - and, once
she heard tell of the meeting that afternoon, Setsuna as well - had insisted
upon following Luna's "sound" advice of sleeping in shifts, with the three
adults switching off every three hours. The blonde had offered to take the
final shift, which would be the worst; after all, the earthquake had struck
around 3 a.m. the night before. Kissing Michiru a quick goodnight and
tucking the woman away in bed, she was left with one question: what if they
hadn't been awake? Would they all be dead?
The thought frightened her, mingling with the strange, displaced
sensation in her dream, so she slipped out of her ratty night clothes and into
the shower, the warmth of steam and near-scalding water comforting her
weary muscles and bones. Somehow, her lack of sleep hadn't managed to
catch up with her until now, and it grasped at every inch of her body with a
vengeance, squeezing the life out of her limbs until it was hard to stand. So,
instead, she flipped the knob on the faucet and let the tub fill until it was
nearly overflowing, settling into the soothing water slowly and leaning back,
her damp tresses falling over shut eyelids, ignored.
Carrie. That name, and the emotions it evoked… Her heart ached. Very
few names caused her heart to swell up the way that one did; she could
count the number on one hand, and three of the bearers were sleeping
quietly in the next room. To her recollection, she couldn't remember anyone
named Carrie, or a room with fine furniture that had been destroyed in a fit
of passion. And yet, she still felt the warm sweat of apprehension on her
brow and the freezing stone floor beneath her feet. The flash of the
lightning… The green eyes in the darkness.
What in the world was going on? Haruka asked herself this question
carefully as she rose from the now-tepid bathwater and toweled herself off,
slipping on a pair of tan pants and a button-down top for the day; the school
had busied themselves with ordering new uniforms for the two third-year
students, but it would take some time. A comb ripped through a tangled
mass of short hair, and red-rimmed eyes stared at a bewildered expression.
It was harder to shrug off her apprehensions when Setsuna, Hotaru, and the
other girls all felt them, too. And with Luna rushing off in search of Usagi…
She sighed, staring into the mirror.
Who in the world was Carrie? And why did she have a feeling that it
really DID matter?
===
The spring day dawned slowly, an icy breeze sweeping across the city
of Tokyo as she lay, half-curled, in the single patch of sun that escaped thick
gray clouds, her tail twitching. Inside, Usagi ranted, raved, and ripped her
room apart in a frantic search for one of her lost school shoes. At least the
girl had slept peacefully, she assured herself with a sigh, her whiskers
quivering in the breeze. Her magic, though not nearly as strong as it had
been in the days of the Silver Millennium, had assured that much. For how
long, though, she was not sure; the nightmares were strong and enduring,
and her sense told her that it was only a matter of days before the magic
failed and Usagi would experience the full force of the dreams.
"Ohayou, Luna!" Artemis' voice, perky and, as always, confident,
surprised the black cat, and she started as her long-time partner and friend
hopped from a branch of a nearby tree and landed gracefully at her side atop
the roof. "You certainly chose a frigid day to demand my presence." He
shivered, though her orange eyes - well-attuned to picking up the
idiosyncrasies of the white cat's behavior - observed that the spasm was
mostly forced. "Can't we talk in the house or something?"
Sighing, she glanced away, watching as a few cars puttered down the
quiet road in the direction of the city proper. "I would rather the girls not
overhear what I have to ask you," she responded, her fur tossed by a sudden
gust of wind. "Artemis, what do you remember of the Silver Millennium?"
He frowned - she could tell that much - but experience had taught him
to never demand justification for his better half's seemingly random
questions, so he demanded nothing. Despite his sometimes overly-rampant
egotism and games of playing "headquarters" when the girls had just begun
their lives as senshi, Luna held the title as their leader, and the more
competent of the two cats. But, like all felines tended to be, she coveted
mysteriousness and slyness and clung to them, hiding her real intentions
until she could be certain of them. And this situation, judging by the urgency
that had shaken her voice the evening before, was just another example of
Luna being…well, Luna.
"I remember almost everything," he admitted, settling onto his
haunches for what he figured would be a long conversation. "The ten
kingdoms, the Lunar Council… The only thing I'm really hazy on is Elysion."
His frown deepened, brow furrowing. "If you really want to know something,
though, you'll have to be a little more specific."
She refused to face him. "More specifically, then, what do you
remember about the Kingdom of Uranus?"
"Uranus?" The planetary name echoed on the wind. "I never had much
contact with Uranus, actually. Mostly worked diplomacy with Venus, Mercury,
Mars, and - "
"Humor me, please." There was ice in her tone.
Sighing, Artemis swiped at a falling cherry blossom with his paw,
catching it between his unsheathed claws. "Uranus, the Kingdom of War," he
recited, wracking his age-clouded brain for the information he had once
known by heart; cats, he decided, should not be expected to remember
information over the course of multiple millennia. "Its monarchal rule was
founded by a magic-wielding aristocratic girl in the 740s, if I remember
correctly. She overthrew the despotic government at the time through sheer
magical force and was crowned Queen Zelda by her people. It was one of the
last three planets to join the Lunar Council, with Neptune and Earth following
very closely after." He shrugged, freeing the trapped petal and allowing it to
dance freely on the wind. "Princess Marcella took up the role as Sailor
Uranus. The kingdom was destroyed when Metallia and her legions came to
conquer. That was about it."
"I figured." Luna turned back to her white companion, orange eyes
blazing as they lowered towards him. It was not a vicious or angry glare, but
rather one of intense curiosity, a look of study and curiosity. "And the name
Carrie would mean what to you?"
Carrie. Carrie… Somewhere, in the back-most corner of his mind,
under a layer of dust and behind a thick haze of cobwebs, lay that fateful
name, but for his life - and the other eight that cats were so rumored to have
- Artemis could not remember it. "I feel like I should know it," he admitted,
coupling his response with a slight shrug. "But for some reason, I don't fully
remember. Why do you ask, Luna? Is something going on?"
"Something very significant is going on." Below, Usagi screamed a
frantic goodbye to her mother and shot out the door, almost a blur of pink
legs and blue school fuku as she took off down the street. Luna sat up slowly,
shaking her head. "Artemis, I am about to tell you a story," she informed him
carefully, "and you cannot take it lightly. And, more than that, you cannot
tell the girls. It's imperative that we keep the situation under tight control for
as long as we possibly can."
Artemis' blue eyes blinked, widening as they opened again.
"Situation?" he questioned, his voice catching in his throat as a strangled
mew. "Luna, what is going on?!"
She sighed, glancing up at the cloudy sky, a sky that promised - or
perhaps, threatened - rain. "It's a story," she began softly, "about a little girl
with a strange and terrible gift. A little girl… Named Carrie."
===
"Now, if you multiple the original temperature by - "
Yashi Sei scowled as the bell clamored, echoing through the laboratory
science classroom and signaling the end of her teaching period and the
beginning of lunch. Students immediately began to chatter and bustle about,
tossing books and half-finished lab reports into their bags in a feeble and
hasty attempt to get to lunch. Cruel and unusual punishment, decided the
educator as she yelled over the din, pleading with her students to read their
chapter on endothermic and exothermic reactions, was being forced to teach
chemistry the period before lunch.
The jabbering of voices subsided as the navy-and-white garbed teens
filed out, and she sighed, stacking up her books and papers busily. A few
remnants from the previous evening's discussion with Tsukino Usagi
remained, piled up on a corner, pages marked by neon-colored post-it notes
that, on a whole, signified -
"Yashi-sensei?" Green eyes blinked as Sei glanced up from the work at
hand to see Usagi hovering over her desk, hands hidden behind her back as
she eagerly awaited her teacher's attention. But for the first time, the girl
was not alone. Behind her loomed two other second-year students,
classmates of Usagi's that the teacher immediately recognized as Kino
Makoto and Aino Minako.
Surprised - though she could not easily vocalize why - by the
appearance of the two other students, Sei smiled placidly. "Tsukino-san,
hello!" she smiled, rapping her fingernails almost involuntarily on the edge of
her desk. "I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you. I have a few books at
home that I'm going to bring in tomorrow. Cross-references to the legend,
you know."
Usagi nodded almost shyly, fidgeting slightly. "I was wondering, Yashi-
sensei, if you could tell my friends about the legend," she appealed, glancing
wearily towards the other girls. "See, our parents all used to tell us stories
about kingdoms thousands of years ago, and so they're interested, too."
Before the teacher could agree or disagree to Usagi's request, Minako
tossed her head of long hair and took a dramatic step forward, her baby-blue
eyes sparkling brilliantly. "Please, Yashi-sensei!" she begged, her voice loud
enough that Usagi and Makoto both flinched from the sound. "Four of our
friends were almost tragically killed in the earthquake! Please, oh PLEASE,
tell us more about it!"
Makoto sighed and shook her head. "Yare yare," she muttered with a
roll of her eyes.
"Friends of yours were involved?" Sei's face paled slightly as she raised
a hand to her throat, a truly horrified expression crossing her expression.
"I'm so sorry! Tsukino-san, you didn't tell me that! No wonder you've been
so worried!"
"Our friends are fine, actually," the brunette assured their teacher as
Usagi and Minako exchanged somewhat dubious glances. "Luckily, they were
awake and managed to get out in time. But their house was totally
destroyed."
For a moment, Sei fell completely silent, staring at the three girls in
careful consideration. Usagi's stomach turned over in her stomach, and she
could feel her hands turn cool and clammy. For some strange reason, Sei's
reaction to Minako's dramatic outburst caused her stomach to sink. Everyone
else with whom she'd shared the news - her parents, Naru and Umino, and a
few other classmates - had reacted similarly to hearing about her friends,
and yet Yashi-sensei's reaction seemed almost…fake? Forced? She couldn't
describe the feeling in any sort of concise terms, but she felt it. It tightened
around her heart, grasping her from the inside and tearing her -
"I know it's a bit unorthodox," began Sei suddenly, pulling Usagi from
her thoughts with an exaggerated blink, "but would you girls like to come
over to my apartment this evening? We can look over the other books I
found on the legends, and perhaps you could tell me a bit more about your
friends."
The part of Usagi's mind that was so preoccupied with her teacher's
reaction screamed out at her, imploring her for a "no" answer and a quick
retreat. But Minako - true as she ever was - stepped in, grinning maniacally.
"We'd love to!" she announced, bouncing. "Mako-chan's a great cook, so she
can make cookies or something! And Rei-chan can bring tea, and Ami-chan
can research a bit, and - "
"Rei and Ami were not invited, Minako-chan," stressed Makoto tersely
once they had bowed their goodbyes and began down the hallway in a tight
rank of three, chatting amongst themselves. "Artemis was right. We do need
to work on your tact…"
Yashi Sei stared after them, green eyes soft and considerate, lost in
thoughts and questions that perched in the back of her mind, ignored and
unanswered.
And then, she shrugged and returned to the process of tidying up her
desk.
===
They sat together at a tea-table, her legs crossed daintily at the ankles
and tucked under the edge of her chair, back straight, posture poised. It was
a trained elegance, different from the natural beauty of her soft, tanned skin,
slightly almond-shaped eyes, and long, dark hair. At nearly eleven, she
already began to show signs of growing from a girl to a young woman, with
subtle curves blooming beneath the flowing red ceremonial robes that
marked her kingdom and station. But with her mature beauty came a mature
disposition, one that led her away from interaction with her peers and
towards the tea-table with the oldest of her contemporaries.
But as trained and well-maintained as her posture was, there was a
tenseness to it, and her jaw set as the other girl - a honey-brunette of
sixteen or seventeen, though she could not be certain - drummed her long,
bright blue fingernails on the mosaic top of the table, green eyes dark as she
tossed a braid over her shoulder. "I just don't see how you Martians can cling
to all your outdated beliefs about the spiritual world," she droned on, leaning
far back in her chair. The bunched sleeves of her navy top fluttered in the
spring breeze. "If anything can even be considered religion anymore, it's
magic. And even that is a moody creature, something only the worthy can
uncover." She smirked slightly. "I'm not sure you would understand. Your
magic, though stronger than that of some of the other girls, is still weak,
isn't it?"
She bristled, her spine stiffening. "My magic harnesses powers you
could not possibly comprehend," she returned, her teeth gritting. Her mother
and advisors spent many hours each week in an attempt to teach her to
maintain her temper, but she could feel the fire flickering deep within her
soul, and somehow, the inner calm she was taught to seek remained just out
of reach. "Have you ever taken a moment, Carrie, to commune with a higher
being? To understand the spirits that control the natural world and the
universe we live in? Until you take the time out of your busy schedule of
criticizing others and abusing the rest of us in your 'training' sessions,
perhaps you should remain silent."
The brunette sat straight up, suddenly, and she realized too late that
her words had struck a sensitive and jarring chord with the older teen.
"Excuse me?" challenged her opposition, causing her to glance away guiltily
and watch two of her friends, both blonde and flighty, chase one another
through the rose labyrinth in the distance. "You're accusing me of being
shallow? All you ever do is 'commune' with your spiritual whatever-they-are.
Why don't you try living up to your duties as a warrior?"
"My duties, Carrie, are first to my planet, and then to my training."
The metal feet of her chair scrapped against the brick walk as she rose, her
violet gaze meeting hunter green evenly. "You should ponder this concept.
You may be the daughter of war, but you are also a princess - learned,
elegant, and above the base brutality you enjoy exhibiting." She stifled a
bow, though the action came more out of good breeding than actual respect;
her feathers, as they often said, had been ruffled. "Good day."
As she began down the path towards the palace, wooden sandals
clicking against the brick walkway, Carrie's voice rose in a passionate
crescendo behind her. "Enya, you'll regret this! You'll regret the day you
challenged me! You'll regret - "
Feathers. Black feathers. Feathers drenched in the dark reddish-brown
of half-dried blood…
Gasping, Hino Rei sat straight up in the pew, not surprised to hear the
familiar droning-on of Latin echoing through the high-ceilinged chapter. The
nun at the end of her pew, a stern-faced pale woman called Sister Margaret,
glowered towards her, annoyed, to which the Shinto just shrugged and
leaned back against the polished back of the bench. Usually, despite the
hard-to-understand Latin of the scripture readings and the unbridled length
of the homilies, Rei at least managed to pay some attention to her
mandatory Catholic church services. But today, sleep had snuck its arms
around her throat and strangled her alertness away, leaving her with the
strangest feeling that what she had been dreaming was not a dream at all
but rather memory. A memory of bickering with a brunette teen, a memory
of black feathers and blood covering white sheets, a memory of a past she
scarcely could recall.
Carrie. The name that had come up at the meeting. Before, she had
never recalled anything more than the mysterious name, but now, she had a
face to pair with the name. A face, and a strange, stubborn disposition.
Somehow, Rei's previous inkling nagged her again, and she could not
ignore it.
Something was about to happen.
And soon.
===
Much to their shared surprise, Makoto and Minako discovered that
their chemistry teacher lived only two blocks from the outer-most edge of the
earthquake. Their "fearless leader," the bun-headed blonde, was somehow
not surprised by this and, as they climbed the rickety outdoor stairs to
apartment 715, wondered why every step constricted her stomach until it
was nothing more than a tight, painful knot. Part of her mind argued that the
feeling was completely irrational; perhaps Yashi-sensei's excitement over
Usagi's earthquake research was a natural offshoot from nearly having her
home destroyed by the phenomenon.
But then again, argued a small, nagging, and always-irrational corner
of her mind, that didn't explain her interest in an obviously Silver Millennium-
based legend. Especially not when one stopped to consider that Yashi Sei's
field of expertise required logic, study, and - most importantly - proof. Did
legends act as proof? And what kind of scientist would pursue such avenues
to explain as serious a matter as a deadly earthquake?
"You know, it's a bit strange," thought Makoto aloud as they reached
the doorway to 715 and stared collectively at the door buzzer, each waiting
for another to make the first move. "I've never had a teacher invite me
over." Green eyes glanced cautiously towards Usagi, the center point of the
threesome. "Are you sure that this legend is linked to the earthquake? I
mean, I know it mentioned a Kingdom of War, but that doesn't necessarily
relate to our dreams or the Silver Millennium. It could just be a legend,
Usagi."
She was right. Usagi admitted to that with a certain pessimism, her
wary blue eyes staring down at the messily written "Yashi Sei" nameplate
over the buzzer. But nothing in their lives, whether as humans or as Sailor
Senshi, had ever been defined by the type of strange coincidence that
Makoto's commentary suggested. Everything connected, intertwined in a web
so thick and complex that they really couldn't escape from it, no matter how
hard they tried.
But as her conflicted mind attempted, feebly, to formulate some sort
of intelligent organization of her thoughts, Minako shrugged and leaned
forward, pressing the buzzer button with a long first finger. "Might as well
find out!" she grinned, but the expression was obviously forced. Makoto
rolled green eyes while Usagi smiled weakly back, listening to the buzzer
echo behind the door. Did they really have that much to lose?
Their teacher answered the door promptly and with a bright smile,
leading them into the small studio apartment while babbling excitedly about
how nice it was to have students see her at home. Even in a university t-shirt
and faded blue jeans, an air of complete control and discipline surrounded
the brunette woman. Her long hair, crimped from her braid that morning,
flowed past her shoulders to brush the small of her back, fluttering in a free,
honey-colored mass as she quickly guided the girls around her apartment,
pointing out various rooms and introducing them to her ginger-colored cat,
Marcie. Naturally, the apartment bordered between tidy and immaculate, the
only clutter being the books that jammed the living area of the apartment,
shelves double- and triple-stacked and volumes pouring over onto tables,
chairs, and the corners of the floor. Even Marcie, who barely lifted her head
as she inspected the strange visitors with slanted green cat's eyes, lay atop a
large book, her tail swishing across a second volume as she watched her
housemate show the teens about. But soon enough, the meager tour ended
and Sei directed the trio towards the couch, settling into the loveseat for
herself and stretching out as much as she could…which was not much at all,
considering the formidable stack of books that covered the other cushion.
"So, you found more about the legend?" Usagi's voice was cautious,
almost quiet, as her teacher began to flip open a few of the books beside her
to various pages, her dark eyes intense on the words below. At the sound of
the stranger's voice, Marcie's head perked up, slanted feline eyes widening
towards her. Within seconds, the slender stripe of the ginger cat slunk across
the length of the coffee table and invited herself onto the blonde's lap,
mewing softly and rubbing up against her hands and arms.
Sei's expression did little to hide her surprise as Makoto, somehow
relaxed by the attitude of the feline, leaned back into the couch and smiled.
"She sure likes you, Usagi-chan," she commented as the teacher closed one
book and reached for another. Usagi's long fingers scratched the back of the
purring cat, who flopped over in her lap and snuggled in. "Even your own cat
doesn't react to you like that!"
"It is very strange," the honey-haired adult noted, her lips pursing as
she dragged a larger, more battered book onto her lap. "Marcie usually
doesn't like people all that much. Why, in all the years I've had her, she…"
Her voice trailed off, as though she had suddenly lost herself to her thoughts.
Minako, either not realizing this or not caring, blinked. "She what?"
questioned the bow-headed blonde, smoothing the cat's twitching tail as it
swept back and forth between her and Usagi's legs like a pendulum.
Their instructor shrugged, shaking her head. "Nothing really. There's
just only ever been one person that Marcie's reacted that way to, and that
was long ago. A girl I used to know, when I was very little…" She shifted her
attention to the book on her lap, pausing only for a moment before segueing
into more important matters.
"But, yes. The legend," smiled Sei calmly, opening the thick book
across her knees, a cloud of dust rising up from it as she did so, "has been
around for the last millennium at the very least. I was lucky to find more
information on it, really; from what I could tell after speaking to the head of
the literature department at Juuban, it's a very obscure story."
The girls exchanged subtle glances, and Usagi shifted uncomfortably.
Marcie yawned and readjusted herself in the blonde girl's lap, purring
contentedly once her fleshy cat bed had settled again. "Obscure in what
way?" she questioned carefully, moving a hand to caress the feline's soft,
ginger fur. "I've never even heard of it."
"It's a tale about a kingdom long ago," clarified their teacher, her head
bowing as she started to skim through the book. Her eyes lowered carefully
over the words as she spoke, and occasionally, Usagi could see her brow
furrow in concentration or perhaps indecision; she could not tell. "A thousand
years ago, each planet was inhabited by a race of people, forming nine
kingdoms – one for every planet except Saturn, and then a kingdom on the
Moon. These kingdoms were extremely diverse and ranging in beliefs, but
they joined together under the lead of the queen of the Kingdom of Justice
and formed a council together." She paused, glancing up from the book, her
intense green eyes peering at the trio on her couch over the dark rims of her
glasses. "Things start to get very vague after that. Never is a kingdom
referred to by its planet, but by its name. The information I've found here
and there matches up some kingdoms to their planet – the Kingdom of
Eternity, for example, is Pluto, and I'm fairly sure that the Kingdom of Love
is Venus – but it's hard to tell. I have no idea what the Kingdom of War may
be; I would guess Mars, but something tells me that that's just not right."
Minako's lips moved to form the word "Uranus," but thankfully, only
her two friends noticed the automatic, thoughtless motion. The brunette to
her left frowned slightly and her brow creased, as though questioning the
statement. If the Kingdom of War was Uranus, then that meant –
"Anyway, from what I can tell, the ruler of each kingdom was given a
gift. We would probably all call it magic, though I'm not sure if that is really
what it was." Sei flipped a page in her book, pausing only long enough to
brush a strand of tawny hair from her eyes. "This gift was passed on through
the matriarchal line, from mother to daughter, and – as far as I understand –
that's what determined leadership of each nation-planet. The first daughter,
then, was supremely honored as the heiress to the throne."
She leaned back, closing the book slowly, her gaze fixated into the
space between herself and the girls, focusing on nothing in particular. Her
voice dropped, lower and softer, less clinical than it had been just moments
earlier. "The daughter of the Kingdom of War was very unlucky," she
informed the girls, her fingers gripping either side of the closed book. "She
developed an unusual version of the gift, a darker version. Her parents – the
rulers of the kingdom – tried to help her cultivate it into something less vile,
but nothing helped. She was deemed black, evil, unworthy, and despite the
arguments against it, magically torn from her talents and sent off, exiled
forever." A small smile, almost a smirk, rose to touch pale pink lips as her
long fingers tightened around the book. "But not all was lost. They didn't
realize that her powers couldn't be totally destroyed, or that her little sister
would end up being only half the person she was. No… They didn't realize
this. Even after the castle was leveled and the universe d - "
Marcie, from her spot curled up on Usagi's lap, mewed long and loud,
and suddenly green eyes blinked and Sei found herself staring at three wide-
eyed, white-faced girls. Her fingers uncurled and she raised a hand to her
lips, her face reddening in embarrassment. "I'm so sorry!" she gasped,
frowning. "I started rambling, didn't I? Oh, this happens sometimes…" She
sighed, rising quickly from her seat, the book added to a stack and forgotten
immediately. "I should probably go to bed. It's late, and I only get this way
when I'm overtired. Come, I'll show you girls to the door."
Usagi's felt almost numb as she followed Yashi-sensei towards the
door, her mind only half registering the pleasant chatter that her friends
were exchanging with the teacher as they gathered up their things to leave.
Something had just happened, she realized dully, slipping on her shoes with
an automation she'd learned as a small child, years before. Her teacher had
lost all sense of time and place, it seemed, staring into the distance and
speaking extemporaneously on a topic she seemed to know so little about.
What had happened, just now? And what did it mean?
"Tsukino-san?"
Blue eyes met dark green as Yashi Sei smiled down at her student.
Usagi had not realized that Minako and Makoto were already outside the
apartment, waiting for their friend to join them on the other side of the open
door. She blushed slightly and stepped outside. "Gomen nasai, Yashi-sensei,"
she mumbled.
Her teacher smiled. "Nothing to apologize for. Goodnight, girls. I will
see you in class tomorrow."
Usagi watched the door close heavily in front of them.
"Goodnight…"
===
The breeze tickled the back of her neck, flowing freely through the
window as they perched over the marble chess table she had received as a
gift on her last birthday, a good six months previous. The translucent silk
draperies danced in the wind as she picked up a pawn and moved it
diagonally, capturing her opponent's rook with ease and skill. Their mothers
had insisted that they spend more time together stimulating intellectual
interests; in some ways, they were both more reclusive than the other girls,
preferring their own hobbies to running about and braiding flower wreaths.
Scowling, the honey-haired girl furrowed her brow, watching as
slender fingers closed around her rook and stowed it away, placing it out of
reach on the windowsill. "Patience, Carrie, is one of the most important
aspects of this game," she smiled calmly, folding her hands on her lap as her
opponent tossed her head, long braid twitching back and forth like the tail of
a horse. "A well-played chess match can take multiple hours. That's the trick
of it, the strategy. You can't rush your plan, or you will lose too many vital
pieces too quickly."
"I don't understand this game of yours," insisted Carrie, fidgeting as
she studied the board. In a way, she felt bad for the older teen; she'd never
even heard of the game of chess previously, and beyond that, she wanted to
rush through the game, attempting to conquer the board with her most
powerful pieces. Her haste already had cost her one knight, one bishop, five
pawns, and now, both of her rooks. She, on the other hand, had only
managed to capture a pair of pawns and a single bishop - a small sacrifice in
the long run.
A large hand reached forward, bright blue fingernails glinting in the
sunlight that glowed through the open window, reaching hesitantly towards
the queen. "I would rather be fencing," snorted the tawny-haired one,
slamming her piece atop one of the white pawns and sending it rolling a bit
across the board. Her opponent shifted her weight and pretended to be more
interested in the lint on her pale blue blouse than on the treatment of the
piece, but the ruse failed, leaving Carrie to grunt an apology and set the
defeated piece onto the sill with all the others. "I don't understand why
moving little chunks of rock around on a checkerboard counts as my
'intellectual edification,' as Mother always calls it."
She chuckled slightly, but the chuckle was short-lived as her eyes fell
to the position of pieces on the board. She brushed a strand of her wispy
navy hair from her face, frowning. "Carrie," she cautioned, "are you sure you
wanted to move your queen there?"
Green eyes glinted, almost challengingly. "What's wrong, Hermia?" she
replied, barely bothering to touch the board as she watched the pale-skinned
teen. "Heartbroken over losing your pawn?"
"No, but - "
"Your move." Blue eyes met green, and there was a sickness, a
twisted quality to the grin lighting such supple red lips.
Time sped suddenly, blurring, turning, rushing forward. The white
bishop slid across the board, and the black queen fell. Dark green eyes
widened and curse words flowed freely from between gritted teeth. Chess
pieces flew through the air, the marble tabletop cracked as it hit the floor,
almost caught by a stream of freezing water. Silken draperies fell, the metal
crossbar unhooking from its brackets and slamming through the
windowpanes.
She screamed, grasping the back of her head and curling into a ball,
fear seizing her body and her heart. Silence. Her own ragged breathing
echoed through the room, but beyond that, there was silence. Slowly,
cautiously, navy eyes peeked open, and she was surprised to see not a
simple navy skirt of linen but the white Egyptian cotton of her bed sheets.
Her heart immediately calmed, relaxing despite the fact that her fear was far
from pacified, and slowly, Mizuno Ami uncurled from the fetal position,
propping herself up on a single elbow. One hand groped for her small alarm
clock, turning its digital display towards her. 2 a.m. She sighed, shaking her
head. A dream. It had just been an awful, violent dream.
And yet… She released her balled fists, somehow unsurprised to find
the palms coated with a thin layer of ice. Ice… Hadn't her immediate reaction
been to let fly her ice attack in an attempt to save the chess table? But…
That would mean…
She flicked her wrists, the thin sheet of ice cracking and falling onto
her sheets, melting almost immediately. She couldn't remember the last time
she'd had such a realistic dream.
In fact, Ami thought to herself as she settled back into her sheets, it
hardly felt like a dream at all.
It felt like…a memory.
===
The shining green eyes glistened in the darkness, and she could - in
the flash of lightning - notice the subtle curve of a vile smile in the darkness.
"Marcella." A shiver dashed up her spine and back down again, and
she shivered, drawing her bedclothes closer to her slender form. The thunder
crashed, louder than before, and she shirked a step away from the bed as
the other form moved to sit up slightly, propped on a single thin elbow.
"What an amusing question. Am I alright?"
Her feet faltered as she stumbled back another step and then another,
frightened by the unfamiliar and vile gleam in the usually bright and
welcoming eyes, the eyes of a role-model and friend. "Y-yes, Carrie," she
murmured, her voice catching in her throat. "My maids just told me the news
before bed. That tomorrow…" She shook her head, her short tresses bobbing.
"I wanted to know if you were alright… After everything…"
The lightning flickered again, and long, tawny hair rimmed a pale,
tear-stained face as the subtle curve of a smile turned into a full-mouthed
smirk. "Yes, an easy question for you to ask," responded the figure in the
bed, her shadow creeping forward, inching across the sheets and towards the
slack-jawed girl. She stumbled backwards, her heel catching on a chunk of
wood that had once been a chair. "You did not stand in that room, Marcella.
You didn't hear the WORDS they said about me!" She chuckled, her legs
dangling over the edge of the enormous, white-draped bed. "Corrupt!
Insane! EVIL!"
Laughter broke through the heaviness of the quiet, the dark figure in
the bed's shoulders shaking in mirth. "Evil! Can you believe it? They called
me EVIL! ME!" The guffaws turned breathy, soft, and lost themselves to
sobs, and, as the lightning stung the darkness and threw it into illumination,
the figure in the bed dropped her face into her hands, sobbing. "I am NOT
evil! I am NOT! I am - "
"Haruka?"
She started and awoke in surprise, green-gray eyes wide as Michiru's
hand traveled from her upper arm and towards her shoulder, eventually
coming to rest on the back of her neck. "Some watchdog you turned out to
be," she teased, tickling the fine blonde hairs and causing her lover to squirm
slightly in the already uncomfortable armchair. "Falling asleep on the job.
You should be glad there wasn't another earthquake."
This lighthearted comment fell on mostly-deaf ears, however, as
Haruka's mind drifted away from reality and back towards the dream, lost in
the hazy no-man's land between her now-faded dream and the waking world
around her. Something didn't mesh. She could now count herself as
completely certain of that. A piece was missing, dropped to the carpeting and
vacuumed up like so many pieces from Hotaru's jigsaw puzzles had been
over the years, missed only when it was too late.
And yet…
"Haruka?" She glanced up to see Michiru staring down at her, visible
concern touching her normally calm, placid expression. "Is something wrong?
You're acting so odd…"
Sighing, the blonde reached up and caressed her better half's pale
cheek, but only for a short moment before pulling away. "Michiru, I need to
find out what these dreams mean," she announced, careful to not raise her
voice too far and therefore earn the attention of the television-distracted
Hotaru; the girl had caught her "parents" discussing something in hushed
voices the evening before and now seemed to perch on their every word,
hoping to catch even the smallest indication of what it was they spent so
much time discussing. "I'm going to go to the source."
Michiru frowned, her brow creasing. "What do you mean?" she
questioned softly, reaching to grasp the hand that slid away from her. She
squeezed it tightly. "What source do you have?"
The blonde glanced away and out the window. The sky consisted of a
ceiling of dark gray clouds, crawling over the buildings at a snail-like pace,
dampening out the natural light that should have covered the city.
She sighed, squeezing Michiru's hand back.
"I'm going to talk to Luna."
===
Usagi chewed lightly on the cap of her ball-point pen as she listened to
her English teacher prattle on about predicate verbs and introductory nouns -
or was it introductory verbs and predicate nouns? - and stared dully out the
window, watching as the wind tossed the boughs of the cherry trees that
lined the schoolyard, the pelting rain of pink petals serving as a prelude for
what would soon be an amazing downpour. The weather man that morning
predicted at least twenty centimeters of rain in the next twenty-four hours
and, as her younger brother had pointed out over his cereal, twenty
centimeters was a lot of rain.
Still, the blonde teen cared not about wind or rain, her chin lulling in
her hand as she meandered down the twisting path of her own inner
consciousness. Yashi Sei, according to the chemistry department substitute,
had been struck by a rather nasty case of the stomach flu and would be
spending the day recuperating in her apartment. Or so went the story.
Somewhere, in some dark corner of Usagi's mind, she knew that Yashi-
sensei's absence had not been caused by the flu. But if not that, then what
had happened since their departure the night before that could have laid up
such a dedicated teacher? As much as she wanted to argue otherwise, her
instinct insisted that Sei's disappearance had something to do with her
strange ramblings the night before, as well as the legend at hand. But how?
Since Luna's question about her dreams, her nights had been peaceful,
totally without interruption. Somehow, this was as disconcerting as it was
reassuring; if the dreams had been so important, then why had she stopped
having them? What was going on, and why did she have the sinking feeling
that Luna had purposely left out a vital piece of information for some reason?
Sighing, she leaned back in her seat, shoulders slumping slightly.
Would all this mystery ever make any coherent sense?
And could it make sense without making good on the sinking feeling in
the pit of her stomach?
===
Green-gray eyes met orange as the wind rushed around them, ruffling
sandy blonde hair and silky black fur. Haruka shrugged her parka closer to
her body, shivering; for a spring day, the wind certainly chilled to the bone.
There was a sigh as Luna turned away, no longer able to hold the even
gaze of her companion. "I'm surprised you came to me, Haruka-chan," she
addressed the teen, not noticing the cringe she earned for using the feminine
honorific. "I always assumed that you were unconcerned with your past."
"I was." Her admittance, somehow, surprised her, and she frowned at
the sound of her own voice blurting out such a thing. "But these dreams, and
the earthquake…" Her heart surged in her chest as she balled her fists atop
the picnic table. "Luna, who is Carrie?"
The small park fell silent as the wind died away briefly and the bending
trees straightened, working the kinks out of their abused boughs. No
kindergarten children dashed along the paths on their way home from their
half day of school, no salary men paused to feed the few ducks that gathered
around the little pond, and no secretaries huddled together on park benches,
sharing bento and gossiping about their home lives. Only she and the cat
braved the chill winds and foreboding gray sky to visit the park, and even
then, Haruka would have rather been in class. Still, necessity - pesky, ever-
looming necessity - served as the mother of all invention, and thusly, Ten'ou
Haruka had thrown on a pair of jeans, a sweater, and her thick winter parka
and started out towards the park to meet with the mentor of the Silver
Millennium princesses.
A black cat.
"In the Silver Millennium, the rulers of every matriarchal kingdom
were endowed with a powerful magic," the cat began, glancing back towards
the blonde. Haruka's expression glowed with an intensity that Luna had
never seen on her face even after knowing her for several millennia. "Each
kingdom's magical trait was different, of course, and triggered by different
passions. They also all differed in the amount of raw power each magic could
control, and we - the diplomats, the scholars, the leaders of Serenity's Lunar
Council of allied planets - learned quickly which planets were stronger than
the others.
"About twenty years before the attack of Metallia and the end of the
Silver Millennium, then, one of the kingdom's queens gave birth to a
daughter." Haruka's slender brows narrowed as the feline said this, and Luna
nodded sagely to the obvious doubt on her companion's face. "She was the
first of the heiresses, actually, a beautiful baby girl with golden-brown hair
and dark, piercing green eyes. Everyone was excited to have the first heiress
arrive, but… There was something strange about this little girl."
The blonde frowned. "Strange?"
Luna nodded slightly, ears lowering as a sudden gust of wind howled
through the trees. "From very early on, she was…different," the cat
explained, her stress on the word "different" causing her quasi-student to
raise an eyebrow. "She was prone to violent temper tantrums, fits of
unexplained rage… Once, she grabbed a rose off a rosebush and squeezed it
so hard that she bled, and even after the blood, she would not let it go. But
still, she seemed to calm down once her baby sister was born, and everyone
assumed that she had just had a troublesome youth."
Another scream of the wind left Haruka running a hand through her
short tresses. One of the princesses of the Silver Millennium - and therefore,
one of the Sailor Senshi - had an older sister? But - "Things changed," Luna
pressed on, cutting into the teen's thoughts, "and, when Serenity's guards
began to work with her - and eventually, the other heiresses, as well - she
became violent. The smallest things would set off her temper and throw her
into a bloody rage. She vandalized the Princess of Mercury's private
bedchambers over a chess game, broke the Princess of Jupiter's ankle,
murdered the two sacred crows - a capital crime on Mars - and… The list
goes on and on." She sighed, shaking her head. "Queen Serenity and the
other queens debated, on and off, about what they could do with this rogue
princess, but every time, the debate ended in deadlock. She really was a
good child, but the magic tore her apart and destroyed that goodness from
the inside out, and by the time everyone realized this…it was too late. When
she killed the crows, it was the straw that broke the camel's back, and the
council agreed to call Sailor Saturn from her long sleep to destroy this rogue
princess."
Haruka's eyes widened in shock, but Luna seemed not to notice. "But
Princess Serenity threw a fit," sighed the feline with a shake of her head,
exasperated even with the Silver Millennium predecessor of her current
charge. "She argued that the princess could not be punished for something
that was beyond her control, and the council decided to seal her magic using
Queen Serenity's power and then exile her from her nation, so she could
start a new life as a normal citizen."
"Serenity could do that?" The blonde's mouth formed a perfect "o" as
the cat nodded a brief response. "I always thought that her magic could only
heal, like Sailor Moon's."
"Serenity was able to do a great number of things," Luna replied
softly. "Actually doing them was a different story." Her orange eyes met
Haruka's carefully, and she sighed again, shaking her head. "The princess,
she…responded badly. The sealing faltered, and her magic flared as she fled
from home, vowing to kill her younger sister, the emerging heiress. She
attacked the palace and it crumbled, injuring her mother severely and very
nearly killing half of the staff. Most of the Lunar Council members were just
grateful that no one was killed."
There was a pause as Luna glanced up and away from her companion,
focusing on the low-hanging gray clouds, heavy with rain water. "We all
thought that would be the end of it," she admitted after a moment's silence,
shrugging her feline shoulders. "But the dreams and the earthquake… I won't
lie to you, Haruka-chan. I believe strongly that this rogue princess has
returned, and Artemis and I are working as hard as we can to figure out how,
and why. But if she is back, she is certainly back for one purpose - to kill her
younger sister."
Haruka swallowed, hard, as the wind howled in the trees, the leaves
and flower buds hissing against each other, an invisible serpent looming over
the duo, waiting until it could strike and suck the life and breath from their
bodies. Her stomach knotted miserably as she prepared herself to ask the
one question that remained after the cat's explanation.
The feline's expression was patient as the blonde finally managed to
voice her last inquiry. "Luna… Who was this princess?"
Luna's orange eyes snapped and clashed with grayish-green, and for
one of the rare moments in her life, the cat found her voice to be completely
without harshness, nagging, or haughty quality.
"She was Princess Carrie," she finally said, her voice almost a whisper,
"older sister of Marcella, and the heiress to the throne of Uranus."
Gray-green eyes dropped to the ground, and the wind screamed
futilely in the trees.
===
The paint on the ceiling, she realized with a small frown, consisted
solely of a map of cracks, with tributaries running into one massive split of
paint where the wall ended. She traced the branches of the river with weary
violet eyes, listening idly to the noise of Setsuna curled up on the other half
of their shared bed, snoring lightly as she slept. Michiru, assuming that the
other three housemates were asleep, had gone out onto the little hotel
balcony to watch the pouring rain. If she had known that the little girl – if
she, at thirteen, could still be called "little" – was still awake, she would be
hovering, obnoxiously making sure that everyone was all right, and that she
didn't have a stomachache, or a headache, or a sore throat…
Tomoe Hotaru rolled onto her side, sighing. Physically, she felt fine. A
bit tired, but fine. The previous few nights had not provided her with much in
the way of sleep, and her body was starting to protest. Still, she was used to
going without much sleep, a product of spending many late nights curled up
with a flashlight, reading until the wee hours arrived and she could hardly
keep her eyes open any longer – or until she got caught, whichever came
first. All things considered, however, she was in great physical health.
Mentally, however, everything was different.
She knew, deep down, that Setsuna hadn't meant to worry her when
they'd spoken about her duties as the Sailor Senshi of Saturn. Destruction,
after all, defined her life, both as a human and as a senshi, and part of her
reason for living was to destroy the world when said world was ready to end.
A heavy burden for an ordinary child, perhaps, but she hardly considered
herself a child. She hardly considered herself ordinary, either.
But hurting someone she loved…? Haruka – her "papa," as she always
called the tall blonde woman – had missed dinner at the hotel's tiny diner to
lay in their room and "think," and nothing any of them could say pulled her
from the strange mood she was in. Even Michiru's attempts to extract her
mate from that moody, introverted shell had failed, a rare occurrence. And
she had overheard Michiru and Setsuna speaking in hushed tones just
outside the bathroom door when she had been bathing earlier that afternoon,
but that did not supply the explanation she so craved. It simply added to the
mystery that seemed to hang over the tiny, cramped hotel room, looming
ominously somewhere in the spaces between their four bodies.
Hotaru pulled the covers closer. She understood Setsuna's bond to the
taboos of her station, and the guidelines that she had to follow. And she
understood that, despite all they had seen, her three guardians did enjoy
pretending that she was simply a normal little junior high student, worried
more about boys and hitting puberty than about things like life, death, and
their duties as senshi. But her instinct, always sharp and well-honed to
situations such as the current one, screamed at her, arguing that something
major was wrong. And her keen observation of the women she lived with,
used to picking up the natural abnormalities in their daily routines, noted
that Haruka, Michiru, and Setsuna sensed that wrongness, as well. But if that
was the case, why would they hide whatever it was from her? Why couldn't
they be honest and let her in on whatever secret loomed overhead?
…especially, she thought to herself as she rolled onto her back a
second time and met the ceiling with a sharp glare, since she was expected
to fulfill her duties as the Sailor Saturn and destroy something…or someone.
The girl was, in fact, so wrapped up in those thoughts – thoughts
about pain, about duty, and about life in general – that she didn't notice the
subtle shaking of the bed, at first. But then, the subtle shaking became a bit
rougher, and she looked around. The chair in the corner trembled, the
television rattled, and through the thin curtains she could see Michiru rise
from the plastic balcony chair and grip the railing, looking out.
Violet eyes widened as the rivers of cracks expanded and multiplied,
raining down on the bed sheets. Hotaru clenched them shut and did the first
– and only – thing that came into her mind.
She screamed.
===
She laughed merrily, flitting through the ballroom with ease, the light
satin straps of her dress caressing her bare back softly as she set her empty
glass on a server's tray and slipped through the crowd, almost wholly
unnoticed. The Lunar Ball this year, she decided as she winked a baby-blue
eye at a nearby young man, was even more fabulous than the last. The
number of guests – and of attractive young men – had nearly doubled from
the year before, and several of the other princesses were actually in
attendance. Her heart raced as she scuttled down the marble staircase, long
hair and orange ribbons fluttering behind her. Certainly, there had to be
some man to sweep her off her feet and win her affections for the evening.
Perhaps a charming Jupiterian or a quiet, aloof Plutoi –
"Belle!" called out a familiar voice in a particularly demanding tone,
and the young princess cringed as she reached the bottom step and noticed
the bearer of said voice plowing through the crowds in her general direction.
Her black velvet dress shimmered in the light from the chandeliers as she
approached with a toothy grin on her tanned face. "You have to help me! I've
found a boy I want you to talk to for me!"
Sighing, the princess tried her hardest not to roll her bright eyes –
such things, her mother was always saying, counted as improper – and
smiled indulgently. "Carrie, you should call the men here 'gentlemen,'" she
corrected in a motherly, supportive tone, "not 'boys.' And why do you need
me to speak to him? I'm sure you can do it all on your own. You're a bright
enough girl." She paused, her eyes meeting the dark green ones of the other
princess, and swallowed. Sometimes, the age difference between the two
seemed unimportant, but with the brunette in that tight, low-cut, dark dress
that left nothing to the imagination, it was suddenly obvious how distant in
age they really were. "A bright enough young woman," she amended,
reminding herself of their dichotomy more than anyone else. "I think you can
speak to your gentleman friend yourself."
"NO!" she protested loudly, and – before the blonde girl could shirk
away, armed with a good excuse and a fast step – the stronger, older teen
caught her wrist in a tight grip and began to pull her across the ballroom,
high heels clamoring loudly. "I want you to do it!"
Within seconds, they stood before a tall, dark-haired man who would
have been surprisingly attractive, were it not for dark eyes that resembled
two gleaming marbles and teeth reminiscent of long, slender white fence
planks. The orange-garbed princess wrinkled her delicate nose. An Earthling.
How…droll.
"Well, fine ladies, how are you two this evening?" he drawled in a
heavy accent, reaching forward to seize one of the blonde's small hands. She
smiled as charmingly as she could muster and considered pulling away, but
decided against it; the dark green eyes of her companion never left her face.
He kissed the back of her hand gently and released it before doing the same
to the other girl's, and she felt some relief; at least he was a well-bred ugly
Earthling. "Tell me, Princess Carrie, who is your beautiful friend?"
Blushing on cue, the blonde glanced at the marble mosaic on the floor
as she listened to the brunette answer it a low tone, "Oh, this is Princess
Belle of Venus, Iohannes. She's a nice girl."
"Aye, she is a very nice girl…" There was the rustling of orange skirts
as she tried to take a long step back from the stranger, shivering as his dark
eyes roamed over her slender form, visually untying the many orange
ribbons that secured her dress. "Tell me, Princess Belle, is it true that
Venusians and Earthlings get along quite fashionably? I have always heard
that this was the case, after all."
She continued to smile, but her eyes darted around, looking quickly for
an escape. Beside her, the older teen glared menacingly, her arms crossed
over her chest. "Yes, well, you know," she answered vaguely, twirling a
strand of soft golden hair around her index finger, "old political treaties die
hard, and all that." Snapping her fingers, she turned to the brooding
brunette. "Carrie, I just remembered! I promised Mother that I would help
greet a visiting dignitary from Mau! I should go off and do that!"
"Yes, you should." The older girl's voice was like ice as she slowly
uncrossed her arms. "Why don't you do that and - "
Iohannes, as he had been called, cut in, and - before she could slide
away or protest - had looped his arm into the sliver of space between her
elbow and the orange fabric of her dress, winking in a manner that she
assumed he thought was sly. "I'll come with you, Princess Belle," he offered,
and she made no pretense in trying to un-lower her blue eyes. "After all,
shouldn't you allow your mother to meet the young man who has become
smitten with you?"
Her mouth opened, gaping, and her tongue began to move and
formulate words, but the damage, now done, wrecked havoc around her as
Carrie moved forward, her hand clenched into a fist and green eyes dark and
angry as -
The tell-tale bleeping of her wrist communicator shrieked in her ear
despite being under her pillow, and blue eyes flew open as Aino Minako
awoke with a violent start. Tired fingers groped helplessly under her pillow as
she managed to catch one quick glance at the clock. One a.m.? Why would
anyone be paging her at one -
"Minako-chan!" Ami's voice - no, make that Sailor Mercury's voice -
was hoarse and breathless, and the sound of high-heels clattering against
pavement echoed behind her. "Michiru just contacted us. There's been an
attack at the hotel. Like the first earthquake, but weaker this time. And no
enemy in sight. But she feels something. We're all doing our best to - "
Mercury's picture disappeared in the tiny view-screen, replaced by that
of an angry Mars, her long hair soaked from the pouring rain. "Minako-chan,
you idiot, you could sleep through World War III! We've been trying your
communicator for the last ten minutes!"
"Mars…" The blue-haired senshi sighed and shook her head, her face
retaking the screen. "Whatever the case, Minako-chan, I'm programming
directions to send to you right now. Please hurry. We're not so sure what's
going on, or how long it'll last."
"Hai." The blonde snapped shut the communicator and hopped to her
feet, reaching almost immediately for the jacket on the back of her desk
chair before stopping, righting herself, and choosing a harmless-looking pink
stick with an iridescent orange marble atop it, instead. The orange ball
glimmered in the sheen that shone through her curtains, the sheen of street
lamps reflecting on wet streets. Her fingertip caressed the smooth surface
softly.
Carrie. Violent, terrible, brown-haired, pushy, stubborn, demanding,
set-in-her-ways, sarcastic Carrie. Other than the violence, the terror, and the
brown hair, the strange princess' mannerisms reminded her of -
Minako shook her head and, after stuffing her crystal wand in her
pocket, grabbed her jacket. No reason to worry about all that. She had work
to do.
===
Rain poured down onto the rooftop of the hotel, the concrete slick as
Sailor Uranus gripped the edge of the building, her knees knocking together
as the surface she stood upon shuddered beneath her feet. Nearby, Sailor
Neptune lost her footing and stumbled, falling unceremoniously onto her
posterior. Setsuna, ever the paragon of non-interference, had rushed off with
Hotaru in tow, insisting that they leave the site of the earthquake sooner,
rather than later. But the building only shook a bit, and only occasionally, far
from the single destructive wave that had swept their neighborhood just a
few days earlier.
But it was more than that. She peered into the darkness beyond the
edge of the roof, her grip tightening on the waist-high barrier around the
rooftop. A name floated in and out of her mind, a name she'd not heard
aloud since her talk with Luna that afternoon, a name that she would have
rather never heard.
Carrie.
The shaking ceased, and the senshi paused to brush a strand of
sodden hair from her face. The sky loomed low overhead, black and heavy,
the thick clouds blotting out the moon and stars that hovered somewhere
beyond. Below, street lamps flickered, barely lighting the high roof of the
seventeen-story hotel. "Neptune!" called the blonde, glancing out of the
corner of her eye and watching her partner clamber to her feet. "Do you feel
it, too?"
Neptune's aqua-tressed head bobbed, and as it did, a low-pitched,
mocking guffaw carried through the darkness. Gray-green eyes met blue and
the nod was repeated, but this time from both halves of the pair. Words were
not needed, not when they each knew exactly what the other was thinking.
Carrie.
"I never thought we would meet in this situation, Marcella," a voice,
deep and strong, exclaimed through the darkness, the building shaking
slightly beneath the duo's feet. "I thought that the earthquake a few days
before would be enough. Seems I underestimated my little sister. Fitting,
no?"
Despite the darkness, a silhouette suddenly dropped onto the edge of
the building on the opposite side of the roof, hands resting on shapely hips.
Two long strands of hair - either pigtails or braids, Sailor Uranus could not
tell which - flapped in a sudden gust of wind, and the tell-tale short skirt of a
Sailor Senshi fuku fluttered. The darkness hid all else, however, and it was
for that reason that the duo of senshi stepped forward.
"Luna said you were figured dead," growled the sandy-haired wind
senshi darkly, her footfalls heavy on the slick rooftop. "You lost your magic
and status as heiress. How can you be back?"
High heels clicked and skirts ruffled as the dark-shrouded figure
launched herself into the air, turning a graceful somersault before landing
only scant inches in front of Sailor Uranus. Dark, gleaming green eyes met
gray-green eyes that sparked with anger, and a black-fingered glove came
up to bop the blonde on the nose. "That, dear sister," grinned the stranger,
"is for me to know and YOU to find out!"
Surprised, Uranus stumbled backwards, and it took the soft and
reassuring touch of Neptune's hand on her back to keep her from losing all
sense of where they were and what was happening. The woman before her
smiled charmingly, flipping a long, tawny brown braid behind her shoulder.
The family resemblance was remarkable. The other senshi's fuku matched
hers almost identically, barring the fact that all the white of Uranus' costume
had been replaced by black. The same slender-but-muscular build touched
both their bodies, and - despite a height difference of several inches - their
physical attributes lined up almost exactly. There was no mistaking it - they
were sisters.
"Stop right there!" The staring contest ended as footfalls clattered
against wet concrete. All three present senshi and the stranger - what had
Luna called her? A rogue? - turned to see a rain-soaked Sailor Moon standing
in the center of the roof, her hands firmly planted on her round hips. "Agent
of love and justice, I am - " She froze, her mouth gaping open. "Carrie?"
Carrie smiled slightly before tossing her hands up in the air. "Look how
popular I am!" she declared, sweeping her arm across the span of the roof
and incorporating all of the other senshi into the gesture in the process. "Not
only does my sister come, but she brings all her friends. Serenity, Hermia,
Enya, Daphne, Belle, and Nerissa!" She shook her head slightly. "It's a
shame that I will have to destroy all of you, instead of just Marcella. I was
really looking forward to sharing my duties as a Sailor Senshi with you all."
Sailor Venus bristled, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. "You
are no senshi!" she declared angrily. "What kind of agent for love and justice
destroys eight blocks of Juuban district just to kill one person! VERY sloppy,
Carrie-san!"
Mars sighed. "Venus…"
"Carrie-san?" A brown eyebrow arched as the braided woman rolled
her eyes. "Please, that's so… Formal. You can all call me the Rogue Senshi
Sailor Uranus." She stifled a little bow, chuckling slightly to herself. "You
know, it really is good to see all you girls, grown up and ready to kill
someone. I'm sorry that I'm going to be the one doing the killing."
"No, you won't!" Sailor Jupiter raised her fists into a battle stance,
readying herself for a hand-to-hand attack. "There are seven of us, and one
of you. How are you going to beat those odds?"
The Rogue Senshi Sailor Uranus chortled slightly, shrugging her
shoulders. "I don't know," she responded in a falsetto tone, looking almost
guilty. "Maybe a bit like…this?"
Before any of the senshi could move in an attempted attack, the
brunette woman had launched herself high into the air, her hands above her
head. "World Shaking!" she announced, allowing the tell-tale power of
Uranus erupt from her body. The roof shuddered violently, concrete cracking
and large chunks of the barrier around its edge chipping away and falling
onto the street below. Uranus grabbed Neptune and threw them both to the
ground and out of harm's way, the rough surface of the roof tearing the skin
from their legs. The blonde swore as she held onto her partner for dear life.
Sailor Moon and her four guardian senshi had scattered, many of them also
thrown to the ground by the raw force of the attack. Rogue Uranus laughed
aloud as she landed atop an intact section of the roof barrier. "How's that for
beating the odds?" she challenged, her hands returning to her hips. "Or do
you want a bit more?"
In a flash, her younger sister was on her feet, summoning her Space
Sword. The blade flashed in the illumination of distant lightning as she
pointed the very tip towards the Rogue Senshi. "Why are you doing this?"
she demanded, her voice booming through the rainy night. "Can't we live in
peace?"
"Peace?" The brunette chortled. "What is peace, Marcella? Is peace
being exiled because you're not going to run around espousing the virtues of
love and justice? Is peace watching your little sister overtake the life you
had? Is peace - "
"But you have a second chance!" Sailor Moon's voice was very nearly a
shriek, and all eyes moved to witness the girl limping towards the smug
rogue senshi. "Carrie-san, you can change the way things were. You can
start over!"
Carrie scoffed and shook her head. "No, Serenity, I can't." The
statement slashed through the soft pattering of the rain, and - glancing up at
the cloudy sky - the stranger sighed. "This is not a matter of changing the
past. The past is over and done with, and my kingdom - like yours - is but a
memory. This is a matter of the bond between sisters… And a sister's
betrayal."
Thunder roared in the distance as, suddenly, Rogue Senshi Sailor
Uranus raised her hands high above her head, the words of her attack
screaming through the quiet night. Her blonde counterpart, caught off guard,
swung the Space Sword in a long loop, her voice booming only seconds after
her adversary's. But it was too late. Her attack made dodging the rogue's
energy impossible, and so she set in, bracing herself for impact.
The impact never came.
Carrie's scream echoed across the rooftops, mingled with another,
higher-pitched, younger scream. A black glove fell to the ground in tattered
shreds as the brunette gripped her arm to her chest. "How DARE you?!" she
cried, her head thrown back. "How DARE you?!"
No one noticed her complaints, however. The Space Sword clattered to
the ground as Uranus' attention turned towards Eternal Sailor Moon, her
body lying motionless over a crack in the rooftop's concrete, her breathing
weak and shallow after having taken the brunt of the attack from the rogue
senshi. Mercury grabbed the blonde's wrist and felt for a pulse, her navy
eyes intent upon her friend's closed eyelids and pale face. "She's badly hurt!"
she declared after a moment, glancing towards the others. "We have to get
her to the hospital!"
Gray-green eyes glanced up and met dark green. Carrie wet her lips,
her already dark fuku growing slowly darker as the water that had soaked
into it was replaced with crimson blood. "I'll let you tend to your leader,
Sailor Uranus," she acquiesced after a moment of silence, ignoring the
surprise that blossomed on her sister's face. "But this is NOT goodbye!"
Uranus watched as the rogue senshi hopped off the edge of the roof
and disappeared, but not before catching a glimpse of something wholly
unexpected.
Bright blue fingernail polish.
===
Her shoes clattered against marble as she raced down the hallway, her
long blonde pigtails trailing behind her as she went. Occasionally, a maid or
other hand servant passed by, surprised and dismayed to see the girl rushing
blindly down the corridor. She didn't care. She remained focused on the task
at hand, throwing open the doors to her mother's private quarters with a
violent force.
The chiefs of her mother's staff glanced up from the table as the girl
burst in, surprised. Surprise registered on her mother's placid face as well,
and it was several seconds later that she regained her composure and set
her face into its normal, fairly impassive expression. "Serenity," she scolded,
folding her hands on the tabletop, "I am in a meeting. Why don't you come
back later, and we can - "
"Hermia just said that the council members decided to summon Saturn
and destroy Carrie!" the girl shrieked, lowering her bright blue eyes in the
direction of her mother. Her mother's expression turned stern and glaring,
and the woman crossed her arms over her chest. "All she did was kill a
couple of lousy birds, Mama! It's hardly fair!"
Queen Serenity of the Moon Kingdom sighed and rolled her eyes.
"Those 'lousy birds' were the sacred pets of Queen Candice," she reminded
her daughter blandly, "and you know very well that killing a crow is a capital
offence." She turned back to the slender stack of reports she had been
pouring over when the girl ran in. "And you know as well as I that this isn't
the first altercation. Just two weeks ago, at the gala, she punched Belle hard
enough to break her nose, and before that - "
"But she's still a PERSON!" The princess' voice carried on in an
impassioned crescendo as she leaned forward, hands splayed out on the
tabletop. "So she did a few bad things! So what? You can't just kill someone
because they sometimes do bad things! Aren't you supposed to stand for
justice, Mama? Aren't you supposed to be fair and just?"
Her mother shook her head. "It's not that simple," she stressed,
shifting her weight uneasily as she realized that all the heads of state stared
at her, eyes dark and heavy. They were almost like a jury, she mused as she
watched her daughter bow her head to hide the tears in her cerulean gaze.
And they stood ready to judge her decisions and convict her.
She moved to brush a single strand of platinum hair from her face.
"Even Queen Zelda - Carrie's own mother - has agreed that the girl is out of
our control," she explained slowly, words forming carefully on her lips. "She
has been for quite some time. This is the only way, Serenity. Sealing her
magic promises nothing. It could fail, and then where would we be? We
would be trapped with an angry and vengeful young woman, and that
eventuality is too much of a risk. Even in a kingdom…that prides itself
for…justice…we…"
Queen Serenity's voice trailed off as her daughter raised her head and
opened her eyelids, blue eyes greeted by the shining of a bright, painfully
white light. Groaning, the reincarnation of that daughter, Tsukino Usagi,
attempted to pull her hand up to shield her eyes, but something caught and
caused her arm to jerk back. A sharp pain shocked her, tingling up and down
her nerves, and she turned weakly to glance down at her hand. A slender
plastic tube ran from the IV that had been shoved into the back of her hand
and into some sort of machine. She frowned. What in the wor -
"Ah, the princess awakes," chuckled a voice, and Usagi shifted in bed,
somehow unsurprised to see Meiou Setsuna standing against the far wall of
the room, her back resting against a rain-splattered window. As hospital
rooms went, this one was particularly sparse, devoid of much more than a
bed, bedside table, and a single plastic chair. A half-opened door in the
corner allowed a peek into an equally tiny bathroom. The only color that
greeted the patient was, in fact, the green and purple cloth of two coats
tossed in the corner, and the pink pajamas, alabaster skin, and dark hair of
one happily-slumbering Tomoe Hotaru. "The doctors predicted that you
wouldn't come around until the morning."
Usagi attempted to sit up, moaning as she realized that every muscle
in her body ached terribly. A quick survey of her slender form revealed that
one of her legs was in a cast, and that her arms - and, she was certain, the
rest of her body - were badly bruised. "Wh-what happened?" she stammered
as her companion poured her a glass of water and offered it forward. "All I
remember was Carrie attacking Haruka, and then - "
"You saved Haruka's life, I don't doubt," smiled the Guardian of Time
gently, moving to settle into the room's single chair. "Minako-chan seems to
think that our Rogue Senshi Sailor Uranus attempted to divert her attack
from hitting you, once you jumped in front of it." She smirked slightly,
leaning back, her arms crossed over her chest. "Not an unexpected
occurrence, of course, but strange enough." The smile faded, however, as
her crimson eyes met blue. "You had a dream, didn't you?"
The blonde frowned and turned away from the adult, glancing down at
her IV-free hand almost guiltily. There was dirt ground into her fingernails,
and as she spoke she picked at it distractedly. "Luna told me that I needed to
tell her about my dreams, but then I didn't have any more until just a few
minutes ago. In it, I was arguing with Queen Serenity about killing Carrie."
She pursed her lips, staring at her hands. "Carrie was a bad person, wasn't
she?"
Setsuna sighed, her blood-red eyes darting about, heavy-lidded. "I
don't know if you would use that terminology, Usagi-chan," she responded
softly, a slight smile touching her pink-painted lips. "Carrie was a victim of
circumstance. The magic she was given was too powerful for the goodness in
her soul, and so she was corrupted by it at a very young age. By the time
her mother and the other rulers of the Silver Millennium realized, it was too
late. She was simply corrupt. It was your pleas that convinced your mother
to simply seal Carrie's power…or at least try to. Obviously, the plan did not
work as well as she hoped." The green-haired woman shrugged slightly.
"Your mother did not realize how powerful the magic was. The only real hope
to stop Carrie lay - "
" - in Saturn." Usagi glanced towards the girl curled in the corner.
Hotaru stirred slightly atop the coats, balled up in fetal position, her thin lips
open only slightly. Sighing, the high school student sunk back into her
pillows. "So that's it?" she questioned softly, blue eyes meeting red across
the space between her and her visitor. "Carrie has to be destroyed?"
"If the Sailor Senshi want to continue living," answered the Time
Guardian with a short nod, "then yes, she does."
Her younger companion turned away and said nothing more.
===
She swung idly on the wooden swing that overlooked the pond, her
long waves of hair swept back by the breeze. The water spread out before
her, tickled into producing miniscule waves. Blue eyes watched them idly,
her mind trying desperately to ignore the words she knew her ears heard.
But in the end, it was no use; she processed and understood every last
syllable.
"We cannot allow her to feed on fantasies that she's our equal," her
companion was stressing, her long hair braided behind her back. Unlike the
swinging teen, who wore a light lavender sun dress, she was dressed in a
simple pair of navy knickers and a gold blouse, the royal colors of her
kingdom. "She is a princess, certainly, but she is no more an heiress or a
senshi than Belle's younger sisters are." She reached forward, grabbing the
rough rope that supported the swing and tugging it to a halt. "Cultivating a
friendship with her gives her the impression that she rests on the same level
as the other heiresses, and that just isn't true."
Sighing, she flicked at the dirt beneath the swing with the toe of her
shoe. "So you have said," she replied quietly, her face a mask of solemn
contemplation. "But… Your sister is a very pleasant girl, Carrie, and I have
grown quite fond of her. Doesn't the idea of cordoning her off because she's
a second-born daughter strike you as unfair? Wouldn't you want to have a
friend if you were the younger sister?"
Blue eyes registered, vaguely, the sight of the brunette's grip
tightening. "No, I would not, Nerissa," she responded coolly, her voice
deepening. The other princess sighed, used to the flinty sound. "If I were the
younger sister, I would realize that it was not my station to befriend the
other princesses, and I would move on. I would not weasel my way into a
friendship with one of the others." The younger teen felt her cheeks redden,
and the green eyes that stared so intently in her direction lowered slightly.
"That is all you have with my sister, isn't it? A friendship?"
"It's a close friendship," she smiled, her voice cautious as she slid off
the edge of the swing and made her way to the water, the breeze nearly
turning up her shin-length dress. She caught it with a hand, waiting until it
died down to bend over and slide off her shoes. "Which is why I don't think
it's fair if you deny her that small joy." Slowly, she waded into the relatively
calm water until her ankles were submerged. "I mean, would you like it if
you found someone you cared deeply about - " Her blush deepened. " - and
then were told you couldn't be near her because your 'station' was different?"
"Your feelings for Marcella - and her feelings in return - are
unimportant." Nerissa turned to face the other princess, but not before Carrie
had grabbed her wrist, hard, and twisted it. A yelp of pain earned no
sympathy. "You cannot encourage this behavior, Nerissa. It's your duty."
Blue eyes, normally placid and clear, flickered darkly, lowering.
"Unhand me, Carrie," she demanded, her voice lowering dangerously. "I'm
standing in a pond, and, rest assured, I can control this water just as well as
I do that of any sea. And, now that I think of it, I am out of practice…"
The hand around her wrist loosened and then altogether disappeared,
and green eyes met blue in a spark of internalized, violent resentment. "I
won't forget this," spat the brunette darkly.
"That's alright," responded her companion, "because neither will I."
And then, Kaioh Michiru woke up.
Blue eyes blinked weakly as, slowly, she sat up, her muscles
protesting all the way. Her injuries from the night before had been minute - a
scratch here, a bruise there, and a long strip of skin lost to the broken
concrete from when Haruka had thrown them both to the ground - but they
still ached. She sighed as she slid out of the bed, padding across the empty
hotel room with cautious feet. The lower levels of the building were still safe,
it had been decided, and so the residents of the first through third floors
were allowed to stay. This included the quartet of outer planet senshi, though
Setsuna and Hotaru had spent most of the time after the battle in the
hospital with Usagi. A guilt-ridden Haruka had spent the rest of the night on
the edge of the bed under the guise of sleeping, but her better half was
certain that she hadn't slept at all.
Haruka. Michiru sighed as her eyes made contact with a note on hotel
stationary, taped hastily to the room's television set. There, in blue pen, was
scrawled only a single sentence: "Gone to get Usagi's chemistry homework."
She frowned, brow furrowing. Chemistry homework? Why did she have
a feeling that the note meant something more than that?
Sighing, she shook her head. "Be careful, baka," she muttered to
herself. "For the love of Kami-sama… Be careful."
===
The long, white-painted, white-tiled corridors of Juuban High School
were devoid of all life by the time she arrived in the late afternoon, the
heeled boots she always wore when driving her motorcycle clomping loudly
against the floor. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she should
have paused briefly at her locker, switching her shoes for her in-school
slippers, but that practicality didn't matter. Nothing mattered, anymore.
Chemistry, room 7b. She stopped in front of the half-opened door, her
gray-green eyes lowering to slits as she stared through the gap. There,
hunched over her grade book, sat the teacher, her long legs crossed under
the desk, her honey-brown hair braided into a long snake that hung over her
shoulder and down the front of her crisp white blouse. She gripped a pencil
tightly in her left hand, writing slowly and carefully, her face a mask of
concentration.
Her other hand, wrapped tightly in bandages, rested atop her desk.
Straightening her spine and forcing a pleasant, if somewhat tense
smile, Haruka rapped lightly on the door before sliding it open. The teacher
glanced up, her dark green eyes widening as she blonde stepped through the
doorway, her hands buried in the pockets of her battered leather coat, hiding
the fist that was protectively clenched around her crystal transformation
stick. "Yashi Sei?" she questioned cheerily, tossing her head of short hair.
"Are you Yashi-sensei?"
Sei set her pencil down on the desk carefully, flipping shut her grade
book. Her expression was absolutely emotionless, her lips drawn into a thin
line. "Hai? May I help you?"
"I'm a good friend of Tsukino Usagi," Haruka explained, her eyes
darting to the bandages on the woman's hand. Sure enough, the bloodstain
on them was fresh, clashing terribly with the sparkle of bright blue nail
polish. "She had a bit of an accident, and I was sent to pick up her school
work."
"Is Tsukino-san alright?" The question, eager and hopeful, rang
through the empty room. Through the open windows, the blonde could hear
the yells of the American football team practicing their plays for an upcoming
game, but her attention was narrowly focused on the brunette chemistry
teacher. The teacher must have sensed this and moved to self-consciously
tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "She's a very cheery girl. It would
be a shame if she was seriously injured." Her voice, surprisingly enough, was
absolutely sincere. "Is everything alright?"
The younger woman – barely a teen, but she carried herself as though
she was much, much older – shrugged slightly, nodding. "She'll be alright,
we think," she replied casually. "It was an accident, is all." Gray-green eyes
flashed as she glanced at the bandaged hand that Sei had clasped to her
chest. "But what about you? Chemistry accident?"
Pale cheeks flushed slightly, and the brunette averted her eyes. "You
could say that," she returned coolly, the response almost glib. "An accident
of my own, really." Her gaze rose slowly, dark, and her lips fell, straightening
into a line. "I should have killed the brat with the sword."
Their eyes locked, and Haruka felt the anger boiling up from the pit of
her stomach. Her hand shook as she tightened her grip around her wand.
"And I'm sorry I missed ripping that black heart of yours in two," she spat,
her tone low. A first-year student went jetting down the hallway, in a rush to
make it home after some club meeting or, more likely, detention. "Let's not
play games, Carrie."
"You're right, Marcella. We shouldn't." A charming smile crossed Yashi
Sei's face as she plopped down in her desk chair, leaning back in it, a queen
comfortable as she loomed over her subjects. Her dark eyes roamed the
blonde's body, studying her, appraising every curve with scrutiny. "So this is
your reincarnated form, is it? Very nice…" She nodded, a finger resting on
her chin. "I would have expected you to be a little less busty, though. You
were absolutely flat when last I saw you. Of course, you were thirteen,
then…"
Haruka's eyes lowered further, and the hairs on the back of her neck
rose to stand on edge. "Cut the crap, Carrie. I don't need your approval."
She pulled her hands from her pockets and pushed her jacket away, moving
to rest her hands on her hips. "Have you known about me all along, or did it
take me coming in here to make you realize who I was?"
Smirking, the teacher crossed her long legs at the knee. "I've known
about all of you for a long time," she countered evenly, her tone smooth and
nonchalant. "Maybe your schoolmates and the media can't recognize you
girls, but seeing each of you was like looking at photographs of the past.
You're the same as you always were." She chortled softly. "Slightly older,
and maybe a bit taller than I remembered you, but you're all still the same."
Her lips twisted into a dark-lipped, vile grin. "And just as pathetic as you
were a thousand years ago."
"We're not the pathetic ones, Carrie." Somehow, Haruka managed to
keep her temper to a minimum, her heart throbbing in her chest as she
leaned forward, splaying out her fingers as she slammed her hands into the
desk. "You destroyed part of the city and nearly killed the leader of the Sailor
Senshi, all because you're still upset about something that happened in a
past life."
"All because my sister stole my identity." The brunette was on her
feet, now, her dark eyes glowering and hands balled into fists on either side
of her body. "It's not them I'm after, Marcella. It's YOU."
"Then take me." Haruka stepped back, throwing up her hands.
"Tomorrow night. The roof of this very building. Sunset. Just me and you."
She tossed her head smugly. "May the best senshi win."
Carrie smirked. "I hope you have a decent life insurance policy, then,
Ten'ou Haruka," she replied, watching as the blonde turned on her heel and
stomped towards the door. "And I hope your pathetic little lover girl – what's
her mortal name again? Kaioh Michiru? – doesn't cry too hard when she finds
out you're dead."
The blonde froze in the doorway, glancing over her shoulder with a
sharp gaze. "I'd say something similar to you, but that would require you
participating in human interaction." She turned back to the hallway. "Good
day, Yashi-sensei."
The door to room 7b slammed hard behind her.
===
She struggled, hapless, up the stairs towards the apartment she'd only
visited once, the crutches more a hindrance than an aid as she hobbled up
the steps. The cast that ran from her foot to her knee thumped against the
carpet with every miscalculated motion, sending a sharp pain coursing
through her body. Tears stung her eyes, and her teeth found her lip, biting it
as a distraction. Pain was nothing when she had a bigger mission.
She hadn't been surprised when Haruka had shown up at her hospital
room that afternoon, laden with all her school books sans one – chemistry.
The missing textbook was curious, and she'd listened as her friend dodged
mentioning the new teacher, chattering on instead about how polite her
English and Japanese instructors had been.
The question came finally - "What about Yashi-sensei?" she'd inquired,
the books piled in her lap - and the answer, somehow, surprised her no more
than the afternoon visit.
"Stay away from her, Usagi-chan. Don't ask me why – just do it."
Haruka had paused, eyes dark, face set into a frown like a stone statue. "I'm
dealing with her."
Tsukino Usagi paused when she reached the top of the steps, leaning
heavily on her crutches in a vain attempt to catch her breath. Her heart
pounded in her chest, and not from over-exertion. It pounded in fear.
Everything finally made sense. It had made sense before the doctor
had released her that afternoon. From the moment Haruka left, the door
closing heavily behind her, everything made perfect, crystal-clear sense.
The familiarity of the teacher's face, the little mannerisms that sparked
some sort of recognition, her obsession with the earthquake, her bright blue
fingernail polish. It all made sense.
Yashi Sei's doorbell buzzed loudly enough that Usagi could hear it in
the hallway, just as she had a few nights before. The draperies of the large
window at the hall's end had been pulled away, revealing a dark city and
shining white stars. The moon, however, had passed into the shadow of the
planet it circled and was hidden from view. The blonde teen could feel its
presence, its nonexistent light warming her cheeks as her blue eyes drifted
towards where the satellite loomed, a dark circle against the sky. Somehow,
the missing moon emptied her heart of all hope, leaving her lonely and
abandoned in the empty hallway.
"The New Moon phase," quoted a voice, and Usagi started as she
whipped her head around, long ponytails circling through the air. In the
doorway, leaning on the wooden frame, stood her teacher. Her appearance,
as always, was immaculate, her jeans and t-shirt wholly unwrinkled and her
long braid completely in place. She smiled slightly, shrugging. "Do you feel
weaker with the moon hidden in shadow, Serenity?"
The girl's mouth dried immediately, her lips pursing softly. "You
knew," she murmured, staring at the woman. "You knew, this whole time…"
Sei smiled slightly. "And you've known for a bit, too, now haven't
you?" she questioned quietly, a certain gentleness to her tone. "You can't tell
me you didn't have your suspicions. I saw the way you looked at me when I
knew that 'legend' of ours."
"But I never actually thought…" She shook her head slightly, sighing.
"So that's it, then. We're enemies. You're the Rogue Senshi, and I'm - "
"You're not my enemy, Tsukino-san," chuckled the teacher. "Marcella
– your friend Ten'ou Haruka – she's the enemy. She always has been." She
paused for a moment, considering the wide blue eyes on the girl's face, eyes
shining with both raw curiosity…and with fear. "I thought, of all the girls, you
understood. Back then… I thought you understood what was going on, who I
was, what it all meant. But now… Now, I'm no longer so sure."
Usagi's hands trembled, the crutches shaking against the soft skin of
her inner arms, the knee of her uninjured leg wobbling dangerously. "We can
still fix this, Carrie!" she exclaimed suddenly, her pigtails floating as she
tossed her head, frustrated. "We can make it right! You can lead a normal
life, befriend the Sailor Senshi, and then - "
"You were always so naïve, Serenity." Sei's voice sliced through her
student's plea, a knife flashing in the dark of night, splitting her heart in two.
"I think that's what I liked most about you, what drew me to you. You were
so sweet, always thinking that things could end up perfect. But you see, they
can't." She sighed, leaning heavily against the doorjamb, her eyes glancing
away, down the hallway and out the uncovered window. "There will always
be evil in the world, and there will always be death. You can't help that. And
there will always be shades of gray."
Sei straightened her spine, standing tall and gesturing to herself with a
grand wave of hands. "I am the shade of gray, Tsukino Usagi. If you kill me,
you'll be killing your teacher and friend. But if you don't kill me, you run the
risk of seeing Ten'ou Haruka die by my hand."
The girl turned away. "Not that simple, is it?" A bandaged hand moved
towards a doorknob, and Sei took a long step back. "No. It's never that
simple."
Usagi's tears began to hit the carpeting as the lock on the door clicked
shut.
===
Tomoe Hotaru was looking out the window. The clear night was quiet,
serene, with the silver stars glimmering in the distance, a cold, distant light.
The two double beds were ominously empty – her "papa" and one "mother"
had gone out together to fetch some sort of dinner for their makeshift family
– and the room was comprised mostly of shadows, save for the gentle glow
of a single floor lamp.
"I read a play once," she informed the woman in the armchair, her
breath leaving fog on the glass door as she spoke. "In it, the grandmother
tells a story of a little girl who's all alone. She goes to the moon to search for
someone, but she finds out that it's just a piece of rotten wood. So she
decides to go to the sun, but she finds out that it's just a wilted sunflower.
And then she goes to the stars, and sees that they're just dead fireflies
impaled on thorns." She sighed. "Nights like this make the stars really look
like dead fireflies, you know."
A newspaper rustled. "Depressing play," commented the woman
behind it.
"It was German," Hotaru responded with a shrug, tracing her finger
through the fog from her breath. "German plays are often really depressing."
She could sense the woman nodding.
"You know," she continued, wiping away the kana she'd scribbled on
the glass, "I decided something today."
A pair of garnet eyes glistened in the dark as the woman lowered her
paper. "Hmm?"
"I think… I think it's best that I don't have memories from that time."
The girl pressed her nose to the cool glass, glancing up at the sky with large
purple eyes. "I don't know if I'd want to have the dreams you all have. I
think I like the fact that, as morbid as my existence was, I don't have to live
with the memories of it… You know?"
Red eyes disappeared behind the newspaper. "I know."
===
She ran.
The leaves crunched under her feet and the wind blew back her
ponytail as she rounded the bend, the sun bright in her eyes. Their makeshift
track ran through the forests behind Queen Serenity's sprawling palace
grounds, a path beaten down by the footfalls of the two long-time runners'
daily workouts. She hissed in a breath through gritted teeth and pushed
herself harder. Less than a mile to go and she would have won. Less than a
mile to go…
It wasn't often that the two princesses – one a teen, the other a young
woman – raced together down the running path they had both cultivated.
The older princess, a long-haired brunette, was proud and self-assured, and
it intimidated her younger counterpart. So instead of running together, they
ran apart, each certain of themselves but not of themselves when each
paired with the other.
But she'd been approached by the older athlete just as she'd arrived at
the beginning of the forest path, and the competitive, daring glimmer in the
green eyes had been too much for her to successfully refuse. Her challenger
had even given her a minute's lead, but – as the end of the makeshift course
came closer and closer and the footfalls behind her grew louder – the teen
was certain she would lose.
Still, she rushed forward. The sun gleamed on her face, blinding her
temporarily. A voice echoed from somewhere or another as she raised her
hand to her eyes, trying to block out the light and regain some semblance of
vision, but it was too late.
The call of "World Shaking" repeated in her mind as the ground in
front of her shook and split and her foot caught. Pain shot up her leg, pain
followed closely by a resounding cracking sound, and she landed hard on her
elbow and side, yelping.
Tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she attempted to wrench her
foot free of the small crevasse she'd stepped into, but it was no use; every
motion caused another bolt of pain to shudder through her leg, doubling the
tears in her eyes. A shadow passed over her as she tried one last, futile time
to free her foot from the hole, and she glanced up, her emerald eyes
lowering challengingly up at her adversary. "You did this, Carrie!" she
accused, propping herself up on a hand. "You tripped me on purpose!"
Crouching down, Carrie smiled a vile, cocky smile and reached forward
to brush away some of the teen's tears. The girl jerked her head and turned
away, and Carrie's smile turned to a frown. "Why, Daphne, I was only trying
to help you, just now," she informed her coolly, rising again to her full
height. "I guess you don't want me to help you back to the palace, then,
either."
Daphne tossed her ponytail. "I would rather die here," she hissed up at
the older woman, "than accept - "
Kino Makoto awoke with a start to the sound of a hard, furious
pounding. Blinking, she glanced warily at the clock hanging on the wall of her
living room and groaned. 5:30 p.m. The drool spot on her calculus lesson
proved her suspicions - she'd fallen asleep while trying to finish her
homework.
The pounding resumed and she groaned, standing slowly and easing
her popping joints. "Hai, hai," she called, pausing in her stretching to glance
out the balcony doors at the blood-red setting sun. The dream had been so
vivid that she could nearly feel the pain of her broken ankle coursing up her
nerves, even now that she was awake. Carrie… The previous incarnation of
the mysterious Rogue Senshi U –
"Mako-chan!" Her door flew open suddenly and Minako burst into the
apartment, her hands on her hips and a rather tense expression her face.
The brunette frowned, staring at her long-time friend and sincerely hoping
that she hadn't broken the latch. "What are you DOING? There's a fight going
on!"
Makoto frowned, pursing her pink lips thoughtfully. "A fight?" she
questioned, reaching into her school uniform pocket to check for the familiar
trapping of her station: her crystal wand. "What kind of fight?"
"I don't know," the blonde admitted quickly, "but Luna said I should
fetch all of us and meet at the roof of the school. I think…"
Her voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible even across the small
apartment.
"I think it's Carrie."
===
The blood-red sun that Makoto had observed outside her apartment
window bled across the sky, leaving ruddy clouds against a crimson sky as
the two women stood across from one another on the rooftop of Juuban
District High School, their eyes locked in a glaring gaze that could most likely
have killed any lesser person. A gust of springtime wind tossed their skirts
and hair, but the staring contest pressed on.
"We could end this now, you know, Marcella," smiled the shorter of the
two with a toss of her long braids. Her powerful hands rested on her shapely
hips, black gloves against a navy-blue skirt. "I'm not asking for much – just
your life and title. And really, what is a murder between sisters, my dear?"
She paused for a moment, smiling slightly. "Really, it's not even murder. It's
an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…"
The taller of the two lowered her gray-green eyes and swallowed,
hard, her fists clenching tightly at her sides as she looked her enemy – and
older sister – in the face. "You've killed people now, Carrie," she replied
smoothly, her voice icy. "Had you come to me, before all this… Maybe we
could have made some arrangement, but not now." Tears bit her eyes as she
remembered the blood that dirtied her own hands, blood she'd fought to
wash off for years… Blood she knew would never wash off, no matter how
much soap and water she scrubbed her skin with. "Innocent people died in
your little game, and I can't forgive that."
The words flowed more freely now as she flicked one of her legs in
front of her and took her familiar battle-ready stance, fists loosening at her
sides. "Invited by a new age, I am the magnificent Sailor Uranus, acting
beautifully!"
Her sister smirked and mimicked her motions flawlessly, her long
braids bouncing. "Invited by the past, I am the magnificent Rogue Senshi
Sailor Uranus," she retorted coolly, "acting revengefully."
Had anyone beyond the Gods themselves been watching, they
wouldn't have been able to discern which of the two battle-hardened soldiers
took the prerogative and began the ancient dance of war and death. Some
would have argued it was the rogue senshi's initial scream of "World
Shaking" that began their fight; others would have contended that her
younger counterpart had moved long before that, dashing forward and
striking with a clenched fist. Either way, they flitted across the rooftop with
skill if not with ease, catching jaws and shoulders with jabbing punches or
well-placed kicks and splitting the concrete rooftop with magical attacks gone
awry.
Neither combatant ever glanced away from the other long enough to
notice a congregation of teenaged girls gathering in the doorway to the
rooftop, though it was doubtful either would have halted for the sake of their
presence, anyway. Sailor Uranus tripped on a crack in the roof and fell,
rolling away only soon enough to miss a nigh-fatal magical attack; the Rogue
Uranus stumbled after a particularly strong punch and regained her balance
only milliseconds before a kick to the chin would have knocked her from the
edge of the building.
"STOP IT!" The cry cut through the ever-darkening afternoon like a
siren, and both senshi froze at the sound, whirling on their heels and
noticing, for the first time, their hodgepodge audience. The crowd members,
however, had turned their backs and were struggling with something – or
someone – muttering in low tones. The struggle lasted only briefly before the
grouping broke apart and a teen burst forth from the middle of the
congregation, nearly tripping and caught only by her crutches. Blonde hair
shone golden in the setting sun as she rushed forward shakily, her voice
crackling as she cried out "Stop!" again and again, her cry echoing through
the quiet afternoon.
Sailor Uranus frowned and glanced warily at the other soldier, whose
green eyes had widened in confusion and surprise. "Odango, get out of
here," she muttered, glancing quickly towards the others gathered in the
doorway; Minako held Rei tightly around the shoulders, holding her back
from rushing in after the hobbling, helpless Usagi. "This isn't your place, and
- "
"I'm your princess!" she shot back, blue eyes glimmering with tears as
she came to stand in the tiny space between the two sisters. "Listen to me,
and stop it! Neither of you needs to DIE! You can both live if you want to!"
The teen who had once been called Princess Marcella glanced at her
sister and Carrie looked away, hanging her head. "Serenity, I cannot do
that," she replied softly, her voice soft and considerate. "I am the rightful
heiress to the throne of Uranus, and I want to take my place amongst your
court." She glanced at the trembling blonde girl, her eyes bright. "I would
have thought that you, of all people, would have understood how long I have
waited… How badly I have wanted this…"
Her fists clenched and she jerked her head towards the skies, her long
braids hanging behind her. "I am Princess Carrie of the Kingdom of Uranus,
and nothing – NOTHING – will stand in my way of taking my rightful place on
the throne." Green eyes turned cold, gleaming black in the ever-approaching
darkness. "Not even the beloved Princess Serenity."
Silver flashed in the dying sunlight and a dagger rose high above
Usagi's head, a spark of light in the twilight darkness. The blonde girl
screamed and attempted to step back on her injured leg, stumbling blindly
and only barely managing to catch herself on her crutches. She hung limply
from them, a rag doll on a clothesline, pained from her old injury and
helpless to stop the knife headed towards her chest… The dagger that would
bring her death…
A dagger that never struck home.
Usagi and Sailor Uranus landed together in a heap on the concrete,
Carrie's dagger buried deep into the taller teen's side. She coughed as she
rolled off her princess, staring up at the blue-black sky and at the pair of
gleaming green eyes above her. They were wide, filled with confusion and
shock, eyes of one who had imagined every possible outcome except that
which had come to pass.
Cries of "Haruka!" and "Usagi!" echoed across the rooftop as the
observers became active participants, rushing to gather around their friends.
The heiress to the throne of Uranus had no interest in her fellow soldiers or
even her girlfriend as she watched Carrie slowly drop to her knees, her hands
falling limply at her side. "Why?" she questioned softly, green eyes never
moving from her sister's pallid face. "Why did you save her?"
"The one thing you never understood, Carrie, was how to really love,"
she croaked, wincing as Michiru gently probed her injury; she knew
instinctively that the normal post-battle home remedy would not suffice for
such a serious wound, but she hoped Michiru would hold off calling an
ambulance for at least a short while. "Power… Influence… A throne… Do they
matter if you have no one you can care about? Nothing you can come to?
You have never even tried, Carrie, to love; you have only tried to live, live
for these things that will never matter, to battle and fight for myths instead
of reality. Any man can find a cause to live for – the real challenge is finding
one you're prepared to die for."
The brunette swallowed and glanced at the rooftop, and Uranus could
see a few small tears – foreign to the older sister she knew only from vague
memories – slip down the rogue senshi's cheeks. "I never meant to…" She
glanced at Usagi, who was now weakly sitting up and watching the
proceedings with careful blue eyes. "Serenity, I'm sorry." She glanced around
at the group, registering faces she'd known for years and yet never come to
really understand, the faces of girls who would have, once, been friends. "I'm
very…very sorry…"
"There is no apology that will atone for your sins, Princess Carrie of
Uranus." A new voice, one imbued with eons of ageless power and
confidence, spoke now, and the congregation of senshi turned to glance up at
two dark silhouettes against the evening sky; Sailor Saturn and Sailor Pluto
flickered into view only as the rooftop lights of Juuban High School flared on,
and even then, they were half-hidden in shadow. Saturn stepped from the
rooftop ledge with a practiced grace and dignity, her glaive lulling against her
shoulder as she drew near to the group of teens who had once, in their own
rights, been princesses. "You evaded death a thousand years ago, but no
longer. Tonight, you have reached the end of your path." She glanced at
Usagi and frowned; the odango-headed teen stared at her as though she was
a forbidden dragon, a creature of myth and legend, and the senshi knew that
her friend was right; Tomoe Hotaru meant nothing in this world, the world of
Sailor Saturn…and of death. "Do you have any last words to impart upon
your compatriots, Carrie?"
Carrie's gaze was fearless and even as she glanced up at the Soldier of
Death and Rebirth and towards the others, her red lips pursing together as
she considered her final sentiments.
"I would have liked to befriend all of you," she decided, nodding
slightly. Her gaze met her sister's, and she smiled away guilty tears, reaching
down to squeeze a hand she had never held in the past…and would never
hold again. "Especially you, sister."
Sailor Uranus glanced away, her eyes welling with tears. Her thoughts
floated away on a cloud of grief, grief she would have never expected to
experience. Her mind teetered on the boundary of consciousness, slipping to
and fro, uncertain which way to fall…
The whispered hiss of "Death Reborn Revolution" touched her ears,
and suddenly, her world went back.
===
Ten'ou Haruka stood under a sakura tree two days later, the familiar
scent of spring flowers light in her nostrils as she leaned against the bark,
staring out across the school's sports field and into the bright blue sky
beyond. The knife wound in her side had been deep but not serious, and a
handful of stitches combined with a good night's sleep had left it as only a
nagging pain that itched, occasionally. Setsuna, for all her antisocial
tendencies, had used one of her endless contacts to find them a relatively
affordable apartment only a few miles from the high school, and she planned
to take both Michiru and Hotaru out to shop for new furniture that afternoon.
The blonde, however, had declined the invitation, citing her injury as the
cause. Both of her adult housemates knew this was not the case, but neither
complained; they really couldn't blame her, after all.
So Haruka leaned against the sakura tree, the sun warm against her
face as she watched the sky during her lunch hour, studying the contours of
a few white clouds and enjoying the pleasant breeze against her back. There
was a peace about the spring that she had never truly understood until
recently, a quiet repose that came only when the sun was high and a cool
wind tossed the cherry blossoms just right.
"I was thinking a bit, you know," commented the girl that she knew
stood on the other side of the tree, her back also against the bark, her
crutches stretched on the grass at her feet as she gazed up at the sunlight as
it trickled down through the branches and onto her pale face. "And I came to
a conclusion."
Her companion frowned slightly before answering. "And what's that?"
The voice of Tsukino Usagi caroled through the early afternoon. "Deep
down… Under all the bad stuff that happened… She was a very good person."
She paused, considering, as a breeze hissed through the blossoms above
them and scattered petals on the air. "I just thought you should know that."
Smiling slightly, the heiress to the throne of Uranus smiled slightly,
her gray-green eyes greeted with the familiar sting of tears. "I know, Usagi-
chan," she replied with a nod she realized her friend couldn't see. "I know."
Sakura petals floated on the wind, passengers on a one-way journey
to mysterious locales unknown, places that perhaps existed only in
dreams…or somewhere in the spaces between dreams, memory, and reality.
===
Fin.
Author's Notes: In working on a future Silver Millennium fanfiction of mine
(which will not debut for a long while, before you start drooling), I considered
what would have happened if there was ever a Sailor Senshi who was simply
not a good person. What if the Sailor Senshi was a bad, evil senshi? How
would they cope? And who would take their place, since there has to be one
senshi for every planet?
Sei was originally going to be Sailor Mars' sister, but there was something
about Uranus that worked better. And it allowed me to use Haruka as a main
character, something I love doing.
I realize this destroys a good portion of canon, and rest assured it will not
play a part in my eventual SilMil fic. At least, not too big a part.
Thanks to Yume and May for going through this mess with a fine-toothed
comb… This is a MASSIVE fanfic to read through.
June 17, 2004
9:54 p.m.
She could still remember that evening in the courtyards, the stars just
barely visible in the river-blue sky, silver specks of glitter tossed out across
the firmament, twinkling and sweet. Through the pale, off-white satin of her
night attire, her mother's pregnant belly swelled, full and round as the blue
globe that was just beginning to peak above the horizon. She ran up ahead,
twin braids bouncing as her slippers scuffed against the cobblestone
pathways, her youthful excitement as strong as her precocious, stubborn will.
"Yes, Carrie?"
"Momma, when are you gonna have the baby, huh?"
She heard her mother chuckle, but only a bit; she was almost too far
ahead to hear the woman's soft-spoken voice, but it echoed on the breeze
and floated into the girl's ears without too much effort. "Soon, now. A week,
perhaps two." Her mother paused for a moment before speaking again. "Tell
me, Carrie, would you like a brother, or a sister?"
She froze in mid-step, considering this question carefully and with
wide dark green eyes. Hadn't her tutor said that all the new babies born by
all the queens were going to be girls? She had thought that he had said that,
but now, she couldn't be sure…
"A brother," she decided with a stern, confident nod, whirling about to
face the adult. "I want a baby brother."
"I thought you would." The conversation halted and their walk
continued, but her mother was no longer touched with the same, lightly-
amused smile as she had been before. It was as she began to skip that she
heard another question from her mother, this one a bit more urgent than
before. "And what if you have a sister?"
She never missed a beat; her skipping turned to hops and jumps as
she played hopscotch across invisible borders marking the cobblestone.
"Then I won't like her at all."
"What if she wants to play with you, though?"
She twirled as the question reached her ears, just so she could see her
shadow - an exact replica of herself - dance in the setting sunshine and rising
Earthshine. "I won't let her play with me. Ever."
"What if she wants you to help her with something?"
She pulled a bright red bud from a nearby flowering bush, noticing
only too late that the bush was of roses and her flower had thorns. "Then
she'll do it on her own."
Her mother's eyes were wide with fear and surprise as the child turned
to face her, a dark gleam to her usually bright, happy façade. "And you know
what else, Momma?" she questioned, unbothered by the blood dripping from
her clenched fist and by the pain from the thorns. "If she bothers me too
much - "
The drops of blood splashed, ignored, onto the cobblestones below.
" - I'll kill her."
===================
"The Other Side"
A Sailor Moon Fanfiction
Written by Kate "SuperKate" Butler )
===================
"The first day of school is always so boring," whined Tsukino Usagi
rather loudly, fidgeting in her chair as she spoke. "These stupid introductory
speeches just make it go so much longer."
Cherry blossoms rained from the bright blue spring sky on that fine
April morning as Tsukino Usagi complained, appearing almost as pink velvet
teardrops from heaven itself. The students of Juuban District High School -
new and old, from first-years to third-years - milled around outside in
expectation for the initial ceremonies of their new school year to begin,
chatting with friends and lamenting the graduation of the previous years'
students. Usagi and her friends, however, had arrived earlier than normal to
stake out a cluster of six chairs in the back rows, so they could commiserate
through the long introduction ceremonies, rather than be forced to suffer
separately.
"They're meant to get students in the state of mind for a year of
study, Usagi-chan," Mizuno Ami reminded her patiently as she tucked a
bookmark into the text she had been reading and slid it back into her school
bag. "Even if they're long, they're with good intentions."
"Doesn't make them any less boring," argued Aino Minako with a
dramatic and overdone wag of her finger. "Isn't there a saying that goes 'The
road to Kyoto is paved with good intentions'?"
Kino Makoto rolled her green eyes as the other two second-years
stifled a giggle. "That's 'the road to Hell,' Minako-chan."
"Saa, I knew that."
Their laughter echoed merrily into the distance as Minako tried
desperately to force her bright blush to fade, and as her cheeks returned to
their normal color, a hush fell over the group. It was unexpected but yet also
somehow very appropriate, the silence of anticipation and expectation that
came with the beginning of the new school year. Their first year had ended
with a bang, filled with both pain and contemplation, and - with the
departure of the Three Lights and the end of their double lives as Pretty
Soldiers - that set of finals had signaled the end to more than just the school
year. An era had ended, and now they were settled comfortably in the
normality that had been the last three weeks, waiting for their second year of
high school - and the rest of their lives - to begin.
"Tell me, Odango, is there a reason your school bag is taking up its
own seat?" Four pairs of eyes glanced up to see Ten'ou Haruka, third-year
student and avid tease, hovering at the end of the aisle, her hands on her
slender hips. Usagi grinned gleefully and tugged her bag away, allowing the
tomboy access to one of the two empty seats that they had reserved. Haruka
leaned comfortably back into the folding metal chair and looped her arm
loosely around the younger girl, hugging her. "Nice day for some boring
speeches, eh?"
"Where's Michiru-san?" came the obvious question from the blue-
haired girl in the row ahead, her eyes focused on Haruka as the two friends
sitting with her craned their necks in search of the aqua-haired musician. "Is
she coming to school today?"
Haruka snorted. "Coming? She's more than coming; she's giving a
miniature recital to the first-year students after opening ceremonies are
over. She's practicing right now." Despite the edge to her tone, it was
obvious the blonde was simply playing, and the smile that touched her lips
proved this. "It's a bit boring," she admitted after a moment, retracting her
arm from around Usagi's shoulder, "to think that we're not going to be
getting into any more big battles. Reassuring, mind you… But boring, as
well."
"That's not necessarily a bad thing," volunteered Ami as sagely as she
ever did, her hands folded in her lap. "It gives us a chance to spend more
time on our studies. We can all get into very good universities, now, which is
much better than - "
"Ami-chan?" Makoto's voice was like ice as she stared down her friend,
eyes lowered into slits.
"Hai?"
"Shush."
The girls all laughed together again, or at least, four of the five did.
Haruka found herself entirely unable to laugh and instead spent the time
gazing listlessly at the empty presentation platform and the abandoned
podium atop it. Michiru had awoken that morning in a cold sweat, trembling
and mumbling something that her better half could not fully make out, but -
once she had risen more fully and taken a long shower - she refused to talk
about it, shrugging off the attentions of her friends and lover, fleeing instead
to the school early for a rehearsal. The entire incident, no matter how hard
Haruka tried to dismiss it, smacked of the way she'd acted just before the
arrival of Galaxia, and somehow, it frightened the blonde. It, in fact,
frightened her more than she had been able to vocalize to Setsuna and a
hyper, school-excited Hotaru that morning, and more than she could even
vocalize to herself now. And somehow, with the empty podium and stage
before her and the voices of her friends filling her ears, she could not block
out that fright…or the knowledge that with that fright came the possibility of
danger.
She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn't notice anyone
speaking to her until Usagi was tugging on her sleeve and nearly yelling in
her ear, and with a blink she turned her attention to the blonde girl. "Sorry,
Odango," she apologized quickly, shaking her head. "I was thinking about
something. What is it that you wanted?"
"We were wondering if you knew anything about Yashi-sensei," Minako
filled in, earning a raspberry from the attention-loving Usagi. Haruka's
expression must have been one of utmost confusion, because the bow-
wearing blonde quickly produced her class schedule and held it out to the
older girl. "She's our chemistry teacher this year, and none of us have ever
heard of her. Is she a special teacher only for second-years?"
"She's also the instructor for advanced physics," put in Ami helpfully
as Haruka studied the sheet of paper before her. Yashi Sei. Instructor of
chemistry. Room 7b. "Do you know of her?"
She shook her head of short hair and handed the sheet of paper back.
"Can't say that I have," she admitted with a half-shrug. "She's probably new.
Kurama-sensei, who taught chemistry last year, was really old, so it would
surprise me if - "
Clapping drowned out the end of Haruka's comment as, one by one,
the administrative board of the high school and a few select teachers stepped
onto the stage and took their seats, with the principal heading straight to the
microphone. Sighing, the blonde settled into her seat and clapped along with
the crowd, crossing her long legs in a feeble attempt to make herself
comfortable for the duration of what would be a very long string of speeches.
Her third set thereof, considering the fact that she had just started her first
year of high school at Mugen Gakuen when the Death Busters and Sailor
Senshi had fought the battle that, in the end, leveled the school. There was
nothing new or exciting about seeing a line of teachers take their place, or
watching the principal shuffle around his papers before beginning to speak,
and she briefly considered leaning back, closing her eyes, and sleeping
through the ceremonies.
And then, she saw…her. Out of all the administrators and teachers
filing onto the platform and settling into their places, her gray-green eyes
were pulled involuntarily towards the last woman in the line, the only person
she did not recognize. She was of average height and neither particularly thin
nor bulky, but there was a certain muscular tone to her legs as she walked
that made her seem almost awkward in a line of educators. Long, honey-
brown hair hung down her back in a straight tail, held in place at the base of
her neck and fitted with two, long white ribbons that trailed from the clip in
her hair and all the way to her waist. Pinstriped suit pants clinging to
rounded hips and muscular thighs, matched with a fitted white dress shirt
and thin-rimmed glasses, completed the aura of the woman, whose
professional appearance was only belittled by the thick-soled dress shoes she
wore…and by fingernails so bright a blue color that Haruka could see them
clearly from her place in the last row. But those fingernails were the only
truly noteworthy trait of the stranger; otherwise, she was a well-built
business woman surrounded by high school teachers.
And yet, despite the fact that a large part of her mind shrugged off
this stranger, Haruka stared, drawn to her for some mysterious reason, a
moth entranced by flame. Even as the principal began to speak, the same
rabble-rousing, fiery speech about "ganbaru" and bringing honor to the
school that he'd recited the year before, she stared, mesmerized by the
woman's every bored fidget and affirmative half-nod. The fascination with
the brunette tingled through her body, more intense than any romantic urge
she'd ever been struck with; the feeling ran deeper than that, filling her soul
and bringing her to stare.
The others could feel it, too. At least, Usagi could; the blonde had
frozen as soon as the strange, out-of-place woman had appeared on the
platform and had barely moved since, her cerulean eyes alert as she studied
the goings-on. Minako, Ami, and Makoto were visibly more at ease, though
this did not surprise the sandy-haired one; they tended to miss out on some
of the simply intuitive flashes that their princess often picked up on. They
would never, of course, admit to this - Usagi, ahead of them in something?
Never! - but for all their leader's faults, she was a being of great intuition,
and that had carried them through much in the past. And hopefully, it still
would, though Haruka was not yet sure what it was she suddenly depended
on her to carry them through.
It was after a good twenty minutes of watching the stranger play with
the sleeve of her shirt and pick at her fingers dully that the principal finally
stepped away from the podium and allowed Sakurada Haruna, a junior high
teacher recently turned administrator in charge of discipline (this being no
surprise to any of her former students) to take the floor. "I would just like to
pause this morning to introduce you all to a new instructor," she explained,
her hand gestures wild and unnecessary. "Yashi Sei is an excellent educator,
recently graduated from the University of Gotsu City in southern Japan. We
welcome her to Tokyo and Juuban! Yashi-san, would you like to say a few
words?"
Haruka very nearly fell off her chair as the blue-fingernailed business
woman nodded and stood, stalking slowly to the podium with a straight-
forward air about her. Usagi blinked long and hard, and Minako poked
Makoto, signaling that she, too, sensed something strange with the new
teacher. Either that, or they were just excited to discover the identity of the
chemistry teacher they had been wondering about earlier. Haruka could
never honestly tell.
"My name, as Sakurada-san so kindly said, is Yashi Sei." Despite her
appearance, the woman's voice was soft and fairly sweet, and her smile
appeared very genuine. "This is my first year teaching, and I'm looking
forward to it. I'm teaching second-year chemistry and advanced physics.
Ano… What else can I say?"
A few of the students nearby snickered, obviously unimpressed as the
brunette woman glanced up into the cloudless sky, her fingernails drumming
on the top of the podium. "That's about it," she shrugged after a moment's
thought, bowing slightly. "I hope to see many of you second-year students in
my class. Be prepared to study hard! I don't like to make anything too easy."
Usagi, Minako, and Makoto - as well as a handful of other second-
years - groaned at this news and began to whisper to each other,
commiserating the fact that, yes, they would actually have to do school work
in school this year. But Haruka remained unconcerned about studies as she
watched Sei move towards her seat and sit down, still pulled to her.
What was it about the new teacher that made her feel so strange?
Who in the world was Yashi Sei?
Haruka wasn't sure, but she had the fullest intentions to find out.
===
"Eh, Yashi-sensei seemed nice enough to me," thought Usagi aloud,
shrugging as she slurped the last bit of her smoothie from its glass. The
empty container joined six others in the middle of the table as she leaned
back, snuggling into the plush cushion on the back of the booth. Minako,
Makoto, and Ami were each finishing up a second drink as Usagi belched up
the remainder of her third, a content little smile on her face. "She doesn't
look like a teacher, though. I thought she had to be a business woman or
something of the sort."
"Haruka was staring at her." Ami's comment drew all the others' eyes
in her direction, and she shrugged it off casually. "She was. Even after the
ceremony was finished, she kept looking at her. It was very peculiar." Her
cup joined the others. "And you're right, she does not look like any teacher
I've ever had. She has a very precise edge to her."
Makoto snorted. "'Precise'? You mean nasty! She flat-out told me that
my answer was totally wrong. At least I was trying, you know?"
The blonde with the bow, who was seated to her left, snickered. "That
was funny," she giggled, and with that, they began to bicker - albeit playfully
- if Makoto's wrong answer had been funny or not.
Usagi sighed, watching as Ami pulled a book from her bag and began
to flip through it idly. They had agreed to meet Rei in Crown Fruit Parlor half
an hour after school was out, leaving the Catholic student time to run home
and change before dashing off to their obligatory end-of-the-first-school-day
smoothie celebration. But more than an hour had passed since the final bells
had echoed across campus and freed them from their classroom cells, and
still, Rei was missing.
And beyond the missing Shinto - a small and forgivable err in the
grand scheme of things - Usagi felt as though something was just…wrong.
Since the start of the introductory ceremonies that morning, her hands had
been clammy and her mind filled with the strangest worries, worries that
were interrupted only by flashes of the Silver Millennium memories that she
had abandoned so long ago. Usually, those memories appeared only in
dreams, serving as surreal reminds that, beyond being a mortal, she lived as
the reincarnated Princess Serenity, daughter of the Moon Kingdom. But
today, those memories refreshed themselves, constantly, more real than
surreal, and more vivid than she could ever remember them being.
"Gomen, minna, I didn't mean to be so late!" Blue eyes blinked as the
bun-headed girl was pulled from her reverie, not surprised to find a panting
Hino Rei leaning over the table, dressed in a pair of capri pants and a polo
shirt. "Weird things were going on back at the shrine, but I think we finally
got them under control. That's what took so long." As she said this, she slid
into her normal booth spot beside the still-blinking Usagi and, upon flagging
down the server, ordered a diet soda.
The appearance of their previously missing-in-action friend snapped
Makoto and Minako out of their conversation, which had moved from being
bickering to simple, meaningless, teasing chatter. The bow-headed one
frowned slightly, her fingers moving to toy with the straw in her glass.
"Weird stuff?" she questioned, her tongue poking out of her lips as she
studied Rei's face. "What kind of weird stuff?"
Ami sighed and turned a page in her book.
"The Great Fire flared up uncontrollably, and when ojii-san tried to do
a tarot reading, he was getting the strangest results." She shrugged,
chuckling slightly to herself in an almost nervous manner. "It was kind of
funny in a weird way, too, because a lot of the results were very similar to
the cards that surfaced just before our battle with Galaxia." She paused in
her tale as the waitress brought her soda, and then, once the young woman
was out of earshot, she sighed and, shaking her head, continued. "As for the
Great Fire… Kami-sama is restless, I guess."
Frowning, the blue-haired intellectual glanced up from her book,
slender lips pursed in deep thought. "I didn't really want to mention this,"
she finally admitted after a long moment's pause, "but ever since this
morning, I have had the most peculiar feeling in the pit of my stomach. It's
like something is just on the edge of happening, but hasn't yet."
The brunette of the group nodded slightly, crossing her arms over her
chest. "I know what you mean," she chimed in, adding to the confused and
worried expressions that had already overtaken both Rei and Usagi's faces.
"It's really weird, and I can't put my finger on what it is. It doesn't feel as
severe as it did right before Galaxia, just that… Just that something is
wrong."
"Exactly." Minako gritted her teeth as she pushed the quickly-melting
remnants of her smoothie around in the bottom of her glass. "But what can
we do? We don't know what it is. And with Crystal Tokyo lurking in the near
future, maybe it's the start of the ascension?"
Rei scowled. "Minako-chan, if Usagi's ascension makes the Great Fire
do what it did this afternoon, I do not want to live to be part of Crystal
Tokyo."
Something about the statement - perhaps the Shinto's tone of voice,
or just the absurdity of the idea - caused the girls to laugh. At least, it
caused Ami, Minako, Makoto, and the speaker herself to burst out laughing
and move onto more lighthearted topics with very little transition.
But Tsukino Usagi kept on staring blankly at the glasses in the middle
of the table, helplessly lost in her thoughts. Thoughts of coming doom broken
only by memories not of the person she had become, but the person she
once had been.
===
"Is it still bothering you?"
Silverware clinked against china as, just like every odd-numbered
night, Haruka washed the dishes and left her better half to dry them.
Setsuna, bogged down already with the paperwork she - as a high school
nurse - was required to fill out, had retired to the computer room early, and
Hotaru, so frenzied and excited by her first day of junior high, had rushed off
to do her homework. And thus, the two most interconnected members of the
greater Sailor Team stood together in the kitchen of their humble, four-
bedroom house, doing the dishes.
The question was marked by the scrambling of two well-toned hands
trying to keep from dropping a plate, and Haruka frowned. Certainly, she had
seen Michiru unnerved before, but never was the woman unnerved to the
point of clumsiness. At least, not as far as Haruka had seen.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Michiru answered simply,
giving a stern nod as she spoke. The towel whispered against the china as
she dried the almost-destroyed plate with a furious motion. "I told you this
morning, I had a nightmare. Nothing out of the ordinary, that's all. You don't
need to worry about it."
Haruka resisted the overwhelming urge she had to roll her eyes. "If
that was an ordinary nightmare, Michiru, then I am Tomoe Souichi." Michiru's
blue eyes lowered to shoot the blonde a dirty look, but she ignored it and
dropped a handful of clean silverware into the dish drainer. "You can't
pretend that nothing's happening, Michiru. Now, tell me, what's wrong?"
"I honestly don't know." There was fear, anger, hurt, and almost a
twang of resentment, as well, in her tone, and she slammed the damp
silverware onto the counter in frustration as she began drying them. "I don't
even remember what it was about, anymore, but it was AWFUL. A god-awful
dream. It just… Augh, I can't even describe it."
The blonde bit her lower lip and, despite her natural want - arguably
even need - to wrap her arm around the annoyed woman at her side, she
managed to focus her energies on the dishes. "I've had this awful feeling all
day," she admitted after a brief pause, handing the stack of four matching
salad bowls to her better half. "It's the strangest thing, too, because I keep
remembering the past."
"The past?" Michiru chuckled slightly, but it was a forced chuckle, and
her fingers brushed those of her significant other as she reached for the
bowls. "What about the past? How we met, perhaps?"
"No." The flirty sweetness that flitted over the blue irises of the
musician's eyes faded as Haruka looked away, staring at the murky water of
the sink. Perhaps she should just keep what she felt to herself. She could
hide those feelings under the soap-bubble surface of her consciousness,
couldn't she? No one needed to know the memories that flooded the back of
her mind, or the visions that flashed in the darkness when she closed her
eyes.
But soap bubbles popped after sitting stagnantly atop dishwater for
long enough, and the time would undoubtedly arrive when the darkness
laying at the bottom would be revealed. No, there was a right course of
action and a wrong one, and she had no choice but to take the correct course
while she still had the chance.
Her breath rattled in her chest as she exhaled. "Memories," she
informed Michiru, afraid to look at the other woman. "Memories of the Silver
Millennium."
"What?!"
A stack of four bowls crashed loudly against the tile floor, and Haruka
nearly leapt from her after-school outfit of sweatpants and a t-shirt as she
whirled on her heel to see Michiru staring at her, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.
"You can't be having memories, too! No!"
"Too?" She barely registered the two blurs of motion in the doorway
that signified Setsuna and Hotaru's arrivals to the kitchen. "What do you
mean by 'too,' Michiru?"
"Why not make it three?" Setsuna's always-calm voice echoed through
the room, and the other two adults glanced cautiously at her, not surprised
as her red eyes moved away, staring off at the walls and ceiling. A
protective, motherly hand reached to smooth the hair of their precious
thirteen-year-old charge. She sighed. "Hotaru, go wash up for bed."
The girl frowned, shifting her weight and sending the woman a pouty
look. "Setsuna-mama, I'm not six anymore, I - "
"Go wash up."
Hotaru snorted and, with a toss of her dark strands and a roll of violet
eyes, stalked off down the hallway. The slamming of a door - undoubtedly
that of the bathroom - sent a shuddering echo across the small house.
Swallowing hard, Michiru shook her head as though she needed to
clear it of some confusion and crouched down, plucking up large chunks of
china with her bare hands. "This is silly," she scoffed quickly, though her
tone wavered enough that her friends wondered whom exactly she wanted to
convince. "We have all our memories from back then. There's no reason for
us to be thinking of them, or seeing more. All we know is all there is to
know."
"Don't tell me you believe that, Michiru," smiled Setsuna slightly,
settling into a seat at the kitchen table languidly, almost like a lazy cat
would. "Our memories from the past are patchy at the very best. Certainly,
we recall the coming of Metallia and the end of the Moon Kingdom, but do we
remember our parents? Our citizens? Our siblings?"
"Why would we need to know about all of that?" Michiru's voice
cracked as she reached up and tossed the broken pieces of ceramic onto the
counter top, to be disposed of later. "Maybe that's what's bothering me so.
The fact that I'm starting to remember names and faces… Concrete details
about the Silver Millennium." Blue eyes glanced up. "What memories are you
having, Haruka?"
The blonde did not seem to hear her better half, and, despite the fact
her mind registered the question, she found herself wandering in a labyrinth
of words and syllables, some that were tied closely together and some that
seemed totally unrelated. Ideas and gibberish combined beautifully - or
perhaps clumsily - there, building into one form.
A name.
Carrie.
===
She ran.
No, wait. That was not entirely true. She, the she that she knew so
well - Tsukino Usagi, the mortal form of Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon and the
Princess of the Moon - floated somewhere outside of the scene before her,
apart from it all, detached in a simple, almost obvious manner. But the
blonde pigtailed girl below, she ran, brush and sticks whipping at her legs as
she tried to escape what awaited her, head snapping back often to monitor
the progress of her pursuer.
"Carrie, stop it!" she whined loudly, her young voice carrying through
the forest. She could have only been eight or nine, maybe even younger, and
the low-cut white gown, trimmed with golden beading, seemed almost too
mature for her young form. "I want to go back and train with the others,
now!" She stumbled over an exposed root and nearly fell, her elbow
scrapping against the trunk of a tree as she struggled to keep her balance.
"Carrie!"
The other girl laughed, hopping over the root that had nearly caught
her plaything, her red lips curving into an almost vicious smile. She appeared
much older than the other girl - fourteen or fifteen at the youngest - and
already her own fuku fit curves that would some day be voluptuous, her tall
boots hugging the muscular legs of a teen who had been trained in physical
fitness since childhood. Two long, brown-gold braids bounced against her
back as she gave chase through the forest, catching on twigs and branches
but never once eliciting a sound of pain from the older girl; it was as though
she was incapable of feeling such trivial things.
"Awww, is the little princess scared of a game?" teased Carrie,
smirking. "If you ever want to grow up to be as big and strong as I am, you
need to work harder! I'm simply aiding the process!"
"I don't wanna be big and strong, Carrie!" Her foot caught in a hole,
and she shrieked as she wrenched her ankle, falling to the ground with a
scuffling and resounding thump. "I'm happy being little and weak! Just
lemme alone!"
And, with that scream echoing in her ears, and the vision of a
grinning, green-eyed Carrie hovering over the smaller child, Tsukino Usagi
awoke in a cold sweat.
Her heart shuddered in her chest, pushing against her ribcage as
though it hoped to burst free, and she could not help but grasp at her
pajama top just above her heart. She clung to the fabric with a trembling
hand until her knuckles were white, waiting for her pulse rate to return to
some semblance of normal, but the process lasted longer than she had
expected it to and, by the time she could breathe easily again, every one of
her senses was prickling with the fullest alertness.
Outside, beyond the gauze-thin linen draperies of her bedroom
window, the orange-red sun peered over the horizon, gazing out across the
waking city of Tokyo, its rays curious but cautious, afraid to shine too
brightly on the people below. She brushed the draperies away and stared out
across at the world she knew, the buildings she'd grown up with hovering
over the streets and casting long, foreboding shadows on the cars and
sidewalks below. Never before had she had a dream so powerful, or vivid. It
almost did not play out like a dream at all, but rather like a detached
memory, something she'd forgotten so completely about that, now, she could
only see it again in third-person, a scene in the movie of her life.
Her bare feet were soft against the carpeting as she padded into the
bathroom and went through the motions of her daily life, brushing her teeth
and combing out her hair before fitting it back into her normal odango. Pink
pajamas fell to the tile floor, replaced with a pleated navy shirt and its
matching, red-bowed shirt, and - almost as an afterthought - she slipped on
the watch that also served as a communicator with the other senshi. Even
with Chaos restricted and Galaxia gone from their galaxy, Usagi felt naked
without the old familiar trappings of her senshi life. They completed her, and
somehow, she felt as though going without them now would be doing a
disservice not just to herself, but to Tokyo, as well. She clipped her brooch
onto the bow of her uniform and, after gathering up her school papers back
in her room, started down to breakfast.
"'hayou, okaa-san!" she chirped, hopping down the last stair and
starting merrily into the kitchen. Better to give Ikuko the appearance of
being a normal, happy teenage girl, rather than making her worry what was
wrong. She could simply lie and explain that she hadn't been tired, if her
mother asked. But, surprisingly, her mother no longer asked as many prying
questions as she had three years before, when her daughter's transformation
from scatter-brained girl to level-headed woman had begun. Perhaps she
shrugged it off as part of her coming-of-age… Or perhaps she simply
abandoned all hope. Usagi could never be sure.
Her mother, however, was nowhere to be found in the kitchen, and
she frowned as she slipped out of the kitchen and into the family room. Sure
enough, there was her mother, all bundled up in her bathrobe and slippers as
she sat on the very edge of the ottoman, remote control poised in her hand.
Her eyes were so fixated on the television screen that she did not notice her
daughter's arrival into the room.
And, similarly, Usagi did not notice her mother's fascination with the
television. "Ohayou, okaa-san!" she repeated gleefully, once again forcing a
big, happy-Usagi grin as she flopped onto the couch. "What are you - "
"Hush, Usagi. This is important."
Blinking, Usagi focused her sleep-tired eyes on the screen before her,
her heartbeat immediately quickening as she came face-to-face with the
news program her mother was playing. An aerial shot of what a subtitle at
the screen bottom claimed to be a residential area in the northern part of
Juuban district panned across block after block of completely leveled
buildings, the destruction spanning at least six square city blocks. Her mouth
went dry. Northern Juuban? But, Haruka and Michiru lived in -
"As you can see, the aftermath of this earthquake is devastating." The
aerial disappeared and an announcer replaced it, a balding man in his late
forties, garbed in a bad suit and a worse falsely-concerned expression. "But
despite this, only twelve people were killed. Another ninety-seven were sent
to local hospitals for injuries, but again - for a natural disaster of this
magnitude, the mortality rate is surprisingly low.
"Perhaps the most shocking information about this incident is that
there are no reports of seismic activity in any other portion of Juuban. In
fact, residents directly outside of this eight-by-eight zone say that they felt
absolutely nothing. Scientists are looking into - "
Ikuko flicked off the television with a sigh, shaking her head as she
replaced the remote on the coffee table. "Your father called me from traffic
this morning," she explained, rising with her daughter and starting for the
kitchen. "He said that there had been an earthquake in the northern part of
the district, but for - " She paused, frowning, her brown eyes considering her
child carefully. "Usagi, what in heaven's name are you doing up so early? It's
barely seven."
"I got a lot of sleep the night before," she lied, and she took it on fairly
good authority that her mother knew she was lying, too; Shingo had
complained loudly at breakfast yesterday that she had been on the phone
with Mamoru until well into the wee hours. But Ikuko just nodded slightly in
response and began gathering supplies to make breakfast. Usagi pressed on.
"What happened to that part of the city, though?" she questioned urgently, a
bitter mantra playing through her head. Haruka and the others lived in
northern Juuban. Haruka and the others lived in northern Juuban. Haruka -
"They think it was an earthquake," Ikuko reiterated, sounding only
slightly more concerned than the news caster had. An egg sizzled as it
settled into the frying pan. "Survivors claim they heard howling winds and a
lot of crackling noises before the shaking started. I'm surprised so few were
killed." She turned to her daughter, smiling. "Sunny side up today, Usagi?"
The taste of bile burned the back of her tongue, and the blonde teen
shook her head helplessly. "I'm actually not hungry any more, 'kaa-san," she
admitted, hugging herself slightly. "I think, actually, I'm going to go back to
my room."
"Usagi…?"
She could hear her mother calling out to her as she took off up the
stairs, a terrible, painful sensation gnawing at her stomach. Something
definitely felt wrong, now. Even the cool morning air as she threw open the
door to her balcony and rushed out onto the concrete slab barefooted choked
her, and she gasped for breath.
Still, despite her coughing, her cerulean eyes stared out across the
city, gazing northward - always northward.
"Haruka…"
===
"Well, tell Odango we're fine, Minako-chan," Haruka barked into the
cell phone, her footfalls brisk as she paced back and forth across the paper-
thin carpeting. It probably had once been a deep, powerful crimson but now
resigned itself to being a dingy orange, the color of tangerine rind once it had
dried out. Hotaru lay across the floor playing a game on her Sega Game
Gear, kicking her legs idly. Michiru, who had spent the night lying awake as
horrible nightmares plagued her sleep, was curled up in the king-sized bed,
snoring softly. Haruka, too, had found sleep to be a late-coming visitor who
brought terrible gifts, and it was the duality of having both high-school
students awake that had saved the four of them from the most certain of
deaths; a scientist from the university had declared just an hour after the
earthquake that the debris from what once had been their house lay exactly
atop the epicenter.
"No, no, Minako-chan, we're fine. But Setsuna went to see what she
could find out, and so we're going to stick it out here at the Holiday - no, I
did not manage to save the plush toys you gave us two years ago. I'm
sorry." She groaned and leaned against the wall, gray-green eyes glancing
out the window apprehensively; Setsuna had departed almost immediately
after they'd arrived at their new home-away-from-home, three hours earlier.
Where in the world had that woman gone? "This afternoon? At the Shrine?
Yes, yes, that's fine. We'll be there. Ja ne, Minako-chan. And hai. We will be
careful."
Hotaru peered up from the floor as her father-figure struggled to turn
off Michiru's blasted cell phone, violet eyes blinking innocently. "Are the
others worried about this?" she questioned, peering after the blonde even as
she tossed the phone on the nearby desk and proceeded to flop onto the
other, unoccupied bed. "Or do they believe it was only an earthquake, too?"
The adult sent her a sharp look, and she shrugged as she turned back
to her video game. "Natural disasters do occur in Tokyo, Hotaru," Haruka
scolded, staring up at the cracked paint that spanned the ceiling. "Not
everything is supernatural."
"When a single house is the epicenter of an earthquake that spans
eight city blocks, it is," the girl challenged, her tone edged with ice as she
mashed the keys on her hand-held game. "Why do you want so firmly to
believe that everything is absolutely fine, Haruka-papa? I heard you talking
last night when you thought I was in bed. Memories from the Silver
Millennium? Nightmares? And now this?" The click of her shutting off her
game echoed through the room. "I may only be thirteen, but I know when
something strange is going on. And I may not have memories from the Silver
Millennium, but I most certainly know that you are not supposed to be
getting new ones."
As much as it pained her to admit it, the child was right. Haruka
sighed, her chest heaving. No earthquake, no matter how much the news
casters tried to play it down, could be that very precise. And, with that
possibility extinguished, only one remained.
The possibility of foul play.
"Alright, then it's supernatural," acquiesced the adult. She suddenly
felt out of place just laying on the bed, so she slid out of it and began to pace
slowly across the carpeting. "But that doesn't mean that it has anything to do
with us."
Haruka could almost hear Hotaru cock her eyebrow, the skepticism
was so evident in her young tone. "Oh, really? Then tell me, whom does it
concern?" The blonde stopped and her gray-green eyes met lowered violet
ones. "If it doesn't concern the Sailor Senshi, does it really concern anyone?"
Scoffing, she returned to pacing. "Not everything supernatural falls
onto our shoulders," she retorted curtly, though a small part of her mind
argued with that logic. The Sailor Senshi existed, at least partially, to keep
the city safe from the things that the law couldn't handle. That included
earthquakes that probably were not actually earthquakes, didn't it? But
admitting responsibility for quashing this whatever-it-was somehow felt like
it was admitting that something was wrong. And Haruka wasn't certain she
was ready to admit that - to herself or to anyone else - yet.
But Hotaru stared up at her, waiting for an answer, and she threw up
her hands in annoyance. "Do you really expect me to have an answer?" she
shot, receiving a shrugged response. "I'm not in charge of these things,
Hotaru, I just think - "
"That pretending it's not our problem will make it go away." The girl
sighed and turned her Game Gear back on nonchalantly. "You know it's not
going to go away, Haruka-papa. We all do. And the problem isn't going to
wait for you to admit to it." She smirked slightly, a half-smirk that hid behind
the thick hair falling into her face. "I envy you, too," she added after a
moment of silence, the soft MIDI strains of her Sonic the Hedgehog game
tumbling through the stagnant air in the room. "I want memories, too."
"No, you don't." Haruka sank into the plush softness of the bed once
again, finding it comfortable but still not comforting. "You wouldn't like
seeing faces you don't remember, or hearing a name you've never known
and yet still knowing it's your own."
Hotaru chuckled slightly and shrugged. "It's better than nothing," she
replied casually.
The blonde somehow did not have the heart to tell the girl that no, it
was not.
===
"A-ano… Yashi-sensei?"
Even the way she sat appeared too prim and proper a posture to
belong to a teacher. Perched on the very edge of her wheeled desk chair, her
chunky black-booted feet crossed at her ankles and her back stiff, she was…
Intimidating, the student decided with a slight nod to herself. She was simply
intimidating.
Her classmates chattered excitedly at the prospect of being done with
their morning classes and off to lunch as the oh-so-poised chemistry teacher
glanced up from her grade book, her dark green eyes meeting blue. Tsukino
Usagi smiled cordially and bowed, saying nothing, and the adult - unsure
what to make of the gesture - simply nodded before bowing her head and
returning to marking the morning's pop quiz grades into her score book.
Usagi frowned slightly, wrinkling her nose as her teacher lost all
interest in her existence. "A-ano, Yashi-sensei," she stressed, a bit of
urgency in her tone as her classmates shuffled out of the room. "Can I talk to
you?"
"If you want to talk to me, then talk," came the somewhat curt reply
as the woman's eyes peered over the top-most edge of her thin-rimmed
glasses, examining the student as though she were an escaped lab animal.
"Smiling and bowing doesn't really give me any idea of what you want, ne?"
"Hai…" Usagi's frown actually grew in severity, a strange expression on
such a delicate face. "I was curious though, about last night's earthquake.
Can earthquakes really DO what happened last night?"
The disinterest that had marked Sei's manner only seconds before
faded away with the sound of long fingernails snapping the cap onto her
fountain pen, and she leaned forward on her desk. Her face almost had a
conspiratorial look to it, green eyes sparking, and her bright blue nails
drummed against each other as she stared down her student. "What an
interesting topic, Tsukino-san!" she praised, and Usagi let out a sigh of relief
she hadn't been aware that she was holding. "I always am glad when my
students approach me about things outside of our daily curriculum. Tell me,
what exactly is it that you want to know about this earthquake?"
Usagi bit her lower lip, uncertain of what to say. Answering honestly -
that she had an instinctual nagging that argued NO earthquake could do
what had been done the night before - just wouldn't work well, especially not
when paired up against the scientific mind before her. Even Ami-chan, when
the four Juuban-enrolled girls had gathered together that morning to discuss
the disaster, had struggled to understand why Usagi had such a strong "gut
instinct." Of course, the blonde teen hadn't thought to bring up her
nightmare of the little girl - one who, she had realized later, looked entirely
too much like a younger version of herself - being pursued by a taller,
tougher brunette girl. A taller, tougher, brunette SENSHI.
"Tsukino-san?" Blue eyes blinked, and Yashi-sensei frowned slightly at
her student. "What is it you want to know?"
"Oh, hai!" A blush warmed her cheeks as Usagi fidgeted nervously
under the intense gaze of her teacher; Haruna-sensei had never watched her
students the way Sei did, and the young woman's stern concentration on her
face reminded her of the expression Luna wore whenever she stalked a
mouse. "I was just wondering… The earthquake last night, it only focused
very specifically on a small area of the city. No one outside of those eight
blocks could feel any disturbance. Can earthquakes really do that?"
The eager, helpful spark in Yashi Sei's green eyes flitted away as she
glanced curiously at her student, cheeks paling slightly as every hint of a
smile faded from her face. Usagi swallowed, hard, and the young woman
tugged off her glasses, folding in the arms and setting them atop her grade
book carefully. "Do you have time to discuss this now?" she questioned
softly. "I have a period off. Otherwise, we can talk after school."
The blonde frowned. So her gut feeling had been right, after all; there
was more to that morning's earthquake than what met the eye. "I need to
get to lunch," she apologized, stifling a short bow, "or my friends will miss
me. Is after school alright with you?"
"After school is fine," nodded the teacher, her smile returning only
slightly. "I'll meet you in here, all right?"
Usagi, somehow, imagined that she responded to the affirmative, but
she could not be certain; her thoughts already dashed about haphazardly,
trying to touch on all the emotions and ideas that were floating through her
brain. If it wasn't an earthquake, could it be something related to the Sailor
Senshi? Did the girl in her dream have anything to do with it? What would
Yashi-sensei have to say? Why had her smile faded away like it had? Did she
have a bad feeling about something, too?
So wrapped up in her thoughts was she that she didn't notice dark
green eyes peering down the hall and after her, even as she turned the
corner and disappeared out of sight.
===
"What?"
Michiru could very nearly feel the silk whispering against her bare legs
and hear the birds chirping around her, even though she was fairly certain
that she was dreaming. The spring breeze ruffled her calf-length sundress as
they strolled together down the cobblestone path that wove through the
gardens, budding cherry trees hanging low over the path and shedding their
tiny pink flowers on the two teens below. Sunshine and Earthshine rained
through the gaps in the branches as the taller girl - lanky, like a foal that still
needed to grow into a mare - brushed strands of sandy hair from her face.
Navy knickers and a gold blouse fluttered in the breeze as she sighed and
shrugged her shoulders.
"It seems to be what Queen Serenity wants," she admitted slowly,
futilely attempting to coax a few loose tresses back into the barrettes that
had clipped them away from her eyes. "Mother said that she's been worried
about Carrie's behavior towards the other senshi for some time, and now…"
She leaned against the tree trunk, a noncommittal expression crossing her
face. "I don't think it's fair to Carrie, though. She's been training her whole
life, you know?"
"I know…" She trailed off, shivering. The urge to hug herself was too
great to ignore, and so she did just that, her hands icy against her bare
upper arms. "Do you know when the final decision will be made?"
Inwardly, she wondered what in the world they were talking about.
Carrie? Queen Serenity? Training as a Sailor Senshi? Haruka, or the Silver
Millennium incarnation thereof, was the only Sailor Senshi who had spent her
entire life training for the role. Uranus, the planet of the warrior, took great
stock in their princesses, training them in the art of -
Princesses? She frowned. Why had she pluralized that word?
"A week or two from now, I guess." The blonde shook her head
slightly. "Nerissa, I don't know what to do. I don't know even half of what
Carrie knows about being a senshi. How am I to become Sailor Uranus in her
place?"
Michiru shuddered and blinked blue eyes, both relieved and
disappointed when the sight that greeted her was that of the white-painted
hotel room wall. The annoying music of Hotaru's Game Gear tinkled into her
ears, and she sighed, curling up in the blankets. Carrie? That was a name
she had never heard before. And yet it was so familiar…
And what about the Princess of Uranus not being a Sailor Senshi? That
didn't make sense.
She closed her eyes, her stomach turning in somersaults and making
her impossibly nauseous. In the previous dream, the one so terrifying that
she'd fled from the arms of the woman she loved for the comfort of a warm
shower, she had simply been running from a coming shadow, trying to
escape that impenetrable darkness. There had been no names, no faces.
But this time, there was a name. Carrie. And a face. A face rimmed by
long, straight, honey-brown hair. A face whose features were dwarfed by
enormous, dark green eyes. Terrible, shining, gleaming green eyes.
She clung to the sheets as though they were her last comfort on
Earth.
The darkness hadn't been completely black.
The darkness had gleaming green eyes.
===
"Whatever it is, I don't like it," she admitted softly, leaning heavily on
the handle of her broom as she spoke. "It just… It feels wrong. And the tarot
points to something coming."
They huddled together in a close-knit group of six, either leaning
against or perched on the well-worn wooden deck that skimmed the
circumference of Hikawa Shrine on Sendai Hill, their voices lowered carefully
to avoid the risk of being overheard by uninvited ears. As it stood, old Hino-
san had found some excuse to busy himself in the side garden of the temple
every few minutes since the group of Juuban students had arrived, his dark
eyes hawk-like as he watched the six teens - and one black cat - gather
together and discuss one thing or another in quiet tones. After the previous
night's incident, if it could be called that, the bow-headed leader of the Sailor
Senshi had demanded they meet up after classes at the temple to talk, and
no one needed to be invited twice.
Ten'ou Haruka snorted as Rei finished with thinking aloud, leaning
heavily against the post that held the roof to the porch in place. Setsuna had
arrived back at the hotel room just as the two younger women rushed out,
leaving a pouting Hotaru sulking behind. "What is it with everyone assuming
this is some sort of supernatural occurrence?" she demanded tersely, earning
a sharp glance from her better half. She crossed her arms over her chest,
her expression still dubious even as those familiar, sharp eyes reproached
her. "It could just be an earthquake, after all."
"If that was just an earthquake," challenged the dark-haired teen back
in a quick, annoyed tone, "then I believe firmly in Catholic doctrine." The
sandy-haired blonde's eyebrow twitched as Rei tossed her long tresses, and
the other girls chuckled briefly. "I've never seen an earthquake level just one
part of the city…or make the fire flare up like it did. There is something more
to this than what meets the eye."
Swinging her legs gingerly, Ami peeked up from her laptop, eyes
intense over the rims of her glasses. "Whatever - or whoever - did this is
incredibly strong," she pointed out, surveying the group for visible reactions
before bowing her head again and focusing on her gathering of data.
"According to the classified earth science databases at Tokyo University, this
earthquake measured 8.9 on the Richter scale. That's almost two points
higher than the great Hyogo-Ken Nanbu earthquake in the 1990s."
Makoto arched an eyebrow, peering over Ami's shoulder. "Uhm, Ami-
chan… Do you mean to say you hacked into Todai?"
The girl-genius shrugged. "There were only three passwords," she
explained calmly. "Compared to some of the other database codes I've
broken, this one was child's play."
As the brunette's jaw dropped wide open, Michiru cleared her throat
gingerly, catching most attention back to her. "Then I think it's safe to say
that our survival was a miracle," she observed, flicking a strand of hair back
into place. "If I hadn't had that nightmare, then - "
"Nightmare?" Luna, typical to her feline nature, had been busying
herself with sunbathing on the warm, reflective wood, but the musician's
comment caused her ears to perk up and orange-gold eyes to burst open
unexpectedly. "What kind of nightmare, Michiru-chan?"
Michiru frowned slightly, surprised by the cat's interest; she would
have expected Luna to be more concerned with the talk of supernatural
occurrences than with the news that she hadn't been sleeping well. "Very odd
nightmares," she shrugged, "and actually, odd dreams, too. Visions of our
past lives during the Silver Millennium."
The silence was almost palpable, and most of the girls later swore that
they could hear Minako's eyes blinking. "You mean, you've had them, too?"
questioned the blonde. Her posture immediately improved to that of an alert
animal that has sensed a coming predator. "Do you remember names? And
faces?"
Michiru's nod was not alone; three others nodded with hers, though
Ami's never did pop up from its place behind her computer screen. "It's very
peculiar," she admitted after a brief pause, blue eyes glancing towards Luna.
The cat seemed completely awe-struck, the fur of her tail prickled in
anticipation - or was it fright? "Last night and the night before, I dreamt of
this young woman with glowing green eyes, chasing after me, yelling things…
But today, I dreamt of Haruka and I walking through a garden, talking about
the Senshi of Uranus."
"This is not good." Luna's voice could hardly be described as a
whisper, but all energy was wiped from her usually chipper tone as she
glanced up at the four guardian senshi of the Moon Princess, staring. "What
about you girls?"
Rei frowned slightly. "I don't remember them once I wake up," she
admitted with a shrug. "Just a name."
"Carrie." Makoto's comment received a quorum of nods, and as Ami
shut her laptop for the first time that afternoon, the brunette sighed. "I'm
glad I'm not the only one. I thought I was going crazy!"
"Carrie?" There was an intense, distinct tinge of apprehension in
Luna's tone as she hopped to her feet, glancing up at the girls with wide
orange eyes. Her voice startled the nearby Phobos and Deimos, who
squawked a loud, cawing protest. "That's the name you've been
remembering?" Her whiskers drooped as all the girls - even Haruka, who
hadn't responded to the previous interrogation regarding the nightmares -
nodded in the affirmative. "Oh dear. This really IS NOT good."
Growling softly to herself, Haruka glowered down at the cat. "Would
you mind cluing us in on what's going on here, Luna?" she questioned
gruffly, watching as the Guardian of the Moon Kingdom hopped down from
her perch and stretched briefly, working the kinks out of her tired joints.
Luna sighed. "It's too soon for me to know anything for sure, Haruka-
chan," she apologized, shaking her head. "I need to talk to Usagi-chan, first,
and then with Artemis. But I will tell you this much: if all this adds up to
what I think it will, there is a very serious battle looming on the horizon. One
of proportions you girls have only dreamt of."
All four of the present guardian senshi gulped in unison.
"Until then," warned the cat sagely, "try your best to sleep. I have a
feeling that your dreams will not be leaving you any time soon." She took a
few steps down the cobblestones and then paused, turning back towards the
two outer planet senshi almost as an afterthought. "Oh, and Haruka?
Michiru?"
"Hai?"
"Do yourselves a favor and sleep in shifts for the next few nights.
You'll thank me later."
And with that, the cat sped off across the courtyard, startling the
crows a second time until she hopped onto and over the fence surrounding
the shrine and was gone.
===
"Over the course of scientific history, there has never been an
earthquake of this magnitude held to such a confined area." Sei flipped the
tissue-paper thin page of the textbook gingerly, running her long, blue
fingernails under the words in a feeble attempt to skim them more quickly.
"Granted, it's rare that an earthquake this strong hits at all." Her sharp green
gaze snapped up, focusing on the face of her student, who watched her
every motion with a rapt interest, blinking at the pause. "This, Tsukino-san,
is history in the making."
By the time that Tsukino Usagi had been released from her tenth-
period English composition class - a full three minutes late, much to her
annoyance - and had rushed across the entirety of the campus to her science
classroom, her teacher's desk was already covered in books. Most were at
least partially open, with pens and slips of paper jutting out between pages,
a sight that stopped the girl dead in her tracks. When Yashi-sensei did
appear, arms laden with another six or seven books, she was still struggling
to close her gaping jaw.
Sei had laughed, handed her a book, and commanded her to start
reading. That had been three hours earlier.
Usagi frowned at the terminology - "history in the making" sounded
distinctly like something Minako would say about their senshi careers - and
leaned forward in the desk she'd taken over, cupping her chin in her hands.
"But… How did it get stuck in that tiny area?" she questioned carefully.
"Wouldn't a really strong earthquake spread out further than that?"
"That's a very good question," nodded the teacher, her eyes
immediately flipping back to the textbook. "I'm not all through this last book
yet, but from what I can tell… Nothing like this has ever happened before.
Strange, ne?"
The blonde girl simply nodded, glancing away from the desk before her
and towards the windows. Yashi-sensei had drawn the shades when the sun
had first started to dip lower in the sky, but now it was sequestered far
behind the tree line, casting a gold iridescent glow on the sports fields and
cherry trees below. The American football team struggled with their final
drills for the evening, yelling and laughing together. She wondered, idly, if
the senshi meeting that Minako had called together was over yet. She had
heard nothing. Was hearing nothing good, or was it bad?
Haruka and Michiru's house, Ami had reported from behind her laptop
at lunch, lay at the very center of the debris. The epicenter. Certainly, that
meant something…didn't it? The more and more she and her sensei
discussed the history and logistics of earthquakes, the more and more
suspicious Usagi became. Especially since a radio report only an hour earlier
had confirmed the Juuban quake to be the worst earthquake to shake the
country, registering as the second-worst in the history of the known world.
That meant -
"A-HA!" Sei's elation snapped her student from her thoughts with a
start, and she whirled back to face the desk just in time to see the teacher
with one bright blue fingernail poking into the body of the book. "It's not
solid EVIDENCE, but it's a legend that mentions 'the great wrath of the war
princess.'" She turned the volume around, handing it to the blonde-haired
girl. "Read it. It's very intriguing."
Usagi frowned, wrinkling her nose as she focused on the unfamiliar
characters. English. "Ano…" She glanced up from the strange words to see
her teacher watching her expectantly, and she sighed. "Let's see… 'A
thousand years ago, from the Kingdom of War, came a daughter of great
might.'" She attempted to keep from wrinkling her nose, but she failed.
Mythology had always been her least favorite part of English class…next to
spelling and grammar, at least. "'But she was endowed with a blackness of
the great art passed down to daughters of this Kingdom, and - for all the
goodness in the universe - had a heart of darkness.
"'For many years, the rulers of War hoped she could overcome the
blackness in her soul. But this was not to be. The rulers were forced to strip
her of her title and her great art, passing on that which had been given to
the first daughter to the second. And so wrathful was this child that she laid
destruction to the castle, an earthquake constrained only to the castle
grounds.'" Closing the book slowly, Usagi swallowed the lump that had risen
in her throat. "Wow."
"I've always found legend to be an incredible place to search for
truth," Yashi-sensei began to explain with a wag of her finger. "There
probably was no real princess, but perhaps there was some sort of natural
phenomenon that they explained with this legend. Meaning that it did happen
before! Isn't that exciting?"
The blonde girl managed to nod dully, a gesture that allowed her
teacher to continue babbling. She, however, found her eyes drawn again to
the setting sun as a single train of thoughts settled into her mind.
A thousand years ago.
A black-hearted female.
The Silver Millennium.
…Carrie.
===
"Setsuna-mama?"
"Hmm."
"Do you know what's happening? With the dreams and the
earthquake?"
The green-tressed Guardian of Time frowned as she glanced up from
the evening newspaper and glanced towards Hotaru. The girl lay sprawled-
out across the foot of one of the two huge beds that cluttered the hotel
room, her shoulder-length bob of hair trailing off the edge as she stared up
at the ceiling. "What do you mean?" Setsuna asked casually, her paper
rustling as she folded it up and placed it on the bed stand. "Why would I
know what's happening?"
Rolling onto her side, Hotaru shot the adult a somewhat tense look.
"Please don't pretend that I'm a normal, clueless girl," she demanded, setting
her face into a mask of determination. "I want to know what's going on. I
don't have the benefit of Silver Millennium memories. I want to know what's
happening."
Sighing, Setsuna shook her head. "It's not that easy, Hotaru," she
reminded the child in the most parental tone she could muster, earning a roll
of violet eyes in response. "You know very well that I cannot share what I
know with you. It could create a paradox, or lead you to try to prevent
what's left to come."
Hotaru fumbled to sit up, her eyebrows arching in a juvenile curiosity.
"So this DOES involve me!" She watched with a mixture of excitement and
apprehension as the dark skin of the woman's face paled, the color
disappearing in the horror of knowing she had said too much. "I knew that
there was something more to this than what meets the eye! But…" Elation
turned slowly to apprehension. "Destruction?"
"Not of the world, Hotaru," the adult eased, her heart welling up in
pain as the junior high student glanced away, her bright eyes distant. In all
her thousands of years, both as a Sailor Senshi and as a mortal, Meiou
Setsuna had never felt as much empathy and love for another human being
as she did for this dark-haired, optimistic child... Especially knowing that the
child had seen and experienced all manners of pain and suffering in her
young life and would yet live to experience more. "There is much to this
situation that I cannot tell you. It's too soon in the game, one could say, to
begin to move the pawns. I'm sorry."
For a long moment, the girl did not respond, but when she did, her
voice hardly registered in the adult's ears, a whisper so soft that Setsuna
wondered if she had imagined the sound.
"I'm going to hurt someone I love, aren't I?"
Setsuna didn't respond. She didn't need to.
They both knew the answer would be yes.
===
"Dreams?" Usagi set down her hairbrush on the bureau, casting her
cerulean eyes towards her feline companion with a certain cautiousness.
"What about my dreams, Luna?"
Luna's worry about the nature of the girls' shared nightmares had
been multiplied nearly exponentially when Usagi had come home too late for
supper, babbling about legends and earthquakes. The cat, of course, had
avoided any outward manifestation of this worry, but hearing the familiar
legend retold by her excited charge caused her stomach to knot around itself
tightly. But Usagi, thankfully, seemed wholly unconcerned, and it was only as
the teen readied herself for bed that the cat remembered her urgency in
needing to investigate Usagi's dreams.
Hopping up onto the bureau, the cat cast a long glance at the second-
year high school student. "This is very important, Usagi-chan," she stressed,
her tail whipping back and forth in a regular, metered pattern as she spoke.
"You have to trust me when I say that I can't tell you anything, yet. But I
need to know if you have had any unusual dreams, especially ones about the
Silver Millennium."
Blue eyes widened, and it didn't take feline instinct for Luna to know
that she'd hit the nail on the head. The blonde crossed the room and sank
into her bed, her slippers kicked across the room and thumping dully into the
wall furthest from the futon. "I wasn't really having any dreams for a while,"
she admitted, glancing up at her guardian, who was still perched atop the
bureau. "Which was strange for me, because I ALWAYS dream. And then,
last night, I had the weirdest dream I've ever had before."
"What happened in it, Usagi?"
Not surprisingly, the girl shrugged. "I was really little - still in primary
school - and I was running away from a bigger girl. She was a Sailor Senshi,
too, I think, because she was wearing a fuku. But it was black, instead of
white. Isn't that funny?" She chuckled a little, but the orange eyes of her cat
never wavered, and the mirth faded as soon as she recognized Luna's stern,
'this is not a laughing matter' glower. "She wanted to… I don't even know
what she wanted to do, anymore. I think she wanted to hurt me, though, but
before I saw anything more, I woke up." She sighed and shook her head.
"Her name was Carrie, Luna, and I ended up with this feeling that she was
from the Silver Millennium. Is that a bad thing?"
Carrie. Luna frowned and glanced away from the girl, brow furrowing
in contemplation. Even Usagi had been touched by the dreams of Carrie. But
why? Why would memories so long erased have come back now? And how
could Carrie have -
"Usagi-chan, I need you to do something for me."
The girl blinked up at her pet. "Hai, Luna?"
"The next time you have a dream like that," instructed the cat
carefully, "you need to write down everything you remember the instant you
wake up. Don't wait and write it down later. All right?"
Usagi began to protest. "But, Luna, I don't under - "
Luna's voice was stern, strong…and, as much as the cat didn't want to
admit to it, frightened. "Wheels are turning, Usagi-chan, and I need to know
exactly how long it's going to be before all the gears fall into their perfect
positions."
"Okay, Luna." There was doubt in the teen's voice, but the cat felt at
least somewhat vindicated by the fact that she responded in the positive.
Perhaps she had been a better guardian these past few years than she had
originally thought. After all, she had never failed Usagi in her duties.
…well, at least not yet.
===
She stumbled through the darkness, stubbing her toes on the chairs
that had been overturned in the doorway, groping in the pockets of her light,
knit summer robe for a book of matches or a candlestick. Her fingers closed
only around emptiness, but this somehow failed to surprise her. She'd fled
from her room in haste, her handmaiden calling after her, the echoed
pleading of "Marcella! Don't go down there!" ringing in her ears. Soon
enough, she realized, her mother would send a guard or two to come get
her, and it would be over.
As if it wasn't already over.
Thunder crackled in the distance, and lightning exploded on the
horizon, its brilliance spreading, briefly, into the room and allowing her the
previously foreign luxury of making out her surroundings.
The room lay in shambles. Fine sitting chairs had been overturned in
the doorway, legs cracked and upholstery shredded, hanging limply from its
wooden skeleton, the stuffed innards hanging out and cluttering the floor.
The wardrobe gaped open, the midnight blue silks and velvet gowns from
within strewn about, joined on the floor by the remnants of torn and
discarded draperies. But before she could further examine the room, the
lightning died.
Worry, worry paired with fear, welled up in her stomach, constricting
her throat until she wondered if she would be able to speak at all. When her
handmaiden had told her of Queen Serenity's decision, she had been so
horrified! But now…
Now, perhaps, she could attest to Serenity being right.
"Carrie?" Her voice squeaked in her throat as her feet slid off the rug
and slapped against marble, the cool stone biting her bare skin. She shivered
involuntarily, hugging the robe closer to her lithe, almost boyish form. Even
though it was only the very beginning of fall, the palace felt somewhat like
an icebox, and the chill throbbed through her veins until her skin crawled and
demanded warmth. Warmth, she realized, she did not have.
A broken sob echoed through the room, and she frowned, venturing
another step forward. The lightning flashed a second time, and she could
finally see it - a huddled, hunched form, balled in a fetal position, lying in the
very center of the enormous canopy bed. Her heart cried out to the other girl
as she drew closer and closer still, until her fingers brushed against the soft
bedspreads.
"Carrie? Carrie, are you alright?"
A flash of lightning, a flash of movement, green eyes that shone in the
darkness -
- and the beeping of the alarm clock.
Haruka's weary gray-green eyes burst open at the repeated honking of
the hotel alarm clock and her arm immediately shot out from under the
pillow, smacking at the buttons until it shut off. 3 a.m. Michiru - and, once
she heard tell of the meeting that afternoon, Setsuna as well - had insisted
upon following Luna's "sound" advice of sleeping in shifts, with the three
adults switching off every three hours. The blonde had offered to take the
final shift, which would be the worst; after all, the earthquake had struck
around 3 a.m. the night before. Kissing Michiru a quick goodnight and
tucking the woman away in bed, she was left with one question: what if they
hadn't been awake? Would they all be dead?
The thought frightened her, mingling with the strange, displaced
sensation in her dream, so she slipped out of her ratty night clothes and into
the shower, the warmth of steam and near-scalding water comforting her
weary muscles and bones. Somehow, her lack of sleep hadn't managed to
catch up with her until now, and it grasped at every inch of her body with a
vengeance, squeezing the life out of her limbs until it was hard to stand. So,
instead, she flipped the knob on the faucet and let the tub fill until it was
nearly overflowing, settling into the soothing water slowly and leaning back,
her damp tresses falling over shut eyelids, ignored.
Carrie. That name, and the emotions it evoked… Her heart ached. Very
few names caused her heart to swell up the way that one did; she could
count the number on one hand, and three of the bearers were sleeping
quietly in the next room. To her recollection, she couldn't remember anyone
named Carrie, or a room with fine furniture that had been destroyed in a fit
of passion. And yet, she still felt the warm sweat of apprehension on her
brow and the freezing stone floor beneath her feet. The flash of the
lightning… The green eyes in the darkness.
What in the world was going on? Haruka asked herself this question
carefully as she rose from the now-tepid bathwater and toweled herself off,
slipping on a pair of tan pants and a button-down top for the day; the school
had busied themselves with ordering new uniforms for the two third-year
students, but it would take some time. A comb ripped through a tangled
mass of short hair, and red-rimmed eyes stared at a bewildered expression.
It was harder to shrug off her apprehensions when Setsuna, Hotaru, and the
other girls all felt them, too. And with Luna rushing off in search of Usagi…
She sighed, staring into the mirror.
Who in the world was Carrie? And why did she have a feeling that it
really DID matter?
===
The spring day dawned slowly, an icy breeze sweeping across the city
of Tokyo as she lay, half-curled, in the single patch of sun that escaped thick
gray clouds, her tail twitching. Inside, Usagi ranted, raved, and ripped her
room apart in a frantic search for one of her lost school shoes. At least the
girl had slept peacefully, she assured herself with a sigh, her whiskers
quivering in the breeze. Her magic, though not nearly as strong as it had
been in the days of the Silver Millennium, had assured that much. For how
long, though, she was not sure; the nightmares were strong and enduring,
and her sense told her that it was only a matter of days before the magic
failed and Usagi would experience the full force of the dreams.
"Ohayou, Luna!" Artemis' voice, perky and, as always, confident,
surprised the black cat, and she started as her long-time partner and friend
hopped from a branch of a nearby tree and landed gracefully at her side atop
the roof. "You certainly chose a frigid day to demand my presence." He
shivered, though her orange eyes - well-attuned to picking up the
idiosyncrasies of the white cat's behavior - observed that the spasm was
mostly forced. "Can't we talk in the house or something?"
Sighing, she glanced away, watching as a few cars puttered down the
quiet road in the direction of the city proper. "I would rather the girls not
overhear what I have to ask you," she responded, her fur tossed by a sudden
gust of wind. "Artemis, what do you remember of the Silver Millennium?"
He frowned - she could tell that much - but experience had taught him
to never demand justification for his better half's seemingly random
questions, so he demanded nothing. Despite his sometimes overly-rampant
egotism and games of playing "headquarters" when the girls had just begun
their lives as senshi, Luna held the title as their leader, and the more
competent of the two cats. But, like all felines tended to be, she coveted
mysteriousness and slyness and clung to them, hiding her real intentions
until she could be certain of them. And this situation, judging by the urgency
that had shaken her voice the evening before, was just another example of
Luna being…well, Luna.
"I remember almost everything," he admitted, settling onto his
haunches for what he figured would be a long conversation. "The ten
kingdoms, the Lunar Council… The only thing I'm really hazy on is Elysion."
His frown deepened, brow furrowing. "If you really want to know something,
though, you'll have to be a little more specific."
She refused to face him. "More specifically, then, what do you
remember about the Kingdom of Uranus?"
"Uranus?" The planetary name echoed on the wind. "I never had much
contact with Uranus, actually. Mostly worked diplomacy with Venus, Mercury,
Mars, and - "
"Humor me, please." There was ice in her tone.
Sighing, Artemis swiped at a falling cherry blossom with his paw,
catching it between his unsheathed claws. "Uranus, the Kingdom of War," he
recited, wracking his age-clouded brain for the information he had once
known by heart; cats, he decided, should not be expected to remember
information over the course of multiple millennia. "Its monarchal rule was
founded by a magic-wielding aristocratic girl in the 740s, if I remember
correctly. She overthrew the despotic government at the time through sheer
magical force and was crowned Queen Zelda by her people. It was one of the
last three planets to join the Lunar Council, with Neptune and Earth following
very closely after." He shrugged, freeing the trapped petal and allowing it to
dance freely on the wind. "Princess Marcella took up the role as Sailor
Uranus. The kingdom was destroyed when Metallia and her legions came to
conquer. That was about it."
"I figured." Luna turned back to her white companion, orange eyes
blazing as they lowered towards him. It was not a vicious or angry glare, but
rather one of intense curiosity, a look of study and curiosity. "And the name
Carrie would mean what to you?"
Carrie. Carrie… Somewhere, in the back-most corner of his mind,
under a layer of dust and behind a thick haze of cobwebs, lay that fateful
name, but for his life - and the other eight that cats were so rumored to have
- Artemis could not remember it. "I feel like I should know it," he admitted,
coupling his response with a slight shrug. "But for some reason, I don't fully
remember. Why do you ask, Luna? Is something going on?"
"Something very significant is going on." Below, Usagi screamed a
frantic goodbye to her mother and shot out the door, almost a blur of pink
legs and blue school fuku as she took off down the street. Luna sat up slowly,
shaking her head. "Artemis, I am about to tell you a story," she informed him
carefully, "and you cannot take it lightly. And, more than that, you cannot
tell the girls. It's imperative that we keep the situation under tight control for
as long as we possibly can."
Artemis' blue eyes blinked, widening as they opened again.
"Situation?" he questioned, his voice catching in his throat as a strangled
mew. "Luna, what is going on?!"
She sighed, glancing up at the cloudy sky, a sky that promised - or
perhaps, threatened - rain. "It's a story," she began softly, "about a little girl
with a strange and terrible gift. A little girl… Named Carrie."
===
"Now, if you multiple the original temperature by - "
Yashi Sei scowled as the bell clamored, echoing through the laboratory
science classroom and signaling the end of her teaching period and the
beginning of lunch. Students immediately began to chatter and bustle about,
tossing books and half-finished lab reports into their bags in a feeble and
hasty attempt to get to lunch. Cruel and unusual punishment, decided the
educator as she yelled over the din, pleading with her students to read their
chapter on endothermic and exothermic reactions, was being forced to teach
chemistry the period before lunch.
The jabbering of voices subsided as the navy-and-white garbed teens
filed out, and she sighed, stacking up her books and papers busily. A few
remnants from the previous evening's discussion with Tsukino Usagi
remained, piled up on a corner, pages marked by neon-colored post-it notes
that, on a whole, signified -
"Yashi-sensei?" Green eyes blinked as Sei glanced up from the work at
hand to see Usagi hovering over her desk, hands hidden behind her back as
she eagerly awaited her teacher's attention. But for the first time, the girl
was not alone. Behind her loomed two other second-year students,
classmates of Usagi's that the teacher immediately recognized as Kino
Makoto and Aino Minako.
Surprised - though she could not easily vocalize why - by the
appearance of the two other students, Sei smiled placidly. "Tsukino-san,
hello!" she smiled, rapping her fingernails almost involuntarily on the edge of
her desk. "I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you. I have a few books at
home that I'm going to bring in tomorrow. Cross-references to the legend,
you know."
Usagi nodded almost shyly, fidgeting slightly. "I was wondering, Yashi-
sensei, if you could tell my friends about the legend," she appealed, glancing
wearily towards the other girls. "See, our parents all used to tell us stories
about kingdoms thousands of years ago, and so they're interested, too."
Before the teacher could agree or disagree to Usagi's request, Minako
tossed her head of long hair and took a dramatic step forward, her baby-blue
eyes sparkling brilliantly. "Please, Yashi-sensei!" she begged, her voice loud
enough that Usagi and Makoto both flinched from the sound. "Four of our
friends were almost tragically killed in the earthquake! Please, oh PLEASE,
tell us more about it!"
Makoto sighed and shook her head. "Yare yare," she muttered with a
roll of her eyes.
"Friends of yours were involved?" Sei's face paled slightly as she raised
a hand to her throat, a truly horrified expression crossing her expression.
"I'm so sorry! Tsukino-san, you didn't tell me that! No wonder you've been
so worried!"
"Our friends are fine, actually," the brunette assured their teacher as
Usagi and Minako exchanged somewhat dubious glances. "Luckily, they were
awake and managed to get out in time. But their house was totally
destroyed."
For a moment, Sei fell completely silent, staring at the three girls in
careful consideration. Usagi's stomach turned over in her stomach, and she
could feel her hands turn cool and clammy. For some strange reason, Sei's
reaction to Minako's dramatic outburst caused her stomach to sink. Everyone
else with whom she'd shared the news - her parents, Naru and Umino, and a
few other classmates - had reacted similarly to hearing about her friends,
and yet Yashi-sensei's reaction seemed almost…fake? Forced? She couldn't
describe the feeling in any sort of concise terms, but she felt it. It tightened
around her heart, grasping her from the inside and tearing her -
"I know it's a bit unorthodox," began Sei suddenly, pulling Usagi from
her thoughts with an exaggerated blink, "but would you girls like to come
over to my apartment this evening? We can look over the other books I
found on the legends, and perhaps you could tell me a bit more about your
friends."
The part of Usagi's mind that was so preoccupied with her teacher's
reaction screamed out at her, imploring her for a "no" answer and a quick
retreat. But Minako - true as she ever was - stepped in, grinning maniacally.
"We'd love to!" she announced, bouncing. "Mako-chan's a great cook, so she
can make cookies or something! And Rei-chan can bring tea, and Ami-chan
can research a bit, and - "
"Rei and Ami were not invited, Minako-chan," stressed Makoto tersely
once they had bowed their goodbyes and began down the hallway in a tight
rank of three, chatting amongst themselves. "Artemis was right. We do need
to work on your tact…"
Yashi Sei stared after them, green eyes soft and considerate, lost in
thoughts and questions that perched in the back of her mind, ignored and
unanswered.
And then, she shrugged and returned to the process of tidying up her
desk.
===
They sat together at a tea-table, her legs crossed daintily at the ankles
and tucked under the edge of her chair, back straight, posture poised. It was
a trained elegance, different from the natural beauty of her soft, tanned skin,
slightly almond-shaped eyes, and long, dark hair. At nearly eleven, she
already began to show signs of growing from a girl to a young woman, with
subtle curves blooming beneath the flowing red ceremonial robes that
marked her kingdom and station. But with her mature beauty came a mature
disposition, one that led her away from interaction with her peers and
towards the tea-table with the oldest of her contemporaries.
But as trained and well-maintained as her posture was, there was a
tenseness to it, and her jaw set as the other girl - a honey-brunette of
sixteen or seventeen, though she could not be certain - drummed her long,
bright blue fingernails on the mosaic top of the table, green eyes dark as she
tossed a braid over her shoulder. "I just don't see how you Martians can cling
to all your outdated beliefs about the spiritual world," she droned on, leaning
far back in her chair. The bunched sleeves of her navy top fluttered in the
spring breeze. "If anything can even be considered religion anymore, it's
magic. And even that is a moody creature, something only the worthy can
uncover." She smirked slightly. "I'm not sure you would understand. Your
magic, though stronger than that of some of the other girls, is still weak,
isn't it?"
She bristled, her spine stiffening. "My magic harnesses powers you
could not possibly comprehend," she returned, her teeth gritting. Her mother
and advisors spent many hours each week in an attempt to teach her to
maintain her temper, but she could feel the fire flickering deep within her
soul, and somehow, the inner calm she was taught to seek remained just out
of reach. "Have you ever taken a moment, Carrie, to commune with a higher
being? To understand the spirits that control the natural world and the
universe we live in? Until you take the time out of your busy schedule of
criticizing others and abusing the rest of us in your 'training' sessions,
perhaps you should remain silent."
The brunette sat straight up, suddenly, and she realized too late that
her words had struck a sensitive and jarring chord with the older teen.
"Excuse me?" challenged her opposition, causing her to glance away guiltily
and watch two of her friends, both blonde and flighty, chase one another
through the rose labyrinth in the distance. "You're accusing me of being
shallow? All you ever do is 'commune' with your spiritual whatever-they-are.
Why don't you try living up to your duties as a warrior?"
"My duties, Carrie, are first to my planet, and then to my training."
The metal feet of her chair scrapped against the brick walk as she rose, her
violet gaze meeting hunter green evenly. "You should ponder this concept.
You may be the daughter of war, but you are also a princess - learned,
elegant, and above the base brutality you enjoy exhibiting." She stifled a
bow, though the action came more out of good breeding than actual respect;
her feathers, as they often said, had been ruffled. "Good day."
As she began down the path towards the palace, wooden sandals
clicking against the brick walkway, Carrie's voice rose in a passionate
crescendo behind her. "Enya, you'll regret this! You'll regret the day you
challenged me! You'll regret - "
Feathers. Black feathers. Feathers drenched in the dark reddish-brown
of half-dried blood…
Gasping, Hino Rei sat straight up in the pew, not surprised to hear the
familiar droning-on of Latin echoing through the high-ceilinged chapter. The
nun at the end of her pew, a stern-faced pale woman called Sister Margaret,
glowered towards her, annoyed, to which the Shinto just shrugged and
leaned back against the polished back of the bench. Usually, despite the
hard-to-understand Latin of the scripture readings and the unbridled length
of the homilies, Rei at least managed to pay some attention to her
mandatory Catholic church services. But today, sleep had snuck its arms
around her throat and strangled her alertness away, leaving her with the
strangest feeling that what she had been dreaming was not a dream at all
but rather memory. A memory of bickering with a brunette teen, a memory
of black feathers and blood covering white sheets, a memory of a past she
scarcely could recall.
Carrie. The name that had come up at the meeting. Before, she had
never recalled anything more than the mysterious name, but now, she had a
face to pair with the name. A face, and a strange, stubborn disposition.
Somehow, Rei's previous inkling nagged her again, and she could not
ignore it.
Something was about to happen.
And soon.
===
Much to their shared surprise, Makoto and Minako discovered that
their chemistry teacher lived only two blocks from the outer-most edge of the
earthquake. Their "fearless leader," the bun-headed blonde, was somehow
not surprised by this and, as they climbed the rickety outdoor stairs to
apartment 715, wondered why every step constricted her stomach until it
was nothing more than a tight, painful knot. Part of her mind argued that the
feeling was completely irrational; perhaps Yashi-sensei's excitement over
Usagi's earthquake research was a natural offshoot from nearly having her
home destroyed by the phenomenon.
But then again, argued a small, nagging, and always-irrational corner
of her mind, that didn't explain her interest in an obviously Silver Millennium-
based legend. Especially not when one stopped to consider that Yashi Sei's
field of expertise required logic, study, and - most importantly - proof. Did
legends act as proof? And what kind of scientist would pursue such avenues
to explain as serious a matter as a deadly earthquake?
"You know, it's a bit strange," thought Makoto aloud as they reached
the doorway to 715 and stared collectively at the door buzzer, each waiting
for another to make the first move. "I've never had a teacher invite me
over." Green eyes glanced cautiously towards Usagi, the center point of the
threesome. "Are you sure that this legend is linked to the earthquake? I
mean, I know it mentioned a Kingdom of War, but that doesn't necessarily
relate to our dreams or the Silver Millennium. It could just be a legend,
Usagi."
She was right. Usagi admitted to that with a certain pessimism, her
wary blue eyes staring down at the messily written "Yashi Sei" nameplate
over the buzzer. But nothing in their lives, whether as humans or as Sailor
Senshi, had ever been defined by the type of strange coincidence that
Makoto's commentary suggested. Everything connected, intertwined in a web
so thick and complex that they really couldn't escape from it, no matter how
hard they tried.
But as her conflicted mind attempted, feebly, to formulate some sort
of intelligent organization of her thoughts, Minako shrugged and leaned
forward, pressing the buzzer button with a long first finger. "Might as well
find out!" she grinned, but the expression was obviously forced. Makoto
rolled green eyes while Usagi smiled weakly back, listening to the buzzer
echo behind the door. Did they really have that much to lose?
Their teacher answered the door promptly and with a bright smile,
leading them into the small studio apartment while babbling excitedly about
how nice it was to have students see her at home. Even in a university t-shirt
and faded blue jeans, an air of complete control and discipline surrounded
the brunette woman. Her long hair, crimped from her braid that morning,
flowed past her shoulders to brush the small of her back, fluttering in a free,
honey-colored mass as she quickly guided the girls around her apartment,
pointing out various rooms and introducing them to her ginger-colored cat,
Marcie. Naturally, the apartment bordered between tidy and immaculate, the
only clutter being the books that jammed the living area of the apartment,
shelves double- and triple-stacked and volumes pouring over onto tables,
chairs, and the corners of the floor. Even Marcie, who barely lifted her head
as she inspected the strange visitors with slanted green cat's eyes, lay atop a
large book, her tail swishing across a second volume as she watched her
housemate show the teens about. But soon enough, the meager tour ended
and Sei directed the trio towards the couch, settling into the loveseat for
herself and stretching out as much as she could…which was not much at all,
considering the formidable stack of books that covered the other cushion.
"So, you found more about the legend?" Usagi's voice was cautious,
almost quiet, as her teacher began to flip open a few of the books beside her
to various pages, her dark eyes intense on the words below. At the sound of
the stranger's voice, Marcie's head perked up, slanted feline eyes widening
towards her. Within seconds, the slender stripe of the ginger cat slunk across
the length of the coffee table and invited herself onto the blonde's lap,
mewing softly and rubbing up against her hands and arms.
Sei's expression did little to hide her surprise as Makoto, somehow
relaxed by the attitude of the feline, leaned back into the couch and smiled.
"She sure likes you, Usagi-chan," she commented as the teacher closed one
book and reached for another. Usagi's long fingers scratched the back of the
purring cat, who flopped over in her lap and snuggled in. "Even your own cat
doesn't react to you like that!"
"It is very strange," the honey-haired adult noted, her lips pursing as
she dragged a larger, more battered book onto her lap. "Marcie usually
doesn't like people all that much. Why, in all the years I've had her, she…"
Her voice trailed off, as though she had suddenly lost herself to her thoughts.
Minako, either not realizing this or not caring, blinked. "She what?"
questioned the bow-headed blonde, smoothing the cat's twitching tail as it
swept back and forth between her and Usagi's legs like a pendulum.
Their instructor shrugged, shaking her head. "Nothing really. There's
just only ever been one person that Marcie's reacted that way to, and that
was long ago. A girl I used to know, when I was very little…" She shifted her
attention to the book on her lap, pausing only for a moment before segueing
into more important matters.
"But, yes. The legend," smiled Sei calmly, opening the thick book
across her knees, a cloud of dust rising up from it as she did so, "has been
around for the last millennium at the very least. I was lucky to find more
information on it, really; from what I could tell after speaking to the head of
the literature department at Juuban, it's a very obscure story."
The girls exchanged subtle glances, and Usagi shifted uncomfortably.
Marcie yawned and readjusted herself in the blonde girl's lap, purring
contentedly once her fleshy cat bed had settled again. "Obscure in what
way?" she questioned carefully, moving a hand to caress the feline's soft,
ginger fur. "I've never even heard of it."
"It's a tale about a kingdom long ago," clarified their teacher, her head
bowing as she started to skim through the book. Her eyes lowered carefully
over the words as she spoke, and occasionally, Usagi could see her brow
furrow in concentration or perhaps indecision; she could not tell. "A thousand
years ago, each planet was inhabited by a race of people, forming nine
kingdoms – one for every planet except Saturn, and then a kingdom on the
Moon. These kingdoms were extremely diverse and ranging in beliefs, but
they joined together under the lead of the queen of the Kingdom of Justice
and formed a council together." She paused, glancing up from the book, her
intense green eyes peering at the trio on her couch over the dark rims of her
glasses. "Things start to get very vague after that. Never is a kingdom
referred to by its planet, but by its name. The information I've found here
and there matches up some kingdoms to their planet – the Kingdom of
Eternity, for example, is Pluto, and I'm fairly sure that the Kingdom of Love
is Venus – but it's hard to tell. I have no idea what the Kingdom of War may
be; I would guess Mars, but something tells me that that's just not right."
Minako's lips moved to form the word "Uranus," but thankfully, only
her two friends noticed the automatic, thoughtless motion. The brunette to
her left frowned slightly and her brow creased, as though questioning the
statement. If the Kingdom of War was Uranus, then that meant –
"Anyway, from what I can tell, the ruler of each kingdom was given a
gift. We would probably all call it magic, though I'm not sure if that is really
what it was." Sei flipped a page in her book, pausing only long enough to
brush a strand of tawny hair from her eyes. "This gift was passed on through
the matriarchal line, from mother to daughter, and – as far as I understand –
that's what determined leadership of each nation-planet. The first daughter,
then, was supremely honored as the heiress to the throne."
She leaned back, closing the book slowly, her gaze fixated into the
space between herself and the girls, focusing on nothing in particular. Her
voice dropped, lower and softer, less clinical than it had been just moments
earlier. "The daughter of the Kingdom of War was very unlucky," she
informed the girls, her fingers gripping either side of the closed book. "She
developed an unusual version of the gift, a darker version. Her parents – the
rulers of the kingdom – tried to help her cultivate it into something less vile,
but nothing helped. She was deemed black, evil, unworthy, and despite the
arguments against it, magically torn from her talents and sent off, exiled
forever." A small smile, almost a smirk, rose to touch pale pink lips as her
long fingers tightened around the book. "But not all was lost. They didn't
realize that her powers couldn't be totally destroyed, or that her little sister
would end up being only half the person she was. No… They didn't realize
this. Even after the castle was leveled and the universe d - "
Marcie, from her spot curled up on Usagi's lap, mewed long and loud,
and suddenly green eyes blinked and Sei found herself staring at three wide-
eyed, white-faced girls. Her fingers uncurled and she raised a hand to her
lips, her face reddening in embarrassment. "I'm so sorry!" she gasped,
frowning. "I started rambling, didn't I? Oh, this happens sometimes…" She
sighed, rising quickly from her seat, the book added to a stack and forgotten
immediately. "I should probably go to bed. It's late, and I only get this way
when I'm overtired. Come, I'll show you girls to the door."
Usagi's felt almost numb as she followed Yashi-sensei towards the
door, her mind only half registering the pleasant chatter that her friends
were exchanging with the teacher as they gathered up their things to leave.
Something had just happened, she realized dully, slipping on her shoes with
an automation she'd learned as a small child, years before. Her teacher had
lost all sense of time and place, it seemed, staring into the distance and
speaking extemporaneously on a topic she seemed to know so little about.
What had happened, just now? And what did it mean?
"Tsukino-san?"
Blue eyes met dark green as Yashi Sei smiled down at her student.
Usagi had not realized that Minako and Makoto were already outside the
apartment, waiting for their friend to join them on the other side of the open
door. She blushed slightly and stepped outside. "Gomen nasai, Yashi-sensei,"
she mumbled.
Her teacher smiled. "Nothing to apologize for. Goodnight, girls. I will
see you in class tomorrow."
Usagi watched the door close heavily in front of them.
"Goodnight…"
===
The breeze tickled the back of her neck, flowing freely through the
window as they perched over the marble chess table she had received as a
gift on her last birthday, a good six months previous. The translucent silk
draperies danced in the wind as she picked up a pawn and moved it
diagonally, capturing her opponent's rook with ease and skill. Their mothers
had insisted that they spend more time together stimulating intellectual
interests; in some ways, they were both more reclusive than the other girls,
preferring their own hobbies to running about and braiding flower wreaths.
Scowling, the honey-haired girl furrowed her brow, watching as
slender fingers closed around her rook and stowed it away, placing it out of
reach on the windowsill. "Patience, Carrie, is one of the most important
aspects of this game," she smiled calmly, folding her hands on her lap as her
opponent tossed her head, long braid twitching back and forth like the tail of
a horse. "A well-played chess match can take multiple hours. That's the trick
of it, the strategy. You can't rush your plan, or you will lose too many vital
pieces too quickly."
"I don't understand this game of yours," insisted Carrie, fidgeting as
she studied the board. In a way, she felt bad for the older teen; she'd never
even heard of the game of chess previously, and beyond that, she wanted to
rush through the game, attempting to conquer the board with her most
powerful pieces. Her haste already had cost her one knight, one bishop, five
pawns, and now, both of her rooks. She, on the other hand, had only
managed to capture a pair of pawns and a single bishop - a small sacrifice in
the long run.
A large hand reached forward, bright blue fingernails glinting in the
sunlight that glowed through the open window, reaching hesitantly towards
the queen. "I would rather be fencing," snorted the tawny-haired one,
slamming her piece atop one of the white pawns and sending it rolling a bit
across the board. Her opponent shifted her weight and pretended to be more
interested in the lint on her pale blue blouse than on the treatment of the
piece, but the ruse failed, leaving Carrie to grunt an apology and set the
defeated piece onto the sill with all the others. "I don't understand why
moving little chunks of rock around on a checkerboard counts as my
'intellectual edification,' as Mother always calls it."
She chuckled slightly, but the chuckle was short-lived as her eyes fell
to the position of pieces on the board. She brushed a strand of her wispy
navy hair from her face, frowning. "Carrie," she cautioned, "are you sure you
wanted to move your queen there?"
Green eyes glinted, almost challengingly. "What's wrong, Hermia?" she
replied, barely bothering to touch the board as she watched the pale-skinned
teen. "Heartbroken over losing your pawn?"
"No, but - "
"Your move." Blue eyes met green, and there was a sickness, a
twisted quality to the grin lighting such supple red lips.
Time sped suddenly, blurring, turning, rushing forward. The white
bishop slid across the board, and the black queen fell. Dark green eyes
widened and curse words flowed freely from between gritted teeth. Chess
pieces flew through the air, the marble tabletop cracked as it hit the floor,
almost caught by a stream of freezing water. Silken draperies fell, the metal
crossbar unhooking from its brackets and slamming through the
windowpanes.
She screamed, grasping the back of her head and curling into a ball,
fear seizing her body and her heart. Silence. Her own ragged breathing
echoed through the room, but beyond that, there was silence. Slowly,
cautiously, navy eyes peeked open, and she was surprised to see not a
simple navy skirt of linen but the white Egyptian cotton of her bed sheets.
Her heart immediately calmed, relaxing despite the fact that her fear was far
from pacified, and slowly, Mizuno Ami uncurled from the fetal position,
propping herself up on a single elbow. One hand groped for her small alarm
clock, turning its digital display towards her. 2 a.m. She sighed, shaking her
head. A dream. It had just been an awful, violent dream.
And yet… She released her balled fists, somehow unsurprised to find
the palms coated with a thin layer of ice. Ice… Hadn't her immediate reaction
been to let fly her ice attack in an attempt to save the chess table? But…
That would mean…
She flicked her wrists, the thin sheet of ice cracking and falling onto
her sheets, melting almost immediately. She couldn't remember the last time
she'd had such a realistic dream.
In fact, Ami thought to herself as she settled back into her sheets, it
hardly felt like a dream at all.
It felt like…a memory.
===
The shining green eyes glistened in the darkness, and she could - in
the flash of lightning - notice the subtle curve of a vile smile in the darkness.
"Marcella." A shiver dashed up her spine and back down again, and
she shivered, drawing her bedclothes closer to her slender form. The thunder
crashed, louder than before, and she shirked a step away from the bed as
the other form moved to sit up slightly, propped on a single thin elbow.
"What an amusing question. Am I alright?"
Her feet faltered as she stumbled back another step and then another,
frightened by the unfamiliar and vile gleam in the usually bright and
welcoming eyes, the eyes of a role-model and friend. "Y-yes, Carrie," she
murmured, her voice catching in her throat. "My maids just told me the news
before bed. That tomorrow…" She shook her head, her short tresses bobbing.
"I wanted to know if you were alright… After everything…"
The lightning flickered again, and long, tawny hair rimmed a pale,
tear-stained face as the subtle curve of a smile turned into a full-mouthed
smirk. "Yes, an easy question for you to ask," responded the figure in the
bed, her shadow creeping forward, inching across the sheets and towards the
slack-jawed girl. She stumbled backwards, her heel catching on a chunk of
wood that had once been a chair. "You did not stand in that room, Marcella.
You didn't hear the WORDS they said about me!" She chuckled, her legs
dangling over the edge of the enormous, white-draped bed. "Corrupt!
Insane! EVIL!"
Laughter broke through the heaviness of the quiet, the dark figure in
the bed's shoulders shaking in mirth. "Evil! Can you believe it? They called
me EVIL! ME!" The guffaws turned breathy, soft, and lost themselves to
sobs, and, as the lightning stung the darkness and threw it into illumination,
the figure in the bed dropped her face into her hands, sobbing. "I am NOT
evil! I am NOT! I am - "
"Haruka?"
She started and awoke in surprise, green-gray eyes wide as Michiru's
hand traveled from her upper arm and towards her shoulder, eventually
coming to rest on the back of her neck. "Some watchdog you turned out to
be," she teased, tickling the fine blonde hairs and causing her lover to squirm
slightly in the already uncomfortable armchair. "Falling asleep on the job.
You should be glad there wasn't another earthquake."
This lighthearted comment fell on mostly-deaf ears, however, as
Haruka's mind drifted away from reality and back towards the dream, lost in
the hazy no-man's land between her now-faded dream and the waking world
around her. Something didn't mesh. She could now count herself as
completely certain of that. A piece was missing, dropped to the carpeting and
vacuumed up like so many pieces from Hotaru's jigsaw puzzles had been
over the years, missed only when it was too late.
And yet…
"Haruka?" She glanced up to see Michiru staring down at her, visible
concern touching her normally calm, placid expression. "Is something wrong?
You're acting so odd…"
Sighing, the blonde reached up and caressed her better half's pale
cheek, but only for a short moment before pulling away. "Michiru, I need to
find out what these dreams mean," she announced, careful to not raise her
voice too far and therefore earn the attention of the television-distracted
Hotaru; the girl had caught her "parents" discussing something in hushed
voices the evening before and now seemed to perch on their every word,
hoping to catch even the smallest indication of what it was they spent so
much time discussing. "I'm going to go to the source."
Michiru frowned, her brow creasing. "What do you mean?" she
questioned softly, reaching to grasp the hand that slid away from her. She
squeezed it tightly. "What source do you have?"
The blonde glanced away and out the window. The sky consisted of a
ceiling of dark gray clouds, crawling over the buildings at a snail-like pace,
dampening out the natural light that should have covered the city.
She sighed, squeezing Michiru's hand back.
"I'm going to talk to Luna."
===
Usagi chewed lightly on the cap of her ball-point pen as she listened to
her English teacher prattle on about predicate verbs and introductory nouns -
or was it introductory verbs and predicate nouns? - and stared dully out the
window, watching as the wind tossed the boughs of the cherry trees that
lined the schoolyard, the pelting rain of pink petals serving as a prelude for
what would soon be an amazing downpour. The weather man that morning
predicted at least twenty centimeters of rain in the next twenty-four hours
and, as her younger brother had pointed out over his cereal, twenty
centimeters was a lot of rain.
Still, the blonde teen cared not about wind or rain, her chin lulling in
her hand as she meandered down the twisting path of her own inner
consciousness. Yashi Sei, according to the chemistry department substitute,
had been struck by a rather nasty case of the stomach flu and would be
spending the day recuperating in her apartment. Or so went the story.
Somewhere, in some dark corner of Usagi's mind, she knew that Yashi-
sensei's absence had not been caused by the flu. But if not that, then what
had happened since their departure the night before that could have laid up
such a dedicated teacher? As much as she wanted to argue otherwise, her
instinct insisted that Sei's disappearance had something to do with her
strange ramblings the night before, as well as the legend at hand. But how?
Since Luna's question about her dreams, her nights had been peaceful,
totally without interruption. Somehow, this was as disconcerting as it was
reassuring; if the dreams had been so important, then why had she stopped
having them? What was going on, and why did she have the sinking feeling
that Luna had purposely left out a vital piece of information for some reason?
Sighing, she leaned back in her seat, shoulders slumping slightly.
Would all this mystery ever make any coherent sense?
And could it make sense without making good on the sinking feeling in
the pit of her stomach?
===
Green-gray eyes met orange as the wind rushed around them, ruffling
sandy blonde hair and silky black fur. Haruka shrugged her parka closer to
her body, shivering; for a spring day, the wind certainly chilled to the bone.
There was a sigh as Luna turned away, no longer able to hold the even
gaze of her companion. "I'm surprised you came to me, Haruka-chan," she
addressed the teen, not noticing the cringe she earned for using the feminine
honorific. "I always assumed that you were unconcerned with your past."
"I was." Her admittance, somehow, surprised her, and she frowned at
the sound of her own voice blurting out such a thing. "But these dreams, and
the earthquake…" Her heart surged in her chest as she balled her fists atop
the picnic table. "Luna, who is Carrie?"
The small park fell silent as the wind died away briefly and the bending
trees straightened, working the kinks out of their abused boughs. No
kindergarten children dashed along the paths on their way home from their
half day of school, no salary men paused to feed the few ducks that gathered
around the little pond, and no secretaries huddled together on park benches,
sharing bento and gossiping about their home lives. Only she and the cat
braved the chill winds and foreboding gray sky to visit the park, and even
then, Haruka would have rather been in class. Still, necessity - pesky, ever-
looming necessity - served as the mother of all invention, and thusly, Ten'ou
Haruka had thrown on a pair of jeans, a sweater, and her thick winter parka
and started out towards the park to meet with the mentor of the Silver
Millennium princesses.
A black cat.
"In the Silver Millennium, the rulers of every matriarchal kingdom
were endowed with a powerful magic," the cat began, glancing back towards
the blonde. Haruka's expression glowed with an intensity that Luna had
never seen on her face even after knowing her for several millennia. "Each
kingdom's magical trait was different, of course, and triggered by different
passions. They also all differed in the amount of raw power each magic could
control, and we - the diplomats, the scholars, the leaders of Serenity's Lunar
Council of allied planets - learned quickly which planets were stronger than
the others.
"About twenty years before the attack of Metallia and the end of the
Silver Millennium, then, one of the kingdom's queens gave birth to a
daughter." Haruka's slender brows narrowed as the feline said this, and Luna
nodded sagely to the obvious doubt on her companion's face. "She was the
first of the heiresses, actually, a beautiful baby girl with golden-brown hair
and dark, piercing green eyes. Everyone was excited to have the first heiress
arrive, but… There was something strange about this little girl."
The blonde frowned. "Strange?"
Luna nodded slightly, ears lowering as a sudden gust of wind howled
through the trees. "From very early on, she was…different," the cat
explained, her stress on the word "different" causing her quasi-student to
raise an eyebrow. "She was prone to violent temper tantrums, fits of
unexplained rage… Once, she grabbed a rose off a rosebush and squeezed it
so hard that she bled, and even after the blood, she would not let it go. But
still, she seemed to calm down once her baby sister was born, and everyone
assumed that she had just had a troublesome youth."
Another scream of the wind left Haruka running a hand through her
short tresses. One of the princesses of the Silver Millennium - and therefore,
one of the Sailor Senshi - had an older sister? But - "Things changed," Luna
pressed on, cutting into the teen's thoughts, "and, when Serenity's guards
began to work with her - and eventually, the other heiresses, as well - she
became violent. The smallest things would set off her temper and throw her
into a bloody rage. She vandalized the Princess of Mercury's private
bedchambers over a chess game, broke the Princess of Jupiter's ankle,
murdered the two sacred crows - a capital crime on Mars - and… The list
goes on and on." She sighed, shaking her head. "Queen Serenity and the
other queens debated, on and off, about what they could do with this rogue
princess, but every time, the debate ended in deadlock. She really was a
good child, but the magic tore her apart and destroyed that goodness from
the inside out, and by the time everyone realized this…it was too late. When
she killed the crows, it was the straw that broke the camel's back, and the
council agreed to call Sailor Saturn from her long sleep to destroy this rogue
princess."
Haruka's eyes widened in shock, but Luna seemed not to notice. "But
Princess Serenity threw a fit," sighed the feline with a shake of her head,
exasperated even with the Silver Millennium predecessor of her current
charge. "She argued that the princess could not be punished for something
that was beyond her control, and the council decided to seal her magic using
Queen Serenity's power and then exile her from her nation, so she could
start a new life as a normal citizen."
"Serenity could do that?" The blonde's mouth formed a perfect "o" as
the cat nodded a brief response. "I always thought that her magic could only
heal, like Sailor Moon's."
"Serenity was able to do a great number of things," Luna replied
softly. "Actually doing them was a different story." Her orange eyes met
Haruka's carefully, and she sighed again, shaking her head. "The princess,
she…responded badly. The sealing faltered, and her magic flared as she fled
from home, vowing to kill her younger sister, the emerging heiress. She
attacked the palace and it crumbled, injuring her mother severely and very
nearly killing half of the staff. Most of the Lunar Council members were just
grateful that no one was killed."
There was a pause as Luna glanced up and away from her companion,
focusing on the low-hanging gray clouds, heavy with rain water. "We all
thought that would be the end of it," she admitted after a moment's silence,
shrugging her feline shoulders. "But the dreams and the earthquake… I won't
lie to you, Haruka-chan. I believe strongly that this rogue princess has
returned, and Artemis and I are working as hard as we can to figure out how,
and why. But if she is back, she is certainly back for one purpose - to kill her
younger sister."
Haruka swallowed, hard, as the wind howled in the trees, the leaves
and flower buds hissing against each other, an invisible serpent looming over
the duo, waiting until it could strike and suck the life and breath from their
bodies. Her stomach knotted miserably as she prepared herself to ask the
one question that remained after the cat's explanation.
The feline's expression was patient as the blonde finally managed to
voice her last inquiry. "Luna… Who was this princess?"
Luna's orange eyes snapped and clashed with grayish-green, and for
one of the rare moments in her life, the cat found her voice to be completely
without harshness, nagging, or haughty quality.
"She was Princess Carrie," she finally said, her voice almost a whisper,
"older sister of Marcella, and the heiress to the throne of Uranus."
Gray-green eyes dropped to the ground, and the wind screamed
futilely in the trees.
===
The paint on the ceiling, she realized with a small frown, consisted
solely of a map of cracks, with tributaries running into one massive split of
paint where the wall ended. She traced the branches of the river with weary
violet eyes, listening idly to the noise of Setsuna curled up on the other half
of their shared bed, snoring lightly as she slept. Michiru, assuming that the
other three housemates were asleep, had gone out onto the little hotel
balcony to watch the pouring rain. If she had known that the little girl – if
she, at thirteen, could still be called "little" – was still awake, she would be
hovering, obnoxiously making sure that everyone was all right, and that she
didn't have a stomachache, or a headache, or a sore throat…
Tomoe Hotaru rolled onto her side, sighing. Physically, she felt fine. A
bit tired, but fine. The previous few nights had not provided her with much in
the way of sleep, and her body was starting to protest. Still, she was used to
going without much sleep, a product of spending many late nights curled up
with a flashlight, reading until the wee hours arrived and she could hardly
keep her eyes open any longer – or until she got caught, whichever came
first. All things considered, however, she was in great physical health.
Mentally, however, everything was different.
She knew, deep down, that Setsuna hadn't meant to worry her when
they'd spoken about her duties as the Sailor Senshi of Saturn. Destruction,
after all, defined her life, both as a human and as a senshi, and part of her
reason for living was to destroy the world when said world was ready to end.
A heavy burden for an ordinary child, perhaps, but she hardly considered
herself a child. She hardly considered herself ordinary, either.
But hurting someone she loved…? Haruka – her "papa," as she always
called the tall blonde woman – had missed dinner at the hotel's tiny diner to
lay in their room and "think," and nothing any of them could say pulled her
from the strange mood she was in. Even Michiru's attempts to extract her
mate from that moody, introverted shell had failed, a rare occurrence. And
she had overheard Michiru and Setsuna speaking in hushed tones just
outside the bathroom door when she had been bathing earlier that afternoon,
but that did not supply the explanation she so craved. It simply added to the
mystery that seemed to hang over the tiny, cramped hotel room, looming
ominously somewhere in the spaces between their four bodies.
Hotaru pulled the covers closer. She understood Setsuna's bond to the
taboos of her station, and the guidelines that she had to follow. And she
understood that, despite all they had seen, her three guardians did enjoy
pretending that she was simply a normal little junior high student, worried
more about boys and hitting puberty than about things like life, death, and
their duties as senshi. But her instinct, always sharp and well-honed to
situations such as the current one, screamed at her, arguing that something
major was wrong. And her keen observation of the women she lived with,
used to picking up the natural abnormalities in their daily routines, noted
that Haruka, Michiru, and Setsuna sensed that wrongness, as well. But if that
was the case, why would they hide whatever it was from her? Why couldn't
they be honest and let her in on whatever secret loomed overhead?
…especially, she thought to herself as she rolled onto her back a
second time and met the ceiling with a sharp glare, since she was expected
to fulfill her duties as the Sailor Saturn and destroy something…or someone.
The girl was, in fact, so wrapped up in those thoughts – thoughts
about pain, about duty, and about life in general – that she didn't notice the
subtle shaking of the bed, at first. But then, the subtle shaking became a bit
rougher, and she looked around. The chair in the corner trembled, the
television rattled, and through the thin curtains she could see Michiru rise
from the plastic balcony chair and grip the railing, looking out.
Violet eyes widened as the rivers of cracks expanded and multiplied,
raining down on the bed sheets. Hotaru clenched them shut and did the first
– and only – thing that came into her mind.
She screamed.
===
She laughed merrily, flitting through the ballroom with ease, the light
satin straps of her dress caressing her bare back softly as she set her empty
glass on a server's tray and slipped through the crowd, almost wholly
unnoticed. The Lunar Ball this year, she decided as she winked a baby-blue
eye at a nearby young man, was even more fabulous than the last. The
number of guests – and of attractive young men – had nearly doubled from
the year before, and several of the other princesses were actually in
attendance. Her heart raced as she scuttled down the marble staircase, long
hair and orange ribbons fluttering behind her. Certainly, there had to be
some man to sweep her off her feet and win her affections for the evening.
Perhaps a charming Jupiterian or a quiet, aloof Plutoi –
"Belle!" called out a familiar voice in a particularly demanding tone,
and the young princess cringed as she reached the bottom step and noticed
the bearer of said voice plowing through the crowds in her general direction.
Her black velvet dress shimmered in the light from the chandeliers as she
approached with a toothy grin on her tanned face. "You have to help me! I've
found a boy I want you to talk to for me!"
Sighing, the princess tried her hardest not to roll her bright eyes –
such things, her mother was always saying, counted as improper – and
smiled indulgently. "Carrie, you should call the men here 'gentlemen,'" she
corrected in a motherly, supportive tone, "not 'boys.' And why do you need
me to speak to him? I'm sure you can do it all on your own. You're a bright
enough girl." She paused, her eyes meeting the dark green ones of the other
princess, and swallowed. Sometimes, the age difference between the two
seemed unimportant, but with the brunette in that tight, low-cut, dark dress
that left nothing to the imagination, it was suddenly obvious how distant in
age they really were. "A bright enough young woman," she amended,
reminding herself of their dichotomy more than anyone else. "I think you can
speak to your gentleman friend yourself."
"NO!" she protested loudly, and – before the blonde girl could shirk
away, armed with a good excuse and a fast step – the stronger, older teen
caught her wrist in a tight grip and began to pull her across the ballroom,
high heels clamoring loudly. "I want you to do it!"
Within seconds, they stood before a tall, dark-haired man who would
have been surprisingly attractive, were it not for dark eyes that resembled
two gleaming marbles and teeth reminiscent of long, slender white fence
planks. The orange-garbed princess wrinkled her delicate nose. An Earthling.
How…droll.
"Well, fine ladies, how are you two this evening?" he drawled in a
heavy accent, reaching forward to seize one of the blonde's small hands. She
smiled as charmingly as she could muster and considered pulling away, but
decided against it; the dark green eyes of her companion never left her face.
He kissed the back of her hand gently and released it before doing the same
to the other girl's, and she felt some relief; at least he was a well-bred ugly
Earthling. "Tell me, Princess Carrie, who is your beautiful friend?"
Blushing on cue, the blonde glanced at the marble mosaic on the floor
as she listened to the brunette answer it a low tone, "Oh, this is Princess
Belle of Venus, Iohannes. She's a nice girl."
"Aye, she is a very nice girl…" There was the rustling of orange skirts
as she tried to take a long step back from the stranger, shivering as his dark
eyes roamed over her slender form, visually untying the many orange
ribbons that secured her dress. "Tell me, Princess Belle, is it true that
Venusians and Earthlings get along quite fashionably? I have always heard
that this was the case, after all."
She continued to smile, but her eyes darted around, looking quickly for
an escape. Beside her, the older teen glared menacingly, her arms crossed
over her chest. "Yes, well, you know," she answered vaguely, twirling a
strand of soft golden hair around her index finger, "old political treaties die
hard, and all that." Snapping her fingers, she turned to the brooding
brunette. "Carrie, I just remembered! I promised Mother that I would help
greet a visiting dignitary from Mau! I should go off and do that!"
"Yes, you should." The older girl's voice was like ice as she slowly
uncrossed her arms. "Why don't you do that and - "
Iohannes, as he had been called, cut in, and - before she could slide
away or protest - had looped his arm into the sliver of space between her
elbow and the orange fabric of her dress, winking in a manner that she
assumed he thought was sly. "I'll come with you, Princess Belle," he offered,
and she made no pretense in trying to un-lower her blue eyes. "After all,
shouldn't you allow your mother to meet the young man who has become
smitten with you?"
Her mouth opened, gaping, and her tongue began to move and
formulate words, but the damage, now done, wrecked havoc around her as
Carrie moved forward, her hand clenched into a fist and green eyes dark and
angry as -
The tell-tale bleeping of her wrist communicator shrieked in her ear
despite being under her pillow, and blue eyes flew open as Aino Minako
awoke with a violent start. Tired fingers groped helplessly under her pillow as
she managed to catch one quick glance at the clock. One a.m.? Why would
anyone be paging her at one -
"Minako-chan!" Ami's voice - no, make that Sailor Mercury's voice -
was hoarse and breathless, and the sound of high-heels clattering against
pavement echoed behind her. "Michiru just contacted us. There's been an
attack at the hotel. Like the first earthquake, but weaker this time. And no
enemy in sight. But she feels something. We're all doing our best to - "
Mercury's picture disappeared in the tiny view-screen, replaced by that
of an angry Mars, her long hair soaked from the pouring rain. "Minako-chan,
you idiot, you could sleep through World War III! We've been trying your
communicator for the last ten minutes!"
"Mars…" The blue-haired senshi sighed and shook her head, her face
retaking the screen. "Whatever the case, Minako-chan, I'm programming
directions to send to you right now. Please hurry. We're not so sure what's
going on, or how long it'll last."
"Hai." The blonde snapped shut the communicator and hopped to her
feet, reaching almost immediately for the jacket on the back of her desk
chair before stopping, righting herself, and choosing a harmless-looking pink
stick with an iridescent orange marble atop it, instead. The orange ball
glimmered in the sheen that shone through her curtains, the sheen of street
lamps reflecting on wet streets. Her fingertip caressed the smooth surface
softly.
Carrie. Violent, terrible, brown-haired, pushy, stubborn, demanding,
set-in-her-ways, sarcastic Carrie. Other than the violence, the terror, and the
brown hair, the strange princess' mannerisms reminded her of -
Minako shook her head and, after stuffing her crystal wand in her
pocket, grabbed her jacket. No reason to worry about all that. She had work
to do.
===
Rain poured down onto the rooftop of the hotel, the concrete slick as
Sailor Uranus gripped the edge of the building, her knees knocking together
as the surface she stood upon shuddered beneath her feet. Nearby, Sailor
Neptune lost her footing and stumbled, falling unceremoniously onto her
posterior. Setsuna, ever the paragon of non-interference, had rushed off with
Hotaru in tow, insisting that they leave the site of the earthquake sooner,
rather than later. But the building only shook a bit, and only occasionally, far
from the single destructive wave that had swept their neighborhood just a
few days earlier.
But it was more than that. She peered into the darkness beyond the
edge of the roof, her grip tightening on the waist-high barrier around the
rooftop. A name floated in and out of her mind, a name she'd not heard
aloud since her talk with Luna that afternoon, a name that she would have
rather never heard.
Carrie.
The shaking ceased, and the senshi paused to brush a strand of
sodden hair from her face. The sky loomed low overhead, black and heavy,
the thick clouds blotting out the moon and stars that hovered somewhere
beyond. Below, street lamps flickered, barely lighting the high roof of the
seventeen-story hotel. "Neptune!" called the blonde, glancing out of the
corner of her eye and watching her partner clamber to her feet. "Do you feel
it, too?"
Neptune's aqua-tressed head bobbed, and as it did, a low-pitched,
mocking guffaw carried through the darkness. Gray-green eyes met blue and
the nod was repeated, but this time from both halves of the pair. Words were
not needed, not when they each knew exactly what the other was thinking.
Carrie.
"I never thought we would meet in this situation, Marcella," a voice,
deep and strong, exclaimed through the darkness, the building shaking
slightly beneath the duo's feet. "I thought that the earthquake a few days
before would be enough. Seems I underestimated my little sister. Fitting,
no?"
Despite the darkness, a silhouette suddenly dropped onto the edge of
the building on the opposite side of the roof, hands resting on shapely hips.
Two long strands of hair - either pigtails or braids, Sailor Uranus could not
tell which - flapped in a sudden gust of wind, and the tell-tale short skirt of a
Sailor Senshi fuku fluttered. The darkness hid all else, however, and it was
for that reason that the duo of senshi stepped forward.
"Luna said you were figured dead," growled the sandy-haired wind
senshi darkly, her footfalls heavy on the slick rooftop. "You lost your magic
and status as heiress. How can you be back?"
High heels clicked and skirts ruffled as the dark-shrouded figure
launched herself into the air, turning a graceful somersault before landing
only scant inches in front of Sailor Uranus. Dark, gleaming green eyes met
gray-green eyes that sparked with anger, and a black-fingered glove came
up to bop the blonde on the nose. "That, dear sister," grinned the stranger,
"is for me to know and YOU to find out!"
Surprised, Uranus stumbled backwards, and it took the soft and
reassuring touch of Neptune's hand on her back to keep her from losing all
sense of where they were and what was happening. The woman before her
smiled charmingly, flipping a long, tawny brown braid behind her shoulder.
The family resemblance was remarkable. The other senshi's fuku matched
hers almost identically, barring the fact that all the white of Uranus' costume
had been replaced by black. The same slender-but-muscular build touched
both their bodies, and - despite a height difference of several inches - their
physical attributes lined up almost exactly. There was no mistaking it - they
were sisters.
"Stop right there!" The staring contest ended as footfalls clattered
against wet concrete. All three present senshi and the stranger - what had
Luna called her? A rogue? - turned to see a rain-soaked Sailor Moon standing
in the center of the roof, her hands firmly planted on her round hips. "Agent
of love and justice, I am - " She froze, her mouth gaping open. "Carrie?"
Carrie smiled slightly before tossing her hands up in the air. "Look how
popular I am!" she declared, sweeping her arm across the span of the roof
and incorporating all of the other senshi into the gesture in the process. "Not
only does my sister come, but she brings all her friends. Serenity, Hermia,
Enya, Daphne, Belle, and Nerissa!" She shook her head slightly. "It's a
shame that I will have to destroy all of you, instead of just Marcella. I was
really looking forward to sharing my duties as a Sailor Senshi with you all."
Sailor Venus bristled, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. "You
are no senshi!" she declared angrily. "What kind of agent for love and justice
destroys eight blocks of Juuban district just to kill one person! VERY sloppy,
Carrie-san!"
Mars sighed. "Venus…"
"Carrie-san?" A brown eyebrow arched as the braided woman rolled
her eyes. "Please, that's so… Formal. You can all call me the Rogue Senshi
Sailor Uranus." She stifled a little bow, chuckling slightly to herself. "You
know, it really is good to see all you girls, grown up and ready to kill
someone. I'm sorry that I'm going to be the one doing the killing."
"No, you won't!" Sailor Jupiter raised her fists into a battle stance,
readying herself for a hand-to-hand attack. "There are seven of us, and one
of you. How are you going to beat those odds?"
The Rogue Senshi Sailor Uranus chortled slightly, shrugging her
shoulders. "I don't know," she responded in a falsetto tone, looking almost
guilty. "Maybe a bit like…this?"
Before any of the senshi could move in an attempted attack, the
brunette woman had launched herself high into the air, her hands above her
head. "World Shaking!" she announced, allowing the tell-tale power of
Uranus erupt from her body. The roof shuddered violently, concrete cracking
and large chunks of the barrier around its edge chipping away and falling
onto the street below. Uranus grabbed Neptune and threw them both to the
ground and out of harm's way, the rough surface of the roof tearing the skin
from their legs. The blonde swore as she held onto her partner for dear life.
Sailor Moon and her four guardian senshi had scattered, many of them also
thrown to the ground by the raw force of the attack. Rogue Uranus laughed
aloud as she landed atop an intact section of the roof barrier. "How's that for
beating the odds?" she challenged, her hands returning to her hips. "Or do
you want a bit more?"
In a flash, her younger sister was on her feet, summoning her Space
Sword. The blade flashed in the illumination of distant lightning as she
pointed the very tip towards the Rogue Senshi. "Why are you doing this?"
she demanded, her voice booming through the rainy night. "Can't we live in
peace?"
"Peace?" The brunette chortled. "What is peace, Marcella? Is peace
being exiled because you're not going to run around espousing the virtues of
love and justice? Is peace watching your little sister overtake the life you
had? Is peace - "
"But you have a second chance!" Sailor Moon's voice was very nearly a
shriek, and all eyes moved to witness the girl limping towards the smug
rogue senshi. "Carrie-san, you can change the way things were. You can
start over!"
Carrie scoffed and shook her head. "No, Serenity, I can't." The
statement slashed through the soft pattering of the rain, and - glancing up at
the cloudy sky - the stranger sighed. "This is not a matter of changing the
past. The past is over and done with, and my kingdom - like yours - is but a
memory. This is a matter of the bond between sisters… And a sister's
betrayal."
Thunder roared in the distance as, suddenly, Rogue Senshi Sailor
Uranus raised her hands high above her head, the words of her attack
screaming through the quiet night. Her blonde counterpart, caught off guard,
swung the Space Sword in a long loop, her voice booming only seconds after
her adversary's. But it was too late. Her attack made dodging the rogue's
energy impossible, and so she set in, bracing herself for impact.
The impact never came.
Carrie's scream echoed across the rooftops, mingled with another,
higher-pitched, younger scream. A black glove fell to the ground in tattered
shreds as the brunette gripped her arm to her chest. "How DARE you?!" she
cried, her head thrown back. "How DARE you?!"
No one noticed her complaints, however. The Space Sword clattered to
the ground as Uranus' attention turned towards Eternal Sailor Moon, her
body lying motionless over a crack in the rooftop's concrete, her breathing
weak and shallow after having taken the brunt of the attack from the rogue
senshi. Mercury grabbed the blonde's wrist and felt for a pulse, her navy
eyes intent upon her friend's closed eyelids and pale face. "She's badly hurt!"
she declared after a moment, glancing towards the others. "We have to get
her to the hospital!"
Gray-green eyes glanced up and met dark green. Carrie wet her lips,
her already dark fuku growing slowly darker as the water that had soaked
into it was replaced with crimson blood. "I'll let you tend to your leader,
Sailor Uranus," she acquiesced after a moment of silence, ignoring the
surprise that blossomed on her sister's face. "But this is NOT goodbye!"
Uranus watched as the rogue senshi hopped off the edge of the roof
and disappeared, but not before catching a glimpse of something wholly
unexpected.
Bright blue fingernail polish.
===
Her shoes clattered against marble as she raced down the hallway, her
long blonde pigtails trailing behind her as she went. Occasionally, a maid or
other hand servant passed by, surprised and dismayed to see the girl rushing
blindly down the corridor. She didn't care. She remained focused on the task
at hand, throwing open the doors to her mother's private quarters with a
violent force.
The chiefs of her mother's staff glanced up from the table as the girl
burst in, surprised. Surprise registered on her mother's placid face as well,
and it was several seconds later that she regained her composure and set
her face into its normal, fairly impassive expression. "Serenity," she scolded,
folding her hands on the tabletop, "I am in a meeting. Why don't you come
back later, and we can - "
"Hermia just said that the council members decided to summon Saturn
and destroy Carrie!" the girl shrieked, lowering her bright blue eyes in the
direction of her mother. Her mother's expression turned stern and glaring,
and the woman crossed her arms over her chest. "All she did was kill a
couple of lousy birds, Mama! It's hardly fair!"
Queen Serenity of the Moon Kingdom sighed and rolled her eyes.
"Those 'lousy birds' were the sacred pets of Queen Candice," she reminded
her daughter blandly, "and you know very well that killing a crow is a capital
offence." She turned back to the slender stack of reports she had been
pouring over when the girl ran in. "And you know as well as I that this isn't
the first altercation. Just two weeks ago, at the gala, she punched Belle hard
enough to break her nose, and before that - "
"But she's still a PERSON!" The princess' voice carried on in an
impassioned crescendo as she leaned forward, hands splayed out on the
tabletop. "So she did a few bad things! So what? You can't just kill someone
because they sometimes do bad things! Aren't you supposed to stand for
justice, Mama? Aren't you supposed to be fair and just?"
Her mother shook her head. "It's not that simple," she stressed,
shifting her weight uneasily as she realized that all the heads of state stared
at her, eyes dark and heavy. They were almost like a jury, she mused as she
watched her daughter bow her head to hide the tears in her cerulean gaze.
And they stood ready to judge her decisions and convict her.
She moved to brush a single strand of platinum hair from her face.
"Even Queen Zelda - Carrie's own mother - has agreed that the girl is out of
our control," she explained slowly, words forming carefully on her lips. "She
has been for quite some time. This is the only way, Serenity. Sealing her
magic promises nothing. It could fail, and then where would we be? We
would be trapped with an angry and vengeful young woman, and that
eventuality is too much of a risk. Even in a kingdom…that prides itself
for…justice…we…"
Queen Serenity's voice trailed off as her daughter raised her head and
opened her eyelids, blue eyes greeted by the shining of a bright, painfully
white light. Groaning, the reincarnation of that daughter, Tsukino Usagi,
attempted to pull her hand up to shield her eyes, but something caught and
caused her arm to jerk back. A sharp pain shocked her, tingling up and down
her nerves, and she turned weakly to glance down at her hand. A slender
plastic tube ran from the IV that had been shoved into the back of her hand
and into some sort of machine. She frowned. What in the wor -
"Ah, the princess awakes," chuckled a voice, and Usagi shifted in bed,
somehow unsurprised to see Meiou Setsuna standing against the far wall of
the room, her back resting against a rain-splattered window. As hospital
rooms went, this one was particularly sparse, devoid of much more than a
bed, bedside table, and a single plastic chair. A half-opened door in the
corner allowed a peek into an equally tiny bathroom. The only color that
greeted the patient was, in fact, the green and purple cloth of two coats
tossed in the corner, and the pink pajamas, alabaster skin, and dark hair of
one happily-slumbering Tomoe Hotaru. "The doctors predicted that you
wouldn't come around until the morning."
Usagi attempted to sit up, moaning as she realized that every muscle
in her body ached terribly. A quick survey of her slender form revealed that
one of her legs was in a cast, and that her arms - and, she was certain, the
rest of her body - were badly bruised. "Wh-what happened?" she stammered
as her companion poured her a glass of water and offered it forward. "All I
remember was Carrie attacking Haruka, and then - "
"You saved Haruka's life, I don't doubt," smiled the Guardian of Time
gently, moving to settle into the room's single chair. "Minako-chan seems to
think that our Rogue Senshi Sailor Uranus attempted to divert her attack
from hitting you, once you jumped in front of it." She smirked slightly,
leaning back, her arms crossed over her chest. "Not an unexpected
occurrence, of course, but strange enough." The smile faded, however, as
her crimson eyes met blue. "You had a dream, didn't you?"
The blonde frowned and turned away from the adult, glancing down at
her IV-free hand almost guiltily. There was dirt ground into her fingernails,
and as she spoke she picked at it distractedly. "Luna told me that I needed to
tell her about my dreams, but then I didn't have any more until just a few
minutes ago. In it, I was arguing with Queen Serenity about killing Carrie."
She pursed her lips, staring at her hands. "Carrie was a bad person, wasn't
she?"
Setsuna sighed, her blood-red eyes darting about, heavy-lidded. "I
don't know if you would use that terminology, Usagi-chan," she responded
softly, a slight smile touching her pink-painted lips. "Carrie was a victim of
circumstance. The magic she was given was too powerful for the goodness in
her soul, and so she was corrupted by it at a very young age. By the time
her mother and the other rulers of the Silver Millennium realized, it was too
late. She was simply corrupt. It was your pleas that convinced your mother
to simply seal Carrie's power…or at least try to. Obviously, the plan did not
work as well as she hoped." The green-haired woman shrugged slightly.
"Your mother did not realize how powerful the magic was. The only real hope
to stop Carrie lay - "
" - in Saturn." Usagi glanced towards the girl curled in the corner.
Hotaru stirred slightly atop the coats, balled up in fetal position, her thin lips
open only slightly. Sighing, the high school student sunk back into her
pillows. "So that's it?" she questioned softly, blue eyes meeting red across
the space between her and her visitor. "Carrie has to be destroyed?"
"If the Sailor Senshi want to continue living," answered the Time
Guardian with a short nod, "then yes, she does."
Her younger companion turned away and said nothing more.
===
She swung idly on the wooden swing that overlooked the pond, her
long waves of hair swept back by the breeze. The water spread out before
her, tickled into producing miniscule waves. Blue eyes watched them idly,
her mind trying desperately to ignore the words she knew her ears heard.
But in the end, it was no use; she processed and understood every last
syllable.
"We cannot allow her to feed on fantasies that she's our equal," her
companion was stressing, her long hair braided behind her back. Unlike the
swinging teen, who wore a light lavender sun dress, she was dressed in a
simple pair of navy knickers and a gold blouse, the royal colors of her
kingdom. "She is a princess, certainly, but she is no more an heiress or a
senshi than Belle's younger sisters are." She reached forward, grabbing the
rough rope that supported the swing and tugging it to a halt. "Cultivating a
friendship with her gives her the impression that she rests on the same level
as the other heiresses, and that just isn't true."
Sighing, she flicked at the dirt beneath the swing with the toe of her
shoe. "So you have said," she replied quietly, her face a mask of solemn
contemplation. "But… Your sister is a very pleasant girl, Carrie, and I have
grown quite fond of her. Doesn't the idea of cordoning her off because she's
a second-born daughter strike you as unfair? Wouldn't you want to have a
friend if you were the younger sister?"
Blue eyes registered, vaguely, the sight of the brunette's grip
tightening. "No, I would not, Nerissa," she responded coolly, her voice
deepening. The other princess sighed, used to the flinty sound. "If I were the
younger sister, I would realize that it was not my station to befriend the
other princesses, and I would move on. I would not weasel my way into a
friendship with one of the others." The younger teen felt her cheeks redden,
and the green eyes that stared so intently in her direction lowered slightly.
"That is all you have with my sister, isn't it? A friendship?"
"It's a close friendship," she smiled, her voice cautious as she slid off
the edge of the swing and made her way to the water, the breeze nearly
turning up her shin-length dress. She caught it with a hand, waiting until it
died down to bend over and slide off her shoes. "Which is why I don't think
it's fair if you deny her that small joy." Slowly, she waded into the relatively
calm water until her ankles were submerged. "I mean, would you like it if
you found someone you cared deeply about - " Her blush deepened. " - and
then were told you couldn't be near her because your 'station' was different?"
"Your feelings for Marcella - and her feelings in return - are
unimportant." Nerissa turned to face the other princess, but not before Carrie
had grabbed her wrist, hard, and twisted it. A yelp of pain earned no
sympathy. "You cannot encourage this behavior, Nerissa. It's your duty."
Blue eyes, normally placid and clear, flickered darkly, lowering.
"Unhand me, Carrie," she demanded, her voice lowering dangerously. "I'm
standing in a pond, and, rest assured, I can control this water just as well as
I do that of any sea. And, now that I think of it, I am out of practice…"
The hand around her wrist loosened and then altogether disappeared,
and green eyes met blue in a spark of internalized, violent resentment. "I
won't forget this," spat the brunette darkly.
"That's alright," responded her companion, "because neither will I."
And then, Kaioh Michiru woke up.
Blue eyes blinked weakly as, slowly, she sat up, her muscles
protesting all the way. Her injuries from the night before had been minute - a
scratch here, a bruise there, and a long strip of skin lost to the broken
concrete from when Haruka had thrown them both to the ground - but they
still ached. She sighed as she slid out of the bed, padding across the empty
hotel room with cautious feet. The lower levels of the building were still safe,
it had been decided, and so the residents of the first through third floors
were allowed to stay. This included the quartet of outer planet senshi, though
Setsuna and Hotaru had spent most of the time after the battle in the
hospital with Usagi. A guilt-ridden Haruka had spent the rest of the night on
the edge of the bed under the guise of sleeping, but her better half was
certain that she hadn't slept at all.
Haruka. Michiru sighed as her eyes made contact with a note on hotel
stationary, taped hastily to the room's television set. There, in blue pen, was
scrawled only a single sentence: "Gone to get Usagi's chemistry homework."
She frowned, brow furrowing. Chemistry homework? Why did she have
a feeling that the note meant something more than that?
Sighing, she shook her head. "Be careful, baka," she muttered to
herself. "For the love of Kami-sama… Be careful."
===
The long, white-painted, white-tiled corridors of Juuban High School
were devoid of all life by the time she arrived in the late afternoon, the
heeled boots she always wore when driving her motorcycle clomping loudly
against the floor. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she should
have paused briefly at her locker, switching her shoes for her in-school
slippers, but that practicality didn't matter. Nothing mattered, anymore.
Chemistry, room 7b. She stopped in front of the half-opened door, her
gray-green eyes lowering to slits as she stared through the gap. There,
hunched over her grade book, sat the teacher, her long legs crossed under
the desk, her honey-brown hair braided into a long snake that hung over her
shoulder and down the front of her crisp white blouse. She gripped a pencil
tightly in her left hand, writing slowly and carefully, her face a mask of
concentration.
Her other hand, wrapped tightly in bandages, rested atop her desk.
Straightening her spine and forcing a pleasant, if somewhat tense
smile, Haruka rapped lightly on the door before sliding it open. The teacher
glanced up, her dark green eyes widening as she blonde stepped through the
doorway, her hands buried in the pockets of her battered leather coat, hiding
the fist that was protectively clenched around her crystal transformation
stick. "Yashi Sei?" she questioned cheerily, tossing her head of short hair.
"Are you Yashi-sensei?"
Sei set her pencil down on the desk carefully, flipping shut her grade
book. Her expression was absolutely emotionless, her lips drawn into a thin
line. "Hai? May I help you?"
"I'm a good friend of Tsukino Usagi," Haruka explained, her eyes
darting to the bandages on the woman's hand. Sure enough, the bloodstain
on them was fresh, clashing terribly with the sparkle of bright blue nail
polish. "She had a bit of an accident, and I was sent to pick up her school
work."
"Is Tsukino-san alright?" The question, eager and hopeful, rang
through the empty room. Through the open windows, the blonde could hear
the yells of the American football team practicing their plays for an upcoming
game, but her attention was narrowly focused on the brunette chemistry
teacher. The teacher must have sensed this and moved to self-consciously
tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "She's a very cheery girl. It would
be a shame if she was seriously injured." Her voice, surprisingly enough, was
absolutely sincere. "Is everything alright?"
The younger woman – barely a teen, but she carried herself as though
she was much, much older – shrugged slightly, nodding. "She'll be alright,
we think," she replied casually. "It was an accident, is all." Gray-green eyes
flashed as she glanced at the bandaged hand that Sei had clasped to her
chest. "But what about you? Chemistry accident?"
Pale cheeks flushed slightly, and the brunette averted her eyes. "You
could say that," she returned coolly, the response almost glib. "An accident
of my own, really." Her gaze rose slowly, dark, and her lips fell, straightening
into a line. "I should have killed the brat with the sword."
Their eyes locked, and Haruka felt the anger boiling up from the pit of
her stomach. Her hand shook as she tightened her grip around her wand.
"And I'm sorry I missed ripping that black heart of yours in two," she spat,
her tone low. A first-year student went jetting down the hallway, in a rush to
make it home after some club meeting or, more likely, detention. "Let's not
play games, Carrie."
"You're right, Marcella. We shouldn't." A charming smile crossed Yashi
Sei's face as she plopped down in her desk chair, leaning back in it, a queen
comfortable as she loomed over her subjects. Her dark eyes roamed the
blonde's body, studying her, appraising every curve with scrutiny. "So this is
your reincarnated form, is it? Very nice…" She nodded, a finger resting on
her chin. "I would have expected you to be a little less busty, though. You
were absolutely flat when last I saw you. Of course, you were thirteen,
then…"
Haruka's eyes lowered further, and the hairs on the back of her neck
rose to stand on edge. "Cut the crap, Carrie. I don't need your approval."
She pulled her hands from her pockets and pushed her jacket away, moving
to rest her hands on her hips. "Have you known about me all along, or did it
take me coming in here to make you realize who I was?"
Smirking, the teacher crossed her long legs at the knee. "I've known
about all of you for a long time," she countered evenly, her tone smooth and
nonchalant. "Maybe your schoolmates and the media can't recognize you
girls, but seeing each of you was like looking at photographs of the past.
You're the same as you always were." She chortled softly. "Slightly older,
and maybe a bit taller than I remembered you, but you're all still the same."
Her lips twisted into a dark-lipped, vile grin. "And just as pathetic as you
were a thousand years ago."
"We're not the pathetic ones, Carrie." Somehow, Haruka managed to
keep her temper to a minimum, her heart throbbing in her chest as she
leaned forward, splaying out her fingers as she slammed her hands into the
desk. "You destroyed part of the city and nearly killed the leader of the Sailor
Senshi, all because you're still upset about something that happened in a
past life."
"All because my sister stole my identity." The brunette was on her
feet, now, her dark eyes glowering and hands balled into fists on either side
of her body. "It's not them I'm after, Marcella. It's YOU."
"Then take me." Haruka stepped back, throwing up her hands.
"Tomorrow night. The roof of this very building. Sunset. Just me and you."
She tossed her head smugly. "May the best senshi win."
Carrie smirked. "I hope you have a decent life insurance policy, then,
Ten'ou Haruka," she replied, watching as the blonde turned on her heel and
stomped towards the door. "And I hope your pathetic little lover girl – what's
her mortal name again? Kaioh Michiru? – doesn't cry too hard when she finds
out you're dead."
The blonde froze in the doorway, glancing over her shoulder with a
sharp gaze. "I'd say something similar to you, but that would require you
participating in human interaction." She turned back to the hallway. "Good
day, Yashi-sensei."
The door to room 7b slammed hard behind her.
===
She struggled, hapless, up the stairs towards the apartment she'd only
visited once, the crutches more a hindrance than an aid as she hobbled up
the steps. The cast that ran from her foot to her knee thumped against the
carpet with every miscalculated motion, sending a sharp pain coursing
through her body. Tears stung her eyes, and her teeth found her lip, biting it
as a distraction. Pain was nothing when she had a bigger mission.
She hadn't been surprised when Haruka had shown up at her hospital
room that afternoon, laden with all her school books sans one – chemistry.
The missing textbook was curious, and she'd listened as her friend dodged
mentioning the new teacher, chattering on instead about how polite her
English and Japanese instructors had been.
The question came finally - "What about Yashi-sensei?" she'd inquired,
the books piled in her lap - and the answer, somehow, surprised her no more
than the afternoon visit.
"Stay away from her, Usagi-chan. Don't ask me why – just do it."
Haruka had paused, eyes dark, face set into a frown like a stone statue. "I'm
dealing with her."
Tsukino Usagi paused when she reached the top of the steps, leaning
heavily on her crutches in a vain attempt to catch her breath. Her heart
pounded in her chest, and not from over-exertion. It pounded in fear.
Everything finally made sense. It had made sense before the doctor
had released her that afternoon. From the moment Haruka left, the door
closing heavily behind her, everything made perfect, crystal-clear sense.
The familiarity of the teacher's face, the little mannerisms that sparked
some sort of recognition, her obsession with the earthquake, her bright blue
fingernail polish. It all made sense.
Yashi Sei's doorbell buzzed loudly enough that Usagi could hear it in
the hallway, just as she had a few nights before. The draperies of the large
window at the hall's end had been pulled away, revealing a dark city and
shining white stars. The moon, however, had passed into the shadow of the
planet it circled and was hidden from view. The blonde teen could feel its
presence, its nonexistent light warming her cheeks as her blue eyes drifted
towards where the satellite loomed, a dark circle against the sky. Somehow,
the missing moon emptied her heart of all hope, leaving her lonely and
abandoned in the empty hallway.
"The New Moon phase," quoted a voice, and Usagi started as she
whipped her head around, long ponytails circling through the air. In the
doorway, leaning on the wooden frame, stood her teacher. Her appearance,
as always, was immaculate, her jeans and t-shirt wholly unwrinkled and her
long braid completely in place. She smiled slightly, shrugging. "Do you feel
weaker with the moon hidden in shadow, Serenity?"
The girl's mouth dried immediately, her lips pursing softly. "You
knew," she murmured, staring at the woman. "You knew, this whole time…"
Sei smiled slightly. "And you've known for a bit, too, now haven't
you?" she questioned quietly, a certain gentleness to her tone. "You can't tell
me you didn't have your suspicions. I saw the way you looked at me when I
knew that 'legend' of ours."
"But I never actually thought…" She shook her head slightly, sighing.
"So that's it, then. We're enemies. You're the Rogue Senshi, and I'm - "
"You're not my enemy, Tsukino-san," chuckled the teacher. "Marcella
– your friend Ten'ou Haruka – she's the enemy. She always has been." She
paused for a moment, considering the wide blue eyes on the girl's face, eyes
shining with both raw curiosity…and with fear. "I thought, of all the girls, you
understood. Back then… I thought you understood what was going on, who I
was, what it all meant. But now… Now, I'm no longer so sure."
Usagi's hands trembled, the crutches shaking against the soft skin of
her inner arms, the knee of her uninjured leg wobbling dangerously. "We can
still fix this, Carrie!" she exclaimed suddenly, her pigtails floating as she
tossed her head, frustrated. "We can make it right! You can lead a normal
life, befriend the Sailor Senshi, and then - "
"You were always so naïve, Serenity." Sei's voice sliced through her
student's plea, a knife flashing in the dark of night, splitting her heart in two.
"I think that's what I liked most about you, what drew me to you. You were
so sweet, always thinking that things could end up perfect. But you see, they
can't." She sighed, leaning heavily against the doorjamb, her eyes glancing
away, down the hallway and out the uncovered window. "There will always
be evil in the world, and there will always be death. You can't help that. And
there will always be shades of gray."
Sei straightened her spine, standing tall and gesturing to herself with a
grand wave of hands. "I am the shade of gray, Tsukino Usagi. If you kill me,
you'll be killing your teacher and friend. But if you don't kill me, you run the
risk of seeing Ten'ou Haruka die by my hand."
The girl turned away. "Not that simple, is it?" A bandaged hand moved
towards a doorknob, and Sei took a long step back. "No. It's never that
simple."
Usagi's tears began to hit the carpeting as the lock on the door clicked
shut.
===
Tomoe Hotaru was looking out the window. The clear night was quiet,
serene, with the silver stars glimmering in the distance, a cold, distant light.
The two double beds were ominously empty – her "papa" and one "mother"
had gone out together to fetch some sort of dinner for their makeshift family
– and the room was comprised mostly of shadows, save for the gentle glow
of a single floor lamp.
"I read a play once," she informed the woman in the armchair, her
breath leaving fog on the glass door as she spoke. "In it, the grandmother
tells a story of a little girl who's all alone. She goes to the moon to search for
someone, but she finds out that it's just a piece of rotten wood. So she
decides to go to the sun, but she finds out that it's just a wilted sunflower.
And then she goes to the stars, and sees that they're just dead fireflies
impaled on thorns." She sighed. "Nights like this make the stars really look
like dead fireflies, you know."
A newspaper rustled. "Depressing play," commented the woman
behind it.
"It was German," Hotaru responded with a shrug, tracing her finger
through the fog from her breath. "German plays are often really depressing."
She could sense the woman nodding.
"You know," she continued, wiping away the kana she'd scribbled on
the glass, "I decided something today."
A pair of garnet eyes glistened in the dark as the woman lowered her
paper. "Hmm?"
"I think… I think it's best that I don't have memories from that time."
The girl pressed her nose to the cool glass, glancing up at the sky with large
purple eyes. "I don't know if I'd want to have the dreams you all have. I
think I like the fact that, as morbid as my existence was, I don't have to live
with the memories of it… You know?"
Red eyes disappeared behind the newspaper. "I know."
===
She ran.
The leaves crunched under her feet and the wind blew back her
ponytail as she rounded the bend, the sun bright in her eyes. Their makeshift
track ran through the forests behind Queen Serenity's sprawling palace
grounds, a path beaten down by the footfalls of the two long-time runners'
daily workouts. She hissed in a breath through gritted teeth and pushed
herself harder. Less than a mile to go and she would have won. Less than a
mile to go…
It wasn't often that the two princesses – one a teen, the other a young
woman – raced together down the running path they had both cultivated.
The older princess, a long-haired brunette, was proud and self-assured, and
it intimidated her younger counterpart. So instead of running together, they
ran apart, each certain of themselves but not of themselves when each
paired with the other.
But she'd been approached by the older athlete just as she'd arrived at
the beginning of the forest path, and the competitive, daring glimmer in the
green eyes had been too much for her to successfully refuse. Her challenger
had even given her a minute's lead, but – as the end of the makeshift course
came closer and closer and the footfalls behind her grew louder – the teen
was certain she would lose.
Still, she rushed forward. The sun gleamed on her face, blinding her
temporarily. A voice echoed from somewhere or another as she raised her
hand to her eyes, trying to block out the light and regain some semblance of
vision, but it was too late.
The call of "World Shaking" repeated in her mind as the ground in
front of her shook and split and her foot caught. Pain shot up her leg, pain
followed closely by a resounding cracking sound, and she landed hard on her
elbow and side, yelping.
Tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she attempted to wrench her
foot free of the small crevasse she'd stepped into, but it was no use; every
motion caused another bolt of pain to shudder through her leg, doubling the
tears in her eyes. A shadow passed over her as she tried one last, futile time
to free her foot from the hole, and she glanced up, her emerald eyes
lowering challengingly up at her adversary. "You did this, Carrie!" she
accused, propping herself up on a hand. "You tripped me on purpose!"
Crouching down, Carrie smiled a vile, cocky smile and reached forward
to brush away some of the teen's tears. The girl jerked her head and turned
away, and Carrie's smile turned to a frown. "Why, Daphne, I was only trying
to help you, just now," she informed her coolly, rising again to her full
height. "I guess you don't want me to help you back to the palace, then,
either."
Daphne tossed her ponytail. "I would rather die here," she hissed up at
the older woman, "than accept - "
Kino Makoto awoke with a start to the sound of a hard, furious
pounding. Blinking, she glanced warily at the clock hanging on the wall of her
living room and groaned. 5:30 p.m. The drool spot on her calculus lesson
proved her suspicions - she'd fallen asleep while trying to finish her
homework.
The pounding resumed and she groaned, standing slowly and easing
her popping joints. "Hai, hai," she called, pausing in her stretching to glance
out the balcony doors at the blood-red setting sun. The dream had been so
vivid that she could nearly feel the pain of her broken ankle coursing up her
nerves, even now that she was awake. Carrie… The previous incarnation of
the mysterious Rogue Senshi U –
"Mako-chan!" Her door flew open suddenly and Minako burst into the
apartment, her hands on her hips and a rather tense expression her face.
The brunette frowned, staring at her long-time friend and sincerely hoping
that she hadn't broken the latch. "What are you DOING? There's a fight going
on!"
Makoto frowned, pursing her pink lips thoughtfully. "A fight?" she
questioned, reaching into her school uniform pocket to check for the familiar
trapping of her station: her crystal wand. "What kind of fight?"
"I don't know," the blonde admitted quickly, "but Luna said I should
fetch all of us and meet at the roof of the school. I think…"
Her voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible even across the small
apartment.
"I think it's Carrie."
===
The blood-red sun that Makoto had observed outside her apartment
window bled across the sky, leaving ruddy clouds against a crimson sky as
the two women stood across from one another on the rooftop of Juuban
District High School, their eyes locked in a glaring gaze that could most likely
have killed any lesser person. A gust of springtime wind tossed their skirts
and hair, but the staring contest pressed on.
"We could end this now, you know, Marcella," smiled the shorter of the
two with a toss of her long braids. Her powerful hands rested on her shapely
hips, black gloves against a navy-blue skirt. "I'm not asking for much – just
your life and title. And really, what is a murder between sisters, my dear?"
She paused for a moment, smiling slightly. "Really, it's not even murder. It's
an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…"
The taller of the two lowered her gray-green eyes and swallowed,
hard, her fists clenching tightly at her sides as she looked her enemy – and
older sister – in the face. "You've killed people now, Carrie," she replied
smoothly, her voice icy. "Had you come to me, before all this… Maybe we
could have made some arrangement, but not now." Tears bit her eyes as she
remembered the blood that dirtied her own hands, blood she'd fought to
wash off for years… Blood she knew would never wash off, no matter how
much soap and water she scrubbed her skin with. "Innocent people died in
your little game, and I can't forgive that."
The words flowed more freely now as she flicked one of her legs in
front of her and took her familiar battle-ready stance, fists loosening at her
sides. "Invited by a new age, I am the magnificent Sailor Uranus, acting
beautifully!"
Her sister smirked and mimicked her motions flawlessly, her long
braids bouncing. "Invited by the past, I am the magnificent Rogue Senshi
Sailor Uranus," she retorted coolly, "acting revengefully."
Had anyone beyond the Gods themselves been watching, they
wouldn't have been able to discern which of the two battle-hardened soldiers
took the prerogative and began the ancient dance of war and death. Some
would have argued it was the rogue senshi's initial scream of "World
Shaking" that began their fight; others would have contended that her
younger counterpart had moved long before that, dashing forward and
striking with a clenched fist. Either way, they flitted across the rooftop with
skill if not with ease, catching jaws and shoulders with jabbing punches or
well-placed kicks and splitting the concrete rooftop with magical attacks gone
awry.
Neither combatant ever glanced away from the other long enough to
notice a congregation of teenaged girls gathering in the doorway to the
rooftop, though it was doubtful either would have halted for the sake of their
presence, anyway. Sailor Uranus tripped on a crack in the roof and fell,
rolling away only soon enough to miss a nigh-fatal magical attack; the Rogue
Uranus stumbled after a particularly strong punch and regained her balance
only milliseconds before a kick to the chin would have knocked her from the
edge of the building.
"STOP IT!" The cry cut through the ever-darkening afternoon like a
siren, and both senshi froze at the sound, whirling on their heels and
noticing, for the first time, their hodgepodge audience. The crowd members,
however, had turned their backs and were struggling with something – or
someone – muttering in low tones. The struggle lasted only briefly before the
grouping broke apart and a teen burst forth from the middle of the
congregation, nearly tripping and caught only by her crutches. Blonde hair
shone golden in the setting sun as she rushed forward shakily, her voice
crackling as she cried out "Stop!" again and again, her cry echoing through
the quiet afternoon.
Sailor Uranus frowned and glanced warily at the other soldier, whose
green eyes had widened in confusion and surprise. "Odango, get out of
here," she muttered, glancing quickly towards the others gathered in the
doorway; Minako held Rei tightly around the shoulders, holding her back
from rushing in after the hobbling, helpless Usagi. "This isn't your place, and
- "
"I'm your princess!" she shot back, blue eyes glimmering with tears as
she came to stand in the tiny space between the two sisters. "Listen to me,
and stop it! Neither of you needs to DIE! You can both live if you want to!"
The teen who had once been called Princess Marcella glanced at her
sister and Carrie looked away, hanging her head. "Serenity, I cannot do
that," she replied softly, her voice soft and considerate. "I am the rightful
heiress to the throne of Uranus, and I want to take my place amongst your
court." She glanced at the trembling blonde girl, her eyes bright. "I would
have thought that you, of all people, would have understood how long I have
waited… How badly I have wanted this…"
Her fists clenched and she jerked her head towards the skies, her long
braids hanging behind her. "I am Princess Carrie of the Kingdom of Uranus,
and nothing – NOTHING – will stand in my way of taking my rightful place on
the throne." Green eyes turned cold, gleaming black in the ever-approaching
darkness. "Not even the beloved Princess Serenity."
Silver flashed in the dying sunlight and a dagger rose high above
Usagi's head, a spark of light in the twilight darkness. The blonde girl
screamed and attempted to step back on her injured leg, stumbling blindly
and only barely managing to catch herself on her crutches. She hung limply
from them, a rag doll on a clothesline, pained from her old injury and
helpless to stop the knife headed towards her chest… The dagger that would
bring her death…
A dagger that never struck home.
Usagi and Sailor Uranus landed together in a heap on the concrete,
Carrie's dagger buried deep into the taller teen's side. She coughed as she
rolled off her princess, staring up at the blue-black sky and at the pair of
gleaming green eyes above her. They were wide, filled with confusion and
shock, eyes of one who had imagined every possible outcome except that
which had come to pass.
Cries of "Haruka!" and "Usagi!" echoed across the rooftop as the
observers became active participants, rushing to gather around their friends.
The heiress to the throne of Uranus had no interest in her fellow soldiers or
even her girlfriend as she watched Carrie slowly drop to her knees, her hands
falling limply at her side. "Why?" she questioned softly, green eyes never
moving from her sister's pallid face. "Why did you save her?"
"The one thing you never understood, Carrie, was how to really love,"
she croaked, wincing as Michiru gently probed her injury; she knew
instinctively that the normal post-battle home remedy would not suffice for
such a serious wound, but she hoped Michiru would hold off calling an
ambulance for at least a short while. "Power… Influence… A throne… Do they
matter if you have no one you can care about? Nothing you can come to?
You have never even tried, Carrie, to love; you have only tried to live, live
for these things that will never matter, to battle and fight for myths instead
of reality. Any man can find a cause to live for – the real challenge is finding
one you're prepared to die for."
The brunette swallowed and glanced at the rooftop, and Uranus could
see a few small tears – foreign to the older sister she knew only from vague
memories – slip down the rogue senshi's cheeks. "I never meant to…" She
glanced at Usagi, who was now weakly sitting up and watching the
proceedings with careful blue eyes. "Serenity, I'm sorry." She glanced around
at the group, registering faces she'd known for years and yet never come to
really understand, the faces of girls who would have, once, been friends. "I'm
very…very sorry…"
"There is no apology that will atone for your sins, Princess Carrie of
Uranus." A new voice, one imbued with eons of ageless power and
confidence, spoke now, and the congregation of senshi turned to glance up at
two dark silhouettes against the evening sky; Sailor Saturn and Sailor Pluto
flickered into view only as the rooftop lights of Juuban High School flared on,
and even then, they were half-hidden in shadow. Saturn stepped from the
rooftop ledge with a practiced grace and dignity, her glaive lulling against her
shoulder as she drew near to the group of teens who had once, in their own
rights, been princesses. "You evaded death a thousand years ago, but no
longer. Tonight, you have reached the end of your path." She glanced at
Usagi and frowned; the odango-headed teen stared at her as though she was
a forbidden dragon, a creature of myth and legend, and the senshi knew that
her friend was right; Tomoe Hotaru meant nothing in this world, the world of
Sailor Saturn…and of death. "Do you have any last words to impart upon
your compatriots, Carrie?"
Carrie's gaze was fearless and even as she glanced up at the Soldier of
Death and Rebirth and towards the others, her red lips pursing together as
she considered her final sentiments.
"I would have liked to befriend all of you," she decided, nodding
slightly. Her gaze met her sister's, and she smiled away guilty tears, reaching
down to squeeze a hand she had never held in the past…and would never
hold again. "Especially you, sister."
Sailor Uranus glanced away, her eyes welling with tears. Her thoughts
floated away on a cloud of grief, grief she would have never expected to
experience. Her mind teetered on the boundary of consciousness, slipping to
and fro, uncertain which way to fall…
The whispered hiss of "Death Reborn Revolution" touched her ears,
and suddenly, her world went back.
===
Ten'ou Haruka stood under a sakura tree two days later, the familiar
scent of spring flowers light in her nostrils as she leaned against the bark,
staring out across the school's sports field and into the bright blue sky
beyond. The knife wound in her side had been deep but not serious, and a
handful of stitches combined with a good night's sleep had left it as only a
nagging pain that itched, occasionally. Setsuna, for all her antisocial
tendencies, had used one of her endless contacts to find them a relatively
affordable apartment only a few miles from the high school, and she planned
to take both Michiru and Hotaru out to shop for new furniture that afternoon.
The blonde, however, had declined the invitation, citing her injury as the
cause. Both of her adult housemates knew this was not the case, but neither
complained; they really couldn't blame her, after all.
So Haruka leaned against the sakura tree, the sun warm against her
face as she watched the sky during her lunch hour, studying the contours of
a few white clouds and enjoying the pleasant breeze against her back. There
was a peace about the spring that she had never truly understood until
recently, a quiet repose that came only when the sun was high and a cool
wind tossed the cherry blossoms just right.
"I was thinking a bit, you know," commented the girl that she knew
stood on the other side of the tree, her back also against the bark, her
crutches stretched on the grass at her feet as she gazed up at the sunlight as
it trickled down through the branches and onto her pale face. "And I came to
a conclusion."
Her companion frowned slightly before answering. "And what's that?"
The voice of Tsukino Usagi caroled through the early afternoon. "Deep
down… Under all the bad stuff that happened… She was a very good person."
She paused, considering, as a breeze hissed through the blossoms above
them and scattered petals on the air. "I just thought you should know that."
Smiling slightly, the heiress to the throne of Uranus smiled slightly,
her gray-green eyes greeted with the familiar sting of tears. "I know, Usagi-
chan," she replied with a nod she realized her friend couldn't see. "I know."
Sakura petals floated on the wind, passengers on a one-way journey
to mysterious locales unknown, places that perhaps existed only in
dreams…or somewhere in the spaces between dreams, memory, and reality.
===
Fin.
Author's Notes: In working on a future Silver Millennium fanfiction of mine
(which will not debut for a long while, before you start drooling), I considered
what would have happened if there was ever a Sailor Senshi who was simply
not a good person. What if the Sailor Senshi was a bad, evil senshi? How
would they cope? And who would take their place, since there has to be one
senshi for every planet?
Sei was originally going to be Sailor Mars' sister, but there was something
about Uranus that worked better. And it allowed me to use Haruka as a main
character, something I love doing.
I realize this destroys a good portion of canon, and rest assured it will not
play a part in my eventual SilMil fic. At least, not too big a part.
Thanks to Yume and May for going through this mess with a fine-toothed
comb… This is a MASSIVE fanfic to read through.
June 17, 2004
9:54 p.m.