Sailor Moon
"Reflections of a Red Rose"
Rated: PG-13
By: NeoMoon
Chapter Twenty-Six:
Sirens sounded around her, making her head pound harder, lights flashed making her squint as she
hardly tried to do her work, and finally with a silent curse she fastened the tourniquet around
the small girl's arm, and wiped her brow.
Slowly Ami leaned back on her heals, watching as the small child laid unconscious on the cold
ground, around them Ami could hear others groaning, but she didn't care about them, at the moment
this child was all that matter.
The sirens were louder, the paramedics where getting closer to the crash sight, and for a brief
moment Ami allowed herself to look back at the city in the distance that was a blaze with searing
white flames.
"Mmm."
Ami's head snapped back to the child, watching as the small girl, who couldn't have been more
then five slowly opened her eyes and coughed, black liquid expelling itself with the air.
Oh god! Oh dear god no! Ami bent down her hand roaming over the girl's tiny body. She had to
find it, if she found it then, then maybe . . .
"Owe!" Ami jerked up, surprised that the child had actually been able to talk, at that point . .
. Ami shook her head she wouldn't allow herself to think it, she couldn't think it, but it was
true, it was there, even now she could see the tiny trickle of black blood rolling down the
girl's chin, her lung was punctured, filling with blood.
"Mommy!" The girl cried out, her voice gurgling as she tried to sit up, but was pushed back down
by Ami.
"Lay still your hurt." Ami said as sweetly as she could.
"Where's mommy?" The girl asked, as she choked on her own blood.
Ami turned her to her side, praying it would help if just a little, knowing it was fruitless; the
girl was dying. Damn it! Ami's mind screamed. If only . . . If only . . . "Medic!"
Ami stood, cringing as she did, her leg filling with pain and shooting through the rest of her
body. "Medic!"
"What's wrong?" The girl asked, the gurgle in her throat much worse then only seconds before.
Ami dropped back down to the ground ignoring the intense pain that was now surging through her;
softly she took the girl's head in her lap and started rocking back and forth. "Nothing
sweetie." She said softy her turn sound very much like a mother's. "Nothing at all." She
began to hum softly, as the girl's breathing became softer more hollow, as the sound of the blood
filling her lunges accompanied each breath, finally the girl stopped breathing; Ami continued to
rocked, still humming as the world around her dimmed as one sentence loamed in her mind, the
words being spoken by her mother.
How can you be a doctor if you can't save one life?
It seemed like forever before the paramedics made their way over to her. She didn't fight as
they pulled her away from the child, didn't cry when the wrapped her in a small black bag, she
walked with them, as they led her away, and not until they left her did she fall to the cold
ground and begin to cry.
Rei groaned as she opened her, and gasped. Quickly she picked herself up and looked around, her
eyes wide with amazement.
The walls of her core where gone, broken away by the stress of her soul, replaced by the a
twirling mist of colors that seemed to come together and separate in a dance that could only be
described as beautiful.
She turned, everything was gone, even the bed that had been created by a part of her she did not
fully understand, or want to understand. Slowly her legs fighting her she stepped out into the
abyss of twirling colors and fell.
Colors flashed around her, so fast she couldn't make them out they all blended together, as she
fell faster and faster down the abyss of the self, until everything was black.
Lights flashed, she blocked her eyes from them, realizing as she did so that she no long was
falling that she stood on solid ground.
The light dimmed and she looked around surprised to see herself standing on the Sato Bridge,
surprised by the fact that all her friends lay dead before her.
This was different, something had happened, why was it different now?!
She walked slowly, carefully making her way over the bodies of her lifeless friends till she came
to the bridges center.
Chi was kneeling Usagi, no Sailor Moon stood over her a sword soaked crimson held tightly in her
hands, pointed directly at Chi's chest.
Rei's own heart pounded as if trying to break free of her as she watched the events unfold before
her. Watched as her friend, her future queen murdered Chi in cold blood, watched as she licked
the blood from her arm and sword. Rei shuddered as Mamoru slough his own fiancée, his future
wife. Watched in horror as the red haired woman from her earlier dreams appeared behind him,
caressing his body. She screamed as they locked in a passionate kiss.
Then everything reversed itself, as if someone had pressed the rewind button, then it all
stopped, and Rei found herself standing directly in front of Usagi. No that wasn't quite right,
she wasn't standing, she was . . . Kneeling.
She looked at Usagi's face, at the icy, cruel smile that stretched her old friends face, at the
green eyes that looked coldly down at her. In that moment Rei realized just as the sword pierced
through her chest snapping her ribs as it forced it's way into her, and burst her heart, that it
wasn't Usagi that had been staring down at her.
The world went dark, and to Rei it felt like a wonderful rest.
For Makoto the world just seemed to suddenly snap into place, one seconds she was floating in a
fluid darkness, the next, she was in the remains of the prison room that she had been placed
into.
Slowly she stumbled to her feet, and using the bedpost to steed herself with she looked at the
room, amazement filling her eyes as she saw the carnage around her, and the large hole in the
wall.
With a slight limp she made her way to the hole, and fell up against it's side, to look out, she
almost cried out in pain, as she saw, below her, the great city of Tokyo in flames.
"Oh my god." She murmured, her mind screaming the names of her friends, imaging the worst that
could have happened to all of them, and then finally his name was called, and she knew she had to
get out to find him if nothing else, to see for herself that Shinneri still lived.
Shinneri lifted the small shot glass to his mouth and quickly swallowed the western whiskey, as
he surveyed the damage to the bar that he tended. He shook his head as he watched the obviously
tired paramedic's and police care out the bodies of those dead, those dying, and those he knew
most likely would die.
Slowly her poured more of the liquor out of its bottle and into the tiny glass, and watched
silently as body after body was carried out. As he watched he could only think of one thing, the
bar, his family none of that mattered, as soon as the bodies were gone and questions were over he
would find her, and make sure she was safe.
He drained the glass and poured another.
"We should take her to the hospital!" Setsuna yelled as she looked down at the frail sleeping
body of Micheru, worry etched in her face as she looked at her friend. "She didn't even wake
during the earthquake."
Hotoru laughed as she cleared the last piece of rubble of the couch, and moved so Setsuna could
lay their dying friend back onto her makeshift deathbed. "It just proved Haruka right." She
said with a small smile.
"This is no time to be joking!" Setsuna hissed as covered Micheru up in a dusty blanket.
"After all the death I've seen and caused, I think I can joke." Hotoru said her voice suddenly
much older, much colder. "And you time with better remember that."
Setsuna managed a cocky smile as she looked up from her task. "And you remember who pulled your
damned soul out of the abyss!"
Hotoru shook her head in defeat and walked carefully over the remains of Micheru's apartment,
over to the large hole where the balcony used to be, but now that wall was gone, every room in
the complex could be seen now, just by looking up. She smiled as she watched the destruction
outside, the fires that threatened to consume the city, the cries of pain and help, that were
carried by the wind. No matter how much she deigned it, she knew a part of her craved
destruction.
"Can you still feel it?" Setsuna asked as she walked up behind Hotoru, wrapping her arms around
her as she watched the carnage that was laid out before them.
Hotoru shook her head, still looking out. "No, it was gone soon after it started."
Setsuna nodded. "What could have happened to make her do this?"
Hotoru sighed and tilted her head back. "I'm not to certain that it was her." She said, her
voice was so soft, so distant that it sent a shiver down the older woman's back.
Minako groaned as she came to. The world around her was black, smelled of charred meat. Where
was she?
Slowly she opened her eyes and almost screamed as she saw the pile of bodies that covered her.
Slowly she clawed her way out of the bodies, forcing herself to breath in the putrid air of burnt
flesh, and waste.
Finally free she looked around, tears falling freely down her face as she looked at the remains
of the nightclub, the dance floor. She looked up into a night sky, it's stars blocked by a thick
smoke that seemed to come from everywhere. Slowly the events came back to her. The screaming,
the people pushing at her, knocking her over as they tried to escape the club. She remembered
the light, so bright so beautiful. She could remember the sound of a thunderclap as she was
knocked to the floor, as people stepped on her as they tried to escape the doomed club, and then
all she could remember the ground shaking, then nothing.
Slowly she made her way over the burnt bodies, doing her best to breath out of her mouth. The
world felt wrong suddenly.
Usagi walked down the darkened streets, ignoring the pleas for help, and groans of the dying,
ignoring the smell of human waste and burnt flesh. She walked alone down the destroyed streets
of Tokyo, ignoring the world around her; she wanted no part of it, none at all.
Slowly the man emerged from the soot-streaked car ahead from her, his gun was raised, but as she
walked closer he lowered it, his eyes growing wide with concern.
"Ma'am!" He called out as he hurriedly walked toward her. "Ma'am are you alright?"
She ignored him, and kept walking ignored the fact that he held out his arm, trying to force her
to stop. Finally she did, and with a primal smile she raised her hand to his arm, touching him.
The pendent around her chest flashed a bright light, and she slowly lowered her hand and started
to walk away, her smile growing as the young police officer screamed and burst into flame.
Deep inside of her, something laughed, and Usagi knew that the cliff that she saw so long ago,
the cliff her friends had always kept her from, she knew she had finally falling off of that
cliff and into the darkness. And frankly, she didn't care.
"Reflections of a Red Rose"
Rated: PG-13
By: NeoMoon
Chapter Twenty-Six:
Sirens sounded around her, making her head pound harder, lights flashed making her squint as she
hardly tried to do her work, and finally with a silent curse she fastened the tourniquet around
the small girl's arm, and wiped her brow.
Slowly Ami leaned back on her heals, watching as the small child laid unconscious on the cold
ground, around them Ami could hear others groaning, but she didn't care about them, at the moment
this child was all that matter.
The sirens were louder, the paramedics where getting closer to the crash sight, and for a brief
moment Ami allowed herself to look back at the city in the distance that was a blaze with searing
white flames.
"Mmm."
Ami's head snapped back to the child, watching as the small girl, who couldn't have been more
then five slowly opened her eyes and coughed, black liquid expelling itself with the air.
Oh god! Oh dear god no! Ami bent down her hand roaming over the girl's tiny body. She had to
find it, if she found it then, then maybe . . .
"Owe!" Ami jerked up, surprised that the child had actually been able to talk, at that point . .
. Ami shook her head she wouldn't allow herself to think it, she couldn't think it, but it was
true, it was there, even now she could see the tiny trickle of black blood rolling down the
girl's chin, her lung was punctured, filling with blood.
"Mommy!" The girl cried out, her voice gurgling as she tried to sit up, but was pushed back down
by Ami.
"Lay still your hurt." Ami said as sweetly as she could.
"Where's mommy?" The girl asked, as she choked on her own blood.
Ami turned her to her side, praying it would help if just a little, knowing it was fruitless; the
girl was dying. Damn it! Ami's mind screamed. If only . . . If only . . . "Medic!"
Ami stood, cringing as she did, her leg filling with pain and shooting through the rest of her
body. "Medic!"
"What's wrong?" The girl asked, the gurgle in her throat much worse then only seconds before.
Ami dropped back down to the ground ignoring the intense pain that was now surging through her;
softly she took the girl's head in her lap and started rocking back and forth. "Nothing
sweetie." She said softy her turn sound very much like a mother's. "Nothing at all." She
began to hum softly, as the girl's breathing became softer more hollow, as the sound of the blood
filling her lunges accompanied each breath, finally the girl stopped breathing; Ami continued to
rocked, still humming as the world around her dimmed as one sentence loamed in her mind, the
words being spoken by her mother.
How can you be a doctor if you can't save one life?
It seemed like forever before the paramedics made their way over to her. She didn't fight as
they pulled her away from the child, didn't cry when the wrapped her in a small black bag, she
walked with them, as they led her away, and not until they left her did she fall to the cold
ground and begin to cry.
Rei groaned as she opened her, and gasped. Quickly she picked herself up and looked around, her
eyes wide with amazement.
The walls of her core where gone, broken away by the stress of her soul, replaced by the a
twirling mist of colors that seemed to come together and separate in a dance that could only be
described as beautiful.
She turned, everything was gone, even the bed that had been created by a part of her she did not
fully understand, or want to understand. Slowly her legs fighting her she stepped out into the
abyss of twirling colors and fell.
Colors flashed around her, so fast she couldn't make them out they all blended together, as she
fell faster and faster down the abyss of the self, until everything was black.
Lights flashed, she blocked her eyes from them, realizing as she did so that she no long was
falling that she stood on solid ground.
The light dimmed and she looked around surprised to see herself standing on the Sato Bridge,
surprised by the fact that all her friends lay dead before her.
This was different, something had happened, why was it different now?!
She walked slowly, carefully making her way over the bodies of her lifeless friends till she came
to the bridges center.
Chi was kneeling Usagi, no Sailor Moon stood over her a sword soaked crimson held tightly in her
hands, pointed directly at Chi's chest.
Rei's own heart pounded as if trying to break free of her as she watched the events unfold before
her. Watched as her friend, her future queen murdered Chi in cold blood, watched as she licked
the blood from her arm and sword. Rei shuddered as Mamoru slough his own fiancée, his future
wife. Watched in horror as the red haired woman from her earlier dreams appeared behind him,
caressing his body. She screamed as they locked in a passionate kiss.
Then everything reversed itself, as if someone had pressed the rewind button, then it all
stopped, and Rei found herself standing directly in front of Usagi. No that wasn't quite right,
she wasn't standing, she was . . . Kneeling.
She looked at Usagi's face, at the icy, cruel smile that stretched her old friends face, at the
green eyes that looked coldly down at her. In that moment Rei realized just as the sword pierced
through her chest snapping her ribs as it forced it's way into her, and burst her heart, that it
wasn't Usagi that had been staring down at her.
The world went dark, and to Rei it felt like a wonderful rest.
For Makoto the world just seemed to suddenly snap into place, one seconds she was floating in a
fluid darkness, the next, she was in the remains of the prison room that she had been placed
into.
Slowly she stumbled to her feet, and using the bedpost to steed herself with she looked at the
room, amazement filling her eyes as she saw the carnage around her, and the large hole in the
wall.
With a slight limp she made her way to the hole, and fell up against it's side, to look out, she
almost cried out in pain, as she saw, below her, the great city of Tokyo in flames.
"Oh my god." She murmured, her mind screaming the names of her friends, imaging the worst that
could have happened to all of them, and then finally his name was called, and she knew she had to
get out to find him if nothing else, to see for herself that Shinneri still lived.
Shinneri lifted the small shot glass to his mouth and quickly swallowed the western whiskey, as
he surveyed the damage to the bar that he tended. He shook his head as he watched the obviously
tired paramedic's and police care out the bodies of those dead, those dying, and those he knew
most likely would die.
Slowly her poured more of the liquor out of its bottle and into the tiny glass, and watched
silently as body after body was carried out. As he watched he could only think of one thing, the
bar, his family none of that mattered, as soon as the bodies were gone and questions were over he
would find her, and make sure she was safe.
He drained the glass and poured another.
"We should take her to the hospital!" Setsuna yelled as she looked down at the frail sleeping
body of Micheru, worry etched in her face as she looked at her friend. "She didn't even wake
during the earthquake."
Hotoru laughed as she cleared the last piece of rubble of the couch, and moved so Setsuna could
lay their dying friend back onto her makeshift deathbed. "It just proved Haruka right." She
said with a small smile.
"This is no time to be joking!" Setsuna hissed as covered Micheru up in a dusty blanket.
"After all the death I've seen and caused, I think I can joke." Hotoru said her voice suddenly
much older, much colder. "And you time with better remember that."
Setsuna managed a cocky smile as she looked up from her task. "And you remember who pulled your
damned soul out of the abyss!"
Hotoru shook her head in defeat and walked carefully over the remains of Micheru's apartment,
over to the large hole where the balcony used to be, but now that wall was gone, every room in
the complex could be seen now, just by looking up. She smiled as she watched the destruction
outside, the fires that threatened to consume the city, the cries of pain and help, that were
carried by the wind. No matter how much she deigned it, she knew a part of her craved
destruction.
"Can you still feel it?" Setsuna asked as she walked up behind Hotoru, wrapping her arms around
her as she watched the carnage that was laid out before them.
Hotoru shook her head, still looking out. "No, it was gone soon after it started."
Setsuna nodded. "What could have happened to make her do this?"
Hotoru sighed and tilted her head back. "I'm not to certain that it was her." She said, her
voice was so soft, so distant that it sent a shiver down the older woman's back.
Minako groaned as she came to. The world around her was black, smelled of charred meat. Where
was she?
Slowly she opened her eyes and almost screamed as she saw the pile of bodies that covered her.
Slowly she clawed her way out of the bodies, forcing herself to breath in the putrid air of burnt
flesh, and waste.
Finally free she looked around, tears falling freely down her face as she looked at the remains
of the nightclub, the dance floor. She looked up into a night sky, it's stars blocked by a thick
smoke that seemed to come from everywhere. Slowly the events came back to her. The screaming,
the people pushing at her, knocking her over as they tried to escape the club. She remembered
the light, so bright so beautiful. She could remember the sound of a thunderclap as she was
knocked to the floor, as people stepped on her as they tried to escape the doomed club, and then
all she could remember the ground shaking, then nothing.
Slowly she made her way over the burnt bodies, doing her best to breath out of her mouth. The
world felt wrong suddenly.
Usagi walked down the darkened streets, ignoring the pleas for help, and groans of the dying,
ignoring the smell of human waste and burnt flesh. She walked alone down the destroyed streets
of Tokyo, ignoring the world around her; she wanted no part of it, none at all.
Slowly the man emerged from the soot-streaked car ahead from her, his gun was raised, but as she
walked closer he lowered it, his eyes growing wide with concern.
"Ma'am!" He called out as he hurriedly walked toward her. "Ma'am are you alright?"
She ignored him, and kept walking ignored the fact that he held out his arm, trying to force her
to stop. Finally she did, and with a primal smile she raised her hand to his arm, touching him.
The pendent around her chest flashed a bright light, and she slowly lowered her hand and started
to walk away, her smile growing as the young police officer screamed and burst into flame.
Deep inside of her, something laughed, and Usagi knew that the cliff that she saw so long ago,
the cliff her friends had always kept her from, she knew she had finally falling off of that
cliff and into the darkness. And frankly, she didn't care.