Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own it.
AN: At the end.
"Where do I begin?"
by Chiisana Anisa
Part 6
"Shattered failure"
*Mamoru's POV*
The sky changed together with the scenery. Big blue and white clouds couldn't be seen anymore. No, now there was ethereal light in the sky, pure blue and although it was still 'day' you could clearly see the stars imprinted in the dark bluish colour above our heads.
The girls raised slowly from the ground, dusting them selves in a typical girl manner. In contrast to them, I just stood there, mesmerised by the look in front of me. Slowly, like someone was dragging out a long lost and forgotten memory, picture of this returned to me. The Past was there to be seen...
Blinking and shaking my head, trying to rid my thoughts of those memories, I turned around hearing Minako call for me. After all, I did get up before them and walked out off our arriving place a bit.
"Mamoru, come on! We have to find Usagi!"
Acknowledging her, I nodded. "You're right. Should we split up? It would be faster."
The blonde girl nodded sharply, returning her look to the Senshi. A sort of sense urged me to look at her longer than needed. The edges of her figure were stiff in motion, her eyes alarmingly searching the area around her, before returning to take a few glances at the girls standing beside her.
She looked hurt in some way, unsure in herself which was different from all the times I saw her. As if disturbed by something she shook a little, gathering her slend arms around her. One would think she was cold but that wasn't right. Instead I got a terrible sense telling me that something was wrong, way of the track. And that something had to do with her.
Noticing that I was looking, she regained her previous calm posture, putting a big wide smile on her face, speaking to Ami.
"I think Mamoru isn't right. We should stick together. You guys still don't have all the memories from this place and I do. I know how to get around and where the things are. We should stay together."
Ami looked at her in disbelief, because that smile didn't pass with those sharp words. She could too sense that something was wrong with the girl, but Ami knew this was no time for talking it over. Anyway, Minako would probably say it was nothing. Probably.
So I changed my preposition. "Now, come to think of it, you're right Minako. We should stick together. Which way?"
Blinking in confusion she turned around toward the gates entering the gardens, thus the path to the heart of the Palace. "This way. Follow me. I think I have an idea where we might find her."
All of us, merely nodding in agreement, followed her steps as the took us inside.
*End of Mamoru's POV*
~
Minako cautiously walked down the halls, leading the unsuspecting group towards the room she herself left not even fifteen minutes ago. She flinched at the thought that now, the whole room represented one big trap for the others that were so blindly following her. Of course she would 'fall' in the trap herself but that was the part of the plan.
Just around the corner and . . .
There.
The room was there, all she had to do was to walk in it first so she could trigger the automatic spell Usagi set earlier before. With heavy steps she continued in a straight line into the room, not giving a glance to the others behind her. The moment she stepped inside the writings on the walls lighted up like long forgotten stars, scattering the light upon the whole room now inhibited by five people.
But Minako made a mistake, just one mistake of not glancing behind her when she had the chance. In the matter of seconds while hearing the words of Usagi's incantation, in a panic of a fallen warrior she swirled around herself, her eyes franticly searching for one male figure that should have been with them in the room...
But it wasn't. Realization hit her just as the last words registered in her head...
". . . let it be burned."
White light bound to transport them back to the Earth and the Middle Future indulged their figures, four female figures dressed up in Senshi outfits. And one, terrible scream, maybe predicting a doom, could have paralysed anyone left in that room, when it rang out and bounced off the walls.
Instead, one cloaked figure dressed in a tuxedo turned around with the scream that chilled bones, hearing his own name carried on the little wind that passed him by in a rush. Although the scream was now almost silenced, he could roughly recognise the words...
"NO! MAMORU!!!"
And as the wind passed, so the words did, nothing more than a lost whisper of a girl that did a mistake she would regret for the most of her life. Or maybe not...
~
Usagi went through the massive doors, coming in a large room. She turned around for a second, until her eyes finally settled on the searched object. She walked straight to it and picked it up, holding it carefully in her hands. Memories of using it so many times flooded her mind.
The first fight...
The last one...
And the 'first' one again...
God, she didn't know she had been fighting for that long. Suddenly feeling very tired, her knees buckled under her, almost giving away. Then, remembering her first intention with the object in her hands, she gripped it, rising it above her head and...
... twirled it toward the ground.
With the impact it shattered like it was made of glass, bits of it flying everywhere. Golden bits, lying now brokenly on the cold surface of the floor, shined with the rays of light entering through the windows.
No more.
That's what she thought looking at it. She would feed of her own power from now on.
If someone could see her expression right now, they would tell it was a mask of sorrow for the broken thing. Soon enough it turned in a strong facial line of someone who has made up their mind, and Usagi, maybe with lightened steps took her rout out of the room leaving the thing broken beyond repair, just lying there, letting it be forgotten.
If one of the Senshi walked in that moment, or anyone capable of recognising the object they would identify it as her transformation broach...
~
Mamoru wandered through the halls, rooms and passages of the Palace, trying to remember the tiniest detail about the place and where was he supposed to go. He went back to the moment when he separated from the girls..
He recalled a voice calling him softly from some direction, and although he didn't know why he followed it, his sixth sense told him he was doing the right thing. The fact he was leaving the girls behind didn't bother him at all. He just followed the mysterious voice taunting him in a pleading way.
Soon he found himself quite lost between two passages, not hearing the voice anymore and not knowing where to go next. He opted to just take his chances as so he was here now, searching. He knew he had to find Usagi sooner or later in this place. He just hoped it would be sooner rather than later.
But with the next step he felt as if he collided with something and that something seemed to go trough him... maybe even enter him. Great force pulled him in the path towards the balcony from so long ago and Mamoru's mind blanked of all his memories, and his legs followed...
. . . not even noticing, perplexed by the strong pull on his mind and heart, that his outfit changed in that of his former self, and that now he was carrying a big sword of protection by his left side...
~
Beryl.
A woman evil enough to ask yourselves how did anyone ever let such evil be created or even born. Or if there is some hope for good to win.
Beryl.
A woman who plans a war against the most peaceful 'planet' in the Galaxy, just from being bored for too long. Of course there was that thing of unreturned love from Prince Endymion. But that was something else.
Beryl.
A woman you didn't want to mess with. Or challenge her. Much less tried to defeat her.
Beryl.
A woman who will be all the things above... messed, challenged and defeated by a small girl just carrying out her plans of making a brighter future...
Beryl.
A woman who will set her foot on the Moon in the matter of minutes...
~~~~~~~~
(AN: Ok, I don't usually do this - BUT I will jump ahead in time. The next scene begins when Endymion protects Serenity from Beryl. I take it from there. I know you all know this from top to bottom, but you will see why I'm going through the scene. Sorry for the interruption.)
~~~~~~~~
The battle between good and evil developed in a matter of seconds. Queen Beryl attacked the Moon Kingdom, her four loyal generals leading the great masses. The Kingdom had no chance and slowly --- piece by piece all of its beauty disappeared.
Statues were broken, paths destroyed, the Palace shattered almost to dust...
That wasn't the end though. Beryl had evil plans to carry out.. beginning with the killing of Princess Serenity.
~
Usagi was set to play her part, which she knew very well, as if she trained it as a professional actress. So when Beryl appeared in front of her and Endymion reflected the attack with one of his gorgeous red roses, she gasped and clamped a hand over her mouth, setting an astounded expression on her face.
Endymion roared, with a dangerous undertone in his voice to Queen Beryl. "Don't you dare harm the Princess, Beryl!"
Beryl if you could say wore an expression of betrayal and even shock, flabbergasted at Endymion's words, and she only managed to pull his name through her blooded-red lips. It went out as a growl.
"Endymion...!"
Usagi, on reaction took two steps backward when Endymion shielded her petite figure with his larger one, spreading his coat also in a stance meant to protect her even at the cost of his life.
"Why do you side with the Moon, Endymion? You are the Prince of Earth! If you marry me, you will be the King who'll rule over the Earth and Moon!!" - Beryl raged out in a terrible voice, cursing the young Princess in the same time.
"Beryl, you're influenced by the dark energy of Metallia. Cast it away!" - Endymion tried to reason with the dark Queen. It didn't work.
"Silence! Now, you will die too!"
Usagi snickered in her mind. 'Now comes the hard part. Dying... yet staying alive. I can't wait to see Beryl's eyes...' She observed Endymion getting caught in the winds of Beryl's dark energy, second after floating upwards in the air like a torn puppet.
She screamed his name, reaching out with her hand, slipping and falling on her knees, the fabric of her royal dress humming beneath her, slightly breaking her fall. But, she picked herself up in a jump reaching for her beloved again, each of them screaming the other's names.
Beryl watched them with rage written all over her face, with refusal of Endymion and with two lovers desperately struggling to get to each other. The energy surged through her and in the instant their hands touched she released it out and send it to them in a destroying manner.
Usagi welcomed the attack, but held her eyes on Endymion's perfect face, her heart longing to hold him close. Her mind quickly re-drew from that kind of thoughts, banning them to her wounded heart. Suddenly she felt a change, a slip in her Spells, a slip in time...
She didn't pinpoint what was that, what felt so wrong there and then. She tried, searching it out with her senses, but couldn't figure it out. Her eyes, however, still fixed on Endymion's, registered a suspicious look of recognition, maybe even a level of shock, that, she was sure, wasn't supposed to be there.
While her mind struggled with questions considering that, her hand slipped out of his grasp, her body finally feeling the full impact of Beryl's power and she felt her liveness, her soul running away. It should've joined Endymion's, but her Spell stopped that. A shield held it not so far away from the Serenity's body, protecting her from Death's hands.
In her ears still rang last cry out of her name by Endymion and she could clearly recognise the love in that tone. How she missed that... she thought before closing her eyes...
The bodies of two right-full heir's on Moon's and Earth's throne floated in the air, both dead... shielded by the love everyone would talk of until the legend would become just that... a legend.
Shattered lied the fallen Moon Kingdom...
One soul went on her last quest in this forsaken, evil time and one good, full of tears and regrets, Queen raising her Moon wand cried out "Moon Healing Escalation!" and the invading army, followers together with the four Generals were destroyed in one swipe of power.
Then she sent the rest of the bodies to Earth, seeking protection from it. She prayed her wisdom words and somewhere in her last thoughts, before her hands let the Moon wand fall and go on, she remember a little girl like a dangerous angel, swearing to make a better future for them all...
And still... yet... she couldn't help but wonder if the girl would succeed...
~
In the same moment Queen Serenity saw her fallen Princess and her love in the air, Spell altered it's course. It carried the soul of Usagi and Queen Beryl to the remains of once beautiful garden. Beryl looked swiftly around her, wondering what just happened, her feet landing on the little island in the middle of the garden's lake.
Power shield surrounded her, the island, the lake and the entire garden. Narrowing her eyes, she recognised, secret Moon power in the shield and now only waited for her opponent. But her eyes wided out when her eyes landed on the figure of a small woman...
... walking slowly toward her on the clean and calm surface of the lake...
~
The group of four girls rushed in the temple, minutes ago arriving back on the spot they started from. Opening wide the screen doors, they startled two cats, who stared at them in wonder before little voice carrying a scream carried out trough the air of the room...
Chibiusa clenched her shirt around her heart, curling in a ball before her body rose in air. The girls, together with Luna and Artemis could only observe her image flinching a bit... as if fading...
Then returning back, her mouth speaking only two words... "Mother..." then fading again, and it looked like someone was playing with her, making her invisible one moment and the other visible, "... failed..."
Luna, finally realizing what was happening, jumped toward the girl, but only went through air, because Chibiusa disappeared completely, leaving a fake smile lingering in their minds and two lonely tears falling on the brown wooded floor...
___________________________________________________________________________
The End of Chapter 6
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AN: Ok... please don't hate me!!!!! (if you figured out what happened) I like to write in riddles, not quite saying what happened, instead leaving the readers conclude on their own reading it carefully, even making them return and re-read some parts again.
But I think it's pretty obvious, ne?
Even if it isn't, it will be in the next chapter, which is already half written.
NOW - )
1. I would really, REALLY like to know how I can make my words appear in BOLD and ITALIC on ffc.net. If anybody knows - PLEASE TELL ME! Thank you.
2. I'm fine. I'd like to thank everyone on their support and good wishes (you know who you are !~_~!). Anyway... I had a slight amnesia and was forbidden to work on the computer for a while. Due to that and some other problems this chapter is so late. I apologise humbly.
3. Anyone who needs explaining things regarding this story - send an email, or review with questions that will be answered in the next chapter.
4. If anyone from you reads stories from a fellow author My Sciorra (she writes Inuyasha's fics only. She writes in a fashion similar to mine ^_^) I just need to say that I'll be taking over her stories. She decided to quit and I offered (as if I don't have enough work as it is. Feh!) to continue. So... yeah... I also recomend her stories. She has some certain depth in her writing.. I dunno... you're an Inuyasha fan . . . go for it!
5. Nothing more. Read, and enjoy, don't kill me or FLAME me. Just... read.. you don't have to review... But if you enjoyed it, I'm beyond glad.
Lots of love,
Chiisana Anisa