An Innocent's Violence
by Kimra
Part 9
They had discussed it rarely between themselves, the sensation of transforming since they had been turned. It had been decided though that it felt as if their bodies where fighting themselves. It was painful, the sort of pain that feels like dieing all over again, and as they had gone through that process they had a very good comparison to work with.
But this time was different. This time no amount of personal aversion to pain could outweigh the desperation of the situation. None of them had hesitated in adding their powers to their defences as they followed the elder women into the centre of the male domain.
It hurt, no doubt, they could all feel it, but they t that feeling linger, ignoring the pain that throbbed through their bodies because Usagi, they had to get to her, had to save her. It was their duty to forever protect what they loved the most. So with bitter determination they prevailed and they forged onwards. With the speed of vampire and warrior combined the ran. Alert and ready to destroy.
They travelled darkened tunnels, the smell of musk think in the air, puddles under their feet splashing as they ran and not a breath of life but for their own. Their hearts pounded in their chests in unified fear, their minds furiously mapping, remembering, as they went and their body's, coiled and ready for action ready to do what had to be done.
Nothing but death would stand in their way, and not even that, they where determined would hold them back for long.
What the women leading them thought or felt they wasted no time guessing upon. All that mattered was the path and it's destination. Though there was no denying the kinship they shared, dressed the same as they where, coursing with the same power and both women and girls seeking the same goal.
Silence was all that echoed through the tunnels as they ran, not even their feet upon the ground with each stride released a noise, until a single voice came forth from the darkness halting them in their tracks. "It is now." Echoed though the silence.
Defences came to the fore, all six females ready for an attack without even a word to each other. Ready to fight for the hearts that pounded so furiously within their chests.
What came to them, what drew out from the shadows before them was a woman one like them but not. Dressed in their uniform, white and black, purple and green but older, and in her eyes lay an endless sadness they could feel in their own bones as they watched her. "And I have been waiting."
"Pluto." Michiru spoke with only concern in her voice, calm but ready.
"Where is Usagi?" Minako demanded. They didn't have time for this, to meet new people, to learn about their fated gifts. Other things mattered far too much.
"Your princess?" It seemed a question, though none of them could be sure. "She fights beyond these doors." And she gestured behind her into the darkness, light creeping into the scene behind her and they could see the double doors only a few meters before them.
Minako moved first, pushing past the older women, the other three, Makoto, Ami and Rei where less then a breath behind her. Their leader, in oranges and gold's pushed forwards, throwing the double doors open and revealing the fray.
Not one of the four needed to think when they found their Princess, their friend and companion surrounded, falling, bleeding and outnumbered. They threw themselves into the battle will, strength and love making them stronger then anything these men had ever come across before.
Haruka watched for only a few seconds, watched as the Princess was freed from immediate attack and her protectors took up the battle but her nerves where not as raw and she was not as young so she turned the woman they had seen only once in so many life times.
"And what of your Princess, Setsuna?" Was the probing question. They had known each other in another life, known the buttons to push the words to say and the tones that suggested something else was happening.
"She lays in wake." The green haired woman replied, eyes sad and thoughtful. A flash though, of courage and remembrance or maybe hope shot through her garnet eyes and then a soft smile came to the Guardian of Times lips. "But her slumber is nearly over."
There was a pause and Haruka found her eyes drawn to the battle so close to them. She wondered if Pluto was implying she should not enter, but watching these girls struggle she wanted nothing more then to help them. A glance at her mate and she knew the feeling was shared.
"You must go, they need you." Was all Setsuna had to say for the two women to throw themselves into the battle. Their powers drawing out of pained bodies, their intentions clear. They would help win this war.
Pluto was calm.
She had lived through many life times for this day, watched horror's and beauty's alike with little concern but today the balance would be returned and her sister's, and her princess would be reborn without the darkness that hung over them.
She walked with easy grace through the carnage of the room. Seeing the dead and stepping over them, caring not for the blood or dust on her shoe's. Her destination was fixed, her purpose clear and when she came to the Princess breathing now she was not alone, Pluto stopped.
She knelt before the woman-child and met the calm crystallin blue eyes of her Princess.
"In the dungeons." She began, careful to keep those confused blue eyes fixed on her. "The Vampire Ruler Demando has gone to kill your Prince, to kill your Love, Mamoru."
The girl drew in a breath, ragged and broken her eyes suddenly afraid. Tears in their corners.
"I'll take you to them." Setsuna pushed, taking the girls hands gently and drawing her up.
Around them fighting continued, vampires falling the magic of the ancient worlds pulsing, flashing and charring through their ranks. Pluto cared nothing for that and distracted, neither did Usagi.
"Take me." Usagi begged, her voice cracking, blood sliding down her chin from her mouth. There was nothing beautiful about what lay before her but Pluto felt her heart constrict. There was so much innocence and beauty in her Princess still. "Please."
"I will. I am." Was all Pluto said and before any of the girls or women knew what was happening, while they fought the battle to keep the monsters at bay Pluto took their Princess away from them and lead her down a darker path.
Nothing was making sense. She had been fighting, she could barely remember how, but she had been fighting. There had been blood and screams and things she couldn't describe. Then she'd done it, drawn forth powers untouched for three years. She was not Sailor Moon the Champion of Justice, she was a vile mesh of vampire, human and whatever that magical part of her was called. So it hurt. Of course it did. It hurt to breath, to fight, but survival was something she was trained for and she had done it. Drawn out magic unused and destroyed whatever came at her.
Then they had come, her family, what was left of it. Minako, Rei, Ami and Makoto, but with them had been strangers. She'd fallen when she didn't have to fight anymore, when her friends took the battle from her hands. She had breathed and watched. Two women she didn't know where fighting with her friends but she didn't move, she needed to breath, needed to grasp in what she could of that precious air because her lungs where hurting, her body was hurting, her soul was screaming.
Then it had happened. Another women had come to her, a Sailor Scout, beautiful and mystic and somehow familiar just like the other two. And she'd mentioned him, and no thought could be spared for anything else after that, only him, she was alive and now she needed to save him. If she could.
The woman leading her had disappeared along the way, Usagi was following something different, something more powerful. Her soul was crying, screaming and it was dragging it was pulling her where it needed to go. Taking her to what it needed saving.
She came through the door knowing he'd be on the other side, rammed into Demando without a thought to personal safety. He hit the ground below her and she swung at him.
He twisted below her, unsettled her and was on his feet looking controlled and mildly amused as he brushed some dirt off his jacket.
Mamoru, he was saying something to her, she ignored it, couldn't have focused on it if she tried. She needed to stop this man before her, needed to protect herself as much as her heart.
She made an attack, forgetting magic in the face of adrenaline. He took the hit and offered once back, she didn't flinch from it though instead landed another blow in his face. Blood splashed from his nose, spraying her clothes and she struck again.
People where coming, she didn't know who, but they where coming.
She stuck again, and he fell back against the wall, another blow came at her and she dodged it slamming her fist into his chest and feeling things break below her palm.
Demando gasped, and she went to strike again.
"No!" Was cried and before the blow could land Usagi found her fist in the hold of a delicate glove covered hand. "You will kill him." The aqua haired woman pleaded, her eyes full of concern.
"I've killed before." Usagi bit out, ready to kill again. Her body trembled for it. He had threatened her, threatened her own. Her love, he had threatened her very heart!
"To survive," The woman insisted, "but never, never like this." She pushed. "Never for anger."
Usagi felt herself shudder and wondered if it was true. Her family, she had killed them, but she couldn't control it. And after that? They had only killed to eat, all of them. So maybe they had enjoyed it, but that was part of it, it was something they couldn't deny and wouldn't.
But she wanted him dead, she wanted to keep him away from her friends, her sisters because could hurt them. Her fist tightened, muscles tensing but she didn't swing her fist again. Then slowly, tears running down her checks she let him go, his body sliding to the floor and grin on his broken lips as he stared up at her.
And Usagi let it go, the tension of battle leaving her as she looked away from the waste of life before her.
"Look to your prince," an ancient voice spoke "he is bleeding."
Usagi barely looked at the green haired woman before her eyes where on Mamoru, he wasn't standing, but he was watching the intensity of his eyes sparking a response in her she wouldn't deny.
"Endymion!" She cried without thought and was by his side instantly all thoughts of anger lost to her concern. "Are you okay?" She tried, knowing it was stupid because there wouldn't be so much blood about him if he where. "I'm so sorry." She whispered pushing back his hair and looking into his eyes. She was trying to decide what to fix, what to heal but her head was lost within his stare. But he needed healing, his wounds where not shallow or small.
He managed a smile to her, but she could see it was hurting him and immediately soothed it away with gentle fingers. What happened behind her she cared not, so long as he was safe, so long as she was. More people came in, she felt that more then anything else, her bound sisters had come to the room.
"I hurt a bit." He grumbled feebly because she already knew.
"I'll help you." She whispered and bit into her own finger, letting the blood of her body slide out into the first wound she saw, the cut across his shoulder. She watched it drip out of her, slow but steady and waited. Seconds ticked by, minutes close behind.
"Why isn't it working?" Filtered through her hearing and she too wondered why his wounds hadn't begun to heal.
"It's not working." She managed, and then rather frantic she bit harder into her hand letting more blood out, trying to wash away his wounds with the power inside her veins. "Why isn't it working?" She demanded, her eyes coming to land on a figure she hadn't seen for so many years. "Mercury?" She tried, pleading for an answer.
But she didn't need to ask, even if they hadn't used their forms since close to the beginning they would never forget their places within them. Ami was typing on her computer, her eyes furrowed as she did and Usagi waited in silence, her hands soothing Mamoru trying to push his pain away solely with her self-will.
"It's gone." Ami whispered her eyes raising from the computers screen.
"What's gone?" Usagi demanded her voice shaking. If she had come so far, this far and now she couldn't even fix him.
"You can't-" Ami began.
"What's done?" Usagi demanded tears collecting in her eyes.
"The magic- the curse. It's gone Usagi! You can't heal him with blood."
And it made sense to anyone who hadn't already understood. Usagi felt her heart shatter, not from horror or distress or anything so morbid, but it couldn't hold everything it needed to at that moment.
"Heal him with your magic Usagi. Heal him with the moon." Ami finalised and the tears that had been in Usagi's eyes became something less desperate and all together beautiful.
"It's gone." She whispered, her voice trembling with the kind of happiness she hadn't felt for such a long time. She curled herself against Mamoru, feeling him wince and offered only the slightest apology before her lips where on his, and her magic worked passed her into him.
She heard chains break, knew he was free when he took a hold of her and knew as she always had before when he was healed, when there was nothing left to fix. But she kept kissing him, letting the moment flood her, too overwhelmed to do anything but accept it.
He broke from her first with a chuckle.
"Sailor Moon ha?"
"Mamoru-baka!" She cried annoyed at him for taking all the tension out of the air with that twinkle in his eyes and that teasing tone in his voice.
"Your beautiful, you know that right?" He reached to her face and pushed silver hair from her face.
"Oh gods." She let another wave of emotion overtake her and she was in his hold again, not caring that all of them, all these women where watching her. "I thought we where gone forever. I thought I'd lost you." She cried for a while, let the tears take her where they would, relief and sorrow mixed together in such a heady mix nothing but his arms around her could be recognised.
"Not a chance Odango." He replied when she began to calm. "I've got years of fighting with you to do before that happens."
She laughed despite herself and she felt below her hold as his body relaxed.
"It would be best if you left now." That ancient voice interrupted and Usagi looked up at the green haired woman. "It's time to go." She added a smile on her lips.
"Pluto?" Usagi checked and the woman nodded. She looked then at the scene before her and she recognised the women gathered. Neptune and Uranus where near Pluto and behind the three was Demando, bleeding and glaring, but silent.
"It's time to leave Princess. Your Prince will need rest soon, and so will you."
Usagi nodded, already she felt tired, like the magic had taken it out of her but she stayed a minute longer watching the Guardian of Time.
"Why?" She tested carefully, not really understanding what was happening.
"The crystal you carry can heal anything. It just needed a chance." Pluto offered a smile and Usagi realised that she could feel it from her four greatest friends through their link, but also in the air around them the blood curse was gone. "Now go." Pluto commanded, and Usagi wasn't going to fight, didn't care and was all to happy to leave.
She rose from the ground, Mamoru right behind her their hands tangled together and she lead him from the room, and her sisters followed leaving only Pluto, Neptune and Uranus guarding over a broken King.
"Should we leave them?" Rei asked from the back, but nobody really answered, just kept walking.
It was in silence that they waited. In silence that they listened. Footsteps faded away, the youngest of their kind leading their Princess home. Though the three did not relax because nothing was over.
Then from the shadows at the back of the room, unobserved by any stepped a small girl a uniform of white on her body, a weapon of destruction in her hands.
"You waste your time whores. Your not going to kill me." Demando spat from the ground. "I know all of you, I know what your capable off, and you can't do this."
Haruka was first to respond, yanking him to his feet by his collar and holding him from the ground. Michiru watching from the sides.
"Did you think-" the girl began her voice soft "-we would let her kill you, let you take her innocence?"
Haruka let him go, throwing him to the centre of the room before the girls feet.
The girl stopped her glowing eyes falling to his face. "I am Destruction," she whispered "and it is your time Demando."
Best of luck with everything and for those who where concerned I'm feeling much better now. Thanks all.
Kimra
