"Sailor Angel and Sailor Phosphora: The Fight Against Catastrophe"
Chapter Twenty-Five
By Angel Sentier and M'Lila Cronk
Inside Yuki's memory, Dark Angel followed Yuki's younger counterpart through what she'd guessed by then to be the Mercurian Kingdom's castle. She told herself it was because she was stuck in Yuki's head until he let her out and she had nothing better to do than witness this memory he wanted her to see... But if she was honest about it, she really was curious.
They left the main part of the palace and Angel found herself in a courtyard full of the white lacy plants. She supposed they were bred to grow in a cold environment. There was an icy fountain at the center and a stream that flowed from it divided the garden in half. A few bare trees stretched their branches to the sky, but the dusting of snow kept them from looking ugly. And despite the cold, there were a few birds twittering about. In fact, the twittering was mostly what she was hearing at the moment. It was starting to get annoying...
She looked at young Yuki, wondering where this memory was going, and he was staring at something near one of the trees. Following his gaze, she saw Princess Celeste kneeling by one of the trees. She had missed seeing her before because of all the white.
Yuki swallowed hard and hesitantly went closer. As Angel followed him, the sound of soft crying could be heard.
After another hesitation, Yuki knelt next to her. She started slightly and looked up at the intruder. On closer inspection, this girl definitely was Angel... She was a dead ringer. She didn't even look younger; she looked precisely as Dark Angel did. Except she had those weak tears in her eyes.
"What's the matter, princess?" asked Yuki.
Celeste extended her cupped hands to him to show she was holding a tiny bird. The small creature's wing was bent at an unnatural angle and it wasn't moving. So that's what all the chirping was about. Looking up at the tree, Angel could see supposedly the bird's mother, hopping around and shrieking as loudly as she could. The other birds didn't seem too happy either.
"I saw it fall," said Celeste. "It's so sad... To have its life cut short in an instant. And it's poor mother..."
"Oh, please," said Angel, though no one could hear her.
"Let me see," said Yuki. He placed one hand underneath hers and the other above the bird's body, creating a small space for the bird inside. His eyes closed and a soft blue glow emitted from their joined hands.
Celeste gasped, but didn't move. "So warm," was all she said.
"You sound surprised," he murmured, eyes still closed.
"Mercury is an ice planet."
"That doesn't mean its people are cold." His eyes opened and he smiled at her, telling her the truth with its warmth. "Far from it."
He lifted his hand from over the bird and the creature sat up, blinking its eyes. Celeste smiled, laughing with pleasure as it flew back up to its mother in the tree.
"Thank you!" she said. "Thank you." Impulsively, she leaned forward and kissed his cheek.
For a moment, Yuki was stunned, his eyes large. Then, without knowing why, he tightened his grip on her hand and pulled her forward slightly to give her a kiss on the lips. She gasped, but didn't pull away, so the kiss lingered for a moment longer than he had originally intended.
When he reluctantly pulled away, her eyes remained closed. His gaze narrowed to her lips which were slightly parted and darkened to a ripe peach color. The sudden urge to kiss her again was nearly overwhelming. Reaching up with his other hand, he lightly brushed away the tears from her cheek.
"You're right," she said then, very softly.
"What?" he asked.
Her eyes opened, staring into his. Her fingers came up to touch her lips, wonderingly. "You are warm."
Somehow, the spell that had fallen which had narrowed their world to just the two of them broke then, and Yuki was aware once again of where they were. Abruptly, he dropped her hand and stood.
"I'm sorry," he blurted, not looking at her.
"What?"
"I'm sorry!"
"Why?" Celeste looked confused as she stood up and moved closer to him.
He turned and ran back into the castle, leaving her in the courtyard. She stood there for a moment longer, extending a hand to his retreating form, but let it drop. From a window, Yuki could see her crestfallen look and he sighed as she took to the sky on her wings.
"Why?" he repeated her question to himself. He turned his back to the wall and slid down the floor, drawing his knees up. "Why?" he whispered. "Because I think I love you."
Angel wasn't sure when her eyes closed, but when she opened them again, Yuki was kissing her. No... She was kissing him.
They were kissing each other.
It was Yuki who pulled back at last. He stroked her cheek with the fingers of one hand. "Celeste?"
"Yes?"
"I love you. I don't know why. I have since the first moment I met you, at first sight, I just knew. I should have told you. But when you didn't remember me back in the dungeon that first day, I played along."
"Yuki..." She brought her hands up to his face. "You have all this power at your disposal and you never hurt me because you loved me this much... I don't deserve it. How did you do it? How could you let me hurt you like I did? How did you bear it?"
"None of us can choose where we will love. You know that better than most."
She nodded, then gasped, her eyes widening. "I remember!"
He laughed softly. "You just now realize that you're back to your normal self?"
"There were a few distractions." But she couldn't smile at her own joke. She fisted a hand at her chest. "My heart hurts."
"It's a normal reaction to forcing the darkness from your body."
"I don't think that's the only reason." She sat up from the bed and her black wings dripped from her body, feather by feather, and disappeared into the air. The tiara on her forehead which held a black stone vanished. Seeing where this was going, Yuki managed to grab the blanket from the bed and wrap it around her before the clothing she had been wearing disappeared as well.
She stared up at him. "I feel... empty."
Kneeling before her, he took her hands in his. "It's because there is a piece of you that's missing. You gave up your powers as a senshi and you no longer have the dark power that Catastrophe replaced it with. In a sense... you are empty."
"So this is what it feels like to be a mere mortal." She sighed. "Take me to the others."
"Are you certain?"
She nodded. "There's something I have to do."
He helped her to rise and wrapped an arm around her as they went to the door. He opened it slowly and saw everyone waiting out in the hallway. Celeste squeezed his hand once, then walked out by herself. With the blanket wrapped tightly around her, Yuki thought she looked very small, and she probably wished she were invisible. He couldn't imagine what it must be like to have to face the friends you were bent on destroying only a few hours ago.
Celeste walked slowly through the line of senshi, her eyes on the floor. She didn't raise them until she came to Eternal Sailor Moon, who was, as always, standing under the protection of her prince. The two girls merely stared at each other for a moment before Celeste fell to her knees.
She rested her forehead on her hands, and her shoulders began to shake, though the blanket muffled her cries.
"Forgive me!" she sobbed. "Forgive me. Please, forgive me..."
To be continued...
