Chapter Nine – The Prometheus Nightfall
The hot water was soothing. As Makoto laid her swollen hands into the large porcelain bowl sitting atop her table, the hot water sanctifying the deep pain in her very bones, she stared at the slowly calming surface of the water and noted how it had the ability to reflect her melancholy face. It was a sad sight to see, if only for the fact that even after such an agonizing battle the only wounds she had were the ones obtained by causing harm to the one she cared for. Even with the water forming a perfect membrane of reflection, she could only focus now on the red and purple lesions on her hands and knuckles. They were a cruel reminder just how real the evening had been.
I really hurt him. He couldn't even stand up because I hurt him so badly. What hope is there now?
After spending an hour staring into the slightly tainted water, its temperature dropping to room temperature so that Makoto couldn't even tell her hands were submerged, she had stepped into the bathroom to wrap her hands in bandages, perhaps in a sad attempt to hide the fact that she had mercilessly beaten Kage, soaking her uniform with his blood and his with her tears. Would it really mean anything to him that her tears were far more lethal when lost in mass quantities?
As she walked out from her bathroom, her apartment lit up with a flash of light. Raindrops began to pitter against her balcony door and the sky was churning with storm clouds and flashes of lightning. Even the sky is crying for you, Kage. Standing before the glass door, she watched the storm as it began to quarrel with the city. The wind was howling, the rain was falling harder and even the lightning seemed to have some great grudge with a city that would stand against its fury. The storm was sent into a war dance, something that Makoto was able to relate with very easily at the moment. As she ran her hands over each other, feeling the forlorn sensation of bandages trying to hide the deep wounds, her mind began to wander even further than the range of a storm.
The cold wind had no bite against her skin, even though it was a mere nightgown that covered her. Was it really only a plane of glass that kept all of the rage and requiem of a storm at bay? Could this wind, the same icy hand that swept through the sky and destroyed Autumn's hues of orange and yellow, be denied its nature by one simple layer of smelted sand? At the moment, Makoto wanted no solace from the squall. There was this sudden urge in her heart to step out onto the balcony, letting the wind rip her nightgown from her and relay all of its glacial passion onto her body, as if such things were the only things that could quench the aching in her heart and douse the flame of love she felt. Even as her breath began to create a haze on the glass, her heart was racing in her chest, swelling her breasts against the numbing glass and causing her mouth to hang open just a bit. The power of nature was breathtaking.
In a moment of casual grief, her eyes focused once more onto herself and the innards of her lonely apartment. There was only one plate on her dinner table, with only one chair ever pulled from perpetual neglect. There was only one kindred of shoes lingering by her doorway and only one coat hung carefully on a hook. Her apartment was full of ones. Yet there was only one thing that she really truly wanted in her life and that was to be forever free of that most pitiless number.
Two was such a sweeter sound.
It was yet another flash of lightning that ceased her breath, for the instant flash of white light had illuminated something in her apartment that she had never expected to see, especially on the night a fierce storm blew in.
Kage's face had only lit up for a moment, but Makoto could have retraced each line as if she had been staring at him for hours. Even in a murky reflection, she was keenly aware of him. Though her chest had seized against the glass and her hands suddenly ached ten fold, she did not turn around, mostly of fear of his immediate assault. Tensions was rampant throughout her body, but something deep inside of her was keeping her from moving naturally into a defensive posture when such an enemy was found in such close proximity. A breath lodged in her throat, she waited for his attack. Yet when a second flash of lightning filled her apartment with celestial light, Kage remained in the same place, his eyes glowing lucid green with each flash and his stature comfortably in the shadows. Makoto was able to see this time that his face and body were in far better shape than when he had left her mere hours before. His uniform remained in tattered form, though such things were almost moot by the time Makoto gathered enough courage to seize her voice from her throat and force it out into the chilled apartment.
"Why are you here?" she whispered, almost afraid of her own question.
There was no answer from the shadows, but rather movement from the shaded place into a place of illumination by the lights of a showering city. She could see him far more clearly now. His face was indeed much cleaner now, yet the large gash above his eye and a few bruises still remained on his relentlessly scowling visage. He was also able to stand now with no faltering in his form.
Makoto finally turned to him, pressing her back against the icy glass door and feeling it chill her skin right through her nightgown. Facts were never truly relevant when lightning flashes were bathing the face of the one you loved. Makoto found him very menacing in the intermittent flashes, yet she was able to keep mind focused and her expectations open. Unfortunately, her heart was still racing within her chest and she could keep her chest from rising and falling with each passing breath. She was sure he could see it. "If you've come to fight me again, Kage, I won't," she said, hoping in the name of any god that he would just speak to her. Cruelty was livid in the silence Kage offered her.
"Why did you say that?" he finally said, breaking Makoto's fear of an indefinite silence between them.
At first, she didn't know what he meant. A thousand conversations uncoiled in her mind as she desperately tried to find the one that would sustain relations between them. Then it hit her, leaving a brazen red across her cheeks. "B-because," she stuttered, her eyes falling away from him and to safety on one of her many plants, "you had to know."
Kage stared at her, trying to discover the depth of this strategy she was formulating against him. He knew that if she had been hoping to send him into internal turmoil, it had worked - yet the ends for her stratagem were not exactly known to him. With his emotional, mental and physical being teetering on the edge of self-destruction, the only recourse was to come confront her personally and find out just what she was hoping to gain by using these tactics. "You're trying to throw me off balance. It's just a trick to –"
"I wasn't lying!" she interrupted, glaring back at him. She was tired of him trying to evade her by simply being paranoid and delusional. He had come to her and now she was going to make sure that he was not able to evade her any longer. "I am in love with you," she said once more, this time only looking down at his feet.
The repetition was even more jarring than the first, though Kage was skillfully able to hide just how hard the simple sentence hit him. How she could be in love with him, he could not understand. However, this was the kind of deviation that could completely upend revenge. Love had a way of altering reality. Kage had to act quickly to stave off this new warfare. "Impossible. You're just falling in with your friends. I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to try going after me, but let me tell you about the real me, Kino Makoto. I hurt people and I steal and I even kill –"
"That's not the real you," she interrupted again, pressing her eyes closed tightly and trying not to think about all of the horrible things he had done.
Kage snarled, but managed to keep his temper in check with an aggressive response. "How the hell do you know who I really am?"
Makoto's eyes opened once more, but she continued to look at his feet. Running her hand along her chest, her fingers soon found the small locket still clasped around her throat and still warm from the contact with her skin. Pushing away from the glass door, she stepped silently through the room until she stood in front of him, her eyes rising from his body all the way to those captivating, if only slightly feral, peat green eyes. For a moment, she found a small sense of serenity in his eyes. There was a curse in her heart against the universe for placing so much loss and agony within those stunning green eyes. How dearly she wanted to reach her hand up and touch his face, yet the realities of their relationship came crashing back down at her when she saw the impatient drop of his brow.
His eyes were brought down to her hand as it opened in front of her neck to reveal the small locket and the picture of Kage and Mika inside. Kage's breathing stopped and his eyes drained, as if the reminder of what it was exactly that he sought revenge for had eluded him for many weeks now. The innocent smile of Mika was only half as alarming as the young man that was once known as her brother. It was so very surreal looking at this image of himself, as if it was not really a picture of him but someone from a completely different lifetime. Kage felt an intense hole open up inside his chest and it was as if he could not breathe.
Makoto watched the torment in his eyes and tried to fight back her tears. "This is how I know the real you. This is the person that I love and I know that he's there inside of you somewhere. You've just buried him under all of this hate and pain and now you won't let anyone near to help you find him again," she said. By now her tears were too commanding to be stopped and one stained her cheek, much to the further dismay of Kage. Makoto smiled softly and said, "I don't care if you think I'm just a stupid little girl. I want to help you Kage. I want to help you be this person again."
The brazen insanity that had appeared within Kage's eyes since his return seemed to waver a bit, giving just a small flicker of hope a place to dwell. He had never seen something so blatantly selfless in his life, even when there had been so much opportunity for valor in the face of the countless heinous deeds. This girl was like no other person he had ever met before. There were divine attributes that he had not allowed himself to see until then, mostly due to the fact that she had some strange ability to dilute the purpose in his heart; the purpose of getting that vicious revenge. There had not been these kind of feelings brought about in him since the days he spent laughing with his sister, the days before he became this monstrosity now existing as a bane on everything Mika would have held dear.
Shame overwhelmed Kage for the first time. Until then, he had been able to avoid such remorse out of the sheer instability of his mind, yet when Makoto was there looking at him with much the same green eyes of his loved sister, Kage was unable to avoid the intense despair filling that void in his chest. It was the shame that had been denied to him out of determination of his love-fearing heart.
Makoto winced as Kage stepped around her without even speaking in front of the holy locket. Now he stood in front of the balcony door, staring out into the storm in that same silence she had grown to fear. His silence was always the most dangerous since he was trapped with the intense hatred in that inaccessible mind of his. She turned and watched him, but never let her hand fall away from the nape of her neck or the locket that gave her the strength to continue to assail him.
"It's too late now. The real Kage died when Mika was killed. All that's left is the revenge," he said solemnly to the rain.
Makoto refused to believe it and took a bold step forward, the resolve of a thousand heartbreaks welling in her eyes and in her chest. "It's never too late! You can stop this and start over. You can have a new life - with me," she said, totally unaware of the burning on her cheeks as a result of the things she was saying. By this time she was working completely on instinct, which was often times the true path of honesty. Her only desire now was to break him of this dark destiny.
"You're too pure, Makoto. How can you be so goddamn pure?" he said, though the latter was directed more to his reflection in the glass than to her. In the face of a powerful storm and purifying rain, Kage's eyes now fell down to the infinite nothing between reflections, regressing its was back into his own mind as a defense mechanism against the things that would tear down the structure of revenge. The difference between the two of them was so apparent that Kage now delighted in his denouncement of Jupiter. There was absolutely no way that he could share the same light as someone as kind and beautiful as Makoto.
By the next flash of lightning Makoto had embraced him from behind, sliding her arms up around his chest and pulling him tightly against her, her face pushed into the broad expanse of his back. Kage's eyes were wide, his entire being challenged by this one innocent act and fiercely beating heart. It decimated him. Even had he wanted to move, she was once again holding him tightly and not giving any room for discussion about the matter. It was, by far, the most unsettling feeling Kage had felt since coming to this world.
Makoto would not let him go so easily, for she had strained her very heart in the attempt to win over this abandoned soldier of the right. Two very unique opportunities had been presented to her in this quest and they had both happened in the very same day. This would not be something she would waste. "I can't bear it when you push me away. Can't you see that I'm giving you everything?" she said weakly, her eyes pressed tightly into the folds of his torn uniform. Her body was pressed against his and her hands were nearly digging into his shoulders, which was something that truly awed the Scion. Makoto simply held in on in desperation and let her heart control her mouth. "Please say something to me. Please tell me that this is all just a bad dream and that when I wake up you'll be at my side."
What seemed like an eternity passed by in that dark room. Makoto and Kage both gave in to a small moment of the insignificant, yet both felt an undying clarity when positioned to one another. For Makoto, the eternity that passed with her arms around him was the final reward for her eternal struggle in finding someone to love her. She found contentment in a temporary fairy tale. For Kage, not even his hateful heart could have moved him against this embrace. It was a safe harbor in a storm of pain, struggle and destiny. In those paling moments, Kage was able to understand why it was that Sailor Moon was the most powerful senshi on this world and why the Universe seemed to revolve around her trials. Kage could have commanded the entire power of his guardian planet and still not even sparkle in the wake of such supremacy. Even his great revenge was something that simple faded away with these senshi's greatest power was brought into the environment. Makoto was not glorious due to the lightning that covered her or the strength of her kicks. The reason for her glory was simply stated with every repressed sob into his back and every pulse of strength going into the tug at his shoulders.
Her power was in her embrace.
This new revelation was rather unsettling for Kage. Haruka had been right when she told him that the reason for his inability to defeat them in their new forms was not because these Sailor Star senshi were infinitely more powerful than he was; rather it was the fact that there was still a small part of him, an infinitesimal sliver of infallible status, that harbored his human heart. No matter how much the darkness took him, this part of him was able to feel the strength of this girl and grow stronger under its guiding light.
However, the darkness was no less zealous in letting Kage go. "This isn't a dream. You can't ask me to give up this hatred I feel in my heart. We are different, Kino Makoto. You may love everything and everyone, but all I feel is hate," he snarled, though there was something distinctly different in his resolve this time.
Makoto was too weary to notice it. With only a forlorn whimper coming from her lips, she let him go and ran halfway out of the room, yet for some unknown reason stopped. There was no hope in facing him now, so she merely kept her back to him, her arms hugged around herself desperately and her voice coming out with entirely too much heartache woven within it. "Go away." Now the sounds of the storm were dwarfed by the quiet sobbing of a weary heart. The condemned bonds between them were the only things keeping them in the same room, though their backs and their hearts were turned away in the tumult of the storm outside and in.
The thing he wanted was the thing he achieved. Makoto's tears were washing his path clean and severing this frayed end from his perfect little lunacy. Makoto had been the only thing anchoring him to the world, a chain holding him from some truer purpose or age-old design. He was finally able to pursue his revenge in the purest way possible; utter apathy. However, as wildly as his heart was racing in order to take him away on the next flash of lightning, his body would not obey. There was something piercing his ears that he hadn't heard in such a long time, or at least in the octave that meant anything to him. The sounds of her sobbing should have been no different than the hundred of pleas and tear-soaked regrets he had heard over the course of his few yet furious years. Hearing the frustration and agony in Makoto's whimpers caused something to well up inside of him, as if finally he had discovered some parallel between the two of them. The truth was rather blunt when it hit him.
Makoto was as alone as he was.
For the first time since he met her, he was able to look past the fear and caution and use his unnatural gift of insight in order to see just what kind of person Makoto was and how lonesome she was in spite of being surrounded by friends that not only loved her, but defined her. He had accused her of having a perfect little life, yet the resounding fact of her determination to love him despite his banter proved that no one with a perfect life could have sought love so ferociously. The details of his entire existence melted away and ran down the glass with the rest of the raindrops. Revenge, insanity and darkness all fell helplessly on the battlements of love, making it the impregnable fortress and the only true solace for the weary. At one moment in his life, when the rules of life were crushing him and the sun was slipping behind the gray, Kage had forgotten that it was love that had steered him through all of the trials in his life - love for his sister. Now love was in a new form, yet held no less substance. Could he deny the only thing he had left of his sister's smile?
Makoto was at once aware of his presence behind her. No sooner had her body tensed up out of fear and rage did she feel his hand grasping hers, giving her the first real sense of active contribution on his part. There was only another flash of lightning before Makoto felt him pulling her harshly around to him and his lips pressing against hers. She was sure she was dreaming now. The kiss was so sudden and powerful that her arms, which had instinctively been pushing against his shoulders, now fell weakly against his chest and her eyes closed.
They were sharing their first kiss even as the tears of heartbreak were wet on her cheeks.
This kiss was not like how she imagined it would be. The few and far between kisses she had shared over the years had been gentle, soft or reserved. She had always been very bashful when it came to kissing, but Kage had sprung this one on her without any warning. Much to her unconscious delight, this kiss was primal and strong and it focused all of the frustrations of two people that had been forced into this pitiful existence nearby but apart from each other. Nothing in her novels could have prepared her for the pathetic young man she found herself kissing. Yet with all of the pain that had been between them, it was most satisfying kiss she had ever received. Sliding her arms up around his neck, she pulled him even further into it.
At what point everything became so unbridled, she could not remember. With her body in an uproar and her head swimming with the sensations of being able to touch him, Makoto had no reservations when her back hit her bed and her nightgown was nearly non-existent. Her hands were greedily clawing at Kage's tattered uniform and not even the blatant shredding of it was enough to rob her of the carnal pleasure taking over her very being. With him kissing her neck and shoulders, only the sounds of her own whimpering seemed real. The feel of his naked body against hers had all but destroyed her preconceptions about how the first time would be, for this was a far more primal experience than she ever imagined. There were parts of her body that were on fire, yet shivers were running up and down her spine with every kiss or touch of his hand. Perhaps it was not only the fact that her physical body was yearning for him but also that emotionally she had finally gotten to him and satisfied this love-induced lust she had felt since first speaking to him after his initial meeting with Haruka. The feral nature of the night was something that never whispered to her, yet there was no warning to just how much she wanted to be a part of him in those desperate moments. Paced sensibility was no match for the racing heart.
Everything became a vague memory. There was an assault of pain and pleasure, though nothing but the emotions felt real to her. The storm was their only witness as lightning flashes had given her glimpses of him; the expressions on his face and the purity of his being. Makoto's night had turned into the perpetuation of months of desire and frustration all tossed in together in a mass that resembled the churning thunderclouds outside of her glass door. Those sparse moments of heaven where he had finally poured himself into her were the only things that she could remember as she laid in tousled sheets and against damp skin. He had hurt her and delighted her and now he was giving her the one thing she wanted more than anything. With her face nuzzled deep into his throat, she was no longer alone. Heaven had no appeal while she lay there, curled up into him and absolutely content with what he had given her. Even as she heard the most heart-wrenching sound coming from him, she continued to smile as she held him tightly to her, relegating the fact that all of the chaos in his life had finally put him into tears, and even if he wept all night and into the sunrise, she would still be there with her arms around him and her breath to whisper to him that, from that point on, things would be all right.