THE PERSON I LOOK UP TO

Chapter 5: "The Demands Of Faith"
A Neo-Sailor Moon fanfic

By Bill K.

On the banks of a rushing river, illuminated by pair of silvery moons in the nighttime sky, Queen Serenity and Sailor Moon bent over the body of Shoko, a youth of Shinrin's clan.

"Maybe we can resuscitate him!" Sailor Moon gasped, bending in closer.

Though the lessons her Aunt Ami had taught her on first aid were clear in her mind, this was the first time she was in a position to try it and Sailor Moon was naturally nervous. But a gentle hand held her back. She looked over to her mother and watched the queen silently shake her head. The woman's face was the picture of sorrow.

"Maybe the wand can?" she began to ask, bringing up the Crescent Moon Wand.

"It's too late," Serenity whispered. The sound of her voice told her daughter how difficult the words were for her.

Sailor Moon's spirits fell. Though his attentions had made her uncomfortable, the princess had no desire to see such passion and energy snuffed out. A wave of numbness flooded over her body and the senshi fought to regain control. She glanced over to her mother and found the woman weeping softly. It recalled a saying she heard several times among the people of Crystal Tokyo: "The Queen has tears for every death."

"What do you suppose happened?" Sailor Moon asked softly. Reflexively she looked over the body, sickened on one level that this pale white shell once was so beautiful and so alive. "I don't see any wound."

"Maybe it was an accident," Serenity choked out.

"Maybe I drove him to it," Sailor Moon wondered aloud. A feeling of guilt swelled up in her throat until it felt like it would choke her.

"I doubt that," Serenity offered encouragingly. "Perhaps it was the Torgus Clan."

"Who?"

"Shinrin was talking about them. They're a neighboring clan with a rival philosophy. Shinrin said they attacked the clan." Serenity bowed her head. "I hope they didn't do this. The loss of a single life in the name of philosophy is one too many."

"Maybe we should check it out," suggested Sailor Moon.

"No, honey," Serenity said softly, but firmly. "This is Shinrin's world. We'll take the . . . Shoko back to the clan and let her decide what she wants to do. Remember, we're guests here."

"All right," Sailor Moon scowled.

Serenity held her hands out. Shoko's body began to rise into the air. Held aloft by the power of the Silver Crystal, the body hovered several feet off the ground. Serenity rose into the air as well until she was several feet above the ground. She turned to Sailor Moon and silently inquired.

"That's OK, I'll walk," the pink senshi replied. "Don't over-exert yourself. I'll keep up."

Nodding, Serenity turned and flew off toward the encampment of Shinrin's clan. Sailor Moon followed behind her. Before it was out of sight, though, the senshi gave the river one last look, hoping to see something she had overlooked.

When they reached the outer circle of the forest Shinrin and her clan occupied, they found Shinrin and Danro waiting for them. The surprise was evident in the faces of both Serenity and Sailor Moon.

"I sensed a powerful wave of distress," Shinrin explained to Serenity. "At first I was confused by what I was feeling. Is this a feature of my new ability?"

"Yes, Shinrin," Serenity said. "As you grow more in tune with your crystal and your new level of power, you'll find yourself more sensitive to the moods and feelings of those around you."

"Then please tell me, Serenity, what distresses you so?" Shinrin inquired.

Serenity looked down. "I have some bad news for you, Shinrin. I was awakened by the shock of-of terrible violence done to a living being. I felt that person's final horrific moment. When my daughter and I investigated, we found Shoko's body."

Serenity levitated the body to a point close to them all.

"Indeed," Shinrin said softly. She stared down at the body, her manner controlled - - almost too controlled to the young Sailor Moon.

"Shoko dead?" gasped Danro. "How? How did it happen?"

"We don't know," Serenity told them. "There was no one around that we could see or that I could sense, and there are no wounds. Perhaps it was an accident? I can take you to the spot we found him if you wish to investigate."

"Thank you," Danro said. "It must be determined whether Shoko was the victim of fate or of another's evil intent."

"Yes," added Shinrin. "I would hate for it to be another despicable act of the Torgus."

"Who cares about that?" Sailor Moon said suddenly. "What about Shoko? He's dead! Doesn't that mean anything?"

"Naturally," Shinrin said with serene patience. "I grieve for his loss to the clan as a whole and more importantly to his parents and friends. If I seem unfeeling to you, it is because I accept the eventuality of the winter that knows no spring for all who breathe life. A tree falls in the forest, felled by age or disease. Do the other trees stop growing? It is sad, yes, and the forest is weaker for it, but life goes on. It can do nothing else."

She turned to Serenity.

"Danro will take the form of Shoko to be prepared for the final rites," she stated. "And I am truly sorry that this has upset you so, Serenity. It was my wish that your stay on Kinotai be a happy one."

Danro took the body in his arms and, together with Shinrin, walked off. The two women from Earth watched them go.

"She was real broken up about it," Sailor Moon muttered.

"Usa, don't judge," Serenity cautioned. "This is a different planet with different beliefs. You shouldn't apply the standards of your own culture to another culture."

The girl scowled. Serenity could tell that something was percolating in her daughter's brain.

"Well I'm going to find out what happened," Sailor Moon declared, heading back for the river.

"Usa!" Serenity sighed. "Let them handle their own affairs."

"Mom!" Sailor Moon retorted, "Sailor Moon stands for love AND justice. That's what you always told everyone else! Shoko wasn't a bad guy. He didn't deserve this. And if someone did this to him, I'm going to get justice for him! It's what being Sailor Moon demands!" With that, the senshi turned and plunged back into the brush.

Serenity stared after her, a small smile curling her mouth.

"She remembered," Serenity thought happily. "After all these years, she still remembers."

And Serenity headed out to follow her daughter.


Palla-Palla sat in class alone. Today's teacher, Makoto, had asked her to stay once class was over. A last minute consultation with Minako on some business had the woman standing out in the corridor while the fifteen year old girl with the five year old mind sat at her computer station and wondered what she had done wrong. The moments seemed to inch along, causing the girl's fears to rise. She wished she had Ves-Ves there to tell her everything would be all right.

But Ves-Ves was still mad at her - - so she didn't have anybody.

"I'm sorry about that, Palla-Palla," Makoto said. She walked over and sat down next to the blue-haired girl, working her large frame into a seat clearly not built for an adult. Instantly detecting the girl's apprehension, she gently brushed the girl's hair with her hand. "Relax, hon,
you're not in trouble. I just thought you seemed kind of down. Did something happen? Something with Ves-Ves?"

Palla-Palla looked up at her with shock. Makoto smiled gently.

"It's not hard to tell. You two are usually so close. Want to talk about it?"

The girl looked down. "Ves-Ves is mad at Palla-Palla."

"Why?"

"Palla-Palla got very cross with her," Palla-Palla related contritely.

"About the test?"

Palla-Palla nodded.

"You know she's going to take a make-up, don't you?"

Palla-Palla nodded again. "But she's still mad."

Makoto grimaced helplessly.

"Palla-Palla doesn't understand, Miss Makoto ma'am. Why didn't Ves-Ves want to try? Why doesn't she want to be smart?" The girl began nervously playing with her fingers. "Palla-Palla knows she's as smart as she's ever going to be. If she could learn things, she'd learn everything there was to learn in the whole world and she'd be the smartest person ever. Ves-Ves isn't like Palla-Palla. Ves-Ves can learn. But she doesn't want to. Why doesn't she want to?"

"Well," Makoto began, feeling her way along the problem the way she had her entire life, "I guess Ves-Ves doesn't think it's as important as you do. You have to remember what she came from, I guess. She spent a lot of her life in a situation where being strong was more important than being smart. You know how good she is in the defense classes. If she thought learning geometry was as important as perfecting her roundhouse kick, she'd pass that, too. That make any sense?"

"But things aren't like when she was with her Mommy and Daddy," Palla-Palla squeaked.

"Well, old habits are hard to break," Makoto said. "And folks have to make their own decisions. You can try to show her the right way, but you can't force her to walk that path. Only she can do that. Doesn't that sound right?"

"But Ves-Ves is supposed to be strong. Why would she just give up?"

"Is this about her or about you?" Makoto asked.

Palla-Palla's eyes sought the floor again.

"You think she let you down? I know how much you look up to her."

"It's like she's afraid - - afraid of doing badly. But Ves-Ves isn't supposed to be afraid of anything."

"Honey, everyone's afraid of something. Even Ves-Ves, because she's human just like the rest of us. That's the problem with heroes: sometimes they let us down, but only because they're human and we expect too much of them. Ves-Ves isn't any different. You think she isn't afraid of anything? Well, I think she's afraid of looking weak, and if she took the test and failed, she was afraid she'd look weak."

Palla-Palla silently considered this.

"And I think she's also afraid of family turning on her," Makoto continued, "because her family did turn on her once. That probably hurts her a lot. Thing is, she can't just start crying when someone hurts her, because that would be looking weak in her mind. So she gets angry back and hurts the person who hurt her."

"Palla-Palla didn't want to hurt Ves-Ves! She just wanted Ves-Ves to try!" Palla-Palla wailed, her eyes bubbling with tears.

"We can hurt someone without meaning to," Makoto said. "Ves-Ves hurt you by giving up on herself. You hurt Ves-Ves by trying to make her who you thought she should be instead of accepting her for who she was. Neither one of you meant to do it, but it happened. And the longer you let it go without resolving it, the worse it'll get."

Makoto leaned in closer.

"You're sorry it happened, aren't you?" she asked. Palla-Palla nodded. "Then tell her."

"Will that make everything better?"

"That depends on Ves-Ves. It might not. She's kind of stubborn. But you two aren't going to make up until one of you says it, and since she's a stubborn old mule, maybe it has to be you." Makoto leaned back. "But that's up to you. You can go now."

"Yes, Miss Makoto-Ma'am," Palla-Palla mumbled. The girl was deep in thought.

"And I keep telling you it's just Makoto," Makoto grinned.

"Yes, Miss Makoto-Ma'am," Palla-Palla said absently. She walked out of the classroom without really noticing. Makoto stared after her, hoping she'd been able to reach the girl.


Serenity caught up with her daughter at the bank of the river. The girl was standing at the bank, searching around for something. She looked deep in thought. It took a moment for Serenity to figure out what she was searching for. A bemused smile curled her lips in spite of herself.

"Forgot about how you were going to cross the river?" Serenity asked, gliding up behind Sailor Moon.

"NO!" Sailor Moon snapped petulantly. "I just - - haven't figured it out yet. Man, you'd think these people were at least advanced enough to be able to build bridges!"

"It's probably downstream," Serenity commented. "Would you like a lift?"

"You're going to anyway. Go ahead," Sailor Moon huffed.

"Honestly, I thought I taught you better manners than that," sighed Serenity as she levitated them both over the river to the other side.

"Can you sense where this Torgus Clan is?"

Serenity closed her eyes for a moment.

"There's a settlement in that direction," Serenity replied, gesturing west. "I don't know if it's the Torgus Clan or not. If it isn't, then we can just ask for directions."

Each one waited for the other one to move.

"Go ahead," nodded Serenity. "You're leading this investigation." Sailor Moon rolled her eyes and started forward.

"Sure you can keep up?" she asked.

"If it gets too tiring, I'll just levitate," Serenity replied. Then she grimaced. "Although if I'd known I was going to be doing any hiking, I would have brought a different pair of shoes."

"What about food? You haven't eaten in a whole two hours."

Serenity nudged Sailor Moon's arm. The senshi looked back and Serenity showed her a bag of Simpa berries.

"I should have known," Sailor Moon replied, shaking her head. But she couldn't quite suppress the grin. "Any idea what these Torgus are like?"

"Shinrin doesn't have a very high opinion of them," Serenity related. "She says they have fallen from belief in the way of the forest and resorted to evil and unholy acts. She says they're at war with the Torgus - - one attack cost the lives of her two senshi."

"Are they some sort of revolutionary group? Don't they want Shinrin as their queen?"

"I don't think Shinrin's queen of the entire planet. It's like back home. I only rule Crystal Tokyo, not the entire world. I try to show the world a better way through peace and love and there are some who still choose to reject that. It seems to be the same way here. And Shinrin's just starting out, too. When I first ascended back in the twenty-first century, I wasn't queen of anything. If you ask Rei, I wasn't even leader of the senshi. And not everybody wanted to be lead by me, then or now. Shinrin will no doubt face the same problem."

"But if you and Shinrin have a better way, wouldn't it make sense to follow you?" Sailor Moon asked.

"People don't always do what's best for them, honey," the queen replied. "All I can do is offer them a better path and try to protect them if they choose a more dangerous one."

Sailor Moon brooded on that. "Being queen's a lot harder than I thought. Couldn't you just make them live the right way?"

"I try to make you do things the right way and look what it gets me," smirked Serenity. "You can't force people to do the right thing. They have to want to do the right thing. Otherwise you're monitoring them constantly and nobody accomplishes anything, or you become an autocrat and a despot. Power only gives you more responsibility, not more justification. The minute you think otherwise is when you start heading for a fall."

Sailor Moon looked quizzically at her mother.

"I did learn a few things in the last thousand years," Serenity replied defensively.

"I'm just wondering where you learned a word like 'autocrat'," Sailor Moon commented.

They walked on a few paces.

"OK, Ami taught it to me," huffed the queen. Sailor Moon suppressed a giggle.

The pair walked on for a while. Dawn was beginning to color the horizon.

"What do you think of Shinrin?" Sailor Moon asked.

"I think she's a very nice person," Serenity answered. "Why, are you still brooding about her reaction to Shoko's death?"

"Didn't it seem cold and unfeeling to you? It was like she didn't care."

"It did surprise me. But as I said, people react differently to tragedy. It might just be her way to bottle her emotions up. Or it might be as she said, that she accepts the inevitability of death. Just because I differ with her doesn't make her wrong."

"I guess," Sailor Moon murmured. Seeing the world in shades of gray when you were used to dealing with it in black and white terms was difficult to accept.

The sound of civilization caught their ears. Sailor Moon reflexively put her hand to her mother's shoulder, holding her back while she as the queen's guardian took the lead. Serenity suppressed the pang of fear she felt over her baby being at risk and allowed Sailor Moon to do her job as her senshi escort. The pair eased through the thicket of trees. Up ahead was a clearing and the noises were coming from that clearing. Silently the pair eased up to the edge of the clearing and peered out.

It was as unlike Shinrin's territory as could possibly be. Trees had been cleared away and built into shelters. On the near side of the clearing were tanning and metallurgy posts, two things that were almost unheard of in the place they'd come from. On the far side of the clearing were plots that were clearly being farmed. Though the hour was early, people were up and milling about, working various community-related jobs dressed not in skins but in woven fabric. It seemed not at all like a den of reactionary resistance. It seemed like a village out of tenth century Japan or Europe.

It wasn't what either woman expected at all.

Continued in Chapter 6