Sailor Moon
Revealed
Chapter 3
Mizuno Ami stretched as she walked up the stairs leading to the apartment that she shared with her mother. She enjoyed her study sessions with her fellow Inner Senshi for a number of reasons. Among other things, she found it actually helped her own grades, for while they ate into the time she used to study ahead of the rest of the class, it gave her the chance to review the material as well and trying to drill things through Usagi and Minako's skulls made sure that you knew the what you were talking about very well by the end. These study sessions were becoming more intensive as well, as the prospect of University Entrance exams began to loom large. Usagi has surprised everyone when she announced that she was going on to University, saying that her future subjects deserved a Queen who had taken her education as far as she was able and not bowed out because it was too hard. That inspired Makoto and Rei to take the exams as well as a show of solidarity, though neither of them had any intention of attending University, Rei planning on taking up a full time position as shrine maiden and Makoto already having been accepted to the most prestigious cooking school in Tokyo. But as much as Ami enjoyed those times with her friends, and as much as she enjoyed helping them learn, she always felt sore and stiff after them from having to sit in one position for several hours at a time. It didn't help either that Makoto was not above showing off the flexibility that her martial arts training had granted her when she stretched.
Ami banished those thoughts from her head as she reached the door of her apartment and tried to remember if her mother would be home or not. They had spent a pleasant morning together, and her mother had mentioned something that she had to take care of shortly before Ami had left for the study session at Makoto's. Ami was also sure that her mother had mentioned what time she was planning on getting home, but for once Ami's memory failed her and she was completely unable to remember what time that was supposed to be. Still, it was a relatively inconsequential matter and she shrugged her shoulders to herself and opened the door.
She was immediately greeted by the scent of cooking and her eyes went wide with surprise. While her mother was an acceptable cook, meaning that the food she made was edible, her job left little time for her to try and improve and on the infrequent occasions that she and Ami ate together it was for more common for them to have take-out or whatever Ami had been able to wheedle out of Makoto. Ami's nose twitched again though and she laughed silently to herself as she realised what she was smelling. It was the scent of Chinese take-out warming in the oven and Ami shook her head at her own foolishness. Her mother couldn't have been home long and certainly not long enough to have been able to prepare a full meal.
"Taidama!" she called out as she entered the living room, putting her book bag on one of the chairs and dropping onto the couch.
"Welcome home!" Ryoko replied cheerfully from the kitchen. "I've got Chinese for dinner. I hope you don't mind."
"Chinese is good," Ami said. "At the moment, anything would be good."
Ryoko laughed and emerged into the living room with several cardboard cartons emblazoned with the logo of the local take out and placed them onto the coffee table, along with two pairs of disposable chopsticks. Ami picked up a pair of the chopsticks and one of the cartons, which turned out to be stir-fried rice and dug in.
The two women ate in companionable silence, broken only by requests to pass one or another of the cartons. Eventual the cartons were all emptied save for a few stray grains of rice and Ami and Ryoko both sighed in contentment. 'It wasn't quite up to Makoto's standards,' Ami mused, 'but definitely not bad.'
Ryoko watched her daughter for several moments and then spoke up. "There's something important we need to talk about Ami-chan. Or perhaps should say Sailor Mercury-san?"
The effect on Ami was startling. For several long seconds she showed no reaction and then she sat bolt upright and her eyes fastened on her mother and there was no way she could hide the emotions shining in them. Surprise was first and foremost, but rapidly joined and overpowered by shock, panic and even fear. "I… I don't know what you're talking about," she finally managed and Ryoko sighed and shook her head.
"Ami-chan, you have a great many gifts, but lying convincingly is most definitely not among them. Care to try again?"
Ami slumped, her posture going from rigid to limp in the time it took to blink. "How did you find out?" she asked. "I didn't think I did anything to give me away."
"You didn't," Ryoko assured her. "Rei's grandfather was the one who figured it out and he told me. Tsukino-san and Aino-san as well. They're probably talking to Usagi and Minako about it now as well."
"The secret's well and truly out then, isn't it," Ami sighed.
"Most of it," Ryoko agreed with a shrug. "Not entirely though. We don't know who those Outer Senshi, though I can make some fairly educated guesses. But why one thing that I can't figure out Ami, is why you didn't trust me enough to say something." Her tone was mild, but Ami could tell that her mother was hurt by the perceived lack of trust. To compensate for the lack of time that they were able to spend together, mother and daughter had had a degree of openness that Ami was certain that most other people her age didn't have with their parents.
Sighing Ami stood, wrapping her arms around herself as she tried to gather her thoughts. "I swore not to tell," she said softly, not quite meeting Ryoko's eyes. "I promised not to tell anyone when I became a Senshi. The only ones we could reveal our identities to were other Senshi when we found them. There were times I wanted to tell you, but it wasn't just me. Usagi wakened as a Senshi before me, and she was the one who found me, so it was never just myself that I had to worry about. Then came Rei and Mako-chan and then we found out that Sailor V was really Sailor Venus and one of us, acting as a decoy to draw attention away while we awakened. If the secret had gotten out, we all would have been doomed so I couldn't."
"I understand," Ryoko replied after a heartbeat of silence. "I'm a doctor and people trust me with their lives, so I know what its like and I can't fault my own daughter for not betraying the trust others placed in her. I'm sorry."
Ami relaxed a little at that and worked up the courage to look into Ryoko's eyes, relaxing even further when the only thing that she saw in them was approval.
"But one thing I want to know is how this got started," Ryoko said, a wry half smile tugging at her lips. "Somehow I don't imagine this was at random."
Ami shook her head. "It wasn't, but I'm not sure you'd believe it. If it weren't for the fact I saw the proof with my own eyes, I'm not sure that I would believe it either."
"Then show me some of the proof," Ryoko said, just a little pleadingly. "This has been part of your life for years now and I don't want to miss out on more than I already have. I want to see the side of you that Usagi in the others get to see."
Ami blinked in surprise and then realised what her mother meant. "You want to see me as Sailor Mercury?"
"If you don't mind."
Ami felt as if the knot in her stomach that had formed at the beginning of conversation was beginning to unravel as she realised that her mother really did want to be part of this part of her life. In answer she raised her hand and felt the familiar rush of adrenalin and power as she called out, "MERCURY CRYSTAL POWER… MAKE UP!"
Ryoko watched, entranced as a cocoon of light enveloped her daughter, its surface rippling like a pond being teased by a gentle breeze. It couldn't have lasted more than ten seconds all up, but when it disappeared, Ami stood as Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Mercury, the Senshi of Ice and Mist. Apart from the gem studded tiara on her forehead and the sudden addition of two extra earrings in her right ear and the change of outfit, Ryoko couldn't see any difference about Ami from before she transformed. Her second thought was that the pose Ami was standing in, elbows tucked in, arms pointing out and knees facing in, looked really uncomfortable and a little silly. "Why are you standing like that?" she asked, automatically.
Ami looked down at herself and blinked, as if only noticing how she stood for the first time. She looked back up and said, "The subjects never actually come up," before breaking out in a small, infectious fit of giggles.
Ryoko shook her head fondly as her giggles passed. "So this is Sailor Mercury," she said. "You know you don't look any different than before."
Ami nodded. "We figure there's something that interferes with people's ability to recognise us when we're transformed. It's also what makes all the photos of us turn out blurry, but what ever it is, it loses its effects if someone already knows who we are, or sees us transform. I've been meaning to investigate, but the problem is that any subject is automatically contaminated after the first test."
"We'll leave that for another day then," Ryoko said. "Now you were going to tell me what all this Senshi business is about and how it started."
Oddly enough, now that she was transformed, Ami found it easier to talk about everything. Perhaps it was because she was now living proof that it was not just some fanciful story, but the truth. "It all started so long ago that the time has already become myth and legend and then forgotten. Thousands of years ago there was a time called the Silver Millennium." Ami went on tell how Queen Beryl, driven Queen Mettalia had sent Dark Kingdom, only be thwarted by Queen Serenity and the Ginzuishou and how Serenity had sent her daughter and her court to be re-incarnated in the far future where they could stop the Dark Kingdom should they ever escape their prison. Then Ami told of how Sailor Moon had arrived one day at her Juku and she had been awakened as Sailor Mercury and they had gone on to fight the Dark Kingdom together. Her voice began to quaver as she began to relate the events at D-point. She began to tremble violently as she described how Makoto had died before their very eyes and those tremors only began to grow worse as she described how the youma had attacked her next as she tried to stop their illusions.
"All I remember after breaking the gem was pain and being crushed until I… died." There was nothing she could do to stop the tears then and Ryoko, horrified at Ami's description of her own death, let her maternal intincts kick in, wrapping her daughter in her own embrace until the tears and shaking stopped. For all their intensity, the tears stopped in very short order and Ami pulled away from her mother, wiping at wet cheeks with her gloved hands. "I'm sorry," she said, just a little hoarse. "I try to think about that as little as possible and it still hits me hard whenever I think about it."
"It's all right," Ryoko assured her, drawing Ami back to her to embrace her once again, as much for her own comfort as for Ami's. The logical part of her mind was insisting that obviously everything turned out all right, but emotions weren't often susceptible to logic and part of her was still qualing in horror at what she had just heard. "I didn't mean to bring up such bad memories. Still everything must have turned out all right in in the end?"
Ami nodded, drawing back slightly, but not entirely leaving the protective circle of her mother's arms. "Usagi called us back with the power of the Ginzuishou when she fought Mettalia and when she won, she used the power to restore us, wishing that we could just be ordinary girls again, but if there was no other way, I would do it all again. She is our princess, and no matter how high the cost, we would all pay it gladly."
Ryoko sighed softly to herself at that statement, for not only the words, but the tone of voice they were delivered in said quite clearly that her daughter was no longer a child and had not been for quite some time.
Continuing on Ami sketched in the following years, recounting the battles against the Dark Moon Clan, the Death Busters, the Black Moon Circus and finally Galaxia and her Sailor Animates. "Mostly we've been mopping up since Galaxia left. Apparently not all of the Daimon eggs were destroyed along with Proffesor Tomoe's lab and a few of the Dark Moon Circus's Lemurs are still hiding here and there," Ami concluded. "They're no real problem and we've all gotten strong to deal with the on our own, but it reminds us not to get complacent."
"An interesting story," Ryoko said finally. "And from what you tell me, there are things I would have done differently, but I'm not the one who has to make those decisions, you are. I'm proud of you Ami-chan. You're a very brave young woman with wisdom beyond your years. I don't know what I did to deserve a daughter like you, but I'm glad I did it, whatever it was. But there are two things I want you to promise me. First, I want you to tell me what you're doing. The decisions are your to make and I won't stop you, no matter how little I like what may happen, but I want to know."
"I promise," Ami said.
"Good. Now the second thing is that should anyone ever get hurt, I want you to bring them to me. Your secrets safe with me and I'll sleep better at night knowing that you'll be able to get medical help if you need it."
Ami nodded. "Of course. That's worried me as well. I've always been afraid what would happen if one of us was hurt beyond Usagi or… Saturn's abilty to heal. But I must ask something as well."
"Name it," Ryoko said.
"Don't tell anyone without asking us first. I trust you, but Pluto can be suspiscious and she'd insist that I ask."
"I promise. I would never have done it anyway, but if it makes your friend Pluto any happier, I swear it by all our ancestors and all the kami of Heaven and Earth. Now why don't you go wash-up. I've rented a few movies out and there's some ice-cream in the freezer as well. I thought that we could have a girl's night in."
Ami nodded and with a thought changed from Sailor Mercury to her normal, everyday self, her image seeming to ripple as she did so. She headed into the bathroom to freshen up, aware that her eyes were red from her bout of tears. As she turned the tap, a voice called out from the living room. "And don't think this means I don't expect good results on your University Entrance Exams!"
Ami just smiled, her heart feeling lighter than it had for quite some time, secure in the certainty that everything was going to be all right.
Author's Notes.
Well, that's the easy chapter done. Part of the reason I did Ami's chapter first was because I never intended Mizuno-sensei to be anything other than supportive and understanding. That being said though, thanks should go to Windtear for prodding me and Muse-chan into finishing this instead of letting it languish half finished on my hard drive.
Next chapter: Aino Sumire and Aino Minako deal with the revelations and Artemis reveals himself.