"Okay girls, gather round."
It's PE today, with Toshida-sensei, and it looks like we'll be playing basketball. I've never liked PE much, not because Toshida-sensei is a bad teacher, because she's not. The reason I don't like PE is because, simply put, I've never been any good at it.
That's one of the reasons I love being a senshi. When I'm Saturn, I don't feel weak. My chest doesn't tighten up from running just a few hundred metres, and I don't trip over my own feet.
However, I do like basketball. I like to blame it on Haruka-papa, because for as long as I can remember she's had the NBA on cable. I remember how, when I was little, she used to sit me on her lap and we'd watch the games together. She watched because she wanted to see who won, me, I watched so I could see the players. There was something in the way they moved, so gracefully despite their size, and when they jumped it was like they were flying. I wish I could move like that.
"You, Tomoe." I turn, Toshida-sensei is looking at me, her kind face a little worried. "Can you play?"
A low murmur runs through the class, as it always does when we have PE. They're all wondering if I, the little sick girl, will be able to play. Some of them are genuinely concerned, and in a way their worry warms me, some of them are just angry, annoyed that I've held up their game. I try to ignore them.
"Yes."
"All right then," Toshida-sensei says. "You guys get warmed, I've just got to finish up a little paper work. I'll be back in a second." And then, just like that she's gone, leaving my class to its own devices in the gym.
I find a corner where I'm fairly certain I won't be disturbed, and get started on my stretches. Sometimes, I don't know why I bother. Flexibility has never been a problem for me, it's just that I've never had any stamina. As I stretch, I watch the other girls.
Some of them are really quite nice. They consider themselves my friends, and in a way they are. We speak in class, we speak on the train, and we walk home together. But I never see them outside of that, and somehow, that doesn't bother me. Some of them are not so nice. They are the ones who never have the courage to tell you, to your face, that they don't like. Instead they write things on toilet doors, or whisper just loud enough for you to hear.
Freak…
Weakling…
I've heard those before, and they've long stopped having any effect on me. When you fight off youma in your spare time, little insults like that stop mattering.
Toshida-sensei hurries back in. "All right, girls, let's get you divided up into teams and get a game started."
A few minutes later and I'm standing on the basketball court with the ball in my hands. It is time to play. The first five minutes goes well, at least by my standards. I don't do much, but I get a couple of passes in, and one of my shots goes in. Not too shabby. But I don't like the look some of the girls on the other team are giving me. They're the ones who aren't very nice, and I think they've been waiting for this.
You see, it wouldn't be right to pick on a weakling like me, in fact, it's the sort of thing that gets you sent straight to the principal. But on the other hand, if I've got the ball, and they should, how shall I say it, unintentionally foul me… well that would be another matter altogether.
It doesn't take them much longer. The ball flies in my direction and I lunge forward to catch it. Out of the corner of my eye, I see something move and I try to get my balance back. Before I can, someone slams into me and down I go. The floor is hard, and cold beneath me, and I look up to find a grinning face above me.
"What's the matter, Tomoe?" It is Chihiro standing over me with a Cheshire grin.
I'd like to say that I've never been in this position before, but I have, too many times.
"Come on, Tomoe, you just going to lie there like a dog?"
I hear Toshida-sensei shouting as she rushes over, Slowly, because the fall knocked the wind out of me, I try to get back up, only Chihiro won't let me. Her foot snakes out and kicks my hands out from under me and I fall back down.
"Slipped, did you?"
Normally I'd be almost in tears by this point, but for some reason, for some reason I feel nothing. It's like I've cried all my tears and now there's nothing left, only… only emptiness. The thought chills me.
Instead I just get up, and wave Toshida-sensei away. I'm fine, I tell her, I'm fine. Only I'm not, because the emptiness still won't go away, and all through the game I can feel it, growing.
After the game, I'm in the change room when it happens again. Chihiro sticks her foot out and trips me over. Once again she stands over me, laughing, along with all of her vicious little friends. Only this time there's no teacher here to help, there's just me and her.
"Yo, Tomoe," she taunts. "What's the matter?"
She pokes me with her foot, then kicks me, hard. The kick hits me right in the stomach and the world goes almost dark. Dimly, I can hear the other girls, some of them anyway, trying to get her to stop. One of them runs out to get the teacher. And then she kicks me again, and everything else fades to black, except for her voice, taunting me, pushing me…
"Again!"
Something hits me hard in the stomach and I crumple. Before I can move they are upon me, kicking me, punching me, hitting me.
"Enough!" That voice again.
I rise slowly, blood trickling from my lip.
"Is this the best that you can do?" He's mocking me, taunting me, pushing me. "Again!"
They come at me again, except this time I'm ready. It's almost as if they're moving in slow motion. I lean just far enough to the right to avoid a punch that would have shattered my nose. I lash out with a punch of my own, and the man goes down. I'm not sure if he's dead, and frankly I don't care. All that matters is the battle.
Another punch, another kick, more and more and more. All I can hear now, all I can feel, is the blood in my veins, as I duck and dive and twist. There are too many of them, too many by far, and I can feel some of their blows get through. A kick to the chest, a punch to the cheek, a kick to the thigh… pain…
"Fight!" He roars. "Fight!"
A punch shoots through my defences and hurls me backwards. I lie on the ground, coughing, and the taste of blood fills my mouth.
"Is this who you are?"
I struggle to rise, as they come slowly forward again. This is not all who I am. A kick hurtles towards my head. I duck beneath it and hurl myself upwards. His rib cage practically shatters when my knee strikes him full in the chest. I block the next kick, taking the weight of it on my arms, as I grab the leg and twist. I bring him down with me and he screams. I've dislocated his hip.
This, I realise, as I throw myself into the others, this is who I am. Everything else just fades away…
Suddenly, suddenly the world returns and I blink. It is quiet, so very quiet. I look down and realise that I'm holding someone in my arms…
"This…" he laughs as he speaks, even as the blood bubbles up between his lips. "Is who you are…"
And then he is dead and I drop him and scramble backwards, trying to run, to hide, to… there is blood on my hands. And on my legs… and my stomach… and on my face… there is blood in my mouth as well… I don't think that it is mine.
Slowly, it dawns on me, the only sound I can hear is the wind, harsh and cold against my cheek. There is blood on the floor, and the walls, and their bodies are everywhere. There are gouges in their chests, rips in their flesh, torn in the shape of human hands. Dimly I look down at my hands… I will them to open and the urge to retch is almost too strong to resist.
There is hair in my hand, brown hair. My hair is purple. Not far away from me I can see a man, one of my opponents, with a tuft of hair missing, ripped from his head, along with his eyes. What have I done?
I scream… and scream… and scream…
And no one answers.
There is only silence
Silence.
I'm conscious again and I see the foot, Chihiro's foot shooting toward me. Something, instinct, tells me that I won't be able to dodge so instead I curl my body around her foot, taking the impact as best I can. And suddenly her ankle is in my hands, and it's easy, so easy.
All I do is hold on as I jerk my body to the side. She falls to her right, only her ankle isn't going that way. The sound of her scream drowns out the crack as the joint breaks. She is screaming and I can see her face contort as she screams and screams and screams. Only I can't hear anything.
Smack.
That is the sound my fist makes when it strikes her squarely in the jaw. Her head jerks violently to one side as she tries to get her hands up, tries to defend herself. It's pointless.
Smack. Smack. Smack
My heart is hammering in my chest now, and the pain is so sharp that I can barely move. But my hands, no, my fists, keep moving to a steady, cruel rhythm. I want to stop, I want to, but I can't… I can't…
"Get off her!" Toshida-sensei bursts into the room and grabs me by the shoulders and tries to pull me off. It takes her, and another two girls just to pin my arms.
Chihiro somehow manages to wriggle out from under me. I see her face, it is bloody and bruised and there are tears coursing down her cheeks. I drop to my knees and clutch my chest. It hurts, it hurts so bad that all I can see is darkness and all I can hear is silence.
Silence…
I look down at my hands and notice, for the first time, the blood all over them and I scream. I scream and scream and scream, only my mouth won't open, and I can't hear my scream anywhere except inside my head.
Darkness wells up, a deep, hungry darkness and I let it take me, let it carry me far from the gym change room and my blood stained hands. It's so familiar.
Silence.
Author's Note
… Well that was dark, now wasn't it? First off, let me say that I don't think the Silver Millenium was all peaches and cream. Sailor Saturn supposedly never awakens unless the end of the world is coming, but what if, what if she did? Would she be able to control that power inside her, would she want to? And what would happen if you trained her, if you taught how to be more than just powerful, how to be more than just an engine of destruction? What if you taught her not just to destroy, but to kill?
Heh. For those of you who didn't work it out, although there can't be that many of you, the flash back was part of Saturn's memories. As for what year of high school she is in, well I decided to put her in the final year of senior high, making this fic several years after the end of Sailor Moon.
As always I welcome anything you have to say. I know this story is probably a bit convoluted or twisted ( or probably both ), but bear with me, it has been a while. But other than that, do tell me what you think, okay? Feedback makes the world go round.