The blunted practise sword whips up and through my guard and suddenly I'm tasting blood, my blood, as I sprawl backwards and onto the cold, stone floor.
"Get up!"
It hurts to move. My side, my arm, my head… I can't even begin to count the cuts and bruises and still… still I have to…
"Get up!"
My own practise sword lies on the ground, not more than a metre away. It's so close… there… it's in my hand… now all I have to do is stand… yes… just a little bit more… just… just a bit more effort… there…
Slowly I raise my sword in front of me as my legs still, their injuries forgotten, everything, absolutely everything except my sword and my enemy forgotten. I ease into my stance and in front of me I see him smile, nothing more than just a quiver of the lip, but it is enough. I know he is proud of me.
"Again!"
I dash across the cobblestones and leap, my whole body, my whole being centred on the man in front of me. My sword hits the ground with enough force to shatter the cobblestones but he's fast, too fast, and already he's moving, recovering from the jump that carried him to safety and rushing straight for me.
Our blades clash, and he towers over me, so big, so strong that it's easy to forget how much older than me he is, how much closer to the grave. I dance backwards and he follows, his own blade cutting through the air, but somehow, somehow he's over extended and I pounce.
Crunch!
He reels backwards, and I'm certain that I've broken one of his ribs. If my blade had been a properly sharpened sword, he'd probably dead. Still, if his sword was real then I'd be dead too, a lot more times than him.
He coughs once, a bit of blood, before he smiles. He's never said it, and I don't think he ever will, but I know it all the same. He loves me….
I wake up to an unfamiliar ceiling. I know what that means. Another hospital. Somehow, that doesn't surprise me, not very much does anymore, though. My chest, it hurts, a lot more than usual. And then it comes back to me. The fight. No, the word 'fight' doesn't even begin to describe it. Remembering what I did, what I wanted to do, 'slaughter' would be a better word.
"Oh, so you're awake?" The door bustles open and the nurse pushes her way in. She seems nice enough, and she chuckles good-naturedly as she checks my injuries. "Got yourself into a fight did you?" She asks with a smile.
Not surprisingly, the smile dies on her lips when I tell her that yes, as a matter of fact, I did get into a fight. She leaves pretty quickly after that and I close my eyes and try to sleep. It's hard though, wrapped up in the hospital bed's sterile hypoallergenic sheets, with the low hum of the air conditioning all around me.
I close my eyes and wait, counting the seconds as they tick by.
One…
Two…
And still, I can't get to sleep. All I see when I close my eyes is the look on Chihiro's face, that look of pure, undiluted fear. I savour it. Still, sleep does not come.
Fifty-one…
Fifty-two…
Where are my parents? Why haven't they come to see me? Do they hate me because of what I did? Have they left me?
One hundred and eight…
One hundred and nine…
I'm asleep now, I'm sure of it. But if I'm asleep, how can I be thinking, how can I know that I'm asleep? Does that mean I'm awake? But if I'm awake, why do I see all these things?
Rain… red… blood…I shake my head, trying not to see what I see, even though my eyes are shut.
"Again!"
It's that voice, somehow stern but kind… the one from before. Why does it sound so familiar, why does it seem so… so real? It's almost like a dream, no, not a dream… a memory.
"Get up!"But… but that's impossible. Saturn wasn't awake during the Silver Millennium, I wasn't, I couldn't have been, all the others, they told me, Setsuna has told me… all of them… over and over again, they told me that I'd never been awake then.
But what if… what if they'd lied?
No, they wouldn't lie to me, I'm their daughter, they love me, they'd never, eve lie to me.
"Did they lie to me?"
"Did who lie to you?" That voice, cool, calm and utterly collected could only belong to one person. Setsuna.
And sure enough, she appears. From the shadows beside my bed, I hear the soft, barely perceptible whisper of her power as she parts the fabric of space and time, shifting from the Gates to my hospital room as easily as a fish through water. Tall and regal, she appears beside my bed and her eyes, those terribly ancient orbs of vivid crimson bore into my own.
"Did who lie to you?" And her voice now is cold, colder than I have ever heard it before. I glance down at her hands and see that she's grasping the Time Staff so tightly that her hands are shaking. Is it anger, or fear, that makes her clutch that staff so tightly?
I want to ask her, to tell her about what I've been seeing, what I've been hearing. But now, now that she is here, all I can say is :
"Where are Haruka-papa and Michiru-mama?"
For a moment she says nothing, until she sighs, a great, tired, defeated sigh and takes a seat on my bed. Without saying a word she reaches over and pats my arm. It's strange, the feel of her gloved hand on my arm. It feels good, somehow. Familiar.
When she looks at me again, it is with Setsuna's eyes, not Pluto's, and her smile is small, but tender.
"I sent them home."
"Why?"
She chuckles, and I can't help but smile. It is a rare thing to hear her chuckle, rarer still when is in uniform.
"Haruka was on the verge of assaulting your teacher."
Some things never change.
"You asked before," she says. "If someone lied to you," her eyes are sad as she finishes. "Who were you talking about."
"You." There it is, out in the open,
She sighs again, that weary sigh that I hate to hear, and slants a sad, tired look my way. "We'll talk in the morning, Hotaru, once you've been discharged."
"All right."
It's always surprised me how the others think that she never shows her emotions, because she does. Not on her face, for she has long since schooled her features into a look of calm, deadly neutrality. No, her emotions dance in her eyes, flickers of sorrow and sadness in pools of almost sinfully expressive red. Or if not in her eyes, then in her hands, with a hug, a pat, a stroke she can say things, express things that she would never say.
Just before she leaves, vanishing in a flash of scarlet light, I take her hand in mine and squeeze, just a little. She squeezes back.
Author's Notes
All right… where to begin? Once again, thanks to all of you for reading this. If you're wondering, Hotaru was sent to hospital after the fight because she collapsed and lost consciousness. Not too mention they'd already called an ambulance for the other girl anyway ;;.
So, as always, get in touch, let me know what you think. And for those of you wondering where the others are, and when there's going to be any fighting, don't worry. It won't be long…