As the end draws near a lonely woman weeps and loses herself in the past. Manga canon. Written for the 25th Anniversary of Sailor Stars and the 30th Anniversary of the Sailor Team. Written for Sailor Cosmos' and ChibiChibi 25th Anniversaries and for the Sailor Team as a whole.
Rated: T - Tragedy/Hurt/Comfort - Words: 3,493 - Chibi Chibi/Sailor Chibi Chibi Moon, Sailor Cosmos, Inner Senshi/Inner Scouts, Outer Senshi/Outer Scouts
A/N: This is a gift for RiverLethe9.
This story is a spiritual sequel to two of my older fics. 'The Beginning' and 'Rebirth'. You do not, however, need to have read either to follow this fic.
This story is a sequel to my other fics 'Confessions of a Gardner' and more poignantly 'Group Therapy'.
Many thanks to SinJazz for betaing this fic! You can find her on Instagram under the same name.
/users/SinJazz
sinjazz1327/
A lone figure stood upon the Moon, surrounded by the barren surface and the empty void of space.
Leaning on her staff for support, she began to shakily raise herself up. When she was about half way however, she spotted a cluster of twinkling stars blinking out of existence.
She let out a tiny, rattling breath. Then a sob. Finally, it was all too much.
She slid down her staff, dropped to her knees, lowered her head. Her eyes shut tight, unable to bear more death and destruction; not even from this great a distance. Not that it mattered. She could still feel it. Still feel the universe howl in despair. Feel more and more and more lives erased. A part of her, a part that had been growing ever louder as her limitations had become all too apparent, wished the enemy could end it all at once. That way nobody would suffer too badly. Nobody would have to live with the dread of their encroaching annihilation. And… she could finally… rest…
Slowly, she opened her eyes.
She had never fully admitted that to herself before. Not in the course of this battle, nor any of the conflicts before this last great enemy had appeared.
'Before' ... Before felt like a lifetime ago now. Dimly, she wondered if she had always felt like that…
… No… Not always…
Once upon a time such a thought would've never even occurred to her. That hadn't been a lifetime ago though. It'd been several. Or at least, it felt that way.
How long must it have been since then? Millenia? Eons? After a while she had stopped counting. It hadn't seemed like it really mattered. And in truth it never had. At least… not until the day she had begun to lose…
Automatically, she had wiped her tears, clearing her vision. That was when she spotted her skirt. Tattered and battle ravaged as it was, the coloured stripes upon it were still perfectly visible; standing stark against the white fabric. The sight of them stabbed at her heart, reminding her how, one by one, they had each appeared on her uniform.
As the horrific memories hit she imagined she could feel the vast emptiness of the surrounding Solar System.
Or rather, what had once been the Solar System.
Nevertheless, she could not look away from the skirt. Perhaps it was because, on some level, she knew the pain of her past could not hurt more than the pain of her present.
She drank in the colours one by one. And as she did, the past seemed to whisper back at her…
Blue
That's the girl genius from Class 5.
A blue haired girl lavished affection on a purring black cat.
"You're so soft… I thought you were an angel."
Huh, she's nothing like everybody was saying… She's actually kinda cute.
She approached the girl with a smile on her face "You're Ami Mizuno-San from Class 5, right? I'm Usagi Tsukino from Class 1. You… don't want to go to the arcade do you?"
In the arcade the blunette chuckled. "You're so funny Tsukino-San."
"Call me Usagi! And can I call you Ami-Chan?"
"Sure."
Red.
On a bus Usagi caught sight of a girl about her age and, trance-like, followed her off the vehicle and towards a set of shrine steps.
"Usagi, why did you get off the bus?" admonished Luna.
"Because she's so pretty…"
She entered the shrine grounds and was immediately assaulted by a pair of crows. Their attack halted only when a piece of paper was slapped upon her face, causing her to fall over. She sat up and found the raven-haired shrine maiden bent down in apology.
"Um... Usagi-San was it? I'm so sorry. I mistook you for something else."
That was so scary!... But… I will forgive anything, if someone is pretty enough...
Green.
Eyes closed in a sigh, Usagi nonchalantly stepped off the pavement. Too late, she heard the roar of a car engine speeding towards her!
Then, just as suddenly, the world was turned upside down and she was being carried across the road and deposited on the opposite street. She looked up to behold the image of a veritable giant of a girl with curly brown hair done up in a ponytail.
"Careful, you could get hurt," the Amazonian said with a small smile.
"Y-yes ma'am!"
Something sparkled in the sunlight as the girl turned to leave.
Rose-shaped earrings…
Gold.
Usagi inserted the video tape into the arcade machine. Immediately, lightning seemed to spark from the machine, blinding her. Her vision cleared enough to see a squat, pixelated sprite of a masked woman with long blonde hair and garbed in a Senshi uniform.
"What are you waiting for, Sailor Moon?! That's a brainwashing video. People's lives are in danger!"
Sailor V!? The game is talking to me.
She transformed and headed into battle, only to be knocked down by the enemy. Looking up through the mist she saw the silhouette of an elegant figure emerge. The silhouette gave way to the visage of a woman with long blonde hair and an orange Senshi outfit, a white cat accompanying her.
It's V-Chan. I've always admired her, and now here she is in front of me.
"I've been monitoring your progress through the game machine, so I feel like we're already old friends."
She fished out a pen and gave it a click, her Senshi uniform turning back into a regular school girl outfit.
"This is my secret identity. Here on Earth I'm Minako Aino. Nice to meet you!"
Black.
Usagi's crystal glinted. When she looked up an old, yet beautiful ornate door stood proudly amidst the misty ether.
"Halt! Not another step."
Usagi froze.
"I am she who governs the door of space and time. The keeper of the underworld."
It was a tall, stunning, darker skinned Senshi with long green hair and a metal rod that resembled the keys hanging from her belt.
"I am Sailor Pluto."
Navy.
She was catching up with the other race car drivers, accelerating at blistering speed. Through the crash helmet, she couldn't help but notice another driver to her right.
What? Who's that?
Her distraction cost her as the car experienced a spectacular crash. She pulled the helmet off and took a breath, the arcade spinning.
"Usagi, you were going really fast!" piped up Naru.
"It's that helmet," she replied, rubbing her forehead. "When you have it on, you don't feel how fast you are going."
"Oh yeah?"
As one, she and Naru turned their attention to the other driver in the arcade.
"If that's how you feel, you've got what it takes to be a real race car driver."
The short haired blonde student shot a wink that made Usagi's heart thump hard in her chest.
"Let's race again sometime, bun-head."
Turquoise.
Disguised, Usagi wandered through the hallways of Mugen Academy. Her search came to a halt when she heard something haunting that pierced her very soul.
What beautiful music. It's calling me to it.
Trance-like, she drifted through the school, guided by the delicate tones of the violin until she was outside, observing a pavilion.
Within its columns, beneath the round roof, stood the single most elegant woman Usagi had ever seen. Her curvy, sea-green hair was moved gently upon the wind, emulating the ebb and flow of the ocean itself. Her beautiful melody was much the same.
Like rolling waves...
Purple.
Usagi rounded a corner and saw a young girl with short dark hair. She was on her knees, clutching her chest, gripped in the middle of a seizure. Despite her pain and despair though, she reached out, taking hold of another girl's arm. In an instant, the bloody scrape on the second girl's arm disappeared.
"I know it's creepy," the kneeling girl said, melancholy etched within her violet eyes. "I've had this weird power ever since I was little."
"Would you mind telling me your name?" The other girl asked.
The melancholy faded. The violet eyes were now soft, kind, projecting out a gentle gratitude.
"It's Hotaru Tomoe."
… Pink…
Her gaze was transfixed upon the barrel of the gun, not daring to stare up at red eyes of the small la-
With a half a sob and half a gasp, she wrenched her eyes away from her skirt.
The memory practically whispered to her, insisting on surfacing itself. She compromised, focussing instead upon a blank portion of space where once a beautiful belt encircled everything beyond the red planet.
"We are blessed with the protection of four of the solar system's asteroids."
"We will resume our slumber. The time of our true awakening has not yet arrived."
Eventually that time had come. And then gone. Now they slumbered eternally. Snuffed out like a candle… flame…
With an effort, she moved around staring at yet another portion of dead space. She knew it was just her imagination, but where her gaze fell seemed especially… dark…
Usagi whipped around at the sound of the tinkling bell.
Her jaw dropped at the sight of the majestic silvery-white unicorn, flanked by feathered, alabaster wings.
The wings remained extended as the horse glowed, morphing into the visage of an adolescent boy, with pristine white robes and hair of similar silvery-white.
"I am Helios. Priest of Elysium. My role is to watch over Prince-..."
Without realizing, her hand had drifted up to clasp her brooch. The gold metal felt achingly cold to her touch. As cold as the lifeless vacuum surrounding her.
The memories came again, but there was a sort of ' distance ' to them now, as if they were someone else's life she had merely glimpsed in a dream.
A palace of crystal and silver-white marble.
A flowing white and gold gown.
And a tall, dark haired man with eyes as blue as the sapphire world they once called home.
That same man crumbling into nothingness in an airport.
She had recalled that moment many times throughout this war. Her memories from back then were somewhat hazy, perhaps because of her age, perhaps because she avoided dwelling upon those horrible days. However, the instance seemed somehow starker now, no doubt because that had been when she'd first felt truly, and utterly… alone.
She almost laughed at the naivete of her younger self. If that had been loneliness, what was she experiencing now , when the very stars themselves were dying out…?
She felt her skirt flutter, but did not look back down.
It had been back then, back when she'd thought herself invincible and eternal, that she had first learned the truth of the stars. How they were part of an endless cycle of life, death and rebirth.
When the war had begun so long ago, that knowledge had given her a glimmer of hope. But as the cost of the war had climbed ever higher, that light of hope had steadily dwindled.
The Enemy was far, far too powerful. Her best efforts merely slowed her down for a while, but that was all. She would inevitably annihilate everything, then linger as it was all born anew from that wretched Cauldron, ready to smother the newborn stars as soon as they emerged. Thus the universe would never recover.
And even if by some miracle the Enemy was undone, the universe that would emerge thereafter would not be the one she had fought and sacrificed so much for. All she had ever known and loved was already gone, torn asunder by the cruel, cackling, ebony parody of a Senshi.
She would still be alone. Alone, and cursed with the knowledge that someday the cycle would begin again. The enemy would inevitably return, perhaps even stronger than before. More suffering. More fighting. More loss.
Not for the first time she wondered… what was the point really?
So long as the cycle remained in place nothing really mattered, so what had she been fighting for? Why continue to fruitlessly struggle against such an immense foe?
Of course… this need never have happened. There had once been a chance to end the threat before it had even begun.
Once, after the airport, when she had been young, when she'd been gripped by grief, and denial, and loneliness. Once when she had stood upon the precipice of the Galaxy Cauldron and made a choice. The wrong choice.
Too many times throughout this war had she gone back to that moment of choice. At first the memory had served to reaffirm her resolve. Then, as the bodies had piled up, doubt had crept in.
If I had destroyed the Cauldron would the fighting, would the suffering, have gone away?
The doubt had festered into a horribly certain regret. She knew, deep down, she had made a terrible mistake that the universe was now paying the price for. And, as if to further insult the memory of the dead, she couldn't even remember why she had made that choice.
Her memories of that moment were difficult to recall, but she was pretty sure she had been talking to someone about what to do before she had decided. But she couldn't remember who they were, what either of them had said. Or maybe there hadn't been anyone at all. Maybe she'd just been talking to herself back then. She tried again to summon the memories, but it was no good, it was as if they were shrouded by dark smoke.
The thought made her dwell back upon her Enemy.
"When the end comes, I shall be the last Sailor Senshi! "
Fleetingly, she tried to puzzle out the Enemy's strange threat. She gave up though as her grief drew her gaze back to her skirt, to the stripe that had appeared on that awful day. Like the Enemy, and the empty void, it was a deep, dark… black…?
Her eyes widened.
She couldn't. The idea was so absurd and dangerous that she had not dared even consider it. But now… faced with losing all she had known… would it really be so bad? Wasn't breaking this cycle of pain and loss worth dabbling with such a taboo. At worst, she'd be merely more directly responsible for this devastation. Resolve crystallized within her.
She stood up.
She would do it.
She extended her staff.
She would go back to before she made her biggest mistake.
She summoned energy from her core into her weapon.
She would be the comfort her old self lacked back then.
She was suddenly within a corridor, standing before a massive, unguarded door.
She would, through that comfort, guide and encourage herself to make the rightdecision this time.
She walked through the door.
And… she would never again be… Sailor Cosmos…
Sailor Cosmos.
The embodiment of the living universe.
The most powerful Senshi of all.
She had no right to the name, nor the title. Deep down she knew that. Deep down, she knew this was in its own way cowardice. She was running away. Running away because she could not let go, could not bring herself to throw away what was left of the universe as she had known it. Running because she was too weak to embrace everyone and everything that might be reborn anew from the remains of the old universe.
And yet… might her cowardice be justified if this worked? If she could end the cycle of suffering once and for all?
She hoped so but… committed as she was… she could not truly be certain.
She was certain of one thing though. She was lesser than she once was. Lesser than she had been when she first, undeservedly, arose to the mantle of guardian of the universe. Perhaps lesser than she had been as a naive teenaged warrior of love and justice. Most definitely lesser than a brave little girl she had known long ago who had also fled to the past.
Falling through time she suddenly became aware that her body was changing, her thoughts made manifest. She felt herself shrink, her strength dwindle, even as her vitality surged. She saw her long streams of white hair retract and change colour in tandem with her clothes. Her long cape was replaced with a sailor's neckerchief and her silver staff morphed into a floral pattern umbrella. Most of all though, her thoughts began to reshape too. They became simpler, more energetic, and far less melancholic.
As all she was began to fade, replaced by something similar yet new, she almost laughed. How ironic that this would be her final transformation. The last form she would ever attain in her existence as a warrior. Or… was this fuschia haired form what she had looked like as a child? She could not remember. She could have sworn she'd been… blonde? Silver haired? It didn't matter. All that mattered was that she be accepted without being recognized.
Accepted by her younger self and, her now stripless skirt ruffled amidst the temporal winds, all her friends...
Something glinted in the sky above. Then a tiny fuschia haired child gently descended upon an umbrella, landing softly on the high school grounds.
A warm, fizzing energy whirled within her. She felt wonderfully safe. Wonderfully happy. But… she knew there was something important she needed to do too. Closing her umbrella, she decided to get to work.
Later that night, after Ikuko-Mama had put her to bed, she snuck out and padded across the hallway. It was way past her bedtime, but that didn't matter. She knew she could simply do the day over again as many times as she liked so sleep wasn't a problem. Nevertheless, she didn't want to do that right now. Right now she wanted to see… her...
The black cat's eyes widened when she opened the door and peeked inside.
The big, blonde woman let out a tiny laugh before pointing under the covers. "Want to sleep in my bed?"
She nodded and soon enough she was tucked in, tight and warm, curled up against the body of the blonde.
In that moment, she felt wonderfully safe. Wonderfully happy. And wonderfully not alone. And she knew, from her very core, that the blonde woman felt the same way too. That they were even sharing the same dream. A dream of dancing in front of a majestic castle of sparkling crystal and silver white marble, held in the arms of a dark haired man with blue sapphire eyes.
Then he was gone. He'd crumbled to dust. Everything was crumbling. Every star was burning out. And accompanying it all, a cruel, chaotic laugh.
It was a laugh that filled her with shame.
A/N: Written for the 25th Anniversaries of (Manga) ChibiChibi and Sailor Cosmos.
I know the flashbacks didn't happen the way they play out in the manga. I wanted to keep them shorter, get to the point of Usagi first connecting with each of them and also convey that these are memories Cosmos is having, so the details won't be 100% accurate.
So when I originally wrote this it was intended to be released in January 2022. Back then it was just part of the general Sailor Moon franchise celebrations and paid tribute to Cosmos and ChibiChibi.
However, I moved it back when I realised it was way more perfect for the very end of the Stars arc, which was published between 1st-6th March 1997. And since Sailor Mercury also celebrates her 30th Anniversary during that same time period it was fitting to commemorate the Sailor Team as a whole as the introduction of Mercury was the first time two Senshi worked together as a true team.
Also just to let you know I am involved in a discord called 'Moonlight Legends' which is dedicated to sharing all sorts of Sailor Moon fanworks, including other fanfics. If you would like to join so you can share your own work, get help with your current projects or just connect to other fan creators shoot me a PM and I'll send you an invite. All are welcome!