Usagi
Everything about Pitre should've looked the exact same. His hair had not grown, his long, lithe body had not stretched and his pale skin had not seen any sunlight from the time I first met him to where we stood now. But something—an almost imperceptible thing—was different. Not in the way he looked but in the way he moved, the way he held himself. No longer was he the young man spurned by an evil queen, he was the evil one and that newfound confidence was oozing out like a cancer blighting the Earth.
"You must stop this!" I yelled at him. "This is not going to bring your people back!"
"I don't want my people back," he growled. "You are a foolish girl if you think that was ever my intention. Why do you think I slaughtered them in the ballroom that night? I wanted them to see me the way I am now and I wanted them to fear me; make them regret the day they doubted me."
The sounds of screaming still rang in my ears. How many people had been at that party? 50? 100? All of them were dead now, their blood probably still staining the floor of Pitre's crystal castle.
"Then what is this about?" Mamoru shouted. His voice startled me. It was raw and emotional, vulnerable, too, so much unlike him. Thoughts of our conversation earlier burned, but standing in front of Pitre wasn't the time to think about it. I had to come up with a plan to stop him and I had to do it quickly.
All around him were hellhounds. Their teeth were sticking out from underneath their lips and they dragged their tongues across the top and bottom of their mouths. They would not attack until Pitre commanded it but I knew as soon as I inched forward, he would sick them on me and let them devour me bit by bit.
"This is about revenge," Pitre said with an odd calmness. While his eyes were lasered in on me, his body and his face were alarmingly relaxed.
"Revenge for what?" I asked. "I've never met you, Pitre!"
He closed his eyes, his brow tensing up and twitching. A smile rippled across his face. "I didn't say we did, Usagi."
I searched for any clue that I might recognize him. Something about him did seem familiar and every time my eyes washed over a new part of him, I was left with a lingering taste in my mouth. Despite it, not one memory came to the forefront of my mind, not even a single second of us having spent any time together. Just this odd understanding that I did know him, or maybe, where he came from.
Was he from the future? Or the past? Enemies in the past had known me as different versions of myself, perhaps that was the case for him too. So many years had passed, though, and I figured anyone with an outstanding axe to grind would've come forward by now. Looking at Pitre, it was clear to see I was wrong.
"What are you seeking revenge for?" I asked as calmly as I could.
"Hmm," he tapped a finger to his lip. He turned to his hellhounds and smiled. "Guys, should I tell her?"
The monsters did not respond and kept their eyes locked on Mamoru and me. Pitre, on the other hand, roared with laughter, resting his hand on a hellhound's shoulder and doubling over. He clutched his belly in a fit of demonic giggles that echoed against the tunnel of smoke and he wiped his eyes.
"Oh," he caught his breath, throwing his thumb in the direction of the hellhound on his right. "These guys, they kill me."
"Answer the question, Pitre," Mamoru barked. This made Pitre's grin double in size.
"If it isn't the spurned boyfriend." Pitre crunched his face in a mocking gesture before letting out a long whistle. "Didn't think you'd come back after all that has transpired."
Mamoru stilled. It was a low blow but he didn't take the bait.
"That doesn't matter to me," Mamoru brushed him off.
"It should." Pitre cocked his head. "Why, I would never want someone's leftovers. Though, I can see why you might reconsider. From what I can tell, she is quite desirable. Your beloved is quite loud in the throes of her lovemaking. Or maybe that was just with Dimande."
Mamoru took in a sharp breath. I couldn't bear to look at him. All the anger coiling in his body was burning next to me and I just couldn't bring myself to see his pain. Breaking a heart is one thing, but to endure watching it continuously crack it another entirely.
"Whatever you say to me, I can take it!" Mamoru shot back.
"Is that so?"
A glow appeared around Pitre and then black smoke curled out from behind him and solidified into long, spider-like arms. At the end were taloned, spindly fingers. One hooked around Mamoru, throwing him up into the air, while another wrapped around me. They lifted us off the ground and rattled us over head. Swinging back and forth, I tried to pry my hands around Pitre's claws, but they wouldn't budge.
Mamoru screamed out in pain causing Pitre to laugh.
"Can you take that?" His voice was sinister. "Because it sounds like you can't!"
The hand released Mamoru and flung him a few yards away, the smoke lifting as he sailed, clearing a perfectly visible spot for him to crash. I was still suspended in Pitre's grip. Mamoru hit the ground with a loud thud and groaned in pain as he tried to pick himself back up.
"You're no match for me, Tuxedo Mask," Pitre used the name mockingly. "None of you can defeat me."
Mamoru wobbled and managed to pull himself from his feet. Pitre had moved all his attention onto him and now instead of violently thrashing above the ground, I merely hung there like an afterthought. Perhaps if he got distracted, I thought, I could aim my tiara and slice off this arm.
"I have waited so many years to destroy you and her and this entire planet for what she did to me." He stepped forward but Mamoru didn't move. "And I will burn with pleasure as I see you all go up in flames."
Mamoru lunged forward but he was no match for Pitre. Right as Mamoru was in reach, Pitre let off a burst of light that created a shield, throwing back Mamoru once more on the cement. With one human hand outstretched, Pitre pulsed the light and it became a cage. The edges of it began to close tighter, and when one of the beams grazed Mamoru's leg, he let out a painful cry.
Pitre watched as the cage grew smaller and smaller, his eyes fixated on the burns beginning to form on Mamoru's body. A crack of lightning bolted from the side and struck right at the crux of Pitre's back, right on the joint of his new appendages. The claws contracted and he let out a painful yelp before I was released. I crashed to the ground and scrambled to my feet, looking over my shoulder to see where the lightning had come from.
From the mist, shadows moved. I didn't need to see their faces to know who had come—I knew that lightning anywhere.
Makoto came forward, her arms crossed over the pink bow of her Sailor Jupiter uniform. Relief washed over me: They had found us. They were here to save us.
Behind her was Minako, Rei and Ami—all ready to fight as the Sailor Scouts once more.
"Your time is done, Pitre." Flames swirled around Rei. Between her fingers was an ofuda. I wasn't sure that would work on someone as dark and twisted as Pitre, but at that point I was willing to give anything a try.
"If you think that piece of paper is going to seal me away, you're as stupid and naive as your friend." Pitre lifted his arms, a powerful light growing around him and waiting to be released. "I dare you to try it."
"Akuryou taisan!" The paper shot out of her hand, flying toward Pitre amongst a fury of flames that bled out of Rei as she screamed. But as soon as it hit the wall of light, the fire turned to smoke and the paper became shreds drifting in the wind whipping off of the forcefield. Next was Ami who sent a torrent of water and when that was quickly dodged by Pitre, Minako shot off a whip made of her pure heart magic.
None of our attacks were doing anything. The only one that managed to connect was the surprise lightning bolt that managed to slip past him.
In rapid succession, Ami, Rei, Minako and Makoto fired off their attacks, sending streams of power toward him in a twisting beam of power. Right before touching him they splintered off, each a cord of power threatening to envelope Pitre and finally put an end to his madness. Ami's water attack revealed the flaw in that plan.
As soon as it touched the dome around Pitre, it cascaded down like a sheet of water. The other attacks bounced, too, flying off into the thick clouds enveloping the greater area. Even if we fired all our attacks at once—put everything into this fight—it would still not be enough.
But there had to be a weakness to him. There just had to.
"I love the effort. I really do," Pitre smiled deviously. "But there's nothing you can do, not now. It's too late. I've already received my full power. Nothing is standing in my way anymore."
"I think you're mistaken."
Dimande. I whipped around and saw him, Saphir, Esmeraude and Rubeus. Even in the dull haze of smoke, the power reverberating off of them was strong. Mamoru flinched but quickly remembered where he was and who he was facing. Even he wasn't going to turn down this kind of help.
"Dimande," Pitre cackled. "It's disappointing to see you, but I shouldn't be surprised. You are a bit of a cockroach, afterall."
He whipped his hand out toward Dimande, sending a cutting blade of light in his direction, but the prince merely swiped it away. Perhaps he was so powerful because of Pitre's magic. He had been revived by him, hadn't he? If he still had even an iota of Pitre's power pumping through his veins, maybe we stood a chance.
"Pitre, please, end your campaign," Saphir stepped forward. "This is a useless endeavor. Sailor Moon is not the cause of your angst."
"And what do you know about it, Saphir?" Pitre's jaw tensed. "You know nothing about me."
"I know a lot more about you than you think," he shot back. "I met your old master in Hell—the old hag."
Almost impossibly, Pitre grew an even paler shade. The light drained from his eyes and his body went rigid. Around him, plumes of smoke curled, almost as if they were an extension of him. Saphir's words sliced Pitre open for dissection.
"How is the old bitch?"
"Considering she's in Hell, I would venture a guess she's not well." Saphir's face twisted into a half smile.
"She has no control over me anymore," Pitre hissed. "She is nothing compared to me."
"She is dead, Pitre," Saphir stepped forward. "What kind of revenge are you trying to exact? What purpose does destroying Sailor Moon serve?"
"It serves everything!" He shouted. "If not for Sailor Moon, we never would've come here in the first place! We all could've lived! My mother—she could have…"
Before he said the words, his body became tense. Underneath his mask of power and control was a man spiraling over his loss. The taste of his bitterness was apparent now but I was still unsure for what. His expression went from agony and pain back to mocking disdain. He took a deep breath and centered himself.
"It's no matter," his voice was oddly calm. "The wheels are already in motion, Saphir. I won't back down. You will all die today, I will make sure of it."
He snapped his fingers and the hellhounds bent their backs, the growls in the back of their phone creating a roaring hum. We braced ourselves, each of us preparing out attacks. With the Scouts, the Black Moon Clan and Mamoru and I, we stood a chance to defeat these beasts. My chest was rising and falling rapidly as I grounded myself against what I was being called to do.
He snapped his fingers again and they sprung.
Flashes of light boomed around us: The crack of a lightning bolt, the lick of a flame. All of us went off into a frenzy, mowing down the lines of hellhounds that ripped forward. At first, it was a good strategy. We took out at least a dozen of them quickly, but when we went to recharge and send another attack, the line had edged closer to us and the hellhounds were now in striking distance.
My hand was already fascened back onto my tiara when one bolted through the line and lunged at my core. Someone reached out and grabbed me by the fabric on my back. We collided and fell to the floor, scooting over on the hard cement to avoid the creature's lumbering claws.
"Are you alright?" It was Mamoru. I nodded my head. When the hellhound swung back around, Mamoru shot out a flash of light, swiftly decapitating the beast and spewing inky black blood everywhere. It smelled sour and rotten, like overripe fruit left out in the sun for a little too long.
Mamoru hurried us to our feet. As we pushed back the hellhounds, the smoke began to dissipate. We had made good work of it, rivers of black blood snaked around the cracks in the sidewalk and lifeless hellhounds scattered about, but more red eyes glowed a few yards away. Pitre had numbers, and while his monsters were relatively easy to defeat with our powers, we were not limitless.
Pitre was nowhere to be seen. I scanned the horizon, seeing if I might recognize him outside of the swirling fog, but the only thing looking back at me were hungry, alien eyes.
"This plan isn't going to work," I said begrudgingly. Mamoru sighed.
"As much as I hate to admit it, you're right."
"So what do we do?" I asked. Another boom sounded overhead—one of the black moon clans attacks, I figured—and we were bathed in a neon green light. Following it was a howl and an excited yelp that sounded like Esmeraude.
"If you want to kill a snake, you cut off its head," Mamoru said coldly. "We need to kill Pitre. Otherwise, he's just going to keep creating these monsters."
Boots clicked behind me. I spun around and held my breath, hoping it wasn't Pitre planning a sneak attack, but instead was greeted by four familiar faces. Haruka, Michiru, Setsuna and Hotaru.
It had been years since I had seen all of them, but Hotaru in particular looked strikingly different. She was a young woman now, tall and beautiful, and her power was rippling off her skin. She was the Sailor Scout capable of destruction. Maybe she might be the one to end it.
"Sorry we're late," Haruka said with a smile. "Don't know if you've noticed, but it's a bit hard to see."
Before I could respond, another brilliant flash of light ripped overhead. From the smoke, a body came hurling back.
"Minako!" I shouted. Her blonde hair danced around her as she sailed through the air. She skidded on the concrete and let out a painful groan. Jagged claw marks wrapped around her biceps, and despite how painful they looked, they appeared to be faint. Despite being injured, she hobbled back onto her feet and shook her head as I jumped to offer assistance, instead running her hands along her skirt to brush herself off.
Hotaru whipped the Silence Glaive in front of her, sending a wave of energy skimming above Minako. It took the fog and blistered it back, revealing a few more yards of vision. A hellhound stalking Minako was hit by it and flung backward, crashing into another hellhound behind it that had Rei's arms locked.
Ami was on the ground being helped up by Makoto, while Rubeus stood protecting them. Esmeraude was catching her breath a short distance away. As the wave washed over, hellhound after hellhound fell to its power, some just lying down in defeat while others writhed in agony against it.
"What are those things?" Hotaru's voice shook.
"Hellhounds," Setsuna said bleakly.
"Where are Dimande and Saphir?" I regretted it the moment I said it. Mamoru closed his eyes, clearly wounded but swallowing it down for the betterment of the fight. This wasn't a time to argue over romantic liaisons.
"Probably went after Pitre," Mamoru was curt. "Which we should do, too."
"I agree," Haruka said. She turned to the group, whose attention was already firmly on us. "Everyone! We need to get to the tower."
The crystal spire was a beacon amidst the fog. More clouds were beginning to form, choking the path Hotaru had cleared. She flicked the glaive again, pushing back the darkness for a few minutes more.
"This magic is strong," she said, turning to Setsuna. "It's very malevolent."
"Yes it is," she said solemnly.
Haruka stepped forward so she was somewhat in the middle of all of us. She commanded our attention. "Everyone, get into groups of two. We take the palace as a group, but if we somehow get separated, do not leave your partner. If a hellhound appears, shout for the rest of us."
It seemed like a crazy plan, but it just had to work. I pushed forward when I felt a hand on my arm. Mamoru.
"Let's go together," he said, his voice soft and somewhat mournful.
"Mamoru," I shook my head.
"If you've made your choice, I understand." He cleared his throat. "So let's do this together one last time, okay?
One last time. Would this really be the last time? I wanted to cry. I always cried in times like these. For years, all I wanted was to be strong, to feel love, and to be happy. I had always waited on others to help fill that void for me, when all along I had the power to be there for myself. A lesson I learned probably too late.
Dimande had told me I should go after what I want, to not be afraid to shed myself of the expectations of others, and now it was clear I hadn't been doing that for a long time. I could've tried harder, I could've made my frustrations known, I could've gone out and found my own thing instead of waiting for everyone else.
I didn't need to choose Dimande or Mamoru, I needed to choose myself. All I had to do was destroy Pitre first.
My arm still in his, he hustled forward. Two by two we walked down the corridor Hotaru had cleared for us. Except for the shuffle of boots, it was silent. At the front of our line was Setsuna and Hotaru, both scanning the dense smoke as we inched closer and closer to the castle.
It was a gruesome scene. As we walked we saw limbs jutting out from the smoke, swaths of blood-smeared cement and miscellaneous belongings. The smell of rot permeated everything, so strong it made my nose burn: A mixture of human flesh and the hellhound's sour blood. A reminder that the hellhounds had killed humans before we killed them. I hoped they had not managed to kill many.
At the crystal tower, the smoke had broken. It completely shifted around it, almost as if the smoke itself was coming from inside its dark, glass tourettes. Two large doors were already open when we arrived. Walking in felt like a trap. I had already been tricked once before. Was I really going to allow myself to be so stupid again?
"I'm not sure we should go in," I said to Haruka. She turned to look at me. Something like anger flickered in her eyes, but it wasn't so biting. Anger and...confusion, perhaps?
"We have to. If Pitre is in there, we—"
"What if he's not?" I quivered. "What if this is another trick?"
"Then we'll all be together," Mamoru smiled, placing his hand on my shoulder. "And we'll fight our way out of it."
His eyes were so blue. Suddenly, I had the overwhelming feeling to kiss him. But this wasn't the time or the place. As terrifying a thought it was to face Pitre again, to possibly fall into another trap, I had to go. So I nodded my head, followed cautiously as we crested the threshold of the doorway and peeled my eyes along the cavernous foyer made entirely of glass crystal.
Light refracted from outside and made glittering patterns alongside the interior walls. The crystals were a smoky quartz. Parts of the walls were collections of tiny ones, each sharp edge poking out like an intricate piece of art. Others were endless panels of crystal, polished so perfectly it looked like a pristine lake on a calm day.
Our reflections were caught in the crystals, too, and as we shifted about the room, the light hit differently, making features pop singularly rather than all at once.
"This place is really strange." Rei brought her hand to a panel alongside the wall and grazed her fingertip along its edge.
"It's between dimensions," Setsuna said matter-of-factly. "Somewhere in this tower is a gateway to the dimension with the River of Souls."
"Do you think he would go back there?" Haruka asked. Setsuna sighed.
"I'm honestly not sure."
Doors at the back of the room swung open. Everyone crouched, ready to fight, but nothing happened. After a few moments of stillness, Haruka and Setsuna stepped forward into the next room, its grandeur somehow even more captivating than the one before it. Like the foyer, it was completely made of crystals, except this room had used the panels to act almost like mirrors. The light was much more focused here, intentional, like the designer wanted the eye to wander but only so far.
It looked like a ballroom. It was long and wide, its ceiling impossibly tall, and the way the mirrored crystals were set together almost gave it a fun-house carnival feel. Each pane bent the reflection differently: Some made me six feet tall while others made me impossibly short.
I paced along the side of the room, passing odd sculptures made of crystal that came up directly out of the ground. At the farthest corner of the room, I stopped to examine one. It was made entirely out of light grey crystal that was translucent and thick. It looked like a small man, or perhaps a child. While it had no face carved, its body was lumpy and disjointed, like a weird wooden doll. Spindly glass beads held together like a string fell from its wrists and from its feet.
A marionette. A strange, strange puppet.
I touched its expressionless face. The way the body was curved—the back angled and cocked forward, the arms dangling in defeat—I knew whoever had made it was suffering. This creature was in pain, and I ran my hand alongside the back to soothe it.
Pitre was so tortured, but for what? What had I done to him? I had spent my youth dedicated to love and justice. If I had done something to wound Pitre, it was entirely by accident. There had to be someone else who made him believe that I was so horrible, someone from before that had broken his heart so severely he was unable to let go of hate.
"Who hurt you, Pitre?" I whispered to the statue.
"Why, you did." A low voice growled from it. Light punctured the crystals of the marionette and its limbs came to life, cracking as glass turned to flesh. Smoke billowed at my feet and created a column around me. Behind, there was a scuffle, a mad dash to get to me before the smoke enveloped, but it was too late.
He was already standing in front of me, and his face...his face...
At that moment I knew exactly what Pitre was.
"It's time you see me for what I truly am, Usagi." Pitre. Power swirled around him as the smoke got thicker, roaring as it encircled us. "It's time you know what I was born as."