A/N:
Merry belated Christmas and/or happy holidays! We're coming to the home stretch and things just keep getting more difficult to write. I hope I do this story justice, and I think I will...but it's always so scary to end a story. I imagine there will be 1-2 more chapters and an epilogue, so things are beginning to wrap up. There will be some action packed chapters ahead, so hopefully it'll keep you here til the end!
Chapter 10: I'll stand beside you
"Oh, I'm not here for her," it hissed. A knobby, yellow finger uncurled itself from the monster's palm and pointed straight to Mamoru. "I'm here for you."
There was a short moment as Mamoru glanced back at Usagi, confused, and she responded in kind. Neither spoke, but she knew they were thinking the same thing. What could they possibly want with Mamoru? Since the monsters had begun appearing, they'd only ever been after Usagi and the Silver Imperium Crystal. As far as Usagi knew Mamoru didn't know anything about the crystal or anything else beyond what he had told them the day before.
"Well, come along, Endymion," the monster cackled, "Ananke has plans for you!" The monster threw its hand down against the ground. The earth beneath the monster's hand rumbled, causing a wall of dirt to grow upward and toward Mamoru at an alarming speed. He dodged the attack easily by jumping away, while Usagi scrambled in the opposite direction, tripping over a fallen chair and plummeting to her knees and elbows. She looked over to see that the tall wall, albeit not long, now separated Mamoru from her sight. At the start of the wall, the monster was still visible, it's focus completely on the side opposite of Usagi.
"Usagi! Transform!" she heard Mamoru yell from the other side. There was a flash of red light and a burst of rose petals that peaked over the top of the craggy, earthen wall between them. In another moment she heard Tuxedo Mask call out tuxedo la smoking bomber and a bright beam of energy went soaring toward the enemy in front of them. It evaded the attack with ease, jumping forward toward Tuxedo Mask's side of the wall and out of Usagi's sight.
Usagi struggled to stand, her scraped skin already burning and bleeding from the fall. Normally, she would let herself cry at the pain and frustration of having tripped, but she knew that time was limited. She had to get up; she couldn't let Tuxedo Mask fight on his own. With her brooch in hand, Usagi stood and called out her transformation phrase for the second time. The pink ribbons that wrapped around her filled her with a growingly familiar power. This time she was not overwhelmed by memories and surprise. This time she was brave. She was ready to do what she must. As feathers rained down and around her, she was back in an instant to the world as a seemingly new being.
Eternal Sailor Moon leapt up to the top of the wall of rock and dirt between herself and Tuxedo Mask, nearly losing her footing. She steadied herself, but in the commotion, the dirt began to crumble beneath her. Her foot slipped, rocks tumbling over the other side of the nearly two story high formation. Below, she could see everything. On the ground, the monster had Tuxedo Mask flat against his back, his top hat laying dejectedly at his side. He held his cane across himself and against the monster's chest. The monster laughed in a loud, inhuman pitch, and its arms stretched from its body to reach out for Tuxedo Mask's neck.
In that instance, with Tuxedo Mask's breath being threatened to be taken from him, it was like any other close battle they'd had in the past. There was a life on the line. They were no strangers to the perilous see-saw of life that commonly teetered too close to the side of death. Whether it was Sailor Moon, Tuxedo Mask, or a random bystander, they had lived moments like this too numerous to count. But this time, something felt different. Sailor Moon could not shake the worry of the previous days—the worry that an end was coming—that Mamoru would no longer exist. It all suddenly became apparent in the depths of Sailor Moon's heart: somehow Mamoru would not survive this moment.
With the frightening realization nesting heavily within the bit of her stomach, Sailor Moon cried out Mamoru's name. She jumped down from the peak, her foot outstretched to kick the monster aside. Not even looking toward Sailor Moon, the monster shot an orb of light toward her as if it had known Sailor Moon's moves before she did herself. Its stare remained locked to Tuxedo Mask's. The orb engulfed Sailor Moon's body, slamming her into the face of the rocky wall. She cried out at the pain of the dull edges of rock and rubble that felt as though they had been embedded into her back. Using all of her might, she tried to lift her limbs, but her body seemed to be stuck against the wall as if it had been fastened there.
The monster smirked to itself, and its yellowed hands reached out, the tip of its cracked fingernail reaching out toward Tuxedo Mask's forehead. He struggled to avoid it, turning his head from side to side, his arms fighting to keep the monster away. In one sudden movement, the monster reached out and grabbed his face with its other hand.
"Don't be difficult," it hissed, its hand shaking under tension as it gripped his jaw and held his head still. Another orb of light transferred through the monster's gnarled fingers where its cracked fingernails dug into Tuxedo Mask's cheeks, leaving small dimples pressed into his skin. Just as Sailor Moon had, Tuxedo Mask suddenly stopped moving, his eyes wide and his arm still outstretched, holding his cane.
"What do you want from me?" he grunted through his gritted, frozen jaw. It took all of his energy to move his tongue to form the words.
Rather than answer, the monster stood, its arms shrinking back to their normal size. In complete silence, the monster turned its head toward Sailor Moon, its body following after, and it walked toward Sailor Moon's outstretched figure which was still plastered against the wall. The monster licked its lips, another fanged smile appearing across its face.
"Well, well, well. Ananke will be pleased when I return with Endymion and the silver crystal," it whispered. It stopped suddenly before the arm shot forward, grasping Sailor Moon's brooch in its claws. It ripped the brooch from the winged bow on Sailor Moons' chest, a million little feathers suddenly fluttering out from her fuku. She screamed out in pain, a trail of pink ribbons reaching out to the brooch, leaving Sailor Moon's body bare. Tuxedo Mask yelled out for her, but she could feel her consciousness waning. Her vision had darkened as the power drained from her body. In between her heavy lids slowly blinking her in and out of waking, she could catch mere glimpses of the scene before her.
First, she blinked out of consciousness. There was a momentary darkness and silence. Then, for a moment, she could hear the monster yelling in the disjointed darkness of half-awake. It was like waking in the mornings when the sound of her alarm would be there in her dreams, seemingly real yet somehow not. Another blink. Her chin had fallen against her chest and her gaze fell heavily to her brooch that was open and empty against her bare skin. A blink. More yelling in the darkness. Another blink, but the darkness was longer this time. There was a coldness that had begun to wrap around her, but it was not threatening. Somehow it enveloped her like a warm blanket, the coldness calming her—inviting her to sleep. When her eyes weakly opened again, they were met by blue eyes with long lashes. She could feel a warmth against her chest, one that pierced through the cold that had begun to take her over. Don't give up, Eternal Sailor Moon. It was a distantly familiar voice; feminine, but seemingly from a voice she had heard a lifetime ago—but she couldn't stay awake long enough to match it to a body. Her eyes closed again, but this time for only a second.
As if reanimated by God himself, Usagi gasped. In that final, single blink it was as if a switch had been flipped. Power began coursing through her once more. Her eyes fluttered open to find that she had been propped into a seated position against the wall, the pink ribbons of her sailor fuku back in their place and forming the white bodice that they had been previously. Standing before Sailor Moon were three ponytailed women in black sailor fukus, but they weren't like any senshi from the Milky Way galaxy. They had thin tiaras with stars and a golden star-shaped brooch with wings at their chests. One had black hair, the other brunette, and the final one had silver hair. Their eyes sparkled with a mysterious indignation.
The middle one with black hair turned to make eye contact with her. Sailor Moon gasped, her eyes widening. She had seen this alien senshi before—another memory locked deep within her brain somewhere. If there was time, she would have tried to figure out all the missing puzzle pieces of where this senshi from another universe fit into her past, but she didn't have time. Beyond them the yellowed monster was screeching in pain. It held out its arms in front of itself, the fallow skin there black and sizzling.
"You filthy rats! How dare you attack me!" The monster's eyes darkened as it backed away. "It's no matter. Eternal Sailor Moon is weak. It's clear she no longer possesses the silver crystal. I will take the prince alone." It extended one arm which turned into a thick cord of vines that wrapped around Tuxedo Mask's still motionless body. The monster snapped its fingers and a swirling black void of stars opened up beside it. As it turned away to disappear into the ether, a disembodied voice echoed throughout the streets. Everyone froze, a chill running down Sailor Moon's spine. The voice was otherworldly; a cold, dark, and crackling alto tone that split through the molecules of air itself.
"Scapolite. Finish these sailor senshi. I will take care of the rest." In the next moment, the presumed visage of the voice appeared from within the space void. A woman with distant, calculating eyes seemed to look beyond each of them as if the current moment did not truly matter. Her white hair was braided tight against her head, some soft curls peeking out of the edges of her temples. "I know you have been struggling, Eternal Sailor Moon. If you wish to know the truth, come to Sagittarius Zero Star. There you will find Endymion, and there everything will become clear again. Bring the Silver Imperium Crystal, lest I must kill everything on this defiant planet." The woman's eyes flickered to Sailor Moon briefly, before the image was blown away by the breeze as if it was smoke.
Tuxedo Mask struggled against the vines as his movement suddenly returned to his body. The monster pulled at the vines that had taken over its arm from its elbow down. With a sudden snap, the viney mass was broken off, leaving a bloodied, bony stump where the vines had grown and its arm and hand had once been. It waved what was left of its limb in the air and from the bloodied bone grew a new, slimy arm, wrist, palm, and fingers. It stretched its fingers wide before grinning and using its new hand to yank the vines again toward the vortex of space.
Tuxedo Mask looked for one frightened moment to Sailor Moon. She had not seen that look many times before; not when Beryl attacked the Silver Millennium or even when Saturn threatened to end everything to rid the world of Pharaoh 90. But even in his fear, he was calm.
"I love you, Usako," he shouted, "find Seiya. He will protect you."
Sailor Moon tried to stand, but her body was weak from the energy that the monster had taken from her when it undid her transformation. Her knees collapsed beneath her, causing her to fall hard against the cool pavement. "Mamoru! I love you!" She reached out to him but he was so far away. Her cries were the only thing that could reach him now. "I love you too!" She had to make sure he knew; she wasn't torn. Watching him being taken away, suddenly in her heart she knew what she had been trying to deny—she loved him. She loved him even if he left her for years, even if he had never returned. In the deepest part of her soul, she knew that no matter what had happened before, he was meant for her. The softness in his eyes, the warmth of his touch, the way he whispered her name when his lips were against her temple...all of these things were small keys that unlocked what had been hidden below her psyche.
His entire body was pulled through the vortex quickly. Before it swallowed up his head, he reached out with his neck, trying to finish the last of his plea as though he was being pulled beneath the surface of water, gasping for breath. "Serenity, don't come for me." As if in slow motion, Sailor Moon watched the tip of Mamoru's perfect nose, that very last bit of his body, be pulled into the darkness.
She cried out, tears suddenly flowing down her cheek. "No! I love you!" The portal closed in front of her eyes almost faster than she could comprehend. It clasped closed like a silk fan, becoming a thin horizontal line until there was nothing left but the air around them. She slammed her first against the ground, screaming into the air in one last fit of desperation. "Mamoru, I'm sorry. I didn't know! I didn't know!"
There was no time for Sailor Moon to think about what had happened or truly grieve the situation. Before she could even think about what was next, the monster was already running at her, an orb of black light crackling in its cocked back arm. "Good bye, Eternal Sailor Moon! And your little friends too." It cackled, throwing the orb toward her. In an instant, Sailor Moon was yanked out of the way by the brunette senshi. The black orb of energy hit the ground, leaving an empty dome of rubble in the concrete behind them.
"Sailor Moon, get a hold of yourself!" the silver haired senshi yelled at her side. Her eyes were fiery and pleading. "You can win this, but you can't think about what has happened, only what's next."
In the next instant, the black haired senshi sprinted past them, jumping up and soaring through the air. She held out in her hand a star-shaped, jewel encrusted brooch, aimed straight at Scapolite. "Star serious laser!" A beam of light shot out from the brooch, piercing through the monster's abdomen and causing it to shrivel up until it fell into a pile of dust. The wall of dirt and rocks the monster had made crumbled back into the ground, leaving an uneven pile of ruble along the once pristine road and sidewalk, but even as everything fell around her, Sailor Moon could only focus on one thing: the star shaped brooch in the senshi's hand.
"Nice work, Sailor Star Fighter!" the brunette senshi yelled, her arms still holding onto Sailor Moon.
"Sailor Star Maker, look over Sailor Moon. She looks pale. Was she injured?" Sailor Star Fighter yelled back to the brunette. Fighter had turned to look back at her, worry in her eyes.
Star Maker turned Sailor Moon to face herself, but Sailor Moon's head stayed turned toward Star Fighter, her lips parted in shock, her eyes unblinking. She could only see the brooch, in Fighter's hand, and then in her memory, the same, three, matching brooches in the hands of Yaten, Taiki, and Seiya from the previous day. Seiya had held it out for her, let her examine it, and there was no doubt that it was the same as the one Star Fighter held now.
"Yo, are you in there?" the silver haired senshi called out, waving her gloved hand in front of Sailor Moon's face.
"Star Healer, stop it," Maker chided, "she's been through a lot."
Star Fighter approached Sailor Moon and kneeled before Sailor Moon. She placed her hands on her shoulders, her familiar eyes looking deep into Sailor Moon's. "Sailor Moon, are you alright? I know we've not met before, but I'm—"
"I know who you are," Sailor Moon murmured, cutting Star Fighter off mid sentence. A small look of shock followed by confusion flitted across Fighter's face.
"What do you mean? We only just arrived," Fighter chuckled nervously, her eyes quickly zipping to meet Maker and Healer's gaze.
Sailor Moon felt her head spin and her lips moved lazily, as if she were drunk. "Seiya, don't lie to me." For a brief moment she saw Seiya's knowing look cross Fighter's eyes, and then her vision swirled before she felt herself fall forward and everything was dark again.
~oOo~
There was very little sound under the darkness of Usagi's eyelids, but she could smell roses and the familiar spiciness of Seiya's cologne. For now, she was safe. Usagi snuggled up against the warmth of the body beside her, reality not fully setting in as she transitioned from half asleep. If she could stay here forever, if she could just sleep beside Seiya's warm body, then maybe she would not have to deal with loving someone else, or go to the center of the universe to save that person, or deal with the fact that the person she had known was not the person she thought.
An unexpected sob escaped Usagi's chest as her eyes opened to find herself in Seiya's room. Nothing had truly changed except for Usagi—the feelings in her heart that swirled between hurt, love, and confusion. She had woken here many times before, but never under the strange circumstances that left her emotions reeling. Mamoru was gone. Seiya was Sailor Star Fighter all along. And Usagi was alone to make a decision that would come much sooner rather than later.
Losing Mamoru's wasn't necessarily a new situation. She had lost him before, whether it be to Beryl, or the Dark Moon circus, or to Galaxia…. That name again—Galaxia—the one she had remembered before, but could not place a face nor series of events to memory. It caused her head to throb. She had taken Mamoru, too, somehow, she was sure. But what was new now was Seiya. He was the chaotic variable that left her reeling. While Mamoru, at first, had seemed to be the rust that slowly began to grind the cogs of destiny to a halt, somehow Seiya had become the broken tooth that was causing the cessation of fate.
A soft, warm nudge brought her attention to Seiya's eyes who were watching her with concern. "Usagi, you're awake." He reached over to touch her face, tears in his eyes. "I'm so sorry about our fight. I'm sorry I didn't answer. I'm sorry I failed you today." Seiya was being genuine, she could tell, but Usagi could not form a response. In Seiya's eyes all she could see were Sailor Star Fighter's.
"Seiya," Usagi whispered, "was it a dream?"
There was silence for a moment, but the look that flitted across Seiya's face gave him away. It was the same look Star Fighter had given her when Usagi had said she knew who she was: shock and then confusion.
"What, exactly, was a dream?" The intonation in Seiya's voice was a little too high. He danced around the question in the same way Usagi had when she asked him if he was Tuxedo Mask before. Under normal circumstances, perhaps she would've let her guard down and the situation would have melted into their normal carefree mornings, but now everything had changed. In one way, it should have been a relief that Seiya was just like her, able to defend himself as a fellow senshi. For some reason, though, there was no relief. There was a tenseness because although everything should have revealed itself to be fine, the same gnawing reminder of memories that had not yet been revealed still haunted Usagi.
"Seiya," Usagi almost chided him, "are you Sailor Star Fighter? Is Mamoru really gone?"
There was another silence. Seiya's expression remained straight, the muscle of his jaw clenching for a moment. "Yes, Usagi. It happened. It's all real." He sat up beside Usagi on the bed, and pulled from his pocket the same brooch she had seen during the fight and from Yaten and Taiki as well.
Usagi looked to the brooch and back to Seiya's blue eyes. They were the same as always, but now she had so many questions. Just as her and Mamoru's memories had been altered, had Seiya's? Or had he already known everything? The clock ticking next to Seiya's bedside reminded her that time was still passing. Every second was another that Mamoru was left to the hands of their newfound enemy. There wasn't time for questions now. Those would have to wait for after the fight when everything was back to normal. There was a slight tinge of sadness in Usagi's chest. Her hand reached up to feel her heart beat beneath her blouse. For some reason, she felt nothing would be normal ever again. Her heart continued to beat steadily beneath her fingers, for once keeping calm under the events.
"There's no more time. Let's get Yaten and Taiki and the girls. I have a feeling we'll need to fight with everyone we can get," Usagi said in a voice unlike her own. It sounded wise and calm. She felt strong and brave for the first time in a long time. Now she had the power to change destiny rather than let it chisel her to its wishes.
Usagi moved off the bed toward the door, but Seiya grabbed her wrist, stopping her. She looked back, confused, but there were still questions to be answered. For Seiya. His eyes were pleading for another moment to collect his thoughts and to make sense of it all.
"Usagi," he began, softly. "Do you really love him?"
At first Usagi was confused, but then the final moments of the battle replayed in her mind. Mamoru had told her he loved her, and for the first time since they had regained their memories, she had said it back. It had been effortless. It escaped her lips like it had lived there, teetering from the edge of the high dive with one foot off the board. But at that time, she hadn't known who Sailor Star Fighter was. She had just said how she felt without the fear of ruining something else. She did love Mamoru, but she loved Seiya too. She knew she could not keep them both hanging in the balance, but both of them had become everything to her.
"I do love him," Usagi whispered back, the words hitting hard for herself as well. Finally, she could admit it. "But I love you, too, Seiya. More than I can make you understand, because I'm sure it doesn't make sense right now."
Seiya's sullen face forced a wistful smile. "I know. I should have known. But it's nice to hear you say it." His hand that held Usagi's wrist loosened, falling down the side of her pinky where it barely clasped onto the tips of her fingers. He pulled her slightly toward him, kissing the back of her hand. "I haven't given up just yet, princess. Let's save Mamoru so I can win you over the right way." Seiya grinned cockily, the singer's signature style returning once again.
Usagi reached out to hold Seiya's face between her hands. Her small frame stood between his legs as he sat on the edge of the bed. "Thank you, Seiya." His brilliantly blue eyes stared back at her, confident, and for possibly the last time, she leaned down, her hands dropping to his shoulders, and she kissed him. His hands followed in suit, hungrily reaching up to her head and back, holding her there for a moment as he took what he could. Usagi slowly parted, her hands back to his face and through his hair, her eyes filled with tears, but refusing to let them fall. "I promise, Seiya. I will always love you."
A/N:
I'm so excited for the next chapter and especially the epilogue (which I've already started writing out of order haha). But I know where this is going, and I'm happy to move it there. It's just piecing it all together that has become more difficult. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and will be back to see the next! Til then!