Chapter 9
Although he didn't particularly relish the sight of it, the giant shrine looming in the distance was probably a good direction to pursue on their endless journey. There wasn't anything else close enough to see that looked like a sound structure, let alone a place where they might find other people – or even a clue about where they were and how they might find the others and make it home.
Seiji sighed and hopped off the roof of the tiny well house, landing swiftly and quietly at the side of a stoic Minako.
She hadn't said much since the first time she'd saved his bacon, but he was under the impression that she was sincerely upset about being separated from the other Senshi. He'd tried to reassure her and keep a courteous, cheerful demeanor, but that had fallen flat. She had the focus of a laser beam, and not much had taken her attention away from what he surmised was her current mission:
Find and protect Usagi and the Senshi.
Looking as if she'd just climbed out of someone's garbage disposal probably wasn't helping her feel social either. She might be stoic and focused on her companions, but her silence didn't sit well with him, and he was worried about what state she might be in. The blonde he recalled at the start of all this had been bubbly, cheerful, and even a bit arrogant. This blonde was sullen and withdrawn and intense.
Pulling on her powers probably wasn't doing much to alleviate her woes.
When Minako looked to him and raised a tired, expectant eyebrow, he shook himself and came back to the present, feeling a tiny bit guilty, gave her a shrug, and gestured over his shoulder at the looming structure. She turned a narrowed gaze toward it, considering.
He could probably be more…talkative, but honestly being alone with a woman was something that had taken center stage in his nightmares one too many times.
Still. She hadn't really done anything worthy of this social discomfort, and courtesy demanded he set his anxiety aside. She wasn't like the simpering, flirty females that tended to hang all over him like his personal paparazzi. It had been disconcerting at first, but after he'd realized she wasn't like any woman he'd ever met, her presence had been more of a relief than anything else. He just didn't really know how to talk to her.
And her mood hadn't helped.
Still. Minako was just as lost as he, separated from the other Senshi. And if he didn't miss his guess, she might actually be their leader, which probably compounded any pressure she was already feeling. Seiji was pretty sure that wherever he was, Ryo was feeling that same pressure. He hoped the Senshi paired with his leader could handle a short-tempered, obsessive Rekka.
He glanced at the quiet Minako again, frowning. Whenever they paused like this, she seemed dazed, staying in place like a robot waiting for instruction. Not for the first time, he wished whatever had brought them here send them right back. She probably needed to see a doctor.
And anyway, Seiji was highly suspicious of the reasons they'd been given for the Senshis' presence. The Troopers themselves hadn't ever really had anything to do with the Underworld. Despite the darkness and demons they'd endured in the Youjakai, it was just that – the Youjakai, and had nothing to do with the actual land of the dead. If anything, this monster seemed much more focused on the Senshi and their abilities.
Something small, black, and shiny skittered up Minako's bare leg. Seiji caught sight of it in the corner of his eye just as Minako jerked reflexively, let out a squeal, and jumped up. Seiji reached forward, leaned down, and knocked whatever it was away from her skin. It was a good thing he pulled back afterward, because a golden laser beam enveloped it, exploding it into a tiny mushroom cloud.
Seiji stared for a moment at the smear of ash on the ground and then looked up at Minako, who was panting, with one hand on her chest, the other index finger still pointed at the thing on the ground.
He blinked at her. "I thought we were saving your powers as a last resort?" he inquired with a soft tone. Minako glared at him.
"It was crawling up my damn leg! Did you see it?! That thing was the size of Godzilla! It was probably going to wrap me up in a web cocoon and drain all my bodily fluids! " she wailed.
And there she was. The blonde he'd first met when this had all started. He stopped thinking about it when he suddenly had an arm full of girl, and he blinked again at the strange shift in mood. Bugs were a hard line apparently.
The scent of sugar and citrus teased his nostrils, and he tried hard to pretend he didn't smell anything but wasteland.
Because man, she smelled good, and the scent was a welcomed change, even at the risk of being a pervert. He turned his mind to other things in an effort to forget about how petit she felt against him or the way she smelled like sunshine. He blamed the absurd poetry running through his brain on their bleak circumstances.
Thinking about their surroundings sobered him quickly. It was difficult to forget why Minako had to be careful with her powers. She was already hovering inside of exhaustion. He didn't need her passing out on him. Even if she was willing to work tirelessly without complaint, she had limits, and though they didn't talk about it, she was probably getting close to those limits.
When they'd realized that only her attacks tended to make things stay down, she hadn't even batted an eyelash. Just worked with him to come up with a new strategy that served their needs, and then pressed them on their journey. Seiji hadn't known he could be this frustrated, and somehow, her unquestioning acceptance and shouldering of the burden made it worse. He admired her and respected her for it, but hated that she'd been forced to carry them.
He felt pretty useless, but he was getting accustomed to the feeling.
He set her down as the serious mood returned and gestured toward the shrine looming like a black cloud in the distance. It seemed like something they should be running from, but Seiji knew that only meant it was probably even more of a reason to expect to find the others inside of it.
"That giant shrine is probably a good place to start looking." He murmured. "I can feel the other Troopers through our armor bond, but since I can't actually reach Korin…"
She nodded, and then gave him a surprising – but welcomed – smile. "I understand. I agree. That looks like the sort of place everyone would end up. Okay Date, let's go find us a shrine. Maybe if we knock nicely, they'll set out tea and snacks." She flashed a V for victory sign at him. It was the greatest show of spirit he'd seen from her since the original battle that'd landed them here.
Seiji would take it.
He extended a hand to her, tilting his head towards the path winding sinuously through the garden, warmth coursing up and along his skin when she placed her delicate hand in his. Her facial muscles twitched a bit with the first step she took, a grimace appearing on her face and then whisked away just as quickly.
With slow steps, she began shuffling in the direction of the shrine – it wasn't hard to find the right way. The damn thing was impossible to miss from any angle – it looked ready to reach gnarled fingers out to pluck them from the landscape and devour them.
The blonde Senshi set her feet on the bleached pathway of what he thought of as a stone garden gone wrong, pulling away from him as she moved forward. The pines dotting the pathway were far too gaunt, their needles black and patchy, their branches skeletal hands reaching for the sky. The stones were polished shades of white, edged with yellow and gray, giving the impression of bones. The whole setting made him uneasy, and he scrambled to catch up with her.
He might not have access to his armor right now, but there wasn't anything wrong with his fists. He was determined to carry his weight on this team-up. Minako might have access to her powers, but that appeared to come at a price, and as he'd thought the first time he'd met them, any price was too much to pay. She might be shouldering the burden of keeping them safe, but he wasn't going to let her do that alone, no matter how understanding or matter of fact she acted about it.
They walked silently along the path, striving to mute their footsteps and make as little noise as possible. Things scurried through the scrub at their feet and into the surrounding garden, making them both twitch and jerk reflexivley, but he never actually saw anything, which was somehow worse. The monsters his imagination was dreaming up were almost as nasty as the monsters that were actually here.
Maybe it was because he kept expecting something to happen, but after an hour or two of the most uneventful walk he'd ever had in a creepy graveyard dimension, Seiji started to get a strange feeling. He tried to push it aside when nothing manifested – he was going to end up burnt out paying attention to every little tweak on his sense - but it persisted.
They reached the clearing for the shrine, which hunched over the small grassy area – and Seiji noticed some oddly shaped stones kind of sticking from the dirt in random directions. That strange sensation was building to a crescendo now, and he narrowed his eyes at the structure in front of them, trying to understand if that was responsible for the feeling of dread looming in his mind.
The path ended, and they kept moving towards the shrine, and the closer they got, the more the feeling built. He was so engrossed in trying to figure out what was swamping his senses that he nearly fell and broke his neck.
A delicate hand suddenly reached out from beside him, fisted a handful of his shirt, and yanked him hard to a stop. Seiji came out of his plodding stupor and stared at Minako without comprehending her for a moment. She shot him a friendly smile and tilted her head to the path in front of them. He noticed her hand didn't seem to want to let go of his shirt, and he ignored the way its weight seemed to settle over his heart, peering at the strange obstacle she'd brought to his attention.
It was a yawning, rectangular pit. Big enough to fit a person. And, in fact, he noticed as he peered more deeply that the pit seemed to be occupied. An elderly man was laying in the bottom of it, eyes closed, expression peaceful. Just…laying there. He didn't appear to be breathing. But Seiji supposed that was probably normal here. The miasma he'd sensed before was thick here, in the air they breathed even, and he could feel it pulling on his energy - making him tired. These graves were connected with the shrine, and his hair stood on end as he wondered what sort of menace might be waiting for them.
In that moment Seiji realized he'd actually prefer to be in the Youjakai right now, even if it meant facing down a war lord or two, or trying to storm Arago's castle. World domination was a pretty basic goal when faced with...whatever this place was. Everything here was unpredictable. Most strategy was useless. And Seiji liked strategy. He needed strategy. He was really hoping Touma could help in that department. He just needed to get to Tenku. This place was twisted and dark. Impossible to prepare for and eating up his energy just trying to stay on top of each moment.
The small fingers tangled in the fabric of his shirt pulled tighter, dragging him away from the edge of the pit, bringing him out of his thoughts. Grateful for being jostled back to reality and her vigilance over his well-being, he turned to smile gently at her. Without thinking, Seiji reached out, carefully untangling her fingers from his clothing and taking her hand firmly in his own, giving it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. Together, they carefully sidestepped the open grave and walked on warily for the next few moments, neither of them saying anything.
As they moved, shrouded in heavy silence as the miasma continued to thicken, Seiji realized that they were, in fact, surrounded by yawning rectangular pits, and he stopped walking. Minako jerked to an unexpected halt beside him since they were still holding hands, and she looked at him expectantly. He couldn't help but hunch his shoulders up as he looked around them. So many holes. Were they all just…open graves? Minako inched closer to him as they observed, until she was hugging his arm.
"What is this place?" she whispered, her voice thin with fright. Seiji steeled himself then. They'd get past this just like they'd gotten past everything else. Wanting to restore her confidence, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tucked her against his side, relieved when he felt her body relax a tiny bit.
"I don't know, but we'll get past it and into the shrine. Nothing seems to be moving, so let's just be as quiet and careful as possible." She nodded against his shoulder, and they progressed slowly, Minako still tucked against him. He tried not to think about how warm she felt there, or how comfortable the gentle pressure of her presence made him feel. He heard Minako gasp beside him suddenly and then felt her leave his embrace.
Chilled in the absence of her warmth, he followed somewhat reluctantly. He didn't really want to know what she'd found, if he was honest with himself. She was standing at the edge of a pit that had been right near the path and was now staring down into it. He didn't want to look – he absolutely did not want to look, but if Minako could do it, so could he.
He looked.
And he gasped.
In the pit, lying in black soil at the bottom, face locked in an expression of both agony and acceptance, was Minako. A much younger Minako. She looked like she couldn't be much more than a teenager. Her body was covered in terrible wounds, battered and bruised. But somehow, despite the grimace and the injuries, she still looked peaceful.
His first thought was that it was a trap. But when he tried to pull Minako back, murmuring a warning, she shook him off, her expression both intense and unreadable. A small tremble flashed along her skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake and setting off a new sense of urgency inside him. This…wasn't right.
"…Aino…" he called her name, shaking her shoulder in an attempt to break whatever lull had come over her. She blinked and turned to look at him, a strange expression on her face.
"That's…it's me." She swallowed. "That's me."
Seiji frowned, griping her shoulder now and trying to turn her, to keep her focus on him instead. She ignored him, her gaze going back into the pit.
"Aino, it's probably a trap. I know it's hard but back away. Let's go." He added steel to his voice, needing to keep her safe. Wanting her away from the horrible sight of herself laying there dead, wounded. Staring blankly at an empty sky.
Minako shook her head.
"No. That's me. That's….that's the first time I died. I didn't really think….I mean, I'm here right? I'm still here and me right? I came back. I'm alive." She exhaled sharply, hugging herself. "I'm alive. But…she was…here the whole time? Just lying here like this? Why?" Minako sank to her knees, wrapping one arm around herself tightly, a fine tremble weaving through her other hand as she tentatively reached for the younger Minako in the pit. She looked up at Seiji with eyes that now held a glassy sheen in them.
"I died so we could win. I died to protect Usagi. I gave my life to the Moon Kingdom. I don't understand why I'm here. I don't….this doesn't make any sense to me, but that's me. I shouldn't be here." She buried her face in her hands then, the tremble building, her shoulders shaking as she tried to keep herself together. Seiji felt a strange, unnamable anxiety sweep over him. He didn't understand what she was talking about. She didn't think this was a trap. She, in fact, recognized her own dead body, which was...well...
Kind of alarming.
She'd died? But she was here. And she had all the telltale signs of being alive. Heartbeat. Breathing. Warmth. Conversation. Had he been walking around with some kind of sophisticated zombie? What the hell was going on?
"I don't understand. What is this awful place?" She whispered from behind her fingers, face hidden as her body curled in on itself where she crouched at the edge of the grave. Her upset was far too real for her to be faking or hiding any kind of malice. He didn't know what was going on, but he trusted his instinct that Minako was the victim here. He just wasn't sure what she'd been the victim of.
Seiji hesitated, unsure of what to do. Clearly, she was upset. She had every reason to be upset. He wasn't sure how he'd be feeling if he came across his own dead body, never mind his own dead body from…well what exactly?
He frowned, crouching beside her and putting a tentative arm around her shoulders. When she leaned into him instead of pulling away, Seiji squeezed her shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture and let her lean against him, trying to offer strength as she wept and he worked to puzzle out what exactly had happened.
He lost track of time as they squatted beside the bizarre and horrifying scene, his own questions continuing to dead end. He shifted his mind then, wondering if there was anything else he could do to help comfort her. Hoping she'd explain why seeing another dead version of herself was normal even if it was surprising. Where had the dead girl come from? Did this happen to Minako often? It was just...Unsettling. Seiji had no idea what to do with this information, but any conclusions he'd reached on his own weren't helpful.
It felt like several eons had come and gone when she finally stirred against him. She rubbed at her face, sniffling quietly, and sighed, passing an arm across her eyes and stiffening up. He moved his arm, giving her space to rise, and she got to her feet with a wince, but avoided eye contact with him.
"I'm sorry. That was just…a shock I wasn't ready for," she said in a quiet, subdued tone of voice that did nothing to allay his mounting concern. Was this thing somehow connected to the Senshi? Had it hurt them before? His hands tightened into fists.
"You said she's you, I get that, but….who is she?" he asked, feeling confused, upset, and not understanding how to handle the situation. He didn't want to seem rude or like he was prying but…he was looking at a dead version of Minako when a live version was standing right next to him, and this was a bit too strange for him to process on his own.
Minako let out a wet sounding laugh, dashing her fingers beneath her eyes. She hiccupped and cast a glimpse into the hole.
"That's me. It's just a….past me. A past me that died in a past battle that took place a long time ago. I don't really get why I – why she's here. But I guess that's not much of a surprise when I think about it. I just didn't expect to see myself there. It's weird. I don't know what it means either." She flushed, and broke her gaze away, staring at her clenched fingers, suddenly shy and hesitant. "I guess I sort of assumed that uhh….past me's body would be gone. Or…on the moon. Or….I don't know. Not here. This is awful."
Ok. So she had died. And what? Been reincarnated? That made the most sense he supposed. Seiji shifted, casting another look around, hovering close to her protectively. He felt even more unsettled than he had before. Right now that had less to do with their surroundings and more to do with the fact that his companion had died before. She'd died. A pretty grisly death by the look of it. And somehow her previous dead body was now here, when she clearly had been expecting it to be...somewhere else.
That she expected to find her own dead body from a previous life anywhere was also kind of upsetting, but there was only so much weirdness he could really consider at one time, so he let that part slip past and focused on his new concern: Understanding why anything would take the trouble to find the corpse of someone's past life and then lay it her path.
This felt like some kind of dark threat to Seiji. He didn't like it. He didn't like it at all. He clenched his hands again.
And wait a minute. He turned back to her.
"You said a past you. Not just past you. Are there other past yous we might run into?" he asked her, wincing as the words left his mouth and he realized how insensitive he'd sounded. He forgot about his insensitivity when she hesitated before answering.
"Um. A few. Past mes I mean. There are a few. I haven't seen any others, but to be honest, I don't really want to see any others. Maybe we should just…you know…go. Away from here. Now. Because I don't want to know if there are other past mes here. Or anyone else I might know. Or if they do anything else besides lie here quietly. No Night of the Living Dead, please. Let's just go, ok?"
She'd begun to inch closer to him as she spoke, reaching out to wrap his arm with her own as she stared with trepidation at the other graves. Seiji didn't blame her. He turned his palm, twining their fingers without hesitation and hoping the gesture would remind her that he was here with her. Frankly, the idea of seeing a dead Minako coming after them made him feel a little faint. He attempted to put the image from his mind, guiding them both carefully through the remaining pits and stones toward the small mountain of stairs looming ahead of them.
But the image of her, lying there, so still, dug teeth into his mind and refused to let go. The more he thought about it, the more questions he had. Exactly how many times had she died? How had she died? What about the other Senshi? Who'd killed her?
Then his mind went to darker places.
How badly had it hurt?
Did she remember what death had felt like?
Had she been scared?
Seiji shuddered, wrapping their fingers together more tightly.
While he'd be honored to sacrifice himself to save his brothers, the idea of dying – more than once no less – wasn't exactly something he liked to think about. To remember every death? That seemed like unnecessary punishment. And if all her deaths looked like the one in the grave? He couldn't help but pull her a little closer. At least the armors went on to someone else when the Troopers passed. As they always had. As they always would.
They moved together in silence now, Seiji trying hard not to imagine all the brutal ways Minako might have died. And failing.
