PRETTY SOLDIER SAILOR MOON: FUTURE

Chapter 54: Lighting the Way Through Darkness

"Midori!" Chibi-Usa screamed and impulsively shot to her feet. Several other people in the crowd stood up and gazed at the fallen girl in concern. Without thinking, Chibi-Usa nudged her way past some people in the same row as her, with Hotaru and Hikaru struggling to follow her. The trio reached the stairs and hurried down to the stage while medics and school staff attended to Midori. They reached the scene as two nurses worked to resuscitate her with CPR, while a teacher called for an ambulance. Midori was disturbingly pale and comatose, not responding to any external stimuli whatsoever.

"My goodness!" the medical student from earlier exclaimed. "How is she this cold!? If we had known she was this sick, we would have asked her to come another day!"

"I can help out!" Hotaru offered the nurses, and she tried to get Midori's heart beating again with rhythmic pushes on her chest.

"What's wrong with her!?" Chibi-Usa despaired. "Midori, talk to me! You're still okay, right!? Open your eyes!"

Hikaru had to grab her shoulders to keep her from interrupting the medics, and he exclaimed, "Don't worry! The ambulance is on its way!"

"I don't believe it! She has to go to the hospital!? Ahh, was it a mistake to bring her here!? I should have realized-!"

"It's not your fault! No one knew that this would happen! She might have some illness that even she doesn't know about!"

"Y-You think so?"

"Don't blame yourself. All we can do is stay by her side, for better or for worse."

Chibi-Usa calmed down and hugged Hikaru tightly, resisting the urge to sob dramatically. She desperately prayed that the 'better' part would happen rather than the 'worse'.

The ambulance took Midori to the nearest hospital, and several doctors examined her for any symptoms that they could find to diagnose her with some kind of acute attack. Unfortunately they couldn't find anything wrong with her externally, which meant that they had to run further tests to see if there was something internal. Her breathing returned steadily but she didn't regain consciousness, so she was given an oxygen mask and placed in a room for now.

Chibi-Usa, Hotaru and Hikaru had followed the ambulance and anxiously waited for a chance to see her. When the nurse told them that they could visit Midori, they reached her room and entered. A heart monitor was connected to the unconscious girl, so the only thing they could hear was the steady monotone beeps representing her heartbeat.

"Midori…" Chibi-Usa whispered.

"How tragic for this to have happened when she was doing what she loved most," Hikaru said. "I've asked the doctors what's going on, but no one seems to have any idea."

Hotaru frowned and murmured, "It's hard to believe that in this day and age, someone can fall ill with a disease that we've never heard of before."

"Is there anything we can do for her?" Chibi-Usa wondered sadly.

Hotaru closed her eyes in contemplation for a moment, then said, "Now that I think about it, there was a massive wave of negative energy emanating from her right when she collapsed."

"So you felt it too?" Hikaru asked her.

"Yeah. It definitely wasn't natural."

"I wonder…" the boy mused. "Perhaps it is related to the darkness lurking within Midori's soul."

His eyes suddenly shot wide open as he remembered, "Oh, yes! The last time I was able to enter her dream, something sinister invaded and forced me to retreat. I had no idea what it was, although it seemed to look like some kind of apple mired in hatred. Then the darkness that already existed in Midori's soul began to attack this strange apple, and I had to escape lest I become a casualty of their battle."

"An apple mired in hatred… Deep within Midori's soul…" Chibi-Usa murmured, then went pale as she exclaimed, "A Black Apple!"

Hotaru gasped, "You mean the same thing that attacked Haruka-papa!?"

"Yeah! That has to be it! The Animus Syndicate has infected Midori with a Black Apple! Her soul is being corrupted as we speak!"

"But that's strange. Haruka-papa's mind broke almost immediately once the Black Apple took control of her. Midori did feel very cold to the touch, but she didn't look like she was going to act maliciously at any point. She must have been infected for at least two weeks now, and yet she never attacked us."

Hikaru said, "It may have to do with Midori's own darkness protecting her from Eris' evil. The two forces are in a clash for control of her body and soul, and only now is that battle affecting her physically."

"That can't be," Chibi-Usa whimpered. Her worries for Midori only intensified after hearing such grim news. Even so, Chibi-Usa would not give up. She would not rest easy until she saved her friend from the Black Apple and heard what she wanted to confess.

"Say, Hikaru?"

"Yes?"

"If we went into Midori's dream with you, would I be able to use the Silver Crystal there?"

The boy thought about Chibi-Usa's suggestion for a few moments. "It's a possibility. The Silver Crystal should respond to your wishes regardless if you are awake or in sleep. I just fear of what it could do to Midori's soul, especially with the Black Apple fighting for control of her body."

"Then I'll use it just to light the way through whatever this darkness is! I won't do anything that could hurt her!"

"Indeed, that would be best. But I also worry for your safety within the dream world. As I am a priest of the former Golden Kingdom, I am not capable of combat."

"Leave that to me," Hotaru assured. "I will protect Chibi-Usa while she tries to save Midori."

"Very well. Then let us begin posthaste," Hikaru relented and instructed the girls to lie their heads down upon the bed. Then he used his power to have his spirit exit his body as Pegasus and guide Chibi-Usa and Hotaru's minds into Midori's nightmarish world.

When Chibi-Usa opened her eyes again, she found herself riding upon a white horse that had a silky silver mane and large angelic wings. Her fair flapped about in the breeze, yet she couldn't see anything that suggested they were either moving around or standing still against a strong wind. To her shock, the world around them was pitch black.

"W-What is this!?" she exclaimed, almost losing her balance and falling off the horse.

"Chibi-Usa!" she heard Hotaru shout directly behind her, then felt her friend grabbing her arm and keeping her steady. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. But this place is…?"

The winged horse spoke to them telepathically in Hikaru's voice, "This is Midori's dream world. As you can see, there is no sense of direction or vision in this dark place. It is an absolute void."

"You're right," Hotaru whispered. "I've been conscious for several minutes and watched Pegasus fly about. He wasn't lying; if we don't have something to light up the way, we'll be stuck here until we wake up."

"Why is this void even here to begin with?" Chibi-Usa asked. "What is this supposed to be? Is it really a nightmare, or something blocking our way?"

"I believe this darkness is an inherent part of Midori's being," Pegasus suggested. "Rather than something negative or sinister, it is an obstruction meant to prevent people from seeing who she really is. In other words, it's protecting her dreams, thoughts and secrets from outside invasion."

"But this energy feels so… evil. I've felt it before, too. Whenever I go back to the past and help Sailor Moon fight evildoers, I can sense this kind of miasma emanating from them too. It's like all of the worst emotions possible have been gathered and given shape. Why does someone as nice as Midori have something so terrible lurking within her soul?"

"This darkness though," Hotaru murmured. "It's very still and quiet. This must be what Michiru-mama sensed before as well. It's evil, but it's making no notion to hurt anyone. Like Pegasus said, it seems more interested in protecting Midori than harming others. For it to be an 'inherent part' of her though, it must mean that-"

"She was born with this darkness," Pegasus affirmed. "This is what I feared the most. If Small Lady were to use the Silver Crystal to dispel this evil alongside the Black Apple, it may wind up killing Midori."

Chibi-Usa grew upset, but remained determined as she said, "Then it shouldn't be a problem if I light the way through this darkness. All we need to do is reach Midori's dream and destroy the Black Apple before it can take her over."

"You're right," Hotaru nodded. "This darkness is little more than a hindrance."

Chibi-Usa cupped her hands together, and the Pink Moon Crystal materialized before her. It shone in brilliant colors and broke through the pitch black skies, revealing that they had been traversing through clouds. She concentrated her energy into the stone, and it generated enough energy to temporarily disperse the thick clouds while remaining weak enough to not cause harm to Midori's mind.

"Ah! I can see it, Small Lady!" Pegasus exclaimed and flew towards a large green orb in the distance.

"Is that the planet you were talking about?" Hotaru wondered.

"Indeed. Miss Hino told me that she witnessed a foreign planet in this girl's memory. It was a tiny, mountainous world surrounded in poisonous gas, much like this one."

"Then this planet is Midori's true dream world; the one that you, Michiru-mama and Miss Rei have not been able to see. Somewhere in there-"

"Is the truth," Chibi-Usa's voice became serious as she anticipated what they would find in this world surrounded by a silent evil.

Is this part of Midori's 'confession' that she was going to tell me earlier?

"The rest must be handled by you two," Pegasus said. "Please find the Black Apple and dispel it from Midori's spirit."

"Right!" the girls nodded and intentionally fell off of his back, surrounding themselves in pink and purple auras that gently floated them down to the surface. They heard Pegasus neigh one last time before he vanished and returned to the waking world as Hikaru. They looked around to see that they were near a small village on top of the planet's tallest mountain, which broke through the thick poisonous clouds that various toxic plants polluted the surface with.

"Is this the only town on this planet?" Hotaru wondered as the duo entered the hamlet through a path that divided some small farmland. They found several short-statured people walking around and either minding their own business or chatting with each other. The friendly atmosphere hugely contrasted the dark skies looming above them, although the girls assumed that this was part of this population's normal life.

Some children ran across the road playing with a ball, and Chibi-Usa hailed them over by yelling, "Excuse me!"

"Whoa! You new around here? I've never seen you two before!" a boy exclaimed.

"Yeah, you could say that… Um, do you know where we could find Midori?"

A girl blinked and asked, "You wanna see the village chief?"

"Chief?"

"Yeah! Midori's the descendant of the hero who founded this town with our ancestors, so his family members are always the chiefs!"

"The descendant of a hero?" Hotaru murmured under her breath. "Even though her bloodline comes directly from Chaos?"

Chibi-Usa said to the children, "We're Midori's friends and we want to visit her. But we've never been here before, so we don't know where she lives."

"That's easy! She lives in the biggest house overlooking the mountainside!" the boy pointed toward a mansion at the edge of the village. "I'm surprised she even has friends other than us though. She doesn't come out much and we've never seen her smile even once."

"You have to nag the heck out of her before she'll come out to play," the girl chuckled.

"Say, you two," Hotaru asked, "by any chance, does this world have a Sailor Soldier protecting it?"

"Yeah. That's also the chief's job. She goes out with some other ladies and fights evil in the other worlds."

Chibi-Usa and Hotaru glanced at each other apprehensively. Hotaru said to the children, "Thank you very much. We can talk to her ourselves then."

The kids waved them good-bye and continued playing while the girls walked toward the mansion.

"This is such a strange place," Chibi-Usa murmured. "It's so dark and ominous, yet the townsfolk are so friendly."

"Don't worry. This is only the world inside Midori's heart. It doesn't mean it's the real thing," Hotaru assured.

"But Rei said this is a vivid part of her memories, and Hikaru couldn't break through that thick darkness as Pegasus. We're only standing here because of the Pink Moon Crystal pushing aside that miasma to let us through. Is that darkness really part of Midori's soul, even though those kids said her great-grandfather's a hero? And then they said that being a Sailor Soldier was part of the chief's job, and if the chief is Midori... What is she trying to hide from all of us? I just don't understand anymore."

"Then we have no choice but to find her and ask those hard questions ourselves."