Chapter 3
Minako dragged Venus down half of the steps of the Hiwaka Shrine before the Goddess threw her off.
"I can walk on my own, thank you very much." She huffed as she stopped on one of the steps to straighten her hair. While she was fixing her appearance Minako kept looking from her to the street below with an annoyed look on her face.
"So where do you go for fun around here?" Venus asked after she had made quite sure not a strand of hair was out of place. Minako didn't answer; she just stared at Venus in shock. "I said." The goddess rose her voice a bit, "Where do you go for fun around here?!"
The different voice level threw Minako out of her stupor. "Oh, well we usually go to Crown…" Venus smiled and grabbed Minako's wrist and started dragging her down the steps. "But shouldn't we find a place to talk…or something!" Minako yelled as she was being dragged down the other half of the steps.
"I'm bored!" Venus shot back. "I wanna go have some fun!" She finally let go of Mina when the two of them reached the pavement. Her face held an excitement that Minako just couldn't say no to, so she smiled and started leading the Goddess of Love toward the Crown video arcade.
While the two where walking loud whistles and cat-calls started up from practically every man they passed. Venus paid the rude greetings no mind, but after the first couple Minako started to get a little annoyed with them.
"Don't you hate when men do that?" Minako finally asked Venus, because even though she was ignoring them Venus still smiled each and every time she got attention from the males.
She smirked, "Actually I like the attention too much to get annoyed with it."
"Then why don't you acknowledge them?" Minako asked.
"Oh I couldn't do that." Venus started shaking her head and hands. "Mars would be far too angry with me if I ever encouraged it. She understands that people are drawn to me because of who I am, but would never forgive me if I chose to lead them on."
Minako scrunched up her nose. "There it is again. You talking like the two of you were romantically involved with each other or something." She threw up her hands and shook her head also.
"We are." Venus stated very plainly. "Mars is my soul mate. I could never even think about loving anyone else but her." Venus now narrowed her eyes. Minako glanced over and saw Venus staring at her.
"What..." She started to say but quickly stopped talking with the odd look the princess of Venus was giving her. The two finally locked gazes and a second later Venus's eyes grew in shock and she turned away.
"Oh my God!" She squeaked. "You two haven't found each other yet. I've just ruined the path of true love. What am I going to do…." Venus continued to rant about ruining her whole next lifetime while Minako stood there in shock over many things. First of all Rei and her where "soul mates" secondly it seemed as if just by staring into her eyes the Princess of Venus could see every romantic relationship she either had or was going to have in her lifetime.
When Minako came out of her daze she saw that the blonde goddess had stopped ranting and was leaning against a building, apparently in thought.
"It's ok." Minako said to her. "I won't tell Rei about it…Unless you think Mars will tell her like you told me." Venus huffed and looked up at Minako from behind her bangs.
"Do you think Mars would tell this 'Rei' about anything so personal? I mean would 'Rei' just tell anyone that walked up to her about her personal life? Or are the two of them really that different?" She turned her head away from Minako and started grumbling about how Mars was going to chide her about not being mature enough, and how this would've never happened if Venus could learn to keep her big mouth shut.
Minako thought about her questions while Venus kept berating herself. She concluded very quickly that Rei would not be finding anything out from Mars and that keeping this to herself would be a must. "Right." She nodded her head. "I just won't talk to Rei about it"
Venus's shoulders went slack, "You can't do that. Are you understanding what I've done to your timeline?" Minako shook her head back and forth, not understanding at all what Venus was trying to say. Venus sighed, leaned back against the wall and continued, "I've taken away your free will." Minako shrugged a little bit. Venus once again sighed and rolled her eyes, "Even though Mars is our soul mate, you still have free will to ignore that fact and if you two don't connect in this life time that will be something you need to fix in your next lifetime, but I've messed that all up! You already know she's your soul mate, so now you'll second-guess everything that happens in your life. You'll be reluctant to take on new lovers because of it, and every day that goes by that she's still oblivious will be heart wrenching for you. I've failed at my job." Venus looked toward the sky, directly where her planet would be if it could be seen through the bright lights of Tokyo. "Aphrodite can you ever forgive such a careless and unworthy avatar?" The patch of sky around the second planet seemed to brighten and a pale light surrounded Venus herself. She smiled, "You were always so kind to me."
Minako had been watching Venus from the second she turned toward the sky, and a small chill ran up her spine when Venus began to glow from the light of their planet.
"You can talk to Aphrodite?" Minako finally whispered, fearing to talk too loud and ruin the moment. "I've tried many times but she never seems to answer me. I always wondered why even though I'm the Senshi of Love I can't really tell when people are in love." Venus was about to open her mouth, but Minako kept on talking. "I mean I can tell things about my friends, but myself and strangers are a complete mystery. Shouldn't I just be able to look at them and tell?"
Venus was smiling. "Well," she started. "You'll never be able to know about yourself, that's just not fair now is it? As for the rest, the answer is simple. You have no ability to see love ties at all." Minako was about to protest, but Venus kept talking. "I mean that seeing love ties is a gift that I possess. You're able to see the ties with your friends because I've allowed you to. If everything goes well and we truly become one, then you'll be able to tell all sorts of things about a persons love life…probably more than you ever wanted to know." She added the last part in a whisper.
Minako caught the last part, and saw the tiniest bit of sadness enter Venus's eyes. "I'm going to hate looking at Rei now aren't I?" Minako whispered as she imagined seeing Rei's relationships with guys progress, all the while knowing that they were supposed to be together. She shuddered a bit.
"I told you." Venus remarked after Minako's shudder. "I've ruined your whole timeline." She hung her head.
"We'll deal with that later." Minako said shaking her head back and forth to clear the image from it. "Right now we have to make sure that the timeline Pluto has seen vanishes." She looked at Venus.
Venus met her eyes and nodded after a second and the two started walking again.
"Minako…" The Princess started to say in a small voice. "I'm not in the mood to play anymore. Take us some place quiet, ok?" Minako didn't answer, she just nodded and kept walking.
The two walked in silence for a while, which was very hard for both of them to do; the silence was thick but unavoidable. Neither was in the mood to cheer the other up, and so they were both lost in their own thoughts. Minako steered them to a park hidden behind a group of trees, and only stopped walking when they were in front of the swings and she had plopped down into one of them and started swaying back and forth.
The park was small and deserted at this time of night. All the different giant toys slowly moved of their own accord, whenever there was a burst of wind, causing an eerie feel to the space. The trees had lost most of their leaves, leaving their branches bare and empty, and causing the place to feel more like death and less like a place for children to play. This particular park was also completely surrounded by bushes making it difficult to spot from the outside. The over all affect was spooky to say the least. Normal people would not have wanted to step inside of it after dark, but these two young women were not normal people. They didn't hesitate at all until they were at the opposite side of the park from where they entered and finally started to look around. The place was creepy, but not creepy enough to scare them away. They relaxed a bit and looked over at each other.
Minako thought the Princess of Venus looked too at ease in such a spooky place; where as Venus thought the same thing about Minako.
"Aren't you afraid to be here?" Venus suddenly asked Minako as she sat down across from the blonde on the merry-go-round. Minako eyebrows rose in mild shock.
"I wanted to ask you the same thing. I wouldn't think a princess would be so at ease in a place that looks more like a graveyard than a playground." Venus looked a little hurt.
"I'm not just a princess." She stated as she straightened up as much as her back would allow while in her seated position. "I'm a Senshi." She stared right into Minako's eyes, almost daring her to forget it again.
"I know." Minako responded quickly, sorry that she had offended Venus. "I mean the only real battle you were in was the end wasn't it?" She asked as if she actually knew the answer.
"Oh right, my life is just lying about the Moon Castle. I forgot you already knew that." Venus shot back at her as she looked away, crossed her left leg over her right, and crossed her arms.
Minako realized she had truly offended the Senshi of Venus and said softly, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…" she paused, thinking about the right word to say. "belittle your life, or duties on the Moon." She opened her mouth to say more, but no words would form.
Venus looked back at her. Minako could see Venus's back slouch just a tiny bit. "Well, I guess from the moment we 'met' we have been tripping over each other, and hurting the other…So I'm sorry also." Venus countered Minako's apology with one of her own.
"What're you sorry for?"
A small smile crept onto the smooth features of Venus's face, "Well, for saying you weren't pretty enough for one." Minako's eyes lit up a bit, she had forgotten that up until now, but she relaxed quickly. "And, of course for potentially ruining our love life…."
"I'm sure 'we' will be able to fix that last one." Minako said with a saucy grin. "I mean, if the Goddess of Love can't seduce someone, then the rest of the world is in trouble!" She winked at Venus, and Venus doubled over laughing.
"I see your point." Composing herself she added. "But do try to make sure the seduction doesn't end up a one night stand…She really is too great to lose."
"Roger." Minako replied with a goofy salute.
"You see that's your problem." Venus replied.
Minako wasn't sure how to respond to that, so she shrugged with a confused look on her face.
"You lack military discipline. I am the leader of the Inner Senshi, the Guardians of the Princess of the Silver Millennium. Do you understand what that means?" Venus said as she stood from her seat on the merry-go-round.
"It means you guard the princess?" Minako responded with questioning stare.
"No. It means that I am in charge of three other soldiers. It means that I am the last line of defense our princess has. It means that the only Senshi equal to me is Uranus. It means that if Uranus is not present the rest of the Outer Senshi look to me for orders. It means that the Queen has meetings every week with me, in order to make sure the palace, and the rest of the kingdom is running smoothly. It means that everyone in the kingdom depends on me."
Minako felt her heart stop for a minute. Sure she knew about Venus's job as the leader of the Inner Senshi, but never had she thought about it like that. Her time as a Senshi has been spent taking orders from Sailor Moon, not really giving them herself. Would she be able to stand on her own when it came time for Crystal Tokyo?
"Wow." She was able to get out. "How do you do it?" She looked up at Venus with pleading eyes.
"That's the way I was trained." Venus replied. "I can see you don't take control very often." Venus gave her a stern look. "That can not be the case if we are going to combine. I will not leave my team without a true leader."
"Well…we've got Sailor Moo…"Minako started but Venus cut her off.
"Yea and who is this 'Sailor Moon' person?! I forgot to ask that earlier."
"She's Usagi…I mean the Princess's Senshi form." Minako replied calmly. "She runs the show, I don't, I mean we don't need to do much leading. She does it most of the time."
Venus's mouth was hanging open. "WHAT!" She practically screeched. "No no no no. The princess can't fight. She can't seriously fight. She's supposed to be protected. She can't be on the frontline." Venus kept stringing together everything to princess couldn't do, which was basically everything Usagi does.
"Woah Woah. Calm down Venus." Minako grabbed her arms put them down at her sides and started to rub them. "Calm down. It'll be ok. She's fine, the princess is fine."
Venus controlled her breathing, and gave Minako another stern look. "I don't usually get like this, but…she's seriously in the heart of battle?" Her face fell. "It can't continue like this. You have to take over. Sailor Venus is the leader, she protects the princess, not the other way around."
Minako nodded. "I know…and I promise that the minute Crystal Tokyo is up, Sailor Moon will disappear, and until then I'll still protect the princess especially since she's fighting next to me; but not only the princess. I'll protect the rest of the Senshi as best I can. I'll take care of every person in the world if I must. As long as it keeps Usagi safe, and it makes her happy, I'll do anything."
"Good." Venus took a couple of steps back from Minako. "Because they are all in your care now. Everything is in your care." A second later Venus was bathed in an orangey light again. When the light disappeared her sailor fuka was replaced with a red and black combat uniform.
"What's that?" Minako asked as she examined the outfit.
"This is my uniform from my time spent on Mars learning how to be strong willed and to become a great leader. I wanted to show it to you." She straightened into an attention stance. "Never forget that you are the one they will look to. Never forget that you are the one whose shoulders will feel as if they are supporting Venus herself. But also never forget to be compassionate."
Venus stuck out her chin and raised her arm in salute. "Tell her I love her, when you get the chance." Venus threw out her arm as her body vanished. With that Minako was left standing in the playground alone, and feeling very mature.
Author's Notes
Alright then! So I had planned to finish this chapter way earlier. I am so sorry that I have kept you guys waiting for almost a year. -_- That was horrible of me, and I do hope that I still have readers!
R&R please! ^_^ Thanks for reading!