My Way
By AzureChan

Chapter 15:

She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, smoking. Behind her, at the head of the bed, soldier boy was snoring loudly, one arm draped over the space she had just occupied. He had been way too young. It wasn't as if she was old or anything—hardly, she was only sixteen herself—but her specialty was men. Older men, who came to these private bars to share experiences that they'd missed out on for years because of the war. Companionship.

Eighteen-year-olds were so used to getting their way that it was hard to mentally penetrate them. That was what had happened with this young soldier. He'd leaned in for kisses, stolen some, reached for her, groped air for her, begged for her, and had finally muttered something about her being a prude before he passed out from all his booze.

Minako hadn't gotten one stinking secret out of him.

Una wouldnot be pleased.

The rain was relentless. Since she had left the camp, it had begun to pour even harder. Stinging, fat droplets carrying with them such a cold rebuke at her escape.

She clutched her rags tighter around her and kept walking, trudging through soggy earth and brushing branches out of her eyes. Usagi had ditched the Alliance jeep on the side of the road after she'd reached town. The woods had seemed like the safest way to travel since then, and she'd been fighting her way through foliage for at least an hour.

The sky was now an angry gray, though morning had arrived already. From all of her early morning training with Hiiro, she figured it to be about seven, which meant Kihono and Mikoshi were probably finished scouring the entire camp, looking for her.

Hiiro…

She wondered if he'd ratted her out. Hiiro was a tough, impenetrable person, but was he trustworthy? Could he keep a secret? Would he tell Kihono and Mikoshi that he'd helped her escape, and to where? The thoughts flowed in and out of her mind, just like her level of consciousness. Usagi hadn't slept for hours, had been walking for so long without proper covering from the storm, and was rapidly losing whatever strength she had left.

"Everything hurts," she mumbled sleepily to herself. A stinging sensation kept jabbing her side, and when she looked down, an ugly cut lay jagged on her waist, reaching toward her navel. She grimaced at it. "Stupid bush bit me…"

The faint sound of a honking horn brought her senses to alert, and before she thought about what she was doing, she was running toward the sound at full speed, dodging tree branches and wincing at those she couldn't. The horn was a heavenly sound—it meant there was a car, which meant there was a road, which meant another town, which possibly meant a place to sleep.

She crashed out of the foliage and slipped on the muddy street twice before she regained her balance. The car horn stopped honking as a man—a boy, really—stumbled out of a ratty-looking building. Behind him, a girl with shockingly long blonde hair was yelling something that Usagi couldn't make out, but by the look on the boy's face, it couldn't have been too pleasant.

And then she noticed that she wasn't on a street at all, she was standing in a parking lot that looked like it had been visited by war. Usagi supposed it had been used as a shelter for soldiers once, because there was a distinct symbol above the door the boy had come out of. It looked like a pretzel that had been flipped upside down. She'd never seen anything like it.

"AND DON'T COME BACK!"

Usagi's head snapped toward the girl standing in the old doorway. Her arms were crossed and there was a heavy scowl on her face as she watched the boy bundle into his car and drive away. After he was out of sight, the girl visibly sagged against the doorway, leaning on it as if she couldn't bear to stand up straight anymore. Usagi squinted, and when she did, she thought she saw a flash of red at the girl's side.

Suddenly, the girl across the parking lot jerked her head away from the road and toward Usagi. Time almost seemed to stop as they stared at each other. Usagi couldn't fully make out the other girl's features, but there was something familiar about her expression, her hair, and her structure. The hair on her body prickled with sweat and anticipation. Her scalp itched. She squinted again.

She almost looks like…

And then, almost as quickly as she had stared at Usagi, the girl turned around and went back into the building, then slammed the door behind her.

Usagi frowned and took a step forward. She winced. The scratch at her side had turned from a stinging feeling to a dull ache. Her body felt like lead as she trudged toward the door the girl had disappeared into. Invisible rocks pulled on her legs, her arms, her torso, and all the while, a mental hammer whacked away at her temples. She desperately needed sleep. It wasn't as if she had fully healed from her tuff with Wufei, either.

Bastard…

When she reached the door, she drew in a deep breath and tried to smooth her hair and rags as best she could. With all the courage she could muster, she balled her fist and rapped firmly on the closed door.

From behind the bar, Minako clenched her teeth tightly together as Bill, her superior, cleaned the wound at her side with expert, old hands.

"Fucking soldier," Minako seethed, wincing. "He actually had the nerve to cut me. I swear, Alliance soldiers are more dangerous when they wake up than they are in battle."

Bill chuckled softly, then pressed a damp cloth against her wound and secured it there with a bandage he wound around her waist. He clamped the bandage in place and pulled Minako's shirt down. "There," he smiled at her. "All better."

She smiled back at him, but winced again when she took a step. "I didn't get anything from him, Bill," she said, her face grim and serious. "I tried everything, and he just wouldn't give me anything. I think they're getting smarter. I think there're some camps we don't know about. He had a different patch on him than the usual Alliance guys. He had a—"

A knock at the door stopped Minako's speech. She looked at Bill, and he nodded toward the back door, the door she had just walked in a minute ago. She narrowed her eyes as he reached under the counter and came back up with a small hand gun. He tossed it to her, and she put it behind her back as she went to open the door.

It wasn't uncommon for an Alliance soldier to use the back door to get into the bar, but the bar didn't fully open until ten in the morning. It was only seven-thirty now. So for someone to be knocking on the back door at this early in the morning—now, that was uncommon.

She looked back over her shoulder at Bill as the knocking became insistent. He nodded to her, which meant he had a gun in hand and could back her up at any moment. With this knowledge, Minako swiftly opened the door and tightened her grip on her hand gun. "Can I hel—"

It was a girl. Minako blinked. It was the same girl she had seen come running from the woods a few moments ago. Close up, though, this girl was a bit frightening. Her clothes were mere rags covering her body, and they were dirty, soggy rags. The shirt she was wearing looked as if it had been white once, but it was now a muddy color, streaked with darker dirt and some kind of rusty red color. Her feet were covered in red and brown scratches and wrapped in brown rags, and her face was streaked with dirt, along with her hair. Water dripped from her bangs, which were plastered to her forehead. Her hands were trembling a bit, and dirt was stuck deep inside of her fingernails, which were almost ash with filth. And to top it all off, a bright red something was showing from beneath the large tear at the side of her shirt. Her breath seemed to rattle in her throat.

Unconsciously, Minako scrunched her nose at the girl; she smelled of rot and band-aids.

Usagi breathed heavily, leaning against the doorway. Her guess had been correct: she was standing face-to-face with Minako Aino, one of her best friends. The nostalgic pang she had tried to dismiss almost a year earlier hammered at her chest with full force. A thick wad of emotion hardened in her throat, and while she tried to hold them back, thin tears bit at her bottom eyelids. She tried to smile, but it hurt too much, so she just breathed out slowly. "I—I've been walking for a while, now," she stopped to catch her breath. "I was wondering if you have a room…"

A street rat. Minako's defense slacked and she stopped tensing. There were many homeless people around these parts due to the war, and many had often asked for a room at the bar. Some girls, really young ones whose appearance hadn't yet been ruined by war, often came by to see if there was a job for them, a way to make some money for themselves or their families. Though she wasn't cruel-hearted, Minako had turned every one away. They didn't understand that Bill wasn't her manager—he wasn't the one who paid her.

"I'm sorry," Minako said finally, her eyes softer than they had been a moment ago. If this had been an ordinary bar, she would have gladly taken the girl inside for a bath and some fresher clothes, but it wasn't an ordinary bar and the girl wasn't of any use to her or Bill. "We don't have any rooms here. You might want to try somewhere else. This is a bar, not a motel." She turned to go inside, but the girl reached out and grabbed her shoulder.

This time, Minako tensed and gripped the gun tighter. She'd learned much from working for Una. No one could be trusted, no matter how pitiful they looked. If this girl wouldn't go away on her own, Minako would make her.

"Look," she said, her tone rough, "I said—"

"You know me," Usagi said, sad and slightly confused. The voice, the looks, the hair… even the way she was trying to be mean. Minako always had been bad at being firm with people. Her girly appearance and rosy cheeks made her look too much like a little doll. When the two had argued before, their arguments had ended up in laughter and pillow fights. Usagi felt hurt, then removed her hand from Minako's shoulder. The other girl was staring at her coldly, suspiciously. Usagi figured Minako worked for some kind of organization, because she had seen the flash of metal behind the girl's back when she turned. Minako was carrying a gun.

"I don't know who the hell you are," Minako snapped, agitated. "I've never seen you in my life."

Usagi shook her head, looked over Minako's shoulder. An elderly man stood behind the bar counter, one arm visible and the other hidden. She reasoned he was armed, too. When she looked back at Minako, into the girl's shiny blue eyes, she almost couldn't understand why Minako didn't recognize her. Besides her battered appearance, Usagi figured she looked pretty much the same. But when only coldness stared back at her, Usagi remembered what Setsuna had done to her Senshi. Minako didn't remember Usagi.

"Hey!" Minako shouted into the girl's face. She seemed to be in some kind of trance. "You need to leave. I can't help you."

"I know you," Usagi said, and she looked pleadingly into Minako's eyes. "I could never forget you, Minako."

Minako's eyes widened and she took a startled step backward. When she did, she brought her gun up and pointed it at Usagi's heart. Her hands were trembling, but she held a firm grip on her gun. A sudden flood of emotions swam uneasily through her veins. No one had called her 'Minako' since she had left home so long ago. Now, since being part of the war effort, her codename was Barbie Doll, and she worked for OZ. No one knew her real name. No one.

"I don't know who the hell you are," Minako said again, part of her genuinely frightened. How did this girl off of the streets know her real name? Were there spies on the premises? Was she found out? This was Alliance territory. Were her and Bill in danger?

Usagi stared at the gun, then back at Minako. She could tell that she had stunned her former friend, but she didn't care. She needed the old Minako's trust, and she needed to gain it fast. Otherwise, this new Minako would shoot her without failure. "Please trust me," she tried, staring into Minako's watery blue eyes. "I need you to trust me, Minako,"

"Stop calling me that!" Minako didn't move when the other girl stepped forward and into her gun. The barrel rested against the girl's breast, and Minako's finger trembled at the trigger. "Who the hell are you?" Her voice shook.

Something deep within Usagi broke, and before she could stop herself, she began to cry soft, hiccupping cries. How could it have come to this? How could she have ever asked Setsuna to make her best friends forget her? She looked at Minako and slowly reached forward to grip the barrel of Minako's gun. The girl's eyes followed Usagi's every move. Usagi took another step forward and felt the gun press harder into her breast. "Please, Minako. Please just trust me,"

"Stop that!" Minako's mind was reeling. Not only was she crying, but every time the other girl called Minako by her real name, something inside of her heated up. It was warm, and it flowed through her stomach, churning and turning until it swept through her veins, her blood, and up her throat, making it hard for the girl to breathe correctly. She was gasping, breathing hard through her mouth. "You stop calling me that! Who are you? Tell me now, before I shoot you right here!"

From behind the counter, Bill was pointing his own gun toward the girl in the doorway. Barbie was like a daughter to him, for both had been torn from their homes and thrown into the war effort at separate times. In his mind, fate had brought them together as some sort of broken family, and like he would with his own children, he would defend Barbie as best he could. From what he could tell, this girl in the doorway posed a threat.

Usagi shook her head and more tears slid down her cheeks. "I really need you right now, Minako," her voice broke and hesitantly, she began to slide the barrel of the gun away from her breast. "Minako, please, try to remember me…"

"Remember you?" Minako growled, eyes wide and wet with her own frustration. "I've never fucking seen you in my life! Stop calling me that name!" Her hand was trembling and sweating horribly now, and she couldn't get her finger to stay on the trigger from the liquid. That warm sensation surged through her body as she shook, and she found it hard to stand.

"Minako," Usagi said again, and now she felt something heavy in her body, something thick and heavy and struggling to push free. Her eyes were burning, as were her hands, and in response to the feeling she clenched her fists. It was the same painful but familiar feeling she felt the night she healed herself back at the camp. "Minako, you remember me." It wasn't a request anymore. It was a command.

The warm but firm tone was so familiar that Minako almost erupted with tears. Yet she didn't know why. She couldn't understand why she recognized this girl's tone, or why she wanted to cry. All she knew was that she didn't have the strength to shoot this girl, this strange and dirty girl, and with a defeated cry, she dropped her weapon. It clattered uselessly on the ground, and Minako pressed her palms into her eyes to stop the tears. She was so lost, so confused. And to top it all off, that warm sensation had now engulfed her whole body. She felt feverish, flushed—too warm for her own good. What was this feeling?

Usagi mistook these actions. She felt her own sense of warmth flow throughout her. "Minako, do you remember me?"

This time, hearing her real name pushed her over the edge. Everything was too much at one time. With a ragged cry, a fearful cry, she backed up and screamed, "SHOOT HER!" over her shoulder at Bill. Immediately, the shot rang out, but before Minako could get completely out of the way, she stumbled over the gun she had just dropped. And then, with a sickening realization, she knew that she'd be shot instead of the girl.

Usagi drew a sharp breath as the shot pierced the air, and with everything she had, she rushed forward and bounded into Minako, wrapping her arms around the girl as she tried to throw them both out of the way. The scene reminded her so much of Mamoru. She was determined that no one else would die on her behalf. But before she could get them both out of the way, she felt something warm and wet encase both hers and Minako's bodies. There were two equal flashes of bright light, like two separate cameras going off at the same time. Yet instead of two white lights, there was only one, and the other was a bright, blinding, faded orange color.

Equally terrified, both girls let out two piercing screams in unison, arms wrapped tightly around each other, drenched in this wet, warm liquid and encased in this weird light. Only when the shot pierced the old wood of the doorway behind them did they both tumble to the ground, entangled in each other, coughing and sputtering as the liquid exploded in tiny sharp shards of what seemed to be glass, and colored with the strange orange and white light. A moment later, the shards and the light vanished completely.

Usagi coughed hard, forcibly, painfully, until finally, she vomited up some kind of dark green, almost black liquid and watched it spatter sickeningly on the ground in front of her. Then, to her horror, it started burning the ground beneath it, and with an angry hissing sound, bubbled and dissolved into nothing more than a black stain on the wood. She breathed deeply, sucking in great gasps of air while wiping her mouth of the saliva on it. Her arms were trembling as she used them to hold up her torso, and when she looked over at Minako, she found the girl furiously wiping her own mouth and watching with wide, petrified eyes as her own vomit burned and faded in front of her.

Minako covered her mouth with her hands and felt fat, wet tears slide out of her eyes and splatter on the blackened ground in front of her. She shook her head in disbelief and fear, and then lowered it into her hands and began to cry great, heaving sobs. Her body trembled when Usagi crawled over to her and she felt the girl wrap an arm around her back. "I—I don't understand," she choked through her sobs. "What—what was that?"

Usagi shook her own head and only held onto Minako. "I don't know, Mina," she said, just as confused. What the hell was thatBut she didn't have any more time to think about it, because Minako suddenly whirled around and wrapped her arms around Usagi's body. She sobbed miserably into Usagi's tattered and dirty shirt, and gripped the girl as tightly as she could. So tightly, in fact, that Usagi found it a little hard to breathe.

"Um… Mina—"

"I almost shot you!" Minako blubbered, wiping her nose and eyes all over Usagi's shoulder. "I almost killed my best friend!"

At these words, Usagi felt tears of her own start to slide out of her eyes. Minako remembered her! A great weight seemed to fall off her shoulders, and she wrapped her own arms around Minako, then began to sob just as loudly as the other girl. "Oh, Mina, you remember me!"

"I know!" Minako took a great breath and then resumed her tearful fit. "And I almost shot you!"

"I know!" Usagi responded, just as tearfully. "How could you do that to me?"

"I didn't know who you were!"

"I didn't know you knew how to use a gun!"

"I don't!"

And both girls began to sob even louder and just as miserably.

From behind the counter, Bill felt awful for shooting at Barbie's friend. But now what was he going to do? How would he explain to Una about Barbie's friend, the crying girl? He sighed and put his gun down, then figured he might as well try to console both girls before they ruined his good glasses with their piercing voices.

Hope you guys aren't too confused. A lot will be explained in the next chapter, which is coming soon ♥ Thank you so much to those who still read this!

AzureChan