LIVING A LIFE FORETOLD
Chapter 6: "Prescience"
A Sailor Moon fanfic
By Bill K.
The blue Fiat pulled up to the curb and parked. Energetically Haruka hopped out of the driver's seat without even opening the door, a habit she formed from racing. She was around the car to the other side in a flash, opening the door and helping her passenger, Usagi, out. Usagi was somber and withdrawn, a condition Haruka knew was the result of the bombing they'd witnessed and the subsequent human trauma that they hadn't been able to totally alleviate. Haruka didn't blame her. The sight of a dozen or so people burned and riddled with projectile glass shards simply because they'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time sickened her. And Usagi had always been so much more sensitive to such things.
"You going to make it, Dumpling?" Haruka inquired.
"Yes," Usagi said absently. "Thank you for driving me here. It was very kind of you."
She started for the steps that led up to Hikawa Shrine. Instantly Haruka was beside her, a gentle hand in the small of her back
"Come on, Dumpling," Haruka joked, flashing her a "bad boy" smile. "It wouldn't be much of a date if I didn't walk you home."
Usagi didn't smile.
Two-thirds of the way up the stairs, Haruka spotted Rei at the top. The priest was in her white and blue robes and clearly frantic. Her black mane of hair flying behind her, Rei raced down the steps to the two women. She clutched Usagi by the arms.
"What happened?" Rei gasped, nearly in tears. "I felt you half way across the district!"
For a moment Usagi's mouth moved but no words came out. Then anguish overtook her again.
"Oh Rei, it was horrible!" Usagi wailed and collapsed against the priest. "All those people! All those poor people!" And she cried on Rei's shoulder while the priest held her and supported her.
"You tell me all about it, Usagi," Rei whispered, stroking the woman's blonde hair. "I'm here for you for as long as you need me."
"But," Usagi hiccuped, tears still flowing like rivers. "But what about what you wanted?"
"I'll tell you after you're done," Rei assured her. They began heading up the stairs. Rei suddenly turned to Haruka.
"You might want to hear this, too," Rei told her, then added, "if you've got the time."
The words came out a little sharper than Rei had intended, though the feelings behind them did exist. If they fazed Haruka at all, she gave no sign. The lanky woman merely nodded and headed toward the Shrine with them.
Above them, Deimos and Phobos circled and chattered urgently.
Ami approached the nursing station in Intensive Care mechanically. Her attention since entering the ward was on the glass cubicle Ryo Urawa was in. One of the two guards by the door glanced at her. He recognized her from before and his mouth hardened, but he made no other moves.
"Back again, huh?" the duty nurse inquired. Ami turned to her and found it was the same woman from her previous visit.
"I don't mean to be a bother," Ami mumbled.
"Hey, it's nice to know somebody cares about him," the nurse replied. "I've seen patients in here for as long as a month and the only people who visited were the attending physician and the assigned nurse. Now THAT'S sad."
"Has there been any change in his condition?"
"No," the nurse replied, "and in a way that's good. It's too bad that Sailor Moon can't come back and spread around a little more of whatever she did."
"A great many people depend on her," Ami remarked, "I imagine. There's only so much even someone like her can do. So it's all right if I go in?"
"You're the doctor," the nurse smiled. Ami nodded and headed for the unit Ryo was in. The guards passed her through without incident and she sat down next to the bed.
"Ami," Ryo smiled weakly. "Have you been gone long? I have trouble keeping track of time."
"It's afternoon," she told him. "I imagine you've been sleeping."
There was a pregnant moment.
"It looks bad, doesn't it?" he said. Ami shifted uncomfortably. "My wounds, I mean. Don't lie. You never could do it convincingly. You don't have to give me false hopes. I took four bullets. That's not a cut finger."
"You would be smart enough to figure that out," Ami remarked. "Yes, you're in very bad shape, Ryo. But it doesn't mean you can't pull through. We're doing everything we can for you."
Ryo smiled weakly. "Encouragement you were always good at. Go ahead, Ami. Ask what you want to ask. I'll try to stay awake this time."
"I don't want to overtax you," she offered.
"Some things are more important than personal needs," Ryo said. Ami stared at him. He'd said it almost like it was a credo. "Ask away."
"You said you were trying to stop the assassination of the Prime Minister," Ami began. "Who was trying to kill him?"
"His bodyguard," Ryo exhaled. "The one rear left. He had a knife in a spring feed harness under his coat. Was going to stab him in the back inside the reception hall." Ryo's face became more agitated. "I had to stop him. It would have been the end. They would have risen. They would have destroyed the world."
"Who?" prodded Ami.
"The Hard Suits," Ryo gasped out. Ami glanced at the vital sign monitor.
"Ryo," Ami said, placing her hands on his chest. "Ryo, please! Calm down! In your condition you must conserve your strength."
"No," Ryo gasped. "You have to know, Ami. You have to know. If Arashi dies, the end will come. No one can stop them. No one - - not even the senshi. I saw them. I saw them die." He glanced over at Ami with what Ami could only describe as desperation and perhaps just a hint of paranoia. "I saw you die."
"You thought you saw me die," Ami tried to reassure him. "You did think that once before and it proved to be a misinterpretation of what you saw."
"Not this time," Ryo shook his head. The man was in anguish and not just from his injuries. "But it won't happen now. As long as you keep Arashi alive until you stop them."
"Ryo, who is this 'them' you keep referring to?" Ami asked.
"The Hard Suits," he exhaled. "Killing machines. I don't know who built them. I don't know how they run or what sustains them." He gasped for air, a rasping wheeze that made the hackles rise on Ami. She glanced at the vital sign monitors again. "All I know is they can't be stopped."
"Ryo," Ami said, leaning in and clutching his hand. "Please stop. Think of something pleasant. Focus on it. Breathe in and out slowly."
"Yes, Doctor," Ryo smiled and did what he was told. As his breathing steadied, Ami sat back in her chair. "Ami, you're the best medicine I've had in a long time."
The doctor felt herself flush.
"You still get embarrassed by affection," he chuckled wanly. Then he sighed. "Oh, I wish things had been different between us. A day hasn't gone by that I haven't missed you. I'm sorry if I'm embarrassing you."
"You didn't have to leave," Ami reminded him.
"Yes I did," Ryo replied, his eyes clouding over with inner pain.
"Why?" Ami forced herself to ask. "I wouldn't have bit you."
Ryo frowned. "I had a vision of us."
Ami took in his expression and body language for a moment. "A bad one?"
Ryo scowled. "We were almost fifteen. You got pregnant. You defied your mother and carried the - - our child - - to term. You dropped out of the senshi. Because of that, things didn't go well against the Death Busters. You had just come out of labor when Pharaoh 90 encompassed Earth." Tears rolled down Ryo's cheeks. He was clearly haunted by the memory. "You and our daughter - - died screaming - - along with everyone else."
Ami's hand slithered into Ryo's. He gripped it as hard as he could.
"So I stayed away," he whispered.
"It must have been so hard for you," Ami offered.
"If it was the last time I'd see something that horrible, I could have lived with the pain. But it wasn't." He turned his head slowly, weakly, to Ami. "Can you possibly imagine? You walk into a store and buy a canned drink. When the clerk touches your hand to give you your change, you suddenly see she's going to be shot and killed in a robbery in seven months. And you don't dare say anything because you don't know how warning her will change the future. It might save her, but it might just make things worse. The bandit might just go somewhere else and end up killing a school bus full of children - - or something."
"Ryo," Ami tried to interject. She recalled Usagi mentioning in one of her e-mails several years ago about a gunman killing a school bus full of children.
"And that was just one time. Every third or fourth person I came in contact with brought a vision with them. Many were ordinary. But there were tragedies, too. More than one. When it happened, at first, I actually tried to warn them," Ryo continued, his breath occasionally rattling in his damaged lungs, "like I did when you were going to be attacked by the Rainbow Warrior." He sighed with fatigue and guilt. "They didn't believe me. I'd keep trying until they'd call the police. That's why I've got a record now." He sighed. "After a while I'd stop trying."
Ami looked at the vital sign monitors. Silently she signaled the duty nurse.
"Mostly I just withdrew. Even the good visions became more than I could take. I had no right to be that intimate with a perfect stranger. I had no right. If I saw something that I couldn't ignore, I'd try to intervene myself. Usually I managed to change things just enough that what I saw didn't happen. Sometimes I just made things worse. And whatever happened, it wasn't without consequences. The world began to look at me as delusional and paranoid. I lost jobs. Drove people away. Between the police records, the spotty job history and the chronic depression of seeing vision after vision come true, tragedies that I should have prevented, but couldn't - - or didn't, I just," and he looked up at the ceiling helplessly. "Sometimes I wonder, Ami - - why me?"
Ryo noticed the nurse then. She was at his IV line, injecting something into the drip. The shell of a man glanced at Ami.
"It's a sedative," she told him. "You're becoming far too agitated, Ryo. It's not good for you in your present condition."
"You're the doctor," he whispered. "Just - - please say you believe me."
"I do, Ryo," she said, squeezing his hand. "The evidence is too great not to."
"Thank you," he sighed. His eyelids drooped.
"I'll visit you again, Ryo. I promise."
"That's good," he said, his speech slurred by the drug. "We had a beautiful daughter, Ami. She looked just like you."
As Artemis typed on his computer keyboard, studying the results displayed on the screen before him, Minako walked into the room. She had on cut-off shorts, one of Toshihiro's old shirts knotted at her midriff and was munching on pastry she'd picked up on the way home from Hikawa Shrine. The woman flopped down on the floor, sitting cross-legged next to the white cat, flipped her long blonde hair back and peered over his shoulder.
"Those will make you fat, you know," the cat commented dryly as he typed.
"I'll sweat it off in dance class," Minako countered. "Besides, Toshi-chan likes rounder women."
"You may have a series to shoot soon," Artemis reminded her. "And the camera adds ten pounds."
"Leave me alone or I'm going to add ten pounds of my foot to the back of your neck!" Minako huffed. Then she pushed the rest of her pastry into her mouth just to spite him. "Vou vine anyfig?" she mumbled through the pastry.
"No," the cat scowled. "It'd be nice if I knew where to look. About the only thing I have is a nice little police record for Urawa."
"For what?" Minako asked, peering at the screen.
"Eight arrests, ranging from stalking and menacing to a couple of battery counts," Artemis related. "Two convictions. He did nine months in prison about two years ago on a battery charge. He's also had two court ordered mental evaluations."
"Were you able to hack into them?"
"Please," huffed the cat. "I'm a professional. His last evaluation judged him as functionally sane, but subject to bouts of paranoid schizophrenia and depression. Sounds like your basic recipe for a crazed assassin to me."
"And me," nodded Minako. "And yet both Ami and Rei say he didn't do it and that's good enough for me. Still you have to wonder where he went wrong."
With that, they both heard the door open. Minako sprang to her feet and ran out in the hallway while Artemis saved his files and hid his computer. Toshihiro was in the hall, impossibly, because he wasn't due back from his production meeting until at least five. Minako glanced at the clock and it said three forty-one.
"Hi, Toshi-chan!" Minako chirped anxiously. "What are you doing home? Did the meeting end early?"
"No," the chubby director sighed, picking up a folder that was laying on the hall table. "I left without my notes on the camera movements for the second act. Sometimes I think I have to pin something to my forehead to keep from forgetting it. How'd your date go?"
"D-Date?" Minako sputtered.
"With 'the gang'," Toshihiro muttered and Minako could see he was still hurt by the events of that morning. "Damn it, that third page isn't in here. It must still be on the pad."
Toshihiro turned toward the bedroom. Unsure if Artemis was cleaned up yet, Minako moved to intercept him.
"What are you doing?" Toshihiro asked.
"Um," Minako replied, momentarily stuck.
"Minako, what's in the bedroom that you don't want me to see?"
"Nothing!" Minako replied too quickly and she knew it.
Her beau's eyes narrowed. He pushed past her and opened the door to the bedroom. All he found was Artemis curled up on the foot of the bed, looking at him.
"See," Minako said defensively. "Nothing. God, paranoid much?"
"Minako, what are you hiding from me?" Toshihiro asked. He wouldn't look at her.
"Toshi!" the blonde moaned.
"Are you in love with someone else?"
"Toshi, don't say things like that!" Minako protested. She eased around to face him and draped her arms around his neck. "Toshi, I don't need anyone else. I'm right where I want to be - - with you."
"That's not a denial," he said, anguish in his puppy dog eyes.
"Toshi, I love you!"
"That's not a denial either."
Minako bowed her head in frustration.
"Minako, I know I'm not the handsomest guy . . ."
"OH WOULD YOU STOP THAT!"
"Well what am I supposed to think? I'm not stupid, Minako! You're clearly hiding something from me! You're not as clever as you think you are! You're a beautiful woman! I'm just a lumpy, dumpy guy who makes handsome guys look good on camera! And given your track record . . .!"
"Man, you make one mistake and it dogs you for the rest of your life!" the blonde fumed bitterly. "Toshi-chan, this is different from my first marriage! I didn't love Tomokazu! I love you! I am not having an affair!"
"Then what are you hiding?"
Just then Minako's cell phone sounded. For a moment she wanted to ignore it, but Minako realized that it might be Rei or Ami with new information on the case. She opened the cell phone as Toshihiro looked away with disgust.
"Hello?" Minako asked.
"It's Ami," the voice on the other end said.
"This really isn't a good time, Ami."
"I apologize. Ryo identified the assassin as one of the Prime Minister's bodyguards. If you can find video of the incident, he's behind Arashi and to the left."
"Got it," Minako replied and hung up.
"Was that him?" Toshihiro asked.
"Yeah," scowled Minako. "I call him 'Ami' so my jealous boyfriend won't suspect."
"I'm sorry if I'm being irrational. The thought of losing you makes me that way."
"You're not losing me!"
"Then what is it?" Toshihiro demanded. "What are you hiding?"
Minako exhaled and looked to Artemis. The cat returned her look with a helpless one of his own. Then she grew a resolute expression that Artemis recognized all too well.
"I didn't want to tell you because I didn't know how you'd take it," Minako said, her manner stiff and clipped. Her hand went up into the air. "I'm hiding this."
Her henshin stick appeared in her hand.
"Where did that come from?" Toshihiro gasped.
"The same place this did. Venus Planet Power Make Up."
Minako seemed to be enveloped by light. When it dissipated, she was gone and the sailor senshi Toshihiro recognized as Sailor Venus stood before him.
"Minako?" Toshihiro inquired numbly.
"Satisfied? Now if you'll excuse me, Sailor Venus has bad guys to catch and a world to save."
She headed for the door, motioning Artemis to follow. Toshihiro's head was still spinning when he heard the door slam.
Continued in Chapter 7