I never own Sailormoon
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Everyone hopes to have many luck as they can get without counting the blesses they currently have. As for her, she didn't want all the luck in the universe to be upon her. But it did. And she had witnessed it how the curses turned into bless and the luck replaced the misfortune.
Haruka paced around the room with only wearing a bathrobe. Setsuna, no… Pluto had told her to grab anything from her giant wardrobe. Although the older woman had forgotten to mention that the giant wardrobe only contained with night gown dresses.
Haruka had woken up this late morning on the floor. Commonly, she would've felt sore on her back, but since it was the fancy royale room she was sleeping in, even the carpet felt fluffy. The blond remembered how she had been sharing stories with the princess. It wasn't surprising that Haruka had come naturally felt comfortable around her.
"Why you are still wearing a bathrobe?" Pluto asked from behind her. Haruka startled as she found the older woman who was holding a tray of breakfast called her. Even in another dimension, this woman really loved to appear randomly on people.
"This is your breakfast, and the princess is waiting for you at the shrine."
"Wait, you know that there is none inside your wardrobe is appropriate for me to wear, right?"
Pluto frowned, "but I have several clothes that resembled your dimension's fashion style."
Haruka's jaw dropped, "yes! But all of them are under categorized inappropriate!" Haruka entered the closet and pulled several dresses. Most of them were having too 'less' to cover even her front and her back.
Pluto raised an eyebrow. "Okay then… Actually, I've seen this would likely to happen. Just wait here. I have the maids tailored your clothes based on your dimension outfit you were wearing yesterday."
"You should've told me earlier. So much for the seers power…" Haruka murmured the last sentence.
Few minutes later, Haruka was ready to meet the princess with her new outfit. Pluto really had done it precisely as the clothes were even more comfortable than her original ones. Haruka was wearing a white shirt covered with a grey vest. Pluto explained that Haruka shouldn't attract attention while she was outside. People would catch her resemblance face with Uranus in second. So, Pluto had made few arrangements as to give Haruka thick glasses as disguise. The glasses made Haruka looked like a fool but she couldn't do anything about it since she only had the glasses or a long black wig as a choice.
"So, what's with the shrine?" Haruka asked after they fell into silence while heading for the shrine. She had to admit that she could've lost by herself in this freaking huge castle. The halls were labyrinth with similar doors on each side. There were rarely marks or direction signs in the hall. There were few guards passing by but Haruka doubted it that they would give direction to a stranger.
"The Poseidon's shrine." Pluto replied. "It was built to respect the king and the founder of this planet." They finally reached the end of the hallway and stood in front of a wooden gate that was heavily guarded.
Pluto nodded slightly and few guards pulled the lever to open the gate.
Suddenly they were outside of the castle. Haruka's first impression was blue. A vast blue ocean spread as far as the horizon.
"Where is the shrine? I can't swim." The blond pointed at the water which seemed so deep as she wasn't able to see the bottom of it.
Pluto smirked. "It's here."
Haruka watched Pluto bent down closer to the water. Moment later, the sea was split into a half and revealing stairs toward the under.
It was the second time in a day Haruka's jaw dropped. "Are you kidding me?" Haruka blinked. Even Setsuna in her world didn't have the power to split the sea like a prophet.
Pluto chuckled, "This isn't my power, Haruka. It's the power of Poseidon and the sea itself. It means you and I are granted permission to enter."
Pluto gestured her to go first which Haruka obliged. The blond was amazed during their journey to the bottom. Several minutes walking down the stairs, they met another gate. Haruka looked back to Pluto as the gate although unguarded appeared to be locked.
"Just go, Haruka. If they didn't allow you to enter, we could go back to the castle."
Haruka was really confused. She shrugged and lifted her hand to knock her way in.
Before she managed to do that, the gate screeched open.
Haruka wasn't the only one who was surprised.
Haruka walked in but this time, Pluto didn't follow her. Haruka looked back and see Pluto was smiling at her with the sad eyes. The woman suddenly seemed older than her age as frowns and sadness decorated her face.
"Pluto?"
"I am sorry, Haruka. I lied. From here on, you must go alone. There are reasons why you are here, in this dimension." Pluto slightly pushed Haruka toward the other side of the gate.
"What? Hey! Pluto!"
The gate closed before her.
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She was used to be a morning person. As princess of her planet, she had a habit to wake up early in the morning and get ready to do her routine. However, today was different. First, she had woken up on that person's arm after listening that person's story all night long. She was grateful that she had woken up first. If it had gone differently, she didn't know if she could bear the shame.
Second, she had felt strangely too comfortable with this person. Aside from the similar appearance with her Uranus, this Haruka person was completely very different person in the inside. Haruka was rude, blunt, selfish, and inconsiderate person. Although she couldn't blame Haruka since the blond was surely in shock to find herself thrown into another dimension.
And then, until this exact moment, her mind was occupied by the event last night with Haruka. That kind of distraction had ruined her routine and schedule. She had mistakenly wearing different shoes on each foot and even she had been smiling like a fool on a royal funeral ceremony. Because she recalled Haruka's story about Pluto's weird habit in her dimension.
The princess decided to visit Haruka after her work had cleared. This time, she didn't care how but she terribly missed Haruka's companion. It had been long time since…
No. Don't go there, Neptune.
The princess shook her head. She was on the way to the throne room when the head of the guards reported to her.
"Princess." He bowed deeply until the princess told her to lift up his head.
"Her highness Pluto wanted me to inform you that she is waiting for you at the shrine's gate."
Neptune nodded and dismissed the man. She wondered why Pluto wanted her at the shrine. The ceremony was still weeks away. Poseidon's shrine could be said as Pluto's working place. Neptune rarely visited the shrine unless there were ceremonies or priest's prayers event. That was because only certain people are allowed to open the gate. The Poseidon's shrine gate was controlled by the will of the sea and the Poseidon himself. That would mean that Pluto had something really important to discuss with her.
While arriving at the front gate, Neptune was greeted by Pluto. The priestess appeared very gloom. The princess had learnt her lesson about Pluto's gloomy expression. Whether a very bad situation was happening or someone was dying.
Neptune halted her steps and waited for Pluto to speak first.
"Haruka is inside."
Now it was her turn to frown, "what? Haruka?"
"Yes. It appears, Poseidon grants her permission to enter." Pluto shifted her staff to her right hand. The movement didn't go unnoticed by the princess.
"… There should be a mistake. It's impossible…"
"She is inside." Pluto repeated her words.
"No, Pluto… no one except you and me could be granted the permission. Unless…"
Pluto's eyes turned dark, she straightened her posture and stepped closer to Neptune. "You know that your luck is running out, princess…"
"I don't care… you know that I don't give a damn to that thing!"
"Poseidon has seen it too about Haruka."
"What about her." Neptune asked weakly. It became more difficult to hide the fear in her voice.
"….Haruka was born under the same star like Uranus. She is a soldier too."
Neptune's body went slack, for a moment she had defeated expression on her face.
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Haruka paced around in circle inside the super huge shrine below. There were not much sight aside 3 enormous statues in the room. Haruka acknowledged the bearded old man statue in the middle as Poseidon. However she had no idea the rest two women statues that was sitting beside the king of the sea. One of the statue woman had wavy hair that looked like Michiru slash Neptune. Haruka guessed that she probably was Neptune's mother.
"Fine! Pluto has trapped me here, there must be something. Perhaps there was portal connected to my world somewhere." Haruka quitted pacing around and now checked every corner for a hole or a suspicious door.
After an hour she settled back empty handed. She sat cross legged on the pavement floor while looking at the Poseidon statue. "If you could talk, you can give me a hand here… I don't know what to do, o king of the sea!" Haruka sing a song the last part.
"I thought you'd never ask." A deep hoarse voice replied.
Haruka jumped up from her position, looking her surroundings. "… who's there?"
"You just talked to me." The voice answered again.
Now Haruka looked up to the Poseidon statue. It was still in its position and not moving even an inch. "So… are you Poseidon?"
"I am the sea, my child."
Haruka huffed. She was not his child! The blond decided she never liked his tone calling her 'child'.
A deep chuckle sounded like a thunderbolt echoed through the room. "So, what should I call you, my child?"
The king of sea just read her mind. Great.
"Haruka is fine, in case you confuse my face with someone else…" Haruka sarcastically answered.
"Your faces and soul perhaps similar with the late Uranus but you both are very different entities. The fact that you both were born in different worlds has spoken itself."
Haruka didn't know whether that was a compliment, "well… thanks, I guess."
"Haruka, your mixed in into this dimension wasn't unintentional. You served a purpose here."
He appeared as an old man so Haruka didn't expect the sea God to be direct over the matter. But he did and that had taken Haruka off guard. "Excuse me, what?"
"There is a reason for you being here."
Haruka processed the information. Pluto had told her about how dimension was recently in unrest so, she had concluded that the dimension had messed up in nature but then what the Poseidon had said was the opposite. She was here because of a reason.
"So, what's this reason? You mean, after all this reason cleared out, I can go back to Michi - home right?" Almost saying the name she loved the most in all dimension and universe made Haruka almost cried. However snowball chance in hell the blond would let the Sea God had the satisfaction on the view.
"Before that, I need to show you something."
A bam sound and Haruka suddenly felt gravitation force had pulled her down to bottomless pit. Her surrounding turned dark and she was falling.
What!
And when the feeling abruptly stop, Haruka felt sick in the stomach.
"ugh…" After a hell of ride, Haruka looked up only then she was greeted by a flying sword.
Haruka barely dodged the upcoming sword when a spear this time charged toward her.
"Seriously!" Haruka jumped to the side. Her senshi instinct kicked in and took over the flying weapons. It was the next second that she finally noticed her surroundings. She was in the middle of a battlefield right now. Horses, soldiers, sound of metals hit each other, screams of pain and blades met flesh were around her.
"What the hell…" Haruka was dumbstrucked.
"You don't need to dodge that, Haruka." Poseidon emerged right above her. It was Haruka's first time to see the king of the sea in his almost human form. He was floating and almost transparent in her sight.
"This is just a visualization of the past. Now, just watch…" He said. He pointed toward a soldier with black armor riding a black horse. Haruka took a note that the black soldier seemed different than the rest of army. He was very agile and fast slaying the enemies. One swing of his sword and 10 men would be swept away, dead.
"Who is he?"
Poseidon flashed a thin smile. It was very hard to figure the smile behind those thick beards.
"Wrong question, Haruka."
"What do you mean?"
"You should've asked who she is." Then the Poseidon made a gesture with his finger to shut Haruka up and watched the event. Now Haruka felt like she accompanied an old man watching a movie.
The black soldier did have some curve in her figure beneath the armor. Several moment later the battle seemed to come to an end. The black soldier got down from the horse and took off her helmet.
"Holy shi-" Haruka cursed but Poseidon shushed her.
But the person behind the black armor was actually herself. Again, Haruka was dumbstruck.
"She looks like me… okay, but that's not me!" Which left only one explanation. "Is that Uranus?"
Poseidon blinked and slightly nodded.
Uranus was a total duplicate of Haruka in matter of appearance. Tall woman with short sandy blond hair. However, there was something in her that distinguished her from the blond senshi.
"She is more powerful than you are. Of course, more mature too. The difference between you two is how you two living your life and what you two are destined to be." Poseidon answered Haruka's mind question.
"I would correct my saying, the only difference between you two is about how you live your life. Since I am sure you both had been destined to be the soulmate's of your counterpart."
After Poseidon finished explaining, a figure who was wearing white armor appeared. The white soldier approached Neptune in hurry. As they closed the distance between her, they both embraced each other. The white soldier's helmet fell off, revealing wavy aqua hair which Haruka knew very well.
"Neptune…" Haruka murmured.
"My daughter." Poseidon said. "It is very rare about you two. As you see, Pluto once told me that one is destined to not be together with the same person like the other dimension. However, Pluto had seen many dimension and everytime she saw you and her together. No matter what, when, and where the dimension is."
Haruka blushed.
"I didn't intend to explain you about that matter." Poseidon continued. His expression turned serious.
"It's better if we start from the very beginning." The battlefield then gone replaced with total blackness.
"As Gods, we made mistakes too. We are not very powerful as many had think of us in this dimension. For me, I made very deadly mistakes worse than all the God's mistakes combined." He sighed and Haruka witnessed how the mighty Poseidon looked thousand years older.
"Anyway, this mistake left me with consequences. As a God, I couldn't be fallen misfortune… so the unfortunate things would happen to my children."
"You mean Neptune? What happened to her?"
"… A curse. The curse was casted upon the day she was born. She was born with very little luck that even as a God's child she fell ill to mortal's disease."
"Well, you are a God. You should have pulled a string to higher power or something!"
"I did… and that had led me to make continues deadly mistakes. All just to make my daughter's life free from the curse."
"What did you do?"
"I used you… I mean Uranus. Her kinds are ones who was born with very great luck. As Uranus was descendant of another God too, her luck was very enormous. Then I thought about a way…"
Haruka listened.
"My plan was to make them both fell in love with each other but turned out they have already had deeply with each other. It made my mission easier."
Haruka shook her head, "wait a minute. I don't get it at all. What's the relationship between luck curse and their love?"
"… Neptune was accident prone with anything. Until that point we had to keep close eye on her. The problem was… the curse would lessen if she had someone that loved her deeply. So that the curse would shift to that person. The curse demanded a host to live."
Haruka's jaw dropped, "Does she know?"
"Neptune knew when it was too late to do anything. They both couldn't be separate with each other that it has costed my daughter her most precious one."
That was beyond cruel and Haruka wanted to punch something right now.
"Haruka, this is your purpose. Neptune's time would running out as Uranus's death. The curse would be back to her and this time perhaps would kill her."
Haruka stepped back, those were a lot of information for her poor brain and heart.
"You mean, I should die instead? You are really a straightforward God, aren't you."
Poseidon's expression changed back from old and tired to mighty and scary.
"If you don't want to die… you just try not to fall in love with my daughter. The curse knew which true love when it sees bonds."
Not to fall in love with a woman who looked exactly like the love of her life. Yeah, that's not so impossible afterall.
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It was past lunch time when Haruka climbed up back from the shrine. Her growling stomach reminded her that she never had the chance to have breakfast this morning. As Haruka got to the main gate, the gate was opened abruptly and the princess paced in hurry toward her.
"Haruka!" She called. The blond halted her steps. She held herself to get excited as Michiru's face was coming running to her. She should make a big mental note about that. Michiru and the princess were both very different people.'
"Haruka."
She was back to her sense when the princess had come close up only inches from her spot. Haruka automatically took a step back. Distance was important either way, her heart was going to pop.
"Haruka, are you okay? What happened at the shrine?" Rather than curiosity, Haruka caught hint of concern from the princess's question. The same kind Michiru had everytime the aqua haired senshi remind her to wear a helmet when riding her bike.
"Well… nothing. I just talked… with your father." Haruka replied casually.
"You what?"
"Look, he is scary but not scary, okay… perhaps he feels like he was a badass since he has more facial hair than anyone but other than his fucked up past I thought he was an ok person. Yeah, I talked with your father." Haruka was rambling. She needed distraction since Neptune's ocean scent was torturing her sense.
"Pluto, close the gate." Neptune ordered which the priestess directly obeyed.
There goes Haruka's chance to eat her late breakfast.
"What he told you about?" Now the princess was asking with pure curiosity.
"What do you think?" Haruka shot back.
"… He told you about my curse?"
"From even before that." Haruka crossed her arm. Neptune refused to look at her direction so the blond senshi could observe the change expression the princess had on her.
"About Uranus and I…?"
"Yup…"
A deeper frown appeared between her eyebrows. Haruka held her thought that even the princess frown looked too cute.
"Uranus's death…"
"Yes, I knew."
Haruka felt guilty since now the princess like was on the verge crying.
"He told me about everything. Also about your time limit before the curse came back. The last part is about why I am here."
Now Haruka had all the princess's attention. The blond grinned, initially to reassure herself but then she felt more pathetic with the situation.
"Yes, princess. I am here to make the curse shift to myself. That's why I was being dragged to this dimension."
Neptune froze.
"Poseidon's last word was for me to not fall in love with you… so the curse wouldn't be shifted." Haruka managed to say. The blond noticed how much it had taken for the proud God to tell that to her. He just told her to save herself rather than his daughter. But again, perhaps the King of Sea had another plan arranged already.
He had staked his daughter's life in Haruka's hand. How great. If the blond senshi didn't love the princess then the curse would kill Neptune right away… but then…
Haruka stucked between rock and hard place.
"Do not you dare…" The princess broke her first words after several minutes had passed.
"Do not you dare to love me…"
Haruka never asked for it. "Is that your order?"
"Just promise me…that, please? Then I will promise I would take you back to your dimension… to your home… please, Haruka."
"… Fine." I'll try my best.
Haruka never promised.
A/N: Feedbacks are forever appreciated ^^