After the End
Chapter 4: That Which Lasts An Hour
1992
Tokyo
"Okay, we're out of the bus." Rei looked around. "Now what?" There didn't seem to be anything else to see, apart from a few empty-looking cream buses.
Sailormercury frowned at the empty grey plain. "I'm a little confused," She admitted, "usually Sailormoon is here with me… she understands what we're doing more completely than I do."
"So you're stuck, huh?" Rei replied, not unkindly. She nodded towards the empty buses. "Maybe we should start there?" Mercury nodded. They took a few steps towards the buses before it happened.
A line of golden light stabbed into the grey murk. Mercury shrieked in surprise, stumbling back as it whizzed past her head and scored a burnt line into the grey plain before her. She spun, eyes darting wildly. Behind her, Rei reached into one capacious sleeve for a few paper ofuda, moving quickly away from the damaged area.
The second attack came quickly; a dark figure flew out of the shadows between two of the abandoned buses, feet flying, and knocked Sailormercury to the ground.
Rei darted forwards and tackled the stranger, shouting the long chant of her protective charm as she ran. The ofuda flew out, but barely fazed the newcomer. She tossed Rei aside and rolled to her feet.
A sailor senshi. She looked like one, but warped and twisted. Her costume blended black and orange, and there were cut-out sections that changed the overall theme from schoolgirl warrior to bordello warrior. Rei spared a passing moment to wonder how the leggy blonde managed to walk in the strappy spiked heels she wore, much less fight in them. Then she had to roll quickly to one side to avoid another laser beam.
"Nightmare Beam!" shouted the blonde girl, producing another laser that arced through the space left behind as Mercury dodged.
"Shabon Spray!" countered Sailormercury. The fog hid each girl from the other two.
Rei backed up slowly until she found herself near one of the buses. She fought to catch her breath and calm herself. She had to get out of here, get help somehow- or stop this blonde menace. She wasn't sure which was a better idea. Rei knew she had no way of escaping on her own, but by the same token, she was pretty sure she couldn't stand up to someone with the kind of superpowers demonstrated by their antagonist.
That was when she heard the scream.
000
"Usagi?" Serenity glanced downward from her contemplation of the empty sky to find Luna regarding her with a worried expression.
"I'm too late." Serenity said. "The gate's closed." She dropped to one knee and picked Luna up. "If we had the ginzuishou, maybe I could do something, but without it-"
"We have to try."
"If I knew where the gate went, maybe." Serenity chewed on her lip, thinking. "It has to be a pocket dimension. If it were connected to the Dark Kingdom directly, there would be infighting over the …resources…" No youma could resist so tasty a prize as a bus full of unconscious humans.
"Can I help you, young lady?" Serenity turned, looked up.
Jadeite.
It was his human disguise, deceptively normal-looking as usual. She froze. Did he recognize her?
000
Everything was white.
The pain was like fire, burning his eyes out of their sockets, melting his skin, reshaping him. The white light consumed everything.
Blessed darkness took the pain and softened it, shaped it. His weapons, his armor, created from his anguish.
He felt the ground beneath his feet once again. He opened his eyes, looking through the mask. Everything was white. A soft fog shrouded the wherever-he-was. He put out a hand and touched cold, slightly wet metal. A bus? The wherever-he-was was odd. The grey ground seemed unstable. His footprint slid away when he lifted one foot.
He looked around again, adjusting his grip on his cane. He was holding a cane. Huh. He hoped this was a dream.
It has to be a dream. Princess bun-head showing up at your door, even minus her buns, doesn't make you randomly teleport places. Okay, so if it was a dream, that meant his options were pretty much limitless. He could leap tall buildings, rescue damsels, and probably shoot lasers form his eyes or something.
Cool.
He took a few cautious steps forward. There was, after all, the possiblity that he wasn't dreaming, and he really had been teleported who-knew-how-far to a very boring, pea-soup landscape. In which case, maybe he should just concentrate on getting back home and into something other than -a tuxedo?- someone's idea of a joke.
Then, the scream split the mist.
000
The crystal key didn't look right against her pale grey skin. It was too …delicate. If a key could be frilly, this one was.
It didn't matter, of course. The frills were nothing compared to what the tiny key meant.
Victory.
Unsurpassed, unstoppable, utter.
Victory.
000
Rei ran towards the scream, her geta clattering against the odd grey ground. She tried to stop herself, she knew she was just running towards the person best-suited to kill her, but what else could she do? Ami or Sailormercury, Rei didn't quite trust the blue-haired girl to take care of herself. She just didn't seem certain of her role. DamnSailormoonfornotbeinghere! Rei knew the thoguht was irrational. She was still angry.
The first laser went hissing past her ear, and she jerked away from it, still running.
The dark senshi followed it, a strong gloved fist striking Rei a glancing blow that still knocked her over. Rei stared up at the scandalous-looking senshi. The golden energy began to gather again.
IwishIwereoneofthem!IwishIwereasenshi,soIwouldn'thavetodiehere!
000
"Miss? Is there something you need?" Jadeite looked so concerned Serenity almost forgot who she was looking at. Almost.
"I'm sorry, I was looking for my friends." She blinked her eyes, opening them wider than normal. "They were supposed to take the bus and meet me here…" She trailed off, looking down. She wished she could blush on cue. Justactaslittlelikeyournormalselfaspossible.DowhatyouwouldhavedonewhenyouwereUsagi. ThinklikeUsagi.
"I'm sure they were just distracted by something." Jadeite said. "Why don't you wait for them here? I have other errands to attend to, but you'll be fine here at the shrine."
You'dloveitifIletyougetbacktoyour 'errands',wouldn'tyou?Goandkillmyfriends?Oh,Ithinknot.
"Saa*- I'm not really sure. I'm not familiar with this part of town and I think maybe I'm lost." Serenity looked up at him; from her height, that was easy. "Won't you help me, please?"
EverysecondIkeepyouhereisonethatIkeepyouawayfromthem.Ifyoudon'thelpme…
"I really wish I could…." Jadeite looked a little rattled, a little annoyed, and a little unsure. Years of ruling over the most vicious beasts in the galaxy hadn't prepared him for dealing with a clingy teenage girl. "I've got to go though, take care of some, ah, things."
Youaskedforit!
"You're going to leave me here? All alone? I don't- I can't-" She sniffled. She whimpered. And then, she dropped to her knees and gave out the full-on, patented, Usagi-class wailofdoom.
*note: 'saa' means 'well' in Japanese, sort of. It's used here as the kind of cutesy whine that a certain type of 'cute girl' will make in Japanese shows/manga. (There's a lot of these…) I'm using it here to emphasize how 'cutesy' Serenity is being.
000
So,thisiswhatitfeelsliketobeacasualty.Sailormercury thought. She lay crumpled on the grey plain, curled around her wound. The last strike of the laser beams had pierced her side, searing a narrow hole through her abdomen. The edges of the hole in her fuku were singed, and the wound itself had cauterized. She wasn't in immediate danger, but it hurt too much for her to move.
The white mist from her bubble spell still covered the plain. If she could make her way away from where she was, she might be able to stay hidden from the dark senshi long enough to- well, what? AllIknowhowtodoismakebubbles.Ican'tstopheronmyown.Not with her magic, anyway. Sailormercury knew her combat skills weren't going to be much help here. The most she could do would be to dodge.
Thereisalwaysaway.Thinkitout,Ami.She admonished herself. The idea that all problems have solutions was very dear to Ami. She believed there was an answer to every question.
Youhaveotherresourcesthanviolence.
Of course she did. So, Sailormercury thought. This woman wasn't a youma. She was obviously human. She wasn't a Shitennou. So, unless she was a completely new creation, which was possible, she had to be someone else from the Silver Millennium. That meant she didn't just look like a senshi, she was a senshi. So she had to be Sailorjupiter or Sailorvenus or Sailormars.
Ami knew that Jupiter and Mars granted their senshi purely elemental powers, from what Luna had told her. This woman had been using laser beams, so if she was one of the three missing senshi, she had to be Sailorvenus.
If Sailormercury was wrong and the dark senshi wasn't a senshi, there were too many variables for her to plan. But if she was right… well, it was time to test her hypothesis.
She heard running feet, coming towards her from the mist. She started to climb to her feet, holding her side. Her blue boots wobbled under her as she stood. Sailormercury braced herself to dodge.
Wait. That wasn't the dark senshi.
"Why are you wearing a tuxedo?" Sailormercury asked blearily.
000
I'mtrappedinamistthatscreamsandthencreatesschoolgirls?He shook his head, trying to clear it. The blue girl didn't disappear. So, probably real. Or, again, he was dreaming. Atleastthisdreamisinteresting. Then he noticed she was holding her side.
"Are you hurt? That scream I heard…"
She nodded, grimacing. "It's not bleeding." She moved her hand slightly to show a neat puncture with scorched edges. "It just …hurts."
"Lean on me." He offered an arm. The blue girl took it.
"Thank you. I don't know who you are, but this place isn't safe."
"Demonstrably." He started to lead her back towards the buses. "Who wounded you?"
"There's a blonde woman, dressed like me, and a friend- she's a priestess of sorts." The blue girl stumbled over the grey ground, wincing. They paused for a moment as she caught her breath and balance. "I'm A- er- Sailormercury." She said after a few more steps. "I don't think we should use our real names here."
"In that case, I guess I'm… um. Tuxedo Man?"
"Why not Tuxedo Hat? Or Tuxedo Kamen?"
"I like that. Tuxedo Kamen."
"What's that?" Sailormercury pointed, frowning.
Ahead of them, the buses waited. Partially. The back half of the near bus was hanging over an empty void. He could see tread marks where the former 'near' bus had slid off and into the void. Even as they watched, the tread marks vanished into the odd grey ground.
"This place is falling apart." Sailormercury breathed. "We have to get out of here. Fast."
000
Idon'twanttodie-Iwanttolive!Iwanttowin!
The golden laser arced down, too fast to follow.
It vanished into nothing mere inches away from Rei's violet eyes.
Red.
Crimson energy, like flames, surrounded her.
She burned, but was not consumed.
The dark senshi backed away, confused. Rei climbed to her feet, burning brightly. She could feel the fire in her soul awakening. She saw, like a confused art film, flashing images, pieces of her past and her memories. A past she didn't know she'd had, all fragments. There was a white castle, a silver queen, a golden princess, and always, she was there, all in red, the flame that never dies.
The words were waiting for her to speak them.
"Mars Power, Make-up!"
000
Jadeite was experiencing a very odd sensation. He didn't know what to do. He couldn't just destroy the annoying child; there were too many witnesses. That would create precisely the kind of incident he was trying to avoid, and probably summon Sailormoon down upon his head.
That, he emphatically did not want.
Jadeite wasn't used to problems he couldn't solve with the precise application of carefully-calculated violence. Not anymore. He dimly remembered a life before this one, fuzzy events in the back of his mind, things he wasn't sure were even real. It plagued his dreams and sometimes his waking moments, more so now than it had for a long time.
She was still wailing. How much lungpower did this girl have?
"Please, stop crying." Jadeite managed, trying to placate the girl.
She just kept on. He was bad at this. Awkwardly, Jadeite leaned forward and patted her shoulder. "It's going to be okay…"
"Waaaaaaaaahhh."
"Er… crying isn't going to help, please just-"
"Waaaaaaaaahhh."
"Stop this useless noise or- or-"
"WAAAAAAAHHH!"
Nothing was working. It was like dealing with an infant or a barking dog. He just wasn't able to communicate.
"Fine! I'm leaving!" Jadeite turned to walk away. The girl tackled him hard from behind, arms wrapping round his torso. "Ah! Unhand me, you useless chit!" He wobbled on his feet and fell over, striking his head on the concrete.
The girl had stopped crying. She was sitting on him.
"Get off of me!"
"No." He couldn't see her, but it sounded like she was smiling. Then, something struck his temple. He slept.
000
Everything looked sharper. The mist was beginning to fade. Sailormars faced her adversary, smiling sharply. She could feel the fire running in her veins, waiting to be called out.
Then she remembered. It was like being struck in the face with a ball of ice and snow. Those blue eyes, behind that red mask- she'd seen them before. In her past.
"Venus?" Mars breathed, holding her hands before her. The dark senshi laughed cruelly.
"No longer. I am Dark Venus now, warrior of love and pain."
The laser strike was like white lightning. Mars dodged, then screamed as it cut through her thigh. A tiny, perfect hole, blazing with agony.
"Venus, please! This is not you!" Dark Venus just smirked, not replying. She struck again, a kick that launched Mars several yards through the air. She landed with a wet thud.
Venus walked towards Mars slowly, golden energy gathering around her hands. She was going to strike again, and this time, the power of Mars would not save its princess.
Then.
The rose.
Red, striking.
It stood, quivering, in the ground at her feet, halting Venus's advance. She frowned at it for a moment, and started to walk around it.
"Stop! The fire that inspires passion in the hearts of young women should never be extinguished! I will fight to give fuel to that fire!" A young man in a mask and a tuxedo jumped down in front of Dark Venus, seemingly out of nowhere.
"How many of you are there?" Dark Venus demanded in exasperation. "It's like how too many cooks spill the soup!" She flung the golden energy at Tuxedo Kamen. It scattered harmlessly as he spun his can to shield himself.
"I will kill you if you stand in my way!" She shouted, charging. He struck with the cane, flinging her aside.
"I will die to protect my princess." He answered.
Mars, meanwhile, was trying to get back to her feet. Mercury appeared at her side, helping her. The two senshi staggered forwards, working against the pain of their wounds.
Dark Venus saw them coming, and hissed in annoyance.
"I'll kill you another time, then." She snarled, and raising her hands, clapped them together. She vanished in a swirl of black and gold.
"We have to get out of here- this place is collapsing!" Mercury exclaimed, as the two senshi reached Tuxedo Kamen.
He smiled at her. "It's okay, little blue girl. The dream is over."
Then he collapsed.
Mercury dropped down next to him, alarmed. Mars fell with her, still clutching her arm. Mercury placed a hand on his arm.
He flickered, and vanished.
The world swirled around them.
Everything spun, warped, settled.
They were sitting on the floor of a small apartment, and Mercury was holding the arm of a young man, no mask in sight, dressed ordinary street clothes.
000
"Please, forgive me?" Dark Venus simpered, one hand on his arm. "They were too many; three against my one, and the pocket was folding away."
"How could I do otherwise, my golden lily?" He answered, brushing her hair away from her face. "It was not your fault. Your strength is not yet recovered. We will give you instruction, hone your skills. We will make you stronger than their strongest." He smiled, a cruel light in his eyes.
"I will kill them all, for you." She promised, smiling as she leaned in for a kiss. She giggled, the light laugh at odds with her words.
"I expect nothing less, my delightful poison." Their lips met.
"I love you, Kunzite." She tangled her hands in his long white hair.
"And I you." He laughed then, long and low and deep.
000
000
000
Brief reminder: Author's notes are posted on my profile- there's a little something extra there this time… you should check it out. :) Oh, and review. You should definitely be sure to review. XD