Amy walked down the sidewalk, pulling her coat around her against the wind. She was flanked by Lita and Mina, the two of them looking around as if they were Special Agents, searching for any threat. Amy felt a bit too guarded. Things had been this way for an entire day and now it was getting to be nighttime, and she was already finding herself tired of it.
There was almost no one on the street. Amy and Mina had gone over to Lita's for a few games of canasta and some of Lita's goodies. Lita and Mina had escorted Amy there and were now escorting her back. She felt like some precious cargo that must not be disturbed under penalty of death.
Suddenly, someone stepped out of an alleyway. To no one's surprise, the figure was the enemy. Chiharu stood there, smirking at them.
"How long did you think you could hide?" Chiharu said smugly.
"Stay back, Amy!" Lita said, stepping in out in front. Mina got beside her.
"We'll fight you, Chiharu, stay back!"
Chiharu let out a long laugh. "Let's do it, then! Let's fucking fight!" Chiharu jumped back and threw her hand into the air.
Lita and Mina followed suit to transform, as did Amy. Then, all three of them were transformed and ready. Amy punched some things into her communicator and screamed into it, "Everyone! She's here! Downtown Mugen district!"
"Calling on your stupid little friends, I see!" taunted Chiharu. Her bleeding red eyes seemed to be on fire as she glared at them. She had a wild look on her face, and suddenly the other three Sailor Scouts found themselves very afraid.
"Don't you dare run away from us!" Lita yelled. "Stand up and fight us like a true Sailor Warrior!"
"You say it like we're all on the same plane, Sailor Jupiter," Chiharu spat the name out as though it tasted bad. "I'll let your friends get here, because I want to take you all down, one by one." Chiharu let out a long, tittering laugh. She sounded insane. Almost nothing like what anyone had described her as. "This time, I'll get the other one! Then he'll want me and I can destroy you all! Won't he be so pleased with me!?" She began to cackle again.
The three others stared in shock. Who was this? She was hardly the same cool and collected Chiharu, and she sounded so different. They shared identical appalled expression and the mutual thought: what the hell is going on here?
"SUBMARINE REFLECTION!" Came Michiru's voice from the night. A blast of whitish-blue energy came screaming past the scouts, and Chiharu took the blow full on. She went sprawling, but she began to get up almost immediately, grinning evilly.
"There you are!" Chiharu called to them. "I was wondering when you'd show up!" She cackled again. "We're only missing a handful more, where could they be?"
As she spoke, the others came running up, and Serena was the only one who remained untransformed. They stood in a long line, all moving as though to protect Sailor Mercury. To their surprise, Chiharu still laughed at them.
"What's the matter, lost your crystal, Sailor Moon?!"
"Stop your taunting!" Mina screamed, "Either start fighting us or give us the damn crystal back!"
"Yes," Agreed Haruka, "No more of your idle banter!"
Setsuna narrowed her eyes. "Enough fooling around," she said in a low voice.
"Sailor Planet attack, you guys!" Serena shouted.
Everyone linked hands and closed their eyes. The group began to glow a brilliant whitish-glow, feeling the shared power course through them, and when they reopened their eyes, they too glowed with white power. "Sailor Planet ATTACK!" They cried in unison.
Chiharu held her hands out in front of her and the crystal appeared, floating between them. She raised the crystal above her head and a white glow surrounded her. The crystal absorbed all energy created by the Planet Attack; every last bit of it.
Raye fell to her knees after the loss of energy, and Michiru fell not soon after. They were drained and mostly vulnerable, all of them trying to catch their breath.
Chiharu dropped her hands and caught the crystal when it fell, the white shield leaving her. "Are you all quite finished?" She said, not really a question. They looked damned finished to her. She surveyed their faces and saw that all of them looked scared—all but Sailor Pluto. She had a determined and set look on her face. Not for long, Chiharu thought.
"I can use this to my advantage. I can use the power this crystal houses. I can destroy you all! Your weak attacks have no effect on me now! The crystal allows its user to be immune to any attack from a guardian of the Earth's Solar System!"
"No! Damn it!!" Haruka screamed, rage etching her every word.
Tears filled Serena's eyes and she cried, "This is all my fault… and now I have to watch my friends die…"
Chiharu raised her hands, the crystal once again floating between them. "Say goodbye, Sailor Bitches!" She laughed hysterically and the crystal began to glow.
In that moment, all of those scouts watched, prepared to reach their demise, and that white glow glittered in all of their eyes. They were all in disbelief. The end. The end of the Sailor Scouts.
And as they were watching, the tips of Chiharu's gloves began to rip off, just shredding away, as if by some invisible knife, and she began to bleed from her fingertips. Her head shot up, a look of confusion on her face, and blood dripped onto her cheek. Shreds of her costume continued to be ripped away. Blood began to leak from her eyes, then her nose, then her mouth in steady streams. "What's going on?!" She cried in despair.
As the rest of them, Darien, Serena, Amy, Lita, Raye, Rini, and the others stared in astonishment, Sailor Pluto stepped forward, a triumphant expression on her face. "You forgot one little thing, Chiharu."
As the streams of blood ran down her face, Chiharu screamed bitterly, "What, what the fuck did I fucking forget you stupid fucking bitch!?"
Setsuna held out her gloved hands and revealed a black star-shaped crystal. "The only power that could protect you. The power of your own Sailor crystal. In your haste to escape, you foolishly dropped it. I have kept it with me ever since. In your greed, you tried to get the other Silver Imperium Crystal and you used the power of Sailor Moon's without the protection of your own. Since you never bothered to detransform, you never even knew that it was gone. And now you are destroying yourself."
The fire left Chiharu's eyes. "No!" she said, and then the pain hit her in engulfing waves. She screamed long and loud as her knees buckled. Her arms shook, and she finally sank to her knees, continuing to bleed. Her costume was a torn mess on her body. At last, the power of the crystal began too much, and she fell to the pavement like a rag doll. The crystal bounced down to the ground and rolled away. Serena ran out from the group, grabbed it quickly, and ran back to her friends. She held it clasped between both hands and held it against her chest.
Setsuna hurried over to where Chiharu lay and knelt beside her. "Chiharu?"
Chiharu blinked a few times, and Setsuna saw that tears were mixing with Chiharu's lifeblood. The blood seemed so bright red, even in the nighttime. Her own eyes stared at Setsuna and she said, "I'm going to die now."
Setsuna nodded, a grim but somehow sad expression on her face. "I just wanted him to be happy with me," Chiharu muttered, her voice a garbled mess of blood. "I wanted him to love me."
"We could—"
"No, you couldn't," Chiharu coughed, spraying blood. "I've done wrong. The power drove me crazy." Chiharu paused for a moment. "I am sorry, Sailor Pluto."
Setsuna nodded again. "It's all right."
Chiharu laughed; a pitiful sound without any humor. The wind, very cold, began to pick up. "No. Not really," She said softly. A ghost of a smile touched her lips. Setsuna placed Chiharu's crystal into one of her own bleeding hands. "I knew this was a bad dream," she told Setsuna as her eyes began to close for good. "It'll all be better when I wake up again."
With this said, Sailor Aeries died.
Setsuna bowed her head.
Someone suddenly appeared behind her and Setsuna stood quickly, ready to defend herself.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he assured her. She relaxed a bit. The man had eyes that were as green as flashing radar. His hair was spiky and fell over his ears in a mess. He looked young and wore cloaks of black. "I'm King Gavin Darkraider of the Aeries Solar System." He held out a black-gloved hand to Setsuna when he introduced himself. Setsuna took it cautiously.
"I'm sorry I couldn't get here before now." Gavin looked over Setsuna's shoulder and he saw Serena and Darien. They stood not too far apart from each other. He smiled gently and bowed to them. "Future King, Future Queen. I apologize for the disturbance. I have come to collect my Chiharu."
Serena and Darien both stepped forward, looking slightly confused. "I'm… I'm sorry," Serena fumbled for words, "she's…" She simply trailed off.
"Yes," Gavin answered sadly. "I knew she was dead before I arrived. I knew she would try to take the crystals." He turned his tired expression back to Setsuna. "She didn't know that I loved her anyway." Setsuna saw the tears in his eyes, but he turned away, hoping she hadn't seen.
They all watched as the king picked up his fallen, bloody warrior and lifted her from the pool of her own blood, still warm.
"Again, I apologize. She was too bold for her own good."
Serena and Darien nodded. They all stared at each other in silence for just a moment.
"You should have told her," Setsuna said finally.
Gavin looked at her.
"All you had to do was say, 'I love you'."
Gavin closed his eyes. He turned and began to walk down the street, and the further he walked, carrying his dead Chiharu, the more his image began to fade. Eventually, he was gone.