She didn't know why she called it a sweater if there were so many holes in it. In retrospect, it had been morning when she slipped it on, and she had only meant to run out to the store for a candy bar she'd been craving.
On the way there she had cut through the park and past by it. Now everyone had left and the sky was a haze of oranges and light purples. The edge of the park and the woods was usually pretty empty, but ever since then the emptiness felt full as if waiting for something to burst it.
The old wooden bench was so week no one sat on it but it had been left alone for posterity. Now it rested with ribbons intertwined into every aching orifice and was protected by a border of photos and deformed candles.
The early morning rain had left the grass a little wet, and the sidewalk cold but she sat and stared and didn't mind.
It had been four months, two weeks, and three days since the last youma attack. They thought they were in the clear, they thought they were almost safe, she told them to stop worrying.
They all went to the hot springs for a little vacation before school started up again and had come back to the news reporters all over the park, a web of caution tape, and that full emptiness.
It had been two and a half weeks since they came back. A youma had ripped a woman and her four year old child to shreds, and then a man in his car, and then two teens walking home from school before they got to it.
Its eyes were just dull silver with two blades as hands and molded rusted iron over its breast. She couldn't for the life of her remember the name it chanted, probably something obvious and cheesy, but this youma wasn't tackling and hurling things at them, trapping them with pastries, freezing them, or even draining them of their energy, it was so much worse.
It tore at the flesh after she was done, chunks of it, a human being reduced to red shredded meat . At the thought of it her stomach caved and bile rose in her throat.
She sat cross-legged half on the sidewalk half on the damp grass staring at the candles for the people she'd let die, happy faces staring at her from thick glass encased in darkened frames.
"We'll get them back for this."
"The past is always growing and we cannot change it, but as we live in the present we can and will change the future. We'll never let this occur again."
And with eyes down cast and shoulders hunched she said she would stop this from happening again. She promised she would. But what if couldn't? What if it happened again?
There was so much blood on the streets. The blanket the police placed over the two girls after they killed the youma, it as if they tossed a cheap napkin into a sink. The sheet just soaked up all the blood and stuck to the thicker parts of the remains, utterly useless.
And the sound the father made when the man pointed to the heap and tried to tell him that was left, barely enough to bury…
She turned to look at the frame with the two girl, Mika Yurimoto and Nana Fushimano, two bright girls, brighter than she was, and in their senior years at Juuban High, she didn't know them, but she recognized them from the hallways. They looked nothing like themselves when she saw them last.
The wind blew and instead of the flames being snuffed out they stood still and then grew as if stretching upward. Usagi turned and ran to wooded area behind the bench.
She crouched behind a tree and her fingers subconsciously felt for her transformation pen; something didn't feel right.
No more than a few moments later he appeared. She could only see his worn boots and the army pants.
She saw a foot kick the photo over and the crunch of the glass under his foot. "Birdy…always late. "
The voice was deep and cruel, she knew it well.
"Rubeus."
The foot turned toward her direction, as if seeing her behind the trees. She couldn't take him on on her own and she had left her communicator at home, she was lucky she even thought to take her transformation wand.
If he found her not transformed he might let her go, but if he didn't, or if he saw the wand…He still hadn't moved, she sighed a little and small twig under her foot snapped.
"Fuck."
"Moon Prism Power!"
After the series of bright light, and feather she stood clad in her Sailor Uniform, trying not to ground herself and not let her knees knock together. Maybe, Rei would sense her transform, she needed the others, and without them she felt powerless.
"A little Sailor Scout?"
She was standing and could clearly see the impromptu shrine but he was no longer there.
"Come out, if it's just me there's no reason…No reason for you to be the coward."
There was a paused and it seemed as if all of a sudden night fell, and all she could here was her breathing becoming more and more labored.
"Tell me Sailor Moon, are you afraid of the dark, because if you are, I can sure brighten things up." The candles from the shrine grew and swallowed the bench. The ribbons danced as the fires whipped up them. The glass screeched as the frames cracked open and the paper burned.
"Mika! Nana!" She leaped to try to stop it but a circle of fire surrounded her. "Tut tut tut, not so fast." He appeared before her and in one fell swoop grabbed both her hands and pinned them to the tree behind her.
"Should I make this quick the rest of the little twits come?"
He leaned in close so she could feel his hot breath on the side of her face. "But on the other hand, I've been waiting for this moment so long that against my better nature I want to make it oh, so, slow." With each word he brought his chest closer to hers until he was almost leaning on her.
She brought a booted foot to knee him in his groin but he brought his left hand down to stop her. "I always knew underneath all that fluff-" He held her knee, and traced his finger up her thigh, "-You were a little fire cracker."
She shuddered under his touch but looked up at him, "If you want to kill me do it."
The flames roared, "Gladly!"
He grabbed the locket at her chest and ripped it off, reducing the sailor suit to ribbons and then her day clothes, a simple pink sweater and a pleated gray skirt, suddenly much too short.
"I would have so preferred you died in red, but I guess pink is close enough, ne?" He moved his hand up the skirt and felt her wand in her pocket, "I'll take this." She could hear it fall to the ground and closed her eyes so she wouldn't see his gloating red irises staring back at her.
He moved his hand up the outside of her skirt, to her torso, over her right breast, and to her neck. "Any last words before my flame eat you up Moon Princess?"
She blinked rapidly as to not cry. The sweater material was sticking to her skin, her bangs stuck to her forehead and she didn't know if her throat felt dry because of his hand around her neck or because she was fighting not to sob. "Why?"
"Why not?"
"Why did you come here? Why do you want Earth? I'm sure you came from somewhere. You must have your own planet."
"Nemesis is no planet. It is a jail. One that our forefathers were banished to and we cursed with for our entire lives."
"Then why can't you live here with us? Why must you try to kill us, take our energy?"
"There is no coexistence, we tried that. The moon did not want us; they said that the Black Crystal had made us evil, that we were unfit to live with them, that we were lucky to have a home."
He tightened the hold on her neck, "I read the reports, you said you were being merciful, and the people of the Moon agreed life would be better for us on Nemesis. Nemesis is no home…It is rock, a dying one at that, so it has been reduced to a parasite, and its people creeping things who can only eat what we steal because no one will give us anything. It is a place where parents kill their children so they don't have to live a miserable live eating death flowers and being called evil for trying to survive. A place where it's so cold if you don't make your own fire, and feed it with the hope of revenge, your own planet will drain you of your energy! So tell me more about coexistence."
She looked behind him, the bench was already a pile of ash, there had been so little smoke and in this night sky, no one would see it…no one would come
"But, that was future me, this is the present-the past for you I can change it. I can help you."
"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! We don't want help, we want our own, if we live here as equals we would be less so, we would be visitors, and if anything went wrong we would be enemies! Everyone thinks you are so special. I know you Serenity. I know you Sailor Moon, or whatever you call yourself in this pathetic earthly form, Diamond is in love you, Wiseman wants to use you, everyone here thinks you're the savior, but I know you are the enemy, you must be eliminated!"
He dropped his right hand and captured her neck between both of his larger hands. She sunk to her knees and he did with her, his torso towering over hers, her small hands fell on his wrists as he tried to squeeze the life out of her, his eyes burning red, his lips raised in a permanent snarl.
She could barely breathe, but manage to whisper, "I know you too."
He faltered for a second and his hold loosened. "I know you blame me. I know you're angry that some other form of me has ruined your life, either in the past, or future. But I can change that, isn't that why you came to the past in the first place? To change the future? Your people want me, I can change the future! I know now I was wrong, or will be wrong! I don't know but I blame me too!" Hot tears started running down her face and her eyes burned from the sweat running down her forehead. "I blame me too. I'm sorry that it's come to this. That you must kill to feel justified for you cause, that some form of me lead you to it, that this sorry isn't enough! Believe me Rubeus if I could change it, if my death would save your Nemesis, if you truly believe killing me will save all your people…" She squeezed her hands over his, "Then kill me."
His hands slid away and fell on her shoulders. "I hate you."
He put his forehead to hers and she didn't know if he started crying or her tears were her own. "I know."
"No one has seen true death until they've lived on Nemesis. All we asked for is sanctuary then, and you denied us."
The grip on her shoulders tightened. She didn't move.
"We had hopes of re-entering a place where they said there was enough food for everyone, where we could stop hiding, and you denied us. When the news came, people were so hopeful they waiting at the palace gates chanting your name, they were so sure…" His back arched and his voice ached,
"She was so sure, she sang your name in praises, but your mercy killed her spirit, and she…no one wanted to live on that rock anymore."
"What was her name?"
"Aqua, Aquamarine, and she called me Crimson."
"Aq-"
"Don't say her name."
"I'm sorry."
She held his face in her too small hands and kissed his forehead. "I'm sorry."
His voice quickened, and his eyes glazed over, staring at past the trees. "She was just too gentle to live on Nemesis. I never believed, I never even dared, but she was just to kind. She was everything the Moon Queen pretended to be. She was everything you pretend to be now."
He moved his head up so the two were face to face. "She was a better you."
He grabbed a fistful of her head and craned her neck upward and his lips joined hers, fully and deeply. Her mind went hazy as his body melded to hers, the fire dance around and the flames kissed her skin.
She hesitantly placed a hand on his chest, and his muscled chest tensed underneath his brown vest .The next moment she found herself being thrown to the ground. She looked up to see him shuffling backwards out of the circle, unfazed by the flames that dizzied her with their heat.
"What sorcery…."
She touched her bruised lips as her scalp stung. "I didn't mean."
"No! You are not Aqua! You are still the same witch that tricked an entire planet. Your tricks wont work on me. I do not believe you!"
Sirens blared in the distance and seemed to be approaching but Rubeus kept staring. "NO!" The flames reached even greater heights.
"No."
He grabbed his head in his hands and kneeled faced down in the dirt. "Aqua? Aqua!"
The whaling of the sirens was still coming. She could feel the wand under her heel and felt her scout instincts kick in as she grabbed it and ran, wincing as the fire scorches her arms, but she couldn't stay, she couldn't stop.
She almost looked back but she knew what she would see in him, something familiar, cruel, and not meant for her. Love.
A lot longer than usual. I really didn't mean for it to be but hopefully I painted a nice little picture for you. I always felt so sorry for people on Nemesis. L But I guess Rubeus would tell me "I don't need your pity!", and throw a fireball at me or something but anyhoo here's the next chapter! Leave a comment on who you want to see next in a review. I did read on the wiki his first name is Crimson so yeah, I do research people!
Should we go back to the Shittenou? Starlights? Some regular humans from the show? Andrew? Greg? Umino? Oh the options! Ahahah See you next time!
Thanks for reviewing!
Lucyole: I'll be sure to get more of your pairings in soon! I got rubeus and wiseman in human form would definitely be interesting.
LoveintheBattlefield: Always appreciate your dependable reviews
SailorMoonAddict: I'm really considereing the Yaten one! Who says Seiya gets all the fun?
Pp: Another Rubeus fan! Well glad I could help!