Peace was a rancid thing.
A stagnant thing, Hikaru might call it, if asked to elaborate. Peacetime was the muck that followed harsh rains, the mud one trudged through while scrutinizing the damages from the storm. It was a short-lived relief that turned sour as soon as one realized all that had been lost, and acknowledged that this was life now. War was a sin, but peace was worse, for it was she who birthed enmity.
I should not think these things, Hikaru told herself, staring at the glass of water in front of her and the insipid plate of vegetables she hadn't yet touched. For her stomach, her doctor told her. She had only just turned thirty, yet already life's pleasures were being taken from her. Not even halfway done, she thought ruefully.
Boredom found her scanning her surroundings, though what exactly she sought out she was not sure. No, that's a lie. But what I want to find is no longer here. Instead her eyes followed the comings and goings of the countless Precure gathered in this overly-gilded, ornate in the most tacky of ways, statues of false marble scattered haphazardly to give the place the impression of grandeur, of history, of significance. Most days, of course, it was just an ordinary restaurant. Pleasant, even, and usually a fine place when one wished to disappear, to make the world go away for a while. But that wasn't fitting for the Precure. The Precure were made for grand halls and palaces surrounded by gardens without end, the very air thick with magic and mysticism and that ephemeral sense of meaning, of purpose. But those hallowed halls were gone, and long ago at that. They were but the recollections of children who never grew up from their luminous days of saving the world, of being heroes looked up to, of being the answers to the most desperate prayers.
Now there was only cheap glitter and tacky lights, a myriad imitations of what the Precure knew in their youth. Hikaru could only feel more humiliated if she was required to dress herself in her old uniform, to style her hair that magic once so easily shaped into a smoothness that could not be replicated. There were Precure, some even older than Hikaru herself, that engaged in the farce of replicating the trappings of their days as Precure, sometimes at great expense. But even the most luxurious and expensive of fabrics was nothing like what their magic spun from nothing in instants. It was embarrassing, pitiable. That past is gone.
So why do I still come here? Why do I still mingle with all of these former Precure? Why do I insist on eating at Nagomi when there's no lack of other restaurants? Maybe I'm pitiable as well.
Not many others were alone, as she was. As if Hikaru didn't feel awkward enough. Madoka had too many responsibilities, as one of the organizers of this gathering, and Yuni, of course, had to aid her. And Elena seemed like she would be fashionably late tonight. Of the five chairs around the table designated for their team, four were empty. Hikaru stared at the one directly to her right. She didn't cry about it anymore. The tears had left her years ago. She insisted on keeping that fifth chair, even though it would never be occupied.
She missed Lala so much. Yet she was glad that Lala was spared life in this world. Saman had to be better than this. Certainly it couldn't be worse. She recalled Uni's words to her, once, that people were much the same everywhere. But Hikaru had to believe that somewhere out there, life was worth something. Existence was happenstance, but there had to be a place in the universe where the roll of the dice had, by chance, created a world that redeemed all of the rot. A place where life justified itself, because it certainly wasn't here.
Hikaru drove past filth and disrepair on her way to Nagomi. The sanitation strike was nearing a third month now. At first the piles of garbage in front of stores and homes had been shocking in the starkness of the contrast between luxurious façades and bags leaking rotting food and chunks of unidentifiable muck. By the second month, it seemed like it simply became accepted. Neighborhoods each dealt with the buildup of garbage their own way, though never well, so the stench had become a common presence in much of Emeraute. Today there had been more people looking for food in torn, leaking bags. Just a few blocks from here, Hikaru had seen an old man licking stains off a plastic plate, nowhere near enough to sate his hunger. Two others on the same street scavenged the remains for scrap that might be sold, but seemed to have no luck.
Nagomi, Hikari knew, didn't dispose of its leftover food, but donated it instead, so as night fell, it was common for the destitute and desperate to gather outside, knowing Cure Precious would always have something to offer them. She hadn't been Precious in a very long time now, but it was not uncommon for them to try to relive their past glories through unwarranted savior complexes. As though mere charity would change the rot in the world. It was only ever the briefest succor, a single meal before those poor devils were sent back into the streets. Such sights no longer even fazed Hikaru at all. Or anyone else, for that matter; like the clouds and springs and trees the sights of human suffering were simply parts of life.
Actually, there were less trees and greenery today than when Hikaru was a child. But so it was that the foul would always outweigh the fair, all joy and good eclipsed by the far greater suffering. I should get drunk. Elena says I'm a sad, clingy drunk. That could be amusing.
A song began to play from the opposite side of the restaurant, though these were not the usual voice of failed idol Urara Kasugano but that of the two has-beens of Twin Love, who nearly two decades ago rose to popularity almost as quickly as they disappeared from it once the novelty of music played by the Precure who saved the world wore off, which didn't take very long at all. In truth, Hikaru would have preferred Urara. She didn't have the bitterness of a failed artist the way Emiru and Lulu seemed to have, which naturally made her far less pitiful. These girls had once played in stadiums, so they carried with them the attitude of someone who thought they deserved better. Hikaru knew that because this was her own attitude. So did most of the Precure. Scum that we are, we are still too good for this shithole of a world.
Lulu's voice was not what it used to be, though she hadn't lost her skills with her instrument. She took some breaks from singing to drink water, letting Emiru take her place, and Hikaru had to admit that their music was sufficiently anodyne. She rather wished that Yuni would still perform, but she had left that behind her along with her past lives. Her old recordings were now consigned to space, to other worlds, never to be heard by humans again.
The stars now felt like no more than childlike whimsy to Hikaru. The mysteries that she once explored, that she had once only dreamed of, had been hers only for the briefest time. The universe is too large to travel in one lifetime, she knew that basic fact well enough. It was magic and miracles that had let her meet Lala and Yuni, that let the Precure know other worlds and other futures that never came to pass. They were made to save the world, to vanquish evil. After that, the miracle was no longer needed, and the magic began to fade away. Other worlds which had their own Precure and their own cataclysms no doubt went through the same. It felt like mockery to Hikaru and her dreams of knowing more about all that existed outside the small world she knew. To know that there was so much more, and to be then torn away from that, forever. The Precure swore an oath never to tell the world, that humanity might not despair.
The despair instead is all ours. Hikaru looked at the empty chair by her side, again. The cosmic pathways had begun to stretch and snap as the duty of the Precure was done and the world was saved. There was no time, and Saman and Rainbow were too distant from one another. Only one destination could be reached. Hikaru remembered that discussion almost as well as she remembered their farewell.
"Your family-"
"Your world-"
"Hikaru-"
"Madoka-"
It was folly, of course. There was no better sacrifice to make, someone who would suffer less. They both had friends and family on both Earth and their homeworlds. They would both be needed by their people, to make their planets a better place. And they both had someone in this world they loved more than anything, someone who they could not bear to be without. They could both stay, and regret it. One could leave, and regret it as well. Such was the nature of life. There had never been a soul unburdened by the curse of egret and of wishing they'd chosen differently.
"You could go with Madoka," Lala had said. "There is nothing here that binds you to your family, does it, Madoka…?"
"I cannot. I must not. I will not. I… I'm afraid."
Of course she was. Hikaru said nothing, but she was terrified too. To never see her family ever again… Even one with as tumultuous a relationship with her family as Madoka would hesitate to leave them behind forever, with no chance of turning back, and Hikaru loved hers. But now she wished she had said something to Lala. Perhaps the sorrow of departing her family without ever seeing or hearing from them again would be better than this empty life. She'd buried her grandparents, not long after Lala's departure, and knew that soon enough she would do the same with her mother. Her illness was not getting better. It would not. In the end there was no avoiding the loss of those who were precious to her, or the regret and the resentment, the fear that she had not loved them enough when she still could. Elena and Madoka had both lost family in these past years, too. In a grim way, Hikaru actually envied Elena, who didn't have to choose. She was left with the loss and the sorrow, the same as everyone else, but not the regret. Not for this, at least.
Not long after, Elena finally arrived, as though summoned by Hikaru's thoughts. She mustered her warmth to greet Elena with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, this warmth that she knew had once been so natural and effortless.
"Your job kept you late?" Hikaru asked. Elena just smiled. A con of actually having a job that wasn't a worthless dead-end is that sometimes you were required to stay longer than expected. Of course, that was true of the dead-end jobs as well. But at least Hikaru didn't feel the slightest guilt in doing a crummy job that was just barely good enough. "Well, glad you could make it anyways. You didn't miss anything, and it'll be a long, long night."
"A very drunk night as well, hopefully," said Elena. Of that there was no doubt. More than a handful of Precure had come to grow very attached to the comfort of the bottle, to the point that calling Nagomi a restaurant felt at times dishonest. "Madoka and Yuni are having to be sociable, I take it?"
"Unlucky them. Well, unlucky Yuni. She's just going along with her wife's enormities. Madoka chose to make it her life's mission to keep the ex-Precure united. I'm just happy we don't have to have all these dinners and business meetings and fundraisers and nonsense."
"All this time, and you haven't warmed up to them? Sure, it's a bit pompous sometimes, but I think the Lumina Foundation has done us some good. It's good to know that our legacy is kept alive, that we can still meet one another. It's… Tiresome, keeping all those Precure secrets all our lives. It's just good to have people who understand us, and to keep them close to us, right?"
That's because your life actually went somewhere, Hikaru thought. Those who found their later lives to pale before the dreams of their youth found a far more desperate sort of relief in Lumina. When Madoka said that the Precure only had one another, that wasn't meant as a good thing. It meant that there were little more than a few hundred people in the whole world who understood what they went through, what they had sacrificed when they were still children. Only they could understand the profound sense of loss and the loneliness of never truly being able to relate to others.
In time the hall grew crowded as the last absent Precure arrived, most of them arriving in a large group, chatting and laughing and somehow genuinely enjoying themselves. Years ago, they had been so familiar to Hikaru, but now she only recognized less than half of them. Princess Himelda of Caerulia, Cure Earth, Cure Aqua, and several less esteemed companions Hikaru couldn't immediately recognize. Though several of the seated ladies rose to their feet to greet these new arrivals, that commotion paled before the one that was brought about when the front doors opened one last time to reveal Mana Aida, heralded by whispers from all over.
"Can't say I expected to see her in public anytime soon," said Elena. "Almost makes me afraid that if I look outside I'll see a crowd waiting to lynch her," though she meant that as a joke, the words made her concerned. "I hope there's no trouble. There's plenty of people out for her blood. I know it's mostly empty threats, but still…"
It had been less than a week since Mana Aida resigned from her position as Prime Minister of Verdant, but she still looked just as she did while giving her last speech before stepping down, tearful and defeated. Her wide-eyed gaze that seemed directed at nothing, hollow and almost inhuman, had convinced Hikaru that before long she'd have blown her brains out, but, though her sadness was worn quite plainly, she seemed admirably sober. It was impressive, really. What had been done to Prime Minister Mana Aida had been little more than televised torture, and saying that her name had been dragged through the dirt was a grotesque understatement. From the great hope of Verdant, leader of the party which had won more votes than had ever happened in history, to a pariah, to being blamed for all the ills of the nation, real or imagined, to being abandoned by her own allies, one by one, disgraced and humiliated and cast out like a leper. Three years ago, electing a former Precure and savior of the world to the highest position in the country had seemed like the obvious solution to all the crises that plagued Verdant. Instead the country had been left worse than before in every possible way.
It's not even her fault, inept as her government might have been. Everything is getting worse, everywhere. Tearing her down is just an attempt at taking hold of yet another desperate last hope. Mana might have been a pompous and sanctimonious know-it-all, but she deserved better than the treatment she received from everyone. How joyful it was to be spat upon by the people she had bled for, who could live now only because of the actions of the Precure. In the end, all love turned to hate, and all that was beautiful became sour. Such truths were inescapable even to the most inebriated and lost.
"Oh, look, look," Elena pointed out the stage just as Twin Love paused their performance, making way for Madoka. "Our girl's gonna make a speech. Last time was what, four years ago?"
"I think so," said Hikaru. "Earth, Beauty, Aqua, they all spoke at the last meetings. They all said pretty much the same thing, though. Just emptiness. Promises that Lumina would change the world, anytime now," she sighed. "There isn't a Precure community, we're not Precure anymore. We're not united or anything, no matter what Madoka might want to think. She can organize all the charity she wants, it won't save the world."
"At least she tries," said Elena. "That's better than nothing, right? Even if all they do is small, it's some comfort for someone, right? Making the world a slightly better place…"
Was I this much of a foolish optimist in the past? Hikaru wondered if Elena believed her own words, if anyone here believed the beautiful words and promises. As far as Hikaru was concerned, this was not a gathering for the Precure to change the world, but an excuse to catch up and to commiserate, to bitch about life while getting drunk together. No more.
"Thank you all for coming," Madoka declared, flanked by Yuni and Cure Miracle, whose presence Hikaru did not understand at all. Around the restaurant, the voices grew silent, save for a handful of outliers on the corners. "I understand the difficulty of making time for this, every year, after all this time. It warms my heart, truly, to see such a lively hall, so full of friends and comrades with whom we share a unique burden. It's a privilege to organize this meeting and to have your attention. Because, tonight, I have some words I would like to share with you all," she breathed deep, coiling her fingers with Yuni's.
She waited for silence, which fell upon the hall in short order. Hikaru couldn't help but be impressed that someone could command the attention of all of these broken women. Life had been unkind for most of the Precure, and Hikaru's own disillusionment was rather mild, all things considered. The dreams they fought for in their youth had all been crushed by the cruelty of the world and the indifference of its people.
"The world is a horrible place," Madoka said, as though she heard Hikaru's thoughts, "but that is not its true nature. It does not need to be horrible. It has been made so. All of the evil we see has been brought about by someone's choices. Someone chose cruelty. Someone chose greed. Someone chose inhumanity, selfishness, malice. Such are the evils we face today. No longer the dying of the stars or the blackening sky, the clouds becoming red and unleashing unholy abominations that stalk the night, bringing fire and death with them. The evils we see are far more familiar, banal. There are no more monsters ravaging our world. It's people. It's us."
An awkward silence followed. Usually this was when empty platitudes would be uttered and ignored, when more drinks would be brought to women trying to forget everything but the haze of inebriation. It seemed, instead, that this time they all paid attention, all eyes directed towards Madoka. Hikaru wouldn't describe Madoka's presence as commanding, but she was respectable enough. The presence of a student council president, rather than that of a prime minister, of a celebrity, or of a narcissist. But this was different. This time, Madoka believed her own words, and in turn they came out truthful rather than meaningless.
"We all can see it," said Madoka. "There is no escape from reality, even though we seek it. Everyone seeks it. Something to let us close our eyes, something to keep us asleep. We work ourselves ragged and witless and tell ourselves we are privileged for it, seeing all the wretched misery on the streets. Thank goodness that's not us, is the best we can manage now. The happiness we were promised as children is no more than smoke and shadow. The world we fought for in youth was but an illusion. We did not know it then, but all those who praised us for our heroism were killing the world they promised us. Of course we're frustrated. Of course we're angry. We should be. We were, all of us, betrayed!"
What has brought about this change in her demeanor? Hikaru scarcely recognized this Madoka. She had only seen her long, long ago, and knew this girl only as Selene. Something of that remained in her, against all odds. She had been fierce, bow in hand, piercing eyes tracking her target without fail. But when Selene was gone and only Madoka remained, she became a meek family woman, concerned with honor and with her name and her legacy. It was as if she had started to believe in all of the lies, the lies she now denounced.
"Forgive my temper," said she whose temper never flared beyond these sparks, "but I felt it important to share these thoughts with you, with those who fought against the darkness by my side. I need not tell you all how much we've sacrificed for the sake of this world. Dismissed as we are, spat upon and cast aside, we must not lie to one another. We must acknowledge these injustices, because… Because we are Precure, all of us. That's not in the past. That's not gone, that's not lost. Though our powers may have faded, gladly given as an offering for the sake of our world's salvation, we are yet Precure. The world still needs us, this rotten world of ours. I ask that you keep this in mind. We are in a time of crisis. Only those whose eyes are closed don't see that. The world still needs us," she repeated, serious. "We have given the world our blood and our lives, and it will not be for naught. We will put all wrongs to rights."
How? Hikaru wanted to ask that, but decided not to ruin Madoka's moment. She seemed to actually care about this, for whatever reason. As though it mattered. As though anything mattered. Still, some of the former Precure in the audience were suitably impressed. Madoka was a politician, after all, and unlike Mana Aida, she was in no danger of being ousted from her position by virtue of doing something as naive as directing funds needed to bail the country's banks and billionaires towards a trifle like feeding the poor and sheltering masses of refugees coming from the west. Of all that Madoka Kaguya had ever been accused - of being corrupt, of filling the vaults of her family manor with siphoned wealth, of falsely inflating the costs of Verdant's failed space program - none would ever accuse her of political idealism. Not anymore.
The music soon resumed, and Madoka finally joined Elena and Hikaru, though Yuni was still busy elsewhere. Madoka smiled sadly at Hikaru, who now no longer even bothered to fake such gestures.
"It seemed you had plenty to say this time," said Elena. "Any reason in particular for this shift in demeanor?"
"Not one reason," Madoka said, taking her seat. "A myriad. The world has provided us with no end of reasons it must be changed. The strength we once had may be gone, but…" She paused. "Would you fight for this world again, if the powers we had as Precure were returned to us?"
"We wouldn't have a choice, would we?" Elena shrugged. "We did not elect to receive those gifts," she said the word with disdain, while Hikaru couldn't help but laugh. "When the world falls to darkness, warriors of light shall rise and return it to righteousness… How poetic. Doesn't that mean that the Precure are directly connected to the world going to shit? That we only have a purpose when hell is unleashed and the world is going to end. How grim."
"Elena, Hikaru," Madoka looked at them quite seriously, and Hikaru found she could not avert her eyes. Her voice carried sadness, determination, and something Hikaru could not identify. "Tell me now, and tell me the truth you know in your hearts. Has our world not fallen to darkness, the way it now stands? Are the days not as dire as when the sun itself became our enemy, a blot of black bleeding in the dying sky? And when you look outside, when you see the world as it is, when you hear of war and hunger and disaster and of how no one has a solution to it… Do you not think that this, too, is a prelude to annihilation?"
"I don't know…" Said Elena, but Hikaru knew. She just didn't want to put it into words.
"We don't speak of it, but it's the truth we all try to escape from. Alas, we are Precure, and ours is not to close our eyes and turn away. The world and its people might not acknowledge how imperiled all they know is, that they've but a few good years before everything tumbles down. But the hearts all know, or this sickness would not be like a shroud over us, all our lives now. The end is coming, and with it, the means to avert it. The power to change this future, as we did before. Things will soon change, for us. For all of us…"
"And you know this because…?" Hikaru was skeptical. It was wishful thinking; the world was doomed, but there was no saving it. Hope was a mistake.
Madoka said nothing. She only looked away, towards Yuni, who stood next to a handful of Precure seated around a huge cake. Behind that enigmatic silence, something Hikaru could not decipher. It was the silence of secrets kept, of truths still left unsaid. It was not wishful thinking, Hikaru realized. She was hiding something. A glint of light, a color caught her eye. The Pendant. Hikaru had never seen Madoka wear the Star Color Pendant ever since their powers were taken from them, not even once. She wanted to ask what it meant, but had no time to do so before the music died down, the voices all around grew panicked, confused, and the front door was opened in a hurry, to let a girl clad in bright blue in. Her body aglow in pale azure, she stumbled inside, bloodied all over, the ribbons that held her long blue pigtails snapping and letting her locks fall messily down her back. In her hands, she held a tattered cape and two crystal rods, one luminous and the other grey, shattered.
"Precure," the girl cried out in a frail voice, dying into a pained sigh. "Help, please… Help…"
