Forgotten Forever by Kihin Ranno

Part Nine: Desperate Partners

Petz quickly remembered Rubeus’s good advice to Karaberas almost immediately when she arrived back at the base. Karaberas had made the mistake of taking Sailor Jupiter when she was still conscious, and now Petz had mirrored the error. Her feet had touched ground, but she was in danger of being knocked off her feet with Sailor Moon’s thrashing about.

“Let go of me!” the child demanded petulantly, lending credence to the theory of who she would later become. “I have to go back! I have to help--"

“Be still!” Petz barked, happy that she had possessed the foresight to pin the girl’s arms at least. The last thing she needed was for her to reach for her scepter at this point. “You’re nowhere near Sailor Venus or Mr. Tall, Dark, and Useless. It’s finished.”

Sailor Moon gave another powerful kick, this one landing on Petz’s knee. It buckled, but she held on. She wasn’t going to lose her quarry now. She may have been captured, but she could still do a lot of damage if she wanted to, and if she managed to get her allies free, the lot of them were as good as dead.

“If I wasn’t under orders to bring you back in one piece, I’d twist your head off by your pigtails,” Petz growled.

Sailor Moon looked afraid as a result of this threat, but she shook her head violently, pretending to be braver than she was. “I’ll never forgive you for this!”

“Yeah, like I haven’t heard that one before,” Petz muttered through clenched teeth.

“Petz, what is all the--"

Petz felt Sailor Moon freeze in her arms at the sound of Rubeus’s voice. She looked up, not surprised that he had come but still a bit taken aback by his sudden presence. Her eyes met his instantly, and she could tell that in spite of his changed posture and his arched eyebrow, that he had been suspecting this might happen. Perhaps he hadn’t known she’d been spying, but he knew her well enough to count on something like this. After all, she wasn’t much of an Akayashi sister if she didn’t take advantage of every opportunity to screw one of her sisters over.

She felt proud for living up to expectations.

“Well, what have we here?” he asked, his voice deceptively casual. Petz could tell by the look in his eyes that he regarded this as anything but blasé. “The little ringleader herself.”

Petz momentarily turned her attention to her captive, curious to see her reaction to his presence. The girl might not have looked very bright, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew enough to be terrified of Rubeus, and she hadn’t even seen him in action. Then again, there was something about him that oozed violence and malevolence. People said that killers couldn’t be spotted based on looks, but clearly those people had never met Rubeus.

Sailor Moon’s breaths came fast and sharp, practically whistling through her windpipe with every half of a second. Her back was tense, and all of her limbs had locked. In spite of that tension, she felt almost slack in Petz’s arms. It was very clear that Sailor Moon wasn’t going to struggle anymore. She knew where she was and how much danger she was in. Everything she had been doing up to that point was liable to get her killed rather than freed.

“I assume Beruche is still working to apprehend Sailor Venus,” Rubeus said, his eyes remaining on Sailor Moon’s quivering form.

“Last I checked,” Petz answered easily.

Rubeus took a step forward, and Sailor Moon practically tried to disappear into Petz’s body. She leaned backwards, whimpering quietly. Petz realized that her soldiers had been keeping her extremely sheltered, which arguably meant that she’d been well-protected. But while Sailor Moon displayed her fear without a second thought, Petz didn’t doubt that any one of them would have realized Rubeus enjoyed that immensely. They would have at least tried to hold their ground and give him nothing but silence and a glare.

“So, this is the legendary Sailor Moon,” Rubeus said, now standing just one foot away from the two of them. “We’ve been expecting you,” Rubeus informed her, reaching forward and taking a hold of one of her earrings. Petz expected him to rip it out of her ear, and as much as she would have enjoyed seeing it, she knew that would have been a mistake. But he just stood there, watching it catch the light for a minute. Eventually, he let it drop. Sailor Moon had been holding her breath the whole time.

She exhaled and began moving her mouth as if she were trying to form words. “My friends…” she started, her voice coming out in something like a croak. “Where are they?” She swallowed, looking Rubeus up and down. “Did you hurt them?”

Rubeus regarded her for a moment and then chuckled, smiling. “Of course I did.”

Petz swore she actually felt Sailor Moon’s heart stop against her chest. In fact, everything seemed to freeze once Rubeus had answered her query. It wasn’t as though Petz hadn’t heard him say such things before, and they certainly didn’t bother her, but perhaps her proximity to Sailor Moon allowed her to partially experience her reactions. Petz didn’t feel disgust or outrage or any of the things the smaller girl must have been feeling, but she knew how the scene would look if she were feeling those things.

This musing distracted Petz for a moment too long. With a loud yell, Sailor Moon defied all of Petz’s pronouncements of her supposed intelligence and broke free from her grasp. The girl flung her right arm out, and Petz’s eyes quickly followed the limb. The scepter that had nearly killed her sister was about to make another appearance, and this time, it was turning against Rubeus.

“Master Rubeus!” Petz cried out instinctually.

Rubeus looked upon the move with a little more than disinterest. Their closeness proved to be Sailor Moon's downfall as he reached out and seized her right wrist, the movement happening so quickly that Rubeus might have been able to outmaneuver a viper trying to sink its point into his skin. Sailor Moon yelled in surprise at the counterattack, and then in pain as he twisted the limb around farther than it was ever meant to go. However, he stopped just short of the point where he would have broken bones, though it was obvious he longed to turn it that extra inch. But regardless of what he wanted, his goal was accomplished quickly enough. The scepter that had begun to materialize vanished immediately, and the danger was abated.

“Let’s make sure something like that doesn’t happen again,” Rubeus suggested loudly, reaching forward with his other hand and grasping Sailor Moon’s pink brooch.

The air caught in Petz’s throat at this, but Rubeus’s hand did not linger. He simply ripped the jeweled compact from her breast without ceremony, even going so far as to avert his eyes. He released her completely and then let her fall back to the ground with curious apathy. Petz looked on as her transformation faded away in a flurry of ribbons and feathers, her eyes wide as she stared at him from the floor.

“That was very stupid,” Rubeus informed her plainly, turning his head back around to face her. “I broke your friend’s nose for much less.”

Sailor Moon – who Petz thought looked the least powerful without her uniform and other heroic accoutrement – stopped staring up at him like a scared puppy. She narrowed her eyes and glared with as much defiance as she could probably muster. Petz didn’t know why she bothered; she could never hide her fear when she’d already shown it so openly. “Just because you’ve got me doesn’t mean that you’ve won. Venus is still out there, and so is--" She stopped quickly, her mouth closing in such a way that Petz’s teeth ached.

Rubeus raised another eyebrow. “There’s someone else I need to concern myself with?”

Sailor Moon turned her eyes away, her fist clenching and gathering up the material of her skirt in her hand. Petz was about to say something about the other man who had been with Venus and Sailor Moon at the scene, the one she had kicked in the head. But before she could speak up, the conversation continued. She suspected the information could wait a moment, so she kept silent. “Venus won’t let you win.”

Rubeus scoffed, laughing aloud. He sounded the happiest he’d been since Petz had met him years before. “Venus has already lost. Just as soon as Beruche finishes with her, she’s bringing her up to join the rest of you.”

Petz caught a glint in Rubeus’s eye at the mention of Venus. He had become increasingly careless about his instincts when it came to the golden soldier, and it made her nervous. Of course, she would have liked seeing just about any punishment Rubeus saw fit to dole out (with one very notable exception), but he was to bring all four Sailor Senshi alive and Sailor Moon for Prince Demando’s personal use. That meant Rubeus needed restraint where all of their captives were concerned. The incident with Jupiter had been the equivalent of a warning shot. Either Sailor Venus or Sailor Moon was going to be the real thing.

Unwilling to sacrifice the current captive, Petz stepped forward. “Master Rubeus, I think it’s best if we take her into the hold. Beruche could be arriving with Venus any time now, and I’d rather not be caught with two of them running loose.”

Rubeus chuckled a bit, his lips still twisted into the omnipresent smirk. “Of course.”

Petz nodded and caught Sailor Moon’s pale arm, hauling her up without a bit of warning and likely bruising the skin. She began leading the smaller girl back to where the other captives were kept, pleased to find that her struggling had decreased somewhat. Petz only had to give her a good yank every three steps or so.

“Oh, Petz.”

She paused, glancing over her shoulder and resting a hand on her hip. She hoped he wasn’t going to deal her a compliment; she didn’t have the patience for such niceties, and unlike some of her sisters, she didn’t need the occasional reassurance. “Yes?”

Rubeus cracked his neck and closed his eyes, looking almost relaxed. “Don’t go through the whole thing with her.”

Petz nodded in understanding. Bruises were one thing, but it was a bad idea to do any more damage to Demando’s favored. “Understood. I assume the same courtesy won’t be extended to--"

“You can put two on that one as far as I’m concerned,” Rubeus interrupted, teeth bared.

Sailor Moon stiffened at Petz’s side. “Two of what? What do you--"

“Get her out of here,” Rubeus said, tossing the brooch into the air and catching it lazily.

“Yes, Master Rubeus,” Petz answered, this time not bothering with the nod. She pulled on Sailor Moon’s arm to get her going, nearly resulting in toppling them both over. Rather than deal with any more nonsense, she opted to teleport directly to the prison cell. She wasn’t surprised to find the three Senshi alert and awake; she hadn’t seen them sleep once since their arrival.

Mars was the first to notice their arrival. Her violet eyes nearly fell out of their sockets, and her already insufferable voice climbed an octave. “Usagi!”

“Rei,” Sailor Moon returned, already sobbing like a child. It was an utterly disgusting display.

In spite of all she’d been put through, Jupiter got to her feet, predictably ready with a challenge. “I don’t care what you do to us, but don’t you dare saddle her with one of these,” she snarled, pointing at the metal collar around her neck.

“Shockingly, your threats are even more useless than usual.” Not willing to disclose any more than that, Petz gestured her free hand at the door to their cell. It swung open only long enough to push Sailor Moon through it and then slammed closed behind her. The girl stumbled into the makeshift cage and landed heavily in Jupiter’s arms, knocking them both to the ground. Then Sailor Moon began wailing loudly, bringing all three of her allies around her to form a protective barrier.

“A crying soldier,” Petz spat distastefully. “Pathetic.”

“You’re pathetic,” Mars snapped, her head whirling around and teeth gnashing in Petz’s direction.

Mercury looked pale and wrapped her fingers around her comrade’s wrist. “Rei, don’t. Not again, not in front of--"

“I’d rather not have a repeat episode of Cooan’s meltdown,” Petz drawled, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. “I’ll leave you alone if you keep her from bawling so much. It’s not as if we’ll have you with us for much longer.”

“Only if you get Venus, right?” Jupiter asked, her voice strangely quiet in spite of the sobbing teenager in her arms.

“That’s the general idea,” Petz answered in a bored tone. Why had she decided to engage them in conversation? She could barely stand to talk to people on her own side of the war.

Once again, Mars proved her infinite stupidity by ignoring Mercury’s warning and smarting off again. Lucky for her, Petz was in a generous mood, and she had no mood to hear the shrieking that would certainly result from any form of retaliation. “There’s no guarantee you’ll take her as well. She might send your sister back in pieces for all you know.”

“Mars,” Mercury hissed harshly. Petz couldn’t tell if she was trying to quiet her or if she was scolding her fellow soldier for being too idealistic.

Petz scoffed and turned to leave. She had neither the time nor the patience to deal with children, no matter who they would grow up to be. “Beruche isn’t completely useless. Trust me, she’ll bring your little blonde comrade back in just a few minutes. Make no mistake about that.”

A second later, there was a dull thump that seemed to come from the main chamber on the ship. Petz arched an eyebrow, wondering what could have caused it when she heard Rubeus’s voice echoing down the hallways, clearly reaching their ears even though the distance between them was great. And when Petz heard exactly what he said, she couldn’t help but curse.

She’d spoken just a little too soon.

-----

Venus stared up at the spot where Sailor Moon and Beruche’s comrade, Petz, had been only seconds before. She swore that she could still hear the girl’s scream echoing in the air, that she could still make out the outline of her twisting form. It didn’t seem real to think that she wasn’t there anymore. Not when Venus could detect her presence in every aspect of the battlefield.

But she was gone.

Venus quickly found herself longing for the tree she had left seconds before as her knees gave way, unable to withstand the shock of the loss. The heels of her hands struck the ground first and sent lightning bolts of pain up to her elbows, but that couldn’t possibly compare to the ache in her chest. The closest Venus could come to describing it was if a hand of fire had pushed through her skin and taken her heart away, but not before bending bones and scorching her blood. She felt sick and withered and completely defeated.

“Usagi…” she whispered, shutting her eyes to keep her vision from blurring any more. She had never so longed for another person in her entire life. Even though they had been fighting and even though she might have been as close to hating her as she ever got, Usagi was still one of her best friends. She was still the uniting force between the five girls, binding them together when they otherwise would have been alone. The thought of losing her was enough to make her almost wish that she had taken back everything she’d said about Mamoru just so the two of them could have had a few more minutes together before the kidnapping – the one she had nearly killed herself to prevent – finally occurred.

“That bitch!”

Venus’s eyes snapped open, remembering that things weren’t over yet.

She couldn’t see Beruche from where she sat, but she could hear Beruche very clearly. Now that she knew there was still a battle yet to be fought, Venus had no intention of ever being unsure of where her enemy stood.

“They do this to me every time. I’m not even the youngest, but they still treat me like some incompetent little…” Beruche trailed off, unwilling to finish and replaced her words with a cry of frustration, quickly followed by the sound of a foot connecting with wood. Chips fell to the ground and the smell of sawdust quickly reached her nostrils. “If she’d just given me five more minutes, I’d have had them both!”

“Where is she?” another voice growled.

Venus raised her eyebrows. Mamoru. He’d stayed behind, and now, just when she needed him to be quiet and maybe even abandon her to the remaining fight, he saw fit to get involved. If she were a more bitter person, she would have said it was too little, too late. She wasn’t that bitter, and so she only thought it.

Beruche stamped her foot, childishly sending a vibration through the dirt that Venus felt against her palm. “Honestly, what are you even doing here?”

Predictably, Mamoru still refused to heed good advice. “Tell me where she is,” he demanded, his voice deepening with entitlement so that he almost sounded capable.

“Nowhere you can find her,” Beruche snapped. “And the same place she’s going!”

Venus heard Beruche turn and start towards her and the sound of Mamoru inhaling, preparing to shout a warning. Of course, she didn’t need it.

“I don’t think so,” Venus hissed. She rolled forward and pushed herself into a handspring to get back on her feet. She turned just in time to see Beruche throwing yet another jet stream of water her way. She crouched down and leapt upwards to keep from being caught up in the storm. Once aloft, she twisted in the air and saw the area crust over with ice that reflected her image like smooth mirror.

She landed on top of the injured tree and wasted no time in launching her own attack to counter. “Crescent Beam Shower!” Venus called out, throwing her hand forward and sending a torrent of golden rays shooting towards Beruche.

The blue-clad girl scowled and vanished just before she would have been hit. The beams continued on their way, impacting the sheet of ice and sending tiny shards into the air. She heard Mamoru cry out in pain and turned to see him clutch his arm.

“Mamoru, please go!” Venus yelled down to him, suddenly longing for Rei’s ability to emotionally destroy other people with just the right turn of phrase. It might not have sent him on his way, but it certainly would have made her feel better.

“Why don’t you?”

Venus looked over her shoulder, surprised to see Beruche hovering just behind her. She should have been less surprised when Beruche kicked out and caught her in the chest, but she wasn’t. She cried out as she flew out of the tree and went hurtling toward the ground. She barely managed to twist to avoid landing on her back. The wound Karaberas had dealt her there had already opened up from when she hit the tree; she didn’t need to exacerbate it anymore.

“Minako!” Mamoru shouted, making a move like he was going to come towards her.

“Don’t!” Venus shouted, keeping her eyes on Beruche. She shook her head at her enemy and called up to her. “I’m not going back with you. I won’t let you win this easily.”

Beruche laughed, tossing her head back and covering her mouth with her gloved fingers. “I can’t believe you actually said that, you stupid girl. Don’t you realize what’s happening here?” She stopped and narrowed her eyes, her tone of voice perfectly conversational and perfectly aware of that fact. “You’ve already lost.”

Venus’s fingers curled into the dirt, and it suddenly became hard for her to keep her eyes open. She hated hearing things like that, and even though she knew she ought to shrug them off, it was harder now than ever before. She was hurt and she was tired. Part of her wanted to just acquiesce to what Beruche had just said. Maybe it really was over; maybe she really hadn’t had a chance to win without anyone else’s help. She wasn’t smart enough, wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t passionate enough, wasn’t powerful enough. There were too many areas she was lacking in. How could she hope to stand alone against an enemy this strong?

“Better you surrender now,” Beruche offered, pretending to be kind. “I’m sure the others won’t blame you when they see the blood.”

But that’s when she remembered, much as she hated to think about it: she’d already fought alone.

It was with that in mind that she looked up at Beruche and simply shook her head. There was absolutely nothing that she had to say to that woman. Not anymore.

Beruche sighed sadly, leaning her head against her fingertips. “That’s too bad. For you I mean.” Her expression changed faster that Venus could blink. Her lip curled and eyes flashed as she leapt up and out, arms outstretched and reaching for her prey. The lioness was pouncing.

But Venus had no intention of being hunted any longer. Before she really knew what she was doing, she found herself standing on two feet, arms raised above her head. She brought them down quickly and saw something thin and gold dancing around her body. She didn’t have to wonder what it was or what it was meant for. She knew all that in her heart, and she was sure in her head that it was going to save her.

“VENUS LOVE-ME CHAIN!”

Beruche stopped in her descent, eyes wide with panic. She started to say something, but quickly thought better of it, deciding it was better just to get out of the way. She vanished in a quick flash of light and didn’t automatically reappear.

Venus almost considered the idea that she had retreated, but she discounted that instantly. Beruche had been humiliated by her sister. She wasn’t going anywhere until she was forced to retreat, and there were very few ways that Venus could manage to do that. Moreover, there was only one that seemed plausible at the moment.

She spun around, the chain still at her command. It had been a gamble that Beruche would reappear behind her, and it was one that paid off. Venus nearly felt sick with relief when she saw the outline of her opponent begin to materialize. Without wasting time or words, she flung her hand forward, pointing right at Beruche’s neck. The chain whipped out, speeding towards its target like a heat-seeking missile. Venus grasped her end of the chain just as it wound around Beruche’s neck, the metal links sinking into her skin.

Beruche gasped and instantly started pulling at the chain, struggling for air. Venus held fast, her hands wound so tightly around her weapon that they also started to bleed.

She took a long, shuddering breath and said the only thing she could think of. “Go. Home.”

With that, Venus pulled on her end as hard as she possibly could. Beruche spun in mid-air as the metal sliced against her flesh. A spray of blood filled the air, but Venus’s eyes were soon back on the ground. Beruche hit it on her knees, both of her hands wrapped around her neck to control the bleeding as much as she could. She looked up at Venus, gasping and trying to form words to curse her, threaten her, make her regret the desperate act of violence. But there were no words that Beruche could waste time saying, and so she left them in her pain and fury, eyes silently promising that this wasn’t the end.

Venus didn’t need any silent promises for that. She planned on chasing down her enemies until there wasn’t any breath in her body. And as much as it terrified her, she was going to have to do it alone.

Save one powerless ally.

-----

Beruche stumbled back into the world on the ship loudly, tripping over air and running into the counter of the medical supply room. It was protocol to arrive in the main chamber for debriefing, but she was fairly certain even Rubeus would have to forgive her for this painfully necessary detour.

Beruche hissed and started to swear against that Senshi, but quickly stopped when she realized it was forcing out more blood from her neck. She would have to wait to curse Sailor Venus to her death. First, she would have to fix the damage the little brat had done to her. It would be simple enough once she could find the salve stolen from Sailor Mercury’s labs in the future. Venus’s cut wasn’t deep enough to kill her as quickly as the little bitch no doubt would have liked. She was losing a lot of blood, but it would take awhile for her to lose enough to die. She wasn’t going to let it get anywhere close to being that bad.

She reluctantly took one hand off her neck to open the correct cabinet. She swiftly swung it open and reached for the area where the little jar always sat. She kept things in the Medical Ward perfectly organized so that she could lay hands on things instantly in case of emergency, and her imminent death certainly qualified.

But when her fingers closed to wrap around the small jar, she grasped nothing.

Beruche inhaled, wheezing loud enough to wake the dead, but not Karaberas less than twenty feet away. She started tearing through the cabinet, thinking perhaps that Cooan had stupidly rearranged things when she had been in there last. She swore that she would make Cooan pay for that stupidity as she started throwing everything she touched to the ground in search of that one damn jar. When she had gone through everything that, she moved over to the next one, tossing its contents left and right.

She had to find that salve. It was the only thing now that could stop the bleeding in time. If she didn’t get it on her neck within the next three minutes, she was done for. She didn’t want to die any more than the next person, but she absolutely refused to fall victim to some tarty little fourteen-year-old who had been beaten until she realized how to call upon that chain too early.

Beruche’s eyes went wide when she finally came to grips with the fact that the cure-all wasn’t there. She slammed her fist into the cabinet door, surprising herself when a tiny dent appeared in the metal. Then she spun around, leaning against the counter to keep herself upright and bringing her now throbbing hand up to her neck. She had to do everything humanly possibly to control the bleeding. It was her only hope unless she could think of where it was.

She must have been the one to move it. Not even Cooan was stupid enough to take any supplies out of the ward without Beruche’s knowledge. Karaberas certainly wasn’t in any condition to stand up much less carry anything. Petz, infuriatingly enough, was barely bruised anymore after her fight with Sailor Jupiter. She had no need of it, and so she wasn’t going to touch it. And Rubeus probably didn’t even remember the damn thing existed. That was everyone except the captives.

Beruche’s back straightened. Of course. The Sailor Senshi. She’d given them the jar once it looked like Cooan was on the mend because they needed to be as healthy as possible upon their return to Nemesis. She hadn’t bothered to get it back for Karaberas because her injuries were too severe, and then she’d forgotten she’d moved it all.

This was the price she paid for being merciful.

She started to teleport back to that room, but as her head started to spin, she realized that was one of her dumber ideas. She wasn’t strong enough to do that. She was barely strong enough to walk. Unfortunately, she was going to have to run if she had any hope of making it in time.

Without wasting another breath, Beruche pushed herself away from the counter with her lower body and took off as fast as she could, heading directly for the holding chamber. She stumbled on just about every third step and had to reach out to the wall for support more often than not. But more importantly, she wasn’t making progress like she needed to. She wasn’t well enough for this. The blood loss was beginning to be too much. Her vision was starting to blur and the strength in her fingers was waning, allowing more and more blood to seep past her guards.

Finally, she made it out in the main room. Every inch of space she could make out was smeared and spinning. She could scarcely tell the mirrors from the floor, and now that she was out in the open with nothing to grab, she could tell that she couldn’t stay standing. Her right knee collapsed as if it had been kicked from behind, and she started to go down.

At that exact moment, she saw a flash of red and green. She knew immediately that it was either Rubeus or a hallucination of Rubeus, but whatever it was, she had to try and get his attention. She couldn’t speak, and he was too lost in thought to have noticed her in spite of her feet clacking against the floor. But a louder noise would surely attract his attention if he was really there.

She used the last bit of strength she had left in her body, the one she was using to keep her eyes open, and straightened her legs. As she had suspected, the last, desperate act was too much for her to take. Her eyes rolled up in her head, and she fell forward, gravity taking care of the rest.

The last thing she heard before she blacked out was the sound of her own body hitting the floor.

-----

Rubeus was dragged out of his thoughts by the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the floor. He couldn’t help but smirk, certain that he would turn and see Beruche standing with the final Sailor Senshi prone at her feet. He pictured the sight in his mind’s eye in the three seconds it took him to turn around. Gold hair matted with blood spilling out underneath her, chest rising and falling as she took in what could be her final, shallow breaths, and her skin littered with cuts and bruises, so different from the last time he had seen her, unscathed and triumphant even in her defeat.

It wasn’t as good as seeing her corpse, but it would do for the time being.

“Nice of you to join us,” Rubeus began as he finished his revolution. His eyes stayed trained to the ground, prepared to be confronted with red and orange and blue boots in the background.

What he saw was almost all red.

It took him half a beat to realize that it was Beruche lying at his feet, blood pouring from her neck and staining her chest, her clothes, and the ends of her hair. Her eyes were closed, and she wheezed with every breath she fought to take. It was one of his warriors dying on his floor, and while Venus was nowhere to be found, she was hovering above them like a specter, sucking the life away from them all.

“Beruche!” Rubeus shouted, springing forward and pulling the small girl into his arms. He reached forward and covered her neck wound with his hand, trying to control his fingers so they didn’t squeeze as hard as his instinct called for. He looked over his shoulder and bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Petz! Cooan! Get over here now!”

Neither Cooan nor Petz hesitated a moment in arriving, making him think that perhaps they had heard the noise of Beruche’s body hitting the ground. The minute Cooan saw her sister, she shrieked and ran to her side, slipping in the blood and crashing to her knees. She reached forward and grabbed Beruche’s hand, clinging to it as if she thought keeping a grip on the body would keep her spirit locked in. “Beruche! Beruche, wake up!”

“What happened?” Petz asked, her voice sounding strangely quiet.

“What do you think happened?” Rubeus shouted, his teeth gnashing together so hard that his jaw throbbed. “Just tell me there’s something to be done to fix this.”

Surprisingly, Cooan spoke up with an idea that actually sounded plausible. “The stuff that Beruche stole from Mercury’s labs! That should seal the cut and stop the bleeding. I’ll go get it.” She started to get to her feet and run back to the medical ward to retrieve it.

“Wait!” Petz called out, stopping Cooan mid-movement. “Look at the blood trail. She’s already been there, and she couldn’t find it.”

Rubeus screwed his face up in fury. He had some of the Black Moon’s best assassins under his command, and now they couldn’t even locate the one thing that would heal their own. He had no love for any of them –no love for anyone – but he had no intentions of losing even one member of his team. He would not withstand that humiliation. It was bad enough that Karaberas was hurt, but he wasn’t going to lose Beruche on top of that.

“Where the hell is it?” Rubeus yelled, glaring at both the sisters in turn.

Cooan’s eyes darted back and forth, her fingernails digging into her sister’s skin. Suddenly, her head snapped up, violet eyes wide with realization. “She must have left it with the prisoners!”

Much as Rubeus would have liked to question the validity of this assumption, he didn’t have time to waste with that argument. He looked over his shoulder and started to order Petz to go retrieve it, but she was already teleporting away from the scene. It was no small miracle that she was back almost as soon as she had gone, a jar in one hand and a pink communicator in the other.

“Give it here,” Cooan instructed, not really waiting for Petz to hand it to her and pulling it out of her grasp as soon as she was able to do so. She opened the jar, swearing when she saw how little was left inside. She dipped two fingers into the container, swirling them around the edges as quickly as she could. Finally, she reached out and smoothed the green translucent gel onto the cut.

Amazingly enough, it managed to penetrate through the wet blood and seep directly into the wound. Rubeus watched with some relief as the skin began to seal over the injury. The wrong committed against one of his subordinates had been healed as well as could be expected. But he knew that even if her skin remained unmarred, Beruche would carry a scar from that day onward.

Cooan reached for Beruche’s wrist, taking her pulse. She frowned deeply and looked up at Rubeus seriously. “She’ll be fine for awhile, but we have to get her back to Nemesis as soon as possible. She’s lost a lot of blood, and there’s no way we can do anything about that now.”

Rubeus closed his eyes, taking this in. Regardless of Beruche’s condition, they did have to be getting back to Nemesis as soon as possible. As soon as he gave a report that Sailor Moon had been captured, Prince Demando was going to become even more insistent about their impending return. And there were going to be questions. How is it they managed to kidnap the most powerful of the five, and yet leave Sailor Venus, of all people, running free? Why did he come back with captives with cuts and bruises and two of his own team members with critical injuries? And why did he have nothing to report about killing one man when he had been expressly ordered to eviscerate that one man on sight?

He loathed being in this position. He was a general for Christ’s sake. He was the sort of man meant to be in charge of armies that slaughtered thousands that stood in their way. He was supposed to be on the front lines, laying waste to Crystal Tokyo and the monarchs that dwelled in. He was not supposed to be playing baby-sitter to four spoiled women originally sent to snatch a child. He was not supposed to be hounded and scolded for failing to complete every mission mere hours after its assignment. And he was definitely not supposed to be holding a dying killer in his arms sent there by some slut who’d managed to take a lucky shot.

“Petz, take Beruche back to the medical ward,” Rubeus instructed in a low voice. “Do what you can to get her cleaned up. Don’t bother with anything else. We won’t be here much longer.”

Petz wisely did nothing to protest this assignment. She bent down and slung Beruche’s left arm over her shoulders and hoisted her up. She closed her eyes, preparing to make the jump to the other room, when Rubeus held up a bloody arm. He looked down at her hand still clutching the pink wrist communicator, one no doubt taken from Sailor Moon as an afterthought to the salve. He nodded and held out his hand. “Give me that.”

She looked at him for a moment, her green eyes narrowing in understanding. She nodded and dropped it into his open, crimson palm. As soon as the device touched his skin, she and Beruche disappeared, their silhouettes slowly fading from his sight.

Neither he nor Cooan moved for a moment, he staring at the spot where Beruche had just hung from Petz’s arms, and she staring down at the impossibly large pool of blood that sat stagnant between them. He supposed she was waiting for him to reassure her, and while the thought normally would have amused him, it failed miserably in this case. Much as he would have liked to silently mock Cooan’s ridiculous infatuation with him, he didn’t have the time for it. Just like he didn’t have the time to stare at anything.

He grunted and got to his feet, not missing how Cooan quickly followed suit. He looked down at the communicator in his hand, glaring at it so intensely that he wouldn’t have been that surprised if it exploded between his fingers. He closed his fist around it, his fingertips moving slick against the blood.

“What are you going to do?” Cooan asked after a moment, her voice low and surprisingly cautious. She wasn’t the sort who gave much consideration to intelligent maneuvers. She preferred to be impulsive. Her wariness was certainly a testament to something about his look. Maybe it was his quiet.

“I need you to stay here,” Rubeus said, not directly answering the question. “Do what you can about the blood and Beruche. Make sure either you or Petz checks in on the prisoners once in awhile. Tell Karaberas the situation if she wakes up.”

Cooan swallowed, taking a careful step forward, feeling about for the driest portion of the floor. “You’re not doing what I think you’re doing.”

Rubeus whirled on her, shoulders hunching and teeth snapping like a viper’s jaws. “Are you telling me how to run this operation?”

Cooan was wise enough to be afraid, shrinking away from him. She closed her eyes and said, “I can go, Master Rubeus. I can--"

“No,” Rubeus snapped, resisting the urge to belittle the suggestion even more than he always did. “I’ve sent two of you to capture her now, and both have failed miserably. Besides, you’re still injured.”

“Barely!” Cooan countered, losing her temper enough to shout.

“You’re hurt enough to slow you down,” Rubeus growled. “I don’t care how battered she is. I am not sending anyone who isn’t in perfect condition to take her on.”

Cooan scoffed, shaking her head at him. He had no idea where the courage was coming from after being so timid a moment before. “Then send Petz. There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s totally recovered from the fight with Jupiter.”

“I’m going to take care of this,” Rubeus insisted.

“If this were Mars we were talking about, would you be so eager to go?” Cooan hissed, her fingers curling and her purple nails sliding out from underneath her cuticle. The difference in length was slight, but it was nonetheless unmistakable. The cat was drawing out its claws.

“If it were Mars, I likely wouldn’t be talking to you right now, period,” Rubeus reminded her, his voice rising.

Cooan took another bold step forward, putting them in a situation where their faces were only inches apart. “You know what I mean.”

Rubeus let out a loud yell and threw the watch to the ground. Then he reached up with both hands and pulled the neck of his vest down as far as the fabric would stretch. He saw Cooan fight to keep from looking at the skin to see the scar they were all so familiar with. A circular mark two inches in diameter on the right side of his chest from where a chain of gold had ripped through him. It was the wound that had sent their group retreating from the palace that day, the one that allowed the Guardian Senshi to make it to the Crystal Tower in time to bring up a barrier that blocked the second wave of the aerial assault, the one marked him forever as something less than what he was.

“This is what she left on my body!” Rubeus reminded her, his voice echoing inside the chamber. “Her chain and her power and my body!” His tense fingers wanted to release the damp fabric, but he had no idea what else they might wrap around if they weren’t there. “So yes, it is different. Because now, I just don’t want to beat her. I want to obliterate her. I want to leave her twisted and broken and begging me for her life.”

“You want her dead!” Cooan yelled, shaking her head.

Rubeus sneered darkly, turning his face away from her. He was still shaking from his outburst, but he was quickly covering that up. He couldn’t lose his temper. His anger had to be preserved for what was important, and it had to be concealed from those too stupid to realize just how dangerous he was. “Don’t act noble. It doesn’t suit you.”

Cooan stuttered for a second, her cheeks turning red. She gestured sharply, whipping her arm around her to point to where the four Sailor Senshi sat, waiting for their true purpose in this venture to be revealed. “Of course I want those girls dead, Master Rubeus, but I know what will happen if they perish one moment before Prince Demando gives the order.”

“If you know that, then you’ve done all you can,” Rubeus answered easily, forcing his voice to be closer to quiet than he cared to. “You’ve warned me, you’ve yelled, and you have come dangerously close to insubordination. If anything happens, you’re absolved.” Thinking that was the end of it, he turned to leave.

He was surprised when Cooan’s fingers closed around the fist that contained the communicator. He turned his head sharply, glaring over his shoulder to see what she possibly could have wanted with him after all that. His anger was not stopped, but when he saw her look away so he couldn’t see her expression clearly in the shadows, he felt satisfaction, and that was enough to hold any further outburst at bay. What’s more, he was shocked to see a single tear hovering on her pale skin glinting in the dim light.

Shocked, but amused nonetheless.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” Cooan admitted quietly. “You might have brought his precious Sailor Moon in one piece, but if you deviate from the order… I’m scared of what might happen.” Then she took a deep breath and glared into his eyes defiantly, her violet eyes watery, but still full of their same fire.

It was almost sweet, her concern for him. He was never one to appreciate such overtures of affection, but he assumed that if that was the sort of thing he enjoyed, he would have liked this. As it stood, he saw all of her words as nothing more than validation of his tactics when it came to Cooan. Her admiration for him had not faded, and he found himself extremely grateful that even through the haze of pain Venus had caused him during the attack on Crystal Tokyo, he had noticed how deeply Cooan was affected by his injuries. Until he had learned of her foolish crush, she had been one of the hardest of the sisters to control. That was why he saw all of these overtures and conversations as irritating, but tolerable.

“Is it so wrong to want to protect you from yourself, Master Rubeus?”

But that could not be allowed.

While he normally took the time to be calculating with the four Akayashi Sisters, Rubeus wasted no time in raising his hand and propelling it forward, putting nearly all of his weight into the blow. The back of his hand struck her cheek hard, eliciting a loud shriek and tiny spurt of crimson that shot into the air. Cooan stumbled under the force of the blow, trying to keep her balance. In the end, she slipped on the mess on the floor, her clothes and skin becoming hopelessly stained with her sister’s blood. She cupped her face with a wet hand, staring up at him with shock and disbelief.

Rubeus stood trembling above her, almost physically restraining himself from doing much more damage. It had been so long since he’d been allowed to strike out. The violence was as intoxicating as ever, and it was painful for him to hold back. But he knew that even though his rage was righteous, there was another far more deserving of it than one of his allies. One of his pawns.

“I do not need your protection,” Rubeus seethed, the muscles in his back twisting themselves into knots. “I will never need anything from you.”

There was more he could have said, more he could have done to completely crush her beneath his weight and fury. He knew he could have killed her in an instant, and somehow, that knowledge seemed to calm him. Reassurance of his power always had a soothing effect on him. And while he didn’t need the reassurance, it was clear that other people needed to be reminded constantly.

But now Cooan knew his limits, though she didn’t know the extent of his strength. She knew only enough to keep her from making a similar mistake again, or so he hoped. He didn’t have time to play her childish games and encourage her insipid emotional needs.

His message clear, Rubeus turned and left. After all, he had a quarry to uncover.

He had vengeance to satisfy.

-----

After Rubeus had gone, Cooan still sat on the floor, clutching the bruising skin and bleeding lip he had left behind. Water clung to her eyelashes that surrounded eyes that were widened with the shock of his blow. She just sat there, shaking and breathing, an occasional whimper accompanying.

She had only been trying to help. She just didn’t want him to get hurt thanks to an inability to control his temper. That had always been a danger the four of them had been preparing themselves to face. They all knew the day might come when Rubeus couldn’t stand sitting around, running things from a distance. They all knew he might storm from the ship to take matters into his own hands, and they all knew that this could not be allowed.

There was a damn good reason Rubeus hadn’t been sent on this mission by himself. True, he was an incredible general, but he had a lust for blood that could not be controlled by anyone. He was the only one capable of leading this operation, and Prince Demando and his brother, Sapphir, had hoped that having four underlings would be enough to keep Rubeus from stepping into the field.

They were wrong.

And now, Rubeus was marching out to track down the last member of their quarry. Even in her shock, Cooan knew that there was only a slim chance that he would bring Venus back alive. He was too far gone to be talked down now. Even if they were able to, Beruche’s calm, Petz’s strength, and Karaberas’s cunning would not be enough to tie him down. He was going out himself, and Cooan knew only disaster could come from that.

She had tried to tell him this, and all she had gotten in return for her concern was the sting of his palm.

She shoved her hands into the feathers of her skirt, burying the white into the purple that tickled. Her fingers trembled between the soft material, her eyes squeezing shut but refusing to let the tears fall. He had already made her cry the day before. It had been wasteful then. She’d used them up on a time when she should have been allowed to weep. And now that she was presented with the opportunity again, she wasn’t going to take advantage of it. She would hold everything in and hope that it slipped away.

Suddenly, Cooan heard the sound of her sister’s heels clacking against the floor. They seemed to start closer than they should have, and that could only mean one thing: Petz had seen the whole thing and now came the mockeries and the “I told you so’s.” Petz might not have been the sister Cooan most dreaded being caught looking like this, but she wasn’t the one she was least concerned about either.

She was covered in that sister’s blood.

Cooan felt like she was about to choke on her own air, so she forced herself to speak. “Save it, Petz,” she muttered darkly, taking a long, shuddering breath. “I don’t need your lecturing right now. Just because you’re the oldest doesn’t mean that you have to rub it in.”

Petz stopped walking, her final movement echoing in the virtually empty chamber. A few seconds passed in relative silence, the sound fading away even though Cooan swore she could still hear it resonating in her ears. She was half-tempted to cover them up, but she knew that wouldn’t do anything to stop it.

Finally, she heard Petz exhale. It could have been a sigh.

“Do you understand now?” she asked, her voice laced with her normal venomous irritation and yet so much softer than Cooan could ever remember hearing it.

Her back straightened in surprise at the unexpected and uncharacteristic version of tenderness. It might not have been gentle by normal standards, but in terms of Petz’s behavior, it was the equivalent of an embrace. It shook Cooan’s foundations, making her feel like everything had gone topsy-turvy. Like the ground was caving in beneath her feet.

She turned around to demand what Petz was playing at, but by the time she completed her revolution, Petz had vanished. That left Cooan still sitting on the floor, her knees drawn close to her body and her throat burning with the effort to hold back her tears. She breathed loudly, eyes darting around for a hint of a moving shadow to show that Petz hadn’t completely abandoned her, but there wasn’t anything to see.

Cooan had never felt so much like the youngest in all her life.

-----

Mamoru found himself staring in disbelief. His legs told him that he ought to run (although really, they had been reaffirming both Venus and Sailor Moon – Minako and Usagi – from the moment they told him to leave). His stomach told him to be sick at the carnage he’d just seen and the blood staining the dirt as a reminder. And his head told him that this wasn’t happening, couldn’t possibly be happening, because even though he knew that nightmares breathed in Tokyo, they weren’t part of his life. They were just something he happened to run into from time to time, just like anyone else who happened to live in the Juuban district.

But he didn’t do any of those things. He just stared because it was what required the least amount of effort and thought. If he stared, maybe he could just freeze things, and he wouldn’t have to think about how Usagi and the others were gone.

Naturally, his catatonic state couldn’t last for very long. He may have been partial to his brooding habits, but he wasn’t one to withdraw when he was needed. And when he saw Venus’s knees start to give way again, he couldn’t deny the fact that she needed help, although he couldn’t provide the level she really needed.

Nevertheless, Mamoru moved forward, awkwardly grabbing her around the shoulders with one arm in an attempt to keep her up right. He knew better than to ask if she was all right, but he was having a hard time coming up with an alternative.

However, she didn’t give him the chance to make a fool of himself verbally. The second his fingertips touched her bruised forearm, she recoiled as if his fingers had been on fire or like his touch was the equivalent of death. “Don’t touch me!” she yelled as she pulled away, eyes blazing at the insult. She even went so far as to cross her arms in front of her chest, physically barring him from making anymore contact, as if she was afraid words weren’t enough.

“Okay, okay.” He held up his hands, catching the way they shook out of the corner of his eye. He took a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry. I just…” his voice trailed off as he continued to try and find an alternative to asking about her health. Finally, he called upon the pre-med student portion of his brain, going into specifics. “Do you feel dizzy or anything? Or like you’re going to be sick?”

The look she gave him made it clear that it had still been a mistake. “I just got used as some crazy girl’s punching bag, and my best friends are gone, at her mercy and other people like her – maybe worse. How do you think I feel?”

He closed his eyes, hanging his head a bit. In reports about the Sailor Senshi he had bothered to read, there was always some debate on just what her element was supposed to be. The others seemed fairly clear, but hers was always subject to question. One person had hypothesized that it was metal because of its connection to Venus. Hearing her voice cut into him like a diamond-tipped knife made him certain that this was the case.

He swallowed and said, “I’m just trying to make sure I don’t need to take you to a hospital.”

When he opened his eyes, hoping to see that this concern would placate her, Mamoru was severely disappointed. If anything, the intimation had made things even worse. “Do you think I have time to sit in a hospital right now?” she snapped, reaching up and unconsciously touching the open cut on her cheek. “I don’t even have time to be talking to you.”

Mamoru sighed, throwing his arms out. “All right. So what do we do? You tell me.”

She stared at him in utter disbelief. Until that moment, Mamoru had always thought that the term “jaw drop” was an unrealistic expression. “What do we do?”

Mamoru paused, realizing his mistake. He hadn’t even really meant to say that actually. He’d meant to ask what she was going to do, because it was painstakingly clear that there was nothing he could do. He was good at dodging and nothing more. He took a step backward, the force of her anger propelling him out of shooting range. “I meant--"

“You can’t do anything, Mamoru!” Venus shouted, jerking her hands down to her sides. “You’re dead weight, something Usagi and I had to watch out for when we should have been thinking about the fight.

“And do you know what you should have done, Mamoru?” she asked him, her voice starting to waver. He was quite sure he was going to see her start sobbing at any minute, and fourteen-year-old girl or no, there was something about seeing a Senshi cry that turned his stomach. “You should have run when I told you to run. Or you should have remembered when you were supposed to. Better yet, you should have never even come into her life at all so that you didn’t hurt her like this! You’ve destroyed her!

“I didn’t do anything wrong!” he insisted, knowing that it sounded unbelievable even as he said it. If what they were telling him was true, and all things considered, he was going to have to assume that it was, he must have done something to cause all this mess. Maybe it wasn’t entirely his fault, but he couldn’t be totally blameless. He didn’t believe in that sort of thing, so he didn’t know why he said that.

“You were born!” Venus shrieked bitterly, advancing on him. “That’s enough.”

That in particular stung, and he couldn’t help being overwhelmed by the smell of sea water and the sound of screeching tires. He felt closed in, like metal was crashing around him, and he shuddered from his feet upwards, now really wanting to be sick. Desperate for a change of subject, he hissed, “I didn’t know that I was involved.”

“Would you have wanted to be if you had known?” Venus demanded, her cheeks flushing with anger. “If you had remembered that you were Prince Endymion, Tuxedo Kamen, and Tsukikage no Knight, would you have wanted to help us?”

Mamoru shook his head, knowing this line of questioning was unfair. “And can you honestly tell me that when you were three, you told your mother than you wanted to do something where you could die every day?”

“I’d rather be dead than a coward!” Venus told him, throwing platitudes in his face when he wanted answers.

“You can’t blame me for not wanting this, and you can’t blame me for running away because I didn’t!” Mamoru insisted. “I didn’t know there was anything to run away from.”

Venus shook her head adamantly, refusing to give up any ground. “You abandoned us. We needed you, and you were nowhere. All we got was a white shadow of who you were, and not even all of you. Just a piece of your soul that got free. But we need you, all of you. She needs you.”

“What makes me so important?” Mamoru challenged, wanting to know if she could tell him why he was born with this burden he couldn’t even remember.

“Because she loves you!” Venus screamed, literally hurling herself forward into his chest. He staggered back to keep from falling, but he never laid a hand on her. She was the one swinging, pummeling her fists into his chest. The blows hurt quite a bit more than he would have expected from her small frame, and it was all happening so quickly that he didn’t immediately react. “Because she always loved you, nevermind that it brought down a civilization, nevermind that you were nothing but cruel to her when you first met, nevermind that you tried to kill her – kill all of us, although I’m the only who seems to remember that.”

Finally, Mamoru started to get his wits about him. He brought his hands up, trying to catch her wrists between his fingers and failing miserably at the endeavor. Every time he came close, she pulled back with surprising force and landed another hit, each stronger than the last. He scarcely had time to register what she was saying, or note that unsurprisingly, he had no idea what she was talking about.

“Fine,” Mamoru said loudly, feeling like his voice had to carry over the sound of his own beating. “Then I’ll just leave. Stay out of her life and far away from you.” At the moment, he couldn’t think of anything he would have liked better.

Venus shook her head again, her shoulders heaving as the crying finally started. “You don’t understand. I can’t let you out of my sight now. You’re my responsibility now that she’s gone!”

Mamoru blinked, not comprehending this at all. “But why?”

Venus took a long, shuddering breath, drawing her left hand back for yet another hit. But she paused just before she would have pushed it forward, her chest heaving and her breathing dangerously close to hyperventilating. After a moment, Mamoru saw it regulate, paying attention to that rather than the tears he knew were coursing down her cheeks. He could sense the fight and the fury slipping out of her body with every breath, and while he knew that her resentment of him was far from gone, he at least wouldn’t have to be worried about her hitting him again for as long as he was with her.

“Because she loves you,” Venus concluded in a defeated one. Her left hand fell uselessly at her side, the fingers of her right hand curling and gripping his shirt. Her head slumped forward, resting on the top of his rib cage. She looked like she could barely stand, but he made no move to help her. He wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.

“She’s already furious with me,” Venus confessed quietly, her whispering voice chilling him from the inside out. “You see, she heard me telling Makoto that I didn’t think you two were right for each other. She’s been obsessed with getting you back, especially after what happened with Ail and Ann and the Makaiju and you still not remembering. I didn’t… I didn’t like watching it, and I don’t like you.”

Mamoru found it completely unbelievable that she was telling him this. He’d never actually heard a person so candidly and solemnly express their dislike for him. Normally, it was said loudly at a bar after he’d accidentally hit on someone’s girlfriend or someone’s girlfriend purposefully hit on him.

“She heard it, and she hit me, and we haven’t really spoken since,” Venus went on. “Well, we’ve yelled at each other… And Ami and Rei weren’t there to fix things, and Makoto was sticking by Usagi… She said she needed her more than I did, and I guess she was right. I didn’t mind losing you, but Usagi could barely live with it.

“If I abandoned you now, she’d really never forgive me. Don’t you see? You’re in danger. Beruche or Petz – Petz more likely – will tell everyone else that a man was with me. It won’t take them very long to figure out who you are, and then they’ll be after you too.”

Mamoru’s mouth became as dry as dust. He hadn’t given that any consideration. He’d been too floored by the revelations, Usagi’s disappearance, and Minako’s breakdown. But he couldn’t deny that she was right. Because he’d stayed, he’d been seen, and now he was in danger. He should have been able to think that far ahead. He’d certainly had enough time standing around and doing nothing.

His shoulders sagged, his hands still remaining as far away from her body as he could manage. “So, I repeat my earlier question… What do we do now?”

He blinked as he saw the jewel on her brow begin to glow. Then he saw it spread to the rest of the body, and he quickly figured out what was going on. Although he had watched her transform without thinking much of it, now that they were alone and standing much closer together, he found his head jerking away as the transformation vanished in a golden shimmer and falling stars. Once he felt the heat subside, he turned back, watching as Minako took a few steps away from him. She looked up into his eyes, and he saw they were still wet with tears and red besides, but the worst of her outburst was finally over.

“Do you have your car?” she asked, her voice a bit hoarse.

“Yeah,” Mamoru answered after a bit of stammering, gesturing in the general direction of where he’d left it parked. “Yeah. Where do you need to go?”

Minako walked past him without saying anything, prompting him to follow her. After a second, she said, “My place. I need to get as patched up as I can manage. There’s no telling how long it’ll be until they come after us again. Actually, I’m surprised we’ve lasted this long.” She paused, and he could tell by the set of her shoulders that things were even more dire than he already knew. “And I need to tell Luna and Artemis what happened.”

Mamoru wanted to point out that the two names she had just given him belonged to cats, but considering everything that had just happened, he decided it was best to keep his mouth shut.

It was a short walk back to where he had parked, and it was a very good idea that they had decided to walk back when they did. While many people had probably been aware of the on-going battle, people were just now becoming brave enough to venture into the area. Police and other official-looking people accompanied the gawking spectators, and the sight of so many of them made him nervous. He felt sure they would see the cuts Minako sported or the dust and bruises that he felt he was covered in, but they never looked their way. They presumed that they had nothing to do with whatever fantastic and terrible event had just occurred, and they were thusly ignored.

It was a phenomenon that amazed him, but it was no surprise that Minako didn’t seem the least bit phased. She was quite used to all of this. Of that he was certain.

After about five minutes, they reached the parking lot. They both climbed in as Minako gave him basic directions to her house. He was vaguely familiar with the area, and he was confident he wouldn’t have to constantly bother her about where they were meant to go after every turn. He turned the ignition and pulled out of the lot, his foot just a bit too heavy on the gas, his hands gripping the wheel just a bit too hard.

As much as he knew he ought to be using the driving time to sort through everything that was going on, he shoved all those thoughts aside. He longed to quiet his mind, although he didn’t protest when Minako immediately reached forward and turned on the radio, keeping the volume low enough so that they could just barely hear it, the perfect amount of background noise. He didn’t want to talk and he didn’t want to think. He just wanted to drive and allow himself to sink into the monotonous activity that was now practically second nature to him. It was all he was asking for at the moment.

Still, he couldn’t help himself from having at least one pondering on the drive. When they were stuck at a particularly long light, he happened to glance over at Minako. He saw that her knees were drawn up onto the seat, her arms wrapped around them in a self-embrace. Her head had fallen against the car window, her eyes closed and shutting out the hustle and bustle of Japan in the late afternoon.

And he couldn’t help but think that the world resting on her shoulders must have felt unbearable.

-----

After what felt like hours and hours of weeping, Usagi finally managed to calm herself down enough to breathe without choking. She was still in Makoto’s arms, her face buried in her now damp lap. But she was surrounded by warmth on all sides with Ami on her left, stroking her hair, and Rei on her right, clutching one of her hands in a near death grip.

Finally, able to speak again, Usagi pushed herself up into a sitting position. Her muscles ached in protest, but she couldn’t stay still forever. She looked at all three of her friends in turn, giving them a watery smile in spite of everything that was going on. She took a deep breath and spoke, her voice thick from the tears she’d spent so long shedding. “I’m so happy you’re all okay.”

Rei made a noise at that, but both Ami and Makoto gave her a look Usagi didn’t understand. Whatever the meaning was behind it, the effect was obviously one they had intended. Rei leaned forward, resting her forehead on Usagi’s. “I never wanted to see you like this. None of us did.”

“We’re alive,” Ami reminded them, as if this was something they could easily forget. “That’s the important thing.”

“And what’s more important is that Minako isn’t here,” Rei continued, her violet eyes sparking to life. Usagi closed her eyes hearing Rei bring her up. It was a fair point, but Usagi didn’t want to think about her. Just like she didn’t want to think about the fact that she’d left Mamoru alone, and that she had no way of knowing that he was still all right.

Makoto shook her head, looking skeptical. “We don’t know they aren’t getting close.”

“Didn’t you hear that commotion earlier?” Rei said, voice tinged with her usual impatience. “They didn’t get her, and apparently she did some damage since Petz came tearing through here for that salve. I don’t know how she’s managed to slip through their fingers twice, but she’s done it. And that means we still have a chance.”

Makoto looked at Rei, green eyes hardened. “And you think she’ll be able to do it a third time?”

“She has been a soldier longer than any of us has,” Ami pointed out quietly, no doubt sensing the growing tension between Rei and Makoto that Usagi also couldn’t help but notice. While Usagi was choosing to ignore it, Ami was doing her best to diffuse it. “So it’s possible.”

“But it isn’t possible that she’ll be able to come up here and save us by herself,” Makoto said harshly. “Minako isn’t any more powerful than the rest of us. She can’t fly. She can’t heal herself. She can’t blow things up with her mind. She’s just got a Crescent Beam to throw around and her kicks. She can’t stage a rescue with just that.”

“She’s not by herself,” Usagi said suddenly, her voice quiet. She had stupidly not realized that her friends had no idea about what had just happened back at the park. They couldn’t know that Mamoru was even out of the hospital, much less the fact that he had been there for the battle. And that he had saved her again, a memory that left her heart fluttering in spite of all the peril she was in.

Ami looked at her, her brow furrowed. “Well, we know Luna and Artemis are there, Usagi, but--"

“I meant Mamoru,” Usagi admitted, interrupting. “He’s with her now.”

Makoto, the one who was most intimately aware of Minako’s feelings about Mamoru other than Usagi, went absolutely white. “He what?”

“When did he get out of the hospital?” Rei asked hurriedly. “Is he all right? Is he hurt? What happened?”

“He called me earlier to tell me he’d been released,” Usagi explained, her head spinning from all of Rei’s rapid-fire questions. “He said he wanted to meet with me. I thought it was about his memories, but…” Her face fell then, her shoulders drooping so that her back hurt. “He still doesn’t remember anything.”

Ami reached forward, laying her hands over Usagi’s. Usagi looked up into Ami’s eyes, so kind and compassionate for her problems where Minako’s had seemed cold and heartless. “I’m sorry, Usagi. But I’m sure he’ll come around eventually.”

Usagi nodded, more sure of this than Ami realized. “Yes, he will. Because I told him.”

Even though no one else had been talking before, when Usagi finished that thought, the group seemed to be blanketed by heaving, suffocating silence. It was the sort of quiet filled with too many emotions, so many that it almost felt like it was taking up all of the space above their heads where the air should have been. It was also the sort of silence that always, always came just before a very loud outburst.

“Excuse me?” Rei asked loudly, her brows furrowing together. “What do you mean you told him?!”

Usagi blinked, unsure of why Rei had to ask this of all things. “I mean--"

“I know what you meant!” Rei snapped unreasonably.

Ami sighed, looking about as weary as Usagi had ever seen her. “I think what Rei’s saying is that we talked about this, Usagi. We said that if we just tell Mamoru about the fight with the Dark Kingdom and everything else, we may end up doing more harm than good. It could bring on a flood of recollections too quickly and he could be overwhelmed. What’s more, he could wind up creating false memories based on our perceptions, and that could irrevocably damage any sort of relationship we’re going to have with him in the future.”

“But he asked me!” Usagi insisted, leaning forward. “He said that weird things have been happening… Strange dreams that I know have to be connected with his memories.” Usagi soured considerably. “And then Minako had to go and say something to Motoki after they were attacked--"

“Motoki was with her?” Makoto asked, her voice rising in pitch and thick with panic. “Is he all right?”

Usagi sighed, hanging her head, knowing that Makoto was not going to take this news well. Even though it was clear to all of them that Motoki was going to remain ever faithful to his girlfriend in Africa, it was no secret that Makoto was always going to carry a very small torch for Furuhata Motoki. And if that was taking it too far, he was always going to be special to her, probably more special than he was to any of them. “He’s in the hospital.”

Makoto’s face turned ashen white. Her hand immediately flew to her mouth, and Usagi was convinced she was about to be sick.

She rushed to lean forward, grasping Makoto by her shoulders. “He’s going to be all right! Mamoru made it sound like it was just a precaution…”

This did very little to improve Makoto’s disposition. She hunched her shoulders and ducked her head, looking like she was ready to lash out at the first enemy who came her way. And considering their captors were to blame for what had happened, Usagi knew that this mood of hers was dangerous. “Why was he even there?”

Usagi’s fingers relaxed on Makoto’s shoulders. She might have needed a tighter grip, but Usagi couldn’t focus enough to provide it. “I think he was walking Minako home.”

Makoto got even more stiff and then suddenly vaulted to her feet, pacing the length of the room. “Can’t that girl walk herself home!”

Ami looked up at Makoto pleadingly. She didn’t want to deal with another outburst, and Usagi knew she definitely didn’t want anyone coming down here to investigate all the noise. “Makoto, this isn’t Minako’s fault.”

“He shouldn’t have been there!” Makoto snapped, paying Ami no attention. “And she should have been able to protect him.”

“He was probably protecting her,” Ami said reasonably.

Makoto stamped her foot, her white cheeks flushing red. “She’s the one with all the power!”

“He doesn’t know that!” Rei interrupted loudly. She turned back to Usagi and nodded her head, “Get back to Mamoru. There’s nothing we can do about either him or Motoki, but we need to know about Mamoru more right now.”

The words sounded strange coming out of Rei’s mouth, but Usagi quickly realized she was trying to prevent Makoto from having another conniption. And she was right anyway. Mamoru was more important than Motoki. “Minako had warned Motoki off. He must have been asking questions about why we were all being targeted, and she said he was in danger… I think she must have scared him. Mamoru seemed pretty scared when I talked to him as well.”

Ami nodded, looking very grave. She leaned against the wall of the cell, glancing up at the ceiling. “So you told him the truth because he asked for it.”

“I wasn’t going to lie,” Usagi maintained.

“It would have been better for him if you did,” Rei said, brutally honest as always.

Usagi shook her head. “If I hadn’t given him some warning, being caught up in that fight might have brought back some kind of flashback. That would have horrible.”

“What you said to him could have triggered it worse than the fight,” Rei accused, refusing to cut her the slightest bit of slack given their current circumstances. She refused to spare her, even when Usagi needed to be spared.

“And why was he there?” Makoto voiced, echoing her earlier question. “Why didn’t he leave the second Beruche arrived?”

Usagi pushed a hand into her bangs regretfully. “I don’t know. Minako and I tried, but he wouldn’t budge.” She paused, that same fond smile winding its way around her lips. “He even protected me. And then when Beruche tried to hurt him, I did the same. It’s just like before.”

Rei sighed, quickly losing whatever little patience she had left. She had been tender just minutes before, but now that it was clear that Usagi had done something she didn’t approve of, it was as if they had just met and Rei could barely stand to look at her. “It’s not like before, Usagi. And it might not ever be like before.”

Ami and Makoto both visibly stiffened at this prediction. Heads instantly snapped in Usagi’s direction, waiting for a reaction.

They were not disappointed.

“Of course everything will be like it was!” Usagi shouted, scrambling to her feet in hopes of exacting some superiority over her friend, get her to listen to reason. “Mamoru will remember and we will be together again. Everything’s going to be all right. I admit that I doubted that for awhile, but now I know. He saved me and he stayed with me and that’s because deep, deep down, he knows that he loves me.”

“Will you listen to yourself?” Rei yelled, getting to her feet as well, overtaking any ground that Usagi had. “I let you wallow before because I thought you needed it, but now I see what a mistake that was. Usagi, you are expecting the impossible. Too much has happened to turn back the clock. Mamoru has changed from when he was Tuxedo Kamen, and even if Tsukikage no Knight’s essence returned, you can’t undo however Mamoru has developed since then. Yes, he saved you from the Makaiju. Yes, he put himself through hell for you, but that doesn’t mean that he’s going to wake up when his memories come back and profess his love for you!”

Usagi started shaking with anger. She didn’t want to hear this. She couldn’t hear this sort of thing, not again. It had been bad enough coming from Minako, who Usagi had to admit, was an unexpected source, but hearing it from Rei now was just too much. “Why not? Why can’t I expect that?”

“You didn’t fall in love with him because you remembered he was Endymion,” Rei insisted, punctuating every syllable so that she was sure Usagi got the point. “Say what you want about how you couldn’t stand him until you knew he was Tuxedo Kamen, you’d been falling in love with him since the moment you met him.”

Usagi’s cheeks colored at the accusation. “That isn’t true.”

“Yes, it is. I was there, remember?” Rei reminded her. “Do you think I didn’t notice how you looked at him? Do you think I missed all those times I turned around on a date with him and saw you duck behind a bush? And do you think that I wouldn’t read into all the times you tried to push Yuuichirou and I together when I was still with Mamoru?” She shook her head adamantly. “I’m not bitter about what happened there, Usagi. I knew that something was developing before I let myself admit in that last fight with Zoisite. You cared about him too much; his opinions mattered too much. You were always aware of him and always running into him and… Well, of course you fell in love with him after all that, and finding out who he was reinforced that. But it wasn’t what made you want to be with him. Because he isn’t Endymion and he isn’t even Tuxedo Kamen anymore. He’s Chiba Mamoru, he’s a human being, and you can’t expect all of that to change just because you want it to.”

Usagi had literally put her hands over her ears during Rei’s tirade, although it did nothing to block out Rei’s accusations. She hated being in this position. She couldn’t stand that Rei thought she could throw her opinions around as fact, especially when they were wrong. She was in love with Tuxedo Kamen first, and Endymion long before that. She loved Mamoru because of who he was, and surely that meant the same thing would happen to him. Why was that so hard to understand?

Rei scoffed at the end of her speech and reached forward, yanking her wrists and pulling them from her face. Even though she was more likely to hear now, she still raised her voice as she yelled, “Don’t you get it? You can’t rely on his memories to make him love you. And you can’t force the past on him just because you want that.”

Usagi shut her eyes and whirled away from Rei, pulling her hands free from her grasp. She whimpered and hugged herself tightly, shaking her head rapidly. “Stop it! Don’t say things like that! You sound like Minako, and I--"

“Minako?” Rei interrupted, sounding surprised. “What does any of this have to do with Minako?”

Usagi blinked, straightening. She looked over her shoulder, eyebrows raised in question. “You didn’t tell her?”

“Tell me what?” Rei asked, her voice dropping an octave as a warning for what might come next. “What’s going on?”

Usagi thought that Ami now looked like she could hardly keep her head up. As if in response to this image of Usagi’s, Ami put her face in her hands, heaving an incredibly long sigh. “Minako said much of the same thing to Usagi--"

“She said that we weren’t meant to be together!” Usagi corrected, the old fury coming back now that Ami was bringing it up. She had been willing to try and let things go earlier, even regretting everything she had said and done back at Hikawa that first day and then later. But the indignation over Minako’s opinion and the absolute wrongness of it never faded in her mind. And now that Rei was ripping open wounds that had barely had a chance to heal, Usagi could hardly remember what it felt like to want Minako in her life.

“From what I understand, there was some sort of disagreement,” Ami continued, keeping her voice level. “And apparently, neither of them have spoken since.”

Rei stared at Ami as if she had just sprouted a tail. “Are you meaning to tell me that Minako – Aino Minako – told Usagi that she shouldn’t be such a hopeless romantic about this?”

Ami nodded. “It is strange, isn’t it?”

“You mean it’s like I’ve woken up in Bizarro World,” Rei corrected sharply. She looked over at Makoto and said, “Did you know about this?”

Makoto leaned against the back wall, hanging her head a bit. “I was there when it happened.”

Unsurprisingly, this revelation was what started to make Rei’s face turn colors. “And no one thought to tell me this?”

“It seemed trivial by comparison,” Ami soothed. “Not to mention the fact that I was hoping that the whole issue would blow over by the time we saw Minako or Usagi again.”

“Well, obviously, it hasn’t,” Rei said testily. She turned back to Usagi, once again redirecting her frustration at her. “Why in the name of all things reasonable have you let this go on?”

Usagi narrowed her eyes. Rei was no doubt expecting to get her backed into a corner, crying for sympathy, but that wasn’t going to happen. If she wanted to take Minako’s side, fine. But that meant that she was going to get treated just like Minako, and probably worse all things considered. “She wouldn’t admit she was wrong.”

Rei rolled her eyes so far back into her head it gave Usagi a headache. “Yes, because it’s so common for people to say they were mistaken when they were correct in every aspect.”

“She said he didn’t want to remember on purpose,” Usagi maintained. “And I can’t believe that of him.”

Rei threw her hands up. “Fine. Maybe not every aspect, but Usagi, there’s this thing that exists between people who get into arguments. It’s called compromise, and--"

“You have never compromised in your life,” Usagi accused.

“That’s not the point,” Rei snapped, obviously deciding it was better to not try to refute that point. “Everyone was getting kidnapped. You two were left on your own. You can’t honestly say that you thought it was better to be angry with each other.”

Usagi opened her mouth, but there really wasn’t a good way to answer that. The truth was, she hadn’t liked being at odds with Minako, particularly when it was just the two of them. But that didn’t mean that she was willing to give up any ground on her position.

“I never would have let her get hurt,” Usagi said in a low voice. “I came and helped her with the woman who attacked her. I never, ever would have let anything happen to her. Not when I’d already lost all of you.”

Rei held her hands up as if this was some great revelation on Usagi’s part. “So why would it have been so hard for you to just let it go?”

Usagi stared at Rei for a minute before finally turning back around, staring out through the bars of their cage and into the green darkness, searching for an escape from it all even though she knew one couldn’t exist. “Could you have let it go?”

Rei didn’t answer. After a moment, Usagi heard the sound of her hands dropping to her sides. A moment later, she heard footsteps wandering away from her, moving to a corner as far away from her as possible.

It struck Usagi that while a few minutes before they had been as physically close as their bodies could allow, now they had all staked out their corners, keeping their distance from the only friends they had in this cruel, dark place.

It was more than enough to make her cry again.

-----

After leaving Cooan to her own devices, Petz slowly made her way to the ship’s main computer, where she knew she would find Rubeus tracking Sailor Venus down for the final showdown. Although she knew the news she carried wasn’t the sort of thing she should drag her feet about, after seeing his confrontation with Cooan, Petz felt she couldn’t be blamed for not being prompt about it. To begin with, she was quite sure Cooan was right in just about every aspect of the situation. Rubeus ought not to be allowed to go after any of their quarry themselves, particularly the only one left. The only person she would have been more wary about allowing Rubeus to retrieve was Sailor Moon. She supposed in that regard it was a lucky break that she hadn’t left the leader of their band for the last as they had originally intended. Because of these opinions, she was in no mood to see Rubeus, knowing that it was going to be difficult to keep her thoughts to herself as well as being sure that it could just as easily be her with the split lip.

What’s more, she would have liked nothing more than to rip his eyes out for having laid a hand on her little sister.

It was no secret that the Akayashi Sisters didn’t get along. They may have been legendary assassins, but they were infamous when it came to their feuds. The in-fighting reached near catastrophic levels at times, and in their youth, there had been plenty of instances where they had nearly died at each others hands. They each bore each other’s scars – Karaberas had a mark across her stomach from when she had tried to cheat at chess with Beruche, Beruche wore gloves thanks to one of Cooan’s tantrums during her toddler years, and Petz had slashes across her thighs from when Karaberas had turned the whip on her. They had drawn each other’s blood so often that if they hadn’t actually been blood-related, they would have been bound from the crimson liquid intermixing through acts of violence.

But it was also well-known that no one laid a hand on a sister except for another sister. It was why the four of them could band together so easily against the Sailor Senshi. They were fiercely protective of one another. In a pinch, Petz might even find herself defending Karaberas, although the occasion for such a test had yet to arise.

Thus, seeing Rubeus dare to strike Cooan in her line of vision was the greatest of insults. Even if she hadn’t seen it and only heard about it later, Petz had no doubts that her fingers would still be twitching with rage, longing to curl into a fist to hurl in his face and make him pay for what he had done. The desire for revenge heated her blood like Cooan’s fire driving her on, moving her forward and driving her towards that one noble goal.

And yet she knew it was impossible.

She could not hope to stand against Rubeus by herself and survive it. Actually, it was unlikely that the four of them combined could live through the effort of attacking him. She had once seen him take out a twenty man battalion without breaking a sweat. It was often said that Rubeus was as deadly as he was handsome, but Petz had never thought this was true. He was far more lethal than his looks suggested.

So she didn’t hurry to his side. She wandered for awhile, her footsteps echoing down hallway after hallways, crossing her own path again and again, until finally she could waste no more time. She reached her destination with trepidation, slowly pushing open the door.

“Master Rubeus?” she called, swallowing her fury like foul-tasting medicine. It was good for her, but she loathed it all the same.

He turned from where he was staring at the large screen, a bit surprised to see her standing there. Just seeing his face made her want to black his eye, and that’s when she decided that it was probably best not to stand too close to him. “Petz. Shouldn’t you be taking care of Beruche and Karaberas?”

“Not much to be done now except let them sleep,” Petz explained, planting her hands firmly on her hips. “Besides, I remembered some information I thought you’d be interested in.”

Rubeus turned back to look at the screen, his eyes immediately going to a gold dot blinking on the screen. Petz saw that it was moving rather quickly through the streets of Tokyo, which meant that she must have boarded some kind of vehicle after the fight with Beruche. “Say it then.”

“She wasn’t alone,” Petz informed him soundly. “And from the looks of it, she still isn’t.”

“Was that flea-bag with her?” Rubeus asked cruelly, chuckling quietly.

Petz shook her head. “It was a man.”

Rubeus stopped. He turned around completely now, and the look in his eyes assured her that she’d gotten his interested. “There was a man with her?”

She nodded. “And you know, it didn’t occur to me immediately as I was a bit preoccupied, but I’ve given it a bit of thought and realized something…” In spite of all she would have liked to do to him at that moment, Petz could not stop the way the left corner of her mouth twisted upwards. “He rather resembled a certain monarch of Crystal Tokyo.”

Rubeus stared at her in complete silence for a grand total of three seconds. Then, the chuckling started up again, but the volume quickly rose, echoing in this room as it would have all the others. And although Petz often kept her feelings about Rubeus restricted to caution only, she couldn’t help but be just a tiny bit afraid at the sight of him throwing his head back, eyes filled with a kind of crazed fervor she had seen several times before.

The last time she’d seen it, he’d ripped someone’s heart out with his bare hands.

“Perfect!” he lauded, providing an unsettling backdrop to the sickening image now overwhelming her sense. “Won’t Prince Demando be pleased when I offer him the head of Endymion as an added bonus to what he demanded of us?”

He never actually gave her a chance to answer. He just spun around again to continue watching the gold dot on the screen, laughing all the while. And although Petz felt no sympathy for either Venus or Endymion, she couldn’t help but think of how odd it was that they didn’t even realize that they were racing towards their doom.

-----

“Artemis!” Minako called out frantically as she jogged into her house. “Luna!” She waited, her hand gripping the banister.

She had hoped that a few minutes resting in Mamoru’s car would allow her time to recuperate, but it seemed that had been too much to wish for. She was too tense to even get close to storing up any energy for the fight she knew was coming. It would have been better if she thought she had any hope of winning it, but considering the separate beatings her body had already taken, she didn’t have high hopes.

Of course, it would have infinitely better if Mamoru was nowhere to be found, but there was no sense even wasting time on that.

“Artemis!” she shouted again, hoping that the cat was just sleeping and having trouble waking up. But after letting a few more moments tick by, she had to admit the truth. He wasn’t in the house. He’d probably met with Luna at some neutral location considering the war that was waging between their two owners.

Minako closed her eyes, banishing that thought from her head. That wasn’t important now. What mattered was getting her back, and she was going to need both Luna and Artemis for that endeavor.

Even though it was going to make her sick watching Luna’s face when she told her the news.

“They’re not here,” Minako said sadly as she heard Mamoru come in the door behind her.

“The cats?” he said, his voice still sounding a bit high. She’d stayed silent for most of the trip over, but it had occurred to her at the last moment that it was probably good to forewarn Mamoru about the talking cats. They weren’t going to have time for him to adjust given everything else that was going on.

“Not my parents either, but that’s not a surprise,” Minako babbled tiredly. She quickly regretted having said anything about it. It was still impossible for her not to reference the two of them without extreme bitterness seeping into her tone.

She heard Mamoru close the door, and blessedly, he didn’t comment. “Do you need any help getting fixed up?”

In reality, the answer was yes. Minako knew for certain that the cut on her back had opened up and was probably bleeding quite a bit after getting knocked into that tree trunk, and for that, she was going to need someone else to patch it up. However, there wasn’t a moment to waste with such a large wound. She was going to have to deal with the smaller ones and hope she didn’t lose much more blood that way.

“No,” she said covering the gaping slash across her thigh again and hobbling into the kitchen. She hadn’t realized it until Mamoru pointed it out in the car, but her entire leg was covered thanks to her negligence to tend to that cut. To be honest, in comparison to everything else, she’d barely registered the blood.

Minako crouched down and yanked the oft-used first aid kit out from underneath the sink. It was in moments like these that she was thankful for her parents because although her mother was paranoid enough to have purchased the thing, neither of them was accident prone enough so that they’d had to use it. They never noticed just how often Minako took advantage of the supplies and how rarely she was able to replenish it.

Thankfully, she’d had the presence of mind to do so the day after Rei had been kidnapped, sensing that it might come in handy in the near future. She had almost a full supply, save for what she’d used after the fight with Karaberas.

Minako looked up to see Mamoru walk into the room, taking a few seconds to glance around the house. She wondered what he’d comment on under normal circumstances for about half a second before she remembered the injury on his neck. It was just a bump so there wasn’t much to be done about healing it, but she tossed him a bottle of aspirin nonetheless, feeling absurdly relieved when he caught it with one hand. “There’s ice in the freezer.”

“Better than in the cupboard,” he said awkwardly.

Minako felt her stomach tighten at the levity, but then she’d been feeling some sort of reaction every time he opened his mouth. She couldn’t get passed her resentment of him no matter what duties she felt towards him now, and the sound of his voice just reminded her again and again that she was stuck with him. She might have regretted losing it as much as she did back at the park, but was sure she’d never regret the way she felt about him. After all, she doubted it was going to change.

Minako put her foot up on the chair and pushed her skirt back to get a better look at the cut on her thigh. It looked even nastier than the night before and the dirt that had worked its way inside was not helpful. She quickly reached for the peroxide, unscrewing the top with one quick motion. Then, without giving herself too long to think about it, she poured the liquid onto the wound, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip and a high-pitched whimper squeaking from her throat.

Mamoru stuttered a bit. “Uh—So, as long as we’re, you know, in this together, why don’t you tell me just what’s going on?”

Minako almost snapped at him, but it only took her a minute to realize what he was doing: trying to distract her from the inevitable pain of all this. She had to admit, much as she didn’t want him to be there, she was grateful to him for that much. “Not that much to tell really… I don’t know that much.”
,
“You’ve still got an advantage over me,” he pointed out, putting a handful of ice cubes into a plastic bag he’d found.

She sighed, reaching forward and grabbing gauze from inside the kit. She quickly set to wrapping her thigh, hoping once again that neither of her parents would sever anything in the near future. “Well, I know that our enemies are from the future.”

There was a very long pause before Mamoru was able to answer that. “You mean like they traveled here in a time machine.”

Minako shrugged. “Guess so.”

It was obvious that Mamoru was having a hard time wrapping his head around this idea. “But that… It can’t be possible. Not in our lifetime. Are you sure they aren’t… lying?”

“They’re apparently here to avenge us for whatever it is we do in the future,” Venus muttered. “I don’t see why they’d bother to lie about their motives if all they wanted was the Ginzuishou.”

“The what?”

Minako paused, her shoulders drooping. She quickly shook her head and finished with the injury on her leg. “It’ll take too long to explain. When you need to know what it is, you’ll know.”

It was to Mamoru’s credit that he didn’t press her. “How many people are after you?”

“Four that we know of,” Minako said. “All women with the same mark on their foreheads.”

“A black moon,” Mamoru remembered solemnly. It seemed even without the benefit of his memories, he still felt something wrong about the symbol their enemies had chosen.

It was a comfort, even if it reminded her of the possibility that Mamoru was deliberately avoiding his duty. “I’d be willing to bet that there’s someone they’re answering to. The fact that they seemed to be going one at a time and that they have a tendency to overtake one another’s operations makes me think there’s someone they’re trying to impress. But we haven’t seen that person yet.”

“Turn around.”

Minako’s heart leapt into her throat at the sound of his voice. Her eyes darted over to Mamoru, who had gone ghostly white at the sound. It took her a microsecond to register the purple tinge that overtook his skin tone, and another to realize that the cause wasn’t anything natural. Minako leapt up and used the chair as a launch pad, catching Mamoru by the shoulders and pushing him to the ground.

They hit the linoleum floor hard, sliding across it and nearly making it back into the living room under the force of their weight. Minako felt something electric sail over their bodies, the edge of it singeing her back and making her cry out in pain. She looked up in time to see the attack, what looked like tiny clusters of bombs, impact the staircase she’d been standing beside just minutes before. It was completely decimated, and even though a great deal of dust clouded the air, she knew that she and Mamoru had been confined to the bottom floor.

She heard him chuckling from behind, and the sound of it practically made her want to vomit. It was a similar effect Kunzite had always had on her after the death of his lover. Zoisite’s demise had changed him so that he was so driven that he never once had a chance for redemption and never had a moment of doubt in his endless pursuit to destroy them all. There had been something in his eyes that made her feel physically ill. There had been a depth to his hatred that she often wondered if Beryl had actually matched.

She heard that in this man’s voice.

Minako pushed herself off Mamoru and crouched beside him, turning around to get a look at this new enemy. He was standing in her back doorway almost casually, seeming as though he could belong there by the sheer force of his will. Physically, the most striking feature about him was his hair, red brighter than blood and standing on his head as if it were styled by fire. She took note of his brown eyes, the combat boots on his feet, and the earrings he wore, ones she now realized were exactly like that worn by Karaberas, Beruche, and all the others. But no part of his looks could distract her from his voice, dripping with so much malice that she was surprised he didn’t spit acid when he spoke.

“Who are you?” Mamoru demanded, starting to get to his feet. Apparently, he couldn’t see what she could see, but then, he didn’t have the bad memories. If Kunzite had left any scars on him from any in-fighting during Mamoru’s days in the Dark Kingdom, he had no idea where they had come from.

“Crimson Rubeus,” he answered without hesitating, pushing himself away from the doorframe.

That’s when Minako remembered what Karaberas had said after she’d gotten caught in the whip. ‘I can't believe how happy Master Rubeus is going to be when I bring you home. I rather think he likes blondes.’ She shuddered harshly and felt her adrenaline rush to every limb in panic. She’d been stupid to forget about it. If she hadn’t, she would have known who their superior was and what kind of person to expect.

For the time being anyway, Rubeus didn’t seem to notice the effect he was having on her. There was a glint in his eyes that almost made him look blind with his own glee for having caught them. “I’ve come to take care of the final hold-outs in this little game.” His eyes slanted and darted over to bore directly into Mamoru’s eyes. “Endymion.”

Minako choked. He knew. She’d guessed that they’d figure it out, but she’d been hoping against all hope that she’d be wrong about that. Not for the first time that week, she despised being right. Minako got to her feet and physically put herself between the two men, swallowing hard. “You’ve got it wrong. He doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

Rubeus scoffed. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that?”

“I had been banking on your stupidity,” Minako shot back, deciding there was really no sense in trying to hide it. Even if Rubeus had possessed any doubts about Mamoru’s identity originally, her reaction to hearing the name Endymion had certainly sealed it for them.

He laughed again, and Minako had to fight to stop the flinch. She was sure he hadn’t missed that, even if she had been successful. “You know, Venus, if only you were a little more aware, you’d be less inclined to insult me.” The chuckling came to such an abrupt stop that her stomach lurched. “That attack was meant to kill you.”

Mamoru instantly moved out of Rubeus’s line of vision before Minako even had to tell him to do it. She took one step back, following his retreating form with her eyes as she reached for her henshin wand. Her fingers wrapped around the orange rod just as she saw a strange flash from in front of her. She almost dove out of the way when she realized that it wasn’t an attack.

It was a teleport.

She whirled around just in time to see Rubeus reappear directly in front of Mamoru. Her look had given him Mamoru’s precise location. She could do nothing but watch as Rubeus lashed out with a kick Mamoru couldn’t possibly have seen coming. The heel of his boot crashed into the back of his head, sending Mamoru sprawling to the ground. She started to call out to him, when she realized it was a useless effort. There was no way he could still be conscious.

With Mamoru temporarily out of the way, Rubeus turned his attention on her. His lips twisted into a cruel smile, making her stupidly think that his teeth were bones. “Alone at last.”

I rather think he likes blondes.

Minako narrowed her eyes and lifted her henshin wand aloft. “VENUS STAR POW--"

Rubeus moved so quickly he almost resembled a whirlwind, and while she might have been able to move away in the best of help, her reflexes weren’t as good as they should have been. He spun towards her, kicking his other leg around with frightening precision. He connected directly with her wrist, sending the henshin wand flying away from her. She didn’t have the opportunity to look to see where it landed. He was already swinging around with one of his fists, and it was likely to be with enough force to knock her out as soundly as he had done Mamoru.

Minako ducked down to avoid the blow, and countered with one of her own, propelling her fist into his ribcage. Punches already weren’t her strong suit, and when she felt her knuckles impact with his stomach, which frankly rather resembled a brick wall, she decided to avoid any other moves like that for the remainder of the fight.

She drew back out of his reach, knowing that he could do her considerable damage if she stayed within range without planning a counterattack. Desperate to get away and retrieve her henshin wand so that she could actually do some damage, Minako banked on the only move she knew she could pull off. She ran at him and swung her left leg high, aiming for his chin. She wasn’t the least bit surprised when she caught her ankle in his hand. He gave her a disappointed look, no doubt about to admonish her for her crappy hand-to-hand combat when she twisted her torso to the left as hard as she possibly could. This brought her right leg around, and this time, the kick hit home, striking him in the temple.

It was strong enough to send him staggering back, forcing him to release her. Her body did one dizzying revolution in the air before gravity forced her back down. She landed hard on her hands and knees, but she didn’t waste time in wincing. She crawled forward and quickly as she could, heading in the direction she thought her wand had landed.

“Bitch,” he hissed, entirely too close.

She started to leap forward, but he was too fast for her. His fingers closed around the ends of her hair, yanking hard. She shrieked in pain, reaching up to try and claw at his hands and kicking her legs feebly. He threw her down on the ground, temporarily knocking the wind out of her. That’s when she saw him hovering above her and moving down, hands outstretched and reaching for her throat. Her eyes went wide, and she started to scream.

“Mamo--"

Her cry for help was cut off as his hands wound all the way around her neck, squeezing so tightly that she was sure he could crush her spine. Her fingers found his, nails tearing at his skin as the rest of her body seized up in terror. Within moments, he was straddling her, his body weight heavy on her legs. Her muscles all clenched as she realized that she was pinned and choking to death and she had no way to get out of this situation.

Rubeus laughed again, his eyes now completely crazed. He was absolutely terrifying, far worse than Kunzite had ever been because he had never actually managed to lay hands on her. Now she was slowly dying with this man hovering just inches away from her face, choking every breath from her body and taking the greatest pleasure in it.

“You have no idea how long I have waited for this, Venus,” Rubeus hissed. “One of my subordinates said that I was endangering myself by being so determined to break you in half. To be honest, I was beginning to think she might have a point.

“And that’s when I was told that you hadn’t been alone at that little skirmish where you sliced Beruche’s neck.” His grip on her neck constricted, making her arch her back in protest. She yanked at his arms as hard as she could, but they didn’t even budge. “You weren’t alone. A certain man was with you, who bore a resemblance to a future King of Earth.”

Minako furrowed her brow at the title Rubeus had just given Mamoru. Did Rubeus know something about the Silver Millennium that they didn’t? Had Prince Endymion actually become a King in his lifetime?

“And that’s when I realized that I could do anything I want with you,” Rubeus continued conversationally. “Prince Demando isn’t going to care that I’ve killed you so long as I bring him the head of his greatest adversary.”

Minako panicked. As much as she had realized that Rubeus would turn on Mamoru just as soon as she was finished, actually hearing it spurred her into action. She wasn’t getting anywhere by attacking his hands, so she drew her arm back as far as she could, slugging Rubeus across the face. His head snapped in the opposite direction, and she saw his pale skin turn red, but other than that, it was like he didn’t even register what had just happened.

Instead, he leaned down farther, trapping her right arm between their bodies. He was spread atop her in such a way that her skin felt like it was going to crawl off her bones. He placed his face to the right of hers, his breath hot on her ear. Then he whispered so softly that it could have almost sounded tender with different words.

“I could cut your heart out and fuck you until you’re black and blue, and not one person would give a shit.” He sank his teeth into her earlobe, tasting her blood.

Minako tried to scream, but no sound could escape her lips with the vice he had wrapped around her neck. She’d been fighting him the whole time, but now she attacked him with renewed forced. She pushed his upper body up off hers, surprising him mildly with the outburst. She pummeled her hands into his chest, striking him on the face and neck and kicking her legs beneath his weight, hoping to buck him off. When none of that worked, she reached up with fingernails poised, fully prepared to scratch his eyes out.

He turned his head just in time, but he couldn’t prevent her from leaving five angry read slashes across his cheek. But instead of growing angry as she would have expected, he just smiled at her. “Give it up, Venus. It’s over.”

And that’s when she realized with rising panic that her vision was almost completely dark.

“You’re mine now.”

-----

Mamoru groaned quietly, feeling like his head had just been kicked in by an elephant. He had absolutely no idea how that had happened. What’s more, he had no idea why he was lying on the floor or what his eyes were doing closed.

Ever so slowly, he forced his eyelids to work properly even though it felt like someone had hung two ton weights from his eyelashes. He pushed himself up on his elbows, reaching around to feel a bump the size and relative shape of an eggplant throbbing on the back of his head. After that revelation, his mind started to work at something near its normal pace, and he remembered Minako and Rubeus and the fact that he had come to kill them.

Apparently, he’d stopped just short of finishing him off.

“Give it up, Venus. It’s over.”

Mamoru looked over his shoulder, gasping when he saw what had been going on while he was out. Somehow, Rubeus had gotten Minako pinned beneath him, his fingers wrapped around her neck in a death grip. He was strangling her with Mamoru in the room, and once he was done with her, he was going to turn around and finish the job with Mamoru, who he had accurately perceived to be the weaker of his two enemies.

No, not enemies. Targets.

He couldn’t see Minako’s face, but he could imagine what it must have looked like. The thought of someone being so close while they killed you made his stomach turn. It was why they always said strangling deaths often occurred at the hands of someone who felt intense hatred for the victim.

Mamoru knew without a doubt that Minako couldn’t possibly have done anything that bad. And he also knew that as nervous as he had been about risking his life for another, he wouldn’t hesitate one more second before rescuing her. He wouldn’t kid himself by saying it was selfless of him. He just wasn’t going to let the one person standing between him and certain death to go before he did.

“You’re mine now.”

“Like hell she is,” Mamoru muttered. He scrambled to his feet and then rushed headlong towards Rubeus, ducking low and leading with his shoulder as he had seen so many American football players do before. He leapt forward, pushing off the ground with every bit of strength in his legs, and pushed his body into Rubeus.

He was rewarded. Rubeus went flying off of Minako, and even though Rubeus cursed loudly during impact, Mamoru could hear Minako gasping and coughing. He spared a glance to see that she didn’t waste a second before crawling away from the scene, pulling herself forward by her arms as she gulped lungfuls of now precious oxygen.

Mamoru and Rubeus tumbled to the ground, rolling over and over again until Mamoru’s shoulder hit the wall. The second they stopped, Rubeus drew his hand bag and punched Mamoru, catching him right in the eye. Mamoru cried out and moved backwards, blinking rapidly to clear his vision. He did it just in time, ducking another blow that probably would have crushed his cheekbone.

Rubeus growled at him, sounding every bit like a feral animal. “I am going to make you pay for that interruption, you little bastard.”

Mamoru laughed dryly, putting up his fists and bouncing a bit on the balls of his feet. “I don’t doubt that.”

Rubeus, naturally, did not find this the least bit amusing. He snarled and leapt forward, fists flying at Mamoru so quickly that he could hardly keep up. He dodged a number of them and blocked quite a few more, but Rubeus was obviously a superior fighter, and so he landed enough to do plenty of damage. Mamoru knew that if he went on the offensive in hand-to-hand combat, he’d be thoroughly trounced. But then, he wasn’t fighting Rubeus to win. He was fighting Rubeus to give Minako time to do whatever it was she needed to do.

He didn’t dare look to check on her progress, but he couldn’t help but wish she’d hurry it up.

Mamoru kept moving back, glancing over his shoulder every few steps to make sure he wasn’t being backed into a corner. It was during one of those looks that he missed Rubeus aiming for his stomach. His fist sank in so deeply that Mamoru couldn’t breathe, and there was no way he could be expected to stand up after that attack. He dropped to his knees, bending over and clutching the area where he’d just been hit. He looked up in time to see Rubeus drive his knee forward, catching Mamoru in the chin and sending him reeling back.

“Minako!” Mamoru shouted, his voice hoarse. “I could use a little help here!”

“Working on it!” she called back out, her voice understandably quivering and rough.

Rubeus, who up to that point had been amply distracted, looked over at the sound of her voice. His eyes flashed, and he started circling back around the couch to find her and finish what he started.

Mamoru quickly looked around to see if he could find anything to use as a weapon. He caught sight of a small metal TV tray within arm's reach, and he had never been so grateful for a westernized décor in his life. He snatched one of the legs between his fingers and lifted it up, simultaneously dragging himself to his feet. He nearly stumbled and fell, the combination of his dizziness and the shot to the stomach almost doing him in, but he forced himself to stay upright. He advanced on Rubeus as quickly and quietly as possible, swinging the tray back and then powering it forward.

It slammed across his back, making him stagger beneath the assault. He started to turn around to retaliate, but Mamoru quickly hit him a second time, sending him reeling. Unfortunately, this put him out of Mamoru’s reach, and Mamoru recognized an eerie purple shimmer gathering between his hands.

He abandoned the weapon and lunged to the right, just barely missing being caught up in the blast. He turned around to see that it had blown a hole through the wall, revealing a now ruined dining room.

Rubeus yelled in frustration, the veins on his neck bulging. He stalked forward, gathering yet another attack between his palms. “I will see you both dead at my feet! Make no mistake about that!”

“CRESCENT BEAM!”

The gold ray of light shot out from the other side of the room, seeking out Rubeus’s hands. They sliced across his fingers as if made of knives, sending more blood shooting into the air. Rubeus yelled in pain, clutching both of them to his chest and hunching down.

Suddenly, Mamoru felt a hand wrap around his elbow. He panicked and nearly ran, when he looked over at saw it was Sailor Venus. He was shocked to see how horrible she looked. Her neck was circled with angry red marks that were already beginning to turn dark, and her eyes were wet with tears and bright red from where the blood vessels had burst after being without oxygen for so long. She was still taking deep breaths, overcompensating in response to all she had lost. “Come on. We need to get out of here.”

“Why?” Mamoru asked dumbly, allowing himself to be dragged to his feet.

Recognizing that he was moving slowly, she supported him as best she could, but the disparity between their heights did them no favors. “Well, for starters, my mother is going to slaughter me--"

“There won’t be anything left.”

Mamoru looked up to see that Rubeus was no longer nursing his wounds. His hands were swathed with rivers of his own blood, quaking in front of him. His teeth were gnashed together, jaw clenched so that it looked like he might break his own bones. He straightened up and shouted, “I’m sending you both to hell!” He cupped his hands and thrust them forward with a bellow that echoed in Mamoru’s chest.

The tiny bomb clusters shot out of his hands. It spread out so widely that there was no way they’d be able to duck or dodge anywhere. Even though they had no hope of outrunning it, both Venus and Mamoru took off, releasing each other to try and gain ground faster. They managed to remain neck and neck as they sped out of the living room and into the foyer, which was where the attack caught up with them.

The force of the blast lifted them up, throwing them forward. He was surrounded by exploding starlight and overcome by cracking energy that seared his skin, burning a hole into the back of his jacket. He heard Venus let out another shriek, but he didn’t dare look her way, horrified at the prospect of what he might see. He just kept looking straight ahead at the walls and windows, knowing that they were about to be pushed through them with the devil just behind them.

He reached out blindly, grabbing her wrist just as he had done with Sailor Moon the week before, determined not to be separated from Venus now, and prepared for the inevitable.

-----

Rubeus watched with something that might have been satisfaction as Sailor Venus and Endymion were tossed into the air, the strength of his attack lifting them up and still having more than enough power to blow out the entire front of the house. Both of them went flying out amongst a storm of wood, dust, and bits of glass. They both hit the ground at the same time, their bodies skidding across the pavement and coming to a stop in the middle of the street.

Venus was crying.

He allowed himself a small smile at that, and then casually sauntered forward, stepping through the wreckage he had just caused with pride. He stared down his opponents, a man who had turned no magic on him and still managed to wound him and a girl who had cheated their advances a third time. He could also see that the neighbors, who had probably ignored the commotion going on inside the house, could not avoid the front of a house exploding. They peaked out of windows and around doors, some even coming out to brave what he had just labeled a warzone. He heard someone shout something about calling the police.

Rubeus scoffed as he stepped over what had once been the threshold. As if they could do anything at all in this situation. As if there would be anything left but the cleaning of the carcasses by the time they arrived.

“I, for one, have had quite enough of this. Haven’t you?” Rubeus said loudly as he continued walking towards his prey. He smiled as he watched Endymion slowly force himself into a sitting position, noticing that Venus wasn’t really moving at all. Clearly, the last attack had been too much for her to take. She wouldn’t survive another one, and with enough effort on his part, Endymion wouldn’t either.

“Why don’t we all just agree that it’s your time to go?” Rubeus asked, shrugging his shoulders. “It comes for everyone.” He paused, his back going rigid with anger. “And it comes long before the end of a thousand years.”

He watched Endymion for a reaction, and finding none, became confused. It was almost enough to make him wonder if he had been wrong – if this actually was not the future King of Earth – but he told himself that was ridiculous. No normal human being could have lasted as long as he had, and no ally of the Senshi could look so much like Endymion without bearing his name.

Rubeus lifted one hand, still raw with the pain from Venus’s sudden attack, over his head, calling forth one final assault. “Time to say good night.”

Rubeus felt his heart begin to lift at last. Finally, he would be rid of one of the Senshi, women he had longed to destroy from the moment he arrived. And better still, it would be the one he reviled the most. And, to top it all off, Endymion would be vanquished by his hand. He would heralded for his great deeds. His name would be burned into history for all of time, and he would be called a hero for their cause. He would be the greatest of liberators, the man who killed a King before he was given the chance to ascend the throne. At last, no one would be able to deny him his rightful power.

“Dead Scream.”

Rubeus’s eyes went wide. He didn’t know the voice, but he knew the name of the attack from legend. He dropped his spell and spun to see a glowing sphere of light come tearing through an otherwordly fog, bearing down on him. There was no opportunity to save himself, only to scream just before he was overtaken.

It hit him square in the chest, hitting the scar Venus had left on his body like a bulls-eye. This time, he was the one who went soaring backwards, deadly power overwhelming his senses and undoubtedly taking years off his life. And he might have imagined it, but he swore he heard howling in his ears, high-pitched and furious, like hungry ghosts clinging to vengeance.

He shuddered as his back scraped against the dirt, but he forced his body to come to a stop, leaving him sprawled out on the ground like a bird shot out of the sky. He forced himself to balance on his elbows, staring straight ahead and seeking out the woman he knew was standing there.

She emerged from mists she had brought with her, the fog of time still clinging to her body as if part of her wardrobe. Long legs emerged from dark boots that went up to the knee, resembling those worn by both Mercury and Sailor Moon. Long hair the color of forests he had never seen hung down to her knees, and eyes the color of jewels they would never own bore into his own. She held a staff shaped like a key in her hand, and the orb atop it glowed from the recently utilized power. She was as much a woman as she was a ghost, a lone soldier guarding an empty realm, concealing herself from everyone alive in this century and in the one he called home.

Until now.

Sailor Pluto finished walking, standing in between him and her apparent allies, the time staff striking the street and echoing like the last second before the world ends. Her eyes never left his, gazing at him with such intensity that it disquieted him. They were too old for her face, too old for anyone’s face, and the fact that she was the closest thing to an omnipotent being as he would ever meet made him wary, if not humble. She relaxed her shoulders, taking a quick breath though parted lips, and spoke in a voice that no one else in his time had ever heard. It was an honor he spat upon gladly.

“I, for one, have had quite enough of this,” Pluto echoed smartly, her smooth alto reverberating across the street in spite of how soft it seemed. Like a whispered scream. “Haven’t you?”

As Rubeus stared up from the ground she had cast him upon, he found he could only be sure of one thing: from that moment on, everything was going to change.



AUTHOR’S NOTES

I apologize here and now for the scene with Usagi and the other girls. I don’t like reading about what I already know happened either, but it wasn’t the sort of thing where I could say, “And then Usagi heaved a long sigh and told them the whole story.” No, because I needed to get to the end of the scene where something important actually does happen, and I couldn’t skip over everything that happened in between. So yeah, I’m sorry if that scene was just torture to read and if you almost gave up on me – really sorry if you actually gave up on me. But it was a necessary evil, and so here we are.

Other than that, I really hope you enjoyed the chapter:D It was nice to write this so soon after finishing up Part Eight, and absolutely wonderful in consideration of the battle. xD I have been looking forward to that fight scene for, literally, YEARS. It may wind up being my favorite part of this story. No lie.

Although, I think it’s thanks to that scene that the rating on this fic needs to be raised. ;; Thought I’d be able to keep it PG-13, but no, Rubeus is way too twisted for that rating. C’est la vie.

Thanks as always to Yumeko for beta-reading this chapter, and thanks to everyone who has been ever so kind and read/reviewed this story. You guys are amazing. Stay tuned for next time!

Coming Soon – Part Ten: Out of Time

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