One day, Aino Minako plans to learn how to pick out a shoe properly. She’s going to look beyond the sparkles, the color, and the hotness factor, and she’s going to look at the spiked heel, the pointed toe, the complete lack of support, and walk away. This is on her list of goals for her lifetime: procure sensible shoes.
It really speaks to how much life has changed that something so mundane has replaced other dreams. Get famous. Get rich. Get married. These options aren’t exactly available to her or anyone else. Now everyone’s to-do list generally reads the same way: get food, get shelter, and don’t die.
Minako stumbles, catching her balance on a grimy, graffiti-stained wall. She lifts her right leg and squeezes her thumb between what there is of the sole and her foot. The fishnet against her flesh feels damp. It’s too dark to see if its blood or a blister. Besides, she needs to get home.
“What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?”
She glances up, eyes narrowing and zeroing in on whoever has chosen to address her. She sizes him up quickly, first assessing the threat and then guessing how much he’s worth. He’s fairly muscular, but this is little surprise. Only the strong survive and all that. His flaxen hair is tussled, blue eyes bright and smiling. His stance is relaxed, leaning against a car with two flat tires. She knows an instant to be on her guard. Everything about this man screams that he’s an easy target, but she knows he can’t be. If he can walk around in this neighborhood at this hour looking clean and well-pressed, he’s formidable and, more importantly, dangerous.
Besides, the streetlights reflect off his smile like shine on a blade. He’s a shadow pretending to be a sun. She won’t be fooled so easily, even if he does fit the description of her usual boy.
Client, she reminds herself, barely resisting the urge to spit.
“Sorry, luv,” she says, exaggerating and changing her accent just a little. Now she sounds more Irish than British, although she obviously is neither. “Off the clock.”
“Who says that’s what this is about?”
“And no freebies,” she warns. “Not unless you want to die with your dick in your mouth.”
He raises an eyebrow. This he didn’t expect, although he remains more amused than surprised. “You flatter yourself,” he says, his voice deepening. It sounds more natural.
“So now that you know I’m not the stupid kind of bird, you’re not going to use the patronizing tone?” Her hand flies to her chest, mimicking an old lady clutching her pearls. “I’m touched.” She turns and starts to walk away. “Goodbye.”
“It’s not safe to turn your back, you know,” he calls out, almost sounding concerned beneath the mockery.
“That’s only if I think you’re a threat.” She pretends to adjust her skirt. “I can take care of myself.”
“Couldn’t take care of the world though, could you?” he asks, and it takes her a moment to realize he’s not speaking English anymore. “Sailor Venus.”
She moves too quickly to do anything but kill. She pulls the boomerang free, spinning in place. She lets the crescent fly, watching the dull gold surge towards the target. A second before it would slice into his neck, he vanishes.
Minako can only guess at where he’ll reappear, so she lashes out with the widest roundhouse kick she can muster. Fingers curl around her ankle, pushing it away. She spins again, catches the boomerang as it comes back, and prepares to gut him, stem to stern.
Cool metal brushes against her temple.
“Not even you can stop a bullet at this range, Venus,” a different voice says. “So how’s about we drop the shiny thing?”
For just a moment, Minako considers going out in a blaze of glory, but then she realizes this would be the exact opposite of that. A death for a Senshi isn’t glorious unless it’s at the hands of a monster, a demon, or an evil-overlord. She doesn’t know who these people are, but they amount to boys playing with guns and too much information. She’s not going down like this.
The boomerang clatters loudly when it hits the ground.
“Don’t know what all this Venus business is,” she bluffs. “Name’s Lizzie Brooks, and the world ain’t my concern, save that I know it’s gone to hell.” She pauses. “And I dunno anybody that can stop a bullet.”
This newcomer stares at her for a moment and then laughs, actually laughs. It’s full-bodied, rising from the belly and flying out of the mouth with zeal. His breath smells like fresh air. “She’s good. Did you know she’d be this good?”
She can almost hear her first friend roll his eyes. “Honestly, she’s not that—"
“No, no, she’s good. The accent’s great actually. No soft r’s. That’s always killer for the Japanese. You could almost believe she never set foot in Tokyo.”
“Never did,” Minako claims, suspecting it’s pointless but continuing out of cool desperation. “Nobody out of Tokyo survived. Everyone knows that.”
There’s a pause. The men exchange a glance over her head.
“We didn’t actually,” the one with the gun mutters.
“Forget this,” the blond snaps, stepping into her line of vision. “We know who you used to be. We know what powers you have. Clearly, we have some powers of our own, or else, let’s be honest, we’d both be dead right now. So, why don’t we just cut the crap? You understood me when I spoke Japanese. You have a weapon shaped like a bloody crescent for Christ’s sake.”
“Found it,” she insists through clenched teeth. “No crap to cut through. You’ve got the wrong girl.”
“Venus, stop it.”
It’s the third new voice she’s heard that evening, but it’s old, very old, and the tone pulls at her memory like a child on a mother’s hand. Her knees weaken almost instantly; the one with the gun tries to grab her, which would be funny any other day. She has to steel herself before she can face him, knowing who he is and what he’s done. Knowing what he hasn’t done. What he wasn’t around to do.
His eyes are green. Hers are wet. She wants to die.
“You’re late,” she accuses, her voice strained.
He nods, accepting this burden. “I know. I’m sorry.”
She barely notices another blond head standing just behind him. She can tell he’s keeping his distance, gun or no gun. She doesn’t blame him. It’s only been seven years since she ripped him to pieces. That’s not something you forget easily, even after you come back from the dead.
“He’s gone,” she hisses, hoping he doesn’t know this, hoping that she can be cruel. “You failed him.”
She senses every one of them flinch although she’s locked onto him, with his green eyes and his platinum hair and his voice like vodka and broken promises. Promises he made to her; promises they both broke. “We’ve seen his grave.” His face, which has always been made entirely of angles, softens. “Hers too.”
She chokes on her grief, just like she always does. Her eyes close convulsively, and three minutes plays in front of her eyes like a video on a television screen. She sees it all so clearly it aches, but all through colored lenses. Red, not rose.
“Guess you failed her too.”
“Shut up, Jadeite.”
“You know nothing about what happened,” Minako snarls, barely registering the fact that she now has a name for every one of these men. “You weren’t there. You were too busy hiding in your little box.”
The one with the gun, who must be Nephrite by default, presses it deeper into her skin. “You don’t know about us either! We weren’t hiding!”
“Nephrite,” Zoisite warns, stepping up and speaking for the first time. “Calm down. That’s loaded.”
“I know it’s loaded, you—"
“Why are you here?” Minako asks loudly, her voice and everything else close to breaking. “If you wanted to kill me, I’d be dead. If you wanted to make me miserable, you’ve succeeded.”
Kunzite slips his hands with his too-long fingers into the pockets of his dark trenchcoat. He walks forward, each step silent and strangely gentle. For a moment, he seems neither imposing nor deadly. He’s just a man, she’s just a girl, and they’re both in way over their heads.
But it’s only for a moment. She knows better than to buy into it for too long.
“We’re here to help,” he murmurs.
She shakes her head, her hair slipping out from beneath her jacket. He balks at its shorn length; they all do, but she sees it most in his eyes, so guarded from the rest of the world but so open to her. “I told you. You’re too late.”
“You just said we were late,” he reminds her.
“Don’t quibble over semantics!” she snaps, infuriated by how little he’s changed. “Take a look around!”
He’s never given her a sadder look. At least not in this lifetime. “You can’t have lost hope.”
Minako doesn’t stop her denial. “Your master is dead. The princess slaughtered. The present in ruins and the future unreachable.” She takes an impossibly deep breath, reaches up, and pushes Nephrite’s gun away. She meets no resistance. “My hope was buried with her. Everyone’s was.”
She turns to go, but he stops her. His fingers slip beneath the cuff of her jacket, wrapping around her wrist in a way that’s too familiar. His touch is light as a feather, but she feels it all the way to her bones. A sword, twisting and in flames.
“We can still fix this,” he says, his conviction palpable in the air. “Just… take us to see the others. Please.”
She stares at the place where his fingers meet her skin.
“I wish you wouldn’t do things like that,” she whispers. “You make me want to believe you.”
He smiles at her then, because he knows she’s just agreed. She cannot spare him the same look. He’s made her heart too heavy, reminded her of things better left forgotten, and beneath the grief, there’s some anger. He did arrange to have a gun pulled on her, after all, and he gave it to Nephrite of all people.
Still, mostly she can’t bear to share even his sardonic mirth because she knows how Rei’s going to react.
She’d almost prefer a gun.
-----
Several blocks away stands a house that’s nearly in ruins. It’s been burned and half of the roof has caved in. It has gotten the reputation of being haunted by some of the more gullible street rats that somehow manage to survive. But the ones who have lived on by more than luck know who really lives there, and they know to keep away.
Makoto rubs her head, a habit she’s picked up ever since she buzzed her hair all the way to the scalp. She looks out the window onto the street and finds it empty for the fifth time in the past twenty minutes.
“She’s late.”
“She’s always late,” Ami reminds her, cleaning off the barrel of an assault rifle. “If she were on time, I’d be concerned.”
Makoto shrugs her shoulders, making the python tattoo on her right arm rise and fall. “I still get nervous.”
“And you wonder why she’s taken to calling you Okaa-san.”
Makoto snorts. “Better than Otou-san. With this hair, I’m surprised she resists the urge.” She pauses. “She probably gets distracted by the chest.”
Ami sets the rifle aside and picks up a .357 magnum, checking the chamber. “Or a shiny thing.”
Makoto starts to laugh when Rei suddenly appears at the top of the stairs. Both Makoto and Ami turn to stare at her, something in her violet eyes silencing any of their humor. Rei always seems grave now, half of her face covered in scars from a fire she could not contain. She always wears turtle necks and gloves to cover the rest. Minako is the only one who has seen the full extent of the damage.
“Someone’s coming,” Rei says, her voice deep and gravelly.
In another time, Makoto and Ami would have asked for clarification, but now, they instantly move into action. Ami flips the chamber of the handgun shut and tosses it to Makoto, who immediately releases the safety. Then Ami raises the assault rifle and takes aim at the door, eyes wide open. Rei simply descends, but the scent of smoke fills the room.
The door swings open a moment later. Minako is there, dressed in her fishnets and her torn short skirt, but she is not alone. Four men are with her, and while only Ami and Rei recognize all of them, Makoto doesn’t need subtitles to know who they all are.
“Fuck me,” Makoto growls.
-----
As Minako expected, the reunion does not go particularly well. She should have known Rei would sense the Shitennou’s presence and immediately move into position. She should have known she’d be greeted by gun sights and flashing embers, but she was too shaken for it to occur to her. She swipes at her eyes and prays, but she doesn’t know for what anymore.
Ami refines her aim and squeezes the trigger on the rifle they affectionately call Kage. “Minako. Move.”
Rei lets out a snarl that doesn’t even sound human. Minako feels the four men react to the noise behind her. She wonders if she should have warned them. Smoke comes out of Rei’s fingers along with tiny sparks of flame. “What were you thinking bringing them here?”
Minako holds up her hands in attempt to placate her friend, knowing that it’s probably pointless. “Rei, just calm down.”
“Fuck,” Makoto says. “They’ve got her brainwashed now.”
“Shut up, Okaa-san,” Minako hisses.
Makoto shrugs. “Then again.”
“Minako, why don’t you just explain why you thought it was appropriate to bring them here?” Ami calls out, still the voice of reason in a sea of chaos. “Though I must warn you, I won’t be lowering my gun.”
“Me either,” Makoto concurs.
Rei whirls on them. “Are you suggesting we invite them in? You’re supposed to invite vampires in, you know. And nothing good ever comes of that.”
“Vampires,” Zoisite remarks quietly, speaking for the first time. His voice is lower than Minako remembers. “Could have been worse.”
“Rei,” Minako nearly shouts, grabbing her friend by the shoulders. Her palms immediately grow uncomfortably warm. “Rei, if they wanted to kill me, they would have done it already.”
“Let go of my arms so that I can hit you,” Rei rasps. “They wanted all of us at once. That’s why they let you live this long.”
Minako has to admit that this is a very good point. “Didn’t you tell me Nephrite can possess people with his shadow?”
All eyes turn to Nephrite, who shrugs. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Then they could have just done that.”
Rei simply glares.
“They want to help,” Minako insists. “That’s what they say anyway. And I believe them.”
Rei’s dark eyes remain fixed on Minako for a minute. Then the slip to the left where she knows Kunzite must be standing. She makes an ugly noise. “I’m sure you do. Tell me, does he have to pay, or do old lovers get free rides?”
“Rei,” Minako barks. She’s never approved of how Minako brings in the income – none of them do actually, but considering it’s the only money that’s brought in, Ami and Makoto have stopped complaining. Minako does not doubt that Rei will die complaining about something. But disapproval or not, whore or not, Minako is still the leader and she’ll be damned if she’s undermined in front of any of these four men. “Enough.”
Sparing herself the humiliation of getting dressed down publicly, Rei backs down. She saunters over to the couch and plants herself beside Ami, arms folded sullenly. Ami bumps her knee up against Rei’s sympathetically, but she can do no more without risking lowering the gun.
Finally, Minako moves out of the doorway and the other four men come inside. She shuts the door behind them and pulls off her leather jacket. She does not acknowledge but cannot ignore the way their breath changes when they see the criss-crossed scars that run up each arm and across her bared stomach. She pulls out a wad of cash and throws it to Makoto, who catches it in her left hand. The gun in her right doesn’t so much as twitch.
“Start talking,” Minako says, looking at no one in particular.
“How are you here?” Ami begins immediately. “Last we knew, you were lying in a box. How did you get out?”
Instantly, the three other men defer to Kunzite, even Jadeite, who never deferred to anyone. He stands the straightest of all of them, hovering like a tall shadow in his black coat. His silver hair shimmers in the light, flickering as a bulb struggled to stay alive.
“We were formed when our Master died,” he says very simply, obviously unwilling to go into detail. “We felt his loss, and then we were made. We don’t know why or how.”
Minako and the other girls hang their heads slightly. Mamoru’s death had not been a proud moment for any of them.
“What happened to him?” Nephrite asks softly, his gentle voice seeming incongruous with his brawny form. “How did he die?”
“We ask the questions, bastard,” Makoto snaps, taking offense that someone she had killed had deigned it appropriate to get up and walk again.
Minako feels very tired. “What else is there for them to say? They were born when Tokyo fell, they got out, and they found us. They’ve only lived for six months for Christ’s sake.”
Ami’s eyes soften just a fraction, but they turn to steel the moment she feels it happening. “We’ll tell you what happened. Only because he’d want us to.”
Rei frowns grotesquely. Minako wishes she would smile more. She almost looks normal then.
“We still don’t know what they are,” Ami admits, hating herself for not knowing. Her brain failed her for the first time in her life, and she can’t stand it. Minako knows she beats herself up for it. “We don’t know where they came from or what they want short of killing us all. But two years ago, they came to Tokyo.
“It turned into a ghost town. So many people died… there were so few of us then. We couldn’t stop it. We lost Neptune early on, and Uranus was useless after that. She went insane, nearly strangled Usagi because she couldn’t bring her back.”
Makoto’s face darkens. “We put her in the sanitarium. We’re still not sure what happened to her.”
“You said no one in Tokyo survived,” Nephrite says, jerking his chin at Minako.
She shudders. “I hope she didn’t last that long.”
“After that,” Ami continues, still holding the rifle in place, “we lost Saturn. They fell on top of her. Tore her to bits. They knew what she was, and I think they couldn’t understand why she was fighting against them.”
“They were mindless like that. The foot soldiers anyway,” Makoto murmurs. “It should have been easier that way, but there were just so many….”
“We don’t know where Pluto is,” Rei adds sourly. “She vanished after that.”
“Probably at the gates trying to figure out what went wrong,” Minako murmurs.
“As if that matters,” Rei hisses.
Ami ignores her and continues. “We kept fighting because we had to. I don’t know where we found the strength. We’re all scarred and we all have injuries we can’t recover from.” Without warning, Ami swings her right leg onto the coffee table, revealing the prosthetic she’s made herself. Zoisite and Nephrite glance away, unable to look at it for very long. The robotics Ami has managed to cobble together in this post-apocalyptic nightmare are remarkable, but Minako knows it takes awhile to get used to.
“The princess,” Kunzite says, his voice rumbling in his chest. “How did it happen?”
Ami winces and momentarily drops her gaze before she remembers why she can’t. “She wanted to fix them. She wanted to reset everything.”
“We tried to stop her,” Makoto whispers. “And when that didn’t work, we lent her our strength.”
“It didn’t work,” Minako says, her voice hollow. “It was too much power. Her body couldn’t handle it.”
“She doesn’t even have a body anymore,” Rei wheezes, getting to her feet because she can’t stand the stillness anymore.
The four men bow their heads, showing their respect for the fallen girl. Minako wonders if they’re sorry about what they’ve done to her or if they just feel they have to respect her now for Mamoru’s sake. One look at Rei tells her that the priestess thinks she knows the answer. Minako thinks she does too. She doubts they’re the same, but she knows neither one of them will check.
“Tokyo could no longer stand after that,” Ami sighs. “We weren’t strong enough to hold them back, and they knew it. They broke beyond the barriers, and they spread throughout Japan. Then throughout the world.”
“Not here,” Jadeite mutters.
Minako shakes her head. “They’ve come and gone. This is the aftermath.”
“Mamoru,” Nephrite presses, not wanting to hear it. Minako wonders how much of the city he’s seen. “How?”
“Mamoru was the only one of us who could even stand after we lost her,” Ami remembers sadly, swallowing. “He fought for as long as he could.”
Anger passes over the four men like the tide coming in. All of their weapons falter for a minute. The guilt is heavier than the guns.
Wordlessly, Minako excuses herself from the room. Her heels echo against the stained cement floors as she makes her way to the kitchen, such as it is. She’s hungry, but part of her revels in the emptiness. After hours of being filled, she likes feeling the void inside her. Hunger reminds her of how things used to be, even though she can’t remember ever being this hungry before.
She spreads her arms against the counter and slides them outwards until her face nearly rests against the tile. She is hungry, and she is tired. She hasn’t fought in months, but she struggles constantly.
Sometimes she wishes the world would just end so she could sleep.
“‘Had we but world enough, and time.’”
Minako straightens and turns her head. She is not surprised to see him standing there. “Someone wrote that in a love letter once, didn’t they?”
His lips twitch as if he wants to smile. He doesn’t. “A poem. Andy Marvel. ‘To His Coy Mistress.’”
She leans her back against the counters. “Is that a confession?”
He looks so sad that there’s pressure in her chest. “An observation.”
“You’re late,” she repeats.
“I know,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t know if it would have made any difference.”
“Does that make you feel better?”
She swallows. “No. It doesn’t.”
He draws closer to her. “I don’t blame you.”
“I know.”
“I wish you wouldn’t blame yourself.”
“I know.”
He brushes his palm against her arm, feeling her scars and her dirty flesh. She wishes she could shower. “It’s going to be all right now.”
She tries to move away, but there’s nowhere to go. “Don’t.” Her voice cracks.
“Ven—"
“That’s not my name,” she hisses, slapping her palms against the cabinets behind her. “And don’t you make promises to me. Not again. Not anymore.”
There’s something in his eyes that almost tricks her into believing they’re grey again. She blinks and it’s gone. “I meant them before.”
“And we all know what happened then.” She grabs both of his hands and holds onto them, as if they’re both praying. “Just don’t. Don’t make promises you can’t or might not be able to keep. Just do that for me.”
She doesn’t wait for an answer. She simply leans forward until her forehead rests against his chest. She wonders if she’ll absorb his strength through touch, and if she could save the world if only by clinging to him forever.
“I wasn’t enough,” she whispers miserably.
His arms fold around her. She feels sheltered and safe for the first time in two years.
“Neither was I.”
She opens her mouth to ask what he means, but then she feels a sharp pain in her neck. Her blood seems heavier, and then suddenly her entire body is rigid. She gasps.
He holds her up, his chin sharp against the top of her head. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I lied… They brought us back. It’s happening all over again, and I’m so sorry.”
She wants to cry, but she can’t.
“It’s a paralyzing agent,” he explains. In a few minutes, you won’t be able to breathe and your heart will stop beating.” She feels him swallow. “Better than the last time.”
She wants to kill him, just like last time, but she can’t.
“They said they can bring him back,” he murmurs, pressing his lips against her skin. “I would turn my back on them, I would fight with you, but they can bring him back. And I swear to you, I will find a way to bring her back too and you. I know you don’t want my promises, but I do, I promise.”
It happens just like he said it would. Her lungs won’t work. Then her heart stops beating.
She realizes just before the end that she wanted to sleep.
Now she can.
