UsAgI iS dEaD uSaGi Is DeAd HiP hIp HiP hOoRaY by DARK DAY FOR ANIME Diclaimer - Sailormoon is owned by Takeuchi Naoko and Bandai, so these characters really belong to them. I'm just abusing them in a manner most would describe as nothing short of scandalous. I hope nobody sues me for it. I have to eat, and if you've seen me, you'll quickly realise how much it must take. Part Three Bleeding With The Times Setsuna was having something of a problem sleeping. And that was unusual. Setsuna NEVER had trouble sleeping. Well, not often. There wasn't anything she ever worried about. Well, not often. What will come did come, in that order, and exactly as she expected it to. There was very little about time that was a mystery to its guardian. Not this fine day, though. She lay in her bed, tossing and turning. Her sheets worked their way loose, which annoyed her even more. She was getting up every five minutes to readjust them. The sensation of the wrinkles against her back was too much. Then she felt too hot underneath the blankets and threw them off, only to feel too cold and drag them back on again. 7.15am. She'd been in bed for less than an hour. She could see sunlight cast through her window. Sunlight had never worried her when it came to sleeping. She was used to the darkness. The day was anathema to her. It wasn't much sunlight, anyway. Could be cloudy out there. Maybe rain later.... Umi..... She made a compromise and slept on top of her bedclothes with the heater on. It seemed to do the trick, even though the fuzziness of the blanket made her itchy. But still, she tossed and turned. She had things on her mind. Weighty things. Not things of the future, but of the past. She'd never worried about that before. Ocean of the Mind.... A vision of Usagi. The Usagi she remembered. The REAL Usagi of the Silver Millenium. Serenity. She was elegant, beautiful, and happy. Setsuna wondered how it was possible that such a person could have been reincarnated as the current Usagi. The ex-Usagi. Uuuuuuuuuumiiiiiiiiii...... (chuckle) She shuddered. The future had become awfully muddied since she had allowed the others in on her vision of death. Setsuna turned. Why had they so willingly chosen to kill a girl who, only this time last year, they were willing to die for? Setsuna turned again. Of course, the vision was extremely graphic. Their deaths, in full colour no less. "Sleeping on the job? Tututututut, this will never do." The voice was annoying. It permeated her thoughts, as confused as they were, and wouldn't allow her the benefit of sleep. She turned. It sounded like a voice she knew. Whatever that meant. She had known a lot of people. Within the span of an ordinary life, one gets to know an unbelievably large number of people on a personal level. In the span of HER life even those who had been terribly close had faded into the recesses of memory. She reached out for the voice, and the face of a woman, about her age, with similar features and dark black-blue hair appeared. Setsuna was standing in the middle of a grassed plain. The plains of central Asia, long long ago. The Silver Millenium. There was nobody living here now. Not at this time, anyway. Yet this was the place.... Where she was... born? Yes, that was it. She had been born here.... She thought. "No shit, Sherlock." Said the woman who stood opposite her, leaning against a tree. "Its been a while, Hecate. Nice to see you're the same old screwhead you've always been...." Setsuna felt the weight of time weighing on her. Rather heavily. Usagi plodded along the streets of early morning Tokyo. It felt good to be doing it, too, because only hours ago, she thought she was never going to experience this feeling again. Not within a physical body, anyway. She had left Jadeite at his apartment. The poor guy looked like he was in need of some rest. It had been a busy night for him. Usagi felt like she'd just slept a year. She was bright, refreshed and full of energy. Oh, how full of energy she was. Before she'd left, she told Jadeite that she was going to go home. He had been against it, but she just couldn't resist the look on her parents' faces when she walked in that front door this morning. After resisting seeing them all of last night, resisting seeing them in their grief, she would pounce through that front door with a "surprise", and everything would be hunky-dory. Bugger the fact that there had been over a hundred witnesses to her death. She was alive and well now, and that was all that mattered. And then there would be the matter of the Senshi. Oh, how she salivated at the thought of first meeting them this morning.... If they were at school, of course. Usagi felt a strange pleasure run through her as she flexed her fingers. A strange action. She looked at her right hand. Two of the fingers seemed to be quivering slightly. She rubbed them with her other hand. Can't be anything wrong with this body yet. It was as new as a babe in arms. She ignored it and went back to her previous thoughts. How to deal with them. They had to be punished, of course. They couldn't be allowed to do what they did to her, and get away with it. And that included Luna, Artemis, Naru, Chibiusa and even Mamo-cha.... Chiba-san. "That bastard." Usagi thought to herself. "Loved me, did he? Told me time and time again I was the only thing in the world that mattered to him. I believed all that!" Usagi leant against a wall. Her right hand began to quiver as she felt tears come to her eyes. Tears of bitterness. Then she noticed the hand and grabbed it with her other. A twisted smiling expression crossed her face. "Stop it!" She said through clenched teeth. "Stop it now!" The hand, as if obeying her verbal command, settled. She stood away from the wall and, wiping the tears from her face, continued. Usagi reached her house at 7.20am. She rang the doorbell and waited. It took a while, but she heard someone shuffling up to the door, unlocking it. The door opened.... "OOOOHAAAAAYOOO....." Usagi's welcome came to a sudden stop when she found herself face to face with Captain Kikotsuka. Who appeared a great deal more suprised to see Usagi than Usagi did to see her. Indeed, the police investigator let out a short, strangulated scream that was most unbecoming her position. Setsuna was sitting now, in that field of grass. The other woman stood a short distance from her, staring at the mountains on the horizon. It looked to Setsuna as if the sun was rising over those mountains. The woman had the most contemptuously smug smile on her face. Setsuna remembered many an occasion where she had tried to wipe that smile off her face, by force. "So, you killed the Princess...." The woman repeated slowly. Setsuna wondered if her amazing capacity to reiterate the obvious could have sounded any more deadpan. "I didn't want to." Setsuna found herself hugging the Time Key. She wondered where it had appeared from. The woman also seemed to carry a staff with her. Similar to her own, but crowned with a trident. "It doesn't matter if you didn't want to. You did. Its done now." The woman seemed to be impatient with her green-haired counterpart. "A very unwise decision, too, if you ask me." "I'm not asking you. I didn't want to kill her. But it was agreed upon by the other Senshi." The woman turned to Setsuna. "Which senshi, Hecate? The Inner Circle? Again?" "Naiad, you know I must bow to the wishes of the Inner Circle. Even with my powers, my capacity to manipulate the flow of time, I'm still a slave to the wants and wishes of others." "And that is why you have always fallen prey to their darker sides." the woman whom Setsuna had referred to as Naiad gestured dramatically, the plain dress she had been wearing forming into that of a Senshi. Even Setsuna's nightgown was forming into her own Senshi fuku. The pair of them looked like bookends, each other's opposite. Naiad paced around with frustration. "I have told you, time and time again, follow your instincts. Your instincts told you to leave well enough alone. You should have followed them." "I couldn't ignore the vision." "STUFF THE VISION. Everything to you is vision this and vision that. I'm amazed you've been able to endure this torture for so long." "You chose the easy way out." Setsuna pulled her knees under her chin. "You may have given into the madness. I shall not." "The mind is the biggest ocean of all. Forgive the High Miko of Water for not wanting to swim that ocean, even to its deepest, darkest regions." Naiad ran a hand over her mouth, smiling behind it, her eyes alive with a blue flame. Setsuna glanced sideways at her. "Where have you been, all this time? Why aren't you and the other Mikos reincarnated, yet?" "Who says I'm finished swimming that ocean?" Naiad rattled the rings that hung around the spokes of her trident. "Not to fear, Hecate, I am alive, but not conciously so." "That means you have to be asleep at the same time as I am for this conversation to occur...." "Yes, well, I seem to live as stressful a life as you. The capacity to delegate your designing duties at whim to suit your new found schedule. Ah, I wish I had that luxury in this life." There was silence between the two. They watched the sun rise even further. "Naiad..." Setsuna muttered, so softly the other woman almost missed it. "What is it?" "What am I going to do now?" There was another period of silence between the two. Then Naiad turned and began to walk away, turning and pausing briefly. "You made your bed, Hecate. Now you have to lie in it." The blue-haired woman made a sound, like a soft, inane chuckle, then continued on her way, eventually fading into a spray of blue. Then nothing. "Oneesama..." Setsuna managed to get out, before she fell off her bed, crashing onto the floor. "I... Itaaaiiiiiii!" Setsuna had landed face-first. She struggled to her hands and knees, rubbing her saw chin. "You bitch!" Setsuna cursed. "Make my bed and lie in it indeed. You know this isn't over yet. You bloody bitch!" It had taken the Tsukinos some time to bring Captain Kikotsuka around. First, there was the fact that they had all fainted at the sight of Usagi. Then, once they had come round (thanks to Usagi's best efforts) they spent much of their time hugging their daughter and telling her how much they loved her. It took Usagi's newfound cool head to remind them that the Captain was lying in the hallway floor. But before that, they had to calm her second-in-command, Akunatsuka. The burly 45 year old veteran had seen a lot in his time, but never the resurrection of someone he KNEW to be dead. "B..bb...bbbuuut I saw her.... I saw her face and its her for sure. I know it was her who was dddddeadddd....." "Yes yes yes, I'm quite sure, Akunatsuka-san. Sit down in this chair here for a while, okay?" Kenji guided Akunatsuka to a seat on one side of the loungeroom. Kikotsuka sighed and stared at him. She was being seated in a large armchair by Usagi and her mother, on the opposite side of the room, and had been handed a glass of water. Why, she didn't know, but she drank it all. She and Akunatsuka had been with the Tsukinos all night. More to ask them about Usagi than anything else, for obvious reasons. After all, it was one of the more unusual deaths they had ever been involved with. Most of Usagi's chest and stomach had been blown clean out. It was not often that they had to deal with a murder investigation where the victim died from being struck by a missile sent by something the equivalent of a rocket launcher. It had been hard for them, though. The parents were clearly and understandably upset. So Kikotsuka had opted to stay with the Tsukino's that night in the hope that talking to them on a more personal level would derive some clue as to who might have been responsible. The thought had, more than once, gone through her mind that, trying to find the killer of a schoolgirl everyone seemed to like was going to be next to impossible when one considered the method of her death. Nobody who even had a millionth of a reason to have done it had the capacity for committing such a ferocious act. And so, it all seemed to be heading for a classic dead-end scenario. Kikotsuka Aoi hated dead-end scenarios. She hated any end that smacked of being a loose one. None of them got any sleep that night, except Shingo. After having to take them to the hospital so they could identify their daughter was enough of a minor hell to leave both parents rattled beyond rest. Before any of them knew it, the sun was rising. Ikuko had offered to make everyone breakfast, rather blearily. Aoi said she would help, but Ikuko said there was no need. Aoi had watched the poor woman, looking washed out and tired, stagger into the kitchen and start on making toast and coffee. Akunatsuka was with Kenji in the loungeroom. The two of them were chatting quietly with the tv on in the background. It was about then that the doorbell rang. Ikuko turned in confusion, looking as if she was about to drop the coffee jug, when Aoi stood. "I'll get that, Tsukino-san. Its more likely for me than you." Aoi turned and began to shuffle her way down the front passageway.... Which lead to the current situation. After all of them had positively identified Usagi as being the dead victim, they found it extremely hard to cop that she was now sitting, very much alive, in front of them. Aoi, recovering fully from her turn, watched as the Tsukino's joy turned into suspicion. Usagi was now bailed up by the both of her parents, being asked a barrage of questions. "....You're sure you're alright?" Kenji fired. "Hai, papa. I'm alright." "But we SAW you in the hospital...." Ikuko rubbed her face. "That wasn't me. Couldn't have been me. I mean, I'm here, aren't I? I'm alive...." "So where have you BEEN all night, young lady?" Ikuko again. "I... uhh... I can't remember." "What do you MEAN you can't remember?" Ikuko. "I... woke up in the schoolyard this morning. I couldn't, still can't, remember anything since class ended yesterday." "You can't remember?" Aoi asked offhandedly, raising an eyebrow. It had not been unusual, but there were occasions when strangers had tried to disguise themselves as crime victims to get into the lives of the family. And Usagi's picture had been flashed across television bulletins on the late night news. It was fortunate that the media hadn't been hounding the Tsukino's residence. "Before we proceed, may we be permitted to take a statement from Usagi, Kenji-san, Ikuko-san?" The Tsukino's turned to Aoi as the woman regained her professional composure. Akunatsuka bit his lower lip as she stood and stepped over to the parents. "Wh... What do you need to take a statement for?" Kenji asked in confused tiredness. His wife chided him, seeing in Aoi's request the hidden meaning. Usagi didn't though. "Yeah, what?" "Because we identified our daughter as dead." She took her husband by the arm and turned to Aoi. "Kikotsuka-san... I pray that this girl is our daughter. But the girl we identified was, also, most certainly her. If she is an imposter, you know what to do...." "An IMPOSTER?" Usagi couldn't believe what she was hearing. "What do you MEAN, an imposter. I AM Tsukino Usagi, not some poor lame psycho trying to muck up your lives or anything...." "We shall see about that, my dear." Aoi gestured Usagi to stand from her seat. Usagi sighed and complied, waving her hand in a gesture of contempt. "I take it this means I must go to your beloved police station hmmmm?" "Yes, you should take it that way." Aoi smiled back simply, trying to hide any emotions over this. Usagi stared at her, then Akunatsuka, then back again. The glare was unsettling, to say the least. Almost like being stared into by the dead. Aoi put that thought out of her mind as she guided Usagi to the front door. Ikuko and Kenji watched them go, the father still confused by this turn of events. "Is.... Is this really necessary?" He mumbled. "Better to confirm than to not." Ikuko looked up at her husband's sore, tired eyes. It shocked her to see the light of hope that was there with Usagi's reappearance fading. "She certainly looks like her, anata, and speaks like her." "Yes, maybe it is her." Kenji whispered. "But there IS something different." Ikuko looked at him strangely as the front door closed, shutting them off from Usagi and the detectives. Setsuna wandered the streets. She was most embarassed to be seen in such roughly-picked casual clothing, but she didn't feel like dressing up today. Even her hair was messy. A sure sign that things were REALLY off key in her head. She thought about going back to the shrine. She may as well chide the girls for allowing the party to run so late. She well knew they would not be expected at school today, the grief bit and all, but still... She was up and running, why shouldn't they? Probably because they'd look like her, thats why. Setsuna shivered. The vision of her sister had left her feeling uneasy. Naiad had often teased and tormented her in visions throughout her long life. Lives, to be more precise, as of now. She and Naiad were very similar in many ways. Naiad had been born a good year before her, as would be the way in the division between Miko and Senshi. They both commanded elements of time, and darkness. They both had the capacity to see the possibilites of the future. They both had guided, at some point, those around them, to achieve the best possible scenario. They even shared similar personalities, taking mutual joy in totally confounding those around them. Ah, the pleasures of an enigmatic personality.... It was not long after the founding of the Silver Millenium, however, that things started to go wrong with Naiad. She became more withdrawn, preferring her own company. In the middle of the night, she would perform ceremonies in the main shrine of the palace. Nobody knew what for. Her behaviour around others became erratic and eccentric. She started playing with the minds of others, playing one off another and studying the result. Then she committed suicide. The dark pit of eternity opened wide within Setsuna's soul. Of course, she should have seen it coming, but she didn't. If there was anyone whose future was blind to herself and Naiad, it was the both of them. They'd trusted in others the happy future in the hope that they, too, would partake in it. Setsuna withdrew from public life after that. It was the biggest error of all. Withdrawing was what caused her to fail in her task of protecting the Kingdom, allowing its downfall. She didn't see that particular future until it was too late to do anything, other than let it happen and hope for the best. So, in a way, Naiad was responsible for what happened to the Silver Millenium. Of course, Naiad may have killed herself because she saw what was coming. In which case, her death was a warning. A warning Setsuna had chosen to ignore in her grief.... The city seemed to be closing around her as she plodded on. She was so tired now, yet sleep evaded her. The city closed even further in. And further, and further. Suddenly Setsuna snapped to and realised that it wasn't her imagination. The buildings were rearranged, linked together. "NO!" She thought. "Not the Eternal City!" Buildings grew out of nowhere in the distance, and seemed to go on and on and on and on.... Setsuna ran in blind panic. Walls and buildings closed around her. She ducked in every doorway, through every gap, trying to escape the warped dimensions of what was forming around her. The ultimate nightmare vision, the Eternal City. Everywhere she ran, everywhere she climbed, the city existed. An interconnected series of buildings, towers, malls, arcades, offices, whatever in an endless pattern that was everwhere. There was nothing for it in her mind. She climbed the stairs of one of the tallest buildings.... She had to get to the top... Had to confront the vision, or else her mind could be trapped, forever.... And when she reached there, and stared out at the city, going on into infinity in all directions, she screamed. Water dripped on her face. She felt rain. She looked up at the dark clouds, and realised she was back on the ground. In the street. Where it all started. And as the rain fell, she continued to stare up at the sky. Usagi sat in the rear seat of the unmarked police vehicle, brooding quietly. This was not the way things were supposed to go, she thought. She was supposed to have her parents welcoming her back with open arms, and everything would be alright. At least on the domestic front, anyway. She hadn't thought about what the police's reaction would be to her reappearance. Well, looks like she'll have to wait to make her dramatic reappearance in front of the other senshi. Still, that could be all the better. Time to plan her revenge against those little sailorshits. Those bitches who tried to kill her.... More than once. More than once? Usagi stared out of the car window, a little confused by her own thoughts. What the hell did she mean? Left or right. Which way should I go from here. It can be so difficult during the rush hour to get to the station, especially when coming in from this side. Those weren't her thoughts, and it confused her for a moment as to how she got them in her head. Then she remembered that she had tried to read the minds of Kikotsuka and Akunatsuka back in her house. The link, with Akunatsuka, was still open. He, of course, was driving. But as for Kikotsuka.... She hadn't been able to break into her mind. There was something blocking her attempts. She wondered what it could be that could resist her newfound powers. She'd only thought about influencing their minds, almost as a throwaway, when things started to look a bit bad for her. She was surprised when the link with Akunatsuka opened. She could see his every thought, want and desire in a matter of moments. She then tried it on Kikotsuka.... But to no avail. Rain fell against the front windscreen, and Akunatsuka cursed as they were caught by a red light. "Jeez, its gonna take a good half an hour before we get there in this. They'll close off the bridge for sure." "Just settle down, Kaji, there's no rush." Aoi turned aside and saw a scruffy looking, dark-green haired woman staring into the sky, soaked with the rain. For a moment, a smile crossed her face. She didn't know why, but it just felt.... right. Setsuna turned her head and looked at the car, drawn by some force. She saw Usagi, who had seen her. Usagi smiled and pointed her hand like a gun at Setsuna, and fired. The car moved on. Setsuna watched it go. All she could do was laugh. And laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh. END OF PART THREE Notes And now, I suppose you're going to ask who Setsuna's sister is. Well, I'm not going to tell you. Not in this story, anyway. I'm saving that for another I'm working on, about the creation of Crystal Tokyo, and the rather vicious sacrifices that must be made towards it, a story I refer to as "Bishoujo Miko Zodiac 12", and it will be set after Sailorstars. It will also have nothing to do with this story, as I only cannibalised one of the characters from that one to suit some of this one's more apocalyptic aspects. Indeed, you shall see Naiad's current life in this story. I'm not telling you who she is or not, as that will give some things away, so I'll leave it up to you to guess who she is. You may be surprised if you think you know already. I intend to use the Asteroid Senshi in later parts of this story. I know they only really appear as the asteroid senshi in the manga, but the general pattern of their ultimate redemption and resurrection is there in the anime as well. And besides, after my wanton twisting of the canon for "Sailor Python", I really can't see how I can make things any worse. In the next chapter, the original Usagi proves not to be as dead as everyone thought. So this begs the question, who stepped out of Jadeite's Youma Spawning Machine? The REAL nasty stuff begins then. ^_^ Any comments, criticism and outright abuse should go to ayanami@merlin.net.au All abuse shall be hung, drawn and quartered. In that order, even. ^_^ DDFA