USAGI IS DEAD II DEAD IS USAGI by DARK DAY FOR ANIME Diclaimer - Sailormoon is owned by Takeuchi Naoko and Bandai, so these characters really belong to them, except ones I made up. If you vaguely know anything about Sailormoon, you'll spot them a mile off. "Ahoy there, Cap'n, I sees me an original character." "Steer clear of them, helmsman. They can be nasty when the weather turns bad." Part Two When the Joy is Stopped Usagi stared at the woman, and the woman stared back. Only she couldn't stare back because she didn't have any eyes to do so. Usagi freaked out, and was several metres up the hotel corridor, back against the wall on the floor, pointing at the woman. "Uhh... Uhh... Uhh..." The woman cocked her head to one side, then shrugged and turned back to her cleaners' trolley. Usagi, now calming, thought things over. "Ano..." The woman turned again, giving Usagi another view of her faceless visage. Usagi swallowed. "Can you tell me the way to reception? Or management? I seem to be lost." The woman pointed past Usagi, down the corridor. "Ah, thankyou." The woman then turned and pointed the other way. "Ano..." Usagi blinked a couple of times. "Do you mean.... It's both ways?" The woman nodded. "Which way is quicker?" The woman pointed past Usagi, down the corridor. "Ah, thankyou." The woman then turned and pointed the other way. Usagi facefaulted. This was going to be a great deal more difficult than she thought. ----o Kameju watched as the woman who had been tossing and turning, in the throws of fever, quietened at the merest touch of Usako's hand. Usako had closed her eyes, and was whispering a soft and gentle chant. Kameju shook his head, almost disbelieving. "It's... incredible. That woman has been burning up with a virulent strain of influenza for close to three days, now...." He noticed CereCere and Makoto had taken a full step back, and sweatdropped. "If you haven't caught it now, you never will." They giggled nervously. "Yeah, I think that passed through Crystal Towers some time ago.... Good six months back...." Makoto muttered, hopefully. Usako turned, her eyes open, smiling. "She shall recover in a day's time. Where is the next patient?" Kaneju gestured with his hand to the doorway. "A young boy, about seven years old. He was badly injured in a gang attack on one of the outlying properties." Usako nodded and followed Kaneju from the room. CereCere looked at Makoto for a moment, whose expression had gone sullen. "You look tired." "I feel tired. I wanna sleep for days." CereCere put a hand on Makoto's shoulder. "Don't worry. Go to our room and go to bed. Both Hotaru and myself should be able to guard Usako." Makoto sighed. "I feel so useless, sometimes." "Now I know you're tired. You always start putting yourself down when you get tired. Go - to - bed." CereCere patted Makoto on the cheek, and the larger woman smiled, nodding. ----o Usagi had wandered for what seemed like hours. There simply wasn't an end to the corridor, nor was there anyone else in the corridor itself. She just passed by door after door that had strange symbols bolted to them rather than numbers. "Okay..." Thought Usagi to herself. "I wake up in the hotel from hell, and I get thrown out of my room by the room...." She shook her head. Even to her, the whole idea seemed ridiculous. The decor was beginning to annoy her. Gold and cream doors and walls with gleaming fittings, and a black and gold-brown carpet in a leaf-shaped pattern. And it just went on and on and on without so much as a relief. She stopped, and looked back. There was no way she could tell how far she had gone. Nor did she seem to be approaching an end. She stamped her feet, viciously. This was useless. She could walk on for the rest of her life and not get anywhere. "Excuse me...." She turned to the voice that came from the door immediately behind her. The face of a small, dark-haired young woman peered out through the gap. "Can you keep it down?" "Eh...?" "It's noisy enough in here as it is." "But...." Usagi went silent, listening. "...There is no noise." The girl rolled her eyes. "That's the problem. The silence. Silence is so LOUD. It scares me. Why does silence have to be so noisy?" Usagi sighed. "You tell me to stop making so much noise. If I do stop, then the silence shall just get louder." "Yes, but at least you won't be singing a duet. Silence and I." The young woman giggled inanely. "Ano, can I ask you a question?" "Yes, it is a perfectly reasonable theory." Usagi gritted her teeth. "Do you know how far this passageway goes in this direction?" She pointed the way she had been walking. "Aha, an existentialist conundrum. How far does any passage lead you? The paths of life are mysterious." "Ano..." Usagi sweatdropped. "How about answering the question?" "No question has a single answer. It is impossible to accurately predict what may or may not happen if one were to follow the said passage. Suffice to say, it may lead one to a destiny that one does not expect." "You're a headcase, you know that?" "Whether or not I realise the state of my psychological dilemma should really be none of your concern. It is only I who can fully comprehend my imperception of reality, and what should be done about it." The young woman stared at Usagi. "Is your imperception of reality causing you to not see things as they are?" Usagi rubbed her forehead. "Don't start asking me psychobabblic inquiries.... I've got enough problems as it is." "Then you won't achieve what you want. Sometimes our perceptions of the way things are can be influenced by what we want to see." The woman withdrew and shut the door. Usagi fell to her knees. Why did this kind of thing always happen to her?" ----o Makoto lay back on the lawn, staring at the sky. She was 14 again, and it felt good. Dressed only in the plain, brown school uniform she had inherited from her previous school, due to the fact that Juuban Junior High didn't have uniforms to fir her size, she felt a sense of peace that she hadn't experienced in some time. A return to what she had been.... Just plain old Kino Makoto, before Usagi had made friends with her. Before she became.... She sighed. Too much water had passed under the bridge for her to totally return to this world.... Usagi was alive again, if only through the forced union of souls.... And she had forgiven Makoto for her indiscretions.... The very fact that she had been so easily manipulated made her feel incredibly angry, and depressed. She could deal with an enemy that presented an obvious, physical threat. But one that chose to attack the mind.... To rape it of its memories and perceptions.... She turned aside, looking away. In the distance, over several grassed hills, stood a crystal tower. her past and future, all as one. She closed her eyes. "Mako-chan...." The voice was barely strong enough to be heard over the sound of the soft breeze. Makoto opened her eyes and turned to Usagi, dressed as she was the day she first met her, lying next to her. "You again." Makoto said, simply. "Yes. Me again." She said simply, smiling. ----o Usagi stared at the carpet. It didn't look like a carpet anymore. Not in the darkness that had descended upon the hotel corridor. The only light that could be seen was a simple white light, shining from what appeared to be a box above a doorway. Usagi was, however, too busy watching the patterns within the carpet ebb and flow. Like water, she thought. An endless, seething ocean. She gripped the fibres of the carpet with her hands, and watched as the pattern changed again. Her perceptions were faulted. The corridor was not as it seemed. Her mind was using a backup file of what she had expected to see. Change tack, and look up. She saw the light, and the word on the box that covered it. It said "exit". ----o "The old days were kinda fun, weren't they?" Usagi smiled as she stared up at the small, white clouds that floated across the sky. "I don't know if they were any more fun than what things are like, now." Makoto shrugged. "Oh come on, Mako-chan. Two suicide attempts and a history of alcoholism isn't the kind of thing one should put aside when one is trying to rationalise personal history." Makoto closed her eyes and shivered. "And Hotaru has felt the same as you. Her experiences have been even worse. Both of you have suffered from the brutalisation that is on offer in this life. So tell me, are things as good now as they were then?" Usagi looked aside. "No." Makoto opened her eyes and returned Usagi's gaze. "And do you think things will get any better?" "No." "Look over there, Mako-chan." Usagi sat up and pointed at the crystal palace. "That is your future. And where we lie, now, shall become the streets and buildings of Crystal Tokyo. Now tell me again, are things going to get any better?" "Even if I find peace.... Shall I be able to live within it without being a disruptive influence?" Usagi shook her head. "Do you so wish for death? it doesn't clean all of the horrors of the past. Just look at Umi and Setsuna. Only just entering their teens now, and yet they have been handled brutally by those with less than savoury intent." Makoto remained silent. "I do wish you'd get your head in order, Mako-chan. Whilst Hotaru is now the leader of the Sailorsenshi, you are the only other senshi to have survived. You are more important than you realise." "I am as important as I understand myself to be. What I contribute is the raw power I have at my fingertips. Power without a purpose. An unguided missile." She sighed and sat up. For a moment, she winced and clutched her head in pain. "Does it still hurt, Mako-chan? What I did to you? What a version of me did to you?" "I... understand that, as Jupiter, my capacity to die is limited... to total evisceration." "You, Hotaru and CereCere all have the seed of eternal life within you, now. But you can still die if you don't look after yourselves." "I restate, my capacity to die is limited to total evisceration. Even if I lose a limb, it shall just grow back. A bodily organ... it will just grow back..." "A damaged brain...?" "Will just grow back." "Grow back as it used to be? Will its tender folds return to the shape and form they were, initially?" "I don't know." Makoto turned away. "You can see nothing, Makoto. No signs of any physical damage. Even if you are x-rayed, you shall find a perfectly-formed human mind. And yet, the damage to the soul that existed within it is greater than you can imagine." Makoto felt an incredible pain in the back of her head. To her horror, she could feel the sickening sensation of warm fluid running down her back. She tried to turn back to Usagi, but her motor control had disappeared. She collapsed onto her front and looked up at Usagi, beckoningly. "Please... Not again. Don't let this happen to me again..." Usagi reached forward, her hair falling out of its odangos. The hair wrapped around Makoto's body and began to seep up the blood, staining the hair a pinkish-red. Slowly, Makoto was lifted up by Usagi's arms. Makoto could see Usagi's face changing shape... To that of CereCere. The Asteroid Senshi smiled and kissed Makoto.... ----o Hotaru looked from her bed at Usako and Umi. The pair were fast asleep, now. It had been a long day's travelling, and after expending her powers to heal the dozen or so patients within the medical centre, Usako was exhausted. Umi had fallen asleep in Usako's arms. It made Hotaru jealous to see the affection that Usako would heap upon the sensitive girl. But pettiness had never been in her vocabulary, so she let it pass. Besides, there was a connection between both Usako and herself that none of the others would ever have. Hotaru turned to the small table that sat next to the bed. Two glasses and a bottle of sake sat there. One of the glasses had been poured and half-emptied. Half emptied into her. Probably why she was feeling so forgiving. She reached over and topped up her glass, taking it from the table, resting to rim against her lips. The soft sensation of the fluid on her lips was matched by the burning that her tongue and throat received. And that was but the merest drop. Usako had refused her offer to join her in a drink, using the old excuse that she disliked alcohol. Hotaru shook her head and wondered if the pair of them had anything in common at all.... A hand reached over and picked up the bottle, filling the second glass. It put the bottle down and took the glass. Hotaru only vaguely watched this as Usashin sipped the drink, sitting on a stool that had sat beside her bed. "You never know when to move on, do you?" Hotaru sniffed. "I like to pop in every so often and see how things are going on with you people." Usashin smiled. "I did have a stake in your future. Willing enough to bet my life on it." "Yes..." Hotaru became solemn. "Yes, you did." Usashin turned to where Usako and Umi lay. "We managed to succeed in the refusing of the souls of Serenity and Usagi. But at what cost to the both of them?" Hotaru sighed. "Alright, Usashin, just what is it this time?" Usashin turned back to Hotaru, smiling. "What makes you think there is anything wtong?" "Because you're starting to talk in ominous riddles. There is always something on the cards when you do that." Usashin shook her head. "Sorry. It's just that... In my wanderings on this side of the wall, I have felt the presence of Tsukino Usagi." "Eh?" Hotaru leaned forward, putting her glass on the bedside table. "That's impossible. Usagi was put back inside the body of Usako." "Yes, it is indeed Usagi's spirit that resides within the body of Usako." "So are you trying to tell me there is more than one Usagi out there?" Hotaru winced. "Okay, okay, I KNOW there is more than one Usagi out there. What I mean is..." "Is there more than one version of the original Tsukino Usagi?" Usashin shrugged. "It is difficult to tell. There are so many Usagi spirits on this side, that I may have been mistaken. However, I am not usually that mistaken with my perceptions." Hotaru nodded, grimly. "Perhaps it is something you should look into. After all, I most certainly can't." Usashin chuckled. "The senshi of death and darkness, not able to see within the world of the dead?" "You know what I mean." Usashin smiled. "By the way, Kaorusagi-dono sends you her love." Hotaru looked at Usashin for a few moments, then heard someone crying out in fear.... She jumped clean across the room as Usako and Umi were roused. "Wh.. what's going on?" Umi sat up, blearily. "That's Makoto...." Hotaru turned to them, then looked back at the stool. There was nobody there. The second glass was empty and untouched, sitting on the bedside table. ----o Usagi tentatively opened the door and peered through. It was a stairwell. And the best thing about it was that the stairs and railings were.... ....All made of bone. Usagi shivered. Well, the sign did say "exit". All the same, she didn't like the concept of walking on a staircase made of polished bone. She stepped in to the stairwell and allowed the door to close behind her. For a few moments, she wondered whether she should go up or down. Considering the bizarre dimensions of the hotel, either way could be the right way. She decided to use logic, and go down. ----o Makoto was shivering, making little keening noises from her throat, staring into space dazedly, when Hotaru entered her room. CereCere had an arm around the woman, trying to calm her. "What happened?" Hotaru stepped over and knelt down beside Makoto's bed. CereCere turned to her, helplessly. "She had another nightmare." "The same as before?" "Yes. The same as before." "Don't want that to happen again.... Oh Kami-sama, forgive me and all that I have done...." Makoto was now gasping and sobbing so heavily that Hotaru became concerned that she was going to give herself a seizure. She grabbed Makoto by the shoulders. "Mako-chan! MAKOTO! Get a HOLD of yourself." Makoto stared up into Hotaru's eyes, as if not recognising her for a few moments. Slowly, she began to calm, her face losing its panicked edge. "Makoto-oneechan?" Hotaru turned to see Usako and Umi standing in the doorway. Usako was holding Umi's shoulder. "It's alright, Umi-chan. Mako-oneechan shall be alright." Usako whispered. Umi turned to her and nodded mutely. Makoto's eyes fell on Umi, and she felt a sense of shame. "Gomen, Umi..." She said, softly. "I didn't mean to wake you up." Hotaru took a breath and stood. "I think, Makoto, that it is time you sought the guidance of someone who can help you work through this." Makoto shivered and stared at Hotaru. "I don't have a problem. Not one that should concern you." "Waking all of us with your cries DOES concern us. You now sleep in a separate building from the majority of people back in Crystal Towers because of this. It can't go on." Makoto threw off her bedcovers and stood, angrily, almost bowling CereCere aside. "I don't have a problem, do you understand?" "Mako-oneechan... Kowai..." Umi pressed herself against Usako, and Makoto looked at her, anger fading. She turned and walked up to the far wall, leaning her head against it. Hotaru looked from her to the others. "CereCere, can you go with Usako and Umi. I'd like to have a few words with Makoto..." CereCere nodded and stood, stepping over and guiding Usako and Umi from the room. Hotaru turned to Makoto, who was now softly banging her head against said wall. "Stop that, you stupid girl. It isn't going to make things any better." "Sorry. I'm sorry." Makoto didn't turn. "How many times do I have to keep saying sorry for everything I've done? Every time I turn, someone is demanding an apology. And it's sorry sorry sorry. I don't seem capable of avoiding trouble, even if I'm not trying to cause it." "Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself. It doesn't work with me." Makoto turned to Hotaru. Hotaru huffed. "Nothing you have experienced during your time could even begin to compare with what I've endured. And do you see me falling apart?" "You WERE falling apart, until we arrived. I've heard all the stories about what you were like then." Hotaru shook her head. "And I changed, right? So why didn't you?" She put out her hand. "The rest of us can only take so much of this bullshit, Makoto. You saw the effect you had on Umi. She is only 13. As old as you were when you had your infamous 'old boyfriend.' Can you remember what you were like, then?" Makoto closed her eyes, as if restraining herself, then looked away. Silence reigned between them for several moments, when they heard noise.... Banging against the front doors of the Medical Centre. They both looked at each other for a moment. Hotaru snapped her fingers. "Makoto, get with Usako and the others, I'll go and see what that is." "But...." "No protests, just do it!" Makoto nodded, and the two of them ran from the room. ----o Usagi slowly descended the stairs, nervously. The way the bone structure creaked, she thought she was going to fall through them. Eventually, she became more confident of their strength and made her way down with greater speed. And then she slowed down.... For the first time, she didn't know why she hadn't noticed it before, but the walls... were made of flesh. The melded parts of human bodies. She decided she didn't like this game, anymore. She looked up. The walls, higher, had been normal, but as they descended, the... "infection", for want of a better term, increased. Like the walls were being taken over from the base of the building by some kind of growth. A horrible thought came to Usagi. Where was this growth getting the body parts from? It was visibly obvious that the parts had all been cauterised together.... All those who had used the stairs.... Being snatched one by one on higher and higher levels as the growth extended.... Usagi began to back up the stairs, staring around in sickened horror at the walls.... The gleaming, congealed mass of flesh and blood seemed to be moving. It was moving. Usagi could see it, now. Like tendrils, portions of flesh were reaching out for her.... She screamed and ran for the nearest exit, at the top of the next flight of stairs. She gripped the door handle, but it was locked. She banged against it with her fist. "Help me! Somebody, help me!" She turned when she heard a squelching noise. To her horror, there stood the poorly-formed body of a young man, tendrils of flesh leading to the growth on the walls. He reached out to her, his fingers rolling lasciviously. END OF PART 2 Next: The most bizarre Usagi clone yet. Prepare yourself for the horror that is.... SailorPuPuPu! ^_^ DDFA ayanami@merlin.net.au Resident "Mr Damage" of SM Fanfic Writing 12th Mar 1998 Descendants of convicts unite, you have nothing to lose but your brains!