Comments, criticism, flames, etc. appreciated. Really.
This is a Sailor Moon fanfic. There are many like it, but this
one is mine.
Acknowledgments: thanks to Tim Nolan and Greenbeans, for their
superb characterization of Haruka and Michiru. To Professor Chronos:
one of your FSC posts was the first SM fanfic I ever read. This is
all your fault. To Jackie Chiang, for giving me the motivation to
write this from beginning to end. To Jennifer Wand, who issued the
challenge. To Hitoshi Doi, whose episode summaries I leaned on
heavily in certain portions. To afsm, for listening. And to Victor
Naqvi, who kept me sane when I honestly thought I was going to lose
it.
Note: I'm breaking one of my cardinal rules in this fanfic, but
it's to make a point. It won't happen again.
Second note: those who regularly follow my stories know that no
matter how dark it gets, there's still some humor hiding in the
details. That is not the case here. This is a depressing story in
every sense of the word. I make no apologies for this. In my
opinion, I was left with no other viable option.
Third note: in case you didn't catch it the first time, this is
a depressing story. It depressed the hell out of me, and I'm the one
who wrote it. So don't go sending your therapy bills to me, okay?
(okay, maybe one joke)
Sailor Moon and associated characters aren't mine, never have
been, and never will be. She and others belong to a number of large
corporations who have never heard of me and, if I'm lucky, never
will. (okay, so maybe two jokes)
====================================
Moon Revenge
A Sailor Moon Fanfic by LeVar Bouyer
====================================
"Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own
person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end
and never simply as a means."
-Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals.
"It's moon revenge, woo."
-Mitsuishi Kotono, Hisakawa Aya, Tomozawa Michie,
Shinohara Emi, Fukami Rika, in "Moon Revenge."
"Death's too good for them."
-Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy.
***
"Moon cosmic power, make-"
"Not this time!"
The daimon slapped away Usagi's compact. Too shocked at this
development, she hardly noticed when it slammed her into a nearby
wall. As the daimon began the process of extracting her heart
crystal, she screamed a scream that would make a bystander think her
very soul was being taken away. And in a way, it was.
From a distance, Sailors Uranus and Neptune arrived. Seemingly
impassive, they watched the daimon do its work.
Neptune gulped. "Aren't you going to save her?"
The strain was evident on her face, but the dusty blonde kept
cool. "She might be the one with the talisman, you know."
"I can see plain as day that you're asking yourself what you're
going to do if it is."
"We both know the answer to that," said Uranus in a tone that,
as long she remembered it, Michiru could never really place.
Sadness? Regret? Anger?
After a seeming eternity, the deed was done. The daimon
brandished its prize, clearly gloating. Uranus was nearly sick with
fury at the daimon, but she put it aside. She gazed upon the
crystal, then at the slack Usagi, and again at the crystal, and
reached a verdict.
"It's...it's the talisman!" Uranus moved to grab it, but
Neptune caught her.
"Think carefully. If it really is the talisman, Uranus, we
can't return it."
"I know that," she replied impatiently.
"She'll *die*, Sailor Uranus."
There was no reply. Uranus simply uncoiled, because there was
no better word for what she did. In what was literally the blink of
an eye, she flashed across the distance, delivered a left hook into
the face of the daimon, grabbed the crystal with her right hand, and
sprang away, just as a rose flew into the daimon's hand.
Too late.
Uranus was off and running, automatically assuming that the
daimon wouldn't be far behind. She wasn't mistaken. The daimon,
ignoring Tuxedo Kamen's volley, went off after Uranus and the
crystal. Neptune, taking the barest fraction of a second to sigh in
resignation, also began her pursuit.
Tuxedo Kamen knelt down next to his beloved, whose eyes were
glazed over. Instinctively, he knew she wouldn't last long at all
without the crystal.
Too angry and too frightened for tears, he ran off after the
other three.
***
Sailor Uranus was in the race of her life. She jumped from
rooftop to rooftop, desperately trying to shake off the daimon. She
heard rather than saw Sailor Neptune trying to distract the daimon,
but to no avail. Worst of all, she was paying so much attention to
running that she didn't have time to inspect her trophy more closely.
She had a sneaking suspicion about the crystal she held in her right
hand, but she simply couldn't stop long enough to check.
She ran for what seemed to be kilometers, for what seemed to be
days. Finally, she dared to look over her shoulder and saw no-one.
She slowed down a bit and came to a stop atop a middle-class home
that was in the shadow of a rather tall office building. Uranus
looked around. No Neptune. No daimon. A small sandy-haired boy
entered the driveway and went into the house, never noticing the
woman on his roof.
"NEPTUNE?" she cried out. No response. She reached for her
communicator and in doing so noticed the crystal, which she had
almost forgotten about. She had been so worried about its safety
that the fact it was in her palm had ceased to register.
She looked down at it and gasped.
The first thing she realized was that it was growing terribly
dim. At extraction it had been bright, almost dazzlingly so.
Now...now it was an ashen gray, and growing darker. She half-thought
it was a natural consequence of being away from its owner, but she
hadn't much experience in these matters. It was the second thing
that made her heart stop for a long, drawn-out, eternal second.
It wasn't the talisman.
It was a pure heart, to be sure, a very pure heart that could
(and had) been easily mistaken, but it simply wasn't the talisman.
And if it wasn't the talisman....
She turned around and ran faster than she ever had before.
***
As she returned, she noticed the weather changing. Dark was
coming on, and so was a cold front. Hardly unexpected, though. It
was May, after all. May the thirtieth, which had dawned so
beautifully on a girl who was celebrating her fifteenth birthday, a
girl who no-one could *really* hate.
A girl, Uranus realized, who was dead.
She slowed to a walk at the scene. At the corner where Usagi's
heart crystal had been taken, a crowd had gathered. She leapt unseen
to a rooftop for a closer view, and jumped when a finger tapped her
on the shoulder.
"You have the talisman?" asked Neptune. Uranus turned to see a
very worried looking Neptune.
"Did you take care of the daimon?"
"Yes," said Neptune shortly. "But you do have the talisman, do
you not?" She left unspoken that if Uranus didn't, then a young girl
had died for nothing.
Uranus looked down at the scene again. A stretcher was being
wheeled into a waiting ambulance. The stretcher was occupied, but a
sheet had been drawn over its occupant.
"Usagi-chan...."
"She's dead. Pronounced dead the moment paramedics got there.
I don't know where Tuxedo Kamen went. Presumably to tell those other
senshi. Is the talisman safe?"
Sailor Uranus caught the urgency in Neptune's voice and slumped
her head down. There were four simple words, but saying them was the
hardest thing Uranus had ever done.
"I don't have it."
Silence.
"I don't have the talisman. Usagi's heart wasn't it. I
thought it was, but...look." Uranus offered the crystal. By now it
was nearly black.
"My God."
"I thought it was-"
"We've got to get it back to Usagi! There may still be a
chance!"
Uranus's eyes brightened imperceptibly at that.
"You think so?" she asked, already preparing to make the jump
into the crowd of people.
She spoke too soon. Even then the crystal was beginning to
dissolve into nothing.
"Michiru!"
They watched helplessly as the crystal began to fade away.
First slowly, and then faster and faster until all that was left was
a memory.
"Michiru. What have I done?"
***
That night did not go easily for either of them. First they
had to deal with the news reports. A girl had been struck dead on
her fifteenth birthday by another paranormal phenomenon. District
officials were petitioning the Diet to allow some American
specialists to have a look at things, and it was generally agreed
that they would get what they wanted.
Second, they had to sleep.
Haruka stared up at the ceiling, tears streaking down her face,
down into the nape of her neck, there to form a cold, uncomfortable
puddle against her pillow. The entire day had been a nightmare, but
she feared the real nightmare hadn't even begun.
How many times had they discussed this possibility, Haruka and
Michiru? How many times had they wrestled with their decision? It
was a simple choice on the outside. Either find the talismans to
bring the Messiah, or watch the world die. And they had decided that
sacrifices would have to be made. It was true that the three
unfortunates who carried the talismans would die. But compared to
all of humanity, what was the value of three lives?
It had seemed to Haruka that there was a fundamental trap
involved, a fallacy in trying to fix a value to a human life. But if
she let those three live...all would die. The nightmares she had
faced, the nightmares of the Silence...how could she possibly allow
that to happen? No, she wouldn't allow it.
And so she and Michiru had entered into their pact. They would
find the talismans by any means necessary. If it ever came to the
point where they must choose between the mission and the partner, the
mission must take supreme priority. It had seemed a prudent plan,
even when it came to the point where Michiru herself was in danger.
And now, she thought, it had come time to pick the fruits of
their efforts. Usagi was dead. The talismans were still waiting to
be found. And Haruka couldn't sleep.
She closed her eyes once again. And once again she saw Usagi's
face. Usagi smiling. Usagi chasing a butterfly. Usagi marveling
once again at the miracle of a rainbow. Usagi, always caring for the
underdog.
Usagi dead.
Her eyes flew open once again. And once again she saw the
ceiling. This had happened again and again that night. She had lay
in bed for five hours now. It was early morning. In a couple of
hours it would be time to prepare for school.
I can't go on like this, she thought. Once, about an hour ago,
she had given up and trying to get some advice from Michiru. But the
woman of the sea-green hair was fast asleep. Apparently she was
suffering from none of the crises of conscience that Haruka was.
And why should she, thought Haruka, when her hands are clear of
this. She had nothing to do with it. *I* was the irrational one,
*I* was the.... She stopped herself. This was a road she'd traveled
down that road more than once that night.
She closed her eyes once again. And once again she saw Usagi's
face.
Her eyes flew open once again.
It was a long, long night.
***
The sun brought no cheerfulness to the city of Tokyo. The
entire city was in shock over the death of little Tsukino Usagi. Not
since the Shinjuku debacle had a single death so polarized the
Japanese people. True, daimon and youma attacked all the times, but
never had anyone *died* as a result. The Prime Minister had stepped
in, stating that the perpetrators of this vile crime would be brought
to justice, no matter what the price.
Haruka and Michiru arrived at school shaken. On the way there,
they had passed a couple of Usagi's friends, Ami and Makoto. Michiru
had simply looked away, and Haruka pretended she hadn't seen their
long faces, hadn't seen the look of utter defeat and despair in their
eyes, hadn't seen from their posture that any love and happiness they
might have ever had was now gone, gone to a refrigerated drawer in a
nameless morgue in Juuban.
They arrived at school. But their problems had only begun.
In Haruka's first class, advanced calculus, she managed to look
bored as usual. She could handle the material with ease; the only
reason she showed up was for politeness. She watched as the teacher
droned on about maximizing third-degree curves in three-dimensional
space. She looked idly out the window and saw Usagi smiling back at
her.
Usagi, standing quite happily outside the third-floor window of
Mugen Gakuen, ponytails blowing in the wind, standing on absolutely
nothing at all.
Haruka screamed in fright and jumped to the side, landing
rather heavily on the ground. Ignoring the looks and gasps of
surprise from her classmates, she continued to back away, half-
instinctively reaching for her henshin rod.
"Ten'ou-san! What is the meaning of this?"
She stood. "Yui-sensei, I...." And she trailed off, because
outside the window was a blue sky, a couple high, wispy clouds, and
nothing else. No Usagi.
"Yes?" he prompted, wondering if something might be wrong with
one of his prize pupils.
"It...it was nothing, Yui-sensei." She fished for an excuse
and found one. Hang the insult to her pride. "I-I just saw an
insect on the windowsill, and it frightened me.
Yui ignored the snickers from the back of the class. "An
insect."
"Yes, Yui-sensei." She bowed in apology. "I apologize for the
interruption. It won't happen again, sensei."
"See that it doesn't, Ten'ou-san." The elderly man went back
to the blackboard and began writing more Greek letters and symbols.
Haruka looked cautiously out the window, but there was nothing
there. However, she was willing to swear upon anything that she had
seen Usagi, looking more alive than she ever had before.
***
That night a daimon attacked. When it did, in a shopping
district, the inner senshi came, as usual, to fight it. It was then
that Uranus and Neptune saw how pitiful a fighting force the inner
senshi were without their leader. True, Sailor Moon was clumsy at
times, but she was their shining focus, and without her...the inner
senshi were simply four girls in sailor suits.
Neptune watched silently as Jupiter was flung back by an energy
attack. Jupiter, physically the strongest of the inner senshi. On
any other day Jupiter could have nearly beaten the daimon by herself.
But now? Now she lay next to the curb, unmoving. Mercury had moved
to check on her condition, and Mars and Venus were providing cover.
It was a half-hearted attempt. Without Sailor Moon they simply
couldn't function.
"I'm getting tired of watching this," said Uranus. She caught
a blonde head in a crowd of onlookers and flinched, afraid of who it
might be. Or might have been.
"We have to wait for the talisman."
"Talismans. Is that all we're about now, talismans?"
Neptune's voice came out far more softly than she'd planned.
"Uranus, I know how you feel, but if we fail in our mission-"
"The Silence will come. Yes, yes, I know that just as well as
you do. But do you dream about Usagi?"
Neptune remained silent.
"I couldn't get to sleep for six hours last night because every
time I closed my eyes, I saw Usagi's face. Today in class I looked
out the window and saw her outside a third floor window. *Just* as
real, *just* as tangible as the Silence. And you know what? It was
just as frightening. Usagi's dead because of me, and all her ghost
can do is come back and *smile* at me?!?"
Neptune looked at her partner with a mixture of sympathy, love,
pity, and sadness. "Come on, Uranus. It doesn't look like a
talisman, and the other senshi can probably use some help."
"It's not our job."
"If we don't, who will?"
Uranus and Neptune went to work.
***
A week passed. Things were getting progressively worse. After
a couple days of haphazard performance, the inner senshi had
disappeared. No-one knew where they were; it was as if they had
vanished off the face of the earth. Curiously, the pair that Haruka
and Michiru passed every day, Ami and Makoto, were nowhere to be seen
either.
Haruka and Michiru had other things to worry about, though.
Haruka was deteriorating. At least once a night she would wake up
screaming, in a cold sweat. She was eating less, driving faster,
taking more risks. Michiru was worried sick about her companion, but
Haruka refused to talk about the events of the thirtieth of May.
The daimon attacks were increasing in number, and the two were
hard-pressed to get to all of them. And now that the inner senshi
had disappeared, they had to dispatch of the daimons as well as
inspect the heart crystals and return them to their owners. This was
becoming to get draining, and again Michiru was worrying about
Haruka's well-being.
Things came to a head on a Sunday afternoon at 3:32 pm. They
had just gotten back from fighting a daimon. Haruka had performed
miserably, taking terrible risks and almost carelessly using her
World Shaking to destroy the daimon. The crystal hadn't been a
talisman, but Michiru shuddered to think of what might have happened
if it was.
As Haruka lay in a recliner and stared into space as she did so
often, Michiru hunkered down next to her and stared her in the eyes.
Haruka continued to stare ahead, uncaring.
"Haruka. Haruka, you have to stop this."
"Stop what?" asked Haruka emotionlessly.
"This. This blaming yourself. You haven't been the same since
Usagi-chan's death and we both know it."
"Neither has the world."
"Nani?"
"Look around you, Michiru. The world is going to hell.
Daimons twice a day, the US going to war, the real defenders of this
planet have apparently given up, and the Silence is getting closer
every day. Do I look like I give a damn about those talismans?"
A pause.
"I think so. I think that if you didn't care, you'd just sit
here all the time and let the world take care of itself."
Haruka looked Michiru in the eye. In the *eye*, with the force
of all the despair and hopelessness she could muster. "You haven't
been paying any attention at all, have you? The only reason...the
only reason I wake up, the only reason I fight, the only reason I
haven't decided to just end it all, is because of you. I just don't
care about the mission anymore. You do, and so I fight on. But...I
killed her."
Michiru decided that tact wasn't called for in this situation.
"Haruka, listen closely. *You made the right choice*. You couldn't
risk it *not* being the talisman, Haruka. You did what you had to
do. What *I* would have done. What any rational being would have
done."
"So any rational being would have allowed Usagi to die?"
"We both know the alternative, Haruka."
"At this point, I'm starting to prefer the alternative."
Michiru knelt for a moment in shock. "I think...I think you
need some time to yourself. I'll be upstairs if you need me." She
got up and walked hurriedly to the stairs.
Haruka continued to sit. It reached four o'clock. Time to go
to the racetrack and practice her driving.
Haruka continued to sit. It reached five o'clock. Time for
her and Michiru to have dinner.
Haruka continued to sit. It reached six o'clock. Usagi
Tsukino stood in front of her.
"You...you..."
"Hello, Haruka-san." Her face was smiling. She was in her
school uniform, the same uniform she'd been wearing on her birthday.
She showed no signs of being dead. For that matter, she didn't even
have the translucency Haruka stereotypically expected from a ghost.
"You're...you're dead."
"Hai." She said it as casually as if she were remarking on the
weather, or pointing out an item of interest in the newspaper.
"I...I killed you."
"No you didn't, Haruka-san. You did what you had to do. I
forgive you."
"You...you can forgive me?" asked Haruka, ignoring the
absurdity of talking to a dead person.
"Of course." Usagi walked to the window and looked out, and
then looked back at Haruka. "Now that I'm dead, I can see things so
clearly. You didn't have a choice. You saw that I had the talisman,
and you acted."
"But...but it wasn't the talisman, dammit. IT WASN'T THE DAMN
TALISMAN!"
"But you thought it was. And you couldn't take the chance,
could you?"
Haruka was crying freely, uncaring of who saw. "Go away,
dammit. You've gotten your revenge, just let me be."
Usagi looked puzzled. "Revenge? Why would I want revenge?
You did nothing to wrong me! It was me or humanity."
"You're not real," decided Haruka finally. "You're just a
figment of my imagination. You're not really here, I'm not listening
to you," her voice getting higher and higher, she rose from the chair
and walked towards Usagi, teetering on the edge of hysteria. "You're
just something my tortured conscience dredged up to make me feel even
*more* guilty," and with the word 'more' she poked a finger at
Usagi's chest.
It hit fabric. Under the fabric, Haruka could feel flesh.
"You're real," she breathed.
"Only as real as you want me to be."
"Kami-sama." Haruka fell back into the chair, her mind
whirling.
"I'm sorry I can't stay longer, Haruka-san. Just remember,
it's not your fault. I forgive you."
And then Usagi was gone. No light show, no slow fade-out, she
was just there one moment and gone the next.
Michiru came down the stairs. "Haruka, were you saying
something?"
"No. Nothing at all."
***
Another week passed. Things got worse. Daimons were gaining
the upper hand. Uranus and Neptune fought even more desperately, but
to no avail. Two senshi simply couldn't go up against the Death
Busters alone. Perhaps if the other inners were still around--a girl
matching the description of one of the inner senshi had been found on
the banks of Tokyo Bay, dead for two days, probably a suicide--
perhaps if they were still around, they could have stood a chance.
But the inners were gone. Perhaps if Sailor Moon was still alive.
Perhaps if Usagi had only lived....
Haruka grew more and more depressed. When they weren't
fighting daimons, she sat in the living room of their place.
Sometimes, when Michiru was in another room, she could swear she
could hear Haruka talking to someone else. Frightened, Michiru
resolved to keep a closer watch on her partner in case the blonde
decided to do something rash.
The blonde did something rash two weeks, four days, and ten
hours after Usagi's heart crystal was taken. She was riding her
motorcycle, at Michiru's urging. Michiru hadn't told Haruka, but she
feared that if Haruka didn't do something different, she would slip
into a catatonic state. So she had persuaded Haruka to go pick up
something from a sufficiently distant shop.
Haruka sped on, passing cars going at 160 to 170 kilometers per
hour. She was at the lowest point she had ever been. She had killed
an innocent, and it looked like that one event was all that was
needed to turn the tide of the war. She saw a construction area up
ahead and reflected on how easy it would be for her to run into a
support for a bridge. She shrugged, whispered a silent apology to
Michiru and nudged the handlebars over ever so slightly.
The fireball was visible from a mile away.
***
Haruka woke up to look into the face of a woman doctor.
"Ah, our wonder woman is up, is she?"
"Doctor Mizuno," said a voice outside of Haruka's field of
view, "here are the test results. Have you ever seen anything like
it?"
Mizuno took the clipboard and flipped a couple pages. She
whistled slightly and looked at Haruka, grinning. "We knew you were
lucky when they brought you in, but *how* lucky...well. You don't
want me to bore you with a medical lecture, do you?"
"I'm alive?"
"To our surprise, yes."
"But-"
"You ran into a bridge, yes."
Haruka was speechless.
"Tell the truth, you're surprised the hell out of the entire
ER. We had to treat one of the paramedics for shock when they picked
you out of the wreckage without even a scratch."
Haruka still said nothing. She remembered running into the
pole. She remembered her flesh being burned, her bones broken. By
all rights she should have died.
Then she rememebered another thing. A bright light, just when
she was ready to close her eyes forever.
And a blonde girl.
"Oh, you have a visitor. She's been worried about you."
"Michiru!"
"Haruka!" They embraced. "Haruka, don't you *ever* do
something like that again!"
"I wanted to die," whispered Haruka into Michiru's ear.
Michiru stiffened.
"Haruka, what are you-"
"I wanted to die, dammit. I steered into that support. I
should be dead now."
"You're not well, Haruka."
"No, I'm perfectly fine, and that's the problem!"
"Haruka, when we get home, you are gong to forget about Usagi,
okay?"
"No," sobbed Haruka, "it's not okay at all."
***
Haruka tried to kill herself several times in the next few
months. Each time, whether it be carbon monoxide poisoning,
strangulation, drowning, or the traditional slitting of wrists, she
failed. Each time, she pulled off a miraculous recovery. And each
time, she felt more and more strongly that it was thanks to Usagi.
"She's haunting me, Michiru," said Haruka as they sat in their
living room. If Michiru had had her way, Haruka would have been
committed long ago. But there simply wasn't time for that; daimons
were virtually overrunning the city, and many were calling on the
mayor to call a state of emergency. The death toll was rising daily,
and the two doubted they would ever find the talismans now.
"Who's haunting you?" asked Michiru, trying to keep her
talking. Once she hadn't opened her mouth for two days, and it had
scared Michiru almost as much as the suicide attempts. She knew the
answer that Haruka would give, but she had to ask.
"Usagi. She keeps coming back. You know what she tells me?
She tells me...she tells me that she won't let me die. She says I
have to save the world. *Me*, *I* have to save the world. Me and
you and who else? Dammit, without Sailor Moon...we'll never find the
talismans, will we? And she still won't let me die. DAMMIT USAGI,
LET ME FUCKING DIE!"
Michiru embraced Haruka, comforting her the only way she knew
how.
Haruka cried for a long time.
***
A few weeks later, Uranus and Neptune fell, and Pharaoh 90
brought the Silence upon the Earth. It never ended.
==========================================
Bitter? Yes. Depressing? Yes. Who cares? I wasn't in a
good mood when I wrote this.
If you haven't turned away in disgust yet, shoot your flames at
lbouyer@geocities.com.
And that's about it.
LeVar Bouyer
24 November 1997
rev. 1 December 1997
--
LeVar Bouyer -still proofreading Sailor Moon O
lbouyer@geocities.com or l_bouyer@lvc.edu | Libertas per veritatem
"Good night, Magical Girl Pretty Haruka!" -Eileen Pearcy, in Bishoujo
Senshi Sailor Moon O, coming soon to a server near you.
Fanfics at http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Flats/1648 | All Hail Unazuki!
Home page (and fanfic reviews): http://csunix1.lvc.edu/~l_bouyer/