Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Not Without You: a reimagining of Episode 110 ❯ Part Four: Winds and Tides, Changing Fate ( Chapter 4 )

DISCLAIMER: Obviously, I don't own Sailor Moon or any of her companions. Also, this is intended to use the names and situations from the North American dub, not the original Japanese. Thus, I have used the NA names, not the original names. So please don't get on my case for the use of the NA dub names - that was done deliberately. I actually wrote two versions of this story - one using the original names and relations, the other using the dub names and relations - and prefered this version to the other.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have taken some creative license because this is how I feel the episode should have played out. Obviously, some of the things that happen here aren't in the anime; they're little plot elements I've thrown in. I've tried to limit it to things that could have happened, had the "camera" stayed in place long enough. As the subtitle of the story suggests, this is a reimagining of this episode: it's my take on how I think the episode should have been, in addition to what it was.

  NOT WITHOUT YOU:
A reimagining of episode 110 (North American dub)
by Joanne Calypso Blessing (sirbartonslady)
first published April 2002 PART FOUR: WINDS AND TIDES, CHANGING FATE

She'll never forgive us. Serena'll never forgive us for this. Uranus blinked her eyes as she stared up the steel doors of the Marine Cathedral. This was harder than she'd thought it would be.

"At last, we'll meet the person who holds the pure heart crystals."

"Uranus," Neptune said demurely, reaching over to take her hand, "please remember that whatever happens, the crystals must be ours. If anything happens to one of us, the other must complete our mission."

"You needn't remind me," Uranus said dryly.

"Yes, I know you know that well. Remember this." Uranus turned to look at her. Neptune lowered her voice to just above a whisper; "I love you."

The door opened to admit them. Uranus steeled her gut for the confrontation ahead and she and Neptune stepped across the threshold into the empty cathedral. As they walked, Uranus frowned. "She invited us, but she's not here to welcome us."

A few steps later, Neptune paused, sensing something terrible was about to happen.

"Neptune? Something wrong?" Uranus halted immediately, attuned to her partner's apprehension. Neptune's gaze was locked on a particular red block decorating the wall. Uranus felt her partner's hackles rise like a hound on the defense.

Then suddenly, the red block popped forward.

"It moved!"

"Uranus!" Neptune said at the same time, looking over her shoulder. Red blocks were popping out all over the place. Uranus whirled to see lines of the blocks in the other direction as well. They were trapped. Uranus backed up, back-to-back with Neptune.

"We should have known! She has us trapped!"

Neptune reached back to clasp Uranus's hand quickly with a reassuring squeeze just as the blocks began hurtling at them at breakneck speeds. It was all they could do to avoid being bulldozed. When she could get a moment to gather her strength, Uranus fired a World Shaking and Neptune hurled a Deep Submerge to even the score a bit. Then suddenly, there were no more nemeses.

"Nice try, Eudial," Neptune muttered under her breath as she and Uranus caught their breaths a moment. But her gut told her otherwise--

--she saw it almost in slow motion; a block launching itself at Uranus--

"Uranus, look--" she shoved her partner out of its path, and it slammed into her, spinning her against the wall. She slumped.

Uranus looked up, shaking the fog from her head, to find nothing in front of her but empty wall. Neptune had been teleported. "Neptune! " She searched the wall with her hands, frantically trying to see if there was a secret door she could shove open...

Then the air was filled with the shocking waves of Toccata & Fugue, a veritable funeral dirge. Damn you, Eudial!

Eudial's laughter filled her ears; "Sailor Uranus," she said with contempt, "the holder of the Pure Heart Crystal is in my hands!"

"What are you talking about?" Panic consumed Uranus and she spun around, trying to locate the voice.... there! Damn, that was a speaker! She was using a sound system!

"I just figured it out, and it's no wonder you didn't know about it either!"

That sadistic bitch! What was she doing?

"What's all this about?" Uranus bellowed back, trying to quell the rising anguish in her soul. Then suddenly, Michelle's words from only a few short hours ago struck her; 'Do you think the crystals are in the hearts of Senshi?'

Oh, no, no--NO!

"I'm trying to tell you that your dear cousing Sailor Neptune is the holder of a pure heart crystal. And I'm going to take it away from her in a moment; if you want to watch, you just have to go straight down the hall!"

Uranus was already in flight. "No way Neptune is the holder of a Pure Heart Crystal--I won't believe it!"

At the end of the hall was the main room. Dead center was a bridge, with a many-storey drop on either side. Death awaited the one who fell off the side.

Uranus looked around the room--easily big enough to be a hangar--and saw to her own horror that Neptune was bound to a section of red block, and she appeared unconscious.... if not already dead...

"NEPTUNE!" Without even thinking, Uranus hurled herself into motion, trying to summon the winds to carry her. But then the world around her exploded into hues of red and black as darts flung from the walls bored into her and shocked her system, and with a mighty lurch, she crashed to the floor.

Eudial laughed wickedly as she got up from an organ and walked over, Heartsnatching gun in hand. "Didn't you know that if anyone but me crossed this bridge, they would be stopped?"

"For now you've managed to stop me," Uranus labored, struggling to pool energy. She sent a frantic call to her patron guardian, the planet Uranus, and felt a void. The planet could not help her. It was too far away...

"But don't worry. I haven't taken your cousin's pure heart crystal yet. There's another one I want to lay my hands on first."

"What do you mean, another pure heart crystal--" Uranus tried to sit up, but Eudial shoved the barrel of the gun against her chest.

"The one in your own heart!" Eudial's eyes suddenly hardened with frightening clarity. "I'm referring to the heart that stopped you from really dirtying your hands--the heart that tried to protect and save the world!"

"Well," Uranus said with feigned assurance, "you know that the holder of the crystal has to have a pure heart, so it's impossible that I'm one of them."

"We'll check your theory soon enough. But I'll be the only one to know if I was right-- because you're too seriously wounded to survive!" Eudial taunted her with a toggle at the trigger, but didn't pull it all the way.

Then, a ripping sound and motion caught Uranus's eye, and Eudial followed her gaze. Neptune had roused and had ripped herself free. She stumbled a bit on the tile as the bindings clung to her, and staggered right in the path of the darts as the walls fired a continous round until Neptune collapsed.

The distraction served; Eudial had turned to witness it. But Uranus couldn't summon the strength to knock the gun away from her... it was as if something were sucking the life right out of her...

Neptune staggered to her feet, horrifically weakened, but determined. She looked up, her eyes fierce with resilience; "Uranus--I won't let her kill you!"

"Stop, Neptune--Don't come near!Stay back! " Uranus screeched, her voice hoarse with weakness. It was still too late: another round was being fired. Neptune sent up an involuntary scream of agony as the darts continued to pour into her. Uranus' heart shattered like a blown-glass orb dropped from a 20-storey tower. As Neptune sank to the ground, a heart-shattered scream ripped itself from Uranus's throat; "NEPTUNE!!"

Neptune gasped a few seconds, and pushed herself to her feet again. This time the darts did not come. Eudial turned and stared at the walls; "You've run out of ammunition?!"

The momentary distraction was just enough; as Eudial turned back, Neptune was almost upon her, trying to knock the gun away from her. Eudial aimed the gun and pulled the trigger from point-black range. Neptune shrieked like a dying rabbit as the force expelled a cluster of glittering lights out from between her shoulder blades and she pitched forward to land face first at Eudial's feet.

Uranus, too stunned to even scream at this point, stared in dumbfounded awe as the crystal began to form. Then her sight was blurred as memories were flung acros her mind's eye-- memories of Michelle, who had always been there to calm her, to support her, and to protect her... Michelle, her heart's only mate, the other half of her soul...

As the crystal formed in air, Uranus felt a battering against her heart as the planet Neptune raged at the loss of its Senshi...

The crystal had no sooner formed than it strobed and re-formed.... the Aqua Mirror... Sailor Neptune had carried the Aqua Mirror... Uranus's will shattered.

"So," Eudial panted, turning to grin wickedly at Uranus, "that's her pure heart crystal. I'll get yours now."

Uranus reclined, weakened. "So now I know we both had the crystals all this time. And will die because of it. Is there no more hope?"

Memories knocked at her mind. "I saw us die, Amara. I saw you die slowly, while I went quickly and virtually painlessly!" Uranus looked upwards at the occulus of the temple. Where was the angel? There would be no angel.

There never would be an angel. There was no hope. Somehow, she had failed completely. How did it come to this?