Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ The Fragility of Time ❯ "Passing Through Gethsemane" ( Chapter 9 )
[ P - Pre-Teen ]
By: etj4Eagle 
A gaijin priest learns the identity of an angel as she heals him of a dark stain on his soul.
Anime/Manga: Sailor Moon Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama / Action | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 08.29.2001 | Pages: 8 | Words: 5.9K | Visits: 276 | Status: Completed
A gaijin priest learns the identity of an angel as she heals him of a dark stain on his soul.
Anime/Manga: Sailor Moon Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama / Action | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 08.29.2001 | Pages: 8 | Words: 5.9K | Visits: 276 | Status: Completed
The Fragility of Time
Chapter 9: "Passing Through Gethsemane"
Author: etj4Eagle
Email: etj4Eagle@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/etj4eagle
Lasted Edited: 8/31/00
Disclaimer: A reminder I own none of the characters of this story,
all rights are owned by others.
If you distribute the story, do only
so freely and inform me of where you post it.
_______________________________________
The next day thankfully was a Saturday, giving the Senshi the much-
needed opportunity to sleep in. Usagi began to lazily awaken around
11 in the morning. As much as she needed her sleep last night, she
had not been able to sleep solidly. Instead, she woke every few hours
to comfort ChibiUsa. While ChibiUsa did not awake, she was gripped by
many nightmares that night. Finally, around four in the morning, they
subsided allowing Usagi to get some solid sleep.
Usagi was debating whether or not to back to sleep when she
remembered the date she had setup for Ami-chan at 12:30. Ami did not
knew that she was being setup for a date, only that Usagi wanted to
meet her for lunch, though Urawa-san seemed to have an idea of what
was going to happen. Humming happily to herself, she got herself out
of bed and began the process of getting herself ready.
Coming down the stairs she sighted ChibiUsa sitting at the table
eating her breakfast. While ChibiUsa put on a face as if nothing was
wrong, Usagi knew this was not the case. She knew that ChibiUsa was
still troubled by yesterday's battle. She had not had a chance to
talk to ChibiUsa yet about what exactly was bothering her, but she
felt that the damage wrecked yesterday probably hit too close to home
for the small child. Giving her daughter a hug and a kiss, Usagi
proceeded to get some breakfast for herself.
"Mamma, what are you doing today?" questioned ChibiUsa
Seeing the pleading look in ChibiUsa's eyes and desiring to reassure
the child: "I am going over to Crown's to meet Ami-chan and Urawa-
san, would you like to come with me."
"Hai!" came an enthusiastic reply. ChibiUsa then proceeded to run
over to Usagi and give her a big hug. "Arigato, okaa-san."
Ikuko watched the scene unfold for the dining room entrance. She was
very proud of the way that her daughter was handling the situation.
Usagi had very quickly picked up all the mothering instincts, knowing
just when something was troubling a child and how to fix it. Much as
she hated to admit it, her daughter becoming a mother at age 14 had
done wonders for Usagi's maturity. She had even gotten a call from
Haruna-sensei the other day informing her of Usagi's turn around in
her school work. Of course she mused that it did help that Usagi was
able to skip the whole being pregnant and small child stage and start
off with a bright seven year old.
A shriek of "Oh No! We are going to be late!" startled her out of her
musings. Luna, whom she had been holding and petting while watching
her daughter and grandchild, chuckled. "Even as much as I am glad to
see her taking things seriously know, it is good to she that some
things do not change." And, with that Luna hopped down and darted
after her charge.
* * * * * * * * *
2nd Floor: Crown
The jog after her mother had caused ChibiUsa to forget what had been
bothering her. Even though Usagi thought that she was going to be
late, she still managed to arrive a few minutes early. Looking at the
clock as she sat down, she wondered if she had set a new land speed
record on her way over here.
Shortly after her arrival, Urawa Ryo arrived. Waving him over he sat
down. "Urawa-san this is my cousin ChibiUsa. ChibiUsa this is a
classmate of mine who would make a perfect couple with Ami-chan,
Urawa Ryo."
Ryo blushed heavily at Usagi's comment. Even though he had deeply
fallen for Ami, he was still not quite prepared for Usagi to state
what he desired quite so bluntly. He was thankfully saved from
further embarrassment for at that moment Mamoru walked in. Usagi
noticed him almost immediately and calling his name, she waved him
over.
Motoki who had been about to talk to his best friend Mamoru was
intrigued when Usagi actually invited him over to her table. He was
even more intrigued when he accepted the offer with no degrading
comments. He was absolutely floored when he gave her a quick peck on
the cheek when he sat down. Walking into the back room, his head
spinning, he sat down himself, trying to get some semblance of
understanding of the situation.
It was not long after Mamoru's arrival at the table that Ami walked
in the door. Usagi quickly spotted her and waved her over. Ami
approached the table, but then briefly hesitated when she noticed
that Urawa was sitting there with Usagi and that the only open seat
was next to him. With a slight blush, she sat down and the foursome
began to talk. ChibiUsa herself remained mostly quite, preferring to
let her mother's presence reassure her worries.
While Ami was not one for gossip, she did want to know what the deal
with Usagi and Mamoru was and so asked about it shortly after their
food arrived. Both faces quickly turned red as they tried to find a
voice to reply to Ami. ChibiUsa amused at her parent's reaction spoke
up: "Of course they are together, they love each other."
Mamoru wanted to commit to a slightly less binding emotion, but as he
opened his mouth to speak his eyes caught those of ChibiUsa. His mind
quickly brought back up the memory of how protective that child was
of her cousin the other day and realized that he did not want to know
what she would if he were to lie about his feelings towards Usagi. In
addition, as he searched his soul he realized that while he did not
know why he did love that blond haired klutz. Almost as if he had
loved her from the moment that he was born.
Bringing his gaze a little higher, he saw the hope in Usagi's eyes.
While she might have only now be falling in love with him as Chiba
Mamoru, she did have a deep crush on his alter ego. "Hai, I do love
her." He said while putting an arm around her back.
The "Oh Mamo-chan" and her throwing herself into a hug was all that
confirmation that the feeling was mutual. As they broke apart and
returned to eating, the conversation turned to some more mundane
topics. After a while, Mamoru had to excuse himself to take care of
other errands. Following that, the remaining four decided to move to
the park to enjoy the afternoon. Walking ahead with ChibiUsa, Usagi
let Urawa and Ami walk together a few paces back. Arriving at the
swings Usagi and ChibiUsa went to play while Urawa sat down with Ami
on a park bench.
Whereas Urawa was in heaven, Ami was suffering from emotions that she
had never before felt. The topics of their conversation were safe
enough, class work. But, Ami found that as she talked with Ryo-san,
he had earlier asked her to call him that, that she was feeling a
closeness to him. She could not believe that she was actually falling
for someone, but a look up at Usagi and her wink confirmed that, and
she knew that she had Usagi to thank for setting everything up.
Finally deciding to give in, she decided to go with her emotions.
* * * * * * * * *
Elsewhere in the park
Hotaru skipped happily down the path, glad to finally be out of the
house, even if she did have to have an escort with her. She wished
that her father had been able to come with her to the park, but he
had been very busy with work lately. She knew how he tended to get
when he neared a breakthrough in his work and did her best to support
him. Therefore, she only gave mild complaint when Eudial said that
she was accompanying her to the park instead of her father. Normally
she would not have needed an escort, but this last week had been very
bad with seizures, and her father was afraid for her to be alone.
Eudial watched the child wondering why life had to be so cruel to
such an innocent child. She was the only other one besides Tomoe-san
that knew the truth about the experiments and what had happen to that
child. She had known Tomoe-san and his wife very well and had been
good friends with them. Tomoe-san had only two passions in his life
science and his daughter. His wife had shared his love for scientific
experiments and the two of them were always carrying out experiments
or testing knew theories in the labs.
His love of science was physically manifested in Mugen High School.
The school only accepted the best academic students and gave them
real challenges, in many cases the students did real research, doing
work that most would not get a chance to do until they were grad
students. The only rule was that no theory was too outrageous to
test. Yes, the students might spend a fruitless year working on an
experiment doomed to failure. But, what they learned was normally
well worth it.
With a shudder Eudial remembered that fateful day a year ago.
>>She herself was a grad student working on her PhD who had
gotten special deposition to do her research work with Tomoe-
san at Mugen. Her doctorial work was in physics on a particular
variant of Super String Theory. Until now no one could test
Super String Theory as its base concept of multiple higher
dimensions being curled up tightly was impossible to test.
However, in this variant fifth dimension was not curled up like
the others, but instead was equivalent to the first four
dimensions. A fifth dimension gave rise to what was called a
megaverse, which was composed of banes. Each bane being a
different position on the fifth dimension and in colloquial
terms a universe.
>>With the aid of the Tomoe-san and his wife she had devised an
experiment to detect another bane, by creating a portal.
Tonight was going to by their fifth run of the experiment. The
first three had failed for various, not unexpected reasons. The
last one appeared to have worked, and so they were rerunning
the experiment under the same conditions tonight in an attempt
to duplicate their results.
>>Tomoe-san feeling guilty about neglecting his daughter had
brought her to watch. While this was against ES&H policy, it
was fairly common for Tomoe-san to bring his daughter to
observe. It did not hurt that she did not get in the way and
was often really interested in what they were doing.
>>Eudial still could not remember exactly what went wrong. All
that she remembered was at one point glancing over at Hotaru-
chan and noting an eerie violet glow coming from the girl and
then all hell broke loose. Equipment exploded left and right
and then a blast of energy shot out of the portal they were
creating. Whereas it should only have been microscopic, it was
suddenly about a meter in diameter.
>>The next thing she remembered was waking up noticing an
obviously dead body of Tomoe-san's wife and him holding the
broken body of his daughter in his arms. Then she sensed that
they were not alone in the room. In front of Tomoe-san stood
two vaguely humanoid shaped creatures. She saw him talking with
one of them and then hanging his head as he obviously gave into
something that he did not like. Eudial did not see what
happened next only that one of them noticed her and shot her
with some sort of energy.
>>When she came to next she was in a hospital room. Looking
next to her, she was surprised to see the body of Hotaru and
even more when she realized the child was alive. Seeing Tomoe-
san sitting next to his daughter's bed, she realized what had
happed. She did not know how she knew, only that he seemed
somehow different. Later when he told her what had happened she
accepted the cruel twist of fate and told him that she would
remain at his side to ensure that his daughter did get better.
While she always looked up to Tomoe-san, she now felt an
unbreakable loyalty to him. Shaking her head some more
Eudial took off down the path that Hotaru had disappeared down.
* * * * * * * * *
Usagi was swinging on the swings next to her daughter. The two of
them had been there for a while. Recently she had finally been able
to get ChibiUsa to open up about what was bothering her. She felt
truly sorry for what that child had to go through. She herself felt
her body cringe slightly with fear as ChibiUsa had told her about the
Dark Moon attack in the future and the destruction that it wrought.
She wished there was someway to lift the child's spirits, but after
how poorly she and the Senshi faced against those three droids the
other day, she could not think of any way. The only thing she knew
was that she and the other Senshi had to get stronger and that
involved finding her birthright.
Luna herself lay in the grass in the sun watching the two. Her mind
kept returning to the events of the previous day. She and Ami had a
long talk the previous night about that particular attack. Like Ami
she was not too pleased with what the computer was showing them.
ChibiUsa herself was enjoying her time in the park. While she longed
to hangout with Mamoru-san herself, she knew that how insecure her
mother was and that it would not be a good idea for a while. Looking
out at Luna laying in the sun she noticed a familiar figure coming
down the path. "Hotaru-chan!" she called while leaping off the swing.
Hotaru who had been walking down the path, at a slightly more sedate
pace this time heard the familiar voice call her name. Looking up, a
smile crossed her face as her new friend raced across the field to
her. The two quickly began catching up on what was happening in each
other's lives as they walked back over to the swing set.
Usagi noticed Hotaru walking back with ChibiUsa. She vacated her
swing for Hotaru and then walked over to the sunny grass where Luna
was sleeping. Laying herself down she fell asleep with a smile on her
face. For at least a little bit, she would be able to rest easily
knowing that ChibiUsa's worries would be forgotten.
Luna noticed her charge laying down for a nap. Turning her head, she
saw the reason why Usagi was able to break away from ChibiUsa. She
sent a silent prayer of thanks to Queen Serenity's spirit for
allowing her charge the much-needed rest by sending Hotaru-chan to
play with ChibiUsa.
Eudial had watched as a small pink haired girl came up to Hotaru-
chan, one who obviously knew her. She knew the troubles that Hotaru
had in making and keeping friends, and so was happy that Hotaru once
again had a friend. She wished that Hotaru would be able to enjoy the
final days she had as a child in happiness. Eudial had no illusions
that the daimon that was keeping Hotaru alive, would take full
control of her just like her father once Hotaru had healed enough.
Sitting down on a bench she watched the two of them play and wondered
for the umpteenth time if there was anyway to help Tomoe-san out of
the deal he had made with the devil.
* * * * * * * * *
The week passed relatively normally for the Senshi. They all had
expected another attack that Saturday, but thankfully, it did not
come. Instead, things became quite again. Although there was that
ever present reminder with one of Tokyo's parks completely destroyed.
By Monday, Usagi had fully healed from all her injuries, which was
good considering she and ChibiUsa had their martial arts class that
afternoon. This time she found renewed energy for her instructions,
not wanting to be quite as helpless as she was during Friday's
attack.
On Saturday, she had finally convinced ChibiUsa to invite Hotaru-chan
over to their house, and so it was Saturday morning in which Hotaru
found herself being introduced to Usagi's parents. While she felt
comfortable in her friendship with ChibiUsa-chan, she was still
uneasy about meeting strangers. Usagi had instantly noticed Hotaru's
tension and with her usual ability was quickly able to get Hotaru to
let go of her fear.
As they finished lunch, the two younger children were discussing what
they wanted to do that day. Usagi herself had retired to the living
room to read some of her manga, between her renewed emphasis on
school work, and her various additional Senshi training she had found
herself becoming far behind on her normal manga reading.
Hearing ChibiUsa walking in, she looked up. "Usagi could you take us
to the art museum?"
Usagi attempted to protest, she had been hoping to spend her day
relaxing and goofing off for once.
"A good mother should take her daughter places." ChibiUsa stated
while crossing her arms.
The week of quiet had allowed ChibiUsa to heal after the recent
fright from the previous Saturday. Consequently, about mid week she
had begun to taunt her mother occasionally. A couple of times Usagi
had chased after ChibiUsa calling her a pink spore. In those moments,
she usually was angry at the child, but upon collecting herself for a
moment (either when she caught ChibiUsa and was deciding what to do
or lost the child) she would smile glad that ChibiUsa was happy
again. In the cases where she did catch ChibiUsa, the child's
punishment would often be just a very bad case of tickling, which
would usually end with them both laughing hysterically on the floor.
"Okay, okay I will take you. I bet you want me to pay for your
tickets too." She mumbled while getting up.
She was immediately shoved back down into the couch as ChibiUsa leapt
to give her a big hug "Arigato okaa-san." As ChibiUsa bounded back
off to find Hotaru and get ready, Usagi's mind just realized what she
had done. Getting
up again, this time without being immediately plowed back into the
couch she headed up to her room to get ready.
* * * * * * * * *
The art gallery
Having finished looking at paintings by Kaiou Michiru, Usagi along
with ChibiUsa and Hotaru walked into the exhibit showing paintings by
an artist known as Yumemi. Walking in Hotaru and Usagi froze in their
places as they saw the first of the paintings. Neither knew why, but
for some reason the depicted scenes seemed familiar. ChibiUsa herself
was not hit by the sense of deja vu and instead continued on into the
exhibit looking at the various paintings. Turning a corner, she
gasped as she saw one painting in particular. While the face was not
very well defined, she instantly knew who it was, her mother during
her life back on the moon.
By this time Usagi and Hotaru had managed to unrivet themselves from
the floor and began to look at the pictures. When Hotaru came up to
ChibiUsa, she noticed the tear in the little girl's eye. "What is the
matter ChibiUsa-chan?"
"Mother, she looks like mother." Hotaru looked at the picture and
then at ChibiUsa and saw a slight resemblance. She knew that ChibiUsa
lived with her cousin's family. She did not know why, but figured
that something must have happened to the poor girl's mother, hence
the reaction. Putting a comforting arm around ChibiUsa, she lead the
girl to some other pictures, ones that had really touched herself.
Usagi walked around the exhibit looking at the various pictures and
she too found a picture that had stopped her. This picture was of a
queen holding a baby in the middle of what looked like a celebration.
She did not know why, but she instantly knew that the lady depicted
in the picture was her mother. She gasped a quiet "Mother" as she
closely examined the picture trying to remember her mother's face
from her own memories.
So lost she was in this attempt at memory recovery that she did not
notice at first the girl who had approached and latched herself to
Usagi's arm. Turning she saw a girl of about her age with glasses who
had the most delighted expression on her face that Usagi could
imagine. Finally, the girl's words registered on her mind.
"You want me to model for you?" asked Usagi
"Hai, you're the inspiration that I need to finish my paintings."
Usagi readily agreed and the two came up with a day and time for the
modeling. Looking at her watch she was startled to realized that it
was almost six. "Oh, Mom is going to kill me. How could we have been
here for so long? I don't even like art. Ugh!" she wined as she
darted around the exhibit to collect ChibiUsa and Hotaru.
* * * * * * * * *
The next day
Sunday was a change of pace for Usagi. Ikuko had decided that Usagi
needed some time by herself with her friends, without a seven-year-
old child following her around. Therefore, as soon as Usagi got down
in the morning she proceeded to shove both Usagi and Luna out of the
house. Usagi and Luna were a little perplexed by Ikuko's behavior,
but Usagi deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth and quickly
headed off towards the shrine.
Arriving at the shrine, she found Rei sweeping the steps. Rei was a
tad bit surprised when she realized that ChibiUsa was not along with
Usagi. When Luna explained why she could not help but chuckle.
Inviting Usagi in, the two headed towards the family quarters to sit
down and talk.
As the two talked, Luna silently thanked the spirit of Queen Serenity
for the maturing of the relation of the two. With Usagi's new
maturity, Rei had all but stopped her attacks on Usagi's fitness to
lead them. They had partially stopped that day they learned that
Usagi was the princess. However, Luna had secretly crept over to the
Rei's some evenings and had realized that all Rei had done was
suppress her thoughts of Usagi's ineptitude in front of the others,
because Usagi was the princess. But, that she still did feel Usagi
was not up to the task.
However, Luna had noticed that the private outbursts that Rei had
over Usagi had steadily decreased. Additionally lately when Usagi did
show up at Rei's with ChibiUsa in tow Rei had a genuine look of
happiness on her face before she hid it. Watching the two interact,
they were now in the middle of a tongue war, she realized that with
Usagi's maturing the two had become close like sisters.
"Hey Luna come on we are heading downtown." Usagi called to Luna.
Luna had lost track of what was going on as she mused about the two
and had missed them planning and then getting ready to head downtown.
With a leap Luna hopped onto
Usagi shoulder and the two girls and one cat headed out to the bus
stop.
As they headed downtown, Usagi talked to Rei about Naru who was still
depressed from Nephrite's death. Usagi wanted to find a way to help
Naru get over the death of a man whom she loved. "Usagi I might know
of someone who could help Naru, he works not too far from where we
are going to be heading."
The location they headed for was a chapel. The gaijin priest who ran
the place of worship was well known in the religious community for
offering help to outsiders of all sorts. Walking in Usagi marveled at
the beauty of the stained glass windows and lost herself for a moment
in a daydream of her eventual marriage to Mamo-chan.
"May I help you madam?" asked a helpful voice.
Looking at the source of the voice, Usagi realized that this was the
one whom Rei had told her about.
"Yes, a close friend of mine recently lost someone very close to her.
I am worried about her heath, as she has been morning now for many
weeks and I would like to help her."
The priest took Usagi to a slightly more private area and asked her
to describe the situation more. Over the next half hour, the priest
got a good picture of Naru and Nephrite, enough that he thought he
could help Naru morn her loss and say her final goodbyes to her love.
As Usagi was leaving, he told her that the problem Naru had faced was
one where she could not let go of her love until he had been properly
laid to rest in her mind.
As Usagi got up to leave she tripped over her chair, almost falling
to the ground. While she managed to catch herself, the jostling of
her bag had caused the Crescent Moon Wand to fall to the ground. As
the priest bent down to collect the wand, he noticed the crystal
embedded in its shaft glowing. Suddenly the visions that he had been
having while in prayer started to make sense.
Handing the wand back to an embarrassed Usagi he spoke: "I think that
you may be able to help me, Usagi-san. I have known for a while that
my spirit has been streaked by darkness. My teachers could not find a
way to purify my soul, however lately the Lord has shown me that my
salvation was at hand. The only thing that I remembered from these
visions is that that this wand of yours is the tool that the one with
a heart of infinite pureness will use to cure me."
Usagi's first instinct was to deny anything that this man said.
However, she knew from the wand that he held a Nijizuishou Crystal,
the contained demon being the cause of the darkness. "Father, I can
help you. But, you must not tell anyone else of who I am." With the
priest's nod, she became Sailor Moon.
The priest was floored as he watched Usagi become Sailor Moon. While
he knew from the last week's news about the Sailor Senshi, what
caught his eye was the transformation process. What he saw between
the two forms was an angel revealed for a moment in all its glory.
The angel's wings may not have been visible, but her purity was.
Already he could feel the presence of this warrior angel of the Lord
burning away the evil in his soul.
Grasping her wand, Sailor Moon began the process of healing the
priest. "Moon healing escalation." And as the healing energy reached
his body, its light burned the dormant soul of the Shadow Warrior
away. No longer suppressing an evil soul, the crystal left his body
to be easily caught by Sailor Moon.
In the process of his being healed, the priest had dropped to his
knees. Now that he was healed he dropped his head low in a bow. The
subservient position elicited the traditional response from the Moon
Princess. "Ah! Get up, don't bow to me."
He did not want to get up, as it was not right to place his self, a
mere mortal, at the same level as an angel from heaven. However, it
was also a bad idea to anger your savior, and so he stood. "I thank
you for freeing my soul of the evil, though if I may ask, what is
that crystal that was inside me?"
"This is a fragment of the Ginzuishou. This fragment suppressed the
true nature of your soul, that of a warrior demon. After your soul
was incased in the crystal a thousand years ago you were reborn here
on earth and given a second chance. With the dormant evil now
destroyed, there no longer is a need for the crystal to remain in
your body and so it left. Once I have retrieved all seven fragments
and healed the seven demons, I will be able to protect this planet
from the evil that wishes to conquer it.
"I thank you for your time. I will be back soon with Naru, so that
you can help her. Ja ne." The last part being said as she turned back
into her civilian self and left the chapel to find Luna and Rei.
As the priest watched the angel turn back into a schoolgirl and
leave, he was left with many questions in his mind. In addition to
those questions, he was also left with a new sense that things were
going to work out in the world. He knew now that the Lord had sent
his Messiah to earth again, and instead of how the old religious
texts described the Second Coming he knew that Judgment Day was not
upon them.
Instead, this girl was going to continue the policy of forgiving
those who have sinned. He was stunned by what the angel had said
about the history of his soul. He could not remember anything of the
previous life that she had briefly mentioned. Nevertheless, the
Lord's salvation of all was clearly evident if he, a demon, had been
given a chance at salvation.
He returned to his work, now knowing that his career path was no
accident. No, he had been chosen to help the messiah in her quest to
heal the earth of its evil. The messiah worked in secret, hiding her
true self as one of those sailor suited warriors. For some reason he
felt that while the others were obviously something special, they
were not of the same level of the angel that he had just seen. He
would need to pray this evening for guidance; maybe even travel to
the location of the messiah's First Coming to fully understand the
road that was now lay before him.
* * * * * * * * *
"You did what?" cried Luna as Usagi finished explaining how she had
come into possession of another Nijizuishou crystal.
"Luna I know of this priest, he can be trusted to keep the secret.
Usagi while it would have been preferable if you had not dropped your
wand, you did do the right thing in the situation. A person of the
cloth deserves to know the truth." Rei said while putting an arm
around Usagi who was starting to become upset.
Even though Usagi had matured a lot, Rei could still see a lot of the
old Usagi hiding. In particular, Usagi still lacked her confidence.
She might be the warmest hearted individual helping others all the
time, but she was unable to help herself. Rei had realized that she
herself had been the cause of some of the problems she found with
Usagi. At times, she had pushed Usagi too hard, and Usagi had
collapsed. Before she did not realize how little confidence Usagi
had, and had attributed these tears to her immaturity.
However, she had lately learned how wrong she really was. After
coming to terms with Usagi's personality, Rei realized that she
really cared for this crybaby, though Usagi's maturing did help a
lot. Rei herself had closed people outside of herself, but Usagi love
had penetrated her barrier, destroying it. She knew that she would
never trade Usagi for anyone else, even if at times she was a flaky
leader, a klutz, and a crybaby. Her sisterly love of Usagi caused her
to be Usagi's most vigilant protector. As such she know found herself
defending the Odango-Atama from Luna, something that if you had told
her a month earlier would have caused her to die of laughter.
"Hai, hai." Said Luna as she admitted defeat, shrinking back under
Rei's glare. "Gomen nasai Usagi-chan, I am proud that you managed to
find a Nijizuishou Crystal before the Dark Kingdom again."
* * * * * * * * *
Queen Beryl's Throne Room
"Zoisite, Kunzite the Sailor Senshi have retrieved another
Nijizuishou Crystal, and this time you did not even challenge them at
all!"
"You majesty, we will not let that happen again. We will locate the
remaining three crystal immediately." Offered Zoisite.
"You are lucky that I am still in a good mood. Otherwise, you two
would have been joining Jadeite right now. However, I am growing
tired of your failures, you had better bring me all those crystals
and soon. And, kill that Moon Brat!"
-End Chapter 9
Author's Notes:
-Yes, you did not miss it; there were no battles in this
chapter. Instead, this is more along the lines of what I
originally thought the last chapter was going to be.
-In case you are wondering about the techno babble in Eudial's
musings, this is based on an article in the New York Times
about a month or two. I have kind of based the Sailor Moon
universe on that article, with the various planes being
separated along a fifth dimension. Apparently, they are
designing experiments to test for the presence of this other
dimension, by attempting to send gravity energy from our bane
(plane/universe) to another bane. Energy is conserved in the
megaverse (multiverse) not the local bane (universe) so this
sent energy will appear as missing energy to us.
-The priest may be making a come back later. Originally, he was
just going to be mentioned in passing. But, then I decided to
give him a scene and well the words started to flow and before
I knew it I had set him up for possible return to the story,
much like captain Keffer from the last chapter.
-Well there are only three Nijizuishou Crystal carriers left, I
wonder which will be the next one to be attacked/healed. Will
it be Ami's senpai, maybe the painter, or maybe even Grandpa
Hino?
-In case you are wondering about the description of the
explosion that originally killed Hotaru, in my version Saturn
caused it unintentionally. Through bad luck, Tomoe-sensei had
opened a rift to Pharaoh 90's home bane. The presence of a
major extra solar threat was enough to awaken the sleeping
Saturn. However, in waking up her energy aura interacted with
the lab equipment Hotaru-chan was looking at and the discharge
blew up the lab. As a side effect, it provided enough energy
for Pharaoh 90 to send to daimons through the rift. One daimon
possessed Hotaru and went to sleep, allowing Hotaru to return
to live. The other possessed Tomoe-sensei, this one is
partially awake guiding him, much as a B-5 keeper. It will not
fully awaken till he has finished his experiments and opened
the gate to bring across Pharaoh 90 (at which point he is
disposable).
Chapter 9: "Passing Through Gethsemane"
Author: etj4Eagle
Email: etj4Eagle@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/etj4eagle
Lasted Edited: 8/31/00
Disclaimer: A reminder I own none of the characters of this story,
all rights are owned by others.
If you distribute the story, do only
so freely and inform me of where you post it.
_______________________________________
The next day thankfully was a Saturday, giving the Senshi the much-
needed opportunity to sleep in. Usagi began to lazily awaken around
11 in the morning. As much as she needed her sleep last night, she
had not been able to sleep solidly. Instead, she woke every few hours
to comfort ChibiUsa. While ChibiUsa did not awake, she was gripped by
many nightmares that night. Finally, around four in the morning, they
subsided allowing Usagi to get some solid sleep.
Usagi was debating whether or not to back to sleep when she
remembered the date she had setup for Ami-chan at 12:30. Ami did not
knew that she was being setup for a date, only that Usagi wanted to
meet her for lunch, though Urawa-san seemed to have an idea of what
was going to happen. Humming happily to herself, she got herself out
of bed and began the process of getting herself ready.
Coming down the stairs she sighted ChibiUsa sitting at the table
eating her breakfast. While ChibiUsa put on a face as if nothing was
wrong, Usagi knew this was not the case. She knew that ChibiUsa was
still troubled by yesterday's battle. She had not had a chance to
talk to ChibiUsa yet about what exactly was bothering her, but she
felt that the damage wrecked yesterday probably hit too close to home
for the small child. Giving her daughter a hug and a kiss, Usagi
proceeded to get some breakfast for herself.
"Mamma, what are you doing today?" questioned ChibiUsa
Seeing the pleading look in ChibiUsa's eyes and desiring to reassure
the child: "I am going over to Crown's to meet Ami-chan and Urawa-
san, would you like to come with me."
"Hai!" came an enthusiastic reply. ChibiUsa then proceeded to run
over to Usagi and give her a big hug. "Arigato, okaa-san."
Ikuko watched the scene unfold for the dining room entrance. She was
very proud of the way that her daughter was handling the situation.
Usagi had very quickly picked up all the mothering instincts, knowing
just when something was troubling a child and how to fix it. Much as
she hated to admit it, her daughter becoming a mother at age 14 had
done wonders for Usagi's maturity. She had even gotten a call from
Haruna-sensei the other day informing her of Usagi's turn around in
her school work. Of course she mused that it did help that Usagi was
able to skip the whole being pregnant and small child stage and start
off with a bright seven year old.
A shriek of "Oh No! We are going to be late!" startled her out of her
musings. Luna, whom she had been holding and petting while watching
her daughter and grandchild, chuckled. "Even as much as I am glad to
see her taking things seriously know, it is good to she that some
things do not change." And, with that Luna hopped down and darted
after her charge.
* * * * * * * * *
2nd Floor: Crown
The jog after her mother had caused ChibiUsa to forget what had been
bothering her. Even though Usagi thought that she was going to be
late, she still managed to arrive a few minutes early. Looking at the
clock as she sat down, she wondered if she had set a new land speed
record on her way over here.
Shortly after her arrival, Urawa Ryo arrived. Waving him over he sat
down. "Urawa-san this is my cousin ChibiUsa. ChibiUsa this is a
classmate of mine who would make a perfect couple with Ami-chan,
Urawa Ryo."
Ryo blushed heavily at Usagi's comment. Even though he had deeply
fallen for Ami, he was still not quite prepared for Usagi to state
what he desired quite so bluntly. He was thankfully saved from
further embarrassment for at that moment Mamoru walked in. Usagi
noticed him almost immediately and calling his name, she waved him
over.
Motoki who had been about to talk to his best friend Mamoru was
intrigued when Usagi actually invited him over to her table. He was
even more intrigued when he accepted the offer with no degrading
comments. He was absolutely floored when he gave her a quick peck on
the cheek when he sat down. Walking into the back room, his head
spinning, he sat down himself, trying to get some semblance of
understanding of the situation.
It was not long after Mamoru's arrival at the table that Ami walked
in the door. Usagi quickly spotted her and waved her over. Ami
approached the table, but then briefly hesitated when she noticed
that Urawa was sitting there with Usagi and that the only open seat
was next to him. With a slight blush, she sat down and the foursome
began to talk. ChibiUsa herself remained mostly quite, preferring to
let her mother's presence reassure her worries.
While Ami was not one for gossip, she did want to know what the deal
with Usagi and Mamoru was and so asked about it shortly after their
food arrived. Both faces quickly turned red as they tried to find a
voice to reply to Ami. ChibiUsa amused at her parent's reaction spoke
up: "Of course they are together, they love each other."
Mamoru wanted to commit to a slightly less binding emotion, but as he
opened his mouth to speak his eyes caught those of ChibiUsa. His mind
quickly brought back up the memory of how protective that child was
of her cousin the other day and realized that he did not want to know
what she would if he were to lie about his feelings towards Usagi. In
addition, as he searched his soul he realized that while he did not
know why he did love that blond haired klutz. Almost as if he had
loved her from the moment that he was born.
Bringing his gaze a little higher, he saw the hope in Usagi's eyes.
While she might have only now be falling in love with him as Chiba
Mamoru, she did have a deep crush on his alter ego. "Hai, I do love
her." He said while putting an arm around her back.
The "Oh Mamo-chan" and her throwing herself into a hug was all that
confirmation that the feeling was mutual. As they broke apart and
returned to eating, the conversation turned to some more mundane
topics. After a while, Mamoru had to excuse himself to take care of
other errands. Following that, the remaining four decided to move to
the park to enjoy the afternoon. Walking ahead with ChibiUsa, Usagi
let Urawa and Ami walk together a few paces back. Arriving at the
swings Usagi and ChibiUsa went to play while Urawa sat down with Ami
on a park bench.
Whereas Urawa was in heaven, Ami was suffering from emotions that she
had never before felt. The topics of their conversation were safe
enough, class work. But, Ami found that as she talked with Ryo-san,
he had earlier asked her to call him that, that she was feeling a
closeness to him. She could not believe that she was actually falling
for someone, but a look up at Usagi and her wink confirmed that, and
she knew that she had Usagi to thank for setting everything up.
Finally deciding to give in, she decided to go with her emotions.
* * * * * * * * *
Elsewhere in the park
Hotaru skipped happily down the path, glad to finally be out of the
house, even if she did have to have an escort with her. She wished
that her father had been able to come with her to the park, but he
had been very busy with work lately. She knew how he tended to get
when he neared a breakthrough in his work and did her best to support
him. Therefore, she only gave mild complaint when Eudial said that
she was accompanying her to the park instead of her father. Normally
she would not have needed an escort, but this last week had been very
bad with seizures, and her father was afraid for her to be alone.
Eudial watched the child wondering why life had to be so cruel to
such an innocent child. She was the only other one besides Tomoe-san
that knew the truth about the experiments and what had happen to that
child. She had known Tomoe-san and his wife very well and had been
good friends with them. Tomoe-san had only two passions in his life
science and his daughter. His wife had shared his love for scientific
experiments and the two of them were always carrying out experiments
or testing knew theories in the labs.
His love of science was physically manifested in Mugen High School.
The school only accepted the best academic students and gave them
real challenges, in many cases the students did real research, doing
work that most would not get a chance to do until they were grad
students. The only rule was that no theory was too outrageous to
test. Yes, the students might spend a fruitless year working on an
experiment doomed to failure. But, what they learned was normally
well worth it.
With a shudder Eudial remembered that fateful day a year ago.
>>She herself was a grad student working on her PhD who had
gotten special deposition to do her research work with Tomoe-
san at Mugen. Her doctorial work was in physics on a particular
variant of Super String Theory. Until now no one could test
Super String Theory as its base concept of multiple higher
dimensions being curled up tightly was impossible to test.
However, in this variant fifth dimension was not curled up like
the others, but instead was equivalent to the first four
dimensions. A fifth dimension gave rise to what was called a
megaverse, which was composed of banes. Each bane being a
different position on the fifth dimension and in colloquial
terms a universe.
>>With the aid of the Tomoe-san and his wife she had devised an
experiment to detect another bane, by creating a portal.
Tonight was going to by their fifth run of the experiment. The
first three had failed for various, not unexpected reasons. The
last one appeared to have worked, and so they were rerunning
the experiment under the same conditions tonight in an attempt
to duplicate their results.
>>Tomoe-san feeling guilty about neglecting his daughter had
brought her to watch. While this was against ES&H policy, it
was fairly common for Tomoe-san to bring his daughter to
observe. It did not hurt that she did not get in the way and
was often really interested in what they were doing.
>>Eudial still could not remember exactly what went wrong. All
that she remembered was at one point glancing over at Hotaru-
chan and noting an eerie violet glow coming from the girl and
then all hell broke loose. Equipment exploded left and right
and then a blast of energy shot out of the portal they were
creating. Whereas it should only have been microscopic, it was
suddenly about a meter in diameter.
>>The next thing she remembered was waking up noticing an
obviously dead body of Tomoe-san's wife and him holding the
broken body of his daughter in his arms. Then she sensed that
they were not alone in the room. In front of Tomoe-san stood
two vaguely humanoid shaped creatures. She saw him talking with
one of them and then hanging his head as he obviously gave into
something that he did not like. Eudial did not see what
happened next only that one of them noticed her and shot her
with some sort of energy.
>>When she came to next she was in a hospital room. Looking
next to her, she was surprised to see the body of Hotaru and
even more when she realized the child was alive. Seeing Tomoe-
san sitting next to his daughter's bed, she realized what had
happed. She did not know how she knew, only that he seemed
somehow different. Later when he told her what had happened she
accepted the cruel twist of fate and told him that she would
remain at his side to ensure that his daughter did get better.
While she always looked up to Tomoe-san, she now felt an
unbreakable loyalty to him. Shaking her head some more
Eudial took off down the path that Hotaru had disappeared down.
* * * * * * * * *
Usagi was swinging on the swings next to her daughter. The two of
them had been there for a while. Recently she had finally been able
to get ChibiUsa to open up about what was bothering her. She felt
truly sorry for what that child had to go through. She herself felt
her body cringe slightly with fear as ChibiUsa had told her about the
Dark Moon attack in the future and the destruction that it wrought.
She wished there was someway to lift the child's spirits, but after
how poorly she and the Senshi faced against those three droids the
other day, she could not think of any way. The only thing she knew
was that she and the other Senshi had to get stronger and that
involved finding her birthright.
Luna herself lay in the grass in the sun watching the two. Her mind
kept returning to the events of the previous day. She and Ami had a
long talk the previous night about that particular attack. Like Ami
she was not too pleased with what the computer was showing them.
ChibiUsa herself was enjoying her time in the park. While she longed
to hangout with Mamoru-san herself, she knew that how insecure her
mother was and that it would not be a good idea for a while. Looking
out at Luna laying in the sun she noticed a familiar figure coming
down the path. "Hotaru-chan!" she called while leaping off the swing.
Hotaru who had been walking down the path, at a slightly more sedate
pace this time heard the familiar voice call her name. Looking up, a
smile crossed her face as her new friend raced across the field to
her. The two quickly began catching up on what was happening in each
other's lives as they walked back over to the swing set.
Usagi noticed Hotaru walking back with ChibiUsa. She vacated her
swing for Hotaru and then walked over to the sunny grass where Luna
was sleeping. Laying herself down she fell asleep with a smile on her
face. For at least a little bit, she would be able to rest easily
knowing that ChibiUsa's worries would be forgotten.
Luna noticed her charge laying down for a nap. Turning her head, she
saw the reason why Usagi was able to break away from ChibiUsa. She
sent a silent prayer of thanks to Queen Serenity's spirit for
allowing her charge the much-needed rest by sending Hotaru-chan to
play with ChibiUsa.
Eudial had watched as a small pink haired girl came up to Hotaru-
chan, one who obviously knew her. She knew the troubles that Hotaru
had in making and keeping friends, and so was happy that Hotaru once
again had a friend. She wished that Hotaru would be able to enjoy the
final days she had as a child in happiness. Eudial had no illusions
that the daimon that was keeping Hotaru alive, would take full
control of her just like her father once Hotaru had healed enough.
Sitting down on a bench she watched the two of them play and wondered
for the umpteenth time if there was anyway to help Tomoe-san out of
the deal he had made with the devil.
* * * * * * * * *
The week passed relatively normally for the Senshi. They all had
expected another attack that Saturday, but thankfully, it did not
come. Instead, things became quite again. Although there was that
ever present reminder with one of Tokyo's parks completely destroyed.
By Monday, Usagi had fully healed from all her injuries, which was
good considering she and ChibiUsa had their martial arts class that
afternoon. This time she found renewed energy for her instructions,
not wanting to be quite as helpless as she was during Friday's
attack.
On Saturday, she had finally convinced ChibiUsa to invite Hotaru-chan
over to their house, and so it was Saturday morning in which Hotaru
found herself being introduced to Usagi's parents. While she felt
comfortable in her friendship with ChibiUsa-chan, she was still
uneasy about meeting strangers. Usagi had instantly noticed Hotaru's
tension and with her usual ability was quickly able to get Hotaru to
let go of her fear.
As they finished lunch, the two younger children were discussing what
they wanted to do that day. Usagi herself had retired to the living
room to read some of her manga, between her renewed emphasis on
school work, and her various additional Senshi training she had found
herself becoming far behind on her normal manga reading.
Hearing ChibiUsa walking in, she looked up. "Usagi could you take us
to the art museum?"
Usagi attempted to protest, she had been hoping to spend her day
relaxing and goofing off for once.
"A good mother should take her daughter places." ChibiUsa stated
while crossing her arms.
The week of quiet had allowed ChibiUsa to heal after the recent
fright from the previous Saturday. Consequently, about mid week she
had begun to taunt her mother occasionally. A couple of times Usagi
had chased after ChibiUsa calling her a pink spore. In those moments,
she usually was angry at the child, but upon collecting herself for a
moment (either when she caught ChibiUsa and was deciding what to do
or lost the child) she would smile glad that ChibiUsa was happy
again. In the cases where she did catch ChibiUsa, the child's
punishment would often be just a very bad case of tickling, which
would usually end with them both laughing hysterically on the floor.
"Okay, okay I will take you. I bet you want me to pay for your
tickets too." She mumbled while getting up.
She was immediately shoved back down into the couch as ChibiUsa leapt
to give her a big hug "Arigato okaa-san." As ChibiUsa bounded back
off to find Hotaru and get ready, Usagi's mind just realized what she
had done. Getting
up again, this time without being immediately plowed back into the
couch she headed up to her room to get ready.
* * * * * * * * *
The art gallery
Having finished looking at paintings by Kaiou Michiru, Usagi along
with ChibiUsa and Hotaru walked into the exhibit showing paintings by
an artist known as Yumemi. Walking in Hotaru and Usagi froze in their
places as they saw the first of the paintings. Neither knew why, but
for some reason the depicted scenes seemed familiar. ChibiUsa herself
was not hit by the sense of deja vu and instead continued on into the
exhibit looking at the various paintings. Turning a corner, she
gasped as she saw one painting in particular. While the face was not
very well defined, she instantly knew who it was, her mother during
her life back on the moon.
By this time Usagi and Hotaru had managed to unrivet themselves from
the floor and began to look at the pictures. When Hotaru came up to
ChibiUsa, she noticed the tear in the little girl's eye. "What is the
matter ChibiUsa-chan?"
"Mother, she looks like mother." Hotaru looked at the picture and
then at ChibiUsa and saw a slight resemblance. She knew that ChibiUsa
lived with her cousin's family. She did not know why, but figured
that something must have happened to the poor girl's mother, hence
the reaction. Putting a comforting arm around ChibiUsa, she lead the
girl to some other pictures, ones that had really touched herself.
Usagi walked around the exhibit looking at the various pictures and
she too found a picture that had stopped her. This picture was of a
queen holding a baby in the middle of what looked like a celebration.
She did not know why, but she instantly knew that the lady depicted
in the picture was her mother. She gasped a quiet "Mother" as she
closely examined the picture trying to remember her mother's face
from her own memories.
So lost she was in this attempt at memory recovery that she did not
notice at first the girl who had approached and latched herself to
Usagi's arm. Turning she saw a girl of about her age with glasses who
had the most delighted expression on her face that Usagi could
imagine. Finally, the girl's words registered on her mind.
"You want me to model for you?" asked Usagi
"Hai, you're the inspiration that I need to finish my paintings."
Usagi readily agreed and the two came up with a day and time for the
modeling. Looking at her watch she was startled to realized that it
was almost six. "Oh, Mom is going to kill me. How could we have been
here for so long? I don't even like art. Ugh!" she wined as she
darted around the exhibit to collect ChibiUsa and Hotaru.
* * * * * * * * *
The next day
Sunday was a change of pace for Usagi. Ikuko had decided that Usagi
needed some time by herself with her friends, without a seven-year-
old child following her around. Therefore, as soon as Usagi got down
in the morning she proceeded to shove both Usagi and Luna out of the
house. Usagi and Luna were a little perplexed by Ikuko's behavior,
but Usagi deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth and quickly
headed off towards the shrine.
Arriving at the shrine, she found Rei sweeping the steps. Rei was a
tad bit surprised when she realized that ChibiUsa was not along with
Usagi. When Luna explained why she could not help but chuckle.
Inviting Usagi in, the two headed towards the family quarters to sit
down and talk.
As the two talked, Luna silently thanked the spirit of Queen Serenity
for the maturing of the relation of the two. With Usagi's new
maturity, Rei had all but stopped her attacks on Usagi's fitness to
lead them. They had partially stopped that day they learned that
Usagi was the princess. However, Luna had secretly crept over to the
Rei's some evenings and had realized that all Rei had done was
suppress her thoughts of Usagi's ineptitude in front of the others,
because Usagi was the princess. But, that she still did feel Usagi
was not up to the task.
However, Luna had noticed that the private outbursts that Rei had
over Usagi had steadily decreased. Additionally lately when Usagi did
show up at Rei's with ChibiUsa in tow Rei had a genuine look of
happiness on her face before she hid it. Watching the two interact,
they were now in the middle of a tongue war, she realized that with
Usagi's maturing the two had become close like sisters.
"Hey Luna come on we are heading downtown." Usagi called to Luna.
Luna had lost track of what was going on as she mused about the two
and had missed them planning and then getting ready to head downtown.
With a leap Luna hopped onto
Usagi shoulder and the two girls and one cat headed out to the bus
stop.
As they headed downtown, Usagi talked to Rei about Naru who was still
depressed from Nephrite's death. Usagi wanted to find a way to help
Naru get over the death of a man whom she loved. "Usagi I might know
of someone who could help Naru, he works not too far from where we
are going to be heading."
The location they headed for was a chapel. The gaijin priest who ran
the place of worship was well known in the religious community for
offering help to outsiders of all sorts. Walking in Usagi marveled at
the beauty of the stained glass windows and lost herself for a moment
in a daydream of her eventual marriage to Mamo-chan.
"May I help you madam?" asked a helpful voice.
Looking at the source of the voice, Usagi realized that this was the
one whom Rei had told her about.
"Yes, a close friend of mine recently lost someone very close to her.
I am worried about her heath, as she has been morning now for many
weeks and I would like to help her."
The priest took Usagi to a slightly more private area and asked her
to describe the situation more. Over the next half hour, the priest
got a good picture of Naru and Nephrite, enough that he thought he
could help Naru morn her loss and say her final goodbyes to her love.
As Usagi was leaving, he told her that the problem Naru had faced was
one where she could not let go of her love until he had been properly
laid to rest in her mind.
As Usagi got up to leave she tripped over her chair, almost falling
to the ground. While she managed to catch herself, the jostling of
her bag had caused the Crescent Moon Wand to fall to the ground. As
the priest bent down to collect the wand, he noticed the crystal
embedded in its shaft glowing. Suddenly the visions that he had been
having while in prayer started to make sense.
Handing the wand back to an embarrassed Usagi he spoke: "I think that
you may be able to help me, Usagi-san. I have known for a while that
my spirit has been streaked by darkness. My teachers could not find a
way to purify my soul, however lately the Lord has shown me that my
salvation was at hand. The only thing that I remembered from these
visions is that that this wand of yours is the tool that the one with
a heart of infinite pureness will use to cure me."
Usagi's first instinct was to deny anything that this man said.
However, she knew from the wand that he held a Nijizuishou Crystal,
the contained demon being the cause of the darkness. "Father, I can
help you. But, you must not tell anyone else of who I am." With the
priest's nod, she became Sailor Moon.
The priest was floored as he watched Usagi become Sailor Moon. While
he knew from the last week's news about the Sailor Senshi, what
caught his eye was the transformation process. What he saw between
the two forms was an angel revealed for a moment in all its glory.
The angel's wings may not have been visible, but her purity was.
Already he could feel the presence of this warrior angel of the Lord
burning away the evil in his soul.
Grasping her wand, Sailor Moon began the process of healing the
priest. "Moon healing escalation." And as the healing energy reached
his body, its light burned the dormant soul of the Shadow Warrior
away. No longer suppressing an evil soul, the crystal left his body
to be easily caught by Sailor Moon.
In the process of his being healed, the priest had dropped to his
knees. Now that he was healed he dropped his head low in a bow. The
subservient position elicited the traditional response from the Moon
Princess. "Ah! Get up, don't bow to me."
He did not want to get up, as it was not right to place his self, a
mere mortal, at the same level as an angel from heaven. However, it
was also a bad idea to anger your savior, and so he stood. "I thank
you for freeing my soul of the evil, though if I may ask, what is
that crystal that was inside me?"
"This is a fragment of the Ginzuishou. This fragment suppressed the
true nature of your soul, that of a warrior demon. After your soul
was incased in the crystal a thousand years ago you were reborn here
on earth and given a second chance. With the dormant evil now
destroyed, there no longer is a need for the crystal to remain in
your body and so it left. Once I have retrieved all seven fragments
and healed the seven demons, I will be able to protect this planet
from the evil that wishes to conquer it.
"I thank you for your time. I will be back soon with Naru, so that
you can help her. Ja ne." The last part being said as she turned back
into her civilian self and left the chapel to find Luna and Rei.
As the priest watched the angel turn back into a schoolgirl and
leave, he was left with many questions in his mind. In addition to
those questions, he was also left with a new sense that things were
going to work out in the world. He knew now that the Lord had sent
his Messiah to earth again, and instead of how the old religious
texts described the Second Coming he knew that Judgment Day was not
upon them.
Instead, this girl was going to continue the policy of forgiving
those who have sinned. He was stunned by what the angel had said
about the history of his soul. He could not remember anything of the
previous life that she had briefly mentioned. Nevertheless, the
Lord's salvation of all was clearly evident if he, a demon, had been
given a chance at salvation.
He returned to his work, now knowing that his career path was no
accident. No, he had been chosen to help the messiah in her quest to
heal the earth of its evil. The messiah worked in secret, hiding her
true self as one of those sailor suited warriors. For some reason he
felt that while the others were obviously something special, they
were not of the same level of the angel that he had just seen. He
would need to pray this evening for guidance; maybe even travel to
the location of the messiah's First Coming to fully understand the
road that was now lay before him.
* * * * * * * * *
"You did what?" cried Luna as Usagi finished explaining how she had
come into possession of another Nijizuishou crystal.
"Luna I know of this priest, he can be trusted to keep the secret.
Usagi while it would have been preferable if you had not dropped your
wand, you did do the right thing in the situation. A person of the
cloth deserves to know the truth." Rei said while putting an arm
around Usagi who was starting to become upset.
Even though Usagi had matured a lot, Rei could still see a lot of the
old Usagi hiding. In particular, Usagi still lacked her confidence.
She might be the warmest hearted individual helping others all the
time, but she was unable to help herself. Rei had realized that she
herself had been the cause of some of the problems she found with
Usagi. At times, she had pushed Usagi too hard, and Usagi had
collapsed. Before she did not realize how little confidence Usagi
had, and had attributed these tears to her immaturity.
However, she had lately learned how wrong she really was. After
coming to terms with Usagi's personality, Rei realized that she
really cared for this crybaby, though Usagi's maturing did help a
lot. Rei herself had closed people outside of herself, but Usagi love
had penetrated her barrier, destroying it. She knew that she would
never trade Usagi for anyone else, even if at times she was a flaky
leader, a klutz, and a crybaby. Her sisterly love of Usagi caused her
to be Usagi's most vigilant protector. As such she know found herself
defending the Odango-Atama from Luna, something that if you had told
her a month earlier would have caused her to die of laughter.
"Hai, hai." Said Luna as she admitted defeat, shrinking back under
Rei's glare. "Gomen nasai Usagi-chan, I am proud that you managed to
find a Nijizuishou Crystal before the Dark Kingdom again."
* * * * * * * * *
Queen Beryl's Throne Room
"Zoisite, Kunzite the Sailor Senshi have retrieved another
Nijizuishou Crystal, and this time you did not even challenge them at
all!"
"You majesty, we will not let that happen again. We will locate the
remaining three crystal immediately." Offered Zoisite.
"You are lucky that I am still in a good mood. Otherwise, you two
would have been joining Jadeite right now. However, I am growing
tired of your failures, you had better bring me all those crystals
and soon. And, kill that Moon Brat!"
-End Chapter 9
Author's Notes:
-Yes, you did not miss it; there were no battles in this
chapter. Instead, this is more along the lines of what I
originally thought the last chapter was going to be.
-In case you are wondering about the techno babble in Eudial's
musings, this is based on an article in the New York Times
about a month or two. I have kind of based the Sailor Moon
universe on that article, with the various planes being
separated along a fifth dimension. Apparently, they are
designing experiments to test for the presence of this other
dimension, by attempting to send gravity energy from our bane
(plane/universe) to another bane. Energy is conserved in the
megaverse (multiverse) not the local bane (universe) so this
sent energy will appear as missing energy to us.
-The priest may be making a come back later. Originally, he was
just going to be mentioned in passing. But, then I decided to
give him a scene and well the words started to flow and before
I knew it I had set him up for possible return to the story,
much like captain Keffer from the last chapter.
-Well there are only three Nijizuishou Crystal carriers left, I
wonder which will be the next one to be attacked/healed. Will
it be Ami's senpai, maybe the painter, or maybe even Grandpa
Hino?
-In case you are wondering about the description of the
explosion that originally killed Hotaru, in my version Saturn
caused it unintentionally. Through bad luck, Tomoe-sensei had
opened a rift to Pharaoh 90's home bane. The presence of a
major extra solar threat was enough to awaken the sleeping
Saturn. However, in waking up her energy aura interacted with
the lab equipment Hotaru-chan was looking at and the discharge
blew up the lab. As a side effect, it provided enough energy
for Pharaoh 90 to send to daimons through the rift. One daimon
possessed Hotaru and went to sleep, allowing Hotaru to return
to live. The other possessed Tomoe-sensei, this one is
partially awake guiding him, much as a B-5 keeper. It will not
fully awaken till he has finished his experiments and opened
the gate to bring across Pharaoh 90 (at which point he is
disposable).