looking at your fandom tags there, I’ll go for an AU we’ve all seen a bunch of times, but that I always want more takes on– Sailor Moon in the Madoka-world

paksenarrionreader:

ah, a classic.

more AU-prone people than me had tackled that one with the Outers in mind, so I’m gonna do this about the Inners, because it’s gotten ridiculously long anyway.

1. tbh you don’t even have to mix up SM classic Luna’s behaviour all that much to sell her as Kyubei. I don’t want to tarnish Artemis, so he’s not a thing here.

2. Minako wished to be a star. Lunabei probably thought it was borderline hilarious to make that as literal as possible. She generates energy, now, as in light and heat and when she gets serious enough, a shockwave. The others can always tell which battlefields were hers, judging from the collateral damage. In time she does learn to channel that through a sword-blade wreathed in light, but sometimes it’s just faster, and, in extreme cases, cheaper exhaustion-wise to just go nuclear fusion on a witch.

3.
Minako’s Meguca uniform is a long-sleeved leather jacket, thick studded trousers, and horse-riding boots sans spurs, and her soul gem rests against her forehead, embedded in a circlet.

4. Minako does not deny anything of what she is, good or bad, likeable or deplorable, and she yolos it through life like nobody’s business. After all, it takes a VERY long time for a star to burn out, and humanity may well be gone by the time she goes nova.

5. Her burden is that she has to remember.

6. Rei is the archer to Minako’s fencer, and prone to roaring the many variations of “be more careful” and “I almost shot you” several times a week. They team up sometimes, but if asked, neither of them would call that anything more than a convenience arrangement. It’s just good business, they can cover more ground before someone else drops their prey, one of them is short-range and the other is long-range, they form a unit with enough strength and flexibility to take on any single witch. Except that they’re not a unit. Not partners, even. They just HAPPEN to CONTINUOUSLY run into each other, WITHOUT actively looking, of course not, they JUST fight together sometimes, BUT ONLY SOMETIMES, and if they go home together sometimes it’s just to either blow off some steam no strings attached (Minako) or to make sure that idiot lays down instead of partying like an animal (Rei). Of course. It’s only prudent. Nothing more to it than that. Nope. No sir.

7. Rei wished to see her parents again one more time, and Lunabei showed her an illusion of just as much. She can see through every barrier and veil, now, and walks through every witch’s labyrinth like she knows a map of it by heart. Her Meguca uniform is a traditional archery attire, and her soul gem is embedded in the wristband of the glove.

8. There was a plane crash, some years ago, and three neighbouring city wards are the territory of a lightning-fast lancer with a sidesword. Does she believe in what she’s doing? Not like she had used to, that’s for sure. Does she keep hunting for more reasons than just keeping herself going? Definitely. The lance is her primary weapon. The sidesword is for delivering a coup de grace. She generally saves it for Megucas who are about to turn, shatters the soul gem with the kashira, and slits the throat to cover the magic up.

9. Makoto wished to be strong enough to survive anything. No matter what
she’s hit with, she just. Keeps. Getting. Up. Despair? Who’s she? Makoto’s Meguca uniform is a black-belted karate gi, optionally with straw
sandals, and her soul gem hangs from her neck on a chain that doesn’t exaclty appear ornamental once you get a good look.

10. “What is wrong with you, you’re like the fucking Terminator,” Minako had screamed at her during the turf war that ended in the current truce, and a soot-covered, flash-burned, still standing Makoto couldn’t help but snort a laugh. They aren’t friends. People like them don’t have friends. But they don’t actively try to kill each other anymore. Sometimes they trespass on each other’s territory to pass a warning about a particularly hot-headed newbie. Sometimes they trespass on each other’s territory to ask a favour and get a Grief Seed, if there’s a lean year of a sort going on their own turf.

11. Whenever they do meet, Rei vehemently insists she and Minako work separately as a primary mode of operation. Makoto rolls her eyes and doesn’t even bother arguing.

12. Ami moves between city wards like she has Rei’s sight, doesn’t trespass unless to speak with the others (which always includes an explicit verbal information that she has no wish to fight but will defend herself if attacked), and operates in precision strikes and immediate withdrawal. Lunabei has a bit of trouble tracking her anymore. Her Meguca uniform is a simple yet expensive-looking streetwear outfit, and her soul gem sits in the centre of a fancy watch on her wrist.

13. Ami wished to know everything. Ami regrets making that wish every day.

14. Ami is also the only one who sat Lunabei down, and got full disclosure because she asked. She went along with the whole deal anyway, because she’s exactly the kind of moron to go to the chopping block with a song on her lips if it means making the universe a little better. She’s also just about intelligent enough to know that she can cheat/endure her way through the “paying through despair” part with therapy and anti-depressant medication.

15. Ami is the one who gets all four of them together, once or twice,
always by a hand-written invitation dropped into three different
mailboxes, and whichever space set up by her like so is regarded as
neutral ground by all other three.

16. One of the meetings she calls deals with the general fuckery food chain entropy For The Greater Good of Madoverse. Another deals with the subject of Walpurgisnacht. She calls yet another one specifically to tell the others where witches tend to congregate, or which areas attract them the most often. Minako is suspicious about her reasons to give up so much knowledge, that is, power, without any apparent reason. Rei maintains a frown, but she can tell little blue is being 100% truthful and sincere. Makoto takes it at face value, which surprises everyone else.

17. On the subject of Walpurgisnacht, that’s what little is left of Queen Serenity, and the Silver Crystal is now a supermassive Grief Seed at her centre. She exists to draw ever more Megucas into herself and turn them into shades of herself. Bad shit. Do not sign me up.

18. In a one-on-one duel, Ami says calmly, all of them will die and become another shadow cast by that thing. Four of them together? They have a shot.

19. Today is the day of blood and glory, let it be the day of resurrection, la di dah, let’s fight this binch.

20. Rei falls first, screaming swearwords and threats all the way down. Makoto unsheaths her sidesword. Ami grabs her sword-arm and tells her to wait. Rei turns, and the moment she does is the moment Minako and Makoto learn that Ami’s power is based around absorption and redirection.

21. The energy released by Rei’s turning blasts down three layers of Walpurgisnacht’s barrier. The other three pass her Grief Seed, and fight in her name.

22. Makoto drops to her knees, and a disbelieving laugh pours out of her mouth along with the blood. “It lied,” she says more calmly than she has any right to feel. “That little fucker told me I could survive anything.”

23. Praise the courage and pass the Grief.

24. Minako and Ami shatter their way to the blindingly bright crystal at the centre. Minako’s sword shatters on the crystal.

25. “I’m really sorry,” Ami says, and it’s the first time she sounds insincere. Her soul gem cracks, not collapsing on itself like Rei’s and Makoto’s and everyone else’s they’ve put to rest, but bursting outside, and Minako has a split second to surround herself with the brightness and heat of a star to protect her from the explosion Ami had spent almost her entire existence as a Meguca building up, preparing, the greatest bomb the wisest mind could ever build compressed at the core of her very being, and guided into the core of the only thing that could swallow the planet whole – guided with the hands of three warriors she had fed enough knowledge, that is, power, to be sure they could carry her this far.

26. Minako sits down on the highest point of the ruins, the lotus-shaped Grief Seed crumbling to fine ash in her hands.

27. Minako’s burden is that she has to remember.