Tag: same prompt fic party

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

If Not Now…
~1600 words
AO3 Link

For the prompt party! While I feel blessed by its return, given the prompt “Everything I had to sacrifice,” I doubt Haruka and Michiru feel the same.

It came like a wave, almost every night now. It was a
writhing mass that was a single creature and many at the same time, all faceless
yet bearing many teeth. If Michiru faltered but one step, it would consume the
crystal spire behind her and all she loved with it. The many teeth ripped at
her clothes, hair, skin. She did not move. She refused. Even as they bit
deeper, deeper. She could not fall despite the pain. Deeper. She was going to
fall, all would be lost and she could not lose and deeper—

Michiru woke with a gasp. Reality was quiet and warm. The
softness of sheets was startling against her skin, the remnants of the vision
left her expecting pain in place of comfort.

Haruka stirred beside her. “’R you okay?”

“It was just a dream, love.”

Haruka pulled her close and nuzzled into her shoulder. “I had
a dream. A nice one.”

“Oh?” Michiru worked her fingers through Haruka’s hair
against her scalp. The rhythm of her breathing was a comfort as her own fell in
time with it. “Tell me about it.”

“Well I was there, and you were there. And so was a baby.”
Haruka paused, waking up a little more. “Our baby.” She made figure eights with
one finger on Michiru’s hip. “We were parents.”
The last word came on a breath of reverence. “Our baby was happy. Just like us.”

Michiru had never thought much of children, but when Haruka
spoke like this, she ached for them as much as she ached for anything, nearly
as much as Haruka ached for them. “That is a nice dream.”

“You know…” Haruka’s muscles went tense. She breathed deep
before continuing. “You know. We’ve been at peace for a while now.”

“We have.” It wouldn’t last, but they had.

“Do you think… do you think maybe… now could be the time?”
Haruka twisted up to look her in the eye.  “I mean. We’re a good age. And, sometimes I think,
if not now…”

Michiru suddenly felt the truth of it. Now was all they had.
She shoved aside all her vision meant. She would take what happiness she could
for Haruka, she would make now work despite everything telling her it couldn’t.
“If you’re ready, I am.”

“You mean it?” Haruka
scrambled to sit up.

Michiru swallowed down her doubt. She would—she could—choose the nice dream for once. She swore she could against the screaming inside her that she should share what she saw. “As
much as I have ever meant anything.”

Haruka laughed and kissed her, rough and urgent despite
still laughing. “We’ll be parents,” she
whispered against Michiru’s mouth.

Michiru let herself laugh along.

***

There were several days of sharing the news and starting on
paperwork. She’d begun to believe it was really happening. And then Mina found her. Michiru walked out of a morning matinee of
a French film, one of her quiet retreats, and there she was. Michiru ignored
her, but Minako would not be swatted away so easily. She fell into step beside
her.

“You know it can’t happen right now.”

“What can’t?” She would have to say the words, state exactly
the dream she was dashing.

“Children. I know you see the same thing coming as Rei does.”

“What I may or may not see has no bearing on our choice.”
Michiru kept her voice calm. “And Rei’s visions, like mine, hardly have a
timestamp. It might be a hundred years before whatever doom she sees comes to
pass.”

“I never thought you to be naïve.”

“I will not hold back my life—her life—for what might come.”

Mina jogged up to walk backwards facing Michiru. “And what
will you do with the child, when the doom comes?”

“Protect it.”

“You have someone else to protect.”

“I have no desire to protect that princess above all else.”

“It is your duty.”

“I don’t care.”

Minako’s shoulders stiffened. Venus flashed deadly gold in
her eyes. “It doesn’t matter if you care. It doesn’t matter if I care. Our
lives are bound to a purpose.”

“I have given enough. I have given my childhood and my blood
and my literal heart to duty. I am finished. Surely you can do your job well
enough you don’t need us.”

Minako’s mouth turned up at the corners, bearing her teeth
rather than truly smiling. “And what will Haruka say, when you ask her to turn
away from her duty?”

Michiru stopped cold. “She will know it is only a
possibility, and that we could do both if it came down to it.”

“You’re a liar.”

The thought of slapping her played in Michiru’s mind like a
daydream. “If you’re so righteous, why are you talking to me and not her?”

“Why have you kept your visions to yourself instead of
telling her?” Minako crossed her arms. “You’re the one who could make her
understand. If I say, hey, Rei’s had visions, maybe this isn’t a good time, she’ll
take the optimistic route. She wants this too badly. Even you want this too
badly.” She stepped closer. “How long do you think she’d last, trying to
protect Usagi and your child?
Sometimes she barely makes it through worrying about you, and you take care of
yourself.”

Michiru wanted to say they’d leave, settle somewhere far
away from whatever battles came, but Haruka would never do it. “When, then? Are
we to always set aside life for duty?” Years of anger uncorked inside her. “Do
you tell Mako to set aside love? Is that why she has yet to get serious with
anyone? You must know that’s what she wants more than anything.”

“She knows the time isn’t right.”

“The time will never be right.” Michiru rose her chin. “I
have often wondered, Venus, if you would have kept Haruka and I apart if you
thought you could. I suppose I have my answer, and Haruka will too.”

Minako’s face made it clear she’d like to slap Michiru too. “I
would never. All I do, I do to protect you all. Especially her, damn it.” She
gritted her teeth. “Haruka’s too good for either of us. So is Mako. Loving
someone who can’t defend themselves like we can would rip them apart.”

Michiru almost felt a twinge of pity for her. “And never
getting to love all they can won’t?”

“I’m not saying never.” Her fists clenched. “I’m saying not
now. If we have as long as we supposedly do, a few more years is nothing.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Then fuck me, I’ll have been wrong. But you’ll know, even
then, that I’m also still right.”

That was the worst thing—it was true. Michiru could not
pretend Minako was being anything but honest. It was not meaningless the way it
was when her family cautioned her against abandoning her duty to them. She
could not even hate Mina for making her accept what she had known all along.
She could only hate herself, for giving Haruka false hope.

“Leave me.”

“Michiru.”

“I’ll do it. I’ll tell her everything, but please leave.”

She wished that Minako had stayed hard, rather than looking
at her just then with soft understanding. “I hope it comes soon,” she said very
quietly. “I hope it is the last big fight.”

“I never thought you to be naïve.” She went back to the
theater and bought another ticket. Nestled into the darkness where no one could
see, she planned out how she could tell Haruka.

***

“I had a vision.”

Haruka stopped with her jacket hanging off one arm. “A
vision?” she asked, although it showed in her eyes that she knew all it meant.

“A fight is coming.” Michiru focused on a painting on the
wall instead of Haruka’s face. It was one of hers. She followed each
brushstroke with her eyes, letting the memory of each movement squash down her
current emotions. “Likely it will be soon.”

“Oh.” Haruka flailed to get her other arm out of her coat.
She put it on the back of a chair, but when it fell she left it in the floor. “I
guess then… I mean. Yeah, that’s… I’m going for a run.” Still in her work
clothes, she bolted out the door. Michiru let her go. There would be tears
later, she knew, Haruka would cry in her arms, but now this was what she needed.
Michiru had been allowed to process alone too, after all.

She picked up Haruka’s jacket. A folded paper fell out with
her keys from one pocket. Michiru knew better than to look. But she’d known
better than to do a lot of things lately. NAMES
was scrawled across the top in Haruka’s big, excited handwriting. Several ideas
were crossed off. A few had little stars next to them. Michiru crumpled it and
threw it in the garbage. It would do no one any good to see it again.

That night she had a vision—or perhaps a dream, she could
not say for sure, though she knew she saw what Haruka had dreamed before. They
sat in their yard.  Michiru knelt without
regard for grass stains on her skirt; Haruka was cross-legged just a few feet
away. She held the hands of a little girl who stood wobbly on her chubby legs. “Okay,
now go to Mama!”

The little girl let go of one hand, then the other. One
cautious step. Another with more confidence. Her soft face broke into a smile
and she bounced through the rest of the steps until she tumbled into Michiru’s
lap. “You made it,” she heard herself say.

Her little girl looked up and gave a gummy shriek of
laughter. “Mama!” 

Michiru woke quietly this time, careful not to wake Haruka.
There was no sense in getting worked up over what could never be.

Same Prompt Fic Party- Summer 2016

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

docholligay:

SURPRISE NERDS BET YOU THOUGHT YOU’D SEEN THE LAST OF ME

I quit doing the monthly prompt parties September of last year, but there was so call and request to bring them back on at least a smaller schedule, so here we are. Did you miss me? Be honest (Never be honest) 

There are a lot more of you here than when I stopped doing these, and I HOPE some of you are here for the Harumichi as well as my sparkling wit, and so I formally invite you to join our same prompt fic party!

Our prompt for this party is: 

Everything I had to sacrifice

Take it in all sorts of directions–AUs, whatever. As long as it’s from the prompt, it’s all good. 

Everything’s gotta be RULES RULES RULES

  • Fics, art, whatever always welcomed and encouraged
  • Post to your blog and then send your link to me in an ask, submission, or fanmail, IF YOU DON’T DO THIS I’M UNLIKELY TO SEE IT
  • Has to use the prompt and include a strong Harumichi element
  • Entries are due June 18th at 6:00 pm Mountain time 
  • Word limit for fics is 10k (Doc, why is there a limit? Because I hold myself accountable to read every fic that comes in for this)
  • The prize is THE MEANING OF SACRIFICE
  • I will assemble these into a glorious masterpost 
  • If you have any questions let me know!

It’s been a long time, so I’m hoping some of you will be revitalized by this. JOIN US. 

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

So, it seems this is the last fic party. It’s very bittersweet. For this month, I decided to revisit “Spring is a time for new beginnings,” since while a year ago it certainly wasn’t spring, something wonderful began.

Also, because I’m baby trash right now, and wanted to write something like this anyway.

The Night It Started
~1000 words
AO3 Link
Technically, it’s a continuation of this mini-fic, but it stands on its own just fine I think.

Michiru smiled and tucked a blanket around Haruka. She’d only managed to make it halfway through changing into pajamas before passing out sprawled on top of the bed covers. For a week straight she’d been running herself ragged. More than once Michiru had woken up in the middle of the night, either to find Haruka in the nursery fussing over Himeka or scrambling to find and react to new information. “Spring babies are more likely to develop skin cancer, we need to keep her out of the sun!” “I think we didn’t get the best brand of formula, one website says another has more nutrients…” She couldn’t have gotten more than a few hours’ rest since they brought the baby home. Now, finally, it had caught up to her.

And of course, now that Haruka had fallen asleep, Himeka started to cry.

Michiru slipped into the hall and shut the door. Hopefully that would mute the noise enough for Haruka to stay asleep. Part of Michiru wondered if Haruka had run herself so ragged over baby care out of the same fears Michiru had over how she’d handle the baby without Haruka there, but the rest of her knew Haruka believed too highly of her to even entertain the idea. She’d doubt herself to the point of terror before considering that Michiru might not be cut out for this. Michiru had never thought about having kids, barely felt like she had ever truly been a kid, much less had any idea how to love one. She entered the nursery with her own fear heavy on her shoulders.

Himeka lay in the crib Haruka had so carefully put together. Her small face was scrunched and red as she cried. Michiru couldn’t see what inspired such big, instinctual love in Haruka. She was just a small, loud, inarticulate person, and not one Michiru would call cute at the moment. But Haruka loved her, so Michiru had to try. “What is it?”

Himeka kept crying as Michiru lifted her up. She always quieted at least a little when Haruka held her. Now, it seemed, she only got louder. “Thank you for the vote of confidence.”

Himeka’s diaper was dry. Michiru tried to remember when Haruka had last fed her. “Are you hungry?”

Himeka did not answer. Michiru took her out to the kitchen anyway.

Haruka made preparing the formula while holding the baby look easy. It was not. Himeka kept squirming as she cried. The image of dropping her into the boiling water kept haunting Michiru’s mind, too clear to be a genuine vision but all the more frightening for it. She put Himeka back in her crib. Something akin to guilt tugged at Michiru’s heart for leaving her crying alone. The water took forever to boil, and even longer to cool. At long last she mixed it and tested the temperature on her wrist. It was a small miracle that Haruka had not woken up.

In the nursery, Himeka took the bottle greedily as Michiru held her. “You’re going to take after your Papa, I see. She’s also a bear when she’s hungry.” It was, perhaps, absurd to think Himeka resembled Haruka, but she was starting to see similarities in her face. Their eyes had the same shine. Maybe it was just because they spent so much time together. “Just so long as you wait a long time to share your Papa’s love of motor sports. That’s too dangerous for baby bears.” Michiru caught herself smiling. Himeka was looking at her now, still gulping, but focused on her. “Do you like being my baby bear?” Did she even know what a bear was? Haruka had bought her several teddy bears, but had she told her what they were? “Well, you can be Papa’s little girl, but Mama’s baby bear. How does that sound?”

Himeka gurgled.

Michiru took the bottle away and burped her, but she didn’t put her back in the crib. “I don’t know much about bears,” she told the now very attentive Himeka. “I might mess up with you a lot. My parents raised me to be just a dancing bear in their circus. But I want you to be a happy bear. I’m going to try, but I can’t make promises.” She tickled the baby’s tummy. “Will you forgive me?”

Himeka wrapped one tiny fist around Michiru’s thumb. Her pudgy fingers were soft and warm. Michiru felt something in her chest dissolve into the same warmth.

“We’ll shake on it, baby bear.” She lifted Himeka up to her shoulder and rocked in her chair.The light fuzz on top of her head brushed Michiru’s cheek. She was so tiny and vulnerable, all her support came from Michiru. Her little body clung on, but with trust instead of fear. Michiru felt words form in her mouth she’d only ever used sincerely on Haruka.

“I love you.”

——-

Haruka woke that morning disorientated, both by her state of dress and by being alone in their bed. She couldn’t remember falling asleep. The bedside clock told her she had been down all night. Her first thought was to wonder where Michiru was; the second was to worry about Himeka. She stumbled out of bed, shirt still on backwards and jeans still unzipped, and ran into the hall.

Her breath caught when she made it to the nursery. Himeka lay happily asleep in her crib. Michiru slept as well, the rocking chair pulled close enough that she could lean on the crib rail. One arm cushioned her head. The other squeezed through the bars to hold Himeka’s hand.

Haruka snuck out quietly and returned with their camera. After taking pictures from every angle she could conceive of without waking either of them, she sat down on the opposite side of the crib. She wanted to hold on to this moment forever. A few tears rolled down her cheek. She reached in to take Himeka’s other hand.  These were her girls, the beautiful start of her little family.

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

Prompt Party Time!

One Beautiful Day
~1900 words
AO3 link

For the AU I haven’t written in before, I decided to go with a childhood meeting AU.
In a ground breaking twist, it features HaruMichi… at the beach!! 

At age ten, Michiru had already learned to hate family vacations. Maybe if her parents had taken her to Disney World or even camping among national landmarks like T.V. families did, she wouldn’t have found them so vile, although she knew deep down they’d find a way to make those sorts of trips performances too.

She managed to slip away on the second day this time. Her parents had a no-children luncheon and had told her to stay in the hotel room and practice the piece she would play for their friends that night. As though she hadn’t perfected it months ago. She waited until she heard the elevator ding shut in the hall before sneaking out into the stairwell.

When you’d been trained to carry yourself with dignity and purpose, no one questioned why you were out alone. A little eye contact and a smile assuaged any fears. The doorman even held the door open for her, and she walked out into the world. The sun was bright; the air was heavy with moisture and salt. Michiru followed the street signs to the beach.

She’d always liked the ocean, probably because it made her feel so small and insignificant. She could live and die and flub her next concert and the ocean would still be there, vast and uncaring. Setting her shoes at the edge of the sand, she made her way towards the water. The sand was hot, but she kept walking. She half hoped she’d get a blister right on her toes where it would show in the shoes her mother had picked out. It wouldn’t be big enough for the audience to notice it, but her mother would be upset anyway. A perfect rebellion. But she reached the tide line without a mark.

No one on the beach paid attention to the small girl ruining her sundress in the surf. No one, that was, besides another girl Michiru had not noticed at first. Her clothes were baggy and a little dirty, but she had beautiful long blonde hair tied up in a ponytail, straight and frizz-free like Michiru’s mother always wished Michiru’s was. She sat in the sand a few feet from the tide line. Color rose in her cheeks when Michiru caught her eye.

“Sorry,” she said as Michiru walked over. “You just looked so… so free.”

I’ll never really be free. But Michiru put on her best smile. “I’m not supposed to be out here.”

“Did you run away, too?”

“Well, I sneaked out for a bit.” The “too” processed through her mind. “You’re a runaway?”

The girl’s eyes widened. “Don’t tell anyone! My mom will find me soon anyway. She always does.”

“Okay.” Michiru almost asked why she ran away, but she could hear her father’s voice in her head– It’s bad manners to ask about others’ misfortunes. Instead she sat down next to the girl. “I’m Michiru.”

“Haruka.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, same.” Haruka gestured towards the water. “You can keep playing, if you want. I don’t mind.”

“Don’t you want to join me?”

“Oh, um, no. No thanks.” Haruka eyed the ocean and swallowed hard. “I’m good here.”

Michiru frowned. “You don’t like–” Don’t make comments like that, Michiru, it brings down the conversation. “Is there something we could both do?” Something about this girl struck her; she didn’t want to leave her alone. She wasn’t at all like the playmates Michiru’s parents always chose for her.

Haruka thought for a moment. “There’s a corner store over there a bit. I’ve got a couple dollars, we could get some candy or something.”

Michiru smiled. “I have a better idea.”

She took Haruka by the hand and led her back to the hotel. Eyebrows were raised at the state of their clothes, but the workers recognized Michiru well enough to not say anything. She strutted into the hotel shop like she belonged there.

“My parents sent me to grab a few things. Can you put it on our room tab?” She handed the cashier the key card.

He gave a pause; certainly ten-year olds were not normally allowed to charge their parents’ account. But she was well-spoken and, she knew, intimidating despite her size, so he nodded.

She turned to see Haruka gaping. Michiru pulled her away from the desk and behind a display of candied nuts before whispering, “That was nothing.”

“That was…” Haruka shook her head. “Do people always do what you want like that?”

“Mostly. Except my parents.”

“Oh. Will they be mad you’re spending their money?”

“Not mad, but–” She put on her best impression of her mother. “Very disappointed in me, they haven’t raised me to act like this.”

Haruka giggled appreciatively.

“But then tonight they’ll parade me around and hear what a darling I am, how talented and precocious, and they’ll forget all about it.”

Haruka frowned. Michiru’s stomach gave a twist. She’d ruined it, hadn’t she? She’d come off as ungrateful, and negative, and No one likes negative people, Michiru, always say nice things, even if they’re lies. Veil your criticisms. Her parents were right, and–

“I know what that’s like, sort of. I mean, it’s not the same, I don’t have talents, but I think…” Haruka blushed very red. “Sorry never mind.”

“No, it’s all right.”

Harka swallowed. “I think she has reasons for having me that aren’t… me. Which I guess is a little like you.”

For a long moment Michiru couldn’t think of anything to say. It was strange to have someone acknowledge her feelings and agree. “Do you want your mom to find you?” she asked finally.

Haruka shrugged. “I’ve got nowhere else to go.” Her face was somber, but then it broke into a smile. “Unless you want to run away and become a bandit with me?” She lunged like she had a sword in her hand. “We could live in the wild, and defend little kids, and have a whole band like Robin Hood.”

“We could.” Michiru smiled, feeling an excitement like none she’d had before. “But we’ll need some supplies.”

They ran back and forth through the shop, grabbing a bag, a water bottle, all the candy they could carry, and a pair of scissors. “Since there’s no swords here,” Haruka said. “We’ll have to make do.”

The cashier opened his mouth to ask if her parents had really asked for these things, but Michiru withered him with a glare. She wouldn’t let anyone ruin this. She was having fun. He swiped the room key and they barreled out into the street, bag in hand, breaking into fits of laughter as their feet hit the pavement.

“We’re bandits!”

“His face.” Haruka gulped for breath and straightened herself. “There’s a park near here, if you wanna start there. We can claim the playground as our base.”

“Lead the way.”

Haruka grabbed her hand and broke into a run. Michiru struggled to keep up. The girl was fast, whatever she said about having no talent. But Michiru felt like slowing down this moment, halting its momentum, was something worse than death, worse than the dark shadows that came through her window at night that she had to pretend she was too old to be afraid of. Her calves burned and each breath felt like it drove a knife into her side, but she would not stop.

The park came into sight, and then they were there. Haruka put her hands behind her head and smiled. “Our new kingdom!”

Michiru smiled back. It didn’t matter that even calling the lopsided swingset and singular rusty slide a playground had been a stretch. It was theirs and they were free, for the day if not forever. She sat down on one of the swings and opened the bag. “This calls for a celebratory meal, I think.”

For awhile they ate candy in comfortable silence. Michiru felt herself smiling even as she chewed. She couldn’t help feeling this was the first time she’d felt this content.

“You know,” Haruka said after a while. “There’s a thing I’ve always wanted to do. Something rebellious, something totally bandit-y.”

Michiru set her candy bag on the ground. “And what’s that?”

Haruka smiled sheepishly and leaned over to reach in the bag. She pulled out the scissors. “Cut my hair short. Like, boy short.”

Michiru didn’t say how beautiful it was. Haruka knew that, had probably heard it as a reason she wasn’t allowed to cut it. And maybe, Michiru got the impression, Haruka didn’t want to be beautiful. Not like that, anyway.

“I’ll do it for you.”

“Have you cut hair before?” Haruka asked as she handed over the scissors. She smiled like it didn’t really matter.

“No, but I paint. Both are art, right?”

Haruka laughed. “If you say so. I guess worst comes to worst, I shave it all, right?”

“I imagine that wouldn’t look bad on you.” Michiru stood behind Haruka, but she still saw the color rise in her face. She felt her own cheeks flush. It was normal to tell girls they looked good, wasn’t it? She shook it off and took Haruka’s ponytail in her hands. “You’re sure about this, right?”

“Very sure. I only haven’t because I’m not allowed.”

“Okay.” Michiru cut straight across the base of the ponytail. It fell to the ground, heavy enough to scatter some of the wood chips. Michiru did her best to trim the top up to look like a real haircut. She didn’t quite succeed, but it was decent for a first time. She put her phone on the camera and handed it to Haruka so she could see.

“Not bad.” Haruka grinned wider than Michiru had ever seen anyone smile.

“You look.. you look very handsome. More like a prince than a bandit.”

Haruka blushed again. “You think so?”

“Yes,” Michiru said, feeling embarrassed. She wasn’t sure if it was giving an honest compliment that felt strange, or something else. Their eyes met.

And her phone rang.

Haruka nearly jumped out of the swing. Michiru grabbed the phone, it was her parents, of course it was, calling to drag her back from anything this good. She hit ignore and shut it off. “Sorry.”

Haruka looked down at the ground. “You have to go, don’t you?”

“No. Not yet.” Her hatred for her parents for cutting this so short battled with the overwhelming urge to give this girl something. Michiru did, really and truly, want to run away with her, despite how implausible it would be. “I don’t want to leave yet.”

“Okay.” Haruka smiled, a little forced but still genuine. “Think you can swing higher than me?”

–

The police arrived as the sun started to set. As the shuffled Michiru into their car and phoned her parents, she realized she hadn’t gotten Haruka’s phone number, or even her last name. By the time she turned back it was too late. The policewoman grabbed her gently around the middle and set her in the back seat.

Her parents yelled at her more than they ever had, but the only thing she felt bad for was not being able to contact the girl. Long after they returned home, Michiru held onto the memory, went over it in her head like a prayer on nights when the whole world seemed horrible. There was at least one good day, one good person. And even years later, Michiru swore she’d find a way to meet her again.

This is How a Kingdom Falls

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

Part 2/Chapter 3

Link to Part 1
ETA: Part 3

Link to this chapter on AO3
Also, a warning that there’s stronger violence in this chapter.
Word Count: 2692

Makoto had wanted to believe there was just some part of this that she hadn’t understood, that Mina was still Mina, even having made her unfathomable choice. But now Setsuna was dead. “Mina. Mina, what did you do?”

Minako blinked, looked up at her, and stood. She held Mako’s gaze and said flatly, “I killed her.”

“That’s not true.” Haruka stumbled towards her. Makoto felt equally impressed that she had managed to scale the building and ashamed at how bad her face looked. Her right cheek had split open, and the skin around her eye was already purpling.

“Stay out of this, Uranus. I killed her.” Minako walked towards Mako, her shoulders loose and slumped like she was drunk. “The question is,” she said, pushing hard against Mako’s chest with one hand, “what are you going to do about it?”

It was wrong, everything was wrong. This had to be some crazy warped nightmare, she got those after people died, she must have fallen asleep next to Usagi and if she could just wake up, things would be back to… still horrible, but Minako wouldn’t have gone this far, she’d be recognizable, she’d–

“I said, what are you gonna do about it?” She lashed out with her chain across Mako’s face. Pain exploded in Mako’s left eye; its vision went red and dark.

She put her hand over it. Dampness she knew to be blood soaked through her glove. The instinct to hit back was squashed by the sheer horror that this was Minako, one of her best friends, who had been there for her for a thousand years. It couldn’t be real. Makoto refused to believe Minako could do any of this.

And yet.

An older memory, the sort she’d avoided all her life because they didn’t matter, nagged at the back of her mind. This wouldn’t be the first time Venus had maimed another senshi. This was Minako, not that Venus, but maybe they had never been as different as Mako had wanted to think. She’d killed Chibiusa, she’d killed Setsuna. She was the same general who’d tolerated no opposition.

And Usagi was the same queen as that lifetime’s mother.

Venus raised her arm to strike again, but Mako just sank to the rooftop. She knew she was different from the Jupiter who haunted her dreams, the efficient but fearful soldier. But was she the only one? That Jupiter remembered Mercury’s coldness. Mako thought Ami to be warm, yet she defended the murder of a child.

Everything was wrong.

She grabbed the chain as it swung towards her face again. The end whipped against the back of her hand, splitting the skin, but it didn’t matter. She pulled Venus to the ground. “When did this happen?” Mako yanked the chain out of Venus’s hands. “When did you take over?”

“I’ve always been the leader.”

“No, when did you take over her? When exactly did Minako die?”

Something akin to horror crossed Venus’s face, but in the blink of an eye it was gone. Mako couldn’t be sure she’d seen it at all. The pain and the blood made her head feel cloudy.

“Are you going to kill me?” Venus hissed. “Or are you that Jupiter now too?”

“Minako, what the hell?”

Rei was there, suddenly, Mako was not sure how, but she was on her blind side. Perhaps she had been there the whole time.

“Haven’t you heard? I’m Venus now. Cold, bloodthirsty Venus. Look what I’ve done, Rei. I’m everyone’s worst fear realized.”

“Stop this before you make it any worse.” Rei knelt next to Mako and looked at her face. “Goddamn it.” She turned to someone to the left. “Can you do anything for her?”

“I should be able to–”

“No,” Mako stood and backed away from Mercury. “Stay away.” She looked at Rei. “I don’t want her touching me.”

“You’ll lose–”

“I’ll live.” Her head felt light and her knees weak, so it might be a lie, but she couldn’t let whatever lived in the shell of her wife that close.

“They’re not Venus and Mercury, Mako,” Haruka said softly. “She’s still Ami.”

“She can’t be.” Mako saw Mercury’s face fall. It had to be an act. “They can’t do these things and be the people we’ve always loved. They can’t.”

“So kill me.” Venus stood. “You know I deserve it.”

“Why are you doing this?” Haruka asked with a cautious step towards her. “I know you’re Minako.”

Venus raised one hand and aimed a finger at Haruka’s forehead. “I told you to stay out of this.”

Rei’s arrow appeared. “Stop it, Mina.”

“You stop it. Shoot me.”

Rei lowered her bow. Mako put her hand on her shoulder. Of all the ways they could have lost their loves, she never imagined it would be like this.

But then Venus’s shoulders slumped. Her whole body shook as she started to cry. “Why won’t you just do this? Any of you!” She dropped her hand to her side. “You hate me, I hate me, it would be better for everyone.”

Mako’s chest felt tight. Relief that this was still Mina, that she’d been wrong, battled with the terrible realization of how hurt she was.

“She fucking saved me, how could she die saving me? I made the wrong choice, and you’re all keeping me alive, for what?”

“Mina…” Mako stepped, ready to hug her…

And was stopped by the large, sharp crystal suddenly emerging from Minako’s chest. Minako looked down at it, surprised as Mako, and then turned. Neo Queen Serenity stood behind her. She clutched the silver crystal so tightly that blood ran down her arms from her hands.

The crystal in Minako’s chest disintegrated into the air as she collapsed.

Serenity knelt and shut her eyes with a gentle caress of her thumb. “You’ll make a better choice next time,” she whispered. A single tear fell from her cheek. She looked up to the rest of them with dead eyes. “I need Saturn.”

Rei shook and Mako put her arm around her. Haruka fell to her knees.

Serenity stood up, her face too stern for the woman who had once been Usagi. But if Mina had stayed Mina, however broken, this had to still be Usagi. She had to be reachable. “I said I need Saturn.”

“She’s not here,” Ami said.

“Then help me find her.”

“Y-yes… my queen.”

“The rest of you, too. I need her soon.”

Mako nodded. The reset was the only way to make any of this right. They couldn’t end like this. Mina couldn’t end like this. But Rei grabbed her arm. “Don’t.”

“Excuse me?” Serenity stepped towards Rei.

Rei ran. Haruka followed.

“Do not let those two find her first,” Serenity said.

Ami nodded. Mako followed suit, but looking at Ami she wondered if this was really the right choice.

Haruka’s head pounded with every step. Between the blood and the phlegm from her tears she couldn’t get a good breath. “Rei… stop… I can’t…”

“Do you want Setsuna to have died for nothing?” Rei whipped around. “The reset can’t happen, she made that clear.” A few passerby looked at them before hurrying along. They were used to seeing the senshi in action around town, and had long ago learned to get moving before they saw anything more.

“You go find Hotaru, but I need…” Her head swam. She leaned against the corner of a building. “I need a minute.”

The ferocity dropped from Rei’s face. “Shit. Do you have a concussion?”

“I’m not sure.” It wouldn’t be the first time, riding a motorcycle for a thousand years had gotten her into more than one accident, but she couldn’t remember if it had felt quite like this. “I might just be shaken up.”

“Dammit Haruka, she’ll never forgive me if you die on my watch.”

It took Haruka a long minute to realize she didn’t mean Michiru. “I dunno, she might be glad we’re reunited sooner.”

Rei might have slapped her if she didn’t already have head damage. “That’s not funny.”

“I know, sorry.” But Rei had started crying in earnest.

“If I had stayed with her last night…”

“No.” Haruka ignored her own tears. “We can’t do this, not right now.” She was the one who should have noticed Serenity and stopped her, anyway. She was the one who should have been able to talk Mina down sooner. “You said yourself we need to find Hotaru.”

Rei nodded. “If you can’t–”

“I can.” But she stumbled on her first step. Nausea rushed over her; if she had eaten breakfast that morning she surely would have lost it. “Shit.”

“Sit down,” Rei snapped. Haruka did, resting her back against the stone corner of the building. She was surprised when Rei squatted next to her. “How could things go so wrong so fast?”

“Mina didn’t mean for it to go like this. She just…”

“I know.” Rei put her face in her hands. “God, if only she hadn’t done it. If only we’d detected that demon in time.”

Mina’s face played in Haruka’s mind. She wanted to remember her as she had been, glorious ridiculous Mina, but her brain kept reverting to those last moments. Haruka should have stopped her. Should have saved her. “I’m sorry.”

“Haruka!”

Michiru’s voice seemed to echo through the streets. The few people who remained around gave a start. Haruka couldn’t see her, but then she felt a touch on her shoulder. “Michi…”

“What happened?” Her fingers moved lightly over Haruka’s face, deftly avoiding the bruises.

Haruka caught her arm and pulled her down closer. She pressed her face into her shoulder. “Mina… and Setsuna…”

“They’re dead,” Rei said quietly. “And she has a concussion.”

Michiru knelt down and pulled Haruka even closer. She nestled her face into her hair. Haruka felt a few drops of water make their way to her scalp.

“And Serenity’s looking for Hotaru. She’ll do the reset if she can.”

Michiru’s hands clenched on Haruka’s shoulders. She pulled away slowly and looked at Rei. “Hotaru doesn’t want to do it.”

“I wouldn’t trust Serenity to not force her right now.” Rei swallowed hard. “She killed Mina.”

Michiru took a deep breath. “You need to hide out and rest,” she said to Haruka.

“Michi, I’m fine. We need to find Hotaru.”

“Haruka, if you value your life at all… If you love me at all, you will stay put and rest and not make your concussion any worse.”

“I love you.”

“I know.” She put Haruka’s arm around her shoulders and walked her across the street to a donut shop. It had been one of Usagi’s many favorites. “Excuse me,” she said to the bewildered man behind the counter. “You’re closed now. I need you to watch her. Don’t let her leave. Don’t let her talk. She needs to rest. You may feed her if she gets hungry, and make sure she always has water. Do you understand?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Good.” She laid Haruka down on the floor. The man scurried to place a bundle of aprons under her head. “I’ll be back for you soon.” She kissed her very lightly. “I love you, Haruka.”

“I love you too.” Haruka watched as she shut the blinds and walked out the door with Rei. She’d join them as soon as she could.

Hotaru ran. She wasn’t sure where or even entirely why anymore. She didn’t care if Michiru caught her. Maybe it would even be better that way. She could feel pieces of the world unravelling.

She’d thought, briefly, that she could end it all for Chibiusa. That it was worth the sacrifice to bring her back. But she could hear, almost, Chibiusa’s protests. She wouldn’t even stand by Hotaru ending her own life, much less millions of others.

And in Hotaru’s heart, she knew she couldn’t do it anyway.

She rounded a corner. There was Makoto, peering down another street. Hotaru stopped. Mako’s left eye was nothing but a bloody gash. Hotaru’s stomach twisted. Someone had done this to her. “Mako…”

She gave a start. “Oh. There you are.”

“What’s going on?”

Mako pressed her lips together. “You… There are some things you should know.”

“Who’s dead?” She swallowed down her fear.

“Minako… and Setsuna.”

Mama. It wasn’t fair, of all the people in the world to die, why were those closest to her going first? She tried to think of the last time she’d told Setsuna she loved her. She was bad about that, sometimes she honestly believed she didn’t, but she must have recently, hadn’t she? What had been the last thing she’d said to her? When had she last hugged her?

“That’s not all.” Mako shifted her weight from foot to foot. “Serenity wants you.”

“I won’t do it. Chibiusa would never have wanted it. The rest of the people here wouldn’t want it.”

“But you…” Mako’s eye went soft. “You should hide, then. Things aren’t… no one is acting right. And I’m not the only one looking for you.”

Hotaru nodded, turned.

“Oh there you are.”

She sounded like Usagi, the big sister figure rather than the mother. There was blood on her hands, blood on the crystal, but she looked so happy that Hotaru was there. “I’ve been trying to find you.”

“I can’t do this for you.”

“You can. You need to.” She came closer and stroked Hotaru’s hair. “We need them all back. Chibiusa needs to live.”

“And what happened to the girl who wouldn’t sacrifice even one person?”

“No one is being sacrificed. They’ll all come back. I’ll make it so. No one has to stay dead.”

“Having another life isn’t the same as not dying.”

“It’s our only choice.”

“No.” Hotaru backed away. “She would want us to live our lives. These lives, as best we can. We can’t destroy the kingdom in her name.”

“The kingdom is already destroyed with her gone.” She gripped the crystal so tightly that Hotaru was sure either it or her hands would break. “Saturn… Hotaru please.”

“I will not kill all these people for you.”

And like a snap, the resemblance to Usagi was gone. “Jupiter. Destroy… that building.” She pointed to a large apartment complex.

Mako’s eye widened. “What?”

“We need to remove whatever moral objection Saturn has. If she won’t kill people, we will. She can be the savior instead of the destroyer.”

“Usagi…” Mako shook her head. “Don’t do this. Don’t make me do this.”

“I want my daughter back. Are you going to deny me that?”

Mako looked up at the building, then back at Serenity. There had to be hundreds of people in that building alone. Hotaru could feel the conflict of Mako’s love and Mako’s values. She understood it too well now.

“Now, Jupiter.”

Mako sank into a genuflect, fading into civilian form on the way down. She threw her transformation stick down an alleyway. “I’m sorry, Usagi.”

Hotaru saw Serenity’s hands move along the crystal. She saw the anger in her eyes and knew what was coming. So she moved first.

She drove the glaive into Mako’s back between her shoulder blades. My job is to end suffering. “Usagi loves you,” she whispered. “She always has and always will.”

“Hotaru… how could you…” Blood sputtered her words.

It’s better you hate me than die feeling she hates you. “I have my own agenda.” She swallowed hard at Mako’s disappointed face. Hotaru guided her to the ground gently. She wondered if this was how Haruka and Michiru had felt all those years ago. Though she’d thought she’d cried far to much to have any tears left, she felt them start to roll down her face.

Mako turned her head toward Serenity. “Tell Ami… I’m sorry.”

I will, Hotaru promised silently. She doubted sorry remained in the queen’s vocabulary. As the last breath wheezed out of Mako’s chest, Hotaru ran.

This is How a Kingdom Falls

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

Part One/ Chapters 1 & 2

ETA: Link to Part Two, Part Three

The first part of my entry for the June 2015 HaruMichi Same Prompt Fic Party, Senshi Civil War. Big warning for character death. I’m posting the first two chapters together because I think they constitute the beginning, so to speak. I will hopefully have at least the next chunk up by the due date.

Summary: When Minako saves Usagi instead of Chibiusa, history threatens to repeat itself in Crystal Tokyo. Tensions run high as the senshi grieve and threaten to destroy the kingdom they want to save.

Part One Word count: 4150
Read on AO3, or behind the cut.

Chapter One: Fallout

“Goddamn it Rei, what was I supposed to do?”

Rei shut that door behind them instead of looking at Mina. “What were you supposed to do? Oh, I don’t know, maybe you shouldn’t have let her die.” She wiped at her face.

Mina dug her fingers into her palm. “I made a choice. If you wanted a different one, you should have acted quicker. You and everyone else weren’t doing anything, and I wasn’t about to let Usagi die.”

“And what a saint you are for that, I’m sure she’s so grateful she’s alive right now.”

Mina could still hear Usagi’s screams in her head. “Right now isn’t all there is. She’ll move on, get better, maybe have another kid–” She stopped.

“So that’s what it comes down to,” Rei said, her voice even and quiet. Mina knew at once she should have never said it out loud. A shouting Rei was a Rei she could fight. A Rei focused into calmness was a much more dangerous creature. “Chibiusa is replaceable to you.”

“Not… not like that. But in the grand scheme of things–”

“In the grand scheme of things she is a child.” Rei gritted her teeth. “Was a child. Usagi’s been alive for nearly a thousand years now–”

“So that makes it alright to let her die?”

“We’re old, Mina. Older than anyone has a right to be. The world should be moving onto new things.”

She disappeared into their bedroom. Mina leaned against the back of the couch and shoved down her self doubt. It wouldn’t do her any good to question herself. Push forward, not back, that was how she always got through things.

Rei came out with a bag over her shoulder. “I’m going to her, but you should stay here.”

Mina nodded. Usagi surely hated her right now. But her hatred would always be better than her death.

Rei stopped with her hand on the doorknob. “I have one question, Mina. Did you do this out of love for Usagi? Or for Serenity?”

She left without an answer. Mina cursed and kicked the sofa. Her toes punched straight through the vinyl. She kicked again, properly this time, crunching into one of the wood support beams. The side of the couch crumpled. Mina didn’t feel any better.

It had been a battle with too many variables. Years had passed since Usagi had been involved in fights at all, and more and more they’d been letting Chibiusa and her quartet handle the monsters that cropped up. But this one, somehow, whether it was because of its own strength or a fault it their security and patrols, had managed to kidnap queen and princess in one swoop. Thirteen senshi went to fight, a group that hadn’t properly fought together, a group two thirds of which had half retired. Venus had trained Ceres for command. Ceres deferred with Venus present. It was the first mistake. The quartet respected Venus, but their trust was in the leader they knew. There was always that split second of hesitation at Venus’s orders, split seconds that added up. And while Venus would never say her own senshi were off their game, they’d fallen out of practice fighting all together. At their best they had been one mass of energy, fighting with many parts. Now they were eight individuals.

So it had ended up that Venus saw three options: Save only Usagi, save only Chibiusa, or let all of them and god knew how many civilians die.

Mina couldn’t let go of Usagi.

Venus couldn’t let go of Serenity.

It was one thing the dissonants parts of her could agree on. The others would say she must not love Chibiusa, but that wasn’t true. She did, how could she not, but it was a different kind of love. Usagi was the reason they all were born. Usagi was the reason the course of Mina’s life had meaning. She couldn’t be expected to throw that away.

There was a knock at the door. Mina took a deep breath and braced herself for whoever had come to fight it out with her. She was sure it was only Usagi’s grief that had kept the fight from happening on the scene. Mako had carried her back to the palace, Ami and Mamoru close behind, and Minako had slipped away before the others could say anything. It was probably Mako now, come to punch her in the face for what she’d done. That would be better than yelling, really. Direct, simple. Relatively painless.

But it was Ami, not Mako, at the door.

“Whatever you’ve come to say, Rei’s already said it, so–”

“No, that’s not…” Ami looked down to the bag in her hands. “Mako kicked me out, so I–”

“She what?”

Ami’s hands were shaking. “I said I understood why you saved Usagi. And I might have done the same thing.”

Michiru stroked Haruka’s hair as she cried in her lap, ignoring the ache in her own chest. “They’ll come back. They didn’t mean it.”

“They only said the truth. We are child killers.”

“And Setsuna was just as on board with killing Hotaru as we were.”

“But we actually killed both of them.”

“We had to.”

“Did we?” Haruka turned her face further away from Michiru. “It didn’t work. I made you do such a horrible thing, and it didn’t even work.”

“You didn’t make me do anything. And that was a very long time ago.”

“Apparently it’s still fresh in some minds.”

“We’re all grieving. Old wounds get reopened.” She turned Haruka’s face up to look her in the eyes. “I know you loved Chibiusa. I know you loved our children, and love Hotaru. You’re not a bad person, Haruka.” Michiru brushed tears from her cheek with her thumb. “And neither is Mina.” Michiru couldn’t say she’d have stood up for Mina herself, but had it been Haruka the demon had taken, she might have made the same choice. Hotaru’s relationship with the princess would have been her only hesitation. And Mina had no stake in that.

Michiru laced her fingers into Haruka’s. “We’ll give them tonight. They’ll sleep off the worst of it, and then we can talk.”

There would be no sleeping tonight. Setsuna watched from the doorway as Usagi pleaded with the Silver Crystal for Chibiusa’s resurrection. It was too familiar a scene. Thousands upon thousands of years, and the sight of her queen doing the same was still fresh in her heart. This was somehow worse, a grief she somehow had not yet experienced in all her lives. It should have been Small Lady that she comforted through this loss. It took all her knowledge and respect not to plead with the crystal herself. She’d trade her life if it meant Small Lady would no longer be cold and still. But that wasn’t how these things worked.

Endymion held her, her hands still so tiny compared to his. Setsuna had promised her she’d grow into a lady as lovely as her mother. She turned away to hide her tears. Hotaru could cry openly with the royal family, she was the fifth member of the quartet in all but name, but Setsuna had no right. She could hear her queen echo from the past, What good is the dominion of time if you couldn’t even see this and stop it? She could not bear to hear Usagi ask her the same.

She dried her face as Rei and Mako approached. They slipped inside without a word to her, their grief and Usagi’s overshadowing her. Pluto belonged at the edges, after all. She stepped to the side of the doorway, out of sight, and sank to the floor. She should have stayed with Haruka and Michiru, nevermind that Haruka had to defend Minako’s honor, they were her family. And they knew Small Lady was, too.

“Pluto?”

Her heart turned to ice. Usagi had been Queen for hundreds of years, but to Setsuna she had never been Serenity. But she knew as she walked into that room, that was who she faced now. Usagi’s eyes were lightless. Her face and heart had gone hard. “Yes, my queen?”

“There is one way to bring her back.”

Another kingdom crumbled. Another eon without the silver crystal. Another smattering of planets dead without the light of the universe to draw chaos’s eyes. It had never been Metalia’s doing. “I would not advise that.”

“I am not asking if it is a good idea. I am asking how to do it.”

“I will not tell you.” Queen Serenity had not needed to be told. She’d given Saturn the order without hesitation, and the crystal sealed the souls she wanted to save. Setsuna could only hope the crystal would keep that secret.

“I am ordering you.”

“Order me again in a few days, but I will not tell you now.”

She exited, but this time Rei followed. “She means to do as Queen Serenity did, doesn’t she?”

Setsuna nodded. “I want Small Lady back as much as anyone, but that cannot happen. I would have stopped it then if I could. I will not let it happen now.”

“It will take more than a few days for her to even start to move on.”

“Yes, but it gives us a little time to find some other solution. And if he can keep her otherwise calm, she may at least realize all she has left.”

Rei looked back in. “Mina said she should have another child,” Rei whispered.

“It would be unwise to suggest that.” She should, for the sake of the world. But Venus should have saved Small Lady, for the same. But after spending one life drilled to protect one person and one person only, she couldn’t be blamed for doing the same in her next, however much Setsuna wanted to blame her, hate her, for it.

“It would be best, then, if Minako doesn’t see her.” She frowned. “And Ami. Mako said… well, she might make it worse.”

Dread settled into Setsuna’s stomach. The divide was too perfect, too clean. But before she could say anything to Rei, they joined in the hall by the quartet.

“Where are you going?”  

“We have no beef with your girlfriend, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Juno spat.

Ceres put a hand on her shoulder. “If the queen hits the reset button, we don’t want to be a part of it. Our princess may be dead, but there’s a whole world to fight for.” She looked to Setsuna. “Can we outrun it?”

“Get out of Crystal Tokyo. It will only be the kingdom that is destroyed. I will find you if it is safe to return.”

Ceres nodded. They walked down the hall, but Vesta turned back. “We should have been faster. We should have saved her. I’m sorry.”

The same is true for me.


Chapter Two: Coming to Blows

“I want to go try and talk to her,” Mina said the next morning. “Haruka’s meeting me there for support. You’re welcome to come.”

Ami’s fingers traced the handle of her coffee cup up and down. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“If there’s going to be any chance of her not hating me forever, I’d better talk to her sooner than later.”

“Hm.” She looked less than convinced, but nodded. “I’ll go with you. Maybe if I talk to Usagi first…”

It was a perversely beautiful day. The sun shone in a clear azure sky, and the lightest breeze kept the heat at bay. The palace sparkled as they approached. Mina caught herself wondering if Mako would take Chibiusa on a picnic with the weather so nice. She bit down on her tongue to keep from crying. She didn’t deserve to grieve.

Haruka must have noticed, though, as she put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. She looked like she’d had a trainwreck of a night herself, but neither of them were in a mood for talking. Ami and Michiru trailed silently behind them.

Mina’s heart sank as they came in sight of the gate. The other senshi were waiting there, transformed. Pluto stepped forward. “You are not welcome here right now.”

“I need to see her.”

“Minako. Things are delicate right now, we’re on the edge of facing a repeat of the Silver Millenium’s fall.”

“And that’s my fault.”

“That’s not what I said.” But Mina noticed she didn’t deny it either.

“If she’s to that point, I need to help. If I talk to her–”

“There’s no guarantee it won’t make things worse.” She shifted her grip on her staff. “Please leave, Mina.”

Tears of frustration, and emotions far worse, threatened to gob up in Mina’s eyes, but she instinctively widened her stance. “Are you threatening me?”

“I don’t want to fight you.”

“But you will, is what you’re saying.” She eyed the rest of them. Hotaru looked ready to outright kill her, Mako was certainly rearing for a punch. Rei looked sad, but resolute. If she could get it out of their system, they’d be able to talk, maybe.

“Fine, if it’s a fight you want, it’s a fight you’ll get.”

“Mina–” Haruka started, but she had already transformed. She whipped her chain around Pluto’s staff and yanked it into her own hands.

“But you’ll have to catch me first.”

Mina, it seemed, couldn’t make any right decisions lately. Pluto ran after her, though Mina chained onto a building and propelled herself up, so Rei was unsure if she could be caught.

Uranus transformed, but Rei conjured her flame sniper arrow and aimed. “Let them fight this out.”

“They’ll hurt each other!”

“Pluto is prepared for that.” Back down, she willed Haruka. The only way to keep this from spiraling into something even worse is if we keep this all on Mina. She caught Michiru’s eye. She nodded and moved towards Haruka.

But Rei’s arrow sputtered out, her hands suddenly covered in slush. She looked to Ami. Her face was embarrassed but stern. “I’m sorry. It won’t help anyone if Minako dies for this.”

“That’s not–”

But Uranus took off, and Jupiter tore after her. Michiru, now Neptune, stepped in to keep Saturn from following.

“We were trying to keep this under control, Ami.”

“Uranus is right. They’ll get hurt.”

“Mina can more than handle herself, you know that.”

“And how’s Usagi going to feel if her best friend is dead alongside her daughter?”

“No one was going to die, that’s why Pluto was handling it alone.” Rei shook off her hands. “Did you turn off your brain for a day or what?”

“I think we’re all acting on emotions rather than logic right now.” She squared her shoulders.

“Some of us more than others.” She glanced towards the disappearing figures. So long as Mako didn’t catch Haruka, it might be alright. “I’m going after them.” She turned, stepped, and all but fell flat on her face. Her left foot was encased in a block of ice. “Goddamn it Ami, you said you didn’t want any of them hurt.”

“All of you were out here and ready to fight. How can I trust you?”

Rei seethed. “I think your trust issues have a lot more to do with Mako than me.” If Ami was going to play dirty, so was she. “Now unless you want your wife– ex wife?– to tumble this all out of control, you’ll let me go.”

Ami’s eyes were wide and hurt. But it was all the opportunity Rei needed.

Mina was fast. If the staff wasn’t there to hinder her, Setsuna would have been left in the dust. Minako shot up the sides of buildings with her chain, jettisoned from roof to roof, while Setsuna had to leap from foothold to foothold. Tree, windowsill, firescape, roof. Far too precarious for her liking, but she had to catch Mina before she doubled back towards the palace. Rei thought Hotaru and Makoto were the ones to worry about with Mina, but Setsuna had an increasing dread that Neo Queen Serenity. She was too raw, her power too ready. It wouldn’t bring Small Lady back no matter how much she begged, but it would lash out at her killer easily. No, not her killer. Mina only killed the monster, it was the monster who killed Small Lady. The difference was important. If she couldn’t keep ahold of it, there was no hope the others could.

She found Mina waiting on the next roof, facing away. What was a gentle breeze on the ground blew her hair out all around her. The sunlight dances across the strands like a flame. Pluto’s staff hung loosely in her left hand, the garnet orb resting against the rooftop. “Are you tired yet?”

“Minako, I am exhausted. Please stop this.”

“I hurt her, didn’t I?” Her voice was choked. “That’s why you don’t want me to see her. I hurt her beyond repair.”

“I don’t believe anything is beyond repair.” She took a slow step forward.

“Are you going to go back in time and fix it then?”

Another step. “You know I can’t do that. Some things are set as soon as they happen.”

Mina was quiet for a long moment. “This is my real curse, isn’t it? I let her be happy, and the kingdom falls. I choose her life above all else, and the kingdom falls.”

Setsuna shut her eyes and drew a deep breath. “Minako. We can still fix this. She lacks the singular focus Queen Serenity had, she can’t destroy everything so easily.”

She turned then, her eyes red and wet. “You can fix this. I fucked up too badly this time.” The staff clattered against the rooftop as it dropped from her hand. “I’ll leave. That’s what’s best, isn’t it? Maybe that always would have been best for her.”

Our crime is loving our queens too dearly. “She needs you. She will need you, when she’s ready to face the world.”

“For what? More bad decisions and cold-heartedness? The others can cover those bases.” She swatted tears off her cheek with the back of her hand. “If she triggers our rebirth, I’ll try to be a better guardian in that life. I’ll stay the distant Sailor V.”

Next time I won’t stay distant when things go wrong. I won’t follow orders unto her destruction. Setsuna swallowed hard. There was never a right choice. Stay obedient, and everything you knew and loved crumbled. Rebell, fight, die for the little girl you love, she dies anyway and history threatens to repeat itself. She took another cautious step. “We can’t tell how our decisions will turn out.” She meant to say it wasn’t Minako’s fault, but she couldn’t make the words come out. It was her fault, she let the enemy kill Setsuna’s precious friend so that she could save her own. “I understand.”

“Then you’ll let me go.” She turned to run and leap to another roof.

Her foot caught on the staff.

Setsuna saw it as though in slow motion, but she would never make it in time to keep Mina from tumbling off the rooftop.

Part of her wanted to leave it at that. There was nothing she could reasonably do.

The rest of her, though, had already dove for her staff.

“Setsuna has it wrong. She’s not the only one who remembers every detail of the fall.” Hotaru kept her glaive pointed at Michiru.

She would have laughed, if uncried tears weren’t blocking the way. If Hotaru remembered every detail, then she knew Neptune was there too. The good soldier who patrolled for external threats until only ashes remained within, who finally broke protocol to die with the glaive’s decent. “Are you going to tell Usagi then?”

Hotaru’s eyes narrowed. “I might. What good is this world without Chibiusa?”

“I’d say you take after me too much for your own good, but if that were true, you’d have done it already.” Michiru nodded towards the palace. “What’s keeping you from walking in there and doing it now?”

“You would stop me.”

“Perhaps.” It amazed her, sometimes, how much they all stayed the same as so much time passed. There had been a time, when Hotaru had been in middle school, when Hotaru had used the same excuse for not telling her mothers when she’d been invited to parties. “You wouldn’t let me go anyway,” she’d say. “Their parents aren’t going to be home.” There was always something else, Hotaru’s feelings about her erratic aging, her experiences as Saturn causing a disconnect, even occasionally ordinary bullying. The cover never worked, but she used it even now. “I imagine, though, you could kill me if you really wanted.”

Hotaru’s already red eyes welled up with tears. “I could. And it wouldn’t matter because everyone be dead in minutes anyway.” Her hands shook. “Even if Setsuna’s right, and it’s just Crystal Tokyo and not the whole planet, that’s millions of people.”

Michiru ached to hug her, to stroke her hair the way she had when she’d been younger and had nightmares, but she knew Hotaru would find no comfort in that now. “So what will you do?”

“I don’t know!” Her whole body heaved with the shout. “I want her back now, not in a lifetime, not after another thousand years of time travel and mismatched ages. I want things the way they were!”

“Oh Hotaru…”

“I don’t want your pity! I don’t want you at all!” She lashed out with the blunt end of the glaive, catching Michiru hard in the stomach.

She gasped for air, and by the time she could breathe again Hotaru was gone.

It had been too long since Haruka had seen a flash of gold to guide her. She stopped. It was possible Setsuna had caught Mina on a building. Haruka had stayed on the ground where she could run fastest, but she’d have to climb now to find and help Mina.

There was one problem, she found as she moved to make the first jump.

She’d stopped just long enough for Mako to catch up. She tackled her to the ground, breathing hard. Her fist mashed into Haruka’s jaw once, hard. “How can you take her side?” Mako’s voice was a rough croak, she’d clearly been crying most of the night. “Chibiusa was supposed to be the one kid who watched us grow old instead of the other way around.” She drove her fist into the pavement this time. Haruka imagined the ground cracking, but she didn’t dare turn her head to look. “I thought you of all people would understand that.”

Haruka thought of their children’s playdates, the parenting magazine swaps, the laughter over Haruka being the first to buy a minivan even though she’d had to sell one of her racers to fit it in the garage. It was nice that Makoto had held onto that image of her. But she thought of Hotaru and knew it was false. “I’ve always been heartless, don’t you remember? You were right about me from the start.”

That earned her another hit. Spots swam in her vision. She’d taken hits from Mako before, but Mako had never hit this hard. “You don’t get to act like this. Chibiusa is dead.” The third hit came with a sob. “How could Minako do it? How could you stand up for her?”

Haruka didn’t say anything. There was nothing she could say. Maybe it really did mean she’d loved Mina more than Chibs. Maybe it meant that nothing really had changed, maybe it meant she really never had good priorities with children. She wanted to believe she’d at least been a good parent to her own, but Hotaru was the only one left to ask, and that answer was definitive. She deserved everything Mako gave her and more.

Something gold flashed behind Mako’s head– Minako’s hair, there and gone so fast that for a moment Haruka was sure that the last punch had merely rattled her brain into hallucinations. But then she processed. Minako had been falling. Minako had been falling and then was no longer falling in the blink of an eye. No, please let me be wrong. She caught Mako off guard, shoving her off and scaling the building. Makoto followed, but Haruka couldn’t care. All that mattered was what she would find at the top of the building.

Minako sat on her knees, chest heaving with short breaths, head moving back and forth as though the no motion might convince her brain her eyes were wrong. Setsuna lay before her. Her hands still gripped her staff, and her face looked at peace. Haruka recognized too easily what had happened. Setsuna couldn’t let another senshi die, no matter how she felt about them.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t as obvious to everyone. Makoto gasped as she pulled herself onto the roof. “What have you done?”

June Same Prompt Fic Party!

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

lesbianneptune:

docholligay:

docholligay:

docholligay:

Hello, tumblducklings! It’s the first of June and I am
already on this, I haven’t been so excited for a prompt since Angstober. I’ve
been holding this back for a few months so y’all would be out of school and
ready to play, sp strongly do I feel about this.

The prompt for this month is: SENSHI CIVIL WAR

Based on the most enjoyable part of PMMM: Rebellion Story. I WANT TO SEE SOME MAGICAL GIRL THROW DOWNS

  • ·        
    Sil Mil? Crystal Tokyo? Total AU? Awesome, bring
    it.
  • ·        
    Because I feel so strongly about this, y’all
    have 3 weeks! Due June 21st at 6pm mountain time.
  • ·        
    And also THE LIMIT IS OFF. Want to write us a
    100,000 epic? Do it. Give us this gift. Draw a 90 page comic? SIGN ME UP.
  • ·        
    Please send me the link in an ask, fan mail, or
    submission! If you don’t do this, it’s VERY likely that I’ll miss it and then
    you won’t be in on the masterpost and everyone can’t enjoy your work!
  • ·        
    Has to use the prompt and include a strong
    Harumichi element.
  • ·        
    The prize is HOW CAN YOU NOT WANT TO SEE THAT???
  • ·        
    If you have any questions, let me know!
  • ·        
    As always, art and songs are included in this.

Never done this before? GREAT! We’d love to have you. Been
doing this forever? GREAT! I really do value each and every contribution to
these, they’re so much fun and I like to think they inspire people to do
~creative endeavors~

Tagging common participants: lesbianneptune tabletennishotaru current-breeze rocketonthemoon fortythousandth xrost princessneptune rosepetalrevolution oathkeeper-of-tarth jenngracey howmanyheartaches guavi dawnlight6 dreamshapers-universe princessbrivee eva-thru-the-year memoiresofamermaid badgertrout milkser coeuraubonheur bearisonford 

femmerosa minashouseofpleasure manarai sittingoverheredreaming 

C’MON YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO

CHANGING THE DUE DATE, Y’ALL. I am very behind on reading entires because I’m a useless human being everything that’s been going on in my life, and so the new due date is JUNE 28TH. SPREAD THE WORD. 

OH THANK GOD

June Same Prompt Fic Party!

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

docholligay:

Hello, tumblducklings! It’s the first of June and I am
already on this, I haven’t been so excited for a prompt since Angstober. I’ve
been holding this back for a few months so y’all would be out of school and
ready to play, sp strongly do I feel about this.

The prompt for this month is: SENSHI CIVIL WAR

Based on the most enjoyable part of PMMM: Rebellion Story. I WANT TO SEE SOME MAGICAL GIRL THROW DOWNS

  • ·        
    Sil Mil? Crystal Tokyo? Total AU? Awesome, bring
    it.
  • ·        
    Because I feel so strongly about this, y’all
    have 3 weeks! Due June 21st at 6pm mountain time.
  • ·        
    And also THE LIMIT IS OFF. Want to write us a
    100,000 epic? Do it. Give us this gift. Draw a 90 page comic? SIGN ME UP.
  • ·        
    Please send me the link in an ask, fan mail, or
    submission! If you don’t do this, it’s VERY likely that I’ll miss it and then
    you won’t be in on the masterpost and everyone can’t enjoy your work!
  • ·        
    Has to use the prompt and include a strong
    Harumichi element.
  • ·        
    The prize is HOW CAN YOU NOT WANT TO SEE THAT???
  • ·        
    If you have any questions, let me know!
  • ·        
    As always, art and songs are included in this.

Never done this before? GREAT! We’d love to have you. Been
doing this forever? GREAT! I really do value each and every contribution to
these, they’re so much fun and I like to think they inspire people to do
~creative endeavors~

Tagging common participants: lesbianneptune tabletennishotaru current-breeze rocketonthemoon fortythousandth xrost princessneptune rosepetalrevolution oathkeeper-of-tarth jenngracey howmanyheartaches guavi dawnlight6 dreamshapers-universe princessbrivee eva-thru-the-year memoiresofamermaid badgertrout milkser coeuraubonheur bearisonford 

femmerosa minashouseofpleasure manarai sittingoverheredreaming 

May Same Prompt Fic Party

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

docholligay:

Did your April showers bring May flowers? Did school kill you, and you are now rambling through tumblr as a ghost? Are you ready for the next round of fic and art to delight the senses? 

fortythousandth asked for something a little more porny suggestive than usual, so our prompt for this month, which can be taken whatever way you like it, is: 

“She had a list of things she needed to do. The first thing was always ‘Confess’ “

Which I took off of some weird Pinterest while trying to find something that could be porny but didn’t have to be. 

You have to use that somehow in your fic or your art—but whatever you decide to answer that with, or however you decide to use it, is up to you. It can be a direct quote from a character, a line in your fic, the title of your art, or simply expressed well enough that you feel you’ve given us a solid answer. 

The RULEBOOK:

  • Between 500 and 5,000 words in length
  • Has to use the prompt and be Harumichi. Which I think I explained well enough above, but who knows.
  • Due by May 16th at 6:00pm Mountain Time! Please send me the link in an ask, submission, or fan mail, I am going to make a master post with everyone’s stories linked. IF YOU DON’T DO THIS YOU WILL PROBABLY GET MISSED. My dash goes fast, and with that goddamn state championship baker post I don’t always see things I’m linked in.
  • I will post these in a master post for everyone to enjoy the sweet, sad memory of whatever it is that’ sweet and sad
  • The prize is a whole lot of Harumichi joy/angst/porn in one spot, for the CHILDREN.
  • If you have any questions, go ahead and ask me! I’ve been running this for awhile, so I’ve probably been asked it already, don’t worry.
  • As always, art and songs are welcome as well!

And, as always, we really welcome new talent into the fold! Rest assured that we’ll be nice to you, and we can’t wait to see your work.

Tagging common participants: lesbianneptune  dreamshapers-universe rosepetalrevolution howmanyheartaches @xdrain xrost fortythousandth manarai minashouseofpleasure rocketonthemoon oathkeeper-of-tarth coeuraubonheur milkser sittingoverheredreaming princessneptune dawnlight6 guavi jenngracey badgertrout bearisonford current-breeze eva-thru-the-year

femmerosa memoiresofamermaid tabletennishotaru

hey TUMBLR IS BEING A SHIT AND NOT LETTING ME @ PEOPLE. aS YOU CAN PROBABLY SEE ABOVE. So this probably needs to be reblogged more than usual. 

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

Alright! My entry for the April Same Prompt Fic Party,

“The memory of you emerges from the night around me"

. I was a little ambitious this month, and was a little worried I wouldn’t finish. But, here it is. ETA: AO3 link

After

~2000 words
Warning for death and suicide thoughts. Bad ending/No Crystal Tokyo AU.

Haruka did not know how long she’d been walking. The sun had
set, but she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t stay in the city in the middle of
everything and she’d thought she’d just go past the edge of the wreckage, but it went on for
miles and miles and still hadn’t ended. Maybe she’d walk forever, or until she
went straight into the ocean and stopped breathing. As long as she was moving,
she wasn’t thinking. So she just had to keep moving.

It had gotten easier since her leg stopped bleeding. Ami had
tried to bandage it, but Haruka had run. Let Ami treat the civilians, the
people who wanted to survive. There were orphaned children and broken children
and broken adults, Ami would have her hands full enough without trying to heal someone
as useless as her. Haruka felt dizzy now. The last fight had lasted two nights
and a day. When had she last slept? Ate? Did it matter?

She felt dizzier still when she saw an intact house in the
distance and recognized it. Her feet had taken to the shore. Of course their
beach cottage had survived. It made a terrible poetic sense. Michiru would have
been able to say something more eloquent about it. Haruka stopped. She hadn’t
meant to think that, but now it was there and it wouldn’t go away. The last stretch
of distance melted away.

 

She carried Michiru over the threshold. They hadn’t bothered
to change out of their wedding clothes; the train of her dress trailed over the
flower bed next to the door. “It doesn’t matter,” Michiru said when Haruka
apologized. “I hardly think I’ll have an occasion to wear a wedding dress
again.” She smiled the most beautiful smile Haruka had ever seen. The sea breeze
blew in and fluttered through the dirty train and Michiru’s hair. Haruka wished
she was the artistic one; the moment deserved to be a painting. She fumbled
around to find the camera she’d been sure to pack, but by the time she’d gotten
it out, the moment was gone.

The picture was beautiful, of course, it was of Michiru, but it wasn’t
the moment Haruka would remember forever.

The wind that blew in now was violent; crashing against the
windows and whistling through the cracks to make the curtains perform a ghostly
dance. The sea must have known what had happened. It was angry. But the wind is my domain. Haruka poured
herself a glass of scotch. The cupboards were still stocked; the place seemed
hardly touched. If she drank enough, maybe she’d forget the world was wrecked.
Maybe she’d forget that she was angry too.

“You’re going to get yourself killed!” Michiru screamed. Her
voice filled the empty house, this was why she’d brought Haruka here instead of
home. There was no one here for her shouting to wake up.

“We can’t get
killed,” Haruka screamed back, even though it hurt with her bruised diaphragm. “That’s
what Crystal Tokyo means, doesn’t it? We can do whatever stupid shit we want,
and we’re never going to die, or get old, or anything for a thousand years!”

“You don’t know that!”

“I do though! We’re frozen, Michiru! Other people are age
are having kids and getting wrinkles and growing gray hair, but not us.”

Michiru’s eyes went hard. “We have a daughter.”

“Pardon me for wanting one we never tried to kill, one that’s
actually, biologically, at least one of ours.”

“Don’t you ever let her hear you say that,” Michiru hissed.

The heat of anger swept out of Haruka as she realized what
she said. “I didn’t… I don’t mean… I love her, Michiru, I just…”

“Just what, Haruka? Just this isn’t good enough for you?
Maybe next time you get in a bar fight, don’t call me for your bailout then.”

Haruka drank deeply. The sting of alcohol made the sting of
tears less noticeable. Their suicide bomb of a daughter had ended it, had been
the only one who could. It wasn’t fair that the world had taken even Hotaru
from her. It wasn’t fair that part of Haruka wished they’d let Hotaru do it
right away. She was a child, frozen as a child. She should have gotten to grow
up. They should have been a normal family.

“Papa, look, Papa!” Hotaru gestured her paint covered hands
at her canvass. Haruka knelt to appreciate it closely. These past few months,
the cottage had become Michiru and Hotaru’s studio. Hotaru had no ear for
music, just as she had no feel for racing, but painting was her big connection
with her aqua-haired mother.

“It’s amazing,” Haruka said, meaning it.

“The apprentice will soon become the master,” Michiru said.
She graced down onto the couch with a smile. “You’ll have to start teaching me
soon.”

Hotaru pouted. “You’re lying.”

“Would that I were. All the galleries are going to start
replacing my work with yours. I’ll feel terribly jealous.”

“Michiru-mama!”

“Don’t you worry, I’ll find a way to live on, I’m sure.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” Hotaru crossed her arms. “You’re
so weird.”

“And you’re our daughter, so what does that say about you?”
Haruka asked.

“That I take after Setsuna-mama.” Hotaru stomped away to her
bedroom. Haruka and Michiru dissolved into giggles as soon as her door shut.

“It’s not such a bad thing,” Haruka said quietly, “that we
get so many extra years of this.”

Michiru smiled. “I’m not so sure she’d agree with you right
now.” She kissed Haruka lightly and cuddled into her side. “But I do.”

Haruka shivered in the drafts of wind. She didn’t trust
herself to stand and walk long enough to find a blanket. Eating before drinking
would have been smart. Haruka hadn’t wanted to be smart. Haruka didn’t want to
be alone. You’re not alone, Ami had
tried to say before she’d ran off. We’ll
find Mina and we’ll get through this together. As if Mina hadn’t died with
Usagi. They might find Venus, sure, but never Mina. Haruka might have been able
to stay for Mina’s sake. But Venus and Uranus had no love for each other.

She poured another drink instead of moving. Scotch had
calories, right? It would either sustain her or kill her. She wasn’t sure which
she preferred.

Before she could drink, there was a knock at the door.

“You get it,” Haruka mumbled, pressing her face deeper into
her pillow. The sun was already bright through the curtains, but she wanted to
sleep hours more.

“It’s probably a salesman.” Michiru kissed her neck. “I’d
rather stay here.” Her kisses trailed down her back.

“Michiru…” Sleep dropped from Haruka’s mind.

The salesman knocked again, but no one answered.

A short figure stepped in. He paused when he noticed Haruka
sitting on the kitchen floor. “Oh, I didn’t know anyone was here. It’s the only
place I’ve seen that wasn’t…”

“You’re welcome here.” Haruka was surprised at her own enunciation.
“There’s food. And drink.” She raised her glass.

The old man looked at her. He took her scotch from her. “We
could all use a drink, I suppose.”

There was a gentle chastisement in his tone, but no
judgement. Slowly she recognized him. She should have drunk more, then maybe
she wouldn’t have.

“I didn’t want to stay in the city,” Grandpa Hino said,
sitting down. He drained her glass and poured himself another. “I thought that
if I left, I wouldn’t have to know.”

Haruka said nothing. He had to have seen the blaze, that
first day. He had to know what it meant, but she couldn’t grudge him for
pretending. “I thought if I left, I could forget.”

“You’ll never forget,” he said quietly. “I passed ninety
last year, and I haven’t managed to forget.” He put the scotch to his lips, but
then set it down. “There are some people we’re just not meant to lose.” They were
quiet for a moment, and then he got up and shuffled towards the back of the
house. He came back with a blanket. “No sense in getting pneumonia.”

“Maybe not.”

He looked at her, sharp and sad. “You said there was food?”

Michiru sat across from Haruka, eyes sparkling in the
candlelight. Haruka wasn’t the greatest of cooks, but she felt like she’d done
alright for tonight. The lamb was tender, the rice fluffed. It was, at least,
much better than last time, when she’d attempted lobster. She hopped the poor
thing had survived when she let it go into the ocean.

“What’s the occasion?”

“Do I need an occasion?” Haruka asked, though she had one. “I
did some digging. Today is thirty years since we first met.”

“At your track meet?” Michiru flushed. “I can’t believe you
figured that out.”

“It wasn’t so hard.” Haruka took her hand and kissed it. “It
feels like yesterday.”

Grandpa Hino set a bowl of hot noodles in front of her. “Eat.”

Haruka couldn’t find it in herself to disobey. They were
plain, but she was hungry enough that they tasted like heaven. Grandpa Hino sat
next to her with his own bowl. They ate in silence for a long while.

“I thought this wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said finally.
“I thought… No one ever told me, but you all had a future. Chibiusa…”

“It wasn’t set in stone.”

He stared into his bowl. “That’s the first thing you learn,
when you learn fortune telling. The future’s inconstant and changeable. But she
wasn’t an omen in the fire. She was a girl. She can’t have just…”

“She did.” Haruka didn’t mean to be curt, but she couldn’t be anything else. Not without breaking.

He shook his head. Tears dropped into his bowl. “I thought
you were invincible.”

“So did we.”

Grandpa Hino took a huge heave of a breath. “Tell me who’s
left.”

“Ami. And… Venus.”

He didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. She wasn’t saying anything
he didn’t know. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know how important they were to you.”

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t protect them. Protect her.”

He forced a laugh through his tears. “She’ll come back to
haunt you for saying that. Or she would, if she didn’t have someone else who I’m
sure needs haunting.” He paused. “And you have your own ghosts to dispel.”

Haruka couldn’t respond for a long while. And when she did,
she knew it bordered on cruel, but she needed an answer. “How could you keep
going, after your daughter died?”

“I had Rei. She needed me. And I needed her.” His hands
shook. He pressed them too his eyes a long moment. “Ami and Mina need you.”

“Mina’s gone.”

“Bring her back.” Grandpa Hino stood to look her in the eye.
“I don’t know you that well, but I know them. Ami can’t hold together long by
herself. And Mina deserves to have someone fight for her.” His gazed softened. “Not
tonight. Maybe not tomorrow. But you need to do it. I need you to do it.”

“Maybe,” was all Haruka could say.

The first night had blurred into the second day. Too many
monsters, no sign of the source. Rei was gone. They’d nearly lost Usagi then
and there, but Mako had picked her up and ran. But now there was nowhere to go,
and the lack of sleep was catching up to them.

It took Haruka a long moment to realize when time literally
stopped. Setsuna looked at her sadly. “Take Hotaru and run.” To Minako—“Lead
everyone somewhere safe, hide awhile, get some sleep.”

“Pluto…”

“It’s too late. Go.”

Haruka lifted Hotaru on to her back, but then she realized
who wasn’t taking off with them. “Michiru!”

“Someone has to hold them back longer,” she said evenly, but
there were tears in her eyes. “Hotaru won’t make it without you. Usagi won’t
make it without the rest. Please, Haruka. Please.”

Haruka stepped towards her, for one last kiss, one last
touch, one last anything, but Michiru turned away, towards the frozen oncoming
monster horde. “Go!”

Haruka ran, hating every step. She felt the moment, nearly
an hour later, when Michiru died. Mina squeezed her hand tight, nodded at her
tears, and they kept running.

Haruka woke up on the kitchen floor, the corners of her eyes
crusty with salt. Grandpa Hino’s snores came from the couch. She couldn’t bring
herself to get up, and she nearly reached for the scotch the still sat just
inches away.

But maybe, just maybe, Grandpa Hino was right, and another
day, she’d be able to do something. Ami and Mina deserved something.