Multi-colored rainbows glinted across the room as the beautiful diamond sparkled, as if in conjunction with the brilliant sunlight. Dawn had burst over the horizon not moments ago, blinding the senshi with its beams. Blinding them from the figure that lay crumpled in the middle of the room, the carpet around her stained deep crimson with heart's blood. Blood that lay long cold around Usagi's dead body.
The senshi had waited an hour before venturing into the room. Their self-excuse was that they were waiting for the Outers, but in truth, no one wanted to face up to the still figure whose wound still seeped every now and then. Like the bleeding and broken heart it was.
Now they stood at the doorway, shock still written across their faces in deep, clear lines that any onlooker could read and interpret like a book. They just couldn't understand the body that lay in front of them. The innocence they had left told them that if they just closed their eyes and walked away, the figure would turn into a smiling Usagi, waving her hand at them as she tried to get to class on time. Society ingrained this innocence that in itself is just the first lesson in looking after only yourself, something Usagi had never done.
The threads of an all too tiny universe were coming together for a spectacular encounter. The fate of all the senshi knew was to rest on a not too distant future moment when the Child of the Void would be re-born for the thousandth time and commemorate an ancient anniversary date. The Child could cast her dice with the lot of mortals, or she could turn her back and let the universe self-collapse onto itself. For each time she was re-born, the Child either cared too much or cared too little. What the senshi didn't know is that this form was their best bet for survival. They had been tested and found somewhat lacking to be the Child's companions and protectors.
Yet they didn't know their failure or the rising evil. All they knew and cared about at this moment was the limp figure of a once proud princess.
---
"What are we going to do with the body?" Ami asked with her ever-practical manner.
"That's cold," Makoto hissed. Out of all the senshi, she was the one to take this the hardest. She was feeling the deep ache inside her as she beat her heart and soul into submission and tried to ignore the hot press of tears against the backs of her eyelids. The death of her Princess, the only person she had had left to truly care about, was now dead, and that blow was the final one to an already unstable mentality.
"I was only-"
"Don't say a word! You were all against her from the beginning. She died because of us! Because you people wanted this to happen. She already had a fucking death wish and you just took advantage of that! Let me tell you something, senshi," Makoto said with venom laced words, "*My* princess was the woman who showed me my Path. She will *always* be here!" She pounded on her chest. "She will never rot in you memories or become an unwilling martyr while I still hold some small seed of life in this shell of a body!"
Makoto turned to the still form that lay in a fetal position and seemed to have gained some luminescence. She summoned her henshin pen and slipped it between Serenity's hands. "As long as she is dead, no longer will I bear the name of Jupiter's Chosen." And with that, Makoto brushed past the stunned senshi.
A faint melody was heard in the quietness of the sun-splashed room. It was eerily familiar...yet in someway smug. And then Minako found herself alone on a barren and weed filled plain. Inside a walled in circle, there looked to be the remnants of a once well tended garden. That same haunting melody as before was slipping past her ears, teasing and taunting as it made her turn around. Minako found herself overlooking an expanse of water with a small silver pillar in the center. Minako could faintly make out a blurry figure atop the column, one that radiated light. She started to walk towards the cliff's edge and found herself on the brink faster than she could blink.
'Moonrise...moonset...moonrise...moonset...
You stand at the brink and bet
What melody do you sing when you're falling...
Falling'
All Minako could see though was that angelic figure with her dress fluttering in an unfelt breeze, humming to herself as she watched sparkling streams of blood gush down the sides of the pillar.
'Fallen soldier
What song do you hum
Apocalypse or blood
Life coming undone'
Minako took another step, the figure turned and all Minako could see was those cold lapis eyes boring deep into her inner being and not stopping when they ripped her heart to shreds. Minako cried out in pain as the billowing hurt radiated outwards to the tips of her fingers and the nails on her toes.
'Moonrise...moonset...moonrise...moonset...
Betray the fallen oh soldier,
What sword to be borne weeps
Thine enemy to be crossed?'
Minako stepped forward, her sub consciousness screaming that she was one foot away from nothingness.
Another step.
Minako now had one foot on ground and the other resting in the updraft from the steep cliff below. Then she took the last step. The plummet went on and on...But all Minako could see were those sapphire eyes and the tune that would drive her mad.
---
"She's angry." Minako suddenly said, snapping out of her daze.
"Of course Mako-chan's angry, Usagi was her everything." Ami mumbled.
Minako spoke softly, "Not Makoto, Her." She pointed to the innocently shining body. "Moonrise, moonset eight times." Minako's eyes suddenly got wide. "Eight lunar years. It's a warning, we will die and the Earth will be barren and lifeless because She will hold back her blessings. Only blood will appease her. The only question is whose..." Minako trailed off.
"How do you know?" Ami asked quietly, truly scared for the first time in a long while.
"My dream...Right when Mako-chan left...a vision..." Minako's voice got faint and her eyes glazed over, as if she was looking at a far away site that no one else could see. She softly hummed a nameless melody. "'Moonrise...moonset...moonrise...moonset...What melody do you sing when you're falling...moonrise...moonset...moonrise...moonset...What soldier weeps for thine enemy crossed?" Minako looked up for a second at the others and most stumbled back in surprise. The soft cerulean eyes of Minako were now a hard crystalline blue. The sound that came out of her mouth a voice from the dead. "Dream oh soldier whilst thou know how and weep thy angel for a long dead moon hanging like a milky eye from thine raven hair deep in thoust sky..." She gave a toothy smile and then all that remained was Minako humming that endless tune.
Stillness fell on the assembled senshi. Minako snapped back to reality and took a couple steps forward, in the direction of Usagi's body. She bent down and caressed her strangely pliable hand. She kissed the little ring on the middle finger and whispered into the smooth pink shell or Usagi's ear, "All I ever wanted was to be next to you. To hold and love you. Even when I was blind, I had your eyes and when I was lost, it was only in your diaphanous gown. Your song is the one I'll sing when I'm plummeting into you."
Minako slipped her henshin pen into Usagi's hands, right next to the one of Jupiter. She did not even notice when the blood began to creep up her legs. Only when it caressed her inner thigh did she hear the screams of the other senshi. Minako turned and they watched with horrified eyes as the cocoon of blood swallowed her.
---
"No! She has taken Minako too!" Rei wailed.
At that moment, the bloody cloak slithered off of Minako's body and seeped back into Usagi's prone form. Rei gasped as she stared at the almost sad woman that stood in front of her. She had long reddish-blonde hair and her lips seemed even deeper, like twin rose petals covered in fresh blood. But it was her eyes that were the most changed. They were silvery-blue and held nameless places and faces that had no name. Yet, when she spoke, it was like hearing the driest whisper of Usagi in her mouth.
"I will stand with the senshi no longer. May you go where you please and come where you wish. And I hope you find peace. Because when you sleep, and when you die in battle, you will find only Her. And she isn't ready to forgive...or forget."
And with that, what will be known in history only as the Parting, had happened. More threads coming together in the picture inscribed in the web of Fate.
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