What Has Happened to Sailor Moon? A Guardian Angel Appears!
Drifts of mist floated in her vision, in shades of gray and so thick it was almost tangible. It wasn't like fog, at least the fog she knew. Normal fog was uniform and consistent; she shouldn't haven been able to see bits drifting by like ghostly scarves. They passed through her fingers when she curiously reached out for them, not even leaving dew on her skin. It wasn't light time-space mist, either. She couldn't see very far; no buildings or people loomed in her view. It was so absent of human existence, and so gray, her eyes would play tricks on her. They would forms shapes, not on purpose, but like clouds looking like familiar things. She would see a silhouette, even a shred of color, but it was a lie. There was no noise, either. No sound could be heard from anything, not even a passing car or birdsong. Her breathing was muffled by the noiseless mist. She should have felt cold, too. The mist should have chilled her to the bone. Instead, she felt nothing. She shivered anyways.
Moving forwards through the mist, she tried to find something, anything to tell her where she was. But even the ground felt queer. It was just as uniform as the air around her, although more solid. She wondered if one could walk on clouds, that this is how it would feel like. Kneeling, she tried to touch the earth, and found she couldn't. Panic should have shaken her; she should have trembled with fear. The emotions were there, inside her. But instead of fresh and new, they were echoes of remembered terror. Her mind worked, thoughts falling through like sand through her fingers, quick and small and many. Something was wrong, but she didn't know what. She tried to be reasonable, to remember what happened before she came to the strange place. It was easier than it had ever been.
They had been traveling, she and the other senshi. It was risky, they'd never dimension-jumped before, but there was never a question of not doing it. The prophet had failed, and her failure meant Mitsuko had failed as well. Mitsuko knew it was her duty. The Crisis Senshi had to be warned. But something... happened on the way there. They were holding hands, and suddenly they were not. She couldn't feel Luna's claws dig into her shoulder anymore, or Misora's or Kohaku's hands in hers. She landed in another world nonetheless, but she wasn't sure if it had been the right one. There was just enough time for her to look around the alley where she found herself and then...
She couldn't remember anything else. Maybe the landing was a false memory, and this was a dimensional pocket. If it was, she wanted to get out as soon as possible.
Mitsuko shouted, but the fog absorbed her voice. She shouted louder, more out of frustration than anything, then screamed. It was like the sound went dead as soon as it left her mouth. It was so unnatural. She tried to shrug it off, then paused. She stared at her hands, plucking at the dress she wore that seemed familiar but unfamiliar. She could have sworn she was wearing her sailor fuku when they jumped.
Then it hit her, like a stone dropped in a still pool of water.
She was dead.
Mitsuko sagged to her knees. Grief stirred inside her like a sleeping creature, but would not wake. She wanted to cry, she knew she should cry so tried to cry but no tears would fall. Clutching at herself, she rocked back and forth, keening quietly in place of weeping. She had not only failed in warning the Crisis Senshi, but she had failed her friends, her beloved. The future they knew would never come to pass. She had failed, in every sense of the word. She didn't even know how she died. The Silver Crystal would be with her body, if it was mostly intact. (She shuddered at the thought of being anything else but intact.) If the enemy was the one who killed her, no doubt they would want the Crystal. Old panic jangled in her veins. Her friends, they could be in danger. She couldn't even warn them. Mitsuko sobbed tearlessly. She wanted her friends, she wanted her lover. She wanted to be held and promised everything would be alright.
Another realization hit her, smaller and yet somehow more devastating. She could almost feel her heart crumble with the impact. This place, this nowhere she now inhabited. She would be alone here, forever. She was dead, and unhappy. There was only one place she could be.
The sun had given up the fight when Akemi returned to her hotel room. A lazy listlessness had settled into the teen's bones, her bag slipping onto the floor. The last traces of her characteristic vigor had been abandoned somewhere between the Ice Skating Ring (No Misora) and the Office Supply Store (No Izumi, but lots of pretty stationary), and without caffeine to recharge her, Akemi was dead on her feet.
She didn't notice Artemis tumbling out of the bag, his mouth open to launch a fiery tirade. But the cat took one look at Akemi and wisely made no comment, instead carefully picking his way through the rubble she'd created (how, in the few hours she had spent within these walls, Akemi could create such a mess was beyond him) before giving up and hurling his body onto the small bed. His eyes glowed in the dimness as he watched his charge.
Akemi turned the ancient television set on and slid over the mess to the bed. Her body stiffened as her eyes focused on the screen, and she sat heavily on the edge of the bed. Artemis curled beside her, a purr heavy on his throat. A crazy game show, just what she'd want to watch. Akemi closed her eyes as a quick chill pressed deep into her chest.
"Mitsuko, I wish you were here," She whispered softly, blindly drawing the heavy form of Artemis close to her still chilled heart.
Out of the nothingness around Mistuko (or perhaps from that nothingness...because of that nothingness), a strange figure appeared to the confused girl. Clad in a completely white, empty sailor fuku (there were no bows adorning it, only a collar and skirt), the figure's short, spiked gray hair and pointed ears made her seem rather stinging, almost like the pinprick of a needle against skin or the feeling of very stiff grass against feet. Her eyes, though, seemed devoid of all color. It was strange - she had clear irises and pupils, but any person looking at her would be unable to explain exactly how they were able to distinguish her features at all. Truthfully, upon first glance she blended in perfectly with the stillness around them both; at first glance, nothing appeared to be there. However, upon further inspection, one would notice a fluctuation in this nothingness, like a heat wave around fire, distorting the air ever so slightly, but still a part of what made it.
"I never believed I would meet you here," words came at Mitsuko from all around. It wasn't as if anyone was speaking these words. It was almost as if the ideas merely existed, and because they existed, one thought them, and so it felt as if one were having a conversation with someone else. "You are new here, yes?"
If any temperatures could be felt in this silent place, Mitsuko would have felt a chill, but a heated sort of chill - the feeling one gets when one takes a very hot bath after being outside in a very cold blizzard. There was a sense of opposing forces, but somehow those forces became one feeling. This feeling pervaded the area, and somehow, more ideas flowed through it. "Someone is waiting for you. Can you hear them?"
And gradually, as if passing through a tunnel of water, the area changed. What was once nothing slowly formed into a television set and a teenage girl with a fuzzy mess of bright blond hair and glasses, holding herself as she watched some noisy program. The noise could not be heard, but it could be felt, like a deaf person can feel the vibrations coming through the speakers at a concert. The girl's thoughts were also heard, but these thoughts - thoughts that carried much more weight with them than the cheap, materialistic ideas that emanated from the TV screen - felt louder, bigger than anything else in the room.
"Mistuko, I wish you were here..."
Mitsuko continued to stare in disbelief at the woman for a moment. Relief rippled through her, soaking and easing the despair she had felt. She was not alone. She could have been trapped with every enemy she'd ever encountered, and she would have been relieved. Then, just as suddenly, she realized her surroundings had changed. She jumped to her feet, looking around wildly. After the eye-numbing nothingness, the colors of the room almost blinded her. It was unfamiliar, but with recognizable touches. It was then she saw the more-than-familiar figure on the bed.
"A-Akemi-chan? Akemi-chan!! I'm so glad to--" she reached out to touch her, and her hand passed right through her friend. Mitsuko gasped, pulling her hand back as if it had been burned. That's right, she was dead. She wanted to cry all over again. Turning, she looked at the stranger again, "My apologies, I... forgot myself. I'm Mitsuko, what's your name?"
"I know you, Mistuko, though we have never met," the woman spoke as she came closer to Mitsuko. Peering rather dazedly at the television set, she continued explaining, with a soft echo of sadness in her voice. "I am...well...I suppose I am no one now. You may call me what you will, but I supposed all that is left of me is O. Feel free to call me this."
The woman blinked once, but as everything else in this strange place, the blink had meaning. There was something effervescent, untouchable and yet everywhere in her blink. She gave Mitsuko a meaningful look, and began, "You are no longer in the living world. Your body is most likely destroyed at this point.
"But your soul...well..." she hesitated, a look of concern etched on her face as her brow furrowed. "Things...they aren't going as planned. Everything is...ah, it's my fault, but I can't stop it, and I..."
Her face now had an expression of urgency, and she stepped next to Mitsuko. Wrapping her thin arm about Mitsuko's shoulders, she whispered, "This is happening in your mind." Sighing, she turned with Mitsuko to face Akemi once more, who now seemed even more far away than before. "Listen to her thoughts...maybe you will understand."
Akemi's thoughts had the same consistency of luke warm oatmeal, the same boring refrain repeated ad nauseam. Moon was gone, that wasn't going to change, she had killed her, what was she going to do now? The words raced through the teen's exhausted head, whirling around for a second pass during the commercial break.
After the second commercial, Akemi decided this was getting her no where. She growled and pushed the cat away, lurching to her feet. She hurled her body, much like her thoughts, through endless cycles, back and forth across the small room, piles of clutter parting beneath her heavy tread.
By the 19th pass, Artemis had enough of that. "Akemi, you need to rest," He looked as if he wanted to say more, but was interrupted by a large yawn. This universe was so tiring...
All motion ceased as Akemi twisted towards Artemis, words and thoughts amplified to eleven. "And how can I rest? My girls are out there. I should be out there finding them. They haven't been alone. They haven't fought alone. Moon's death is my fault, Artemis. I should have trained them to take care of themselves instead of just relying on the team."
The cat wisely said nothing, but his eyes were mocking fireflies in the dimness. Akemi groaned in frustration and flung herself on the bed again, hard belly striking the equally hard mattress. "Maybe you are right," She said after a moment, her voice very small. "I just... I wish we could go home. I hate this place."
"Akemi-chan," whispered Mitsuko, yearning to touch and comfort her. O's arm offered no such consolation. She felt as if she was made of solidified air, if there were such a thing. To Mitsuko, Akemi's grief felt more tangible, more real, than anything else. She watched Akemi pace the room fretfully. "It's not your fault, Akemi-chan," she murmured. Her hands formed helpless fists at her sides. Crumpling to her knees, Mitsuko pressed her palms to her face. She didn't turn to address the woman called O, "I don't understand. I know... I know I am dead. Am I a ghost now? Must I stay here until my soul is appeased? Or is this a punishment?" She dropped her hands to look around again, repeating half to herself, half to her companion, "I don't understand."
O shook her head slowly, seeming to desperately want to convey some emotion beyond strained apathy, but unable to do so. If this realm allowed her to emote at all, her expression would have been that of pity and a desire to comfort would have etched itself in her mannerisms, but unfortunately...
"This is the realm of thought," O said with a sad little hint of a smile (the most she could muster). "Emotions have no place here, and are muffled in the mist of consciousness. We are in what is called the Halfway Dimension." She stepped close to Mitsuko now, but being unable to touch her, simply let her be.
"You have not been punished," she murmured, wishing desperately to apologize for something that had little to do with her. "But you died in a way that should not ever happen. Now, you must be willing to return to the living to leave this place. Until then, you will see the thoughts of others when they think of you."
She continued to stare at Akemi. "Do you wish to continue seeing this, or would you prefer to move on? Many others are thinking of you right now."
"Thinking of me?" echoed Mitsuko, faintly. There was a hint of disbelief, as if she wouldn't know why anyone would do such a thing. She looked up at O, searching her face for meaning. O's faint expression offered nothing. Mitsuko turned to gaze at Akemi, lying on the bed, and Artemis as well. In the time that she spent alone in the Halfway Dimension, her memories of her friends seemed to fade. She didn't want to forget them, she never wanted to forget them. She rose to her feet again, folding her hands at her waist.
"Yes..." she said, "I would, I would like to see the others, please. Just... one question, do you know what happened to the Ginzuishou when I..." she hesitated, swallowing down the lump in her throat that wasn't there. It was still strange to think of herself as anything but living. "Died," finished Mitsuko.
Kohaku had not had a good day. School had been depressing. Kakera's cronies had pestered her at lunch. She'd been forced to pose with a bunch of drunk tourist boys on her way home from school and a chattering family at the temple. One of them had even slipped her a little pamphlet, featuring a bad comic and what was apparently some sort of message of faith. The disrespect had been the last straw.
She'd changed into her pajamas and was getting things together for the next morning. There was some sort of soap opera on and the window was open, meaning Phobos was watching from the gingko tree outside. A rustling from the table she used as a vanity gave away the fact that Deimos was trying on jewelry. Kohaku went to the bathroom sink and filled a watering can. There was a jar of plant vitamins on a shelf which she added to the can and stirred with the opposite end of her toothbrush. Removing her hairpins and shaking down her masses of red hair, she went out into the yard.
The moon was out, making it easy to see where she'd put it. There were two shapes standing near the little shrine and there was the distinctive rattling sound of a spray can being shaken. Kohaku froze. There were flecks of blue at their feet. She gently set down her watering can and grabbed the hoe that sat by the door.
The two hoodlums never saw it coming. One minute they were kicking over potted violets and preparing to tag the tree, the next, the understood why you left temples alone. A demon, with red hair and swinging what looked like a scythe, came at them, screaming curses. They dropped the cans and fled.
Kohaku made sure they were gone and ran back to the shrine. The little clay statue of Kaguya-hime had been crushed and three of the four pots of violets had been trampled to nothing. She righted the surviving flowerpot and burst into tears.
It's not fair! she thought miserably, Damn you, Princess! Why did you die? What gave you a stupid idea like that!? Then, gently, It's not fair. It should have been me. I would have warned them, if you'd let me.
O shrugged, helpless to offer much in the way of revelations. "I'm afraid I don't know the exact fate of the Ginzuishou," she replied. "I can say that it is most likely undamaged. If the Ginzuishou were destroyed, it would have horrible consequences on all of existence. However, I do not know who is in possession of it at this time."
She looked about her briefly, as if to dismiss this issue, and in the next instant, their surroundings once again changed. An echo of the words "It's not fair" resounded briefly in their thoughts, and the mist around them swirled to form a Shinto shrine where a girl with red hair stood, weeping as she cleaned up a mess that had been made.
"She is thinking of you. Listen."
"Stupid delinquent boys," she sniffled under her breath. She took the broom and swept the dirt away as best she could. Then she sat down in front of the shrine and glared at the single remaining violet. "I'm not buying you anymore violets, Princess!" she muttered, "You hear? The last ones wilted, the ones before those got eaten by a cat of all things. These are for you, you know! And I KNOW you can hear me wherever you are!"
She gathered up the watering can and watered the violet. There was a fluttering of wings above her.
"Kohaku-chan," said Deimos, "It is not the fault of the mountain that the landslide killed the deer."
"I'm not in the mood for fortune cookies," she snarled, "Phobos, can you bring me my photo album?"
Flutter, flutter. A small cherry-print booklet flopped to the ground in front of her. She picked it up and flipped through, choosing a single photo and pinning it beneath the flower pot, so that only the faces could be seen. It was from last summer, when her grandparents had paid for them to go to the beach for a weekend. Mitsuko and Kohaku had split a sundae between them. Both of them had chocolate sauce and whipped cream on their faces and were grinning madly. She'd replace the statuette before the next rainstorm.
"She was beautiful," whispered Kohaku, "She was too pretty to die." She choked back a sob. "Mitsu-hime, you idiot! I warned you! I warned you and I should have saved you, I'm vain and self-centered and mean and--I should have been the one!"
She collapsed and hid her face in her hands as a fresh fit of crying hit her.
"K-kohaku-chan?" Mitsuko's expression was one of faint shock. It still felt so strange, if it could be described as feeling, knowing she should feel emotions and not being able to. She could only remember the emotion, how and when she should feel it. But she never thought she would hear Kohaku say such things. The violets (she wished she could smell and touch them), and the statue were a surprise enough. She wanted to tell Kohaku she shouldn't waste her money on such stupid things, that she shouldn't say such stupid things.
"Oh, Kohaku-chan," her hands pulled and twisted at each other, plucking the numb unflesh, "I didn't want them to worry..." She knew she couldn't hear her, but she had to speak. "Don't call yourself... you're so much stronger than I am, Kohaku-chan. You're brave, you can live without me, I know it."
She sighed, before turning to O, "I want to help my friends. Please, please tell me how to help my friends." Her expression returned to neutrality. "There must be something I can do."
O raised a hand, a gesture as if she wanted to express emotion, but somehow still empty of meaning. "There is nothing I can do for you. It is something you must find within you, and not from me."
She looked over to the sobbing girl. O's eyebrows twitched ever so slightly as she looked on. "Touch her."
It seemed like a ridiculous suggestion, given Mitsuko's previous attempts, but there was something about this girl that made O curious...
"All... all right," Mitsuko gave O a skeptical glance. But she was curious as well, and it's not like she had anything to lose in the attempt. She moved over to Kohaku, examining her for a moment before resting her hand on Kohaku's shoulder.
"Please don't cry, Koha-chan," she murmured, almost unconsciously.
Kohaku felt something. It was a soft as a sleeping child's breath, yet she jumped to her feet like she'd been struck. Her mind and mouth were running on automatic.
"Princess! Don't sneak up on me like that! What's wrong with you? I was worried sick! They said you were dead and I'm tearing the city apart trying to find the others--!" She stopped herself. There was no one there now. Or was there? She could feel something hazy, something familiar.
"Hello? Mitsu-hime?" She shook her head. Of course not. "Whoever's there, I'm sorry I shouted at you. I thought you were somebody I knew." The tears continued to flow, but she seemed calmer, more like her usual urbane self. "I don't know who this is. But, I hope you find peace. Come back any time you like, we could use a ghost to scare away the blasted tourists. I hear blood and black water dripping from things is popular nowadays."
She took up the watering can and fed the flowers. Then she knelt beside the shrine and prayed for Mitsuko's spirit.
Mitsuko withdrew her hand, pressing it against the other and to her chest. "It's okay, Kohaku-chan," she replied, even though she knew she wouldn't be heard, "I would shout too." She wished she could do a haunting, at least that would be something.
After a moment, she dropped to crouch on her haunches, watching Kohaku tend the plants. Briefly, the memory of the scent fooled her into believing she could smell the violets. She spoke softly, "May I see the others now? I mean... I'd be fine to stay and watch Kohaku-chan for a while, but..." Her voice trailed off, she didn't really know how to end the sentence.
O's eyebrows twitched up slightly, a movement that could have indicated anything from indignation to surprise to consent. After all, it was never easy to tell with this woman, a wisp of something that could only be called half-life in this strange, smoky-emotional dimension.
"Yes," she replied, and without any sort of movement or indication from her, the scenery around them suddenly evaporated, leaving only traces of colors that once represented something that was too far away to really see in the first place. Where emotion had once stirred, as a dying bird's wing might tremor just before it glimpses nothing more, there was now only emptiness - complete transparency.