Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Neptune: Year One ❯ VIII ( Chapter 9 )

-Neptune: Year One-

Disclaimer: I do not own the Sailor Moon series or the character of Sailor Neptune. Both are the property of Naoko Takeuchi.

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-VIII-

“How are you feeling?” Pluto asked as she came over carrying two cups.

Michiru glared angrily at her. “How am I feeling?” she asked incredulously. “Are you serious? How do you think I’m doing? I have a headache, I got sick in front of my friends, and ever since meeting you I’ve been having recurring nightmares. Also, I’ve fought two monsters now alone, and both times I nearly lost. If you’re my fellow Senshi, why are you never anywhere around to help me?” She then brought her hand back up to her forehead, wincing at her headache. “And to top everything else off, I think I’ve fallen into a love triangle between my sempai and the wind.”

Pluto’s eyes widened suddenly. “The wind?”

Michiru shook her head. “Don’t ask.”

Pluto nodded, but the intense look in her eyes didn’t fade. “First thing’s first. Here, take these,” she said, offering one of the two paper cups she had to Michiru. Inside the cup were two small pills. “It’ll help with the effects of the daemon.”

Michiru took the two pills and placed them in her mouth. Taking the second cup, which contained water, she swallowed them down. “Pluto-sama, why weren’t you there to help me?”

Pluto sat down next to Michiru on the examination table and drew in a deep breath as she crossed her legs. “There are certain rules I’m forced to follow, taboos which I am not allow to break. One of them is that, under normal circumstances, I’m forbidden to abandon my post at the Gates of Time.”

Michiru finished off the water. “Then why are you here now?”

Pluto gazed searchingly into Michiru’s eyes. “You say you’ve been having recurring nightmares. During your battle with this last daemon you mentioned both Beryl and Serenity, and you just now made mention of the wind. Michiru, just how much do you remember?”

Michiru looked confused. “Remember?”

“Describe the recurring dreams to me.”

Michiru smirked. “Maybe it would help if I lay down and you took notes?”

Pluto narrowed her eyes. “This isn’t the time for levity, Michiru-san.”

Michiru crossed her arms. “Fine. There’s a kingdom in flames, people are dying, and I’m hurt. There’s someone else, a woman I feel a connection with, like a sister or best friend.”

“Or lover?” Pluto asked.

Michiru nodded. “Yes, now that you mention it. She calls me her love, and she has blonde hair, that I remember. But the nightmare always ends before I get a look at her.”

“I see… And Serenity and Beryl?”

Michiru brought both hands up to her head and closed her eyes. “I don’t know,” she answered with a sigh. “It… It made sense somehow at the time I was saying it, when I was under the influence of the daemon’s attack, but now I have no idea why I’d mention those two names.”

Pluto nodded. “You say you’re in a triangle between the wind and your sempai?”

“Hai, I…” she stopped when she fully realized what she’d just admitted to. “And before you ask, yes, that would mean I’m attracted to girls. Or is that not in destiny’s plan?”

“Actually, it is,” Pluto responded with a slight smile.

Michiru gave the Time Senshi a strange look, then looked away again. “You… You’re the first person I came out to.”

“Then history repeats itself again it would seem. Tell me more about the wind,” she said, ignoring the freshman’s confused look.

“It’s hard to explain without coming out sounding crazy.”

“Try me.”

“I had a dream where a woman’s voice said something about only the wind could stir my waters. Then, she told me to remember her.” Looking at Pluto again, she gave her a pleading look. “Pluto-sama, what did you do to me? What’s happening?”

Pluto looked at the young girl sitting next to her expressionlessly for a few seconds before getting up from the examination table and walking over to a chart. “A little over twelve thousand years ago,” she began as she came back over with the chart and a thermometer, “There was an ancient solar system wide kingdom known as the Silver Millennium. Open your mouth,” she said, sticking the thermometer in the girl’s mouth and looking at her watch as she continued. “The ruler of this kingdom was Queen Serenity, and she ruled from her palace on the moon. Those who lived in the Kingdom of the Moon watched over man’s progress on Earth, and guarded the sacred stone known as the Silver Crystal. On the dark side of the moon, however, there was a much smaller kingdom ruled by a tyrant named Queen Nehelenia. Open,” she said, removing the thermometer from Michiru’s mouth. “Hmmm, ninety-eight point six. Good,” she said as she wrote the result down on her chart.

“Roll your sleeve up,” she said as she wrapped an automated blood pressure gauge around Michiru’s arm. “No one knew of Queen Nehelenia or the existence of the Dark Moon Kingdom before the birth of Princess Serenity, when she showed up at the grand reception and attempted an insurrection. Queen Serenity defeated Nehelenia, but not before the Queen of the Dark Moon placed a curse upon the kingdom that the Silver Millennium Kingdom would fall and that Princess Serenity would never reach the throne.” Pluto released the blood pressure gauge and wrote the results down.

“A few years later,” she continued as she placed her fingers on Michiru’s wrist and checked her watch to get her pulse, “Princess Serenity fell in love with the Earth’s Prince Endymion. That did not sit well with an Earth monarch by the name of Beryl, who was in love with Endymion as well.” She released her wrist, wrote new notes down, and continued. “Beryl was enraged with jealousy. She made a pact with a dark force from deep within the sun that called itself Queen Metaria. She then proceeded to corrupt Prince Endymion’s four guards, the Shitennou, into betraying their lord and siding with her in a rebellion of the earth people against the Moon Kingdom. It was a double betrayal, however. Princess Serenity’s guardian Senshi, Princesses Mercury, Mars, Venus and Jupiter had each fallen in love with one of the Prince’s guard. The Shitennou thus betrayed not just their prince, but the love of the four guardian princesses as well.”

She motioned for Michiru to walk over to a scale and started to measure her height. “As a result of the war, the Moon Kingdom was destroyed just as Nehelenia had predicted it would be. The Earth Kingdom was likewise decimated back to the stone age, and mankind was forced back to square one. Along with the four Senshi of the inner solar system who guarded the princess, there were four other, far more powerful Senshi; the Senshi of the outer solar system. You were one of them…”

“Me?” Michiru asked with a start.

“Those ‘nightmares’ are long forgotten memories of a past life that are only now resurfacing.” Checking the scale, she nodded. “Right, one hundred and sixty-three centimeters, or roughly five foot four.”

“But, but that’s crazy.”

“Which would you say is crazier, Michiru san? That you’re the reincarnated Princess Neptune of the Silver Millennia whose ancestral castle on the moon of Triton even now continues to rotate around the planet Neptune, or that a thirteen year old virgin should be told she’s suddenly been chosen to carry the son of God?”

“Leave my parents religion out of this,” Michiru grumbled.

“Fair enough, but you are what you are, so you’d best get used to it,” she said as she carefully recorded the freshman’s weight.

“And what if I don’t wish to ‘get used to it’?” Michiru asked as she pulled her henshin wand out of her pocket. Like the sea, she was usually able to hide her feelings beneath a seemingly tranquil surface, but Pluto’s aloof smugness was slowly stirring her to storm. “What if I gave this thing back to you and said to hell with fate, moon kingdoms, princesses and the lot of it?”

“Oh?” Pluto asked as she arched an emerald eyebrow. “And does that mean you’re no longer curious about the blonde or the wind?”

Michiru’s face fell. Pluto had an ace up her sleeve, and had waited until now to use it. “We had a deal, Pluto-sama,” she said defensively, “You agreed not to try to manipulate me.”

Pluto looked at the girl in front of her thoughtfully for a moment before putting her clipboard down. “Fair enough,” she said as she sat back down next to Michiru. “The blonde from your memories is Princess Uranus. She is a fellow Outer Senshi, and like you she was charged with guarding the outer reaches of the solar system from hostile invasion and threats both inter and trans-dimensional. She was also the love of your life, just as you were the love of hers.”

Michiru was silent as she processed the new information. “I see,” she said finally. “And the wind?”

“The wind can only mean one thing.”

“Which is?”

“She’s been reincarnated as well, that much is certain. Even now destiny is slowly but inexorably working behind the scenes to draw us all back together in this modern era. I’ve yet to find Uranus though, and she is as yet not fully awakened. However, it would seem that your awakening has woken up some deep subconscious spark of Uranus within her, wherever she is, and that spark is calling out to you.”

Michiru crossed her arms again. “And what about my sempai, Miyuki-sama? How does she fit into all this?”

Pluto’s eyes held a certain melancholy in them as they looked upon the younger Senshi. “She doesn’t.”

Michiru looked perturbed. “But, how do you know? What if she’s Uranus? Wouldn’t that explain these feelings I have for her?”

“She isn’t. I’ve observed her long enough to be sure of that.”

“But… Okay, she’s not Uranus. Fair enough. Just because Uranus is out there somewhere and she and I were supposedly once in love doesn’t necessarily mean…”

“You’re forgetting destiny, Michiru-san.”

Michiru glared at Pluto. “I never asked for destiny to pick me, nor did I ever ask to be chosen by you or anybody else to save the world either. I’m just a school girl who dreams of being a violinist some day, or am I to toss my own dreams out the window now that you tell me all this?”

“Michiru…”

“No,̶ 1; she said as she tossed her wand to the floor in front of Pluto. “I’ve heard enough. Today was the last straw. Find someone else to give up their life for you, I quit!” She then turned and stormed out of the room.

Pluto sighed as she picked up the henshin wand. “Stubborn and strong willed as ever,” she remarked. The girl came from a privileged background, and was clearly used to getting what she wanted. Finding out there were forces beyond her control was obviously something new to her. Pluto held up her own henshin wand, her nurse’s outfit disappearing in a bright flash of purple light, to be replaced by her familiar sailor fuku. Her time staff materialized in her hand, and she quickly used it to open the Time Gate.

“Serenity-sama,” Pluto muttered as she disappeared into the gate, “Wherever you are, you should’ve set aside a third cat.”

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“But what I don’t understand is why Joan of Arc,” Takayo said as she, Miyuki and Chieko sat in the small waiting area of the first aide station. “I mean, doesn’t every girl’s school do Joan of Arc?”

“It was either that or the story of Saint Maria Goretti.” Miyuki answered with a shrug. “And Principal Ichi vetoed that one because of the whole rape issue.”

“Figures,” Chieko said with a roll of her eyes, “A girl dying during an attempted rape is too much for us young girls, but a girl being burned at the stake is just fine.”

Miyuki and Takayo began to laugh, when the door to the waiting area was thrown open and a visibly upset Michiru came into the room. “Michiru-chan?” Takayo asked, “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she answered curtly. “Can we go now, please?”

A short time later, the four girls were making their way past the booths and attractions of the fair towards the exit. Michiru didn’t mean to make the others leave early, but she had to get out of the fairgrounds and try to think. She couldn’t detect any sort of deception on Pluto’s part during the conversation in the exam room, but that didn’t make some of Pluto’s revelations any easier to believe. Evil queens, moon kingdoms, curses and wars between the earth and the moon were the stuff of fairy tales.

It was the destiny part though that she was having the hardest part dealing with. She may have once been this ‘Princess Neptune’ with a castle on Triton that Pluto talked of, but she was Michiru Kaioh now. She had her own set of hopes and dreams, and she felt no particular duty to fulfill some sort of obligation left over from a previous life. And as for fate working to somehow draw all the past members of the moon kingdom back together…

“Michiru-chan, look out!”

Miyuki’s voice pulled the freshman out of her thoughts just in time to avoid colliding with two older boys. “G… Gomen,” she said as she blushed in embarrassment.

“It’s alright,” the taller of the two, a handsome dark-haired senior, answered. “It was my fault really.”

The two groups separated. Once the girls were out of earshot, the dark-haired boy’s friend turned to him with a grin. “You know Mamoru, one of these days you’re going to end up colliding with someone.”

Mamoru put his hand to his forehead and grimaced. “I know Motoki, I know…”

Meanwhile, as Chieko and Takayo talked of how cute the two boys were, Michiru looked over to Miyuki. She wasn’t sure what, if anything, was there, but she decided that she was going to find out. And if Pluto or destiny or anyone else didn’t like it, that was their problem.

Miyuki was suddenly surprised to feel a hand brushing up against hers. Looking over, she saw Michiru smiling up at her, her eyes sparkling in the fading sunlight as they left the fair grounds. Smiling back, the junior took her hand, the two of them interweaving their fingers as they followed Takayo and Chieko into the parking lot.

-To Be Continued-