The Ghostly Puppet Show - Take 2
“Unfortunately you can’t touch me,” the puppet master responded coolly.
“Why’s that?” Sailor Neptune asked.
“This bottle that I have here is called the Spirit Sealing Bottle. Do you know what will happen if this bottle is broken?” he asked the aqua haired senshi.
“What happens? What happens?” the puppet asked excitedly.
“All the shadows of the world will attack their owners.”
“That’s scary!” the puppet responded, his head spinning in circles.
Sailor Neptune’s face froze as she contemplated the puppet master’s words. A world full of shadows attacking their owners - there would be no way to save everyone, even if she and Uranus were not alone. “Deep Submerge!” she finally cried out, the charge of the ocean passing through her fingertips as a blue orb smashed into the puppet master, knocking the bottle from his hands.
“No!” he yelled, taking a step back as the bottle shattered at his feet.
Shrouds of darkness began to seep from the broken pieces, the threads coiling together until they became a thick solid mass. In the blink of an eye the mass burst apart and dissipated into the air.
“You’ve just doomed us all!” the puppet cried frantically as it urged its pawn to run away.
“It was a lie,” Neptune insisted. A groaning noise could be heard coming from Haruka and Neptune looked over just in time to see Haruka screaming in pain as her shadow ripped itself from her body and lunged toward the senshi. “Haruka!” she managed to yell out just before the shadows hands wrapped tightly around her neck.
“What did you do?” Haruka asked. She stared at her shadow trying to will it back to her body with no success.
“I did it for you!” Neptune choked out.
“Michiru!” Haruka yelled, struggling against the bonds holding her to the wall. Her eyes glanced desperately down to where her henshin wand had fallen, a feeling of defeat falling over her as she realized that there was nothing she could do to save the woman she loved. In the distance, shouts and screams could be heard as undoubtedly others were befalling the same fate. Haruka turned her eyes back to Neptune’s slowly stilling form, her lips turning blue, as she was denied the final breath of air that she desperately needed.
Neptune looked up at her and weakly raised her hand in Haruka’s direction as she saw shadows creeping along the walls and heading towards the blonde. All she wanted was to save her lover…. Darkness invaded her vision, the sound of her name being yelled growing louder in her ears. ‘Michiru! Michiru!” She could feel herself being violently shaken and her eyes flew open to see Haruka leaning over her with a concerned look on her face.
“You’re finally awake,” Haruka said while wiping a cool wash cloth over her forehead.
“Haruka,” she exhaled, her hand resting on her lover’s cheek.
“Your fever is finally starting to break. I worried about you for a while there. If your fever got any higher I was going to have to call for a doctor.”
“A doctor? My fever? It was a dream?”
“Michiru?”
“I’m fine,” she smiled at her worried love. “Just a fever dream.”
“Ah,” Haruka said knowingly. “Well if you are feeling better later we can go downstairs and get some dinner. The fresh air would do you good.” Haruka dabbed at her forehead one last time with the washcloth before standing up and walking away. “You know,” she started to say as she ran the cloth under the faucet, “I heard that there is a great ventriloquist act. We should check it out.”
“NO!” Michiru shouted, sitting upright in bed. “I mean,” she said softer this time, “I think we should just stay in.”
“Then I’ll call for room service,” Haruka answered, turning her attention back to the task at hand. That must have been some dream that Michiru was having….