Ficathon 2012 Entry 1: When the Man Comes Around
Ok, it's kind of late, but better late than never, yes? This is one of two (heavily edited!) fics I submitted for the awesome, amazing, brilliant 2012 ficathon. I'm not posting up A Vampire Apology until I find the time to add in another scene, so it may be a little while to wait for that one... *le sigh*
I hope you enjoy this one!
Title: When the Man Comes Around
Rating: R for adult themes and situations
Characters: Kunzite, Venus
Redemption /rɪˈdɛm(p)ʃ(ə)n/
noun
The action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil: God’s plans for the redemption of his world
Revelation 6:8
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.
He wakes.
His irises, ashen as the clouds in the sky above him, bloom in a silver frenzy while his pupils scream and shrink from the light which filters through them. His body tells him to shut his eyes with all the force of a steel trap but he cannot comply, the blue expanse above him is too beautiful to hide from.
He tries to breathe in, but at first he only succeeds in hacking out a vile cough to expunge the foulness and rot in his lungs. He chokes on the putrid taste in his throat, a sickly gurgling which fills the silence around him and echoes in his ears, a sound all too familiar to him now. His hand flies to his neck in a panicked need for oxygen and he heaves through the burning dryness, through the constricted flesh, through the filth and the staleness of his used body. He can feel death still clinging to his being, weaving its way in and out of his pores, like a master craftsman at his trade, binding them together in a constant reminder of his true place.
He sucks forcefully through his mouth, his free hand gripping the cold, moist surface underneath him, flattening the tickling grass in his palms, and he fills himself with air. It is coated in dust and earth and pollen, but he does not care because it is wonderfully fresh and so very alive. He takes in as much as he can, stuffing his lungs like a vacuum bag, until his chest is so high that he has to lift his back and hips off of the ground just to give himself room, until he feels like he is about to burst.
Another cough rips through his insides, like a blade bloodying his windpipe, and he shudders with the force of it, his torso collapsing back onto the grass with the heavy and dull thud expected of dead weight. He smiles suddenly, though his body cries out in clawing pain. He is lying on grass, and hanging in the sky above him, spotted with clouds as it is, peeking through the vast, cool brightness of blue is the glimmering sun, shining with radiance and purity. His bliss is almost enough to forget everything else.
Almost.
His elation is swallowed down, swiftly, bitterly, even quicker than how it sprung into being. He has not returned to be idle. In a sense, he has not returned at all.
He is no longer a being of the earth upon which he lays, who dwells subject to the laws of the living. He does his best not to think of the bright, red organ which beats in a speedy rhythm within his rib cage. A heart. His. An unfillable well of devotion to those he loved and the reason, now, for his return. He had made a solemn promise, forged in his deepest moment of grief, and this time, unlike the last, he will keep it.
He stands up with almost no effort. For a fleeting second he thinks it would take a little time to adjust to his old body, but his flash of humanity is now gone, he no longer suffers the physical weaknesses and mortal pains of men. The blessed respite from the truth of his existence is irreversibly extinguished.
He looks down at his hands, strong as granite, pale as the vile moon, and with overcast eyes he sees clearly all he needs to do. Re-ignited in him is the burning force of his duty.
Let me return for a while. Let me undo the crimes of my brothers, who only followed into doom and imprisonment through my dominant power and forceful will. They deserve peace and forgiveness but instead they remain trapped in stone, paying for wrongs which are not theirs. Allow me to give them redemption.
I will bring you those who escaped their punishment, who now live and do so free of their guilt. Let me go to them as a harbinger of death and despair. Take my service as the price of freedom for the Shitennou.
He lifts his head to drink in the memory of the Heavens above him, to allow the vibrant, beloved sun to sear itself into his mind for one final time, and then, he never looks at it again.
~*~
The first one he seeks out is the closest. A simple bank clerk in a small suburb of a medium sized city. He is a little fat and almost bald, of average height and intelligence. He has no children, only a girlfriend who works the nightshift as a nurse in the local hospital and a big, black dog named Hound. He lives in a small house with a small front garden and a neat garage on the side where gardening tools are kept.
With deathly stillness he waits until the man returns home. In his mind he reminds himself, over and over in a mantric prayer, of what atrocity this mild, seemingly innocuous banker committed: he had been the Second in the Nephrite Baleop's kingdom, trusted above all others to rule in his absences. This man had turned on both his immediate king and his arch one, infecting the entire region with his own cowardly betrayal. He had poisoned those who had once loved their rulers, twisting their loyalty into suspicion and loathing. He had abandoned his oath in favour of a witch’s power and greed.
“You...” he whispers when he enters his house, his dog at his heels, and his hands heavy with groceries. He has enough time to take in the broad, tall figure cloaked in contrasting black: a pallid, strong face, high cheekbones and a powerful jaw. A grim, grey mouth, wide and flat. Deep set eyes, the colour of limestone, hair that reaches his shoulders like the soft, bleached bristles of a paintbrush waiting for an artist to charge it with colour and all around him he is surrounded by burdensome, heavy chains. “I remember now...” the man says, as the dog whimpers.
And then he is dead.
~*~
The next one is even quicker. A tap on the window of a car as the man inside fumbles with his ignition key one late, spring evening. This one had not heeded the Jadeite Toskan’s call to battle, abandoning his king and homeland, keeping his army hidden for a lustful, honourless reward.
Now he lies, his head on his steering wheel as if he is in peaceful slumber.
Ten lives he takes, then twenty, then thirty, never losing count. With each one that he ends, Hound howls. He is unsure if it is admonition or praise for his deed, perhaps it is both, or neither. He simply hopes that it is not sorrow for their deaths. They do not deserve to be mourned.
He looks at the creature curiously from time to time, wondering for whose benefit it was that he allowed the black giant schnauzer to accompany him - his or the animal’s. He will not take it with him when he is done, such torture would be unjust. He ruffles Hound’s head and ears, earning a pleased and comfortable expression from the pet despite the frost in his overly large grip. The sight of such innocence floods his chest with warmth and he is immeasurably glad for the simple companion.
Ever his mission occupies his thoughts, burning itself into his mind as he moves across the world. One after the other they are found and are handled with the same swiftness as each one before. He is eager to send them to a place much worse than any nightmare to be punished with all the malice of their past crimes. He feels no remorse, but neither will he allow himself to acknowledge a sense of achievement. Not until every soul is captured, not until his brothers are free.
Hound slows his pace, but he does not mind. He has the time. The select few which he keeps until last will be there for him when he is ready to collect them. He knows this because he knows their strength - there is little, if any, Earthly power which can defeat them, his experience has taught him so.
But he is no longer of Earth, at least not in the same way as before, so he is not afraid of them. He will take his time
The more people he visits the more time he is allowed to sit and ponder, and with Hound at his side he must stop to allow it to forage and rest. It is in these short moments of respite that he reflects on his past. On the deep honour of his duty, the puissance of the love he held for those close to him and the heartbreak of having it all destroyed. The beauty of his past is blighted by broken promises and festered betrayal. In his darkest moments, Hound puts its head in his lap, and with a humourless pull of his lips, he strokes the obsidian fur. He knows that his work is both evil and cruel, but his intentions are pure and he fantasises in half seconds and blinks of an eye that intentions are enough to overpower deeds. They are not. His end goal is the salvation of his fellow Shitennou, though there is no saving himself. His own guilt is too great to receive redemption, his broken oath too severe to deserve forgiveness. He has always known this and accepted his fate long ago.
Still, during moments too short to consider, he dreams that he too can be saved.
~*~
It takes him a little while to reach the fifty second and when he arrives he finds only a freshly dug grave; a grandfather who passed silently in the night. His cold brow furrows, his form tightening in tense fury as his eyes harden to the colour of the marble tombstone. Hound lets out a nervous, whining squeak and pads hesitatingly backwards. This soul is now free, it is too late to trap it and send it to the everlasting prison as he intended. His unshakeable patience rattles uproariously, snapping as easily as a brittle, dry bone and unleashes his wrath into the cemetery. It spreads with the speed of a lightning bolt robbed of its ensuing sound of thunder pushing upwards, outwards, downwards, through every crack and hole and crevice, coating every blade of green, every branch, every layer of stone - smooth or roughly hewn - with his venomous anger!
In the aftermath there is only stillness, the deafening sound of true, lifeless nothingness. Then it begins to rain in dull, soft thuds, as birds tumble from their perches. The wind dares not whisper in the grass because no creature will scuttle away for shelter.
He turns to leave and freezes. There, keeled over, limp and unmoving is Hound, deathly still. His muscles unclench and his chest begins to pain him. The feeling pulses through him once, washing outwards over each of his nerves in an acid-like corrosive wave, and he needs to breathe in deeply to blunt the sting between his ribs.
He is alone again, another friend punished for loyalty to him.
He sighs once he recovers from the unintentional consequence of his anger. He stares at Hound briefly and eventually shakes his head, gliding on. It is better this way - he was too late this time, he cannot afford to fail again.
~*~
He drifts through days and nights with equal speed and increasing determination, travelling as a shadow does, fluid as a river darkened by its black, earthen bed. He walks through sunlight and moonlight although he never sees either orb. One is much too loved and the other too hated for him to look upon.
~*~
He arrives at the red torii of Hikawa Jinja and he pauses only briefly to contemplate its grandeur. It stands guard, two mighty pillars of vermilion painted wood, with a flat arch which curves with black tips at the wings. It is an imposing beast, scowling down at him with nature’s powerful glare. The message is read loud and clear: he is not welcome on the shrine’s sacred grounds. He sees with his hard, metallic eyes the soft, sweet colours of the shrine’s peace and harmony: the blushing pink of the cherry blossoms, the shades of light and dark green in the foliage, the browns of the earth and branches... but he has seen these colours before, he knows them well, he was once a King of this world after all. Shattering the delicate hushes of life in this place will be no more difficult than in any other he has previously visited. The Earth is no longer his home, he is no longer a guardian of its soul. He has faced far worse than a few poles of dead wood, painted the colour of blood and fire.
He knows that they are in the temple, their number makes no difference. He does not wield the power of destruction as the mighty Saturn Senshi does, in fact he has no ‘power’ at all. He is simply a creature of Death, in possession of a gift he can give to anyone, no matter who or what they are. He does not fear a simple torii. He does not fear the women beyond it. He does not fear anything, except failure.
A scream catches him off-guard. It is both helpless and despairing, a cry out of loss or pain, not fear, and a sense of dread floods him. Faster than thought he is in the only occupied room of the shine and the scene before him halts all thoughts and processes.
To him they seem to be sleeping: two women, beautiful as they are youthful, resting peacefully on the natural wooden floor, like children napping. One has hair the colour of the midnight blue sky, her features sweet: round cheeks, button nose, a small mouth with plump lips encased in a heart shaped face. She is petite but her body is muscular - her shoulders are broader than an average woman of her size, her thighs and calves, hidden by her summery yellow dress, are strong. He knows her, she is the Senshi of Wisdom, he remembers her as deceptively shy, a swift and conniving woman who had managed to somehow ensnare the attentions of the sharpest of the Shitennou, the Zoisite Sorren, only to leave him scarred and tormented, doomed to eternal servitude, his soul a restless prisoner. The other is taller, with a defined face and delicately pointed chin. Her hair hides her eyes and lips, chestnut curls spilling around her in a beautiful swirling mess, a mirror of her chaotic natural power. She is easy to remember: the Senshi of Protection, strong in body but foolishly thoughtless in battle. In her long fingers she grips an empty white tea bowl, hand decorated, he notices, with cherry blossoms to match those outside.
Another scream commands his attention and he looks up to see a third woman - raven haired, pale skinned and refinedly beautiful - being shaken roughly. She does not wake.
The fourth woman is weeping as she screams out, her motions are frantic, she moves in a shaking, jittery panic. Her warm skin is drained of colour and her glistening eyes flit around incessantly from the still forms on the floor to the one in her arms. “Get up!” she yells, her honeyed voice roughened to sandpaper, “Damn it, you bitch! No one told you to do this! This wasn’t your decision to make!”
He shifts his attention back to the object of her hysterical wrath and he sees with keen vision: a thin and jagged ruby snake slips out of the corner of the Senshi of War's full lips. The red colour suits her - a vibrant contrast to her porcelain skin and onyx hair. Her golden sister breaks down and clutches her tightly, tears dripping from her lovely face, salted water mingling with blood. “We could have fought it,” she cries out in between her sobs. “Whatever you saw, we could have defeated it... You’ve left me here alone!”
He spots the same tea bowl near each of the women, three empty and one left undrunk. Slowly, as the fog of bewilderment lifts, he begins to understand.
The sudden pounding beat in his ribcage and the swift onslaught of dizziness attacks his equilibrium in a double assault and it is all he can do to keep himself upright. “I’m too late,” he whispers, the truth of it bitter on his tongue. They are now forever outside of his far reaching grasp, he can feel it in the air, the room is vacant save for their two souls.
His words, as softly said as they are, reveal his presence to her. Her glistening eyes narrow as she looks up, the tears instantly stemmed as she scans the room, analytical in her search. He waits with seething anticipation for her to find him, he knows she will, and when she does he is not sure whether he will take her then and there with an impatient and raging temper, or if he will reveal himself, to thrust her past in her face and make her suffer all the more before he steals her soul away to a place of eternal torment.
She focuses on the shadow in the corner, there she notices that in place of light there is darkness. As she watches it, it begins to grow, curling its way along, slippery tendrils which spread across the walls until the shadow is almost as tall as the ceiling. “Who are you?” she demands, angry at her private grief being disturbed. “Are you the one who has caused this?”
He looks at the dead women and his anger bubbles. “Your Senshi sisters would not have gotten off so lightly had I played a hand in ending their existences.” His voice reverberates throughout the room, deep and monstrous. He sees her trembling as she recoils, leaving her dead sister behind as she backs herself as far away as possible, too afraid to utter a single sound, but even the cowering sight of the once fearless Senshi of Venus brings him no pleasure. He is too late. One out of four is not nearly enough.
“Do you recognise me, Aino Minako?” he asks, unable to help himself, “Do you remember how you betrayed my love and trust?” He steps forward and his body takes form out of the hidden depths. He is a powerful sight: fluorescent grey skin stretched across angular, taught muscles. He is a pale tower in black robes, a demon in chains, with eyes as icy as the tundra. A gasp escapes involuntarily while the rest of her body stills in frozen fear. His power hits her like a concrete wall, the pressure hurts her ears as her perfect nose begins to bleed and her heart pumps with terror-stricken speed. The room around him dims, as if the very light itself hides itself away in fear; the air becomes thick, heavy with a cold so biting her lungs burn as she breathes. “I remember, Korefina,” he says as he approaches, “every detail, every deed, every lying word from that divine mouth of yours.” In his voice is the sound of crushing gravel, guttural and painful.
He stares down at the Senshi of Jupiter, the greatest warrior of the Linking Planet. A mix of both outer and inner, she was gifted with control of the weather. With a swing of her finger she could send a storm of ice or sand. With a simple command the heavens would open up onto the sea and entire fleets would drown in a hurricane as huge as a country, not a single man reaching the shore alive. She had borne no battle wounds, for not a single foe had managed to scratch her. Her temper was quick to rise and brought with it lasting devastation and ruin. She was revered and feared by all men, they prayed to her in great temples, offering her barley and meat as they begged for safe journeys and full harvests, yet now there she is, taken down by nothing more than a tiny cup of poisoned tea. He kneels to look closer at her corpse, sweeping a handful of her silky hair from her face, he clenches it in his shaking fist. “How could you let this happen?” When Minako says nothing he looks up at her, his brow furrowed in anger, “HOW?” The roar is deafening, the ancient building quakes and she has to cover her ears like a child. “I needed these women!” he rages, “How will I free them now? How can my brothers find any peace? Can you protect no one but yourself?” The world seems to become enveloped with his despair and anger, his cries blast out with a sudden gust of violent air as the sounds of torment and anguish rises up around them. Wailing creatures, colourless, formless and hopeless spin around them, surrounding them in an inescapable dome.
His accusation angers her, more than the shock of seeing him again. “What have you done?” she asks him. “What have you become?” Her words are lost to the wind, but he knows what she asks nonetheless.
“I am what you have made me.”
“You're blaming me for your own choices!” A bright yellow light begins to emanate from her as her golden chain appears in her hands. She is ready to fight, her strength of will builds with the fury she feels. “You have no right!”
He raises his white eyebrow at that, a small movement but enough to mock her and despite the evil that flies around them she sees it. “I am paying for my choices, like you and your Senshi should have.”
“They're dead, Hedeas!” At her own words her eyes begin to well, “Is that not punishment enough for you?” She swings the chain around her, its golden light cutting through the wailing ghosts which surround her, but they do not stop, they fly on as if her power has no effect on them.
“Is it punishment for your soul to be released of its constrictive body? Is it punishment to spend eternity in restful happiness? Your bloody-handed sisters are free while Toskan, Baleop and Sorren remain trapped in cold stone prisons, tormented by deeds which were not done of their own volition! You and your sisters gave false promises of aid and arms yet when the time came you did nothing but throw us into the claws of the enemy! You betrayed us, Korefina! You betrayed the very Earth which now sustains you! And for what? A false treaty of peace with demons?” His eyes are overcome with a bloody shade of red.
“Our oath was to the Princess and to her alone. The loss of your people was not our doing, it was your own kind who destroyed your home!” She shudders as one of the screaming creatures comes close, breathing stale, dead air onto her living body. It is the colour of charcoal, with eyes a sickly, filmy white. She throws her chain again and it does nothing but flail in the wind like a tail in spasm.
“They were as much your people as mine!” Hedeas' voice booms out. “You were our gods! The Moon was bound to us, as we were bound to it. Serenity was as much a princess of our world as she was your precious Silver Alliance! Your duty was to Earth as well, yet you abandoned it in favour of hiding away in your crystal bunker.”
As a last resort she reaches for her sword, the great weapon of Venus: the Sabre of the Moon, but her hands grasp at emptiness. With horrified shock she looks down at her hip to find nothing there. A twinkle catches her eye and she looks up to see that Hedeas is holding it: a gift of her planet, forged by a power as great as the crystal, it can only be wielded by its Senshi. He flexes his wrist once with it, testing the sword’s weight, and then it vanishes as he drops his hand, like a trinket in a magic trick.
Mina understands at that moment, why Rei did it. She watches him, suddenly unafraid now that she is defenceless and she realises what kind of enemy he is. He is no living being, he is not something she can fight against, let alone win. “And what would you have done in my place?” she asks.
“I would not have left an entire planet to die. I would have done what was right!”
Any exchange Hedeas had planned using her sisters has been thwarted by Rei's actions. Her sisters’ souls, at least, are out of his reach, and so she is ready to accept her fate. She has never been afraid of death. “And what was right? Was your decision to turn to the enemy right? Is the creature you are now right?" She laughs, derisive and cruel. "Whatever you have become, Hedeas, it has given you rose tinted glasses.”
He realises that his power no longer frightens her. The Senshi of Love and Duty stands upright, her hair snaps and flicks in the wind like a thousand golden whips and he looks into her eyes, her red rimmed, blue eyes, so different from the golden ones of her previous incarnation, and they shine out with a look as familiar to him as it is hated. Victory.
The wind suddenly stops, the demons disappear and Mina is once again left in the shrine with her three dead Senshi in plain view. “I see clearer than any creature that lives or breathes, my dearest love.” His eyes lose their red fire and become as dim as the grey sea. “There is no one who follows the path that I tread. No one else who sees or does the evil things that I must do. I am alone, Korefina, and I will suffer for my own weaknesses. My master was my responsibility and I failed him, just as he failed his own people by running to the Moon Queen and abandoning us all.”
Mina's eyes widen at the implication, “No...” she takes in a breath, fearing what he will do. “You can have me, but you cannot take them! They did nothing wrong!”
His lips and nose contort into a cruel sneer, an expression she has never seen on him before. “And you could do what to stop me?”
She is defenceless now, her friends are dead, she is all that stands between him and her charge yet there is nothing she can do. “Please, Hedeas!” she begs, “They are happy here! They do good for these people! Serenity had been ignorant of our actions! Endymion did not go to the demons willingly!”
She misunderstands his intentions. After her, there is only one person left for him to seek out. “I have no desire to take the Princess. Like the Shitennou and I, she was betrayed by those she loved most.”
Mina cannot allow him his snide remark, it is too much of a blight on her honour. “I saved her!” she screams, furious that he does not understand. “We had no choice! We had to give them Endymion! It was the only chance for peace!” Tears unwittingly form as her body begins to shake at the thought of how Serenity had suffered at the loss of her Prince. “Rei, Makoto and Ami are dead and I will be soon enough. If you kill Mamoru too, then Usagi will have no-one! If you say you wish to spare her then why would you punish her so?” She takes a step towards him. “You are alone now and I can see how twisted and angry it has made your heart, but you were once a Kunzite of Earth,” she pleads, desperate. “Despite what people believed, you were a compassionate and devoted man. I know you still remember what it was like to love. Leave them alone, Hedeas, I am begging you.”
“I made a deal, I needed the Senshi and I need Endymion. There is nothing to be done. I will have him.”
Hedeas had never been one to explain for too long, to try and justify his reasoning. “But you do not have the Senshi,” she says, latching onto the possibility of his reluctance. “What reason is there to take Mamoru away?”
“There is still a chance that he might be enough, and even so, he deserves to face the consequences of his actions.”
He does not hate his former master, she can see it, but she knows that regret for having to do the deed will not be enough to stop him from accomplishing his goal. She thinks quickly for a solution. The Shitennou committed grave crimes; only magnanimous gestures will absolve them. “Then take me,” she states without hesitation.
It is Hedeas' turn to laugh. “I plan to.”
“That is not what I meant. Leave Mamoru alone and-” she pauses for a second, to stop and reaffirm her resolve, “and I will become like you.”
All emotion is pulled from his features. “Take care, Korefina,” he warns, “such words have power.”
His reaction gives her all the validation she needs to continue. The possibility is there. “You say that I betrayed your people, that I failed to protect those I was responsible for. You are right in a way,” she admits. “In fulfilling my duty I sacrificed the lives of billions, among them the man I loved most, and in the end it was all for nothing.” She watches his reaction carefully and to her relief she notices something. A shift in his shoulders, a movement so slight she almost fancies that she imagines it. “My crimes are no better than the ones you committed, why should I not share your fate? Stay away from Mamoru and Usagi and I will do what you do. I will serve the evil you serve.”
He shakes his head. “You do not understand. I am not dead, these chains on my shoulders keep my soul bound to my body and there is no escaping their cruel bite. You will never be able to feel any sort of peace again. You will be damned for all eternity. There will be no end. What you will face will be much worse than anything you can imagine, your soul will not be your own and it will suffer more than any other in that place.”
She finds it amusing that he is about to take her away to eternal torment but will still try to protect her from his own fate. “My soul is condemned in any case, it seems.” In his own twisted way, he has revealed more than he intended and she uses it to her advantage. “At least this way you will have enough to free your brothers... and you will not be alone.”
Those final words touch a chord in him. She can see from the hope he suddenly shows her that she has won.
“Do you still love me, Korefina?”
The question, from a creature as guarded as Hedeas, takes her by surprise and the answer escapes her mouth without thought - unedited and honest. “As much as you do me.”
Everything goes black and suddenly the world is only pain.
~*~
“I need you to collect the stones.” He looks at her carefully and notes how much longer her hair has become; only now it looks as if it has been drained of most of its colour. The creases in her hands, once a dark pink, now shine in venous blue. Her eyes are neither cornflower sky nor shimmering gold but a damp and dreary grey. Her features are no longer soft but sharp; her body is just a little bit leaner, taller, harder.
“Why?” she asks, her lilac lips pursed in mild displeasure. “I have no need for them.”
She is different, but he expected that. “I do.”
“You are not my master. If you want them, get them yourself.”
“It is not a command. Use it as a chance to see your Princess again.” Perhaps it is the new surge of power which has brought on her sudden bout of arrogance, but he begins to suspect quickly that it is something more. “You will not have another opportunity.”
Mina raises her pallid eyebrows and then tilts her head in a small nod. “Very well.” There is no feeling in her voice, none of the hidden sympathy of before, not even the reproachful anger. She does not care for him, that much is obvious, and he curses himself for been so foolish as to have thought that fate would have allowed him such a sweet gift. When she leaves his chest begins to ache as his chains tighten around his body.
~*~
She glides in, silent as a grave, into the small apartment. There, lying peacefully in dreaming slumber is Usagi, bright haired, cherubim-faced and clutched close by her lover. She watches her for a moment and wonders about the morning, when the young woman will wake up and find out that her dearest friends are gone. She will weep and blame herself, she will question what she could have done to have made them leave her. Their deaths will haunt her for all of her long life. The hurt will be unbearable. And yet, Mina feels nothing. She does not pity her former friend, she does not care in the least. There will be no pain in this parting, she realises.
As she reaches for the stones, it occurs to her that perhaps this is part of her punishment, the once Senshi of Love and Duty, no longer able to feel love... if that it is the case then it is no suffering at all. She cannot miss those she cared for if she does not care for them now. She looks down at the fine silver chains which poke out of her white skin above her left breast and wrap themselves around her torso, and she marvels at their power. Perhaps later, when she is not so freshly changed and the true weight of her new destiny begins to sit heavily on her, she will be able to look back at her mortal life and she will remember it fondly, but for now there is nothing.
She ponders briefly on the possibility of this being a punishment of some sort for Hedeas, who so desperately wants to rid himself of his loneliness. She does not understand why, in her living form, she had even entertained the thought of being with him. She pities him now, and she has no sympathy for the weak.
~*~
She delivers what she promises and gives him a knowing smile. “You did not want to harm Mamoru, you could not even muster the courage to so much as see him.”
He frowns at her comment. “I would have taken him, no matter his effect on me. It was your pleading and the prospect of a greater prize which saved him.”
She does not believe him. “You are a coward, Hedeas.”
With her cruel parting remark she leaves him, and he lets her go.
~*~
He travels to his first home, a sacred place in which he is no longer permitted to enter, and he stands at the gates. These ones, despite their lack of power to harm him, fill him with trepidation. He waits and irrationally wonders whether anyone will even come to see him. He clutches the stones, feeling their weight pressing on the cold, hard pads of his hands. He knows them by touch and that makes it easy to resist the temptation of looking at them. His forefinger traces the pointed corners of the Zoisite’s deep blue rhombus; with his thumb he recognises the jagged protrusions of the clouded, pastel green Jadeite; he can feel the deep cracks on the edges of the white and yellow veined, forest green Nephrite.
The last one is cold and it is lighter than the others, an empty vessel. He knows, with aching familiarity, the smooth, polished gloss of his own delicately pink, crystal clear Kunzite.
He rolls them around, beloved treasures which he has no desire to release. He touches them greedily and even though he can recall every tiny detail, every spec of colour, every oddity of shape in each of them, he commits what he feels now to fresh memory because this is the last time he will ever be so near to them. He can feel their energy every time his skin makes contact with their surfaces: the pulse of Baleop, the singing of Toskan, the gentle breeze of Sorren, and he knows that before long they too will be gone. Free.
He does not wait long, soon a boy appears and despite the indestructible barrier between their worlds, his young features eye the monstrous figure with suspicion. Hedeas extends his powerful, pale arm and opens out his hand, revealing the glittering cages. “Bury them, Helios. Their debt has been paid.”
The young priest breathes in deeply, standing straighter, no longer afraid. He reaches out and takes the stones, pulling them into Elysium. As they cross through the invisible barrier a collective sigh is heard in a beautiful chorus of relief. Helios examines the objects and frowns at the Kunzite. “I cannot bury this one. You have given yourself over to unending darkness, Hedeas. As long as your soul remains tainted nothing of you can exist here, even your empty stone.”
The pain of Helios’ words is almost too much to bear and he watches, unable to do anything, as the pink gem crumbles into nothing in the boy’s hand.
“Have comfort in the knowledge that you have redeemed your brothers. Their souls will soon be free.” He walks away. He does not bother to look back.
Hedeas stays and watches the priest retreating further into the heart of Elysium; he is alone and shunned yet he cannot resist the glimpse of the Heaven that was once his. The agony is only worsened as the chains begin to press themselves into his torso and burn him with a command. Obeying their will, he leaves and never returns.
I hope you enjoy this one!
Title: When the Man Comes Around
Rating: R for adult themes and situations
Characters: Kunzite, Venus
Redemption /rɪˈdɛm(p)ʃ(ə)n/
noun
The action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil: God’s plans for the redemption of his world
Revelation 6:8
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.
He wakes.
His irises, ashen as the clouds in the sky above him, bloom in a silver frenzy while his pupils scream and shrink from the light which filters through them. His body tells him to shut his eyes with all the force of a steel trap but he cannot comply, the blue expanse above him is too beautiful to hide from.
He tries to breathe in, but at first he only succeeds in hacking out a vile cough to expunge the foulness and rot in his lungs. He chokes on the putrid taste in his throat, a sickly gurgling which fills the silence around him and echoes in his ears, a sound all too familiar to him now. His hand flies to his neck in a panicked need for oxygen and he heaves through the burning dryness, through the constricted flesh, through the filth and the staleness of his used body. He can feel death still clinging to his being, weaving its way in and out of his pores, like a master craftsman at his trade, binding them together in a constant reminder of his true place.
He sucks forcefully through his mouth, his free hand gripping the cold, moist surface underneath him, flattening the tickling grass in his palms, and he fills himself with air. It is coated in dust and earth and pollen, but he does not care because it is wonderfully fresh and so very alive. He takes in as much as he can, stuffing his lungs like a vacuum bag, until his chest is so high that he has to lift his back and hips off of the ground just to give himself room, until he feels like he is about to burst.
Another cough rips through his insides, like a blade bloodying his windpipe, and he shudders with the force of it, his torso collapsing back onto the grass with the heavy and dull thud expected of dead weight. He smiles suddenly, though his body cries out in clawing pain. He is lying on grass, and hanging in the sky above him, spotted with clouds as it is, peeking through the vast, cool brightness of blue is the glimmering sun, shining with radiance and purity. His bliss is almost enough to forget everything else.
Almost.
His elation is swallowed down, swiftly, bitterly, even quicker than how it sprung into being. He has not returned to be idle. In a sense, he has not returned at all.
He is no longer a being of the earth upon which he lays, who dwells subject to the laws of the living. He does his best not to think of the bright, red organ which beats in a speedy rhythm within his rib cage. A heart. His. An unfillable well of devotion to those he loved and the reason, now, for his return. He had made a solemn promise, forged in his deepest moment of grief, and this time, unlike the last, he will keep it.
He stands up with almost no effort. For a fleeting second he thinks it would take a little time to adjust to his old body, but his flash of humanity is now gone, he no longer suffers the physical weaknesses and mortal pains of men. The blessed respite from the truth of his existence is irreversibly extinguished.
He looks down at his hands, strong as granite, pale as the vile moon, and with overcast eyes he sees clearly all he needs to do. Re-ignited in him is the burning force of his duty.
Let me return for a while. Let me undo the crimes of my brothers, who only followed into doom and imprisonment through my dominant power and forceful will. They deserve peace and forgiveness but instead they remain trapped in stone, paying for wrongs which are not theirs. Allow me to give them redemption.
I will bring you those who escaped their punishment, who now live and do so free of their guilt. Let me go to them as a harbinger of death and despair. Take my service as the price of freedom for the Shitennou.
He lifts his head to drink in the memory of the Heavens above him, to allow the vibrant, beloved sun to sear itself into his mind for one final time, and then, he never looks at it again.
~*~
The first one he seeks out is the closest. A simple bank clerk in a small suburb of a medium sized city. He is a little fat and almost bald, of average height and intelligence. He has no children, only a girlfriend who works the nightshift as a nurse in the local hospital and a big, black dog named Hound. He lives in a small house with a small front garden and a neat garage on the side where gardening tools are kept.
With deathly stillness he waits until the man returns home. In his mind he reminds himself, over and over in a mantric prayer, of what atrocity this mild, seemingly innocuous banker committed: he had been the Second in the Nephrite Baleop's kingdom, trusted above all others to rule in his absences. This man had turned on both his immediate king and his arch one, infecting the entire region with his own cowardly betrayal. He had poisoned those who had once loved their rulers, twisting their loyalty into suspicion and loathing. He had abandoned his oath in favour of a witch’s power and greed.
“You...” he whispers when he enters his house, his dog at his heels, and his hands heavy with groceries. He has enough time to take in the broad, tall figure cloaked in contrasting black: a pallid, strong face, high cheekbones and a powerful jaw. A grim, grey mouth, wide and flat. Deep set eyes, the colour of limestone, hair that reaches his shoulders like the soft, bleached bristles of a paintbrush waiting for an artist to charge it with colour and all around him he is surrounded by burdensome, heavy chains. “I remember now...” the man says, as the dog whimpers.
And then he is dead.
~*~
The next one is even quicker. A tap on the window of a car as the man inside fumbles with his ignition key one late, spring evening. This one had not heeded the Jadeite Toskan’s call to battle, abandoning his king and homeland, keeping his army hidden for a lustful, honourless reward.
Now he lies, his head on his steering wheel as if he is in peaceful slumber.
Ten lives he takes, then twenty, then thirty, never losing count. With each one that he ends, Hound howls. He is unsure if it is admonition or praise for his deed, perhaps it is both, or neither. He simply hopes that it is not sorrow for their deaths. They do not deserve to be mourned.
He looks at the creature curiously from time to time, wondering for whose benefit it was that he allowed the black giant schnauzer to accompany him - his or the animal’s. He will not take it with him when he is done, such torture would be unjust. He ruffles Hound’s head and ears, earning a pleased and comfortable expression from the pet despite the frost in his overly large grip. The sight of such innocence floods his chest with warmth and he is immeasurably glad for the simple companion.
Ever his mission occupies his thoughts, burning itself into his mind as he moves across the world. One after the other they are found and are handled with the same swiftness as each one before. He is eager to send them to a place much worse than any nightmare to be punished with all the malice of their past crimes. He feels no remorse, but neither will he allow himself to acknowledge a sense of achievement. Not until every soul is captured, not until his brothers are free.
Hound slows his pace, but he does not mind. He has the time. The select few which he keeps until last will be there for him when he is ready to collect them. He knows this because he knows their strength - there is little, if any, Earthly power which can defeat them, his experience has taught him so.
But he is no longer of Earth, at least not in the same way as before, so he is not afraid of them. He will take his time
The more people he visits the more time he is allowed to sit and ponder, and with Hound at his side he must stop to allow it to forage and rest. It is in these short moments of respite that he reflects on his past. On the deep honour of his duty, the puissance of the love he held for those close to him and the heartbreak of having it all destroyed. The beauty of his past is blighted by broken promises and festered betrayal. In his darkest moments, Hound puts its head in his lap, and with a humourless pull of his lips, he strokes the obsidian fur. He knows that his work is both evil and cruel, but his intentions are pure and he fantasises in half seconds and blinks of an eye that intentions are enough to overpower deeds. They are not. His end goal is the salvation of his fellow Shitennou, though there is no saving himself. His own guilt is too great to receive redemption, his broken oath too severe to deserve forgiveness. He has always known this and accepted his fate long ago.
Still, during moments too short to consider, he dreams that he too can be saved.
~*~
It takes him a little while to reach the fifty second and when he arrives he finds only a freshly dug grave; a grandfather who passed silently in the night. His cold brow furrows, his form tightening in tense fury as his eyes harden to the colour of the marble tombstone. Hound lets out a nervous, whining squeak and pads hesitatingly backwards. This soul is now free, it is too late to trap it and send it to the everlasting prison as he intended. His unshakeable patience rattles uproariously, snapping as easily as a brittle, dry bone and unleashes his wrath into the cemetery. It spreads with the speed of a lightning bolt robbed of its ensuing sound of thunder pushing upwards, outwards, downwards, through every crack and hole and crevice, coating every blade of green, every branch, every layer of stone - smooth or roughly hewn - with his venomous anger!
In the aftermath there is only stillness, the deafening sound of true, lifeless nothingness. Then it begins to rain in dull, soft thuds, as birds tumble from their perches. The wind dares not whisper in the grass because no creature will scuttle away for shelter.
He turns to leave and freezes. There, keeled over, limp and unmoving is Hound, deathly still. His muscles unclench and his chest begins to pain him. The feeling pulses through him once, washing outwards over each of his nerves in an acid-like corrosive wave, and he needs to breathe in deeply to blunt the sting between his ribs.
He is alone again, another friend punished for loyalty to him.
He sighs once he recovers from the unintentional consequence of his anger. He stares at Hound briefly and eventually shakes his head, gliding on. It is better this way - he was too late this time, he cannot afford to fail again.
~*~
He drifts through days and nights with equal speed and increasing determination, travelling as a shadow does, fluid as a river darkened by its black, earthen bed. He walks through sunlight and moonlight although he never sees either orb. One is much too loved and the other too hated for him to look upon.
~*~
He arrives at the red torii of Hikawa Jinja and he pauses only briefly to contemplate its grandeur. It stands guard, two mighty pillars of vermilion painted wood, with a flat arch which curves with black tips at the wings. It is an imposing beast, scowling down at him with nature’s powerful glare. The message is read loud and clear: he is not welcome on the shrine’s sacred grounds. He sees with his hard, metallic eyes the soft, sweet colours of the shrine’s peace and harmony: the blushing pink of the cherry blossoms, the shades of light and dark green in the foliage, the browns of the earth and branches... but he has seen these colours before, he knows them well, he was once a King of this world after all. Shattering the delicate hushes of life in this place will be no more difficult than in any other he has previously visited. The Earth is no longer his home, he is no longer a guardian of its soul. He has faced far worse than a few poles of dead wood, painted the colour of blood and fire.
He knows that they are in the temple, their number makes no difference. He does not wield the power of destruction as the mighty Saturn Senshi does, in fact he has no ‘power’ at all. He is simply a creature of Death, in possession of a gift he can give to anyone, no matter who or what they are. He does not fear a simple torii. He does not fear the women beyond it. He does not fear anything, except failure.
A scream catches him off-guard. It is both helpless and despairing, a cry out of loss or pain, not fear, and a sense of dread floods him. Faster than thought he is in the only occupied room of the shine and the scene before him halts all thoughts and processes.
To him they seem to be sleeping: two women, beautiful as they are youthful, resting peacefully on the natural wooden floor, like children napping. One has hair the colour of the midnight blue sky, her features sweet: round cheeks, button nose, a small mouth with plump lips encased in a heart shaped face. She is petite but her body is muscular - her shoulders are broader than an average woman of her size, her thighs and calves, hidden by her summery yellow dress, are strong. He knows her, she is the Senshi of Wisdom, he remembers her as deceptively shy, a swift and conniving woman who had managed to somehow ensnare the attentions of the sharpest of the Shitennou, the Zoisite Sorren, only to leave him scarred and tormented, doomed to eternal servitude, his soul a restless prisoner. The other is taller, with a defined face and delicately pointed chin. Her hair hides her eyes and lips, chestnut curls spilling around her in a beautiful swirling mess, a mirror of her chaotic natural power. She is easy to remember: the Senshi of Protection, strong in body but foolishly thoughtless in battle. In her long fingers she grips an empty white tea bowl, hand decorated, he notices, with cherry blossoms to match those outside.
Another scream commands his attention and he looks up to see a third woman - raven haired, pale skinned and refinedly beautiful - being shaken roughly. She does not wake.
The fourth woman is weeping as she screams out, her motions are frantic, she moves in a shaking, jittery panic. Her warm skin is drained of colour and her glistening eyes flit around incessantly from the still forms on the floor to the one in her arms. “Get up!” she yells, her honeyed voice roughened to sandpaper, “Damn it, you bitch! No one told you to do this! This wasn’t your decision to make!”
He shifts his attention back to the object of her hysterical wrath and he sees with keen vision: a thin and jagged ruby snake slips out of the corner of the Senshi of War's full lips. The red colour suits her - a vibrant contrast to her porcelain skin and onyx hair. Her golden sister breaks down and clutches her tightly, tears dripping from her lovely face, salted water mingling with blood. “We could have fought it,” she cries out in between her sobs. “Whatever you saw, we could have defeated it... You’ve left me here alone!”
He spots the same tea bowl near each of the women, three empty and one left undrunk. Slowly, as the fog of bewilderment lifts, he begins to understand.
The sudden pounding beat in his ribcage and the swift onslaught of dizziness attacks his equilibrium in a double assault and it is all he can do to keep himself upright. “I’m too late,” he whispers, the truth of it bitter on his tongue. They are now forever outside of his far reaching grasp, he can feel it in the air, the room is vacant save for their two souls.
His words, as softly said as they are, reveal his presence to her. Her glistening eyes narrow as she looks up, the tears instantly stemmed as she scans the room, analytical in her search. He waits with seething anticipation for her to find him, he knows she will, and when she does he is not sure whether he will take her then and there with an impatient and raging temper, or if he will reveal himself, to thrust her past in her face and make her suffer all the more before he steals her soul away to a place of eternal torment.
She focuses on the shadow in the corner, there she notices that in place of light there is darkness. As she watches it, it begins to grow, curling its way along, slippery tendrils which spread across the walls until the shadow is almost as tall as the ceiling. “Who are you?” she demands, angry at her private grief being disturbed. “Are you the one who has caused this?”
He looks at the dead women and his anger bubbles. “Your Senshi sisters would not have gotten off so lightly had I played a hand in ending their existences.” His voice reverberates throughout the room, deep and monstrous. He sees her trembling as she recoils, leaving her dead sister behind as she backs herself as far away as possible, too afraid to utter a single sound, but even the cowering sight of the once fearless Senshi of Venus brings him no pleasure. He is too late. One out of four is not nearly enough.
“Do you recognise me, Aino Minako?” he asks, unable to help himself, “Do you remember how you betrayed my love and trust?” He steps forward and his body takes form out of the hidden depths. He is a powerful sight: fluorescent grey skin stretched across angular, taught muscles. He is a pale tower in black robes, a demon in chains, with eyes as icy as the tundra. A gasp escapes involuntarily while the rest of her body stills in frozen fear. His power hits her like a concrete wall, the pressure hurts her ears as her perfect nose begins to bleed and her heart pumps with terror-stricken speed. The room around him dims, as if the very light itself hides itself away in fear; the air becomes thick, heavy with a cold so biting her lungs burn as she breathes. “I remember, Korefina,” he says as he approaches, “every detail, every deed, every lying word from that divine mouth of yours.” In his voice is the sound of crushing gravel, guttural and painful.
He stares down at the Senshi of Jupiter, the greatest warrior of the Linking Planet. A mix of both outer and inner, she was gifted with control of the weather. With a swing of her finger she could send a storm of ice or sand. With a simple command the heavens would open up onto the sea and entire fleets would drown in a hurricane as huge as a country, not a single man reaching the shore alive. She had borne no battle wounds, for not a single foe had managed to scratch her. Her temper was quick to rise and brought with it lasting devastation and ruin. She was revered and feared by all men, they prayed to her in great temples, offering her barley and meat as they begged for safe journeys and full harvests, yet now there she is, taken down by nothing more than a tiny cup of poisoned tea. He kneels to look closer at her corpse, sweeping a handful of her silky hair from her face, he clenches it in his shaking fist. “How could you let this happen?” When Minako says nothing he looks up at her, his brow furrowed in anger, “HOW?” The roar is deafening, the ancient building quakes and she has to cover her ears like a child. “I needed these women!” he rages, “How will I free them now? How can my brothers find any peace? Can you protect no one but yourself?” The world seems to become enveloped with his despair and anger, his cries blast out with a sudden gust of violent air as the sounds of torment and anguish rises up around them. Wailing creatures, colourless, formless and hopeless spin around them, surrounding them in an inescapable dome.
His accusation angers her, more than the shock of seeing him again. “What have you done?” she asks him. “What have you become?” Her words are lost to the wind, but he knows what she asks nonetheless.
“I am what you have made me.”
“You're blaming me for your own choices!” A bright yellow light begins to emanate from her as her golden chain appears in her hands. She is ready to fight, her strength of will builds with the fury she feels. “You have no right!”
He raises his white eyebrow at that, a small movement but enough to mock her and despite the evil that flies around them she sees it. “I am paying for my choices, like you and your Senshi should have.”
“They're dead, Hedeas!” At her own words her eyes begin to well, “Is that not punishment enough for you?” She swings the chain around her, its golden light cutting through the wailing ghosts which surround her, but they do not stop, they fly on as if her power has no effect on them.
“Is it punishment for your soul to be released of its constrictive body? Is it punishment to spend eternity in restful happiness? Your bloody-handed sisters are free while Toskan, Baleop and Sorren remain trapped in cold stone prisons, tormented by deeds which were not done of their own volition! You and your sisters gave false promises of aid and arms yet when the time came you did nothing but throw us into the claws of the enemy! You betrayed us, Korefina! You betrayed the very Earth which now sustains you! And for what? A false treaty of peace with demons?” His eyes are overcome with a bloody shade of red.
“Our oath was to the Princess and to her alone. The loss of your people was not our doing, it was your own kind who destroyed your home!” She shudders as one of the screaming creatures comes close, breathing stale, dead air onto her living body. It is the colour of charcoal, with eyes a sickly, filmy white. She throws her chain again and it does nothing but flail in the wind like a tail in spasm.
“They were as much your people as mine!” Hedeas' voice booms out. “You were our gods! The Moon was bound to us, as we were bound to it. Serenity was as much a princess of our world as she was your precious Silver Alliance! Your duty was to Earth as well, yet you abandoned it in favour of hiding away in your crystal bunker.”
As a last resort she reaches for her sword, the great weapon of Venus: the Sabre of the Moon, but her hands grasp at emptiness. With horrified shock she looks down at her hip to find nothing there. A twinkle catches her eye and she looks up to see that Hedeas is holding it: a gift of her planet, forged by a power as great as the crystal, it can only be wielded by its Senshi. He flexes his wrist once with it, testing the sword’s weight, and then it vanishes as he drops his hand, like a trinket in a magic trick.
Mina understands at that moment, why Rei did it. She watches him, suddenly unafraid now that she is defenceless and she realises what kind of enemy he is. He is no living being, he is not something she can fight against, let alone win. “And what would you have done in my place?” she asks.
“I would not have left an entire planet to die. I would have done what was right!”
Any exchange Hedeas had planned using her sisters has been thwarted by Rei's actions. Her sisters’ souls, at least, are out of his reach, and so she is ready to accept her fate. She has never been afraid of death. “And what was right? Was your decision to turn to the enemy right? Is the creature you are now right?" She laughs, derisive and cruel. "Whatever you have become, Hedeas, it has given you rose tinted glasses.”
He realises that his power no longer frightens her. The Senshi of Love and Duty stands upright, her hair snaps and flicks in the wind like a thousand golden whips and he looks into her eyes, her red rimmed, blue eyes, so different from the golden ones of her previous incarnation, and they shine out with a look as familiar to him as it is hated. Victory.
The wind suddenly stops, the demons disappear and Mina is once again left in the shrine with her three dead Senshi in plain view. “I see clearer than any creature that lives or breathes, my dearest love.” His eyes lose their red fire and become as dim as the grey sea. “There is no one who follows the path that I tread. No one else who sees or does the evil things that I must do. I am alone, Korefina, and I will suffer for my own weaknesses. My master was my responsibility and I failed him, just as he failed his own people by running to the Moon Queen and abandoning us all.”
Mina's eyes widen at the implication, “No...” she takes in a breath, fearing what he will do. “You can have me, but you cannot take them! They did nothing wrong!”
His lips and nose contort into a cruel sneer, an expression she has never seen on him before. “And you could do what to stop me?”
She is defenceless now, her friends are dead, she is all that stands between him and her charge yet there is nothing she can do. “Please, Hedeas!” she begs, “They are happy here! They do good for these people! Serenity had been ignorant of our actions! Endymion did not go to the demons willingly!”
She misunderstands his intentions. After her, there is only one person left for him to seek out. “I have no desire to take the Princess. Like the Shitennou and I, she was betrayed by those she loved most.”
Mina cannot allow him his snide remark, it is too much of a blight on her honour. “I saved her!” she screams, furious that he does not understand. “We had no choice! We had to give them Endymion! It was the only chance for peace!” Tears unwittingly form as her body begins to shake at the thought of how Serenity had suffered at the loss of her Prince. “Rei, Makoto and Ami are dead and I will be soon enough. If you kill Mamoru too, then Usagi will have no-one! If you say you wish to spare her then why would you punish her so?” She takes a step towards him. “You are alone now and I can see how twisted and angry it has made your heart, but you were once a Kunzite of Earth,” she pleads, desperate. “Despite what people believed, you were a compassionate and devoted man. I know you still remember what it was like to love. Leave them alone, Hedeas, I am begging you.”
“I made a deal, I needed the Senshi and I need Endymion. There is nothing to be done. I will have him.”
Hedeas had never been one to explain for too long, to try and justify his reasoning. “But you do not have the Senshi,” she says, latching onto the possibility of his reluctance. “What reason is there to take Mamoru away?”
“There is still a chance that he might be enough, and even so, he deserves to face the consequences of his actions.”
He does not hate his former master, she can see it, but she knows that regret for having to do the deed will not be enough to stop him from accomplishing his goal. She thinks quickly for a solution. The Shitennou committed grave crimes; only magnanimous gestures will absolve them. “Then take me,” she states without hesitation.
It is Hedeas' turn to laugh. “I plan to.”
“That is not what I meant. Leave Mamoru alone and-” she pauses for a second, to stop and reaffirm her resolve, “and I will become like you.”
All emotion is pulled from his features. “Take care, Korefina,” he warns, “such words have power.”
His reaction gives her all the validation she needs to continue. The possibility is there. “You say that I betrayed your people, that I failed to protect those I was responsible for. You are right in a way,” she admits. “In fulfilling my duty I sacrificed the lives of billions, among them the man I loved most, and in the end it was all for nothing.” She watches his reaction carefully and to her relief she notices something. A shift in his shoulders, a movement so slight she almost fancies that she imagines it. “My crimes are no better than the ones you committed, why should I not share your fate? Stay away from Mamoru and Usagi and I will do what you do. I will serve the evil you serve.”
He shakes his head. “You do not understand. I am not dead, these chains on my shoulders keep my soul bound to my body and there is no escaping their cruel bite. You will never be able to feel any sort of peace again. You will be damned for all eternity. There will be no end. What you will face will be much worse than anything you can imagine, your soul will not be your own and it will suffer more than any other in that place.”
She finds it amusing that he is about to take her away to eternal torment but will still try to protect her from his own fate. “My soul is condemned in any case, it seems.” In his own twisted way, he has revealed more than he intended and she uses it to her advantage. “At least this way you will have enough to free your brothers... and you will not be alone.”
Those final words touch a chord in him. She can see from the hope he suddenly shows her that she has won.
“Do you still love me, Korefina?”
The question, from a creature as guarded as Hedeas, takes her by surprise and the answer escapes her mouth without thought - unedited and honest. “As much as you do me.”
Everything goes black and suddenly the world is only pain.
~*~
“I need you to collect the stones.” He looks at her carefully and notes how much longer her hair has become; only now it looks as if it has been drained of most of its colour. The creases in her hands, once a dark pink, now shine in venous blue. Her eyes are neither cornflower sky nor shimmering gold but a damp and dreary grey. Her features are no longer soft but sharp; her body is just a little bit leaner, taller, harder.
“Why?” she asks, her lilac lips pursed in mild displeasure. “I have no need for them.”
She is different, but he expected that. “I do.”
“You are not my master. If you want them, get them yourself.”
“It is not a command. Use it as a chance to see your Princess again.” Perhaps it is the new surge of power which has brought on her sudden bout of arrogance, but he begins to suspect quickly that it is something more. “You will not have another opportunity.”
Mina raises her pallid eyebrows and then tilts her head in a small nod. “Very well.” There is no feeling in her voice, none of the hidden sympathy of before, not even the reproachful anger. She does not care for him, that much is obvious, and he curses himself for been so foolish as to have thought that fate would have allowed him such a sweet gift. When she leaves his chest begins to ache as his chains tighten around his body.
~*~
She glides in, silent as a grave, into the small apartment. There, lying peacefully in dreaming slumber is Usagi, bright haired, cherubim-faced and clutched close by her lover. She watches her for a moment and wonders about the morning, when the young woman will wake up and find out that her dearest friends are gone. She will weep and blame herself, she will question what she could have done to have made them leave her. Their deaths will haunt her for all of her long life. The hurt will be unbearable. And yet, Mina feels nothing. She does not pity her former friend, she does not care in the least. There will be no pain in this parting, she realises.
As she reaches for the stones, it occurs to her that perhaps this is part of her punishment, the once Senshi of Love and Duty, no longer able to feel love... if that it is the case then it is no suffering at all. She cannot miss those she cared for if she does not care for them now. She looks down at the fine silver chains which poke out of her white skin above her left breast and wrap themselves around her torso, and she marvels at their power. Perhaps later, when she is not so freshly changed and the true weight of her new destiny begins to sit heavily on her, she will be able to look back at her mortal life and she will remember it fondly, but for now there is nothing.
She ponders briefly on the possibility of this being a punishment of some sort for Hedeas, who so desperately wants to rid himself of his loneliness. She does not understand why, in her living form, she had even entertained the thought of being with him. She pities him now, and she has no sympathy for the weak.
~*~
She delivers what she promises and gives him a knowing smile. “You did not want to harm Mamoru, you could not even muster the courage to so much as see him.”
He frowns at her comment. “I would have taken him, no matter his effect on me. It was your pleading and the prospect of a greater prize which saved him.”
She does not believe him. “You are a coward, Hedeas.”
With her cruel parting remark she leaves him, and he lets her go.
~*~
He travels to his first home, a sacred place in which he is no longer permitted to enter, and he stands at the gates. These ones, despite their lack of power to harm him, fill him with trepidation. He waits and irrationally wonders whether anyone will even come to see him. He clutches the stones, feeling their weight pressing on the cold, hard pads of his hands. He knows them by touch and that makes it easy to resist the temptation of looking at them. His forefinger traces the pointed corners of the Zoisite’s deep blue rhombus; with his thumb he recognises the jagged protrusions of the clouded, pastel green Jadeite; he can feel the deep cracks on the edges of the white and yellow veined, forest green Nephrite.
The last one is cold and it is lighter than the others, an empty vessel. He knows, with aching familiarity, the smooth, polished gloss of his own delicately pink, crystal clear Kunzite.
He rolls them around, beloved treasures which he has no desire to release. He touches them greedily and even though he can recall every tiny detail, every spec of colour, every oddity of shape in each of them, he commits what he feels now to fresh memory because this is the last time he will ever be so near to them. He can feel their energy every time his skin makes contact with their surfaces: the pulse of Baleop, the singing of Toskan, the gentle breeze of Sorren, and he knows that before long they too will be gone. Free.
He does not wait long, soon a boy appears and despite the indestructible barrier between their worlds, his young features eye the monstrous figure with suspicion. Hedeas extends his powerful, pale arm and opens out his hand, revealing the glittering cages. “Bury them, Helios. Their debt has been paid.”
The young priest breathes in deeply, standing straighter, no longer afraid. He reaches out and takes the stones, pulling them into Elysium. As they cross through the invisible barrier a collective sigh is heard in a beautiful chorus of relief. Helios examines the objects and frowns at the Kunzite. “I cannot bury this one. You have given yourself over to unending darkness, Hedeas. As long as your soul remains tainted nothing of you can exist here, even your empty stone.”
The pain of Helios’ words is almost too much to bear and he watches, unable to do anything, as the pink gem crumbles into nothing in the boy’s hand.
“Have comfort in the knowledge that you have redeemed your brothers. Their souls will soon be free.” He walks away. He does not bother to look back.
Hedeas stays and watches the priest retreating further into the heart of Elysium; he is alone and shunned yet he cannot resist the glimpse of the Heaven that was once his. The agony is only worsened as the chains begin to press themselves into his torso and burn him with a command. Obeying their will, he leaves and never returns.