[Special 005: Voice] Drafted Again
[She makes this post as Sailor Mercury, because she'll be fighting in that form and it's best to be upfront with the people who'll be her allies.]I've been drafted. I think I went once before, didn't I? I hope that I aquitted myself well. I also hope to be able to fight alongside everyone else this time
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As it is, Ami... Sailor Mercury says things that Robert can barely fathom. "Decided in our past life". Enemies that would attack a planet.]
... Y-you... ... [Where do you even begin? What do you even say to somebody when your entire perception of them gets yanked out from underneath you? Ten minutes ago Robert was worried Ami was going out to die, and now he doesn't know if Ami hasn't died already, in a more metaphysical way.
He tries to organize his thoughts into something approaching coherent.]
... s-so. You fight... I assume with, with weapons.
... Why can't you reason with these... these enemies? [Never before has Robert met an enemy incapable of being reasoned with. He has no idea that there are some that exist that are essentially beyond reason.] Why do you need to fight, and kill?
... [And this last question. It's clawing at Robert and it comes out more painfully, almost accusingly, because Robert can't understand, and almost doesn't want to for once.]
... You are a doctor. How can you... how do you rationalize harming others?
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It's because I believe in what we all sacrificed for. I decided that I want to fight with my comrades this time, too.
I don't want to fight needlessly. But there are times it becomes necessary.
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... War is never necessary. [Even as Robert says it, now - now there's that seed of doubt. Like a cancer cell. He wants to excise it if only for his sanity.] ... It can't be. It's... it's fundamentally, ethically, morally wrong. Everything about it. [He's talking to himself now, and not Ami. He has to convince himself of this, convince himself he's right. Convince himself that this isn't Ami.]
... You... you could t-tend to the wounded there, couldn't you? [Pleading. He's pleading with her.] ... Not get involved in that despicable business. Just... let those hideous imbecilic excuses for scientists fight their own thrice-damned battles.
Why did it have to be you?
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[She thinks of Sayo as soon as she says it. She'll be able to help her now.]
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... And Ami did this, did something like this all the time back at her home. It made Robert sick. It made him sick to think about Ami doing that, because it was just... It was something that seemed, by all definitions, not to be Ami.]
... there are "incompatibilities". You're at more risk than... than those others, who were drafted. [Robert can't help how dead his voice sounds. He can't even really muster up any emotion externally, but inside he's crying again. Where are you, Ami? Have you already gone to die on the battlefield? And will you ever come back?]
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She'd almost lost everything as a result. Her compassion, her feeling, her friends.]
I know the risks. But right now, I don't have a choice. It's the Malnosso sending us. It's better if I go in condition to be able to fight, rather than resisting and being already tired or hurt from their droids.
[Yeah, she's been mallynapped before.]
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She needs her strength. ... to... to be a doctor, if nothing else. To protect the wounded.
He'll comfort himself with that thought, and try to use it to push down the image of blue hair stained with red blood.]
... I... I suppose you have a point.
...
Please, Doctor Mizuno... don't l-lose touch with yourself, out there.
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[Not again, not now that she knows how important it is and now that she knows what else she lost: innocence, purity, ideals, cleanliness.]
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I... I just... I never thought you could... be a soldier.
... it just wasn't... something I expected. [Robert's tone is... disappointed.
He isn't sure what he should feel. Common sense tells him to be afraid, to be angry. It's a violation of his pacifism, of the penal codes of Terra, of everything he espouses... But he can't bring himself to totally reject Ami, and finds that he doesn't really want to anyway.
... Still, this part of Ami... this glaring sore on her formerly-immaculate self... she'd hidden it from him, until now. Knowing that hurt a little - especially since Robert could barely fathom why.]
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[Which was exactly why she'd kept it; she'd been afraid it would trouble him. And she hadn't wanted him to believe she was insane for claiming to have power.]
But, it's something we promised to keep secret.
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... There are others? Are they here as well?
[He isn't sure he wants to know, but... he asks anyway.]
Sailor Mercury... I...
[What does he say?] ... Good luck, I suppose. H-However one... has good luck for this sort of thing.
I... I will await your safe return. [Where Robert will need to talk with her, to truly understand this... this mindset. This... aberration.]
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[She purposely avoids directly answering the question of whether they're here; it isn't her place to reveal Minako's identity. Besides, it's technically true: Minako here is not the Minako of Ami's world.]
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You... have experience with this, then. [It's saddening all over again, but in a way a little reassuring. At least she won't be defenseless - ugh. Even thinking like that makes Robert sick. He almost would rather she WOULD be defenseless... yet, he doesn't want her to get hurt.
He doesn't want anybody to get hurt.]
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And it touches that part of her that wonders for herself: Can she truly be a doctor, a healer, if she starts fighting again? There had been peace for four years in her world before the battles with Mio.]
I have experience from our past life. In this life, too, our enemy returned to Earth.
[She knows very little of this may make sense; but there's no other way to say it than bluntly, and let him ask questions.]
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Do you perhaps mean in your youth? [That thought is somehow even worse. Child soldiers were a whole new level of barbarism to Robert.]
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No. A lifetime ago. I wasn't born to my mother until this lifetime.
[The words are awkward, but she hopes they convey the point: a birth, a death.]
Reincarnation.
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