oo1 ≈ ❝ if we hadn't been sisters... ❞

[memorywaters]

A massive multi-faceted crystal made up of countless others looms over several smaller similar growths. It's a crystalline garden, but somehow the crystals that make it up seem possessed of life, especially two brightly-shining ones that seem newer than the others somehow. They're all like stars

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[waterfell]

The sound of her footsteps heralds her coming before Mercury herself comes into view. Her face is distant and impassive as she comes closer to the two still forms. She might be intending anything. When she is only a few feet away, she stops. She sees it all at a glance: the tiny rattling breaths that tell her life hasn't fled yet and the ugly death-wounds that mean there's nothing even her skills can do, here

[memorywaters]

Water? Mnemosyne seems to slowly come back into the moment, even if she appears rather disoriented... She would have given anything for a drink right now -- and attempts to lean forward for a sip. As she looks up -- she hadn't been expecting to meet the eyes of a sailor senshi...

"You... shouldn't be here..." she managed.

[drinkandforget]

She's too exhausted to be guarded as the strange senshi appears - to finish them off? She doesn't even have the strength left to defend herself.

She certainly doesn't expect what actually happens. Even now, her face shows the surprise. She takes the offered water, and feels better able to rest. To meet what comes with the resignation it calls for.

But Mnemosyne is right. "Don't go further." The words are too abbreviated, and her face contorts with the effort of speaking them. But going further as a senshi, this one can only meet the same fate they are.

[waterfell]

She's no fool, and despite her very large pride, she knows she has no chance alone against the fabled strongest senshi of the galaxy.

Those two henchmen, however... The sailor crystals are beyond Mercury's reach, but if she overtook them, there was a very real chance of forcing them to return at least these two. The two she's focused on right now.

But her own question, oft-repeated, comes to stop her: How do you decide which are worth saving and which aren't? There are hundreds, perhaps thousands or even millions here. They don't deserve to be forgotten for the sake of two, when she can't end this cycle for real.

She doesn't leave to pursue Sailor Phi and Sailor Chi, but nor does she leave. She helps Mnemosyne drink, calmly, before she finally speaks. "This ambition of Galaxia's... is something I won't allow."

[memorywaters]

"Protect -- the sailor crystals..." she forces the words from her throat. "Otherwise, this world's hope will -- !!" Mnemosyne cringed, knowing the implications. Her face contorted in pain as she withheld the urge to cry out. There was only one sailor senshi that could save them now...

[drinkandforget]

That was right. The sailor senshi who brought destruction was Galaxia. This war had to end. But they had no power to do that. They were about to-

"Disappear." Heh. She was even finishing Mnemosyne's sentences now. Without the sailor crystals, if Galaxia had their power in her hands, nothing would stop her ambition after all.

[waterfell]

If she knew what Mnemosyne was holding out for, she'd turn around and leave, with a sharp laugh at the sheer futility of ignoring the help right in front of them for the sake of a girl who cares so little that not only would she never save them, but she'd gladly destroy them herself. That was the princess Mnemosyne was putting her last hope in.

As it is, Mercury considers the chance of the sailor crystals. Even if they were returned... could that do more than making this start all over again, as they were gathered again one by one?

"This won't end until Galaxia is taken out," she says simply. Like the princess who started the endless cycle of Mercury's own world's fate.

[memorywaters]

"Y... You can't..." fear was written across the girl's features. She had come face to face with Galaxia... and nearly crumbled under her will right then. "Not alone!" she cried. "No one... no one else needs to die..." she squeaked, clinging to Lethe's hand as she forced down another sob.

[drinkandforget]

No. Perhaps she was strong, but this single senshi had no chance against Galaxia's power. None of them had. Even this had been useless, futile. They'd lost.

"Are you in such a hurry to lose everything?" she asked Mercury.

[waterfell]

"I'm not that noble," Mercury answered, treating the word dismissively, even contemptuously. "However, I also don't intend to let this reach my planet." She doesn't say whether she means the planet where she was born, or the one she grew up on in this life. Perhaps both.

[memorywaters]

"Your power... is no match for her... you -- will not be able to stop her on your own. Even together, Lethe and I..." her words caught in her throat again, sorry now that not only had her life ended in such a way... but the solider of oblivion shared the same sad fate.

[drinkandforget]

They'd given up, hadn't they? There was nothing else to do, not this late. Their power was spent, their bodies were broken, and the sailor crystals that would have assured their next life were taken from them, gone. Unreachable. This had been their final stand, and it had failed.

And this arrogant senshi from that backwoods solar system wasn't going to fare any better. But Lethe waited, now, to see what this Mercury would do.

"No one can fight this battle alone," she said simply.

[waterfell]

Mercury paused. Facing away from them, already halfway gone, she stopped and let her words carry to the other two over her shoulder.

"I was always fighting alone from the first." Speaking the words gave her more confidence, and she squared her shoulders. She'd never looked for help from sailor senshi before - and she'd been right. There was no reason to wait for it now.

"And if I die," she continued firmly, "I'll die with honor instead of like vermin in a hole praying for the hawk to pass by." Hadn't that been their choice, too? Mercury extended her arm, and her ice sword came to her hand in a quick flash of light.

[memorywaters]

Mnemosyne started to cry then. Softly at first, the tears just started to stream down her face without relent... How many more had to die in Galaxia's wake? How many more lives, crystals that were supposed to stand for hope -- would be ripped away?

This soldier's words seemed to cut deeply, as she seemed to feel the pain of all the lives in the crystals surrounding them -- did they die with honour? Did they all fight until the very last? ... Had she?

"Don't... don't die," she sobbed, "Please don't die..."

[waterfell]

"Tears like that don't become a soldier." More truthfully, tears like that for her confused Mercury immensely. There was no one who should have been sad over her fate, whatever it may have turned out to be. Mnemosyne... was too soft. (It wasn't that she'd grown too cold; becoming cold had only been natural.)

"This world doesn't allow for that sort of gentleness."

[drinkandforget]

Harsh as Lethe, too, could be at times, this wasn't the right time for it. The cold words only heaped the shame of their failure higher. She gritted her teeth.

"I want to get up." Once she forced the words out, they seemed to bolster up her attempt. "I want to get up." There was no real chance of it happening, yet she was moving to try.