LOVE AND OBSESSION
Chapter 12: "Show Them The Light"
By Bill K.

Over the city, a silver bubble of energy could be seen. No one knew what it was precisely, but from the silver color and the warmth and good feeling radiating off of it, many below guessed that Queen Serenity was traveling overhead. And they would be right, as far as their thinking went.

Inside the bubble was Queen Serenity. Also inside the bubble was King Endymion, as well as Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars and Sailor Jupiter. The bubble levitated over a residential area in the western portion of Azabu-Juuban. Row after row of white, oval dwellings, looking like eggs in a tray, were below them, the grid broken up by fruit trees thick with fruit and patches of vegetables in yards.

"Do you see it, Endymion?" Serenity asked anxiously as she guided the bubble - - a little too anxiously. "Do you see it?"

"Not yet, but we're on the right track," Endymion assured her. His arms were on her shoulders to brace her as she expended energy.

"Are you sure? You know my sense of direction!"

"I recognize some street markers," he told her. "We're coming up on it."

Mercury was dividing her attention between her computer and Serenity. "I've got the building on scanner," she announced. "I'm detecting fifteen life forms in the building."

"Big family," Jupiter commented.

"These are all adults," Mercury corrected her. "Possibly a meeting of some sort." She glanced sideways at Serenity. "Perhaps it would be best if we could go into the situation invisible until we can determine what the situation is. Would that be possible for you, Serenity?"

And with a thought the bubble and everyone in it disappeared.

"Hey! I can't see!" exclaimed Jupiter.

"Serenity, you're going to have to leave our eyes unaffected," Mercury spoke up. A moment later, Mercury could see four sets of eyes hovering around her where she recalled the others had been. "Very good. There's the building straight ahead. It's someone's home, apparently. Pass us through the wall and set us down at the back of the room. And remember, everyone must be quiet until the situation can be properly assessed."

The five gently set down by the back wall of a living room. Fourteen people were gathered in the room, while one man stood on a chair and addressed them. He was gaunt, genetically gaunt rather than gaunt from lack of food. His black hair was thick and unkempt, as if it had a mind of its own. He wore a light blue polo shirt and dark slacks. Much of his image was ordinary and in certain lights he might look eerie.

But his eyes were different. Mercury noticed it immediately. His eyes were fervent, ablaze with the excitement of belief. He scanned the audience from side to side and held them all with his gaze and the intensity of his words. Some of the assembled knew him as Genta Koyabashi. They all knew him as Koyabashi-Kun.

"Queen Serenity is the word!" he exhorted. "Queen Serenity is the way! She has rescued us from death! Pulled us back from oblivion! Wrapped us in her divine cloak of love and joy and granted us life again!"

"Yes!" exclaimed a few in the group while the others listened happily.

"Serenity is our leader!" he continued, his joy overflowing upon them. "She guides us to a bright, brilliant future where there will be no war!"

"No war!" echoed some of the group.

"No suffering!"

"No suffering!"

"No pain!"

"No pain!"

"She offers us a utopia, from nothing more than the kindness and generosity of her heart! She asks only that we follow! And we must follow!" he exhorted them. "We must accept her word as truth! We must accept her way as the only way! We must take her teachings into our hearts and live by them! For her way is the only way that will deliver us from degradation and destruction to that gleaming crystal utopia she has promised us!"

"The only way!" more of the audience echoed.

"But there is blight out there!" he warned, his expression changing in an instant from joyous to dour. "Not everyone accepts the gift that great Queen Serenity has given us! Not everyone believes in her divine future! We must show them! Teach them that she is right! Convince them that she is the path to heaven! Guard against them sabotaging our promise of peace!"

"Make them see!"

"And there are those who spurn her teachings," Koyabashi said gravely. "They reject her path and seek out their vices: gambling, alcohol and ways of the flesh! They sneer at her gift and do violence against their fellow man to satisfy their needs and urges! Or they simply do not understand because they are not of Nippon and are inferior!" He paused a moment to let it sink in. "They are an anchor, a stone around our necks! They drag us down! They block our path to salvation! They prey upon us like sharks in the ocean!"

"No!" several of the audience exclaimed.

"This is too important, too precious a gift to be barred from!" Koyabashi continued. "We can't allow these people to block us from the divine glory of Queen Serenity's virtue! These people must be eradicated! Carved out like the cancer they are! We must seek them out and destroy them before they can destroy us! In the name of Queen Serenity, we must eradicate them all! Eradicate them from the face of this planet!"

"NO!" a woman cried.

Everyone turned to the back of the room where the sound had come from. Several gasps went up. Standing there where no one had been before was Queen Serenity, with her husband and senshi. Everyone was shocked and amazed that she was suddenly there, whole and in the flesh. And they would have exclaimed their joy had it not been for the look of absolute horror painted on her face, a look that crushed their joy and stilled their tongues.

"Q-Queen Serenity," Genta Koyabashi whispered. A smile sprouted on his face as he climbed down from the chair. He cautiously approached her. "You have come to us. You honor us all with your presence, Your Majesty. Since the moment you freed us from the grip of death, I have sung your praises. And I have recruited others, others who believe as you do in the glorious future you have promised us. We stand here as your loyal and obedient . . ."

"What have you been telling them?" Serenity asked, her face still a mask of utter horror.

"What?" Koyabashi murmured, overcome with confusion.

"Eradicate them all? You're encouraging people to kill," Serenity asked, "in my name?"

"We merely do your work, Your Majesty," Koyabashi replied tentatively. "Protect the innocent. Punish the guilty. Make certain that they can never prey upon the weak again."

"No!" howled Serenity. "That's not what I asked of you all! Protect the innocent, yes! We all have to protect each other and look out for each other! But not punish! And certainly not kill! Killing is wrong! There can never be a justification for it - - ever!"

Several among the gathered began murmuring among themselves. Koyabashi looked at Serenity with an expression of betrayal.

"But you . . .!"

"I never sought to kill anyone," Serenity told him, her eyes tearing. "I've only ever sought to protect people. If someone I opposed died, it's only because I couldn't save them!" She sniffed. "No one has the right to execute another person. No one has the right to deny someone the chance to be saved! To redeem their life and come back to the fold! To be human again." She reached out and grasped Koyabashi's hands. "Because if you kill that person, they lose that chance forever. And they lose so much more. And you've lost so much more."

"No," Koyabashi moaned, struggling in the face of disillusion. "They are predators! They are blights! They must be stamped out before they can turn upon us or they will overwhelm us all! You saw them! You saw how they attacked at the first sign of weakness!"

"I saw them," Serenity replied gently. "They were lost. They weren't lost causes."

"They are ANIMALS!" Koyabashi snarled, ripping his hands away from Serenity's. "Mad dogs that need to be put down!"

"They act from ignorance and fear," Serenity countered. "They need to be taught a different way."

"False god!" Koyabashi snapped, his eyes blazing with fury.

The eyes of everyone in the room were riveted on him and Serenity. Suddenly Koyabashi lunged forward, his hand raised like he was going to strike the Queen. But he never got the chance. Endymion was in between them in an eye blink. He seized Koyabashi's wrist in a grip of iron. Twisting, Endymion forced the man to his knees. Koyabashi struggled for a moment to escape, then just seemed to sag, his chin falling to his chest.

"I never claimed to be a god," Serenity answered. "I asked for you to take the ideas of peace and kindness into your heart, not me. I'm just the messenger."

"You are a liar and a deceiver!" he seethed, hurt and angry. "To think I was stupid enough to believe in you! Get out!"

"Forgiveness," Serenity advised. "It's a much better tonic for the soul than vengeance."

"GET OUT!"

Already some of the people there were filing out. Some grumbled. Some seemed disillusioned. But some were thinking, so there was hope. Silently Serenity turned and waved the others out. She followed without looking back.

"You're not going to arrest him?" Jupiter asked once they were outside.

"What good would it do?" Serenity replied. "Hopefully he'll think about what I said once he's calmed down."

Just then a woman came up to them. She was in her fifties, with a youthful energy that was slowly surrendering to her years. She bowed respectfully to the King and Queen.

"Please don't judge him too harshly," she asked of the Queen. "Koyabashi lost his wife and son to a drunk driver. And then the ice monsters came. Life's been hard on him. He just decided to fight back."

"No longer being the victim and being the aggressor are two different things," Mercury observed.

"I understand the motivation," Serenity said. "But I can't approve of the actions."

"Weren't you one of the people listening to him?" Endymion asked.

"Yes," the woman admitted. "I'd heard about what Koyabashi was doing. It seemed like a solution to my grief."

"What loss have you suffered, Oba-San?" Serenity asked.

"My daughter," the woman answered finally. "She was killed by a hoodlum on a motorcycle. Now my grandchildren don't have a mother."

Without any urging, Serenity gathered the woman up in her arms and hugged her. Surprised at first, the woman quickly felt the aura of the Queen surround her and ease, if only temporarily, the hurt she felt.

"I'm sorry. I wish I'd been there to protect her," Serenity whispered. "But vengeance won't make you feel better. And it won't help your grandchildren grow up with love in their hearts. Be strong, for them. Plant the right seed in them, for their sakes." Serenity pulled back. "If you need help with anything, contact me."

The woman looked down. Finally she nodded her head.

The clack of designer high heels on the linoleum floor was a counterpoint to the soft impact of white cross-trainers with pink and red piping. The desk guard saluted Superintendent General Natsuna Sakurada as she entered the lobby to the Azabu-Juuban police holding facility. Next to her was Minako Aino. Sakurada signed a form on the guard's desk, then she and Minako headed for the door. Sakurada smiled and motioned her to a junction hallway.

"Come on. This will lead to the official vehicle parking lot," she told Minako. "We can avoid the press that way."

"Should have known they would have gotten wind of it," frowned the idol. "Thanks for springing me, Superintendent," Minako sighed.

"You would have been released anyway. You didn't really commit a crime, after all." Sakurada glanced good-naturedly at her friend and idol. "Except maybe for criminal poor taste in lovers."

"Guilty, guilty, guilty," Minako replied. "One of these days I'm going to learn to say 'no' to him and mean it." She thought a moment. "Although, I guess he wasn't really up to anything this time, aside from scaring off my latest fling. And maybe that was for the best - - this time."

"I doubt he did it for noble reasons, V-Chan," Sakurada warned her. "People like him can reform, but most don't. And the people who forgive people like him over and over again just let themselves in for hard times."

The pair slipped unnoticed into Sakurada's blue Toyota Avalon.

"I hear you," Minako said. "I haven't forgiven him. And I'm not about to run off with him and jump from bed to bed two steps ahead of the police. I want him to be that guy I can trust and respect, not just a guy who pushes my buttons. It's just," and Minako glanced out the tinted window, seeing the two dozen reporters and videographers gathered in front of the holding facility, "well, temptation can get the better of everyone sometimes. And Ace knows just how to tempt me."

"You have my sympathy, V-Chan," Sakurada told her. Then she smiled self-consciously. "I suppose a person with an entire room of her home devoted to nothing but Minako Aino memorabilia shouldn't pass judgment on someone yielding to temptation. Just please don't let temptation overwhelm your better judgment. We've got prisons full of people who did just that, to their regret."

The pair drove on in silence.

"Just one room?" Minako asked.

Sakurada laughed in spite of herself.

Visiting day at Fuchu Prison found Shiho Morobishi sitting on one side of the glass partition looking at her husband Yoshiki. Aside from the shaved head and the permanent scowl, he seemed healthy. And his demeanor wasn't one of fear or demoralization. Impatience better described it.

"You called it off?" Yoshiki asked, careful not to name what "it" was, for fear of monitoring devices. But his tone - - anger and rebuke - - were unmistakable. Shiho absorbed the tone stoically.

"She saved the life of our son," Shiho responded without emotion, neither irritation nor intimidation. "And she took down the Clan's greatest rival. It was difficult for me to continue."

Yoshiki digested this. "The gods protect this woman. They must, because she doesn't strike me as that devious." He looked at his wife again. "So my freedom must wait?"

"She offered a way out," Shiho advised him. "Renounce violence and she will free you."

"A non-violent Yakuza?" scoffed Yoshiki. "I have never heard of a successful one. And I am not prepared to retire to the country and tend rice paddies."

"Nothing so drastic," Shiho told him. "Serenity-hime does not seem interested in preventing us from preying on the gullible and the willing, only in preventing us from injuring them. There is still money to be made. And if the other Clans do not renounce their violent ways . . ."

"Then she will take them down," Yoshiki finished the thought, a smile dawning upon him as his wife's idea dawned. "And we will be the most prominent Clan in Japan. This has possibilities. And if she is the tidal wave of the future, it would be foolish to stand in her path."

"Thank you for seeing the worth of my idea," Shiho responded. "But you must be willing to embrace non-violence. A clever lie will not fool this woman. As you said, she is touched by the gods."

"Again, wise words," Yoshiki nodded. "It will not be easy. I must unlearn lessons I spent a life learning." He smiled suddenly, confidently at his wife and she remembered all over again why she cast her lot with him. "But I have never yet backed down from a challenge."

"I want to clarify a few things," Queen Serenity said, her message broadcast over all of Japan on all broadcast networks, both radio and television.

Viewers expecting the Queen to be forceful and commanding were surprised. This woman was low-key and visibly nervous, as if the lens of the television camera was her worst nightmare come to life. She spoke haltingly, but she spoke with an aura of honesty that came from the heart, which made her completely different from any elected official anyone could remember.

"I agreed to lead you all because you asked me to," she continued. "You wanted me to be different from what you had in the past, to give you all a better life and to provide the chance for an even better life for your children. I'm willing to do this, but I can't do it alone. I can't use the Silver Crystal to just wish everyone riches or a better job or their boyfriend to marry them. It's not that powerful. And doing it that way won't last. We have to do this ourselves. We have to change Japan for the better with our own efforts. That's where I need your help.

"And we can start by simply treating everyone else the way you want to be treated," Serenity said, her eyes beginning to glisten. "You can't expect kindness if you don't give it. Sometimes you can give kindness and still not get it in return. But you can't let it discourage you. You have to keep at it. And eventually kindness will spread and multiply until it blankets all of Japan, maybe all of the world."

She paused to clear her throat.

"Part of being kind is looking out for each other, protecting each other and helping each other," Serenity resumed. "I said I would try to protect everyone and I will. But I can't be everywhere. Neither can the police. That's why we all have to look out for each other."

Serenity darkened.

"Some people have taken that to mean they should - - should kill or injure someone who they feel is doing harm to someone. You can't do that! Please! That's not kindness. That's vengeance. Vengeance won't bring peace. Vengeance only starts the cycle again." Serenity swallowed. "If you disagree with this," and she glanced at her hands on the desk in front of her, "well, you're entitled. I'm not trying to control people or how they think. If that's not how you think things should be done, then you don't want me as queen. As long as I'm queen, though, I'll lead us toward peace, just as I vowed. If you want to follow, I'd love to have you. If you want to walk your own path, that's OK too. But if you walk the path of violence," and she sighed audibly, "then - - you'll have to do it somewhere else."

"You were going good there until the end."

Serenity turned from watching herself on television as her recorded message played and looked up at the door to the room. Rei stood there.

"I thought so, too!" Serenity moaned as Rei walked in. "That last part seems so pushy, but the words were out of my mouth before I could change them." Rei shook her head, knowing that wasn't what she'd meant, but knowing she could never convince Serenity of it.

"Well, sometimes you have to push people to get them going in the right direction," Rei said, sitting next to her. "You've been pretty down ever since that confrontation with those Serenity cultists."

"Did you sense that?" Serenity asked excitedly. "Is your sight coming back?"

"No," Rei replied softly. Then more strongly she said, "I noticed your mood. When you're a priest, you get good at reading verbal and visual cues, too. This hit you pretty hard, didn't it? Is that what motivated that address?"

"I want to make sure it never happens again," Serenity replied. "I-I guess you heard about Koyabashi-San?"

"That the police arrested him for leading raids on Yakuza front businesses and murdering the store employees?" Rei replied. Serenity nodded gravely. "Endymion told me." Rei could tell she was shaken.

"How could they do it?" Serenity asked, on the verge of tears. "How could they take everything I stand for and pervert it into justification for - - for killing people?"

Rei inhaled once. "Because people can listen to an entire body of words, but only hear a few that resonate with them. And they take that resonance and build it into a support system for their own beliefs. It becomes gratifying that someone famous or prestigious agrees with them, even if they really don't. We all want to think we're right all the time, that we're the good guys. And anything that supports that, even out of context, becomes a blessing in their eyes for what they do."

"So this could happen again?" Serenity asked fearfully.

"It might," Rei replied soberly. "But you can't let it make you afraid or inhibit your decisiveness. It's OK to question your actions. But never doubt your good intentions."

Serenity digested this. "Grandpa would have been proud to hear you say that. And it is good advice. Thank you, Rei-Chan."

"Don't thank me," Rei smiled. "Thank Makoto. She told it to me to try to get me to stop doubting myself and get me past my problems."

"Is it working?" Serenity asked hopefully. Rei just grinned timidly. It didn't stop the queen from pouncing and hugging her.

END