Disclaimer: I disclaim Sailor Moon.
Cry of the Raven
Chapter I
Once again, Minako walked from the busy airport and into the noisy but comfortable streets of another place she called home. It was morning, the bright sun shone over very familiar buildings. Everything about this second home was reassuring and soothing to her senses, but Minako knew she couldn't afford to lessen her awareness. A better part of the plane ride was spent asleep. If she were any less wounded, she would have found it hard to rest with all the thoughts running through her mind. 'Lamia…' the name was growled in her mind but she shook the thought. One thing was obvious to her; there would be no way to avoid her friends while she took care of this little mess she had made. She had phoned home using the phones available on the plane to tell her mother she would need to be picked up and surely enough, her mother had been waiting patiently for her when she arrived.
Beautiful, strong-willed and lively, her mother had always had the ability to gossip and converse as enthusiastically as a teenager. Aino Yumiko was like this for as long as Minako could remember. So when her mother gathered her into an energetic hug to express her limitless happiness, Minako did her best not to shriek in the most unbecoming manner.
"Oh, Minako, I'm so glad your home!" She exclaimed.
"Me too." Minako smiled. The truth was that she loved and hated being home. She wanted everything to be alright so that she could be here and be happy and feel more alive than she did at that very moment. "I missed you so much." She let her head rest on her mother's shoulder and took in the smell of her flowery perfume.
"You seem exhausted! I hope you weren't having too much fun without your old mother."
"No, I can't have that much fun without you." She yawned, "But I really am tired."
"Come on then, let's get you home. You can sleep in the car." Yumiko brushed her fingers through Minako's long silken strands as she always did when she found herself dumbstruck by her daughter's beauty. Minako found the act very heartening and was glad she was permitted to live long enough to feel it again. But while she tried to rest during the ride to her home, she found that she couldn't think of anything but the dying words of such a shallow enemy. These dying words that led her back home so abruptly were like poison to her ears. Nothing could be as venomous as the mere suggestion that the real danger had been in her real home all along.
"Die. They will….all die." Minako sneered while staring out the window. The sound of that strangled, sultry voice made her stomach churn and her head pulse. Her concentration would waver and her heart would pound within her chest. The old witch Lamia and her last dying breath swore revenge and the completion of her mission. "Scylla will take….vengeance. Take their souls… you can't save them. Not anymore."
She squeezed her eyes shut tightly and tried not to envision what kind of chaos her friends may have been in without her. Perhaps they were protecting her while she thought she was protecting them? No. Minako knew for certain that Rei would have informed her leader had there been an incident, but Minako also knew that if Rei were to experience a vision it would likely be kept to herself until the images were made clear to her. A glance towards her mother, concentrating on the road, and Minako felt her eyelids begin to droop again. Her last thoughts were a of rough plan of action she knew she would need to take and the phone call she knew she would need to make once she got home.
"… I feel like I've been here before." Whispered Rei.
"You haven't." A disembodied voice broke the silence that surrounded a damaged location. A battlefield.
"This is not a memory then…" Rei stood from her kneeling position to more closely survey her surroundings before the vision she was in was taken from her. "No. Of course not."
"I don't blame you. All battlefields are the same in the end. They have their own kind of beauty." The voice was playful but powerful. It was a fire and Rei understood the need to concentrate to control a flame.
"Don't try to sell me that crap. There is no beauty in destruction." She replied coolly.
"To each their own… but this field is different, I promise."
"Why…?"She wondered.
"Can't you feel it?" The voice retorted.
Rei was growing frustrated with the fire's incessant ability to be vague but she humored it and let her concentration fall upon the emotions amid the destruction.
"I feel…lonely. Loss. There is loss here." She said. "Good."
"Why are you showing me this? …Please? It feels so bad." She struggled to breathe and dropped down to one knee. She covered her face in her hands and tried to slow her furiously beating heart. " Is this the future?" She panted.
"A possible future. But you know much about time now. About how it shifts and changes it's mind. It is never spontaneous like fire. It makes its choices."
"Are you saying I can't change this? Damn it! What is this!"
"Patience is a virtue."
Rei snarled but took a deep breath. "I won't apologize. But you make it seem like there is no time to waste, so why not tell me…?"
"Even the gods have rules that they must obey."
"Setsuna—."
"The time guardian cannot help you. Now… you have a phone call."
"What!"
Rei's attention snapped back to the room she occupied, kneeling in the robes she had always felt most comfortable in. The phone was indeed ringing… once she had calmed the fury she felt from the immature flame she had spoken to, she left the room to find the phone and lifted the receiver to her ear.
"Reeeeeeei-chaaaaaan!"
The truth was that Rei had consulted the fire that night because she had been having the that familiar funny feeling, though the feeling was far from funny. It was a feeling of complete loathed confusion. A feeling that took all the thoughts she had at the moment and made them into jumbled messages that urged her to meditate by that fire every night. And those feelings had taken to her even before she was a senshi. She was not in a particular good mood though. That fussy and juvenile fire spirit had left her frustrated. Dismissing her for something as small as a phone call.
She sighed. A distraction had always been like an itch she could not scratch. Like a word on the tip of your tongue. An annoyance. Like a phone call from Usagi.
"Odango…? Don't tell me you forgot your date with Mamoru-san?"
"Oh no… you sound irritated. Mako-chan! Rei's angry, can you talk to her instead!" Rei pulled the receiver from her ear when Usagi decided to shout into it.
"Don't bother. What is it you want? Did you forget how to tie your laces?" Rei teased.
"And I thought you grew out of making fun of me!"
"Old habits die hard." Rei replied with little attention spent on the actual conversation.
"You're so rude! But we're all going to be meeting up at Mako-chan's bakery." Usagi pleaded in her sweetest voice.
"Why?" Rei sighed.
"Because."
"That's pretty vague. I'm fairly busy… why should I go?"
"Because you love me?" Rei could imagine Usagi's expression, complete with a smile of purity and a gleam of naiveté.
"…….Right." She said dryly.
"Rei! I want you to be there. PLEASE be there. 12:00pm." Click.
The power to pull a person's concentration is a strong one. A force to be reckoned with. Rei knew that Usagi, though clumsy and childlike, always knew what to say to throw her off guard. She pulled some clothes from her closet and dresser.
"The nerve of her! She calls us here so that she can be late?" Rei had already expected this but that wouldn't stop her from being upset about it. She felt at least a little relieved that she hadn't had to wait alone. Of course Ami would be the first to get there.
"Rei-chan… she's with Makoto. I'm sure they have a reason." Ami assured her without taking her eyes from the page she was reading. At this point in their relationship, Ami had gotten pretty good at consoling her friends without breaking concentration. 'The joys of multitasking…' She thought.
"Oh please, you know Usagi-chan has the capability to make anyone late. Even you." Rei pouted and took a drink from her now empty coffee.
"… I see your point." Ami blushed and adjusted her glasses.
"I could be making sales right now. You know that we need the money. This is insane. If they aren't here in ten minutes I'm going to..."
Ami observed that Rei was obviously in a irritable mood. It didn't take a genius to notice that. It was also coincidental that she happened to be reading a book on anger management at that very moment. Yes, purely coincidental. She did all she could and told her good friend to calm down and take a few deep breaths. 'And stop drinking coffee…' she thoughtbut didn't dare say that out loud. She offered her friend a polite smile then dropped her gaze back to her book...
"You smell like fire." A voice. A playful voice, teasing but melodious and kind, was whispered into the ear of one very angry and uptight fire senshi. It was a sound beautiful and distracting enough to make Rei scrape her chair as she stood and turned abruptly in surprise by the warm body that appeared behind her. 'Aino Minako.' Ami started her thought witha hidden grin, 'that wasn't very nice.'
"You've been working too hard again?" Minako laughed softly and tapped Rei on the nose. Ami could swear that her proximity to Rei was making the war goddess a tiny but uncomfortable as she was backed against the table with no place to go. "Ami-chan… I thought you were going to make sure she didn't work so hard."
Rei was speechless. She was startled and confused and happy but mostly confused. She wanted to say something but nothing would come to mind. The goddess of love and beauty had surprised her. She could feel her face heat up and knew she was turning red. Ami smiled and noticed that faint blush that was covering Rei's porcelain cheeks. "You know how Rei-chan can be." She said as normally as she could.
The blonde allowed a soft sigh while she stared into Rei's eyes. "Oh yes, I know exactly how she can be."
"Surprise!" Usagi chimed in from behind with a smiling Makoto at her side. All the tension drained from the room with just one enthusiastically spoken word.
"We got a call from her earlier. She said she had just gotten home." Makoto explained. She waved to the young man who manned the bakery while she was away then took her seat beside Ami.
Ami watched as Rei seemed to shift her gaze from Minako to Usagi.
"Well… are we just going to stand here?" Minako sat across from Usagi, who stared at her twin with excitement. Reitook her seat at the end of the table. Ami thought the sight was hilarious. The two blonde's on either side of Rei were happy and free to wreak as much havoc on the poor girl as they felt necessary. A hand on her shoulder snapped Ami from her thoughts.
"You know… you're allowed to converse too." Makoto joked.
Ami blushed and smiled; the warmth of Makoto's hand on her shoulder was a comfort. "I was just thinking…" she smiled.
"I know. You're always thinking." Makoto offered her friend a gentle smile then turned back to the animated conversation at her side.
"She would call you at four in the morning?" Usagi went wide-eyed. "I can't imagine being up that early."
"Well… normal people don't sleep as heavily as cows." Rei said sarcastically.
"Mina-chan! Rei just said I wasn't normal! Defend me…" Blue eyes instantaneously went watery and Usagi puffed out her bottom lip.
"She also called you a cow." Minako stirred her milkshake.
Usagi forked an eyebrow and 'humph-ed' with exaggeration. "You're both mean today!"
Minako proffered a glance towards Rei who she had noticed watching her. "What's wrong?"
"… You're back." Rei sighed.
"I can go if you like." Minako teased with a smirk.
"That's not how I meant it!"
It was fun for Minako to be able to see all of her friends again. They didn't look worn or hurt or as though they had come against any trouble at all. And this is the way she would have it. Home with just enough time to keep the peace. To watch their smiling faces was a tranquility only broken by the sudden pain that shot through her lower back, accompanied by an immediate wave of quickly repressed nausea. She rubbed her eyes and stood from the table. "I really need to get going."
"Artemis and Luna should be here soon, Mina-chan… do you really have to go?" Usagi pouted.
"Yeah… I promised my mother I'd be home for..." Minako thought of a quick lie, "…a little bit of a heart to heart." Being the actress she was, and with little to help disprove the statement, most of them understood. She bid them all a good evening and night and left the bakery before any of them could bother to offer a ride home.
"Ouch." She said through clenched teeth, though ouch did little to describe the pain…
Rei was not stupid and that much was clear. Many presumed that just because she wouldn't say anything thatit meant she did not see that there was a problem. There was definitely a problem today. It was noticeable in the way that Minako would wince when Usagi would latch onto her from across the table. In the way she seemed to partially limp to her chair and out of the shop. Then again, maybe she had been watching Minako a little too closely… closer than most.
'Minako… what are you doing…?'
She prepped again to meditate by the sacred fire that night, even though she had promised Minako that she would avoid doing so when it was not necessary. She said that she should not expend so much energy because at any moment the soldier of fire could be called into intense battle… but this was when she was sick and weak. Did the promise still stand, even now?
"Why is it so important you!" Minako pushed Rei away from the sacred fire's meditation room. She put herself between the volatile senshi and the door.
"I just have to! You wouldn't understand. Please move." Rei's eyes were dark but she was tired and frail from a harsh fever.
"It's killing you! But I guess that's something you wouldn't understand!" Minako replied angrily.
"Look." Rei took deep calming breaths. "It's not a choice. It's a demand. I'm pulled here because I feel the need for my presence. I feel it trying to tell me things."
"Rei… I promise you," Minako took her friend's hands. "If there is something wrong, I will take care of it. For now you need rest. I know I'm bad at taking care of you… but I'm trying and you're not making it any easier. So just please…go back to bed."
"I didn't ask for your help." Rei grumbled.
"No. But you needed it and everyone else is afraid of you."
"You should be too."
"Well, I'm not." Minako responded wryly. "Now march." She pointed off in the direction of Rei's bedroom and waited for the senshi of fire to start her way back.
The sacred fire warmed her as she took her usual position in front of it. On cold nights such as that one she found it comforting to feel the heat from her element. Rain pattered rhythmically atop the roof of the shrine and thunder rolled in the sky. Rei could feel that the sacred fire yearned to tell her something important. She tied her ebony hair back and prepared to meditate.
"Rin, Byo, Toh…" Her breath was drawn from the very pit of her lungs as she drownedherselfinconcentration. "Sha….Kai...Jin, Retsu…" The air seeped out slowly through her lips and the words were whispered and lost in the flickering flames. "Zai…Zen." Her mantra repeated until the fire formed shapes, grew larger and seemed to engulf her entire being. Her mind fell into an incredible light.
"Welcome back." The juvenile flame voiced.
"You again…?" Responded Rei, "And here I thought it was something important."
"We've only just starter and you're already wasting valuable time that you don't have… now listen to me…"
"Venus! Love me chain!" It connected with air.
These demon's were relentless; were they stronger? Venus dodged attack after attack. They threw charged bolts towards her. The beasts were only detected when the bolts would light up the area. So her choices were limited and she was in no shape to be wasting energy in the way that she was by staying transformed for too long. She needed to take care of the problem quickly. Venus, scanned the building top from where she was ducked. She rolled from behind her cover and stood completely still. Waiting… just waiting.
A bolt shot towards her from her left and she rolled quickly to avoid it. Venus used the momentary light to locate one of the two and shot a crescent beam towards it. Before the brightness drained from the scene, she noted that the beam only clipped the demon's shoulder. Again, behind cover, she swore under her breath as she noted that her leg bled from where the bolt had slightly grazed her. While it was a risk, it was the only way she could do this without light. She had to take that risk.
She dashed back into the open, this time the bolt was from behind her. Before she could turn… before she could react in any way, the attack made contact with it's intended target and sent Venus hurling towards the edge of the building. She landed, back against the ledge and in unbelievable pain. To make matters worse, the monster had charged towards her and leapt atop of her limp and tired body. It held her down with one hand, as though she had any will to fight left in her, and lifted the other above it's head to delivera fatal blow. She couldn't bring herself to close her eyes as it's fist began it's decent.
Fire. An arrow of pure fire lodged itself into the face of the enemy. The force of the shot madethe monster'shead detach completely from it's body, rolling to Venus's side. The large body lay lifelessly across hers. Another arrow and the second monster was destroyed. Venus felt tears pool in her eyes… for now she felt more fear than she did when death lay only inches away from her. She weakly pushed the corpse off of her. Fatigued, she turned to see her savior. She turned to watch as Sailor Mars stood rigid, bow of flames in her hand that steamed when the rain water would make contact. A glare was fixed on her and no words were shared. She winced at the sight of that fierce and burning look. Mars bounded away before either could say anything they would regret.
Venus knew that Rei would not go to any other place besides the shrine at a time like this. She sighed and landed in the courtyard and detransformed. Minako limped into the shrine and looked first in the sacred fire room. Upon not finding her, she checked with every other room. Thoroughly confused, she stepped back into the courtyard just as Mars landed and detransformed herself.
"…I thought you would have been back before me…" Minako whispered.
"I patrolled. Is there anything else you should have told me? Maybe the truth?" Rei spat angrily while walking past Minako and into the shrine. The blonde followed. She hated that Minako had looked away as though trying to make a decision on whether to lie or be honest. Rei wanted to shake her until all that was left was truth.
"Don't lie to me, Minako." Rei whispered gravely.
"I didn't say anything!"
"The truth."
Minako looked as though she couldn't decide whether to yell at her friend or comply with her need to know. Her fists were clenched tightly at her sides.
"Were they in England, Minako? Has it been that long?"
"Yes, in England!"
Minako smoothed back some hair that had fallen onto her face and looked back up at the raven-haired priestess. Rei was angry still but she wasn't angry at her. No one ever understood the real reasons that Rei always got so angry.
"But when you called, you...you never said anything...you didn't sound..."
"In danger? Because I wasn't. You've never trusted my ability to lead. Rei, I made a decision! You were all so happy..." Rei did grab the girl but not to shake her. Rei just took her into my arms and held her tightly. She did trust her, she really did but that didn't mean she wanted to ever see her best friend get hurt.
"I couldn't let them take that away from all of you. Not after you all worked so hard for this peace." Minako seemed to struggle with her emotions as she rested her head against her friend's shoulder. Rei stepped away from her to find the blonde unsteady on her own feet. She fell forward into Rei's arms again and that was when she noticed the blood. The girl had not fainted but instead, she tried desperately to stand on her own, to escape the mess that this was becoming. Rei held her tightly until she stopped struggling. They both sank to the floor of the room they occupied. All of Rei's calming words which told her to relax were being ignored and it only ignited her anger. Rei patiently took a moment to examine the bloodied area. She began to carefully lift the thin sweater but Minako held her hands…
"You won't like... what you see... Rei." Minako sounded so weak.
Rei shook her head with impatience to convey that it didn't matter as long as she could fix it. She pulled the sweater up slowly, which was evidently very painful as it stuck to Minako's bloody wound. Minako gasped through clenched teeth and grabbed onto Rei's arms. Minako's head lay against Rei's shoulder.
"Minako... " The senshi of love was falling in and out of consciousness. Rei spoke very gently into her ear, relaying exactly what she planned on doing. Carefully, so as not to hurt her anymore, Rei bundled part of my robes by my shoulder. "Bite this. That's a good girl." She stroked Minako's silken hair. "I'm going to take this off now." Rei grasped the spoiled cotton once again and lifted very slowly. Minako, driven by the pain, clenched her teeth on Rei's robes; her shouts were muffled. Rei continued to remove the sweater and faltered only when she felt Minako's teeth bite into her shoulder. Rei grit her own teeth and endured while the sweater was pulled completely from the sticky gash and off of Minako's body. Thewound was...indescribable. It was deep and surrounded by a tattered old bandage. The blood that slowly trickled from it was of the darkest colors. Rei felt Minako's teeth releaseher shoulder. She looked at her before she spoke softly.
"It's...poisoned." She managed hoarsely before passing out completely.
Author's Note: Hope you don't mind the viewpoint change. I was finding that writing from Minako's POV was really constricting. I kept slipping back into third. Sorry it took me so long. Next weeks chapter should be fun to write.