A.L. 1
Sailor Pluto watched the scene unfold in front of her as if in slow motion. Just like that, after a heartbreaking battle, after spoken words of sorrow and loneliness he was gone and had been destroyed by his own pain.
If that wasn’t symbolic enough what else would be? Rubeus was there, in front of her eyes, laying lifeless, covered in blood and gruesome wounds, his insides thorn and his soul ripped. The personification of her fears for that whole year. The personification of everything she fought against and everything she would be if she did not have people there for her.
She kneeled by his side touching whatever Cosmos wasn’t desperately holding. Horribly fascinating. She couldn’t help herself. He, what she saw of him now, could easily be herself. She was barely getting strong again. He was not different from her and she felt for his pain intensely.
“I was too late for you.” She murmured to herself. They had lost the battle. Even if they won the war the deaths of Jadeite, Zoisite, Rubeus and so many others would meant they lost everything.
They had failed Rubeus. The perfect world so “full of love” (a love that Setsuna herself barely experienced) had let him down to the point he planned his own death… A Fury wouldn’t kill its host would it? Not if the host hadn’t allow it.
She was going to say something, but before she could tell Cosmos to get a hold of herself she saw a blast of ice being sent towards her partner in duty. Without blinking Sailor Pluto jumped in Cosmos defense and hadn’t the blast been thrown by such an emotional Berthier it could have hit them.
“Let go of him now.” She murmured in Cosmos ear physically unwrapping the other from Rubeus and taking Cosmos away from him. Sailor Pluto felt bad for Cosmos guilt, but the look in Berthier’s face, the way Cosmos had unleashed that Fury told her she shouldn’t be there holding him.
And the look in Berthier’s eyes terrified Pluto. As well as her words of revenge.
If she hadn’t felt her body so weak, if she hadn’t lost so much blood and if she hadn’t used so much power, she would have been able to quickly shift to the other side and try to block the fury from Rubeus. Even if it could be useless, even if it seemed stupid, even if it could cost her life. Sailor Juno froze in place, she was so close to the Fury feeling Demando’s shoot so close to her cold skin. But she didn’t move, she couldn’t and all the voices she couldn’t hear them.
It’s long sharp finger blades penetrated his chest, right where her tears had soaked his shirt moments before. So easily, so fast the monster ended his life in front of her eyes. Juno stopped breathing, her heart stopped beating, her mind went black and she couldn’t feel her body.
No.
Her horror face kept looking down at Rubeus’ lifeless body. The fury was dead and he vanished, Cosmos threw herself on his body and tried to heal his wounds, Berthier tried to blast her Pluto pulled her away. But Juno did not move. She fell on the floor, landing hard on her knees and just staring at him. Her wound kept bleeding, tainting the floor. Her blood, running on the floor started mixing with his.
Juno blinked, finally. The image of A.L.1 penetrating his body, the sound the blade made against his flesh, the smell of all his blood suddenly sprouting from his insides. Over and over again.
No.
Her face suddenly changed to a furious one, her hands turned into tight fists and after a hard punch against the concrete, she faced Berthier and got up. ”WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!” She yelled furiously at the woman. She had to leave, she couldn’t deal with that right now. Tears did not run down from her eyes yet.
”DON’T FUCKING START BLAMING HER BERTHIER. ARE YOU GOING TO ATTACK ME AS WELL, IT’S MY FAULT TOO. ARE YOU GOING TO BLAST AT YOURSELF?!” Sailor Juno looked down at his body and turned around, giving her back to the rest of the group and started running away. The pain from her leg was unbearable but not as much as the pain and weight she felt in her chest. She left blood footsteps behind.
For the longest time she simply lay in the floor. She heard the sounds, and the voices, she felt the energy around her, but she could not get up. Her bright blue eyes focused on one and one person alone. Rubeus.
She just needed to rest a bit. Soon she’d have enough energy to teleport herself and him away from there. But she couldn’t now. In a minute or two and…
“RUBEUS!” She yelled of the top of her lungs as those claws ripped Rubeus’ chest. “NO! NO!” She tried to get up but she was shaking. Shaking desperately. There was blood everywhere, blood starting to stain her own laying body and all she could do was continue shaking and laying in his warm blood. So warm just like him. His blood was starting to warm her cold and shaky body.
She looked again - she hadn’t realized she turned away as his insides has been exposed - and as her eyes rest in Cosmos’ disgusting figure holding him she felt as if she ws going to vomit. If anyone stabbed Rubeus in the chest after the Fury had ripped him like that it wouldn’t seem so outrageous and humiliating as what Cosmos did.
She got up slowly, her eyes full of vivid RAGE. She knew he wasn’t dead. She knew he would come back at some point - she hadn’t left him alone and he wouldn’t leave her alone either, he hated traitors and he wouldn’t ba one. - and she did not want him to know his body was polluted by that woman after she had been the one responsible for his death.
She blasted towards Cosmos and if it hadn’t been by the infamous Pluto she would have hit her. Berthier was livid.
“Always having to be the martyr.” She almost spit those words. “Tsk, tsk. Do you really think your arms are going to be the last ones to hold him? You killed him. You kill everything you touch. Go away before you make more of a fool of yourself. Go away NOW!” She screamed.
JunJun’s words made her laugh. Laugh desperately. The kid actually though she could go away. Berthier teleported straight in front of JunJun gripping in her neck tightly, her freezing hands starting to freeze Juno’s body as well. Dark Water Full Power slowly taking over her body. As soon as Rubeus’ body disappeared she’d make everyone freeze to death too.
“I have no problem killing each and every one who hurt him Sailor Juno.” She spoke with a smile. “I have nothing to live for now. You and that rat took everything I lived for. There never existed anything before him to me, there will never be anything after him.”
“He wished you never would come.”
That was something he already knew: he really was not good at granting people’s wishes.
So close and yet, no time for a sigh of relief, no time to think ‘we made it’. This happened before, how many times already? And yet the feelings were the same. The breaking noise inside his chest, the sudden cold is his whole body were the same. And yet he couldn’t move nor yell.
Always a witness when it came to losing people he cared for.
Promises were broken like thin glass.
His old one, to find a place for the Black Moon clan to live. Sailor Moon one’s. Rubeus’s one. And the one he just made to Berthier. In a single instant.
Demando stared wide-eyed for long, agonizing seconds. He didn’t realized how he screamed Rubeus’s name. Always a witness, even to his own actions.
No. It had to stop.
He was not supposed to let his feelings go like Hikari or this kid were able to, even if he wanted to. His shaking legs wouldn’t let him fall. His eyes were dry and probably always would be. Because he was a prince, and he was supposed to be stronger than that.
He slowly walked until he could kneel to Rubeus’s side, not really listening to what happened around him. This happened before the day he lost his brother; the way he knelt, the weight on his arms when he lifted Rubeus’s body, the maddening noise in his head and chest. The same cold feeling in his throat threatening to choke him.
Was it his curse? Life after life - To see his dearest ones die before his own eyes, to be the last one standing around corpses he could only hold close a few moment before they disappeared into nothing? It was too cruel. Even to make him pay for everything he did, this was… too cruel.
This time however, there wasn’t any home to go back, so instead Demando teleported Rubeus to his own place. He couldn’t do much more and there was still things to take care of here. Part of him admitted bitterly that he also didn’t want to see Senshi mourning him. Selfishly. This is my turn now, don’t pretend to understand. Don’t pretend to care about him like I do.
Standing was a difficult task. Walking was even worth. Deprived of magic, his whole body was screaming to rest. But he had to join Berthier and he did, as fast as he could, as softly as he could. He put a hand on her wrist; not trying to force her to let go, not flinching when touching the ice - or at least trying to.
“Enough, Berthier.” if his face didn’t show it, his shaking voice betrayed the emotions sealed deep inside him. “… Enough.”
His other hand covered Berthier’s eyes and gently but firmly guided her against him. A gesture he couldn’t really explain. Maybe an older brother’s reflex. [It’s okay. Don’t look if you don’t want to. Cry, nobody will see.]
“It’s over. We will have our revenge. And then, we will have him back. But not today. Not this way. Please.” then he added, in a sigh only her could hear, “You are not alone.”
His blood was singing too, and more than anything he wanted to made someone pay, anyone, an eye for an eye. But in his state, it would be meaningless. In Berthier’s too. There would just be more loss for the Black Moon clan, and nothing would be gained.
Now, the way things were supposed to be was clear. Clouded by sadness and anger, but clearer than ever. When he turned to face Sailor Pluto (and only her; he couldn’t face Cosmos, not yet, he didn’t know how to react.) his eyes were burning.
“You know what this means, don’t you? Tell it to your Queen” and it was the first time since years, since they left Nemesis for the first time, that his voice carried no infatuation when talking about her, “Since she is so good at hidding when she is needed.
Tell her this means war.
This fight was not ours, this was your enemy. Rubeus died because you were not able to do your duty as an army. He shouldn’t have been targeted in the first place. If it was a mere human, I bet all the other senshi would be here? Sailor Moon would be here too with her crystal and her almighty power and it would be over in a blink. Everyone would have returned home safely and forget about this.”
His voice was growing stronger and stronger with rage, disdain and much more he couldn’t contain anymore - breaking his usual cold mask.
“But if it is for one of us! She doesn’t even show, nobody does, and see what happens!
We paid our debt to Earth, we died once for our sins alread. This time, we only wanted to live in peace! But if we can’t, you won’t either. This I can promise you.
You will pay for what happened. Your selfish comrades and leaders, your people, your entire little planet will. This meaningless truth is over.”
An eye for an eye - and Rubeus’s life was worth way more than that.
Now he had to focus, gather what little power he still had to teleport Berthier and him out of here.
