Author's notes: Set somewhere in S.  A look into Haruka's past.  

Let Go
By Ducky
Email: jessiegb@aol.com



It was cold.

Emerald eyes peered out from under dark blonde bangs tousled by the frozen 
wind.  Chilled lips were pressed together in a firm line, jaw set in hardened 
stone.  No notice was taken of the people that swarmed around her, walking 
briskly as if to escape from the inevitable cold that seeped into their 
jackets 
and scarves and numbed their legs and feet.  The slow, deliberate pace never 
wavered, never stopped.  Soft white flakes began to fall from the clouded 
sky, 
causing gasps to escape from the mouths of those walking underneath.  The 
tall blonde took no notice of this new development, this sudden cause for joy.
    
The wind sighed.


  "Papa?"

  "Yes, child?"

  "Is she going to get better?"

  Hesitation.

  "Is she?"

  "Of course, child.  Your mama will be just fine."

  "Papa?"

  "Yes, little one?"


  "Why are you crying?"


The snow swirled around her, covering her in its cold embrace.  A layer of 
snow had formed on the ground, covering it in the color of pureness.  It 
piled 
upon her shoulders, her head, the frost contrasting starkly with the dark 
clothes she wore.  Her tall form was as still as the stones that protruded 
from 
the snow-covered ground, blank marble that sat staring into the trees that 
surrounded the clearing, donning the snow like thick capes.  Behind her and 
beyond the tangle of trees was the ocean, noiseless from this distance, the 
waves crashing mercilessly against the rocks.  The blue depths extended out 
far into the horizon, meeting the pale sky at the edge of the world. 

She faced the row of lifeless marble, inscriptions written into the black 
stones 
like whispers in the dark.  Short and brief, telling all yet telling nothing. 
 She 
could put faces to the names and recite the years and ages with calm, 
emotionless precision.  But they were all much more than that.

This was her family.

A freezing blast shocked her senses.  The wind stung painfully at her face, 
taking her out of the memories that threatened to drown her, to pull her 
down.  
She stood firm, accepting the pain unflinchingly.  This was a place for pain. 
 It 
was sad, the way she could only stand and look at the headstones and not 
feel any of the burning sensation caused by tears.  There was only the 
emptiness that had filled her since the beginning of her existence on the 
planet.  

  " . . . ruthless . . . "

  " . . . merciless . . . "

  " . . . never shows any remorse for having hurt another or any pain in 
 being hurt . . . "


That's what the teachers had said.  She had gone from teacher to teacher, 
picking up bits of different types of martial arts in every studio.  She 
never was 
able to stay to finish any class.  They never allowed her to.  But she always 
learned something from each place and she blended those pieces she was 
able to collect to create her own harsh style of fighting, leaving her a 
feared 
combatant amongst the numerous schools she had gone to.  Time and time 
again, she had been kicked out of school after school because of a student 
that would foolishly rouse her temper.  She fought because those small 
insults, those stupid people were things she could fight, things that she 
could defeat.

Because the one thing she really wanted to fight was something she couldn't.  


  "It's a rare disease that runs through the female DNA of your wife's 
 family. That's why her female relatives all died so young.  After the age of 
13 
 their health begins to degrade.  Your wife has been very strong to survive 
this
 long."

  "She is literally dying."

  "Yes."

  Eyes closed painfully, and a shudder went through the stricken man.

  "And our daughter?"

  The briefest of pauses.

  "She will die young as well."
    
But they had been wrong.  Her father had insisted on their being sure so they 
had put her through test after test.  Again and again, the results showed 
that 
her DNA lacked the disease that had ended the lives of her female ancestors 
at such young ages.  As her mother had died, it had been revealed that she 
would live.  She did not have the disease.  She never would have the disease. 
 
The doctors were at odds as to how the disease had formulated in the first 
place and how she had no trace of it in her DNA.  It wasn't until later that 
she 
knew the answer.

It was because she had been destined to save the world.  


When she had accepted her destiny, she discovered the reason for why she 
had been laid clean of the disease.  Her birthright as Sailor Uranus had 
cleansed her from all life-threatening ailments, prohibiting her to escape 
from 
her destiny.  Making it so that she would be able to live as long as possible 
in 
order to fulfill the missions that she would be given.  She, of all the other 
women that had died, had been allowed to live, had been given the right to 
exist because of a destiny that called for her to protect a world that had 
cursed her and never cared.  

Out of all that could have been chosen, she had been given the right.


Out of all that should have died, Death had passed her by.  

She was unworthy.  Her soul was that of a tortured warrior that had held the 
lives of innocent people in her hands and had been willing to kill them with 
no 
hesitation. She who had been granted a relief from a Hell that she knew she 
justly deserved.  She who had promised to give up the life of the one she 
loved in order for herself to live and carry out a damned mission to save the 
world.  

It was the memories that gave her so much pain.


  "Papa?  Where are you papa?"

  'Too many people . . . who are all of you?  You shouldn't be here . . . 
 papa will be angry . . .' 

        "Papa?"

  'What's everyone looking at? . . . That's papa . . . but he's so white . . 
. 
 they're covering him up . . . why doesn't he open his eyes . . ?'

  "Papa?"

  "Get this kid out of here!  She shouldn't see her father like this!"

  . . . papa . . .


Her father had joined his wife in death, not giving any thought to the lost 
little 
girl left behind.  The little girl that was a medical mystery to the doctors, 
a 
disobedient nuisance to her guardians, who had become the 
uncompassionate being that stood before his grave now.  She could hear their 
voices in the wind, the voices that had been calling to her for such along 
time.  
The story of her life, the story of her twisted life hung before her eyes.  
The 
wind murmured in her ears.  Let go, the voices whispered.  

  Let go and you will understand.

The wind was still.  Green eyes closed, and slowly, one by one, she let go of 
the memories of her family.  She felt so tired.  Tired of being lost, tired 
of 
fighting, tired of being angry, tired . . . of living in the past.  The past 
was such 
a cold place.  The past was done, over with.  They were dead.  She wasn't.  
Things were different.  She wasn't the same lost little girl that had seen 
her 
father shot in the head by his own hands.  She wasn't the same heartless 
juvenile delinquent of her elementary.  She wasn't the same teenager that had 
taken up her destiny.  She wasn't the same person who had walked into the 
clearing.  She was Tenoh Haruka. Sailor Uranus.  Last living descendent of 
the Tenoh and Kaze family.  And what would become of her was not 
dependent on what she had been.  

Silently, she turned around and walked out of the clearing, into the shadows 
of snow-laden trees, small snow flakes gently falling upon the single red 
rose 
placed carefully at the foot of each of the headstones.


  The door opened and closed quietly.

  "You went there again."

  Snow was shaken off from the heavy coat, scarf and gloves pulled off. 

  "Yes."  Boots slipped off.

  "So . . . have the ghosts been laid to rest?"

  Silence.

  A nod.

  "Yes."


The wind smiled.





Ducky
August 17, 2000 - August 18, 2000