USAGI IS DEAD II DEAD IS USAGI by DARK DAY FOR ANIME Diclaimer - Sailormoon is owned by Takeuchi Naoko and Bandai, so these characters really belong to them, except ones I made up. You know who they are! They're the ones that run around doing bad things to the original cast. ^_^ Well, most of them, anyway. Part One Skipped on the Winds of Time Usagi found herself lying in a double bed, within a strange room. And everything was dark. Well, not entirely dark. There were streetlights shining through the window. There were noises, too. Comforting noises of civilisation, coming from both outside the window, and just on the other side of the door, on the opposite side of the room. A hotel, she thought to herself. I'm in a hotel suite. Now all I have to do is work out WHY I'm here. And where here is. She slipped out of the bed, and noticed she was wearing nothing more than her underwear. She looked around for some sign of her other garments, but there were none to be seen. Opposite the bed was another door. Gently, she padded across the soft, carpeted floor and opened the door. A bathroom. That was about all. She switched on the light to the room. A small, flickering bar light came to life above the mirror. On one side was a shower with adjoining tub, on the other a toilet. And there still weren't any clothes anywhere to be seen. She switched off the light and turned back into the main room. To her left, in the direction of the window, was a small table sitting next to the room's television and fridge. There was only one chair to the table. She shook her head, then turned the other way. By the door, which was set off the main room slightly by the bathroom wall, was a suitcase rack. She stepped up and looked around the corner, but there were no suitcases there. She sighed in frustration. Without clothing, she couldn't just walk out and ask anyone where she was. She plodded over and sat on the end of the bed. Her eyelids felt heavy. She wanted to sleep. She felt she could sleep for eternity. And that was what she feared the most. She felt that, if she fell asleep now, she WOULD sleep for an eternity. Rubbing tired eyes, she forced herself to stand and walk over to the window. Outside was a street. A main street. With cars running back and forth. To her left was an intersection. Cars would slow down, stop, and leave intermittently. Why was she so fascinated with this scene? After all, this could be anywhere in Tokyo. Only it couldn't be. Not now. Tokyo was dead. The Tokyo she remembered. And so should she be. The body had given birth to another that carried the soul of Serenity. One that called itself Usako. But the mind could not go with that body, and so a fusion had to occur... One that would only be successful if both parties were willing.... Somehow, it seemed like a dream to her. She pressed her hands against the window and felt the cold.... The night air tearing the heat from the glass. She stepped back, rolling her now-cold fingers and thought of Mamoru, and how she killed him. There was nothing to think about. All the memories were there, but the emotional attachments were gone. It was like there had been no relationship at all. The same happened when she thought of the senshi... All those who died, all those who tried to kill her. But they couldn't have, because she was alive. She was here. She was now. She might as well have been another person, for all the effect those memories had on her. She was on the third floor, wherever she was. She leaned as close to the window as she possibly could, pressing her face hard against the glass. Trying to see.... Down the street, either way. What could she see? Nothing. Nothing that would be out of place. No landmark that she could recognise. In fact, the entire street was bland and sterile. Businesses and Department Stores. And they, too, were bland and sterile. None of the visual razzmatazz one normally came to expect from commercial entities. No, everything on this street looked functional. Like they had been designed merely for the purposes of distribution, rather than the experience of shopping.... of doing business. Usagi looked for a latch on the window. In most modern hotels, the windows didn't open. One too many leapers had mitigated the dubious pleasure of fresh air through a hotel window. Much to her surprise, there was a latch. She pulled the handle aside and felt the frame click open, slightly. She pushed the window forward, its hinges making it open upwards and.... The building across the road reached out to her, claws lashing out with hungry abandon. She let out a short cry and pulled the window shut, jumping back. Nothing had changed. The view from the window was exactly the same as it had been before. Usagi stood, staring at that view for several long moments, before approaching the window again. She took hold of the latch, pulling it aside again, and once more, she felt the frame come loose, ready to open. Rather than push it quickly, she slowly made a gap in the base, peering through. Visions of hell awaited her. Outside lay not a normal streetscape, but a biomechanical monstrosity. The sky was an ebbing orange and black. The buildings pulsated with life, tubes filled with liquids of some description running down from their rooves. The street was like a railway of giant teeth and bone, along which ran cars that looked more like a cross between arachnids and rhinoceros beetles. In the walls of the buildings, inserted almost at random, were hundreds of black, unblinking eyes. She could feel them watching her.... Predatory... Hungry... She shut the window and locked it. Once more, the outside world returned to its peaceful, domestic normality. She shivered and pulled the curtains across. She wanted out of this place, wherever it was.... She wanted OUT of it. The phone rang. It made her jump, since she hadn't noticed it before. It sat on a small table beside the bed, next to the clock radio. She stared at it as it rang through close to twenty times, and she got the feeling that it wasn't going to stop until she answered it. She stepped up to it, picked up the receiver, and answered softly. "Hello?" "Go back to sleep, you fool." The phone went dead. Usagi stared the the earpiece and shook her head. "Easy for you to say." She put the phone down and sat on the end of the bed. Only one thing she could do, now. She stared at the entrance door, biting her lip. Regardless of whether she had next to no clothes on, the only way out was through that door. Then and only then was she going to get any answers. She stood and walked to the door, placing her hand on the doorknob. She snatched it away. It was as hot as Hades. She looked at her hand, expecting it to be seriously burnt. But it was fine.... No pain at all, the skin unblemished. She looked back at the doorhandle, dubiously. Someone, or something, was doing their level best to make sure she stayed in this room. She turned back to the bed, studying the bedclothes. After a few moments of thought, she plodded over and grabbed the blanket cover off, wrapping it around her hand. Then, going back to the door, she took hold of the doorknob again with her insulated hand. She could feel the heat, but this time it wasn't so bad. She turned the hand and... ...Was thrown back against the suitcase rack. She landed rather painfully on her tailbone, and spent several moments making strange groaning noises through gritted teeth. The blanket cover fell from her hand as she reached back, touching the base of her spine. The phone rang again. She looked aside, frustrated. She jumped off the rack and stepped across the room, answering the phone rather less than nervously this time. "What do you want?" "I said go back to sleep! Is that instruction a little hard for you to grasp?" "Who is this, anyway? What do you want?" Too late. The phone went dead once more, and Usagi slammed the receiver on the hook rather too harshly. She'd had enough of this game. She marched back to the door and began to slam her fists against it. "Hello? Somebody! Anybody! Get me out of here! Please! Help me!" The phone began to ring once more. She ignored it and started thumping the door with both her fists, her voice getting louder and louder. Then she was grabbed from behind. She let out a cry as she felt herself being dragged from the door, through the wall and into the bathroom, where she was unceremoniously dumped into the bathtub. She looked up just in time to get a faceful of cold water. She shrieked and thrashed around in protest until she was thoughroughly soaked, then the water stopped. She lay there, dripping wet, as water trickled down the drain, listening to the sound of the ringing phone. She did this for close to an hour. And the phone just kept ringing.... She'd managed to tolerate its sound for that length of time before it began to play on her senses. She let out a strangulated cry and bundled herself from the bathtub, back through the bathroom door, across the room and answered the phone. "Just WHO THE FUCK are you?" "Don't you like me?" Usagi spluttered. "ANSWER THE QUESTION!" "I've tried to make you nice and warm, but you reject my efforts." She laughed. "Of course I reject them. Where am I? Who are you?" "You hate me! I knew you would! All the other rooms said we'd be good together, but I had this feeling. Well, that's it. I'm not tolerating a guest like you staying in me. Get out!" And with that, Usagi found herself being hurled out through the now-open entrance door. The township of Kushada was one of the largest new settlements on mainland Honshu, roughly thirty miles south-west of Shin Kobe. A land-developer who happened to have survived the Cataclysm had made the town his personal plaything. After all, it wasn't everyday that you were given the opportunity to build an entire community from scratch. The main street of Kushada was fairly busy for a town of some fifteen thousand people.... Not many when one compared it to the reborn old cities, but considering the town had become something of an economic hub, not entirely unsurprising. The street was certainly at its best at night, when all of its establishments were lit up, as it was now. The large, black transport rumbled down the main street. It was eyecatching as it passed by, but then, it was designed to be. "Functional and attractive", had been the motto of the Sakura engineering company for the SK 3700K. And that it was. Like a cross between a truck and a sportscar, it turned many an appreciative eye, mostly due to the common knowledge of its price tag. The transport stopped in front of the town medical centre, an institution that had been set up almost immediately post-Cataclysm to handle the wounded. Now its place in the main street could only be described as questionable. Made mostly out of woodframe and weatherboard, its initial construction materials were the wreckage of other buildings. Ever since that time, it had been added on to, until it outgrew reasonable planning standards. A group of youths, who were standing outside a bar on the opposite side of the street watched as the doors of the transport glided open like wings. They wolf-whistled as a young woman emerged. Attractive and slim, with straigh black hair and pale skin, dressed in a simple minidress, she turned to them and flashed a smile. They all turned and walked into the bar as quickly as they could. She almost laughed. One of these days, one of them was going to have the balls to take her on. They wouldn't last very long... but it would make an amusing change. "Are you finished scaring off the guys, Hotaru?" Said the husky-voiced woman from the back seat. Hotaru turned to Makoto and shrugged. "I don't know. Should I be?" "Some of them were good looking, too. I can never travel anywhere with you and meet the guys, can I?" "You do a pretty good job of scaring them off, yourself. You and your "old boyfriend" complex." Hotaru chuckled. Makoto shook her head and stepped out of the transport. She wore her hair short, these days. She'd long grown tired of trying to maintain long hair. Unlike Hotaru, she was dressed in a heavy, thick coat that covered a simple blue dress. It wasn't often that Makoto would wear dresses, these days. She hated them. But one had to keep up appearances when one was out visiting the savages. "Are you fighting again, Hotaru-oneechan? Mako-oneechan?" Umi stepped out of the car, looking from Hotaru to Makoto. Now, at thirteen, Umi was already quite tall. Her long, slightly wavy blue hair ran down low, and she was dressed in a loosely flowing black dress. It was the first time they had taken Umi on one of their little mercy jaunts, and she was enjoying the visits. Of course, the downside to all this was the fact that they had to leave Setsuna behind. Even though she was only a year younger than Umi, the girl had proven to be somewhat willful, and they preferred it that she remain with Arachne until their return. All the same, Umi was beginning to display some worrying signs, herself.... One being an undue fascination with her dream powers. Arachne didn't seem overly fussed, saying this was only natural for someone who was going to become a Water Miko. But it was altogether too much like her previous lives for Hotaru or Makoto. Even Usako worried sometimes, and Usako wasn't usually one for worrying.... Usako stepped from the front passenger seat and turned to the single light that was on, out the front of the medical centre. She folded her hands across her front and sighed, shaking her long, silver-white hair, worn down. CereCere stepped out from the back, next to her. The pair looked like bookends, wearing long, floral one-piece dresses. The only difference was that CereCere had maroon-red hair. CereCere's facial features were strangely similar to Usako's, something that often lead to some confusion about their origins.... CereCere had to protest, once too often, that she was not an Usagi clone. "I see why they call it the patchup house." CereCere sniffed. "Its an architectural dog's breakfast." "It is also the oldest building in town. One must expect these things." Usako sighed. "We promised them we would call upon them. Now we must make good our promise." Usako turned to CereCere. "Before we attract too big a crowd." She nodded past the redhead at a small but growing crowd, watching them on the footpath. CereCere shrugged and turned to Makoto, peering across the roof of the passenger section. "Mako-chan, can you and Hotaru bring in our bags. Usako and I shall meet with the director of the centre." "Aww, you get all the easy jobs." Makoto scratched her nose. "It is because I have a basic understanding of social decorum. Do you remember the time I allowed you to negotiate accomadation on Onyx?" "Yeah yeah yeah, alright. No need to push the old stories about." Makoto pointed to the box-like rear of the transport and nodded to Umi. "Come on, then, show a bit of initiative." Usako turned to CereCere. "Are we going?" "Unn." CereCere nodded, and the pair stepped up to the front door, CereCere waving Usako in. The front hall was rather more impressive than they imagined it would be. A simple reception desk with office behind, with new carpet and softly painted, pastel coloured walls running down a long corridor. The office was empty, so they waited for someone to pay attention to the door buzzer. "By the way..." Usako looked at CereCere. "What did happen on Onyx?" CereCere smiled, knowingly. "Mako-chan got a little miffed after the owner of a hotel refused us accomadation. We were off the planet in no time to avoid having to pay compensation for the damage caused." Usako chuckled. "Hell hath now fury like a senshi scorned." They both turned as an elderly man in a white medical coat, shirt and trousers stepped out from the nearest room along the hallway. He smiled and held out his hand as he approached them. "Ah. The famous healer, Usako. A pleasure to meet you, my dear." He shook Usako's hand, and she smiled sweetly. "I'm Kameju Gennosuke, the director of the centre." "Pleased to meet you, Doctor Kameju." She turned to CereCere. "This here is one of my entourage, CereCere Paridis." CereCere smiled. "Hajimemashite." She bowed slightly. Kameju smiled. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Paridis." Usako gestured to the door. "We have further members of our party handling our luggage outside. Where are we to stay?" "Ah yes...." Kameju nodded. "Follow me." He gestured down the corridor and moved on his way, Usako and CereCere following. "I here you ladies have been looking for a woman with two cats." Kameju looked aside as they reached a door at the end. He looked at them as he opened the door. "It was on the newsprints just last week." Usako nodded. "We're more interested in the cats themselves. We have been searching for them for years." Usako stepped through the door, which lead to a T junction. The corridor lead to either side of the building, then turned both ways. Kaneju and CereCere stepped through after them. "Why are the cats so important?" "They simply are. The woman had taken them with her shortly after the Cataclysm. I feel she was actually searching for us, but it has been close to nine years now. They have to have gone, somewhere." "I seem to remember, some time ago, back in my home town in Hokkaido, stories of a woman who was travelling around with a pair of talking cats. What was her name again.... Kiko.. something." "Kikotsuka Aoi." CereCere said, simply. "And it is her who is important to me, not the cats." "To each their own, CereCere." Usako smiled at her, archly. Usagi lifted herself up from the carpeted floor of the hotel corridor, trying to shake the darkness from her mind. Every time she looked up, the world started to do little jaunts, which made her feel nauseous. She'd never been lifted up quite that rapidly, in such a brute manner, and thrown with equally brute force. Of course, she'd been beaten, zapped, smashed and all sorts of nasty things during her life, but never thrown out of a room by something that wasn't there. She finally got to her feet and stared down the corridor. It went on forever. Just an endless row of doors, disappearing into a dark, distant spot. She spun and looked the other way. The same thing. Only this way, she could see a woman, a cleaner of some description, pushing a trolley with her cleaning equipment. Her pace was slow, and Usagi could hear the sqeaking of the wheels. Usagi turned to the doorway she had been thrown through, but it was now closed. She looked down at her lack of clothing and shivered. Well, it was too late now to turn back. With a sigh, she trotted along the corridor after the woman. "Hello... I say, hello. Can you tell me where I am, please? Or, at the very least, some idea of where I can find the reception desk?" Usagi placed a hand on the woman's shoulder, and she turned. She almost had a heart attack, and took several steps backwards.... The woman had no face. END OF PART ONE DDFA ayanami@merlin.net.au 8th Mar 1998