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      The Undeserving

   A Sailormoon Fanfiction
   by dejanatalis@aol.com

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	He crouched on the floor, doubled over, arms and legs curled 
protectively around his abdomen, shielding the area where the pain 
reigned. The intensity of the blow had been such that he nearly 
became ill; it seemed as if his body had imploded. Was it his 
imagination, or could he feel blood seeping into his gut? Still, he 
kept his eyes uplifted. Still, he kept smiling.
	"Why did you do it?" the green-suited amazon repeated coldly, 
glaring down at him with eyes of ice. Sailor Jupiter. Her rage unabated 
even by violence, she trembled still, lips curled in a half-snarl that 
made it clear she could and would kick him again.
	And she would enjoy it. 
	He knew she would take pleasure in his screams, his cries for 
mercy, if he were to give any. And so he continued to deny her. To defy 
her. He kept grinning. Kept matching her, stare for stare.
	He had no regrets.
	"I can keep asking this for the rest of your miserable life," 
Jupiter hissed. 
	She couldn't. It was plain as day to him how frustrated she was, 
how annoyed she was that he would not break. How close she was to 
completely losing it. He knew the other soldiers were just outside the 
door, but he didn't care if they failed to stop their comrade from 
committing murder. He had had his pleasure. 
	"Why? Why did you shoot her?!"
	He had his immortality.
	He could still see it now, could almost taste it on his tongue as 
he gasped for breath in the wake of an uppercut to the chin. Could 
almost smell the acrid aroma of the gunshot. That red blood slowly 
seeping through the white dress. The pain in those blue eyes, so much 
deeper than the physical, the agony of unexpected unimagined betrayal. 
The perfect desecration of her inviolate utopia.
	Neo-Queen Serenity.
	It had all been so beautiful, the culmination of all his 
ambitions, all his desires. The murder of a goddess by an average man. 
The horror on the face of the king, the panic that radiated from him as 
he rushed to his wife's side, the tears on the woman's pale cheeks, 
were well worth the beating he was suffering now.
	He continued to smile.
	White-gloved hands seized him by the shirt and slammed him 
against the wall. An auburn-framed visage of snarling death hovered an 
arm's length from his own, lightning sparking in its eyes.
	He spat blood on her face.
	An instant later he was sliding across the smooth floor and 
crashing heavily into a wall, his left arm now throbbing so badly he 
was sure it must be broken.
	"Traitor scum!" She stood panting, her clenched fists shaking at 
her sides. Blood on her white gloves. "All she ever wanted, everything 
she's ever done, was for your happiness! Is this how you repay her 
sacrifices?"
	He laughed. The resulting motion of his abdomen was so painful 
that lights swam before his eyes, but still he chuckled weakly, unable 
to contain himself.
	"You really believe that, don't you?" he gasped, pushing himself 
up against the wall, but not getting to his feet. "You really believe 
you've earned what you have."
	"Haven't we?" Jupiter demanded. "The monsters we've fought, the 
enemies we've defeated-"
	"Are meaningless." The smile twitched on his face. "Being 
soldiers does not give you the right to rule, to remake the world as 
you see fit."
	"If you'd seen the world as it was before," the warrior snapped 
in disgust, "you'd be more appreciative of Crystal Tokyo."
	"I have seen it." Now he rose unsteadily to his feet, bracing 
himself against the wall with difficulty. With his bruised abdomen and 
cracked ribs he could not stand fully straight, but it was enough to 
look Jupiter properly in the eye. He knew she could see the years on 
him now, could tell that he was one of the survivors of the old days 
without further evidence.
	"It was green," he grumbled. "Not cold, white stone like this. 
Like bone. Like death. Pure and sterile."
	Now it was Jupiter's turn to look away.
	"We had no choice," she muttered. "Everything was dying."
	"You were children!" He knew his words would be a death sentence, 
but he didn't care. She wanted to know. He would tell her. "What did 
you know about saving the world?"
	"We'd done it before!" she snarled, her eyes flashing with 
lightning again, once more focused on him and sharper than ever. "You 
wouldn't be standing here if it weren't for the sacrifices we made back 
then!"
	"You made mistakes," he challenged. "You know it as well as I do. 
You were little girls, with only a couple of cats to tell you what to 
do. Not all of the monsters disappeared as harmless sand. Not all of 
the victims escaped unscathed."
	"We did what we had to do," the soldier argued.
	"You did what pleased you," he replied, making sure to keep that 
infuriating smile on his face. If he was going down, it would be with 
his head held high.
	"We fought for love and justice."
	"But whose? Were you really thinking of the entire world's well-
being when you fought your daily monsters, or were you hoping that boy 
you liked would smile at you the next day?"
	"We fought every monster, every threat that set foot on this 
earth, without hope of reward or even recognition!"
	"But only in Japan," he retorted smoothly. He watched the green-
suited soldier struggling to hold herself in check, and he reveled in 
it, letting her anger fill him with strength. "Even at the end, the 
rest of the world could go to pieces as long as Japan survived. What of 
Cairo, Paris, New York, Rome? No, only Tokyo was fit to survive - 
because it was YOURS."
	"You try ruling a world sometime," Jupiter seethed. "Under 
Serenity's rule, there is peace and happiness. Everyone is equal, 
everyone has what they need. There is no poverty or suffering. Crystal 
Tokyo may be small, but it WORKS! We made it work!"
	"Always, the arrogance. Is there no room to admit you may be 
wrong?" He swelled with pride even as his injuries throbbed and 
screamed, thrilled to be the one to crack the crystal of this perfect 
world. The Sailor Soldiers had gone long enough without having their 
judgement challenged. It was high time for certain things to be said. 
	"You're nothing more than spoiled brats playing with fire, handed 
everything you ask for because of deeds you performed years ago, 
thinking yourselves goddesses because everyone else says you are. It's 
all an illusion. It's not real. You are not infallible. I proved it. I 
cut down that figurehead you held aloft as divine."
	Sailor Jupiter's fury boiled over. She let out a roar and lunged 
forward, seizing him around the neck and slamming him against the wall 
so hard that blood ran down the back of his head. And she didn't let 
go. Her grip began to tighten around his throat, her eyes making it 
clear that that snarling face was to be the last thing he would ever 
see.
	There were tears on its cheeks.
	He choked, his lungs fighting for air that couldn't come as his 
body dangled heavily in midair, his left arm dead weight at his side. 
The room spun around him.
	There was a gasp from across the room.
	Jupiter turned her head to look. Through darkening, blurred 
vision her captive glimpsed a short, frail girl in servant's clothing 
cowering against the wall near the door, a basket clutched in her arms. 
Some poor innocent, obviously. She looked horrified.
	He dropped to the floor in a heap of agony as Sailor Jupiter 
abruptly released him. He lay helpless for a moment, writhing and 
wheezing, unable to focus on anything beyond forcing air through his 
crushed windpipe. He didn't see what passed between the soldier and the 
girl but after a few seconds he heard the door open and close.
	Footsteps approached him. He drew several deep breaths and tried 
to focus his vision, preparing himself for another round of torture.
	Blue swam before his eyes. He turned his head and discovered, not 
a soldier, but the ordinary girl bending over him with a cloth in her 
hand and a bottle of water. Ah, so this was the part where they treated 
his wounds only to cause him further pain later. For an instant he 
almost resisted, but something about the girl's presence calmed him. He 
accepted the liquid she pressed to his lips.
	As she wiped the blood from his face and helped him to sit up he 
was able to see her more clearly. She was young, and wearing a long 
ponytail and a light blue dress. Never in his life had he seen such a 
pitying look as he found on her face. There were tears of sympathy in 
the girl's eyes, and she tended his wounds with utmost gentleness. For 
a while they did not speak as she unrolled bandages and adhesive from 
her basket of supplies.
	"She does love you, you know," the girl said in a half-whisper as 
she switched on a handheld bone regenerator. The quiet hum of the 
device added a slight warble to her words. "The queen. She loves all 
her subjects. She takes care of us all."
	"So, you're one of the brainwashed ones," he answered with a 
snort of amusement. He talked hurriedly to distract himself from the 
stinging pain as the regenerator knitted the bones of his left arm back 
together. "Here is a lesson for you, the most important one you may 
ever learn. Serenity is no goddess. She's just a girl, no more divine 
than you are, and she knows it."
	"She protects us," the girl said. "It's her duty to save the 
world from evil."
	"Why, just because she happened to be born with magic powers?" he 
challenged. He flexed his fingers experimentally. At least some good 
had come from this artificial utopia; the medical field had not ceased 
to advance. "Because she had some prewritten destiny to conquer the 
world? That alone does not make her fit to rule."
	"She never asked to be queen," she replied, wrapping his bleeding 
upper arm in gauze. "She did it for them, because they begged her to. 
Everyone says she has done well at it."
	"Well, you seem to know your history. Do you know how old 
Serenity was when she became queen?" he asked. "Twenty-two. Twenty-two! 
Queen of the world at twenty-two! And the world surrendered control to 
her so easily, not because she was the most fit leader, but because she 
had SAVED them," he added in a mocking tone. "How many of them knew she 
had grown up a spoiled, whiny crybaby? She had a good heart, but power 
in the hands of innocents always goes astray. Always."
	"She learned quickly," was the girl's response. "People often do, 
when the need strikes them."
	"She's still so naive," he scoffed, glancing around at the walls 
surrounding him. "Look at this place, this makeshift jail cell they had 
to throw together at a moment's notice. She never expected to have to 
deal with criminals. She never gave a thought to protecting herself, 
never imagined that anyone in her domain could do anything but love 
her. It was so easy. I just walked right up to her, and...and did it. 
Just raised the gun and pulled the trigger."
	He threw his head back and laughed so long and loud that the 
servant tending him drew away slightly, frightened.
	"They keep asking me why I did it," he burst out. "I did it 
because I COULD. Because I know they're not as all-powerful as their 
followers believe. The very fact that I was able to carry out my plan 
proves it.
	"They survived so much, those girls," he exclaimed with glee, 
"but did any of their enemies try firearms? The goddesses of our age, 
immune to all the worst the supernatural could throw at them, yet 
vulnerable to simple human inventions!"
	"That is true," the girl admitted, returning to swab alcohol on 
his minor cuts. "They never looked for evil in humanity." With this, 
she gave him a reproachful look.
	"There's no point in trying to make me feel guilty," he said 
dismissively. "If they're so foolish as to believe all evil comes from 
other planets, they deserve a lesson in reality. Besides, they are 
hardly innocents themselves. How many living creatures have they 
destroyed in the name of the Moon?"
	Despite everything he had been through, the girl's sudden strong 
grip on his arm and the piece of cotton dripping with alcohol pressed 
harshly to his deepest scratch made him hiss with renewed pain.
	"Do not say such things," she said in what was clearly intended 
to be a dangerous tone, but her voice wobbled with uncertainty. "The 
Sailor Soldiers fought demonic monsters, corrupt imitations of life 
made from inanimate objects and possessed innocents. Their enemies had 
no souls."
	"I do." He turned his head to give the servant a long, cold 
stare. "Sailor Jupiter would have killed me with her bare hands. You 
saw her."
	"You don't seem dead to me," was the reply, but he could see the 
unrest in her eyes. At least some of what he was saying was getting 
through.
	"She would have killed me, given the chance," he reiterated, his 
gaze not wavering for an instant. "All that saved me was your arrival. 
The Sailor Soldiers can not risk shattering the image that keeps them 
in power, the illusion that they are defenders of the people."
	"But they ARE-"
	"No," he interrupted, unwilling to entertain more propaganda. 
"All their lofty ideals, all their creeds and mantras, it all 
disappears when their precious queen is threatened. In the end, they 
exist to serve her, and no one else. They need her to be the symbol of 
their authority. The people of this city made her a goddess when she 
deserved little more than basic gratitude. Now, with luck, she is dead, 
and if I am damned for it, I accept that fate." 
	He finally looked away and gazed into the shadows of the room, 
proof that darkness still existed in Crystal Tokyo. "Someone had to end 
the illusion."
	There was a pause.
	"She would forgive you."
	He turned back in her direction, amazed that the servant could 
remain so faithful after all he had said.
	"She could have made all of this go away, you know," the girl 
said quietly. "She could have made you love her again, and you could 
have been happy. Perhaps she still could."
	"Oh, yes, Serenity's most famous trick," he chuckled. "Saving her 
enemies from their evil thoughts. Her most brilliant tactic. She 
brainwashed them just as they had done to her friends, only with joy 
instead of anger, and called it salvation."
	"Do you prefer unhappiness?" she asked him, not meeting his eyes 
as she dabbed dried blood from his neck with a wet cloth.
	"Without sadness, what is happiness? Without struggle, how can we 
appreciate our rewards? A life where all is handed to us on a silver 
platter is not a life." He lay back on the crystal floor as the girl 
moved the bone regenerator toward his injured ribs. 
	"There was a time when I worked for what I had," he mused. "It 
was hard, and I often wished to be free of it. But now there is no real 
happiness in things that were once pleasures. Serenity has done nothing 
more than transform us all into children like herself. Everyone is 
merely too blinded by bliss to realize it. Is that what love and 
justice are? Ignorance, and the blind sacrifice of basic freedoms to 
the control of the undeserving?" 
	"Many would say they do deserve this, that is it their reward," 
the girl said quietly.
	"The Sailor Soldiers did great things," he admitted, "but they 
didn't earn this. Nobody can earn control over someone else's destiny."
	He sighed, staring up at the darkened ceiling. 
	"I suppose they'll just brainwash me anyway, if Crystal Tokyo 
doesn't collapse and one of the soldiers doesn't kill me first. In the 
end, I'll be given the life sentence of being just like the rest of the 
robots here."
	For a long moment, the girl was silent.
	Then, after a brief, sideways glance toward the door, she leaned 
close to his ear. Her words were less a whisper than a breath of warm 
air.
	"What if I told you I could get you out of here?"
	Before he could react the door clicked open, and the slim figures 
of Venus and Mercury appeared. They did not look pleased. The girl 
could do no more than shoot the prisoner a brief apologetic look before 
gathering her materials back into the basket and getting to her feet. 
The two soldiers stood aside for her, and the three of them disappeared 
through the doorway, closing the heavy door behind them. He was left 
lying on the cold crystal floor, alone with his aches and pains. For now.
	At least he had his memories of true justice.
	
	As soon as they stepped away from the closed doors, Mercury took 
the basket from the girl to relieve her of her burden. The girl's blue 
eyes were sad as she reached up to untie her long blonde ponytail.
	"Are you sure you're all right to be walking around?" Venus asked 
with concern, glancing at Mercury for confirmation.
	"Of course," the girl replied, pulling her hair up into twin 
pigtails as they walked down the corridor. "You know Mercury's the best 
healer on Earth, especially when combined with the power of the 
Ginzuishou. Where's Jupiter?"
	"In her apartments, unwinding," Mercury answered in a low voice. 
Her eyes were uneasy. "I've never seen her like that before. I can 
almost understand now why people used to find her scary."
	"Well, it's not as if the rest of us don't feel the same way," 
Venus commented, a flash of fury momentarily contorting her features. 
"Anyone would. Honestly, what were you thinking, going in there? He 
tried to kill you!"
	Neo-Queen Serenity winced slightly, but the bullet wound in her 
chest was now nothing more than a memory. 
	"I had to know," she said quietly. "I had to know why he did it. 
There has never been a human who sincerely wanted to harm me. There has 
never been a hatred I could not heal."
	The queen clasped her hands in front of herself over the pale 
blue dress she was wearing. She was not yet ready to go back to the 
elegant royal gown that defined who she was just as much as the girl 
inside it. The two soldiers were walking much more closely at her sides 
than usual, as if they feared something might happen, and she had a 
horrible sinking feeling that her life was about to change even more.
	"He was right, wasn't he?" Serenity murmured.
	Venus rounded on her, stopping her in her tracks as she took a 
deep breath and raised her arms, her eyes severe.
	Her hands stopped inches from the queen's skin. 
	There was a pause before she simply exhaled and gave Serenity a 
small smile.
	"Of course not. How can you say that?"
	In another time, Venus would have shaken some sense into her. She 
would've been scolded for being so silly, for thinking so little of a 
friend all the soldiers treasured. But now that she was queen, Venus 
was afraid to lay hands on her. Afraid to tell her how she really felt. 
Serenity merely sighed, once again belittling her disappointment.
	"We are only human," she said. "Why are we any more deserving of 
power than he is?"
	"We're Sailor Soldiers!" Venus protested, confused. "We're 
reincarnations of ancient warriors! Is there anyone more fit to lead 
these people than us? Than you?"
	"We haven't gone astray in all the years you've been leading us, 
Serenity," Mercury added warmly. "People are happy, and safe. Why argue 
with success?" She smiled at her queen, but the monarch's eyes were 
fixed on the floor.
	"No one has a more loving heart than you, and no one is more 
loved than you," Venus agreed, her eyes shining with contentment as 
they always did. "The people of Crystal Tokyo wouldn't want anyone 
else."
	"Yes, I suppose you're right," was all Serenity could say. It 
was easy for the soldiers to say such things. They weren't the ones on 
the throne, the ones who would have to answer for their sacrifices and 
their sins. All she could think of were her would-be assassin's words, 
and the way he smiled as he talked about bringing down everything she 
had worked to create. 
	They had always believed their dreams were the same as everyone 
else's, that their desires were what everyone wanted. But his dreams, 
his happiness, came from the thought of her death. 
	Were his dreams less worthy of her protection? Who was to say 
whose dreams were the right ones, and which were wrong?	
	"When shall we tell him he didn't succeed?" Mercury asked 
quietly.
	"Not yet," Serenity replied. "Let him have his momentary 
happiness." They walked on a while in silence.
	Perhaps she could still help him escape.
	At least then one of them would be free.


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"The Undeserving" fanfiction copyright 2005 by dejanatalis@aol.com
Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon and its associated characters and canon 
belong to Naoko Takeuchi and Kodansha. The text of this creative work 
was created by dejanatalis@aol.com and is her exclusive property. Not 
to be used without permission.  Sailor Moon Says: Don't steal! ^.^