Agony, ushriya

((Thursday, June 7th, 3572. Evening.))

She was late. Or, rather, Raen was late. She had taken her time, spent as long as her current would allow her curled around Vulcan. She might have needed to sell a part of her soul, but she felt nearly-whole again. No less angry, no, she had plenty of anger to last her through this century and the next, and the ones to follow. But she was tempered in a way she hadn't been since death had taken her, cold fingers around her heart in the form of her own flames as she sacrificed an already-ending life to make sure Jadeite had gone with her.

And whilst she may have promised not to harm her former liege physically, she had certainly never claimed she wouldn't do so mentally. Ariana retained control in spite of Rei and Raen's protests, fighting them every step of the way 'home' as she sauntered with extra sway to her hips and her head held high. Perhaps after this, she'd have a chat with Jadeite as well.

But talking to men was like talking to a brick wall. She was amazed they could speak at all, simple creatures that they were. The fact that Endymion had been able to understand what she meant when offering him his life in exchange for her companion was still amazing to her, given the total lack of understanding he had had in the time she had known him. Given his knuckle-dragging nature, she had expected far less. Time would tell whether or not he truly knew what he was doing. If he didn't... well, she'd kill him and his girl. Or better yet, she'd kill him, make his girl watch, and deny her the pleasure of taking her own life in her anguish. Like she had the first time.

The Martian padded up the steps of her home, offering a vague wave to parents she had never personally met. She didn't grunt or greet them or even meet their eyes, focused on one of two energies she was never without. The first was Minu, brilliant as ever in her new form. That one, her eternal punishment. For failing in her time, she was tethered to the one thing she would never truly have again. She had come to accept that much.

The second was never returned. She preferred it that way, really, knowing that she could hunt down her supposed Princess without being detected if she so chose. She focused her energy on that, keeping up Raen's running block of links to Venus. The last thing she needed was that woman in her head, after her. Instead, she merely waited, bided her time until she heard the family downstairs starting to settle and doze. And then, she simply rolled around the corner, spying her actual prey, and stared her down. It took a moment just to swallow the hate, the age-old urge to kill, but she got over that fast. She could still do irreparable damage here.

"I hear you went and got yourself pregnant again," she drawled, idly lounging in the doorframe to her "sister's" bedroom. Otherwise silent, deadly, like a tiger stalking prey. "How intelligent of you. I would have hoped you might have learnt your lesson after the first time you betrayed me for that neanderthal." Nonchalant, casual. Like it didn't matter to her anymore, when in reality, it was one of the few things that did.

Thousands of years later, and she'd given up on waiting for an apology she knew wasn't coming. But perhaps she could prevent it from happening again. If not, well. She could certainly just see to it that the world burnt.

It was strange how much it hurt. How just the thought of one little girl could feel like a thousand knives, tearing her innards to shreds. Even after all her memories of the fall of Crystal Tokyo and the end of the Silver Millennium, Riya knew that she had never once had this much pain, other than when it initially occurred.

"Mama! I can't wait till I can be a graceful lady, just like you!" the girl exclaimed as she jumped into the puddles. "When I can morph! I'll grow up!"

The tears stung. It hurt so much, thinking of that bright little girl who never would grow up. Riya clutched her chest as the tears ran down her face. She felt so empty inside, so alone. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to any of them, most of all to Chibiusa.

Her brave girl deserved so much... She deserved to fall in love, to grow up, to rule Crystal Tokyo, to wield the Silver Crystal. But all of that ended so abruptly, so painfully. A thousand wounds inflicted in a single instant, when the little girl fell and time stopped.

"U-sa-gi-chan," Chibiusa said slowly, as if she were speaking to a simpleton, "you can't just walk up to people and ask if you can add them on Facebook."

"But I have to have more friends than Minako-chan!" Usagi replied irrationally. "Hey, maybe he'll be my friend!" she said, gesturing to a nearby man reading a newspaper before dashing over to him.

Such memories of Chibiusa speaking to her as if certain things should be obvious were common. But each new one that flowed to her mind hurt worse than the last. Because Riya knew that they had regarded each other like sisters. Only, Usagi had been unable to protect Chibiusa in the end.

She had to fight. She couldn't let Small Lady do this on her own. But even so, she knew she had to stand back, let Small Lady lead the Senshi. This was her place, now, back here, with the Crystal, not leading the Senshi into battle and fighting the forces of Chaos directly. The most she could do was protect Crystal Tokyo as well as she could.

And it pained her, but Usagi let her go. She let Small Lady morph into Chibi Moon and watched as she left to fight on the front lines. It would be okay. The Senshi would keep her from getting into any real danger.

But then... She felt it. A sharp pain in her stomach, as if a blade of some sort had been run through her. Usagi felt her daughter, heard her thoughts. "Ma... ma... I'm... sorry... He-he... li... os..." And so silence fell across Usagi's mind. A dreadful, painful silence that filled every empty space. The agony cut across her, slicing her into ribbons.

"SMALL LADY," she screamed, her voice betraying her despair. Her chest was heaving. She clutched her sides as if holding them together. It couldn't be true. It couldn't. Maybe, maybe if she thought hard enough, it wouldn't be true... Oh, Cosmos!

It couldn't possibly be true.

She was curled up so tightly it almost hurt. Riya held her knees to her chest, her lungs gasping for air. But she couldn't cry. Her eyes were remarkably dry, as if all the water within them had evaporated. She lacked the energy and the will. Nothing could make this better, not even the cathartic feeling of releasing her emotions in the wave of tears. She was empty and heavy and numb, all at once.

And then the voice entered her mind or her ear, she wasn't sure. A voice that betrayed nothing and everything all at once. Slowly, tremblingly, Riya turned to receive the hypnotic stare of her visitor. Raen? No, Ariana. There was nothing of Raen in this posture or these words... Nothing at all.

Riya closed her eyes, taking the words for what they were. She didn't even offer any sort of rebuttal or defense. They were true. Somehow, though, they hurt worse, exiting Raen's mouth, even if they weren't Raen's words. It was as if Raen had spoken them, and Riya was unable to separate Ariana from Raen, which is why it stung as much as it did.

Serenity stirred within her, but Riya simply shook her head at both her previous incarnation and herself. She didn't want to deal with the drama that Serenity and Ariana shared. She wanted to talk to her sister. She wanted someone to tell her that things were going to be okay.

"Ariana?" she asked, shifting slightly to look at the girl leaning in her doorway. "Where's... Raen?"

"Dead, or she may as well be." Raen stirred at the response, pushed against her and was locked out. No. This had to be said, because she was tired of standing by and watching it happen. It was rousing her from what was supposed to be eternal slumber, a peaceful time spent watching her bond with Minu as it flickered and changed with the other woman's emotions. She was supposed to become quiet, but watchful. Vengeful when presented the opportunity, and otherwise, she was supposed to be able to fade from history.

But the things she was supposed to be able to do and the things she was doing were almost always two different things when it came to the Princess, it seemed. She was supposed to die protecting her, after all... not alone under some grunting madman. But that was something that would never change now. Because the choice to die on her own terms had been taken from her long ago, and for thousands of years, she had been expected to just sit and stew quietly in death.

Violet eyes narrowed, arms crossing over a borrowed chest just to keep herself from reaching out and smacking the other girl. "She lied to you, you know. She remembers your child." A beat, time for that to sink in, before she continued. "She also remembers her own. Unlike you, however, she thought that mentioning it might cause others who did not remember pain. But you had no such qualms, it would seem. Bring up your dead child and hope that she remembers hers so that she would be just as miserable as you are. Was that the logic? Pathetic."

But what did she care of feelings or children beyond the simple disruption both caused her in her self-torture? Ariana flicked her head, sending the barely-bangs Raen still possessed in a large swoosh to the right side of her face a bit better. Girl needed to cut her hair, or learn how to manage it instead of leaving it awkwardly flopping over one eye. Perhaps she would talk to her about that, about how she was going to get herself killed if she didn't learn that eyesight was a valuable gift.

"Whilst you have been flitting around summoning this girl at will, I have been watching you. And though nobody will let me kill you, I am confident you will manage to do that on your own, once I remove your," she stopped here, employing finger quotes in a very Rei-like manoeuvre, "'Sister' is removed from the equation. You shout, she comes. Now, you shout, and I come. You are disturbing my afterlife, Serenity. I refuse to be at your beck and call again, new life or not. You will not destroy this girl the way you destroyed me."

And though she didn't want to admit it, it was true. Losing Minu had forced her to come undone. Being left alone on a doomed battlefield had pushed her down further. Knowing that her Princess had betrayed her? Had been the ultimate final push. "Raen may still want to come running to your side, and I will allow her that. But you will not speak with her about all of your mistakes. It will be me. And if you force me to endure even a fraction of what this girl stands for, I swear to you, you will not have a sister any longer. You do not deserve her loyalty, though she so blindly gives it. Pregnant, and you cry like a baby for a bottle yourself. 'Save me Mars' is getting old."

Why was Ariana here again? Riya had thought that after she attacked Ota, Ariana had been removed to the far corners of Raen's mind. And yet, here the Martian Queen was, staring at her with a hypnotic sort of hatred. Riya could feel the emotion bubbling from her, flowing out of her as if the air between the two had reached boiling. Riya shivered back from Ariana, almost as terrified by the girl herself as she was her anger.

"Dead?" Riya questioned. She immediately stood up, tentatively nearing Ariana. She wanted to shake the girl's shoulders, demand what she had done with Raen. "What do you mean? You didn't...?" She gasped, bringing her hands up to her mouth. If Ariana did anything to Raen, she would never forgive her.

However, Ariana plowed onward, telling Riya that Raen had lied to her. Lied to her about Chibiusa. Riya sank down onto her bed again, curling her knees up to her chest. She thought Raen had stopped the lies? If... if she had lied about this, what else had she lied about? Did no one think she deserved to know about Chibiusa? The pain struck at her more so than before, and she stared blankly at the floor beneath her feet, listening to Ariana's words but not arguing with them.

When Ariana spoke of removing Raen from the equation, though, Riya stood up again, her eyes flashing. "I don't understand why you have so much hatred for this life, but you will not harm Raen," she said angrily. "When you attacked Ota, you lost all power you have over it."

With those words, however, Serenity surged forward, unable to be held back anymore. Usagi tried to call both of them back, but she, along with Riya, were shut up in the far reaches of Riya's mind as Serenity blinked, adjusting to her renewed presence on Earth. Pregnancy was never something she herself had ever experienced, but she could understand why that bright glowing light centering in her stomach might make Riya go through the motions of straight up insanity.

"Ariana," she breathed slowly, looking at the girl's position in the door frame with a certain kind of sadness. She reached out as if to hug the girl or touch her, but instead, Serenity thought the better of it and dropped her hands to her sides again. "You... you cannot take out this anger on your present incarnation. It will wreak havoc on your body." She sighed, hanging her head as she took a step closer to the girl. "If you want my life in exchange for all the injustices you endured, I will gladly give it. But... do not inflict such suffering on your present form."

She studied the fire goddess for a long time, the sadness echoing within her eyes. "Please. I know you are upset with me. Settle your qualms with me, in that case. I do not live under the delusion that we can ever be friends toward one another again, but I would like to repay my debt you, as I have offered before, whatever that may entail."