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.  If
you vaguely know anything about Sailormoon, you'll spot them a mile
off.  "Ahoy there, Cap'n, I sees me an original character."
"Steer clear of them, helmsman.  They can be nasty when the weather
turns bad."


Part Two
When the Joy is Stopped


	Usagi stared at the woman, and the woman stared back.  Only 
she couldn't stare back because she didn't have any eyes to do so.

	Usagi freaked out, and was several metres up the hotel 
corridor, back against the wall on the floor, pointing at the woman.

	"Uhh...  Uhh...  Uhh..."

	The woman cocked her head to one side, then shrugged and 
turned back to her cleaners' trolley.  Usagi, now calming, thought
things over.

	"Ano..."

	The woman turned again, giving Usagi another view of her 
faceless visage.  Usagi swallowed.

	"Can you tell me the way to reception?  Or management?  I seem
to be lost."

	The woman pointed past Usagi, down the corridor.

	"Ah, thankyou."

	The woman then turned and pointed the other way.

	"Ano..."  Usagi blinked a couple of times.  "Do you mean....  
It's both ways?"

	The woman nodded.

	"Which way is quicker?"

	The woman pointed past Usagi, down the corridor.

	"Ah, thankyou."

	The woman then turned and pointed the other way.

	Usagi facefaulted.  This was going to be a great deal more 
difficult than she thought.

----o

	Kameju watched as the woman who had been tossing and turning,
in the throws of fever, quietened at the merest touch of Usako's
hand.

	Usako had closed her eyes, and was whispering a soft and 
gentle chant.  Kameju shook his head, almost disbelieving.

	"It's... incredible.  That woman has been burning up with a
virulent strain of influenza for close to three days, now...."

	He noticed CereCere and Makoto had taken a full step back,
and sweatdropped.  "If you haven't caught it now, you never will."

	They giggled nervously.  "Yeah, I think that passed through
Crystal Towers some time ago....  Good six months back...."  Makoto
muttered, hopefully.

	Usako turned, her eyes open, smiling.  "She shall recover in a
day's time.  Where is the next patient?"

	Kaneju gestured with his hand to the doorway.  "A young boy,
about seven years old.  He was badly injured in a gang attack on one
of the outlying properties."

	Usako nodded and followed Kaneju from the room.  CereCere 
looked at Makoto for a moment, whose expression had gone sullen.

	"You look tired."

	"I feel tired.  I wanna sleep for days."

	CereCere put a hand on Makoto's shoulder.  "Don't worry.  Go
to our room and go to bed.  Both Hotaru and myself should be able to
guard Usako."

	Makoto sighed.  "I feel so useless, sometimes."

	"Now I know you're tired.  You always start putting yourself
down when you get tired.  Go - to - bed."  CereCere patted Makoto on
the cheek, and the larger woman smiled, nodding.

----o

	Usagi had wandered for what seemed like hours.  There simply 
wasn't an end to the corridor, nor was there anyone else in the 
corridor itself.  She just passed by door after door that had 
strange symbols bolted to them rather than numbers.

	"Okay..."  Thought Usagi to herself.  "I wake up in the hotel 
from hell, and I get thrown out of my room by the room...."  She
shook her head.  Even to her, the whole idea seemed ridiculous.

	The decor was beginning to annoy her.  Gold and cream doors
and walls with gleaming fittings, and a black and gold-brown carpet
in a leaf-shaped pattern.  And it just went on and on and on without
so much as a relief.

	She stopped, and looked back.  There was no way she could tell
how far she had gone.  Nor did she seem to be approaching an end.  
She stamped her feet, viciously.  This was useless.  She could walk
on for the rest of her life and not get anywhere.

	"Excuse me...."  She turned to the voice that came from the 
door immediately behind her.  The face of a small, dark-haired young
woman peered out through the gap.  "Can you keep it down?"

	"Eh...?"

	"It's noisy enough in here as it is."

	"But...."  Usagi went silent, listening.  "...There is no 
noise."  The girl rolled her eyes.

	"That's the problem.  The silence.  Silence is so LOUD.  It
scares me.  Why does silence have to be so noisy?"

	Usagi sighed.  "You tell me to stop making so much noise.  If
I do stop, then the silence shall just get louder."

	"Yes, but at least you won't be singing a duet.  Silence and 
I."  The young woman giggled inanely.

	"Ano, can I ask you a question?"

	"Yes, it is a perfectly reasonable theory."

	Usagi gritted her teeth.  "Do you know how far this passageway
goes in this direction?"  She pointed the way she had been walking.

	"Aha, an existentialist conundrum.  How far does any passage 
lead you?  The paths of life are mysterious."

	"Ano..."  Usagi sweatdropped.  "How about answering the 
question?"

	"No question has a single answer.  It is impossible to 
accurately predict what may or may not happen if one were to follow
the said passage.  Suffice to say, it may lead one to a destiny that
one does not expect."

	"You're a headcase, you know that?"

	"Whether or not I realise the state of my psychological 
dilemma should really be none of your concern.  It is only I who can
fully comprehend my imperception of reality, and what should be done
about it."  The young woman stared at Usagi.  "Is your imperception
of reality causing you to not see things as they are?"

	Usagi rubbed her forehead.  "Don't start asking me 
psychobabblic inquiries....  I've got enough problems as it is."

	"Then you won't achieve what you want.  Sometimes our 
perceptions of the way things are can be influenced by what we want
to see."

	The woman withdrew and shut the door.  Usagi fell to her 
knees.  Why did this kind of thing always happen to her?"

----o

	Makoto lay back on the lawn, staring at the sky.  She was 14
again, and it felt good.

	Dressed only in the plain, brown school uniform she had 
inherited from her previous school, due to the fact that Juuban 
Junior High didn't have uniforms to fir her size, she felt a sense
of peace that she hadn't experienced in some time.

	A return to what she had been....  Just plain old Kino Makoto,
before Usagi had made friends with her.  Before she became....

	She sighed.  Too much water had passed under the bridge for 
her to totally return to this world....  Usagi was alive again, if
only through the forced union of souls....  And she had forgiven
Makoto for her indiscretions....

	The very fact that she had been so easily manipulated made her
feel incredibly angry, and depressed.  She could deal with an enemy
that presented an obvious, physical threat.  But one that chose to
attack the mind....  To rape it of its memories and perceptions....

	She turned aside, looking away.  In the distance, over several
grassed hills, stood a crystal tower.  her past and future, all as 
one.  She closed her eyes.

	"Mako-chan...."  The voice was barely strong enough to be 
heard over the sound of the soft breeze.  Makoto opened her eyes and
turned to Usagi, dressed as she was the day she first met her, lying 
next to her.

	"You again."  Makoto said, simply.

	"Yes.  Me again."  She said simply, smiling.

----o

	Usagi stared at the carpet.  It didn't look like a carpet 
anymore.  Not in the darkness that had descended upon the hotel 
corridor.

	The only light that could be seen was a simple white light, 
shining from what appeared to be a box above a doorway.  Usagi was,
however, too busy watching the patterns within the carpet ebb and 
flow.

	Like water, she thought.  An endless, seething ocean.  She 
gripped the fibres of the carpet with her hands, and watched as the
pattern changed again.  Her perceptions were faulted.  The corridor
was not as it seemed.  Her mind was using a backup file of what she
had expected to see.  Change tack, and look up.

	She saw the light, and the word on the box that covered it.

	It said "exit".

----o

	"The old days were kinda fun, weren't they?"  Usagi smiled as
she stared up at the small, white clouds that floated across the 
sky.

	"I don't know if they were any more fun than what things are
like, now."  Makoto shrugged.

	"Oh come on, Mako-chan.  Two suicide attempts and a history of
alcoholism isn't the kind of thing one should put aside when one is
trying to rationalise personal history."

	Makoto closed her eyes and shivered.

	"And Hotaru has felt the same as you.  Her experiences have 
been even worse.  Both of you have suffered from the brutalisation
that is on offer in this life.  So tell me, are things as good now
as they were then?"  Usagi looked aside.

	"No."  Makoto opened her eyes and returned Usagi's gaze.

	"And do you think things will get any better?"

	"No."

	"Look over there, Mako-chan."  Usagi sat up and pointed at the
crystal palace.  "That is your future.  And where we lie, now, shall
become the streets and buildings of Crystal Tokyo.  Now tell me 
again, are things going to get any better?"

	"Even if I find peace....  Shall I be able to live within it
without being a disruptive influence?"

	Usagi shook her head.  "Do you so wish for death?  it doesn't
clean all of the horrors of the past.  Just look at Umi and Setsuna.
Only just entering their teens now, and yet they have been handled
brutally by those with less than savoury intent."

	Makoto remained silent.

	"I do wish you'd get your head in order, Mako-chan.  Whilst
Hotaru is now the leader of the Sailorsenshi, you are the only other
senshi to have survived.  You are more important than you realise."

	"I am as important as I understand myself to be.  What I 
contribute is the raw power I have at my fingertips.  Power without
a purpose.  An unguided missile."  She sighed and sat up.  For a
moment, she winced and clutched her head in pain.

	"Does it still hurt, Mako-chan?  What I did to you?  What a
version of me did to you?"

	"I... understand that, as Jupiter, my capacity to die is 
limited... to total evisceration."

	"You, Hotaru and CereCere all have the seed of eternal life
within you, now.  But you can still die if you don't look after
yourselves."

	"I restate, my capacity to die is limited to total 
evisceration.  Even if I lose a limb, it shall just grow back.  A
bodily organ... it will just grow back..."

	"A damaged brain...?"

	"Will just grow back."

	"Grow back as it used to be?  Will its tender folds return to
the shape and form they were, initially?"

	"I don't know."  Makoto turned away.

	"You can see nothing, Makoto.  No signs of any physical 
damage.  Even if you are x-rayed, you shall find a perfectly-formed
human mind.  And yet, the damage to the soul that existed within it
is greater than you can imagine."

	Makoto felt an incredible pain in the back of her head.  To
her horror, she could feel the sickening sensation of warm fluid
running down her back.  She tried to turn back to Usagi, but her
motor control had disappeared.  She collapsed onto her front and
looked up at Usagi, beckoningly.

	"Please...  Not again.  Don't let this happen to me again..."

	Usagi reached forward, her hair falling out of its odangos.  
The hair wrapped around Makoto's body and began to seep up the 
blood, staining the hair a pinkish-red.  Slowly, Makoto was lifted
up by Usagi's arms.

	Makoto could see Usagi's face changing shape...  To that of
CereCere.  The Asteroid Senshi smiled and kissed Makoto....

----o

	Hotaru looked from her bed at Usako and Umi.  The pair were
fast asleep, now.  It had been a long day's travelling, and after
expending her powers to heal the dozen or so patients within the
medical centre, Usako was exhausted.

	Umi had fallen asleep in Usako's arms.  It made Hotaru jealous
to see the affection that Usako would heap upon the sensitive girl.
But pettiness had never been in her vocabulary, so she let it pass.
Besides, there was a connection between both Usako and herself that
none of the others would ever have.

	Hotaru turned to the small table that sat next to the bed.  
Two glasses and a bottle of sake sat there.  One of the glasses had
been poured and half-emptied.  Half emptied into her.  Probably why
she was feeling so forgiving.

	She reached over and topped up her glass, taking it from the
table, resting to rim against her lips.  The soft sensation of the
fluid on her lips was matched by the burning that her tongue and
throat received.  And that was but the merest drop.  Usako had 
refused her offer to join her in a drink, using the old excuse that
she disliked alcohol.  Hotaru shook her head and wondered if the 
pair of them had anything in common at all....

	A hand reached over and picked up the bottle, filling the
second glass.  It put the bottle down and took the glass.  Hotaru
only vaguely watched this as Usashin sipped the drink, sitting on
a stool that had sat beside her bed.

	"You never know when to move on, do you?"  Hotaru sniffed.

	"I like to pop in every so often and see how things are going
on with you people."  Usashin smiled.  "I did have a stake in your
future.  Willing enough to bet my life on it."

	"Yes..."  Hotaru became solemn.  "Yes, you did."

	Usashin turned to where Usako and Umi lay.  "We managed to
succeed in the refusing of the souls of Serenity and Usagi.  But at
what cost to the both of them?"

	Hotaru sighed.  "Alright, Usashin, just what is it this time?"

	Usashin turned back to Hotaru, smiling.  "What makes you think
there is anything wtong?"

	"Because you're starting to talk in ominous riddles.  There is
always something on the cards when you do that."

	Usashin shook her head.  "Sorry.  It's just that...  In my 
wanderings on this side of the wall, I have felt the presence of 
Tsukino Usagi."

	"Eh?"  Hotaru leaned forward, putting her glass on the bedside
table.  "That's impossible.  Usagi was put back inside the body of
Usako."

	"Yes, it is indeed Usagi's spirit that resides within the body
of Usako."

	"So are you trying to tell me there is more than one Usagi out
there?"  Hotaru winced.  "Okay, okay, I KNOW there is more than one
Usagi out there.  What I mean is..."

	"Is there more than one version of the original Tsukino 
Usagi?"  Usashin shrugged.  "It is difficult to tell.  There are so
many Usagi spirits on this side, that I may have been mistaken.  
However, I am not usually that mistaken with my perceptions."

	Hotaru nodded, grimly.  "Perhaps it is something you should
look into.  After all, I most certainly can't."

	Usashin chuckled.  "The senshi of death and darkness, not able
to see within the world of the dead?"

	"You know what I mean."

	Usashin smiled.  "By the way, Kaorusagi-dono sends you her 
love."

	Hotaru looked at Usashin for a few moments, then heard someone
crying out in fear....  She jumped clean across the room as Usako
and Umi were roused.

	"Wh.. what's going on?"  Umi sat up, blearily.

	"That's Makoto...."  Hotaru turned to them, then looked back
at the stool.

	There was nobody there.  The second glass was empty and 
untouched, sitting on the bedside table.

----o

	Usagi tentatively opened the door and peered through.  It was
a stairwell.  And the best thing about it was that the stairs and
railings were....

	....All made of bone.

	Usagi shivered.  Well, the sign did say "exit".  All the same,
she didn't like the concept of walking on a staircase made of 
polished bone.

	She stepped in to the stairwell and allowed the door to close
behind her.  For a few moments, she wondered whether she should go 
up or down.  Considering the bizarre dimensions of the hotel, either
way could be the right way.

	She decided to use logic, and go down.

----o

	Makoto was shivering, making little keening noises from her
throat, staring into space dazedly, when Hotaru entered her room.

	CereCere had an arm around the woman, trying to calm her.

	"What happened?"  Hotaru stepped over and knelt down beside
Makoto's bed.  CereCere turned to her, helplessly.

	"She had another nightmare."

	"The same as before?"

	"Yes.  The same as before."

	"Don't want that to happen again....  Oh Kami-sama, forgive me
and all that I have done...."  Makoto was now gasping and sobbing so
heavily that Hotaru became concerned that she was going to give 
herself a seizure.  She grabbed Makoto by the shoulders.

	"Mako-chan!  MAKOTO!  Get a HOLD of yourself."

	Makoto stared up into Hotaru's eyes, as if not recognising her
for a few moments.  Slowly, she began to calm, her face losing its
panicked edge.

	"Makoto-oneechan?"  Hotaru turned to see Usako and Umi 
standing in the doorway.  Usako was holding Umi's shoulder.

	"It's alright, Umi-chan.  Mako-oneechan shall be alright."  
Usako whispered.  Umi turned to her and nodded mutely.

	Makoto's eyes fell on Umi, and she felt a sense of shame.  
"Gomen, Umi..."  She said, softly.  "I didn't mean to wake you up."

	Hotaru took a breath and stood.  "I think, Makoto, that it is 
time you sought the guidance of someone who can help you work 
through this."

	Makoto shivered and stared at Hotaru.  "I don't have a 
problem.  Not one that should concern you."

	"Waking all of us with your cries DOES concern us.  You now
sleep in a separate building from the majority of people back in 
Crystal Towers because of this.  It can't go on."

	Makoto threw off her bedcovers and stood, angrily, almost 
bowling CereCere aside.  "I don't have a problem, do you 
understand?"

	"Mako-oneechan...  Kowai..."  Umi pressed herself against
Usako, and Makoto looked at her, anger fading.  She turned and
walked up to the far wall, leaning her head against it.  Hotaru
looked from her to the others.

	"CereCere, can you go with Usako and Umi.  I'd like to have a
few words with Makoto..."


	CereCere nodded and stood, stepping over and guiding Usako and
Umi from the room.  Hotaru turned to Makoto, who was now softly 
banging her head against said wall.

	"Stop that, you stupid girl.  It isn't going to make things 
any better."

	"Sorry.  I'm sorry."  Makoto didn't turn.  "How many times do
I have to keep saying sorry for everything I've done?  Every time I
turn, someone is demanding an apology.  And it's sorry sorry sorry.
I don't seem capable of avoiding trouble, even if I'm not trying to
cause it."

	"Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself.  It doesn't work with 
me."  Makoto turned to Hotaru.  Hotaru huffed.  "Nothing you have
experienced during your time could even begin to compare with what
I've endured.  And do you see me falling apart?"

	"You WERE falling apart, until we arrived.  I've heard all the
stories about what you were like then."

	Hotaru shook her head.  "And I changed, right?  So why didn't
you?"  She put out her hand.  "The rest of us can only take so much
of this bullshit, Makoto.  You saw the effect you had on Umi.  She 
is only 13.  As old as you were when you had your infamous 'old 
boyfriend.'  Can you remember what you were like, then?"

	Makoto closed her eyes, as if restraining herself, then looked
away.  Silence reigned between them for several moments, when they 
heard noise....  Banging against the front doors of the Medical 
Centre.  They both looked at each other for a moment.  Hotaru 
snapped her fingers.

	"Makoto, get with Usako and the others, I'll go and see what
that is."

	"But...."

	"No protests, just do it!"

	Makoto nodded, and the two of them ran from the room.

----o

	Usagi slowly descended the stairs, nervously.  The way the
bone structure creaked, she thought she was going to fall through 
them.  Eventually, she became more confident of their strength and
made her way down with greater speed.

	And then she slowed down....  For the first time, she didn't
know why she hadn't noticed it before, but the walls... were made
of flesh.  The melded parts of human bodies.  She decided she didn't
like this game, anymore.  She looked up.  The walls, higher, had 
been normal, but as they descended, the... "infection", for want of
a better term, increased.  Like the walls were being taken over from
the base of the building by some kind of growth.

	A horrible thought came to Usagi.  Where was this growth 
getting the body parts from?  It was visibly obvious that the parts
had all been cauterised together....

	All those who had used the stairs....  Being snatched one by 
one on higher and higher levels as the growth extended....

	Usagi began to back up the stairs, staring around in sickened
horror at the walls....  The gleaming, congealed mass of flesh and
blood seemed to be moving.

	It was moving.  Usagi could see it, now.  Like tendrils, 
portions of flesh were reaching out for her....  She screamed and
ran for the nearest exit, at the top of the next flight of stairs.

	She gripped the door handle, but it was locked.  She banged
against it with her fist.

	"Help me!  Somebody, help me!"

	She turned when she heard a squelching noise.  To her horror,
there stood the poorly-formed body of a young man, tendrils of flesh
leading to the growth on the walls.

	He reached out to her, his fingers rolling lasciviously.

END OF PART 2

Next:  The most bizarre Usagi clone yet.  Prepare yourself for the
horror that is....  SailorPuPuPu!  ^_^

DDFA ayanami@merlin.net.au
Resident "Mr Damage" of SM Fanfic Writing
12th Mar 1998

Descendants of convicts unite, you have nothing to lose but your 
brains!