USAGI IS DEAD II DEAD IS USAGI
by DARK DAY FOR ANIME (Mark A Page)

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."

--------------------------------------------------------------------

	Miste Kiele rose from her bed, crying out in mortal fear.  As
she stared, dazedly, around her room, trying to catch her breath,
she recounted the dream that had awoken her in such fright.


	The burning village.  Men storming the township in which she
had been born.  Her neighbours, slaughtered before her eyes, her
mother and father, trying to run from their attackers.  Her own 
flight for safety, far from the sheltered valley.

	She saw cropfields on fire, and impaled bodies lining the 
roads, and....


	She composed herself.  These nightmares had gotten well out of
control.  She required help....  But that would only mean admitting
a weakness....  And it was very unlikely that anyone would feel the
desire to help the likes of Miste Kiele....

	She sighed and swung her legs over the side of the large, 
plush bed and stared down at the carpeted floor.  Only the merest
shaft of light pierced the darkness....  The glow of the Earth 
through the stained-crystal window.  Soon, she would be leaving with 
Serenity for a province on that nearby world....  The Governess of a 
colony of the Moon Kingdom....


	She clenched her fists.  It was so unfair.  Serenity had tried
so hard to live up to the expectations of her late mother....  But 
as soon as the old Queen had passed on, it became obvious that 
Serenity was not to be the one to replace her.

	Miste had had an interest in seeing Serenity to the throne.  
She had spent much of her teenage years with the young princess, and
had become... close, to an extent.  Miste did not relate well to 
others, so it had come as a surprise that she hit it off with 
Serenity so well, and vice-versa.  For her to lose that one true 
line of support....  


	Even if she was the senshi of Mercury, she had chosen to go 
with Serenity....  And who knows...?  Maybe Tranquility would turn 
out not to be quite the Queen everyone expected...

	No, that was a dream.  Once Serenity had accepted the veto of
her ascension, she virtually abdicated all right to the throne.  It 
was only her daughter, the inheritor of the line, who would have a
chance at the throne once the reign of Tranquility was over....


	She stood and stared at the pale, blue of the planet.  There 
were ways to guarentee the reinstatement of Serenity.  She smiled.  
It had been a while since she had involved herself in such political 
games.  Thoughts and plans began to map themselves in her mind....


	"Excuse me....  I'm sorry to disturb you like this...."  The 
soft voice emerged from the darkness of her room.  She spun and 
stared into that dark veil.

	"Who is there?!"  She barked loudly.  "How dare you disturb me
in the privacy of my room!?"

	"I said I was sorry, but there are some things I have to talk
with you about."  The voice came closer with the sound of moving 
feet.  A silhouette emerged, that of a young girl wearing a strange
white, blue and red dress.  Her hair was cut short and had a bluish
tinge to it, not unlike her own.  In fact, she looked a great deal
like her.

	"You....  Who are you?"  She asked, quietly, and with a tinge
of fear.  The girl smiled and bowed.

	"My name is Mizuno Ami.  I am your next life, Miste Kiele."

----o

Part Four
Train of Thought

----o

	Michiru sat on the train platform looking from side to side,
wondering if a train would ever arrive.  Considering the station sat
in the middle of two tree-lined grassy fields, near what looked like
the only road in a hundred miles, she wasn't hopeful.  That she 
couldn't precisely remember just how it was she came to be here was
also worrying her.


	The wind blew.  Warmly.  At least the weather wasn't too bad.
A few patchy clouds in the orange sky.  She blinked for a few 
moments and wondered about that, but not for very long.  It didn't 
change the fact that she was sitting at a railway station in the 
middle of nowhere.

	She stood, looking down at the simple, short white dress she 
was wearing.  Not her style, at all.  She was a more sophisticated
sort, and disliked the movement towards simplicity in sartorial 
tastes.  She had always taken great care of her appearance, 
especially in public, and it annoyed her that she looked, and felt,
somewhat less than presentable.

	She sniffed contemptuously and stepped up to the edge of the 
platform, staring down at the rails.  She wished she knew where 
Haruka was.  She felt somewhat incomplete without her.


	She heard a noise, coming from the distance.  At first she
thought it was the rush of the wind, blowing across the vast fields
of grass.  But then it became louder and seemed to be rolling over
the distant rise the road passed over.

	She saw a vehicle of some description ride the crest of the 
rise, dropping into the run towards the railway crossing.  Michiru
stood and watched it for several moments, paralysed with indecision.  
Slowly, she started to make her way to the road end of the station, 
leaping off the platform onto the ground below.

	She started to shout, waving her hands as she ran across the
dirt, towards the road, hoping the driver of the vehicle would see
her.  And then she tripped, over a small depression in the ground,
and landed face forward.

	She picked herself up, dazedly, just in time to hear the 
vehicle rolling over the crossing.  She looked up and watched as the
car continued on its way....  Its driver apparently oblivious to her
presence.  She punched the ground in frustration at her momentary
indecision.


	If Haruka had been here, she would have decided to hail down
the vehicle as soon as she had seen it.  If Haruka had been here, 
she would, most likely, have succeeded.  But no....  Haruka wasn't
here, and she tripped over like some pathetic, weak young thing!


	She got to her feet and brushed the dry dirt from her dress.
Now she looked even less presentable.  Life really sucked, 
sometimes.

----o

	Naiad stared into the pool of water, then back up at the 
sleeping Tranquility.  It was hard to ascertain exactly what it was
that defined her powers as being different from those of Scylla and
Arachne.  Or, for that matter, Miste Kiele.  The less she thought
about that, the better.

	However, there was one aspect to the duty of the water miko of
the third refrain that set her apart from all the others.  As the 
miko that represented the end of the wheel of life, she had the 
capacity to see into death.

	Within the water lay the doorways to the worlds of the 
dead....  The many various and exotic locations where conciousness 
is channeled after the cessation of physical existence.  Naiad 
wanted to see these, because she had the strangest feeling that the
dreams she had experienced with Tranquility only moments before were
portents of some great event that was to occur, centered on the 
"other side".

	She shouldn't have been so surprised to have found all of 
those doorways open.  Not just ajar, as they can be under natural
circumstances, but wide open.  The result of interference by some
being on any side of the great barriers, and left that way for 
future visitors to ponder and traverse.

	Visitors like her.  Only she wasn't going to use the doorways
for that purpose, because it was exceedingly bad news that they were
in the state they were.

	Someone was either in this world, or one of the other worlds,
wreaking havoc on the holistic train of events, in all the past, 
present and the future.  Naiad sighed to herself, shaking her head.
She'd been through this kind of thing before, when she had first 
started her time in miko office.  That was different, though, as it
had only been a few of the doorways.

	She clasped her hands together, and crackles of energy emerged
from them.  Slowly, she brought them apart, the energy following 
their motion, sparking from one to the next like plasma.

	Then the energy started to take shape, and a staff appeared,
bearing a trident on one end to which three rings linked.  She spun
the staff and hit the base on the ground, making the rings at the 
top tinkle.

	Circular waves emerged from her side of the fountain pool, 
washing light towards the far end.  A maelstrom appeared within the 
waves, eventually dominating that end of the pool.  She closed her 
eyes and chanted a short spell, then stepped off the side onto the 
water, where she stood without sinking.

	She opened her eyes and turned back to Tranquility, giving the
Queen to be one last look, then sank into the centre of the 
maelstrom, disappearing from sight....

----o

	Usagi wandered down the corridor, feeling somewhat annoyed 
with the directions the security guard had given her.  The 
passageway seemed to go on forever, like the one on the previous
level.  However, this one was rather more individual in its 
decorations, and had a few more added features, such as vending 
machines.

	Her stomach grumbled, reminding her that she hadn't eaten 
anything in....  However long it was she hadn't eaten anything.  She
cursed her lack of memory.  She had to force herself to walk past 
the food vending machines through lack of a resource known as money.
She hadn't thought of this problem before now.  It went hand in hand
with the fact that there hadn't been any clothes within the hotel 
room, that she could see, before she had been thrown out by the 
room.

	She sighed at the cruelty of life.


	Then she could hear noise.  The sound of a television.  It 
made for a change, since there had not been any noise coming from 
the hotel rooms she had passed.  She quickened her pace and 
eventually spotted a large, open doorway on the left side of the
corridor.  So this was the "activities room" the security guard had
told her about.

	She also reminded herself that he had told her not to let 
anyone in the activity room convince her to join their games.  Her
pace slowed.


	She arrived at the doorway and peered in, tentatively.  She 
could see a young man, sitting in one of the chairs that were lined
up on one side of the room.  He was dressed in a sweater and jeans,
and had short brown hair.  He also looked rather despondant, and was
staring down at the floor, blankly.

	She moved forward, so she could get a better view of the room.
It was quite a large room, more like a hall, and contained pool and
ping-pong tables, game machines and one armed bandits, pachinko 
machines and even a swimming pool with spa at one end.  The only 
thing that was missing were people using the facilities.  So much 
for the guard's warning.  She sniffed and looked across to the far 
end of the room, and could spot a glass doorway, leading to another
set of stairs.


	She stepped into the room, and was immediately surrounded by a
dozen people from out of nowhere.

	"Hello."  Said one, standing right in front of her, smiling in
her face.  "Would you like to join us in a game of ping pong?  I'm
not very good, and need the practice."

	"Ano...."  Usagi blinked in surprise.

	"Why would she want to play ping pong with the likes of you?"  
Said a taller man, with dark hair, off to her left.  "I'm sure she'd
much prefer to play pool with me.  I'm a master of the game, and she
looks like she could be a challenge."

	"Looks more like she's decked out to go swimming."  Said a 
woman, standing behind her.

	"In her underwear?  Don't make me laugh."  A burly man with a
scar on his face pushed the ping-pong man aside.  "You want to play
the pachinko machines, don't you my little lovely?"

	"Ano....  Can I get through?  I want to get to the...."  But 
the burly pachinko man wasn't listening.  He grabbed her by the 
wrist and started dragging her through the group.  Then she was 
grabbed by her other wrist.  Both she and the pachinko man turned 
and looked back as the pool man started dragging her back the other
way.

	"Where are you going with my challenge girl?"  The pool man 
growled, threateningly.

	"She belongs to me!"  The pachinko man sneered.

	Before she knew what was happening, the group hand grabbed her
two top limbs and was using her as a tug-of-war rope.  She clenched
her teeth in pain.  "Let me GO!"

	"She's mine!"

	"No!  She belongs to ME!"

	Usagi thought her arms were going to be pulled out of their 
sockets, when a voice brought the group's efforts to a stop.  

	"ENOUGH!"

	She rubbed her sore shoulders as they all turned to a tall man 
in a dark suit and shades, standing in the doorway to the corridor,
stared at them.

	Usagi watched him as he purposefully strode into the room, 
causing the group to part like the waters of the Red Sea as he 
approached her.

	He stood in front of her, silently, making her cringe.  
"Nani?"  She said, annoyedly.

	"I am the monitor of the Activities Room.  Have you chosen to
enter my domain with the intention of using the facilities?"

	"No, actually.  I only wanted to get to the stairway on the 
other side."

	"You WHAT!?!"  He exploded in splenetic rage, making Usagi 
flinch, and the group exclaim in surprise.

	"You don't want to...."  The pachinko man began to back away.

	"This is outrageous...."  The ping pong man shook his head.

	"Never have I met someone who has refused to...  Not in all my
time, here."  The swimming pool woman crossed her arms.

	And all the while, the "Monitor" clenched his fists, bearing
down on Usagi.  "Well, if that is the case, we'll have to show her
what happens to people who enter MY domain without the intention of
joining in the fun...."

	Usagi had a very bad feeling about this.

----o

	Michiru sighed, terminally bored.  She sat on the seat, on the 
rail platform, picking at the heel of one of her slip-on shoes, glad 
nobody could see her partaking in such an ungracious act of sheer 
tedium.

	She sighed, lowering her foot to the ground and leaning her
chin in her hands.  Things hadn't changed much for what had to have
been... oh... close to an hour now.  Of course, boredom did have a
tendency to warp one's perception of the passing of time.  For all
she knew, it could have been ten minutes.  Certainly, the sun hadn't
moved all that much in the sky.  That orange sky.


	She boggled over the colour.  Alright, she thought, I know I'm
not in Japan, but I don't think the colour of the sky changes 
depending on your terrestial location....  So I'm obviously not on 
the Earth....

	She looked around at the trees and the grass fields.  
Everything here LOOKED like Earth.  Except for the sky, and the fact
that the sun was a pale red.  But apart from that, the way the light
hit the ground, the green on the trees, the brown of the soil....
Everything was as it should be, and yet....

	And yet the horizon was farther than it should be.  Michiru
could see an enormous number of hills and valleys on that horizon.
That was what had contributed to her feeling of being in the middle
of nowhere.  She had a greater view of the size of the nowhere in
which she had found herself.

	And it wasn't like any of those hills were big.  Indeed, small
rises in the land would have been a better description.  Going on 
into a blurry, misty distance that was so far away, it made her feel
dizzy.  She almost got the feeling she was sitting in a kind of 
bowl-like depression.  She knew this wasn't possible, but the 
distance was playing tricks with her eyes....

	She turned away, staring down at the cement of the platform.
Giving herself something her mind could, logically, deal with gave 
her the opportunity to regain her composure.  She stood and looked
at the platform, itself.


	It reminded her of some of the hastily-constructed country
platforms she had seen in her travels across Japan.  Prefabricated
steel and concrete.  A backing wall with a simple roof shelter.  At
one end was a small toilet, at the other a ticket box.  There was
nobody in the ticket box.  She had checked that earlier.  And she
wasn't surprised....  It would have been the most soul-destroying
and lifeless job, to be a ticket seller at a railway station the
likes of this one.

	The breeze blew colder.  Considering how warm it had been only 
moments ago, it surprised her.  She turned and looked both ways, 
along the line.  It went straight for...  For as far as the horizon.  
And she saw nothing approaching.

	She sighed.  The best she could do was watch, and wait.

	And hope.

----o

	Naiad glided down the tunnel of imagination, through one of 
the many doorways, hoping that it would lead her to the culprit....
The individual who had opened the door in the first place.

	The world started to form around her, and she found herself
standing in the middle of a large, empty, bitumenised field.

	She pulled her miko robes tightly around her as she felt a 
cool breeze blow across the field, trying to get her bearings.  She
could see a collection of buildings at one end of the field, and in 
the distance what appeared to be a city of some kind, but not the 
like she had ever seen in her experience.


	"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  Now, Sailorsenshi, I have defeated 
thee.  Queen Beryl shall reward me for bringing her your heads!"  
Naiad turned to the voice to see a light-haired man, in a strange
kind of uniform, standing over the bloodied and partially flattened
bodies of three young girls, who all appeared to be....

	Naiad gasped.  It was Serenity and two of her senshi....  Mars
and Mercury.  She couldn't believe what she was seeing.  The man 
reached down to Serenity and grabbed her by the hair, lifting up her
head and producing a sword from out of nowhere, clearly intending to
cut it off.

	And then a large double-blade on a polearm landed in his 
skull.  He coughed and choked for a few moments, surprised by this 
turn of events, then fell to the ground, dead.

	"Sorry about that, Jadeite."  Said the woman who held the 
polearm as she ripped it from his skull, swinging it over her 
shoulder.  She was dressed in a black and violet minidress and black
ripple-soled shoes, and had pale skin and medium-length black hair.
She turned to her companion, a taller woman who was dressed in 
shorts and a short sleeved white shirt, wearing hiking boots, with
wavy brown hair and a slightly tanned expression.  "It just overcame
me.  These things happen."  The shorter girl said.

	"Doesn't make much of a difference.  We were too late to stop
her changing things."  The taller girl huffed angrily.  "We'll never
stop her at this rate."


	Naiad stepped forward, recognising the two women as the senshi
of Jupiter and Saturn.  What the Saturn senshi was doing, running 
around, free of her bonds, she would have liked to know.  
Eventually, the pair registered her presence.

	"Aww shit, not you again."  The Jupiter senshi shook her head.
"I thought we'd gotten rid of you."

	"Pardon me?  But what is it that you speak of?"  Naiad blinked
in surprise at their apparent recognition.  The Saturn senshi shook
her head and looked at Jupiter.

	"It would appear that we have met her at an earlier stage.  I
guess this means we might have to explain ourselves."

	"I hate having to explain myself, especially to someone like 
her.  She's gonna ask us if we're to blame for the doorways being 
open, I can see it now...."  Jupiter shrugged.

	"Now now, let's not be cynical...."  Saturn put a hand on 
Jupiter's shoulder.

	Naiad had the strangest feeling she didn't want to know the
explanation for this.

----o

	Michiru had almost dozed off, lying on her side against the
bench.  The air was getting cooler, and the light darker.  The 
occasional glance towards the western... what she thought was the
western... horizon, showed the approach of the mist.  A soft, light
mist, blowing through the clouds.  Yet it had an icy tinge to it,
and Michiru didn't feel all that enthused about still being here
when it blew through.

	The noise was soft, and, like with the car, she had mistaken
it for the wind.  But this, too, became increasingly loud, and she
sat up, looking at the road.  Only it wasn't coming from the road.

	She stood and stepped up to the edge of the platform, looking
down the line to her right.  A train was approaching!  Now she could
get some answers as to where it was she'd found herself!

	And then she panicked.  What if it didn't stop?  What if she
had to pay to get on if it did?  Did the people here speak any of 
the languages she knew?  There was only one way to find out.


	Despite the tacky blandness of the station itself, the train
that pulled up was ultra-modern.  It had five cars, including the
engine, two of which had ordinary seating, and the other two for
sleeping cabins.  As far as Michiru could see, there wasn't anyone
in the economy seats.  The windows to the sleeper cars were 
darkened.

	The train came to a stop, and the doors to each car slid open.
Nobody stepped out from any of them.  Michiru stepped up to the 
closest, which lead to the second economy car, and peered in.  As 
she suspected, the car was completely empty.

	Tentatively, she stepped in.  The seating within the car was
plush, but then it tended to be on the long-distance trains, and 
from what she could see, this train would travel a VERY long 
distance.

	There was no conductor to challenge her entry onto the train,
nor could she remember seeing the face of the driver throught the
engine window.  This distinct lack of people began to make her feel
somewhat uncomfortable with the situation.  For a moment, she 
thought about getting off the train....

	Too late.  The doors slid shut behind her, and with a blast
from its horn, the train started on its way, crossing the road with
the ringing of the warning bells, and on.


	Michiru held the back of the nearest seat, not quite knowing
what to do next.  She turned to the rear door of the car.  The 
window set into the door was tinted, and allowed only a view of the
door to the next car.  The same with the door to the first carriage,
when she walked up to inspect it.  With a shake of her head, she 
opened the door.

	The gap between the cars was covered, so it wasn't that hard
to get from one to the next.  She moved forward and opened the next
door.  As with the car she had entered, this one was also empty.  
She felt a cold sensation running through her.  It felt like she was
riding on a ghost train....

	Putting that thought aside, she continued forward to the next
door along.  At first, she thought that, as this lead to the engine,
the door might be locked.  But it wasn't when she tried it, and 
stepped into the covered connection.

	She swallowed as she reached for the door to the engine.  If
she barged in, she would, most likely, get in trouble with the 
driver.  If there WAS a driver, of course.  She tried the handle
and the door swung open to reveal....  An empty engine car, lined
with banks of computers.  The entire train was being run 
automatically.

	"What are you doing in the engine?"  She felt a hand slap down
on her shoulder, let out a small cry and fainted, leaving the 
conductor wondering what he'd done wrong....

END OF PART 4

--------------------------------------------------------------------

DDFA ayanami@merlin.net.au
Chief Propoganda Officer, Keeper of the Tapes
and co-founder of the Sai-chan Appeciation Society ^_^
Adelaide Japanese Animation Society
http://adelaide.net.au/~nene/ajas.html
20TH Apr 1998