Echoes

Author: kihinranno

Rated: PG13

Written for the Sailor Moon Monthly Fanfiction Challenge. September Challenge - Images Only. Also submitted for my Venus/Kunzite Fanfic100 Claim. Prompt #37 - Sound.

This is also a bit of a crossover, but hopefully not in an annoying/obstrusive/unbelievable way.

A phone call from anyone else saying that something had happened to Takehiko might not have been enough to bring her home. He's stronger than he looks, and he already reminds one of a monolith at first glance. He doesn't need her to baby him, and she doesn't have the luxury to flee the Netherlands because of a sick boyfriend.

But the phone call didn't come from anyone else. It came from Mamoru. Mamoru, who has never said more than two words to her and who she hasn't said two words to. But Mamoru can't hide the worry in his voice like some of the others could where Takehiko is concerned, and the fact that he is so anxious alerts her to the seriousness of the situation. She doesn't even wait to hear how it happened before making her decision. She puts the shoot on hold, catches the red eye, and flies back to Japan with the urgency she knows this situation deserves.

When she arrives in Tokyo, she scarcely has the patience to wait for her checked baggage before heading to Mamoru's. He's left the door open, so she goes right in, dropping everything she doesn't need in the foyer.

The moment Mamoru lays eyes on her, he rushes to her and moves as though he is going to touch her. He rethinks this almost immediately. They don't touch.

"I'm glad you came," he says. The lines around his eyes soften a fraction, and this is how she knows he's sincere.

Minako just nods and swallows on a dry throat. "Tell me again what happened. What did this to him?" She knows better than to ask 'who.'

Mamoru runs a hand through his hair. He hasn't groomed since this happened. "We don't know what it is." He sighs. "Judging by how he looks, I'm not sure I want to know."

Minako glares, too tired and worried to curb her vexation. "Yeah, this is how not to reassure the girlfriend."

"Sorry," he mutters hastily, digging into his jeans pockets. He unfolds a piece of paper that's been refolded a dozen times and hands it to her. "He won't say much, but he drew this."

Minako's jaw aches with the effort to hold her frown, but she can't relax her face looking at the image. The figure itself isn't altogether disturbing. It seems like something standard out of a watered-down American ghost story. A hooded, floating figure craning it's torso around a light post, the edges of it's cloak trailing away from the form like cigarette smoke. What does unsettle her is the style in which it's drawn. Takehiko does doodle on occasion, but it's always straight lines and uniformity. She doesn't like the curves and uncertainty in this drawing. It isn't him.

She gives it back like it's threatening to bite. Judging by the reluctance Mamoru shows in taking it back, he's equally upset by the image. "We don't know what it is, where it came from, or what it wants."

"I don't care," Minako confesses, shoving her guilt about that aside for the moment. "At least not right now. What did it do to him?"

"No one can say for sure because no one was there, but...." His head hangs. "He just appeared in the middle of my bedroom without warning. I tried to talk to him, but all he did was walk to the corner and sit down. He stared at me, but he won't talk to me. Or to anyone else." Mamoru shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know what happened out there."

Minako's lips press together in a firm line. "Are they hunting it?"

"Yes."

"Do they know how to kill it?"

"They'll figure it out," Mamoru assures her in a tone that makes her wonder if the others received their first order from the future king a few hours earlier.

Minako nods in approval and turns her head in the direction of the bedroom. "What makes you think I'll have better luck?"

Mamoru blinks as though she's proposed a kamikaze mission. "Because he loves you."

She considers saying something, but swallows it when she sees the line of his jaw sharpen. He's already thought of it, and he doesn't want to talk about it. In another situation, she might have pressed the issue. If he were anyone else, she definitely would have pressed the issue. But they don't talk.

This is why she doesn't bother to offer a quick goodbye or words of encouragement before marching into the bedroom. The floorboards beneath the tacky carpet creak and the doorknob shocks her when she touches it, but she never breaks stride. She closes the door behind her and she doesn't care that Mamoru probably minds.

Just as Mamoru described, he's sitting in a corner. His body language doesn't look as though he's in distress. He doesn't hold his knees against his chest and he isn't curled into the fetal position. He looks perfectly relaxed, albeit with perfect posture. Shoulders back and head erect, if Mamoru hadn't told her something was wrong, she might not notice anything.

Then she takes three more steps and sees his eyes. It's like a kick to her stomach that breaks her ribs. She's seen those ghosts and shadows before in the middle of the night when he wakes up from nightmares and forgets he's been forgiven. They're echoes of a darker time, reverberations of a past they would all like to forget but need to remember. She's turned into a lighter sleeper since they've been together because she has to whisper reassurances the moment he jerks awake.

She always begins with 'I love you.' She does the same thing now.

He doesn't look at her, but he speaks. "You came back."

She sits down opposite him, tucking her legs beneath her like a child. "Mamoru called."

Even shaken, he reads more into the statement than anyone else would, and he's right. "Scare you?"

"Terrified," she confirms. "He doesn't like that you won't talk to him."

His green eyes full of ghosts snap shut. "I can't."

"I know," she whispers gently. "I know that look."

She knows the look and she knows the guilt that goes with it. The guilt for what he did to Endymion and then to Mamoru. It's a subject he and Mamoru have only broached once, and it ended with a broken lamp. It's one of two obstacles in their relationship. In both cases, the men have more or less decided to look the other way.

She reaches out to touch his cheek, but he shies away. "Tell me."

His eyes open again. He looks past her, remembering. For a moment, she entertains the fancy that she can turn her head and see what he is seeing if only she can follow his gaze from the perfect angle. Then he starts speaking and she must pay attention to the words.

"I was out patrolling. Restless. The street deserted, but it had been like that most of the night. Then all of a sudden it got cold. I thought I was imagining things, but then I saw my breath and the road got slick. Then I turned around and saw it."

Minako dislikes the implication of Takehiko's story quite a bit. He didn't sense the spirit before turning, only the cold. If it can sneak up on Takehiko, it can sneak up on all of them - with the possible exception of Rei. It doesn't bode well. "What did it do to you?"

"Nothing," Takehiko murmurs, volume stifled by bafflement. "It just... floated there, leaning around the lamppost. But everything around it felt dark and cold. And a moment later it...." He shuddered, almost imperceptibly. "And then it felt like I would never be happy again."

There was something childish and horrifying about the description. Minako felt ill. "And that made you think of--"

"It made it so I couldn't think of anything else," Takehiko hissed, his spine tense. "I tried to ignore it, but I couldn't. The only thing my mind could see was my sins and betrayals."

Minako leans forward. "Then it was just like a nightmare."

He shakes his head. "I could hear the echoes."

Her breath stops. A strange feature of Takehiko's nightmares is that he can never hear what goes on around him. She's counted it as a blessing that he cannot hear their constant questioning he received at the end of the Silver Millennium or the blood squishing beneath his feet. But this creature included sound in the remembrance.

Intentional or not, it's unforgivable.

"It's over now," Minako insists.

Takehiko shakes his head. "No."

"It's gone."

"I can still hear it," he says. "I won't be able to stop it anymore."

If she could tear vapor, she would rip this thing apart.

Tossing caution aside, she leans forward and holds his head between her palms. "Listen to me, then. I'm not screaming. Listen to me. I love you, and he loves you too. We love you enough so that his screams don't matter."

He shakes her off like she's a disease. "You don't understand," he snaps. Then he looks her in the eye for the very first time. Just before he speaks, she thinks how odd that is. "It's you. It's your death I hear."

Something glistens in the green, and it breaks her heart a thousand times over when she realizes what it is. She wants to hold him, but she dares not reach for him again.

"Takehiko," she whispers, wishing his new name were enough to drown out her death throes.

"I'll be all right," he assures her. To his credit or his detriment, he does not indulge in the histrionics she exhibits in moments like these. Even under pressure, he's steel to her. "I'll be able to ignore them eventually, but I can't... I can't have you touching me." He swallows. "I don't think I can bear you in the room much longer."

She hopes she can bear being out of it. "I love you," she says again.

"I don't deserve it," he answers, his voice lacking despair. All it contains is the final certainty that comes from having considered a question for entirely too long.

She gets to her feet. "I can drown it out. I promise."

He nods, believing her. "Not yet."

She doesn't want to say anymore, so she leaves him. Her feet more too slowly for his liking no doubt, but she can't help but linger. She considers leaving the door open, but she rethinks it the moment she realizes she needs something to hold her up. Its sturdiness keeps her off her knees.

"What happened?" Mamoru asks, his face immediately too close to hers. He backs away and asks, "What did he say?"

Minako shakes her head.

Mamoru knows better than to press her, and for that, she is grateful. "Will he be all right?"

"Eventually," Minako breathes. "He'll be able to talk to you eventually. He's sorry he can't now."

Mamoru's expression changes, shifting into bitterness she has no patience for. "He talks to you."

"I'm not as important," she snaps, refusing to regret it.

Silence fills the room like carbon monoxide.

His fists clench. "I--"

"Don't understand. I know. Everyone knows. The person you're in love with is the most important person to you."

'That's why the world ended that one time,' she thinks. She has to bite her tongue not to say it. She doesn't like the taste of blood and decides next time this comes up, she'll say it.

Chances are good it won't. After all, they don't talk.

Mamoru changes the subject with the subtlety of wild boar. She doesn't mind. "I heard back from Ami. She's told me what they do... But she says they're not as bad as he is. Or Haruka."

Minako flinches. "I don't want to see that."

Mamoru nodded in agreement. "Ami thinks it might be because of the multiple lifetimes."

"Great," Minako sighs. "Did they kill it?"

"No."

She pushes off the door.

He grabs her arm before she can leave. His grip slackens almost immediately and she pulls free. She stops out of courtesy she no longer feels she owes. "Where are you going?"

"You want a map? 'Cause I'm not that great with geography."

He narrows his eyes. "I mean shouldn't you stay with him?"

She meets his gaze like she has no fear of God. "He cried."

His face contorts and he seems to shrink before her eyes. He stumbles, unsure of how to react to this revelation. Finally, he turns away. She wonders if he blames her, and then she wonders if he's right.

"I hope it bleeds."

There's nothing more to say on the matter. She turns on her heel and stalks out of the apartment, gathering her coat like armor. She doesn't know how she'll do it or how she'll find it, but she knows its her prey.

She will kill the thing that sucks the joy from the world and replaces it with echoes from the dark. She will march off to war with a ghost and destroy it even if it's dead. She will have her revenge.

She knows these things for certain, but she can only hope that she can shut out sound of the sword slipping into her lover's ribcage one thousand years ago.