Chapter Text
Usagi Tsukino opened the door to her apartment and walked into the aftermath of a disaster.
This was not unusual for her, as she usually had to work later and had two daughters aged fifteen and seven (the most troublesome ages in the entire human lifespan, although Usagi was hoping that forty-three would also count as one when she reached it), and they liked to get their disasters started before the sun went down.
And this wasn't even one of the fun-in-hindsight disasters, like the time little Hana filled the apartment with enough plants she'd scrounged to make the place look like the world's most manicured rain forest. This time, the first thing Usagi's gaze landed on was the sight of Bea holding a cold compress to a black eye and bruised face.
Her vision darkened and the world took a little spin around her, but she didn't fall over despite spending all day on her feet sorting and folding clothes and sometimes even hunting them down in the darkest corners of the dressing rooms (or in in memorable case, hanging from a light fixture that only the store's longest ladder could reach). Light gradually returned to her, revealing a gathering around her little apartment's kotatsu. Teenage Bea was at the center, and next to her was a woman Usagi had never seen before who was towering over Bea despite sitting slumped next to her. Little Hana was rounding out the crew clutching a shoebox with suspicious intensity.
"What happened?" Usagi blurted out, dumping her purse on the floor and rushing over to her older daughter. "Who did this?"
"A gang of delinquents," the tall woman said. She stood and bowed to Usagi. "I'm Makoto Kino, a member of the volunteer neighborhood watch. You know, the 'Street Senshi?' I made sure your daughters got home safely. Hana is fine and I don't think Bea has a concussion. Um, but you should keep an eye on her for tonight."
"Yeah, Mom, I'm fiiiiiiine," Hana said with a seven-year-old's innate helpfulness. She looked into the shoebox resting on her lap. "And Miss Kino is soooooo nice! She helped us with the cat, too!"
Usagi wanted to tell the situation to stop and let her catch up before throwing in new surprises. "Thank you, Miss Kino." She bowed to her guest. "And, er, a cat?"
"It's my fault," Hana croaked. "But the cat is okay now. Seeeeeeee?" She angled the shoebox to show Usagi what was inside.
Usagi gasped. It was indeed a cat, laying on a layer of towel, so still and beautiful with an almost pearl-like gray coat of fur that it could have been a work of art, especially with a little bald spot in the center of its forehead. But then the left ear move a little and betrayed that it was a living creature, and Usagi couldn't help smiling.
"Adorable, isn't she?" Miss Kino giggled. "She doesn't seem injured at all, but she just doesn't want to wake up."
Usagi made herself turn away and look at her oldest daughter's black eye again. "But what does this have to do with the cat?"
"They were trying to hurt her," Hana put in.
Bea still hadn't made any attempt to talk, which was unusual for her. Was she afraid of getting in trouble? Or was Miss Kino wrong and Bea did have a concussion?
Hana continued, "The boys. They were chasing the cat and throwing rocks at her. Isn't that weeeeird? And we were on our way back from school and we saw them and I know you saaaaaid to just come right home. But, Mom, the cat was cryyyyying and they were gonna kill it. So I started crying and Bea said to stand back and she- ummmmm-"
"I used the self-defense lessons from Master Hino's classes," Bea said in a flat voice, "and intervened."
Usagi frowned. "What does that mean?"
Hana grinned. "She grabbed a half a brick and said, 'HEY ASSHOLE! HOW DO YOU LIKE IT?!' and smacked one of the boys on the back of the head. I never saw someone fall down so faaaast!"
Usagi groaned. "Hana, you're too young to say that word, even in a quote."
"Ooooh, sorry, Mom."
But Miss Kino laughed, "But she tells it so great! She makes Bea sound like such a badass."
In Usagi's hands, Bea's face suddenly became a very deep shade of red and she fought to keep a smile off her bruised face.
Oh. That's why Bea was so quiet. Well, she was fifteen, so she was long overdue for her first crush. "Great, Master Hino will be thrilled. How many more of them were there?"
"I didn't count, " Bea said with a glance at Miss Kino. "But I didn't let them surround me or grab my legs, so the punch to the face was the worst of it, and I didn't fall down. As soon as Hana grabbed the cat, I picked up her and ran as far as I could until I puked."
"That's where I came in," Miss Kino added. "I was doing my patrol and saw them going tearing by. I caught up during- um, all the vomiting, just before those delinquents did. I only had to pile-drive one of them before the rest got the message. Then I got the girls home and figured I'd stay and help out until a parent got home. Which is you, ha ha! I'm sorry I wasn't able to do more."
"You did more than enough and you're wonderful," Usagi said with feeling. She let go of Bea's face and stood up to bow to the (much!) taller woman. "Thank you for taking care of my daughters. I am in your debt."
"No, no, that's what the Street Senshi are for!" Miss Kino awkwardly lifted Usagi back up out of the bow. "It's not like we can depend on the police or the Imperial enforcers. And even though we won the Cardian War, now we have to worry about the Glass Army. And ever since the moon the youma- well, I'm sure I don't need to tell you how dangerous it can be out there. That's why I go out every day looking for people to help. Me and the other Senshi." She glanced at Bea and added with a smirk, "Maybe we'll start issuing bricks for self-defense purposes."
Bea's blush rose up to her ears.
Usagi gave her teenage daughter a none-too-gentle pat on the head and then remembered that the kid might be concussed. "Well, we're all very grateful for all of you. Is there anything I can get you, at least? A bottle of water or something?"
Hana blinked at Usagi. "Ooooooh, we have bottled water? I thought it was too expensive for us?"
"I'll put some tap water in a nice cup and say a prayer over it." Usagi threw a warning glare at her youngest.
Naturally, Hana didn't quite get it and said, "Heyyyyyy, that sounds nice."
Miss Kino laughed again. "Thanks for the offer, but no, I don't need anything. I have all the gear I need in my backpack. Speaking of which, I think our hero here has earned a little something." She crawled over to the wall where a backpack (which Usagi hadn't realized up to now didn't belong to one of her daughters) was leaning and unzipped it. She pulled out a little pouch made of colorful cloth tied with a ribbon.
As Miss Kino held it up, Usagi saw that the cloth was white with little smiling planets and crescent moons all over it.
Miss Kino handed it to Bea. "My famous homemade cookies! Everyone I help gets a sample, but for the good you've accomplished today, I'm giving you the pouch with my favorite pattern!" She also took out a little index card with a hole in it and quickly tied it to the ribbon. "And these are instructions for dealing with a concussion, if you start to feel bad."
"Ooooh, you sewed that pouch?" cooed Hana.
"I made it out of some recovered fabric, and I came up with the design and did the printing. You can reuse it for anything you want, even a handkerchief."
Hana blinked. "Amazing. I always wondered where handkerchiefs come from."
Bea took the pouch, eyes wide, and said, "I'll treasure it forever."
Usagi tried to suppress a grin. Hana tended to be a little spacey, but usually Bea could be counted on to supply the brainpower in this household. She must have it bad.
Bea's ears were scarlet by now and she said, "Er, I mean-"
"It's okay, I'm glad you like it," Miss Kino cut in with a grin. "Well, I should get going. I'd be happy to take the cat. I live alone, so I wouldn't mind a roommate."
Hana's hold on the box tightened. "Mom, I think the cat neeeeeeeeeeds me. I can hear it calling like a flower to my heart."
Usagi sighed. She could not afford a cat, but she could just tell trying to pry this one away from Hana was going to be a battle, and she already had some hurtful conflict scheduled for tonight. "Maybe we can take care of it for tonight, and then see tomorrow if it might belong to anyone? She looks like someone's pet, not a stray cat. Wouldn't her family want to get have her back so they won't miss her?"
"Oh, that's a gooooood point, Mom." Hana looked at her with those shimmering purpose eyes of her, eyes that sometimes seemed as deep as the night sky. "You are wise beyond your years."
Miss Kino stood up again. "Well, in case I hear about a missing pet, let's exchange contact info. And you can contact me any time if you need help. When I'm patrolling, I even carry a radio communicator set to the emergency channel. I can also have the Senshi put a notice about the cat on our website- I, er, already got a bunch of photos." She got her phone out and Usagi did the same. A quick exchange later, Miss Kino was giving a final bow. "Thank you for having me in your home."
"Thank you for everything you've done." Usagi walked her to the door. "If you ever need anything or just want to stop by, you know where we live. I like talking to people who aren't customers or human lives I'm responsible for."
"Ha, of course! I hope to see you around! Er, not because you're being chased by a gang, hopefully."
"Thanks for adding that last bit. Really appreciated."
Once Miss Kino was gone, Usagi took a deep breath, put a bright smile on her face, and turned to her daughters. "So! Bea! Anything you want to announce about your preferences to your mother? Like tall, crafty, super-cute, can piledrive a man, and very female?"
Hana giggled. "You just described Miss Kino! That's fuuuuuunny!"
Bea rolled her eyes. "Usagi. Do not."
Usagi held up her hands defensively. "What? No criticism! I think you have very good taste, aside from her being twice your age."
Hana nodded. "Miss Kino is verrrrry pretty. I also think you have good taste, Bea."
Bea shifted the cold compress she was holding against her face. "Usagi. Don't."
"And it's not like I can't relate," Usagi added. "I've seen my share of pretty women and thought, 'Would!' You know?"
Hana blinked. "Would what?"
"Er, kiss them, of course!"
"Ohhhhh." Hana tilted her head as she considered that. "I don't think I'm ready for kissing yet. But you and Bea can go ahead and kiss people if you'd like."
"Glad to hear it. Thank you for being so understanding."
Bea sighed turned to her little sister. "Hana, you should go the bedroom and do your homework. And put on your headphones, because this attempt to embarrass me is how Usagi is building up to yelling at me for earlier and we're probably going to say some really bad words to each other."
Usagi valiantly fought to keep the smile on her face. "I'm not going to yell. But Hana, you do need to get your homework done tonight and the headphones are a good idea. Please take the cat so you can keep an eye on it."
"Okay, Mom." Hana stood up, carefully cradling the shoebox with the comatose cat in it, and then turned to look solemnly at Bea and Usagi. "Remember that you loooooove each other, and you've got to believe in the power of love." She turned and tiptoed to the bedroom.
Usagi kept the smile on her face until she heard the bedroom door close. Then she sat down next to Bea and said, "Usagi Beautiful Moonbeam Tsukino- seriously, kid, what the fuck?"
It was almost dark by the time Makoto got back outside. She clicked her radio and said, "Kino reporting in."
The radio crackled for a moment and then came back with, "Control to Godzilla: Welcome back. Please use code names for official Street Senshi transmissions."
"Ha, ha," she said back, pretending that she didn't loathe her call-sign. "The girls' mom came home and agreed to take care of the cat, but I'm going to stop by tomorrow to check in on them. I'm also going to send you some pics to put on the website for a lost-pet thing. Anything happen while I was inside?"
"Not so far, but we got a tip that The Lady Upstairs is focused on Tokyo today. Some trucks were spotted in Neo City."
Makoto snorted as she weaved through the crowds of people hurrying home. Even in a city like Tokyo, most people didn't like to be out after dark, and not for the reasons she'd been warned about as a kid. The world had changed, and now there were more dangers out there than people used to have to worry about. A lightning raid by the Glass Army, for example. A youma crossing the Boundaries to look for a walking, talking snack. A being from The High Court looking to trouble some humans for fun.
Humanity hadn't realized how much the light of the moon had protected them. And now it was gone.
Makoto looked up at the new night sky, a canopy of blackness here in the city where the stars couldn't compete with the neon lights of modern civilization. It was tempting to pretend that this was a new moon, still there but invisible, like they used to get back when she was a kid. And that's what all the scientists said- the moon was still there, still had gravity, still caused the tides and all that. It just didn't shine anymore.
Not since Empress Beryl had united the world under her rule.
Makoto made her voice stay light as she replied into the radio, "You sure Lord Governor Hino isn't just making a speech somewhere? He probably has to cart in his own audience these days."
"The trucks were armored," the radio crackled back.
Makoto grimaced. "Copy that, Control." She hoped it wasn't a battery raid. The empire could insist all it wanted that it was just targeting criminals, but even if that was true (and Makoto knew it wasn't, having witnessed some of those raids), she didn't see how that entitled The Lady Upstairs to effectively sentence those people to death by such a horrid method. Makoto didn't want Nehellenia's Glass Army to get to Earth, but why couldn't the magic empress who conquered the solar system find another way to fuel her armies than draining people of their lifeforce?
The radio crackled with static loud enough to draw some stares. Makoto made herself breathe and calm down. It didn't feel like she was squeezing the receiver, but whenever she got upset while holding the radio, it tended to buzz like a thunderstorm was going on around it. She really needed to replace the piece of junk. Maybe reopen her housekeeping business for a bit to make the extra cash.
Once the radio was clear again, Makoto said, "I can do an extra patrol tonight. See if I find anything. And I'll keep all my devices on in case anyone needs to reach me."
"Thanks, Godzilla. We know we can always depend on you."
Makoto's radio crackled her annoyance again.
When Bea didn't respond, Usagi said, "Let me be clear: I've told you that if you ever see trouble, you should run or hide or call for help. But you didn't do that today, never mind that it was a group of violent people. So I'm asking you what the fuck and I want an answer."
Bea gave a single-shoulder shrug. "The cat was in danger."
"So what? It's a cat! A very nice cat, but not worth you dying over." Usagi crossed her arms and powered on her best Mom Glare.
As usual, it had no effect on Bea; she met the glare with a tired expression. "But Hana was freaking out. She wasn't going to come along. So I had a choice: try to drag her away with her fighting me the whole time and maybe biting me, or do my best to get everyone out of there as quickly and efficiently as possible. Since I know how to fight, I made a tactical decision."
Usagi snorted. "A tactical decision? Like you didn't enjoy playing hero! Don't lie to me- I'm your mother, as much as you hate it."
Bea sighed. "I don't hate you or the fact that you're my mother."
"Then why don't you listen to a word I say?!" Usagi felt her eyes stinging with tears. "Oh, great, here I go." She sniffled and hiccuped. "You put yourself in danger and one of those maniacs socked you in the face. Never mind what a gang of boys might do to a teenager girl if they got you pinned!"
"Usagi, take a minute and stop crying." Bea reached out and put a hand on Usagi's shoulder.
Usagi shook it off and wiped at the tears in her eyes. "How-" Her voice caught. "How am I supposed to- to stop crying when I'm- thinking about you- you ending up dead like my- my mother!"
Bea was silent for a moment. "Usagi, I'm really sorry. But Grandmother- that was a Cardian attack that broke through the orbital halo. Today was a bunch of stupid teenagers. It's not the same."
But Usagi couldn't stop herself from remembering her mother's body so still and lifeless, so drained of color and life. Or what happened to her family afterward, with Shingo joining the Star Forces. And Dad- it was heartbreaking to see him just give up on everything. "Please, Bea! You and Hana are all I have now! All it would have taken is one bad moment. You're so smart- why don't you understand the danger?!"
Bea shook her head. "That's why I take self-defense classes. And I know you're about to start on me for having an answer to everything, but seriously, what do you want from me? I made what I thought was the best and safest choice in the situation, given the circumstances. I would have been happy to take Hana and get out of there, but it really wasn't an option."
Usagi rubbed furiously at the tears streaming from her eyes. "Well, I- I think it- it was!"
"And your opinion is so important around here." Bea shifted her icepack and got to her feet-
-but Usagi grabbed her skirt and said, "Don't you walk away from me! What is that supposed to mean? I am your mother."
Bea stopped and left Usagi hanging on her skirt. She looked down with absolutely no expression on her face and said, "It means you're not always right and I'm not always wrong just because we disagree. I tried to do the responsible thing. And yes, you're my mother- you got knocked up at seventeen by some loser rock star-"
"The Three Lights were a pop band, not a rock band!"
"-who OD'd before I was even born-"
"Seiya... had some problems."
"-and then you named me Usagi Beautiful Moonbeam which mortifies me every time I hear it-"
"What?! Your name is wonderful!"
"Whatever. And you don't even know who Hana's father is."
"You make it sound worse than it was! I just- I didn't catch his name!"
"And you're a junior salesgirl at department store that will probably be out of business this time next year."
"I'm a fashion concierge and-"
"-and," Bea interrupted, "I think we've established that there's disturbingly little evidence of your opinion being worth more than mine. Now if you excuse me, Hana might need help with her homework, which I always have to give her because you can barely read, and I have too much of headache to do this right now." She yanked her skirt free of Usagi's grip and walked off.
She left her pouch of cookies on the kotatsu.
Usagi could only slump next to them and try to get her crying under control.
She had already known the daughter who shared her name hated her. It was just hard being reminded of it every day.
Bea shifted her icepack so to cover the tears coming from her black eye while she hurriedly wiped the other one dry. She had to make sure there was no sign of the argument when she opened the door to the bedroom she shared with Hana.
Her sister was wearing her headphones and seated at the desk Bea had built for her out of recovered lumber, the surface now hosting Hana's collection of scrubby plants, a workbook, and the shoebox with the cat. Hana looked over and raised her eyebrows in a silent question.
Bea pointed to the bunk bed and mouthed, "Tired. I'm taking a nap." Then she turned to hide her face and climbed up the bunk's ladder. She settled on her bed with her back to Hana and curled up so that the icepack would hide any sign of expression.
Then she began crying.
It was one of her talents that she could cry without moving or making any sound at all. It was often necessary, considering how often she said the worst possible thing to people and ended up hurting someone. She was nothing like her mother or Hana, both of whom were actually good with people and could make others smile with a word or a deed or just their simple presence. She was the hard one, the smart one, the one who got things done no matter who she had to trample.
And most of the time, that was her own mother. Tonight it was over a cat.
Not for the first time, Bea considered the logic that everyone and everything, especially Usagi, would be better off without her.
Naru Osaka couldn't say that she was living her dream, but she didn't let that stop her from doing the best job she could trying to make life a little brighter for others.
So she might be the night-shift nurse at a long-term care facility, stuck sleeping during the day and working isolated beneath a sky that no longer had a moon in it, but that didn't mean she couldn't give her patients the best care available. So she answered calls to help people to the bathroom in the middle of the night, dealt with any emergencies with a minimal staff to help her, and cleaned things up so that the building would look nice and bright and clean when the sun came up in the morning and she want home. And although most of her patients slept through her presence in their lives, she also did what she could to brighten those lives.
Tonight, that meant bringing flowers to the rooms of all the residents.
Naru didn't actually have much money to spare, so she had recovered these flowers from some bushes torn up by a construction project near her apartment. They had been the most beautiful rose bushes, and the flowers would have all gone to waste if she hadn't saved as many as she could. That had also meant clipping the thorns herself, but as a nurse, she had steady hands.
But she was not so steady a person that she didn't stop short as she approached her wing's resident John Doe and found light spilling out through the open door into the hallway. This room was supposed to only have a John Doe in a coma- and he'd been in that coma for the entire time she had worked here. She'd emptied his bedpan nightly and he had never once moved, never once opened his eyes, never once acknowledged her existence in the slightest. The only sign of life was the beeping of his heart monitor and the slight whisper of his breathing. He got physical therapy and grooming from the day nurses, and they must have been doing a great job, because his muscle definition didn't look like he'd spent a decade in bed; he could have been a magical prince in an enchanted sleep.
And he never had visitors. Until now.
Clutching the single rose she'd been bringing for the vase in his room, Naru cautiously approached the door and looked inside.
"Director Sato?" she gasped. She had met the facility's director years ago when she'd been hired. He never came in for the night shift.
But now he turned to look at her with dismay. "Ms Osaka? You shouldn't be here."
Not be here?! Was he conducting some kind of secret operation during Naru's night shift? "What-" she started to say, but then she noticed the other people in the room.
They were all women and all almost supernaturally beautiful. Five- no, there was a sixth standing behind the fifth- were clustered around John Doe's bed, checking the heart monitor and IV and setting up- well, some new equipment that Naru had never before. Some of it looked like normal computerized devices made of metal and plastic and glass and all the usual things. But some of it- some of it seemed to have crystalline components. And the headband they were putting on John Doe was attached by wires to something that looked wet and pulsing-
-and the seventh woman, her glasses rendered opaque by the glare of the room's lights, stepped over to block Naru's view. "Greetings. You might as well come in, Naru Osaka of Ward 66; MPH, RN, CPHQ, NEA-BC, and you have purchased 143 stickers on Line. You are indeed scheduled tonight from 23:00 to 7:00, so there is no need to involve security."
Naru might have thought it witchcraft if she hadn't noticed the slight shifting of light on the lenses of the woman's glasses. Some kind of AR device? But the glasses were frameless and the arms were so thin! "Who are you and what are you doing with my patient?"
"My apologies for not introducing myself. I am Doctor Akumi Mizuno, an administrator in the Imperial Scientific Agency. As for your patient, my team is identifying him." Mizuno threw a glance at Director Sato that made him take a step back. "We believe he is someone we have been seeking for a while now. Someone critical to the Earth Empire. We would have identified him much sooner if your facility had been properly logging extra-organic patient information in the global database, but what's done is done."
"A technical issue," Director Sato put in weakly. "We will be happy to have our IT department look at it tomorrow."
Naru hoped that glitch wasn't fixed quickly. It might be unprofessional of her, but she believed all the rumors about the connection between all the spying that Lord Governor Hino's people were doing and the recent uptick in 'battery raids.' She was especially suspicious of the extra-organic medical statistics that they were legally obligated to measure and report. What was a 'thauma-level' supposed to represent anyway?
"Dr Mizuno," one of the other woman squealed as the machine with crystalline parts began emitting a sound like a chiming, "we have a match! It's him!"
"Thank you, Mimete, but please keep it down or I will have to rip out your tonsils again. Other patients are trying to sleep." Mizuno turned to Director Sato and said, "We'll be taking this man off your hands. Thank you for your cooperation."
"Just like that?!" Naru found herself blurting out. "You show up in the middle of the night and just walk away with one of our patients?"
Mizuno turned just enough to shift the light off her glasses and reveal her eyes. They were big and blue, and the small smile she offered didn't come anywhere near them. "Just like that. Please do not attempt to impede us or this will become a matter for my associates in the Enforcement Agency." She nodded over Naru's shoulder.
Naru turned around to find that the dark hallway now had five Enforcement officers, their dark robes blending in with the shadows to make their masks appear to be floating monstrously in the air. She instinctively staggered back from them, inadvertently clearing a path too the door.
Mizuno turned back to Director Sato. "Thank you for your cooperation. And don't bother sending a ticket to your IT people. My department will be revoking all your operating licenses first thing in the morning. You'll be busy enough rehoming all your patients and dealing with the failure of your business." She turned to Naru and added, "Your evaluations and accreditations show you to be a good nurse. I recommend updating your resume quickly. Perhaps your next job won't be as lonely."
And then Doctor Akumi Mizuno walked out of the room and Naru's life.
Director Sato quickly followed, presumably leaving Naru to oversee Mizuno's staff as they prepped John Doe for transport. But Naru would do it, even if it was her last task in this job. She owed it to her patient. She realized she was still holding the rose she'd intended to brighten up this room and looked for a place to put it out of the way-
And she realized that the petals of the rose had turned pitch black.
It had also grown thorns.
She dropped it with a gasp that was almost a scream, and Mizuno's staff giggled at her fright.
John Doe was gone within the hour.
TO BE CONTINUED