Usagi had lost count of the days, but she was almost certain four months had passed since what was slowly becoming known as the Sailor War had begun. These days the moon hung ever swollen in the sky, day and night, unbalanced, heavy, full with want and worry. The tides rose high on the second month, foreboding dark swells that swallowed the coast line, inching towards the cities. Usagi was powerless to stop it, no matter how she prayed, no matter how she bartered with the pearl in the sky. The moon betrayed her smiles: as long as it was pregnant among the stars, she and the world were unbalanced.
The first weeks after Mamoru had attacked her could’ve been a blink, a sigh: inky darkness, his Elysian Soldiers, rising from the corners of every shadow to find her. One evening, perhaps a month after Endymion had taken over Crystal Tokyo, the Shadows came with friends.
Dead… Scream!
She hadn’t been sure if Setstuna’s attack was what cut her down, or the fact it was her soldier, her protector, her silent sentinel that cut its way to her heart. When Hotaru pressed the blunt end of her glaive into the small of Usagi’s back, pinning her to the ground where Setsuna had left her, she felt tears for the first time since Endymion exiled her from her palace swim in her eyes. Had Haruka and Rei not been there to pick up her pieces, there would be no moon in the sky today.
Now time ebbed on. The senshi – the remaining senshi – had fled outward from Crystal Tokyo and the rising Pacific – towards Kyoto, the old Capital, and mount Inari. Rei had placed wards on the thousand tori gates climbing the mountain like a spine.
“We’ll know long before they even have a chance of reaching us, Usagi-chan,” Rei had whispered against her cheek, all formalities lost weeks ago. She was no queen, afterall.
Now, night was now falling on their mountain; even with the full moon, night always found its way to play tricks on her, make the hair on the back of her neck prickle. Before bed, Makoto, Ami, Rei, Haruka and herself would all sit in a circle within one of the many shrines along the mountain’s winding path backs facing each other. They never spent many nights in the same temple. Haruka said Michiru was close by, keeping away what she could from afar. Some nights, when Usagi finally did sleep, she wondered if Haruka went to Michiru. She must be lonely afterall---a solar system away again.
Makoto was never out of Fuku; she reclined some distance as fire danced across her narrowed brow, listening and waiting. Resting. Hoping for their dinner which sat roasting in the flames. Ami was always scribbing – words and numbers, she didn’t know. Rei reinforced the protective spells again and again, laid a palm to the trees, the Inari fox gods, listening for their whispers of warning. And Haruka—
Usagi looked across the orange glow past the tori gate where Haruka stood against the pale outline of the face of the moon as it meandered across the twilight sky. Stars were winking above her head. The Distant King of the sky, just as her name promised. Usagi didn’t know if sometimes she was on the same planet, in the same time.
Usagi slowly closed the gap between the two, Makoto and Rei preoccupied, unnoticing of her slow advance. Ami lifted her face, the flames dancing in her eye glass frame, before the used her index finger to push them up the bridge of her nose, and went back to marking coordinates on graph paper.
The wind was cool around Haruka when Usagi neared; it tossed her hair like a gentle sandstorm. She lifted her hands and slipped them around her waist, flattening her breasts against her strong shoulders, leaning against her, giving Haruka as much warmth as the moon could allow.
“Hope you like sweet potatoes,” Usagi sighed against Haruka’s shoulder blades, smiling against her spine with an air of levity in her voice. The rivers were low, and with that so were the fish. The girls were living like bachelors off rice cakes, nori, convenience store onigiri and instant ramen. Usagi had stolen bags of kit kats; only a few singles remained, and she was saving those for when the girls really needed them. Sweet potatoes had been their dinner for the last few weeks; Usagi was doing her best to bring Haruka out of the sky with a lame joke.
