Difference between revisions of "2024-02-18 - Promises"

Latest revision as of 18:49, 29 March 2024

<Pose Tracker> Chibi-Usa Tsukino [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

A small, pink girl remembers.

Chibi-Usa Tsukino sits in her room, seate on the bed, looking up to the ceiling as she remembers. The sword of the Moonlight Knight, offered to her. The choices that she made. The choice she's made since...

It's after school, and she's still in her Juuban uniform. Chibi-Usa dispels her thoughtful reverie to go back to doing her homework, but it only works so well; she reaches up to her neck, to the thing hanging there on a loop underneath her jacket, and she sighs.

"Hotaru-chan..."

She needs to see her. Not just for the Key, though certainly for that. But who else would she talk to first about what she's decided she needs to do?

The pink-haired girl looks down at her book again, and stares through it, rather than at it. "...Home," she says softly.

It's almost time. Time, to...

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.

Ding-dong!

Someone's at the door. And no one else is home -- Usagi stopped somewhere with her friends on the way home, Shingo too. Ikuko-mama is at the market and Kenji-papa is still at work.

They're persistent, even a little bit pushy, ringing twice even if Chibi-Usa gets up right away to answer and is still on her way down the stairs.

That tracks, because the person waiting for her is very... like that. Though they've only met in passing, Hotaru's primary caretaker (though the girl herself would never acknowledge her as such, rather as her father's assistant, or, more often, as that woman) is most often met in the context of pushing her ward around, usually to drag her away.

But now that woman, Kaori Kishi, who somehow has the time in her day to also be the Infinity Institute principal??, is standing at Chibi-Usa's doorstep. She looks impatient, but not angry; indeed, she presents Chibi-Usa the nicest smile ever before seen on her face, a real best effort. As usual she's in bright red: blazer and pencil skirt and lipstick and hair (of course). Her eyes are purple but not really like Hotaru's at all... a paler, more washed-out lavender. The smile is reaching them, at least, but if they are capable of warmth it is... minimalistic, let's say.

"Good afternoon, Tsukino-san," she greets, kind of professional, command performance. "Hotaru-chan would really like to see you today but isn't feeling well enough to come out and play. Might you have time for a visit?"

<Pose Tracker> Chibi-Usa Tsukino [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

Ding!! Ding-dong!!

Chibi-Usa blinks, and hops up dutifully to trundle down the stairs. She is still on thew ay at the second ring, and then she opens the door, unable to stop herself from expressing a single emotion:

o

But she closes her mouth after a second. "Um," she says, "Hello."

Tsukino-san. It is at once flattering and strange to be accorded such formality and respect from this woman in particular. It's a little strange, but...

"Really!?" she asks of Hotaru. "Um--Yes!"

She should really...

Oh, she has a phone. She can just text on the way!

"Yes, I do!"

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.

Honestly, that woman has never called Chibi-Usa by name before so there's no precedent to set. When Hotaru is present, she's the one who Kaori's talking to, pretty much one hundred percent of the time.

"Wonderful. Right this way, then."

Her smile widens, fractionally, at Chibi-Usa's assent, and she turns and clacks briskly on her stiletto heels towards the car (white sedan, silver trim, black tinted windows, Infinity-themed license plate frame). But she only gets a step or two before pausing, turning back, and, as though it is a slightly alien gesture to her, offering the little girl her hand to hold, if she wants it.

<Pose Tracker> Chibi-Usa Tsukino [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

Right this way! Chibi-Usa steps along, and closes the door behind her, pulling her phone as she goes. But before she can use it, she sees Miss Kishi stop and offer a hand. She blinks, for a moment, at the hand, and at Miss Kishi. (For this is what she must be.)

Blink blink. "Oh! Thank you. But I need to tell Ikuko-mama I'm going somewhere..."

She holds up her phone. "I'll just send her a message."

She will walk along! She isn't so young that she needs to hold a hand just to go to a car!

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.

"Very well, ojou-chan." That was definitely a little ironic, but not cruelly so. Kaori might well be mocking herself. It's a little hard to tell with her sometimes. She rides this line with Hotaru, too.

The car ride is smooth, brief, and silent, unless Chibi-Usa tries to strike up a conversation. Chibi-Usa is too short to see out of the window without sitting very far forward on the seat, and if she does that too much Kaori encourages her to... not, if politely. She's a skilled driver, and not aggressive, quite in contrast to her normal attitude.

They pass through a gate. Infinity Institute is adjacent, so the TenohKaiohMeioh skyscrapers are nearby too, the four towers looming. The building they pull up to, though, is just two or three stories. Commercial, in the sense that the windows are all kind of the same, and are all tinted black, like the car. It's too long to feel squat. There was a sign, but it's behind them. Chibi-Usa has been here before, though. Once, by happenstance. The second time they ever met.

Unlike the mansion, Tomoe Laboratories was never abandoned, apparently.

Has Hotaru really just been here all along, at her Papa's place of work? She's been evasive about where she's been staying, if asked...

Kaori gets both the car door and the front door for her; the latter requires a security badge, which she extracts from her kind-of-excessive-for-an-assistant cleavage. Once inside she shrugs on a white lab coat, but doesn't button up.

For such a big building, it sure is quiet. There's no one else around. The fluorescent hallway lights aren't flickering, but they kind of feel like they should be. It's a little bit spooky.

<Pose Tracker> Chibi-Usa Tsukino [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

A little ironic! Is she joking with her? Chib-Usa can't tell. But she's taking Chibi-Usa to see Hotaru, so...

The ride can be silent. Chibi-Usa peers out the window a little bit, but only a little bit. She smiles most of the way. And she can't help but speak up now and then, with, "Ooh." Or, "Hmm..."

But mostly she's thinking ahead to the visit.

Luna-P bobs along at home, bonking into the door...

But here and now, Chibi-Usa goes along through security, still happy. It is a big building, but...

Spooky...

"Um, thank you," Chibi-Usa says as they go, reconsidering the hand for a moment. Just a moment though. "I appreciate you bringing me..."

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.

"Of course. Anything for Hotaru-chan."

This place is a maze, and it's easy to feel turned around even before stairs enter the equation. There are three flights, all separate stairwells, and they go up once and down twice.

There is not a single sound except for the steady click clack of those fabulous heels.

Finally they pause in front of a door -- a knobless push door like any other, with a badged electronic lock and an institutional narrow-windowed pane of wired glass.

Kaori isn't smiling anymore. She looks down at Chibi-Usa with a very serious expression, like she's talking to another grown-up, and issues a set of instructions.

"Do not touch any of the equipment. Do not let her get out of bed. She is very weak and must not have too much excitement. Do we have a deal?"

Slowly, she unfurls... her pinky. Exactly like Hotaru would swear Chibi-Usa to a promise. It is possible the latter taught the former this technique though the exact circumstances are a little difficult to imagine. Maybe there was once a time when Hotaru might have tried to get Kaori to take a sacred oath, but it must have been a lifetime ago.

<Pose Tracker> Chibi-Usa Tsukino [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

Chibi-Usa has no idea where she is in the building fairly quickly, which is probably not a problem. Her own steps are quieter, simple uniform shoes...

And a door! Perhaps this is where? She agrees, for Hotaru-chan. But as this woman says, she is very weak, and...

And this is Chibi-Usa's responsibility all of a sudden. Chibi-Usa's eyes widen slightly at the prospect of this deal. She considers for a moment. But...

Only a moment.

"No touching the equipment, no getting her out of bed. Right." Chibi-Usa san extends her hand, and her pinky, in the same way. "Deal. ...Thank you."

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.

"Very well. I will give you girls... privacy."

Kaori nods curtly and badges open the door.

It is very dark inside. Instead of the only light coming from a variety of tiny and beautiful lamps, it is coming from LEDs on a variety of large and complex machines. Sometimes they softly beep or hiss. It's a lot.

Once Chibi-Usa is inside and her eyes adjust, she can see the bed, which is a piece of medical equipment itself, adjustable.

Around that time, the door clicks softly but mostly-unthreateningly shut behind her. There's a flash of red through the window to the hallway, which is honestly the biggest light of all, this shaft of fluorescence that falls diagonally into the gloom -- Kaori retreating, though probably not far. Surely she does not expect Chibi-Usa to find her own way home.

There is space between some of the machines to stand at the bedside.

Hotaru is possibly sleeping. She lies very still under white sheets and white blankets -- and white is really, really not her color, because it only emphasizes how her skin is even whiter than hospital-like cotton. It can be beautiful but isn't today, not like this. Chibi-Usa knows her friend can be sickly, but today she is sick outright.

Only her head is visible; eyes closed, brow slightly knitted -- pain? There are tiny flecks of sweat at her temples. Her hair is fine spiderwebbing over the pillows.

But the real web is... wires. Tubes. They disappear under, into, the bedding, attached to... it must be everywhere, everything. There are so many of them that it's a little shocking. The only one Chibi-Usa can actually see the ending of is the fragile little oxygen tubing attached to Hotaru's even more delicate nostrils, which flare, very slightly, as though sensing her friend's approach.

<Pose Tracker> Chibi-Usa Tsukino [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

Privacy. How important!

Chibi-Usa nods back and waves to Kaori as she goes, and then steps inside. But she sees no beautiful lamps. She sees LEDs, she sees lights and blink and boop.

Her eyes adjust. The door clicks, and there is a light, but--Chibi-Usa worries about that only a little bit. She moves to stand, instead, by the bedside in that space that there is to stand. Wires, and tubes, and bedding, and...

"Hotaru-chan?" Chibi-Usa says softly, gently. If she's awake, she wants to get her attention. If she's asleep... Then maybe Chibi-Usa will stay here until she isn't.

But she hopes she is.

"I-I'm here."

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.

"Chibi-Usa-chan," murmured through such dry, pale lips, almost sounds like a little sneeze. Even surrounded by weird equipment, Hotaru is still pretty cute at times...

Her eyes slowly open, darkness in darkness. Where they're typically this very deep expanse, in the sense of deep space, just now it's like they're behind a very shallow pane of glass; like she doesn't go... back, as far as usual, or at least if someone tried to, they would get... stuck, quickly.

But her smile is exactly the same. Tiny. No bitter, only sweet. Perhaps the smallest bit wistful.

"You're... you're here...!"

<Pose Tracker> Chibi-Usa Tsukino [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

Pale, yes--but cute. Chibi-Usa smiles at Hotaru when her eyes open. There's glass, in her eyes; it worries Chibi-Usa. But then, how can she not be worried, with all this machinery?

A smile, sweet as ever...

"I am," Chibi-Usa says. "Miss Kishi came to get me to tell me you could have a visitor.."

"So I came. I've really wanted to see you." She reaches out, to put a hand Hotaru's if she can, very gently.

"And now I'm here!"

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.

"That woman," Hotaru sighs weakly when Kaori's name comes up, but it sounds more like an automatic response. At the very least, she doesn't currently have the energy to muster the kind of scowl that would normally accompany the phrase, just a sort of half-strength eyeroll.

Besides which, she'd much rather focus on her best friend in the whole wide world.

Her hands and arms are under the sheets, which are in turn pulled up to basically her neck; even her shoulders are hidden. But a remote control must be under there too, because there's the soft shushing of fabric, and then a hum. The bed slowly adjusts itself into a steeper angle, letting Hotaru sit up. This means all the tubes and wires also change their angles a bit. One comes pretty close to sliding along Chibi-Usa's skirt, but doesn't quite touch her.

"I really wanted to see you too," she says, gently, once she's more able to look at, rather than up at, her visitor. "I always want to see you, Chibi-Usa-chan..."

She looks down at Chibi-Usa's hand, which has nowhere to go, and is silently distraught. She compresses her lower lip with her teeth until it's almost as white as the rest of her skin.

"Sorry, I-- I can't," she whispers. It's unclear if this is literally true or if she just doesn't want Chibi-Usa to see where all the tubes and wires end.

A piece of machinery chirps, perhaps a warning. 'She is very weak and must not have too much excitement,' warned Ms. Kishi...

<Pose Tracker> Chibi-Usa Tsukino [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

Chibi-Usa is more than happy to focus on Hotaru instead.

Tubes and wires, tubes and wires... They're helping Hotaru, aren't they? So they must be all right. Chibi-Usa can't help but look around at them when she sees them moving, but it doesn't linger, there's no dismay or disgust or anything on her face other than the same smile that graces her when she looks to Hotaru's face. "Hotaru-chan..."

But her hand has nowhere to go, and Chibi-Usa takes it back quickly "Oh," she says, "It's okay!"

She ca't have too much excitement...

Instead, she pulls out the amulet, the talisman she was given by Hotaru, still around her neck. "...I'm visiting home soon," she explains.

"I realized... there's something I can do. Ways I can help. So I'm going to ask some people to go home... And..."

"Show them what's going on."

She can distract her by coming to the point--by explaining her resolve.

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.

Hotaru gives a lot of other people anxiety, but her own fears lie somewhere other than the social arena. Which is to say that she takes Chibi-Usa's 'it's okay' at face value and is grateful, with a thin and only slightly watery smile.

Her eyes go straight to the Taioron Crystal when it appears, like iron shavings to a lodestone. A strange thing... almost organic, like a blossoming acorn made of some kind of quartz, perhaps, one whose color seems to have shifted, just a little, every time one looks away from it and then looks back. It has kept Chibi-Usa good company for a long time now.

"Ah," she says, and instantly understands the purpose of this visit. Glassy or not, her eyes clearly contain it; they shine with a new and different worry. The machines, at least, are quiet for now.

"You're going to save your mother," she says softly. "Oh, Chibi-Usa-chan. I'm so glad for you... that you found someone who can help you."

It is also obvious what she thinks next -- that she wishes so very much that she could be one of them -- but she's polite enough not to say it out loud.

Instead she admires her best friend, a gentle light behind her eyes, and believes in her. "You're very brave... to go back. I know you can do it." She nods, a heavy motion that her head doesn't fully recover from on her neck -- it stays forward and low, her hair sliding lankly forward. "I know it," she repeats, a little bit fiercely, as though by saying so she is making it true, imposing her will on the universe, writing Chibi-Usa's success into reality. It is somewhat like the opposite of a prayer; as though rather than appealing to a higher authority, she is that goddess herself. If an awkward deity, and a strange one...

A coughing fit seizes her, and she collapses back onto the pillow.

Through a crack in her mussed-up fall of hair, her violet eyes glimmer in the dark.

"Princess Usagi Small Lady Serenity," she whispers, once it's over. "Are you... are you scared?"

<Pose Tracker> Chibi-Usa Tsukino [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

Chibi-Usa is glad that Hotaru accepts it. Because for her, it is; it's not a problem, that Hotaru has to do as Hotaru has to do. And the Crystal, when she shows it...

Chibi-Usa sees that realization dawn. She would have visited Hotaru given the chance regardless--but she does have a reason in mind for this one.

"Thank you," Chibi-Usa says, and smiles. "But I wanted to tell you first, too." Not just trade bac.

But tht gentle light... Hotaru calls her brave, and Chibi-Usa feels it when Hotaru says it. She knows she can do it, Hotaru says, and--In a world of magic and miracles, Chibi-Usa has long put her faith in Hotaru.

Chibi-Usa manages not to startle at the coughing fit, though Hotaru will probably notice the tightness of concern in her eyes for a moment back. But that question...

"Really scared," Chibi-Usa admits. "...But I'm gonna do it anyway."

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.

"Me too," Hotaru admits with a tiny sniff. A tear might be being shed behind that curtain of hair. "I don't want anything bad to happen to you... ever again. But... you are the bravest and very best person I've ever met, Chibi-Usa-chan. I know you'll be okay."

This would be a really good time for them to hug. But she doesn't move, or maybe she can't.

A tube hisses some oxygen -- or something -- down its length, another background sound reminding them that this is just not a normal visit.

"Just... please be careful. Ne? Don't go... beating up the bad guys... all by yourself, in order to keep your friends out of danger."

She's very much in earnest here; she's seen Chibi-Usa's columns of light, her deadeye with a slingshot. If anyone could mount a solo siege on future Tokyo, surely it's her. Thank goodness she doesn't have to.

<Pose Tracker> Chibi-Usa Tsukino [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

"...Hotaru-chan," Chibi-Usa says softly. It would be a good time for a hug, but maybe Chibi-Usa can do that with her eyes--can just will Hotaru to understand the warmth of her feeling in the moment, by looing at her with big red eyes.

Maybe.

"I'll be careful," she promises. "Sailor Moon will be with me. So everything will work out okay."

She says it with such certainty, such clear faith, that maybe it will be true.

...But Chibi-Usa is glad, internally, that Hotaru would think she'd do such things in the first place. That she'd imagine her able to fight, not just run and hide and guide. It's... nice.

"...So your Crystal," she says. "It's been keeping me safe. I hope... it can keep you safe, too. Until I'm back."

"Because I'm coming back, too."

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.

Chibi-Usa's warmth washes over Hotaru, cradling her; and she does cry outright, then -- Chibi-Usa sees it, the tear that drips off the tip of her too-sharp, too-thin chin to stain the white sheet right below it.

"Mm," she agrees, about Sailor Moon, who has saved both of them together more than once, now. Hotaru also believes in the Pretty Soldier of Love and Justice, second only to Chibi-Usa herself. (Mars and the others can populate slots three through whatever, sorry. And Uranus and Neptune, of course, only feature in Hotaru's nightmares.)

"Mm," she agrees again, about coming back -- the question Hotaru was too afraid to ask. It would be understandable if she stayed with her mom in the future forever. That's what you're supposed to do, after all. Have your happily ever after.

"Will... will you really? Because... I'd understand," she says -- and means it, incredibly. Tiny-voiced and sad, but so sincere. Restlessly she shakes her head, trying to get some of the hair out of it, with mixed success. Now Chibi-Usa can see more of Hotaru's face, skeletal and drawn but also looking at her with so much love and care. "You're going to want to be with your mama. I would too," she adds loyally -- Hotaru's mama, they both know, is dead.

"But... if you do come back to visit... I'll be so glad."

<Pose Tracker> Chibi-Usa Tsukino [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

Chibi-Usa sees it, and wishes she could do more than watch. But she can't just now, except talk, and so talk she will.

...Chibi-Usa trusts the others more, all in their own ways, but Sailor Moon most of all.

But the question she was afraid to ask... Chibi-Usa inclines her head. "I will," she says.

That love and care... how can she do otherwise?

"I will," she says, "Want to be. But... I want to be with you, too. So I'll come back."

"I promise."

Chibi-Usa smiles, at that, and it is radiant, despite the dim here and the beeping and the wires, as if they were out on a sunny day.

"...Count on me."

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.

Hotaru nods again, more shallowly to prevent a recurrence of before, when she was too weak to pick her head back up without a little involuntary, spasmodic help. And then she takes a deep breath. In, in. The sheets rise with her chest, just a little, as her frame fills and fills with -- air, of course, but it feels like maybe also courage.

"I... I will," she decides. "I... Chibi-Usa... can you make me a promise? Can you promise not to be scared? No," she pauses, deciding against it. "That isn't fair. Can you promise not to run away? Because... I look scary right now. I didn't ever want you to see me like this, but... I think there's no other way..."

<Pose Tracker> Chibi-Usa Tsukino [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

It's really bad. Even nodding being so difficult...

Air, and courage maybe.

"Hotaru-chan?" she asks, but then waits. She waits, through Hotaru correctingn herself, and then inclines her head. "Okay," she says.

"...I promise. I won't run away from you."

She wouldn't, in any case. But now that she's promised...

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.

Hotaru swallows, audible. Strained.

"I'm wearing the Key to the Door of Time," she says, to start. "I never ever take it off, just as I promised." It's kind of amazing that her caretakers have honored that, but then again, her Papa did seem very affectionate, if absent-minded, the handful of times Chibi-Usa has witnessed them together.

"But I can't... take it off by myself. First... you're going to have to move the sheet."

Even if Chibi-Usa tries to only move that stiff fabric the bare inch or two it would take to find where the incredibly slender and fragile silver chain crosses Hotaru's shoulders, which are even more slender and fragile still, it folds forward, falling to Hotaru's lap before it can be stopped.

From the neck down, Hotaru is...

...inhuman.

There is hideous scarring on every scrap of skin; that much, at least, is human enough, if awful; mostly it is in coarse and miserable grays, with some mottled purples, blues and pinks here and there; a patchwork of suffering.

But skin is not the majority of her flesh. There is... it looks a little bit like circuitry. A lot bit. Wires enter ports up and down Hotaru's arms (and presumably legs), and march straight along her torso, too, from just below the clavicle, along the sternum, towards her lap. The tubes enter ports, too, some looking more organic than others. Some might deliver blood, but there are other, stranger fluids keeping Professor Tomoe's daughter alive.

Some of all this is hidden by a thin little white spaghetti-strapped top. But not enough. Not nearly enough.

She has always seemed so worn out. And sick, but... the tiredness was almost worse, at times; a profound, fundamental exhaustion. For the first time, Chibi-Usa might guess why.

It looks so... painful. It is hard to imagine continuing to even exist, day after day, hour after hour, second after second, in such a torn-up, broken body.

And yet all of this mad science is only barely even able to keep her alive, as she's seized by another coughing fit that wracks her body, and its weird mechanics, terribly. Brave as she is, she's unable to look Chibi-Usa in the eye, looking down and away, her hands in tight fists.

In tight fists beneath their... cuffs. On top of everything else, the little girl -- patient -- experiment -- is being restrained, at the wrist and above the elbow, too.

She masters her breathing, somehow, though something in her lungs sounded very wet, almost torn. And then she says, in a small, tight voice:

"I'm sorry."

<Pose Tracker> Chibi-Usa Tsukino [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

She never takes it off. Chibi-Usa smiles at that. She doesn't quite realize how vital it is for Hotaru's caretakers to have honored it. But she can't take it off by herself...

"Okay," Hotaru says of moving the sheet. And then she does. The sheet folds forward, and... there is so much scarring.

Hotaru might expect her dear friend to recoil, to feel horror, to run away--but she shows none of these things. There is a widening of her eyes in surprise, first, and then--worry. Worry, care, concern. A little wonder, too. This is not something she knew to be possible. It is... Not enough, to hide it. But the way that Hotaru is always so sick, so tired, begins to make sense, especially because that coughin fit again--

"Hotaru-chan," she says, and worries more. She looks down, and up, back to her face. "...Why do they have you tied up?" she wonders. "Is it because you can't move on your own...?"

It does sound wet. But--

"You don't have to be," Chibi-Usa says of Hotaru's 'sorry'. "...Or, I mean... not for me."

"You're Hotaru-chan," Chibi-Usa says simply. "I'm sorry tht you hurt so much. But if you thought I'd run away..."

"I won't. Even if I hadn't promised. But I did, so..." She puts on a smaller smile, trying to reassure her dear, dear friend.

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.

Chibi-Usa keeps her promise. Hotaru's heart isn't full, but only because it's got too many holes in it. She is a broken vessel, and it's not so easy for her to overflow.

But she smiles back, or tries to. It's interrupted by another round of coughing, this time pitifully high and tight, as though something in a lung has snapped. Once it's over, rather than looking happy, she just looks tired.

"Papa says... it's because of the sleepwalking. And the seizures. It's for everyone's sake," she finishes quickly, as though repeating something she was told, ingraining it into herself as surely as she printed Chibi-Usa's safety and success into the fabric of the cosmos. "But especially mine."

The Key of Time is a slender implement upon which to rest the fate of both the present and the future, but it is there, dangling on her clavicle upon that impossibly fine strand of silver. Like a sliver of moonlight, it is lovely, and made moreso against the backdrop of Hotaru's many wounds. It does not beautify them, as the Moon sometimes can. It just makes them all the more horrible and sad in comparison.

It shudders against Hotaru's chest as she coughs again. This time, it does not subside; as though energy is chasing itself back and forth between Hotaru's crown and her toes, great waves of it surging, cresting, breaking, her back is arching, her eyes are starting to roll.

Chibi-Usa has seen these episodes before, but this looks much more serious, much worse than they used to be. It is a struggle to get out any words at all when she's about to be seized by a fit but through a titanic effort, Hotaru manages to gasp, between wheezes:

"The key -- take it quickly -- then stand back!"

Breaking the chain would be fastest. Even in Chibi-Usa's gentle little hands, it could snap with a sharp tug. Or she could try to find the clasp, somewhere behind Hotaru's neck, which is beginning to arch backwards, upwards.

<Pose Tracker> Chibi-Usa Tsukino [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

More coughing... Chibi-Usa worries at this. It is awful. Of course she looks tired! Chibi-Usa would have to be tired, under such a burden, as much energy as she has.

She feels for Hotaru deeply. ...But she answers. And Chibi-Usa is dubious of that answer but isn't going to argue now.

She looks to the Key of Time, and back up to Hotaru's face. No, they are horrible. But...

The coughs don't subside. "Oh--" This is much, much worse. But Hotaru manages to--

"O-Okay!" Chibi-Usa has to think fast; so, she puts herself on the line. She reaches behind Hotaru's neck, but not for the claps; she gets her hand between skin and chain, and then pulls the chain with her other hand, making it so that if there'ss any pain from the snap, any tugging, it will be onn her own small hand, and ot Hotaru's.

"Hotaru-chan!"

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.

The Key all but leaps into its true mistress' hand, eager to return to her. And the chain comes away easily, with just a little pressure across Chibi-Usa's palm; a pink line that will fade within minutes at most.

As it is taken from her, Hotaru's body, which had been descending into strangeness and violence, accelerates. There is a desperation in her purple eyes, and she shrieks--

"Don't-- don't let--"

--and then they are gone, rolled up totally inside her skull. Only whites remain.

Her body arches, snapping almost audibly. She strains with inhuman strength against the ties that bind her. Leather... creaks.

At the top of the bridge, though, her expression seems to... abstract. Hotaru's struggle... fades, though the tension in her body remains, thrumming with an almost palpable energy, as though her heartbeat is spreading outward, in every direction, upon the very air. Her eyelids become heavy, and droop... they land half-lidded, more sleepy than sultry but not entirely without the latter aspect.

And then comes... the faintest glow.

Chibi-Usa has seen Hotaru glow several times. Her healing light glows, and that one memorable time she paralyzed a daimon right before it hurt her, she glowed then too. They are assuredly both prone to bouts of magical radiance. So that on its own is not so strange, even if it is difficult to see how what little of Hotaru's flesh remains seems to shudder in every direction, all at once -- becoming almost translucent, as though unable to contain it -- while the cybernetics remain solid and opaque. A strange contrast.

Probably not coincidentally, every machine in the place is going berserk with beeps and sirens and other alarms.

Still almost in a crabwalk on the bed, her abdomen trembling as though suspended by an invisible wire, Hotaru... cries.

A single tear, which falls backwards, upwards, along her nose, between her eyebrows.

For a second she stops breathing entirely.

Then her lips move, not in a croak, but in a murmur. Dreamlike, yet somehow... helpless. Pleading.

"This body," her lips say, ever so sadly, "Will not last much longer... without salvation..."

She bucks in bed, more violently still. Air chokes into her lungs, and very differently, she cries out:

"Please," she wheezes. "Chibi-Usa, please--"

Then, midsentence, she calms once again. The light behind her eyes strengthens. It is a pretty cherry color, much the match to Small Lady's own irises. The color of the thrown rose. Of the bow of Sailor Moon. The House of Serenity has never feared or hated crimson, ne?

"I see it." She weeps a second tear, pitifully. "In dreams... the healing light of the Holy Grail... is what can make me whole... again."

<Pose Tracker> Chibi-Usa Tsukino [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

Don't let...?

Chibi-Usa doesn't understand. There's a lot, though, that she doesn't understand. Everything seems so strange. So awful. But Chibi-Usa secrets the key away in a pocket for now, guarding it. It could have been 'Don't let that woman take it'. There is something in her intuition that worries of exactly that.

A glow...

It is so strange, despite the fact that glowing is not so strange to her. She watches a single tear. She watches as she stops breathing--"Hotaru-chan!?"

This body... Something about that rings strange, but it is washed away by that 'please'.

She is calm. A pretty, red color...

It's not Hotaru's color, but...

"...I'll remember that," Chibi-Usa says. The Holy Grail...

She's seen it, too. There's wonder, that Hotaru would know of it...

"...B-But I think they're going to make me leave," she says, "Hotaru-chan... hang on. I'll come back."

"I promised."

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.

It may be somewhat comforting that this is more the color Chibi-Usa's best friend glowed that time she protected them from a daimon by freezing it with a dirty look. It's not not Hotaru's color, that's for sure.

And it's not not Hotaru's lips that smile a little smile, so soft, so sweet, at Chibi-Usa's response. At her promise.

"Yeeees," she exhales with poignant relief, grace slowly seeping back into her limbs, gentling her back down towards the embrace of the mattress. No longer do the restraints strain to contain her. "You... never break... a promise..."

The glow fades, gradually, and darkness enfolds the tiny figure on the bed. The tubes and wires tighten in one direction and slacken in the other, as she curls onto her side, knees rising towards her chest.

Her eyes are closed fully now, which is a relief.

But in her slumber, she whimpers, tiny-voiced.

"Chibi-Usa...chan..."

The door swings open, filling the antiseptic room with dusty hallway light and fresh air, and also Kaori Kishi's horrified look.

"We're leaving now," she snaps, taking the little girl by the hand whether she wills it or no and all but carrying her out of the room.

The door swings shut behind them, and alone again, one last bubble of air finishes its torturous journey from the depths of Hotaru's lungs, up her trachea, past her uvula, and through her lips and tongue and teeth:

"...run."

<Pose Tracker> Chibi-Usa Tsukino [Juuban Public School (5)] has posed.

It's a little comforting! But it's hard to be comforted in this situation, without the usual light in Hotaru's eyes to tell her she's okay. Or as okay as she gets. She sets the Crystal down on the bed, and hears that whisper. "Hotaru-chan..."

They're leaving now. Chibi-Usa does not have to be told twice this time; she looks back, but doesn't really try to resist.

She doesn't hear that last whisper...

But when she arrives home again, she gets in the door, closes it behind her, and pulls out the Key to look at it.

"Hotaru-chan," she says.

"...Mama..."

"I'm coming."