Was it a dream or vision?
Usagi remembered and dreamt the very same dream that had visited her since she was little, but was it really a dream, or was it a memory; she didn't know.
---
She was riding home on her new bike with the pink luminescent painted frame and the small plushy bunnies tied to the handlebars she loved when it happened.
Usagi's legs were pumping like mad until she felt the blood rushing to her ears, pounding so hard it was deafening. She had to get home before the storm broke as it was threatening to do any moment now.
The sky shook with thunder, the eight-year-old rang her bicycle bell to stave off the fear and push back the menacing thunderheads that growled above her. Then, a fork of lightning struck the telegraph pole. She was wide-eyed and terrified. The tendrils of bright blue light like exaggerated fingers rippled as they sought the pavement, entwining themselves along its length. The wires burst into flame, and were burning, the sound more frightening than the thunder to Usagi.
Sparks showered her from above, the light fixtures exploding. She cried out in terror.
The bike was pulled up from underneath her ragdoll-like body - odango and limbs flailing - as if she were riding on a cross between a spinning top and a Ferris wheel. Everything collapsed into a whirlpool of colorful lights and she lost consciousness.
---
"Wow, this is so amazing! All these flowers, the grass and the hills… made of crystal," Usagi cried; picking herself up off the soft ground, cushioned with thousands of petals, these too were crystal. She plucked one of these and it began to make a sound, like a musical note, or was it a singing invisible faery, she giggled and sniffed it and it melted into a sweet residue and was gone. She sighed with contentment, brushed down her dress, and began to take in her surroundings. Usagi was pleased and at the same time, curious as to why the crystal flowers were so soft, like real flowers although these seemed to be quite real to the little girl.
Rubbing the tears from her eyes she looked up, purple skies with stars and beautiful lattices of pretty gemstone winked back at her. She was enraptured, but a little scared.
"Where am I, and where have Juuban and my home gone? I'm frightened."
The schoolgirl stood there, mouth agape, eyes filled with wonder and tears. The blonde blinked and after examining her knees found no cuts or scratches.
"I'm okay, but this is so weird it hurts!"
She found her bento box and pack that were hurled a few feet away as the result of her arrival in this strange place. Usagi retrieved her belongings, tying them to the back of her bike where her father had attached a compartment. She gingerly climbed on the bike and as if riding on a silk road, glided across the landscape towards a shrine of some kind.
---
Usagi bit her lip as the temple too was fashioned from polished stones and images were entering, and departing the huge entrance and courtyard, these were, she realized, a procession of dreams: her dreams.
"Usagi?" she jumped, but the pretty lady in ceremonial robes, pink and white like the sakura beamed at her and crouched to accept her embrace. She didn't think twice about this, and ran to the lady with the long black hair, the dark brown eyes, that seemed all at once to shine like super novae, her bike forgotten for the moment. She let herself be swept up in a huge hug.
"Lady? Mother…," her lips trembled, "You are a kami-sama?"
"Yes little one, I am Amaterasu. I must say, child, you are far more beautiful and with a heart bigger than I thought possible in a little girl. Come!" she commanded in a maternal tone that Usagi obeyed without reservation, taking the warm hand of the young Goddess.
"You are so young to be a-"
"Goddess? I should be all old and wrinkled," she made a funny face and Usagi laughed. "No, my sweet child, I know no age or limits, but I am the holder of these things. I am dawn and dusk, the sea in repose and in tempest, the calm and the storm… do you understand?"
"I think so. I like it here, I feel as if-"
"You've been here before? Yes, I can tell you that we have met many times in many embodiments, and it won't be the last time we meet."
Amaterasu indicated with her hand the lands surrounding the temple that were so marvelous Usagi was speechless, something rare for the ramp unctuous little girl with so much energy, and a penchant for always tripping over her own feet. But here, this was not a problem.
"Come, I will play for you, show you the mirror of hope and the eight-sided mirror will speak of times ahead – it is important to not be afraid of what you find there. Destiny is a tool, not a prison as many think."
"Yes lady, and thank you; I love it here but I am hungry."
"Tsukino Usagi, you have an appetite as vast as the heart you possess that dwarfs this universe."
They sat, drinking green tea, and shared rice balls that were unlike any she'd ever tasted, and then the mirror.
"Oh, it is so horrible!" she gasped, bearing witness to the quake of 2011, the tsunami, and the aftermath. "All those people, gone…" she began to cry, and Amaterasu pulled her into her arms and quieted her.
"Courage Usagi, your strength and love will be needed after these events unfold. The entire world shall be tested, for a great struggle often forges fresh growth and in the darkest of times, you will shine. Trials are sent to test our resolve to become better people, to find ways to live together in love and peace under a just law, and also, with the children of the planet that dwell in the air, upon land and in the sea."
"I don't know what I can do; I am just a little girl!"
"Ah, but Usagi, look into your heart, and picture it in the mirror."
She did so, and the future opened up like a flower. One young girl, not much older than she, was walking along the path to her house. Soaked to the skin, shivering and sobbing, a pack, not much different from that of her own, slung over one shoulder as she knocked on the door. It opened and a woman, with hair like her own worn in the same odango style, in denim shorts and a pink bunny tank top, took in the state of the distressed girl and hugged her. Then led her inside.
"Now watch," Amaterasu said.
Usagi nodded as an older version of herself caught the girl before she fell, and a bright light immediately flared around the older Usagi. The exhausted girl covered in burns and savage sores soon regained consciousness, her injuries all gone, eyes bright with joy and amazement.
"I am dying, or I was… I don't understand; you healed… me!" she began to sob, "I have come from Sendai, oh, and it is terrible…"
Turning from the vision, Usagi offered the Goddess a quizzical look.
"I did that, or I will, eventually? I don't know-"
"Yes, you will when the time comes, but it will dawn on you that our encounter here was no dream. Now, we must walk in the fields and mingle with the flowers, butterflies, kittens, bunnies and the birds; I know you'll enjoy that and then back home you go, my daughter."
Tokyo Hospital
Juuban Prefecture
April 2011
Usagi frowned at the numbers that refused to submit to any attempt to be herded to order. These were more evasive and scheming than the most deadly of youma, droid or other hellish nemesis they'd encountered in the past. The numbers on the page parried, danced and jumped about refusing to be pegged down and beaten; running her befuddled mind into the ground. Fatigue tended to have that effect on one especially under the circumstances in the city right now.
Sighing, she slammed the clipboard on the desk in frustration waking Kako Omiya, her friend and the girl she was relieving.
"Wha-?"
"Oh hell. I'm sorry, Kako. I am so tired, but I can't stop, not yet – go home and get some sleep, you've been at it a day longer than I have. Dr. Chiba and I will take over on this floor," Usagi said, whilst engaging in a pitch battle for supremacy with her heavy eyelids that screamed for the chance at sleep; real sleep, not snatched powernaps or whatever the buzz term was.
Usagi began to cry. It was too much. The death, the suffering, the battles with a force that dwarfed Metalia, Chaos and Galaxia; all of them, almost impossible to fight, as they were accustomed. The planet was rebelling, hurting those in her wake. Mother Nature didn't stop to take account of the innocent. The guilty and the virtuous were not separated, the young or old, the factory worker or the corporate executive. Under the power of the massive 9.00 earthquake and the devastation that followed, not even Serenity of Crystal Tokyo and her band of senshi and Shitennou could save the city but she refused to give in to the most simple enemy: exhaustion.
She would not yield. She hadn't as Sailor Moon, exhausting herself every night and day. As a civilian, when not taking the obligatory rest breaks, the staff in the radiation wards were urged to take them to keep alert as this was vital when dealing with the thousands, no, tens of thousands pouring through the hospital; she was burning the proverbial candle at both ends and it showed.
Despite her determination, she began to wilt.
‘Just a nap, that's all I need.'
She folded her arms on the counter as Kako had done, her head tilting to one side, and began to snore, the sound making Kako giggle. Cascades of gold almost touching the floor as she dozed for a time had Kako wondering how the odango headed girl could stay upright, with only the countertop for support, but Usagi's legs were strong and she seemed to have good balance but that wasn't always true she knew and giggled again at school memories they'd shared on many occasions.
Staff walking past, used to seeing their colleagues and volunteers in this predicament, gave a smile or caring glance before moving on to their next destination.
After the reactors were finally shut down, the government ordered the annexation of any public buildings that would help deal with this national emergency to treat those impacted by the dreaded radioactive scourge unfolding in the Miyagi region, not to mention the impact of the quakes, tsunamis and the cold. The world was coming to help, this buoyed their spirits, and Japan was so grateful for the love and support offered even from old antagonists such as China were offering aid, a sign that the better part of human nature was at work here.
Usagi stood straight, her back stiff, but she was feeling a little better, however, soon the weight of the day re-asserted itself and she rubbed her eyes.
"It just won't end, the suffering, the death; all of it."
"We cannot lose hope, child," Dr. Togumi said, his kind eyes regarding her with concern before adding, "Oh, I almost forgot, Young Chiba will be here soon, he asked me to give you this, enjoy it…"
"Arigatou," she smiled as he placed the coffee iced muffin in her hand then placed a plate with an apple tart for Kako on the countertop followed by two mugs of hot chocolate for each girl off the trolley laden with snacks and hot drinks.
She knew he was right, but it wore one's endurance down quite a lot. She had to dig deeper, keep doing that for her people.
Remembering the images of the tsunami at home that had also struck to a lesser degree of intensity at the coast of California, she was glad it hadn't been as awful as it might have been for the entire Pacific Rim. One man in the US died, sad, yes but thousands had died in her homeland. Loss of life was always tragic and nothing had ever touched her the way this had and continued to do and would for the near future. She sighed.
Usagi looked up than, distracted by the images on the huge big screen LCD television set in a land of sun, of excess and hedonism across the sea. Despite it all, her mental, emotional and physical state, her attention was riveted to the shocking report on a mother injecting her eight-year-old daughter with Botox.
"Hell, if anyone tried to do that to Chibi-usa, I'd forget my scruples. Yeah, and club them over the head with my scepter," she said barely above a whisper. Nobody heard as the sound of the TV, the bustling crowds of doctors and paramedics pushing stretchers, nurses, volunteers and the public on the way to and from surgery and the overcrowded wards in the radioactive casualty units, and other busy wards flowed unceasingly by, effectively drowning her out.
‘Yeah, California, and that hideous mother, a beautician turning her child of eight into a mummified Barbie doll, a voodoo zombie pushed into the cruel world of shallow hedonism by her crazed excuse for a parent. She should lose custodianship.'
"That's freak'n child abuse!" she growled, and those who heard, equally shocked by the item on CNN, nodded in agreement and moved onto their next patient or headed out on call to another emergency in the Sendai region.
‘The horrors of excess, of human stupidity, the abuse of children and their sexualisation, violence and greed almost celebrated, no wonder things are going to hell!'
Her thoughts had made her nauseous.
‘Why can't people change, why continue this dehumanizing of the innocent? The children killed and maimed by the quake and the parents mourning them, they love their children as they are, not turning them into wax dolls.'
She wanted to throw up at the thought of that poor girl, the freak show of western license at its worst. Sure she knew this was not the norm, but it wasn't something she needed to see right now, especially after witnessing several children covered in blood and dirt brought in with severe injuries and some poor angels with radioactive disease. She groaned, knowing she had to be strong, stronger than she'd ever been as a super heroine; this was all too real, too close to the bone and so heartbreaking. She turned away from the screen, walked back to her original position at the counter, and smiled at her exhausted friend who was putting on her coat.
"Sleep well, Kako."
"Yeah, and I hate feeling guilty for taking a break, but there is so much more to do. We need to function and that means sleep and food," Kako said, offering a tired smile, pushing back her bedraggled long black hair from her face.
"We can only do our best, now go get some shut-eye…," Usagi said, patting the young woman's shoulder.
Kako sighed, hugging Usagi and sliding her bag over her shoulder on her way out, pulling out her iPhone.
"We are just scratching the surface. Ice, snow, food shortages and now the rains, mud, contamination, the diseases," a new voice sounding fresh and alert chimed in as Kako called her boyfriend to pick her up.
"Hi Unazuki, you seen that before?" Usagi sighed, shaking her head.
"Yeah, caught the end of it; pretty sick. I'd like to have that woman on our team, so she can see what really counts… got to go, got another patient to help Ami with in the ICU, catch you later Usagi!"
"Yeah, see ya!"
She had been to the children's ward as Sailor Moon many times, healed them of the dreaded disease, but there were always more. She helped adults too, and all of them had helped, but the numbers were just too great. Usagi remembered the conversation she'd had with Mamoru as he held her tired body in his arms, the caped hero lending her strength, even though her knees were giving way under her.
"It is awful Muffin, I need to do more, and we need to do more!"
"Shhh, you're doing all you can, we all are. But you gotta realize Usako, you, we… can't save them all."
She came back to herself as the man she loved in a white lab coat, inevitable Touch Board in hand and the E-stylus approached her.
"I was just thinking of you," she greeted him with a light kiss and a hug.
"Ditto, I can tell you've been thinking about all of this, as have I," he said, stroking her cheek.
Usagi leaned into his warm hand and gripped it tight.
"Yeah," she said, almost bursting into tears but fought to keep them in check. "I know Muffin, but it hurts so bad. They need us, our people need our strength!"
Then the sound of clicking heels and boots moved toward the couple who, for that moment, only had eyes for one another.
"Yeah, odango girl; you need some sleep, that's why we're here!" Jupiter said, as people stopped to look at the senshi and Shitennou who had approached the counter and mingled a little as people lingered for the briefest of moments. Smiling their appreciation, and with new resolve and determination, PEOPLE ONCE MORE WENT ABOUT THEIR BUSINESS OF HELPING THE SICK AND DYING.
Their visits were frequent and boosted morale at the hospital.
Mars smirked. "Ice-cream sundaes if you get your full eight hours. No, Mercury's orders. Mamoru, take her home now. We'll be doing some more stuff to contain that reactor. The authorities have been wonderful and we're shielding the workers; some have risked their lives for us, so we're doing something to give back," the fire warrior said, hugging Usagi and wiping the tears from her eyes.
"They've stabilized the reactors. We're keeping an eye on things through Central Control's satellite network," Artemis said, as Luna rubbed herself against Usagi's legs.
"Thanks guys, the best news I've heard all day."
---
The Goddess Amaterasu sat on the steps, patted the pink marble, and bade her sit.
"I have something for you, close your eyes, no really, please, humor me," she giggled, Usagi, fully conscious this was no dream, but a genuine encounter with a kami-sama, complied.
"I have so many questions."
"There's time enough for a question and answer session later, but for now… concentrate. See the Ginzuishou. When you return, call a meeting. Speak of our encounter with your senshi and Shitennou then take Ami's hands, the knowledge will flow to her."
As the velvet touch of Amaterasu's hands sent the sapphire light surging through her body, Usagi's eyes shot open.
"Oh, Lady, Mother! A cure for-"
"Yes, your blood is the elixir for the radioactive scourge, you can create a vaccine and it will also eventually alter the destiny of those receiving it, but not until the new Crystal Kingdom will this secondary gift make itself manifest."
Usagi tilted her head, and then she understood and nodded.
"They will be the future, the guardians of a new era, but now daughter, it is time for us to walk again, and visit some old and familiar friends."
She woke refreshed, realizing the dream or vision she had had as a girl was true as the Ginzuishou hovered above her and Mamoru. He took her hand. He had received the knowledge as a silvery-blue light flooded their bedroom. The meeting with Amaterasu was real after all. Usagi had all but forgotten it, but it was real. She straightened.
"Muffin…, we've got a lot of work to do, I'm calling the girls after breakfast."
Luna lifted her head and mewed, she too had absorbed the knowledge of the curative properties of senshi and Shitennou blood.
She was a senshi, a queen in waiting, yet, Usagi knew they were all very human - vulnerable and were fighting on two fronts: the superhero front and that of their civilian selves, giving their all in their country's hour of need and the world was offering their love and support and much needed resources to help them rebuild their nation. The kamis had blessed their efforts with a precious gift, one that was inside them all the while. Now they could make a bigger difference.
She laughed with genuine heartfelt joy, the first time in quite a while, and Mamoru knew the sun had come out at last. They would get through this, as warriors, as people, and as a nation.
END
