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Venus kneels on the palace floor, bows her head to queen Serenity, waits for orders to follow, so that she will fully know her duty and see the road which will be hers to walk.
“Aminta, princess of Venus, Guardian of planet Venus and its powers, wielder of the Holy Sword, you are to bear another duty. Rise as the lady in waiting of princess Serenity, stand as her decoy when need be, be her first and last protector at all times.”
The voice of her queen is gentle as ever, but Venus feels magic coil around her body as the words register in her ears, magic that binds her to this new duty, magic that will aid her when need be. She bows lower, lets her forehead touch the cold stone floor.
“Your words are my will, my queen,” she whispers, and yet the words echo in the room around her, and upon her forehead she feels the power gather, and feels without seeing, a crescent moon take shape and merge with the symbol of her own planet, and Sailor Venus knows that this new symbol will aid her, too, when needed.
#
“Aminta!”
The princess of the moon is running towards her with a beaming smile, and Aminta – Venus, she has to be Venus know – straightens her back, breathes in and out.
“Greetings, princess. What do you need of me?”
Serenity stops, blinks, tilts her head, blinks again. Her eyes, clear as moonlight, dim for a few heartbeats, widen, and then she smiled and its like being bathed in soft, cool moonlight after a much too warm day.
“Oh, Aminta. All this for me?”
Venus doesn’t know what to say, how to be, which truth to follow, so she stays silent while the panic inside slowly fades away.
“Darling, dearest Aminta.”
A soft hand upon her cheek, a grip upon her chin. The moon princess tilts her head downwards, and Venus feels cool, soft lips brush her forehead.
“Don’t worry so much, dearest, you are doing wonderfully. But don’t forget that you are both Venus, my guardian, and Aminta, my dearest friend.”
#
Chaos. Ruin. Disaster. Venus move on autopilot, hyper aware and yet wrapped in a bubble.
“Venus!”
It’s Jupiter, Jupiter who is the best fighter, who always keep going, Jupiter who plants flower in the garden, Jupiter whom Venus loves as a sister.
Crackling, the energy from her fellow solider rushes towards her, wraps around her, forms a shield, and an attack that has slipped past her bounces harmlessly away.
And then Jupiter falls, falls so quickly and without injury that all Venus can do is blink because it should be impossible. And then she feels, and understands. A willing sacrifice of the body before it gets too broken. And then an enemy crashes upon the empty shell of her friend, wrecks it apart. And inside Venus, the soul and magic of Jupiter crackles alive.
She is the only one left. She was too late for Mars and Mercury, and Venus will blame herself and grief later, will honour them when there is time.
“Alright then. We have work to do.”
Inside her, Jupiter’s soul and magic screams in agreement.
Too much, too many, too little of her. Venus is exhausted. Her core, her very being is cracking. But there is no time to just fall apart. Not yet, not when she still has a duty.
Serenity. Endymion. They have manage to stay partially hidden in the chaos, and Venus smirks. Her little shade magic has done a good job. But now, when she herself is so very close to fraying and snapping apart, it is too broken to keep the two royals full shielded.
Well, there is nothing to it. Her body is too broken to move, that much the enemy has seen to. But her mind and magic, those they cannot steals from her, not yet.
“Be her first and last protector at all times.”
The words from her queen echo in her mind – not that she never forgets – and Venus breathes in and out, in and out, in and out. Her power flares like an invisible beacon, ready and willing, and aided by Jupiter’s soul and the thunder magic.
Protect. Protect at all costs. Cloud. Spirit away. Hide. Hide with love.
If she herself awakes anew, Venus knows she will find them. Serenity of the Moon. Darla of Jupiter. Iris of Mercury. Lorelei of Mars. She will find them.
Until then, they will all be safe. Safe forever.
The magic flares, burns, fades away, and Venus smiles tiredly as the world slowly fades. And far, far away, she hears the beloved voice.
“Aminta!”
#
Sailor V. She is no longer Minako, school girl and volleyball player. She is Sailor V and she has a mission.
Time flies as she learn more from her new partner – and while a part of her questions the fact that said partner is a cat, there is a deeper corner in her mind that sees the rightness of it all, and call for her full acceptance of it.
She is Sailor V, and Minako, and somehow, she knows she is more, has been more, will be more. What, she does not yet know. But she will, somehow, of this she is certain.
#
Sailor V and Artemis watches from a rooftop as a blonde girl walks leisurely along a street in a neighbourhood of people who are quite well of.
“Why is she important?” V wonders again, and the white cat huffs, flicks his long tail.
“I don’t know. I know she is, but not why.”
“Not very helpful,” V points out, and the cat sighs unhappily in agreement.
Down on the ground, the blonde girl is humming a melody, and string of it reaches V’s ears in small intervals that get shorter and short as the girl walks closer to the building they are hiding atop of.
V tilts her head, the girl on the ground hums louder, spins in a circle that makes her hair spin and almost fall out from the two buns.
The melody falls into place, clicks deep within her soul, and as her forehead explodes in warmth that is somehow still cool, Sailor Venus remembers.
Aminta. Guardian. Protector. Lady in waiting. Joy. An end to all ends. Magic that wraps around her friends and her princess. Darkness.
“V?”
A soft paw against her knee, a worried cat that is not fully a cat, and down on the ground, her moon princess without a care in the world. Or, Venus muses as shock flares through her, not yet her moon princess. That part of the soul in the blonde body is sleeping, waiting to be let out.
It worked. The magic Venus unleashed back then, so many eons upon eons ago on the moon, to protect at all costs, it worked. Upon her forehead, the merged symbols of Venus and Moon burn cool, a reassurance that she has done well.
#
Sailor Moon. Venus wants to facepalm so hard it’s hilarious. This is not the way, and she fights the urge to snap at Luna. After all, it’s not truly the cats fault that her memories are clouded and giving her the wrong idea of how things are.
But, it’s fine. They can handle this. Somehow. If only she had been in time for that first time of Usagi’s transformation and the following fight. It’s hard to be in two places at once though, and Venus knows that the protective magic she wove into Serenity’s soul is doing its job even though the moon princess herself is not awake, even though here and now, it is Usagi that runs around with moon magic half in disguise.
So, what exactly to do now? How to best protect and guard? Venus breathes in, breathes out, in and out and in and out, and deep within her very core, her magic flashes awake to its full potential for a few heartbeats and gives her a truth, a direction.
Upon her forehead, the symbol of the royal moon family takes shape as a crescent moon.
Decoy. Protection by misleading. A way to walk until she has found her comrades – she does not yet know why the are clouded from her, but maybe it’s a protective magic she is not aware of yet.
#
Her nails click-clack against the wooden surface of the table. Minako is restless. Venus is restless. Something is stirring, but it’s keeping away and she can’t grasp it all. Not by herself.
Mercury would have been amazing here, always one to find the small details.
Across the table, the white haired man with a crescent moon on his forehead twirls a pen round and round.
“Do you know why you and Luna don’t remember anything?” Minako wonders tiredly.
Artemis huff, shakes his head, pokes the on the paper on the table with a noise that is more cat than human.
“No. And I don’t know why she doesn’t even recall her human form.”
“Well, damn. What did you say you recall at the end?”
“Endymion being slain by Beryl. Serenity snapping and killing herself. Magic everywhere. Your magic. The queen and the silver crystal. And then I woke up here one day and knew I had to find you, but I did not know it was you until I saw you.”
“Uh-huh. So, we can assume that the queen did something to you and Luna specifically, then.”
“Indeed.”
“And it makes seen for Luna to be drawn to Usagi; she must sense the soul of Serenity even if she cannot fully grasp what she is sensing, right?” Minako went on, and click-clack, click-clack went her nails as if she was the cat and not Artemis.
“Mhm. And maybe, since you are her decoy still, I am to be a sort of decoy, since everyone knew the princess had a cat as an attendant?” Artemis muses and twirls the pen round and round between nimble fingers.
“Checks out. But why is Luna sensing the others? Or well, I am guessing here, but she noticed Mercury, and not even I did that, and I placed a protection over them, I should be able to find them!”
Artemis tilts his head, blinks at her. And then he smiles.
“Mina! Mina!”
“Yes?”
“You shielded them with love!” Artemis waves the pen like it is small Holy Sword.
“Yes?”
“You saw Serenity’s soul in Usagi, saw through your own protection when you heard her humming a melody that reminded you for you love for her!”
Oh. Minako does facepalm now.
“Wow. That’s. okay, slightly difficult, but sure, I can work with this. Just find something that pushes my love for everyone up, and that will lead me right,” she muses.
“You can do this, Minako. Venus. Aminta.” Artemis smiles at her, and Minako feels a little stronger.
#
The soul of Darla sleeps calmly within a girl that is so much her old friend and still her very own being, that Minako wants to cry. Kino Makoto. Her name in this day and age is Makoto. She does not recognize Minako, but it is alright. Minako will keep guard until Darla of Jupiter comes forth and merges with her new self.
“Thank you for the flowers,” she says brightly and leaves the little shop where Makoto works extra.
#
Lorelei’s soul isn’t asleep but nor is it awake. It is like smouldering embers, waiting for more fuel. Minako looks into eyes that are so similar and yet so different, and smiles. Hino Rei regards her in silence, brows slightly drown together. Up in the sky, two black shapes fly on swift wings. Minako laughs. Of course the princess of Mars would make sure her own protectors came along somehow.
“What does the fire tell you?” Minako wonders softly.
Upon the forehead of the black haired girl, the symbol of Mars flares alive, burning red.
“It says you have many secrets, Aminta of Venus,” says Hino Rei-Lorelei of Mars.
“Minako. Aino Minako, today,” Minako says and the hug is warm and safe and she has someone back in her heart.
#
Minako sees Iris of Mercury, who is Mizuno Ami here in Tokyo, after she has partially awakened as Sailor Mercury and teamed up with Sailor Moon.
Minako, Sailor Venus, and Sailor Mars was busy on the other side of the city – why is Evil so chaotic and everywhere? – but it looks like Moon and Mercury have done really well.
The introduce themselves. Mercury looks like she almost remembers, and Venus knows it will most likely just take a little time until Mercury does – she was always quick.
Moon, Usagi, half-asleep Serenity, seems relieved to not be so on her own anymore. And she is awed to meet a princess. Bless her heart.
#
“Sorry for being late, it was a little tricky getting everything together!”
The enemy lies burning and cracking, and Jupiter - Darla and Makoto still merging, Minako sees – is panting and crackling with energy.
“Late but in time,” Venus says as they hug.
#
Sailor Moon’s tiara is changing shape. Venus sees the magic of the royal moon family growing little by little each time Usagi wields it as Sailor Moon. Each time, the soul of Serenity, still wrapped in layers upon layers of Venus’s protection, stirs ever so slightly.
The protective seal, the shield of shade to hide that she placed back then, is going to break at some point, Venus knows this because she knows that, deep down, Serenity is much more powerful than Venus, even if she is not a fighter, a soldier, a guardian.
It is, she thinks, as it should be.
So, until Serenity awakens and merges with Usagi, until the world is right again, in this day and era, Aino Minako, princess Aminta of Venus, Sailor Venus, will keep her act as a dutiful lady in waiting.
On her forehead, hidden from all eyes, she feels the merged symbols of Moon and Venus burn.