CHAPTER FINALE: SAILOR SATURN & SAILOR CHIBI MOON
“Ohayogozaimas!!”
Hotaru was standing at Usagi Tsukino’s door calling out her greetings. Needless to say, she was waiting for her best friend Chibi Usagi a.k.a. Usagi-Small Lady-Serenity Sailor Chibimoon to come out and go to school with her as she did every morning.
“Oh, hello there, Hotaru,” Mrs. Tsukino opened the door and greeted Hotaru with a small. “Waiting for Chibi Usagi, aren’t you?”
“Hait, Mrs. Tsukino,” Hotaru replied sweetly. “Is she ready to go?”
“She’s just finishing her breakfast. Come in and wait for her.”
“Arigato, demo…I think I’ll wait outside.”
Mrs. Tsukino nodded her head and went inside the house. There is a particular reason she didn’t want to go into the house. Not because she was afraid of bothering Mrs. Tsukino and end up being late for school, coz she doesn’t mind going in and have a light snack or two—Mrs. Tsukino’s cooking is truly delicious.
It’s because she didn’t want to have a sudden heartburn meeting Chibi Usagi early in the morning.
Yup, you guessed it. Our little Hotaru Tomoe has a slight crush on our Chibi Usagi and that crush goes on everyday and gets a little deeper every time she laid eyes on her. It kinda started way back before she was even reborn to the Hotaru that she is now. She had already liked Chibi Usagi during the Mugen incident. She, growing up with her father Dr. Tomoe, was a lonely soul with a body made out of wires and cold steel and screws, like a human cyborg or an android. No one wanted to be friends with her and no one wanted to even talk to her. She was often a target for bullies and she was just too weak to fight them (well, except for that sudden occasion when she crushed her own pencil box in front of the bullies with her own hand). Her father was always busy with work and had no time to spend some quality moments with her. And with her mother’s death, it made her loneliness even worse. She thought that she was a burden to the world and had no significant purpose in life.
But it was Chibi Usagi who saved her life. She was the first person to speak to her and broke the ice and the barrier between her and the world. She was the one who brought her back to life and showed her her worthiness in life. She was the one who showed her the way of life and helped her remember her true mission—as Sailor Saturn to bring silent death to the world to help Sailor Moon bring new life to replenish the earth. And as she was now reborn into almost the same age as Chibi Usagi, they could be closer than ever and truly become friends, with a new life and a new feeling of belonging in this world.
After waiting for quite a while, she could hear Chibi Usagi laughing cheekily at Usagi as they both walked out of the front door, led by Mrs. Tsukino. Hotaru blushed as she saw Chibi Usagi in a really pretty one piece dress that was a mixture of blue and pink colours. Her rabbit-like hair buns were decorated with light yellow ribbons, with cherry-coloured hair clips to match. Chibi Usagi automatically held out her hand and grabbed Hotaru’s—out of habit, actually—and Hotaru blushed even more. She looked away and almost dragged Chibi Usagi out towards the gate, hoping that Chibi Usagi hadn’t seen her face.
“Take care, my little Usagi-s,” Mrs. Tsukino said as she led stood behind the gate. “Study hard now, girls.”
“Hait, Mom!” Usagi said as she followed behind the two perky little elementary schoolgirls. “Sayonara, Mom!”
Usagi walked Hotaru and Chibi Usagi all the way to Jyuban Elementary School, shaking her head weakly at how close those girls can be once they got together. She stood outside the school for a while and watched Hotaru and Chibi Usagi enter the school compound before leaving towards the direction of her own school. Once Usagi was out of sight, Chibi Usagi turned to Hotaru and said, “Guess what? Our school idol, Ichiro Masai actually invited Momoko to his birthday party tomorrow!”
“Ho…Honto?” Hotaru tried hard to be surprised just to distract herself from her thumping heart as she felt Chibi Usagi’s spellbinding eyes on hers. “But…doesn’t that really jerky boy—I can’t seem to remember his name—feel anything? Jealous, maybe? I mean, they were rumoured to be a couple.”
“Yeah, that’s what everyone said, but we can’t be too sure about that. We’ll just have to see his reaction later in class then,” Chibi Usagi grinned naughtily. “I bet it’s going to be a serious blast.”
“I bet,” Hotaru agreed. She continued to stare at Chibi Usagi as they entered the school building together. Her pink hair was soft and silky and shining with health. Her pink rabbit-like eyes sparkled like diamonds under the sun. Her rosy cheeks were as smooth as her hands that she was holding right now. She realized that she may be in her child-like form, but she definitely was no child when she battled evil villains or in her princess stance. To her, she was more than just a 900-year-old child-like princess. She was an immortal, a goddess, an idol which will live forever through time and space and through eternity.
She was more than just Chibi Usagi.
She was Usagi-Small Lady-Serenity, the future Princess Lady Serenity who will reign over Crystal Tokyo after her mother and whom she would protect and hold forever more. That was, what she believed to be, her life-long destiny.
“Chibi Usagi! There you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
Hotaru and Chibi Usagi were to be in charge of the cafeteria food but when recess came, Hotaru couldn’t find Chibi Usagi everywhere. The head of the cafeteria was beginning to complain and she had searched frantically for her in vain. She wasn’t in the toilet, she wasn’t in the other kids’ classroom, she wasn’t in the clubroom or in the staffroom, and she definitely wasn’t with her Mummy Setsuna at the sick bay. Seeing Hotaru so worried and agitated of Chibi Usagi’s whereabouts, her Mummy Setsuna suggested that she looked at the least likely place: up at the roof. She tried her luck and, sure enough, there was Chibi Usagi standing there leaning against the railings.
It took her quite a while before she actually called out to her. Chibi Usagi was just standing there leaning against the railing, her eyes a faraway, dreamy look and her pink rabbit ears hair blowing gracefully by the spring breeze. The end of her one piece dress fluttered by the blowing breeze too and it was a magnificent sight for her to behold. If it weren’t for her task to get her down to the cafeteria, she could just stand there and keep watching her quietly and not alerting her at all.
“Oh, hi, Hotaru,” Chibi Usagi turned around and greeted her best friend nonchalantly. “I didn’t hear you coming up here. Gomenasai.”
“What are you doing here?” Hotaru asked as she joined her at the railing. “We’re supposed to be in charge of the cafeteria food this week, and yet you’ve run up here. Doushite?”
“Gomene. It’s just that I’m having things on my mind right now.”
“Such as?”
“Like what report would I let in for my mother when I go back to the future. You know, back to Crystal Tokyo.”
It took Hotaru about 5 seconds before those words actually struck her mind. She turned around abruptly at Chibi Usagi and said in a horrified voice, “You’re…You’re leaving…? You’re leaving Jyuban and Usagi and the others and…go back to the future?!”
“Hait, that’s right,” Chibi Usagi replied casually. “Doushite? Something wrong?”
“Annou…ie…I mean…” Hotaru tried to find something to say to hide that sudden outburst—she had never felt so shocked before. “Well, what are you exactly going to do when you go back to the 30th century?”
“Why do you think I’m standing up here thinking? I have to prepare some really good words and I have to beg Diana to speak a few good words about me. Ever since my mother became The New Queen Serenity of Crystal Tokyo, things had to be pretty formal, well, that’s what Luna and Artemis told me when I first got to know them when I was 4 years old. I have to say that I haven’t been much of a good Sailor lately.”
“I think you’re a great Sailor,” Hotaru replied indignantly. “You’ve battled almost as much villains as Usagi did.”
“Thanks for the support,” Chibi Usagi smiled gratefully, then sighed a little and said, “I just hope that I would be able to become the Princess status I have wished to be for so long.”
“Of course you will be the Princess status! You’re born a Princess and you have your mother’s royal blood! Why would your mother deny your birthright?”
“Well, I’ve been denied my birthright ever since I stopped growing and unable to transform, and it has been more than 700 years that I’ve remained a child and unable to transform, and I thought that it would be too late and nothing was ever going to change. I don’t know whether it would be too late to be a Princess, now that I’ve become the Sailor I always longed to be, just like my mother and her comrades.”
“It’s never too late for something to happen,” Hotaru said in a sure tone. “Like you said, you thought you were unable to transform and you thought that it was too late for it to transform, but you did. So why would it be too late to be the Princess status that you deserved to be all along?”
Chibi Usagi stared at her best friend for quite a long time in silence. Hotaru was surprised but a little tentative to ask. ‘What is she looking at? What is she trying to do? What’s going on in her mind?’ A lot of things were going through her mind as she tried to guess what was Chibi Usagi’s next move. After what seemed like a really, really long time, Chibi Usagi finally said something.
“Why are you suddenly so confident and caring about me?”
“A-re…” Hotaru didn’t expect this coming. She didn’t know what to say and didn’t know what to do. And she definitely didn’t know what to do to cover up her previous actions. She looked away, avoiding any eye contact with Chibi Usagi. And for a good reason too, ‘coz Chibi Usagi had her way of trying to get the answer out of anyone just by opening her big pink rabbit-like eyes.
“Anything wrong, Hotaru? Daijobu deska?”
“Dai…Daijobu…” Hotaru muttered as she turned to walk out of the roof. When she was almost nearing the door and the stairs that led her to the roof, she stopped. What was she doing? It wasn’t always that she and Chibi Usagi could be all alone in a place no one would see or look at them and yet she was letting this chance go and the opportunity to say the things that she had been bottling up in her heart for so long. She knew exactly what to say to her but she was letting it all go just because of submitting to the part of her heart that was shy and timid—the old Hotaru Tomoe who would just sit quietly in classes and bear the sickness within her body, watching as people chattered away merrily and ignored her, no one to understand what she really felt or even trying to understand. She was becoming the old Hotaru Tomoe who would run away whenever there’s something bothering and hide in her room sobbing and wallowing in self pity.
She wasn’t that Hotaru anymore. She was the new reborn Hotaru, the one being raised by Papa Haruka, Mama Michiru and Mummy Setsuna as a healthy normal child who would frolic around and be jolly just like everyone else. She knew she wasn’t the same old Hotaru anymore and she had to prove to herself that she wasn’t. Finally, after taking a deep breath, she turned around again, facing Chibi Usagi and blurted out everything.
“I’m just worried about you, that’s all. I mean you’re going to leave Jyuban and all of us Sailor members and there could be a possibility that you won’t come back anymore. I was just trying to make myself feel better about you leaving, by saying that you’ll be leading a pretty good life and that you’ll be the greatest Princess just in case you really are not coming back.
“To tell you the truth, I have always liked you. I’ve liked you ever since we first met and when you first talked to me properly at my home. You are the kindest, purest and most beautiful soul I have ever seen. Even when I was reborn into this Hotaru right now, you and that Pegasus unicorn have often revolved around me and perhaps you were to one who made me realize who I really am and what was my true destiny as a Sailor. I truly appreciate your friendship towards me and I truly like you for who you are, Princess or not. I guess…what I’m feeling now is more than just puppy love. Maybe it’s…”
“I know.”
Hotaru looked up with a surprised look on her face. Chibi Usagi was standing a little closer to Hotaru with a silinh face. Without warning, she reached out and hugged the purplish-black haired girl close to her chest and in the midst of Hotaru’s daze and all, she could feel her shoulder going a little wet.
Chibi Usagi was actually crying. Her voice trembled as she said, “I know what you’re trying to tell me. I don’t feel like going either. I can’t bear to leave Usagi or the other Sailors, and I mostly wouldn’t want to leave you. You have always been my best friend, my partner, my close comrade, my everything. I wouldn’t leave this for the world if I didn’t have an obligation in the 30th century. And I wouldn’t be up here if this return home didn’t bother me. I would’ve just left and tell you nothing.”
“You sounded so casual…I thought you want to leave…” Hotaru was also going close to tears.
“Can’t you tell a forced feeling when you see one?”
“Gomenasai…”
“Don’t say another word. Let me just hold you like this for a while…”
And they stood there like that under the cool spring breeze for the whole recess, with Chibi Usagi’s arms around Hotaru as they silently let time pass through them like sand in the wind…
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