Act 35 - Dream 2: Mercury Dream

Originally appeared in Nakayoshi, May 1995.
Translated by Kurozuki (manga@kurozuki.com). Version 1.03, 1.97.

Do not link directly to this page. Do not redistribute this translation in any form, such as by posting it on another web site.

The Pegasus floats over the water in a clearing in the woods.

"Beautiful maiden... I've finally found you," he thinks. "I can't breathe... Something is stuffing up my chest..."

"Mamo-chan!"

Mamoru opens his eyes and sees the small Usagi and the big Chibi-Usa staring down at him.

"Usa..." he says. "Chibi-Usa...?"

"Mamo-chan!" says Usagi.

"You're okay!" says Chibi-Usa.

Minako runs into the hospital room with Rei and Makoto.

"Usagi? Chibi-Usa!? How's Mamoru-san!? You said he fell ill and was taken here in an ambulance..."

"Everyone!" says Chibi-Usa.

"Mamo-chan just woke up," says Usagi. "The doctor hasn't seen him."

The three girls stop as they look at the fully-grown Chibi-Usa, with her pointed balls of hair.

Minako gasps. "That head! Black Lady!?"

"What!?" says Usagi.

Chibi-Usa looks around. "Huh? Huh? What!? What!? Why's everyone backing away from me!? Who's Black Lady!?"

"Or not..."

"What!?" Minako says. "Suddenly Usagi's small, and Chibi-Usa's big!? Chibi-Usa?"

"Yep."

"Usagi?"

"Yep. We were undoing our transformations, when suddenly something hit us... And now we're like this."

"What was it!?" Minako asks.

"Well, we don't know at all!" says Usagi. "Or why we're like this."

"Oh no!" says Luna. "An enemy!?"

"Right!" Usagi and Chibi-Usa say. "Enemies appeared! A tiger escaped from the circus and chased us!"

"The Dead Moon Circus...! Then..."

"Anyway, where's Ami-chan?"

Ami enters the room. "Sorry I'm late," she says. "How's Mamoru-san feeling?" She sees Chibi-Usa. "Chibi-Usa-chan! Usagi, are you imitating her?"

"Ami-chan..." Usagi says.

"What!? Your two heights have switched!?"

"Well... It doesn't look like our insides have changed. Only our outsides were altered."

"That's serious!" says Ami. "While we're at it, we should get you two checked out as well!"

"'While we're at it'?" Usagi asks.

"Well, I just brought mom to check out Mamoru-san. My mom's a physician at this hospital."

Her mom walks in. "Ami, I've finished with the prep for Chiba Mamoru-san."

"Ami-chan's mom!?" the other girls think. "She's pretty!"

"If you wait a few minutes, I'll give you the results, too," her mom says. "There wasn't anything particularly wrong with your sister. But as for Chiba-san..."

[The 'sister' is Chibi-Usa.]

Mamoru goes into another room to see the doctor.

"A lung shadow?" he says.

The doctor pauses. "Yes, well... It's a little unbelievable. I've never seen anything like it. The infection... I guess you could call it a shadow. Anyway, this is the first case of it. Has this happened to you often before? I'd like to examine you a little more in-depth. When can you come again?"

"Oh, well... I'll see when I can take a day off from school. I'll make an appointment with the front desk."

He goes out into the hall.

"A lung shadow...?" he thinks.

Usagi and Chibi-Usa run up to him.

"Mamo-chan! How'd it go?"

"It's nothing serious," he says. "Did you two hear your results as well?"

"Nothing's wrong," says Chibi-Usa.

"I don't know if I'm happy or sad..." says Usagi.

"But, Chibi-Usa," Mamoru says, "since you've grown, you've become really pretty too."

"We've got to get those two back to normal somehow," says Ami.

"How are we going to do that?" says Minako

"Well, umm..."

"I'm going home ahead, to pull the wool over Ikuko-mama and Kenji-papa's eyes," says Chibi-Usa. "We can't even go home like this. Usagi, take Mamo-chan home! I'll go to meet you tonight."

"Hey, she knows what she's doing..." says Minako.

"Chibi-Usa's an adult..." says Usagi.

Chibi-Usa enters the house.

"I'm home!"

Ikuko looks up from the other room. "Hey, is that you, Chibi-Usa-chan? Welcome home."

She goes to Chibi-Usa, then stops as she sees her.

Chibi-Usa throws Luna-P at her.

Ikuko becomes hypnotized by the ball. "Oh, Usagi!" she says. "You're late."

Chibi-Usa goes up to Usagi's room.

"Oh, I feel a little guilty," she thinks. "Sorry, Ikuko-mama! But..."

"You've become really pretty too," Mamoru said.

"Ehehe."

Her bell drops to the ground. The Pegasus appears.

"Maiden."

"Helios!"

"That body..." he says. "You've grown! You're beautiful. You are the maiden I've been searching for, after all!"

"W- Wait! No! This-!"

"You have suddenly become bigger, right?"

"Yeah."

"This is definitely a trick of the new enemies!"

"...is what Luna said," Chibi-Usa thinks. "But... What should I do, if I don't return to normal..."

"It's too bad," says Helios. "But I feel an evil spirit with you now. Putting such a spell on you... It must be their doing."

"'Their'?" asks Diana.

"Helios, do you know about the enemies?" asks Chibi-Usa. "Just who are you?"

"My real form is... No. I can't say now. But maiden, I need your power. Please believe me."

A large cage appears around him.

"You have the key to save me, to save everything. You have the beautiful dream. You're protected by the light of the moon. The princess soldier. You are the chosen maiden, who carries the crystal that can break the seal on the Golden Crystal."

He fades away.

"Helios!?" Chibi-Usa calls. "Is that the maiden Helios is looking for? Is that really... me? I have to go to Mamo-chan's! I have to tell them Helios appeared!"

Usagi sits at Mamoru's bedside.

"Mamo-chan, do you want anything?"

"I'm fine."

"Lucky me!" Usagi thinks. "After all the hubbub, it's just us two. It's been such a long time!"

"Usa."

"Oh!! Wh- What!?"

"I'm sorry for putting you through that," Mamoru says. "That circus... The Dead Moon Circus. They're surely targeting this city. We must act at once."

"Yeah."

They look at each other.

"We're so out of sync..." they think at once.

"Hey, Mamo-chan," Usagi says. "Is it okay if I just stay here a while?"

"It's okay."

She curls her small body up to him on the bed.

"Ehehe!" she thinks. "Here's my chance!"

Mamoru backs away.

He laughs nervously. "It's all right," he says. "You'll be back to normal soon."

He pats her on the head. "No, I can't," he thinks. "It's like I'm looking at Chibi-Usa..."

"Damnit!" thinks Usagi. "It's finally just the two of us, but I can't get him in a good mood at all! That long, long spring was finally over, and I thought I was going to develop into a high-schooler, but-! Why am I in this body! What'll I do if I don't get back to normal!!"

She holds onto him.

"I feel like our relationship is always being interrupted by Chibi-Usa," she says.

"Usa, isn't that a bit harsh?"

"Sorry. I didn't mean it."

"You know that she's lonely, don't you?" says Mamoru. "Now that she can't go back to the 30th century, she has to desperately stand her loneliness. The brave face she put on before, really, it's touching."

"Don't worry, I won't let her feel lonely," says Usagi. "Since enemies have appeared too, I'll watch out for her."

Mamoru smiles. Then he suddenly doubles over.

"Mamo-chan!!"

"I'm okay," he says. "I'll rest a little." He lies down in bed. "Usa, I'm just putting a burden on you. I don't feel a speck of your strength in me. Far from it, I keep dragging you down. Have you already decided our future? Sometimes, I feel like I'm just a weight on your shining dream of the future."

"Mamo-chan..." Usagi thinks. "I can change the future all I want... When I'm with you, I'm drawn in. I don't just want to make you feel bad. Maybe I shouldn't be with you for a while. My dream... Mamo-chan... is to be with you always. That's all..."

Chibi-Usa sits alone on a swing in the park.

"I know... However I love him, Mamo-chan... He's my dad. Usagi is with him."

"Small Lady..." says Diana.

"I'm not small now," she says. "Lady is fine."

"But, really," Diana says, "even though it's an enemy trick, you've grown splendidly. If the King and Queen could see you now, how delighted they'd be..."

"You know, the original me's chibi."

"Ahaha! Sorry!"

"My dream..." Chibi-Usa thinks, "is to someday be a real adult. To be a wonderful lady. Then someday, to meet my own prince..."

The Pegasus emerges from the black mirror in Mamoru's room.

"Prince... Please forgive me. I didn't come to the defense of Elysion. Not just Elysion, but your body too... Please search for it. The Golden Crystal... Prince."

He fades away.

Mamoru opens his eyes and sits up. "A dream...?"

Ami sits at her computer. Its monitor displays an image of the city.

"This is...!" she thinks. "The Dead Moon Circus, in the center, the Juuban shopping center is enveloped. In this strange aura! Could it be... A force field!? Is this the doing of the Dead Moon Circus!? Without us noticing!?"

"Ami," says Setsuna. "Always be prepared for enemies, so you can dispense cool judgment. Have self-confidence, so everyone can relax and depend on you. If you shut your eyes, inside, you'll be ready for the proper solution. You're everyone's brain."

"Setsuna-san... Sailor Pluto... She knows everything. She told us lots of important things. But she's not here anymore... I can't rely on her. I have to hold myself together! If those guys are enemies, they'll surely attack again. Protecting the people of Juuban is the most important thing! I'm rustling from the depths of my body now. Wondrous... I feel the flow of a new water..."

She leaves her room as her mom comes in the house.

"Mom?" she says.

"Are you still up? It's one o'clock."

"Hi. You're late."

"There was some trouble at the hospital," her mom says. "I'm tired. Have you eaten?"

"I put something together," says Ami. "Don't worry."

"You're really working. You're always at home alone. I'm not being a good mother. I'm devoted to my job of saving strangers... It's a mistake."

"Mom..." Ami thinks. "My dad is a Japanese painter. He loves relaxing in life and nature. He only travels to sketch. He never sees mom. One day, he decided to just stay in his atelier in the forest. He hasn't come back since then. Even now, he sends me postcards on my birthday."

She looks at a postcard with a picture of a fish.

"Dad, too, says that I work too hard, not like a kid..."

The voice comes from the dark mirror under the circus big top.

"Zirconia. I know the ones of the White Moon Kingdom have been reincarnated in this world now. They will not be allowed to succeed."

"I understand, Nehalennia-sama," the old woman says. She goes to the Amazones Quartet. "Girls! That power of the Moon Kingdom that routed the lemures... In ancient times, our kinsman of the Dead Moon were tormented by the power of that crystal. The infinite power, in the crystal of the Moon Kingdom, the Mystical Silver Crystal! The ones of the White Moon Kingdom! They are our sworn enemies. Without destroying them, we can't rule this world. First, we'll make them victims of nightmares. We'll extinguish everyone with light! That is our Dead Moon Circus!"

"Ehehe. Zirconia-sama. Let me, Fish Eye, do it." He looks into a mirror. "Now, Mirror, show me. The many dreamers of the city. The carriers of light. The ones of the White Moon Kingdom. And the ones who protect them."

An image of Ami appears in the mirror.

"Found you," he says. "A manipulator of the flow of water, like me. Carrier of a beautiful dream."

Ami holds the phone. "So, you're still changed this morning?" she says.

"Ami-chaaan!" says Usagi.

"Thinking that you'd change back overnight was silly. There was no reason for that to happen."

She hangs up the phone.

"We have to fix those two quickly," Ami thinks.

She goes outside, and walks to the circus in the rain.

The sign on the fence says 'No Entry'.

"The Dead Moon Circus..." she thinks. "What kind of people are they?" She sees a shop labeled 'Discus Farm'. "What's a tropical fish store doing here?"

She enters the fish store and looks at all the fish in aquariums.

"They're pretty. It's just like I'm in the water."

"You look like you're happy," says Palla-Palla. "I feel people long for the water. It's evidence of their built-up stress. A sign of their frustration."

"If I want to buy a fish," Ami says, "which should I get?"

"I recommend this one."

"Hehe. It's cute," Ami thinks. "It looks like the fish on the postcard from my dad. Yeah. Mom might like it, too."

She buys the fish and leaves.

"Thank you very much!" Palla-Palla calls. She smirks.

Ami stares at the fish in its tank. "I wonder if Mom will be surprised. I want to show her it soon."

She drifts off to sleep.

She sits up and rubs her eyes.

"Uhh... Mom?"

She sees her mom kissing a man.

"Mom?"

"Your daughter's still awake?" the man says.

"She doesn't have any hobbies besides studying," her mom says. "She's not related to me at all."

"Mom!?"

She turns to a mirror, and sees herself as a child running to her dad.

"Dad! Dad!" the young Ami calls.

"Ami, don't come any nearer. I'm tired. Because of you. Because of mom. Even you, with no hobbies besides studying, can't change my mind. Goodbye."

"Dad!"

"No," Ami thinks. "Why don't I understand? When I think like this about Mom and Dad."

She sees Usagi, Chibi-Usa, and Mamoru in the mirror. They laugh and smile.

"Usagi-chan!"

"When we three are together," says Usagi, "even like this, we're so happy! We don't need anyone else!"

The fish from the tank grows into Fish Eye.

"Hey," he says. "You don't need to take this. Were you jealous of them? Tell me your real thoughts."

"Yes," says Ami. "I've been so lonely... My dream is to be loved by someone, anyone..."

The mirror shows an image of Fish Eye kissing Ami.

"NO!! It's a lie! It's wrong! Help me, Mom! Mom!? No, that's not Mom! Come on, Ami! This is a hallucination!"

She runs out on the balcony, where she's attacked by lemures.

"Enemies!? Inside the condo!? Have to call Usagi-chan..." She opens her communicator. "Usagi-chan! Can you hear me!?"

"Ami-chan!?"

"Enemies!" she says.

"Ami-chan!?"

The lemures continue to swarm Ami.

"I'm always just depending on someone," she thinks. "This is a nightmare."

She falls through a giant mirror into a vortex.

"That's right," says Fish Eye, smiling. "This is the sweet nightmare of the imp lemures. This condo is already wholly run by the lemures. This is the dead of night. Nobody is awake. This is the play event of our Dead Moon Circus! We'll create the manor of nightmares here."

Ami floats through the space. "Yes... I have no self-confidence. I can only depend on others... I'm so tired... There's no strength in my body... I'll fall asleep... Nobody wake me up..."

Her eyes close and she falls slowly down through the water.

"Princess... Princess Mercury..."

"Who is that? Calling me..."

She opens her eyes and sees Sailor Mercury far below.

"Me?"

"Yes. I am your other self. Open your eyes, Princess Mercury. You mustn't come under the beck and call of this nightmare created by the enemies. Remember your true dream."

"My... true dream?"

"You can't be so weak."

"My true dream...? Oh... Yes. I have lots of people who love me. I want to love those people more. I want to protect them. For that purpose, I study. And, my dream... It's to become an adult soldier, and protect everyone. Because that is my mission!"

She leaps out of the water, a heart shape glowing on her chest.

"What!?" says Fish Eye.

"This blue brooch shining!" Ami says. "Mercury Crystal Power! Make Up!!"

She transforms, with a heart-shaped brooch on her chest, a star on the ribbon around her neck, and a long bow trailing from her back. A harp appears.

"A harp!?"

"I am the Mercury Harp," it says.

"The item has will!?"

"Now!" it says. "Rout the nightmare!"

"Mercury Aqua Rhapsody!!"

The mirror shatters, and the lemures disappear. The man with Ami's mom is destroyed. Her mom collapses.

"Mom!"

Her mom moans.

Usagi and Chibi-Usa run into the room. "Mercury!"

"Usagi-chan! Chibi-Usa-chan!"

"We'll take our chances!" Usagi says. "Transform, Chibi-Usa!"

"Right!"

"Moon Crisis!! Make Up!!"

In a flash of light, they appear in their super sailor suits, in their proper bodies.

"Super Sailor Moon!!" says Chibi-Usa.

"Super Sailor Chibi-Moon!!" says Usagi. "Let's go, Chibi-Moon! Moon Gorgeous Meditation!"

Fish Eye is destroyed.

-

Palla-Palla watches through a mirror. "Fish Eye!!" she says. "They broke through the curse of my opposite ball and transformed!?"

She grins.

"How interesting!"

-

"Mercury!" Usagi calls.

"Super Sailor Moon! Chibi-Moon! Great! Your original bodies!"

"We did it, Chibi-Moon!"

"She's strong after all!" Chibi-Usa thinks. "In any time, she can blow away enemies in an instant. Super Sailor Moon... In any time, everyone needs her. The strong, beautiful Usagi. Yes. I need Usagi. That's what I feel. Even though we carry the same Mystical Silver Crystal, I can't make use of my power without Sailor Moon." She drops her head. "Alone, I'm useless!"

She lifts the bell into the air.

"Twinkle Yell!"

"Chibi-Moon!?" Usagi says.

The Pegasus appears.

"Maiden."

"Helios, you're wrong!" Chibi-Usa says. "Compared to Sailor Moon, I don't have a strong spirit, or strength, or a beautiful body! The maiden you're searching for isn't me!"

"The maiden he's searching for?" asks Usagi.

"The maiden I'm searching for carries the beautiful dream," Helios says. "She is protected by the moon. She's a princess soldier. And she carries the crystal that can break the seal on the Golden Crystal. She is the chosen maiden."

"Protected by the moon?" Usagi says. "A princess soldier? The Golden Crystal?"

"Yes," says Chibi-Usa. "The moment I heard Helios say that, I knew."

"Then," says Ami, "the maiden is... Sailor Moon? No, Princess Selenity?"

"So, Super Sailor Moon," says Helios. "You are Princess Selenity?"

"The maiden Helios is searching for isn't me..." Chibi-Usa thinks. "The one he needs isn't me..."

She turns and runs off.

"Chibi-Moon!?" Usagi calls. "Chibi-Moon!!"

The Pegasus fades away.

"Helios!?"

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