Pluto's comment: The evening after Sailor V appears in the Manga. Author's comment: Feedback to Gamlain@airmail.net Stage fright is essentially a failure of nerve. A successful preformer must overcome her worries in order to succeede. I'm home again. After England and China, It feels...homelike. Only not. I've snuck in the window - Kaasan doesn't know I left, and of course I can't let her. She'd try to take the pen away and hide it, or report me to the police as a vigilante or something, if she found out I was Sailor V. At the very least I'd be grounded for eternity. And she'd scream at me. But I'm used to that. It doesn't scare me like it once did. Imagine Sailor V being scared of a housewife yelling at her. Kaasan yelling still scares me a little. Reflex, I think. I'm strung out on adrenaline and euphoria from meeting the others. I feel like I'm on top of the world and at the same time I feel like the monsters are breathing down my neck. And I feel like I could start screaming and never stop. Zoicite is dead. And I killed him. I killed him! The little sakura didn't even have time to realize he was dying when I cut him down. He was always kind to me before. He may have been Mercury's lover, but he was also my good friend, and he was so responsible - I remember this time on Io when he ordered me into a bed 'Before you fall on your face and die of work', he said. And he was Mercury's love. That bond, mutual respect becoming the most innocent devotion...I know she always liked to think of her self as worldly wise, and he himself as a jaded rich man, but they were both innocent in their way. I've killed that bond now. He won't come back again. I've killed love, and I'm the only one who understands that it's a tragedy, because I remember. I remember. I want to scream. I want to throw things about and wreck my room with all of its happy dippy love pillows and everything and paint the house in spilled blood. I want to howl my lungs out in grief. I want to take the little girl who is using Mercury's body and shake her until she wakes up and remembers! I want to slap the priestess so hard the Kami will feel it! I want to break both of Jupiters arms! I want to hold them and tell them it will be all right...but they don't even know what I'd be lying about... They're all like that. They don't even realize it. When I asked Rei-san what they had done while I was Sailor V, she told me, "We've gotten rid of Jadeite and Nephrite." And she said it as if she were proud. Proud~! And now there is only one left. I want to go insane. I want to tear the city- no the world apart looking for him and take him back! I want to take the Demon Queen apart and torture the pieces. I want to die. I want to end it all, the whole universe. I want him to appear here and hold me for the rest of time. I want to wake up and find out that the last year has been nothing but a dream. I won't. I'm sitting at my desk staring at my mirror but not seeing anything but worlds that died centuries on millennia before Minako Aino was ever born. I fear I am going mad. I fear..... I can't even think it. How can I do it? Because...I know I'll have to. We don't have enough time to try to heal him. Now that the others have died, a part of me thinks, why should I be the only Senshi to have their love return? The prince we might save, but my love has been in thrall much longer, it would take far to much to break a controlling that long set. The enemy has advanced to far. The next attack, it will be kill or die. Gods. How can I be such a shallow little bitch? The population of entire worlds, my home, my princess, the prince, my sister Senshi, and I myself! We died because of him and his brothers and their betrayal and all I want is to be able to kiss him just ONCE MORE...! I have to stop thinking about this. If I don't, I'll break. I can't afford to break now. I swore I wouldn't waste any more time on hopeless loves. My Senshi need me. SHE needs me. Somehow I've managed to throw myself into a shower without noticing. The water is icy cold, and the shock of it sends me reeling...but that's okay. Reeling is good. I feel giddy. Out of control. Numb. It's a nice feeling. Doesn't hurt. Doesn't promise more pain yet to come. I start laughing because if I laugh I won't cry. Then I cry, because I'm laughing. Then I laugh again, maniacally, because I've cried for no reason. I wasn't hurting when I cried because I was laughing, so there can't be a reason for my crying, right? If anyone saw me like this I'm sure they'd have me committed. Thank god Artemis is still 'discussing' things with Luna. Everything is going in circles. Me. Life. Them. Destiny. I have to get control, so I step back under the spray of water, turn it on to hot as far as it can go, and let the heat sooth my muscles and the sound of flowing water fill my mind. It's sometime later that I realize I may be scalding myself. It's hard to notice things like that when you remember being able to bathe in molten salt in your old life. Venus isn't very hospitable. We had to be tough, to live there. In the surface or the castles either one. Being Venus isn't very hospitable either. I'd rather be plain old Minako Aino who cares for nothing more than chasing idols and playing volleyball. A little later I lay myself down to sleep and wonder if I'm going to survive what is going to come. And I wonder if, should I survive, will I even remember how to be me again? The me who was born here and now, in Tokyo and not from the seafoam of Venus, that is. I don't know. But I'll try, when the time comes. I can't live with the ghosts of all the men I've seen and caused to be buried in the last year always in front of me. Especially not if the host grows to include Him. I can't even think his name without pain. Kunzite. I can't live in a past that isn't there anymore.