interstellar5555 | I'm Going to Stand By You

Entry tags:

I'm Going to Stand By You

Who: Usagi Tsukino and OPEN
Where: All over Vista
What: Usagi is coping as best she can
When: All week
Warnings: None I can think of

A: Even if We're Breaking Down

It had been a looooong day. Too long, honestly. She rubbed her neck as she started the trek to her last delivery, hair filled with flowers. Thankfully Mrs. Ophelia didn't play the radio, Usagi was drained enough from the music without needing to hear it everyday from work as well.

She looked at the address and swallowed. Pride Tower. She could do this, she could do this. She was Sailor Moon, and it was JUST flowers, no one knew who she really was.

"I can do this..."

She dropped her head and her shoulders drooped.

"One foot in front of the other. Come on, all you have to do is MOVE!" she insisted although, she blushed widely as the person near her suddenly turned. "I DIDN'T MEAN YOU!" she suddenly exclaimed, blushing deeply at how that must of sounded. Oh crud. "I-" she sighed. Crud crud crud.

B: We Can Find a Way to Break Through

She didn't even remember how she got up here on the little stage they had at the festival. She didn't even remember how she got to the festival except maybe she was drawn to it because of the music. The thing that woke her? Well, that she was now suddenly on a small stage for fans to karaoke the songs in-between all of the acts.

"WAH! W-W-WAIT! I C-CAN'T!" the other fans, zombie though they were, gave slow claps of encouragement. She swallowed and then suddenly saw a musician and... for whatever reason, the magic in the air, perhaps, she suddenly found herself singing, eyes locking on said musician.

"♪ Hands, put your empty hands in mine
And scars, show me all the scars you hide
And hey, if your wings are broken
Please take mine so yours can open, too
'Cause I'm gonna stand by you..."

C: Even if We Can't Find Heaven

She was at the beach, trying to get away from the festival for some fresh air. She felt like she couldn't breathe in the city. It wasn't her precious Earth, but she still felt awful, like a fist was around her heart and stomach. Her shoes were in her hand and she tried to take deep breaths.

She could do this, she could save them. She would save all of them with all the help she had beside her. She could do it.

Deep breaths. She pushed stray fly aways back behind her ear, but the wind was strong. Usagi was rubbing her arm and figured she should head back. Someone was heading towards her, she figured they probably were going to spend the day at the beach, or maybe a romantic sunset stroll.

"Good afternoon," she offered with a smile.

D: I'll Walk Through Hell with You

She was snooping around the festival, several bouquet of flowers in her arms. The festival meant that she had constant deliveries from fans and companies alike to send to musicians. Even though Rei had said she should quit, it allowed her such good access to the musicians. And yes, she knew that was partially the problem, but she'd do what she could where she could. However, as she was trying to find the dressing rooms, the little piece of paper that had vague directions for it and her delivery forms for access, she heard the sounds of yells and screams.

She hurried over to it in case it was another attack, or, hope against hope, it was just excited fans cheering for the next musician.

It was a mix of both, at the moment. The zombie fans were rocking the gates holding them back from the path for the musicians and the guards couldn't keep it up, not when pure madness pushed them to try and get at the musicians. Hands reached out for the musician, grabbing, clawing, trying to reach, trying to grasp tight.

She gasped and hurried over to them.

"HEY! HEY GET OFF THEM!"

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She isn't good enough friends with Muraki to really pry, even if it's clear he's hedging. She already made one attempt and was rebuffed. So she offers instead:

"You know... if things aren't just nothing, I'm sure your friends wouldn't mind offering a listening ear." If he wouldn't confide in her, maybe he'd confide in another.

"Well, maybe you should just run away from the festival, go on a cruise or something," she laughed though she was being serious as well.

"Therein lies the rub..." he admits, looking back to her. He pauses, as if collecting his thoughts, as if parsing the right words to phrase this. "I hesitate to tell them, since ...if they knew about me what I know about myself, I fear it could estrange them. I'm not certain that I can accept it and my head contains this information.

He straight up says it: "I've discovered I'm not the man I thought I thought I was, and I'm not certain that I like this man, either." He drops his gaze slightly, as if waiting for that to sink in, waiting for her to tell him he's crazy, or something else...

"Mnn, well, then don't be that person. Don't be this person you think you are, and don't be the person you don't like. If you don't like you, who is, right? You can be whoever you want to be, no matter how old you are. Nothing is permanent until you die, and even then, that's all up for debate, yeah? You can't change the past and what you might have done in the past, whatever it was, but you can change now, you can be the person you want to be now. Don't ignore the mistakes of the past, but also don't think that's all you'll ever be."

He'll look at her, hanging on every word like a drowning man hanging onto a lifeline. "That's all I needed to hear," he murmurs, just above a whisper. "Thank you... Perhaps... all this has been a chance to start over again." If he could only get free of Pride Records...

"Well... there is... one thing to remember as well," she offered softly. "While it's very good to start anew, to be a different person, a better person, you can't be mad at the people who you might have hurt along the way. Asking for forgiveness, even when you're sincerely sorry, doesn't mean it will be granted, and you have to be okay with that." Simply because Usagi was willing to hold her hand out to Galaxia... she doubted the other senshi would ever forgive her, and they had every right not to. It was Usagi's choice to forgive Galaxia, to love her as she loved Chaos, but she could completely understand why the others wouldn't and couldn't.

"They have every right to be upset and depending on the hurt caused, they may never forgive you and what was done. Being a new person still means knowing what you did in the past was wrong. Sometimes, that's the hardest thing in the world, even more than learning to forgive yourself."

He'll shake his head tiredly. "There's no anger at my end, for the people I have harmed, not even those who, in my world, rightly want me to pay for the crimes I committed. If anything, I want their forgiveness, if they have it in them to do so, rather than seek vengeance." He can't help thinking of Hisoka, the things he did to the boy, and how that only fed into the young man's deep-seated rage. He'll look at her, perhaps with a tear of relief in his good eye. "I'm not sure if I'm ready to forgive myself for the things I've done, but... knowledge is power, as they say, and in due time, perhaps I will have the power to do the hardest thing for me to do."

That wasn't quite what she meant, but she wasn't going to clarify more. She merely tilted her head.

But he did mention "his world" she wondered, then, if he realized that he was not from Terra, if she should point it out.

"It's alright to not be ready, whatever it may have been. Sometimes that's the hardest thing in the world to do, sometimes it takes the Earth crumbling down around you to even allow the thought of forgiving yourself. But go for baby steps first, rather than trying to do everything all at once in a day. The signs of progress will be slower, but they'll last longer."

"Or your lab burning down around you because someone you'd harmed deeply had summoned divine fire into it, in order to destroy you and himself," he says, looking away. "That was the last thing I remember from the time before the memories of Kiernan MacLeod begin. I'd almost as soon move as quickly as possible, but... One of the better things about Kazutaka Muraki: he was a physician, and he understood the nature of healing and the time it could take. But even he, too, got impatient at times," he adds dryly. "Perhaps I'm still very much like him."

"What are you talking about, Mr. MacLeod?" she asked cautiously, though she certainly had an idea. She couldn't very well let him know she was essentially an alien rescuer who knew his memories had been changed and he'd been brought here for the sake of syphoning musical energy from those who listened to his music. "You're not making any sense."

"Sorry, I'm a bit all over the map: I seem to have as quick a mind as I did as Muraki," he says. "Muraki was... very often a ruthless man, but there were people whom he cared about, a woman he loved, a very ill woman, whose illness he would do anything to cure, up to and including taking the healing abilities of one being to give to her, just to make her whole. He... I wasn't patient enough to let science develop to find a proper treatment. I guess I'm a little impatient to be able to heal myself enough to forgive myself."

Edited 2016-05-23 06:36 (UTC)

"So, you and Muraki, you're one and the same?" she offered gently. "Do you want to be called Mr. Muraki then?" she was trying to make him realize just how much he was revealing to her. She wouldn't betray his trust, but she wasn't sure where this was all coming from.

"I'm sorry that you, that someone you love was so sick."

"I am he and he is ...was me," he replies, bending his head in regret. "It would be Doctor Muraki, as he was a surgeon and a skilled one - too skilled, perhaps. But... Sariel or Mister MacLeod will suffice. I'd rather continue to live as him. He might love the darkness and he might venture into it, but he keeps a lifeline back to the world of the light."

"Perhaps, though, you shouldn't be either," she offered, her voice soft but not so much so as to be drowned out by the crashing waves. "Someone not just for the light, someone not for the dark, but something in between, something more... a real combination of the you as you are now and the men you once were?" she said.

"If Sariel is a lie, and Muraki is a man you no longer wish to be, then be someone where you know the truth."

"Always a third option..." he murmurs, barely above the crash of the waves himself, his gaze dropped toward the water. "So... to create another name? Some hybrid of the better parts of the two men that I have been, perhaps?"

"Not just another name, another you. The balance between the ignorance and the knowledge, someone who knows the past but can endeavor to change. A hybrid, yes, but not just the better parts of the two men, it's easy to only pick what you want. This new person has to remember the past too, has to remember it so you can learn from it, so you can repent, even if that's what you want."

"And so start all over again, as someone who's learned from the crimes that Muraki committed, and has learned the joys of creating which MacLeod knew," he says, with a small smile, as he looks to the sunset. One day ending, and the promise of a new day on the other side of the night that follows. "I'll keep MacLeod's name: it's as good a name as any, from where I stand." He'll look to her. "What do you think?"

Her smile was bright, absorbing all the light of the fading sun and making it shine all the brighter. She nodded.

"It sounds good to me. I wish you all the luck on it, it certainly won't be easy, but you'll have support."

Edited 2016-05-26 06:34 (UTC)

He might beam himself, then drop his gaze, the sunset light catching on his pale cheeks. "Thank you... and I shall need all the luck that I can get to begin anew," he says. "I'm... glad that we had this conversation, that you were there to listen to a man who's felt like he was going mad, but who might rather be going sane. As harrowing as it's been to be Sariel, as horrible as it's been working for Pride Records... I think it was the best thing that could happen, to free me from the prison I'd put myself into by the choices I made as Muraki."

He looks to the sunset. "One day ending so another may begin... Fitting... one life is ending, so that a new one may begin."

"Always so poetic," she smiled. She then turned to gaze up at the beach, back towards the city.

"Your memories of Muraki, were they on this planet?" she suddenly asked, knowing... knowing that she was asking something very dangerous here.

"The poetry is something that both both Muraki and Sariel share, one of the better things, at least," he says, looking toward her.

"As far as I can tell, the world I came from looked somewhat like this, but... the details were different: Names of countries, names of books and movies and things like that," he says, his good eye turning thoughtful. "And on the fringes of that world was magic, beings and creatures possessed of great powers, some good, some not so good, some indifferent, some with simple skills, some with great powers.

"I... was one of them, somewhere between the poles, but not one who used his powers for good, much as he meant well..."

"You can't talk about that part of you like he's a separate person, though," she said suddenly. "You've done that several times now. You can't accept and grow from the decisions and actions he made and did if you think of him as someone else entirely. He's still you, he's still someone you were, even if you no longer want to be him. You have to say "I" no matter how painful it might be."

She rubbed her arm, cold at the moment.

"Would you go back to the world, if you were given the chance? Or... would you rather stay here? I mean, it would be as you want, rather than..." actually, she didn't know his thoughts on Santiago and Blanche, she couldn't offer him that yet.

"It's hard habit to break: sometimes ...that part of my life seems like another life entirely, or a former life in the cycle of reincarnation, if there is such a thing," he admits. He'll tilt his head at the way she rubs her arm, but says nothing to it, for the moment, anyway.

"I'm not sure that I could go back: they likely think that I'm dead there," he admits. "I can't stay here, either: after what Santiago and company have put me through, I've had enough of this world and... I'd rather not risk the public eye and their attention, what they might do to me if I tried to keep a low profile. I... have had an offer to leave for another world: a band mate of mine has had his eyes opened sooner than I has asked me if I'd be interested in going there with him."

"Easy isn't for big mistakes and life changes," she smiled gently. "It's supposed to be hard, wouldn't be worth it otherwise," she smiled.

"Even if Santiago and Blanche were no longer a problem?" she didn't know if they could travel to other worlds. Some part of her hoped so, to keep in touch with all the friends they had. But this was other dimensions as well.

"Would you rather have a completely new life?"

"One step in front of the other, slowly but surely, even if I stumble a step or two backward," he says, replying with a small smile.

"I think it might be for the best if I started over in another world: it would be easier, I think, to start over with a completely clean slate. Less chance of the paparazzi finding ways to find me when I try and start over, less chance of the tabloids trying to figure out what happened to me." But he might look a little dubious about that plan as well, the better to keep in touch with her afterward.

"How will you make amends to those Muraki has wronged, though?" she wasn't trying to make him give up a chance at a new life, but if he really had done horrible things in the past, he couldn't just run away from them, that was no better than not changing at all.

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