The good news: I finished End of Days!  It's only 32 chapters,
actually; I folded the last one into the last interlude.
	The bad news: I'm very unhappy with the ending, and in fact with
the whole end part of the story in general.  
	The good news: I'm hoping to get some good C&C and do a bit of a
rewrite.
	The bad news: The frogurt is also cursed.

	Anyhow, here's chapter 14.  Content warnings apply -- this
chapter has a lot of Dee at her most disturbed (which is pretty
disturbed!) plus violence, gratuitous nudity, etc.  Have fun.

	Also: I'm in need of a couple of prereaders for my next project.
This is *not* fanfic.  If you feel like reading chapters and giving
pretty detailed feedback, drop me a line.

Django Wexler (khaine)
khaine@mindless.com

"Individually, I love you all with affection unspeakable.  But
collectively,
I look upon you with a disgust that amounts to detestation!"
	-Pirates of Penzance


Chapter Fourteen
     Hotaru 

     Dawn had apparently broken, though in the dungeon we had no way of
knowing save the increase in noises from upstairs.  I'd slept fitfully,
dreams alternating from bad to worse.  In the first set, I'd been buried
alive -- an understandable fantasy, under the circumstances -- with the
bodies of the rest of the Senshi.  Cold flesh pressed around me on all
sides, and as I turned I could see their faces, twisted into grimaces of
unimaginable pain.

     That wasn't so bad, actually.  I knew it for what it was
-- a mind's way of coping with something too horrible to confront while
awake.  It wasn't real, it didn't even feel real, and while horrifying
at the time it ended with a sense of relief.

     The second dream was worse.  I was watching up the hole, the
entrance to the dungeon, and I saw the building above us blown away in a
tide of green fire.  A figure jumped down, splashing in the muck, and
the sight of the seven-foot giant pulsing with destructive power was the
most welcome thing I'd ever seen.  He smiled.

     "I'm sorry, Hotaru.  I should never have let you go alone."

     Waking from *that* was agony.

     A weak light flickered down the shaft from the floor above.
Someone must have relit the bonfire, which had mostly burned itself out
in the small hours of last night.  By its radiance I could vaguely see
Michiru, asleep on a pile of old rags, and I thought about dedication.
The dungeon was not really the problem -- I had already thought of a
half-dozen ways to escape, depending on the exact circumstances.  More
than raw stone trapped her here.  Michiru could not leave Haruka, no
matter what.  That meant I'd either have to take both of them with me,
or leave them both behind.  Either way, I knew I wasn't spending another
night in the pit.

     Breakfast was timely, if not very sustaining.  A bit of
unidentifiable meat and some loaves of hard, flat bread that I
tentatively guessed were Sa'an rations.  Dee accompanied them down,
climbing a rope ladder thrown over the side of the pit for that purpose
and guarded above by a bored but watchful, and presumably heavily armed,
young man.

     After setting the food down, the girl wrapped her arms around me.
This took me a bit by surprise.

     "Hotaruuu!"

     "H...Hello, Dee."

     "I missed you!  Where were you last night?"

     "Um..."  I wasn't quite sure how to answer that.  "Here?"

     "You should come visit me!  I'll show you my room."

     "I was under the impression that I was a prisoner here."

     "Oh yeah."  She put her head on one side and giggled.  "I forgot."

     We sat in companionable silence for a while, and I managed to get
myself to stomach the meat.  At least it was cooked through.  Dee
produced a canteen of water, from which I drank gratefully.  I glanced
at Michiru, but she was still sleeping, so Dee left her share of the
rations next to her and tiptoed with exaggerated caution back to me.

     "She sleeps a lot."

     I shrugged.  "I don't imagine there's much else to do down here."

     "Yeah."  She looked around.  "Boooring."

     I tried to keep my voice level.  "Any idea when they might let me
out?"

     "God said you two get to see the big ritual today!  We're going to
fight the snake people tonight, and She said She need to get Her powers
all built up.  Have you ever seen the snake people, Hotaru?"

     "No--"

     "They look just like regular people, except they have the heads of
snakes!  Isn't that weird?  And my big brother said they catch little
girls like me and do horrible things to them and then eat them all up!"
She sighed.  "That would be neat."

     I shook my head.  "Your big brother?"

     "He's not really my big brother.  I just call him that because God
says all us normal humans are brothers and sisters.  Also he likes to
fuck me sometimes, when he's bored.  Have you ever done that, Hotaru?
It's kind of different when you're both girls.  But you start the same,
like this--"

     She leaned forward to kiss me, and I barely managed to put my hands
on her shoulders and deflect her.  It was surprisingly easy; Dee felt
like she weighed practically nothing.  She put her head on one side
again and looked at me oddly.

     "You don't want to?  It's not hard, I can show you if you don't
know how--"

     "Not...right now."

     "Okay!"

     She sat there a while longer, staring at me until I started to feel
a little uncomfortable.  I spoke, just to end the silence.

     "What are you doing down here, Dee?"

     "Whatever you want, Hotaru!  I came down to play with you."

     "Why?"

     "Because you're my friend!  Also 'cause I probably won't get a
chance after today, since God said I'm finally old enough to be the next
sacrifice."

     My skin went cold.  "You're...what?"

     "Isn't it great?"  She went on smiling, oblivious.  "God'll stick
her knife in here"--she poked her belly button--"and I'll scream and
shake and stuff.  Promise you'll watch, Hotaru?"

     "I..."  I looked at her eyes, big and happy.  "Sure."

     "All right!  I'll try to stay alive as long as I can.  Everyone
says it's better if the sacrifice lives longer."

     "Dee..."

     "What?"

     "Doesn't it bother you at all?"

     "What should bother me?"  She looked confused.

     "Aren't you going to die in a few hours?"

     She nodded happily.  "Yup!"

     "And..."

     "I tried to sacrifice myself one time, but I kind of screwed it up.
See?"  She lifted the front of her rag-thin shirt over her head -- I
noted absently she wore nothing underneath it -- and revealed a thick
white scar running across her stomach.  "Then God said that I was a bad
girl, and that only she got to sacrifice people.  I said I was sorry
that I sacrificed my friend Julie and tried to sacrifice myself."  Her
expression became wistful.  "Julie looked so funny after she died.
Every time I looked at her I started laughing.  Do you think I'll look
funny afterwards, Hotaru?  I think I'll look like this!"  Dee dropped to
the ground with an elaborate grimace, trying to speak without moving her
lips.  "Doth thith look thilly?"

     I smiled, slightly, but said nothing.  I wondered in passing what
had been done to this girl to screw her up so badly, and whether it was
related to whatever afflicted Haruka.  Mostly, though, I was rethinking
my plans.  I had to take her with me, away from this place, these
people, and their mad god.  The fact that their mad god was a friend of
mine didn't help.

     "Dee, how well do you know your way around the city?"

     "Very well!"  She jumped up from her 'dead' position.  "Why, do you
want to go somewhere?"

     "I think so."

     "Then I'll take you!"  She stopped to think.  "But--you're not
allowed out of the pit before noon, and after noon I'll be dead.  So I
guess I can't."

     "If I were going...somewhere, would you want to come with me?"

     "Sure, if I'm not dead at the time."

     She's obsessed, I thought, and shook my head.  "Dee, I think I'm
going to try and get some more sleep before the ritual.  I'll see you
beforehand, okay?  Come and see me when they take me out of the pit."

     "Okay!  Then you promise to watch the sacrifice?"

     "Absolutely."

     "Great!"  She ran over to the rope ladder and waved.  "See you
later, Hotaru!"

     "Later..."

     Once she was gone, I sat and thought for a while.  Michiru finally
stirred, and I opened my eyes to find her sitting next to me, chewing on
the heavy bread.

     "Was that Dee I heard?"

     I nodded and offered her the canteen.  She drained the rest of it
in one gulp.

     "She's kind of strange."

     I raised one eyebrow.  "'Kind of' is a bit of an understatement, I
think.  What happened to her?"

     "We found her a couple of months ago.  I think it was drugs,
probably an overdose of Two -- she's been that way ever since I've known
her.  She kind of latched on to Haruka."

     "I noticed."

     "They're nice enough to her--"

     I felt anger boil up.  I knew it wasn't all about the little girl
who'd just left, and I knew I certainly shouldn't direct it at Michiru.
Even so, I couldn't help myself.  "How old is she?  Thirteen?  You know
what they're doing with her?"  Her eyes said she did.  "That's not nice,
it's sick."

     "She doesn't seem to mind."

     "I don't think she'd mind if you carved her heart out with a dull
knife.  That doesn't make it right."

     "Look."  Her eyes were wet, all of a sudden, and I realized how
much this was affecting her.  "It's horrible, all right?  Fine.  There's
nothing I can do.  Do you know how many horrible things happen in the
Null Zone, all the time?  Dee's better off than she would be wandering
the streets...you don't know the kind of creatures that are out there
now..."

     "Michiru..."

     "I'm sorry."  She wiped her eyes.  "I shouldn't have said that.  I
know you only want to help people, Hotaru, but it's just so hard--"

     "Michiru, they're going to sacrifice her."

     Her eyes went wide.  "What?"

     "Haruka's going to sacrifice her.  At some ritual today."

     "She...I mean, she wouldn't really..."

     "I think she will."

     Michiru shook her head, stunned.  I continued hastily.

     "I'm getting out of here.  Today.  And I'm taking Dee with me."

     "You--"

     "Do you want to come, Michiru?  We really need you."

     She rocked back and forth, not meeting my eyes.

     "Neptune?  Do you want to come with us?"

     That got her.  Michiru took a deep breath, and shook her head.  "I
can't."

     "Haruka might get angry when I steal Dee from under her nose.  She
might hurt you."

     "She won't."  I wasn't so sure of that, but didn't comment.  "I
can't leave her."

     "Even though she threw you in a dungeon?"

     Michiru nodded.  I sighed, and wondered if I'd ever fall in love
with someone so thoroughly I'd live out my life in a dungeon cell just
to be near them.  It didn't seem possible.

     [After all,] thought my traitorous inner self, [no dungeon built
could hold *him*.]

     "I won't ask you to help me, because you'd be endangering yourself.
So just keep your head down."

     She nodded again, miserably.  I settled down to wait.

 

     Another memory of being encased in darkness.

     The intelligent inhabitants of the unnamed world we'd dropped in on
had the appearance of Labrador retrievers with gauzy insect wings and
the general disposition of killer bees.  They were a hive mind,
viciously protective and highly paranoid, and they took poorly to the
arrival of wandering emissaries.  I'd been separated from Jahara in the
initial attack, carried off by a swarm of the things, and they'd sealed
me inside one of their catacombs.  For later study, I assumed, or
possibly for food.

     It was only a few hours before I heard the sounds of furious battle
outside, and shortly thereafter felt my coffin of spun wood and hardened
resin shake and disintegrate around me.  I blinked in the sudden light
of the sun at the entrance, framed by green fire.

     "I figured you'd come for me."

     He reached a hand through the opening he'd made, gravely, and took
one of mine in his grip.  "Of course."

     And then I almost said it.  Almost.

     But not quite.

     "Hotaru!"

     I opened my eyes, and blinked in the sudden light of the raging
bonfire up above.  The rope ladder had been lowered again, and I could
see Dee's head poking over the side, flanked by the two stern-looking
women I'd seen at the entrance the day before.

     "Hotaru, wake up!  The ritual's starting!  It's almost time!"  She
drew a finger across her throat with a big smile.  One of the women
chuckled, but the other looked at her and almost looked regretful.  I
filed that away for future reference.  "God says you've got to come too,
Michiru!"

     Neptune groaned and sat up.  I shot her a look and started for the
rope ladder.  After spending the night in a pit, muscles tired from the
walk of the day before had rested and I felt anxious to move, to run.
The three at the top watched as I climbed, and stepped back from the
edge just in time for me to swing myself over.  The two women had
pistols in their belts, not drawn but within easy reach, and they looked
at me with hard eyes.

     "Come on, Hotaru!"  Dee tugged at my sleeve.  "I've got to go get
changed.  Come on!"

     The two guards glanced at each other but said nothing, and I let
Dee drag me to one of the small rooms that had survived on the edges of
the main enclosure.  It was basically a broom closet, but the tribe had
converted it into a kind of ceremonial changing room.  In one corner
were a stack of white robes, long, flowing, and shapeless.  I couldn't
help noticing that many of them had been cut and re-stitched many times.
Before Dee shut the door, I had a glimpse of our two guards taking up
positions outside.

     Dee pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it in one corner as
though glad to be rid of it, and started removing the tattered remnants
of her jeans.  I felt myself blush, incongruously.  Our programmed
responses are so strange -- this girl was going to be *killed* in a few
minutes, and I was blushing because she was taking off her clothes.  I
turned to face the door.

     "What's the matter, Hotaru?"  Dee looked down at her body, now clad
only in a pair of grubby under-shorts.  "Am I ugly or something?"

     I forced myself to turn around, and to concentrate.  "Listen to me,
Dee."

     "Okay!"  She did her best to look attentive.

     "Some bad things are going to happen in a minute.  I want you to do
exactly what I say, okay?"

     "Bad things?"  She looked at me curiously.  "What about the
sacrifice?"

     "Dee..."  How could I explain it?  Tell her that wanting to die was
insanity, that she'd been damaged somehow, and that I was saving her?
"Just do what I say, all right?  No matter what else happens."

     She thought about that for a minute, then smiled brightly.  "Okay!
You're my friend."

     "Good.  Now put some clothes on."

     She shrugged one of the ceremonial robes over her shoulders, and I
looked at it critically.  It was too long to run in, so she'd probably
have ditch it if it came to that.  That would leave her slightly
underdressed, but there was no helping it.

     "How do I look?"  She twirled, as though at a fashion show.

     "Great."  My grin was sickly.  I was not relishing what I would
have to do.  "Now go into the corner and be quiet for a second."

     "Okay."

     I opened the door a crack and caught the eye of the guard on the
left, the woman with a long rat-tail of hair who'd seemed a little
sympathetic.  My voice was low.

     "She's having problems.  Crying a lot.  Think you could come in
here and talk to her?"

     The woman glanced at the other guard, who nodded suspiciously.  "Go
ahead in, but leave the door open."

     That was not unexpected; I stood aside to let the guard into the
room and then stepped up behind her.  Dee looked at her with wide,
bright eyes.

     "What's the matter, Dee?  Something wrong?"

     "Nope!  Hotaru told me to stand in the corner--"

     In one motion I kicked the door closed behind me and slipped the
pistol from the woman's belt, clicking the safety off as she whirled
with an abortive shriek of rage.  The tiny room was crowded with the
three of us in it -- Dee looked shocked, the woman frozen, and I was
trying to remain calm.  I whispered instructions to her.

     "All right.  We're leaving.  I want you to stay quiet and not move.
Dee, get me a couple of those robes--"

     The woman sneered.  "God will punish you."

     "I don't have much respect for a God who sticks Her knife in little
girls."  My voice was a hiss. "Now move."

     The woman stood stock still for a moment, as though considering.
Then she leapt forward and reached for the gun.

     There's always a moment of time that seems to telescope.  I could
see Dee's mouth open, whether to shout a warning or scream I didn't
know.  The woman lunged, her eyes almost peaceful.  One, strained
second.  No more choices.

     The report of the semi-automatic was startlingly loud in the tiny
space.  I was so close to the guard that the fine mist of her blood
sprayed across my skin.  Her eyes went wide, just for a moment, and she
dropped to the floor with a double thump.

     I thumbed the safety back on when I realized my hands were shaking,
ignoring the little girl for the moment.  There was an immediate
pounding at the door, which was the first problem -- the people outside
could hardly have failed to hear that shot.  Lacking anything better, I
grabbed the body by the arms and with a certain amount of effort wedged
her into the doorway, blocking the entrance.  A single, clean trickle of
blood leaked from the hole in her chest, and I managed to avoid getting
any of it on me.

     She'd been dead before she'd hit the floor.  My weapons training
had been reluctant, but Jahara had insisted, since so many cultures set
such a store on guns or items of similar purpose.  He himself didn't
bother with them, so we'd stopped off in some high-tech center for basic
instruction and I was mildly horrified to learn I was a particularly
good shot.  The Unforgiven had approved.

     "If you learn to use a weapon, any weapon, you must be skilled with
it.  Otherwise you acquire the inclination to use it, but not the
ability.  In a crisis, you might reach for a gun, so you need to be able
to use one."

     The thread of memory distracted me from my slightly grisly work.
With the woman in place as a doorstop, I turned from the angry shouting
outside to face Dee, for the first time.  She still looked stunned,
glancing from the body to me and back again.  I put my hands on her
shoulders, to try and shake her out of it.

     "Dee.  We're getting out of here.  I need you to do what I say for
a while longer."

     She nodded dumbly, bending her knees enough to run two fingers
along the cement floor and pick up a coating of red.  She rubbed them
together, idly.  The banging had gotten louder, but I figured we had a
few moments more before they started to shoot -- Dee and the guard could
still be alive, for all they knew.  I took a moment to place the room on
my mental map of the building and get my bearings.  We weren't up
against the wall of the building, which was bad luck, but the closet did
back onto one of the stairwells, which was almost as good.

     "You killed my big sister."  Dee spoke quietly, and I winced.

     "I'm sorry.  I--"

     "She doesn't look happy."  The girl twisted her head to look at the
dead woman's face, right-side up.  "Sort of angry, and sad."  She looked
up.  "Are you going to kill me, Hotaru?"

     I realized I was still holding the gun; I put it on the ground
carefully and shook my head.  "No."

     She took that in stride, and I turned away from her and closed my
eyes, hissing the familiar words under my breath.

     "Saturn Crystal Power, Make Up."

     The transformation passed in a timeless interval, as it always did,
but I felt something strange about it.  Becoming Saturn has always been
as easy as breathing, a simple, natural exercise.  Now it felt
reluctant, as though every drop of power had to be forced from a creaky,
rusting spigot.  I was out of breath when I dropped to the ground, clad
in the somewhat-impractical sailor uniform with the long, heavy weight
of the Silence Glaive in one hand.

     Dee was impressed -- she clapped her hands with delight, dead body
forgotten.  "That was great!  Do it again!"

     "Not now."  A hollow boom echoed my words as someone began a
serious effort to break down the door.  "Dee, in a second I'm going to
need you to run.  Can you run?"

     "Not in this thing."  She lifted a bit of the ceremonial robe
between thumb and forefinger, and I rolled my eyes.  

     "Take it off, then, but don't lose it."

     Once Dee was again topless, I turned to the wall and fought the
blush once again.  I counted breaths until I was calm, or at least in a
place where I could pretend to be calm.

     "Dee."

     "I'm ready!"

     "If...something bad happens to me, just keep running."

     "Promise you won't die if I'm not there with you?"

     "Sure."

     "Good.  I want to feel you shake when your heart stops -- that's
the best part."

     I didn't turn around, but I could imagine her smile all too well.
I wondered briefly if I really knew what the hell I was doing.  A bit
late for that now, though.

     "Here we go--"

     The edge of the Silence Glaive cut through the thin interior wall
like it wasn't even there, no resistance at all.  Four smooth cuts, and
a rectangle big enough for us to step through fell outward and clattered
onto the stairs, a few feet below.  I went first, hopping down and
waiting for Dee to scramble after me.  The stairs that went down to the
basement were blocked by rubble, separated from the central room by a
swinging pair of double doors.  From here it was a straight run to the
main entrance, across one corner of a room populated by forty or fifty
gun-toting lunatics, all waiting to see a human sacrifice.

     I swallowed.  "Ready, Dee?  Run for the doors and don't stop."

     "Ready!"  She was clearly enjoying this game.

     "Stay behind me."  I braced.  "Now!"

     One good kick opened the doors, catching a surprised young man in
the face and sending him sprawling.  I started to run before even
getting a good look around, but the bonfire was clear, and the small
block of stone next to it had an obvious purpose.  Luck was still with
us -- I didn't see Haruka, who must have still been upstairs.  Dee's
bare feet flapped on the stone behind me.  Most of the armed
tribes-people were still struggling with the door to the closet, but
there were still a couple watching the door and going for weapons as
soon as they saw us.

     I had the pistol ready, and my first shot caught the guard on the
left, an older man with droopy skin that gave him a sad expression.  His
head snapped back and he toppled without a sound.  The other guard was a
boy not much older than me, and his bullet cracked against the wall
behind us as he wrenched himself out of the way.  Two more of my shots
hummed out into the night -- he ducked out the doors, where he'd
undoubtedly be waiting for us just around the corner.

     Dee was still with me.  I tossed the gun aside and switched hands
with the Glaive, ducking low and slashing to the side of the doorway as
we passed through.  I heard a bullet slide over my head and felt the
little shock as blade met flesh.  We didn't stop, didn't look as the
youth gave an agonized cry and hit the ground, wetly.  I grabbed one of
the girl's hands in mine as we pounded down the street, taking the first
turn at random as pursuit started to pour out the doorway.  In my mind,
I exulted -- they didn't have a prayer of catching us, not as
disorganized as they were, in this dilapidated city.  We pounded around
another corner and ducked into the shadow of a dead van so I could catch
my breath.

     Dee, I noticed, was in better shape than I was.  She wasn't even
winded.  She was also still half-naked, though not shaped much
differently than a boy would be at that age.  The stupid white robe was
still slung over one shoulder.

     "Give me that for a second."

     She handed it over without speaking, as though thinking about
something.  I used the ultra-fine edge of the glaive to cut off a strip
of fabric a couple of feet wide.  Dee raised her arms without complaint,
and after tying it at the back I'd gotten a garment that would make me
feel better, at the very least.

     "Hotaru?" she asked, finally.

     "Yeah?"

     "Why are you doing this?"

     "Because I don't want to die, and I didn't want to leave you to die
either."

     "Why not?"

     I shrugged.  "I don't like letting people die."

     "But you killed my big sister Mori and my uncle Tak and my little
big brother Kyr.  What's so special about me?"

     I gritted my teeth.  "I don't know."

     "Oh."  She nodded a moment.  "Okay.  So where are we going?"

     I let out a long breath.  "I don't really know that either."


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