#shoulder angel senshi

[amethystsoda]

shoulder angel senshi has done so much for us 🪽

[thesternest]

i dont have an angel and devil on my shoulders telling me what to do i have Senshi dungeon meshi and Kikuri Hiroi on my shoulders and usually i listen to Kikuri

[ultipoter]

Both Kim Kitsuragi Discoelysium and Senshi Dungeonmeshi have the tendency to materialise to distressed people as little shoulder angels, offering affirmative words and advice

[hatsunemikuwu]

I love all the senshi posts about having him be the guardian angel sitting on peoples shoulders to encourage them to eat a balanced diet but I’ve got something even better. I have my own senshi In Real Life. her name is Carmen and she makes sure I always eat the breakfast she made me and in return I let her try the desserts I make and it fills me with so much joy because Every Time she reacts like it’s the best thing she’s ever had and I know it’s with her heart. Anyways.

[many-gay-magpies]

i need to watch/read dungeon meshi in order to acquire this helpful shoulder angel senshi everyone keeps talking about. it would have been very useful yesterday when all i ate until like 8 pm was leftover frozen custard, some pretzels, a cheese stick, and a cereal bar.

[pabs-art]

I have a shoulder devil shoulder angel situation going on except one theyre senshi dungeonmeshi and kim kitsuragi discoelysium. Both of them want me to invest in better cookware

[plagispec]

My inner Chilchuk and inner Senshi sit on my shoulders like a lil cartoon angel and devil but they're both morally good one is just kinda mean about it.

Me: oh wow, it’s really busy here at work, I should start doing something that isn’t my responsibility just to help out, maybe I can skip my break today, or stay a little—

My inner Chilchuk Tims: Your job description has your responsibility and includes hours worked and breaks. Stick to it unless they want to pay you more. No job is your friend no matter how much you like it.

[amethystsoda]

Reminder that shoulder angel Senshi is still proud of you if all you can manage is a bowl of cereal for dinner 👍👍👍

[tinytownoregonrp]

SEEKING MUSES FROM DUNGEON MESHI!

Marcille Donato

Laios Touden

Chilchuck Tims

Senshi

&& many more!

Welcome to Tiny Town, Oregon-- an interesting town with a misleading name. A home to everyone from the unwitting humans who believe there are no things that go bump in the night to the demon blooded creatures who may see them as a meal. But as unordinary as the population may seem, the townspeople seem happy. Peaceful. Curious. And what is even more curious is the chat app that seems to pop up on half the populations cellphones, allowing them interaction with the most unlikely company. This town only seems to draw in the strangest of sorts. It’s an ever growing town-- but the word tiny never was meant to describe the size of the city... There’s a reason for everything-- for the application that may have appeared on your phone, for the mysterious area called the Weald, for all the odd things that seem to happen. There’s a reason you came and a reason you don’t want to leave. Everyone has secrets…And in this town, it seems someone is always watching. Don’t bother looking over your shoulder and don’t bother trying to delete Tiny Town Chat. In this town, there’s nothing you can really escape from… but maybe you can try to find some peace.

Tiny Town, Oregon is an 18+ Multifandom Discord Roleplay Server. We are a multifandom modern fantasy group with a growing lore to incorporate humans and heroes, demons and angels, wizards and warlocks, and more!

To learn more,  just check out our website with rules / cast / blacklist OR hop into our SERVER WAITING ROOM to start checking out our lore-- inclusive of species, laws, and notable NPCs in the world!

CURRENT CAST LIST || JOIN THE DISCORD (Apply in Server)

[moths-in-the-attic]

Angel for Earth by Angel of Earth

Chapter 1 - New Scout

~*~*~*~

"Class, we will be getting a few new exchange students from the around the world. They are going to introduce themselves to you." stated Ms. Haruna

Two boys and three girls stood in front of the class. First the boys introduced themselves and then the girls.

One of the girls stuck out to Usagi. She seemed familiar to her somehow. She had curly black hair that reached just past her shoulders, was kind of short, and had dark sea-blue eyes. The only person she had ever seen with eyes like those where Mamoru.

Maybe it was just her imagination. She was too far away to really tell what color they were.

The girl took a step forward and introduced herself. "Hello minna. My name is Terra Rose Childs and I'm from the United States. I'm 15 and my hobbies are art, animals, plants, and about any sport there is." she spoke Japanese perfectly.

~*~*~ At Lunch ~*~*~

"Hey did you hear about the new girl, Terra Rose?" Umino's head popped out of nowhere as usual. "I heard she was a witch. Did you notice her eyes change colors every now and then. If she is a witch we should keep out distance. She could be dangerous and put spells on us."

"Can it, Umino." Naru wacked Umino on the head.

Usagi looked around school grounds to see the other exchange students had fit right in, but Terra Rose sat under a tree by herself. Usagi ignored Umino and went to see Terra.

"Hi, Terra Rose. I'm Usagi. I was wondering if you wanted to eat lunch with my friends and me?"

"Sure I would love to, Usagi-san."

"Just call me Usagi-chan."

Just then Ami, Makoto, and Naru came up behind Usagi. She introduced Terra Rose to them.

"So how long have you been here, Terra Rose? You speak Japanese. very well" said Ami

"About three days. I'm originally from Japan. I moved to America when I was four."

~*~*~

After school the girls went to the arcade with Terra Rose where they introduced her to Mokoto, Rei, and Minako. They all sat at the counter waiting for milkshakes. Usagi seemed to be looking around for someone the whole time.

"Usagi-chan, who are you looking for?" asked Terra Rose.

"You'll have to excuse odango, she waiting for her boyfriend."

"DON"T CALL ME ODANGO!! Only my Mamo-chan can call me that!

Terra Rose held her snickers in, "I got to go. I'll see ya tomorrow." and with that she was out the door and gone.

Usagi was on her way home when her communicator went off.

"Usagi we need you in the park. Big, mean, and ugly youmas are back."

"Alright Mercury. I'll be right there. Moon Cosmic Power!"

~*~*~

"Hey ugly! I'm Sailor Moon the Champion of Justice and on behalf of the Moon I will pun-"

Before Sailor Moon could finish her speech she was pinned to the wall. She looked around to see that the other senshi were as well, except Mars who was knocked out, and Tuxedo Kamen who was glued to a tree.

"Now I will destroy you and take you to my master!"

The youma's nails grew out and were just about to go into Sailor Moon when a white rose sliced through the nails.

Everyone gasped with wide eyes and looked up to see a shadowy figure up on a tree branch. The figure stepped out of the shadow to reveal a small girl in a metallic purple and silver senshi fuku. She had black curly hair and wore a mask on her face. All her jewelry was silver, even her tiara which held a clear stone. Her boots were like Jupiter's and her gloves were slightly different. They had one small strip of color where they ended. In the middle of her bow sat a silver locket.

"I am the Guardian of Life and this planet. I am Sailor Earth and on behalf of my planet I will get rid of the evil that threatens it, and that means you."

[dungeon-meshi-described]

[Image description: A four page comic. The artist is leaning against his desk with a tired expression and thinking, "ugh…these days i really haven't been in the mood to eat properly… might just have chips or 6 clementines for dinner again idk."

Sensi from Dungeon Meshi appears behind the artists. He has sings and a halo, like an angel. The artist tilts xer head to listen as Senshi says, "Hey it's me Senshi from Dungeon Meshi".

Sneshi places a hand on the artist's shoulder and says, "you're breaking my heart." Xe sweats a little.

Cut to the artists cooking on the stove. He wipes his brow and says, "fuck…how could i have been so blind? i'll never forget this… you're so wise… thanks senshi for reminding me what's important in life.. king… i really should cook this before it goes bad too tbh." Senshi flies away and says "eat well. bye". End description.]

thanks man

[ineffable-gallimaufry]

angel and devil on my shoulder except the angel is senshi dunmeshi and the devil is inspector javert and they have completely opposite fields of expertise so they don't actually counteract each other as much as they should

[docholligay]

Requiem for the Grand Consummation

Angstober prompt was: Michiru, breakdown 1900 words, and I hope you....uh, enjoy it? In as much as anyone enjoys Angstober? 

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. It matters little what you feel.The flame might tear and burn, the steam might hiss, but you are a creature of the coldest sea, and to all appearances, you will only ever be calm and shimmering. She had been trained in all of this since she was a young child, the subtle art of composure. 

To compose oneself. She thought of it often, this turn of phrase, this way of putting a smooth coat on the roughness of mortal feelings. One composed a symphony as well, and she could not note that it was too terribly different. The art of taking inelegant bursts of air and furious strokes of string on string, and turning them into something beautiful. Something calming, and erudite, inviting commentary on the art. Perhaps not all people made symphonies of their own emotions, but Michiru Kaioh would note that she was an artist in all things, and perhaps her earliest lesson was in this. 

So Michiru Kaioh dressed in her neat couture, and sat straight as she sipped at champagne in the tea lounges of the upper class, and accepted condolences with that same cool, impersonal affect with which it was given. She composed, and the orchestra played on, and no one could have possibly noted that the young widow was anything other than a perfect example of the stiffly pressed perfection and breeding of the upper classes. 

A sheet of ice covered the sea, and it shimmered and sparkled and did not waver or buckle as the waves churned beneath it. 

But ice can only ever be cold, and be taken as such, whatever may lie beneath, and one can hardly blame those unfamiliar with the sea for seeing little else. 

“Oh, like Michiru even fuckin’ cares.” Mina swigged back a beer, despite being in the middle of what was, ostensibly, a senshi meeting, “since when has she ever kept anything from last season, you know?” 

Mako shrugged and nodded along with Mina, the two guards, one of them telling the truth, and one lying, and both blocking Michiru from a calm exit of the conversation. 

“We need a new Sailor Uranus.” Mako added, though not unkindly. 

The gentleness was meant less for Michiru and more for Usagi, who wailed in protest. 

“We can’t! We can’t let someone else wear her tiara, because, because--” she let out a sniffle and a small sob, “--they won’t be her!!” 

“Indeed,” Michiru added, almost a whisper to herself, “who could be?” 

Rei drew her arms around Usagi. “She wouldn’t be, Usagi.” She kissed Usagi’s temple, “But she’ll be a different Sailor Uranus. But she won’t replace Haruka.” 

Ami touched Usagi’s arm. “Whoever it is already has been given the power. She’s probably scared, Usagi. We can help her. We can teach her.” 

Michiru folded her hands in her lap, and composed herself. Twist the brass into submission. Quell the drums. The strings do not shriek, but sing, in your hands. She softened her eyes and relaxed her face, and her shoulders fell straight and sleek under her silk blouse. 

“So we don’t have a choice anyway.” Mina poured the beer down her throat and crunched the can, “We get to her or the enemy does. Sailor Uranus is dead,” a violin string snapped, “long live Sailor Uranus.” 

Usagi nodded, sobbing into Rei’s shoulder, and Mako rubbed her on the back as the silence settled in, rain falling in the background as the cool wet air sneaked in the cracks old and new, whispering in small holes in sweaters, aching through slender gaps of clothing. 

Michiru rose to her feet, and smoothed her linen skirt. 

“Well, then, it seems decided,” She took her purse from the table, “Pluto, I assume you will have little trouble locating this person, given your affinity with the power of the moon. You certainly located us easily enough.” She nodded to Mina. “If there’s no further business, madame chairman.” 

“Go on,” she shrugged, “be my fucking guest.” 

Michiru did not allow herself to crescendo to Mina’s anger, simply walked to the door where her umbrella sat waiting, the fine leather of her Italian made shoes spattered so lightly with the rain’s cruelties that you would be forgiven for not noticing them. Fine leather blends well. 

She opened the door, only for a small, insistent hand to close it in her face. She did not turn her head, for there was no need, only that same discordant note wishing to throw off all symphonies as she herself had been. 

“I confess the vagaries of being your guest do somewhat bewilder me.” She shook off her umbrella. “May I help you?” 

Mina took her hand away from the door, her eyes never leaving Michiru’s face. 

“You’re so hollow inside, I wonder if her scream’s still echoing there, or if you just...absorbed it.” MIna shook her head, and their eyes met, “Did you ever love her?” 

“You are a cruel person, at heart, Minako Aino. But I suspect you know that.” She opened the door and her umbrella both, in one fluid motion, “Haruka’s taste was always a bit self-flagellating, wasn’t it? Choosing us.” She stepped out into the rain. “Not all of us are so prone to drunken dramatics.” 

“Fucking leave, Michiru.” 

“Oh, are we precisely certain I have your leave?” 

MIna slapped the door in her face, but Michiru did not justify the cymbal crash with so much as the raise of an eyebrow. 

It took her longer than she might have expected to return to that yawning condo in a sparkling building, the rain settling on the windows in a single sheet, beginning to freeze until it weighed to heavy before dramatically cracking and falling to the ground. 

Her apartment was the same as it ever had been, neatly appointed, and her girl had left a bottle of champagne and a plate of olives and cheese in the fridge, as requested. They said good help was hard to find, but Michiru did not agree with this assessment. Good help was very easy to find, so long as one’s wallet was sufficiently open. 

She popped the bottle with its percussive note, the bubbles rising to the surface of the glass in their high accenting chirps. When had she changed into her robe and gown? She couldn’t remember, but it hardly mattered. It was perfectly acceptable for a woman alone in her apartment to lounge a bit in the evening. 

The glasses went down fast, tonight. Mina had not been wrong to say that she was hollow, for no matter how much she drank, Michiru could not fill that deep, dry well inside of her. Or maybe it had always been full, but full only of the sea, bitter and cold, withering everything that drank it. 

MIna had been right about another thing. She was cruel and a liar, but she hadn’t lied then. That well inside her heard the screams, and it echoed high above the elegiac symphony of her own heart and soul, far beyond taming. It dulled the song and it slipped under the ice, and it screamed and screamed and screamed. 

She staggered to her feet. She was conducting, but the players were beginning to falter, playing their own tunes, Mozart against Tchaikovsky, Salieri coming through the back, a note of Monteverdi, the piano player hammering out Chopin’s softness with an indelicate rage. It was too loud for the small apartment, the clashes and bangs of instruments no longer obeying that leader. What a fool she ever was to believe that she could have brought them to heel with a small stick! 

No one had asked the conductor how she tired, how rebellious the woodwinds, how obstinate the percussion, and how difficult it could possibly be to coordinate it all on a bucking sheet of ice. And who could blame them? They had not seen the difficulty, for Michiru never allowed this to be difficult. It was her own perfection that led to this grand revolution, every carefully chosen note deciding its own fate in this moment, in an apartment which once held something killed by cold, a daisy in December. 

Michiru flung wide the doorway to that elegant balcony, the lines of song which had been straight and true twisting themselves into the wrought iron, mocking her composition. Her composure. She stared at them, glass still in her hand, and they rocked and moved and then they were the waves of the sea, clashing against that ice as the rain fell around her. It built and built and it broke, for how could it not break when there was so much underneath it. The wind rose and whipped under that sheet of ice, and Michiru felt a great crack inside of her, a crack like an explosion. Oh, that great sea ice broke indeed, and it broke with the great thunder of bass and timpani, and the waves became a song again, and twisted, and the sea again, breaking, and then they were her face, her face twisted most of all in those final moments, and Michiru looked up to the sky and she cried out in the one and only vocal solo of her life, accompanied by the horrible orchestra of her own great creation. 

She stopped. Everything stopped. The strings grew still, and the sea ice drifted away, and it all simply stopped. 

Haruka called herself the senshi of the wind. It was silly, and it was a lie, but it was a lovely one, and in the years after she had fallen in love, she continued on with it in her teasing way, telling Michiru how the wind whispered she looked beautiful in that dress, or howled over the discontinuation of a candy bar. 

But she wasn’t lying, and she wasn’t joking, for Michiru could feel her, caressing her face, kissing her lips, brushing tenderly against her collarbone. Haruka had quieted it. She had always quieted it, for the wind was not the great enemy of the sea, but its partner, was it not? It is only the wind that allows the ocean to guide and to bring the world across it. The wind caresses the sea in love, and those are not waves of horror, but of delight. The screams all sound the same. 

Michiru took her glass, and drank deep of it, smiling brightly as she flung it over the side of the balcony, a high, bright note of an angel’s bell below. 

She rested a hand on that iron, and felt it lay still and freeze beneath her hand. The ice, returning. So heavy. Impossible to hold on a building like this one. But there was no need, the wind said to her, to hold it at all. Let the sea rage, and let the song die, and I will carry you in the great unwritten song of the wind. 

Her robe fluttered like a petal as she slipped a leg over that useless, ugly, arrogant iron. She held her hand out to the wind, the wind that came from the sea and still carried the water inside of it, and with a close of her eyes and the whisper of Haruka’s name, she released that flower into the wind. 

When they found her on the car in the misting rain, she was calm and shimmering. 

Just as she’d been taught. 

[dungeon-meshi-described]

[Image description: 20 Images alternating between text and panels from the Dungeon Meshi manga. Image 1: Text: Have you ever gotten everything you ever wanted? No. but I once got very close. What happened? I don't know. Everything disappears. Even dreams.

2: Manga panel: Marcille holds up a box with a wing pattern on it and stares at it, in shock and crying Very early in my life it was too late.

3: Manga: Marcille sits on the Winged Lion's paw, surprised.

4: Text: I suppose I just flew too close to the sun.

5: Manga: Marcille cries as someone tells her, "You run at a different pace than everyone else. From now on, you'll have to watch as others pass before you."

6: Text: "Because you are no longer an angel but a person all alone on two tired feet upon this earth that turns, that wakes terribly young every morning."

7: Manga: Marcille looks up as she walks up some stairs, scared and sweating slightly. She's wrapped in a cloak.

8: Marcille runs up the stairs to a wooden door as the stairs crumble under her.

9: Text: she left this one. I invented a world because death is unknowable and someone I loved was about to live there.

10: Marcille cries and screams, "Everyone gave up on running together with me and got swallowed up by it! Papa! Pipi! And Farlyn, too! Everybody!! That's why I studied magic so hard…"

11: Text: Desire is no light thing.

12: Marcille places her hands on a counter or table with a serious and determined expression. She says, "I want to eliminate the differences in lifespans across all the races."

13: The Winged Lion says, "'All the people in the world', you say… indeed, that isn't the kind of wish that could be fulfilled with a mere half-hearted desire. However, you came to this dungeon filled with the resolution to see it through, correct?" Marcille replies, "Of course!"

14: text: You're addicted to loneliness and desperation. It's the strongest emotion you've ever known, so your subconscious tells you that it's your destiny.

15: Thistle stands on a table. He addressed a surprised Marcille, with the rest of the Touden party behind her. Thistle says, "Half-breeds cannot live their lives in the same flow of time as any other race! A hundred years from now, nobody will be there to sit around a table and share a meal with you! Does that make you terrified? Is that why you desire the dungeon's power? So you can change your fate?" Marcille stares at Thistle, shaking and sweating. She glances to the side, then bends down and cries, "No, you're wr-..!! That's not…!!"

16: Text: Still, there is this terrible desire to be loved. Still, there is this horror at being left behind.

17: Senshi, Chilchuck, and Laios are draped against a wall filled with paintings. Marcille leans on Laios' shoulder. Someone offscreen, presumably a future Marcille, asks, "Did you even stop to think about what it would be like for me to be surrounded by everyone's dead bodies…?"

18: Text: We want to hear someone say, "I give you my heart," meaning, "summer and winter," meaning, "all my time in this world,"

19: Marcille, sweating and shaking, asks, "I just want to live out my life with all of you at my side. In order to do that, is it so wrong for me to wish to keep death at bay?"

20: Text: Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story. End description.]

[Plain text: Doomed from the beginning

Unknown / Marguerite Duras / Blanca Varela / Ramona Ausubel / Anne Carson / Heather Havrilesky / Michael Cunningham / Lisel Mueller / Richard Siken x Dungeon Meshi by Ryoko Kui

End plain text]

Doomed from the beginning

Unknown / Marguerite Duras / Blanca Varela / Ramona Ausubel / Anne Carson / Heather Havrilesky / Michael Cunningham / Lisel Mueller / Richard Siken x Dungeon Meshi by Ryoko Kui

[faelapis]

y’all wanted to see the diamonds as sailor senshi, so here you go! this was just a little thing i did for fun, the sailor senshi dressup game is very detailed and you can be very Extra(tm) with it.

i went pretty in-depth with my design reasoning, i don’t expect people to read this since it’s just a dressup game but here goes lol:

white: white had to look the most constrained. like it would be uncomfortable to walk around in that outfit. she’s not allowing herself to be anything less than a perfect figurehead. so her dress hugs her tightly yet covers her the most modestly - she’s both a “pure feminine ideal” and somewhat sexualized. 

her jewelry feels almost claustrophobic. it clings to her face, her wrists, her neck, and sharp jewels tempt to scrape her shoulders if she tries to move. the way the chain hangs over her face cuts it into four diamonds - like the symbol of homeworld that she is, before she’s a person. her hair is in loose pigtails because i wanted to combine the “feminine ideal” of homeworld with the feminine ideal of sailor moon - which is embodied by usagi herself and queen serenity, who have that hairstyle. her sharp nails are as in the show. the white roses on her wrists symbolizes her puppeteering pink/white pearl, as well as pink & white being opposites the same as blue and yellow. you can also see she combines blue & yellow’s sparkles, while pink rejects those sparkles altogether.

yellow: yellow has the most “structured” outfit - there’s not a single loose element to it (except the cape). even her hair is tightened in a perfectly structured ‘do with no strands astray. the “sharpest-looking” diamond needed the highest heels, embodying the 80s businesswoman chic. her shorts are more of an utena reference, where a girl wearing masculine clothes = hotpants. there’s some problematic elements to the magical girl + shoujo-deconstructing anime of the 90s, which i thought fit well with the problematic ideals of homeworld.

her cape looks white, but it’s actually a very light green (as are her nails, if you look very closely). this is a reference to her most stressed, sickly-looking palette - the one we saw in “message received”. it’s also a stealth-reference to jasper’s cape, and how hers is the court with the most implied upward mobility. if you do well, you can rise in the ranks (to a certain extent). the cape is also a reminder of how she’s the diamond most in-tune & dedicated to her court. her spiked shoulders are, of course, a reference to her iconic shoulderpads. 

blue: blue needed to have the loosest outfit - one that seems big enough to swallow her up and drag her down. i decided to give her a nightgown-inspired top because she is, in a way, the drowsiest / “laziest” / detached-from-reality diamond, who neglects her duties and lets her grief and emotions completely submerge her, making yellow pick up the slack. 

i decided to make her hair Very big and long for two reasons - one, because it fits into the aforementioned theme of everything about her design “weighing down” on her, and two, because making everyone slightly more Extra felt very with the spirit of sailor moon. this is an aesthetic, after all, that heavily conflated strength, status & evolution with getting more and more elaborate and glammed-out outfits. so that’s why the matriarchs got a bunch of jewelry & tiaras, despite the fact that this would be very out-of-place in SU.  

pink: where to even begin!! this is the one where i placed the most character references, i almost don’t wanna spoil them if anyone wants to go looking... but fuck it, you decided to read this far: i wanted her to have the iconic, heroic “sailor moon outfit” because that’s the symbol rose quartz became for the rebellion - the leader who fights for love & justice. she’s barefoot because rose’s shoes, as stated by RS, are impossible to fill. the “poofs” on her legs resemble the poofs of her shoes as pink diamond. the roses on her hips should be obvious, as is the sword, and the star symbol where her gem would be. 

on the less obvious side, i decided to deck her out with pearls because pearls are the characters who inspired her character growth. the reference i’m most proud of is probably the colors of her skirt - do you get what it’s supposed to be? it’s the hibiscus flower! it’s darkest pink on the inside, but becomes lighter near the tips. she’s also flipped to face the opposite way of the other diamonds because she decided to “turn against” the system.

she has dark pink-reddish angel wings for several reasons - firstly, because it combines the aesthetics of angels & demons, like how pink herself is intentionally impossible to identify as a perfect hero or villain... secondly, because she’s - well, gone. she, her gem, and her magic sometimes feel like a vague spiritual presence in the show, so i thought it’d be fitting to have a kind of post-steven spiritual rose diamond, hence her background is both the heavens & a sunset, symbolizing the “end” of her life & development. 

thanks for reading - i know i mostly do text analysis on this blog... but i’m a big fan of fashion, particularly symbolic fashion that says something about a character, so i wanted to experiment with some dressup designs! <3 

[lightdancer1]

Same Prompt Party March-Like a Lion

Hino Rei had never been a normal child, not by anyone’s standards. From the beginning she had looked into fire and seen things. She had seen her mother leaving when she was a very young child, too young to understand the tears or the allegations said against her. She had seen other things, a girl with long pigtails and blonde hair around whom a high doom was built. She had seen the fate that awaited them all, transformed into the immortal avatars of a war against the Great Enemy in the stars. It was a bitter life that Tsukino Usagi had brought them in a way, but it was not the worst of all lives.

She knew that because it had given her a love she’d never anticipated. For all that she had memories, vague and ill-formed, of a relationship with Jadeite in the past, she had clearer ones of Mars and Venus, the cruel and stern warlord of the Senshi and her swaggering moods turning into a surprisingly tender and caring lover in her arms. Mars and Venus were full-grown women of ageless face and longevity that was…..long, if ill-determined in length. Hino Rei was still a girl of sixteen, or she had been.

She was a girl of sixteen, with a long life ahead of her, a very long life if she counted what she became when she took the henshin and spoke those words. Her life had changed from them, she had gone from being Hino Rei, Senator’s daughter, granddaughter of the Miko of one of the most crucial Shinto shrines where the Kami and mortals met in the liminal spaces of the world, to becoming the Senshi of Mars, an immortal being only human by analogy and aspects of appearance.

From seeing the future in fires, she had become an avatar of fire, wielding power named after the planet of War. And that too was subject to misunderstandings. Real war was a thing of chaos that required deep planning, the ability to know in a matter of hours what would need to be done two weeks from where it was done, and the will and the driving force to bring it to pass. She had been named after the God of War, as a Senshi, but people thought of the wrong God. It was not Ares, as the Greeks would have had it, from whom Mars’s Senshi drew their nature. It was Athena, Goddess of Strategy and the cold intellectual sides of war.

And that brought her here. The Outer Senshi had gone to face the new threat that had come here, after all the drama with the Starlights. The real threat, come round at last, revealing herself with the brutal murder of their princess. Uranus had been grief stricken at that sight and had promised Star Fighter that the Outers, the true foe revealed, would offer them vengeance. And then they hadn’t come back.

Now the figure that stood before her and Mina with a detached face and a sword in her hand had strange jewels in a necklace. One had gilded elements but otherwise had a color not unlike that of a kalamata olive (and the implications there made Rei feel nauseous and Mars enraged). There were others, deep violet, bright straw, aqua-green. The being that stood before them looked to her now, with seeming interest and distaste.

“This is not your time to die, Mars.”

Venus looked to her likewise with desperation. Not Aino Minako briefly flashing into Venus’s eyes, the stern and cruel and even vengeful Sailor V, the general who’d ruled by terror in the old days  and yet had power in this one to do that if she willed it.

“Mars, please,” she said, and the soft aura of begging briefly brought her short.

The other one just smiled, coldly.

“Ah, I see what this is. I hope the two of you have had the chances to speak of it. When the other ones died….”

And her eyes tracked something that neither of them could quite see.

“They died with their names on their lips. The aqua-haired one died trying to touch the hand of the golden-haired one, crying her real name.”

And then the golden-armored demon’s face was carved in an imitation of grief that was the more horrid for clearly lacking an understanding of the emotion in any truthful sense.

“Haruka, no!”

Venus’s eyes whipped back to her.

“When they die and I gain their Star-Seeds I gain all kinds of knowledge, including that they did not know they had. You thought Uranus weak, once. Her last couple of thoughts were ‘Venus was right’ and then ‘Michiru’. And that aqua-haired one had only one name in her mind, the one I just spoke. I wonder what I’ll see from yours, Guardian Venus?”

The creature laughed, then, and raised her blade.

Mars and Rei were two different people. One lonely and haunted by the future, the other immortal, a living storm of fire who summoned cleansing fires to banish evil and the dark forces that lurked on worlds and within the stars themselves. Galaxia was not precisely a dark force but the evil within her was crueler than Beryl or even Pharaoh 90. Both were united in one thing. They would not see Venus die in front of them, even if the monster had killed others more powerful than the two of them together in raw power.

“You won’t kill her,” she growled, and there was a lioness’s roar in the words.

Galaxia looked at her with disdain. “I have waged war across the Galaxy, child, Worlds break before me. As with the children of Kinmoku, so with the children of Earth. They all died in my opening strike and only you, the Senshi, remain. And one by one I shall hunt you down and slay you all. It is the way of things. The unworthy die, and I, alone, and worthy, live beneath the weight of the infinite stars.”

Galaxia’s smile took a nastier edge, to a point that Rei would have not been surprised to see those teeth become fangs even though technically they had not.

“You have the signs of a seer, girl. All of you see death at the hands of a terrible swift sword. My sword. So then shall it be.”

“No,” growled Mars again, the lioness’s roar more audible. This was the vision she’d seen in the flames, and it was the point where she vowed not to go gently into that good night, and to rage against the dying of the light. The only thing that mattered was to give Mina a chance to flee. Mina was the true general, the true daughter of war. She could not be more than a delay on the terrible visions of a dark and cruel force manipulating this golden angel of light into serving as its own proxy.

That did not matter.

Fires erupted around her, giving her body an eerie glow. Mars and Hino as one, their souls combined, and for a moment, just a moment, she was Eternal Sailor Mars not just in name but in fact.

“You will not touch her,” she snarled, and then fires erupted outward, slamming with bolts of energy into Galaxia’s armor and she summoned her mandala, which grasped the golden witch’s gauntlets and dragged the blades downward.

The creature smiled, then, stark and cold and cruel, and as she snapped her way clean through the fires as if they were nothing she froze when a blow of stupendous strength launched by Mars struck her chin with an uppercut enhanced by her henshin to make it count more solidly. Part of her hoped that Mako would have approved.

And the monster reeled for a moment, staggered.

She turned to Venus, her eyes gleaming with the hallowed fires within her.

“Run, Venus. I love y-“

Motion, gold glinting illuminated by her fires and a wrenching pain, only for her to summon her flames to strike back along the blade, the purity and the purification lancing against the Chaos-threaded nature of the power within the blade, the corrupted desire for domination and proving greatness against others.

Galaxia groaned for a moment in genuine agony and then she stepped back, as Mars gave her an insolent smile.

Even as she began to fade, she told her “I told you would not touch her.”

Galaxia’s eyes were troubled, as if some deep secret were unveiled and then there was a blissful quietness…..before she awoke in a strange place within the walls of reality and without. Her chest hurt, but here she was. And with her, Hotaru , Mamoru (and her eyes suddenly went very wide as she realized the real truth lurking behind that ‘went to America’ line, and what Usagi must have repressed all along), Haruka, and Michiru. And beyond them all, meditating in quietness, Kakyuu.

Mars sighed then, sinking to her knees. The lioness had roared….and she did not know if it would be enough.

----------

Not long after but far too long for all of them, after the horrors of resurrection in the flesh as a soulless thing and her star-seed watching in horror as the thing that had been her in the flesh had turned on Usagi and at the way that Serenity uncaged dispelled them all with eyes of stark ice as Usagi collapsed and Serenity rose then, and fought the epic duel with Galaxia and then somehow, impossibly, defeated those forces, she was alive again.

Gloriously, blissfully alive.

Her hand held Aino’s, and they were Hino and Aino. Aino’s eyes met hers and there were all those layers and quiet griefs.

“I’m sorry,” Mina began, but she put her finger to her lips.

“No. None of us but Usagi could have done that. All that matters to me is that you got to live, to give that warning.”

Aino’s smile was sad and her hands reached out to caress Rei’s left cheek and her right shoulder.

“My lioness,” she said, acknowledging what she had seen in the desperation of Mars and the way that the Senshi and the human had merged to try to save her.

Those words, the knowledge of what was in them, and the little looks in her eyes led Rei to do a most un-Rei thing and to briefly break, holding her, as both of them let the tears fall that they had not let fall at first when they were resurrected and gloriously, blissfully alive.

It was a warm afternoon in March, both their hands clasped when the tears fell, their bodies close together. The wind, Haruka’s sphere, reached out to ruffle their hair as it did all the Senshi, the wind reminding them that they had been through things together and the old schisms healed in a change between visions of a future that neither wished to think about more.

“In like a lamb, out like a lion,” Mina mused. Normally Rei would have rolled her eyes and corrected Mina’s misspoken use of phrasing, but here there was nothing that meant more than both of them being alive and the feeling of Mina’s body next to hers. They lay on the grass in the park on a blanket together. The long strife was over, and only when the cold came and the hours of destiny called would things change.

Rei let herself smile. The lioness had roared, in the end, and the one she’d wished to save had been safe. Her eyes closed, and she fell into a sleep of warm dreams and the understanding that was there was there, the words unspoken right now, for the actions that had been there had spoken still more loudly.