Sky Goes Dark (Usagi Tsukino)
| Sky Goes Dark (Usagi Tsukino) | |
|---|---|
| Date of Cutscene: | 02 June 2024 |
| Location: | Mitakihara General Hospital |
| Synopsis: | Usagi Tsukino's spending Sunday morning with Mamoru Chiba, keeping him company in the hospital, when the sky goes dark. Wait, what? |
| Cast of Characters: | Usagi Tsukino, Mamoru Chiba |
| Tinyplot: | Sunset of Sora |
It's an ordinary day, and it's a Sunday, which means no one is bothering Usagi about being in school. The nurses have long become accustomed to her presence - hers, and that of all of Mamoru's regular guests. He's been showing her his progress in Stellaris and Civilization, and she's been nodding along in baffled fascination, because the idea of her Mamochan becoming a gamer is great, even if she...
Would not play any of those games alone. Definitely not. It's too slow-paced! Where's the action? Where's the romance? Where's the sniping!
But he's having fun with it, and she's grateful, because it's not like any of the rest of this is fun. Even their make-outs aren't as much fun, given the having to be very careful not to put pressure on his mummified left shoulder and mummified right hand and also the fact that as much as she'll always love touching Mamoru, it's different, for her and him, and every time they touch, every time she lays her hands upon him, she remembers what Hinoiri's done to him.
She remembers what she'll have to do, what they'll have to do if she won't stop.
Feeling her presence, the sense of her - active and alive and growing, burning in the back of her mind, an unerring sense of there, there, she's THERE - is driving her a little crazy with inaction.
She's there. She's there.
But Mamoru is here, and he needs her, wants her, and she'll never pick hate over love.
So if his newly developing taste in development and strategy games is helping, she's going to cheer it on.
"Hey, hey look, they accepted your alliance! That's great, right? You're going to be able to do trade!" That's how it works, right?
"Trade, sure-- and they'll have my back in the inevitable wars, and I'll have theirs," he answers, the sparkle of amusement in his eyes saying he is getting better, will keep getting better, even if things are different.
And it's easy, to pick him. She could be out there, looking for Hinoiri, or she could be here, in a hospital room that's still too medicinal but also perfumed by the presence of so many potted plants, the sweetness of candies Chiyo's brought, not for healing of the body but the soul.
"That's how it goes, right? You help me and I'll help you," and she laughs, and she can't help but reach for his left hand, his unbandaged one, and gently, so gently, raise it so as she bends she can kiss his hand.
And then in this moment - in this tiny moment, in this bubble that's just for them, Tuxedo Kuma facing the window because he knows what he's done, Plush Kale Smoothie tipped on it's side because it knows what it's done, her hand entangled with his -
It is in this moment that something changes. A feeling, like a plucked string, but worse, a plucked and snapped string, whipping back across the world, the pulse reverberating across the world, and Usagi's head snaps up, confused, concerned, because if she can feel it then there's something terribly, awfully wrong -
"Usako, what is it?" Mamoru asks, and his eyes no longer sparkle with amusement, tighten with concern, and she clutches his hand in hers as she looks around, but there's nothing that she sees.
"I don't know, I really - there was something, something changed, something bad, but I don't - why is she so far away?" The last, a quiet mutter, her voice which had been rising in concern dropping as Usagi's brows furrow, as her attention focuses inward, as she realizes that her sense of Hinoiri has moved - is moving - is so far away, but still there, blazing and burning and wrong and worse, now, how can she still get worse? "It's her. She's done something -"
But it's not for another eight minutes, that they realize what.
Because eight minutes and several seconds after she feels the world snap - after Mamoru doesn't -
The sky goes dark.
It's not clouds passing overhead. The clouds are there. The sky is dark. Empty.
The sun is out.
"Where the FUCK did the sun go?"
