Title: Avatar

Author: Angel Leviathan

Disclaimer: PGSM, characters, concept, etc, aren’t mine.

Spoilers: The whole series, maybe the Special Act.

Notes: Set a year after the Special Act.

-

“Its cancer. Its come back.”

 

Minako feels strangely numb and strangely detached as she utters those words. Its almost as if she is talking about someone else. The words ‘don’t tell Usagi’ stumble out behind what she utters and seem natural for her, harsh for anyone who hears. Usagi is still so, so important to her, even if neither of them are what they once were. Her former princess is six months pregnant with a female child they have already nicknamed ‘Chibi Usa’ and Minako does not want her unnecessarily distressed. Cancer. The word is too familiar to her to have the impact it once did.

 

“No,” Rei snatches the sheet of paper she offers, reading the words for herself, determined to turn them into something else.

 

She studies her friend for that brief moment. She has rarely seen such a look of loss and denial on Rei’s features before. Then again, when are she and Rei ever truly honest with each other? They act and they lie and they damn well get on each other’s nerves. And yet they have become best friends.

 

“No.”

 

Its Rei who is shaking, not Minako. The former avatar of Venus gazes at her friend, eyes glazed over slightly.

 

“No,” is stated again, before her companion slams the sheet of paper down on the table across Minako’s bed. She glances briefly at the girl who has suddenly become a patient, and looks away almost instantly, as if she can’t afford to get too attached. Not again. Not now. Rei stands and rushes from the room, the words ‘its not true’ escape her, at near a sob. She is gone before Minako can see her cry.

 

Mars was a warrior. But the same Mars uttered those same words when she lost Venus before.

 

Minako retrieves the sheet of results and reads them again herself, fixing the words in her mind. Maybe this time it will be different. She fought on the wrong level last time. She fought time and death and didn’t give her body a chance to try and heal itself. She never gave herself a chance. Venus had to be ready to fight…therefore Minako didn’t have time for treatment she knew would make her weaker before it actually made her better. If it would have. She sets the sheet of paper back down and slumps against the pillows of her hospital bed. Perhaps it is just as well Rei forced her to go to the hospital when her headaches returned.

 

She has no reason to resist now. She will let them flood her body with chemicals and let them nearly break her before they manage an attempt to piece her back together. She has friends she has known for two lifetimes who she knows will always be there for her. Perhaps its time she gave up. Gave up Venus and the superstar Aino Minako and just became…herself. Lived to survive to be herself. Hope to live to be a normal girl, to be a young woman who hasn’t fought demons and monsters and carries the memories of a life as the Soldier Venus. To be Minako, Minako-chan, Mina-chan, who isn’t worth millions and has a fanbase in most countries of the world. To be her. To love…and be loved.

 

For really, when it comes down to it, isn’t that really all she has left? She has always been somebody else, she has always pretended, hidden behind the role of Venus or the perfect smile of the celebrity. She has never stopped, she has never slowed down.

 

She will fight.

 

Its time Minako had her chance to live.

 

Fin