Welcome to Gaia! ::

There was one thing which everybody (including Iris) seemed to forget from their calculations. Her arm hadn't moved from her side this entire time. And each moment, that the Slicer had been allowed to grow, it still wasn't at the furthest reach it could manage.

The first one to really truly notice this miscalculation was the silver-haired cat girl. The rainbow was merely a couple feet away from the target now. Her pale green eyes fell upon Iris' gloved arm. It was at least a couple feet long, yet there it was, firmly at her side.

"Iris, swing your arm forward!" ********* knew there was no rule against calling out. The rules strictly said that Scheat was not allowed to move. That was the only thing that would result in penalty.

If Tisiphone played fair that was.

Iris barely was able to comprehend anything anymore. Her brain was slowly melting down. The words managed to hit her ears, but she didn't comprehend them consciously. Her body seemed to understand, for without even fully giving it the order, it swung forward underhandedly, reaching out and extending that rainbow.

The motion caused the rainbow to ripple as the extra distance was added, flowing from Iris' hand all the way down towards Tisiphone's body. The additional reach, for a brief moment, made contact with the dark senshi's neck, burning through the bright green choker about her neck and for a moment making direct skin-to-rainbow contact. It was perhaps 2 whole seconds that the dark senshi had to feel the rather intense heat of the rainbow upon her skin before her slow moving void made impact upon the rainbow. Upon impact, the rainbow vanished from the point which the void had made contact, easily providing Tisiphone some relief.

Once again, the cat-earred girl seemed to serve as a relatively good judge of everything that had happened. Iris still looked like she was hurting herself with all of her concentration, and in an effort to get the girl to cease, she calmly stated in a loud, clear voice "It would seem that Iris is the winner of this contest, Tisiphone!"

There was a pause as her pale green eyes fell upon the black-suited senshi's face. "Our prize, if you would?"

Sailor Scheat was relieved beyond relief. As she was scooped up off of the ground, the girl winced in pain for a brief moment before it had actual hit her that she had won. A beaming smile issued forth from the girl, directed at the senshi and the guardian. "I know you could do it, Sailor Iris!" Everything was perfect again. Her shoulder would heal, evil had been defeated, and *********, Iris and herself could go have some cake when all this was finished.

However, when the dark senshi started talking about consolation prizes, she turned very confused. Everything was still a bit sluggish for her, but she watched in slow-mo as Tisiphone moved towards *********. It wasn't like last time, with the void. ********* wasn't watching at that particular moment, her cat eyes captivated elsewhere. Moving as decisively as she could in her injure state, Scheat stumbled forward, aiming to tackle the dark senshi to the ground. In her pain and confusion, however, her hands gripped into thin air and she ended up stumbling in between the two. Her eyes went a bit wide at the realization, and she looked down at ********* and smiled. In her pain induced state, Scheat believed that all was well. She was in between Tisiphone and *********, therefore was safe. The bright eyed girl didn't stop and think that her being in between them was probably not the safest place to be.

As Scheat looked down upon her guardian cat, her protector and mentor, Sailor Tisiphone's hand had disappeared into the girl, her senses reaching out, feeling the flow of energy with a sense of euphoria as the tip of her fingers touched it. Gently she slid around it, grasping the star seed gingerly so as not to harm it, ignoring the pain that she was forcing the other senshi to.

And then it was over.

The black eyed senshi took a leap back, a triumphant grin plastered across her face as she held the tiny bit of life force in the palm of her hand. Not the one she wanted, but this was still a senshi seed. She wasn't about to complain.

"She broke the rules first." Tisiphone said, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, "And I should bid you farewell about now." She added, catching sight of the super senshi strutting over in all her grimy glory, "Perhaps you'll do a better job next time, guardian."

With that she twisted around, calling forth the Negaverse energy within her to teleport away. It was such an energy drain, and she hated doing it, but she wasn't about to press her luck, not with her precious prize at hand. And how precious it was indeed.

It was absolutely cliche. Yet, for the guardian, everything had slowed down to the point of slow motion. She could not see the hand violating Scheat's heart and soul, but the senshi's face was all she needed to see to understand what was happening. It was a Guardian Cat's job to protect and serve, and as the brilliant blue eyes began to fade, it became painfully obvious that ********* had failed with this duty. Tisiphone's words were just a blur, her taunting meaning absolutely nothing to the cat in the hat.

Despite how much ********* wanted to catch this yellow-suited Senshi, no matter how much she told her brain to do it, she just didn't make it in time. Scheat hit the ground, and almost desperately ********* fell to her knees and pulled the girl's limp body up against her own. "N-no... it ... it isn't supposed to happen like this" ********* whimpered, as if pleading to some unseen force. She hugged the girl in her own trembling arms, the fingers of her right arm hovering slightly over the girl's heart. There was no starseed. She could feel it was no longer there. She didn't want to believe what her fingertips were telling her, and she stubbornly held her fingers in place, hoping to get even the faintest sensation of a starseed.

********* wasn't naive. She wanted to fool herself into believing this girl had a chance. Clutching onto Scheat desperately, she buried her face against the lifeless body, hiding and muffling her sobs from the world.

Where as her feline comrade had experienced everything in slow motion, Sailor Iris, in turn, had experienced everything in normal speed. Her ears didn't blur what Tisiphone had said.

With a bold snorting "Liar!!" Iris began to charge towards the Senshi in black. It might have been slow to start, but the moment she got moving, she was hurtling towards the Nega-Senshi. Her Slicer might have been a tiny stub of what it used to be, but maybe it could still do damage like a knife. Yet, as she approached, the girl simply just vanished away, much like how Sailor Hel had in another fight. Her body, her feet, her lack of energy, had once against screwed up and missed defeating another enemy.

"MOTHER F*CK!!!! SON OVA B*TCH!!!" Curses flew from Iris' lips with ease as she attempted to stab at the air where Tisiphone had just been standing. The first stab didn't offer any relief, so why she felt the consecutive 37 other stabs were going to offer some sort of relief would be beyond any observer. The thing that got her to stop trying to stab an invisible enemy was the sound of ********* sobbing.

Iris' fingers loosened, finally allowing the stubby little Slicer to vanish, and she approached the cat and Scheat's body.

"...Cat..."

All that greeted Iris was the sound of weak crying.

With her gloved hand, she leaned down and grabbed a hold of ********* shoulder. "Come on Cat! Cryin' ain't gonna bring th'Kid back from th'dead." The words had simply come out on their own, and as an afterthought, even Iris found it a bit harsh. Which was weird, since Iris rarely thought about what she said after the fact.

Finally, two pale green eyes rose to meet Iris'. They were absolutely waterlogged. ********* face was an absolute mess, her face was red with streaks where the tears had been falling, and there was even a slight trail of snot from under her nose.

Iris felt bad. However, she'd never let herself cry. Crying showed you were weak, and Iris was far from weak. The blonde tightened up a fist, as if to remind her of such, then gave the firm command of "We need to leave Scheat behind, *********. Change back and I'll take you home."

The catgirl let out another whimper, but with a slight nod, she prepared to leave. She continued to cradle the lifeless girl's body up against her own for a moment before gently settling the body's upper half against the ground. Not wanting Scheat to be uncomfortable in the afterlife, she set her somewhat tangled body out into a more comfortable laying position, face towards the dark evening sky. In a hoarse whisper, she apologized to the fallen Senshi.

"I'm sorry that I failed you, Sailor Scheat. May your soul make it back to where it belongs safely."

Apology out of the way, she leaned over the girl's body and planted a small, delicate kiss upon her lips. She pulled away again and within the blink of an eye, she was once more a manx cat.

Iris did not dare tease the cat now. Instead, she simply picked up the lump of fur. She wasn't the sentimental type, but as she turned around, she waved a hand in departure.

"Rest in Peace, kid!"

The next morning, the girl's body was found by authorities. There had obviously been a struggle, but no conclusions as to who committed the murder could be drawn. It was labeled as a "possible Senshi attack."

[FIN]