What had started as a headache had spread throughout Neko's whole body. It was mostly a dull ache, which she could handle, but every so often, a violent surge of pain tore through her body.
She looked at her twin, who was sitting by her bed, watching her worriedly. She smiled bravely at her. "It's just a little fever," she told her. "Aren't I allowed to get a cold?"
"No," Mi-chan answered. "Aren't I allowed to worry about you?"
Neko knew they always worried about each other when the other got sick. But Mi-chan seemed extra troubled today. Would Neko be just as concerned when Mi-chan and her switched places?
"I'm sorry I got you sick, Mi-chan," Neko told her.
"Don't worry about it," Mi-chan assured her. She touched her cool hand to Neko's inflamed forehead. For just a moment, Neko felt herself relax with the belief that Mi-chan could make her feel better.
Then more pain shot through Neko's body, more intensely than before. She had felt this affliction before, but she couldn't remember where. But it was more intense now, she knew that. She was beginning to lose consciousness.
Mi-chan grabbed her hand as if to try and keep her with her. "Neko-chan! Neko-chan!" she could hear Mi-chan yell to her, before she blacked out.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Pain surged through her body as she struggled to get out of Amethyst's vine trap. The thorns imbedded themselves through her sailor fuku, for she was transformed into Sailor Eryx, and into her skin, somehow transmitting the pain into her body.
"It's kinda poetic, don't you think," Amethyst gloated as she circled around Eryx. "My self-fulfilling prophecy?"
"Your�?" She stopped struggling, and the pain lessened immensely, without disappearing completely.
"Yes. I caused your dreams. But I never would've guessed back then that I would get the chance to see this one come to fruition. Ironic, huh? That your love for Tenshi would be what ultimately killed her."
"No," she whispered, "it's not true." Amethyst was still watching her, so smug that she had won. "It's not true!" Eryx yelled at her.
"If you hadn't broken up with her, she wouldn't have come to me looking for a way to ease her pain. She wouldn't have ended up in my arms and under my control. She wouldn't have run to me looking for relief or kissed me with such force�. Mah, Neko, you were a fool to give her up."
"LIAR!" Eryx somehow freed herself of the vine. She pushed her way through, ignoring the electric sparks that shot through her body, almost causing her to collapse out of the shock and pain. She didn't care. She needed to get free. That was all she knew.
Now that she was free, she had no other goal than to beat Amethyst and get to Tenshi and Mi-chan. But Amethyst was just as determined that that was not going to happen. They fought, until Eryx was almost out of power. But she wasn't going to give up, and Amethyst seemed to sense it.
"You're dead anyway," she told Eryx. "Even if you beat me, you're dead. You and everyone you love! I will not lose!"
But Eryx's next attack sent Amethyst into her own energy-draining vine. She watched Amethyst's violent death in shock. So shaken was she by it, that she almost missed it - Amethyst mouthing something to her just before she finally was drained of life.
"You're still dead."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Mi-chan watched over her sister. Neko was coming to.
"Neko-chan! Are you okay?"
"Mi-chan�?" Neko was shaking. "Is it my fault this happened?" she asked pitifully.
Mi-chan dispensed with the theory. "What are you talking about? Of course, not!"
"Amethyst� she said-"
"Neko-chan, wake up! Amethyst's dead!" Mi-chan ordered her sister. "She can't hurt you anymore."
But Neko was clearly awake. "The pain's the same. I escaped her vine trap, but she said I was dead anyway. That everyone I loved was. She must have done something�."
"Neko-chan, read my lips. Amethyst is dead. You killed her. She tried to get Tenshi-kun to kill you and me anyway, but it failed. That's what she meant. She thought she would win no matter what, but you beat her. Nothing is going to change the fact that you won. You and Tenshi-kun were stronger than her. She can't take that away now."
"The pain's the same�," Neko said for the second time, before she was hit by another round, as if to drive home the fact to her. Mi-chan felt a mild version of what went through Neko's body. But she had never been trapped in one of Amethyst's nasty vines. She had nothing with which to compare it.
Neko's body relaxed again as the pain subsided. "Neko-chan," Mi-chan told her, "I'm going to go check with okaa-san about something, okay?"
"No, don't leave me!" Neko begged her. Mi-chan realized just how tightly Neko had been squeezing her hand since she had woken up. Whatever she had dreamed of while she was out must have freaked her out.
"I'll be back soon. Don't worry, I promise I'll stay with you until this passes. I just want to talk to mom, okay?"
"Okay," Neko said quietly, closing her eyes to rest as Mi-chan exited the room.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It was so hot! Neko knew she wasn't going to be able to rest in this heat. How could she be so hot when it hadn't even reached spring yet?
*It's cooler outside* she reminded herself. Opening a window would at least give her some brisk air.
She slipped out of bed and stood up unsteadily. It wasn't too painful. She made her way to the window and grabbed the handles to open it. But that's as far as she got. The window didn't budge.
"Stupid, weak koneko-chan," she chastised herself with a mirthless laugh. She leaned her head against the window in defeat. One little bug and it knocked all her strength out of her.
At least the windowpane was cold. The glass felt refreshing against her burning forehead, cooler even than Mi-chan's hand. She surrendered to that coolness. Anything to take away the heat. She could forget about the fever, and the pain, and Amethyst. If she just concentrated on the cool pane of glass, it would go away for a while�.
*Is that what Tenshi did with Amethyst? Escape her feverish heart by surrendering to that cold siren?* Neko knew it was close. Tenshi had wanted all her pain to disappear, and Amethyst had abused what was left of her trusting nature. She granted her wish, but at a terrible cost. Tenshi had unknowingly and temporarily signed over her soul, and had it not been for the strength of Neko's love for her and her love for Neko, she might have died betraying her beloved much more seriously than just simply sharing a kiss with Neko's nemesis. But Neko had saved her.
