Diamonds, Roses, and the Heart of the World
Chapter Five:Boiling Point
dremdancer <Dremdancer@hotmail.com>



5:18AM

	The first thing that Chibi-usa became aware of when she awoke was the simple matter that her head hurt.  It was as plain as that.  Her head hurt, and she wasn't going to move until it stopped.  
	It took awhile, but eventually the pain faded somewhat, so that she could move it and it didn't start pounding again.  She cracked one eye open slightly, a dash of red glittering beneith a very heavy lid.  It was closed again quickly.  'It's too bright in here.'  Chibi-usa thought muzzliy.  'Why is it so bright in here?  Did baka Usagi leave the lights on again?'
	A few minutes later she tried again.  This time she was able to focus past the brightness of the room and stared up at the gray ceiling.
	'Whattaminute...Usagi doesn't have a gray ceiling...where am I?'
	Sudden memories flew in her head, of a white haired lady with big blue eyes who had offered her candy...Of getting on the train, and everything gettin fuzzy...Of letting go of Luna-P...Luna-P!  Where was Luna-P?  'If I had Luna-P, I could get out of here...where ever 'here' is, anyway.  I was such a baka!  How could I have gone off with her?  I didn't even know who she was...'
	Chibi-usa knawed on her lower lip and tried to sit up.  The movement made her head hurt again and her stomach rolled up in balls and seemed to scatter all through out her body.  'Ooo....I think I'm going to be sick...'  She cradled her head in her hands and looked around.
	Gray.  Nothing but but gray.  _Dark_ gray too, and there was no visible light source.  'It's the walls themselves,' Chibi-usa realised, looking at the pale luminance emitted from each wall, though not really seeing it.  She could tell that it was there however by the way it made her eyes hurt more when she looked at them.  She buried her head in her arms and closed her eyes.
	Luna-P wasn't here.  _No_ one was here.  She was all alone in this dark/bright room and she was scared, and no one was coming for her, and, and, and...
	And no one would come.  She sniffled as the realisation hit her.  The Tsukino's wouldn't miss her because she made it in her brainwashing so that when she went home that they wouldn't even remeber that she had been there.  Not even Usagi would remember...
	Chibi-usa wiped a hand against suddenly wet eyes.
	The only one who knew about her and might be able to come get here was Sailormoon, and she didn't even know that Chibi-usa was gone.  'Maybe that's where Luna-P went.  Maybe she went to go get Sailormoon!  I hope so.'  She ventured another glance around her bare chamber and shuttered.  'But then _I_ don't know where I am...How could Sailormoon come and find me?'  She shook her head to clear it of such dim thoughts.  'At least it didn't hurt that time.' she thought sardonicly.  'Besides which,' she added, trying to cheer herself up, 'Sailormoon never needed to know where I was before.  She'll find me.  She has too.'
	The light seemed to grow stronger.  Chibi-usa cringed away from the walls and curled into a ball in the middle of the room.  "Onegai..." she whimpered softly.  "Momma...please...come get me!  I wanna go home!"  The floor began to glow too.  Chibi-usa squeezed her eyes tight against it and let the tears fall in earnest.
	She could feel the energy building up and 'pushing' against her forehead, and she welcomed it.  The Moonbeam had always meant that Sailormoon would be there soon, it would let her know where she was.  Chibi-usa opened her mouth and scrunched up her eyes and wailed.  The Beam formed around her shooting up and down and out.  She just screamed, letting out all of her pain, and all of her fear with it.  The energy flowed around her, making her feel almost safe.
	She kept the Beam going as long as she could.  Eventually though it faded and fell, leaving her dizzy on the bright floor.  Chibi-usa put her hands down to try to balence herself somewhat.  She sniffed and opened her eyes.
	And saw a pair of dark combat boots.  Chibi-usa blinked and scrambled back looking up.  He had impossibly tall, long, long legs and his arms were crossed over a vested chest.  His eyes were dark and glinted at her with a malviolent amusment.  A shock of red hair topped off his emsemble, short and wild.  
	Rubeus smiled slowly at the Rabbit.  "I guess you finally woke up, then didn't you?"  Chibi-usa didn't say anything, just pushed herself farther back against the wall ignoring the light eminating from it.  "Don't worry, Rabbit," he said grinning. "You're little display won't show outside of the ship.  The Senshi won't find you.  They don't even know that you are gone.  But that's alright.  We can have fun with out your friends, then can't we?"
	Chibi-usa just wrapped her arms around herself and tried unsucessfully to block him out.  'She'll come; she'll come; she'll come'  She repeated the mantra in her mind over and over again, even as the sounds of footsteps came closer and closer towards her.

**************

5:22AM


	Sailorjupiter, Makoto, leaned back against a chain fence.  'We've been searching for hours, but there's still no sign of her!'  She sighed, rubbed a fist against her eyes and looked at the remaining searchers.
	Minako, Sailorvenus, was biting her lip as she watched over Mercury's shoulder.  'Poor Ami.'  Mako thought.  'She looks like she's about to bite Minako-chan's head off!'  The normally equable Ami  was visibly holding her temper back as Minako asked yet another question.  'Still...I'd rather have Minako's relentless interagation then Usagi's moodiness.'  Her gaze made it's way to their leader, a picture of blue, white, and red misery.  
	'She hasn't been the same since that 'talk' she had with Tuxedo Kamen.  I would have thought that she would be estactic now, considering that Mamoru-san is trying to get back together with her.  But then again...' she thought remembering the look in Usagi's eyes the night before.  'She was furious with him!  Not that he doesn't deserve it, but, I've never seen get that mad before.  Not even at Rei-chan when they argued.  Speaking of which...when is she going to come back?'
	Rei had left earlier, to head back to the Shrine and do another fire reading.  She said that is was likely that Chibi-usa had woken up.  'Unless she's dead. '  Mako squelshed the unpleasent thought.  Chibi-usa was fine.  She was just missing, that was all.
	She was fine.
	'And there's a bridge just outside of Tokyo that I want you to come look at too...'
	Mako sighed again and glanced at her watch.  'No school today I guess.  It's just as well.  There was susposed to be a test today in English. Glad to get out of that!'  She felt herself sweatdrop at that thought though.  There was a kid in trouble out there.  'Figures that it would take something as serious as Chibi-usa being taken to snap Usagi into 'leader' mode.'  
	Her Princess was, at that moment, slumped against a street lamp, fingers curled in one of her long twirls of hair.  Mako looked towards the east where the first faint hints of daybreak were starting to appear.  


*****

ETERNITY

	Sailorpluto of Crystal Tokyo stood in a corner of spacetime.  Her long dark green hair flowed around her like a maleviolent aura, cloaking her in and out of it's shimmering self.  Her fuka rustled in the nonexistant breeze.  There was no reason to, but she felt, *cold*.  Something wrong was happening,
	But then that was no new susprise.  Things were up in the air in the twentieth century.  Any odd comment could change the Future irrivokably.  It all depended on who made it.
	The Princess was going through a hard time just then, with out the support of her Prince and having to battle the forces of the evil Black Moon Family.  It was bad enough when she had only to worry about her future husband and daughter; but when a new suitor arrived at that very critical time...
	Things must remain as they were.  The destainies of Serenity and Endymion had been laid down centuries before the two were even born, the _first_ time.  They had no choice in the matter.  Though, the Prince and Princess had been lucky enough to love each other, even with out a geas.  They were destianed for each other after all.  It wouldn't be all that fair for them to hate each other.
	Pluto sighed lightly and knelt, running her fingers through the pale silver sand that filled this region of Space.  They _would_ be happy together.  That had been proven time and time again.  In her own time they were happy.  In the Baton Crystal Tokyo they had lived for years with out a single problem.  Small Lady had been born and the successsion had been intact.  True, there would only be one child.  Such was the problem with this Timeline.  And that was the one thing that made Serenity sad was the lack of another daughter.  
	The one that she spoke of sometimes, the one that was alive and well in most of the Alternative Timestreams.  Unlike in this one where she had died before birth.
	But one life wasn't too much to sacrifice to keep the Timeline going as it should.  One child, even a Royal one, wasn't too much to lose, not when the Future depended on it.
	Sailorpluto, of Crystal Tokyo had seen parts of a Future, a horrible and desparing one, where Darkness fell forever because there had been no one to uphold the Light.  Small Lady would be able to though.  _She_ had trained Small Lady herself in some ways.  Pluto had taught her charge the simplest scryings to see what the Future would bring. She wouldn't make any descions that would destroy everything.
	Pluto had made sure of that.
	What's more, she was  _Sailor_ Pluto, born  Setsuna of a long forgotten age before the Silver Millenium had begun it's downward cycle that would eventually lead to the Dark Ages for eons, Sailorpluto who had been trained by future herself, even as she was training Setsuna-chan now, Pluto, who had lived through the Silver Millenuim, the Dark Ages, the Enlightened Times, the Learnings, the Silence, and the Crystal Age, and who was now beginning to see the first signs of the Golden Era, the Time that she had so gently nudged the Timestream towards, the fruitation of everything that she had ever worked for, the Peace that would allow her to rest and let her successor take over...
	Sailorpluto did _not_ make mistakes.
	She had worked too hard for this, too _long_ for it, to let one man mess it up now.  She had worked and watched and waited in the period of Time that an ordiary mortal might spent twelve hundred lifestimes in.  One man, one child, one _life_ was not too important to be lost.
	Nothing was too important.
	Nothing.
	Sailorpluto sighed, and past an ancient hand over an ancient face before standing.  She was not above taking a life.  Not at all.  She had been one who had wished to destroy Saturn.  That one was a threat yet.  No one should be allowed to hold that sort of power.  Not even one that she...loved.  If it was love.  Pluto had lived for far too long to actually 'love' anyone.  
	Love required emotion.  And she had none.  Life had pulled them from her, leached them from her, torn them from her. Slowly.  All that remained now was the singleminded determination that had caused her predescesor, so many times removed to be chosen when the one who had held the role before the original Setsuna had grown weary.  
	To make sure that the Golden Era came into being.
	Make sure, make positive, so that rest could finally come, and when she went to face her god she didn't have to feel ashamed of what she allowed to occur.  So that she could have Peace at long last...
	No one meant enough to prevent that.  In order to find her rest she would save the Universe.  And in comparision with the thousands of millions of billions of other beings that made up this Continuim, one life or even several, maybe even a thousand, or, as in the Silver Millenium, a million and more, lives could be sacrificed for this.
	Only four mattered.
	Only four needed to be protected and nurtured.
	Endymion.
	Serenity.
	Small Lady.
	Herself.


*****

4:39AM

	
	Tuxedo Kamen watched the senshi.  More importantly, he watched his love, in the center of her flock,looking tired and withdrawn.
	'Demondo's done this to her.'  The thought came filling him with black hot rage, but he pushed it away, shoved it back.  Now was not the time.
	Chibi-usa had been taken.
	Of course, it was all together possible that the child had simply wandered off during a moment of lax attentiveness on Usagi's part.  She might be back at the Tsukino's now, and the family waiting for their daughter to return home too.  
	Chibi-usa was most likely fine.  Usagi had most likely overreacted at bit, which was natural.  
	He allowed himself a smile watching her try to command her troops.  Her 'Soldiers'.  'Sweet Usako,' he thought.  'You're beautiful, and wise about the important things, but not so great at stratigy.'  
	It wasn't what she needed to be.  Usagi might be able to destroy menances such as Mettalia and Beryl, and heal those such as Earl and Ann, but she didn't know who to trust and whom not to.  She couldn't make up her mind about such basic things such as those.  It wasn't _her_ fault.  It was simply something that she wasn't capaple of.
	'And look where it led her...'  
	Mamoru narrowed his eyes, feeling the anger pulsating within him.  *That* one, the one that he had seen before, the one that had made him mad, the one that had set off his warning senses, and the one whom he had ignored for far too long.  And the one who had stolen his love and turned her into something that she wasn't.
	Usagi was obviously under Demondo's control.  
	And he had to set her free.
	It was as simple as that.
	He had to set her free.  
	And to do that he had to get rid of her oppressor, even if she didn't want it.  He knew, he remembered, just how subtly one could brainwash another.  Hadn't Beryl had him under her control for months without he even questioning what was going on?  It had all seemed so... *normal*.
	And thus Usagi's anger over anything that was said that might make Demondo out to be the wrong one made perfect sense. She would think him to be the wronged one instead.   She didn't realise what he had done to her.  To her, everything was *normal*, everything was as it should be.  Everything was *perfect*.  Except that it wasn't.  Which was why she was so worried about Chibi-usa.  It was just her way of asking for help, even though the kid was probably still in bed at home.
	'I'll save you Usako.'
	He had to save her from Demondo and herself.  Just as she had once done the same for him when he had been wrapped in Beryl's dreams.  And to do that, he had to get the senshi on his side.
	He couldn't talk to Usako about this anymore.  It would only upset her.  He had to tell the others, get them to believe him, and then destroy the upserper.  And then...
	Mamoru smiled imagining Usagi's eyes when she came back to herself.  They would be confused at first, but then he would kiss her and she would remember him and their love that Demondo had made her forget.  And she would thank him and they would be happy again and go to her house and pick up Chibi-usa, who would be safe and the Black Moon would leave them be...For without their leader what threat could they possibly pose?  
	And eventually, Usagi would raise Cystal Tokyo, and he would become King, with Usagi by his side as his Queen, and they would all be happy.
	Happy.
	They would *all* be _happy_.  All of them, except for Demondo, who would rot in hell.
	And then he would laugh.
	But first things first.  First the senshi.  He just needed them to split up so that he could talk to one of them alone, so that he could explain the danger that Usagi was in.  It was for that that he had spent the last five hours waiting.  He hoped that he didn't have to wait much longer.
	At 4:46AM he got his wish.  After a huddle in the Tokyo streets, Sailormoon sent Mars off and away, to do what, he didn't know.  Mamoru didn't care, either.  So long as she was away from Usagi, so that they could talk.
	That was all that mattered.  After giving a final parting glance to his Usako, Mamoru leapt off the rooftop that he had been waiting on and gave chase to the Senshi of Fire as she headed back towards the Shrine.

*****

5:27AM

	The Wiseman Karaktha sat on air, simply watching the city go by.  He could hear in the other room the Rabbit and her tormentor, as well as feel the shrill bursts of Light energy that the child emited from time to time.
	Karaktha hated Light energy.
	Which was to be expected, as he was of the Dark himself.  With magick, opposites did _not_ attract.  And any use of Light so close by, and so sickenly *sweet* in it's innocence, while not painful, was certainly a distraction.  He wanted no distractions.
	He couldn't afford them.  Not when the bearer of the Ginzuishou, the most consentrated bit of Light in this universe was dangling beneith his nose.  And that one was fairly well concentrated herself.  The future Neo-Queen fairly *oozed* with Light.  He hated Light.
	He hated the Neo-Queen.
	Karaktha was a member of a very select organization called the Wisemen, the sole religious people in the Dark world.  As a result, each one was rather powerful, and each one had it's own gifts.  His had been the ability to move things through space-time to a limited extent.
	Because he had dabled so much in the Timestream, (wonderful thing he thought, such fun to play around in) he had seen some of his possible futures.  Most of them ended in a battle with the Neo-Queen over the Rabbit.  Where she bested him and sent him to his Phantom before He could be freed.  To be true, there were some where he won, but in those it was because of other factors, not his own skill. 
	He hated all Light users.  Particually that one down there that he could sense so completly and openly.  The one that was going to kill him.
	Unless he struck now, now when she was weak.  And in most of those futures where he had been killed, the Princess had the aid of her future daughter, in some form or another.  If he prevented that aid, and carefully controlled it, carefully watched it, then he would survive.
	No matter what the Prince wanted.  Either one of them.  
	Karaktha looked out over the city.  He would pave the way.  The Future would be theirs.  The only differance would be that the Neo-Queen wouldn't rule.  He would brainwash the young Rabbit and warp her Light into Darkness and set her up on the thrown of Crystal Tokyo.  And his Prince, so long as the Light was punished, would be sated.
	As for the band of warriors from Nemesis, he would use them until their effectiveness ran out.  Rubeus had been incompatant at capturing the Rabbit, but he was good at pulling as much Light energy out of her as possible, and filling it with the highest degree of pain and terror and suffering.  All without leaving a mark.    
	And when the child was out of energy, it would be a simple matter to twist her, to turn her.  And then all the problems would be solved.  Except for the Neo-Queen.  And the King.  And the leader of the Nemesis group.  Those three would have to be taken care of.
	He didn't expect there to be any problems with getting rid of Endymion, nor did he expect that the battle with the Princess would be too strenousus.  Difficult perhaps, but not too long.  Not if she had no aid.  No aid by either the Senshi or her daughter.  He would eliminate them first.  And although he had actually found himself amused by the antics of this 'Black Moon Family' he expected it all to fall to pieces once the Rabbit was taken over.  Without their leader he would lose the susport of Saphirr and Esmerude.  They were the three most powerful, it was true.  However, he would most likely be able to entice Rubeus into staying, and where ever he went, so went the Twisted Sisters.  Or rather, he would keep Beruche and Petz.  Damn the other two for defecting!
	So, all in all, he would only lose three.  They would have to be desposed of then.  It wouldn't due for them to run off to join the Senshi in the fight against him.  He would have to...eliminate them.  There was no other way around it.  However, he didn't think that it would be too hard.
	The most powerful of them was too lost in Control himself to ever truely be a threat.  He would take care of that one first, immediatly after turning the Rabbit.  First the Queen, the the Child, then the Prince.
	It would be entertaining.  And it would be something that he had looked forward to for a long time.  How anyone could *love* a Light made no sense to him.  He would enjoy this.
	Karaktha turned from the mirror that displayed the city to the crystal that was growing brighter with every Beam that the Rabbit emited.  Soon.  Soon he would release the energy at a location of his choosing and that would call the Princess to him, like a moth to a flame.  And like a moth she would be burned away, away, to nothing but ashes that would not bother him ever again.  
	Small Lady screamed again and the crystal's light became so great that it was nearly blinding.  
	Now.


*****

5:06AM

	Sailormars' feet pounded on the black cement as she ran towards the Shrine. 'Gotta get there, gotta go, faster!'  Mars moved at last into her own neighborhood, and after a quick glance around detransformed.
	'Finally.'  She ran up the stairs to the Shrine, cursing the need to have the things so high up.  She had to get in, had to shower and change, had to prepare for a Fire Reading.  
	They had had no luck with finding the pink haired kid by mundane methods, nor by using Mercury's computer.  Sailormoon had wondered if the Flame might know, and had sent her back to see.  Things might have changed from what they were before.  Chibi-usa-chan might have woken up, and simply have been cloaked, something that would explain why Mercury's computer hadn't been able to pick her up.  However, the only way to cloak her magickly was to surround her with Light.  And if she had been taken by the Black Moon, as they had every reason to suspect, then she would shine like a beacon to those who were able to look.  And the Black Moon wouldn't be able to hide such a large lump of Light energy, no more then Usagi could hide her own energy, or that of the Ginzuishou's.
	Unless they were more powerful they she had given them credit for.  
	Or they got her to somehow cloak herself.
	Rei pushed that thought out of her mind though as she rounded the final step.  'About time, too,' she thought, racing towards her home.  She was by the door when she heard his voice.
	"Rei-chan!  Matte!"
	Chibi Mamoru.
	Rei turned to him, eyes flashing.  "Nani, Mamoru-san?  Can it wait?"  She didn't have time to waste on him right then.  Rei didn't know the details of Usagi's and his fight, only that the Princess had returned to them with dried tear marks down her cheeks.  Usagi had refused to talk about it, saying that there were more important things to be done.  That had been something that Rei had been particually proud of, and something that she hoped to imatate.
	Find Chibi-usa now.  
	Argue with Mamoru later.
	She turned to go back into the building.  Mamoru caught her wrist.  "Matte, Rei-san, onegai, matte."  His voice was quiet and calm.  It was that and his usage of 'san' that stopped her from whaling him right then. She turned back to face him.
	"What is it Mamoru-san?  Chibi-usa's been taken.  I need to do a reading to see if I can find her."  She watched his face for anysort of reaction, but it was stotic.
	"Rei-san, Chibi-usa isn't as important as Usagi, is she?"
	Rei blinked at this.  "Nani?  What are you talking about?"
	Mamoru pressed on.  "If both Usagi and Chibi-usa were in danger, and the senshi could only go to one of them, who would you go to?"
	Rei opened her mouth and then closed it.  It wasn't something that she wanted to think about.  "What are you getting at Mamoru?"
	"What if Chibi-usa's danger was only a possible one, and perhaps she was actually safe and sound?  But you knew that Usagi was in danger of loosing her mind?"
	Rei thought about it for a moment and answered slowly.  "If I was in charge of the senshi, then I would divide them so that one of us could go check on Chibi-usa and save her, and the rest of us would go to Usagi's aid.  Why are you asking me this?"
	Mamoru ignored her question.  "And if by aiding Usagi, you could inadvertantly save Chibi-usa?  If the one who had taken Chibi-usa, if she had been taken, was the one who was hurting Usagi?"
	"Then I'd go after him and save them both!  Mamoru-san, what the hell are you driving at?"  Rei snapped angerly.
	Mamoru on the other hand, looked quite pleased, as though she was a particually bright child who had gotten her lessons right.  "Rei-san, Usagi's in danger."
	"_Nani_?!?"
	"Usagi is in danger."  He pronounced each word slowly to make sure she got it.
	"How?  She was fine when I left her, and if she wasn't then one of the others would have called!"
	"Only if either she or one of the others knew that she was in danger."  Rei flinched back from the burning in his eyes.  "She doesn't know, you see, but she's being taken over.  Very slowly, very subtly, but Usagi is being brainwashed."
	Rei leaned back again one of the bamboo supports of the Shrine and exhaled deeply.  "Who?  Is it Rubeus?"
	"Iyee, it's his leader, Demondo."

*****

ELSEWHERE IN ETERNITY

	*she stood far away from it all, and yet in the very center of things.  it was a vision, she could tell.  there was that same sence of _unearthlyness_ with it that she had learned to associate with her views, be they of the future or the past or the present.  she stood in the great hall of the crystal palace, watching as the neo-queen greeted small lady.  but small lady wasn't so small anymore...she was a woman grown with light pink hair flowing from it's odangos down her back and brushing against the sparkling floor.  both of their moon marks were glowing brightly as serenity took her crown off her head.  'it is thus,' she proclaimed, and smiled at endymion who was seated next to her, 'that i declaire my daughter, bright lady serenity usagi, queen of crystal tokyo and all it's holding.'  the people cheered as serenity placed the crown apon her daughter's brow and pressed a kiss onto her cheek.  small lady hugged her mother, tears running freely down her face.  'and it is thus,' serenity continued after straightening, 'that i declare my daughter to be queen serenity the tenth, queen of the moon, and serenity the second, of earth!  may she rule long and well.'  serenity smiled out to her people and took endymion's hand.  'farewell, mesume.  never forget that i love you.'  the new queen looked up just in time to see her parents glowing smiles and to feel her fathers hand on her cheek.  then they dissapeared.
	queen serenity the tenth of the moon and of crystal tokyo stood and faced the now silent crowd.  'as it was with my great grandmothers, so it shall be with me.  my mother has left so that i might rule, and i promise you all now that i shall do the best that i can to maintain the peace that my okaa-sama has raised for us!  there shall be no more fighting, if at all possible.  it has come time for the Pax Lunairius!'  the people cheered again, louder then before, yet subdued.  a new era had begun.  it was at last time for peace.*


	Setsuna watched all this.  'Pluto-sensei was right, I suspose.  Peace does fall with Small Lady's reign.'  It was all she had time for before the vision swept her up again.


	*she was old, was the first thing that setsuna thought of when she next looked at the new queen.  she had the aura of one who has tried harder then humanly possible to promote what she believed in, and the reslote look about her of one who would do anything to keep it that way.  the assembled senshi stood before her, all of them pained.  all of them, except pluto, setsuna noticed.  there was more then one of some of them too.  setsuna could see the differences in the fukas of the two jupiters and the two venus'.  she didn't recognise them, they were the sucessors of the senshi that she had been taught to study.  one of them, dressed in a tight white bodice and slightly flared light blue skirt, (no plaits, she noticed, just a miniskirt like an iceskaters instead of a schoolgirl's,) mercury, maybe?  or neptune?  she couldn't tell.  no...it was mercury.  she could see her planetary sign on her tiara.  the senshi stepped forward and tossed shoulder length black hair out of her face.  'serenity-sama, onegai, think about what you're doing.  you can't disband the senshi!'  another one, fairly obvious as mars, with flame hair and a fuka that matched with a skirt like the other's, only in magneta stepped forward.  'please, serenity...usagi, listen to yourself!  peace won't last forever, no matter how hard we try to maintain it.  it will fall in apon itself with out the back bone it neeeds to uphold it.  the senshi are that back bone.  remove us and...' she trailed off, speading her hands helplessly.  the others nodded in agreement and stepped towards the two.
	the queen store back at all of them.  'i've made a descion, minna.  it's something that you need to get used to.  peace has lasted for centuries, there hasn't been an attack since the black moon family and there won't be any more of them.  i, _we_ have worked hard so that the peace that my mother gave us  would not go unappreicated.  all of the galaxy is either a part of the golden era, or else it is soon to be.  the senshi are viewed as a threat by those that are not yet part.  they want nothing to do with war, and that is precisly what the senshi represent!  it's time to move on.  no one wants to think of such horrible things, but we have no choice if the senshi are to continue.  they hold no purpuse anymore, mars, you are in charge of defense, t'is true, but there hasn't been an attack in generations.  eldervenus, you spend more of your time in the treasury department then you do  training the chibisenshi, and the rest of you spend more time as diplomats then in training yourselves!  the senshi are obsolite.  it's time to admit that and move on.  there are more important things that need to be done then argue over such useless points.'  she gestured to a glowing portal.  'please, deposite your wands in here.'  old eyes turned pleading as none of her court moved.  'please.  any of you who do not comply will be marked renegade and charged with treson.  i don't want to do that.  please don't make me.'  
	the senshi looked at each other.  the elder looking jupiter looked like she was about to say something, but stopped herself.  looking at her queen with undisguised hatred, jupiter detransformed and placed a sparkling green wand into the portal and stormed out of the room.  the queen sighed deeply and watched as three others followed suit.  the younger venus, neptune and uranus.  they left as well, none of them even bothering to look towards their ruler.  that left mercury, the elder venus, mars, the younger jupiter and saturn standing before her, none of them moving.  saturn spoke first.  setsuna noticed with susprise that she was the one that was in serenity the IX's court, hell, the one in serenity the *VIII*'s court, the one that she had had to learn about.  'i hereby renounce all vows made to aid crystal tokyo and her queen.  the dream that the neo-queen had is dead.  i will have no part in this monstrosity.'  saturn didn't even wait for serenity's permission before teleporting away.  mercury looked at the queen and shook her head sadly.  'i wish that i could show you the error that you are making,' she said softly before following saturn.  venus looked at her queen and said nothing, leaving without a word.  mars shook her head sadly.  'i hope that the benifit of peace is enough to cover the price that you pay today.  you not only lose your protection, but your closest friends as well.'  mars's lips quirked.  'sayonara, serenity-sama.'  she was gone.  the remaining jupiter looked to the thrown.  'we were taught to admire you and your mother, both of you were senshi so we could look at your acomplishments there, and both of you had worked in the past to save us and those of the past from invadors.  i would have thought that you would have more sense then this.  i can only hope that your successor has more wisdom then you, serenity.  but i fear that he or she  will not come from your line, but from chaos.'  With a final bow, the last of the senshi dissapeared from the thrown room.
	queen serenity the tenth, queen of the moon and of crystal tokyo looked into her empty room and began to weep, cradling her face in her hands.  'i didn't mean for it to be this way,' she murmured.  'i didn't mean for it to be like this...'*

	Setsuna spun out of that vision and into another.  

	*she was still in the thrown room, the same one as both of the other visions had been in, only this one held nothing of peace and certainly nothing of joy.  this one was full of death and despair and chaos in the extreme.  a woman, firehaired with yellow rimmed green eyes store out over the room filled with bodies.  the lady-queen stood slowly with the gracefulness of old age.  'what is it that you want?'
	the woman turned to the queen and grinned.  setsuna flinched back from that, she knew that smile.  IT'S NOT POSSIBLE!  SHE DIED LONG BEFORE SMALL LADY WAS EVEN BORN!  HOW CAN BERYL BE ALIVE?  'i want you dead, serenity...your mother killed me, your grandmother cursed me, and now i have returned to take my revenge!  you should have listened to your senshi, serenity...peace only makes one lax.'  beryl raised her staff and sent forth from it a blast of dark power.  it raced towards her, and was stopped by a sythe. 
	'nani?'  serenity momentariy slipped back into her home tongue.  sailorsaturn stood infront of her, soaked in her own blood, and that of others.  she looked old, and withdrawn.  'magesty, i am the only one left.  the others died while trying to protect the kingdom.  will you acknowladge your mistake in disbanding the senshi so that i might rid us of this evil before it is too late?'
	serenity stared at the lone warrior in front of her.  'sailorsaturn, you have defied me and caused war that could have been avoided.  if you and the others had not fought in the first place i am sure that the lady beryl and i would have been able to work out an agreement!  because of your stupidity...'  serenity cut herself off and shook her head disgustly.  she pushed saturn aside and stode down the dias to where beryl was standing.  'i am sure that we can work something out, lady beryl.  if you would please tell me what you want then i am sure-'
	beryl smiled slowly, a dark cat smile.  'i'll show you.'  she raised her staff and ignoring saturn's cries, ran the queen through.  the staff expoded in dark energy, coursing over bright-lady.  serenity had time for one short startled scream before dissapering in a cloud of crystaline dust.  laughing, beryl turned to saturn.  'your queen is dead, your friends are gone, your home is ruined, and i have or will release every single demon that ever skulked, and every dark god that was ever shunned or worshiped!  you can't do a thing about it.  you don't know it yet, last of the senshi...but you are dead!  have you anything to say for yourself?'
	saturn looked at the woman who had killed the last queen of crystal tokyo dispassionatly before whispering a single phrase.  'Death Ribbon Revolution.'  and everything went white.


******


5:34AM

	Rubeus smiled at his 'charge' through the glass mirror, who was currently huddled away from him in an exhasted heap.  She had reason to be tired, to waste that much energy on a locator beam, and to go through such a, ah, _workout_ as he had put her through, was bound to make anyone a bit drained.  He couldn't help it though.  This child, this brat, this *rabbit* had made a fool out of him time and time again.  No matter how petty it was, he wanted a bit of pay back.  And if his revenge was in agreement with the job that he needed done, then so much the better!  
	He toyed with the glowing pink crystal in his hands.  It was long and thing, about the length of his hand and mulitfaustied.  It would have been a very interesting toy in itself, even though it was powered up with white energy instead of the black that he used.  It contained all the fear and pain and terror and hate that a seven year old heir to Crystal Tokyo could have.  And that's why he liked playing with it.  Such *fun*.
	Wiseman had told him that the crystal was fully charged a few minutes back.  Rubeus had been slightly dissapointed and had contimplated playing a bit more with the Rabbit, but the Wiseman had forbade it.  He wondered vaguely where the Beruche had gone off too.  She was the only one of them that was still loyal to him.  Not even Petz was, not anymore.  She had returned to Nemesis, returned to the Future.  Lucky bitch.  He would have loved to get out of this cesspool of a city, but it wasn't something that he had a choice in.  If the Prince didn't call, or if Wiseman hadn't told him that he could, then he wouldn't be able to go.
	One did not go against the orders of the Prince.  
	It just was not done.  
	Rubeus tossed the crystal from hand to hand while he waited for the Wiseman to come to a conclusion.  Wiseman would realise the crystal's energy at a very specific location, one which he had not yet shared, and would capture, and kill Sailormoon that way.  As for the other senshi?  They would make great playmates.  Senshi are more fun to play with then Princess'.  Unless, of course, they are both.  That would be even better.
	Wiseman was staring at the hologram map of the city.  It had been carefully decked out in varying shades of lights and greys, with several Crystal Points brighter then the others.  He reached out a skeletal finger and gently touched one of the darker areas, by the bay on the docks.
	"There, Rubeus.  Unleash the crystal there." 
	 Rubeus nodded and walked towards one of the many mirrors.  He hesitated a few steps away from entering.  "What do you want me to do with the kid?"
	He couldn't see the Wiseman's face, no one could.  It was hidden away in it's shadowed cloak.  He did, however, get the distinct impression that he was laughing silently, at a joke only he could comprehend.  
	"Leave her.  There is nothing that she can do, physically to escape, and the room that she is in is shielded.  I'll take care of her soon enough."  With that, Wiseman faded out, leaving Rubeus alone in room.
	Rubeus smiled brightly at that and stepped into the mirror.

******

5:21AM

	Rei closed her eyes and exhaled deeply.  "Demondo?"
	Mamoru turned half away from her.  "I need your help.  Usako won't listen to me...And he's trying to get her!"  He scowled slightly.
	"I don't doubt that she won't listen to you, not after the hell that you've been putting her through!"
	Mamoru sighed and hit his fist against one of the support beams of the temple.  "Do you think that I don't want to go back and change things?  It wasn't like avoiding Usako and pretending that I hate her was something that I enjoyed!  I would have done any-"
	"So why didn't you?"  Rei was furious at this.  This guy had gone from loving to hating and then, apparently, back again with no explainations at all, and what was more, _he__had__made__the__Princess__cry_!  She would listen to what he had to say, alright, but this was something that had to be explained first.
	"I *couldn't*."  Mamoru growled.  "I was warned off and told that if I was to go near her then she would die and that the entire planet would perish."
	Rei blinked.  That wasn't the sort of answer that she had been expecting.  "So, why now?  What changed your mind?"
	"I found out a few things..."
	"Like about this Demondo person?"
	He smirked. "Hai, like Demondo, as well as the fact that my dreams didn't actually mean anything.  They were just a bluff, a test of some kind.  They didn't have any power what so ever."
	Rei brushed a bit of loose hair behind an ear and checked her watch.  Time was going fast.  She had to have that Reading.  However...she was curious..."How did you find out about Demondo and Usagi, and about your dreams, though?"  She crossed her arms.  "This all seems rather sudden, Mamoru-san.  And how could this Demondo have been taking over Usagi-chan's mind when she's either been with us or her family or with people both she _and_ we trust?"
	Mamoru glared at her slightly before wilting.  "I, I can't tell you how I found out about the dreams or that that bastard was so close to Usako.  She made me promise not to tell anyone about her.  Said that you would find out soon enough yourselves."  Rei gave him a wry look.  "It's true!"  he snapped.  "And as for her being near those that she or you trust, she shouldn't have been!  Demondo took on a human form, he's been after her for weeks.  He's been _near_ her for weeks, and you, *we* didn't even know it!"
	"Who, Mamoru?"  Rei asked softly.
	"Myobishi Hitowa."
	She laughed.  Hino Rei actually laughed at that.  Mamoru flushed lightly.  "Hitowa-san?  Couldn't you have come up with someone better Mamoru-san?"
	His flush deepened.  "I know what your thinking, but I'm telling you, the guy is *evil*.  He's stealing Usako's mind and will away!  We have to stop him!"
	Rei shook her head lightly and brushed tears of mirth from her eyes.  "Honestly, Mamoru-san...If Hitowa-san was evil, then I would have noticed it before.  Don't you think that we watch Usagi-chan closer then that?  We scan everyone before we will trust them alone with her.  Mercury got him with her computer, not a trace of Dark Energy there.  And I used both my senses and did a Fire Reading on him to make sure.  Nothing.  Not a hint of evil."
	"Then he must be shielding!"
	Rei shook her head again.  "No one can shield that good, Mamoru-san.  He might be able to hide certain things, like, if he was a DF user, he would be able to hide that, but only if he hadn't used his powers, _any_ of them for months!  And as for the Flame, unless he had been able to do something Good, something major enough to block out all the negitive stuff that he had done before, then he would have show up bright as day.  And the only way for a 'Black Moon Leader-type Guy' to have redeemed himself would have been to, oh I don't know, save his arch-enemy from certain death and destruction and lose his own life in the process.  Something *major* Mamoru-san.  Not something that could be done all that easily.  And if you will excuse me, Chibi-usa *is* missing, her danger is certainly apparent, and Usagi is *not* in danger, or at least she won't be if I can't get to her in time with the knowlagde that this will bring.  If I don't get this to her, then she'll probably do something baka like use the Ginzuishou again to find the kid and then go and face Rubeus herself." With that she turned and headed into the Shrine.
	"Ma-matte, Rei-san!"  The retreating figure paid him no heed.  The door slide back behind her, leaving him alone in the chill early morning air.  "Shimatta..."
	'Well, that didn't go well...' Mamoru thought heading back through the Shrine's huge gardens.  'How could he have shielded that well?  And how could Rei have not noticed the way Demondo was?  Heh.  'The Flame didn't see anything...'  Damn thing must be broken.  That's all.  Or else he has all the senshi under his spell!'  Mamoru stopped at the top of the stairs.  "Oh, *shit*!"  With that he began the lengthly descent back to Tokyo.  Usagi might not believe him, hell, now he knew that the senshi wouldn't either, but he had to protect them.  He had thought that he would be able to get help, but even if that was denied, he wouldn't abandon his love to the clutches of that, that *monster*!  He would have all of them.  Mamoru shook his head slightly.  He should have know better then to ask a schoolgirl for help.  He would save all of them, by himself.  He would break the spell of evil that had surrounded all the senshi.  No matter what.


*****

5:38AM


	Rubeus stepped out onto air of the shipyard and tossed the crystal to him right hand.  It was time.  Smiling he threw it, *hard* down the forty feet to the cement below and quickly teleported away to one side.
	A beam of light, fully 10 metres in diameter shot up to the lightening sky.  With went all the pain and terror that a seven year old could possess.  All over the globe and beyond delicate scientific experiaments were disturbed, just like they had been once before, almost a full year previously when that odd light display above Greenland had taken place.  All over, even those with only the smallest hint of telepathic powers grabbed their heads and moaned.  The pink and violet stream of light went on and on, for a seeming eternity...

	Elsewhere, a woman looked up from her mirror and her plans for revenge.  Her *children* huddled in two groups, one of three and one of four, each group with it's own sex.  The fear of it nearly drove her back to sanity, but...She turned from it, shielding herself and her children from it, and went back to her work.  'Soon...' they cruned.  "Soon...You will be able to take your revenge soon..."

	Elsewhere, a twelve year old girl was able to take her mind back as her tormentor's control slipped.  Such pain...She struggled, but was soon shoved back into the darkness.  Even trapped with in her mind, however, she could hear her father's cursings as the daimon that he had been working on was destroyed.

	Elsewhere, farther and farther out, on another planet, a being made of golden light and the power of the galaxy paused from her work of reaping souls to listen to this new sound.  Painfearterrorpainfearterror... It interupted her at a most inopertune time, allowing her prey to escape.  Four bright stars left their world and began the journey to ours.  The being hmphed, and turned back.  'Things like that are why Silence is better...' it murmured.  'Silence allows you to work in peace and not be disturbed.  Silence for eternity!'  And a small corner of her mind shuddered away from both the thought and the sensation, hiding in itself again until the time came when one would let it free...

	It went on and on and on, crying and screaming and praying and dying and, and...
	And then it stopped.
	And everything was quiet.
	Except for the sounds of children sobbing.
	And the curses of scientists as they once more began to set their now-failed experiments up.
	And the sounds of four girls' feet running towards the docks.


*****

5:28AM

	Rei pressed her back lightly against the wall.  'Shimatta.  Mamoru's gone over the deep end.  No wonder Usagi-chan was crying when she came back to us.  And of all people to accuse too...But that doesn't matter know.  I've waited too long with this, delayed too long.  Time to get busy.'  
	After completing the nesscisary steps, Rei knelt in front of the flame and began to meditate.  Vaguely, she felt her head snap backwards as she lost herself with in a vision.
	
	WHERE	AM I?  she looked around herself, confused.  this was nothing like the sort of vision that she had ever had before, this was much more involved.  she was standing? sitting? floating?  in a great hall, crystalinne in it's beauty.  myraid images flew past her, none that she understood.  chibi-usa-chan, but she wasn't chibi, she was all grown up, and a woman looking susprisingly like the old queen serenity, only with hair tinged pink, and a beautiful odangoed woman standing and giving her a crown, endymion, she could tell that it was him, but much older, even though he didn't look a day past thirty.  was that usagi then?  could she ever grow up to look like _that_?  SHE HAS WINGS rei noted, awed.  the woman/lady/*queen* said something that rei couldn't catch, they weren't speaking in japanese, but in something completly different, something *musical*, something familier...THEY'RE TALKING IN THE OLD TONGUE!  they were speaking in the langugue of the silver millenium!  it was beautiful, but rei couldn't remember it...she couldn't understand the words, they skipped close, and then melted away, like a snowflake on her finger, teasing her with familiarity, but dancing away before memory could return...
	one word, snatched out in a langugue that she could understand.  'mesume...'
	rei watched as the queen said something else, and smiled at her, DAUGHTER?  IS THAT WHO CHIBI-USA-CHAN IS?  USAGI'S KID?, reached for endymions hand, and the two dissapeared.  rei wondered at that...why?  chibi-usa turned to the people, said something, and then she was skipped ahead.  
	something else, then too...she was standing in the room again, but it was covered with blood and BERYL?  WHAT'S THAT BITCH DOING HERE? said something, and chibi-usa replied, shoving a senshi cloaked girlwoman out of her way.  she was one that rei had never seen before...DOES THAT MEAN THAT THERE ARE MORE OF US?  WHO IS SHE THEN?  rei watched as the two spoke.  GET OUT OF THERE, CHIBI-USA!  YOU CAN'T HANDLE BERYL!  KUSU, *USAGI* ALMOST COULDN'T TAKE HER!  but it looked as though chibi-usa had no intentions of fighting...
	rei watched as the queen fell into a pile of dust, felt beryl's plessure, and then the storm of power that sweept through the palace, destroying everything, and moving on to the world in general, sweeping, killing, wiping the slate clean.  rei was thrown back, out of the vision into another, but the scent of death followed.  
	she would have been crying, if she was able to.  but astral forms have no bodies, and thus can't make tears fall.  rei wished very greatly at that moment that she had a body.  she wanted nothing more then to cry just then.
	dimly, rei noticed that there was no one there, this time.  she was alone in a deep blackness, but it wasn't one that she minded.  it was, *nice*.  very calm. she rather enjoyed it.  it was wonderful to have such peace after, well, what ever *that* had been.  rei pulled out of her misery long enough to scan the area with her mind, and discovered, to her susprise, that she wasn't the only one there after all.  confused, rei willed herself to go closer to that presence.  she could feel it, almost see it, no, not it, a her, almost see her, there she was!  a lone figure standing in the void, hands pressed to her face in an attempt to cry, much like rei had done moments before.  WHO, WHO ARE YOU?
	the woman looked at her susprised and then they both vanished.


*****


5:36AM

	Usagi twisted her fingers tighter into one of her long stands of hair, feeling it pull against her scalp, and welcoming the pain.  Pain meant that she was still actually alive, and could feel things.  She felt, *dead* inside, just then, and any sensation, pain or pleasure both was good just then.  It rememinded her that she was alive.  
	The twinges had stopped.  The twinges that she had felt, like when Chibi-usa had released a Beam, but much, milder.  Much milder, not the storm of fear that had tromped across her head like in the times before.  This were almost as though someone had pushed most of the energy aside, tried to hide it, but couldn't quite make it all disperce.  A bit of it still escaped, and that was what she felt.  
	And that frightened her.  Usagi bit her lip lightly and closed her eyes to the sounds of Mercury and Venus argueing.
	"I'm telling you Mercury, you just have to increase your range parabola!"
	"Venus...there is no such thing as a 'range parabola'."
	"Yes there is!  Here, let me show you!"
	"Venus, no, please, give me back my computer before-"
	"No, I'm telling you, Mercury, all you have to do is push this here, and type that there, and do this, and fiddle with that, ooo, what this on Urawa-san, Ami-chan? heheheh..."
	"*Venus*!  Give me that!"	
	"Nonono...I'm almost there...just hit this and voyolie!"
	"No, no, onegai, Venus, don't push that one!"
	"Nani, Mercury?  You say something?"
	An electronic fizzle.
	"Ahhh!  My *notes*!  Venus no baka, do you have any idea how long it took me to get those?!?"
	"Aheheheh...gomen nasia, Mercury..."
	"Go-gomen!  You delete my *entire* hard drive, and all you can say is *GOMEN*!?!"
	"ahehehehh...Here...you can have your computer back now..."
	"Arrrgghhhhhh!!!"

	Usagi sighed and opened her eyes again.  
	"Sailormoon?"  Mako.
	Usagi gave her tall friend a lopsided smile.  "Hai, Jupiter?"
	Makoto looked at her worriedly.  "Do you want to go get some rest?  No one will mind, you know.  You look like you need it."
	Usagi shook her head lightly and shoved her body off of the lamppost that she had leaned against for the past two hours.  "Iyee, Jupiter-chan, arigatou.  I'm fine, I really am."
	Mako gave her a worried look, but thankfully didn't press it any further.  "Wonder how much longer it will be before Rei gets back with that Reading..."
	"I don't know, but I hope it's soon."  Usagi sighed.  
	Mako grinned.  "Hai, me too...I don't think that we will be able to keep Ami-chan from killing Minako for too long!"
	Usagi laughed lightly at that.  She had too.  The normally calm and unchanging Ami was at the moment, chasing Minako around the street with her fried data computer.  It almost made her *feel* again.  "Hai...not too much longer."
	It was then that it hit.  Usagi cried out and grabbed her forehead, trying to block out the pain...She barely felt the ground rushing up to her, or the jolting sensation that acompanied it.  She coudln't hear the sounds of the others as they cried out in just the same manner.  
	painfearterrorpainhatefearterrorpainfearpainfearpainpainpainpainPAIN!!!!
	It tore at her, pulled at her, yanked her to her feet again and forced her to open her eyes and face it.  'Chibi-usa!'  
	The Moonbeam, bigger and brighter then she had ever seen it before screamed it's anguish to the sky above.  The psykic storm played havoc with her mind, crushing it with a thought, reforming it with another, battering her from one to another...
	And then it stopped.  It was over.  Usagi watched as the Beam finally dispersed into nothingness.  She colasped again the lamppole for support, breathing deep.  She *never* wanted to go through that again.  If that hadn't been hell, then she didn't know what was.  Only that it couldn't *possibly* be as bad as that had been.  Nothing could be that bad.  Not even what Mamoru had said.
	She blinked her eyes to clear them of the fog, and in a smallway actually felt grateful for the Beam.  At least it had snapped her out of her *nothingness* that she had been in before.  She could *feel* again, something that was rather important.  There was no longer the void between herself and the real world. 
	In her perifrial vision, Usagi could see the others staggering to their feet.  "What the *HELL* was that?"  Venus.
	"Chibi-usa." She almost whispered it.
	"So, do we go now?" Jupiter.
	"Hai.  We go."  Running.

*****

ETERNITY ONCEMORE

	She was standing by the Gate when it hit.  'Small Lady!'  *That* was cetainly not in the Timeline...Something had pushed it farther then she had thought.  But what?  Even with Demondo's precence, things wouldn't be that bad.  For a moment she feared for Small Lady's life, that sort of Beam could have been caused by...
	But no.  No.  Small Lady was fine, just, captured?  That wasn't susposed to be.  Small Lady was taken, yes, but not now, not when only two of the Sisters had defected.  And those, she realised frowning, were in the wrong order.  Petz she was fine with.  Petz had been the last one to choose to be healed after all.  But Beruche?  She should have been gone already?  What had happened?
	Pluto didn't know, but she also didn't like it.  'There's a tangle in the skien,' she thought.  'And it's getting worse with every second.'  Silently she cursed herself for her inattentivness.  She had been so wrapped up in worring about the Princess and Demondo that she had ignored the other things that she was in charge of.  During her lax moments, the Timeline had twisted itself off path.
	And she didn't have the slightest idea on how to fix it.
	She could send the Outers to go help, it was true, but if she did that, then too many important people would die because they would be too wrapped up in the Black Moon to stop the daimons.  Besides which, if they did join up with the Inners early, then they would not see Usagi as the Messiah, no matter what they did.  Instead of losing the world to the Black Moon, they would lose it to the Deathbusters.  That didn't work.
	She could go herself to aid them, but that wouldn't go well either, for the same reasons as before.  She felt the need to keep hidden even stronger then ever.  She was the wildcard, and no one, not even the senshi could know that she was there.
	What to do then?  She couldn't send Helios, he wouldn't have been able to escape then, and besides, the senshi would not be able to stand up to a Lemure.  Not yet.  And if he did escape, then the Circus would be loosed to wreak havoc.  And if Sailormoon had not yet gotten the Grail and the ability to power up, things would not go well.
	Anything she did would only make the situation worse.  She could only watch, and wait, like always.  
	Behind her, the Gate began to crumble and a new figure stepped through it.


*****


5:47AM

	They rounded the corner onto the docks with in minutes.  Usagi caught herself and shivered slightly.  The last time she had been here was when Venus had joined the team, the day before she had discovered that she was the Princess.  The day before Mamoru had been taken from her and brainwashed.
	But she didn't want to think of that just then.  Usagi scanned the area, looking for any trace of the child.  Chibi-usa was no where in sight.  
	"Hmph."  Venus said wryly.  "Brings back memories, then doesn't it?"
	Jupiter smiled tightly.  "I'll never forget the look on Zoicyte's and Kunzite's faces when you got him with your Cresent Beam."
	"It was a priceless moment, wasn't it then?"
	"Mercury," Usagi said, interupting their banter.  "Any sign of Chibi-usa?"
	Mercury shook her data computer.  "I can't search because *someone*" she said glaring at Minako who huddled behind Jupiter, "deleted the 'search and find' program."
	"What about your VR visor?"
	Mercury sucked in a breath and let it out again.  "I could try it, but that's only attuned for certain things, like identifing people.  That and locating energy sources."  She grinned sardonicly.  "And I don't think that we need a computer to tell up that a large source of energy was realised here.  Look."  she said pointing to a blackened circle burnt onto the ground.  
	Usagi walked closer to it.  She could *feel* her charges pain, still there, scarred into the land.  She stopped at the edge of the circle, feeling *something*, but she wasn't quite sure what.  It was _wrong_ though...
	"What's that?" Jupiter asked gesturing at a small pile of broken glass in the center of the circle.  
	Venus frowned.  "I don't know, but I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this."  She strood through the burnt area and to the center.  "Minna, come look at this!"  Usagi wrapped her arms around her sides, the feeling getting stronger.
	Jupiter shoved past her, striding long legs to reach Venus at the center.  "What is it?"
	"I don't know...hey Mercury!"  Venus called, "Come look at this!"
	Mercury walked up to Usagi, and then past her.  'No!'  Usagi grabbed her wrist. "No, Mercury, don't go in there!  Minna, come back out!"
	Mercury gently removed Usagi's hand and smiled.  "It's okay, Sailormoon.  All that you feel is the reminates of the Beam.  Nothing more."  She walked towards the others.
	'Nononononononono!'
	Everything seemed to slow down then.  Usagi saw Mercury reaching down to pick up a piece of glass, felt her own voice screaming, her scintific friend say, "Why, it's not glass at all...It's a piece of crystal..."
	And then light.  Blindingly black red light that knocked her away into the crates behind her, where she could see perfectly the light swallowing her senshi, and hear their sudden screams.  The light formed into a ball and floated up, up off of the ground, dissapearing into nothing, a pinprick of darkness against a gray sky.  Then it was gone.
	"Nooooo!!!"  Usagi pushed herself out of the boxes and ran towards the black circle.  They were gone, the crystal pieces were gone, everything was gone...Usagi threw herself to the ground where they had been, and prayed and wished and hoped that the light would come again to take her to them.
	But it didn't.
	Usagi began to cry softly, pulling her legs up underneith her, tears falling down to drench her skirt and legs.  She had wept like this before, once.  Back in Greenland when they had been taken before.  But not to, where ever they had been taken.  They were still alive this time.  Then they had died.  
	Usagi couldn't really see the difference just then.  The senshi were gone, Chibi-usa had been taken, Mamoru was blaming Hitowa for everything and claiming that he was the leader of the Black Moon, and Hitowa, he, he...he was at his home.  He didn't even know that anything had happened.  He didn't know.  He was like the rest of the world, unknowly going about their lives, not knowing or caring about the teenager who had to give up her childhood to save all of them.  At that moment, more then any other, Usagi wished that she was one of them.  'Let someone else do it...please...' Expect that there was no one else.  She was the only one left.
	No one knew where she was then.  Her parents didn't.  Luna had run off with Artemus to do *something*, probably to find Chibi-usa on their own, and she was stuck here, all alone...Usagi *hated* being alone.
	But at least it wasn't cold this time.
	"Aww....Poor little girl left all alone?  Does she want her friends back?"  Laughter.  Usagi knew that laugh.  
	Wiping the tears from her face, Usagi stood.  "Give them back to me, you bastard!"  she hollared up to the red haired man floating above.
	"'Fraid I can't do that, not even for you." Rubeus sneered.
	Usagi felt her cutie moon rod materialise in her hand, even without her calling.  "You don't want to mess with me right now Rubeus.  I've just had the *worst* 24 hours imaginable, and I'm not above using you as a punching bag to work out my problems!"
	"Pretty words from the pretty senshi.  How quaint."
	"I'm warning you, Rubeus..."
	He just smiled inanly and began to toss his bright pink spheres from one hand to the other, feeling them grow more powerful with each passing second. Wiseman wanted her, but he hadn't said in what condition she needed to be in.  And with the extra bit of DF that Wiseman had given him, he was sure that this fight wouldn't be difficult at all.
	Usagi dodged nimbly as Rubeus send the first of him energy bombs raining down on her.  'Cheater, not giving anyone a chance, your supposed to *anounce* it when you're going to launch off an attack!'  However, if *he* wasn't going too, Usagi saw no reason to allow him the curtitsy that he had denied her.  'Bastard has enough of a bonus, being up in the air like that...Okay, first things first, get him on the ground.'
	Usagi leapt into the air, pushing with her legs to get the highest height possible.  She smiled grimly seeing Rubeus shocked expression was she first reached his height, and then surpassed it.  'Might be nice to have wings someday...'  Usagi weilded her rod, and a burst of tiny cresent moons shot towards the red haired man.   He was so locked in his susprise that he didn't notice the storm heading him way.
	Rubeus hit the ground hard, burnt in several places from the Light energy attack.  Usagi landed gently, tucking her feet underneith her, and then leaping again immediatly.  The crate she had landed on dissapeared in a storm of pink light.  Usagi let off another attack, this time, a thin single laser of pure Lunar energy slicing through everything that was in it's path.
	It neared Rubeus, but he merely laughed.  Usagi watched him confused, why wasn't he moving?  She got her answer in the next moment.  Instead of moving, he pulled out a thin, dark green strobe, and *blocked* the beam.  He used the rod to knock the attack away, away from himself, and over towards town.  Usagi watched helplessly as the beam struck a building and demolished it to dust.  'No...' There had been *people* in that building.  People who were now dead because of her underestimating him.  
	Usagi watched the dust fall, mouth slightly agape.  Tears watered in her eyes, and she blinked hard to clear them.  Crying wouldn't help.  Not now.  Cry later.
	She turned back to Rubeus just in time to see him send a blast of DF her way.  Usagi didn't have time to react, it was moving too fast.  It was going to hit her, and she didn't care.  
	She didn't, but apparently someone else did.
	'No!!!'  The thought rushed through her mind, but it wasn't her own.  The blast came with in a foot of her when it hit a waving silver shield, of a kind that she had never seen before.  The attack hit it, and disapated with out leaving a trace.  The presence in her mind winked out, but only after leaving an almost *familier* sence of love and support.  'Who?'
	No time then.  Rubeus looked very shaken up at this latest turn of events, however.  She heard him whisper a single word before he screamed and turned to dust.  "Demondo-sama?"
	Usagi stared at the spot where her enemy for the past several weeks had dissapired.  The dust, a light pink crystaline dust, fell away, scattered by the wind.  'What happened?'  Usagi wondered.  Was it over then?  Was it finally over?  'Yaataa.'  She thought.  'Yaataa.'  Only, she didn't.  She hadn't done it at all.  It had been the other who had, the one who had saved her.  He had destroyed Rubeus, but how, she wasn't certain of.
	Usagi slowly walked out of the docks, deliberatly not looking at the destroyed building.  She detransformed after reaching a handy alley way, thinking hard.  
	The presence that had saved her had been familier.  Too familier.  It had been male, and loving, and supportive, and kind, and protective.  And she knew where it had come from.
	The prescence in her mind had been Myobishi Hitowa.  Usagi sat down at a bus bench and slumped.  'Hitowa...who are you?'  Was he like Mamoru had said?  The leader of the Black Moon?  But he had saved her...
	The bus came.  Usagi boarded it, and gave the man some of her carefully hoarded yen before moving to find a seat.  Usagi pulled out from a pocket a thin buisness card.  She glanced at the paper that Hitowa had given her, so long ago, with his phone number and address on it.
	She had more questions now than ever before.  And she wanted some answers.  It was time to face the lion in it's den.


*****

5:35AM

	I stood by my window, watching the city go by.  It had been such an unusual night, I hadn't been able to sleep at all.  I kept *sensing* things, small bits of pain that came every now and again.  They were very light, but they prevented my slumber.
	Those tiny sensations, and the feeling of pentup energy over the city worried me.  I could *feel* it building, and roiling, in such a way as I hadn't felt since before my death.
	It was strange.
	I didn't like it.
	So I didn't sleep.  I instead watched the city.  
	It happened a few minutes later.  It was the very soul of terror incarnet, crying and needing, lost in it's misery and afraid of itself.  
	And it was Lunarian.  I sensed that immediatly.  Instinctivly, my mind reached out for Usa, but she was fine, in pain from the sudden psykic attack, perhaps, but at least it wasn't coming from her.  
	'Who then?'
	Usagi answered my question with out even realising it.  'Chibi-usa.'
	Small Lady.  Wiseman must have Small Lady.  But what was he doing?  He hadn't done this in _my_ Time.  There had been nothing like this.  The agony went on and on, leaving me reeling in it's wake.  
	It stopped suddenly, as quickly and abruptly as it had begun.  However, I didn't notice it at first.  The aftereffects of it left me unaware.  I didn't notice or care about anything for several long moments.
	It was sometime in there that I noticed that I was still connected with Usa.  She was transformed, I noticed, a detail that I hadn't picked up on before, and she was tired.  And upset at something, but it was something that she had locked down.  She had put it away, and I wasn't about to reopen it.   
	I was connected to her all the way to the docks, and saw before she did the black circle on the ground.  That didn't worry me.  What did was the small pile of shattered crystal laying in the center.  'Trap!'
	I don't know if she heard me, but her whole manner changed.  She didn't go near it, even though the other senshi, (all but one I noticed, where was Mars?) walked right in to it.  Usa stayed on the outside, calling for them to come back when Mercury picked up the piece of quartz.
	I could feel Usa-chan's horror rising as the senshi disapeared.  She cried, and I wantd nothing more then to comfurt her, but before I could do anything, her attention was called away.  I did catch a glimpse of thought, though.  'Mamoru blaming Hitowa for everything and claiming that he was the leader of the Black Moon...'  She knew.  She might not believe just yet, but she knew.
	Shimatta.
	I am not Demondo anymore.  I have become a mixture of two, of both him and Hitowa, but I doubted that Chiba would have seen it that way.  How he found out, I was not certain, but it didn't matter.  She knew, and would have to be told the truth.
	It was a job that I did not relish to say the least.
	'Usa-chan...'
	She was fighting then, *Rubeus*?  With the *strobe*?  How had he gotten ahold of that?  That was the toy that the Wiseman had given Petz, not Rubeus...
	Something was wrong.  Usa's attack flew at him, and he knocked it away, into a building which vanished into a sea of dust and debres.
	I could feel her shock at this, her horror, and self-loathing for the unnessiscary loss of life.  Across the way I could fel Rubeus' glee at it as he readied the strobe again.  Usagi wasn't moving.  I nudged her gently, getting her to turn, to see what Rubeus was doing, but...She didn't care.  She didn't care what happened.  'Shimatta!'  Rubeus sent off a stream of Dark power and it raced towards her.  She didn't move, merely watched it come with a dispatched sense of regret.  
	So I interviened.  I didn't even hear myself scream.  The only thought on my mind was that *no* body trys to kill *my* love. I shielded her first, protecting her from the blast.  I might have lost most of my abilities when Demondo died, but I had gained new ones from Hitowa.  And one of those was how to shield an energy attack.  Even from a distance.  The beam hit my shield and vanished.  
	Then came Rubeus.  It was automatic, something that I didn't think about at all.  I simply reached into his mind, and destroyed it.
	He knew who I was, or rather, had been.  He recognised the power and shut himself down before I could.  I shied away from his mind before it died, not wanting to be dragged down with it.  
	I found myself back in Usa-chan, watching as she watched the man who had at one time been an underling of mine self-destruct.  She seemed rather shakey, so I sent her all the support that I could before closing the link.  
	Coming back to myself, I realised with some susprise that I was on the floor and that several minutes had passed.  I wasn't sure of what to do, should I offer to help Usa?  How could I not?  The senshi had been taken, and Small Lady was in danger.  She was out of allies, and she would need them.
	And yet...She had been told, it was true.  However, she didn't *know*.  Not for certain.  Offering my help might only anger her, for while I was sure that the Demondo of this Time had no idea of what was going on in the past, she would think that he was pulling the strings on everything. 
	Just as she, hell, just as *I* had thought last time.  I hadn't realised until too late what was going on with the Wiseman Karaktha nor with my own men.  I had been lost in Control, a form of mind hypnosis that carefully causes the mind to see things in only one way, and causes it to ignore the obvious with other things.  
	I had no doubt that the Wiseman was carefully controlling that Demondo just the same as I had been.  It was only Saphirr and Usa herself who had been able to snap me out of it before.  I wasn't sure if Saphirr was still alive anymore.  
	Everything was messed up, as though there had been a beautiful picture perfect painting, made just *so*, by an artist more talented then every seen before, who had left his work unguarded for a few moments.  And in those few moments a child had wandered in and fingerpainted all of the ink every which way, changing a glorious vision of reds and golds and blues into a dull brown green muck.  
	'What has happened?'  I didn't want to find out.  I just wanted it to be as it should.  And it was because of that, I realised sadly, that I would have to offer my services to Usagi.  
	I had to help mend this, had to help sort of the right from the wrong from the perhaps.  It had to be perfect again.  No matter what the cost.
	Even if that cost was Usagi's love.

*****

6:24AM

	Usagi stood unsteadly in fornt of Hitowa's villa.  It was very nice, she noted, white, in a european style.  'I must cost a fortune to own.  All that land, and right out side of Tokyo, too...'
	There was no helping it.  Usagi walked up to the door and rang the bell.  It chimed softly, and she figited, wondering if she had come too early.  
	Usagi waited, the chill morning air pressing in to her on all sides, one of the only things keeping her awake.  That and the adreniline flowing through her system.  She was so tired...
	The door opened and she was susprised to see that Hitowa himself had come, not a servent.  As though guessing her thought, Hitowa gave her a lopsided grin and said, "Expecting a butler?  Gomen Usa-chan, I don't have any servents.  The house alone is expencive enough."
	Usagi smiled wanly at him. He looked as tired as she felt, his silver blond hair falling into his eyes as he gestured her past him.  He didn't even bother to sweep them away, just tossed his head to clear his vision.  
	Usagi stepped inside, studing the hallway.  It was nice, with hardwood flooring and a dark cherry wood table cheerily holding a bouquet of white roses.  'Wonder if he's been doing research on tsukage no knight.'
	There was a painting on one wall, one that reminded Usagi of, of, *something*, but she wasn't sure what.  It was of a small family standing in front in a meadow with a beautiful crystaline city, all in whites and blues, in the background.  Usagi descided that she rather liked it.
	She noticed then, with dark amusement that she was still wearing her golden dress from the night before.  She reached a hand up to one odango and pulled away one of the small red flowers that she had so carefully wrethed around it when she had been getting ready.  She hadn't had time to change before going to the Shrine.  She had had to go as she was.  And now she felt like a poser, all dressed up with no where to go.
	She bowed her head slightly, twiddling the flower in her fingers.  "Usa-chan?  Would you like something to drink?"
	Usagi smiled at him.  Dark Lord or not, Hitowa was always kind.  Unlike others... "I would love something, thank you."  
	"Tea or cocca?"
	"Tea please."  She expected him to mention something about her passing up chocalate, but thankfully he merely nodded and walked down the hall. 
	He turnd back and smiled at her.  "Come this way.  You can wait in here while I get the water started." 
	Usagi nodded and followed him into a breakfast room.  It was small, and furnished in a royal marroon shade.  He gestured to a chair and she sat down thankfully.  How many hours had it been since sitting had been a voluntary act?  Too many.
	Hitowa moved out of the room and into another door, leaving it open so that she could see the signs of a bright chrome kitchen, with a large stove and skylights.  'Very nice.'  She hadn't been in the house before.  It had only been completed, with furnishing a few days back.  That was why they had gone to dinner...to celebrate... 'Kama-sama, it seems like so long ago...'
	She waited, trying not to fall asleep and listening to the sounds of Hitowa getting the tea ready.
	There was a sudden shrill scream as the water boiled, which was silenced quickly.  Hitowa emerged, carrying the tea set and a small bowl of odangos.
	Usagi stood and took the bowl.  "Arigatou," he murmured. "Too dark in here, let's going into the living room."  He looked at her.  "Do you mind?  It's only a short way, but  you look as though you are about to fall over."
	Usagi felt her lips quirk.  "No offence, but you look about the same." 
	He haughed, a short sardonic laugh.  "My dear, you never fall to amaze me.  Come on, it's right in here."
	He moved to yet another room, but this time Usagi didn't take stock of her surrounds past that it was better lighted then the one before.  Hitowa set the tea set down on a table between two chairs and sank down into one of them.  Usagi set the bowl next to it and took the other chair, squinting slightly against the bright early morning light that shone in through the large bay window next to them.  
	Hitowa looked at her sadly.  "What was it that you wanted to talk to me about, Usa-chan?"
	"I-" Usagi bowed her head again.  It all seemed so silly, here in the morning.  She shouldn't go around asking people if they were the leaders of Earth's enemies...And besides which, if he wasn't, then he would know that she was Sailormoon.  There was no way of asking him without his finding out who she was.  That was impossible.  Hitowa said nothing.  "I wanted to ask you," she began again, trying to make some sense out of her thoughts.  "if you knew anything of the attacks that there have been on Tokyo lately."  There.  That wasn't so bad.
	Hitowa sighed and rubbed a hand across his brow.  "You want to know if I know about the Black Moon Family."	She must have looked more susprised then she thought that she did because he smiled at her expression. "I know more about them then I would wish to.  More about them then even you do, Usagi."
	"You do?  How do you know of them?"
	Hitowa didn't look at her.  "I was once, or rather, one part of me was once a part of them."
	Usagi drew back in her chair.  This wasn't at all like she thought it to be.  'Not Hitowa too...'  Everyone else was either gone or changed.  She had hoped...Usagi closed her eyes.
	"Once?  So you aren't anymore?"
	"No.  Not anymore."
	"Then you know about me?" 'Please, please, let Mamoru have been lying...'
	"Yes."
	"All of it?"
	"I don't know."
	Usagi looked up at him.  He was staring down at his hands, looking rather miserable.  "What do you know then?"
	"I know that you are Sailormoon, the one time Princess of the Moon, and leader of the Sailorsenshi.  I know that you are Tsukino Usagi, a fifteen year old girl, no matter how many times your parents say that you are only fourteen.  I know that you are the most wonderful being I have ever known.  Is that enough?"
	Usagi closed her eyes again, this time to stop tears.  "More then enough.  Mamoru, do you know about him?"
	"Iyee.  Only that he made you cry."
	Usagi bit her lip.  "If I told you that he was Endymion, what would you say?"
	"I would say that that makes sense."
	"Who *are* you, Myobishi Hitowa?"
	He looked at her with sad, sad eyes.  "I am myself.  No one else."
	"Mamoru said that you were called Demondo, and leader of the Black Moon."
	He sighed and poured them both some tea.  "In some ways he is correct.  But in others, he was greatly mistaken.  Let me ask you this Usagi;  What do you know of reincarnation?"
	"More then I would like to."
	"Figured.  Anyway, did you know that reincarnation can move backwards as well as forwards?  That a soul can be sent to the Future, it's true, but it can also be sent into the Past?  It works both ways.  It's just that one can remember prior incarnations much easier then future ones."
	"What does all this have to do with you being the leader of the Black Moon?"
	"I'm getting to that.  Usa...Demondo was the leader of the Nemesis strike team, also known as the Black Moon.  He, with the Wiseman Karaktha's aid, attacked Crystal Tokyo, of your Future."
	"Crystal Tokyo...that's where-"
	"Hai.  That's where Small Lady is from.  You call her-"
	"Chibi-usa."
	He nodded and sipped at his tea.  Hitowa made a face and blew on it for a moment to cool it before trying it again.  "He ordered, under the Wiseman's influence, that Small Lady be found and brought back.  With Small Lady, he could defeat Crystal Tokyo, and bring his people to Earth."
	"They weren't from there?"
	"Originally they were.  But they had fled or been banished centuries before the attack to the tenth planet, Nemesis."
	"Oh."  Usagi frowned, trying to assimulate this new knowladge of the Future.  "Why were they banished?"
	"I don't know.  All that I do know is that I, that *Demondo* was born to a world without sunlight.  Nemesis is a world so far from away that the sun only appears as a particuarly bright star.  Nothing grows there, the settlers had to make do with their own canabalised ships and what remained of the original inhabitants from the Silver Millenium.  They lived for centuries, and the only way that they even remembered Earth at all was in the legends of the Only Home, a fertile paradise where the sun shone brightly and things were *warm*."  
	"What happened?"
	"Demondo's father was the leader of the most promenant faction of the people on Nemesis.  It was during his rule that the Wiseman first appeared, telling him about Only Home, and that it was ripe for the taking.  He spoke of the evil" here his lips quirked and he half smiled, "emperess, who had first banished them so many generations ago and how she still ruled with an iron fist.  How we should liberate Only Home, Earth from her."
	"Who was she?"  Usagi watched him with wide eyes.  This was nothing like she had expected Earth's history to be like.  Nor had she expected the Black Moon to have come from, well, form *that*. 
	"She was you." 
	"Nani?!?"  'What the *hell*?!?'  "Me?  An emperess?  No way!"
	Hitowa laughed lightly.  "Neo-Queen Serenity of Crystal Tokyo.  Your Future self.  But don't worry.  She is nothing like the legends, or the Wiseman, for that matter, made her out to be.  No," and here he smiled for real, his eyes on something much farther away then Usagi.  "she was much different.  I met her, you see.  But only once.  The rest of what I learned about her came from a much different source.  I learned about her, about *your* history, Usa, from the Wiseman and the things that my brother had been able to dig up."
	"Brother?"
	"Saphirr.  But I will talk about him soon enough.  It was from them that I learned about the Silver Millenium and some of the things that Sailormoon acomplished.  I, I fell in love with her.  She was the most beautiful, most couragous *being* that I had ever met. She was wonderful."  He looked at her.  "She was you."
	

*****

6:59AM


	Wiseman Karaktha replayed the battle between Rubeus and Sailormoon in his orb.  There was no possible way that she could have won, not like that.  She had merely stood there.  Something must of interfered.  And then there was the matter of Rubeus recognising *something*, though he wasn't sure what.  Something to do with Demondo.  
	But that was absurd.  The leader of the Nemesis strike force was in the thirtith century still, drinking his wine and dreaming of the day when the Neo-Queen would be his.  There was no way that he could be here and now.  Karaktha would have felt his arrival.  The Black Moon Prince wouldn't have been able to hide his presence.  Not that well.  Then who?  
	It was something important, to be sure, *however*, there was more to be done just then.  He had to find the Princess again.  Rubeus had let her escape with his death.  Karaktha was not pleased.  He was also not pleased that Rubeus had tried to kill her himself.  Karaktha had *specifically* told him that he wanted her alive.  
	He wanted to kill her himself.  By himself.
	So it was just as well that Rubeus had died.  It saved Karaktha the trouble of doing it himself.  He looked over to where the Rabbit's still form lay silently.  "Don't worry, child...Your mother will be here soon enough, and I'll take care of her.  You've got a wonderful destiny ahead of you.  You're going to be Queen, my own little Black Lady...How do you feel about that?"
	SmallLady only moaned and pulled herself into a tighter ball.  Karaktha smiled.  It was going to be a lovely day.  But first...he had to call the Princess.  It was past time for things to be underway.


*****

6:46AM

	I watched Usa as she took in all of this.  She had certainly took it a good deal better then I thought that she would, but I knew that the worst was yet to come.  How could I tell her that I had kidnapped her twice?  I could remember thinking about it not to long back, and not being ashamed at all.  Just then, however, my view of things were a good deal different.  I wasn't all Demondo after all.  And while Demondo would certainly not have felt shame, only slight regret, Hitowa certainly would.
	It was true, all of what I said, as well as I knew it.  Admittingly, I didn't know all that much.  I told Usa-chan what I did know of Demondo's past, however.  I told her that as soon as my younger brother had been born, the Wiseman had killed my parents.  I told her about my childhood, what I remembered, the details were rather confused.  I told her of learning about the Only Home, and of it's queen and her warriors.  I told her about the original attack.  I told Usa about Small Lady escaping to the past, and about the attempts of the Black Moon to capture her.  
	I did not tell her about my Time.  It didn't exist anymore, not if I was the one caused Rubeus' death and not Esmerude.  Not if the Wiseman had done, well, whatever that was to the Small Lady.  That hadn't happened my Time.
	I merely told her that I had in turn been killed by the Wiseman when my usefulness ran out, just like my brother and Esmerude before me.  I said nothing about taking her, nor about dying for her.
	And then I spoke of Hitowa himself.  I told her what I knew or remembered from his youth.  I told her about one of his earliest memories, when his mother had born a stillborn son.  His younger brother.  I told her about how his mother had been old money, and his father a banker, which was how I had my inheritance.  I spoke of a lot of things, of living in England and seeing SailorV, which Usagi seemed to get a kick out of. 
	I told her about waking up that morning in the hotel, and being myself, but not myself, and how the two different people had become the being that I was then.
	"So you're *not* Demondo?"  she had asked, brows furrowed a bit.
	"Well, yes and no.  Let's just say that I am a person who knows what they are going to do in the future.  I have Demondo's memories, or most of them anyway, and some of his powers, but they are nothing like they seem to be in his memories.  I even have aspects of his personality.  But I am not Demondo."
	"So you are Hitowa."
	"Nope, not him either.  I'm both."
	"Oh.  So now what?"
	"I don't know.  What do you need?"
	Usagi sank back into herself then.  "The senshi were taken.  I have to get them back."  I nodded at this.  It was nothing that I didn't know, but that didn't matter.  "And I have to get Chibi-usa.  Did you know about her?  About her being taken I mean."
	I grinned at that.  "Usa-chan, no telepath on this *planet* didn't notice that display of hers.  And it's not too hard to figure out why she would have made a Beam.  So yes, I knew that she was taken."
	"Oh."  She sat, hands folded in her lap.  Poor Usa.  She didn't deserve this.  "I came to ask," she said softly, looking up from underneith her lashes at me, "if you would help me to save the others.  I don't have anyone else to turn to..."
	I breathed a sigh of relief. Usagi is a wonderful being in that way.  She will accept you, forgive you, love you, even if you don't deserve it.  How could I say no?  I had agreed even before she had walked in the door.  "Hai, Usagi-hime.  I will help you."
	She made a face.  "Don't call me that.  It's bad enough when the Senshi get on my case about it.  I don't want you to as well."
	"Gomen then Usa-chan."  I smiled.
	"Much better."  She looked at me wryly.  "Out of curiousity Hitowa-san...how old are you?"
	*That* susprised me.  "Demondo was around twenty-seven when he died.  I'm twenty-three this winter."
	"Oh.  So what now?"
	I shrugged my shoulders.  "Sleep I guess.  It wouldn't do to face the Wiseman on catnaps, or in your case, no sleep at all."
	She stifled a yawn.  "I suppose that would work.  I want to get the others though...who knows what's happening to them out there.  I want to save them more then I want to sleep!  But," she said reluctantly.  "I see your point.  Can you get me there?  To Rubeus' hideout I mean.  It's the only place that I can think of for where he would have taken the others."
	I thought about it.  "I could tell you where it is, probably.  It's a mobile airship that flies around above Tokyo.  I don't think that it would be too hard to locate it.  But I couldn't get you there. I can't teleport.  Not anymore."
	"Hmmm. So we go when?  At noon?"
	I checked my watch.  That would give us a good five hours of rest.  "Sounds good."  I stood, ready to show Usagi where she could rest when, quite literally, the house exploded.
	Wood splinters flew everywhere.  Glass showered the air.  Probably the only reason that Usagi and I survived with as few injuies as we did was because we were next to a rather handy window that we were able to crash through.  From the relitive safety of my backyard I watched as first the attic fell on the second story, then as both of them caved into the ground floor, leaving nothing but a pile of boards and shards of glass.
	"SHIMATTA!  I just finished making the damn thing!" 
	"Ah...Hitowa..."  Usagi pulled on my sleeve slightly, drawing my attention away from my now demolished home.  "Who's that?"
She pointed to a figure, cloaked in Darkness, watching us.  The newcomers hands were skeletal as he passed them back and forth over his orb.  It was someone that I recognised immediatly.
	"Wiseman."



end chapter five







**************
AUTHOR'S NOTES
**************

	Konban wa minna!  I didn't have this out *too* late did I?  It's only been around a month or so...And I thought that it would be next year.  Speaking of the new year, I might be able to finish this whole story for then, whadda you say?  It's just possible, but I might hack it.  
	And if I miss the deadline, then hey, it won't be anything unusual. 
	However, with exams looming week after next....Well...I suppose that *anything* is possible.
	This is the second to last chapter.  Chapter Six:Truth Reveiled will have the conclusion of my epic tale of Usa-chan, Hitowa, and Mamoru.  Next time we'll find out just what Rei was doing in Setsuna-chan's vision, and who that was who came out behind Sailorpluto.  Also, we'll find out just what would have been so *bad* of Ginzai ruled, and how she fits into all of this.  And hey, we'll even bring back old favorites such as Esmerude and Saphirr, and find out if Wiseman can get away with his big brainwashing scheme.
	Speaking of which, if you are confused about the 'Wiseman Karaktha' thing, I'll explain it.  You see, I tend to work bits and pieces of my other stories into my new ones.  Case in point, Chibi-usa was crowned Queen Serenity the Tenth of the Moon.  I got that from Faerie Queene, my loooong neglected work about the Silver Millenuim and the Queens before the two we find out about in the anime, in which the Neo-Queen was Serenity the Ninth, and her mother Serenity the Eighth.  
	Karaktha, to let you know, is from the realm *above* the Black Moon.  Just as Usagi is of the Light Moon, Karaktha is of the Dark Moon.  Opposites, ya know.  The Black Moon isn't to be confused with the Dark Moon, BTW.  The Dark Moon are the ones holding up the Black Moon.  The Black Moon is Demondo and Rubeus and the Weird Sisters and all them.  The Dark Moon is something else all together.  And if you ask me if I'm doing a fic about the Dark Moon, then I'll not tell you anything.  
	Only maybe.
	Anyways, I'll explain all that in further detail if emailed. As always, comments and constructive critisms are welcome.
	
C'est tout!
dremdancer
November 14, 1998