"So they're my kids. Mine and Nephrite's. I still can't believe it." Naru and Usagi were eating ice cream cones as they walked to Naru's place after their classes the next day.

"I knew right away," Usagi said. "As soon as I saw them. I wanted to tell you, but I knew you wouldn't have any idea what I was talking about. I had to wait until you remembered. Was it bad, remembering?"

"At first." Naru licked her ice cream, considering. "Yeah, at first it was pretty bad. But it was only a few minutes later that Meiko and Mitsu told me who they are and I found out that Nephrite and I will be together again someday. I just don't understand how."

"I think it's the Silver Crystal. An important crystal that belongs to me," Usagi explained in response to Naru's questioning look. "I've died a few times, since I've been Sailor Moon -"

"You what?" Naru demanded.

"Look, it's nothing to worry about. I've died a couple of times, and so has Mamoru, and the other Senshi. It's no big deal, not anymore. I think the Silver Crystal brings us back to life because we still have work to do. I bet it'll be the same thing with the Dark Kingdom Lords. I mean the Guardians. If they're needed in the future, the Silver Crystal will bring them back somehow."

"As easily as - just like that?" Naru snapped her fingers, then caught a drip from her ice cream with her tongue.

"Well, maybe not quite that easily, but it can be done."

"Huh." Naru laughed a bit, though tears suddenly burned at her eyes. "I guess I don't have to go to the Amazon with Umino after all, do I."

"Naru, you hate bugs and you hate camping. It wouldn't be worth it, especially not for a guy you'd be happy to just be friends with. I thought you were crazy for even thinking about going in the first place. It doesn't have anything to do with Nephrite."

"I know. I was just so afraid of being lonely for the rest of my life."

Usagi hugged Naru around the shoulders, and worked on her ice cream for a bit. "What about the other kids? Did they tell you anything? I've got my guesses who they are, but I want you to tell me."

"Well, Toshiro, the other little boy, told me his parents are Lord Guardian Jadeite and Minako, Sailor Venus." Naru smiled, remembering Toshiro's pride as he informed her that he was the son of a Guardian and a Senshi.

"Hah! I thought so." Usagi smiled smugly. "I don't know if you remember, Jadeite was that blond guy, the one who worked at Rei's shrine for a while, and who also had that gym where all the weird things happened."

"Yeah, I remember. And Sailor Venus... That's your friend, Aino Minako, right?" Naru asked, thinking of her mother's observation.

"That's right. I can't wait to see everyone's faces when I tell them Mina's going to marry Jadeite.... Better not, though. When you're messing around with time, you have to be very careful. If you say or do the wrong thing, it could really mess things up. I'd better check with Pluto first."

"Pluto, the Disney dog?" Naru asked, grinning.

"Duh, I mean Sailor Pluto. The Guardian of Time. You'll probably be meeting her - I think you're going to have to meet all the Senshi. If the kids were sent to you, that means you're going to be right in the middle of whatever's happening, and not just as a handy energy source for the bad guys, either. So, what about the older girl?"

"Jasmine? That part's weird. She has two fathers, the Lord Guardians Kunzite and Zoisite. I guess in the future they can make a test-tube baby with two sperm, then a professional surrogate mother carries the baby until it's ready. It costs... some unbelievable amount of money. Two hundred and sixty thousand Crystal Yen. A Crystal Yen is about a hundred and fifty of our regular yen, Jasmine said."

Usagi whistled softly. "They must have really wanted her. It's hard to picture them with a kid, though. You know," she said more seriously, "Zoisite is the one that, you know, had Nephrite killed."

"I know. Jasmine looks a lot like... him."

"Are you okay with that?"

Naru shrugged. "I guess. I mean, it didn't have anything to do with her. She wasn't even born yet. And I guess after the Guardians come back, they won't be evil any more, and everything will be okay. So it doesn't bother me. Or at least, I try not to let it bother me." She finished off her cone and licked her fingers.

Usagi popped the end of her cone into her mouth and crunched on it thoughtfully. "Did they tell you why they were sent here?"

"No. By that time we were all really tired. Besides, I thought it would be better if they told you at the same time they told me, since I wouldn't understand it anyway."

"You're right," Usagi said. "I'm way behind on my homework, but I think we'd better have a special meeting of the Senshi tonight. Seven-thirty at the Hikawa Shrine okay? With the kids?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Okay. I'll set it up with the other Senshi, and let you know for sure that we're meeting."

The two girls walked in silence for a little way. As they approached the OSA*P shop, Usagi said, "You know, I'm really glad that you and Nephrite are going to be together and have kids and everything.... Did the twins tell you if there are any besides them?"

"Yes, they did." Naru stopped walking and looked at Usagi. "They're the middle two of eight. The oldest is seventeen, and the youngest is a few months." She laughed at the look on Usagi's face. "We'll see you this evening at the shrine, okay?" Then she went inside, leaving Usagi still staring at the door. "Wow," Usagi finally said to herself as she turned to walk home.

* * * * * * * *

That evening after supper, Naru drove with the children to the Hikawa Shrine. Several young women were there already, as was Usagi's boyfriend Mamoru. Naru recognized four of the girls: Mizuno Ami, a slender girl with sleek, short, sapphire-blue hair; Hino Rei, the dark-haired, dark-eyed, fiery-tempered miko; Kino Makoto, a tall, friendly girl with a thick chestnut ponytail; and Aino Minako, who looked very much like Usagi except that she wore her long, straight blonde hair loose with a big red bow on top. They had all become friends with Usagi back in junior high. Sometimes Naru had felt as though they were crowding her out of Usagi's friendship, but now she understood why. As for Mamoru, he had to be the dashing, dark-haired hero Tuxedo Mask. Naru smiled to herself, remembering now how Usagi had hated Mamoru while suffering from a hopeless crush on Tuxedo Mask. She wondered how Usagi had found out the two guys were the same person, and wished she had been there to see Usagi's face.

The children clustered shyly around Naru as Usagi walked over to them, smiling. "Hi, Naru! Hi, guys. We're all here now, so we can start. First of all, I couldn't get in touch with Setsuna - that's Sailor Pluto - so Luna, Artemis, and I went ahead and decided that it would be okay for Mina to know who Toshiro is."

"Luna," Naru said. "Your cat. Decided."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you that. She's the one who told me I was Sailor Moon in the first place. She's been my trainer and advisor -"

"A cat."

"Of course, a cat." Naru looked down at the sound of the small, feminine voice and saw Usagi's little black cat sitting in front of her. "I don't know why you're so surprised," Luna said. "Not after everything else you've learned the last few days."

"I - " Naru tried to say. She wondered if she had been rude.

"It's okay," Usagi said. "You get used to it."

"I suppose so," Naru said weakly.

"Anyway," Usagi went on. "Let's get everyone introduced. Mina, come here. Naru, you know Aino Minako and that she's also Sailor Venus. And Toshiro's mom."

Minako smiled warmly at Naru and the children. "I'm so glad you're finally finding out about us, Naru," she said. "I always felt bad about you being left out of the group." She turned her smile to the blond boy who was staring yearningly at her. "Hi, Toshiro. I guess I'm going to be your mom one day. Even though I haven't met your dad yet."

"Hi," Toshiro said shyly. "Am I going to come stay with you?"

"That's one of the things we're going to talk about -- What's wrong?" Usagi asked, looking at Mitsu. Naru turned to look at the girl as well.

Mitsu, a pained look on her face, was rubbing the center of her chest. "Something hurts," she said in a small, tight voice.

Naru quickly knelt in front of the girl. "What's the matter, Mitsu?"

Usagi knelt too. "Ow!" Mitsu yelled, clutching at her heart. Her face went terribly pale and she started to cry. "It hurts!"

"Someone call an ambulance!" Naru demanded, terrified, as she gathered her future daughter in her arms. "Something's wrong!"

"No, wait," Rei said. "Usagi, look at your crystal."

Naru now noticed that Usagi was wearing her brooch, a big, gaudy thing with a cut-crystal pink heart in the middle. Certainly not the sort of thing her mother would be caught dead carrying in her jewelry store. Naru had always supposed that the brooch was a gift from Mamoru. But right now what mattered most about it was that the pink heart was glowing.

"It's reacting very strongly to something," Ami said. A visor had appeared across her eyes, and she was quickly tapping on a small blue handheld computer. "It's both strongly repelled by and attracted to something identical -"

Usagi hastily backed away from Mitsu. "Mitsu, do you have some sort of crystal with you?" she asked.

Mitsu relaxed in Naru's arms, as though the most acute pain had left her. She was still pale, though, and her face was streaked with tears. She nodded. "I've got a big crystal inside me. The Imperium Silver Crystal. Princess Setsuna - Sailor Pluto put it there."

In the sudden silence, Usagi asked, "Why did she do that?"

"To hide it. Something bad happened, and she had to hide the crystals, and that's why we're here."

"That explains Mitsu's reaction," Ami said, finally looking up from her computer. "We have both the present and future Silver Crystals in the same time and place. It wasn't a problem for you and Rini, Usagi, because you were both born to use the Crystal, and had the power to control it. Mitsu doesn't have that power. We'd better find out what's happening in the future, and in the meantime keep the present Crystal away from Mitsu."

Naru took the children to sit down on mats one side of the room. Mina sat with them, Toshiro beside her. Usagi retreated to the far side of the room, and her pink crystal heart stopped glowing. Quickly, she went through the rest of the introductions. Ami was Sailor Mercury, it turned out, Rei was Sailor Mars, Makoto was Sailor Jupiter, and Mamoru was indeed Tuxedo Mask. "And this is Michiru, Haruka, and Hotaru," Usagi said, indicating three young women whom Naru hadn't recognized. Michiru, a gentle-looking woman with thick pale aqua hair, sat in a chair by Rei's desk. Haruka, a rather androgynous-looking woman with short blond hair, was perched on the arm of the chair, her arm draped around Michiru's shoulder in an oddly intimate fashion. They both appeared to be some years older than Usagi and her friends. A younger teenage girl with black bobbed hair and straight bangs sat on the floor at their feet. "Also known as Sailor Neptune, Sailor Uranus, and Sailor Saturn," Usagi continued. "Like I said, I couldn't get hold of Sailor Pluto, but the rest of us are here."

Naru said hello to the three young women, who returned her greeting.

"All right, then," Usagi said. She turned to Jasmine, Meiko, Mitsu, and Toshiro. "Now, I need you guys to tell me everything you know."

The children looked shyly at each other, until Jasmine spoke up. "We don't know very much. My dads just told me that I'd been invited to go to Lord Nephrite and Lady Naru's house at the lake with Lady Naru and her kids and Lady Midori. That's Lady Naru's mother."

"My brother and I were invited, too," Toshiro said. "It was weird. It was in the middle of the week, and they took us out of school to send us all to the lake. That's never happened before."

Jasmine went on with her story. "Right before I left, I heard my dads talking about something they were doing for work. I mean for their Guardian work. It sounded like they were worried about it, or Zoisite was anyway. Like it was dangerous or wrong. But they were afraid they'd be in trouble with someone important if they didn't do it."

Rei said, "It sounds like the Guardians sent their families away from the city in case something went wrong with this - whatever they were doing." The other Senshi nodded agreement with Rei's assessment, as Ami tapped away at her little computer, entering the information the children were giving.

"But my mom didn't go with," Toshiro said.

"Your mother is a Senshi," Luna said in her tidy little voice. "Naru and her mother aren't."

"No, they aren't," Meiko agreed.

"Maybe Jadeite didn't send Mina to the lake because he thought that if things went wrong, all the Senshi would be needed to help," Rei said. Again, the other Senshi nodded their agreement.

"The first night we were at the lake," Jasmine went on, "Princess Setsuna - Sailor Pluto, I mean - suddenly showed up in the middle of the night. She was bleeding, and her fuku was kind of burned. She said that something bad had happened, and no one knew where our dads were -" The girl's voice choked off for a moment. Meiko and Mitsu pressed closer against Naru as she gripped them tightly around the shoulders.

After a minute, Jasmine was able to resume her story. "Meiko and Mitsu's older brothers had to go back to Crystal Tokyo and be the Guardians, because the real Guardians, our dads, were gone. Then Sailor Pluto showed us these crystals, that our dads used to do - whatever it was they did. She said something about blood, and that the crystals had to be hidden inside the kids of the Guardians they belonged to. So I have Kunzite and Zoisite's crystals inside me, and Meiko has Lord Nephrite's crystal inside him, and Toshiro has Lord Jadeite's crystal. Sailor Pluto said that the Silver Crystal had to be hidden too, and it could only go inside a girl descended from someone from the old Moon Kingdom. So that's why Mitsu has it inside her. Because Lady Naru lived in the Moon Kingdom a long time ago."

"You were in the Moon Kingdom?" Usagi asked Naru, and all the Senshi turned their heads to stare at her.

"I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about, Usagi," Naru said. "What Moon Kingdom?"

Usagi sighed. "I guess I'll have to explain that to you later." She furrowed her eyebrows together, thinking, then her face brightened. "You were there! I remember now. You were a lady-in-waiting to my mother, the Queen, and you and -" The blonde girl blushed, then gave Naru a wicked look. "You and Nephrite."

"Me and Nephrite what?" Naru demanded.

"I'd better not tell you in front of the kids," Usagi said. "I don't want to corrupt their innocent little minds."

Naru could hear Meiko, Mitsu, and Toshiro snickering. So much for innocence, she thought. "You mean..." she asked, feeling heat rising in her face.

"My lips are sealed," Usagi said primly.

"This is all very fascinating," Luna said, "but if we can get back to business now..."

"Right," Usagi sighed. "Ami, you were taking notes. Tell us where we stand."

"Okay." The dark-haired girl tapped a few keys and studied her computer screen. "The four children do have crystals inside them - I've traced the energies. The crystals inside Jasmine, Meiko, and Toshiro seem to have an organic element to their energies, suggesting that they were, indeed, activated by some sort of blood magic. Therefore, the crystals had to be placed in hosts carrying genetically similar blood. And, of course, as has already been clearly demonstrated, Mitsu is hosting the Imperium Silver Crystal. I don't know why Rini wasn't sent here with the Silver Crystal, but it may be because she's old enough now to fight as a Senshi and was needed on the scene. Anyway, it seems that the crystals were used in some sort of ritual which, either intentionally or inadvertently, released some sort of evil into Crystal Tokyo, and Sailor Pluto found it necessary to take the crystals and hide them," Ami summarized.

"Which means," Makoto said, "that sooner or later, the bad guys are probably going to come looking for them."

"Not again!" Usagi wailed. "What is it with bad guys looking for hidden crystals inside people so they can take over the universe?"

"Whining won't solve the problem," Luna said. "The children will need to be protected until whatever is happening in the future is over with. I think it would be best if they continued to stay with Naru, with one or two of you on guard duty at all times. We should keep the four of them together, so we can concentrate our efforts to protect them, instead of being spread too thin."

"I'll stay with them tonight," Usagi said, "since I need to talk to Naru some more anyway. The rest of you can work out a schedule that will work for you."

"Wait a minute," Naru said. "If the children are going to be here indefinitely, I think they ought to go to school. They can't just sit around and play video games all day."

"Yes, we can," Meiko said. "We don't mind."

"If we send them out to school," Haruka objected, "that will only make it harder to protect them, especially since we'll probably have to split them up because Jasmine is so much older than the others."

"I just don't think it would be good for them to just stay in the apartment all the time, waiting to be attacked, though," Naru said.

Michiru spoke for the first time. "She does have a point, Haruka."

A look passed between the two women, and Naru thought she now understood the intimacy between them. She looked away, not wanting to be caught staring.

"You're right, of course," Haruka finally said to Michiru.

"My mom knows the director of a small private school that takes primary grades through junior high," Ami said. "I'll talk to her and see if we can get them admitted. The tuition is very expensive, though."

Makoto grinned at Naru. "We can just have them send the bill to your rich husband in the future."

Everyone laughed at this, then Ami said, "We'll work something out. Maybe I can get a family discount or something."

"I really don't think that's a good idea," Meiko said. "It'll be way too expensive for you to send us to school, and it'll be too much work for you to protect us there. We'd better just stay in Naru-oneesan's apartment."

"Playing video games all day," Naru said. "Nice try, Meiko. But you guys are going to school."

"Aww." Meiko and Toshiro sulked. They were adorable, Naru thought, especially Meiko. He was going to be as charming and dangerous as his father when he grew up.

An unwelcome thought crept into her mind. If he grows up. She didn't know what kind of enemies might come after the kids, but it was probably safe to assume that they would be very dangerous. She shivered, and pulled the twins closer to her. Even though she wasn't magical, or a Senshi, she would do everything she could to protect them and the other two children.

* * * * * * * *