A/N: Thanks so much for the stupendous reviews, everyone! It made me really happy to see everyone’s response to a chapter that I have been working on since the beginning of Season 2.

            Special shout-out to PrincessSerenity1976, whose review made me crack up after a very rough day. My favorite part: “…the truth finally comes out. Now let’s see who will be the one to screw it all up, because I know that there is no way you’re going to resolve this easily. You never do.”

            There’s a lot of time travel stuff here. I’ve spent the last two years trying to make sure it makes sense, but it’s been so mind-boggling that I’m sure I’ve still managed to leave gaping holes somewhere in the continuity. I heartily welcome any and all criticisms, questions, theories, etc. about it! (If you want a response to these criticisms, questions, etc., please post them through the Yahoo thread  or email them so I can get back to you.)

            Gore  and Situational warnings.

 

Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon.

 

L

 

Subject to Change

Season 2

Chapter Forty: The Tower, Part 2

 

L

 

            Rini stopped on the steps when she saw the red eyes glowing in the darkness. Her heart, already pumping hard with adrenaline, began to thump harder.

            “I–I know you want to kill me,” she stammered, voice still cracking with tears. “But I need your help.”

            Light flared from an object in the corner. It was bloody red light, emitting from a dark stone set in metal shaped like a heart, hanging from the wall of the underground chamber. It was bright enough to illuminate the face of the Senshi standing at the foot of the stairs.

            It was Sailor Pluto.

            But not the Pluto who had tried to kill Rini and Diamond. This one looked younger, her face rounder and her eyes wider. She did not look so much like a fierce stray dog as a frightened puppy. She stared up at Rini. “You came with the Nemisian,” she whispered. “But you–” Her eyes, as Endymion’s had been, were on Rini’s hair buns.

            But Rini wasn’t paying attention to her anymore. Her eyes were glued to the mirror that hovered behind Pluto, her mouth open as she watched Serena opening silvery eyes in Darien’s arms. She was alive. Serena was alive!

            But now Endymion was grabbing her, and trapping Darien. Rini saw the possessive way the prince held Serena, and a sick feeling swept through her. “This isn’t supposed to happen,” she said, her voice high and panicked. “Endymion’s not supposed to–that’s Serena! She’s not Serenity!”

            “What do you mean?” Pluto was gripping the rim of the overflowing fountain to hold herself up. “Who is Serena?”

            “She’s Princess Serenity’s reincarnation,” Rini said desperately, but even through the desperation she felt a hollowness to what she said, because saying that Serena was Princess Serenity’s reincarnation was like saying the Golden Crystal was a lump of stone. “Serenity and Endymion are supposed to die here, fighting that–that thing–and be reincarnated. And then they fight Chaos and have me.”

            “I…” Pluto’s voice was faint. “I cannot understand. I must see. You will…?” She took a step closer, using her staff to support her as she let go of the fountain, and reached out toward Rini’s forehead.

            Rini didn’t understand exactly what she wanted, but she stood still and let the Senshi draw closer to her. A mirror materialized beside her, floating in midair beside both of them, and then Pluto’s gloved fingertip touched Rini’s forehead. She felt a brief, hot twinge there and saw her face reflected in Pluto’s dark eyes: a white crescent moon bisected by four lines and edged in gold glowed on her forehead. A white beam shot from it to the red stone in Pluto’s tiara, which shot its own red beam to the mirror, which then shot a silvery beam back to Rini, creating a complete triangle of light.

            Images began to play on the mirror’s surface. They changed too quickly for Rini to see them, any more than a few snatches here and there that she could recognize, like bursts of Darien’s gold power or the explosions of her own white aura, and once, a bright streaking shape. But Pluto’s face changed from expression to expression, small sounds like shock or disbelief escaping her lips every few seconds; she must be able to keep up with the images’ speed. At last, the images stopped, freezing on one: the Sailor Pluto that Rini had encountered with Diamond, her dark face twisted with cold intent as she brought her staff crashing down.

            But the image didn’t stop there, with the staff disappearing as Diamond had teleported himself and Rini to the Time Gate. Instead it continued with Pluto’s staff coming crashing down–

            And the mirror’s surface exploded with a hundred spider web cracks.

            In its cracked surface, a round black cat face appeared. Not a real cat but a doll, like someone had decided to paint a ball black and draw a cat’s face on it. As they watched, it shifted and melted into a human face. And not just any human face: the older Sailor Pluto’s face.

            “Little princess,” it said.

            Rini shrank back despite herself. Those blood-red eyes still contained the unbelievable hatred she remembered.

            The Sailor Pluto beside her stepped forward. Her hands were balled at her sides. “You’re the other me I saw.”

            The reflection shifted as though it had inclined its head. “I am.”

            “There aren’t supposed to be two of us.” Pluto’s voice was tight. “I think–I think I have committed a grave mistake.”

            “Yes,” the reflection said, its voice hissing slightly at the end of the word. “I know. When we gave the Time Key to the High Senshi, it allowed another past to be created. It is why the Fountain of the Past is overflowing. It is why there are two of us. One for before the past was split and one for after.”

            Pluto’s eyes were wide. “Great Chronos,” she whispered, and sat down heavily.

            The reflection’s eyes seemed almost feverish as it watched them. “Perhaps–” it rasped, then its voice broke. It cleared its throat and started again, “Perhaps you should show me what has happened in that past.”

            Sailor Pluto nodded and stood up. She touched the tip of her staff to the mirrors. Colors swirled across the broken pieces, obscuring all of the reflection except its blood-red eyes. They watched the images without blinking.

            When the colors faded, revealing the reflection’s face once more, it was smiling. The corners of its eyes gleamed wetly. “You will do nothing. This is what I have fought for. The princess has her prince and her life. She has freedom from the High Senshi.”

            Pluto stared at her future self. “What do you mean? What about the prophecy? And Chaos–?”

            “What do we care for Chaos?” the reflection said huskily. “Let the High Senshi kill Chaos. They had their chance to use our princess. They promised us that she would be safe, didn’t they? They swore that if we gave them a Time Key, whoever they sent would kill Endymion only and leave the princess untouched. But how else would the Black Moon prince have known the spells to free Metallia? They were High Council binding spells, known only to council members.” It leaned forward, the mirror filled by its suddenly glowing, furious eyes. “They told him how to unleash Metallia on us.”

            The Pluto beside Rini was paling beneath her dark skin, her lips turning an unhealthy color. “Then we–”

            “Enabled them to do it,” finished the reflection in a whisper. It pulled back, swiping a gloved hand across its wet eyes. “But this will be our vengeance on them. Serenity shall emerge through her flash-form in her reincarnation and live together with Endymion. She will live the second life that Queen Selenity died to give her, and the child she spawns with Endymion will flourish as Chaos swallows the High Senshi’s systems one after another–”

            There was suddenly a flash of golden light so bright it sent black spots dancing across Rini’s vision. She flinched backward with Sailor Pluto, both of them snatching their hands to their eyes.

            The light had come from within the mirror. As Rini pulled her hands from her spot-filled vision, she saw Pluto’s reflection slumping out of the mirror. Blood trickled from her mouth, and her eyes were blank.

            She was dead.

            Behind her, there was a figure barely visible through the thick fog. Gold glowed from it. Rini’s chest constricted as though a giant hand had grabbed her and squeezed. She cried out and snatched at Pluto’s skirt. “Smash it. Smash it!”

            Pluto swung her staff into the mirror, shattering it. Sparkling motes of gold light fell to the ground with the shards. Rini watched them, panting hard. Then she realized that Pluto was gripping her arm so tight it felt like she was bruising the bone. Her eyes, wide and red, gripped Rini just as tightly. “Was that–?”

            Rini stared at the mirror shards. “I think so.” She did not bother to ask how Pluto knew.

            “He knows where you were,” Pluto said, her eyes going to the shards as well. Then she shut them, pressing her hands over her eyes. “Great Chronos,” she whispered. “What have I done?”

            Rini’s stomach was twisting with fear. This was her fault. And there were punishments for those who interfered with time. “What are you going to do to me?” she blurted out.

            Pluto’s eyes swung down to her distractedly. “What?” Then, as her eyes rounded with realization, she fell into a crouch beside her. “Small Lady, no! I am not going to do anything to you. I would never–I could never–” Her eyes went to the shards of mirror on the wet floor, and pain flashed across her dark face. “But I did try, didn’t I? In the future.” She shook her head, eyes not moving from the mirror shards.

            Rini nodded slowly. This past self of Pluto was turning out to be as different from the Pluto she had met in the future as Endymion and Serenity were from Darien and Serena. She found herself, somehow, wanting to comfort the Senshi.

            “I don’t understand,” she said, trying to make Pluto look away from the broken mirror shards. “The other Sailor Pluto knew that Diamond would come back and let Metallia out. So…if she already knew that, that means this is what always happened? So everything is going to turn out the way it already has? Endymion will die, and Darien and Serena will…”

            But Sailor Pluto was shaking her head. “No.” She looked pained. “You did not see it, when I showed my future self in the mirror what had happened?”

            Rini shook her head. The images had spun and flashed by too quickly for her to see more than glimpses.

            Pluto’s pained expression deepened. “The past has fragmented,” she said. “There should only be one. Always, only one. In the past that should have happened, I would not have given the Time Key away and Diamond would not have been able to come here. Metallia would have remained sealed, and everyone would have lived.”

            She paused, pressing her lips together so that her dark skin around them turned pale. Then she continued. “But in the past that did occur, because we did give the High Senshi a Time Key and they gave it to Diamond, Diamond managed to come to the past, alone, and was unable to make it through the palace wards. He freed Metallia to aid him, and she killed him for his power, and then used Beryl to kill everyone else in the Silver Millennium. And they were reincarnated as you told me they all should be.”

            “Then what changed…?” Rini began, then fell silent. Comprehension began to dawn in her eyes.

            “My future self interfered,” Pluto said, looking at the shards of mirror on the floor. “Driven mad with grief and guilt for giving the High Senshi the Time Key that led to the Queen and Serenity’s deaths, she swore that she would make sure the princess had a second chance to live and be happy. To that end, she searched for Sailor Saturn and found her, and set free the princess and prince’s flash-forms inside Serena and Darien. And then…”

            “They had me,” Rini mumbled.

            Pluto’s eyes slid from the shards to the little girl, who stood with her head bowed, hair hiding her face. “Yes.”

            Rini’s hands tightened around the straps of her knapsack. “I’m the reason he was able to get through the wards.”

            “But I am the reason he had the Time Key that enabled him to come here at all.” Pluto knelt. “It is not your fault, Small Lady.”

            Rini said nothing, only stood with her head bowed and her hands clenching her knapsack straps. At last, she said, “I heard the queen and Diamond talk about a prophecy. What does it say?”

            Pluto caught her breath. Then she opened her mouth–

            “Please don’t lie to me,” Rini said quietly.

            Pluto let out her breath again. She wished the girl had not asked for something that would only cause her pain. “It is a prophecy about your parents. Or, maybe it would be more accurate to say, about you. It foretold that the princess would be the only one able to defeat Chaos, and that unless the prince fought alongside her she would die in the battle; but if she and the prince were to be joined, there would be terrible destruction. The High Senshi, and most of us, took this joining to mean a consummation of marriage, and the great destruction to be the product of that consummation. A child.”

            Rini was silent. This new past, the one that had fragmented from the one that should have been, had happened because she had come with Diamond, because she had let him through the palace’s wards and to the princess. And because Serena and Darien had come after her. Because of her, Serena and Darien were now both trapped, and might never exist at all. Only Endymion and Serenity’s flash-form would, and they wouldn’t fight Chaos, and the whole universe would die.

            Surely this was the great destruction the prophecy had meant. A hot tear trickled down her cheek.

            “Please, Small Lady.” Pluto crouched down before her. Her stance was awkward, but her pained eyes were kind. “I told you, it is not your fault. It is no one’s fault but my own. Had I not given the High Senshi the Time Key, none of this could have happened in the first place. But I saw how much my queen suffered from having a daughter whom the High Senshi feared could take over the universe, and in my pride and ignorance, I thought that I could end her pain by helping the High Senshi to kill Endymion so that the princess would die fighting Chaos, and people would no longer fear her potential and despise the Queen for giving birth to her.” She clenched her fist on her knees, nails digging into her palm. “It is my fault. I should have followed the Laws. I should have remembered that Chronos created them for a reason.”

            Rini’s tears were falling faster now. And I should have listened to Serena, she thought. She should have stayed put in Elysion, not left, not trusted Diamond. She should have believed in Serena and her promise that everything would be alright. Now she had as good as killed Serena. She would become Princess Serenity and never remember that Serena had even existed. Never remember Sammy, or Lita or Motoki, or Buji or Asanuma…or Darien.

            “There has to be something we can do!” she burst out, voice thick with tears. “If we can just find my dad–!” She hadn’t forgotten the way Darien had looked when he came to save them from Rubeus and the Wiseman, the air buckling all around him from his power. But the memory of Endymion, and how easily he had trapped Darien with those vines, was even more vivid.

            “No.” Pluto was shaking her head. “The damage is done. And Endymion is untouchable with his crystal…” She stopped. Her eyes, fastened on the distance, focused suddenly on Rini. “Wait.”

            Rini stared back at her, confused. Wordlessly, Pluto turned and extended her staff into the air. A mirror swirled into existence around the staff’s end, and Rini’s face, pale and frightened, appeared inside it. “So everything is going to turn out the way it already has? Endymion will die, and Darien and Serena will…”

            Pluto turned her staff. The mirror disappeared. She turned to Rini with a decisive hardness to her red eyes. She had a plan. But there was one thing that needed to be done first. She summoned a mirror from the fog and called out the name of the Senshi she had seen her future self speak to.

            “Sailor Lanai?”

 

L

 

            “…none of the Senshi survived…”

            “…clamoring for their princess, Your Majesty…”

            “…the Shittenou’s bodies have not been found…”

            The voices drifted in and out of her consciousness like songs from a badly-tuned radio. She had a vague memory of trying to wake up, of being pushed gently back down by a warm hand, of gold and darkness…of silver…

            At last she woke and there was no one to push her back into slumber. The first thing she saw was a single long strand of silver hair on the dark sheets across which her own blonde hair spilled. The first thing she felt was a heavy warm weight on the dip of her waist, pressed against her back. Both of them made her stiffen.

            Her tension woke up the body behind her. The man pushed himself up on his elbows and leaned over her to cup her face in his hand. He was Darien but not, his eyes blue and face a healthy tan.

            The memory of everything that had happened washed over her. Serena bolted up–or tried to, but Prince Endymion was still draped over her, pinning her, and he did not move away to let her sit up. Instead, his eyes studied hers as though he had expected her to try to get away.

            “You are still not yourself,” he said at last. “Do you still hurt?” His voice was low and husky, his thumb rubbing back and forth across her hip. The friction made Serena recoil even as something inside her closed long-lashed eyes in pleasure at the sensation. She shut her own eyes, biting down on her lip, trying to avoid the penetrating blue gaze that seemed to bring Serenity closer to the surface.

            “You,” she began, but Endymion was leaning forward, his weight moving her from her side onto her back. Belatedly, she realized that someone had dressed her in some filmy white gown so thin that it practically wasn’t there at all.

            “Try to remember, Serenity,” Endymion murmured. He was pressed so close to her that the thrum of his chest as he spoke traveled through her own.

            “I do remember,” she said desperately, her voice close to tears. She shoved her hands at him, trying to push him backward even though the weight felt so good. “I’m not Serenity. I’m–”

            But there she broke off. There hadn't been time to think after she saw that dead girl with the silver odangos on the ground because she had needed to save Darien. But as this man who had tried to kill Darien called her Serenity, she felt for the first time the impact of who that dead girl had been. Who she was. The Moon Princess’s reincarnation. The person destined to fight Chaos. Darien’s soul mate.

            And Rini’s mother.

            “Mine,” Endymion said softly, and his voice was distant.

            “No,” she tried to say. “Serena.” But something was muffling the words as she tried to get them out, as though her mouth was full of cotton. And her hand had somehow made its way to his face and was stroking his cheek, and she pulled it away with terror pooling in her stomach. But now Endymion was gazing down at her with a hunger glowing in his eyes that made him look less like Darien and more like Diamond, and he was lowering his face to her neck and his hands to her body and murmuring, “Serenity, my love, Serenity…”

            And then there was Serenity’s desire rising up in her, mixing with the terror like sugar with blood. “No,” she tried to choke out even as her eyelashes fluttered and goose bumps swept across her skin at his caresses. She could feel herself responding, and Serenity inside her, and she wanted to give in to her simply so that she could be safe from this, so that she would not feel herself being touched and made to sigh with pleasure by this man she didn’t know. Only the knowledge that without her Rini would be trapped here kept her from giving in to Serenity. She thought of the memories Darien had given to her, of the taste of chocolate milkshakes and the barrettes she wore when she was Sailor Moon, and clung to them as the desire rushed around her like a river trying to wash her away.

            Then there was a surge of auras from below them. They broke like claps of thunder, slapping Serenity’s presence clear out of Serena’s mind even as Endymion’s arms tightened around her. Serena recognized the auras at once: Prince Diamond and Darien’s.

            “Gaea’s blood,” Endymion gritted out, and rolled out of the bed. “I must see to those demons, Serenity. Worry not, you are safe here.” The door shut behind him. It sent a gust of cold air across the room, making the single silver hair on the pillow quiver fiercely for a moment before falling still again.

            Serena curled into a ball. She crossed her arms over her chest and clenched her legs together, feeling in the cold air all the ways that her body had betrayed her. Shame coursed through every inch of her. She couldn’t think of Rini, or Darien, or even Lita, couldn’t think anything past the thought that she couldn’t bear to face any of them again, after this.

            “Serena.”

            Serena’s body went rigid. She barely even breathed, clenching her eyelids shut, afraid that Endymion had returned…then the realization filtered into her mind that the low voice had said “Serena,” not “Serenity.”

            She bolted up, clutching the dark bed sheet to her chest with one hand and gripping her brooch, which Endymion’s sword had left little more than a lump of crumpled metal, with the other. What she then saw in the full-length mirror across from the bed nearly made her drop both. The red-eyed Senshi from the Time Plane stood there, so close to the edge of the bed that if Serena reached out her hand would brush the Senshi’s arm. She whipped around and saw that the space beside her was empty, but when she looked back at the mirror, the Senshi still stood there.

            “H-how are you–”

            “Please rest assured that I am not the Senshi you saw in the Time Plane on your way here,” said the woman. “That was my future self.” She went to her knees in a bow. “I would beg forgiveness for both her sins and my own, Serena, but we do not deserve it, and there is no time. There is much I must tell you before Endymion returns.”

            Serena let the sheet fall and slid her feet to the ground, coming around the bed to be closer to the mirror. She kept her arms crossed over her chest and her filmy gown’s hem clenched in her fist, ashamed by how little it hid. “Who are you?”

            The Senshi met her eyes steadily. “I am Sailor Pluto.”

            Serena opened her mouth, then closed it. Of course. Miss Lanai had clearly lied to her about the princess, so of course she had lied about her identity as well. Just like Lita had said: “If she lied to you about one thing, then she could be lying about everything.”

            “The one you know who claimed to be Pluto is in fact a High Senshi,” Sailor Pluto said gently. “But that is not important now. The past has gone terribly awry.”

            Serena’s thoughts went to Diamond and Darien’s burst of energy, to Endymion’s weight atop her. She pressed a hand to her mouth as though to push Serenity back down. Then she met Pluto’s gaze. “Please, do you know where Rini is?”

            Pain flashed across the Senshi’s face. “She is here with me. She is unharmed, but she cannot appear through these mirrors like I can. It is a power given only to the guardian of the Time Plane.”

            Serena nodded, biting her lip. “Y–yes. I understand.”

            Pluto’s tight smile was sad. “Then please listen. I must tell you this before Endymion returns.” She began to explain how the past had been broken, how Endymion now had Darien imprisoned in magic-binding chambers with Diamond and planned to put them both to death, how he planned to keep Serena with him. The present that Serena knew would never come to pass; instead, the Senshi all stayed dead and unresurrected, and she would succumb to Serenity’s flash-form and stay with Endymion on Earth as all around them the rest of the universe fell to Chaos.

            By the end of her explanation, tears covered Serena’s face. “What can I do?” she asked desperately, choking back more tears. “How can I save everyone?”

            Sailor Pluto met her eyes somberly. “Endymion must be killed.”

 

L

 

            Pluto had seen Princess Serenity’s reincarnation through the time mirrors that she accessed through Rini’s memories. She had noticed that the golden-haired girl was different from the princess she had been willing to sacrifice for her queen, but she had been too worried about other things to give it any real thought. Now, with the reincarnation herself standing before her, stubbornly biting back tears and begging Pluto for a way to save everyone, the differences between her and Serenity were impossible to ignore. This girl, who acted more like a Senshi than a princess, was a daughter Queen Selenity could have been proud of.

            Then Pluto said, “Endymion must be killed,” and Serenity burst across the girl’s face.

            Pluto recoiled at the sudden new aura. Flash-forms were something else she had been introduced to via Rini’s memories, but they had not prepared her for the violence with which Serenity’s clawed out, trying to tear through her reincarnation’s. The girl fell to her knees, her eyes going wide and swirling with silver, the same silver that began to travel through the roots of her hair. Pluto gripped her staff with white knuckles, eyes wide and worried, horribly uncertain of what to do. From the depths of the palace, she felt three masculine auras flaring in response, one silver-grey and two gold, all alarmed, though one more desperately than either of the others. It gave a pulse, and Pluto watched the reincarnation’s hand go to her chest, pressing against something there. The silver began to recede slowly, but not completely, from her hair and eyes.

            Pluto crouched as the girl opened her eyes. She could sense one of the golden auras racing toward them. “We must be quick, for Endymion approaches. Listen. Queen Selenity has already made her wish upon the Silver Crystal for her daughter and Senshi to be reincarnated. They are dead and Metallia is severely weakened; all is as it was in the original past, so your present could come to pass more or less as it was. The only obstacle is Endymion. He must be reincarnated for you to survive Metallia’s return, and for that, he must die here. Do you understand?”

            The girl’s face was twisted, her eyes half-shut as though still fighting against Serenity inside her. Her head gave a jerky shake as though to say, no.

            “For the child,” Pluto whispered, moving closer to the mirror. “For Rini ever to be born in the future, Endymion must die here.”

            A sound escaped the girl. Then she forced open her eyes, lips pressed together as though to contain sobs, and gave a jerky nod. There was a new hardness in her eyes for all that tears still squeezed out of them.

            “This is what you must do.” Pluto spoke low and quickly. “Endymion is invulnerable with his Golden Crystal. You must find a way to take it from him and keep it where he will not be able to use it to heal himself. Then you must go down to the dungeons where his reincarnation is being kept and release him. He is the only one powerful enough to kill Endymion–”

            The girl’s face had gone absolutely white beneath the tears. “You want him to kill his own past self?” She shook her head. “No. No, I–”

            The door burst open, and Pluto yanked herself out of the mirror. She crouched on the ground, panting, watching in the time mirror as Endymion came to Serena, who immediately slumped back on the bed as though sleeping. He leaned over her, murmuring something, and she curled into a tighter ball. Then, as he stroked his hand down her face, she turned her head and gazed up at him. Her wet blue eyes were searching.

            Endymion said something else, and tiny stems materialized around his fingers, uncurling rapidly and crawling across her pillow, blooming with tiny white flowers. The girl’s eyelids seemed to grow heavier and, after a moment, fell shut. Endymion touched her face one more time and left the room.

            “He put her to sleep,” came Rini’s voice from beside her. The little girl was staring at the mirror with a hungry, heartbreaking expression on her face.

            “But she’ll wake soon?”

            “I think so,” Rini said, not tearing her eyes from the mirror. Moments passed without either of them speaking until finally Rini turned and saw the dark-skinned Senshi watching her sadly.

            Rini’s insides knotted. Somehow, she knew what was coming. “I can’t stay here in the Time Plane, can I.” She kept her face and voice blank. “I have to leave.”

            Pluto nodded slowly. “Yes.”

            “Am I...” She hesitated, “going back to the future? To wait for Serena?”

            Pluto crouched in front of her. Softly, she said, “You have a decision to make, Small Lady.”

 

L

 

            It was like waiting to die.

            That was the closest comparison Sapphire could make. He had never been in a life-or-death situation before; he was the quiet, sheltered brother, after all, who stayed in the palace while Diamond was the one who went off to consort with dangerous Chaos creatures. The closest Sapphire had come to being afraid for his life was when he had defied his father after his mother’s death, and even then, he had been too angry to think about the danger he was risking.

            But now, as he waited in this present knowing that Diamond was somewhere in the past changing it to a future that could very well erase Sapphire from existence, he knew what it felt like to have death breathing down one’s neck. It was enough to make him shiver and feel nauseous and wish wretchedly that he hadn’t told Diamond how he could have the Moon Princess for his own. And that was enough to make him feel cowardly and as if he deserved to die, for a man who didn’t prize his brother’s happiness over his own existence didn’t deserve to live.

            He sat in the dark, empty bridge for hours, drowning in these wretched thoughts. Only the sudden wailing of alarm klaxons above him broken his reverie. His head snapped up, and he saw that tremendous amounts of energy were being released at a spot in central Tokyo. Only Senshi or Shittenou could generate that  level of power, but this was an inordinate amount even for them. What was Emerald doing?

            But then another alarm began. This was shriller than the first, like a desperate scream, and it made Sapphire run to the main bridge console, the color draining from his face. He brought up a display that they had never had occasion to use before, and what appeared there made the little remaining color disappear completely from his face.

             A massive distortion was traveling through the timescape straight toward this time.

            His fist clenched on the console. Was this it? He felt guilty, suddenly, for not telling Emerald all that had transpired, the fact that she could cease to exist just as he could, at any moment. For all that she was irritating, Diamond had saved her, and she had loved him.

            Sapphire took one last glance at the display–and teleported to where Emerald was.

 

L

 

            Rini was silent for a long time after Pluto finished explaining the choice she must make. Her little fists clenched at her sides, but she did not cry, or beg Pluto to do something to change what must be. Her stoicism was more painful, Pluto thought, than seeing her sob and scream would have been. That was what Princess Serenity had done as a child when commanded to do something she didn’t want to do. Pluto had disapproved of such behavior then, but she wished for it now, from these two princesses from the future who listened to what they had to do and swallowed down their emotions to do it.

            At last, Rini spoke. “Before I decide,” she said, “can I ask something?”

            Pluto found herself gently touching the girl’s unruly, tangled hair. “Anything within my power,” she promised.

             “Can you tell me why Asanuma stayed to take care of me?”

            Pluto’s lips compressed. She had hoped that the child would ask for something that would not bring her more pain.

            But she had promised. “I will do more than that,” she said. “I will show you.”

            Rini looked at the mirror, then her. A skeptical frown entered her expression, chasing away some of the pain. “Is that allowed?” she said suspiciously.

            Pluto’s smile was sad. “What is not allowed, here at the end of all such things?” she murmured to herself, and passed her staff through the air before them. A mirror swirled into existence, oval and edged in dull silver. Its surface was at first misted as though with condensation, making it impossible to see the image beneath, but as they watched, the mist faded and showed a tiny, sleeping baby wrapped in a sterile-looking pink blanket.

            Slowly, the image pulled back, revealing that this infant was only one in a hospital nursery full of them. Rini, staring at the baby’s cap of brown hair, the only brown amidst the blues and greens and other colors of the other babies’ hair, realized with shock that the baby was her. Fascination and awe seeped into her, but only for a moment, for then a voice that she would have recognized anywhere spoke from outside of the mirror’s frame.

            “You’re leaving?”

            The image in the mirror pulled back, showing a hard-eyed Asanuma standing outside the nursery window. He wore rumpled slacks and a sweater and had his hair cropped shorter than she had ever seen it. He was glaring at someone, and as the image widened, it revealed that that someone was Motoki. An older Motoki, who had gray threads in his light brown hair and crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. He was leaning heavily against the wall, not looking inside the nursery.

            As Rini watched, he pushed away from the wall to turn and meet Asanuma’s eyes. “Numa,” he said wearily. “There’s nothing more for us to do here. The princess used the crystal to purify those nuclear accidents and get rid of the oil spill. Earth’s as safe for the baby as it could ever be.”

            “Oh, yeah, perfectly safe,” Asanuma said acidly. “Until a youma comes sniffing around and finds her.”

            Motoki sighed. “What do you want Endymion and Serenity to do, Asanuma? Take her with them so Chaos and the High Senshi can both try to snatch her away? Better to leave her hidden here among the other Terrans so that even we won’t be able to tell anyone where she is.”

            Asanuma stared at Motoki as though he had never seen him before. “And let her grow up alone? Like Darien did?”

            Motoki didn’t say anything.

            Asanuma turned back toward the nursery. His voice was low. “Darien would kill himself before he’d let his kid grow up the way he did.”

            “Well, in a way he already has.” Motoki’s voice was short and sharp and very unlike the Motoki Rini knew. “He’s not coming back, Numa.”

            Asanuma lifted a hand to the glass that separated them from the nursery. Inside, the baby Rini slept on. Softly, he said, “All the more reason for us to be here, then.”

            They were both quiet for a moment, and then Asanuma turned around, locking his eyes to Motoki’s. “Stay here, Toki. You’re better with kids than me or Mikai. Endymion won’t stop you.”

            Motoki gazed back at Asanuma and then, slowly, shook his head. “I can’t.” Asanuma’s fists clenched, and Motoki saw. His voice became pleading. “I’ve seen flashes of Lita in Jupiter’s eyes these past few years, Numa. She’s fighting to get out, I can sense it. If I leave now, she’ll sink under again–”

            Fury had bled back into Asanuma’s expression. “She’s never coming back up. As long as Endymion and Serenity are in control, Lita’ll never be able to overthrow Jupiter.”

            Motoki turned away. “There’s still a chance,” he said tiredly. “For all of them.”

            Asanuma shoved away from the nursery window. His eyes were fire. “If you really believed that, you’d stay here and make sure their kid will still be alive for them to come back to.”

            The image of his burning eyes froze in the mirror. The image blurred, colors swirling and recoalescing, forming the image of a window. It looked down, as though from the third or fourth story of a building, onto a circle of people. In the nighttime darkness, auras buckled around them, colorful and wild. There was a girl as small as Serena with blue hair and icy eyes, and next to her, another with blue-green hair and stormy eyes, and next to her, another with hair almost as colorless as Helios’s–on and on, with the only similarity between them the fukus they wore and the blank, hard looks on their faces. Rini saw Sailor Mars, who had appeared sometimes to Asanuma when Rini was supposed to be asleep and given him, in a terse tone, news from the warfront, and beside her was Jupiter, with Lita’s face but with green hair and wild, scary eyes, and beside Jupiter was Motoki in his Shittenou uniform and beside him, Mikai in his.

            And in the center of that circle, their auras burning gold and silver, their backs to the window, a black-haired man in armor and a silver-bunned woman in a flowing white gown.

            The image drew back, widening, until the circle of Senshi and Shittenou, prince and princess, were barely more than blurs of color through the window pane. Until the window was little more than a square of light in a dark room, and before that window, staring down, stood Asanuma. In his arms slept the brown-haired baby.

            The blurs of color brightened and then streaked away, fading into the night sky. As they faded, so did the image in the mirror.

            It turned opaque and then, slowly, disappeared itself.

            Pluto let a few moments of silence pass before she spoke. “Have you decided, Small Lady?” she said softly.

            Rini gripped her knapsack tightly. The snow globe Asanuma had made her was a hard, round object digging into her ribs. She hugged it closer and said, “Yes.”