Hitomi felt light headed, as if she had been asleep for a long time and still was. There was no color to her blank surroundings.
"What’s going on?" she wondered.
"You’ll have to confront them, face to face." That was Lorelei’s voice. But where…?
"I don’t understand." Hitomi asked.
"To retrieve the Kinwa."
"Confront them?" Hitomi asked. "But I…"
"But?"
Hitomi was about the protest, it was on the tip of her tongue, but then she remembered why she had agreed to get the Kinwa in the first place.
More people would be hurt if she refused to do this. And she’d never see Yao again.
"I’m scared," she answered.
"Everyone is scared," the voice answered. "Some run away from demons in their minds. Some run to them… I can’t remember which ones are my own sometimes. Fear can prove our love."
Hitomi nodded. She was afraid to confront them because she was afraid to hurt them… and herself. She was afraid of emotions. Now they’d gotten the better of her.
She’d show them.
"Do not feel that you were wrong to give up your own magic." Lorelei’s voice said, and the darkness began to fade.
…………………..
Eris slumped against the wall of an untouched room in the palace. She didn’t bother trying to stop herself as she slid all the way to the floor.
She groaned from weakness. Here eyes were indecisive as to whether she could stay awake or not.
She’d feigned it long enough to help that girl… what was her name?
The magic had chosen her, the ally of the line that had usurped the ruler of the solar system, the lover of the moon.
She could hear footsteps coming towards her. The noise echoed loudly in her head.
Then, as they stopped, she felt something strange wash over her. It was like feeling pure light. Her weakness was swept away like dust at the mercy of a river. Her head calmed and the echoing died. Her headache vanished and her pain disappeared.
A hand—soft and warm—surrounded by a fading white light reached down and took hers.
She was gently puled to her feet.
She looked into the eyes of the one that had helped her: Sailormoon.
"How does it feel?" Sailormoon asked, in a soft voice that brushed past Eris’s neck like a caress. "To be the most beautiful person in the universe? To be sought after by the princess?"
"I came for the Jewel."
"Of course," Sailormoon said, delicately holding out a glimmering jewel carved like a rose, rainbows captured in every one of its petals.
Eris reached for it, but Sailormoon closed her hand, the Jewel vanishing.
"May I have this dance?" Sailormoon asked.
Lorelei gasped as their fuku melted away into the dresses they had worn when they had first met.
Shizuki took Lorelei’s hand delicately, placing her other hand on Lorelei’s hips.
Shizuki guided Lorelei back and forth, round and round, pressing close and never letting go as she did.
The walls shivered, relaxing their hold on reality, then dissolved away. The ceiling followed, and soon not only was there no more floor, but the moon was gone. Underneath their feet was nothing but space. A glowing gibbous earth shone on the side. Mars glowed red, nestled in with the stars against the breathtaking black.
"What do you want?" Lorelei asked.
Shizuki giggled innocently. "This is what I want. I want to dance with you forever. Look around you."
Lorelei said nothing. She looked around. Her eye caught one the Pleiades. She remembered them. She knew who they were before they were stars.
Shizuki stopped and leaned over to whisper in Lorelei’s ear. "It’s yours."
"What is?"
"All of it. All that you can see and everything in between," Shizuki wrapped one arm around Lorelei’s waist and spread her other one to indicate the whole of the visible cosmos. "I’ll take it all, one by one, star by star, glimmer by glimmer."
Shizuki turned to Lorelei and pulled her arms away as she pressed close.
It was barely anything in touch, but the power was there. Shizuki’s lips brushed Lorelei’s and Lorelei closed her eyes, ready to drown in the heady warmth.
Suddenly there was nothing but cold air on her face and there were hands in her hair. Lorelei opened her eyes as Shizuki took her hands away.
In her black hair, Shizuki had strung the Iridescent Jewel, the first trophy she’d ever claimed for love.
"You look so beautiful," Shizuki said. "I’m going to gave you world after world, I’ll place kisses at your feet and treasures in your hair. I won’t let anyone get in my way to proving my love for you."
Shizuki reached up to cup Lorelei’s face when Lorelei stopped her, grabbing her hand.
"It is your voice, your sweet voice, from your own beautiful lips," Lorelei said. "But it is not your heart that speaks. This love is not yours alone."
"I don’t understand," Shizuki said, reaching for Lorelei. Lorelei jumped back, hovering in the air as he fuku reappeared. She took the Jewel from her hair. She crossed her arms.
"Nooo!" Shizuki shrieked. "Tell me what you want. You’ll have it, I promise!"
"When you know what that is," Eris’s voice echoed through the lonely room. "you’ll have me. And my heart."
The dress faded away to Shizuki’s fuku. She fell to her knees on the floor, sobbing. "No. No, that wasn’t supposed to happen!"
A word echoed through Shizuki’s mind: traitor.
"No!" Shizuki yelled. She began to whisper to herself, but was unaware s her voice began to harden. "She loves me. She will love me. She’ll learn to. She’ll be mine… whether she likes it or not. I’ll have her. No one refuses me. No one. There won’t be a choice next time. There is no choice."
Her tirade to the uncaring air in front of her was interrupted as two screams tore through the rooms.
…………………….
The woman puled herself off of Charon and stood up. It was no one anyone expected.
Except one.
"Gaia?" Rhea asked.
"No more murder!" Gaia shouted.
"That is not up to you." Eris appeared, hovering in the air less than a foot away. "Even if you did instigate it."
"It wasn’t supposed to be this way!" Gaia said.
"But it is. Now."
By now Thalia had become bored and she raised her hand. "Thalia Righteousness!"
Eris casually swung her arm out and the blast died away before dealing damage. Then Eris gestured to Charon, who was just behind Gaia.
He gasped.
The golden crystal materialized in front of him.
"It’s mine!" Gaia shouted.
Thalia readied another blast.
Eris reached for the crystal, but was too slow. There was a flash of blinding gold.
……………………..
Uranus careened into Saturn not in such a way that completely lacked grace, but comfort as well. At least for Saturn. Rugby players weren’t really known for soft tackles, even accidental ones.
Aaron caught up soon, panting. Chiharu didn’t ask any questions as she wrapped an arm around his shoulders to steady him as he panted for breath desperately.
"We’ve got company," he managed.
"So do we," Saturn said, shoving Uranus off herself.
"We’re in deep Barney," Uranus said.
Only Aaron understood her. Chiharu scratched her head.
"We have to get back to the others," Minako said.
"What about them?" Chiharu asked, pointing to Setsuna and Rei, who looked rather put off.
"We’re certainly not letting you leave," Rei said. "Polyhymnia Righteousness!"
"Euterpe Righteousness!"
"Thanatos’s Dream!"
"Cerberus’s Fangs!"
"Titanic Overture!"
The blasts all met in a mess on tangled shapes and lines and clouds. Slowly it cleared.
"Well, now I know what LSD is like," Tommy said flatly.
"Gallant Beauty!" Neptune shouted. His aim was off. It bounced off the blade of the glaive and hit Saturn. Neptune winced and took his sister’s arms off himself. The wrong words had come to him.
"Stercutus Golden Age!" Saturn yelled, rushing up and swiping at the two.
"Polyhymnia—"
"Euterpe—"
The two froze, halfway through their incantations. The Glaive cleanly sliced through both where it would have barely scratched those with such power.
The two screamed as their forms flickered in the air, and then disappeared. All that was left behind were two crystals.
Minako walked over and picked them up.
"I’m going back," she said, and ran off.
"Come on, bugger this, it ain’t our dig," Uranus said, and grabbed Neptune’s hand.
Tommy let her glaive fade away and started off herself at a walk. She looked at her glaive. Thanks to Neptune, she’d found a new spell, deep inside of herself. She’d killed two people. This wasn’t her. She may have been chains and spikes, but she wasn’t blades and death.
"Fuck it," she said, and her fuku vanished into her strange punk outfit. It was her, though. Saturn wasn’t. Someone else could wield the power to kill everything in the galaxy.
"What about me?" Pluto yelled after her.
"I’m getting my sisters. I quit."
"You can’t quit! You’re Sailorsaturn!"
"Look, I’m getting my sisters. You can come if you want."
"But…" Pluto trailed off and pouted. There was a bright flash in the direction that Aaron had gone off in.
For the first time ever, Pluto made a decision, a big one. "You leave my little brother alone!" she yelled, and ran off.