{oOo}

Step by step, heart to heart, left right left

We all fall down like toy soldiers

Bit by bit, torn apart, we never win

But the battle wages on; for toy soldiers

{oOo}

The room was dark, a wreck, a ruin, the woman within it slumped, her face in her hands.

"Your soul screams of regret, little girl." The voice is beautiful, filled with terrible amusement. "Tell me, what is it you would regret so much?"

"The man I loved, I hurt." the words are flat, the speaker lacking the energy to argue. "Begone, monster, I'll not have you mocking me."

"Ah, but If I'm not mocking you?" the words are filled with a terrible amusement. "Little girl, If I could offer you a chance to go and change the past, would you take it?"
"None may change the past, time is linear." the words she says are bitter, filled with the resignation of a condemned man. But the voice only smiles. "Time," it purred. "Is a mobius strip. So I ask you again, little girl, little puppet. What would a puppet do if it could control its own strings?"

"...I would go back," the words are soft, "I would kill the fool that was myself before the fall of the moon. I would slay Metallia with it. I would go back, to when I first met him. To when he first saw me as nothing, and then I would crush his foes, would save him from this. From this moment when he is broken."

"Because you love him little girl?" The voice is filled with that dark amusement and bitter approval, "Make a compact with me, little one. I will grant you your wishes."

"Wishes have a price, and I'll not burden him with mine," She said quietly, "I'll not hurt him like this again, I can't."

"I'll ask no price from him, nor harm him," It promised softly, seductively. "Only you, to pay my price, and you value yourself so little."

"He is the sun and the moon, and I am dust." the words are simple but in the heart of their speaker, they are true.

"... Then you will take my offer, little one?" The voice knows it has won. She is desperate, beyond desperation, beyond despair. Only this remains.

"I will make a compact with you, for his life. For his safety, for his honor, his sanity, his liberation. That he live in comfort, and happiness. Free from my mistakes. All these I demand," her voice is stronger now, fiercer. Defending the one her heart sees as most precious.

"...Then we have a compact, little girl." The voice is amused, proud, bitter-sweet, joyful. "We have a compact. I will send you back, child, and in the end, you will make a fine piece to play against the false gods."

He lets her see him. Tall, dark and pale, glorious. His dark hair, falling to his ankles, skin pale as milk, eyes cold and blue as ice. Clad in robes of blue, ash-grey silver and black. And smiling. The smile of a predator, a man driven mad by despair. "We have a compact, little one..." he purred, and his voice would have made Slaanesh weep for envy, rich and resonant, dark as his shadows.

"Chaos!" She hissed, in rage. "I should have known. I've failed him again," and then she clenched her fists. "Why do you offer me this bargain, fiend?"

"Firstly because I am... tired. Tired of fighting your precious moon princess," The being before her paced, graceful and terrible all at once. "Second, because you have been a good pawn. Third, because the Chaos of this realm is as food to me."

It stopped, locked gazes with her, those uncanny eyes gazing into her soul. "And last.. oh, little one," It… No. He turns his mind back, back to the last ruler of the new Crystal Tokyo kingdom that had been, was being built now, was existing, had existed. Chaos was all things, including the future after all, and some things stayed, even after it had won, after the end was only itself and the void.

Like the feel of helplessness and being sheltered when it had been weaker, newly bound into this shell. Like the warmth of a hug. The kiss on its forehead. The warm, sad smile of a parent.

...The memory of a cold corpse in its arms as the pain began to drive it mad. Horribly horribly mad, with wanting what it had just lost, the corpse fragile in its arms, red gold hair spilling down as it closed the corpse's eyes.

...Chaos had learned, at the end. What humanity felt like. It was pain. It hurt.

"Last because your soul screams, little girl. Like my mother's screamed when she was human, before she bound me into this shape with her arts."

"I loved my mother," the words are like blood, drawn unwilling. "I loved her and she shattered because of a human. As you shattered, little girl. I know that look, know the screams of regret, the desire for oblivion. I cannot forget. You are as I am. You scream, too."

It hissed, held back rage. Rage could wait. This was a new world, a new universe, that had not yet begun to scream. The Cauldron existed. Perhaps she existed too.

"What little I know of humanity, I learned from my mother. Honor is shit. Duty is ash. The world is dust. But love is important, and those who love as you have, to the destruction of themselves over and over... I will give you your wishes, little girl, because I could not grant hers."

"You will cheat me," She said bitterly. "As you cheated me before."

"My pawns and those of this dimension... They cheated you, child."

"But I will not. After all, we are alike, you and I." It smiles, bleak, bitter, and feral.

"What proof may I have of your words?" She demanded.

It tilted it's head quizzically. Contemplated her words. "...I will offer you the chance to summon things, creatures or beings from your universe," It offered. "But not of the Moon Kingdom, oh no," It grinned madly again, like a Cheschire Cat.

"You may only summon those of Terra, from Terra, because you are of Terra."

"And," It purred. "I will give you a foretaste of payment, yes? Since we are already agreed."

Chaos was past. Chaos was present. Chaos was future.

All things would come to it, for was it not all things? The death of a pawn, of Metallia was nothing. In this Beryl, it now had a Queen.

The kill was easy, quick. So very close to the portal, it was easy to wrap an arm around her other self, and slide the blade in between her shoulders. She caught the corpse as she fell, laid it down gently closing the eyes of the dead. "You'll thank me later," She told her past self quietly, before she went to find the Queen of the Moon.

Within the new dimension, the new universe, Chaos smiled.

The sealing of Metallia went apace. Beryl felt profoundly uncomfortable at the so-called victory party, fleeing as early as possible to the rooms she'd been given to sleep in.

She woke up to Chaos looking down at her and choked, in shock. "You!" she said, stunned, then, as she sat up, began looking around herself at the unfamiliar room, with the Aquila. It, resembled her rooms in the universe she came from, but she knew nothing that could explain waking up in a strange room, next to an embodiment of evil. Or at least, of obliteration.

"Yes, me." Chaos said companionably, lounging like a cat over Beryl's new couch. "Haven't you guessed? Did you think the world would stand still as you enacted your changes? Everything changed when you warned Serenity about the Moon Kingdom. Everythin, including the now, in this world. For one thing..." Chaos grinned. "The world of Sailor Moon, and its moon kingdom, shines bright, an eternal age of peace and love without having to fight. At all."

"The likelihood is," Chaos grinned. "While that's happening, those who had received the chance to live there? Their martial skills atrophy through long centuries of peace, strengthening myself. But that's irrelevant. What's important is, because of what you did, you saved the Princess from ever having been born here. There is no Princess Serenity in this world. No Senshi. Only the Primarchs and their sire. And the Ruinous Powers that plan to destroy them."

"Fulgrim," Beryl hissed, catching the creature's gaze, hands around his throat. "What of my lord Fulgrim?"

"He lives," Chaos grinned. "As I promised, little girl. He and his siblings are yet uncorrupted. You have plenty of time, to show him your worth, to make him want you. And plenty of time to pay him back in kind, to make amends for your failings."

Only then did Beryl let go of his neck. "He is free?"

"He lives and is free," Chaos clarified. "As I promised. But you know as well as I do that the sword that corrupted him is in Laeran space."

"Then," Beryl said quietly. "I need to melt that temple and everything in it to slag before he gets there."

Chaos grinned as his pawn went rapidly to work, packing everything she owned and could use. Beryl of House Cesian would vanish. As if she had never been. And no one would ever remember her.

{oOo}

AN: As the author has asked, I am putting this story the way she organised it, at my discretion, from the files she has kindly sent me.

Thank you Dji~ :)