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The Gathering

By Corvus no Genmu


06: Age

"Who says that we shall pass, or the fame of us fade and die, while the living stars fulfill their round in the living sky?"

What is it that marks the ending of an era? Is it when there is none left alive to recall it beyond what is forever transcribed upon paper and stone? Is it when all that is left in remembrance of such a time is ruins wasting away to the ravages of time? I cannot tell you just what marks the ending of an era… but I can describe to you, the beginning of its end.

It begins… with War.

In the time between the millennium spanning Golden Era and the mere centuries of The Primordial Hours, there was War. A War the likes of which has never before been seen nor occurred since for the senseless destruction that laid waste to entire worlds within and beyond the Solar System. One silent testament to the sheer inhuman savagery of this War survives even now in the Bronze Era as an ever-circling body of gravestones.

The people of the Bronze Age refer to it as the Asteroid Belt but in the eras before it, it had been called by a different name. It was named the Ring of Remembrance, in honor of the trillions of human lives that were lost to the space-spanning War. A War that saw the sundering of entire worlds that left naught but their remains to circle endless in the soundless void of space. A War that no one, not the survivors, the innocent bystanders struggling to survive, or even those still fighting to preserve that innocence, could remember the cause—the reason for such destruction on a interplanetary scale.

What was it?

What was worth the obliteration of a thousand worlds and the extinguished light of a thousand stars?

They couldn't remember.

But they did know whom to thank for its end.

They did not know the face or the form, nor did they truly know whether it had been by immortal grace or something within mortal comprehension and limitations. All that they knew, all that humanity could ever be allowed to know, was a name.

Terra…

Yet such action by a god's humility or a mortal's pride, are not without consequence or penalty. A price had to be paid in full, a sacrifice of the highest order that was required from them all, the innocent and the bloodied. The Ursprache, the Primordial Language that bound all of humanity together as living gods lying beneath mortal flesh was taken from them and though they continued to share the same language, humans could no longer hold a Power of their own.

Save for them.

Who are they? Surely you've heard of them by now? They whom are called the Aspect Guardians, the Knights of Oblivion and Warriors of Salvation?

No…?

Perhaps then, you would recognize them by their one true title.

The Servants of Terra.

No one knows just what it was that Terra saw in these individuals, what it was about their character that made them so different from the surviving millions of what once had been several quadrillions of lives. Humanity had spread far across the stars but now a fraction of its once massive expanse was bound to the very System from which it had originated. So it was that Terra proclaimed that the nine surviving bodies, those few surviving worlds that twirled a lazy circle about the sun, would be guided by the Servants but never ruled by them.

No. That was for the Lords and Ladies of the Nine Houses. The scions of those nine individuals who saw fit to unite themselves together and fight in the War not in its name but in another's.

Peace.

The Nine Houses would rule and govern their respected worlds but they could never hold dominion over the Old World, the originator of humanity. For though they strived for peace and bore its banner proudly, the Nine Houses were just the same as the enemy they combated. They had left their home without so much as a backward glance and even then, at the end of the War, held little to no love for it save for the Power which it held but could not be reclaimed.

So it was, that the First Kingdom, the Golden Kingdom of Gaia, would rule everlasting upon the Old World and the Power it still contained, and if any of the Nine Houses dared to try and contest this they would have the Servants to contend with. That was one of the first lessons learned in those days following the War and one of the cardinal rules never scribed but always remembered when it concerns the Servants of Terra.

To try and fight a Servant of Terra… would equate only destruction and death.

Never mind what would result from actually defeating one.

And in those early decades they did try.

The Servants were powerful, everyone knew this, but many argued that they surely must have a weakness. Surely there was something that they coveted, something that they feared, or something that even they couldn't overcome. Was it irony or was it fate that the very Houses that sought their end were to be the worlds that they guided but never truly ruled?

Those with the wealth of plundered worlds tried to buy their services and those that offered treasures found themselves without a single coin to their name. Those who sought the oblivion of entire stars tried to frighten them and those that once were allied with fear were turned into its most coveted prey, jumping at the slightest noise or shimmering shadow. As for those who thought themselves their better, they who believed themselves to be stronger… Well they and all who stood on such similar sentiment now lay those thoughts to rest in the graves they dug for themselves.

Such was the way it had been but Time, as all things, moves forward and nothing remains forever the same. Fear and reverence turned to tolerance and admiration that had in turn became a mutual respect between the Nine House of the Solar System and the Servants of Terra.

Yet as was said before… Time moves forward and all things change but not always for the better. There were things loose amongst Creation now. Horrors that could never truly be destroyed or forgotten, grudges that flowed through the blood of generations, and desires that arose to deranged heights rather than be quelled into silence.

Things had been done in the War that could never again be repeated or Creation itself would cease to be. Such atrocities were done with careless, nay, heartless abandon that it was by Terra and the Servants alone that spared humanity a permanent extinction.

But even so the Unspeakable still happened.

Terrible things were done in the War. Whole worlds were torn asunder in an instant with naught but shattered stone to forever mark their passing in the ages to come. The living and the dead were one and the same for if you weren't dying to live than you were living death, waiting for the inevitable darkness that would free you from torturous existence. Space and Time, dominions no sentient being should ever attempt to control, became as children's playthings and treated far more unkindly.

But these were sticks and stones whence compared to the true crime committed, the one that would spell the destruction of not one but several Ages to come.

Somehow It was alive while countless worlds spread their ashes across the Void.

It was not supposed to live.

Not as we know Life to exist.

It should not have been able to

But It did.

And Creation itself trembled…

For Chaos Has Returned.


"They killed your father, Usagi…"

It was wrong how little the words meant to her, awake and her regular self. The she that is Usagi Tsukino, an ordinary girl living a extraordinary life as she balanced between normalcy of the mundane and fighting evils as a defender of love and justice.

"They killed your father, Usagi…"

It was wrong how much the words broke her heart and soul, asleep and drowning in a life lost millennia ago, a life that was no longer hers. The her that was Princess Serena of the House Selene, a princess of a kingdom forgotten and nothing more than dust.

"They killed your father, Usagi…"

Unwantedly, the image of her father – her previous life's father – came to the fore of her mind. A man no older in appearance than Queen Serenity but sporting the same silverfish coloration to his double-braided hair, and whose goatee was as neat and meticulous as his dress. Unlike her mother – her previous life's mother – he bore atop his head a crown so lavish that one's eyes couldn't help but be drawn to it and, in the process, his eyes. his eyes, red as blood and merciless as death to anyone but she and Queen Serenity. Only in the privacy of their gazes did his own warm into limpid pools of love for his wife and daughter.

"They killed your father, Usagi…"

Did they? She couldn't remember much of him, of King Elatha, outside his appearance. Just the same as Queen Serenity really but… She could almost swear—

The guards were shouting, clamoring about like Earthen fowls in full panic as the palace shook and trembled to the godforsaken rhythm of battle. Princess Serena of the House Selene, though no longer the child she was, still managed to sneak away from her Ladies of the Inner Houses and dodge her way through her family's troops. She raced for the source of the conflict, the very room that she had previously vacated on her father's command.

The throne room.

She had just reached the doors and bit back a gasp at the bodies that littered the grounds, all of them dead and whose faces were forever frozen in a rictus of terror. The doors were sealed shut and as she carefully approached, the marking of her House glimmered upon her brow and by the blood that flowed within her veins, the doors to the throne room opened for her.

To see the end of the world as she knew it…

There, standing at the center of the room was a Servant of Terra.

There, lying on the ground at the Servant's feet was King Elatha.

Dead.

By a Servant's hands.

The doors opposite of Princess Serena opened wide with excessive magical force and her mother, Serenity, appeared and did what Serena found herself incapable of doing.

She screamed.


"She has been chosen." Arashi signed, glaring at Dirk from across "their" table at the Crown Plaza Café.

Dirk frown grimly. "Not unexpected really given how much she stands out amongst the others."

Horatio nodded. "There is a reason she was picked to lead them with Kaorinite's death."

"This is not what we had planned though." Eirik grumbled. "We weren't expecting her to be one of the forerunners."

"Things change, we can't always—" Tobias suddenly turned sharply to the window, nostrils flared. The others did the same and watched in silence as Rei Hino arrived onto the scene just outside the café via a long and powerful skid along the asphalt on her bicycle before shortly crashing head over heels over a sign.

One that urged the practice of decelerating ironically enough…

"Ouch." Eirik chuckled viciously, "that had to—Oof!"

"Do not take enjoyment out of my Lady's pain, Eirik." Horatio's eyes were filled with shadowed steel promising a quick, bladed death should the Norseman try and utter another snicker at Rei's expense.

"What is she in such a hurry for?" Tobias muttered to which Horatio answered.

"Something to do with tonight's festival if I recall correctly… That girl over there is one of the top drummers in Japan."

Dirk didn't reply. His eyes were upon four other sources of color in an otherwise monochrome world doing their best to try and sneak an ear into the conversation between the two young women.

"What are Mako-chan and the others doing?" Tobias grunted, rubbing at his nose. "They're all so close together I can barely make her scent out! Someone, narrate for me here…"

"Aw, ain't that adorable," drawled Eirik with a vicious sneer. "I think they're trying copy your shtick, Arashi."

"… I can kill you, right here, right now, and no court in this or any country would ever be able to convict me."

"Will you both please just—" Dirk turned so sharply in his seat that his neck audibly cracked from the sudden twist. He was not the only one to react with such an extreme degree though he had easily outpaced the others as they caught the sudden shift in the air and responded in their own ways.

Horatio turned sharply in his own seat, his hand grasping the top of his cane, the barest hint of sharpened steel glimmering between the woodwork as he scowled with an unnaturally intense hatred shining darkly in his eyes. Arashi's hand, once twirling a pencil between his fingers, closed into a tight fist that broke the writing utensil to kindling as a deep chittering sound emanated from deep within his throat.

Eirik's grasp upon his cup of coffee was great enough to shatter the ceramic and spill the hot drink upon his hand, which he easily ignored in favor of mimicking a wolf's growl as he glared coldly with lupine eyes. Tobias, normally the dictionary definition of a gentle giant, was not so at this particular moment as his own deep-throated growl made a mockery of both Arashi and Eirik as his nostrils flared and tightened against the recognizable stench of betrayal.

"So you recognize it too." Dirk said, not questioningly but with a strange detachment, as though his very heart had been rendered silent lest he lose whatever control he possessed.

"Hard to forget the feel of that bitch's brand of magic," growled Eirik. "It rings like shattered glass in my ears."

"So she finally enters the field then?" Horatio asked, his grip still tight upon the hilt of his hidden blade.

Arashi sat typing away at his miniature computer, a senbon was clutched tightly in his teeth as he searched through the network of cameras and audio recorders that he had installed or managed to hack his way into across the district and beyond.

"There is a strong stench of blood and ash," muttered Tobias, "It is an old smell, a lingering aroma but it's strong enough that I can only tell you that it is not the witch herself that came through the Gates."

Arashi's head snapped up at that. "What? She would send someone else through the Gates? That is forbidden!"

"Was forbidden," corrected Dirk. "Amongst many other things that "his majesty" tried to negate or alter. It wouldn't surprise me at all if that was one of the first laws that Serenity saw fit to change in our absence." He reluctantly turned away from where he saw the pulse of time magic color a small portion of his monochrome world. "Search the city. Find whoever it is that she sent through the Gates but do not, I repeat, do not engage them. Not until we know for sure what we're dealing with."

"But who would she send?" asked Arashi. "Only those of her House were ever allowed through the Gates and no more than a week's time at most! Who would she risk the very fabrics of Space & Time to allow such travesty?"

"I don't know." Dirk admitted. And that's what frightens me most right now. What kind of game are you playing here, Observer? "If I recall correctly, there's only a limited range that the Gates allow for safe travel, so whoever it is, they can't have come from very far, past or future."

"Farther back than the Silver Millennium?" asked Eirik.

Dirk blinked and slowly shook his head. "No. No she wouldn't dare to even harbor the thought of doing that. The Senshi were stronger then but to try and bring one of them forward to the Bronze Period… Reincarnation or not, the soul cannot exist simultaneously in two separate bodies. The paradox that would–"

"I don't think Eirik was referring to the Senshi, Dirk." Horatio interjected.

Dirk paused and looked at the others in silence. His brothers-in-arms who had not truly survived the ages since the Golden Era unlike Dirk himself who had though he had no intention or say in the matter. Like the Senshi to whom they were sworn, they too had been reborn and their memories of the past, though far greater than the recollection of all of the Senshi and their feline advisors combined, were just that. Memories, whether they were fresh and new or old and dusty, could easily and even willfully be forgotten if the events tied to them were horrific enough.

And the dying days of the Golden Era were what crafted such a word as forgotten in the first place.

"I know what you're thinking. What you're all hoping but don't try and delude yourselves. They are all dead. Let them rest in peace."

"So, what, she gets a free pass too?" Eirik snorted derisively. "We gonna let her live?"

"No."

Eirik wasn't the only one to blink in surprise though he was the only one who spoke a stunned, "Eh?"

"Much as you might want to believe otherwise, Neptune and Uranus did what they did out of duty to Queen Serenity without knowing the full truth. She did not. She had the Gates, the means, of seeing what we did. She had to have known what had happened to King Elatha long before we became aware and, if she didn't possess that foresight, she still had the means of finding the truth on her own and learn that we were in the right."

Dirk's eyes darkened, a draconic glint shining in their emeralds orbs.

"She was the first Senshi to kill and by the Chalice, she will be the first Senshi to die."


It was chance that he had discovered her driving out onto the streets with the same reckless abandon that he had taught her but it was with purpose that he followed her trail. It wasn't against orders, he argued with himself. He was not a tracker, not like Archer or Berserker. His realm of expertise lied in the silent arts of stalking unwitting prey, of killing whole platoons of soldiers with no one the wiser.

Such is the way of Assassin.

So here he was, sitting atop the performance platform set up for the young drummer of tonight's festival watching as the red-haired Eudial pulled into the scene. He sat back and waited as she called out for her quarry that carelessly answered and readily walked into the young woman's trap. His head tilted in surprise as he watched Eudial make use of a specialized cannon to "shoot" the young drummer's pure heart crystal out from her chest.

When the enemy has memorized your routine, that's precisely when you change the tune of the dance. He couldn't help the nod of approval. An excellent strategy but you're not like Kaorinite. The Senshi are right there His fists tightened upon the wooden railing, cracking it. Where the Hell is your backup?

He ignored the speeches of the Sailor Moon and Sailor Mars. His eyes remained locked upon Eudial as she stood confidently before the pair before she whipped off her lab coat and vanished away her glasses as she revealed just what she was wearing underneath her workwoman's uniform.

Assassin's jaw nearly hit the railing as he suddenly lost his footing.

That's—!

To put it mildly, it was an exotic wear of crimson colored silks but if one were to be perfectly blunt about it… Eudial was dressed like a belly dancer. A sleeveless crop top complete with slightly baggy gym pants the ended just beneath the knees and started just above promiscuous territory. Yet for Assassin, the clothes did not matter as much as what lay upon her chest.

Dangling just beneath her neck and slightly above the generous line of her cleavage was a red camellia.

In the language of flowers it means: My destiny is in your hands.

Assassin's clenched hands shattered the railing, imagining bone and sinew in place of wood and iron nails.

Damn me to the deepest pit in the Ninth Circle of Hell for what I've done…

"Appear before me, daimon!"

The back of Eudial's station wagon exploded open with a cloud of thick, miasmic purple smoke and out stepped out what had to be the most pathetic daimon Assassin had ever seen. Honestly, if he hadn't just witnessed its birth, Assassin would have thought the thing, Soyer by its exuberant shouting, was some form of cosplayer attempting a strange union of female oni with a traditional drummer.

Still, he supposed that he should be grateful to have been provided with a means of venting his frustrations.

"Assassin."

The Arachnid Warrior inclined his head to his fellow Servant with a silent curse at not leaping into the fray the moment the daimon appeared. "Saber. A bit far from your search aren't you?"

"I could say the same of you," said the Avian Warrior, glancing down at the spectacle below.

"Not going to step in?" asked Assassin.

"… Much as it leaves a foul taste in my mouth, I have to agree with the Outers. If we step in every time things look to be the worst for them, the Senshi will only continue to stagnate. Silence is coming and as they are, they have no means of surviving its approach never mind putting an end to its existence."

Assassin hummed in thought. "So what's the real reason?"

Saber sighed tiredly. "The trail from where the Gates of Time opened leads to somewhere in this park. I just happened to be the closest in the area. Besides you anyway."

Assassin snorted and shook his head. "Just happened huh? Mind you, if you grip your sword any tighter, it'll start swinging on its own accord before long."

Saber released his grip upon the pommel of his sword with an angry, avian hiss. Sailor Moon and Sailor Mars, while virtually uninjured, were one step away from being used as a pair of living drums by Soyer. "Just because I agree with the sentiment does not mean that I have to like it. You at least can be assured that Lady B—"

"Hold it wight thewe!"

The two Servants turned sharply, staring down into the nearby grove of trees.

There, standing beneath the light of a lamppost was a Senshi neither Servant had ever seen before. That was incredibly surprising for the Servants but it was not just the sudden appearance of this new Sailor Senshi but just how she appeared.

"… By the Chalice." Assassin swore.

"It's…" Saber shook his head, "That's impossible. She would never— why would she send a… a…"

"A child Saber!" Assassin uttered the word like it was something foul on his tongue. "A child that can't possibly be a Senshi!"

Almost as though she had heard their denials for herself, though truthfully hearing the exclamations of disbelief from her senior Senshi, the young apprentice announced herself to the world for the first time.

"I'm Sailor Chibi Chibi!"

An apt name for the pint-sized Senshi if ever there was one. No more than three feet by way of her heart-shaped buns of red hair atop her head, the so-called warrior of love and justice looked more like a child playing pretend than an actually blooded warrior. It didn't help her image any when she whipped out her weapon-of-choice, a scepter that was clearly a size too big for her to grasp single-handedly and was an absurdly bright shade of pink.

"Pwink Sugaw Heart… Attack!"

The scepter's icon, a crystalized heart, flickered with rosy light and promptly died much to the apprentice Senshi's surprise.

"Wha-wha? That's stwange…" Too busy with trying to figure out just why her scepter wasn't working, the pint-sized Senshi didn't notice the daimon's approach until Soyer had kicked her feet out from under her. "Owie!"

Soyer grunted and kneeled down to glare at Sailor Chibi-Chibi. "Shouldn't you be in preschool?"

"Pwink Sugaw Heart… ATTACK!" declared the crimson-haired Senshi holding her scepter up into Soyer's face. The heart-shaped gem flickered to life once more and the daimon smirked at the faint musical tone it emanated shortly before she squealed in surprise and pain as a storm of heart-shaped energy rings burst free from the jewel and hit her right in the face. She scrambled back and tried to get away from the startling painful attack but only managed to have the attack aimed towards her rear end, something that hurt her far more than when the attack had struck her in the face.

In the face it had been a painful slap, but in the butt?

Oh it stung like a bi—

A rope of webbing suddenly tied itself to Soyer's neck and hurled the daimon up into the air with such force that it was a miracle that the creature's neck hadn't snapped. As it was, the killing blow came in a maelstrom of steel feathers that pierced through her body like arrows through paper. By the time the hailstorm of iron ended, all that was left of Soyer was the remains of a drum that clattered noisily to the ground.

"Though I commend you for your effort little one," An armored hand ruffled her hair, turning equally red eyes up to the glimmering lenses of Saber, "I'd wait a few more years before taking the mantle of… Are you alright?"

Sailor Chibi-Chibi's eyes were wide but her pupils were tiny pinpricks of terror as she trembled beneath Saber's hand, face as pale as freshly fallen snow. "Mu-Mu-Mu… MUMMY!"

Saber was so surprised by the sudden exclamation that he jerked back, actually stumbling on his feet at the sheer volume of the tiny Senshi's outburst. The little warrior scuttled back and ran to stand behind the legs of Sailor Moon, tears streaming down her eyes as she cried and pleaded for them to protect her from the "bad people."

Assassin cocked his head and glanced at Saber who, seen to the trained eyes of a Silent Killer but unnoticed by the innocent Senshi, was equal parts shocked and ashamed at the child's reaction to them. The Obsidian Knight inclined his head in a small bow to the two Senshi, not noticing or simply not caring how Sailor Moon refused to look at either Servant or how heated Sailor Mars' glare was as she brought her hands together in a familiar sign.

"I apologize for scaring the girl but the daimon—"

"Cut the crap!" snapped Sailor Mars. The tip of her pointed fingers alit with fire as she glared at the two Servants. "We know what you did!"

"Noticed that did you? Us killing that daimon with next to no effort on our parts?" Assassin asked. "Good job by the way, being totally useless and all that."

"Assassin," warned Saber, his tone tight and controlled but the shorter Servant could feel the steel in his elder's voice and at his throat though his fellow Servant's blade remained sheathed. "You will not—"

"Did you do it?" The surprisingly soft whisper from Sailor Moon stopped the argument between the two Servants.

"Do what precisely?" asked Saber after a moment's hesitation.

"Did you kill King Elatha…? Did you kill Princess Serena's father?" asked Sailor Moon.

The two Servants exchanged glances more because of the blonde Senshi's choice of words than her actual question. Did they kill King Elatha? Did they kill Princess Serena's father? Not "my King" or "my father" but determined distance from a dead and nearly forgotten past. The answer though, no matter how the question was asked, remained the same now as it had back at the end of the Golden Era and the beginning days of the Silver Millennium.

"We kill monsters." Assassin answered. "The Senshi are the ones that murder innocent people."

Faster than the Senshi could blink, the two Servants were gone.


"They know." Archer growled.

Lancer stood with his arms crossed across his chest as he gazed down at the gathering Senshi below. Berserker and Archer both stood behind him atop the fairground's highest building, far from prying eyes and the glimmering lights below.

"I am aware." Lancer murmured. "It was a matter of time until one of the advisors spoke up."

"Yeah, well, I don't know about the rest of you but I was actually looking forward to not having to watch my back every damn moment of the day in or out of the uniform," muttered Archer.

"But who is the girl?" Berserker murmured. "Why would she send them a child?"

"I wish I knew…" muttered Lancer, his eyes never straying from the toddler in question.

"By the look of things," said Assassin as he and Saber landed behind the mountainous Berserker, "she appears to be Princess Serena's future daughter if her reaction to Saber was anything to go by. Though the Princess was surprised by the girl's reaction to us, she reciprocated the embrace just the same despite not attempting to try and alleviate the child's fear."

The Avian Warrior's shoulders lowered and his voice was positively downcast at that bitter reminder. "What do we become in the future, that she, an innocent child, would react in such a way? Are we to become the bogeymen, the monsters that the Ladies warn their children of before bed? Are we to be the nightmares that lurk behind the mirrors of their dreams? Must we remain as we are, enemies to the Senshi and to our own hearts?"

"It's muted beneath the time magic but…" grumbled Lancer, ignoring Saber's lamentations behind him. "That child is…"

Berserker tilted his head. "What is it, Lancer?"

"… It's nothing. The Sands of Time cover too much of her natural aura," he said. But not everything…

For in the eyes of the Lancer, he who bore the Gift of Miracles and whose price to be paid was to see the faint and dying embers of the World's magic around him, saw the impossible. In his fellow Servants, he saw flames as brilliant as a newborn volcano, bursting and blazing anew. The Senshi would have been the same if they were as they had been back in the Silver Millennium, their equals in every way that had mattered.

As they are now, in a lifetime far from their once glorious and nigh undefeatable past, they burned like great forest fires —wild and untamed— but quick to be extinguished save for the Princess herself who burned just a bit brighter than they but for the Gem which lay upon her breast. Not even here, in the Third Era, could the Silver Crystal shine any less than it had since the day of its creation.

But the child, this innocent little girl, who could not have been all of five years old if even that much…

She shone even brighter than the Crystal, than the very Sun itself.

What is she…?


"She's your granddaughter?!"

The sweatdrop that was already quite large upon Usagi's brow seemed to almost quadruple in size at the shared exclamation of her friends.

There is a distinctive unfairness to it all, Usagi firmly decided, to be a mother and a grandmother when I haven't even gotten to third base yet never mind the home run!

Not that she was bitter or anything…

Frustrated perhaps but she couldn't possibly be that bitter over it.

The pint-sized red haired girl, whom insisted that her name was in fact Chibi-Chibi yet would gladly answered to the simple but oh so eloquent Chibi, nodded, sucking at her thumb as she held out a slightly crumpled envelope. "I have a letter fwom Mama for Mummy."

Usagi privately cheered the child's declaration of the word "mummy" versus "grandma." True, it could almost be taken as an insult considering the significant ages of mummies and such but she'd rather be called "mummy" than grandma. Because, again stressing a certain point here, she was still working on getting to third base and stealing home in the same sprint.

Frustrated yes, bitter a most definite yes with a healthy dose of denial to top it off.

Usagi knelt down to take it from the girl only to have it summarily handed to a surprised Minako Aino. "Hey!"

"Can you wead it fow me Auntie Minako?"

Make that a surprised and slightly blushing Minako who readily ignored Makoto's snickering as she took the letter from the girl and started reading it aloud. "To The Meatball Head…"

"It doesn't say that!" exclaimed Usagi only to have Minako show her that the letter did in fact say that complete with cartoonish rendition of an adult Chibi-Usa sticking out her tongue. "Why that little—! She's in for a spanking right when she's born!"

Minako decided to allow Usagi her moment and continued, "Though I have done well in bearing the mantle of a Sailor Senshi I think I'm a better student than a teacher and so have sent my daughter, Chibi-Chibi, to train under you and your friends. Please watch over her… Chibi-Usa…"

Rei's eyebrow started twitching, feeling a familiar headache that normally came with a certain odango-haired blonde. "Is that it?"

"Yep." Minako nodded.

"Oh sweet Sun and Stars…" groaned Luna, also feeling a familiar headache of her own. "Chibi-Usa is Usagi's daughter after all."

Usagi glared down at her cat with a look that was equal parts betrayal and confusion. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You think that's bad? She'll even inherit Usagi's inability to use kanji," said Minako, showing off the fact that the letter was written in the same childish style that Usagi herself tended to use.

While Usagi's face did a fabulous rendition of a tomato as she fervently prayed for the letter to spontaneously combust then and there, Ami asked the million dollar question, "But training? What in the world will she be doing? If it's for being a princess, it's definitely the wrong era for her…"

"And if it's for being a Senshi, isn't she far too young?" asked Makoto. "I mean, these daimon are tough and more than a few have been quite scary."

Rei's eyes narrowed as she remembered precisely how Chibi had reacted to a daimon and those that dealt it a swift and painful death. She spared a glance at the child and saw, to her surprise, that Phobos and Deimos had taken it upon themselves to lure the child away and begin what looked like a demented game of tag with the child. Odd considering that the ravens of the temple, those two especially, disliked even within throwing distance of another human save for Rei herself.

"It's not the Daimon that are the problem here." The young miko said with a glare. "But the Servants of Terra."

"What? The Servants were there?" asked a surprised Ami.

Rei nodded. "They took out the daimon like it was nothing and scared poor little Chibi half to death. She was crying, literally crying, at the mere sight of them!"

"Then… does that mean they'll become our enemies in the future?" asked Makoto.

Rei shot the taller girl a surprised look. "What, you don't think they're not our enemies now?"

"They haven't done us or anyone else any harm," said Minako, unconsciously hugging herself as a faint memory of blood and tears tickled at the back of her mind.

Artemis scratched the back of his head. "Well, except for Uranus and Neptune whom they are perhaps justified in—"

"Justified?!" exclaimed Luna. "They killed Usagi's father!"

"King Elatha is not my father!" shouted Usagi, startling the girls and cats. The girl's eyes were narrowed and her cheeks red as she suppressed the tears that threatened to fall from her eyes. "My father is Kenji Tsukino, he works at CBC and is alive…! King Elatha is… was… Princess Serena's father and he's dead and—and its not right to blame the Servants for something that was an entire lifetime ago! Whatever their reasons were, whatever cause they might have had, it's done. King Elatha and the Silver Millennium are gone. Blaming them, hating them, for hurting people who have been dead for countless years… it's wrong."

"Usagi… Princess…" murmured Luna. "Don't tell me you don't feel anything—?"

"My name is Usagi Tsukino! Princess Serena is not me!"


"My name is Usagi Tsukino! Princess Serena is not me!"

A finger tapped lightly upon the keyboard once again.

"My name is Usagi Tsukino! Princess Serena is not me!"

The finger hovered for a moment as emerald eyes watched in silence as the blonde turned and took off running without another word. Lips drawn in a tight frown, he glanced up at his silent companion, the one whom had captured the entire scene and had brought it to his and the others' attention immediately after it happened.

"… Well fuck all kinds of duck."

As always, Eirik could be counted on to summarize everyone's thought processes as eloquently as possible.

"That's…" Horatio palmed his face. "That's no better than what I can think to say… She… She really isn't the Princess."

"No." Dirk murmured quietly. "She is. More than she or anyone else cares to admit but Serena is… was… not as foolish as most thought her to be."

"She was young then," argued Tobias. "And foolishly in love with one whom she was never meant to have."

"Young yes, and in love undoubtedly, but a fool she was not otherwise her forbidden romance would have been caught sooner by the Senshi and the Prince's so-called vanguard." Dirk gave his blind friend a sardonic smirk that was echoed in his voice. "And hypocrisy does not suit you, Tobias. We weren't meant to involve ourselves with the Nine Houses once we accepted our Gifts and Guardianships."

Arashi raised an eyebrow. "We?" He signed. "Do mine ears deceive me but is our great leader actually admitting to having something resembling a heart?"

Eirik rolled his eyes. "Oh please, like it was any secret that we involved ourselves with a specific House even when were explicitly told to cut off any ties we might have had with them! Hell, we were told the same thing now in this damned era and look at what's become of us! A lame swordsman, a blind warrior, a mute storyteller, a magic-less mage, and an archer that can't even hold a fucking bow! All for a bunch of girls that don't give two shits if we lived or died!"

A fist collided hard against the wall beside Eirik's and the whole house shook from the blow. Tobias let out a slow breath of air as he glared down at the ground at his feet with empty eyes. "Shut. Up."

"Oh-ho do you wanna go at it again, bear boy? You think you can fight me now, blind as you are?" snarled Eirik, as his own eyes turned lupine, his breath hissing out between clenched fangs as the temperature dropped to close freezing around him. "C'mon then! I always want to make the claim of beating you with one arm!"

"He won't be alone." A blade slid lightly against the skin of Eirik's neck as Horatio appeared from his shadow, eyes closed tight against the pain of standing on his own feet unaided. "Stay your anger, Eirik. We are all hurting in our ways—"

"Oh that's rich coming from the likes of you, you crow bastard!"

Dirk sat through the heated argument in silence, his hands clasped in front of his face as he stared at the computer monitor in front of him. For though his eyes laid upon the screen and though his ears heard the echoes of the girl's declaration, neither were set upon the present but the farthest past and the one defining word that preluded the downfall of the Servants of Terra.

Madness.

Such was the reason for their crimes as proclaimed by the Queen of the House Selene. Such was the justification in her declaring them enemies of the System and ordering her Senshi to kill rather than apprehend. Such was how three of the Senshi comforted their pained hearts as they stained their hands red with blood.

Three of the Servants dead, four confirmed missing and the last two most assuredly dead for though the Lancer's body had yet to be recovered but there was no way for him to have survived a direct strike to the heart, unarmored as he was. As for the Last Servant… well, that one hadn't been seen since the Beginning of the Golden Era so the tales of old had to be wrong, that there were only eight Servants in all and not nine.

The Golden Era ended and the Silver Millennium, led by the prestigious House of Selene, began what was to be an eternal rule over the System. All of it, every little piece of it, was built upon a lie, a delusion by a Queen who would not See, Hear, or Speak of the Evil that her husband, her King, was committing right in front of her.

The Queen could not accept the Truth, a fact that she would continue to deny to her dying breath when her precious kingdom fell not the machinations of the Servants of Terra as she so feared but by her own daughter's heart. With every bit of her Power over the Crystal the Queen saved the lives of those whom she was responsible for. Done gladly and willingly, the price of such an act cost her the destruction of her very soul but a single shard, which remained upon the remains of her once great and grand kingdom to this very day.

Dirk supposed he could take comfort in knowing that karmic retribution, though long in waiting, would always come to those whom deserved it. He blinked and returned back to the conversation at hand and was glad to see that though the argument remained heated, no blows had been exchanged between his subordinates. He sighed and typed a quick command on the computer.

An email opened, short and to the point as the last several had been. Unlike its predecessors, its few words were enough to freeze Dirk's heart solid though his blood burned like magma in his veins with a rising fury.

"ENOUGH!" He roared in a voice of thunderous fury not meant towards his friends but it was enough to snap them out of their argument and turn cautious eyes to their leader. Dirk took a long breath of air and released it slowly through clenched teeth. "There's been a change of plans."


Next time...

Blood

"The bonds that bind together those you've shed blood for and with are greater than to those who merely share the blood in your veins."