Diamond in the Rough
Her eyes flashed in contempt at the willowy, fading figure sinking with the weight of infinite power pressing into thin, bony shoulders. And though the lights reflected in the figure's shimmering gown of chiffon spun from silver and simmered in the facets of the microscopic slivers of diamond woven into the fabric, the dark-haired woman kneeling in front of this sickly luminous being knew that for all of the grandeur, for all of the theatre and dramatics, what sat in the crystalline throne, intricately carved by the finest smiths in all of Mediterrania, was the ultimate definition of darkness.
"Hino-san," the figure began, her hoarse voice lilting with a false kindness that sends chills down the kneeling woman's spine. "You have been the one to stick with me through until the very end of our little game, haven't you?" she cooed.
The woman below her grunted in response, staring resentfully at a red ribbon intertwined in the long, blond tails on her mistress's head. That ribbon wasn't hers; it wasn't natural for her mistress to wear it. Minako, I'll avenge you.
Silver, blind eyes narrowed at the dark-haired woman's thought, and the being laughed throatily, prompting the servant to flinch. "Hino-san, traitorous thoughts are as evil as traitorous actions. Don't be a subversive, my dear. Protect and keep your loving mistress, Hino-san. Protect and keep her, for she is all you have left on which you can cling."
A gnarled, graying arm lifted from the mistress's lap and as if her unseeing eyes could indeed behold what her crooked hands were conjuring in front of the subservient, her cracked ashen lips curled slowly into a sour grin as a young man with soft curls silently cried out to a sniveling woman before being struck by some terrible force from behind. The image kept playing in front of the servant's face as tears stung her violet eyes. They fell in soft drops to the crystal tiles below her slim body, puddling in the cracks between each marbled crystal slab.
"Should I stop?"
Silence.
"Answer your queen."
"D-don't st-"
A blast of white light sent her flying across the cold throneroom. "Stuttering shows weakness, Hino-san. You are the goddess of war, no?" Blind eyes twinkled as they gazed into a sightless world, seeing sightless objects and hearing sightless sounds. Back in Crystal Tokyo, Hino Rei nodded, pulling herself to her feet.
"Fine, then, my Queen. Don't stop the hologram," she replied, a fire kindling inside of her chest. With the retraction of the aged gray arm, the image faded into nothingness. Rei furrowed her brow at the sudden dismissal of her wish, but said nothing as her queen chuckled.
"Hino-san," the mistress croaked, beckoning the woman forward with the twitch of a decrepit finger. "Rei-chan," she corrected, blind eyes suddenly flashing with blue. "Sailor Mars. Yes, that is who you truly are. No worldy name describes the woman before me more than Sailor Mars, senshi of war. Senshi of massacre and bloodshed and destruction. That is who you shall be forever more."
The frail queen lifted her arm once more and pointed a single dying digit at the senshi, who seemed to sense the moment's true ending. And so she was ready to deliver one final blow before that great white light overtook her as it had all of those who had stepped in the way of their once-divine sovereign. So ignoring a tear that silently stumbled down her pale cheek, she inhaled the power of the dead stars around her to cling to her as she spoke what they all had tried to.
"You are the one we have always fought." The words iced over the queen's emaciated figure as she lowered her arm slightly.
"What, my dear, makes you say such a thing?" But she smirks.
Hino Rei felt the fire in her spirit augmenting. And she continued as if the queen hadn't interrupted. "All of the evils of this universe, all of the misery and suffering and... burning... were caused by you. You and your ginzuishou, your talisman of death." The smirk broadened into a toothless grin. "You built an empire of the Earth and guarded peace with a pure heart, and as each millennium ended, you lost a bit of that purity and found... pleasure in that crystal.
"And soon it drove you mad, didn't it? It drove you to insanity, where you found a lust for blood and hate, where you killed your beloved husband and banished your daughter and her family! You had us all under your spell as you destroyed and murdered and savaged the universe's population until you found out that it will only be a matter of time until your body dies and that black creature you call your spirit consumes all," she spat. The queen's smirk fell into a thin line. "But you'll not win this, my Queen. For there is one last hope for peace gliding through the stars, waiting for the time at which you will show yourself to her blinding light."
"And who might this so-called 'hope for peace' be, my beloved?" the queen asked softly as a flicker of light flashed from her pointed fingertips.
"Cosmos," the last senshi gasped as her body burst into blazing white and blue flames. "S-Sailor Cosmos... will... co-come..."
Sightlessly watching the body of her last servant disintegrate into a molten pile of plasma and ash, Chaos stood from her throne, holding her hands in front of her wilting face. "Oh, let my daughter come," she whispered, feeling cold breath caressing her palms. "I would like to show her the true meaning of power."
In a distant galaxy, a lone woman with long rose-colored hair watched the starless sky with clear crimson eyes, waiting for the call.
And it came as the lights of the universe blinked out in one fatal swoop of a cold, dying hand.
I've wanted to write something like this for a long time. I've always wondered how Usagi/NQS could tolerate the intense seduction of the ginzuishou, and I realized that... well, it's more interesting (and realistic) to have her fall from grace... so hard, in fact, that she transitions into the one entity she always fought in her idealistic and pure youth.
If you didn't guess, Mars is suggesting that Sailor Cosmos, who is actually the banished Princess Lady Serenity. is planning on returning to Crystal Tokyo to destroy the ginzuishou and Chaos. Of course, this would be after Cosmos returns to the 20th century to meet Usagi and friends. I'll definitely write the second part of this fanfic because I'm really interested with where it could potentially take Chaos/NQS and Cosmos/Lady Serenity. I'll also have to figure out how to include a backstory of how Princess Usagi came to usurp the title of Cosmos from her mother, and what happened to her family and guardian senshi.
