The Dreamer's Kingdom

Chapter 20 - Heartbeat

Venus opened her eyes.

The blinding flash of her transformation lasted mere seconds, but those seconds were enough for Kunzite to close in for a killing blow. Shock, however, seemed to have momentarily stayed his hand.

Before him stood, not the soldier he'd been about to destroy, but a damsel, a princess - and yet something more. Venus stood arrayed like the sun, her presence nearly lit up the darkness around them and her golden hair seemed to shimmer with light.

"Now," Venus said, flicking the hem of her fluttering gown out of the way, "I think we need to talk."

Kunzite dropped his offensive stance to adopt a defensive one instead, keeping a wary eye on his newly transformed enemy.

"I don't know what that villainous witch has told you, my dear," Venus said, lightly, "But whatever it was you may be assured that it was nothing more than complete fabrication."

I am so well spoken, she thought, smugly.

Kunzite frowned.

"I do not take orders because I wish to," he said at last.

Venus blinked.

"Then, why in the name of all that's baffling are you trying to kill me?" she demanded.

Kunzite gave her a look that a wolf might give a hunter and approached her slowly, still extremely cautious.

"I am bound by my word. My word is my bond. I am bound, therefore, to serve."

To his surprise and displeasure, Venus snorted.

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," she declared.

"You aren't bound to her, you were freed quite some time ago. She's lied to you, sweetheart, don't you see that? She's trying to use that noble nature of yours to turn you back into her service. Which was very clever of her," Venus added rather enviously.

Kunzite said nothing to this, he merely stared at Venus.

"Don't I know you?" he asked, suddenly.

Venus had the grace to keep from rolling her eyes.

"Yes, you do know me." she answered, "I'm only your one true love."

Now it was Kunzite's turn to snort.

"Don't be ridiculous." he said, crushingly.

This was clearly the wrong thing to have said. Venus's brows snapped together and a dangerous frown appeared on her face.

"I've had about enough of this," she stated through her teeth, "I have been patient with your hard-headedness and pride, and with your stupid sense of honor, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let you call me a liar - no matter how handsome and noble you are. I have honor too, you know."

Kunzite found himself faintly amused at this tirade.

"Very well, honor me with ending this fight," he suggested, casually.

"I'm trying to, you infuriating man," she growled, "I know what you're planning in that devious mind of yours. You're going to strike me down, but you don't know that that's the biggest mistake you could make."

"Why is that?" he asked, powering up effortlessly and trapping any escape she might make to the side or behind by means of a force-field.

"I think you can figure it out," Venus said calmly, pulling out her chain and coiling it around one arm. Then, quite unexpectedly, she threw it to the ground in front of him. She waited, unperturbed, for the coming blast.

Kunzite still didn't trust her, but he saw no flaw in his plan even if she was aware of it. He launched the blast of power at her, gathered from her last attack and watched as she stood calmly, not looking at the attack but instead looking straight into his eyes.

He was amazed at the calm in her eyes - as she looked steadily at him. It unnerved him, it reminded him of something or someone. Who was it? The blue of her eyes seemed to bleed into everything around him. It all happened in a split second.

At the last moment, Venus closed her eyes. There was a flash and then...nothing.

She blinked her eyes open and found herself confronting a cool gray gaze that was slowly melting into green. Kunzite's arms were on either side of her,; he was stooped over her in a protective stance, his face inches from hers. He had teleported in front of her - he had stopped his own attack at the last minute.

"Venus?" he said, looking uncertainly down into her eyes; his expression was both lost and relieved.

Venus let out a long sigh and smiled.

"Better late than never," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck before he had time to protest her kissing him.

"I don't know if we're going to make it."

Jadeite wasn't sure if he'd spoken out loud, but Mars nodded against his shoulder. He'd taken advantage of the fact that he now had a cape and armor to use strips of the cape to stop her shoulder from bleeding. But it didn't seem like a shoulder wound was high on the priority list now. Chaos was attempting to kill them by repeatedly attacking them in her shadow form - her red eyes glowed with murderous intent.

Mars leaned against him, watching their backs, while he did his best to deflect Chaos's attacks and to protect her at the same time. Once in a while she managed to summon enough strength to get off an attack or two at Chaos. None of it did Chaos any harm, but it did keep them alive. But for how long?

"Rei, since it seems probable that we are about to - die -" he took a a moment to raise a psychic portal to deflect Chaos' energy into a different place.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Then, I think I should tell you - that - I - love you," he grabbed her and forced both of them to duck the negative energy that whooshed past them in a shadowy arch.

"And," he continued, "I wouldn't have been satisfied with anything less than - you with me - for, well -"

They turned to meet the glowing red eyes fixed on them. There was nowhere to run and they were both nearly exhausted.

"Forever," he finished.

He felt her put her arm around his waist and pull herself up straighter.

"That suits me, Jade." she whispered.

Chaos's eyes loomed in front of them, her maw open wide to devour them both. Jadeite put both arms around Mars and pulled her to him.

"I told her I wasn't leaving without you," Mars murmured, her breath tickling his cheek as they forgot about Chaos closing in on them, forgot about everything outside of the two of them.

"I never will." She concluded. He buried his face in her hair and closed his eyes.

Forever. He thought and he knew she heard him now because she wanted to.

Chaos's shriek grew louder and louder until it surrounded them, blocking out all sound, all light, and all breath.

Mars, having resigned her soul to death, was surprised to hear something that sounded both so strange and so beautiful that she couldn't believe her ears.

"Jupiter Oak Evolution!!!"

Thunder, clear and booming, cut through the screaming voices of Chaos's cloud and ripped a blazing path through her darkness.

"There's more where that came from!" yelled a clear voice.

"Jupiter?" Mars cried, jerking her head out of Jadeite's embrace.

"Mars?" Jupiter exclaimed, happily, and Mars noted distractedly that Jupiter had changed clothes somehow.

"I can't believe we found you!" her friend continued.

"We?"

"I rescued Nephrite," Jupiter explained, patiently.

Mars caught sight of a caped and armored figure sending what looked like an army of shadows after the retreating red eyes.

"We need to leave soon, love," he called over his shoulder.

"Love?" Mars asked.

Jupiter's cheeks tinted only slightly. Her bearing was somehow both wilder and stronger than Mars had ever seen in her before. As if all the hints of her character were now come into full view.

"We need to find the others. Come on!"

Jadeite, who had remained nonplussed through most of this bewildering exchange, shook his head and promptly carried Mars after Jupiter and Nephrite.

"Usako," Mamoru murmured, keeping her hand firmly in his, "It's been ten minutes."

Usagi refused to budge. She was standing stock still watching the back corner of the cave - staring at it in intense concentration.

The miasma of darkness had grown so much that it had nearly forced the two of them back to the entrance.

"We have to do it now, sweetheart," he said softly, pained by his own words, "if we don't you may not survive."

"I don't care if I survive," she answered, a tear forming in the corner of one eye.

"I can't do this to them. Let's give them just a little more time," she pleaded.

"Five more minutes," he said at last, his eyes full worry and frustration, "no more. We can't risk the universe because of our friends - even if I would like to."

Usagi nodded and drew out her wand.

"I know they'll be here...five more minutes," she muttered, staring with new determination at the growing darkness.

"I'm so sorry, Lady Mercury," Kunzite apologized, sweeping his new found cape behind him as he knelt beside her.

"I was not -"

"It's alright," Mercury answered shortly, not out of anger, but out of panic for Zoisite's condition.

"No one is to blame."

"What's wrong with him?" Venus asked, standing beside Kunzite to look over his shoulder at the inert, youngest Shitennou.

"He's frozen," Mercury replied, "So much so that his body has gone into a semi-hibernating state. It's what has kept him from bleeding to death, but if he doesn't wake up soon..."

She trailed off, looking at his pale face. As Venus came to stand beside her, Mercury flinched and noticed the golden gown Venus was wearing now.

"You look very different," she noted.

"Oh," Venus smiled, "I know, I'm not two people anymore. Just me - Venus. This is my princess dress - do you like it?"

Mercury pursed her lips.

"It resembles the gowns worn by the British and French nobility in the early 19th century," she said, examining the cut of the fabric, "but there is something definitely otherworldly about it."

"Um...thanks," Venus replied.

Mercury turned to look at Kunzite.

"You've changed as well," she added, "That armor you're wearing looks exactly like the drawings of the British Prince Edward, they called him the Black Prince, from the late 15th century. Interesting. This suggests, of course, that Earth was not as advanced as the rest of the planets, but was in fact a good four centuries behind. No wonder we thought of you as barbarians..."

"Ami, you're glowing," Venus pointed out.

To her surprise, Mercury noticed that she was indeed glowing. There seemed to be a pale ghostlike fabric wafting around her senshi uniform, transparent still but faintly visible.

"It must be my memories," she exclaimed, "my past self."

The transparent dress and accompanying glow faded abruptly.

"What am I going to do?" She asked, suddenly quiet and sad; "He's going to die and there's nothing I can do about it."

Venus and Kunzite shared a look.

"I'll try to find Mars," Venus suggested, "in the meantime, why don't you try bandaging him up?"

Mercury blinked.

"Of course," she said, and immediately looked around for something to bind up the frozen wound with. Kunzite used his sword to awkwardly cut a swath of fabric from his cape and aided Mercury in wrapping it around the slash in Zoisite's abdomen.

"None of the organs is injured," she explained, "though there has been a great deal of bleeding. If I had a needle and thread this would be so much easier."

"And something to sterilize the wound with," she added.

"Don't worry," Kunzite said, quietly, putting a hand on her fragile shoulder, "He will be alright."

Mercury's chin trembled but she managed to nod her head.

"I never told him..." she began, but stopped.

"I think he knows that," Kunzite said, staring thoughtfully at Zoisite's cold face.

"I don't know," Mercury shook her head, "In the past he always used to chase me and I always ran away. I didn't think he could have any serious affection for me. But he never gave up, even when I was cold to him. The stupid things he used to trick me into doing," she sniffed and let out a choked laugh, "I would get so furious with him, but he laughed it off. I meant to tell him, before you all left..."

Kunzite had watched her shimmer softly into Princess Mercury, the soft folds of her pale gown settling around her, and he wondered if she were talking about yesterday or a thousand years ago.

"You'll just have to tell him when he wakes up," he suggested.

"Yes," she answered, not noticing that her arms were now encased in sleeves as she smoothed her hair out of her eyes.

"It's about time!" they heard Venus cry out joyfully.

"What do you mean!?" Mars' peeved voice answered majestically, "We've been looking for you."

"It doesn't matter," Jupiter interrupted, as everyone else approached the trio on the floor, "the important thing is that we've got to get the hell out of here before Chaos...comes..back-what happened to him?"

She stood, swathed in shades of emerald and jade from head to foot, looking like she'd walked out of a myth, staring down at Zoisite as her green hair curled over her shoulders.

"Mars, we need you to try to warm Zoisite up."

"I beg your pardon?" Mars asked Venus in a deadly voice. Her own hair was a razor sheet of crimson, causing her to look both exotic and magical, like an pagan priestess.

When she and Venus stood side by side they were almost too bright to look at.

"Zoisite is frozen and you are the only one of us adept at heating things," Venus explained patiently.

"Oh," Mars answered, turning to find Zoisite on the ground. She knelt carefully in her voluminous skirts and put a gentle hand on his brow.

She closed her eyes and the air around them began to warm up, yet the space around Zoisite remained extremely cold.

Mars gave an exasperated sigh and opened her eyes.

"I can't do it," she stated flatly.

They gaped at her.

"It isn't a matter of warming him up," Mars continued, "There is a power around him that is keeping the air this cold."

"Chaos?" Jupiter suggested, throwing a nervous look over her shoulder where Jadeite and Nephrite stood watching the darkness behind them.

"No," Mars answered, frowning, "I think he's doing it. He must have done it as a last effort to keep himself alive."

Venus' eyes widened.

"That was really clever," she said, admiringly, "but how do we get him to stop?"

"I'm not sure," Mars answered. She suddenly turned over her shoulder and called, "Jadeite!"

The young man turned around instantly and came to her side.

"Can you talk to Zoisite? Even when he's like this?" Mars asked him, "Can you get him to stop his own power?"

Jadeite looked into his friend's face for a moment, then up at Mars.

"Yes," he said, turning to fix his unsettling eyes on Mercury, "but it will be better if she talks to him."

"How can I-" Mercury began.

"Don't worry," Mars smiled, laying a comforting hand on the Ice senshi's.

"Jadeite knows what he's doing."

Mercury caught Jadeite's smirk and tried to suppress her doubts.

"You better hurry, whatever you decide to do," Nephrite warned them, "I can feel the heart of Chaos coming closer. She's recovered from my trap and she's coming."

"Give me your hand," Jadeite commanded and Mercury placed her hand in his. He put both their hands on top of Zoisite's cold fingers and closed his eyes.

"We have to," Mamoru said, "We have to now, or there won't be a world left."

"I know," Usagi answered, tears streaming down her face.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered as she and Mamoru joined hands and lifted the wand to point at the mass of growing Chaos.

A pure white light joined by a golden one began to glow around the wand's tip.

"I hope it will be enough," Mamoru murmured. They had never joined their powers together so completely.

But it was the only way he could think of to stop Chaos now and still keep Usagi alive. They had to seal her off or they would no longer be able to.

He spared a moment in his agonized mind to think of his friends still trapped inside. Was he doing the right thing? He knew it was right, and yet...he couldn't believe there wasn't some way they would survive. He had wanted them to share in the experience of establishing a new world. For them to finally know peace and to enjoy living their lives without worrying about some new threat. He had wanted them all to be happy. The happiness he was sure they deserved after so many lifetimes of suffering.

The wand began to shine even brighter, their concentrated powers nearly overwhelming. The furthermost tendrils of Chaos started to writhe.

Neither he nor Usagi noticed as the Dark Kingdom began to glow.

Mercury felt as if she could suddenly see everything invisible in the hearts and minds of other human beings.

What a dreadful power to have, she thought.

You have no idea, Jadeite answered her.

I'm going to bring the two of you together, mind to mind. It's up to you to convince him, he added.

Mercury didn't reply but simply waited. Suddenly she could feel a mind beside or inside her own - it felt like a faint warmth, and it looked like a small, glowing light.

Zoisite? she asked, hesitantly.

From the depths of the light came a faint voice.

Mercury?

Her relief threatened to overwhelm her, and she just managed to keep herself from breaking her own concentration.

Yes, it's me. Listen, you have to wake up, you have to let the air around you warm up again.

But, he answered, but I'll die...I was dying...my mother said - I...it was my fault.

Mercury didn't understand any of this odd answer but she replied:

Nothing is your fault. We'll talk about it later. But you have to wake up now, Chaos is coming and -

Chaos! She felt him tremble in her mind, the light flashed wildly.

Please, she continued to plead, wake up.

I don't think I can, he answered, apologetically, I used all my energy to create that cold, and I'm so tired...

Already she could hear his voice fading. Panic was beginning to flood her heart.

Zoisite! Her mental voice thundered even in her own mind:

You have to wake up! she commanded, desperately, You have to try! I can't leave you here -

But, Ami - he countered, his voice becoming softer.

No! Mercury cried wildly, forgetting everything else: No! You come back this instant! Do you hear me!? All these years you've never given up on me, and if you do it now, so help me -I'll..I'll...

I'll try. She heard his voice reply, faintly.

Don't try, please, she said, her mental voice quiet, I need you.

Mercury, she heard Jadeite's voice in her mind, you have to -

With a jerk, Mercury found herself in the middle of a battle field, with Chaos literally all around them.

She looked down at Zoisite, but he was still.

"Watch out!" someone called and Mercury threw herself over his body as a terrible, raging shadow with sharp black teeth flew over her head screaming.

The others were making a circle around herself and Zoisite, already hurling attacks at their omnipresent, intangible opponent. But Mercury knew that nothing they could do would offset what Chaos was capable of doing to them.

"There's no way out," Mercury whispered, "We'll never get out."

She started to stand but felt something claim her hand.

She looked down to find Zoisite's leaf green eyes fixed on her face. He smiled weakly.

"You were about to give up, weren't you?" he accused her, softly. His voice was pale and he took a lot of breaths in between his words, but he was breathing, and his heart was beating, and that was all that mattered.

Mercury flung her arms around him as the world around them began to collapse. Chaos' screams grew to a fever pitch, like a thousand screeching harpies. She buried her face in his neck and felt him gently embrace her. She heard the shouts of her friends as they retreated into a centralized clump around the two of them.

Someone put a hand on her shoulder, and then she felt another hand on her back.

"Think of home!" she heard Venus command in a bright tone.

She hugged Zoisite tighter and squeezed her eyes shut.