The creature, enormous and wide-eyed and reaching, crept towards him in leaps and bounds through the black tunnel of its own creation, the path laid towards a place it could not be allowed to reach. Behind him was everything he loved and needed to protect. Before him was a monster that literally ate anything he threw at it and became stronger for it. He was tired. His blood burned, his lungs shuddered with every breath. He couldn't give up. Its mouth opened in a soundless scream to reveal an enormous tongue and sharpened teeth, lips peeling back into a cruel smile, and as he called forth the physical form of the Golden Crystal, a voice ripped into this head, ancient and creaking -

"Your powers are exhausted, your weapon is useless, and you stand entirely alone, Crystal Bearer. Rest and let me pass."

"I am not alone, and I will not let you pass!" he yelled back defiantly, and as he threw out his own energy from the crystal it was as though he connected himself to the advancing creature with a golden thread, and the creature caught it and pulled itself forward along it, the smile growing, gigantic eyes widening and focusing on him -

"I see no one else here. You are alone, and you have always been alone -"

"That's not -"

"You will die alone! You have died alone! You ended the world for fear of loneliness and what did it bring you? Orphaned and friendless, without even memory of your parents to keep you company until your past caught back up to you! And even then how did that conflict resolve? With you. Alone."

That wasn't true. He hadn't been alone - he was there with… he fought Diana with…

He couldn't remember.

"In this skirmish, too, your companions left you. One by one, putting more and more on your shoulders alone in this fight. Do you know why they returned? With what purpose? Do you know what has been offered them for their cooperation in this coup? Power. Immunity. The ability to chase their dreams again in being freed from you. They returned not to help you, Crystal Bearer, but to bury you."

That wasn't… that wasn't true. The monster before him continued leaping forward in jerking motions, the tether between them drawn tight; behind him something pulled but he couldn't move, couldn't look away from that gaping maw as it lurched closer and grew larger -

"Would they have remained by your side had your planet not been chosen for this operation? Undoubtedly, but for what purpose? Loyalty? Fealty? Or fear that you will end the world with your powers should they return to their lives?! How do they see you, Crystal Bearer? Friend or inevitable destructor? An explosive force to be handled with great caution? Why do you think they let you come here, closed off from them and your world, to face me, if not to let me kill you?!"

That force at his back again pulled, but it was weak and the monster was nearly upon him. He pushed more energy through their connection, but with the god's ancient and wrinkled head bigger now than a three story building and his hands pushing at the wormhole to expand it before him, he knew it was too late.

"You are alone and unwanted!" the creature yelled into his mind as the enormous mouth closed around him, swallowing him in a rush of absolute darkness and doubt.

He failed.

He let it through.

Had they allowed this to happen? His friends? He couldn't… he couldn't remember.

Had they even been friends, or had he been delusional all along?

He had always been alone.

He couldn't remember his parents. He had a picture of them, but the couple was familiar only in that it was his picture of them - static, unmoving, without background or history. Not a reminder of the place, the activity, or their voices. He had no feeling for them but distant loss and respect, and while growing up he had accepted it as just part of life - it wasn't fair, and it wasn't right, but at least he had nothing to miss, unlike others in that children's institution - but now that he knew the circumstances of his past life he had to wonder: were their deaths because of him, as divine punishment for restarting the world?

He didn't make friends easily in elementary school, and he knew most of that was the stigma surrounding his circumstances - kids were either too nice and disingenuous, politely ignored him, or outright ridiculed him, and he started getting used to being lonely. Middle school wasn't much better, but he turned out to be pretty good at sports and that opened a few doors for him, and while playing he got to be part of a group. He only really started to break away from the effects of that past when he got into private school at Moto-Azabu and some of the funds his parents left behind opened to him, allowing him to move into his own place, but by then he was used to being on his own. Classmates were classmates, teammates were teammates - he was polite and respectful, and gave assistance when requested and went in to help when someone was in need, but companionship was at arms-length and that was fine.

And when he met someone that challenged him and bothered him and pulled at him and he wanted to get to know better and spend more time with, he didn't know how to get past their initial interactions. It was really only when she went back to her arcade or her shopping or flipped her twin tails of hair and headed for home that he realized the feeling of being alone wasn't necessarily a constant force, but one that he wasn't really equipped to move through.

And that was fine. He could do without. He handled it, and could handle it again.

But then Helios inserted himself into his life and he suddenly had a roommate and a purpose for keeping consistently engaged with someone. He had reason to be there - it wasn't a relationship naturally made by any means, but even if it were centered around defeating the Dark Kingdom, he had felt like their friendship had been real. And then there was Hanada Kaito who, while challenging and sarcastic and quippy, quickly started inviting him out to do things beyond checking out potential Dark Kingdom targets and training and he thought they got on really well. Moegi Yuu had always complained about being too busy to do anything, and protested late-night meetings and training, but he always showed up, and even came unannounced to a few of his games, same as he had attended a few of his public debate tournaments; he was good at hiding things, but could Mamoru have really missed signs that all of it had been a show? Midori Nero was a boisterous handful from the beginning, but he was bad at lying and overly affectionate - but then he was the type never to have met a stranger, so maybe he was just like that with everyone, no matter how close. But he was too genuine for that. … and all of that happened before he was the Prince. They'd had no reason to be disingenuous back then. And Kaito Khalid, constant and calm and occasionally infuriating - while he had apparently always known, and Mamoru could see him sticking around for something like what Demiurge suggested, he knew just thinking that would hurt and disappoint him. Khalid was his friend.

They were all his friends.

The darkness around him lessened as he realized that he hadn't actually been alone in months - not since they found each other again. There were moments when he was by himself, moments when he missed them, when they were taken from him, but he had never been alone, and neither were they - not while he was there. Being alone was something he feared and yet had accepted as the truth of his life: something he could never work around, something that he had seen as inevitable and unavoidable, and yet there they were, destroying that old belief and unobtrusively making their own.

The light grew, his skin starting to glow gold in greyspace as the dark insecurities of that god were burned away. Yes, he fought Diana alone, but only because they were supporting him, letting him through to where he needed to be. They had to get the senshi's power gems back before it was too late, and he had to save…

He had to save Usako.

The light around him flared to shatter against the bounds of what surrounded him as the last of Demiurge's lies were swept away, Usagi's presence crashing back into his mind and heart unexpectedly and filling up the last pieces of him to bursting. Usako, with her stubborn stomping and endless strawberry parfaits, her lazy complaining and boundless compassion, filled with life and love and laughter and constantly wearing her heart on her sleeve and, through some miracle he'd never truly understand, wanting him the same way he wanted her. That she was Jewel Tiara - that she was somehow Serenity?!

He hadn't been alone against Diana - she had been with him! She had even sealed Queen Serenity away - he had backed her up, offered her his support and helped her harness her powers, kept her grounded and used his powers to help shape hers, but ultimately she had done it: they had defeated the Queen together.

The same as his friends had defeated Demiurge with him: their powers had joined with him when it mattered most, and they had defeated that god before any of this had happened. If they had sided with the Archons they never would have reappeared when he called for them, they wouldn't have formed the barrier to give him this chance, and they never would have sent their power to back him up when he needed it most!

None of this was real - he had already lived through this nightmare and come out the other side. This was something false. Demiurge was gone, taking in more power than it could handle and destroying itself in the process. ...and him. And he suddenly remembered then what had happened after: waking up in her arms, surrounded by his friends and Rin, in a uniform that matched theirs in an unspoken promise that they were still together in this and that they wouldn't back down from… what was coming...

A piercing light made him squint and turn his head away as a thin, sharp object broke through the boundary surrounding him and sliced through, and while he felt a hand grabbing for him from behind, he instead fell through the hole the shining object had created…

"Demiurge's nightmares will stick with you for years," a voice called, and, suddenly in a beautiful garden surrounded on three sides in sheer clear crystal, Mamoru turned to find the source. "Or, at least mine did. Though its contents were far different, and, as it turns out, prophetic." He found the speaker with the pained voice seated on a crystalline bench backed by beautiful roses, and he froze in recognition.

It was… him. Almost. Just fully grown: taller still, his frame filled out, and while he looked no older than thirty, his eyes - the same shade of blue he saw in mirrors - carried a weight in them that belied his otherwise youthful appearance. He sat casually on the bench, his legs crossed and his hands spread on either side of him, though the one on the crystalline bench rail beside him had the crystal golden-tinged and growing up his arm; the other stretched behind him along the back of the bench and held a red rose from the bush behind him, though the thorned vine encircled and crept up his arm similarly. "I would have preferred not to meet you like this," he said as Mamoru took him in, "but as I believe we were never meant to meet at all, and considering the circumstances, I'm glad to be given this chance." He paused, taking him in to nearly the same degree Mamoru was, "I'm truly sorry that this became your problem after everything else that happened, and so recently for you, too. You can come closer, if you like, and rest here for a while. We are nowhere near our physical forms so proximity shouldn't be an issue."

Proximity…? The golden crystals reacting to each other, he realized. He looked around to see if there were anywhere else to sit, to keep a polite distance, but there was nothing: just the bright gardens, dirt path, and the world falling away on the side the other faced. There was the soft roar of a waterfall, and with another look he spotted a small river flowing at a distance to his left towards the edge. This was… an opportunity, at the very least, and so he obliged, walking carefully over to his older self and lightly taking a seat on the other side of the bench, attempting to keep his composure despite processing reality against what the dream had shown him, slowly recalling everything since that faceoff with Demiurge in quick succession, his anxiety growing as he did. "King Endymion," he greeted with a vice around his heart, the most recent memories coming to the surface: Beryl as Metallia, Rin running for help, Usako… He glanced at him once before politely looking at that open space that seemed to show only the skies and quickly asked, "Are we in Elysion?" trying to think ahead, to try to plan where to go once he woke up, how to handle the threat to Rin's future and to her -

"...Elysion-adjacent," the King modified, and he moved slightly; Mamoru followed the move to see him twitch the rose held tightly in one of his hands. "When I sensed that nightmare I knew Helios would have difficulties in pulling you out, so I monitored and did what I could when you had weakened it enough on your own. Truthfully, you didn't need me at the end," he said with a hint of something like a smile.

He quickly nodded, accepting what he had to say, and while he knew there was no time for this - whether King Endymion realized that or not - the mention that the dream had turned out to be prophetic was something he couldn't write off, and in that same vein he had questions that his future-self may be uniquely able to answer that he had to ask before he left: "Your nightmare turned out to be prophetic, you said," he repeated, looking to him fully to gauge his reaction, even if his older self felt he was not at liberty to say the answer, "In mine I fought alone and lost, my friends unable to help; is this foreshadowing what may come to pass against that threat Taishakuten warned against? Is Metallia that threat?"

"Taishakuten?" King Endymion had met his eyes, but all Mamoru saw there was confusion, and curiosity, and within him the growing anxiety at this detour was joined with similar emotions. Had this version of himself never met the Lord of the Center, or had it been so long ago that he had forgotten? … Mamoru could not believe the latter possible, considering the circumstances; but then… their circumstances in that fight had not been the same. Endymion attempted to answer, though without memory of that interaction the response did not provide the insight that Mamoru had hoped for. "In my nightmare I am unable to protect her, and, because of Metallia, I am in that exact situation, but I may have been hasty in labeling it prophetic; it may not be the same for you."

Or it may well be.

He stood - if this Endymion hadn't met the Lord of the Center he couldn't give him any insight on what was heading their way, and if the nightmare was coincidental he could deal with it. And with even such a short description of this version's nightmare, he knew he didn't want to know more about it, especially considering - "I have to wake up," he said, "Can I do it from here?"

"You can't," King Endymion replied.

"Then I need to get to Elysion -"

"You can't wake up," Endymion interjected, and Mamoru waited tensely for him to follow up that statement with a reason. He wasn't dead - he refused to entertain that idea - and with Usako taken by someone who literally wanted to kill her there was no reason good enough to keep him sleeping. "There's not enough energy," Endymion clarified, "I'm sending as much as I can, but it's not enough - not yet."

"What do you mean, not enough energy?" Mamoru asked, rejecting his reason - it was Earth, it didn't have an end to its energy, or - well, it had to, but not one that they could possibly reach. The concern Helios held was in the amount of energy flowing through him, not in how much energy remained to Earth, and, given the circumstances, quickly filling himself with energy from Earth was a risk he was willing to make. Endymion had to have misspoken - "I need to get back to them! Beryl has Usako, Metallia is preparing for another attack. I have no idea how long I was in that nightmare and every second is necessary!"

Endymion… was pale. He had missed it before - he had been keeping such a calm composure it was easy to overlook, but the King of Crystal Tokyo was nowhere near as peaceful as he appeared, his countenance slipping as he replied, "Metallia has returned to her base at the North Pole and is collecting her supporters. The Sailor Senshi and the others from your era arrived there minutes ago. I did not know that Beryl was involved; I cannot track her, but I can say that your Serenity is not on Earth. Your body is in Crystal Tokyo, along with two hundred fifteen survivors, your Helios, my son, my Serenity, and our unborn daughter. If you leave now, you'll barely have enough energy to stand, let alone be of any help to anyone. I'd like to keep you here and let your body restore itself for a while longer. If the forces at the pole fail, you may be Earth's only hope. In the meantime I'm trying to free up more energy for you to pull from and send to you, but with keeping everyone in stasis it's taking some time to shift the power around without making sacrifices."

Sacrifices? … stasis? Unborn daughter? … Mamoru sat back down, his eyes shifting back and forth as he tried to retain the information thrown at him. He asked a few clarifying questions - if he was unable to even walk while awake, there was little use in continuing to push for that. The very idea of sacrifices being made in order to wake him up and have him ready was unnerving. "Who is being supported in stasis? Your Kings and Senshi?" he thought back to that chamber the balcony had overlooked, with the eight bodies on pedestals with their arms by their sides or crossed atop their chests, a sight he had not beheld for long but had stayed with him regardless.

"Everyone," the King replied, staring out over the edge of the gardenscape, and with a glance from Mamoru he elaborated. "On Earth. Save those in Crystal Tokyo." Mamoru… found that difficult to believe. How? How was that even possible? But. beyond that, even if he put that question aside, another awaited:

"Why not Crystal Tokyo?"

The King was quiet.

"Did you still think they could have defeated her? Those who were still awake when you were taken?" he prompted.

"Maybe," the King all but whispered, and Mamoru turned his attention to the man - his older self, though time may not tie them directly anymore - and found there someone without an answer. After a moment, he made an attempt at an explanation. "When it happened, I didn't control the crystal - it reacted. It shielded me, and in that instant before my consciousness shifted to this place, I brought everyone else in on it: every living thing I could sense on this planet through psychometry. I tethered their lifeforces to Earth's energy," he shifted his left shoulder, that connected to this place through the golden-hued crystal, "and when I realized it worked, I directed their sleeping consciousnesses to Elysion." The rosebush. "But none of them appeared here; no one in Crystal Tokyo was brought in. And in the time since it happened, I've wondered why. Maybe I did think that they still had a chance, and the crystal avoided them for that, or maybe part of me was worried about exit strategy; I don't know how to get out of this." He shook his head, looking forward, "I've tried, and now the solar storms are too strong to try again - it'd be too dangerous for them. And maybe, still, it could have had nothing to do with me at all, but rather another quirk of the Silver Crystal.

"Regardless, I've been tethered here the past three months, sensing through the planet their movements, their triumphs and defeats. After Serenity drove Metallia away that last time I thought that could have been it, but it wasn't. I was trying to save up power to attempt to bring Crystal Tokyo in when our Little Lord went missing a week ago, Metallia with him." He turned to Mamoru then, and said earnestly, "Thank you for watching over him."

He nodded.

They were quiet, Mamoru attempting to think around the lack of energy situation, rather than focusing on Usako not being on Earth, which meant she was on that comet. Alone. And alive. She had to be alive. They had been arguing - Metallia wasn't going to let Beryl do it. She had to be alive. But eventually he couldn't stand it - he couldn't know what she was doing, only that he knew she'd be doing her best, same as the rest of them, and the rest of them was something he could ask after: "What's happening at the pole?" he asked, his voice coming out a little more forceful than intended.

"They're fighting," Endymion reported, "working their way towards Metallia. Their glow, are they…?" his question trailed off.

"The Kings," he nodded, "something that happened in our fight against the Archons. Kai-" he paused, mentally swapping to their old names, which they were apparently using again in this time, "Zoisite is dark green, Nephrite is orange, Jadeite is red, and Kunzite is light blue. The Senshi?"

"With them, also going for Metallia. It's powerful -"

"It's got Beryl."

Endymion made a short hum, accepting and analyzing the information.

Mamoru took in a breath to explain to get his mind onto another problem when Endymion spoke again -

"They've engaged her."