Mercury was the planet of water and wisdom, and though their powers were that of ice they were passionate in learning, and in teaching. Venus loved, and put great value in the beautiful, but at the heart of their home planet they had a core of steel, for it was their love that gave them their strength. Mars was fire, and they knew passion and war, though the latter they carried out swiftly and only when needed, for they knew how terrible it could be and considered the only 'good' war to be one that wasn't made real. Jupiter, the largest of the moon kingdom's inner court, was the planet of storms and forests, the one who protected like a shield and fought with a furious vengeance, demonstrating to the universe what the best defense being a powerful offense was.
Saturn and its residents knew the value of silence and the necessity of the end for rebirth and hope, and they prayed for their sleeping princess, that she may have sweet dreams so she would not mourn when she woke at last. Uranus was the king of the heavens, the planet of the wind and flight, a full-out offense with no mercy or holding back to invaders. Neptune, the planet of the deep seas and embrace, offered any with ill intent entering its domain one last chance to repent and put down their arms. Pluto, small and last but by no means the least, carried a manifestation of the Doors of Time and Space, and watched the solar system all from afar.
All of them – including the scant population on the moon – combined had less lives than the people that lived on Earth, even before the time called the Silver Millennium came to an abrupt, sudden end. Even after Saturn reaped the life of an entire civilization, life on Earth survived, and flourished once more in time.
Without a known sailor soldier, the denizens of the Silver Millennium, and perhaps Earth itself, had forgotten to ask the very important question of –
What was Earth, Terra, the planet of?
Before the sailor soldiers became the protectors of the stars, there lived the old gods. Chronos, of time and space, left the physical world to sleep in spirit, leaving his daughter, his blood thick in her veins, as the guardian of the doors he had once watched over. The old being of the sun split his heart and left half of his power with the silver queen that had come from the wellspring of stars where Chaos and Cosmos mixed and would rise, so that one day their daughter could inherit their combined legacy.
And the goddess of death gave birth to a baby, a child of stars with the fate to bring the end. She left with the babe her own blade, the scythe that could channel the terrible power her daughter was born with, and let the child be sealed away in slumber. Death only came once, after all, and it was a power too great to be let loose on the world.
The princess of a planet whose powers were that of silence and ruin woke in her castle just once, at the end of a millennium forged by a silver crystal and magic of the gods.
Saturn saw no need to speak. There were no words that could ever convey the full weight of what needed to be said.
Saturn saw no need for understanding, not from the three guardians of the outer rims. This was a burden only she needed to bear. It was what she had been born for, what she had waited for in her enchanted slumber until this moment.
Saturn saw the end that would come, one filled with pain and devastation and horror, and wordlessly she let the glaive drop upon the silver age of magic to bring a quicker end.
To see the future meant to walk in a time not yet her own, to know information that had not yet become true.
Sephira, before she changed her name and donned the white robes of a priestess, had considered many things. Wisdom came with her ability to see the future, it was true, but so too did the responsibilities that would come with her choice. It was one thing to choose and hope for the best. It was another thing entirely, to choose knowing what was most likely to come.
So she chose to lay down the name she had been born with, lay down her slim chances, lay down her ambitions. She donned the white, severed ties with her family of birth and entered Elysion, to become one of the keepers of the temple.
Sephira grew into her own, out of her own choice, and she was happy.
She 'was' happy, until darkness overtook her world. Elysion was safe, the wards were holding up, but outside –
The darkness gnawed away at the world, and malice of humanity's dark desires mixed with chaos of a deep, ancient evil that made her shudder.
It was a scene out of the most hellish of nightmares, and it seemed there was no hope.
"Tell them to move into the center room," she said, suppressing the conflict in her heart. Outside raged a dark storm, born of not just evil magic but also the shadows within the human heart, that which was inevitable chaos. The sight that had haunted her nightmares for years, the sight that had made her lay down her previous life to become a priestess had come at last.
Unlike her other visions, which had at least one other outcome, he had never seen an alternate future to this one. All the roads of fate had always led to the end of the world.
Despite Sephira's inner fear, the words that slipped out of her lips were that of optimism. "We can hold the wards there together."
Peleus moved to do just that, and Sephira was grateful that it was him that had been there, and not Cadmus. The former warrior would have argued that they leave the temple to fight against those possessed by the darkness, regardless of how badly that would end.
Sephira couldn't have him raise his voice for them to risk everything for the sake of the microscopically small possibility of saving the royal family – or what remained of the Golden Kingdom's ruling clan. Prince Endymion, on the kingdom of silver in the heavens, was the only one left outside. The king and queen had been murdered first, and their son whisked away by his lover in the heavens.
There would be no going to him, no reaching him now. As the denizens of heavens began mounting their defense against the possessed mortals that had never been a part of their world, he was caught up in a tangled mess of love and broken divine laws and a terrible, terrible war.
If Cadmus demanded they go to try and rescue him, despite the impossible odds, Sephira wasn't sure if she could stay strong.
Acheron looked at her, wide-eyed. Even at the young age of twelve, he knew better than anyone the attachment familial bonds brought, having watched the families of the dead scream in helpless frustration and loss as they mourned those that had passed. He knew who she thought of, who she worried for.
Sephira tried to smile, and wasn't sure if she had succeeded. Shame on her – she needed to smile, to lessen the worries of those around her. That was the responsibility of those with the Sight, not spreading fear like a fraudulent fortune teller seeking to make some coin by stirring up paranoia.
She told herself that, but she didn't think she could last very long. The words that had sustained her for so long felt meaningless.
"Let's have faith in the gods," she suggested, even though she herself had very little of that right now.
He still looked reluctant, but he went along with her, bless his usually-contrary soul. The graveness of the situation was truly great, for him to actually listen without snarking.
"I'll go stand with Helios," he offered, trembling in fear.
"Yes," Sephira agreed, relieved that he wouldn't be there if (when) she finally broke, and ruffled his hair. "He'll need your help."
Acheron nodded jerkily and ran to the inner heart of the temple. Alone, Sephira looked outside. Elysion was holy land, but even its purifying aura couldn't hide what went on outside. Not from her Sight, grown powerful for her choice to seal herself within this temple.
Her eyelids fluttered as she, for the first time since her childhood days, threw herself into her Sight and let herself be drowned by images of the futures that could come. Darkness. Evil. Loss. Magic. Betrayal. Possession.
All the futures she saw were grim, and with each one she saw she lost more hope. They all ended in death, total, complete death. Like a forest fire that razed everything to the ground, left empty fields where once there had been trees of old, none would survive.
Not even the fourteen of them in this holy temple.
Sephira's breath caught at that realization. Was this how her life ended? Twenty-three years of choosing the lesser of evil choices, twenty-three years of suppressing anything she wanted for the good of the future, of the people, of her family, twenty-three years of bearing the weight of a 'gift' she had never asked for, and she died trembling in fear of what would come, her so-called blessing giving her nothing but the horrifying knowledge of how she would die?
One of the other priests – Orbona, bless her kind heart – tugged her into the heart of the temple, knowing that while she was in a daze from her visions she could be distracted from the present. The others were there, the thirteen people that had become her family after she turned ten and entered the temple with the intent to never rejoin the rest of the world.
Cybele looked resigned as she wrapped her arms around the two youngest, Acheron and Helios, only boys at the end of the day despite the powerful names and the heavy titles they had been given. The former warriors that had laid down their arms to serve Elysion, protect in a different way, bristled with frustration in the face of an enemy they were unable to fight. A few had their faces buried in their hands, softly weeping. They might not have had the Sight like she did, but they were all priests of Elysion, they could feel the flow of events going on, could intuitively know the approaching end. Acheron and Helios, too young but too wise, peered at her with wide eyes around Cybele's robed arms.
The end was nigh and all Sephira could do was continue to be aware of what led to their deaths as they continued to hold the wards and prolong the time to their inevitable deaths, morbidly unable to tear her Sight away.
Endymion died. The princess of the moon died. Terra screamed, as did the other planets in the heavens. The queen of the silver kingdom in the heavens made a decision. Darkness surged to strike, but it was too late, the call was made, and Death woke in the shape of a young girl, barely older than Acheron and Helios.
Sephira saw everything happen, about to happen, past and present and future meaning little to her awareness in that moment, saw Death raise the blade of her glaive. With the fall of that blade would fall all life, even here.
Just like that.
And she –
Was –
Done.
Done with always choosing the path that brought the least negative consequences, done with submissive decisions and compromising, done with living in the future and therefore never fully in the present moment, done with killing her desires and ambitions, just done.
"No," she snarled. She refused to die, refused to watch the family she had chosen die before her eyes, refused to stand by passively and watch the flow of destiny come.
Defiant like she never had been, Sephira bared her teeth at the heavens. Death was absolute, death would always come – but the very definition of life, of living, was to look at the inevitable force and say, 'not today'.
She stopped peering into the future. She focused, instead, on the present, on the moment she was in right now.
"Not today!" she roared. Proper ladies did not roar, did not scream out their desire loaded with all the resolve they had within themselves at the skies. Proper ladies accepted what they were told and gracefully took the decisions of others.
Sephira had chosen to be a priestess, to not be a proper lady. Sephira had chosen her name, to cut ties with the family that she had been born to, and to leave behind the frustratingly complicated love and hate and unsolvable tangle that had been her relationship with them.
Sephira chose now, to defy as she had always wanted. Defy like she needed to, now.
"I refuse!"
Within her awoke a flame of life, and her entire body became engulfed with orange fire.
Tomoe Hotaru suffered. Of that there was no question.
Saturn slept within her new vessel, as she always had. Detached from her reincarnation's life, Saturn observed and felt little. There was no need for attachment. When she was awakened again, she would once more end this world so that rebirth could take place. There was no point on becoming attached to what had to die so hope could start again. She was the one that wielded the Silence Glaive, the blade of the goddess of death, the Messiah of Silence.
But Tomoe Hotaru was only human, and she was lonely.
The Small Lady was, like her mother, a soul born with the fate to change the path of destiny.
The princess from a future that was now a branch from this timeline reached out to the soldier her mother had not been able to save. Tomoe Hotaru, met with a warm trust she had not felt in her existence, reached back for the affection she had been deprived of for so long, during her time of darkness.
Inside, Saturn resisted, but just barely. The heavenly bodies orbited the sun, after all, and the princess was the sun of the sailor soldiers – even Saturn.
When the Small Lady fell, soul robbed by an invader that had hijacked Saturn's own vessel, Saturn raged coldly, and bided her time as she continued to call, warning them that she would bring the end. The time for a revelation was coming. It had nothing – everything – to do with how the princess had fallen, how her future queen had cried out in anguish.
Tomoe Hotaru, robbed of her body by a foul invader, sank as a soul to the depths of herself, and surrounded by Saturn, still not yet awake, found the courage within herself to act in defiance for the first time in her life.
'Protect them,' Saturn ordered. It was less the order that moved Tomoe Hotaru, and more the fierce desire to keep her first friend safe, but the end result was what both had wanted – the Silver Crystal, the souls of the sailor soldiers, out of the reach of Mistress 9 and that abominable invader.
And when Tomoe Hotaru's soul was about to dissolve into nothing, Saturn took her in and held her close. When the Moon Chalice and the crystal was released within the massive parasite, Saturn finally awakened in this new age that had been born from the ashes of the one she had destroyed before.
Saturn, but also Tomoe Hotaru. Tomoe Hotaru had accepted the larger part of herself, and Saturn had accepted what she was being given, that which was a chance at true rebirth for herself and for her fellow soldiers.
Two princesses, born with the fate to change destiny. Two lives, in two different ages for the sailors, one that had ended in tragedy and one they would fight to ensure history would not repeat itself. Two different roles, for Saturn, two diverging paths.
Sailor Saturn was no longer the silent executioner. She was more. Soldier of Silence, goddess of destruction, daughter of death, and Tomoe Hotaru.
Love had changed her, as it had changed them all. The messiah that was her queen, the saviour that was her princess –
Tomoe Hotaru, Saturn's princess reborn, a girl matured by loneliness and pain and despair, was given salvation.
In this timeline, it was not just the inner guardians and Sailor Pluto that survived the clash against Pharaoh 90 and the Death Busters. They had all survived.
Mamoru stared at the concept map he had made, until the word was more black scribble on white paper to him. He knew them by heart now, but they stirred no memories from his past life to him.
Acheron. Sephira.
What Kawahira told Hotaru, she told them all, including Mamoru. She reassured Mamoru that Kawahira didn't mind, and while Mamoru was grateful that Hotaru wasn't forced to betray the guardian's trust for his sake, it also hurt him that Acheron seemed to trust Hotaru more than he trusted Mamoru.
And, despite all her efforts to help him, he still was unable to remember. The two names stirred nothing inside him.
He did remember some things. His favorite foods from the Golden Kingdom. His childhood lessons and mistakes. His time, and memories with the Shitennou.
His guardians did not recall the names, either, when he asked.
"But milord," Kunzite's spirit added when his face turned crestfallen. "The priests of Elysion were always a mystery, even to the royal family. They shed their original names and cut ties to the material world when they swore service, and rarely left the temple."
And just like that, another piece of a memory he hadn't even been aware of clicked into place.
"Orphans were often picked," he mumbled. "Because the job was for life, like marrying into the role. But not all of them could become actual priests." Those that weren't given the honor of becoming the chosen priests instead served to carry out the tasks of the temple. Message-bearing, cleaning, cooking, serving the priests, et cetera.
"Indeed."
He had never met Helios in his previous life. But he – and the other priests of Elysion – had always carried the same desire in their hearts. The safety and wellbeing of Elysion, of the Golden Kingdom.
Acheron had said that he would not show before him, not until he remembered. Mamoru rubbed at his face with a hand, tired and suffering from a migraine.
Kunzite and the others apologized for not being able to provide further assistance.
"Our memories are also incomplete," Nephrite admitted, and had he been of flesh and blood shame would have flooded his cheeks with color. "Beryl and Metallia did much to damage our souls when they controlled us."
"And I do not blame you for it," Mamoru said firmly when the others also hung their heads, grave in their perceived failures.
"You are too kind." Jadeite's lips twisted into a rueful, fond smile. There was a shadow of his old grin in there, the playful upturn of lips that his brother in another life used to don with a sparkle in his eyes.
Mamoru remembered the Shitennou, the more he focused and tried. But he could not remember Acheron, not even a mention of him. He did not blame the Shitennou, he had been honest.
He blamed himself.
That night he dreamed of a woman on fire. All he could see of her was her outline – any details about her was engulfed by the orange flames she was engulfed in as she screamed.
Strangely enough, Mamoru got the feeling that she wasn't burning, and that her scream wasn't that of pain from the flames.
Rather, she was screaming in rebellion – and the flames were hers, blazing in resistance. Against – what?
Mamoru woke up with tears running down his face. He couldn't remember her, couldn't remember why that had been important, couldn't even remember why he was crying.
"Did I know you, once?" he asked aloud, as Usagi stirred next to him.
No one answered. In his mind he heard her scream again, wordless voice raw and defiant, and a chill ran down his spine.
Kaiou Michiru, Tenoh Haruka and Meiou Setsuna had lives, outside of their identity as sailor soldiers. With no significant threats or invaders around that they knew of – and with Sailor Moon having freed and revived much of the universe's sailor scouts, their public relations were rather good – there should have been more time for them to focus on their civilian lives.
Should, being the key word.
With Hotaru severely vulnerable and at risk for anything, they, as the guardians of the outer solar system and concerned parents, took it upon themselves to keep the entire solar system safe. It was less about giving up their dream – which would have made Hotaru racked with guilt – and more about multi-tasking, and efficient usage of time.
Car racing? Haruka's talent for it came from her affinity to the wind and her reaction time, unparalleled to most. Both could be honed when she stood guard on Uranus, the wellspring of her own power.
Violin practice? Could be done while training attacks oriented on music. Sailor Neptune, on a planet made up of deep seas, played to her guardian star and let the magic resonate from within her very being as her hands danced to the notes of her songs.
Studying the physics of time and space? Pluto was very used to standing guard, alone, at the gates of time and space. She knew better than anyone what made up the fabric of reality. Learning the theory behind what was instinctual wasn't difficult.
Spending as much time as they could on their home planets, drawing up power and synchronizing their souls to their birthrights, the outer sailor soldiers protected the solar system with a desperate fervor, determined to not let anyone in. Their presence hurt Hotaru, and they were of the same solar system.
If a case like the Starlights came to be once more?
Best case scenario, Hotaru was going to be in severe pain. Worst case scenario, she would die.
And that was an unacceptable outcome to all of them.
They stood guard ferociously, determined to not let anything in to hurt their daughter if they couldn't be at her side to protect her.
It was Neptune who noticed it first.
"We're getting stronger," she said, after asking Uranus to spar with her. They worked best as partners, Neptune supporting and Uranus attacking, and they knew each other too well for a spar to be anything more than exercise.
And yet, both had been surprised to find their attacks stronger. Easier. More natural.
Not because of their revival after the Cauldron. Not because of Sailor Moon.
"Because we've been spending more time on our planets," Pluto realized.
Because they might have been reborn on Earth, as human beings, their current selves could not be denied, but their very essence, their souls, were those of other planets. Because they had been fighting with a handicap, so to speak.
The inner sailor scouts joined their patrols of the solar system. By placement of their home planets it was harder for them to be keeping an eye out for invaders from outside the solar system, but Jupiter and Mars were still between Earth and the outer layers, and Mercury and Venus could scout from their own castles provided they were synchronized to the surveillances of other planets, and they did what they could.
Filling the role of the outers wasn't the main goal. Getting stronger was. For Hotaru, for Sailor Moon, for the prince, for the unborn princess they all loved and adored, for themselves.
All of the sailor soldiers might have been faced with one of the greatest forces in the entire galaxy, but it didn't change the fact that they had been killed in a blink of an eye, and their souls controlled and turned against their princess.
Their princess, who had suffered because her sailor guardians had failed to protect her.
Usagi, of course, would have said that she didn't mind, that she was honored to fight with them at her side. But it wasn't that they didn't want to fight with her, but rather they would that she didn't have to. Lonely stars that they were, one day, when all of them faded away, only Sailor Moon would be left, shining eternally – and alone. They wanted to stay at her side for as long as they could.
Time passed for the sailor soldiers, as it did for everyone. They achieved their dreams. Ami became a doctor, general practitioner for now but willing to learn any specialty she wanted to. Minako was a famous model and actress, seizing the eyes and attention of the public like a commanding queen. Rei was a priestess at her temple, proud and knowledgeable as she read the flames and kept the peace of minds. Makoto began her own shop, selling her confections and flowers to brighten up the days of those that came in.
Setsuna got her doctorate in theoretical physics, and began working on fashion design. Michiru played the violin in halls filled with her fans, and her music drew in and drowned those who listened like a mythical siren from mythology. Haruka raced, almost as fast as she could fly, and she had no equal on the tracks.
But even as their dreams were achieved, even as they enjoyed the peace, the sailor soldiers didn't forget there was one of them, unable to be there.
From Sephira came a fire of defiance, a refusal to die. She was human, she was mortal, but she was alive – and to death she screamed no.
Ironically, as she faced death, knew death was coming, felt death about to extinguish her life, in that moment Sephira was alive. Ever since the Sight had become hers, had she ever truly lived in the present as she was now?
That was a revelation – her revelation – so strong it transmitted through her will manifested to the very people she sought to protect. Her flames reached out, not consuming as actual flames tended to do but harmonizing, tugging the resigned priests to stand as one, united in the defiance that had spread from her. Literal flames from a torch, passed on to light up the resolve within them.
And it made them ask, had they ever lived, truly lived? Lives and souls dedicated to Elysion and the protection of the holy land, a most noble cause and sacrifice, but were they, as people before they were priests, willing to close their eyes and lower their heads in the face of death?
Or would they fight?
Fire could be shared, and not be decreased. The hope she ignited within them spread, and one by one their resolves lit afire. If they were to die, as they had known they would, then in that time before they died, while they were still alive, they would fight back with their will to survive, with their resolution to live. Better to have tried and failed than have done nothing at all. Contrary as he usually was, Acheron followed the example Sephira had set and decided to defy death when it told him it was his time to die.
Flames, energy of life given physical manifestations, colors of the rainbow and diverse, flickered into shape, following Sephira's example. Acheron, his fire the shade of indigo, held tightly to Cybele, the only other one to have orange flames like Sephira. On the other side of the old woman, Helios, his flames also the same indigo as Acheron's, flickered with the force of Cybele's large flames.
But hers, though larger than most, were nowhere near the size of Sephira's, powerful enough to fill the inner sanctum.
Acheron treated the dead, washed their bodies and prayed so that their spirits would pass safely. He did so, and he was close to death, or so he had thought.
In this moment, where Sephira's flames connected them all in body, heart and life, Acheron felt alive even as he was aware of impending death.
And he didn't want to die. With his dying will, he rejected death, and grasped for life, just as they all did.
Sephira screamed – they all screamed – and the heavens fell around them. The heavens fell, the gods died, everyone died –
But they lived. They survived, against all odds, fourteen priests of differing ages. They survived, and they transcended.
"Gods save us," murmured Cybele, the dust not yet cleared.
We saved ourselves, Acheron thought, contradicting the old woman in his mind but not daring to do so out loud. Or maybe he was too tired to do so. He hadn't – didn't – want to die, but he also wanted to sleep like the dead.
Sephira's flames had flickered down, from an ocean as vast as the skies to a thin stream.
She was, however, alive, as they all were. Her eyes were blue, but in that moment they still glowed with the orange her life's aura had been, twin suns. What did she see, Acheron wondered. What did the eyes that caught glimpses into the future see now?
Then she swayed on her feet before collapsing, and Acheron would have corrected himself on her status, except his head went white with panic at the sight of her body, crumpled on the ground.
All thirteen of them cried out and ran to her side, afraid that their savior, their fellow priest, their family was dead after having performed a miracle.
Yamamoto Takeshi and Miura Haru were two names the sailor soldiers were fond of. They hadn't been introduced formally, because their time with Hotaru had always been short and precious, and while they truly appreciated the two young children for having accepted Hotaru as their friend, they still had so little time they could spend with her.
(Now, if either of them had hurt Hotaru in some way, that would have been an entirely different story and an encounter would have been arranged.)
(Luckily for everyone, there was no hurting Hotaru, and no arrangements had to be made.)
Their existence in Hotaru's life, however, reminded the guardians of the solar system of a glaringly obvious fact.
"She's so young," Setsuna murmured.
Tomoe Hotaru had always been the youngest of them all. Even if Sailor Chibi-Moon was included – and she was – the future princess was technically older than most of them if they didn't count their first lives due to her age. Mentally, perhaps not, but she had still been nine hundred years old. And she was no longer with them, returned to her own time.
Hotaru had no peers in the group. She was bound to them, in bonds stronger than blood, and they to her, but that wasn't the same.
It was deeply unfair, and something for them to consider. All of them had civilian lives. Even Setsuna, before she had regained her memories of Sailor Pluto, had been Meiou Setsuna, had made friends with Nishimura Reika and Furuhata Motoki, still remained good friends with the newlywed couple.
They could be and would be her family. But could they be her friend, her peers, her equals in that sense?
In the future, when age lost its meaning, when a decade became a scant number hardly worth mentioning. But now?
The age of the body affected the mind, and for all that Hotaru had lived longer than her body suggested, she was still a child, on the cusp of becoming a teenager, while almost everyone else significant in her life was an adult.
All, except two.
Haruka huffed. "It's not a difficult problem," she said bluntly.
Michiru hid a smile behind one hand. "No, it's not."
"Only if she wants to," Setsuna pointed out. She knew they were right, though, when she last saw Hotaru before her powers returned. She definitely wanted to.
The only 'problem' would be getting her to admit that. Setsuna shook her head a little. Her daughter – their daughter – was sometimes just a little too self-denying, a little too altruistic.
But, well, anything for her happiness.
The Trojan War, the event which had ended the age of the gods and left Terra – Earth – to mortals, out of divine interference, had boasted of many heroes and their exploits.
But most notable of all, even in this age, was the tale of Achilles. A war that was not his, for he had never courted Helen, and a fate promising him a long life as an average man – or a blaze of glory, as a hero.
And he had thrown himself into the war that had immortalized his name in history, but died at a young age.
Sephira had come after the Trojan War, as all those of the Golden Kingdom did, but she remembered the story now as she looked at Giotto and Simon.
"You could live long, and prosperously," she said. They knew her as Sephira, the mysterious priestess rumored to have powers that kept her safe from the turmoil in the land, powers she had taught them how to harness.
Not out of kindness, no, more of a desperate attempt to distract herself from the truth she had discovered. The choice she had to make.
The choice she was stalling on. Even if she knew the inevitable, even if she knew what was needed –
The choice to die was a hard one to make, deliberately.
"You know this is a path of blood, and pain, and suffering," Sephira continued to the two young men. Giotto, who always put on a confident grin as if to say 'I could do this all day', and Simon, who always blushed when he saw her but had his wits and strengths, nonetheless. "That it could lead to your early deaths."
The fate of Achilles, to live long as a common man, or to die a warrior at a young age. She saw that within them.
And it wasn't worry, for Simon or for Giotto. It was a form of morbid curiosity, that they were able to make such a choice.
Giotto smiled, like he understood. Perhaps he did. "It could," he agreed. "I think we of all people should know that – these Flames, after all, are derived from facing death."
That was where her Flames had started, yes, but somewhere – somewhen – along the line, she had grown less aware of that threat, with immortality and generations of living and lives ruined for the greater good.
"It's terrifying, I can't lie," Giotto admitted. "Every day could be the last, every fight I think, this could be it."
He certainly didn't look like those were the thoughts haunting him. And yet he spoke the truth.
"But," Giotto said. "It's either me, or those behind me. And I stand a better chance of coming out alive."
"Even if one day, your strength, your fortune, your time may run out?" Could she be willing to die? After all she had sacrificed, the last one demanded of her, for the sake of this world, for the sake of yet-unborn gods – could she lay it down on the altar?
The young mortal shrugged. "If I must die, so be it," he answered, young but already aware of loss. "But before I die, I'll do everything I can to live – and to make sure others also live."
A spirit yet unbroken, bright and embracing.
Simon grinned, ears red at the tips. "What he said," he added on. "It's just not in our nature to sit back when we could do something, I guess."
"Because we're reckless idiots?" Giotto smirked, clearly quoting his other friend, the one with red Flames. Storm, Giotto called him.
"Obviously." Simon caught her eye, and the red extended to his cheeks. "Um, but Lady Sephira. You should know, though. It's just a choice. Our choice. If you don't want to, that's also fine, truly. We'd never ask that you put yourself in danger, or fight on the frontlines. Heaven knows you've done so much already, teaching us, supporting us, really, we couldn't have done it without you, I swear, and-"
Giotto quietly and not-very-subtly elbowed Simon in his ribs.
"Thanks," wheezed the redheaded man, after being cut off.
Sephira pretended to not notice. There was too much on her mind, too much going on, for her to accept the romantic feelings of a mortal man that didn't deserve her baggage. "Even if your choice demanded your life of you?"
Both of them, possessing the same kind of orange Flames she did, straightened their backs, as if her question had been a challenge issued that needed to be met with everything they had.
Sky, Simon had called Giotto, and it was both more abstract and a better description for what the orange Flames did.
"Even if," Giotto said. "If I didn't, I believe I'd regret it even past my death. Better to die having done something than to mull over it for the rest of my life. I'm mortal, after all – I'll eventually die, but if my death could have meant one more life was saved, I don't think I'd have as many regrets."
Simon, who was more like the Earth, as Giotto had christened him, nodded. "There's always a chance we might survive whatever disaster we've thrown ourselves into," he said, not blushing or stuttering. "And even if we do – we won't go down without a fight."
It was Giotto's words that struck her the most. It didn't apply to her situation, not fully, but –
Sephira was already dying. Her life was being prolonged, yes, but the damages she had taken over the centuries were sapping at her, slowly killing her. Two centuries, maybe, and she would die.
She could die ignobly, a death of long-drawn suffering and pain, or –
Or she could die, doing something.
It was an answer she had known, deep down, until the two mortal men in front of her had let her see the truth. An answer she had been refusing to see, until those far younger than her had pointed it out.
Acheron and Helios would not approve of what she was about to do. But –
"Talbot," she called, and the great-grandson of Daedalus showed himself. He was young, and despite his heritage had less Flames than even the two mortal men in the room. But he had inherited longevity from his father's side of the family, as well as the skills to create.
"Milady?"
Sephira kept her eyes on Giotto and Simon. The Arcobaleno system was still unstable. The Vindice, as the survivors were calling themselves, were still looking for the persona she and the other guardians had used to pick the seven strongest of each generation, not able to see past Acheron's illusions. With her death the world would be even more unstable.
Unless she took measures to keep it stable, using her own life as payment.
"Giotto and Simon are about to start a revolution," Sephira said. That was why they had come, to discuss their Flames and their future plans. They had named the Flames of Giotto's friends after weathers, and Simon's family after different terrains, and after telling her about all the shenanigans they had gone through with this new knowledge, spoke of their plans to become vigilantes and protect innocents from outlaws and conflict, from the laws that were supposed to protect them.
Had they been born earlier, they would have been made the Arcobaleno of this generation. Sephira was rather glad that they weren't.
"I believe we should help equip them, should we not?"
Talbot, for all that he was young, shared the same unconventional tendencies of his great-grandsire. "Can I use the moonrock?"
Where his obsession with the moonrocks came from, Sephira didn't know and didn't want to know. "Something better, I think."
The young man's eyes widened, unsure of what was better to use than the materials come from a now-destroyed kingdom.
"And," she added, because if she was going to die, she would do so properly – by dying only after a legacy had been left. "Something for me, as well."
Kawahira's birthday present, it turned out, was an identity for Hotaru.
Setsuna rolled her eyes when she found out. "Show-off."
The papers – birth certificate, passport, vaccination records and so on – were all proof that she was a legal, existing person, with the right 'age' as she was now.
She picked up the birth certificate. January sixth, 1991. Ten years after she had first been born, if she thought about it.
"I'm surprised he knew what our cover story was," Michiru said, picking through her records. From her lack of raising a voice, it was clear she approved of them.
"I'm not," said Setsuna and Hotaru at the same time.
Other than her own name and her birthdate, there was also the names of her 'parents'. Her parents still had the same last name, but their first names had been changed. The two had died in a fire together, according to the profile he had added, leaving their daughter a not-too-shabby inheritance and insurance money, as well as family friends that would take good care of her.
Hotaru didn't mind that her father's name was changed, but her mother's . . .
Kawahira had made it so that it still sounded the same, just used different characters. For that she was grateful.
Hotaru did have to bite back a smile when she noticed that her 'father's' name was 'Riku', just written differently from his own name, with the kanji for 'land'. He would have found it funny and not missed the chance to make a pun.
It really was a good birthday present.
Talbot had done an exemplary job with the forging of the rings. Even his ancestor would have been proud, had Daedalus been around to see it.
To Simon went the rings that would refine Flames into something stronger, something more specialized. It was nowhere as important in terms of sustaining the world, but in terms of power it would be fairly close.
And to Giotto went one of the now-three foundations of this world, until the Golden Crystal returned.
"You're both capable of lighting Flames on your own," Sephira said to her students. It wasn't just her influence or teachings that had made them so powerful – it was their innate resolve.
A kind of resolve she had forgotten, over the years.
"But the rings will help."
Make it easier, stronger, purer, and so on.
They were excited, as men with new toys were wont to be, but it was a genuine kind that was happy in the thoughts of what good they could do, rather than what they could gain.
Sephira wondered if power would change and corrupt them.
"What is your greatest wish?" Sephira asked, impulsively. And if she pressed them with something a little more to bring out the truth, well, who was to know?
Simon flushed and looked away, as if he was guilty of even looking at her. She eased the force on him, not needing a confession of love to make the moment awkward. That was an answer she had no need of.
Giotto smirked at his friend's embarrassment, but took it upon himself to answer.
"I wish," he said, half-smiling down at the set of rings Sephira had given him. One for him, and each of his closest friends. Guardians. They had taken the term she used along with her teachings, and seeing as it fit she didn't see a need to stop them. "That I can continue to be happy with those who are precious to me."
Sephira sighed. It was a beautiful wish that came from the heart, but what she saw for him –
She kept what her Sight told about his future silent.
"Then go," she told them both instead, referring not to the wish but to the first reason why they had come to her. "Make the world of peace you spoke of."
"Ami was thinking of saying you have Guillain-Barre Syndrome," Setsuna said. Kawahira's gift meant Hotaru's past was secured and spoken for, which meant they could now work on her present. "We'll say that you went to to the hospital to be treated, and then spend a few months in rehabilitation."
Rehabilitation. It wasn't a lie. It really was rehabilitation – she needed to get used to her powers again, and also to train to catch up to the others. As if the space between the years of experience they had hadn't been great enough, there was an even greater distance now.
Takeshi and Haru didn't even need the name of the disease or the specifics of how it worked, when it came down to it. They were more concerned with the time it would take for the treatment to work, for the rehabilitation period, and whether they could visit or not.
"How long will it take?"
That was a good question. How long would her 'rehabilitation' take? The training plan they had in mind was for her to spend some time on Saturn, let Titan Castle synchronize with her powers again, and get used to using them.
Then – and only then – would she start being trained by the other sailor soldiers, on their own planets and castles. Now that she was recovered and not in danger of reacting to other sailor crystals, other sailors from outside the solar system, like the Starlights and Princess Kakyuu could visit.
Ninety consecutive days at Titan, and then an unknown period of training at each of the seven other planets, depending on how fast she caught up.
It would be difficult, but she had a reason to hurry, and the resolve to push herself like she never had before.
"I think at least seven months," Hotaru estimated. If she spent two weeks or so training at each of the castles, then she could be back in that time. Back to her friends, back to a civilian life, back to growing up, maybe reaching adulthood – finally.
Given how picky Haruka could be, Hotaru rather doubted she might be able to get her approval in just two weeks' time. Actually, come to think of it, that applied to Setsuna and Michiru and – oh, who was she kidding, everyone.
"At least," Hotaru added. She was going to be put through a lot of suffering in the name of 'training'.
"Seven months?!" Haru shrieked. Takeshi, who had been near her, winced at the screech, but if it hadn't been for that he would have been right there with her in expressing his disbelief.
"Maybe more," Hotaru said, feeling a little guilty at how both their faces dropped at that addition. "Depending on how it goes. I'll try to come back as soon as I can."
She'd definitely be back before the new school year started in April, anyways. If she wasn't done training in time, the sailor soldiers would just train Hotaru through school.
Haru opened her mouth, shut it, opened it again and then pressed her lips closed without saying a thing.
"What she means is," Takeshi said, picking up where Haru was hesitating, "we'll miss you a lot."
Haru's eyes glistened with tears and she wailed. "Hotaru-chan!"
Hotaru let herself be glomped by Haru.
"I'll write," she promised. If she was going to be put through the bootcamp from hell in seven different versions, the least she could ask of her trainers were that they deliver some letters on her behalf. "And I'll get better, and when I come back we can go to school together. I've never been to middle school. It might be fun."
She actually never had. It would be a new experience, for sure.
"Us neither," Takeshi pointed out. Since Hotaru couldn't very well tell him that she had attended elementary school longer than he had, she kept her mouth shut and smiled instead. It was new for all of them, so that could be fun.
"Hahi! Middle school!" Haru's spine snapped up straight. "What school are you going to?!"
Hotaru . . . actually didn't know. Haru was going to Midori, an all girls' school known for students with high grades, while Takeshi was planning on going to Namimori Middle, the middle school with the strongest sports clubs in the town, baseball included.
"A school in Namimori . . . ?" she tried, and received two very flat looks in return. Which was fair.
It was a bright day, birds were chirping in the skies, and flowers were beginning to open up their petals with the arrival of spring, when Acheron's world might as well have come to an end with Sephira's decision.
"I don't like it," Acheron said. He knew his words would be futile. After that day, when Sephira discovered the truth about herself, after she had spoken with the sprite of the dead silver queen, she had changed.
But they all had, so what could he say? From humans to what they had thought only the gods of the heavens could do. They were not guardians of the planet, not in the sense that their souls were the hearts of their beloved Terra and vice versa, but they were still worthy of the title 'guardians'.
Sephira had restored the world of life, to the best of her abilities. Rebirth of an entire humanity with none the wiser in the blink of an eye, the world populated again and no one to know there had been a restart.
It wasn't the same – but they weren't the same, either, closer to what the residents of the moon had been than the Golden Kingdom's, so who were they to talk?
Centuries of upholding and keeping the world's balance by feeding the crystals Sephira had been left with after making her choice, centuries of choosing human sacrifices, Sephira made a choice again.
Acheron did not like her choice, but she had already done it, and there was no undoing her decision. He had only been informed after, which was probably done to avoid his attempting to convince her to change her mind. He would have tried very hard, he knew, and Sephira knew, even without having to look into the future.
"I was born mortal," Sephira pointed out. On her right hand a stone with an orange gem the same shade as her Flames glittered. The silver wings at its side seemed to mock Acheron. "And it's fitting that I die a mortal, a human."
We aren't human, we haven't been human for so long, I don't even remember what it was like to be human. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but Acheron bit them back, just barely.
"Must you die?" he asked instead to the woman that had once been of a high station, one of the highest in the world, but thrown it all away to a life in the temple, who had called him little brother and meant it.
Acheron was once an orphan that found salvation in the family made by lonely souls isolated in the temple, was once a priest who performed the funeral rites, was now a very old man wearing a young skin who had buried most of his family since his mortal days save two.
And now one of them was telling him she planned to die. Let herself die.
Acheron was not ready to part. He never was, really. If Sephira left, all that would be left of the original fourteen would be he and Helios. Helios, whose duties with upholding Elysion left him in slumber most of the time.
"Yes." Sephira was firm. "Because Endymion will not be reborn if I am alive, and if we prolong this, I will have to watch you and Helios die."
Of. All. The. Reasons. A wave of fury and frustration and disbelief rose up inside him, and he had to struggle to fight it back. When he spoke again, he was glad to hear that the emotions hadn't stained his tone with their color.
"And so, you leave the painful part to us," Acheron said drily. Selfish woman.
Sephira smiled. It was a genuine smile, not the one she forced to reassure them all. Selfish?
Acheron rescinded his thoughts. For too long Sephira had been forced to make choices that drove her to near-madness with guilt. They had all felt the guilt – and some of them had died from it, unable to face their decisions without grief or sorrow or madness – but Sephira, seeing what could be, had felt it the most.
And yet she had to stand strong, as their leader, and plaster on a smile and pretend everything would be fine. In the grand scheme of things it was, the planet continued to exist, and the balance of life was maintained, and the screams of the few sacrificed for the many went muffled by the chess players they had become, and with each generation of the rainbow's curse Sephira broke, little by little.
"Because you still want to live," Sephira whispered.
He hated that she knew him so well. "And you don't?"
Sephira pressed a hand to her stomach, where an unborn babe awaited. A part of the decision he strongly disapproved of – but again, his opinion was going to do nothing to change her mind.
"I'll live long enough to watch her grow," she reassured him. "You'll be godfather."
It was not a question or a request, a mere statement of fact. He might have been angry for her assuming except he knew what his answer would have been.
"Godfather to a girl," Acheron drawled. The last time any of the original guardians had given birth to children had been shortly after the first Arcobaleno had been chosen. He wasn't particularly sure how he'd take to being partially responsible for a child now, after all he and the others had done for the 'greater good', not when he was too used to the years passing like days now. "Troublesome little ones, don't think I haven't noticed."
How many of the children born to the original guardians, how many of their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren called him Uncle, Godfather, whatever endearment of choice?
And how many of them, blessed with Flames stronger than the average human, had been picked to be the sacrifices upholding the world's foundations when their ancestors grew too few in number to fulfil their roles?
"I've made my choice."
Damn her. Acheron swept a hand through his hair roughly, and even as he lacked the Sight as she did he could guess what would happen. Her descendants, regardless of what lifespan they were given, would have the strongest Flames for generations. There would be no way for them to avoid becoming picked as the sacrifices upholding the world's foundations.
"And your descendants will pay." He'd also need a decent human identity, to be godfather. One good enough to pass the careful eye of the Giglio Nero, the newly-established family of vigilantes run by Sephira's human identity. Her last one, now.
Sephira looked up, and her eyes glowed with the orange of her flames. "As all the descendants of my guardians did. Mine should not be the exception, not when they also live within this world we fought to uphold for so long."
She meant it. But at the same time, she had also given up her longevity, what little had remained after she had made her decision to turn down true godhood for her – for their – conditional immortality. Acheron sighed at the price she had paid, to buy her daughter some safety from bearing the weight of the world.
"That should be enough to keep the world stabilized for a few generations," he conceded. Her daughter, and her daughter's daughter would be safe. Probably. Between the two of them, he wasn't the seer.
But even the life she imparted would not be enough to sustain the life of Terra, not by herself, not when she was not the soldier entrusted with the planet's soul. Eventually the flames she had left would run out, and then the rainbow's curse would have to be repeated once more if a miracle did not come to be in time.
If Sephira's descendants were alive at that point, then they would be the first candidates, of that Acheron had no doubts.
Sephira nodded. "I'm hoping," she said. Hoping that a miracle of the scale she had created during the Apocalypse would happen again.
Acheron did not approve.
"Like you hoped with that mortal?" He didn't really approve of that man, either. Sephira claimed there was potential for greatness in him. Perhaps there was, but Acheron had seen too many 'greats' in his time, some even greater than this Giotto. He wasn't easily impressed. The only things that would keep him in Acheron's memory was his audacity, at naming the Flames after weathers of all things, and Sephira's choosing him to bear the shards that had broken away after she gave up her immortality.
Weathers. What was wrong with colors? It had served the original guardians of Elysion fine for centuries, and along came this uppity mortal-
"Exactly."
Acheron resisted the urge to pull at his hair. Sephira, probably having caught sight of what he was considering, reached up to ruffle his hair like she had always done.
"I'm sorry I'm leaving you with all the difficult things," she apologized. Which was unfair, really. How was he supposed to be angry now, when she freely admitted what she was doing to him and admitted it?
"I won't interfere with the two sets of rings," he said. It was meant to be a threat, but it came out half-hearted. "Merely watch over them."
"I know," she agreed readily, because of course she did. "That's why they're removable. It's their choice." Her eyes flicked down to her hand, where the ring with the wings sat glittering innocently. "My choice."
Choice. Right. Because that was a good idea, to make something so fundamental to the world's foundations be based on human choice.
The part of him that had removed the garbs of a priest, the robes that named him a servant of Elysion after hearing the truth about their planet's history that fateful day wanted to scream at the irony. Choice. Human choice.
The choice that had chased out the gods from Earth, the choice that had made Earthlings rise up to the heavens in defiance – stained in greed and tainted by an outside evil, yes, but nonetheless – and kill the gods, before judgement came down upon them all. The choice that he saw perpetuate evil throughout the world in the history he had witnessed.
"Sephira," he groaned. "Why?"
She shrugged. "Because they don't need to last as long? Because surely, a revelation shall appear in time? With three legs to stand on, maybe there won't have to be any more rainbows to keep the world alive until Endymion is reborn."
He exhaled, reminding himself that it wasn't unusual for Sephira to do this. To be a tyrant and a dictator and do whatever the hell she wanted because she was just like that.
But by the gods he usually didn't call to, it had been easier to deal with when he wasn't the one responsible. He missed being the youngest one – next to Helios – who could snicker as the other guardians had to scramble to keep up with Sephira's spontaneous actions.
The smile on his lips he hadn't been aware of slipped a little, when he realized that yes, it was a little unusual for Sephira to be unpredictable or spontaneous, had been ever since Cybele died and she was the only orange flame left among them. And that had been a long time ago.
"He'll come," Sephira reassured him. "Endymion, and all the other sailor soldiers, they'll be reborn, and the world can be saved."
Acheron didn't bother telling her that her words sounded like she needed them more than he did. It was what had kept her going all these centuries, before she realized that her death was the necessary catalyst for what she had been working for.
The old age had to die, for the new to begin. And Sephira was the last major linchpin of that old era. He and Helios were nowhere near as important or significant enough to be that.
Sephira had to die, for Endymion to be reborn. For the world to be settled enough so that the sailor soldiers all could.
"A new king, a new era," she seemed to sing those words.
"He was a prince," Acheron said without much heat behind his words. A prince in love with an unattainable goddess – and as was the case with all forbidden love stories it had ended with tragedies.
"Born and raised to be a king," Sephira reminded Acheron. Only centuries of knowing her let Acheron see the remaining pieces of her despair from old memories and scars, renewed by the realization that had struck her recently. "Our king."
He did not like the mortal that had drawn Sephira's attention. It was petty of him – incredibly petty, he knew – because even if this Giotto had not drawn Sephira's eye, eventually some other mortal would have caught her attention while she was still dealing with the revelation of her death's necessity, helped her accept the truth.
But he would agree with one thing the human had said, about the orange flames being like that of the Sky.
Ever since that day, so many centuries ago, when the heavens had collapsed and the world had nearly ended, and the Apocalypse had unfolded before their eyes but they had survived, Acheron had always looked not to the heavens where the kingdom of gods had been, but to Sephira.
Their leader, their new heaven, their queen without a crown or a throne, their savior. A ridiculous woman that claimed she would now be selfish because she had learnt she wanted to live, only to give up godhood for the sake of the world and suffer unnecessarily. Their Sky.
There would never be anyone that could ever take her place, not to him.
"He might be my prince," Acheron admitted, though he loathed to do so. "But you will always be my queen."
Sephira tried to smile. She failed, and started to weep.
Reverted to the time when he had been a young boy with older siblings and parental figures and a small world with all the love he had never even dared to dream of, Acheron silently wept alongside her, two relics of an age less than a handful remembered shedding tears at the inevitable finally here.
Even now, Acheron wasn't ready.
But, as he had learned over the centuries of his extended life, it was never about whether he, or anyone, was ready or not. And maybe he deserved to lose one of the two remaining constants in his life for the sake of a 'greater good', after having ruined the lives of so many for that very cause.
Granny did not cry. That was likely because Granny was Granny and she expressed herself in words and actions rather than tears.
She gave Hotaru's three parents a hard look. "This is something to do with that weird allergy of hers?"
"Kind of," Setsuna admitted. "Now that she's better and doesn't react negatively to our presence anymore, she just needs to recover."
Hotaru nodded at her side, showing that she was in full support of what Setsuna said.
Granny looked them over with eyes that would have made a hawk's seem dim in comparison.
"Alright," she said at last, before she fixed her gaze on Hotaru. "But if you ever need a place to run away to, Hotaru-kun."
Remembering Granny's words to Haru, Hotaru giggled.
"I will, Granny," she said, tears less than what she had expected. Granny was still Granny, and now that she would be living in Namimori she would always be able to drop by and visit. "Thank you."
Granny waved it off. She took gratitude like she always did – with gruffness.
"And make sure she eats," she added to the nearest person, who happened to be Haruka. "If the hospital food's bad, get her the good stuff. Don't let her starve."
Haruka smirked. "Got it, Granny."
Her caretaker of several years looked at Hotaru and nodded coolly. "Take care of yourself."
This time there was no funny memories to hold back the tears that sprang from her eyes. "I will."
When Sephira gave up her longevity, there wasn't much life left in her. Factor in just how injured she had become over the last few centuries, and how draining her duty to uphold the burden of the planet while her metaphorical hands were tied behind her back had been, and it was a wonder to Acheron that her body made it to the physical age of forty-four.
Her daughter was asleep, the Mare ring on her finger after Sephira had passed her position along with it to her, when Acheron slipped into her room and let the illusion fall away to reveal his true face. The dark of the night meant the stars in the distance were visible, bright in the sky, but Sephira's eyes couldn't see them.
"You're dying," Acheron said.
"I've noticed," Sephira said dryly. Her voice was cracking, but even as she was in her literal deathbed, she wouldn't let anyone get the last word.
Acheron could not sass back or make jokes. The moments were slipping away, too fast. Unsure of what to say that would best fit these precious moments, he held his tongue.
Helios slipped in, the first time he had physically left Elysion since the rings had been made and entrusted to the mortals.
For a moment, the only sound in the room was the heavy breathing that came from Sephira, the weary labor of someone on her last bit of time.
"Time for my last words," she mused quietly at last.
Acheron's face was hidden by the shadows in the room, but his face was wet. He knew, without looking that Helios shared this with him, but they dared not make a sound and interrupt her.
"I've always told you two," she paused to take in a breath. "And everyone else, just what I thought, what I felt."
All the times she had called them idiots when they did something reckless – though that was more with the others. He and Helios had usually been in the background, and avoided the stupidity in general because they weren't idiots, they didn't risk their lives on dares. All the times she had wept, apologizing to them for binding them to this terrible duty. All the times she had vomited up blood, trying to keep the children of the original guardians, and later the descendants, from being chosen to be the sacrifices for having the strongest flames when there weren't enough of the guardians to uphold the world's balance, and despaired when the backlash of trying to cheat the system had punished her, and her only. All the times she had screamed, when one by one the original guardians died and she couldn't heal them, only hold them and feel their lives slip away from her, out of her reach.
All the times she had wrapped her arms around them, told them she loved them very much.
"I love you both," Sephira said now, and a sob escaped his brother's throat at last before he clapped a hand across his mouth. Acheron bit down on his tongue and held his breath, but more tears ran down his face, hot and wet and uncontrollable. "You were my brothers. Are my brothers. My-" she choked, and had to struggle to regain her breath. "Family."
A harsh exhale was the only sound Acheron allowed himself, because he had to be quiet right now, let her speak. The inside of his mouth tasted of blood, but he had priorities.
Helios fell to his knees, and he crawled forth to take her hand.
"Please don't go," he begged. He had always been the youngest of the guardians, not just because of his age, but also because of the nature of his powers. Dream-keeper and walker, the last of Elysion's priests after everyone else had either died or laid aside their clothes to live outside the city's boundaries, he had to remain in Elysion and sustain the holy land while the rest of them upheld what went on outside the sacred land, and most of his life had been spent asleep.
Age, though, did not mean this loss would be any less devastating. Acheron drew closer and knelt next to Helios. He wouldn't beg for Sephira to stay, because he knew that was pointless, but –
She had always been an older sister, to them. Two orphan boys with only the vaguest memories of what their lives had been before Elysion took them in and they were reborn with a family transcending ties of blood.
Sephira had always been there, for them. And that could no longer be true.
"I'm sorry," Sephira said, her usual apology. For burdening them with a duty that had been born from her choice. For bestowing upon them immortality and partial godhood. For leaving them with the duty of making the sacrifices. For leaving them alone.
Acheron shook his head as Helios finally broke and sobbed.
"I feel like I should know," groaned Mamoru. The Shitennou could not remember orange flames, names of priests from Elysion, or anyone with the name 'Sephira'. He could not remember what she looked like, and it was too far a memory for his psychometry to dig up despite his desperate attempts.
But he couldn't shake the feeling that he knew her, or that he should know what she looked like.
The Golden Crystal within him pulsed with his efforts, and again, his mind's eye caught sight of a woman on fire.
Had she died, Mamoru wondered, half-mad from his scrying the fires in his head. Hotaru, relaying the information Acheron had given her to him, had said that she had saved Terra's life – or at least, brought them back after Saturn – but such a feat would have been devastating.
Maybe, after she created the miracle that allowed him and all the other sailor soldiers to be born, she had died from the strain.
A tear rolled down his face, and Mamoru realized belatedly that the thought made him unbearably sad.
"If he doesn't remember me," Sephira rasped, using the last of her dying breath on ties that had been cut for so long. "Then – don't tell him the truth."
Her life was extended by the desire to ask them this, hung to her body by the thinnest threads. But her will had always been great, strong enough to hold her own life and thirteen others against the force of death. That will kept her stubbornly clinging now, wanting to hear their answers.
Helios paused, unsure on how to answer because he did not fully understand. He had not seen Sephira's despair and self-loathing, the complex mess that her emotions had become over the years.
But Acheron had borne witness to it, knew just how much guilt she had suffered from – and the weight of her feelings.
It would probably be for the best, he figured. For both Sephira now, and for Endymion's reincarnation.
"We won't," Acheron promised, ready to move hell if he could not affect the heavens. "And we'll make sure he's safe."
Reassured, Sephira let her eyes slide shut. "Thank you," she rasped.
Better an expression of gratitude as her last words, Acheron told himself as Helios buried his face into his hands and wept, better that than another apology.
AN: I know I usually update on Tuesdays but I realized that on both this site and on AO3, Petrichor has passed the 50 subscriber mark. I would have written an 'if' kind of scenario but we're still really early in the story and I wanted to avoid spoilers so here, have a monstrously long chapter early. Next update will be on Tuesday as usual!
Also, for those who want a more succint summary of this interlude, here are some TL;DRs because I had too much fun writing them.
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Sephira: All my life I've been good, but now, whoa, what the hell do you mean we're going to die we're not having that here no listen I don't care if you're a destroyer of worlds with the goddess of death's scythe I said NO.
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Talbot: *basically Hatsume Mei during his youth* Can I use the moonrocks?
Sephira: *why is he so obsessed with moonrocks Daedalus what part of your blood passes down this literal lunacy* No something better.
Talbot: Ooooh, shiny.
/
Sephira: alright, so Giotto should get one half of the split rocks because his words were the ones that made me think 'fine' and accept my inevitable death gracefully, and Simon . . .
Simon: *blushes every time he sees Sephira / every time Sephira speaks to him / every time she looks at him* *verbal vomit when he speaks to her and spends the night kicking at his blankets thinking 'god I'm stupid why did I say that I bet she thinks I'm dumb now'* *HUGE CRUSH*
Sephira: *looks at the stones, which broke but left the 'rainbow fragments', and imbues the fragments with power that makes them more similar to the terrain he described his friends being*
Sephira: Talbot I need you to make something.
(Or: Giotto might have gotten one of the three pillars supporting this world but he also got the responsibility and burdens that come with it while Simon got a slightly weaker but still incredibly strong, unique, changes user's Flames to corresponding Earth Flames ring, so who's Sephira's favorite, huh?)
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Acheron: So who's the dad?
Sephira: Noneya.
Acheron: I'm the godfather?
Sephira: And I'm the one that has to give birth what is your point.
Acheron: Touché.
Helios: What am I, then?
Acheron: The imaginary best friend (says this as a compliment but no one else hears it as that).
Helios: (｡•́︿•̀｡)
Sephira:（╬ಠ益ಠ)
Acheron: (꒡ꜙ꒡)
/
Sephira: *old / tired / had to accept that her death was necessary / guilt-ridden / somehow not insane or is she* don't . . . let . . . Endymion . . . know . . . .
Helios: *hesitant / asleep like 24/7 if Elysion isn't threatened / sweet sunshine cinnamon roll who worries about Sephira* Are you sure? Communication is important and-
Acheron: *what the fuck is communication / unhealthy coping methods in human shape / obfuscating troll who worries about Sephira* okay.