Most people wanted auspicious signs in the new year. Something that served as an omen, to say, no matter what happened last year, this year would be different. A fresh new start for a better year.

An auspicious start of a new year was not having a random kid, dressed like a cow, obnoxiously shouting for money.

Tsuna snatched Lambo off the gate where he was sitting and demanding money from complete strangers for the good of literally everyone and was about to seal himself into the house for forever – or until there was something to do, whichever came first – when a familiar voice called.

"Tsuna-kun, Lambo-kun!"

He nearly broke his neck with how fast he turned around.

There, right outside his gate, like she had just walked out of his dreams, was Kyoko, dressed up for festivities.

"Happy new year!" she said brightly, and no, it wasn't a dream but wow. That was almost a lethal amount of adorableness.

This being reality, though, meant that it was loud and chaotic and filled with people, just like how it had been since Reborn entered his life.

"Sawada!" roared another familiar voice, and yup, there was Ryohei. "Best regards for this year, too!"

"Happy new year," Tsuna said, the phrase automatic on his tongue now.

"Thanks for the new year's invitation," said Ryohei, as Kyoko crouched to meet Lambo near his height.

"Invitation?"

His question was answered by others.

"Happy new year, Tenth!"

"Happy new year, Tsuna-san!"

Tsuna turned his head and sure enough, Gokudera, Haru and Yamamoto were there. Gokudera got into an argument with Ryohei immediately and Haru went to greet Kyoko.

"Yo, Tsuna," said Yamamoto.

"Hey." On one hand, it was nice that everyone was here, but that word Ryohei said worried him. 'Invitation'.

There was only one person in his house that would call everyone over first thing in the year, and there was only one direction everything would go towards.

"Today," said Reborn, also dressed up for the new year, "we're going to have a Vongolian style New Year's Ceremony."

Tsuna turned to Yamamoto and grabbed his arm, desperate. "Is Hotaru-san coming?"

If Haru and Yamamoto were both here, then it only made sense that she would come, too, and Tsuna needed her here. He needed her guardian angel aura to ward off Reborn's shenanigans first thing in the year.

"She went to Tokyo with her parents to meet up with family," Yamamoto answered, unintentionally destroying his hopes and damning Tsuna to a day of suffering. "She told us to send her New Year's wishes to everyone, though."

While the rest of Tokyo was in the last day of the New Year celebrations, the sailor soldiers of the solar system gathered to meet guests from very far away.

Guests that they hadn't had the chance to meet before, due to circumstances.

"Thank you for welcoming us so graciously," spoke Sailor Mermaid, as the representative speaker of the four visiting sailor soldiers from the Fauna Star System.

On dry land she had two legs rather than the tail mermaids were known for, but there was an air about her, similar to that of the metallic shimmer of a scale or the subtle beauty of mother-of-pearl that caught the eye and made it difficult to look away. Her voice, alluring even when she was merely speaking, added to the hypnotic air she exuded.

"And again," she said, tucking one lock of wavy silver-gold hair behind her ear, "we apologize for the actions of the Sailor Animamates."

Behind her stood three more women, sailor soldiers from the planets Mau, Cocoon and Coronis.

Hotaru thought it made great sense the sailor soldiers of Fauna had chosen Sailor Mermaid to be their speaker. Sailor Moon wasn't interested in drawing blood or vengeance, and certainly not from the sailor soldiers before them, but if she ever had even so much as desired such a thing, Sailor Mermaid might have been able to soothe her with her voice alone.

Of course, that was unnecessary given the nature of their princess.

"No need to apologize," said Usagi warmly. "It wasn't your faults."

There could be no faking that level of genuine kindness and sincerity, and the visiting sailor soldiers relaxed. Sailor Mermaid's eyes curled into a relieved smile that was just as alluring as her voice.

With introductions and apologies out of the way, they could move onto the business of reunions.

"Sailor Mau!"

"Artemis! Luna!" exclaimed Sailor Mau, opening her arms as two blurs shot forwards her like furred bullets. At first appearance she had looked like a cool and handsome but also a no-nonsense type of woman, but the sheer joy that radiated with her smile upon seeing them changed her impression entirely.

They came to a skidding stop and took on their human shapes, Artemis a tall man with straight white hair and Luna a beautiful woman with midnight-black hair that fell down her back in a mass of curls like a waterfall.

Sailor Mau embraced them both, as the two Mauians of the solar system burst into tears. Black, white and dark blue hairs all but merged together.

"Phobos and Deimos," sighed Sailor Coronis, extending her hands so the two black birds that followed Rei faithfully could perch on her. Once they did, they changed into a humanoid shape.

"Sailor Coronis," murmured Phobos, in awe of the sailor soldier of her home planet.

"We were so worried," said Deimos, eyes wandering over the woman's face like she was drinking in the very sight of her teary eyes and dimpled cheeks.

"I missed you two," whispered Sailor Coronis, leaning forwards to let her forehead touch with theirs. Her caramel colored hair fell from her shoulders and made a curtain around Phobos and Deimos. "So, so much. I'm so glad you're alive and well now."

Their planets, with the return of the sailor crystals, were recovering, and one day would no longer be the planets of death Shadow Galactica had reduced them to during the war. But in the meantime, old alliances needed to be renewed, and those like Luna and Artemis, or Phobos and Deimos, who had immigrated to the Moon Kingdom from those planets as part of those alliances, deserved to meet their original sailor soldiers.

And vice versa. Sailor Mau and Sailor Coronis were clearly overjoyed.

Neither Luna and Artemis, or Phobos and Deimos, would leave to return to their home planets. They were now a part of the solar system. But that didn't – shouldn't – severe the bonds that existed before, and the sailors wanted to meet their old friends.

That left Sailor Mermaid and Sailor Cocoon.

The representative from Mermaid had been with Neptune, during the Silver Millennium, and so Sailor Neptune agreed to guide Sailor Mermaid.

Sailor Cocoon's case, on the other hand, was slightly different.

"While it's true that Tanaecia stayed at Pluto," said Setsuna. "I think it might be for the best that Hotaru be your guide."

Not all of the immigrants to the Silver Millennium had been as close to the sailor soldiers as Luna and Artemis, or Phobos and Deimos. The Mauians had been advisors and confidants, while Phobos and Deimos had fought as fellow warriors on Mars. They had been close to the inner sailor soldiers – and in Luna's case, the queen – and that was why they were reborn in the bodies they had in their previous lives. It was less a rebirth, and more a revival for them.

The positions given to Sailors Pluto and Neptune meant that both immigrants from Mermaid and Cocoon were not close to the sailor soldiers of the planets they went to, and therefore had not been reborn as they had been in their first lives. Their souls had been reborn into human bodies.

Sailor Cocoon did not seem bothered by this.

"The powers of Cocoon are about transformation and rebirth," Sailor Cocoon said. She was a woman with eye-catching beauty, in a Marilyn Monroe type of way. She even had a beauty mark on her left cheek, though her hair was black.

Even without the butterfly wings of her sailor form, she was voluptuous, and already many couldn't keep their gaze from being drawn to her.

Their gazes, however, failed to draw any attention from Sailor Cocoon, who ignored them easily. "Being unchanging is a quality that belongs only to death, after all – change is a prerogative of the living."

In that sense, Hotaru supposed their powers were similar.

That was not the reason why she was taking Sailor Cocoon to their destination now, though. Kawahira had left papers in her mailbox shortly before she and her parents left for Tokyo, not giving the information to her in person, and the revelation made her chest tighten with freshly awakened grief.

"I don't think she ever knew," Hotaru mumbled. But then again, she had only known her mother for eight years. All Hotaru really knew about Tomoe Keiko had been that she looked like her, that she had once been a nurse, before she married Tomoe Souichi and became a housewife, and that she died in a fire trying to reach Hotaru and get her to safety.

She remembered smiles, kisses, hugs, stories read to her at night, but after the accident those had been too painful to dwell on.

She remembered her mother's last words, screaming her name, but more than that had been the pain of the fire burning her and the fear and the knowledge, even back then, that she was going to die –

Hotaru hadn't died then. Just woken up to a life of pain and cold limbs and loneliness that wouldn't stop for four more years.

There had been nothing to suggest that Hotaru's mother in this life had memories of her former life as someone from the planet Cocoon, who came to live in the Silver Millennium and died with its end. Either Tomoe Keiko had not, or Hotaru didn't remember enough to know. It had been over a decade, after all.

Sailor Cocoon sighed. "Then all I can hope for is that my sister was happy, during her second life."

Hotaru started and Sailor Cocoon smiled, but there was a sad edge to the quirk of her full red lips. "Tanaecia and Sailor Heavy Metal Papillon, as she called herself, were both my sisters."

She didn't speak further, but Hotaru's mind was already fully occupied with the new revelation. Did that make Sailor Cocoon her aunt, indirectly? Reincarnation made family relations slightly odd. Hotaru held her tongue, because if Sailor Heavy Metal Papillon was also her sister, then she didn't want to unintentionally step on sore subjects.

They stepped off the bus, and Hotaru looked at the delta where the Mugen Academy had once stood.

"I didn't attend my mother's funeral," Hotaru admitted as she tried to keep her cheeks from heating. "I was . . . injured in the same accident, and by the time I had regained mobility it was already over."

And instead of putting her ashes in a graveyard, Tomoe Souichi had done something with them. Hotaru still didn't know what, only that he had taken them. She hoped he had scattered it to the winds, because at least that way her mother would have been free.

As if she had read her mind, Cocoon put a reassuring hand on Hotaru's shoulder. Hotaru glanced at her face, as vivaciously beautiful and yet, strangely but fittingly, also vulnerable like a butterfly's wings.

There was no trace of Mugen Academy left in the delta, having been cleared away years ago after the incident. It was now a bustling area of business and people, none of whom knew just what had happened on that land years past. In a way it was a grave, not only to her mother, but also to her father and the Death Busters.

It was also a grave to her old self, before she had reawakened as Sailor Saturn. Tomoe Hotaru had died here, after suffering for years, and was given a chance at rebirth.

A secret grave that no one knew of, save a precious select few.

"I can't forgive Deidamia," Sailor Cocoon said suddenly. The name was unfamiliar to Hotaru, but she could connect the dots and deduce that it was the name of Sailor Heavy Metal Papillon. "Or Galaxia, but I can't forgive my sister, either."

Hotaru kept her silence. She was good at that.

"She had -" Cocoon paused, and her next words were carefully steady, but Hotaru knew what unshed tears looked like. "Has a daughter. That's why she turned to Galaxia and betrayed me."

The delta, in the middle of a bustling city crowded with people, was hardly a place for a butterfly. Sailor Cocoon had tears running down her cheek, and she didn't seem to be aware of it as she stared at the distance, as if waiting for an answer, a revelation.

Then she laughed, the sound wet. She wasn't really laughing, she was crying. But a butterfly's wings were camouflage, and her laughter was like a refusal to express her true emotions the normal way.

"I can't believe I'm glad." The whispered words were hoarse. "I'm glad that I don't have to worry about Tanaecia stabbing me in the back, too. I'm sad, because she left and died and, that was a betrayal even if she didn't mean it, but – I'm glad that I don't have to have a part of me always be paranoid and wonder if she'd turn on me, too, like I have to do with my niece."

The opposite of love, Hotaru had once read, wasn't hatred, but indifference. Even as she cried, making quiet pained sounds she tried to muffle behind a hand clasped tightly to her face, even as it was clear that her heart had been ripped ragged by betrayal, it was love. Soured and defiled, painful to even bear, perhaps never to return to what it once was due to the wounds, but it was love that made Sailor Cocoon shed tears.

She wasn't happy that Hotaru's mother was dead. She was grieving and confused and sad, and most importantly trying to recover from a traumatic experience.

Hotaru thought about what Usagi, what Haru might do in this situation. Both of them had a way of just knowing, intuitively, what words to say, and a courage that allowed them to take the step needed.

From them she drew her own courage and took her own step.

"Technically," she murmured, just loud enough to reach Cocoon's ears. "I'm your niece."

Sailor Cocoon stilled, but Hotaru continued to speak. She didn't know what expression was on Cocoon's face at that moment, and she didn't turn to see.

"I'm already a sailor soldier," she said. "Protected by the planet of ruin, the soldier of silence, Sailor Saturn."

I have no need to betray you, was the unsaid promise.

Hotaru would never know if Tomoe Keiko ever remembered anything of her previous life as Tanaecia from the planet Cocoon. It was possible she never did remember before dying.

She also couldn't offer Cocoon much. She couldn't be a close family, couldn't be a replacement for her sister or a saviour.

But she could extend a hand, so that Sailor Cocoon could breathe instead of drowning. Offer a small reminder that she wasn't alone. The bonds between Cocoon and the other soldiers she had come with seemed strong, but one more as a reminder, that not all her family, no matter how loose the definition and reliant on technicalities, had betrayed her.

Until she could stop hurting.

Hotaru didn't say anything else, but Sailor Cocoon pulled herself together, no sign of the vulnerability that had been exposed earlier on.

At the end of the day, they were soldiers, born to protect the planet of their birth and to fight in the never-ending war of Chaos and Cosmos. They ran into grief and sorrow, but they overcame pain.

"Can I ask what happened?" Cocoon asked, after wiping away her tears.

Hotaru gave her a brief explanation. An accident that killed Tomoe Keiko and left her burnt and severely injured. Tomoe Souichi's surgery on her. The formation of the Death Busters, and the vesselization she had gone through. Pharaoh 90 and –

"Pharaoh 90?" Until the mention of him, Sailor Cocoon had been listening quietly. She hadn't looked happy at any of Hotaru's recounting, but she had kept silent. Now, between her brows there was a crease of worry. "From the Tau Star System?"

"He's gone now," Hotaru reassured her. She had made sure of that herself.

But the frown deepened. "Pharaoh 90 might be gone, but the Tau Star System has been active for a while now."

"What?" But the Tau Star System was a dead world, a graveyard of gravity by the words of the monster that reduced it to such. Years ago, she had jumped into that portal with Pharaoh 90, fully intent on dying and taking him down with her.

Hotaru had died back then, was reborn by only a miracle, but she had died only after ensuring Pharaoh 90 was dead and gone, just like his homeland, just like her father.

Unease clear on her face, Cocoon spoke. "What do you know about the Tau Star System?"

"It's dead." That was why the Death Busters had come to Earth. "They had a Tairon Crystal, but they needed more energy, so they came here to create a second homeland."

The sensation of her body having someone other than her in it. Pain seizing her like never before, and being reduced to a prisoner in her own skin as a monster wore her face. Struggling to keep Chibi-Usa's soul, and the souls of the inner sailor scouts safe from the darkness even while she was reduced to near-nothing.

Fleeing her own body, because it was a fight she would eventually lose.

Her hands curled into tight fists. The Death Busters were gone now.

Weren't they?

"The latter part, I didn't know," muttered Sailor Cocoon, frowning distastefully. "But it fits them, the slimy bastards."

"Did they invade another planet before they came to Earth?" Not that she disagreed with disliking the Death Busters, but the disgust on Sailor Cocoon's was the kind one reserved for criminals on the scale of mass murderers.

"Only their own," Sailor Cocoon said grimly. "Though that was more than enough. Those wretched creatures are vile because they cannibalized their own sailor soldiers for power."

Nothing she could have imagined would have prepared her for that statement, and it took a second for her to realize what the words Sailor Cocoon said meant.

Once they sank in, Hotaru felt nausea stir in her stomach.

"This was some time after the Silver Millennium collapsed," Sailor Cocoon recollected. "The Tau Star System had a star, and five planets. Five sailor soldiers, and a princess. They weren't allied with us in the way we were with the Silver Millennium, but we did hear of and from them, until all news from that area just stopped."

Pharaoh 90 had not been a sailor soldier or a princess. He was also a monster that had planned to turn Earth into a second Tau Star System, a vessel of his.

Never had Hotaru, or any of the others, wondered where the sailor soldier or soldiers from that star system was.

Had they been subjected to the same kind of suffering as her, only without the second chance she was given? Were they digested by Pharaoh 90 and Mistress 9 and the rest of their kind?

Sailor Cocoon continued. "The sailors near them investigated at the sudden silence and found that the sailor soldiers and princess had been devoured, their star seeds stolen and distorted to create an alternate means of energy for the monsters that killed them."

The Taioron Crystal. That was why Mistres 9 and Pharaoh 90 both claimed Usagi and Chibi-Usa's Silver Crystal was similar. A wave of disgust swelled up within Hotaru. She quashed it down, reminding herself that she had ended Pharaoh 90 with her own hands, but the distaste still remained strong and bitter in her mouth.

That had been exactly what Pharaoh 90 and Mistress 9 had tried to do – the latter using her own body, ripping out Chibi-Usa's soul and Silver Crystal. What they nearly succeeded in doing.

"Ninkilim – sorry, Sailor Chu – hypothesized that when we were all brought to life, so too were the monsters there."

Because the monsters there were born from the shadows of the star, and were still a part of the world.

Even if Saturn had destroyed them at the cost of her own life.

Had that been for nothing? Hotaru didn't regret what she had now – she was always grateful for the family she received after rebirth, she loved her friends, she liked her life in Namimori – but at the time, jumping into the other dimension with the full intent to drag Pharaoh 90 into the world of silence and void, considering even her own life as a price she could pay.

It was a time and experience that made up who she was now, and it couldn't be changed, but still. All that she had done, and to hear her old hated enemy might have been revived by the very same second chance she received was upsetting, to say the least.

"Couldn't it be the sailor soldiers, brought back to life?" Hotaru suggested, putting aside her dislike. If all the stolen sailor crystals were restored, there was no reason to think it was the Death Busters that were brought back in whatever shape and form in the Tau Star System.

Cocoon shot it down. "Sailor Chu thinks it's unlikely, and to be honest so do I. The star's still dead, covered in darkness, and when we sent a message there was just dead silence like usual. If the sailor crystals were restored, then it should be different."

She faltered when she caught the look on Hotaru's face. "But," she added. "We can keep an eye out. Sailor Coronis has some foresight, and Sailor Chu's the best data analyst ever."

Hotaru nodded because it wasn't like she could just fly off towards the Tau Star System and start attacking.

Sailor Cocoon changed the subject, and Hotaru appreciated it. "I am sorry you didn't get a chance to meet Sailor Chu. She stayed behind because someone needed to stay in Fauna to keep guard."

That made sense. It wouldn't do to keep their planets unprotected, especially when they had almost no one on the planets other than the sailor soldiers themselves. "Did she volunteer?"

"No." Cocoon shook her head. "She just drew the short straw. We did stop her from using her ranking abilities, though, so she was mad enough to spit fire."

Suddenly Hotaru felt a little bad for Sailor Chu, despite never having met the woman. "Isn't that a little unfair?"

Sailor Cocoon gave her a flat look. "Actually, it was very fair. Chu was a planet of data analysts who were obsessed about ranking everything. And I mean everything. If she used her ranking it would have been cheating."

Hotaru took her word for it. Maybe it was a good thing that she didn't come to Earth, because Kawahira hadn't mentioned anything in his papers about the reincarnation from her planet. Either he didn't know, or the former Chu humanoid wasn't yet reborn.

It would have been terrible to come all this way only to be met with no answers.

AN: The 'original' Sailor Animamates aren't OCs, in that they were mentioned in-manga and do exist. Technically. They're like Yamamoto Ameyuri – there's very little information about them so I made up most of them, as well as the identities of the 'immigrants' other than those from Mau and Coronis (Luna and Artemis; Phobos and Deimos). 'Fauna' is just the name I made up for the star system they're from. If there are planets named Mau and Mermaid and Kinmoku I can make stuff up.

Likewise, the backstory of the Death Busters is made up. Since they're from a star system it would only make sense if Tau had its own sailor soldiers, yet all we got was that it's a dead world, probably thanks to Pharaoh 90. I added a bit of flesh to that.

This chapter might have been a little boring but it was absolutely necessary for future chapters so bear with me.

Cocoon's reincarnated immigrant is revealed this chapter to be Hotaru's mother, Tomoe Keiko. Which leaves only Chu and Mermaid, and both will be KHR characters. Any guesses?

The original Sailor Animamates/Fauna Sailors, minus Sailor Chu, have their appearances based off Mamamoo because I'm terrible at imagining new characters and I'm also a fan. One day I'll make a profile for them.

+ﾟ*｡:ﾟ+

Sweet Dreams~