Nearly twenty-four hours had passed since his latest greatest failure.

He had been trying to protect him. It wasn't like he had just been standing by, twiddling his thumbs when it happened - he was fighting an enemy that exploded on contact, his attention was rightfully placed on what he was in the middle of. That's what he had been there for - he was back up, he was an extra set of eyes and ears, he was reinforcements and defense for when they found her just so either Mamoru or Khalid could confront her and focus on her while he handled any enemy. He was doing what he was supposed to be doing. He couldn't - he tried to break away when Mamoru darted off, but he couldn't manage it without potentially killing his opponent. And the guy had been human, not some unintelligent monster; he couldn't just… If he had, he might have gotten there in time. But then so could have Khalid. It wasn't his fault. Not his alone, anyway. And that mattered - maybe not in the long run, maybe not to Khalid or any of the others, but it mattered to him because he couldn't stand the idea of that failure resting on his shoulders alone. Especially now that it was becoming only too clear that it wasn't a failure that was easily remedied.

Mamoru was gone, and even with all this future technology, they weren't finding him.

The cameras weren't picking up anything - it had been a longshot to start, but they hadn't covered all their bases before and they damn well were going to now. This place had all kinds of alarms and systems in place, though some had been damaged in the recent past, and still none of those picked up anything - no energy spikes, earthquakes, weird light, nothing. And despite how hard he listened or opened himself up to hearing Mamoru as he had when they were on the spaceship less than a day ago, there was no call. He knew Mamoru was still alive - he was confident in that, as weirdly confident as he had been in their ability to teleport and put up a barrier, and that Khalid put so much faith in that confidence was reassuring. That reassurance had been helpful when the others returned not long after they had; the way it had gone down was that he and Khalid immediately returned to the Crystal Palace while Helios - the human one - had instructed the other teams to complete their missions and return, citing that sharing the information while they were still out fighting would be a potentially deadly distraction. Upon their successful return they were informed of what happened, and - short of Nero attempting to deck him - they were quick to turn to positive action rather than blaming anyone for what went down. … Kaito had to see the video, but afterward he was fine.

Khalid had grabbed Nero's arm mid-punch and turned it; the two of them were still out in the city - he could see them on one of the videos now: Khalid had his crystal out and Nero was watching his back as they moved through the city and a little beyond, apparently trying to use it to see whatever the blue jewel showed. Kaito was somewhere above him, using the height of the upper levels of the palace as a meditative place in an attempt to "hear" farther. Usagi-chan was with her senshi, having been pulled into helping set up the new refugees, probably as a means of distracting her. Seeing her cry had not been great.

...and neither was this feeling of helplessness. Metallia had come from beyond Crystal Tokyo, but they were only able to focus active parts of their search and surveillance on the city. Just what was happening in the rest of the world in this time? Why hadn't help been sent? Was every city under attack like this? Did Crystal Tokyo have no allies?! Most frustratingly, he knew he could find all that out if he could just figure out how to work the computer system - there had to still be internet - but he had next to no experience with computers and he was hesitant to experiment with the system in case he accidentally canceled a program they had running. Helios - the human - could have helped, but ever since Mamoru went missing he had been in and out so quickly that Yuu had barely a moment to register the ghostly figure was in the room before he was gone again to who-knew-where. He had held off on calling Kaito down to see what he could manage with the system, but without any updates in over two hours from anyone, he had hit his limit. He couldn't just sit there and do nothing, even if he had no leads on anything else to do. Mamoru was alone out there, Beryl had turned against them (otherwise they'd've heard something, wouldn't they?), and there was no telling when Metallia would strike again, using Beryl as her host. If they were still trying to save this future and not just survive it, things had to change. Hell, even if they were just trying to survive it, something had to change.

Maybe that was the most aggravating thing. Pluto had made it apparent and then Helios had practically seconded it: this wasn't their future. Not anymore, anyway. Little Prince Mamoru returning to their time had set off a domino effect that separated them from this entire setup, so this wasn't really their fight. Mamoru had brought them in for Rin, and they had followed Mamoru - not that Yuu wouldn't've tried to help the kid out anyway, but now that Mamoru was put in direct danger for helping, he found it hard not to be sour about the entire endeavor. Helping people is the right thing to do - it is always the right thing to do - but at what cost? As it stood, they were stuck in a future that wasn't theirs, fighting a war that had nothing to do with them, trying to find someone who left without a trace and simply waiting for a giant monster to appear and rain starfire down upon them and kill them all entirely outside their own world. It wasn't right, and it wasn't fair, and while before he had felt like it was possible to give this place a chance by removing Metallia's host from the picture, now he wasn't so sure. If Mamoru were here with them still, he might have debated cutting and running at this point - they still had Pluto's key, didn't they?

… Mamoru had Pluto's key.

Yuu uncrossed his legs and stood, his muscles protesting the sudden movement after so long inert, and blinked, his eyes adjusting to shifting perspective, no longer dully watching the giant wall of screens for any warning signs or sudden changes. He made for the door and paused; someone should still be here in case there was a change. With a slight frown, rather than finding Kaito himself, he twitched the watch dials to noon and waited for the response, quick to announce himself before eager voices made too-hopeful assumptions about who made the call.

"Kaito, could you come down here?" he asked as the others signed off, and with a straight-faced nod, Kaito was on his way.

He approached the bank of computer controls and looked over them for what felt like the three-thousandth time, some of the symbols making as much sense now as they had the first time - further bothering him because if they were using borrowed characters they should have allies -

"Have you found something?"

He turned, expecting Kaito but finding human-Helios instead; it had been too quick for Kaito to make it down anyway. "No," he replied honestly to the ghostly being, but asked before it could leave again - "But could you tell me something?"

The priest paused, then nodded, the horn on his head dipping before he approached the controls, "standing" beside him, awaiting the question. This Helios was older than the Priest of Elysion in the Golden Age; not by much, but his face was more angular, his amber-colored eyes wider and wiser, but guarded. "What is it?" he asked, looking down to the controls as though to prompt him away from his study.

Yuu kept his eyes on the specter, "Why don't we have allies coming to our aid?"

The door opened behind them, admitting the King of the North. Yuu did not look away to see him enter.

Helios glanced behind his shoulder at the new arrival as he approached, then shifted his gaze back to Yuu for a moment, contemplatively, and back to the bank of screens ahead of them. "It's not wise to know too much about your future."

"This isn't our future anymore," Yuu countered. Kaito stopped near them; Yuu could practically feel him putting pieces together before turning to add his attention to Yuu's, crossing his arms stubbornly.

"Not directly," Helios admitted, leaning ghostly hands on the controls, "But changing the date of attack for the Archons and deepening the breadth of your own powers may not change other events that came to pass in our time. There are good things here, and I would not chance them to ease your curiosity -"

"One change is guaranteed now," Kaito stated coldly, "When we figure out where Metallia came from, we're ending her the moment she begins in our time. No matter what else shifted when Rin interfered with the timeline, this will not be allowed to happen again."

"How large is the extent of this attack?" Yuu pressed on that note, "Are our allies bogged down in their own fights against Metallia's forces, or do we simply not have allies?"

Kaito's mouth opened as though to object to the idea immediately, but he closed it, clenching his hands on his bicep.

Helios glared. "We are not without allies," his words cut through the air. "You don't need to know anything el-"

"We do," Yuu interrupted, his volume rising, "as it is apparent our allies care little for our wellbeing!" he said, jabbing a finger towards the empty, burned, melted city shown on their displays. "Knowing about them now could prepare us not to make the same mistakes in friends should our timeline somehow end up back here! Who are our supposed allies?! Did the UN turn its back-?!"

"No!" Helios shouted, breaking him off, "Stop it!" He growled, turning to punch buttons that his fingers slid neatly through, his scowl deepening as it did, but Kaito shifted forward to supply his digits towards the Priest's efforts, allowing Yuu to remain standing in strong opposition. "This is exactly -" Helios growled, continuing to jam buttons quickly, forcing Kaito to remember and catch up as quickly as he could as the Priest seethed, "-why I refused to talk about it. Get ideas of future betrayals out of your stubborn head, Jadeite, or you'll cause the fall of this Kingdom before it even stands." The screens changed suddenly - all of them, all at once - and Helios jabbed his ghostly finger at them in a mirroring fashion to what Yuu had done before. "They can't come to our aide because King Endymion has already gone to theirs!"

Kaito sucked in a breath and Yuu finally cut his gaze from Helios to see what the new images revealed and saw entire cities covered in translucent, golden-colored crystal. Ships were capped with golden jewels and grounded in soft sand all over the world, small towns and country homesteads were covered in golden domes; even in a small wide shot of mountains he could see glittering masses of crystals through the trees.

Helios continued with fire in his voice, "After Metallia's first attack we put out alerts and prepared to send out to help only to find that as Crystal Tokyo was being systematically attacked, so were other major cities all over the globe. It was already there, collecting energy, its hold solidified. With the attack here so ruthless and all-encompassing, we could not spare our Kings to root out the colonies of corrupted citizens everywhere, but we sent what we could and shared the information we gathered, which helped them fight back. Then Zoisite fell, then Nephrite, then Endymion, and even as Metallia's attacks redoubled after its second defeat, other countries still started to send us what reinforcements they could. And then, just before Metallia returned the third time, communication between us and the rest of the world ceased, and that is why." He gestured again towards the screen, the fire worked out of him. He took a few steps back, looking through the screens all over again. "He did this," he said, a hint of marvel in his voice, "From wherever he is, he still managed to pull this off.

"The Earth is sleeping," he explained, "its citizens - great and small - protected from Metallia's wrath. Before her solar storm arrived here, before she attacked Neo-Queen Serenity and burned us to the ground, she swept over the globe to destroy its cities but it was in vain - her fire will not penetrate the stone."

"He left Crystal Tokyo unprotected…" Kaito trailed off, but Yuu knew why and finished his statement before he could.

"Because he believes the people here can save the world. If he protected it, Serenity would be asleep, same as everyone else, and Metallia would have won. He believes in her -" he turned to Helios, "Does she know he did this?"

"I…" Helios was quiet, "I'm not sure she heard it. The last of her senshi had only just passed, Metallia was coming for Crystal Tokyo; I think she only heard that she had to prepare to fight, and when it was all over she could barely stand, and then Rin went missing… and in her condition…"

"She needs to know," Yuu insisted, "He's put his trust and faith in her - knowing that could make the difference!"

Helios slowly nodded. "I'll tell her when next she wakes." His brows furrowed and he closed his eyes in concentration for a few moments, the behavior odd enough to keep both Yuu and Kaito quiet. "I must go," he said quietly before opening his eyes. "Elysion needs me -"

"Is Endymion-?!" Kaito was quick to ask before Helios could disappear; Yuu felt the answer to his unasked question was false.

Helios shook his head, seconding Yuu's gut feeling, "No. There are just too many nightmares - the Maenads are having problems keeping them in check and need my assistance."

"Nightmares?" Kaito inquired, the question quick.

Helios nodded. "Ever since he put the world to sleep, Elysion has been overrun with dreams under our protection; we're managing as best we can, sending dreamers to deep sleep in shifts to try to accommodate as many as we can, but with things the way they were when they were put under, nightmares are common, even despite the natural healing qualities inherent in Elysion's dream-states."

Kaito wondered aloud, "Elysion protects dreams now?" the question mirroring Yuu's. Elysion was the old capital, the idyllic seat of the kingdom they had built together, the unintended battleground they had died on; he had half expected a new Earth Kingdom to be built there, rather than in Tokyo, but to hear that it was still a separate dimension and was home to dreams of all things…

"Elysion is a real place, still hidden in that pocket dimension we created all those years ago, but in using the crystal there the way he had on that day, millennia ago, it is now tied directly to him. It is a reflection of him, an extension of him," Helios said, only… somewhat making sense. The priest tipped his shoulders, as though recognizing he wasn't being entirely clear. "Elysion follows Endymion's heart, and Endymion's heart is intent on protecting those people that he put to sleep; therefore, it is now a place of dreams. He wanted to keep them safe, so I will endeavor to keep them safe; not to mention I am not sure what would happen if a nightmare grew too strong there…" His trailed off, his brows furrowing again, and half-bowed before he disappeared right before their eyes.

It was just him and Kaito then. His eyes drifted to the screens, and Kaito stepped back to stand with him, shoulder to shoulder, and gaze up at it, too.

"He put the entire world to sleep," he mused after moments of silence between them.

Kaito nodded, "And he did it from whatever incapacitated state he's in." He paused. "I think he's being protected by one of those crystals, too."

"Yeah?"

"I think that's what I saw in the video before it glitched out - it looked like that same shade of crystal, reflecting out from the smoke. That's probably how he knew Metallia couldn't break through it - because she hasn't managed to break through what cropped up around him."

"Still… to do that to the entire world…"

"He's stronger," Kaito shrugged off, looking over at him for a moment before he started typing at the controls to return the screens to live videos of the city. "He's had who-knows-how-long to develop his powers, and that was apparently without the Lord of the Center's help. Who knows what he'll be able to do when we get to this age." With a smooth but distinct click!, the screens were back to exactly what they had been before, and his green-eyed friend turned to face him, leaning back against the control panel. "So you just needed me here as reinforcements for confronting Helios-the-older?"

Yuu smirked, "Nah. I wanted you here to use the machine to figure out how to find out what he just told us about Crystal Tokyo's allies."

Kaito raised a hand s though accepting a round of silent applause, tilting his head and shrugging one shoulder, "I'm here to serve."

He probably would have said something to the opposite effect in different circumstances.

"That, and take over here while I go find little Rin."

He crossed his arms and raised a brow. "Why?"

"To get back to the Gates of Time."

A line formed between Kaito's brows, his eyes turning suspicious for a moment, mouth opening once but then closing. He swallowed, and Yuu couldn't help but smirk in amusement watching Kaito figure it out. He wasn't disappointed, as Kaito's eyes widened and he practically threw himself off of the control bank as he exclaimed, "The key!"

Yuu nodded, "He should still have it; it's got a connection to that place, so maybe we could follow that connection back and go get him."

Kaito was walking towards the door and Yuu joined him, "Or see if she could ping him through it?"

Ping?

"Regardless, maybe the Guardian could give us insight on where to find him should the key be somehow inoperable," He reached up to tap on the little receiver tucked into their ears to activate the radio and asked clearly, "Could we get someone up here to take over command center observation?"

The line was silent, but after a moment a soft voice replied, "Mercury, on my way up."

They paused by the door to wait for her, Kaito making it clear he wasn't going to stand back while Yuu figured things out. "So, your pagoda thing worked," Yuu stated, an invitation to talk while Mercury made it up from the depths of the palace.

Kaito nodded. "It took a moment to get through an incantation, so Jupiter and Mars had to cover for me. But it worked. I'm not sure where the evil influence goes once it's pulled from them - beyond 'into the pagoda' - or if there's some ritual cleansing that needs to take place; Mars had some suggestions. She's a priestess at one of the temples in the city - did you know?"

"No," Yuu replied, uneasy but trying not to look that way. "I didn't get a chance to meet them while they were civilians."

"Ah." Kaito replied knowingly.

Yuu said nothing.

"It's… odd, isn't it?" Kaito said, looking at the screens behind them rather than at him. "To suddenly have them as allies."

He nodded.

"It's like… I know they're on our side now, and I understand there were other things at play before, that they were pressured and corrupted and everything, but, regardless…" he was reaching for a reaction, or for how he felt about the matter, so he obliged.

"They were our enemies," Yuu said for him, stating next without any room for contradictions, "I killed Mars. Did you know why she singled me out?" he continued without waiting, "It's because I didn't immediately pass out like the rest of them. The others on the bus, I mean. It must've had something to do with being Jadeite before. But there I was, alone as the people around me - classmates, people I had seen on the bus for years - were suddenly unconscious, this white mist leaking out of them, and there she was, standing outside in that strange, dark place, fire snaking around her as she coldly collected their energy. She felt me looking at her and there was just this… fear inside me." He shook his head, shaking away the image that had haunted his dreams for weeks afterward. "And later I killed her. I hadn't even meant to," he shrugged, "I didn't know what would happen, I didn't - …" he broke off, shrugging again, "But she knows. I know she does. It's… difficult." to work with her. To be near her. To see her and think of anything but that cold anger in her eyes as she forced him off that bus and… or the expression on her face when his fire overtook her.

When they had broken off at the Gates of Time and ended up fighting one of the flying enemies that had been chasing Rin, they hadn't said so much as a word to each other - they just fought the enemy, careful not to cross paths, blasting it with fire from two angles, driving it back. He hadn't used his knives. She hadn't used the fire that looked like snakes. It was an unspoken understanding. And then Khalid and Mercury had arrived and the enemy was dead and there was no hiding behind action; instead he took cover behind West's explanation of what was going on, carefully avoiding both getting and giving Mars attention.

"I try not to think about it," Kaito said, not entirely helpfully. Yuu rolled his eyes at his slightly-taller friend, hoping to convey all the well, duh, at his disposal. Kaito huffed through his nose and pulled the elastic out of his hair to retie it back out of his face - unnecessary, as it had been fine before. Probably nervous. "Mercury dangled me like bait - complete with ramming sharp hook into me. Mercury. When I saw her for the first time in Crown I expected someone ruthless and cold and completely wrong for Usagi-chan to hang out with, but she's quiet and looked completely flabbergasted as to why Usagi-chan had taken an interest in her. And since she's transformed she hasn't looked me in the eye once."

He finished with his ponytail, "I guess what I'm trying to say is that, yeah, it's difficult for us, but it's probably worse for them, and the faster we try to move past all that the better it'll be - if not for us, then for Usagi-chan." He put a hand on his hip, looking to Yuu, "I can't say I'm not glad we were put in separate groups for that first mission, though; Jupiter, Mars and I have less against each other for past transgressions."

Had Khalid done that on purpose? He hummed a response.

The door behind them opened automatically as Mercury approached it, and they turned to welcome her in; just as Kaito had said, though, she avoided making eye contact, instead just nodding at them. "I'll radio if there are any changes."

"Thank you, Mercury," he said, making an effort.

She just nodded again, moving deeper into the room, her eyes on the monitors. They left, Kaito leading them to the elevators to the upper floors and Rin.

They couldn't find him anywhere. They had combed the living quarters, calling softly for him, not wanting to awaken the Queen, but having actively searched for the better part of the hour, they had to conclude he was with her. They stood before tall doors that had to be the King and Queen's quarters and tapped their microphones for help. Maybe they were cowardly to do so, but in Yuu's house, if his parents' door was closed, you did not go in there unless you were literally dying, and Kaito looked less than thrilled to go in first. And, besides, if she were exhausted they didn't want to make her feel like she had to get up. They just needed Rin to tell them how to get back to Pluto, so they called Helios, figuring he could take a break from tailing enemies to pop in there and have a look, but rather than their Helios showing up, the ghostly form of Priest Helios appeared instead.

"Why are you here?" he asked, looking towards the door.

"We need Rin," Yuu stated plainly. "He can get us back to the doors of time -"

"Not to leave," Kaito hasilty qualified, "But to see if she could help us find Mamoru."

The Priest's brows furrowed, not following.

"He's got one of her keys," Yuu said, nodding towards the door. "It may not work but we won't know until the Prince takes us there. Right now it's a better plan than staring expectantly at screens we know he won't be showing up on anytime soon."

Rather than answer, Helios just stepped through the doors to the room. They waited, and a couple of minutes later, the Priest returned. "He's not in there; have you checked -" but his words caught in his mouth, his eyes opening wide in surprise, and he winked out, disappearing again.

"What was that about?" Yuu commented.

"It wasn't exactly promising…" Kaito trailed off as he tapped his ear for the radio. "Mercury, how is it looking down there?"

"No changes," Mercury replied after a moment.

"Thank you," he dutifully responded, "Please keep us apprised of the situation should anything change; Priest Helios disappeared abruptly without explanation so we need to stay on our toes. Usagi-chan?" he called, moving towards the elevators. Yuu followed.

"Yes?" she replied, the background noise of a lot of voices leaking into the transmission.

"Is Rin with you?" Kaito asked, the elevator doors opening.

"I haven't seen him - isn't he with his mother?" she sounded worried.

"Not directly but -"

Yuu put one hand on Kaito's shoulder to stop him and held the other out to pause the door before leaning out, chasing a faint sound he had thought he heard -

"I'll look for him down here!" Usagi-chan declared, dropping the conversation.

Kaito followed him out into the hallway, so they were both staring at the little blue kitten with pale blue eyes and a golden crossed-circle insignia on its forehead as it raced towards them, bell ringing wildly with every running leap. It stopped a few feet from them, paws skidding, and bowed its head as it caught its breath. "A pet?" Kaito asked Yuu.

"Please, wait, young Masters!" the kitten said, its voice young and masculine, "I apologize for not greeting you sooner, but please let me go with you to find Little Lord! I was supposed to be watching him but I fell asleep with Her Majesty and that door is so hard to open -"

"It talks," Yuu whispered hurriedly back to Kaito as the kitten went on about how large the door is and how ill-placed the handle was in comparison to nearby furniture.

Kaito hissed at him to be quiet, "Think Luna," he suggested before cutting into the kitten's tirade against minimalist room arrangements, "Do you know where he could be, ...uh…" he trailed off as they had yet to be introduced.

Right. Luna. The computer-cat of the Moon. And that other one - the white one; he remembered seeing that one in the flesh when it had warned Endymion about the surprise attack. They had been able to talk, so this wasn't entirely outside of the realm of normal. For them.

The little blue kitten practically jumped up in alarm before landing, sitting, and bowing its little head again, tail wrapped around its feet in feline embarrassment. "I'm sorry! I did it again - I am Gaea of Mau, now of Crystal Tokyo, guardian to Earth's Crowned Prince Mamoru Lord Endymion -" it's head went from bowing to hanging, "though it's apparent that I'm not doing that great a job at it."

Yuu knelt down, reaching out his hand with his index finger in a hook towards the kitten, "Don't worry too much about it, Gaea," he said, the youthful voice and obvious inexperience evidence enough that the cat-person was young and should be commended for trying. Gaea peeked up at him, reached forward and tentatively put his paw on Yuu's finger. He had expected a sniff, like kittens usually did, but he could do a handshake. Pawshake? Whatever this was. He gently moved his hand up and down once and the kitten removed his paw and brightened back up again. "So, do you think you know where he could be?"

"Maybe!" Gaea proclaimed, tapping back toward the elevator. Yuu and Kaito followed, Kaito pressing the button to open the door as the three of them stepped in. "Sometimes he likes to visit with Sailor Pluto, so we should check there!"

That worked.