Every person in the courtyard stared at Minako like she was nuts. The sounds of her words were echoing in the ears of whoever had heard them, over and over they rang. It was a gamble.

The heart ache. The pain. The nights of tears and days of anguish. The knowledge that they would never see there loved ones again. The chance they might come back. The undying faith. It was only a gamble.

Jason felt as if his world had shattered yet again. He could count on hand the number of times he was shocked into speechlessness. When he had found Endymion. When he had realized he was in love. The first time he had kissed Aurora's lips. When she had proposed soul bond instead of him.

Inside he wondered where the emotion was going. He looked around him and saw that his fellow Generals was shocked as well. The girls looked confused and disturbed. But it was Serenity's face that broke his heart. She looked like she had been hit and thrown a hundred feet into a mud puddle by her best friend.

" A gamble?" Zavier choked out. His face had lost all of its color and Jason could see the same feelings racing through his brain. All of the pain had been a GAMBLE?

" Yes a gamble, and before you open you mouth and start to rant, Generals, you must listen to my reasons. Then if you want to try and kill me I will put you on the waiting list." Minako snapped, her voice edgy from the rush of emotions and memories, and the pain on Kris' face.

" I am waiting," Jason snarled.

Minako hit him with one of her better glares and he winced. " There were so few options available to us, and so we did what we had to do. The intelligence we had said that Beryl was close to finding and killing Sere, something we could not allow happen. So we staged a gamble." Minako averted her eyes and took a deep breath. Her eyes shut as she relived the pain that she to had gone through.

" We had located the weapons of old and decided not to allow anyone to know until we had to use them. We thought it best that way. Maybe we were wrong, but we had strong reason to believe that we would be re-born and that we would need to harness the power in this lifetime instead of the next. We were told that we would be able to handle the power better in this lifetime. Our source could not explain everything to us, and we had so many questions, but we did it. There was a chance that I would win, since it was told that I would either beat her in this lifetime or in the next. But to win was to sentence the others to never coming back." Minako swallowed hard as she thought about her next sentence. " So I lost."

Everyone was silent and the courtyard to was strangely quite. Not a sound was made through out the procedure, and even the tears that ran down Serenity's face was quite.

" So know you know a little of what I did. And why I ordered it. I did not give the others the chance they deserved to back out, for the only way it would work was if they came. So I gave the orders knowing they would die." Minako raised her face and squared her shoulders. She meet everyone in the eye and sighed.

" You can hate me know if you want, but I would make the same decision even knowing know what I know. I swear I would." Minako's eyes were haunted but her mouth and face were set in determination.

" And we would follow you." Rei mummered, her violet eyes distant.

" I remember that much. I know that we would never question you because you would only through us in danger if we had no other choice."

Jason looked at her hopefully but she meet his gaze with the same look she had in her eyes yesterday. Crap. Well maybe they would come back soon anyway.

Kris looked at Minako and felt himself turn to mush. He loved this woman and she was crazy if she thought other wise. Instead of saying anything, instead he took her hand and squeezed. Minako meet his gaze with relief.

" I think it will be best if we all get some sleep. It's late, and the attack has left us all tired. So we will discuss this later." Serenity informed them, her tone expressing no arguing.

Everyone strangled off to bed, Serenity showing Minako and Makoto were they could sleep, and drifted off to a night of tossing and turning.

~*~

Setsuna watched it all and sighed a huge sigh of relief. That little 'skirmish' was more than any of them thought. It was true what they said, and mile is a mile, but a footstep in the right direction changes the course.

Her shoulders slumped for a moment as she felt the burden she must shoulder for another ten thousand years by herself hit her all the harder.

" Hey cheer up, what a long face." Came a cultured voice of running water. Setsuna turned and a smile graced her face for the first time in a while.

" Haruku, Michiru, Hotaru you guys made it. I was wondering if my call got through." Setsuna mummered.

" Like we would miss a good fight." Haruku grumbled.

" Please. Like you would let us miss a fight. Don't drag me and Michiru- mama into this." Hotaru grumped.

Setsuna smiled again watching the three interact. " I can't promise you there will be a moment in which you can join the fight, Haruku. The time line may not allow it." Her magenta eyes were grim.

" Oh some times the time line really gets on my nerves." Haruku growled in vexation. " And the fact that I don't get to help Minako, that is her name right, fight this person well it drives me nuts."

" Oh Haruku you now we have to let them fight it themselves if they must. It's not like the way you play cards, we can't pull a ace out of our selves." Michiru smiled secretly and winked at Setsuna.

" I do not pull a ace out of my sleeve Michiru. I don't HAVE sleeves in my Senshi uniform." Haruku grumbled her green eyes narrowed.

" Even if you don't get to fight you are a big help to me." Setsuna told the outers, her sisters, quickly heading off the growing verbal bashing. They looked at her with raised brows. " You can help me wait."

" Always, Pluto, you know that, always." Hotaru informed her; her voice softly echoing the looks on the other outers features.

~*~

Minako leaned against the door jam, not a sound a mile near her. She smiled into the sleeping face of her princess and moved away, her footsteps so light only a cat could hear them.

Minako traced her way down the castle steps she found she knew so well. It was amazing; with every step came a memory. With every memory a story, and with every story, came Kris.

She found that he was in every moment she knew in these walls these steps. Watching her, protecting her, and.loving her. Minako sighed with the knowledge that she had practically ripped his heart out.

As a child her father had raised Minako. He had been busy and did his best, but she had grown up going home to bread and butter while her friends had gone home to home grown hot meals.

Then he had re-married and her step mum had done her best, but Minako had always held her self aloft. She had spent her time training or day dreaming of the person she would grow up to be. Who would her father arrange for her to marry?

Now she found that the man she had loved not through one, but two lifetimes, and she had tried to kill him emotionally. Minako sighed as she leaned into the wall and stared out of the balcony.

" Don't beat yourself up over it." A male voice mummered in her ear. Minako turned in surprise and found herself locked into silver eyes tinged with gray.

" What?" Minako breathed back, her voice soft.

" Don't worry about the pain that you seem the think you have dished out unfairly. No matter what you think the Senshi would never have allowed you to take them somewhere if they did not know the consequences. They knew what they were getting into to." Kris told her softly his voice a low caresses to her heart.

" How can you be sure of that?" Minako questioned. Her face was filled with disbelief and hope that what he said was true all at the same time.

" Because of Rei." Kris told her.

" What do you mean Rei? She says her memories are choppy, and they are so minute it matters very little of she does have." Minako argued gently.

" Because Rei wrote Jason a love letter the night she died. It was the only one she had every written to him, the only time she had reveled her every emotion. I have no idea what it said, but it told Jason where to find your bodies. It was the only thing that allowed him to keep living." Kris whispered his voice low with emotion.

" I want to believe you so bad." Minako breathed her face only inches from his. Her eyes were large and sad, but there was a light there that had been missing.

Kris cupped her soft face in his large hand and gently stroked her face with his thumb. His eyes were soft and inviting. " Don't think Minako, just feel." His mouth pressed to hers in a soft kiss, which she returned.

They stood like that, locked with each other, holding onto each other, and feeling what they had almost lost so long ago. And in that moment, Minako accepted all that she was, had been, and what she would be. Minako opened her heart to Kris and was not disappointed.

~*~

Makoto looked around and sighed. She had almost died from shock when she had stumbled onto Minako and Kris kissing in the hall. All she wanted to do was find a kitchen and cook. She needed to cook.

Cooking had always been a way she relived the stress of the days. And she had built up enough stress to last for ten lifetimes. And what she had heard about what might come up, well the kitchen was sounding better by the hour.

So she was sneaking down the castle trying to find where she was going. It was one of the creepiest experiences of her life. Everything had a weird sense of being there before. A creepy chill had made its way down her spine, as if she was being followed, but she had not seen anyone.

Makoto opened a door, and grinned hugely. Her face was beaming and she would have given a loud whoop would it have not given her away. Silently like a mouse she crept to the cabinets. Her grin stretched into a grin that threatened to break off her face.

It had everything she could possible need. Her fingers flew through the ingredients and she found everything she needed. All she need was strawberry jelly. Her grin flew onto her face again. The girls loved strawberry chocolate.

Makoto made the chocolate oblivious to the eyes that watched. The laughter that danced in them when she howled silently as she burned her fingers. Never noticed the way the winked when she did her gig of happiness as she finished her creation. Never noticed him checking her room over just in case before she dropped like a rock. Never heard the soft I love you whispered while she slept. But something inside her knew. And it grew.

~*~

Cruel laughter echoed across the chamber. The broken form in front of her shifted in pain and the echo increased.

" You will be mine Ianna. No matter how you hide behind this female who calls herself Minako, I know it is you. You will die, and I will kill you slowly. You will scream for you death! And I will start with KRIS!"

Matt hid behind the door and shook his head. His queen was insane. His chocolate eyes narrowed in anger. He knew though, that she was right. Minako had to die. She had yet again chosen Kris over him. She would pay for her folly. And he would kill Kris. There was no way to save Minako. But there was a way to make Kris suffer. And he would do it.

Matt called his Generals together and they planned what they would do. The laughter that had echoed from his queen found its way to their lips and played out into the darkness. They would strike soon, and there was nothing that could stand in front of their darkness. They would win and rip the child from the thrown that had no right to rule it. They would win.