The Perfect Sailor Soldier revised

by stefani teee

AC 197. The Sailor Senshi are lost in Dreaming except for the only three immune to paradox. However, a war is brewing, one the Perfect Soldier alone cannot possibly win. Destruction, Death and Rebirth... the cycle must be completed.

5. Chapter 05

The Perfect (Sailor) Soldier

By: stefani teee a.k.a. Koneko

© Tale Spinners inc.

~*~*~*~

Koneko-chan says!

Hi all, I'm back, and out to tell you that this is, beyond a doubt, the last chapter of Perfect Sailor Soldier. There's… really not much else to say other than that.

Chibi-Relena: *glares* You could give us some credit…

Heero-chan: *grumbles*

Nanashi: *frowns*

All right, all right, my muses are the most wonderful in the world, and I love them for giving me inspiration for this fic, and… and… *blanks* Yeah…

Chibi-Relena: *grimaces* Just get back to writing fanfic. No more dedications for you.

I think I will.

~*~*~*~

'Firefly?'

Mistress Nine whirled, eyes darting from one side to the other trying to locate the source of that deep voice that sang through her like the feel of black velvet. She didn't know this place. This place was horrible. The smell of death lingered in the air… there were people dying in the streets. Little children, running, crying… screaming…

'Firefly?'

She heard it again. And again, she looked wildly for the person who was talking. 'Who are you? Where are you?'

'Can't you see me?'

She turned again. And again, she was met with the same sight and smell of death all around her. Sickness… it was sickness that brought this awful crushing feeling. But there… there, that blurred golden figure amongst all the grays and blacks and whites.

'Can you see me?' The words were lightly teasing, and she frowned, pushing back a lock of her long dark hair out of her eyes. 'Who are you?'

The figure moved closer, and for a single, confused moment, she thought it was Helios. But it was nothing like Helios. Helios was… well, Helios was the stuff of dreams. This… person, whoever he was, was of something else entirely.

She shied away from the figure of a little boy running past her, his arms loaded with dozens of white packages, long, dark brown hair flowing freely after him in a tangled mass. He was yelling a name at the top of his lungs. She stared at down at him.

'Do you know who I am?'

She looked up at the figure, then at the little boy. 'Solo…?' she asked slowly, as if afraid of a wrong answer.

'Yeah.' He stepped up to her, and that golden glow faded into the background behind him. She gaped at him, for a moment not Mistress Nine, but Hotaru.

Long wavy hair, the glistening dark gold of clean wheat straws, reached his shoulders. Bright sapphire blue eyes. Full lips. A lean, muscled figure hidden only by the pair of faded blue jeans he wore. Large white wings attached permanently to his shoulders.

She stared. Then she stared at the pants, which were the only sign that this ethereal being was anything more than a fantasy. They made him appear, just the slightest, more like the rest of the world.

He looked at her too with the same, easygoing grin on his face. 'You're prettier than I thought you would be,' he said, 'They told me you were eighteen.'

She glared at him, 'I am not Hotaru. I am an entity unto myself.'

The smile didn't disappear. 'Perhaps that is what you say. Destiny and Fate sing a different song.' He shrugged, 'And I was chosen to speak with you.'

'I don't want to speak with you.' She replied coldly, looking for a way out of this dream world and back into that body she knew was somewhere down there.

'You don't have a choice, Gorgeous.'

Her glare deepened, 'Don't belittle me with small flatteries.'

He raised an eyebrow, and raised one corner of his mouth in a sort of sexy grin. For someone who looked so angelical at first sight, he was beginning to look more devilishly charming as each moment passed. 'Belittle you? Why… how would you think that would be belittling you to tell you exactly what I think?'

'Who are you?' she demanded instead, ignoring his last sentence with a flick of her head.

Finally a glimpse of seriousness in all that easygoing sexiness… 'I am—was a friend of Duo Maxwell's.'

'Was.' It wasn't a question.

'Was.' He confirmed with a wry grin that made her heart skip a beat, 'I died before he could help me. Sickness killed me, along with half of the poor kids around town that year.' He gestured to the world around him. 'Sorry I couldn't provide better scenery… but when you were only a kid and you live here all your life… you don't have any other memories for beautiful girls to visit. And that's what this place is. My memory.'

She remained silent, having perfected this, early in her existence. She watched him with cool dark eyes. It was hard to make those kinds of eyes look icy. She managed it. And managed it well.

'You know why you're here, don't you Firefly?'

She frowned at him, 'I know neither you, nor this place. How would I know?'

He raised his eyebrow again, 'Strange… do you not recognize that boy?' he asked, gesturing to the children running in the streets.

'What boy?' she replied archly, glancing around, before the same little boy with the long brown hair she had seen before caught her eye, industriously passing around the small white packages to little children. They in turn raced into the small houses, or to other adults, administering what she took to be medicine to them.

'Do you recognize him?'

She squinted, moving closer towards him, reaching out towards him. He looked up at her, 'Hiya lady,' he chirped in a high, childish voice. 'I gotta go right now… my best friend's sick…'

She ignored him, instead reaching down to grab hold of his chin, lifting his round, babyish face towards her. He stared back at her with big blue eyes. Solo, standing behind her in an instant whispered, 'Do you recognize him?'

The little boy didn't seem to be able to see him, but he certainly could see Mistress Nine, and he reached up with one small, dirtied hand. 'Pretty hair…' he said with a grin, catching hold of a length of it, and playing with it in his hands while she continued to study his face. She knew him in an instant, and he saw when she did, because her eyes shot out of their usual dreamy state to stare at him, for the first time, with their full power.

'You're…'

He blinked, but reached up again with that same hand, touching her face. 'You've got pretty eyes, lady. They're all purple.'

She nodded slowly. 'Yes… yes they are…'

He grinned again, having heard her speak for the first time. His offered his small hand, smudged as it was with dirt. 'I'm Duo Maxwell!' he said, his smile lighting up his face when she accepted his hand, 'I'll run and hide, but I won't tell a lie!' He waited expectantly for her name.

She hesitated, and she was well aware of Solo watching her from behind, she shook her head, 'Firefly.' She replied slowly, the English word odd on her tongue when she had become so used to saying it in Japanese. 'I am the Firefly.'

'Okay!' he said grinning, before with the innocence children have, flung his chubby arms around her in an impromptu hug, 'I gotta go now, Firefly lady. Bye bye!'

She watched as he sped away, his hair flying all around him as he ran.

'You are, you know. You are the Firefly.'

She stood up, the strands of pearls on her clothes making soft clicking sounds, and looked at Solo with a frown on her face. 'What is it that you are supposed to tell me?' She asked, and for a moment, exasperation tinged her words. 'Why am I here?'

He smiled, slipping his hands into his jeans pockets, and he nodded towards Duo, 'Not like that now, is he?' he asked with a sad expression on his face, 'Isn't so friendly anymore, huh?'

Mistress Nine delved for a moment into the more recent memories of Hotaru Tomoe before shaking her head slowly, 'No… no he's not.'

'Kid got old quick,' Solo commented, a glimmer of sadness on his perfect features watching the little boy run off. 'Hard not to in the world we grew up in.'

'What does it have to do with me?' She demanded. She was not part of this world, she never had been. Had she been able to completely destroy Hotaru's spirit, the situation might have been different, but as it stood, this had nothing to do with her. She was not Hotaru, who could try not to care about the suffering of others. She was Mistress Nine, who caused the suffering of others.

'You and Hotaru are one… always and forever. That is what you have to know. She cannot be both Destruction and Rebirth… it is not possible. She is Rebirth. That boy there,' he gestured to the figure of the little boy running away, 'will grow up to be Death. You are Destruction.'

She stared at him. 'What are you talking about?' She asked him coldly, 'I have no desire to play any of your little mind games.'

He smiled, 'But you are Mistress Nine…' he protested, with a grin, 'You know these things. You know the three parts that make up the card of Death… and you know that you have a role to play in this. You are Destruction, pretty lady.'

She frowned at him. 'What is going to happen?' she demanded. 'You took me away from that boy for a reason… what is that reason? Who is he talking to?'

He shook his head, and his hair fell in waves around his face. 'I can't tell you that,' he said apologetically, 'You see, I'm under strict orders from the Keeper, and he told me under no uncertain terms that if I botch this up, I lose the wings. And I look damn good in the wings.' He added grinning.

She shook her head, ignoring him as she walked after Duo, who had long disappeared, drawn by something akin to curiosity.

Solo followed suit after a moment, a serious look appearing on his face. 'You… don't want to see that,' he said as he fell into step behind her, and one of his gorgeously feathered wings brushed her bare arm, making her shiver at the slight tickling sensation.

'Why?' she asked not bothering to slow her pace at all. 'What am I going to see?'

'Well… me.'

She sighed, looking away from him, 'If you have something to tell me, tell me. Otherwise I will leave this dream world myself.'

He stared at her, missing a step, nearly stumbling, making him appear even more of this earth, and not some floating ethereal being. 'You can do that?'

'I am Mistress Nine. I can shape this astral plane to what I wish. Did not your Keeper know this?'

He grimaced, 'I… shouldn't say stuff about the Keeper here, lady. He won't be too happy with me.' Shaking his head, he shrugged, 'Fine, fine. Go ahead and see… just don't laugh and save me the embarrassment?' he pleaded.

She stared at him. 'I haven't found something funny in centuries,' she told him frostily, continuing on her way with brisk clacks of her heels on the ground, and her dress swishing around her legs.

The scene she saw would have been tragic, under any other circumstances. But the moment she saw Duo's friend, she recognized him immediately. It was impossible not to when he was standing right beside her. Younger, obviously a child, but it was Solo beyond a doubt.

'Don't worry Solo, I've got the stuff,' Duo told him, and even she could hear the false cheerfulness in his tone as he poured out the grayish-white powder, mixing it with a glass of water. 'You're gonna be better soon.'

Mistress Nine narrowed her eyes at the white-gray stuff Duo was trying to force through the lips of the pale, gray-skinned boy. Powders? Even in the twenty-first century, they had used pills as the common drug, certainly not powders. Why—?

'It was the only thing the medical world could devise that would work against the disease.'

'You died of it.'

'Yeah.'

She looked back as the miniature Solo coughed up the medicine again, before saying in a weakly irritable voice, 'Aw come on Duo… it's too late for this… come on, I need a bath.'

Her eyebrows raised before she knew it. The boy was dying and he wanted a bath? Solo hid his face behind a wing, trying to avoid her gaze. She looked back at the scene unfolding before her eyes. The little Duo was trying not to cry as he continued to try and make Solo take the drug. The little Solo continued to make joking complaints about the state of his appearance, as if to ease his passing for the little boy. When he finally died with a great choking cough, she knelt down, touching the back of Duo's head. He jumped up instantly, whirled around to stare at her before recognizing her and slumping back down. 'He's gone away,' he told her, wiping a tear away from his eye, 'He's gone away and he's not gonna come back.'

She hesitated for a moment, and for the first time, she opened her arms to him, and allowed him to run into them, as she hugged him close to her. She looked up, back at Solo as she did so, and she saw his faint half-smile. Her heart… or was it Hotaru's heart? She could no longer be sure… seemed a great lump that stuck in her throat so that she couldn't speak. Inside her mind was an internal turmoil as she wondered what on earth she was doing.

No…

NO…

NO!

Someone was screaming, and it wasn't coming from her. The world resonated with the denial. She gasped as she felt herself ripped away from that closely knit dream world of Solo's, felt the little boy pulled from her arms, and she saw a fleeting image of Solo's look of sudden horrified comprehension, and he grabbed for her.

Her vision blurred for a moment, before she realized that he had clasped onto her arm with a viselike grip, pulling her back into that dream world of his memory. And in an instant, she realized she didn't want to leave. She let him pull her up, and the other force pulling at her abated somewhat, allowing him to wrench her back into his dream world.

She gasped, and Duo, who had felt something in her change, leapt back, staring at her suspiciously. She stared up at Solo. 'What happened?'

He hesitated, staring down at the tiny figure that Duo made before shimmering into the little boy's sight, making him gasp. 'He chose. He chose and rejected you.'

She stared at him for a moment, before back down at the boy, and instantly, as understanding dawned on her, she felt a sudden swell of some great sadness that was beyond her to comprehend. 'Death…? Was it Death?'

He nodded slowly, before looking down at the little boy who was staring up at him wonderingly. 'Mister?' he was saying, 'Are you an angel?'

Solo smiled at him without an answer before looking back at Mistress Nine, who had immediately composed her features, after the initial shock. 'Well?'

She glared at him. 'Well what?' she snapped, something she was not used to doing. She was the cold one, the statue of ice, this sudden snappish defensiveness was foreign to her. 'What do you wish me to say?'

Solo shook his head, his eyes still wide, 'I never imagined… he wouldn't have…'

'But he did nonetheless. He chose to lead his own life… and the Nameless will destroy the world before he lives his life full enough to enjoy it.' She turned away, and made as if to step away before she realized that the little Duo had latched onto her legs, and Solo had grasped her arm.

She looked down at Duo first, staring at the little kid with tears in his eyes. 'Don't go 'way, lady!' he was exclaiming, burying his face into the fabric of her dress, 'Don't go 'way too.'

Solo watched her with the same sadness in his large blue eyes, 'Not before you know the truth.'

She glared at him again, 'I know the truth,' she told him coolly, 'I do not need you to tell me. He has rejected me, and the card is worthless. It's magic will fade, and I shall bring upon the destruction of the world as we know it. And the Nameless, not Saturn, shall bring forth its Rebirth.'

He watched her as whatever feeling that he had seen hints of in her face disappeared, replaced by that same cold, cruel smile of hers.

She bent down one last time however, and she kissed the little boy on the forehead, miraculously without smearing her violet lipstick on his skin.

She then looked back at Solo, 'Your memory was more real than the physical realm because you remembered it all. Your dream was more beautiful because you, and the people you love are here.' Her face hardened. 'But you can't change what I already know. Whatever that… that… little boy could have done has not been done. And the future will go on to be one ruled beneath the power of the Nameless.'

The world tore apart, a jagged hole in its existence, which she stepped through without hesitation, before it sealed itself up as if sewn leaving Solo and Duo alone in the world created by the dead boy's memory. Instantly, she was back in that world of galaxies and stars into which she had first been pulled.

There, she found Duo, standing there staring with eyes unseeing at some point through her. The card at her feet, which had remained glowing with its soft pale light dimmed, and then the glow disappeared entirely. Next, the words faded off the card, along with Duo's image. He had been lost, there would be no being to control the power of Death.

In the next instant, just as she was about to leap for his throat, she was pulled backwards, away from him, down… down…

She woke up with a start, her eyes open wider than she had ever thought it possible they could be. The first thing she noticed was the sudden, grand display of light, flaring up from the center, and she shaded her eyes to see its source.

She saw the fuku.

She recognized Relena.

Then she saw Duo move, and that same, crimson-colored rage darkened her vision again. She leapt for him, using her bare hands rather than her hair to grab him by the throat, lifting him up, screaming obscenities at him while she did so, quite unaware that tears were already flowing from her eyes, dampening her cheeks.

The next moment, a blast of a blue-green something smashed into her, and sent her flying backward into a nearby wall. Duo dropped to the floor gasping, clutching his throat, with dry hacking coughs, and breathed the air that had been denied him by her grip on his neck.

"Duo! Are you all right?" Relena rushed to her friend, hoisting him up and supporting him by throwing his arm over her shoulders. He choked out a thank you in between coughs.

Black Lady had already run to Mistress Nine's side, inspecting the fallen woman. Mistress Nine got to her feet on her own and shoved Black Lady away from her, her and her helping hand. "Get away from me," she hissed vehemently as she looked up at Duo, and Relena holding him up. In her previously ice-glazed eyes, there was fire, and that fire was rage.

Relena, having decided that Duo had had enough of her help in supporting himself, let go, blocking him with her own body. She stared at the older woman with a look of fierce, cool determination that she had long perfected, and which rivaled the woman's glow of utter rage. She refused to look nervous, although she really had no idea how any of her powers worked. Black Lady had whispered the words to her spell the moment Mistress Nine had attacked Duo, but it hadn't done much harm to the woman. She had to have another spell at her disposal… but Black Lady was all the way near the wall where Mistress Nine was.

Mistress Nine was now eyeing her, looking her up and down, taking in the Sailor fuku that Relena was dressed in. Instantly, she understood, and her eyes narrowed. "So it was a Sailor crystal after all…" she said, crossing her arms. "Stand aside, girl, your power has yet to develop into anything that could defeat me."

Black Lady glared at her, "You idiot! Don't you see—" she was stopped by the sudden glance from her old friend, and that single glance spoke worlds. The old connection between Hotaru and Chibi-Usa resurfaced for a moment, and Black Lady was taken aback. "He… wouldn't have…" she looked furiously at Duo, who was watching the both of them with a wary eye. "He couldn't have… could he?"

"Look for yourself." Mistress Nine replied sharply, thrusting the long-forgotten card forwards into Black Lady's hands. The moment she saw the image, her eyes registered instant comprehension and she looked up at Duo with sudden contempt. "The coward…!" she exclaimed under her breath, "He refused to accept it… he rejected it… all…" the enormity of the situation hit her. "He gave you up…"

She saw the remnants of an old love resurface in the other woman's eyes, and she had to turn away. Duo had rewritten destiny. And he had thrown away her along with it.

~*~*~*~

"Trowa!" the boy stopped short, whirling, his eyes wider than he ever thought it possible they could be. "Cathy?" he choked out, staring as she ran to him, throwing herself in his arms.

"Oh Trowa… I looked everywhere for you… I had to leave and go out there and find you… And then I get halfway through and the battle's considered done and you just passed me and then I had to come all the way back and… and…" She shook her head, burying her face in the front of his uniform. "And I can't find Relena… I had to leave her here, and now I can't find her…"

"How did you get in?" Trowa demanded. She raised her eyebrows in surprise, then jerked her thumb backwards.

He looked over her shoulder, down into the corridor, before blinking when he realized they'd already dealt with all the little monsters, and there weren't any more pouring in from the adjoining rooms from behind them. Had there really been that few? He shook his head… it wasn't like him to miscalculate.

"They ran," Cathrine explained, reassuring him. "I think… I think she and that stick scared them off." She gestured at Pluto, flashing her a thankful glance. "I was so scared they would attack me… but they just… ran past me…" she stopped shuddering. "I didn't even have a gun, I was so scared."

Trowa pulled her into a brief one-armed hug as they began to move forwards again when Wufei reminded them that while there would be nothing coming from behind them, there was still the minor problem of monsters pouring in from up front. Cathrine raised an eyebrow at the boy's insensitivity before Trowa shook his head, cocking his weapon. "Come on, stay close to the middle." He told her, pushing her closer to Pluto in the circle of the boys' protection.

Heero looked back, "Where did you leave Relena?"

Cathrine's expression looked pained. "Back there… in that room… I looked, and she wasn't there. There was only… only…" she looked ready to cry, and she grit her teeth to keep from it. "There were a bunch of soldiers lying in a heap outside, and there was… there was so much blood…"

For a moment, it looked like Heero's face had gone white… but it could have been just the light because he turned resolutely away the next moment, shaking his head vehemently. "She's not dead," he said out loud… "I won't let her be."

Pluto watched him with searching eyes, And what power do you hold that could stop Death? She shook her head… there could only be one who could choose between life or death for one person. That power had been dedicated to Duo Maxwell… that was what destiny decreed. That was what she had foreseen. That was what had been when she had still lived in the future. Why then? Why then had she felt destiny shift, and that this boy could stand so resolutely for a power he could not have?

~*~*~*~

Relena watched with a wary eye as Black Lady stared at the card in her hands. She saw the emotions flickering past on her face, and she watched with growing dread as dawning comprehension appeared on the woman's features. Somehow she knew Duo had done something… and she'd be damned if she didn't find out what it was.

She grasped him by the collar now, and stared hard at him. "What did you do?" she demanded, blue eyes like lasers as she searched his face. "What happened to you while you were both unconscious?"

Duo was silent for a moment, looking at her with practiced indifference, before his eyes fell on Mistress Nine and a look of abject pain washed over his features. "I…" he whispered, "I chose a mortal life… and I rejected the life that she would be a part of." He turned away. "I couldn't bear that destiny," he said, as if trying to make excuses, "I didn't want to watch you all grow old and die and have to—"

Smack

The sound rang through the entire room and there was sudden silence. Duo stared in shock at Relena, who had delivered the blow to his face, and could feel the throbbing patch of his face turn red.

"You… you idiot!" she shouted finally, looking at him with a look of such disgust that he nearly recoiled. "All those stories… all those 'prophecies' of Pluto's… all the little bits and pieces of your past that you've actually told me… you wanted to be Death… you knew you had to be. You knew Destiny had decreed it… and now you're too much of a coward to accept that because of the consequences?" She glared at him, blue eyes icy, a look most likely borrowed from Heero Yuy. "That was your choice, wasn't it? You chose to continue to be what you are instead of taking the office that you set your destiny to. You refused to be Death. All that crap about wanting to find your Rebirth… all that bullshit you spouted… you made it sound like she's worth it—and she is!"

She threw a gloved hand out in Mistress Nine's direction. "That's Hotaru!" she shouted at him, shaking him by the shoulders, "That's the girl who told you the truth—and you threw it back into her face!" she threw him loose, making him stumble, before falling back down to the ground. "How dare you come crying to me making excuses about your choice—did it ever occur to you that you had to be Death for a reason? Did you forget everything Hotaru and Pluto and Chibi-Usa told us about the Nameless and powerful he is? Did it never occur to you that you might have no life to live if the Nameless isn't beaten? Well?"

He had never seen her so enraged… and because of her new (there was no other way to say it) aura, she glowed with power, making her seem even more intimidating.

"Twice…" they both turned to stare, and saw Mistress Nine standing there, her eyes hollow, the flames vanishing back to whatever deep part of her soul was left in her.

"What…?" Relena asked, stopping her verbal rampage. "What do you mean 'twice'?"

Mistress Nine never looked at her, kept her dark, empty eyes on Duo. "Twice you have resigned me to my death. Twice you shall throw me in that pit of nothingness… and you will not know me when you do it because you chose not to know me in that world of the ethereal. A length of hair slid forwards, slowly, without its usual snakelike whip effect, forwards to Duo still sitting there on the ground where Relena had dropped him, lifted and caressed his face once, while he stared straight back at Mistress Nine's face.

"In that dream world… do you know who came to me?" she asked him, her voice quiet, but it carried in that dead silent room. "Do you know who brought me into a world created by his memories of the place where he died? A place that looked, and smelled, and felt of death?"

Duo stared at her, stared down at the length of hair fanning before his face. Vague, impossible memories were beginning to resurface. Of a long, long time ago… where he thought he had seen miracles…

"Do you know who I saw?"

"An… angel?" he ventured, remembering the soft touch of wings before the figure melted away, and she had stepped through a hole of nothingness and vanished, leaving him with the body and the memories of a dead friend.

"It was Solo."

Duo went cold. Solo… Solo his best friend… Solo the one he couldn't save… The angel… it had been Solo? And Mistress Nine! Had she been… could she have been…

"You were the lady?"

She stared at him. Had that place she'd appeared in not been Solo's dream world… but the actual past? Had she not walked through an opening in the astral realm, but an opening in time itself?

Duo was struggling to stand, "You… you were the lady with the long, long hair…!"

Now everyone was staring at him, and he managed to get to his feet. Mistress Nine pinned him relentlessly with her gaze, not allowing him to move. "Yes. Yes I was. And do you remember what the angel told me?"

Duo struggled, but no… no it had been so long ago, and he had been little more than a child…

"He told me that you'd already chosen. That you'd rejected me, and all that your destiny with me offered. The circle has been broken. There will be no Death, Destruction and Rebirth. I—we—I will bring forth the End… and there will be no returning. There will be no circle. I will not return. And with me, neither shall this world."

~*~*~*~

"That's it!" hollered Heero, gesturing to the large metal double doors. "That's the hangar bay… they couldn't be anywhere else!" The monsters were thicker than ever… and ammo was beginning to become a bit of an issue.

"Oh, step aside." Pluto said irritably, pushing to the front, summoning her magic. While the others had been fighting, she had been resting that store of magic in her, and now she burned with it. Lifting her Time Staff, she whispered, "Dead… Scream…" and the rush of wind and magic wove itself seamlessly into a planet-shaped ball of magic, flinging itself through the masses and decimating more than half of them.

"Come on, let's get in before they get any closer." She said grimly as they dashed for the doors, and through them.

The sight that met there eyes was as confusing as if they'd walked into a crazy carnival funhouse. But Pluto was shocked into paralysis. There, right before her eyes were the resurrected figures of two of the senshi's enemies who had been most painful to defeat. Black Lady stepped forward with a look of grim determination. "Stay out of this." she snapped, "This is not your affair."

"You… you…!" was all Pluto could manage to get out as she felt the sudden metallic taste of blood and rage.

"Pluto. Stop." The woman held up a slim, crimson-nailed hand. "There will be no Death… and therefore, there will be no Rebirth. Already the Nameless has won… she has won the moment the choice was left up to a little boy!" her other hand was clenched to her side, and her entire frame was shaking.

Pluto stared at her, then she stared beyond her at Mistress Nine who stood there with a broken expression on her face, Duo looking stunned, and Relena…

Pluto stared at the Sailor fuku before saying, "What in the… world?"

"Don't you remember the Princess of Earth?" asked Black Lady with a wry tone in her voice, "The one who wedded the surrogate?"

"The… surrogate?"

Pluto saw it in her mind's eye, saw the shape of destiny twist, so that several possibilities of the future collapsed upon one another so that the future she knew and fought to achieve was molded in several others. Paradox surrounded that future, a tingling, tangible force.

Black Lady shook her head, "Do not interfere." She ordered of them all. Then her eyes fell on Cathrine. Her skin was naturally very pale. It went even paler when she saw Cathrine's big blue eyes. "Y—you…!" she gasped before backing up a step or two away from her.

Pluto grabbed at her, searching for questions unanswered. "What is going on? Who is she?" she asked, gesturing to what Relena had become. "There was no mention of another Sailor in this time!"

Black Lady didn't respond… she continued to back away from them with a look of absolute fear clouding her features.

"Lower your weapons." The boys stared at Pluto who had given the order. She looked back at them. "Do it!" she insisted, watching to see how the scene would unfold.

But that scene would not take place because at that moment, Cathrine started to laugh. And her laugh rang so high and cold that a shiver ran down the spines of everyone present. Trowa turned to stare at his sister. "Ca… thy?" he asked slowly, staring at the familiar figure of the auburn-haired woman. Then he glimpsed the monster behind the big blue eyes and he cried out, just as she reached out and threw him to the side with a flick of her seemingly dainty wrist.

Pluto, immediately, turned, and was halfway through her attack before she was blasted off her feet by a ball of fire that had exploded from the hand of the Nameless.

Wufei and Heero lifted their weapons instantly, and began firing, but the multiple bullets that left the machine guns flew in their planned trajectory for about a foot before they froze in midair, dropping to the ground with small, nearly inaudible clacking sounds. Cathrine's face twisted into a horrible parody of her sweet smile, grasping them by the throats and flinging them out of the way. Wufei landed against the wall with a sickening crack. Heero dropped to the floor, the wind knocked out of him, and a rib or two already broken.

Relena watched this in horror, and the moment Heero dropped to the ground, her temporary paralysis was broken and with a shriek she was running towards him. Cathrine… it had been Cathrine… all along it had been Cathrine, not Hilde. Cathrine…

Quatre was kicked out of the way as she passed by with such force that he flew several feet before sliding, hard, into the wall. His weapon skidded out of his hands at this point as he struggled to get back to his feet.

Cathrine was smiling still as she approached the center where Duo stood, and a hand reached out to him, caressing his face. "So… you're the one I must thank… you who delivered this world into the palm of my hand… You who refused to accept the destiny that was given you by that fool of a Keeper… you who will not be Death." She grinned, and the way she flashed her teeth made him think of any animal that bared their fangs at an enemy.

"I…" he started, but she shushed him instantly. "Oh, you don't have to say anything… after all… your help mustn't go unrewarded…" She slid a hand down his chest, a sultry look on her face that she had stolen from Cathrine. "You have helped me… and I give you now what you so justly deserve—" She cut herself off with a shrill scream as a blaze of pain blossomed from her leg. She glanced down, then glared at Heero, who, though he had lost the machine gun, had kept a sidearm holstered with him, and had used it to his advantage. Relena was kneeling beside him, her blue eyes flinty again.

"How… how dare…!" She-who-was-not-Cathrine screamed at them, "Do you not know you have lost? There will be no Death! There will be no return for this world should the Silence ever be called… which it cannot if Saturn is locked in the body of Mistress Nine who cannot summon the Silence Glaive."

"You're… you're wrong…"

Cathrine whirled on Black Lady, who was standing there, shaking, Luna P clutched in both her hands near Heero and Relena. "You're wrong… there will be a Death…"

The Nameless laughed derisively, "What do you mean?" she demanded, pointing a finger imperiously at Duo, "He chose not to be Death. There can be no other."

"There is one… the surrogate…"

Relena suddenly, instantly, felt her stomach drop and her heart turn to stone in the wave of dread that washed over her.

"The… surrogate…" The Nameless repeated, but this time with a shred of doubt. A surrogate? A replacement?

Shaking, Black Lady lifted her hand, pointing.

Heero stared at her, stared at the finger pointed straight at him.

Relena, immediately knew the consequence of Heero taking up the duty of being the Surrogate. The circle had to be completed… which meant… she saw Heero reach the same conclusion as he looked deep into her eyes that exact same moment. He knew… and he understood. In an instant, everything… everything became clear. Mistress Nine… Hotaru… she/they had accepted the duty of being Saturn, of being Destruction and Rebirth. If he accepted the duty of being Death… he looked back at Relena and for a moment, her pain was mirrored in his eyes.

"Heero… Heero…" she whispered, tears beginning to gather at the corners of her eyes, even as she tried to blink them away.

There it was, that wordless asking that needed no words between them to ask the question they both knew. Would she let him go?

"NO!" shrieked the Nameless, flinging the blasts of fire from her hands towards the both of them. Relena stood up immediately, filling her hands with her own turquoise-colored magic, but before anything, Black Lady rushed into the fray yelling "LUNA P!"

The umbrella appeared in her hands, and she opened it immediately, blocking the barrage of fireballs from all three of them. "Make up your minds quickly!" she yelled over her shoulder at the both of them. The Nameless had switched from fireballs to multiple dagger-like knives, similar to those that Cathrine used in her circus acts that she threw. Each knife immediately copied itself while it flew in the air so that many of them, with alarming accuracy, bypassed the umbrella entirely and embedded themselves in the floor very close where the three of them were huddled.

"Relena?"

The girl bit her lip, hands fisted at her side. Heero… Heero… she thought desperately as she stared at the well of emotion that had appeared in his blue, blue eyes. The question was still there. Will you let me go?

Slowly, infinitesimally, she nodded her head once. He closed his eyes and let out a small sigh, leaning forwards, placing a fleeting kiss on her forehead. Then, he ran from the safety of Black Lady's ridiculously childish looking umbrella towards where Mistress Nine stood.

The barrage stopped for a moment or two when Quatre had taken up one of the machine guns and gunned down the floor around the feet of the Nameless, effectively distracting her long enough for Heero to be able to get to Mistress Nine without being pinned to the wall.

Pluto, too, was on her feet again, throwing blasts of planetary power at the Nameless, effectively keeping her busy while Heero grasped Mistress Nine's hand. "I choose!" he yelled, in order to be heard above the din. "I choose to be the Surrogate if Duo doesn't wish to be Death!" he yelled, his voice increasing in volume. "I choose Death!"

The world seemed to stop for a moment. And for that moment, time was obliterated as a cloak of darkness seemed to fall over that corner, and no one could pierce that blackness. They were frozen, unable to move even a single muscle as both Mistress Nine and Heero disappeared. Relena's screams of denial that had mingled with the screams of the Nameless died away into silence as the world held its breath.

Somewhere in that black cloud of nothingness, there were voices, dozens of them that echoed and ricocheted against unseen walls. Heero stared around him, cocking his gun methodically in habit, and he watched Mistress Nine with a wary eye. She was watching him as well, with steady eyes, and a sort of… what was it? Respect? It was a good a word as any.

"You chose to be the Surrogate… and you are willing to give up the princess in doing so?" she asked him slowly, giving him time to contemplate his answer. "Will you succeed where… where Duo failed?"

Heero, for once, hesitated, his mind rushing to memories he had long treasured before steadying his breath and nodding, once. Curtly, affirmative.

The voices around them swelled into a symphony of sound. Are you sure? Are you sure?

Can you truly give her up?

Can you accept Destruction and Rebirth as your lover as the other one might have?

Can not Duo choose again?

This last stopped them both, as they stared off into the abyss of nothingness that surrounded them. "What do you mean?" demanded Mistress Nine. "What do you mean he could choose again? There is only one moment of choice… and he… he… he chose to throw it all away!" there was a sort of echoing to her voice, both her voice, and a… hint of what might have been Hotaru's.

Can not the choice be twice given?

Can he not be given the chance to accept his destiny again?

Will you not let him?

"Not… let him…?" she repeated slowly, her face set in a confused expression. "I… I had nothing to do with his choice."

Would the Keeper have allowed him to reject it?

Heero frowned, "So if Duo were able to choose not to be Death… why was I chosen as the Surrogate?"

Cannot Destiny be twisted? Cannot the past be altered, therefore shifting the present and the past?

Has it not already happened?

Will you be the Surrogate?

This last voice was stronger than the rest, stronger and harder, and the strength of it pressed down upon Heero. He realized then. The other voices were those set to trick him… them. There would be no other choice given to Duo… there couldn't be. Voices placed there to trick him into giving him false hope that Duo might choose. And then there would truly be no choice. He couldn't take that chance. "Yes." He said finally, lowering his gun, letting his hair fall down into his face to hide his eyes. "I will be the Surrogate."

The boy has chosen.

The other voices vanished instantly, and the darkness wrapped around him, cloaking him, and in his hand, the weapon of Death materialized, cold and lethal. Reaching out blindly, the both of them realized their hands had been magnetically drawn to each other, as she too was changed. Another cloak of the same darkness fell down around her shoulders, and a weapon materialized in her own hand, one that was neither Glaive or scythe, but a hybrid of both, the weapon of Destruction.

But how was there to be Rebirth? Was her own last thought before the small world of darkness they had been drawn into dissipated around them, and the world began to move at its own pace again. He felt the power then, the swell of it as it erupted through, with a force that stunned him. He was Death.

He stared dispassionately at the world now, and he was able to pass over even Relena's face masked in an expression of pain feeling nothing. Death's magic dulled his emotions, that same dullness that could allow him to throw the lives into the pit of nothingness.

Duo was staring at him now, as if he were the embodiment of everything he had given up… and he was right in thinking so. Heero was Death. Duo was now nothing.

"Now the battle truly begins." Mistress Nine said, and again, there was that echoing quality, a subtle echo that was not her voice, but a glimmer of Hotaru's.

The Nameless stared at the two of them, Cathrine's face a mask of anger. "You… you…!" she managed before falling into inarticulate screaming.

Pluto found then, ample time to throw a "Dead Scream" at her, throwing the Nameless off her feet. Then both Mistress Nine and Heero were running forwards, respective weapons raised as they ran.

Relena herself joined the fray, wiping away the remnants of tears she had let slip. Black Lady, behind the relative safety of her protective umbrella had told her of the words to her attacks. After that… it was easy to know what to do. A ball of turquoise magic flew at the Nameless, smaller, thinner magic rings surrounding it revolving at high speeds before they smashed into her. She had long decided that one could not live up to the ideal of complete pacifism. One must fight in times of war, and make peace in times of… well… peace. And this was most certainly a time of war.

The Nameless managed to throw up a shield quick enough to avoid Relena's blast, creating it out of several of the captured shadows that she had stolen from numerous soldiers around the place. Banishing it, she immediately began casting her own brand of magic at a rapid pace, and a column of fire exploded up around her, stopping the magical attacks thrown by the senshi.

At that moment, Mistress Nine let loose a bolt of black magic from the blade of her weapon that punched through the firewall completely, slamming the Nameless through the other side and sending her skidding across the floor to where Trowa was standing.

"Tro… Trowa?" he looked down at the body of his sister, and saw his sister's big blue eyes pleading up at him. "Don't let them do that… please?"

He hesitated, his gun cocked in his hand, enough time for her to scramble to her feet and would have immediately been able to rip Trowa's head off with one of her hands if Quatre hadn't dove at her right then and there, pushing her back onto the ground. He pinned her there, struggling with her as she clawed long bloody lines in his flesh with nails that were longer than they had been that morning. Wufei grabbed her legs, pinning them to the ground, and from his struggling, it was plain to see that his trip into the wall had broken one of his legs. That and the Nameless was abnormally strong.

The blade of Heero's scythe was at Cathrine's throat before she knew it, and she stopped struggling immediately, her eyes wide as she stared up at them all. Then, a strange smile appeared on her face. "You idiot…" she said, looking up at Heero's face. "Did you think you can kill me with the blade of Death?" she asked him, "Did you not remember that this body is not mine, but that of your friend's?"

Mistress Nine glared down at her, dark eyes icy, but a smile curled on her lips. "Did you forget that I know you cannot be killed in this realm of the physical? And that I am Mistress of the astral plane?"

The Nameless looked up at her through Cathrine's eyes, "I defeated you once," she croaked, "when you were at full strength. I can defeat you now, in this realm or the next."

"Do you honestly believe that?" she asked, and again, there was that strange echo of her voice. But this time, it was Mistress Nine's voice that was the faint echo. The voice that rang clear was… Hotaru's.

"Hotaru… chan?" asked Black Lady slowly, as if fearful.

Mistress Nine's dark eyes flickered to her face, and for a moment, Black Lady thought she saw a glimmer of violet in their depths. But she said no other word, and instead she allowed a cruel smile to spread along her face.

"Keep her down," she instructed the rest of them. "No matter how she struggles… and she will struggle." She added, a malignant light in her eyes making her appear almost to encourage it.

She looked back at Trowa and Duo, who had, for the most part, had done little to nothing in the skirmish. "Are you going to help us?" she demanded, "We don't have a lot of time you see."

"But Cathy… she's my… my…" Mistress Nine sighed, "Sister. Yes, yes, so she told me. But once I get the Nameless out and into the astral realm, it's a completely different scenario. Are you going to help?"

There was a silence, then Trowa nodded.

She turned to Duo, with that icy mask covering her face, "And you?" she asked, continually glancing back down at the Nameless who, any moment now, could relinquish the body and possess some other person in this room.

"What… what can I do?" he asked finally, and she cursed his hesitation. "No time. Decide now."

"I… I'll come." He said finally and she turned away with a curt nod in his direction. The Nameless grinned up at her, "You really think that your will is stronger than mine… in the astral realm or not?"

Mistress Nine shrugged, and on any other figure, it would have looked nonchalant. As it stood, she just looked even more menacing. "We'll find out won't we?" she replied with a sinister smile on her face as she lifted up her hand, which was now aglow with a myriad of colors again, the same colors that had appeared when she had reached through time and space to snatch Chibi-Usa. Except now, she thrust her metaphysical arm through Cathrine's body itself, digging through it, bypassing the girl's soul and consciousness until she found that darkness at the core of her body where it had taken root. She clamped her hand around it in a vice like iron making Cathrine scream, high and shrill. Her eyes widened to astronomical proportions, looking in Trowa's direction with a pleading that transcended training, and if Pluto and Relena hadn't grabbed hold of him, he would have run forward, shoving them all off her, if it would only make her stop screaming…

But it was done. Mistress Nine wrenched her arm out of Cathrine's body, grasping something that seemed smoky and indistinct, and with a cry, she slashed downwards in the air with her other arm, opening a tear through reality and shoved the Nameless through. She drew her arm back for a moment, and it stopped glowing long enough for all of them to see that it looked as if it had been scorched, before she picked up her weapon she had dropped on the ground and was through the tear in an instant.

Heero followed her immediately after, scythe glittering menacingly, and with him, Relena, Earth. "Leave her." were his last words to Trowa, before he disappeared through. Black Lady caught up Luna P in one hand, and looked back at Pluto. The woman hesitated only for a single moment of indecision whether or not this could be some elaborate trap thought up by the Nameless. But… she shook her head. No… she knew that tear through reality for what it was, and where exactly it would take them. She was going. Nodding once to Black Lady, the two of them raced through, and behind them, both Wufei and Quatre, the latter of whom was supporting the former through it. If the battle truly had to do with will, more than muscle, then it did not matter that Wufei was injured.

Trowa paused only once to look down at his sister, who was breathing normally again, and she looked to be asleep. He stayed long enough only to bend down and brush a strand of her curly hair away from her face tenderly before running through.

Then there was Duo. He had not moved, and stood there as if rooted. Self-doubt was creeping up on him now, and they held him still, making it impossible for him to move. Why? Why didn't I choose to protect them? He had been useless while Heero had taken the responsibility… and given up Relena. That had been the colossal difference. Heero hadn't rejected Relena… it had been a mutual decision that both understood, and had thought to be the right one. Heero had been the brave one.

Again.

Duo's fists clenched themselves again as he stared at that tear in existence. "Dammit…" he whispered, "Dammit…" he could already feel the tears falling and he wiped them away angrily. Why couldn't he move?

"Duo?"

He whirled around, and came face to face with Hilde's new boyfriend. Considerably rumpled-looking and dirtied than he had been that morning, but weren't they all? "You! You're… wait…" he stopped, staring at the other boy.

The dark golden hair, streaked with dirt and grime as it was.

Those blue eyes.

"…Solo…?" Duo whispered, staring at him. Solo? Could it really be him?

The boy gave a relieved sigh, "Finally you recognize me…" he said with a wry grimace, "You have no idea how long it took for me to be reincarnated. Then when I do, the Keeper of Destinies comes back and starts givin' me orders all over again." he looked sheepish, "Never really wanted to take Hilde away from you, y'know… but I had to follow orders and make you meet up with Saturn. And when you did, it looked like everything would turn out and… they didn't." He still looked serious, "But that's neither here or now. Don't you have somewhere to be?"

"I… what can I do? Heero's Death, not me."

"Hey, now listen up, Duo ol' buddy. You leave your friends fighting over there and walk away and you will be nothing, you got that? You leave them all hanging and if and when they come back, you won't register as even someone they met. They'll drop you like that." here he snapped his fingers for emphasis. "That realm over there is a complete mind game. A new ball game. All you've got really fighting for you is, at the risk of sounding philosophical, the strength of your own mind. Well?" he shoved Duo forward, nearly making him stumble. "Are you going, or are you going to walk away from it all?"

The touch of the weathered palm seemed to break the spell of Duo's paralysis, and with a deep breath, he ran forwards, diving through that tear in reality. He never knew just how close he was to being locked out of that realm. You see, the gap Mistress Nine had created had been a hasty one, and if one of that kind, that didn't have all the proper spells and wards set up around it, would begin to act like a vacuum. It would start sucking in bits and pieces of reality, and would begin to affect the physical realm as well, which was certainly something they couldn't allow.

The moment Duo was through however, he landed on his stomach with a grunt of pain.

"About time you decided to grace us with your presence!" snapped Pluto as Mistress Nine took the time to seal the gap behind him and marking the place with a glowing violet sigil. "Look!" she added, pointing.

Duo stared at her. No longer was she wearing the dusty and torn Sailor fuku, but a dress of such luxury, and a silver crown of such delicate tooling and studded with garnets and rubies that instantly, he knew the hints and the whispers that the Senshi were royalty were true. This was how she looked in the astral realm… this was the truth… the complete and utter truth here. This was the true Pluto with all her royal bearing.

He looked around him, taking in the sudden stark changes in the appearances of his friends… Trowa, a large tawny lion with those calm, calm eyes of his. He saw Chibi-Usa, but he saw her for what she really was… a little girl too afraid of the future, but fed up with the present hugging Luna P to her chest but staring resolutely… He saw Quatre, looking more majestic than he could ever have imagined the guy to be. He looked strong. Stronger than ever Heero or Trowa or anyone else had looked. For once, he looked confident in the face of it all.

And he saw himself, as if there were a mirror in front of him reflecting all his doubts, fears, molding them into his form in this world. But beside all that, he saw his own strengths as well, he saw his own determination, and he saw what he had been before The Choice.

Then he saw Saturn and he saw Mistress Nine. They were both standing there, not one, but two, yet they moved in perfect synchronization. Mistress Nine looked no different, since her form in the physical realm had what she had created from her form in the astral. But he saw Saturn, and for a moment, he felt his heart stop.

She was breathtaking, even as she wielded the heavy blade of the Silence Glaive, a dress of violet, or black, he couldn't tell hugged her body and fell to her feet, her raven hair flew across her face, and violet eyes flashed with their old quiet strength like they used. He had only known her for less than two days… but…

He couldn't seem to be able to stop staring. The crown on her brow, again silver, studded with several dark amethyst gems as well as inlaid with another type of dark stone. Obsidian, maybe. Or onyx.

She turned to look at him then, and met his eyes from across the distance, and there was a sudden pain reflected in those large violet eyes that held innocence, yet total realism in their depths, that matched his own. Words unsaid passed between them, before she beckoned him towards her. "Hurry!" she yelled to him, her voice misty in the air of this place where everything was dark and he couldn't separate the ground on which they stood from whatever passed for air that they breathed.

Then he saw the Nameless.

It… well it looked male, from what Duo could see… He was completely black, coal black, from head to… tentacles? He shuddered. Even as a man-octopus hybrid lookalike, the creature was terrifying, not because of his appearance, but because it simply glowed with, there wasn't any other word for it, evil.

The battle raged long, and he didn't know how long. Hours… days… seconds? Time didn't matter as they attacked and attacked, and the Nameless didn't seem to weary at all… on the contrary, after each attack, it stood up taller than the rest of them, mocking them in their increasing weakness.

"It's no use!" Chibi-Usa/Black Lady cried after what seemed like ages had passed, supporting a bleeding Relena. "Nothing we throw at him works!"

Actually, only the power of Mistress Nine, Saturn and Heero seemed to actually work on the Nameless. But it was slow, sluggish magic that didn't flow right together, so of course, the Nameless had the upper hand. He was laughing at them now, seeing them near giving up entirely.

Mistress Nine stopped attacking and ran back, away from the front lines where the three of them had stood. Heero looked back, and would have called out if it were not for Saturn's shake of her head, and a look of some great sadness in her eyes. He knew then that it was time.

"Out!" he roared at the rest of them, "Get out of here! Retreat!"

For that was what Mistress Nine was doing, she had rushed up to the spot where the glowing violet sigil still stood, and tore through it again, "Now!" she added, "Hurry!"

As quickly as their respective injuries would allow them to, they rushed through that opening until there was only the three of them left, and Duo.

The Nameless raged, thrashing at them, ignoring the blasts of violet magic that Saturn was shooting towards him, and charged at them, moving rather agilely for that mass of tentacles that allowed it movement. Heero saw it coming quicker than Duo, shoving his friend out of the way as one of the larger tentacles, armed with large sharp spikes slammed down into the 'ground' where Duo had been only moments before.

As they both fell to the ground, another tentacle clipped Heero on the shoulder, throwing him through the air, and, incidentally, through the hole that Mistress Nine had just made. The scythe clattered to the ground, still glittering.

"Shit!" Mistress Nine swore out loud, but the gap had been held open long enough, and she barely got her arm back through before it sealed itself, with Heero still on the other side.

And Duo was still there.

Mistress Nine and Saturn shared one horrified look but there was nothing else to be done. Both forms wavered, and the Nameless' attention was diverted from Duo when he saw the two of them merge back into one, this time, Hotaru's form was the one that showed through the faint echo of Mistress Nine's image. She turned to Duo, and said a soft, "I'm sorry."

In her hand she held the Silence Glaive that glittered with a dangerous light. Duo knew instantly what she was going to do now as she took a deep breath. "There's nowhere to hide now, Nameless." She told him, with a strange smile on her face, "You know what's going to happen now, don't you?"

The Nameless had the look of a fish out of water. "You can't! You have not Death by your side—" a look of panic was starting to grow on his darkened features.

"Do you think that ever truly mattered to me?" she asked, taking another step forward, "Do you think it mattered to me when I died… all those many times in the past? It only mattered that I had to come back. And this time… I won't come back." She raised the weapon in both hands, "And come to think of it… neither are you."

Duo's mouth was open, and the denial was only half screamed out before he spotted the weapon his friend had dropped only moments before. His whole body lurched forwards, even as the words to her most powerful attack rang out.

"Death—"

His stretched out his arm, reaching for it—

"—Ribbon—"

Almost there…!

"—REVOLUTION!"

He felt his fingers touch icy cold metal just as the world around them shattered with a sound louder than anything he'd ever heard before, even in the midst of one of the greatest battle in Mobile Suit history.

The ringing silence that followed, if possible, was louder than the noise that had preceded it. The feeling of the cold metal scythe was all the feeling he had—there was no sight left, no sense of self except for the though of that metal and he held on, as if holding on to his own existence.

He could hear screaming.

He couldn't tell if it was him, or if it was the Nameless. Or even if it were Saturn.

He held onto that scythe and felt the storm around him and felt like it was tearing him to pieces.

Then, suddenly, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. And he couldn't tell if that was even more frightening than the storm or not.

He saw them then… the crowds of people walking so slowly, shuffling towards him, eyes sightless and unstaring. He knew then. This was the land of Death. This was the abyss into which Saturn had fallen so many times.

He searched for her, amongst all those faces.

NO!

He stopped, and stared around him at the sudden sound that seemed to be the voice of God Himself, it was so loud.

Your duty here is to destroy the Nameless for once and for all.

Then he saw it, the image of the Nameless floating above all the others, struggling against the tides of people that pushed it along towards Duo.

Duo felt the power then, and raised it. "I doom you." He said, his voice ringing louder and with more power than it ever had, "I doom you to the depths of Tartarus, the darkest pit in all the Hells, and there you shall stay. I doom you."

The Nameless shrieked wordlessly as the tides of people threw him down, and he was unable to claw himself back up. Duo watched as he fell… down, down… down into that pit of nothingness and with his scythe raised, he sealed his words with a spell word that seemed to just appear in his mind.

Saturn… where was she? Where was Hotaru?

No, you cannot take her back… she has not paid the price!

He saw her. She was there in the crowds of people, blending in so well he almost missed her. Her eyes as unseeing as the rest of them as she lifted her head to him as he caught her by the shoulders, shaking her, ignoring that voice in his head that he recognized as the power of Death itself.

I don't care… she has no boon to pay to me… she is Rebirth!

She does not matter.

She matters! He yelled back, She brings these people back to that world!

She must pay for that Return. Make her pay. She has done so before.

No. No she won't. She'll lose her mind!

It matters not to us. We are Death. We control.

Duo was silent for a moment. Then… Exactly… Death controls. And I say it now. She will go back. Now! He bellowed in that mind voice, louder still than the other voice. I am Death. She is… she is my Rebirth.

The darkness receded slowly as he held her, crushing her close to him, the scythe still clutched tightly in his hand. He felt as if he were floating, and the darkness disappeared around him, and for a moment, he glimpsed her world, her life, in flashes as they flew.

Her father… the lab accident… Reeny… Mistress Nine… Sailor Stars… Crystal Tokyo… the Dreaming…

He understood what she'd meant about the Dreaming then. The Sailors had been in Dreaming before… it was their time, trapped in a magic-induced sleep, orbs that appeared to be bubbles surrounding them as they slept the thousand years between the Silver Millennium and the twenty-first century, then between the twenty-first century and the Golden Age of Crystal Tokyo.

He saw it all… in flashes and images before they shot straight through into the physical world, and slammed into the floor of the mobile suit hangar.

He vaguely noticed when he was separated from Hotaru, and the both of them were placed onto stretchers. He remembered Heero drape the cloak he'd been wearing over him, and set the scythe beside him too, before he drifted off into sleep.

He found out later that he'd been asleep for nearly three days when he woke up, groggily staring up at the ceiling of a hospital room.

Sally was there, having been able to finish medical school since the end of the wars and was working as a nurse in that particular hospital adjoining the army base.

"Hotaru?" he croaked out, between dry lips, before she could say a word.

Sally smiled, "She's fine… and… so I'm told, it's because of you."

Duo let out a small sigh of relief… Safe… She was safe.

The he realized that it was not only his relief he could feel, but Sally's as well. He frowned, puzzled. She was relieved that he was awake, he didn't need to look at her to know.

There were other things too.

The person in the bed next to him was feeling afraid, and he was in pain.

How? Why?

He sat up slowly, holding his head carefully in his hand as he stared around him in confusion. "Is she… is she awake?" he finally asked, trying to keep his attention focused on Sally.

The older woman nodded, "She's already been around to see you several times already. Seemed to think you'd picked up a few gifts since I last saw you… said something about Quatre."

Quatre… Quatre was an empath. Was that what this was? Was he an empath too, now?

//Yes and no. You've taken it away from him because he was so cursed with it and did not know what to do with it. You lifted away that burden from him. He was thankful.//

He jerked upright. What had that been? It certainly hadn't been him thinking those words. Instead they had sounded different. Almost… feminine?

...Hotaru?

He received the mental equivalent of a smile coming from her. Where are you?

//Close… I'm coming…//

That was when Sally gestured to something behind him, hanging on the wall above the metal headboard. "Heero said it was yours."

Duo turned, before he stared at it. The scythe…

His brow wrinkled in confusion. But… no… that wasn't right… he'd chosen not to… it was Heero's…

"You took it up, Duo. You accepted it at the very last moment you possibly could. You are Death's first choice, Duo, you always will be. Heero, for once, was second best."

He turned to stare at her. She was still wearing that dress of hers, and that crown, and she looked… there wasn't any other way to say it. She looked gorgeous, especially with that necklace that circled her throat, a violet jewel set in it that he hadn't noticed before.

"Hotaru…?" he asked hesitantly, watching her as she walked nearer to him, settling herself on the bed beside him.

"Yes?"

"All that stuff that happened… you know… in that place… Death… do you…?"

She was quiet a moment, before nodding. "I know, I saw, and I heard. I watched as you threw down the Nameless and sealed him there. And I know when you accepted me, and finally believed that I was your Rebirth. I knew when you accepted me."

When she looked up at him, there were tears in those violet eyes of hers, "I knew it when you brought me back…"

"And… Mistress Nine?" he hastened to ask.

"Here." One of Hotaru's slim hands came up to place a hand over her chest, "Here in me. We are one… I've had to accept that. That she was I and I was she… I never wanted to believe it. And I had to accept it because it is true."

Duo then took her slim frame in his arms and crushed her to him, His long unbraided hair fell down and mingled with her own, as he whispered into her hair, "I'm sorry… I'm so, so sorry…"

When he pulled back, he saw that she was still crying. "What… what is it?" he asked at the sight of her expression, and a sense of foreboding encompassed him. She looked sad… immeasurably sad.

"I… I have to go back… to the Dreaming."

He jerked away from her, "What?!" he exclaimed, "What do you mean you have to go back?"

"The battle is over, Duo. I cannot stay… no matter how much I wish it." There were no sobs coming from her throat, though the tears continued to flow as she looked up into his face, touching him, as if memorizing his features. "I have to return to the Dreaming and wait for the Golden Age to dawn."

"But that's… I… we… you won't ever see any of us ever again…!" he looked desperate, his hands clutching her arms as if he refused to ever let her go again.

She shook her head, "I will… don't you see that? This world has been changed, just the slightest. It was so small a change that Pluto allowed it in the Time/Space Continuum. You… all of you will live to see the Golden Age, indeed, be a part of it. That is what the Keeper has decreed… that all of you join us in the Dreaming."

"What do you mean… all of us?"

"All that have been involved in the battle with the Nameless himself." She replied. "Or at least… those who choose to come with us. The others have been told, and they have decided. You are the last… is this life worth more to you than an Age where it is ruled by my queen? Will you miss all these people that you knew… Sally and that Dorothy woman that I have not met, and Hilde?"

He stared at her, incredulous. "Do you mean they won't be able to see it?"

Sally, who had been in the background of the conversation spoke up finally, "I think the question is, do we want to see it?" she had a serious expression on her face, "I'm perfectly happy with the life I'm leading right here and now, and besides, I hate sleep. Can't even begin to think of wasting away a thousand perfectly good years asleep." She grinned. "Now just concentrate on the question she asked you and decide! Or I stab you with this." she added, holding up a rather wicked-looking needle filled with a disgusting-colored green liquid in it.

Duo looked Hotaru square in the face, "I want to go with you." He said finally, "I want to stay with you."

There was no thrumming of the air around them as there had been when he'd made his first choice… but a huge sunny smile appeared on her face that made her go from gorgeous to irresistible. That feeling of belonging swept through him then when he pulled her towards him, kissing her as if every moment were his last. He was Death… She was his Rebirth. He had found her. He had completed that circle that he hadn't even known he was a part of.

And he would stay with her, for the rest of eternity. And that was enough, that she should be by his side. Whatever lingering doubts he had had… they had been dispelled at the thought of throwing her down that pit with the countless of others. He had defied duty… defied the power of Death to bring her back. But he didn't care. She was with him… and that was all that mattered.

Quatre walked in that very moment, and the moment he understood the situation that met his eyes, he waited calmly until they pulled apart, and was done being glassy-eyed enough to hear him. "They're waiting," he said simply, with a small smile on his face. "And they're impatient."

Duo tapped the side of his head, "How do you know now?" he asked, almost uncomfortably, "Didn't you… I mean… I…?"

Quatre smiled, "Aren't I not an empath anymore? Yes, that's right." He nodded his head at Hotaru, "She explained things to me… and I have to say I agreed with her. I didn't know how to handle it… I think you will over time…" he shook his head, "But that's not the point." He said swiftly, "Pluto's waiting, and she's watching the clock. She knows you're awake already."

"How?" he asked confused, not remembering her ever coming in.

Hotaru grinned, "You have not been around Pluto long enough to know that she knows everything."

Sally grinned from behind them, still brandishing her needle, "Then get going! And you," she added pointing at Duo, "Make sure Wufei's taken care of. I didn't spend all these years playing the mother he never had just to make him forget like that." she said, snapping her fingers for emphasis.

Hotaru rolled her eyes, "Don't worry," she told Sally with a small smile, "You'll have plenty of time to do that yourself. Time isn't closed to us… we can travel back and forth at will… especially since Pluto has been designing more of those Time Keys of hers. He'll stop by now and again I'm sure."

"I see… And how do you expect to take away all these publicly known figures without there being a worldwide panic?"

"Pluto's arranged it all," Quatre assured her, before tugging at Duo as if ready to drag the both of them with him, "We've got to get going!"

As they raced down the hall, they could hear Chibi-Usa's wail through the corridors. "But I don't wanna go back into Dreaaaammmiiiinggggggg……….!"

Hotaru smiled, slipping her hand into Duo's as they raced forwards, his other hand busy holding his scythe and cloak. It didn't matter that she was going back into Dreaming. Pluto had been wrong… She hadn't been flung into the middle of a nightmare… she was living in a dream that would never, ever end.

Destruction, Death, Rebirth… all part of a circle everlasting, one cannot be without the other… wound in a destiny spun since the Beginning and will last until She brings forth the End… and End from which only He can save her from.

~*~*~*~

The End

~*~*~*~

That's it. I had started writing up a small epilogue, but it just didn't work out. So… that's it. *frowns* I do hope I filled in all the plot holes… Tell me what you think of this… I loved writing it, and spent more time on it and finished it faster than any other fic that I have ever written. Review. Am begging.

Then go and read other fics of mine and review them! :D