Author's Notes: Hey, I'm updating more often now. ^_^ I got a couple comments that the characters were getting hard to keep track of, so I tried to reference their planets a bit more in this chapter and the later ones. Thanks for reading. -Katrina
"Should we help them yet?"
"The situation appears to be turning for the worst."
"No. No, not yet. They may still have a chance."
"But, your Highness..."
"Enough. Just wait. We'll see soon enough if we are needed."
* * * * *
Sailor Vesta walked cautiously through the swirling fog at her feet. She wasn't sure how she and the children of Pluto and Saturn had managed to get thrown off course, and it seemed like she wasn't sure on how to get them out either. Not that fog was that much of a danger, but the sun was beginning to set now. If they couldn't find their way back to Crystal Palace soon, it would begin to get dark, and Vesta feared for the safety of young Sakura.
There was a small grunt and Sailor Vesta turned around. Sakura stumbled up a small hill just behind her, trying to hold up the Silence Glaive. But even at its reduced size, she still kept knocking it into things everywhere she stepped.
Kaiya, the daughter of Pluto, smiled and walked over to her.
"Do you want help with that?" she offered. Sakura shook her head, her soft red hair glistening in the setting sun's beams.
"No thank you, Kaiya-san. I can handle it myself."
Kaiya smiled and shook her head. "Always a lady, that's our Sakura," she said, then turned back to her brother.
"What do you think, Hoshi? Are we getting any closer?"
Hoshi placed his hand on his forehead to shield his eyes, glancing at the path they'd come down and the one ahead of them. Both seem to fade quickly into darkness, and Crystal Palace was still nowhere in sight. The only thing to give them any bearings was a cluster of trees further on ahead, and even those seemed to be fading in the increasing fog.
"I can't tell," he said. "And I'm getting an eerie feeling about this. I can't help but think we're walking into someone's trap."
Sakura's eyes widened and Kaiya glared at her brother.
"Do you have to scare her like that?" she asked. Hoshi shrugged his shoulders.
"I'm only saying what you asked me." He turned to their guardian. "Sailor Vesta?" he asked. But somehow she wasn't responding. "Vesta-san?" he asked again with concern. The asteroid senshi still did not reply, she only stood staring at the ground, hand clutched to her chest. It was then that Kaiya finally figured out what was going on.
"My gosh!" she yelled out. "She can't breathe!" Quickly, the daughter of Pluto ran to her guardian's side, just in time to catch her as she passed out of consciousness. Fear crept into Kaiya's normally strong spirit as she watched Vesta's lips turn from pink to blue. "What's wrong?" she yelled, knowing full well she would get no response. "Vesta, what's wrong with you?!"
"Kaiya, calm down," Hoshi said, kneeling next to her.
"Don't you dare tell me to calm down!" Kaiya snapped. "Vesta could be dying and we're just sitting here!" There were times when she loved her brother for his tranquil demeanor, other times she hated him for it. Now was one of those times.
"Vesta will be fine," Hoshi assured her. "You forget we have a healer in our midst." He motioned over to Sakura, who nodded and walked slowly up to Vesta's weakening body.
"I've only used it in practice," she said quietly, setting her weapon down next to her.
"It's okay," said Hoshi. "It is power innate to the people of Saturn. Even if you had never used it before, you will still succeed." Confident in her friend's words, Sakura nodded and placed her hands over Sailor Vesta.
"Guardian Saturn, lend me your healing wind. I call upon you to give me to power to save those I love." As Sakura spoke, she seemed to go into a trance, and her hands glowed with a soft purple light. As the light touched her face, the blueness began to retreat from Vesta's lips, as oxygen returned to her body. When the light faded, she was breathing normally again, only now it was Sakura who looked as if she would pass out.
"Are you okay?" Kaiya asked worriedly. Sakura smiled.
"Yes, it just drains me, that's all." Keeping one hand on the Silence Glaive, she laid her head on Hoshi's shoulder to rest. "How's Vesta-san?"
"Better," Kaiya admitted. "I think she's waking up."
Vesta was beginning to stir, but before she could open her eyes completely, an eerie laugh filled the air around them.
"What was that?" Kaiya asked. Hoshi looked around them. While the group of them had been tending to Sailor Vesta, no one noticed the fog building increasingly around them.
"Oh no," he whispered.
"Oh no is right!" a woman's voice laughed. Hoshi turned back to his sister and Sailor Vesta, but it was already too late. Vesta's body was vanishing in Kaiya's arms.
"Vesta!" Kaiya screamed. "Vesta, come back to us!" But it was too late; she had already disappeared completely. Kaiya was ready to scream again, but suddenly she felt Hoshi touching her shoulder.
"I think the fog is what caused her to stop breathing in the first place," he explained. "So wherever she is now, she is probably safe."
"Correct on the first guess," the disembodied voice called again. "But not quite right on the second." The fog began to thicken and grow dark. Kaiya grabbed Sakura and held her close in her arms, while Hoshi took the Silence Glaive. The young princess of Saturn was still weakened from using her healing powers, and she fell asleep almost instantly in Kaiya's arms.
"What do we do now?" Kaiya whispered.
"Tell me, young senshi," the voice continued, only now it sounded much more gentler, like an older sibling talking to her younger brother and sister. "What brings you all the way out here, into this wilderness?"
"That's none of your concern," Hoshi began to say, but then Kaiya interrupted him,
"We came here searching for our fathers."
"Ah," the voice seemed to say knowingly. There was a pause of dark silence before she continued, "But tell me, little prince, little princess. Why would you search for something that isn't there?"
"What do you mean?" Kaiya demanded, holding Sakura closer to her.
"Why, I mean of course, that it is futile to search for your fathers out here, or anywhere. They passed away long ago."
At the woman's words, Kaiya felt pain stab at her heart, but Hoshi was not so easily taken in.
"How would you know anything of what happened to our fathers?" he demanded. "Not even Lady Serenity knows that."
"Why my dear child," she replied. "It is only a matter of logic. You've seen the fate that befell your mothers, I'm sure many times." Hoshi tried to push away images of the shrine, of his mother and her fellow planetary guardians, not in physical form, but as fleeting ghosts, thriving only the weakening power of Cosmos to keep them alive. He could not touch her, could not hold her, and even speaking with her was limited to the time Cosmos could stand it before they had to rest again.
"If that is the fate of the Solar Senshi, the strongest senshi in the galaxy, just what makes you think the Knights, known to be weaker than they are, survived at all?"
Hoshi felt himself growing more and more desperate. The painful part was that all she said was true. Why did they have hope? Why did they come out here? If his father were alive, why had he not contacted him as his mother had? Why was there any reason in going on? As Hoshi stood there, the reflection in his eyes began to fade.
"Enough!" Kaiya yelled, holding the Garnet Orb up the dark fog. "I'm not listening to your crap anymore!" Hoshi shook his head to snap himself back to reality. Leave it to his sister to never agree with anything, even doubt.
"Hoshi, hold Sakura for me," she said, placing the little girl into his free arm. After the girl was safe, Kaiya gripped the Garnet Rod as strongly as she could and yelled out, "Pluto Dead Scream!" The orb on her staff immediately glowed with power, sending a shock into the fog around them. The woman's tempting voice quickly became a scream, and before them suddenly appeared her figure, dressed all in black, kneeling down and clutching the wound at her side.
"Not bad," she said, still keeping her cool. "Though why attack me, I don't understand. I was only speaking the truth." She held her hand out to Hoshi, who immediately began to watch her with intent gaze. Apparently his sister had not totally brought him out of this woman's spell.
"No!" Kaiya yelled. "I don't believe anything you say!"
The woman smiled as she straightened up, taking a step towards the young girl. "It is the destiny of the guardian of Pluto to feel loneliness, isn't that right?" the woman asked, moving closer with each word. "Your mother spent nearly all her life, alone at the gate of time. Shouldn't you get used to the idea of solitude rather than attach yourself to these fleeting dreams?"
"I don't... believe you," Kaiya whispered, though her voice hardly backed up her words.
"Your brother has already seen the truth," the woman went on. She motioned back to Hoshi, whose normally bright eyes had become glazed over in a trance, still caught up in the spell the witch had begun to pull him into earlier. And Kaiya feared that her eyes were beginning to look the same. Fear and doubt crept into her, she saw her mother and father dying at the Galaxy Cauldron, leaving her and her brother forever. Why did they bother to fight? Why not just give up now? Kaiya felt the woman's cold hand touch her cheek, and she did not move to resist it. If anything, she welcomed it.
"Join us..." a tempting voice whispered. "Give all this up. Join us."
The last words did it. Kaiya loosened her grip on the Garnet Rod, the sacred
treasure fell with a thud to the ground beside her.