Rei was at dinner when the vision hit her. She was sitting across from one of Endymion's guards, a dashing young blonde man with blue eyes and a dazzling smile. The Queen was at a meeting, having sent her apologies, the Prince on one side of the table, guards seated along each side by rank. Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Uranus, Neptune. Endymion, Kunzite, Nephrite, Jadeite, Zoicite.

They were discussing the Saturnian Revolution when Rei suddenly gasped and pitched forward, holding her head. Jadeite, across from her, started to reach forward, but Mercury warded off his hand with her own and a sharp shake of the head. Venus promptly poured Mars' goblet full of wine and held it ready. The slender, dark haired girl went limp, dropping her hands, and stirred, breathing heavily. Venus took the girl's shaking hands and wrapped them around the cup of wine.
Mars took a deep dreg from the cup and gasped, then took another. The other girls stood by, calmly waiting for her to speak.
"Tournament," Mars finally got out, painfully. Her breathing was irregular and harsh. "Someone died."
"Ours?" Venus asked, and Mars shook her head helplessly.
"Too much fog. I couldn't tell."
"Who should go?" Uranus asked, she and Neptune moving over to them.
The men watched in bemused curiosity as Mars closed her eyes and sighed, forehead wrinkling in concentration. "Inners only."
Uranus scowled. "And I was looking for a good fight." She cracked her knuckles and grinned at Neptune, who only shook her head complaisantly.
"Then lets get ready, girls," Venus went into leader-mode, grabbing a roll and ripping a bite out of it with her strong white teeth, striding out of the room with a call over her shoulder for the other three to see her in the training room after dinner.
Jupiter groaned and dropped her fork as the door swung shut behind their leader. "Whirlwind Venus is back again."
The men looked decidedly confused, and Nephrite finally posed the question. "'Whirlwind?'"
Mercury nodded sagely. "She gets like this before every tournament. We understand the importance of it, but Venus goes a little . . . over the top . . . in preparation."
"What is the 'tournament' about?" Endymion asked. Since Serenity was still locked to her rooms, he had nothing better to do than listen to their conversation.
"Every now and then we have an attempted invasion," Mars brooded into her wine. "We've arranged with the Andromeda Galaxy leaders that any planet under them trying to take the Moon will participate in a tournament – their best against ours. No one's managed to beat us yet." She smiled and pushed her chair back. "Time to train, ladies?"
Mercury grimaced delicately and Jupiter suddenly became very ardent about the dessert they were bringing out, sitting down again.
Mars tapped her foot and Mercury sighed in acquiescence. She stood with Mars behind Jupiter, who put down the pastry she had been prattling about with a sick look. Turning her head, she glanced up at the pair and muttered, "I hate you."
"Excuse us, gentlemen," Mercury curtseyed, "and ladies." The other two gave their goodbyes and they walked out.

Jupiter tried to smother a jaw-popping yawn, then glanced at Mercury who was leaning against the punching bag, half asleep. "Venus," she whined sleepily. "Can't we go to bed now?"

Venus sighed and glanced at the three of them. Mercury, half dead against the punching bag, Jupiter kneeling sleepily on the floor, and Mars who had just sunk down to lay on the cold mats. They had on sweat pants and tank tops, sweat covering them in a fine glowing sheen, hair limp and dirty.
"All right, go to bed," she relented. "Be here after breakfast tomorrow."
Jupiter roused Mercury and helped her up, muttering, "I think I'll be sick tomorrow."
"I heard that," Venus called, unamused, from where she was hefting a limp Mars. "Take Mercury to her room, will you?"
"Sure," Jupiter yawned again, lugging her delicate friend along out of the room.
Venus followed with Mars and they got the two sleepy girls into their rooms. Venus bid Jupiter a pleasant goodnight, then went back to the training room – she still had to blow out all the lights, and she had left some things in the room.
She strode in and stopped. Kunzite was sitting on one of the benches, fiddling with something red. When he saw her, he stood and bowed slightly, trying to hide the object behind him.
Her bow. It must have fallen out during training, and she had been too tired to notice it.
"What are you doing up so late, General?" she asked as he came carefully forward.
"I thought you had gone to bed," he said, eyes sliding around the room as if he expected the other Senshi to pop up at any moment.
"I'm about to," she replied softly, glancing around. "I had to take care of the lights."
There was a moment of silence in which they both stood awkwardly.
"Minako," he moved forward, bringing one hand up to touch her face, but accidentally dropped her bow at the same time. Both of them looked down at it and Kunzite turned beet red. "I, um, was going to give it back . . ." he explained clumsily as she picked it up.
Venus looked up at him, bow in her hands, and smiled. Suddenly she wasn't a warrior or a guard of the Silver Millenium – she was a woman, standing next to a very nervous, very charming man. She handed him the bow. "Keep it. I have plenty of them."
He looked at her in alarm. "Oh, no, I wasn't – I mean, I didn't –"
Minako laughed and threw her arms around his neck. "You're cute," she murmured before sighing and going limp with exhaustion. Kunzite caught her sleeping form, blinking at her sudden collapse, and cradled her to him.
"Goodnight, Minako," he murmured, kissing her on the nose and taking her back to her room. As he shut her room door behind himself a few minutes later, his smile was cut off by a pair of very annoyed dark blue eyes and a head of short, ruffled blonde hair.
"I hope you have good reason to be in the Senshi Hall," Uranus demanded, arms folded, "because I was having a very good dream." He noted that Neptune was also there, standing behind her taller partner in a modest teal terrycloth robe.
"I was taking Venus to her room," he explained, baffled at their sudden appearance. "She fell asleep. How–?"
"An alarm goes off in our rooms if someone goes through who isn't supposed to. You're lucky we're the only ones you passed – the others are so tired, they would have killed you." Uranus gave him an odd side glance. "You like Minako?" she asked.
His shoulders straightened and he bristled a bit at her antagonism, but nodded.
That seemed to calm her a little and Neptune touched her shoulder.
"Told you," the aqua-haired woman said, turning to go. "Go on back to bed, Haruka."
The blonde woman only grunted and complied.
Kunzite shook his head on the way back to the guest rooms. These people were grumpy if you woke them up.