Disclaimer: This is a work of Fanfiction. SailorMoon is copyrighted to Takeuchi Naoko, Koudansha, TV Asahi, Toei Douga and various other subsidaries. Although the Authors hold no claim to SailorMoon itself, all attempts to plagerise the following story will result in mysterious and painful consequences.

The following chapter is brought to you by JadedAngel (chuckplickens shaw.ca)

The jam was not, by London's standards, particularly bad. It was not even much different from the more familiar Tokyo traffic conditions. Which was why it must have been something else that made the strange little foreign girl jump off her cab and take off into the alleyways, reemerging a moment later as Sailor V and charging to the front of the hold-up.

Except, this was Sailor V, whose actions, it is often safe to assume, were based off nothing more important than the casual whims of a fourteen-year-old. Today, as she picked up the broken-down automobile waiting for a tow truck and deposited it unceremoniously on the sidewalk, it was because she did not want to miss the special TV report on the mysterious (and beautiful) vigilante, herself.

Watching this tragic waste of power from a nearby rooftop, Mitsukai Hiketsu could only remind himself despairingly that Sailor V had done some good in her time in London. She had defeated a great evil which plotted to enslave the city and eventually the world – defeated it with his help, mind you, but that was irrelevant - it was what, after all, what he was here for. Her victory seemed to have left her somewhat cocky, however. In the month following the death of the head of the 'Dark Corporation', V had been transforming and using her senshi powers for increasingly unnecessary threats - from minor criminals to people being rude to each other on the street.

Traffic began to move again, and Sailor V ducked back into the alleys, no doubt to transform back into Aino Minako and return to her cab and pretend nothing had happened. The sad thing was, people would be fooled by this flimsy charade. They always were. Some aspect of the senshi power allowed them to remain anonymous even when their identity was blindingly obvious. It was Hiketsu's resistance to this power, amongst many other factors, that had landed him his present job as Minako's caretaker.

For over a year now he had followed her and reported her actions to his superiors in the Silver Path, and only twice had he been forced to intervene – the first time in her first few weeks as a senshi, when she had gotten too close to a youma and been injured, and the second time quite recently, when she had fought the commander of the dark forces in this city. Officially, he was not to reveal himself to Minako, and indeed, she did not know him personally – the name Mitsukai Hiketsu meant nothing to her. Hades no Kishi - the Knight of Hades, a mysterious figure in dark armor and swathed in a black cloak – him, she knew. He had been forgiven by the Path for intervening directly because he had maintained his own and perhaps more importantly the organizations' anonymity.

Caught up in reconsidering the events of the past year, Hiketsu almost did not notice the man sneaking up behind him until it was too late. As it was, he turned just in time to avoid being tackled, an action that would surely have knocked him off the building and to the street below. Caught, the man behind him grinned disarmingly and bowed.

"Hello, Hiketsu. How are you?" He tried to say. His English was not excellent.

Hiketsu nodded at the man. "Tenoroshi. To what do I owe the dubious pleasure of your presence today?"

Kino Tenoroshi walked up to the edge of the roof, leaning over so far that Hiketsu felt sure he would overbalance and fall from the weight of his unnaturally stiff, spiked red hair. Straightening up again, he promptly changed the subject. "Did I miss the action?"

"Yes. There was not much to see, anyway. Why are you here?" Hiketsu was always nervy around Kino Tenoroshi, as was anyone who had known the man for more then a few minutes.

"Is that herself in the cab? The blonde girl with the bow?" Tenoroshi grinned. "Wow, she's a pretty one! You lucky dog..."

"Yes, I consider myself quite lucky to be in a position where I must continuously watch a lovely young girl and never speak to her or interact with her directly in any way." Hiketsu's voice dripped sarcasm, which of course Tenoroshi just ignored as usual. "Why are you here, Zeus?"

"Oh, just playing messenger, here." Tenoroshi reached into his jacket and placed a thick piece of vellum in Hiketsu's hands. "Do you have a nice apartment here... I mean, I'll probably have to redecorate, but…"

Hiketsu chose to ignore this latest stream of nonsense and instead read the message. It was brief and very official looking. "From the old man himself..." Hiketsu murmured to himself as he read the elaborate script Hideto chose to write in, a somewhat simplified version of the ancient written language found on Silver Empire ruins. The message was clear – Hiketsu was being recalled. His task in London was over – and here was Tenoroshi talking about his apartment.

"Oh, no..." Hiketsu looked at Tenoroshi in horror.

"Oh, yes!" Tenoroshi responded, gleefully. "I am to take over your duties here. Well, half of them."

"Half of them?" Hiketsu was flabbergasted. Tenoroshi was powerful, no one could deny that, and if tasked to protect Aino Minako that is what he would do. From anything. Including strong winds and insects.

"Yes. If Minako should find herself in trouble, the incredibly dashing and potent knight of Zeus will come to her rescue. The rather boring task of actually observing her day to day activities..." Despite decrying that part of the mission as boring, the red haired man seemed more then a little wistful. "... will be handled by regular agents. Your work is done here, Hiketsu." Tenoroshi patted Hiketsu's arm, in a gesture meant to be comforting and which worked out to be merely patronizing.

"Look, Tenoroshi, I'm being reassigned, not exiled..."

"Whatever you say, Hiketsu! In any case, it took me rather longer then I had thought it would to find you, so you'd best get a move on. I'll hold down the fort here!" Tenoroshi began to wander off.

"Uhh... how much longer?" Hiketsu had a sinking feeling.

"Oh, three or four hours more. In fact they're probably wondering where you are back at the big double N. Better hurry, young knight!"

Hiketsu sighed, stammered, began to say something, and then gave up in the face of Tenoroshi's maniacal grin. Heading to the edge of the roof, he leapt smoothly to the next one, ran across it, and leapt again, heading towards the nearest Gate out of London.


"Wow, she's a pretty one! You lucky dog..."
"Yes, I consider myself quite lucky..."

-- Kino Tenoroshi & Mitsukai Hiketsu, above

SailorMoon RR: Ganbatte! Okkake no Michi wa Kibishii!
Hang in There! The Way of a Star-Chaser is Tough!

Teetering stacks of dusty folders covered the desk, and still more papers were piled on the floor beside it. Jonathon Atkins adjusted his glasses, opening what felt like the millionth plain brown folder today (it was in fact only the one-thousand eleventh). Another page of blank expense reports, reviewed and signed for by a "Q. Zite". For over three weeks, he had been looking over the extensive records of the so called 'Darke Corporation', looking for signs of their greater plans. Some interesting facts had emerged, but not much considering the sheer volume of records he had been through – and he was not even half done.

Jonathon looked up from the page as his partner entered the room – unlike Jonathon, who was small of build, pale and bespectacled, his partner was tall and muscular, and in possession of a grin that could melt any girl's heart. And some men, Jon reflected, himself included.

"Hey, Jon! Find anything else?" Anton Galouse had a camera around his neck – he had been photographing some of the anomalies discovered by the duo in their investigation.

"No, unfortunately..." Jonathon stood and embraced Anton tightly for a moment.

The pair was very different – Jon was an orphan raised by the house of Mercury, Anton was the firstborn son of the head of the house of Venus. Still, they had been, with Hades, the first knights to be appointed – Hermes and Aphrodite, respectively. Unlike Hades, who had nearly always worked alone on assignments, the pair had worked together more often then not over the years – Jon's intelligence proving an excellent supplement to Anton's charm and strength.

What had begun as a working relationship years ago had blossomed over time into something much more intimate. The Silver Path was mildly approving of this – it just increased their loyalty to each other after all. Their latest assignment began after Hades had sent in a report detailing that the apparent mastermind of the attacks on London's populace over the last year had been killed by Sailor V (and Hades himself, though Hiketsu had wisely downplayed that in the report) and that the cover this being had operated behind on Earth - the Darke Corporation - was ripe for investigation.

Anton smiled. "Oh well, hopefully what I found will cheer you up..."

"What have you found?"

Anton activated his camera, and scrolled through the images stored in its memory, eventually reaching the one he was seeking. "See for yourself... seem familiar, at all?"

Jon looked at the small screen. It displayed a somewhat darkened image of a concrete wall with strange symbols embossed in it. It did indeed look familiar. "Gods... a Gate!" He exclaimed.

"Indeed." Anton seemed pleased with himself. He had originally tried helping Jon at searching through the folders, but he just did not have that type of brainpower. Therefore he had taken to sweeping the building, top to bottom. Very near the bottom, in the underground parking, he had finally found something remarkable.

"A Gate to where, though...?" Jon muttered to himself, scratching the back of his head, a nervous habit he was completely unaware of, and one that Anton found adorable.

"No idea." Anton shrugged. "I couldn't get it to activate. It seems to require some sort of negative energy to open it."

"Yes, yes, of course." Jonathon was deep in thought. "We could get someone from House Saturn out here and..."

"Open it, then charge screaming into the enemy's lair, determined to achieve glory? Victory or death?" Anton chuckled. "I think not. We should just keep an eye on it, I should think. Until we know what we're dealing with. Have you heard, by the way?"

Jonathon was blushing. Of course, it would be foolish to open the gate at this time. They had no real idea what was on the other side of it. "Heard what?"

"There have been more attacks." Anton was privy, through his father, to somewhat more of the path's intelligence then his lover.

"What, here? I didn't see anything in Hades' reports except notes that V was getting a little carried away."

"No, in Tokyo." Anton folded his arms behind his back, remembering the details. "Two demons so far. One was detected just as it finished its business, and got away. The other was destroyed by one of them."

"A senshi!?" Jonathon was taken aback.

"Yes. A Sailor Mercury, to be exact." Anton grinned. He had been saving up that detail, knowing it would get a reaction.

"Mercury..!" Jon did not disappoint Anton at all. He clenched his fists and sat down heavily on the edge of the desk, nearly knocking a pile of paper onto the floor in the process. "So..."

Anton sat down beside Jon, took his hand. "Indeed – our counterparts have both appeared. Strange, nes pas? That mine and yours should appear first."

"Fate." Jon shrugged uncertainly. "It's so difficult in our business to figure out what meanings to apply to things, sometimes."

"Indeed. And mine is a relentless attention whore, and yours is by all reports a rather reluctant but competent girl. How like us! Oh well, c'est la viv."

Jon chuckled at the pun. He had once watched a news report from Japan, where they had pronounced 'Sailor V' more or less the same as the old French saying. "Is there any other news then, Anton?"

"Yes, some. Zeus is in town..."

"That maniac? Why..!?"

"To relieve Hades, who is being reassigned to guard Sailor Mercury in Japan."

"A strange choice…"

"Perhaps they are just tired of him back at base. At any rate, there shouldn't be much call for rescue here, now, with Quartzite dead..."

"True."

Anton patted Jonathon gently on the back, then got off the desk. "I'm going to go call in a team to get readings on that gate. I'll leave you to your work."

"Yes, I suppose I should get back to it." Jon sighed, and got back behind the desk. Another folder was opened. More financial records.

Anton moved to leave the room, opening the door. Before he left, he turned back towards Jonathon at the desk. "Jon – things are progressing. It looks like life will be very interesting soon."

"That is good to know." Jon nodded. "I'll see you tonight."

"Yes, tonight." Anton closed the door behind him, leaving Jonathon in the silence and dust once more.
The alley was dark, and stank more then a little – a narrow corridor between two towering buildings, the walls rising high on either side, the street lights a soft glow coming from either end. Walking a dozen or so meters into the alley and carefully sidestepping a sleeping cat, Mitsukai Hiketsu let his vision fade, unfocusing his eyes, watching the alleys trash, brick and concrete blur together into a gray-red fog. With material blurred and lost, the immaterial became apparent – a pale violet light shining only a few paces ahead of him from the wall of one of the buildings, low to the concrete ground.

Letting his eyes focus once more, Hiketsu walked to the source of the light and knelt to get a better look. He smiled, slightly – he needn't have bothered with second-sight. Carved into one of the building's foundation blocks there was a dedication, stating the year of its construction. Above the text was an elaborate sigil, quite familiar to Hiketsu – a crescent moon with eight astronomical symbols arranged around it. His goal had been clearly marked, which was fortunate as this would be the first time that Hiketsu had ever used this particular pathway. Raising his left hand arm, he shifted his fingers into the gesture of power and, with his right index finger, traced the lines of the sigil, feeling the rough concrete beneath his finger.

The first pass of Hiketsu's finger over the embossed lines brought the magical light the sigil emitted into the realm of normal vision. The second brought a change in texture, the feeling of concrete giving away to smooth, glassy coolness. The light intensified as Hiketsu moved his finger across the intricate lines a third and final time - the violet light filled his vision for a moment, and then all was darkness…

The alley cat, which had been woken by Hiketsu's passing and had been preparing to pounce on the hem of his long coat, hissed as the man dissolved into flickering motes of light. After a disappointing attempt to catch one of the fading motes, the cat wandered over to a nearby dumpster in an attempt to find something else to hold his attention.
To most it was a cult, a group of like-minded crazies who had gathered together. Known either as 'The Silver Path' or 'Illiac Argentum' (much the same meaning in Latin), the core of the group's belief was they were descendants of some ancient race of aliens from the other worlds in the solar system. In the modern world, this belief was not particularly extreme or unusual – many groups believed far wilder things. Few knew, however, just how old the Silver Path was – and even fewer knew that their seemingly insane beliefs were absolutely true – the Path's membership was made up entirely of the incredibly distant descendants of the few survivors of the disaster that had ended the ancient culture they venerate and the reincarnations of people who had lived all that time ago.

The goals of the Silver Path are nothing short of the reestablishment of the Silver Empire, the ancient and mystical civilization that had ruled the solar system tens of thousands of years ago, before the last ice age. To that end, they emulated many aspects of the Silver Empire's culture – their leaders chosen via an autocratic matriarchy, for example, and much of the education of their young given over to eldritch rites of magic that would baffle even the most dedicated so called 'occultist' from the outside world.

In very recent times, the Path's priority had shifted to guarding and ensuring the survival of the would-be rulers of their perfect society, the reincarnated princesses of the nine planets.
The darkness brightened, and Hiketsu felt rather uncomfortable for a moment, rather like he was falling very fast and being dragged upward violently at the same time. As his vision cleared, he gagged slightly and stumbled forward, away from the stone wall behind him, where a ghostly glowing twin of the sigil in the alley was fading slowly into the blue veined gray surface of the rock. Traveling through the mystical pathways always left him a little unsettled; no matter how many times he did it- lately he had been required to do it a lot, ever since the recent complications had started.

Someone touched his arm, softly. Steadying himself, Hiketsu turned to his right. Green eyes regarded him calmly and coldly behind a pair of elegant, old-fashioned wire-frame spectacles. A slight build rendered shapelessly androgyn beneath thick grey robes, black hair almost completely hidden by the hood. Oniyanagi Fuugetsu, the grey lady.

Hiketsu bowed respectively. "Oniyanagi-sensei."

She nodded in response. "Mitsukai-san. You are late."

She marched off across the huge chamber of arrivals - remarkably fast. Hiketsu had to almost run to keep up. "Gomen nasai, sensei." He sighed. "Tenoroshi-kun took his time in relaying the details of the message."

She kept walking. "Ah, hai. He can be a difficult one."

The pair walked out a tall archway and onto a street of sorts. A large, domed hall, the building they had just exited, was behind them. Variously sized buildings, displaying all the levels of ruin possible, lined the street. They moved uphill, the grey lady leading, Hiketsu remaining a respectful three paces behind her. People walked by them, clad in robes of various colours, decorated in all manner of baroque and eldritch styles. Hiketsu felt quite out of place in his own outfit, a pale cream trench-coat worn over a red shirt and black slacks. He had gotten quite used to wearing so called 'normal clothes' in the last few years, but while growing up, he had been dressed much like those around him.

A bell somewhere tolled out the hour – midnight. Without the bell, Hiketsu would never been able to guess, as the streets and buildings around him were laid out on the floor of a massive cavern, its ceiling lost in darkness overhead, and it was always lit brightly by innumerable mystical orbs hovering fifty meters or so above the cavern floor. The grey lady and Hiketsu were nearing the peak of the hill, and Hiketsu caught sight of the tall, slender towers that rose majestically from each corner of their destination – the palace at the center of the underground city Novus Nectarus – the headquarters of the Silver Path, the secretive group which laboured to keep the memory of the ancient Silver Empire alive.

The pair reached the front gate of the palace. The grey lady nodded at Hiketsu. "I leave you here. Hideto-sama awaits you urgently." That said, she walked off and was lost in the crowd. Hiketsu walked up the marble steps and through the gate, the guards nodding at him as he passed, and he moved through the familiar internal corridors towards the office of the Silver Path supreme leader.
Hideto's office was set into the base of one of the palace's towers, and had no proper ceiling. Instead the tower rose up above it, rows of windows looking out on Novus Nectarus, accessible via a slender spiral staircase made of silvery metal. The floor of the office was cluttered with various strange artifacts – suits of armor in glass cases, scrolls framed and hung on the walls, a collection of strange weapons, including several swords and a strange glaive with a stylized blade. Near one wall was a massive obsidian desk, it surface littered with crystals of various colours and shapes. Behind the desk in a huge frame was a tattered cloth banner, the sigil used by the silver path prominent in silver thread on the midnight blue cloth, a motto written in the elegant, eldritch script of the Silver Empire beneath it.

Hiketsu had once questioned the grey lady as to the significance of the torn and frayed banner and its place of honour in their leader's office. She had explained that it had been carried by a unit of the Moon's elite silver knights during the final battle of the Silver Millennium... meaning it was over twenty-thousand years old. Hiketsu had often wondered how the path had managed to acquire it.

Sitting behind the desk, framed by the ancient banner, was a very old man. His skin was unbelievably wrinkled seemed to hang loosely on his slender frame. His long, thin hair was silver – literally silver, not gray or white, it shone metallically in the light that filtered through the windows from the cavern outside. As Hiketsu approached the desk, the ancient, withered face cracked into a smile, wrinkling still further. "Ah, Hiketsu-kun." Despite his frail appearance, Hideto's voice was strong.

Hiketsu knelt before the desk, lowering his eyes. "My lord."

Hideto gestured for Hiketsu to stand, which he did. The old man stood himself. "Walk with me, Hiketsu-kun."

Dutifully, Hiketsu followed the old man as he walked up the spiral stairs, heading up the tower. Hiketsu was quite often amazed at Hideto's energy – he hadn't the slightest idea how old the man actually was, but his breathing did not even grow more laboured as he climbed the steep steps. As they climbed, Hideto spoke. "Our seers predict great turmoil ahead."

"I sense it also, my lord. It does not take a seer to do so."

"You refer to the first senshi?"

"Hai."

"Her behavior is an aberration on the plan, admittedly. Venus was always a wild one." Hideto chuckled softly, as if remembering something amusing.

Hiketsu as always wondered just how much his master knew. "I will take your word for that, lord."

"Of course you will. We will continue to keep tabs on 'Sailor V' and make sure she does not get into any trouble she cannot get out of. However, this is not the turmoil I was referring to."

"Oh?"

"The second senshi has awoken, and the enemy will be bringing its full strength to bear upon her. Sailor V cannot be trusted to provide help to her at this time."

Hiketsu wondered what Hideto was getting at. For the past year and more, he had been tasked with keeping tabs on Sailor V, and had watched, despairingly, as her behavior became more and more erratic. She only rarely managed to target a real agent of their enemy, and more often focused her aggression on more mundane criminals. She had also been accepting payment for her actions. Hiketsu had long ago begun to wonder whether the girl Aino Minako was suitable for the powers she had developed...

"Other servants of the Silver Path will take over your duties with the first senshi. We are predicting the appearance of at least three new senshi in as many months – one has already been reported. Your new duty will be to observe them and keep tabs on their actions, and report all you see to us."

The pair reached the top of the tower, a small chamber with windows on all sides. Hideto stood and gazed out across Novus Nectarus. Hiketsu stood beside him. "Hai, my lord. I will do as you command."

"Excellent. The first senshi's mortal name is Mizuno Ami. She is a resident of the Juuban district of Tokyo. Begin your new task immediately, and bring honour to the path, Hiketsu-kun."

"Hai, my lord. Thank you, my lord." Hiketsu bowed low.

"You are dismissed. Get some rest, and take a Gate to Tokyo tomorrow." Hideto gazed out over the city, his eyes far away. From above, Novus Nectarus was beautiful, even with the many buildings that had yet to be restored. The buildings were constructed according to no existing architectural style, and yet seemed to contain the best elements of them all. Gothic arches, beautifully carved columns, soaring minarets and shining onion domes – all put together smoothly and beautifully. A beauty since long lost to the world, slowly being recovered by the Silver Path.

Hiketsu bowed again, and walked back down the stairs, leaving the commander gazing over his city, his thoughts a mystery.
The surface of the roof was stained dark by the heavy rain. Two figures faced off on the slippery concrete – one, a young girl wearing what appeared to be a Japanese school uniform, altered to be slightly more revealing and a red ballroom mask. The other was a tall man his hair so blonde as to be almost white, with a long cruel face and wearing a deep purple uniform of some kind, complete with jeweled shoulder-guards and a red half-cloak. After many months of cat and mouse, Sailor V was confronting the leader of her enemies at last – Quartzite, the head of the Darke Corporation.

V had a couple of bruises from attacks Quartzite had unleashed upon her, and Quartzite's once pristine uniform was burnt in several places from her attacks. V had been fighting Quartzite's minions for a long time, and had finally narrowed down the source of the attacks on the citizens of London to the Darke Corporation. She had raided their headquarters, destroying many youma in the process, and finally cornered their leader on the rooftop of the building where the corporation had its offices.

Quartzite charged Sailor V, sickly violet flame enveloping his fists as he attempted to strike her. V dodged, and launched a beam of brilliant golden light at his back, burning yet another hole in his uniform. Turning swiftly, he caught V with a backhand blow across the midsection, the violet flame painfully cold against her exposed back, the water soaking her uniform freezing at its touch. She gasped in pain, and dropped down, attempting to sweep the man off his feet, but he leapt back to the other side of the roof. The fight had been going on like this for what seemed like forever (it had in fact been just under half an hour), the pair exchanging meaningless blows, then parting to prepare their next attack.

V was beginning to tire, but she concentrated hard on not letting it show. Quartzite himself was breathing heavily. Perhaps it was her fatigue, but for whatever reason, V did not notice the man's hand slide inside his uniform jacket as he charged her again. He attempted to hit her with his free hand, and received a kick to his hips in exchange. Then… things went bad.

The pain was excruciating, and Sailor V cried out. Looking to her shoulder, she saw a splinter of dark grey stone was embedded in it, penetrating her flesh, a slow trickle of bright red blood flowing from the wound. Quartzite had stabbed her with the crystal, which he had evidently been concealing in his uniform this whole time. Even as she tried to jump away from the man, she felt her strength leave her as the crystal sapped her strength, a dull ache settling over her body, her knees buckling.

Smiling triumphantly, Quartzite watched his crystal do its work, watched Sailor V fall to her knees. Her clothes began to blur, slightly, as even the power which allowed her maintain her status as Sailor V was drained. Reaching out, he grasped the girl's throat and squeezed, tightly, lifting her up off the rooftop. He spoke the first words he had spoken since the fight begun, his voice deep and as cold as the violet flame that was his preferred attack. "You long ago ceased to amuse, Sailor V. Surely you didn't think I was as weak as my servants."

V choked, attempted to speak, but couldn't. Quartzite squeezed harder, felt the girl's throat buckle beneath his hand. "Now, foolish one, you will pay the price for your malfeasance." Raising his free hand, Quartzite prepared to deal the killing blow… but was interrupted as, at that moment on the far side of the roof all hell broke loose.

The raised structure that marked the only entrance and exit from the roof of the building warped, the concrete flowing like gelatin into strange new shapes. A sphere of shimmering, deep black energy engulfed it… as the sphere faded, the concrete crumbled, unable to maintain stability in the new shapes it found itself in, disintegrating into clouds of dust as the staircase inside collapsed with a tremendous rending sound.

Quartzite stared at this strange phenomenon, aghast.

Stared a moment too long.

The attack happened so fast, Quartzite didn't even feel pain. A blurred, dark shape rushed by him and Sailor V dropped to the damp concrete of the rooftop, gasping. Quartzite's hand still grasped her throat, but the grip had weakened, the fingers twitching only slightly. It took V only slightly more time then Quartzite to realize what had happened – the offending arm had been severed neatly at the elbow.

Quartzite howled in rage, clutching the stump of his arm, and turned to face the new assailant. He took in dark, segmented metal armor over a deep grey padded costume. A long black cloak that reached almost to the heel of booted feet. A pale, expressionless face framed by long, dark green hair, the upper half hidden behind an elaborate black mask in a style vaguely similar to Sailor V's own. A pair of cold crimson eyes and, most notably (to Quartzite anyway), a bloodstained, curved sword.

Quartzite released a tremendous burst of violet flame at this interloper, which the cloaked man dodged. Behind Quartzite, V had managed to pull the crystal from her shoulder, and felt her strength returning. Some would say Sailor V was scatterbrained, perhaps even vapid. Still, she wasn't so foolish as to waste this opportunity. Channeling as much of her power as she could manage, her own fear and anger at the man who had nearly killed her fueling the attack, she unleashed it at Quartzite's back, an incredibly bright column of golden energy that knocked the man almost all the way across the roof where he impacted hard against the edge, the beam piercing his uniform, his flesh, emerging out the other side.

Quartzite stood, shakily, the eyes of V and her dark-cloaked savior both on him. A horrific wound gaped in his midsection, a hole blasted all the way through his torso, the flesh charred at its edge. Unlike the stump of his severed arm, the wound in his stomach did not bleed – but unlike the arm, it was clearly fatal. Gasping, he climbed up onto the edge of the roof and said, as loudly as he could in his horrendously injured state. "Such fools."

With that said, he jumped, and fell.

Both Sailor V and the black-cloaked man walked to the edge of the roof and looked down. V quickly looked away. Quartzite had fallen all the way down, and he was extremely dead.

The black cloaked man put his hand on Sailor V's uninjured shoulder, leaning down to examine the injured one carefully. "Are you hurt?"

"Not badly." V breathed. "The wound isn't deep… it'll probably leave a scar, though. I guess I'll never be perfect again." She smiled at the black cloaked man. He did not smile back. "Hades... you came for me again. Thank you."

The black cloaked man the Knight of Hades, bowed. "It is what I am for, princess." A simple answer, yet filled with meaning, and only deepening the mystery for Sailor V.

Impulsively, V reached out and attempted to snatch Hades' mask off his face. His hand rose swiftly, gripping her wrist and stopping her. Smoothly, she leaned in and kissed him hard, on the lips...

Hiketsu awoke with a start. Looking around, he saw that he was in his rather Spartan quarters in the palace of Novus Nectarus. It had been a long time since he had slept there. He had dreamt about Sailor V again, about the second time he had been forced to intervene on her behalf. Rising from the narrow bed, he found his clothes – laundered, he noted, and neatly folded. Being the chosen champion of the nobility did have its advantages – and dressed.

Outside, he heard the city clock chime six o clock – that meant it was already mid-afternoon in Tokyo. Hustling through the labyrinthine corridors of the palace and out onto the streets, stopping only to buy a pastry and a cup of tea from a street vendor, he hurried to the Gate nexus, ready to start his new assignment.