Hi Konekos,

I am Haruka, in case you were not able to determine it at the first moments of our permanent contact. You know, that very cool tomboy whose simple mention can mesmerize many of you. Not that I mind, what's more: I love you and I love that innocent, admiring glitter in your eyes whenever you talk to me. But that's not the reason I put fingers on keyboard. I intend to tell you a story. Not exactly to amazedly listening glances gathered around me; just this once, I don't mind if you laugh at me or similar, for I decided to tell about my only, wild and fuming, maybe a little blind passion on my own will.

Surely, you all know the Daughter of the Seas, that's why her wise smile and her always calm and calming presence probably appeared before you by now. Well, she was the one who cooled down the wish that consumed my entire life, whispering on dreamless, idle nights: it's not over. He is still waiting for you over there. Go after him and your wild romance shall continue.

Michiru was the one to show me that I had to believe: I had come too late for Him.

I'll never, never forgive that. Not to her and not to him.

However, I'm being a little too precipitate. Let us stay at the beginning, in a slightly more peaceful world of my memories.

With a tiny mincing of matters, my life could almost have been called peaceful during the years of Silver Millenium, when I was raised on my home planet Uranus, although spending most of my time running away to the bustling world of Earth. There lived much more interesting people than on any other planet of this Solar System, so it's no wonder that most princesses of our age gathered here in their free hours, longing for gossip, adventures, princes and other valiants of lower ranks. Everyone to their own taste.

Personally, I longed for freedom, nothing else. No, my sweetest dreams weren't filled with beautiful women at that time; I was dazing them with gentle words and playful looks only for the amusement of myself and my close friends who knew my secret. And for the annoyance of my fiercest enemies: the members of The Male Gender.

I won't say I wasn't prepossessed at their judgment, and I won't say I am not. Be it said in my favour, though, that my father and his servants were all unfeeling, rude bastards; they raped the housemaids regularly, and I was only spared because of my royal blood, although I strongly doubt that my father would have done anything against it, had they taken the risk. They chased my mother into death when I was a few years old… but this is another deadly boring story, so I'll skip over it now. Nevertheless, I really don't know what preserved even a drop of tenderness, feeling or cheerful thought in me after her death. Probably the knights of the earthly palace; they astonished me with their velvet clothes and gentle words to the ladies quite much when I first saw them. It surprised me that they fought against each other for the favour of the princesses instead of for money and other goods, and that the victorious one was not the one with the sturdiest giant with the heaviest armour but the most devoted Romeo.

I had to see later that this was not everything. In other parts of life, women were disregarded completely: they weren't allowed to play cards, make decisions, inherit and have weapons. And there was a third part where men compared their strength with swords: this was my world. I couldn't just watch it from the side lines; mainly that's how I ended up wearing men's clothes.

I fell for the role at once. I defeated them, rumours spread about my victories, they looked up to me and treated me almost like a human. What's more, I got the title enemy of everyone. They were afraid of me and tried to defeat me regularly, without success; and I took delight in their anger and enjoyed the feeling of hearing the gossip that they were beaten by me: by the lanky blonde.

The ladies didn't find me lanky, though, when I became invincible on the stage of fencing. And my rivals hated that, and it was only oil to the flames. But I never even had to start flirting to have gossips spread everywhere about my never-existing relationships.

Are you wondering where The Prince, The Knight of Charm Endymion was these days? No…? Of course; sorry if I woke gastric pain and disgust in some of my dearest fans who find him as pathetic as he really seems someday. I don't have a single complaint against you, since mostly you are the part of our fans that remains loyal to my beloved Michiru when it comes to representing my love relations with your own hands. I won't intervene; the main underminer of my misandry probably won't take it to his heart when I don't defend him. Nevertheless, he was the only one among my lining up enemies who, instead of a wild battle cry, wondered my behaviour and entirely feminist principles with wide eyes and nothing more. Sometimes he drove me mad with that, and when I screamed vengeance against him, he responded at most with a short chuckle. At most.

Why, he was an intellectual guy, and so were his four bodyguards, too, although with different temperaments. These times Kunzite endeavoured to beat me and get back his leadership the most often. Until the day when The Man stepped into my story.

And he told me to stop wielding my sword: it was late, he had had a long journey and now he wished to have his rest.

At first, I laughed at him but the audience didn't laugh along: they knew him. I had to take a closer look.

His hair was flaming red, slightly darker around his face, his bangs were mostly aiming for the skies. His eyes had the same colour as he grinned at me with an endlessly firm haughtiness I had seen neither before nor afterwards. Broad chest, waistcoat of buckskin, round nacreous medallion, deep green trousers, black leather boots. And a gigantic ego.

Have you recognized him? He was called Rubeus. He was a God of Misogyny, inside and out. Several people were convinced we ought to walk around hand in hand, some of them suggested locking us up together in a dungeon and the palace will get rid of the two Invincibles by morning. The plan was never realised; no one risked to make either of us angry.

Because he had no match in this whole Universe either. I had the opportunity to experience it there, at our first encounter, when, a little surprised, I wrested the sword from my permanent enemy's hand and challenged the red-hair to a duel.

Rubeus nodded and walked closer.

"Shall I get you a weapon?" I asked lifting my right eyebrow but he flung up his arms.

"No. I wish to pound you to ruins with my bare hands. But only if you don't mind, of course."

"I certainly don't." I shrugged, secretly thinking hard about how to attack him with a sharp blade when he had nothing to defend himself with. "I don't know you enough to be shaken by your death."

He chuckled at my words and waited until I attacked. I knew this method, the method of maximum self-confidence, since I had also used it many times.

He was an impudent creature, dodging my strokes easily and dispensing lightning-fast, long ringing punches. I could kill him with my glare for that. Especially when I faced him, a little dizzy after his umpteenth blow, thinking about further battle-tricks, and he grinned at me, saying: "It's enough. I'll let you go exceptionally, but only because you're a man."

"Oh really?" I asked back, trying desperately to hide the boiling anger inside me. "Who would think that such a tender soul lives within this bastard? Well now, let me show you what behaviour fits a man."

And with these words we were roused to fight again, and we couldn't beat each other, of course, and we couldn't the next day, nor later. No other duels could hold a candle to the hatred of our battles because they held our rivalry and our dislike for each other, his hate for women and my disgust for any male creatures in themselves. It was war we fought against each other in the morning and at night, at the market and in the palace, at festivals and carnivals, every time we met.

He was the complete byword for every single point of my misandry. The skirmishing with him soon became a condition of my existence, like water, like food, like air.

It never occurred to me that maybe he wouldn't stay here forever. I never thought of what would happen when the condition of my existence stopped existing one day.

He hadn't departed yet, only the rumour was spreading about his intention. I laughed with joy when I heard about it, but something deep inside me screamed for fear.

Maybe it also lay with him but our fights became more pitched than ever. I wanted to kill him so that he couldn't go away, because if I let him go, I'd kill others with my rage, since there was no one else who could easily beat off my deadly strokes. But I couldn't kill him, neither in play nor for real, just like he couldn't kill me.

I didn't dare imagine what I would do when I wouldn't have anyone to vent every bit of my fury on, only to have him create new bits with each of his grins, sarcastic looks and high-hat movements.

The day was approaching. I didn't know its exact date but I suspected it. I also suspected it that evening, when we were fighting in a small backyard of the palace; we could do that, since we had the ranks we were allowed to be here with, and the servants wouldn't have been able to stop us fighting even if they had dared.

"Where are you from?" he asked between two breaths when we faced each other for a moment.

"I could ask that, too." I answered evading his fist.

"They say you're a royal child."

"And you're the member of a royal family. So?"

I wasn't happy about his interrogation. I needed my real identity to be revealed the least.

And still I desired nothing more when our lips met above the blade without any former thought. And my wish didn't come true, so I could hate no one but him for that. My blood screamed for revenge, I bit him back… it was sweet, and scorching; I wanted to hurt him, but he stepped back, his look was foggy as he inspected me; he wiped our blood off his mouth with the back of his hand and then he left me there without a word.

I was not myself during the following days. It was made worse by the fact that I couldn't find him on the streets any more, and maybe my stubborn self-deception did that to me but his absence was hurting inside me more with every minute. I had to realize it: he was the One.

I realized it and it required blood, oceans of blood from my more common enemies. Until the day I met the Prince of Earth again while beating off the revolting males. My attackers dispersed immediately and I walked towards him to cut him down in revenge for everything, but he didn't reach for his sword.

"Get off my men." he asked calmly. "If you're annoyed about something, tell it to me first, we might be able to help you. In another case, please continue turning to your most worthy opponent, just to prevent our generation from dying out."

Let the leprosy prevent it, I thought.

"Unfortunately, I have no idea where my most worthy opponent may be hiding lately, my prince." I announced in a polite tone. "But you perform quite well, too; if you find it acceptable I wouldn't mind you taking my rage on yourself."

"Rubeus will take it on when you attack him. I'm sure you'll find him at home. Let me guide you to him, in your sake, too."

"Guide me." I sighed putting my sword in its place while my heart skipped some beats.

I stepped into his residence which was as luxurious as high was his rank. I spent a few minutes wandering around in the rooms until he turned up finally, scaring me out of my senses as he shouted at me from behind, asking about the bloody reason of my visit.

When the horrible moment was over, he examined me carefully as I turned towards him, and then he kissed me or I kissed him, I never knew for sure. He held me like we hadn't met for about a lifetime. But suddenly, I heard the last warning screams of my obscuring mind and my limbs pushed him away from me obediently the moment I realized that I was playing someone I wasn't. I didn't like it but I had to tell him. It felt like this was the dividing moment, the time when I couldn't live at this state any longer. Only a tiny part of my heart was implying: don't throw him away from you, it'll kill you anyway, deceive him until you can…

"We came from the future." he said quietly, devoting most of his attention to the window he turned towards after this small grief moments ago. "My family spent its life on traveling. I met thousands of people but I've never… never met someone like you."

"No." I nodded, meaning the bitterness in my voice mostly for myself while the faint nervousness slowly creeped up from my stomach. He had confessed his feelings for me, now it was my turn. Great.

"Don't leave." I asked; the uttering of these few words was too hard for me to say anything more. Maybe I wasn't able to hide my emotions from it because his gaze turned towards me again; his eyes seemed to glow in the stripe of sunshine emerging through the window as he bent closer to me.

This was my only gentle kiss from him, in a careful way that makes your blood boil; I could break things just by thinking of it every time I remember. I reached after its taste eagerly, I felt his bangs between my fingers, but I went too far again so I stepped back, and gathering the remaining pieces of my common sense, I stammered him my secret, a belated, embarrassed introduction, accompanied by some explanation.

He didn't get it for a few minutes but I understood. After the astonished silence died down, he stepped towards me and reached for my shirt. He was even scandalized when his wrist left its former way in a wide curve because of my waking self-respect.

I wondered the change in his look and voice while I was fending off his further tries. A fight started between us, but not the usual battle because it was something else now, something much more horrible.

He was literally chasing me and I was trying to escape, realizing that my sword was not his old opponent any more, and especially not a worthy one. I didn't have the courage to find out if it lay with him or me or maybe with both of us but I didn't have time for that either, he was too fast and more furious than ever before. He filled the spaces between the "Get out!"s with words that were coarse and not at all true, and exactly that's why I couldn't understand why each of them burned inside me with excruciating pains. I remember nothing of what I shouted back, only the throbbing of blood in my head and the pain in my throat.

Getting out of there, I rushed straight home, although I seemed to remember having cut down a few fault-finders on my way, but throwing myself onto my bed I immediately lost all my energies. I spent the night laying on my back and sobbing, while swearing ninety-seven times: never again, to no male, with no male, for no male.

I have never thought about it so far, but on this noble occasion, I appoint this particular night the foulest one of my entire life. There are some other terrible hours rivalling it, for example when my fate seemed to promise the death of Usagi, the nice little girl with the purest heart; when I was running for Michiru the Talisman-keeper's sake; when I sent Pluto to death without batting an eyelid and watched Neptune slowly fade away without her Star Seed because I invented the anything-but-marvellous plan to pretend being on Galaxia's side. But I guess the darkness of my thoughts couldn't be compared to those that visited me during this particular night.

So, I was utterly happy about the approaching dawn when huge row, shouting and crowd on the streets woke me from my half-awake nightmares. Some minutes after I staggered outside, I got to fight new faces: demons and bastards and everything you – or at least I – could have imagined. Kunzite was leading them; when he caught a sight of me he laughed and challenged me. Why, I would have cut down his hair gladly but my fighter's spirit implied the way to the palace, so I followed it instead.

I found Endymion there; he was fighting at the head of a handful of soldiers wilder and faster than at any duel I fought with him. The thought that he had probably been holding back in the more playful battlefield made me furious; so I watched with slight malicious glee as he shook his head as he encountered his favourite general Jadeite, unable to believe the sight. I helped the prince drive him and his monsters temporarily out of the palace. But there were still two more generals somewhere so we had to hurry.

He didn't know what exactly happened either but he wasn't even interested: his most urgent desire was to get to the Moon in a heartbeat. Queen Selene called him and the princesses of the other eight planets to send them to the more peaceful future as protectors of her daughter. It's nice to know that I also have to go, I thought but didn't tell him. It seemed we were going to meet there later anyway.

I told him I wouldn't take over the leadership of his army for the sake of one of his girlfriends, but that didn't really matter, in five minutes, he was nowhere to be seen. Men – they always remember sorting out their affairs in the worst moments. By that time, I was already getting lost in the countless empty rooms of Rubeus, and one thing kept on repeating in my mind, at first as a mere dying whisper, then quietly, then louder, crying, howling, screaming: he's gone.

He couldn't be too far away, though; not only because he hadn't had much time since our noisy parting but also because I hadn't gotten the chance whisper into his ear at the moment of repelling my sword for the last time: I hate you.

The palace was invaded by monsters in the meantime, his home as well, so I couldn't stay any longer; I left to search for him. After an endless row of battles, I staggered out to the open air exhausted and covered with blood. Those were almost immortal demons: if they were killed by sword, they got up again and laughed at the astonished soldiers around them. Some earthly people had magical powers; they were hunting them down with unremitting zeal.

Rubeus was also one of them. I could see it when a monster, covered in armour up to its ears, appeared in front of me, and then it collapsed and crumbled in its own blood.

My arm was grasped and I was dragged out of the war centre. I jogged obediently into the direction of pulling but soon I had to stop in a monster-less field to examine the huge floating something that mostly reminded of a black crystal at the moment of exploding.

"Come." he said turning to me. I watched his ruby eyes; there was that change from yesterday in it, there it was never ceasing. There was also pain, confusion, fear of the answer and… love perhaps…?

I touched the black moon glittering on his forehead and I didn't need a sixth sense to know it was no good. I didn't care, my heart was pulling towards him, into anything where he was there, so that I could carry on fighting against him.

But I couldn't go with him. Queen Selene called me, I had a duty.

It moved me to tears that he accepted it; this was about the first human manifestation of him in my life.

He kissed me, I know he did it this time because I was too busy holding back my tears. He hid his face into my shoulder for a moment… I clung on his neck a little sobbing, I didn't want to let him go but soon he was gone; he was gone…

I'll find you, he said turning back halfway towards his vehicle; we'll meet in the future. I hoped from the bottom of my heart that he was right, if we had to face each other as enemies, so be it: that wouldn't hold me back from throwing myself into his arms laughing and crying at the same time.

Maybe that's why Fate chose this way for me; that the senshi can't awake in me while he is here, and our passion can't interfere in the Great Battle. Maybe it was really better so… It would surely have been much worse if I had to watch as the dark energy slowly gets over his soul. Maybe it would have been more terrible if I had to watch as my protected princess sends him to death… Maybe that's why Fate chose this way for me.

So be it; although I will never be able to accept it with all my heart, I'll do my best.

Nevertheless, that was my story for today.

Its moral? Well, there isn't any. I am not a wise old man who distributes morals and lessons about how to live your lives. I have no say in what concerns only yourselves, nor has anyone else, don't forget that. There, I'm already playing the philosopher. This must be a premonitory sign of climax. After all, I and all of my fellow senshi are approaching forty with lightning-speed, only to have our growing up children, the guardians of Chibiusa take our place at protecting the Universe.

We also obtained a tiny tot with Michiru during the 20th century. From an orphanage, to let there be no mistake about it. The red-haired little girl was gazing at the world with huge dark green eyes, with some kind of a hidden sadness in her smile. Her face was the reflection of Michiru's as she bent down to speak to her and it is reflecting her these days too. Her waist-long wavy hair, although not really green, is also an addition to that.

Nikko grew out of her childhood loneliness into a wonderful, slender girl, and in spite of her resemblance to Michiru, their personality stands in contrast with each other like reflection with its source. She is the best and fiercest senshi among us all, and sometimes it is quite hard to persuade her to let Sailor Moon's love win the battle without shedding blood.

At times I seem to recognize myself in her but it's better not reach her ears. We torment her with enough heart-to-heart conversations anyway.

However, my story really ends here. I wonder if I have changed in your eyes. Does a guy have a place in the life of your favourite womanizer tomboy Haruka? Make him place. He is making every corner of my heart ache. Except for that one corner where there will always be you, enthusiast lovers of our adventures. I'd like you not to forget us when you'll try to talk your own children out of their latest childish mania, with which they lose friends and gain new ones, became dreamy and, finally, school won't be the only meaning of their life.

Keep the child in yourselves until you can, for it will be the only thing you'll feel pure.

With lots of love,

Haruka