She always was luminous by starlight.

I think of her often. My princess, my senshi, my lover, my beloved. She is the other half of my soul. She haunts my dreams, both day and night.

I missed her in my last lifetime. The timing was off, a fortunate thing for her. I died before I saw her and I thank the stars for that. She was too young and innocent, not even come into her own power yet, and I'd have broken her then, without a qualm, or at least corrupted her.

A senshi's soul shines, brighter than other souls, but that brilliance will always call out to those whose spirits are dark. They cannot stand the brilliance, illuminating their sins, so they have to try to destroy it somehow. Her light would have drawn me then…it always did before, brilliant as the brightest stars in the heavens. Perhaps fate knew better, saving her from the likes of the me I was before by making sure our paths could not cross.

A smaller, less brilliant, but steady light in her image helped me to find my humanity again before I passed.

I suppose I should introduce myself. In my last two abortive lifetimes I have been known as Nephrite, so I suppose, for lack of anything better, I will stick with that. After all, names are given when you're born, and at least in this most recent life, I wasn't born. I just was…am…and I am still not sure why except that she asked it of me.

I was dead. I was used to it. But I'm not dead anymore.

I don't understand why I have my memories of my last two lifetimes either. Almost everyone is born and dies and is reborn, but memories are expunged in the process, allowing a soul to move on, unhindered by past baggage. Perhaps then, I have kept them because the powers that be feel that it is important that I remember. But I don't know, because the universe is sometimes frighteningly vague that way.

I'm used to that too. Such is the astrologer's way of life.

Or was. The stars used to talk to me, sing to me, whisper their secrets. The stars know everything. I could read in the cosmos glimpses of pathways that had yet to be taken. They were my guides in the uncertain places. But since my resurrection they have not spoken to me. Not once. I can still see their light, feel their resonance, hear their songs, but the meaning is barred from me. I can't tell you how alone that makes me feel.

Perhaps it is part of my penance for my past misdeeds. Or perhaps they just feel that this time I need to do this on my own. My former comrades, who always complained that I was vague and never gave a straight answer to a question, would be highly amused at this turn of events. Especially Jadeite. He always was impatient with what he called my, "obscure crap."

In any case, I was dead. One of my own friends, former friends, killed me in a move to secure power. It didn't surprise me then, and I understand it now. Such things were par for the course in the Dark Kingdom. It was kill or be killed, tooth and claw, devil take the hindermost all the time. It made it easier for Beryl to keep us all in line. If you can't trust your compatriots, you won't plot with them against her.

Beryl was the Earth Magus who unleashed the power of the demon Metallia upon the world, not once but twice. The first time she used it to warp and twist me and my friends, Endymion's Shitennou, the Four Heavenly Kings. In her jealousy over the Moon Princess having secured the Earth Prince's love, she set in motion the chain of events that would destroy one of the brightest lights that this arm of the cosmos has ever seen.

We Shitennou were abducted and tortured, then exposed to Metallia her…itself. How to describe Metallia? Foul. Perverse. Evil. All of the above and much, much more. We were broken, from the honorable men we had been, and reworked in accordance with Beryl's wishes, twisted and rotten. She made us, then used us as her weapon. Without mercy or regrets we attacked an innocent kingdom, murdered and destroyed. We even attacked and slaughtered those we loved best, our prince and our sweethearts…and took pleasure in the doing.

They fought back against us, of course, and they were strong. But they were hindered by the hope that we might, with enough time, recover ourselves. They didn't want to hurt us. We were under no such constraints. We saw only the enemy through Beryl's eyes.

It now makes me physically nauseous to think how I tormented her. My lady. She was beautiful and kind and loved me with all her heart. Under Metallia's influence, those things, the things I loved her for, burned me. Her light called attention to my gathering darkness, so I had to destroy it and with it, her.

She defended herself ably, but I was stronger. Reluctant to lash out with her most lethal powers, I had the upper hand and I knew it. For my own amusement I played with her, my cat to her mouse. And then that night that the Silver Millennium fell, I murdered her, reveling in the scarlet haze of blood and smoke. Like blowing out a candle, and with no more remorse.

Not that I got away unscathed, however. That was the first time I remember dying. With Juno's last agonizing breath she heroically attempted to do two things, carry out her sworn duty to protect her princess and to free me from Metallia. They both came to the same thing. She killed me, her elemental power given life in the form of a dragon of storm, searing the flesh from my bones and setting my spirit free in a blaze of her light. It was swift and merciful, far kinder than her own death had been. It was done with love.

I could feel her spirit kiss mine as she passed, winging her way to the next life. If mine had been able, it would have wept in gratitude. I knew what it had cost her. She always was stronger than I.

That was the first time I fully remember.

Death and rebirth and death and rebirth again. It's a carousel of lives with no way to get off the ride, even if you wanted to. However, I cannot curse it, for it gave her and my prince and those I had wronged the chance to live again. Even one whose soul is as sin laden as mine is granted second chances.

After the Dark Kingdom and my ignominious death I remained in the spirit realm, watching a world that I was no longer a part of. Beryl had claimed that my soul would always be hers, no matter how many lifetimes found me and my brethren reborn. I no longer believe this…she always was a queen of lies. But I believed it then and stayed as far as possible from that bright light that called me to a new life. I was not worthy of it.

While I watched and waited, Jupiter's power awakened in Kino Makoto. The force of it drew me like a lodestone. Her power is intense, passionate and tempestuous always. She was never aware of it, but I hovered as near her as I could, unseen. Not that I was the guardian angel that is spoken of, but I merely basked in her light and nearness, finding what small comfort I could in the mere fact that, in spite of me and my damned brothers, she lived.

It is said that hell is the absence of hope. I had no hope then and resigned myself to enduring my existence, whatever it was, in this state of limbo, not alive nor yet exactly fully dead, and without the chance to touch her again. It was hell, but one I had fully earned.

It was from this point that I saw her grow and mature…and die. I watched her and her friends, filled with a determination that outstripped their years, march off to battle Beryl and my spirit wanted to gnaw fingernails I no longer possessed for I knew far better than they the price that they would likely pay. My fears were justified. She was the first to die, trying to save an innocent…but being snared by an illusion. Still, she wouldn't have had it any other way than going out fighting. Even as her spirit ebbed away, she, without exactly phrasing it so, demanded the others continue the fight so that her sacrifice would not be in vain. Her last words were to hearten her beloved princess. Then the light in her eyes was extinguished again.

For an eternal moment I saw her spirit again, whole and proud and blazing with light, and sometimes I fancy she saw me, but I cannot swear to it. I dared not approach. My fears were paralyzing. Those who think death grants wisdom or understanding are wrong…it is for this reason that restless spirits walk. They seek the knowledge that eluded them in life and in death.

Without warning the world exploded again with the power of the ginzuishou and a child's wish for those she loved, and she was gone again while I remained. The light beckoned again, but again I remained.

She and her friends continued their battle. It was always something, always someone. They never shirked. My admiration for her grew, for I was able to see facets of her that I had never witnessed before. Her sweetness and compassion in counterpoint to her strength; her whimsical side; the tears she cried when no one else could see and the determination to soldier on through them; her desire to mother those around her, even her plants; and her stubborn insistence on going her own way, no matter the cost, to remain true to herself and her conscience. She was well named in this lifetime, for she is nothing if not sincere in everything she does.

Which sparks a vague fragment of memory. A sense of intense frustration that's to do with her. I have, wispy and insubstantial, the image of her eternally emerald eyes laughing at me and her proffering a flower. For some reason I can only think of Echo, but for some reason I also know that's not right. She was Verity.

The illusory memory is bitter and incomplete, not even half formed, and I let it fall away. I don't want to know if I wronged her in another life I can't even fully remember. For I can no longer be paralyzed by guilt if I am to be of any use to her or my prince.

I saw her fall in love time and again and wondered that the idiot males who now populated the Earth could not recognize her for the goddess she was, is and ever will be. Even I, who sometimes seem eternally pitted against her, wasn't THAT blind. Only one ever seemed to truly see her, a boy with golden brown hair and soft eyes. The boy with the umbrella. His love was different from what she so often sought, familial perhaps, or fraternal. But it was also sustaining. If I ever meet him, I will thank him for supporting and sheltering her when I could not.

She is on the carousel of lives also, for she died once more and I could only watch it happen. She and her sisters, for that is truly what the senshi are to one another, hurled themselves into the line of fire, taking an attack meant for others. She always did what she could to shield the innocents.

I remember being infuriated to the point of irrationality that she was dead again, her precious star seed stolen. Had I hands to grasp with, I would have throttled her princess on the spot. And in the midst of my rage I felt a light touch me. An incorporeal hand took mine and I felt the spark of an angel. A tender yet wry non-voice rocked me with just two words.

I chose.

She always had chosen. And she would choose to fight and die a thousand times if it would save a single innocent life. Some guardian angels are warriors and she is one of them. With that simple understanding my rage evaporated as if it had never been.

She held me and completed me until she was called away again. My essence screamed out for her as she slipped my ghostly grasp and entered the light to rejoin her princess, to assume her duty. And I heard her laughter echoing back to me in a moment that was terrifyingly familiar for reasons I do not recall.

Then I heard her voice once more, soothing and guiding me.

Embrace the light.

I could no longer resist the pull and let myself be pulled into the warm radiance of eternity. Still, I balked. I did not want to part with her spirit and I heard her again as I fought my tiny rebellion at the last.

Trust me.

I will...

I awoke on the cold, hard, dew-soaked ground before dawn and had I not already been lying down, would have fallen down at the shock of having a physical being again. I had been resurrected.

My first thought was to seek the stars, but they held no answers for me. I could not even find meaning in their questions. Death itself was less scary than being reborn into this life alone, but I refused to despair. I would not break my unspoken promise to her. If my fellow Shitennou have been reborn, I do not know of it. Yet I soon heard whispers of her, despite being half a world away from her. For the senshi are nothing if not eternal.

No photos of Jupiter's senshi exist. If anyone else knows her true identity, they will not speak of it. Yet I know she exists. I even have a tiny painting, an unknown artist's rendering of a goddess of storm. Whoever the artist was, he or she was amazingly talented. For the artist caught a bit of her essence, if not her exact figure. She is pale and radiant, glowing luminous against darkness. I have carried the portrait with me over my heart for the last seven years as a talisman of sorts through my travels. It speaks to me as my friends, the stars, no longer will.

She is twenty-three now.

I pray I will see her this time.

For the past seven years I have struggled to make a new life for myself. I have trained and studied, reshaping weak flesh, muscle, bone, mind and soul into that which may be of some small service to my prince, whom I know also exists. For several months ago word finally traveled to the tiny, remote monastery where I have spent the last five years. A new order has come to pass and brought with it the birth of new city of purest crystal built on the sight of old Elysion. It was the sign for which I had waited.

My brave prince is now a king. His gentle princess is now a queen. And her senshi, as ever, protect, eternally vigilant. My sweet, strong Jupiter is with them.

The path was clear. What remained for me to do was complete my tasks for the monastery, bid my goodbyes, and then begin my journey to face them to receive judgment. I trust in Endymion to decide what my fate shall be. I will not expect mercy, but rather, simple justice. I do not know if he will even see me, but I must trust, as she asked me to. And if I am lucky, whatever my fate, I will see her again and be able to tell her that I do love her.

She fights always for love and strength. Perhaps she will fight for me…for us.

I've shouldered my rucksack and I'll risk one last glance at the night sky before I start this final journey homeward. For if the stars will not grant me guidance or absolution, they may grant me hope.

Perhaps in this lifetime, General…