FINALLY! You have NO idea how long it took me to find the damn disk this was on.
Anyway....
Moh Fai: Here's the LOOOONG overdue Update. An' about Xen an' 'Taru...that'll have to wait until later.
Mew Aqua Spirit: Thank You!
Taeniaea: Thank you, too!
kydedrakes: A book, huh? PM me the title. I'd like to read it. And the Balance is something I kinda came up with but it's mentioned both the manga and the Anime, usually in passing and by the Outers. The Balance is basically Yin and Yang, good and bad. I usually relate it to Hotaru's element, the Element of Silence, because it is made up of a balance of Cosmic and Chaotic energies. Understand? I f not, PM me. I'll go into deeper explanation.
Oh, how her head was ringing. Whatever Janus had done to her, it had given Hotaru one hell of a headache. It was official-once she got her hands on him, she was going…oh, ow…shouldn't've moved her head that fast. And her right eye was burning. What did he do to her?
"Well, at least now the rumors of having a red eye are confirmed as truth…" Hotaru groaned, pushing herself off her side. "…now all I have to do is confirm what it can do and the others will love me to pieces…ow…how my head hurts…if this is how a hangover feels, I'm never getting drunk on my 18th birthday…"
Hotaru looked down at the ground and saw nothing but darkness beneath her. As her eyes focused on the darkness, it suddenly flew up like billions of shadow birds. She shielded her face with her arms as the shadows sped passed her. Their wings or edges or whatever cut her skin and clothes-even strands of her hair.
"…Stop…Stop!" Hotaru pulsed her power outward in a sphere of translucent amethyst light. The shadows were pushed away and ribbons made of that same light wound around her arms, legs and torso. Her Sailor fuku appeared in her nightgown's place when the ribbons shattered and disappeared.
The shadows had stopped flying and now left a wide circular birth around her as she looked at her gloved hands. It was her mother's…no, it was her Eternal fuku. She was Eternal Sailor Saturn-the original Eternal Sailor Saturn. She curled her gloved hands and looked up at the sky. There was no stars, no moon and no lights in the sky but Hotaru-er, Sailor Saturn could still see. She looked down and saw what looked like red glowing glass. She knelt and brushed the shadows aside to see a white patch of what looked like a sleeve.
Sailor Saturn stood and summoned the-her Silence Glaive. She twirled it, throwing it into the air with one hand. When it came back down, she caught it and hit the butt of her weapon against the glass. The energy she pulsed into the glass floor blew the shadows into the darkness above her head. The Glaive disappeared in a swirl of amethyst ribbons and Saturn saw the likeness of a boy in red, white, black and a few other colors. He had big feet and brown spiky hair. He was holding a giant key like a sword and his eyes were closed.
Saturn knelt and touched the key and felt a burning zing shoot up her arm. "Ow-damn!" She stood and looked at her hand. The glove had burned where she had touched the glass. And the skin underneath was shiny from actually being burned. "It didn't burn me before. Why did it burn me now?" Something gleamed in the light, getting Saturn's attention. It was the key Janus gave her but it looked like the key sword the boy had in his hand. "I wonder how it changed…and how did it appear over my fuku like this?"
That was when her fuku dispersed into ribbons, her damaged nightgown falling around her ankles. The key hit her belly from the ribbons unraveling and Hotaru looked around desperately, feeling a chill in the air. She was bare foot and the glass's energy sent a weird tingling up her legs. A surge raced up her leg, moving beneath her footing and throwing her back on her butt.
"Ow…I'm going to be so stiff after this." Hotaru grumbled. She looked at her ripped skirt and tore it up to her thighs. "If what Janus told me is true, then I'm not only the Senshi of Destruction but of Rebirth, of Creation as well so I should be able to make a pair of slippers and a hair ribbon out of the skirt of my night gown." She clutched the fabric she had torn from her nightgown and closed her eyes. She consentrated and soon her power deposited 2 black slip ons and a long purple hair ribbon into her lap. When she opened her eyes, Hotaru saw what she had done. "Wow…I actually did it. Okay, so put shoes on and pull my hair up out of my face into a semi ponytail…there much better but now I have to fix my nightgown…"
Her power turned her nightgown into a spring dress with bell flower sleeves and bell flower knee length skirt. The key glinted in the glass's light. She even had a purple ribbon around her neck like a choker. She smoothed down the front of her dress and looked around, her Eternal earrings brushing her jaw as she turned.
"I have to get out of here but…but where am I?" Hotaru sighed trying to look around, trying to see passed the window she stood on.
"You're where we all end up, eventually, one day." A voice said behind her. Hotaru wheeled around and saw a man in a black cloak and gloves. She couldn't see his face but she knew that he was the speaker.
"A-and where is this, exactly?" She asked looking at him.
"They call it a Dive into the Heart. You're supposed to face your inner darkness here but you don't have any." He replied, slowly coming towards her. "Why is that?"
Hotaru thought back to what Janus had told her a long time ago. "Janus once told me that I had made peace with what I was, what I had been when my power was in constant struggle with itself."
"But you fear the darkness. I saw the way you reacted when the shadows began to lift. I saw the way they reacted to you, coming towards you instead of away."
Oh, yeah… "I'm afraid of Who it represents rather than it itself."
That made him pause. "Who it represents?"
"Chaos…He's the Dark Powers That Be." Hotaru answered softly, in a low, near mumble. And yet she heard an adult man with a handsome voice smile. She turned around, paling slightly. Crap, He was listening, watching her. That wasn't good. She had pledged her life to Cosmos, to the Light. But He was listening and that meant that He was watching her with nearly undivided attention. The very thought made her shiver.
The cloaked male looked at Hotaru, wondering what the hell was wrong with her. She was the weirdest being he had ever run into. What was really odd was the type of power he sensed from her. It was a mix of light and darkness but neither seemed to have a limit. That itself was unusual. What kind of person could wield power without a limit?
"You're an enigma." He stated plainly, getting Hotaru to turn around to look at him. "How can you exist and yet be nonexistent?"
"Honestly?" He nodded. "I have no idea what you're talking about but I must get out of here. I have a job that I have to do."
"A job? What kind of 'job'?" He inquired, getting suspicious. Hotaru opened her mouth then closed it again. That was actually a very good question. What kind of job had she been sent here to do?
The cloaked male suddenly turned as if he had heard something. "Shit. They're here." He looked at Hotaru then grabbed her wrist. "Come on, I have to get you out of this place before they know you're here."
"How do you expect to do that? I don't even know how I got here." Hotaru replied, feeling a familiar tingle go straight up her arm. He threw his hand to the side and a shadowy portal instantly came to life with a blue-ish light churning inside its core. "What is that?"
"Your ticket out of here."
The young man released her wrist and pushed her into the portal. Hotaru stumbled backwards and fell into the darkness. As the portal closed, Hotaru saw the cloaked male open a second portal for himself in time for more portals to open and letting more cloaked figures on to the large stain glassed window.
Now, all Hotaru could do was fall through the darkness that seemed to press up all around her.
Now, I wonder who THAT could be.....