IMPORTANT NOTES – PLEASE READ!
Hi there! Thank you, so deeply, for your patience—I know it has been some time since the last update, but as mentioned, I never abandon stories. This is to be the penultimate chapter of this story, with a final long-form chapter coming next, and a short epilogue to follow. I appreciate your support, love and patience! 3
Firstly, I would highly recommend re-reading the previous 1-2 chapters, given the gap since the previous update.
Also, I am using 'Koujo' as the surname for Seiya's mother's family (Kakyuu, etc.), which may not be correct (I believe in Japanese this, and 'oujo', means Imperial Princess), but for the sake of the story and not knowing of any other surnames for Kakyuu, I have chosen to keep this.
Also also, there are two Carl Sagan quotes amongst this chapter (one of which I have had lined up since I first planned this story)…if you can pick them, comment below and 100 points to your HP house.
PRONOUNS
It is super important to me to address this—they/them (or other!) pronouns have NOT been deliberately ignored from this story; in fact, this will be addressed on a character-specific basis toward the end of the fic. Selection of a pronoun for anyoneis a personal, individual choice, not one to be made by the character who's POV is being followed at that point in time (e.g. if through Usagi's POV she decided for Seiya that his/her pronouns are they/them in her mind, this doesn't work). I am excited for this to be explored on purposetoward the end of the story, to be celebrated by the characters & readers alike. As a queer woman, this is very important to me
And then finally…I just love me some dramatic fantasy scenes, written explosively and evocatively, for the purpose of recreating an anime feel. Hope you enjoy ;)
As always, make sure to check out the important notes from the Prologue if you haven't already. Enjoy!
Music rec –
Take On Me (cover) by Hidden Citizens
Cosmic Love by Florence & the Machine – THE SONG THAT INSPIRED THIS WHOLE STORY…I heard this song for the first time and could see the story in my head, and that's where it was born!
Chapter Twenty-Nine
She would never forget what it was like to watch her soulmate, the true love of her long life, be tortured and torn apart, all over again.
All over again.
She would never forget, and she would never forgive herself.
Usagi felt the shock and twist of time ripple through her—she felt her newly found power being ripped from her body; her mortality returning as her feet reconnected with dusty rock and the dread of war filled her lungs.
In a heartbeat, they were back on that battlefield, tucked against the rock.
In a heartbeat, she was watching Seiya throw his arms open to the eclipsed star above them and beckon Chaos to take him on.
Him.
She had assumed that going back in time to the battle on the Kinmokian desert would be the very same—like a perfect recording—but she had been wrong.
Perhaps time didn't always play out the same after all.
How many things have I been wrong about?
How many lies have we been told?
Those precious moments after her body had been wrenched across Space-Time left her reality feeling sluggish; as if in slow motion. She watched as the senshi and Kinmokian warriors darted past her, gleaming bronze in their armour, concealing themselves against the edge of the valley, unaware that they had done this all before. In those slow moments before time caught up with her once more, she watched Rini breathe heavy and lace her fingers with Hotaru's. She watched Haruka ready her sword and lock eyes with Michiru. She watched Yaten glue herself to Minako's side. She watched Taiki and Ami share an unspoken plan, and Makoto brush her fingers at Ami's side.
Usagi lifted her head to watch Seiya as he crossed the desert, the tiniest remnants of his sapphire power crackling across his skin as he lingered at the edge of death. A glorious warrior that was unafraid of his end, if it meant peace for their universe.
She took those precious moments, as time sped back up, and committed them all to memory, just as they were.
Senshi.
"You know what you have to do," she heard from alongside her—Setsuna, masked from the others by the veil of her power. "You cannot interfere."
"Usagi, get down!"
Makoto tugged her down, the stutter of time leaving her winded. She ground her teeth as her body ached to run, but instead she pulled herself up to peer out to Seiya.
She could almost hear herself from before; like a memory that didn't truly exist. I have to go, Haruka…
The wisp of Setsuna's cloak glittered out of the corner of her eye. "You cannot interfere, Usagi."
This was a mistake—I have to go to him—
She squeezed her eyes closed, fighting the urge. Yes, she thought, reopening her eyes and training them on Seiya. It was a mistake—and that's why I'm here, now.
"Come on, then!" Seiya baited, just as he had before. "This is what you wanted isn't it?!"
Usagi's blood felt thick, thudding in her ears, blocking out the others around her. This was torture, knowing in exquisite detail what was to come.
I have to stop it…
"You cannot, Usagi," Setsuna repeated.
"Come on!" Seiya cried, a laugh in his voice. "Or are you afraid?"
All over again, she felt Seiya's pain from the blow Chaos dealt.
Paralysing, agonising pain.
I will save you, I promise, she cast out to him. I promise.
She could feel the energy of the warriors around her, taut and angry in the air. She could hear them, but it was muffled through the in-between world she lingered in, with calm, soft Chronos at her side.
"Please, Usagi," Setsuna murmured, "trust me. There is more to come before you do your part."
Seiya fell to his knees, the onyx blade jutting through his back and his chest blossoming crimson. She could hear his haggard breaths; the hiss of pain as Chaos jerked the crystal from his abdomen; the fighting words between them.
She could feel his anger, and his determination.
"Small Lady," she heard suddenly; Haruka's voice alongside her. "Breathe."
She tore her eyes from Seiya to look to Rini—her face pale, red eyes wild, shaking. Through her thickened, noisy reality, Usagi froze as she watched her future daughter, something indescribable bubbling within her.
"There is more to come, Usagi."
The arid land around them darkened and quaked as the ruby ring circling Proxima faded, Seiya's energy dwindling with it. She willed her limbs to move, but her focus was torn from her daughter back to the sapphire flicker of Seiya's Starseed as Chaos knelt before him and opened out his hand to gift it back to him—a stunning, spiked jewel in his palm, moments before its destruction.
"But…we must destroy to create."
Instantly, the thump of Chaos' energy colliding with Seiya's shattered through her, all over again.
I'm so sorry, Seiya.
Chaos' haunting, shadowed form—that beautiful, terrifying face—shot through him, and Seiya fought, even harder than he had last time. She watchedas inky black coursed under his aoi skin; as he shook and grunted in pain; she listened as he begged her to let him try; to stay back.
Setsuna drew nearer. "There is more to come, Usagi," she whispered again, "trust time."
She could feel her body flinch with the actions she had taken last time: when she had leapt forward, splintering the rock with crystal as rage and power overcame her. She could feel herself falling apart, desperate to get to him. To make it stop.
But this time, it wasn't her that leapt out onto the battlefield.
It was Rini.
"Seiya!"
Riniwrenched herself from Haruka's grasp with a grunt and launched her weakened body from their trenches, sprinting out onto the battlefield.
She didn't look back, as she paced ahead, fast and then faster.
She didn't look back, even when she heard Usagi scream her name.
Suddenly she was dodging and ducking every attempt on her life, every monster that wished to destroyher, and suddenly—so suddenly—she knew what she had to do.
You're supposed to be here, Rini.
She tore the cracked, blackened brooch from her chest and gripped it hard in the palm of her hand, as she watched Seiya's life disappear from him. She didn't have an incantation, but she had a gut feeling, a sharp heart, and a song in her throat.
I am supposed to be here.
She held it to the crimson sky, letting out a cry of desperation; of anger; of strength. She held it to the Kinmokian sky, and suddenly, Rini knew exactly who she was.
We must destroy to create.
As the pain ripped through his every nerve, as he descended through the hellish spectrum of feeling everything to feeling nothing, Seiya's mind threw him the precious threads of a memory.
He remembered his pama, holding out his Star Yell and placing it into the palm of his hand. He remembered closing his fingers tight around the golden wings; feeling the warmth of his mother's proud smile. The magnetic link between his cousins as they stood alongside him in front of their Queendom, accepting their role as warriors.
As protectors.
He remembered transforming, feeling her fuku fuse with her skin for the first time. He remembered theutter strength and power that was bestowed upon him in that moment—but not just magical power, no: the power of knowing he would give anything for his duty to his home; his family; his universe.
He remembered the ritual of their mothers choosing their senshi names. He remembered his mother cupping his cheek, tears in her blood red eyes.
"Fighter," she had told him, and as Chaos' poisonous energy ruptured through him, he felt her there with him, beyond the memory—giving him life. "You are Fighter, my Seiya."
He would be true to his name.
He would not let his home be torn apart—not again.
He would not lose those he loved—not again.
He would fight.
He braced himself on the rock, fingers curled into the bloody dirt beneath him, the unbearable burn of Chaos' power flooding his body. The screams of Chaos' disturbed mind, his memories, clawing to take over.
Images of a swirling rainbow pool with a crystal precipice at its lip; of a bleak, cold corner of the universe; of a beautiful, twisted guardian, obscured from his view, flickered through his mind.
You are weak, aoi one.
You will break, aoi one.
He refused.
He growled as the vile energy bubbled under his skin like acid; he jerked and resisted as the urge to surrender tortured him. He slammed his fist into the earth, breaking it open. It rumbled beneath him, and as his vision skewed and blurred, he could see the remaining auburn light of his star eclipsing to blackness.
You and your world will burn out.
You are weak.
The pressure and rattle inside his mind was unrelenting; unbearable; maddening. Holding him at the edge of insanity and agony but withholding the mercy of death. Black ropes of power surged down his arms, itching to control him, and the jagged Starseed hovering in his palm started to shudder and crack.
I'm so sorry, Seiya.
Odango's beautiful voice injected oxygen into his choked lungs and hope through his entire being, and for a moment—a split second —he felt peace.
And then the Starseed in his fingertips shattered to sapphire dust.
Weak.
His home crashed into darkness.
"I am not," he seethed, in a voice not entirely his own; speaking the words he had heard from Usagi time and time again. "I am not!"
The tremor that rocked Kinmoku lurched the planet on its axis, but Seiya fought past Chaos' hold and thumped a second, scarred fist to the ground and somehow—somehow—commanded it stabilise. "I am not weak," he uttered, "and you will not take my home and those I love from me."
He cried out as Chaos' hold twisted and crunched his spine—as it sent him cold.
I will take what is mine.
His throat burned as he suffocated, lungs fiery and heart thundering. There was something with him, still—the remnants of his aoi power, lingering in spite of his Starseed's destruction and Chaos' possession. He had been so sure he could do this; so sure he could let Chaos in so he could decimate him using the power he wielded.
Kakyuu's voice suddenly rang out to him—distant like an echoed memory; like a secret.
You were never destined to defeat him, she whispered, you were destined to bring forth the one who can.
"Seiya!"
Rini's cry broke him from the depths of Chaos' hold and he watched as her glow of vivid pink leapt across the desert with a growl of fury. Instantly, the dark forms dove for her—their jerking, violent energy dealing her blow after blow as she evaded and deflected every shot.
Her body blazed as she ran for him.
"Rini!"
Coppery armour glinted amongst the darkness as his fellow warriors chased out after the young girl, illuminating the battlefield in a kaleidoscope of colour, but Rini was faster. She slid and skidded beneath her enemy; missing their attack by mere inches; moving expertly, like she had done it all before. Seiya felt himself slump, felt himself go numb, and as Rini's ruby red eyes met his across the warzone, he gave her a smile—this was his end. This was his chance.
I am supposed to be here, he heard—Rini's voice, and his rapid descent into death slowed all around him as he watched her thrust her onyx brooch to the sky and change his world forever.
It began with vivid pink.
The pink of his mother's hair; the pink of Proxima's rays when rain came.
Pink that burst from Rini's Starseed in her chest and ignited her entire being from the inside out; lighting up every nerve, every pathway; zooming around her in a protective, electric sphere. Changing her, as her true, dormant power came to life before his eyes.
She walks with fatherless children that are hers alone, he could hear, and then suddenly, as though it had been softly implied but never spoken:
But Usagi chooses her destiny—she chooses those with whom she shares her blood.
The magenta energy curled up Rini's limbs and he watched her let go as he had: head tipped back, arms open, floating, dancing with power, as she surrendered to her transformation.
Her evolution.
Fuku spun around her humanoid, translucent body—gracing her arms, her torso, her hips and her legs in deep black and brilliant pink. Long boots and gloves, a pleated skirt, a gold and white set of wings at her heart's centre and feathered clips in her hair. A tiara accented with a tiny, eight-pointed star.
And finally, a worn white ribbon threaded through each odango bun—the very same that looped around his own hair.
Suddenly it all made sense.
Suddenly he had something else to succeed and live for.
My blood.
My daughter.
A being of his own blood, with his mothers' Koujo red gaze and pink hair and his pama's spunk. With his own almond eyes and wicked humour.
With Odango's soul.
My daughter.
As Rini's feet touched back down on Kinmokian land a brilliant protective sphere exploded from her form; a lattice of pink that eliminated every enemy near her. When her gaze met Seiya's—her expression a fusion of pride and relief and shock and home—he felt it in his soul.
This is not your end, Seiya.
She launched for him, crashing to her knees against him and jolting his body back; the energy of her embrace bleeding into him like a fuchsia lifeline.
"Seiya," she cried, her forehead rested against his, "pama…"
"Hey, kid," he managed, "this explains a lot…"
She let out a choked laugh, through tears and the cobalt glitter of his Starseed as it floated all around them. "You can't go, you hear me?" She started, bargaining with him. "Y-you can't, because if you go, I go too…"
He couldn't promise her that. "That's not true, Rini," he whispered, and clasped her hand between them. "I may be your pama, but you and I both know you don't need me to exist."
She shook her head, angry; devastated. "I don't care," she hissed through a sob. "I want you here with me—with us…"
The dome barricade around them Rini had conjured started to shrink and flicker, and beyond the barrier flashes of armour and power fought on. He could feel her energy weakening and his life fading. He touched her cheek, speaking the words that had been stowed away in secret inside him: "I knew you were my daughter."
Our daughter.
He felt Usagi's sheer joy before he heard it.
He looked out across the battlefield, to the trenches where she lingered, still and glowing and untouched.
Yes, Odango, our daughter.
Her wild, shining eyes were locked on them, and they were resolute.
Suddenly Seiya could once again hear the strange echo of Kakyuu's voice, telling him, you were never destined to defeat him…you were destined to bring forth the one who can.
Usagi is the one who can.
And he wouldn't let Rini become a casualty in their path.
"Rini," he said, squeezing her hand as their pink and blue energies zapped between them. He hated that his next words were a half-truth—but he had to get her out of harm's way. "I have to do this—you have to let me go…"
She stared down his arms, across his torso, where Chaos' black venom marbled his skin. She inclined her chin stubbornly. "I'm not going anywhere."
The final shimmer of her barrier surrounding them faded to nothing, and Seiya felt her energy dissipate from where it had been humming in his veins. In a heartbeat, Chaos' energy flooded back into his system, scorching through him.
I will take what is mine.
He refused.
From the corner of his darkening vision, the glint of a silver blade caught his eye, slicing through the black figures that neared without the dome that had protected them. He heard the roar of her battle cry as she fought, and as she appeared through the black haze, Seiya caught Haruka's eye and knew, instantly and without question, that she would help him protect Rini.
"Small Lady," Haruka warned, her approach cautious. "You have to get away from him, now…"
Yes, he could hear Chaos taunting, get away from him before it's too late…
"I won't!" Rini cried, clenching his hands tighter between them. "Haruka, we can't let this happen—he's my—my—"
"I know," Haruka told her quickly, calmly. "Rini, I already knew."
That's why you stopped me, Seiya realised, the memory of Haruka pushing him out of the way when he had surrendered himself to Chaos leaping into his mind. You knew she was my daughter…
"And trust me when I say I knowhow hard this is," Haruka continued. As she grew closer, he could feel Rini's energy growing—protective; powerful. "But you have to let him do this…"
Seiya groaned as his spine shuddered, a convulsion wracking his body as Chaos tried to overpower him. He knew his grip would be biting into her own, hurting her, and yet she didn't care—she would not step away.
Careful now, aoi one, Chaos murmured to him, it would take so little to kill her…
The ground shook beneath them, the twilight of Kinmoku dimming to blackness and the cries of his fellow senshi, his friends, were like poison all around him. They were losing this fight—Chaos was too strong without Usagi.
Odango.
He sought her out again—her light vivid white as she stood at the edge of the battlefield, still. So still.
Watching, listening.
Waiting.
As though she knew what was yet to come.
"I'm not leaving him," Rini's voice echoed, "I won't!"
Her cry was accented by a surge of energy—a crackle that tore along the rock to Haruka's feet as a warning. Haruka's gaze flickered to Seiya's and then back to Rini. "I'm sorry, Rini," she said, "but you don't have a choice."
In one swift movement, Rini was wrenched from him as Hotaru launched from behind them. With Rini's energy diminished from aiding him, her fight against the strong soldier's embrace was futile. Rini shook her head angrily, eyes glassy. "Seiya, please…"
Seiya slumped forward, as pain was replaced by a twisted power he had never felt before. Suddenly visions of deep, consuming nothingness—endless, lonely, furious space—swamped him.
Do you see what I have suffered, because of her, aoi one?
Haruka's steps neared and he could see the tip of her sword by her side. He laughed—a sound that was not his own; because he was no longer entirely his own. "Are you going to kill me, Tenou?"
Haruka was not speaking to Seiya—not any longer. She swung the sword to his neck. "I'm going to try."
Fighter, he heard; a mysterious voice that was oddly familiar to him—one he trusted. You know the power her Talisman wields—give her more.
Seiya channelled every ounce of energy—that tiny fleck of his power that lingered somewhere—to reach up for the edge of the blade. "Then you're going to need a lot more than a Talisman to get the job done," he hissed, and as he wrapped his blackened fingers around the blade, the metal glowed a hot, deep cobalt.
You'll kill her, Seiya heard Chaos taunt, but he dug deep; seeking that speck of life that kept him there, with them.
No, he told Chaos. I will make her stronger.
He gripped the sword until he bled, meeting Haruka's eye. "A lot more."
With one hard burst, the energy surged down the blade and tore up Haruka's arm, and her grunt of pain was muffled by the explosion between them, hurling him back against the rock. He gasped as the air was stolen from his lungs, staring up at the dark sky as everything around him echoed, slow and dull and muffled.
"Haruka!" He could hear—Michiru's voice. "Haruka, please…"
He pushed upright, vision skewed, to where Haruka had been thrown back, her body lifeless. The sword lay near her, shuddering with power, and he shook his head as he saw the bronze Kinmokian armour she had been wearing scattered across the dust.
No.
Had he been deceived—had the voice that called him to share his power been Chaos all along?
No, it can't be…
Michiru curled Haruka into her arms and a cry of despair tore from her. Seiya tried to get to his feet, but the weight of Chaos' hold was too tight.
Odango, please, he pled. You have to kill me; it's the only way this can end…
She heard him; he could feel it.
He looked back to Haruka and Michiru; to the dust and darkness and the battle that was occurring all around them—the smell of blood, the shouts of his fellow warriors, the snarl of their enemy. He set his gaze on Haruka's Space Sword, as it shook and shone with power—something, anything, to help him stay focused; to stay alive long enough to allow Usagi to kill him and take Chaos down.
The sword.
He squinted across at Haruka's body, realising that in place of the Kinmokian armour was a new fuku—different to the Inner senshi's new Eternal forms. The warrior's entire body was wrapped in pearly-white fabric, long boots on her feet, and accents of navy blue and gold that wound up her torso and around her neck. Protective panels over her arms, her shoulders, her shins; a holster for her sword at her hip. A suit perfect for battle—with every hallmark of a Sol fuku, but uniquely her own.
As Seiya watched, the Uranian symbol flickered to life on Haruka's forehead, and he cried out to Michiru as dark forms closed in on them, fast. "Michiru, the sword!"
She reached for it, shielding Haruka's body with her own, and the instant she touched the blade, a dome of deep blue light swallowed them. There was a hiss from Chaos' minions as the light decimated them, and as it disappeared, Seiya could see Michiru, still hunched over Haruka—but with the touches of her own new fuku settling on her skin, just as Haruka's had done moments earlier. A shimmering opaque white and vivid aquamarine dress, accented with gold just like her partner's, and the very same armour that protected her.
My power, he realised, awestruck, my power helped them transform…
And now that power is mine, Chaos said by his ear.
He felt Chaos drag him to his knees once again and string his arms out wide like a sacrifice. He felt his neck jerk back, the tip of a cold, crystal dagger connected to his open throat, held there by his own hand. Chaos' voice was loud around him; through him. "Are you ready now, Guardian?"
He could see the outline of her across the battlefield; shadowed and still, glinting and pure.
"Yes," Odango said—so calm, so soft, so powerful. "I'm ready for you now."
Please Setsuna, let me go to them!
Now, Setsuna, there isn't time to waste!
He's going to kill them, Setsuna!
Please, Setsuna, I'm not strong enough to watch this happen—I can't—
Yet Usagi was strong enough.
You must trust me, Setsuna told her, over and over and over again, you have to let this happen—you will know when.
And so she watched.
She watched her beautiful friends fight for her—fight for their universe.
She watched Haruka and Michiru ascend to their Eternal forms—strikingly different to her Inner senshi.
She watched her daughter risk her life for the one Usagi loved.
She watched their daughter evolve before their eyes, into the being she was always destined to become.
She watched the true love of her life sacrifice everything for them all.
It destroyed her, but she watched.
She waited.
She trusted.
And when she heard Chaos taunt her, one final time, she felt as though the door had finally been unlocked.
Free.
"Are you ready now, Guardian?"
We must destroy to create.
"Yes," she told him, so ready. "I'm ready for you now."
It began with cosmic crystal.
Through the pain, through the torture, through Chaos' eyes, Seiya saw Odango become.
We must destroy to create.
"I am every dream you have ever wanted, and every dream you are yet to wish for."
She moved toward them and with each step, the white-hot glow that pulsed from her body dissolved every enemy that approached, eroding the suffocating power that clung to his planet. With the smallest roll of her wrists and twitch of her fingertips she changed reality, before their very eyes.
It was effortless, terrifying, exhilarating power.
She rose into the thick Kinmokian air, a trail of crystal fracturing across the rock in her wake. Her gaze did not leave Seiya's as she threw her arms open and took hold of their galaxy—commanding it live and be rid of the evil that had consumed it.
"I embody everything you love, and everything you desire."
Her voice rumbled all around them, soft and haunting, and as she drew closer, the icy power that wisped from her fingertips tore across her fair skin to fuse with her like armour.
She became: her truest self.
Brilliant, blinding light beamed from the eight-pointed star that flickered to life upon her forehead, and rainbow energy bled through her—into her cerulean eyes; beneath her sternum where her own Starseed hid; across her crystalline skin.
"I am," she said, a relief and a joy in her voice, "I am Cosmos, and without me, there is no you."
The most powerful being in the entire universe.
A delicate, pearly fuku wrapped around her torso and flared around her hips, an infinite spectrum of colour accenting her being. At her heart's centre, a fragment of cobalt glistened, and Seiya felt the remnants of his soul tug painfully.
It's as though your crystal has absorbed some of Fighter's power…
Seiya felt the void in his chest, where his striking Starseed had once lived, constrict and his eyes burned. She held a part of him within her from that very first time he had unleashed his power before her.
Incomplete.
The death of his Starseed, his death, was incomplete, because she held him with her still.
He ached for her as he watched solid, icy wings rip open from her shoulder blades and flare wide, speckled at their sharp tips with her human-red blood. She didn't flinch; she didn't falter—she simply opened her hand to grasp a long sceptre with a rainbow orb at its tip.
She became: a deity with unlimited power.
Her spiked wings thrust her into the sky, eclipsing the dull ring of Proxima's waning power with white gold and freezing every foe on the ground in crystal. As she landed, the Kinmokian dessert collapsed beneath her into a deep crater and the dust of Seiya's Starseed sparkled as it fell like glitter in the air.
"Odango," Seiya gasped, "beautiful Odango…"
Usagi leapt from the hollowed ground and the remnants of Seiya's Starseed followed in a wispy stream. She held a hand to her heart, drawing it away to reveal the lingering, imperative specks of his soul that had been housed within her, and with a soft flick of her wrists, she commanded the string of tiny aoi fragments come together, fusing into the spiked cobalt he was missing.
Suddenly, so suddenly, every movement, every moment, he was certain he had seen before—lived before.
And now I must give it back to save your life.
Usagi reached him, untouched and unfathomable. She smiled down at him and held out the mended Starseed, it's glow and jutting edges more powerful than ever before. It floated softly from her grasp to his scarred, blackened chest, melting through his flesh in the most pleasurable, paralysing pain. Seiya tried, desperately, to mobilise his frozen body as the shock of his lifeforce took hold, but all he could manage were words he was sure he had uttered before—like a promise; like a prophecy: "Incomplete."
But this time was different, he knew it—this time, it was her end.
"No, Fighter," she told him, her voice round and wise. "Not you. Me."
Odango, no—!
All that is, all that was, and all that ever will be.
In all Chaos there is a Cosmos; in all disorder, a secret order.
As her power boomed, the universe stopped.
It paused in the marvel that was its Mother—its creator; lover; protector; destroyer.
She surrendered—she was driven to her knees; body thrown back, arms open, naked and exposed as she was torn open.
As the Cosmos burst from within her.
I am.
Usagi watched her end unfold from the cool cliff that hovered at the edge of the Cosmic Cauldron, tucked millions of lightyears away in the deepest corner of space—sitting perched on its lip, legs dangling as she gazed into the whirling, opalescent pool of life and death beneath her.
She could see the moment on Kinmoku in perfect detail; playing out in the swirl of the cauldron like a movie. She could see the shell of her being, ghostly white and arched back as a supernova exploded from her body into the Kinmokian sky. She could see a dark figure standing by, watching, waiting—Chaos.
It was the beginning, and the end.
I am.
She sensed her before she saw her, lingering behind her on the marble precipice, hiding.
Cosmos.
A lump formed in her throat. "You have to tell me now," she told her—a gentle demand.
"Yes," Cosmos replied, in a voice that vibrated deep into her soul. "Now I will tell you everything."
The Cauldron told her, told them all, Cosmos' story.
It showed them the creature that began from dark nothingness; a few mere sparks of light and energy and rage and passion that evolved into the very first being that ever was. The beginning of their universe.
It spoke of the creature's light, and of her dark—of her balance of good and of evil, in a soulless time where there was no language, no conditioning and no meaning that could give them a name. Only mere consciousness.
It spun the story of how the cosmic creature had grown lonely, in the silent universe all by herself, and so with her boundless power she had begun what is now known as life: matter that served as her paint, and the endless blackness her canvas.
It showed her crafting the very first particles, molecules, stars, planets, creatures. It spoke of unity in her own cosmos and her chaos; of the peaceful ambivalence held in life and death.
It spoke of how her own evolution had blossomed through her greatest creations: the humanoids who felt—who loved and hated and every single thing in between.
It told them of the day she had watched her creations explore the marvellous worlds that she had made with something she had never experienced before: envy.
It spoke of how suddenly, there was more than what was simply felt—even more than the complex, mystical nervous systems that her creations housed. Suddenly there were languages, names, identities, connections, bonds that she wished for herself so desperately.
It wove the story of how, so suddenly, her proudest creations, her children, had taken on their own unique life—out of her control and leaving her to wonder: what if I had that, too?
It showed them how she had made her very first, most human, mistake.
"And so you tore yourself in half," Usagi said, through choked, compassionate tears as she watched the story unfold before her. "You tore yourself into what we call good and bad…"
Cosmos, and Chaos.
"Yes," Cosmos whispered, a shimmer as she sat down alongside Usagi—there with her, but not truly. "The only way I thought I could leave the Cauldron was by splitting myself down the middle—setting Chaos free so I could become, alone."
Usagi couldn't look at the being—she could only blink away blurring tears and tighten her grip on the icy edge of the precipice. Beyond the Cosmic Cauldron was sheer, unimaginable oblivion—pure, terrifying silence. "You didn't leave," Usagi managed, the potent empathy that was both her strength, and her weakness, gnawing at her. "You escaped."
"I did," Cosmos replied, the inhuman vibration in her voice full of sorrow. "At a deep cost."
Finally, Usagi looked at her—and she saw a girl, just like she was. An ethereal echo of herself that stared down into the rainbow abyss, heart-broken and elated and grieving and hopeful, all at once.
The merciless spectrum of the human experience woven into the twinkling fabric of her being.
"I hid in the beings powerful enough to possess me," Cosmos confessed. "Across the Millenia, I have walked in many forms across many worlds: goddesses, mothers, queens, saints, sisters, princesses…"
Princess Serenity, Usagi realised, breath ripped from her lungs as memories of her past life in the Silver Millennium swept over her.
Cosmos nodded. "Yes—a Moon princess until her tragic end," she smiled sadly. "A gift to her Queen mother who wanted a child so desperately—the very same gift I gave to your mother."
Suddenly the scent of her mother filled her nostrils—jasmine and freshly baked bread and home.
"I can make you a deal—all you have to do is take me with you."
Cosmos' voice murmured from behind them, and as Usagi looked back over her shoulder, between the marble columns stood her mother—clasped hands and lilac hair and apron ties still like a sketched memory. Usagi's throat grew tight as she saw the deep sorrow in her mother's eyes—usually resolute; driven; firmly loving.
Mama…
"Your mother wished for a child—with such desperation that her soul voice sang to me and I could not resist her call," Cosmos said, smiling back at the woman softly. "What I did not know was her soul's wish was a prophecy in itself: that I would inhabit a young girl born with magic in her—magic too powerful for even me."
The memory faded, the particles of the conjured image drifting away, down into the Cauldron below. Usagi watched them float, mesmerized and somehow mournful. "I don't understand," she managed, even though the truth was that deep within her, she really did. Deep within her, she felt she knew it all—that this reality was simply being awakened in her.
"When your soul is recycled in the Cosmic Cauldron, it is plucked for reincarnation and a brand new Starseed is fused together specifically for you," Cosmos told her. "Each soul I have walked within across the universe's existence has been a past life of your own, Usagi—great beings before you who were also warriors that fought against the darkness I created through my own emancipation…but it was you: the beautiful, innocent soul of a schoolgirl, who challenged me to face what I had done."
Usagi squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head—remembering the journeys they had been on, she and her guardians, to differing times and places with stories of destiny and duty and past lives and future realities. Of how it had led them astray; nearly catapulted them all into a future that was not what was best—for themselves, nor their Earth.
"There is an irony in my deceit—as the Guardian of all that is, I am not to interfere in the existence of my creations." Cosmos said, peering gently into her thoughts. She laughed softly; bitterly. "And yet, in running away, in hiding, that is precisely what I did, and it has come at a great cost."
At a great cost.
Cosmos swept her hand out over the churning pool beneath them, and from within the starry depths, a brilliant crystal appeared, glinting the many, many symbolic colours that Usagi knew and loved: her Sol warriors, her daughter, the Starlights, Sailor Galaxia and the senshi who had come before them, and many she did not recognise. "This is the Cosmic Crystal—it is what lives in my being, in the Cauldron, and therefore within you, too," Cosmos said. "When I crafted warriors to serve and protect the universe after I severed myself in two, to shield from the unbalanced, malicious force that had become Chaos, I intended evolution for those souls—to grow and thrive; to experience their lives as fully as they could." She shook her head, and Usagi could see the shame rippling through her. "But I had underestimated the power that human selfishness would have over me, once I tasted what my life could be—suddenly lies tumbled and bargains were struck and stories were crafted…suddenly I was not the innate, neutral good I once had been."
Usagi thought of her foretold fate with Mamoru; of Setsuna's false identity; of Seiya's hidden gifts; of Rini's mysterious origins; of Helios' glorious prison in Elysian; of all the omissions and deceits that had steered their lives and their choices.
There was a strike of sacred rage that shot through her, but it was paralleled with compassion so profound that it shook her—so immense that it healed her. How could she hate, when it was simply the other side of the very same coin of love—when it was the Chaos to her Cosmos?
Silence hung thick between them for a few moments, until Cosmos said to her:
"That is why you challenged me to right what I had done," she whispered, "because you possess the lambda power—the willingness to lose everything, to save everything."
Lambda.
"The power that I possessed, before I tore myself in half," Cosmos told her.
There was a spark in the air across from where they were perched—out in the darkness, far across the breadth of the Cauldron. It zapped and crackled, and then a portal burst open, revealing a mirrored version of the Cosmic Precipice they sat upon; its crystalline appearance, sharp stalactites that hung from beneath and high stony columns blackened like shiny onyx. A ghostly being stepped forth, long hair whipping about their androgynous form, an eerie calmness in their stillness and their danger. An important warning.
"True Chaos, before the separation from Cosmos was too great," Cosmos said. "My counterpart—wise, wary, protective, fierce, intuitive, ruthless, honest." Cosmos turned to her, and Usagi tugged her gaze away from the magnetic Chaos to meet her opalescent eyes of the holographic being beside her…within her. She reached out a shimmering hand to take her own—and despite it not truly being there, Usagi felt it touch her soul. "Your twin flame has taught you of the deep importance of these qualities, have they not?"
They.
It was so perfect—they encompassed all that was Seiya. Personified them.
Her heart ached for them.
"Yes," she agreed, throat tight. "They have."
Cosmos smiled—the kindest, gentlest smile she had seen the Guardian give. "You worry of your karmic relationship with Mamoru; Endymion…but what many do not realise is karmic relationships, gifts, purposes and paths are not always destined to thrive," she said. "Sometimes they are destined to teach us, resolve and end. Your tie to Mamoru was karmic—it has ended tragically in every life you have walked, because your soul was waiting for your true twin flame."
Seiya.
Usagi knew, with all that had unfolded, with her reality of Cosmos and Chaos, with the knowledge of how great her own power—the lambda power—was, that her future was uncertain. What she also knew, unequivocally, was that she would give everything for those she loved. Without question; without hesitance.
Usagi Tsukino could sometimes be immature—a cry baby; perhaps a little airheaded at times. Yet when it mattered—when she was led by her compassionate heart and her magical empathy and powerful intuition—she did not waver in the choices she had to make.
"You must make this right," she told Cosmos, and for the first time, she saw Cosmos for exactly who she was: a young girl, unsure and afraid and lonely and wishing for a loving life. "We must make this right."
And Usagi rose to her feet, as human as ever, holding Cosmos' hand and reaching out for Chaos', and she stepped off the cliff into the cauldron below.
Do I have the power to house them both?
What we call 'good', and 'evil'?
Can I face myself no matter what I feel—no matter how terrifying, joyous, shameful, ecstatic, sorrowed, pleasured, disgusting, soft, selfish?
Can I sit with my pain?
Can I acknowledge my inner turmoil, my Chaos?
Can I stand in awe of my deepest good, my Cosmos?
Can I create, selflessly and selfishly?
Can I make space for my humanness?
Can I embrace my magic, my wild woman?
Can I live with all that is, all that was, and all that ever will be?
Yes, yes, yes.
When Seiya was a little child, she had asked her mother when she would learn all the secrets of then universe.
Her mother had laughed and cupped her cheek, silky against her skin. Her ruby eyes had sparkled with mischief and wisdom as she told her: some things are never meant to be known, Seiya Kou, but if you do right in this life, you may have a chance to find out some day.
No one could have prepared Seiya, prepared any of them, for that day.
Not because it was so crushingly overwhelming or deeply esoteric that he couldn't fathom it, nor because it saddened or disappointed him. Not because it didn't make sense, or was cruel or unkind—all of life was equally kind and unkind; he knew that already—and not because it felt like sheer ecstasy or joy.
It was because it was so pure, so simple, and yet so devastating, all at once…it was because in order to find out, he had to watch the love of his life be destroyed from the inside out while he watched on, frozen in the blinding white of Space-Time.
They saw it all—through the story cast out by the Cosmic Cauldron. Through Usagi's eyes.
The universe's beginning.
Cosmos' creations.
Her mistake.
In all Chaos there is a Cosmos; in all disorder, a secret order.
Seiya gasped, a deep breath of Kinmokian air, as the frozen hold Cosmos had over them thawed, vision and sensation returning back to his body in a cold rush. He fought to peer through the brilliant white veil that had consumed them, shielding his eyes, and as they adjusted, he marvelled the ethereal sight before him.
The round sky above them, usually cloaked in an eternal Kinmokian twilight, was pearly, iridescent white, streaked with vivid auroras and nebulae, circular rainbows, the glinting colours of every planet and star nearby—every speck, every detail, of their universe, amplified for them to see. Energy sparkled along the white skyline like a web, creeping and bursting and alive.
Magic, he thought—because there was no other word that captured it so perfectly.
The battlefield was deathly silent—his fellow warriors scarred and bloody as they too awoke and rose up, watching on in awe. Their reality felt slow and surreal; caught in the afterglow of a truth so great, it muted the universe. Seiya allowed the current of life to roll over him once again, suddenly aware that Chaos' presence from his mind and body was no longer within him—a relief blunted by the fear for his love's life.
Odango.
Panic shot through him and he dragged himself to heavy feet in search of her, unsteady and weakened. "Odango," he rasped, stumbling as though his legs were new to him. "Usagi—"
"Seiya," he heard Rini's voice shakily interrupt, and he looked back over his shoulder to her, where she was supporting an evolved, Eternal Hotaru, and pointing up to the frosty sky, eyes glassy. He followed her gaze, up toward fiery, giant Proxima, and there, floating gently down to them, was Usagi.
Guardian Cosmos.
Her glassy wings were outspread, capturing and refracting the spectrum of colours that surrounded them, and she shone. Every inch of her fair skin was turned to burnished crystal, and her pupilless eyes glowed opalescent—like the Cosmic Cauldron; like the familiar hue Seiya had seen at the height of her deepest ecstasy; at the peak of her holy rage.
"Sister…"
The voice hissed through the silence from the crater nearby, rough and otherworldly, and tugged Seiya's eye from Usagi. A chill crept up his spine as the voice spoke—he would never forget the feeling of Chaos' voice whispering in the depths of his mind— but it was different; softer, more familiar. As Cosmos touched down on the earth, she held out her sceptre and the orb at its tip swirled murky, revealing a shrouded shadow, crouched low in the centre of the crater.
"Sister," Cosmos replied, her eerie, echoic voice laced with compassion. "It is time."
Seiya limped toward Usagi, but she simply swung her sceptre out by her side—a warning, as the orb morphed to a sickled blade. She did not falter as she said: "This must be done."
Seiya locked his jaw and obeyed, and as the dark haze enveloping the crater began to lift, what he saw stole his breath from his lungs.
Tucked into herself, curled up with her steely wings wrapped protectively around her, was true Chaos.
Guardian Chaos.
She was breathtaking in her darkness—a mirror of Cosmos: swathed in grey and black fuku; ancient, mysterious symbols etched into her glistening skin; eyes entirely tourmaline black; long pigtails like the rainbow of an oil spill.
She was every beautifully wicked, cheeky, selfish, sensual, fierce part of Odango that Seiya had ever seen—the most human elements of her, permeating and neutralising the evil that had terrorised their universe for millennia.
"I had wished to capture you, Sister—to reclaim you, so I could be strong and so I could destroy everything," Chaos told her, rising to her feet and allowing her magnificent wings to splay out wide. Her voice was tight and angry, her features scrunched in sorrowed fury. "You made me this way."
Seiya made a move forward protectively, and he felt the other senshi do the same, but Cosmos only held her scythe higher, the blade flashing.
They were not to interfere.
"Yes," Cosmos replied, remorse heavy in her voice. "We have both become extremes—fragments—of our true selves." She held out her hand to her, palm open to the sky. "I am truly, deeply sorry for the pain I have caused you, Sister."
Chaos trembled—she mourned; she seethed. Bloodied tears streaked her cheeks and she squeezed her eyes closed. "I am…unforgiveable."
Cosmos smiled—kind, pure; just like Odango. "I have been taught many lessons in this incarnation—to right my wrongs; to own my power and my weakness; to show up, in all of my mess; to love and hold the deepest compassion." She extended her hand out further. "And to forgive…especially ourselves."
Oh, Odango.
"We must make this right," Cosmos said.
There was a moment—a beat—where Seiya was certain Chaos would unleash her wrath, where they would face yet another battle that would cost them dearly, but instead she breathed deep and moved toward her counterpart, hand reaching out as she bowed her head in a nod of agreement.
Seiya trusted Usagi, trusted Cosmos, but fear bubbled up into his throat and he stepped up to the scythe. Alongside her, where he always wanted to be.
"But what of Sailor Moon?" He managed. "What of her fate?"
Cosmos kept her eye trained on Chaos as she slowly lowered the weapon. He could feel Rini's fuchsia energy, her humming presence, drawing nearer, as she prepared for the answer that would decide her fate.
A breeze broke the stillness and Cosmos turned her head to look to them, and suddenly, stunningly, he was looking into Usagi's human, cerulean eyes.
Tears choked him. "What of you, Odango?"
She smiled.
"You were the one who reminded me how strong I am, Seiya," she said, her tone entirely human and her. She looked back to Rini, and cast her eye around to all of her fellow warriors—her friends. "You all did—in my goodness, in my sookiness, in my naivety, in my darkness." She stood tall; confident. "And I trust—I know—that I can take this risk." She returned to nod to Chaos, reaching her fingertips out closer. "To save it all."
Lambda.
The word whispered through the air in a subtle song; a message. It was a power Seiya had heard stories of in his childhood—a power in its purest form so rare and so great it could shift the trajectory of the universe itself.
In that moment he knew: Usagi possessed that power.
Not Cosmos.
Not Sailor Moon.
Usagi.
"Besides," Usagi continued, lightly; cheerfully, "Cosmos and I have made a deal."
You will live within me—you will walk with me for the rest of my human life; complete with your Chaos, Usagi's voice echoed around them, and then you will die with me when it is our time.
Cosmos reached out for Chaos—an offering; an invitation.
You will return to the Cauldron.
Their hands met between them, a tender grasp that elicited a spark.
Never to return to the human realm.
A returning and a remembering that bled them back together—syrupy dark and wispy light.
Knowing you have lived a full, messy, beautiful human life.
Usagi's wish for Chaos' integration was a simple one:
Witness.
She wanted to ascend above the crystal chord that eternally tied her to Cosmos; to watch their reunification from beyond, as a bystander; as a witness.
And so, she did.
She saw the threads of celestial life meld together as their hands met—the tendrils of dark energy seep from Chaos and bleed under Cosmos' crystalline skin.
Reunion.
She watched Cosmos close down her eyes and tip her head back to the sky, the eight-pointed star on her forehead glowing onyx. She saw—felt—her pain and her passion and her anger and her grief as she wept in immense, divine agony.
Cosmic ecstasy, and cosmic agony.
The wild magic that had conjured the striking, haunting Guardian Chaos that stood before them, with her blackened eyes and her sharp wings and dark scars, coursed like the sweetest poison throughout Cosmos' form. Every inch of her pearly skin spliced with the dark markings of what made her powerfully and vulnerably complete.
It seemed ironic to Usagi: how incredibly human Cosmos was, at her essence.
Slowly, delicately, Chaos faded away—becoming little more than a speckled, twinkling outline of what once was. She looked to Usagi, black eyes remorseful. "I am so sorry for what I have taken from you," she said. "For all the harm I have caused."
Usagi smiled. "I know, and I forgive you," she replied, because she did.
And with that, the final wisps of Chaos' form unified with Cosmos, and she was no more—all that hovered in her wake was a jutting, tourmaline crystal.
The Chaotic Crystal.
Cosmos reopened her eyes, swirled rainbow and darkness and an eternity between, and looked up to Usagi, where she hung close by, witnessing. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you, Sister."
Home.
Cosmos reached out her hand, and as she made contact with the lost crystal, Usagi was thrust back into oneness with Cosmos, and the fabric of reality came undone.
Cosmos was all.
All that is, all that was, and all that would ever be.
She could see the world they called Kinmoku—she could see the rugged red rock, the flaming stars, the dawn-like sky—but she didn't need to see.
She could feel the way her body, Usagi's body, had been driven to her knees, open and surrendering to the universe—but she didn't need to feel.
She could hear the astounding silence, and the roaring noise, that surrounded everything and every being in their cosmos—but she didn't need to hear.
She could sense the way an entire reality was booming from her chest, projecting a hologram of memories onto their world for them all to see—but she didn't need to sense.
She didn't need anything—she simply was.
Cosmos was all.
What is this…?
'Life' had a different quality, a different texture and a different song, in the in-between space where Usagi lingered.
There was a deep awareness of Kinmoku's thick air and rusty tones, and yet everything around her seemed flattened; two-dimensional. Cast out from her being, as though imprinted atop their reality, was a vivid, translucent roll of rapid footage—so fast, so unfathomable.
So true.
So real.
Oh, Usagi realised, as the many thousands of memories, lives and karmas of each existence Cosmos had walked shattered through her. These are your incarnations.
Deep oceanic worlds, impossible architecture, unrecognisable beings, distant galaxies, sky born creatures, glossy pyramids and sacred temples, titanic planets, astral voyages, volcanic terrains, war-torn lands, quantum realms.
A Moon kingdom.
The skyscrapers of Tokyo.
Great romances. Deep purposes. Full-bodied feeling.
Every single feeling.
It was a dance of the lives Cosmos had led; the worlds she had walked; the journeys she had taken—every emotion, every experience, every story.
And Usagi felt it all.
Can I live with all that is, all that was, and all that ever will be?
Yes, yes, yes.
Please be sure to read the important author's notes at the top, if you haven't already. Thank you for reading!