The Year 0 A.C.
From above, the palace grounds looked like a crucifix.
The sandstone colored buildings were grouped in each of the cardinal directions. Square silhouettes harbored oval metal doors outfitted with delicate gold and red carvings.
Each hub was connected by a maze of walkways. The stone slabs zigzagged through the passageways, gardens, and great halls to converge at a single point.
It was there, in the eye of the palace, that the three Sailor Starlights gathered daily to give report.
"Today is their last day" Sailor Star Maker sighed. She fanned herself out of habit, though the room was temperature controlled by magic.
The Tankei kingdom was famous for its singular season, endless summer. The air was fragrant with the smell of the blazed blossoms in constant bloom and humid from the rain that would surely fall before the day's end.
Maker waved her hand and a translucent map appeared in a beam of light that originated from the center of the circular podium the three stood on. "The Avaren emissary will return to their star with the last of their refugees by the setting of the second sun" she lamented.
The map transformed into a close shot of a green-skinned woman with white hair boarding a flying vehicle.
Kinmoku was one of the last stars in their solar system to suffer Galaxia's rampage. When the Silver Crystal restored the galaxy it did not suddenly restore order. Some stars and planetary bodies had been destroyed for months, others years. Now that peace was attained, there were those who finally believed they had a place to truly call home.
"Thank goodness. I was tired of seeing their offspring crash into the mandar trees", Sailor Star Healer retorted. Maker resisted the urge to roll her eyes and motioned for the map to return to view. "I'm sure the emissary will be happy to be relieved of your presence as well."
Healer flipped her platinum ponytail over her shoulder and moved to lean onto one of the four pillars that held up the square construction. Before her back touched the rock, she turned and traced her finger along the scars of smoke that still marred the column.
The soot had been scrubbed, the locks had been refinished, and the holy inscriptions sparkled with fresh color. It was beautiful, but still a shadow of its former glory.
"Still filthy."
The Sanctum was a place restricted to the Royal family and their closest guard. All paths on the grounds eventually led to the edifice where the guardians currently stood. It was minimalist in structure but ornate in design. One could say it resembled an Earthen Shinto Shrine. From the base to top of each pillar, handwritten inscriptions told the story of Kinmoku's origin in four parts. Healer leaned on the epilogue: the last breath of the Fire God's life manifested into a star.
The absence of walls allowed them to see if anyone was approaching, though once one entered magic made them invisible to the naked eye.
A bead of sweat rolled down Fighter's neck. She remembered loving the heat of the palace and the surrounding city, but the humidity made her want to hide in shady hills of the royal stables.
"Anything else?" she groaned.
It was already midday. The soft black material of her scout gloves rubbed at her temples in frustration. The suns were hurrying towards tomorrow and she had barely begun the process of remembering yesterday.
Maker ignored her clear annoyance and continued to speak in an unhurried tone.
"The scribes have reached all corners of the Kingdom. While other stars may hail Eternal Sailor Moon as their savior, we have to focus on making Princess Kakyuu their hero. We need to bolster her favor with the public as soon as we can before the coronation." Sailor Star Maker motioned and gold lines streaked across the digital terrain. "History is a story that must be told right, the first time. We already received a second chance, we can't afford revisions."
Earth had taken barely any physical damage during the battle with Galaxia, and as host planet of the silver crystal it was immediately restored. On their edge of the same galaxy, their star had been dead for months and would take longer to rebuild.
In their time away, Eternal Sailor Moon had recounted how the silver crystal had reconstructed Tokyo, and even the entire planet Earth. Its power in her possession had brought back the dead, erased memories, and even undid time in a way that restored the past landscape.
This was not the case for the population of Kinmoku. To the civilians, no time had passed since Sailor Galaxia used Sailor Soldiers to slaughter the Royal family, turned citizens into phages and destroyed their world. Even now, four months later, the people were wary of a peace that seemed too good to be true.
As a part of the Queen's Royal guard the Sailor Starlights were put in charge of the restoration of order. Their mission was to help bring in what Princess Kakyuu called the new era. "Mission A.C: After Chaos"
Maker handled preservation of all historical and religious sites. Upon their return she had immediately sent scouts to all corners of their kingdom to make sure the libraries were renovated. From her mouth to fresh pages, the story of soon to be Queen Kakyuu and Eternal Sailor Moon was added to their history.
The shortest Starlight walked back to the group still rubbing the dirt from the walls in between in her fingers. "Speaking of public favor, listen, I get the whole wells, orphanages, and schools…but every noble on the planet is coming to the castle in 3 weeks. You think we can allocate some workers to trim the fire field? Maybe get the grime off the ceiling?" She wrinkled her nose at the red dots that flickered on the map.
Healer was in charge of the beautification of all public places and infrastructure. It was bittersweet that Galaxia had made such quick work of their planet. The palace was almost reduced to rubble, as the royal family and their star seeds were clear targets. Outside the palace grounds buildings were still standing.
Fighter nodded at the screen and it switched to an image of the fields. Reeds the color of roses crept up to knee length height. She could remember a time when the ministers would complain if it dared to grow past their ankles. Healer wasn't wrong.
Fighter scoffed, "It was only last month that people thought the market safe to return to feed their own mouths and now you wish me to stop bandits, Maker to educate the people, and…the citizens to cut your grass. What next? Wipe your Sailor ass?"
"You beat up a band of teenages stealing food. Hurrah!" Healer raised her hands and the screen panned over the Royal garden that had been restored just the past week.
"Hunger starts in the eyes before it leads to the stomach. If the nobles who's doors were barely broken and tables untouched realize that they are living in better conditions than the woman who is to be queen, they will believe themselves to know better, then to be better, and then we will have bigger problems than your petty thieves."
Fighter was in charge of maintaining order and weeding out any powers that would perceive the reconstruction as an opportunity to subvert the Princess. The palace being hit the hardest meant that the royal treasury, and much of its gold was melted to ash. There needed to be peace so order would return, and commerce, and finally taxes.
Keeping peace often meant missions outside of the palace. To places where teleportation would cause a stir she would ride with her midnight Midnight. Everyone was on edge, especially as Princess Kakyuu's wedding and coronation grew closer. Fighter had gone on an especially dangerous trip to the fire shrine only two weeks ago, and ever since had been having gaps in her memory.
Her right hand closed into a tight fist. Skin tightened around raised scar tissue that stretched the entire length of her palm. 'A scar, for the first time in years since my powers awakened. What the hell is going on?'
"Are you listening Fighter?" Maker gestured and the map zoomed into a region about three days from the palace.
"Am I allowed to have a headache?" she quipped.
Healer's fluorescent eyes rolled upward and then stared at the space between her two teammates.
Maker pressed her hand together and steeled her gaze toward her captain. "I cannot control your body, but I do wish you would control your temper."
"Maker, we're all listening. Maybe we end the meeting and have some tea? Maybe we with spike the tea with varot lily?" Healer smirked in an effort to lighten the mood, but her teammates did not appreciate her attempt at levity.
Fighter opened her mouth to say something, but thought against it. She was having an argument with herself; there was no need to have one with her comrades as well. After another second of silence she exhaled. "I'm with you. I'm still behind on reports from my travels and I have to leave by the setting of the second sun. Thank you for the update. That will be all for today."
Maker tilted her head at Fighter as if she was considering whether or not to accept her excuse. She waved her hand and brought it into a fist and the machine responded by powering down
As soon as the light flickered off, the dark haired scout swiveled and headed to the North Wing. Her next trip would be that night to the night market of Mahreen. The reports could wait, maybe her lost memories would come back to her with some fresh air.
"She's had a stick up her ass for-"
"This would be day fifteen" Maker finished. Her right hand scribbled something in a brown cloth notebook, but her eyes never left Fighter's back.
Two red suns set one after the other and soon a single blue moon was the brightest in the now purple sky.
Her room was two hallways down from the Princess, close enough to Kakyuu's quarters to be there quickly if she was ever in danger, but far enough that she could avoid her without worry. She could sidestep Maker and Healer's suspicion for now, but she could never lie to Kaykuu's all knowing eyes.
A short trip meant her satchel was light. She carried a small notebook, rations, a deck of cards, and a canteen of water kept in a light travel bag. The night offered a cool reprieve so the ocean blue cloak that covered oversized sandstone tunic and slacks did not stifle her. Her room was at the end of the hall, and before their travels to Earth, the scouts would see her off to the end of the palace before she left on her rare solo missions. She half wished their doors would creak open at the sound of leather slippers passing. They did not.
Midnight neighed in approval as her rider fed her a cube of honey from the ivy bees. Once they passed the palace guards a few lengths from Fighter turned to see the flames that hung on the spiked gates like a string of pearls.
Kakyuu was nicknamed the Fireball Princess, because her family could control flame at will, but the fire still reminded Fighter of the day Chaos attacked. The smell of burnt flesh and blood descended from her nose to her tongue quick enough to make her gag at the memory. For the time, public displays of magic were outlawed outside of the palace unless it was for official use. It was only a short while ago that the pursuit of it was used to turn the kingdom upside down.
Once the castle was far enough behind her she pressed the star in the center of her headband.
In a small flash of light invisible to the naked eye her body transformed. Her shoulders widened, chest flattened and form lengthened. Fighter looked through the eyes of her male body and rode deep into the night. It would be hours before the next camp, and already she felt like she hadn't slept in days.
Transforming never took up much of her power, but anything that took her out of her scout uniform made her uncomfortable. At home, they only needed to wear their uniforms for official duty, but Fighter argued that it made the people feel safe seeing them ready, and so they had continued to wear them.
Maybe two hours had passed before her arm began to sting. When the moon was highest in the sky, Fighter felt herself drifting. Midnight had bucked just moments before when she felt her owner's body shifting too much to one side. Ever since she had left Earth she'd been feeling so tired, she didn't think transformation magic would drain her this much and yet clearly something was wrong. She would talk to the Princess about it when she got back. Fighter had fought the idea of worrying her, but now her own worry was quickly turning to fear.
She blinked back her fatigue. The scar on her hand began to glow a faint red. Fighter only saw the blur of burgundy before her vision plummeted into darkness.
Seiya ran his hands over Midnight's sleek coat. "There, there girl", he murmured.
Last week when he had gained control of his consciousness during a ride her animal companion had nearly thrown him off. He learned to remind the horse of who he was-and early.
The scar on his right hand rubbed against the tightly braided reign. This trip would only be three days maximum. He was banking on Sailor Star Fighter's pride keeping her from telling the others about the memory gaps, but he knew Maker was getting suspicious and duty eclipsed her hubris quicker than he thought it would have.
The Starlights transformation required power unknown to the Earthen Sailor Scouts. It was not a glamor, like the one that kept Sailor Moon from being recognized by her family and friends. When Fighter became Seiya her body changed on the cellular level.
It was not unheard of for a transformation to affect the host. A mage who often changed into a snake could develop a lisp. Another who changed into a beast, might detransform and find a craving for meat. This was different.
After battle at the galaxy cauldron he had felt it-something had changed.
When Fighter returned to Kinmoku Seiya was with her, watching everything.
Inside her mind was like floating in the middle of the galaxy. There was a warm, darkness, as if he was in a womb. On Earth, once transformed, Seiya would simply become Sailor Star Fighter.
After the battle, on Kinmoku, Seiya would see the day through her eyes. He saw her wake up by the first suns and sleep as the moon set. He watched her direct, train, and call to order. She did everything she should as the leader of Sailor Starlights.
The first day he merely watched, the second day he tried to signal her, by the third his mind wandered back to his time on Earth.
"Seiya pay attention" Usagi snickered. She poked him with her pencil while he pretended to ignore her. Math was their least favorite subject and they spent more time joking about the class than studying.
"If you spent more time studying the board instead of my head you would be top of the class." Her lips pouted, but her eyes smiled.
Fighter did not pout and barely smiled. She took early morning showers and Seiya watched a familiar yet foreign body lather and rinse itself. When she slept he would float in the dark space and imagine if the Moon Princess took cold showers or warm baths. He would think of her splashing water at the hot springs and color would rise to his cheeks. Blood would race to the extremities of his body leaving his mind soft and his penis hard.
He didn't know how many days had passed and now in this new life he had separate memories, separate feelings, and separate desires. With Kinmoku at the beginning of a new chapter Sailor Star Fighter would be busy rebuilding their planet for years, and Seiya believed in the work she was doing. He believed in the duty of a Sailor Soldier to put people first and self last. But he was not a Sailor Soldier. He had no magic when he took over his form, something or someone had made him something very close to human.
Since then he found he could go a little longer now he could an hour before losing consciousness in his sentient male form.
If there was a way to cleave his body from Fighters, he had to find it, and he was running out of time.