“Two of them,” Archon said flatly.

“And not like the ones you’ve been using,” his apprentice replied. “I only got a quick look, but these seemed more advanced than your first-generation designs. They were still made out of that green substance, but it was smoother, and looked more human. I didn’t get a chance to see what their performance was like, but Pluto looked as though she had them both well in hand, so it can’t have been all that much of an improvement.” The young spellcaster gave her teacher a look. “You don’t know where they came from?”

“No,” Archon replied, “I do not. And I cannot spare the effort to seek out their source at this time.”

“The next operation?”

“In part, but there have also been some recent developments for us that you should be made aware of.” The archmage’s hovering image turned away from the girl for a moment as he gestured at something in his spell lab, and when he faced her again, he held two small crystals in his hand. One, the girl recognized as a memory crystal; the other, mounted on a small silver chain, was unfamiliar.

“This device is designed to shield the mind of the wearer from magical or psychic probes,” Archon said, indicating the pendant. “You have spells which will achieve the same end, but you must concentrate on those spells for them to be fully effective, which impairs any other spells you attempt to cast. This”— he held the pendant out—“will function with no effort on your part. I have also enchanted it with the capability to shield you against some of the more common physical afflictions that magic can visit; blindness, paralysis, confusion. It will also give you a limited degree of resistance to extremes of temperature. I would suggest that you get accustomed to wearing it at all times.”

The girl reached out and took the pendant and the memory crystal, unsurprised that they went from holographic image to solid matter as soon as she touched them. She slipped the silver chain over her head and tugged it down, hiding it as best she could under the fabric of her blouse.

“And this?” she asked, holding up the crystal.

“Records from the archives. Once you have examined them, you will understand the necessity for the shielding pendant.” Archon turned away from her again, speaking words which did not travel through his image before he turned back. “You will not likely hear from me again until we are prepared to commence the next operation, but regardless, I expect to see progress in your studies when I return.”

“Yes sir,” the apprentice said, as her teacher’s image disappeared. When he was gone, the girl looked down at the memory crystal for a time before holding it forth and activating it.

She could tell almost immediately that the records were very old. The small timer in one corner, when translated from Atlantean script and terms, gave the date and time of the scenes as shortly after midnight, on the third of June, in the fourteen hundred and fifty-ninth year of the Empire. That put it about eleven thousand years ago, give or take a century or two either way. The picture—the quality of which was as good as or better than DVD—seemed to be footage from a security system in an Atlantean base of some kind. A colony. An *underwater* colony, to judge by the fish that had just gone through the circle of light outside one window. Despite the hour, there was a goodly number of people visible, dressed in a mix of extremely ancient clothing styles, all of which suggested a certain flamboyance.

*Must be a party of some sort,* the girl thought. *Why would Archon have wanted me to see this?*

She found out a moment later, when the muted sounds of celebration were interrupted by a long, piercing shriek that no human throat could have produced. Delicate glasses shattered, and several people fell to their knees, covering their ears; a few passed out entirely before the dreadful noise subsided, and another began. This was a softer, stranger sound, almost like the noise of crumpling tinfoil, and it was coming from a section of the wall which appeared to have become unstable. A wide, circular area of the shining blue-white material was moving, rippling like the surface of a pond after something has been thrown in. And then a thing stepped out of it.

That was the only word the startled apprentice could come up with. It was huge, powerful, and hideously inhuman, all slimy green skin and quivering tentacles. It stood there for a moment, silent, as the shocked humans recoiled on all sides, and then it reached out with the suddenly extending tentacles of its left hand, to seize a man who had been overcome by the terrible cry. The telescoping digits wrapped about the man’s torso and lifted him easily, carrying him back over to the creature, which raised its other hand and enveloped the unconscious man’s head in a smothering grip.

Quite casually, the thing crushed the man’s head, and then dismembered his body by the simple expedient of closing its left hand. The bloody tentacles reached out again, to be answered by a gout of flame and a racing bolt of lightning, apparently cast by some members of the crowd not quite so far gone with drink or terror as the rest. The hits staggered the giant and seemed to melt away a dozen or more of the tentacles hanging over its face, leaving behind great greeny-grey burns and blackening one of its blood-red eyes. Seconds later, the damaged flesh regenerated itself, the incinerated tendrils growing back to full length as the extinguished eye reopened and blazed anew. The monster shifted, the tentacles on its face shaking as it gave another of those terrible shrieks; the noise was answered in chorus as other giants stepped through the walls.

‘Slaughter’ barely even began to describe what followed. The rubbery, crushing tentacles appeared to be the favorite weapons of the brutal giants, but some of them had short, blunt nozzles on their heads, from which they periodically sprayed thick jets of a foul blue-green slime. The stuff slipped away from the creatures’ own skin as easily and harmlessly as water, but it dissolved the slick-looking building stone on contact, and did far worse to any other living matter it touched. There were other creatures as well, frail- looking pink-skinned beings in dark robes which unleashed bursts of deadly magic and some other, unseen force which sent their victims to the floor, screaming and thrashing.

After those two initial retaliatory strikes, there seemed to be almost no attempt at defense, and even less success. Unprepared wizards were overwhelmed by the brute force of the invaders, and warriors with little in the way of weapons or armor fell even faster. Most of those who had magic were using it to attempt escape, but few were managing it. By this time, the image coming from the memory crystal had widened to show a dozen different viewpoints at once, and in all of them, the grotesque monsters were butchering everyone they came across. One screen showed a broad window, through which a small vessel was visible as it sped away from the colony, only to be snatched by a pair of enormously powerful tentacles and embraced by a forest of smaller arms. The hull of the ship buckled and collapsed under the pressure, sending a spray of bubbles up into the black waters as the wreck sank towards the bottom, released by the vast, dark beast that had killed it and all those aboard.

Another image showed a woman with long blue hair and the ruined tatters of a blue gown clinging to her body as she wielded an elegant trident against one of the giants. Each sidelong slash of the three blue-tinted spearheads cut away more rubbery tentacles; each short thrust left a line of holes; and unlike the far more intense damage of the fireball and lightning bolt earlier, these wounds did not close, but instead released trickles and gushes of a cold-looking, blue-green blood. The injured giant fell back, discharging a stream of the viscous acid at the woman, but while the spray of slime almost burned away the tatters of her dress, it parted around her body, leaving her flesh undamaged. The woman retaliated with a blast of water that hurled the monster back down the hallway, but the effort seemed to drain her—and when two more of the green-skinned hulks appeared, with one of the smaller spellcasters close behind, the woman let out a despairing sob before she disappeared in a burst of blue light and flashing spray.

After that, Archon’s apprentice switched the crystal off and set it down on the table. If things had deteriorated to the point where even a Senshi was forced to retreat, then there wasn’t really much to be gained from watching that part of the recording any further. She reached this decision with her eyes closed, one hand pressed to her mouth, and the other arm crossed over her stomach, trying to convince her lunch to stay where it was.

It almost worked.

“But you’re sure she was okay?” Usagi asked. She and the rest were heading back to the Tsukino home after their interrupted lunch, with Ami and Minako—but mostly Ami—filling the others in on the details of the fight at the mall.

“Setsuna was certainly tired out from using her powers,” Ami replied. “And a bit sore, I’d imagine—and she was closer to shouting at us than I’ve ever heard her before. But I ran a scan of her vital signs after she told us she’d teleported those two... people... and everything was within acceptable limits, if not exactly perfect.”

“I think we have a different definition of ‘acceptable limits,’ Ami-chan,” Usagi said sourly.

“Don’t get nasty,” Makoto said firmly. “Setsuna told them to leave her, Usagi-chan, and you know they wouldn’t have done it if she was really badly hurt.”

“Yeah... well... I’m allowed to worry, aren’t I?”

“No,” Minako said firmly. “We made sure that worrying was crossed off your can-do list months ago.”

“That’s a ‘to do’ list,” Artemis corrected. “There is no can-do list.”

“Actually, there is a no-can-do list,” Minako said, “and worrying is at the top of Usagi-chan’s.” Artemis closed his eyes and rubbed at his forehead with the hand on the end of his unglomped right arm, while an unhappy rumbling noise emanated from his chest. “Artemis?” Minako asked, looking up with a frown. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Mina-chan,” he replied wearily, lowering his hand and opening his eyes. “Nothing at all.”

“Uh, Ami-chan,” Ryo interrupted, looking up ahead with a slight frown. “Isn’t that your mother’s car parked in front of Usagi-chan’s house?”

Ami blinked, looked, and blinked again. “It is. Why would...” She stopped and looked at the rest of them; after a long moment of silence, they all hurried forward.

*STOP!* Everyone skidded to a halt at the telepathic shout from Calypso. *That’s better. All of you, remember, you’ve just gotten back from lunch, and you don’t know anything about a fight at the mall. As far as you’re concerned, Setsuna is still at work, so act normally and don’t mention her until someone else does first.*

Ami sighed and covered her face with one hand. “I should have thought of that. Thank you, Caly.” Moving at a more regular pace, they approached the yard.

Shingo was sitting just inside the gate, watching the front door, and absently scratching Luna behind one ear. That got the girls’ attention; Shingo was no longer so deathly afraid of cats as he’d once been, but he wasn’t especially friendly with them, either, and Luna in turn had little reason to want to put up with a boy who sometimes used her for target practice with his water pistols. That the two were able to sit together quietly indicated strongly that something else had their minds occupied.

Boy and cat both looked up at the sound of footsteps. “Finally,” Shingo said, getting up.

“What do you mean ‘finally?’” Usagi demanded, while ChibiUsa bent down to pick Luna up. “What have you been doing, Shingo? And why is Ami-chan’s mother here?”

“I haven’t done anything,” Shingo protested. “Mizuno-san’s here because she brought Meiou-san home from the hospital, and... well, I’m not sure what’s going on,” he admitted, with a glance at the house. “Mom chased me out before I had a chance to ask, but Meiou-san didn’t look very well.”

“How do you mean? Was she hurt?”

“I just _said_ that I don’t know, odango-atama,” Shingo replied peevishly. “Meiou-san didn’t have any bandages or anything that I saw, and she wasn’t crying, but she _looked_ hurt; I think the expression on her face was just about the worst thing I’ve ever seen.” Luna made an unhappy sound in apparent support of that. “See?” Shingo said, pointing at her. “Even your cat agrees with me.”

*Can we panic NOW, Calypso?* Usagi asked, heading straight for the door. “How long have they been here, Shingo?”

“Ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”

They found Ikuko and Mrs. Mizuno in the kitchen, with a pot of tea and two cups between them. Ikuko’s was about half-emptied, but her guest’s was practically untouched; Ami’s mother, they all noticed, did not look particularly well herself.

“Mother?” Ami asked, going over and placing a worried hand on her shoulder. “What’s going on? Why are you here?”

“There was an... incident... at the mall today, dear,” Mrs. Mizuno replied. “Your friend Setsuna was caught up in it, but she wasn’t too seriously injured. Bumps and bruises, mostly; nothing a few days of rest won’t fix.” She sighed. “Nothing physical, at least.”

“I don’t understand, Mother.”

“Your mother made a very unfortunate mistake this afternoon, Ami-chan,” Ikuko said. Ami blinked.

“She’s right, dear,” Mrs. Mizuno said, patting her daughter’s hand to stop her from saying anything, while smiling weakly at Ikuko. “She’s just being polite by not calling it a stupid mistake—which I’m afraid it was.”

“She WHAT?!” Haruka shouted.

The three Outer Senshi were sitting—or in Haruka’s case, standing—in their living room, listening to Luna describe the events that had transpired at the Tsukino household.

“You heard me,” Luna said. “Ami’s mother has found convincing medical evidence that—at some point—Setsuna had a baby.”

“But HOW?!” Haruka demanded. “I mean... where? _When_? WHO?”

“Sit down, Haruka,” Michiru said, not unkindly, as she reached out, caught the gesturing woman by one arm, and pulled her back to the couch. “Obviously, we don’t know where, or when, or whom—unless she told ChibiUsa?” she added, turning back to Luna.

Luna shook her head. “If anything, ChibiUsa was even more surprised than the rest of us; she nearly dropped me when Ami’s mother was explaining what had happened.” Only a talking cat could have said that, even if she wasn’t currently a cat. “She went up to try and talk to Setsuna afterwards, and then came downstairs about twenty minutes later looking like she was going to cry. Usagi sent me out to tell you what’s been going on a little while after that.”

“Is Setsuna okay?” Hotaru asked in a small voice.

“No, Hotaru,” Luna sighed, “she’s definitely not okay. From what Ami’s mother and Ikuko said, Setsuna’s been sitting on her bed and staring out the window since she got home. ChibiUsa said she wouldn’t even look at her or speak to her.”

Haruka shook her head. “That’s bad. If she won’t talk to the munchkin, I don’t see that there’s much chance of any of the rest of us getting through to her—except maybe Hotaru.” She frowned and added, in a disapproving tone, “Unless you, Ami, or Calypso were thinking about trying something...?”

“Only if it becomes absolutely necessary,” Luna replied firmly. “Reading someone’s thoughts is one thing, but trying to alter them is something else entirely, and it can be dangerous even when you know what you’re doing. We’re not going to subject Setsuna to any more mental trauma if we can help it. Besides, there were a number of restrictions on procedures like that during the Silver Millennium; I’m still bound by those principles because of my oath of service to Serenity, and Ami and Calypso would both feel obligated to honor them as well. One of the key requirements was the permission of the patient—which we aren’t likely to get—and that could only be waived under certain circumstances, none of which apply to Setsuna at the moment.”

“Should I go over, then?” Hotaru asked.

“It might be better if we gave Setsuna a little space right now, Firefly,” Michiru said gently. “None of us want to see her hurt, but to be bluntly honest, we don’t have the slightest idea what she’s going through right now. None of us has ever had to deal with amnesia, rediscovering how to be a Senshi, *and* learning about a lost baby. If we don’t know what that’s like, if we can’t _understand_ the pain Setsuna’s feeling, how can we try to talk her out of it? Could we even be sure that anything we said wasn’t just making things worse?”

The others looked at her, but none of them said anything, and so Michiru continued, speaking mostly to Hotaru. “I think that, for right now, the best thing we can do for Setsuna is to give her some time to try and figure this out for herself, without all of us poking our noses into it. ChibiUsa, Usagi, and Luna are all right there to keep an eye on her and call us if she gets worse.”

Michiru and Hotaru looked at each other for a while, and finally the younger girl nodded. “Okay, Michiru-mama. But how long do we wait?”

“I’m inclined to give her a day at the most,” Michiru admitted with a tight smile, “but I think she’ll need longer than that. Luna?”

“Ami’s mother suggested a few days, but I’m not sure how accurate her assessment was; it was pretty obvious that she was beating herself up for just telling Setsuna out of the blue like that.”

“I’d have to see that to believe it,” Haruka muttered. “That woman has all the warmth of a blizzard.”

“It’s called ‘reserve,’ Haruka,” Michiru chided. “Not everyone shows their feelings openly, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have them—and besides, you’re hardly in a position to talk. You barely even spoke to her at Mako-chan’s.”

“Yeah, well... mothers just make me nervous, all right?” Michiru rolled her eyes in a sort of exasperated amusement, as did Hotaru; Luna glanced curiously at Haruka, but didn’t comment.

“In the meantime,” she said instead, “I think that we should give Setsuna about a week and see where things stand. She made astonishingly good progress after New Year’s, and it’s possible she’ll be able to do the same again.” Luna tried to sound cheerful when she said that, but her voice fell short of the mark.

It might be possible, but at the moment, it didn’t appear very likely—and from the way Haruka, Hotaru, and Michiru looked at her, Luna could see that they all knew it.

Makoto gently brushed a piece of lint away from one of the leaves of the newest, strangest member of her indoor garden. She couldn’t help but notice that the infant tree had grown itself a few more buds, to replace the ones which had developed into new leaves while she had been out for lunch. It had done the same thing yesterday, gaining a dozen or so leaves, as many buds, and three or four centimeters of height in the course of twenty-four hours. Although some of the implications of this accelerated development bothered Makoto, she *had* enjoyed seeing Ami have to eat her words about how trees grew slowly.

“Caly,” Makoto asked, not looking away from the tree, “can you think of any way that I could get this thing to slow down?”

“Not really, no,” Calypso admitted. She was sitting atop the back of the couch, watching Makoto work. “Plants aren’t really my area of expertise to begin with, and this one’s quite unique. Offhand, though, I’d suspect that not giving it any more of those energy-baths will keep its development slowed to a minimum.” The Nereid paused and looked at the small tree closely. “Considering the dose of energy it absorbed from you the other night, though, this probably *is* its minimum now.”

“Probably,” Makoto agreed with a sigh, getting up off her knees. “I’ll have to remember to look around for a larger pot; at this rate, it’ll grow out of that one in another week or so.”

“I’d start looking for some out-of-the-way place to plant it, if I were you,” Calypso countered with a small shake of her head. “Either that or manifest the heretofore unknown power of controlling the physical development of plants.”

“That’d be a handy trick to have,” Makoto said, heading for the kitchen and catching herself on the back of the chair when she tripped again. Muttering halfhearted complaints, Makoto picked herself up and started for the kitchen again, but then she sighed and sat down in the chair instead.

“Change of heart?” Calypso asked.

“I’m just too tired,” Makoto replied, leaning back and closing her eyes. “Why am I so worn out all of a sudden, Caly? Does it have something to do with Setsuna?”

“I couldn’t say for certain. Did you feel anything from her while we were at Usagi-chan’s?”

Makoto nodded. “A little. Coming down from upstairs, through the floor and the walls. It was faint, but it was... uncomfortable.” She shifted, hugging herself.

“What sort of uncomfortable?” Calypso asked, drifting over and sitting on the empty space between the chair and the coffee table. “Uncomfortable-nervous? Uncomfortable-agitated?”

“Try uncomfortable-empty,” Makoto said. “I’ve gotten used to how people *feel*, Caly. No matter what sort of mood a person is in, there’s always something about them that’s the same, on the inside. With Usagi-chan, it’s a sort of warmth, with something unbreakable underneath, and with Mina-chan, it’s like... it’s like...” Makoto smiled softly, rolling her eyes. “To be honest, when I’m around Mina-chan, I feel like I’m standing next to something that’s about to fly apart—but it’s a *fun* something.”

“Ishtar always did know how to have a good time,” Calypso agreed. “What about Setsuna? What do you usually feel around her?”

“Usually... she feels happy. I know, I know,” Makoto added quickly, nodding in response to Calypso’s startled blink. “It’s hard to imagine, considering everything that she’s got to worry about, and I admit that I always get a sense of sadness from her, but most of the time she’s calm and peaceful, and more often than not, there’s a smile in there as well.”

“And now?” Makoto didn’t reply to that right away.

“I couldn’t tell right away,” she said at last. “The more people there are around, the harder it is for me to be sure from a distance what any one of them is feeling, but once I was inside and got used to everyone else... it was bad, Caly. I could tell that on some level, Setsuna was feeling sad, angry, frustrated, hurt, and all the other things she *should* have felt after being told something as terrible as that, but they were all getting pushed down by this horrible *empty* feeling...” Makoto scrunched up her face and shook her head, trying not to think about what it had felt like, sensing that awful emotional void. Unfortunately, Calypso wasn’t much help in that regard.

“When you say ‘empty,’ do you mean...”

“I mean empty, Caly. Hollow. Nothing. Just knowing it was there made me feel afraid and sick to my stomach, and can we please talk about something else?! Because I don’t want to think about it any more!” Much too late, Makoto bit her tongue and squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry, Caly” she apologized. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

A cool, slightly tingly hand patted hers. “It’s okay, Mako-chan. You’ll have to try harder than that to hurt my feelings—and I’m sorry, too. I won’t ask you about that again.”

“Thank you.”

“And to answer your original question, I don’t think Setsuna would be what’s making you tired. Empaths can get *emotionally* worn out by exposure to intense feelings, but you’re physically tired, too, or you wouldn’t be stumbling into things like you’ve been. I really can’t say for certain why that’s happening, although I’d guess that the Aegis are responsible.”

Makoto sighed and tugged absently at her necklace. “Somehow, I knew you’d say that.”

“Oh?” Calypso gave her a curious look. “What *do* you feel from me, anyway?”

“From you?” Makoto asked, looking up. “Well... the sense I get from you is a lot like the one I get from Ami-chan. You’re both sort of cool and gentle, and there’s always the sense that you just know things. I don’t sense that you’re smart so much as I sense that you *know* that you’re smart, and like being that way.”

“Very true,” Calypso agreed, smiling. “Now tell me something you sense about me that’s just me. Not that I don’t like being similar to my sister, you understand, but I do have my vanity.”

“Er... well... you’ve got a sort of a tingly feeling that Ami-chan doesn’t. Sort of like Mina-chan, only not so crazy. Fun, but not nuts. And... uh...” Makoto hesitated. There *was* one other thing she tended to notice from Calypso, something which made her just a little bit nervous. She’d been meaning to talk to Ami about it for some time now, but things always seemed to keep coming up to prevent it—like Ami going back to the hospital with her mother this afternoon—and now that feeling was coming off of Calypso in spades.

“Caly,” Makoto began.

“Yes?”

“Um... you know I like you, right? As a friend?” she added belatedly.

“I like you, too, Mako-chan. As a friend.” From the way Calypso said that, it sounded as though she was leaving something off at the end—something important. That unsettling feeling intensified, and Makoto gulped involuntarily.

*You just HAD to go off and leave me alone with her, didn’t you, Ami?* she thought in mounting desperation, casting about for what to say next. “Well, the reason I ask is... um... you see, sometimes I get the impression that you’re... er...”

“That I’m what?” Calypso asked ingenuously, floating forward with her chin resting on the backs of her folded hands, her blue eyes proclaiming innocence above a small smile which declared something else entirely. At the sight of that smile, Makoto unconsciously backed up in her chair and put one hand on the Aegis again, tugging nervously at the string of pearly spheres.

“That you’re... uh... well, for example, when you were testing that electrical socket at Michiru’s, you were acting sort of... odd.”

“I was?” Calypso asked, floating a little closer and not losing a drop of sweetness from her smile. Makoto tried backing up again, but one can only go so far back while sitting in a chair, and Makoto had just reached the limit of her retreat.

“And then there was the night with the daimons,” Makoto added quickly, trying to ignore the fact that she was beginning to blush. “By the time I stopped firing electricity at everything, you sounded like you were...”

“Like I was... what?” Calypso asked, reaching out and toying with a strand of Makoto’s hair. “Intoxicated?” Floating closer still, she lowered her voice and added, “Excited?”

Makoto could feel her eyes trying to grow to the size of saucers. “Stop that,” she demanded lamely.

“Stop what?”

“You know exactly what. I don’t like girls, Calypso.” Makoto tried to make her words sound authoritative and final, but they came out quick, squeaky, and not at all like the end of the matter—and it only made things worse, because Calypso just smiled and turned into a boy.

“Better?” the Nereid asked, in what was definitely a male voice. Makoto couldn’t help but think that if Ami had ever had a twin brother, he’d have looked like this. The blue eyes were the same, as was the shade of hair, although it was now in a different style, shorter and less neatly-arranged, than it had been a moment ago. Despite being wider in the shoulders, the body had the same overall slimness that Ami and her mother both possessed, and Calypso’s pale blue dress had changed into dark blue pants and a plain white t-shirt that would not have looked out of place in Ami’s wardrobe. If not exactly the proverbial tall, dark, and handsome, ‘he’ was still pretty cute...

When that thought popped into her head, Makoto scrambled backwards over the top of the chair and as far away from Calypso as she could get, which ended up literally putting her back to the wall. Breathing heavily and feeling pretty much like any cornered animal, Makoto stared at the Nereid, who looked back with startled eyes—and then began to laugh, first slowly, and then with rising intensity. As Calypso fell back and rolled around on empty air, overcome with hilarity, Makoto blinked and felt her blush grow anew, this time from the recognition of the new emotion pouring out of the giggling Nereid, and the accompanying realization that she’d just been played for a sucker.

“You did that on purpose!” Makoto blurted accusingly. Calypso’s response was to revert back to female form and then grin enormously and nod until she burst out laughing again. Makoto moved over to the couch, seized a pillow, and whipped it at the Nereid’s head, scoring a clean hit simply because Calypso was too caught up in laughing to shift into mist and avoid the padded projectile. It only made her laugh more, and Makoto pitched another pillow at her out of frustration before she righted the toppled chair.

Finally, Calypso calmed down enough to explain. “I noticed the look you gave Ami right before you went to Jupiter, and when I asked her what it meant, she explained to me that you’d been wanting to talk to her about me for a while. When I thought it over, I realized that some of the things I’ve said or done might have made you wonder if I was attracted to you, and from what Ami said, I guessed that you might be a little uncomfortable about that. We were going to talk to you when you came back from Jupiter, but”—Calypso took in the Aegis and the young tree over by the balcony with the same glance—“the last couple of days have been busy ones. Once we started talking about your empathic reception of people... well, it was too good an opportunity to pass up.”

“So you were joking the whole time?”

Calypso smiled gently and shook her head. “Not completely, no. I *do* find you attractive, Mako-chan.”

Staring again, Makoto sat back down in the chair. “It’s Jupiter, right?” she asked faintly. “The electricity?”

“In part,” Calypso admitted, “but only in part. Even if I don’t read your mind, the pattern of it is familiar and comfortable for me to be around, because it’s similar to Amalthea’s. But I had to adjust to the differences, too, and that helped me to begin coping with everything that’s changed. You’re a kind, generous person, easy to be around or talk to—and as you may have noticed, I do like to talk.” Calypso rolled her eyes self-depreciatingly. “Your empathic abilities are similar to my telepathic powers, but at the same time, there’s a world of difference, which makes you seem a little mysterious to me, and we Nereids were infamous for not being able to pass up puzzles of any kind.”

“You’re saying that... you like me... for my mind?” Makoto tried not to sound startled or bitter, but too many of her past experiences had gone the other way, and her tone was evident, because Calypso blinked at it.

“Is there something wrong with that?”

“No... not wrong. It’s just not what I’m used to.” Makoto sighed. “For one reason or another, this”—she gestured at her body—“is what most people notice first about me. Particularly the boys, but it was even like that with the other girls: I got into a fight the first time I met Usagi-chan, and I knew she was surprised by how strong I was; and Ami-chan and Rei-chan were both startled by my height when Usagi-chan introduced us. They’ve all gotten over it, but a lot of people don’t bother to. It’s... different... to meet somebody who isn’t physically intimidated by my body, or attracted to it.”

“I didn’t say that.” Makoto looked up, startled anew, and Calypso shrugged. “My main reproductive process may not be like yours, Mako-chan, but don’t forget that I *am* partly human. That gives me plenty of grounds to appreciate your body along with everything else about you. And you *do* have a very nice body.” Her smile made Makoto blush again, and Calypso’s expression became curious. “Does all of this *really* bother you that much?”

“Yes,” Makoto reluctantly admitted. “I’ve gotten used to dealing with people who are attracted to me, even a few girls, but this... no offense, Calypso, but this is just... *weirder* than anything I’ve ever had to worry about before. I mean, you look, sound, and act like one of my best friends; you *are* her sister; you’re a member of a completely different species; you’re about a thousand years older than I am; you change your shape at the drop of a hat; and I’m not entirely sure whether you’re really a girl, a boy, or something else altogether.”

“That is quite a list of concerns,” Calypso agreed, “and the last is the only one I can really do anything about.” She settled to the table before continuing. “I know from Ami that Luna told you about the origin of the Nereids, the birth of the first Senshi of Mercury, and how that eventually led to all the Nereids being partly human. Before that time, we had no real genders as you know them; afterwards, we were all genetically female, even if we took a male shape.”

“What do you mean by that?” Makoto asked, frowning.

“I’ll start at the beginning,” Calypso said. “My Nereid ancestors reproduced by gathering in groups and combining small portions of their individual energy and water-mass. One member of the group served as the focus of the whole thing, taking in and shaping the energy and water, and then breaking off small parts of its own body to form baby Nereids. Technically, you could say that one Nereid was the mother, and the rest were the fathers, but any Nereid could perform either function. Okay?”

She waited for Makoto’s slow, wide-eyed nod. “Now, humans and Nereids have always *thought* enough alike that a member of one species can fall in love with the other, but my early ancestors weren’t genetically compatible with humans, simply because they didn’t *have* genes, only energy. If you break matter down far enough, though, you get back to energy, and one Nereid—the ‘father’ of the original Mercury—realized that and honed his sense of his wife’s energy to the point where he was able to shape a very small part of himself to mimic it. He implanted that copy into his wife, and their daughter—Seelee—was born in due course. Since she had her mother’s genetics, Seelee grew up to be physically identical to her, except that her entire body had Nereid-like energy in all of its cells. She gained telepathic abilities and affinity for water and cold from her Nereid father, and from her mother, she received whatever it is about humans that allows some of you to be Senshi; Mercury was the result.”

“I’ll have to take your word for that,” Makoto said, frowning. “Biology isn’t really my strong point.”

“It’s not really mine, either; I’m just repeating what I was taught when I was little.” Calypso paused, then nodded and continued. “Seelee was an only child, at and the time, there were no other Nereids married to human women, so she was unique throughout her childhood. Since she was half-Nereid and had many of our traits, it wasn’t much of a surprise that she fell in love with a Nereid. Their children, conceived in the same way that Seelee had been, were all daughters, and so was any other child born in that fashion. Can you guess why?”

“Um... I think so,” Makoto replied, her forehead furrowed in concentration. “Anything female has two... two...”—she snapped her fingers, trying to remember her biology class—“whatsits... ‘X’ chromosomes, that’s it. And anything male has one ‘X’ and one ‘Y.’ So if the Nereids were copying the genetics of their human wives to have children...”

“...then the children would have *had* to be female, because their mothers didn’t have that one specifically-male component of human DNA.” Calypso smiled. “See what you can learn when you pay attention in class?”

“Very funny.” Makoto sighed. “So, is that why you said you’re ‘genetically female?’”

“Yes. Any child with a human mother and a Nereid parent will always be female, and have stronger Nereid traits than her mother. Most of Seelee’s daughters chose to marry Nereids, and *their* daughters were able to reproduce in the Nereid fashion, which accelerated the assimilation of human DNA—or its pure-energy form—into our species. Other Nereids mated with human women to produce daughters like Seelee, and many of those came back to us as well, adding more genetic diversity, which was increased even further by the nature of Nereid reproduction. Still, regardless of how many times our inherited human energy was mixed and recombined, it was still entirely female—and so were we.”

“I see.” Makoto lapsed into an awkward silence, and then said, “Caly... if there aren’t... I mean, if you...” She made a face. “There’s no polite way to say this. Can you... have children?”

“I can have children,” Calypso replied softly. “It’s draining, but one of the things we inherited from Seelee and the rest was the ability to assume a true human form, even more realistic than the one I’m in now. I could turn into a woman and have children, daughters OR sons, or I could assume the form of a male—or use the old process which created Mercury—and be the genetic father of daughters. But they wouldn’t be Nereids. It takes at least...” Calypso stopped and closed her eyes. “It took,” she corrected, with a small quaver in her voice, “at least three of us to reproduce in the old fashion. The only way I know of that would allow me to have a Nereid child now would be with the energy of the Blue Hall—but that only works once, and my daughter would be Mercury *and* be in the same situation I am now. I... I couldn’t do that.”

“Caly?” Makoto asked, leaning forward in her chair and touching her friend’s arm.

“I’m okay, Mako-chan.” It was a shameless lie, of course; Calypso was the last of her kind, and right now, she was definitely *not* okay with it. Then, oddly, she smiled again. “I could use a hug, though, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“No groping,” Makoto replied dryly, causing Calypso to bunch up her features and snap her fingers in disappointment. Makoto had to smile and shake her head at that as she opened her arms and let the Nereid float in. As usual, the slightest contact with Calypso’s virtually weightless body caused a faint, electric tingle in Makoto’s skin, something she doubted that anybody else would notice. She ignored it, and after a time, asked, “Feel better now?”

“Yes, thank you.” There was a thoughtful-sounding silence. “I suppose you won’t let me kiss you, either.” The next silence had several volumes’ worth of answer to it. “Just making sure.”

There was a knock at the door. “Go away,” Rei groaned into her pillow. Although she had not been involved in the fight at the mall, she’d had plenty to deal with in Himeko, the super-hyper-ultra Sailor V fangirl. It was frightening how much like Minako that girl was when it came down to her obsessions—which was probably why she was such a Sailor V fanatic—and the combination of holding her back during the fight and then enduring her ‘missed autograph’ mood afterwards had drained Rei’s energy and patience to the bare limit. She had endured Himeko on the way to the cafe—the food court at the mall being out of the question—ignored her as much as possible through lunch, and then taken her leave of the other girls as quickly as politely possible, before she resorted to strangling Himeko in public.

“She’ll calm down in a day or two,” Keiko had said when Rei got up to leave, while Himeko and Karima were in the washroom. “And you have to admit, Rei-san, she has a right to be upset; setting aside the entire threat to life and limb, she *did* miss a chance to meet one of her personal idols because of you. When’s she going to get an opportunity like that again?”

Rei had chosen not to answer that, and resolved on the spot not to mention the episode to Minako. She might just get it into her head to make sure that Himeko met Sailor V *and* got her autograph, as she’d done with those kids they’d met while returning home from the time-trip.

Thinking about that now as she lay face-down on her bed, it occurred to Rei to wonder what had become of those two girls, the boy, and that weird flying bear, but her train of thought was derailed by another knock at the door.

“I said go away,” Rei said, raising her head and glancing at the door, where two figures were silhouetted against the light.

“Are you decent?” Minako’s voice called back. Rei groaned a second time— name the devil, and she shall appear—and then with a weary sigh, got up to open the door.

“This had better be important,” she said bluntly, “or else... you...” Words failed her; Rei had *never* seen either Minako or Artemis wearing a look like that, and it sent a chill down her spine. “Is Usagi...”

“She’s okay,” Minako replied. “It’s Setsuna. There was... she’s... you see...” She closed her mouth, took a deep breath through her nose, and settled for, “It’s complicated.”

“Ami’s mother thinks Setsuna had a baby,” Artemis said simply. While Rei was blinking, Minako slowly turned and looked up at her partner; he returned the look with wide, innocent eyes. Puppy-dog eyes, one might almost say, except that such a phrase would be completely inaccurate when applied to a feline. Even one in human form.

“Anyway,” Minako said, drawing the word out with all sorts of hidden meanings for Artemis to worry over, “we need you to add Setsuna to your list of things to look for in the Book. Anything you can find about her life that would have the slightest bearing on this phantom baby, because she’s...”

“Wait, wait, WAIT!” Rei barked, signaling with her hands. “Time out! Stop!” Both Minako and Artemis blinked at her. “Come inside.” They did that, and Rei slid the door shut. “Sit down,” she said, turning around and kneeling next to the table. They did likewise, taking places across from her. “Now, start from the beginning. *Why* would Mizuno-san think this, and *how* did you two hear about it?”

“Setsuna got a little banged up by those two creatures before she had a chance to transform,” Minako began carefully. “She wanted to make sure nobody commented on it, so she had Haruka take her back inside after the fight, where the paramedics could find her.” Minako waited for Rei to nod, then went into detail about what Ami’s mother had found in the x-rays, and what had happened when the girls had reached Usagi’s house and been told all of this.

By the time Minako had finished, Rei was looking down at the table, and the heavy, leather-bound tome sitting atop it, closed and inoffensive.

“I’ll try to find something in here,” she said, placing a hand on the Book, “but I can’t make any promises.”

“We know,” Minako said. “Maybe you’ll find something, and maybe you won’t, but at least now you’ll know to look for this kid, and what to ask for the next time the Book starts volunteering information.” She paused. “It hasn’t done anything else like that, has it? No fits of independent page-turning or displays of self-stacking?”

“No, nothing like that. Yours?”

Minako shook her head. “The sword hasn’t moved, glowed, or burst into song.” She smiled. “Care to trade your Book for my sword? You could get a few nights’ worth of uninterrupted, worry-free sleep and let me have a go at it.”

By way of an answer, Rei opened the Book to a random page and turned it about for Minako to read; the blonde squinted at the glowing, shifting scrawl, slowly turning her head until she was watching the page from out of the corners of her eyes. Then she blinked several times and rubbed her eyes with one hand, turning the Book back around to Rei’s side of the table.

“Forget I said anything.”

Rei nodded and, out of habit, took a moment to examine the contents of the open pages. “Hmmm.”

“Something interesting?” Artemis asked.

“It’s talking about the weather on Saturn,” Rei replied, following the path of the letters as it meandered all over the page. “Something called the Chaos Wind is apparently going to hit full strength there this year.”

Artemis made a face, sucking air through his teeth. “That could be a problem. Does it say when the Wind will peak?” Rei had involuntarily looked up at the noise, but quickly returned her attention to the Book.

“Late March... through to early May, according to this.” She looked up again. “How can weather on Saturn be a problem?”

“The Chaos Wind isn’t precisely weather; it’s a planet-wide disturbance caused by the dimensional warp at the center of Saturn. Here, I’ll show you.” Rei had a small stack of paper and a couple of pens and pencils laid out on the table for when she was translating; Artemis took the top sheet and drew a fairly large circle, then added a much smaller circle at the center of the first. “Let’s say that this is Saturn. Everything in this area here”—he indicated the region between the two circles—“is organized more or less like the other gas giants. Various layers of atmosphere, with winds and electrical storms. *This*”—he tapped the small circle—“is the region of the dimensional warp. Get to here, and each of your component molecules will probably wind up in a separate dimension from the rest.”

“Yeah...” Minako said slowly. “We’re with you so far.”

“The warp sends out distortions,” Artemis continued, sketching some arrows leading out of the center, “anywhere from the size of an atom to the size of a small moon. They go out, up, and eventually get pulled back into the warp, and even the largest ones don’t do very much by themselves. If they collide with each other, though, there’s a reaction.” He’d drawn two loops that went from the center up to the edge of the ‘planet,’ and where they crossed, he put in a simple, dark ‘X.’ “With the right kind of reaction, you get a temporary interdimensional portal that’s actually stable enough for something to pass through; with the wrong kind, you get a nasty explosion.”

“So... that’s the Chaos Wind?” Rei guessed.

“In a nutshell,” Artemis agreed, setting the pencil down. “It got the name because the mini-portals and explosions affect Saturn’s atmosphere, which allows you to track the frequency and intensity of the interdimensional activity by watching for changes the planet’s weather. Most of the time, it’s not too much to worry about, as long as you keep a safe distance—say, beyond the rings—but every once in a while, the warp speeds up, and the Chaos Wind increases. The result is bigger and more numerous portals and explosions, and a lot of increased traffic through the warp, most of it unfriendly.”

“Swell,” Minako noted dryly. “Do you suppose this is what our friends from the Court were worried about when they stopped by to talk with Hotaru-chan?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was,” Artemis replied. “If anything could affect the Chaos Wind, it’d be the Senshi of Saturn. Is there anything else in this entry, Rei? Anything we might be able to tell Hotaru about?”

“Let me see... Wind... March to May...” The words were beginning to fade even as Rei studied them; she frowned and read faster, but a quick glance told her she wasn’t going to be able to read the entire thing. Sure enough, it was gone about three seconds later, with a sizable section still unread. Rei made a face.

“Didn’t get it, did you?” Minako asked.

“Only that *something* is going to come through when the Wind peaks. I couldn’t see what.”

“That’s what I figured,” Minako sighed. Her chin propped on one hand, she looked up at the ceiling. “Do you have any more bad news for us? I’d sort of like to get it out of the way all at once, if you don’t mind.”

The Book did not react, but then, she hadn’t been addressing it. As for the ceiling: its response could only be described as wooden.

Wednesday afternoon was a bad one for the Tsukino family.

In turn, all three ladies had tried and failed to get Setsuna to say something. Older and wiser than the other two, Ikuko accepted the first defeat with a sigh and the shaping of a firm conviction not to give up that easily, and then spent a great amount of time comforting ChibiUsa, who was in a state bordering on the hysterical.

With the exception of Hotaru, Setsuna was and always had been ChibiUsa’s best friend—her parents didn’t count—and the dark-eyed, secretive Senshi of Time had on occasion opened up to her rabbit-haired confidante, sometimes to tell her things about her mission, and at other times—very rare, very private times—to reveal things about herself. The future princess had always known that there were things Pluto did not tell her, for all the little pieces that she knew—the things she had repeated to Setsuna after finding her in this era—did not come near to equaling the span of a normal life, let alone the unique life the Guardian of Time had lived. But never, *never* for an instant had ChibiUsa ever suspected that Setsuna had a child.

So now, on top of feeling shocked and worried by the discovery that Setsuna *did* have a child—somewhere—ChibiUsa felt like she’d failed somehow, that if she’d just paid more attention or asked some obvious question, maybe she would have had an answer that could have spared her friend from having to go through this now. Even more than that, ChibiUsa felt a little betrayed, since it now appeared that Setsuna hadn’t trusted her enough to broach this subject—and *then* she was disgusted with herself for feeling that way.

With Ikuko remaining calm and ChibiUsa breaking down, it made a kind of sense that Usagi’s reaction was somewhere between her mother’s and her future daughter’s. She worried openly, but quietly. She lent a hand in settling ChibiUsa, and then sat staring down at her folded hands, tracing small patterns over her belly with her thumb, and twisting her engagement ring anxiously. She also did phone duty for the afternoon, answering every call before it had a chance to ring more than once, then inevitably returning to her pensive mood.

Shingo made himself scarce for the entire afternoon, ducking out of the house and staying out until almost supper time. After that, he spent the evening in his room, either reading or playing video games with the sound turned off, but making no noise at all in any case. Shingo was a brat on occasion, but he wasn’t completely insensitive. Most of the time.

As for Kenji, he was very late getting home from work, and only half-informed about what had gone on at the mall during the day, so Usagi took him aside and explained the situation to her father, adding in passing that he had better be very quiet when he went upstairs. The last time they had looked in on Setsuna, she was in bed; likewise, ChibiUsa had been completely exhausted by the stress of the day, and tucked into Ikuko’s bed for the night. For a wonder, it didn’t seem to bother Kenji; he just asked Usagi if she’d prefer to sleep near her mother tonight, too.

“She’s made me sleep on the couch a time or two before,” he said, faking a grin and lying through his teeth as he added, “It’s not as bad as it’s cracked up to be.”

“I remember the last time,” Usagi replied. “You couldn’t walk straight for the next three days.” She smiled and gave her dad a hug. “I’ll be okay.”

That was another lie, unfortunately. *Nobody* slept well that night. Usagi woke up three times from unpleasant dreams, while ChibiUsa remained asleep, but suffered through repeated bouts of tossing and turning until Ikuko woke up and gathered her granddaughter close, holding her until the bad dreams passed and they both fell into unbroken sleep. Luna, who didn’t sleep at all, counted five separate instances during the night when somebody woke up and visited the bathroom or the kitchen; Usagi and Shingo were two of those times each, and Luna guessed Kenji was the last one. Setsuna, who normally slept with a peaceful expression, now looked as though she were wrestling with daimons, and losing.

It was the same in other homes. When Grandpa Hino and Yuuichirou sought their beds at Hikawa that night, they did so troubled by the dark cloud that had settled over Rei during the afternoon. The four crows, their perches removed now that the weather had improved, gathered together on a branch so that they could all look in through Rei’s bedroom window, and not once did they make a sound. Rei had no dreams at all that night, which in some ways was just as unpleasant as bad dreams. Either very late or very early, long after even the crows had dispersed to different branches to sleep, the Book of Ages seemed to shudder with pale light, as if it too was somehow being disturbed by all of this negative energy that was drifting about.

Elsewhere, Minako spent the night sleeping on a makeshift mattress of pillows on the floor, her arms wrapped around the softest trooper in her plushie army while a larger-than-life-sized jungle cat slept at her back. Artemis woke up a few times with great, fang-filled yawns, to look around at the room and reassure himself that Gladius wasn’t taking a page from the Book and ‘doing things.’ Each time, with no signs of the passage of a glowing, self-wielding sword apparent to his senses, the big cat yawned again, lowered his shaggy head, and resumed his interrupted sleep.

After the afternoon at the hospital, Ami had hoped to bring her mother back to the apartment for supper, but as always, Mrs. Mizuno’s work schedule had a life of its own, pushing away all other concerns. On a certain level, Ami was glad of that, as steady work would keep her mother from worrying too much—it was one of many traits they had in common—but she was also once again frustrated at how her mother’s job made it so difficult for them to spend time together. Such concerns troubled her sleep, as did her conversations with Calypso and Makoto about what had transpired while she was out; being reminded of Calypso’s problems on top of her mother’s and Setsuna’s kept Ami’s rest fitful, as her mind tried to work out answers, and returned blanks. Every time Ami stirred, across town, Ryo shifted as well, and the reverse was also true. Makoto fared little better, as her dreams were endlessly invaded by disappearing, reappearing, shape-and-gender-changing children. Calypso spent a large part of the night out in the living room, hovering near the growing tree, from time to time looking back at either bedroom with a sigh.

When the waning sliver of the moon broke through the clouds that night, its light found Hotaru and Michiru sleeping in the same familial embrace as ChibiUsa and Ikuko. Haruka, however, was absent from the waterbed, and indeed the entire house; instead, Uranus lay atop the roof of the Tsukino home, unbothered by the cold wind and the hard tiles as, hands locked behind her head, she watched the moonrise and contemplated the sickly feeling that had been lurking in her heart since Luna’s visit. There was a dreadful familiarity to Setsuna’s behavior, but the source of that recognition eluded the Senshi of the Sky. On some level, Uranus acknowledged that she was happier not knowing why she felt this way, but she also realized that, if the rate at which the other girls were regaining their memories of their past lives was any indication, it probably wouldn’t be long before she *did* understand the source of this unease.

She wasn’t looking forward to it.

Eventually, when the night wore on to the point where her internal sense of time estimated it to be about one in the morning, Uranus judged the nightly vigil ended, closed her eyes, and teleported away, landing soundlessly in the bedroom at home. On her feet and already turned back to normal, Haruka moved into the bathroom so she could undress and put on her nightshirt without waking the two sleepers, and then did her best to climb into bed without disturbing them. No such luck; not with a waterbed. Hotaru slept on, but Michiru’s eyes opened at the first shift in the mattress, and she smiled—just a bit triumphantly, Haruka thought, unable to suppress a weary sigh even as she lay down and halfheartedly returned the smile. Michiru’s expression changed at that sound, becoming sympathetic. Keeping her right arm at rest around Hotaru’s purple pajama-clad shoulders, she reached out to Haruka, caressing the side of her face.

“It’ll be okay, ‘Ruka,” Michiru said gently.

“I hope you’re right,” Haruka replied, taking Michiru’s hand and kissing the back of it before sighing a second time and closing her eyes, still holding Michiru’s hand close. The next look she got was a bit less understanding.

“If you drool on my hand,” Michiru began warningly. Haruka opened one quizzical eye, then nipped playfully at the fingers of said hand. Michiru drew back immediately, making as if to reach out with a far less gentle touch, but she stopped when Hotaru murmured, shifted, and looked up and around.

“Mmmm... Michiru? S’Haruka...”

“Right here, Firefly,” Haruka said, patting the little Senshi on the shoulder. “Go back to sleep.”

“’Kay...” Not really awake, Hotaru snuggled a little closer to Michiru and then was asleep again in the space of two short breaths. Michiru brushed an errant fall of dark hair away from the girl’s face, then returned her hand to its place on Hotaru’s shoulder, resting atop Haruka’s in the process. They looked at each other, smiled briefly, and then closed their eyes as well.

Setsuna did not get up at sunrise on Thursday. She did not get up at all that morning, but simply stayed in bed, huddled up on her side, staring at the wall and not really seeing it.

As Makoto had said to Calypso, all the normal, understandable emotions that Setsuna should have been feeling were there. Shock and confusion, pain and anger, horror and denial; all the components for a massive, screaming fit of hysteria were in place, and Setsuna’s self-control had wavered and cracked to the point where such a display was not only likely, but probably necessary—and it wasn’t happening. All of those feelings were there, but pushed down to the point where they barely registered, swallowed up in a sea of emptiness. Something inside Setsuna’s mind had woken up and taken over, the size and intensity of it pushing everything else away.

It was despair. Bleak, hollow despair, directed at the other void in her mind, the grey place where her memories should have been, but weren’t. Despair that the certain knowledge of her past was denied to her, that even something as terribly important as finding her own child couldn’t give her the strength to break down whatever barriers had walled away her life.

Her child. Setsuna didn’t even want to consider the implications of that phrase. She wanted to believe that, even if she couldn’t have stayed to raise the child herself, she would have used every power in Pluto’s arsenal to find or—if necessary—make a safe home. Setsuna wanted to think that her child had grown up happy and normally, whatever time he or she might be in; she wanted to believe that she had used one of those peculiar images of herself to watch over the child, perhaps to even be a mother without abandoning her duty as Pluto. She wanted to believe that Ami’s mother had made an error in her diagnosis and jumped to the wrong conclusion, that this was all just a mistake.

She couldn’t convince herself of any of those. A proclivity for hasty judgments did not strike Setsuna as being part of Mrs. Mizuno’s character, and the woman had said that she’d checked those x-rays several times, so she had to accept that there had not been a mistake. As for the rest, everything Setsuna had learned from the girls hinted at a certain ruthless quality in Pluto’s behavior. It might not be entirely by choice, but her lost self sounded as though she could and would have done whatever was required to maintain the orderly flow of Time. If that included abandoning her own baby somewhere in Time, completely severing all ties, forever... it was a horrible thought, but it didn’t seem to be an act beyond her former capabilities.

Almost as bad was the thought of what that child’s future might have held. Setsuna couldn’t get the vision she had shared with Lydia out of her mind, the progression of her ancestors in which the power of Pluto had descended from mother to eldest daughter for generation after generation. Setsuna could dare to hope that, if she’d had a son, he would have grown up to be fairly normal, but if this mysterious baby had been a daughter, she would have eventually grown up to be Pluto...

Setsuna could handle being a Senshi herself. Yes, it was a job that was often dangerous and frightening, but it was something that had to be done, and it wasn’t as if the deal was an entirely bad one: being able to wield an array of superhuman to outright magical abilities had its appeal; knowing that what you were doing made a difference for the entire world was very reassuring; and the simple sense of *belonging* to something had been tremendously helpful for Setsuna as she continued to adjust to her new life. Even so, this was still not something any sensible parent would want *their* daughter to have to do, given a choice. They wouldn’t really have had a choice, given the apparently random manner in which each new Senshi was chosen, but this was more of a blessing for those parents.

Only Pluto—or the Nereid mother of Mercury—would have had to someday face her Senshi daughter and be asked: “Why did you do this to me?”

Setsuna couldn’t see the wall because something else was getting in the way. It was the silhouette, blurred and faceless, of a woman in the same uniform, bearing the same staff, and for some reason with the same eyes that she had. That awful question seemed to emanate from the specter, and try as she might, Setsuna could not think of an answer to make it go away.

It was a combination of hunger pangs and developing bed sores which finally forced Setsuna to get up. If she had been in any frame of mind to be suspicious, she would have questioned Ikuko’s decision to fry up some appetizingly aromatic fish for lunch, but as it was, she simply pulled on her housecoat and made her way down to the kitchen.

The house gave the impression of emptiness, although it never occurred to Setsuna to look for anyone as she walked downstairs. She merely walked into the kitchen, sat down at the prepared place, and ate until the plate was clean. For all her reaction, she might as well have been eating pureed cardboard, or something laced with poison; when it was gone, Setsuna simply returned to her bed again, this time sitting against the wall with her knees drawn up and her head bowed.

She wasn’t sure what caused her to raise her head at just that moment, but when Setsuna looked up, a beam of sunlight had just hit the Phoenix Egg, causing it to glow like fire, as it always seemed to.

A muscle in Setsuna’s jaw twitched.

“That *was* a good sign, wasn’t it?” ChibiUsa asked, as she stood against the counter by the sink, absentmindedly wringing a dishtowel in her hands.

“The eating? I’d say so, yes.” Ikuko lifted the plate in her hands, studied it critically, then scrubbed it one more time, rinsed it, and handed it over for ChibiUsa to dry off.

Usagi found that sight amusing. While she didn’t really know that much about Crystal Tokyo, she couldn’t imagine that a princess there would get any more practice at scrubbing plates than princesses from any other place or time—but ChibiUsa was a pretty good dishwasher.

*It must run in the family,* she thought. Usagi wasn’t allowed to wash the dishes any more than she was allowed to cook—in general, the only business she had being in the kitchen was to eat; anything else was an open invitation to disaster—but Shingo, after years of being punished with dish-duty for his assorted pranks, had the task down to a science, and Ikuko was an absolute master.

*None of which is particularly important right now,* Usagi scolded herself. “So, what do we do now?”

“Why don’t you go upstairs and fill up the bathtub?” The blinks were audible, and Ikuko smiled as she explained. “We know Setsuna will eat if we give her a little nudge, so let’s give her another—and if we can get her into the tub, I’ll go lay out a set of her clothes for the next nudge.”

“What if she just stays in her room?” Usagi asked.

“Then ChibiUsa and I will finish the dishes and think of something else while you go have a bath,” Ikuko said calmly.

“Why me?”

“Because it’ll relax your back, dear.”

“Oh.” Actually, that sounded like a good idea. Usagi was halfway up the stairs, debating with herself which outcome she would have preferred, when she felt a little jolt from the ginzuishou and saw a flash of red light from under the door of the room with three beds.

It took Usagi all of two seconds to ascend the rest of the stairs and have that door open, but by then, neither the red light nor the woman who had to have been responsible for it were in the room anymore.

A fiery gleam caught Usagi’s eye, and when she looked up at the Phoenix Egg, glowing in the sunlight, her heart sank. She had a pretty good idea where Setsuna had just gone.

Pluto wasn’t completely certain how she had brought herself back to the misty realm of the Time Gate, but at the moment, she was quite beyond caring. Getting her bearings from the muted, almost musical sound she had heard on her last visit—the sound, within the Gate, of Time’s endless march—she advanced through the fog, passing by the decayed shapes of the empty seats of the Court without a glance, and coming to a halt in front of the Gate.

“Open!” she commanded, raising her staff. Again, Pluto was not certain if this was the prescribed manner for opening the Gate, but the Garnet Orb flashed to life anyway, sending a spiraling, prismatic stream of light-motes towards the simply-shaped lock. There was a profound ‘CLICK,’ the sound of which seemed to shake the entire place, and then the massive doors began to part, swinging open smoothly and silently.

Three female figures in gowns of an ancient style were standing on the other side. The one on the left was a girl in her teens; the one in the center was an adult woman of indeterminate age; and the last was an elderly matron, easily seventy or more. Though it was touched with grey on the central woman and almost totally white on the left figure, all three of them had black hair, and their eyes were the same clear grey. None of them spoke, but the Gate immediately stopped opening and instead began to swing shut.

For some reason, the old woman’s expression became one of wry amusement, and that angered Pluto enough that she thrust her staff towards the half-open Gate. The Orb flashed anew, releasing another burst of multicolored lights, and the entire Time Gate shook to a halt, its doors about three-fifths of the way to being completely open.

“She knew you’d do that,” the young one sighed, pointing at her aged counterpart.

“Shut up and get out of my way,” Pluto snapped.

“We can only do that after you have explained where and when you intend to go,” the woman in the middle replied.

In spite of everything, that brought Pluto up short. “Do you mean to tell me that you don’t know?”

“In a sense, that is correct. Our domain is Time, not the mind; we know all the possible outcomes of your being here, but we do not know which you will choose.”

“If we had known,” the girl added, “we wouldn’t have had to appear in the first place. These forms were just a precaution in case we had to stop you.”

“There are some possible futures which must not be,” the old woman warned.

“I’m not here about the future,” Pluto said.

“There are some possible...” the avatar of the Past began.

“SHUT UP!” Pluto shouted, causing the girl to flinch. “I didn’t come here for a philosophical debate with a bunch of supposedly omnipotent beings who play on monkey bars and can’t even finish their own sentences!”

The girl looked a bit hurt at that. “You used to understand...” She clapped a hand over her mouth and stared with widening eyes as Pluto shuddered violently all over and glared pure murder at her.

“You... you took away my memories... you robbed me of everything that made me who I was and then threw me aside... and now you expect me to UNDERSTAND?!”

“There is a reason for what was done to you,” the middle figure said evenly.

“I don’t CARE about reasons!” Pluto screamed, her eyes filling with tears. “I WANT MY LIFE BACK!!!”

“You already have it,” a new voice said gently, from somewhere behind her. Pluto automatically turned to confront the owner of the voice and saw a golden-eyed woman of about her own height, whose hair was so incredibly long that it cloaked her body from head to toe. Those radiant green tresses, decorated with tiny white flowers, made it impossible to tell whether or not the woman was wearing a robe to match those worn by the three aspects of Time, but her arms, folded at the level of her waist, were covered by an exceedingly fine coat of fur. With the same hue as lightly tanned skin, that ‘coat’ could have been a natural one or an artificial one; there was really no way to be sure.

The new arrival stood before the fifth of the abandoned seats, and the withered vines and decayed woods of the podium had been restored to life by her appearance. Rich mosses now clung to the solid, treetrunk-like mass, and the vines were thick with leaves and flowers. Pluto didn’t need that clue to identify the figure, for she recognized the avatar of Life—if only vaguely— from the last time she had seen it. The figure’s remark had stricken the Senshi of Time dumb, however, and the only reaction she could muster to its arrival was a blank stare.

“It may not be any comfort to you, Meiou Setsuna, but you have been more alive over the past two months than you were in your entire vigil over the Time Gate. Time may not pass here, but you spent thousands of years’ worth of it in your guardianship, interacting with the world through your projected form. For all of that time, for all the things you saw and did, you did not truly live; you merely existed. That was a necessity which I accepted because it allowed the creation of new lives, and greatly improved many more, but it had to end, and the only way to do that was to remove your memory of your duty.”

“Then why did you take away everything else?” Pluto demanded, finding her voice again.

“There was no choice,” the avatar said, her golden eyes sad. “Your duty was a part of your life since the day you were born. As a baby, you lived in the shadow of your mother’s devotion to that same duty; as a child, you were taught to understand it; and when you became Pluto, you lived it—only for it to take your life away. I was forced to conclude that, to take your duty away and give some part of you a chance to live again, I had to allow Athena Nelara to die.”

Pluto stared at Life and, in a terrible whisper, said, “This... this was your idea?”

The golden eyes blinked once, slowly. “It was.”

Behind Pluto, Future’s aged face suddenly became worried. “No! You must not...!”

“DEAD SCREAM!” Pluto shrieked. Amplified by her fury, the negative energy of the attack erupted from the Garnet Orb with a wail that would have shattered every bit of glass over the length of a city block in all directions. The avatar just closed her eyes and let it come.

When the Dead Scream struck, the strange forces within the open Time Gate accelerated into a roar of their own.

In a pastoral field somewhere in the English countryside and the latter half of the seventeenth century, the stem of a ripened apple was suddenly disintegrated by a burst of dark force. This had the effect of sending the otherwise undamaged fruit into a fall, which was interrupted by the presence of a head beneath the tree. The gentleman who claimed ownership of that head had been looking at an apple in his hand with an expression of absolute amazement, as if it somehow held the secrets of the universe, but when the second apple clocked him, it got an annoyed glare—and so did the tree.

“I must remember to bring an umbrella with me if I do this in the future,” he muttered to himself, getting to his feet and walking away, an apple in each hand. Halfway down the hill, he paused to throw the original apple up into the air and then catch it on its return, a simple act which—for whatever reason—caused him to break into a broad smile.

You’d think the man had just discovered gravity or something.

In a thick jungle somewhere in the late Cretaceous period, a towering tyrannosaur in the prime of its life suddenly dropped dead, crashing down through a tree on its way to the mud. Although the predator’s mysterious and untimely demise was an event of some note, it was understandably overshadowed by the mass of flaming rock that was blazing its way down from above—and by the cataclysmic force that was unleashed when the thing impacted a few minutes later, pulverizing and incinerating anything and everything for hundreds of kilometers.

This part of the Cretaceous had become late in just about every sense of the word.

Outside a small hut on a mountainside somewhere in Japan and its long feudal era, a short man with the powerful build of a smith stepped from his forge, holding a shining, new-made sword in one hand. It was a beautiful weapon, sleek and graceful, with the finest edge and balance its maker’s skill could provide. There just remained a few small tests to measure its strength.

Raising the weapon with the casual familiarity of a master, the smith slashed it sidelong at a nearby swathe of reeds, and the upper ends of the stalks fell away in a straight line, not even bending as the blade cut through them. The smith nodded in satisfaction, turned, and nearly jumped out of his skin when the ancient tree standing a short distance beyond the reeds let out a loud, creaking moan and toppled over.

A much younger man appeared from the forge, his face startled and concerned beneath the streakings of soot. “Masamune-sama?” he inquired. “Are you all right?”

“Hai,” the older man replied absently, studying the blade in his hands, the bloody streak along its shining flat, and the glancing blow he’d accidentally given himself in the arm when the tree fell. He suddenly had a bad feeling about this wonderful sword, this seemingly perfect weapon that drew its own master’s blood, and for a moment, the master swordmaker was tempted to melt the blade down in his forge, and then dispose of the metal.

*But,* he reminded himself, *the warrior said he would return today, and I have nothing else which will satisfy him. This one must do.* His mouth twisted in a grimace. *And I must admit, such a bloodthirsty weapon is likely to appeal to the man all the more.*

Shaking his head and favoring his wounded arm, the smith went to clean the sword before Kotetsu arrived to claim it.

To far away places and far away times, and to those nearer; to cities, forests, caverns, and plains; to plants and to animals; to the lesser forms of life, and to the forms that considered themselves greater. The powers of Time worked frantically to scatter and channel the fatal power of the Dead Scream into situations where the sudden losses of life would not threaten the integrity of the timeline.

When the noise within the Time Gate returned to its normal levels, Life reopened her eyes. A long, narrow streak of stark white had appeared in her hair, and the petals of a flower set at the base of that lock had turned as black as pitch, but she was otherwise unaffected.

“If you feel that you must attack me,” she said with impossible calm, “please limit yourself to the staff. Anything more...”

The avatar’s head snapped sharply to the right as Pluto took the suggestion and struck her across the face with the staff. The Garnet Orb seemed to flash at the moment of impact, and then again when Pluto swung the weapon back and smashed Life’s shoulder. And then the knees. And the hip. And the other arm, at the elbow. Pluto attacked again and again, striking with every swing and screaming with every blow.

The avatar merely stood, taking the terrible beating and showing no sign of injury. She did not bleed; her bones did not crack; she didn’t even bruise. Somehow, that only made Pluto want to try harder. She threw her staff away into the mists and attacked Life in a whirlwind of fists and feet. There was no grace or style in it; Pluto was lashing out in blind rage, desperately trying to hurt something as badly as she had been hurt. There was a grain of satisfaction in every punch, in striking back at the source of her pain, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing could ever be enough.

But she just couldn’t stop.

“Now,” the old woman’s voice said, the words not meaning a thing to Pluto. “It will end now.”

Bringing her hands together, Pluto unleashed a hammer-blow at the avatar’s shoulder, a strike that, coming from a Senshi, would have shattered every bone in that area of a normal human body—and the avatar took a step backwards, dodging the attack. Unable to see through the tears in her eyes and the haze of fury flooding her mind, Pluto couldn’t react to the move, and her own massive swing yanked her off balance. She tried to take a step to correct for it, stumbled, and fell to whatever surface hung within the mists, letting out a choked gasp as the wind was knocked out of her.

With that fall, a barrier in Pluto’s mind finally broke. The rage bled away; the pain rushed in; and the tears began to fall. Curled up on the nothingness that was everything, one outstretched hand clawing at the insubstantial mists while the other arm hid her face, Pluto cried out her pain into the cold, uncaring infinity.

Or perhaps not so cold and uncaring. Something soft and warm was suddenly *there,* lifting her with great strength, holding her with great tenderness. Pluto caught a vague glimpse of a slender, smooth-furred shoulder surrounded by green and raised one hand, fingers curled, to clutch at that shoulder and try to push away, to sink her fingers into the fur and the flesh beneath and *make* it let her go, but she couldn’t find enough of the rage to give herself the necessary strength. She was crying like a baby, and she wanted to stop, but she couldn’t. All the loss, all the fear and uncertainty, all the fury that had been hidden in the dark corners of her mind for the last two months had risen up and taken hold of her, demanding to be acknowledged, refusing to stay in the shadows of her subconscious any longer.

All her strength, all her strange and wonderful powers, all the legendary self-control Pluto was supposed to possess—and she just couldn’t stop crying.

“It... hurts...”

“I know,” Life said soothingly. “Pain is an inescapable part of my nature. Even the strongest of my children know it, because there is no other way. If you were invulnerable to the physical powers of the universe, you would be as hard as stone, and as cold as ice. Without pain, you could not know pleasure; without fear, you could not be brave; without grief and hatred, you could not love. You are all so fragile, so easy to lose...” The avatar let out a shivering sigh, and her arms seemed to briefly tighten about Pluto. “I know that each and every one of you will slip away from me, in Time, but while you live, while you are a part of me, when you laugh and marvel and love... I do not resent the choice. Regret, but not resent.”

“I...”

“Shhh,” the avatar said, cradling Pluto in her arms, surrounding her with a blanket of warm, living hair. “You have carried this pain long enough, my little daughter. Let it out; let it all go.”

Helpless in the grip of her own sorrow, Pluto obeyed, and cried. She did not notice when the other figures of the Court appeared in their places, all of them looking down at her. Order’s face remained as blank as ever, and Death remained as silent, but there was no censure in the first avatar’s rigid gaze, and the shadowed specter gave no sign of taking pleasure in the scene of a living creature’s pain. Balance’s too-ordinary human face was openly sad, though something in his eyes showed relief, perhaps even satisfaction; in the open Gate, the youngest face of Time had covered her eyes with one hand, shielding herself from these painful moments as they became forever a part of her domain, and neither of her counterparts was without some degree of that same pain. Chaos’ insane shifting of form and mind continued unchecked, but muted, as if in respect, or sympathy.

And from the red-eyed shadow that was the face of Evil, instead of the usual cold, seductive hunger, there came something else. It was not sympathy—for that is never the way of true Evil—but something of the satisfaction that was absent in Death’s manner. But it was even more than that, for with that open cruelty, Evil almost managed to hide the deeper emotions within itself, feelings of pain, loss, and loneliness that Pluto’s own suffering reflected.

Even the darkest, basest Evil can desire to be loved—only to suffer horribly and lash out in rage when it is denied.

“It is time,” Life said, her voice not touching Pluto. “I exercise my right.”

“Agreed,” Order pronounced.

“PoINt-gamE-SET-match CONcedED,” Chaos said.

Death nodded once.

“Agreed,” the avatar of the Present said.

Balance looked at Evil. For a long moment, there was silence, and then the dark form’s eyes closed.—Agreed—the hissing voice whispered.

“Then it is so ruled,” Balance stated, nodding at Life and then disappearing. The four seated powers also vanished, while the avatar of the Present extended a hand to the mists, calling the Time Staff and the Garnet Orb back from where Pluto had thrown them. Then the three aspects of Time waited.

Eventually, Pluto fell silent and tried to raise her head. Life let her sit up, and they faced at each other, clear golden eyes looking into deep, tear-ravaged red. Pluto looked up, at the white streak in Life’s otherwise green hair, and the dark flower.

“H-how?” she blurted. “How...?”

“In this place where Time and its effects are not visited upon a mortal body, any human becomes tremendously powerful, and one such as you, that already commands such power, becomes far more.” Life touched one hand to her breast. “When we assume these forms, we become limited and vulnerable, and of all the powers, I am already the most fragile. I can endure much, avoid harm, change myself to defend or heal, but like everything that is part of me, in the end I have no defense against the power of my opposite—of Death.”

Pluto stared at her, growing pale. “You mean... I could have...”

Life laughed then, a warm, wonderful laugh. “You think very highly of yourself, little one,” she said, reaching out and gently cupping Pluto’s face with her hands. “I like that. Spirit always helps you to survive. But no; even freed of fatigue by this timelessness, nothing mortal has the power to kill me. Only my opposite could truly do that, and that will not happen. Without Life, Death would also cease to exist, as would the Court, for it is the consciousness of my children which gives us our own awareness. Without you, we cease. That is why I am being permitted to help you now; you are one of the crucial pieces in this part of the game, and the emptiness in your mind and the pain in your heart could destroy you if left unchecked.”

At the sound of the word ‘destroy,’ Pluto glanced at the avatar’s hands, and flinched in spite of herself; those soft, gentle hands did not end in fingers, but deadly talons. Life looked at her hands as well, deliberately raising the left to brush away the traces of Pluto’s tears with her thumb. The claw would have done any predator proud, but its touch against Pluto’s face was feather-light, and this time, she managed to hold steady. Life smiled again, and then helped Pluto to her feet.

“I cannot give you back your memories,” the avatar said, “but you may yet be able to reclaim them. Our choice of New Year’s Eve in the year 2000 for your return to the world was no accident; between the few times that you physically entered the world during your vigil over the Time Gate, and the few other instances of time-travel that you have undergone, October 29th of this year will truly be the end of the twenty-fourth year of your physical life. Beginning at nine twenty-seven on that morning, the exact time of your birth, you will have a chance to regain your memory. I am not permitted to tell you how or when.”

“The... twenty-ninth?” Pluto repeated. Life nodded gravely.

“There is a danger, though. The leaders of Atlantis have been aware of this chance since their return. Your recovery of those memories would be a terrible threat to their plans, and some of them will go to any extreme to insure that you do not remember yourself, so be wary. Atlantis is by no means the worst enemy you will face, but they may well prove to be the most dangerous for you personally, and they will attack in ways you might not expect or recognize. Do you understand?”

“Not really,” Pluto admitted with a weak smile, “but I’ll be careful.”

“That is about all you can do right now,” Life agreed. “Now... as for what brought you here...”

“My... my b-baby?”

“Your son,” the avatar corrected.

Pluto’s stomach unclenched a little. “You’re sure?”

“I generally know what I’m talking about in this matter,” Life said, a growling hint of lion-like annoyance in her voice before she smiled again. “Yes, a son. Not the daughter of Pluto that you were so afraid of—and not a child abandoned to the whims of fate, either. I cannot tell you much about him, but there is a little you may know.”

“Please,” Pluto whispered. “When... how...?”

“The end of your life in Atlantis is where it began. The Empire was far from perfect, but you grew up loving and believing in it, and then you learned the terrible mistakes its leaders were making and were forced to bring them and their power down. In that same night, you lost many good friends, and set in motion things that would destroy others you cared for—and you saw your mother die. That is a bad thing for any child to see, but for a Senshi, it can be much worse.”

“I... don’t understand.”

“The maternal instinct is very strong in all Senshi. It may appear in different ways, but it is part of what gives you your desire to protect, and it creates a bond between all of you that many other humans never realize. For any two Senshi who are related, the ties of family make that bond even stronger, and for a mother and daughter—especially two who share the same element—it is profound.” The golden eyes looked directly at her. “Look at Usagi and ChibiUsa, and you will be able to see how much you and your mother loved each other. Then picture ChibiUsa if Usagi were to die, and you will begin to understand what you felt like after your mother died.”

Pluto’s mind balked at the notion, but she looked down at the patch of mists where she had fallen.

“Yes,” Life agreed, “it was much like that. Merlin told you that you visited Serenity one last time and then disappeared; this is where you came, to let out your grief and rage where no one could be harmed by it. Then you tried to walk away from this.” The avatar touched Pluto’s forehead, beneath the tiara, and for a moment, the symbol that was sometimes there shone brightly. Pluto could not see it, but she felt it clearly. “Believing that there was nothing left to do, you turned your back on this place and returned to the world, in a place and time far distant from Atlantis. It was your intention to leave Pluto behind and live out the rest of your life as a normal woman, in an era that had nothing to remind you of your past, in a society with no magic, no monsters, and no Senshi. For a time, you had your wish: a normal woman, with a normal life... and in time, a family to share it with. First a man you loved, and then his family, of which you became a part, and then your son.”

“And you can’t tell me who they were,” Pluto said miserably, lowering her eyes.

“No, I cannot. And I am sorry.” Life reached out and put a hand under Pluto’s chin, gently raising her face. “But I can tell you that you loved them, and that you were happy. They healed your heart—and that is why you left them. You see, you had chosen an era where there were no Senshi, but there have been Senshi among humans for nearly twenty-five thousand years. Only once in all of that time has it been otherwise, and your return to the world in that era was what signaled the return of the Senshi as well.”

Now Pluto REALLY stared at the avatar. “You don’t mean... you can’t... Usagi and the others? I was THERE?!”

“You arrived in Tokyo one year before Tennou Haruka was born,” Life said. “It was your presence and the power of the Garnet Orb which drew the last Serenity’s attention as she searched through the future for a place to send her daughter and the others, and it was the rebirth of the Moon Princess—and the arrival of the power of the ginzuishou—which made you realize that your duty was not complete. You see, you did not specifically destroy Atlantis; you buried it, and sealed its leaders away in a prison beyond Time. When you felt the ginzuishou, you recognized only the magnitude of its power and the levels of temporal energy surrounding it, so you returned here to discover what it was, and whether or not it had somehow involved the Atlanteans. That is when you learned of the realm that your old friend and teacher had founded, and of the crystal she made. You also learned of the darkness which had sought to possess that crystal, and which would return to seek it again. That is when you chose to leave your family.”

“No. No,” Pluto said, shaking her head in denial. “I wouldn’t... I couldn’t have just left. If they were in danger, I... oh. Oh.” She looked at Life with a stricken expression, and then softly asked, “They were already in danger, weren’t they?”

“From you,” Life agreed, finishing the thought. “The Dark Kingdom needed years to break free, but when they finally did, you would have been drawn to fight them as surely as the young Senshi—and your loved ones would have inevitably become casualties of that war. To protect them, you made the hard choice, and returned here. That was when you encountered us. We had been watching your family very closely for many years, waiting for one of the many generations of Plutos to show those qualities required for the Guardian of Time: the understanding of the nature of her powers; the willingness to protect the necessary past, regardless of how terrible it might be; the wisdom to make sacrifices when required for the betterment of the future; and the courage to forsake one’s own present, no matter how precious, in order to uphold the duty of the Guardian.”

“Why? Why did you need a Guardian at all? You can look after Time yourselves, can’t you?”

“We cannot,” the voice of the Present answered from within the Gate, causing Pluto to turn. “The dangers to Time exist in the physical world, where our powers are dispersed throughout all that is. We”—she indicated herself and her two companions—“may freely enter Time, but our power is by its nature divided, and not well-suited to the kind of direct confrontation that is often necessary. We are not strong enough to be our own Guardian. Neither may the other powers fulfill the task for us. They cannot act without being prejudiced by their own interests, and their avatars may only manifest in certain places and times without doing still more harm. Balance has the capacity to exist in the mortal realm, but he does so as a mortal, with no power beyond his knowledge, and even that is sometimes not enough. That is why we needed a mortal; to go where we could not, with the power, knowledge, and will to do what was necessary.” All three women smiled. “You worked out even better than we had anticipated.”

Pluto spent several very long moments looking back and forth between the four immortal entities. “So,” she said slowly, “what happens now?”

“Much of that depends on you,” Life said simply. “Do you still wish to go in search of your son?”

“Yes... but I can’t, can I?”

“No. Your first family is long dead, and to your second, *you* are dead. Your husband and his kin believe that you died in a train wreck, and while they have not forgotten you, they mourned you long ago, and moved on with their lives. Your son was then only a few months old; he could not know you today any more than you could know him.”

“I can believe that,” Pluto said evenly, her eyes closed. A faked death sounded like such a cold, calculated move, but when given the alternative— simply stepping out and vanishing, leaving people she was supposed to have cared about to wonder forever what had become of her—she could understand and even approve of such a direct, clean break. It was certainly something her old self could have done. “Is that why you won’t tell me their names? To keep them from being hurt again?”

“Yes,” Life admitted. “It is also to protect you and the other Senshi, for you are physically within Time for the first time since you became the Guardian, and your body did not age during the interval. You are not appreciably older than you were the last time your husband saw you, seventeen years ago, and he or any of his relatives would recognize you if they saw you.”

Pluto frowned and turned to Future. “Is that likely to happen?”

“It is not impossible,” the old woman admitted reluctantly. “We will do what we can, but we cannot keep them away from every place that you WILL be, only those areas you are most likely to be.”

“You might want to give some thought to colored contact lenses,” Present added. “You have a number of distinguishing features, but your eyes are among the most obvious.”

“You’d know,” Pluto muttered. She looked at all three Times as curiosity briefly pushed away some of her depression. “That reminds me; *WHAT* is with the three Fates costumes?”

“These forms were comfortable for us long before we chose to adopt yours,” Past said, touching her gown with a hint of self-depreciation. “And besides, if we *had* appeared as reflections of you, you wouldn’t have liked it.”

“You’re right.” Pluto sighed. “And I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“What’s done is done,” Past replied fatalistically, shrugging. Then she smiled. “But we forgive you. You’ve been having a very bad day.”

Present extended her arm, and the staff floated away from her, into Pluto’s waiting hand. Then the Time Gate swung shut with a barely-audible *click,* locking away the great tunnel and the three strange beings who were one with it. That left Pluto alone with Life.

“Please don’t take this badly,” she said, “but in one day, I’ve learned about a son, a husband, and two separate families that I’ve lost. You may have called me your daughter, but I’m not about to call you my mother.”

The avatar smiled. “I did not expect you to. It is an analogy I have found useful for making those mortals who encounter this form”—she indicated herself— “feel a little more comfortable. In truth, you are the ones who created me, when nonliving matter first became something *other* than what it had always been before, but I struggle on behalf of all that is a part of me—all that is precious to me. When you feel joy, I feel joy; when you hurt, I also experience pain; and when you die, I know loss. Is that so different from what a mother does?”

“I suppose not.” Pluto couldn’t keep a note of bitterness out of her voice, and she closed her eyes as Life blinked at her. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just... I just want to know what I lost, but it seems like the more I learn, the more questions I’m left with, and the harder everything gets.”

“Life is not easy,” the animalistic woman replied. “It is not meant to be. The times of struggle and pain are what make the good times truly precious.”

“In that case, I ought to be about due for some very good times.” The joke was a little feeble, but it helped; the avatar smiled as well, and that also made Pluto feel better. She nodded to Life and walked towards the back of the Court, but halfway across, she paused. “Is he happy? Are they?”

“They are. Even if you never regain your original memories, you may take comfort from knowing that your son and his family will do well. Not perfectly, and not especially extraordinarily, but they will be as happy as most can be.” Pluto nodded and started forward again, only to stop once more as Life called after her. “Setsuna.”

She turned. “Yes?”

“Earlier,” Life said, walking towards her, “I said that there is little you can do now except be careful. That is not entirely accurate. There is one other thing you can do.”

“And that is?” Life reached out and took Pluto’s shoulders in a gentle grip.

“You can LIVE.” Although spoken softly, the word echoed like thunder through the mists. “I know you will never forget the pain of your lost past, but you must not let it keep you from finding what happiness you can with your new family. Work and fight for what you want or believe in, and find some measure of enjoyment in everything that the world hands to you, even if it hurts at the time. Laugh when you can, and cry when you must. Hate if you have to, and love if it is at all possible—but LIVE.”

Again, the quiet word rang immensely in the fog; shaken, Pluto could only nod mutely in response. She did not resist as Life embraced her and kissed her lightly on the cheek. Without another word, the avatar vanished into the mists, and the last part of her to fade away were the golden eyes, which watched Pluto with sympathy, fondness, and approval until they were swallowed by the swirling fog.

Left alone with the Time Gate, the seemingly abandoned facade of the Court, and the endless mists, Pluto raised a hand to her cheek, where she could still feel the touch of Life’s kiss. Maybe it was nothing, but she felt... almost good. Ten thousand things had suddenly entered her mind: people she wanted to see and talk to; places she wanted to go; things she wanted to do; and though she knew that it would be impossible to ever get around to them all, she wasn’t discouraged. There were so many possibilities staring her right in the face every second of every day that not even she or the incarnate aspect of the Future could tell which would be and which would not be; between Now and Then, anything might happen—anything *could* happen—and Pluto realized that she wanted very much to see what tomorrow held.

For want of a better term, she felt alive.

When Usagi opened the door, Setsuna was standing by her bed, in her nightdress and housecoat, but with her staff in her hands. She appeared to gaze into the Garnet Orb for a moment before opening her hands and releasing the staff, which vanished, Orb and all.

“Setsuna?” Usagi asked slowly, causing her friend’s head to turn towards her. “What just happened?” She frowned and looked around at the room, trying to figure out why she was so certain that it should have been empty when she opened the door. Serenity’s memories advised her of something called a temporal ripple, an overlapping of the same moment in two or more separate timelines. In one timeline, the room *had* been empty when she opened the door; in this one, Setsuna had departed and then returned in the same instant that she left, causing the double-up effect.

“I went to the Time Gate,” Setsuna was saying. “I had to let some things out, and have a few others told to me.” She smiled then, a dazzling smile that combined sadness and joy into something astonishing. “Have I ever told you that I love you, Usagi-chan?”

“Uh... not in so many words,” Usagi replied cautiously, giving Setsuna a sidelong look.

“Well, I do.” Setsuna caught Usagi in a hug before the girl had time to do more than blurt out a startled syllable. “I just wanted you to hear it, and to hear myself say it out loud.”

“Um... I... love you, too?” Usagi replied, too dazed from trying to figure out what was going on here to even hug back. “Are you feeling all right, Setsuna?”

“I’d be lying if I said I was as happy right now as I was at this time yesterday,” Setsuna admitted, releasing Usagi and stepping back. As she did so, the younger girl could once again see the pain reflected in her friend’s strange eyes, but once again, there was that added glimmer of happiness as well. “But I’ll be okay.”

“So... you found your baby?” Usagi ventured, getting a slow headshake in response.

“No. Not exactly. I know when he was born, and why I had to leave him, and I know that he’s okay...” Setsuna’s stunning smile became wry as she rolled her eyes. “As usual, it’s complicated.”

“When is it *not*?” Usagi sighed. “All right, come on.” She tugged at Setsuna’s sleeve. “Mom suggested that I fill the tub and then try to lure you into it, so let’s go do that, and once you’ve bathed, you can explain this mess to me.”

“A bath sounds good right about now,” Setsuna agreed, “but I have a better idea. I want a nice, long soak, Usagi-chan, so I’ll explain this to you while I bathe, and you can help me with my hair.”

“What? Why... hey!” Usagi protested, suddenly finding herself being the one tugged along. “What is this about your hair? Setsuna? Hey! Leggo! Setsuna!”

“Do you have any bubble bath?” Setsuna asked as they entered the washroom.

Ikuko came upstairs a few moments later, a puzzled expression on her face as she considered the empty bedroom, the closed bathroom door, and the sound of running water coming from beyond it. She knocked.

“Usagi? Is everything okay in there?”

“Mom?” Usagi’s voice came back with a frantic note. “Help! She’s lost her mind!”

“Oh, don’t be such a goose.” The door opened, and Setsuna looked out, still smiling. “Everything’s fine, Ikuko-chan. I just need to borrow your daughter for a little while.” She closed the door, then reopened it. “And just so you know, it was very sneaky of you to trick me into breakfast like that. Thank you for caring enough to try.”

It wasn’t often that anybody got to see a startled look on Ikuko’s face, but she had one now, and it stayed there even after Setsuna had closed the door again. ChibiUsa’s head popped up from the stairs.

“Ikuko-mama?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not quite sure,” Ikuko replied. She almost knocked on the door again, but something made her hold back. Ikuko knew people were not supposed to recover from shock and grief that fast, and that when they seemed to, it was almost always a sign that they were getting worse instead of better—but she genuinely believed that Setsuna was okay now. She couldn’t say exactly why, unless it was that curiously mingled look in the young woman’s eyes. Setsuna wasn’t wallowing in her misery anymore, but she wasn’t hiding from it, either.

“Something strange is going on here,” Ikuko said to herself, looking suspiciously at the door. “Well, come on, ChibiUsa. I don’t think Setsuna needs us to pick out her clothes for her now.”

“Huh?” ChibiUsa said as Ikuko motioned her back down the stairs. “Wait,” she said, stopping and turning, “is she better? How can she be better so fast?!”

“I don’t know,” Ikuko admitted, “but I’m definitely going to ask her about it when she gets out of the tub. In fact,” she added, looking back over her shoulder for a moment, “I think that it might be a good idea if we made a phonecall, dear.”

“I appreciate you coming on such short notice,” Ikuko said, pouring the tea.

“And we appreciate you calling us,” Michiru replied, glancing briefly at Haruka, who—standing over against the kitchen door rather than sitting at the table—clearly didn’t relish being back in this house, regardless of the pretext. Hotaru and ChibiUsa were sitting together at the other end of the table, each holding the other’s hand for support while they waited, worried, and were more or less confused.

“It was the least I could do.” ChibiUsa had been the one who actually dialed, and Haruka had been the one who answered, but it was Michiru and Ikuko who had done most of the talking for the brief phonecall that had brought the three Outer Senshi here. “I’ve been told that you’re the closest Setsuna has to a family, so I knew you’d want to be kept informed. And there’s a chance that you might see something in her now that I’ve missed.”

“It’s entirely possible,” Michiru agreed, sipping at her tea. “When you live with someone, you tend to pick up a few things about their behavior. It’s hard to say how much of what we knew about the old Setsuna will still apply to the new one, but we can hope.” She paused and looked at her cup. “This is very good tea, by the way. Is it a home recipe?”

“No, but if you like, I’ll be glad to give you the address of the store.” Michiru nodded, and Ikuko gave her a smile. “And now that we’ve gotten through with the pleasantries, what do you say we get down to cases?”

“By all means,” Michiru replied, setting aside the tea. Suddenly, the two of them were all business. “What was your impression of her mood, exactly?”

“Almost cheerful,” Ikuko said. “It wasn’t as though she was trying to hide something, but it still seems awfully quick to have been a genuine recovery.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you; Setsuna was many things while she lived with us, but ‘cheerful’ never struck me as being one of them. That’s not to suggest that she was depressed,” Michiru added, “but she wasn’t overflowing with good humor, either.”

“She’s been working at it for the last couple of months, but I know what you mean. There always seemed to be an effort involved when she smiled before, although Heaven knows that she had reason enough to not feel like smiling.”

“But you think that’s changed now?” Michiru guessed.

“From what I could tell, yes. Her smile looked very natural. She was even making fun of me and Usagi.”

“That *definitely* doesn’t sound like Setsuna,” Haruka put in, getting interested despite herself.

“Yes,” Michiru agreed absently, frowning. “Mocking humor has always been your department before, and I’d hate to think that Setsuna had slipped that far.” Haruka gave Michiru an injured look while Hotaru and ChibiUsa giggled, but Michiru’s attention stayed on Ikuko. “Was there anything else unusual?”

“There was something else very strange about the way she was smiling,” Ikuko admitted. “As I said, she seemed to be nearly happy, but she also looked sad at the same time. It wasn’t anything like her mood before, but it was still a sort of depression.”

“Now that *does* sound like Setsuna,” Michiru said thoughtfully. “At least a little. She has a history of mysterious smiles that always made it seem as though she knew something you didn’t—and sometimes it looked like something bad.”

“Talking about me when I’m not in the room? I’m hurt.” Haruka glanced towards the stairs in a double take, and then bit her lower lip to keep from laughing.

“What’s so... funny.” ChibiUsa asked, her voice falling flat right as Setsuna came into the room, bathed, dressed in a casual stay-at-home style, and all-in-all looking completely unlike the morosely silent young woman that had gone upstairs a little under a half hour earlier. She was back to normal—with one major difference.

Setsuna had her hair up in odangos. The style was closer to Usagi’s than to ChibiUsa’s true ‘rabbit-ears’ look, and given that Setsuna’s hair wasn’t quite as long or as full as either of the younger girls’ was—at least when it was down—the ends of her new style stopped at just about the level of her waist, rather than hanging down past her knees.

“Well?” she asked, tilting her head slightly and smiling a small, Pluto- mysterious smile. “What do you think?” For a moment, no one said anything, and then Ikuko leaned back in her chair to look past Setsuna and Haruka.

“Usagi.” Usagi slowly stepped into the kitchen, standing before Setsuna with her eyes on the floor. “Was this YOUR idea?”

“Nuh-UH,” Usagi replied firmly, shaking her head.

“I made her do it,” Setsuna said, putting her hands on Usagi’s shoulders. “I was curious to see what it felt like—and to find out what people’s reactions might be.” Her smile remained for a moment before her face grew solemn. “I want to apologize to all of you. I know I must have given you an awful scare by acting like that, and I know you’re probably nearly as worried by the way I’m acting now.”

“Setsuna,” Michiru began. “If you...”

“Please, Michiru,” Setsuna interrupted calmly, holding up one hand. “Let me finish.” Michiru fell silent, and Setsuna smiled at her. “I’m not slipping into denial or anything like that, and I’m not about to go chasing around doing insane things to prove that I’m feeling better. That’s because I’m *not* feeling better—not about my baby, or anything else to do with my past. I don’t like what I see when I look back and find these empty places in my memory, and I never will, but I *do* like what I can remember right now. And that’s all of you.”

She hugged Usagi and looked at each of the others in turn, sharing that smile with its mix of accepted sorrow and joy before continuing.

“I’ve come to think of you—all of you, and the others—as my family now, and I don’t want you to be unhappy on my account anymore. I don’t know if I’ll ever get my memory back, and even if I do, I don’t know for certain how easy or how hard it would be to go back to the way things were; so much has happened in the last few weeks, and every second adds something new that I don’t want to lose. Maybe I’ll remember in a month, or a year, or never; I don’t know. I do know that every second I spend worrying about my old life is a second I’ve lost from my new life, forever, and I’m not going to waste any more time by sitting around feeling sorry for myself.”

Once again, everyone was left rather speechless until Ikuko broke the silence.

“What brought this on, Setsuna? Did you see something happen to yourself in the future?” Michiru, Haruka, and Hotaru all looked at her in surprise, and Usagi and ChibiUsa cringed, realizing that they’d forgotten to inform their friends about Ikuko knowing at least that much about Setsuna. For her part, Setsuna merely shook her head.

“I can’t see my own past or future, Ikuko-chan, and I didn’t have a vision about anyone or anything else, either. I’m just tired of crying myself sick about things that might as well never have happened to me, and that I don’t have any control over. I can worry without making such a production out of it. At least, I think I can,” she added.

“And your baby?” Ikuko asked bluntly.

“I’m sure Mizuno-san can help me to get in touch with the right people to find him.”

“Or her,” Hotaru piped up.

“Or her,” Setsuna agreed, smiling at the little Senshi. “But in the meantime, I have to go on living my life. Otherwise, I won’t be any good to myself, let alone my baby.”

Ikuko did not appear convinced, and she studied Setsuna for a very long time. Finally, she sighed and nodded. “All right, Setsuna. If that’s what you want, that’s what we’ll do. But I hope you understand that I’m going to be keeping an eye on you.”

“I know. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“And Ami’s mother left a number yesterday,” Ikuko added, “for a woman who works in the psychiatric department at the hospital. I think you should call her at some point and schedule a meeting.”

“If it’ll make you feel better,” Setsuna said.

“I think that it would.”

Setsuna nodded, then looked at ChibiUsa and Hotaru. “And what about you two?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips. “What would make you feel better?”

“A promise,” Hotaru said immediately. “That you’ll never shut us out like that again, ever.”

“And that goes double for me,” ChibiUsa agreed.

As a response, Setsuna held out her right hand, pinky extended. The two girls blinked and then hurried around the table, each holding out her hand in the same fashion and linking fingers with Setsuna.

“Do you promise to always come talk to us if you feel bad?” Hotaru asked, looking up with a very mature expression.

“Only if you do the same,” Setsuna replied, looking at both of them. Hotaru and ChibiUsa exchanged glances and nodded.

“I promise,” all three said together. Then the two younger girls surged forwards to gave Setsuna a hug, forcing Usagi to scramble quickly to one side to avoid getting sandwiched in the middle.

“But you have to change your hair back to normal before I’ll forgive you completely,” ChibiUsa added a moment later.

“I think it looks good on her,” Hotaru countered.

“It’s not your hairstyle.”

“It could be,” Setsuna suggested.

“Don’t. Even. Think. About it.” ChibiUsa said flatly, glaring at both of her friends.

“You’re not the boss of me,” Hotaru retorted impudently, “and I can think about it if I want to.”

ChibiUsa turned around and glared at Usagi. “See what you’ve started?”

“It was her idea,” Usagi replied. “What was I supposed to say?”

“Did the word ‘no’ slip out of your vocabulary, by any chance?”

“Don’t you get snippy with me!”

“Don’t you shout at me!” ChibiUsa shot back.

“I am *not* shouting!” Usagi shouted.

Things were back to normal in the Tsukino household.