To Part A

Sailor Phoebe couldn't help raising her eyebrows a little as the opulent staircase and grand hallways came into view. She had seen pictures of the interior of the Crystal Palace; but seeing the real thing gave her true appreciation for just how grand the castle was--and just how much money had probably been spent on it. Especially since, at one time, both Yamiko and Asteria had hardly lived in shabby houses themselves....

"We shouldn't attack here if we want to distract them," Sailor Miranda told them. "If Sailor Titan has to go up the stairs, then we'd best try and keep them away from this area."

"And from the right," Sailor Phoebe added. "That's where Sailor Titan is entering."

"Left it is, then!" Sailor Charon said enthusiastically as she walked past the center hallway and went to the left. "But how are we going to bring out the Sailor Senshi?"

"There's probably some maids around," Sailor Miranda shrugged. "We can get one of them screaming."

Sailor Phoebe shivered slightly at Miranda's nonchalant manner. The hallway walls, smooth marble and opaque crystal, seemed uninviting and cold. At night, things always seemed a dull, lifeless gray anyway; the palace was no exception. Compared to that soulless gray, black would have been a welcome change. They continued walking until two towering doors appeared above them; the only doors that even compared to its size were those of the entryway.

Sailor Charon raised her eyebrows, impressed. "These doors looks important."

"Do you think it's the throne room?" Phoebe suggested. "From the look of the doors..."

"There's no way in hell they would put the most important room in the building off to the left like that," Miranda told her. "The throne room would be down the center of the hall. This is probably the dining room, or the library."

"How do you know?" Sailor Phoebe asked in annoyance, looking toward Miranda. "You don't live in a castle, do you?"

Miranda smirked sardonically. "No...but I live with a tyrant."

Sailor Phoebe raised her eyebrow, intrigued by the answer but doubting whether she actually wanted to know what it meant. Probably some family quarrel.

"In any case, if we trashed up a big room like this, they would probably hear the clatter and come downstairs."

"Don't you think they'd suspect something if we were just coming in here to vandalize?" Phoebe suggested. "I mean, this is the castle, not a church."

Miranda raised an eyebrow. "Your suggestion?"

"We could pretend we were coming in to kill the queen."

"Then why are we here?"

Phoebe shrugged. "We don't know where the Queen's bedroom is. And the doors are big enough that we could be looking for stairs."

"We'll still need to trash it. Otherwise, no one will know we're here."

"Okay, fine. It sounds like something you might do anyway."

Miranda raised an annoyed eyebrow. Charon, however, was too excited to notice.

"Sounds like a plan!" she enthusiastically replied. She put her hands on the huge handles and pulled outward; the door didn't budge.

"Try pushing it," Sailor Phoebe suggested it.

Charon did so; the door didn't move.

"It's locked, morons," Miranda snapped.

"Too bad Titan's not here," Phoebe said with a sigh. "Her father used to work in the palace. She'd probably at least have a guess as to what it was."

"I see churches are not enough for you."

Sailor Miranda turned around; the other two soon followed her, entirely unsurprised to see the towering figure of the Crimson Eagle.

"Oh look," Miranda retorted, "It's dickhead, here to do the right thing, toe the line, and spread apathy throughout the land."

"If you would like to call it apathy, I suppose you may," he replied, looking toward her. "Though perhaps apathy is the preferred alternative to what will inevitably become a bloody war."

"Is not!" Charon protested. "At least change can come out of war. Nothing comes out of sitting around and doing nothing!"

"Why are you even bothering to talk to him?" Sailor Phoebe asked. "He won't listen; he's bent on his self-righteous plan. And anyway, it's not like he can do anything to us. He can't hurt a Sailor Senshi. It's against his code."

"That didn't stop him last time," Miranda mumbled in annoyance.

"There's three of us against him this time, and The Crimson Eagle doesn't even have a Senshi attack. I wouldn't worry," Phoebe said.

Charon looked uneasily toward Phoebe and Miranda; seeing a look of confidence on Phoebe's face, she shrugged. "No reason to stick around, then. Let's bust through the door and make some noise!"

Miranda shrugged. "Arctic blades!" Two buzz saws ran down the floor and into the door, cutting out a square hole in the needlessly large doorway. "No alarm yet...Too bad. We'll have to find another way to sound it."

"I'm not sure who--or what--you're looking for here, but your aim is to destroy. I cannot allow you to pass!" the Crimson Eagle shouted, running through the three girls with his katana in hand. He stood in front of the small, open entryway; his iron mask faded into the deep darkness of the room behind him.

"What kinda shit is this?" Miranda sighed. "I don't have any fuckin' time for this. Let's just get rid of him."

Charon nodded enthusiastically. "Space time blast!" she shouted, a globe expanding around the Crimson Eagle. He knelt down and clutched his stomach, holding a hand over his mouth. The katana dropped underneath him, its form vague in the distorted space of the sphere.

"Shadow dragon!"

"Arctic blades!"

A gust of icy wind surrounded Phoebe's dragon, forming into saw-like crests on its long, shadowy back. The Crimson Eagle hit the floor, hoping to duck under their combined attack, but the lower crests of the dragon swept across his back. A long, bloody gash formed as the Crimson Eagle writhed in pain.

"You've become...demons..." the Crimson Eagle managed to mumble as he lay on the ground. He began to lift his torso up; the rest of his body soon followed. He limply picked up his katana and replaced it in its sheath.

"Who gives a fuck?" Miranda asked, shoving him aside and walking through the door. They other two soon followed her, ignoring him as he limped painfully away from them.

After Miranda walked inside, she swiftly hit the lights. The room, it turned out, was neither a throne room, a library, or a dining hall; the huge, sprawling screen told her that much. This room, she suspected, was several times more important than that, and therefore, much more fun to deface.

"What is it?" Charon asked, looking up at the screen. "A movie theater? How come there's no seats?"

"The room's way too small for a movie theater," Phoebe replied. "It's just the screen that's big."

"Whatever it is, it looks important," Miranda replied, smirking happily. "Which is all the better for us."

"It's probably a computer," Phoebe decided, looking at the control panel. "At least, I can't imagine what else it would be."

"Even better than a library. Why are we wasting our time?" Miranda asked.

"How should we vandalize it?" Sailor Phoebe asked. "Wouldn't it be bad to waste our powers before we even fight? And we have to make sure to either set off an alarm or make enough noise to rouse someone."

"Nah, we'll be fine!" Charon assured her. "It'll only take an attack or two to destroy everything. Besides, I can do a lot of it with my naginata! That won't take any energy at all! And I'm sure something will set the alarm off, if we destroy enough!"

"Dammit all, I should have brought a crowbar," Miranda said regretfully. "Fuck. Oh well."

"Wait a second," Sailor Phoebe interjected. She looked over the controls below the screen; sure enough, what appeared to be a large knob of quartz crystal was situated in the center. She pulled gently down on it, activating the screen. The computer screen flashed a message in bold red lettering: ENTER PASSWORD. "Charon, just rip up the console. If the computer has any kind of security device on it, it might sound an alarm when you tamper with it."

Charon grinned happily. "Right!" she shouted, turning toward the console, naginata in hand.

Sailor Charon swung her naginata around gracefully, changing it's position in her hands to something a little more akin to the way a sword was held. Smiling enthusiastically, she smacked the Naginata down into the control panel. A loud, satisfying "crunch" sounded as it impacted into the keyboard, smashing it in half. She made sure not to stop there, either; a look of carefree glee on her face, she continued to smash up the rest of the control panel, leaving smashed plastic, crystal and metal in her wake. When she had finished her work, the control panel was crumpled and deformed. Miranda smirked happily as the screen turned to static and an alarm began to sound. She couldn't help being impressed, either, at the naginata's seemingly amazing ability to smash easily through so much metal.

Sailor Phoebe backed nervously into the corner as Sailor Charon readied her Naginata for battle. Sailor Miranda turned toward Phoebe and frowned scornfully. "It's too fucking late to be scared now," she snapped, "so you might as well get ready instead of pissing your pants."

"If you had any kind of respect for the fact that we're about to get into a very, very outnumbered fight, you might be a little scared too." she retorted, edging nervously forward. From the back, she decided, she could still hit with her attack, and be pretty safe from harm. Better to leave it to Miranda and Charon to stay up front; they could actually fight close-range.

For a time, all that could be heard was the repetitive sounding of alarms. Their eyes were fixed on the broken door. It was meant to be grandiose; but in this light, Sailor Phoebe thought, it just looked ominous, the entranceway to the temple of a fallen empire.

The doors swung open. Shadow and light intermingled from the hall as the Senshi made their typical, dramatic entrance; shadowy figures against blinding light. The Moon Senshi, Phoebe mused, must have looked fittingly opposite; the single shining figures against the darkened control room.

If the Crystal Palace could be applauded for one thing in its design, it would be its exterior. Though disgustingly shiny and impressive, at least the walls had none of the excessive adornment of the interior; just endless crystal sides. As Titan walked around outside, she paused over each seamlessly smooth window; a single pane of glass in a facet of crystal, merely a clear, transparent square in the otherwise unbroken crystal. So far, she had passed outside several sitting rooms. She decided to wait until she was closer to the right side of the castle to break in so that she couldn't be seen from the vestibule.

She stopped halfway around the castle at a darkened window. Inside she could see a parlor, small and dusty. For a moment, she felt the wind blow against her face and listened to the sounds of cars driving past. A grove of blossoming fruit trees to her right seemed like a pathetic attempt to make the artificial world of the city seem somehow natural.

The alarm sounded. Sailor Titan jumped as it began; looking upward, she could see a few lights flood the top of the palace like those of a lighthouse. Lights down the center of the palace soon lighted as well, an electric current following the descent of some godly creature.

The lights reached the bottom of the palace. Better do it now, she thought, even if they're still getting there. Better to go while the alarms still sound. "Black stream death!" she said firmly. Without shouting, her attack barely mustered enough of her energy to fire at all. But she could not afford to be loud at this juncture. A few of the small voracious mouths came squirming out of her hands; their fierce jaws bit straight through the glass and made a large, square opening through the window. As her attack faded away, Seisui stepped through the hole in the window and into the castle.

She looked along the bottom crack of the doorway and into the hall; wherever the others were, they had chosen a good place. The lights weren't on in this hallway, which meant no one had even bothered looking this way. Sailor Titan quietly swung open the door and stepped out. Walking toward the entrance hall, she could see that the stairway was lit; she hoped that the three had not chosen to fight here, because it was the only way she knew of to get to the bedrooms. Finding a back way would take time, and the hope was to make the operation as quick as possible.

Sailor Titan cautiously looked into the hallway; thankfully, no one seemed to be there. They must have found the other three already. They wouldn't be stopping anytime soon.

Sailor Titan ran up the stairs giddily, pausing frequently to keep up her energy. She wasted no time stopping at the doors of the Senshi, but ran straight for the one door that was conspicuously inconspicuous.

She opened the small, unobstrusive door at the end of the hallway; maybe they had hoped to disguise it as a closet, but once entered, the short hallway and the glittering silver door made it clear enough what the room really was. As she stood in the entranceway, a sense of deja vu washed over her and she remembered the last time she had been here.

"When I return, Seisui, I will be your father no longer. Remember me as I am... not as what I will become."

"Where's daddy? Where's daddy? Where's daddy!"

Then, too, she had been thinking about her father.

"I didn't know what he meant at the time," she mumbled. "He was always poetic like that...I never understood it. I thought he was playing one of his thinking games again. I thought he would come back home the same as always..."

"What is the Queen gonna do to Daddy? If she does something really mean, I'll never forgive her!"

"I'll never forgive her," Sailor Titan murmured, turning the doorknob. "I'll never, ever forgive her!"

Sailor Titan swore. It was locked; of course, it only made sense. They had probably told her to lock the door when the alarm started firing. Titan only hoped that no one had decided to stay behind and protect the queen. Oh well, the door was crystal. The problem was easy enough to remedy.

"Black stream death!" she cried as black water twisted and writhed toward the door, pummeling its way through the crystal. This time, there was no sneaking up behind her, but the circumstances were good enough. Serenity stood there looking at her. She held the sacred sword in one hand, but the blade rested on the floor. She looked like she had no intention of using it, as if she were only holding it so Sailor Titan couldn't steal it again.

"Hello," she said, looking calmly toward her. Her face was sad. "I heard about what happened to your father. I'm sorry. I'll tell the others about purification, and I'll pardon you. Even if what your father did wasn't right, I can see why you felt the way you did. All that I ask is that you and the other Moon Senshi try to forgive what's happened in the past, because of my grandmother..." she closed her eyes, pausing. "Let's bring an end to this violence. I don't want to see anyone else hurt. As for Diana's reincarnation, I'm sure we can--"

"Shut up," Sailor Titan hissed, looking downward. "Do you think your usual whiny, apologetic tactics will make me see the 'good side?' I don't know whether you've really seen purification for what it is or not, but you're past forgiveness. It's all past wanting to make amends and putting things behind us. My past is all I have. My hatred of you is all that makes me breathe. If I put that behind me, I am nothing."

"There is always a future, Seisui. You can make a new life--everyone can. I'll try, somehow, to make up for what I've done..." her voice, formerly gentle, became weak, and tears began to form in her eyes. "...I'm sure Usako understands. I'm sure she can teach us how you--"

"Black stream death!" Sailor Titan cried. Black Water streamed around her hands and wrapped itself around the queen. It wrapped itself around Serenity's legs and formed a band around her neck. The sacred sword, sadly, dispelled it from her hands, though the sword still hung unthreateningly in her grasp. Sailor Titan would have to hope she did not use it.

"Once I wondered...is purification anything like dying?" Sailor Titan said. "After all, I'm sure once that whiteness wraps around you, your mind fades away into nothingness. I wonder if the same thing happens when you die..."

Serenity looked pleadingly toward Sailor Titan as her face turned red and only short, desperate breaths escaped from her lungs. One of Serenity's hands clasped the stream of darkness around her neck and tried to pull the the black ribbon away, but it clung on stubbornly, merely imprisoning one hand against her neck.

"Please...for Chibi-Usa's..."

There was no point, Sailor Titan decided, in prolonging her death. She focused her energy on the black water twisting around Serenity's neck, and watched Serenity desperately gasp as it tightened its grasp.

"Seisui!" Sailor Pinkmoon shouted, running through the door. Helios followed behind her; her faithful servant, as always. He knelt on the floor, his arms clasped in prayer.

"Calling forth the ancient contract, I summon the power of Elysion. Land of light, hope, and peace, heed my call..."

"Shit," She hissed, turning back toward Serenity. Strangling would take too long...

"Black str--"

Sailor Titan was cut off abruptly as crystals shot upwards from the ground and encased her body. Her arms were stuck. She could see through the crystal as the black water twirled into nothingness; her mind was numbed by her inevitable failure, and the fact that it was at the hands of the weakest of all the royal family...

"Thank you, Helios," Sailor Pinkmoon said gratefully. "You didn't hurt her, did you?"

"She's fine. Just trapped," he assured her.

It was all over...

"Seisui..." she murmured, looking at her through the crystal. Like prison bars...trapped behind the crystal like a criminal, to be pitied... "Seisui, why? We could have worked something out...I was going to tell my mother..."

Serenity shook her head.

"Hotaru told me about purification and Seisui. I want to save her...but...what can I do? Seisui...her anger is so deep...Maybe she is possessed by Chaos...then if we purified her, she wouldn't lose her personality...just the darkness of Chaos...maybe, we can...or even...maybe she's lying...if only somehow, it isn't true...if purification isn't what it seems...it would be so easy to save her..." Serenity shook her head. Somehow, it would be too much to hope for...

"They will forgive you...all people live in the Queen's grace, and will learn to accept her wish for peace."

"Father..." Sailor Titan whimpered. "I'll become like you...I'll vanish like you..."

"No! Seisui isn't possessed. I know it. I've known her too long. I know what she says is the truth..."

"I understand what you're saying...you're probably right. But...everyone needs to confer on this, right? Everyone together, and we'll make a fair decision, I'm sure..."

"I would have thought you'd understand, Mama...after hearing about purification..."

"I realize what I've done is awful, Chibi-Usa, and I think agree with you....Purification probably is wrong. And I don't want to punish Seisui, either...but she is a danger, I'm afraid...I wanted to talk to her, but..." Tears poured from her eyes. "But how do I reach past that anger? That horrible, terrible anger...and it's all my fault...I won't purify her, I promise--not unless I'm sure she's been possessed. Then, nothing bad will happen to her, right? She'll just go back to normal..."

"Please don't tell the others, Mama! They won't understand...not after what happened..."

"Chibi-Usa, I'm sure if you and I tell them, we'll come up with a merciful solution. Seisui's circumstances are cruel."

"They didn't understand before!"

"I will make them understand," Serenity told her, "I promise..." She waved her hand in front of the now repaired mirror. Sailor Titan couldn't see what was going on, but whatever was in the mirror, it definitely was not her reflection. "Everyone, please come to my room as soon as possible. Sailor Titan has been captured."

Sailor Pinkmoon looked pleadingly toward Helios; he had made the barrier, and he could release it and let Seisui go. Normally, she knew Sailor Titan would attack her; but surely, under these circumstances, she would know enough to flee.

Helios shook his head. Pinkmoon's eyes widened in surprise as tears dropped down her cheeks.

"I thought we agreed..." she whimpered.

"We do," He assured her, "And I promise I will protect Seisui. But for your safety, we must end this."

"Why are you so intent on hurting Usagi?" Sailor Jupiter's voice called in fury. "She would never try to hurt you. She'd want us to find peace! And still..."

"We don't give a fuck about making peace," Sailor Miranda replied. "I'd rather see her go to hell."

"And what if you do kill her? What then? Are you going to replace her?" Sailor Mars retorted.

"Of course!" Sailor Charon immediately replied. "Sailor Titan will replace her. No one would make a better queen!" Even though they had never technically decided that, Charon knew that it was the only logical answer. She didn't even know anyone smarter than Seisui.

"With just the four of you, there's no way you can win against all of us. If you surrender, I can guarantee a merciful punishment," Sailor Neptune assured them.

"You mean purification?" Sailor Charon shouted, brandishing her naginata. "If that's your idea of merciful, I'd rather die."

"Not necessarily," Sailor Saturn interjected, stepping forth and looking earnestly toward Sailor Charon. "That is, if your beliefs are correct."

"What are you saying, Saturn?" Sailor Venus asked, looking toward her worriedly. "Is there something wrong with purification? Why, of all things, would the Moon Senshi be against that?"

"It turns your brains to cottage cheese," Sailor Charon explained deprecatingly. "So if you kill me or not, it doesn't really matter, huh?"

"This is just their lies. They're just trying to make us hesitate. What reason do we have to believe that purification could be sinister?" Uranus asked incredulously.

"It is a complicated issue, and best discussed another time," Sailor Saturn told them. "Regardless, the offer remains. If you surrender, I promise that no harm will come to you; if possible, I will convince the queen, along with everyone else, to pardon your offenses--and together,we may be able to make amends for what was lost in the past."

"It's just like my comic books," Charon scoffed. "The villain always tries to make an offer that's too good to refuse, or too easy to resist. No way! I know we're in the right. There's no way I'll ever give up!"

Sailor Phoebe couldn't help feeling a little tempted to accept the offer. Charon may have been right in this case, but Sailor Saturn seemed to be giving them a sentence that was almost ridiculously merciful...

"Too bad. You've chosen your own end, I'm afraid--there's no helping it," Sailor Mars said with a sigh.

"It's been so long since we've fought an enemy." Sailor Neptune shook her head. "I was hoping we had shed blood for the last time."

"If possible, try not to kill them," Sailor Saturn told them.

"Arctic blades!" Sailor Miranda wasted no time. The blades spun wildly toward the group of Senshi, flying to Uranus's feet and leaving two huge gashes in her legs.

"Shit!" Uranus spat, cringing and bending down to gently touch the gash in one leg.

"Uranus!" Neptune cried, running to her side. She looked away from the wounds in Uranus's legs to the face of her attacker; Miranda, who smirked unapologetically in the dim light of the control room. Sailor Neptune glared back and stood, her violin appearing in her hands.

"Submarine violon tide!"

A blast of water overwhelmed Miranda; she fell onto the floor, hacking and spewing.

"Mother fucking Serenity," she spat, "brought down by some piece of shit violin..."

She pulled herself up slowly and held out her hand once more. "Arctic blades!" she cried. The buzz saw did not touch Neptune or Uranus; instead, it neatly rent the elegant violin in two. "Piece of shit..." she mumbled, falling back to the floor.

Sailor Phoebe backed into a corner as Neptune frowned a bit regretfully at her violin. Uranus, of course, took precedence, and she gently took her love's arm around her shoulders.

"Don't worry about helping us," Sailor Mercury assured them, "Please take care of Uranus until the fight is through."

Neptune nodded and began turning to leave the control room.

"You're not going anywhere!" Charon shouted after them. "Space time--"

"Don't bother..." Sailor Miranda said weakly. "They're out of the fight. They won't stop us now."

Charon looked a little skeptical but decided to trust Miranda. Instead, she held up her naginata.

"Space time blast!" she cried. The dome surrounded the remaining Senshi; Saturn, Jupiter and Mars shakily held their ground, but Mercury fell to the floor. Sailor Venus, she noticed happily, had begun to puke.

Sailor Saturn held up her glaive and lunged toward Charon. Charon smiled happily as their polearms clashed; this time, she was sure, she would win.

"Are you nuts?" Sailor Phoebe shouted, watching the weapons clang against one another. "There's no way you stand a chance against Sailor Saturn!"

Charon happily continued, heedless of Phoebe's words. Phoebe shook her head. "Shadow dragon!" she cried. The darkened beast flew toward Sailor Jupiter. Jupiter swiftly rolled to the side of the tremendous creature, but not before it hit one side of her body and managed to leave several scrapes along her left side.

"Damn you..." Jupiter mumbled. "And we outnumber them, too. How pathetic..."

"How can they even hope to fight against us?" Sailor Mars asked. "We've fought many more enemies and powered up so many times..."

"What they lack in experience," Sailor Saturn replied, "they make up for in zealotry and pride."

"Still..." Sailor Mars mumbled. "Sailor Mercury, if they can't see us--"

Sailor Mercury nodded and, with difficulty, stood on her feet. "Sabão spray!" she cried. A dense, light blue fog surrounded them.

Sailor Charon swore sharply as Saturn's glaive left a gash in her arm. There was no way she could continue the fight without seeing Saturn's glaive; she ran back to the far end of the room, hoping that the fog would obscure her as well as it had obscured Saturn.

"What am I supposed to do now?" Charon shouted, looking vainly through the fog to find Phoebe. "I can't see anything!"

"Maybe you should have thought of that before you went rushing into combat, huh?" Sailor Phoebe snapped, looking around her. "There's not much we can do now, is there?"

"Goddammit, at least try attacking," Miranda complained. "Don't just stand there and whine."

"I don't see you doing anything!" Phoebe retorted.

"Fuck! I've been barraged by a tidal wave."

"They're so busy fighting amongst themselves, it's a wonder they were able to get to the palace in one piece," Sailor Mars caustically remarked.

"Whatever..." Phoebe sighed. "Not that I can aim at anything...Shadow dragon!"

The sound of air whirring past Phoebe's attack was as good an indicator as any that nothing had happened.

"Shit. Charon, isn't there anything you can do?" Miranda asked.

"I already used Space-time blast; that's done as much as it's going to. And if I fight with my naginata, I'll just get run through by a glaive."

"What should we do?" Sailor Mercury asked, cringing and clutching her stomach. "Shouldn't we capture them?"

"No," Sailor Saturn replied. "Give them a chance to surrender. The fight's as good as over now, anyway; they've used up all their tactics, and if they surrender, we can look on them more mercifully."

"Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck," Miranda said with a sigh. "I hate running away."

"We can't exactly run away," Sailor Phoebe informed her angrily. "The door is blocked, remember?"

"Well, fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck," Sailor Miranda replied.

Sailor Charon looked downwards. If what Sailor Phoebe said was true, the only thing left to do was try to teleport away. But what if Sailor Titan hadn't finished the job? She was sure that Titan would have joined them later, or at least said something on the communicator. She couldn't leave until she knew Sailor Titan was all right.

But if she stayed, she wouldn't be all right--that much was certain.

Charon shook her head. Standing there would make her capture even more certain. In the end, she'd just have to try to kick ass. If she didn't, well, she could always use the last of her strength to teleport.

She ran toward where she thought Sailor Saturn had been standing and held out her naginata. If only by luck, she hoped, if only by luck, hit Saturn. If only by luck...

"What is she doing?" Sailor Saturn asked. Sailor Charon was holding her naginata outward, dashing straight for a wall. There hadn't even been anyone standing in her path. Was she somehow hoping to teleport through the wall? It seemed unlikely, especially since it would mean leaving her comrades behind. Unless she was trying to get help from Sailor Titan...

"Chaos...." Charon began, unsure of what she was talking about. "Compass!"

Sailor Saturn must have been right, because Charon did, in fact, disappear before hitting the wall.

"Sailor Saturn!" Jupiter screamed, looking toward in her in terror. "Behind--"

All she could feel was cold steel and warm blood. "How..." she murmured, falling to the floor. It was then that she heard Usagi's familiar voice speaking through her communicator.

"Everyone, please come to my room as soon as possible. Sailor Titan has been captured."

"Usagi!" Sailor Mercury shouted urgently into her communicator. The space vortex, thankfully, had disappeared; it had been too much for Sailor Charon to maintain both her vortex and that powerful attack. "Saturn has been..." she shuddered. "Bring--send Helios down right away. I only hope she doesn't have to be revived..."

"What happened to Hotaru?" Usagi asked urgently.

"She's been impaled," Sailor Jupiter interrupted, tears streaming down her cheeks. "One of the Moon Senshi ran a pole-arm right through her..."

"My God..." Tears formed in Usagi's eyes. "I'll send Helios down right away."

"Seisui..." Charon murmured as her naginata returned to her hand. "We've got to save Sailor Titan, everyone! We have to leave right now!" She turned toward Miranda.

"Think with your brain for a second, Charon! I can hardly walk, and the door is blocked!" Miranda snapped.

"I'll run through them!"

"You can forget about that!" Sailor Jupiter shouted as she stood in front of the door. Sailor Mars, Mercury and Venus soon stood in line beside her, forming a human barricade across the control room door. "After what you did to Saturn, letting you live is against my better judgment. I only will let you live for Hotaru, who asked us to spare you. Surrender now, or I really will kill you."

"I won't surrender! I'll fight until the end!"

"Charon!" Sailor Phoebe shouted. "Do you really think you can kill the others so easily? Even if you do have the energy to attack again, they'll be ready for it this time, and there's three of them to protect each other. You said you could teleport us away, right? So teleport! Get us out of here!"

"But I can't control where I teleport..." Sailor Charon protested, tears forming in her eyes. "And we still need to save Titan! If I teleport outside the castle, then they'll be watching for the next time I come in. And then how will I save her?!"

"Even if you do teleport right in Serenity's room to save Titan--what would you do? The Sailor Senshi would just follow and capture us, too--and then they'll have Pinkmoon and the Asteroids to overwhelm us! You have to get us out of here, or else--"

"No! I refuse! I won't leave until Sailor Titan is safe!"

"You're fuckin' crazy if you think you can save her now, Charon! If you want to save Titan, you're going to have to bide your time!" Sailor Miranda protested.

"But it'll be too late!" she sobbed. "They'll purify her, and...everything we worked for..."

"Venus...if you use your Love me chain attack, you can probably bind them together without hurting them," Sailor Mercury said.

"If Charon really can teleport, you had better do something before they convince her to exercise her power," Sailor Mars suggested.

Sailor Venus nodded.

"Venus--"

"Fuckin' Serenity! Now, Charon, now!"

"But--"

"Love me--"

"Now, charon!" Sailor Phoebe shouted.

Sailor Charon held her naginata above her head and prayed for something to happen. She could feel all of her energy rising into the blade; the space around her became distorted and dark. As she felt herself disappear, she only prayed that somehow, miraculously, Titan would come with her.

"Chain!"

Despite what Sailor Saturn had said, the Senshi couldn't help being surprised at Sailor Charon's power. The chains shot off into the room and disappeared; there was nothing for them to grab. The Moon Senshi had left nothing but the smashed control room and the pale, bloodstained body of Sailor Saturn.

Sailor Titan couldn't do anything. She heard arguing beyond the crystal; vaguely saw Helios leave the room as an urgent discussion went on through the mirror.

She almost wished that Sailor Charon would come and save her; but she knew that if she did, she'd get caught herself. She hoped that the other two had kept her from coming to save her, at least for now, for Charon's own sake.

Looking through the faceted crystal, she vaguely wished for an existence that had been free of purification, free of Diana, free of becoming a Moon Senshi. She briefly considered "seeing the light," accepting purification, giving up. She cried again, because she was pathetic.

"It hurts to remember, Seisui, but it hurts even more to forget."

The words of Black Water. She didn't know what they meant. But now, thinking of giving up, trying to convince herself that she had been wrong...a dull, steady pain, a feeling of failure, a hatred of herself. She knew she didn't believe it. And if she gave up, her mother, too, would lose hope.

"There is nothing wrong with the path you have chosen. Believe that what you've done is right."

"Everyone is counting on me...if I give up now, I'll have disappointed them all." Sailor Titan could feel her forehead becoming warm; the clear crystal ignited with red light, blurring the figures of the Sailor Senshi as they entered the room.

"Black stream death!" She screamed.

A great shattering sound broke across the room; a few screams further fanned the chaos, and red light consumed everything. Sailor Titan could feel herself becoming faint as her guardian, Black Water, appeared.

Usagi covered her face as crystal scattered through her bedroom. Sailor Titan's eyes were half closed now, but a red circle shone on her forehead. The light spread throughout the room. Usagi was reminded of her own crescent moon--was the circle a sign of Sailor Titan's own star?

All around Sailor Titan spread the sinister ropes of black water. they coalesced in a point, bundling and deforming together, creating one great mass of dark, sickening liquid.

In that liquid appeared a man.

The black water spread around him like a cloak; from his head streamed black hair, formless and changing. In his hand he held a halberd, though the end of his hand and the beginning of his pole arm could not be discerned.

"Sailor Titan!" Sailor Pinkmoon shouted, looking toward her with worry.

"What is that?" Sailor Venus shouted.

Sailor Mercury clicked frantically away at her tiny computer, looking through her visor. "I'm not sure. It appears to be some form of highly complex organic matter."

"Can you pinpoint any weaknesses?" Sailor Mars asked, turning toward her.

"Sailor Titan is feeding the creature her power. If you attack her, it will disappear as well. But be careful...whatever it is, it's extremely powerful."

"Right." Sailor Jupiter began running to the side of the strange creature, struggling to find room in the small space. "Jupiter oak evolution!"

A flurry of leaves spiraled toward Sailor Titan. Before they had the chance to hit her, the man spread out, stretching his body like a shield and absorbing the leaves.

"Holy shit!" Jupiter cursed. "How the hell--"

"It's body is some kind of motile liquid," Sailor Mercury explained.

"Let me try," Sailor Venus said. "Venus love and beauty shock!"

This time, the black creature concentrated on a single point, swallowing the energy of the stream of hearts.

Sailor Pinkmoon smiled. Seisui's element was protecting her; if she could manage to wake up and run away, maybe it wouldn't be too late.

Black Water wasted no time. The door was blocked by Sailor Mercury, Mars, and Venus; Sailor Jupiter had already gone to his side. He formed his halberd once again and ran toward them.

"Watch out!" Neo Queen Serenity shouted, watching the blade hurtle toward them. Sailor Mercury and Mars moved aside without difficulty; Sailor Venus's arm was nicked by the blade. She cringed.

Black Water extended his arms into long ropes and wrapped them around Seisui's legs and shoulders. He pulled her toward his torso and made a bizarre sling from the substance, cradling Sailor Titan in his makeshift arms. She groaned slightly as the light from her forehead died to a faint glow.

"Shit! They're going to escape!" Sailor Jupiter cursed. "Supreme thunder!"

A storm of lightning shot toward Black Water, but he dashed forward, flying through the door and turning the corner before the lightning could crash into him. Seisui groaned.

"Sailor Saturn is coming," she told him, looking downward.

"She may not. She may forget you, because you are young..."

"I am a Moon Senshi. I fought in this war. They will not forget," she said, tears falling from her down turned face into the swirling mass below her. "Even if she did, the Silver Crystal will destroy everything on the surface of the planet. We have failed, my guardian..."

A lavender figure appeared before them on the long, carpet covered staircase. A cape fell gracefully behind him; his eyes were shrouded in a mask.

"You have gone far enough, Han'i."

"Prodosia...do not make me do this..."

"It is my wish to die this way. I...I will be crushed in the only arms that ever held me. If you do not...then I will drown."

"I can still save you. I can still catch you when you fall..."

"Then I will die another way."

A faint golden glow permeated the air around the man's staff. His crystal; it must have been.

"Please..." The face of the cliff loomed ominously beneath her; Prodosia had not been afraid of it since she was just a little girl. But now, as she looked at the Black Water's woeful swirling, she could barely move forward.

She would not be slaughtered. She would end this on her own.

Prodosia's feet stepped forward, off the sheer rock face, and she could feel herself falling. The dark warmth of Black Water surrounded her. A stomach churning crunch resounded through the garden; blood dripped into the screaming ocean.

The golden glow reached Black Water; he felt himself dissolving in the light. Sailor Titan's forehead stopped glowing; she fell backwards into the stairs. She almost felt as though she were falling through the stairs; everything dissolved. Her sailor uniform, her consciousness, her future.

Everything.

Softly mumbling, "Don’t cry," to myself,
I cry under the distant moon rising on the horizon

Even if I wish on that Moon, my wish won't be realized, will it?

I’m not at fault, right? It’s everyone else's fault, right?
If you think so too, if you’ll believe in me,
I’ll be so happy, because I want only that happiness, because I absolutely hate this destiny

Lulululu..........

Naicha dame yo to jibun ni sotto tsubuyaite
Chiheisen ni noboru tooi tsuki no shita ni naiteru no

Sono o-tsuki-sama ni negattemo nozomi ga kanaenai ne

Watashi ga waruku nai deshou ne hoka no hito no sei na no ne
Anata mo sou omoeba watashi ni shinjite kureba
Totemo ureshiku naru sono shiawase dake hoshii kara kono unmei zettai iya kara

Lulululu....

NEXT EPISODE

Fubuki: So this is how it ends.

Hotaru: The trial has been announced. The punishment is unforgiving. With no energy to stand on Seisui's behalf, Usako will stand in my place--but will her pleas for clemency be heard in the face of vengeance?

Usako: If I can save Seisui from the worst fate of all, I have accomplished something. But in the end, have I helped her at all?

Tokimo: Trapped in the darkness, Seisui is eons away from comfort. I failed; I didn't protect her. Now is my last chance to redeem myself--but she's so far away...

Kouken: Despite all appearances, there is evil in good. And despite all appearances, darkness may be the final source of refuge...

Next time, on MOON SENSHI: UNMEI NO KODOMO--

"The Black Chrysalis"

Seisui: Evil returns to those who create it.