---

Chapter Four

---

It is the nature of the world that a balance must exist. There cannot be good without evil, nor can there be evil without good. The belief that one can exist without the other is a falsehood.

It is also the nature of the world that good and evil must maintain a balance of power. When one gains strength, the other must supplement its forces to compensate.

Should one side ever overpower the other utterly, a state of imbalance will exist during which one side feels content, superior, or at peace. This is a false state which cannot endure, for the balance must return.

"The light grows too strong, and chaos reigns," a cultured male voice intoned from the shadows of a dark, subterranean realm. "The major forces of darkness have been erased by the light, creating the false state which spawns chaos."

"Chaos!" a female voice chimed in. The owner of this voice was likewise concealed in shadow.

"It is our time. The duty of bringing darkness to the world above has fallen unto us. We are the chosen; we are the empowered. We will crush the forces of light and perfect the chaos of the world above into an all-encompassing darkness. This is our destiny, and now is the moment to strike."

"Strike!"

"...I have misplaced my copy of Tokimemo Advance. This is unforgivable. Ekusushi! Go to the world above and strike terror into the hearts of those who would deny the fallen their simulated dating pleasure!"

"Hai! For my lord Irupara-sama, I will provide dark pleasure!"

"...and bring me a new copy of Tokimemo Advance."

"Haaaaaiiii! Ankoku no senshi Ekusushi, hasshin!"

The darkness is upon us once again. Let the world quake in terror.

Sailor Saturn blinked once, then a second time. After a moment, she carefully extricated herself from the pink-haired girl's grip, cheeks flushed. "Anou...it's uh, it's good to see you too, Chibiusa-chan, but..."

Shingo appeared between the two girls faster than anyone could see him move, waving his arms frantically. "Just WHAT do you think you're doing with Hotaru-chan, baka odango-atama!?"

Small Lady blushed suddenly, recoiling. "Ahhh...gomen, gomen! I...I don't know what came over me!" She looked down, shuffling her feet. "I was just...so happy to see Hotaru-chan...I..."

Hotaru peeked over her boyfriend's shoulder, still redder than a tomato. "It's...it's alright, Chibiusa-chan, but please don't do that again."

The pink-haired Senshi nodded. "Hai, hai..." She paused, frowning. "You know, about that 'Chibiusa' stuff..."

The others glanced around at one another. "Well...she has a point," Ikuko spoke up, having finally recovered from the rather bizarre display earlier. "She's hardly 'chibi' anymore."

"So then...should we call you Small Lady? Or how about just Usagi?"

"Hmmm..." The girl from the future paused. "I suppose Usagi is more convenient." She blinked. "Speaking of which, where are Mother and Father?"

Another round of uncomfortable silence and glancing about told Usagi that something was amiss. "Your mother is in the royal suite," Mercury said.

"And...Father?"

Heads were bowed all around. "Endymion...is no longer with us."

The young Senshi gasped. "So—sonna..." She swallowed hoarsely. "H—how?"

"He was slain by Jadeite," Sailor Mars said quietly. "The same night Juuban was destroyed."

Usagi sank to her knees, tears spilling from her eyes. The others shifted uncomfortably. Finally, Mars stepped forward. "Usagi-chan...come on, I think you should go see your mother."

"Father..."

The other Senshi and palace denizens watched the young girl with sympathy as Mars carefully pulled her to her feet and led her to the lift. As they exited the throne room, Venus cleared her throat. "Mercury, Pluto, how did the conference go?"

"About as well as expected," Mercury grimaced. "Should I go ahead and prepare for a debriefing now, or shall we wait for Her Majesty?"

The Senshi commander frowned. "You two come with me and we'll discuss things. Everyone else is dismissed for now...do whatever needs to be done, but take some time to rest and relax. At the rate things keep happening unexpectedly, we all need to be as alert as possible."

Two Senshi paused outside the door to the Royal Suite at the top level of the massive crystal spire. The pink-haired girl was still sobbing into her hands after having heard a brief recount of the last few days from the other Senshi, and Sailor Mars' heart went out to her. Wrapping an arm around the younger girl's shoulders, she drew her in for a hug. "I know, it's a shock..."

"This all...I don't understand any of this," Usagi whimpered. "Everything's been destroyed, the palace doesn't look right, Father's dead...everything's going so horribly wrong..."

"I know...the last few days have been really hard on everyone," the dark-haired Senshi replied. "On your mother more than anyone."

Usagi's weeping slowed, and with a final sniffle, she looked up, wiping unshed tears from her red eyes. "You're right, Rei-oneesan," she said. "I've got to be strong for her right now, just like she's always been strong for me."

*I'm impressed,* the red-skirted Senshi thought, casting a critical gaze at her younger companion. *She's her mother all over again, and then some...* Smiling reassuringly, she pressed the door chime.

The sleek crystal statue within the royal chambers seemed to blink, an action unnoticed by the room's occupants. "Your Majesty?" she queried, confusion seeping through her synthetic voice.

"Yes, what is it?" the young queen asked, setting aside her teacup.

"Two Senshi request an audience..." the animated statue frowned. "Sailor Mars and...Sailor Moon?"

Naru blinked. "Huh? But I thought you're Sailor Moon, Serenity..."

"I am...I mean, I was..." the ponytailed woman blinked in confusion. Turning to face the door, she straightened in her chair. "Let them in."

The door opened, and Sailor Mars stepped in. "Your Majesty," she greeted, bowing her head. "I have someone here who wishes to meet with you." She stepped to the side, allowing the other visitor to enter.

The young queen's eyes widened at the familiar uniform, face, and hair. The younger girl's eyes were puffy from crying, and a sad expression marred her pretty features. She offered a halfhearted bow. "Hello, Mother," she greeted.

Serenity's dress billowed as she flew across the room to hug her daughter. "Chibiusa...Small Lady..." The teenager practically vanished within her mother's embrace.

Naru blinked. "Serenity, did she just call you 'mother'?"

The young queen looked up, tears in her eyes, and nodded, smiling.

Naru stared at the pink-haired girl in the uniform of Sailor Moon. Her brow furrowed as she felt a fuzzy memory tingling her brain. "Wait, I recognize you..."

"Tsukino Usagi, but you used to know me as Chibiusa," the teenager replied.

The auburn-haired girl's eyes widened. "CHIBIUSA!?" She then glanced up at her long-time friend. "But...she's a lot older than I remember. And..and how can she be your daughter? Even...as I remember her..."

"She's from the future, Naru-chan," Serenity explained. "Far in the future. Something close to a thousand years. But she is my daughter..." The queen trailed off, turning to stare at the younger girl. "...Small Lady...did they tell you...?"

"Hai, Mama," Usagi said, nodding.

Serenity took a step back from her daughter, eyes widening. "Wait...how...?"

"What is it, Serenity? What's wrong?" Naru asked.

"Mamo-chan's...how can you possibly be here?" the young queen asked her daughter.

The pink-haired girl shook her head. "I don't know. The best any of the Senshi can come up with is..." She looked down. "He'll come back somehow." Looking into her mother's eyes with her own tear-filled red ones, she cried, "He just HAS to!"

Serenity strode across the room and leaned against the sill of the large observation window in the center of the suite. "Yes...he will. I feel it somehow...your continued existence is proof of it..."

Glancing between the queen and her daughter, Naru stood silently. "I think I'll excuse myself to give you two a little time alone...you have a lot to talk about, I'm sure..."

The blond smiled gratefully at her friend. "I'll see you later, Naru-chan. You're welcome to come up for tea any time."

"Hotaru-chan," Shingo began as the two made their way toward the commissary.

"Hai?"

Pausing to collect his thoughts, Shingo began uncertainly, "You...and Chi—err, Usagi..."

The youngest of the Senshi shot a glance at her boyfriend.

"I mean, um...well...you were...good friends, right?"

"Haaaai..." Saturn nodded warily.

Shingo fidgeted. "How...um, how good...?"

Hotaru abruptly stopped, turned, and glared at him. "Shingo!" she snapped. "You know me better than that!"

The brown-haired boy laughed nervously. "H-hai, I guess so..." Blushing sheepishly, he looked away. "I just...that whole scene made me really nervous, you know?" He sighed. "If anything came between us...I just...I don't know. I just got scared..."

He suddenly found himself enveloped in a hug, dark violet eyes staring into his own. "Shingo-kun..."

For a long moment, Uranus and Neptune stood further down the hall, smiling, making sure not to disrupt the two of them as they kissed.

"So the matter of our proposal has been brought before the Prime Minister, and we'll be contacted when the Diet has made a decision."

"Very well," Venus nodded. "Do you think our offer will be accepted?"

Mercury shrugged. "At this point, it's hard to tell. There's a lot of confusion and distrust regarding everything that's happened recently, and the Japanese government isn't likely to want to put too much faith in us."

"A gesture of good faith would be in order," Pluto interjected. "We should send some of the Senshi to assist in the relief efforts."

Venus nodded. "I'll send Jupiter and Uranus, but I need everyone else here right now. At least until we're more certain there won't be any more..." She grimaced. "Unwelcome housewarming gifts."

"I'd like to assist at the medical camp," Mecury said.

The blond Senshi shook her head. "No...you need to start producing as many Crystal Points as you can, in the event our offer is accepted. If it's not accepted, at least we can donate the points and some sort of...umm...thingie to activate them to the government as a goodwill gesture." Frowning, she added, "Feel free to visit your mother and check on Kaolinite's status whenever you need a break, of course. Just try not to be away from the Palace for more than two hours at a time."

Mercury nodded, and left, leaving Pluto in the room with the Senshi commander.

"Pluto, about the Small Lady situation..."

"It's unsettling," Pluto admitted. "Added to everything else we've seen...something is going on which I've been deliberately shielded from knowing about. The only thing I can think of is that my future self has not been entirely truthful in some of the information we were given about the future."

"And since you know better than anyone how skilled you are at deception," Venus stated bluntly, "that means we need to be cautious with how we proceed."

"We shouldn't second-guess ourselves," Pluto pointed out. "This is probably simply a block to prevent us from seeing the future as written in stone, in case we inadvertently disrupt it by thinking we're creating it. In any case, the fact is the future is malleable, so the only thing we can do is proceed as normal and take things one day at a time."

"Well put," Venus said, smiling. "If you should have any...insight that you feel should be addressed, though, report to me immediately."

"Of course," Pluto said, bowing as she vanished from the room. Sighing, Venus departed as well, detransforming as she made her way to her suite.

Serenity cast an appraising glance at her daughter. "So. You're Sailor Moon now."

Usagi nodded. "For about a year now."

The Queen smiled. "You look so much more sure of yourself than I was."

The pink-haired girl blushed. "Well, I've had about six years of practice at being a Senshi already..."

"I suppose that would make a lot of difference." Serenity sat down, motioning for Usagi to take a seat. "Small Lady...I need to ask you something important."

Nodding, the teenager took a seat in one of the plush lounge chairs littered about the room.

Folding her hands in her lap, the queen was silent for a moment. "Small Lady...we never asked you this before, but...could you please tell me when, exactly, you were born?"

Usagi blinked. "Huh? Why—?"

"Just..please, tell me."

"June 30, 2987. Why?"

Serenity frowned. "I see."

"What's going on, mother?"

The young queen looked at her daughter, smiling sadly. "I only ask because...I'm pregnant."

"WHAT!?" Usagi shot to her feet, rushing to her mother's side. "Are you sure?"

The blond woman nodded. "Hai."

"But..." The young Senshi began to pace. "With...with..." In a small voice, she asked, "Me?"

Serenity shook her head. "Mercury doesn't believe this child is you."

"But...but that's impossible!" Usagi cried. "I'm the only child of Endymion and Serenity!"

The Queen looked down. "That you know of, you mean."

"What?" the pink-haired girl asked, blinking.

Standing, the blond woman turned again to the window, placing a hand on her stomach. "Small Lady...I've begun to question some of the things we were told about the future by Endymion and Pluto." She turned to face her daughter. "I know that you haven't given a second thought to the things you accept as your own history...to you, the next thousand years are something that already happened. But to us, here...the next thousand years are ahead of us, and already a lot of things don't seem to be making sense." Serenity paused. "I have a feeling you didn't expect to see the palace here when you arrived. Or to learn that your father was...was gone."

The younger Senshi shook her head numbly. "Father wasn't supposed to die again..and the Palace shouldn't be here until far in the future."

Serenity was silent for a long moment. "The night Endymion was killed...I had a dream. It was more than a dream...I think it was a message from him." As Usagi's eyes widened, the Queen continued, "I can't really remember very well, but I think..."

"Mother...I hope he'll come back to us someday," Usagi said. "I really do. But...for now, we need to be strong. For him. For everyone."

Nodding and wiping silent tears from her eyes, Serenity smiled at her daughter. "You're certainly a lot more mature than I remember," she teased.

"Well, I learned from the best," she replied. Embracing her mother tightly, she furrowed her brow. "Now...would you explain to me why Shingo looks like a reject from Beryl's court?"

Giggling, the Queen began filling her daughter in on some of the finer details of the week...

Those resting and recovering in the aid camp were roused by a team of hardhat-wearing construction workers and military men sweeping through the area. "Okay, everyone! We need to break this camp and relocate it!"

Mizuno-sensei rushed out of the tent where she'd been catnapping, followed closely by her newly-appointed aide, Kaori. "What's going on here?" she asked.

"Sensei, we have to get all these people out of here. We've been doing infrastructure checks on some of the underground utilities in the area, and there's a gas main running right under this camp that may be badly damaged."

The doctor frowned. "Alright, I'll need help getting the tents down and the wounded loaded onto stretchers." Taking the megaphone from the lead of the party (with some protest), she shouted, "May I have your attention, everyone! We'll be moving this camp in a few minutes, as soon as we can get all the wounded out and all the equipment packed. Anyone who's able to walk and lift things, get ready to help with the move."

Within a few minutes, the medical camp had erupted into a flurry of activity as tents were taken down and trucks and jeeps hauled portable buildings to a safer location. Three troop buses pulled up, waiting to transport the staff and patients to the new camp location.

Huffing under the weight of a heavy crate of supplies, one nurse commented, "This...reminds me...of an old American show I liked as a little girl..."

"What show was that?" Kaori asked, walking alongside the nurse and carrying a stack of blankets.

"M*A*S*H," the nurse replied. "It's what made me want to be a nurse in the first place.

"Hmm. Wish I could remember if I'd ever seen it or not."

After loading their supplies into one of the portable buildings, a jeep backed up to it, and the driver began hooking the winch to the towing rig. In his haste, he fumbled the winch hook with a curse...

...and the ground began to shift, with a disconcerting hiss as the rear end of the jeep and the front of the trailer began to sink toward the rupture.

"Oh, shit..." The soldier backed off a few steps, and cupped his hands around his mouth. "GAS! CLEAR OU—"

The rear of the jeep struck the front of the portable building, and the deafening roar of an explosion shook the area.

"Everybody RUN!" Mizuno-sensei shouted into the megaphone, barely audible over the roar of gas igniting and children screaming. The relief camp began to scatter haphazardly as a fireball blossomed from the ground, a great gout of flames erupting several meters into the air. The wrecked trailer tumbled end-over-end across the field...

Mercury's head snapped up as her computer began beeping an alarm at her. "The panic button..." Setting aside the pad she was working with, the blue-haired Senshi teleported to the relief camp, and found Hell literally breaking loose.

"Get those children out of here!" Kaori yelled, helping two of the nurses get infirmed patients onto a bus that was about to leave the area. Elsewhere, able-bodied adults were trying to round up all the panicking children and less able-bodied patients who were scattering in fear from the expanding ball of flames.

A blue flash appeared halfway between her and Mizuno-sensei. "What's happening here?" a tense voice asked.

Kaori glanced over to see one of the mysterious "Sailor Senshi" everyone spoke of, and a brief sense of unease shuddered its way through her body. Forcing it down, she shouted back, "Gas main exploded! We were breaking camp to let the construction crews check it out, and something set it off!"

Sailor Mercury looked up at the column of flames, nodding. "Right. Get all these people out of here, I'll take care of the fire." Faster than any ordinary human could follow, Sailor Mercury was gone, leaving a blur of silver and blue behind.

Kaori stood stunned for but a moment before the situation reasserted itself, and she shook her head to clear it. "You heard the lady! Everybody move it!" She began rushing back and forth between the column of running people and the bus full of wounded, doing what she could to expedite things.

A panic-stricken woman suddenly rushed up to her and grabbed the lapels of her jacket. "My baby! I can't find my baby!"

"Calm down, ma'am!" Kaori snapped.

"I can't! My baby! She's just four! She was outside the tent when everything started, and she's not on the bus and I don't know where she—"

"Just help these people on the bus, ma'am...I'll find your child. I promise." Glancing around, Kaori began looking for any sign of a lost child in the midst of the chaos. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she shouted over the noise, "Sensei! There's a lost little girl, four years old!"

The doctor nodded with concern, glancing around the area. Most of the people had already cleared out, and debris from the jeep and trailer destroyed by the initial explosion littered the ground. Sirens could be heard as emergency vehicles raced into the area, and brilliant flashes of ice magic illuminated the area as Sailor Mercury struggled to control the gas-fueled inferno.

A piercing wail rose above the din, and Kaori homed in on it, following it to the overturned, smoldering husk of the portable building that had been destroyed in the initial explosion. A little girl was on the ground, screaming; her leg was pinned under the debris. "Help me!" she cried as Kaori approached.

The redhead briskly rushed over and examined the girl and the debris pinning her. She frowned as she saw the deep, bloody gash the torn metal had rent in the little girl's calf; she'd need to be treated quickly. "Just calm down, sweetie," she soothed. "I'm gonna try to get you out of here."

"Where's my mommy?" the child asked.

"Your mommy is very worried about you, so she sent me to help look for you," Kaori explained as she tried to figure out some way to extract the little girl from underneath the portable. Turning her head, she yelled, "I found her! She's trapped! I need some hel—"

Her words were drowned out by a secondary explosion. The girl screamed in fright; Kaori whipped around and stared in shock as a second, much larger fireball erupted from the ground. The silver-blue form of Sailor Mercury was flung several meters from the blast, smoldering slightly. Huge chunks of earth and debris rained down...

The terrified cries of the child alerted Kaori to the fact that an enormous chunk of hot, glowing debris was arcing directly toward them. Time seemed to slow for the redhead; the next few seconds played out in horrifying slow motion.

Mercury struggled to her knees, weak and unsteady; she was in no condition to help anyone until she caught her breath.

The little girl was panicking wildly, and had nearly doubled the length and width of her wound in her efforts to tear herself free.

A slab of red-hot metal was headed straight for them, and there'd be no time to get out of the way with the child, nor any way to protect both herself and the child.

And then, something in the back of Kaori's mind said "No."

Kaori suddenly flung her hands forward, creating a large ball of black energy which she then hurled straight into the path of the oncoming shrapnel. The glowing chunk of metal crackled with arcs of dark power before simply ceasing to exist.

Drawing herself upright, the redhead grabbed hold of the building which pinned the small child and lifted it, hurling it as far as she could—which was quite far indeed, as it landed several meters away.

She wasn't through yet, however. Turning to face the erupting flames, she held out her arms, palms facing forward, and leaned as though pushing against a wall. A column of powerful wind roared across the ruined terrain, slamming into the raging inferno...and almost immediately extinguishing it.

As the flames and the wind died down, Kaori's world snapped back into sharp relief, and she sank to her knees on the blackened ground. The four-year-old girl unsteadily crawled to her on her hands and good leg, but she paid the child no notice. The people still working in the former camp were staring, but she ignored them.

The only thing her suddenly exhausted mind and body paid much attention to before she passed out was the intense expression of worry and anxiety with which Sailor Mercury was looking down at her.

---

POWERED BY DREAMHOST