Sailor Moon 1. Chapter 1

**A Game of You**

World: Sailor Moon

Time: After the series finale

Characters: Haruka and Michiru

**Prologue**

The silver Moon and starlight all around it were mirrored in calm dark waters of the ocean like in a huge mirror. Two young, slim girls walked about the beach, one of them had long, green hair and the second had short hair like boy's. They listened intently to the noise of the sea and the wind rushing above ridges of waves. The blonde very slowly approached her companion, embracing her with arms.

"How long are you going to talk to your ocean, Michiru?" She asked.

"Are you bored, Haruka?" The girl with eyes as blue as depths of seas asked.

"No, I could look at you for hours. But I worry about you. Don't you remember that you have the concert in two hours?" Haruka continued.

"I would prefer to forget."

"You're perfect, you should not be anxious. Everything must came out well, if it's you who holds the violin."

"But the stage fright is bothering everyone. Even masters who are much better then me". Michiru replied smiling.

"It's not everything. The sea is trying to make something over to me..."

"What do you mean?" Haruka asked pointing the head in the direction of the edge, kind of trying to hear the voice about which the friend told her.

"It's telling me that some changes are gearing up. Unexpected bend on the road of life..."

"Good or bad?"

"I don't know."

"Therefore don't worry about it. Think that these changes will bring something wonderful. And come with me, or else you won't manage to prepare." The blonde touched the hand of her girl and they walked toward the car.

In one of the highest skyscrapers in the center of Tokyo, named Cygnus Tower after the corporation whose registered office was located in the building, the owner of the building was working in his study in spite of the late night. Windows in his office were huge, providing the man with the view on the panorama of the entire Tokyo and the interior was decorated with wooden furniture, some of them were hundreds of years old and other were designed by the modern world-famous designers. The man sitting in a leather armchair was about 34 - 40 years old, he had black hair and was wearing black suit. The door of the office opened and the woman with big bosom and a long blonde hair appeared in it.

"I'm sorry Mr. Tokiyama, but some man wanted to meet with you." She enquired.

"What? There is a middle of the night! I don't expect anybody, as a matter of fact I'm leaving right away!" The black-haired man shouted.

"But he said that he wouldn't move from here. He told me to recall that you met with him on the old continent. He claimed that you would know what it is about." Hearing the last sentence, Tokiyama went pale. He slumped into an armchair looking at the city behind the pane.

"Ok. Please let him in. And you can go home." He announced. After a moment the slim, older man with grey hair dressed in an elegant, white suit appeared in the office. In the hand he held the wooden walking stick. He came up to Tokiyama's desk, putting hand with the dark blue signet ring on its top.

"I am pleased that you are in a good health." He said smiling.

"What do you want?!" frightened Tokiyama asked.

"You should to know it! Don't you remember about our promise?"

"Have this time already come?"

"If I decide it, it will happen. Everything depends on me..."

"What am I supposed to do for you?" The grey man looked all around, looking for something. He noticed tickets lying on the desk of the man.

"What's this?" He asked.

"Tickets for the concert. To the Philharmonic Orchestra." Tokiyama answered in a trembling voice.

"It turns out that I will be searching inspiration in the music." The man dressed in white announced. Black-haired closed his eyes. He wanted to avoid eyes of his guest as long as it was possible. When he made up his mind to look at the world again, it turned out that the grey man had already vacated his office quietly like the wind blowing above hills.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Michiru stood on the stage, waiting for a moment at which she was supposed to start playing on the violin. The large room was filled up with people waiting impatiently for an example of green haired girl's talent. All eyes were looking at her, all ears awaited the first sounds of her instrument and all minds prepared for rich aesthetic impressions. Michiru was very nervous, she felt beads of sweat flowing down her body under the dress. She took a deep breath, tried to relax, to calm down both the body and the mind. It helped a little, not much because too many human looks hung above her. Although thousands of eyes watched her, Michiru was able to find in the crowd the only one having an importance for her. Haruka was sitting in one of the first rows. When the blonde saw that her girlfriend had looked at her, she smiled and discreetly waved at her. Michiru felt greater self-belief and knew that she wouldn't disappoint anybody. She took the violin and started playing. The room filled up with the melody attracting all hearts. The girl forgot her fear, her irritation, she created her music being in the trance separating her from the entire physical world. In her private, small world only she, her instrument and the music were present. Of course, there was a place for her life companion too, observing her from the first row.

In the special part of the room allocated only for VIPs, Tokiyama and his mysterious acquaintance in the snow-white suit were sitting. Both men were looking at the green haired woman's performance like hypnotized. The grey haired companion of the Cygnus' owner smiled, rubbing the jewel on his signet ring.

"Beautiful..." He thought aloud. His younger acquaintance had his eyes fixed on Michiru's dreamlike performance. Soon, the girl finished playing the first music. The older man got up, helping himself with walking stick. Tokiyama stopped him.

"She hasn't finished yet, wait for the rest of the performance. Her every next melody is better than the previous one." He said showing his enthusiasm.

"I could see the example of her talent and her beauty. It will be enough for me for today. Come with me." The grey haired man said very firmly. Tokiyama carried his order out unwillingly. Following the older man, he looked back to gaze at Michiru, who started playing a next melody. When they both were on the corridor, the elderly man looked him in the eyes.

"As far as I know you have a lot of places in which you can organize parties, tell me about some of them."

Tokiyama didn't know what to answer, didn't know what exactly the grey acquaintance had meant.

"Yes, galas in my tower... on yachts... charity parties for my partners in the castle... I have one special place, I have never organized anything there... the flying hotel... you can be in any place in the whole world at any time."

"Perfect! You will organize some greater assembly of people there, the best of the rich and some from your circle. I want her to play for your public!"

"What? Am I supposed to invite her? Just like this?"

"Yes, why are you so surprised? She will certainly agree. You will organize the charity party, you will invite a lot of men of consequence there, additionally the people from your company, from the inner circle. She will not be able to refuse, because in spite of her talent, she is still young and needs support in her career."

"Why do you need her? She is a young violinist!" Tokiyama announced with raised vote.

"Who said I needed anything from her? I want her to play for your people. Besides... she is somebody much more important than the young violinist." The man turned towards the exit.

"Come back to the room. Her performance hasn't ended yet." He added diverging.

Haruka came to Michiru's dressing room right after her performance. She brought flowers. She found her standing in front of a mirror, looking at her own reflection. When green haired girl turned around, the blonde gave her the bunch.

"The award for the wonderful performance." She said and kissed her cheek.

"You were phenomenal today. I'm not joking." She added after a moment. Michiru put flowers into the blue vase standing on a cupboard with cosmetics.

"Haruka... I have a meeting with journalists and representatives of this Philharmonic Orchestra in a minute. I know that these are only five minutes, but I must prepare for it. The interview will be shown throughout the country." Michiru informed. Haruka smiled, found some chair standing by the wall and sat down on it.

"Do you have a stage fright again?" She asked.

"No. I'm just worn out and I don't want to answer all their questions. But I have no choice. The contact with media is also in my contract."

"You have a choice. We can escape from here. There's opened window in the bathroom, and our car is waiting for us in the car park. We'll go there unnoticed and we'll go to the beach, to your beloved place, what do you say?"

"Don't joke, do you know what they would write about us after something like that?"

"I'm not going to be upset with anyone's opinion. If what we are doing doesn't appeal to somebody, let him talk with me. In a private." Haruka laughed.

"Enough jokes. I want to have it behind me. And you'll go with me!" Michiru said confidently.

"What? Why me?" Haruka tried to defend herself.

"Because you're making fun of me!"

Girls appeared together in front of cameras, answered a few questions and posed to photographs done by reporters thirsty for sensation. Later, they had to come to the meeting with people performing the highest functions in the Philharmonic and had boring conversations about Michiru's talent and her future. Haruka wasn't pleased with that meeting the same as with the previous one, because elderly men almost completely ignored her, talking only with her green haired companion in life. At last, the meeting was finished and girls could freely get back home and lie down in the comfortable bed. When they arrived at the building in which they lived, the night was almost over and the sky was filled up with the grayness of morning waking up from slumber.

Girls took the liberty of staying in the bed to late noon hours, ignoring the melody played by the alarm clock as well as the TV set in the kitchen which turned on at the determined hour, in order to broadcast the latest news. Michiru opened her eyes, because she felt a presence of somebody looking at her all the time. As it turned out, Haruka greeted the morning as first and spent the first minutes of the day on fixing her eyes on the face of her sleeping green haired angel.

"Hello, early bird..." She said mending her pillow.

"Welcome, queen of the violin." the blonde replied leaning over the girl. They both closed their eyes and their mouth joined in the passionate kiss. Michiru, roused by her prince, sat down on the bed. She corrected the long hair, being in the disarray after a few hours of lying on the pillow.

"What are you thinking about?" She asked smiling.

"you know very well what my reply is. What was and what will always be." Haruka announced.

"But seriously, I thought about Hotaru." She added.

"About Hotaru?" Neptune was surprised.

"Yes. Perhaps we should visit her and Setsuna. I would like to talk with her. We haven't seen each other for a long times, right?"

"Yes, you're right. When she was a little girl we dedicated a lot of time to her and now..."

"It was fairly recently! I think that we simply aren't keeping up with her changes. Now Hotaru's body stopped developing in jumps, she achieved the physical age even older than she was in before her death and rebirth. Now she's growing up as any normal human."

"But her intellectual development exceeds all norms. I think that she is already more intelligent than her real father. Setsuna said, that now, when Hotaru finished all material from the secondary school, she will start her studied at the university in which she is an assistant. She'll be studying with students. There's one problem."

"What kind of problem?"

"Hotaru can't make up one's mind what to study. She is interested in many things. But why are we talking about Hotaru?" Haruka smiled hearing the question.

"Because I dreamt of her as a small girl today. Our little girl." She said approaching Michiru. She embraced her and kissed her lips again. She knocked the girl over to the pillow so that she could embrace her more tightly and later sink in her mouth again. When Michiru could already breathe easily, she started asking questions.

"How was my performance yesterday?"

"I told you that you had been perfect, as ever. Your music touched the hearts of everyone, even old grandfathers', who don't walk anything innovative to come into their ear."

"Did you notice that I had played for you?"

"Why you are asking me such obvious things?" Haruka lay down on the pillow, next to the girl's head. Michiru sat more comfortably on the bed, then got up and leaned over the blonde. The storm of emerald hair fell on the Haruka's face.

"Must I have a reason?" Michiru moved her mouth closer the mouth of the blonde, she kissed her and tried to move away, but strong Haruka's hands didn't let her do it. Green haired girl realized that the time for talks had passed and she prepared for crossing gates of the garden of earthly delights. She leaned over the blonde, kissed her mouth, her neck but then she slowly headed in the direction of her breasts.

"I love you, my emerald angel..." Haruka whispered feeling breath of her girlfriend on her teats. Her hands wandered after thighs of the girl, later they came to her buttocks covered by green pants, delicate in the touch like the morning fog afloat above a magic forest. One of blonde's hands reached under the velvet material, finishing its travel precisely between legs of green haired women. Michiru closed her eyes, felt shiver and warmth permeating around all cells of her body. Her hands tightened on Haruka's thighs very strongly, but simultaneously gently enough in order not to hurt the skin of the blonde by her nails. The girl leaned over breasts of the friend again, touched them with her mouth and wet tongue.

"You are the storm wind that lash my sea..." Michiru whispered feeling the touch of Haruka's hand in the most sensitive point of her body. Suddenly, an unpleasant door's bell sounded in the room, throwing two lovers out from the paradise straight into the harsh reality. Girls froze at the spot. A minute passed and the guest didn't stop ringing the bell and nothing indicated that he would go away in the most immediate future.

"Fuck..." Haruka said through clenched teeth.

"Exactly..." Michiru added taking her breaths. The blonde smiled.

"Ignore him, we don't have a time now. Besides, it's still very early time." She said. The idea didn't appeal to her partner. She took her hand out of own pants.

"You think so, because you haven't opened curtains. Maybe it's somebody important?" She asked rhetorically getting up. She dressed in the bathrobe and went to open the door. As it turned out, the intrusive guest was her colleague from the music school who helped the her to get on the scene of Philharmonic Orchestra.

"Koji? What are you doing here so early in the morning?" The girl asked.

"It's after 12 at noon, is it a morning for you... you look as if I came in the least appropriate moment..."

"Because you came. What's the problem?"

"It's serious and urgent matter. I have a work for you and the possibility of the performance which will promote your music to the entire world. A guy called us today in the morning, he saw your performance last night. He said that he was impressed... as a matter of fact I will tell you everything as we go."

"Could you not just call me?"

"I rang. 15 times. You had something more important to do."

"Okay, give me a moment. I'll go down to your car right away. Do you wish to come in?"

"No, I'll wait on the street. Michiru, try to come quickly!" The man said gearing up for the return to where his car waited for him. The girl came back to the room. Passing by the table, she looked at the cell. Indeed, Koji didn't lie. He rang her up many times, more than fifteen times.

"Who it was?" Haruka asked.

"Friend. He said that somebody had become interested in me. They want to see me in the Philharmonic Orchestra, they said that there's some performance which is supposed to bring me the fame."

"So will I have to spend time in solitude again? " The blonde asked lying down to the bed.

"I'll call you, when I'm free and we see ourselves at Setsuna's place. I apologize for today." Michiru felt awkwardly because of invasion of her acquaintance in a moment so private for girls. Haruka didn't comment on her statement.

"I'm going to the bathroom." Green haired woman announced disappearing behind the door.

Tokiyama was in his office on the top floor of the "Cygnus Tower" building. Events of the last night had an impact on his state of the mind. The man canceled three appointments which he had planned for the coming day and asked his secretary to tell everyone that he was away on holiday or business trip. Of course, the lie didn't concern one person, the same one whose very presence caused that breath of the man had become faster and the blood pressure raised at the shocking rate. The grey haired man dressed in white turned up at the company, as soon as Tokiyama called the Philharmonic Orchestra with the request for contact with Michiru Kaiou. Old man opened the door not knocking.

"Why are you here again? I did what you had asked for. I'll meet with the girl and I'll offer her the performance on the party. I rang my people in the flying hotel up, they are all ready. Everything will be ready in a week or two."

" I know about it very well, you have always done what I ordered you and therefore I let you achieve a lot. I don't doubt the truth of your words." The grey haired man replied calmly.

"Then why are you here again?"

"I want to see what you did in my name. I want to see the most hidden secrets of your inner circle. I want to see what is covered in viscera of Cygnus."

Tokiyama swallowed nervously, he adjusted his tie and looked out of the window at the panorama of the large metropolis. He looked at his hands as if he tried to find some hidden reply to his problems written in the convoluted epidermal ridges.

"Well. Come with me." He announced not looking at the acquaintance. He headed for the door. His lie, recommending to his secretary became a reality. Tokiyama was supposed to be unavailable to anybody through the rest of the day.

Haruka was sitting on the bench beneath the house of her long-haired friend, dark-skinned guard of the Space-time Corridor. She looked at cherry trees growing close by, shaken with delicate wafts of the warm wind. There was already a late afternoon and the girl drank with Setsuna the second tea, but Michiru didn't give a sign of lie so far. The blonde looked at the mobile phone, like in hope that the direct observation would lead to the change of its state from "dormant" to "ringing" like the laws of quantum mechanics would predict. In a vain. Haruka also didn't meet with Hotaru who hadn't come back from the university yet.

"You're anxious since when you've come to me." Setsuna shared her observation with her.

"No, that's not true." Haruka answered unwillingly.

"I know you a long time. Did something happen between you and Michiru?"

"You're starting being nosey. I don't like it. But if you want to know so much, I'll tell you. Michiru's work came between us again, in the very literal way. We have less and less time for each other, we sometimes don't see each other for days. I thought that after her performance in the Philharmonic Orchestra we would be together the longer time. I wanted to take her somewhere, where she would rest from everything. It's no use because she went to arrange the next performance again."

"You cannot forbid her to do what is her greatest passions." Setsuna replied sitting down next to the blonde.

"I know about it. I don't want to do anything which could make her unhappy. But something else is worrying me."

"Yes?"

"Last night, Michiru said she had sensed something coming. She was restless and more nervous than usually before the performance. Later she relaxed and forgot about her anxiety."

"Perhaps it was normal annoyance before coming out on the scene? After all she played for large public, many guests were major people from the musical industry."

"I want to think so. However. in case of us four, nothing is as it seems to be."

"What isn't as it seems to be?" Haruka heard the familiar voice. Her humor improved immediately, she got up in order to say hello to her green haired life's companion. Michiru stood a few meters from her, she was wearing the green dress. The blonde gently kissed her cheek.

"Why didn't you ring? I missed you." He whispered into her ear.

"I could not. I had conversations with a lot of people, literally one after the other. But I kept my promise, I'm by you now." Michiru answered her with a quiet voice. She put her bag on the bench and turned to Setsuna.

"If you can, I would like to drink a tea. My throat is so dried."

"Of course. I, together with Haruka drank a few cups waiting for you. The tall woman replied heading towards her house. The blonde sat down by Michiru. She embraced her simultaneously settling on the bench comfortably.

"What did they want from you again?"

"Somebody who saw me yesterday... the boss of the corporation called "Cygnus" organizes some charity ball and would like to see me there. They'll be collecting money for building and equipping hospitals... he also said that he could sign an contract with me for something more."

"Cygnus? It's a large building corporation. They rebuilt Tokyo after the last earthquake. They have their representation in the most important places of the world, as a matter of fact they also sponsored the rally in which I had participated two years ago."

"You see, it's a small world." Michiru smiled.

"Did you agree?"

"Not yet, but I promised that I would get in touch with Mr. Tokiyama and I'll arrange to meet with him as soon as possible. Haruka, this is a great chance for me, there'll be people from the music industry on this party."

"I hope that I'll also have an invitation."

"Yes, you will have. And if Tokiyam disagrees I'll give the participation up."

"I knew that I could always count on you."

It turned out that the girls busy with the conversation had overlooked when their younger friend appeared before them, once adopted daughter who they looked after her supernatural revival, Hotaru Tomoe.

"Hi Haruka, Hi Michiru!" The black-haired girl shouted. Haruka and Michiru turned around and were struck dumb. Hotaru was wearing the black sleeveless shirt, black jeans, bovver boots on legs and the Egyptian Ankh symbol hung on the neck.

"Are you frozen, or what?" The girl was surprised at her behavior of her friends.

"Hotaru, I know that Sailor Saturn is woman-warrior of death and destruction, but to underline it in the so literal way... " Haruka said pointing at the symbol of life on the girl's neck.

"Today I saw girls dressed like this at university, I thought that it can be my style. I asked them where they had bought these things and I went there after classes. Was it something bad?"

"No Hotaru..." Michiru said.

"If you like it." She added.

"I'm sorry, but I'm worn terribly out. I must lie down and rest for a moment. The heat is killing me." Hotaru excused herself and moment later she got back home. In the door she passed by Setsuna carrying the tea for Michiru.

"Was it our little Hotaru?" The woman asked her familiars.

"Yes... I know her less and less with each passing day. She was a delicate, shy girl, closed inside herself in the previous incarnation. And now..." Michiru announced.

"She's now a quiet and shy girl also, I know because I live with her and I observe her in the college sometimes."

"And this dress?" Haruka asked.

"From many reasons. Firstly, psyches in her mind are merging into one personality. Hotaru and Sailor Saturn are starting thinking as one person. The more... I can say... harsh Hotaru's appearance can have some connection with what is happening in her head, it can be Sailor Saturn's outside manifestation, affecting her even when she isn't transformed. And apart from that Hotaru's mind isolates her from the rest of the society. Even transferring her to the college in so young age didn't help her. I observed her on campus. In the break between classes, she goes to the library or to the park, completely alone. She saw somebody who appealed to her and she will probably want to be spotted in her own unique way.

"Why her mind develops so quickly?" Michiru asked.

"She has access to something called the Cosmic Source of Information. I don't know why only she has such abilities, but somebody who created Sailor Senshi had to have a good reason. Hotaru acquires the knowledge by illumination, but it isn't enough, because messages taken in this way are completely chaotic. Hotaru, reading books and listening to lectures, organizes her knowledge, as if she recalls everything. You must study to know things, she also must, but it's much simpler for her, because the knowledge is already somewhere deep inside her mind."

"Perhaps we could help her somehow?" Haruka asked.

"No. She must cope with it herself. But come to us often. She needs a contact with people. Michiru how did your conversations go?"

"Well. I just told Haruka that the boss of Cygnus corporation, wants me to play at his charity party. I didn't suppose the performance in the Philharmonic Orchestra would bring such effects and what's more so quickly."

"Did you agree?"

"Yes, I'll meet with him to talk about details."

"When everything is all right .., we must go to the karaoke bar to celebrate it." Haruka announced.

Tokiyama accompanied hist older guest to the exit door from the company building. The smile on the man's face showed that the visit in the tower had made a good impression on him. When they both came on the street, the man in the white suit looked at the sky, later at cars riding along street and in the end at his own shoes.

"Did you like it?" Tokiyama asked. He was less distress than during his previous meetings with the mysterious man.

"It was well. There is a certain repetitiveness in what you did, but important components which I taught you about are present and even a note of the modernity, mechanical micro-worlds embellished with the computer mind and nerves of copper and silver aren't distorting the character of former days. I liked the most the classic secret with the non-existent floor, which presence it is possible to predict only by counting the time passing between levels."

"Perhaps would you like me to give you a lift?" Tokiyama offered. The old man waved his walking stick.

"No! I still didn't get used to these primitive vehicles, running thanks to dead plants. At least it's the best what I could see here so far. I prefer my own transport." He added. The mobile phone of the young head of the company rang with characteristic signal.

"I'm sorry". Tokiyama said receiving a message.

"Who? Have people from young girl Kaiou rung? Excellent!"

"We established the contact with her." He announced stopping the conversation.

"I am impressed." The stranger replied.

"Can I ask you about something?" Tokiyama wanted to satisfy his curiosity. The grey haired man nodded his head.

"Who is she that you need her performance so quickly?"

" She is the queen who can bring the stability to what otherwise will become chaos. She is the lady, thanks to whom the harmony will be restored. She is somebody who will carry something from past of times long gone. If I manage to recover it... perhaps I won't come for your soul, or I won't need it." The elderly man smiled and a cold of irritation and fear shook the Tokiyama's body.

A night dawned. The mysterious man in the white suit stood on the top of the Tokyo Tower looking at the landscape of one of the biggest cities of the world stretching out before him. Lights of street lamps, colorful glitter of neon lights and travelling cars as well as twinkling stars above the city reflected in his eyes. He smiled leaning the signet ring against the metal fence.

"I am in these surroundings, so I should say hello to all old acquaintances." He closed his eyes falling into the peculiar meditative trance.

In the same time, Setsuna woke up and went to a window being worried. She looked through the pane at the silhouette of the city flashing to her with thousand of color lightings. The woman felt the immense anxiety, sensing of approaching danger. She closed her eyes, trying to shake the strange state of her mind off.

"It's impossible." The woman thought.

"Impossible..." She repeated.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Haruka was sitting on a bench in a city park waiting for her girlfriend. She gazed at ordinary scenes taking place in front of her eyes: people walking on lanes, children enjoying themselves at the grass in the vicinity of the fountain, older persons resting in the shadow of wide-spreading crowns of trees growing opposite to the lawn. She was bored, because she didn't like an inactivity and Michiru had been absent for long hours. A day earlier her green haired companion answered the telephone call from the person representing Tokiyama who had offered her meeting to talk about the girl's performance on the charity party organized by the Cygnus company. It was a great chance to promote Michiru's talent. The meeting was supposed to be held early in the morning, during one of the few free time moments of the company's owner. Haruka decided to with her lover in the park, where they both could calmly relax and talk about plans for the foreseeable future. Waiting time of the blonde ended, when she noticed in the distance green hair blowing on the warm wind. She rose from the bench and waved to Michiru, so that she could see her in crowds of people crossing the park on the way to a school or a work. The girl was wearing the black coat with mini skirt.

"You are late. I was going to return home." The blonde joked.

"I waited hour or more. I had meeting arranged for the specific date, but, of course, Mr Tokiyama had ten different things to do at the same time." Michiru answered.

"If he invited you, he should find the time for you."

"That's ok. It's a success that he noticed me. The man with such big money and influences could hire somebody who is well-known and experienced."

"We both know very well that nobody puts so much heart into the violin play as you. The man would be quite blind and deaf if he chose somebody else." Haruka laughed.

"But tell me what he told you ." She added. Michiru looked into her blue eyes and then at clouds moving overhead.

"Tokiyama is organizing some big charity party for the elite of the business from the entire Japan. He saw me at the concert and wants me to become a part of the artistic performance which he is planning."

"Your glitter will outshine everyone else."

"Stop praising me. Or else I will really believe in all you say."

"I interrupted you, sorry. What did you learn?"

"The party and the concert will be held in Tokiyama's flying hotel." Michiru smiled.

"What?" The blonde was surprised, because she has never heard about something like that before.

"Large, experimental airship which was built as Tokiyama's corporation advertisement. During the concert the hotel will be flying over the area of the entire Japan, stopping above head offices of the corporations which representatives will be on the party. They want to show the equality of all partners in some large project which they are carrying out. I don't know what it is all about, because Tokiyama revealed me no details."

"I hope that you didn't forget about me." The blonde asked, knowing that she could hear only one possible response.

"Of course. I said I wouldn't agree to appear if there is no accompanying person with me."

"Did he agree?"

"Without the smallest thought. He really wants me to have the performance at his concert. And besides, one person more aboard the large airship won't any difference."

"Yeah. In that case, I forgive you the long wait in the park full of noisy children. And now we'll go somewhere to celebrate our... actually your new success."

-"Do you want to call Setsuna and Hotaru?" Michiru asked looking at the bag in which she had a mobile phone hidden.

"No. I want us to spend the day together. Only two of us. Bodyguards aren't necessary. If they learn about your performance a few hours later, nothing bad will happen." Haruka approached Michiru and touched her hand.

"You're right. Perhaps we'll go to the seaside first?" Green haired woman suggested.

"In such a dress?" Haruka pointed at Michiru's coat.

"I'm after the meeting now. Clothes fulfilled their role and now they can get a little bit dirty." Michiru replied laughing.

Girls went to the seaside, to the wild beach which had been a place of their meetings for many years. The rocky edge and bushes growing around, uncontrolled by the human hand, caused that people had avoided this place, preferring to spend free time in more civilized and crowded places. Haruka and Michiru definitely favored the remote piece of the beach, surrounded by the nature and sounds of sea waves butting against the rocky edge. Michiru, having thrown the jacket down, was walking along the waterline and the cold wind flew around her body shaking her hair and sprinkling drops of the ocean on the skin of her hands and face. Haruka let the friend to relax and sat down on the stone. Later she became bored by all the stillness. She came closer to the green haired woman covering her body with a coat.

"It's too cold to walk with exposed shoulders there. You'll catch a cold. You're already having got gooseflesh." She said.

"I won't fall ill at the sea. After all it's my element. It's listening to my orders and protects me when I'm in his grasp."

"Wouldn't you prefer some other grasp?" The blonde asked. Michiru approached her without a word and embraced her. Haruka bent over her and after a moment of stillness, she kissed her mouth.

"I'll always return to that grasp." Green haired girl answered right after she freed her mouth of the one belonging to her lover.

"When will you have the performance?" Haruka asked.

"The funny thing is that it'll be in the next week. I have no time to prepare."

"When you're improvising, you're wonderful. You need no preparations."

"When I can hear your voice, I believe in your every word." Michiru moved her face closer to the face of the friend and kissed her lips again.

"Michiru... do you know what I like the most in this performance? It came to my mind, when I looked at you nearby to the sea. So far, when we wanted to be together, we have always gone to the seaside. You have always invited me to your kingdom, it has always been me who was a guest of the element which you control. This time, thanks to the fact that we'll be high above clouds, you'll be a guest of my kingdom. For the first time, we'll be amongst the wind, my element."

"And I'm pleased because of that. I don't know how to repay Tokiyama for all of this. I'll have to play like never before."

"It will happen. Because up there, you will really be a sea whipped by my wind."

Michiru cuddled up to the body of the blonde putting her head on the girl's shoulder. The wind was shaking her emerald hair which were touching Haruka's face. They both were happy not realizing the future which was supposed to come after they decided to accept a surprising proposal of the boss of the Cygnus corporation.

In the evening, when the Sun hid behind the horizon and glitter of the day was replaced by the gleaming night with rainbows of neon lights, the mysterious older man in the white suit watched the city which surrounded the balcony of the hotel accommodation in which he lived. His eyes stopped on the tower of Tokiyama's company, lighted with floodlights casting sheaves of the blue glow to the walls of a building. He smiled with satisfaction for the reason known only to himself. A few hours before he talked to his old acquaintance and learnt that the further step for getting the talented violinist with green hair had ended with a success. He knew that the next move would be his. The man came back to the room, closing the door leading to the balcony and drawing the curtains also. He sat down on the armchair not turning the lights on and reached for the suitcase lying on a bedside table. When he opened it, the room was filled with an emerald glitter. The grey haired man smiled widely and then a strange object emerged from the inside of his bag. Phosphorescing green lump, looking like a big drop of liquid assumed the form of fluid in a weightless environment, pulsing in front of his eyes, changing its shape slightly, dividing into smaller fragments only to unite again a minute after. The man reached out towards a curious occurrence and it seemed to react to his touch as if it was given the intelligence. Soon it was wrapped around the hand of the man, establishing the tactile contact with him.

Meanwhile Haruka and Michiru came out from the pub in which they had celebrated the coming performance of the green haired girl. The street was crowded by people leaving from and going to the café, bars, clubs of the karaoke and pachinko arcades. The music coming from buildings was omnipresent and bright colors of neon and LED advertisements annoyed the eyes of friends who probably drank too many glasses. Michiru held Haruka's shoulder and her steps were irregular.

"Michiru... you know very well that you don't have as strong head as me. I said that you should stop a few hours ago." The blonde said looking at the drunk companion.

"Don't complain and take me home as soon as possible. I wouldn't like my fans to see me in such a state." Michiru said laughing.

"I can see no admirers of the classical music here. You don't have to be afraid."

"I cannot believe that I let you to take me to this bar. Tomorrow when I will be able to think normally I will punish you..." The girl was talking slowly and gathering her thoughts caused her problems. Haruka smiled seeing green hair scattered in the disarray around the face of her lover.

"Your reputation won't suffer very much if you knock the mask of the perfectionist woman off once in a while and do something stupid. You were so stressed out recently. It'll do you much good, if your time slows down, even for one long evening."

"Yes... this night will certainly do me much good." Michiru replied cynically.

"Now we'd better hurry up, or else we won't catch an underground going home." Haruka added.

After a long journey on an underground train, the blonde and her green haired companion reached their own luxury apartment. There was already a dark night and the neighborhood in which they lived didn't belong to the most populated. The peace and silence, contrasting with the noisy city centre, hanging above surroundings, caused that both girls had become more and more tired out and sleepy, Michiru in particular. After walking upstairs, they entered the bedroom. Green haired girl didn't trouble herself even with switching the lights on. She reached the bed and lay down on it taking only her shoes off. Haruka sat down by her and spent a couple of minutes looking at her in a silence. She bent over her, smiling simultaneously.

"We managed to enter quietly enough not to wake Setsuna and Hotaru up." She announced.

"How do you know, perhaps they don't want to see us in such a state." Michiru replied.

"I'm going to the shower." The blonde said. Michiru didn't react to her words and instead she turned away her head putting it on the pillow.

"Wouldn't like you to go first?" Haruka asked.

"Leave me alone. The bathroom is yours. Sit there as long you want." Her beloved mumbled.

"Please yourself." The blonde replied coming off in the direction of the exit from the bedroom suite.

At the same time, Sailor Neptune's magic mirror lying on the cupboard started phosphorescing with green glow. Soon the entire room took on a color of the ocean, but the owner of the unusual object didn't notice it, because she was already in a deep sleep. The surface of the mirror started waving, bulging, as if it wanted to free itself from the constraints of the rims. After a moment, the radiating mass separated from it and changed the shape to resemble droplet floating in the air, rotating and moving in the direction opposite to the one forced by the gravitation. Odd object slowly translated above the body of the sleeping girl and stayed in a suspension in a safe distance from her head. Meanwhile, the grey haired man dressed in a white suit was inside the boundless space filled up with the green glow waving and phosphorescing in contact with his body. He looked at the distance, like trying to focus his attention on some non-existent detail hidden in the ocean of the homogeneity. In front of his eyes a vision started materializing: the view of the sleeping woman with emerald hair.

"Now you are sleeping, eased by foul entertainments of this spoiled world. The proud queen of the non-existent kingdom let herself be this way. You should be ashamed." He said. The person about which he gave his opinion could not hear his voice travelling by the boundlessness of the ocean of the emerald light.

"You are now so close to my hand. I could take you at the moment and make you the most important being who remained after the dead universe. But I am not like you, the descendant of the former power. I won't do something which would violate laws that I appointed myself at one time. Goodbye the emerald ocean, we will see each other again when you do all stages and you get all keys to the seal." The grey haired man closed his eyes and Michiru's image dispelled as a mirage. The object arising from the fragment of Sailor Neptune's mirror returned to its birthplace.

At the same time Setsuna felt someone's presence. She quickly got up throwing the duvet down. Led by the instinct, she ran to Haruka and Michiru's room. The door was open, because girls coming back from the night in the city hadn't bothered to lock the bedroom and the blonde was in the bathroom, where she had a shower. Setsuna ran into the room plunged into total darkness. There was no sign of the green glow and the strange object created from the mirror. The woman noticed only her younger friend sleeping with the sleep of the just.

"Damn. The second time... what does it mean?" The woman thought. She clenched fists feeling a great emotional stress. Haruka came back to her room. She was surprised seeing Setsuna there, seeming to search for something what was not there. The blonde felt ashamed, because coming back from under the shower she put no clothes on, she was naked as in the moment of her birth.

"What are you doing here?" She asked. The woman didn't answer her for a moment being under the influence of strange emotion from a few minutes before and additionally surprised with the appearance of the friend.

"Nothing. I thought that something had happened here." She said leaving the bedroom. Haruka could not understand what she meant. Setsuna disappeared behind the door and the blonde sat down by the sleeping friend.

"What did she want? She is usually serious and now..." She thought. She decided not to bother herself with unnecessary thoughts and instead of it she covered herself with the duvet in order to try to fall asleep. Unfortunately, the feeling of the concern which was caused by the strange visit of Sailor Pluto prevent her from sleeping almost all the night.

In the following day, Haruka woke up very early in the morning. She didn't feel best and she didn't know whether it had been caused by the visit in the bar or by sleepless night. She went down to the dining room, thinking not to wake Michiru or nobody else of household members up. When she was on the ground floor, it turned out that Hotaru had been awake much earlier than her. The black-haired girl was sitting at the table and eating sandwiches prepared by herself. When the blonde appeared in the doorway, Hotaru stopped eating and looked at her with violet eyes.

"You got up so early today." She said.

"I didn't think that I would find somebody at this hour here" The blonde replied sitting down by the table.

"I always wake up at this hour. But you and Michiru don't know it, because you always come here much later than me. You don't look good." The black-haired girl announced.

"Because I'm feeling bad."

"Did something happen?"

"Nothing important. Yesterday we decided to have a bit of fun in the town. And apart from that I could not fall asleep at the night."

"And where is Michiru?"

"She's sleeping. She came back in far worse state than I. I should not let her get drunk."

"What you did wasn't too sensible. What if somebody attacked you in such a state?"

"You would come to our rescue. You or Setsuna..." Haruka laughed, but recalling name of her friend she immediately grew more serious.

"Hotaru, don't you think that Setsuna behaves strange? Didn't you notice it?"

"No. I noticed nothing. What do you mean?"

"Yesterday she came to our room at the night. She appeared there God only knows why."

"Perhaps she had some dream. don't be upset by it." Hotaru said rising from the table.

"Are you going already?"

"I'm in a hurry. We can talk when I come back in the afternoon." The black-haired girl headed for the exit door. She stopped, because she noticed Michiru descending the staircase. She looked at her smiling. Michiru looked worse than Haruka, she was as white as a sheet and her hair was scattered in the disarray. She could see the friend, but she didn't return a smile. Hotaru came up to her and patted her on the back.

"Better recover and lie down. You look as if you were going to collapse here in a minute." She said moving towards the corridor going outside the house. Green haired girl entered the kitchen and, avoiding eyes of the blonde, she sat down on the chair. Haruka got up to say hello to her, but she stopped her with a fast move of the hand.

"What's going on?" Haruka was surprised.

"No more words, or you will regret." The girl replied correcting her hair. A clumsy silence prevailed, but soon the green haired woman-warrior decided to speak to the blonde sitting before her.

"I've let myself do something like that for the last time. Remember it." She said hiding the face in hands. Her emerald hair fell on her pale shoulders.

"I'm feeling terrible. I haven't had such a morning since a long time..." She announced.

"And what's more it's your fault." She added.

"You're right. But you cannot say that it wasn't fun." Haruka said moving in the direction of her friend.

"Never again." Michiru stopped her repeating the same words.

Setsuna stood opposite the tower in which Tokiyama's company was located. The cold wind of the morning shook her hair, when she looked at the wall of concrete rising up before her. The woman watched the building in a silence as if she tried to see something what could let her know the cause of her concern and sensation of the presence of somebody whom she hadn't seen for ages. After a moment, she unexpectedly turned around and moved away from the tower.

"I cannot go the private area just like this." She thought. In fact she tried to convince herself that her sensation was false and something, which was very improbable, didn't really happen.

The day in which the flying hotel was supposed to rise above clouds, in order to be a place of the unique gathering of the important people of Tokyo's business, came at last. Haruka and Michiru were waiting for the opening the door to the flying machine surrounded by persons well-known to them from the front pages of newspapers. Michiru's friend, who many days earlier told her about Tokiyama's interest in her person, kept them company. He was talking to journalists attacking elegantly dressed people from every side. Michiru smiled to cameras, although she was more and more tired and irritated and Haruka admired the huge vehicle which she was supposed to board in a minute. The large balloon in the shape of the white cigar constituted the large portion of the flying machine. The blue swan, reminding all people whose money was used to build such a technology marvel, was painted on its surface. The gondola attached at its bottom seemed to be small compared with it, but it was enough big to hold a lot of hotel accommodation, a ballroom, a dining room and a lot of other rooms for passengers delight. Huge engines sounded the whirr waiting for the last passengers. After many short interviews and photographs, girls reached stairs inlaid with the red carpet leading directly into jaws of the large flying machine. When they were on its deck, Tokiyama was the first person whom they came across. The man welcomed every guest on his private sky-high ship, because everyone was important enough in order to devote the moment of his own time to him or her.

"I welcome miss Kaiou." He said looking at girl's blue eyes.

"I hope that this travel will be unforgettable to the end of your days." He added, noticing also the girl's companion.

"And I also wish you the pleasant travel." He announced after a few seconds. Later he also greeted Michiru's friend bringing her the violin. When girls were walking along the entrance hall decorated with patterned wallpapers, exotic flowers and expensive paintings hanging loosely on walls, Haruka caught sight of the grey haired man dressed in a white suit standing out amongst the loudly talking crowd.

"I didn't know that something such large could fly." Koji said coming up to friends.

"It could not until this day. It is the first flight of this colossus." Haruka replied.

"I'm so excited and at the same time anxious." The boy announced.

"I'm also not feeling the best, when these all people are looking at me... each of them has a fortune to build the fleet of such airships." Haruka shared her observations.

"I thought about something else. We know one case of a maiden voyage of a huge, luxury ship. The voyage from which it never came back..."

"Koji, there's no icebergs in the air." Michiru joined in the conversation in order to calm the nervous boy.

"I admire you. I cannot stay so calm."

"Calm? I'm shaking inside. During the evening I will be performing before these all people!" Michiru laughed. Haruka approached her.

"Better let us hurry up and let us find some best places in the observation room. We will be starting soon." She said. The three friends did according to the advice of the blonde. They entered the big room in which there were many armchairs and table and glazed panes and fragments of the floor let the space lying directly under the air ship be seen to everybody. When a woman's voice informing passengers about the need to sit down sounded in loudspeakers, Haruka, Michiru and Koji sat down on armchairs standing close the big pane. Machine started slowly rising above the earth making heavy sounds and vibrating in low frequencies. Everyone gathered in the observation room admired the moving away Earth. They could see how buildings gradually became smaller to be transformed into a grey mixture of geometrical shapes cut through by black ribbons of roads after a moment. Soon the view of streets of the metropolis changed into the grey stain bordering with the green of suburban forests and the blue of the sea. The vehicle flew higher and higher and the earth lost more and more amount of details, becoming homogeneous, seemingly flat surface on which white mountain chains grew out here and there. The landscape became less visible, covered by white mist when the machine broke through kilometers of clouds above the planet. In the end, its flight ended and spectators were surrounded by the white of clouds lighted with the Sun's rays. When Haruka, Michiru, Koji and all remaining guests of the flying hotel admired the sea of clouds stretching under their legs, Tokiyama and his friend dressed in white were resting in the private lodgings of Cygnus company owner. The grey haired man was looking out of the window at the glitter coming from the Sun. He was in a pensive mood or he just pretended because he ignored all questions coming from his younger acquaintance.

"Why are you silent? What don't you want to tell me the meaning of all of this?" Tokiyama asked.

"I did what you had asked for. I organized 13th floor the way you wanted, to the smallest details. You can't even imagine what I risked, what I am risking now keeping something like that in the very heart of Tokyo, in one of the most populated districts of the capital city. I invited all these people losing huge money for the organization of the flight of this airship above the entire Japan, although still I don't know why..."

"You know very well why you organize the party amongst clouds. To gave the money for some noble cause and simultaneously to earn three times more. Isn't it the purpose of all charity parties which you organized? And of course you had to ensure the public for Michiru Kaiou's performance, and maybe I should name it in a reverse order, according to the importance of matters?" The man replied not turning his back from the pane. Tokiyama got up from the chair.

"And this is exactly what I'm trying to learn from you. Why did you insist that Michiru Kaiou plays for these people? What kind of plans do you have towards her? After all she's just an ordinary young violinist... what can she have common with somebody like you? How is she supposed to serve you?"

"I have my reasons. I don't need reveal them you. But you will find out when an appropriate moment comes. You will lose nothing from the performance which I am planning for everyone."

"What do you want to do to her?" The black-haired man didn't stop asking.

"When you performed other tasks for me you didn't have a guilty conscience. Why do you want to know what I am planning now?" The grey haired man turned to the companion of the conversation at last.

"I don't like when I'm not allowed to important decisions." Tokiyama replied coldly. The old man pointed his wooded stick at him. The head of the demon carved on it moved very close to the face of black-haired man.

"I don't like your questions and I don't have a willingness to answer. You know very well that I can destroy this place, including you, at any time. I am able to it and I certainly won't hesitate, if I have such a willingness. We are above clouds, you don't have the smallest chance of the escape. Nobody has, everyone are at my mercy. If you want me to protect you, you must stop butting in into my matters and asking about everything, even the most trivial detail of my decisions."

Tokiyama didn't answer the harsh language of the man. In silence, he sat down on the chair looking out of the window at the plane flying in the distance. The grey haired man smiled.

"Perhaps you should go to your guests? What will they think about your hospitality? You don't want journalists to do write nonsense about you in their tabloids?" He said. The Cygnus owner clenched the fist and simultaneously refrained himself from saying something which could turn against him in the future.

Meanwhile, Haruka, Michiru and Koji went to the one of the hotel accommodations. The room was going to be inhabited only by girls, but the boy helped them to carry suitcases and stayed there a bit longer. The room wasn't too big and only a bed, a bedside table and a bigger wardrobe of clothes were located in it, but nobody expected huge luxury apartments aboard the flying machine in which oval balloons raising the machine above clouds filled the majority of the volume.

"All these people are asking questions about you, Michiru... a few of them could see you at concerts, some learnt who you are from Tokiyama, but the majority does not have a clue what you're doing here. I will have to go to them and promote you more." Koji said putting the suitcase of girls nearby the window.

"The today's performance at night will promote her. The music will be better than thousands of words." Haruka said simultaneously hugging Michiru sitting on the bed.

"I'm starting being anxious. Seriously." The green haired girl announced.

"Don't be. It's a little room and a few rows of chairs. Cannot be compared with the Philharmonic Orchestra in which you appeared recently." Koji replied.

"Just pretend that you will be playing for the circle of acquaintances." Haruka added.

"At the night before my last performance I told you that I was always anxious. No matter how much I prepared. It's natural and everyone feels this way. But so far before every performance I went to the seaside, where I could calm down and become quiet. But this time, the sea is there... at the bottom and I am here above clouds." The girl made a gesture with a hand showing where her beloved element was. In the same moment a mobile phone rang in Koji's pocket. The boy answered and it turned out that one of his acquaintances, journalist from the musical magazine, had rung.

"Listen, I must go. My friend wants to talk about the Michiru's performance. He wanted you to gave him an interview, but I told him that you would be available only after the performance." He informed girls.

"Thanks" Michiru said.

"In that case I'm leaving you alone. See you in the night." He announced leaving a room.

"At last he went away." Haruka said closing the door. Her green haired friend smiled not saying a single one word. The blonde sat down by her.

"I'm saddened." She said.

"Why?"

"Because the hugs of my element don't work on you, you aren't feeling here like at home."

"And what about you, aren't you feeling uncomfortable thousands of meters above the surface of the Earth? Floating in the air only with the help of trapped gasses and large machinery? When I'm looking at clouds under us a premonition embraces me that we all can tumble down like the stone."

"No. Even for the slightest moment. You know I'm feeling great here. Tied up with nothing, as free as a bird. I'm feeling as if I could spread my wings."

"So I can take shelter in them and devote myself entirely to your care." Michiru whispered nestling into the arms of the blonde.

"Then I will think about making a pilot's license." Haruka replied. The green haired girl put the finger on her mouth, asking her mutely to stop talking. Uranus moved her hair away, exposing the face with a pale complexion and big blue eyes. After a brief lapse of watching which seemed to last centuries, Haruka moved her mouth close to the Michiru's mouth and kissed it gently.

"I have a performance today..." Neptune tried to say something.

"Therefore you must be relaxed." The blonde announced simultaneously hushing the mouth of the friend up. Michiru lay down on her back feeling the gentle softness of the bedding under herself. Haruka bent over her, putting her hands on her shoulders pushing her lightly. She moved her face closer to the face of the girl in order to kiss her exposed neck. She pulled her to herself in order to feel the closest, the most intimate contact with her body. She started kissing her lips, neck, hair and her hands touched different points on the girl's body. Michiru smelt the blonde's scent, felt warmth of her skin and the softness of her mouth. Her heart was beating faster and faster, but not out of nervousness as a few minutes earlier, but from the excitement. Breaths of both women became faster and faster, while their hands were finding a way to make the closest possible contact with intimate fragments of their bodies. Michiru unzipped Haruka's trousers and slid them down from her body and at the same time nimble hands of the blonde undid the buttons on the green haired girl's dress in a hurry. When Neptune entirely freed legs of the friend from clothes covering them, Haruka drew her dress aside revealing the body covered only with a green underwear. Michiru decided to change her position, she gently threw the blonde down from herself and turned her over on the back. Next she crawled on her taking everything off apart from the underwear. She sat down on her astride, putting both hands on the belly of the blonde. Haruka moaned, touching the shoulder of girlfriend with one hand, while the second hand got hold of her velvet pants. She pulled the girl as close as possible to her body, causing that Michiru lay down on her and was firmly pressed to her. Neptune pants kept by Uranus slipped down move along legs of the girl with a fast and liquid move. Michiru started kissing Haruka's lips, neck and shoulders as the storm of emerald hair fell on the face of the blonde covering it almost entirely. Uranus answered with a kiss after the kiss, not letting her lover to stop and simultaneously her hands clenched on naked buttocks of the girl. Both woman could not stop their erotic ritual, sinking into its deeps more and more and more. They were embraced by the fever of desire, delight of the physical connection of two organisms in one being synchronized in the move. They were so much busy with each other, that they overlooked that above the desk a strange object lighting with emerald glitter had gone up.

Meanwhile, the grey haired man was sitting in his room attentively observing the identical object as the one in the room of girls. His gazed at the merging between two women, he was a witness of their every move, even the most intimate moment in their love. His face was like stone, expressing no emotions.

"In each of worlds you are falling lower and lower. It's about time to finish your spiral of the corruption." He said aloud looking at Michiru putting the hand inside pants of her lover. He clenched fists and the strange object resembling to phosphorescing ball of liquid came back to the container, its place of rest. The object in the Haruka and Michiru bedroom also returned to the mirror, not being noticed by the girls. The grey haired man left the room and after a few steps met Tokiyama talking to the couple of guests.

"Join me on the observation deck." He said pointing his walking stick at the black-haired man. He went to the room in which one could see the sky and clouds lying above the flying machine through large panes. It turned out that he had been alone there, because the rest of people, bored with the same landscape, came back to rooms in order to prepare for the night concert of the young violinist. The man observed atmospheric phenomena surrounding him. At last, his younger acquaintance joined him.

"Did you want to talk to me? Did you change your mind?" He asked.

"No. I don't intend to explain anything to you. I wanted to inform you of something very important. Right after Michiru Kaiou's concert go to my room and stay there all the time until I complete my actions. Don't open the door and let nobody in."

"Why?"

"If you wish to live do it exactly as I said." The man dressed in white replied coming back to the contemplation of clouds behind windows. Tokiyama knew that he would receive no more explanations from him, therefore he decided to leave him alone with his own thoughts.

Setsuna was standing on the balcony of her house looking at the sunset granting the entire neighborhood reddish color. The woman was anxious, she wanted the cold wind blowing from the sea to wash all anxieties and speculations which could not be real. At some point, the woman felt that somebody had observed her. She turned around, noticing the girl dressed in black. Violet eyes were looking at Setsuna as if Hotaru knew exactly what her friend had worried about.

"You started to behave strangely. I'm starting to worry about you." The black-haired girl said.

"I'm feeling as if I sensed the return of somebody whom I haven't seen since the time immemorial." Setsuna replied. Hotaru approached her.

"Do I know this person?" She asked.

"Hotaru, I know that your abilities to use the Universal Mind are becoming better with each passing day. Did you come across information dating back up to times from before the Silver Millennium?"

Hotaru shook her head.

"No. Even information about those times are completely vague for me. As if the Universal Mind was at one time changed, rewritten... or I'm simply still not able to understand it well."

"Perhaps my premonitions are only phantoms of the woman who lived too long and could see too much." Pluto replied coming back to the room. Hotaru decided to stay on the balcony longer in order to watch the performance of the sunset above Tokyo.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Haruka and Michiru's friend waited in front of the door the hotel accommodation occupied by girls and he already lost his patience. The performance of the young violinist was supposed to be held in an hour but she locked herself her lover in the luxury apartment and didn't answered the mobile phone calls. Girls were in the bed and slept blissfully in embraces. Michiru was naked and her dress was left carelessly on the floor nearby Haruka's trousers. The blonde's white shirt was crumpled under her back and the girl's pants were unzipped and moved to her knees'. One of her hands was pressed to the body of her lover and the second one squeezed smooth linen lingerie of the green haired girl. Michiru was the first who heard persistent tapping. She woke up, moving slowly along the bedding not to wake her sleeping companion up, when matters of the outside world started to come to her mind. The girl looked at the wall clock on the wall and then remembered about her performance fo Tokiyama's audience.

"Damn it!" She swore aloud simultaneously heading for the exit.

"Is it you Koji?" She asked through the closed door.

"Michiru! What are you two doing there! You should be in the room for guests and prepare for the performance. Everything is ready apart from you!" The boy replied.

"Sorry, it completely slipped my mind! We will be there right away!" Michiru answered trying to collect lost fragments of her wardrobe. She took her pants from Haruka's hand and the bra from under her back and later She also picked thrown to the ground dress up a moment earlier.

"Haruka! Clean the room. I'm going to change in the bathroom. We have no time!" She ordered the sleepy blonde.

"Right. This little shit disturbed us again." The girl commented on Koji's appearance, simultaneously pulling pants on her rear end.

The man in the white suit waited for Michiru's performance in his private room. Because of the lasting party he could free himself of Tokiyama, whom he didn't like more and more and whose intrusive questions made him angry. The grey haired man was plunged in a reverie or meditation, he seemed to be mentally far away from the hotel afloat sky-high above territory of Japan. He knew that in a short time, after the finished performance of the person, who had interested him since the first day of his visit in Tokyo, he would be able to carry out the last part of his intricately prepared plan. He looked at his ring and the walking stick decorated with the head of the demon, thinking about the last obstacle standing before him on the road to the ultimate realization of the target, Haruka Tenou. He imagined rising high above the board of the airship, almost reaching stars. He could see the strange spark appearing on the blackness of the cosmic emptiness, a little brilliance heralding coming of the stage on which he was going to have his ultimate performance.

The time Michiru's performance finally came. The girl prepared to play one of her most known music. The room in which she was supposed to give a demonstration of her talent wasn't too big, there were just a few rows of chairs and each of them were occupied by rich man from the world of the business or the woman keeping them company as well as journalists broadcasting the party for television, the radio and the press. Tokiyama and his older companion and the most important person for Michiru, her lover were also there. Haruka sat in one of the first rows, very close to the owner of the airship. She could obtain such a privilege since it was one of requests of the young violinist. Lights in the room grew dim and the girl took the instrument to the hand. She looked at Haruka smiling to her gently and started playing. Once again sounds of the melody coming from the violin of the girl had flooded the hearing sense of all present. Each of them was excited with the unusual show of the girl's talent. Haruka was also gazing at green haired woman like hypnotized, even though she repeatedly had kept her company during concerts in the past and she knew by heart every note of the music created by her. She looked at the shapely body of the girl dressed in blue dress, her graceful moves, storm of the curly hair and lightings mirrored in her blue eyes. She experienced the vision of being in the boundless space only with beloved, surrounded by waves of the ocean churned up by the raging gale. Girls imagined that they had spent time in their own company above the sea shore under sky full of twinkling stars and the music created by Michiru found its way only to ears of her fair-haired beloved. The violinist played completely automatically, without the participation of the consciousness, while her mind reached Haruka's thoughts. After a moment, the girl noticed that somebody else had sneaked into her closed world of meditation. Somewhere in the distance, on the border of mental landscape of the night beach, a man in the white suit and with the wooden walking stick stood. Michiru could not notice any details on his face, but she was convinced that his eyes had been directed only and exclusively at her person. Scenery started changing and the woman became an observer of the completely different vision. She was floating above a large city full of huge futuristic buildings, green and extensive gardens with colorful crystal growing straight from the earth. The central crystal glass tower reached clouds and its bright walls seemed to transmit the own inner light. Michiru awoke from the trance and after a moment got back to the reality noticing that she already finished to play the music. People beat applause, some of them wanted to thank her with standing ovation. The girl ignored them, she couldn't even hear the noise coming from the room. She was tired out and frightened and on top of all that she thought about the strange event which she had experienced a few minutes before. When she turned in the direction of the audience and looked at the place in which there was Tokiyama, she noticed the grey haired man fixing his eyes on her as intensively as during the hallucination.

After the concert, the party - the main event of Tokiyama's hotel flying voyage started. It had quite dull and stuffy atmosphere but the majority of conversations taking place around concerned businesses conducted by companies belonging to participants in the party. Michiru had short chats with young women fascinated with her music, but all the time she was mentally miles away, thinking intensively about the strange vision she had experienced during her performance. Koji covered all conversations with journalists, praising her and the music created by her to the skies. The girl overlooked when the boy appeared beside her.

"How are you doing?" He asked.

"Guess. From ten persons I come across only two were able to exchange a few words about the music with me. The majority of these people probably thinks that I'm a part of the company organizing parties."

"Don't judge them so severely. Mr Hitoyama..." The young man said pointing at the short, bald man in the dinner jacket.

"Mr Hitoyama talked to me about the possibility of your performance on the Asian route of his orchestra. He is a composer. Guy was almost moved to tears by your music."

"Are you sure that he meant the music? I noticed earlier that he had looked at my breasts all the time."

"Michiru... not so loud."

"Why? I'm telling the truth. Even blind would notice."

"Do you want me to have a serious talk with him?" Haruka joined the conversation, because she overheard a few last statements.

"Don't even fool around. Do you want a scandal?"

"But the little shrimp would never again look at what doesn't belong to him."

"How here do you like the party?" Michiru decided to change the subject of the conversation.

"It's so unnaturally here. But it's better than I thought."

"Girls, I won't be disturbing you. I will question Hitoyama for the details associated with his orchestra." Koji left girls full of hope for settling the contract for his friend.

"Michiru, I observed you all the time. Do something trouble you, Am I right?"

"I don't know... I simply thought that I had seen something strange. When I played to the audience."

"It was probably the stress. Hardly anyone had a chance to perform in the hotel afloat above Tokyo earlier. You astonished all of them."

"Looking at this party I think that I astonished them perhaps for five minutes. They came back to their money right away."

"Yes... look at Koji... he's moving amongst all these stuffed shirts as fish in the water."

"At least he forgot his fear of flying."

A three men came up to talking women.

"I had doubts during the concert, but now I'm sure that I recognized you." The one of them said.

"You are Haruka Tenou, aren't you?" The second asked, fat person in glasses as thick as bottoms of bottles.

"Yes... that's me... how can I help you?" The blonde asked.

"We are your faithful fans. We have seen every rally in which you participated."

"Thanks."

"Can we talk with you for a moment? We have always wanted to meet you personally, but duties didn't permit it earlier."

"Yes. I already started being bored." The girl announced gladly.

"Michiru... can I leave you for a moment?" She asked her green haired companion.

"Of course. You also deserve the moment of pleasure." Michiru replied.

"I'll go to get some fresh air. We are on quite small altitude, so the observation deck should be open for visitors."

"Remember to come back here before a dance begins. I won't forgive you this night." Haruka announced following the three of her newly discovered fans. The grey haired man watched when Michiru was coming out of the room, heading to the upper deck. He smiled knowing that a moment of his action finally came.

Hotaru was sitting in her room reading the book in a glitter of the bedside lamp. At some point the girl felt uncomfortably. She was under the impression that somebody looked at her, although she knew very well that even Setsuna hadn't been in the flat that night. Surprised, she put the book back to the bed and slowly approached balcony slightly opened doors. She felt cold air on the skin and the pale light of the moon falling on her face. Air was humid and probably forecast coming rains. Hotaru looked straight ahead at darkness surrounding her trying to notice something which could explain her strange premonitions. In a vain. In the distance, lightings of the city blinked and a monotonous noise of the two-way street was heard. The calmed girl deciding to go back to the room. She looked at the sky on which the red light flashed. Some plane was returning from the intercontinental voyage.

Michiru stood on the small observation deck looking at the black sky surrounding her from every side. She was pleased that her beloved rescued her from questions of journalists and guests of the party. The girl was lucky, because the subject of motor races about which the blonde knew a lot, had been interesting to the group of businessmen from Tokiyama's company. Michiru looked at lights of the city below and darkness of the Tokyo Bay's water. She became calmed, when she could see her element again, even if it was so far away from her. The young woman heard someone's steps and the clatter of the wooden walking stick against the surface of the deck. She wasn't pleased with the company, but she didn't want to be rude leaving the observation deck precisely in the same moment, when somebody else appeared on it. At the some point, the older man in the white suit loomed into view from the shadows. He came up to the girl, leaning his walking stick against the balustrade. When Michiru looked at the head of the demon decorating it, she felt unpleasant shiver.

"We have a beautiful night today, don't you think?" The mysterious man started the conversation.

"Yes... it so serene here. One can rest after intense day."

"Exactly. You deserve a moment's peace in the surrounding of the nature after such a fantastic performance. You were phenomenal."

"Thank you."

"Your music really moved me today. And I've heard and seen a lot in my life. When I closed my eyes, I was able to see images flowing into my soul and thoughts with your sounds. For a moment I was moved right in the middle of raging ocean storm."

"I'm pleased that my music has such an influence on people. You saw exactly what I tried to express through the speech of my violin."

"Will you come inside? It will soon get cold here. There's a party inside and a plenty of persons waiting for the conversation with you."

"I prefer to stay here with the stars a little longer. Our voyage has not ended yet and I'll have a time for fans of my music."

The grey haired man looked at the starry sky. He smiled.

"Stars. I can see that you're a romantic. But I should not be surprised, because only the sensitive person can create such a beautiful music. You have so beautiful soul. Have you ever thought what was up there, far behind stars?"

"Boundless outer space."

"And have you thought about wonders that can hide in such a boundlessness?"

"There are things which neither I nor you can imagine."

"Don't you think that the Universe in which we live isn't the only and the first one, but one from infinite amount of worlds existing in all moments of time and space. What we can see, our bodies, the Earth, stars even the entire space and time are only a thin cover lying on the edges of endless many-world, bigger than imagination of craziest of all people. In this hyperspace, one can travel to distant worlds and any age imaginable. In bubbles of this multidimensional structure it is possible to create mini-worlds lasting without changes through eons."

"I'm sorry, but deliberations about the theoretical physics aren't my strong point. Perhaps my friend Hotaru would talk with you about this topic. I don't have a clue about the existence of worlds which you are mentioning."

"But you know about them... this knowledge is hidden deep in your immortal soul." The man looked at the girl with a blood-curdling look. Michiru felt the cold wind on her skin.

"Perhaps we should return to the party... it's really getting cold here." She said.

"Can such a cold disturb strong and proud Neptune?" The man asked pointing his walking stick at the girl. The unpleasant wind became more intense and bitterly cold. Michiru felt it in every point of her body."

"Who are you?"

"I am Father Time, Chronos, one of the longest living gods of the entire multiverse. When our journey ends you will remember everything about the magnificence of our wonderful civilization!"

"I don't intend to go with you anywhere!" Michiru knew that the stranger hadn't had good plans towards her. She turned around with the intention of returning to the inside of the flying machine and finding her partner. When she took a few steps, the whole construction of the zeppelin shook as if some huge rock hit it. The girl lost her balance and fell down. A strong gale wailed around her and the man in the white suit approached her, not being in a hurry, because he thought that all the time in the universe belonged to him. On the top of all that the flying machine seemed to pick up speed, rising up into the layer of clouds hanging above the sleeping city. Michiru reached for the magic mirror. She had no time for the transformation, therefore she hoped that using the talisman would let her render the opponent harmless even if only for a brief lapse.

"Submarine..." She wanted to attack with one of her spells, but when she said its first words she felt a great pain in the whole body. Instinctively, she dropped the mirror but it didn't stop its preparation for shooting the magic energy. The entire power gathered in the talisman was radiated directly at the girl's body. Michiru shouted frightfully, simultaneously being surrounded by a blue glow getting out of the mirror's inside. The man in the white suit came up to her with a lazy step. He looked at the woman trapped by her own weapon pleased with the success of his mission. Between the girl and her talisman an odd feedback was opened, effectively immobilizing her and simultaneously giving her a nagging pain. After a few minutes of the fight against the energy, Michiru lost her consciousness. She was floating in the column of the blue light created by the mirror's surface. The man raised the walking stick above the head and eyes the eyes of the demon on its end glowed in red. A strange ball of the fire appeared above the airship, expanding with every passing minute.

Meanwhile a panic exploded inside the zeppelin. At first, people alarmed with a too fast rise of the machine started losing their patience and they walked restlessly along the corridor and inside the room in which the party was held. Men talking with Haruka also lost all willingness for the conversation, when shaking of the machine became more and more perceptible and sounds of creaking of material subjected to too great stresses brought to the mind the blackest scenario. Haruka remembered that Michiru had come out to the observation deck and still didn't come back from there. She felt chills going down her spine, when she realized how dangerous is staying outside the vehicle cabin, while it gained the altitude. She decided to find the girl and to get her into the cabin, where they would calmly wait for the end of a temporary technical trouble of the machine. Unfortunately, all her hopes were gone when unnaturally red light flooded boards of the aircraft. People froze at the spot looking at tongues of the whirling fire forming in the distance. Shouts, crying and curses were heard all over the corridors. Haruka didn't think long. As soon as she noticed the strange atmospheric phenomenon, she immediately dashed off in the direction of the observation deck. She quickly came at the top and the first image she came across was the man standing by her beloved who was unconscious and levitating in the beam of the light. The girl turned into Sailor Uranus.

In the same time, Tokiyama went to his private lodgings. He managed to go down the corridor without disturbance, because the people were taking care of themselves in such a dramatic moment of life. The man closed the door by a few locks and then sat down in the middle of the floor. Fiery brilliance painted walls and furniture of his cabin, reminding him of what was supposed to happen soon and that he was partly responsible for this.

"You really want to kill all these people, you monster..." He said to himself. He closed his eyes and hid the head in hands like he tried to somehow escape from the responsibility.

A cold and extremely strong wind struck Sailor Uranus from each side, causing that the girl was keeping her balance with an effort. She was grasping the balustrade of the deck with one hand and gripped her sword in the other. In spite of all inconveniences, Haruka moved towards her target. When she looked overhead, her heart was touched by a fear. Above airship, on the sea of twinkling stars, a huge, flaming gate formed in the very centre of the whirling ball of fire. Pazuzu holding Sailor Neptune's mirror was standing on the second end of the private deck. The man seemed to be adamant to the strong gale's force or the unnaturally increasing speed of the flying machine. Unconscious Michiru was floating in the blue beam of light, next to the man.

"Leave her alone!" Uranus shouted.

"I need her to restore the old world. You can't understand it!" The man shouted.

"I'm not going to even try to understand anything of your sick plan! The sight of a son of a bitch treating Michiru like an object is enough for me!"

"What will you do? Are you going to fight with me? Here, so close to my land?" Pazuzu announced looking at the girl with a mocking smile on the face.

"I'll fight with you even in the very heart of this fire hell!" Uranus replied pointing at the opening doorway.

"Remember that her body is very delicate, like everything what surrounds us." The man announced.

"I don't need charms to fight with you!"

Haruka found energy needed to overcome the wind inside herself and attacked the grey haired man with the sword. Pazuzu parried f the weapon the girl with his walking stick. After a moment, he pushed her using only one hand. Uranus wasn't prepared for such a great physical strength of the man who seemed to her to have a weak body.

"I can see that you're a tougher little shit than you seemed to me." Haruka replied smiling.

"But now I also know that I don't have to restrain myself." She added. She prepared for the next attack. In the same time, Pazuzu pointed his ring with a dark blue jewel at the girl.

"I think that it will be familiar to you... Dead Scream..." He whispered and a ball of purple light emerged from the ring and immediately dashed towards the woman-warrior. Haruka, hearing the familiar spell and seeing its visual effect, was struck dumb. Thousands of thoughts flashed in her mind, all questions unanswered. How somebody as him could know the spell of one of her good friends? Why was he able to use it with an agility greater than Setsuna? The surprise and a moment of inattention turned out to have fatal consequences for Uranus. The girl was hit with the magic ball, pushed by its power beyond fences separating the deck from the chasm lurking behind it. Haruka fell from the airship and glided with a large speed to a meeting with the hard earth and the certain death. The man in the white suit came up to the luminous column holding Michiru prisoner and put the magic mirror under the feet of the girl. A drop of strange liquid separated from mirror's surface and glided up, towards Sailor Neptune's body. The blue lighting became with more intense, swallowing the unconscious woman up, while the strange liquid life form drew her into the inside of the mirror. After a few minutes the beam of light disappeared along with girl who became a prisoner of her own weapon. Chronos picked the mirror up from the deck and floated in the direction of the fire whirling inside the infernal gate. When the man disappeared in the odd space-time corridor, the aircraft approached flames close enough that plating of balloons carrying it in the air had caught fire. People inside the machine got into a panic. They were running from place to place trying to save themselves, although they knew very well that they had no hope for survival. Others were crying, praying or looking through panes at the element raging outside the flying hotel, whose appearance they hadn't been able to explain rationally. Somebody fell into a rage and broke everything on his path, armchairs and decorations in the room in which the green haired violinist had the performance not so long ago. The fire got to the inside of the vehicle, it caught corridors, flowers and expensive paintings hanging on walls. A woman was running with her hair and the dress being on fire like a torch. Somebody reached the cabin of pilots and attacked the captain of the vessel with a knife, because he blamed him for the disaster. The pilot was hit in the heart with a cold blade, but before he died he managed to fire a few shots at the body of the assailant. Soon the machine was defeated by the fire and started breaking into pieces. Tokiyama was sitting in his cabin on the floor. He covered ears not to hear screams of people burnt alive behind the door of the room. The man lacked courage to move even by a millimeter and he knew that his only hope for survival came from the mysterious man in the white suit for whom he had done a favor. The flaming wreck of the flying hotel fell like a meteorite burnt in the atmosphere.

Meanwhile, Hotaru Tomoe was sitting on the sofa in her room watching TV. The program bored her very much, she could not find something what would interest her even for a few minutes. At some point she switched the TV set to the channel on which they the news were broadcasted. The girl became pale and her eyes widened from a terror. She heard new information coming from Tokyo. Tokiyama's flying hotel with Japanese businessmen and people from the upper classes had an accident. It broke down in air and tumbled down into waters of the Tokyo Bay like a stone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Sailor Uranus was falling from the flying hotel with a huge speed, waiting for a meeting with the hard ground. She heard the thud of the explosion high overhead and when she looked in the direction from which the sound came, she spotted a large ball of fire hanging between clouds and flames consuming plating of the balloon keeping the gondola of the airship in the air. She could see the machine breaking down to pieces, which were falling like shards of a meteorite burnt in the atmosphere. The girl closed her eyes and clenched fists thinking about Michiru. If her green haired beloved was aboard the airship, it meant that she had probably lost her life a few minutes ago. When this thought appeared in the mind of the blonde, a total indifference to what was supposed to happen in the near future embraced her. She was reconciled with fact of being killed by hitting the earth or water which was equally hard for a fall from such a height and large speed. What was the reason to save herself, if Michiru wasn't in the living world anymore? Everything lost meaning to her: her own life, the fate of the people imprisoned in the burning airship, the secret of the old man knowing Sailor Pluto's spells. She smiled thinking about the last performance of her violinist and making love with her in the bedroom a few hours before. At least, my last memories are pleasant. She thought and tears flowed from her eyes. At some point other thought appeared in the Sailor Uranus' mind. What if Michiru survived the accident? What if she was kidnapped by the man with the cane? Perhaps she was imprisoned by him and used in who knows how terrible purpose. She could not let this happened to Michiru. She had to survive and help the girl, no matter what. In the same moment a panic attack struck her. She could see the earth coming near with a huge speed, she felt the air surrounding her body, when she was falling to the meeting with her own death.

"I am Sailor Uranus, the air, the wind, the sky are my elements... I'm ruling these elements... I cannot die in it!" She thought clenching her fist.

"I cannot permit myself the eternal rest, when Michiru isn't safe!" She looked high overhead noticing flaming fragments of the destroyed airship falling in various directions, like the rain of meteorites in the August night.

"I cannot die... I cannot die in such an idiotic way..." She talked to herself. The jewel on her head glistened with a dazzle.

"I am not going to die!" She shouted and in the same time the light from her diadem spread through her whole body. On the girl's back, large bright wings appeared. A few glowing feathers broke away from them, getting down to earth slowly like a first snowflakes. Uranus didn't control her own moves, her Sailor Senshi power took the total control above her body. Huge wings slowed her fall and after a short time they stabilized her altitude above the earth's surface. When the girl stopped sensing the effect of the earth's acceleration, she opened her eyes and looked around herself. It turned out that she had was hovering above the Tokyo Bay and in the distance, she could see lights of her native city. She smiled thinking about Hotaru waiting for her in one of thousands of houses. The display of fire meteors ended when all pieces of the flying machine fell under the water surface and the gate of the whirling fire disappeared not leaving even a track on the calm, night sky. Thoughts about the time before the disaster and the mysterious grey haired man returned to her mind.

"Setsuna..." Haruka thought and bright wings brought her towards the city, as if they answered her subconscious order. The police and all sort of TV and radio stations' helicopters rushed all over the sky, being in a hurry to get to places, in which the shards of the flying hotel fell down.

Hotaru was looking at the TV set like hypnotized, and her heart started to beat faster and faster. When she heard about the accident of the flying hotel, her mind didn't accept further stimuli coming from the outside world and words of television announcers seemed to her to be pointless gibbering. Thoughts of the girl were filled by two words only, names of her friends. Her older friend came down from her room. She sat down on the sofa looking at window of the screen with a fear.

"Setsuna... there was an accident. Flying hotel on which girls were..." Hotaru whispered.

"It tumbled down to the Tokyo Bay..." Setsuna finished for her.

"A moment ago, they said that nobody could survive such a catastrophe..." The girl announced not taking her eyes away from the screen as if she was afraid to look her companion in the face.

"They cannot be dead..." Setsuna said and silenced after a moment. Hotaru didn't said a word. All the time she was looking mindlessly at the TV set showing non-stop the same images. Pluto picked the remote controller up from the table, and later she turned off the sound coming from the loudspeaker.

"I would sense their death. You also. After all we are magically connected with each other. Their death... we would feel it." The woman said. Hotaru cuddled up to her closing her eyes.

"Are you sure about this?" She whispered.

"They couldn't surrender so easily..." Setsuna announced. Hotaru wasn't certain, whether her friend told the truth or she only tried to give them both a hope that they didn't lose Haruka and Michiru forever.

Haruka was hovering above the city carried by her bright wings. She looked at buildings below giving some thoughts to new abilities which woke up in her during the fall from the height. She didn't control these powers, she also could not guess what she should expect from them. Is it the same as with Hotaru's powers, when Saturn controls her body? Isn't she strong enough to oppose it? She thought. The blonde looked ahead and the jewel on her diadem shone with a dazzle again. Her eyesight and hearing became very sensitive. She was able to spot details lying far on the horizon and her ears caught sounds of the city brought by the wind. She could see people watching news about the disaster of the airship in TV sets, the tragedy which cost life of many people and one of her friends.

"Nobody survived..." Announcers of all sorts of TV stations repeated.

"It's really remarkable! A miracle happened! It's a real miracle!" Some woman screamed. Haruka, interested with a audition decided to listen until the end. Her eyes spotted documentaries showing Tokiyama whom lifeguards helped to leave the wreck afloat on waves of the bay. The man was dirty, and his clothes were entirely in shreds. In spite of all of these, he didn't have a single sign of the disaster on the body.

"I'm a real lucky. God had me in his care." Cygnus owner talked to microphones. Uranus clenched fists.

"It is you who forced Michiru to the party in this hotel..." She whispered angrily.

"Your salvation isn't natural... And it doesn't have anything to do with God... Rather with this..." She recalled that grey haired man, perpetrator of the entire misfortune, had been with Tokiyama all the time earlier.

"I'm going to you..." She added. Her attention moved to some blue screen showing the list of names of missing persons. Michiru Kaiou and Haruka Tenou were on it. The girl not accustomed to her new power of sight and hearing from a distance, concentrated on other flat and other TV set again.

"I'm sure what I saw!" Some excited woman said.

"I saw an angel! He was flying above the city! He had beautiful wings made of the light!"

Haruka smiled. She approached one of buildings and slowly sat down on its roof. Her wings disappeared more quickly than they had appeared earlier leaving pain in the girl's back. Haruka felt faint very much, since such a big use of the energy was something unusual even for her. However she knew that she had had to go home as soon as possible and had a long and serious conversation with Setsuna.

In the same time, Hotaru tried to call to the mobile phone of the blonde, or her green haired lover's, simultaneously looking at the TV screen showing surnames of persons missing during the disaster. Uncanny message about rescuing one of guests of the party confirmed her of the higher probability of her friends' survival.

"It's no use. No matter what happened to the girls, their cell phones are destroyed." Hotaru announced putting her own phone back on the shelf.

"We can only wait now." Setsuna added. Her voice betrayed a great concern. In the same moment, an intense blast of wind opened a window, knocking the flowerpot with the cactus tended by the black-haired girl off to the floor. Curtains fluttered for a few seconds and then assumed the shape given to them by the law of universal gravitation. The door of the living room opened with a unpleasant crack and a figure of white-haired Sailor Uranus appeared. Glitter on the diadem of the girl grew dim and her bright wings reduced their length, hiding simultaneously in the back of the woman-warrior. In the moment of Haruka's appearance at home, astrological signs of planets appeared on foreheads of both Sailor Senshi. They flashed for a split second, and then faded out into nothingness. A smile appeared on the Hotaru's face and her eyes glowed with a joy. She quickly came to her older friend.

"Haruka! You can't imagine how I was worried about you! Where is Michiru?" She asked surprised not seeing the inseparable companion of the blonde.

"I would like it to know it." Sailor Uranus answered unemotionally, simultaneously entering the living room. She didn't even look at Hotaru, completely disregarding her warm welcome.

"But I'm sure that somebody in this house knows very well what happened up there!" She said looking at Setsuna with a very stern eyesight.

"Haruka..." The woman whispered trying not to watch the blonde' eyes.

"Am I wrong?" Uranus asked coming up to the friend.

"How it's possible that he was able to use your spells? Who was he?" She asked.

- Haruka! What's the problem? What happened on the airship? - Hotaru tried to learn for some reason from Haruki and simultaneously tried to cushion the escalating tension between two women. Uranus turned violently looking on black-haired with such an eyesight stern that the girl moved away from it from a distance of two steps.

"Setsuna knows very well what happened on the airship and who is responsible for Michiru's kidnapping! A I wrong, Setsuna?!" The blonde clenched fists.

"It isn't as simple as it seems to you... there are things about which existence you should know as little as possible."

"I want you to tell me everything what you know! Did you sense what had been supposed to happen? It's why you behaved so strange recently? Or perhaps you knew about everything? Because of your secret Michiru became a victim of this man, whoever he was! And all these people..." The girl waved the hand pointing at the TV screen with information about the disaster of the aircraft and its victims.

"They're all dead. And among them, there is Michiru's friend! If you don't tell me whom was the one who kidnapped Michiru, you will have them on your conscience. Do you understand it?"

"Ok, Haruka... let us leave outside. I'll try to explain everything to you."

"No! We'll stay here. I want Hotaru to be here during our conversation. I want her to learn the whole truth."

The woman wanted to protest, but she realized that it would be completely pointless. She sat down on the sofa turning the television off.

"Chronos is my old teacher and master. He is the creator of our spells and magical objects. He created all talismans and Hotaru's Scythe of Silence. Thanks to him we became Sailor Senshi."

"What? I have always thought that our magic is a gift from Queen Serenity!" Haruka was surprised. She was sure that she wouldn't like all she was going to hear.

"No. You think that it is true, because you don't have a memory about times much more ancient than the Silver Millennium. You don't have a memory about the power which the Silver Millennium was only an imitation."

"What are you talking about? I also remember no great civilization from times before the Silver Millennium. There is no such information in the Cosmic Collective Awareness." Hotaru cut in on a conversation.

"It's because the Cosmic Awareness was created in this Universe and the Golden Millennium existed in the previous one. It existed in the world which was destroyed so this one could be born. I am the only person alive who remembers this world. Besides Chronos.

"How is it possible? After all if that universe was destroyed, you..." Haruka could not understand what her friend tried to tell her.

"Did you forget that I was gifted with the control over time and space? Did you forget that I can pace corridors of the space-time continuum? It's making me much powerful than it seems to you. I am much more older than all of you. I am the oldest thinking being in this Universe." Setsuna said looking straight ahead with a blank eyesight. After a moment of silence, she looked at Haruka and Hotaru.

"Do you want to find the truth about your abilities? Do you want to find the truth about where Sailor Senshi abilities really originate from? Perhaps I should do it much earlier. Gather you all together and tell you the truth. I thought that living in the noble lie had been much simpler for me and for everyone. But now I can see that I made a mistake. Now I can see that my past caught up with me. After everything what you will hear, you probably will start to hate me, but now it is not important."

"I'll accept ny truth, if thanks to that I know how to rescue Michiru." Haruka replied.

"I'm accustomed to the shocking truth about me." Hotaru added.

"The Golden Millennium was a Galactic Empire which existed before the event called by you the Big Bang. Its power involved the discovery of thee infinite energy source, compressed in the object smaller than a hand."

"Silver Crystal?" Hotaru asked.

"Yes, now he call it this way. Even I don't remember how we named it in the days of our magnificence. Silver Crystal was created by Chronos. He also found its diverse applications which let us colonize the whole galaxy and soon and her closest neighbors. The power let us also keep non aging body and life longer than thousands of years. I was one of Chronos' aids and I worked in his Church of the Cosmic Knowledge, but I wasn't working with the most important projects. Nobody was. Therefore we didn't know how he could create such an unusual object. He said, that he had managed to tap into the source of the endless energy in the vacuum, in the Dirac's Sea overwhelming everything, like it is named today. Chronos created space-time corridors letting us travel the vast distances in a short time as well as move along the temporal lines. Energy of the crystal let us bend the space and the time according to our will. Space-time corridors led us to hyperspatial dimension in the eternity of the hypertime, beyond physical barriers constrained by our world. Therefore now, although that universe had died a long time, we still can use the system of passages created by the civilization of the Golden Millennium.

"Are you talking about the corridor? The one through which Usagi's daughter came to us?" Haruka asked.

"Yes, but its appearance is only an illusion. Its walls emit light impulses building the mirage of the building in our minds, because its real shape wouldn't be able safely to watch not losing our senses. During our journey all over galaxies, we came across a lot of beings which agreed to join our empire offering us thousands of years of their knowledge and culture. This way, we managed to possess such miracles of nature as the flame eternally burning, intelligent being which see the future. Chronos created our talismans. Garnet Rod, controlling the wormholes belonged to him at one time."

"Why didn't you tell us before about it? Why were you silent even during our previous life in the Silver Millennium?"

"Because I thought then that after what had happened, after all that I survived... I will never meet anybody or anything from those times. I thought that these were gone irretrievably into the past... now I can see that I was wrong."

"What happened? Why did the empire cease to exist?" Hotaru asked.

"I found out the truth about how the Silver Crystal had come into existence. And I discovered you." Setsuna replied quietly, simultaneously looking the black-haired girl into the eyes.

"Chronos had a lot of secrets from other members of the Temple of the Cosmic Knowledge and from our masters. But the truth about the way of creating the source of the never-ending energy divided us into two camps fighting each other. The space-time continuum is always in a motion, it changes continuously. Even at the moment, an innumerable number of processes of creation occur. In the subatomic scale, new big bangs are coming into existence, the expanding universes are born in other dimensions. Space evolution last through the entire eternity. Chronos created the Silver Crystal drawing the energy from infant universes of this type. In a flash, he sealed billions of years and almost an infinite amount of living beings, which missed chance of the birth and the development in own worlds, in the crystal. The act of such great crime didn't remain unseen. I and my friends decided to stop Chronos at all costs. He wasn't going to give up his conquest which moved him close to the real divinity with every passing moment. And then it turned out that Chronos had still hidden two more secrets, the Silence Glaive, the powerful weapon bringing the death to everything on its road and person chosen for its use, your previous incarnation, Hotaru."

You were much more powerful than now and using the Scythe of Silence disturbed the structure of the space-time. I knew that the world hurt in such a terrible clash had been doomed to die, therefore I tried to save everything I could and take a shelter in the corridor apart from the time and space. I could not take anybody else with myself, because only my body was adapted to this unusual creation. Mine and Chronos', but it was natural because he was its real creator. I managed to take Silver Crystal and talismans and other objects which later became Sailor Senshi's weapon with myself. I took even your Scythe of Silence, although I knew that the awareness of the one who lost her life using its forbidden power was inside in it."

Hotaru fell into a pensive mood. Her experiencing of using her powers, the fact that she was the only warrior who had two distinct consciousness in her body, her own and Sailor Saturn, started making sense to her.

"The universe damaged by the Scythe of Silence was dying. The Cosmological Constant increased its value exponentially and soon galaxies, stars and planets and even the time and space were ripped to shreds and turned into the nothingness by the Dark Energy. My solitude in the space-time corridor could not equal anything else... The Garnet Rod became my only companion and the source of the life. Finally, I found other world lying at the end of one of space-time corridors and green-blue planet in it planet. I found beings similar to me and I became their caretaker. Later I gave the Silver Crystal to the girl named Selene who became the first Queen of the Silver Millennium."

Haruka rose from the couch. She turned towards the window irritated and tired of everything that happened to her in a few last hours. Setsuna's unusual story distressed her more than the catastrophe of the aircraft.

"Do you realize what you did lying to everyone about it? Do you imagine what Usagi would feel, if she learnt what the Silver Crystal really is? It would break her heart..." She said still avoiding the eyes of the friend.

"But it isn't important now! I must know where Chronos kidnapped Michiru, his past doesn't concern me. For me he is simply a next villain, monster who arrived from stars, threatens the safety of this planet and whom I must defeat. Do you know, where he can be now?"

"Maybe I know."

"Let us not lose time anymore."

"This secret can build the wall between us which may never collapse."

"I must save Michiru. If because of that we're supposed to become enemies, let this happen." The blonde announced. Hotaru looked at her worried.

When Michiru woke up from a dream, it turned out that she had been in a place completely unknown to her. She lay on huge bed covered with white, slippery fabric and a baldachin hung above her head. At first, keeping the awareness came to her with a great difficulty, because she was weakened and tired out. However, the strength came back to her quickly and curiosity and fear along with it. She remembered the man and the way in which he defeated her, as well as the whirl of fire forming in front of the flying hotel. She wondered what had happened to the people aboard the machine, and most importantly what had happened to Haruka. She remembered Sailor Uranus running to her and the laughter of her kidnapper. She could not remember details from the last minutes before the loss of consciousness or perhaps her mind simply wasn't able to store the information in permanent memory then. The girl was strong enough in order to sit down on the bed and a moment later she could get up and take a walk around the room. The room was large and deprived of any furniture apart from the bed, a bedside table on which the mirror of the girl and her pen lay and the red, shining lamp resembling the human leg, standing in the corner of the chamber. The lighting falling into the window seemed very unnatural, but the girl thought that it had been only an effect produced by the lamplight and curtains. When she left walls of the room and stood on a terrace, a terror seized her. It became evident that she hadn't been on the Earth. A horrifying landscape stretched out before her eyes. The sky was red, purple clouds floated on it and on the horizon there was a sharp mountain ranges made from pitch-black rocks. As far as the eye can see, everything was surrounded by barren lands cracked from the heat of the desert and a river of lava flowed near the building. The girl spotted the city situated in the vicinity, as dark as everything other in that unusual world, full of multi-storey buildings, connected with bridges and looking as if it was forged from the stone. Some of the houses had chimneys from which dark mists spewed out. Michiru looked upwards noticing two flying monstrosities, huge animals gliding by membranous wings. When the girl wanted to come back for her magic objects, Chronos appeared baring her way to the building's interior.

"Should you not rest admiring the beautiful scenery?" He asked smiling.

"After all you went through a lot recently." He added after a moment.

Setsuna continued her story.

"As you know, the Silver Millennium ended in the way not less tragic than my real homeland. At first I thought that it was only a coincidence, but when the same fate came across my two experimental space-times..."

"Two? Experimental? What you are talking about? " Haruka asked surprised.

"Elysion and Tokyo Crystal." Sailor Pluto replied after a longer moment of silence. Hotaru and Haruka looked to each other and later at the friend, whom they they understood less and less.

"Elysion and Crystal glass Tokyo are my attempts to reconstruct the Silver Millennium in the space-time bubbles which t separated from my corridor of time. I put shards of the crystal in them and letthe thing go on. Two completely different worlds came into existence, but unfortunately they both were consumed by the same evil as the real Silver Millennium. This time I managed to rescue them, thanks to the help of girls, but... evil beings similar to each other appearing in different places, this could not be a coincidence. I searched boundless spaces of my corridor, until at last I found out the truth. Chronos survived and possessed the power even greater than the one, which the Garnet Rod gave me. He was full of hate to me, because I destroyed his Utopia and he promised me that he would do it with every world which I would help to develop. It was he who sent the evil to previous worlds which I helped, in the form of Metalia, Wiseman and Nehellenia. I signed a pact with him. I gave the next space-time bubble into his dominion, I opened the doors to that world so that he freely could enslave it in exchange for leaving this Earth alone. It turned out that he had cheated me and returned here."

"What did you mean saying that Crystal Tokyo is an attempt to reconstruct the Silver Millennium in space-time bubble?"

"Because it's true, these places aren't direct futures or pasts of this reality."

"Is Crystal Tokyo artificial?" Haruka asked. Her raised voice betrayed, that she hadn't wanted to now the truth.

"I didn't say it was artificial. Its people are real as we are."

"But it isn't our future?"

"Most probably not."

"Chibiusa isn't a real daughter of Usagi and Mamoru."

"She is. But not the ones who live in Tokyo now." Setsuna answered very quietly.

"You are the worst liar and deceiver whom I've ever known. You are worse than all our enemies together. They didn't hide with their plans, they cheated nobody in such a nasty way as you did. If I was you, I wouldn't dare to look Usagi and Mamoru into faces after what you did to them. How you could pretend to be their friend for all these years?"

"I am your friend! Nothing has changed and nothing will change."

"No. I won't live under one roof with somebody as you!" Haruka shouted expressing her emotions.

"Haruka!" Hotaru tried to calm her.

"We have no time, Michiru may need our help!" She added.

"Hotaru is right. I must rescue Michiru and I don't want you to help me with it. I cannot trust you. Tell me where she could be now."

"Michiru is probably in the land which I gave to Chronos. And the reason of her kidnapping... the Michiru mirror belonged at one time to the woman who was ally of Chronos. Perhaps he wants somehow to regain his old companion and the pupil."

"Can you get to that land?"

"I don't know... the passage will probably be protected by a powerful magic. As a matter of fact I tried to cross the gate without effect. I don't even know how Chronos got to our world... if I had something that belonged to him."

"I think that I know who can have something like that. Tokiyama, why he was the only survivor of the catastrophe of his airship? The disaster caused by Chronos?"

"Chronos could protect him in exchange for getting Michiru to him." Setsuna said.

"The party on the airship was only a cover for the real Chronos' plans. We must pay Tokiyama a visit. Perhaps Michiru is still on the Earth, in one of buildings built by Tokiyama's company?" Hotaru added.

"I will pay Tokiyama a visit. You will keep away from him." Haruka said.

"But..." Hotaru wanted to react, but Setsuna stopped her.

"Tokiyama is directly to blame for the death of all these people, and one of my friends. Tokiyama led to the Michiru's kidnapping. He must pay for this." Haruka continued.

"Remember, that when all of this ends, you will move out from here. If you don't do it, I will walk away and I think that Michiru will do the same. Hotaru, you can choose, because you're adult. You have some place to come back, so I won't worry about you. Remember that only thanks to this woman you are who you are. I'm going to look for Tokiyama. I will come back quickly, so be ready to take me to the space-time corridor."

The blonde left the flat banging the door. Hotaru and Setsuna stayed together. Revelations were too shocking for the black-haired girl. She didn't know how to talk to the person who was her friend until recently. Depressing silence ruled in the room and the TV set lightened the darkness up with silent, colorful images of broadcast messages.

"Hotaru, look her after..." Setsuna said.

"Don't let her do something stupid." She added. Hotaru smiled gently and after a moment she also left the home.

Michiru stood before Chronos, who was blocking her way to the chamber in which her talisman waited.

"What do you want from me? What is this places? Why did you kidnap me here?" She screamed upset. The man smiled firmly clenching the head of the demon on the wooden walking stick.

"So many questions in such a short time. And moment ago I tried to explain to you that you are weakened and you should rest."

"Shut up and answer my questions! Where is Haruka? What happened to her? What happened to all people from the airship?"

"If you need to obtain something great, victims are necessary and inevitable." Chronos announced mysteriously. Michiru guessed what he had wanted to say. She clenched fists moving in the direction of the room again. This time, the grey haired man let her pass through. After a few seconds the girl came back to the terrace in Sailor Senshi uniform.

"Answer my questions!" She ordered again. She was ready for the fight against the kidnapper.

"I can see that you learn very slowly. Let me demonstrate you something." The grey haired man said very quietly and one of towers surrounding the stone palace shone with a green glow. Soon, a blue ball resembling the visuals of Sailor Neptune' attack separated from its surface. The object very quickly dashed off towards the girl and hit her, sinking her in the water for a moment. Michiru fell down on the floor of the terrace, feeling huge exhaustion and pain caused by the effect of her own spell. She tried to get up, but she could not keep the straightened position. Chronos came up to her and kneeled down by her.

"Now you could feel on your own skin what everyone who are unlucky to fight with you feel. It was the gentlest form of the spell. At the full power you would be crushed by the immense pressure. Can you see that you will reach nothing by a force? I wanted to talk with you and check how you are feeling after moving to my wonderful land and you tried to fight with me at once. You are lucky, that I am a big-hearted person and I am forgiving easily."

Michiru didn't feel like listening to the man, but she realized that she hadn't a chance in the fight against him individually. With the great dislike, she decided to comply with his instructions.

"Well. You won. I won't be fighting with you." She announced trying to get up. The man gave her a hand, simultaneously helping to raise her body. He tried to lead her to the bedroom, but she quickly broke free from him.

"I don't need your help!"

"You are about to collapse. But please yourself. Go to bed and rest." The bearded man said, and after a moment, he walked away leaving Michiru alone. Green haired woman turned away catching the view of bizarre landscape around her. Strange inhuman voices and sounds of industrial machinery were heard from the city close by.

"So this the Hell. I wish you were here, Haruka." She said with an ironic smile.

Haruka was standing nearby one of Tokyo's hospitals, the one to which Tokiyama was brought after lifeguards rescued him from amongst remains of the airship swimming in waters of the bay. The place was crowded by journalists, police officers, families of victims as well as ordinary gawkers searching for the sensation and wanting to see miraculously survived man. The girl knew that she could not get to the man there. She could not risk life of so many gawkers. Too many people had already suffered damage. She decided not to act impulsively and to wait for the subsequent development of events. Tokiyama, under the cover of his bodyguards, got inside the limousine waiting for him by the hospital's gate protecting himself from the crowd of journalists. Seeing that the car was supposed to go away, the girl came back to the dark alley in which her motor was parked.

Tokiyama was sitting in the limousine shielded from the entire world. He was worn out by everything what happened around him and wanted to leave the city as soon as possible. When he turned on the television, one among many of expensive gadgets with which his car was equipped, Chronos' face appeared on-screen. The man was struck dumb.

"You have a next debt which you will have to pay off at one time. But now you can see that my power is unrivalled and you know what your position is with respect to my person. I am pleased that everything was rectified between us. You must know about another thing. The girl whom you brought to me has a very powerful protector. I thought that I had managed to destroy her, but as can be seen she is too stubborn to give up. She survived the fall from the airship and now she is furious at the one who is responsible for the disaster. I'm beyond her reach, but you... she knows about your "miraculous escape" and most probably she is already searching for you. Don't delude yourself thinking that your bodyguards will defeat her. She knows really strong offensive magic. I have one advice for you. Come back to the company, to the tower. Our thirteenth floor is the only place which can stop her. It was built specially for such occasions. You have a next debt for paying off." The face of the bearded man disappeared from the screen. Tokiyama clenched his teeth. He looked out of the window of the limousine, trying to notice the mysterious avenger about which his acquaintance told him. In a vain.

"Go to the company. Go to Cygnus!" He shouted at his driver.

"Are you certain?" The surprised man asked.

"Yes! Go to the company and ask about nothing more!" frightened Tokiyama informed.

The man reached the Cygnus tower. The blonde tracking him on the motor did it also. Haruka hid herself from guards patrolling the area and calmly observed how Tokiyama disappeared in the building. She decided to pay him a visit, but not as Haruka Tenou, but as Sailor Uranus. On the roof of one of smaller houses, there stood another person observing every footstep of the woman-warrior. Sailor Saturn kept her weapon ready for use against everything that could threaten one of her good friends.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Haruka crossed a doorstep of the Cygnus Tower entering a huge entrance hall. The girl looked around surprised that the lobby was empty, there wasn't even one night guard or anybody who protecting the company's quarters. It was also very strange that the blonde didn't meet Tokiyams'a personal bodyguards. They must be with him in his office, Haruka thought walking towards the elevator. The interior of the lobby was very beautiful. The marble floor was cleaned so much that it had been possible to use it as a mirror. Through glazed walls, a brilliance of artificial lights of the metropolis came in, lightening the dark room up. Flowerpots with palms stood here and there, and a large swan made of gilded material was the central part of the entrance hall. Sailor Uranus fixed her eyes on the hypnotic look of its fake eyeballs, then she looked around again.

"You're expecting my visit..." She thought about Tokiyama smiling simultaneously. When she approached the notice board, she learned that the man had his office on the last floor of the skyscraper.

"I should know..." She whispered. She entered the elevator, and then pressed the button symbolizing the top floor. When the lift moved upwards, the girl leaned against the wall of the cabin. Memoirs of last days appeared inside her mind: Michiru's kidnapping, the catastrophe of the flying hotel, the death of her friend and the unpleasant conversation with Setsuna about her past. Haruka didn't want to believe in what she had heard, she wanted everything to turn out to be a lie or an intrigue planned by her new opponent. Why her friend lied to her, why she didn't reveal the truth about herself and the origin of their powers? Why she lied to Usagi and showed her the fake future? Uranus quickly drove gloomy thoughts off from herself, since she knew, that her mind had to remain clean in the moment of the meeting with Tokiyama. Rescuing Michiru was the most important for her and Setsuna's matter had to be dealt with some other time. The lift stopped, but the girl noticed that her journey had lasted too short. It turned out that she had get stuck between floors and in spite of all tries to reboot the elevator, it could not move farther. The door of the cabin opened widely exposing the corridor plunged in a complete darkness. The blonde cautiously took a few steps ahead. She felt anxiety and chills hitting her skin like a hundred of ice daggers. The lack of windows, lamps or any furniture caused her to believe that she was in some place dangerous to her. She summoned her talisman and forcing it to illumination, she lightened her closest vicinity up. She was surprised, because the light was seen at a distance of few strides only. It looked like walls, the floor and the ceiling absorbed it with their surfaces. Suddenly, a strange buzzing sounded everywhere, as if a swarm of huge flies were approaching. The noise became louder and louder and Haruka thought that darkness lying before her was moving and deforming. Buzzing became so deafening that the girl had to cover her ears, and then thousands of small, shining eyes appeared in the darkness. Horrible smell struck Uranus heralding the attack by the swarm of black insects. The blonde retreated into the lift, but at the last moment she stopped noticing that the place underwent a transformation. Instead of cabin, there were a red chasm, with sharpened spikes at the bottom. Uranus turned around knowing that she will have to fight with strange, demonic insects. Instinctively, she stuck the sword in the floor kneeling down, and bright wings appeared on her back. The body of the woman-warrior generated an intense blast of wind which broke the large swarm into a few small fragments. After a moment of confusion, insects started searching for each other again. This time their bodies got glued with each other and soon formed three meters tall monster. It looked like a large insect, had two hairy legs and four hands, bulging eyes and a face from which green liquid dripped.

"Now I'm sure that you're involved in it, Tokiyama." Haruka.

"You're the most disgusting creature I've ever seen." She turned to the monster. It made a bubbling sound and attacked the girl. Haruka blocked his paw with the sword, but she was too weak to turn him over. The wild beast threw the girl against the wall, retreated and then attacked again. Sailor Uranus did dodge, simultaneously trying to thrust the sword in knees of the opponent. The skin turned out to be too hard and the sword blade slid down over it like over the surface of the stone. Large eyes looked at the girl and stinking liquid dripped from the kisser hole. The blonde decided to attack the louse, not waiting for its next move. She threw her sword at it, distracting its attention. She walked away the farthest it was possible in the cramped corridor and prepared to cast a spell.

"World Shaking!" She hurled the yellow, bright ball at the monster. The wild beast was hit straight between eyes, and convulsions shook its body. The girl, seeing that the monster was deafened, immediately picked the sword up from the floor.

"Space Sword Blaster!" She shouted cutting the head of the monster with her light saber. The monster fell down on its knees, moaning terribly. It was furious, since the girl blinded it. It tried to smell her and tear her to shreds with her four paws.

"Space Sword Blaster!" Haruka made use of the cosmic sword for the second time. This time, the energy which she freed was far greater, big enough to decapitate the monster. After its death, the body of the wild beast broke into pieces which changed into disgusting, buzzing flies. Insects got away into the part of the corridor plunged in a total darkness. Soon, their buzzing silenced, and a stain of green liquid spilt on the floor was the only thing left after the bizarre monster. When Sailor Uranus walked deep into the darkness, she saw something which chilled blood in her veins. Some young girl was chained to the wall. She was completely naked and dirty hair covered her face. Flies with shining eyes walked over her skin, all of them buzzing at the sight of approaching Sailor Uranus.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" The woman-warrior asked. The imprisoned figure tried to say something, but she was too weak. Haruka went up closer, noticing scars on limbs of the girl, signs of chains. She wanted to help her.

"Hold on. I will free you right away." She said.

"Not..." The imprisoned person replied and a few drops of tears fell from her eyes.

"Kill me..." She whispered.

- What are you talking about? I will free onself, and then I will deal with who this way set you up.

"You understand nothing... he will come back..." The girl said using last remains of stamina which she had.

"He will come back..." She repeated. In the same moment, flies with eyes shining in the darkness started emerging from the mouth and the nose of the imprisoned woman and from all holes in her body. There was more and more and more of them and soon they covered her whole body. Haruka gripped the sword. She have seen many things, but these were more terrible that she could bear. If Tokiyama or Chronus were responsible for something like that, what could happen to Michiru? The girl tried not to think about the darkest scenario. Flies swarm gathered together and united into a monster. This time there was many more of them and they created two creatures, similar to the one destroyed earlier by Sailor Uranus. One of them differed from the predecessor, because it was two-headed, while the second one looked like its perfect copy.

"Even uglier than previously." The girl said. The woman chained with cuffs, exhausted being a host for demonic insects, lost her consciousness.

"What the hell is happening here?" Uranus asked herself.

Michiru was sitting by a long table covered for white tablecloth and full of diverse dishes and drinks. She was dressed in a blue dress perfectly fitting her emerald hair. Opposite the girl, Chronus drank the red wine from a slender glass calmly. Around a table, beings of different kind levitated, each of them adapted to fulfilling any culinary whim of the master of the palace or his forced guest. Some creature with skin made from the dimwit of glass which was a waiter and a bottle of the red wine simultaneously came closer to green haired woman. He bent over the girl's glass and having filled it to the brim, it came off in a randomly chosen direction. Chronus told Sailor Neptune history in the same way as Setsuna had done at Haruka's request earlier.

"Don't think that I will believe you. There is nothing like this in my memories from the previous life."

"I also explained why." The man replied.

"Whom do you think I believe more? The woman who has been my friend for many years or perhaps the man who kidnapped me, destroying the aircraft full of innocent people and imprisoned in the horrifying land?"

"The truth is one irrespective of whether we like it or not. You have no control over it."

"Your story doesn't explain why you need me. I'm not the same woman who assisted you in the aspiration to control over the whole galaxy, even if somebody gave me her abilities."

"You aren't. I realize this. But you are similar enough. Once you will learn what I am going to do with you or you will guess it. I hope that you will guess it, because I would like to have the pleasure to commune with somebody intelligent. Are you pleased with the food which I prepared for you? If it doesn't suit you, I will order something else."The man looked defiantly at the face of the girl.

"I know very well that I should not take gifts from the demon." Michiru announced moving the filled glass away from himself.

"I am not a demon." Chronus replied.

"Then why I'm in the hell?"

"Ah... the decor of my palace and the entire land made such impression on you as I hoped it would do. Do you like my taste?"

"No. Why did you create something like that?"

"These are old times. Very long time ago I read a book of the European poet and his vision of the Hell fascinated me so much that I had decided to bring it into life. Even if the original is only a fiction, the place fulfills all hopes I have for it."

The girl rose from the table, simultaneously approaching the opened window. She leaned hands against the window sill, lightly sticking her head outside.

"Do you mean this?" She said pointing at smoking chimneys of the stone city.

"Don't waste your thoughts with that city." Chronus replied coming up to Michiru.

"It is a place for everyone who helped me and the ones who disappointed my trust. I hope that you won't have to go inside its walls."

"And I think that sooner or later I will go there." Neptune replied. The grey haired man tried to touch her, but she quickly withdrew her hand.

"Is my company annoying you?" Chronus asked.

"Too much information for one night." The girl answered wanting to grow apart from the kidnapper.

"My servants will show you your bedroom." The man suggested summoning one of his flying lackeys, the one looking like the wooden torso with hands, but without legs and a head.

"Listen. Irrespective of what you'll do and how much you'll try to intimidate me, I won't cooperate with you, do you understand? Sooner or later I'll find secrets of this place and your weaknesses. Nobody is perfect, everyone has some weak point, but for some it takes more time to find it than for others. And one more thing, if something happened to Haruka, be sure I will kill you. Even if I would be imprisoned in this nightmare for the rest of the eternity. I will kill you."

Eyes of the girl were as cold as the ice dagger hitting the soul of the man. Michiru vacated the room and followed the flying lackey. Chronus stayed in the chamber. He clenched the head of the devil on the walking stick, not being satisfied from the meeting with Sailor Neptune.

In the same time, Uranus was fighting with two ugly creatures risen from the swarm of flies. Monsters were faster and stronger than their predecessor, so the blonde dodged their blows with more effort than before. The girl had to think out some plan as soon as possible, otherwise she would face terrible death. One headed beast attacked her, pressing her to the wall using its four hands. One pair of hands held Uranus by the wall, while the second pair tried to tighten on the neck of the woman-warrior and to strangle her. Haruka decided to act. She overcame the disgust and the strength of the opponent, putting the hand into the mouth of the monster, dripping with a green phlegm. She clenched the fist whispering with immense effort, because strong paws pressed her voice box:

"World Shaking..." Her fist shone inside the kisser of the fly man and soon the intense energy of the spell was freed in a small volume of its head. Its head was smashed to hundreds of pieces and green gunk splashed Haruka's face and the wall behind her. The bulk of the monster fell inertly on the floor, freeing the girl. Sailor Uranus clutched by her throat trying to catch breath. She smiled noticing that the creature didn't manage to seriously damage her body. A moment's peace wasn't written for the blonde, because the defeated opponent was quickly replaced by its two-headed brother. This time the monster didn't want to approach Uranus remembering what happened with louse similar to him a moment ago. Instead of it, he spat stinking liquid in the direction of Haruka.

"World Shaking!" The blonde attacked the mutant with her offensive spell again. Unfortunately her the opponent became immune to her magic. The ball of the amber light dispersed on its armor doing him no harm.

"World Shaking!" Haruka hit again. This time she didn't aim directly at the monster, but under its legs. Power of the spell was so great that the floor fell apart to shreds and the wild beast tumbled down into the lower level.

"Try to get up from it." The girl replied looking at clouds of dust afloat above the hole in which her opponent disappeared. After a moment, the blonde remembered about the mysterious woman attached with chains to the wall, the woman whose skin was full of disgusting flies walking all around. When she approached her, the girl lifted her head and whispered that she craved for the death again.

"Kill me or he will come back..."

Sailor Uranus didn't know what to do. She remembered that two monsters which she managed to defeat had been much stronger than first one and she wondered what could happened if she let demonic flies to be born again. On the other hand, despite the fall of the monster to the lower level and its presumed death, the swarm of insects didn't appear. It could mean that this time she defeated the threat. She summoned the cosmic sword and cut two chains holding the poor girl. When the woman felt that she had finally been free, she found enough strength and stood up with superhuman effort. She ran past Sailor Uranus, rushing into the hole in the floor. Haruka didn't manage to catch her. Hate and furious at herself and those responsible for the girl's fate, she cautiously opened the door leading to the next chamber and appeared in a corridor shone by a reddish light. At first, she thought that the room had been completely empty, but after a few seconds she unraveled a terrifying mystery of that place Eyes looked at her from all around. Colorful eyeballs rotated towards the girl with her every step. Uranus decided to ignore them and just walk away. When she was in the middle of the chamber, she heard the neighing of the horse and the sound of hooves. Soon, a set of similar sounds came to her ears from the other side of the room. The girl prepared for the fight. The bizarre creature appeared in front of her eyes. It was a horse with a human flesh-colored skin which had the naked woman without legs, holding a steel chain, sewed to its back. Her dirty blonde hair hid her face and only permanently hardened smile stuck was seen from under it. Haruka was so shocked with this horrifying monster that she let the opponent surprise her. Centaur girl hit her with the chain, smashing the talisman from her hand. Behind Sailor Uranus' back, the other monster appeared which was very similar to the first one, but with a brown skin,. The young woman sewn to the body of riding horse like her friend was also equipped with a battle chain. Haruka managed to dodge her blow, but the last link of chain hit her calf. The girl impulsively touched the aching place noticing that red stains appeared on her white gloves.

"Damn it!" She swore under her breath. Two centaurs walked away from her, simultaneously slowing down. Haruka went up from the floor, took a few steps back, and this was her biggest mistake since she started her visit in the horrifying 13th level. Something touched her leg, hand and trunk. Soon the girl became stuck to the wall behind her back, but it wasn't an ordinary wall, but a living thing compound of tens of beings connected with each other, looking as if somebody pressed them into the surface of the building. Hands, legs, faces twisted in a horrible grimace, belonging to women and girls stuck out of the wall and neighing horse's heads were stuck also here and there. Haruka was fed up with everything around her. She realized that she was really afraid of that place. She wanted to use the most powerful spell she knew, Space Turbulence and turn the entire skyscraper into the pile of steaming rubble. The hug of the wall became stronger. Uranus noticed that two centaurs had approached her again, but this time other, even more terrifying creature kept them company. A naked girl was walking between human horses. She was moving on four legs like some wild animal. Her eyes were sewn and she had a long needle stuck in the mouth. Women attached to horses clamped the collar on the poor girl's neck to their two chains, and after a moment they started the gallop towards Haruka. Naked one was running between them, not lagging. At some point, two women on backs of steeds pulled chains, forcing the girl to raise her head and direct the blade at Haruka's heart. The blonde could not free herself or use her abilities. Even the attempt to use bright wings was a failure. When Uranus thought that she would to die from the hands of incredibly grotesque opponents, the entire room was flooded with a purple light. Centaurs and their human weapon on steel leashes bounced off the invisible barriers and their chains were smashed separating the infernal trio. Haruka smiled noticing who arrived to her rescue. Sailor Saturn stood in the middle of the room pointing her scythe at monsters.

"I told you not to go looking for me!" Haruka said.

"It would be enough to say thanks." Hotaru replied. She cut the living wall using her weapon so Haruka could free herself.

"Go. Find the one who is responsible for everything." Saturn ordered.

"What about you?"

"I will be busy for a moment." Hotaru replied looking at atrocities gearing up for the attack.

Uranus went through the corridor with walls full of bloodshot eyes to the new chamber, submerged in a complete darkness and an artificial fog. She was disorientated and thought that suddenly the room had increased its surface becoming a boundless, flat space. The girl prepared for the defense against something even more disgusting than her previous opponents. At some point, the floor under her feet lighted with a bright glitter, similar to a few other areas in the chamber. Soon, it turned out that Sailor Uranus was standing on in the very centre of a large chessboard.

"I like it less and less. Chess? You could think out something more original?" She asked rhetorically turning to her absent enemy. She was sure that Tokiyama observed her every step. She wasn't wrong. While the blonde was thinking what to do, and her black-haired friend was fighting with victims of some terrible experiments, the owner of the building sat in his study and watched monitors hung on the wall. A panic seized him. He didn't know whether it had been caused by fear for his own life and health or the knowledge how gruesome felonies towards young women he had committed, agreeing to create the Thirteenth Floor for the mysterious grey haired man leaning on a walking stick with the head of the devil. He felt damned and couldn't see the possibility of retribution.

"Send more hybrids against the short one." Somebody standing behind the man said.

"Why? Centaurs are doing very well." The man answered with a voice betraying the concern.

"I don't like her. Something dangerous is in her eyes. More than in the blonde's." The strange figure added.

"Ok. She will have her hands full." Tokiyama whispered pressing buttons on his desk.

"Perhaps I should take care of her. I would liven up." The person that turned out suggested to be young woman with red hair suggested.

"No. I want you to stay by me." The man announced closing his eyes.

Meanwhile, chessmen appeared around Haruka. White pawns, rooks and knights moved along squares of the table with a loud rustle, trying to imprison the girl in the maze built from their massive bodies. Simultaneously Uranus noticed that something bad was happening with her body. She was sleepy, moved more slowly than usually and felt faint. She had worse eyesight, even taking into consideration that the room had been covered with a fog. Something is in the mist. She thought. The drug or some tranquilizer. She guessed. Hotaru defending charging human-animal hybrids appeared in her thoughts. Don't worry about her! She talked to herself. Hotaru is Sailor Saturn! If anybody could survive the trip around such a place it is only she! She encouraged oneself. Suddenly, the eyes of the chess horse sparkled with an energy and two rays got shot from them. Haruka did dodge, but her body reacted too slowly. Bundles of energy hit her in the left hand and leg. The girl shouted, when her blood splashed the surface of gigantic pawns and bright fields on the floor. When the woman-warrior tried to get up after the painful fall, chessmen came near to her and everything seemed that crushing the body of the girl had been their intention. Uranus closed her eyes. She felt the same as during the fall from the burning wreck of the airship. The thought of Michiru caused that the woman was able to reach deep into inside herself and find the power for the fight. Large bright wings appeared on the girl's back and the diadem on her head glowed with a golden glitter. Uranus picked the sword up, kneeled down and stuck it into one of fields of the chessboard. Cracks appeared on the surface of the square, its glitter went pale, and after a few minutes it died down entirely. Haruka was in a trance, as during her fall from the height and she only partially controlled her own movements. Wings of the girl triggered an intense puff of wind and the energy floating from the Cosmic Sword caused that walls and the floor to shake as the squares of the large chessboard disintegrated one after the other. Chessmen collided with each other, pushed by the real power of the woman-warrior from Uranus.

"World Shaking..." Haruka whispered putting the hand on the floor. A shock wave left her body and speeding along the room brought a lot of damage. Pawns tripped over when fields on which they stood fell apart into shreds, the horse lost its head and the tower broke down into two parts. The queen towering over everything was the only remaining figure on the battlefield. Sailor Uranus regained the ability of clear thinking, because her wings dispelled poisoning mists and she realized that the object piling up before her had manipulated all chessmen. She knew that destroying it had been a must.

"World Shaking!" She shouted shaping the sphere of the energy in the hand. She threw it at the opponent, destroying its armor. The queen fell down to the floor with a loud thud and it turned out that it hadn't been only a mechanical creature as the rest of the pieces in that chamber. Blood spilt from under the crushed metal sheet. Sailor Uranus drew her wings in, quickly ran up to the wreck. She removed the lid hiding the operator, but her eyes saw a gruesome view. There was an young girl imprisoned inside the chessman. A plenty of sensors and wires was attached to her body, and some of them looked like the life support system. Blood poured from many wounds on the woman's body. The smiling black-haired figure looked at the woman-warrior.

"Thank you..." She whispered.

"Don't move, I will try to help you." The girl suggested. The person imprisoned in the metal coffin closed her eyes.

"No... I won't survive long..." She replied.

"My heart..."She said showing the chest.

"It's there..." She raised the hand with an effort and pointed at the crushed scrap metal lying behind her back.

"And you destroyed it..." She added with an effort.

"I..." Haruka could not find the words typical of the situation in which she was.

"No... you did the right thing. Thanks to you I can see the world with own eyes again. At least for a moment." The girl smiled again.

"Who are you? Who did it to you? What does it all mean?"

"I... I am a nobody. When I met Tokiyama, I thought that happiness had found me. He promised the better job and instead of it..." An explosion in other part of the chessman holding the girl prisoner stopped her statement. Convulsions shook her body and blood spilled out of her mouth. After a few seconds black-haired girl no longer lived. Haruka clenched fists.

"You will be defeated Tokiyama. For all these women. You and this son of a bitch who kidnapped Michiru." She said through clenched teeth. She realized that further following the trail outlined by the Thirteenth Floor could turn out to be fatal for her. Every next chamber hid nightmares worse than the previous and her powers ran out. She realized that to make a victory possible in Tokiyams's game, one should change rules of this game.

"World Shaking!" She shouted using the spell on the wall rooms. A loud thud sounded, clouds of dust rose and soon it turned out that a large hole had appeared in the wall.

"We will play according to my rules." The girl said walking towards the entry created by her own hands.

Tokiyama was alarmed. Since Sailor Uranus found enough strength to destroy mechanical chessmen, cameras in the chess chamber also underwent the breakdown. The man didn't know what had happened to Sailor Uranus, there was no signals announcing that his trap was defeated by the woman-warrior. When he switched channels to see the view from other cameras on the thirteenth floor, he could notice the girl with golden hair nowhere. Red haired woman looked at screens with a static noise and at the frightened face of her employer.

"Go there! You must track her down!" Tokiyama shouted. The woman looked at him coquettishly.

"I waited for your decision." She replied walking at a slow pace to the door. Tokiyama buried the head in hands. In his heart of hearts he knew that he had been on a lost position. The secret assistant of the man wasn't going to obey his orders, because she had own plans.

"Search for this blonde yourself... you have a technology for millions of dollars so use it. I prefer to have fun with the black-haired beauty." She thought.

Sailor Saturn stood awaiting the attack of one of horrible centaurs. Beside it, remains of other monsters defeated by the girl lay on the floor. Their bodies were smoldered with a purple flame. The woman on the back of the infuriated horse looked at the woman-warrior with eyes full of bloody tears. The animal neighed gearing up for the charge.

"Whispering Silence!" Hotaru recited words of the spell. She formed a ball of the purple light **s**urrounded by the gleaming ring and pressed it towards the opponent. Hybrid was hit and burning with purple fire fainted fell to the floor. Sailor Saturn was worn out, her breath and the heartbeat increased their frequency. The girl leaned against her weapon, but she wasn't able to rest. Next monsters loomed into a view from darkness of the chamber: two young girls, completely naked, conjoined with each other by trunks and one leg. In the place in which their bodies were merged, there were jaws with sharp teeth and slimy tongue. Beside her, other woman stood, the one with the body covered by sharp, sword-like processes compound of substance looking like hard metal. In other place, the can with human had inside and thousand electrified strings attached levitated.

"Somebody who created this place must be locked up." Hotaru thought. Deep inside her mind she listened to whisper of her second consciousness.

"Free your power. Destroy everyone. Turn this building into a pile of ruins. Turn the entire city into a pile of ruins, because it is as contaminated as this place." Saturn lying dormant in the mind of the girl started interacting with her more and more intensively.

"No!" Hotaru shouted. Drops of sweat appeared on her head and her hands shivered.

"I will cope without your help!"She added. Three monsters were closer and Hotaru stopped the real Sailor Saturn from taking the control over her body with a great difficulty. Tokiyama's ginger assistant turned up at the chamber. When she raised the hand above head, thousands of snakes, forming the plume as wide-stretching as the tail of the peacock grew around her body.

"You're depriving me of pleasures! I won't let it!" She shouted at monsters. She launched thousands of snakes from her body, like the hail of flaming arrows falling on the charging hostile army. Red reptiles attacked all hybrids, wrapping their bodies and biting their skin with poisonous teeth. The glass jar keeping the human head alive smashed to pieces. Reptiles killed the double girl getting to the centre of her toothed jaws. Even sharp processes of third modified women proved to be too weak protection from the rain of slippery, demonic animals. Soon, there was only Sailor the Saturn and the ginger woman in the chamber. The black-haired woman-warrior watched her attentively.

"I could not let these failed experiments take the pleasure of the fight with you away from me. When I saw you for the first time on the display screen I felt a desire to defeat you on my own. You should feel graced."

"Who are you?" Saturn asked.

"I'm the most wonderful creature of this place. I'm changed, better human." The woman replied laughing. Hotaru realized whom she was dealing with. Her previous opponents were changed, physically hurt. Somebody changed them into monsters against their will, their minds, not being able to cope with the nightmare, closed themselves and the programming of the thirteenth Floor's creators took their place. The ginger woman was different. Her body was intact, while her mind was entirely crooked. Hotaru thought that she had been probably been most hurt of all victims of experiments which she had met on the dark floor.

"I can see that we won't reach an agreement." Hotaru announced.

"No. I want to see you broken and lying at my feet."

Haruka was walking on empty corridors of the abandoned laboratory. It still had the electric energy and all lights automatically went on at the moment of the girl's appearance. The blonde held the sword in standby to the fight, because she guessed that the place could be protected. It turned out, that in spite of her staying there for a few minutes, nobody appeared. Haruka cautiously looked behind one of the doors. She spotted computers, wirings, hundreds of sheets of paper filled with writing on desks. On the blackboard, they were some complicated reactions of the organic chemistry written by chalk. The girl went to examine other rooms. Every next place was more terrifying than the previous one. Behind the laboratory doors there were mortuaries full of large jars with biological preparations difficult to identify, dark rooms with containers of the size of the man connected to diverse apparatus, workshop with electronics and mechanics formed to the image and resemblance of human organs, large gymnasia full of obstacles, punch bags and phantoms destroyed by different weapons, little rooms in which there were frightening black containers for the sensory deprivation of patients, rooms full of thousands of strange moving colors and patterns able to drive mad the most tough mind. Haruka didn't want to guess who and for what purpose had created such a horrible place. Seeing all elements of the laboratory she was even more depressed than after Michiru's kidnapping and after the conversation with Setsuns about the hidden past. How many of such buildings were built by Tokiyama's company? Did each of them contain the horrible Thirteenth Floor? The girl wrote the next task to her list: after finding Michiru, to destroy every place in the sun creating biological-mechanical monstrosities, even if she had to to travel around the entire of world for that purpose.

Meanwhile Michiru was walking about Chronus palace, trying to find some place not protected by towers hurling magical missiles. She went along the wall, passing the verandah from which the great view on the infernal land stretched, and later came to wide stairs to lower levels of the palace. Unfortunately, she could not find a single piece of the area which wasn't guarded by watchtowers. The girl clenched fists thinking about Chronus, who probably observed her efforts and laughed at her failure. Michiru passed another stairs and another courtyard with the view of the dark city. Finally, she was on the last level of the stronghold, on the same height as the desert surrounding area. The stone maze stood before the girl, separating grounds of the palace from wild areas around it. The hot wind struck rocks sprinkling them with dry sand and the elaborate system of passages and tunnels worked as a large musical instrument filling surroundings with portentous sound of very low frequency. The girl looked up at two large pylons with magic cannons. An escape plan was born in her head. She didn't know if it was going to work or if she had any chances to the walk through deserts and reach the distant city. She also didn't know what could happened to her during the expedition. The only residents of the land apart from her and Chronus whom she had seen so far were flying demonic beings. Michiru guessed that something much worse and more dangerous could wait for her on the desert. She walked away towards the stone maze gradually quickening the pace. At some point, she started running. She turned backwards and noticed that one of towers had geared itself up to send the energy bullet in her direction. Neptune very quickly took the Magic Mirror out directing it at the approaching spell. The energy hit the surface of the mirror, reflected from it and destroyed one of rocks protruding of sand. The tower geared up for the next salvo, but green haired woman escaped deep into the maze hiding behind the shield of rocks. She sat down on sand in order to rest pleased that she managed to free herself from the palace of her kidnapper.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Sailor Saturn was watching her opponent who was floating a few meters above the floor enveloped in whirling flames in the shape of snakes. She was ready to defend herself from red haired woman's attack which could take place at any time. The assistant looked at Hotaru in a strange fashion, like she tried to examine every part of her body, as if she wanted to see through the uniform of the woman-warrior. Sailor Saturn moved back a few steps in the direction of the wall, but she remembered that she could not make the same mistake as her friend a few minutes ago. The living wall grasped, trying to touch her skin and imprison her. Saturn used scythe to free herself, but at the same time, the crazy woman attacked her, taking advantage of disturbance. Hotaru spread the magic barrier around herself at the last moment. The intense flame struck it, breaking down into a lot of fiery streams.

"Stop hiding and fight with me, because you're boring me!" Tokiyama's assistant shouted.

Sailor Saturn was silent. She didn't want the madwoman to provoke her and led her to the state in which her dark personality would have a chance to take control over her body. The ginger woman rose above the floor. She attacked Hotaru with a rain of burning snakes, as intense as the one with which she killed inhabitants of the thirteenth floor earlier.

"Silent Wall!" Hotaru created a protective dome around herself, saving herself from the blow again.

" You hide again! You bloody coward!" The woman shouted. A fury appeared on her face. She dashed off in Sailor Saturn's direction quickly and hit the barrier surrounding the girl's body with both fists. The energy freed from the Scythe of Silence went through her body, pushing her and deafening her like an electric shock. Hotaru changed position, pointing the weapon in the direction of the opponent. The woman quickly got up and geared up for the next blow.

"You irritate me so much, that I won't forgive you. I will burn you live! I will smash your bones!" She screamed, when fury shook her body. She attacked Hotaru with fire snakes again, but this time she used much bigger and hotter ones. Sailor Saturn shielded herself from the heat. The blow was stronger than she expected. She was forced to move back. The following attack of the woman forced her to withdraw a few more steps, dangerously close to the living wall. In the same moment, two horse's heads appeared behind her. The neighing horrifying and surprised Hotaru. The girl started to feel fear, the same fear as her older friend earlier. Her opponent didn't let her rest. She hurled a few streamers of fire at her. Hotaru had to defend herself again, simultaneously trying not to touch horse's heads trying to bite her from behind. She lost her balance and staggered. She managed to protect herself with a magic shield and avoid hot inferno, but she didn't manage to avoid a few human hands reaching for her from the wall. The girl was quickly disarmed by the living wall, and successfully immobilized a moment later. The ginger woman approached her with a saunter. Plume of wild snakes whirling behind her back disappeared, and a frenzy gave in to an unclean desire.

"You should be so polite from the beginning of our meeting." She said. Hotaru was silent. She knew that any word could enraged her opponent.

"You fascinate me since I saw you for the first time." The woman whispered in the girl's ear. She cuddled up to her body, held motionless by hands growing from the wall. Hotaru felt the cold hand tightening on her thigh. Tokiyama's assistant raised the girl's head and kissed her lips.

Michiru was running away from Cronos's residence, wandering amongst the stone maze formed by rocks sticking out of dry, desert land. Small pebbles, remains of rocks destroyed by hot winds, got inside her shoes and wounded her feet, and clouds of dark sand, carried from extensive plains, struck her body every couple of minutes, hampering the visibility and her march. In spite of the passion pouring from the red sun shining above the awful land, the girl didn't stop. She knew that she had had to reach the city outside the desert and find somebody who would help her there to oppose the kidnapper. Strange growls reaching from behind rock filled her with a terror and constant readiness for a fight in the defense of her own life. Soon, the girl arrived at an open space, a clearing covered with sand surrounded by stone forest seen in the distance. She heard much louder grunts, and after a moment, she saw a figure looming into a view from behind pitch-black trees. She clenched her teeth and firmly gripped the magic mirror. Before Sailor Neptune, the monster stood, three times taller than her. Two black horns graced his head and one, red eye was put in his eye socket. Burning saliva dripped from the rim of his teeth. The monstrosity resembling Minotaur had a brown skin and strong legs covered with a thick hair. His feet looked like dark hooves. The monster was holding a burning horsewhip in the hand. When he noticed the woman-warrior, he immediately paid attention to her and moved in her direction. The girl guessed that the monster hadn't had friendly intentions towards her. When he took a swing in order to hit her with his fiery horsewhip, Sailor Neptune reacted immediately.

"Deep Submerge!" She shot her oceanic spell at the opponent. Unfortunately, when the demon hit the ball of energy with his flaming whip, it immediately evaporated. The monster took a swing for the second time, this time aiming at green haired woman. Michiru managed to dodge. She lost her balance, fell down and rolled towards fossilized trees. In the place, which was hit by the horned monster's whip, a wall of the fire arose. Heat and smoke from flames limited the girl's visibility, Michiru didn't know whether the monster had moved or whether it planned the next attack.

"Deep Submerge!" She attacked columns of fire baring her way. Unfortunately, her magic wasn't able to extinguish dreadful flames. Suddenly, the demon went through the burning curtain and hit Michiru with the horsewhip again. This time, the girl didn't have enough time to dodge. She took the mirror out hoping that its magic would save her from being burnt alive. The mirror saved her, it created a protective barrier, effectively obstructing the weapon of the monster, but his hitting was too strong. Sailor Neptune was pushed away and lost contact with her talisman. Disorientated and achy, she was at the mercy of monstrous warrior.

Meanwhile, on the Earth, Tokiyama waited for the course of events inside the Cygnus Tower, dwelling in contemplations and memories. Monitoring systems turned out to be completely worthless, he also didn't know what had happened to his assistant. He guessed that all ways of stopping the woman-warrior, full of anger directed at him, turned out to be ineffective and soon he was supposed to meet his destiny. His world was going to break into pieces in a minute, and he felt helpless, the same as many years ago, when he had met the man in a white suit for the first time and agreed to take his help. That day, he was standing on a bridge in one of the German towns thinking how deeply he was involved in a difficult situation and what were his possibilities of solving all problems. Construction investments which his father, the founder and owner of Cygnus company, entrusted him with, didn't made expected profits, and his company had to pay compensations which were supposed to take it to total bankruptcy. And everything what had happened was his fault, the fault of his incompetence. He looked at flowing water under his feet, knowing that he could do only one thing. End his life, before he would have to look at his father's eyes. When he took the first step in the direction of the non-existence, on the bridge, amongst the fog, a grey haired man in a white suit walking with the help of cane with the carved head of the devil, appeared. It turned out that this man knew very well about his trouble and wanted to help him. At first, Tokiyama took him for some madman who appeared on his way in an appropriate place and the right time by sheer coincidence, but his mind, tired out with events of a few previous weeks, interpreted completely senseless babbling of the old man, as information directly concerning him. One look of cold eyes of the grey haired man was enough, that Tokiyama believed him and believed in his possibilities of getting the company out of trouble. It was enough that Tokiyama promised to fulfill wishes of the white haired man and signed his oath on old parchment. Construction of the tower block which had been delayed, suddenly started, all materials needed to finish it got through on time, in a way verging on the miraculous. Tokiyama hadn't had a clue how his new friend had managed to make the impossible. He didn't try to ask him about details, because he knew that the truth could be too terrible. Sometimes, when he supervised construction in the middle of the moonless night, his eyes repeatedly realized that forces not from this world had been involved in the rising of the building. The man knew very well that the help of such a person like the man in the white suit had a high price. Every consecutive week, month, year were better than previous one for Tokiyama, and his company became richer and richer. Within a few years, it reached all continents. The grey haired man revealed the high price for his help. He revealed plans of creating the thirteenth floors, attempt to reconstruct The Hell on the Earth, using the modern technology. Tokiyama, using his fortune, gathered scientists intelligent enough so that they could cope with this difficult task, and simultaneously depraved enough so that their conscience didn't disturb their work. The grey haired man also gave his own specialists. The worst had to come. The man had to personally fulfill the last point of the signed pact with the devil up: collect the subjects for the research, women who were going to undertake the grotesque transformation in depths of laboratories of the thirteenth floors. Tokiyama gathered young girls, students looking for work in his company, waiting for changes in their lives. The man made changes in their life, exactly as he promised. But they weren't the changes which these young women dreamt of.

The crack of the opened door shook Tokiyama out from his mental trip to his own past.

Sailor Uranus stood in the door plunged into darkness. Jewels on her sword gleamed with magical brilliance, falling down on the face of the horrified man.

"Where is she?" The girl asked with a cold voice.

Hotaru no longer could bear the helplessness. She was the most powerful of all woman-warriors, and in spite of it she was defeated as some novice. When hands of her opponent pushed into thighs of the girl, and her mouth extorted kisses, Hotaru's patience ended. The girl could no longer bear such humiliation. She closed her eyes and came deep to the interior of her mind, where in the subconscious the second personality was sleeping - Sailor Saturn, the weapon bringing destruction which couldn't be described with words.

"I am yours." Hotaru thought letting her dark half take control over her body and the entire magic lying dormant in her. The Scythe of Silence lying on the floor glistened with a gloomy, purple light. It rose into air and moved towards Sailor Saturn's hand very quickly. When the girl seized her magic weapon, the ginger woman immediately stopped hurting her and moved away from her with a disgust. "So cold... what are you?" She asked looking at Hotaru, who was pointing the blade of the scythe at hands growing out of the living wall. In a total silence, with an awfully cool look, Sailor Saturn freed herself from the hug. Cut hands fell on the floor bleeding badly. Hotaru attacked with her scythe again, this time she aimed at human and horse's heads sticking out from the wall, forever hushing their inhuman laughter up. The girl turned towards the opponent and prepared for the confrontation. The ginger woman looked at her with a fear, simultaneously losing the entire self-confidence which she had a few minutes ago. Fire snakes emerged from behind her back. After a moment, they attacked Sailor Saturn, but she managed to protect herself with the invisible barrier produced by the Scythe of Silence, strengthened as a result of connecting two aware nesses in one body full of great destructive energy. The woman-warrior pointed her weapon at the woman hurling flames, whispering something quietly and completely incomprehensibly. The purple lighting glistened on the blade of the girl's weapon, triggering the silent explosion in the room. Tokiyama's assistant was pushed back like a rag doll and hit the hard wall after seconds of the flight. Sailor Saturn came up to the opponent very slowly, as if all the time in the universe belonged to her. She raised the Scythe above the head in order to prepare the fatal blow. The woman with red hair tried to get up, all the time being stunned from the killing energy of the woman-warrior from Saturn. Seeing the blade glistening above her head, she had felt real fear for the first time since her first meeting with Hotaru. At some point, Hotaru awareness reappeared in the Sailor Saturn's body and decided to drive her second, dark personality out.

"You did everything. Give back what belongs to me." She said.

The dark figure was silent, not hearing or not wanting to hear, the voice sub consciousness calling from deep inside of her.

"I won't let you kill somebody in a cold blood. I won't let you use my hands to do it."

Saturn spoke in the end.

"When she pinned you down, you begged me for the help. You asked me to come, because we both know very well that only I can use our power. And now you want me to give such a power back to somebody as you?"

"This body doesn't belong to you! You don't have the right to it! Give me my body back!" Hotaru ghost shouted, trying to take over the control of her own body again. Red haired woman was disorientated seeing Sailor Saturn petrified in the move, stopped in the act of performing the execution. When she tried to walk away, Saturn recovered the full control over Hotaru's body and stunned her with the energy from Scythe of Silence.

"Why have you done it?" Hotaru asked.

"She tried to escape. And I didn't carry out death sentence on her." Saturn replied coldly.

"Now she is unconscious. Defeated. You can walk away, you aren't needed, your time has not yet come!" The black-haired girl screamed in the mind of her dark half louder and louder.

"This time I will decide when my time comes! Perhaps this world deserves freeing my real power. You could see what people can do now, you could see what they did to these poor girls, you feel in your heart of hearts how evil this place is. Don't deny yourself, I know very well that you feel the same as I. You feel the need to turn this place into the pile of rubble. You feel anger which will lead you to finding and punishing everyone responsible for creating this nightmare.

Hotaru closed her eyes reminding bizarrely modified women with which she squared up when she had came to rescue her friend. She remembered the touch of hands growing out of the wall and the neighing of horse's heads looking at her with bloodshot eyes. She remembered the cold of hands of the ginger assistant and the frenzy devouring her. Perhaps her dark half was right? Perhaps one should destroy the evil dirtying the planet once and for all? She could not stop struggling with a temptation. She knew that Haruka had needed her, she knew that she could not leave her alone, after what had happened and what they had learnt about the past of their good friend.

"Leave her alone! Haruka needs my help! I won't be wasting time for unimportant conversations with you. I'm taking what is mine!" She shouted, and her will's power chased the dark Sailor Saturn personality away to black corners of her soul. Having recovered the control over her own body, Hotaru quickly vacated the room, following the path which Sailor Uranus had went earlier.

Michiru tried to get up from the fall onto dry sand. She was sweaty, she could not catch her breath. Her eyes irritated by the smoke of burning flames were filled with tears, and her throat became dry from the heat prevailing around. For the girl associated with the element of the sea, the place was the worst from all possible bad places - dry desert sands, the hot sun's rays, and the heat coming from the fiery barrier created by the horned monster. Michiru cursed her kidnapper and herself that she voluntarily walked away from the place where she could stay in a comfortable conditions. Hearing the roar of the demon and sounds of his lumbering feet, she decided to start fighting for the life.

"Deep Submerge!" She attacked the monster as soon as his head loomed into a view through clouds of the black smoke. The spell hit it badly, but it didn't fell. The situation became even worse, since the Sailor Neptune's attack made the wild beast angry. The monster increased intensity of flames on his horsewhip and attacked the girl with all his might. Michiru dodged, but the end of the weapon managed to hit her in the side and the back. Her uniform was torn, and the flame touched her skin. Michiru felt drilling pain, and her blood splashed rocks standing in the vicinity. Sailor Neptune fell down to the ground, feeling that she will lose the consciousness. The wound on her back was immediately cauterized by the flame of the horsewhip, therefore she didn't lose a lot of blood. Unfortunately, the pain was too intense. The image in front of her eyes became blurred, but in spite of it she could see the approaching monster.

"World Shaking." The ball of the golden light hit hand of the demon, forcing it to move back. Michiru could see the figure with short bright hair standing before the monster. She smiled.

"But at least your vision is coming to me..." She whispered. The person who arrived to rescue her wasn't a mirage. Between the demon and the lying girl, Chronus stood in his white suit, supported with the walking stick with the head of the devil. He directed a glistening ring at the horned beast. His cold eyesight encountered the look of single eye of the Minotaur.

"As your only Lord, I'm ordering you to walk away from here!" He said firmly.

"Or you will be destroyed!" He added. The ogre scratched its head, and then calmly walked away deep into the stone maze. Chronus picked Michiru's magic mirror up from the earth. Emerald glitter filled surroundings, extinguishing all flames. The man looked at the unconscious, seriously injured girl.

"If you devoted more time to your talismans, instead of carnal love, you would defeat every enemy. Now you lie here barely alive..." He said approaching her. He touched her hair.

"A lesson will be useful to you, for the escape." He added. Moment later, he teleported with her to his stone palace.

Tokiyma impulsively reached for the handgun hidden in a desk drawer. Sailor Uranus approached him simultaneously showing her sword.

"Don't even try. If you do it, you will lose both hands." She said.

"I ask you for the second time. Where is she? Where is Michiru Kaiou?"

Tokiyama looked at her eyes full of anger, and then fear took control over his whole body. He didn't try to defend himself, because he knew that it had been pointless.

"I don't know where she is. I don't know where he took her. I swear."

"If she will become a part of the same hell as the one which you built here..." Haruka whispered through clenched teeth.

"No, no... I'm sure that he needs her to something else, otherwise I would have to assign her to some chamber..." The man spoke in shaking voice.

"How could you do something such horrible... all these girls... how many of them was there?"

"I did everything what he asked me for... I had no choice... I could not act differently, because he would know about every attempt of the fraud from my side..."

Sailor Uranus slapped the man in the face, throwing him to the floor.

"I asked you about something! How many of them was there?"

"I don't know... I kept no files... the ones who managed laboratories did it... I even didn't go down there... I could not..."

"I should kill you outright, but you are too pitiful." The girl announced.

"And apart from that I'm pressed for time! Do you have something that belongs to him? And don't try to cheat me!"

"Yes... I have..." The man replied getting up off the floor. He wanted to give Sailor Uranus what she asked for as soon as possible and save his own life.

"When he agreed to help me, when he rescued my life... I agreed to work for him and I signed documents which he gave to me. Old parchment..." Tokiyama came up to the safe and having opened it took out old papers which he signed on the European bridge many years ago.

"He ordered me to write my name on it... take it, find him and kill him for what he did!" The man shouted giving old rolls to the girl. Cautiously, he walked away from her being afraid of her reaction.

"He forced me to do everything... I only carried his orders out..." He said sitting down on the chair.

"Every monster speaks like you." The girl announced.

"You have five minutes to leave this tower. After this time, I will destroy it and I won't care, whether you are still in it." She added. Tokiyama violently got up from the chair and headed for the front door. He stopped, noticing that Sailor Saturn entered his study. He jumped away, seeing the scythe phosphorescing in the darkness.

"Let him go... I have the thing for which I came to." Haruka said to Hotaru.

"Ok..." The black-haired girl replied. Tokiyama violently ran out to the corridor.

"You let him walk away, after all you could you see in this tower block?" Hotaru asked coming up to the blonde. Haruka showed her the yellowed roll kept by her.

"We have no time. I must give Setsuna what belonged to Chronos and find Michiru."

"And we will leave all of these, just like that?" Hotaru could not forget bizarrely modified women, whom she encountered earlier.

"No. I will destroy this place." Uranus replied coldly. She gave the roll of Chronos to Hotaru.

"I hope that you will protect us when I finish." She said smiling. She stood up in the middle of the office preparing to cast the spell. She waited a few minutes in silence.

"World Shaking!" Her hand sparkled with the freed energy. Uranus squatted, and after a moment she touched the floor sending the entire gathered power to the structure of the tower block. The room started shaking, panes in windows cracked, and unsecured objects fell off shelves in furniture. Everything around started swinging and creaking. A plaster fell off from the ceiling. Sailor Saturn came closer to friend. She raised the Scythe above the head.

"Silent Wall!" She shouted shielding herself and Sailor Uranus with invisible barrier. The entire room was covered with cloud from plaster and fragments of walls. In a very fast time, the energy of the Sailor Uranus' spell moved to lower levels and, in the end, it hit foundations of the tower block. Large, soaring structure, representing the wealth and the power of the influential Cygnus company, tumbled down like a house of cards leaving the rubble and clouds of dust afloat all around.

Michiru woke up from a deep sleep. She realized that she was completely naked, and her body was floating ina pink liquid filling the inside of the crystal glass container. The girl reminded herself why she had lost consciousness and instinctively touched the side and the back. It turned out that there had been no track, even a small scar, of her wound. Michiru didn't think longer. She felt strong enough to leave the container which probably recovered her health and perhaps even saved her life. She came up to the stand on which somebody prepared the green dressing gown for her. She covered with it her still wet body and decided to look around the room. She moved towards the opened door, coming across the invisible barrier. When she hit it, a hologram of Chronus appeared in the room.

"If I were you I wouldn't trouble myself with crossing the barrier. You won't break it, even if you could transform yourself, which is impossible now." Michiru looked at him being full of anger.

"You will stay here for some time so that you can think your today's behavior over. You worried me with your escape attempt. You must understand that you will reach nothing by a force."

"It is you who must understand that you won't force me to do anything!" The girl attacked the hologram with fists, hitting on air. The man smiled.

"You just proved that longer seclusion would be useful to you." The spectral figure dissolved into thin air after a moment. Michiru leaned against the wall and slowly sat on the floor. She buried her face in hands feeling a complete helplessness.

In the same time, Sailor Uranus, Saturn and Pluto were standing on the roof of skyscraper. Haruka and Hotaru observed their friend, when the one recited the spell needed to open the Space-Time Gate leading to the corridor apart from the time and space of physical reality. Uranus gripped Tokiyama's scroll, impatiently waiting for the further journey to the place where her beloved was. All woman-warriors felt the wind forming as the space-time continuum bent over around them in order to form the door leading to other dimension, to the world controlled by Sailor Pluto. The jewel on Setsuna's talisman lighted up with a dark blue light, and the gate of ivory opened silently.

"It's Ready" The woman said.

Haruka moved ahead silently. Soon, Hotaru join her. Setsuna crossed the Door as last person, closing the gate after and removing the odd construction from the panorama of the Japanese metropolis. Woman-warriors got through strangeness of the space-time corridor very quickly, because the magic and the ancient knowledge of their dark-skinned companion protected them. They were in a dark, huge space, full of multicolored clouds looking like distant nebulas. One of them was quite close, and its color was red like blood. The object radiated with a cold and depressing aura and its very presence impelled everyone to walk away from it as quickly as it was possible. Haruka ignored the intuition warning her, she knew that she had to take the next step deep into the Hell in order to find her beloved with emerald hair. Sailor Pluto she tore the parchment of Chronus, formed the ball of the red light from it and threw it towards pulsing red.

"The seal will be broken! Prepare for crossing the gate between worlds." She said to waiting Uranus and Saturn. The cloud became more and more red and started intensively shining.

"Something's wrong..." Pluto announced. At the same moment, the seal radiated the wave of red glitter towards girls.

"Hotaru!" Setsuna shouted.

"Silent Wall!" Saturn instinctively knew how to react. The invisible barrier effectively stopped the destructive cloud. Hotaru leaned on her weapon, feeling a great tiredness.

"What's going on?" Haruka asked.

"She won't endure the next attack! I must take us from here!" Pluto announced looking at Silence Glaive, still radiating with the energy which it had to stop a few seconds earlier.

"No! We must get inside!" Haruka didn't give up.

Pluto knew that she wouldn't be able to talk sense into her. She raised her talisman above the head and teleported everyone, including herself, to the normal space. When Uranus realized what had happened, she immediately rushed at Setsuna.

"What have you done?! Let us come back there!" She shouted.

"It'll do nothing, we have no object which could open the seal." Setsuna replied.

"Perhaps when we all attack, we will break it!" Haruka insisted.

"We can't do it. The seal is too strong." Setsuna whispered.

"You didn't try, but you are already giving up!"

"If we come back there we will die, all three of us, and it certainly won't help Michiru. I didn't expect that the passage there would be secured so much."

"To Hell with you!" Uranus clenched fists and quickly moved apart from friends. Setsuna turned to the black-haired girl.

"What is going on Hotaru? You don't look the best."

"I don't know, I'm feeling terribly weakened. Stopping this spell was too much for me."

"Let us get back home. You must rest."

"And what about Haruka, shouldn't we go after her?"

Setsuna looked at the blonde walking away.

"You are right, get back home by taxi, and I will try to talk with her."

Setsuna caught up with Haruka, when she stopped on a footbridge above the road. The blonde leaned against the barrier, looking at stars twinkling in the night sky. The cold wind shook her short hair. Setsuna approached to not more cautiously, being afraid of her reaction.

"Are we coming back to the Corridor?" Haruka asked not stopping gazing at stars.

"No. I told you that it was impossible." The woman replied, feeling relief that Uranus wasn't as hostile towards her as she thought.

"In that case, go away. I don't need your company."

"Haruka... I did you harm and I wanted..."

"Atone for it!?" The blonde cut her off in a mid-sentence. She turned to her. In spite of a faint light of nearby lamp posts, Setsuna noticed tears appearing in her eyes.

"If you want to do something for me, fuck off from here! Did you understand?"

"I know other way of getting to the land of Chronus." The woman stopped the attack of her firend's anger.

"And you mentioned about it now?" Haruka replied angrily.

"Chronus created the being gifted to travel freely across the multiverse without the need to use the space-time corridor. His science and magic tamed the flame burning between worlds, granting it the material form. Black Pegasus, steed with red eyes and fiery mane, obedient only to him and programmed to always be with him. When I fought with Chronus, I had to took his riding horse. I could not let his army to freely travel across between worlds on paths trampled down by fiery hooves of the Black Pegasus. I'm sure, that if the steed was freed, it would manage to break through the seal as efficiently as his master.

"Where is this horse?" Haruka asked smiling.

"It's the problem. If I tell for you where it is imprisoned, you will free it even if I warned you against it, right?"

"I don't have to answer this question, you know me very well."

"Exactly. Therefore I hesitate, whether I should tell you this secret. The Wild Horse, horrible being freed from its imprisonment, can cause a lot evil both where it is imprisoned, and here on the Earth."

"I must help Michiru. I can take the responsibility."

"Okay, you're taking the same sin as the one which I carry from eons. The black Pegasus is sleeping in the very heart of the dream land, the Dark Pegasus is dreaming its eternal dream inside Elision."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Sailor Uranus was walking through dark streets of Tokyo, carrying an object wrapped up in white linen. Stealing of Stallion Reve from the attic Usagi Tsukino's parents' house was as easy as pie for her. Breaking into the flat and taking the magic object out didn't even rouse stray cats sleeping in the nearby alley. But the hard work still awaited her. Soon, she met with Sailor Pluto waiting for her in the urban park.

"Have you bought it?"

"Yes, I had no problems. The talisman was where we expected." She announced putting the object belonging to Sailor Moon's daughter on the pavement.

"Small lady... I miss her." Setsuna said. Haruka looked at her angrily.

"Don't even mention her. When think how you cheated on Usako..." Haruka said.

"Let us do what we have to. We don't have time for a quarrel." Setsuna wanted to calm her friend as soon as possible.

"Open the portal." Uranus stopped her talking.

"Are you sure? We don't know what consequences freeing the Dark Pegasus will cause."

"And what will happen to Michiru if she stays one-on-one with your old acquaintance a bit longer? Have you thought why he need her? Haven't you seen how Hotaru behaves after she saw things on the thirteenth floor of the Cygnus tower? She will have nightmares to the end of her days. I will also have. If this madman could do such things in our world, what can he do in the place that he controls entirely? I have no choice. I must get to his land and rescue Michiru."

"Don't try to fight with Chronus. All warriors will be needed to defeat him."

"I don't intend to do it. But I don't think that he lets me take away Michiru peacefully." The blonde smiled.

"All right. Prepare." Setsuna raised the sceptre above her head quietly saying words of the spell. Reve The space-time gate opened before Stallion Reve. The energy from Chibiusa's object served as the signpost for the land in which the other side of the space-time corridor, summoned by the woman-warrior, was supposed to appear.

"It's a bridle thanks to which you will be able to control the wild beast." Sailor Pluto handed the magic object over to Sailor Uranus.

"I would do it without it." Haruka replied. She crossed the space-time gate moving to the dreamland called Elysion.

The girl was in front of a vast, coniferous forest. She looked around, gazing at crystalline structures in the distance, glistening with starlight reflecting from their surface and waving meadows covering hills behind girl's back. Desire for a retreat and not exposing such a beautiful land to the fury of the freed, demonic beast turned up in her thoughts. However, a moment of hesitation was very short, Michiru waited for her help too long. Sailor Pluto promised to transport her as close to the prison of the black Pegasus as possible. Powerfull spells protected the prison of the dangerous being and Haruka had to find the path leading to it on her own. The wall of forest seemed different from the other elements of the landscape of the magic world, it was much darker. The girl felt the breath of the ancient magic surrounding the cluster of dark trees. Setsuna mentioned the rock under which the steed of Chronus was sealed, but she said nothing about the forest. This place had to come into existence much later, perhaps it was born from the power of evil horse or created to separate it better from the rest of the world. In both cases it meant trouble for the girl. Haruka decided not to think longer and to move straight into the heart of dark forest. Suddenly, three lights turned up before her: the first was of yellow colour, the second of the colour blue, and the third one was red. Three male figures emerged from them. Sailor Uranus didn't know them, but she guessed that they were Elysion' guardians, old Sailor Senshi enemies from the Circus of the Dead Moon. Tiger's Eye, Hawk's Eye and Fish Eye were ready to stop her from entering the forbidden forest.

"Why are you here, woman-warrior from the Uranus?" The blonde man asked.

"It's none of your business." Haruka replied coldly. She knew that the conversation would solve nothing.

"In that case return and be pleased with the beauty of our world as long as you wish." Tiger's Eye announced. He looked at the girl suspiciously.

"The purpose of my joutney to Elysionu is behind your back. Therefore I won't return." Sailor Uranus said.

"This forest is forbidden for everyone apart from guardians of this world. Only Elios can visit the temple in this forest." Hawk's Eye announced.

"Even we don't know, what we are guarding here. We are only granting Elios' requests." Tiger's Eye added.

"Return for your own good." Fish Eye said. Haruka tightened fists on the magic bridle.

"I must help my companion. Something, that can take me to her, is hidden in this forest. Therefore I won't be asking your permission. Either you will walk away from here or I will have to go through you." The blonde girl shouted angrily.

"We warned you." Tiger's Eye replied, taking horsewhip out of the non-existent pocket. Hawk's Eye equipped himself with the torch, and Fish Eye took the set of daggers out.

"We must also do our duty." The man with red hair warned. He blew on the torch generating the intense flame. Haruka dodged the fiery attack noticing that sharp daggers were flying at her.

"Bloody hell!" She swore. She took the magic sword out instinctively, creating protection shield around herself. Daggers bounced off it's surface, falling down on the grass bathed in the fog.

"I didn't know that she could do it..." Fish Eye was surprised.

"She will fail!" Hawk'e Eye became nervous. He prepared to attack with flames. Sailor Uranus acted in a flash.

"Space Sword Blaster!" She hit with an energy from the space sword. The spell hit the torch of the man cutting it in two and simultaneously wounding man's hands hidden in brown gloves. Seeing that his friend was hit, Fish Eye decided to fight much more seriously. He formed a ball of water in his hands.

"You will be punished for hurting one of us!" He shouted.

"World Shaking!" Sailor Uranus was much faster. The bright ball of energy dashed off in direction of blue haired she-man, striking the ground under his feet. Fish Eye was thrown towards forest. The fall between trees eliminated him from the fight. Tiger's Eye hit Uranus' hand with the horsewhip. He tied the girl up, wrapping his weapon around her shoulder. He pulled her to himself.

"It's gone too far, woman-warrior! Now we will finish this dance!" He screamed into her face, simultaneously tightening the horsewhip, firmly enough to give her pain.

"I warned you! If you let me enter this forest, nothing bad would happen to you!" Haruka replied. An anger was burning in her eyes.

"We have our duties. The ban is for everyone, without exceptions."

"You were right. Let us finish this dance." Sailor Uranus answered coldly. She kicked the man between legs with all her might. When Tiger's Eye curled up in a pain on the grass, the blonde moved towards the last guard of the forbidden forest. Fury took control over her body. Her fist slapped the pink haired circus performer's face. The man didn't fall down. Haruka attacked him the second time, the third time and the fourth time.

"I'm wasting time for the unnecessary fight, and, at the same time, Michiru can be in a grave danger! You haven't seen what her kidnapper can do! You haven't seen women on the thirteenth floor!"

Hawk's Eye didn't defend miself against punches of the blonde. Bloody tracks appeared on his face from a broken nose and a cut lip. The circus performer remained erect with a great effot, but the girl didn't stop attacking him.

"What can be more important than defeating this madman? Is the Black Pegasus so horrifying to you, that you would let the innocent person suffer! You are cowards, nothing more!" Haruka struck the opponent last times. The man fell down into nearby thickets. The girl looked at defeated enemies angrily. The glove on her right hand was dirtied by a blood. She didn't think longer. She went deep into the magic forest. The thicket became darker and darker and with every next step of the warrior. The sounds of animals living only and exclusively in this unreal world were heard among the branches of the trees. Sounds resembled conversations, screams, inhuman laughter, like the entire forest laughed at the blonde and all her trouble. Haruka didn't know which way she should go, since everything around her seemed identical, as if she was going in circles. She knew intuitively that she had to trust the magic given bridle given bu Setsuna, which was supposed to take her to the evil horse. Trees on her path seemed to swing, to tilt above her, to move away from her feets. The density of their branches reduced behind the girl's back, and thinned down before her, as if the entire forest led her to its heart. Uranus noticed some person. A gauzy, ephemeral figure like a nymph flashed between tree trunks. Her bright white shirt seemed to light the darkness of the forest. Her delicate hands, green hair, her laughter, everything resembled Michiru. It is impossible, thought Haruka. The portentous magic of the forest is showing me apparitions, it wants me to become out of touch with the reality and spent the rest of my life chasing non-existent people. Or perhaps some guardian is trying to stop me and my mission? The girl knew that she had to act precisely in an opposite way than somebody who toyed with her with apparitions would like her to do. You will not deceive me, she thought turning around and going in the opposite direction than the escaping wraith.

"I knew that it won't work. She is too stubborn." The figure hiding between trees said.

"I thought that my illusions would be enough. Now I am afraid, she will come here right away." The second person announced.

"Don't be afraid. My friends will take care of her properly. In an elegant style." The third one added.

"Calm down. She cannot hear us, or else she won't fall into our trap!" The last of the four hushed her companions up.

Sailor Uranus was in the darkest part of forest. A lack of sounds, which surrounded her during her travel so far, attracted the attention. She could not stop in order to check exactly why everything around became quiet, she had to go further. At the same moment, fast and resilient creepers appeared before girl like horsewhips. Plants immobilised both hands and legs of the woman-warrior.

"What again, for Christ's sake!" She shouted trying to free herself. Four girls who, belonged to the Circus of the Dead Moon at one time, appeared. VesVes, PallaPalla, CereCere and JunJun looked with satisfaction at Sailor Uranus caught by CereCere's charge.

"If you have listened to good advice and returned, you wouldn't be in such a situation." VesVes said.

"You wouldn't make a fool of yourself this way." JunJun added.

"If you promise us that you will leave this forest and don't come back, we will release you." PallaPalla announced.

"If no, you will be hanging here so long until you grow wise. My friend is very patient and very strong, as you already could notice." CereCere laughed.

Haruka didn't listen to irritating voices of girls from the circus. She didn't want to let herself be provoked for them. She knew very well that she had been on the border of nervous breakdown and any move could lead to the tragedy. As a few minutes earlier, when she battered Hawk'e Eye's face. If she used her most powerfull charm on four woman-warriors, she could kill them with an ease. They weren't her enemy, they just did their job like she did. She didn't want it. She didn't want Chronos to force her to do the worst. Her fury had to be reserved only for the old man and his helpers. She laughed.

"What are you laughing at?" JunJun asked.

"Perhaps she is pleased with the company of her new friend?" PallaPalla noticed.

"Or perhaps you then cast charm of the illusion on her again?" CereCere added.

"It's not true! We agreed that I wouldn't do it again!"

"Calm down! She behaves this way so that we stop being vigilant." VesVes said. She approached Sailor Uranus.

"And what will you do.. woman-warrior? Did you understand that we could not let you open the seal? The legend says that if the Black Pegasus is freed, it will threaten not only Elysion, but also the Earth."

"Legend?" Haruka replied.

"Are you protecting this forest on account of some legend? It's funny. If only you knew the truth about the world in which you live now... if you knew how dangerous is my opponent and what he managed to do. All these people in the flying hotel, the women in the Cygnus tower, Michiru... if you knew his past... freeing the Pegasus woulnd't be your greatest worry."

"Try to explain it to me. Perhaps you will convince me that freeing catastrophic power will make this world safer." VesVes replied. The rest of the girls laughed.

"No. I won't be wasting time any longer. I know very well that you are all puppets, obediently executing Elios' orders. My words won't do nothing. You will still do your entrusted tasks and you will be fighting with me to the bitter end." The girl closed her eye, and the diadem on her head disappeared changing into shining symbol of the planet Uranus. CereCere felt great pain. She shouted and fell down on her knees.

"What happened?" JunJun asked running up to the friend.

"CereCere?" PallaPalla wanted to touch the girl, but seeing that it inflicted even greater pain on her, she withdrew her hand. Creepers holding Sailor Uranus moved back, freeing the woman-warrior. The symbol on her head was still visible, and her body surrounded itself with a golden halo.

"We must attack directly." VesVes announced. Great fear appeared in her eyes.

"JunJun!" She turned to green haired friend. Both girls jumped at Sailor suggesting that they concentrated power for the magic attack appeared around their clenched fists. Haruka spread bright wings, like at the moment when she had fallen off the burning aircraft. She was in a trance, and the magic took control over her body. A huge blast of wind struck attacking circus performers and threw them between roots of trees sticking out of the earth. The rushing wave of air reached also CereCere and PallaPalla helping her. Surprised girls weren't able to defend themselves against it. The breeze blew them over into the soft made soil covered with withered leaves.

Haruka was walking slowly, quietly avoiding defeated opponents. Dark trees which until now seemed to make her walk difficult, drew branches aside before the blonde, out of fear or out of respect for the magic emanating from her. After a few minutes, Sailor Uranus found exit from the forest leading to the extensive clearing. In its very centre stood a large stone building. Pyramid built out of dark stones, surrounded by four stone pylons. Stairs leading to its peak were located in its central part. Magic wings of Sailor Uranus disappeared, similarly to the astrological symbol on her head. The girl regained the ability of the sober thinking and immediately remembered the purpose of her visit in the enchanted forest. She gripped the bridle, sensing that it was in some special way associated with the stone temple piling up on her road.

"The Pegasus is sealed there. In the very heart of Elysion." The blonde thought smiling. When her foot touched the first step of the pyramid, a blinding glitter appeared in the sky. Haruka looked up, noticing the snow-white horse with wings and the golden horn on the head.

"Damn it!" She swore. She summoned the Space Sword.

"Refrain yourself Warrior from the Uranus!" Helios said landing by the blonde. When his hooves touched the ground, he transformed into his human form. He looked at the girl with calm eyes.

"My guards used the strength against you and I apologise for this woman-warrior from the Uranus. Our meeting should should be different."

"I warned them." Haruka replied unwillingly. She wanted to reach at the target of her expedition as soon as possible.

"I won't be fighting with you. I will try to explain you, why you cannot do what you planned." Helios announced pointing at the bridle held by Sailor Uranus.

"This place is not only a prison for the terrible, destructive power, but also monument commemorating terrible tragedy, the moment in which Elysion was completely destroyed. Within a few nights this beautiful land became as dead as the surface of today's Moon. Evil being which was imprisoned here did it all, the same one you want to free now. Last of wizards ruling the old Elysion laid down his life only to seal this monster, to build the cell and magic forest protecting it from intruders. You got here because you have the magic bridle, which belonged to Sailor Pluto at one time. Thanks to it we were able to force the Dark Pegasus to enter the trap prepared by us. Don't make a mistake, Sailor Uranus. If you use this bridle to destroy the prison of the Black Pegasus, you will destroy not only Elysion, but also other worlds connected with it. The Pegasus will want to take revenge on everyone who imprisoned him, and your friend is also among them. Please, be sensible woman-warrior. Nothing is so important to risk the disaster on the cosmic scale."

Helios kneeled down before Haruka.

"Michiru's life is more important than fate of this artificial world." The blonde replied making the step towards stone stairs.

"Why save her life, since it will taken by this infernal beast?"

"I have the bridle,with which I will force this monster to an obedience. I will defend it."

"You can't cope. The bridle is short time solution, later it will be him who will control you."

"It will be enough, if he takes me to Michiru." Haruka laughed.

"You must die woman-warrior, I'm sorry." Elios whispered. He rose up into the air, simultaneously turning into the horse with snow-white wings. Sailor Uranus prepared her cosmic sword. The horn on the head of the Pegasus glistened with a golden light and after a moment a ball of the golden light shot out from it. Haruka dodged the spell whose power beheaded one of columns of the temple. The structural member tumbled down to the ground, arousing clouds of dust around itself.

"World Shaking!" Uranus shouted, attacking the flying horse with her spells. The energy ball broke against the barrier surrounding Elios, doing nothing.

"Give up woman-warrior, until you can. You won't win with me in my world!" The white-haired man in the body of the mythical creature said.

"We will see! Space Sword Blaster!" Uranus attacked with blade of her light sword. Unfortunately the spell was completely ineffective due to the magic shield protecting the Pegasus. The horse shot at the girl from the golden horn again. Haruka managed to avoid hitting. She was worn out, she leaned against remains of the turned over column, breathing with a difficulty.

"The next blow will reduce your body to ashes, woman-warrior from the Uranus. Please, don't force me to attack."

"Go to Hell." The girl whispered.

"Uranus Space Turbulence!" She shouted. She waved the Space Sword forming the rift in the reality from which the blood-red aura radiated. Soon tens of energy balls, which Uranus usually produced while summoning the World Shaking spell, fell out from the gulf. Balls, one after the other, hit the barrier protecting the white Pegasus weakening it more and more. Elios was forced to the withdrawal. Sailor Uranus' attack didn't end, and every new blow of the ball of the light at the protective shield was more and more perceptible. At some point, the endurance of the barrier was exceeded. The magic structure fell apart into small pieces, and a few next balls of the light sent by Haruka hit the body of the Pegasus inflicting great pain on him. Sailor Uranus smiled.

"Space Sword Blaster!" She shouted, attacking Elios with a bright blade of her sword. White feathers fell on the battlefield around the temple, and stone walls were painted with the blood of the Elysion's guardian. Elios, in his human form, fell to the ground. He touched his torso with one hand, and his white robe was marked with a scarlet. The priest walked a few strides, and fell down on the grass all.

"You can't even imagine what you did..." He groaned out, holding the wound from which blood flowed.

"Don't you worry. Your girls will arrive soon and they will dress your wounds. You won't die." The girl replied.

"Everyone will die. He won't be feeling sorry for us. Remember about one thing. Your today's act is a declaration of war with the entire Elysion. We are not allies anymore, neither you, nor the Princess from the Moon, neither her daughter. Starting from today our worlds are at war!" Elios announced with the last reserves of energy. Sailor Uranus didn't listen to him. She walked to the top of the temple. She found herself standing by a big stone, in which the same symbol as on the magic bridle was written. She put the object in the place intended for it. Scratches turned up on the stone, and the entire area around her started vibrating portentously. The Dark Pegasus awoke and prepared for the meeting with the world he had not seen for ages.

Meanwhile, Michiru Kaiou was sitting in the cell waiting for Chronus or some of his subordinates. Imprisonment for "misbehaviour" irritated her more and more. Unfortunately, she could do nothing to her fate. The grey-haired man took the only possibility of the escape from her - her transformation pen. The girl leaned her head against the cold stone. She tried to listen closely to sounds coming from the outside, but walls were too thick. A deathly hush prevailed in her prison. At one point, the wall opposite the girl waved. Michiru got up off the floor, taking a defensive position. An individual in a black habit levitating in a sitting position appeared before her eyes. His face was not seen from under his hood apparently.

"Who are you?" The girl asked.

"I am known as the founder of the Black Moon." The strange individual replied.

"The Black Moon... I heard about you. But you were defeated... are you Wiseman?"

"I was also known under that name."

"You ought to be dead." The girl recalled stories about the Brotherhood of the Black Moon and how its leader ended up.

"I am a traveller in time. Comprehending the life and death in my case is not so obvious. Perhaps I arrived from a temporal moment before I had been killed? Or perhaps I never died, but I only moved in time to the remote future or the remote past? You can not be certain. You do not know also whether Wiseman about which you are thinking now was not somebody else, somebody who impersonated me."

"What do you want from me?" Michiru asked discouraged with a conversation.

"I came to warn you."

"About what? I'm a prisoner here and my situation cannot be worse. Unless Chronos is planning to kill me."

"No. He needs you, he needs you very much. Therefore he won't do you harm. He rescued you from the monster and healed your wounds. I have seen how ended others as disobedient as you. Everyone ended up in the stone city and became prisoners of demons!"

"Ok. Tell why did you came to me! I don't want to talk about nothing any longer!" Michiru became nervous noticing that Wiseman laughed at her.

"I am not your enemy, there is no need to show anger. " The hooded man said.

"I noticed that the palace had started living! More and more beings from different worlds arive each day, beings whom Chronus promised life in the New World! They started to gather here and disturbed me in my hermit meditations..." He continued.

"What are you talking about? What is the New World?"

"I don't know because Chronus never shared details of his plans with me. But his helpers were supposed to be summoned to this place, when he managed to get the important part needed for the accomplishment of his plan to create the New World, the world which he called the Golden Millennium! Now he got this element."

"Namely?"

"I cannot believe you think so slowly, girl. You are this element! We got the invitation to the palace, when you turned up in it!" Wiseman rose above Michiru's head.

"The existence of this Golden Millennium is contrary to my plans and so is to yours. Therefore I will help you. Don't mention our meeting to Chronos, let him reveal you all plans. When he acquaints you in details, we will meet in my hermitage. On the roof of the palace. I will send to you my servant who will show you the way." The man in a black habit approached the wall.

"Wait." Michiru said.

"We cannot talk any longer. Chronus or somebody loyal to him could sense my presence here. Fare thee well, girl." Wiseman penetrated through the wall like a ghost, leaving Michiru alone with more questions.

The Earth around the stone temple was shaking, and walls of the building became covered with numerous cracks. Three columns that survived attacks by the Pegasus were on the border of a damage and they tumbled down with a loud thud a moment later. Haruka stood on the peak of the pyramid looking at the cracking stone, on which the magic bridle gleamed with a golden glitter. In the vicinity of the temple, Elios, whose wounds were dressed by girls from the circus, watched the Black Pegasus freeing himself from his centuries-old captivity with a terror. Uranus moved away from the stone, when its surface cracked and a pitch-black horse's head with a fiery mane and red eyes emerged from it. The air was pierced by a sound of the infernal neighing, connected with a sound of wing's flapping against air and hooves hitting hard stones of the temple. The pitch-black Pegasus rose above the smashed obelisk looking at the person who had freed him with a hate. The bridle kept by the girl glistened with a bright glitter, disappeared, and appeared on the face of the magic animal after a moment. The Pegasus obediently fell on the peak of the pyramid, expecting orders from his new mistress. Elios averted his gaze from the demonic creature. His heart was full of fear. VesVes standing by him couldn't stop gazing at the darkness emanating from the stone building.

"We can attack. All four of us. Perhaps we will manage to throw him back into the pyramid. " She said to JunJun kneeling by the wounded priest.

"No." Elios replied firmly.

"He is too strong. You will die all in vain. If she takes him from here at least we will have time more..." He whispered with a huge effort. His wounds were too great so that he could function normally. He needed the time to heal and lead his people to protect their homeland from the old enemy.

Haruka mounted the dark horse. His body was unnaturally cold, although heat radiated from the fiery mane. The girl hesitated before taking the next step. For a moment, she thought that she had made a large mistake freeing this monster from his ancient hiding place. Perhaps she should order him to seal himself in the stone? She thought about Michiru.

"Take me to your master." She whispered. She knew that the new acquaintance would perform this order with a true pleasure. The horse spread its wings and rose up, high above the pyramid and Elysion's forests. The flame on its neck created whirlpool, fiery corridor piercing the time and space, creating connections between various parts of the reality. The black Pegasus and Haruka left the dreamland in order to go into a long way to the place of green haired woman imprisonment.

Michiru couldn't think long about her meeting with Wisemanem, beacause Chronus turned up in her chamber. The man looked at her asking her with a gesture to come with him to the corridor.

"I think that the time which I gave to you was long enough." He said smiling. Michiru got up off the floor without a word, and then headed for the door.

"I hope that you will hear me out on calmly now. And you won't feel like to take a trip to the desert.  
I won't come to your rescue the second time." Chronus continued the conversation, although the girl turned her back to him and quickened the pace.

"Why are you in a hurry? " The man asked.

"Farthest from here." Michiru answered unwillingly. When she was in a long, stone corridor, she became convinced that the palace had stopped being an abandoned place. The girl noticed the tall man with a bald pate and a long grey beard, dressed in a green uniform resembling an armour, who talked to the long-haired person in a black suit. Humanoid machine with a body of iron strolled close by, and one could see a man in a purple robes in the company of two fair-haired boys walking in the distance.

"Who are they?" Michiru asked.

"They understood that what I wanted to do was good. They helped me and now they received an invitation from me. They are my guests, like you. But you are much more important, not only for me but also for all of them.

"I have enough. Tell me why you kidnapped me! Why am I so important? I don't believe your nonsense about Golden Millennium! Do you understand? I want the truth! Why you invited them! What is happening in that city!" Michiru pointed at the distant stone city.

"I will answer your questions very shortly. Please go to your chamber and put on the dress which  
I prepared for you. I want to see you exactly as you were in the real world." Chronus replied calmly.

"All right." Michiru replied. She turned to stairs leading to the part of the palace in which there was her room. She passed some fat woman in a waving dress. She wanted to learn her role in that strange history as soon as possible. She knew that she must trust Wiseman, because he was her only ally in the barren Chronus' world.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Michiru, dressed in an emerald dress given to her by Chronos, was standing in front of a mirror, looking at herself. New clothes appealed to her and thanks to that she forgot about the captivity for a brief lapse. When she made sure that she was looking good in the dress, she checked all corners of the room in which she lived to find some weakness, anything that she could use against Chronos. She did it in a vain again. She looked out of the window noticing new guests arriving at the desert-like land. The ball of light whirling chaotically appeared on the horizon and two beings looking like jellyfish emerged from it and then majestically sailed in the air to the main building of the stone castle. When the girl left the window, servant of grey haired man turned up in her room. Headless being, looking like a flying jacket on the stand, approached her.

"I expect you in front of the castle. Today, I will grant your request and I will explain everything to you." The voice of Chronos got out of the inner parts of the strange creature.

Michiru decided to go to the man. She found him outside, talking to a gloomy man who was holding some young girl on a chain. Seeing Neptune, Chronos left the guest showing him one of stone buildings, probably the one in which the one was supposed to stay.

"You are looking wonderful." He said coming up to the girl. Michiru looked at him with a cold look.

"I will show you really what the Golden Millennium was. I will demonstrate you how the real world should be." He announced smiling. Then he asked Neptune to come off with him into the place inside the most private part of the desert stronghold.

Chronos and Michiru came into a huge, empty chamber made of gleaming crystal. The girl found acoustics of the room interesting, it was letting her hear her breath and the rustle of hair.

"Let me demonstrate you all that I told you about." The grey haired man said. He closed his eyes tapping the floor of the room with his walking stick. In the same moment, the scenery around the girl changed abruptly. Michiru realized that she had moved to the hilltop covered with green grass. The pleasant wind shook her hair, her skin received a warmth of rays of the noonday sun, and stalks gently tickled her legs. Girl turned around, noticing Chronos standing by her.

"Look." The man whispered pointing at the object lying in the distance. Michiru looked at the large metropolis stretching out from the hill, until the horizon. Bright towers, resembling gigantic crystal, connected with hundreds of hung bridges towered over other, less impressive buildings. Contradicting the laws of gravity, other megastructures floated in the air between them, all having appearance similiar to regular polyhedrons called Platonic solids. Each of them was probably a house for hundreds of people. Vehicles of different kind circulated moved buildings, some small, barely discernible, other almost as large as forms of architecture that made the unusual city.

"This was Golden Millennium." The man said.

"This was the real world." He added.

Scenery changed again, and Michiru felt that she had risen high above the surface of the Earth. She looked at hundreds of huge crystalline structures growing into beautiful shapes, connected with each other by a net of bridges. The girl subconsciously knew that these objects had been living beings, and the net of connections was their shared nervous system, thanks to which they communicated with themselves and could serve residents of the city. The view changed again, and Neptune could admire beautiful gardens, full of plants which she had never seen before and other forms of life which she even wasn't able to name correctly. Scenes were put forward in front of her eyes like transparencies. She could see soaring buildings with crystal glass walls singing songs in the tongue understood by every sentient being in the whole galaxy, monuments amongst which the fire, existing eternally apart from time and space, burnt and huge pillars ascending above the horizon, around which the space-time continuum deformed, granting the beginning of the future time gate leading to other ages and worlds. Michiru's eyes were blinded by glitter reaching from a distance, and when they got used to the luminous intensity, they saw artificial garden in which crystalline flowers grew, silver crystal, full of the energy coming from billions of beings from inflationary bubbles, infant universes, stillborn because of the whim of one man. After the consecutive change of the scenery, Michiru was in a black outer space full of twinkling showed her a real galactic civilization. She was passed by a star fleet, full of shining ships, ready to set off on a journey to unknowns places of the universe. In other vision, the girl noticed megastructures on a planetary scale: artificial moons, space stations in the form of a rings with a diameter of a world and tests of star gate, thanks to which the fleet could travel to the other side of outer space. Michiru was a witness of the birth of the artificial star, somewhere amongst lonely nebulla and the assembly of fragments of the Dyson sphere around her. After the display, Chronos and Neptune came back to the crystal glass chamber.

"How did you like the real world?" He asked.

"I'm still shaken by it." The girl admitted.

"You saw the paradise which was destroyed by a group of fools, amongst which your friend was. You could admire the place which was destroyed so this faulty world could begin."

"I felt this place, as if I really was there. It was remarkable..."

"The chamber of illusion can create mirages as perceptible as the real world, and the pattern comes from my memories."

"The display was grand and perhaps I'm starting taking your version of the history seriously, but still I don't understand how it is connected to me? Why am I here?"

"Let us go to other place." Chronos ignored the question of the girl.

"Do you remember the garden with gleaming glitter?" He asked.

"Yes. I still can't see well after it blinded me."

"It was a garden in which we created energy sources which built our civilization. Silver Crystals were born in this garden."

"Was there so many of them?" Michiru was surprised.

"Yes, all wonders that you could see, were possible to build thanks to the energy gathered in them. As a matter of fact they also turned out to be the reason of destroying the real world."

"I remember, Sailor Pluto and other who opposed you didn't accept the truth about their origin. You didn't reveal the truth about it."

"They were fools! They weren't able to understand that, in these crystals, we trapped the universes, which were only supposed to be born, we destroyed no real life! If inflationary bubbles weren't collected by us they almost certainly would be torn apart by quantum fluctuations! They were idiots who preferred to destroy themselves, than something that could, but not had to come into existence in infant universes. Because of their foolishness we now live in a false, spoiled reality."

The girl and the man came into the other room. As it turned out, Silver Crystal was there, connected to wires and devices of different kind.

"The other Silver Crystal?" Michiru was surprised.

"Yes, one of them is intact. It was with me all these years."

"Is this place alive thanks to this one?"

"No. Minerals from the mine provide enough energy."

Michiru remembered smoking chimneys in the city on the desert.

"Now I understand why that city was built."

"Yes. Slaves are working there under the control of my demons. My palace can function only thanks to them. This witch Pluto left me behind in the worst of possible places, where it is necessary to fight for survival."

"If you think that I help you to use Silver Crystal you will be disappointed. Only Sailor Moon, our princess is able to do it."

"I know whom you are talking about. Your princess is the best evidence, that this world is broken and requires to be repaired. I don't need you to use the crystal."

"Why do you need me?"

"I want you by my side, when I will fullfill mission and reconstruct the real world. I want you to be a witness of the accomplishment of your most wonderful plan!"

"My plan?" Michiru asked.

"Yes. You... your old incarnation in the real world, you were one of the most wonderful creators of the magnificence of the Golden Millennium. You developed the method of capturing the power far beyond what Silver Crystal can give us."

"It doesn't have any sense. I was never a scientist or a leader. Neither now nor in my past life in the Silver Millennium."

"It is because you were born in a false, spoiled world" The man hit the floor with his walking stick.

"It is a world which corrupted even such a wonderful being as you. Now you are only a shadow of your self, rotten to such an extent that you started to sleep with other woman. When I think about it, you disgust me." The man said, moving awat from green haired girl.

"How dare you..." Michiru refrained herself from a comment. She didn't want to provoke Chronos.

"But I need your body in order to be with her again. My former beloved."

Michiru clenched fists. Thought about the closeness with somebody like Chronos caused that she had felt like screaming.

"The surface of your mirror is also my invention. It is a fluid space-time, decompactified dimension which outside is not bigger than the frame of the mirror, but inside is stretching out boundlessly. You are able to control it, because she was also able to do it. You are an the only person gifted for navigation in its interior. Probably you could predict the future thanks to the mirror, because the fluid space-time has a local influence on what is happening also in this artificial world. Let me tell you about your last hours in the days of the Golden Millennium."

Michiru was silent. She didn't want to listen to the voice of the grey haired man.

"She... your true identity... she was faithful to me to the end and she became the first victim of the murderess with the Scythe of Silence who joined me enemies. She was too big threat for them, because she was visionary, greater than I ever was. Her body was destroyed, but I rescued her mind sending it to the fluid space-time, the place in which they could not find her. She still is there, on the other side of the mirror. I devoted a lot of years trying to find a way to find her. I entered into an alliance with many beings from different realities whose knowledge would let me reach her and get her here. Each of my partners was a scientist and helped me in exchange for work opportunities on projects which they could not carry out in their own societies. All in a vain. I thought that the dream about meeting with her would never come true, until I learnt about Sailor Neptune, living the Earth again.

"Perhaps at one time I indeed was this person, but if her mind is where you say it is, she isn't me. I cannot help you, even if I tracked her down."

"You are wrong. When her awareness will recognize the body, even as degraded as yours, it will unite with it. She doesn't know what happened to the Golden Millennium, she doesn't know that there is no world which she helped to create. Therefore, when she recognizes the body being able to control the fluid space-time, she will merge with it."

"Do you want me to kill me so that she can live?"

"No. I want to wipe all your sins so that you can be reborn as great as you were then."

"Why they... the ones who opposed your governments... Why were they afraid of her so much?"

"I told you that she had been... you were one of the greatest visionaries in our Galactic Empire. You knew that for the development of the empire it was necessary to do something that nobody hd done before. All trouble of the Empire rose from the ambitions of races inhabiting its worlds. All our problems resulted for the lack of the total control above individuals too stubborn to see that what we did was good. My wonderful beloved found a remedy for it. She knew that we would never achieve the plenitude of our abilities, if enemies thwarted our plans. She wanted to exploit the energy of the crystal to rebuild the reality anew. The universe with me in his centre. Universe deprived of the illness of the Free Will!"

Michiru became pale.

"Now I understand everything. They killed her, because she wanted... to make you a god!"

"Yes, you wanted me to become the Lord of the entire reality, because you knew very well then our Empire could live endlessly only then."

"I will never agree to get her here. She is too dangerous. You can kill me now, I will never grant your request." Michiru said firmly. She looked defiantly at Chronos.

"I won't kill you. After all I wouldn't hurt somebody whom I love. But I won't hesitate to destroy this false world. Do you think that I won't dare to attack the Earth? My army of demons will defeat its protectors with an ease. I will destroy all of them, even this slapper with whom you shamelessly fuck in nights. Now come back to your chamber and think everything over. I must entertain my guests. Later you must turn up at the party, you are the most important person in this world now."

The man in the white suit left the chamber. Michiru stayed inside. She looked at Silver Crystal sparking with an energy of million of suns gathered in it. She thought about Haruka and other girls defending the city against monsters obtaining the energy from the second ginzuishou. She saw in thoughts Haruka falling down dead after blows of the fiery whip which she afflicted recently herself.

"I will do it." She said through clenched teeth. Chronos stopped for a moment, but he didn't turn around. After seconds of a silence, he moved ahead.

Michiru was sitting on the armchair standing under one of ballroom walls, looking at Chronos welcoming guests. The girl was looking at the room mindlessly, being in a trance, since her mind was in some other place and analysed everything which she inquired in the holographic room and later in the chamber with Silver Crystal. The grey haired man greeted the man in a green armour, delegation of persons in black suits, the elderly man in purple robes in the company of boys, the couple of tall figures with long bright hair and a sex difficult to guess. Michiru observed other beings also, which turned up in a ballroom. She noticed the two-legged walking machine, the robot scanning surroundings with something like a scanner of the structural light, afloat jellyfish shimmering with colours of a rainbow and strange, long-haired man, holding a sad girl on a chain. Helpers of Chronos were flying above heads of the assembled company supplying them with food and drinks. At some point, the grey haired man tapped on the floor with the walking stick in order to gain attention. Talks died down, so he could start his speech.

"Dear friends! As you already become convinced, I am a man fulfilling his promises. Each of you helped me achieve my purpose and keep this dying world alive. Your help will be awarded. When you agreed to help me, I promised you that I would help you to become somebody else, better than persons surrounding you in worlds in which you lived. I promised to show you the real world, as it should be, to take off the veil of an illusion, beguiling you with shadows. I assured that if you follow me you will find it and you will be somebody more than in your own reality. Today this day came. And everything will be an available thanks to our special guest, this young girl Kaioh Michiru!"

All eyes and other sensory organs looked at green haired girl.

"Miss Kaioh has a gift, thanks to which I will regain the only person, who have the key to the real world, who can transform this deranged place into the new Golden Millennium!" Chronos raised his walking stick with a head of the devil above the head. Guests started beating applause, all the time fixing their eyes on Michiru. The girl closed her eyes. She regretted that Chronos had taken her transformation pen, because she wanted to submerge the entire ballroom in oceanic waters. Even for the price of her own life. At some point she heard a thud coming somewhere from over her head. Eyes of all assembled company turned at the direction of the ceiling. The small ball of fire, which glitter attracted the attention of guests bigger and bigger. Chronus surprised by the this phenomenon looked at Michiru. The girl didn't say a word. She clenched fists reminding herself her last conversation with the man. Was it really a next trick of her kidnapper? However, the old man seemed equally surprised by the unusual occurrence. In the same moment, the ball of the fire became so large that Michiru had felt its heat on the face and shoulders exposed by the emerald dress. A few guests headed for the exit in order to get out out of the room as soon as possible. The old man in the green armour prepared the crystal glass sword, and humanoid machine directed its sensors in the direction of the fire in order to obtain more information. The ball of fire exploded, changing into glitter of the blinding light lasting very briefly. Michiru covered her eyes with the hand. Black Pegasus with a burning mane and red eyes like red-hot coals floating above the floor. Chronus smiled widely. Michiru covered her mouth, being shocked.

"Haruka..." She whispered. Sailor Uranus was sitting on a back of the black steed. She kept the Space Sword in one hand, and her second hand was tightened on the bridle, thanks to which she could control the monster.

"Michiru! I'm taking you from here!" The blonde shouted, simultaneously ordering the steed to approach to the green haired woman. Chronus stood up before Neptune, shielding her from Haruka. He clenched his fingers around the walking stick.

"Do you think that you can control what belongs to me? What I created?" He said. When he snapped his fingers, the bridle broke into small pieces freeing the dark louse.

"Damn!" Uranus swore, feeling that the Pegasus freed itself from her control. Chronus lifted the walking stick up to calm his steed and give him the command, the first one from a very long time.

"White knight upon a fiery steed? I don't need trouble." He whispered. Everyone were looking at the event in surprise, nobody dared to move or to speak a word. At one point, burning mane of the horse increased its intensity violently. The fire touched Sailor Uranus' body, inflicting a great pain on her. This suffering wasn't physical, because her skin wasn't scalded, but other kind of pain, reaching much deeper than into the interior of her organism. The girl paralysed by the attack of the Pegasus dropped her Space Sword and fell on the floor. The horse obediently landed near his lord. The fire on its mane disappeared and only red eyes remainded of what it was a few seconds before. Michiru tried to go to help Haruka, writhing in pain on the palace floor, but Chronus stopped her. The magic of his ring, or perhaps fear that the man could to do something to her beloved, caused that the girl had not dared to move against him.

"Your knight reached as far as here... I didn't expect it." Chronus said approaching the deafened blonde.

"I must thank you. Thanks to you I regained my lost item and I don't have to free it myself. Now when it is mine again, I don't have to use old corridor. I don't have to meet Pluto anymore. I thank you woman-warrior from Uranus." He announced calmly.

"I will reward you and I will let live. I am a merciful god after all." He added.

In the same moment two gargoyles flew into the room. Stone monsters quickly came to their master and waited for his new orders. Chronus came up to Haruka, squatted by her and rested his hands on her back. The blonde shouted, feeling a pain as if somebody pierced her with the heated up fire iron. Uniform of Sailor Senshi disappeared from the body of the girl, changing into her everyday clothes. The grey haired man left her holding her transformation pen in the hand. Michiru clenched fists. Chronus deprived of the power not only her, but also her lover. The man turned to stone monsters.

"Take her to the city. Let her help convicts at the work."

Two monters carried the order of their master out obediently, raising unconscious Sailor Uranus, and later taking off with her. Soon two monsters rushed out fromm the ballroom taking the blonde with themselves. Michiru sat down on the armchair. She buried her face in her hands. She felt more helpless than at any time earlier. Chronus turned to the guests, interested in the unpredictable event.

"Come back to your play! Don't let the little interference spoil joy from our common party." He announced gladly.

Setsuna came out to the balcony plunged into darkness of the night, where Hotaru rested. The black-haired girl didn't notice the appearance of her friend, she was thinking about something.

"Hotaru, come in. It is cold here. I don't want you to catch a cold."

"I'm not feeling cold. I like to sit here, because I'm feeling as if I was close to stars."

"You worry about Haruka and Michiru..." Setsuna asked.

"It's obvious." The black-haired replied unwillingly.

"Nothing is happening, and it means that it wasn't as bad in Elysion as we thought. Perhaps she even managed to reach an agreement with Elios and there was no fight?"

"Unlikely, it's improbable. I believe that Haruka will win and soon they both will be with us. Actually, I thought about something completely different, about what I saw on the Thirteenth Floor of the Cygnus tower."

"Hotaru... I will listen to you one more time. If the conversation will let you free emotions after such experiences..."

"That's not the point. What I saw there was horrible, but I managed to somehow deal with it. I'm also not afraid that Saturn took over me there."

"So what's the problem?"

"When I was walking through laboratories I saw something very familiar. Technology which my father used, when he was with Deathbusters. When I was enslaved... I'm sure that I saw daimon eggs in one of laboratories. My father had to somehow be connected with Cygnus and what happened on this floor."

"Hotaru... perhaps it happened when he wasn't himself, when he served aliens from Tau Ceti?"

"I want to think so... but I feel anxiety all the time."

Setsuna sat down by Hotaru and hugged her.

"I will try to learn something more. I have acquaintances in the police. Now, they are searching for rubble after the tower. Objects from the laboratory, or at least some of them, survived the building's collapse. Perhaps I will manage to obtain more information about them."

"Thanks." Hotaru replied.

"Are you coming in?" Setsuna asked.

"No. I still want to look at stars." The black-haired girl turned towards the city, and her eyes fixed on the blank, black space in which the Cygnus tower stood not so long ago.

At night, the party in the ballroom of the palace of Chronos warmed up for good. Guests were busy with conversations and discussing plans for the future which the grey-haired man provided for them. Michiru imperceptibly got out outside stone walls. She passed some fat person, who was throwing up in the backstreet because of the overeating. The girl found stairs leading to the roof of the stone stronghold. When she was half way, she stopped. She looked at the city in the distance, red from the fire of torches, city to which her beloved was taken away. She embraced herself, because the night was very cold. After a dozen steps she came on thea roof. She strolled between stone obelisks standing there expecting the familiar silhouette in a darkness.

"Are you here? I came here as I promised you. Appear." She said.

At some point, a hooded figure in a black habit emerged from the floor.

"Didn't you like entertainment that Chronos prepared for us? Attractions were incredible, even a display of the fight and defeat of the woman-warrior from the Silver Moon." He said to the girl.

"Give these jokes a miss. I trusted you and I promised to do what you asked me for."

"What did you learn?" Wiseman asked, not being pleased that Michiru was prejudiced against him.

"Chronos is crazier than he seemed to me. All that's going on here, is only a play for him. He actually aspires for the omnipotence and the total control of the reality which he will create. He has energy source, thanks to which he can destroy the space-time of this place and create something what he calls the real world."

"How is he going to make it?"

"I don't know. But he is convinced that I will help him with it."

"And you don't even know what he is planning... you aren't telling me the whole truth."

"It's not like this. He claims that my body belonged to his lover, and now it revived in this world. Her mind is imprisoned in something that he calls the fluid space-time. Chronos thinks that I can control it and I will be able to free her."

"If he is right, he is much more dangerous to the future than the Son of the Moon."

"Son of the Moon?"

"It's unimportant, woman-warrior."

"I want your help!" Michiru said firmly, seeing that Wiseman geared himself up to walk away.

"In what, woman-warrior?"

"In freeing my companion, from there." The girl pointed at the stone city.

"No. I won't go there with you. There are herds of monters on the desert which would tear even my body apart. But I remember that you helped me. When the time comes I will assist you. Remember that no treasure trove is safe for somebody who is going through walls like through a haze."

Wiseman walked away from Sailor Neptune and disappeared in the hard stone of the roof.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Two gargoyles with large, bat-like wings landed on a vast square, dragging dazed Haruka. Monsters put the girl on a hard stone, and then rose up into the air, flying away from the place which even they were afraid of. The blonde tried to get up on her own. She felt that someone's strong hand had gripped her arm and pulling her up, it forced her to assume erect position. Haruka turned her head around and saw two strangers. The first one was wearing a brown armor, and its head resembled large, single eye. Its leather glove pressed the girl's body causing her pain. The second monster looked like a large, bipedal pig dressed in a dark uniform. Haruka tried to break free from the grip of the monstrosity. She was too weak. Her attempt of rebellion was punished by the swine-man with striking her stomach by a wooden mace. The girl lost all the willingness for a disobedience. Two monsters led her to the stone building in the dark mountain's scenery. Inside the building, the pig squealed at the blonde, showing her the small door on the other side of the little completely empty corridor. Haruka turned around, trying to oppose him again, but the monster was adamant. He pushed the girl so firmly that she was thrown into the little room behind the door, and stopped on the stone wall with a very rough surface. Two torturers also came in the room. The pig came up to Haruka, tore her jacket off, and at the same time the one-eyed monster tore trousers off her. A moment later, the boar-man also tore T-shirt off Haruka's body. The befuddled girl leaned against the wall. She saw the entire event like through a fog, not entirely understanding what was happening to her, and not remebering why she had come to such a horrible place. After a moment, the pig tore also girl's bra and panties off, leaving her naked. Haruka lost her balance, she fell down, wounding her thigh on a rough rock. Two monsters vacated the room taking the girl's clothes with them and in the same moment, streams of water under pressure fired from the wall. Somebody or something decided to wash the person newly arrived to the city. Soon rivulets of water were cut off, leaving the girl wet, lying in a puddle of water. The monster with a giant eye ran into the room carrying new clothes that Uranus was supposed to put on. When the girl didn't want to carry out an order, the ogre kicked her into the wounded part of the leg. Haruka, still not being fully conscious of the reality surrounding her, obediently put old clothes on. They were loose trousers and a short-sleeved shirt. Soon, the blonde was led to other part of the stone building, and then she was forced to enter the narrow stairwell leading to basements. By the next gate, the pig ordered the girl to come close the corner in which other monster stood, the one looking like a large lizard man. The reptile took the piece of an iron bar out from behind the stone and put it to the shoulder of the woman-warrior. Haruka shouted from a pain, and eyes tears appeared in her. The monster marked her with a number. After a brief lapse, the girl was led to the long corridor, full of locked doors. Ones of them was opened by the pig man, and Haruka was pushed into the interior of the cell. She was dizzy and felt very weak. She lay down on the bed made from old rags and turned her face to the wall. Other prisoner of the stone city came closer to her. He looked like an alien from the outer space. He was a bald man, with grey skin and big almond-shaped eyes. He moved his hand in blonde's direction, but seeing the state she was in, he decided not to pester her with an attempt of a contact.

Haruka went to sleep very quickly, because she was extremely weakened. Her mind was recalling events of a few past days, this time in a form of the chaotic nightmare. She could see burning airship falling above her city, Michiru playing a violin on the stage, observed by hundreds of eyes amongst which there were also the ones belonging to the white-haired man. The girl then again survived disappearing her beloved in the gate made of whirling flames and walked around dark corridors of the thirteenth Floor of the Cygnus Tower which were even darker and more horrifying in a dream than in the wake world and looked like a maze forged in rocks and used to all bury daredevils who were unlucky enough to travel inside them forever. She felt pain inflicted by Setsuna's lies and the betrayal she committed towards Helios and the Elysion world. In the sleep, she was based on a balcony of the stone palace and was looking at the distant city built in the middle of the red desert and the party behind walls of Chronos' stronghold. She was helpless when the man dressed in the white suit asked Michiru to dance and played with her in the very heart of a ballroom.

At some point, the girl felt someone's presence. But it wasn't her another sleepy phantom. Haruka intuitively knew that the man who watched her had been as real as herself and somehow found a way of making contact with her in the world of her dreams. The grey-skined alien, who she had seen when two monsters had thrown her into the interior of the cell, stood near the girl. The girl was spotted by guests of the palace. A few of them approached her taking out weapons of a different kind. The man in the green armor prepared for the fight with a sword, while humanoid robot reloaded its machine guns. Haruka knew that she had no chance in the clash with opponents, not being able to transform into Sailor Senshi. She felt fear, a real fear, even though what she could see was only a product of her mind. The stranger appeared before her. He lifted both hands up and apparitions attacking her dissolved into thin air. Surprised Haruka turned to the strange being, tried to say something, but her mouth remained dumb. The stranger smiled to her mimicking the facial expression of the human face.

The blonde woke up, having felt being touched with some hard object. She opened her eyes and realized that two monsters with faces looking like pig's snouts had bowed over her.

"Get up!" One of them shouted.

"Quickly!" The second one added. At the same time, the other guard forced the grey skinned companion of Haruka's cell to leave. The girl sat down on the floor. She clenched fists and was ready for the fight against assailants. She heard someone's voice in the head.

"Don't do it. Do what they are saying. Differently, you will be beaten up. There are too many of them."

The blonde was confused. She didn't know where these words of advice had come from. But she quickly realized that a grey alien being was their author. Her eyes encountered the look of the stranger. She smiled to him.

"Get up!" The pig grunted again as it struck the girl's calves with his cold, steel lance.

"Ok, ok. I will go with you. I wish no problems." Sailor Uranus replied. Guards led Harukaand her co-companion from the cell to the dark corridor of the underground complex. It turned out that prisoners from other cells were also forced to leave and everyone headed to the tall gate on the other end of the corridor.

"Where are we? What is happening here? Where are they leading us?" The girl asked the grey being going calmly in the direction shown by demonic guards.

"You are asking too much. You recovered quickly from the dark fever which Chronus sent to you." The girl heard the reply of the stranger in her thoughts, although he didn't even moved his lips.

"Leave my head! Answer me normally!" Haruka became nervous.

"The communication through telepathy is the most logical solution in the situation which we are in. In the underground there are no beings who are able to catch our thoughts. Verbal conversations between prisoners are forbidden. You won't be punished." The stranger answered using the direct transfer of thoughts.

"And as for your questions... we are in the stone city in Chronos' world... everyone here are slaves, working in order to keep this world alive... they are leading us to our places of work. You are new here, therefore somebody will give you the appropriate allotment right away. Looking at your young and healthy body, I am afraid that this job won't be easy.

In the place of corridor's forking, the monster with the face of a pig stopped Haruks, not letting her go in the same direction as her fellow prisoner.

"You're going there!" He shouted pointing at the second door, leading deeper into the underground. Haruka, followed the procession of people dressed in grey clothes. She went on slippery stairs dripping with some dirty and stinking gunk. At the end of the walk, the girl noticed two people guarding huge metal double doors. Both were dressed in dark uniforms covering the whole body, and they had gas masks on their faces. As it turned out, the guards handed out protective masks to prisoners, which were supposed to protect them from what waited behind the armored door. At first, Haruka didn't want to accept the mask, but the man standing before her turned to her, recommending her to carry out an order.

"Better do what they ordered you to do. Otherwise the stink which is behind this gate will kill you." He announced standing in the queue of persons waiting for opening of the gate. Haruka put the mask on and also joined the row. Two men in black costumes opened the door, letting all prisoners to enter to the chamber behind it. The black-haired stranger was right. The blonde felt a terrible stink which reached her nose even through material of the protective mask. Inconceivable stink of rotting meat struck her. When her eyes got used to the semi-darkness in the cavern, it turned out that she was in a mine. She saw objects lying around her resembling pickaxes, saws, knives and carts waiting for the loading of rocks. When she examined walls of the cave closer, it turned out that it was no a mine of coal or ore of some metal but it was mine of a meat. Walls of rotting, stinking meat in a colour changing from red to disgusting green rose up before the girl.

"What is it for Christ's sake!" She asked not being able to shake the unpleasant impression off.

"Our work." The man with black hair, who earlier had a word with the girl, replied.

"How it could come here?" The blonde asked.

"Nobody of us knows and nobody dared to ask. Probably there is a buried body of some inconceivably large creature which died many centuries ago, still in the process of a putrefactive disintegration. We must take its meat and give it to demons, protecting the castle of the ruler, as their foods. Don't ask me more questions and get to work, or else we both be punished for chatting in working hours." The prisoner didn't want to continue the conversation with the girl. One of men standing in the vicinity of the wall in the dress protecting the whole body came up to the blonde and put the saw to her hand.

"Go to the work!" He shouted pushing her towards other people waiting for allotted tasks. Haruka clenched fists. One move would be enough to take the guard's life, but she could not let herself to do it. There were too many monsters in the stone city, and she could not transform and use her magic. She had to carry out an order and slowly getting to know the new environment to find elements thanks to which she would have a chance of escape and return to the palace. The girl, acting the same as fellow workers, started cutting the rotting meat of the ancient being, which rested in the world in which she was forced to be.

In the same time, Michiru and Chronos entered the big, bright chamber full of diverse technology exploiting the energy lying dormant in the inside of the Silver Crystal. The light coming through windows in the roof was bright, but simultaneously gentle and deprived of the desert's heat. A large mirror stood In the middle of the chamber. It was dark colored, contrasting with white walls of the room.

"Look carefully, your new light is beginning here." Chronos turned to green haired women. He came up to the case lying close the mirror. When he opened it, the surroundings were filled with an emerald glow.

"It is a fluid space-time. The same one which you have inside your mirror." Chronos said looking at shapeless mass going up from the inside of the wooden box and slowly heading in the direction of the big mirror. When the flying object was close to its surface, it was pulled by it and landed on it creating a thin, waving coating, glowing with a green light.

"It is incomplete." The man said. He raised Michiru's mirror and, whispering something incomprehensible, he caused that the surface had separated from its rims and was also attracted by the big mirror. The ball of green substance was connected with the rest of the fluid and flattened on its entire area.

"It's ready. Now we must carry the most important test out. Come here."

Michiru ignored him. Chronos became nervous.

"Come here. Don't forget that your lover is at my mercy!"

The girl unwillingly did what he had asked her to do.

"We must check if you are able to establish contact with the inside of this mirror. You must plunge inside it and tell me what you feel. Don't be afraid. I will be holding you by the hand, so you won't lose contact with the world."

Michiru moved the hand towards the mirror. She cautiously touched its surface. The light which the mirror radiated increased its intensity in the vicinity of the girl's hand.

"Don't be afraid. Push more!"

Michiru pressed the mirror and after a moment her hand had get to its other side very easily. She looked at Chronos.

"What are you waiting for? One hand won't be enough."

The girl put the leg inside phosphorescing mirror, and later she decided to entirely cross the barrier and to go into the interior of the fluid space-time. When she was on the other side and dared to open her eyes, it turned out that she was floating at the very centre of boundless ocean of emerald light. Her body was much lighter than on the Earth, she thought that she could fly, not being concerned with a gravity. Maybe the laws of physics were different inside the strange space-time continuum than in the normal reality, maybe the gravity had no meaning there. The lighting travelling inside the mirror was attracted in the direction of the girl as if it was a life form interested in the appearance of a human. Michiru heard sounds, delicate vibrations with which the space answered her presence. After a moment, she felt strong pulling and appeared inside the bright chamber in the palace of Chronos. She was disorientated by the change of realities.

"It is enough for the first time. If you stayed there longer you might not come back." The man said. Michiru leaned against one of devices standing near the large mirror.

"What have you seen? What have you feel?" Chronos asked.

"A vast space surrounding me from every side. Light, plenty of the light... I remember nothing more." The girl whispered.

"Come back to your room. You must rest and later try to plunge into the inside of the space again. Only through a direct contact you will learn how to control it. And you will be able to find my beloved. And one thing more. It probably belongs to you." The grey haired man gave Michiru her mirror.

"It can't work anymore, but it's too pretty to drop off." The girl took the object which was her Deep Aqua from his hand. She left the chamber leaving Chronos alone.

Haruka came back to the cramped cell after a long day of the exhausting work in the meat's mine. She was extremely worn out, her hands and legs ached her, she felt great disgust towards the job which she was forced to do. She sat down by the wall.

"What have I done?" She thought.

"You should have not associate with Chronos. He is a demon whose promises took you to the place in which you will spend the rest of your life." The girl heard the familiar voice in the head. It turned out, that her new friend, grey-skined alien, came back from the mine earlier than she.

"Can you talk normally?! I am not accustomed to voices in my head!" Haruka became nervous. She raised her voice at the fellow-prisoner, and her emotions, piling up in her from many hours, finally found an outlet.

"Well. You don't have to resort to using force." The stranger said in a completely natural way.

"I apologise. I should not react this way. Probably I already achieved my limits."

"If you let me enter your mind, I will move you into the place where you will be able to calm down. Will you agree?"

"Yes. But don't try to look into my memories."

Haruka noticed that scenery around her had started to change, and stone, grey walls of the prison cell turned into extensive green meadows and the blue sky, on which there was visible the Sun and a large gas planet with a strip of rings looming into a view from behid a horizon.

"Where are we?" The girl asked the alien.

"We are still in the cell in the underground of the stone city. But what you can see is an illusion originating in my memories. It is the world from which Zetas, my race, came, Holy of holies for each of us, the place which I will never see again, because I trusted the demon dressed in white."

"I don't know what bad thing you did, but you must know one. I asked Chronos for nothing, I signed no pacts with the devil! This monster kidnapped the person closest to me and hid her in his palace. I reached this cursed world, losing a lot, but he... he defeated me as if I was an amateur and closed in this place. And you, why are you here?"

"I helped with examinations of Chronos, since he promised to create the medicine for the technovirus plague which wreaked havoc on our worlds. Later, it turned out that he had only wanted to mutate the virus in order to create the army of mechanoids. I opposed him and I ended up in this place."

"We talk to each other, but I didn't tell you my name. My name is Haruka Tenouh."

"I am K'h'bloo Izul'H." The alien said. He moved his four-finger hand towards the girl.

"If I'm not mistaken, it is a gesture of greeting on your planet?" He asked.

"Not in all cultures, but it can be." The girl replied giving a hand to the stranger.

"You were assigned for getting the meat. It is the worst work, you had to really irritate Chronos."

"I'm going to irritate him. If I get out from here and I recover my weapon I will take revenge on him and on all people who forced me to do such a disgusting thing."

"Your optimism is unusual. But the naivety is a feature of young persons." The alien said sadly.

"The pessimism of yours must be legendary. But perhaps your entire race is like this."

K'h'bloo closed his eyes and the illusion of the beautiful meadow dissolved into thin air, leaving the sad truth of the underground dungeon. Haruka felt tired out and achy. Her disgust coming form immersing her hands into decaying body appeared again.

"When I removed telepathic stimulus from your mind, you felt that you are really exhausted. And it is only the first day of your work. Soon, you will forget what real objective of your visit in the world of Chronos was. Since when I have been forced to work in the mine of energetic minerals, I live only in telepathic illusions of the past. And now go to sleep. You must rest before the consecutive day of the hard work. Good dreams and let the Cosmic Awareness have you in its care. " Zeta Reticuli zed lay on the bed and turned away to the wall.

Haruka also rested on the makeshift bed. She looked at the ceiling, trying to fall asleep. Unfortunately, the dream didn't come. The girl didn't know how long the night lasted in the desert-like land and when the guards appear again to force her to perform other work. The girl closed her eyes, trying to listen intently to sounds coming from behind thick walls. The entire space around her was filled with the low sound of the noise, coming probably from milles and factories processing minerals into material being suitable for using by the Chronos' palace. From time to time, she heard a shout, an inhuman scream. She wasn't sure, whether it came from the neighbouring cell or from the distant desert surrounding the gloomy city of slaves. She turned aside, towards the wall. Sailor Neptune, in ball dress turned up at her thoughts.

"I hurt my ally only to land in such a hole? It's unfair!" She whispered clenching her fist.

Meanwhile, Michiru was also submerged in a sleepless contemplations. Even though the place of her rest wasn't so depressing as Haruka's cell, it didn't change the fact that it was the same prison for her as for the blonde. The girl stood at the window looking at fires and smokes of the city on the other side of the desert of the death. She could hear the music and conversations of people in a ballroom. She didn't understand words, but they didn't interest her. She thought about Uranus, but also about what she saw and felt inside the fluid space-time. Could she control it like her magic mirror? Could she use the large mirror standing in the middle of the bright chamber? Answers to these questions were important, because they could show the effective weapon against Chronos. Further research of emerald lights was theonly sensible plan of action for the girl. The alternative was a journey through the desert to the place of Haruka's imprisonment which would certainly end in a death blow of the ardent whip of the Minotaur-like monster.

A next day dawned in the desert-like land. Two guards with pig faces turned up at Haruka's and K'h'bloo cell. This time the girl didn't protest and obediently carried out an order, as the alien from Zeta Reticuli advised her. She walked along the corridor in the direction of the door leading to the cave with the stinking meat. She felt much better than the day before. She watched her fellow-prisoners. The majority of them were people and men. Haruka noticed only a few women. The part of forced employees wasn't residents of the Earth. Apart from her acquaintance from Zeta Reticuli, the girl caught sight of silver-haired boys with elven beauty and pointed ears, a few creatures with a skin looking like a stone and the two-legged pig, belonging to the same kind as the guards of the prison. The blonde took up the mask sheltering from deathly fumes from the cave, and a moment later she took saw for cutting the meat off. She got down to work at the side of her companions in misery.

At the end of the day, persons in protective uniforms and gas masks got the equipment back from the girl and sprayed her by some substance from the rubber pipe to kill all bacteria which could attack her during mining works. Coming back to the cell, the girl was a witness of event unpleasant to her. Two pigs abused somebody lying by the wall of the corridor. When the blonde went up closer in spite of bans of the guard, it turned out that the beaten up person was K'h'bloo Izul'H.

"What is going on there!" She shouted.

"It's none of your business! Come back to the row!" The pig-man replied.

"Let her look! Let her learn that one isn't allowed to stop the work!"

"Can't you see that if you beat him more he won't be working anymore? He is exhausted!" Uranus became nervous.

"Mind your own business, because you can be on his place!" One of the guards, with a patch on the eye, announced.

"Haruka... do what they order you... leave me... behind" K'h'bloo whispered. His face was covered with green blood.

"Nobody let you speak!" The pig-man screamed again hitting the defenceless alien.

"No more." An anger appeared on Haruka's face. She ran towards one of pig people, pushed him and tore the lance out from his hand. She approached the guard torturing the alien and stuck the sharp object in his shoulder. The pig squealed frightfully, staggered on legs.

"Haruka... do not..." K'h'bloo whispered. Seeing confusion amongst forced workers, guards took energy horsewhips out and threatened everyone. They ordered them to quicken the pace and to come back to their cell rooms as soon as possible. Haruka hit the hurt monster, turning him over to the floor. She hit the snout of his companion, trying to stalk her from the back. The guard didn't react, but the blonde hit again, much stronger than previously. Soon the other monster came. Haruka reacted even faster, hitting his knees with her leg. However, Sailor Uranus victory was short-lived. The noise of the scuffle lured guards from other parts of the underground prison to the corridor. There was more and more of them with every passing moment. One of them took out energetic horsewhip and struck the girl's back with all his might. Haruka felt pain as all cells of her body were given an electric shock. Muscles rebelled against her. After a few seconds, she inertly fell down on the floor. Monsters decided to punish her immediately, in front of other prisoners' eyes. The pig hit the back of the lying woman-warrior again. The flow of the electric current through muscles of the girl caused the spasms of her body. Haruka jumped up, not controlling the movement of her body. Before she fell down, the man with the pig's face hit her for the third time. This time clothes of the blonde were torn, and her back exposed and ready to accept next blows of the horsewhip. Two other guards joined the executioner. They hit Uranus' body rhythmically, one after the other, everyone waiting patiently for his turn, everyone pleased with the participation in torturing of the young woman-warrior. Haruka's blood covered walls and floor, snouts of pigs, its drops even reacvhed the face of Zeta Reticuli helplessly watching the torment of his friend from the cell.

"Michiru... I'm sorry... goodbye ..." The girl whispered.

Suddenly, a red glitter flashed and a tall woman with white skin, black, long hair and red eyes, dressed in the scarlet dress appeared above the corridor. She descened on the floor with monsters and the maltreated girl slowly.

"Leave her alone! Immediately!" She shouted. When pigs saw who spoke to them, they immediately carried out her order and obediently left Haruka. The woman approached the girl and squatted by her face.

"This is the first time I've seen somebody fighting so bravely knowing that she has no chance of victory. You were a t source of amusement for me, my girl." The woman said.

"Three of you! Carry her to renovating baths chamber. And better hurry up, because I don't want her to die, do you understood?!"

Three guards looked at each other in surprise, but they carried the order without unnecessary questions. The mysterious woman came up to unconscious Haruka.

"I will see you soon." She said teleporting into the unknown.

K'h'bloo looked at his earthly familiar taken by guards deep into the dimwit corridor. He could not react, or help her in any way. He obediently got up off the floor and moved into his cell in the companyof two two-legged pigs armed in energy horsewhips.

Haruka opened her eyes. She became was so weakened that she could not move a limb. When the confusion resulting from regaining consciousness passed, the girl realized that she had been inside the alcove in a floor, filled up with water or some other transparent liquid. Her body was floating in a warm liquid. The feeling of the warmth reaching from the container engulfed her body. She leaned her head against the headrest attached to one of the swimming pool's walls. Memories of last hours, her attempt of the attack on guards and the painful penalty returned to her mind. The girl was surprised that she was still alive, although wounds were very serious and she lost a lot of blood. She didn't know who had shown her enough sympathy that she stopped guards and helped her to heal wounds inflicted by them. She was going to see the identity of her minder soon. The room was lightened up with a flash of red light and a pale woman with black hair, who earlier had helped her, appered in the room.

"Who are you..." Haruka wanted to ask, but her faint voice barely got out of her throat.

"Save your strength and help the healing bath heal all wounds. If I appeared a few seconds later, there would be nothing left after you apart from the wet stain on the floor of the corridor. You must stay here round the clock before you regain your strength entirely."

The woman walked around the container in which the blonde stayed. Haruka followed her with her eyes.

"You are probably thinking now who I am and why I helped you. I'm Aexal and I'm the administrator of the entire city and all mines which are there. I helped you because you gained my attention. For many years, since Chronos have put slaves in my care, I've observed all new prisoners, all these who rejected our master. And each of them was the same, each saw the pointlessness of the resistance quickly and obediently performed the work assigned to him or her. For many years I have been bored here waiting for somebody who will behave differently, who will be a constant source of amusement for me. And you appeared. I don't know why you are here, what you did that you were sentenced to the work in the mine, but you seemed to me different from all previous prisoners. You were able to take an uneven fight and, what's more, not for your freedom, but for the life of the fellow-prisoner whom you didn't even know fairly recently, somebody who doesn't even belong to your race and who if your places were reversed, certainly wouldn't come to your rescue. Such behaviour have not been seen in this city from its creation. Everything which is new intrigues and excites me."

Aexel said a word of the spell, and her red dress dissolved into thin air. The woman was completely naked. Only in few places her black hair covered her white skin. After a brief lapse of watching Haruka, Aexel entered the healing container and immersed her body up to her breasts. She approached the blonde smiling, and leaned her hands on her knees. Haruka looked at her with eyes expressing anger. The demoness approached the blonde and sat down on knees between blonde's spread legs. After a moment, she plunged both hands in the water seeking the crotch of the girl. She gently touched her sensitive place.

"Don't oppose me. I want only to fasten the process of your convalescence. You must admit that you have never felt such a pleasure. I'm unique, I'm a demon of delight." Aexel was closer to Haruka. She embraced her, cuddling up to her.

"If you try to do it with me one time, you will never again want to be with anybody else."

The white-skinned woman passionately kissed Haruka's mouth. The girl felt that the woman demon was taking control over her body. She raised hands and, after a moment, she touched Aexel, firmly hugging her body. Both women immersed into the healing bath such that only their head stuck out of the water. Their mouth were joined in a passionate kisses.

Haruka woke up in a big bed covered with a white bedding. She wasn't weakened and also gained the control over her own body. The emptiness was in her head, the girl could not remind herself what happened to her from the moment when she had left the cell in order to work at the meat mine. She sat down on the bed, surprised that she was in the luxury room, instead of on the floor of the underground cell. At some point, memories started flowing into her mind. She remembered that she had got into a fight for the life of her co-companion from the cell, lost and was beaten almost to death. She remembered the healing bath and the visit of the strange woman. She recalled the touch of her skin and the taste of her lips.

"Damn it!" Haruka shouted rising off the bed. She banged her fist on the vase with flowers lying on the table. The object fell on the floor breaking into small pieces.

"How could I...!" Uranus was furious. Anger seized her at the thought that she had an intercourse with other woman than Michiru. Although she did it because she was forced by the magic of the pale woman, she remembered that it had caused her a great pleasure. Tears appeared in her eyes.

"Michiru..." She whispered sitting down on the bed. She realized that she had been completely naked. The door of her room opened with a creaking sound and a tall man with a bald pate, dressed in a plain, grey dress resembling a habit, appeared. Haruka got hold of the duvet and laid it on her thighs, covering her body from the eyes of the stranger.

"My woman ordered me to give you message as soon as you wake up." The bald man said.

"Come to her as soon as possible, because she has important tasks for you. You will find clothes in the wardrobe." He added. He closed the door leaving Haruka alone. The girl clenched fists. Aexel at first forced her to make sex with her and then treated her as her slave. It would be better to die from blows of guards' horsewhips. She quickly chased evil thoughts away from her mind and decided to visit the strange woman. She had to settle a score with her. Having put on a white, gauzy tunic and white trousers which somebody put in the wardrobe, she left the room to the corridor of the stone city. She went along the stone footbridge looking at streets below. The place wasn't densly populated, but it also wasn't completely desolate. The girl noticed two monsters with membranous wings and a few figures dressed in the plain robes similar to the dress of the bald man who had visited her. Above Haruka's head, black clouds of smoke from factories of the city moved on red sky. The blonde entered the room on the other side of the footbridge. She looked around, noticing the chamber lightened up with a red glitter of the magic lamp, decorated by wooden furniture. As it turned out, Aexel waited for her there. The woman sat on the armchair looking at the woman-warrior and smiling coquettishly. Haruka clenched fists. She moved in the direction of the woman, but she stopped her with her raised hand.

"Don't be silly. You are alone, you don't have any weapon or special abilities. I know the magic of my dead planet. Even if you somehow managed to touch me without my consent, you wouldn't escape far. Everyone in this part of the city obey my orders. Even these mindless pigs. I'm not a threat to you, you should know it. Unless you're expressing your gratitude in this way."

"Gratitude, for what? Because you mocked me?" The girl didn't hide anger.

"I got you out of the dungeons in which you were supposed to spend the rest of your life. I healed your wounds and I gave you place to live in the part of the city which in this desolated world can be regarded as luxury. Isn't it a reason good enough for your gratitude?"

"You are right in one thing. I chose you as my toy. You gave me a lot of pleasure, when you fought with pigs and when we were together." Aexel said. Haruka got up.

"I won't be controlled for the second time!" shouted. Aexel raised from the armchair and slowly came closer to her.

"You already gave me control. Didn't you see that in your heart of hearts you started wanting our night to begin as soon as possible? I can hear your fastening heartbeat." Haruka felt Aexel's breath on the neck.

"We should become closer. Why were you in my mine?"

"I came here in to kick Chronos's ass because he took what hadn't belonged to him! And kick everyone who try to stop me." Haruka answered, simultaneously feeling that the warmth of Aexel's hands affected her again.

"It is sad but everything belongs to him now. I pity you, if you delude yourself that it is differently." Aexel voice was sad and gentle. Haruka closed her eyes. She knew that the white-skinned woman took control over her again.

"Forget about everything and deliver never-ending pleasure to both of us." Aexel whispered in the blonde's ear. When Haruka recovered from the control, it turned out that she had been in the bedroom of the woman, very similar to the one in which she woke up earlier. Then she stopped being in control of herself again, and her mind was filled by one thought - the desire for the sex with Aexel. The black-haired woman kissed Haruka's mouth, and the blonde reached towards her back and unbuttoned her dress. Aexel threw clothes downand stood in a complete nakedness in front of Uranus' eyes.

"I knew that you wanted it." She said. Then she kissed Uranus again, but this time simultaneously taking the tunic off the girl's body. She lay down on the soft bed. Haruka pulled trousers off and bent over Aexel, sitting down on the bed.

"Let us have a moment of delight in this dying world." The pale woman said to her touching her shoulders. Haruka lay down on her, simultaneously kissing her passionately. Women were locked in a hug, when their hands intertwined, their skins came into a contact, and clithori touched each other. At some point, Michiru's face appeared in front of Haruka's eyes. Her blue eyes looked at her, and green hair waved on the sea wind.

"No!" She thought. Her lips caressed Aexel's neck.

"No!" Her mind protested. She stopped.

"I don't want to do it!" She shouted aloud, breaking free from the control of her new lover. She stood up, pushing Aexel aside.

"What is going on?" The white-skinned woman asked, still being befuddled from the sexual pleasure. Haruka reached for trousers, dressed them, and she put her tunic on a moment later.

"I found my former self. You have no control over me. Now I know why I'm here I won't get lost anymore! I came to this hell, because Chronos took what had been the most precious for me, the only person for whom I would give my life! I will find her and give her kidnapper the fate he deserves, for the ones who died in the airship, for everyone from the thirteenth floor, for prisoners who must throw mountains of the rotting meat!"

"How can you be so ungrateful!" Aexel ran up to Uranus. She didn't get dressed.

"Chronos rescued us, giving us this world. Perhaps this is not the best place, but it's all we have. There's nothing apart from that piece of rocks and the desert, don't you remember?" She said with tears in her eyes. Haruka smiled gently, and laughed a moment later.

"Are you laughing at it? Are you a madwoman?!"

"I'm laughing at your naivety. You're governing the entire city of slaves, but actually it is you who are the prisoner. You're a prisoner of Chronos' lies. The rest of the world exists, it is beautiful and bears no resemblance to this place. Where does Chronos take prisoners from? Did you try to talk to them?"

"I won't let you manipulate my loyalty to Chronos!"

"Even if you don't believe me you should know that you certainly aren't a chosen one of this bastard. I was in his palace. I saw him having a rich party for his friends there, while you still inhale mists from you factories!"

Aexel hit Haruka's face.

"Be quiet. Come back to your room. Tomorrow I'll order to take you back to the meat mine."

"Good. I prefer the stink of rot than the smell of your body. I'll only tell you one thing. There is alien who lives in my cell. He is a telepath. He can join our minds. You will see the beautiful world in which I was brought up. He will show you his homeland, worlds of all prisoners. You'll become convinced who actually is cheating you."

Haruka left the bedroom suite. The woman sat down on the bed. She knew that she would have the sleepless night ahead of her.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Haruka was prepared to return to the mine and to work in the decaying mountain of meat. Last hours caused her to be on the edge of nervous breakdown. She came a long way. To safe Michiru, she betrayed people who trusted her, but instead of freeing her green haired beloved, she cheated on her with other woman. Uranus promised herself, that Chronos would pay for everything he did to her and Neptune, even if she had to die or stay forever in that infernal place. Suddenyl, the door of her room opened and the bald man turned up in a grey habit entered.

"Are we coming back down?" The blonde asked getting up.

"No. Aexel wants to see you again."

"No way. I'm coming back to the mine." Haruka clenched fists.

"Aexel wants to see you again." The bald man repeated. He took the sparking cane out.

"Do you want to force me to go with you? You don't have to. I won't be fighting... I'll go with you." The girl replied knowing that the fight would end with coming of more guards, and this time nobody would help her. Her death would also mean the end for Michiru. The tall man left the roon first and then he headed in the direction of the chamber inhabited by Aexel, guessing that Haruka would be following him and wouldn't try to escape. When the girl came into the guest room of the white-skinned woman, it turned out that K'h'bloo was there also. The alien was beaten up and hacked off in cuffs, but his wounds didn't look too serious.

"K'h'bloo!" Uranus was glad, but she quickly grew more serious.

"What do you want from him!" She shouted at Aexel. The woman looked at her coldly.

"Tell him to show me your memories! I want to know, if there really something exists besides this land! I want to know the truth!"

"Have you stop believe your master? You'll be punished." The blonde said with a malicious smile.

"Just do it! Ask him to show me your memories!" Aexel insisted. Haruka came up to Zeta Reticulian.

"Did they do something to you?" She asked.

"No. They got me out of the cell and brought me here. I won't be sharing the gift of telepathy with somebody as she. She won't force me to do it, never." The grey-skined alien replied.

"No, you must show her. If you don't want to betray your memories, do what she asks you for and show her my mind. Find the most beautiful places that you'll find in it. Show her happy moments from my life."

"Why do you want to do it? She is our enemy." K'h'bloo didn't want to connect with the mind of the woman who forced him to do laborous work.

"I learnt that she's as prisoner of this place as all of us in the underground. I'm sure about it. Only you can make her understand it. And then we can gain a strong ally."

"Ok. I will do it, because fought for my life earlier. I am indebted to you."

Haruka sat down on the sofa nearby Aexel. The grey-skined alien approached both women, unsteadily raising the hand in their direction. He touched their heads, trying to unite telepathically with their minds and show Aexel memories of the blonde. The mind of the woman with white skin was moved to the seashore with a giant, red, setting Sun visible over the horizon.

Aexel looked all around, not being able to get used to the vision and strange emotion of bodilessness. After a moment, she realized that Haruka had been by her. The wind blowing from above waves shook her fair hair.

"It's the seashore on which I and Michiru relax. I was there last time just before Chronos attacked us."

"It's beautifull here..." Aexel whispered fixing her eyes on water butting against the shore and the red ball of sun disappearing beyond the horizon.

"I feel the sea, puff of wind... how is it possible?" The surprised woman asked. K'h'bloo appeared.

"You are feeling exactly what Haruka remembered. You are now living the moments of her life, the time when she walked with her beloved on the beach of her world."

"Now see what else my planet has to offer." Uranus touched Aexel's hand. Both girls moved to other place, to the roof of one of Tokyo's skyscrappers. The cold wind tossed hair of the pale woman, but she didn't notice it. She ran up to the fence in order to closely examine lights of the night city, surrounding her from all four directions of the world.

"This place... lives!" She said, comparing the modern metropolis with the stone city located in the heart of the dead desert.

"Not only this place." Zeta Reticulian replied. He touched Aexel's hand and transferred her mind to the planet which he very well remembered from the childhood. This time, the black-haired woman was going to admire the extensive green meadows and the blue on which there was the Sun and a large gas giant with rings glistening with reflected light looming into the view from behind the horizon.

"This is the world which Chronos took from us all." Haruka said.

"In a very brutal way." She added. K'h'bloo moved minds of women to another scenery. This time he wanted to show her atrocities that Chronos committed on the Earth. Visions changed in a very rapid pace, not letting Aexel rest and or react to violent resentments in any way whatsoever. She looked at the burning airship and at Chronos kidnapping Michiru to the fiery whirlpool, at the gloomy corridors of Cygnus' tower, full of deformed victims of experiments of the man in the white suit, at the horse with flaming mane which was feared by Elysion's residents and at the ballroom full of the man' allies playing amongst the splendour and elaborate dishes.

"That's enough!" Aexel shouted removing the hand of the alien from her head. She moved away from Haruka, cannot stand the truth she got to know a moment ago.

"It was intense... as if I lived all of this... I believe in it..." She whispered.

"How could he cheat us for all these years..." She added.

"Chronos hurt us all. Therefore we must support each other." The blonde approached Aexel. Her eyesight expressed the readiness to act.

"I must call The Council. Zeta Reticulian will connect all of us and show us these images. Then we will decide what to do next." Aexel was worn out by the long telepathic session and crushed with truth about the man whom she regarded as the saviour. She wanted to be alone and think everything over.

"Come back to your chamber." She said to Uranus.

"And you..." She turned to the alien.

"You're coming back down. I will call you, when I need your help again... soon." She announced.

In the afternoon, the bald man dressed in the habit came to Haruka's room. He didn't say a word, but the girl knew very well that she had been called by Aexel again. This time the bald man led her along stone stairs down to the level of the city which she hadn't visited yet. Uranus thought that the white-skinned woman had decided to shut her in the underground cell and never again let her question her faith in Chronos. It turned out that she had been wrong, because the bald man ordered her to go with him in the direction of the central part of the city, bear big building laid on the very centre of the market. Haruka looked at the entrance gate, noticing the sculpture of the devil's head, similar to the one decorating the walking stick of the man in the white suit. The entrance hall, which she entered, was big and cold, much better than hot and dry climate of the desert. The girl noticed a few soldiers with faces of pigs and white-haired men with elvish features. She was led to the room in which there were gathered all administrators of the city who swore loyalty to Chronos in exchange for the possibility of living in his world. Aexel and persons whom Haruka saw the first time were sitting by the wooden, semicircular bench: women and men with light complexion and pointed ears, hooded figures in grey habits, three persons coming from the Earth, two men and older woman and pig man with golden chains on the neck, who was probably a superior of all guards from mines near the city. Haruka's friend stood in the middle of the chamber. Seeing the blonde, Aexel got up from her chair, smiling to her.

"I informed the City Council of what I had experienced. You must understand that they want evidence. You must show them what exist apart from this dead piece of rock."

Uranus approached the alien.

"K'h'bloo, will you manage to join me to so many minds?"

"Yes, but I don't like this idea. Who knows what filth hides in their head. Do you want to risk and to see it?"

"We have no choice. It's our only chance to escape from this place and... defeat this monster."

"Please yourself." The stranger turned to the assembled company. He touched Haruka's hand with one palm, and the second one moved in the direction of Aexel.

"Tell everyone to take hold of one another's hands. It will be easier for me to show them Haruka's memories." He advised.

"You heard him!" Aexel said touching the hand of the alien and the woman of elvish beauty sitting by her.

"Why are we supposed to do it! Perhaps it's a trap!" The pig screamed banging his fist on the table.

"Exactly, why?" The man in the black suit asked.

Long-haired elf, partner of the girl sitting by Aexel, got up from the chair, took the sword out of the scabbard and pushed it to the neck of the pig.

"You will be quarrelling later. I want to see whether Aexel told the truth. I want to know whether I believed in lies all these years."

"I agree with Eliral." The old woman in glasses replied. All Council members joined hands, and Zeta Reticuli alien started opening his and Haruka's memories for them.

After the completed telepathic projection, the majority of members of the Council of the stone city was shocked. Truth in which they believed all their life proved to be lies thought up by Chronus. Haruka observed the development of the situation with an anxiety. The pig man struck the table with his fist.

"I should chop Chronus' head off with an axe!" He shouted.

"But why I'm supposed to think that what I saw is really true? Perhaps I should cut head of these two?" He added.

"It was real. Otherwise we would sense evil intentions of this two." The hooded person in the grey habit said.

"The Earth didn't become the nuclear hell..." The man dressed in the suit said.

"There is still a life on it... The woman with grey hair added.

"If that's true, perhaps our world also wasn't destroyed. " the man of elvish beauty said.

"Perhaps we will be able to see Everforest again..." He whispered to the ear of his partner.

"Do really you understand nothing?" The other terrestrial man got up from the chair, trying to finish discussion of his acquaintances.

"Don't you understand that it does not make any difference for us whether anything exists apart from this place, because we are sentenced to live here until the day of our end? Chronus is powerful. His science created the entire timespaces. None of our worlds achieved enough development to make something even closely similar. This city is surrounded with desert on which herds of Cacodemons predate! We won't manage to cross the desert. And even if we reach the Chronus' palace, his protective systems will destroy everyone who won't become a food for flying demons earlier."

"I and my guards will cope with the task! We're ready to stand up and fight against years of lies!" The Pig man screamed hitting the table with the hand.

"Even if all guards and city dwellers stand up to the fight, there are too few of us to cross the desert and storm Chronus' castle." The man remained sceptical.

"You forgot that there is much more hand to fight." Haruka cut in on the conversation.

"Yes?" The man replied sitting down on the chair.

"All prisoners working in mines and all industrial plants of this city. If you arm them all, they will be an army with which even Chronus won't win. Each of them ahd hate for this monster engraved upon the heart. Let it be free, and the victory will be yours."

"Are we supposed to fight shoulder to shoulder with slaves?" The Pig man was surprised.

"She is right." The older woman interjected.

"If everything turned out to be the lie, our interrelation also ceased to be real. We cannot exploit these people, because the system of values which invoked social roles in this city also collapsed."

"But how do you want to force them to cooperate? If they are freed, the first thing they will do is they will cut throats of us all!" The black-haired man was sceptical again.

"I will show them the truth. The truth will free them like all of you now." Zeta Reticulian announced trying to dispel all doubts.

"If we have to decide, let us vote now. I accept Haruka's plan." Aexel said.

"We also." the elf announced on behalf of his brothers and sisters.

"We also." The hooded man added.

"I am too."

"And I."

"I must agree." Three people said, one after the other starting with the old woman.

"I agree." The a pig finished.

"It's decided. We will meet in the square. All guards and all prisoners." Aexel finished the meeting.

Prisoners working in mines of minerals and the rotting meat, in milles and processing plants of all materials, resting in small cells and shut in isolation rooms for minor offences, everyone got the order to finish the performed job and come off with their guards to the surface, to the level of the city accessible only to privileged residents of the stone metropolis. Some of them saw the light of the sun for the first time since they were thrown to the mine. Guards informed nobody of the aim of their walk, and what's more all attempts to obtain information reacted with their aggression. Habits taught by years aren't changed within an hour, even after hearing the shocking revelation from their superior. Prisoners thought that they had been lead to new mines, assigned to the largest project. Some of them passed rumours that Chronus had wanted to build the tower reaching the sky and to reach stars from it. Therefore he needed thousands of hands to the work in hot desert sands. They were other rumours. Some prisoners thought that Chronus had decided to get rid of all of them, they were no longer needed. They thought that they had been led to the place of their execution and soon they were supposed to rest in graves dug up by their own hands. Guards shared the similar views, because none of them could believe that their boss wanted to show them truth concerning their existance in the barren world. On the main square,there were crowds of prisoners from other parts of the city, as frightened and as unsure of their fate as the group led by pig-headed warriors. Amongst crowds there were also armed city dwellers, white-haired elves and hooded representatives of the forgotten cult. Everyone looked at the terrace on which representatives of the city council gathered. Aexel, the woman arousing fear in hearts of the majority of convicts, started her historical speech.

"Today, I have a gift for everyone of you. It can be good news, or the fullfilment of the worst nightmares. Today, you will learn whom really is person thanks to which we are all stuck in this dying world. Today, thanks to the help of these two wonderful beings..." Aexel pointed at Haruka and K'h'bloo.

"A curtain of lies was removed from my eyes. Therefore I want each of you to look behind this veil." The woman finished the monologue. Loud conversations appeared amongst the crowd.

"Silence!" The commander of pig warriors shouted.

"Calm yourselves down and open your minds!" Aexel added. Grey alien closed eyes and began sending Haruka's and all other prisoners' memories to minds of guards and residents of the stone city gathered together in the square.

Michiru was floating inside the fluid space-time. Her senses got used to the new reality, and the mind of the girl started seeing some meaning in the surroundings closest to her. Michiru discovered that she could influence what happened around her only with her thoughts. She was relaxed, and trips to the strange became for her a form of escape from the grim reality. The girl observed changes in phosphorescing substance which seemed to be an odd life forms with an intelligence. Flashes of the light appearing around Michiru's body ckecked her out, tried to establish contact with her and to understand what she was. Abstract, geometrical, changing shapes appeared in front of her face, answering with transformations to every movement of the girl. Visions, shreds of memories, pieces of knowledge from dead world turned up at Neptune's mind. The girl absorbed alien memories and placed them between their own. At some point, a blinding light paralysed her and ejected her from the space. She fell down on the floor. Chronus helped her to get up.

"What happened?" He asked.

"I don't know. Something threw me out. Perhaps humman cannot stay there too long." Michiru replied gasping.

"Could you see something?"

"Yes... memories... probably from the Golden Millennium... former knowledge. I don't understand it."

"Rest easyr. Stay here and relax. Your mind needs the time to recall times of our greatness." Chronus said with a cooing voice. Soon, he left the mirror's chamber leaving Michiru alone.

Haruka was walking on the urban square which had been converted to barracks for the new-incurred revolutionary army compound of ex-cons of mines and their guards. The girl looked at warriors with pig's physiognomies teaching former slave workers how to use energy horsewhips, swords and other kind of weapons and guns. In the narrow lane leading to the closed mill, a few hooden men trained telekinetic abilities crushing stones with an energy of their joined minds. Haruks walked up the stairs to the highest levels of the city, passing her acquaintance from Zeta Reticuli conducting the telepathic session with people not being able to cope with terrors of living in underground of Chronus's city. The girl changed into the leather dress given her by Aexel, uniform of armies from the homeworld of the white-skinned woman. Its protective part resembling the chain mail garment and the sword hanging by the belt, let Harucks to think of herself as the woman-warrior again. She didn't have her talisman or the ability of the cast offensive spells, but instead she gathered an army of beings hating her enemy. She entered the chamber of the City Council. It turned out that only Aexel was there. The woman had the same dress as Haruka, differing only in a colour. Sailor Uranus had blue one, Aexel's was red.

"Uniform of the royal army fits you." The black-haired woman turned to senshi standing in the doorway.

"It must be enough for me up to the moment when I recover my real uniform... and the power which it gives to me." Haruka replied. Aexel went to the window.

"Thanks to you a miracle happened." She said.

"I 've shown you the truth about this place. The truth which you should get to know much earlier, if only you dared to search it."

"I don't know whether to love you or hate you for it." Aexel replied sadly.

"Before you appeared here, I had a simple life. I had to guard supplies of fuels for Chronus and supervise the work of prison guards. I was grateful to Chronus, because he rescued me and a few of my co-companions from the certain death, when our planet was destroyed. I could see how our world died, and then I waited for the death inside the Star Ark in which the system of life support was destroyed as a result of a sabotage. Chronus told me that destruction of our planet had initiated the chain reaction which led to the destruction of the whole galaxy, except his desert-like land. Now I know that it was a lie. I'm thinking... what this knowledge will bring to me. Soon, we will set off to the desert, full of hungry Cacodemonons and other lice protecting the access to the Chronus' castle. How many of us will die? Tens? Hundreds?" Aexel became sad.

"How many will fall down beneath the castle?" She asked.

"I don't also know what I'm going to face there. I don't know even if Michiru still lives. Perhaps what I'm doing doesn't have any sense?" Haruka added.

"We must kill him. At all costs. We must free the universe from this monster." Aexel said hard. She touched the sword's hilt. Uranus smiled.

"And take these poor beings to their houses." She stated looking through the window.

"She lives, you must believe in it." Aexel rested her hands on the shoulder of the blonde.

"And I won't be between two oy you." She added.

"Because I cannot compete with somebody for whom you can change the order of the world."

A few hours later, the army compound of residents of the stone city and prisoners from mines and milles was ready to start its walk to the other side of the desert. After an exchange of thoughts between prisoners and their guards, the majority of people was ready for the fight for the freedom and the return to their native worlds. Everyone knew that the only road to freedom led through the castle of the man dressed in white. Hate among two groups of beings was still present, it could not disappear in a flash. However the shared case was much more important. Undecided and opposed to the revolution remained in the city or changed their beliefs after being touched by the telepathy of Zeta Reticuli alien and psychological suggestions from the group of hooded men. All of them agreed to fight, of their own free will or forced to do it. Aexel and Haruka were walking in the first row, with the alien, council members and prisoners who had performed important functions in the community of workers. Hundreds of pairs of feet hit red desert sands, leaving clouds of dust. After an one hour march from the city, the group reached to the stone desert. In the distance, they could see red sands and the Chronus' castle. Unfortunately, there were also a desert, rocky canyons, sand dunes and herds of Cacodemonons whom some board members were afraid of so much. These monsters resembled big, red balls with spikes. They were afloat above the hot earth like balloons filled up with helium. There was a single, green eye in the middle of their body and a jaw with a sharp teeth under it. Demons were floating closely spaced, waiting for next supplies of the meat. This time they were supposed to get something completely different.

"Cacodemons." Aexel announced.

"A lot of Cacodemons." She added.

"Cannot we just run in a greater distance from them? I think that they're slow. They should not catch up with us, if we're far." Haruka said.

"It's not that simple. They're belching out fire, balls of fire. We won't go through, if we don't fight with them directly."

"What are we waiting for?" Haruka smiled. She took the sword out of the scabbard. Aexel turned to crowds standing behind her.

"Look! The last barrier to the freedom is just there! We must destroy it together!" She said. K'h'bloo and telepathic monks acted at minds of the army, increasing their morale and helping their courage weakened by the desert march. Pigs armed in energy rifles and elves who could cast spells from a distance assumed strategic positions. The rest of the people of the rebellion prepared swords, horsewhips and other kind of short-distance weapon. They moved towards herds of Cacodemons. Meanwhile, Zeta Reticulian and monks tried to reach inside the minds of red monsters and to arouse the panic in them. Unfortunately, it wasn't easy, because thoughts of monsters were incomprehensible to them and their strong willpowers resisted the telepathic interference. Pigs started to fire at the herd of demons, and elvish mages threw bullets of blue flames in their direction. A few monsters were effectively hit and inertly fell to the ground gushing with a blue blood. Remaining ones, alerted with situation, spotted the coming group of the stone city's residents and set about to the counter-attack. Their jaws opened, and fire balls spew out from the inside of their throats. A few large explosions scattered Aexel's army. Prisoners were running like crazy, not being able to extinguish flames consuming their clothes and bodies. A few Cacodemons rose up higher to better see snipers with pig's faces and elven wizards. They attacked again, this time shooting more blindly than accurately in order to eliminate the biggest threat. Exploding balls of the fire hit warriors, wounding them or killing outright. The commander of elves, long-haired Eliral, was one of victims. His body became charred corpse, after direct hit by the fiery spell. A panic turned up between rebels. Many of them tried to escape. They wanted to come back to the city as soon as possible, to escape to far desert, anywhere at all, the farthest from terrible monsters with one eye. Cacodemons said goodbye to them with their fire balls, causing even bigger panic amongst rebels. The commander of pigs screamed at them, he shouted out sentences with which he had frightened them when were his prisoners, tried to frighten them with the penalty for treason. His threats fell on ears which didn't want to hear anything. Demons, encouraged with desertion of prisoners, commenced the attack. A promise of the hunt finished with the feast turned up at their minds. Wizards fired magic bows at monsters, and pigs tried to puncture their hard skin with energy horsewhips. One of monsters spotted the leader of guards. He attacked him with teeth, tightened jaws on his body cutting him in half. The pig man squealed frightfully, when his life left him along with the blood. Two other Cacodemons cornered terrestrial members of the city council. Soon blood poured out, and people became food for red wild beasts. Aexel ordered her people to attack. She jumped at one of monsters with the sword, aiming for his green eye.

"Come as close to them as possible! Then they will not be able to spit fire!" She screamed. Haruka also joined in the fight. Her sword slid down from the scaly skin of demons, when the girl tried to slash it. K'h'bloo took control over one of monsters, and attacked the others using his teeth. Unfortunately, his victory was short-lived, since other Cacodemon fried two monks who helped him with the telepathic attack. Haruka hit with the sword, aiming for the eye of the monster, but it closed its hard eyelid. The girl wasn't prepared for hitting the hard surface, the weapon fell out from her hands, smashing to shreds. The demon opened his jaws widely, preparing the fire ball. Haruka felt the stink of sulphur, and the air arounds her became much heater a moment later. Large stream of fire dashed off at her side. Aexel rushed to help the blonde. She turned her over to the ground, which saved her from being burnt alive. Aexel quickly stood up and gave Haruka hand in order to help her to get up also. Other Cacodemon surprised two women from the back, shooting balls of fire at them, just like his predecessor. Girls jumped away. Haruka landed in desert sands, but her new friend unluckily fell between the group of Cacodemons.

Meanwhile, many Chronus' guests went to the walls surrounding the castle, hearing alarming sounds coming from a distance. Many of them spotted large group of people fighting with red, spherical monsters amongst explosions and fire. The man in the green armour took the telescope out in order to see the strange occurrence more closely.

"People... they're coming here. They're fighting with some monsters..." He replied surprised.

Wiseman appeared by him. He didn't react hearing his revelation, instead he disappeared in the wall. In the same time, Chronus was standing on the terrace, looking at clouds of dust raised on the desert and flames of demons decimating people trying to force their way through herds. He clenched fists guessing what happened. Soon, the stone gargoyle landed at his feet.

"What is going on!?" The man asked angrily.

"Rebellion, my lord. City dwellers and all prisoners united are coming here to overthrow you." The monster answered obediently.

"How could they dare?!" Chronus clenched fists. He pinted his the ring at the messenger.

"World Shaking!" He shouted, attacking the monster with the Sailor Uranus' spell. Gargoyle didn't have any chance. He was shattered into small pieces.

Haruka looked with a terror as one of Cacodemons was showing his jaws in front of Aexel, who tried to stand up from her fall. The blonde's sword was shattered, and she was too far away to help the woman. The monster slowed down, like he knew that women were no danger to him. He decided to play with them. In the same moment Wiseman materialised by the blonde. The girl assumed a defensive position, supposing the man was sent by Chronus.

"I can see that your small revolution is reaching the glorious ending." Wiseman spoke.

"Damn!" Haruka didn't hide her fury.

"But I can help her, if you agree." Wiseman showed Sailor Uranus' transformation pen.

"You.." The blonde wanted to attack him and to get her property back, but, to her great surprise, Wiseman gave it back himself.

"Why... are you helping me?" Haruka was surprised.

"Because I want to become even the chances." The man replied disappearing. The girl looked at jaws of the demon approaching Aexel.

"Uranus Planet Power, Make Up!" She shouted transforming in Sailor Uranus. After the transformation, she immediately summoned the Space Sword.

"Space Sword Blaster!" She attacked Cacodemon. The monster was hit with a bright blade straight in his single eye. He howled with a pain, trying to blindly get out of the battlefield. Aexel looked at the blonde in disbelief.

"You finally saw the real me." Uranus said gladly.

"We're coming back to the fight." She added.

"World Shaking!" Sher shouted, sending the ball of amber light towards the red demon attacking the group of prisoners. The monster was hit inside its mouth. Convulsions stunned him, and his blue blood poured out from the large mouth.

"It worked!" Aexel was glad.

"World Shaking!" Haruka attacked the group of three Cacodemons trying to devour a few prisoners and two guards with pig's heads. The ball of yellow light hit between monsters, effectively scaring them off the people. Other Cacodemons moved away to a safe distance and started spitting burning phlegms towards the girl. Sailor Uranus used her natural speed and effectively avoided all their blows. She felt the intense heat of the fire splashed beside her body. Many ex-cons looked at the feat of the girl in disbelief. Many of them started to have faith in the own victory again. They took weapons from their dead companions of the fight and started the attack. They fired energy rifles, hit hard Cacodemons' bodies with light horsewhips. Others threw stones at single eyes of monsters. Demons counter-attacked. The fire shotting from their mouths changed fighting human into torches running all over the desert like fanatics. Zeta Reticuli alien covered ears, trying to separate himself from enduring victims with telepathic barrier. Aexel looked at big, red bullets balls cutting members of her own race in two halves.

"It must end..." She said with clenched fists.

"Do something! We must escape from here! Come back to the city!" She shouted at Haruka.

"These monsters already killed half of us! And even your spells aren't working on them! We lost!" The woman was desperate. She wanted to attack Haruka with her sword and kill her, because she persuaded her to start the revolution which hadn't the smallest chance of the victory. Killing Sailor Uranus, she hoped that she will be able to count on Chronus' compassion.

"No." Haruka replied coldly. She raised the Space Sword above the head and closed her eyes. Her weapon lighted with bright glow and the girl hit the air with it, making a hole in space-time's fabric from which the red light emerged.

"Uranus! Space Turbulence!" The blonde cast her most powerful spell. Tens of yellow energy balls emerged from the bright, red rift. All dashed off at surprised Cacodemons with a huge speed. A few of them opened their jaws belching out fire, but the strength of Sailor Uranus' magic bullets and the wind accompanying them was too great. The fire was smothered, and golden bullets hit monsters. A few of them were hit by many missiles. Their bodies fell into convulsions and were ripped to shreds. Other monsters were only stunned. They all got scared, panicked, started spewing fire to each other. Survived Cacodemons raised higher, above hot desert's sands. They turned around and escaped from the battlefield.

In the same time, the man in the green armour observed the fight through the telescope on one of castle walls. A few other Chronus' guests kept him company. The bearded man ceased observation. He was alarmed very much, his face became paler.

"What's going on?" The grey haired woman standing beside him asked.

"They won. They won against these monsters." The bearded man replied. He looked at the battlefield through the telescope again.

"They won and they are coming here. Everyone." He added. Chronus appeared on walls. He came up to irritated persons and leaned against the wall. He raised his walking stick up, pointing the head of the devil at the direction of towers surrounding the castle. He smiled to the assembled company.

"This place is protected with the technology of the Golden Millennium, the real world. Nothing threatens you here. Sit down comfortably and observe the slaughter of these idiots. They could lead calm life in the city which I built for them. They rebelled and they will die. I don't have a penalty more fair for the ones whoare opposes my will."

City dwellers and prisoners, who survived the clash with Cacodemons and didn't escape back to the stone city, seeing the power of Sailor Uranus magic, gained more courage and the self-confidence. In the moment when they marched to the Chronus' castle, there were no divisions between them, they became one nation wanting to take its freedom from hands of the tyrant dressed in white. Each of them gripped the weapon, some of them took hard, sharpened rocks from the desert, since their weapon was destroyed during the fight with red monsters. Aexel and Haruka were walking in the first row, together with the alien from Zeta Reticuli and a few hooded men. The city council wa no more, because almost all its members were torn apart by shapr teeth of Cacodemons or burnt alive by their fiery breaths.

"Do you realize that two thirds of us are dead, escaped back to the city or got lost on the desert?" Aexel asked.

"But one third of us still wants to defeat Chronus. It's all that counts to us. We will be mourning the dead, when we win." Haruka announced.

"And we will punish all cowards." The black-haired girl added gripping the sword.

The group was very close to the castle. Persons with good eyesight could notice people moving on its walls without a problem. Aexel stopped everyone with one move of the hand. She ordered survived magi and guards of the mine to prepare for the fire at the stronghold from the distance. Uranus noticed rocks sticking out of sand, making a maze going to the entrance gate to the castle. She knew that she had to take advantage of the confusion which was supposed to happen in a short moment and enter the inside of the building as soon as possible. Michiru waited for her.

The grey haired man smiled joyfully. He raised the hand, and the ring on his finger shone with many colours. He gave a mental order to all towers protecting his house. As it turned out, the order wasn't carried out. None of towers reacted, all of them were dead as if somebody cut their power away. "What's that supposed to mean?" Chronus gripped the walking stick. His voice expressed a great concern.

"They are closer! Do something!"The older woman tried to force him to act.

"Where is this protection!" She asked. She was hit by one of snipers from the group of rebels. She fell on the floor. The bearded man in the emerald armour looked with a terror at the grey haired owner of the castle.

"They are attacking us! Destroy them!" He screamed. Chronus was enraged. He hit the man with the walking stick.

"You hoped that I would help you in everything?! Defend yourselves! Deserve the place in New Order of World!" The grey haired man left the dangerous zone and ran to the interior of the palace. He knew that he had to act quickly, because otherwise his dream would be terminated once and for all. He was furious, because he hadn't killed Sailor Uranus when had a chance. The woman-warrior returned and turned his subordinates against him. The breakdown of the protection system of the castle had to mean that there was a traitor in his thresholds. The man ran into the research chamber of Silver Crystal and mirror with the surface filled up with the fluid space-time. Michiru was sitting there on the floor trying to establish the telepathic contact with the emerald substance, tried to learn to control it as she had been ordered by Chronus. Alarming signals reached her ears earlier, but seeing the face of her kidnapper, she was certain. Something happened outside. Something not good for Chronus. Michiru thought about Wiseman and his promise. He became operative. She turned her head, noticing that the grey haired man tried to change something in settings of the computer controlling Silver Crystal. It was somethig bad, she thought. She got up and quickly ran up to him.

"What are you doing?"

"I must release all barriers. I must free the energy of ginzuishou to protect this palace." Chronus replied not looking at the girl.

"Why?" Michiru asked.

"There are raging barbarians at the door."

Michiru noticed that the energy, the man wanted to free, was really big. Visits to the fluid space-time, amongst remains of the personality of Chronus' former beloved, caused that Michiru had understood technology of the Golden Millennium. What Chronus wanted to do was really crazy.

"Such the quantity of energy, its directionality... it will destroy this planet!"

"Yes. Exactly I count on it. But our palace will be protected. Nothing will happen to us, don't be afraid. A few chambers will be enough for us to work on our project. We are already so close to our purpose!"

"I won't let you do it!" Michiru got hold of Chronus' hand. She pulled it, trying to dissuade the man from the insane plan. The man pushed her very hard. The girl ended up on the floor. She hit her arm. "I need your head only! The rest of the body can break up, remember about it!" Chronus shouted in a great anger. Michiru had to act. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, as during her attempts to take the control over the fluid space-time. She wanted to reach to the surface of the mirror, to catch it into her telepathic embrace. Simultaneously, she recalled how she had used the Deep Aqua Mirror, the small fragment of the phosphorescing space created by the technology of the ancient world. It came off.

"Submarine Reflection!" She shouted opening her eyes. She managed to use the magic, not being transformed into Sailor Neptune. The shapeless bubble of green colour broke away from the surface of the mirror, changed into the form resembling the arrow and dashed off towards Chronus with high speed. It slapped him in the face, squeezing into his eye. The man shouted from the pain, grasping the wound. His blood appeared on white walls of the room. Chronus fell down between computers. Michiru didn't want to check whether he still lived. She knew that she had to be outside as soon as possible. She ran out of the room and entered on the terrace after a brief lapse of time. She saw a chaos which engulfed that place, when infuriated residents of the stone city barged in. Two bright beings, similar to flying jellyfish, escaped above towers of the castle. The man in the green armour fell to stairs after a few effective blows of Aexel's sword. The robot was firing at the squad of pig people and white-skinned elves concealed between rocks of the stone maze. The black-haired girl strangled her jailor, with the same chain on which kept he kept her the entire life, band young boys threw the man dressed in purple robes down from a rock. Michiru walked around avoiding the fight, because she wanted to see the person for whom she waited all the time as soon as possible. Where was Haruka? Did she gather all these people, so they could rescue her? Maybe it was only a coincidence. Perhaps Uranus no longer lived or was still imprisoned in stone city with thousand chimneys? Soon the girl came inside the desert, rock maze.

Dhe saw her beloved at last. The blonde fought an uneven fight with the Minotaur, the same one, who tried to end Michiru's life. Uranus avoided blows of his fiery horsewhip, which were becoming faster more accurate, with an effort. Haruka was worn out, she breathed with an effort, she could not stop neither to rest nor to use the spells against the monster. Michiru clenched fists. She was ready to attack the horned wild beast with her bare hands. In the same moment, Wiseman appeared by her. He kept the transformation pen in his grey hand.

"It all happened as I planned. Chronus is losing." Hooded man said to the girl.

"His sick future will never become real." He added.

"And I have something that should belong to you." Michiru handed the pen to her. She didn't even manage to thank him, because he disappeared again.

"Neptune Planet Power, Make Up!" The girl trnaformed in Sailor Neptune. She ran up to the Minotaur, then stood behind his back. The monster overlooked her because he was busy fighting Haruka.

"Hi! Do you remember me?" She shouted. When the monster turned away his head, Neptune used her most powerful spell against him. A column of water which quickly was transformed into a crystal glass violin appeared behind her. Michiru started to play on it. A few streams of water, carrying tens of blue balls, hit Minotur. The monster didn't even manage to howl, because water with unusually high pressure surrounded him from every side. Columns hit him, drowning him and simultaneously pressing his body with pressure of oceanic depths. The Minotaur fell down dead, and his flaming whip turned into a heap of ash. Haruka stood up, noticing who saved her life. She smiled. She tried to say something, to joke, but emotions didn't let her speak. Michiru also wasn't able to think out the right welcome. Girls ran up to each other in a silence, embraced each other and kissed passionately. The Earth shook. Sailor Senshi looked in the direction of Chronus' castle, noticing that a strange glow appeared around it.

"He lives. And he is trying to destroy us." Michiru said.

"We must stop him." She added.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune quickly came inside Chronus' castle, not paying heed to two groups of beings fighting all around in the desert-like world. Michiru guessed that her attack hadn't been strong enough in order to kill the grey haired man. She was sure that Chronus wanted to carry his threat out, and destroy everything that surrounded him only to gain the chance of an escape and restore Golden Millennium in other place and other time. Soon, both woman-warriors were in the chamber with apparati used for the extraction of the Silver Crystal's energy. Michiru looked at the wall under which the man had fallen down when she had attacked him. He was not there. Only bloodstains on computer devices showed sings of the fight which had occured earlier. Haruka looked at the waving surface of the large mirror in the middle of the chamber.

"It looks like your mirror..." She said.

"Yes, because it actually is my mirror only a bit enlarged. Don't deal with details. We must find Chronus." Michiru replied.

"Look out!" Uranus shouted, because she noticed the ball of golden light approaching Neptune with large speed. Michiru turned around, dodged the attack, falling down on the floor. The bullet hit one of computers smashing it to pieces.

"What you are doing! If you destroy this laboratory and you free Silver Crystal's energy..."

"Everyone will vanish." The grey haired man announced calmly.

"But you abandoned the real world already. I only want you to wake up from an illusion. Even if it means your death." He added. The man emerged from behind one walls of the room. The half of his face was covered by the mask made from the hardened surface of the mirror which had joined with his skin immediately after the first contact. He leaned on his walking stick with the head of the devil, and the ring on his finger glistened with a golden light.

"Space Sword Blaster!" Uranus attacked with the sword.

"Haruka, no!" Michiru tried to stop the friend.

"Silent Wall." Chronus whispered raising the hand with the ring above head. He surrounded himself with an invisible barrier. The light blade bouned back from it and hit some strange looking apparatus, seriously damaging it.

"The fight here is too dangerous." The green-haired girl announced.

"She knows it very well, but she doesn't care!" Chronus spoke coming closer to woman-warriors.

"She is the beginning of the end of the wonderful, the only and the real world! She is the source of all corruption, power which destroyed everything we tried to built together since time immemorial! She is an upright obstacle in the road to the ideal world!" The man was irritated.

"Don't you remember who first turned against us, when we wanted together to create the ultimate power of the Golden Millennium? It was she! She was amongst the ones who were afraid to become gods of the entire universe! They envied us and their jealousy and fear initiated the disaster!"

"I don't know what he is talking about but if he doesn't shut up..." Haruka clenched fists.

"No! Don't attack him now. We cannot risk destroying this place." Michiru calmed the friend.

"In this world... after such a long time... she came back from the Hell, found you before me. And she infected you with her venom, spoilt you, dirtied you physically and spiritually!"

"Enough." Uranus ran towards the man. She attacked with the cosmic sword, hitting the invisible barrier again.

"I could destroy you when I saw you for the first time in the flying hotel. I could kill you instead holding you prisoner in mines of the stone city. I wouldn't have so many problems... but looking at your mediocre fight, I am pleased that I let you live. I am pleased that I will be able to observe exploding Silver Crystal tearing atoms of your fallen body apart."

Chronus started to speak to the girl with even more anger and his eyes were on fire from internal hate. Haruka attacked again, putting her sword on the invisible barrier.

"I cannot understand why you are still defending this place after I showed you the real world." The man turned to Michiru, ignoring Sailor Uranus.

"I cannot understand why you betrayed me, although I showed you who you were in the past and who you could become again if you took my gift. You are protecting this ball of mud inhabited by poor beings who have an audacity to call themselves the civilization. They don't know even what this word really meant at one time. The civilization which isn't able to look out beyond their own small world, while the Golden Millennium reached the most distant galaxies.

The civilization divided into hundreds of states, fighting between each other and hating one another because of the stupidest reasons, the civilization chasing dreams not worth anything, while the Golden Millennium was one nation with one, praiseworthy, common goal. I want to give you new true world! Why don't you want to take it?" The man withdrew his hand. Haruka pushed on invisible wall.

"You want to give us the new, wonderful world, yes? For what price? in what way?" The blonde whispered.

"By killing innocent people? By doing horrifying experiments on women, which only wanted to find a job and better life? By forcing all your enemies to do the slave work? By destroying entire worlds!? Is how your Golden Millennium is supposed to look!?" Uranus became nervous. The cosmic Sword started lighting with a very intense brilliance.

"Your Golden Millennium is ending here and now!" Sailor Uranus' uniform glistened the same as her sword earlier. Bright wings appeared on the girl's back. Michiru looked at the friend with fear and amazement. Haruka attacked again, this time breaking through the barrier. The ring on the man's finger was broken into small pieces. Chronus tried to protect himself with his walking stick, but it was also destroyed by the new power freed from the talisman. The man butted against the wall watching the devil's head in his hand, the only part which remained from his walking stick. Uranus felt weakness, and then wings on her back disappeared. Chronus smiled. A shining blade, very similar to the Cosmic Sword, emerged from the devil's head. The man attacked. The surprised girl defended herself against his attack at the last moment.

"Exploiting all these people, killing them... I did nothing bad. You know why? Because everyone were false the same as the entire world in which you live!" Chronus attacked more aggressively. After a few slashes of the sword blocked by Uranus, he hit as stron as he was able. The cosmic sword fell out of Haruka's hand and the girl fell down on the floor. The man prepared the light sabre to strike.

"Did you think that you could win against me? I duelled with meteorites in the interstellar space in my free time!"

Michiru watched Chronus preparing for the death blow. Simultaneously, she noticed the surface of the mirror covered with the fluid time-space behind his back. She knew that she had to act swiftly. She closed her eyes, trying to make contact with the inside of the mirror, to feel it again, to force its obedience as earlier. She was in her Sailor Neptune form so her control over the talisman was much stronger than when she had hit Chronus the first time.

"Submarine Reflection!" She shouted, feeling all the power emerging from inside the mirror gate. The fluid space-time shone with an emerald glitter, simultaneously buzzing with a metallic sound, bringing som kind of ocean simulated on a large, heavenly computer to one's thought. Chronus turned around, surprised by an unusual occurrence. In the same moment, the fluid space-time violently expanded, leaving frames of the mirror. It reached the body of the man like some devilfish, wrapped him up with ten of tentacles and violently pulled him in the direction of the looking glass. Chronus was drawn into the inside of the mirror. At the last moment he caught its frame.

"I will come back! I will find the old you and I will come back with her." He shouted.

"And I will judge this world!" He added. Power pulling the man to the inside of the mirror was too strong. He couldn't fight with it. Soon, he was on the other side of the emerald barrier, leaving only a fragment of the walking stick in the shape of the devil's head with broken up horns in the chamber. Michiru ended the contact of her mind with the space-tme, sealing the mirror with Chronus inside. Haruka approached the devil's head lying on the floor. She stepped on it, destroying it even more.

"Is this the end?" She asked, looking at her beloved.

"I don't know. I must quickly turn this device off, as long as I remember how to operate it." Michiru headed in the direction of computers controlling the energy uptake from the Silver Crystal.

When Haruka and Michiru came out to the courtyard of the desert palace, it turned out that the fight had come to an end. Bodies of defenders of the palace and rebels lay all around. At one end of the stone stairs, rebels were helping the injured, and in other end, pig-soldiers were pushing tied up Chronus' guests who surrendered to them as last. Haruka noticed Aexel standing on the desert, saying something to her warriors. She raised the Cosmic Sword above the head. The sun rays reflecting from the blade hit Aexel's eyes.

"Was he...? Was he defeated?" The woman asked.

"He is defeated." Haruka replied.

"He's defeated!" Aexel shouted announcing victory over the tyrant. Rebels, despite the majority of them were tired with fight, found enough strength to be pleased with the victory. At some point, Sailor Uranus noticed her friend from Zeta Reticuli. He was in the puddle of his own, green blood laying nearby the destroyed humanoidal walking machine.

"K'h'bloo" Haruka quickly came to the friend.

"Don't move! Somebody will take care of you right away." She said.

"No. This time you won't change my fate." The alien answered.

"It isn't possible to cheat the fate twice." He added.

I'm sorry..." The girl whispered.

"Take the final gift from me." K'h'bloo touched the head of the blonde with his hand.

"Preserve images from my childhood in the memory." He added. Haruka closed her eyes. She saw green meadows stretching out up to the horizon of the Holy Moon of Zeta Reticuli. She watched as the sun had risen above strange world, lighting the silhouette of the gas giant seen across the sky above the meadow. Tears started to flow from the girl's eyes.

Sailor Neptune, Uranus and Aexel and her friends met in the ballroom. When everyone defending the palace died or surrendered to forces from the Stone City, the land freed oneself from despotic government of the tyrant in the white suit. Haruka and Michiru stood by the box, in which Sailor Neptune sealed the fluid time-space with Chronus imprisoned inside it. Michiru, using memories of the former beloved of the man, deactivated barriers surrounding desert-like world, thanks to which the land became visible to Sailor Pluto travelling in corridors of time. Handing over to the box with Chronus to Aexel was the last thing that girls were supposed to do. Pale skinned woman approached Haruka.

"Unfortunately we didn't find the Black Pegasus which you mentioned. It looks like that he escaped when his master lost control over him."

"Damn. " The Blonde wasn't pleased with the turn of events. It was she who freed the beast from its prison.

"We couldn't also find the man which you mentioned." Aexel turned to Michiru.

"Perhaps he escaped using the Pegasus. Perhaps he only helped us because it was a part of his plan." The girl announced.

"We cannot think about it now. They both are probably very far away. We must be ready for their return." Haruka added.

"I don't know how I can thank you for everything you did for us." Aexel turned to the blonde.

"If not your help we still would sit in stone walls and pushed prisoners to work." She added.

"It is I who should thank you. And everyone who made up their mind to go with me to the fight." Haruka replied and continued.

"Your victory brought many victims. I'm sure that the ones who survived still hates me for that."

"The ones who gained the freedom understood. Or they will understand in the future."

"What are you going to do now?"

"Many of prisoners are already thinking how to get back home. We will try to find a way to return."

"Our friend, Sailor Pluto. I'm sure that she will be able to help you." Michiru cut in on the conversation.

"If she wants. We will have another debt. There are many who has nowhere to come back, because Chronus took them from dying worlds. We are sentenced to live on this barren planet. I don't have place to come back also."

"Come back with us. You will find your place on the Earth." Haruka offered.

"No. I'm needed here. If this world doesn't have a strong leader, it will become a place of the massacre much bigger than the one which you witnessed. They all see me as somebody whom they can trust. I cannot disappoint them."

"I understand."

"There is information in computers that will help you to exploit the energy of Silver Crystal."

"We will need it. Soon the swarm of Cacodemons will be lured here by corpses and blood."

"Now we'll give you our last gift." Haruka said.

"And very important task. Essential both for us and for your society." Michiru added.

"Chronus inside the box and the fluid space-time." Uranus pointed at the object.

"Well. We will become guards of this monster and take care that he never finds a way to his freedom. I will order people to put the box in the deepest mine and to flood it with tons of rubble from the destroyed Stone City. He will never threaten anybody in the entire Multiverse."

"A time for say goodbye has came." Aexel said seeing Sailor Pluto gate opening in the vicinity. The woman quickly received the signal given off by Michiru. Aexel approached Haruka.

"Farewell. Now, when I saw what you were ready to do to help her, I know that I have no chance with her." She whispered to her ear. Uranus touched Neptune's hand and headed towards the space-time gate.

Epilogue 1

Haruka and Michiru went to the graveyard on which their friend Koji was buried. While they were in Chronus' world, weeks passed on the real Earth and the tragedy of the flying hotel already disappeared from front pages of newspapers. Girls decided to say goodbye to their friend who had died because their enemy wanted to kidnap Michiru in a grand style.

"I'm feeling guilty." The greem haired woman was very sad.

"Stop thinking about it. Only Chronus is guilty and we punished him for everything he did. He hit us like no one else before. When I will think what happened because of him... we learnt everything about Setsuna, Elios became our enemy, I released the monster which destroyed Elysion... not mentioning what I saw in the Cygnus Tower and the stone city. But we must forget about what happened as soon as possible."

"Remember that we're also on the list of victims of the crash."

"True. But now I don't want to think how to straighten all up."

"And what about Setsuna? Can you forgive her? Hotaru told me that you wanted her to move out as soon as possible."

"I wanted it. At the beginning. But later, when all happened to me because of that monster... I don't know. It won't be the same as before, but I don't want us to become enemies."

"I also don't want it. But the one thing is certain. We cannot tell Usagi or her friends anything. The truth would break their hearts. It will be our secret. Now Chronus is ealed, so there is no reason to tell them."

"It will our secret." Hotaru said, who came up to girls with Setsuna. Haruka looked at the tall woman.

"I know what you want to say. But don't you worry. I won't be irritating you and I will do as you want." Setsuna spoke.

"What?"

"I will leave you. You cannot live with a liar."

"Don't. I said this because I was furious. I didn't really want it..."

"No. I already decided. I must rest and think everything over. Now, when Chronus is gone I became the last person remembering what the Golden Millennium was. I would like to say goodbye to it. I will come back to Tokyo when I am ready."

"And what if some enemy appears? We may need Sailor Pluto." Michiru announced.

"That's simple. I will give you the jewel from my Garnet Rod. If times requires it, the talisman will find the successor."

"Yeah, nice. And I will have to train the new Sailor Senshi!" Haruka was indignant.

"You wanted it very much. When Hotaru outgrew you in experience." Michiru butted in.

"Hotaru, did you get in touch with your father?" Setsuna asked.

"No. I don't know where he is. As if he vanished into thin air." The girl replied.

"I talked to the friend of mine from police. As it turned out, there was nothing strange on the rubble heap which was left after the Cygnus tower. There were no bodies of women, or parts of laboratory apparati which you saw. Later it turned out that, before rescue units were committed to the rubble, the place was surrounded by people in uniforms. They were soldiers, some kind of agents who knows. They had many lorries. Rumours about light effects of the teleportation appeared in the city."

"They removed all evidence. Question is, who?"

"And Tokiyama? What about him?" Haruka asked clenching her fist.

"He lives. The press reported on the miraculous escape." Setsuna replied.

"Well. I will find him." The blonde smiled.

"But now let us go somewhere to the city. We must celebrate Michiru's return and say goodbye to Setsuna before her journey, right?" She added.

"And remember. Don't talk about Golden Millennium, the thirteenth Floor, Tokiyama, Chronus..." Michiru added.

"At least today." Hotaru said.

All girls moved towards the gate to the graveyard.

Epilogue 2

Somewhere far away outside the city, a dozen uniformed men threw the last elements taken from ruins of the thirteenth Floor into the large pit, everything that never couldn't be publicly revealed. There were modified bodies of girls, the unusual weapons, biological waste and equipping from all laboratories. Computers were thrown there also after cleaning their disks and moving their contents into the safe place. Some people began to pour everything with flammable substance. One of soldiers threw the flame grenade to the ditch and the rubble violently caught fire. Tokiyama stood in the vicinity, looking at tongues of fire and clouds of the black smoke ascending up to the sky. He clenched his fist, and a swirl of thoughts filled his head. Ginger assistant, the only woman who survived experiments of scientists of the thirteenth Floor, the clash with Sailor Saturn and collapse of Cygnus Tower, was close the boss all the time.

"Did woman-warriors win? Is he dead?" She asked.

"I don't know. He should get in touch with me a long time ago, to punish me and you, because we didn't stop that bitch. But he is still silent."

"So let us assume that he is dead. Let us stop bothering about him."

"If it was so simple... if he is dead, it means that that bitch lives. And she will come after us..."

"And perhaps this beautiful girl will be with her..." The ginger woman fell into a pensive mood. The grey haired man in a uniform came up to Tokiyama.

"We almost finished. We will stay here to make sure that everything was burnt. Later we fill the pit with earth." He said.

"Won't be any problems with some people?" Cygnus company owner asked.

"No. I eavesdropped on your conversation. Is it possible that we are finally free?"

"I don't know. If you eavesdropped on our conversation you already know the answer. There's no sign of him. You know very well that he was never late."

"Yes. If he is not here, perhaps indeed somebody destroyed him. After such a long time..."

" I'm thinking what it means to us all."

"It opens new, wonderful possibilities. We can finally decide about everything ourselves, having everything in our hands what was left after him." The grey haired man finished the conversation looking at the column of smoke getting out of the flaming pit.

Epilogue 3

During the dark, moonless night, in a different place, somewhere in the abandoned warehouse in some big city, there was another meeting. Under one of the building's walls, poorly lighted by hanging electric lamp, a hooded man in a black habit was sitting. Listeners, young women and men gathered around him. Everyone was sitting in the shadow, not interested in each other, all looking at the direction of the mysterious figure.

"Let me tell you a story about things that are going to happen. I will tell you a story about how the order of the world which you know was shattered and the new world you didn't dream of in your worst nightmares took its place. You think that now somebody treats you unfairly, that the ones that should protect you, tell you lies all the time. But you cannot even compare it to the world which became if we don't act. Let me tell you a story about the Son of the Moon."


End file.
