Millennium II

Journey of the Past

By Hikari Tsuki Chi

Chapter 15

Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own anything copyrighted, because if I did, this would not be needed.

Notes: Finally, I've gotten my mind off other story ideas (interesting as they are) and back to this one. Oddly enough, the fact that this is exam week in spurning me on… I'm also trying to revise Millennium I, since the plot's changed A LOT since I wrote the very first version of that story…which I can't find…on a CD-ROM with a bunch of Sailor Moon fanfics that I'd REALLY like to re-read…you get the idea; things aren't matching up and no one's commented on it. It still bugs me.

Yama blinked at the sudden change of clothes and scenery. Serena was now dressed as she had been the day the Moon Kingdom fell, while Yama herself was dressed in an outfit very similar to Atami's.

"Where are we?" asked Serena-Serenity-whichever.

"This is the Queen's chamber, or what would be, in the Pharaoh's tomb," answered Yama, glancing around.

"Of course; there was always a burial chamber for queens as part of the normal burial complex. I suppose this is how it would have looked once completed?"

"I guess so—I know work must had started…" Yama trailed off, grazing her fingers over the carved walls. She continued until she came across an area that felt carved, despite what her eyes told her.

"Hikari, is this portion of the wall covered? My eyes say it's not, but my hands say otherwise."

Walking over, Serena looked at it and exclaimed, "It has your real name!"

"My real…name?" she whispered.

"Yami's too. So you can't see it at all?"

"I can't hear it either. Whenever someone says it, it's like a blank, where the sound doesn't register."

"Hmm…" Serena chewed on her bottom lip, eyes trailing down until they reached her necklace, the cartouche still blank.

The light bulb went off at the same time for both of them.

"If you can see it…"

"And the necklace is blank…"

"Maybe you can…"

"Write it on for you?" Serena concluded. Looking at Yama, she asked, "Are you sure you want me to do this?"

"Well I doubt we could leave if you didn't." Yama knew it wasn't what her hikari meant.

"I'm serious."

"Remembering who I was then0now-whenever-isn't going to change how I am now. Did learning you were Serenity change you?"

"Not really…" Serena conceded.

"Then I'm not backing out of this."

Sighing, Serena glanced back to the name, to make sure it was the right one. Turning back to Yama, she picked up the cartouche, closed her eyes, and concentrated on the name she had seen.

Yama's breath caught as the symbols slowly wrote themselves onto the metal one by one. After what felt like an eternity, they stopped.

Yama turned it around once Serena handed it back. Staring at it, she slowly read, "A…ta…mi…? Atami?"

Once the name left her mouth, it was like a floodgate opened, Memories flooded in and slipped into place, as if they had never been missing. But the most overwhelming thing of all was the regaining of her sense of self, of who she had been.

Yet this was all in the background, it didn't change her, didn't make her something else. She was still who she had been before she remembered; only now she remembered the past. Silently Yama reflected that perhaps the darkness had changed her too much to be what she had been.

Once the memories slid back into place, Yama smiled at her beloved hikari, and said, "I'm still me, just as you're still you, regardless of the past."

Hearing this, Serena returned the smile. "Now we just have to figure out how to get out of—"

"—here?" She finished, blinking at the change. She and Yama were back in what they had been wearing before, back in the tunnels, and for some reason, Atami was fighting Sekhmet.

Parrying, Sekhmet commented, "Oh, it's you," like it was perfectly normal for people to appear out of nowhere.

This, of course, drew everyone's attention to them, leading to a near repeat of the hysteria resulting from their disappearance. To be fair, their reappearance caused Atami to lose her concentration on the fight, leading to Sekhmet to—randomly, it seemed—switch her attack to Yama.

Oddly enough, Sekhmet was the only one who wasn't surprised at the sudden appearance of the sais in Yama's hands when she moved to block. Smirking, she said, "That's interesting," before leaping back.

"Well, the time has come for me to leave," she declared.

"Yes; to leave the world of the living." Yama retorted, hands tightening around her sais.

"Sorry; 'fraid I can't exactly do that. Because you see…" With a wave of her hand, a shield flashed between her and the rest. "…My job here is done." She reached under her shirt and pulled off a chain with a key dangling from it.

One look at it and Serena knew they were in trouble. Swearing, she attacked the shield with a blast of magickal energy. "She's got a Time Key!"

"A what?" Exclaimed Seto.

"If we can't break through the shield, she can go to any time she wants!"

Disregarding their actions, Sekhmet raised the Time Key and began the incantation.

"Guardian of Time…

Let the Door of Time split the heavens and open to me…

I call you by your true name...

The all-knowing God of Time, the Father of the Guardian…

Chronos!

Lead me!

Protect me!

Send me the path of light!"

A purple-pink whirlpool appeared above her. Looking up, Sekhmet only briefly glanced back towards Serena and Yama, an unreadable expression on her face before she looked back up, leaping up into the whirlpool; the shield disappearing the moment the whirlpool closed behind her.

"Who WAS she? It was almost like she didn't care about anyone, friend or foe…" wondered Saturn, leaning causally on her Silence Glaive.

Frowning, Serena said, "She could have been a Guider."

"Guider/ What's that?" Asked Jouno and Joey together.

"A Guider is a person who plays a fairly important role in determining the correct outcome of events, but due to error or unavailability, can't actually be there, so they are allowed a Time Key to travel to the time they need to be at." Serena explained, with Saturn translating for Joey.

"How can there be error regarding the time a person is born when that is decided by the gods?" asked Shimon.

"Just as the gods decide who is born when to guide a sequence of events favorable to them, Chaos also works to change things, altering them and leading to situations like this. In that affect, Yama and I could also be called Guiders, but generally, their presence is not meant to be seen or felt."

"But how much of a difference did she really make? You said yourself that none of what is happening now was supposed to happen, so for all we know, she caused this situation to begin with." Said Atemu.

"As a rule, Guiders are only brought in when there is a possible future that requires a specific intervention. If that is the cause, then there is nothing we can do."

"Is this all that goes on? Trying to get the odds to turn out in your favor?" questioned Shimon, analyzing the situation with a bettor's eye.

"It ultimately comes down to maintaining the balance between good and evil until the end of Time itself," answered Yama.

"Balance?"

"Life and Death. Light and Dark. Good and Evil. That must all remain in balance. If good gains an advantage, evil compensates, and vice versa." Saturn explained.

"Where's Yugi? He could probably help me explain all this." Serena said, looking around for him.

"He and Yami weren't with you?" asked Ryou, his face stricken. "They disappeared the same time you did."

"No; it was just the two of us."

"Could Osiris have taken them at the same time you two disappeared?" asked Atami.

"But why take only them? If he were after all the Items and the Crystals, he would have taken all of us." Serena wondered.

"Crystals?"

Serena realized her slight slipup. "I have my own Crystal of power, what I thought Osiris was after the first time he attacked. Then again…" she trailed off, lost in thought.

"Then again, we never knew exactly what he was after. If he is after both the Item and the Crystals, I shudder to think what would happen if that kind of power was released all at once." Saturn explained.

"Hotaru, I may have imagined things, but you would know; doesn't Osiris feel a lot like Pharaoh 90 and Chaos?"

"You're right; he definitely feels like both of them, but that would only happen if he was their son."

"Pharaoh 90 was sealed around the time the Pharaoh and the Queen were born by their father. If I recall correctly, his second-in-command was named Osiris, and was sealed in a separate place from his leader." Said Shimon.

"I destroyed Pharaoh 90 roughly a year before he attacked us the first time. He was trying to fully escape from the dimension he was sealed in." Saturn said, eyes haunted as she remembered the feeling of living in a body breaking down, the feeling of watching helpless as an alien stole it for their own plans.

"It would make sense that his second-in-command would be his son. And his probable mother has been sealed for thousands of years." Serena pondered.

"So this could all be revenge, right? Revenge on the heirs of those who wronged him and his family." Shaada said.

"If that were the case, he would have tried to get rid of us as soon as possible; waiting for as long as he did, even factoring in the time it would have taken him to find a way out."

While the others continued their discussion, Yama looked over at Atami and said, "I have an answer to your question."

Atami turned to Yama. Once she did, Yama continued and said, "I once was, but not anymore."

It was a somber moment, insolated from the banter and chatter of the rest, as a girl gazed upon what she would become, and what she had become gazed upon the girl she had been.

No similar moment would come between their brothers, because their brothers had not been changed to the same drastic extent as they had.

It is hard to say what is hard: seeing what you will become and knowing you can't change it…or seeing what you had been, and knowing you can never go back, can never go back to that same state of innocence.

…I sure know how to end on a somber mood, don't I? Now I just have to survive exam week and then I get a four-day weekend before the start of the next semester, plus I've got a field trip coming up, so hopefully I'll get over the bug that has been passed around from my mom, to my dad, and now to me. Each link in the chain got sick as the other recovered.