Epilog

Silence ruled in the innermost ring of the Moon Palace, the mournful silence of the dead. It belied the struggle and strife of the four whose bodies lay in the pavilion that overlooked the crater. If not for the crimson that stained their clothes and the swords that lay where they had fallen, it would have seemed as though the four had merely fallen asleep.

Kunzite saw Beryl first, but he paid her little attention. The Queen in whose service he had come to the Moon was no more, but he was too numb to feel either relief or disorientation.

The sight of Sailor Venus sprawled across the marble floor left him numb as well, if in a different way. His eyes were still drawn to her fair face, her figure beautiful if beaten, her golden hair spilling around her as it had across his pillow, years ago. He was responsible for this, but all he felt was a deep hollowness inside he could not touch, let alone fill. With the hand he had left, he knelt down to touch her face, his bare fingers caressing her cold cheek as though in farewell, but the absence of life in her did nothing to change how he already felt. He could do nothing for her anymore. He was not sure he would have known what to do if he even could.

He rose and went to his Prince's side instead, where he belonged—where all this time he was supposed to be. The Silver Imperium Crystal lay beside Endymion where it had fallen from the Princess's grasp, scintillating more brilliantly than any diamond in the starlight next to a golden star locket with cracked face glass. It was a tiny thing, really, of insignificant size. It was the one thing Kunzite had come for, what he had promised to retrieve for his great master, what would guarantee her unbeatable power once and for all, yet now he found he had no desire whatsoever to touch the Crystal. Nor had he ever wanted it for himself, though it was free for the taking. His only concern was for his Prince.

He lowered himself to one knee, touching Endymion's hair and cradling his head. There was no question he was gone; the dark wound in his chest spoke clearly enough to that. If I had been only a few minutes sooner, Kunzite thought, would I have been able to see him alive one more time? Would I have been able to save him?

Even now Endymion and the Moon Princess seemed to him like children, his Prince's face recalling the tender camaraderie that had existed between himself and this man he grew up with and loved like a brother, since as far back as he could remember; the Princess, as innocent as that fair girl who had wandered Earthside on her own just to see the boy she loved. Neither of the young lovers deserved this fate. If only he had known what would happen—if only there had been some way to hold on to that love and loyalty he had felt for his Prince, to build it strong around him like impenetrable shield so that even Metallia's darkness could never have wormed its way in.

A spot of moisture darkened Endymion's chest, and Kunzite realized belatedly that the tear had come from him, even when he had felt himself numb inside—as numb as the side of his face that Venus had damaged in her last attack and the eye with which he could no longer see. Numb as the singed remains of his left arm wrapped tightly in his cape. That did not mean his heart was not breaking inside from his anguish and remorse, however, even if he could not feel it.

The sound of footfalls on the marble reached Kunzite's ear and he rose quickly, backing away from Endymion and the three women and hiding in the shadows behind a pillar. He did not wish to leave his Prince's side, but even more than that, he did not want to be caught here and blamed for these murders he did not commit, guilty though he knew he nonetheless was.

It was Queen Serenity who entered the pavilion, Artemis and Luna close behind. In her shimmering silver gown, perhaps the only one on this world still unmarred by the fighting and destruction outside, she seemed to him a cold mirage. Even her reaction to the scene was that of a cruel and beautiful angel, unable to shed a tear even at the death of her own child. As Artemis gaped in panicked disbelief, and Luna clutched a hand to her mouth to stifle a cry, staggering on her feet, the Moon Queen only swept toward her daughter and the Prince with furrowed brow. With aching tenderness she gazed upon their faces, but no emotion shown through; nor did Kunzite envy her the lot that had befallen her as the Moon Queen, to have trained herself over a thousand years to be a rigid and unyielding regent to the point she could no longer shed even a tear for her own daughter's demise.

She knelt to retrieve the Silver Crystal and the broken locket, listening to a few faint, garbled bars of its sad, tinny melody before placing the locket in Endymion's lifeless hand. Kunzite could bear to watch no more, and made a hasty exit. What of his comrades, he still did not know. It had been perhaps only minutes since he left them on the great steps, but it already felt like hours.

On the other side of the Palace, the fires still burned over the rooftops, their wild flames reaching high into the heavens, licking even at the airships that still battled above, the roar of their cannons blending together into a single, terrible hum that rolled over the planet in building, undissipating waves. As though the proverbial scales had been lifted from his eyes, for the first time Kunzite watched that clumsy airborne dance as though it were an illusion, some nightmarish vision disconnected from himself that he prayed to wake up from. Yet he knew he had been a part of it, and his regret lay in his gut like a heavy stone.

He turned his gaze down and surveyed the end result of the battle that had taken place on the great steps. The bodies of the Sailor Soldiers lay where they had fallen, unmoving; and, despite his actions before, he knew they had died in honor. Nephrite he could tell at a glance was gone to him, but the other two of his comrades—

He recognized Zoisite's form huddled over Jadeite's lifeless body and hurried down to where they were as fast as he was able, hope rising feebly within him which he clung to with all that he had left.

When Kunzite reached them, he put his hand to Zoisite's shoulder to rouse him, and was taken aback when the young man fell toward him at the touch. Kunzite was forced to his knees in order to catch him, and he turned Zoisite over across his lap with his good arm, expecting to find his younger friend either in tears or—as was often Zoisite's way—bitter laughter.

He found neither, and it was all he needed for that minute spark of hope that still burned inside him to be snuffed out completely.

The hilt of a dagger of ice protruded from Zoisite's middle, melting as his blood ran out from under it, and with the shift in position his hand fell limply from its grip. The skin of his neck, his face where Kunzite touched it, holding his comrade to him as best and as tight as he was able with his one good arm, was still warm—as warm as Zoisite had ever been in life—his parted lips still faintly pink. Perhaps as little as seconds had passed since he drew his last breath—there was no way for Kunzite to know—but there was none now. No heartbeat, no twitch in his knitted brow.

"Zoisite . . . why couldn't you have waited?" he found himself muttering, letting out a shaking breath of his own; but he knew better than to expect an answer.

He knew better than to think if he apologized now—for all of it—it would make a difference.

Why couldn't you have waited for me? Just a little bit longer. We could have been free from her forever, together. . . .

Fresh shells popped and the roar of their impact echoed in the distance. It made Kunzite raise his eyes, and when he did, he saw the Moon Queen standing at the top of the staircase. Pure and cold as ice itself, the blood drained from her already white skin as she looked out across the rooftops at the same sight that had greeted him. She descended a couple of stairs slowly, then sank down upon them like some despondent young girl on a curb, looking out at the damage they had wrought in the courtyard below, the death, the young, noble women who had fallen in her service. . . .

She looked everywhere but at Kunzite, but he knew she saw him there, holding his comrade's body. The two aliens did, and were not shy about letting him know it.

"The Silver Millennium has truly come to an end. There is no longer any denying that fact."

The Moon Queen spoke softly, but in the still air Kunzite heard her as clearly as though she were speaking into his mind. Her voice overflowed with a deep sadness and regret like he could not begin to imagine, that made his own grief pale in comparison, and he found himself staring at her in awe.

"My daughter is dead, as is Endymion. . . . I've lost all that matters to me. And those of my people who still live—there is nothing I can do to save them from their fates. If the Earthmen do not first do away with them, this world will when it falls. We are finished, and I have failed at my purpose. I have failed them all."

"My Queen. . . ."

It was Luna who spoke, even if it was through her tears. "Surely there was no way we could have known—surely this tragedy was beyond even your power to prevent."

The Queen turned to her with pain etched in her pale eyes. "Perhaps you are right, Luna, but it is not beyond my power to correct it, even if only in what small way I can. Even if it means breaking the laws I have sworn to uphold. When such laws were written into being, no one could have imagined what has happened here this night."

She held out her clenched hand before her, and as she unfolded her fingers, the Silver Imperium Crystal that rested inside caught the light and glowed, illuminating her face with it. Even though it only reflected the light of destruction, to Kunzite as he watched, there never appeared a more pure light than that which emanated from Serenity's hand.

As though drawn to it, gently he laid Zoisite back down against the steps beside Jadeite, and went to kneel before her. Artemis and Luna recoiled at his proximity, and no doubt at the grotesqueness of his wounds as well, but the Queen did not even acknowledge his presence. It made a sob that he quickly stifled rise in Kunzite's throat. After all he had done, he only desired now for that goddess's gaze to turn upon him, even if it held only condemnation. He could never say he did not deserve it wholly. Just do not ignore me, he thought, please, do not write me out of existence just yet. Not until she glimpsed the sorrow in him, he prayed, the regret he knew not how to adequately express in his bent head, and the total obedience with which he would have allowed her to condemn him to oblivion if she so chose at that moment.

"My Queen," he whispered in a raw throat, not certain if she even heard him.

It seemed as though hours went by before he felt her cool fingers brush his hair. It was only one brief moment, but it was all the recognition he required. In that minute touch, so light as to be almost imagined, was all the understanding, all the forgiveness he never deserved, and it made his heart feel as though it would burst.

He looked up, and saw that she was already rising again to her feet.

"Artemis," she said to the young alien man, making his eyes go wide as he stuttered a choked, "Your majesty?"

"Go to Sailors Saturn and Pluto, Artemis. Tell them their Queen needs one last favor of them."

He nodded his affirmation, but his eyes remained warily on Kunzite and he appeared reluctant to leave just yet.

"There is one thing that I still might do to combat this evil," Serenity told him and Luna, "if my heart can bear the power of the Imperium Silver Crystal. It will take all the strength I have left, all the strength left in this planet, but it may yet be possible to correct, if only in some small way, the mistakes I have made.

"I haven't the power to defeat this darkness, nor to undo everything it has done. But I can seal it away. I know not for how long, but perhaps it will be long enough for my daughter and her guardians to find enough strength in themselves to destroy it as I could not."

"Your majesty . . ." Luna began, uncertainly.

"We will send their souls to another time," the Queen said, answering her unspoken question. "All of them. All who have perished, who have been robbed of their lives tonight by that demon. I could give them a future, a clean slate—a bright new world in which they might start over. In which they might stand a chance."

The Moon Queen lowered her eyes, her fingers clenching around the Crystal and holding it to her breast with the determination her gaze did not necessarily hold.

"It will cost me my life. However, even that is a small price to pay for my daughter's future."

Artemis turned and ran off in the direction of the Crystal Tower to obey, as if suddenly shaken from a spell. The Queen, too, turned and strode with purpose back up the stairs, Luna at her side. Afraid of being left behind where there was only death and the past to accompany him, and feeling not uninvited, Kunzite followed a good distance behind.

Metallia loomed directly above them as they made their way across the crater floor, but Serenity not once looked up or wavered in fear, but held her head high, her gaze forward. The long silver pools splashed over their sides when blasts shook the ground beneath them, making it seem as though the computers that lay beneath their feet might at any moment be torn up like viscera from the ground. Was it Kunzite's imagination, or was it becoming more difficult to fill his lungs with air?

Saturn and Pluto were waiting for them when they arrived at the Tower, the former small and detached in the colors of decay, the latter baring Kunzite's way like the tall, proud priestess she was, like a savage warrior of some far-distant, more primitive time, when the gods still talked to men. Nor did he protest. He did not particularly care to follow the Moon Queen into her sanctum.

He turned instead and watched the black body of Metallia inch closer, like some dark and heavy storm cloud threatening a downpour. Her time was finished, though she did not know it yet. Even now, he could hear her blood-sated glee, her certainty, like a faint echo within himself, with each far off roar of the ships' guns. He thought with the death of Endymion and his comrades, nothing would bring him pleasure again, but that thought did. At last, she would suffer as she had made him suffer. At last, her reign of evil over this system would soon be at an end.

He would remember this night, he vowed to himself, in whatever future he found himself—he would find those he had lost and he would make sure the likes of this night were never permitted to happen again.

Even as a part of him already knew that was a lie.

—o—

What is this feeling? This queer, this alien sensation? The last vision I remember before succumbing to the darkness was Metallia's grinning visage above me, blotting out the stars, but now. . . .

A strange glow overwhelms me, a wonderful warmth that envelops me, takes me, and I am powerless to halt its progress, nor do I want to. In its hold I am weightless, helpless and safe as in the womb, and damned if I ever say I am reluctant to leave the confines of my body's flesh, and the corruption that overtook it, the blood of others' that stains it, far behind me. Finally I feel myself free of that darkness's hold, and even if I know somehow I cannot be rid of it completely, even if it is only locked away inside me, I am more grateful for this blissful quiet than I can ever express. I feel as though I could die from this happiness, but am I not dead already? And the silence that spills out over this world—after all that we have suffered, have you ever heard more beautiful music?

I can feel your presence near me, princess, as well as my master's, and in that I am complete. Floating through space, no longer a vast dark sea but illuminated with a billion brilliant stars—floating, all of us, to a brighter existence. Your fates have been intertwined with mine, and I know this is the doing of the Silver Imperium Crystal. What else but that—what else but the goodness and compassion of the Moon Queen could free us from this evil, and silence if only for one rapturous moment in time its incessant roar?

You asked me to tell you a story, Mercury, and for so long I thought it had reached its end. Now I know that this is only a turning point. The future is yet to be written, and us in it. What it will bring I cannot know, nor do I know how far ahead Serenity will send us, or if it will even be possible for us to find one another again in it—though somehow I believe with all me being we will. But I see in that future nonetheless many wondrous things—an easier world for all of us, perhaps not entirely free of conflict, but at last aware, once again, of the precious rarity of all life.

Perhaps in the future, those of us who were there will dream of the days when the Silver Millennium was wrapped in all the glory and gaiety of its height, and wonder why those dreams are so bittersweet, so much more vivid than our waking reality—why we wake mourning alliances and hearts broken and the soul's hopes crushed, but most of all mourning the unearthly beauty that is more real, more precious to us than we can explain in any words; and from their primal memory men will write of how somewhere, beneath the stars, a dead sea lies dark and sombre, but on its shores still gleams and glows in golden radiance an ivory city, beautiful as a poet's dream, silent as a city of the dead.

I will not forget you in that future, princess, whatever it may bring. That I promise you. And with any luck, someday we will find each other again—all of us. I pray that time we may get it right, and that fortune will send us to an era when the evil of fear and distrust no longer rules Mankind's heart and mind, but in which peace and understanding prevail.

Until then, princess, I can part from you in good conscience—your forever faithful. . . .

—o—

Tokyo, 1978 C.E.—

The young boy wandered once again away from his parents, the sight of the big city spread out around the hospital drawing him like a magnet to the windows. Tokyo Tower, its lights blinking feebly in the distance against the overcast sky, cast a spell on him like he couldn't explain, as though beckoning him to itself.

There was something out there for him. That much it seemed to tell him. He did not yet know what, or when he would find it—or it, him—but he knew it was out there nonetheless.

He was a precocious six-year-old. That was what the nurses said when they saw him wandering the halls as though lost in his own train of thought, his curious greenish eyes taking in everything and nothing at the same time. That was why they didn't mind him exploring the facility on his own. That was why, they said, he was taking this move to the main island so well, and his mother's illness that had precipitated it. Whether that were true or not, he could not say; he only knew how to be what he was, but he was not sure he really was the person whom everyone called by the name his parents had given him.

But he loved the city he could now call home, the big city that was to him like some huge and wondrous living thing, and the strange music it sang to him.

He hummed a bit as he wandered, and before he knew it, he had somehow found himself in the birthing ward, standing before the window that separated new fathers from their newborn infants.

Mr Urawa alone stood at the window of the nursery with him, but the boy did not know that was his name, nor did they introduce themselves. He watched the man watch his son—only a day old—sleeping soundly in his crib, all wrapped up in white, while the other infants cried around him until they were red in the face. Mr Urawa had to smile at that, and the pride he felt for his kid nearly brought a tear to his eye.

"Which one's yours?"

The boy looked over at the question. "What?"

"You have a new baby brother or sister in there?"

The boy gave the question some thought, then shook his head. He'd just ended up here, but he didn't know how to explain that to the man.

Nor did the man seem to need an explanation as he smiled in understanding. Everyone seemed old to the boy, but Mr Urawa still looked younger than most men who were starting to gray like he was. He seemed like someone who knew a lot, like a doctor or a scientist, though maybe, the boy conceded, it was just because he was wearing glasses.

Mr Urawa pointed at the window. "That's my son," he said proudly. "The one in the second to last row, sound asleep."

The boy followed his directions to the one infant that was not making a fuss, and to the face that was pudgy even by a baby's standards and the big, dark eyes. "We're naming him Ryo."

"Ryo," the boy repeated to himself. He wasn't sure why the sound of that name, common though it was, stuck with him—like deja vu, or when he knew he had to remember something his mother told him and just couldn't quite get it.

Mr Urawa let out a deep breath, almost in relief, and nodded. "It's a good, strong boy's name. Don't you think?"

"More than my name," the boy said.

Mr Urawa seemed surprised to hear something so adult-like from this six-year-old. He asked, "And what's that?"

"Kaoru."

"But that's a nice classical, noble name. 'Fragrance' . . ."

"It's a girl's name."

Mr Urawa laughed aloud at that. When he had sobered, he apparently didn't have anything contradictory to say to that—and besides, the boy seemed so convinced already—so he changed the subject.

"In any case," he said, "I hope perhaps it will help to make him into a strong, resilient person. Or maybe that's just my wishful thinking. But a boy needs to be tough of spirit if he's going to be moving around a lot. See," he said with a slight tilt of his head, as though the boy had needed more of an explanation (or maybe, the boy thought, the man just really needed someone else to talk to), "in my line of work, my family won't have the luxury of staying in any one place too long. That's got to be hard on a growing boy. Don't you think so? Change is generally good for all living things, but you have to allow them enough time to put out some roots, right, if they're going to establish themselves? Especially when they're young."

The boy shrugged. "I guess so," he said, but he wasn't really sure what the man meant about roots. He wasn't sure he agreed with the thing about change, either. People told him the same thing to make him feel better about coming to the city, but he didn't know he needed cheering up.

Like how they called him a gloomy boy because he thought too much, and they thought it must be because his mother was in the hospital, but the boy never felt particularly gloomy to begin with.

"Well, maybe you'll understand when you're a little older."

The boy looked up to see Mr Urawa smiling down at him. "You'll understand for sure when you have kids of your own."

The boy wrinkled his nose. Him, have kids? The thought was just gross.

Mr Urawa laughed at him again for his expression, then started as he turned back to the window. "Look!" he whispered. "My little boy's waking up."

The boy stood on his tiptoes in order to see the baby his father called Ryo stirring out of his nap. Ryo did not cry out or raise any sort of fuss, just balled his fists clumsily and opened his eyes. They were wide and black and the deepest the boy had seen on just about anyone, let alone a one-day-old infant. They were like two galaxies swirling around super-massive blackholes.

And they seemed to be directed straight at him.

The boy thought for a moment that his heart stopped in his chest, because it was almost like the baby Ryo knew him just by the way he was staring, hard and unblinking and completely calm—as though he recognized that something deep down inside that the Tokyo Tower with its blinking light seemed to be calling.

Making the boy feel like he had been here before. What was that his mother had said about karma again?

"Have you ever seen anything so miraculous?" Mr Urawa said, startling the boy out of his stare, and he couldn't help nodding in agreement, even though it was clear the man was only speaking from fatherly pride.

He wasn't sure why the baby Ryo made him feel this way, but someday, he knew, he would figure it out. The feeling was too strong for him not to. Someday, everything in his life would make a whole lot more sense.

Until then, he decided, he could be patient with his given name, and with his mother's disease and his family's moving around and adults' misunderstanding him. Somehow he knew the reward when it came would be worth that and a whole lot more.

End of Rubies in Zoisite

Special thank you to Soylent Green (she's made of people!) who first hosted this story on her site, the Scrumpdiddlyumptious Dark Kingdom Love Revival, and provided invaluable encouragement in the early stages of its writing.

Thanks also to Komadori, who gave me the push I needed to get back into the swing of things and renew my efforts when this story was in a slump.

Thanks as well to everyone at forums-dot-shitennou-dot-com for the support and feedback and for putting up with my lurkerness. :) I know everyone has their own takes on these characters, and I appreciate the encouragement despite that, and the ability to explore different ideas openly because of it.

And to everyone who's read or reviewed, my heartfelt appreciation. This was my first fanfic that wasn't just for shits-and-giggles, and I don't think I could have made it all the way through without the support of such an awesome fandom. Much love!

Rubies in Zoisite, 1999-2008