Kanshaku remembered a night so long past it seemed naught more but a dream, when her Lord had whispered into her mind and awoken her dormant self. She remembered the Queen who had worked so hard to seal away this imminent threat and to prevent its revelation. Such a fool that woman was. And now she would take retribution against her daughter. Reveling in memories are we, Kanshaku? "Of course. Nothing better than stoking the old pain to make the end much sweeter." My lovely Kanshaku… one who longed for death but found herself again where she had always been meant to be. The fires of your rage shall scourge this world into our own domain once more. But there will be one who feels those fires first… "My sister shall feel the full force of my wrath ere I confront any other. That I vow." And then she knew they were there, the senshi, on that desolate planet fighting their way through her assassin forces to find her throne room. She had instructed her own forces to not kill them but merely play, as a cat does with a mouse before homing in on the kill. Only, in this case, the kill was all hers. The Senshi made it to the throne room not completely unscathed, but just how Kanshaku had wanted them. Still she sat carefree in her throne of blackest night. The Senshi were dumbfounded a moment, unsure what to make of her. A glorious goddess sat on a throne in the hall of hell. The smile deepened on her face. Oh how fun this would be! She heard a whimper from one of the girls. The senshi of the moon stepped forward, half in disbelief. "Kan-chan… I… I don't-" "Oh," Kanshaku interrupted, "I think it makes perfect sense, as far as I'm concerned." "Damn you! Damn you to hell!" Jupiter screamed, Mercury's one hand holding her back. "Been there, done that. Try again." She raised one elegant hand and Jupiter's body flew forcefully backwards. She slammed into the far back wall, sliding to the floor, and barely holding herself upright by one hand. Sailor Moon screamed, tears flooding quickly to her eyes. She turned back around to face Kanshaku. "Why? What have we done to you?!" One lovely lip twitched. "The quaintness of lost memories. I bet her plan also included my irradication out of history. Well, we'll see what comes of it." She slowly rose, the silky white gown slithering as it fell towards the floor. The attacks began, and rolled away from her body harmlessly. By will alone she separated Venus from the group. The attacks stopped. Venus rose high in the air while the rest of the senshi were made immovable. "You… You I will enjoy first." Dark energy crackled around her body. "How long I have waited for this. For the moment I should look upon your face. You've changed. It took me far too long to recognize who you were, but then I realized. No more mistakes and no more waiting." She sent a surge of electricity to curl around the suspended senshi. Venus' scream echoed sharply across the hall. "Stop! Please, oh please, stop!" Moon cried. "What do you want from us!" Mars yelled. Behind Kanshaku, before the throne, a figure began to form. A lithe male form solidified, being first unnoticed until he spoke. "You know, Kanshaku, perhaps you should tell them. Blocked memories are a tricky thing. Perhaps you should," he gestured with one elegant hand, "how to put this delicately, encourage their rememberance?" Kanshaku smiled. "Lovely idea. Yes, yes, I should!" At that, a pressure built in the room, it permeated all the senshi, tearing at their essences, seeping into their minds. They felt a tearing, a searing, and when it was all done, and the pressure lessened, they opened their eyes to look upon Kanshaku and knew her. But they still did not understand for they had never known the truth. "I am the Guardian of Ishtar. I who was thought to be destroyed. Here, I am proof! I am alive and cannot die! I never did. The planet Venus is an imposter. A fake. Merely a replacement." A wind tore at Venus, slicing her skin and leaving deep, bloody trails. Weakly, she glared at her attacker. "I will not yield to you. You betrayed us!" "So you say. But you forget so easily, perhaps you don't remember so clearly. It was you who ostracized me. You who never had more than pity for me. You who destroyed my life!" She turned her back to her sister, taking a moment to close her eyes. "You did that yourself!" Venus called back. But it fell on deaf ears. "Kanshaku," the man spoke up again, "do not forget there are others." She tilted her head to peer at the others. Sailor Moon's face was soaked with her tears, Mercury looked on in horror. The other two looked angry and full of contempt. "Yes. My sister was not the only one to do this." Slivers of gold riding upon a torrential wind ripped at the other senshi, shredding their clothes and flesh. She let them free of the immobility, allowing them to slump faint on the marble floor. She heard her sister yell for her to stop, barely heard it, above the storm of screams. "So beautiful, isn't it, Kanshaku? This sweet vengeance." She walked to the man on the throne, slipping a leg over his own and lounging sensuously across his lap. She placed a hand on his face tenderly before kissing his lips. "Very sweet, my master." Venus, from her pivotal point above the chamber fought at the invisible bonds that held her. Kanshaku turned her head to smile cheerfully at her. "Oh, Minako! If only you knew how exhilarating this is!" She giggled loudly erupting into a boisterous laugh. Her master's hand slid slowly across her leg moving to her inner thigh. It pressed hard to the cleft between the thighs and her laugh melted to a desperate moan. She leaned back across the arm of the throne pressing hard against the hand. "Bitch." She stopped, glancing up at her sister. "That's right, you were always selfish, weren't you? Never did have any sense of morals." "Morals?! How-" "Oh dear, have I upset you again?" She moved off her master's lap, the man, a god. She walked until she was mid-way across the room. "Yes, I believe I have upset you." She tilted her head to the side, smiling, and Venus fell from her suspended place hard on the black marble. She waited until Venus has painfully stood before approaching her and frankly slapping her across the face. "You bore me. I've said all I wanted to say. All I want from you now are your screams. Screams to fill the eternal silence." Before her, she encased Venus in the dark, electrical energy before subjecting her to a torrent of glittering wind. Venus screamed. Her throat was rough and raw, but she continued to scream. "Stop… please!" Moon's voice cried off to the side, barely audible above the screams. The other senshi were unconscious, but Sailor Moon lay on her side facing Kanshaku. Her eyes were open, pleading and in pain. Kanshaku let Venus' torment continue as she strode over to Sailor Moon's body. "And why should I? I received far worse. She deserves no pity for me because she gave me nothing more so." Moon took a deep breath and pulled herself halfway upright. "Why did you leave us? I never understood…" Kanshaku paused. "You were just like the rest of them. How can you say you don't know!" "Satomi, I-" "I am not Satomi! Satomi is dead!" "I… I'm sorry…. Kan-chan…" She looked away. "How can I ease your pain if I don't even understand why? Oh, why did you leave, Kan-chan! Why did you leave?" "I did nothing more than what you did. I stayed loyal to the one I loved." She let Venus go from her torment and turned away from Sailor Moon. "What are you doing, Kanshaku?" her master demanded. But Kanshaku did not answer. "You were so like me, Kan-chan," Moon whispered. "We both loved desperately, we were both loyal. And you always were, weren't you?" She tried to stand. "And like me, you were a protector, a warrior, you were the Guardian of Ishtar. You still are." A light changed in her eyes. Holding her side, she took a step forwards towards Kanshaku. The other senshi had aroused; Jupiter had crawled to Venus' prone form and held the limp body in her arms. The god who had sat on the throne had now stood. A visible darkness emanated from him barely held in constraint. And Kanshaku stood by herself, oddly quiet now. As though she had realized something but yet could not divine what exactly. "You were just like me, weren't you? Like all senshi. You're connected to your planet, you feel its pain and its pleasure. And should something happen to it… it in turn happens to you…" "Kanshaku! Shut her up! You obey me, now do it!" "I love you. Then and now. I always have. I remember now, you believed in me. And I believed in you. I still do. You will never know how much joy you brought me." "Everyone was so cruel to me. They hated me. Rynth... oh, god, Rynth! They took him away from me!" She covered her face. The god strode over to her, taking her shoulders in his hands, shaking her. "They did hate you. So destroy them, now! You have your vengeance, so obliterate them!" "He only wants to hurt you, Kan-chan! That's what he's done all along. All these years, these millennia… he's been feeding off of your own power! None of it was his. It was all yours!" "Yes, your power and mine both. She doesn't know, doesn't understand. Stupid woman. Destroy her, Kanshaku. End her ceaseless rambling." "Kan-chan… set yourself free-" "You're mother prevented that!" Kanshaku shouted back heatedly. "She took away my death. She made me immortal!" "Oh… Satomi…" "I'm not Satomi!" "Yes. That's right. Because you never were, were you? Nor are you Kanshaku. What is your true name? The one he stole from you?!" Kanshaku moved away from her master. In one breath of a moment, she nearly grasped the name. But a darkness covered it quickly from sight. "You lie! I am Kanshaku. I forever have been!" "That's only what he told you. He took your true name from you and you've never been able to be free. He can't hurt me, he doesn't have physical substance. He can't hurt anyone. But you and through you. And he has used you." "I will send you to a torment of hell, Kanshaku, if you don't do what I say!" And then is when the real battle began, for the darkness that had long permeated the essence known as the Guardian of Ishtar had increased, attempting to hide further the real soul of the senshi. But she had sensed something not touched for far too long. A whiff of truth, real truth. She dove for it, within herself, followed fast by the darkness. It sought to stop her, to prevent the truth from being set free. But she was stronger, had always been so. Through the deep darkness she ran, to the core, the beginning. And somehow, she found it. It had taken the chance to meet her halfway, far away from its haven, and found her as well. There was an explosion of light around her. The god now merely demon fell away. The light purified her, through and through as all the evil of the centuries fled. When it was done, she was left hollow, but satisfied. A sense of freedom within her. And her true name. Her hair had changed once more, it seemed, to a platinum color that fled to the floor. "My name, as it has always been, is __________" She was weak. The energy to purify herself had depleted it of its core energy. She didn't have much left. But she was oddly happy. Oh yes. Because the purification had broken the mortality binding the High Queen had left. Now she was really free. She had enough left to destroy the demon, not much more than that. "Serenity. You and your guardians must leave. I have not much time left and there are still things to be done." She closed the gap between herself and the Guardian of the Moon. "Thank you. You were honestly my only true friend. Thank you." She hugged her, holding her close, before setting her from her. Moon did not want to let go, her hands clinging to ________'s forearms. "You muzt go." "I know…" She smiled tenderly. "I never was accepted by the others, but you… you did accept me. No matter anything else about you, you loved me. And I you." She pulled away then. Sailor Moon brushed at the tears and wetness on her face. She tried to smile before going to her senshi. Venus was barely conscious, but conscious nonetheless. The others were as well, and together they held hands and left the palace, the planet Ishtar. On Earth, Sailor Moon looked up to the sky. The tears never ceased, nor did she think they would for some time. The pain that had hurt so many people so many years ago had never healed. She hoped things could begin to now. But who could say, when there had been so much pain dealt. For what are we, we human creatures, without the simplest necessity of hope? And on the planet Ishtar, a young woman stood, with that simplest of hope restored, even in the smallest amount more powerful than any other power she had experienced. The demon crouched before her, nameless as he had ever been, and she neither hated him or pitied him. Into the chamber she commanded a servant. When the servant arrived, she bad him fetch her successor. She had one more task before finishing it all. When the door opened once more, a young man entered. Her son. When their clan had been banished, she gave birth to a boy child. He was her last joy, and to preserve his innocence and goodness, she had raised him slightly over the years. Letting him age a few days at a time over the course of years. He had never noticed the passing time, not really. But now, in her purified state, she looked him through and through, with the aid of her powers, and found him pure as she had always hoped. Strong willed, tenacious, spunky at times, his will was still for the good of the people, as a proper leader should. As his father had always practiced. She walked to her confused son and kissed his forehead. "My son, I must leave you now. My time is at an end. Let the be no vengeance, only rule as a proper leader should." "Mother?" Smiling, she held him close. "I love you. Now it is your time. And should you meet the Queen Serenity, trust her indefinitely. Rule well." She stepped away from her son, pained at having to leave him so abruptly, but knowing instinctually that he would make all proud. The light within her spread outward, disintegrating the demon in its wake, moving inward toward the planet and purifying the entire world from the inside out. When all was done, the light never faded from the young woman, rather, she faded from it. And slowly, the light dimmed as well. But never from the world. Oh never. Light, hope. So similar, perhaps they were, inevitably, the same.