WARNING:  This is an AR.  An alternative ending to the S-season, 
containing spoilers for the last battle between the daimon forces and 
the Sailor Senshi.



	She found herself floating amongst the pieces of a dead planet, 
uncountable miles away from where she had expected to end up.  The 
babe at her breast was crying.  Blue eyes looked worriedly down at the 
child, murmuring reassurances.  Who it was comforting was harder to 
say, since both the babe and the girl holding the child were 
distressed.  On any other day, the odango-blonde who aliased herself 
as Sailormoon on the streets of Tokyo would have broken into a wail at 
the fear pounding in her chest.  She would have wailed and wailed, but 
it was the babe in her arms that was wailing and she felt like she 
wasn't really herself at the moment.  She had someone else to distract 
her, someone else she could be strong for, and someone else to think 
of and worry for other than the fear.

	The door, which really was more of an opening than a door, had 
closed behind her before she could react.  The being that had once 
been on this side of the portal had been destroyed.  She didn't know 
if it was entirely gone, but she prayed for her friends' sakes that it 
was.  The demon who called herself Mistress Nine had called that being 
Master, had given the fear a name: Pharaoh Ninety.  She had her first 
glimpse of it through the portal connecting their two worlds.  The 
sight had terrified her.  She couldn't really say why or what had made 
her feel such revulsion, but it had struck her with a clarity she had 
not been prepared for.

	Many youma had done so, but for a split second or two, she had 
been unable to move because of her fear.  Not a whimper, not a sound, 
she wasn't even able to complain as she was wont to do when she 
encountered a situation not to her liking.  This time it was 
different.  If she had taken note of it, she might not have been in 
this situation.  It was hard to tell.  One could never really say what 
could have happened instead...

	The babe's cry was different this time.  Its whimpers forced 
her out of her dazed contemplations.  "Are you hungry?" she asked 
worriedly.  "Oh, Hotaru-chan, what are we going to do?"

	For all her strength, for once, Sailormoon wasn't sure she would 
be able to survive this one in-tact.


On the other side of the labyrinth
We discovered that the secrets we
were searching for, were no more 
than the lies we were speaking of.


Little Girls, Lost
by blue

	There are moments in everyone's life when, for a split second, 
you think to yourself: "I really wish I could turn back time..."  
Sailormoon was having one of those moments that very second.  She 
didn't want to.  She wanted to say she was noble enough, brave enough, 
to do it again even knowing the results, but she didn't know if that 
was the whole truth.  All she knew was that she didn't want to be 
where she was now.

	The debris of the system littered around her.  Twin suns shone 
in the distance, their light burning her even where she stood, 
millions and millions of miles away.  The very rocks she stood upon 
were broken chunks of a planet destroyed.  She wiped her brow of the 
gathering sweat, noting the nervous shaking of her hands.  She clamped 
her teeth against the trembling of fear from her lower lip and forced 
herself not to whimper.  Where was the cheerful girl she was but hours 
ago?  Where was the one who encouraged her friends on winning against 
all odds?  What could have changed so much about her when all the 
influences were outside of herself?

	She didn't have the answers anymore.

	The first day was the hardest.  She was injured, exhausted, and 
hungry.  Fear made her unable to fall into a much needed sleep.  The 
child in her arms cried whenever it woke, which was more often then 
she would have liked.  She hated herself for thinking of her once 
friend as a burden, so she pushed away the thoughts and concentrated 
on finding food when the baby fell asleep.  She used her long waist 
bow to tie Hotaru around her shoulders, thanking her fortunes, for 
once, on having had a younger brother.  She remembered going to her 
Grandmother's place and having the old woman teach her how to tie a 
simple knot around her brother's young body to strap onto her small 
back.  She had been seven when she was taught how to carry around her 
little brother before he could walk.  "One day you might need it," she
had said, though her grandmother probably meant the usage for when Usagi 
had her own kids.

	She hopped from rock to rock before going back to where she 
started off.  There was no one around to be seen.  The system seemed 
empty.  She wondered where the species went.  Surely Pharaoh Ninety was 
not the only living being here.  Surely, there must have been someone 
else!  But for the first day, she could not move further.  So she 
slept with Hotaru in her arms for the first time under a black sky and 
cold stars that she no longer found romantic.  "Mamo-chan," she 
muttered before falling into an exhausted sleep.  "Someone, please, 
come and save us."


				-


	On the third day, she began to speculate that she didn't need 
food when she was Sailormoon.  She didn't know why it was so, and she 
didn't have Sailormercury there to explain it to her in convoluted and 
complicated Japanese-mixed-English scientific terms either.  Her eyes 
were swollen because she had spent the second day crying when her 
search for food and water had turned out to be pointless.  Her 
communicator also had only static in view, so there was no hope there.  
She soothed the hungry Hotaru somehow, but she was too emotional to 
remember how.  All she knew was that after holding the child, she had 
felt exhausted and emotionally drained of everything.  On the third 
day, when she woke, she realized that she was still alive.  She didn't 
know if that was a good sign that she could still walk or that she 
knew she could even fight if she had to if it came down to it -- 
though she was not at all mentally or emotionally ready for an attack.  
She wished she knew how long a human could go without food to confirm 
if this was normal or abnormal.  She wished whole-hearted for her 
mother's cooking to soothe her and comfort her with the reassurance of 
home.

	She didn't want to be a Sailor Senshi anymore.

	This blessing of not needing the necessities did not mean she 
did not feel hunger or thirst.  She felt them, though she had a 
feeling that if Sailormars was around, she would promptly be lectured 
about how it had more to do with her expectations of hunger and thirst 
than actually being hungry or thirsty.  Mars did that to her once when 
they were going to fight Queen Beryl that first time.  "It's all in 
how you think about it," the dark-haired soldier explained to her 
princess with an arrogant flip of her hair.  "If you don't dwell on 
it, you won't feel it."  At the time, Sailormoon wasn't in any mood to 
agree as she was feeling like a frozen Popsicle and it didn't matter 
to her why she was feeling like she was sitting in a freezer.  
However, after three days in the deserted system, she realized she 
didn't need air or heat.  Her Senshi form could take it and it was 
healing the wounds from her previous battles as well.  She didn't know 
for how long the magick of this form would last, she didn't even know 
if she was alive or not, but she clung to the hope that her friends 
would come for her.

	"Oh, Hotaru-chan," she whispered when the baby began to whimper 
upon waking.  "How are we to get home again?"

	The baby looked at her in silence for a moment, as if it 
understood.  Sailormoon sighed and gave the child a weak smile.  For 
some reason, Hotaru began crying violently again.  "Is there something 
on my face?"  Sailormoon grumbled at the unhappy baby.  But it didn't 
even pause to look at her this time and just cried more loudly.

	"Sorry, sorry!" she amended as she began to rock it back and 
forth in an awkward manner.  She didn't know how to soothe a child in 
such a manner.  Grandmother had tried to teach her once, but when she 
nearly dropped Shingo on his head, he was promptly removed from her small 
arms then.  "Don't worry Hotaru-chan.  I won't drop you on your head!"  
Sailormoon reassured the child.  "I like you!"

	The baby gurgled at her, and for a moment Sailormoon thought she 
could make through this trial, so long as Hotaru was there with her.  
She was so very grateful for the other girl.  However, that relief did 
not last long as Hotaru began to cry again, all the tears Sailormoon 
no longer had the strength to shed.


				-


	On the seventh day, Sailormoon was sure she didn't need food or 
liquid -- at least not for awhile.  She didn't even feel faint or too 
weak to walk around.  She thought she knew the terrain pretty well by 
now, at least the ones around her.  She stopped crying on the fourth 
day when the headache from the crying forced her stop and she ran out 
of liquid to spare for tears.  The environment was harsh, bare, and 
broken.  The twin suns looked somewhat odd in her eyes because she was 
so used to having just one.  They made a strange contrast, but it 
could not be helped and she feared that she was getting used to it.

	She walked around aimlessly with a growing Hotaru on her back.  
For some reason, Hotaru seemed to be growing at an alarming rate.  
Already, in seven days -- even without food -- the child was looking 
less like a newborn and more like someone at least one or two years 
old.  Hotaru was also glowing, even though there was a slightly 
emaciated look to her.  The child had started glowing a purplish 
haze on the first night and hadn't stopped glowing since.  The symbol 
that had briefly graced Sailormoon's forehead whenever she was in 
Princess mode pulsed under her tiara.  Hotaru was no different, the 
sigil of Saturn blazing on her small forehead.  Looking at the sight, 
Sailormoon questioned her and her fellow senshi's humanity as she had 
never done before, not since becoming one.

	Could humans really endure what she was going through now?

	It was during such a pondering that her foot knocked against a 
rock with her old clumsiness.  She paused with a wince and looked 
down.  What she saw made her jump far and away.  The shell was crusted 
with dust and if Sailormoon didn't know better, she would have sworn 
that it was the same seeds she had seen the daimon revert back to upon 
defeat.  Sailormercury had once retrieved the remaining fragments of 
such a thing, and had pieced the fragments together.  They had stored 
away the evidence in a lock-box, one that had been opened specifically 
for the purpose of keeping the remains of their previously fought 
enemies.

	'If Rei-chan saw me now, she'd scold me mightily for being such 
a coward,' Sailormoon thought nostalgically.  Yet the egg just laid 
there, seemingly harmless.  She grumbled to herself before taking out 
her scepter and setting aside Hotaru, giving herself enough space to 
do battle should it turn out to be a battle.

	The familiar words of magick poured out of her, and for a split 
second she felt as if she really wasn't alone in some foreign galaxy.  
Instead, she was back home with her friends again, fighting evil to 
save Earth from destruction before going home.  Yet, even though once 
she had felt resentment for having to shoulder such responsibilities 
as Sailormoon, she never felt such a weary distress.  She had never 
really hated the fact she was who she was.  When the light of her 
destructive powers disappeared, Sailormoon found herself standing on 
barren grounds, and utterly alone.  The egg was smashed by her powers, 
shuddering and cracking open as she was used to seeing it react.  Only 
this time, instead of revealing black shadowed smoke and emptiness, 
something sparkled beneath the ashes and the rays of the twin suns.

	Carefully Sailormoon approached it, nudging it with her foot to 
see if it would jump at her.  If asked later what drew her to 
investigate it, Sailormoon would have answered that it was fear.  She 
would come to forget the curiosity that urged her on.  She would not 
remember that her hands had been steady because she thought they had 
trembled slightly when she had reached for it.  She would not remember 
that she had turned uncertainly once to ask for Hotaru's opinion of 
the matter, even though the child was too young to remember how to 
speak.  All Sailormoon could remember clearly and truthfully, was the 
fact that she knew with a bone deep certainty that this might be her 
last hope home.  So she picked up the rock with her gloved hand, and 
the world fell away.


				-


	Tsukino Usagi was someone who was used to sleeping through her 
history lesson.  Osaka Naru would verify that when Usagi stayed awake 
for a history lesson, that would be when the world ended.  It was, 
however, a bit difficult to fall asleep to one when it was like a reel 
playing in your head.  Sailormoon did fall asleep once to it, after 
over-taxing herself with the rocks, but she discovered that it gave 
her such vivid and lively nightmares that repeating it was not 
something she would do if she could help it.  Sailormoon would come to 
call the rock, Story Rock -- though had Sailormercury been there, it 
might have received a more dignified name.  The first time Sailormoon 
was in contact with it, she wasn't quite sure what she did.  It took 
her awhile to even get the hang of suddenly losing ground in the world 
she lived in.

	It was obviously not built for a mind like her own to operate, 
at least not a mind that saw things linearly.  Then again, beings like 
Pharaoh 90, she was soon discovering, were far different than she had 
previously thought.  Though the Story Rocks was just retelling parts 
of the planet's history, it made these beings frighteningly real.  She 
was beginning to see them as more than daimon, and that scared her.

	She wasn't sure how long she was gone or when she returned to 
the reality she left behind so suddenly.  All she knew for certain was 
that she just had one of the most out-of-body experiences of her life, 
next to that time she died, that is.  It was with that first stone, 
that spoke of a time of the prosperity of a planet called Redbud 
Blossom, when Sailormoon first began learning a bit more about her 
enemies on this side of the galaxy.  She didn't know how the thing 
survived Sailorsaturn's destructive powers, but it did.  The sun light 
made it glow a shade of red that gave the illusion that the black 
stone burned with an unseen fire.  Sailormoon stared at it in 
fascination for quite awhile before she set it down.  There was a lot 
to think over.

	The Story Rock she found was one of many, scattered in the ashes 
of a dead planet.  It was waiting.  Sailormoon would later come to 
think that it was waiting for her to find it.  The history in those 
rocks was waiting for her, so that they to tell their tale one last 
time.

	One last tale for a race that was now extinct.


				-


	The beings that lived on the planet Redbud Blossom discovered 
millennia ago the power to manipulate time.  It was not like 
Sailorpluto's powers, one limited by rules because of its power to 
change the past.  Those of Redbud Blossom were governed by none of 
these rules, nor by sacrifices, because they did not possess the power 
to change what was done in the past.  Instead, they ruled over the way 
time was ran.  Time, to them, was something that one controlled, like 
the speed of one's car or the pace of one's walk.  They couldn't go 
backwards, but they could slow the process of it or increase the speed 
by will.  Some citizens of Redbud Blossom lived longer than even 
Sailormoon had thought possible, longer than she would have imagined 
empires had the power to live, or planets for that matter.  Some lived 
in the blink of an eye and did things as she could only have dreamt of 
doing, even in that blink.

	Things on Redbud Blossom were good, until the very trees that 
the planet was named after -- the source of such powers -- began to 
die.  It was not because of anything really catastrophic.  No aliens 
from outer space came to attack them.  The people did not fight each 
other and were at peace.  It was just the planet's time.  The speeding 
and slowing by those that lived upon it might have aided in its 
gradual decline, but not by much.  And so, new solutions were brought 
to the table on how to survive the death of their planet, and this 
time there was a need for sacrifices to be made.

	It was a ritual of power.  Those who were born with it, and who 
did not have the specified backings ordained by destiny, were doomed 
to die for the planet by the time they were old enough to control 
their gift.  Mistress Nine was such a being.  By the age of what 
Sailormoon would describe as one, the being that possessed Tomoe Hotaru 
was able to speed her growth process in a way that others had to grow 
into at a later age.  Mistress Nine was gifted amongst those with 
gifts.  She had charisma, power, and so much more, but she was doomed 
to die.

	Sailormoon saw that the being did not even mind it.  Had thought 
it necessary because that was what it had been taught.  Had been 
willing because it knew if it did not help pool its power into the 
planet, the people would die anyway.  She was born in a desperate 
time, Mistress Nine, for unlike her ancestors who had died to preserve 
just the Redbud Blossom, one of the suns was beginning to fail.  
Mistress Nine was one of the many who were chosen, for the first time, 
to support both the dying sun and the dying planet.

	It might have worked, had Professor Tomoe Souichi not broke open the 
door between their two worlds the moment Mistress Nine gave up her 
physical form.  The rest was history, really.  Tomoe Hotaru was the 
one who was possessed by this being who no longer had a physical body, 
and Pharaoh Ninety began his bid for Earth, a system lush with 
possibilities that their old planet was no longer able to maintain.

	They needed to wipe out those inhabiting Earth to begin a new 
garden for their Redbud Blossom trees.  They needed to reconstruct the 
time system upon Earth.  They needed to survive.  And so they called 
the new coming era the Era of Silence, in reverence of those who had 
been sacrificed before them to reach this point in time.  It was then 
that the wars between daimon and the Sailor Senshi first began to take 
root.  It was a race to see who was stronger, because the winner was 
the one who took home the prize of life.


				-


	Sailormoon found more and more of these rocks as the days passed 
by.  She took to marking the rock Hotaru and her inhabited, marking 
what she thought were days by etching marks upon the brittle surface.  
Sixty-six marks later, one of the twin suns faded out.  Sailormoon 
watched with alarm as the light of one sun snuffed out of existence in 
a two day period.  She wasn't sure what went on or how stars died, but 
this was not a sight she expected.

	Urgency and doom nipped at her heels as she stood rooted and 
watched the star fade.  And then, it was like a black planet in the 
distance, hanging in the darkness.  She wouldn't have known it was 
there had there not been another sun to shine upon the charred 
surface.  Had there not been rivers of orange laced across the once 
bright star.  And then, not long after that, even the embers died and 
cooled, and then there was one sun.

	Hotaru had grown to the age of eight in seventy-one days.  
Sailormoon didn't know what to say to her when Hotaru asked her, "Is 
this home?" though there was a light in those eyes that was more 
feverish than child-like and innocent.  Still, Sailormoon had no 
answer for that question.

	She clung to the hope of her friends coming for them.  Day by 
day she would rise and see if they had gotten there, yet all she was 
greeted by was the emptiness of space and the coldness of white, distant 
stars.  She discovered that Hotaru had an obsession with the rocks.  
For hours, the child would sit there, holding the rocks and looking 
dazed and distant, her mind living the memories of another place, of 
another race.  The numbers of the rocks diminished though.  Pop, one 
by one they disappeared, sporadically.

	When Sailormoon first discovered it, she thought they were being 
robbed.  She was elated.  Someone else was here!  The blonde ran 
through the debris, calling at the top of her lungs.  "Come back! Come 
back!  Take all the Story Rocks you want!  Come back!"  She did it 
until she could no longer run, until her throat was hoarse and raw.  
Nobody came at her calling and when she went back to camp, she saw 
Hotaru holding onto fine ashes.

	"What's that you got there, Hotaru-chan?"  Sailormoon asked.

	"Ashes," Hotaru answered.  "The rocks are falling apart."  In 
that moment, one of the rocks exploded before Sailormoon's eyes and 
made the exact popping sound she had heard.  There was no one else but 
them.  And their only link to getting home was getting destroyed, one 
by one.

	On the eighty-sixth day, the last sun began to dim and 
Sailormoon decided it was time to explore once more.  When she brought 
this up to the ten year-old Hotaru, the girl had simply looked at her 
with a blank-eyed stare.  "You go," the girl had said.  "I want to 
stay here and watch."

	Sailormoon wanted to protest, but she didn't know what to say or 
how to convince this Hotaru to go with her.  Once, Tsukino Usagi would 
have proclaimed that she trusted Hotaru very much, and once that 
person would have died for that Hotaru.  Things weren't like that 
anymore though, things were different now.  Even though she had raised 
this child, and watched her grow, Sailormoon could never really relate 
to the things she had heard her own mother say.  "I know you best 
because I'm your mother," Tsukino Ikuko would proclaim in exasperation 
at her daughter's arguments.  "When you lie to me, I know.  When 
you're not well, I know.  It's a sixth sense that mothers have.  One 
day, Usagi-chan, you'll understand."

	But she didn't.  She didn't feel like a mother, even though she 
somewhat raised Hotaru from a babe.  She didn't feel like she knew the 
girl better, instead she felt more estranged from the happy, smiling 
child that Chibiusa had loved so much.  This was not the same girl as 
that time, nor was she.

	She left with a backward glance at Hotaru before departing.  
Already the girl had her eyes turned to the shadows, white fingers 
clutching a rock.  For what had felt like days, Sailormoon walked from 
debris to debris, searching and finding nothing, not even another 
Story Rock.  She turned back after the eighth scratch and when she 
returned, Hotaru was in the same position Sailormoon left her in.  
"Still at it?" Sailormoon asked surprised.  "That's unhealthy, Hotaru-
chan.  You should try something else."

	Hotaru turned to her with a tilt of her head.  "I didn't know 
you left," Hotaru answered.  "It hasn't even been a day since you've 
been gone."

	Sailormercury would have suggested Sailormoon's sudden realization 
one-hundred and one scratches ago, but the self-deprevating thought 
didn't make the situation better.  "How long would you say I've been 
gone, Hotaru-chan?"  Sailormoon finally asked, clasping her hands together 
to keep them from trembling.

	"No more than a second," Hotaru answered calmly.

	"No more than a second?" Sailormoon echoed.  "Oh no," she 
muttered to herself, clutching her head in disbelief.  "Oh!  Oh no!"  
Hotaru only watched her with a placid, eerie-eyed stare.  "I think 
we're in a time-bubble, Hotaru-chan," Sailormoon finally declared 
once she was able to regain her composure.

	Hotaru turned her eyes to the dimming sun, dark eyes glowing 
unnaturally in the light.  "I know."

	The blonde princess froze.  "What?" she whispered.

	"I know," Hotaru repeated in the same tone she had used the 
first time she said those words.

	"Why didn't you say anything?"  Sailormoon demanded in 
hysterics.  "Why didn't you tell me?"

	Hotaru looked at her with that same blank-eyed expression.  "You 
didn't ask."

	There was a long silence before Sailormoon could speak again 
without feeling like striking the child before her.  "Are you in a 
time bubble too, Hotaru-chan?"

	"Yes," the child answered.

	"Are the rocks?"

	"Yes."

	"Why did you not tell me?" she asked again.  This time the 
odango-blonde tried to sound more reasonable.  "Our friends could come 
and try to save us and we wouldn't have..."

	"But they didn't."  Hotaru answered.  "Do you realize how long 
we have been here, Sailormoon?  If we had not waited in this time 
bubble, the wait would only have been longer.  The people we used to 
know are probably long dead."

	"How long?"  Sailormoon demanded.  'How long have I been here?  
How long had it been?' was what she really wanted to say, but Sailormoon 
couldn't bring the rest of the words out of the pit of dread brewing 
within her.

	"A sun has died," Hotaru answered.  "Another is dying.  Long 
enough," the dark-haired child said with a shrug of her shoulders.

	"How can you act so care-free?"  Sailormoon bit her lower lip in 
anger.  "How can you?"

	"They envied us," Hotaru said instead.  "There was so much 
contempt and envy.  They were dying, all of them.  If it had been any 
other planet, if they had known about Mars or Venus or Jupiter, they 
wouldn't have had to die."  Hotaru clutched the rock and in that 
moment, it turned to ash.  "It's all disappearing, the story of this 
place.  The uncountable lives are turning to dust and forgotten.  Do 
you think we are forgotten too?"

	"No!  Not Rei-chan or Ami-chan.  Not Mina-chan or Mako-chan.  I 
want to see Chibiusa-chan and Mamo-chan again.  I want to make sure 
Haruka-san and Michiru-san are no longer so sad.  I want to say thank 
you to Setsuna-san, because she was always looking out for us even when 
we didn't realize it."  Sailormoon fell to her knees and cried for the 
first time in a long time.  "I want to say goodbye, at the very least.  
I wanted to say goodbye."

	"The sun's dimming," Hotaru observed.  "There won't be light in 
a few more weeks."

	"We were heroes, weren't we, Hotaru-chan?"  Sailormoon asked as 
she grasped the child's shoulder.  Hotaru was still outlined in a 
purple light, but the eyes of the child's were dull of it.  Hotaru was 
like a doll again, a doll housing Mistress Nine so long ago.  "We were 
heroes."

	Hotaru said nothing as she turned back to the dying sun.  But 
Sailormoon wasn't looking at her anymore.  There was no company to be 
kept, no understanding shoulder to cry on when it came to Hotaru, not 
anymore.  "We are heroes," Sailormoon said.  "We saved the world!"

	Around them the debris of Redbud Blossom floated, and the 
remaining sun star continued its descent into darkness.


				The End.

Information dealing with what is known to most as the Tau System is from 
SweetUsagi, a faqs sheet of mistranslations that gave me more ideas to build 
this story upon.  The time bubble idea is based off of Orson Scott Card's book 
called A Planet Called Treason (a.k.a. Treason).  I incorporated these ideas 
together because I liked how SweetUsagi pointed out that Pharaoh Ninety was 
from the fourth dimension, and her speculations gave fruit to some important 
points in the tale (like Hotaru's accelerated growth).  When the story said 
that the people could not change the past, it did not mean they couldn't change 
you back to being a baby, they just can't undo the acts you have done in the 
past (like Pluto could do).

This is the second version of the tale.  It is, in my opinion, not as good as 
the first.  But, it can't be helped as my computer completely eradicated the 
first version.  It was an interesting idea.  Hoped it made the points I wanted 
to make and then some.

Enjoy.

blue
blueweber@hotmail.com