Hey, remember me? Yeah, I'm writing this thing. ^_~ It came to my attention awhile ago (thanks, Pisces-san!) that while Taiki, Yaten, and Kakyuu appear to be in character, Seiya's sorta OOC. She's more like Usagi than her usual self. If you figured this out, you probably thought, "hey! Why'd she go and write Seiya like that? She got the other three just fine!" Believe me, it wasn't an oversight. There's a reason for all that. No, I would NEVER do something arbitrarily that made no sense...*cough* Of course not.

"I am just a traveller on a journey
No destination sign
Even when you're on the road to nowhere
Take one step at a time
'Cause life can be oh so cruel..."
-- Tina Arena - "God Only Knows"

*~*~*~*~*~*

Land of Confusion
Chapter 11: God Only Knows

*~*~*~*~*~*

"No." That was the first thing out of Seiya's mouth. It was followed by, "It can't be right. I just saw her; she was so angry she was going to have a hernia..."

Yaten was talking in broken-off sentences, only partially to Seiya. "You and Kakyuu were in the throne room, and I was helping Rhys move a table. We heard a gunshot. Vail came running in, his face was all pale and he said..."

She had to stop for a moment, because she remembered that she needed to breath. "He said it had come from Taiki's room. We all ran there, and she was on her bed, she wasn't breathing...there was a gun in her hand..."

"No!" Seiya gripped Yaten's shoulders, staring over the top of the girl's head. "She'd never commit suicide! You know that as well as I do."

"I know it sounds crazy, but I was there! She just shot herself in the head...T-there was a note, but none of us could bring ourselves to read it..."

Yaten looked up at Seiya, her brilliant green eyes bloodshot and wet. "I don't understand it, Seiya. How could she do that? How could she do that to ME?"

"I don't know," Seiya answered truthfully. She really didn't know; Taiki had said she was going to die, but she never would have taken her own life. Even in her weakest moment on Earth, she had never considered it.

But...why now, when everything could go right?

"I...have to see her," Seiya said. "Where is she?"

Yaten sniffled. "They haven't moved her yet; the police are taking their photos and things, and the coroner will--"

Seiya just began to walk swiftly down the hallway, still holding on to Yaten as best she could. The police barracading the door to Taiki's room moved aside quickly when they saw the two Senshi coming, allowing them to step inside. And that was when Seiya realized that it was truly happening.

Taiki was sprawled on her bed, so close to the edge she was nearly falling off. She was wearing her glasses, and her favorite purple dress: the one she had worn on the night she'd first kissed Lucas. Her eyes were frozen open, and there in the middle of her forehead was a gunshot wound. She was still gripping a small black pistol in her hand; blood was soaking into her sheets, leaving a crimson stain and slowly dripping to the floor.

Seiya fell to her knees. "Please, Dios, don't tell me I'm seeing this..."

"I'm sorry, Seiya..." Yaten said, kneeling down next to her. "You were so shocked when we came in, you fell down and hit your head."

"Yeah, I bet I did," Seiya mumbled, furiously wiping at her face. None of this made any sense! None at all! "Where's that damn note?"

One of the police lackeys opened a plastic bag, and held it out in a gloved hand so she could read it.

"'I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm so weak, but this is the only way out. I know you told me you would always be there to talk. You were, believe me. But talking isn't enough to save me.' Dios..." Seiya swallowed hard. "'There's always been a hole inside me. It's been eating away slowly, and sometimes I didn't even realize. And now...now, when everything looks up, I feel miserable. We saved the princess. I did my part, and now I'm hollow again. I just have to get out of here. If you hate me for what I've done, I understand. But please, never feel guilty. Especially Ouhi; never let her blame herself. It was never her fault; it was always mine.'"

Seiya waved the lackey away, and he slipped the note back into its bag. She couldn't stand to read any more of it. More hot tears poured down her face. "I don't understand..."

"I DON'T UNDERSTAND!" she screamed, white hot tears pouring down her contorted face.

Seiya rolled out of bed and hit the floor.

Taiki and Yaten threw the door open. "Seiya, are you alright?"

Seiya looked around dazedly. "That was...a dream?"

"What was?" Yaten flipped the light on.

"I..." Seiya looked up at Taiki. Okay, don't make a fool out of yourself, just explain calmly and rationally--

Seiya lept to her feet and hugged Taiki until she started to turn a slight shade of red.

"Seiya, I appreciate it, but I need air," Taiki wheezed, and Seiya loosened her grip. She felt stupid as she began to cry again.

"I had the most horrible nightmare," Seiya choked. "I just want it to get out of my head..."

Taiki sat down on Seiya's bed, bringing the distraught girl with her. "You'd been out for almost a day now; we were starting to get worried."

"Do you want to tell us what happened?" Yaten asked, trying to hide the fact that she was worried and not succeeding in the least.

Seiya nodded, blinking in an attempt to make some of the tears disperse. "I was here, in my room. Yaten knocked on my door and..."

She couldn't say it. She looked up at Taiki's face, full of concern and sympathy. What kind of horrible person dreams that one of her best friends kills herself? What kind of monster thinks those things?

"We can't help you if you don't talk to us," Taiki said softly, noting her friend's discomfort. She ran one hand through Seiya's sweaty hair.

"She said you were dead, Taiki." There. Blurt it out, that's the only way it's going to get said.

Taiki seemed to freeze. Yaten gasped slightly.

"A-and I went to see...a-and..." C'mon, Seiya, stop being such a moron; stop crying and just SAY IT. "And Taiki had committed suicide."

Taiki felt a knot in her stomach, and looked away from Seiya.

"And I know you'd never do something like that, Taiki, that's why it scared me so much!" Seiya added quickly, noticing that her friend was becoming pale. "It didn't seem right and I couldn't believe it was real, and I'm so glad it wasn't..."

"Taiki? Are you okay?" Yaten came over to the bed, sitting down next to the others.

Seiya clutched her shirt."I'm sorry," she said softly. "You probably think I'm crazy, having a nightmare like that..."

"I wish people would stop saying that!" Taiki said, almost angrily, though she was still pale. "Ouhi said the same thing! Why does everyone think I'm going to assume they're crazy?"

Seiya didn't have an answer for that, so she settled for, "I'm sorry."

Taiki sighed. "No, I'm sorry. I don't think you're crazy, Seiya, and don't apologize. I'm sure it was Rufus' fault."

There was awkward silence.

"Who's Rufus?" Yaten finally asked.

"The bald guy from the greenhouse." Taiki snorted bitterly. "He's the one who made Ouhi ill. He said something to me about cheating death, and that we weren't supposed to live after Kinmokusei was destroyed...

"And I'm beginning to get the feeling that he's right."

Yaten stiffened. "Don't say that. Don't you dare say that. After resurrecting our planet with our own hands, I believe more than anything that we surivived that day because we had a purpose. So don't tell me we were supposed to die. That's just not going to be okay with me, Taiki Kou, and it shouldn't be okay for you."

Yaten realized moments after the sentence left her lips that it had been a stupid thing to say.

Taiki hung her head miserably; Yaten was right. What right did she have to say their survival was a fluke?

"I'm sorry, Taiki. I shouldn't have said that," Yaten began to apologize, but Taiki waved her hand in dismissal.

"You're right. It shouldn't be okay. It's not okay. But this Rufus...He's been messing with us." Taiki realized that her own hands were sweating, which wasn't going to help Seiya at all. She stopped running her fingers through her friends hair.

"We have to do something," Seiya agreed. "This can't go on."

There was silence for awhile, as everyone tried to get their thoughts in order.

Yaten stood up abruptly. "I need to check on Vail." In a flash, she had left the room.

"What happened to him?" Seiya reached for her hairbrush, seeing if she couldn't make the black tangle a little more manageable.

Taiki sighed. "We're not sure. He dropped his sword right in the middle of that battle and started screaming at something in his head."

Seiya blinked. "...in his head?"

"In his head," Taiki nodded. "Which is when the battle ended. I was going to rip those little minions some new breathing holes, and then I was sitting in the throne room with Kakyuu. It was as though it had never happened."

"Strange," Seiya mused.

------

Kakyuu grabbed the vase and threw it against the wall. She felt some strange satisfaction as the porcelain container shattered into hundreds of pieces, the lilies and water spilling all over the floor.

She had lied to them. She'd told the truth to Taiki later, of course, but only after the guilt had begun to gnaw away at her. She had done the one thing she'd sworn she would never do - she had lied to them. The three people she trusted more than herself.

Kakyuu continued to stare at the broken vase, touching a sweaty hand to her forehead. "What have I become?"

In a matter of days, everything had unraveled. She had been so sure of herself, as she watched the buildings and the trees come up one after the other. She had been sure of her Starlights, that they could move on from what they had forgotten. That one day, that one day when they had gone to find Rhys, that had been the moment. The one second where everything got derailed. Everything had gone wrong after that moment.

"Damn them," she muttered, feeling the tears burn tracks on her cheeks. "Damn them for doing this to me."

A wave of nausea hit her stomach. Had she really just said those words?

"Y-your majesty?!"

Kakyuu blinked. A page was standing at the door, staring wide-eyed at mess on the floor. (The vase hadn't been the only thing that had met an untimely end on the wall - it was in good company with a few other vases, some picture frames, and various other unimportant knickknacks.)

All Kakyuu could think to say was, "Yes?"

Some of the page's mousy brown hair fell into her face. Don't ask, she told herself, just deliver the message and leave. "I was told to deliver this to you, Ouhi-sama."

"I see." Kakyuu bit her lip and tasted salty tears. Her eyes were on the broken vase. "Just...leave it somewhere for me."

"Of course, Ouhi-sama!" The page set the delicate red paper on an empty coffee table and quickly scampered off, managing to close the door behind her.

The beautiful crown slipped down on Kakyuu's head, covering her scrunched eyes as she continued to cry. She clenched her fists so hard that her delicately pedicured nails drew blood from her palms. Outside, it began to pour, thick sheets of water that never seemed to end, black clouds quickly obscuring the sun.

Her birthday was in three days. The day that would live on long after her: the day her planet died.

The note fluttered to the floor - "Those who have nothing to hide hide nothing."

Kakyuu doubled over suddenly, as though she had been struck down. Blood rose up in her throat, and she began to cough until her hands were crimson and she could barely breath.

----

"Odango..."

"You say something, dear?" Rhys looked up from the flower arrangement.

"Did I?"

"Something like 'odango.' Didn't you tell me that was a food?"

Seiya bit her lip. "Ah, yes. Yes it is. I guess I must be hungry."

Rhys disappered behind the bunches of flowers, chuckling. "But we just had lunch."

"Yeah, we did..." Seiya looked down. She had to tell him. It wasn't fair to him; it wasn't a question of whether she loved him, because she still did. But she loved Usagi too, and despite being on the other end of the galaxy, Seiya had the feeling that the ache for her would never go away.

It wasn't fair to Rhys, to be made to compete with someone he would never meet.

She looked at the clouds outside, thick and heavy like wet sponges. The rain was coming down softly now, making small tinkling noises on the roof of Rhys' back room. Whenever the Princess cried, it rained. Somewhere, the Princess was aching too...

As Seiya thought about what she would say, she kept coming back to one thing - how could she have done it? How could she have lost such an important detail of her life?

Maybe...maybe it wasn't as important as she thought it was. She'd just wanted a warm body to be with, but his devotion to her wasn't meaningful; not the way Usagi's did. No, no, that wasn't it, she had loved him - she still did! But no matter what justification she gave herself, Seiya knew she was a terrible person and she had to tell him.

She watched as Rhys moved, eyes like little green beacons as they focused on the bush he was pruning. His pale hands moved quickly in circles, trimming here and snipping there. He was so beautiful when he was concentrating.

"Rhys?" Seiya clenched her fists. She was no coward: she could face him like the proud Sailor Senshi that she was.

"There's something important...I have to tell you." Seiya looked him straight in the eye. Rhys put down the pruners and crossed the room in a few steps.

"What about?" he asked, readjusting his aqua ponytail.

"When I was on Earth..." Seiya rubbed her arm. "Did you hear about Sailor Moon?"

Rhys smiled. "Of course. The savior of the galaxy. The one who stopped Chaos."

"I...have you ever heard about what we did? Yaten and Taiki and I?"

"I know what I've read in the papers. You were idols, right? Singing for Kakyuu-ouhi?"

"Right. We went to school, pretended to be your average teenagers..." Seiya snorted. "Well, if you consider changing genders at will 'average.'

"I met Sailor Moon there, except her real name was Tsukino Usagi. And I..." The words got stuck in her throat.

Rhys touched her face. "You what, honey?"

"I..."

Seiya swallowed. It was only a four letter word...

"...love..."

She was definitely going to Hell for this...

"...her."

Her heart shattered like glass. There. She'd said it. The rest of the words came out in one long sentence, more like stream of consciousness. "She was so much like Kakyuu, she was so beautiful and loving and she just SHINED, and she loved everyone, even stupid old me, and I fell head over fucking heels..."

Seiya hadn't looked at Rhys' face since he'd moved to touch her face. She kept expecting him to pull his hand away, but he never did.

"You hate me, I know it. I deserve nothing less than hate. All this," Seiya gestured around the room, but was referring to something more general, "I put behind me. It hurt me too much, so I just st-t-opped thinking about you...and Usagi's heart was so big...And by the time I thought that maybe everything would be okay, the Princess was k-k-illed and we had to go fight...

"All the time I was fighting, I thought to myself, 'that's the most beautiful creature in the whole world, and I'm a bloody fool because she'll never love me back.' And the whole time you were here, hoping I'd come back alive, and I took it for granted."

Seiya pulled away, blue eyes downcast, but Rhys grabbed her hand. Oh, she was in for it now.

"Can you ever forgive me for what I've done to you?" she said softly. "Can you still love me? I understand if you don't...I wouldn't love me either, after committing the biggest scandal in the galaxy..."

"Seiya, you're crying." Rhys wiped the tears away with his pale fingers; Seiya hadn't even noticed them. "Has this been causing you pain?"

She just nodded miserably. "But it's nothing less than I deserve for what I did to you..."

"I want you to listen to me." He cupped her face in his hands. "I forgive you."

"How...how could you?"

"Because I love you," Rhys continued, a tiny smile gracing his lips. "You're only human, Seiya. And your heart is so big, everyone gets sucked up into it. Even Sailor Moon. You still love me, don't you?"

"Of course!" Seiya shouted. "Of course I do!"

His smile grew. "Then I forgive you. Simple as that."

"You're too good to me." A smile began to peek out on Seiya's lips. "I'm getting all hormonal lately..."

Rhys ruffled Seiya's hair. "A backlash from spending so much time as a man?"

Seiya's face turned positively murderous and she pounced upon the boy, sending them into a flurry of potting soil and flower stems.

"Dah! You backstabbing little temptress, you know I'm ticklish there!"

"I know the other places you're ticklish..."

"Why you little...!"

"Hey! Get your hand off there, you sex-driven lunatic!"

"Revenge, my dear, is a dish best served--"

The romantic moment was interrupted when a sprawling fern oak, its twisting branches laden with rain water, crashed through the glass ceiling and pinned the two lovers underneath.

A black butterfly sat on the broken glass, and fluttered its wings as crimson blood seeped out in the rain.

~~~~~~~

"Boss, I still don't understand!" Sawagasu whined, pink hair clinging sloppily to his face. "I still don't understand why you're doing this! Our Master has never said--"

"Agent Sherbet," Rufus' tone was not a very happy one, "how do you know what our Master has or has not said to me?"

Sawagasu swallowed hard. "I don't, Sir."

"That's damn right, you don't."

Sawagasu exchanged a nervous glance with Lydia, who returned the favor. Certainly, it was good that they'd completed half the mission, but this other half...

"I want the Senshi and their Princess dead. I heard the decree of the Sailor Wars, who would live and who would perish." The rain hovered in the air around Rufus, never touching him. Lydia peeled slick cobalt hair off her cheek - his underlings were not so lucky when it came to the water. "But they did not follow the orders. This planet was supposed to end as nothing more than a dry, decaying rock. They defied the Master, and brought it back to life. They deserve the punishment I will deal them."

Lydia bit on her lip. Certainly she loved her job, and admired her boss, but...but she had always been of the understanding, even in training, was that the Master was not a being who could be defied, because everything that happened was given a purpose. The Master was not good, nor evil.

Fate was Fate, simple as that. And now, as Rufus carried on about what a glorious crusade it would be, to remove the Sailor Senshi who had so wronged the Master, Lydia wondered what she'd really been working for all these years. Had she been working for the Master, or had she been working Rufus' agenda? There had never been people coughing up blood before, or apparitions of corpses, or falling trees, or little green pistols...She wondered why her Boss was allowed to get away with all this magic, and not just do as he had surely been taught, and eliminate them quickly. Why the flash, she wondered; did he have something to prove?

Sawagasu's thoughts were not so profound: he just wondered if he'd ever be dry again.

Rufus stared down at Lydia, glowing slightly from the emotional energy he was spending. "Agent Cobalt."

"Yes Sir!" Lydia chirped, suddenly standing at attention. Whatever career crisis she was having would wait, because good intentions or not, Rufus was still her Boss, and he could still spilt her in half just by thinking about it.

Rufus pointed across the soggy palace gardens, and despite being at least a hundred yards away, Lydia could tell where he was pointing. Off to the side of the Princess' bedroom was a smaller one, with an intricate marble balcony. Two figures could be seen there, despite the terrible downpour. One was small, with white hair clinging to her sides; she was backed up against the balcony railing, shivering.

The other had wild red hair, and was dressed in unfamiliar royal robes. He was facing Rufus, and seemed to be staring right him.

In both of his shaking hands, the young man held a gun.

"Watch them for me, would you?" Rufus smiled. It was not a nice smile.