The train to the part of town where the Crystal Sky Gallery was located was just pulling in when Naru got to the station. Relieved at not having to wait, she sat down and spent the ride trying to decide how to approach Mikami-san and Yumeno-san. She was still uncertain what to say as she took the glass-sided elevator up to the Gallery and walked through the front door.

Mikami-san, in an emerald-green suit, and Yumeno-san, wearing a light green sweater and brown tweed skirt, were standing together near some paintings that were leaning against the display posts, apparently talking about how to arrange them. They turned around at the sound of Naru's footsteps. "You've come back," Mikami-san said, smiling a little.

Nothing like being direct, Naru decided again. "Why can I do this?" She raised her right hand; with a moderate amount of mental exertion, the thought of fire and the memory of what it felt like to use power, she brought a small flickering flame to life in her palm.

* * * * * * * *

Michiru arrived back at the Hikawa shrine. "She got on a train to the Roppongi district, so I jumped ahead and watched for her to get off. When she did, she went into a high-rise building." Michiru gave the address, which Ami typed into her micro-computer. "I didn't want to risk being noticed or getting into any kind of confrontation, so I left, but if we can see who the occupants of the building are, we might be able to figure out why she went there."

"Come on... Load, hurry up and load," Ami muttered at her machine. She glanced up and gave Usagi a worried look. "I've been having more and more trouble with this lately. Ah, there we go. The Takara International Finance Tower. Let's see, hmm, Japanese headquarters of international banks, lots of those, law firms - what do they do - oh, international banking, corporate, and finance law, that doesn't seem likely, Naru was in nursing school, not finance, right? A couple of talent agencies... Some boutiques, she's got a job, but maybe she's applying for a new one... Wait. The Crystal Sky Art Gallery. That's interesting, let's see about that." Ami tapped on the screen and new information came up. "Owned by Mikami Tetsiya, featuring the art of Yumeno Yumemi." Ami's eyes widened. "Look at this. It can't possibly be a coincidence, that this is in the same building that Naru went into."

"Yumeno Yumemi?" Usagi asked. "I remember her, that artist who did paintings of the Moon Kingdom! Remember, she did a painting with me and Mamoru, and she was one of the people who had a Rainbow Crystal inside them." Curious, the Senshi crowded around Ami's small screen.

"But that's not all," Ami said. "Look at this picture of the owner, Mikami Tetsiya." Ami tapped on the monitor to enlarge the picture.

Usagi gasped. "It's her - from the cruise ship!"

"Exactly," Ami said. "Our question now is, What does Naru have to do with a revived Dark Kingdom youma?"

* * * * * * * *

"That didn't take long," Mikami-san said, still smiling.

"Stop smiling at me and just tell me what's going on!" Naru shouted. "I've had a very hard day, I was trying to talk to my boyfriend about our relationship and then these monsters appeared and Sailor Moon couldn't even beat them, but then this happened -" with a thought she let the flame in her hand grow bigger - "and I turned them to ashes just like that! Who am I, and why can I do that, and what is going on?"

"Oh, dear," Yumeno-san said. She came over to Naru and put an arm around her shoulders. "Come on into the office and have some tea, and we'll talk." She and Mikami-san led Naru through the door in the back of the gallery, to a spacious wood-paneled office-workroom that was taken up by a large desk and a conference table that was cluttered with papers, sketches, and brochures. Yumeno-san took Naru's coat and helped her to a seat at the table, then went to a hot plate on the counter in the back of the room where a kettle of water was steaming. While Yumeno-san fixed the tea, Mikami-san sat down across the table from Naru. "We thought it would take you longer to start asking questions. When I talked to you at the bus stop, you seemed determined to go on with your life the way it was."

"Things changed," Naru said. Yumeno set a cup of tea down in front of her and Naru sipped gratefully at it. "Please tell me what's going on."

"All right," Yumeno-san said, seating herself next to Mikami-san across from Naru. "I am Yumemi the Seer. Tetsiya is Thetis the Deluge. And you are Naru the Flame. The three of us are all that remains of the ancient Order of the Celestial Crystal." She looked down at the table, seeming to ponder for a moment. "I think it would make more sense if I showed you instead of telling you. Just a moment, please."

The artist went back out into the gallery and returned a moment later with two framed paintings. She leaned one against the legs of the table, and laid the other one flat on the table in front of Naru.

Naru studied the painting. It was set in the same fairy-tale land that many of Yumeno Yumemi's paintings were set in. Two women in long white dresses stood in a courtyard in the twilight. They were tall and slender; they each had long hair styled in the unique ponytails that Usagi wore. One was slightly taller, silver-haired in spite of her apparent youth, with a crescent moon marking on her forehead. Her strapless white gown hugged the contours of her voluptuous body. The other woman had blonde hair and a crescent moon mark on her forehead similar to the other woman's (and to the marking on the Senshis' cats, Naru realized) and wore a more modest white dress with ruffles and frills. Somehow Naru knew that the two were mother and daughter, and the daughter was Usagi. The two of them were surrounded by several other young women in colorful sailor fukus; Naru recognized them as the same Senshi she had seen that day. The silver-haired mother held her hands cupped together in front of her; something was glowing in them with a silvery light.

As Naru became more deeply absorbed in the painting, it seemed to come to life. A light breeze ruffled the women's dresses. The silvery light from the older woman's hands grew brighter. Smiling, the woman turned and placed the source of the light - a large round faceted jewel - into her daughter's hands. The Senshi, their planetary symbols glowing on their foreheads, bowed to the young woman.

The scene grew still, and Naru became aware of her surroundings in the office of the Crystal Sky Gallery. "Was that my friend Usagi? The one who is Sailor Moon?"

Yumemi nodded. "Yes. Her true name is Princess Serenity. The place in this painting - as in so many of my paintings - is a kingdom that existed on the Moon in ancient times. I know, I know," she said with a slight laugh. "It sounds impossible. But before you decide that it is impossible, remember the things you've seen. They should be impossible too, right?"

Naru shrugged. "My best childhood friend is Sailor Moon, I can shoot fire out of my hand, and you painted a picture of a man I love who is dead who I never told anyone about. I'm not saying anything is impossible at this point."

"Good," Yumemi said. "Because what I’m telling you isn’t a fairy tale; it is the truth of who and what you are. So. The Queens of the Moon - always a queen, never a king, and they each had the name Serenity - received their power from the Silver Crystal, as did their daughters, the Moon Princesses, and their guardians, the Senshi. Who were themselves princesses of their own planets, but that isn’t important right now."

Yumemi set the painting down on the floor, propped against the table leg, and laid the other painting on the table. This one showed a gentle-looking, white-haired man, who nevertheless looked quite young, standing on a small hill in a sunny green meadow under a blue sky. It looked more like Earth than the the Moon Kingdom, Naru thought. Near the hill was a small building with a white domed roof supported by a ring of columns. Four young men in plain white clothing stood around the man. Naru's heart squeezed painfully when she recognized one of them as Nephrite, and another of them as the tawny-haired man who had taunted Nephrite as he died and ordered the monsters to finish him off. The third, a blond man, looked vaguely familiar, but the fourth, who had long straight silver hair, was unfamiliar. The man in the middle, clad in white robes like some sort of priest, was also holding something cupped in his hands, that emitted a golden glow. A sixth young man stood at the very edge of the painting. He looked like Mamoru, Usagi's husband. Of course. Usagi had said that Mamoru was "part of this." He wore a princely-looking black uniform with ceremonial armor and a flowing cape.

Again, as Naru studied the painting, it seemed to come to life. The four young men who surrounded the priest were now wearing dark blue uniforms like the one Nephrite was wearing in the painting Yumemi had given Naru. They bowed to the priest, then went to the black-uniformed man and bowed to him. Then the five of them faded out of view, leaving the priest standing alone on the green grassy hill holding the golden jewel.

"The Golden Crystal," Yumemi said once the vision faded. "The jewel whose powers ruled Earth. The Kings of Earth, lacking the necessary magical talents, did not have possession of it. That privilege was given to the high priest of the Crystal. In this picture, that priest is Helios. The Kings of the Earth chose their royal guardians, or shitennou - heavenly kings, because they too were princes and powerful mages in their own right - from the acolytes of the high priest. These guardians obtained power from the Golden Crystal as well as having their own inborn powers.

“Long before the events you saw in these paintings, the Silver and Golden Crystals were one, the Celestial Crystal. The power used to create and maintain our existence was contained in the Celestial Crystal, which was held and used by the Order of the Celestial Crystal. The Order consisted of the High Priest of Earth, the Shitennou, the Moon Princess, the Senshi, and the three Priestesses of the Crystal, all representing different elements of our solar system. After many hundreds or even thousands of years, a disagreement arose between the Earth Kingdom and the Moon Kingdom. Each one accused the other of using the Celestial Crystal unfairly. A war started, and the Order of the Celestial Crystal broke up into factions. The Shitennou and the High Priest of Earth sided with Earth, of course, and the Senshi and the Moon Princess were loyal to the Moon Kingdom. The three priestesses of the Crystal remained neutral. The Crystal itself was split into the Golden Crystal and the Silver Crystal.

“Up until now, the Golden and Silver Crystals have worked well enough to give power and protection to those who possess it. But after being separated from each other for so long, they’re beginning to decay and become corrupted. Before long they’ll begin to dissolve into chaos. Already the powers of the Senshi and Sailor Moon are becoming weak; soon they’ll turn dark and corrupt as chaos takes over them."

"I think that's happening already," Naru said. "When Sailor Moon tried to attack the -- things --- that were attacking us, it looked like they absorbed the power that came from her wand and got stronger."

Yumemi and Thetis frowned. "That isn't good," Yumemi said. "It's happening sooner than we thought it would.” After a moment, she continued her story. “Soon after the events in the paintings I showed you, the Earth Kingdom and Moon Kingdom were destroyed by the Dark Kingdom, which was finally defeated by Queen Serenity's sacrifice of her own life. The three of us were the Priestesses of the Celestial Crystal at that time. You and I, Naru, had joined with the Moon Kingdom and were killed in that war. We were reborn in this time, along with many others from the Moon Kingdom. Thetis had joined the Dark Kingdom and was killed more recently, in the second war against the Dark Kingdom.

"When I was reborn, the spirit of one of the Dark Kingdom's ancient, powerful warriors was sealed in a crystal inside my body. Eight years ago, during that second war, the crystal was removed and the spirit inside it was released. Sailor Moon healed me, and my true powers began to awaken. I started to remember the things that I had been unconsciously expressing in my paintings. I remembered who my fellow members of the Order of the Celestial Crystal had been. When I realized that the Silver Crystal was beginning to weaken, I knew I had to try to gather the Order, or what was left of it.

"Thetis contacted me first, from the dimension where her spirit was. She was drawn by my awakened power and motivated by an intense desire to return to life. I painted a picture of her as I remembered her and focused all my will and power on that painting, and I was able to pull her back into this dimension. Once she was here and we were able to combine our powers, we easily saw that you were our third member. But we couldn’t force you to join us; we had to wait for you to awaken. And you did, when the painting I gave you stirred your memories of your power."

Naru held her right hand out in front of her and with a thought made a small flame flicker there. It didn't hurt any more; it felt warm, tingly, and familiar. As though she had known all her life she should be able to do this. "Why I couldn't do this before? Why couldn't I save him?"

"Normally, your inborn power would be activated and enhanced by the Celestial Crystal. Since the Celestial Crystal no longer exists, we are weakened. But I've discovered that when our powers are used in combination with each other, or even in the presence of each other, they are strengthened. Our presence in the world made it possible for you to use your powers when the need arose today, but it simply wasn't possible that other time."

"I guess I understand. I just... I wish... I feel like, what's the good of having this power now, when it's too late for what I really would have wanted to use it for?"

"Your powers are needed now more than ever before," Yumemi said. "You've seen for yourself that Sailor Moon and the Senshi are weakening. Before too long, if nothing is done, they’ll turn from good but weakened to corrupt and evil. Also, as part of the Earth's natural life cycle, there's going to be a great change coming soon, which the Celestial Crystal was supposed to help it go through. The Silver and Golden Crystals would also be adequate for this, but the Silver Crystal is no longer pure and, I believe, neither is the Golden Crystal. Instead of guiding the Earth through its transition, the corrupted Crystals would turn it into a place of darkness, suffering, and chaos.

"And another problem is that Sailor Moon, or Serenity, is to bear a child who will be her heir. If she conceives this child while she’s under the influence of the corrupted Silver Crystal, the child will turn out to be the most evil being the world has ever known."

Naru thought of her friend, newly-married and undoubtedly eager to have a baby with her beloved Mamoru. "Poor Usagi," she said.

"Not just Usagi," Yumemi said. "It would mean the end for us all, and the end would not come quickly or easily."

"What do we need to do?" Naru asked.

"The two broken halves of the Celestial Crystal need to be purified and reunited," Yumemi answered. "In order to do this, we need to gather as many members of the Order of the Celestial Crystal as we can. It might not be easy to get Sailor Moon and the Senshi to cooperate with us; the Silver Crystal might already be corrupting them too much. And there are other problems besides that." She glanced sideways at Thetis, who frowned a little. "The Senshi will not have fond memories of Thetis."

"I don't have particularly fond memories of them, either," Thetis said.

"The Shitennou, of course, are no longer in this world," Yumemi went on. "But if I was able to reach Thetis, then maybe the three of us, by combining our powers, can reach them and bring them back."

"Bring them back. You mean, Nephrite? Alive again?"

"Yes," Yumemi said.

Naru's whole world shifted, an impossible future suddenly opening up before her. But she couldn't let herself believe it. Not yet. "How?"

"I'm not sure how, yet. The Silver Crystal normally does this kind of thing when someone who still has work to do dies, but it's not working properly and in any case we don't even have it, so that's out. When we do think of a way, I thought we would start with Nephrite, since he has close ties to Earth. As does Jadeite, but that situation is... also problematic."

"Bastard," Thetis muttered. "He can stay dead, as far as I'm concerned."

Yumemi sighed. "I know, Thetis, but we need as many -"

"I committed treason for him!" Thetis slammed her hand down on the table. "I followed him into the Dark Kingdom and became a youma for him! But he barely ever noticed me after that! And when the Senshi attacked me, do you think he did one damn thing to protect me? No!"

Yumemi closed her eyes as though she had heard all this many times before. "Thetis. After we bring him back and we've done what we need to do, then you can work things out with him."

"Can I kill him again? I don't know how he died before, but I'd like to watch him die at least once."

Yumemi sighed again. "All right. When we've done what needs to be done, if you still want to kill him, go right ahead. I guess I'd better give you a little more of the backstory," she said to Naru. She indicated the painting again. "This one is Jadeite." She pointed to the man with short blond hair that Naru thought looked vaguely familiar. "This is Nephrite, of course, and this is Zoisite -" she indicated the one who had ordered Nephrite's death - "and Kunzite. They were the four Shitennou at the same time that we were the Priestesses of the Order of the Celestial Crystal. We three were all that remained of the Order, and we were banished by all the major kingdoms, living in poverty in a little temple in the wilds of a minor moon that no one even remembers any more. But we knew that terrible things were beginning to happen that could only be prevented if the Golden and Silver Crystals were reunited into the Celestial Crystal.

"We invited the Moon Queen, her daughter Princess Serenity, and the Senshi to talk to us, but they refused outright. Then we turned to the Shitennou and their Master, Helios. Helios came - he had his own reasons -" Naru was surprised to see the artist blush slightly - "and brought his former students. During the course of our meeting, Jadeite and Thetis fell in love. As did you and Nephrite."

Naru thought of the painting Yumemi had given her. "That picture - that was us, back then?"

"It is you and him outside of time, as yourselves. Priestesses don't generally wear pink dresses." Yumemi smiled. "But it was the right thing for you as yourself - feminine, beautiful, forever young in your heart even if not in your soul or body. Though you didn’t have the chance in your last life to grow old. And he has always been, always will be, a guardian, a protector."

"He died protecting me," Naru said, realizing for the first time that if he had to die, at least he had died doing the thing he was meant to do.

"The love between you and Nephrite and between Thetis and Jadeite boded favorably for an alliance between our two groups," Yumemi continued, "which might have enabled us to have more influence on the Moon Kingdom. Unfortunately, not long after this first meeting, Beryl, the queen of the Dark Kingdom, somehow seduced or persuaded or tricked the Shitennou into joining her. They then tried to persuade us to join them in the Dark Kingdom, but only Thetis went, to be with Jadeite. Despite your love for Nephrite, you refused to go to the Dark Kingdom him. As I said before, you and I died in that war, and Thetis was killed by the Senshi eight years ago. Part of our problem is that the Senshi may see Thetis as an enemy, and refuse to trust us. It's a good thing that our third member turns out to be a long-time friend of Sailor Moon's." She smiled at Naru.

"I used to be, anyway," Naru said glumly. “She kind of forgot about me when she became friends with the other girls, the Senshi. I guess we're still friends - she was nice enough to me today - but I don't know if she would trust me, especially if the others didn't."

"We'll have to think of some way to persuade her soon," Yumemi said. "But it's been a long day for you, Naru. You should go home and in the meantime we'll work on a way to bring Nephrite back. Do you have anything that he left behind - anything that was his or that he touched or had any kind of attachment to?"

Naru thought about it. He had left so little evidence behind of his existence. "Just a note he sent me once. He sent them to all the girls at our school, I guess he was trying to discover who Sailor Moon was. There's also a bandage I tied around his arm once when he got hurt, but I don't know what happened to it..." Umino, she remembered. Umino had been injured a week later, and she had tied the same bandage around his injury. What had she been thinking, giving away something that intimately connected to Nephrite?

"If you can find the bandage, that would work the best, especially if it has some of his physical substance on it. Both that and the note would be ideal," Yumemi said.

Naru wondered if Umino still had the bandage. She would have to ask him. She wondered if the request would bring up other issues. But so what if it did? At least it would force them to finally hash things out. "I'll do what I can." She stood up. "Thank you for the explanation. I don't feel like a heroine, I don't feel like I can save the world, but it's good to be the one who's doing something for a change, instead of the one who always has to be rescued. I'll let you know when I find the bandage."