Only a few minutes after Naru tucked herself behind a large stone urn in a niche in one of the walls of the inn's courtyard, she saw a sudden shimmer of light appear in the courtyard. The light resolved into a young woman with long blonde ponytails, wearing a flowing, ruffled white dress. She carried a tall scepter topped with a jewel which was glowing a sickly grayish-yellow color.

Mamoru stepped towards the woman. "Serenity."

"I'm glad you finally saw sense, Endymion," she said haughtily.

"I was wrong to deny you your desires. Please forgive me.”

Serenity actually batted her eyelashes at him. “That depends on how well you perform your duty, Endymion.”

He smiled. “I’ll do my best. But there's still one thing that needs to happen before we can have a child."

Naru picked up her cue and stepped out from the niche where she had been concealed.

Serenity's eyes went wide with shock. "You! Endymion, what is she -"

"Give me the Crystal, Usagi," Naru said.

"Traitor! You're both traitors!" Serenity screamed, and raised her scepter. In a swirl of light, she instantly transformed into Sailor Moon. Before she could start her attack, Naru shot a stream of fire at the hand holding the scepter. Sailor Moon staggered back, but didn't let go of her staff. She began moving it in the motion that Naru recognized as her signature attack. Naru fired off a second, more concentrated, arc of flame. The flame wrapped itself around Sailor Moon's arm and staff, but she still didn't let go. Maintaining the stream of flame, Naru raised her other hand in a signal for Nephrite to join her in the attack. He stepped out from his hiding place and sent spheres of star power pulsing along the flame. In the face of the series of small explosions, Sailor Moon retreated, but still clung to her scepter. Eyes shut and teeth gritted against the pain, she started to form her attack again. "Moon Princess -"

"Now," Naru shouted to Nephrite. They let up on their attacks against Sailor Moon for just a heartbeat, then sent out a combined burst of their powers. The burst of starfire rocketed to the ground at Sailor Moon's feet; the explosion sent her flying backwards to land sprawled on her back on the snowy ground of the courtyard.

Even before the flash of light cleared, Naru was running towards her opponent. She threw herself down, straddling Sailor Moon's waist, and grabbed the arm that was holding the scepter. Angry red burns showed against Sailor Moon's fair skin; Naru ignored the other woman's screams of pain and rage and wrestled for control of the staff. "Usagi, give me the Crystal," she shouted.

Sailor Moon jerked and twisted, nearly throwing Naru off. Naru let go of her arm and pinned her shoulders to the ground, struggling to hold her still. "Usagi, you have to give me the Crystal. You asked me to help you, remember?"

Sailor Moon twisted around again, her rage giving her additional strength, and snarled like an animal. Behind her, Naru heard a huge rushing sound, like a gigantic wave; out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed a mass of the ghostly gray monsters clustered around her. A rush of water swept past her peripheral vision and washed away a number of the monsters. Thetis's attack, of course. On Naru's other side, a flash of Nephrite's star power wiped out another group of the monsters. She left fighting the energy-draining monsters to the others and re-focused on the enemy she was fighting now. Her best friend.

"Usagi. You asked me to help you," Naru said slowly and firmly. "I can only help you if you give me the Silver Crystal. You don't really want to hurt Mamoru, do you? And you and I have been friends since we were little - do you really want to kill me?"

Sailor Moon's black, rage-filled eyes briefly flickered blue, then darkened again. "I won't let you steal my Crystal! It's mine!"

"Yes, Usagi, it's yours. To do good things with. Is it a good thing to want to kill your oldest friend? Is it good to want to hurt Mamoru when you love him so much? Is it good to watch the Earth dying and not do what you're supposed to do to help it?"

Sailor Moon still struggled, but not as hard, and again the natural blue color flickered briefly in her eyes.

"Usagi, let me help you do what you're supposed to do with your Crystal. It isn't mine; I don't want it for myself. I want to help you so you can use it the way it's supposed to be used."

There was a more pronounced hesitation in Sailor Moon's struggles. Naru took the opportunity to grab her arm and wrest the scepter away from her. Naru jumped up and scrambled away from Sailor Moon, protected from the surging gray monsters by Nephrite's and Thetis's attacks. Jadeite was using his power to swirl blinding clouds of snow and gravel around even more of the monsters. Still lying on the ground, Sailor Moon screamed with fury, "GIVE - ME - MY - CRYSTAL!"

"Mars Flame Sniper!" From behind Sailor Moon, a flaming arrow flew towards Naru. Before she could react, a burst of star power collided with the fiery arrow, obliterating it into a spray of tiny flames that quickly died. Sailor Mars prepared a second attack. "Mars Flame -"

The Senshi was cut off by a torrent of water that swept over her, knocking her off her feet.

"Crescent Beam Shower!" Sailor Venus also appeared behind Sailor Moon. A cluster of golden crescent-shaped beams of light shot towards Thetis. Nephrite fired another burst of star power at the attack. Jadeite shouted "Thetis!" and dove towards the dark-haired woman, knocking her to the ground as the crescent shower and the star power met in an explosion just in front of where she had been standing. A third star power attack combined with a sudden whirlwind of gravel left Sailor Venus lying stunned on the ground.

"Now!" Naru shouted. "We have the Crystal, what do we do?"

"I don't know," Yumemi said, running towards where Naru stood with the Crystal-topped staff. For lack of any better idea, Naru laid her right hand on the sickly-glowing Crystal. A shock of power jolted up through her arm, but she didn't move her hand. "If we use our powers as members of the Order -" Naru said. It would be risky; focusing their power on the Crystal would leave them vulnerable to attack, but the three Senshi seemed disabled for the moment.

Nephrite, Yumemi, Thetis and Jadeite all laid their hands on the Crystal, focusing on their power, sending it through their hands into the Crystal, trying to clean out the corruption. At first the Crystal glowed intensely with its diseased-looking grayish-yellow light, but as they poured their power into it the sickly glow slowly faded. Naru could feel herself growing weak from using so much power; her legs trembled and she wasn't sure how much longer she could continue standing. She had already drained herself during the fight, and she had much less power left than the others. Nephrite put an arm around her waist, supporting her; she concentrated on pouring as much strength into the Crystal as she could.

The Crystal suddenly flashed with a clear, brilliant light, and the members of the Order lowered their hands and stepped away. In the staff, still gripped by Naru's trembling hand, the Crystal was shining with a light that was mostly white but still had a bit of a dirty-looking tinge to it. "That's it?" Jadeite asked.

"I'm afraid that's the best we're going to be able to do for now," Yumemi said. "But hopefully it's good enough to help us get the Golden Crystal."

"What --?" At the sound of Usagi's voice, everyone turned to look at her. She was dressed in regular clothes, jeans and a pink sweater with flower appliques on it. She was sitting up in the place where she had fallen, rubbing her head and looking confused. "What happened to my Crystal?"

Cautiously, Naru left the staff with Yumemi, and knelt down beside Usagi. Usagi turned to look at her; her eyes had turned blue again, though still perhaps a shade darker than before. "Usagi, it's okay now," Naru said. Mamoru ran over and joined them, kneeling on Usagi's other side and putting his arms around her.

"Naru-chan... What happened to my Crystal?"

"It became corrupted. Like it was diseased or decomposing. It affected you and the other Senshi." Nearby, Rei and Minako, also now wearing their regular clothes, were starting to move. "Do you remember anything?" Naru asked Usagi.

"I - I felt so angry all the time. I wanted to be more powerful than anything. But not to help - I wanted to force everything to be the way I wanted it to be. I wanted to hurt anyone who got in the way." Tears swam in her eyes and spilled over onto her cheeks. "I - I was going to kill Mamo-chan." She looked up at her husband and touched his face. "I'm so sorry, Mamoru."

"It's all right, love. You didn't realize what was happening."

Usagi turned to Naru. "I wanted to kill you. I've done terrible things, Naru-chan."

"It's okay now, Usagi-chan. We've sort of fixed the Crystal, and everyone's okay. Except, I sort of lied to you a little when I was trying to get it from you. It isn't really your Crystal, Usagi-chan. I mean, the Silver Crystal is yours, but it isn't really supposed to just be the Silver Crystal."

"What do you mean?" Usagi asked. Rei and Minako, also in street clothes instead of their sailor fukus, had crawled over to where they were, and sat listening to the conversation. "Oh, this is Rei and Minako, I guess I never introduced them before."

Naru nodded to the two women, then explained, "I told you before, Usagi, but you might not remember. The Silver Crystal and the Golden Crystal, that Helios has, used to be one crystal, called the Celestial Crystal. They were divided a long time ago during a fight between the Earth and the Moon Kingdoms. For a long time they were okay, but finally it was like when anything is badly injured or dies - they started to decay. The only way to fix them is to put them back together into the Celestial Crystal. And we need the Celestial Crystal to be able to help the Earth move out of this transition - this freezing - and into its new phase."

"How do you know all this?" Minako asked.

Naru looked over at Thetis and Yumemi. "Yumemi is the Seer. She, Thetis, and I are what's left of the Order of the Celestial Crystal. Yumemi started to remember everything after her powers were awakened, when you healed her from that monster eight years ago. She found Thetis and me not long ago. Originally, the Shitennou and the Senshi were also part of the Order of the Celestial Crystal, so we brought back the Shitennou - Earth's Guardians - to help. They aren’t part of the Dark Kingdom any more. You can trust them."

"Do you have the Golden Crystal?" Rei asked.

Naru shook her head. "Kunzite and Zoisite tried to go to Elysion through a painting that Yumemi made to get it, but something went wrong. The Golden Crystal is also corrupted, and Elysion must not be like Yumemi thought it was. We're hoping the Silver Crystal will help us find a way in, so we can get the Crystal, and also Kunzite, Zoisite, and Helios."

"Went through a painting?" Usagi asked.

"Her paintings can reach into different dimensions," Naru explained. "That's how we brought the Guardians back."

"Where is this painting?" Minako asked, standing up and brushing snow and dirt from her clothes. The rest of them also stood up.

"We left it at Nephrite's house," Naru said.

Usagi took Naru's left hand and looked at the diamond wedding ring. "I heard about this on TV, on the news. It isn't just for show, is it? To lure me out?"

"No." Naru smiled. "It's for real. He hasn't been back for long, but we both just knew, right away."

"Some wedding day, huh? I'm sorry, Naru-chan."

"It's okay. At least I got him back. I don't care about the wedding; it's the marriage that matters."

The four young women and Mamoru joined the others who were waiting. Nephrite was talking to a short and very agitated man who was gesturing wildly at the ruins of the beautiful courtyard. He took a business card out of his pocket and handed it to the man, who apparently was the owner of the inn. "Call my offices, and we'll take care of paying for the damages," Nephrite said. "If you can find it in your heart to not call the police, I can also manage an additional compensation for the distress and loss of business this incident may cause."

"You would carry business cards around with you when we're trying to save the world," Jadeite said after the innkeeper left, considerably pacified.

"My business success isn't just a sham," Nephrite told him. "I had to have something to do besides order youma around."

"You bribed him!" Naru said.

"Not bribery. I just offered to compensate him for the material, economic, and psychological damages we've caused him."

"As long as the police leave us alone, I don't care what we have to do," Thetis said. "I just got my life back; I am not going to jail now." She linked one arm through Jadeite's; apparently she had forgiven Jadeite when he protected her from Sailor Venus's attack, if not before.

"Just in case, I think we should get back to Nephrite's place right away," Yumemi said. Those who couldn't teleport or didn't know the way held onto Nephrite, Jadeite, and Thetis, and the courtyard dissolved into darkness.