Xian Pu watched bemused as her great-grandmother rushed them both through breakfast. Xian Pu had put forth considerable effort the day before, winning the annual tournament, becoming the official champion of the unmarried women of the village for the first time, and had expected this day to be slower than usual, expected her grandmother to show lenience.
Well, Kho Lon was definitely being lenient and showing her affection, but she was also insisting that they get ready in a great hurry. The sun was still making its way above the distant horizon as Xian Pu and Kho Lon made their way from the village. Kho Lon had refused to say a word about the purpose of their trip through all the preparations and Xian Pu was in a frenzy of excitement by the time they left the walls of the Nichiezu village behind them. Was her great-grandmother going to show her some new secret technique? Why else would they be going somewhere so early?
It was not until they were a good hour away from the village that Kho Lon finally broke her silence. "Xian Pu," she said sharply, catching her excited heir's attention, "during the tournament yesterday, I felt a strong surge of power from the direction of Jusenkyou. You did well to win." Kho Lon cackled suddenly, then continued, "for I was able to leverage your win into the right to investigate this phenomenon alone."
Xian Pu didn't have to think too hard about why that might be. She squealed in excitement. "Do you think it might have been a strong man, Great-Grandmother?"
"We'll soon find out, Xian Pu, we'll soon find out," Kho Lon replied, cackling madly again as she hopped along on her staff beside her buxom heir, who was unrestrainedly exuberant in her excitement. To herself, she privately wondered if the power she felt was beyond her daughter's abilities. In fact, she knew it was, it had felt nearly as strong as her own aura. Still, that was what was needed... a truly strong male would be required to defeat her great-granddaughter. Besides, even the strongest of men could be tamed by a woman's charms, and her heir was well-endowed in that respect.
At the other end of the path they traveled, the Jusenkyou guide was just beginning to lead Ryouga towards the Amazon village.
Kho Lon detected the approaching pair well before they came in sight, but had no difficulty recognizing the aura of the Jusenkyou guide. The two groups came together well on the Jusenkyou side of the path, as the guide was finding it extraordinarily difficult to keep his customer from wandering off. Their speed had increased about halfway, though, when a sudden rainshower activated Ryouga's curse. Ryouga found following the guide's scent to be easy enough, perhaps because it was something this body could do on a subconscious level and was thus not short-circuited by Ryouga's ever wandering mind.
As soon as Kho Lon approached them, the guide began begging forgiveness. Kho Lon silenced his importunings, and turned him about. As they walked to Jusenkyou, the guide explained all that he had seen, having already determined that the boy did not know Mandarin well enough to follow their fast speech.
Kho Lon made the guide go over his description of the winged man several times, as she compared his description to the winged people of Pheonix mountain. If Saffron were on the move again . . . but the guide's description was clear enough that she felt confident that it was not one of the pheonix people. The man, according to the guide, and he well knew what would befall him if he were mistaken, had shown no other avian characteristics other than the wings.
Once she had ascertained that it was not one of Saffron's people, she moved on to the meat of the matter. The Joketsuzoku had over three thousand years of experience with Jusenkyou, and in all that time, never had a cure been found.
The description of this winged man simply and without any elaborate preparations, materials, or powerful magical items splitting a cursed individual and raising a dead spirit held bound by Jusenkyou back to life, was beyond belief. Yet she had no reason to doubt the guide . . . he knew far too well the cost of lying to the Joketsuzoku. The magic of Jusenkyou was powerful beyond measure, and the implications that had for the power of this winged man put him above even Saffron, the immortal god-king of Pheonix mountain.
When she asked about the cursed boy traveling with the guide, the guide was quick to warn her of his peculiar difficulty with directions, lest she think to bring him into her tribe and then blame the guide for the boy's failings. Having thus protected himself, he went on to explain that the boy, in wolf form, had had no difficulty following himself, and that furthermore the boy was apparently acquainted with the victim of the Nyannichuan.
Kho Lon accepted the guide's frantic explanations and assured him that he would not be punished for failing to bring the victims to the Joketsuzoku. She herself was absorbed for the moment in the possibilty that the apparent resurrection of the spirit of the spring had in fact been what it looked like. The description of the girl setting her hand on fire reminded Kho Lon of the old tales of battle-mages. Could the girl who had drowned in that pool have been an Amazon?
Fey watched the quartet approaching the waters of Jusenkyou, and wondered. Kho Lon had been an ally to himself, but he had never had significant need of her abilities. To the Ranma of whose life he had learned from the Nabiki who became his dragon-daughter, Kho Lon had been both a most persistent and clever opponent, and something of a mentor. To be sure, Ranma and Ranko could benefit from techniques such as the Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken, and the Hiryuu Shoten Ha, not to mention the Bakusai Tenketsu.
He had to consider whether he should take the risk that Kho Lon might successfully draw them back to the Amazon village. Would that affect his plans adversely? Did it matter, in the long run, where Ranma was situated? Fey groaned. Of course it did! There was very little chance of Ranma retaining the position of leading a group of defenders in the Amazon village, with their treatment of males. If he had left him with the curse, perhaps . . . but Ranma would not have been very happy about that. Worse still would be the Amazon's interactions with the other needed members of Ranma's team.
Kho Lon in the other world had not managed to drag Ranma back to the tribe, though, and that Ranma did not have the advantage of conscious use of the Neko-ken. There was also Ryouga to consider. In Fey's world, Ryouga was a friend of Ukyou, rather than Ranma, but in Tatsu-Nabiki's world, he had been a persistent rival of Ranma. To be sure, that rivalry increased the strength of both, but it also led to considerable friction, and contributed to Ranma's eventual breakdown. Fey wondered idly whether the breakdown he had sensed approaching had in fact happened, or if something had occurred to ward it off. If he had known then what he knew now about his interactions with the worlds he encountered, he would have acted more directly to aid his counterpart there.
As it was, he decided to leave well enough alone for now. He had heard the conversation between the guide and Kho Lon, and was fairly confident that Kho Lon would decide to follow Ranma and Ranko, if only to learn how they had been cured of the curse. Ryouga would follow of course, and in all likelihood, Kho Lon would bring Xian Pu along for the opportunity to find a strong husband for her.
Fey was uncertain whether Kho Lon would attempt to interfere in the budding relationship between Ranma and Ranko, but decided again that not trying to know everything about what was coming would of necessity be a mark of the side of Chaos. All was as it should be . . . but that thought brought in a memory of another manipulator he had once encountered, and he worried over what her reaction to all this would be.
Leaving the group as they approached the grounds of Jusenkyou, Fey ranged outward, reaching out to Pluto with his senses, drawing on his divinity to obtain the range he needed. As he had expected, he detected there a power, and intensifying the focus of his senses in its vicinity, he detected a living presence, and translated himself to a nearby position.
Fey was shocked at what he saw. Curled in a fetal ball a woman lay, green hair hiding her face, a tall staff shaped like an old fashioned skeleton key lying some feet from her. She was unconscious, and Fey's senses told him that she was alive only because she was in Senshi form . . . it seemed she had not eaten or drunk for an indeterminate period of time . . . days at least.
He knelt beside her, feeling the heat of tears in his own eyes, as he looked on her frailness. He reached out, and brushed the green tresses from her face, and drew in a sharp breath. The dried tracks of tears were visible, but went unnoticed compared to the gauntness of her far too pale face.
Reaching out, touched to the heart at her obvious misery, Fey drew her onto his lap, and was even more distressed when she showed no reaction to being moved. Holding her, cradling her in his arms, he bathed her in a white aura, using the technique Ranko had taught him to heal her, and at the same time, reached out across the dimensions to his kitchen in Fey Castle, drawing back food and drink.
As the warmth of his comforting aura faded, Setsuna awoke, tears springing immediately to her eyes. Awareness returned slowly, and she was deeply disturbed to realize that she was being held in strong arms, and to smell well-seasoned meats. She shifted slightly, and a strong scent caught her attention. She felt a light pressure on her lip, and opening her mouth to protest, felt a warm liquid invade her mouth. Hot chocolate . . . someone was trying to make her drink. She swallowed, and allowed the person, whoever it was, to comfort her, to feed her, and wash it down with hot chocolate.
She knew, with utter certainty, that she was delusional, for she had collapsed at the Gates of Time, and no-one could come there, nor were there any who even knew, in this time, of their location, much less that she was there, and so she did not open her eyes, fearing to dispell the comforting illusion.
Finally the feeding stopped, and she was simply held, rocked back and forth in strong arms, as someone murmured comforting nonsense in her ear. Setsuna was a strong woman, in spite of having given in to her grief, and she eventually decided that illusion or not, it was her duty to guard the gates, even when doing so had become so hopelessly futile, and she strained to open her eyes. They had become encrusted with her tears, however, and refused to open. She reached a hand towards her face, but it was caught in a strong hand, and she felt a warm wetness on her eyes, as her illusion carefully wiped the sleep from her eyes.
Finally, her eyes were free, and she opened them, to look up into the deepest blue eyes she had ever seen. She lost herself in them. Her hand was released, and she brought it up to the illusion's face, drawing back slightly, pulling her eyes away from those blue orbs, to take in the face of her comforter. He was handsome, was the first thing she noticed, as her hand rested on his cheek.
"Who . . . ?" She breathed out slowly, confused, and wondering why the delusion was not dissipating, and was showing no signs of being a dream.
"I am the Lord Fey, Pluto, and no, you are not dreaming," the apparition replied, in a warm masculine voice.
Setsuna leapt to her feet, staring down at the man, realizing with a sudden sense of despair that not only had the destined future been somehow destroyed by an act she could neither find nor alter, but someone had penetrated to the very Gates of Time, and she did not have her staff to defend herself. The adrenaline that knowledge gave her was not enough to sustain her, however, and her legs quavered beneath her, threatening to spill her.
A moment later, she calmed. She had been completely out of it, that much was clear. Had this man intended to manipulate the gates, he could have done so without the slightest concern. A second wave of despair hit her when she realized that he might very well have done so, before rousing her, but she thrust it aside. The future was death anyway, nothing he could do would have mattered, for the destined future had already been lost.
Fey watched as differing expressions flashed across her face, until she finally settled on wary curiousity.
"How did you get here?" she asked softly, looking about, and noting the position of her staff. It looked like he had not moved it, which implied that he was either not planning on giving her cause to use it, or simply had no reason to be concerned if she did.
He responded, but not to her question. "I assume your condition just now was due to the bleakness of all possible futures?"
She nodded sadly, knowing that it could do no harm for him to learn of this. What did knowledge of the future matter, when every path was death and destruction? "Something happened," she said, her voice catching in her throat, "and the future changed. It ends . . . in a little over thirty years . . ."
She cried out suddenly, as if defending herself from accusation, "I tried! I tried everything," she sobbed suddenly, but continued through her tears, "I searched the possible future day after day, but nothing made any difference. Every future is dark, they're all dark!"
"Look again."
Setsuna paled and shook, "No, no, I can't, it hurts too much. I've seen too much death already!"
"Look again." Fey's tone was gentle, cajoling. He held out a hand, and her time key shifted, and rose from where it lay to stand in the air before her, waiting for her to reach out and grasp it.
"Well," she thought to herself wryly, "at least now I know why he didn't bother to move the staff further from me."
She reached out a wary hand, and closed it about the staff, feeling only the vaguest sensation of comfort at the familiar feel of it, before the certain knowledge of the future drove out all pleasant sensations, leaving her filled with nothing more than a choking emptiness that tore at her. "No! No, I can't, I can't look again, you haven't seen it, it is too much to bear!"
Tears fell from her eyes again, as dread of what was to come stripped her of the ability to act, knowing that he would force her to look again, to see again the death of all she knew, the destruction of all that was to be.
"Very well," Fey said, his voice still gentle, and his acquiescence sent a wave of relief crashing over her, driving out for a moment the terrible emptiness. "Then lock the gates."
Her eyes widened, and she wondered why he desired such a thing, and who he was to ask it of her, but it made sense. If she could no longer bear to look into the future, then the gates were useless. Rather than standing guard over them, she could seal them.
She nodded jerkily, and spun to face the gates. As she approached them, she shivered spasmodically, and Fey strode to take her shoulders, offering her strength and comfort and she drew on it gratefully, feeling the loneliness of millenia ease, as she abdicated the burden of decision for the first time since she took up the mantle of the Senshi of Time, so very long ago. With his hands still upon her shoulders, she touched the key to the Gate, and under her breath, she whispered the words of sealing.
The swirling mists of the Gate's opening dissipated, as the great doors swung inward, sealing the archway. To her surprise then, she felt a surge of power from behind her, and silver chains bound the Gate, slithering about it, winding through the handles, and sealing the opening a second time. Somehow, Setsuna knew that the Key of Time would not be enough to undo those bonds, and she wondered again just who this was, standing behind her, still offering her strength.
"May I have the honor of your name, Lady Pluto," Fey asked softly, hands still resting on her shoulders. She turned in his arms to face him.
"Tell me who you are, first. I have your name, but that explains nothing. How did you get here? How did you even know there was a here? Who are you!?" Setsuna's eyes betrayed her confusion. After all, it was all over anyway, so why had he come? What purpose could it possibly serve?
"Very well, Lady, I will tell you. I am the Dragon Lord Fey, God of Chaos, Balance, and Change." He smiled gently, as her eyes widened in disbelief. "I was sent to correct a change that was made in this universe by a powerful, malicious entity. There are rules, though, that bind my actions. Yet had you been willing to look, you would have seen that there are now paths to the future that do not end in darkness."
Setsuna's eyes widened more than Fey would have thought possible, and tears sprang to her eyes as she spun to face the gate, understanding now the reason for the extra chains. She had been given her chance to look on a brighter future, and she had thrown it away. She buried her face in her hands, sobbing softly.
Fey reached out, grasping her shoulders, and drawing her back against his body, whispered into her ear, "Yes, Lady Pluto, you have given up your chance to see a brighter future before any other. That does not mean that you cannot see it . . . you will simply have to walk through time to get there. Will you? Will you help bring about that brighter future?"
Setsuna sighed, drawing her hands away from her face, though tears still dripped slowly from her eyes, and she reached up to take his right hand in hers, and draw it down in front of her, clasping it in her hands. She had felt a strong momentary surge of disbelief when he claimed to be a god, but looking on the chains with eyes that had millenia of experience with magic, she could sense the incredible complexity, and yet the elegant simplicity, of the bonds that held closed the Gate of Time, and she could no longer find it within her to doubt him. A God! A God, a literal God, had come to her aid, when she thought she was beyond all help. How could she not hope?
"Yes, Fey-sama, I will do all that I can," Setsuna promised fevently.
---
Fey focused on the current location of the Goddess Urd, this universe's Urd, who was neither the one who had taught him nor the one who had briefed him. To his mild surprise he found her in Japan still. He had put Setsuna back to sleep and made her comfortable, to rest, while he got some answers about her, and when he found the location of Urd, he immediately placed himself in her proximity, raising a shield as he did so.
He was shocked and dismayed to find himself in the Morisato living room, looking on as Belldandy sobbed in Urd's arms, while Skuld looked on helplessly. An instant later he was the focus of their attention, as the sudden sense of power shocked them to their senses.
He flared his god tattoos quickly, barely in time to prevent Urd from throwing the lightning she held ready, and Skuld from throwing her Neo-Skuld bomb. He focused and projected a calming aura.
Skuld jumped in between him and her sisters. "Who are you?!" she demanded, holding her mallet at the ready.
He bowed deeply to them. "I am the Dragon Lord Fey, God of Chaos, Balance, and Change, First Class, Unlimited," he replied formally. "I wish to speak to Urd, Goddess of the Past. I apologise for the intrusion." Even as he spoke, he guessed the reason for Belldandy's pain. She must have been told that Keiichi could not be taken to Asgard to be spared the coming darkness, or perhaps he had refused to go and leave his family behind.
Urd nodded to her sister, and Skuld slipped into place as Urd stood, Belldandy being handed from one sister to the other. Urd strode forward, swaying slightly at the hips in spite of her emotional pain, as Skuld stroked Belldandy's hair and tried to comfort her.
Urd led him to her room, and sat on the bed, staring at him. At any other time, she would have enjoyed being in the company of such a specimen. Not only was he possessed of a perfect physique, power rolled off him in waves in spite of the suppression he had clearly placed on it. This close, she could feel his power, and knew that he must be high up in the ranks of the Class Ones, and yet she had seen the compassion in his eyes when he looked on Belldandy, and felt the calming aura he had projected a short while before.
Not now though, could she indulge herself. She could not ignore her sister's pain.
"What is it?" she asked, tiredly.
"I wish to know of Sailor Pluto, why she was permitted to do what she did, and whether is was within the mandate she was given by her Queen."
Urd sighed unhappily. Sailor Pluto was a sore spot with her. A woman more in need of a good romance she'd never known, but she could never get her close enough to a man to let anything happen, and the fall of her kingdom had not helped. Now she was a thorn in the side of the Norns, but not one they would act against.
"She . . . no. Her mandate is to guard the Gates, to prevent other entities from using them or similar means to attack her worlds by means of the past or future. She was never supposed to create a future . . . it is too great a burden for any human, immortal or no, to be solely responsible for guiding reality to a single future."
"I thought as much. Why then?"
"It's simple really, and so sad. I tried," Urd tried to smile, but it was halfhearted, "I tried to get her to fall in love in the Silver Millenium, but she fought it too well. She could not bear the thought of love lost, and so she cut herself off from it completely. In spite of that, she went through the very pain that a lover feels when her lover dies, when her kingdom, her Queen, and all that she fought for was destroyed. For a short time, she did as she was instructed, merely guarding the gates, but inevitably, she took up her time by watching the possible futures. She saw too much darkness, even in the futures that were mostly light. There is supposed to be, as I'm sure you understand, being the God of Balance."
"But she saw only the darkness, and became determined to eradicate it. So over time she worked, trying to guide the future to a state of perfection . . . ," Urd trailed off, sighing heavily.
"And what happened as a result?"
Urd shook her head unhappily. "Nothing good. The brighter the one future she crafted, the darker the rest of the possible futures got. The darker they got, the harder she tried to ensure that the one future was bright. She built up a situation where if anything varied from her set pattern, almost anything at all, her future would vanish, replaced by a horrific future. Had she left well enough alone, she could have simply acted when the future was heading towards the dark, and nudged it back to the light, but as it is, she has set things up for a fall. Her own actions have steadily increased the pressure on her, and correspondingly increased the pressure that is to be placed on her reborn Senshi, for the brightness of that one future also became matched by the darkness the world would have to pass through to reach it, and the greater darkness it would risk falling into along the way."
"We can do nothing about it, with the non-interference pact, but even if we could, we would do nothing to her. It is so like one of the Greek tragedies, she has created her own hell . . . there is nothing we can do to her worse than she's already done, and no way to heal what has been done that she won't fight."
"But now . . . now the future is dark on every line, or so Kami-sama has informed us. Poor Skuld . . . it was her place to see that, to inform us, but she is still learning her magic."
"Not so, Urd-san, not so. The future is not all darkness, not now. That is why I am here, to restore the balance, to restore the threads of possibility. I am raising up a pair of champions that will throw down the darkness. I am afraid that the cycle is inevitable now, the cycle of waves of darkness, but they are no longer guaranteed victory."
Urd stared at him, wide-eyed, then rushed from the room. Skuld and Belldandy looked up, startled, when Urd raced to the phone, and began dialing a long series of numbers. Fey walked slowly out after her, and gave the weeping goddesses a comforting smile.
"Yes, I need to speak to Kami-sama, please," Urd said, crossing two of her fingers surreptitiously.
"What? Yes, Father, he is here. He is? Truly?" Tears sprang to Urd's eyes, and Belldandy and Skuld sat up straight, worried that she had heard yet more bad news.
She hung the phone up slowly, and turned to face them, and they gasped at her wide smile. "They're not all dark anymore!" she cried out, and Belldandy gasped.
"Truly?" she pleaded, wringing her hands.
Fey nodded, striding over to the couch, taking her delicate hand in his, and lifting her up. He pulled a cloth from the air, and wiped her tears away.
"I am not bound by the same rules you are," he said, "and I promise you this, Belldandy, if the darkness comes and is not stopped by my champions, I myself will bring Keiichi to you, no matter what stands in my way. If I have to make him my avatar, or raise him from the dead myself, I will bring him to you."
Belldandy's face broke into a glorious smile, and she threw her arms around him, crying tears of joy. Skuld looked at him with a worshipful gaze. She disliked Keiichi, but Belldandy's inconsolable sorrow had broken her heart, and Fey had made her happy again, and that was all that mattered. Urd herself had tears in her eyes.
Even his assurances had not promised victory. After all, he was the God of Chaos, he would not promise the outcome, he was the God of Balance, he would give both sides a chance, he was the God of Change, he would not accept a static future, but if he promised to bring Keiichi to her no matter the future, then it didn't matter if the world was destroyed. Her sister would not die with it, as she had so feared.