Iriko looked from the doorway where Mamoru stood to her guest. “She woke up I guess.”
Mamoru stepped past Iriko and went to Usagi’s side. He looked down on the dark haired woman and remembered more vividly the battles that she and her teammates had participated in. It was like the fog was lifting from his mind once more. He had not had a chance to get to know any of the Star Knights well. They had fought to protect the city and his love but they never quite made a strong connection to the rest of the senshi. “We should take her to a hospital Usagi. “
“No,” Suteko whispered from the couch. “No hospital. They can’t heal this.” She struggled for a moment and finally lifted the hem of her shirt. The bandages around her middle parted and Usagi could see the ragged burn/slash across the other woman’s belly.
“What caused that!” Usagi cried out in sympathy. Without conscious thought she transformed from Usagi to Princess Serenity and she lay her palm on the wound. She whispered softly and a glow surrounded both women.
Mamoru turned to Iriko for an explanation. “The wound was caused by a blade forged out of Darkness. Unicorn is very susceptible to Darkness powers. It is her polar opposite.” She turned once more to her door as the bell rang.
The other senshi arrived in pairs every few minutes. By the time Serenity had completed healing the wounds left by Kaneda’s sword, the rest of the senshi had arrived. They settled about the apartment, holding off their questions until Serenity dissolved back to simple Usagi.
Everyone could see Suteko’s body visibly relax as the last wound closed. The sigh of relief was quite audible. “Thank you, your highness,” Suteko said softly, her eyes not lifting to the others.
Questions broke out then in a mix of voices. Suteko didn’t answer any of them, lying quietly, staring up at the ceiling, lost in her memories. Iriko looked to Usagi who nodded. “Quiet everyone,” she said in a voice of command that shocked those around the room. She touched Suteko gently on the arm. “I believe you would feel better if you change out of those, don’t you?” The Star knight nodded and slowly got up. She followed Usagi into Iriko’s room. Usagi closed the door.
Iriko turned to the almost strangers gathered in her living room and started to speak softly. The gathered women and man had to stop talking and listen as she filled them in on what was going on. “A week ago the barrier between this world and the world of nightmares was smashed by a being known as the Shadow master. His goals at the moment are unknown but his minions are still moving through the streets.”
Hana added softly from the doorway. “The last of the pack that was chasing Unicorn has been cleaned up.”
Heads turned and eyes widened. Standing in the doorway were a man and woman. They stepped through the door and into the room. “They weren’t too hard to take out,” growled the tall man behind Hana.
Makoto stood up and looked the two up and down. “Who are you?”
Hana let her dark hair cover her face in her usual reaction to being confronted. She was small and delicate looking. Dressed in what used to be called gothic, she looked very pale and almost insubstantial. The long black skirt and white peasant blouse were simple and she wore fingerless gloves on her hands. The man at her shoulder seemed to almost loom over the smaller woman.
“My name Hana and this is Gregor Matten.” Her voice was still soft, almost too soft to hear. “We are the part of the surviving Kouhei.”
Eyes in the room widened as memories returned. The Sailor Kouhei were another team of warriors, ones that had for a time been used by the dark forces. The Senshi had believed they were all destroyed in the final battle with the last of the dark kingdom generals. Rei nodded, “Sailor Time and Sailor Rage, right?”
Gregor leaned back against the doorjamb, his arms crossed over his massive chest. “You got that right, firebird. Wanna make something of it?”
Hana lay a hand on her teammate’s arm to silence him. She had changed much in the years they had fought together. “Take it easy Rage. We’re here to work with them this time.”
***
Inside the closed bedroom, Usagi was brightly chattering at the silent Star Knight as she pulled out various pieces of clothing from Iriko’s closet. “No this won’t fit. Maybe this,” she pulled out a pair of old jeans and a stretched out and faded sweater. She handed them to Suteko who put them on with a bit of difficulty. Iriko was built along very slender lines and though Suteko was of the same height, she had a more filled out figure. The jeans fit her like a tight glove and the sweater didn’t hang right.
She tugged it down as far as it would go but her abdomen was still exposed. The faint scar from the wounds Usagi had healed could just be seen. “I should go to my place and just change.” It was obvious that she was not very comfortable in the clothing they had found.
“Wow, you’re built like Mako-chan.” Usagi picked up a brush from Iriko’s neatly organized bureau top and gestured for Suteko to sit. “Here let me fix your hair. It’s a mess.”
Suteko’s hand went to her hair and she flushed a bit. Taking a seat she quickly undid the braid that had come mostly out during the battle and the following days in bed. Her hair was much longer than it looked in the tight braid that was her normal hairstyle.
Usagi started to carefully brush the long black strands free of tangles and the motion made some of the tenseness in Suteko’s body flow away. She closed her eyes and let the other woman continue.
“Suteko,” Usagi spoke quietly to the near stranger in front of her. “You have such lovely hair. It’s as thick as Rei’s. Why don’t you keep it loose?”
“It gets in the way too much,” she answered.
“Oh, I can understand that. That is one of the reasons I keep mine up like I do.” Usagi chattered on a bit more about hairstyles and then switched topics in her usual lightening quick way. “Where did you and the others disappear to after school, Suteko? I thought we would all end up going to the same school, like the others.”
Suteko sat silent for a long time before answering. Usagi looked into the mirror and saw the tears that slipped down the other woman’s face. “We went to the states for a while. I…wanted to show them my home.”
Usagi bent down and hugged Suteko from behind. “You aren’t alone anymore Suteko. We’re all here for you.”
Suteko stiffened after a brief moment, her eyes shut. “Where were you when Kaneda…”
“We did not know anything was wrong. I wish we could turn back the clock and save your friends.” Suteko relaxed and put a hand on the arms around her.
“I know, your highness. You would not have let your cousin die like that.” Suteko’s voice wavered, “why…am I still here?”
“Because you are needed.” Came a voice from the window.
Suteko looked over, her eyes widening a little. “Andromeda's.” The cat jumped down and settled next to Persephone on the bed. She moved rather slowly, like she was hurt.
The Star Knight moved out of Usagi’s embrace and knelt on the floor by the guardian cat. “You survived…how?”
“I’m not sure, Suteko. Everything went white and then I was somewhere else .”
***
Back in the living room the two groups were settling down. Hana and Iriko took turns at answering what questions they could. The inner senshi were more trusting than the outers. They accepted the stories at face value. It was Sailor Uranus who asked the important question.
“Just who is this Shadow master?”
“At one time he was a man known as Kaneda, a dabbler in things beyond.” Suteko answered from the doorway.
Everyone in the room looked to her and she looked back, her eyes empty. “He was once a student at my family’s dojo in the States. Uncle taught him what he could but there was always something else that he wanted to know. Things that Uncle would not teach.”
“That explains a bit but not how he became the Shadow master and w
hat his powers are.” Gregor acknowledged something in the woman’s eyes as they locked gazes.
“When my uncle turned him away for using his teaching to control those around him, Kaneda went on a quest for the power to show my family he was worthy…,” she stopped and changed what she was going to say. “In the mountains of China he found something that gave him the power he sought. He returned to the dojo five years ago looking for my uncle to take his so called vengeance on.”
“What happened then, Suteko.” Mamoru prompted her to continue.
“My uncle had died in the years that Kaneda had been gone. Some friends were running the dojo for me. He was not pleased to find that those he had come looking for were not in residence.” She moved to the window and leaned against it looking out. “I was told by the lone survivor that he pulled out a blade of utter darkness and proceeded to lay waste to everything within reach.”
“I returned home the following day and found my home destroyed and a message written in blood on the wall he left standing. A challenge for me to meet his blade.”
“So this Kaneda has a penchant for going over board? So far he seems to be just a simple human with a bad temper. How did he summon those creatures we took out last night?” This time Gregor asked the questions.
“At first he was just as I said, a man with a sword of darkness. I answered his challenge. He was good but he had one little misconception going into the fight.”
“That you were still the little girl he knew before, right.”
Suteko nodded. “Neither he nor I were the same. He had once tried to make me his and that had gotten him tossed from the school. He was sure that I had not gained anything more than a few fighting techniques. He was unpleasantly surprised.”
“You were Unicorn by then, did you have to use your Star Knight power?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “The beings that gave him the sword had taken his soul in trade. He had become a creature of darkness. In a cave in the hills above where I grew up we fought. It was only by luck that I managed to win that fight.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
“Why not?” Asked Gregor.
“I thought then that breaking the sword would save him. He was still the boy I had grown up with then. When the sword was in pieces at his feet he collapsed and then the sword struck.”
“The sword?” Asked Ami.
Suteko nodded. “The blade was more than just darkness forged, it was Darkness and had a mind of its own. The pieces turned to a cloud of noxious vapor and enveloped me.” She shuddered in memory. “Chris had to rescue me from that battle. The cloud sucked out my strength and Kaneda got what he wanted before the guys managed to break me free.”
Most of the people in the room looked horrified at the quiet woman. All but the Kouhei who understood just what she meant. “You were better prepared afterwards.” Gregor’s harsh voice actually was soothing to Suteko’s mind.
“Kaneda and the thing that was his sword disappeared for two years after that. When he returned he was no longer a man but a creature of darkness but he wasn’t yet the monster I fought a few days ago. He had one more transformation to go through. He came for me again in the same mountains he had found his masters. This time I was ready and the battle had a different ending. I did not hold back and used a dangerous technique to finish off his physical form."
“What did you do?” Asked Mina, ever curious about the other powers of the warriors.
Suteko looked up and into Mina’s eyes. “I took my Light blade,” she held up her hand and the blade formed suddenly to the surprise of everyone in the room, “and I blew it up inside his body.”
A low whistle filled the sudden silence. “Good thing that worked. You must have been powerless for days after that.”
“When Chris caught up with me he yelled at me for an hour for doing that.” Her eyes grew sad once more and her voice a bit distant. “He was very angry that I went out on my own and battled. He didn’t speak to me for two years after that.”
“So you killed the physical body of Kaneda. I take it what returned was the spirit form?” Rei sounded matter of fact in her deduction.
“Yes, the being known as Kaneda died in the mountains but he had become the Shadow master by then. We spent three months cleaning up the creatures he had called up. We were sure that he and his minions were gone, destroyed.”
“But then the school where you met your team mates became a breeding ground for the shadows. We had been watching it.” Gregor nodded, “Even took out some of those things. They’re pretty tough.”
Suteko looked at him with something very much like the rage he understood. “You knew about it and you didn’t help?”
Gregor held up his hands. “We knew there was something up, we didn’t know that this Shadow master was going to set loose an army worth of shadow creatures all at once. We didn’t know that you Star Knights were going to storm the place without any backup. Hell we didn’t even know who the Star Knights were till Hana told us.”
Suteko spun away from the watching eyes and did something that startled all but the Kouhei. Her hand lashed out and punched a hole into the wall by the window. Silence filled the room for a long moment, then Suteko whispered softly. “Dragon died in that infected hall, he charged ahead not waiting for Phoenix and I to back him up. I had to drag Phoenix away to someplace we could better do battle. It didn’t matter in the end. They found every place we tried to hide, tried to rest we were chased, herded to a place that we had no way of being able to win a fight. There were around a hundred of the things when we stopped running and stood our ground.”
Everyone in the room, including the four cats now looked at the bowed head and listened to the telling of the last moments of the leader of the Star Knights. “Chris and I were down to using our hand weapons. Distance attacks just couldn’t kill them before they overwhelmed us. In the fight I got separated from him, forced across the clearing. I turned around to parry some claws and that is when I saw.” Her voice grew more ragged. “The moon was behind him, making it clear to see as the wave closed about him. He looked me in the eyes and I knew he couldn’t go on….that he was going to do it.” She turned around looking at the gathered senshi and Kouhei with eyes not seeing them. “He said good bye and then he called up the final strike.” She swallowed. “He became the Phoenix and everything within 500 yards of him was incinerated in an instant. In one blaze of glory he took out most of the monsters that had dogged us for days.”
Andromeda's moved to the remaining Star knight, Persephone helping her to walk. Suteko knelt down and gently picked up the cat and held her close. “All I found was his earring,” she reached into her pocket and pulled out the blackened crystal.
Suteko then sank down to the floor and bowed her head, the two cats rubbing against her in shared misery. The Senshi looked at each other and shivered in their own memories of death from the past. The difference in this was that it wasn’t the team leader who survived the battles to bring his teammates back to life like Usagi had done. This time it was one of the team left knowing there was no way she could bring back her friends and team mates.
Suteko looked up and looked each person in the room in the eyes. “Now I ask you all. Help me to defeat the Shadow master. Help me stop him before he unleashes more death on this tired city.” The unspoken words hung in the air but the others knew she wanted to say. “Help me get my revenge so I can die.”
***
In a shadow pocket across the mega city from where the defenders sat in stunned silence the Shadow master pulled his being about himself. The damage done by the final strike of the Star Knight of Light had taken a lot to heal. He had to destroy a squad of his minions to bring himself back to full strength. Then he had he sent out his tendrils into the city, searching for any sign.
It was with a combination laugh and snarl that he found that his enemy still lived
. “You can’t do anything right can you little girl. Well it doesn’t matter. You will become my toy, Suteko Fukushuu, and this world will become the breeding ground of my children. And no one will stand at your side when I come for you. Not even the Moon Princess will be able to save you.”
***
In a place outside of time and outside of space there stood a pool of clear water reflected the image of a tall slender woman with green tinted hair. She held a long staff topped with a garnet orb. She watched the telling of tale by Unicorn and nodded. She clearly heard the final words the Star Knight spoke inside her soul and understood. “It won’t come to that Unicorn. Just follow the path and the rest will fall into place.”
She waved her hand over the pool and the image changed. For a brief moment figures could be seen floating in space. She smiled and a crystal flashed before settling into the ear of one of the figures.
Chapter two