It wasn't to say that the Ginzuishou hadn't worked. It was more that it hadn't worked well enough. Or it had been too busy dealing with their erstwhile captors to concentrate on healing all three of them to levels she would have liked. Or something like that.

Of the three of them, Heero was in fact the best off. Listening to the banter he and Duo kept exchanging, it sounded like that was actually pretty unusual, for him to be in good condition after a mission. She was pretty sure she didn't want to ask about that, no matter how much she might think she did. It was actually Duo she was worried about; reading between the lines, she was pretty sure that Heero was as well. If there had been any physical traces of his two days in captivity, the Ginzuishou had erased them, but he remained exhausted more often than not, easily exhausted, constantly tired, and as of yet, not willing to try using his abilities in the least. In fact, he was sleeping nearly as much as she still was, thanks to feeling very nearly drained from the Ginzuishou. It hadn't seen fit to deal anything on her, not that it ever really did.

It didn't seem fair, that they weren't all completely fixed after what had happened, but since when was life fair? She had wished for everything to be all right, after all. Maybe she had been too vague. Maybe she had asked too much. She didn't know. Frankly, given some of the other times she had used the Ginzuishou, she felt like maybe she should just be happy to be alive at all. What happened on Fiore's asteroid came to mind, how she had died or nearly died; she still wasn't too certain which it was.

She hadn't died this time, though. Even if they were all still a bit worse for wear, they all had managed to survive. She would take the win there and continue to hope for the best.

A force as unfathomable as time stirred, lifting its head. It hadn't taken much interest in the events of the world in many, many centuries, but there was something that was waking up, something that demanded its attention. A brilliant white light bathed the corridors of time, warming it as few things ever had before.

No, as only one thing had before. That warm light could only be one thing, after all. Only one thing in all of time and space was that kind of warm and bright, inviting and comforting. It had to be the Ginzuishou. Someone had used the sacred jewel of the Moon Kingdom, far, far beyond the last place it had been seen before. It didn't seem as though it could be possible, and yet there it was: that same warm light.

Whoever it was that was using it seemed to know what they were doing, it realized with some surprise. So few people ever had grasped its powers. The last one had likely died years before the time it had appeared in now.

Whoever this was who could use the Ginzuishou, whoever it was, they had to be stopped. The Ginzuishou was only meant for one person, one family, one bloodline... and it was long extinct. If it had fallen into the wrong hands, then something had to be done about it. The consequences of that could be dire, not just to the person using it, but to the entirety of time and space. Even in the right hands, the jewel attracted chaos.

Even the force in charge of guarding all of space and time didn't know what kind of consequences could result from the jewel being present in a time and place it was not meant to be. The jewel's power could spread throughout the world, changing people as it went, making them over for the better... or for the worse.

She opened her eyes... and blinked twice sharply. She couldn't remember where she had been before this, but it wasn't here. It had been... had been...

The exact location, as well as what events had been occurring before the darkness consumed her, eluded her. She knew it hadn't been pleasant, though, and that it had not been wherever it was that she was now. She knew there had been pain and fear and a burning need to protect... someone from... something. The details wouldn't come to her, but that desire was still there, little more than an ember at this point. All she needed was to know who it was she was supposed to be protecting, and she would be good to go.

A warm white light was all that she could remember clearly, engulfing her and cradling her, buffering her against... something. Still the specifics remained stubbornly out of reach, but it gave her something to start on: she needed to find the origin of that beautiful light. Even if that wasn't what or who she needed to be protecting it, it would be a good place to begin her search. Perhaps the source of the light could tell her where to find the person she was meant to be keeping safe or let her know what she needed to be keeping that person safe from.

Well, there was nothing to do but start looking. She pushed herself to her feet, the short green dress she wore heavy with the soggy wetness of the rain soaked alley she had woken up in. The green seemed wrong. It wasn't her color, something in the back of her mind told her. It should be something else, less earthy and more bright. She would take care of it later, though. It was more important for now to start walking, to keep walking until she found the source of that warm white light.

She would find it, and she would protect it, from anyone who dared to try to dim its glow.

And so it all began again.

18 January 2014

Look at me, being all productive. I was actually holding this chapter until I had the next one finished. Chapter One will be released when Chapter Two is finished, and so on.

I actually had an email from poisyn (way back in August) asking for a Belladonna sequel. I'm sorry it took me this long to get it started, but I needed a vague starting point, which is this. We'll all have to see together where it goes from here.

Also, there is more Forever Knight coming soon. Katsuko and I have been tag-teaming an all-human alternate universe, and the prologue for it is now done too.

If no one has guessed, I'm hoping to make 2014 a productive year for fanfics, since 2013 was sort of... barren.

Hopefully more to come before long. Remember: if you're reading these stories, please let me know. Otherwise, I'm writing for Katsuko and myself, and thus there is no reason to post them.

See you in the next chapter!
Apollymi