Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Confessions ❯ Confessions ( Chapter 1 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Confessions, by Jayde




Confessions


~~ By Jayde, arcenciel9@yahoo.com

~~ Disclaimer- Sailor Moon and all mentioned characters belong to Naoko Takeuchi, Toei, and DiC.



"Meioh Setsuna!"


The young princess of Pluto turned in surprise. An only child
with few friends, she was not accustomed to anyone showing a
particular interest in her.

The woman who had called her name was silhouetted by a glowing
doorway that had not existed when Setsuna had crossed the same point.
Still, her clothing was easily recognizable. She wore the fuku of a
Sailor Senshi, one of the guardians of the Silver Millennium. The
colors seemed to be wrong, though. This was not one of the four
inner princesses, and was just as surely not the princess of Uranus or
Neptune. Setsuna had seen a portrait once, of a past Princess
Serenity who had become a Senshi, but this woman did not have the hair
of lunar royalty. Hers looked black, or some other very dark shade.
That left...

"Sailor Saturn?" she ventured. The simple thought of the
Soldier of Silence was enough to make her voice shake. The colors
were nearly impossible to make out against the light of that portal,
but they looked dark enough. And that staff could be the Silence
Glaive, but something still did not seem to match up.

The mystery figure shook her head. "Iie, Princess, fortunately.
Her time will not come for some years yet. Do you not recognize the
avatar of your own world?"

"Sailor Pluto?" She was half a myth, and even if she existed
she was never seen by anyone other than the Queen Serenity.
Setsuna dropped into a deep curtsy. "Gomen nasai, Senshi. Your
presence here was... unexpected." Let no one say that the Princess
of Pluto could not be diplomatic.

Sailor Pluto smiled, and that blinding gate finally faded.
She also did something that made that huge, garnet-topped staff
vanish into thin air. Now she looked less like some harbinger of
doom and more like a normal Senshi. Indeed, Setsuna saw that Pluto's
hair was that dark green so common on the small planet, matching her
own. It was even up in the same style. "Forgiven. You could not
expect me." She gestured toward the path that entered the formal
gardens. "Come walk with me."

They walked in the heated glass greenhouses that protected the
gardens from the icy winds that scoured the surface of what was
currently the farthest planet from the sun. After several minutes of
silent motion Setsuna was ready to explode. Sailor Pluto did not just
make house calls.

Her ageless companion spoke without warning. "Do you know
what it's like? Living totally separate from the universe, but so in
tune with it that you can feel time flow like the blood moved by your
pulse?" She broke off again just as suddenly. There wasn't really
any answer to that kind of question, other than a flat-out no, and
Setsuna had the feeling that it wasn't even directed at her. She
waited.

"It is strange, you know. You watch people you've known since
literally before they were born die, but at the same time you see
their mothers picking flowers as little girls. The relationship ends,
and you remember all the years of it in perfect detail, but you've
never even met them.

"That's the one thing the others have never understood. At
the heart of time, time does not exist. They see the Gates as some
magical portal that exists in the same world as the one they live in.
No one thinks- it never occurs to them to guess- that there is only
one Gate, has only been one Gate, and will only ever be one Gate. A
single Gate that exists at a single moment in time that never occurs.
There is no past, present, or future. They're all the same.

"When I talk about it, even I don't understand it."

For a while they continued to walk in silence. Finally
Setsuna ventured to speak. "Avatar, why are you here?"

Pluto actually laughed. "The eternal question. Very simply,
I am here to ask you one question: Will you take on your duty as the
princess of your world?"

It took a moment to filter through. "You mean, become a
Sailor Senshi? I could be Sailor Pluto?"

Pluto nodded.

It was all too much. There were nine planets, and the moon of
Earth. Earth never had a Senshi, but its oldest prince could play
the part when needed. The Moon, obviously, had the Princess Serenity.
Every other planet sent their oldest princess to be a Senshi- except
for Saturn and Pluto. The princess of Saturn always had the potential
to be a Senshi, but she thankfully was never needed. And the
generally accepted view was that the first Sailor Pluto was still
performing her duties quite competently and would probably not need a
replacement for the rest of eternity. If not longer than that.

"That can't be possible. I mean, there is only one Sailor
Pluto, and that's you. I can't take your place. And you can't quit
and retire. That's not allowed."

"True. But you weren't paying attention earlier.

"Setsuna, time in the universe flows like a river. It has a
beginning, an end at some point no one can exactly determine, and a
definite path. The Gate or Gates of Time are located on the back of
a salmon."

"You've lost me."

"Try to follow. Time is the river, and the Gate is a fish in
the river. All of the fish's life is spent completely immersed in
the water, but he is not personally water. And while he would
naturally drift along with the flow of the universe-river, he is not
bound to it. He can swim upstream, downstream, or anywhere he pleases
as long as he stays in the water.

"He does have restrictions. He can't leave the water, and
whatever he does upstream will affect the entire downstream course.
Too much swimming will tire him, but if he simply lets the river
carry him he will never accomplish anything."

Setsuna pondered this for a while. 'Eternity times infinity,
and the best analogy she can come up with is a fish.' There did seem
to be one loophole. "But if you exist at all points in time, or can
exist at any point in time, then there is no way there can ever be
another Sailor Pluto. The first will serve all eternity in her first
instant of office."

Pluto congratulated her silently. This hadn't really been
that long ago. Then again, it had been eternity times infinity.
'Wherever that came from.' "True again. That means that Sailor Pluto
can come from any point in time, including now."

"But it would still be replacing you, and I can't do that!
It's a paradox." As a member of the royal family of Pluto, the study
of time and time theory was almost required. Setsuna's near total
lack of a social life had led her to an even deeper preoccupation,
and she was widely recognized as the best. She was beginning to
enjoy this.

"As Sailor Pluto, you will be cushioned from paradox. Not
totally immune, but not affected the same as others. The universe
changes with the timeline, and any alterations to it become the only
reality anyone has ever known. Living totally apart from the
timestream would soon result in the world being totally alien to you,
You will change with the universe, but you will be aware of the
changes. It is the only way you can perform your duty."

"So you're saying that if I become Sailor Pluto you will never
have been? I will have served since the dawn of time, and you'll
never have become Sailor Pluto?"

The question seemed to make Pluto uncomfortable somehow. She
had to stop and think about it for several seconds. "I suppose that
would be fairly accurate," she said cautiously. "You will become the
one and only Sailor Pluto."

'She's avoiding something. But whatever it is, it doesn't
seem major.' "Why do you want to erase all of your time as Pluto? It
can imagine there being a lot of stress, but you're not just removing
that. You're removing every accomplishment you've ever made."

"It depends on the way you look at it. In one way, I've have
been Sailor Pluto for all of eternity and I have accomplished
everything there is. Then again, I just assumed the office a half of
a second before I opened the Gate to come talk to you here. Less than
that, even. I haven't begun yet. Time for me- or you- is not linear,
so all things in the timeline exist at once."

She shook her head. "Not even the Queen Serenity- any of
them- understands that correctly. There are three laws she will lay
before you, and you must swear to them all. There are two loopholes.
"First: You may not leave your post. The Neo-Queen Serenity
and her King will give you their blessing on that, within reason.
"Second: You may never cross time. You never will, due to
the magic of the Gates. To you there will be no time. What is
truly forbidden is to take others with you.

"Third: You may never stop time. This the Queens are
perfectly clear on. To do so will kill you and pull the rest of the
universe into never-existence. The timeline will wrap back on itself
and in the eternal moment before you die you will hear it scream in
agony as it shreds and everything that ever was or would have been
ceases to possess even the potential of being."

Her eyes showed how perfectly serious she was about this.
"The fourth rule I impose on you myself. No matter what the
temptation- and there will be temptation- do not let yourself be
controlled by the power you will possess. Absolute power corrupts
absolutely, but only if you let it.

"You will have to stand by and watch eternity pass untouched.
You will stand by and watch your friends die, knowing that you could
save them with less work than moving a finger, and you will do
nothing. You will watch everything you love be destroyed and you
will let it happen without a fight. Can you do that, Meioh Setsuna?
Can you have that kind of power in your hands for millennia and still
have the strength to resist it?"




There was a convenient bench underneath an arched trellis, and
they both sat in silence. Setsuna was trying to fit Pluto's rules
into what she considered reality, while Pluto simply sat there and
looked mysterious. She did that very well.

Setsuna finally spoke, making the decision Pluto knew from her
own memories was coming. "Hai, I will do it. I don't believe I can
have any idea what I'm volunteering to do, but I will do by best to the
best of my abilities. This I swear on my life, my soul, and my honor
as the Princess of Pluto and loyal servant of Queen Serenity. May I
lose them all I break in my actions or thoughts."

It was the most sacred vow she knew how to make. Sailor Pluto
shook her head. "Do not swear as to what you may think. You could
not be handed the power of the Gates and not consider using them to
your advantage. Do not swear by what you cannot control."

"Fine," Setsuna agreed impatiently. She wasn't willing to
place any bets on the length of the conversation, not with the
Guardian of Time sitting next to her, but it seemed like several
hours had passed. It took Pluto several more moments to speak again.

"So be it." There was a lot of weight on those three words.
The pressure of years beyond imagining. She held out her hand, the
key she had stored away returning. "Take the Key of Time, then,
Meioh Setsuna, and open the Gate."

Time seemed to slow as Setsuna reached out. Perhaps it did.
And perhaps the universe did pause for one eternal second as her hand
made contact with the staff in front of her. Or perhaps time
continued in its eternal march as she broke step to stand and observe.




Sailor Pluto had a strange smile on her face as she stepped
back through the glowing Gate. She had remembered that conversation
from both sides, but it was nice to actually say the words out loud
again. There were times when even the Guardian of Time had to get a
few things off of her chest, and she of all people could not have
another share the burden.





----- Author's Notes
I'm not sure why I wrote this. Maybe to prove that there's more to
Setsuna than the ice queen act. She has gone through a lot- how can
she not have?- and she's always the calm one, the one that's never
surprised, the one that stays stable. It has to be difficult.

I'm sorry if anyone thinks that Pluto's personality is completely
wrong. I finally got around to buying the Sailor Moon S movie
(dubbed, but it's still the movie) but I've seen next to none of
the S season. And her single big action in the movie is to drink a
cup of tea. I'm running off what I've read by other people.

Jayde