Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ The True Keeper of Time ❯ One-Shot

The True Keeper of Time

By Brett Boyette

Some thing was about to happen, that much she knew for sure.

She clutched her shopping bag tightly in her hand and nervously fingered the key she wore around her neck with the other. The black clouds over head thundered and she wished violently that her premonition would go away. Her ankle length black hair, shaded with forest green highlights, swayed lightly in the breeze.

Two Days Later

The fall breeze blew her black/green hair as she locked the door to her house.

"Come on, Sentsuna, we're going to be late for the first day of school!" her best friend, Soya called from the street.

"I'm coming!" Sentsuna yelled back as she briefly looked down at the key in her hands. She allowed herself the pleasure of running her finger down it's jagged edge. She had loved keys ever since . . . ever since . . . she felt herself being swept away in the memories.

***

"Daddy, when will mommy get home? I miss her. Why does she always have to go away for work? Will she be back in time for my birthday?"

"She will be here as soon as possible, It's just that mommy had a very important job. But, sweetheart, your mommy wouldn't miss your birthday for anything in this world or for time itself."

***

They had told her to stay in the Hospital waiting room, but something had called to her. Telling her that she needed to be somewhere else. That something vitally important was going on without her.

She stopped just outside mommy's hospital room in time to hear the Doctor saying, " . . . I'm sorry, but the disease is terminal. There is nothing we can do for her now . . ."

Terminal? Did that mean . . . that mommy was going to . . . die?

***

Entering the room the small girl noticed that there was only one lone candle burning. Daddy said that they couldn't turn on the lights because they hurt mommy's eyes too much.

Reaching the edge of the bed, the girl asked, "Are you going to die, mommy?"

"Not, just yet, sweetheart. I will always be with you, through out time. Will you do something for mommy?"

"Anything."

"Well, mommy has a very special job for you."

Wiping away her tears, the young girl asked, "What is it mommy?"

The woman coughed and wiped a couple of strands of dark green hair, identical to her own, out of her daughter's eyes.

"This," the woman said and handed an old rusty key to her daughter. "You will know what to do with it when the time comes, but until then, I want you to protect it. And know that every time you touch it, that I am with you. This key has been passed down from mother to daughter for many generations and now I pass it on to you. I love you, my Sentsuna, my sweetheart."

The candle that had once lit the room went out.

Alone in the darkness, the little girl clutched her mother's key and said, "I love you too, mommy."

***

"Sentsuna! Come! ON!"

The trance was broken and she was back on her doorstep, in the real world.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming." Sentsuna yelled back, shaking off the memories as she joined her friend on the street, house key safely in her pocket and her mother's key safely around her neck.

The wind blew harder.

"Okay, lets go," Sentsuna said.

"Wait a sec. I know we're going to be late," Soya said, "but I want to give you something. I got it while I was on vacation this summer."

"What is it?" Sentsuna asked excitedly.

"This," Soya said simply, as she produced from her jacket a beautiful brass pocket watch. As Sentsuna took it, she noticed a key that could been twin to the one she wore around her neck. Opening it up, she stood mesmerized by the ticking hands `til she noticed the inscription on the inside of the lid. It read:

She who holds this watch is

The True Keeper of Time

"I saw it in this old antique shop and knew that you had to have it!" her friend said. "Do you like it?"

"I absolutely love it!" Sentsuna replied as she threw her arms around Soya's neck.

"Really?" Soya asked as she returned the embraced.

Taking a step back, so she could look into Soya's eyes, Sentsuna said solemnly. "Yes, really. I will always treasure it. For all time."

"I'm so happy, Sentsuna," Soya told her, just as solemnly as she took Sentsuna's hand and walked down the street towards the school.

The wind blows their hair away from their faces.

The first sign that something was wrong was the screaming.

The two girls looked at each other, not knowing whether to help or to run away. Then Sentsuna felt the first tugs, urges from that scary place inside her that gave her the premonitions. The urging was to follow the sound of the screams.

"Let's go see what's going on," Sentsuna said and was dragging Soya behind her before she could say a thing in protest.

It didn't take long to trace the origin of the screams. When they reached the mouth of the street, though, they didn't go any farther. What they saw froze them in their tracks.

Bodies littered the street and crystals were suspended in the air above each body.

"What happened here?" Soya asked in a frightened whisper.

"I- I- I don't know," Sentsuna stuttered and tighten her grip on her friend's hand.

"Damn! None of these are talismans!" A voice screamed in fury and frustration.

The two girls' heads snapped up to find the owner of the voice. What they saw made them forget the bodies and the weird crystals entirely. What they saw was a cross between a monster and a grandfather clock.

Before she knew what she was doing, Sentsuna had let go of Soya's hand and screamed against the raging wind at the monster, "You better stop hurting these people or else!"

The monster turned toward the voice and once it saw who had challenged it- two scared little girls- threw back it's head and laughed.

"Sentsuna, what have you done?! Now it will attack us!" Soya whispered in her ear, while trying to pull Sentsuna in the opposite direction of the monster.

"Two new victims! Excellent! Now, give me your pure hearts!" The monster demanded as it reached around for the nasty looking gun it had slung across it's back. It pointed the muzzle right at Soya.

"What are you? What do you want?" Sentsuna yelled back, meanwhile trying to keep Soya from running.

"I am the keeper of time. A damion sent from the future. I have it on good authority that someone from this time period is a holder of a talisman!"

Behind her, Sentsuna felt Soya break away from her grip a run. Sentsuna tried to grab the sleeve of her friend's jacket, but she was already gone. Looking back, it wasn't until then that Sentsuna really felt scared for her life and the life of her friend.

The blast took Soya from behind, hitting her square in the back, and- amazingly- continued on through her, forcing what had to be her pure heart, out in front of her.

The moment was suspended in time. Her friend's body and crystal suspended in mid-air, Soya's screams echoing endlessly. Sentsuna's own scream caught in her throat.

Then the moment was over and Soya's body fell to the ground and her heart crystal appeared between the damion's hands.

Someone screamed "Nooooooooo!" and it was a minute before Sentsuna realized it was her own voice she heard.

"Damn it! It's not a talisman either!" The creature cursed angrily, and threw the crystal to the ground, shattering it.

Sentsuna wasn't sure how, but she knew that with the shattering of the crystal, her best friend had died.

Tears streamed down Sentsuna's cheeks as that loss of her friend, but the raging wind dried them to her face before they could fall to the ground.

And, like the wind raged, Sentsuna raged too, against the injustice of Soya's death.

There was almost no warning before another blast came at her too. Sentsuna tried to dodge but wasn't fast enough. It hit her, and her pure heart appeared briefly, before turning into one of the three Legendary Talismans.

"This must be what that foul monster was looking for. Well, it can't have it!" Sentsuna screamed to herself and grabbed the talisman out of the air.

At the moment of contact, the glowing green sign of the planet Pluto appeared on her forehead and a power filled her. Fueling her rage and awakening her inner strength and power that had given her premonitions and visions, that little urgings and tugging, like the ones that had told her to follow the screams.

And with her awakening, came that knowledge and she knew that she alone possessed the power to defeat this monster.

The wind died; the calm before the storm.

"You're going to regret killing my friend!" Sentsuna told the monster in a deadly whisper that echoed loudly off of the rows and rows of houses, making it seem loud and menacing.

Sentsuna's hand came up to her neck, searching for her mother's key, finding it; she yanked it off, the chain breaking.

Holding the key above her head in one hand and the talisman in the other, there was a flash of light and ribbons that blinded the monster for a seconded. Once it got it's vision back, it could still see the young girl standing there, with an old key held high above her head, but now she was now dressed in dark green sailor fuku.

Then, before the creature could react, Sentsuna screamed out, "Time Key!"

The storm came.

Lightening rocked the sky and it began to rain as the key elongated itself, creating Sentsuna's Time Staff. At the end of the staff, there was a groove, in which she placed her talisman.

She looked at the monster with hatred in her eyes. "See you in hell, because you were wrong. You are not really the keeper of time, I am."

Then, in a rush of wind, Sentsuna grabbed her time staff and pointed it- talisman first- at the damion. With all her rage and hatred, she yelled into the night, "Dead Scream!" and sent an incredible blast of energy at the monster. It disintegrated, and left behind only a broken-down, old grandfather clock and broken seed where it had just stood.

With the death of the damion, all the crystal returned to their owners. All but Soya's crystal.

Now Sentsuna gave fully into her grief, her tears mingling with the salty rain as she looked at her friend's lifeless body.

She knew what she had to do.

Turning away, she drew the tip of her Time Staff in a big circle in the air, creating a Time Portal. Before entering, though, she spared one last look at her friend and said, "I will find the one who created that evil monster and revenge you. That I can promise you, a promise I will keep for all of time."

Then, she took out the pocket watch that her friend had given her just an hour before, and stepped into the portal to live out her destiny as the True Keeper of Time.