Cold crystal walls.  It didn’t suit the element she represented.  But she was like that sometimes.  Where is she?  It would be hard to find her in this huge castle.
         “Jadeite-san!”  Two coal haired women called to him.  Twins.  Only this time, the glowing fire was their background.  The fire that was enchanting, soft and luminous.
         What has happened?  Where is she?  “Phobos... Deimos....” Jadeite whispered.  “Is this a dream?”
         “You have returned, Jadeite-san,” one of them uttered, barring his way.
         “Where is she?” he asked.
         “Why did--“
         “I return?  I returned because of her... Enyalis Rei, Princess of Mars.  I... need her.”  His hands had hurt her even when the voice inside him had left him.  There was no other way.  She had to leave before Beryl can take her.
         Phobos and Deimos looked at each other and smiled.  “We knew you’d return,” they said and pointed to the door at the left.  “She’s been there all day, tending the sacred fire.”
 His heart pounded as he ran to the door and pushed it open.  The room bore a meditative silence and it was only the flames that danced on the pedestal that lighted her face.  A beautiful woman, her long raven tendrils touched her gentle shoulders.  She lay on the floor... sleeping.

 
     “One, two, three...!”  A very angry spike.  That volleyball wouldn’t have wanted it as it bounced furiously off the wall.
     Be serious!  Who says she can’t be serious?
     The ball made a loud “thud” as it hit the wall again.
    Minako-chan!!!  What?  She has been truly dedicated to everything.  Can’t you see?  Right now she’s been concentrating on volleyball to get her mind off these silly dreams.

     “Aishiteru....”  Who cares if he won’t whisper it back?

     Only a soft thud?  She can’t get weak quickly.  She held the next ball in her hands.

     He probably heard it.  What else stopped him in his tracks?  The cold tingling breeze that ran through him?  Will she ever understand that he can’t look back? It would be very risky if he did.  He might never return to his kingdom!  He might never make it to the pact he and his comrades made--to face Beryl one last time and ask her to take back the powers she gave... before it takes over their minds!
     “I don’t understand, Kunzite-kun,” she said.  “Even if our alliance with the Earth is broken, it is not because--“
     “--You are the leader of the sailor senshi, you should understand!”  he said without looking back at her.  The pain increased in his head as he tried to fight the voice asking him to destroy the very ground she stepped on.
     “I think I... understand now,” she said weakly.  “Goodbye, Kunzite.”
     If he could fight Beryl’s power within him, then he would be able to face her one last time, except he didn’t know how much power she holds.

     Goodbye, Minako-chan.  She smiled at that last thud.  She always knew that he was good at taking risks.  And polite, too, because he had said his goodbye properly, even if his kiss wasn’t as long as it usually was.  Minako knelt down on her knees and gave her gasps to the shiny floor.  It’s hard to be serious.
     “Do you mind...” she heard a voice boom in the empty gym.  “... if I stay here for awhile?”
     She gasped in surprise.
     Kunzite touched his weary head.  Which was he more thankful of?  Seeing her again or not adding bumps to his head?  He was feeling sorry for the wall.  By those sharp thuds, he could very well relate and sympathize.  But even then, he would just still there for a long, long time and not look back.  “I’d like to stay here for now.  It’s safer!”

     “I never cried in front of the sacred fire before....”

     Hino Rei whispered softly.  But the flames blazed angrily on the pedestal, its furious hands rose higher, in response.  It was really him.  And he had to hide behind a mask. He didn’t tell her who he was at first. When everything about him had sunk so deep, she would discover that he was really her enemy.

     “I was too late.  The storm has taken him away.”
     It was as if the fire had stood still and took a rest from its fury.  Only a warm and soft glow.  There was nothing it could do.  What else is there that she hasn’t seen before?   This eerie gift of premonition has enabled her to see beyond him and made her cry in the way that she never had imagined.
 
     The figure in the fire.  The intruder at Hikawa Jinja!

     Yes, the intruder in the castle!  Didn’t she see that he has already changed?  From afar, his aura had already emitted a different kind of darkness from what it usually was.  She wouldn’t have stayed, had it not from the soul that still shone in his eyes.
     But he had hurt her.  His hatred for her was this much?  Where did all the things he said go?  When he was the first who had said it.
     “It’s too late now.  The divine rule was here to protect us,” she murmured, her vision blurry from faintness and crying.  She had already understood that it was his destiny to belong to the storm and her destiny belonged to the Silver Crystal.  People from different planets have different destinies.
     Enyalis Rei wearily raised her hand.  In it was a glove with the edges burnt.  He was a little ashamed to say that it was one of his most endearing possessions.  A souvenir of their first meeting.  What kind of silly obsession did he have over her anyway?  But then… considering that, as if she were any different from him?
     The silly thing had now been hers anyway and she struggled very much to let him go.
     It is only a glove.  The only thing that reminded her of him.  But it was already decided that the best thing to do is to remove every trace of him for the reason that she had realized because she was so poor at forgetting.
     But to call out just a bit of fire to come out of hands and burn the silly remembrance on the floor was too difficult.  Too tasking. Where would she draw her strength to kill him from her memory at last?  She was just like the sacred fire on the pedestal--weak and very, very weary....

 
        “It’s too late now,” Hino Rei repeated.
        What kind of deception is this?  What kind of secrets is he still keeping?  His last goodbye had been memorable, too.  It would have been better not to have remembered it, except that she wouldn’t understand what was it about him that made her... look twice?
        And still, she could not make even a tiny spark of fire to come out from her hands.  After drawing the remembrance out of her fuku, the black mask that he wore remained untouched on the floor.
        He had to hide behind a black mask... When it fell from his eyes, it didn’t seem a surprise at all.  She expected the most handsome and kindest face uncovered from it.
        To make a bit of fire to come out of her hands and burn that last reminder of him would mean indifference.  Even triumph, eventually.  That is why it is too difficult.  Too tasking.
        The flames on the pedestal rose higher as it engulfed the last souvenir.  It had no difficulty consuming even something soaked in so much tears.  She was very tired, but she remembered exactly how she had done this before.  The sacred fire was always kind to things she, herself, could not destroy--it wrapped its hot fingers around the silly memento quietly, and slowly making it fade away from her eyes.

 
     “I am saying... this could be bad.”
     “Nani?”  He whispered calmly and gently stroked her hair.
     “Whenever I am with you... I forget who I am.  I-I forget many things easily-- I... one of the four guardians....”
     He laughed softly.  “So do I.  Maybe much more so!  I forget everything!”
     “You do?”  Her lovely sharp eyes widened.  He never thought this as a serious question.
     He nodded.
     “Easily?  You forget ... easily?”
     He nodded again.
     She laughed, to his relief.  “We are bad for each other.”

     Jadeite never knew how strong her premonition was then and how right she would be until the next time they did see each other again.  How many times did she tell him of her dreams and visions?  Visions of the storm.  He never did believe it.  He only listened. His embrace often absorbed her shivers after recalling her visions. This wasn’t enough.  It is genuinely like the Princess of Mars to hide her fear and stop her tears, even before him.  Except on the last day of their meeting on the Silver Millenium.
     “You were right.  The storm was too great, Enyalis-chan.”  Even if he said it out loud, no one would seem to hear his voice on the steps of Hikawa Jinja.
     The storm was too strong.  I can’t fight it.  It is destined that victory falls on your side and not mine.  People from different planets have different destinies.

     I wonder... what has happened to him?  Did he go away?
     It’s best that he leaves.  Do you remember his first goodbye?  He has hurt you.
     Wasn’t that a piece of the storm in him?
     Was it?  Did you see it?  Can you say it again?  It is best that he leaves again.
 
     “Princess.  Princess of Mars....”
     As of last, Rei remembers the weak flames of the fire, struggling to keep itself alive on the sacred pedestal before her.  But now she sees its embers flame tremendously.  Must be that the heat helped awaken her... and those two by her side...
     Those two?
       Rei wiped her eyes carefully to make sure her vision was alright.  Phobos and Deimos sat before the flame and in front of her in their loveliest human forms.
     “You’re finally awake, Princess,” one of them told her.
     Rei nodded soberly, still recovering from the hard-earned sleep she took.  Her eyes still puffy with liquid.  Didn’t she tell herself not to do this again before?
     “You were arguing in your thoughts, Princess?’  It was probably Deimos who asked.
     She gasped.  “H-how did you know?”
     Deimos winked.  “You whisper when you sleep.”
     Deimos fixed her gaze on the fire as its flames mounted another surge of energy.  Phobos on the other hand, turned to her Princess and smiled at her.  It wasn’t that Rei wished to be indifferent from her comforting gesture.  It had been a hard night.
     “Princess... has he returned?”  Phobos asked seriously.
     “He?”
     Deimos laughed.  “You don’t know Jadeite-san?”
     Jadeite-san?  She bowed her head.  “It is best ... that he leaves.”  She said after a long silence.
     Phobos’s eyes widened in surprise.  She gently opened Rei’s hands and sprinkled pieces of black ashes on her hand.  Rei could recognize what this had been before the fire morphed it into useless trash completely.  One part of her mission was done.
     “Didn’t we see pieces of this before, Deimos?”  Phobos asked as and looked at the pieces that fell on her Princess’s hand.  “Do you remember what that was?”
     Deimos nodded and continued to fix her gaze on the fire.  “I saw some torn pieces of white garment.  A glove.  And its edges were burnt.”
     It was Rei’s turn to be surprised.  “How did you know this?  No one was in the room but me!”
     “Hi no Himitsu,” Deimos answered.
     Hi no himitsu?  Rei repeated in her thoughts.
     “The fire ... has a secret....” Phobos smiled as she whispered to her Princess.