The Choice of Duty
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			I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
			I woke, and found that life was Duty.
						Ellen S. Hooper
						(Beauty and Duty)

Part V: Pluto
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	Pluto did not say much in her last visits to the Moon.  She had 
remained silent since her last argument with the sovereign Queen, and 
the distaste she harbored for the immature and spoiled princess.  That 
alone had ruined any chance of conciliations between the two monarchs.  
"You are not worthy of my advices being you would not heed them had I 
told you the truth!"
	As the Queen of Pluto, her mother had sent her on the mission a 
decade ago before she had died, a tradition that she had a hard time 
breaking even if she detested it greatly.  Her father had been silent 
and disappeared into the gate again at the crucial moment of her life 
for she could not guard it yet.  There were still much to learn and 
thus she became the monarch of her homeworld, filling in the empty 
space her father had left behind.  She was still Princess being that 
she had not yet married, in her world you rule as one by two, for the 
ruler of the descendent King and Queen must guard the time-gate until 
the next generation in which they could either choose to give up their 
place or allow the monarch to rule as one anyway.  Her parents were 
related by blood, her blood was the strongest and her father wanted her 
to guard.  But time, time had not yet come for her.  Her blood did not 
yet flow to with the rhythm of it.  She sighed as she glanced out to 
the darkness of the vast space before her.  She missed the world 
outside.  The darkness that consumed her within was frightening but the 
training for the centuries to come...that was her greatest fear.
	What would it be like to be away from them all, Uranus, Neptune, 
and Saturn?  What would it be like to be alone for so long?  The old 
ones have told her that she is never alone, but she has not yet 
understood their enigmatic ways.  "Tied are we in the streams of time, 
yet broken form all human kind.  Mortal yet immortality, forever in 
your grip and always out of mind."  What did it mean?  She had pondered 
the truth of these words that she felt in her blood but could not 
fathom the meanings clearly enough.  There were too many ways to look 
at it.  Too many secrets she did not yet understand or know of the 
existence of.  The secrets in themselves are chains, the knowledge and 
the riddle but shackles to her curiousness and she knew that when it is 
solved that she would never be able to leave.  The manacles would have 
me then when I find the truth, yet it would have me nonetheless with 
its temptation of knowing and learning its secrets.
	Neptune had once warned her that her choices were different and 
of a different paths then any of the others.  "We are not alike you and 
I, our blood says enough.  Our powers are ours yet they are not.  You 
are special Setsuna, we are different and the mirror knows.  She would 
not tell the secrets that you hold in your own soul."  She had turned 
away, her rouge eyes searching the grounds and asked only one question 
that had sped through her nights and made her body cold with dread.
	"Will my destiny be mine alone?"  The other senshi looked 
startled, but slowly the Queen of the Neptune world nodded in 
understanding and her smile was sad.
	"Setsuna-chan, I-"
	"Please don't lie to me Michiru-chan."  The other turned away to 
look out to the vast ocean waters below her palace in the sky.  A gift 
of rule from Uranus, but soon the aqua eyes shifted back to her.
	"Hai.  Gomen nasai my friend, we are not like you and thus we 
cannot accompany you on your long and arduous journey."  Those calm, 
wise eyes held hers.  Probing for the reactions to the answers the 
aqua-haired Queen had given to her.
	"Where?"
	"The question is when."  The Sea Queen said nothing else after 
that.  Answering her question with silence and a sorrowful withdrawn 
look that made her fret.  She rode home in her little shuttle in a 
pensive brooding, watching and monitoring the controls, pondering on 
what her friend had said.
	What did she mean by when?  She clicked a few buttons on the 
panel attached to the one arm of her chair and sighed inwardly.  I 
wonder...  

	The next few months were burdensome.  Construction on her planet 
for more underground tunnels and inward heating had made her unable to 
visit any of her friends and she so dearly wished to visit Saturn.  It 
was a turbulent time and the Princess had sent her a message requesting 
a visit.  She in turn said that when she was free she would go.  Time 
dragged on, five months had passed already before she was finally able 
to visit and it was delayed because Saturn was in an uproar and was 
politically unstable.
	When she finally set foot on the planet the Princess of Saturn 
rushed to her in so much joy that she nearly knocked the older woman 
over.  "Komban wa Hotoru-chan, how are you?"
	"Komban wa onee-chan, I'm so glad you are finally able to make 
it!"  The slim and fragile woman held onto the taller woman who, at 
that moment, seemed more like her mother than her friend.
	"Hotoru-chan, daijobu?"  She laid a soft hand on the purple-black 
mass that fell to her shoulders.
	"Iie!  Father refuses to listen to me, he is so set on his 
revenge with the Mau royals.  He refuses onee-chan!  He refuses!"  The 
woman shook her head frantically.  "Why can I not do anything?"  Her 
tears dampened the front of her shirt and she tightened her arms around 
her.
	"Hotoru-chan," the other sniffed and finally backs away, smiling 
shakily at her friend.
	"Gomen nasai, I did not mean to greet you like this."  She 
laughed at the apologetic comment.  Deep down she knew that she 
would've cried otherwise for she could not help her fragile friend.
	"I cannot tell you that everything will be alright Hotoru-chan, 
that would be a lie."  The other woman stiffened, "But I can tell you 
this, all things will work out in time.  I don't know how or when, but 
they will.  You'll see."
	She saw the doubt in those dark-purple eyes, sad and 
disillusioned, yet remaining innocent nonetheless.  "Has Neptune talked 
to you of late?"  The girl inquired.
	"Iie.  Not since the beginning of construction on Pluto and it 
was but a brief one."  She replied.
	"Oh?  She implied otherwise.  I felt as if something terribly 
important was spoken between the two of you."  Purple eyes, so wise and 
yet naﶥly unknowing looked to her in question.  She is but a child, 
the Pluto Princess realized, much more than I ever gave her credit for, 
and so not like a child she is, as well.
	"Hai, there were important matters discussed indeed."  She 
replied softly.  Apart of her wanted to withdraw into the tight shell 
that she had learned to construct and yet she was confused, this was 
her dear friend and had always been like a imoto to her.
	"About?"  The girl inquired.
	"About the future imoto-chan," she replied.
	"Future?"  The other pushed, "Is it about you being the Time 
Guardress after your father's passing?"
	"Hai, it was."
	Silence fell upon them.
	"Onee-chan?"
	"Hai imoto-chan?"
	"No matter where or when, you will always be my onee-chan, ne?"  
The little girl emerged from the woman that she was becoming, the dark-
purple in her eyes glittered with unshed tears and complex questions 
left silent, all mixed in this one simple one.
	"All things will change as time change imoto-chan," she begun 
softly, choosing her words carefully.  "Even I will change and so will 
you," the other's gasped softly in pain.  "Ne, you will always be dear 
to me imoto-chan, my little Hotoru-chan."  She cried this time her 
tears spilt forth, one delicate hand over her mouth.  But when she 
moved she saw a smile of relief and a soft flush of happiness on the 
other girls cheek and she knew she had chosen her words well and this 
was a promise that even time cannot break.
	A hand ticked.  Time went forth another step.

	Her father was and had always been ambiguous and aloof to the 
System, and even his home planet Pluto.  He expressed himself awkwardly 
when needed and was always silent when there was no need for him to 
speak.  All those that she knew that guarded or had once guarded the 
gate of time had been like that.  A mystery, a silence, and a knowing 
that scared her and tempted her.  She in turn learned to be so, but she 
was not so good as her father who seem to emit a power, as if your 
every word and every action had already been known to him, as if there 
is nothing there to surprise and all had been jaded and old.  Can life 
really become like that?  Then what is the duty of a guard to the Gate 
if all things were already predestined and planed?  She had asked him 
those questions once and his answer had been curt.  "Destiny has its 
own accord, but it is up to us to keep it straight."
	She still did not understand the implications and reasons of the 
existence and purposes of the gate, nor her importance in its role.  
"One day daughter you will be the greatest if not the last of the 
Guardians of Time."
	"How can that be father?  I am not immortal."  She had looked to 
him puzzled, but then again, she always had been puzzled by him and his 
riddled speech that spoke too much and yet not enough.
	"You do not need immortality to live forever."  This comment 
confused her even more but he spoke no more of the matter and she 
stayed in silent confusion.
	It had always been like that between the two of them, he always a 
distant man whom she had the greatest respect, and she, his pupil more 
than his daughter.  At times when he was gone and she visited the moon 
and would stare enviously at its princess.  Spoiled, loved and 
surrounded by friends and beauty, the other did not know what it was 
like to suffer from responsibilities.  
	And she?  She had always been shrouded in darkness, duty, and 
decision.  At age fifteen she unofficially begun ruling, at eighteen 
she became its Queen and took the place of her absentee father.  She 
looked after the kingdom, drew up the laws, listened to disputes and 
learned.  How she had learned!  The politics that twisted the world to 
peace, the darkness that hid behind the tranquil System, the coming war 
that fought for power between Saturn and Kumong - two power crazed 
planets each out to destroy each other and the System as well - was 
coming to a peak.  Power, aggression and victory, that was all that 
fell upon the minds of men and the hearts of Kings.  The soldiers 
fought for duty - duty and lies.  Lies that inundated them as they 
watched their blood stain the ground for those lies, as they die with 
illusions of honor and kill others believing those same lies told by 
their commanders.
	She despised them, yet she could not see a way to inform the 
people of the truth without the risk of civil wars or System wars as it 
is between Saturn and Kumong and their allies.  One day her father had 
saw her tired face and asked her what was wrong, it was a rare moment 
that he was even home and rarer still was the display of concern.  She 
had told him of her day in a tired voice and sarcastically added in the 
end, since she was in an extremely peevish mood that, "If the Gods 
created politics it's a wonder we ended up at all!"  He had scolded her 
and looked to her with scorn, making her feel ashamed immediately even 
though she did not know why she felt so.  And still keeping some of the 
offended airs of youth she glared back with whatever pride she had 
left.
	"Do not insult the Gods child, it is through them you have your 
powers.  Magik or not they help us and are wiser than we are.  You know 
not what the world is like yet."
	Knowing the truth in those words did not help, and out of those 
earlier defenses she replied coldly, "I would know the world better if 
you were here to show it to me."
	"And spoil you like that moon brat?  I think not!"  Her father 
laughed when her mouth dropped open in shock.  "Don't look at me that 
way daughter.  We all know that the Moon Princess is spoiled to the 
bone.  Her mother had no one else to pamper with her vast powers.  No.  
I don't want you like that.  Do everything your way and learn their 
consequences Setsuna instead of having other people scrapping up your 
mess, do it yourself.  Until you crawled on your hands and knees, you 
will never know that perhaps the vermin that you so despise may know 
more than you.  Leave no weakness unsolved and unknown for others to 
discover, find it, learn from it, and obliterate it."  Smiling he left 
her to ponder his wisdom and now, after years of training in every 
aspect of ruling and soldiering she knew, and she learned.
	The inner court was indeed made of the best, but she knew also 
that they had much to learn.  She pitied them, they had to protect the 
Princess after all, and before the child learns that she needed to grow 
up she will indeed be a brat and a pain.  She pitied the inners and 
envied them, for they did not have to rule like her.  Never like her.  
They did not have an absentee father, a long dead mother, and a kingdom 
that was all but a mystery to her.  And for that she envied them and 
wished in a corner of her heart, something that she had never 
acknowledged before and probably never will.  That one-day, Michiru, 
Haruka, Hotoru and she could be with them and learn what it is like to 
live without politics, but simply as friends, as lovers, and not a 
System away.

	"Setsuna-sama!  Come quickly!  Your father was on a mission and 
he has returned with great wounds!"  She froze when she found out, 
couldn't move at all.  Now the question fell upon her.  What do I do?  
The servant looked at her with a strange mixture between fear and 
admiration, she was beautiful after all wasn't she?  He thought and 
called to her again.  Her rigid stature betrayed nothing of how she 
felt.  Royals, how do they do it?  He wondered, for from what he saw he 
knew that she was no ice cube.  "Setsuna-sama?"
	"Take me to him."  She replied quickly, too quickly.  As if she 
was suddenly snapped from a thought but he did not linger on his own 
just yet, and so he turned and the two moved swiftly down the hall.
	They entered the room of the King, the dark green marble seemed 
to gleam and waver like moss in a breeze as it contrasted against the 
golden dazzle that dully shone under the dim light.  The slender 
muscled man beneath the bed did not even glance over to them to 
acknowledge their entrance, but the uneven rise and fall of his chest 
told her that he was in great pain.  "Father!  My King."  She rushed to 
his side and bent, gently kissing his hand.  The servant quietly exited 
the room and left the two alone.
	"Daughter Setsuna," he exhaled.  "The darkness is here at last, 
protect the gate and the powers vested within you will finally manifest 
itself."  His voice was labored and his words broken but she understood 
his message.  He caught her chin in his one hand, surprising her.  "I 
must tell you that you have made me and your mother very proud."  He 
smiled at her softly but his face turned stern even as hers became that 
of surprise.  "You will be so powerful and so great, remember that this 
great weight on your shoulders should be carried with honor."  She 
nodded.  "Thus Queen of Pluto I hereby give you the power of all of 
Pluto and pronounce you their leader and the new guard of that of the 
Time Gate."  She nodded again, not knowing what to say to such a thing.  
"You have much to learn child," she did not protest this time, for his 
words felt true and she would not deny them.  "There are three rules to 
being its guard.  One, you must never leave the time gate.  Two, you cannot 
change it at leisure.  Your job is to make sure no one is able to 
change it.  Three-" he paused and looked to the ceiling.  "The keys and 
the staff is waiting for you!"  He gasped at the pain.  "We love 
you...daughter...always."  His eyes glazed over and his chest stopped 
rising in that unnatural rhythm.
	"Father?  Father, what is the third rule?"  She cried, she shook 
him like she was but a child in the old days, still sitting on his lap 
as she watch him and her mother laugh at the things she did.  "Father!  
Answer me damn you!  How can I watch a Kingdom and the Great Gate at 
once?  How is Pluto to survive without you?"  She shook him, to prevent 
herself from shaking.  "Father you can't die on me!  You coward!  You 
can't die!"  She whimpered and she wept.  The servants had long been 
gone.  There was no one there but her shadow and her tears.  "Father, 
how can Pluto go on without you?  How can I?"  She whispered the last 
question, afraid to hear it even in the presence of no one.
	Her and her father were never close.  They had been once when she 
was very young and being the Princess was like playing a fairytale.  
She remembered the first time he had given her the dark jeweled 
bracelet that was slim and light, glistening with bedazzlement as she 
gapped at it.  It was a time before her mother had died, when time did 
could not yet catch up with her.  A part of her felt the blood of the 
Gate Keeper boil and making her feel whole again, and yet another was 
lost, lost when her mother closed her ruby eyes, lost when her father 
turned his head and stopped his breath.  What did time matter when it 
could not stop this?  What did it matter when it could not stop 
anything, when the one rule was to do nothing?
	"You are still a child, you have much to learn."  When did father 
say that?  Many times, when he thought her asleep and he watched over 
her and studied her as he would any stranger.  But in a way they had 
always been strangers.
	"Father," she whispered and kissed him gently on the forehead.  
"Will we meet again?"  She smiled as tears pour down her cheeks and the 
memories of walking beside two beautiful adults, a Queen and a King, 
with their little princess appeared in her mind.  "Mother?  Father?  
Will I ever see you again?"  There was no answer but silence and she 
stood up looking down at the prone body of the only man she had ever 
loved and thought that she ever could love.  Will you love me forever 
father?  Will anyone ever love me again?  She wanted to ask those 
questions but the silent room was her only answer.  She carefully drawn 
up the dark gold-green cloth and with her free hand she closed the now 
empty eyes and tucked the cloths around him - like a mother would a 
child.  "Goodnight father," she said.  "Sayanora."
	She did not go to his funeral until the entire kingdom had 
settled and the people gone.  There, before his open grave, she dropped 
a dark-crimson rose, a color that her father told her when she was 
young, "It's like your eyes, so like your eyes."  She sniffed the rose, 
letting the musky-sweet scent waft in the air before gently pressing 
her lips to its soft petals dropping it into the grave upon the coffin.  
"Sayanora father, forever."  She did not cry, she vowed that she would 
never cry again.
	The door of the Gate yawned open, and waited for her patiently.  
This was her home now, her only home.  Love did not reside there and in 
a way, she realized, she was like a god, watching over everyone and 
through all of time.  But she had never asked to be a god or remotely 
like one.  All she ever wanted in life was friends and love and family.  
Her friends now, she would probably never see again, and her family had 
all died before her eyes.  Love?  There was no love in the world, no 
lover who could fill the emptiness in her heart.
	In one last desperate moment of hope she whispered, "Kaa-san, I 
wish you were here to tell me what to choose."  The breeze blew at her 
and she turned her back to the world.  The door closed without a sound 
and the world, the System went on.  The Guardian of the Gate was 
finally home where she belonged for the millenniums to come.  Her only 
companion loneliness, and longings sacrificed to time.
	The Queen of Pluto, Princess Setsuna died that day with her 
father.  A distant brother of the King ruled Pluto.  Sailor Pluto, 
Guardian of time was born that day.  She never looked back, for it was 
not her style.
	It was the end of her humanity.



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Woohoo!  The outer section has begun!  Why the hell did I start with 
the outers? Well, if you think about it, you'd realize 
that...urrr...think about it and I'll tell you when I think it's time 
to tell =) or better yet, to make things interesting for me and
you, guess!  I know, I know, everyone hate doing that, but heck, give 
it a try and I'll tell you if it's right...whe it's time 0=)
Anyho, this is NOT my best chapter.  I personally prefer You and I to 
this section because I uhh...needed it and I like Pluto-san, she's so 
kawii!  *sigh*  But then so are they all.  I did Pluto no justice in
this chapter, my head wondered off and I might decide to build more
on her character, but Pluto-san's a mystery and we wouldn't want to
ruin that now, do we?

First things first though.  With the help of Chaos, I got some words
in japanese I didn't know the meaning of or didn't know the translated
japanese form.  So THANX choas-chan!

imoto - little sister
komban wa - good evening
arigato - thank you
gomen nasai / gomen - an expression of apology

Pluto's time rules...that too I have to thank Chaos, but it IS Saturday
mornign at around 2:00 AM  so this is going to be strange.  I don't 
know all of them, so ... hopefully I got it right.  Rule number 3?  We
all should know rule number three about time!  The one that Pluto had 
broke in the battle with Mistress 9, I saw a clip of it so don't ask me 
what episode that was.  All I know is that Haruka and Michiru were 
saved because of that and that was a confirmation of the love Pluto has 
for her friends.

Also, I was wondering if Saturn knew about her powers before she was 
needed to destroy the Moon kingdom.  I kinda need to know.  Actually
let's just pretend that she didn't until the last few month okay?
Saturn did not know the self-destruct sequence that was built into her
powers till the end of the Dark Wars.  So don't ask me about anything 
dealing with the coming chapter.  It is based on this assumption.  If 
you don't like it.  You change it and the 80 or so other pages that 
went with it!

The outers have a Queen form.  Just in case you didn't know.  This was
their ultimate form at the end of the Silver Millennium and was 
exclusively Outer power.  Why?  Because the Inners weren't Queens yet!
You see, I got to thinking that, if Sailormoon has a powerup Princess
form, then all of them does until they become Queen and that is the
power up form.  They discard the Princess form and is either Senshi
or Queen or Queen form.  The difference between Queen and Queen form
is that Queen is when their powered down to a certain point so that
they are not soldiers and DO NOT wear armor.  This is the political
form.  The Queen FORM, is a Senshi-Queen form, so they're wearing an
armor that is more adaptable to the enviornment and much more stronger
than the Senshi form.  This form though takes more time and thus most
of normal battles, the Outers are in Senshi form.  Telling the enemy 
that you're Queen is also a bad idea, that is why neither the inners
or outers are ever in their royal form on the battle field unless it
is mortally necessary!

Teleportation: will be explained in You and I, but the Senshi can do
it individually.  Why they do not do it in the anime and manga in their
later lives are explained in You and I, other than the fact that they
didn't know they can do it.  But that's a whole different issue.
This act is not used much in this fic because of the reasons listed in
You and I.

Serenity - Moon Queen - is a politician.  You have to keep that in 
mind.  Serenity - Moon Princess - is a spoiled brat.  You have to
keep that in mind too.  Personally, I hold no grudge to Usagi, I'm 
quite fond of her actually, but she's still a spoiled brat in this fic 
and you'll find out why later.  All will be explained in time.  Luna 
and Artemis are Mau, a concept borrowed from Chaos-chan.  The gravity
of each planet are physically different, just as we have learned
in physics.  Mass is porportional to gravity, the bigger the planet
the greater the pull.  Gravitron: designed to lessen the gravity of
a specific area.  This idea is not mine.  I don't know who's but who
ever it is.  You're brilliant =)

This note is VERY long so that I don't have to write about it in the
other fics, so with that, I would like to say, Ja!

You can reach me at:
blue@icedream.f2s.com

Arigato!
Blue