The little boy wiggled through the tall grass, armed with a handmade catapult and a smooth pebble, keeping a lookout of birds overhead. He heard a high shriek in the distance, and curiously peeked out of the cover of the grass, tip-toeing to do so. A curious sight greeted his eyes – there were four adults, three men and one woman, fighting against each other, with one young child caught in the middle. Occasionally, something would flash high up in the sky.

The boy crept closer to where the adults were fighting, interested in the sounds the swords made when they clashed against each other, and the bright lights that flew back and forth occasionally. As he watched, the tall, auburn haired man drew one of the blond men and the woman away from their child, leaving the girl open to attack from the other blond haired man. The boy barely hesitated as he fitted the pebble into his catapult and slung it at the blond.

"Ouch!" the man yelped as the pebble connected with his shin. The girl saw her would-be rescuer and ran towards him, hiding behind him while the adult advanced on both of them. Thankfully, a few more adults arrived on the scene, and in typical bully fashion, chased off the auburn haired man. The blond who had cornered the two kids ran off as well.

"Who are you?" the girl asked, fussing her dress and the bright red ribbon in her hair back into place.

"Kunzite."

The girl giggled. "I'm Minako. You've got old man's hair. Even my daddy's hair hasn't turned gray yet."

"It's silver," Kunzite corrected crisply, fetching back his pebble and tucking it into his pocket. Just like most boys his age, he didn't like pesky little girls.

"Hey! Don't go! You haven't even met my parents," the girl called after him. "I want you to meet my parents!"

Kunzite gave a shake of his head. "Whoever said I wanted to meet your parents?"

The girl started pouting. "I *want* you to meet my parents!" she said, stamping her feet. "Mummy! Daddy! Look who I've found!" she shouted. A few moments later, before Kunzite could melt away into the grass, the two blondes answered their daughter's call.

"Hello," the woman greeted, bending down until her eyes were level with Kunzite's silver ones. "What's your name?"

Her daughter butted in. "His name's Kunzite. He threw a stone at that bad man and chased him away!" A huge, wet kiss and a sunny beam on her face saw Kunzite smothered by her bear hug.

"Kunzite?" the father asked. "Is that your real name?"

The answer came out sounding muffled and miffed. "Of course that's my real name. My mother gave it to me."

"And who is your mother, Kunzite?" the woman asked gently.

Kunzite, having disentangled himself from the girl's clam-like hug, brushed his shirt free of any of her traces and replied, "my mom was called Michelle, but she's dead now."

The man and woman exchanged weighted looks. "And was your father Malachite?"

The boy looked shocked, and with a child's suspicious air, asked, "how did you know?"

"I was your father's classmate back in university," the man said, scooping his daughter up and placing her on his shoulder. "Why don't you come home with us? It's not right for a little boy to roam about in the wild like this."

The girl clapped her hands. "Oh goody! I'll have somebody to play with then."

Kunzite cast a jaundiced glance at this too loud, too self-centered and altogether too *bright* girl and tried to squirm away, but the woman's grip on his shoulder was like steel.

"You may call me Auntie Aino," she told him.

Kunzite wrinkled his nose at the thick, leather bound book in front of him. :Yet another literary text to study,: he thought with a resigned air. The young boy in him wanted to go out and play in the sunshine, like what he had been doing a bare few weeks ago. Uncle Aino was both very friendly and nice to him, but Auntie Aino sometimes got a little icy, as if he reminded her of something less than pleasant. And so far, all they gave him to do was study literary texts or ethic codes or moral obligations to society, family, friends, self etc. the list went on dauntingly long. Sometimes, he wondered if all this had a symbolic meaning.

The dull 'thwunk' of wood beating against each other made him go to the window of the study room and look out. The little girl, Minako, was engaged in sweating industry, hacking her wooden practise sword against a wooden dummy in the middle of the court yard. But after a few energetic hits, she flopped down on the floor, throwing the wooden sword to one side. Kunzite watched for a few more minutes, then shuffled back to his desk, a little wistfully, a little sullenly, and even a little resentfully.

:She's younger than me by two years. How come she gets to play around with swords while I don't? And it's not as if she's so enthusiastic about it.: Kunzite forced those thoughts out of his head. After all, he was only the son of Uncle Aino's former classmate, and an orphan. They had shown him kindness in taking him in, he shouldn't ask for more. With a silent growl, he flopped down on his chair and grabbed up the book.

He was so engrossed with the story for once that he missed the creak of the door as it opened. He realized the presence of the intruder only when he/she was on him, and by that time it was too late.

"Boo!" a cheery voice screamed behind him, poking him at the sides at the same time. Kunzite jumped a foot into the air, nearly fell off his chair and spun around to glare at the girl.

"You were scared!" she shrieked happily, unaware that the scowl on his face was due to the fact that she irritated him to no end. "I made you scared! Do you know what? You'll be going to the Silver Millenium Order! Daddy's enrolled you there!" she continued in her childish soprano.

Aino Nataka entered the room smiling. "I see Minako has broken the news to you already. You'll be the youngest member of that school, but it shouldn't make much of a difference, knowing how bright you are. I'll enroll you in the Silver Millenium Order under the senshi of Mercury."

Kunzite smiled politely at the praise. "Thank you, Uncle Aino."

Nataka laughed. "No need to. Your Auntie was the one who broached the idea to me. Go and pack. You'll leave tomorrow so that you'll have enough time to settle into their boarding house before the next school term starts. I know that you're wondering why we didn't teach you swordplay, but you'll have the opportunity to learn once you go to the Order."

Kunzite frowned pertly. :Was I that transparent?:

Minako planted a wet kiss on his cheek. "Don't frown so much," she chided, laughing as Kunzite made a sound of disgust and wiped his cheek. "You look so cute, like my pet dog!"

"Your pet dog?" Kunzite echoed in disbelief, and made another disgusted sound when he realised that Minako's sweaty smell had rubbed off on him. "Who are you comparing to a dog?"

"You of course," Minako shot back, skipping out of the room to catch up with her father. "As *cute* as my little lap dog."

Kunzite shuddered. He wouldn't miss much when he joined the Order, most of all this little impertinent girl.

Kunzite looked around his room, and thought back to the time when he'd stood in front of the temple, staring stupidly in open-mouthed awe at its sheer grandeur. He didn't want to believe then that appearances were deceitful, and had even been misled to think that perhaps he would be happy here. No such luck. Disillusion reigned as sovereign over his life. The first time he stepped into the temple, he'd been slapped by a strange woman simply for not greeting her.

:Senshis,: he snorted to himself. :Nothing but pompous women with an inflated sense of self-worth in leadership positions.: He recognized the woman later, after racking his memories. It was one of those who had chased the auburn haired man and his companion away from the Ainos. Uncle Aino had promised him that he would learn sword play here, but the senshi judged him insignificant. So far, he hadn't had a whiff of that promised opportunity. Not even the fact that the senshi of Mercury was his mentor gave him the chance. In fact, Kunzite was sure she, or rather, all the senshis hated him.

A knock sounded on his door, and before he could call out an 'enter', a head poked itself in and told him, with a wide malicious grin, that his presence was required down at the Field. So, the students here had also picked up the senshis' dislike for him.

"What's going on?" he asked the tall lanky brunette beside him, who was three years older, a head and a half taller, and the senshi of Jupiter's student. Kunzite was one of the shortest boys in the Order, shorter even than most girls. With his strange silver hair and the fact that he was the only male student of the senshis, he was often the butt of the girls' jokes. :Not that I admire their uniform a lot,: he thought sourly.

He reached the Field, and his stomach lurched a little when he realised that all the senshis and their students were present, Inners as well as Outers. Only Venus was missing, since she hadn't found a suitable student yet. He could almost guess what was coming next.

"We're holding our annual review today," the senshi of Uranus opened as soon as Kunzite was in his place next to his mentor. "We'll be reviewing your prowess with a weapon and your magical abilities by pitting you against each other."

Kunzite spoke up in his outspoken way. "May I be excused please? I wasn't taught anything of that sort."

Mercury flushed, and rounded on him angrily. "How dare you say I didn't teach you anything?" she snapped, looking surreptitiously at Uranus. The leader of the senshi was looking at Kunzite curiously, since the Outers rarely interacted with the Inners, except for combined activities like this.

"Didn't teach you anything? Surely that can't be. Mercury's one of the best teachers around."

Mercury had a small, superior smile on her face. "Rei, come over here please. You'll be in the first round against Kunzite." She tossed a sword at Kunzite, who caught it awkwardly, having held one for the very first time in his life. Rei bounded to the space opposite him, brandishing the sword as if it was a natural extension of her arm. Kunzite held the sinking feeling that this was going to be a massacre.

Within the first two seconds, he was flat on his back, staring at the sky with stars in his eyes. The next two attempts yielded the same results, until Kunzite was flushed with embarrassment and anger. He threw all caution to the wind, and charged at Rei in a kamikaze attempt, and this time, nearly skewered her with his sword. She twisted out of the way, slashed downwards herself, and repaid the debt with a deep cut on his arm.

"That's enough," Uranus called out, but Rei was infuriated that this *boy* managed to get inside her defences. She gave up with her sword and called down her fire powers. The first blast made a smoking hole in the centre of the field. The second blast nearly took Kunzite's head off, and the at the third blast…

Another show of fireworks flared up, product of a young boy's wild imagination and desperate circumstances. It dwarfed Rei's fireballs in terms of sheer power and glare, and by the time the smoke cleared to allow for clear vision, the boy had disappeared.

"Mercury, what have you been teaching that boy?" Uranus snapped in alarm. "That blast was improperly channeled; it could have hurt the boy and the people around him!

"The proper stuff. He just refused to practise," the senshi defended shakily in the face of Uranus' anger.

"Well, don't just stand there then. Go and get that boy back! I'll supervise him myself next time!"

"Yes sir!" Mercury saluted, and ran off, following the direction of her student's life aura's trail. Her chase led her out of the temple the Order occupied, unsurprisingly. Their sect was situated in the middle of a mountain, and Kunzite was scaling it in hope of escaping over the other side.

"You are in big trouble," the senshi stated flatly, reaching out to grab the boy, but the next second, she was driven back by a storm of tiny and very sharp objects which refused to stop. Mercury flung up one hand to protect her face, and realised with horror that her hand was beginning to exhibit the signs of extreme frostbite. As the senshi of Mercury, she had no small amount of immunity against frostbite, but this was apparently too much, even for her. With a bitten curse, she scrambled away. With luck, the brat of a boy would be dead when she came back to retrieve him.

The storm abated a minute later, once the senshi was gone, a tall woman wearing a scarlet dress with matching eyes and hair stepped emerged from a cave mouth some distance up. She peered around, then satisfied that there was nobody else around, picked up the boy and stepped back into the cave.

Kunzite slowly woke up with a head that felt like an over ripe melon, and a vision that swam and refused to clear. There was something red blocking his view of the entire room, which he belatedly realised was *not* his room at the school. And that something red looked very much like satin. A face descended into view, and Kunzite nearly fell off the bed in shock at this stranger.

"Who are you? Where am I?" he managed to squawk out, wiggling to the other side of the bed, as far away from this strange woman as he could get. He'd never seen anybody with *red* eyes, not even when the older boys drank too much beer and had too little sleep.

The woman smiled, which revealed her two pointy canines, though Kunzite held the impression that she didn't mean to intimidate. Quite frankly, she was ugly, but perhaps it was only his child's perception. "You are in the Dark Kingdom, child. I am called Ruby. What is your name? And how did you get involved with those bitches from Crystal Tokyo?"

"Kunzite. Uncle Aino sent me to the Order to learn swordplay, magic and books, but so far, I haven't been taught any swordplay. I'm in the Silver Millenium Order under the senshi of Mercury, but she doesn't like me. And later she told Uranus that she did teach me swordplay and magic, and set me against this girl with fire powers. I fried her with my own light ball!" Kunzite revealed proudly, then asked, "why am I here?"

Ruby made her comments first before answering the question. " Those bitches! Imagine them bullying a young, defenseless boy like you. Shameless creatures, all of them. You are here because my master accidentally injured you with his Crystal Ice Storm, and because that cut on your hand was too deep for my liking. Don't worry. You don't have to go back to that Order if you don't want to."

At that moment, somebody stepped into the room, wearing dark gray robes with deep green trimmings. She was the most beautiful woman Kunzite had ever seen, and the most beautiful woman he would ever see. Waist length golden bronze hair with curling bangs accentuated fair features, delicate cheekbones, an elfin chin, and wide emerald eyes. Kunzite could only gasp silently, mouth hanging open.

"…"

The scarlet woman grinned as the blond paced elegantly to her side. "This is my master, Zoisite. He is the current leader of the Dark Kingdom Sect."

:He?: Kunzite thought with shock. :That's a 'he'? He's beautiful!:

Zoisite ignored the boy for the moment, turning his clear eyes on the woman who had saved him. "Has he recovered from his injuries? If he has, then he has to leave," he said quietly, with a hint of coolness in his silvery tenor voice.

"But master," the woman protested. "If he goes back, he may be killed."

Zoisite shook his head slightly. "Ruby, the Dark Kingdom and the Silver Millenium do not mix. That is the rule my teacher laid out for me. I cannot change the rule without my senior's approval. When he has fully recovered, take him back to the Silver Millenium Order."

"Please let me stay!" Kunzite called out, but the man ignored him and left. Ruby laid a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Zoisite has spent his whole life in this Dark Kingdom, and he doesn't act like people in the outside world. I like you boy, and I'll try my best to get you to stay here. But now, you've got to take your medicine, or you may not recover fully from that Crystal attack."

Kunzite bestowed a sour frown on the mug that Beryl handed him, but manfully gulped down the vile concoction without complaint.

Ruby looked sadly at the silver haired boy before her and shook her head. "I'm sorry, but my master refuses to bend the rule. I don't blame him either, what with his senior wrecking havoc outside. But I tell you what. Why don't I go down with you and tell those evil women to leave you alone?"

Kunzite's dour face lit up immediately, and he clapped his hands with boyish glee. "That's wonderful! Thank you, Ruby."

Ruby beamed back as well. "No need to. It was rather lonely here with me and Zoisite alone, and you are a very good, intelligent boy. Just a pity that Zoisite's still young, and refuses to leave the shelter of this Dark Kingdom." She grabbed up a cane that was leaning against a wall, one with a crystal ball afixed to its top, and took Kunzite's hand with her other. "Come on, we've got some talking to do." She waved a hand around the crystal ball, and the black translocation gateway yawned into existence.

"It won't bite," Ruby informed the boy cheerfully. "My control over the power isn't very good, that's why it looks so hideous." She strode into it, Kunzite following a little warily, but he relaxed when nothing happened to the leg suspended in its middle. It felt a little cold, but that was the case with everything in the Dark Kingdom. Even the food was cold. But he liked it here, and the idea of returning to his school with his bad tempered mentor was unappetising. But perhaps Ruby could help him.

They appeared right in the middle of the field where the senshi paired him off a few days ago, and admired the big black, barren hole where his bolt of light had struck.

"Did you make that hole?" Ruby asked, and Kunzite nodded his head with a pleased expression. It erased itself completely from his face when his mentor came pounding up.

"Kunzite! You have a lot to explain for yourself. Who are you, old woman?"

Ruby hissed at that insult. "Who are you calling old, Mercury? Or have years of being a senshi addled your brains?"

Mercury refused to answer that jibe. "The Dark Kingdom has always been good if quiet neighbours with Silver Millenium. What brings you here today?"

Ruby patted Kunzite's shoulder. "I came today to tell you to teach this boy properly, and not abuse him all the time."

Mercury shot a venomous glare at her charge. "What falsehoods have you been spinning?" she snapped at Kunzite. "And you! Stay out of our affairs, doddering old fool, and servant of another fool."

Ruby's face flushed until one couldn't tell where her hair started, and where her dress started. "Insults to myself, I can tolerate. But not insults to my master, bitch. Would one old woman like to take on another old woman?"

Mercury grinned. "It will be my pleasure to trounce you back to your Dark Kingdom. Perhaps that will teach you not to meddle with our affairs." She flung her bubble blast at Ruby immediately, and had the satisfaction of seeing it hit the woman square in the chest as she shoved the boy out of the way.

"You play dirty," she choked out, then retaliated with a lightning bolt. They held out against each other, until another senshi came to join in the attack – the quiet priestess of Mars. Even then, it seemed as if Ruby was winning, but a third senshi tipped the odds. Jupiter let fly with a thunder bolt, which cancelled out the scarlet woman's attack, and Mars flung a shikigami at her. The priestess was aiming for Ruby's cane arm, but she misjudged, and it pierced her left hand side instead.

"Ruby!" Kunzite screamed out, running to her side as she collapsed onto the ground.

Mars had a hand over her mouth, her features flushed with horror. "The God Mars as my witness, I never meant to kill her!" she wailed.

Jupiter snorted derisively. "Worry about that later! Get rid of her completely first! Then we'll extend our apologies to the Dark Kingdom." She raised her hand to release one final lightning bolt, but it never touched the woman on the ground, or the boy that was defending her bravely.

The ice crystal exploded into thousands of uncountable tiny shards that sprayed onto the shocked onlookers harmlessly. "That woman is under my care," Zoisite spoke quietly into the sudden silence that reigned over the field, settling on the ground in an elegant swirl of grey robes. "Which of you killed her?"

The senshi of Mars stepped forward. "I gave the shot. As it is correct, I'll give my life up in exchange." The moment Zoisite heard that, he flicked his fingers, and sent an ice crystal flying at her throat. But Mercury knocked Mars into the ground, letting the ice crystal embed itself in the grass behind.

"Are you mad?" she hissed at her colleague. In the distance, other figures were rushing towards their little group.

"So the Silver Millenium has lived up to their reputation of bullies," Zoisite said coolly. "The debt will be cleared another day." He snatched up a very shocked and frightened Kunzite and the dying Ruby, and vanished in a spiral of pure white sakuras.