"Hey, Mamo!" called a voice from beyond the plum trees. Mamoru looked up to see Aino Minako and Hino Rei climbing over the azaleas and around the topiary.

"Minako! Rei! You're back!" Mamoru skipped across the bridge of stones, almost slipping and falling into the water. He ran to the garden's edge and hugged Rei, then Minako. Minako was still wearing her orange traveling uniform of coarse hemp cloth, but Rei was already in her red and white temple robes. Mamoru took Rei's hands. He sensed a strange frailty about her; her smile seemed a little weak, and she was clutching her bamboo staff as if she needed it to walk.

"How was your pilgrimage?"

"The gardens of Kyoto are enormous!" said Minako. "I've never seen so many flowering cherry trees. It snowed pink blossoms every day!"

"Did you miss Crystal Yedo?" said Mamoru, as the three strolled back toward the lily pool.

"I did," said Rei. "But I don't know about my guardian here; she had an awfully good time these past two months."

Minako spun around on her boot heel. "The guards there were so kawaii! And our room was high up in the branches of a tall catalpa tree, where we could see the whole landscape!"

"How was the hatching?"

"I . . . I cannot even begin to describe it," said Rei, kneeling down at the edge of the pool. She offered her fingertips to a large, orange and white koi who was nuzzling the surface for attention.

"The temple bells started ringing about an hour before dawn," said Minako. "And we all got up and went to the great pond. Rei walked right into the water, robes and all. There had to be a thousand people gathered around that egg! Every priestess and holy person in all of Crystal Nihon was there! We guardians, of course, had to stand back and not touch the water, but I could still see it."

Minako leaped into the air and caught the branch of a weeping juniper tree that clung to the stone ledge high over Mamoru's head. She curled herself around it, letting her long, golden hair hang down.

"Oh, I wish you and Usagi and all the others could've been there. I'll never forget that little dragon poking its beak out the shell for as long as I live!"

"A new dragon is born only once every hundred years," said Rei. "I am very fortunate to have witnessed this."

Mamoru watched Minako vault back into the air and touch down on a stone near the center of the pool. She scooped up three lily blossoms and skipped over the water back to the shore. After pinning a lily to the comb in Rei's long, black hair, Minako fixed the second to Mamoru's ear and kept the third for herself to hold.

"The princess of Kyoto gives you her warmest regards," said Minako. "And have you seen the bunny she sent Usagi? It's got blue fur!"

"I haven't seen Usagi yet today."

"Where were you all morning? We missed you."

"I had to meet with my generals," said Mamoru. "Very important business. Then there were the morning lessons with my combat instructor, and then a meeting with an official from Kobe, and finally, I came here just to get enough peace and quiet to think."

"That's the problem," said Minako. "Everyone's so serious around here. You know what we should do? We should all go down to Tokyo tomorrow, just for the day, and play video games at the arcade, like we used to. I haven't seen Naru and the gang in ages. I even miss Umino!"

"Minako! We can't just take off for Earth whenever we feel like it. We've all got responsibilities now! You're a guardian, and I'm the Emperor of Crystal Yedo, remember?"

Minako grinned and said, "You never let us forget."

Mamoru ignored the friendly jab. "Speaking of responsibilities, I haven't paid my daily visit to Zoisite yet."

"We were just there!" said Minako. "Hoo boy! Ami's got her hands full! Hasn't she, Rei? You know, you really should keep Makoto Jupiter out of that room. I mean, I know she's Ami's helper and all, but she and Zoisite are two of a temper!

"You shoulda seen 'em! Ami brings up some special food for Zoisite, because she's gotten so thin, you know? And Makoto tries to force her to eat, so Zoisite bites Makoto . . . "

"Oh Gods, she's biting again?" Mamoru rubbed his brow.

" . . . then Makoto strikes Zoisite, and Zoisite screams to curdle blood, and then Ami starts crying . . . "

"I can't believe we still have seven more months of this nightmare." " . . . and Zoisite throws the bowl clear across the room! By the Gods, there were noodles and fish all over Jigoku! Then Zoisite takes the chopsticks . . ."

Mamoru sighed. "I'd better go see her."

" . . . and tries to stab herself in the stomach! You've got to keep all sharp implements out of that room! And any furniture with sharp corners, and anything poisonous! I mean anything, because Zoë would chew the lacquer off a Buddha!

"I still say we need to restrain her," continued Minako. "I could rig something upeasy."

"No!" Mamoru suddenly felt sick. "Zoisite's a woman, not a farm animal!"

"But Mamo, she threatens everyone who goes in there! Our servants are afraid to even be in that wing!"

"I said 'no' before, and I mean it! I am not keeping a pregnant woman tied up! We're not barbarians!"

"Then why don't you let Usagi be with her? Usagi calms her down."

"I will not subject my wife to that kind of dark energy. It drains Usagi, and it's not good for our child."

"It's not good for your other child, either, Mamo."

Mamoru heard a groan. He looked down and saw Rei doubled over, chanting some furious prayer.

"Rei!" he cried, rushing over to cover her with his hands. "Are you all right?"

Minako dropped down to her side and wrapped her arm around Rei's back. "What's the matter? You haven't been well since we arrived at the palace early this morning."

Rei's two crows came flapping toward them, crying into their ears.

"What is it?" pleaded Minako.

Rei's eyes were shadowed with the dark circles of exhaustion and anxiety. "I want to see Usagi."

"She's usually in the tea pavilion at this time," said Mamoru. "Shall I walk with you?"

"No. Minako will help me. You must go see Zoisite. See her now."

"What's wrong? Has Zoisite done something?"

"I . . . don't know. Someone has done something. Maybe something in the past, that's now surfacing. Oh!" Rei lurched forward, grasping her temples.

"Take her to Usagi!" said Mamoru. "I, I'll go see Zoisite."

Mamoru had gone to the fruit garden, where there were both fruits and blossoms year-round, and placed seven of the ripest, smoothest peaches he could find into an earthenware bowl. But then he thought better of it, imagining what Zoisite might do with broken shards of earthenware, and wrapped the peaches up in a scarf instead.

Zoisite had been given a private chamber in the south-west wing, with no windows except for clerestories and no furniture but a futon pad and pillows. In the first few weeks, they had learned (almost too late, on a few occasions) to remove anything Zoisite could possibly use to stab, strangle, poison, bruise or otherwise injure herself.

Clutching the bundle of peaches to his chest, Mamoru took a couple deep breaths for courage and headed for the south-west wing. He found Ami seated in the corridor just outside the entrance screen to Zoisite's chamber, where a wooden, make-shift "door" had been set up to prevent Ami's charge from running loose through the palace.

Ami's head was slumped below her shoulders, and it seemed to take a great deal of effort for her just to lift her dark eyes to greet Mamoru.

"Mamo-kun," she said, trying to smile. She was wearing only plain hemp cloth now, no longer bothering with silk kimonos or any clothes unsuitable for domestic combat. The curls of her heavy bangs clung to her face.

"Where's Makoto Jupiter? Inside?"

Ami shook beads of sweat from her forehead. "She started fighting with Zoisite again, so I sent her away."

"Ami, you look--" Mamoru wrinkled his brow. "How much sleep did you get last night?"

"Minako and Rei arrived early this morning, well before dawn."

"That's not what I asked." Mamoru knelt down beside Ami and placed one of the peaches into her soft, pale hand. "How much sleep did you get last night?"

Ami sighed, looking at her toes. "I didn't sleep. She screamed all night. I tried teas, powders, poultices, every chant I knew and a few I made up on the spot."

"Go to bed."

"No, I'm all right."

"You're exhausted," said Mamoru, drawing Ami into his arms. "And as your emperor, by the imperial powers vested in me, I command that you retire to your chamber and sleep for the rest of the day, and don't come back here until you're well rested."

"But--"

"I'll get someone to watch Zoisite. Maybe a military squadron, or two."

Ami laughed and wrapped her arms around Mamoru's neck. "Thank you."

"Don't worry. Things are going to turn out all right. Somehow." Mamoru wished he could believe it himself.

He waited for Ami to disappear down the corridor before he entered the room.

It only took the turn of a key and the sliding of a wooden panel, but everything felt impossibly heavy, especially Mamoru's feet. The air in the room was thick with incense and the smell of medicinal balms. Light pouring down from the clerestories made sharp bands of gold on the wood floor and walls of an otherwise very dark space. She was in the far right corner, twisting in a tangle of blankets.

It was "she" now; not he. Mamoru had finally gotten used to thinking of Zoisite as more woman than man. The first two months had triggered noticeable changes in the line of Zoisite's jaw and in a softening of complexion and muscle tone. Even her green eyes, regarding him now with slitted hate from the corner, seemed a touch more lovely than ever.

Mamoru carefully stepped out into the middle of the room and lay the bundle of peaches on the floor, keeping one for himself. They were supposedly good for warding off evil, after all.

"I heard you couldn't eat your breakfast, so I brought you these in case you were hungry."

No response came from the corner except for more slow writhing.

The wall above Zoisite's futon caught Mamoru's eye, and he wondered if the drawings were new, or if he had simply never noticed them before.

Illuminated by a splash of light from the clerestories, they covered the whole panel--drawings of what looked like the three worlds, from the hideous youma of Jigoku, to the skyscrapers of Tokyo, to the stroll gardens and palace courtyards of an imagined Crystal Yedo. Mamoru drew in a sharp breath. The renderings, scratched onto the wood with what must've been the charred end of a stick, handled the extremes of the grotesque and the sublime with a frightening, beautiful lucidity.

But Mamoru said nothing, and instead conjured a red rose from the sleeve of his tunic.

"Get that out of here!" cried Zoisite.

"Relax." Mamoru held the rose like a paintbrush and drew an invisible line around the door frame. "I'm only creating a sound barrier, so we can have some privacy." As soon as he "sealed" the chamber, he made the rose vanish in a spark of crimson glitter.

"How are the thorns today?" he said.

"That's not your concern," said Zoisite through gritted teeth.

"Of course it is. They're my thorns, and I could stop the pain, if you'd only let me."

"I told you to go to Hell."

"No, thank you," said Mamoru. "I've been there several times, and it's a gloomy place." Mamoru bit into his peach. The sweet juice tasted wrong with the acidity of stress in his mouth. "What do you plan to do? Just lie there and let them keep growing and spreading inside of you for the next seven months?"

Zoisite was sprawled half on, half off her futon, with her head tipped back on the floor and her long, golden-red hair spilling around her face in silken curls. Somehow, Ami was managing to keep her clean and groomed. The agony tightening her features made it hard to look at her, but her newly blossoming beauty made it impossible to look away.

Her spine was arching up slightly, and she was clutching at her bony sides. "If you're so concerned, why don't you bring Usagi here?"

Mamoru took another bite of his peach and set the rest down.

"Because she can only alleviate your symptoms while she's present. If you want the thorns to stop hurting you for good . . . you know what we have to do."

"I'll take the pain," hissed Zoisite.

"You're being foolish."

"So, why don't you force yourself on me?"

Mamoru winced. "You know the magic doesn't work that way. You have to be willing."

"I'd rather die than let you touch me."

Zoisite had grown so thin and pale, she looked like a fragile, naked bird struggling for life under the fresh, white robe Ami had dressed her in.

Was that a temple robe? Mamoru wondered. Whatever it was, sacred or profane, Mamoru felt a sudden urge to untie it, pull Zoisite into his arms and cradle her wracked body against him. It wasn't lust, but anguish and frustration. He wanted to end her pain right here and now. Like the child growing in her womb, the spreading thorns were also his essence joining hers. But they would continue to tear her apart inside as long as she remained estranged from him during her pregnancy.

"Zoisite," he said, his voice sounding a little more rough than he had intended. "Once would do it. It doesn't have to take long, and then I'll leave you alone, if you wish."

He advanced toward her, reaching out his hand.

"Get away!" Zoisite cried, backing up into the corner.

"Please. I want to help you." Mamoru knew that coming near her made the thorns flare up, but after weeks of Zoisite's stubbornness, Mamoru's patience was growing weary. He moved closer. "Just let me--"

Zoisite shrieked in pain.

Mamoru was now at the edge of Zoisite's futon, trying to lean over her. Her shrill screams rose until they hurt his ears. Her whole body went rigid with one, prolonged convulsion. She couldn't even clench her fists.

Mamoru finally stepped back and retreated to the opposite side of the room. "All right! All right! Stop screaming!"

"Stay away from me!" snarled Zoisite, curling into a ball, then arching up again. "I've got enough of you in this parasite I'm carrying!"

"Stop calling our child a parasite! It's a baby!"

"And if you'd just leave me with the proper tools, I could kill it and get this over with!" Zoisite groaned in pain. "These . . . thorns . . . Agh!"

Mamoru grabbed fistfuls of his hair. "I can't stand this," he growled. Maybe Usagi . . . No! He would not drag Usagi into this and threaten her well-being for this monster! But how long would it go on? How much could he take? Not much more.

"Zoisite!" Mamoru hadn't meant to snap, but he wasn't about to apologize. "I'm offering you help, but if you'd rather lie there and be consumed by thorns . . . SUIT YOURSELF!" He grabbed a cushion and threw it against the wall, his frustration flaring into anger. "I hope they spread all the way to your fingertips, because you're a vicious, little fiend, and I despise you!"

Mamoru stormed out of the room and into the corridor, pausing only to securely lock the panel behind him.

Zoisite grasped her sides once more, then exhaled as evenly as the slowly abating pain would allow. She was lying supine on the wooden floor, with no energy to crawl back into her bed. Her robe was up around her middle, exposing her bare legs.

Suddenly, she heard a rustling noise from behind her futon. Her defensive reflexes bolted her upright. "Who's there!"

There came a soft mewing. Then a little, black head bearing a white, crescent moon poked its nose over the cushions.

"Oh, it's just Usagi's cat," sighed Zoisite, carefully lowering herself back to the floor. The animal had an uncanny talent for coming in without anyone's awareness.

As Zoisite closed her eyes, the cat approached. It sniffed at her, then licked the tears from her face with its tiny, sandpaper tongue, tickling Zoisite's ear with its whiskers. Zoisite couldn't help but smile and look up.

"You have such a wise countenance, Luna," said Zoisite, lifting her hand to stroke the cat's purring throat. "You almost look as if you could talk."

Striding down the corridor as swiftly away from the south-west wing as he could walk, Mamoru tried to suppress a voice that had been haunting him too frequently of late. It was only a few years younger than himself, distant and too familiar. He walked faster, but it's echo pursued his soul. His stomach knotted with every repeated whisper.

"You're a demon and a traitor; who would believe you?"

Mamoru smacked right into one of his chamber servants.

"Mamoru-sama!" said the servant, catching Mamoru's arm to steady him.

"Ah, yes! Ah, could you do something for me? Lady Zoisite's not been feeling well, and has not eaten today. Please bring her anything she might like, any dish she requests. And some fresh sheets, and silk to wear, and sprigs of cherry blossoms to brighten her room."

"Mamoru-sama? Is, is Your Excellence quite all right?"

"Of course! Why do you ask?"

"You look pale. Perhaps you would desire to sit down by the windows?"

"Lie, kekko desu," said Mamoru with a short bow. "Thanks, but I've got to run to a meeting with some of my public officials." He hurried off, but paused and turned once more to his servant, who was wrinkling his aged brow. "Ah, and could you bring Lady Zoisite some drawing things? Parchment and brushes with ink? Nothing sharp or poisonous."

"It will be done."

"Arigato."

Mamoru was starting to welcome his endless, bureaucratic meetings; at least they could silence that voice for a while.

Over a sculpted rock that sometimes served as a chair, lay his cape, where he had draped it days before. His black shirt was unlaced at his throat and wrists. The smooth, stone floor felt warm under his boots.

"Oh, Zoisite," he whispered to the vapor. "Why did you have to conceive such a horrible thing for me to develop? Now this spell is our child. It's not what I had wanted to make with you."

Sparks began to leap from the cloud--colored, chemical sparks complimenting the streaks of copper and gold that threaded through the warm burgundy of his stone walls. The poison was ready. Kunzite conjured a small, glass phial just in time to catch the drops as they condensed and fell.

"But I will not let it devour you."

Clawing the sharpened nail of his little finger across the glass lip, Kunzite sealed the phial. Then he pulled a delicate silver chain from around his throat and up over his head, smoothing back a mane of platinum hair, letting it fan over his broad shoulders.

Beryl had said, "six months," then set him so quickly to the task of completing Zoisite's spell that Kunzite had found little time for the despair in his heart. There had been no choice, of course, but to obey her. Beryl would never hesitate to condemn Kunzite if he refused, to watch her guards drag him down to that place below her audience chamber, and then appoint one of the many other arch demons clawing their way up to his position. In the blackness of his pain, Kunzite knew that refusing Beryl would not save his beloved from the hideous death Zoisite's spell promised.

But the poison he had just condensed into this phial could.

Usagi's court didn't know that they had less than four months left, before the accursed spell would be cast. Then Usagi's newborn enfanta would be claimed by Beryl, all the unborn in the palace would turn into parasitic youma, and blood would spill.

But by that time, if all went right, Zoisite would carry no child.

Kunzite held the phial up to his eye. This poison was just enough to cause a miscarriage, no more. The problem, however, lay in getting it to Zoisite. Usagi's wards were strong, and no denizen of the Dark Kingdom, or even an inhabitant of Earth could enter Crystal Yedo unless invited by one of the rulers. That was how Zoisite had gotten in.

Kunzite fixed the tiny bottle to his silver necklace and pulled it back over his head, burying it under the laces of his shirt so Beryl and the others wouldn't see it. As far as he knew, Beryl indeed believed Zoisite to be dead. But Kunzite could never be sure about Beryl. That malicious gleam in her eye when she had given Kunzite his orders had been just a little too knowing.

As for getting the poison to Zoisite, Kunzite would quietly bide his time and watch for any opportunity. He had almost four months. Then . . .

Kunzite closed his eyes and remembered a warmer moment of embracing Zoisite's slender body, pulling him close enough to feel his breath, and his soft laugh as Kunzite suddenly swept him up into his arms, and the passionate hunger with which Zoisite had returned his kiss. Kunzite could almost see the sparkle of emeralds in Zoisite's eyes, could almost touch that young face, stroke his fingertips through curls that fell like silken floss down to Zoisite's waist, where Kunzite could wrap his hands around . . .

Before he knew it, Kunzite was on his knees with his lips touching the smooth, warm stone, his large hands clasped before him.

"My love, my sakura, you will be free of this place. After so long, you will finally be free of Jigoku."