Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon Underground #23 - I won't ever reach that glow...
By Chiara Fazzi and Silvia Ghelarducci
Official URL: https://members.tripod.com/SM_Endless/Underground/
Official E-mail: the_crystal_kingdom@hotmail.com

Mamoru flew over Actaeon with all his forces, blowing him in the face with two powerful punches. That beautiful face, that has tormented him in his nightmares all that time. Mamoru was exhausted for the long captivity and for the pain his body has felt, when he had almost vanished. But the grudge, the jealousy, the hatred, were infinitely stronger.
The blond prince took punishment without a sole reaction, flabbergasted by the wonder of that sudden apparition.
    "You!" Actaeon murmured, while a trickle of blood was going down his lips, "How can it be...?"
He hadn't to be there! Endymion had to be...
Mamoru stroke him again: in the face again, then in the stomach.
Actaeon's head leapt backward and then his body curled up forwards, after the blow in the stomach.
    "Are you surprised?" Mamoru panted, grabbing Actaeon by his hair and plunging his fingers into those delicate golden waves. He raised Actaeon's face, 'till their two beautiful pairs of blue eyes met.
Yes. For being precise, Actaeon was astounded.
Endymion hadn't had to be only in the jail. He had to be no more...
But, why did Actaeon know this? What... what, on earth, had he ordered to the Moon Senshi?
His mind went filled with terror.
Mamoru stretched the arm and slapped the helpless Actaeon across the face, with a such a strength, that the man fell down onto the bunch of crystal shards - what remained of the crystal chessboard. With a gasp, the blond prince felt the slivers to cut his clothe and to bite his flesh. That intense pain, seamed to give him back a bit of lucidity.
    "Where's Usagi?" Mamoru shouted. The black haired man, was feeling his body to burn from inside, as a river of fire had replaced the blood in all his veins. Not only the memories were returning, but his power too, together with them. The power of Tuxedo Kamen, guardian of planet Earth.
Serenity! Actaeon recovered himself completely. He couldn't lose his Serenity that way! He didn't want to give her, back to him! To Endymion, that many millenniums ago, had left her to die!
Mamoru's body flared up with golden energy.
Actaeon's hand sprang to touch some crystal shards spread around him. Under his touch, the crystal seamed to melt and then to coagulate, forming a long sword of the same stuff.
    "Serenity is MINE!" Actaeon shouted at his turn, lifting the sword. Mamoru moved a step back: he was unarmed... Ah, but he didn't need for weapons, he had one inside himself, ready to obey to each order he would have given it.
    "WE'LL SEE IT!" Mamoru replied, with the same heat. "TUXEDO... LA SMOKING BOMBER!!" and both, flew again one onto the other. Actaeon made a lunge to Mamoru's chest and Mamoru cupped his hand, in order to converge on Actaeon all his rageful energy. The crystal sword cut lightly Mamoru's side, deflecting the trajectory of the sphere. And the energetic attack, stroke Actaeon's shoulder, incinerating partially his cape and pushing him back, that much that he couldn't wound Mamoru in deadly way.
They both kept still for the following seconds, gazing at each other. Then, Actaeon raised his sword again, holding it vertically before his face. At his turn, Mamoru, joined his hands at his stomach's level, ready to recall his second magic.
    "CRYSTAL..." the Golden Kingdom's prince began.
The Underground's prince attacked frontally.
    "... ROSE..." Mamoru continued and, in his hands, it bloomed a beautiful rose of power,
    "YAAAAAAAH! Actaeon yelled, aiming to Mamoru's heart.
But before Actaeon's sword could pass Mamoru's body from part to part.
Before Mamoru's spell could knock Actaeon down.
Before that it could decide the victory of one or the other, in that moment, the ground under their feet shook. It exploded, crushing into two different clods and sharing the two men. The breach grew larger, vomiting out a cloud of black gas, that the earth had kept in his womb for millions of years. And in the smoke, the two princes spotted the prostrated figure of...
    "Usagi!" Mamoru exclaimed,
    "Serenity!" Actaeon echoed him, almost at the same time.
The smoke was dispelled more, gradually discovering the figure of another woman. The blood red dress showed up, in amazing way, against the extremely pale skin and her lead colored hair constrated sharply with the blond of the Moon's princess's one.
Kuroi Tenpi smiled pleased to both men, as she had just made an triumphal entrance into a ball room.
    "My sweet Actaeon..." she murmured to the address of the blond youth, who was gaping at her. "You have to be Endymion, true?" Kuroi Tenpi then asked, turning her head to Mamoru. "You are really handsome, as I remembered you", she said conciliatory, as she was talking to two children.
    "Actaeon..." Usagi sighed. The evil energy of Kuroi Tenpi was terrific, Usagi wasn't able to stand up to it. It was annihilating.
    "Actaeon" Kuroi Tenpi repeated, turning again to the prince of the Underground, "now enough playing. Give me the Silver Crystal".

*    *    *

Myhannan...
Phoenix kindled a small flame on the top of his fingertips. The obscurity in which he had advanced was impenetrable.
He had remembered.
The capped one, had joined Actaeon much time later. Myhannan had appeared to the prince, when Actaeon had already been exiliated on Earth. 'He' had full power on waters and also something else: 'he' also has the power of suggestion over minds.
    "You have tricked us, during all this time" Phoenix spoke aloud, "But now you have no way of fugue. Show yourself and let's fight!"
It heard a little laughter...
The sound bounced over the walls. It was impossible to understand exactly where it came from. Phoenix turned around, holding the small flame high, over his head, but he could see nothing safe the obscurity all around him.
    "Let me introduce myself, by my real name" one voice said. It was Myhannas's voice... Once, it has been lower - disguised -, now it sounded clearly feminine, still perfectly recognizable. "I am Lady Mizunoe, Mistress of the Water". A silver glow, drew a feminine figure, onto the black background. Phoenix didn't waste any time, he cupped his hands and shot a burst of flame to the, just revealed, target. But another light pierced the darkness, and an arrow of lightning struck Phoenix in the rear. With a choke moan, the man turned back with a start. There it was another feminine figure in the dark behind him, surrounded by a green aura.
    "Oh, how unpolite I have been" Lady Mizunoe said, the glow of the two women grew to light up the black of the grout. "I forgot to introduce my sister, too" Phoenix gave Mizunoe a fierce look, then glanced the other woman: she was as pale as her sister, with awful white irises, but brownish hair. "You don't know Lady Kinoto, Mistress of the Thunderbolt, do you?".
    "A trap! How stupid have I been!" Phoenix hissed, putting one hand over his wounded and smoking shoulder. "I had to expect it, from a SNAKE like you..."
The two ladies approached to the man, in a cloud of giggles.

*    *    *

Minako sat to her vanity table and, taken a brush, she began to torture her long, wonderful golden hair, with such a fury and a rage that - unluckily - were proper to her, from many years. She didn't have much time to pay herself. There it was who had done it for her, anyway. Unwillingly, a bitter phrase came to her lips:
    "Died young" she noticed. Minako wasn't referring to her physical aspect. No, she was beautiful, in full form. Tough, she had died inside, much time earlier.
Koro opened the bedroom's door with a large smile upon his face and a big basket into his arms.
My sky, Minako thought, another one of his useless presents. However, she turned back to him, trying to display her best performance: the one of the happy woman.
    "Look what I've brought you" Koro beamed, putting the basket on their bed. Minako approached it with a fake smile and gave a look inside it. Two small shapes moved towards her, with a whining noise.
    "Cats?" Minako asked and her mask shattered all of a sudden. She would have never expected such a thing. The cats were one white and the other one black. And both of them had, upon their foreheads, a sort of strange scar. Minako smiled - she smiled for real this time, for the first time after God knows how many years - while lifting them into her arms. "Luna and Artemis!" the woman exclaimed automatically. Koro gave her a puzzled glance,
    "How?",
    "Their names!" Minako hugged the cats, "Luna and Artemis!"

*

The heat of the approaching summer, was literally unbearable. The sky was cloudy and suffocating... Rei could feel a strange sensation: something was gonna happen... there. Somewhere. She didn't know where, exactly, but somewhere, something was launching her a strong recall...
The woman, tied her gorgeous fall of rich, black hair into a tail beyond the shoulders and sat before the sacred fire of the Hikawa Jinja, whom she was the priestess.
    "Gods... Deities... Spirits... Powers... Holy Fire, reveal me the future!" she chanted, moving her fingers, into the figures of an ancient rite. The flame blazed and curved...
Rei was outstretched over a chasm. Her whole body was pulsating with enormous pain... But why? What was she holding, of so important?
    'My whole world' one voice, murmured to her ear.
Rei recognized it: it was hers,
    "I'm trying to save *my* whole world". But Rei didn't understand what it could mean 'to save her world'. She had no real friends, no real family - safe her grandfather...
Or yes, instead? Maybe, yes? Had she to look into that chasm?
Rei let her irises to run into the obscurity of the abyss, but before she could see, the weight she was holding, set escaped her hand and fell into the nothing, with a blood curling scream.
    "NO!" Rei screamed. To her desperation, it replied only cruel laughters.
Rei lifted the eyes and she saw them. Beyond the chasm, three laughing figures, mocking her and her grief. And then, everything went engulfed into the flames...
Flames. Rei was gazing at the holy fire, again.
She had lost everything she had ever loved, in that vision. Something, would have soon, make her to lose her 'life'. But there it wasn't anything that Rei really loved. The fire blazed again. Rei had another question for it. She felt she *had* to.
    "What can I do, for averting this danger?" the black haired woman finally asked.
The flame waved, then, as a gush of wind had entered the room, from who knows where, the fire folded fiercely on the beautiful priestess. Enveloping her totally. Rei screamed of ache... The kimono, her hair, her skin...
Rei found herself, in gazing at her shaking hands and realized that it had been another vision. The answer to her question.
In order to avert this danger, she had to...
    "... Join the Fire", Rei murmured. Also she hadn't the slightest idea of what it could mean.

*

Ami let her pen to fall and let out a loud sigh.
She couldn't concentrate on the text. Her look went continuously to the window and on the gray landscape which laid outside. Ami had a special feeling with water, for a reason that she ignored. Some sort of rhabdomancy, if you want.
What was bothering her that much, in that cloudy sky, was the absolute lack of water she was feeling. Strange but, for much that clouds looked pregnant of water, there it wasn't any trace of rain drops, in them. But there it was something else...
Her look fell again on the books, but her mind refused in the most total way, the idea of restart studying.
    <You have to go> something inside her, said.
    "To go, where?" Ami asked, not realizing that she had talked aloud,
    <There> the voice replied, without any exitations.
    "There?" Ami asked. Yeah, she had to go outside...

*

In her small apartment, Makoto opened the window of her bedroom. She checked with attention, the leaves and the flowers of her plants. They looked suffering from something. Makoto raised her face to the sky, hoping in some benefical rain.
In the moment, a bluish lightning crossed the sky, from East to West. Makoto waited for the thunder, but it didn't come.
    "Maybe the storm is still distant", she told herself.
The storm... Makoto hated the rain. It has been a rainy day, when Itto Asanuma had told her that 'she wasn't her type'.
Why did she feel so attracted by the desolated landscape, then? She kept thinking to Itto, to the reason because something hadn't worked between them.
It wasn't time for love, yet - was the reply that came from inside of her. There it was another thing, more important that she had to do, before finding love. Before loving and being loved, she had to protect... Protect something... or someone, who was thousands times more important than Itto.
More than Itto?
Yes, more than him.
More than Tategoro-sempai.
More than all the other men she had loved.

*    *    *

Kuroi Tenpi twisted Usagi's wrist and the blond woman let out a whine,
    "Actaeon" the Dark Sun quietly spoke, "The Ginzouishou". The two princes gazed at the pale goddess of the Earth's depths, without saying one sole word.
    "Serenity..." Actaeon succeeded in murmuring, moving one step forward. At that jest, Kuroi Tenpi's free hand, gracefully flew to size Usagi's golden ring - the marriage ring, that Actaeon had personally put to her finger. The metal casted and deformed, finally taking the shape of a small stylet. The golden blade went almost to grasp Serenity's throat.
    "I'm waiting" Kuroi Tenpi pressed, "Actaeon, do you wish to see her dead? Your big love? The woman you made the Silver Millennium to fall for?"
Usagi's eyes grew wide over the blond prince,
    "It... It can't be" she said with shaking voice.

... Murderer!...

Actaeon shook his head,
    "No, I..."
It was like once! Everything like once! Actaeon couldn't react. He couldn't defend himself, nailed by those beautiful blue eyes... The same eyes!!
Kuroi Tenpi had a small laughter,
    "Are you happy, Princess of the Moon? The man you fell for, has killed your father and has been exiled by the Moon and, in order to get his revenge... In order to get his revenge, he has encouraged the destruction of the Silver Millennium", she spelled each single word - as they could have a real sweet taste on the tongue.
    "It's not TRUE!" Usagi shouted. But Actaeon didn't deny, nor admitted. Usagi felt the tears filling her eyes, "It's... not... like this. Tell her, Actaeon..." but it was a prayer, not a statement.

... Murderer!...

    "It has been an accident" the blonde prince said under his breath.
Kuroi Tenpi laughed convulsively. Usagi's body started at each laugh,
    "Not an accident, but a murder. A conspiracy!" the Dark Sun exclaimed, as soon as she had calmed down. "You created King Emeron's weapon, as all the weapons of the Sailor Senshi who came later. *You* were the Royal Forger of the Moon Kingdom. And the sword rebelled to the hand of the King! You can do it. You can head to stones, jewels and crystals. It's *your* power. It has been easy to give a will to the sword, no?" the tone of the woman grew in cruelty, when she added "Exactly as you made with the child you call 'your daughter'. A puppet with a soul..."
Mamoru read upon Usagi's face, that the second revelation had been an even deeper wound to her heart. "You two haven't any daughter and any love. He had always conditioned and deceived you. Endymion, he is your real big love. What a shame you can't remember it..."
    "CURSED!" Actaeon screamed, "Shut up, you cursed! SHUT UP!".
He moved a step forward, but the small golden stylet went to press upon Usagi's throat - who, from her part, was gazing at the scene blankly.
Deceived... Betrayed! Actaeon, why have you betrayed me?
The same eyes of once... The same eyes of her MOTHER! The same painful and amazed expression...

A group of soldiers entered the throne room, bringing a litter.
    "Your Majesty!" one of the tenents shouted, while the whole court in tumult was going to gather around the squad. Queen Serenity's eyes became two huge dazed surfaces. She didn't need to hear the words of the soldier for knowing what it had happened.
She didn't *want* to hear...!
    "E-Emeron" she whispered, trying to move across the crowd, "Emeron..." her voice was trapped into her throat. She couldn't cry, pushed back and forth by the nobles. "Emeron..." and when she finally spotted his face, her scream exploded "EMERON!".
    "Give way to the Queen!" the tenent yelled.
The corpse on the litter was restless, as a small ship in a stormy sea. Distant... Too distant.
    "EEMEEROON!!! Serenity cried, forgetting to be a queen and starting to hit people in every direction, rejecting them away with a force she didn't know she had.
She thought to fall, she was pushed and then, all of a sudden, she found herself in front of him.
Serenity remained immobile, the arms along her sides. She could feel the court tossing behind her, but they were nothing but a weak presence to her, now.
Emeron's uniform's jacket was stained with blood and it has been opened, in order to plug a huge wound. Serenity's white hands floated to that rip.
The skin she had loved for its warmth, was now gelid.
Gelid...
    "Emeron..." her hands caressed that bloody chest, in disbelief. "Emeron" it was the only word she could pronounce. Serenity hoped him to reply her. She hoped it was a joke... That he would have sat up, that he would have looked at her with his gorgeous eyes, that he would have opened his lips for calling her name...
In the dark of the colonnade, Actaeon gazed at her in silence. Disconcerted and scared...
    "His Majesty was fighting..." Serenity and Actaeon heard the voice of one soldier, "he had raised the weapon... It looked like it didn't want to obey him... As it had a proper life... His Majesty has been killed..."
The weapon! The weapon created by Actaeon!
Queen Serenity lifted the look from Emeron's face. Filled with hatred, her eyes darted around, meeting different features, all twisted by the grief. And, in the end, they met a face raised toward her. A face which reflected her same painful amazement. Queen Serenity contracted the jaw and her same scream, burdened with hatred, surprised her,
    "Murderer!"
Actaeon stood up to the accuse, tough it had striken him as a lash. Hundreds, thousands eyes, all with the same accusatory expression of the Queen, went to pierce him.
    "Kill him!" someone yelled. The blade of a sword flashed somewhere, in that cauldron of forms... They would have lynched him...
Someone wrenched Actaeon's forearm,
    "Prince!" Actaeon who had remained still, 'till that moment, saw the room to spin and found himself facing the intense irises of his trusted Phoenix. "Let's run off, Prince!".
Actaeon, dulled, shook his head: it hasn't been his fault...
Pouring on the first pursuers, a blaze of fire, Phoenix drove Actaeon on the exit by force, while Queen Serenity's voice superimposed to all the chaos, peremptory and ferocious:
    "I condemn you to the exile! I banish you by the Moon Kingdom!"
Banished by the Moon Kingdom! The sentence emitted had deeply touched the Guardian of the Fire, too. But there it was other to think about, now! Exiled, but at least, alive! While Actaeon seamed to care about nothing more...
Princess Vulcan! Phoenix would have seen her anymore! And, also if he'd met her again, the beautiful soldier would have looked at him, like at an enemy, with much colder eyes than the ones she already used to look at him with. Would have he beard his despise?
Phoenix hit in the face one of the guards in silver uniform, he pushed another one aside with all the weight of his body and then, turning back to all the ones who were almost on their top, he hurled 'em a sphere of golden energy.
Actaeon let Phoenix to drag him away. His eyes were fixed on Emeron's corpse, who would have never moved again and on the Queen, who had called him 'murdered' and had exiled him. Actaeon saw her to fall down, as her scream had consumed all her energies, and to disappear, in the throng of nobles in tumult...

    "Cursed..." Actaeon hissed again. Kuroi Tenpi replied with another small laughter,
    "You made all this for me. Everything you made until now, all your pathetic attempts to gain Serenity's love, made my way to the conquer of the planet. Mizunoe" Mizunoe?... Myahannan! He too was... Phoenix... I've betrayed Phoenix... My sole true friend! Actaeon felt the solitude and the grief to annihilate him. "has tried, many times, to make you use the Silver Crystal to take possession of the Earth, but have always been too weak. All you really wanted, was to see your princess to smile... But now ENOUGH, you poor fool. Enough. Give me the Ginzuishou, it's time for me to sit on the throne of the Moon and the Earth!"
On the group it fell an heavy silence. That woman had really planned everything - Mamoru thought - she had used all of them, for her plans.
    "The Silver Crystal" Kuroi Tenpi ordered, "for the life of Serenity".
Wearily, Actaeon lifted the right hand and a spiral of fine silver dust, started to dance on his palm. Kuroi Tenpi gazed at that growing glow, with impatience.
    "Don't do it..." Usagi murmured, but she said it in a total emotionless way, as she had no more will in her body. "Please..."
Prince Actaeon didn't reply and didn't quit to.
The Silver Crystal appeared, bathed in warm and gentle light.
    "Very well" Kuroi Tenpi approved, "Bring it there".
    "You'll honor your promise, won't you?" Actaeon asked, but he didn't wait for any reply and approached. Kuroi Tenpi grabbed the crystal and hurled Usagi into Mamoru's arms.
The pale woman and the blond prince kept facing each other for one instant,
    "I won!" Kuroi Tenpi smirked. She squeezed the crystal in her hands and the facets got a cinder colored light, for then, turning opaque.

*    *    *

Phoenix closed his eyelids shut,
    <Fire>.
The fire exploded out of his body and grew in all the direction, investing and devouring everything they found on their way. The blue-haired man stood up, in the golden glow of the fire circle who had born all round him. It looked like, there it wasn't any trace of the two women.
Tough, he had to stay on guard. Myhannan... Rather, Lady Mizunoe, had been a peer of him for thousands years. She surely wouldn't get beaten in that way...
Phoenix looked around with circumspection.
The fire wall seamed to fold slightly.
The flame broken down and a burden of lightening penetrated the circle. Phoenix succeeded in dodging, jumping laterally and landing on one side, while the pavement under his feet went to pieces.
    "Very astute" Lady Mizunoe's voice said, from somewhere beyond the fire barrier. "I made a mistake in undervaluing you". Phoenix studied the movement of the flames all round him. The two women had shared and were now walking along the fire.
Lady Kinoto lifted the left hand, ready to throw a second thunderbolt into the circle. In that moment, a masculine arm came out of the flares and grabber hers, by the wrist.
    "Thank you" Phoenix's smiling face, emerged by the blazes, "for letting me to understand where you were". His visage looked framed by a mane of living fire.
Kinoto gasped in surprise, one second later, Phoenix's hand lighted up with golden energy...
    "AaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" the scream of the Mistress of Lightening exploded high pitched, while the golden energy ran across her form. Mad of pain, Kinoto arched backwards, tensed and then, at her own turn, her body set free - with a deafening boom - a huge thunderbolt.
The two energies confronted: Phoenix shaken by the electrocution and Kinoto by the energy of flames. There it was a second boom and a wave of water, coming from the rear, blasted the man, sending him to smash onto a rock and partially extinguished his fire wall.
    "You're cunning" Lady Mizunoe said again, going to side the burnt and bowed form of her sister. In the half darkness of the dying flare, Phoenix could see again that pale face and that blue hair, "But you forgot one thing: my power can win yours".
    "Right" Phoenix murmured, the left side of his visage was covered by a huge stain of blood -- the smell of his scorched flesh was sickening.
The fire can't harm me, but the lightning and the energy of the water can. They can also kill me... "But I'll sell my life dear. And now... you're all alone" the man replied with an ironic small smile.
    "All by myself, I'm pretty dangerous, too" Mizunoe mocked him, putting one hand over the smoking head of her sister, "Stand up to me, as long as you can. It'll be much more amusing".
After glowing up in a green light, the disfigured body of Kinoto released a torrent of energy to Mizunoe. Kinoto had a mute start: the sister was stealing her, all her vital forces and her magic powers left. The guardian of the Water pointed her free hand towards Phoenix.
    "Sky, she's still alive!" Phoenix said under his breath.
Kinoto moaned, Mizunoe replied her with a sort of choke growl and, in that moment, shot a column of thunderbolts and silver energy.
Immediately, the man lifted both arms and folded them in front of his chest, crossing them and giving out the most energy he could. The stream of the sisters met the shield of fire of Phoenix...

*

    <Where are we? Where are you bringing us to?>
    <To your Destiny... To my Destiny... Fight! You have to meet the Princess!>
    <The Princess is there?>
    <... the Princess...>

*

Phoenix felt his own fists to grasp his face. His shield was gonna yield...
All of sudden, a vibe shook the whole grout. Mizunoe ceased her attack on the instant and darted her eyes around.
    "Again that noise!" the woman yelled, with an hysterical note in the voice.
The air vibrated, taking shape and color on both sides of Phoenix.
Then, the man recognized that noise, too.
    "Sailor Vulcan! Sailor Persephone!" he exclaimed. And, as replying to the sound of his voice, the two silhouettes turned real: Maiko, with a dumbfounded expression playing on her face, the Talisman in the hands and her parakeet on a shoulder, on his left and Arashi, with fierce expression and ready to fight, on his right.
    "YOU!" Mizunoe spat out with rage. She clasped the grip on the head of her sister and the energy restarted to travel from a body to another.
    "Fushikou-san!" beamed Maiko, forgetting for a moment to ask herself where she was. Partially turning the face to her, the man dedicated her a quick smile, not loosing of sight his foe.
    "Postpone the greetings!" Selene scolded the young girl.
Kinoto released another desperate moan - as she was invoking the death. Mizunoe stretched again her arm towards the quartet and blasted another attack of energy on them.
    "INCANDESCENT... MAGMA FLOW!" Sailor Vulcan shouted and, in the same moment in which the swirling lava went to form the sphere, Phoenix shot his energetic attack. The two powers melted as one, setting fire to the rocks at their passage and going to crash ferociously on the enemy attack. The explosion that took place, made part of the rock voult to go to pieces, raising a cloud of dust that temporarily hid one group to the other.
    "WHO is that WOMAN?!" Sailor Persephone exclaimed, approaching to the man with worried expression. Phoenix slowly regained a standing position before replying,
    "She's... Myhannan".
    "Myhannan?!" Selene exclaimed at her own turn, the man nodded. He stole a look to Sailor Vulcan, and then he harshly spoke,
    "What are you doing you, there?!"
He was happy to see them. To see Princess Vulcan, overall... But that was HIS battle! He had come to settle an account with Mizunoe and...
Arashi delivered him a sideways look,
    "She can't move" she replied on the contrary, "She has to get energy from the other woman". Phoenix mentally ordered himself to return to the present,
    "Yes" he said back, "We can attack her on three sides and win her".
Maiko moved the look from Arashi to Phoenix and then, she realized she was holding the Scythe.
    "We can use the talisman" the girl bursted out, "It has already won her once. If we use the talisman..."
    "You, insects!" Mizunoe's scream rang along the walls. The silhouette of the woman was now half visible in the cloud of dust, "You won't EVER beat ME!". Her left fist cut the air with an hissing sound and casted a thunderbolt to the blade of the scythe. The electricity ran trough the metal in a eye-beat, blasting Sailor Persephone away.
    "MAIKO!" Selene, Arashi and Phoenix screamed at the same time.
The blond woman, suddenly, gave her back to the enemy and dashed towards the mate. And, in that moment, the Lady of the Underground, detached from the body of her sister and joined the hands in a sole fist. A freaking burden of lightning, water and silver-greenish energy issued from it and devoured the distance, flying towards Arashi.
Sailor Vulcan saw it approaching with the corner of the eye.
There it wasn't any way to escape such an attack.
Her body collided and was dragged away, without pain, for many meters on the uneven ground,
by the blazing light.
And by warmth. A sweet warmth.
Arashi didn't know that to die, would have been so sweet. It was the same sensation then being hugged.
She had thought that the whiteness she was seeing, was only an effect of the death that was taking her. And that, she would have been soon wrapped in that beautiful light. But when that whiteness, that had temporarily blinded her, faded off, Arashi saw the pale face of Phoenix close by hers.
The wonder hit her like a fist the stomach. And only then she understood.
    "Are you alright?" the man asked with weak voice, but reassuring look. Arashi opened her lips, but no sound came out of 'em.
Blood... Blood was pouring down Phoenix's body.
While the latest glitters of Mizunoe's energy were vanishing, making the golden parts of the man's suit to shine, Phoenix collapsed by side, falling to the ground. Behind him, an halo of minuscule rubies of blood, kept hanged in midair only for few instant. Like wings. Burning wings of phoenix bird.
    "PHOENIX!" Maiko screamed with all the breath of her lungs, with all the horror she was feeling. A scream that seamed unwilling to have an end. As Maiko was crying for also Arashi, who remained immobile, gazing the nothingness before her with mute incredulity.
Slowly - so slowly, that one moment take a whole eternity - the blonde turned the head towards the man, laying face up by her side,
    "You are the light..." Phoenix whispered, "the light which I've always pursued. Either now... that we are so close..." his voice cracked for the desperation, "... We are so close... I can't... I can't reach you..."
And *his* light, the fire which had burnt in him 'till that moment, faded off from his eyes - forever.

[To be continued]

Note:
We believe it's time for explaining a bit, about names and powers of the villains, since they have grown in number in these last episodes, uh? ^_^
In creating the Enemies of this season, we inspired to the principle of the 'Five Movements'. The Five Movements, are also improperly said the 'Five Elements', that in the Chinese tradition are Wood (Ki), Earth (Suchi), Metal (Ka), Fire (Hi) and Water (Mizu), BTW: on the same principle, have been built the powers of the Inner Senshi and the power of ALL the villains in all the five seasons of SM!
They do represent the five movements of the nature, born by the combination of the two Cosmic Modalities, the Yin and the Yang. So, in this case we do have:
Prince Actaeon -> Master of Earth (in our case, Stones)
Phoenix -> Master of Fire
Myhannan/Lady Mizunoe -> Mistress of Water
Lady Kinoto -> Mistress of Wood (in attack, she uses the Lightning)
Kuroi Tenpi -> Mistress of Metal
The five enemies have a full power of manipulation over respective elements, so:
Actaeon - has full power over Stones, Gems and Crystals. He can transform them simply by touch
Phoenix - he manages the Fire and the Energy of the Fire
Mizunoe - she manages the Water and the Energy of the Water
Kinoto - she can transform Wood simply by touch, plus she does have power over the Energy of Thunderbolts
Kuroi Tenpi - full powers of manipulation over any kind of Metal, simply by touch.
The Five Movements act for generation: the Wood breeds the Fire, the Fire breeds the Earth, the Earth breeds the Metal, the Metal breeds the Water and the Water breeds the Wood. Per analogy, they act for supremacy: The Wood wins the Earth, the Earth wins the Water, the Water wins the Fire, the Fire wins the Metal and the Metal winds the Wood.

Each movement, in the end, is subdivided into the modalities yin-yang, that in Japanese are, respectively, called Younger Brother (to) and Elder Brother (e).
In this way:
'Kinoto' meaning -> yin (to) modality of (no) the Wood (Ki) - the younger sister,
'Mizunoe' meaning -> yang (e) modality of (no) the Water (Mizu) - the older sister.