Ten by Ten

Ten By Ten

By Yaijinden

Time Setting: The Very End of the Crystal Imperium, just before the Sailor Wars begin again.

Of the millions of people who lived in Crystal Tokyo, perhaps no more than ten or fifteen knew of the catacombs beneath the great palace. Most people believed that the power of the Ginzuishou made crime an impossibility; it was a convenient fiction, and one that the throne did not actively discourage, but some people knew better. The sworn defenders of the city and its rulers knew that the while Ginzuishou could purge the darkness from someone's soul, nowadays it was a process that was now reserved exclusively for the vilest, most corrupted human souls.

The whole host of mistakes made by the Crystal Millennium had served as ample warnings for the dynasty. Over the course of two thousand years, the Serenity line had learned the crucial difference between gently guiding its people and leading them by the nose. The former encouraged growth, life, and happiness; the latter encouraged resentment, anger, and rebellion.

It was a credit to the Serenity line that the palace dungeons were so empty. Only the truly irredeemable lurked in these depths- threats that demanded the triple presence of the Ginzuishou, rei.bot, and the Dream Division to keep under control. Some of the prisoners down here who were little more than sentient dimensional rifts, pawns of dark powers too strong to directly destroy. Some, conversely, were too dangerous to destroy. Still others in these depths were simply born with the right training and the right genes to resist the Ginzuishou's cleansing.

But others, Sakura noted grimly, were simply there because they could not trust them to be anywhere else.

The click-clack of adamantine shoe soles against crystal was the one sound that punctuated the omnipresent pleasant hum of the palace. Sakura Xadium Aino, Sailor Venus 2.0 and one of the eleven people in all the universe permitted this far into dangerous territory. The powers that lay in the Earth had been sealed for good reason; while they possessed no power over the world here, their influence occasionally seeped through their bonds. Possessing a manifest Sailor Crystal seemed to shield the mortal mind, but the shield only went so far.

If someone was to find their curiosity overwhelming their better sense, things could go downhill very quickly. Sakura, while an inherently curious person, had accumulated a good deal of common sense in her lifetime, and so she was trusted to be down here to do what she wanted to do.

And some of that sense, she thought with a small smile, had been given her by the one person everyone here trusted least of all.

She stepped before the doors that sealed the prisoner she wished to speak to, and traced a small circuit in the air. Holographic displays shimmered into existence, briefly taking a snapshot of Sakura on the physical, emotional, and spiritual levels; the snapshot was compared against archive copies, and when the barrier was convinced Sakura was here of her own will and not under some compulsion (and was ACTUALLY Sakura Xadium Aino instead of a cleverly-disguised doppleganger), it parted with a hiss of steam and a little metallic chime.

Though the prisoner's eyes had been sealed away, and his senses clogged by a host of spells and ofuda, his head still rose sightlessly to regard the scion of Venus. Sakura crossed the divide that seperated them and silently peeled off the ofuda that had been placed over his mouth. The prisoner, for his part, licked his lips and smiled. "Sakura, I take it."

Sakura peeled off the ofuda over his eers. "How do you keep guessing it's me?" she inquired, the hint of a smile in her voice.

"Because everyone else wants me to see who I speak to," he replied pleasantly. "They seem to have forgotten that I do not fear any of them."

"Not even Serenity?" she inquired, sitting cross-legged in front of him.

"Not even Serenity."

"Huh." The Time Lady leaned forward and removed the ofuda sealing his eyes; he blinked once or twice, unused to having eyes to see with, but adapted quickly to the light. "So why are you still here, Godpop?"

"That's a good question." Yaijinden looked to his arms thoughtfully, spread out to either side of him and staked to a large slab of metal- just like they'd been when someone last disturbed his reverie- and then looked back to Sakura. "Why do you think I'm here?"

"Well, we haven't let you out, for one." She smiled briefly. "But your freedom is something that's entirely up to you right now."

"Oh, really." He quirked an eyebrow. "What makes you say that?"

"We don't want a lot out of you."

"SHE doesn't want a lot out of me. Let's not mince words."

"SHE doesn't want a lot out of you," Sakura amended easily. "She just wants to know why you went to far as to elude palace security and take a look at classified areas."

"Because she thinks I'm a spy for one of your enemies."

"You got there without alerting anyone to your presence." She leaned back, still sitting, and propped herself on her hands. "In the heart of things, where nobody is supposed to even remotely have access, we found you watching the door we bound Dagon behind."

"'S not a crime to be inquisitive, is it?"

"You might have let him loose. It loose. Whatever Dagon is."

"But I didn't."

"You might have if we didn't stop you."

"Maaaaaybe."

A brief frown passed over Sakura's expression. "But if you tell Serenity what's going on, she'll probably let you go."

"She probably would," Yaijinden conceeded. "But then you guys wouldn't get to see the things for yourself, would you?"

Silence.

"It's got to be pretty damn difficult to be who you are, sometimes," he continued, amused. "Nigh-infinite temporal access has got to put a strain on things. I wonder how far ahead you've gone, Sakura- how much your curiosity has gotten the better of you and you've put yourself in places you regret being."

Sakura regarded the man with an even, quiet gaze.

"How much of the things ahead could you stop if you started acting now?" Yaijinden inquired, now smiling. "What ends could you work? How many lives could you spare?"

"We both know why I can't do that, Yai," Sakura responded, not rising to the bait.

"The Prophet's Perogative." He laughed for a short moment, but the gesture sounded hollow. "Pity about that. The more you react to the future, the less clear your place becomes in it. Eh?"

She looked away. "That's why rei.bot didn't tell you everything about the great terror of yestereon," Yaijinden persisted, now leering. "That's why you didn't tell Serenity III about the chaos that followed. That's why you time-actives are always cautious about how much you muck with anything beyond your present, which is why you will always suffer more than anyone else."

"If I wanted to be lectured, I would have left the ofuda over your ears," Sakura said forcefully, shooting a glare at him.

"Harumph." He shrugged as best he could, given his essentially crucified position. "What year is it, anyway?"

She checked her chronometer. "Fifty-seven nineteen, local observation."

"We're getting close to it, then." Yaijinden closed his eyes and drew a long, slow breath. "If it hasn't already happened. The dawn of a glorious new age..."

"I fail to see what is glorious about it," Sakura said coolly. "But you've always enjoyed conflict like that, haven't you?"

"It is... a wonderful thing, to see the dawn of new heroes," he observed, quite pleased. "And something even more wonderful to see them corrupted by their own failings. That was what the first Sailor Wars were all about, weren't they? Death, terror, fear, and that little bit of hope that things will turn out for the best... which they do. Right?"

"That's... hard to say," Sakura admitted as she brought herself to stand.

"Oooh." Yaijinden shivered and smiled unpleasantly, an almost predatory element emerging in the cast of his face. "Now you're just saying things to get me all riled up."

"Now I remember why I haven't broken you out of here before now," Sakura noted dryly, carefully applying an ofuda back to his eyes. She knew the precautions of sealing his senses away were unnecessary, but the others wanted to be sure that he did nothing without their knowledge. "Anything you want to say before I start battening down the hatches?"

"Yeah." His head rolled to one side, the same hungry smirk on his lips. "When the time comes that your Queen ends up letting me go, just remember- if you ever want to stop caring, I can always help you with that."

"Oh, yes." She returned the smile, humorlessly. "I remember. Thanks, but no thanks- I much prefer my emotions the way they are, thank you."

"Suit yourself." Yaijinden nodded, and Sakura sealed his eyes and ears shut, leaving him behind in his ten-by-ten prison cell. They both knew it was only a matter of time before he got out; she personally believed that he simply suffered these bonds because it amused him to do so.