A Guardian Angel

"And this is Ippin," Annika said happily.

"Nice to meet you, Mitsuko," Ippin said. She tossed a long strand of red-orange hair over her back.

"Nice to meet you, too," I said quickly. Ippin waved and walked off. Another person to remember. I had been a senshi about a week, and I still couldn't even get Annika's name right. For two days I had to walk around with the names of everyone I met on my hand. That hadn't worked, so then I just guessed when I had to talk to someone. That went pretty well for a while, until I started getting everyone's name wrong. I was a little better at names now, but not by much. At least I had stopped calling Annika Priire.

"Princess Mitsuko," a voice said. I looked down. Suzue was standing near me and Prii-, I mean Annika. She looked really nervous about something.

"What's up, Suzue?" I asked.

"Your room, something's in it," she said, looking really baffled now. I said bye to Annika and jogged off to my room. I opened the door and walked in. At first, I thought Suzue was nuts. There was nothing wrong with my room.

"Hi Mitsuko!" a voice said. I turned around. Sitting on my bed was a little kid! I screamed and tore out the door. I slammed into Annika halfway down the hall.

"Annika! There's a little kid in my room! She knows my name!" I gasped. She didn't look worried.

"Relax, Mitsuko! It's probably one of the chibis. Come on!" she said. She set off towards my room. When she got there, she threw open the door. The little kid was still sitting there.

"Hi Annika!" she said happily. Annika slammed the door.

"You know her?" I asked meekly. She shook her head. We exchanged glances for a minute and then set off screaming down the hall, yelling about some deranged mutant child in my room. People started to gather. We were causing a major scene until we both slammed into Yuki.

"What's going on?" she demanded. I breathlessly explained about the little kid. She walked to my room and opened the door. The kid was sitting there still. She looked about three and had pink hair with white stripes. If she hadn't scared me to death, I might have thought she was cute. Yuki bent down carefully next to her.

"Hi there. What's your name?" she said gently. The little kid shook her head.

"You're not going to tell me?" Yuki asked. The little kid nodded.

"You sure?" Yuki asked. "We can't help you if you don't tell us who you are." Another nod. By now there was a huge crowd inside my room. There was general talking and whispering, but most people were watching the little girl. Annika stepped forward.

"Let me try her, Yuki," she said. So she tried. And then another person, and then another. Two hours later, twenty people had tried to make her talk. I swear, she must not even know how. She would just nod or shake her head.

"You try her, Mitsuko!" a girl named Mika said. "She did appear in your room, after all." A general murmur of agreement went around the room.

"Okay, okay, I'll try," I muttered.

"Hey, there. Could you please tell me your name?" I said to the kid quietly. She looked at me funny for a minute.

"I'm Chibi-Gudinnan. I come from the past. You have something I need," she said shortly.

Great. I hadn't even been a senshi a week, and already I had a problem.

"ARE you going to follow me ALL day?" I screamed back at the little girl behind me. She nodded happily. I was ready to pitch a fit. Or throw a temper tantrum. Or cry. Or all three. It had been three days since Chibi-Gudinnan had appeared in my room. Three very long days. Unfortunately, she was under the impression that I had something of hers. She kept following me around all day and saying she wanted it. She wouldn't even tell me what it was! I have never done well with little kids. The other chibis were pretty cute, but I have a pretty short temper.

"I'm hungry, Mitsu-chan. I wanna eat something. Can I have an orange?" Chibi-Gudinnan asked from behind me. She was very into the food thing. For the last three days, she had eaten everything in sight. That included my dinner, Suzue's dinner, Annika's dinner, Yuki's dinner, and four candles from Priire's room. Strangely, everyone else thought she was cute.

"Fine. Go get one. But, don't eat the skin this time, okay?" I told her. She scurried off to get her orange. I flopped down on the nearest chair. I was beat. The last three days had involved bringing all my stuff back from Earth, taking care of Chibi-Gudinnan, making sure she didn't kill herself eating everything, and setting up my room. I got up and headed to my unfinished room to get some sleep. My room was currently stuffed with all my old Earth stuff. Suzue and I had ordered new furniture the other day, and it was scheduled to arrive next week. I was praying Chibi-Gudinnan would be gone by then. I flopped down on my bed. I heard the door open and Chibi-Gudinnan come in.

"Turn off the light! I need to sleep!" I groaned at her.

"Where I come from you don't have to sleep," she said sadly.

"Where do you come from?" I asked her gently. She shook her head. "You can tell me, Chibi-Gudinnan. If you don't want me to, I won't tell anyone. I can keep a secret, honest!" She smiled sadly.

"Where I come from, it's dark all the time. There's no light. It's cold and scary, and I was very lonely," she said.

"Why did you go there?" I asked.

"I had to. The evil one, she wouldn't leave me alone. She created a black hole; it almost sucked in my planet. But the creation of the black hole destroyed her. I had to surrender myself and be closed into a black dimension. It was all I could do to save the people I watched over," she said and began to cry. I bent down and hugged her.

"But you saved all those people, right? That was very brave," I said. Then I noticed something I hadn't before. Her eyes. The way they glittered if you looked at them just right. And her voice, the weird accent she had. I took hold of her left hand. On the palm, there was a small, white, star-shaped birthmark. My voice sounded far away. "You're me, aren't you?" She nodded.

"Why did you come here?" I asked. I felt dazed.

"I had to," she whispered. "You have the chalice, I need it. Or the Lady will get it. My present, your past, our present, and your future, depend on it."

My door creaked open. It was Suzue.

"Mitsuko, the Sith are attacking the old warehouse downtown. Kendra is with them."

"I don't see anyone," I whispered at Chibi-Gudinnan. We were standing to the east side of an old warehouse that the Sith were supposedly attacking. Actually, it was pretty quiet. I had already transformed and was cautiously keeping an eye out for the Sith. Their queen seemed to hate me for some reason, and it made me nervous.

"How about we go in?" I suggested. Chibi-Gudinnan nodded. I hadn't wanted her to come along, but she had followed me. As far as I knew, she was pretty useless. It was hard to believe she was me. We walked around the old building until we found a door. It was rusted shut. The Sith had obviously barred it, because it wouldn't open.

"That's it. Move aside, Chibi-Gudinnan," I said. "Ithor Magic Heartache!" A flurry of sparkle and hearts flew at the door. It exploded when they hit. We carefully stepped into the building. It was old, musty, and totally gross.

"Another classy mission for the Sailor Jedi," I murmured to Chibi-Gudinnan. She giggled nervously. I was scared to death. It looked like one of those horror film scenes, where all of the sudden all the bad guys jump you. I noticed a light coming from the second story. Chibi-Gudinnan pointed toward it. I nodded and pointed to the stairs. We quietly set up them. It was hard, because the boards kept creaking. We reached the top. A single lantern stood in the middle of the room. It was dead quiet. Very quiet.

"Hando Daaku Batsu!" A deep black hand shot out of nowhere and grabbed me. Chibi-Gudinnan screamed. A woman with red hair stepped out of the shadows. She was controlling the hand. She was laughing hysterically. Chibi-Gudinnan had ducked under a table for safety. As the hand squeezed me tighter, the room grew dim. My mind wasn't working right, and it was getting really hard to breathe. Chibi-Gudinnan was crying from under her table. My head was pounding now and I was positive I was going to die.

Silence.

I opened my eyes. A bright light was coming from everywhere at once. I sat up. There was nothing but light and mist around me. As I cleared my vision, I noticed someone was standing in front of me. It was a woman of about twenty. Her hair was white, but she had my blue tips and pink bangs.

"Sailor Ithor, don't destroy the chalice. Use it to obtain the power of deep peace you need," she said quietly. The light was fading away.

I opened my eyes. I was lying on the ground in the old warehouse. I could hear many voices. I sat up hard. I scrambled to my feet. There was nobody here, but I could hear noise from below. I ran over to a railing and looked down. It was an all-out war. Obviously, while I was sleeping, the other senshi had stormed the place. I turned back to look for the stairs. I nearly smacked into someone. It was Chibi-Gudinnan! And she was holding a chalice made of gold.

"AAAAH! Chibi-Gudinnan! Give me that!" I cried. Something told me it was the chalice the woman had told me about. She held it tighter.

"No! I need it! I must destroy it before I have to go back!" she yelled and began backing away from me. She started squeezing the chalice tightly.

"Please don't destroy it! I need it! Come on, give it to me, Aunt Mitsuko needs it," I said gently. She stuck out her tongue. The chalice was glowing now.

"You're not my aunt. And I need it so nobody can go to the black dimension," she snapped. The chalice had begun to shake in her hand. I tried to grab it from her. She walked backwards, yanking it away from me.

"How about you give it to me, little girl," a voice said. We spun around to see Kendra watching us. Chibi-Gudinnan shook her head.

"Give it to me now!" yelled Kendra. She dove at it at the same time I did. Chibi-Gudinnan yanked it back, and the chalice exploded. Kendra and I hit the floor. I looked up. Nothing but a faint golden sparkle was left of the chalice. Kendra stood up and began cursing. Some of the sparkle hit my face. It seemed familiar somehow. I had a flashback of me on Tatooine. The Sith had been chasing me, and I used stardust to drive them back. Instantly, I had an idea. The chalice was made of stardust, and stardust was a never-ending cycle. Maybe if I used it, I could recreate the chalice. I stood up. Kendra turned to me.

"You," she hissed. She reached a hand for me. I stepped back and slapped her as I hard as I could across the face. She grabbed at her jaw. Blood was pouring down the side of her face. I felt sick. I turned to look at the sparkle as I held my hands together. A ball of light appeared between them. Golden stardust raced towards the ball of light. The ball became hot white and a lot bigger. The sparkle from the room was gone now, and the entire warehouse was illuminated with the same hot light that was coming from the ball. I heard Chibi-Gudinnan's voice.

"Please don't, Mitsu-chan! Please don't!" she cried at me. Just as her voice faded, an explosion of light leapt from my hands. The same golden chalice appeared, but it began to fade away. In its place floated a perfect golden crystal. Chibi-Gudinnan gasped. Kendra glared.

"It's the Eternal Imperial Crystal!" Chibi-Gudinnan said breathlessly. I reached out and touched the crystal. As soon as I touched it, soft gold ribbons swirled around me. My sailor fuku began to change to white and gold. My hair spilled down to my mid-back and became white. Soft white and gold wings came from my back. Kendra looked shocked and stepped back.

"Sailor Eternity!" Chibi-Gudinnan gasped. I pushed my hands together. The warehouse exploded in light.

I was unconscious for a long time afterwards. Later, I had to get Annika and Priire to tell me what happened. They had been down below. Anyway, from what I was told later, the warehouse was destroyed when Kendra attacked me and our powers collided. Chibi-Gudinnan was hit in the explosion, and so far she was the only counted casualty. In a news report later, we found out that the warehouse had held some sort of mega-weapon that the Republic had hidden there. No wonder the Sith were after it. No one knew why it was destroyed but us. I also learned that Sailor Asteroid had to carry me back to the Room Behind the Waterfall. I also learned she wasn't happy about and wouldn't let me eat anything but salads for a week, in case she ever had to carry me again. Chibi-Gudinnan wasn't found. She had been destroyed in the explosion. I cried a lot when I heard about that. Two weeks later, I had a dream about her. I was floating in the clouds. It was really sunny and open. When I landed on one of the clouds, Chibi-Gudinnan appeared.

"Mitsu-chan!" she said happily. I grinned at her.

"This place is a lot different than that black dimension you always talk about," I said. She nodded happily.

"It's my new home," she said, still smiling. She opened her hand and a golden crystal appeared. "You should have the crystal, Mitsuko." I shook my head.

"You keep it. I don't need it. You can guard it up here." I told her. She looked surprised.

"Don't you want to be your ultimate form?" she asked.

"Nope. I don't need to be," I told her. She closed her hand, and the crystal disappeared.

"I'll see you later, Chibi-Gudinnan, I hope. Until then, you had better watch over me so I don't get in trouble." She laughed.

"Don't worry, Mitsu-chan! Just call me your guardian angel!"