Chapter 49: With Their Voices Soft as Thunder

[Author's Note: This chapter took forever, I know. It fought me every step of the way. Fight scenes are the bane of my existence, so I'd really appreciate kind (and detailed!) feedback regarding this one. The next chapter is already underway, and will be something very different... but hopefully still interesting. - BHS]

-VERTEX ONE: 15.556984-

Azelma's Labyrinth

Strange, thought Sakura Kinomoto. The thought came through with a clarity that was frankly inexplicable, given their circumstances. Strange that a creature with no eyes—none on its head, anyway, for as far as she could tell, the head was composed only of the massive lance and the two scythe-like pincers mounted just beneath it—could nevertheless glare at them with such vehement rage. And there was no doubt in her mind that it was glaring right at them, that it could see them looking up at it from within FLOAT's basket. Malice boiled off of the Witch like steam from an overheated kettle...

"Tigers, listen up," said Madoka Kaname. She was on one knee, a flaming pink arrow notched to her bow, waiting for the perfect moment to fire. To her credit, her voice only shook a little. "We're sitting ducks in here, so we're going to have to jump."

"Jump where?!" sputtered Chibi-Usa Tsukino, Sailor Chibi-Moon.

"On top of it. At least, that's a short-term solution." The smile that accompanied this statement was precarious indeed.

Hotaru Tomoe, Sailor Saturn, nodded in understanding. "I get it. It's so big that if we stand on it, it shouldn't be able to attack us without hurting itself." She allowed herself a slight smile. "Fleas on a dog's back."

"Are you nuts?!" Chibi-Moon took great fistfuls of her cotton candy hair. "What if it can attack us there, or it knocks us off, or—"

"That's why we need a Plan B," said Madoka. "Sakura-chan, what do you have that can give us some solid ground?"

Sakura chewed on her lip. "EARTHY could do it, if she raises up a big hill or a rock formation or something," she said as she wracked her brains, visualizing possibilities. It was difficult to concentrate with an armored centipede as tall as a high-rise office building looming over them, poised to strike at any moment... Why it hadn't already done so was beyond her. The fetid atmosphere of the mushroom swamp didn't help her think; her AMP's shields could keep out the clouds of spores that choked the air, but not the air's stifling weight, and not its smell...

"That'll work, just keep us well above the water and give us at least five meters of flat surface to stand on. Ten, if you can." The point of Madoka's arrow held steady over the bulging compound eye of one of the metallic faces set in the segments of the Witch's underbelly. Sakura was struck by how mature and elegant Madoka looked, the picture of an archer... she could imagine her as a marble and alabaster statue of a Greek goddess. "Okay," she said, drawing Sakura out of her daydream, "get ready to jump right after I hit it. Sakura-chan, once we're all off, call back FLOAT and have EARTHY stand by, okay?"

"Roger!" said three voices in a rough chorus.

"All right," said Madoka. Slowly she pulled back on her arrow's fletching. Its flames roared with new life, as if eager to be loosed. "Three. Two. One..." Snap. Set free at last, the arrow was near-impossible to follow with the naked eye, resembling little more than a line of sparkling pink fire. Flying straight and true, it whistled as furrowed a path through the stagnant air and speared the eye, bursting it like an overripe fruit.

The Witch let out its awful, grating, metal-on-metal scream, shaking the Labyrinth to its core. Fountains of rust-colored blood gushed from its now-empty eye socket, but it ignored the injury in favor of diving straight for the FLOAT's balloon, screeching loud enough to wake the dead. To Sakura, its armored chrome body looked like an oncoming bullet train... a bullet train out of someone's fever-induced nightmare. From this angle, she saw that its head did indeed sport features other than the lance and pincers. Instead of mandibles, it bore a giant pair of gray-skinned, unsettlingly human arms with wriggling, grasping fingers. It spread them wide, and behind them she saw a mouth half the height of her house back in Tomoeda, taller than it was wide. Four steel jaws like bear traps were set in that mouth, one set stacked atop the other, two jaws on the left side and two on the right. The jaws alternated gnashing together, one set always open wide while the other set slammed closed, throwing off sparks... they reminded Sakura of the industrial crushing machines she saw at a factory once...

"Now!" cried Madoka.

Her shout shook Sakura awake. If she stared at the Witch any longer, it would run her through... or maybe just swallow her whole. At her summons, two Cards materialized between her fingers. She touched the first to the beak of her Sealing Wand and called its name: "JUMP!" A pair of wings sprouted from each of her ankles, and it was like her insides were light as clouds as she lifted off from the basket, a leap that Superman would be proud of. Madoka, Chibi-Moon, and Saturn followed, close at her side. They were barely clear of the balloon when Sakura gave FLOAT the mental command to return to its Card form... she would no more leave it in the path of an attacking Witch than she would leave any other of her precious friends in danger. When it swooped back into her hand, she whispered her apologies and gratitude to it before it dematerialized along with JUMP. Poor thing, it was active for such a long time during this mission, and it was exposed to such horrors. A gentle Card like FLOAT wasn't meant for things like this, she thought... but the warm feeling she got back from it indicated its thoughts on the matter well enough: It's all right. You're welcome.

The four of them reached the apex of their jump, briefly silencing the rushing of wind in Sakura's ears. The noise came back louder than ever as they fell, nothing below them but the caps and stems of the gigantic mushrooms and the incredible length of the Witch's armored body... If they missed the landing, it would be straight into the algae-clogged lake and the countless scissors that waited in its depths.

Aim for that one! Madoka's voice spoke in her mind. The fifth segment down from its head!

Sakura let out a tiny "Hoeee~!" that went unheard by everyone, even herself. She had yet to get used to this telepathy thing that Madoka and Nanoha used. Before she could start counting backwards from the head, eight pink arrows streaked past her and plunged into one of the centipede's armor plates. Forming a rough circle, the arrows burned bright, a set of makeshift signal flares... or landing lights, rather. Sakura angled herself toward them, tucking in her arms and legs as she dived.

JUMP's lingering magic slowed her descent a meter or two before impact. She touched down gently on the gleaming chrome plate, which was about half the size of the center circle on her school's soccer field. Her sneakers' rubber soles just barely gripped the smooth surface, but if the Witch tried to buck them off, or even moved around too much... Using EARTHY to make a platform seemed like a better and better idea. "Madoka-chan," she said, "I—"

"I know," said Madoka, struggling to keep her own footing. She swung her bow back and forth on high alert, her next arrow already notched. "Like I said, keep her ready."

A sound of exertion came from Saturn. She had thrust the blade of her Silence Glaive into the plate as an anchor, like an oversized trekking pole. The blade was sunken some ten centimeters deep, and she clutched the weapon's shaft with one hand while she held onto Chibi-Moon with the other. The Witch didn't seem to take any notice of the blade at all, and given what they had all been told about the glaive, that was more than a little worrying. "Do you think it saw us?" she asked, pulling Chibi-Moon close as the gargantuan body undulated beneath them.

"All its eyes are on its underside and we just popped one of them, so... no?" There was a pleading optimism in her answer. Or maybe it was just nausea; the constant, rippling up-and-down motion had her looking a bit green around the gills.

"I wouldn't count on it," said Madoka. "Witches' bodies don't follow the same rules as creatures from the regular world. We have to assume it knows we're here and it's readying an attack... so set your AMPs' flight engines to standby and start looking for a weak point."

Sakura tapped the backs of her gloves, and thanked heaven for the resultant hum which meant the engine was responding. FLY and JUMP couldn't handle everything, not in this environment. Clutching the Sealing Wand tight, she scanned the body beneath her. All the plates were smooth and flawless, and polished clean save for a few lingering streaks of pond scum. Strangely clean, seeing as the Witch had spent so much time submerged in the swampy lake below. "It's all made of metal, it doesn't look like it has weak points. Except for the eyes, and we can't reach them now..."

"Every suit of armor has its chinks." Saturn withdrew her glaive from the plate and indicated with it. "Take a look." She motioned to the edge of the segment she and Chibi-Moon stood on. It was only when the segment ahead of it raised and lowered with the beast's rippling motion that they made it out: in the joint between one segment and the next, nestled between the plates of armor, there were glimpses of gnarled brown flesh. "See?" said Saturn. "Parts of it have to be soft and flexible so that it can move at all... or at least, that's how real centipedes work."

Sakura goggled in amazement. "How do you know all this stuff, Saturn?"

"My Papa was a scientist. He was fascinated by how things worked," she answered with a small, tight smile.

Saying nothing, Chibi-Moon squeezed her hand.

"It's a good plan." Madoka nodded. "Better than our other options at the moment. But we'll need to time it perfectly, and make our attack count." She peered ahead to the Witch's front. Having apparently lost track of them, it seemed to be wandering aimlessly among the mushroom stems. "If we have the element of surprise, we'll probably be giving it up once we hurt it, so let's brace ourselves for when it retaliates."

"Uh huh," said Sakura as she fumbled through her Cards. "What do you think a Witch would be weak to? Should I use FIREY, or THUNDER, or—"

"It's okay, Sakura-san, we'll handle this." Chibi-Moon flashed her a shaky thumbs-up. "Change, Diana P!" Behind her, Diana P bobbed quickly up and down in apparent agreement, just before it burst into smoke and changed into a form Sakura had never seen before: not a facsimile of the Pink Moon Rod, but a jeweled scepter with a crescent moon at its crown. Contained within the horns of the moon was a large, candy apple red globe. "You should save as much strength as you can for later tonight, when you'll really need it," she continued, taking hold of the new weapon. "Just cover us, have your Cards on hand, and keep an eye out for any other nasty surprises."

Gratitude warmed Sakura's heart. Chibi-Moon and the others knew that fighting villains and monsters—or fighting at all—was harder on her than it was on any of the other Morning Lights. It was just as Joker said back in Tomoeda on the night it all began: "You're no fighter. Not without the proper motivation, anyway." Sayaka Miki said much the same in Jamais Ville during the rescue mission: "You're not like the rest of us... You're only hurting yourself." And yet, even though it was totally against her nature, she chose to learn how to fight anyway. She chose to come along on this mission and place herself in danger because there was something she needed to do, something only she could do, which required fighting. Her hands felt strangely tight inside her gloves at the thought... she transferred the Sealing Wand to the crook of her elbow and flexed her fingers. Events later tonight would be what the gloves were made for, her AMP's moment to shine... assuming the plan worked. "Okay," she said to Chibi-Moon, nodding. EARTHY's Card was already at her fingertips, and now she summoned SHIELD's Card to join it.

"Thanks, Sakura-chan," said Madoka, giving her a supportive smile. "Saturn and Chibi-Moon, form up."

Chibi-Moon and Saturn took their positions at her side as she once again dropped to one knee. Another arrow flared to life at her call, and the two Senshi angled their weapons to follow the point of the arrowhead. With a sniper's eye, Madoka stared down the length of the shaft, waiting for just the right moment.

Ahead of them, the plate shifted and exposed the flesh underneath...

"Now! Twinkle Arrow!"

"Moon Princess Halation!"

"Silence Buster!"

Madoka's arrow carried Chibi-Moon's whirling disc of moonlight and stars in its train along with Saturn's curling ribbon of bright energy. The three projectiles coalesced at the point of impact, lighting the gap between the Witch's armor plates with a miniature sunburst. They felt the Witch react before they heard it: a powerful tremor succussed through its length, and its head reared up to the ceiling of mycelia and the pea-green sky. It screeched louder than ever, a sound like ice water on their spines. Rusty blood jetted from the wound in a wide plume, with enough pressure to splash violently against their shields.

"All right!" Chibi-Moon pumped a fist, too relieved to care too much about the spray, as long as her barriers kept it from actually touching her. "We can hurt it! Maybe if we hit that spot again—"

Sakura didn't know how she knew. Perhaps it was a premonition; it would hardly be the first one she ever had. The way the wound just kept bleeding like a runaway fire hose was wrong, wrong in ways other than just its general scariness. She spoke without thinking: "Get back!" Her time slowed to a crawl as she barged her way through them, in front of them, and slammed the head of her wand into one of the Cards between her fingers. "SHIELD!"

SHIELD's winged buckler materialized in front of them all. Not an instant later, something cannoned against its surface with a harsh, metallic clang. Countless smaller impacts pinged off of it in the following seconds, sounding like a vicious hailstorm. Sakura felt SHIELD's distress as her own: too close, entirely too close. If she had been any slower...

After a while, the only sounds were of her frantic heartbeat in her ears and the sighing of air displaced by the Witch's flight. She swallowed heavily and peeked around SHIELD's edge, dreading what she would see there...

*****

"No," moaned Chibi-Moon. She wasn't sure how her stomach could drop any lower than it already had, but it did anyway. "No way. You've gotta be kidding me...!"

Where the Witch's wound had been, there was now a conglomeration of dozens of iron spines, which jutted from the gap at threatening angles, like the backside of a porcupine made of metal. The spines had an irregular, curdled texture to them. Each was over two meters long, and most were thicker around than Chibi-Moon's arm. In disbelief, she gingerly poked the tip of one... it was sharp enough to make her shielding flicker just from that.

Next to her, Saturn looked faintly ill, her unflappable calm shattered. Chibi-Moon saw her eyes trace the spines along their lengths, to the spot where SHIELD had blocked them... there, they were bent and splayed at odd angles around the point of impact, but they were still no less sharp or deadly than the others. "It..." she said, husky and dry. "It—"

"It hardened its blood into metal," Chibi-Moon croaked, finishing her thought. "Even if you manage to make it bleed, it just makes more armor to patch itself up stronger than ever. And the spray—"

"If Sakura hadn't protected us just then..." Saturn clutched at her chest, as if to make absolutely sure she wasn't impaled.

A hand squeezed Chibi-Moon's shoulder. "I know it's scary," said Madoka. She reached over to do the same to Saturn. "Believe me, I'm scared too, and I've fought more Witches than I can count... but we can't give up here. They're depending on us back at the Lighthouse, and if we let this Witch go, it'll only hurt more people. We've got to stay focused and plan our next move. I know we can do it, so come on!"

It was as if her fortitude pulled Chibi-Moon out of a bad dream, like the other girl's heart was slowly suffusing her own with warm, reenergizing power. Not magic, she knew what magic felt like... this power was Madoka herself. A strange thought occurred to her: now she sort of understood why Homura Akemi was head-over-heels for this girl. Madoka had an effect on people, she could see that Saturn felt that effect too.

Across from them, a shaken Sakura called back SHIELD and motioned to store its Card away, out of instinct... Flickers of movement glimpsed over the Witch's sides made her reconsider in short order. "Something's moving down there! Get ready!"

"Saturn, can you give us another Revolution yet?"

"Sorry, Madoka-chan." Saturn shook her head. "Even in practice, that took a lot out of me. It'll be another hour at least before I have enough energy. Maybe two."

Madoka sucked air in through her teeth. "Okay, new plan..."

The things rising up in pairs over the Witch's sides looked like barren trees swaying in a breeze at first glance. They were thick trunks that tapered to pointed ends, with innumerable boughs sprouting from them, and branches from the boughs, and twigs from the branches. Chibi-Moon shivered, the hairs rising on the back of her neck. "A-are those it's legs?"

"Yes and no," said Madoka. She notched another three arrows. "Look."

One of them curled inward to stare at the group, and Chibi-Moon erupted into full-on goosebumps. Without the lance and armor, it was difficult to tell, but the unfolding pincers made it unmistakable: each leg was a smaller centipede, which in turn had even smaller centipedes for its own legs... It spread its pincers wide, and liquid sloshed and bubbled within its trunk as steam eked from its twin sets of jaws.

Chibi-Moon didn't need the warning Madoka shouted out to dive out of the way. A torrent of foul-smelling lime-green fluid blew at the spot she had been standing and struck the armor plate with an angry hiss. She watched, horrified but fascinated, as it directed the spray not to follow her, but to the conglomeration of iron spines. Other "legs" angled toward it to do the same, drenching the mass until it sagged, melting under the assault. A steaming puddle of liquid iron slurry spread rapidly over the plate, filling in the divot Saturn made when she stabbed it with her glaive. It took only seconds for the stuff to harden again... apart from its dull matte grey color, the armor was good as new, without a scratch.

Behind her, she heard Madoka firing arrows at the leg-Familiars on one side, and high-pitched screeches as Saturn sliced through more... or was that Sakura using her SWORD Card? Or was it both of them? It didn't matter. The noises of battle washed over her, past her, like the tide around a rock.

She felt bizarrely calm, despite her heartbeat thundering in her ears. Ami used to talk about the state of total focus that she went into when she studied for exams... a state in which her already incredible brain operated at peak efficiency, laying out everything clearly in front of her. She had attempted to teach the other Senshi this skill, but none of them met with much success. But Chibi-Moon felt it now, oh yes: the problems before her were clear. The Labyrinth had little or no safe, solid ground to stand on. The Witch was heavily armored enough to shrug off almost any attack. Its few vulnerable spots were either out of reach or could be healed in minutes. Though it couldn't attack them directly while they were up on its back, its Familiars could make up for it. So how to kill it?

And there came a thought, heaven help her. In something of a fugue state, she scrambled upright and called for Luna P, transforming it into the Pink Moon Rod. Her brain worked at a fever pitch as her combat instincts went on autopilot, firing heart pulses at anything in her sight that moved and had more than four limbs. The others were now several segments back, so she sprinted to them, weaving around the jets of acid from the Familiars until she joined them. She took a deep breath... odds were that they would all object to this. Especially Saturn. "Madoka—"

Madoka didn't look at her. She panted in exertion as she fired off arrows at a speedy clip. "Chibi-Moon, we may need to retreat," she began. "Just for now. If we can leave the Labyrinth long enough to call for—"

"Don't retreat just yet. I have an idea."

Now Madoka glanced back over her shoulder. She loosed an arrow as she turned, and it followed a crazed, looping flight path before it struck and burned through a Familiar three segments down. "You do?"

Chibi-Moon nodded regretfully. "But you're not gonna like it. It's a bad idea."

That caught Saturn's attention. "Then let me do it," she said, her face grave. "I won't—"

She shook her head to cut Saturn off. "Nuh-uh. I think it's gotta be me. Silver Crystal power, and all that," she said, tapping her transformation brooch. "Where's Sakura-san?"

"Here!" Sakura ran up drenched with sweat, SWORD's released form clutched tight in one hand. "Are we huddling? Is this a new plan?"

"Yeah, but somebody's got to watch our backs while I explain..."

"Allow me. Silence Wall!" Saturn's invocation rose a dome of solidified air around them. The high-pitched squeals of the angered Familiars grew muffled. Acid splashed against the dome's sides, but with nothing to melt through, it merely slid off.

Chibi-Moon told them what she had in mind...

"You can't be serious," said Saturn once she was finished. As Chibi-Moon expected, she didn't approve. "Forget reckless, this is crazy."

"I told you it was a bad idea... but sometimes crazy works," she said. "I think I'm the only one that might be able to pull it off. Most of your biggest attacks give off negative energy, that'll only make it go nuts. Sakura's got to save her magic. Madoka does too, until she gets more Grief Seeds."

Madoka drummed her fingers on the upper limb of her bow. "Saturn's right, it's definitely reckless. But if it's between your plan and retreating until we have the firepower to really damage it... it's worth a try."

"I-I'll back you up however I can, Chibi-Moon," Sakura said, "but please try to be careful!"

"I will," said Chibi-Moon, trying to sound confident. "Just for the record, though, I want to say this: fighting Witches sucks, and I really, really hate this Witch in particular!"

Madoka's laugh rang hollow. "I can't really disagree with you there. This one's more stubborn than most. Saturn?"

The worry was plain on Saturn's face. Still, she put a hand on Chibi-Moon's shoulder and squeezed. "All right. I trust you," was all she said... and all she needed to say.

Chibi-Moon placed her hand over her partner's, and gave her a look that said that if they got through this—no, when they got through this—the two of them would... well. Best to leave those kinds of thoughts until after the job was done.

"Okay," said Madoka. "You all know what to do, so on the count of three, break!"

"Roger!"

"One... two... three, break!"

"Silence Glaive Surprise!" Saturn's barrier exploded, blanketing the Witch in fragrant violet fog. That was the secondary signal; Chibi-Moon took off at full speed and raced from one segment to the next up the Witch's back. She held the glowing Pink Moon Rod at her hip, both hands tight around the handle, like a samurai waiting to draw a blade. Usagi couldn't pull this off, she thought with a rueful grin. Seven years of experience as Sailor Moon or not, she wouldn't make it five meters without slipping and falling on her face. Dumb old simple-minded Usagi, all she had to worry about was fighting monsters made of cake, or monsters that stuffed her into giant tennis balls and bounced her around... nothing like this. That is, unless there were a lot of much scarier battles that Usagi wasn't telling her about...

Saturn's fog didn't disorient the Familiars for long. Chibi-Moon couldn't see them, but she could hear their squeals, followed by the splashes and sizzles of acid as they tried to douse her. Now it was time for—

"Pluvia Magica!"

The blazing light from Madoka's spell circle shone through the clouds like a noonday sun. It hung in the sky above the Witch, well out of its reach, and from every centimeter of its pink lines and whorls the arrows fell, a downpour of flaming shafts that ripped through every Familiar they touched. Though it was a bit selfish of her, Chibi-Moon hoped against hope that the arrow storm might pierce the Witch's hide, so she wouldn't have to do this... but no such luck. The arrows striking the armor stuck there and burned out without causing any visible damage.

"EARTHY!" That was Sakura, doing her part. Faint tremors rumbled through the Labyrinth... much less faint if you were close to it, she reasoned. Far down below, there was a mighty rushing sound as water gave way to a pillar of solid rock... the metallic scraping noises that followed were probably all the displaced scissors from the lake knocking against its sides as they fell back in. Too bad for them. Now the team had their platform to regroup on, at least.

Only three more segments now. Chibi-Moon chanced a look at Diana P, following along in her wake. "Diana P," she said, "you're sure you have it right, right?"

Diana P chirruped in response. "[On your signal, hover and engage half-Peppy maneuver, then divert all remaining power to shields. Correct?]"

"You got it! And don't you dare mess up the timing!"

"[Of course not, Small Lady.]"

Her wand's jeweled crown flashed brighter and more frequently than it ever had before as she channeled power into it. As she stepped onto the final segment before the head, it began to tremble in her hands, its energy straining to be released. She fervently hoped it wouldn't explode... that might take out the Witch, sure, but it would most likely take her out, too. Up onto the giant lance she went. The Witch shook itself like a wet dog would, minus the resemblance to anything cute. If not for the gravity compensator in Diana P's flight engine, it would have thrown her off for sure. Once it finished shaking, she took one last breath... and time turned inside-out as she dove headfirst off the lance's edge, into empty space.

It wasn't far to fall. Only once she caught the first upside-down glimpse of its mouth did she call out: "Activate!"

"[As you wish, Small Lady!]"

The jerking halt she was bracing herself for didn't come. No inertia, that was a definite point in the flight engine's favor. She was far less prepared for the roll... Diana P spun her on a horizontal axis until she floated upright, exactly as it said it would, but her stomach seemed to be about a half-second behind the rest of her. Getting sick could come later, now it was time to strike while it was still reeling from her stunt. Facing the head directly, she whipped the straining Moon Rod out and took aim, but...

Still not fully charged. "Crap," she whimpered.

The points of two gigantic pincers slammed into either side of her waist with the force of an industrial press. Miraculously, her shields held, but the impacts rattled her down to her core. Someone down below screamed. Probably Sakura, she thought. Mosaic patterns of energy flickered over her body as the Witch applied more pressure and the shields fought to compensate. Still she held the wand steady, growling at it through gritted teeth: "Come on, come on!" Not yet, her senses told her. She could only let loose once she was sure— Something scrabbled at the soles of her boots. It was the grabbing fingers of its arm-mandibles, probably trying to catch hold and pull her into one or both sets of its crushing jaws. Repulsed, she drew up her legs, then kicked as hard as she could until she felt things breaking beneath her heels.

There was something off about the Witch's lance. While still pouring power into the Moon Rod, she scanned its length. By her reckoning, the pincers were situated about a half a meter below the lance. The pincers could move, sure, but she was sure the lance was fixed in one position. So why was it moving backwards...?

Chibi-Moon's pupils shrank to pinpricks as it came to her. The whole thing was on a sliding joint of some kind. It and the plate it was mounted on drew back and tilted downward until the point was level, roughly two meters from her chest, and she heard a very distinct click. With that sound, she knew exactly what was about to happen. She gripped the Moon Rod so tight that her knuckles creaked in protest and screamed to Diana P: "SHIELDS!"

If Diana P responded, she didn't hear it. All she heard was the thunderous crash as the lance hurtled forward as if mounted on an immense, coiled spring that had just been loosed. If not for her shields, the impact alone would have killed her, never mind being skewered by it... it was akin to being hit by a speeding train. The Witch shrieked in frustration and pulled it back again, preparing for a second thrust. Chibi-Moon threw caution to the wind, pouring every possible iota of energy into her attack... her last attack, if this didn't work.

The second blow of the lance dwarfed the first. The third was stronger than the previous two put together. Her consciousness teetered on the edge of blackness for a second or two. She didn't have to see the energy barrier shatter to know that her overtaxed shields had finally collapsed under the strain. Already the Witch had the lance retracted for a fourth strike. Now or never.

Chibi-Moon aimed down her sights, the Pink Moon Rod ablaze with light and nearly shaking itself out of her hands. "Don't... stick your nose... where it doesn't belong! PINK SUGAR... HEART... ATTACK!"

The blast went off like rounds from a battery of howitzers, with a blinding pink flash and an ear-splitting BOOM. Its recoil tore Chibi-Moon from the Witch's grip... and as she rocketed backward, she saw the thing screaming in agony. The top half of its head was exposed, most of the flesh underneath flash-fried and sizzling with residual arcs of fuschia lightning. Approximately half of its lance spun away from it, bent and blackened... the other half, and the armor plate it had been mounted on, were now little but a rain of smoking, gleaming shards.

What small amount of joy and pride she felt at her accomplishment came to an abrupt end along with her backwards flight. This time she did black out, if only briefly, as she struck a surface that was supposed to be soft and pliable... but at her speed, it was more like hitting an old mattress that had gone hard as a brick. It was the stem of one of the enormous upside-down mushrooms, she realized in a haze as she plummeted, the edges of her vision awash in colorful starbursts. That was what she hit; she wondered if her body even made an impression in all that dense mushroom... stuff... or if she just bounced off of it without making a dent.

There was little time to ponder. Her arms tingled as she shook feeling back into them and raised her wrist to eye level. Diana P was there, back in its wristband form. Her lips parted to give it a command, to tell it to re-engage the flight engine and stop her fall... "SYSTEM OVERLOAD", read its blue holo-text. "SELF-REPAIR IN PROGRESS."
"Crap," Chibi-Moon said again. The spongy surface layer of the mushroom's cap below—the hymenium, said Saturn's voice in her head—rushed up at her, filling her vision. At this rate, she would belly-flop into it at terminal velocity. Spongy or not, that would both hurt like the dickens and be disgusting. "L-Luna P Magic!" Pop, went her Moon Rod, though by the time the usual smoke cloud finished forming, it was twenty meters above her. Thank heaven Luna P could match her rate of descent. "Abracadabra Pon!" The balloon changed once more into its familiar parasol shape. Chibi-Moon scrambled for the switch on its handle, its canopy unfurled, but not fast enough to—

At first, hitting the inside of mushroom's cap wasn't as bad as hitting its stem, she thought. It still hurt, and it hurt a lot, but it was more like falling onto a wet trampoline... the porous substance flexed beneath her weight as she sank into it, absorbing most of the impact and rebounding the rest back into her. Painful, but not as bad as a solid surface. That rebound, however, was accompanied by an explosion of spores... that was much, much worse. A fine, dusty cloud blanketed both her and the surrounding ten meters of mushroom, and it was just her bad luck that the landing knocked the wind out of her, so a good portion of it funneled right into her mouth as she gasped for breath. As the cap wobbled back into shape, Chibi-Moon sat coughing, hacking, and sneezing up a storm, her sinuses a mess. God, it was like that time when she and Usagi tried to make a cake and their bag of flour blew up... gross.

"Chibi-Moon!" Once her breathing was under control enough to hear it, she made out Sakura's voice calling from above. "Chibi-Moon, are you all right?"

Chibi-Moon sniffled, waving a hand. "Down here. I think I'll be okay, eventually."

The Cardcaptor sat perched on her wand like a witch riding a broom, about ten meters above her. "Come on, the platform's over this way!" she said, pointing to her left.

"Yeah, I see it," said Chibi-Moon after rubbing her reddened eyes. The rock pillar's shape loomed out of the dusty air. "On my way." She dropped into a crouch, then sprung off the cap, happy to bid the mushroom goodbye.

She touched down behind Madoka and Saturn, both of them firing volleys at the exposed section of the Witch's head. EARTHY had done her job well... it was good, hard rock beneath her feet, and she thought she might never take solid ground for granted again. She smiled at Saturn, who fixed her with a look that stated, Way too reckless, before her features melted back into relief. "What's the situation?"

"See for yourself. You hurt it pretty badly," Saturn said, turning her attention back to the Witch as Sakura floated back to her other side. "It's just like you thought: deal it a big enough blow, and its armor can't reform right away."

Chibi-Moon looked. The Witch thrashed its head back and forth, most of its exposed flesh still burnt to a black char. What little was left raw spewed fountains of blood that rapidly solidified into jagged, corkscrewing strips of metal. These just as quickly snapped off and were replaced by more of the same... she was reminded of those snake fireworks she often saw during summer. At least ten of Madoka's arrows peppered its forehead.

After letting off one more salvo, Madoka rose and wiped her brow. "It's weakening," she said. "If we press it and all attack the same spot together, I think we might be able to finish it off."

"Sounds good to me," said Chibi-Moon. She was about to ask what position she should take when a sudden light-headedness made her swoon. She fell to her knees, her vision wavering... It was reasonable to assume she had burned more energy than she thought. That made sense. In blurred focus, she saw herself reach for Saturn to pull herself back up, but there was something odd about her hand. She peered at it...

For some reason, she couldn't quite make out individual fingers, it was like they were all joined together. Perplexed, she tried to spread them out and found it difficult; they resisted the action. When she managed to do so, her first thought was that there were cobwebs between each finger... but that was stupid. Where would cobwebs come from? As she watched, the "cobwebs" filled in until she could no longer see through them. Now the spaces between her fingers were solid, and her hand was locked in a spread-fingered position. It was like she was wearing a glove atop her glove, there was a strange substance covering it. Her eyes traveled down her wrist to her forearm and found an edge of... something... creeping centimeter by centimeter toward her elbow. Dazed and puzzled, she moved her right hand to scratch at it. Whatever it was, it was soft and rubbery; her fingers carved grooves in it, but the grooves filled themselves back in and were gone in seconds. When she pulled her other hand away, she found the same stuff covering her fingertips... and inching down them.

Awareness snapped back to her. She gawped down at herself, at the many irregular patches of white matter spreading all over her Senshi fuku, curling tiny threads into her bow, her leotard, her skirt... Below that, it looked bizarrely as if she were wearing long tights, for everything from her mid-thighs down was sheathed over. The substance puddled beneath her as it ran off, like a half-melted candle. Her veins filled with ice as she swiped at herself, her fingers now useless, stiff and unyielding, her hands blunt instruments.

The spores, she thought. Her shields were down when she hit the cap's hymenium, she was saturated in them. What did spores do? They took root and spread until they turned into mushrooms. And mushrooms grew on living things...

"Guys!" she tried to call out. All that came out was a tiny "Gh." She drew in a breath to try again, and felt fullness in her chest that wasn't there a moment ago. Her lungs were heavy. Something was clinging to their insides, coating them, leeching her oxygen... and growing, filling the space within. She fumbled at her neck with clumsy motions, her gasps for air more like pleas. Her face tingled... she couldn't see it, but she knew that a webbed network of threads was overtaking her skin. In seconds, she would be smothered, suffocated, buried alive... Wheezing, she made one more attempt to speak, but her lips were stuck together. There were lumps inside her throat, growing lumps... and on the surface of her tongue, a bulbous stem sprouted, quickly forming a round cap that swelled up and pushed against her teeth and the roof of her mouth.

Desperate tears welled in her eyes as she flailed, fully silenced. Both her legs were now fused together; she was anchored where she knelt by the carpet of fungal tissue. As it thickened around her arms, it grew harder and harder to move them, gradually weighing them down. In seconds, webbing built and solidified between them and her sides, sealing her arms in place. Porous flesh crawled over her face, through her hair, behind her ears. Ahead of her, Sakura turned around, a question on her lips, probably to ask if she was all right. It was just as she began to register the horror of what she saw that the relentless tide claimed Chibi-Moon's sight. Countless tiny threads wound together over the lenses of her eyes, holding her lids open and plunging her vision into blackness... Unable to speak, unable to see, unable to move, unable to breathe, the last thing she felt was herself pitching backwards, her fall fading into nothingness...

*****

"Chibi-Moon!"

At the sound of Sakura's scream, Saturn turned around and saw something she would take to her grave: Chibi-Moon's shape outlined in ghastly white mycelial flesh, the details of her face and form barely defined and growing less and less distinct by the second. Her lifeless backward slump seemed to happen in slow motion, and when it finished, the sad, dull thud of her mummified body striking the rock sounded to her like a cannon blast.

From a certain point of view, it was a weakness: she loved Chibi-Usa too much. After what she had done to her as Mistress 9, after being forced to fight her to the death as Galaxia's puppet, the thought of ever losing her again was the most horrible thought in all the worlds... worse than Joker, worse than the destruction of Vertex Three, worse than reality breaking down. Her objectivity was inherently flawed, and she didn't care. Chibi-Usa was her true north, her sunlight, her symphony. Chibi-Usa was the one who pulled her from the darkness, darkness that she never thought herself worthy of escaping until they met. For Chibi-Usa, her love burned brighter than all the stars.

So when Chibi-Moon fell, when Sakura screamed and rushed to her side, it took every ounce of willpower she had not to do the same, to take her and cradle her in her arms. Her heart felt like it would rend in two as she cried out in a choked voice: "Sakura, stay back! Don't touch her!"

Sakura didn't or couldn't listen, it wasn't clear which. Wild-eyed and frantic, she tore at the flesh covering Chibi-Moon's mouth and nose, only to have it grow back without a scratch before her eyes. "Chibi-Moon! Chibi-Moon! I-I don't understand... What happened?!" Switching positions, she felt for Chibi-Moon's midsection and pushed with both hands. Chest compressions, Saturn thought. She must have seen the technique on TV or in movies. Sakura's fingers sparked and flickered as the mycelium attempted to climb onto her too, only to be stymied by her shields and dissolve into ash. "Chibi-Moon, hang on!"

Next to break formation was Madoka, who scraped her knees in her haste to drop down beside her fallen comrade. She didn't even bother to disguise her trembling. "It... it must have been the spores," she stammered. Saturn could tell that she had to fight to restrain herself from pounding Chibi-Moon's chest just as Sakura was doing. "Sh-she took all those direct hits from the Witch, they disabled her shields... and when she fell into the m-mushroom..."

From somewhere within Chibi-Moon's prison, they heard a sound that all of the Morning Lights had been trained to recognize, but none of them ever desired to hear: the AMP Device's alarm indicating that its user was experiencing a medical emergency and unable to help themselves. "[Warning,]" said Diana P's voice, muffled by the many layers atop it. "[Vital signs unstable. Life support systems ineffective. Foreign matter obstructing respiration. Warning...]"

"What do we do?! We've got to get it off of her! There has to be some sort of spell that can—"

"We can't touch it, Sakura, if it gets through our shields..."

"[Warning. Vital signs unstable. Life support systems ineffective. Foreign matter obstructing—]"

"Then I'll use SWORD and cut her out of there—"

"Even if you could, cutting her loose won't do any good if she's inhaled the spores, she can't breathe!" Madoka slammed the red satin ribbon tied around her wrist with her free hand. "Connect, Solace! Please, she needs help!" She closed her eyes as the ends of the ribbon unfurled, stretching down to Chibi-Moon's body and sinking into pools of soft white light which formed centimeters above the fungal surface.

"[We can do it, Madoka.]" The voice from Madoka's AMP was calm and comforting, but with an undertone of steel, the voice of someone blessed with both compassion and a fighting spirit. "[Analyzing.]"

Saturn's heart beat a jackhammer rhythm in her breast as the AMP did its work and precious seconds ticked by...

"It's bad," said Madoka after what felt like an eternity. "Really bad. I'm trying my best to stabilize her, but the growth, the mushrooms... they're everywhere. They're blocking her throat, her lungs, everything... E-even if we use magic to burn all of it off, if the spores are still there it'll just grow back..."

It was then that Saturn turned to face the wounded Witch, still writhing as it attempted to recover from its injuries. She stared at it with a fury as cold and hard as winter iron, merciless as an oncoming hurricane. In that moment, she saw the Witch not as a pitiable, maddened thing born of the tortured soul of another magical girl... she saw it as a monster that would take Chibi-Moon from her unless she stopped it. She saw, and she knew. "Madoka," she said, fighting to keep control, "if we kill the Witch, the Labyrinth will collapse, and everything spawned from it—the Familiars, the spores, the mushrooms, everything—will die along with it. Right?"

Behind her, Madoka's voice shook. "R-right, that's how it should work, but-"

"So we need to make sure it dies, right now. Chibi-Moon doesn't have time for half-measures."

She didn't even have to look to see Madoka's gaze snap up to her. She could hear her expression as she realized. "You're—"

Saturn reached into the collar of her fuku for the necklace that she wore. Withdrawing it revealed a pink cartoon rabbit face, a charm that dangled from an impossibly fine silver thread.

The blood left Madoka and Sakura's faces. Both of them stared at the charm as if it was an unexploded bomb.

*****

Messiah wasn't like the other AMP Devices.

Most of the other AMPs were designed to augment their users' existing abilities and to provide general enhancements and support across the board. A few of the Lights designed their AMPs with specific functions in mind: to strengthen a particular magical attack, for example, or to cover for a particular weak point.

Saturn's AMP followed the logic of the latter principle to its ultimate extreme. Messiah was designed with a single purpose in mind: to kill Joker if all else failed.

Hotaru was well aware of her limitations. The power of destruction that she wielded as Sailor Saturn made her the strongest of all of the Sol Senshi, but using that power at its full strength would destroy everything indiscriminately, herself included. Far too dangerous to use when there was still a chance, however slim, of victory by other means. It was useless in normal circumstances.

Upon first receiving her AMP Device and being asked what features she would like it programmed with, Hotaru proposed an idea to Doctor Mariel Atenza: that her AMP could allow her to focus a portion of the power of destruction into a concentrated burst. Its release would be a controlled vent of sorts, and its effect would serve as something like a fatal curse from a fairy tale. In other words, it would condemn its target to an absolutely certain, inevitable, and final death. There would be no resurrections, no miraculous escapes, not even a prayer of hope for survival. It would kill whoever or whatever it hit, once and for all, end of story. And then Hotaru explained to the doctor exactly how she envisioned that it would kill...

Upon hearing this, Doctor Atenza was appalled. Building and designing Devices made for fighting was one thing; magical combat in her universe was non-lethal in all but the most desperate circumstances. Designing a Device explicitly made for no purpose other than to kill, and to kill in such a way... That the idea came from such a sweet, quiet young girl, someone so kind despite the tremendous suffering she had endured, disturbed her even more. Even with the fate of reality at stake, even if it were only to be used against an enemy like Joker, what Hotaru described was horrific to contemplate. Doctor Atenza initially refused to have anything to do with such a thing.

So Hotaru explained the rest of her idea: that her AMP Device would be programmed from the outset with an irrevocably fixed number of usages in mind. Each usage would come at a cost, because Saturn's powers always did in the end. After the last usage was expended, the AMP would self-destruct and disintegrate into vapor. Otherwise, Hotaru said, the temptation to misuse such power would be too great, even for someone like her. It could only be wielded with a full and perfect understanding of the consequences, and only in the most extreme state of jeopardy... the final option of all final options.

The discussion of the cost horrified Doctor Atenza even more, as Hotaru expected it would. So she told her in detail of Sailor Saturn's role, of what the full use of her powers entailed. And then she told the doctor that if using her Device could hypothetically prevent another catastrophe like that which befell Vertex Three... no cost too was great for her.

Only then did Doctor Atenza accept her proposal, albeit with great misgivings. She made it clear that if the present stakes of the conflict with Dead End were any less dire, she would never have entertained the thought. Hotaru's Device would be the most dangerous piece of magitech she had ever or would ever construct, and at her insistence, it was handled with only the maximum levels of safety and security protocols in place. During every step of its creation process, it was treated as if it was a Class-9 Hazardous Lost Logia, the same level of caution afforded to the Book of Darkness. Doctor Atenza, Fantine, and Hotaru herself were the only ones who knew anything at all about its construction, which took over a month of fraught, delicate work in isolation, according to the Arthra's calendar. The AMP's inner workings remained a mystery to everyone else; all files relating to it were thoroughly scrubbed from every computer that hosted them upon its completion.

At Hotaru's insistence, it was fashioned to look like a simple lucky charm, a pink cartoon bunny face that hung from a fine silver thread. She designed it this way so that even looking at the AMP would remind her of Chibi-Usa... of the person whose life she treasured most in all the worlds, of who and what she fought for, and of what she would lose should she not hold back. This was also her rationale for the AMP's name: Messiah, because Chibi-Usa was hers.

*****

"Saturn, no." Sakura's voice was a hoarse croak. "Y-you can't, there's got to be some other way!"

Saturn spoke not to her, but to the charm: "Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, Morieris." At her words, the silver thread holding it to the necklace snapped.

"We'll retreat," Madoka began. "We'll leave the Labyrinth and get her back to the Lighthouse..."

"If it can grow that fast, she only has minutes left," said Saturn. "Maybe less. If we keep wasting time, she'll die."

"I can't just let you use that thing! Not if it costs you—"

Saturn fixed her with a stare that was all the more terrifying for how calm it was... like the surface of a placid lake. "Do you really think you can stop me, Madoka?" It wasn't a threat. It was merely a statement—or question—of fact. She hefted the Silence Glaive and brandished it before her face, one eye visible through the curve of its deadly blade. "If it was to save Chibi-Usa's life, I would drop this Silence Glaive without a second thought. I would turn everyone and everything on this planet, in this universe, to dust. I'd do it in a heartbeat, and I'd gladly die along with it all. But this mission is too important to lose either of us... so I'm using Messiah, here and now, and damn the consequences."

"Saturn—" Madoka swallowed.

"Even if I could use another Revolution, or if I dropped the Glaive, I'd be destroying the Grief Seed along with the Witch," said Saturn. "All our struggle tonight would be for nothing. But you know how Messiah works. Once it takes effect, you'll have your chance to put the Witch out of its misery. That's what you do, isn't it? It's your duty."

"Saturn...!"

"So you do your duty. Let me do mine."

The pall of silence that fell over them was only broken by the increasingly faint voice of Diana P's alarm: "[Warning, vital signs unstable. Life support systems ineffective. Foreign matter obstructing respiration. Warning...]"

Without another word, Saturn turned back to the Witch, which was regaining its bearings. Only a few of the corkscrews of hardened blood remained... lumps of fresh iron were already patching some of the wounded flesh. It had to be now.

Saturn sank to one knee and brought the charm close to her lips. Softly she spoke to it, not a standard invocation but what sounded like a prayer: "By heaven's decree, in the name of my star, Saturn, I hereby open the first forbidden seal... Awaken, Messiah. The end has come."

Messiah erupted, igniting from within with violet radiance, bright and burning as a sunrise. The bunny head's simple black dot eyes gleamed with sudden life, and a series of flaming lines etched numerals in its forehead: VII. It did not speak, for Messiah had no words to speak with... In response to Saturn's command, it emitted the dark and foreboding sound of a great church bell, a sound so bone-shaking deep that one didn't only hear it, one felt it. The bell tolled four times, and Saturn stood up tall, raising her glaive high...

*****

Madoka and Sakura were struck dumb with awe and terror, trembling at the sight of her. They both knew Saturn's title of the Senshi of Ruin, but neither of them fully understood the meaning of that title until now. She seethed with power, the power to crush planets into dust, should the need arise. Now they knew why the other Senshi prayed that that need never did.

A hundred meters away, the Witch took notice, drawn not by the negative energy that attracted it before, but by this new release. Something titanic was happening, and perhaps even the broken wreck that was its mind was just a little bit capable of comprehending that. Shrieking, it thrust itself at Messiah's violet light, splaying open its pincers.

"Sakura!" shouted Madoka. "Hold it still!"

"Got it! WOOD!"

The dryadic spirit that emerged from the Card was cloaked in leaves and fronds. With a beatific expression, she spread her arms as if to embrace the centipede. Instead, what embraced it were countless vines and thick, gnarled branches, encircling its incredible length. Soon the Witch hung suspended, bound in a cage of greenery. Enraged, the Witch thrashed back and forth, its screams drowning out the sounds of cracking timber. White growths quickly began to fruit on the vines and boughs... even from this distance, they could tell that the spores had found an abundant source of new material to grow from.

"Saturn," Sakura panted, pulling WOOD's Card back to safety before something could happen to it too, "that won't hold it for—"

"I know," said Saturn over the gathering roar of Messiah's aura. The space above her head was wrong, rippling and bulging... it looked as if she wasn't so much calling a shape into being, but coaxing out a shape that existed behind the space they occupied... a shape attempting to push through to their side. It made no sound as it tore from whatever veil separated it from them, and left no sign of its breach. It was a glowing, orchid-colored creature the size of an elephant. Its eyes were lustrous, jeweled things, great dark orbs with an impossible number of perfectly cut facets. Its six legs were inky black, and its antennae were soft and feathered like pieces of clouds at sunset. The body was vaguely bullet-shaped at first glance, but that impression lasted only until its wings unfurled: two ahead and two behind, their span was easily ten meters or more. All four wings were patterned with the night sky, a colorful and dazzling array of stars, clouds of nebulae, and swirling galaxies... but the images of the heavens moved independently of the wings themselves, as if the creature was a living tear into another space which didn't follow any natural or magical law they understood. As they stretched to their full width, they scattered a rain of brightly glittering scales that phased back and forth from midnight blue to vantablack and every color in between. Somehow hovering in place without once flapping its magnificent wings, the moth descended and awaited its master's orders.

Slowly, deliberately, Saturn lowered the Silence Glaive, pointing the peak of its blade directly at the captured Witch. She took a wide stance to brace herself, gripped the shaft with both hands, and intoned: "Saturn Amethyst Morendo!"

A soundless shockwave ripped through the Labyrinth like a gale and drove Saturn to her knees. Her face twisted with pain, beads of sweat broke across her brow... but she held the glaive steady. The great moth took off, coasting through the air and leaving a beautiful wake of sparkling scales behind, like the tail of a comet. Its passage disturbed not a single one of the drifting spores.

The sight of it coming closer drove the Witch into a frenzy. Tearing free of its remaining bonds, it charged, the clangor of its four crushing metal jaws in sharp contrast to the moth's serene, silent flight. Picking up speed, the two impossible creatures raced head on at each other. The Witch was easily five times the moth's size, it looked as if their collision would tear the moth apart—

Heaving with exertion, Saturn brought down the Silence Glaive as if dropping an executioner's axe.

Millimeters before contact with the Witch, the moth separated. It was not one moth now, but a swarm of hundreds of identical moths, each a tenth of the original's size. The Witch broke off its charge, and its screeching took on a tone almost like confusion as the swarm converged on it. They dived as one, as if drawn by powerful magnets buried within its flesh, all scattering their own comet tails and surrounding the Witch in an orbit of glittering clouds... As each moth sank into it, it left a perfect, bloodless, moth-shaped hole. Not in the Witch's body, but in its very reality.

The Witch circled in place, uncomprehending, riddled with holes throughout its massive length but apparently unharmed. For lack of any other prey, it turned its attention back to the rock platform and began to move... and after less than ten meters, it stopped. Its cry became unstable, plaintive. Those watching from the platform saw its body begin to bubble and boil, flesh and armor plates alike. Its screams scaled up in pitch, and it writhed in place, unable to escape its torment no matter how it moved. Witches could feel pain, pain was nearly all they could feel, but this one was clearly in agony, agony growing stronger by the second.

The Witch couldn't understand, but those watching from the platform knew exactly what was happening to it. It was a concept simple as it was brutal: cell by cell, atom by atom, molecule by molecule, its body was devouring itself... slowly. Excruciatingly slowly. And there was no halting it, no reversing it, no other possible outcome but death. Such was the fate of those affected by Messiah: it cursed its targets to suffer the unbearable pain of their bodies turning against themselves, and suffer it every moment for the rest of their existence, however long it took for the pain to finally end them.

When designing the AMP, Hotaru told Doctor Atenza to think of its effect as like cancer, but worse... afflicting an entire body, rather than in one or more separate organs.

And because of the nature of her powers as Sailor Saturn, Hotaru explained, in exchange for each usage of Messiah, one year would be subtracted from her lifespan. Not taken through sickness or gradual degeneration; it would be clean and precise. A year of her life per shot, no more, no less. An immutable debt to be repaid at the end, whenever that might be.

Leaning against the glaive for support and gasping for breath, Saturn turned her gaze to Madoka. Now there was desperation in her eyes. The fear she wouldn't allow herself to feel until the deed was done threatened to burst through. "Madoka, please..."

Madoka nodded quickly. "Sakura," she said. "Set your AMP to follow emergency stabilization protocol. Don't leave Chibi-Moon's side, no matter what."

Sakura was white-faced and shaken. She had turned away before the moth swarm struck, unable to watch... but looking away couldn't block out the sound of the Witch's anguish. She tapped the back of each glove, bit her lip, and nodded. "O-okay." The gloves hummed and pulsed with soft light as she held them over Chibi-Moon's unmoving, shrouded form. "Just hold on, Chibi-Moon, please hold on... it's almost over..."

Saturn shuddered and brought Messiah back up to her necklace, where a new silver thread sprouted to attach it together once more. The numerals etched into the charm's forehead now read VI, visible in charred black strokes for a second or two before they faded.

And Madoka stood, withdrawing the ends of Solace's ribbons from Chibi-Moon's body. This was it, the moment she trained for. She looked straight at the dying Witch and saw echoes of herself... of all the times in timelines past that she had turned into something like it. Her memories were hazy with barely-remembered glimpses of countless other Witches she had fought, of countless Witches from across all of time that she destroyed before they could exist. So you do your duty, Saturn said. Let me do mine. She wasn't the Law of Cycles anymore, and maybe she would never be again, but if she could end this thing's suffering, it was her duty to do so. It didn't mean to harm Chibi-Moon, it probably wasn't even aware that it was killing her... but rabid animals didn't mean to harm people, either.

She would give it mercy. It was her duty.

"Connect," she said to her AMP, "Solace!"

"[We can do it, Madoka,]" said the red ribbon tied around her wrist as it unwound... Strong, loving, and confident, the voice it spoke with was that of Madoka's mother. The ribbon reached up and curled around the upper limb of her bow, and the rose at its peak burst into pink flame. Madoka's next arrow burned so hot that its flames were not pink, but pure, blinding white. She pulled back on the fletching and took position... Now the Witch was barely recognizable from moments ago. It looked like a melting wax sculpture of itself, parts of it losing cohesion entirely and falling off in fat globules. Its jaws hung open and slack, its formerly mighty roar was little more than a broken wail. Aiming for its mouth, Madoka poured her magic into the arrow and whispered to the creature: "I'm sorry. Rest in peace." The arrow strained, blazing white-hot, and she called the invocation with all her heart: "Finitora Freccia!" She let it fly...

Aside from its color, brightness, and heat, it appeared no different than any other of her arrows. Its flames lit the cavern of the Witch's mouth as it disappeared into it, sailing down its throat... but at Madoka's thought, the arrow burst like a firework into a thousand burning flechettes, radiating outward in every direction, a sphere of death. The Witch's last scream sounded almost relieved as its broken body was torn to pieces. Its Labyrinth rippled like an image reflected on a soap bubble, it faded away...

*****

Hikawa Shrine Outskirts, Sendai Hill

Minami-Azabu, Minato Ward, Tokyo

Clean, fresh air, and only the sounds of the wind lowing through the gingko trees, the croaking of evening frogs, and the droning song of cicadas. Madoka exhaled and let her transformation drop, grateful beyond words to see and hear and feel the real world again. She was even more grateful for the Grief Seed, which fell neatly at her feet in a pile of loam. Not a moment too soon.

Of course, there were others tonight with greater cause to feel gratitude. The huge, hungry breath from behind her and to her right was proof enough of that.

"Chibi-Usa..." Hotaru sobbed and embraced her partner as both of their Senshi transformations faded into sparkles. "Chibi-Usa, thank God... Speak to me, say something! Say you're okay..."

Chibi-Usa coughed and sucked in a few more lungfuls of air. She looked a fright, resembling a wilted pink carnation. She was disheveled, pale as death, with haunted and bloodshot eyes. In a thin, wavering voice, she said, "... think I've... eaten... my last... portabella steak..."

That made Hotaru laugh through her tears and hug her harder. "You're so silly. How dare you scare me like that... I almost don't feel like kissing you."

"... you might... want to wait. My lips are... kinda gross..."

Sakura stood off to one side, wiping her eyes and sniffling. "We did it. I can't believe it. We really did it."

"Musain, Strike Team Tiger here. This is Swan," said Madoka into her AMP. She tried not to sigh with relief, it would sound unprofessional. Sighing could come later, once she was off comms. "The Mahjong is down, we have a Grief Seed. I repeat, the Mahjong is down. We almost didn't make it, but... we're okay. Continuing with Operation Empty Nets as planned."

"Roger that, Swan, this is Little Bird at the Crossroads," said the voice of Meilin Li on the other end. "You had us worried up here, somebody you know just about turned blue. You should have seen her fidgeting."

Cringe. "I can imagine who that was," said Madoka. "Listen, I know we're on limited time, but we cut it really close in there... Cassini and Faraway could use an hour or so to rest before we go find the next Lotus. Can you—"

Her question was cut off by the sound of a mighty CRASH filtering through the comm's speaker. It was followed by indistinct yelling and shrieking in the background... and oddly, a deep and rumbling noise like a runaway chainsaw that drowned the yelling and shrieking out. Madoka blinked. "Little Bird? What's going on up there?"

Meilin sighed. "Aiyaaa... No worries, Swan. It got a bit rowdy up here while we were waiting for you to check in. Mochi just passed out and fell off her chair."

"P-passed out? Is she okay?"

"You heard her snoring, she's dead to the world. She'll be all right once she sleeps it off, I think... but she'll probably wake up with a bruise and a nasty hangover."

"Hangover—" That word brought to mind memories of a few too many nights peeling her mother off the floor after particularly robust outings of social drinking with her coworkers. She hoped desperately that whatever the drink in question was, it wasn't anything whiskey-based. Or tequila. "Oh dear."

"You're telling me. Adults are so weird."

*****

Since kissing was temporarily off the table, the two of them made do with holding hands. Chibi-Usa sat with her back propped up against one of the ginkgo trees, Hotaru at her side, neither of them speaking. Not really the most comfortable place to rest, but when compared to the mushroom swamp from Hell, it was practically the lap of luxury. Chibi-Usa's eyelids fluttered as she watched Madoka and Sakura talk a couple meters away, their hushed voices soothing...

Hotaru squeezed her hand again. "Chibi-Usa-chan," she said.

"Hmm?" she said, squeezing back. Or trying to, her muscles still felt weak.

Hotaru's eyes sparkled. In the moonlight, she looked like some kind of elfin princess. "I didn't give you the test."

"Test?"

"You know the one." Gently, as if handling a wounded bird, Hotaru took her face in both hands and stared at her. "Chibi-Usa-chan, look me in the eyes. Are you okay?"

Oh, of course. The "safety net" test. Chibi-Usa took a moment to consider. It was surprisingly hard to answer. "I..." she trailed off. "I think... I will be...? In a while."

Deadly serious (or pretending to be, Chibi-Usa wasn't sure), Hotaru's lips turned down into a firm little line. "What's the title of my favorite Dickinson poem?"

"Um." Rats. That was Hotaru, going for the jugular. Chibi-Usa pondered even longer over that, until... "Th-that's not fair," she said finally. "Hers don't h-have titles." After a moment more of thought: "But it's the one... about the thing with feathers. 'Perches in the soul,' right?"

Now she smiled again. Oh, that smile. "You're right, and I suppose that really wasn't fair. No more trick questions, cross my heart."

"Okay... cheater." Chibi-Usa smirked. "Now it's... my turn." Mirroring Hotaru's gesture, she took hold of her partner's face. "Hotaru-chan, look me in the eyes. Are you... okay?"

Hotaru nodded. "Yes."

And part two: "What game... were we playing... that time your house went nuts?"

"Of course I remember that one. Old Maid," Hotaru chuckled.

For some reason, Chibi-Usa wasn't entirely convinced. She hated to pry, but... "Hotaru-chan... are you really okay? It was... dangerous back there, and—"

Closing her eyes, Hotaru leaned into the warmth of her hands. "Shhh. Not right now. I'll tell you later, I promise. For now, let's just rest."

"I think that's a good idea," said Madoka, stepping over to them. Color painted her cheeks. "Sorry if I'm interrupting."

"No... problem."

"The timing might be a little tight..." Madoka looked back over her shoulder, roughly in the direction of Azabu-Juuban's border. "But I talked it over with the Lighthouse, and we worked something out. Sakura-chan and I will hunt more Witches for the next hour while you two rest—"

Chibi-Usa made to stand up, but couldn't manage it. "But you both..."

"I'm mostly there as backup, and an extra pair of eyes." Sakura said, coming up behind Madoka. "Don't worry. I'll be careful with my magic. If I have to, I'll use my Strike Arts, those draw from a different source." She threw a few shadow jabs for emphasis. "Everything will be all right, somehow."

"And Solace was built with a function to reduce the rate of magic use to Soul Gem corruption. All of the Quintet's AMPs have that." Madoka rubbed the silver ring on her middle finger. "I'll be okay too. We'll back out if it gets too hairy."

Hotaru clearly thought little of this plan, but after thinking it over, she nodded. "What about us? I hate to say it, but neither of us is in a condition to fight. Should we go back to the Lighthouse?"

"I brought that up when I checked in," said Madoka. "They said they'd send someone down here to stand gua—oh."

Following her gaze, Chibi-Usa looked and saw that someone from the Lighthouse had indeed come down: a teenage girl in a white costume, accented with pastel colors, yellow and green and pink... she looked like springtime. Her twin blonde pigtails were curled, ending in spirals. She smiled warmly, her golden eyes aglow with happiness.

"It's you!" said Hotaru to the Echo-Stranger, rising to greet her. "Welcome back to our world, I suppose..."

"She doesn't exactly need to sleep... so she'll be the perfect lookout," said Chibi-Usa with a rueful smile.

The Stranger laughed without sound and mouthed a word: Bingo.

"Thank you," said Madoka to the Stranger. "I know they'll be safe with you around. We'll be back soon, I promise. Sakura-chan, shall we?"

"Um." Sakura fidgeted in place. "Chibi-Usa-chan, Hotaru-chan, if you like..." Surprisingly bashful, she drew a Card. "I can help you relax a bit. SLEEP works right away, and you should feel better than ever once you wake up."

Chibi-Usa looked at Hotaru, and Hotaru looked at Chibi-Usa. Neither of them could think of a reason to object. "Frankly," said Chibi-Usa, "I could... really use a nap. Thank you... Sakura-chan."

Resuming her place against the tree, Hotaru nodded. "As could I. Let's do it."

"Okay!" The Sealing Wand grew to full size in Sakura's hand, her spell circle expanded at her feet, filling the copse with golden light. "Help my precious friends recover their strength! SLEEP...!"

Maybe it was because she was already so tired, but Chibi-Usa barely made out the release of the tiny fairy emerging from the card before her eyelids drooped closed. It was like sinking into a warm bath... her hand closed tight around Hotaru's, and just before she drifted off, she heard Sakura whisper, "Good night, sleep well."

*****

It was a peaceful, uneventful, dreamless sleep, which was exactly what she needed. Chibi-Usa floated in the dark, free from the stress and pain of battle, free from thinking about her ordeal inside the Labyrinth. It was strange to find a lack of feeling to be so welcome, but she didn't question it. Sakura was as good as her word. Nothing to do but float...

Small Lady.

The soft voice floating out of the dark woke her with a jolt. There was no way to tell how long it had been... she felt roughly three million times better, like she had been sleeping for a week, but the nighttime gingko copse looked just the same as it had when she nodded off.

It seemed she wasn't the only one affected. Next to her, Hotaru looked startled awake as well, a question on her lips that she couldn't express.

Hearing them start, the Stranger came closer, her face lined with concern.

"We're okay," said Chibi-Usa automatically... and it really wasn't a lie. Most of her strength was back. "Hotaru-chan, what—"

Hotaru stared at her. "Just now, did you hear...?"

They spoke two names in unison, two names for the same person:

"Puu."

"Setsuna-mama."

A cold shiver raced up Chibi-Usa's back. "That wasn't a dream. Both of us heard Pluto just now... but why? How?"

Shadows grew on Hotaru's brow. "She's been missing for so long, I thought... Surely, Joker must have—"

Chibi-Usa looked up at the Stranger. "Did... did you do this?"

The Stranger shook her head in the negative. She couldn't answer, of course, but there was a troubled look on her face which said that the matter concerned her, too.

Leaves and branches rustled somewhere off to their right, making them start. "Oh! You're both up," said Sakura. She looked as if she could use a nap from SLEEP herself: her face and arms were red and shiny with sweat. "Good news! None of the ones we found were anywhere near as tough as that first one. Though I never thought a big sheep could be scary... until it started breathing fire..."

Madoka was close behind her. She grew tense as she picked up on the atmosphere. "Hotaru-chan? Chibi-Usa-chan? What's wrong?"

Chibi-Usa swallowed. "I don't really know how to begin..."

*****

Azabu-Juuban Border

Ten Minutes Later

There was nothing for it. Chibi-Usa and Hotaru simply couldn't explain why they heard the voice of a long-missing comrade, and they couldn't do anything about it for the moment, so they had no choice but to continue the mission. Followed by the Stranger, the four Tigers (minus Sakura) transformed and stole down the darkened, unnaturally quiet streets of Sendai Hill to the southwest border of the Azabu district, moving slowly so as not to attract attention...

As someone who had experienced more than one prophetic dream, Madoka was understandably worried. She didn't know Sailor Pluto—Setsuna Meioh, in her civilian life—but she knew that both Chibi-Moon and Saturn loved her dearly, and she empathized with their worry for what had become of her. It had to be grueling, to be given a faint hope of her survival only to have to put her right back out of their minds out of necessity... but as Saturn said back in the first Labyrinth, the mission was too important. They had a chance, a real chance, to strike a blow against Dead End this time. Taking advantage of that chance required all of their focus.

No sooner had the five of them stepped across the border into Azabu-Juuban proper when a voice like a warped vinyl record cackled at them from the top of the advertising agency that sat just over the line separating the district from its neighbor. It was an old, withered voice, crackling and scratching, just the sound of which suggested an ugly, sneering grin even if they couldn't see the face it belonged to.

They had no time to look up at whoever it was, for the person atop the roof disappeared in a miasma of black and purple smoke, reappearing out of a similar miasma right in front of them. She looked not merely old, but ancient. What little of her papery skin was not wrinkled was stretched grotesquely tight over her jawline and cheekbones, and liberally dotted with warts and pimples. Her lips looked like a pair of dried eggplants, squashed flat and without a trace of moisture left to them. Madoka saw that she perched on a pair of stilt-like legs, almost too thin to hold her up and stuffed into high black boots. The rest of the details of her body were hard to make out in the darkness of the night, owing to the fact that she was wearing an absolutely enormous, umbrella-like hat (or was it hair?), about as big around as she was tall, which threw the rest of her body into shade. The hat was mostly russet orange, with a raised, dun-colored brim and a few odd puffball shapes attached to it in random places. In fact, Madoka realized with dawning horror, she didn't look like someone wearing a huge umbrella as a hat. She looked like a... oh no.

The mushroom crone cackled even louder and spread her gnarled arms. "Huheheheheh! Dead End's witch, Shibiretta, servant of Eternal, has—"

"PINK SUGAR HEART ATTACK!" The strangled, tortured cry came from Chibi-Moon. An immense heart-shaped pulse of energy burst from her Moon Rod and hit Shibiretta like a runaway bus, cutting her cackling short as she was reduced to so many floating ashes.

Chibi-Moon didn't even break her stride, marching through what little was left of the crone with an expression that indicated how dearly she wished to pretend the last thirty seconds had never happened. "Come on! Time's wasting, let's go already!"

Madoka and the others exchanged sheepish looks and followed after her.

END OF CHAPTER 49

NEXT: IN HIS STRIDE

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