[Author's Note: Wattpad apparently doesn't allow it, so the effect is ruined, but please imagine the "corrupted" dialogue in the Mindscape sequence (the lines marked with <> ) as right-justified instead of left-justified.]

Chapter 59: A Little Fall of Rain

Elsewhere

TSAB L-Class Inspection Cruiser Arthra

For the last five hours, Admiral Lindy Harlaown never sat down for more than two minutes at a time. It was natural for a ship's CO to be anxious while her crew were in a combat situation, but this was no ordinary sortie. Without exaggeration, everything hinged on the events of these few hours, and all parts of the machine had to run smoothly. Therefore, Lindy would sit in the captain's chair for maybe forty seconds at a time... the mug of her favorite green tea—with milk and sugar, blech—sat on one of the chair's arms, untouched, ice-cold, and long since forgotten about. After approximately forty seconds, she would get up, pace around the bridge with her hands clasped behind her back, read over the same monitors and consoles she read moments before, grimace, and sit back down.

Thus the cycle repeated itself. Operator Amy Limietta couldn't help smiling just a little, hearing the now-familiar sound of Lindy's heels clicking across the deck yet again. Not like she wasn't worried herself, but she wasn't the one in charge, thank goodness. Overseeing a mission like this, with her crew, her children, and her friends on the ground in untold danger, and the fate of reality in the balance? No thank you. Too much responsibility for a humble Operator.

"How are we, Amy?" Lindy was back at her station, peering over Amy's shoulder.

"Systems still all green, Admiral," said Amy, same as the last seven times Lindy asked that question. "We're in a stable synchronous orbit, and the Van Allen belt is masking us from anyone who might be watching. Ready to move at any time."

"Our barriers are still holding? This is a hot spot, and I'd like to avoid killing everyone on the ship if it's possible."

Was that a joke? Better to err on the side of caution and give her a straight answer. "Holding, ma'am," she said after calling up a relevant holopanel. "Shipwide levels are only 0.0002 mSv. That's less than a few minutes of sunshine on Earth."

"Good. Let's keep it that way." Back to the captain's chair she went. Amy didn't even have to look to know what pose she assumed when she sat down: leaned forward, elbows on her knees, hands folded in front of her mouth. Waiting for the signal...

*****

Starboard Observation Lounge

Simultaneously

"It should be coming up any minute now," said Erika Kurumi. One elbow nudged her best friend in the ribs, but gently. "Think it'll live up to your expectations?"

Tsubomi Hanasaki's cheeks warmed, and anticipation fluttered in her belly like a swarm of butterflies. "Oh, I'm sure it will!"

The observation lounge on the Arthra's starboard side was dark save for the emergency lights that lined the door on one side of the room and the wall-sized viewport on the other. Nothing outside the viewport could be seen. For the moment, all was quiet as the two waited breathless, looking into the viewport's plexiglass as if staring hard enough could uncover the darkness's secrets.

"It better," said Erika. "I'm staying up 'til an ungodly hour for this, you know... not to mention I'm missing the big moment. And I'm supposed to have rehab with Hayate-chan tomorrow afternoon, what's she gonna say if I yawn all the way through it?"

The warmth spread to the tips of Tsubomi's ears and crept down her neck. "I-I know, and I'm really sorry about that—"

"Tsubomi." Erika smirked. "Kidding."

"Oh," she said. Then again, brightly, as it clicked: "Oh!"

"Gosh, you're out of it. I'd think you would remember this was my idea."

"And it was a great idea! I've seen pictures on the internet, of course, but—"

"Yeah, I get it. Nothing compares to the real thing."

Moments passed while they watched the darkened viewport in silence. When the first sandy colors appeared on the right side amidst the black, Tsubomi thought at first that they were phosphenes in her eyes. But no, she blinked four times and they were still there... "That's—"
"Yeah," said Erika. "Here it comes."

Their hands found each other, their fingers entwined. Tsubomi drew in a deep breath.

And...

And the sliver of pockmarked dun and yellow rock gave way to something incomparably grander: a vista of countless gaseous clouds like swirls of watercolor paints, a vista that took up the entire observation window and far more out of its sight. From the pictures she studied, Tsubomi always thought it would be shades of persimmon and apricot and mahogany save for that famous red spot, but now she was delighted to be wrong. From this angle, there were entire seas of cerulean, mulberry, and indigo along with the more familiar red and orange and brown bands, each thousands of kilometers wide. The sea of clouds writhed, split apart, and joined together again in a million places at once, constantly changing. The biggest storm of all wasn't visible, of course. It was on the opposite side and wouldn't be visible from their position for another five hours... but it didn't matter. Awed tears rolled silently down Tsubomi's cheeks. "Oh wow."

She heard Erika sniffle. "Y-yeah. You're the space buff, but... I gotta admit, this is spectacular." Her hand squeezed Tsubomi's. "I'm getting so many new ideas for clothes from this, you have no idea."

Tsubomi squeezed back, radiantly happy. "Thank you, Erika!" On second thought, though, a mere "thank you" wasn't enough. She shifted position and wrapped her arms around the wonderful girl who had given her this precious gift.

"Whoa!" Erika sputtered, mock indignant. "Oi, watch it there! Too much weight on one side and I'm gonna topple over. Then my dummy leg would probably go flying across the room and break. You'd have to carry me out of here... Tsubomi?"

"Don't worry," said Tsubomi. Reflections of the countless storms played out in miniature in the lenses of her glasses... they made it harder to see, but she didn't care. "If it comes to that, I'd be happy to carry you anywhere. You're my best friend and I love you, Erika."

She could see Erika trying to come up with some kind of flippant response, but in this moment, it was too much even for her. "Aw, rats," she said, her voice husky as tears welled in her own eyes. "What else can I say to that? I love you too, Tsubomi."

Lost in wonder, the two of them embraced each other and watched the planet Jupiter turn in all its majesty.

*****

-VERTEX ONE: 15.556984-

Mindscape

Simultaneously

Traversing a Witch's Labyrinth was always a harrowing experience. By definition, a Labyrinth was the remnants of a fallen Puella Magi's psyche. Waking nightmares at their best, they were filled to bursting with bizarre, hostile creatures, threatening geometry, and dangerous hazards. Labyrinths never made sense, but as disortions overlaid upon the real world, they retained a few aspects of reality. All but a fraction of them had Earth-like gravity, and there were usually structures within: floors and walls and functioning doors at least.

This was different. This was much worse. A full human mind, even a broken one, was unfathomably more complex than a Labyrinth could ever be. Madoka Kaname realized that now...

When she designed Solace, Madoka's idea was an AMP Device that could heal others in more than just the strict medical sense. Expressed in one word, its core concept was "empathy"; she didn't only want to fix up injuries, but to understand the injured, and allow them to understand her in return. That decided, she had Solace built with the ability to look into the minds and hearts of those it connected with. If someone was suffering and couldn't or wouldn't communicate the best way to help themselves, she and Solace would step in and put them at ease.

In most cases, Madoka figured, just "skimming" an afflicted person's inner being would be enough. Still it was an intimidating concept, several steps beyond the connection of minds formed when two or more Puellae Magi communicated via telepathy. A skim involved feeling what another person felt, however faintly; when she performed one on Sailor Chibi-Moon in the Centipede Witch's Labyrinth, she was almost overwhelmed by just a taste of the Senshi's raw panic. Then there was the sensation of being helplessly buried and immobile beneath a carpet of mycellium, of mushrooms fruiting in her mouth and throat and lungs as they stole her very breath, of dying with excruciating slowness. It took all the self-control Madoka had to maintain the connection with her.

Connecting to Chibi-Moon was a skim, breaking the surface of a pool of water with the tip of a single toe. Using that same analogy, Solace's "full dive" mode was plunging into the depths headfirst. Madoka was immersed in Sailor Jupiter's mind, in her being, and the two of them were fully open to each other in a connection deeper than in any of Madoka's mortal lives. If she messed this up, her identity and sense of self would lose cohesion as the lines separating herself and Jupiter blurred and disappeared. One consciousness would be subsumed, swallowed up into the other, or both would merge into something that wasn't either of them.

Surrounding her on all sides was a hideous amalgam of all the things that made Jupiter who she was: every memory, every emotion, every sensory input, every thought she ever thought, all blended together and experienced through the twisted filter of her monstrous Pseudo-Witch form. There was no up, no down, no left or right, only an endless fall forward... though it was impossible to tell if she was actually moving. Just as likely was that the mindscape was rushing past her on its own while she floated in place, or it could easily be both. There was no ground, floor, or solid surface one could stand on to get their bearings, nothing that could serve as a point of reference for finding her way.

Under an inside-out sky streaked with alternating lines of day and night, Madoka fell through houses with foundations of fluffy pink bricks, their walls having no more substance than smoke when she touched them. She careened off of a flock of harsh and unsettling birds, rail-thin and with rusty knives for heads, and they screamed like foghorns in her wake. There were explosions made of glass and flames that melted and oozed like water candy when she looked at them more than once. Shrill voices babbled nonsense at her in unending streams; she found that she could smell their words before they were spoken, and they always smelled angry no matter what it was they said. Light was a solid thing, and colors were malleable as clay. Music tasted bittersweet, she felt it as melancholy needles piercing her skin. Silhouettes of vague figures spun in multiple directions at once without tearing themselves apart, their shapes almost human, but with just the right number of subtle and uncanny differences to make her skin crawl. And before her eyes, a gigantic full moon collided with a cloud, which sliced the moon cleanly in half in one stroke as if cut by a razor blade.

Too much, too fast, too soon. It was a relentless assault on all her senses, from every direction at once; Madoka had never truly grasped the concept of "sensory overload" before, but heaven help her, she understood it now. She knew her first full dive would be rough, but she never imagined anything like this. The edges of her being wavered, and Jupiter's mind pounced on that weakness and squeezed her like an industrial press. Threads of a foreign self infringed on her, invaded her with thoughts and feelings not her own. Some part of Jupiter's consciousness sensed intrusion, and that part was intent on killing or absorbing whoever or whatever was out of place...

"No!" Madoka screamed, defiant. "I'm not you! I know I don't belong here, but I've come to help you! I can't do that if I'm not myself!

"Please, you have to listen!" Madoka drew inward and visualized everything that comprised her self compacting and hardening into diamond, impervious to harm. "I'm Madoka, Madoka Kaname! My mother is Junko Kaname, she's a businesswoman, and my father Tomohisa is a gardener, and I have a little brother named Tatsuya..." It had no effect on the threads, they burrowed deeper. "I love them with all my heart!" But that, that stopped them. So reasserting fundamental truths was the key. No matter what, whether she lived in normal space-time or outside of it, she still loved her family. More: "I'm from another universe... I'm a Puella Magi, a magical girl! I fight to save people from darkness and evil as one of the Morning Lights!" Little by little, the crushing pressure lessened as she solidified. Her truths, the inarguable facts of Madoka Kaname, unbreakable and sure... "I-I made a wish to erase all Witches, everywhere, in every time, with my own hands! I became the concept of hope, the Law of Cycles... so that no one in my universe would ever have to feel alone again!

"I am all of these things, and I'm here to save you, Sailor Jupiter! Kino Makoto-san!"

In an eyeblink, the swirling chaos was gone, the assault was over. In the midst of a modern city scaled down to fit a child's doll, Madoka stood shaking in a dreary pouring rain, which fell from a low ceiling of dull, swollen clouds. She loomed over the tops of tiny skyscrapers and factories and bank buildings, the narrow little streets were scarcely big enough for both feet at once. All was still and silent save for the rain's constant cold patter, and everything from the motionless little people to the tiny cars to the leaves on the miniature trees were made of the same substance, colored a uniform shade of off-white. The substance's texture sparked an odd familiarity. Fascinated, Madoka poked one of the roofs with her fingertip and made a divot in it... plaster. All of it was plaster.

A wretched shape huddled naked in a square up ahead, knees drawn up to her chin, dwarfing the miniature buildings even when curled into a ball. Even from a distance, it was obvious she was huge for a Japanese woman, roughly half as tall in a fetal position as Madoka was at full height. Around her father's size when standing up straight, she guessed. A waterfall of unkempt auburn hair spilled down her back and over her shoulders. Dual columns of bony, jagged plates started at the base of her neck and followed the curvature of her spine down to her hips and tailbone. The plates continued from there, each pair smaller than the last, lining a serpentine tail wrapped loosely around her hips and ankles. The tail was armored with tarnished jade scales, and more scales climbed up her back and dotted her shoulders. There were weathered, asymmetrical antlers sprouting from the crown of her skull like sickly tree branches.

Madoka took a step closer, and into a presence that was like sinking into a warm bath. No matter what she looked like on the surface, this was who she was here for. This was the essence of Makoto Kino, buried within the Pseudo-Witch. Both a fighter and a romantic, kind and motherly but intolerant of cruelty, tougher and stronger than any man but also feminine as they came, hard on the outside but soft underneath. All these things should have been contradictory to each other, but put together they made perfect sense. Even with her body warped out of shape, Makoto Kino was still here. She could still be saved. Another step, and—

<don'T Don't Don'T coME closeR STOp PLEaSE SToP>

Madoka's ears—or her perception of her ears—picked up the words, but the voice came from within. It spoke inside her heart in a funereal dirge, low and hopeless. She swallowed and folded her hands over her chest. "Kino-san...? Do you know who I am?"

A long pause. Makoto didn't move a muscle, but somehow she must have seen:

<chIbI-usa YoU LOok lIke no No noT her NO WhO>

<are yoU Why aRe yOU herE WhY ARe>

"I'm Madoka Kaname. A good friend of Usagi-san, Chibi-Usa-chan, and Hotaru-chan," she added in a hurry. No need to confuse the poor thing. "Usagi-san and the other Sailor Senshi have been trying to find you... I'm here to take you back to them."

Deep and aching longing accompanied the next words:

<my FrieNdS my HOme>

Madoka flinched, stung by the intensity of that emotion. In turn, the raindrops from above hammered down harder. "They're waiting for you. Come with me, Kino-san. I'll heal you, and then you can see everyone again."

<No nO NO NO No No nO nO nO no>

Acid burned in the back of her throat and the pit of her stomach. Shame and self-loathing, Madoka knew those well. "Kino-san, it's okay, I—"

<moNsteR MONStEr I'm A MoNsteR i'M A>

"No, you're not!" An urge to hug her pulled at Madoka's heart, but she ignored it. Unless she was specifically invited to do so, touching Makoto in this state was a terrible idea. "You were hit with something that changed your body into a Wi— into a monster on the outside... but the real you is right here. All we have to do is find what's corrupting you and remove it, and you'll be back to normal." I hope, Madoka thought but didn't dare say aloud. She trusted Mimete's word about as far as she could throw her, but the Death Buster was at gunpoint when she told them that.

For the first time, Makoto stirred, but it was only to huddle up tighter.

<MoNSTeR moNSter mOnStER MOnStEr>

"Kino-san, please, you have to tell me what's wrong! I can save you, but I need your help!"

<FaILed FaileD friENDS FAileD citY WorlD UNiVerSE ALL FAiLEd aLL my fAULT my>

A wave of unspeakable grief drove Madoka to her knees, she could barely see through a veil of sudden tears. "Kino... san..."

<ami>

At the speed of thought, Madoka found herself inside a memory, not invading but freely given: a memory alive and vivid, she was back in time living it for herself... Suddenly she was Sailor Jupiter in the midst of battle, surrounded by a swarm of bizarre creatures. With Jupiter's eyes, she beheld Sailor Moon sobbing inconsolably over the bleeding body of Sailor Mars... one Sailor Mars, for there was another crouched at her side. Sailor Venus lay motionless and unconscious, with ugly bruises on her neck. Behind her, she heard with Jupiter's ears as Sailor Neptune invoked a Deep Submerge and fired it off despite her broken arm. In Jupiter's heart, she felt the teeth of frustration and anxiety eating away at her, and a simmering rage directed at this monstrous clown called Joker, the one who dared torment her precious friends after they had finally come back together after so long...

Of the Senshi who were left, she was the strongest of them all. As the Senshi of Love and Protection, it was her sacred duty to keep the others safe, no matter what. If that meant falling in battle, so be it, it had happened before... and there they came. Flashes of falling to Metaria and her forces on the steps of Queen Serenity's palace, eons ago. An explosion of lightning in the bitter cold, vaporizing her captors and scouring her to the bone. Her battered body locked in an inescapable coffin of ice. Galaxia's power tearing through her chest as easily as a sniper's bullet. Waves of Aluminum Siren's voluminous hair constricting around her neck and waist, and a sharp snap in the instant before a crash to black. Being puppeted to fight Usagi, Chibi-Usa, and Chibi-Chibi with intent to kill, and burning away to dust in a blaze of the Silver Crystal's holy light.

Horrible memories. Memories she would rather live without. But there was nothing she could do about those deaths, they were in the past. All she could do was live in the present, try to make this life count. Sweat rolled down the back of her neck as she channeled electricity into her tiara's lightning rod. Turning, she faced the enemy that Neptune attacked seconds ago—that had to be it, the one that was soaked with ocean water, it looked like a stone arch—and cast her attack at it. Arcs raced over and through its cracked surface. Before she could build up enough charge for another shot...

The enemy screeched and exploded in a shower of blood. Red blood. Human blood. There was no mistaking that smell... "That—" she mumbled. Warm, crimson drops rained down on her, she barely felt them. "What the hell...?! These things are—" Killing monsters and evil beings was fine, second nature to her by now. The monsters dissolved into dust, neat and clean. Most of the bigger villains? If they shed blood at all, it wasn't human enough to be disturbing. But the arch's smoking corpse was bleeding out, like nothing made of stone should...

Sailor Moon said something behind her, plaintive and trembling, impossible to make out.

"Jupiter!" Mercury's voice shouted.

She whipped her head toward the sound. Two hands gave her a hard shove, she stumbled about half a meter to the left.

The first idea that inexplicably came to mind was that one of those fancy bead curtains had somehow found its way into the hellish, twisting battleground, and Mercury was in the process of diving through it. No, that was silly; the strands were far too thin and wispy to support beads, or support much of anything. Rather pretty, though, like knotted ribbons of pearlescent silk. Mercury's blue eyes went wide as the ribbons traced over her, her pupils contracted. There was time for but one brief, startled cry. And then... and then it was as if she was caught inside a car crusher. Her body crumpled like paper, she shrank and shrank, deforming out of shape until she was gone. The process took only seconds.

Dead. Not even a body left behind. Sailor Mercury, Ami Mizuno, one of the sweetest, gentlest, most intelligent souls she had ever known, was taken from the world in a few heartbeats' time. Her brain ground to a halt, trying to process what could not be processed. Because she stood there gawking like an idiot and unable to move, Ami had to push her out of the way of the monster... and it killed her. Which meant it was her fault. She failed in her duty as the Senshi of Protection, failed in the most horrible way possible.

Just like that, with one moment of hesitation and weakness, she got Ami killed. Ami had no chance to fight one last glorious battle, no last words, no chance to say goodbye to her friends and loved ones, or to say anything at all. Ami was killed by nothing more than one random monster among many, a monster which just kept on moving without even slowing down, uncaring or oblivious to what it had done.

Its callousness, its indifference awoke something inside her that could not be contained, something that smothered any burgeoning grief or guilt. "Mercury! MERCURY...!" A sound tore from within her, an animal's howl that didn't sound like her voice at all. Fire consumed her from within as her vision locked onto the monster responsible, a bulbous thing like a diseased jellyfish, and her sole thought was that it needed to die. Sparks cascaded from her fingertips as she vaulted atop its head, and she laid into its pliant flesh with a savagery that surpassed anything in her memory. The jellyfish shuddered and made a piteous wailing sound as its flesh tore, but she didn't care. It had to hurt. It had to pay.

A bullet, or something near enough, pierced her back from behind and plunged deep into her body. Pain, hot and blistering as the bullet pulsed... and

Her mind. Her mind was fracturing. Thoughts flying apart. Reason crumbling. Memories twisting out of shape. All feelings but the bad ones burning away. No, no. This couldn't happen couldn't happen she had to hold on to who she was to her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self her self HER SeLf HEr sElf HEr SELF her seLF hEr sElF Her sElf HeR SeLf heR SeLF Her Self heR SELF hER self hER Self heR SeLF hEr self...

Madoka ripped free and broke from Makoto's memory as a drowning person would break the surface of the ocean. Every breath scraped her throat raw, every muscle was exhausted. She lay sprawled across half a block's worth of plaster buildings, staring up at the layer of clouds above and drenched by their ceaseless rain. Too close, way too close. Another second or two in there would have broken her mind as well, and trapped her here alongside Makoto in eternal misery.

She was perhaps in a better position to understand the agony of a Witch transformation than any other being in existence, and she would never wish that agony on anyone. Anger surged within her, for Joker had forced Witches into a universe where they didn't belong... as a result, someone who was never supposed to know of such things endured the horror. True Witch or Pseudo-Witch, it didn't matter; that sort of torment was supposed to be erased from existence, she made her last and greatest wish for just that purpose.

That any part of Makoto not only survived the Evil Nut's corruption but held out for this long was a testament to her strength... she had to be one amazing magical girl. Armed with intimate knowledge of her suffering, Madoka pushed her aching body upright with great care, for the buildings flexed beneath her weight with the slightest force. "K-Kino-san..."

A mournful litany:

<DeAD amI's DeaD AmI'S deAd AmI's deaD My FAult aLL MY FAulT alL My>

Easy, easy. This had to be done with as much delicacy as possible, for any screw-ups inside another person's mind could have disastrous consequences. Madoka swallowed and put every word through a rigorous review before it passed her lips. "It's going to be okay," she said, gentle and soft. That was a good way to start, wasn't it? "I'm here for you."

The wretched figure's head raised a few millimeters.

There was a tickle in the back of Madoka's skull. Someone—she had a pretty good idea who—was trying to grasp her own memories... Not a pleasant sensation, no matter who was doing it, but she relaxed and allowed the relevant ones to be shared just as Makoto had shared hers. "S-see? I understand what it's like."

For the first time, a variation was audible in Makoto's words, a small break in her listless monotone:

you... you do... understand...

"You're trapped inside yourself." Madoka folded her hands over her chest. "You think you've failed to protect the people precious to you. All this power you have, and you can't use it to change anything. That helpless feeling is one of the most awful things there is... it eats you up inside until you think you can never be happy again. I know what that's like, and so does every magical girl from my universe. But it's because we all know what it's like that we can help each other through it, Kino-san."

help each... other

Was it her imagination, or was the rainfall less harsh than it was a moment ago? Madoka didn't know, and couldn't afford to be distracted by it. She swallowed. "That's right. We can help each other get out of here—"

Suddenly, Makoto's voice strained with panic. It felt like someone had plucked a taut string:

<Can'T cAn't leavE caN't MOVe>

<when i MOVE I BrEaK eveRytHING ArouNd me>

<IF i LEAVe I'Ll HuRt mOrE peOPLe i'M A MOnsteR i>

<CAN't MovE caN't leavE CaN't cAn't caN'T>

Peals of thunder shook the plaster city to its foundations. Clouds swelled with bruised color, and from them the rain fell in hard, frigid bullets, fiercer than ever. Buffeted by its downpour, Madoka braced herself against one of the buildings as the puddles beneath her feet became rivers. "I'm sorry, Kino-san, I'm sorry!" she cried into the storm. "I know you're scared, I know how much it hurts!" A mistake, she made a huge mistake, and now she would pay for it. It served her right for assuming it would be as simple as finding and making contact with Makoto's essence. While becoming a proper Witch left nothing that could be reasoned with, becoming a Pseudo-Witch clearly left enough humanity intact that the victim was capable of comprehending guilt, remorse, and shame. It was more than just the Evil Nut keeping her here, Madoka realized. It was Makoto's own self-perception: she thought she deserved to be a monster, and therefore she would resist being healed.

"Kino-san..." Madoka struggled through sheets of rain which lashed her face and shoulders like the bites of millions of tiny whips, using leverage from the buildings to pull herself toward Makoto millimeter by millimeter. "It's... it's natural to be afraid of hurting people, especially after what you've gone through... but if you stay here, reliving it over and over and calling yourself a monster... this pain you're feeling will never go away!"

<alone aLoNe aLoNE aLOnE>

"I know! I know how much it hurts! How empty it feels..." Madoka shouted. She reached out and grasped for a plaster overpass, missed, and tried again. Success. Gale-force winds bit into her and tossed her like a scrap of paper, but she held on. "It's... it's more than just being apart from the people you love... It's like nobody in the world can possibly understand what you're going through! Even if your loved ones are right there next to you, they feel like strangers. You're at the bottom of a deep, dark hole with everyone else up at the top, and you don't think there's any way you can ever climb out..."

"But you're not alone now! You have me, and you have people who care about you waiting to see you again! Even if I can't save you..." And here Madoka gave her memories: talking with Usagi during meetings of the Big Five and basking in the warm glow of her love for everyone. Taking archery lessons with Rei to regain her abilities. Holding Minako's hand as Doctor Atenza worked to restore her voice. Listening to Michiru play concertos on her violin and feeling the music as a living thing inside her heart. Feeling the tiniest of heartbeats as she cradled Naru and Umino's newborn baby in her arms for the first time. All the myriad horrors and triumphs of tonight's mission alongside Chibi-Usa and Hotaru. "I know none of them will rest until you're back to your old self! And even if for some reason that never happens... they all still love you, no matter what you've done or what form you're in!"

they're... all... okay...

It wasn't much, but Madoka smiled, for the rain was now less chilly than a second ago, and it fell just a tiny bit less harshly upon them as the wind slackened off. "That's right, Kino-san. They're okay. Dead End's hurt us, they've even killed some of us, but they haven't beaten us. And as long as even one of us still believes in a better tomorrow, they never will. We'll face whatever they throw at us, together!"

<you>

you

you... who are you? how can you be so... so sure?

At that, she couldn't help but grin. "Being an optimist comes with being hope itself, I guess. I'll explain later, it's complicated."

ami... Her name was spoken with sorrow, but no longer with despair. do you... do you really think you... we... can save Ami too? It's not... too late...?

"You're friends with Sailor Moon, so you of all people should know," said Madoka. "Whatever happened to her, we can fix it. And even if she really is dead... death isn't the end. Sailor Senshi always come back. One way or another, we will save her."

Ami. Slowly, slowly, Makoto unfurled herself from her miserable little ball. Jade scales fell from her like snowflakes and crumbled to ash, and the ash was washed away to nothing by the rain. And no longer was the rain oppressive and bitter cold... it was gentle, warm, slow as tears. Her tail, the bony plates lining her back, and her antlers all melted away in its fall. Makoto stood taller and taller, she looked like a time lapse of a sapling growing into a mighty oak and reaching for the stars. As she raised herself to full height, she plucked a small, ugly, gnarled thing from her breast like an errant speck of dust. From within, she began to shine...

*****

Arthra's Starboard Observation Lounge

In Orbit of Io

Simultaneously

"Tsubomi..." Erika said in hushed tones. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

If Tsubomi pressed herself any tighter to the viewport's plexiglass, she would melt into it. The glow building inside her was so warm and bright that she was surprised it wasn't visible through her chest. "It's—"

The first change to Jupiter had happened so quickly that it was difficult for the brain to register it. Its storms of hydrogen and helium were beautiful before, but now? Now they were breathtaking. Every color was far warmer and more vibrant, and so saturated that it made their prior appearance look drab in comparison, almost monochrome. The planet was alive with new light, new energy that it didn't have a moment ago.

That was the first change. The second, only now identifiable, was an apparently endless carpet of ghostly pink flowers which spread outward in a planar ring from Jupiter's equator. There was no point in attempting to count them, for already they numbered in the trillions at very least, but each one was somehow fully distinct and more flawless than the last, a gorgeous swirl of petals caught in the moment of full bloom. The carpet of impossible flowers spread and spread, covering the millions of kilometers between Jupiter and its innermost moon Io in mere seconds. Soon its edge intersected with the Arthra and passed harmlessly through her hull right beneath their porthole...

"R-R-Rosa 'B-Bonica 82,'" Tsubomi stammered, choked with emotion. She was sure she looked a mess from crying so hard... the lenses of her glasses were filmy, her nose was running, and from what she could see of her reflection in the viewport, her cheeks were all red and blotchy. Dignified, silent, tears, these were not. Come on, Tsubomi, she thought as she removed her glasses to wipe her face on her sleeve. You're embarrassing yourself in front of Erika, get it together—

"In the language of flowers," said Erika with undisguised pride, "pink roses mean trust, happiness, and confidence. Did I get that right?"

And there it came again, a new flood from her eyes as Tsubomi tried to laugh and bawl and squeal with delight all at the same time. "E-E-E-Erika...! You—"

It was as if Erika could see what she was thinking. "You dope, of course I remembered. We see each other every day, you think I didn't pick up on flower stuff after a while?"

More bawling, Tsubomi couldn't help herself. She threw her arms around Erika and hugged her tight, so radiantly happy...

Erika held her with one arm and patted her on the back with the other. "It's okay," she said, with a gentleness that she would only show to the person she loved most in all the worlds. "Go ahead and cry if you want to, get it all out... but at least cry toward the window. Viewport. Whatever. That's your dream coming true out there, you don't want to miss any of it. Flowers blooming in space, and you didn't even have to become an astronaut to see it happen. Who'd have thought?"

*****

Subway Tunnels, Underground

Azabu-Juuban, Minato Ward, Tokyo

Simultaenously

Upon emerging from the full dive, Madoka found herself in yet another dangerous pickle: namely, a bear hug that threatened to break a rib. Or six.

"I'm me! I'm me again!" Makoto Kino laugh-shouted through joyful tears. Her hair, skin, and blouse were encrusted with months worth of subway grime, but she paid no heed. She only squeezed even harder and pirouetted on one foot. "Oh, you little angel...!"

"Mmmf!" Vertigo made Madoka's stomach heave as her new, much larger friend spun her around. It was no use struggling; the arms that held her were like iron bands. Her feet were no longer touching the tunnel floor, and despite her ineffectual efforts to kick them, they tread nothing but empty space. Desperate, she choked a few words out: "K-Kino-san, it's k-kinda hard to breathe!" That, and she was pretty sure that parts of her face were touching parts of Makoto's upper torso that she really shouldn't be touching this early in their relationship, or at all... Homura would have an apoplexy if she ever found out.

"Oops! Sorry about that!" said Makoto, who promptly released her grip. One hand rubbed the back of her head in a sheepish fashion. "Guess I'm a little overexcited."

Air, blessed air, and solid ground. On her hands and knees, Madoka sucked in a few breaths and vowed to never take either for granted again. "I-it's okay, I'm fine. Or I will be."

"Listen." Makoto knelt and extended a hand, which Madoka took with gratitude. Her tone was no less glad, but now it grew softer and more sober. "I can never repay you enough for saving me from... whatever Circle of Hell that was. I don't know where you came from or what universe you belong to, but if there's ever anything you need, no matter how big or small, I promise you I'll make it happen." No one could doubt the sincerity in her green eyes, or the kindness in her touch. "Deal?"

Heat bloomed in Madoka's cheeks. An offer like that from someone older and far more experienced than herself? That wasn't how the social hierarchy was supposed to work... But then, with everything as messed up as it was, it was best to just go with it. "D-deal!" she said. "But it's really okay, Kino-san—"

"Please." Makoto put her free hand atop hers. "You can call me Mako."

"Mako-san," said Madoka, deciding to split the difference. Messed-up situation or not, some things were too ingrained to ignore, it would just feel weird otherwise. Nevertheless, her lips tugged upward in a smile. Maybe it was the experience of sharing minds, but there was something familiar about this young woman, as if they had been friends for years, not minutes. Now that she thought about it, Makoto reminded her of someone dear to her...

"Where are we, anyway?" said Makoto. She scanned the pipework in the tunnel ceiling as she climbed to her feet and made a token attempt to brush herself off. "It looks like a subway tunnel."

"It is a subway tunnel." Madoka checked her AMP's holo-readout for coordinates. "Um, we're somewhere near the southern border of the Juuban district."

"Still right in my backyard, huh. I guess I must have hid pretty well, if they only found me after all that time," said Makoto. She shook her head to clear cobwebs. "I still don't understand much of what's happening, and my memory's still fuzzy, but at least I know who sent me after you." One fist pounded against her open palm, and she spoke in a dangerous growl: "Mimete, that little weasel! Is she still—"

"No." Madoka cringed. Some poor subway worker was in for a gruesome surprise whenever they dug out that tunnel. "Homura-chan blew her up."

"Hah! I like the sound of this 'Homura-chan' already. I just wish I could have seen it happen."

"Eh-heh, trust me, if you stick around her long enough, you'll see more explosions than you could ever want..."

"Hang on." Makoto rubbed her temples. "'Homura-chan', is she... pale, gloomy, never smiles? Kinda looks like Hotaru with long hair?"

"That's her."

"Yeah, I think I remember bits and pieces of you talking to her. Come on, let's find where she's gone so I can thank her properly." With that, Makoto rolled up the sleeves of her filthy blouse and took three confident steps down the tunnel. Halfway through the fourth, she wobbled like a boxer about to go down for the count. Another step, far more hesitant, and then another out of sheer stubbornness... then go down she did, sinking to her knees with a soft moan.

"Mako-san!" Madoka hurried to her side. "Take it easy, you've been through a lot. The medics should take a look at you."

A weak chuckle. Makoto waved an unsteady hand in her direction. "I-I'm fine, just need to get used to having two legs again instead of eight, ha ha."

And now she reminded her of another friend... currently an ex-friend. Wince. "Mako-san, this isn't a joke. You're not fine, I'm amazed you can stand up at all. You need medical attention, your body and mind were corrupted by the Evil Nut for months."

"This thing?" Fishing into her collar, Makoto drew out something ugly and twisted, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand.

To Madoka, it was as if someone had tried to make a Grief Seed using only the vaguest secondhand description of what one looked like for reference. It was only roughly spherical, its curves crooked and wandering in random places. What was supposed to be a straight, needle-like spire at its bottom was more like a half-hearted attempt at a corkscrew. She was hesitant to touch it at all, but try as she might, she felt no power from the thing whatsoever. Nevertheless, she enclosed it in a small barrier before she took it from Makoto's palm. "Y-yeah," she said, rattled. "To be honest, this is kind of new to me... where I'm from, it shouldn't even be possible to turn into a Witch unless you have a Soul Gem, like I do. Whatever it is, it breaks the rules."

"And here I am still trying to wrap my head around this 'other universe' stuff. Ami said that Joker guy wasn't from our world either..."

"He's not." Madoka's tone grew grave. "He's a threat to every universe, and one of my teammates is risking everything to fight him up on the street right now."

Those green eyes flashed and pierced her to the soul. "He's here?!" Both of Makoto's hands curled into fists in her lap. "All the more reason to get going!"

"No, Mako-san, you don't understand, we need to wait for her signal! We've been planning this out for months now, it might be our only chance!"

"And who's been planning? I saw in your memories that Usagi and the others are with you, but..."

"We're the Morning Lights, it's a long story. We—"

At that moment, all of the tunnel's emergency lights went dark at once, save for a single flickering one that illuminated a raised catwalk a few meters away. Madoka and Makoto were plunged into darkness.

The words were on Madoka's lips to tell Makoto to stay down, that it would be all right, that she would handle whatever this was so Makoto wouldn't have to fight. By instinct, she reached for Makoto's hand...

... only to have Makoto seize her hand before she was done thinking it. By her Soul Gem's faint pink light, she saw a much larger body move in front of hers as a living wall. "Don't worry," said Makoto's voice. "I may be woozy and a little rusty, but I'm not letting anything happen to you. Jupiter Power...!"

The lone light above the catwalk switched off. Makoto's hand gripped hers so tight that her bones scraped together. A sweet scent enlivened the stale air.

Less than a second afterward, the light was on again, and now the catwalk stood occupied. A tall, dashing man in a black, caped tuxedo and an angular white eyemask leaned casually against the metal railing. Somehow he remained spotless while doing so, not so much as a smudge to be seen despite the railing's decades of rust and dirt. He tipped his top hat to them. "Evening, ladies," he said. "Makoto, wonderful to see you back to your old self." And to Madoka, as he bowed: "I'm afraid I haven't had the pleasure, young miss, but may I assume that your name is Madoka...?"

Releasing her hand, Makoto laughed heartily. "Tuxedo Mask! God, am I glad to see you! I'd give you a hug, but I'm kinda gross right now."

"Oh!" said Madoka. "So this is...!" Of course she should have recognized him by Usagi's description, if not from her pictures. However, they had all had a very stressful night, so she felt justified in not catching on right away. Unsure of what else to do, she curtsied. "Um, good evening, sir! I'm Madoka Kaname, Usagi-san has told me a lot about you. Thanks for coming for us."

Whoosh. He vaulted over the railing, his splendid cape fluttering behind him. Now he was down at her eye level, blue-grey eyes twinkling behind his mask. "I've actually been here for a while, I put up barriers to keep the two of you safe while you were healing her, Kaname-san... thanks for that, by the way. And I can't take all the credit for finding you, I'd have never made it without help from some friends of yours. One of them pointed me in your direction and told me a little of what you were doing... Long black hair, carries heavy ordnance, never smiles?"

Maybe she needed to encourage Homura to be friendlier to people. Madoka's cheeks flushed. "Uh-huh, that's Homura-chan."

"Listen, Mamoru-san," said Makoto. "If what Madoka-chan's been telling me is true, we need to get topside as soon as we can. Joker himself is up there, and one of her friends is fighting him all alone. She's in danger—"

"No, no!" Madoka waved her hands to interrupt. "It's part of the plan, we can only help Sakura-chan after she gives us the signal!"

"Kinomoto said pretty much the same thing," said Tuxedo Mask. "Just what is this plan of yours, anyway?"

Quick as she could, Madoka explained to them... and the details left them both stunned.

Makoto let out a low whistle and wiped her hand across her brow. "Damn. That's some plan!"

"Incredible," Tuxedo Mask shook his head as if he could hardly believe the audacity of what he just heard, but the smile he wore spoke to how deeply he was impressed. "It's insanely risky, but if Joker has the kind of twisted mind I think he does..."

"He does." Madoka set her face and nodded. "Nanoha-chan came up with the strategy, and nobody's better at tactics and stuff than she is. I trust her, and I trust Sakura-chan to pull it off. Our job is to get everyone together that we can and get into position so we'll be ready on Sakura-chan's signal. We weren't supposed to split up like this, but Saturn got captured and Chibi-Moon went after her, then Homura-chan went after both of them—"

Tuxedo Mask put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry. I know where they are. I met your friend in an offshoot tunnel near Akabanebashi Station, she was in hot pursuit and wouldn't let anything stop her. As for gathering everyone together, I also happened to run into a few more of you on my way..." He swept his cape in a wide arc and drew it back like a theater curtain.

"Oh!" Madoka clapped her hands with delight. "You're okay!"

The Echo-Stranger stood behind the cape in her white-and-pastel uniform and long blond curled pigtails, the shape of which inexplicably reminded Madoka of pastry twists. Apparently none the worse for wear, she rushed up to meet her and clasped her hands in her own. "Um!" she said in a voice that quivered with nervous excitement as she pumped them up and down in an enthusiastic handshake. "S-sorry if this is weird, I know we've never technically met before, but I know you from Nagisa-chan's memories, and... and it's really an honor, Kaname-san!"

Madoka stared, mouth open.

"Sorry," she said again. "There's been so much going on, she didn't want you to worry. But it's okay now, honest. I'll be fine, and so will she." And now Madoka saw a tiny face framed by vivid red hair peeking out from behind the girl's leg. Astonishingly blue eyes gazed up at her, the Chibi-Stranger's eyes...

"Let's try this again. It's nice to finally meet you, Kaname-san. I'm Ayumi Sakagami," Echo said, bowing deeply. Her pastry twist pigtails spilled over her shoulders and tumbled to her ankles. "I'm Cure Echo."

*****

Professor Tomoe's Lab

Three Kilometers Underground

Simultaneously

"Pluto! Pluto...! No, no, no, no, no...!" Chibi-Usa Tsukino felt her skin tearing from friction as she tugged uselessly at the restraints. She didn't care, she didn't care if she flayed herself alive. All that mattered was to get free, to stop Homura Akemi and Pluto from killing each other, and to stop Professor Tomoe from leaving with Hotaru's soul...

All of them were there on the other side of the temporal force field, little more than a meter away. She could see them, she could hear them, and the Time Reaper—Pluto—was still so close that she could reach out and touch its cloak if not for the shackles... but the shackles held her motionless no matter what she did. Pluto and Hotaru and the others might as well be standing on the opposite end of the universe.

Yet again, she raised her voice in desperate invocations, though her transformation brooch still hung still and useless on her chest bow: "Moon Prism Power, Make Up! Moon Prism Power, Make Up! Moon Prism Power, Make Up...! Come on, please! Moon Prism Power..."

*****

Years of experience taught Homura Akemi to bury her emotions for the sake of her mission. Lost in time during that endless repetition of the same month, she eventually realized that saving Madoka left no room for weakness, no room for love or friendship or wishes or whatever else the others fought for. Her heart couldn't withstand the agony of being broken again and again, so over time she reinforced it in layers of iron.

When she willingly became the Devil for Madoka's sake, she took the opposite route, embracing her emotions to their fullest. By telling herself that it was all for love, all for Madoka's happiness, Homura endured the shame and self-loathing of betraying her beloved... for a while, anyway.

And now here she was: not the cowardly weakling she was when she first met Madoka. Not the grim, driven Puella Magi who spent all those years trying to protect her from her fate. Not the lost soul who wandered purposeless after her ascension. Not the Devil who trapped her in a gilded cage. Not the empty shell who begged her forgiveness. She was none of those people, and all of them.

It was tempting to slip back to her old ways. It would be far easier to deaden her heart again and devote her whole focus to what she had to do, without emotions to get in the way. However, someone she trusted told her that feeling nothing at all was almost as harmful as wallowing in despair... From her stemmed the idea she implemented in Chandeliers d'Argent's construction. For her, she vowed to try to change, no matter how difficult it was. Half of d'Argent's power came from letting herself feel, and channeling that feeling into new strength. Of course it was difficult, that was the point... it was like training muscle memory. The goal was for it to become second nature over time, an unconscious action natural as breathing.

So when she stepped out of the lab's elevator, when Hotaru Tomoe looked at her with not a single spark of recognition in her eyes, only fear and confusion... Homura allowed herself to feel a sting of grief. When Hotaru ran and hid behind a console and she turned her attention to Professor Souichi Tomoe, she let tongues of flame and righteous fury light within her breast. And when Professor Tomoe spoke to her, explaining his actions in words near-identical to the things she told herself to justify her betrayal? Her anger mixed with a fluttering of pity, for she felt an anguished love from the man, of a kind as familiar to her as her own reflection. For the briefest instant, she even smiled... but she was careful to let nothing else show on the surface.

"Then so be it," said Tomoe, clutching his bleeding hand. A few red drops spattered on the broken console. "Reaper, come. Kill the intruder."

Forward and to Homura's left, a hooded specter emerged from empty air... and there came another emotion, one that set the hairs on the back of her neck to rise. She had done her research on it, heard it described by Hotaru, read the files in the Arthra's database, but nothing and no one could prepare her for coming face-to-face with the Time Reaper, or for the lifeless, draining chill that accompanied its presence. Fearing it wasn't a conscious thing, it was a survival instinct... an ingrained remnant of what humanity's ancestors must have felt when faced with a hostile world incomprehensible to them, a world which had a million ways to take their lives in the blink of an eye.

Again, she refused to let it show. There were far worse things, and she had lived through most of them. Still her primal instincts sang a high, frantic song that she couldn't suppress completely, a song that consisted of a single terrified lyric repeated over and over: death, death, death, death, death, death, death...!

Simulatenously, the cold and analytical part of Homura's brain assessed the situation: Chibi-Moon was nowhere in sight. Hotaru hid somewhere in here, her memories apparently stolen, and thus she was unable or unwilling to fight back. The lab was more spacious than she expected, but still too cramped to safely use her remaining explosives. That likely excluded firearms as well. Professor Tomoe's threat level was indeterminate: she knew of his "Germatoid" Daimon transformation, voluntary or involuntary depending on the timeline... but now, she sensed no power of any kind from him. Perhaps he had some kind of dampening field? Until she knew for certain if he was a threat, eliminating him would pose too great a risk. If it came to it, she would kill him in an instant, but—

"I must admit, I am impressed," Tomoe was saying. "This laboratory was shielded by an Isolation Field. I was assured that it was undetectable and impenetrable from the outside, yet here you are."

"It wasn't," said Homura curtly. "I saw no shielding at all, from an Isolation Field or from any other kind of field or barrier."

"Which suggests some manner of sabotage." For some reason, Tomoe shot a cold glare to the left side of the lab, the empty space where the Reaper had just emerged. "Eas. It must have been her, her behavior has been highly irregular since she arrived from the palace."

"I don't care." Homura barely had attention to spare for claims of sabotage. Her concern was with the Reaper... it was mostly an unknown factor, but there was no doubt it was hostile. She knew enough to avoid touching its scythe blade at any cost. At melee distance it was lethal, its ranged capabilities hadn't yet been clearly defined. Homura pointed the SIG Sauer at its hood as it lit the scythe and floated in her direction...

Five rounds, right to the center of where she assumed its head was. It jerked backward, she heard impacts and saw holes punched in the tattered hood, but there were no exit wounds behind it... a second after, five flattened slugs tinked to the floor. The Reaper raised its scythe high in its skeletal hands, its blade crackled with bloody lightning.

Homura's hand flew to her shield, turning it over as she shot back out of range in grayscale. The power boiling off that blade was like intense sunlight, it sizzled on her skin... She squeezed off another two rounds at its body, if it—

In the silence of frozen time, the hood raised and pivoted to follow her movements. It was still moving, extricating the scythe blade from the divot it made in the floor...

"Pay penance, Chandeliers d'Argent!" Her AMP's wistful seven-note activation chime sounded almost sinister with no other noise but her own breathing to muffle it. The timing of this discovery was inopportune, for once its scythe was freed, the Reaper charged, a figure out of a night terror. Homura raced through her memories, and found one of breathing in fragrant steam from a freshly-brewed pot of Ceylon tea as Mami poured it into a mug for her. Though it was long ago and far away enough to be considered another lifetime, she recalled exactly how the steam fogged up the lenses of her glasses. She remembered how that felt: a sense of contentment almost alien to her, the tea's scent and the comfort and safety of Mami's presence warmed her inside before the tea could ever touch her lips—

The shackle on her wrist erupted into a wall of quicksilver: another heater shield, big and solid as she could make it. A bell tone rang out as the Reaper's blade struck it. It pushed with savage force, trying to break through. d'Argent held, barely. Homura clung to the feeling from that memory, it was the only thing keeping her from death... With her other hand, she emptied the rest of the magazine into the center of the Reaper's mass. Half the shots struck something solid underneath its cloak, the rest tore through the fabric out the other side. What was it under there? The bullets' impacts threw it back enough for her to roll to the side and out of its way, but already it was turning for another swing. Homura let the time-stop go; apparently it was useless against this enemy anyway. As its head followed her, she was sure of it: she saw the lower half of a human—or humanoid—skull in the shadows of its hood, a jawbone and a set of grinning yellowed teeth.

No time to think. The Reaper was clearly a supernatural being, but it was no ghost. There was some manner of a body inside the cloak. Bullets couldn't pierce it, apparently, but no solid being she knew could ignore the physical force of lead projectiles colliding with it at the speed of sound. To keep it off of her, she needed a heavier caliber... damn Sayaka for ruining her Desert Eagle and Beretta! Keeping the heater raised, she dove into her pocketspace for the Remington and tucked it under her arm. Chime after chime sounded as the Reaper hammered d'Argent with unrelenting force. Sweat poured down Homura's brow; the effort of loading new shells into the Remington one-handed, keeping in mind her position in the lab, and sustaining the emotion fueling d'Argent all at once was too much to keep up for long. She snapped the chamber closed, opened a hole in d'Argent's mass large enough for the gun's barrel, stuck it through, and fired both rounds one after the other.

At close range, two twelve-gauge slugs to the center of its mass in succession was more than even the Reaper could handle. Incredible force hurtled it backwards, crashing it into a bank of consoles that crumpled beneath its weight and set severed cables sparking and writhing like panicked snakes. The scythe slipped from its grasp, its blade fizzled out.

Panting to catch her breath, Homura righted herself and ejected the spent casings. d'Argent melted back into shackle form on her wrist. She was safe, for the moment. Glancing around the room, she found the shape of Professor Tomoe, crouched in a corner as far from them as he could manage, his body shimmering with what appeared to be a personal force field. The smaller form huddled tight in his arms had to be Hotaru, she heard a faint sob in a familiar voice.
At least Hotaru was all right. Homura's fingers shook with tremors as she fumbled through pocketspace for more ammo. The sooner she killed the Time Reaper, the sooner she could finish her mission...

*****

Unable to hold it any longer, Chibi-Usa burst into ugly tears that streamed down her cheeks like rain. Why? Why now? No matter how she tried, she couldn't transform. Couldn't do anything but watch as Homura Akemi prepared to kill her oldest friend, or whatever remained of her.

Why didn't it work? Why had her Silver Crystal abandoned her? Was it because she wasn't good enough, as she always suspected? She knew the stories; the Silver Crystal reacted to the strength of its wielder's heart. Usagi had that strength, her mother had that strength, Queen Serenity had that strength... but she was just Chibi-Usa, just Chibi-Moon. It was right there in her name: she was a small, feeble imitation of the real thing.
Maybe that's it, she thought, hanging her head as more sobs wracked her body. I'll never be the real Sailor Moon. The real Sailor Moon is invincible, the real Sailor Moon could save everyone, but I'll never be her. No matter how hard I try, I'll never be her... I'm not strong enough to use the Silver Crystal's real power.

Outside the field, Homura slid two more shells into her shotgun and advanced on the Reaper.

I'm not Sailor Moon.

I'm not Sailor Moon.

I'm not Sailor Moon...

She felt herself sinking as if mired in quicksand, into the same boundless despair that attracted Wiseman to her years ago. She was about to lose Pluto again, to lose Hotaru again. All her fault, if she had only been stronger...

I'm not Sailor Moon.

A strange calm settled over her. Maybe it was the calm that comes with being pushed to the ragged edge of one's sanity. After all, it was long overdue to fray, she had been through enough tonight. In that calm came a moment of clarity, a glimmer of an idea. Maybe she was thinking about it all wrong.

Chibi-Usa wet her lips, looked over at Sailor Saturn's empty body for strength, lowered her head as if in prayer, and spoke in a dry, croaking whisper: "Please, Silver Crystal. If you can hear me, please... let me save them. If I have to die, I don't care, I'll do it anyway. Because I think I get it now: I'm not Sailor Moon. I'll never be her, but..."

Faint light shone from the inside of her brooch.

"... but I will be my own Sailor Moon, someday." said Chibi-Usa. "And if that's what it takes, I will be Sailor Moon, today. I will be Sailor Moon, just this once. Just this once, please... MOON PRISM POWER... MAKE UP!"

*****

-STATIC-

The burst of white noise was loud enough to stop Homura in her tracks. It had barely processed in her brain before the part of the lab adjacent to the west wall, the part of the lab that seemingly contained nothing but two empty restraint harnesses... that part exploded with a supernova of white light and immense power. The blast wave pushed her back a full meter, she threw her arm in front of her eyes to protect herself from its blinding radiance. Instead of diminishing, that light seemed to be growing stronger, how was that possible? Through watering eyes, she detected motion from within its corona. There was a human shape there, a moving shape.

She was a beautiful young woman, perhaps in her early twenties, adult but still with the glow of teenage youth about her. Most of her was shrouded in a black silk cape. Only when she stood did the details become clear, as the light receded into a softer, gentler aura wrapping her body. The inner lining of the cape was scarlet, Homura saw as she threw the cape back over her shoulders. Underneath was someone who looked quite similar to pictures in the database at first glance, but her details... her details were such that she had never seen before. Oh, there was a blue sailor collar, a blue pleated skirt, and a fluffy red bow on her chest. A white brooch sat at the bow's center, with red, yellow, green, and blue pearls at its cardinal points. There was a choker around her neck, another crescent moon at the center, and the chest brooch reproduced in miniature hanging from its lower curve. There was a tiara on her forehead with a ruby centerpiece, and two jeweled covers over her conical odango, but from there the similarities ended...

Her hair, while more or less conforming to the signature style apart from the shape of the odango, was a powder pink color so pale it was almost white, and it gleamed with a faint silvery sheen. She wore an angular white eyemask, through which a pair of determined scarlet eyes was visible. Also white were her gloves and boots, though they bore the crescent moon emblem on red stripes and the gloves sported golden rolls at the elbows. There was a wide V-shape mounted beneath the bow on her chest, also gold, almost like a boomerang. Familiar enough to spark recognition, but...

Homura stared, completely bewildered.

The new Senshi plucked a pink rose from thin air, brandished it at her like a duelist's sword, and called out in a strong voice: "Hold it right there! I can't let you hurt her! I know she looks like a monster, but she's one of us, a Sailor Senshi! She's Sailor Pluto, Joker corrupted her somehow!"

After forcing her eyes to blink, Homura gazed back at the Reaper lying amid the destroyed consoles, entangled in their cables. "That... that thing... is a Sailor Senshi...?"

The new Senshi made a sound of deep regret. "Please, Akemi! I don't know what he did to her, but I have to try to save her! She's my dear friend and one of Hotaru's moms!"

Stunned, Homura pivoted back to the Senshi. "How do you know my name?" A stupid question; her face and name were known to the whole multiverse. In the moment, though, it seemed sensible to ask. "Who are you...?"

The new Senshi beamed with joy. "Trust me, you don't know how long I've been waiting for this. I guess I'd better do it right." One deep breath, and she launched into it: "The pretty Senshi in a sailor suit who fights for love and justice... I am Sailor Moon!"

*****

Subway Tunnels, Underground

Simultaneously

A ghost stumbled through the darkened network of Azabu-Juuban's subway system, unknowing and uncaring as to where she was going. Every few steps, she would claw through her silver hair, clutch at her skull, and scream, fearing that her head was about to split apart...

It made no sense. She knew who she was: she was Labyrinth Citizen #ES-4039781, commonly referred to as "Eas", Commander of Dead End's Labyrinth Division. Created by Lord Moebius, Labyrinth's ruler, her duty was to serve his will with everything she had. Lord Moebius assigned her to take on a human disguise as "Setsuna Higashi" and infiltrate the humans calling themselves Fresh Precure, to gather as much information on them as she could as she searched for the location of the Infinite Memory. When Dead End approached Labyrinth and extended an offer of partnership, Lord Moebius readily accepted. With Dead End's resources, she easily captured the Precure and completed her mission. Afterward, despite the loss of Lord Moebius at Carnaaji in Vertex Four, and later her superior Lady Viluy, she continued as Lord Moebius would have wanted: gathering and collating the multiverse's data so that order could be imposed on chaos.

Purpose. Duty. Obedience. Unwavering loyalty. That was Eas, that was her life.

She knew all this, it was the bedrock of her being. So it made no sense that she woke up remembering a life she never had, a life that was as opposite to her current one as it could be...

It made no sense. She knew who she was: she was Setsuna Higashi, her identity as "Eas" was long behind her. Their origins were identical, but there was a point of divergence where she and Eas split off entirely. After nearly killing herself to please her beloved Lord Moebius, he cruelly abandoned her, exiled her from Labyrinth, and ordered her lifespan terminated. She died... and was reborn a human, and a Precure, Cure Passion. A new world, a new life... but still she would have wandered miserable and alone, if not for the Precure's leader, Love Momozono, Cure Peach. Love's family adopted her with open arms and without question, and her friends showed her far more kindness than she ever expected or deserved. All of them introduced her to the myriad wonders of human life, and for the first time, she found herself happy, happy in a way she had never imagined before. Love and her Precure did more than save her life, they awakened her from a nightmare she never realized she was trapped in. It took some soul-searching before she felt worthy to join them in battle against her former Labyrinth comrades, but when she did, it was her decision.

Family. Friendship. Contentment. Joy. That was Setsuna Higashi, that was her life.

It made no sense. The memories of life as Eas and the memories of life as Setsuna blatantly contradicted each other. Both of them couldn't be real, that was impossible... wasn't it? Again she took fistfuls of her hair and screamed. There were great gaping holes in her memory, and this other, phantom life tried to spill into the empty spaces...

So half-blinded by her own pain was she that she almost ran straight into the girl without seeing her.

A lovely ruby eye. Golden pigtails. Dressed mostly in black. Carrying a polearm of some kind. Young, maybe thirteen in human terms. For a few terrifying seconds, Eas was sure that her inability to recognize this girl or remember why she was important was another symptom of her breakdown... The wires only began to connect when she processed the patch over the girl's right eye, black with a red paw print sewn into it. "Y-you're—" Eas croaked.

Fate Testarossa Harlaown leapt backward, her Device held in a defensive position. "I know who you are," she said softly. "Tsubomi and Erika told me about you, they helped write your file for our database. You're Eas..." Startled surprise gave way to something far colder as her eye narrowed. "You work for Labyrinth, just like Viluy did." Her grip on Bardiche shifted. Now its edge pointed forward like that of an executioner's axe...

Eas's stomach plunged to her toes, an icy chill raced down her spine. Scrambling backward, she threw up her hands in a useless attempt to placate the mage who was about to kill her, and would be entirely justified in doing so. "No, don't! Please don't kill me! I had nothing to do with Viluy taking your eye or what she did to your familiar, you have to believe me! It wasn't my fault! I only took over Labyrinth Division after she died! I'm..." The next words fell from her lips unbidden. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Why did she say that? Moreover, why did she mean it?

Fate kept the blade trained on her, her expression unreadable.

Quaking, Eas sank to her knees. She was in no condition to fight back or summon a Nakewameke, her mind was already in shambles and pure fear was about to snap it like a twig. Should she bow down, prostrate herself and beg forgiveness? Should she gather what power she had left and run away? Should she lie back and accept inevitable death?

"Eas," said Fate.

More unbidden words: "No. Not Eas. I'm Setsuna. I'm a loyal denizen of Labyrinth. I'm Cure Passion. I'm a servant of Lord Moebius. I'm a legendary warrior. I'm..." Tears spilled from her eyes. "... I don't know who I am. I don't know what's real. I thought all I ever wanted was to serve the homeworld that I love, to please Lord Moebius... Aren't... aren't I doing that? Haven't I done my best? What's wrong with me...?"

And as she shifted Bardiche to her non-dominant hand, Fate's expression softened. She went down on one knee. "You've given everything you have to please the one who created you. You'd do anything for a smile, for a few words of praise or a glance your way, but no matter how hard you try, it's not enough. Eas..." To Eas's shock, her free hand extended, and her eye shone with sympathy and familiarity. "It's going to be okay. Let me help you."

"I... I don't understand," Eas stammered, lost and flailing. "I-I'm your enemy, you should hate me!"

"Perhaps I should, and I did," Fate said, "but I'm choosing not to. Hating you won't bring back the people or things that I've lost. Hating you won't give me what I need." To her Device: "Bardiche, send a tightbeam comm with our coordinates, and tell them... tell them to prep for another incoming transport signature."

"[Yes, sir,]" said Bardiche in a deep, smooth voice.

"No." Eas shook her head. Far from being reassured, now she spiraled into a previously unknown level of confusion. "No, you're not making any sense. You can't do this! After the things I've done, you can't trust me! You don't even know me! I don't know me!"

"Right now, I may not know you, but I do understand you," said Fate. Her lips spread into the gentlest of smiles... How could someone who had suffered so much smile like that? "And we can rediscover who you are together. You may not remember, but you have friends back at the Lighthouse, they're waiting for you."

"I..." Staring at that outstretched hand, Eas felt everything she thought she knew about herself crumbling. This girl spoke of her other life, a life without Labyrinth. Part of her desperately wanted that life back and part of her was terrified out of her wits by the prospect. Which should she choose? Which was the right way? Or was there a right way?

Someone skidded around the corner at the juncture ten meters down the tunnel behind them. Short and cute and dressed all in yellows, she was just as blonde as Fate, but her hair was styled in a huge, fan-shaped ponytail. Again, Eas knew she had seen her before in Dead End's files, but there was more than that now. An inkling of that other life... Seeing her brought both relief and dread. "Harlaown-san!" cried Yayoi Kise, Cure Peace, as she caught sight of them. "There you are!" she said as she sprinted in their direction.

Every muscle in Eas's body tensed. If she concentrated enough, she could still teleport out of here.

Peace shook her head in frustration. "Why did you run off like that? It's really easy to get lost down here, and we're supposed to—" The toe of her boot somehow caught on the edge of one of the rails. She squealed, her arms spun like pinwheels, and she fell flat on her face. "Owww..."

Eas burst into a brief fit of inexplicable giggles. It was a familiar, endearing sight, but she had no idea why it was familiar...

"Peace? Are you all right?" said Fate, looking back over her left shoulder.

"Ohhh, by poor doze..." came the sniffling reply as she picked herself up. Her nose was indeed a vivid shade of red, as were her cheeks... she glowed like a traffic light. "O-of course I have to trip and fall in front of a cool time-space officer like—" Watery golden eyes blinked as she noticed that Fate was not alone. "Setsuna-sen— I mean, Eas...?"

"Yes," said Eas. "No. I don't know."

"She needs our help," said Fate. "I don't think she means us any harm."

A sudden storm of doubt brewed in Eas's belly. "How can you say that? How can you just... trust that I am who you think I am?"

Once again, Fate reached out her hand. "You've done bad things, but I don't think you're a bad person," she said. "I can see it in your eyes. I know what you're feeling is scary, but please, come with us."

Peace nodded and fell in line behind her. "It's okay, Eas. We'll help you find the real you again, definitely. That's what we do."

It made no sense, but... but Eas wanted to believe them, wanted to believe so badly. She reached for Fate's hand, brushed her fingertips against the other girl's...

A soft, liquid sound, then a rush, and Fate and Peace were swept up by streams of violet fluid which slammed them against opposite sides of the tunnel walls...

"No!" The word tore from Eas's lips, and as she turned, she dreaded who she knew was there...

Drone Fortune's gelatinous shape solidified as she drew herself out of a puddle of ooze spreading across the dusty floor, her arms swelled and extended to grotesque lengths. Blank jeweled eyes regarded Eas with a complete absence of feeling. "Commander Eas," she said in her watery monotone. "You appear to have abandoned your assigned position."

"Fortune!" Peace cried out from the right wall. Fortune's gel held her in place like flypaper, its glue-like consistency resisted her every attempt to struggle out of it. "Iona-san! Please, let us go!"

And here followed Droid Jamanen, the puppetmaster herself, rising up behind Fortune. "You Precure really are thick-headed." A bubbling chuckle. "No matter how much you scream, your dear little Iona won't listen to you unless I want her to listen. Isn't that right, Drone?"

Fortune nodded. "My will is your will, Mistress."

Similarly mired, Fate tensed and discharged her mana into the clinging gel as electricity. Arcs and storms of bubbles raced through the legnth of Fortune's right arm, for a few seconds it seemed as if it might prompt a reaction. A glance from Jamanen, though, and the arm's mass thickened enough to smother the bolts entirely.

"Commander," Jamanen said, "you do seem to be upset, but surely returning to your library will help clear things up, won't it?"

"Eas!" Fate shouted. "This is your chance, please don't throw it away! We can help you!"

"I hope you aren't thinking of actually betraying Master Joker." Jamanen's tone dropped twenty degrees. "You've been with us long enough to know what an utterly stupid idea that would be."

Eas stood paralyzed.

Now Jamanen's words were like poisoned honey over a core of ice. "No matter where you run, he can find you, Commander. No matter who you think can protect you, he'll destroy them. Faced with the wrath of Master Joker and all the forces of Dead End, what other choice can you make? Isn't it better to do the smart thing?"

"Eas, we need you!" Peace's voice trembled, but held strong. "You're not a bad guy, you're one of us, one of the Precure! Together, we can save Love-senpai and Miki-senpai and Inori-senpai, we'll all help you remember who you are! All you have to do is listen to your heart!"

"So much noise," the Droid sighed. Two tendrils snaked out of her shoulders and stretched, racing over the tunnel's pipework above. They descended again to hover millimeters over Fate and Peace's faces... "I'll just make the choice easier, then."

All the color drained from Peace at once. "No," she croaked. "No, you can't..." Buttoning her lips, she turned her face as far away from the tendril as she could.

Fate didn't move. She stared not at the tendril before her, but at Eas...

Jamanen's lips curled into a cruel smirk. "See? I'm helping you~. I'll even give you, oh, ten seconds to make up your mind before I assimilate these two and drag you back to headquarters myself. Nine. Eight. Seven..."

Eas couldn't move. Couldn't think. Fear drowned out all else.

"Six. Five. Four..."

Who was she? She didn't know, but...

"Three. Two."

Four diamond-shaped Nakewameke cards materialized, two in each hand. Eas flung them with all her might... and they severed cleanly through the tendrils of both Droid and Drone. As their bonds melted away, Fate and Peace fell gasping for breath to the tunnel floor...

"Eas," said Fate. "You—"

Eas tried to smile as gently as Fate had smiled at her. "I'm sorry. Fate, Cure Peace... thank you." With that, she grasped the Dead End comm transponder embedded behind her ear between the nails of her thumb and forefinger. Bracing herself for the pain, she dug in, she twisted, she pulled, and she let the bloody node of surgical plastic and silicon fall. Then she was gone, vanished into in a crimson streak of light before it hit the tunnel floor.

*****

No time to cry. No time to grieve. No time to process the horror of what had almost happened. Peace shot to her feet as fast as she could, a charge already building between her spread fingers. To her side, she saw Fate's magic circle flare to life with golden light beneath her. Layers upon layers of Fate's barriers surrounded them both, but would they be enough... Jamanen was always creepy in the Sailor Moon anime, she disabled four out of five of the Senshi by herself. This new upgraded one, though. What she had done to poor Fortune, what she had almost done to her, made her sick to her stomach...

Jamanen and Fortune treated their missing limbs with only mild annoyance in the former case, and total indifference in the latter. Already they were growing new arms to replace the old ones... would they press the attack?

"Peace," said Fate, the picture of calm. "Can you still fight?"

Peace swallowed. Better to tell the truth, she was a terrible liar. "I feel slimy and gross and freaked out, but... yeah. I can still fight."

Again, Jamanen sighed. "Feh. I was hoping to assimilate the Commander too, but now she's gone and taken the fun out of it. I'm bored now." Turning her back on them, she crossed her new arms. "But it doesn't matter. You'll all fall to me soon enough. Fortune?"

Fortune said nothing.

"Iona-san," Peace whispered. Her eyes stung and blurred with the beginnings of tears. "Iona-san, there has to be something of the real you still in there! You can fight her, I know you can, you were always so strong! Think about your friends, think about Megumi-san and Hime-san, and Yuko-san! Yuko-san's back at the Lighthouse, she's okay...!"

Fortune didn't move.

"Drone Fortune..." All charm in the Droid's voice disappeared. "There's already been one traitor today, and that's one too many. Stop listening to this drivel and tell them where your loyalties lie."

And Fortune spoke: "I don't want to go back to being human. I don't want to go back to the Lighthouse. I love Mistress Jamanen. I want to serve her, always. She's not a weak, pathetic human like you are."

Jamanen beamed and wrapped her arms around her charge's waist. "See? That's that. Go lick your wounds and wallow in your misery. You'll see us soon... and soon enough, you'll be us~." They melted together and sank into puddles, which drained away to nothing.

Peace's knees gave out only seconds after their departure. Every centimeter of her skin was raised with goosebumps. She barely felt it when Fate put a hand on her shoulder.

"Peace?" said Fate. "I'm... I'm sorry. At least it worked for Eas... she'll be back."

"I think..." Peace swallowed to clear the lump in her throat and took her hand. "I think it was working for Iona, too. Th-that didn't sound like her at all. It was like Jamanen forced her to say all that horrible stuff, she put words into her mouth. Or am I crazy?"

"Not crazy at all," said Fate, helping her up. "Come on, let's get back in position with the others. If all goes according to plan, we should be hearing from Kinomoto-san soon. We need to be ready."

"Yeah."

*****

Professor Tomoe's Lab

Simultaneously

"Look!" said Sailor Moon, her exasperation clear as she poked Homura in the chest, hard. "If it's too confusing, think of me as Neo Sailor Moon, or Sailor Lady Moon, or Sailor Moon II, even! Right now, it doesn't matter! I've gotta try to save Pluto, and I need you to protect everybody else who's here!"

It wasn't often that Homura was lost for words. "... Chibi-Usa Tsukino...?" she managed.

"Rrrrgh, yes!" Sailor Moon stamped her foot. "It's me, and if it helps, that works too! Just go, dammit! Oh, and for the record: the Hotaru with the professor isn't Hotaru, but she's got the real Hotaru's Chaos Seed, her soul. The real one's body is over there in the shackles, and there's two Sailor Senshi somewhere back there who would be on our side, I think, but they can't fight because they're wearing collars that will kill them if they disobey Dead End. Also, keep an eye out for a creepy black glove thingy with a blue crystal in it, we need that! Are we all caught up now?"

What was she supposed to say to that? "Yes," said Homura. And, to her own surprise: "Good luck... Sailor Moon."

"Uh, thanks." And she pushed past, her cape billowing behind her like a living thing. "You too, Akemi."

Having finally disentangled itself from the morass of cables, the Reaper floated upright. The staff of its scythe leapt back to its hand, the blade reignited...

Homura couldn't afford to waste time watching. Her first priority was clear. With a turn of her shield, she slipped back into the frozen world...

*****

Strange. For all she pondered and worried and fantasized about being Sailor Moon, for some reason she found it to be not all that different from being Chibi-Moon. A childish part of her, held over from her younger days, believed that becoming Sailor Moon would give her all the answers and all the power she needed. There was definitely power, and a lot of it, but inside, she was still the same messed-up time-traveling pseudo-teenager she was moments ago. Well, okay, there was still giddy excitement dancing in her belly. However it had happened, she had done it. Her fears of inadequacy were invalidated at last... how could she still think of herself as inferior to Sailor Moon when she had at last transformed into the genuine article? It was, to use a massive understatement, fucking awesome. And if the situation wasn't so dire, she might have spent a couple hours or so milking it for all the enjoyment it was worth.

Seeing Little Miss Goth Stoneface's mouth hanging wide open in shock was almost enough to satisfy her, though. A sight she'd treasure until the end of her days. Too bad she had to go and spoil it by not being sufficiently awed, but.

All right, to be fair to her, Akemi did show up in the nick of time, whatever her reasons were. As for almost killing Pluto, she could be excused because she had no idea of the Reaper's true identity. Now that she knew, though, maybe they could get through this without anyone getting shot or blown up after all.

No time for distractions. The Reaper had its scythe back, and already had it raised for a killing blow.

And of course, her weapons were still sealed in Tomoe's force field. Great. Unsure of what else to do, she thrust her open palm forward. A pink, translucent discus shape two meters in diameter sprung to life before her, inscribed with a crescent moon in its center and rose designs lining its outer rim. The scythe blade sent a thunderous tremor through it as it fell, but it held. Sailor Moon gritted her teeth and raised her other hand to reinforce it. New powers... a mix of the original Sailor Moon's and Tuxedo Mask's, that made sense. Now to figure them out on the fly...

Relentless, the Reaper swung its scythe again. And again. And again...

"Pluto!" Sailor Moon called out, unsure if she could even hear. "Pluto, it's me, Small Lady! I finally did it, Puu, can't you see? I'm the real Sailor Moon, just like I always dreamed of since I was a little kid!"

Each crash against the shield jangled her nerves a little more. If Pluto heard, she couldn't or wouldn't stop...

*****

Sailor Saturn, secured. The twin Sailor Senshi, secured and safely knocked unconscious so they couldn't be forced to hurt anyone. All three of them now rested behind the transparent partition that separated the two halves of the lab, as far back from the battleground as Homura could place them. The mention of Saturn's soul being stolen caused her to expect the worst when she freed her body from her restraints... but she was warm and alive, somehow, despite a lack of breath. Other universes weren't as cruel as her own, it seemed. Some part of her was envious.

Homura emerged from time-stop before the professor and the other Hotaru, the SIG Sauer raised...

The surprise she felt when the other Hotaru promptly dove from her father's side to find a new hiding place must have been tangible on her face, for Tomoe chose to comment on it. "When I said I would do anything to keep my daughter safe, I meant it." No pride, no sorrow, just a statement of fact. "Her sympathetic nervous system, her most basic fight-or-flight response, has been hard-wired to prioritize her own safety over mine in the event that both of our lives are in danger. She'll never even know why she's compelled to save herself, but she can't ignore the directive... it's biologically impossible."

Damn. Homura raised the gun and put Tomoe's forehead in its sights. "And you feel this is acceptable? To experiment with her brain, deny her her own choices without even telling her why? Is this what kind of father you are, Professor?"

"I'm already damned to Hell for what I've done." Tomoe spread his arms as if in surrender. "All I want is Hotaru's happiness. If I must damn myself further, so be it."

Red and pink lights danced in the corner of her vision, stemming from the battle between the Reaper and Sailor Moon. Homura ignored them. "And what would happen to her chance at happiness if I killed you right now? What happens if Joker or his forces kill you? You know who I am, Professor, but it's apparent that you don't know what I've lived through. Being helpless to do anything but watch while the person she loves most dies... it will destroy her. Her failure to save you will haunt her for the rest of her life, consuming every good thing in her soul. She'll spend her remaining days always wondering why, why she survived and you didn't. What kind of cruel God would force her to keep living when she's so unworthy of it? What kind of monstrous injustice is that? What kind of life is that?"

Tomoe said nothing.

From the battleground came flames and the acrid smell of smoke. An alloyed support beam fell from the ceiling and through a standing workstation with a terrible sound, cleaving it in half. On the far wall, the elevator doors slid briefly open and closed, then open again, then closed...

*****

Their battle had become a stalemate: the Reaper couldn't hurt Sailor Moon as long as her shield held, and she couldn't seem to use the shield in any offensive capacity without leaving herself open to a deadly blow. When the opportunity arose, she threw her summoned roses at it... and found that the ones that struck its cloak, knife-like stem-sides in, withered away into dust after around thirty seconds of contact.

Every time she dodged a slash of the blade, a little more of the lab was destroyed in its wake and there was a little less room to maneuver. Already at least a half-dozen electrical fires burned in the wrecks of gutted consoles. Most of the empty stasis tanks were broken open, their contents bled to the floor as slippery blue puddles. Just a moment ago, a support beam fell from the rafters, narrowly missing her head. This couldn't go on. At the rate they were going, the fires would consume more oxygen than the lab's ventilation system could provide... either that or the whole place would collapse.

Talking to Pluto wasn't working. Words simply couldn't reach her. If she couldn't make the Reaper stop of its own accord, she would have to stop it by force. That said, several frantic minutes of trying to summon any of the arsenals of the original Sailor Moon or Chibi-Moon had met with failure. Damn it, she needed Luna-P and Diana-P, but how to shut down the field that held them imprisoned?

Well, she knew what Jupiter would do, at least. If she couldn't shut it down the proper way... Sailor Moon crouched down and kept her shield between herself and the Reaper's flurry of scythe slashes as she crossed the lab, vaulting past the fallen support beam. Her flight took her directly in front of the nearest console to the field where their weapons hung suspended. Praying it was the right one, she smashed her fist into the console's interface panel...

Crunch. Cracks spiderwebbed through the panel's smooth surface, but the field held firm. All hitting it again would do was break her hand, most likely. And the Reaper had already taken its next swing... a crescent of snarling crimson energy sheared through everything in its path on its way to her...

The idea came to her in the few instants before the crescent struck. It was less than half a meter from her skin when she took a flying leap to her right... and the crescent sliced the console behind her in two, missing her left heel by millimeters. Sparks flew, another fire blazed to life. The field sputtered and died... "Luna-P! Diana-P!" she cried.

The eyes of both balloons lit up, they soared into her waiting arms. Saturn's Silence Blade and Messiah dropped like stones, but she couldn't worry about them right now. "Listen, guys," she said to her companions, "I don't know what exactly this form has to offer, but if you can give me something I can use to heal Pluto, do it now! Change! Abracadabra Pon!"

They burst into dual clouds of pink smoke on command. Sailor Moon felt it before she saw it clearly, but the weapon that dropped into her hands felt... right. Natural. The clouds parted to reveal a scepter about a meter long, with smooth, contoured, pearly-white surface. It didn't have a lot of jewels or fancy ornamentations like Usagi's weapons had, but she found she preferred it this way. Thorny vines were sculpted around the rim of its golden crown, studded with pink baby rosebuds... and of course, a gold crescent moon sat on its peak. Simple yet elegant, girly yet still powerful. "Thanks, guys," she whispered as she gripped the scepter's shaft. "You did a great job, it's perfect."

Apparently finished attacking from a distance, the Reaper charged, its scythe high and burning bright.

And Sailor Moon stood her ground, pointing the scepter's crescent moon at it as she bellowed: "Silver Crystal, please, I beg you! Give me the power to save Pluto!" It only took a heartbeat for the right invocation to come to her: "MOON MASQUERADE ASCENSION!"

The jaunty little music-box tune that accompanied the scepter's activation seemed at odds with the magnificent explosion of holy light that followed. It lit up the lab like dawn, bathing the Reaper in the radiance of the Silver Crystal and stopping it dead...

At first, the Reaper attempted to shield itself behind its scythe, but it only withstood a few seconds of the lightstorm before its scythe arm fell limply at its side and its blade fizzled out. Its tattered black hood and cloak blew back as if caught in a hurricane.

And as she beheld what hid beneath its cloak for the first time, Sailor Moon's insides froze, horror and pity and appalled disgust all fighting for dominance inside her. "Oh God," she whispered in heartbroken shock. "Oh dear God..."

What remained of Pluto inside the cloak was a stripped and bleached human skeleton, cracked and crudely welded back together in dozens of places. Yet the body was somehow still alive despite its wretched state, for she saw the finger-bones of its free hand twitching in a feeble attempt to resist the Silver Crystal's power though there were no muscles or tendons to move them. Its skull grinned absently at her, its eye sockets were hollows, long vacant. There was a spinal column, and she saw two arms, shoulder blades, collar bones, a ribcage... a complete upper torso. Below one of the middle vertebrae, which appeared to have been savagely snapped in half, there was nothing... no hips, no legs, no sign that there had ever been a lower body at all. The skeleton was held together by a glowing filigree of impossibly fine threads, magical substitutes for nerves and sinews. The filigree stemmed from its rib cage, inside which Pluto's garnet Sailor Crystal hung bolted to a throbbing black tangle of sinister valves and cables: a battery, or an engine, or both, serving as a makeshift heart. The Sailor Crystal's inner glow was muted and dim. One might have thought its shine was being stolen... perhaps by the pitch-black needle rammed through it, which neatly impaled the crystal without causing any apparent damage, as if the needle and the Sailor Crystal had been melded together at the atomic level. Sailor Moon knew the needle's aura anywhere, it was made of Malefic Black Crystal...

And within the Silver Crystal's light, bit by bit, the Reaper's body began to regenerate itself. Veins and arteries crisscrossed its bones and spread like the roots of trees. Tissues spread and thickened. Cells multiplied and divided by the millions to form the beginnings of what could barely be called organs. Raw red muscle filled in empty spaces...

And the Time Reaper spoke. It spoke a single word, in a half-formed voice that screamed that one word in unthinkable agony: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...!"

The horrible realization dawned: Sailor Senshi would always come back to life after death so long as their Sailor Crystals remained intact and the Silver Crystal could revive them. It was an immutable part of the cycle of their universe. The Malefic Black Crystal was the Silver Crystal's opposite number, capable of absorbing and counteracting its infinite energies of creation and rebirth. By interfering with Pluto's resurrection cycle with the Black Crystal needle, Joker ensured that she couldn't truly live again, and neither could she truly die... As long as she was trapped between one state and the other, any attempt to heal her, even with the full power of the Silver Crystal, would be tantamout to waking a patient up in the middle of intense surgery...

The scepter nearly slipped from her numb hands. "Pluto," Sailor Moon choked through tears. "Pluto, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..." A turn of her wrist, and the Silver Crystal's healing light faded. In its place, a pink bubble of energy formed around the Reaper, sealing it inside. Whatever meager amounts of flesh and blood had been restored, now she saw it withering away through the bubble's shimmery surface as the cloak fell back into place. Its terrible scream petered out into a moan, and then to silence.

Unable to help herself, Sailor Moon stepped up to it and pressed one hand against the bubble's surface. "Pluto, I think I get it," she said. "When you're like this, when you're the Reaper, most of the time the real you is asleep, isn't it? And..." A heavy sob. "And all those times you protected me and Hotaru... it must have been torture for you to wake up and take back control for even a few seconds, but you did it anyway. But I—" Her fingers clutched at the bubble. "What I did just now... I swear I didn't know waking you up would hurt you so much. I'm so sorry, Pluto. I don't think I can save you on my own." And she tried to smile, though her lips trembled. "But just hold on. Stay asleep in there so you don't have to bear it. We'll... we'll take you back to the Lighthouse. With Usagi and Sakura-chan and Madoka-chan and all the others, I know we can find a way to bring you back. You hear me, Pluto? We will save you. I promise." With that, she laid her hand flat against the bubble. "I promise."

Still bearing the tiniest scraps of flesh, the Reaper's free hand moved as if under a great weight. Slowly, haltingly, it raised it enough to place its palm against hers from the other side.

*****

The cascade of light that illuminated the lab barely fazed Homura. She kept her sights on Professor Tomoe without wavering. Likewise, the Reaper's awful scream failed to move her, though she saw Tomoe's eyes flick to the side toward the sound. "Pay attention, Professor," she said. "Your business is with me."

"And what, may I ask, is your business?" said Tomoe. "What is your stake in this matter?"

"A debt. I intend to repay it."

"Do you? I wonder." His left eyebrow raised by a hair. "You fought through all of the Witches 5 and heaven knows who and what else to get here, all without your Devil powers. One only needs to look at the state of your clothes to make an educated guess as to how much you struggled along the way. You fought and bled and nearly died, and for what? Solely to repay a debt to Hotaru?"

Homura said nothing. Her finger remained rock-solid on the SIG Saurer's trigger.

"She has nothing to do with your precious Madoka Kaname. She isn't even from your universe. Surely you must realize that the actions you've taken for the sake of someone barely more than a stranger indicate far more than a desire to settle a debt... Have you become an altruist as an attempt to atone for your sins?"

d'Argent's weight increased slightly on her left wrist. "No," said Homura.

"It's a selfish reason, then." A faint smile. "I'm very well acquainted with selfish reasons."

Homura said nothing.

Pink light replaced the storm of blinding white. Homura risked a glance and saw the Time Reaper imprisoned within a bubble of some kind. Sailor Moon spoke words to it and pressed her hand against its surface, and after a moment's struggle, the Reaper did the same. So some of Sailor Pluto was still in there.

Tomoe seemed fascinated by the sight. "Is she actually—"

"Quiet," said Homura.

The Reaper's scythe arm moved. Its free hand slipped from the inside of the bubble.

Sailor Moon cried out in anguish: "No, Pluto, no! Stay with me!"

In her mind's eye, Homura foresaw what was about to happen. Sailor Moon's emotional connection to Pluto left her too upset to tear herself away from the Reaper in time. One successful strike, and she would die. And if she died here— "Sailor Moon!" Homura bellowed. "MOVE!"

The Reaper's scythe raised as if in slow motion. Red lightning spat from the jewel at its crown and coalesced into its half-crescent blade.

No other choice. Leaving Tomoe to his fate, Homura turned over her shield and charged in the Reaper's direction. It could move in time-stop, but all she needed was a few extra seconds. The echoing sounds of her footsteps in the silence made the Reaper pause and turn, pausing its attempted swing in favor of its new target. Numbers ran through Homura's head. By her estimate, she was within three strides of the proper distance. Now two. One. Zero... Eight times she pulled the trigger, and eight .45-caliber bullets pierced through the bubble and struck the scythe's jeweled crown. No apparent damage, but it threw off the Reaper's balance for a second. Every second counted... Releasing the time-stop, she was relieved to see Sailor Moon finally dive out of range. With her bubble burst, the Reaper was free once more...

"Pay penance, Chandeliers d'Argent!" Homura remembered how she felt when she first caught sight of Madoka as a newborn Goddess, emerging from the galaxy and drawing an arrow to her immense bow... a bittersweet memory, but it would have to be enough. The silver heater shield expanded to cover her upper half. For now, she was protected against the Reaper's next attack, she hoped. She braced herself...

The scythe came down again, she felt its power and heard it cut through the air... but it didn't strike her, and it didn't strike Sailor Moon. What was it doing?

The heavy object that came spinning into her an instant later was not the scythe. It was the upper two-thirds of the support beam that had fallen from the ceiling minutes ago, one end was still cooling from white to yellow where the Reaper had sheared it loose. The beam took Homura with it, almost ripping off her left arm in the process as it dragged her across the lab. At the room's other end, their flight came to an abrupt halt as one end of the beam lodged itself into the bedrock wall. Most of its remaining mass splayed across her body from left shoulder to right hip, pinning her in place. Homura groaned... her healing magic was already at work to repair the injuries and numb the pain, but there had to be at least three broken ribs and her left arm's muscles were torn from shoulder to wrist. "S-Sailor Moon, get up!" she shouted. "I can't move...!"

The Reaper's attacks were no longer methodical and precise. It had simply gone berserk, lashing out with the scythe with wild abandon with one hand while clawing at its skull with the other. Sailor Moon lay flat on the floor to make herself a smaller target. Trapped, unable to move safely. Out of reach...

Roughly every third swing launched another bloody crescent in a random direction: one sliced through the other Hotaru's empty tank, another disappeared into the ceiling with a brief rain of bedrock dust. The third shattered the transparent partition into millions of glittering shards. A fourth...

A fourth was launched directly at Professor Tomoe, who stood frozen and helpless, watching it come. He stared at it, almost confused by his own death speeding toward him...
"Papa...!"

The other Hotaru stood from her hiding place and began to run. Though her body quaked with convulsions, though every step seemed a titanic effort, she ran to her father... and with one enormous shove, pushed him out of its way.

The crescent splashed across her chest, sank into it. Its impact staggered her, she let out a cry as her eyes went wide. A violent spray gouted from the wound... not blood, but flakes of grey ash.

Homura couldn't speak, couldn't think.

Sailor Moon let out a brief, breathless scream.

"HOTARU...!" Professor Tomoe caught her before she fell, scooping her into his arms as he sank to his knees. "Hotaru, no! No! You shouldn't have— oh no." His voice quivered and broke. "No, no, no, no, no. Not again. I can't lose you again! Hotaru, speak to me..."

The other Hotaru trembled. A spreading circle of ash crept over the front of her sundress around the wound. "P-papa..." she said, clutching at Tomoe's lab coat. There came the weakest of chuckles, just a few exhalations of breath. "Couldn't... let you... get hurt. I'm... sorry... I messed up..."

Tomoe held her close and howled wordless, absolute despair, the terrible sound of a man losing everything...

The Reaper stopped moving entirely. Whether something in it was satisfied or horrified, Homura would never know... but it simply drew itself into its cloak and vanished without a trace.

Only then did Homura's brain restart itself. Only then did she see a solution. "Professor!" she cried out. Magic poured through her right arm, she gave the beam pinning her a mighty push. It creaked and began to bend. "Professor, her Chaos Seed! However you took it, you have to give it back!"

"No!" His shout was frenzied, desperate. Teetering on the edge of madness. That madness in his eyes, Homura knew that look... "I can save her, there has to be another way! I can save her!"

Fury swelled within her, it gave her the strength to push the beam a little more. "She's dead already! But you still have a chance to save Saturn! If you don't give her back her soul now, you'll lose both of them for eternity! Do the right thing, Professor! Give it back...!"

Sailor Moon was already on her feet, sprinting for one particular console, her face chalk white. As she ran, her body appeared to shrink... her fuku's details simplified, her hair returned to its normal cotton candy pink, the cape and eye mask dissolved into sparkles. By the time she reached what she was looking for, she was Chibi-Moon in face and form once more.

"Hotaru," sobbed Tomoe, rocking her back and forth. "Hotaru..."

"Puh-papa..." Her voice grew weaker, her breaths more labored. "It... it hurts...."

"I'm sorry, Hotaru. It's all my fault. I'm sorry... Just hold on."

Wordlessly, Chibi-Moon came to Tomoe's side, a black gauntlet in her hands.

"Pa... pa..." The other Hotaru heaved and coughed. A flurry of grey flakes flew from her lips, more fell in a light rain from her fingertips. "I... c-can't..."

"Shh. Don't try to speak." The professor's eyes never left hers for an instant as he took the gauntlet and slid it over his arm. "You'll..." Speaking was too much for him, only after several deep breaths did he try again. "You'll feel better in a moment, I promise."

Through half-lidded eyes, the other Hotaru peered at the gauntlet. The crystal embedded in it bathed her in its azure glow. "Wuh... wha—" As the armored fingers sank into her, an odd calm seemed to descend over her. Her eyes unfocused and glazed over, her grip on the professor's lab coat slackened. And as he withdrew the tiny piece of darkness from her breast, her features lost the tight, pinched lines of pain and relaxed...

Souichi Tomoe bowed his head in shame.

*****

Chibi-Moon could barely see, her eyes were veiled with moisture. It took all her muscle control to keep her hands from shaking as she cupped the Chaos Seed—not too tightly—in her palms and held it close. Akemi yelled something at her and indicated a direction with her good arm on the way past her, having finally freed herself from beneath the beam. Their shoulders brushed together, just briefly.

She vaulted over the partition, rushed to the back of the rear section of the lab, found Lethe and Mnemosyne knocked out and stashed beneath a workstation and paid them no mind, and there... There was the real Hotaru, Sailor Saturn, lying peacefully in state, her hands folded over her belly. And... and there was a pillow beneath her head, covered over by a purple handkerchief. Where had that come from?

No time to wonder. She scraped her knees raw skidding to a halt before her. "Hotaru...!" As if making a sacred offering, she pushed her trembling hands toward her partner's body. What was she supposed to do? Was it like a Pure Heart Crystal, would it return to her by itself once she got close enough? Should she try to restart Saturn's breathing, do chest compressions, mouth-to-mouth? What if—

Her train of thought was so preoccupied that she almost failed to notice that the Chaos Seed was now translucent and insubstantial. It sank through her cupped hands like a ghost and into Saturn's chest.

Chibi-Moon bit her lip so hard that it bled.

A minute passed. Two. Dimly she was aware that Professor Tomoe had come to her side, but—

Saturn's eyelids fluttered. She drew in a long, slow breath.

And that was all that Chibi-Moon saw of her moment of resurrection, because she threw herself over her like a blanket, bawling her eyes out. Behind her, she heard the professor crying too, and repeating "I'm so sorry" over and over.

A hand weakly patted her back, rubbed her between her shoulder blades. "See...?" said a voice, strained and weak but amused. "I... told you..."

"Hotaru. Hotaru. Hotaru. Hotaru..." It was all she could say.

It was some time before Saturn felt well enough to sit up. Some time more before Tomoe released her from a hug, having begged for forgiveness more times than Chibi-Moon could count. And yet more time before Chibi-Moon remembered that there were others in the room, who had been too quiet for too long... she turned around to look.

On the lab's opposite wall, the elevator doors opened again. Four people spilled out, a little bedraggled from the cab's close quarters: Madoka Kaname, Tuxedo Mask, the Echo-Stranger, and confusingly, the Chibi-Stranger too.

Chibi-Moon barely acknowledged them at all. Her gaze was locked on one of the strangest things she had ever seen.

Homura Akemi knelt on the floor of the lab, with the other Hotaru's head resting in her lap. The other Hotaru's body was wrapped in a soft lilac aura, and Akemi was...

Akemi was holding her hand. Softly murmuring to her. All her focus was on the other Hotaru in her final moments, as if nothing else in the world mattered to her. And she... she was smiling. A gentle, small smile.

Finally, audible words penetrated the haze of confusion and astonishment clouding Chibi-Moon's brain: "It'll be all right," said Akemi in a low, soft voice. "It'll be all right. You can rest soon."

The other Hotaru smiled up at her.

Beside her, Saturn climbed shakily to her feet. It took her a few tries to cross the distance between herself and Akemi, but once she was there, she knelt at Akemi's side, put her right hand on her shoulder, and laid her left over the hand that held the other Hotaru's. "I—"

"I'm sparing her as much pain as I can," said Homura without looking away. "It won't be long."

Saturn nodded.

Professor Tomoe went to them as well, and added his hand to theirs. The expression on his face was that of a man being torn in two. She supposed she understood why.

The others from the elevator gathered around in a small circle. Chibi-Moon's feet took her to join them. Her hand moved atop Tomoe's, Saturn's, and Akemi's on its own. These were no conscious actions on her part, her mind was on autopilot. Everything she thought she knew about Homura Akemi was upended... It didn't make sense; Akemi was cold and antisocial—if not outright hostile—to everyone except Madoka. She was obsessed with her own pain, selfish enough to stab her true love in the back to keep her for herself. Sure, she had done some good things, but that didn't balance out becoming the literal Devil.

So how could a person like that be so gentle? How could the Devil smile like that?

True to Akemi's words, it didn't take long. The other Hotaru's breaths came at slower and slower intervals as her gradual decay into ash continued, but... but it was almost like she was drifting off to sleep. One by one, she smiled at those around her: at Madoka and the others from the elevator, at Chibi-Moon, at Professor Tomoe, at Saturn... and finally, she gave the warmest smile of all to Akemi, as with a sigh and a shudder, she crumbled into dust.

No words.

Only then did Akemi begin to cry. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks as she clutched at the hand the other Hotaru held seconds before, stained with ash. Her eyes were hidden within the shadows of her bangs, but still the tears came. She seemed unable to stop...

"It's okay," said Saturn, squeezing the hand on her shoulder. "She didn't suffer, thanks to you. You gave her mercy."

Akemi raised her head and looked Saturn in the eyes. "Sailor Saturn," she said, her voice husky and strained. Her words seemed to fail her. Then: "Hotaru. I..." A few deep breaths, a long and pregnant pause. Then she took both of Saturn's hands in her own and said three words which, despite being spoken at a whisper, had the impact of a thunderbolt: "I love you."

*****

Moments Before

The Astral Corridor

Madoka stared at her Soul Gem, willing it to give her answers. It had none to give. Homura had been here recently, there was no doubt of that... but so had Sayaka Miki.

A few paces away, Tuxedo Mask's gloved hand glowed as he pressed it against the indigo crystal wall. "Psychometry", he called it on the way into the tunnel. It was a unique gift of his, to receive information from people or objects solely by touch. "The battle here was intense," he said, his eyes shut tight behind his mask as he focused. "Two combatants. A lot of magic was expended, and a lot of firepower too, but the crystals don't remember death. If either of them died... they would know."

"You can get all that from just touching them?" said Echo. The Chibi-Stranger rode on her shoulders, piggyback-style, fast asleep. "It was just after we got back to the Lighthouse that I split off from her. Right after I saw you last, Kaname-san," Echo said ten minutes ago in the other tunnel. "The first thing I did was run to find Akemi-san and tell her you needed backup."

When Madoka expressed horror over the prospect of the Stranger severing parts of her being, Echo only said: "I can't understand her like I used to when we were together, and whatever mental connection I still have with her is fading now that I'm my own person again... but I can tell you this: the Stranger wanted this to happen. Something changed in her tonight, and she... we... wanted to let go. So please, don't worry about her, or me."

That was all well and good, Madoka had enough people and things to worry about. One of which was what her Soul Gem had been telling her since they arrived here...
Homura and Sayaka had a battle in the crystal corridor. In most circumstances, the two of them fighting was almost normal, but not when Sayaka was on the wrong side and willing to kill. Traces of their magic told her that the fight was brutal, ugly... as if she couldn't tell that from the long, smeared bloodstain a few meters away, which Tuxedo Mask's power said was where the fight finally ended in Homura's favor. The blood was Sayaka's, she could picture her plunging her cutlass into the ground and dragging herself along by it, hell-bent to continue the fight by any means...

But after a certain point, Sayaka's signature just... stopped. It vanished into the ether. At first Madoka thought she must have teleported herself back to Dead End's palace, but then Tuxedo Mask found something on the floor: the burned, bloody, and shriveled remains of the lower part of a human ear. Inside that was a shattered node embedded in the flesh, a Dead End communicator. A quick call to Sailor Iron Mouse, currently tending to the three Merry-Go-Round pods that had been recovered with Mimete's information, confirmed that the node was the method by which Dead End troops without the ability to teleport naturally spirited themselves back and forth from place to place.

Sayaka had been badly wounded, and her communicator was destroyed, leaving her presumably unable to teleport or contact Dead End... and yet she wasn't here. As far as they could tell with every available type of scan or reading they could think of, Sayaka wasn't anywhere. A few steps from the bloodstain, all traces of her had been wiped away.

Tuxedo Mask withdrew his hand, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, Kaname-san," he said. "I can't tell you anything more. She's long gone. I don't like this."

Echo bit her lip. "Should... should we wake the Stranger up and have her bring Kino-san back? Five is better than four if we're heading into an unknown situation."

Makoto had responded to their pleas to go back to the Lighthouse for medical treatment with heavy protest, but she eventually acquiesced to at least a basic examination. Before leaving, she swore that she would be fine and made Madoka promise to call should they run into any trouble. It was an action so familiar that it was only then that Madoka hit upon an idea of what exactly Makoto could do for her. She resolved to bring up the subject with her the next time things calmed down... whenever that was, if ever. "We'll see what happens going forward," Madoka said to Echo. "Mako-san really does need rest, no matter what she says."

Echo nodded. "You're the expert on Witch stuff. Witches from your universe, I mean, not this one. Gah, that's confusing..."

"That's, uh, not going to be a problem anymore." Here came another sheepish blush. She shook her head in an attempt to clear it. "C'mon, let's take the elevator. Homura's trail leads there."

The ride down was a slow and cramped one, the little cab seemed only designed for two people at most. While in transit, they filled Tuxedo Mask in on the Morning Lights, the war, and the other Vertices of the multiverse as best they could. The Chibi-Stranger woke up partway through and listened with rapt attention throughout.

Two-point-nine kilometers down, by Solace's reading, the din of battle filtered up through the elevator shaft. Tremors, explosions, shouting. Whatever was happening down there, it was heated, dangerous. Madoka kept her bow on mental standby during the last ten meters, swearing to be prepared for anything...

And then she stepped out of the cab and wondered if she had strayed into another universe.

Now she stood as part of the circle, her world turned inside-out. Homura, her Homura, had just said three words she had never said to anyone but herself. And the words weren't dragged out of her as they had been during her confession back at the Lighthouse... they were freely offered.

Homura was in love with Hotaru.

And as earth-shaking as that concept was, a tiny part of Madoka's mind thought it made perfect sense in hindsight. The lamp, the therapy sessions, the urgency with which she came down to Earth to help. That part admonished her for not noticing before now, but for heaven's sake, this was Homura. In a million years, who would have ever thought Homura Akemi would love a person other than Madoka Kaname?

What came next wasn't quite as surprising as that revelation, but it came close.

Any expectations as to how Saturn would react were dashed when she embraced Homura and pulled her close, smiling from ear to ear. "I know," she said. "I've known for a while, but I didn't want to say anything until you were ready. I'm so proud of you, you finally did it. And thank you... for fighting so hard to save me. I knew you'd be here."

Chibi-Moon's eyes seemed in danger of popping out of their sockets.

Homura embraced her back... but rather than be happy, she seemed crushed by what she had said. "I'm... I'm sorry," she said into Saturn's shoulder. "After all this, I shouldn't have said anything. I shouldn't have feelings like this at all. They're poison, they only hurt people I care about..." A heavy sob. "I know that, and I hate myself for it, but—"

"Shh." Saturn pulled back and put a finger to Homura's lips. "Not another word. Your feelings are not poison, Homura, we've talked about this. You've made bad decisions when acting on them, but they've never been anything but real and valid... in Madoka's case and in mine."

Astonished, Homura stared at her. "You—"

"Yes. I care for you deeply, and I want to do whatever I can to return your feelings, Homura," said Saturn, gentle and soft as a baby's blanket. "If you think I'm going to hate you, or scold you, or force you to choose between me and Madoka, you're wrong. Love is beautiful and strange and maddening, and it comes in all different forms, but it's not black and white. Trying to make it play by one specific set of rules or force it to be like someone else's love won't do anything but hurt people. We've all suffered enough, and I'd never want that."

"Saturn," Chibi-Moon choked. "Are you seriously suggesting—"

"Yes," said Saturn again. "I refuse to make anyone suppress or ignore or forget their feelings for anyone else. It'll take time and it'll be difficult, but we will make this work." Here she turned that lovely smile on Madoka. "All four of us."

Madoka's thoughts flew in circles at light speed. She was utterly overwhelmed by the night's events: the Witch's Labyrinth, the battle against the Death Busters, the fight between herself and Homura, the journey into Makoto's mind, the death of the other Hotaru, and now her perception of the person she loved being upended in a way she never suspected was possible. By all rights, she should be protesting this... some inner selfishness didn't want Homura to share her feelings with anyone else. Who else had what they had, knew what they knew? How would it even work, anyway? Herself and Homura and Hotaru and Chibi-Usa? Sure, she loved Hotaru and Chibi-Usa as friends, but was she opposed to the idea of being more? And—

Once again, it was as if Saturn was reading her mind. "Don't worry, Madoka-chan," she said. "I won't try to force feelings for me or Chibi-Moon that aren't there. Not everyone has to feel the same way about everyone, and that's okay. This isn't something that can be figured out overnight, it's going to take a lot of effort and we're going to stumble along the way. But if all of us try..."

And to her own shock, Madoka felt her resistance—such as it was—begin to slip away. "Okay," she said. "I'm... I'm still confused, but I'll try. We're stronger together, right?"

"I'll... try too..." said Chibi-Moon. It came out somewhat strangled, but still it came out. "Saturn, I'll be honest: I've got no idea how this is going to go, but you know I love you."

"And I love you, and always will," said Saturn. "Please don't worry. Nothing anyone does can keep us apart for long... I think we proved that tonight."

Madoka moved to Homura's side. She seemed to be in a state of shock. "Homura-chan?"

And Homura smiled... really smiled, despite her tears starting up again, in a way that Madoka hadn't seen her do in ages. "I'll try," she said. "For her. For you."

"Like I said," said Saturn, reaching for her hand. "Somehow, we'll make it work, I promise." A musical laugh. "After all, I've had two fathers and three mothers, and my first love is nine-hundred years older than I am... I have experience with unconventional relationships."

Homura's face lit up bright pink.

Professor Tomoe shot a perplexed glance at Tuxedo Mask, who shrugged.

Echo wiped away tears of her own and sniffled happily.

The Chibi-Stranger broke into silent, delighted laughter and clapped her tiny hands.

No one spoke for a while. All was quiet until the signal came through the AMPs of all those who possessed them.

Clear as a bell, it also rang in the minds of those still in the subway tunnels, those aboveground in Azabu-Juuban proper, those aboard the Arthra as it circled Io, and those ready to move in the Lighthouse...

The signal they were waiting for was the voice of Sakura Kinomoto, a telepathic shout of just three words: He knows! NOW!

END OF CHAPTER 59

NEXT:

CHAPTER 60

YOUNG AND UNAFRAID

[Author's Note: Remember, comments and detailed feedback are an author's food pellets, so leave plenty! - BHS]