Losing Serenity – Chapter One
She stared down at her hands. They were covered in soot, debris, and blood that streaked in terrible circles on her palms. There, in the middle of a ruined building, she sat and stared at her hands.
It had all been so innocent. Her friends and family gathered in her apartment for a surprise birthday party. She herself was walking home from work, unaware that they lay in wait. The feeling of horrifying impending danger to those that she held dear came over her the moment she reached the front entrance of the apartment building. Before she could react or even process the feeling, everything exploded into a terrible inferno.
She was flung clear across the street as the conflicting powers inside her instinctively transformed her to prevent any mortal damage. Without any forethought, she pushed herself upright and into the demolished building. Every instinct and every mental connection she had screamed of pain and death as she clawed her way through huge piles of shattered concrete and twisted metal. Flames burned away her white gloves, but still she used her enhanced strength to push everything that stood between her and her goal aside.
When she finally reached the center of the wreckage, she froze in horror. There incased in fading and dying lights were her friends and family. Their star seeds hovered above their bodies as if waiting for some command. She ran to them hoping at least that her skills and power might return those powerful crystals back to their owners. This proved to be a mistake. As if in reaction to her presence inside the circle of bodies, the Silver and Golden Crystals appeared in front of her.
As she watched, stricken and unable to move, the star seeds one by one surrendered their light to the two crystals and then disappeared. Then after the light of each individual star seed had vanished, the crystals merged in a blinding flash of light and heat. She screamed a denial of this betrayal. The fates only laughed at the young woman as that terrible meta-crystal reached out to merge with her. Her hands involuntarily reached up to meet it, and it cut circles into her palms as her hands forced it in to her chest. Then all she knew was pain as the darkness conflicted with the new overwhelming source of light inside her. When it was over, she fell to the ground sobbing.
At last, as her sobs quieted, all Eternal Sailor Saturn could do was stare at her hands. She knew what she would see if she looked beyond them. Usagi with her arms around Mamoru in one last embrace, and the Senshi and Generals all around them trying to shield them from the blast. Knowing that she did not look up, but down at her hands. In her heart, Hotaru Tomoe died. Nothing was left except the person created by the power forced within her. Rhea, Eternal Senshi of Saturn, did not move for a very long time.
The police had found Rhea de-transformed among the wreckage of the building and took her to the hospital. There she had been placed under the care of Doctor Mizuno, Ami-chan's mother, who knew her well. Rhea had interned under Dr. Mizuno after medical school.
"Hotaru-chan, please tell me what happened. How did you survive that blast without a scratch?"
"I wasn't in the blast, Mizuno-sensei."
"I don't understand," responded the older woman.
"I wasn't in the blast. I climbed through the debris afterward."
"Were you looking for something?"
"Yes."
"For Kami's sake, Hotaru-chan, what the hell did you think you would find in there?" Dr. Mizuno was both frustrated and frightened by the fact that her young friend was simply not responding. The girl sat there as listless as an automaton. "Hotaru, you have to tell me!" Rhea continued to look up at her with a blank gaze that abruptly shifted for a moment to sympathy.
As Dr. Mizuno was about to lose patience, a young nurse flung the door to the examining room wide open. Before any harsh rebuke could be directed at her, the young woman launched into a tirade of words.
"Dr. Mizuno, gomen, demo you have to come quickly. You have to hear what they are saying on television about the explosion!"
Hearing the urgency in the nurse's voice, the doctor rushed out to the lobby with the nurse on her heels. Rhea followed her out to see the announcement she knew was coming.
"…and according to our sources, at least thirty or more of the bodies found in the wreckage of the apartment building have been identified," said the television reporter. "They have been indentified as Chiba Mamoru, Chiba Usagi, Mizuno Ami, Mizuno Zoi, Hino Rei…"
The list of names continued to drone on in a terrible litany of names, but the doctor didn't need to know anymore. If she had wanted to she could have finished that list herself. Her Ami-chan and Hotaru-chan were part of a very close knit group of people and if any of the others had survived they would have been at the hospital with Hotaru. The scream of sheer horror and cold sorrow welled up in her chest, and she found is could not hold it in.
"Why?" she screamed. "Why are they all dead? My baby girl, her husband, all their friends. Why?" She turned to she Rhea standing there with tears streaming down her cheeks as well.
"It was my fault," Rhea whispered through her tears. "They were in my apartment for a birthday party or something when it exploded." Suddenly, Rhea was shrieking out her pain and betrayal as well, "I couldn't save them! Kami-sama, why couldn't I save them?"
Dr. Mizuno went to the girl and held her in her arms as they both sank to the floor in the cold, and unfeeling hospital lobby. Under her breath, Rhea chanted a litany of names that seemed never to end. It was many long minutes indeed before they both separated.