Sailor Moon V: The Star Dreamers

Prologue

Chapter 2: Nightmare Sonata

I'm sorry. I'm not very good at writing. My talent has always been music. The piano. A few moment at the keys, and I could show you the full scope of the horrors that were burned into my memory that night. But, Akiyo says we must write letters, instead. So I will try.

Our family's protectorate was the Waking Plains. My mother, Senshi Nyami, was stern and demanding. She worked hard every day, pushing, driving her people to success, never asking more from them than she asked of herself. From her people, she wanted success, and she acheived it. From her daughter, though, her heiress... She wanted nothing less than absolute perfection.

I'm sad to say, I could not be the daughter she wanted.

By the time I was thirteen, both my mother and I knew that in her eyes, I was sorely lacking in what was needed to ensure Empress Somnea's safety, and lead our protectorate. I was no swordswoman, no archer... I was at home behind a keyboard, not the vanguard of a charging army. I found more solace wrapped in my music, than crouching behind a shieldwall. My mother saw this, knew this, and her rage was terrible. In tones of deepest disgust, she told me that my brother would be the one to take the mantle of Guardian, that I could keep to my music and rot in all the langour I desired.

But, she was my mother, and for that alone, I loved her.

On the day that my brother was to assume his duties, I was there. I watched, as my proud, proud mother relinquished the power that had given her dominion over the vast plains of our home without a word. I watched as she laid all her authority at the feet of her youngest child, a man barely out of his teens. The intricate, golden Serpent Band, our family's ancestral talisman, laid at my brother's feet, waiting only for the brave knight to take it up.

And then, the wonder was lost. Senshi Hakomo cried out, calling to defend against some terrible danger. But even as the guardsmen scrabled to respond, the doors of Empress Somnea's hall were sundered, and a tide of monsters more terrible than any created by the Nightmare Horde came flooding in. My brother... My valiant brother, cut down by a bolt of light before he could even join the battle... My mother, dragged away, shrieking, struggling... I saw them do these things, as I saw them slaughter countless more for the sheer joy of the kill.

I saw these things, because I had hid beneath a table in the corner.

Time became fractured, memory leaping from one moment to another like light dancing over the falling shards of a broken mirror. I had no clear memory of the battle, only a confused din of swords, claws, screams, and the thick stench of blood, natural and unnatural.

I do remember jerking as something cold and metallic touched my hand. I drew back, fearful that I had been discovered, and trembled as the chill metal flowed up my arm in a sinuous river, as of enchanted water. It would around my arm, and grew still, and then I knew. Then I knew...

The Serpent Band.

It had chosen me.

With that knowledge came the flood. Information, spells, memories, all of it crashed into my mind, filling me with a power beyond anything I had ever known before. All the magic that centuries of my ancestors had given form, given life, was in my hands, for me alone.

I could throw the entire Hall into darkness so complete it could almost be touched.

I could weave illusions as real as life itself.

I could summon a shield that would repel any attack at all.

All these things I did.

But I could not stop them.

They were simply too many.

My illusions were torn through, the claws of the monsters determining reality for them. The blackness was little solace, for they pressed closer, and struck out blindly, not caring whose blood they spilled. And my shield did little more than tell them what they needed to know, where their target was... And I could not hold it forever. There was simply no escape. I was captured, bound, and carried off.

Perhaps I could have resisted, sacrificed all our lives to avoid living in servitude to my enemies. I think mother would have liked that, found peace in that thought. But, I am not my mother. I am a coward, and I would do anything to save her life. I suppose I already have...

My name is Tsuchi Kamaharu. I could have been Senshi Nightshade, guardian of the night, keeper of the lost.

But I have failed.

Now, I am the dark Senshi of Fear.