Author's Note: Ahh — thank you everyone so much for your kind reviews! I have honestly loved writing this story so much and your involvement with it is something I so dearly appreciate. Big hugs to everyone out there who makes me feel seen!

Usagi

Right in front of me, his face morphed. It twisted and curved from the pale, young man I had met just a few days ago into a sad swath of white. As the color moved along his skin, I realized it was paint, or possibly, makeup. More colors bled into his pores, caking into the creases of his eyes and at the corners of his mouth, spreading inexplicably like watercolor on canvas.

His sharp features were only exemplified by it: The black highlighting his stark eyebrows, the red smeared on his cheeks. It looked smudged, as if he had run the back of his sleeve across his face to wipe something away. Rivers of flesh were carved out from the white. A trail of tears. A sad clown. If he knew me—if he knew my power—that could only mean…

"You're from the Black Moon Circus." It was not a question. A sickly smile cracked on his face.

"Precisely."

Smoke roared around us and suddenly it felt like I was falling. His hands pressed into my arms and I grabbed his in return. Cold and bony, Pitre went rigid against me, digging his nails into my flesh. Wind whipped across my face as we shot down, almost as if we were being pulled from a tube.

"But how?" I said, my voice straining against the harsh sound. Pitre didn't say anything, instead silently drilling his eyes into me like a magnifying glass in the sun. His hand came off my arm and clamped directly onto my brooch. As his nails dug into the corners, the fabric around it ripped and pulled, and tendrils of translucent ribbons began to form.

He was literally ripping my power away from me and I couldn't let him. As my hands clasped around his, the blistering cold from his body burned me, sending splintering shards of white on my now-exposed skin. When I recoiled, he howled with laughter.

"How does it feel, Sailor Moon?" he screeched. "How does it feel to be stripped of everything you love? Of everything that brings you joy in this world?"

I couldn't respond. My tongue was leaden, heavy and coated with the words I wanted to say, but locked in my jaw. If he wanted me to beg, I would beg. If he wanted me to cry, I would cry. No matter what, I had to keep my crystal because without it, he would win. But the further his nails dug, it was becoming clear to me that he was winning. Power drained from my core and the lasting vestiges of the crystal's magic clung to my nearly bare skin.

My arms locked and my hands cupped his, but it was too late. I heard a pop, then I felt a crack on the top of my sternum and then a powerful light blazed all around, blending in with the swirling smoke. The clouds shot by at an even faster rate. My hair violently whipped around me and the sound was so intense my ears throbbed in pain.

He pushed away, thrusting me back outside of the tunnel of grey formed around me. Ribbons danced and fluttered, and as I looked down, the regular clothes I was wearing told me what I already knew. Clutched in his hand was my brooch, still glowing with my power, and the light of it reflected in his eyes.

Below me was the cold, hard ground. It wasn't flat, it was a protruding stone surface that was covered in soot and dirt. Barely any light broke through the room, the only glow was from the wall opposite of me, and it was obscured by the swirling of smoke. When it finally dissipated, it revealed a wall of metal bars and Pitre on the other side. His face had returned to normal, but he was still hauntingly pale. Aside from the bars, everything in the room was made of grey stones stacked meticulously on top of one another. The sound of trickling water came from the back corner and the smell of mold stuck to the stuffy air.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"My dungeon," Pitre grinned.

"If you want to kill me, just do it," I said. "Why make me wait?"

The expression on his face shifted. It turned from passive amusement to something more sinister. He lifted a single finger and ran it down one of the bars, pausing halfway and pressing into it hard until his fingertip was completely white.

"Do you know where Lemures come from?"

Lemures were what the Dead Moon Circus called their monsters. They were the daemons sent to steal mirrors from the souls of good hearted people. If he was a clown, that meant he must've been a Lemure at some point. And if his mother was a clown, she must've been a Lemure, too. When the Black Moon Circus folded, they were destroyed with it.

All this time, I had assumed the monsters conjured by my enemies were spiritless, that they hijacked the bodies of others or took on the form of the thing they possessed. Never did I dream they were living, breathing, sentient people who could feel love and pain.

"No," I said breathlessly.

"Lemures were members of Nehelenia's court. All of us were enslaved by her when she took our mirrors, mine included." He gripped the bar in his entire palm. "I was just a baby when she decided to take mine and my mother's, and after that we became clowns in her circus. I never knew my father, but I doubt it would've made much of a difference."

His face turned cold.

"I, of course, didn't know any of this until I found Nehelenia in the River of Souls, after Galaxia controlled her in a failed attempt to kill you."

My heart sank. Pitre had said he met many in the River who knew me, and I foolishly assumed the people he met were good people. But how could he have met anyone in the River that knew of my good deeds? Everyone I had sent there was undeniably bad.

Or maybe—maybe—not all of them. Not at first, at least.

"When I destroyed the circus, you died too," my voice cracked. "You and your mother, you both—"

"My mother died long before that." There was a mournfulness in his voice. "She died when Fish Eye took her and made her into a monster."

Fish Eye. It had been years since I heard that name.

"Pitre." Slowly, I stood up and walked toward the bars. As I inched forward, he did not move. He just looked at me with a seething bitterness. "I didn't know—"

"No one ever took issue with killing us," he sneered. "Not you, not Nehelenia, not the Amazon Trio or Quartet. We were just pawns always being used. But now you're my pawn, Usagi. You are going to do my bidding. You ask why I haven't killed you? Because before I torture you like they did to my mother, I want to use your power and make this universe mine."

I shook my head. "What?"

"You will all become my Lemures," he chuckled. "And I will make you suffer the way I have suffered."

"No, please, Pitre—"

"You don't have much of a choice in the matter." His villainous smile returned. "Once I capture the rest of your foolish friends, I'll kill them one by one and make you watch. I am going to break your body and soul."

He wrapped his hands around the bar suddenly and shoved his face toward me. I sprung back. His cheeks were pressed against the metal, his eyes wide and wild. He let out raucous laughter that slapped against the stone.

"Who should I kill first? There's the obvious choice—your pathetic boyfriend—but then again, I'd love to slit the throat of the bitch who hit me with her lightning."

He shoved off from the bars and rolled on the back of his heels. His movements were so erratic and crazy, like he had a twitch inside him that forced his muscles to contract and move quickly from side to side. If his strangely amused expression wasn't enough to send a chill through your bones, the chaotic way he carried himself was.

He shuffled backward and pressed his back against the opposite wall, tilting his head as he examined me in my cell. Unlike him, I was firm as cement.

"It's time I bid you adieu, Usagi," Pitre sighed. "I'm sure my hellhounds have made quick work of your friends by now. But don't worry, I've instructed them to keep all of them alive. I wouldn't want you to miss the show."

He sunk back into the wall and evaporated against the stone. My hands gripped the bars so tightly my knuckles turned white and my stomach turned over and over again.

"No," I cried quietly. "No, no, no."

I shook the bars and, unsurprisingly, they remained solid. Impenetrable. Unmoving.

"No," I was louder now, desperate. "No! Pitre! No!"

I let out a ragged breath before bringing one of my hands to my chest. Without my crystal, without my power, this fight was already lost. My lungs felt like ice and my vision began to blur, a grey wave pulsating against my periphery before completely enveloping my eyes. Everything went wide and then narrow again before I lost it all completely. Blackness surrounded me, and I let myself tumble into the dark.

All around me was a sea of nothing.

Above, a single spotlight flickered overhead. A sweet, sugary smell wafted through the air and when I finally managed to bob my head up off the floor, I realized I was lying down. There was nothing surrounding me in the void, just deadly silence and stillness. Was this one of Pitre's tricks?

Pitre.

Despite his cruelty, I felt sorry for him. Dimande had told me in Pitre's castle that no one person was all good and all evil, and I doubted him at first but now it was all so clear to me. Pitre was born of a circumstance that I could not even fathom. All he wanted in his life was to find a place he truly belonged but he was stunted by the shackles of fate.

I wished he understood that I had no intention of killing him. I had no intention of killing anyone, really. From the first monsters I met so many years ago, I wanted to heal them so that they might experience the wonderment of life. But there are casualties on every side. Life is not so black and white.

If I had known then that the monsters we faced were human, would I have stopped? Would I have questioned every single battle? Or would I have put my doubts aside to cast evil out of the world?

Even though I knew I was right—even though I knew the end justified the means—I still felt a little ashamed, because if I had just remembered who I was and my purpose, I never would've fallen for Dimande. I would've stood up to Pitre and saw him for what he truly was. He would've never gotten me to agree to this, and maybe, just maybe, he would still be floating in the River on his way to Hell.

And maybe if the world was free of evil like that of Nehelenia, then maybe Pitre—and Dimande, too—would've been spared a life crippled by pain and loss. But the world is not free of evil and I was the one anointed with driving it out. Pitre suffered not at my hands, but at the hands of the people who came before him.

Blaming me for his misfortunes was wrong and there was no way to make him truly understand that. I had forgotten my mission, yes, but there was still a chance to make it right. Unlike him, I would not let the bitterness of my misfortune make me cave to evilness or defeat. If I found myself again there was a chance I could make everything right.

From the shadows, the sounds of boots clicked along the floor, sending an echo. Despite the fear Pitre had throttled me with, for some inexplicable reason, I knew whoever was coming would not hurt me. Call it a sixth sense, but the presence coming toward me was not malevolence or vengeful, it was calm and serene.

First, the boot came into the light. Then, long, lean legs followed by the flow of a skirt I recognized all too well. Was this an out of body experience or was this real? Only when her face came into view did I realize this was neither real or a dream-it was something spiritual, something otherworldly.

"You seem to have lost your way, Usagi," her voice was smooth as polished stone.

I nodded my head in disbelief. Standing in front of me was...me. It was Sailor Moon. I looked down and saw my brooch was still gone, and upon further inspection, it dawned on me that this Sailor Moon was much younger than me. A ghost of my past.

"I did," I said somberly, slowly rising to meet her gaze. There was something eerie about looking into your own eyes.

"Pitre has the crystal now," she said. "What are you going to do?"

I shook my head. "I'm...I'm not sure."

Her shoulders fell and her gaze swept the floor. Was it disappointment in her eyes?

"He won't win," she sounded confident. Silence pierced through the black.

"How do you know?" I said, more desperately than I wanted to.

"Because I know you," she smiled. "And I know you won't give up on your friends."

Little did she know, I already had. So much of my anger centered around the desire to feel seen. It was kind of funny at that moment: Wasn't that exactly what Pitre was trying to do?

At the center of my life had been my friends, Mamoru and my duty as Sailor Moon, and when the latter began its natural end, I decided to cast it all out. Everyone else had found purpose in their new lives, found joy in the obstacles of both past and present. As much as I told myself it was everyone else's problem for leaving me behind, truly what effort had I made to find something that was all my own?

Yes, Mamoru should've shown me love when I needed it most. Yes, my friends should've answered their phones and made time for me in their busy lives. But I relied entirely all too much on other people for what should've been a spring already flowing through me. Life was simpler as Sailor Moon because I had a mission. What was Usagi's mission? I hadn't even tried to figure it out.

I was laser focused on marriage, like being with Mamoru forever was going to feed my soul so heartily. And maybe it would. But shouldn't I know how to nourish myself? Because he wasn't always going to be there to protect me. There were going to be days like this where it was just me and the cold stone, desperately alone and scared, trying to find the strength to fight a battle I was unsure I could win.

Our relationship should've given me the power to live a life beyond just us, to know he was in my corner and that his presence did not consume me but amplified all of the great things about me. I lost myself in him. I lost myself in us. Running into the arms of Dimande was a solution with the same symptoms: I was throwing myself into his world, revolving my story around his will.

To be truly happy, I had to marry my identities together and rely on myself as an anchor. Usagi the Person was just as important as Sailor Moon the Savior, and if both could stand on their own two feet and find purpose in the life laid out before them, they would be unstoppable.

Looking at Sailor Moon—her face so young and full of promise—I remembered what made that time in my life so special. Being Sailor Moon gave me a sense of ownership. Being Sailor Moon made me desire being myself, as if the things about me were beautiful and unique and meaningful.

How had I forgotten that she and I are the same person? That I am all of those things, too? Had I lost such faith in my character to think I wasn't worthy of the things my friends were fighting to find: Ambitions? Dreams? Love? My heart cracked in two. Mamoru and my friends had not been the source of my greatest heartache, I had.

Pitre had been burned, so he turned away from a chance to accept peace in the River. He was vengeful and heartless, bitter and sad. His loneliness culminated in the desire to destroy the world around him and watch it burn. I wasn't going to let the same happen to me. I had to find my strength. I had to push through.

"Are you ashamed of me?" I asked. Her eyes danced in light and a small smile formed across her face.

"No," she said.

"Even if I've made such a huge mistake?"

"You lost yourself in sadness," she said softly. "It's nothing a little light can't fix."

I shook my head. "I don't know where to find any."

"Yes you do." Her voice was kind. "The light has been inside you all along."

Her skin began to glow. Almost microscopic puffs of light rolled off her skin, clotting in the air around her and letting off a white aura. It shone so bright the features on her face were no longer visible. Then, suddenly, the black warped. I closed my eyes, preparing for some sort of force to pull me from wherever I was, but instead felt cold against my cheek.

When I opened my eyes I was back in Pitre's cell. At the center of my chest, I could feel the heat rising, and even though my brooch was still not at my sternum, I knew the power of the crystal was burning in my heart.