I love how you all in the reviews are more concerned about Nagisa, who is most indeed dead and will not be coming back, than about Mami, who for all you know could be walking straight to her death again.
Chapter 7: Rebirth
Mami had briefly considered trying to contact Kyoko and Homura, but decided against it. By the time they got here, the Grief Seed would have likely already hatched. Sure enough, once they were back at the hospital, the witch's egg was nowhere to be found. "Where was it, Kyubey?"
"Underneath that windowsill on the fourth floor. Unless another magical girl got to it first, it looks like we're too late."
"Well, we can't just let a witch open up a labyrinth inside a hospital!" Sayaka protested. "What about all of those helpless people who could be absorbed inside?"
"It's alright, Miki-san," Mami assured her blue-haired trainee. "The labyrinth forms before the witch hatches, and without a witch to control it, a labyrinth can't move around. For all we know, the witch hasn't hatched yet, and its Grief Seed has just moved inside of the labyrinth. Fortunately, there's an easy way to check." Tapping her ring, her Soul Gem expanded to full size. Swiping it in the direction of the window, it gave off an amber glow as it reacted to the labyrinth. "Here we are!"
An orange-and-black hole about the size of an average teenage girl opened in front of them. "It's almost like it's inviting us in," Sayaka noted. Then she stopped. "Hold on a second. How come we weren't pulled in like we were last night?"
"Good question," Kyubey said, picking up where Mami left off. "It's good that you want to know more about your enemy. Sometimes magical girls will stumble into a witch's labyrinth without warning. It doesn't usually happen since I can sense the Grief Seed, but last night's excitement created an exception."
"What do you think, Kyubey?" Mami asked. "Should we try to finish it off now, or wait for reinforcements?"
"It's likely the witch is still in the Grief Seed stage, so you and Sayaka would definitely be able to dispose of it now as long as you don't use any sudden bursts of magic that could trigger the transformation early. In other words, either transform now or wait until you're sure you have a clear shot inside the labyrinth."
"Nobody else is around. I don't see any harm in transforming now," Mami shrugged. "Let's go, Miki-san!"
In a flash of blue and gold light, their magical girl ensembles appeared. Stepping through the portal, Mami felt the same shudder that never went away, no matter how many witches she fought. They were inside another world, one that humans didn't belong in. The labyrinth had an almost depressing feeling of loneliness, full of syringes and other medical equipment. She didn't express it out loud for the sake of providing a mentor figure for Sayaka, but she hated the more urban-looking labyrinths like this one. They gave the witches a much more human feel.
"Familiar at three-o-clock!" Sayaka whispered. Mami whipped her head around, to see a nurse-like figure walking away from their direction.
"Relax, Miki-san. These familiars don't seem to pose a threat. It would still be best to not provoke them, though."
Walking forward, they entered a dimmer room containing a narrow bridge over a gaping chasm. "The witch is farther in, but this room feels unstable. We should keep moving before we lose the trail," Kyubey advised.
No sooner had Mami and Sayaka stepped onto the bridge, however, did a jet of flame rip past them before disintegrating on the far side of the room.
A few minutes prior
"So what now?" Minako said. "Do we just head back to the hotel room and pretend we didn't just watch a ten-year-old girl give off serious youma vibes and then explode?"
"Of course not, I just don't know what else we can do!" Rei snapped. "No credible police officer would believe a story like what we saw."
Her breathing starting to slow, Rei tried to clear the thoughts running circles in her head. Think! How can we check to verify what we saw without raising anyone's suspicions? She forced herself to remember the moments immediately after the white-haired girl had vanished. "Oh! The window in the room broke from the force of the blast! We can check from outside to see if she might have..." The idea trailed off. It was a forty-foot drop, the flower beds surrounding the hospital wouldn't do much to soften the landing of a ten-year-old girl.
"It's worth a shot," Minako murmured. "The room was on the west side of the building, right?"
Walking slowly, Rei took a deep breath as they reached the street corner. "It's awfully quiet. There would be more of a fuss if someone had jumped, right?"
"Shh!" Minako whispered. "Do you hear that?"
Rei crouched down, picking up another girl's voice. "Should we...finish it off...wait for reinforcements?" A pause. "Nobody else...transform now. Let's go!"
Minako was now mouthing several very unladylike words. "That's not one of ours!" she hissed, blue eyes a mix between panic and anger. "Sounds like there are only two of them, and there are two of us. This could be our best shot."
Normally Rei would have objected, but she still wanted revenge for their humiliation the night before. And for Usagi. She nodded, determination welling up inside of her. Peering around the corner, the raven-haired girl gestured to Minako that it was safe to transform.
"Mars Crystal Power, Make Up!"
"Venus Crystal Power, Make Up!"
Walking back-to-back in case of another ambush, they came to a gaping orange-and-black hole that seemed to be hovering in midair... right beneath the broken window. "This is it!" Minako said. "Those two could have had something to do with it!"
"We don't know that for sure," Rei warned. "Maybe they're trying to stop it, just like we are."
"Either way, after last night, they don't seem like the types to just try talking things out."
"No use in just standing here and debating their morals," Rei countered. "Let's go."
Almost immediately after entering the portal, the two magical girls were regretting it. The bizarre room was like something out of Rei's childhood nightmares. "I really don't like this."
"Too late to turn back now," Minako said. Rei whipped around, only to see that the entrance was now gone. "Looks like we caught the last bus in. Either that, or this place is designed to trap its victims."
It was easy to see why Minako viewed this place as a living thing. Everything about its atmosphere made it abundantly clear that one wrong step would send the girls to their deaths, and it would be without mercy. Impaled on a syringe? Crushed under an IV stand? Or maybe strapped down under a big bright light and cut open? Anything is possible in the witch's hospital!
Rei stiffened at the malevolent, childlike voices whispering in her ear. "We should keep moving." A witch's hospital. Yes, it was fitting.
At one point, a creature that could have passed for a child's drawing of a nurse stumbled across their path, but it paid them no mind. "It's almost like it's looking for something," Minako noted. "But what else would it be after other than intruders?" Neither girl decided to question it though, figuring it had been a lucky break.
As they approached the entrance to the next room, Rei heard the same voice from outside. "They're just through here!" she whispered. "If we want to catch them by surprise, now's the time!"
"Alright, but be sure to give them a fair warning first. I don't want to sink to their tactics of ambushes in the dark. We're not fighting in one of those old wars from history class."
"Okay." Pointing her finger towards the doorway, Rei allowed all of her anger concerning the events of the last 24 hours to transfer to her fingertip. "Fire Soul!" The resulting flame was easily one of the hottest she had ever produced, and it certainly alerted the other two girls to the presence of the onyx and blonde-haired girls.
"What on Earth do you think you're doing?" the curlier-haired one shouted angrily. "Are you trying to wake up the witch?"
"That blue-haired girl with her!" Minako muttered into Rei's ear. "She matches Mako-chan's description of the girl who attacked her!"
Sensing the best idea was to stall, Rei called out, "What are you talking about? We're here for you two, not some kind of witch."
"You've gotta be bluffing!" the blue girl snapped. "I just became a magical girl last night, and even I know what witches are!" She began to walk towards Rei and Minako.
The girl in the corset held her arm out to stop her. "No, Miki-san, this matches what that violinist said when I met her." Facing her adversaries, she narrowed her eyes said in a curious tone, "Who are you?"
"I'm Sailor Venus, and that's Sailor Mars," Minako responded.
"No, not whatever stage names you've made up for yourselves." Mami shook her head. "Your actual names. Maybe Kyubey has contracted at least one of you."
"There's no need for that, Mami," an unearthly voice echoed in Rei's mind. "I know exactly who you are, Rei Hino, Minako Aino. And neither of you are present on any contract record."
"Hold on a second!" Minako protested. "We didn't sign any kind of 'contract' when we became magical girls! We were born into our roles as Senshi, and awoken at the proper time!"
"So it's true then." Mami's voice had dropped so low Rei barely heard her. Then, louder, "You're a completely different type of magical girl."
"Does that make us your enemies, then?" Rei asked.
Mami shook her head. "I don't know."
A new tension suddenly crackled the air, and Rei felt the same energy she had felt back at the hospital. "Something's coming!"
"The witch is hatching!" the voice in their heads declared. The girl called Miki swore, and Mami summoned a quintet of rifles in a golden burst.
"You two, stand back!" she directed towards Rei and Minako. "You don't know what you're up against!" The two planet guardians tried to protest, but they began speeding down a hallway of doors too quickly for coherent words to form.
They were pulled into a room that looked like a cross between the Mad Tea Party and a candy factory. Stacks of sweets were piled haphazardly in random parts of the room. The walls seemed to be made of cake. And in the center of it all, a European-style teaset rested on a larger-than-life gingerbread table. What looked like a child's doll rested in the chair at its head. "That's the witch?" Miki scoffed. "It's not even a foot tall!"
"Yes, it does seem awfully docile..." Mami murmured. "Let's proceed with caution anyway. I remember one of my very first witches only attacked when you came within a certain distance of it. I'm glad I had my rifles, any magical girl that fought close-range wouldn't have stood a chance."
Rei was still lost, but she suggested, "I can summon a bow and arrow, and Venus has a whip. Would those be of any use? We may as well fight whatever this witch thing is together, otherwise none of us will get out of here."
Mami looked uncertain, but after sharing a glance with Miki, she gave a terse nod. "Okay. But only if I call for help." Throughout this whole exchange, the doll still hadn't moved. In fact, it wasn't giving any signs of sentience.
"I'll take it!" Miki declared, summoning a sword in a blue flash and jumping up. With a single slice, she toppled the doll from its candy throne, and it landed unceremoniously on the ground with a flop. The blue magical girl landed next to it, and growing a little braver, tossed it up into the air and summoned three more swords to impale it. Still no resistance. She began hacking away, not even needing the assistance of Mami.
"Careful, Miki-san!" Mami tried to warn, but Rei could tell it was even starting to seem silly to her. This "enemy" of theirs, if it could even be called that, was... well, pathetic.
"A couple more ought to finish it off!" Miki grinned. She raised her now-glowing sword over her head to deal the finishing blow, and it was barely even visible as she swung it down, just a quick arc of sapphire. "Gotcha!" she declared as the doll seemed to fold in on itself. However, the corpse began to bubble, just as horror began to dawn in Mami's golden eyes.
"Miki-san! Get back!" she cried. Miki was still looking down in shock at the remains of the witch, which had just swallowed her sword whole.
"M - Mami-san! What's happening?" she stammered. Then, in a quick swoop, an enormous black worm erupted from what by that point was less than a tattered scrap of fabric. Its body was covered in orange and blue spots, and its mouth was lined with razor-sharp fangs. It leered down at the four girls, mouth twisted in a horrid grin. Miki was rooted to the spot, eyes wide in terror as she stared into its gaping maw.
"SAYAKA!" Mami screamed, ripping the moment apart. Darting forward, Rei saw a brief golden blur shove the blue-haired magical girl out of the way, and Mami now stood in her place, arms still spread out as though to shield her companions as the monster's fangs closed around her neck.
The portal had appeared shortly after the cat left. Usagi hadn't noticed it at first, until she heard the wonderful sound of Rei and Minako's voices. Whipping around, she had found an oval, about five and a half feet tall, and inside of it an image of her friends (now as Sailors Mars and Venus) running down a deserted street. It's almost like watching one of those movies that's been made about us. Of course, it was obvious enough that this was real.
The "camera" followed them on its own, so all Usagi had to do was watch. She unconsciously held her breath as they entered the strange hospital-like realm, and listened intently as they confronted the two enemy magical girls. except, Usagi was having a much harder time viewing these two new ones as enemies. They weren't acting nearly as hostile as the red one from the night before had.
It wasn't until the unlikely group was pulled into the cake room did a strange sense of dread begin to well up inside the bun-headed girl. "Um, Mr. Cat?" she shakily called out.
It appeared within an instant. "I'm here, Usagi Tsukino. And for further reference, my name is Kyubey."
"Alright then," Usagi said. "What's that weird thing they're fighting?"
"That would be a witch. This one has a certain element to it most do not, though."
That did absolutely nothing to make Usagi feel better. "What kind of element?"
"A witch born of the despair of two is bound to be unique. They can still be fought off by magical girls of sufficient skill, but they often appear to be of the normal variety, causing many of them to be underestimated."
Usagi's eyes were locked onto the portal now. "Do any of them know that?"
"No. Although knowing Mami, I'm sure she's beginning to suspect something is wrong. I can sense this witch has a particular tendency of attacking, though. Were one of them to trigger it, it would be safe to say there wouldn't be much left of any of them."
Usagi's eyes widened as she realized the position she was being placed in (for she had no doubt that this Kyubey was giving her all of this information on purpose). "Kyubey. What if I agreed to your contract? Could I save them?"
"Easily! That witch wouldn't even qualify as an insect next to your potential!"
Usagi looked into the portal one more time, and had to stifle a scream. The tiny pink doll was gone, replaced by a massive black worm with a demonic grin. It loomed over a teenage girl with curly blonde hair, while Rei and Minako stood frozen in horror behind her. Usagi had no doubt they would be next.
"Alright, you win!" Usagi cried. "My wish is to keep fighting on as a magical girl, no matter what form I may have to take to do so!"
"Interesting wording. And it seems the creation of a Soul Gem won't even be required due to your circumstances." In a bright flash, the Legendary Silver Crystal appeared in Usagi's hands. A white light enveloped her, and an incredible amount of power filled her, power she was usually only able to channel when she used the Crystal in its purest form. "Now, go."
Turning around, Usagi leaped through the portal without a second thought, just as the blonde girl was about to be swallowed whole. Thrusting out her hand, she summoned a slender white staff as tall as she was, topped with a winged white sphere. The room fell dark for a split second, then a wave of pure light the color of freshly fallen snow burst from the tip of the weapon. To say the witch didn't see it coming would have been an understatement. It was so focused on its prey it never even looked up. Usagi kept the attack going for as long as she felt it was safe, then let the beam die as the labyrinth faded around them.
The blonde girl was kneeling on the pavement, staring straight ahead. The blue-haired girl, who had already transformed back into civilian clothes, cautiously crept over to her. "Mami-san? The witch is dead."
Mami looked up at her, eyes still blank. "Oh. Yes." Plucking a flower-shaped hairpin from her head, she shrunk it into a ring. Her magical girl outfit was replaced by a pale green tank top, brown shorts, and brown leggings. Then she doubled over in heaving sobs. "I could feel its teeth! They were around my throat!" she gasped through her hysterical tears. Sure enough, Usagi could see several angry red marks driven into various parts of the crying girl's neck and throat. If she had been only one or two seconds late, the girl would have been decapitated. Her partner rushed to her side and began trying to calm her down.
Now Rei and Minako looked up. "Usagi?" Rei shakily asked. The bun-headed girl nodded.
"What are you doing here? Awake, I mean?" Minako said. "And... what are you wearing?"
Now Usagi was starting to feel confused. "What do you mean? Aren't I wearing my Eternal Sailor Moon fuku?" A warm breeze blew through the alley, and her silver hair fluttered out in front of her. Wait. Silver?
Rushing to the window of the nearest abandoned hospital room, Usagi stared in half-fascination, half-horror at what she had transformed into. Because she knew this outfit. She had only seen it once, inside the Galaxy Cauldron months ago, but the memory would never leave her.
The main part of the fuku was similar enough to her very first one, except the shoulder pads were gold and the skirt white. The same hairpins that had always decorated her hair were still there, although her odango covers were now white as well. From the snow-colored collar of the leotard extended a flowing white cape that fell all the way to her feet, cut to look like wings. Pearls decorated her ears and fingers (her gloves were gone), and an ivory choker adorned with a gold six-pointed star encircled her throat. The knee-high boots that had always accompanied her various outfits had vanished, replaced by white heels that had decorative wings fluttering at each ankle. Finally, at her waist was a smaller version of the winged globe that topped her staff, flowing from it a rainbow panel of fabric decorating the front of her skirt with the colors of her Senshi. The only difference between the memory and now was her brooch - instead of a Star Seed that shimmered between silver and gold based on which way you looked at it, the Legendary Silver Crystal now rested on her breast, a crystalline flower. Combined with the silver hair, there was no mistaking who she had become. "Sailor... Cosmos?"
Minako wasn't quite sure what had happened to Usagi during the half hour or so they had been gone (or why she now looked like a hybrid between Sailor Moon and Neo-Queen Serenity), but as she was about to start asking more questions, something else caught her eye. "Rei-chan? Did you detransform inside the labyrinth?"
Rei was once again wearing the red and white t-shirt and blue skinny jeans she had been wearing in the hospital. "No... did you?"
Minako looked down. Her Sailor Venus outfit was gone, replaced by her sunset orange t-shirt and denim shorts patterned with flowers. "No. In fact, nothing should have triggered the detransformation either, unless -" A sharp pain in her chest cut her off. She heard Rei let out a cry of pain beside her. Orange and red lights began to shine from where their brooches would have been were they in Senshi attire.
Inside Setsuna and Hotaru's hotel room, Ami and Setsuna were comparing their observations regarding the Legendary Silver Crystal's strange behavior. Both were transformed as protection against the power it was radiating, even from inside its miniature force field. Ami's goggles had finally picked up the now multiple cracks spiderwebbing across its surface earlier that morning, and they were discussing possible causes when it suddenly disappeared in a flash. Then, their transformations failed. As Ami was about to ask what had happened, the same pain and glow overtook them.
Makoto was in the large bathroom that connected the suite she and Ami shared with Rei and Minako's room, listening to a baking show on TV as Hotaru helped her change the bandages on her leg (not a task one would normally delegate to a twelve-year-old, but then again, Hotaru was not like most twelve-year-olds). "Are you sure that being reborn caused you to lose those weird healing powers you used to have?" Makoto was asking her. "Because I have enough of a delinquent reputation at school as it is. The last thing I need is a huge scar on one of my legs poking out from under my unifo-" It hit her before it hit Hotaru. In her case, the feeling roughly equivalent to someone trying to rip out her heart was enough to knock her out. Hotaru tried to ask what was wrong, only to be cut off by the sight of what had burst from Makoto's chest, followed by a similar light from her own.
Haruka and Michiru were entering the hotel's penthouse suite, just back from the hospital. Breaking away from Michiru's halfhearted embrace before it could become a kiss, Haruka muttered something about finding the room service menu. Michiru slipped off her pale pink ballet flats and settled down on the couch, knowing it would be best to let her partner be alone for a few minutes. After a minute or so, the heavy silence was broken by a pained grunt from Haruka, and a blue light shining from the bedroom. The violinist rushed in, looking around to see what was wrong, when she was brought down by the same light that had overtaken the others. Her hand searched for Haruka's - and found it - before unconsciousness claimed them both.
Back in the alleyway, Usagi knelt by Rei's side, watching in fright as a scarlet glass ball the size of her palm rose out of her friend's chest. Inside, spinning in a circle, was unmistakably the Mars Crystal. The same had happened to Minako, who was holding up her dark orange orb to the setting sun, inspecting it like a judge inspecting a murderer. Naturally, Kyubey chose this exact moment to appear.
The other two magical girls had been watching the events unfold before them with confusion until now, but the older girl was the first to ask the question that was on the tip of Usagi's tongue as well. "Kyubey... what's happening here?"
The white creature lowered its head, flicking its tail. "It looks like I was right about your contract being interesting, Usagi Tsukino. This has most certainly never happened before. It seems I have a bit of explaining to do."
