Disclaimer: All characters and locations belong to their respective owners.

12.
closer/DISTANCE

A voice rang throughout the air like vibrations from a tuning fork. "MAMI! HEY, MAMI!"

Golden irises snapped open in shock. Madoka?

"Mami!"

(School is about to start. Students and teachers are walking up the steps to the building, prepared for the day. Suitcases and backpacks stuffed with textbooks, notebooks, writing utensils. Uniforms clean, uniforms bearing the stench of sweat and cologne and perfume.

(Autumn's coming. She tastes it in the breeze—crisp, smoky, underlying frost. The tree bark rough and uncomfortable against the small of her back. Birdsong lost in an incoherent jumble of conversation, sounds. Palms slick on the suitcase's steel handle.

(School is about to start, and Madoka is running late.

(Where could she be? What could be keeping her? Maybe she overslept. Perhaps she's unwell and recuperating in bed. Personal matters, then? Very unlikely, but possible.

(And then, a cry, sweet and saccharine like honey: "Mami!"

(She looks from her watch, and there is Madoka standing in a crowd that weaves past her like ants maneuvering around an obstacle in their path. Madoka, who is small in stature and unassuming, but in her eyes the latter is a bright splotch of paint, a color that can't be put into words or artistic value, a color that outshines all as the sun that blinds any who dare gaze upon it.

(Madoka, her first real friend as far back as she can remember.

(Madoka, a younger girl whose eyes are aglow with awe and affection when their gazes meet.

(Madoka, a person she can call...sister.

(Her heart skips a beat, skin beneath her cheeks reddening. She hopes the feeling's mutual….

(Madoka slows to a stop and bows, low and deep. "Good morning, Mami!"

(She smiles. The world around her loses focus, fades into nonexistence, until it's just the two of them. Senpai and kouhai. "Good morning, Madoka."

(…She hopes it will last forever.)

"Mami~" the voice sang. The sound of snapping fingers resonated like a crack from a whip. "Wake up, Mami! Earth to Mami! Do you copy?"

"Madoka?" She tore her view from the sky and onto the person before her. It was a girl, but it was not Madoka. This one was taller, older, with long flaxen hair and azure irises.

The girl blinked. "Madoka?" she repeated curiously. "My name's Minako. Aino Minako, the one and only! You remember me, don't you, Mami?" She beamed a wide, toothy grin. "We met at the Crown Arcade. I was trying out that new game there, Puella…something…Zero's Return or whatever. I think it had to do with Rockman."

"…Oh," was all Mami could say. Her shoulders slumped visibly, lips pursed together in a tight lock. "Yes, I remember you, Minako. You caused a scene with your swearing at the cabinet."

Minako laughed and sheepishly rubbed the back of her head. "Oh, that? It was a spur of the moment, a slip of the tongue! I'm not usually like that. I am, in fact, quite a cordial specimen, hahaha!" She put on the air of a haughty noble and laughed even more, one hand poised daintily under her chin.

Mami didn't join in, nor did the bland expression on her face change.

Minako stopped and dropped the act, humbled and more than a little embarrassed. Then her face brightened, as if a light switch had gone off in her head. "Hey, at least you know who I am! I'd be pretty upset if you didn't! Haha, I'm joking, I'm joking; I wouldn't be if you hadn't!" She chortled as Mami's features broke and settled on bewilderment. "Gosh, you're so cute. You make me wanna pinch your cheeks!" Her hands reached out and Mami took a step back.

"Go easy on the poor girl, Mina!" A second voice hailed; Mami glanced over Minako's shoulder and saw two more girls—a brunette and a blue-hair—approaching them. "You're giving her mixed signals!"

Minako stuck her tongue out the brunette. "All the girls fight to be my best friend, Makoto! You I understand—" Because of the war the Senshi had waged on Queen Beryl and the Negaverse, but Mami didn't need to know that. "—but with Mami I want things to flow their natural way. We girls have to bond, you know? Shopping, ass-kicking, bickering, friendship is magic!"

Mami grimaced. "I'm afraid I must disagree with you, Minako. Friendship is not as…'magical'…as you believe it to be."

"What!" Mina exclaimed. "You can't be serious! Friendship is magical! It's the best thing a person can ever have!"

"It's nothing personal against any of you. It's just that…I've had a few…unpleasant experiences with peers my age."

"We know the feeling," said the blue-haired girl, offering Mami a commiserating look. "We've been bullied at one point during our school years because of who we are, but it didn't bother us for long. We ignored what people said about us because we knew their words were unfounded."

"Ami's right," said Makoto, who nodded appraisingly at her companion. "No matter what happens to you, you should always be yourself, Mami. Those kids will never who you really are unless they get to know you."

That made Mami smile. "Thank you for your kind words…but I dropped out of high school."

All three girls gasped.

"WHAT!" Minako cried.

"When did you drop out?" asked Makoto.

"Two years ago," answered Mami. "It was near of the end of the term."

"WHY?" Minako took Mami by the shoulders. "Did those ingrates force you? They did, didn't they? The spoiled, rotten bast—oww!"

"Relax, Mina," said Ami, who had her fingers twisted around the girl's ear. "Let Mami speak."

"It wasn't because of peer pressure or that I was bullied," said Mami, the smile still on her lips. "No, it was something else. I had…personal matters to attend to, some of which were urgent and of the utmost import. Those matters could not be avoided nor delayed."

"Wow," said Minako. "That must have been pretty bad."

"It's not our place to ask, Mina," Ami chided her. "Even if that were so, it's up to Mami whether or not she wants to tell us."

"I'm just saying, the way she puts it."

"What will you do now, Mami?" Makoto asked her junior. "You can enroll at Crossroads and finish where you left off."

"I have no plans to receive my education as of yet. There is much more of Azabu-Juuban I wish to explore. After that, well," she shrugged, "I'm not sure. Time is not my main concern."

"Then how will you support yourself? You can do so much with some high school education. There are a lot of opportunities to be had if you go back, graduate, and get a degree. Minimum wage isn't going to cut it."

"I will find something. You needn't worry, Makoto."

"I'm just concerned, is all. The economy may be picking up the slack, but that doesn't mean you're going to find a job right off the market. Competition's fierce."

"So I've heard. Ah, that reminds me, have any of you seen Rei? I tried calling her but haven't received an answer."

Minako raised an eyebrow. "Eh? You don't know? Rei's at school, at good ole Tokyo University I might add." She nodded proudly to herself, then looked questioningly at Ami. "Did I get that right?"

"Almost," Ami said. "She's attending Toyo University, but I understand how you can misinterpret two words with similar pronunciations. Both Toyo and Tokyo University are established in the same area."

"Yeah, in Bunkyo Ward," said Makoto. She looked past the skyline with a distant gleam in her eye. "I used to date this one guy who lived in Bunkyo. He reminded me of my old senpai…."

"Every dog and pony reminds you of your old senpai," Minako quipped with a huff. Makoto responded by yanking on a particularly long strand of the former's hair.

"Rei's been out since this morning," Ami told Mami, who were ignoring the pair's antics. "If I remember correctly, she should be getting out at—let me see what time it is…at four o'clock. I don't think Rei is partaking in any extracurricular activities, so if you take the train now you should get there just as she's leaving the building."

"Thank you. I assume Rei has been very busy, so I'm hoping my presence will assuage her before she can settle into working on her assignments." She turned her head aside, to which Ami caught the tell-tale blush forming on her cheeks. "Well, actually," she stammered, "I'm hoping she hasn't read the texts I've sent her. I did type I would meet her by the entrance at the end of the day. I want to surprise her."

Ami giggled. "I think Rei will appreciate the company. She places such a high standard on her goals, more so than is considered normal for a university student (well, not exactly, because I must admit that I, too, am one of those people!). As you have said, it would do Rei a great deal of good to put her mind at ease, even if it's only for a little while."

"Yes, I agree." Mami bowed. "I should get going before I miss the train. Thank you for your time, senpai."

"Likewise. You're welcome to visit us any time, Mami. I know quite a few places the other girls aren't aware of." Ami chuckled sheepishly and scratched a cheek. "Like where I used to go to cram school, the lobby in the Grand Hyatt Hotel, the quiet areas people go to when they want to study in Minato-ku."

"I'll be sure to ask you. Tell Makoto-senpai and Minako-senpai to take care." Mami turned and started walking.

Ami called behind the girls: "Makoto, Minako, Mami's leaving, so stop fighting for a moment and say goodbye to her."

Makoto and Minako ceased pulling at the other's face and, through clenched teeth, hailed, "'Bye Mami!" They resumed their squabble once their junior was out of sight.

Ami sighed and shook her head at the pair. "What did I do in my past life to deserve this?"

Rei glanced at the clock at the front of the classroom and almost groaned aloud. It was three-thirty and it had only been five minutes since she last checked the time. To make matters worse, she had been at school for the past seven hours, walking from class to class, writing notes and enduring her teachers' in-depth (if not long-winded) lectures. The individual at the forefront of the room—a wrinkled husk of a man filling in for the primary educator—was no exception.

Who was she kidding? School life was nothing like what was portrayed in manga and anime. At least at Crossroads the Senshi had to contend with youma that preyed on their acquaintances and dungeon-level eldritch abominations sought to conquer the known universe. Here, in Toyo University, there was absolutely nothing. No suspicious activity, no suspicious persons of interest, no suspicious out-of-place artifacts, nothing. Not even a whisper of luscious gossip that may or may not be foreshadowed in the immediate future. Random youma attacks in the middle of class were supposed to break the monotony, make the day a little more exciting. The absence of said random youma attacks in the middle of said class was not helping.

Rei huffed and jotted her pen across the spiral's lined surface, not particularly interested in the subject but exuding the pretense that she was so as not to be called out by the substitute. She didn't want to be here. She didn't want to be anyway near here or anywhere else except patrolling the streets at night and meditating before the fire within the Hikawa Jinja. They were her only avenues, and both offered no amount of solace or answers.

Usagi…She hadn't seen Usagi since the morning following the attack. Rei wondered if she was still doing okay, if there was any change in her. Haruka and the Outers had stopped by over the weekend and told the Inners Usagi hadn't awoken but her vital signs were in the clear. Now that was all fine and dandy, but what explained their leader's coma? They had seen the mark on her forehead, a possible sign that whoever—or whatever—attempted to overwhelm her caused her to transform into Sailor Moon…but whether it was during or after the transformation was a mystery. Sufficient damage to the tiara would deactivate their Senshi form, so whether or not this assailant was a new enemy this proved Usagi had fought back.

Rei wanted to see her again, but real life and her inner fears restrained her from going. She was afraid she would run away again, afraid she would succumb to the pain everyone knew to be sadness and be witness to her own barriers crumbling to their foundations. Even if everyone wouldn't think her weak for showing such emotions, she didn't want them shown.

Someone had to be strong. Not just to Mamoru the Future King and the Senshi, but to the Tsukino family. Kenji and Ikuko and Shingo, they were suffering as much if not more than the rest. She thought of them. She thought of Luna, and wondered how she was fairing. No one had seen her, or that of Meiou Setsuna, in days.

They're still watching that girl. The one that can perform the one feat Setsuna couldn't do without dying: stop and resume the flow of time and space. Oh yes, Setsuna had her eyes on her—those of her own, Luna's, and the mechanical Lunadrone's in her possession—and she wasn't going to drop them until either the target closed in on Azabu-Juuban…or Setsuna couldn't stand waiting anymore for the slowpoke to pick up the pace and went out into the field, Garnet Key in hand and ready to rock.

Either way, they were going to meet. The question of 'when' could not be determined, but the Outers would no doubt be on their toes for anyone or anything in any environment. All the knowledge from their previous incarnations would be beneficent for whatever surprises were lying in store for them between now and the future.

Rei tapped the pen against her chin, a contemplative hum rumbling in the back of her throat. Aside from Luna and Setsuna, the Inners had received little intel from Haruka, Michiru, or Hotaru. What they garnered was gossip and rumors during their nocturnal outings, hushed whispers running on an oily undercurrent of worry and apprehension. The sky over Moriya was awash in a haze not unlike a fog, but when the townsfolk breathed in the moisture they could tastethe coppery tang of blood, the heavy, cloying stink of rot and too-sharp cordite. Something fell had come, they said, and it was approaching like a Lovecraftian horror. Traffic, from what the Outers had heard on the news, was getting hit hard, especially on the Joban Expressway. Police units hailing from Tsukubamirai to Kashiwa were taking steps to redirect the travel flow away from the Moriya area, but this course of action didn't seem to have any effect on the minds of the common people.

The fire had shown her nothing, not a vision or a dream. Her crows, Phobos and Deimos, were gifted with the ability to detect the emotional and metaphysical changes in the atmosphere and, just like her, within the hearts and souls of humanity, and even they could not sense the darkness that had settled upon Moriya. Or, just as likely, they had and did not wish to alert their mistress of whatever danger lurked at this time.

What was going on out there? What was causing all this? It almost sounded like the subtle beginning of a homegrown terrorist plot or some form of meteorological phenomenon, and if it was either one of those, it'd be all over the news. Which, technically, it was, but the Sailor Senshi knew better than to believe what was showing on the surface.

I'll have to speak with Setsuna and Luna as soon as I see them. Maybe they'll allow me into The Brink. Every time she asked they had turned her away, stating they didn't need the extra eyes or foci. She had never been a hunter like Minako in the Silver Millennium, but if they required her aid then she would sit in the midst of the time ribbons and cast an area-wide tracking spell. From there, answers would be received…or more questions would be raised.

The bell rang, signaling the end of class. Finally. Thank Kami, I thought I'd never hear it. She stowed away her belongings, barely lending an ear to the substitute reminding the class of tonight's homework, and booked out of the room. Forget homework; as soon as she got home she was going to hang that DO NOT DISTURB sign over the shoji door and give the futon the best damn face-plant it had since, like, ever. No assignments, no meditation, no thoughts, just a deep, deep, dreamless bliss.

When she arrived at the hall leading to the school's entrance, she was intercepted by a couple girls from both sides of the T-junction. She didn't have to look to know who they were: aside from being in the same history class, Hitomi and Kaede were the type of folk that loved to soak in juicy gossip and spread it like a plague to all the other fellows that thrived and leeched off it. They even had a favorite topic which they liked to discuss, a topic Rei found to be both flattering and embarrassing.

"Hello, Rei," said Hitomi. "How did your day go?"

"Ugh, too long for my liking," groaned Rei, running a hand down the valley of her face. "I have homework in all my classes, and they're due tomorrow. I just wanna go lay down and go to sleep."

"Well, you certainly can't do it here," said Kaede. "That would be most uncomfortable."

"You know what I mean."

"So," Hitomi drawled innocently, "how's that junior of yours? You know…the one from Mitakihara? Having fun together?"

"We're getting along splendidly," Rei answered warily and rolled her eyes. Here we go. "We get together when the opportunity's there, free of homework and house duties. She's only been here a week, so we're taking things one day at a time."

"And what do you and your friend do in your free time?" asked Kaede with a waggle of her brows.

"Nothing of the sort that's on your perverted minds. I meet her at the apartments and we walk around Azabu-Juuban. Our feet carry us wherever they want us to go. We do whatever we please." She sighed. "Please don't put words in my mouth. We're just friends."

"But you speak so fondly of her!" said Hitomi.

"Doesn't your friendship mean anything to you?" Kaede beseeched melodramatically.

"Of course it does! I'm her senpai, she's my kouhai. She asks me a question and in return I offer her answers. Like, what is the minimum score you need to pass a college entrance exam? How do I know if a vision I experience is real and not a figment of my imagination? Or where's the best place in town you can buy yourself a slice of chiffon cake?" She pushed the door open and allowed her two classmates to go before her. "Mami and I are but two girls that have found a common ground. What we have is special; the same is applied to everyone else I relate with. It's a simple case of interpersonal female bonding, and that's all it will ever be."

"So you say," said Kaede.

"Yes," agreed Hitomi, nodding sagely in time to her friend. "So you say. We know there's more to the story than meets the eye."

Oh, please, not this again. "You're looking too deeply into things. I told you what we are and it's going to stay that way. End of story!" The parking lot loomed like a distant island on the opposite spectrum of the sea. Praise Kami for inspiring mankind with the idea to create faster public transportation. A little further…!

One of the girls, Kaede, clapped her smartly on the shoulder; no way in heaven or hell did Hitomi have a grip like iron. "Here, let's make a deal: introduce your girl to us and have her call you onee-sama while we're with you. You do that, and I guarantee you Hitomi and I won't have a fangirl attack. What do you say, Rei-onee-sama?"

"Begone, ero-otome!" Rei shook off her colleague, dug into her coat pocket, and slapped an ofuda on Kaede's forehead. She pushed her into Hitomi's waiting arms, cheeks simmering and free hand clutched in a knuckle-white fist. "Call me that again and I swear I'll do more than purge the evils from your body! And lay off the Marimite! It ain't gonna happen!" She started forward, stopped, turned about-face and added, "I'll see you tomorrow!" Rei heaved a dramatic sigh. Hopefully this little incident wouldn't repeat itself again when the time came, like the last few days had. Hitomi she could tolerate for possessing the rare wonder that is common sense, but Kaede was a grade-A pain in the ass. At least she was smart to save it for after school and not during; Rei didn't think she could endure that kind of torture.

Sleep first, she decided. As soon as I wake up I'll get right to work. Tomorrow comes awful quickly. She'd have to put off speaking with Setsuna and Luna until Sunday, when she was off from school. If she was lucky, she might run into them.

Rei resumed her trek to the parking lot. The breeze lulled her to complacency, carrying with it the spice of autumn and heady exhaust fumes. Vehicles were backing out and students walked alone or in groups on the journey home.

She stopped at the bottom tier of steps leading into the area and craned her neck skyward. An outline of the sun's ray rimmed an amorphous mass of cloud, bravely fighting to pierce through the shifting borders.

Footsteps echoed all around her, loud and full and empty like the heart of a slumbering giant. Laughter intermingling with the incoherent babble of multiple topics of conversation….

It wasn't the same.

It hadn't been. Not since…since….

Rei inhaled a lungful of air. She didn't taste blood, nor did she sample fear. I'll get to the bottom of this, Usagi. Somehow, I'll find the answers we're looking for."But where do I find them?" she murmured.

"Find what?"

Rei blinked and looked forward. She was surprised to see who it was walking up the pathway. "Mami? What are you doing here?" She hadn't expected to meet her at all today.

"Hello, senpai," the younger girl greeted. "You weren't aware I was coming to see you? I tried calling you."

"Ah ha," Rei chuckled. "Sorry about that. My phone's been on vibrate and I've been pretty busy. My breaks in-between classes aren't that long. Please don't be mad."

Mami giggled. "I'm not. I should've known better than to reach you during school hours. You did tell me you had a hectic schedule."

"'Hectic' doesn't even describe the payload the teachers give you," Rei scoffed, "but if I want my dreams to come true then I have no choice but to relinquish my free time in favor of daily pencil-pushing and page-turning labor. It's the only way I'll ever get by in this world, although…I worry sometimes what the future holds for me. I'm not as well-learned as some of the other classmates."

"I think senpai has what it takes to make it through the school year. It's still early in the semester to correct any past mistakes you've made. Besides," she smiled cutely, "you're a very smart girl, even if you say you're not. I believe in you."

Rei laughed and rubbed the back of her neck. "You're too kind. My grades really aren't all that bad…but I appreciate the thought. Thank you. I want to go as far as I'm able, but right now my main goal's getting through college and work on earning the credit hours for an Associate's degree."

"It sounds like it's a way off."

"It is, but fortunately I have the funds to pay for the classes I'm going to take." She tried to suppress the grimace and failed. Who was she kidding, it was only made possible because Good Old Dad—Hino Takashi—was a politician and had the Powers that befit a man of his position to set up a savings account and transfer all that wonderful moolah in there. That account had been active since before she could walk. "I'll be out of here within a couple years." Rei didn't need his help. Rei could handle herself as she had all her life.

Her brief change in facial demeanor did not go unnoticed. Mami took Rei's free hand in her own and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "You'll do fine. I know you will. As I've said before, you have enough time. Just focus on the present."

Rei smiled and squeezed back. "You're right. The present is all that matters."

"Mhm, but…Rei hasn't told me what she's trying to find. I wish she would…I might be able to help her."

"Oh…oh! You mean…that." There was no point in hiding it, even if 'it' pertained to the same thoughts circulating her mind day and night for the past week. "I was thinking about Usagi." How she was holding up, if she had woken.

Mami nodded, understanding. "Have you seen her yet?"

A ball of ice and guilt dropped into her gut. "No…I haven't. I'd like to…but it's been a long day. All I want to do right now is drive back, go home, and rest for a while." She scuffed her shoe against the gravel. "Does that make me a bad person, Mami?"

"No, of course not. Why would it?"

Because I don't want the others to think I'm doing this on purpose. That I'm running away and afraid to face my biggest fear. That I don't care. "Just curious," Rei answered. She switched her briefcase to the other hand and wiped at the palm of the other on her pants. "Anyway, you want to come over to the shrine for a little bit? I don't think you've been there, have you?"

"I haven't, but I've passed it many times when I take my walks."

"It's not much but it's quite the cozy abode, especially in the winter. I wouldn't ask for any other." She beckoned Mami and together they entered the parking lot. "Get comfortable. Traffic's going to be hell."

Day turned to night. A sliver of moon hung low amidst the peaks of skyscrapers and hundreds of thousands of multi-colored lights. The streets alive with nocturnal activity, people walking and people talking; people burning rubber and playing it loose in their cars and motorcycles; shady deals were being negotiated in hidden crevices and empty alleys. Stray dogs and cats were out in full force and full volume.

Under the stars Mamoru walked, hands tucked in his pockets, risking peripheral glances into the dark. "Are you sure we can't feel these things?" he murmured under his breath. "They could be an off-shoot of youma."

Going by what you told me, said Kyouko, a youma's life signature can be felt the same way you would sense what's going on in your own body. Like all forms of life they share the same atomic structure but are in possession of vessels that are so vastly diverse no two creatures are exactly alike. They may or may not have eyes. They may or may not have ears. They may speak, they may not understand higher thought processes beyond basic instincts and primal urges, everything varies from one person to another. It's creation at its finest as it's ever been.

But Witches are different, Chiba. They're not like us. They used to be, but not anymore. Your youma are the kind that can swim on both sides of the physiological pool; they're either capable of sapience rivaling that of our human intelligence…or parasites that sinks its struts into your brain and drain you of all the data comprising of the person inhabiting the body. No…a Witch and her familiars come from within. Negativity is the driving force of corruption. And when a girl's Soul Gem becomes too corrupt….

"She turns," Mamoru breathed. "Would her soul…still be intact?"

No. Quietly, somberly. Once she turns, she's gone. A Witch's sole purpose is to feast on her victims, rob them of their hopes and dreams and leave them in despair. The more pure her victim is the tougher and more powerful she becomes. Doesn't matter if her victim's young or old, man and woman. She'll keep eating and eating and eating. She'll never be full until there's no one left to eat.

"If that ever happened, and the Witch is still hungry, then she'd have to resort to hunting her own species." The thought was a bitter pill in his mouth, one he could taste in the back of his throat. Mamoru hoped he was getting sick.

I don't know. I never studied a Witch's behavior, only killed them for their Grief Seeds. Which would cleanse the taint residing within the Soul Gem.

He rounded the corner, footsteps measured and too loud in the quiet of his mind. Car horns honked and rolled in opposite directions, buzzing like a swarm of angry hornets. "Why are you telling me this? I wasn't expecting you to come back much less open up to me." How she acted towards him was enough incentive to not push her and leave her by. Hell, he had figured she wasn't real and existed as a personality deviated from all the stress accumulating in the past week, a specter meant to drive him to the brink of madness. But she was real, she insisted on it. She offered no other explanation, and Mamoru, who wasn't in the mood to argue, conceded that, okay, maybe there was some truth to her words. A grain of salt, if he had to resort to clichés to describe the turmoil running rampant in his brain.

For one, someone has to keep tabs on your sorry ass, she responded. There's nothing I can do if you're taking the last train to Rock Bottom. Your girlfriends may be similar to Puella Magi, but if you pit them against a Witch they're going to be fucking boned.

"What do you mean? The Sailor Senshi have had more than enough experience to take down monsters twenty times their size. They can handle these Witches."

Teamwork doesn't mean shit unless you're a Puella Magi. Only a Magi has the power to destroy a Witch and her familiar.

Mamoru's gut opened up beneath, dropping an iron wrecking ball to the bottom of his extremities. That meant…oh no.

That's right, Chiba. Doesn't matter how much oomph they channel into their spells. If the Sailor Senshi get caught in the Witch's barrier—or in her labyrinth, when she's really hungry—they're as good as dead.

He stopped, stared at the sidewalk beneath his feet. The cement was chipped and covered in a thin sheet of granite and loose sediment. There were cracks, a million itsy-bitsy cracks spread across the surface like the web of some giant spider, but their patterns were meaningless, chaotic, unrefined; their edges crooked, vertices jagged. He could almost feel himself falling, could almost touch the sky and realize there was a ceiling made of glass and that the glass was breaking and when the glass shattered the sky and the stars would come crashing down and crush him to paste like an insect smothered against the grooves of a descending boot.

(But the worst is yet to come. This is just the beginning.)

(It's early, but give it time. The day will come. Hell will be more than happy to remind you of what—and who—is at stake.)

"Kyouko," he said aloud, evenly. "Has the worst of things finally come? Are there Witches in Azabu-Juuban?"

There was a pregnant pause, thick and leaden as molasses. The minutes ticked by, crawling at a snail's pace. Frustration mounted Mamoru's back like a lunatic monkey off its leash, and when he was sure she had left him in the dark (both literally and figuratively) and ready to swear up and down the street in a tempest, she answered. No. I don't sense any Witches or familiars in this region, but out in Moriya, she snorted, the people there have a reason to be afraid. The streets are swarming with the bastards.

"It's the fog," Mamoru concluded. "The fog is their barrier. But…people are still using the roads. Shouldn't they have been caught in the barrier?"

Technically, yes. A Witch would mark them with their bite—a Kiss—and lure them into their territory. It's how they hunt. It's also how people go missing and are never seen again.

"Except people haven't been disappearing. If they had, it would have been on the news. So that means…."

There's a Puella Magi fighting them.

"The girl that can stop time and not die." One girl against a horde of monsters, all by herself. Mamoru was amazed and horrified. What if she got killed?

Kyouko barked a single laugh. She ain't gonna die, you pansy. She's too persistent. Better yet, she refuses to die. No, she won't let anything or anyone get in her way. Not even Death can get close to her.

Mamoru looked to the stars. "She must be strong, this girl."

Yeah, said Kyouko quietly, and Mamoru sensed she was staring at them too. Searching for answers. She is.

Sailor Uranus inhaled deeply the brisk night air and exhaled with a frown. "The wind…it bears the stink of blood. Can you taste it?"

Neptune, too, mimicked her partner's previous motions. She tucked strands of turquoise strands behind her ear. "Yes. It hangs like a smokescreen coughed by an untamed inferno. The sea…it also carries a perfume only Death Itself may wear, cloying and dew-laden like moss on a grave. Can you smell it?"

"Indeed. The fog creeps like a phantom, drifting in and out of shadows none will dare walk outside. It's hungry, thirsting, salivating and mixing with liquids contained within the flesh of vessels human and alien." Uranus breathed again. "It must be vanquished."

"I know, but we have to wait for Setsuna to give us the okay. It might not be safe yet." Their communicators were on standby, given the order by their elder to maintain their post at their house until further notice. Setsuna had been relaying data gathered from Lunadrone-3; the second was destroyed when it got caught in one of the girl's crossfire attacks.

"We're leaving as soon as the word leaves her mouth," said Uranus. "We stick around until the barrier pops up. When it closes and the bastards start pouring in, we hit them hard and we hit them fast. Leave no room for retaliation."

Neptune nodded. "If we can capture one of the monsters, I can infiltrate its mind with the Deep Aqua Mirror." The talisman wasn't just used to mete out weaknesses in a person or beast but bypass through the mind and retrieve invaluable information, a trait that had carried over from her previous life as a mage for hire prior to the creation of the Outer Sailor Soldier unit (which was hours after the Queen Serenity initiated the girls that would comprise the Inner Soldier squad). "Through it we can find the location of the mastermind and neutralize it."

"We won't have to," Uranus assured her. "We can ask that girl. She could point us in the right direction."

"But Setsuna's reports suggest the target has been moving southwest, starting from Tsukuba," Neptune mused. "Why is that? Could she be fleeing from them, hoping to throw them off-course?"

"I don't see why not. Stopping time at will has to be costing her energy and mana." Which was both unusual and extraordinary. The Outers were of the same mind this girl was a post-rebirth Earthling whose previous incarnation served under the Chronos Hegemony on Pluto, perhaps as an apprentice to the Soldier of Time. She may have even been a novice of the Children of Aeon, a cult that were blessed with the ability to jump between temporal dimensions…and on the battlefield as the planet's most elite and secret assassins, a group labeled the Espers (or so the myth goes). But no, Setsuna had said the girl was not reborn; she would have recognized the abnormal life signature people from the Silver Millennium shared.

"I suppose you're right. Still, I fear the target might be overwhelmed should she make that fatal mistake. It is a feat in itself she has not collapsed from exhaustion, given the constant fighting she's endured."

"She'll be fine," Uranus groused. "A couple more hours won't kill her."

"That's if Setsuna dispatches us tonight. Don't forget that."

Uranus clucked her tongue. "Baby, when have I ever? I never forget about you."

"And yet you forget to pay our bills," Neptune deadpanned.

"Aw come on, that youma totally ripped the bank from its foundations! None of us saw it coming, and I can't help that it's going to take a couple months to rebuild from scratch!" She heaved a dramatic sigh and shook her head. "You need to have more faith in me!" Neptune didn't have an answer to that. She put her back to her partner and continued staring at the stars suspended above a radiant horizon.

Uranus glanced over her shoulder at the other occupant on the roof. Saturn was standing at the edge on the opposite side, short black hair caressing her knobby shoulders, willowy frame straight and upright against a breeze that might knock her over. The Silence Glaive was clutched loosely in her hand, its tip gleaming deadly as frostbite. She had not spoken in the past hour.

She must have fallen asleep. That or she tuned herself out. The Soldier of Wind crept up to her. "Hey Hotaru, you awake?"

"Don't startle her, Haruka," Neptuned warned her, watching her partner from the corner of her eye.

Uranus pressed on nonetheless. "Wakey wakey, kiddo. You can't fall asleep yet." She rested her hand on the girl's shoulder. "C'mon, I know you can hear me—" She leaped away as the Silence Glaive whistled through the space she had just occupied. "Whoa!"

"Keep your hands off me," Sailor Saturn growled. Her voice, once high and youthful, was deep and dark, rumbling like an ominous aftershock. Her syllables rolled roughly on her tongue. "Touch me again, and I shall see to it that your head is impaled and posted as a warning to any and all who dare disturb me." A purple, almost black aura oozed from her body and engulfed her, and around the Outer Senshi there were scents of bone meal, smelted iron, ozone, and rotten flesh.

"What the hell?" Uranus exclaimed.

Neptune coughed and put a hand over her mouth and nose. "Haruka, her eyes! Look at her eyes!"

She did, and what she saw was not Hotaru's normal violet irises. Instead they were a pale, phantom blue and glowed from within her corneas, pulsing intermittently like the light from a firefly—the creature she had been named after.

No. Those eyes…Uranus had only seen them once in her other life: they belonged to a woman who hailed from Oberon and was on the run for selling government-sanctioned secrets to Queen Beryl in the early years of the War. Uranus had personally dealt with the traitor herself and nearly lost her life because of it.

Those eyes were Death Knight eyes, the toughest of the tough and the most experienced all the warriors in the Solar System combined. They were old and they were versatile—swift as a hunter in pursuit, more powerful than a swing from a warrior's weapon, harboring mana reserves so vast they could summon the most fearsome, dreadful demons few shaman and warlocks were capable of. But the most shocking of all? The Death Knight was a creature of unlife; a person reanimated upon death and bestowed the gift of magic…fel magic.

Uranus didn't know which was worse: the fact that Tomoe Hotaru, Sailor Saturn, was a Death Knight or the fact that Tomoe Hotaru had been reincarnated twice before in lives she should not have lived. It was impossible. She was the Soldier of Death, of Destruction, of Silence. Nowhere in her memories or Neptune's or Pluto's did it show Hotaru as a Soldier of Rebirth. Heaven Above and Hell Below, she hadn't even existed in the Silver Millennium, but...that was a different story for a different time.

Uranus swallowed her heart back in its rightful place. She responded warily, "Why are you here?" Steady, girl. Don't show fear. Don't let it show….

Sailor Saturn—or rather, the spirit of Saturn the Death Knight—harrumphed at the Senshi like a holier-than-thou noblewoman. She retracted the Silence Glaive and smartly rapped the end against the rooftop. The steady, unwavering firmness in her posture reflected the decades, possibly centuries, of military experience hammered into every bone and muscle until it was as adamantine as the surface of a diamond. "Why? I have always been here, sleeping within this vessel since the moment of her third rebirth. We are each other's masters, observing the world through visions not our own but shared regardless. We see everything: the sundering of fragile earth; the churning of roaring water; the shattering of sky and star as the thunder of nature clashes against the thunder of man. Omniscient we are not, but omnipresent we have become. Nothing is beyond us."

"By the Gods," Neptune uttered in a stunned whisper. Exactly how Uranus felt. They knew Hotaru was very powerful, second to Sailor Moon actually, but to be in possession of ancient powers that—even in the Golden Age—was considered ancient and mere myth? She couldn't put it in words.

Uranus worried at her lip, pondering. "What made you wake up?" she asked after a brief reprieve. "You couldn't have taken over my friend's body just because you wanted to give us a scare."

"Hotaru wishes not to bear the burden of our findings. I am merely here to spare her the trouble that is to follow hereafter."

"What trouble?" Neptune asked with an inflection of concern in her tone. "What do you have to report?"

"The fog over Moriya and its surrounding areas has been lifted. Target has successfully eliminated enemy threat. Lunadrone-3 is proceeding en route to The Brink with the footage as we speak."

Uranus allowed a smug smile to appear. "See? What did I tell you?" she said to Neptune. "The girl lived."

"What's the target's status?" asked Neptune.

"Alive, but she has exerted both her primary and tertiary mana reserves. It will be several days before they are fully regenerated."

"What about this trouble you mentioned? Could you elaborate on that?"

Saturn's aura fluctuated wildly, the glow in her eyes dimming and brightening like faulty wiring in a light bulb. Her grip on the Silence Glaive faltered, tightened, fingers flexing tensely. She bit her lip until she drew blood, but the flickering did not abate. "It's…Usagi," she forced out.

Uranus's eyebrows arched high in alarm. "Usagi? What's wrong with Usagi?"

"Usagi's heart...it's stopped beating. Monitor…flat-lining. Doctors…nurses…rushing to resuscitate." Her body shuddered, her voice trembling between high and low pitch. "Wake…UP…." The light was extinguished like a candle blown out by the wind, and Sailor Saturn the Senshi collapsed to her knees weeping.

Across Azabu-Juuban, the other Senshi of Queen Serenity's forces were lost within themselves, both in their thoughts and their actions.

Minako lay in bed, Artemis curled at her feet and staring at the ceiling, reminiscing past battles in the lives she had lead. She wondered if she would be able to protect Usagi from the monsters plaguing Moriya. She wondered, as she sank into a dreamless slumber, what this Madoka person was like to Mami.

Sailor Mercury and Sailor Jupiter were leaping from high rise to spectacular high rise, sliding between shadows and star-shine as their feet touched roofs with nary a sound. It was their turn to patrol the city, and so far they had not seen hide or hair of the beasts that had been described to them by the Outers.

Rei sat in seiza before a roaring, wood-crackling inferno with Phobos at her left and Deimos at her right. The flames cast shimmering patterns across her face, highlighting the hurt, anger, and betrayal set firmly there.

Mamoru was changing into his night clothes. He had his shirt buttoned halfway when his eyes fell on the box of pocky on the end table. He hadn't touched it since he had returned from the Crown Arcade, afraid it would elicit another bout of high-octane nightmare fuel; Kyouko hadn't spoken a word about it. Curious, he steeled himself for the impending shock and touched the box. What flashed through his mind was not the white cat-thing being beaten to death but a girl. Her hair was short and straight and the same ocean blue as Ami's, and her body was wrapped in a long flowing white cape. She gazed upon a star-studded sky, her expression one of sad, virgin innocence. A hand—Kyouko's hand—caressed her shoulder, and the girl turned to her as a woman who has been condemned to a life sentence in jail without parole. "I'm such a fool," the girl lamented, and then the memory was ripped from him like the last roll of film, bestowing Mamoru a potion mixed with dread, heartache, and longing. He was reminded of his Usako, and his chest constricted with a pain as familiar and immeasurable as a lover's stroke.

Mami pulled her fist out of the hole she made in the bathroom mirror, bloody cataracts drip-dropping into the sink's bowl-shaped drain. She appraised her reflection, frightened and repulsed.

Setsuna observed the time-stopping girl through the Space-Time Door while Luna extracted the data from Lunadrone-3 and uploaded to the computer terminal. Irises the shade of amethyst absorbed the projected image as the girl shakily removed the gun barrel away from her temple and put her face in her hands.

At the same time, in Moriya, Kyubey appeared behind Homura and congratulated her on another splendid victory. Homura cursed him to hell and filled his body with hot lead, then ejected a fresh clip into the pistol and began walking. She was a fool to have contemplated it. No, she would not surrender. She would not give that bastard Incubator the satisfaction. She would find Madoka and deliver her to sanctuary at any cost.

At Crossroads Hospital, the orderlies were in a state of frenzy, fuelled by panic, sweat, and adrenaline. One nurse was administering defibrillator pads on Usagi, jumpstarting her heart on a count of three from Dr. Himari, the Tsukino family doctor. Another monitored her vitals with increasing trepidation and bewilderment. A third applied medicine through the IV line. Then, just as the orderly was about to deliver another shock, the heart monitor ceased its monotonous dirge. Usagi's forehead crinkled in the middle and her lips formed a thin tense line; a few minutes later, her features relaxed, peacefully unaware of what had just transpired.

The time was twelve o'clock midnight. September third faded into the past like the transition of seasons.

Somewhere in the dark, a girl giggled and grinned like the Cheshire cat. Everything was going according to plan.