AN: So, this is probably the last mars/venus centric chapter for a while. Makoto and Ami would like some love now. Also, I thought I would surprise you all with a couple new characters this chapter (if you've read "A Child of Darkness and Light", they won't be such a shock). Enjoy Setsuna, Minako, Rei, and Haruka as the fight for the Mars henshin stick is concluded. I always wanted to use the word "untried" in a fic, and today I finally was able to.

Chapter 5: Fires of Mars

January 20, 8983

Setsuna sighed as she pushed the pile of data crystals away from her, closing her garnet eyes in surrender. She would have to venture to the Time Gate to sort out the knot she had found in the time stream, and even that might not be enough to give her a solution to the Saturn problem. In all of her years guarding the Time Gate, she had never seen a mess as tangled as the streams she currently had her servants analyzing. "I don't think I can figure this one out."

"Figure what out?" A pillar of golden light appeared in the center of Setsuna's study, fading into a swirl of pink rose petals to reveal a tall blonde with intense blue eyes. The woman, her beauty unmatched in the divine or mortal realms, straightened her rather revealing pink dress and grinned as her dark companion rolled her eyes. "You aren't happy to see me, Se?"

"Aphrodite, it is always a joy to see you, but the light show should be reserved for mortals. I am not impressed." Her voice was dry and humorless, as the goddess had expected, but there was an undertone of warmth and welcome. Se was truly always happy to see her divine family, even when she was living out one of her mortal lives.

The goddess grinned as she took Setsuna's hand, pulling the Queen of Pluto to her feet and offering her a brief hug. "I was coming to see you today, anyway, but I heard what you said. Is it anything I can help with?"

"I'm not sure, Aph. This isn't really a love and beauty sort of moment."

"Is it a war and destruction sort of moment?" Aphrodite's light voice carried the same teasing thread Setsuna's had a moment before, knowing that the other woman meant no disrespect. In the past, Aphrodite had been much more obsessed with herself, and her greedy nature and promiscuity had almost doomed the Pantheon to destruction. Since the birth of her beloved grandchildren over nine thousand years earlier, she had become a much calmer, more loving woman, and she was one of the few gods who would gladly spend time with the dark and often moody Setsuna.

"Perhaps. You are going to see Ares?" The reference was obvious, but she allowed the goddess to have her word games.

"Yes. He said something interesting is going to happen today and that I should be there. Would you like to come?"

Setsuna hesitated, remembering the last gathering the blonde goddess had convinced her to attend. "Will my father be there?"

"No." Setsuna rarely visited her parents or Aphrodite's grandson. The past she shared with them was too painful for her to intentionally remember frequently. It was one of the reasons she had stayed on Pluto for more than two generations and planned to stay even longer. She didn't blame her father for anything that happened, and she knew that he missed her, but it was easier to be alone. "Well, you know that I cannot cloak myself in this form."

The Goddess of Love giggled as she took Setsuna's hand, recognizing the younger woman's acceptance. "You know we will take care of that."

The pair vanished from Pluto, reappearing in a shower of rose petals floating on an oddly fluffy cloud above the rust-red surface of Mars. Setsuna sighed as she brushed the roses off her black dress, glaring at Aphrodite as the petals turned into tiny gemstones that wove themselves into the silky fabric of her gown. "I liked my dress the way it was."

"I like the ones you wear on Olympus better." Aphrodite never stopped trying to get her friend to wear bright clothes to counteract the gloomy attitude she seemed to have inherited from her even darker father.

"As do I," a new, deeper voice chimed in. Setsuna looked up to find one of her favorite cousins towering over her, his black hair as wild as she remembered. "Se, welcome."

"Ares, so nice to see you without your normal blood and gore attire."

The God of War guffawed, his voice echoing across the dusty world. "Se! You seem to have kept your sense of humor even after spending so much time with the mortals." He spun quickly on one foot, showing off his black leather suit only minimally adorned with gems and lightly padded to give the indication that it was armor. "I took a note from your wardrobe. Do you like the leather?"

"It suits you. Aph said you might have something interesting to show us?"

"I do. But first, why have you chosen to come? You never want to see us anymore. Especially not since Tranquility started that Cult of his."

Setsuna winced at the reminder of the godling she had been avoiding for centuries as Ares pointed at a nearby cloud-shaped chair. Sinking into the soft material gratefully, Setsuna stared up at the empty sky for a moment. "Something is coming. There is a disturbance in the Time Stream that I cannot unravel, and I haven't even identified the cause yet." She pulled one data crystal from the time pocket where she carried her henshin stick and talisman, handing it to Ares. "I try to keep my mortal and divine lives separate, but I thought that you two might be able to help. I wouldn't have called you, but Aph showed up and I figured it was worth showing you."

The god took a seat beside her, the cloud thickening underneath them as Aphrodite formed a chair on Setsuna's other side. Ares took the crystal in his hand, using his free hand to extract the data from it before handing the crystal back. Opening his fist, he released the image that was bothering his cousin so much, watching it spin before him in the air. "This is quite the tangled mess. When did it appear?"

"I first noticed it a few days ago, but calculations indicate that it started almost twenty-one standard years ago."

"What was happening in the mortal realms twenty-one years ago?"

Setsuna shrugged and ran her fingers through her dark green hair in a gesture she had picked up from Kazeko when the deceased queen had been one of her best friends. "It has been a busy two decades, but there has not been much to distinguish this generation of senshi from any previous set. They are more powerful than ever, but the peace has also lasted for a thousand years. I have no answer."

"Has the time disturbance changed at all since you identified it?" Despite the prevailing image of her among the mortals, Aphrodite was not an airhead by any means. She was just as capable of helping to solve this mystery as her warrior lover.

"Yes, Aph, once. When I visited the princess of Uranus, the knot unraveled a bit. But there has been nothing since then."

"Where is she now, this Uranian princess?"

Setsuna shrugged as she turned her attention to the Martian Palace below her. She had no intention of tracking the blonde as she travelled through the solar system, as long as Haruka was on Titan for the meeting. "You two are the gods; you find her," she replied flippantly.

"Uranus gave her avatars the ability to hide from us, as well you know. Does she look like the last one?"

"Almost identical." Setsuna had been idly watching the Martians gathering outside the palace in the dusty fighting ring where all important Martian tournaments were fought, and she finally realized that the God of War must have been watching the same thing before she arrived. "Ares, what's going on down there?"

"Oh! That's why I called you!" The time knot forgotten for a moment, Ares moved his cloud closer to the ground, hovering only a dozen feet over the largest training arena on the Martian Palace grounds. They and their cloud were invisible to mortal eyes, but it was unlikely that anyone would both looking up from the battle that was clearly about to start. The current Queen, Rikuriko, stood silently on one end of the clear area in her Sailor Mars uniform, staring at the building opposite her with steely pink eyes, prepared for a fight.

"What is going on?" There was only one possible answer, but Setsuna could not bring herself to believe that a Martian child who had not even achieved the age of nineteen would dare to issue the Challenge.

"Rikuriko has accepted the Challenge! Rei is fighting her for the henshin stick. She is the youngest princess ever to Challenge for the right to be Sailor Mars."

Aphrodite forced the cloud even lower as Rikuriko's oldest daughter emerged from the barracks, her black and red armor bringing out the blood color in her long hair. "Wow, she is lovely. No wonder you are so interested in her, Ares."

Ares snorted and conjured up a plate of refreshments for the show. "Ah Aphrodite, I would expect you to notice that first. She may be beautiful, but it is her strength that has drawn me here."

"She has the eyes of a warrior," Setsuna noted, analyzing each step of the young princess toward her waiting mother. She had never, in the almost nine thousand years since the dawning of the Silver Millennium, been able to witness a true Challenge between Mars and her hopeful successor. Most of the time, the mother passed her powers on in a sedate ceremony, often including a mock fight, but there were rare occasions when the princess was ready before her queen. This was clearly one of those times.

"Exactly."

"She's young," Setsuna murmured, entranced by the determination in Rei's amethyst eyes. "Why is she choosing now to fight? Rikuriko did not challenge her mother until she was almost three decades old. This girl has not even passed her second."

"She thinks she is strong enough now," Ares retorted, reveling in the fiery determination he sensed pulsing off the girl in waves, his love of battle appropriately reflected in the eyes of his world's princess. Aphrodite gasped beside him as she spotted the slender blonde following Rei onto the field before taking a position among the spectators. The war god turned his head to see what had caught her attention. "Isn't that your princess, Aph? She looks like you."

"Minako is the most beautiful child my line has ever produced," Aphrodite murmured, tilting her head to one side in contemplation. "She even has my blue eyes. Most of them don't. It's like looking in a mirror."

"That's why Rei's fighting now," Setsuna realized, a vague sense of uneasiness filling her frame. The Ancient Laws that existed to keep senshi from their soul mates might seem cruel to the princesses, but they existed for a reason and no senshi had failed to obey since the rule was implemented. Most of the royals believed that the Ancient Laws harkened back to the first days of their kingdoms, but in truth the law against princesses marrying women was only three thousand years old, implemented after the last of the Sailor Wars. Pluto Setsuna had done a fine job of manipulating the histories of the Silver Millennium to make sure that they obeyed that specific law. "Venusians search for their soul mate on their eighteenth birthday, and Rei must be hers."

"None of my princesses have ever fought to keep their true soul mate." Not that Ares wasn't a fan of love and soul mates, but his people were practical warriors, the opposite of Aphrodite's.

"No, Ares, but this is only one of a handful of times when the soul mate of Mars is the princess of Venus. It is a dangerous combination, love and war, with the potential to breed disaster. You two are living proof of that." Aphrodite blushed as she vividly remembered her youthful exploits and the trouble she and Ares—and their children—had caused the Pantheon. "Rikuriko is a hard and practical woman, and she would never have disobeyed her mother to be with Asakaze. She was also much less powerful when Asakaze visited Mars than her daughter is now. Rei is a Martian warrior in the truest sense, but she also has an immense capacity to love that some of your Avatars never attain." Setsuna paused as she remembered the day Rikuriko had visited her, demanding to know why she and Asakaze had to be apart. It was the only time she had seen the Martian warrior cry. "They must know that they can't stay together."

"Not forever," the blonde goddess replied as she sipped the wine Ares had provided. "I gave my children the ability to know their soul mate because I wanted to see what they would do with that knowledge. Except for the senshi, there are rarely any problems when they meet, but your rules have changed that." Se turned to glare at the blonde, her cousin raising her hands in surrender. "I don't argue that they aren't necessary rules, Se! I was there that day, remember?" Se tilted her head in apology, remembering how much the patron gods had suffered on that day three thousand years earlier. Turning back to the show below, the Goddess of Love continued. "Asakaze, like many queens before her, chose to take a husband from her soul mate's world and keeps her love a secret. I'm sure that Minako will eventually go that route, but she will be with Rei now. I have never seen this reaction in a Venusian before."

"Is this the reason time is warping? Is their love destined to destroy the future?"

Aphrodite shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know. Their love is strong, I can see that, but I can't imagine that the love of two, four, or even six senshi would be enough to bring down a kingdom as old and powerful as the Silver Millennium."

What about eight? Setsuna wanted to ask the question, thoughts of her own lost love filling her mind, but she bit her tongue. Certainly Aphrodite knew best when it came to matters of the heart.

"I tend to side with Aph on this one," Ares murmured, watching as Rikuriko attacked. Rei's ability to cut Sailor Mars surprised the god, and he watched in wide-eyed silence as Rei not only dodged the fire attack her mother sent toward her, but managed to bury a tiny knife in Rikuriko's arm. "She is agile and smart. I did not expect that knife."

"She can't win. Rikuriko will summon her bow." True to Setsuna's word, Sailor Mars pulled her bow and sent two flaming arrows at her daughter, nodding grimly as Rei fell to the ground. "She must surrender now. It was a good attempt, but she was not strong enough to defeat as seasoned a warrior as Rikuriko."

Aphrodite pointed at the edge of the crowd where Rei had fallen, the trio watching as a tall nobleman with sandy blonde hair and vibrant emerald eyes helped the princess to her feet. There were no rules in a battle for the henshin stick, except that commoners were not allowed in the ring, and Rikuriko seemed content to let the blonde speak to Rei from the sidelines as long as he did not enter the field of battle. "Who is that?"

Setsuna smirked and waved one hand at the time knot floating nearby. "That is my missing princess, Haruka. It looks like she decided to visit her fellow warriors and arrived in time to see this battle."

"Looks more like a missing prince," Aphrodite retorted sourly, wrinkling her nose slightly at the idea of a woman intentionally dressing as a man.

"Yes, well, Haruka does cultivate a masculine image and voice. What are they talking about down there?"

"Sorry, we're not close enough to hear, Se. Oh, she's standing!" Rei, pain in her amethyst eyes, forced herself to stand without trembling, one black sword held in front of her while the other served as a crutch for her bleeding leg. The three spectators leaned forward as Rikuriko raised her bow once more.

Rei rolled to one side as her mother fired again, feeling the heat of the arrows as they barely missed her. She jumped to her feet as quickly as she could, running forward as the haze of battle began to override her sense of pain. The princess could feel the bloodlust begin to cloud her judgment, and for once she welcomed her birthright. Martians were terrifying warriors when they were injured and had something to protect, and she grinned insanely as another arrow sliced across the outside of her left arm. As the blood stained Rei's armor, the streamers of red power she had shown in the throne room began to surround her again, and Sailor Mars stepped back, her pink eyes worried at the sudden strength her daughter had found.

Rikuriko let her bow vanish as she unsheathed her own sword, fire dancing along its edge. Rei accepted the invitation and the clash of metal echoed across the field. The nobles began to whisper among themselves as the two women clashed. Rei, weakened by her wounds but burning with a bloodlust more powerful than many Martians had ever seen, had clearly become a challenge for her mother to fight. There was a chance, however slim, that the untried princess might win.

From her position on the sidelines near the combatants, Minako clenched her fists together over her heart. She knew that Rei had been arrogant to assume that she could defeat a seasoned Sailor Mars just because she wanted to, but the princess of Venus had hoped that she could succeed. Rikuriko had been Sailor Mars for almost three decades, and her battle prowess was already highly regarded throughout the Silver Millennium. How could Rei have ever believed she would win?

As Rikuriko closed with her daughter, the taller woman bringing her strength to bear against the weakening princess, Minako felt something deep inside her begin to struggle, desperate for freedom, her soul beginning to cry out in agony. She couldn't stop her tears as Rikuriko forced Rei back, disarming her and knocking her to the ground. "You dared to challenge me," the queen growled, her voice thick with her own rage and bloodlust. She raised her flame-wreathed sword above her head, clearly beyond all reason. "Die."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Aphrodite fell to her knees on the cloud, tears streaming from her pale blue eyes as she held one hand to her heart. "Can't you feel that? Her soul is screaming!"

Setsuna glanced at Minako as she cried out, falling to her knees beside Aphrodite. She feared that Sailor Mars would kill Rei, as Rikuriko lost herself to the rage her people were famous for, and the Queen of Pluto did not know what course of action she should take. "What will you do?"

"I can do nothing! Your laws prevent me from interfering. She has to do this on her own, and it's tearing me apart!"

Ares's deep voice cut through Aphrodite's tears, catching the attention of both women. "Look."

Rikuriko grunted as a glowing metal chain wrapped itself around her arm and stopped her fatal blow. Rei stared up in shock as her mother was jerked back by the same chain, forced onto her own knees a dozen feet away. Standing between the combatants, golden-orange power pulsing around her slender form, stood Sailor Venus, her long blonde hair blowing in the dusty wind.

Rikuriko, shaking her head in disbelief, glanced down at her sword before standing to face Venus. "You interfered. That is forbidden."

"It is forbidden for commoners to interfere," Sailor Venus shot back, holding her chain ready at her side as her blue eyes pinned the older senshi. "It is permitted for a senshi to intervene to save a life in a non-lethal challenge. You were going to kill her."

Sailor Mars shook her head in disbelief, searching her memory of the battle. "I can't have lost control . . . I was going to kill her? But I . . . she should not have been enough of a challenge to trigger this blood rage!"

Rei snorted as she pushed herself to her feet, holding her single remaining sword before her. "You underestimate my strength and demand that I surrender, but I will beat you, Mother. As long as I can stand, as long as I can hold this sword, I will fight." She let her purple-black eyes meet her soul mate's concerned blue ones, and she smiled at the newly transformed senshi. "Venus, I can handle this on my own. Thank you, but I am your champion, not the other way around. Let me finish this battle."

Sailor Venus nodded as she coiled her chain and hooked it on her belt, turning on one orange heel and heading back to the edge of the field. She returned to her previous spot near the barracks, surprised to see the emerald-eyed blonde who had spoken with Rei earlier waiting there for her. The tall man tilted his head to the side and smiled at the Venusian princess, catching her as she stumbled at the edge of the field, the rush of power that had forced her transformation fading with her senshi uniform. The blonde princess murmured her thanks as the Uranian helped her stand.

"Are you alright?"

"Just a little weak," Minako whispered. "I saw you talking to Rei earlier; who are you?"

"Kazemaru, child of the High Duke of Umbriel."

"What did you say to her, Kazemaru?"

The young duke turned his attention back to the battle, an odd smirk on his lips. "I told her to fight for you and she would win."

Across the field, her lover safe, Rei stared at her mother and the fiery sword that had almost ended her life. Rikuriko would never accept her rebellion, no matter how much she agreed with the direction of her daughter's heart. If Rei could not find one last ounce of power, she would lose Minako forever, and she knew that she would not survive that separation. "Ares, grant me your strength," Rei whispered, her eyes darkened completely to black with her bloodlust, her grip on her sword steady. "I am already her champion; make me yours as well." She concentrated on the scorching flames raging within her soul, the powerful force behind her bloodlust, and she pulled that power around herself like a cloak.

Rikuriko raised her sword into a defensive position as Rei attacked, pink eyes darkened with her own rage as she pushed against the smaller woman. The princess, her black eyes never leaving her mother's face, let the queen force her to take two calculated steps back, as if her strength was finally flagging. When Rikuriko moved to push her advantage, Rei rolled to one side, spinning and slamming her elbow into Mars's chest with enough force to throw the older woman to the ground. Rikuriko grunted as she landed, her weapon flying across the field, looking up the length of Rei's sword into confident black eyes. She moved to stand, freezing when the princess standing over her prone form calmly touched the tip of her sword to Mars's throat.

Rikuriko felt her transformation fade as the rage drained from her body, leaving behind all of her bruises and wounds and a bitter sense of defeat. How could Rei have beaten her in such a fight? How could a powerless woman defeat Sailor Mars?

Rei held her position, waiting for a confirmation from her mother that she was the victor, though the fact that Rikuriko had returned to her civilian form was almost a surrender in and of itself. She began to relax, ready to remove her sword from her mother's throat, when a large hand landed on her shoulder. Still tense from the battle, still on edge from her near death, eyes still dark from her bloodlust, Rei ducked away from the hand and spun, burying her slender sword into the belly of her new opponent. The tall man, his wild black hair and goatee a match for his leather armor, laughed, removing Rei's sword from his body and tossing it aside.

"You have good reflexes, but gods can't be killed so easily."

"Ares," she whispered, shock dissipating the last of her blood rage, leaving her with amethyst eyes and a failing body.

The god caught her before she could fall to her knees, wrapping his hands around her upper arms and leaning down to kiss her forehead. When he pulled back, the glowing symbol of Mars shone in red from the spot his lips had touched, changing into a golden tiara with a red stone in the center as the trembling girl transformed into Sailor Mars. "You are the most powerful Avatar I have ever had," Ares informed her, his deep voice echoing across the silent field. "You won the right to have my strength and to be my champion. You will be the finest Sailor Mars of all time." He turned to Rikuriko and smiled gently, watching the queen rise to her feet. "You served me well in your time, Rikuriko, but it is your rebellious daughter's turn to fight now. I thank you both for an excellent show."

Ares stepped back and vanished in a column of flame, leaving a trembling Sailor Mars facing her predecessor with no idea what to say. "Mother . . ."

"You won, Rei. Ares has even validated your strength." Rikuriko stepped forward and pulled her daughter into her arms, sensing her Sailor Mars transformation fade. "I do not think you are making the right choice, but it is your choice to make, now. Remember that one day you will be queen, and on that day you must be prepared to marry and produce an heir. If you want to enjoy your life until then, so be it."

"Thank you, Mother," Rei whispered, struggling to stay awake after losing so much blood. "And thank you for fighting me with your full strength." A moment later, her world went black.

"Was it wise to appear to her like that?"

Ares shrugged. "I needed to appear to her, Se. She is . . . I cannot describe how proud I am of her today. She is so weak she can barely stand, but she managed to win." He turned to Aphrodite, who had regained her composure and her seat as the battle ended. "Your avatar was quite a surprise. I have never seen Sailor Venus force a transformation like that before."

"I have never seen one senshi's rise catalyze another's before," Setsuna murmured in agreement, staring at Haruka in her duke disguise on the edge of the field. "Haruka only just became Sailor Uranus for the first time, and whatever she said drove Rei to continue to fight well past her known limit. The fight and her soul mate's near death drove Minako into forcing her Sailor Venus transformation, which led to our new Sailor Mars. This chain of events is highly irregular."

"My avatars are not normally so determined in their Challenge battles," Ares admitted. "It's mostly a show fight; when the previous queen is tired of carrying the henshin stick she hands it off to her heir. These two were truly trying to kill each other."

"Se, look," Aphrodite whispered, pointing at the time knot that had been floating nearby the entire time. As the trio watched, a small section in the lower segment of the knot unraveled, reducing the size of the overall disturbance by ten percent. "Ares, is this based on Setsuna's data or is it live information from Pluto?"

"This is from the source, from the computers monitoring the Time Gate," Ares replied, looking down as Rei fainted and a group of medics converged on the girl. Minako and Haruka reached her first, the Venusian holding her soul mate as the medics began to heal her. "Is this fight somehow related to your time knot?"

"It seems so. I must enter the Time Stream and observe this section myself. I need to know what is changing it before anything else happens."

Aphrodite stood and took the time knot into her hands, reaching in and pointing at a pink section with a carefully manicured fingernail. "Se, you aren't going to like this."

"What?" The dark woman stood and reached into the knot, pulling out the section Aphrodite had noticed. "What do you . . . oh. You're right, I don't like this."

"You should go speak with Tranquility before you visit the Time Gate. It seems that his Cult of the Broken Wing will play a part in your disturbance."

"Aph, I never want to speak to him again. Not after what happened with Serenity."

The Goddess of Love touched a gentle hand to Setsuna's cheek, sympathy in her blue eyes. "I know that he hurt you, but she was his sister. He misses her as much as you do, and you two shouldn't fight over that. Maybe he can help you with this time knot."

Setsuna waved her hand, summoning her Time Staff as she transformed into Sailor Pluto and steeled herself for the inevitable confrontation with her former friend. "Fine, I will go, but I do not promise to be civil. The last three times we met, I threatened to kill him." She vanished in a flash of garnet light, leaving the two gods alone on their cloud.

Ares glanced at Aphrodite and raised one eyebrow. "She's too much like her father."

"An affliction Tranquility suffers from, as well," the blonde replied, watching her avatar follow the medics carrying an unconscious Rei back into the palace. "If they can work out their differences, maybe she can discover the cause of the time knot and prevent whatever catastrophe is coming."

AN2: This fic is already half as long as its predecessor and we're still building up to Haruka meeting Michiru. I am sufficiently pleased. Next weekend is Animazement for me, but I will strive to have a chapter out by Friday as usual.

petiyaka: Hopefully I answered your question with that last interaction between Rei & Rikuriko

Neptune's Lover: Yes, now it is time for a lot more Haruka. She got to be the catalyst for Mars & Venus to win their henshin sticks and the approval of their gods, now she gets to continue on her path to meeting Michiru.

Meneldur: Sometime after the third generation of Queens, Se decided to breed a child who would be strong enough to handle some of the Sailor Pluto powers, letting her die for a while and return to Olympus and her family. She still had the power of time, so she returned as the heir to her line whenever she was needed. Living a mortal life through the wars, she married mortal men and passed her henshin stick on to her daughter whenever she was ready to die. This led to the legend of "true" Sailor Plutos mentioned by Koshu. Setsuna has been alive for longer in this incarnation than any other, because she because good friends with the current queens (and for another reason that anyone who read "Kazeko" already knows) but she still plans to eventually marry and produce an heir. Just not yet. Haruka will explain why her relationship with her father degraded soon. I had Amami as deceased the first time I wrote this fic, but I decided to keep her alive for this version so that Shousha is the only queen without her soul mate. I also wanted Haruka to be the first senshi, so I mostly needed Amami to still be alive to pass her henshin stick on to Ami later. As for the Rei/Minako relationship, I love exploring it because of how emotional both of them are, as opposed to Michi/Ruka who are much more reserved (and therefore require a different approach). I kind of like the Rei/Rikuriko dynamic, and I do think that the two reactions to the same situation would both be appropriate but obviously I prefer Rei's choice. Yes, it might destroy the Silver Millennium, but she loves Minako too much to care about some abstract threat vaguely mentioned in laws so ancient only Setsuna knows them in full.