Wednesday evening. Their reunion wouldn't have been so disagreeable one day earlier, yesterday afternoon was warm, but tonight clouds hermetically sealed the sky, no ray filtered in, it was moist and cold, and the wind added to a light rain froze hands and feet. Autumn advanced, it couldn't be denied. November was coming.
Ami was showing Rei the results of some analysis while Minako absently caressed Artemis. They instinctively stood very close to each other in order to spare some warmth, it was definitely time to dress more warmly, and when Usagi arrived she had to push her way into the circle. Luna, who had waited apart the group, jumped into her arms.
"So, Usagi giggled with a fake-looking smile, any news on your side?
- Yes, Rei proudly declared, we finally have the answer we needed about the enemy. Ami did a superb work of analysis, not without the information I gathered, of course. I managed to contact the entity and we know what it has against us.
- Ha yes? What? How do we defeat it?
- We don't. You see, I was surprised when I contacted its mind. It's a very primitive entity, that's why it was so difficult to contact, without intelligence, it couldn't plot against us. Yet it attacked us only, its avatars disperse afterward, but they only appear where we are. And despite all this useless aggression, its instinct knew no hate. It was terrified.
- Rei described it, Ami continued, and I looked at it. According to the monsters' behaviour, it doesn't know our world. It's after energy, that's why they seem stupid enough to kill themselves by running into walls or to attack inanimate objects: they don't see them. It doesn't even know what matter is, what kind of enemy would attack a world it knows so poorly? I traced its energy, and look what I've found."
Ami showed her computer's screen, where an ensemble of lines and curves were entangled on a four-axis graph no normal mind could conceive. The expression Usagi gave her expressed perfectly the clarity her explanation blatantly lacked.
" They're isoenergy lines. The high concentration in the centre is the entity, and around it is the normal energy thread of its universe, and an obvious distortion on the i axis. The entity itself is distorted like the space around it. To compare, it's like being pinned to the wall with an iron bar through the body, without dying of course. Each time it wants to move it hurts itself, it might starve to death nailed in place. And apparently, there's your name on the bar.
- Heu?
- Speaking figuratively, Rei clarified. She means the distortion is made of your energy. The entity wants to escape at all cost; it throws random attacks every time it feels a Sailor energy.
- So it's not evil?
- Not yet, but if it remains trapped and survive… its state already forces it to learn, to evolve, its last attacks were already smarter. It's normal for it to develop, but if it does like that, in pain and fear… lets say it won't have only joy in its heart.
- So, what do we do?
- It's one of your attacks that caused the distortion, we need to find out which, we go back where you launched and you activate the Moon Sceptre. If you want to know why, ask Ami, for me it's like Chinese.
- Not activate it completely, Ami added without being asked, you'd kill it. The crystal fetches its energy in this dimension, if you weaken the thread the entity should be able to break the distortion.
- I understood, Rei, Usagi remarked. How will I know what strength to use?
- I'll calculate it, but in practice you'll never know if you freed the entity or if you killed it."
Usagi let some time flow to confirm the subject was closed, then spoke: "I broke into Makoto's this morning. She had locked herself in well, I almost destroyed the entrance to open."
- I hope you had a good reason, you know she would be right to send you the police.
– She won't, she won't want to see them in person. For the same reason she won't go see a doctor, and I think after all I agree with her.
- OK, Rei stopped her, suspense is already a bad match for you, now it's really not the time.
- Well… she's dead…
- WHAT?
- Not like you think! She walks and talks and all but… Two weeks ago, when I resurrected her, I… did it all wrong… Her body, well, it doesn't work normally.
- How, not normally? Usagi, does it always take a formal interrogation to get you to finish a sentence?
- Well, it's dead. Her heart doesn't beat, ant it's rotting, it's hideous. Her wound, the one from the arrow, it's huge, and empty under, with… with worms on the edges and… like her legs and arms and she… she's all skinny and dry and… it's disgusting… dried skin… it's like burned… and the smell… she's dead, whatever we want to think! She is dead!"
Usagi had started to cry as she talked, and Rei abandoned her strict look to pass her arm around her shoulders. Pity, guilt, grief, she had every reason to cry. As long as she didn't forget to act, to fix things. "She told me it was my fault! she continued, She said she wanted to kill me! She hates me, because it's my fault! It's my energy forcing her to live, she wants to die, she said she was ready to kill me to be free.
- Sort of like our entity, Rei said because she didn't know what else to say.
- Yeah, but the entity isn't asking to be killed! I don't know what to do; I have the power to make her live, but not to repair her body! She will continue to decompose alive forever. She said if I didn't let her die she would kill me, because she doesn't want to suffer anymore.
- We'll need to find a solution, if that's true leaving her in this state is unacceptable. You never could give back life without sacrificing yours, and unless I'm mistaken your mother Serenity couldn't either. It's an aberration, what happened with Makoto.
- Do you have a solution?
- Only one, and you don't want it.
- You want me to let her die, that's it?
- Yes. Even before she admitted it, before her body began to rot, she must have felt something was out of place. Remember how she had the tendency to hide the very first night, to isolate herself? It now makes sense, she's dead and should have stayed that way, if she knows herself, we should let things be what they are and free her.
- Rei, I hate you. Abandon your friends, murder them if you want, but I won't. I'll find a solution alone!"
To make sure she wouldn't insist, Usagi left without any further word for goodbye. She heard nothing from Ami and Minako even if they hadn't said they agreed with Rei, and Luna preferred to walk behind her, she remembered the last time Usagi had been so mad and she had let her carry her, she didn't want to do it again, ever.

Chapter 10