On Rei’s forehead, glowing scarlet, the symbol for Mars had appeared. Following this, a faint red aura began to envelop her body, and the restraints that bound her wrists to the bed began to give off smoke. A path of scorch marks was spreading across each of the thick leather straps as if being seared by a lit cigarette.
Rei watched the computer Youma getting to its feet beyond the now empty window frame, her teeth bared and a look of hunger in her wild eyes.
“Does not compute. Does not compute,” Datadump repeated, confused by the human girl’s inexplicable burst of power. “Must eliminate!”
Rei strained with all her might against the weakening ties, and finally, the right one tore away. With her freed hand she pulled at the other and severed the second strap. As the monster made its way back into the room with its screen glowing dangerously, Rei leaned forward and released her ankle ties. Finally free of her shackles, she leaped off the bed just as Datadump fired its attack.
Rei’s blasted pillows released a hail of feathers into the air as she launched herself at her target like a madwoman. She pushed the mass of computer parts into the corridor and against the opposite wall, where she began clawing and pulling at wires. Datadump hit the girl several times with its flailing keyboard arms, but like a rabid dog, she wouldn’t relent and wrestled the monster to the floor.
“Eliminate! Eliminate!” cried Datadump, firing more energy rays from its screen.
However, straddling the machine monster’s chest with her knees on its shoulders, Rei grabbed the monitor that was its head and angled it away from her, so its shots were fired down the long corridor, instead. With the beast all but disabled, she began muttering under her breath.
“Release me, human!” Datadump demanded.
Rei ignored the monster’s cries, and continued muttering, “Rin, Pyou, Tou, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen. Rin, Pyou, Tou, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen.”
“Your words do not compute!” said Datadump, but there was worry in its robotic voice.
“Rin, Pyou, Tou, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen. Rin, Pyou, Tou, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen,” the girl continued, her eyes closed tightly as the strange red aura that surrounded her grew stronger.
“Does not compute! Does not compute!” said Datadump helplessly. “Shearoff, I require assistance! Shearoff!”
“Rin, Pyou, Tou, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen. Rin, Pyou, Tou, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen!”
Suddenly, the cloak of red energy around Rei enveloped the Youma. Then, her eyes flashed open with menace, and she bellowed, “Akuryo Taisan!”
Datadump began to shake uncontrollably and give off smoke, and sparks flew from its body as if it were short-circuiting. Its screen flashed intermittently, briefly displayed a pixelated image of a bomb with a fuse, then went black.
Panting, the girl in the hospital gown watched as a clump of black mist escaped the monster’s screen, and the mass of equipment below her fell apart.
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In lieu of the stairs, which were now full of evacuating staff and patients, Mercury leaped out of the window the furnace Youma had entered through, and Skywalked up to Rei’s floor. In just a few bounds, she arrived at a second shattered pane. Evidently, this floor had also been penetrated by the enemy that way.
Hopping inside, Mercury flattened herself to the wall, checking around corners before she proceeded to Rei’s room, careful to step over the many victims that lined the floor. Oddly enough, her visor was still detecting the signal that was so similar to Minako’s. She didn’t understand it, but at least that meant Rei had not been taken yet.
Up ahead, Ami heard a scuffle of sorts and took a deep breath in preparation for battle.
“Does not compute! Does not compute!” a voice cried out. “Shearoff, I require assistance! Shearoff!”
“Rin, Pyou, Tou, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen. Rin, Pyou, Tou, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen! Akuryo Taisan!” a second voice shouted, but Ami knew that voice. She knew those words, too, though, it had been years since she had last heard them. It was Rei’s voice, and those were the words of Rei’s meditation chant and command to exorcize spirits.
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On reaching Rei’s ward, Ami was met with an unbelievable sight. Rei was sat atop a writhing Youma, shrouded in a red aura, vaguely reminiscent of the one Sailor Venus exuded. Rei wasn’t only awake; she had exorcized a Youma without even transforming. How could this be?
“Rei?” Ami called out, running toward her old friend, a smile spreading across her face in spite of herself. So caught up in the moment, she didn’t register the warning blinkering across her visor.
All at once, Rei turned her head in Mercury’s direction, then leaped to her feet and lunged at the soldier in a rage.
Mercury’s smile faded as she stopped in her tracks and braced herself. However, it was an attack from the rear that she should have been worried about. Rei was not reacting to her. Rei was reacting to the scissor-handed Youma that had appeared behind Mercury with its sickle-like arm raised.
Caught unaware, Sailor Mercury yelped in surprise as her back was slashed. She fell feebly to the ground just as Rei threw herself at the Youma. Unable to assess the depth of her wound, but overcome with pain and fearing the worst, she shuffled toward Rei’s patient room, where she planned to take cover. However, she couldn’t let Rei fight such a lethal Youma. One false move and the girl could end up like Sailor Moon.
She had to give her idea a try. It was the reason she had stopped by her secret lab on the way to Rei’s room, after all. Mercury materialized the drawstring bag she had collected from her desk drawer and opened it up. From inside, she pulled out another Crystal Change Rod, this one with a red crystalline orb on top.
Shakily raising the rod in the direction of the grappling pair, Mercury commanded, “Mars Crystal Power!”
To her delight, the red crystal responded, transmitting power to its long-lost master. Rei was bathed in a swirl of red light, causing the bladed Youma to back away in alarm. However, to Ami’s horror, the emergence of Sailor Mars in her red and white uniform preceded an incredible shockwave.
Windowpanes smashed, ceiling tiles blew away, papers from the nurses’ station danced like leaves caught in a storm, and both Mercury and the Youma slid along the hospital corridor’s smooth floor in opposite directions.
Ami grabbed hold of Rei’s door frame for support until the force subsided. Her visor’s computer readings were going haywire. Mars’ readings were now exactly like Sailor Venus’, and just like Venus, Mars was now shrouded in a large, flickering cloak of energy. However, unlike Venus, Mars was also giving off steam. It seemed the girl’s transformation was just as dangerous, if not more so, owing to the nature of the element she commanded.
“What are you?” the scissor Youma questioned as it struggled to its feet.
In response, Rei began chanting loudly, while making hand signals. “Rin, Pyou, Tou, Sha, Kai—” she began.
“Don’t ignore me, you filthy human!”
Thinking about how much stronger Sailor Venus’ powers had become after they went out of control, Mercury realized she was in danger. She pulled herself to her knees and crawled into Rei’s room for cover. Just as she closed the door behind her and breathed a sigh of relief, she spotted Makoto lying in the corner.
“—Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen!” Rei finished.
At that same moment, Mercury threw herself across the room and on top of Makoto, grimacing from the pain in her back, put her palms together, and called out, “Bubble Spray!”
As Mercury erected one giant bubble around herself and Makoto, Sailor Mars roared, “Akuryo Taisan!”
In an instant, the top half of Rei’s room was flooded with scarlet energy that entered through the pane-less viewing window and licked at the air like flames. Despite being protected by her watery veil, Ami could feel the incredible heat radiating from it. She marveled at the power of Rei’s chant, which in the past had required an ofuda, and was usually employed to simply immobilize or exorcize an evil presence.
The scissor Youma would surely have been exorcized, if not burned to a crisp, but the chant’s enhanced output would probably have incurred collateral damage. Once the energy dissipated, Ami forced herself to her feet, trying to ignore the pain from her wound, which she knew now must not be as deep as she had feared. She moved into the corridor, summoned an orb of blue energy in each hand, and commanded, “Aqua Mist!”
She kept her ability going for longer than usual, ensuring that the entire floor was swamped with moisture and that any fires started by Rei’s attack were extinguished. She could see using her visor that the top half of the corridor was charred black. On the floor in her hospital gown again, Rei was stirring. Beside her, was the red and pink Crystal Change Rod, and further away, a blackened pair of scissors.
Ami knelt next to her old friend and placed the Mars Crystal, which now had some definite cracks, back in the drawstring bag before removing another object from it.
“Ami?” Rei spoke softly, her bottom lip quivering, and her violet eyes watery and full of recognition.
Ami smiled sweetly and brushed Rei’s unkempt bangs from her face with one hand. Then, with one swift movement, she plunged the syringe she now held in the other into Rei’s neck, rendering the confused girl unconscious.