Chapter Text
Once a year on Mermaid—so, in other words, not quite as often as a yearly event on Coronis, though still far more frequently than any hypothetical yearly event on the frozen outer planets of the Animamates system would be—there was a holiday observed all across the archipelago that made up most of the planet's landmass, celebrating the final kelp harvest before the seas got too cold for working. The coastal farm towns and villages each had their own small, traditional festivals, while the inland cities and big hub ports went all-out with fairgrounds full of elaborate pop-up attractions. Every year, Seiren would hop from city to city to sing on all the biggest stages and then enjoy the food and rides. Every year, Crow would fly out from Coronis to join in the festivities and watch Seiren perform.
This year was a little different. This year, Crow flew out to pointedly not watch Seiren perform. She found her way to the right fairgrounds in the right city, and then parked herself at the lily pad jousting pool instead. By the time Seiren came to find her after the concert, even the cockiest young adults in the park had given up on seriously dueling her, so Crow had declared that she would take on all comers at once. Battalions of gleefully shrieking children charged across the lily pad bridge from both sides of the pool, and upon reaching the center were instantly knocked into the water when Crow lightly tapped them with a foam-padded staff. The referee/lifeguard presiding over the attraction sat cradling her head in her hands in silent resignation.
"Showing off by pushing around people weaker than you is unforgivable!" Seiren declared as the crowd at the edge of the pool parted around her. "Sailor Aluminum Seiren, dancing across the shimmering surface!" She struck a pose. The crowd cheered. "In the name of planet Mermaid, I'll wash you away!"
"Do you seriously think you need to do that here?" Crow asked. "Seems like you're the one showing off."
Her criticism was somewhat undercut—or, from a certain perspective, perhaps underscored—by a horde of small children shouting, "Yeah, Seiren, wash her away!"
"She's been hogging the lily pads all afternoon!" a particularly shameless little girl tattled loudly.
"Even for a sparring match, it's important to introduce yourself properly," Seiren insisted. "Mother used to say, 'Always practice the right thing, or you'll memorize the wrong one.'" Someone handed her a jousting staff, and her ridiculously serious expression unfurled into a wild grin. "Prepare yourself, Crow!"
Seiren leapt over half the pool to the edge of the lily pad on which Crow had stationed herself, sticking the landing with perfect grace even as the impact of it all but upended the platform. Crow had anticipated that and hopped a pad backward to avoid being catapulted off. The two guardians faced each other and crossed staves over the thin chasm of water between them, neither giving an inch of ground no matter how many times their weapons clashed.
Crow took a sweep at Seiren's knees, and Seiren jumped to avoid it. Crow was ready for that and redirected the blow upward in an attempt to disrupt Seiren mid-air. Seiren saw it coming, though. She caught Crow's staff between her heels and pulled it with her through her backflip, dragging Crow up off her feet and forward into the drink.
The first thing Crow heard when she surfaced was the crowd chanting Seiren's name. She spat out the liquid that had gotten into her mouth, but the salt still clung to the edges of her teeth. "I hate water," she grumbled.
"You do?" Seiren asked, looking so concerned that for a moment Crow worried she was taking it personally. "Then why were you playing in the jousting pool?"
"Well obviously I didn't intend to lose!"
Seiren smiled sympathetically and reached out a hand to her. Crow took it and let Seiren help her back up onto the lily pad. It occurred to her that she could pull Seiren in with her instead, but Crow was an honorable warrior who would never stoop to such underhanded conduct, and anyway Seiren never actually seemed to mind getting wet.
After Crow had gotten dried off, she and Seiren slipped into disguises to wander the festival incognito. Crow expected Seiren to ask right away about why she'd skipped her concert, but Seiren was too busy bouncing between food stalls and stuffing her face. As the evening wore on, Crow grew impatient enough that she was almost tempted to bring it up herself, but that would defeat the point—though, watching Seiren move through the torchlight with her long autumn skirt swirling around her ankles and her invitingly soft sweater pulled tight across her chest, Crow began to worry she'd never actually had a point to begin with and was in fact just being a jerk for no good reason.
They ended the day riding the gondola over the fairgrounds, Crow staring out at the flickering lights and waning crowds below while Seiren munched her way through a multi-tiered snack box she'd brought onboard.
"Something's wrong, isn't it?" Seiren noted between mouthfuls of clam puffs. "Are you still upset about losing our jousting match earlier? You shouldn't be! You were probably just tired out from how long you'd been at it."
"Oh, please," Crow huffed. "Like anyone else there was capable of making me break a sweat! You probably had more of a workout jumping around a stage while singing your lungs out. I lost fair and square."
Seiren stuffed another clam puff into her mouth, but chewed it slowly, almost pensively. Then suddenly she swallowed it in one rough gulp and blurted out with her next breath, "Wait a minute! Were you playing around on the lily pads all through my concert?"
Crow turned away from the window to gawk at her head-on. "You just now realized that?! How slow are you?"
"Why wouldn't I be slow?" Seiren retorted. "Why would it even occur to me that you would do something like that? That's so mean! Why would you do something so mean?"
"Because I'm an idiot," Crow admitted before she could stop herself. Seiren was pouting and maybe about to cry. Crow kind of wished the wire would break and send their gondola cabin crashing to the ground. "It's just, is it really all right for things to go on like this?" She gestured toward the window, trying to indicate the whole festival around them. "I can't bring myself to believe that it's all right."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that there's a war on our doorstep! The stars all around us are being snuffed out, and we're acting like nothing's wrong. You're performing at festivals to reassure people that nothing's wrong. It feels like lying to everyone."
"Yes, it does," Seiren agreed. "But I don't know what else I could do. We're keeping up with our training. The outer guardians are maintaining the system's shields. Queen Aurelia is... doing her best, I'm sure. Holding herself together for if she has to use her magic."
"But what if it's not enough?" Crow asked. "I bet the guardians of all those other systems did the same things."
"Does that really mean we're doing something wrong, though?" Seiren asked. "If there's something we should be doing and aren't, that's a problem. But I think I'm doing my best, so I don't know what more you expect." Her eyes widened suddenly. "Oh! Unless you think we should go join the battle before it gets here? I know Queen Aurelia said not to, but if it's what you want..."
Not for the first time, Crow considered it. In the end, though, she arrived at the same answer as always. "No. Any advantage we could possibly give to some other system is less than the disadvantage we'd be at having to fight alongside strangers on unfamiliar territory. If we're going to be the deciding factor in any battle, it'll be a battle fought in Animamates. We can't be the ones who stop Galaxia from getting here, and we'll just die sooner if we try."
"Then what exactly are you suggesting?"
"I don't know!" Crow blurted out in frustration. "I don't know what we could be doing better! But that doesn't mean there isn't anything! Maybe we should stop goofing around and all join together to think about it until we come up with something!"
"That might be a good idea," Seiren agreed. "But also, it might not. I mean, if we don't come up with anything even after thinking and thinking and thinking, then we'll just tire ourselves out, and we'll have neglected all the other things we currently are doing, and the people might start panicking and losing hope. And anyway, I don't think something like that is likely to work out unless it's Queen Aurelia calling everyone together."
"Queen Aurelia is way too soft." That was the heart of the problem, wasn't it? Crow should never have taken her frustration out on Seiren. She'd always known that, really, but lashing out at Aurelia was unthinkable for multiple reasons.
"It can't be helped," said Seiren. "There's a reason why healers usually end up leading star systems."
"Sure, but look at who ends up controlling galaxies!" Crow snapped. Then she saw the look on Seiren's face, and slapped her own cheeks to clear her head. This definitely wasn't helping anything. "Sorry. For everything, I mean. The concert and all."
"I forgive you!" Seiren said with a heart-meltingly sweet smile. She reached across the cabin to lay a hand on Crow's thigh. "I can give you a special, private performance tonight. You'll make it up to me then, won't you?"
The crisp autumn evening felt suddenly sweltering. Crow's head was way too hot for her to think of anything smooth to say. She just nodded emphatically, then stole a crab puff and shoved it in her mouth to give herself an excuse for silence.
Seiren giggled as she pulled her hand back, but then frowned when she looked down into the snack box. "Aw, that was the last one. How rude!" She discarded the empty container onto the floor of the cabin and proceeded to the tier below it. "Oh well. Time for marshberry-vinegar kelpcakes!" She took one for herself and offered another to Crow.
The clam puff had been soft and chewy, salty and savory. The crisp, sour-sweet kelpcake made for a refreshing chaser. Crow caught herself beginning to think something ridiculously cheesy about the importance of contrasts and complements, and banished it from her mind so as to avoid blurting out anything embarrassing.
Crow watched Seiren contentedly nibble her cakes, to all appearances completely over the argument they'd just had, and cheerfully point out the window at landmarks as they passed by in the distance or stars as they popped out from the darkening sky. Seiren always seemed to have a way of disarming her, but maybe that was okay. Maybe while Crow was out here on a planet that wasn't technically her responsibility anyway, she could forgive herself for pretending just a little bit longer that everything would be all right in the end.
—
Crow and Seiren were alone with Aurelia when Galaxia made her offer to them. The Sailor Animamates had divided themselves up across battles on multiple fronts, and had left the task of protecting the queen to two of their strongest fighters. That decision turned out to be rather ironic, obviously—but, on the other hand, maybe someone should have foreseen what would happen next, because it might not have happened if things had been arranged differently.
Galaxia burned the palace down around them and then knocked them about in the rubble. Seiren jumped in front of Aurelia to take a blow meant for her. Crow spotted a chunk of falling debris in time to shove the queen out from under it and let it crash down against her own back, knocking her on her stomach and shattering into shrapnel that rained down over her prone body. The pain didn't matter. Even if she died, it wouldn't matter. Keeping Aurelia alive mattered, because as long as Aurelia lived there would be hope for everyone, even the seemingly lost.
But Aurelia wouldn't live. She lay on the ground where Crow had pushed her, struggling and failing to get to her feet after the battering she'd taken in the fight. Seiren was out cold, her labored breath the only sign she wasn't yet dead. Crow was pinned down. No one could do a thing to resist when Galaxia raised her arms for another attack.
It didn't kill them. The light pierced through Crow's eyes and burned around her skin, dragged her along the jagged rubble-strewn ground, tossed her into the air and sent her spinning so wildly that she couldn't tell whether it was the floor or a half-collapsed wall that her body slammed into, but when the heat faded and the pressure relented, she was still alive. She could hear Aurelia crying loudly nearby, so the queen was still alive.
A soft, slender-fingered hand reached up from somewhere below and felt its way down Crow's arm, then curled around Crow's own hand in a familiar embrace. Seiren was still alive.
"Galaxia!" Crow shouted out. "What is wrong with you? Why don't you just kill us and get it over with?"
"Oh?" came Galaxia's voice from some ways above and to the left. At least Crow had some idea where she was now, for all the good that did her. "Are you giving up?"
"Like that even matters!" Crow snapped. "Isn't it our star seeds you're after? You definitely could have taken them by now if you were really trying!"
"Trying?" Galaxia laughed. "But don't you see? That's the point. I don't even have to try. Effort is for the dim and weak."
"That's not true!" Aurelia insisted. "We aren't weak! Crow and Seiren aren't weak! The way they give their best every time is what makes them shine so bright and strong!"
"Did we really give our best?" Crow wondered quietly to herself. "Is this really as far as we could have gotten no matter what we tried?"
"I apologize," said Seiren. "I guess I wasn't strong enough after all."
"Don't say that! It's obviously not your fault!" Crow squeezed her hand.
"Silence!" Another blast struck them from above, crushing the air from Crow's lungs so that she couldn't speak, but then it passed and somehow she was still breathing. "'Get it over with,' did you say?" Galaxia continued. "Why would I even want to to do that? This is the interesting part, after all. But..." She paused as though for dramatic effect. This time, no one interrupted her. "In the grand course of conquest, there are sometimes more menial tasks to be seen to. Chores with which I would not deign to waste my time. So you see, I do have some use for servants."
Galaxia explained the bracelets then. As she spoke, Crow's vision began to clear at last, and she found the strength to push herself up onto her elbows and look around. She'd ended up lying on some kind of ledge that definitely hadn't been built this way. The wreckage was such a mess that she still couldn't tell walls from floors even by looking at them.
Aurelia was a huddled lump not far from her feet, still trying to stand and still failing. Why did she even bother at this point? Even if she got herself all the way upright, what did she think she would do next? As it was, she didn't get anywhere near all the way upright, and she still cringed and cried out when she fell back down, so why give herself farther to fall? Maybe this kind of determination could have gotten them somewhere if the queen had used it earlier for planning and preparing, but instead she'd wasted all that time on "trying to stay hopeful" and "remembering what we're fighting for." And now what did they have to fight for? The whole capital city was burned and broken, twisted and collapsed. Knowing Galaxia, that same devastation might already have spread across the whole planet. She definitely wasn't lying when she said that she kept subordinates for the convenience, not because she actually needed them to be effective. Mermaid and Coronis couldn't be much better off, since their guardians had left them undefended to protect Aurelia—for all the good that had done! Crow wasn't sure that even the queen had the power to undo this kind of damage, and even if she did, there was no chance left of her living long enough to use it.
So, those were all reasons. But no amount of reasons could ever really matter, because Seiren was a truly good person who would never betray their queen, and Crow was going to stay by her side until the end. That was that.
"Who would even consider a deal like that?" Aurelia asked as she finally made it to her feet. She swayed a bit, but caught herself against an upright beam that might have been either what was left of a wall or part of a collapsed ceiling. "What's the point of living just to be brainwashed slaves? Death or subservience—if those really were the only choices, it would be the end of us either way. But I don't believe it's really over yet. As long as we're alive, it isn't over. Even if I'm wrong, even if it does end here, then the best thing we can do is avoid having any regrets."
It was the kind of speech that should have lifted hearts and lit a fire in the blood, but Crow just felt her blood go cold and her stomach drop. It was far too late to avoid having regrets. There was a whole lifetime's worth of things that she still wanted to do, whole worlds full of the places she wanted to do them, and all of that was going to disappear.
"What a shame," said Galaxia. "Once the cuffs were on, you would have no longer seen any reason to feel regret."
"That would have been nice," Crow thought, but she wasn't the one who said it out loud. Startled, she looked down from the ledge to where Seiren stood reaching up to her, leaning against the wreckage and clinging to Crow's hand to stay upright. Had she been straining herself like that this whole time, just so Crow could feel her?
Seiren tilted her head up to meet Crow's eyes. She wore a sad, apologetic little smile that told Crow everything she was thinking even with her lips pressed closed. I'm tired of the effort. I'm tired of the pain. There's a part of me that wants to do it, but I know that you never would, and I'm with you.
Crow knew perfectly well what she should do with that revelation. She should be inspired. She should strive to believe in herself as much as Seiren believed in her, and fight to the bitter end to be the person Seiren thought she was. She should watch Seiren keep struggling, keep suffering, keep falling down over and over until finally she didn't get back up, and feel proud of her for fighting so hard to be the person Crow believed in.
Instead, she called out quickly before Galaxia could resume her attack, "We'll do it." Seiren's jaw dropped, but she didn't object.
Galaxia burst out laughing. Aurelia stuttered out shocked and horrified pleas. Crow did her best to ignore both of them as she swung her legs over the ledge and dropped down next to Seiren.
"This is wrong," Seiren said as the two of them leaned shoulder to shoulder for support.
"No kidding," said Crow. "Does that mean you won't do it?"
"I'll do it," said Seiren. Then she repeated slowly, as though the words were in a foreign language she was just beginning to practice, "This is wrong, but I'll do it."
The next blow tore out their hearts and dropped them to their knees. Crow felt herself begin to fade as Galaxia held out their glistening star seeds for all to see, and wondered for one terrifying moment whether this was all a cruel trick, a final torture to send them to their deaths with inescapable knowledge of their own cowardice. But then the bracelets materialized around her wrists and sent a jolt of power coursing like lightning through her flesh. When the burning and the screaming stopped, she felt solid again.
And not just solid. She felt energized like right after a transformation from a disguise into guardian form, only more so. The blood and bruises didn't vanish, but they no longer caused her pain or limited her movement. She laughed out in amazement and heard Seiren laugh alongside her.
"This can't be happening," Aurelia said. At the sound of her voice, the giddiness Crow had been feeling vanished, replaced by a simmering anger. Of course it was happening. Why wouldn't it be? What was wrong with this girl that she still couldn't understand something so obvious?
"Can't it?" Galaxia asked. To Crow and Seiren she said, "Before you take her star seed, show her what you really are."
As easily as taking a step forward, Crow leapt back up onto the ledge.
"I already know who you are," Aurelia lied to her face. "Sailor Lead Crow. You're always nervous about showing your true feelings, but those feelings burn so hot and bright that you just can't hold them back. I refuse to believe that someone so honest would ever–"
"Shut up," Crow told her as she grabbed her by the hair and flung her to the ground below. "Seiren!"
"Sailor Aluminum Seiren!" Aurelia called out as she lay where she'd fallen. "You can be kind of spacey sometimes, but you put more effort than anyone else into doing the right thing. I know how hard you've worked to be a proper guardian, so please–"
Seiren picked her up by the throat, choking off her words, and then held her with her arms pinned behind her back. "Here, Crow!"
Crow leapt down, driving her fist into Aurelia's stomach with the full momentum of the jump. Aurelia's body jerked, but Seiren's grip kept her from falling backward and away from the blow, or from curling forward to protect herself from the next strike. So Crow did strike again, and felt a rib give way. Then she swung for the face and cracked open the skin over one of the queen's perfect cheekbones.
It should have been impossible. This was Queen Aurelia. If nothing else, Crow should have flinched and pulled her punches by instinct. But with Galaxia's power flowing through her, instinct was no more of a hindrance than wounds or exhaustion.
"Enough!" Galaxia called. Crow took a step back, and Seiren released Aurelia, letting her crumple and fall.
For a long minute, the only sound was Aurelia whimpering and gasping for breath. Then she sobbed out, "Why? How did things end up like this? I thought you wanted to protect everyone! I thought you wanted to protect me! I thought... I thought... I thought..."
"Do it," Galaxia ordered. Crow and Seiren held the jewels of their bracelets out over Aurelia and shot her through. The queen screamed and jerked and then went still, crying quietly for a few final moments before falling completely silent. Her lifeless body dissolved into light, leaving behind a star seed the same deep gold as the ethereal petals it had emerged from.
"Is it over?" Seiren asked. It very obviously was, so she didn't wait for an answer before sighing and letting herself slump a bit. "Crow? I feel weird."
"Yeah, me too," Crow said. She felt electrified, but also strangely hazy. Like static. That was it: her head felt full of static. "But I guess that's to be expected. Besides, it's not a bad kind of weird."
"No, I definitely feel like something's wrong," Seiren insisted. "I feel... empty. Like there's this gaping hole inside me."
"Let me guess—you've gone a few hours without a snack, and now you're hungry."
"Maybe," Seiren said, sounding uncertain. Then, with a bit more confidence: "That's probably it. You're usually right about things, and you know me pretty well."
"Of course I do," said Crow. "After all, you're my..." What was it, again? She respected Seiren deeply, even admired her. She was always watching her or being watched by her, following her or being followed. Seiren was the one who drove her to be her best. "My number one rival. We're companions and rivals."
"Companions and rivals," Seiren repeated quietly. "Yeah."
She really did look a bit unwell. Crow took her gently by the shoulders to try to lift her out of her slump. When she touched Seiren's skin, though, Crow realized she felt a kind of emptiness within herself too, and was struck by the strange idea that maybe she could fill it if she held Seiren tightly to her chest.
"Pull yourselves together," Galaxia's voice cut in. "We're not finished with this star system just yet."
Crow released Seiren's shoulders, and the two of them turned away from each other to bow to their new leader. "Yes," they said in chorus.
—
Aurelia had been more right than not when she'd said that giving their souls over to Galaxia would be the end. Their bodies held together a while after, but not for very long. Seiren died to tyranny, of course, because they had thrown themselves on the mercy of a tyrant. Crow died to treachery, of course, because all her remaining colleagues were traitors like her.
"Sorry, Seiren," she said at the end, as though Seiren would have any reason to care whether Crow managed to steal the star seed she'd found. As the black hole devoured her arms, bracelets and all, Crow suddenly knew she wouldn't, but she also knew that wasn't really the point. She'd taken Seiren down this path with her, and now Seiren was dead anyway, and she was about to die, and she'd gone and wasted most of what little time they'd managed to buy for themselves. With that final thought, she fell.
A beautiful woman stood in a field of golden flowers.
Where was this? How was Crow here?
Crow wasn't here, she realized. The vision played like an image on a screen, flat and distant. She could see, but she had no head she could turn to change what she saw nor eyes she could close to block out the sight.
"Please understand," the woman said. "I confronted the Chaos alone, believing I was the only one strong enough to do so. I was wrong. It broke me down and took my strength for itself. I am truly sorry, but not nearly sorry enough to account for everything I've done. No heart is wide enough to hold that much regret."
The vision shifted rapidly. Landscapes burned. Cities crumbled. Oceans vaporized. Whole planets shriveled to barren rock. All of it was Galaxia's work. Whenever her face appeared, it appeared amid the faces of guardians trying to stop her. Some of them sacrificed themselves in the attempt. Some of them turned on each other. All of them died. None of them managed to protect anything at all.
The images of destruction went on and on. The scenes and the figures within them marched by with such predictability that they became almost indistinguishable. Everything bled together. Everything bled.
Was this Hell? Or some secret pocket of spacetime tucked away beyond the event horizon?
For a moment Crow thought she caught a glimpse of a memory of Seiren, but it was gone before she could be sure what she was seeing. She tried to will the vision to rewind and show her again, but it did not respond to her wishes
Finally, the woman from the beginning made her return. "Please understand," she said, "that your situation is far from unique. Whatever choices you made, many others chose the same thing. Yet others made the opposite choices, and they fared no better than you did. Their loved ones fared no better than yours did. Whatever suffering you endured, you are not alone. Whatever suffering you caused or failed to avert, you are not alone."
Wait a minute, Crow thought at her. So you don't know who specifically I am? How many people are you talking to? Is anyone else here with me? Are you here with me? Who are you?
But the woman was already gone, and another scene had begun. This one seemed to play a bit more slowly and in sharper focus, as though it were being conveyed with special emphasis by whatever entity was putting on this show. Crow recognized the two girls wearing Galaxia's bracelets and kneeling before her throne. She remembered Seiren scolding them about shoes on the table. She remembered escaping while they were flustered by the scolding. She remembered huddling close to Seiren in the teleport box and shaking with poorly suppressed laughter. Yet again they had failed to accomplish anything, but their whole misadventure had become a gloriously absurd mess, and those annoying self-proclaimed heroines were going to be the ones who had to clean it up.
Uranus and Neptune didn't look much like heroines here. They killed their comrades and tortured their princess. But then—wonderfully, impossibly—they turned on Galaxia when her guard was down, and used her own weapons against her.
It didn't work. "Incredible! I've never met anyone else like you in the entire galaxy!" Galaxia told them. And then she killed them anyway.
"Please understand," said the mysterious woman. "There were no good options. The bravest of warriors enacted the cleverest of plans with the purest of intentions, and they still ended up with regrets."
Then there was another shift of scene, and Crow found herself looking directly into the face of someone else she recognized: the guardian she had been trying to harvest when she'd died. The shining, secret treasure that Seiren had discovered floated at the girl's bared breast, glowing with the same warmth and brilliance as her smile.
The girl reached out her hand. Something fundamental changed, and Crow reached back.
Everything faded to white. Then Crow was somewhere again, within the field of golden flowers, not just watching from beyond. Sailor Moon was gone, and Crow was holding the hand of the woman who had spoken to her throughout the vision.
"In spite of everything, you are alive," the woman said. "Can you possibly understand what that means? I can't quite comprehend it myself, but I know what I have to do. Only I can return what I've stolen. It will be a long journey across the galaxy, and I must not stop until it is complete. Guilt notwithstanding, even I will go on. So whatever guilt you bear, whatever you face next..."
"You," Crow realized aloud. She recoiled, pulling her hand away. "I don't care what's changed; I am not going to listen to a lecture from you!"
"Fair enough," said Galaxia. In an instant, she was gone.
The field of flowers was gone too. Crow stood on a tall hill overlooking the ruins of the Animamates system capital. The other traitorous Sailor Animamates stood near her. Aurelia floated above them, emanating a glow of golden magic that enveloped them all.
"No, no, no, why," Nyanko whimpered. "Do we have to die again? I mean, we probably deserve it, but I still don't want to!"
"Die?" Aurelia looked horrified. "What do you mean? You don't think I'm going to kill you, do you?"
"No, of course not," said Crow. "Why would you ever be anything other than completely useless?"
"Crow!" Seiren latched onto her arm and gave it a sharp tug. Crow squawked in alarm before realizing who it was. Seiren had come out of nowhere, because Crow hadn't been looking at her. She'd been trying very hard not to look at her. "That's too mean! Queen Aurelia didn't do anything wrong. Besides, we were worse than useless. We should apologize!"
"Apologize? Seriously? You're missing the bigger picture again." Crow considered trying to shake her arm free, but couldn't muster the will to do it. "We went way, way too far for an apology to cover. No matter how much we grovel, we can't just go back to being guardians. The queen can't trust us anymore, and neither can the people."
"The people don't know everything that happened," said Aurelia. "If they hear that you were being controlled by Galaxia, I think they'll accept that. It's the truth, anyway. Not the whole truth, but... Well, I feel like I still don't have the whole truth either."
"Is that really good enough?" asked Mouse. "Even if we'd been taken over against our wills, we still would have failed to protect them."
"All right, so maybe they won't trust you unless you can earn it back," said Aurelia. "They won't hate you, either, so is that really so bad? I admit, I don't exactly trust you, and I don't hate you. But I need you. Animamates needs its guardians. It can't wait for you to be reborn, even assuming you can be reborn from planets this devastated, even assuming your next lives wouldn't bear the marks of who you've been in these ones. So please, just hold onto the hope that you deserve this chance we've all been given, and lend me your power at least one more time."
Crow couldn't think of anything to say to that. Apparently, neither could the others.
"Seiren," said Aurelia, "can you tell me what's going on? You're the only one here who doesn't look completely terrified."
"I am?" Seiren looked around her in confusion, then leaned in even closer to Crow to examine her face. If Crow turned her head just a little, her lips would brush across Seiren's forehead.
That was just too much. Crow pulled away. "She can't tell you anything," she said to Aurelia. "She's the outlier because she doesn't get it." Then she let herself face Seiren. "You were the only one who never had the sense to be scared of Galaxia. I think whatever those bracelets did to our heads really didn't mix well with the way your mind works. You were completely out of it half the time."
"I was?" Seiren thought it over. "Oh, right, like how I kept trying to show my business card to our targets. It made sense at the time, but looking back, that was pretty weird."
"It didn't make sense at the time to anyone but you!" Crow felt the corners of her mouth twitching upward in spite of herself. She hoped it looked more like a grimace than a fond smile.
"But wait a minute," said Seiren. "You're saying the way you're acting is because of Galaxia? She's not here anymore, so... Maybe this time you're the one who doesn't grasp the situation we're in."
"It's not that easy!" Crow protested.
"Oh, I'm not criticizing you!" Seiren reassured her. "It's just, for now, I think maybe I should trust my own instincts over what you're telling me. Okay?" She turned toward Aurelia and stepped forward. Crow reached out and grabbed hold of her arm—don't leave me again, don't disappear—but Seiren shot her a look over her shoulder, and Crow reluctantly let her go.
Seiren knelt at Queen Aurelia's feet. "I apologize," she said. "Not only was I too weak to protect you, but I acted selfishly and cowardly. Even if there were no good options, I believe I chose the worst of all bad ones. I think that's part of why I chose it. It was so much simpler than trying to make the best choice and then having to wonder whether I really did. I don't know if there are any good options now, either, but I think I owe it to everyone to at least try to do something right instead of just giving up again."
"Rise, Sailor Aluminum Seiren," Aurelia said.
Seiren stood. "Come on, Crow," she called. "Come on, everyone. Let's try again." Crow stepped forward and took her hand. That, at least, came easily and without needing to think about it too much.
The light grew more intense as she drew closer to Aurelia. Squinting through it, Crow could see the Sailor Animamates who had remained dutiful to the end standing behind their queen with eyes closed and hands clasped. For now, they were too focused on channeling their magic to Aurelia to say anything to the traitors, but that would be another thing Crow would have to deal with soon.
Crow had no idea how she would deal with it, just like she had no idea how much of the star system could be restored with magic alone, or what she could possibly do to help rebuild whatever would still need rebuilding. It all seemed pretty hopeless in the long run, but right now, she and Seiren were standing side by side and hand in hand, and that was a miracle worth basking in for however long she could. It probably wasn't a particularly good decision to cling to the idea she would be all right as long as they were together, because that kind of thinking was part of what had gotten her here in the first place. But it was all she had right now to keep her from giving up. Like Seiren had said, the one thing she absolutely shouldn't do was give up.
Mouse and Nyanko stepped up beside them to offer their hands and their power as well. Together, they gave what they had.