The successive late nights spent patrolling the city had finally taken their toll on Ami. On returning home from work that evening, she had immediately kicked off her shoes, pulled her curtains closed tightly, climbed under the covers of her bed, and gone straight to sleep without fully undressing.

Ami knew protecting the city right now was important, but she reasoned that she wouldn’t be much use to anybody with her current level of exhaustion. Before drifting off into peaceful oblivion, Ami wondered how Minako had ever kept up her nightly routine. In a moment of curiosity, she had hacked into the police records earlier that week and discovered the full extent of Minako’s exploits, giving her a renewed respect for the so-called vigilante.

Minako may not have worked full-time, but she had never missed a beat when it came to protecting the city. With how many arrests Sailor V had assisted with over the years, it was a little sad that she got so little recognition, especially now that Ami had some idea of just how taxing it must have been on her.

It was also sad that in spite of her efforts, crime levels in the city were at an all-time high. The place once destined to become Crystal Tokyo, a beacon of hope for the future, was rapidly descending into one of despair.

When a noisy alarm sounded just four hours after Ami had fallen asleep, she was tempted to hurl the source at the nearest wall, but she realized it was coming from her computer. She may have taken the night off, but it seemed the enemy was doing no such thing.

Ami fished out the hand-held device from under the covers and squinted at the screen to analyze the readings. An energy signature strong enough to be cause for concern had been detected. Once her bleary vision had adjusted, she bolted upright in her bed. The large reading was close to a hospital. Her hospital.

They wouldn’t really target a medical facility, though, would they? Even as Ami asked herself this, she remembered that the children at Makoto’s school had not been off-limits to the Blood Moon Alliance. Why would the infirm be any different? As quickly as she could, Ami got ready and headed out for the hospital.

Along the way, each time her car stopped at an intersection, she checked her computer. She cursed under her breath upon seeing the energy reading head in the direction of the building, and again when it fainted considerably and split in two, knowing that this meant there were multiple enemies. Half way to her destination, another noise disrupted her thoughts. It was her phone ringing this time.

“Hello?” Ami answered.

“Hello, Doctor Mizuno? This is Nurse Shizuka from the hospital. Doctor Miamoto has asked me to get in touch.”

“Is there a problem?” Ami asked with urgency.

“I’m afraid we’re having a problem with Miss Hino.”

“What’s wrong?”

“She’s had one of her episodes and isn’t responding to out sedatives. Dr. Miamoto says that you’re to be informed of anything out of the ordinary regarding Miss Hino’s treatment.”

“I’m on my way. I’ll be there shortly,” said Ami before hanging up and pushing a little harder on the accelerator pedal.

There it was. Confirmation—not that she needed it—Rei had detected the enemy and was unusually disturbed. And no wonder, after consulting her computer again, Ami saw that there were now four separate readings in different areas of the building. After what happened to Makoto, if they discovered Rei’s energy was pure, they would surely take her.

Ami had to get there, but what could she do in these circumstances? How could she fight while maintaining her secret? In order to perpetuate the myth of Sailor V, she would have to defeat four Youma, and in enclosed surroundings. She wouldn’t be able to pass off mist as a natural occurrence inside the labyrinthine building. On top of that, patients would be endangered if the battles got out of hand. The police—whom she alerted using her computer—would face similar problems.

Seconds away from the hospital, Ami’s computer alarm sounded again. “What now?” she grumbled, thinking that this meant even more enemies had appeared. However, upon interpreting her device’s data, she realized it was a separate energy source. A big one at that. “Minako? Impossible!”

Minako was supposed to be lying unconscious in her apartment under the close watch of Luna and Artemis. How could she possibly have woken up, known to head to the hospital, and transformed yet again? It didn’t make sense.

Had Ami administered her treatment incorrectly? No, that couldn’t be it. Perhaps Artemis had woken her somehow? He hadn’t hidden his feelings about her being sedated, after all. No, he wouldn’t know how. Just what was going on?

Upon arriving at the hospital, Ami parked haphazardly and consulted her computer more closely. The source of the reading was coming from Rei’s floor. It was coming from Rei’s room. “Rei?” Ami uttered in shock. “But this reading is so similar to Minako’s…”

After all these years, something was happening to Rei. Had the proximity of the Youma brought Rei out of her catatonic state? Overcome by the possible ramifications of this information, Ami rushed inside. After checking that nobody was watching, she set off the nearest fire alarm, which began to sound like a continuously ringing bell. She then activated a few more on the way up to her lab, so the threat would be taken seriously and not be dismissed when no fire was detected in the first location. Hopefully, this would trigger an evacuation of patients.

Passing through her lab and into her office, Ami punched a code into her computer and a second door materialized out of nowhere next to her bookshelf. She opened the metal door and stepped into her real lab, the one where she did her most important research, the one her superiors at the hospital knew nothing about.

The large inter-dimensional space was filled with all sorts of strange looking equipment and bulky machinery. The most impressive of these was a giant, wall-mounted computer screen, which showed a more detailed view of what was displayed on her hand-held one. Ami stopped only to shut off the hospital’s cameras and collect a small, red-flowered drawstring bag from a desk drawer before heading back out.

The hidden lab door disappeared behind her when she closed it, and Ami made for the elevators to get to Rei’s floor. Unfortunately, her single-minded focus to reach Rei overrode Ami’s better judgment, and she came upon one of the four Youma as soon as she stepped into the hall. Furious with herself for not checking their locations on her computer, Ami backtracked into her lab and slammed the door behind her to buy time.

Naturally, though, the Youma broke through the door immediately, blasting it open following a strange, ear-splitting sound that was audible even over the fire alarm. Its torso appeared to be made from a violin, its strings leading up to its curled chin, while its arms were shaped like bows.

“There’s no escape human! Surrender your energy for my mistress!” the monster said with a musical cadence.

“You’re in my way,” Ami warned, pulling her hand from her pocket and holding her pink rod aloft. “Mercury Crystal Power!”

Briefly cocooned in a swirl of white and blue light, Sailor Mercury appeared. Visibly startled by this, the monster brought its arms to its middle and bowed its strings rapidly. Upon hearing the same noise that preceded the door being busted in, Mercury jumped just in time to see a hole appear in the wall behind her. The creature used sound waves to attack.

“I don’t have time for this,” Ami Muttered as she spun through the air creating a shimmering trail of water molecules. “Shining Aqua Illusion!”

A gush of water struck the violin Youma and solidified, encasing its body in ice. Sailor Mercury approached her helpless enemy, lifted a heavy microscope off one of her assistant’s desks, and mercilessly swung it down. The violin’s frozen pegbox head was crushed and its neck splintered in two. Seconds later, an eerie shadow escaped the Youma’s body, and it turned back into the battered instrument from which it had been created.

Heading straight for the stairs, Mercury checked her computer to confirm the other Youmas’ locations. There were two on Rei’s floor. However, the third was in the hospital’s Critical Care Unit. If patients there were drained of their energy, their lives would surely be in jeopardy. She had to head there first.

Entering the stairway, Mercury was glad to see that many people had indeed started evacuating below. However, on arriving at the CCU’s floor, she was dismayed to find it littered with bodies. They began at a smashed window in the waiting area—where the Youma had apparently entered— and continued down the long corridor beyond. Unlike the monster that had targeted the floor of her lab, which was primarily used by staff that had vacated for the evening, it seemed its ally had struck gold.

Mercury followed the trail of victims until she came upon her next opponent, just a door away from the hospital’s most vulnerable patients. This Youma was much bigger and hardier looking than the other. It resembled an old-fashioned black furnace, its metallic chamber door opening like a mouth to greedily absorb a pleading nurse’s energy.

While its back was turned, Mercury charged the metallic monster and drop kicked it. However, even with the enhanced strength granted by her transformation, she merely glanced off the bulky creature’s armor-like body. Mercury tutted as she got to her feet and created some distance, while trying to a conceive a plan.

Clearly, the metallic monstrosity was not a favorable matchup for her water-based abilities. Nevertheless, she activated her computer visor with a click of her blue earring. She couldn’t allow herself to be stopped at this point. She had to get to Rei.

“Did you just hit me, human,” the furnace monster drawled in a deep voice as it turned her way.

In order to analyze her foe’s responses, with protecting the patients in mind, Ami commanded, “Bubble Spray!” and a barricade of bubbles was erected between the monster and its destination.

“Eh?” said the monster simply as it took a clunky step away from the bubbles.

Her computer readings seemed to confirmed what she had suspected after seeing its reaction to her kick and hearing its voice. The monster was a little slow, perhaps in more ways than one. Just then, its furnace door flipped open on its hinges and a stream of ash was expelled from its burning core.

Mercury dodged quickly, returning fire with a jet of her icy water, but owing to the confines of the corridor, her left arm was burned. In addition, the ice that had formed over the Youma was already melting.

As Sailor Mercury clutched her injured arm, her computer indicated a significant increase in the monster’s temperature, and after a few seconds, her frozen attack simply fell off in chunks. However, she had the information she needed now. The monster may move slowly, but its attacks were fast and deadly. Both, though, were powered by its internal fire, and that was its weakness.

After seeing the furnace Youma’s door mechanism in operation, her computer was able to warn her of the monster’s next attempt, giving her ample time to dodge with a jump and prepare her counterattack. “Mercury!” she cried as the blast of ash travelled below her. “Aqua Rhapsody!”

The fierce torrent released from her harp spiraled directly into the furnace Youma’s open chamber, preventing the door from snapping shut, and flooding its insides as it skidded away. She continued strumming her strings of blue energy until her foe fell backward with a crash.

Thick black Smoke billowed out of the unmoving beast, which Ami noted would surely help with her plan to keep the fire alarm going and evacuation attempts proceeding. She wiped the sweat from her brow and waited until the smoke was joined by a wisp of shadow. The Youma then reverted to a considerably smaller heap of old metal.

Dashing back to the staircase as she used her powers to apply a bubble-like ring of water around her injured arm, Mercury said with a wince, “Hold on Rei. I’m coming!”