Act 32 - Infinity 9: Infinite Labyrinth 2

Originally appeared in Nakayoshi, November 1994.
Translated by Kurozuki (manga@kurozuki.com). Version 1.0, 8.96.

Do not link directly to this page. Do not redistribute this translation in any form, such as by posting it on another web site.

"Ohh... Strength! From deep in my body, I'm filling with it! As soon as I took it in, my insides were overflowing! This is the power of the Mystical Silver Crystal!"

"Oh, I can feel it! The power! The light of life similar to the Taioron Crystal! Mistress 9! It's been opened! So that is the power of the Mystical Silver Crystal!"

"Master Pharaoh 90! I got this power for you! Now I will go to you!"

She floats to the stone castle.

"Oh! Such brilliance!" Pharaoh 90 says. "Life energy thousands of times greater than the human souls! The Taioron Crystal can't compare with this power! Inexhaustible, infinite power! The time for me to be imbued with power again has come! So that this planet will become our second mother world, now it is the time for my utilization! Heh heh heh. The Mystical Silver Crystal! More! More power!"

-

Chibi-Usa's body glows.

"Chibi-Usa!?" Mamoru says. "This light!? What's happening!?"

Her eyes open.

-

"Heh heh heh!" Mistress 9 says. "More power! Open up more power!"

-

Her body begins to shake.

"Chibi-Usa!?"

-

"No!" Hotaru says. "I have to hold it in... The power must not be increased further! The power must not be opened! The power of the Mystical Silver Crystal can be sent out easily to you!"

Mistress 9 cries out. "My forehead! My forehead is splitting! It's scorching! Ohhh... Somebody is controlling my body from inside me! I have to endure a little more. Master Pharaoh 90. If I complete the utilization, I won't have such an inconvenient body... I'll get rid of it. I'll rule this puny world!"

"That can't happen!"

Chibi-Usa floats through the air.

"Where is this!? It's dark, and scary. Why am I here? Something's been coming after me! I'm scared! Somebody help me!"

"Chibi-Usa-chan..." Hotaru calls.

"Huh?"

Chibi-Usa looks around and sees a shining crystal.

"Oh. My Mystical Silver Crystal!"

She floats down to get it.

"Great. I was worried when I didn't have it. Without it my body couldn't hold up. It's a part of my body."

"That's right. It is of one mind with you and your heart. You can't be away from it. And you shouldn't easily show it to people. Protect your spirit softly."

"Mom...? No, it's not like in mom's arms. Cool, big, wide... I feel at ease."

"It's all right," Hotaru says, holding her. "I'll give you protection. I won't let them get your beautiful, pure spirit, and the Mystical Silver Crystal. I'll be sure to save you."

-

"The Mystical Silver Crystal's power has weakened!?" says Mistress 9.

-

"Chibi-Usa!?" says Mamoru. "Her convulsions stopped!? Her hand... is warm. Is somebody... protecting Chibi-Usa's spirit!?"

Minako looks into the classroom. "Nobody's here!"

"Same here!" says Makoto. "Where can they be!?"

"It's good the students aren't here," says Ami.

"Not a soul," Minako says. "Could we still be inside the labyrinth...?"

"You can see the Delta and Tokyo Bay from here," says Usagi. "Lots of buildings under construction... Like ruins hiding black monsters... Ruins... That image of ruins... I don't want to think that's a vision of the future! I want to defeat these enemies, whose form we can't see, quickly. I want to live without feeling this anxiety, and return to the peace of before! Unless we hurry and rescue Hotaru-chan, Chibi-Usa's spirit, and the Mystical Silver Crystal... The time of Sailor Saturn's awakening... The time of the end of the world... Can we return to the peace of before...? Chibi-Usa...! Hotaru-chan..."

"No good," says Ami, her visor over her eyes. "I can't get a read on the internal structure or their coordinates. And I can't find any life signs at all..."

"A lot of strong power is accumulating in the Infinity zone," says Rei. "It has a strong influence. Now this land is becoming chaotic."

"Let's go to the basement," Michiru says. "The labs are concentrated in the basement. We might be able to encounter the daimons."

"Let's divide into two groups," says Minako. "While we investigate the floors one by one, down from this one, the 56th, you go down to the bottom. Sailor Moon, take the elevator to the basement with Uranus and the others."

"Two groups..." Usagi thinks.

Minako smiles. "Be careful."

"Uh..."

She leaves with the other three girls.

"Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus..."

"Let's go," Haruka says. "To the basement."

They get in the elevator.

"Heh heh heh," Tomoe says, working in the lab. "Seems they've boarded the elevator. A death sentence. The pretty ones who carry the lights of the planets' protection. The time has come! The grand occasion of the fruits of my long-awaited dream! My life-work. The superhuman. Hundreds of times a human's brains and physical strength. Tens of times longer a lifespan. Just a little more genetic operation and medicine administration. Then it will be possible to make the cyborg. I'm a genius. They'll be sorry they outcast me. For my research, I've chosen this Omega Area. The heavens gave me another chance since the accident. After the accident, I greatly reconstructed Hotaru's body. It was the birth of the fruit of my dream, the superhuman. During that biggest experiment..."

A blast strikes the building.

"Professor!" Kaolinite calls. "Lightning!" A bolt hits her.

"Kaoli-kun!!"

"They descended... Carrying eggs from another world. God chose me. I made a blunder in Hotaru's great reconstruction. I found a chance to use an egg of the utilization. I produced beautiful, perfect beings. Next, our loving daimon! I won't miss making the failures for us, the Death Busters. My experiments are for you. If our master's utilization is completed, we can survive completely. But I will continue the utilization by all means! I will get more perfect ones like me! A human has been united with foreign living things. I am clearly the inventor of the new creation, the superhuman. I am its god!"

-

"Dad..." Hotaru thinks.

The elevator descends.

"I- I'm nauseous..." Usagi says.

"You okay, Sailor Moon?" Setsuna asks.

"Guess even Super Sailor Moon can't go against gravity on an elevator," says Haruka.

"It's picking up speed," Usagi thinks. "Just like... I'm falling endlessly to hell... Scary..."

"I wonder if Venus and the others are okay," Usagi says.

"Did you want to go with them?" asks Michiru. "They should be fine."

"Aren't you three scared? Never mind! Being trapped in this building of ghosts and this never-ending elevator is getting to me. From here on, we'd fight the big enemy. Or so I thought. I feel like I'm all alone. It's scary. I just feel a bad premonition coming..."

"Don't call this solitude," Haruka says. "Solitude extends more, infinitely. Like the places where we were."

"Tell me," Usagi says. "What kind of places were you at, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto?"

"Deserted places. Where there's nobody."

"Completely alone."

"No one will come to help you. Lonely places."

"But, in any time," says Haruka, "we looked back at the distant Silver Millennium, and the figures of the beautiful queen and princess. That was our only ray of light."

"Yes," says Michiru. "When that light shined, it brought us strength. There was nothing we couldn't do."

"Whenever we were about to give up," says Setsuna, "that light always led us on."

"This is taking long," Michiru says. "Too long."

"I'm worried about the others," says Setsuna.

The elevator shakes around. The door opens, and they're tossed out of it. They fall through the darkness.

"Sailor Moon!"

"Uranus! Neptune! Pluto!" Usagi calls. She loses sight of them. "Darkness everywhere. I'm scared...! Uranus! Neptune! Pluto! I can't hear their voices! Where are they!? Venus! Jupiter! Mercury! Mars! I'm worried. We shouldn't have separated back there. Mamo-chan, Chibi-Usa! Without everyone, I can't do anything. What should I do!? All alone here is the darkness. What can I do!?"

"That was our only ray of light."

"When that light shined, it brought us strength. There was nothing we couldn't do."

"Whenever we were about to give up, that light always led us on."

Usagi sees a point of light high above.

"Always... Everyone is shining on me, leading me... When I'm about to be crushed, I always remember. I'm carrying a light in my heart too. That's the spirit of all of us, in one. Just believe. For the moment that light shines down...!"

She raises her arm to the light.

"I am Super Sailor Moon! With the strength given to me by everyone, I will shine through the darkness and make it light! I won't yield to any darkness or delusions! Rainbow Moon Heartache!!"

Usagi, Haruka, Michiru, and Setsuna crash to the bottom of the elevator.

The door opens.

"Welcome to my lab," Tomoe says. "I've been looking forward to this. Heh heh. My pretty daimons are feeling hungry."

The monsters chase after Usagi.

"Cronos Typhoon!"

"Submarine Reflection!"

The daimons tear apart.

"Heh heh heh! Still more! I can make any amount of daimons! Ahahaha!"

"Stop it!" Usagi says. "We don't want to fight you here. Where's Hotaru-chan!?"

"Hotaru? Formerly my daughter. She's at the holy sanctuary now, devoting the light similar to the Taioron Crystal, the power of the Mystical Silver Crystal, to Master Pharaoh 90!"

"Master Pharaoh 90!?"

"The master's quickening has finally begun! It's too bad, but this place will be your graveyard! You will be my first victims! I am Gelmatoid!"

He mutates into a large monster.

"A daimon!?"

"I am not like the daimons," he says. "I am a superhuman! The union of human and outside life! Die!"

A blast of light shoots out. The soldiers jump away.

"Until seconds ago, this was Hotaru-chan's father!" Usagi thinks. She narrowly dodges an attack.

"This isn't a human anymore!" Haruka says. "It's a daimon! An enemy! Space Sword Blaster!"

The monster knocks her away.

"Uranus!" Usagi calls. She grabs the heart moon rod. "Rainbow Moon Heartache!!"

The monster is ripped apart in a burst of light.

"Dad... The gentle dad since mom died... The dad who came to save me... He wasn't my dad anymore... Goodbye, Dad..."

"Who's that!?" Usagi says. "It... seemed like someone was there..."

The ground begins to shake.

"Something's coming!" Setsuna says. "Garnet Ball!"

A sphere of light forms around them.

"What's that!?" Usagi says. "Something's crashing out through the ceiling!? They're up there! Mercury! Mars! Jupiter! Venus!?"

-

"Is something coming from below!?" Minako says.

The floor breaks apart as light blasts through it. The four soldiers are thrown into the air.

-

Usagi reverts to her normal sailor suit.

"Sailor Moon!?"

"My Super Sailor Moon power-up came undone! Did the connection of spirits break!? Did something happen to the others' bodies!? Mars! Mercury! Jupiter!! Venus!!"

They float up through the hole in the ceiling, outside. The sky above is swirling with colors.

"The sky!?"

They see a glass room at the building's entrance.

"Something's inside the building! That's...!"

Mistress 9 stares at them with a demonic grin. "Heh heh heh."

"That's... Hotaru-chan!?"

Do not link directly to this page. Do not redistribute this translation in any form, such as by posting it on another web site.