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The question stabbed her like a sword right through the gut, and her eyes widened as she stared up at the stars like pixels.

It was a question she didn't know how to answer.

She knew what her name told her: Super Sailor Nembus, corrupted senshi of electromagnetism. She had been the sailor senshi of the star Nembus at some point. She wondered if she had ever gone. She wondered what it was like. She wondered if it mattered.

She knew she once had her own team. She knew she was their leader. She couldn't remember any of their names. She couldn't remember any of their faces. She wondered if they were all dead. She wondered if it was her fault. She wondered if they knew where she was from.

She knew she once had parents and had once lived somewhere. She wondered if they missed her. She wondered where they were from. She wondered if she was born here in Destiny City Memorial, or if her heritage was from elsewhere. She wondered if they were still alive, or if they had died in the process of her becoming a senshi.

She knew she once had a home. She knew she once had a home somewhere in Destiny City before she had been granted a new one with Jade. She knew she once had a home in the stars before the Negaverse plunged their hand into her chest and tore anyway everything she knew.

"No," Super Sailor Nembus' response was weak. "My research on the internet tells me Nembus is the name of what those here consider to be 51 Andromedae. It has no context for me. I don't have a family. I don't have a home that I've ever chosen for myself. I don't--"

Now the pixelated stars above her looked more like nighttime blurs as she didn't bother fighting the tears that welled in her eyes.

She cried harder.

The concept that something missed her burned her. Nembus wasn't convinced anyone missed her. She was also convinced everyone missed her and she just couldn't remember or if she had run into them they wouldn't even recognize her anyway, so what did it matter--

She was also convinced hardly anyone missed her because hardly anyone had reached out. She had been abandoned by or lost contact with so many of the connections she made, both Order and Chaos.

What did she even have?

What would her star even want with her?

It was too hard to speak, and Nembus turned to her side and curled into a ball.

She stayed like that, hair falling all around her and in the grass and shielding her eyes from the bright skies above.

The fantastic images faded, but between how blurry her vision was and how little she cared to look up, she didn't notice.

Everything felt very, very empty.

As did she.

As did the one who had been torn away from so much that even the concept of not deserving to be alone rung hollow. She knew. Some recessed part of her understood that.

Other parts didn't believe that.

Didn't believe she deserved love, didn't believe she deserved friends, didn't believe she deserved to be treated like a person considering she could hardly call herself one. Every bit of her story had just been pieces she searched on the internet that felt like they tasted good. At this point, she no longer even cared if they tasted good.

All she knew was that she was Sailor Nembus, age twenty-three, a former enemy of Marcasite, who had formerly had her own team.

"Perhaps not."

Her breath was shaky and thick in the way that betrayed the lack of new tears in her eyes.

"But this is all I know."

It sounded so tantalizing to know, to remember, to perhaps be given back a portion of her life that she had thought had been locked away from her forever.

But she knew what Sedna said. Purifying was not a magical way to get their memories back. That was likely not what Kurma meant. She pulled herself back from the intoxicating thought, as tantalizing as it was to know what had been locked away from her, stolen away from her--

Because this was still all she had, wasn't it?

Her eyes followed his finger, surprised by how easily he managed to spot the star that was hers. There was a part of her that found herself in disbelief; how had he found the star so easily? He was certainly of Order, but what was he, truly?

And never mind that.

What was up there?

Could she know it? Could she be allowed to know it? Could she leave everything she knew, again, and learn it? She wanted to know. Everything about Chaos and where she was felt so empty and meaningless, but everything about everything else felt so empty and unknown and frightening and mysterious. Everything about where she was felt frightening. Everything about where she might go felt frightening. Even after three years, she still felt like a newborn deer that hadn't quite found her balance.

She had seen enough videos of deer online to know that to be true.

"The star is me?" Her laugh was weak. "How do I join it, then?"

He made it sound so deceptively simple.

Just let go of Chaos. Let it leave. Let it leak out of her body like it had never been there and let the star embrace her. This other unknown thing, this other unknown thing that was her and also not her, and also a great big thing out in space. 51 Andromedae. Nembus.

"Hard to let go of all you know."

Could she leave everything she knew?

Could she?

It felt like too much. It felt like not enough. Her brain was twisting in itself, and she wished the pixelated wonder of before would return.