She was dead. That much Aree Cadence knew.

Do you see now, child?

The voice was not the harsh, piercing tone Aree remembered as she floated through the endless darkness, but a soft, sweet melody. It soothed the girl whose last memory had been the agony of her insides turning to stone, the way every exhale began to feel like she was trying to blow up a balloon. She had felt herself drown, a prisoner in her own petrified body, before a familiar power had pulled her consciousness into this endless darkness. It was the same power that had brought them to their knees before Elysion.

The power behind Beryl.

The power behind everything. The entire world Tanzanite had known for those past two years.

And as she floated along, she felt... human. There was no dark energy flowing through her. Whatever small parts of Aree Cadence had been left in Tanzanite when she had died had been pulled out and reassembled, leaving a floating visage of a human teenager. There was no monstrous limb. No dark, murderous thoughts whispering in the back of her head. For the first time in far too long, she felt, and the horrible weight of what she had seen only moments ago came crashing down upon her.

The weight of what she had done, Marthozite's face flashing in her memory.

“See what,” Aree whispered weakly, her feet finally landing on some invisible plane. Darkness still stretched out in every direction, and so she walked forwards.

Do you see that you cannot survive, and win.

“I can win. We will get her-”

-Back? The voice interrupted, her laughter cold and cruel, She was not forced. She betrayed you.

“Betrayed us...” the words left Aree's lips in a whisper, and they sounded foreign to her own ears. Linarite was a General. She lead an entire team. She had been among the first ever enlightened in Destiny City, before they had ever even known of Beryl. She knew that they fought for the Earth itself, that every human life they took went towards accomplishing a much greater goal; freedom for their home. An Earth free of the senshi who would use their powers to enslave them all.

She betrayed you all.

“Everyone...” Aree hated the word as soon as it came out of her mouth, but she could not deny the influence the strange power had over her. She could think of nothing but the sight of the former General, now a knight guardian for her most loathed enemy. She had slept with Castor, hadn't she? Had they been in love all this time, Linarite nothing more than a lie to infiltrate their ranks? Had this been planned from the start? Could her betrayal truly have been so thorough?

“No-”

YES. The voice roared, and Aree flinched beneath the power it exerted.

The very thought of it made Aree's fragile heart ache. It had been Linarite who had always told her to hang onto this part of herself. To not forget where she had come from and who she had been. For what? To ensure that she would always have a weakness? That there would always be some place to hook her claws once she'd found out everything she needed? She had been lied to all this time. Everything the blue-haired b***h had ever said must have been nothing more than a lie.

They have taken everything from you... and they will take everything from them.

The thought made Aree’s chest ache. There was nothing left for them to take, now. Not from her. Her family was gone, her only friends from her human life either dead of beyond her reach.  The humanity Scheelite once brought into question was now all but destroyed. She could tell by the way she floated through that darkness that even her life had been a casualty of the senshi’s arrogance and lust for power. But them...?

Wolframite had lost an eye, but there was so much more they could take from the Captain who Aree still saw as a quiet teenager. She could still hear him screaming beneath the searing pain of Ares’ knife. They could take Scheelite and Zinkenite from one another, as they had taken Linarite from her. The pain of that moment was something she would not have wished upon anyone. Many of them had given up school or friendships, hobbies and the luxury of a normal life.. but there was still something to lose.

Their families.

Their lives.

And the senshi would take it all, in time.

She can protect them.

Aree’s eyes widened, and beneath her bare toes she could feel the edge of her path. She nearly fell over, but a sudden burst of wind pushed her back onto solid ground.

This must be your choice.

She stopped, her toes curling over the edge. Below her - far, far below - there was a tiny pinprick of brilliant light. It blazed like a single star on a moonless night, and Aree felt herself drawn to it. There was a power there unlike any she had ever known, and it burned like an inferno so far below her. Yet, there was something comforting about it.

She can protect them where you cannot.

“How?”

I can give her the strength. The power. But you are her weakness.

“I’m not...”

You are all that stands in the way.

“I tried...”

And you failed, the voice whispered as though it read her very thoughts.

“This is the only way?” Aree whispered into the darkness. She was tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of dying. Tired of the constant struggle to hold onto a life that was no longer her own. She was tired, and Metallia whispered words of escape into her ready ears, “But she is dead.”

Death means nothing to me, child. You of all people should know that by now.

Do you see now?

“Yes,” Aree murmured, She understood now that it had been the weakness of human feelings that had let the youma take control. It had been Aree, not Tanzanite, whose vulnerability had allowed her to be slowly consumed. Aree, not Tanzanite, who had fallen victim to Linarite’s lies and deceit.

She knew now that the voice was right. What did she have to fight for? Even if she had anything left, what strength did Aree Cadence have to fight with?

“If I die...”

Tanzanite lives.

For what seemed like an eternity, Aree stood on the edge of that invisible cliff, staring down into the brilliance. It called to her, pulsed softly and promised her a gentle end to her miserable life. For what did a human girl with no family, no job, no life or identity to speak of at all, have to live for? When she spent so much of her life as the Negaverse General, who was left that would even notice her passing?

Let go, the voice whispered, an urgency in the words that had not been there before.

And so she did, and the last traces of humanity were seared from Tanzanite's soul in the inferno of Metallia’s power.