When her smoke lifted from the battlefield outside the warehouse, Eternal Sailor Ares found herself alone with a sea of dead bodies sprawling out on the ground below, Nega and Senshi alike. General-Queen Tanzanite and her followers had blinked away to the safety of their own haven. She stood on the precipice of a tall building for what felt like hours, though it may have only been minutes. The air was acrid with burned hair and flesh. Buildings that had already been on the verge of collapsed laid in ruin, torn in half, demolished, fried to a crisp. Some fires still smoldered, catching on curtains and wood and whatever else remained in the long-abandoned hulls of former industry.

The Senshi of Smoke did not want to stay here. She didn’t want to stare out at her own failure. Her eyes pricked with tears, chin wrinkling, but she would not allow herself the mercy of spilled tears. This was her punishment; this was her cross to bear. Ares had never been able to forgive herself easily. She took losses hard. A failure in a minor battle could send her into a spiral of self-loathing. But to lose this? To come so far only to make a series of horrendous mistakes in the final hour? There was a part of her that wanted to dive off the edge of the building, to join her lost Queen and her lost Court in death -- but that too would be a mercy.

Painted nails pinched into her palm. Another minute. Just one more. This was what she had to do. She could not let herself off the hook. She couldn’t run home to her condo with a refrigerator full of food, her hot shower, her clean bed -- not while some of her comrades would never live to breathe air again. She forced herself to visualize their faces, one by one. They crossed in front of her eyes.

Tears threatened to spill. She clamped teeth down on her tongue. The faces transitioned from the members of the Blood Moon Court to the lost parallels trapped on the other side of the mirror, or dead. It was involuntarily, but they all swirled together. It was all loss. It was all pain.

Even now, knowing that it had failed, Ares still felt right in her actions. The senshi had grown complacent, reactive. They milled out the town fighting youma when they attacked. They went to battles when they were led by the nose. The senshi had never made a single decisive strike against the Negaverse, not once -- not until the Blood Moon Court.

In spite of the crushing defeat, the Senshi of Smoke felt a swell of pride. They had done it. They had done what the others weren’t capable of doing. And she, personally, had killed General-King Marthozite as a Super Senshi. No one could say that had done that. Hell, none of the existing royalty could say that they did that.

The buzz of pleasure was stopped short. Ares had slapped herself across the face. No. No. This was a time for suffering. This was her time to suffer. She had to punish herself for the massive failure. Ares always had to punish herself.

Ten more minutes. Ten more... and then she could go -- but forgiveness? That was still a long way off.