If the chaos after the Great Youma battle had been painful, then the moments that Ares spent stalking away from the meeting of the Blood Moon Court were deadly. Each word levied against her had felt like another knife wedged between pale rib bones. Eyes that once looked upon her with trust and respect now narrowed and glanced away. She could feel the thin threads of their familial quilt pulling free. A tiny rip became a tear became a missing piece. How many cadets had disappeared? How many had lost faith in the Blood Moon Court already?

There could be no rest for them. She knew that -- others did, too -- but then some resisted. They called her loyalty into question, her humanity. There was no place for weakness in war. There could be no peaceful nights until the enemy had been killed, snuffed out for a final time. So long as someone waited around a corner to kill her, Ares felt destined to fight. She had never been an advisor to Nehelenia; she had been a supportive warrior. Ares did not question missions. She just completed them. That was her duty to her Queen, that was the life she had been born into the moment her starseed flared back into existence. She didn’t expect the White Moon recruits to be as dedicated as she was, but she didn’t expect them to crumble so easily either.

These White Moon senshi had broken memories, glimpses like a flickering picture watched in a vacant theater. They had to rebuild their past lives brick by brick, but Ares had known, had always known, precisely who and why and what she was. These misgivings that the others had confused her. It was Serenity’s fault. Their Queen was one who existed like a promise on the wind. Ares could see it in some of their eyes when she told them no one would win this war for them. Still, some of them hoped. She could taste it on the air. There was a part of some of her court members that longed for the day when Serenity might return and do all this dirty work for them.

But that day would never come, not in Ares’ mind.

White Moon meant dependence and weakness and failure. She saw them all as a blight then, as the rage boiled up in her throat. In the Black Moon, they did not squabble like this. They understood the importance of duty and the cause. The anger stopped her in her tracks. She buried her face in her hands and shook her head. This was just the fury talking. Ares had seen the good in the White Moon. That night, it had simply been overshadowed by the bad.

Jogging ahead, Ares tried to clear her mind of the anger, but it was impossible. It dug into her gut and lodged there, curling into something black and bottomless. The truth was that the Senshi of Smoke felt betrayed and alone in a way that she had not since Nehelenia had died. It was a realization that brought a single fiery tear blazing down her cheek as she disappeared into the darkness of the empty night.