He didn’t feel very up to the task, but duty was duty, and after the strangeness of the festival and other recent events, there were things that Thraen wanted to see carried through even beyond the call of responsibility. There were plenty of people he needed to find, wanted to find, answers to questions he sought, and nothing was going to happen if he spent eight hours asleep. He couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d slept a full eight hours. Maybe after he’d faced the Captain who’d laid the trap with the civilian and ended up needing bones set.

He’d jogged with some purpose to one of the large ovals of the Campus, wondering idly if the senshi phones ever had ‘signal’ problems like regular ones- what satellites did they even use? They effected interstellar travel, so did trees or valleys and power lines even matter? He wanted to try to find one of the older, more experienced senshi he’d had the luck to find- Maia, or Athene or Aquarius, even. Of maybe track down *********. Someone or anyone that knew more. He’d pulled out his senshi phone, circling the few contacts in the folder when something barrelled into him- blindsided- and when he could process up and down again he was rolling to a stop in the grass. Something hard kicked the air out of his lungs through his stomach.

A voice above him- “Murder.”

Thraen rolled away and leapt away, straight into a breathless, stumbling run down the open sidewalks and crossing the oval like an olympic heat- What the hell?

There was no shouting of cops, or a vigilante student trying to subdue ‘the terrorist’, but there wasn’t a sense of Chaose or Order near either. He couldn’t really sense anything. No-no that wasn’t quite right. There was something. Something he’d not felt at all before, but was equally very strange and unpleasant. He risked looking back over his shoulder-

It’s me-

It was Sailor Thraen.
He’d not seen himself in a mirror when powered up, but there was no doubt- flower vines in hair, ridiculous pants and toga, and boots of wood digging into the turf as he pursued. But he looked dim. None of the fire was there in his eyes, intense as they were. Even as they were passing under the bright streetlamps, the nighttime dimness didn’t give way. His hair didn’t show bone white starred with royal blue petals and sakura crown- it was all grey like undeveloped, dated film.

What new witchcraft is this? Stay ahead-
The real Thraen looked forward again, pushing to a solid sprint to try to gain ground. Don’t let him near, if he’s me, then if he uses magic I’m so ******** with no one around that isn’t going sleepy time. What am I going to do? Feet...feet….Aegir crossed with his breath held..I need the distance. Or some way to not be put to sleep. A way up? Enough distance when the magic comes to be out of range? Then what? I’d need to avoid it twice really. How long do they last...seconds. Fifteen seconds. The average person can hold their breath a little under a minute. That’s long enough. But I can’t be winded from running when I plan to do it, or I’ll never make it long enough.

He kept running, no answers immediately apparent- the buildings on campus were all too tall without easy handholds that would guarantee him being able to jump the couple stories out of the range of magic. If the thing could use magic. He didn’t want to risk it without that escape, and he was already running. But with the festival having taken so long and butting into doing his studies and assignments he hadn't gotten out to his patrols until the already 'asscrack' hours of the morning. The heat he was running in was coming to a close- the witching hour of dim pre-morning broke over the horizon and silhouetted all the buildings and trees. They were into the residential housing that surrounded that side of off-campus. He heard the hissed echo of his own voice- “Again”

He looked back again, risking the slow down - The dimThraen had stopped in the shadow of a building. Then flitted away like so many shadows. “Again?!”

Thraen spit the word out on panting, saliva coating his lips as he paced like a blown runner, “What...does...that...even mean? Who was that thing? “

But deep down, he thought he understood what it meant. It meant exactly what he felt about his enemies- he would see them again and hunt them down. That thing was going to find him again.