It had been too long since her last visit to her planet, Penthesilea reflected as she stepped into the Colosseum she had found on her visit with Lellouch. She should have been more vigilant about returning, but being in the hospital for several weeks had rather derailed things.
After that had been getting reacclimated to her Senshi duties, and now...well. Only now was she finally back.

It felt good, and she wanted to wander around, to touch and to feel, to seek out more memories, but she wasn’t here to bask in the glory that was her homeworld. No, she had a mission - she wanted to determine exactly what she’d witnessed in the vision she’d had on her last visit.

Seeing her past self commit a murder had thrilled her in a way she hadn’t expected. If nothing else, she wanted to understand what it meant - why had a thirteen-year-old been in ritual combat? Why was it called a Trial?

When she arrived, she was at the end of the same street she had walked down with Lellouch, the one with the buildings that were closed to her.

Maybe this time, they’d be open? Perhaps Lellouch’s presence had been the problem - a Senshi corrupted by Chaos, causing some kind of barrier to go up on the important buildings. So she tried the doors again, tried throwing rocks at the windows, everything she could think of.

No luck. The doors refused to budge, the rocks bounced off with no damage. There were no apparent locks, certainly no keys. It was downright depressing, and it also sort of pissed her off. This was her planet, why should there be areas of it closed off to her? But obviously the answers she was looking for weren’t here.

She kept going down the street, to the Colosseum. At the least, she could get into its guts, poke around its inner workings. They had to exist. She was aware of the Colosseum in Rome, found it lovely in its ancient glory, and she also knew that there was a complex system of workings that allowed it to function. She had no doubt that the one on her planet had a similar system. After all, it likely served a similar function - she remembered the cheers of the crowd - and why would you build such a large structure for one event that likely only happened once in a lifetime?

She jogged across the open field at the center of the Colosseum, thinking back to diagrams she’d seen of the one in Rome. Would this even be vaguely similar in how to get down? She couldn’t be sure, even if she was certain that the inner workings existed. So instead she started tapping everywhere once she was undercover, looking for hidden trapdoors or switches or...anything that might conceal a way into the inner workings. Finally, her fingers ran across a bump in the wall, and she leaned on it. Creaking, clanking, and groaning signalled the opening of a trapdoor-type mechanism, revealing a set of stairs leading down.

It was a good thing she was alone, or Penthe might have been embarrassed by the happy little squeak she let out, never mind that she literally clapped her hands. Every little discovery on her planet was a moment of excitement for her.

She practically ran down the stairs, and she began to explore the underside of the Colosseum. Her fingers brushed every surface on the walls, and in the back of her mind, she could hear the hustle and bustle of clanking armor and the sounds of people calling to each other and laughing. The sounds of life in here, people preparing for exhibition battles.

There was a door, half-open on one of the walls, and through it she saw a pedestal with a pair of daggers - daggers she recognized from her vision. She pushed the door open, and was immediately swept up.

An older woman with long copper curls rested her hands on Evadne’s shoulders. The room was no longer damaged, the pedestal not crumbling - everything was as it was a thousand years ago. Torchlight filled the room, glimmering off the polished silver knife blades.

“You know what you must do on the morrow,” she said, and her eyes flicked to the blades. “The Trial of First blood is the first step in your journey to becoming a full Senshi. Once all three Trials are done, you will no longer be Sailor Chibi Penthesilea - instead you will just be Penthesilea.” The young girl nodded. “Do you remember the rules of the trial?”

“Tell me again,” Evadne requested, eyes focused on the blades on their pedestal and worry all over her face.

“You will take your knife, and your opponent will take his. The magic of the ceremony will prevent any other weapons or magic from being used in combat. A winner is decided when one combatant lays dead.”

“But Andromache,” Evadne protested, “I’m not - I don’t think I’m ready, and I don’t want to die…” The older woman - Andromache - pulled Evadne into a proper hug.

“My darling, as your teacher, I have complete faith that you are ready. And remember, you can do whatever you have to in order to win - it does not have to be some kind of honorable battle. Go for the soft parts, or attack while he is distracted.” She advised. “I am certain you will prevail.”

She fell back to reality, and walked forward, reaching out to pick up one of the knives and turn it between her fingers.

“I wonder,” she said softly, mostly to herself, “can I do that?”

Of course she could. Some poor Negaverser would make a fine stand-in for the man Evadne had fought. A blood sacrifice for her planet - maybe then it would allow her into the places protected by magic.

There was only one way to find out.