The weight of Asmodeus’s new power settled around her shoulders like a wet blanket. It was heavy and almost agonizing, and she hated it. It had come from a cat who found her and informed her it was “time,” and the cat fiddled with her pen and the next time she stepped through a mirror, she came out different. Stronger.

Not that it mattered. She was still hamstrung, tied to a Court that was more interested in appeasement than in focusing on the true threat of the Negaverse, the threat that hung over them all. Although the world she’d dreamed of five years ago hadn’t materialized, that didn’t mean the Negaverse wasn’t laying in wait to spring some awful trap on them all. That anyone in her Court could continue trusting them rankled at her, never mind the ones that actively allied with them.

The one good thing about her new power, Asmodeus felt, was that she could finally follow the instructions Navi had given her. So she took a breath, stepped into the full-length mirror she kept in her room, and dipped into Mirrorspace.

She had never lingered long there before, and she found that it took her breath away. It was strange, shifting and undulating, and she felt something creeping up her spine. It was like some sort of awful nightmare, where taking one wrong turn would mean that she was lost forever to this awful glass hellscape. Like she would find something worse, even, than Altea and her awful palace of glass soldiers that used to be people.

But Navi had said that she would find what she was looking for, if she was true and certain. And oh, she was so, so very certain.

It was not as comforting as she would have liked that a path seemed to lay itself before her. The idea that Mirrorspace knew her heart sat ill with her; she didn’t want some strange magical entity in her head, thinking it understood her inside and out.

But it would be out of her head and her heart and wherever else it had its slimy, magical claws soon enough. Because she was going to get her mirrorseal, and she was going to call Cosmos, and she was going to be free.

She let out a breath and picked up speed, following the winding path deeper and deeper and hating it more and more. Mirrorspace’s shifting labyrinth put her in the mind of some awful Lovecraftian nightmare, and the last thing she wanted to run into was Great Cthulhu, crawled out of R’lyeh and right into the depths of the Mirror’s supposed safe place. Considering some of the nightmares she’d seen come out of here, it didn’t feel too far off. The more she thought about that sort of thing, the more she swore she saw shadows on the edge of her vision, like something was reaching for her, trying to draw her off the path.

No. She had a purpose, and her purpose was to be free.

She was surprised to find that even as her journey went on and on, she never seemed to feel tired. That didn’t really make a ton of sense, but maybe time was somehow different here? Or maybe she just didn’t perceive it, because she was technically at the heart of her power.

Ugh, that was a horrific thought. That this place was the heart of her power, as Sailor Asmodeus. No, she refused to believe that. She wasn’t some mirror-wraith in a human shape. She was more than that.

She had the heart of a star, and she was going to prove it.

Finally, she came to a great door, set into a wall. There was nowhere to go but forward, or perhaps—she glanced behind her, and the path trailed off into infinity. No, back was not an option. She would wander forever, she was sure, lost in this strange, awful place. No, down and in, and to her fate.

She pushed the door open, and stepped through, and felt her soul sing. It was a strange pulsing in her chest, and she stepped forward slowly, drawn towards the only object in the room. It looked almost like a starseed, but it was made entirely of mirrorglass, and it shone, seemingly the only light source in the room.

“Are you sure you want that?” A very familiar voice asked, and Asmodeus gasped and stepped back. There, standing in front of her was….herself.

Almost herself.

She was taller, hair grown longer and pulled into an intricate braid style Asmodeus could only imagine replicating. Her fuku was layers and layers of ruffles and lace meant to look like fire, and the wings of an Eternal rested on her back. She stood straight and tall, with one hand on her hip, looking cocky and confident and self-assured.

“Are you really, really sure you want out?” She asked, and Asmodeus narrowed her eyes. “Because, you know, you could be better, you don’t have to run away just because you’re ang—”

Asmodeus strode forward, pulled back her arm, nd slammed her fist into the copy’s face.

“Shut up,” she snarled, and then she flung herself at the copy, tackling her to the ground. She looked stunned, and Asmodeus was glad for it, because it let her start raining down blows before the other-her could react. “Shut up shut up shut up!” She snarled, punctuating each with a punch. She didn’t have to listen. She didn’t want to listen.

Maybe her copy was right, she thought as the other-her began to struggle, to fight back; maybe Asmodeus was just running away because she was pissed off and she didn’t know anything else to do. She didn’t care.

“I’m ******** leaving,” she said, and she slammed her fist into the mirror copy’s face one last time, and watched as she dissolved with a wail, “and there’s nothing you or Mirrorspace can do to stop me.”

She took her Mirrorseal from the center of the room, held it close to her chest, and turned to leave.

As always, Mirrorspace provided. Behind her waited a full-length mirror.

She stepped through it, and left Mirrorspace behind forever.