To think she could avoid her powered life forever was a foolish thought.

The life she lived with Loren as a civilian, while pleasant, had that aura of fakery around it like she had found a bad Louis Vuitton bag at the bins and was attempting to play it off as real. She knew that it wasn't fake, in theory, that every interaction she had with Loren's family and with Brielle and everything else was real, so very real, so very present in her life and she knew it marked her as something that wasn't a lie--

But when she held the downgraded henshin pen in her hand, she knew it was what felt necessary and right, and as she turned it over in her hand, she pondered how she could grasp onto it without risking the life she was tenuously attempting to live. She wasn't oblivious. She knew what the Negaverse did to traitors. Knew that so many of them ended up on a functional watchlist, knew that some of them hadn't even had the time to make it to that watchlist before a particular glaive swept through the air and took off one's head--

She turned the henshin pen over again.

It was then she remembered something, remembered the face of Kurma in her mind as the sky above them became something entirely else. He had mentioned all she needed to do was...

Accept her planet again.

That may be a place she could be free.

Free to be herself.

"Nembus Star Power," she murmured, letting the garb take over her form once more. She wasn't quite used to it yet. Her hair was alarmingly short, almost, her boots no longer boots but instead heels, her outfit no longer quite as covering though it didn't quite bother her even in the winter breezes. The noise in her mind felt like it eased back despite, and she closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath, and letting it out. She'd do this a few more times, feeling the way she felt in sync even despite the small throb in her chest.

Nembus knew it would probably take a while for that to feel normal again. Her starseed had taken a bit of a toll when she had leveled up in the Negaverse, she knew. Leveling up in the Negaverse had been painful. Clearing out that infection had also been painful, had taken more than she could offer as an eternal senshi even with Cosmos' help. She needed time to heal that.

Time was something she hoped she had plenty of now that she no longer had a guaranteed end she saw in her mind.

Just a theoretical one.

She took out her phone, slowly, peering down at it. She had been given the phone by a guardian cat who addressed herself as Viatrix -- a nice cat, if a bit enthusiastic compared to her, reminded her a bit of a puppy moreso than a cat -- and the cat had made sure to review all the functionality. There was a way to press down on a button that would take her to her planet. Viatrix estimated it would probably work about once every two weeks for her, which felt like too little but also felt like just enough. Didn't want to overwhelm herself. And besides, Kurma said that all she needed to do was accept her planet once more.

But who was to say her planet even wanted her back? Perhaps her corruption had seemed more of a blessing than a curse to the place off in space. Perhaps it may be unhappy to see her. Perhaps that distance was necessary.

She swallowed it down.

She pressed the button.

And in the familiarity of teleportation, she thought she had abandoned when she told Cosmos that she wanted to be free if she would be allowed to be, she was gone.

Nembus didn't open her eyes again until she realized that the air tasted different. It was nothing alarming, but it was in the way she figured that people who vacationed often talked about. It was in the way they said things felt lighter, or warmer, or like they could smell the cuisine in the air--

Oh.

It felt like she was on a cloud.

And perhaps she was -- at her feet, all she saw was small puffy formations that she could easily slip her feet through as she walked, a light lavender shade that reminded her of the light color of her bodice. The ground underneath her didn't feel entirely solid but it was certainly solid enough for her to walk on, she supposed. When she looked up, she didn't see much difference -- the clouds continued, with small breaks that allowed her to see a bright source of light in the distance.

She jumped as she felt a pinch to her foot, a pinch that at first, she thought might have come from fingers but she soon realized must have come from something else. She paused, bent down, let her fingers graze the edges she couldn't even feel--

And then she saw it, electricity sparking up from below and intertwining itself in her fingers before shooting back down into the clouds.

And she laughed, despite herself, despite the way her fingers tingled, despite the way her mind told her that she shouldn't be finding something as electrocution so amusing. Her world being full of electricity made sense in the way that breathing just made sense, or the fact that her birthday was still April 13th of 1998 still made sense. It felt innate, knowable, understandable, logical, and it felt like an old friend instead of an enemy when she felt the electricity course through her feet again. It was enough to make her hair stand up, assuredly, and she reached up with her other hand to feel the way it frizzled and pushed out at the edges but wasn't enough to harm. Imagined, that at some point, this might have been natural.

It was hard to imagine a people that might find this natural, find these strange environments liveable, but something told her that was just correct too.

"Young Nembus, senshi of electromagnetism."

It was a voice she heard like someone was talking to her and she looked for them with no result or appeal. Her brows rose. She pursued it as she swirled her head to find a direction, ventured slowly toward what looked to be a column among the clouds.

"Young Nembus, senshi of our world."

Felt like a mantra, a welcome, praise, or an adulation. She wasn't sure what to make of it, wasn't sure what to make of the lack of people, wasn't sure what to make of the fact that it felt like the clouds were starting to retreat even if the ground still did not feel entirely solid underneath her feet.

"Young Nembus, senshi of light."

"I'm here," she breathed, "I'm here," but the voice wouldn't relent.

"Young Nembus, senshi of hope."

Hope felt so far away and yet closer than ever, and she couldn't quite understand the last time she had felt hope so powerfully as she did when she felt her eyes roll back and she let out a quiet gasp.

"I'm here."

"You're ready to take your position, then?" Nembus understood the person in front of her innately, but that didn't stop the jarring dissonance that Nembus of the present felt that didn't quite disrupt what she saw in front of her. "Saw" was a relative term; it was beginning to form in her mind that perhaps what she was seeing wasn't--

"Of course," she felt herself say, and she realized what she was saying wasn't anything she was saying now, wasn't anything she would have ever said now because the world in front of her looked so much different than anything she had ever experienced before that moment. "I understand I am needed for this ritual, but I've never performed this one before. Tell me, where should I be standing?"

"Over there, Young Nembus."

Over there, a there that hadn't existed anymore, the image she saw in her mind dissonant with the empty expanse of clouds she saw in front of her. The images merged and separated and clashed all at once, and Nembus didn't know whether to feel light she was seeing anything at all and anything at all that gave signs that perhaps she hadn't committed something grave or something awkward and nauseating at the concept that these were memories of yet another life of Nembus, yet another life she wasn't sure she had any right claiming--

And yet--

Nembus found herself walking to the strange area that didn't quite suit what she saw in front of her, a small space with fewer clouds and, in her mind, a marble gazebo which she was supposedly in the middle of. She asked herself what now what was supposed to follow, but nothing happened, and she couldn't help but wonder if perhaps her homeworld was simply teasing her or taunting her with concepts of acceptance even if--

"Raise your hands, Young Nembus."

Nembus did.

"Do you feel it? The rush of electricity, the rush of light? Hold it in your hands. This is part of the ritual."

It was funny. She didn't feel any electricity, nothing besides the small sparks that slipped from the remaining ground coverage toward her feet. She didn't feel any light, nor did she necessarily feel any lighter -- well, perhaps she did, the odd feeling that this place was home ringing into her mind. Home. Home, the one place that had accepted her across time, the one name she hadn't lost across lives, the one--

"Lower your hands."

And Nembus did, and she couldn't help but feel she was attempting to do stretches rather than a ritual--

"Now what?" she asked, plaintively, to which her memories told her, "Be patient, young one."

Be patient, something that Nembus was horridly good at, considering how much patience she had given the Negaverse nearly four years after they had swallowed the original Nembus' life hole. Or was she even occupying the body of the original Nembus? Perhaps they were all imposters. Perhaps the memories she was seeing were from the truly original Nembus, the only one who deserved her starseed and--

"Stop worrying, young one,"

An oddly apt memory from the strange figure that nearly blended into the clouds in front of her -- not in front of her, only inside of her mind, not standing there with a smile that was comforting even if everything about the person's visage seemed so very inhuman--

Nembus breathed.

She closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, Nembus was not entirely sure if the sweeping change had been instantaneous or if her mind was simply playing tricks on her in its entirety. The clouds that covered the ground had not disappeared but receded, revealing a platform underneath. It was not a gazebo of any sort, but it was a place where she felt willing to sit and breathe.

Would have sat, too, if she hadn't felt something alight on her nose.

Nembus let out a gasp of surprise at the feeling which seemed to be enough to scare the creature, a small flying bug that zipped away with wings that glistened before she got a chance to fully observe them. Nembus reached out to grasp them, but there was no use in that portion -- no use until she felt something else alight on her hand -- or perhaps the same? Her brows knit as she brought the small creature closer.

And like a butterfly's kiss, it flew into her face, fluttered its wings, and disappeared up into the lightning and the clouds above.

And perhaps something had felt ritualistic about it, after all, even as she found herself desperately looking around for more answers, more memories, fewer memories, less understanding, more understanding, more will, more creatures, more past creatures, more reality, more fantasy--

But perhaps none of it had mattered.

She laughed, and something about it was broken.

But as she finally sat down, something of it was also so very bright.