Walpurgisnacht: Charon's Fall(Hotaru Tomoe)

Walpurgisnacht: Charon's Fall(Hotaru Tomoe)
Date of Cutscene:	31 October 2024
Location:	City
Synopsis:	Sailor Charon realized something was wrong when the storm hit... but as things got more severe and magic rippled through the air, something within her stirred...
Cast of Characters:	Hotaru Tomoe

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Sailor Charon knew she wasn't supposed to be out here. That was obvious. Luminous Titan, as much as she loved him, wouldn't stop setting up alerts and warning her to be careful. Yes, she KNEW this was dangerous. The rain was wild, Sailor Uranus had even left to try and calm the winds, the lightning was awful...

There was certainly something afoot. But even if not for the storm, she'd have known. She could feel it. Something was *wrong*. So she stood on one of the many rooftops, her glaive in hand.

Many people were going to die tonight. So many people. It wasn't like the other fights. This was going to be a slaughter. The lives of so many, cut short by an--

Sailor Charon shook her head, trying to shove those thoughts away. Why would she even think that? It was terrible. She didn't WANT to think about that. The others would fight it off, she knew it. This wasn't a...

But she couldn't shake that feeling. This was the time for so many, it wasn't their fault. It just... was.

Then she felt it. Magic unlike anything she'd ever truly felt. Like a witch, but a thousand times worse. Worse, it seemed to ripple through her. Charon dropped to her knees, her glaive digging into the ground as she panted, water dripping down her. She suddenly felt so, so, so exhausted. So tired, so--

Then she saw them. The elephants, the creatures... and there they were. The monsters. Like little mockeries of magical girls made of shadow and darkness.

More alerts blared in her head and Hotaru shook her head. "Luminous Titan... I'm Sailor Charon now. I won't... turn back. I won't run and hide. I won't..." she said softly. "If I did, how could I ever look any of them in the eyes? How could I look senshi in the eyes? He didn't give me this power so I could just be okay... he gave me the power to fight, so I can protect. Just like Sailor Pluto, Uranus, Neptune, Moon... and Riventon-senpai and Tuxedo Mask-Senpai. So please, turn the alerts off. It's only going to distract me."

The red alerts flickered out, instead replaced by locations where the threats were. With that, Sailor Charon leaped off the building. The first of the girls she cleaved in half from above, before landing on the ground and spinning. Her glaive twirled in her hands, as she lashed out and cut a second one of the weird, shadowy familiars. They weren't powerful, but there were just so many of them.

But there were a lot of them, too. She couldn't stop all those that moved past her, but she could thin their numbers. Her glaive, so much taller than herself, allowed her to reach and strike so many of them before they could escape. Turning herself into a whirling cyclone of death, the rain and winds swirling around her with each movement. Maybe she wouldn't make a difference, maybe--

And then she felt it. She didn't know what it was, perhaps an eruption of magic from the witch that summoned these beasts. But it rippled through her. Her eyes went wide and her glaive fell from her hands and she fell to her knees. She could feel it, within her. That... thing. Stirring. Trying to claw out. She didn't dare breathe. All she could do... was kneel.

Then one of the familiars hit her and she was sent flying back until she hit a wall, letting out a pained grunt when she hit the wall. She laid there for a moment, shaking as more of the familiars rushed at her. Luminous Titan flashed more alerts. Run. Flee. Emergency. It was an emergency. If she stayed, then she'd die.

If she stopped fighting, if she left, then more would die. The familiars would hunt. They would kill. Whatever it was inside her stirred more and more. "Shut... up..." Hotaru whispered. "We're... not like... you today. Today, we're going to be heroes. Today we *get* to be heroes..." she whispered. She then leaped forward, her glaive once more a whirling blade of destruction. She had far, far too many people she looked up to, to allow herself to give in to something like this.

Again and again familiars fells, but for each one, five more seemed to take their place. She wondered if she was even stopping them at all, or were they just reforming? But no matter how tired she was, how exhausted she was...

Still, she cut. She shoved that monster inside her down, as her blade worked to do what she wanted so desperately to be. A tool to protect the world, the innocent, the people.

And then... then the rain stopped.

Then their numbers fell.

Then, the familiars were gone. As she cut through one last one, she realized... there weren't any more. They'd done it. They'd stopped it. They'd won.

She giggled, a hand moving over her mouth. It was a miracle. Thousands, possibly millions, should have died tonight. And yet, instead? They didn't. Instead only a tiny fraction of who could have died, did die. "That's... that's what happens. That's what--"

And then, in her chest, she felt it. Like a monster trying to break out, the agony shot through and she crumbled to the ground, rasping for breath and clutching her chest. It hurt. It hurt so much and she couldn't take it. Fresh tears went down her face and it was all she could do to resist screaming or ending her henshin.

Eventually, however, the pain passed, just as it always did. Charon wanted to go after more and more of those monsters... but... "We won," she whispered. "Let's... let's go home, before they worry. Let's not tell them about all of this, okay? I... don't want to be a bother."

However, as they made their trip back towards the Casa Del Outers, Luminous Titan felt its own worry rising. He was created to protect Hotaru from the worst possible fate... but more and more that fate felt like it was approaching, heedless of their efforts to stop it. Was slowing it down truly all they could achieve?