Shattered Skies: The Morning Lights

CHAPTER 58: Like a Papa to Me

Chapter 58: Like a Papa to Me

-VERTEX ONE: 15.556984-

Professor Tomoe's Lab

Three Kilometers Underground

Azabu-Juuban, Minato Ward, Tokyo

The Time Reaper said nothing. Behind the lab's transparent partition, it watched.

Chibi-Usa Tsukino, Sailor Chibi-Moon, stared appalled at the Hotaru that slept inside the tank. The... doppelgänger? Cyborg duplicate? Clone? Whatever it was, its outward appearance wasn't the least bit intimidating. Quite the opposite; were she in a purely logical state of mind, she might admire Professor Tomoe's handiwork. From what she could see, his attention to detail was flawless: the other Hotaru bore no outward sign at all of being artificial or altered in any way. It was perfect, it could have been the long-lost twin sister of the genuine article.

No, it was that it existed at all, the implications of its existence, and that said genuine article—the real Hotaru Tomoe, Sailor Saturn—was suspended not two meters meters away from her. Those things contributed to the other Hotaru being repellent on the level of basic conception. On that note, the implications of exactly how the other Hotaru was born—or grown, or built, or whatever—were dreadful too, but Chibi-Moon's brain couldn't begin to process those, focusing instead on the immediate problem.

Much as the sight made her sick, though, Chibi-Moon knew with a sinking heart that no matter how disturbed she was, no matter how much it felt like her brain was going to break just from looking at the other Hotaru... whatever Saturn was feeling right now had to be immeasurably worse.

Her face was proof of that: an expression of shellshock as if she had witnessed a five-way trainwreck. Saturn's skin was clammy, ashen pale, her color not helped by the lab's harsh fluorescent lighting. Her mouth hung open in a small "o", her eyes were wide and locked onto the other Hotaru. She dry heaved a few times, shuddered in her steel restraints, and croaked a sound of equal parts horror and anguish that barely coalesced into coherent words: "Papa, no..."

Professor Souichi Tomoe breathed a rueful sigh—one which sounded genuine, at least—and ran a hand through his snowy hair. "I suppose that reaction is only natural. Believe me, I regret that I must resort to this, but you have to understand: I did this in order to keep you safe, to give you the kind of ordinary, happy life that you deserve to have. She's your chance to be human."

"Bullshit." Chibi-Moon's thoughts on the matter came out in a croak that was only slightly less impressive than Saturn's. She got stronger as she carried on, and by the end of her tirade she shook like a leaf from the force of her anger. "You tried this once before, or one of you did. An artificial body to save her life? If I'm remembering right, that was just a front for making a nice, comfy vessel for Mistress 9 to mature in. Some life. Some freedom!"

Saturn barely suppressed a sob.

Tomoe fiddled with the whatever-it-was behind his ear, then glanced around the lab as if he was paranoid about being spotted. He lowered his voice. "As far as Joker and the rest of Dead End know, that is exactly what I've been doing. At every stage of this process, I've taken advantage of the trust and privacy Joker granted me to thoroughly falsify all data relating to this project. As we speak, Commander Eas is retrieving Mistress 9's Daimon Egg, plucked from out of the time stream... Eas believes that I will implant it into Hotaru's new body to revive Mistress 9, whereupon she will extract your Hostes—or Pure Heart Crystals, as the case may be—and deliver both them and your bodies to Dead End."