Four days after the hearing, Dr. Fujisawa decided that Naru was ready to be released from medical care at Juuban Medical Center and transferred to the Institute for Mental Health. The buildings were next to each other, connected by covered pathways and underground hallways. Naru took her few belongings from the hospital room, and the orderly wheeled her in a chair through the underground hallways. Though it was the end of May, fifteen centimeters of snow lay on the ground outside, and the air was shatteringly cold.

Once they reached the Mental Health building, they got into an elevator that took them up to the third floor, where a welcoming committee awaited Naru: Dr. Tajima, the social worker, the assistant superintendent, and two more orderlies. "Welcome, Osaka-san," the assistant superintendent said. "I know this is a difficult adjustment to make, but it's really for the best, as I'm sure you will agree when you are feeling more like yourself.

"I want to go home," Naru said. Home, the apartment above the jewelry store, where she and Umino had lived with her mother. Empty now, except for memories good and bad, but home. Where she could live like a normal person and no one would treat her like she was crazy and stupid.

"You will." The social worker patted her on the head. Naru wished she could stand up; maybe it was being in the wheelchair, so far below everyone's eye level, that made them treat her like a child. "You'll stay here until you're all better and can take care of yourself, and then you can go home."

Until they managed to convince her that truth was lies, and lies were the truth. In that case, she'd never get to go home. Maybe it would be better to just play their game, say what they wanted to hear. But she couldn't lie about the danger that lurked everywhere, invisible and unknown to most people; she couldn't deny the truth of what had happened to the people she loved. If nothing else, she couldn't allow the poor dead taxi driver's memory and reputation to be smeared by accusations of reckless driving on an icy road.

The orderly from the hospital pushed her into her room, then left. The social worker, assistant superintendent, and Dr. Tajima entered the room after Naru. The room was small, with a bed, a small round table and single chair, a vinyl-upholstered armchair that looked like standard hospital room issue, and a four-drawer dresser with two shelves mounted on the wall above it. A partition in one corner gave a small amount of privacy to the toilet and sink in that corner. A single window above the table, big enough to let in a fair amount of light, was covered with metal security bars.

Dr. Tajima pulled the armchair over to the table and sat down. The social worker sat down with him, and they started filling out paperwork, with the assistant superintendent standing over them telling them what to write. The hospital orderly came back in with a metal frame walker, which he placed in front of Naru, then left again. Naru pushed herself up to her feet and leaned on the walker, testing her strength and balance. She took a few steps, but it was difficult. The orderly had put the plastic bag with her belongings on the dresser. She lurched her way over there with the walker and started putting her things away. Besides a light blue track suit that Usagi had brought her, which she was wearing right now, she also had a light green track suit, her pink pajamas, four or five days' worth of clean underwear, four or five pairs of socks, and a couple of paperback books. Usagi had taken the card with the baby's hand and footprints to the apartment over the jewelry store, for safekeeping. Naru's wedding ring, which had disappeared from her hand at some point, wasn't in the bag. She wondered if Umino's parents had asked for it. They had never made any secret of the fact that they thought she was insufficiently devoted to their adored only son. Or maybe it was just lost.

All moved in, and exhausted now, she sat down on the bed. The psychiatrist, the social worker, and the assistant superintendent finished their paperwork. Naru's signature wasn't required on the papers, since she had been declared incompetent to make her own decisions. With polite nods to Naru and a few whispered instructions to the two orderlies from the Institute, the three of them left the room. The two orderlies from the mental institution were even bigger and sturdier than the one who had pushed her wheelchair. Just in case the crazy lady got violent, Naru thought. They started going through the dresser drawers, and one of them held up the green track pants, examining the drawstring. "This won't do." He demonstrated how the string could be pulled all the way out. "A loose string can be a hazard. They can strangle themselves with it, or hurt someone else." He checked the hooded top that matched the pants and tsked disapproval of the drawstring in the hood. "We'll need the outfit you're wearing, too," the other orderly said to Naru. "We have to go get the drawstrings fixed.

They didn't want the crazy lady to hang herself with the drawstring from a track suit. "All right," Naru sighed. She got the pink pajamas from the dresser and made her way, leaning heavily on the walker, to the privacy of the bathroom, such as it was, and changed. The orderlies took both track suits and left the room. The door closed behind them with a solid click. Curious, Naru went to it and tried to turn the handle. It didn't move. She was locked in.

A little while later, a nurse in a neat white dress and cap, accompanied by yet another large male orderly, came in with a tray of medications and a paper cup of water. Naru recognized the pain pills and other meds she'd been taking, but two of the pills were unfamiliar. "What are those?" she asked as the nurse held out the pills in their little paper cup along with the larger cup of water. The orderly stepped closer, as though anticipating that Naru was going to make trouble.

"Dr. Tajima wants you to take them, dear. They'll help you feel better." The nurse pushed the container of pills towards Naru again. The orderly moved in even closer. He looked like he could be a sumo wrestler for his real job and pushing around patients at the insane asylum was just his hobby. A hobby that he took very seriously, judging by the look on his face. The nurse smiled a toothy, fake smile and pushed the pills towards Naru once again.

"But I want to know what they are," Naru said.

"They're on the orders that Dr. Tajima and the assistant superintendent signed. You need to take them, and I have to make sure that you do."

After another glance at the looming orderly, Naru sighed and took the pills from the nurse. She thought that maybe she could just flush the unfamiliar pills down the toilet, but the nurse and the orderly didn't move until they had watched her take all seven pills and wash them down with water. Then the nurse made her open her mouth, and checked thoroughly to make sure she had really swallowed them.

As the nurse and her enforcer left, the two orderlies who had taken her clothes came back in, put the clothes back in the dresser, and left, pulling the door closed and locked behind them again. Naru got up to see what had been done to her clothes. They looked intact, except that the drawstrings had been stitched into their fabric tunnels with bright red thread. Either it was too much trouble to try to find thread that matched the clothing being modified, or the red thread acted as a sort of seal of approval, indicating that the items of clothing now were up to standard.

Naru swayed and blinked as a sudden fog of drowsiness descended over her. She made her way the short distance back to the bed, and collapsed onto it just as the fog thickened into blackness.

* * * * * * * *

Over the next few days, Naru settled into a dull routine. The nurse came to help her wash and dress, and brought her meds three times a day, morning, afternoon, and the middle of the night. When she brought the medications, she was always accompanied by a burly, no-nonsense orderly who watched Naru closely until she swallowed all of the pills.

An orderly came three times a day with her meals. The food was bland and mushy and watery. Overcooked rice, with something that might have been fish or chicken at lunch and dinner, with rubbery vegetables and sauce that was mostly there for the coloring. For an eating utensil they gave her a plastic thing like a spoon except the tip was divided into four short, dull tines. Naru supposed it was supposed to be a combination spoon and fork, but it wasn't really practical as a substitute for either. They wouldn't let her have chopsticks or a real fork. Crazy people might hurt themselves or someone else with those.

Dr. Tajima and the social worker came to visit her every other day, sometimes together, sometimes separately. They asked her how she was feeling, they asked her about her dreams, Dr. Tajima scolded her for not wanting to take her meds. They asked her if any of the nurses or orderlies or anyone else at the institution were monsters.

"I don't know," Naru said. "A lot of times, you can't tell until it's too late."

Dr. Tajima and the social worker both frowned and made notes on their clipboards. After each of their visits, Naru noticed that the dosage of the unidentified pills was increased. The third time Dr. Tajima made a note on the chart to increase the dosage, the social worker asked, "You're increasing her meds again?"

"Are you a doctor?" Dr. Tajima asked in reply.

"No, but--"

"The assistant superintendent has authorized me to increase her medications or take whatever other measures I consider necessary to bring Umino-san's delusions under control." His tone permitted no further discussion, and the social worker didn't mention it again.

Visits from the physical therapist, who was also always accompanied by an orderly--in case the crazy lady decided to turn violent, Naru knew--were almost a relief. She made Naru stand and stretch and bend and hold her positions until Naru cried from pain and fatigue. But at least the therapist was doing something that really would help Naru get better, and didn't treat her like she was crazy.

In between being fed and medicated and questioned and put through her exercises, she read the paperback books that had come with her from the hospital. She wasn't sure where they had come from; they weren't hers. Maybe Usagi had brought them for her, or maybe the hospital donated or lent out used books. It wasn't really the kind of thing she liked to read, but it was better than nothing. And when she was too tired to read, she sat at the little table and looked out the window at the large plaza between the mental hospital and the medical center. It was busy with people walking across it, huddled in coats against the snow, even though it was now the middle of June. When she was too tired to even look out the window, she slept.

As the days passed, Naru's mind was in a constant fog. Every time she tried to think about where she was, and why, and how she could get herself out of her predicament, her thoughts skittered away and she found herself unable to remember what she'd been thinking about.

The nurse still wouldn't tell her what she was taking. "You don't need to worry yourself about that, dear. They'll help you feel better."

"Maybe Dr. Tajima is one of them," Naru said. "You never know who is and who isn't."

The nurse had apparently been briefed on Naru's "delusions." She gave Naru a stern look. "Dr. Tajima has been a respected member of the Institute's staff for thirty years. I can assure you, he is not one of your monsters."

"But--" A monster could have taken over him only recently. Or they, the enemy, could have captured the real Dr. Tajima and hid him somewhere, and put a monster in his place. Like they had done with her mom once, a long time ago. A wave of desolate sorrow washed over Naru at the thought of her mother. She covered her mouth with her fist, choking back a sob, as tears suddenly filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

"There, now, dear," the nurse said. "You've been through a terrible experience. It's no wonder you're feeling upset and unbalanced, and looking for explanations. You take your medicine now, and rest."

There was no point in fighting it. Every time she tried, her dosage was increased and she found herself under tighter scrutiny by the orderlies and Dr. Tajima. Crazy people always insisted that they weren't crazy. By arguing that she wasn't crazy, she only proved their point. Naru dumped all the pills from the little paper cup into her mouth at once, and washed them down. Then she lay down, hoping for the heavy, dreamless sleep they brought.

* * * * * * * *

The Senshi returned from their unsuccessful international missions, and gathered at Rei's home on the grounds of the Hikawa Shrine, which she shared with her frail, elderly grandfather and her husband Yuuichirou. Rei had told Yuuichirou about her other identity when they were married, not wanting to keep such important secrets from her husband. Yuuichirou joined the Senshi and Mamoru at the table now.

"What are we going to do?" Usagi sighed. It was so hard to accept the inevitable defeat.

"It's no use," Ami said. "There are too many of the Children of Zero. No matter how fast we destroy them, they replicate even faster. And I haven't been able to find out how they replicate."

"How far have they spread?" Usagi asked.

Ami tapped at her handheld computer. "Even the equatorial regions are experiencing average temperatures of zero degrees celsius."

"Is that why they call themselves the Children of Zero? Because they want it to be zero degrees all over the world?" Usagi wondered.

"I think the 'zero' implies nothingness, no life, no existence," Rei said.

"Or possibly absolute zero, the coldest temperature possible," Ami added.

"But yeah, if it keeps getting colder, that's what they'll have. Nothing except for themselves," Makoto put in.

"Maybe they're even trying to wipe themselves out. How can anything exist in absolute zero?" Minako asked.

"If they're trying to commit mass suicide, it would be faster and easier to just let us wipe them out," Makoto pointed out.

All these enemies, who only wanted to destroy the Earth. Why? It had never made any sense, and Usagi was tired of trying to figure it out. "None of this matters if we can't do anything against them. None of our strategies have worked, and there has to be millions of them now and they're all over the world."

"You can't give up," Mamoru said. "Think about how many hopeless fights you've been in, where you've found a way. You are stronger and smarter than you know, Sailor Moon."

"Yeah!" Makoto said. "There's been lots of times when we thought we'd lost and everything was over, but somehow you always found a way!"

Usagi looked down at the table. She knew they were right, but she also knew that this time, she had nothing left. There were no additional reserves of power for her to draw on. No more hidden bits of knowledge in her brain, just waiting to come out. She was empty. Down to nothing. "Maybe you're right," she said, trying to smile like she really believed it.

A gust of wind howled around the house, making the paper walls and doors shiver. The temperature in the room dropped noticably. "They're here again!" Rei shouted, jumping to her feet. In a flash of red light, she transformed into Sailor Mars. The other Senshi followed, Usagi last of all. She had nothing left. They were going to lose this confrontation. But they were all depending on her, so sure that she would come up with something. She transformed, then forced herself to smile at Tuxedo Kamen, standing beside her. Was this really the end? she wondered. Was this really the crisis that would freeze the Earth for a thousand years? Or would everything just end now, in a pointless defeat in a fight that had nothing to do with their progress to the future?

The Senshi turned as one to go out and meet their enemies. Yuuichirou grasped Sailor Mars's hand and gave it a squeeze, then stepped back, letting her go do what she had to do.

There must have been hundreds of the Children of Zero outside, or even thousands. Gray creatures, humanoid but oddly bent and wavering, filled the entire temple grounds. The deathly silence surrounding them was more frightening than any sound could be. The air was so cold it hurt to breathe. Usagi's exposed skin burned where the bitter cold touched it.

There were too many of them. A regular battle would result in complete and total defeat for the Senshi. There was only one thing to try. She called forth her long, crystal-topped staff and held it up. Its light flooded over her, transforming her into her most powerful form yet. The light and warmth from the staff drove away the bitter cold of the Children of Zero's presence.

But there was nothing left inside of her to defeat them with.

The gray masses advanced, closing in on the Senshi. Usagi drew a deep breath to call out the name of her final attack. Instead, words came into her mind, in a delicate, chiming voice. Not yet. You do not yet have the strength to drive them back and heal what they've done.

But there's no time for me to get stronger, she said in her mind to the voice. The crowd of undulating gray forms came even closer, reaching out long arms towards the Senshi.

There is time. For now you must retreat. Allow the Children of Zero to have their conquest for a time, while you and the rest of the Earth sleep. You and your Senshi will go into a chrysalis state. When you are ready you will awaken with the strength to defeat your enemies and renew the Earth.

So this was how it would happen. Usagi bowed her head. She hated to do it, to let down all the people who, whether they believed in her or not, were counting on her to make things right again. But the time had come. She turned to face her Senshi, and nodded at them one by one. They understood. Yuuichirou, who had been standing in the doorway watching, came to Sailor Mars and embraced her from behind. Tuxedo Kamen also came to Usagi and held her.

The Children drifted closer. The waves of cold coming off of them seemed almost alive as they wrapped around the Senshi's faces as though attempting to smother them. Usagi lifted her staff to cover the Senshi with its light. "Moon Crystal Senshi Chrysalis Sleep!" she called out.

Then the cold and dark descended, erasing everything else.