In the beginning, they were three people in one body, and it was simple. It was a battle, and Hotaru lost, and Mistress Nine won. And then Saturn won, albeit with Hotaru’s help. Simple.
But then.
But then.
She is reborn, and Hotaru is Saturn. Or, is Saturn Hotaru? She doesn’t know. They don’t know? She doesn’t know how to think of it. She can feel, sometimes, that she has memories that aren’t her own, but she has them, so she is still Hotaru, even if she is also Saturn.
She wonders if they had really ever been separate at all. If she was always the solder of destruction.
And if she was, how can she be sure she wasn’t also Mistress Nine?
Hotaru had known her presence long before Saturn’s. She’d felt her dark thoughts, her contempt for the world, her desire for dominance. She’d felt it and she’d rejected it as an intrusion, as something that couldn’t be her. She was Hotaru, and that was something else.
But how could she draw that line, if now there is no line between Hotaru and Saturn? How can one thing that lived inside her be a part of her, but not the other?
She has nightmares, sometimes, of waking up and seeing through Mistress Nine’s eyes again. Of doing horrible things and being unable to stop.
When she wakes, she reminds herself Mistress Nine is dead. That part of her, if it was a part of her, is dead.
She can’t undo what she may have done, but she’ll keep it from happening again.
SittingOverHereDreaming 