The Flower of Nightmares Scatters: The Queen of Darkness Returns

As Chibiusa and Diana prepare to return to Crystal Tokyo, a strange feminine voice reaches Queen Nehelenia in the mirror where she sealed herself, offering release. She shatters the glass and rises over Tokyo, and on learning that Sailor Moon and her friends still live, her hatred hardens into a black Dream Mirror that she breaks into a thousand shards raining across the city. The guardians mistake the fall for shooting stars, unaware that the Queen of Darkness has come back.

Under falling sakura, an infant Hotaru glimpses a vision of Neo-Queen Serenity becoming a winged Eternal figure, and Setsuna arrives to take the child. A shard lands on Mamoru's eye, which briefly glows before he insists his old pain has eased, and the closing Space-Time Door strands Chibiusa. At an aquarium, Haruka and Michiru sense a dark presence at sea; when shards strike, glass women shaped like Nehelenia sprout and trap them until Sailor Pluto's Dead Scream intervenes, baby Hotaru in her arms. Uranus and Neptune transform, but the Mirror Paredri multiply from every fragment they destroy. As a Paredri moves to stab the hidden baby, the symbol of Saturn flares on Hotaru's brow and disintegrates it. Gifted her power, Pluto, Uranus, and Neptune ascend to their Super Sailor forms and wipe out the Mirror Paredri with strengthened World Shaking, Deep Submerge, and Dead Scream.

Afterward Hotaru appears grown to a five-year-old and warns that the Princess is in danger, as a vision shows Eternal Sailor Moon bound in thorns before a black moon. The episode introduces "Sailor Star Song" as the new opening after four seasons of "Moonlight Legend," and marks the final use of Uranus Planet Power and Neptune Planet Power, the last appearance of Neo-Queen Serenity, and Professor Tomoe's farewell to the series. It aired in Japan on March 9, 1996.