Act 48 Dream 10 - Princess Dream

Nehellenia's strength swells as the Dead Moon's ruler tightens her grip on the world, yet the same crisis pushes the Sailor Guardians toward buried memories and abilities they have never touched. This chapter, drawn and scripted by Naoko Takeuchi, dissolves much of the mystery surrounding the Silver Millennium while handing Usagi a form far beyond anything she has worn before.

Nehellenia surfaces from within her mirror and claims an old acquaintance with Queen Serenity dating to the age of the Silver Millennium, vowing to seize the lunar realm once more. Usagi answers with Moon Gorgeous Meditation, but the blast rebounds off the glass and leaves the whole group ensnared. A window into the distant past then opens, revealing a newborn princess and a mirror that eerily echoes the villain's own.

The vision recounts a celebration held for Serenity's birth. The youthful Inner Guardians appear and swear loyalty to the infant destined to inherit the throne. Nehellenia crashes the gathering unbidden, rising out of shadow inside the moon as a counterweight to the queen's radiance. As her darkness spreads, Queen Serenity turns the Silver Crystal on her and locks her inside the mirror, though not before the intruder curses the child to perish before ever taking the crown, a doom later realized during the Dark Kingdom's assault on the moon.

Returning to the present, Nehellenia snatches the Silver Crystal, and both Usagi and Tuxedo Mask begin yielding to the blight left across Earth after her strike on Elysion. Tuxedo Mask pours his own strength into his partner, who recovers the crystal and breaks everyone free. Her power then surges and calls forth the Holy Moon Chalice for the very first time. Its light reshapes the team, giving the Guardians their princess selves while Luna, Artemis, and Diana step into human bodies. The Sailor Princesses meet the Sailor Power Guardians, who urge them to channel the might of their eight castles into the Chalice, and fueled by all of it Usagi ascends into Eternal Sailor Moon. The issue debuts the young Inner Guardians, the baby Serenity, and the Guardians' castles, and readers have observed that Nehellenia's death-hex on the sleeping princess mirrors the fairy-tale curse Maleficent lays on Aurora.