Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Past Lives ❯ Lives ( Chapter 6 )

Past Lives - By Kirika

 

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The sixth chapter.

 

- Kirika

 

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Chapter 6 - Lives

 

 

A perfect morning was there to cradle Rei back into wakefulness as her eyes gradually opened to face the new day. The sun sifted through her curtains, gently straining against the thin fabric, bathing her room in a mellow golden glow; tender to her lethargic gaze. The songs of birds nesting in the Hikawa Jinja's neighbouring forest outside were not at all intrusive, but serene; melodic fanfare for the miko's dawn. And the sleep the night before had been long and fulfilling, the girl's supine body aching just a little; that pleasant margin that hummed in your muscles, the latter craving to be stretched out in satisfying fashion. There were no responsibilities demanding she rise immediately this Sunday, nothing to draw her from her futon prematurely; not a shred of urgency in her waking. Rei could relax as long as she wished, basking in the simple yet often uncommon comforts of a lie in.

 

However, none of that was what made it a perfect morning.

 

Rei lay on her back, raven locks strewn with abandon about her pillow and the sheets. Amid their black sheen were tresses of spun gold, bright and beautiful in the sunlight, antithesis to the dark. The long blonde hair fell everywhere, as liberated as its opposite. Rei hadn't woken up alone this morning.

 

The Senshi of Passion kept still, her breathing the same as it had been in her slumber, controlled and peaceful, or close to it. Usagi yet snored beside her. Characteristic for the blonde; a point that Rei should have equally characteristically condemned; but here and now, just the two of them and her Princess asleep, there was no reason to put on her airs. Just enjoy it--enjoy *her*--be as free and happy as she felt.

 

Rei, slowly and quietly, lifted her arm and ran her fingers through Usagi's hair, the strands falling past her fingers like rivers of silky sand. The odango hairstyle was intrinsic to Usagi, and Rei loved her Princess being an odango atama, however there was a special place in the Fire Senshi's heart for when the girl untied her hair. Something so naturally, almost painfully, beautiful about it; vulnerable and so very feminine--so very Princess-like. Over and over again Rei indolently combed her fingers through Usagi's loose locks, gathering them from where they covered her chest and letting them slip away, watching the flaxen waves through dozy half-lidded eyes while loving their caress on her skin, wanting to feel it again and again.

 

“Mmfh... I could get used to this...” Usagi mumbled sleepily.

 

“I'm sorry I woke you,” Rei said, matching the blonde's quiet voice. She still played with her love's hair, enthralled.

 

Usagi slurped loudly, sucking up her drool that had run unchecked while she had snoozed, and then buried her face into Rei's shoulder. A lazy arm went across the miko's stomach and a leg slid over her right. Bare skin touched bare skin, invoking memories of the night prior.

 

The girls' clothes were scattered around the traditionally decorated room, a haphazard exhibit in a room normally kept to painstakingly orderly standards. It had been the fruition of long hours bumping and grinding on the dance floor, of deep and intense gazes--of a heat that had been building throughout the night. At the time nothing else had mattered; not the clothes they had been wearing, not the need for sleep, not how vocal they might have been in their mutual release, nor their latest failure to unearth some secret evil trawling the club scene. Each other had been everything Rei and Usagi had wanted or needed.

 

*Now*, however.... Rei was left speculating whether her Grandpa or Yuuichirou had experienced a rude awakening in the middle of last night. Or for that matter, if any passersby on the street outside, though dozens of metres from the Jinja proper, had been terrorised--the Senshi of Passion couldn't remember either her or her Princess holding back. The girls' did have this side of the Hikawa Jinja to themselves, but if you screamed loud enough sound could travel almost any distance. How thick were the Jinja's walls anyway? Thinking about it positively, if it seemed like no one had overheard anything... embarrassing... it freed Rei and Usagi to exercise their vocal chords as much as they desired in the future....

 

Rei slowly smiled to herself, feeling better and more than a bit naughty, however the smile waned a little when her thoughts turned to the unproductive evening of investigation--yet another unproductive evening of investigation. How many was that now? She was doing everything she could do to determine whether there was something preying on Roppongi's nightlife, but.... To be honest, the raven-haired girl found herself more and more engaged by the clubs' bass-heavy music and Usagi's comical yet somehow provocative dancing than rooting out something wicked. The continual absence of anything suspicious was letting her be complacent. Still, Rei would stick with it. At least go through the motions for a couple more nights, a couple more clubs. There were people missing, true, but the link to their vanishing acts and the nightclubs was appearing progressively flimsier.

 

“What are you thinking?” Usagi murmured, speaking into Rei's shoulder.

 

“Just... that I could get used to this too,” the Fire Senshi said. There wasn't a place in this morning or this bedroom for dark musings, except in Rei's suitably capable mind.

 

“Mmmm...!” the blonde purred in wholehearted agreement.

 

“You know, it's funny,” Rei remarked, ceasing her fondling of her lover's hair. “A sleepover here wouldn't have been a big deal before... well... *this*.” The raven-haired teen smirked and ran her hand over the slope of her girlfriend's bare hip under the covers. “Now getting you permission to spend the night is--”

 

“--So annoying~!” Usagi finished for Rei, lifting herself up and flopping atop the other naked girl, peering down at her amused face. “I wish Papa would let me stay here every night.” The blonde blinked suddenly, blue eyes wide with discovery. “I could move in!”

 

“Yeah, because he'd totally be fine with that,” Rei deadpanned.

 

“I could say it's part of my miko training!”

 

“You'd miss Shingo and your mother. And your father,” Rei replied, before grinning slightly. “And Chibi-Usa.”

 

Usagi made a face. “I was going to say you could move in with me instead, but you can forget it now.”

 

“You don't have the space anyway,” Rei beamed unrepentantly.

 

“I would have made space...” the blonde grumbled, resting her head on the Fire Senshi's chest while the other girl's arms slid around her waist. “A bigger bed would have done....”

 

They lay there quietly for several long moments, savouring their time together, and their closeness. Rei stared up at the ceiling, not really seeing it, immersed in her Princess. Usagi felt small and delicate in her arms. Fragile yet perfect. A wonder. Her skin, her scent, and the very fact she was there.... No, Rei could never get used to this. She didn't want to. She wanted this feeling to always remain a marvel, something special; something she'd always crave and be amazed by. Rei being with Usagi was something that shouldn't have been but was. Her dream. Her miracle. And a miracle didn't happen every day. A miracle wasn't something you got used to.

 

“I really do like this...” Usagi spoke up softly, cheek pressed over Rei's heart.

 

“One day,” Rei answered quietly. They'd all the time in the world--a future without end.

 

Rei's eyes were drifting closed again when she felt one of Usagi's hands roam, going places it had last night. The raven-haired girl stayed perfectly still, allowing herself to doze and go limp as her Princess had her way. Questing fingers crept to the junction between Rei's legs, touching and feeling; testing.

 

“Ahhhh...” the blonde breathed knowingly, fingers still dabbling. They had become wet. “I heard somewhere that a miko is supposed to be, what's the word...? Chaste....”

 

“I heard the same thing about Princesses,” Rei smiled. “I'm willing to abstain if you are.”

 

Usagi pretended to consider the offer a moment, though her fingers didn't stop. “Nah.”

 

Mutual grins were flashed back and forth, before Usagi's blonde head disappeared under the futon's covers. Seconds later Rei's breathing hitched sharply, though the grin endured, growing wider. “And here I thought you'd be starving for breakfast,” she half-panted, half-chuckled.

 

“I am,” came the muffled reply from below, prompting more chuckling from the girl above. Certainly Rei wasn't going to begrudge Usagi this particular appetite of hers. The Senshi of Passion could spoil her girlfriend now and then, after all. She was generous like that.

 

The laughter didn't continue for long. Soon Rei was grabbing at the pillow underneath her head, seizing clumps of it in her fists, while struggling to keep still and hold her voice in check. Her body twisted as the bulge under the covers moved, and unconsciously she spread her legs wider, pushing them outside the futon, her toes curling at the intoxicating sensations her Princess avidly lavished upon her. It felt *so* good. Everything did. Really, the *perfect* morning.

 

“Wakey-wakey, guys! Can't sleep all day!”

 

Rei choked mid-gasp, instinctively snatching the bed covers to pull up over her chest. Her bare legs snapped back inside the futon at the same time, her thighs scissoring Usagi's buried head and producing a yelp from the poor girl. But naturally the mood, along with every ounce of that perfect pleasure that had an instant earlier been coursing divinely through Rei's body, had been well and truly sucked into oblivion at the sound of Chibi-Usa's voice. How could she be *here*, in Rei's room? *Why* was she here?! The questions blazed through the Fire Senshi's head as she stammered, feeling very, *very* naked beneath the suddenly too thin sheets, though what she was trying to say she didn't even know yet. This had to be the worst morning ever.

 

“Chibi-Usa!” Usagi squeaked, her head poking out of one side of the futon, blatantly--to the raven-haired girl she was sprawled upon anyway--in line with Rei's hips. Quickly Usagi rubbed the back of her hand over her mouth--could she *be* any more obvious?! “What are you doing here?!”

 

“Rei's Grandpa let us in,” Chibi-Usa chirped as she leapt onto the futon, bouncing gleefully on the puffy covers--and on Usagi's back.

 

“Waagh!” the blonde squealed.

 

“Should he not have?” It got worse. Hotaru was with her.

 

“I-It's okay,” Rei said, forcing a smile for the slender young girl who lingered in the doorway. “We... just lost track of the time.” A glance at her clock told the story--it was well into the afternoon. That's what late nights would do to you.

 

“Why are you under there like that?” Chibi-Usa asked, ceasing her playful bouncing and blinking inquisitively at Usagi.

 

“Rei had... had....” Usagi floundered, pushing the pink-haired girl off her so she could scramble to lie beside Rei. They huddled close, as if plunged into an arctic environ; survival together. Rei felt even *more* naked. She couldn't stop her eyes flicking repeatedly to her underwear on the tatami mats. Too far out of reach, but not far enough to keep from being noticed. Gods, let them not notice.

 

“A kink!” Rei improvised. “In my... my... back!”

 

“I give great back rubs!” Usagi jumped upon. “That's why you probably heard moan--”

 

Rei hastily nudged her Princess in the ribs with her elbow, shutting her up. Seriously, why give them more imagery?!

 

“Really?” Chibi-Usa frowned; seeming unconvinced the odango atama could be good at anything.

 

“Yeah, she's great,” the Senshi of Passion said. “She hits all the right spots.”

 

It was Usagi's turn to be secretly scandalised; she gaped at Rei, her eyes screaming. Damnit, Rei was no better than the odango atama.

 

“Grandpa can get you both breakfast,” Rei swiftly redirected.

 

“It's lunchtime,” Chibi-Usa reminded.

 

“Lunch then,” Rei amended, a tad heatedly. “We'll join you soon.”

 

Chibi-Usa hopped off the futon, scampering over to Hotaru. “Don't take too long!”

 

“Could one of you close the door on your way out?” Rei said--begged.

 

“I knew this wouldn't be a good idea,” Hotaru whispered to her best friend as the two young girls walked back into the hallway.

 

“Usagi's just lazy. She's infecting Rei.”

 

“They were just like Haruka-Papa and Michiru-Mama that one time I--”

 

Mercifully, they shut the door.

 

And immediately afterwards Rei was up, dashing across her room to set the wooden locking bar behind the door in the place it *should* have been in. She didn't breathe, didn't recall she was standing there without a stitch on, before there was no doubt that the door wouldn't be sliding open unexpectedly this morning--this *afternoon*--again. The raven-haired teenager took several deep breaths, the adrenaline wearing off--until she whirled around on Usagi. “You didn't lock the door last night?!” she cried incredulously.

 

Usagi had sat up in the futon, the covers gathered to her, drawn up to just under her nose. She peered over them, still hiding behind the sheets, only this time from her irate girlfriend. “I didn't...” she started timidly, before pulling the covers from her mouth. “Wait, why is it *me*?! It's *your* room!” the blonde exclaimed.

 

Rei was speechless, her mouth opening but her irritation without a voice. She swallowed, trying to call on her memory of last night. However all she could remember was Usagi's lips, her smell, her body, as they stumbled into the room, heading for the futon.... “Because... because you were the last one inside,” Rei finally came out with, and pretty weakly at that. She stormed over to her full length stand mirror to make up for it, grabbing her hairbrush from her dresser as she passed, and went about ruthlessly combing her hair. There was snapping and crackling as roots were viciously tugged from her scalp and tangled raven strands broke, but she didn't flinch, didn't so much as bat an eyelash--it wasn't the first time Rei's locks had been raked by the hairbrush instead of soothed. It was therapeutic in its way. Though glaring at the image of herself in the mirror, it occurred to her that maybe she should have put some clothes on before brushing her hair.

 

“Was not,” Usagi mumbled belligerently. “I told you she was a brat,” she then muttered a few seconds later, obviously referring to the pink-haired girl who shared her name.

 

Rei sighed heavily, the hand that vigorously stroked the brush through her hair slowing down. Had she just had her first taste of parenthood? Her first *real* taste? She wondered if Chibi-Usa--or poor Hotaru--had really seen anything--or would `everything' be more accurate?--they shouldn't have. Had Rei and Usagi traumatised their daughter *already*? She hadn't even technically been born yet!

 

Usagi came over, quietly cuddling into Rei from behind. The shorter girl pushed her chin onto the Fire Senshi's shoulder, peeking into the mirror. Rei continued with her brushing as though the blonde wasn't there, however as her girlfriend's eyes shamelessly roamed her unclothed reflection, virtually gawking, it grew harder to maintain her aplomb. Moreover, once Usagi's eyes dropped to below her navel, it was all but impossible.

 

“Could you not stare like that?” Rei demanded; however it came out softly, almost like a whine. *Almost*--Rei didn't whine.

 

“You're naked,” Usagi said. She could have at least brought her eyes level with Rei's in the mirror when she talked, but she didn't. Then again, this *was* Usagi.

 

“And...?” Rei replied in exasperation, certainly not requiring that revelation. “You are too.”

 

“So it's like an invitation. Like it would be rude or something if I didn't look. So I have to look.”

 

Rei blinked a few times, trying to get her mind around odango atama logic. She quickly gave up. “Okaaaaay... or you could try practicing a little modesty, a little self-control....”

 

“But I don't have any.”

 

The brush stopped, buried in Rei's dark mane, as the Senshi of Passion witnessed Usagi's fingers in the mirror tiptoe below her navel. The blonde's fingers had even less shame than her eyes--and they hadn't any qualms about expressing it.

 

“And neither do you,” Usagi quipped, smiling brightly into the mirror while Rei's cheeks flushed slightly.

 

“I can't believe you still want to, after that...” the raven-haired girl breathed. Even she had her limits. They were sky high when Usagi was the other party, but they did exist. Nearly being caught in the act by your future daughter and her best friend were definitely pushing them.

 

“You don't?” Usagi frowned. Her fingers pushed deliciously, and then she smiled again. When they came back into view they had a shine in the sunlight. “Nope, you sure do!”

 

“I've been a bad influence on you...” Rei groaned, yet soon afterwards she was smiling as well, strained though it was--but for all the right reasons. “Or is that a good influence...?”

 

Ten minutes and lots of heavy breathing later, Rei was feeling much better about this day. The wonders a girlfriend and a locked door could bestow.

 

“I can't find my underwear!” Usagi complained, scrounging on the floor through the flung apparel from the night prior.

 

“The maid hasn't been in yet, so look harder,” Rei joked sarcastically as she picked a fresh outfit from her dresser drawers.

 

“They aren't here! My panties aren't here!”

 

Rei sighed impatiently and looked over her shoulder, getting a fine sight of Usagi's bare rear-end up in the air as the doubled over girl searched. “Just wear my clothes. Or maybe you have a handy device that magics clothes into existence. Wouldn't that be helpful....”

 

“Okay. I'll borrow these,” Usagi said, straightening with a lacy, black, and familiar pair of panties stretched between her fingertips. She eagerly flexed the elastic waistband back and forth a couple of times.

 

Rei raised an eyebrow. “I meant I could give you clean clothes from my dresser.”

 

“These will do,” the blonde shrugged, slipping on the Fire Senshi's soiled underwear from yesterday. “Hey, they fit pretty good!” The topless girl bent this way and that, admiring her own behind. Rei did her own admiring also. Perhaps clean underwear could sometimes be an overrated ideal. “Where's your bra?”

 

At this point realising the futility of protest, Rei gestured vaguely with her thumb in the direction of the bunny plush toy her Princess had won for her a few days ago, where it sat in a coveted spot on her dresser, wearing the black pair of cups as a hat. Rei hadn't owned a plush toy in a long time--too childish for someone who'd had to grow up fast. But the bunny she treasured, displaying it beside framed photos of her girlfriend and friends. It was to remind Rei of her Princess after all... not that she truly needed to ever be reminded of the person she loved.

 

Rei had changed and was brushing her hair again--her tresses having been mussed in front of the mirror before thanks to Usagi and her shamelessness--by the time her Princess had grabbed the clothes of her own she could find and put them on. Usagi went over to share the mirror and took the brush from Rei when the other girl had finished with it and moved onto makeup, painstakingly unsnarling and straightening her flaxen hair with quick and constant strokes from a practiced hand. Then she tied her trademark odangos, before running the brush through the twin tresses leftover with as much care and consideration she had her loose locks.

 

Rei watched her out of the corner of her eye throughout the whole ritual. She'd seen it before of course, but it always struck a chord inside her. Such the Princess. It was very nearly a memory; not a memory from last weekend, last week, last year; and not one from her bedroom or Usagi's; but from somewhere far, far before, in a place long gone where the stars always glittered as diamonds on a dark velvet sky. The Senshi of Fire could almost remember the sheets of golden silk, the attention given to them by the beauty they had belonged to. The beauty here and now, and yet... not.

 

Rei smiled softly as she applied her black eyeliner and then teased her dark lashes to their full potential, the déjà vu pleasant yet somehow melancholy.

 

“What are you smiling about?” Usagi asked with a little grin, putting on her own makeup next to the miko.

 

“Because I love you,” Rei said, stepping back from the mirror and popping the lid of her lipstick back on.

 

Usagi put the cosmetics she had borrowed from Rei back on the dresser, and turned to embrace the raven-haired girl around the waist; gently tugging her hips flush against her own. She stared at her, but this was staring that Rei hadn't trouble with, matching the blonde's blue gaze with her amethyst hue. It really was such a great afternoon.

 

“Do we reaaaally have to go out there...?” Usagi asked shyly, no doubt starting to remember the embarrassment from earlier.

 

“They're waiting for us.”

 

Usagi sighed. “She is such a brat.”

 

Rei smirked, leaning in to land a kiss on her love's lips. “Our brat.”

 

Usagi pursed her lips afterwards and looked away, seeming none too happy about that destined fact, but it only caused Rei's smile to become bigger. They would get the hang of it... eventually.

 

The pair held each other for a while longer, until Usagi's stomach gurgled and the girl grimaced. “Now I really am starving,” she whimpered.

 

******

 

Minako floated in a world removed from memory, separate and far from anything she had known and lived. It was peaceful here, a place where she could... let go... unburdened by her past, her present and possible futures. Nowhere she had to be, no one who told her what to do--no one at all, except her. No friends, no enemies, no old loves, no lost loves. No uniforms. No mask. No destiny. No duty. Simply white nothingness, a sea of freedom; liberating limbo.

 

It would be perfect if not for how her nose tickled.

 

“Minako.... Minako....”

 

Noise. There shouldn't have been noise. For that matter, Minako's nose shouldn't feel ticklish. Feeling didn't exist here. Only numbness. No pleasure... no pain. But the absolute was pleasure in itself.

 

“Minako...!”

 

Minako winced, softly whimpering. It shouldn't have been possible to be disturbed here. She didn't *want* to be disturbed. Finally, a place she could be at--

 

“Minako! Wake up!”

 

Minako groaned and weakly pushed Artemis's furry paw aside as it batted at her cheek. The world rushed back, as did memory and its weight. The uniform, the destiny. The duty. Her life. “Go away... it's Sunday....” the blonde whined in drowsy outrage, rolling over onto her side. “*Sunday*. You know the rules.... What are you doing....” She wasn't to be bothered on weekend mornings, least of all on glorious *Sunday*.

 

“You told me to get you up!” the feline exclaimed exasperatedly as he pushed his front paws into Minako's shoulder, jostling her as best his little body could manage.

 

“Shut up.... Go away....” Stricken with early-morning blindness, Minako pathetically tried to push Artemis off her body, however only succeeded in slapping herself in the face as her limp limb quickly gave up the fight against the nimble cat.

 

“Minako...” Artemis chastised at length, doing some whining of his own. “You told me to do this, and not stop until your feet were on the floor. You said you had a modelling session....”

 

Minako blinked several times, clearing the blurriness in her vision. Oh right.

 

In an instant the Senshi of Beauty had thrown off the covers--a wailing Artemis together with them--and was up and fully awake, stretching towards the ceiling beside her bed. She then bent down to touch her toes briefly, before bouncing back upright to lean left and then right, arm reaching over her head. Finally she hopped up and down energetically a few times on the balls of her feet, limber once again after a short night's repose and ready for another day in the life of Minako, Goddess of Love.

 

Minako trotted over to her window and flung the curtains open, the sudden burst of warm sunlight welcome on her face and in her bedroom. Smiling, she turned around to witness Artemis struggling to free himself from under a pile of bed sheets on the floor--and the time pictured on her alarm clock. The latter wiped the cheer from the blonde's visage.

 

Minako raced over to her desk--the clock placed there so she couldn't simply hit the snooze button and forget about leaving bed; that was the theory in any case, and one that didn't always hold--and seized the clock in both hands, bringing it right up to her face as if it was somehow lying if viewed any further distance away. “Artemis!” the girl yelled. “I said eleven! *Eleven*!” She marched over to the still trapped and struggling cat and thrust the clock next to his whiskers. “Do you see what time this is?!”

 

“You... You slept through the alarm,” the feline gasped, his front paws clawing the carpet for purchase so he might drag himself to freedom, “and I've been... trying to wake you... for the last twenty minutes!”

 

“You should've tried harder!” Minako scolded, chucking the clock onto her bed. But she couldn't stay cross. She could always forgive Artemis. They'd been through a lot together. He was lucky she was the forgiving type and so easy to live with. The blonde wagered Luna didn't have such an easy ride with Usagi. “Who works on a Sunday anyway?” the teenager complained as she idly kicked the covers from atop Artemis, rescuing him. “Modelling's a bit different, but still.” She yawned, mouth opening widely and eyes tearing.

 

Artemis watched her from the floor, his blue gaze strong and serious. “You can't get up in the mornings because of your nights.”

 

The Senshi of Love and Beauty pulled a flippant face. “It's nothing I haven't done before. Besides, school starts again tomorrow. Lots of chances to catch up on the Zs.”

 

“Minako...” Artemis nagged.

 

Minako sighed, bending over to roll up her right pyjama leg. He should have understood. Or maybe he did, and that was what troubled him.

 

“It's over. You stopped that youma.”

 

The Sailor Senshi ripped off the gauze on the back of her calf. Underneath, where scars had been, was pink flesh. Very soon it would be like she'd never been hurt to begin with.

 

Artemis leapt onto the bed, putting him at a better height in relation to his ward. “I realise you want to find him, but... but....”

 

But there was likely not a trace left to be found of Mr. Kats' homeless brother, Eiji. Or too morbidly for sweet Artemis, not a *morsel* left. Minako knew it as well as Artemis. Every night she had been on the hunt, hunting for more hunters, seeking their past catches. The sewers were becoming a familiar haunt, its smell no longer so abysmal, yet still always clinging afterwards, reminding. Beckoning a return the next night. Yet every new tunnel Minako stalked; every darkness she ventured into; there were simply more tunnels, more darkness. At this rate she *sought* a youma ambush. A dozen. A legion. Anything but the ordinary.

 

Minako frisbeed the used bandage into the trashcan under her desk. “Maybe you're right,” she said. It was an utter platitude. Artemis was a good friend... perhaps her best friend. He always had what was best for her on his furry little mind. Sometimes it didn't mesh with the right thing to do.

 

The white kitty gave her an unimpressed and very weary stare. A good friend indeed; he knew her too well to be convinced by her casual surrender. Minako never surrendered.

 

“Alright, alright! We don't find anything, then this'll be the last night, okay? Just don't look at me like that. Or keep on about it. Geez!”

 

Artemis smiled, relieved. “You can't save everybody, Minako. There comes a time you have to think of yourself.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” the blonde drawled dismissively while pulling off her pyjama top. She tossed it onto the suddenly blushing cat, closely followed after by her pyjama bottoms. “Can't always be the hero.”

 

Minako sauntered off to the bathroom, heading for the shower. Poor Artemis. He still hadn't learned, still apparently didn't understand her *completely*. It was a bitter truth that not everyone could be saved, but you had to try. *She* had to try.

 

And keep trying.

 

******

 

Usagi's eyes were glued to the screen, the vivid spectrum of light from the fluid motion of sprites, textured polygons--or whatever energy and magic gave life to her fighter and her world--reflected in them, and playing across the rest of her seriously focussed features. This was something she was good at. This was something she was in her element with. No struggling or flailing, no worrying or faking--this was *all* her. Buttons were hit instinctively with precise timing; the control stick was jerked and spun as an extension of herself--and the character on the screen obeyed her, bending to her bidding as though they had some kind of mental connection with each other. Usagi's fighter, Ibuki, aspiring ninja girl from a small village in the mountains, wasn't her puppet but her ally, her *partner*. Together they rose above their normal stations, *striving* for the horizon, *reaching* for the sky, *leaping* towards glor--!

 

“Rei! What are you doing?! What did I tell you?! Down, forward-diagonal-down, left, *then* you punch! Look at you! You're just crouching all over the place and punching air!”

 

Rei shot Usagi that face she made. That one that had the raven-haired girl breathe out hard through her nose and had her look like she had just sniffed something horrid, but was pretending it wasn't horrid. And of course that sidelong glower--*almost* a glare--that said her patience was unravelling. Rei *thought* she was staying cool and composed, at least on the outside, but if she could only see herself. Sometimes Usagi felt like she was a darting and dancing bull fighter next to Rei; her snorting bull that had only red in her vision. A very beautiful bull, though. The blonde had once explained this comparison to her Senshi of Passion during a squabble, and surprisingly the miko had actually agreed with it. Rei had been insistent on pointing out the additional detail that bull fighters were armed with prodding swords and provoking capes. Maybe the imagery of Usagi dressed as such a dashing figure had been exciting to her.

 

At the edge of her gaze Usagi spotted Motoki grinning and shaking his head behind the counter he manned, before going back to reading his magazine. He had part-time employment here at the Crown Game Centre, handing out change and making sure the arcade machines ran smoothly. The Crown Game Centre had been Usagi's favourite hangout for as long as she could remember; however for a long time the Moon Princess had given it a wide berth whenever Motoki had been working. He was Mamoru's best friend. Mamoru, her... Prince.

 

Usagi had fretted over how Motoki would behave, what he thought, how he felt about... well, her. She had broken his best friend's heart. He had likely had front row seats to Mamoru's pain; been his shoulder to cry on; the rock to lean on. Usagi had dreaded a confrontation. Motoki telling her how disappointed he was with her, or perhaps even his outrage, him yelling and shouting. The judgement. People loved to do that. Judging from afar, judging something they had not the first clue about. No one could know or understand why and what she felt for Rei. How Usagi could bring herself to shatter the heart of someone as charming and lovely as Mamoru, to turn her back on their future, on fate. It was something just her and Rei could truly share the sense of. The judgement shouldn't have bothered the Princess; she should have been stronger than that, brushed it off, her business her own. But she wasn't strong like that. She wasn't like Rei; that brash exterior and all that fire inside. She was just her, Usagi Tsukino, average girl... most days.

 

However it had been Usagi that had been guilty of judging without understanding. Motoki was every bit the friend to her as he was to Mamoru. Maybe he didn't really get it, yet he accepted it. He gave Usagi's heart, and the love it had for *her* best friend, the benefit of the doubt--the respect it deserved. Even now, having brought Rei here with her, the girls' obvious affection for one another poured before his eyes, he smiled and believed in it. Usagi should have believed in him.

 

Anyway, as if she could have boycotted the Crown Game Centre forever. They had all the best games here. And Motoki sometimes gave out free credits when he was in a good mood and Usagi bugged him enough.

 

Rei had another sigh and went back to looking at the game screen, hands on the second-player controls beside Usagi. “Would Luna move in with you?”

 

“Hmm?” Usagi replied, wondering what her girlfriend was on about at first. “Yeah, of course. Why?”

 

“Birds don't get along with cats,” Rei said dispassionately while tapping the strong kick button, despite Usagi's character clearly blocking with full defence gauge. Was she even *trying*?

 

“Luna isn't a *cat* cat.” Luna was like a... space cat. That talked. And wasn't really a cat. Sometimes.

 

“Okay, let me put it this way,” the raven-haired teenager answered, a small smirk wrestling to appear on her face. “Luna and *I* don't get along.”

 

“She just needs to... well, she already knows you,” Usagi puzzled as she wiggled her joystick, sending Ibuki into a sudden series of flying kicks, knocking Rei's character to the other side of the screen. “Luna just needs, um, time. To get her mind around it. Us. I tell her all the time about how great you are and the stuff we do and how happy I am.”

 

The smirk came out on Rei's face. “I'm sure she enjoys every second of that.”

 

“She's just kind of stuck-up and traditional. She remembers the Moon Kingdom better than we do. It's probably against royal decree or something that the Moon Princess dates one of her personal guard.”

 

“`Dates'? Is that what we're doing?” Rei remarked, her tone becoming smoky.

 

“Well... yeah. That's what girls our age do, isn't it? We date.”

 

“You were more or less engaged to... you know, before.” Rei still had trouble saying Mamoru's name out loud. The guilt of a crushed heart and a smashed destiny wasn't just Usagi's burden.

 

“That's because...” Usagi frowned with thought, “...everything was arranged back then.” Back then, in the past many thousands of years ago. The blonde blinked suddenly, and she finally turned her head from the arcade game's screen. “You want to get engaged?”

 

“That proposal didn't quite live up to my fantasy,” Rei replied with sarcastic amusement. She looked away back to the screen, but something told Usagi her Fire Senshi's wistful gaze peered into a different place. “I don't know. Maybe. Maybe one day. Doesn't everyone have that dream eventually?”

 

Usagi turned back to the game screen also, in her case for certain not really seeing it. The Moon Princess hadn't considered an engagement. *The* engagement. But of course, getting engaged was to be expected. It was the natural progression of love. Mamoru and her... and now that there was no Mamoru and her, *Rei* and her. It should have dawned on Usagi that Rei would want the same thing. Exchanged symbols of their mutual feelings and commitment, a promise of forever and the binding ritual to come....

 

Engaged meant married sooner or later. Was that okay? Usagi hadn't heard of two girls getting married before. But she would be Queen of everything around her at some period in the future. She would get to make the rules then, wouldn't she? As for the present, Usagi wasn't sure what to do. What would her Papa say to the news of her swearing herself to Rei like that? Her brother? What would Rei's Grandpa say? And then there was everyone at school, and.... Their friends would get it; they knew what was destined in the Silver Millennium, the bonds and the roles they would each adopt. Everyone else in Usagi's and Rei's lives weren't privy to fate, though. When she really thought about it, it had Usagi somewhat unnerved. And yet when the blonde glanced at Rei, gazed upon her and her dark and quiet beauty, imagining their wedding day, planning it in her head; the decor, the dresses, the cake, every last detail; marrying her Princess of Mars was the perfect daydream.

 

“Nevermind,” Rei lightly laughed off. “Just thinking out loud. We're still in High School for Heaven's sake.”

 

“Let's practice one of your special moves,” Usagi said, scampering back to a subject she felt on sure footing with. “The fireball. You remember how to do it?”

 

“Pretty confident I do,” Rei said smugly, gripping her control stick tighter.

 

But a couple of minutes later Rei wasn't smug anymore and Usagi was gawking at the arcade screen in disbelief. “No, Rei! That isn't right! I can see you! It's back-diagonal-down, down, *forward*! You're doing back, back-diagonal-down, back, forward-diagonal-down, forward! And with a bunch of random punches in between! Are you even trying?!”

 

Rei abruptly ceased violently jamming her control stick all over the place, possibly just before it was ripped clean out, and pushed herself back from the machine with a frustrated snarl. “That's it! No more! Who cares anyway? This is useless for real life!”

 

“Do you like *fun* in real life? Do you? Because this is *fun*, Rei!” Usagi yelled back, spinning around after her irritated--and irritating!--girlfriend.

 

“Usagi, that move is *impossible*!” Rei exclaimed, flinging a hand at her side of the controls. “How can you go from down to forward in one move without hitting the diagonal?! It's insane!” The girl ground her teeth, seething silently to herself for a moment, before suddenly boiling over again. “I can make my *own* fireball. Do you want to see it?”

 

“This was the deal!” Usagi pouted, resorting to whining. “You teach me to be a miko, and I pass on my amazing video game skills to you! I'm doing my part!”

 

“Look, you don't have to. I release you from your obligation,” Rei said, waving a theatrically dismissing hand at the blonde, before folding her arms. “Sorry--” She bent forward and kissed Usagi briefly on the lips. “--but I'm done.”

 

“But two player still has credits~!” an appalled Usagi cried after Rei as the other girl walked over to try her hand at the nearby taiko drum rhythm games. They didn't even count as video games! Couldn't Rei stop being a miko for just a little while?

 

“Why do you have to make Rei mad all the time?”

 

“I didn't--” Usagi reflexively began, further pouting at the accusation. Then she remembered.

 

Turning away from her withdrawing girlfriend, the Moon Princess was met face-to-face with another Moon Princess. Chibi-Usa and Hotaru had tagged along with Usagi and Rei from the Hikawa Jinja, in spite of much heavy sighing and foot-dragging on the blonde's part. She didn't actually mind her cute and quiet friend Hotaru at all, but loud and obnoxious Chibi-Usa could *so* drive her up the wall sometimes. Usagi had to live with the pink-haired girl; she didn't want to hang out with her as well when she didn't have to! Moreover, these were Usagi's precious *private* moments with Rei, her beloved girlfriend; why did Chibi-Usa *always* have to butt in?!

 

Usagi folded her arms like Rei had done seconds earlier, and adopted a resentful demeanour. “She's mad because *you're* here. You spoiled everything!”

 

For an instant Chibi-Usa appeared crushed, quickly looking after where Rei had gone, and Usagi felt ashamed for lying. It was as if the head had been ruthlessly twisted off the young girl's favourite doll right before her eyes, and that head and the remaining carcass were in Usagi's guilty hands. Almost as swiftly however, Chibi-Usa's gaze returned to Usagi, with a hardened expression beneath. “Whatever! You're full of *lies*, Usagi. Rei doesn't like that.”

 

Usagi scowled harder, mainly to mask her remorse and worry. Why did Chibi-Usa always have *something* to say? Something that painted *Usagi* as the terrible person, and not *herself*--the rightful terrible person. Anyway, how did Chibi-Usa know what Rei liked? Maybe Rei liked... um... lies....

 

Chibi-Usa really was annoying.

 

The other Moon Princess conspicuously nudged Hotaru with her elbow; and that along with a hushed urging to `go on' prompted the Senshi of Rebirth to sluggishly leave the small girl's side and walk over to the rhythm games, where Rei seemed to be beating out her prior frustrations on a pair of unfortunate drums, equally unfortunate batons in each hand.

 

“Hotaru, wait!” Usagi bade, turning after the younger girl. “I need a second player!”

 

Hotaru tensed, pausing unsurely and looking back over her shoulder, similar uncertainty warring in her timid eyes.

 

“Leave her alone, Usagi,” Chibi-Usa said sharply, her voice low and surprisingly firm. “I'll play with you.”

 

Usagi frowned, watching as the tension--at least some of it--faded from Hotaru's frail body. Hotaru proceeded onwards, joining Rei. “Can you even reach the controls?” Usagi said, frowning harder once she'd returned her gaze to Chibi-Usa.

 

“*Yes*,” the pint-sized Princess replied testily.

 

Chibi-Usa manned the arcade game's controls beside the present day's Moon Princess, although the bulk of her attention was weighted towards her best friend next to Usagi's best friend, rather than the fighters on screen. Usagi frowned some more. Sometimes it wasn't easy to grasp that this was her future daughter... or maybe it was more *awkward* to do so. Mostly the blonde tried not to think about it. She did wonder now and again though how Rei coped with the living, breathing proof of their destiny, their love, right before their eyes on a daily basis. Was she like Mamoru had been, embracing it effortlessly? Come to think of it, was Chibi-Usa proof of Usagi and Rei's marriage as well? Children came after marriage, after all.

 

Usagi hadn't asked Chibi-Usa much about what it was like where she'd come from. What Rei and herself were like. She'd quizzed Chibi-Usa before, when the young girl had first materialised in the present years ago, and with claim of a very different second parent. The blonde had gotten over the novelty, the curiosity.... *Really* she had! Anyway, Chibi-Usa was so tight-lipped about her home millennium that prying spicy future gossip out of her was frustratingly next to impossible--she clammed up at the mere mention, at least if Usagi was doing the mentioning! The future and its past impact on the present were kind of embarrassing actually, when Usagi stressed her mind to fathom their intricacies at length, which she tried to do as little as often. Chibi-Usa's very existence meant that Usagi and Rei had... they'd been... well... *together*. Sure, the blonde and her Senshi of Passion got up to all sorts that had her blush to reminisce, but that was behind closed doors, just the two of them, in *private*. Chibi-Usa was a walking, talking, public symbol of Usagi and Rei's intimacy, for every one of their friends to see and realise the implications of! Yes, the best policy was just to not think about futures, and marriage, and daughters. Chibi-Usa was an everyday brat. A brat that Usagi loved deep down if she *really* had to confront her feelings, but a brat first and foremost. Nice and simple.

 

How would she and Rei make a baby anyway? Which of them would give birth? What would Rei be like under the influence of crazy hormones? Usagi shivered at the last.

 

The blonde damped down the rest of her thoughts--*nice* and *simple*! “Are you playing or what?” Usagi impatiently demanded of Chibi-Usa instead. Why could no one take video games seriously?

 

Chibi-Usa twisted the joystick a bit, but she barely favoured the screen with the slightest of glances, practically ignoring the other girl who was supposed to be her fight opponent and Rei's replacement. Usagi's scowling persisted. “What's going on?” the blonde prodded, looking where Chibi-Usa stared. “What?”

 

“I'm trying to listen!” Chibi-Usa suddenly burst out with, though in as low a whisper as her apparent irritation at Usagi would allow.

 

“Listen to what?” Usagi asked; her own voice dropping as the thrill of curiosity bit her, erasing all prior concerns. She bent down to bring herself more in line with the stature of the other girl, face hovering next to Chibi-Usa's in shared conspiracy.

 

“To Hotaru and Rei,” Chibi-Usa explained in a rushed hush, as if Usagi should have known already. “Hotaru worked hard to bring herself to spill her guts to Rei, and now that she is *you're* not going to ruin it for her!”

 

“Spill her guts to Rei about what?”

 

“About...! Grrr, forget it!”

 

Usagi blinked blankly as Chibi-Usa's mouth clamped shut angrily, but she believed she got the picture. Not too far back Rei and Hotaru had faced each other as bitter foes, Sailor Senshi against Sailor Senshi, friend against friend--something so... just *wrong*. Usagi's heart had bled to witness it; their clash atop Juuban High's rooftop with neither Inner nor Outer Senshi holding back. And all because of her. Friends had fought because of Usagi. They'd hurt each other because she'd been.... Weak? At the time Usagi had thought it so, but looking back had it been weak to give in to her heart? She had blamed herself regardless. She had tried to step in, to stop it, but had only got in the way, getting hurt herself in the process and escalating things further between Rei and Hotaru. Usagi had felt so out of control back then. Her life, both as a Senshi and as a girl; everything around her gone wild.

 

She had understood Hotaru, just as she understood her now. Before, the darkhaired girl had harboured grave worries for the fate of her best friend, Chibi-Usa, if Usagi and Mamoru did not fulfil their roles of being the future Moon Princess's parents. If Usagi abandoned Mamoru for Rei, what would become of the girl that never was? Usagi had understood, because she had asked herself the same. The painful consequences, the burden of destiny, all had weighed on her and ultimately had compelled her to break Rei's heart instead of anyone else's... with the exception of her own. It had taken the image of Rei, bled out and burnt out at the heights of Tokyo Tower for the Moon Princess, for Usagi, to drown out the what-ifs, the fears, the responsibilities and destiny itself, enabling her to listen, really listen, to that broken heart of hers.

 

There were times, alone in silence, or lying in Rei's arms, Usagi contemplated how it might have been if her every fear had come true. If the price of listening had caused her daughter to never be born, for Crystal Tokyo to never arise with a throne for King and Queen, for the Silver Millennium to not be all it could and should be. Setsuna had said Usagi wouldn't be conscious of a change in the timeline, but the blonde still felt she would somehow know if Chibi-Usa was missing. In that event, she didn't know how she would take it or what she would do.

 

Fate had been kind.

 

Usagi turned her ear towards where Rei and Hotaru were, all of a sudden desperate to eavesdrop with Chibi-Usa. She couldn't help wanting to hear. Most of all, she wanted Hotaru to be comfortable with Rei again. That the Senshi of Rebirth felt a need to talk to the miko meant that she wasn't comfortable enough for Usagi's liking.

 

“Um.... Wh-What are you playing?” Hotaru nervously opened with. Poor Hotaru. She was so shy and gentle.

 

“Taiko no Tatsujin 12,” Rei replied with an easy smile despite maintaining her focus on the game's screen.

 

“C-Can I play too?” Ohh, Usagi's heart went out to Hotaru!

 

“It's not a two player game,” the raven-haired girl said. Rei! How could she?!

 

“Oh...” Hotaru mumbled, fidgeting there awkwardly, rubbing her forearms. She made it look as if the floor was burning hot where she stood and her feet longed to escape. Usagi silently fed the slight girl her encouragement, resisting the urge to yell at Rei for being so cold.

 

“But we can take turns,” Rei continued, turning to flash her smile at the younger girl. Hotaru smiled back. Success!

 

“I've never played this before...” Hotaru said timidly as Rei handed her the drumsticks, the latter accepting them with a dubious pair of glances. Rei went on to give a cursory summary of the mechanics of the arcade game, and somewhat snappily ordered Hotaru to `go for it'. As the pale Outer Senshi struggled to tap the drums with the necessary force let alone keep up with the sought after rhythm, Rei periodically offered advice and guidance, mostly tinged with tender commiseration. Taiko no Tatsujin obviously wasn't Hotaru's game.

 

When the game's round was over, exhausting Rei's credits, the Senshi of Rebirth quickly handed the batons back into the miko's possession. “I'm sorry. I wasn't very good,” Hotaru apologised.

 

“That's okay,” Rei said brightly, but the shamefaced girl was already slinking off, head down, back towards her best friend's safe company.

 

Usagi groaned sadly in sync with Chibi-Usa, before finally remembering her own paid up arcade game she had beside her. She turned back to the controls and the screen as Chibi-Usa did, only to see `Game Over' blinking unhappily for both players.

 

******

 

“I'll be less than a minute.”

 

Ami used her toes on each respective heel of her shoes to hurriedly remove them, then left them behind in the genkan to scurry deeper into the apartment she resided in with her mother. She'd lived most of her life here--as far back as her memory endured--and it was what anyone would consider her home. But not Ami. The white and stark walls with their pictures so familiar that they may as well be one and the same; the austere contemporary furniture with their clean and sharp lines, and fabrics and textures she knew the feel and comfort of like she knew the touch of her own skin or hair; the smells, the sights, everything around her--it was the *before*. Ami saw the past, something that had worn out its once soothing welcome. She didn't hate it here. However, the walls, the furniture, it all seemed to hem her in, pressing, small and constricting, driving her to contemplations of escape. This apartment, this home, had played out its role in her life, like an old school she'd graduated from. She felt less and less at home every day.

 

Ami shuffled across the tiled floor, her socks slipping back and forth against their cold smoothness, taking the habitual route to her bedroom, right down to the way she polished the tiles as she went. The grey carpet in her room stopped her sliding, the plush flattened by the frequent treks of her feet over the years. Just her feet. In the past she had been a different girl. The girl that had spent her life hunched over the desk beside her bed, the girl that had voluntarily imprisoned herself in these four walls, self-deluding chains of study and school keeping the world out. A world Ami had not wanted to be a part of.

 

“Still keeping it tidy, I see.”

 

Ami turned from the sight of her desk to the tall girl in her bedroom's doorway, the girl's green eyes skipping around the Senshi of Water's space with interest.

 

The girl in the past had been nothing but scared. It had taken a friend for her to let the world in. First one and the love of friendship she'd introduced, then another with her passion... then others. It had taken courage.

 

Ami nodded, blushing slightly. Her private space, seen by someone else. It still tweaked at the old insecurities, even now. Or perhaps it was the radical change itself. A friend in her room, welcomed and unjudging, was one thing. A girlfriend--*her* girlfriend--who she kissed and cuddled and loved, was quite something else.

 

Makoto walked in, bemusement on her face as she examined the personal touches Ami had brought to the room. There were few. Schoolbooks and stationery defined Ami's bedroom, though they no longer defined her.

 

Ami opened her wardrobe and took out her school uniform neatly draped on a hanger. She'd need it tomorrow morning; however her first stop wouldn't be Juuban High but this apartment, an appearance put in for her mother's benefit, to make it seem like the girl in the past still existed. Her mother was needed at the hospital tonight and into the earlier morning hours, which meant this apartment would be empty. Ami would go to the home she felt in her heart, to where her future waited to begin. One day she'd never come back here. At least not in the same manner she did now. One day she'd think of home, and Makoto and the brunette's apartment would be all her mind envisioned. It was sad to think on, especially the thought of her mother by herself, but Ami had learned to put it out of her mind. Thanks to friends and courage she had learned that change wasn't to be feared.

 

Makoto picked up the spectacles case on the windowsill, her idle interest having her gently open it. Ami didn't need glasses. In the strictest sense she'd never needed them, but there had been a time she had believed she had. Something to place between her and everything else, the blue-haired girl in the past always looking through the safety of glass into the outside world.

 

Makoto closed the case, replacing it on the ledge. She didn't ask. Hadn't ever. She knew. She understood and accepted quietly; silently supportive, strong for everyone. That was Makoto. Ami didn't have to worry with her, although it didn't cease the behaviour utterly. *That* was Ami. She had been nervous still to explain about the other day at Makoto's apartment building, about the Senshi of Thunder's apparently new neighbour and his... perturbing... relation to her mother and why, because of the latter, she had rebuffed their normal affection. Then Makoto had listened, and the more she had listened, the more Ami's nervousness had abated, with only the situation of Takeru Sakai itself responsible for lingering anxiousness. And Makoto had understood. And then Ami had been left questioning once again why she had felt she'd needed to keep everyone at arm's length, and how she had lived alone, ignorant, for so long behind glass.

 

“We should stay here tonight,” Makoto suddenly proposed.

 

Ami blinked several times, taken aback. “Here?” This wasn't really the place for friends and... more.

 

“Sure,” the brunette said, walking over. “It isn't fair that you're always the one that has to get up before it's even light out.”

 

“It's alright. I normally wake early,” Ami replied, automatically obliging. It was true, though. She was an early riser since before she'd gotten a girlfriend to hide from her mother, every extra hour precious for additional revising and study.

 

One corner of Makoto's mouth quirked knowingly. “Yeah. But everyone needs a break. We can take turns if that sounds better.” She took the uniform in Ami's hand from her, and with her long reach stretched her arm over the shorter girl's shoulder, putting it back in the wardrobe. Ami's breath held when Makoto's chest was pushed but for an inch into her face, close enough for the Senshi of Water to smell her. “Tonight's my turn.”

 

More breathless than she had expected, Ami quickly turned her head from the close up of her girlfriend to the bed. “The bed's too small.” Just a single, meant for a solitary individual like the room was.

 

Makoto reviewed the bed as well. “I'm positive you'll calculate how to fit me,” she said, smiling again.

 

“You don't have your sleepwear,” Ami continued, finding her voice was shrinking, sounding small and hushed.

 

“I can borrow yours,” Makoto said without missing a beat. Her arms came to casually rest on the Senshi of Wisdom's shoulders.

 

“They're not your size.”

 

“Then I'll sleep in my underwear,” the taller teenager declared, her arms folding around Ami's neck, fingers teasing with the bob of blue locks at the nape.

 

“Wearing that might be uncomfortable for you,” Ami kept on, unable to look the Senshi of Courage in her eyes any more.

 

“Then I'll...” Makoto began, and Ami could hear the grin in her voice. “...I'm sure you're smart enough to think of an alternative,” she finished, different from what Ami had anticipated in her mind and all its sudden capacity for limitless and uninhibited imagination.

 

Makoto kissed her, the other girl's lips gentle against Ami's, soft and undemanding. Nevertheless Ami melted into them without resistance, her heavy eyelids closing just as easily. She felt Makoto manoeuvring her, and the bed against the backs of her legs. Then Ami was lowered onto its waiting cushioning, and never before had it felt so relaxing and welcoming. She opened her eyes to Makoto over her, all but smothered by the bigger girl. Ami believed she could see how to accommodate Makoto in her bed.

 

“You'll fit,” she said between kisses.

 

Makoto smiled with mischievous pride at the Senshi of Wisdom. “I knew you'd figure it out. But now what to wear...?”

 

Ami found herself smiling too, already knowing the answer to that one the second it had been a question. The stolid surroundings of her room were at odds with the emotion coursing through her and the person responsible for them above her, neither of which should have existed here. At least before. It reinforced that this wasn't Ami's room anymore. It belonged to that other girl. *This* girl liked not being alone. *This* girl liked having a girlfriend, and having her here. *This* girl was home wherever and whenever her lips met Makoto's.

 

The key in the lock; the lock turning with a hard click; the door breaking away from its seal with the doorjamb. Ami heard it all suddenly, a horrifying cascade.

 

“She's back!” Ami hissed, lips tearing away from Makoto's, starting to sit up. She didn't grill herself on why her mother had returned when she should have still been at work in the hospital, but faced the pressing reality that she *was* back. An explanation would come, but first she needed one of her own.

 

Ami scrambled out from underneath Makoto and off the bed, feet hitting that familiar carpet. Makoto should not have existed here. For Ami's mother, that past was still the present as far as she was aware.

 

Ami rushed into the living area, literally skidding to a halt on the tiles when she saw that it was indeed her mother in the foyer. It meant a dissolution of her plans with Makoto, however if it was just that Ami would have accepted it without too much anguish. There would be other nights. However, her mother was not alone.

 

“I... wasn't expecting you,” the Senshi of Water awkwardly admitted. Her gaze twitched between her mother and the man entering the apartment behind the woman. Perhaps when Ami moved out her mother would not be lonely for long.

 

“I had a colleague cover for me,” Ami's mother said, taking off her slip-on shoes.

 

“Your mother's been working too hard for her patients she's come to neglect her own needs,” Takeru added. His voice, so alien here in Ami's sanctuary--*former* sanctuary--immediately pulled the teenager into withdrawal, her feelings and thoughts cocooning themselves like old times. She hated herself for it.

 

“Is... is that okay?” Ami stammered.

 

“He owed me from before. A *long* time before,” her mother said, lightly chuckling afterwards at her workaholic ways.

 

“I just wasn't expecting you,” the Senshi of Water lamely said again.

 

“Not doing something you shouldn't have been, I hope!” Takeru joked. His half-smile towards Ami seemed mocking in a different light however, the girl's defensiveness making more of it than there was.

 

“Nonsense,” Ami's mother brushed off, beaming proudly. “Ami's the perfect daughter.”

 

“Hi.”

 

Ami looked behind her at Makoto in her bedroom doorway waving nervously to the new arrivals. Having a friend over wasn't special... really. Nothing could be read into it.

 

“Oh, Makoto,” Ami's mother greeted. “Maybe you can stay for dinner as well?” The blue-haired woman lifted the shopping bags Ami hadn't noticed before in her hands.

 

“Ah... I'm not sure...” Makoto vacillated, shifting looks between Ami and her mother, obviously struggling for insight in what to do. An excuse, escape, was what Ami tried to convey with her own eyes whenever they met her girlfriend's. Inside, Ami hated herself more. She wished she had more courage still, just enough to tell her mother everything and not subject the person she loved to *this*. Still the shy girl at the end of the day.

 

“Four's better than three,” Takeru pitched in. “Like a double date.”

 

Ami's mother clicked her tongue in light-hearted disapproval as she moved into the kitchen overlooking the open plan living and dining area. Ami had never seen her mother like this before. She forgot that Saeko Mizuno was a person herself, a woman, and alone. No. Ami *couldn't* think like that. Just no.

 

“Umm... alright...” Makoto succumbed, though by her expression she hadn't accepted Takeru's wisecrack with a light-heart herself. Ami's face likely looked a lot like hers. Nevertheless, Makoto bravely favoured Ami with a reassuring look. Perhaps she didn't want Ami to cope with her mother and her... friend... all by herself. It was sweet, but Ami wasn't sure the brunette staying was better over her hasty departure.

 

Makoto thoughtfully went to assist Ami's mother in the kitchen with the cooking, maybe seeing a means of getting into the woman's good graces--though with the cost of abandoning Ami. Ami would have helped too, but amid the two cooks there would be little left for her to busy herself with. And her mother would have considered it rude to leave their guest by himself and probably shooed her out in any case. The Senshi of Water had been prepared to force her presence into the kitchen role regardless, but instead resigned herself to sitting on the couch opposite the one Takeru had splayed himself upon, the young man taking to lounging as if it were his home, such was his cavalier attitude.

 

Takeru was not one to remain quiet. He grinned at Ami, showing many teeth, the girl likening it to a smug wolf. “Nice seeing you again.”

 

“Mm,” Ami nodded, sitting stiff on her sofa, knees firmly together and her hands on her lap.

 

Takeru stretched his arms out on the top of his couch and looked over his shoulder, watching Makoto and Ami's mother bustle around the kitchen for a few moments. When he turned back, his smile was still there. “You hang out with Makoto a lot.”

 

“She's my best friend,” Ami answered, reacting unconsciously. Talking about Makoto was comforting, as long as the talk didn't delve too deep. “We have been since she transferred to my school.”

 

Takeru nodded a couple of times and was silent for a few seconds. “Your mother and I are best friends too.”

 

Any comfort Ami had felt previous vanished. She swallowed, not knowing what to say, only that something *should* be said. She squirmed in her anxiousness and gazed longingly into the kitchen, wishing Makoto would just give up on being friendly and respectful and come to her, sheltering her from... whatever this was. Ami didn't want to hear this. She didn't want to think it.

 

“I'd like for us to get along also.”

 

Ami heard him. Despite herself, she heard him. The Senshi of Wisdom felt like a hypocrite. Not all change was welcome. Not all change deserved the absence of fear. The past wasn't completely awful.

 

“I think we'll be seeing a lot more of each other.”

 

Ami couldn't look at him. She couldn't lift her head, could do nothing but mumble acknowledgments as politely as she was able. She was not looking forward to dinner, even with Makoto by her side... or perhaps, at least in part, *because* the girl would be.

 

******

 

“Not this again,” Rei grumbled, rubbing two clenched fingers across her brow and squeezing her black-painted eyes shut to the twinkling blaze of lights and chaotic dancing in the otherwise dark.

 

“What?” Usagi barked, evidently not hearing the miko above Muse's typically bass-heavy music. She bopped and wiggled to those rhythmic beats where they stood in line, her pink puffy frilled skirt shimmying to and fro in time with her hips, above her black and white striped stockings--those along with the rest of her ensemble something resembling a punkish harlequin. That was Usagi though, and she made the loud and childish look work--Rei wasn't sure if that observation was to the girl's favour, however. The Fire Senshi wondered if Usagi was aware that she couldn't keep still, or if the odango atama's body was simply a marionette to the music's strings surrounding them. “I'm just saying you could have been friendlier,” Usagi pushed on, lifting her voice above the noise and making her own rather obnoxious contribution to it.

 

“I *am* friendly!” Rei exclaimed as her eyes flew back open, yelling too despite herself. “I'm friendly to everyone!”

 

Usagi directed a sour face at her, like she had just tasted something off-colour.

 

“I *am*,” Rei insisted, understanding perfectly what her girlfriend was implying with that look.

 

“Hotaru is trying her best to reach out to you and be friends again,” Usagi said, sashaying a couple of steps forward as the queue shortened.

 

“I didn't know we weren't friends,” the raven-haired teenager muttered, marching forward beside the blonde. She checked the time on her mobile phone and had a token grimace for its display, not unsurprised by it. Rei and Usagi ought to have been heading for their respective homes instead of arguing with each other while standing in line at the bar for more drinks. Usagi's curfew would come and go before they hit the street outside at this rate. But it was the last club Rei had wanted to check, and the last of the girls' Sunday night before school began again. The investigation had become all about dancing and enjoying themselves one or two clubs back. And why not? There was nothing here, or at any of the other danceclubs the two Sailor Senshi had patronised this evening. At least they could have fun... if the odango atama ceased her nagging.

 

“Well... there was that... *that*... a while back,” Usagi mentioned carefully, her dancing becoming slower as she attempted to exercise tact.

 

“We cleared the air a long time ago,” Rei said soberly, remembering for a brief moment months past and an enraged Sailor Saturn across from her, and bloody fists and faces. It was another life.

 

“I'm not sure she thinks so, Rei,” Usagi said dubiously.

 

Rei sighed and massaged her brow again. Sometimes she did wish to forget everything that had happened. The bad parts anyway. Being reminded of them, having to face them over and over again; her seething hate of Mamoru and betraying him, being responsible for his heartache; almost killing Minako; duelling Hotaru--they tainted the fairytale she had now if she let them--the price for her happiness--fester too long in her memory. “Then I'll tell her. Good enough?”

 

Usagi nodded solemnly, maybe conscious of the Senshi of Fire's changed mood.

 

Rei smiled softly, wistfully, and put her arm around her Princess's waist, drawing the girl next to her. Usagi returned the smile and the embrace. Seeing her love's face like that, feeling her pressed beside her, made every regret in Rei's mind disappear--made everything worth it. “Love me?” she spoke faintly, but was positive the din was no bar to her Princess's understanding.

 

Usagi turned her gaze away shyly. “No,” she said, playfully matter-of-fact.

 

Rei smirked rakishly at her--then quickly spun away, turning her head in the opposite direction while shielding her face with a hand, almost wanting to ingratiate herself in the next queue adjacent to her.

 

“What's wrong?” a concerned Usagi asked in hushed conspiratorial tones, her cheek pushed up to Rei's as she huddled against her, joining the other girl in secrecy.

 

“I just saw some T*A girls in the line on the right of ours.” If that didn't get her and Usagi to call it a night, Rei didn't know what would. She had only seen the girls' faces for a split second, but their likenesses were there in the miko's memory, passing her by in the halls of T*A Private Girls' School. Shouldn't those girls have been in their beds asleep by this hour? Such delinquents Rei's academy harboured.

 

“Oh? The ones from the last time?” Usagi perked up, straightening from their huddle to look over her shoulder with too much eagerness for Rei's liking. The blonde interlocked her arm with one of Rei's, tugging at the raven-haired teen to turn around with her. “Come on, I want to show you off! And *stick* it to them that you're mine!”

 

The odango atama bounced up and down on her heels excitedly, a new dance while searching the offending queue--offending to Rei anyway--for her girlfriend's schoolmates while the girlfriend in question cowered and cursed herself for saying anything. As Usagi called and waved, trying to attract the attention of whatever T*A girls were close by, Rei cast her head back in exasperation--and reluctant resignation--gazing up through the beams of spinning coloured lights into the cigarette smoke-filled darkness behind them.

 

Through the lights, past the smoke, buried in the gloom, Rei saw a shadow that did not belong to that darkness move on the ceiling. She didn't question what she saw, because she could *feel* it too. The hair on the back of the miko's neck rose, her senses prickling, all at once telling her what she had suspected. The shape skittered overhead, four bent and elongated shadows jerking unnaturally to manoeuvre it to the nearest wall. Then it dropped through the hazy murk and the gyrating kaleidoscope, swift and silent, disappearing into the crowd. But not unnoticed.

 

Rei tore off in the direction she had last seen it, her arm entwined with Usagi's hauling her Princess along with her as she smashed a path with her shoulder towards the wall, earning glares and often swears from anybody unfortunate enough to be between her and her quarry. But it was for them that Rei surged ahead; although unfortunate should they be knocked aside or to the floor, they were lucky to be behind her and whatever it was she pursued. Not everyone here would be as blessed if Rei slowed for even a fraction of a second.

 

The Fire Senshi pushed herself out the other side of the crowd and into a clearing neighbouring the wall where the music wasn't as loud nor the people as lively. There were shiny steel tables and chairs here, many of the latter vacate, and those that were occupied, were occupied by the exhausted and inebriated, judging by all the slouching and mountains of empty glasses. The perfect hunting ground.

 

Rei stopped dead. Usagi stumbled into her back, huffing and puffing, and emitted a tortured whine. “Okay, okay! I won't say anything to them!” she cried.

 

“Shhh!” the miko shushed quickly. She could feel it still. It lurked and hunted... but so did she.

 

“What's going on? Why'd you drag us all the way over here?” Usagi said, looking up at Rei sullenly and then at the tables and chairs, still holding onto the Senshi of Fire's arm. There were occasions Rei longed for the other Sailor Senshi to have her ability to detect the mystical and paranormal. It would save so much time and trouble. Until then, this was her role to play.

 

“Wait,” Rei whispered.

 

Usagi nodded gravely. She could sense that Rei sensed something. Maybe that was plenty.

 

“There.”

 

Breaking from the crowd of revellers, a lone woman stepped into the sitting area. Appearing no different from the other people in Muse, yet... there was something about her. The way she walked; how she wore her clothes; the expression on her face; a look in her eye... something *off*. She moved towards a man slumped in a booth by himself, the array of cocktail glasses on the table before him testament to his slack-jacked expression and flaccid posture. For all intents and purposes dead to the world. Guard down. Alone. Vulnerable.

 

The woman approaching could have been a friend not wishing to wake another friend; a Good Samaritan checking on somebody who had obviously had more drink than he could handle; she could have even been a thief chancing upon an easy mark. Normal explanations for seemingly abnormal behaviour. But Rei knew better. Her logical mind may have still offered those rationalisations, however instinct--the only way to describe the *knowing*--whispered to her the truth.

 

The `woman' turned her head and the miko locked eyes with it. It knew that Rei knew. For a moment the façade wavered. The youma mocked the girl with a smile too wide to belong to a human; its jaw stretching too low and baring too many sharp-edged teeth. Then it darted away, abandoning its prey and seeking shelter in anonymity among the club's dancers.

 

Usagi's fingers dug into Rei's arm. “Did you see that?!” the blonde squeaked.

 

“I did,” Rei breathed. And then she was off and running, on the trail of the youma.

 

The Senshi of Fire and Passion threw herself into the nightclub's partying throng once more, dodging bouncing bodies and thrashing limbs while bathed in a disorientating flickering lightshow. There was no need to chaperone Usagi any longer; the Moon Princess ran and weaved across the dancefloor with her, a mere step behind, relying on the miko's senses. They had lost sight of the youma but Rei knew where it was heading. With its cover blown it would want the darkness again. It would want to *evade* her again, like it or one of its sort had several days ago. Rei would be faster this time. This time there was no second guessing--no second chances for monsters.

 

“R-Rei! You're really here! Ah, I--*we*--never thought we'd meet--”

 

Rei skidded on her heels as she almost collided with a gathering of high school aged girls, and then nipped around them, continuing the chase. That they were more T*A girls helped put extra spring in her step.

 

“She's out past curfew!” Rei heard Usagi yell back at the girls, before the blonde's bobbing odangos appeared by the Fire Senshi's side again. “Rei, what about our--*my*--curfew?! I totally spaced!”

 

“Guess you're spending the night with me again,” Rei shot back, turning her head to her love. Somehow she figured it wouldn't be as pleasurable as yesterday's night.

 

“Rei, look out!”

 

Rei looked back to where she was going only to smack straight into a tie and business suit, with a man's hard chest beneath. She tottered backwards several dazed steps, the right side of her face throbbing.

 

“Are you okay?” Usagi asked, quickly holding onto the other girl to help her regain her wits.

 

“Forget it. No time,” Rei retorted just as fast.

 

“Ms. Hino, I apologise. I didn't see you.”

 

*That* made Rei pause. She looked up at the person she had knocked into and felt her stomach seize at the sight of several men in black suits and ties, though sans their usual dark eyewear here in Muse's dusky ambiance.

 

“Ahhh! The spies!” the odango atama yelped.

 

“Come on!” Rei shouted through her clenched teeth, sprinting ahead. There was *no* time for her father now! Curses ran through her mind as the anger mounted within her. If the youma escaped her because of...!

 

The Fire Senshi reached the rear exit, her Princess not far behind. The door was swinging shut, and Rei caught it before it did. There was still a chance! She wrenched it open and charged into the back alley behind Muse, heedless of any danger. Certainly the youma could have elected to ambush her if it had sensed her pursuit, or was lying in wait for fresh prey after the interruption before. But with any luck it didn't know Sailor Senshi were tailing it. One youma could mean more youma. Rei wanted them *all*, not just a solitary hunter.

 

“It's gone,” Usagi gasped at Rei's back, breathing heavily.

 

The alley was empty. How? The miko could still detect it, still *feel* the filth of its evil on her skin and in her bones, somewhere close but... not. She couldn't explain it. Had it ducked into another alley? Into one of the late night bars still open at this hour? Had it climbed as it had in the club, up onto the rooftops?

 

Rei ran down the alley a few metres, peering into every shadowed nook, every window lit or dark, and craning her neck to catch a glimpse of the upper storeys and roofs of the buildings penning her in. How? It was *here* still, yet its presence was fading.

 

The high heel of Rei's shoe made a dull thud on metal. She lowered her gaze to the manhole cover she had inadvertently trodden on. The sewers. Of course. Where else did vermin hide?

 

“Help me with this,” Rei said to Usagi as she knelt down over the manhole cover. Had it been disturbed recently? The Fire Senshi couldn't tell. But she was *sure* of this. She wouldn't put her 10000 yen pumps through a traipse in the sewers for anything less.

 

“We're not going down there. I don't want to go down there!” Usagi wailed, standing on the other side of the manhole looking traumatised and near tears. “It smells. It's where people's... flushes go.”

 

“You can stay here,” Rei said, groaning afterwards as she slid off the hefty manhole cover herself, it rasping against the tarmac of the alley. “Seal it up after me and if they show up, tell the goons... something convincing.” Her father's men were probably searching for her now. She had to go immediately, if only to keep up with the youma. Losing her awareness of the creature in the labyrinthine underground sewer tunnels of Tokyo wouldn't be a rewarding experience.

 

“Right!” Usagi agreed, cheering up. “I should get in touch with everyone too and tell them what's going on.”

 

“Right.” At least Rei had kept her Princess out of this, just as she had hoped. It was better like this.

 

Rei hopped into the manhole, her feet hitting a ladder's lower rungs that she couldn't even see in the darkness below. “If the cover's too heavy for you, you can--”

 

Usagi grabbed her arm. “Wait. I'm coming with you.” The blonde looked slightly ill as she said it, her eyes dropping to the manhole's murk and the unknown revulsions waiting.

 

“It's okay to stay behind,” Rei coaxed.

 

“It's not like I haven't been in the... the sewers before,” Usagi said haughtily, if a bit shakily. “You know, before you--*and* Ami!--came along, I was--!”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I remember. Just....” The Senshi of Passion sighed in resignation. “Just hurry up. Don't fall or anything!”

 

Usagi favoured her with an insulted expression, but quickly climbed down the ladder, squeezing her svelte self past Rei. As soon as they were both below ground, Rei jammed her fingers through the holes in the manhole cover and dragged it with every scrap of strength her arms--and her fingers for that matter--had to move it back into its inconspicuous place. It would not do for someone to follow them. She was thinking of her father's cronies, but practically anybody could just fall in. Rei's arms screamed after she had plunged herself and Usagi into pitch blackness, the limbs quivering spasmodically as she clambered down the ladder blind.

 

“Rei, I don't like this,” Usagi murmured uneasily once Rei had lowered herself into the tunnel proper. The Senshi of Fire found the other girl right next to the ladder, such that her body rubbed against the blonde's during her descent of the last rungs. “I'm not dressed for this kind of thing.”

 

“And I am? Create some coveralls for yourself with your Disguise Pen,” Rei whispered back. The complete silence, bar the dripping moisture, and the utter darkness had a way of reining in your voice. Perhaps lest you disturb something in the silent dark....

 

Usagi seemed content to just clutch onto Rei's arm. Rei hoped it was Usagi.

 

The Senshi of Fire crushed that manner of thinking. Nothing to fear down here except the evil she knew--that she felt. And it should fear *her*. Besides, who else would have such soft skin?

 

Rei dug out her mobile phone and flipped it open, muted blue-tinged light guiding the tunnel onwards, where instinct told the miko to follow.

 

“Don't wander off and watch where you step.”

 

“`Wander off'? Why would I wander off down here?!” Usagi whispered incredulously.

 

Rei smirked in the dark. “You never know with you.”

 

“I told you, I'm a veteran at this sort of stuff!”

 

Rei supposed it was nice not to be alone in this, here, in the oppressive dark and dank of a monster's lair. She still wished she could have left her Princess behind and not subject her to the grime or the peril, but a big part of her was glad to be with Usagi. Maybe facing danger together with her wasn't so bad. After all, Usagi was at her safest alongside Rei.

 

******

 

Minako cringed as she felt what she'd thought was filth-caked concrete beneath her left foot dimple as if she'd stepped in mud, and then emit several panicked squeaks. She quickly lifted her boot, the squeaks shutting up. There were rats everywhere. Most fled from her torchlight, but some--her latest squirmy encounter a case in point--hung around to creep her out. If she wasn't standing on one inadvertently, they were running past her ankles in a hapless effort to avoid her disturbance to their abode, the sensation always shooting a sickened jolt through the blonde's body.

 

It could have been worse, however. Regular trips into Tokyo's sewers had seen her come prepared tonight. With her calf-length boots--while not a workman's or even rubber; the Senshi of Beauty *did* have to be seen wearing them after all before she descended into the tunnels; but they were a pair from her wardrobe she liked the least; cheap tan faux leather tarnished with old creases she had bought on impulse ages ago at a sale, and could toss out when all this was said and done--and along with her torch so she no longer had to rely on Artemis's eyes in the deep dark, sloshing through the literal bowels of the city was as easy as she could make it be. Minako even wore a baseball cap--it tended to drip down here.

 

“Shouldn't you be chasing these things?” the girl growled, flashing her torch's beam down at her feet to scare away any more rodents--and afterwards to check that none still had their little claws on her. “Away from me at least?”

 

“When have you seen me ever chasing a rat, or a mouse, or anything like that?” Artemis said from his perch flopped over Minako's shoulder, well clear of the repugnant hazards of the sewers. He was pretty fastidious for someone who licked the places he did.

 

“You loved pushing around that ball of wool I got you for Christmas that one time.”

 

“I was humouring you, Minako,” the feline sighed. “If you remember, you dangled it in front of me and wouldn't stop until I did.”

 

“Still, use your cat powers to help me, would you?” Minako complained. “Hiss or meow or something so the rats get the message to clear out, there's a natural predator in the area. They hopefully won't know it's just *you*.”

 

Artemis stewed wearily in silence, prompting Minako to grin broadly and tickle the cat's side affectionately.

 

“I can't see that many anyway,” Artemis spoke up some minutes of walking later. “Rats, I mean. They aren't in great number here as they were in the other tunnels.”

 

“This tunnel looks as nasty as the rest,” Minako said, directing her torch about the circular hollow's walls, the shells of dozens of skittering cockroaches shining brightly as the light passed over them. “Nastier even. Maybe even rats have standards, low as they are.” The blonde had never seen so many cockroaches in one place before in her whole life.

 

“Maybe...” Artemis solemnly mused.

 

With a quick shine of her torch the Senshi of Love and Beauty checked her watch reflexively, just for something else to do besides trudge through filmy `water' and recoil at the vermin population. Very late, as usual. Another two hours or thereabouts and it would be time to head back to the surface and pretend she had been sleeping in her bed all this while, for the sake of appearances--`appearances' being her mother and father. But what was lost sleep and a little grime and horror compared to someone's life? The trade was a no brainer. Minako might have loathed her surroundings, might have complained in the morning after a scant three hours of rest, yet she *wanted* to be here. She was meant to be here. Doing the right thing wasn't always pretty or easy, but ultimately it *was* the right thing.

 

Minako smiled softly to herself. A no brainer.

 

“How are you and Setsuna?”

 

The Senshi of Love slowed her pace for a moment, taken by surprise. Artemis wasn't normally the type to probe into her love life--not these days. He knew of Minako's past; of her loss. And of her lovers. Still, despite all he knew, usually the feline steered clear of such topics, behaving as if his charge wasn't a red-blooded girl with passions and dreams that she longed to fulfil--or fulfil whenever and wherever she saw the chance, regardless how superficially or fleetingly.

 

“We're good,” Minako lied. Though it wasn't *exactly* a lie when she wasn't sure how she and Setsuna were herself. So Artemis knew about her and the Senshi of Time. Luna's doing, maybe? She'd become too absorbed with the Sailor Senshis' personal relationships of late. “How are you and Luna?” Minako countered.

 

Artemis didn't rise to the bait. He saw through it. The blonde had predicted her loyal companion would. Instead the white kitty was quiet, introspectively so. Minako knew that he just worried about her. However after... everything... the Dark Agency, London... her heart and its desires were closed to everybody but herself; a struggle for her alone to face. To live with.

 

“Can you hear that?” Artemis suddenly said, his pointed ears turning to face forwards.

 

“What?” the Senshi of Love and Beauty whispered, turning her head so her right ear faced forwards in pantomime of her feline ally. She couldn't pick up what his heightened hearing could, only the never-ending dripping. But she trusted absolutely that he had heard something of worth.

 

Artemis leapt from Minako's shoulder, landing in the centre of the pool of torchlight held steady by the girl's hand. He looked back at the blonde over his shoulder. “I don't think we're alone.”

 

He ran ahead with the swiftness of four legs, yet Minako followed equally as fast and nimbly. It could be the many sleepless nights and smelly repercussions were about to pay off.

 

******

 

Rei clasped Usagi's grimy and sweaty hand tightly with a hand no cleaner as the other girl half-climbed, half-fell, over the short drop into the lower part of the tunnel, where the miko spotted her precarious descent. There was a ladder, but the majority of the rusted rungs had broken off from the crumbling concrete face; the ones that still stuck around were probably a couple of heavy steps away from giving up their hold too. These sewer tunnels were old. Rightfully they shouldn't be thought of as part of the sewers; these were just tunnels, decades unused and forgotten, except by the things that lived in their dark.

 

It felt like Rei and Usagi had been walking for hours and hours, but unless her mobile phone's clock lied, it hadn't been more than one. Deeper and deeper the Senshi had followed the youma, through sloping tunnels, tunnels of sheer drops and more dodgy ladders, collapsed tunnels with barely standing room; deeper and deeper into the earth, into places where people no longer tread, no longer remembered existed, where light no longer reached.

 

Part of Rei had begun to worry how she and Usagi would get back. Some of the terrain they had traversed had been one way--down, always down. There would be a means to get back up this ledge--if the Fire Senshi boosted her Princess first--but the others they had climbed? This trip was one way. They'd have to find a different route out. There *would* be one in this maze. There had to be.

 

But, concerns for another time. Right now down, forward, was Rei's focus.

 

Usagi at her side again, Rei walked onwards, her phone's screen still lighting their steps. It was at least dryer here, though no less ghastly. The air was stale and still, polluted with dust and stench, and the rats and insects defecated and died where they willed, waiting to be trodden upon by the unsuspecting. Not every rodent body was desiccated or down to their bones.

 

“Ugh! Rei! I step--!”

 

“Shh!”

 

“I stepped in something!” Usagi hissed, her voice lowering as per the Fire Senshi's hushing. “It was squishy and horrible!”

 

“Do you need to announce it *every* time you step in something?” a vexed Rei hissed back.

 

“But it's gross,” was Usagi's defence.

 

“I know it's gross. I don't need to be *reminded* it's gross. I don't want to think about how gross it is!” the raven-haired girl snarled through her teeth. It *was* really, *really* gross. Great. Now she couldn't think of anything else.

 

“My feet are wet too,” the blonde said, unrelenting. “I can feel it, seeping in! It's probably someone's...! You know! Their...!”

 

“You're wearing platforms. I'm wearing open pumps,” Rei remarked very carefully and very evenly.

 

“Ohhh... I'm so sorry Rei....”

 

The Senshi of Fire made to rub her temple that was beginning to ache, but quickly stopped herself, remembering her soiled hands just in the nick of time. She tried not to imagine what her feet looked like, or hear how they squelched with her every footstep. Like Usagi, it wasn't Rei's first experience tackling Tokyo's buried muck, but it wasn't the sort of thing you looked forward to repeating. Rarely did the average person trudge through the sewers by choice, or in favourable conditions. The last occasion Rei had been underground like this she had been grateful for the sewers and the escape from certain death they had provided, though she hadn't spared a second for anything other than staggering for an exit to see the sky over her head again. And to hold her Princess in her gaze once more. Now her Princess was right here with her, trudging the same muck as she. Perhaps that was a favourable condition of a sort, though the odango atama likely didn't share that view.

 

Regardless, Rei wished she had worn pants instead of a dress.

 

“I just wish I could see where I was going better,” Usagi said quietly. “Can't you, like, conjure a fire or something?”

 

“I'm not a cigarette lighter you can flick on and off,” Rei grumbled, lightly crossing over a pile of shattered bricks that had caved in from the tunnel's ceiling. Usagi clung to her, making her own way across as the Fire Senshi did, albeit less gracefully and with more stubbed toes. “It doesn't work like that.”

 

“Do you have a cigarette lighter then?”

 

“Of course I don't,” the miko said tersely.

 

“Well good. Don't smoke, Rei,” Usagi said in a lecturing tone.

 

“You could have stayed behind...” Rei recapped somewhat longingly. Doing this by herself would have sucked, but if there was a safe avenue for Usagi to get back to street level now Rei would have gladly seen the blonde take it. Alas....

 

“I know. But no way,” Usagi stated firmly, her grip on the Fire Senshi's bare arm strengthening.

 

Rei sighed, though it didn't emerge without a small smile behind it.

 

“Maybe we should give up though,” Usagi proposed, her resolve withering. She took out her pink phone, though flipped it open to stare at its display rather than use it as a light source. “I can't get a signal down here,” she muttered softly. “My parents are probably busting coronaries. Mama was already mad at my crappy maths score.”

 

“We'll think of something to say. We always do,” Rei said.

 

“We better!” the blonde snapped, in time with the sharp closing of her phone. “I'm going to be grounded for months!” She nudged Rei with her hip. “That means no *me* around anymore,” she added pointedly.

 

“I understaaaand,” Rei drawled wearily. “You couldn't survive without me.”

 

“*No*, I meant *you'd* not have *me*!” Usagi leaned close, her lips to the raven-haired girl's ear. “I *know* you wouldn't be able to handle it,” she said, in a tone that was entirely too knowing.

 

“I think you just stepped in something,” Rei flatly announced.

 

“What? Augh!” the odango atama predictably grimaced. “But as I was saying, we should think about turning back,” she continued, once she had finished hopping and scraping the sole of her shoe on the ground a few times. “Is the youma even still around?”

 

“It is.” Rei stopped and angled her phone slightly more upwards, shining it further down the tunnel. In the distance, only just visible, a creature on all fours with limbs too long and flesh too cracked and grey to belong to a human being squatted, waiting, its bald head turned in the Sailor Senshis' direction. The gentle light in its five violet eyes; a single eye in the centre of its face surrounded in a cluster by the other four; made the orbs glitter like diamonds--but only for a moment. As the light fell upon the youma's undisguised form--no need for disguises in the dark corners of the world--it loped into another tunnel in an instant, out of sight.

 

Rei had felt the creature's presence all this time. It waited for them. It knew it was being tracked.

 

“Are you sure this isn't a trap?” Usagi gulped.

 

“It'll attack us eventually,” Rei said. “But it's what we want,” she added darkly, quietly. The youma no doubt believed Rei and Usagi foolish humans chasing after a curiosity; food or sport that would come to its claws willingly if it waited long enough. The Senshi of Fire guessed it was leading them to its hideout or to where more youma could join in, ensuring neither girls eluded capture. Either possibility was good. More youma meant more Rei and Usagi could clean out and prevent from plaguing the night again, while a hideout could mean survivors from earlier hunts and yet more youma still; the whole pack; the source. Rei didn't believe the monster she followed was acting alone. It would have attacked her and her Princess by now in the darkness if it was--plenty of places in the tunnels to leap out at the unwary. There were more youma down here. Sooner or later the miko would feel them too. She would *never* be the unwary.

 

“Maybe this is the moment to call for backup,” Usagi worriedly suggested, already bringing up her watch communicator.

 

“No,” Rei said, grabbing her girlfriend's wrist and the communicator with it. “Not until we know what we have here. It might only be this one.”

 

“I guess...” Usagi half-heartedly agreed. “We'd look pretty stupid if it was just one lousy youma.”

 

“Come on,” Rei urged. The Senshi of Fire and Passion had no intention of calling anyone, pack of youma or no. She hadn't wanted to needlessly worry her Princess, but they were too far below the surface to rely on the other Sailor Senshi throwing in their assistance. It would take Ami, Makoto, and Minako ages to make their own way down into the sewers and find them, even with the locators embedded in the watch communicators. By then the fighting would long be over. Besides, more than Rei and Usagi for whatever number of monsters lurked would be overkill. Tonight was these creatures' last hunt. Rei had a fire inside that prophesised so.

 

The first Usagi was aware of the youma's den being close was the orange glow on the tunnel walls up ahead. Rei recognised that glow anywhere--fire. But the miko had been conscious of the nearing nest a while before, the vile collective blotch on her senses everything she needed to make her deduction. There was indeed more than a solitary youma. Exactly how many the girls would have to count for themselves when they saw them, but this was the pack Rei had been looking for.

 

“Usagi; be ready,” the Fire Senshi whispered as they marched closer. In the firelight Rei could finally clearly see her love's dirty but beautiful face and the steadfastness in it. Usagi was ready.

 

With impunity Rei walked down the remainder of the tunnel and into the room it opened out into, Usagi not a pace after her. There was no point in creeping about, if there ever had been. Even the youma knew the score now... just not that it wasn't in their favour.

 

The cavernous room the youma had elected to make their home in was some kind of old sewage pump room, full of pipes of all sizes erupting from the walls to disappear into the floor or ceiling. Every pipe was rusted now, any pressure gauges smashed and their displays smeared to incomprehensible brown by dirt and dust. Like the rest of the tunnels this deep, this room was no longer part of the world. Except to the monsters... and those that would slay them.

 

The fire that had lit the tunnel's mouth belonged to one of several--cookfires, their tendrils of smoke crawling across the ceiling before finding escape through the overhead grates; the black scorch marks on the bricks above evidence that the fires had burned on and off for a long, long time. It was a scene Rei had half-expected, but had prayed to not be. Above the fires roasted bits of *people*, the missing people of Roppongi--and bits of them Rei rather wished she could forget. Like less than cattle the damned men and women were treated; not even butchered but *torn* *apart*, limbs and insides ripped free to haphazardly cook impaled on spits. What wasn't cooking lay in wet and bloody collapsed heaps, ravaged, barely resembling a human body any more. And the rest filled the maws of youma. Hungrily the wicked creatures devoured their latest catch, with such a vigour Rei was surprised they even bothered with the delay of the cooking process. Yet make no mistake; it was not civilised in any shape or form.

 

“I'm gonna hurl...” Usagi gagged, slapping a hand over her mouth.

 

There was also the smell of cooking meat permeating the room. Meat like no other. It just smelt... wrong. The aroma was on the brink of being appetising, like a juicy steak or a nice burger... that was how wrong it was.

 

The youma Rei and Usagi had tailed scurried over to its cohorts, the latter looking up from their feast to eye and salivate over the two new courses. The Fire Senshi picked out some species of youma in the two dozen or so crowded around the roasting spits she had seen before; pouring out of a rip in the sky at the top of Tokyo Tower or earlier, in Yokohama or Tokyo proper; these sewer denizens were leftovers from that derailed invasion--in other words, youma that hadn't been *killed* yet.

 

“I think it's that time,” Rei said.

 

Usagi gave a resolute nod. “MOON COSMIC POWER!” Her voice echoed throughout the pump room and down the sewer tunnels; over the youma. A battlecry.

 

The Henshin Stick of Mars spun into existence from the open air, appearing in Rei's fist within a shower of sparkles. “MARS CRYSTAL POWER!” she roared after her Princess.

 

“MAKE UP!” the Sailor Senshi cried with one voice.

 

Rei was whisked away from the filthy underground of Tokyo, to a place where only heat and fire existed. The flames flocked to the girl, engulfing her and burning her clothes away, wreathing her in an inferno instead. The heat should have peeled her skin and charred her bones, but it felt comforting, protective--*right*. Rei realised in the months of peace she'd missed this feeling.

 

All at once the flames vanished, leaving her clothed in red, white, and purple, and with the alacrity of a whiplash Rei was back in the sewers. But as Sailor Mars, and with Sailor Moon standing beside her, both of them dressed in Sailor fukus.

 

“For Love and Justice I'm the sailor suited pretty soldier, Sailor Moon!” the blonde declared with an authority as if she owned these tunnels and the city above, and the youma were subjects that should prostrate themselves at her feet. “In place of the Moon--!”

 

“--and Mars--” Sailor Mars threw in.

 

“--we'll punish you!” the girls finished together, both striking imposing figures, stabbing challenging pointed fingers at the mass of feeding monsters.

 

Voices--if the garbled roaring could be called that--rose up from the mass, spitting out a language Mars couldn't decipher, and that she believed no one with a human tongue could. However, she did recognise `Sailor Senshi!' in the mess of barks and growls.

 

“Stay behind me,” Sailor Mars directed her Princess. The muddle of pipes would hamper and funnel the youma before they could reach and smother the Senshi outright, instilling a control on the battlefield--a blessing--nevertheless Mars wished to pit herself against the brunt of that storm *alone*.

 

“No way!” Sailor Moon rebelled, barging in front of the Fire Senshi and pushing *her* back with a poking elbow. “I came with you to--hey!”

 

Sailor Mars hastily dragged her objecting and stumbling love back into place at her rear, just as the youma collectively howled, shrieked, and screamed--then charged. The monster Sailor Mars and Sailor Moon had followed once again led, bounding towards the Senshi on all fours, two more of its species in support. They and the other youma assembled were nothing from this earth; evil, twisted things, with fangs and spikes and blades and poisons; bred not from nature, but from the need to torture and murder. Nature couldn't--wouldn't--have imagined such creatures into being. They were not meant for this world.

 

“Rin, Pyo, Tou, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen!” Mars chanted at a raised paper ward held before her closed eyes. With a flick of her wrist one ofuda fanned into three. “Akuryou Taisan!” Her eyes flew open as she hurled the wards at the incoming youma, one pairing with each of the abominations.

 

When the ofudas touched the youma, plastering to their chests or faces, they immediately froze, too long arms and too long legs paralysed solid. They tumbled over like pushed statues, their momentum keeping them rolling along the ground, a strange spectacle for anyone not Sailor Mars.

 

“Sailor Moon!” the miko yelled.

 

Sailor Moon plucked her tiara off her forehead, the gold ornament developing a brighter and brighter glow until it was so bright it appeared as a glowing discus. “MOON TIARA ACTION!” the blonde shouted, launching the now weapon at the trio of petrified youma.

 

The tiara sliced through the defenceless creatures, through the veiny pale flesh and into their insides, searing and cleaving, eviscerating, spilling white blood and severed limbs in its path, before returning to its mistress.

 

The victory could not be savoured. More youma poured forward, already upon the girls. Sailor Mars leapfrogged over another of the beasts, this particular thing more dark brown matted hair than anything else, and lashed out with her splayed legs, kicking her heels into the deformed faces of two more spindly grey youma. She risked a look over her shoulder straight after, witnessing Sailor Moon clubbing the hairy youma where its head ought to be with the weighted end of her Spiral Heart Moon Rod in one hand. In the other her shining tiara hovered, to be thrown at a distant youma; a squat bulbous eyesore that Mars recalled could cough up balls of pure electricity. The tiara did its grisly work.

 

“FIRE SOUL!”

 

Sailor Mars slapped her hands together; index fingers extended; and fired a globe of flame at the youma. It collided with another hair-covered being, its coat helpless against the fire. It squealed oddly as it burned, its body the fuel for its pyre, and immediately ran in the opposite direction to the Senshi of Fire. Other youma parted for it, momentarily halted in what appeared to be fascination at the display.

 

They gestured and sneered at Mars, hesitant but hateful. The Fire Senshi almost believed she could see recognition in their inhuman gazes. Then the moment was lost, the monsters flinging themselves at her once more.

 

“FIRE SOUL!”

 

Youma caught fire and burned before Sailor Mars. Those that neared she punched and elbowed, kneed and kicked; battering them back until they could taste the flames themselves, *cooking* like the people had at their mercies; putting *them* to the fire. It felt good to tap the fire within her. Good to unleash it again at last. The sight of the youma ablaze, the heat and ash on her face, the smell of them roasting, overpowering all else, was invigorating. There was something primal and divine in the burning, pure and beautiful. The more Mars scorched the more she saw it, and the more she wanted to behold it.

 

Wetness splattered the raven-haired girl's cheek from overhead. She cast her gaze quickly upwards, seeing several of the grey five-eyed youma crawling on the brick ceiling, hiding in the cookfire smoke while defying gravity like some sorts of insects. They were trying to get behind her and Sailor Moon's position, to get at their backs.

 

“Above us!” Mars warned. “FIRE SOUL!”

 

One of the creatures dropped from the ceiling, catching a fireball full in the chest and erupting in flames. The Fire Senshi rolled over her shoulder out of its path, it landing in a flailing, screeching heap, frantically and fruitlessly attempting to save itself from burning alive.

 

“MARS FLAME SNIPER!”

 

Sailor Mars was already drawing her fiery bow as soon as she was upright. In a crouch she loosed an arrow constructed completely of flames at another dive bombing youma; this particular foe with her Princess in its myriad gaze. The arrow snatched the monster ruthlessly out of the air, impaling it through the ribs and then pinning it against the pump room's far wall. The projectile exploded on contact with the bricks, frying the youma and demolishing a chunk of masonry in the process.

 

“BURNING MANDALA!”

 

As Sailor Moon tossed her tiara, a heavy barrage of rings made of fire bombarded the youma that threatened the girls from overhead, the joint cutting and burning slaughtering the would-be ambushers, their pasty blood and brutalised bodies raining down around the Senshi.

 

“More~!” Sailor Moon squealed, shaking her sceptre anxiously ahead.

 

Mars turned her head where the blonde motioned--at the unexplored tunnel opening furthest from them. Apparently there were more cookfires housed in that stretch of the sewers, and more youma that had been sitting by them, snacking on humanity. They had come to see what the ruckus was about, reinforcing the youma line. There was a *lot* for just two Sailor Senshi. Sailor Mars's stomach should have been in knots; it was clear her Princess's was. But as long as Sailor Moon still stood, was still unharmed, the Senshi of Fire and Passion let the grim thrill of it all take her. And her Princess was in good hands.

 

“FIRE SOUL!”

 

Sailor Mars managed to let fly another of her attacks before the monsters ventured too near for her powers, the girl resorting to tried and true bodily violence. Beating them back to be set aflame proved harder with the greater number; punching one to the ground only had it be replaced by another, uglier and angrier, youma to be kicked and thrown aside, only for that one to be replaced as well. Those that got beyond the Fire Senshi's limbs at least had Sailor Moon to dispatch them with sceptre and tiara, the blonde wielding both somewhat unique weapons with skill that would have surprised anyone that didn't truly know her. Holding the youma force back so that they didn't stampede Sailor Moon and overwhelm Mars herself was getting tough, seconds of success more and more hard fought. Sailor Mars's muscles began to burn themselves, stinging from overuse, while the youma got more hits past her guard, scratching her and bruising her; gnashing fangs in her face. The injuries were minor, doing little to slow her, but it would only take one solid strike to destroy her momentum and possibly tear open a larger, gushing, wound that would bring her to her knees. Still, the thrill remained. Sailor Mars pushed harder, dancing on the knife edge, the burning in her arms and legs almost welcomed warmth. Her Princess, the one she loved, was behind her, relying on her. Doubt that she could not stand her ground didn't enter Mars's mind.

 

There was a bang, and Sailor Mars glimpsed a heavy metal grating fall from the smoky ceiling, smacking one unwary youma in the head and crushing it to the ground. Yellow-golden light radiated softly from the edges of the opening the grate had uncovered. Then it suddenly poured into the battlefield.

 

Sailor Venus dropped from the ceiling, her chain of glowing hearts caught around her body in a spinning spiral, one end in her grasp. She threw the chain in a wide circle as she fell, the weapon straightening from her body and lashing out at the youma--once, twice, three times she whirled it, culminating in a final revolution that swept the ground at ankle height. The monsters closest to the Love-Me Chain were sliced in half by the hot cutting energy contained in its lovely links; maimed, decapitated; while the rest further away were lashed bloody before their injuries sealed in the heat, and knocked off their feet. The pump room's pipes received no greater mercies, burned clean through wherever the chain touched, some segments cut multiple times flying loose.

 

Venus made a concluding crack of her whip on the prone body of one youma, tearing the frog-like creature's chest open in a literal flash; the wound blossoming all of a sudden and then searing shut just as quickly, as though an explosion had gone off within the guts of the beast. Above her Artemis's head peeked out of the grate's opening, taking stock of the scene.

 

“Fancy meeting you here,” the Senshi of Love said casually to Mars. A wink and a lopsided smile later, the blonde continued her assault.

 

Sailor Mars grinned herself and renewed her own offensive, now that Sailor Venus had thinned the numbers for her. The raven-haired girl smashed her fist in the toothy maw of the closest youma; one of the grey multi-eyed crawlers; fangs snapping in twain beneath her knuckles, and then jabbed her elbow in the throat of another that thought to venture near, sending it into coughing fits.

 

“FIRE SOUL!”

 

A fireball to the first youma's stomach catapulted it backwards into one of its own cookfires, it roasting on the flames in a fair irony. The second, hacking, abomination launched itself at Mars, only to feel Sailor Moon's tiara colliding with it from behind; a meeting that proved gory and fatal.

 

Yet a third youma dared, bounding from nowhere, wailing as a banshee and as horrid and emaciated as a rotting corpse, to sink its six outreached talons into Sailor Mars. Unexpectedly its expression of rage turned slack-jawed, and it collapsed like a wet noodle at the Fire Senshi's feet--the stem of a full-bodied rose protruding from the back of its neck.

 

“Tuxedo Kamen!” Sailor Moon exclaimed, seeming delighted by the arrival.

 

The man in top hat and cape, and the black tuxedo that was part of his namesake, materialised from the tunnel Sailor Mars and her Princess had navigated, hurling the equivalent of a bouquet of roses at the youma, cane held defensively in his other hand. He had a slight smile for Sailor Moon and a look from behind his white mask, before more roses appeared in his grasp to be thrown.

 

“What are you doing here?!” Sailor Moon gasped disbelievingly, temporarily forgetting the fighting around her. Mars thought the blonde should have been accustomed to his trademark unpredicted appearances by now; however those appearances *had* taken place in the past, when the Moon Princess and the Prince of Earth had shared a deeper bond. Today was a different day, a different bond. Perhaps Sailor Moon had assumed Tuxedo Kamen wouldn't ride to her rescue as before?

 

Sailor Mars didn't know where Tuxedo Kamen or Sailor Venus had come from, or why or how they had come to be here. But she didn't care. They were here, lending their aid, and that was knowledge aplenty.

 

The earth shook; the very walls and ceiling crumbling, dust and bits of concrete tumbling on everyone's heads. Sailor Mars searched for the source, head thrashing around the pump room that was now littered with the decaying carcasses of youma more than there were human, the oxygen or some other element in the air reacting violently with the dead monster flesh and beginning to destroy all trace of their being. The battle had been won, the few youma still on their feet, tentacles, or whatever oddity, ineffectually fleeing from being mopped up by the Sailor Senshi and Tuxedo Kamen. None could be allowed to live to hunt again, or even breed if was true they had the means. They had to be exterminated like the vermin they are.

 

Still the earth trembled, and Sailor Mars wondered if they were near a subway line--before she heard the cry. It was alien, not a roar but not really a shriek either; yet certainly foreboding and deafening. The Fire Senshi glanced over at her Princess, checking to see how she fared, before cracking her knuckles. The battle was not over quite yet by the sound of it.

 

A *monster*--the only term Mars could think of to sum up the thing that emerged from the far tunnel near Venus; late comer to the carnage. It was big, forced to stoop to get through the tunnel's mouth, before rising to its full size in the pump room. It was gangly and humanoid for the most part, dark green bumpy skin, and had patches of rough coarse and even darker green fur sprouting over its body, as though it were diseased and losing its coat. But the head.... Thick ridges ran over its bare scalp, the centre bony protrusion the thickest and tallest, and its eyes were saucers of black that reflected the room before it; a bottomless stare. The nose was simply two small holes, and the *mouth*... it was like a flower bud. When it emitted that awful keening, the petals opened, revealing rows upon rows of needle-like teeth; scraps of meat caught between them. Mars knew the scraps used to have names.

 

In the monster's hands it carried a hammer of sorts; it seemed fashioned together from junk. The head was a puzzle of barbed wire, nails, broken wood and glass, brick, rope. The shaft was pipe reinforced with more barbed wire and timber. The whole thing looked gigantic and heavy, and wicked and fierce; a tool of violence indeed.

 

“Watch out, Minako!” Artemis called from his secure perch. Lucky him.

 

“VENUS LOVE-ME CHAIN!”

 

The Senshi of Love and Beauty sent her whip to wrap around the monster's long left arm. The links tightened as the blonde pulled on the other end of her weapon and green lumpy flesh sizzled, giving off steam.

 

The monster screamed its unearthly howl, and with surprisingly brawn for its slim form, viciously flung its trapped arm forwards. Venus was yanked with it, pulled off her feet, her grip on her chain slipping. As her hands left the linked hearts, they vanished into sparkles.

 

Meanwhile Venus tumbled, rolling across the ground before the creature, her Sailor fuku gathering muck and the girl inside it skinning her knees and elbows before she came to a stop.

 

“Minako!” Artemis yelled again.

 

The blonde rolled once more, this time of her own volition, as the monster's hammer descended, pulverising the concrete where the girl had lied a split second earlier. The hammer head stuck a moment, then was pulled free of the crater for another swing at the Senshi of Beauty.

 

“MOON TIARA ACTION!”

 

Sailor Moon threw her tiara at the abomination, catching it in the shoulder and spilling syrupy purple-shaded blood down its chest. Tuxedo Kamen joined her efforts, roses hitting their mark, thorny stems embedding in the thick mossy hide and drawing more of the strange quick-clotting blood.

 

The monster staggered a step backwards, its hammer swing stalled, and it seemed to forget Sailor Venus in favour of the two humans that had caused its immediate pain. It bellowed its nightmarish call, the petals of its mouth flaring open and shuddering wildly like clothes on a washing line, ropes of drool flying. It took a step forward, then another, building up its pace into a full-on charge. Its wide feet, that Mars noticed were that way due to their webbing, sent earthquakes through the pump room whenever they smacked the ground, the pipes creaking as they wobbled in sync with the monster's furious advance. Fins shot out as paper fans on its forearms and calves and back and shoulders, the spines that held them outstretched rattling in some primal show of aggression.

 

“CRESCENT BEAM!”

 

Sailor Venus fired an energy bolt at the monster's back while Tuxedo Kamen tossed another sweet-smelling array of his, however the behemoth was wholly focused on its vengeful stampede, the wounds shrugged off. Anything under its feet was smashed flat, be it bricks, pipes, or bodies, while its hammer raised above its head scraped the ceiling and showered bright sparks over its path.

 

“MARS...!”

 

The red symbol of Mars briefly shined upon the Senshi of Fire and Passion's right palm, just before flames burst into barely controlled life, harnessed in her hand.

 

The monster, the youma, roared still, the fire mirrored in its dark gaze as it beared down on Sailor Mars, Sailor Moon, and Tuxedo Kamen. Bricks and mortar broke off from the ceiling, the crude and uneven hammerhead prying anything that wasn't stable loose to drop as jagged, cruel hailstones.

 

“Move!” Tuxedo Kamen shouted, tossing a last desperate rose before he leapt out of the way of the rampaging beast.

 

“...FLAME...!”

 

The flames contained in Sailor Mars's hand blazed in all directions then were constrained to craft the shaft of a burning longbow. The Fire Senshi pulled back her left hand, and an arrow was there nocked in the middle of the shaft; forged of a deeper, hotter, orange flame; controlled, tempered; given edges and a razor's point. She aimed that point at the monster barrelling down upon her, her arms as steady as its edges.

 

“Rei, run!” Sailor Moon exclaimed distantly. “Run!”

 

The youma hewed its hammer down, intending to pulp Mars with a single mighty blow.

 

“...SNIPER!”

 

Sailor Mars released the arrow at near point-blank range, its head punching into the head of the monster's hammer, intercepting it. Everything exploded.

 

Mars quickly turned her face away from the heat and debris, feeling both on her left cheek, and then sensed the ground desert her feet. The room spun and tumbled, and the Senshi of Fire fought to right it. When everything came back into focus, she was on one knee metres from where she had originally stood, her body aching as if she'd been struck by a car.

 

“Rei! Are you okay?!”

 

Sailor Mars blinked a few times, and then patted out the fire in her hair and on the bow on her chest. Her Princess was there next to her, frantically slapping out another small fire on her shoulder. The fires were barely a concern. The monster still stood, though it only held the now crooked shaft of its hammer minus a head. It looked stunned, simply standing there. Sailor Venus and Tuxedo Kamen were swift to take advantage.

 

While the beast was distracted, being lured away from Sailor Mars and Sailor Moon, the miko took the opportunity to pause and take a few breathes. Sailor Moon helped her to her feet, still gazing at her anxiously. “Relax,” Mars said, cavalierly writing off the blonde's worries. “I'm fine.”

 

“Good...” Sailor Moon breathed with relief--then she pushed Mars hard. “What were you thinking?!” she cried. “This is how you get hurt!”

 

Sailor Mars watched as Tuxedo Kamen ducked just in time, the youma knocking off the man's top hat with a mad swing of the remains of its weapon. A precise beam from Venus sheared off one of the monster's lower mouth petals, gooey saliva streaming freely from the disfigured maw. The pair danced in close quarters with the abomination, dodging webbed fists and the hammer shaft, slowly sapping its strength with Crescent Beams and rose stems.

 

“We'll keep it busy,” Mars said. She turned her head to look at Sailor Moon. “You give it all you've got.”

 

Sailor Moon nodded determinedly and Mars smiled grimly.

 

The Fire Senshi ran towards where her friends clashed with the green monster, and dived through the mess of pipes to join them in keeping its attention from Sailor Moon. Arms and legs outstretched and pressed together, her body was a spear point, slipping through the narrowest of openings in the pipes. In her wake the youma's arm and fist with its ruined weapon followed, demolishing everything she skilfully navigated a fraction of a second earlier. She emerged on the other side of the pump room in a nimble shoulder roll, bits and pieces of rusty pipes clanging about her, rolling not quite so deftly.

 

Tuxedo Kamen desperately shielded his body with his cane brandished in both his hands as he realised he couldn't evade the youma's incoming arm, fresh from its pursuit of Mars. The hammer shaft collided with the Prince's cane, but the impact was too much. It launched him across the room, his flight only ceasing when he met a solid and unforgiving wall.

 

“FIRE SOUL!”

 

“CRESCENT BEAM!”

 

Sailor Mars and Sailor Venus wasted no time in working in tandem, the Senshi of Beauty's new dance partner filling the opening Tuxedo Kamen had left. Overhead Artemis shouted his encouragements and advice, though most of the latter was rather useless wailing to `look out' after the fact.

 

“We hear you, Artemis!” Venus yelled up in annoyance at the feline. “Stop pestering us!”

 

“MOON...!”

 

At the monster's back Sailor Mars heard her Princess's voice echo, and there light began to shimmer, painting the otherwise dank and dirty underground room in a hopeful hue.

 

Apparently aware of the power being wielded behind it, the youma started to turn towards Sailor Moon, shrieking as if to combat the Moon Princess's voice with its own hateful tenor.

 

“We've got to stop it!” Mars snarled past gritted teeth, before throwing a ward. The ofuda caused the creature to howl louder, but it raged against its paralytic effects. The ward wouldn't hold.

 

“VENUS LOVE-ME CHAIN!”

 

Sailor Venus whipped her chain around the youma's throat just as Mars's ward disintegrated to cinders. The beast let go of the bent metal pole it carried, clawing with its rubbery webbed fingers at the heart links, choking. Mars could hear its flesh crackle and hiss and see vines of steam climb to the ceiling as the chain ate into its neck.

 

“...SPIRAL...!”

 

All of a sudden the youma seized the stretched chain with its fists, leaving itself to strangle. Despite the burning, it pulled, once again lifting Venus off her feet and into the air. Artemis squealed in panic as his charge was whirled around, and then flung into the bent and broken pipes and pumps. The Senshi of Love refused to release her grip on her chain however, taking every punishment the youma had for her. The monster used its brawn to smash her into the walls and anything else it could find, and whenever it lost momentum it would drag her mercilessly along the ground until she became airborne again. Even the ceiling wasn't off limits, Venus having several painful encounters with the old bricks.

 

“Let go!” Mars screamed, adding to Artemis's voice in between shooting fireballs. Too much attention was on Venus now; she had to induce the youma's anger more towards herself.

 

Either not hearing or simply disobeying, Sailor Venus stubbornly held on.

 

“...HEART...!”

 

“MARS FLAME SNIPER!”

 

Making a snap decision, the Senshi of Passion shot a fiery arrow at Venus's Love-Me Chain, the resulting detonation breaking it in two before it winked out of existence a moment later, and finally releasing the battered blonde. Venus lay on the ground afterwards, slow to get up, but get up she did.

 

The youma spun around to face Sailor Mars--then instantly a rose appeared where one of its black eyes should have been. It howled, clutching the grievous wound, as Tuxedo Kamen ran to support Mars at her side. They glanced at one another, then attacked anew.

 

“FIRE SOUL!”

 

Red rose petals caught alight all over on the abomination's body, and it fell to its knees under the unrelenting barrage. Soon energy beams pitched in, scoring gouges on the charred and bleeding green hide. Nevertheless the monster tried to stand, tried to fight, one hand going for its dropped weapon while the other clung to a pipe for purchase.

 

“...ATTACK!”

 

A giant pink heart thundered into the youma from the rear; its origin Sailor Moon and her Spiral Heart Moon Rod; silencing the monster's screeches and ending its fight. It arched its back as the unyielding heart smashed through it--or rather, it smashed through the heart--contorting in agony, and then fell apart into a hundred pieces of drifting ash.

 

Sailor Mars permitted her muscles to relax as the flakes wafted over her, her fists unclenching. As the ash figure of the youma crumbled before her eyes, Sailor Moon appeared on the other side of it, her thankful expression matching the Senshi of Passion's own. Now it was over.

 

“We did it!” Sailor Moon squealed, hopping over to bounce happily in front of a bemused Mars. She stopped suddenly to look at Tuxedo Kamen and Sailor Venus. “Is everybody okay?”

 

“It was worse than it looked,” Venus shrugged with a smile, her beautiful face smeared with dirt and a few scratches. She looked up at Artemis still peeking out from the grate opening, flashing the longsuffering cat her cocky grin. Artemis looked so exhausted you'd have thought he had done all the fighting.

 

“Nothing we haven't been through before,” Tuxedo Kamen agreed, rotating his apparently injured shoulder experimentally. He picked up his top hat from the ground, dusted it off, and replaced it on his head.

 

“Are *you* okay?” Sailor Mars asked her Princess, staring into her bright blue eyes.

 

Sailor Moon bobbed her head. “It's a good end, right?”

 

The Fire Senshi looked around her. The youma bodies had vanished, rotted away, like a poison finally run its course. The bodies of the people stolen had not. That stain would always remain. “It's an end.”

 

She found Sailor Venus looking at her, and met her eyes. For a moment an understanding was exchanged between them. Too long had Mars taken to find the truth; too often had she questioned whether there had been any truth to find. While she had doubted, not taking the missing seriously, people had been dying in this very room in an appalling way. At least it was done. They'd saved no one here and now--such had been the slim chance of discovering survivors of the youma hunger--but future lives had been spared from the fires. You took what you could get sometimes.

 

“You guys just happened to be passing through, huh,” Sailor Mars remarked, more a statement than an inquiry. The miko knew the pair was probably here for the exact same reason she was here, Sailor Moon in tow. Tuxedo Kamen and Sailor Venus had seen the signs on the streets up above also and delved into the void of the unknown, looking for answers. Mars wondered if either of them had expected an answer as gruesome as this, deep in the guts of the earth.

 

“I was... in the neighbourhood,” Tuxedo Kamen said enigmatically. He had a knack for that.

 

“Artemis had a craving for sewer rat. A few bad directions later and... here we are.” Venus grinned as Artemis hopped down from the ceiling, appearing cross.

 

Sailor Mars smiled slightly and touched Sailor Moon's cheek, gently cleaning away some dust with the back of her gloved hand. Thus the world was safe again. Peace and happily ever after once more.

 

******

 

While the others discussed how to get out of the sewers and back topside, Sailor Venus picked through the leftovers of the monsters' takeout. She didn't anticipate unearthing much except for nauseating sights that would haunt her for a long time, but of course, she had to make the attempt. She hadn't come all this way just to leave the task unfinished at the final hurdle.

 

The blonde's bruised body groaned as she squatted over the remains of the men and women utilised as mere snack food. The corpses themselves she tried not to look at too closely; it was their shredded clothes; their discarded handbags; their blood-encrusted jewellery still hanging on their bones that she sought. Anything to identify these souls, to put them back together with faces, names, *something* to show they had lived and been somebody. There was one face; one name; in particular the Senshi of Love looked for however.

 

The police would have to be notified. Sailor Moon and the other Senshi forgot about the aftermath sometimes. These people needed a proper burial instead of lying on the cold and forgotten floor in a derelict sewer tunnel, their families and friends needed closure, and the mystery and fear gripping the Tokyo public needed to be put to rest. The authorities would stamp their own spin on what had happened naturally--they always did. But as long as the world kept turning and the right thing was done, they could say whatever they liked as far as Sailor Venus was concerned.

 

Venus's hand carefully shifting tattered strips of shirt and raking through the odd grimy handbag and wallet froze as she spotted something twinkled at her underneath the dirt, bones, and carrion. The flames still burning in the room lit up the object, and the blonde's heart sank from the second of the very first glint. Tenderly, as one did with the remains of the deceased, she picked up the glasses. The lenses were cracked and chipped, but she remembered them. She'd never seen them in real life before now; just in a picture on somebody's desk.

 

With her other hand the Senshi of Love searched more vigorously through the skeletons and what had been their personal effects, needing more confirmation. It wasn't really necessary; in her heart she knew; but she had to cling to hope. Venus came upon a wallet, the only money coins, and no cards but an expired driver's licence. It was Eiji Katsuyori's wallet, Mr. Kats' brother.

 

Artemis pawed over to Sailor Venus, poking his furry nose into what her detective work had wrought. He saw immediately.

 

“I'm sorry, Minako,” he consoled. He had known it would turn out like this, yet he still said the words. Artemis was a good friend.

 

“Yeah... me too,” Venus murmured. She put the wallet and glasses back down where she'd found them. She had nothing to tell Mr. Kats. How could she explain what had happened, how she had discovered his brother's fate? And the blonde wouldn't taunt the man with this proof. What would dumping Eiji's glasses and wallet anonymously or otherwise on Mr. Kats' desk at Starlight Talent accomplish? Heartache, probably. Excessive heartache. Oh, he would learn that his brother had passed on. But not like this. Not from her. From the police, yes; another homeless man dead by his own circumstances; hunger, exposure--whatever. Not the truth.

 

But until then, Sailor Venus would let Mr. Kats cling to hope. The Senshi of Love and Beauty understood well that hope, even false hope, was better than none at all.

 

******

 

To be continued....

 

 

Author's ramblings:

 

Fight scenes make for a looooooooooong chapter. Hope it was okay!