A/N: It's been more than 15 years since I decided to write fanfiction for Sailormoon. My first, called 'One Day of Serenity', received some positive response and after such a long absence, I decided to finish it. The problem was it's been so long that my writing style changed a lot. I tried to find the original voice of the story, but find I'm unable to repeat it, so the whole turned into a disjointed mess. Now here I am writing it from scratch. Hopefully it's new and improved, and my old readers will enjoy this version as much as the old one. A crucial change from the original: Minako has been added into the story as early as chapter 1. Will be regularly updated every two days (hopefully). No beta reader.

Disclaimer: I do not own Sailormoon. I am not profiting from writing this fanfiction.

One Day of Serenity

Rei Hino was not having a good day. She hadn't had a good day in a week now. The current youma they were fighting have escaped them so many times and frankly, she was getting tired running around the greater part of Tokyo looking for it. Even in her present form-as Sailor Mars- it was tiring. Her friend Makoto also expressed her fatigue earlier, jumping on rooftops alongside the other Sailor Warriors, their movements too swift for average people to follow. Rei figured she was allowed to whine about her ouchies when Makoto herself was complaining about hers. After all, Makoto was the resident badass, and easily the strongest of the girls.

She slipped on the branch she was standing on because her legs were trembling so much, and suddenly found herself upside-down in a tree. The red skirt of her fuku, which on a good day barely hid what assets she had, was now completely useless. One of her leg was caught in another branch. In this position, she saw Sailor Moon snatched from where she'd been kneeling down by Tuxedo Mask. The hero threw something at the youma, hurting it. It screeched in pain, clutching at the fresh wound on its chest before it turned and ran away, looking for someplace else to hide.

Rei was about to cheer at her crush's sexy attack, but Tuxedo Mask took a second flying leap, this time away from the battle. No question about it, the man was leaving them behind yet again after doing his token Save-a-Senshii move. Kind of hurts a girl's feelings, but all five of them have gotten used to it.

Course, he never did it before while Usagi—in her Sailor Moon form—was still secure in his arms.

What.

The pain from the youmas' attacks sometimes made her hallucinate, but Rei knew what she was witnessing was really happening and not something her jealous heart was torturing her with. There was no way she was imagining the masked hero of Tokyo carrying a stupefied Usagi away from her warriors, the long streams of her gold hair swirling all around them. She narrowed her eyes, eyes sharpened as it was from being amplified by her senshii power, and saw Usagi turned her head towards her four friends, the freaked out expression on her face turning into giddy joy as she also realized she was being whisked away from the fight.

Rei saw Usagi make a victory sign at them before Tuxedo Mask took another flying leap and was soon too far away for even Rei to catch sight of them.

What. The. Hell.

Getting down from the tree was easier said than done, and it wasn't helped by the fact that she was weak with pain from multiple open wounds. When she finally got down, landing inelegantly on the base of the tree, she pummelled the ground in frustration.

Makoto let Rei do her thing to get her momentum back before asking in a bemused tone of voice, "Sailor Moon knows we still need her to dust that youma, right?"

A few feet from Makoto and Rei, Minako staggered, totally disoriented, until she slammed into another tree and nearly cracked her head open. She'd been standing next to Usagi when the youma let loose a barrage of what looked like metal balls. The blondes did their thing—mostly lots of screaming, before Minako did her other thing, which was to remember she was a kick-ass chick and that she could jump out of the attack. She waited too long though and had to settle falling facedown, a metal projectile having managed to clip her hip, so her angle of fall was off. This was not how her landings worked, dammit. Still better than being pummelled to death though.

That didn't stop her from hating the tree that somehow magically appeared in front of where she'd been walking after picking herself up just seconds ago.

Then Makoto said something about Sailor Moon and dusting youmas.

Minako looked around wildly, ignoring a mosquito that landed on the back of her hand and chowed down. Mother Nature and her were going to have a reckoning soon enough, but right now her focus was on looking for her leader. Gotta make sure Usagi wasn't dead. Minako could never be too careful; Usagi was one lucky girl, always managing to escape certain death every time they do a Dark Kingdom encounter, but Minako wouldn't pit Usagi's life with luck.

Minako automatically crouched in anticipation of an attack even as she scanned their surroundings. The closest thing she received came in the form of a small black-and-white cat, which came to inspect the tree she was going to disintegrate later, and gave her knee a disinterested sniff and moved on.

"Where she?", she asked, when she didn't see Usagi anywhere.

Makoto gave her a tired, slightly mischievous grin. When she told Minako what just happened, Minako gasped, and had to clutch her tree for support. "Not even," she answered Makoto, but Makoto shrugged because really, what else was she supposed to add? Minako turned to look at where Ami was watching the horizon where their friend disappeared in. "Sailor Mercury?"

Ami nodded, slightly bewildered but mostly uneasy.

Minako turned back to Makoto, and saw Rei a few feet from the Lightning Senshi. Rei was not looking like a happy camper. That more than anything convinced her that Tuxedo Mask most definitely kidnapped their leader. Just up and grabbed her, with the moon full and luminous in the night sky, the air mostly sweet smelling on account they were in the park. Freaking romantic. And about freaking time! Also, oh fuck. Because Makoto was right and as amazing as Minako was about kicking ass, these new youmas were beyond a pain in the neck and took a lot of work to destroy without Usagi's help. Honestly, they'd never really managed to actually kill one without Usagi's tiara.

Minako sighed, before shaking her head, hoping to clear the buzzing going on in there. Eff it, she thought. She cracked her knuckles. That youma tried to kill her. Ever since fighting alongside Usagi and the rest, Minako had to curb her bloodlust, some instinct kicking in telling her she had to mimic Usagi's more innocent, gentle and kind-hearted nature. Now the other blonde was away, and Minako can feel the mantle of leader falling comfortably on her shoulders. That youma? So dead.

The thought lifted her spirits.

She was in Tuxedo Mask's arms.

Seriously, she'd faint except even Usagi wasn't so stupid to waste the chance. Need to stay awake, she sing-songed to herself, because ohmahgowdi'mwithmyspiffydudemask! Which made no sense, she thought, frowning a bit as she tried to fix the wording in her head. Kind of hard, because some dead language was echoing in there.

What.

Usagi shifted so she could scratch her head, and heard Tuxedo Mask say something underneath his breath.

"Huh?" she asked him, pretending her turning her head totally didn't meant she accidentally brushed her lips on his neck because hogod her heart was beating a mile a minute because holy crap that totally didn't happen ohman she was having a heart attack she needed to squeal seriously.

"Don't touch your head. You got hit. I need to check if you're okay." He sounded preternaturally calm, which wasn't fair because Usagi was a fizzling bundle of nerves. If he hadn't been holding her so tight, she would have beyond levitated herself from his arms with how high and on edge she was. Fly away because giddy-joy-joy, she was in Tuxedo Mask's arms.

She tried to look at him, but it was hard to get a good angle, smooshed as she was to his chest and his cape billowing all around them. Heh, like she's complaining?

Still, he should be assured she was fine.

"Beloved, hear reason. I am well."

That caused them to both go still, caught as they were mid-jump. Usagi was sure she was about to die of embarrassment anytime now, and really wouldn't have minded it because dude what the hell did she just spew there? Beloved what?! Not that she thought he understood because thinking back, it didn't sounded like she said it in Japanese.

She's basically losing her mind then? Rei should be pleased, Usagi thought darkly.

She was just about to clear her throat when Tuxedo Mask tightened his hold on her some more and suddenly changed the angle of their descent so that they dropped abruptly rather than the leisurely free-fall she was used to. Usagi had the brilliant idea to check their descent. In her mind, she was suddenly flailing through air, the roof of a large building growing swiftly - and lethally - bigger in her view.

There's a terrified squeak and a split second thought that actually, she was pretty used to landing from high places now so she really shouldn't be scared?! before something in her insisted she was not used to this sort of crap and ladies of noble birth weren't supposed to jump from rooftops.

And then Usagi fainted.

Mostly because that's what the voice in her head said she should do.

Mamoru Chiba spent more than a decade trying to stave off boredom by calling it solitude and quiet. All that went down the toilet when he realized the wacko running around Tokyo in a tuxedo, a top hat, and a freaking cape was none other than his amnesiac self. It hadn't been easy putting two and two together since he tended to black out the parts when he became Japan's caped crusader, but then Sailor Moon happened. The blackouts stopped and he could remember everything that he did in his alter ego's persona, everything crystal clear and enough to make a man question his sanity on remembrance.

But Mamoru used to have a rose that didn't wilt, and continuing dreams of a delicate, moonlit washed princess begging him to find a jewel for as long as he could remember. Playing sidekick with a less than heroic blonde didn't seem too far-fetched. Besides, he liked Sailor Moon. He liked her a lot that was more than legal, now that he could see how truly young she really was, knocked out cold in his arms, the two of them hidden from view behind a shed on top of the roof of a building.

He should take her back to her warriors. He knew this. They needed her to fight the youma, because it didn't matter how much stronger and more competent they were at doing their job; when pushed came to shove, it was Sailor Moon who had to step up and do the final blow.

So much power in her.

When she got hurt from that last attack, her head snapping back with a sickening crack, Mamoru swooped down to get her away from the danger. Her senshii wouldn't mind, he'd reasoned to himself. It was a known fact in Tokyo that Tuxedo Mask was pathologically over-protective of Sailor Moon. He brushed the fringe of gold hair from her face and frowned when he saw the nasty bruise on her forehead.

So much power, yes, but still capable of getting hurt.

He arranged her to a more comfortable position, being careful to cradle her head as he inspected the wound, telling himself she had worse before and survived them. He wasn't sure how he felt about her being asleep, but in the end decided it was better this way. He was far too nervous than he'd let on, even to himself. The blonde might pick up on it and Mamoru didn't want to cause her anymore stress.

Plus awake, he'd be unable to stop himself from asking about that beloved remark she gave earlier. He was studying medicine, and while he wasn't some linguistic genius—it wasn't his field of study—he recognized Latin enough from some medical terms to know when he was hearing it being spoken. Or something that sounded like Latin, he told himself. His dream princess' language of choice.

Now Sailor Moon was using it.

Mamoru leaned his head, using the wall of the shed as backrest. He'd bring her back to the fight, but only after it was over; her senshii were the only ones who knew where to take her home. Right now Sailor Moon stays with him and if the girls knew what was good for them, they wouldn't try to get their leader away before he was ready to let her go.

He glanced at the sleeping girl. She was curled up, head on Mamoru's chest, the sound of his heartbeat and the scent of the summer night calming her a little. He knew this, but didn't know how he knew. Hesitantly, he put his arms around her, feeling the fragile shape of her shoulders from underneath the cape. She was connected to all this: the crystal, the princess, his powers. There will come a time he must insist on answers. But tonight, she's in her arms, safe from harm.

Tonight, that was all that mattered.