Exploring What Might

by Rakusa

It's R season with a twist, Usagi doesn't know she's the princess. What happens with Venus who knows everything, doesn't know enough? And isn't sharing what she does know. Will be updated! Promise!

1. Chapter 1

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Exploring What Might

10/24/2008

AN: I've decided to make this story a mix between the R season and First season, meaning no Negaverse in the sense that you know the Negaverse, well, at least not really, you'll just have to read and find out what I do mean. It's a mix because Mamoru and Usagi don't know who the other is yet, so in all of the Romance side or memories or history and age, they are actually older than the beginning of the series, so Usagi is more like 16, almost in high school (which will only be two years in my story). Also the age gap isn't as great, Mamoru is 19, just makes it easier on me to not have to explain why they're sneaking around because of fear of pedophile crap.

Summary: Usagi and Mamoru have been fighting for awhile, and both know they have a huge crush on the other, but their relationship is slow to develop. First its themselves who keep the distance and then its the trick of the senshi being in the way, and among other fears.

Chapter One

-{Part 1}

Usagi just found out that she was Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon? Really? The thought scared her. She was standing in her bedroom, looking down at the black cat with the golden crescent on her forehead, telling her that it was her duty to go and save the day.

Save the day? What am I now Superman? Usagi asked herself, looking down at her red boots that ended at her knees and blue skirt. Her eyes skirted the rest of her outfit as much as she could see at any rate without looking into a mirror.

"What are you waiting for?" Luna, the cat asked. At any other time in her life, she would have been surprised that a cat could talk, but then again, she grew up watching Hocus Pocus and Sabrina the Teen-aged Witch and in both the black cat could talk. "Well?"

"I'm waiting for you to either tell me about a long history before keeling over and coming magically back to life or to give me some witty commentary about how all of this is my own fault but here is a cheap fix-it that will probably take away my powers."

"Har-har. You really need to go, otherwise there is an innocent that could be hurt."

"Now it seems I'm on Charmed." Usagi responded before looking at herself once more. "Really? What am I supposed to do in a Sailor Uniform? Charm them to death? How am I to even get there?"

"It's simple really." Luna jumped up to perch on Usagi's shoulder. "You open up your window, jump to the tree then jump down then run to your destination."

"It's that simple hn?" Usagi asked dryly. "Then why don't you do it?"

"I do, do it." Luna responded, ignoring Usagi's snickering. "It's how I found you isn't it?"

"Actually, I found you when some boys were picking on you." Usagi intoned dryly. "I think that was the worst save of my life."

Luna rolled her eyes. "You going?"

"Lead the way, oh black guardian on my soul."

"Sarcasm is much appreciated." Luna grumbled before jumping to the window's banister, and looked behind her to ensure Usagi following her.

The two of them raced towards where Usagi heard screams, she'd never been out in Tokyo proper at night by herself, first of all. Secondly, she'd never even had so much as a horror movie marathon in her house to prepare her for anything she could find. She hated scary movies, she hated anything that caused great emotional stress to the main characters. She much preferred classic Disney movies. Even they were hard to handle at times, like Sleeping Beauty's dragon. The two slid to a halt as a woman with cat ears held Usagi's best friend Naru in her grasp.

"Where is the Rabbit?" The woman demanded as a youma terrorized the rest of the shop-goers.

"I don't know." Naru responds weakly, her eyes fading fast as the woman soaks in her energy. "What is the Rabbit?"

"Freeze!" Sailor Moon calls out and both the redheaded friend and the almost purple locked woman look at her. As well as the youma. "Crap!" Sailor Moon 'Usagi', groans as she realizes she has no idea what she's doing.

Naru slumps into unconsciousness and the woman lets go of her as she walks closer to Sailor Moon, circling her as if infinitely curious by the new arrival. "You don't look dangerous. What is your name?"

"Why should I tell you?" Moon snaps back. "You are attacking several innocent people."

The woman laughs. "They are not innocent. If only you could see what they'll do in the future."

"How would you know?" Usagi responds. "People have the ability to change and get better over time. They'll surprise you yet!"

The other woman laughed. "Silly human, you have much to learn. Too bad you won't be around to see what is inevitable!"

Moon screamed as the woman sent a blast towards her, she scatters away from the direct attack and is only showered with the debris. She covers herself to avoid being injured and crawls next to a desk, holding her knees to her chest. She wails loudly, her crying intensifying through the odango coverings and the woman covers her ears in pain. Sending a blast towards the desk that only manages to dent the thing. Usagi stops crying. "I don't know what I'm getting into!" She whispers fiercely to herself.

Luna in the distance was calling out "Tiara!" But Sailor Moon could not hear her.

A rose pelts the ground between her and the woman as she readies for another attack. "Do not pick on the uninformed." He told the cat-woman. "She is merely playing dress-up, come, pick on someone who can give you a fair-fight."

Moon looks up and in the rafters there is a man dressed all in black, shadowed and space separating her from seeing him well. He might have been a figment on her imagination, and this might all be but a dream, but she doesn't have time to ponder it as the woman directs the youma to attack Moon while she dealt with the new arrival.

The youma chased her into the next room, however as Moon was backed up against a wall, Luna slid in between them. "You stupid girl, you have to use your tiara. It's your weapon." Moon slid the tiara off of her head and held it between her hands, waiting for something, either Luna's directions or for something to just 'occur' to her, tell her what to do. It wouldn't be for a very long time that this happens for her. Luna growled. "Say 'Moon Tiara Magic'!"

Moon repeated Luna's instructions and the disk glowed. Moon spun around before releasing it into the youma's abdomen. The youma screeched as it sliced through him, leaving a discernible shape where her tiara had been before it faded in color, faded in size before at last dissolving into a pile of sand that disappeared soon after.

"Good job!" Luna praised but Sailor Moon was already on the move, her heart was beating fast in her chest. "Where are you going?"

Moon ignores Luna's question and heads back to that first room, fear gripped its spidery legs tightly around her solar plexus as she worried about not just the people in the other room, but more concretely her friend and the man that helped her out.

When she got there, the man and the woman who had sent the youma were nowhere to be found and Moon had no way of knowing if he was all right or not unless he was to arrive and tell her that himself, which she highly doubted he would. Moon sinks to her knees near her dear friend and holds her head in her lap, willing her to wake up.

Luna arrived shortly after. "You have to get out of here, they're going to start asking you questions about how a mere slip of a girl defeated the youma. You cannot let too much out."

"I don't know anything." Usagi reminded her, but her attention was still on the redhead. "How do you check if someone is still living and will be all right?"

"She's breathing, you can see her chest rising up and down." Luna's response was almost blasé and Usagi couldn't take it. She turned tear filled eyes to the cat and Luna reevaluated her words. "She really will, but you do have to get out of here, before they wonder if you're the cause."

Usagi nodded and as she was standing up to run back towards her house, Naru's aquamarine eyes blinked open at her. "Is she gone?" Usagi nodded with a half-smile, reassuringly. "Good. Thank you." Naru's eyelids slipped back over her irises and she was asleep again.

Usagi let Naru slip back to the floor, but she wasn't happy to leave her friend in such a vulnerable state, but others were waking up and starting to ask questions. Usagi slipped away with Luna trailing after her.

"You were careless today." Luna told Usagi as she perched on her new charge's shoulder. "You left yourself wide-open for attack."

Already Usagi was being berated by the small animal. Usagi turned to the female cat and opened her mouth to protest, instead she just sighed. "I'm sorry, I'm not used to this."

Luna bowed her head. "No, I'm the one that's sorry, it's hard to watch someone be in danger. You are right, you are new to this, and you didn't ask for it. It'll take you some time to learn the ins and outs of fighting around here."

"I will try to do better, I just am scared and confused. I don't know how all of this happened."

Luna nodded. "Once you get help with the other senshi, things will be easier and less scary."

"Good." Usagi replied as she slipped back into her room and detransformed. Her clothes returned to her fluffy pink pajamas, there was a white bunny on her right leg on the outside of her calf, also on her left forearm. "I'm tired Luna, can we talk about this later?"

Usagi had already slipped into the bed, and her head rested against the pillow. By the time Luna replied, she was already asleep. "Of course."

Luna curled into a ball and fell asleep at Usagi's feet, joining her charge's lead.

Chapter One

-{Part 2}

Usagi screamed as she avoided an attack from the latest youma, Koan was the cat-woman that Sailor Moon had faced off originally. There had been several attacks between then and now, and every time, Sailor Moon faced off alone, except she could feel eyes watching her and the battle. Occasionally, when she needed it, the man returned, staying in the distance but would send down a rose, cutting off an attack, that she just couldn't avoid.

It usually stopped the youma in its tracks. Sailor Moon had gotten better at knowing what to do in the situations, but still freaked out in moments and went for cover, trying to get her courage back up.

The only thing that had changed between the battles was that the man, had made it known by actions and words without saying it outright that he was on Sailor Moon's side and would send her encouraging words, reaffirming that she could handle the situation, and that he was there. There for her.

Usagi was more than thankful for his presence, more than Luna, he reassured her that she wasn't alone in this battle against the powers intent on finding the 'Rabbit'. Luna never mentioned it, Usagi doubted the cat had a firm grasp on Japanese meanings of names but Usagi wasn't a direct translation into English, but in general, it meant 'Rabbit'. Luna had a larger vocabulary than anyone Usagi knew, including the jerk who made fun of her just as long as she'd been Sailor Moon, if not longer. Usagi worried that it meant something and that in the future, someone would figure that out and she'd be in danger, and no one would be there to help her.

She needed to find the other senshi, and she needed to find them now.

Luna couldn't tell why Usagi was nervous all the time anymore, watching over her shoulder and jumping at the slightest of noises. From what she had known of her charge, she had seen Usagi ditz out at every moment and be completely unaware of her surroundings. But recently, like earlier t0day, Usagi seemed lost in her head but as she rounded the corner, she paused and looked ahead before turning, so as not to be taken unawares.

"I'm surprised you didn't come flailing around the corner and bowling into me." Chiba Mamoru's voice resounded in the cat and human's ears.

Luna gave the man a disparaging look, but the human only looked at her in curiosity before turning his gaze to the newly livid girl.

There ensured an argument between the two of them and then Usagi took off at break-neck speed she usually held and Luna didn't see her look around again for the next few hours. Luna wondered if it was a bad thing that Usagi was cautious, and she wondered if Mamoru's run-ins with her were a distraction the girl didn't need.

Now however, Sailor Moon was in trouble, and Luna could do nothing about it, as she was being held by the cat-woman by the scruff of her neck as they both watched Sailor Moon miss an attack from behind as there was one from the front. Sailor Moon was focused on the one in front, trying to figure out a way to dissipate the blast so it wouldn't hurt her as much. She readied her tiara trying to do what the man always did with the rose, but knowing it wouldn't work as well.

Luna wondered where he was at the moment. But her heart clenched as the attacks got closer and closer, and she couldn't even voice a warning to her friend. A black blur slipped between the attack and her charge, blocking her view of the girl for a moment before it was gone, and the two attacks merged and exploded into a light show.

Luna fought against her hold, and the woman flung her away, Luna landed with a grunt, but pleasure at seeing red boots under a shroud of black. The cat-woman, who Luna felt gave her a bad name, turned her focus on the duo, intent on attacking again. The black figure moved off of her senshi, pulling her with him, and shoved her behind his back as he faced the woman looming over them.

Sailor Moon looked over his shoulder at the purple haired woman. She clenched the cape and wondered what the man had planned. The woman looked at the two of them and their stances and then disappeared. The man turned to leave as well, but Moon's fingers were still closed, frozen in their position, so he didn't get very far.

He turned back towards her and gently removed her fingers. Moon snapped out of it and quickly released him, his hand over hers was hot. Her eyes went up to his mask covered face. "Who-who are you?" She whispered.

She received a half-smile and then he too was gone.

That started the next phase of their 'relationship'. This became a natural occurrence when she couldn't be saved by just a rose embedding itself into the ground. She didn't mean to bring him into danger, it just happened that way occasionally. He told her once, he didn't mind saving her because she was the one risking her life all the time when a youma attack came.

There was one attack when he stayed back and talked to her for awhile. It was still when Usagi was alone, and Luna hadn't managed to show up to this attack as she was conversing with the computer's control system. Usagi didn't know what that was, nor did she want to.

"I see your alone today." The man said as he placed her back on her feet.

"I am." She agreed.

"Where is the cat that shouts orders to you?" He questioned as they stood waiting for another attack to appear out of nowhere.

"Checking something else out."

"Oh."

Sailor Moon hesitated, before asking. "I need to know a name to put with you."

"I don't know what you would call me. I haven't thought that far. How did you figure out your name?" He asked when no attack came.

"My cat told me and then it was also part of my transformation." She admitted. "I personally think the costume and name is lame. I would like to see kick-ass leather pants instead, but whatever."

She received a chuckle for that and he shook his head. "What do you suggest, Tight Pants?"

A smile quirked at her lips and she looked him over. "My caped masked man?"

"Kamen?" He wondered. "I think I need two parts to the name though. Tuxedo Kamen?" He rose an eyebrow in question. "It's kind of cliché, telling someone what they can obviously see."

"Well, I'm Sailor Moon, they can obviously see that. I think if we went original, that'd give a portion of our personality to the enemy."

He nodded. "We can't have that, can we?" There was not going to be another attack, so he turned from her and left, she left without protest, just pleased that he stood and talked to her that long.

To Usagi they were becoming friends, in the smallest of ways, they were together from the beginning and it tied them together somehow. Usagi was looking forward to the next battle just to see him, but at the same time, she was nervous about the fact that they'd still have to face another youma, and Koan again. To her, it wasn't as important any more to find help, she already had it, no matter how small. But it would be good to get a sure thing and to get Luna to back off her criticism towards her.