Chapter 1—The Beginning

Serena ran through the park. She could hear the Scouts and Tuxedo Mask screaming for her help. It wasn't as if she had intentionally got thrown across the park. The piece of crap monster was the one who threw her. An entire mile—how the heck did one tiny monster through her an entire mile?!

Ow! My back hurts! Serena moaned, finally finding her way to where the battle was still raging.

"Serena! Quit moping around and finish off the battle!" Sailor Mars screamed, furious that it took her that long to get back to the battle. Serena gave Mars a glare, then yelled:

"Moon…Cosmic…Power!" Within seconds, Serena was Sailor Moon. Trying to get her bearings about her—and to stop focusing on her aching back—Sailor Moon didn't attack the monster right away.

"Are you stupid or something? Kill her, before she kills someone else!" Sailor Jupiter was pissed and everyone could see it. Taking a deep breath, Sailor Moon ignored all of them, turning her entire focus onto the monster.

"Moon…healing…escalation!" With the little song and dance, Sailor Moon defeated the monster. She was so tired of being the one that they always looked to. She wanted to be a normal girl again, but no one would let her.

"What took you so long to get here?" Ami breathed, having already transformed back. Sailor Moon ignored the question.

"Is everyone alright?" She asked. She was too tired for all of this drama.

"That's a stupid question," muttered Mina.

Without bothering to even give them the satisfaction of a retort, Sailor Moon changed back into Serena. She gave them all one final glance, and she walked away, trying not to cry and run.

"Do you think we were too hard on her?" Ami questioned.

"She'll be fine Ami." Darien was always the calm one when it came to matters of Serena. A natural born doctor, Darien was already helping the people lying on the grass. It would be hours before they calmed down enough for any of them to be able to talk to Serena, and when they were finally ready, she decided that she was going to ignore them.

oOo

She had just turned on her stereo and was listening to the latest song from the United States. The song seemed to inspire her to write one of her own. She had always done this in the past—with her old friends. The people she called "friends" right now, seemed like they were anything but. She had spent thirteen years of her life in Los Angeles, California, her birthplace. Her dad had got an offer for a better job, but he had to move to Tokyo to get it. Without another thought for his family, they were packed and ready to move in less than a month. Serena was supposed to be the main singer and the writer of all their songs. With the move, Serena had to leave her band and all of her friends.

"Swallowed up in the sound of my screaming,

Cannot cease for the fear of silent nights.

Oh how I long for the deep sleep dreaming

The goddess of imaginary light."

Angrily, Serena wiped away the tears that had started to fall down her cheeks. What was wrong with her? Could she never just keep one friend? Was she forever going to have to be giving up friends and love in the name of duty?

"Serena, dinner's ready." Mrs. Tsukino knocked softly on the door to Serena's room.

"I'm not really hungry, Mom."

"Sweetie, I'm coming in." Without waiting for Serena to give her leave, Mrs. Tsukino walked in. Immediately, she took in Serena's red cheeks and ran over to hug her. "What's wrong, Serena?" Her kind tone only caused Serena to cry harder.

"You're remembering the past aren't you, Sweetie?" She didn't really need to ask. She could see the pictures layering the bed. It was the Serena of a happier time. In each picture, she was either smiling or laughing. Lately, she couldn't find the willpower to do either of them. She was always crying herself to sleep, thinking of happier times. Three years ago, she never would have thought that her life would so drastically change. She had wanted everything to always be the same.

"Your father and I have been talking, Serena."

Oh no! How can one day possibly be going this badly?

"We believe that you need a vacation."

"What are you talking about?" Serena asked pulling away from the warm embrace to look into her mother's eyes. She wiped her nose, sniffling a little.

"For the past couple of weeks, you have been getting unexplained bruises all over your body; you have been coming home tired and stressed. We can hear you cry yourself to sleep every night! I called my sister and asked if she would be willing to take you for a weekend. She said that she would be delighted to. Would you terribly mind if you went there for a little while, just to relax and recuperate?"

"Just for a weekend?"

"Well…from now until Sunday."

"Mom, it's only Tuesday!"

"Be happy. Your aunt wanted you to come last week. Will you please go, Serena? I so hate to see you hurting."

Serena thought about her mom's request for the fraction of a second, before hastily saying, "yes, please."

"Then get packed now, Sweetie. Your father will drive you to the station." With a smile, her mom pat her on the back, recognizing the wince as she did so. Within ten minutes, Serena had packed enough things for the rest of the week, grateful that she had done all of her laundry yesterday. She grabbed her science and history binders, hopefully to do a little studying on the five and a half hour train ride from Tokyo to Hakata. Should she be doing this?

Serena reached for her door knob, stopping short just before she reached it. She threw her suitcase onto the ground and started rummaging through it trying to find her crystal. She didn't want to be reminded of Sailor Moon or any of the scouts while she was in Hakata. She rubbed her thumb across the crystal. She put it on top of the clothes strewn about the suitcase. Her hands covered her ears as she rocked back and forth weeping, forever looking at the crystal. She wanted to throw it across the room. She wanted to be able to go back to being the normal happy go lucky girl she always had been. She didn't want to be Sailor Moon anymore. Serena looked up at the ceiling, searching as if it could give her the answers that she needed to hear, give her the encouragement that she wasn't getting from her friends and boyfriend.

She grabbed the crystal, ready to hurl it across the room, ready to watch it break into millions of pieces. She raised her arm…but in the end, she couldn't do it. No matter how much it ruined her life, it was still the only way that she connected with any of her friends. She shook her head. Keeping the crystal out of her suitcase, she refolded the clothes then zippered the case shut. She gently put the crystal on her nightstand, and walked out of her room and down the stairs, ever ready to leave for vacation.

oOo

Darien climbed the trellis up to Serena's bedroom. She hadn't answered any of his calls, and he was starting to get worried about her. For a couple weeks, she hadn't been acting normally. She always looked tired, complete with the dark circles under her eyes; she was virtually ignoring him and the others; and today, not for the first time, she wasn't willing to fight. He had to get down to the bottom of it.

As quietly as possible, he opened her window. He looked around first, just in case she was dressing or hadn't seen him. The room was dark and incredibly neat, for someone like Serena. Serena was always messing up, if her room was neat, it was normally because her mom had done it for her. He climbed through the window, landing on the bed. It was a surprise for him. Normally her bed was on the other side of the room. He hoped he hadn't hurt her when he landed on the bed. His hand groped up the blankets, only to find that they were perfectly smooth. A very confused Darien walked over to the door to turn on the light. It was almost midnight, and Serena wasn't in her room. Could he have missed her on his way to her house?

Thinking about the question, he noticed pictures all over the pillow of her bed. They were her when she was younger. Not one of them had any of the sailor scouts in them. They were all people he had never seen before. Darien picked up a unique one. It had Serena in the middle playing a guitar, a red head playing the drums, and a brunette playing the bass. On the back it said:

"The Girls' Club last performance. 3/14/XX LA, Cali."

Serena had never gone to the United States! He knew for a fact that the girl in this picture, playing the guitar, was his girlfriend. She had the same length blond hair and the same meatballs on top. What was going on Serena? Darien got a sudden idea. He went to her closet, just to see if her parents had taken her somew—what the heck? Not only was her suitcase missing, but so where most of the clothes in the closet. Darien wiped his face with his hand. Why hadn't she called him? Where in the world could she be going?

"This is absolutely ridiculous!" He exclaimed. "Why did she just leave without contacting anybody? That is so reckless Serena." He spoke as if she was standing in the room with him. It didn't matter that she wasn't as long as she had the silver crystal she could hear his innermost thoughts, whether they were happy or ready to kill her. He rolled his eyes and turned off the light, noticing there was a glint coming from her night stand. He squinted his eyes. He still couldn't tell what it was. He was about to turn the light back on, but he heard a car door slam.

"When is Serena coming back, Mom?" Darien heard Sammy ask through the open window.

"I hope never. Before we moved here, Serena was always so happy. Now, with those so-called "friends" of hers and that boyfriend, her smiles haven't reached her eyes for the past year. She gets home later and later, and with more bruises and hurts than any girl—or child for that matter—should ever have in their lifetime." Mrs. Tsukino answered.

"Then why did you just send her away for the weekend? Why not just tell her that she was going to be staying with Aunt Michelle from now on?"

"Because then it would seem like we were kicking her out of our house, and I would rather die right now, that to let Serena believe that she wasn't loved."

Without thinking or hearing the rest of the conversation, Darien climbed out of the window, as soon as he heard the front door open. He climbed down the trellis. His communicator started to buzz.

"Darien, we need you and Serena here, right now!" Sailor Mercury shouted at him. Blindly he transformed into Tuxedo Mask and appeared at the attack sight without much time passing. Just as he got there, the monster disappeared, but not before everyone got a good look at it. It was the image of a beautiful woman with grey hair and unholy white eyes. Her lids and under eyes were dark blue, almost black in the pale of her face. She was tall, wearing no shoes. While wearing the white dress with billowing sleeves, she looked as if she was an angel—an angel with devilish qualities, for she also held a sharp, double-edged sword, able to slice through a person in a matter of seconds. In the glance that Darien got of her, her inch long blood red nails were already covered in the blood of the scouts.

"Is everyone alright?" Darien questioned.

"Where the heck is Serena?" Mina asked, her deep blue eyes showing the extent of her anger.

"I don't know," responded Darien, quietly.

"When I get my hands on her…I'll—I'll—I' ll kill her."