Hello everyone! Welcome to the sequel of Secret of the Amazon, Secret of Memories! If you didn't read SOTA, I strongly recommend you do but you can read this by itself, I suppose. You'll catch on, I'm sure~
For returning readers, thank you for staying with me all the way to the sequel!
Thank you:
LoveInTheBattleField
SereneS
jordeena
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SRG STAR16
inufan155687
SoulRyuu
for reviewing the last chapter of SOTA! I hope you like the sequel!
Thank you:
SilverMoonPrincessx3
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Hikari no Minerva
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Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon!
**The first section is from the last chapter of SOTA, just to refresh your memory. Just scroll to 'three months later' if you don't need the refresher!**
The morning after Keisuke's death and the fall of the Dark Kingdom was a peaceful one. The light of the morning sun peeked through Sierra's bedroom, gently waking her up. Her green eyes fluttered opened and she wore a soft smile on her face. Even though her brother was gone, she knew he went peacefully. She could never forget the happy sparkle in his eyes and his soft 'thank you'.
Sierra pulled herself out of her thoughts and wiped away the two tears that managed to escape. She sat up and stretched before pulling away the covers and stepping out of the bed.
The dirty blonde made her way to Usagi's room. She stopped at the door frame and gave a courtesy knock. "You awake?"
Usagi, who was still lying down at the moment, lightly nodded. "I have been for a few minutes. I'm being a little lazy, is all."
"How are you feeling?"
"Fine. Why?"
"Never mind." Sierra smiled. "Thank you, Usagi."
The blonde turned to her cousin and frowned. "For what?"
"For everything. Especially for yesterday. I'll deny it if you tell anyone but you're the best thing that ever happened to me."
Usagi gave a puzzled look and sat up completely. "What are you talking about, Sierra. Beating you in a video game is hardly thanks-worthy."
It was Sierra's turn to look confused. "Excuse me? Video game?" She looked over to Usagi's uniform and saw that the magical brooch was missing. "Where's your brooch?" She looked around the room. "And Luna?"
"I don't have a brooch, Sierra. And who's Luna? A friend of yours?"
Sierra covered her mouth with her hand and her eyes grew wide. She backed out of the room. "I-I have to go. I'll see you later, Usagi."
Sierra quickly rushed out of the house, mumbling a quick 'good morning' to her mother and aunt as she passed. She ran through the town at a breakneck speed until she made her way to an apartment complex.
Once inside and cursing about how 'pathetically slow' the elevator was, she made it to the sixth floor. She impatiently banged on the door of one of the apartment.
Mamoru immediately answered. "Sierra."
"S-something wrong with Usagi," Sierra managed to say while catching her breath. "She—."
"Doesn't remember a thing? About the Dark Kingdom, about Keisuke, or about being Sailor Moon?"
Sierra dumbly nodded. "H-how did you know?"
"My connection with Serenity, with Usagi was severed when she died yesterday. I figured that was the reason and I would get it back if she remembered everything. When Luna came over, I was sure."
"Luna's here?"
Mamoru nodded. "She needed a place to stay since none of the senshi remember her either."
"None of the senshi remember?"
The dark-haired man shook his head. "Everyone that was killed and revived yesterday has had their memories wiped of everything pertaining to the Sailor Senshi."
"Which means…"
"You and I are the only ones that remember the Sailor Senshi."
"W-we have to do something. Tell them—."
"No," Mamoru interrupted with a shake of his head. "Let's keep it the way it is for now. Usagi and her friends have been through a lot. They need a break from crime fighting for a while. As of now, my duty is to give Usagi as much time as possible to be a normal girl."
Sierra smiled. "You really love her, do you?"
Mamoru returned the smile and nodded. "I really do. She won't know who it's from but, could you give this to her?" He pulled a small box out of his sub-space pocket and handed it to her.
Sierra walked back into Usagi's room when she returned home. "Knock knock."
The blonde placed her brush aside and smiled. "Where did you go?"
"To visit a friend," Sierra said vaguely. "Here." She gave her the beautifully wrapped box.
"What is it?"
"Open it and see."
Usagi nodded and carefully pulled off the wrapping paper. She opened the box and gave a sad smile at what was inside. "A red rose."
"Do you know who it's from?"
Usagi shook her head. "I don't remember. But I know this person. It's someone that I miss very much. Someone I love more than the whole world. Isn't it?"
Sierra chuckled before saying in a mischievous voice, "It's a secret."
.
.
.
-Three Months Later-
Usagi Tsukino's blue eyes fluttered open at the sound of her buzzing alarm. She instinctively looked to the foot of her bed. There was an ache in her heart. It was empty, as always, but she felt as if something was supposed to be there—belonged there. She sighed, "Or maybe I'm just going crazy," she mumbled to herself.
Opting not to think about any longer, she turned off her alarm and hopped out bed. As she made her way to her closet, she pulled her long, blond hair out of its nightly braid. She had to hurry in order to make it out of the door in time.
She didn't care about getting to school on time but she knew that her cousin, Sierra, would leave her behind. As it turned out, it was very hard to have a believable excuse for tardiness when someone in the same household managed to made it to school on time. Especially when the said person happened to be in the same class and very honest.
Usagi managed to get completely ready in one hour and thirty minutes. She looked at her reflection in the mirror to make sure she hadn't forgotten something. As she had for the past several months, her eyes immediately fell to her bow. Wasn't something supposed to go there? She could almost picture it. It was circular…wasn't it? What color was it? Blue? Red? Yellow?
"Usagi!" she heard the voice of her cousin echo from downstairs. "Hurry up! If you're not down here in five minutes, I'm leaving without you! That's a promise!"
"I'm coming!" Usagi called back. She grabbed her backpack from off of its hanging spot on her wall and ran her door. "Goodbye—." She turned back to her bed. It was still empty. Who was she going to say goodbye to?
She nodded to herself. Yes, she thought to herself, I am definitely going crazy.
She stepped out of her room and ran downstairs. As she stepped on the last stair, a flower flew into her line of vision. "Whoa!" she cried as the distraction caused her to lose balance and fall.
"Are you okay, Usagi?" The perpetrator and her cousin, Sierra, asked in genuine concern. Sierra was a few inches taller than Usagi, standing at five feet and two inches. She had bright green eyes and small nose. She was a few months older than her cousin, turning fifteen two weeks before. It was on her birthday that she promptly decided that she outgrew her usual two pigtails and opted to let her dirty blonde hair stay down and allowed it to grow to her lower back. The pigtails, she wore them at night, kept her hair wavy.
Usagi smiled and got back to her feet. "Yeah, I think I'll live. What was that, anyway?"
"Only the same thing it's been for months," Sierra said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "A rose." Sierra held it out for the blonde.
Usagi accepted the rose. "Thanks for getting it for me today. If Dad saw it, he'd have a fit."
"Do you finally know who keeps sending them?" Sierra asked, letting a little hope slip in her voice.
Usagi shook her head. "I don't. Whoever it is, though, is dedicated. To send a rose every day for the past three months…"
Sierra lowered her eyes to the ground and nodded. "Yeah."
"Are you okay?"
The older girl nodded again. "I'm fine. You should put up that rose before Uncle Kenji sees you with it." Usagi nodded, placed her backpack on the floor and ran back upstairs. "You have three minutes!" she called after her.
When Usagi was out of sight, Sierra sighed. It had been three months since her brother's, Keisuke's defeat. It had been three months since Usagi and her friends lost their memories of the Sailor Senshi and each other. It had been three months since Mamoru asked Sierra to keep Usagi's identity a secret from her.
Keeping such a secret was harder than she first thought, too. Even though when she first met Usagi, she didn't believe in Sailor Moon, she now knew that the world needed her and the other Sailor Senshi. She could only imagine the toll on Mamoru, too. To be forgotten by his soul mate must have been very difficult to deal with.
She knew because he was the one that came to her house each morning and left Tuxedo Kamen's signature flowers by the door. The dirty blonde suspected they were to help jog her memory, to show that even when she didn't know him other than 'the guy she argued with', she was still the only one he loved.
Usagi skipped back down the stairs and to the door. "Ready!" she said with a smile on her face.
Sierra raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. "Usagi, you wouldn't be forgetting anything, would you?"
Usagi furrowed her brows as she thought. She gasped. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Breakfast!"
Sierra face palmed as her younger cousin ran to the kitchen and came back with a piece of toast and an obento. "Sierra, I'm so silly. You weren't trying to tell me that forgot breakfast, were you?"
Sierra shook her head.
"I had forgotten my lunch!"
Sierra sighed in defeat and hung her head. It was obvious that Usagi would never get it. She picked up Usagi's backpack.
Usagi's eyes widened. "Oops!" She said sheepishly and she accepted her backpack. "Thanks…"
Miles away, Tuxedo Kamen sat on the roof of his apartment complex. His Usako would be getting ready for school right about now. If he was planning to run into her, he would have to leave now, which was the reason he was transformed in the first place. Only Tuxedo Kamen would have the speed it took to make it to the corner where he waited for her. He sighed and shook his head. No. He wouldn't go today. The charade was getting too painful. He missed the love in his Usako's eyes for him. Now, she only looked at him with anger when she was waiting for an insult from him, if at all.
It was discouraging. He was to the point where he felt he'd never hug or kiss his sweet Usako's again and that seeing her today would just rub salt in the wound.
Why didn't he just tell Usagi three months ago? Why hadn't he gone to great lengths to help Usagi gain her memory? The answer was actually quite simple. He loved her too much to put her in harm's way again and allowing her to become Sailor Moon again would do just that.
He would never forget the terrible feeling of hopelessness and complete terror he felt as she took her last breath right after Keisuke's defeat. He vowed to never have them in go through that again. Twice was too much already. A third time would just too much for the couple. If that meant the only way to show his love was to leave the roses she love so much outside her door, so be it. He and Sailor Jupiter could protect the city on their own.
Tuxedo Kamen was pulled from his less-than-happy thoughts by something flying through the sky. It fell just outside of the city with a loud crash. He frowned. That wasn't normal…
He jumped to his apartment's balcony and stepped inside. "Luna," he called for Usagi's loyal kitten. The black cat walked out of the kitchen and stretched. Mamoru frowned. "What were you doing?"
"Taking a nap," she replied sleepily. "What is it? A youma attack? It's been a while."
Tuxedo Kamen shook his head. "No, at least I don't think so," he said. "But something crashed just outside the city. I wanted to check it out. Want to tag along?"
Luna nodded and hopped into Tuxedo Kamen's open arms. "Let's go."
"My back!" A pink haired and green skinned elf-like creature complained. She stepped out of what was left of her spaceship. "Gosh, Ail! Could your parking get any worse!?"
"Quit complaining, En," a second creature with blue hair and the same green skin emerge from the crash. "I got us here, didn't I?"
"Yeah, but there's no salvaging the ship. Look at the size of the crater we created!"
"It's okay. We just have to get rid of the evidence," he pulled out a flute and began to play. As if by magic, the totaled spaceship disappeared. "There. Now it looks like every other crater in this solar system."
En smiled. "I guess it's okay, then." She took Ail's hand in hers and took a look at her surroundings. "So this is Earth?"
Ail nodded. "This place is seeping with energy for us and the Doom Tree. It's perfect."
"Where do you want to live?"
Ail shrugged. "The Doom Tree doesn't look like these. It would have a hard time blending in. We need somewhere that it cannot be destroyed, or easy spotted, in that case. A closed and private location."
En pointed in the direction of the city. "How about there? There is bound to be a closed location somewhere in that…place."
Ail raised an eyebrow. "It also possesses a lot of energy. I wonder what life forms it stores for us to snack on…"
"So we're going?" En asked excitedly.
Ail nodded. "We are." They teleported away.
Tuxedo Kamen and Luna arrived on the scene only a few minutes after the alien couple left. Tuxedo Kamen whistled. "What a mess."
Luna nodded. "There was definitely something there."
He crossed his arms. "Do you think whatever it was is a threat?"
"I don't know," Luna sighed. "The fact that something made such a big hole and then vanished worries me a lot. This crater could belong to something entirely harmless."
"Really?"
Luna nodded. "Or, what is more likely, there's a new enemy to take care of. Should we awaken Sailor Moon?"
Tuxedo Kamen shook his head immediately. "Absolutely not. I'm not going to throw the weight of the world on Usagi's shoulders again for something Sailor Jupiter and I can handle on our own."
"Mamoru…"
"No, Luna. For now, this is my fight. And if it means keeping Usako safe. It's a fight I will definitely win."
And that's the chapter! Well, do you like the sequel so far? Didn't like something? How can I make it better? Tell me in a review!
I have news. Yep, guys, another sequel. While revising Fade Away (still in the process, the new and improved version should be up soon!) I saw a lot of untied ends that can only be answered with another story. After thinking it over, I decided to make a trilogy including Fade Away. It'll be called the Dark Grail Trilogy. After I finish up DOS and post the revised Fade Away, I'll start working on the sequel. It should be up in a few months, just thought I'd keep you posted!
We have stories in the Story Adoption Agency waiting for authors like you to claim them! Come to the community, find a story you like and PM me! Easy as that! Come on over!
Well, that's all for now...I think...
~Koneko~