Is It Wrong to Thank The Youma?
Chapter One

The day had started out like any other. The sun had shined throughout the entire day, without a single cloud dotting the bright, blue sky. Usagi had gone to school, unwillingly of course, and Luna had nagged her the entire way home about how her homework had to be completed before they went to the Hikawa Shrine to meet the other senshi for a meeting that night.

Usagi had, of course, only grumbled in return that the cat seriously needed to get a life so that Usagi could eat snacks and watch TV in the afternoon, but Luna scratched her ankle in response, causing Usagi to jump, yelp, and break into a run toward her house.

And that was when the day became one of the longest, most horrid days of Tsukino Usagi's entire fifteen years of existence.

The girl turned a sidewalk corner, and then she suddenly skidded to a sharp stop with a horrified gasp breaking through her lips. The black cat at her side stopped as well and watched Usagi's crystal blue eyes. Confused, Luna looked to see what her owner found so absolutely terrifying.

A massive, gnarled youma with scaly, snakelike, red skin stood not fifty meters away from them in the quiet street. It was such a disgusting creature to be placed in such a serene, normal surrounding. No one was in the street save one single man, and that man was currently held up in the youma's grip, dangling precariously high above the concrete of the road. Thankfully, the youma was slowly walking away from the girl and her cat, so it didn't notice them standing there. It chugged along slowly, its massive iron feet breaking the road into chunks of concrete as it went.

Usagi could hear Luna yelling at her to transform, but the blonde odangoed girl was in such a trance that she couldn't hear anything. Her eyes were glued to the man in the youma's talons, a lump of pure terror choking in her throat, and she suddenly let out a strangled scream.

The youma turned, seeing her. It's yellow, snaking eyes contacted with hers and it let out a hiss, its dragon head turning completely around from its head. Usagi screamed again when the monster didn't even bother to turn its body around to walk toward her.

She instantly reached for the broach at her breast, and Luna sighed a breath of relief that she was back into her senses.

"Moon Prism Power Make Up!" She yelled, and swirls of pink ribbon surrounded the girl in a flash, changing her instantly into the heroine Sailor Moon, with blue miniskirt and red bow glimmering in the bright sunlight. Not even taking a moment to stop in her signature pose or yell out her customary warning, she raced forward, her hand grabbing the tiara off her forehead in a single motion. "Moon Tiara Action!" She yelled, and she twirled the glowing disc toward the monster in a swift swoop. Thankfully, it hit its target, slicing the youma's arm off completely. The arm dropped to the ground, and so did the man. His limp body rolled away for several meters, stopping in the middle of the road, with his face down in the concrete. Sailor Moon itched to go toward him, but she knew that there was no way it would be safe for her to go near him with the youma still alive. She waited for her tiara to clip itself back in place on her forehead, and she turned her attention back to the youma. She gulped as she noticed that somehow, the monster had grown its arm back in place. She glanced to where the other arm had been, but there was nothing but dust in its place.

"L-l-lunaaa," she wailed, her eyes widening to the point of bugging out of her skull. "What do I do now?!!"

Luna, for her part, was amazed that the youma had regenerated its arm. "Ah... Sailor Moon, call the other senshi!"

Nodding frantically and breaking into a run when the youma started chasing after her, Sailor Moon screamed and flipped open her communicator. "Guys, help!! There's a youma! I'm near my house, about ten minutes from the school! Hurry, please!" She snapped it shut and continued to run. "Luna! Think of something, quick!"

"What do you expect me to do, use my laser vision on it?!" Luna screamed back sarcastically, her eyes slitting narrowly, and the senshi beside her whimpered unhappily.

"Fire Soul!"

Sailor Moon gasped out happily when fire blazed past her shoulder at the youma behind her. She heard its screaming terror at the fire, and she stopped, whipping around to see if it was eliminated. Its body was melting into a pit of tar, and Sailor Moon breathed an extremely relieved sigh. She saw Sailor Mars standing haughtily beside her, hand on her hips and a smirk on her face.

"Can't do anything without me, huh?" She teased, winking one violet eye at the odangoed senshi. Sailor Moon was too happy to see the raven haired senshi to retort.

"Supreme Thunder!"

Sailor Mars and Sailor Moon jumped and looked to their side, where Sailor Jupiter dropped down beside them. They looked back at the youma and saw that it was now evaporating into the same dust Sailor Moon had seen from its arm. The Moon senshi sighed in relief as she saw it disappear. Sailor Jupiter wiped her brow and grinned, her green eyes twinkling.

"I always love being the one to finish it off!" She enthused, shaking her brunette ponytail happily.

Sailor Moon giggled at her friend. "Thank goodness you guys got here. My tiara took off its arm, but then it came back!"

Sailor Mars frowned, looking to the dust that was dissolving away. "That's strange, because usually your tiara disintegrates everything."

Sailor Moon bit her lip and nodded, shrugging her shoulders. "I don't understand it." Then she suddenly gasped. "Oh, god!" She yelled, and she rushed away from the girls.

They looked at each other in confusion and then turned to watch Sailor Moon. They both gasped when they noticed the man on the ground where Sailor Moon had dropped to her knees. They ran up behind her.

"Oh my god, Mamoru-san!" Sailor Mars squeaked, clapping a hand over her mouth. Sailor Moon was tentatively turning him over, his head landing in her lap. All of the senshi shuddered when they took in his form. His clothes were completely tattered. His horribly ugly green jacket was now just strips of green over strips of a black sweater. Sailor Moon could see blood coursing down his skin through the many gaps in his clothes. His face looked exactly the same as his chest and stomach, with long, deep cuts all the way down him from head to toe. Sailor Moon felt her fear bubbling from the deepest pits of her stomach to the surface, and she let out a strangled sob.

"The youma," she cried. "Its claws must have done this to him." Gingerly, she reached down toward his face, but then she snapped her hand back and stopped, turning her head to look at Jupiter and Mars. "How... how exactly do I check to see if he has a pulse?" She looked terrified, and the two senshi exchanged a glance before Jupiter went around and got on her knees on Mamoru's other side. Reaching down, the thunder senshi put two fingers to a specific spot on the top of his neck.

Sailor Moon and Sailor Mars held their breath while they waited, and Jupiter nodded. "It's weak, but it's there."

Sailor Moon bent her ear over his mouth, and she felt a strained, weak breath of air come from his lips. "I can feel him breathing... barely..." She whispered. "What do we do? Do... do we take him to a hospital?"

Luna, sitting at Sailor Mars' feet, shook her head. "If at all possible, we need to keep public attention away from the presence of youma. It causes panic in the city, Sailor Moon. Especially a man being mauled by one."

Sailor Moon flinched, her eyes glued to Mamoru's pale form. "We can't just leave him here; he'll bleed to death. We have to help him somehow, right?" She whipped her head around to look at Mars.

The fire senshi frowned, tapping her red heeled shoe against the hard concrete. "We can't take him to the temple; there's no way... and no, Sailor Moon, you certainly cannot take him home with you! Your parents would freak out beyond freaking out!"

The senshi let the words die on her lips. She stared down at Mamoru for a long moment, hearing him struggle for breath, his chest rising shallowly. She felt quivers course through her at how pale and fragile he looked. "Does... doesn't Mamoru-ba—I mean, Mamoru-san, live alone? Motoki-kun told me once..." She looked across at Jupiter. "Can't we call and ask Motoki-kun where he lives? We could take him there and care for him..."

Sailor Jupiter felt her eyebrows rising. She exchanged a glance with Sailor Mars, who simply shrugged behind Moon. She didn't really have any idea why Sailor Moon was freaking out so much over Mamoru, except that maybe she felt guilty that he had been hurt? The thunder senshi shrugged back and got to her feet. She pulled out her communicator and called Minako. Walking away from the two, she explained the situation to the missing love senshi, who explained that she had just gotten out of detention and could not get away to help in the youma battle. The blonde told Jupiter she would take care of Motoki.

"He lives near the Azaba college, I know it." Sailor Moon was saying to Mars and Luna when Jupiter returned. "We should at least start heading that way, right? Right??"

"Okay, Sailor Moon... calm down." Luna said soothingly, her red eyes sympathetic. "We need to be very careful not to let anyone see us or him, but we can try..."

Thankfully, Jupiter's communicator went off and she flipped it open. Minako gave her Mamoru's address, and Jupiter thanked her before shutting the contraption off. "Alright, he lives on the 12th floor of the 4th street Azaba Apartment Complex... wow, that place is expen—okay, never mind... anyways, we should hurry; he's looking worse."

Sailor Moon flinched and looked down. In fact, he was looking worse. He was growing paler and his breaths were becoming even more ragged. She gulped when she noticed he was shaking. "He's lost so much blood, he has to be freezing..." She whimpered. Shaking her head, she stood and gently placed his head on the ground. "How are we going to get over there?"

"Easy. We're going to use the Sailor Teleport."

The three senshi turned to see Sailor Mercury with her hands crossed in front of her, a soft smile on her face, and Sailor Venus grinning right beside her, a hand on her slender hip. Sailor Moon sighed a breath of relief. "What great timing, you guys!"

"Yeah, that's what we thought!" Sailor Venus chirped. "I don't think I've ever run faster in my life; whatcha think, Mercury?"

The ice senshi beside her shook her head. "Venus, the arcade is exactly two minutes from here when we're not transformed, and less than thirty seconds when we are. We barely ran at all." Mercury smiled to the others. "Sorry I wasn't here, I was in cram school and had just gotten to the arcade when Minako was running out. I guess I got out right on time."

"Perfectly so!" Moon breathed. "Let's hurry, guys!"

Mamoru felt trapped. It was so hard to breathe, and there was a large pressure on his chest; it was as if a stone wall had descended upon him. He choked for breath, for air... and he couldn't see anything but darkness. He could hear something in the distance... voices? They were light and musical, but he couldn't make out any words, only strange sounds so far away in the distance...

He tried to fight the wall, but he was so very, very tired... finally, he gave in, and the darkness overtook him.

Usagi stared down at Mamoru's pale form, her heart hammering away in her chest like a fluttering hummingbird. "How.. how long do you think it will be before he wakes up?"

Ami, sitting on the edge of Mamoru's bed, looked up at the girl standing beside her with a soft smile. "Give him time to heal, Usagi-chan. You have to realize that his body has suffered a huge trauma today... he's much better off this way. He can't feel the pain of his injuries."

Usagi nodded absently, her worried blue eyes focused on Mamoru's closed ones.

Ami shook her head and rose, patting Usagi on the shoulder. "Let him rest." She whispered, her blue eyes taking in Usagi's trance-like stare with worry. The girl didn't even bother to look at Ami; she just nodded and continued staring down at the man in the bed. With a frown, Ami exited the room, shutting it softly behind her. The other girls were sitting in Mamoru's living area, lounging on his sofa and chairs.

Makoto looked up from flipping through channels on his TV. Her green eyes were glazed over in amazement. "Do you know he has over two thousand channels? I mean, how much TV does one guy need?"

Rei was mesmerized by the screen. Her own violet eyes were wide, gazing at the television as if she had never seen one before. "Or how big of a TV, we should say."

Ami sighed, shaking her blue-haired head."In any case, he's resting now. I've bandaged most of his wounds.. with Usagi-chan's help," She noticed the other girls look up with raised eyebrows, "but I don't think he's going to be waking up anytime soon. We should come back tomorrow. I... I think Usagi-chan is going to stay."

"Alone?" Minako squeaked from her spot on the sofa. "What will her parents say?"

"She's going to stay in a college man's apartment, unchaperoned?" Rei jumped up, her eyes turning wary.

Ami rolled her blue eyes again. "Really, guys, come on. He's unconscious, for one, and even when he does wake up, he's barely able to move with his injuries... and it's Mamoru-san, for goodness sakes! He wouldn't hurt her even if he could! He's been in love with Usagi-chan for ages!"

"That's kind of why they're freaked out, I think, Ami-chan," Makoto noted, obviously not worried in the least. She continued to kick her heeled shoe back and forth and flip absently through the channels.

Ami shook her head. "I think he's a respectable person. He's never made any ill move toward her before."

"Eeeeexcept for the teasing her relentlessly and calling her Odango Atama and poking fun at her and..."

"Minako-chan, we get it." Rei sighed, putting a hand to her face.

"Right."

"In any case, we should go. We have school tomorrow." Ami said.

"So does Usagi-chan..." Minako whined, punching a couch pillow unhappily. She pouted, wishing she had a good enough reason to skip school.

"I would usually argue that point as well," Ami pursed her lips, glancing back toward the bedroom door. "But she said she's not budging. Tomorrow is Friday... she'll be okay missing one day. I'll call her parents here in a minute and tell them she's going to stay the weekend at my house for an extended study session, starting tonight."

"Smart." Rei nodded.

"That's what I thought." Ami sighed. "Let's go... Mako-chan, put down the remote!"

End Chapter One

I know, I know, I JUST finished Destiny Decision........ but I just can't help myself! And I've had this idea in my head for a while now, too, and now that DD is finished, I can focus on a new story! Woo! Anyways, hope you all like, and please review!! Pretty, pretty please?? :)

(This edition of the chapter was edited again on 3/20/10. Added in a few more details and corrected a few grammatical errors.)