Arc Two - The Whims of Chance

Chapter Five - A Rigged Game! The Evil Youma Gambles on Success!

'A plan, huh?' Luna hopped out of Usagi's bag onto a low wall and looked up at the bright edifice of the casino. It was an eyesore, with flashing neon signs that clashed horribly with one another, and the pulsing beat of loud music coming from within. 'Fine,' she said, 'let's hear it.'

Usagi didn't answer immediately. Instead, she pulled out the Transformation Pen and twirled it between her fingers speculatively as she thought. Luna raised an eyebrow.

'You're not going to transform into Sailor Moon?' she asked, mildly surprised.

"No, no yet." Usagi replied distractedly. "I need to check out the inside first. And do something about the…" she hesitated briefly, biting her lip, "… about the smoke-things. I was thinking of setting off the fire alarm. That would get everyone outside, except maybe the youma. And it would turn on the sprinklers, which would stop the smoke-things from spreading so much." She wrinkled her nose. "I don't suppose I can purify water?"

Luna shook her head. 'Imbuing a purification spell in something is complicated. I'm not sure how you would do that, so it's unlikely you'd be able to. You're not necessarily the right p... well, it might not even be something you can do without help. But it's a good plan anyway. The youma will still probably call its servants back in, though.'

"I know." Usagi shivered. "But… it should take them longer to get there and buy me time. And I hope the water will work against them, as long as it keeps going."

'Leave that to me. I'll make sure it doesn't shut off.'

Usagi shot her a grateful look, and appeared to reach a decision. "Okay then. Moon Power! Make me a pretty young gambler!"

Luna huffed in annoyance as the ribbons of soft light spread from the wand down Usagi's arm, wreathing her in white radiance as if she'd stepped into a shadow shaped from starlight. 'Do you always have to specify pretty?' she grouched. 'Honestly, it sounds entirely unprofessional.'

The light faded, revealing a rather older Usagi with dyed-green hair, wearing a tight miniskirt and jacket. Luna blinked, and then gave her a rather more disapproving look.

'Wait, this is your idea of pretty? You look like some kind of raver! That skirt is almost a belt! It's entirely unsuitable!'

"Good!" Usagi responded, ignoring the jibe at her taste. "That means I should blend in perfectly, right?" She whisked her hair back over one shoulder and put her hands on her hips, taking in the club. "How old are you, anyway, if you think this is unsuitable? Those girls over there are barely any older than I am! You're just a cat, not my mother" But the outburst of bravado was just a distraction. She drew in a long, deep breath and let it out in a rush, gathering her courage.

"Right then," she said, trying and failing to keep the shake out of her voice. "Lu-Luna? Stay close?"

Luna leapt down from her perch and brushed up against an ankle, purring quietly. 'Right beside you,' she promised, wishing she could remove the reason for that tremor in the young woman's voice.

"… thanks."

The inside of the casino was scarcely better than the outside, Usagi found. Whitewashed walls and a linoleum floor stretched out across the wide room that took up most of the ground floor of the building. It was split into sections, with walkways between the blocks of machines – slot machines over to her right, pool tables over in one of the far corners, tables for what looked like some sort of card game off to her right behind more tables for games she only vaguely recognised from television and movies. The place was full of people – men in rumpled office suits, youths clad in leather jackets and tattered jeans, women in off-the-shoulder dresses or figure-hugging slacks – all of them playing at the games, talking, drinking, smoking.

And overlaying it all was the stench of rot and darkness, completely unnoticed by the people who laughed and joked with one another, unable see the trap they were standing in.

'Usagi…' hissed Luna near-silently, a velvet shadow cloaked in the still-deeper shadow beneath a table. Usagi staggered towards it, half-falling into one of the seats. 'There's…'

"I know," she murmured back. "I can feel it. It's… everywhere."

And everywhere it was. She had felt it as a lurking infection in the smoke-ridden thralls earlier, but here it was overpowering. Dark energy puffed in phantom wisps from the dice as they bounced on the craps tables, it jangled in the counters of the slot machines as they spun, it coiled around the cards as they were dealt back and forth to be reshuffled. Usagi had to bring a hand up to her mouth; it felt like she was going to gag.

'Stay focused, Usagi,' warned Luna. 'And try to keep out of view of the cameras. You don't know who might be watching through them.'

"Mmm." She nodded anxiously, and shook herself out of the horrified stupor she'd been in. "Fire alarm, fire alarm… can you see a fire alarm?"

'No, not from here. I can't risk the cameras seeing me. You'll just have to look for one.'

A few seconds of careful observation, and Usagi spotted one, not far from the stairs. Pushing herself up from the table, she started towards it, circling around the larger groups of people and flinching at every shout that came from near her. She tried to keep her eyes on the ground, not wanting to draw anyone's attention.

She'd managed to get three quarters of the way there when an arm was slung around her waist, and she was pulled sideways into someone's leather jacket. A half-yelp, half-shriek escaped her, and she flailed around to get a look at her assailant. It was a man a few years older than the disguise form she was wearing, with stubble speckling his chin and a cigarette in his mouth. He was leaning against the end of one of the rows of slot machines, half perched, with a half-empty beer bottle on the unoccupied seat of the nearest one. Squeaking, Usagi tried to pull away, but his arm was clamped tight around her waist, not letting her move.

"Hey, babe," he slurred, eyes focusing considerably lower than her face, "lookin' for a good time?"

Usagi recoiled as far as she could. He stank of alcohol, but it was almost overpowered by the reek of the smoke-monster. With his hand all but touching her skin, she could feel the thing inside him, curled up in his heart like a parasite. The scent of corruption had a strong, bitter edge that she could only associate with burning metal, and which made her gag. If she threw up on him… well, at least that would probably make him go away, she thought with an edge of hysteria.

"N… no," she trembled. "No… time. I have to…" she tried to pull away again, an abortive movement prevented again by his grip. "P-please, let go of me! I have to go, I'm…"

"Babe, babe." He scowled at her, still slurring his words, obviously drunk. "Quit playin' hard to get, yeah? Jus' relax, an'…"

He brought his other hand up towards her chest, and she yelped and slapped it away. Hard. Then, while the adrenaline rush of outrage still blotted out the terror, she slapped him around the face as well, and peeled his arm off from where it had been edging downwards from her hip. But the slap only sent him back one step, and when he turned back to her his eyes were dark with drunken rage. Usagi paled and began to back away, raising her hands shakily as he advanced on her, her heart racing.

"Dumb bitch," he growled. "Learn your pla…"

And then he yelled, dropping to the ground as if a leg had been kicked out from under him. Which, Usagi realised, it had. Four long tears marked the denim of his jeans from his ankle to halfway up his shin, and blood was already staining the blue fabric from the deep gashes beneath them. The drunkard howled in pain, thrashing around on the floor and knocking several of the people playing slots off their chairs and down on top of him. Usagi quickly became the furthest thing from his mind as several of them objected violently, and out of the corner of her eye she caught a small black silhouette dissolving into the shadows between two of the slot machines.

"Luna," she whispered as she hurriedly put some distance between her and the growing commotion, "I take back everything I ever said about you being a meanie. Thank you."

Stumbling forward, she pretended to trip – well, okay, it wasn't entirely a pretence – and rammed an elbow forward into the glass panel of the fire alarm. The wailing tones broke out immediately, and Usagi held her breath for a moment, hoping desperately that it wouldn't just be ignored.

But her fears were unfounded. There was grumbling, there were a few angry yells and scuffles, but the crowds began to move towards the doors and the fire exits, retreating outside to the fire assembly points.

To the…

'Usagi, where are you going?' yelled Luna at her charge's retreating back. She gave chase, quickly catching up to the sprinting girl, who replied between pants as she ran.

"They're all… going to be… outside in one place," she explained. "Grouped together. I can get them all in one shot!"

Luna blinked, and revised her estimate of Usagi's tactical skill upwards again. 'That's good thinking. You remember how to purify tainted humans? Remember to put more power into it this time, you've got more targets. And the smoke-parasites are more insidious. The rest should die when you kill the youma, with any luck, or you'll be hunting them down for a while.'

"Uh huh. Got it."

'Good. Now get somewhere out of sight. Come on, this way.' They slipped outside, and Usagi followed Luna's lead in avoiding the milling crowds, creeping over to take refuge behind a van. 'Transform,' the cat whispered, 'and then try to hit as many of them as you can with the first shot. We don't have much time.'

"Right," Usagi agreed. Then hesitated. Luna watched her expectantly for a moment. And then another. And another.

'… Usagi… you do remember your transformation phrase, don't you?' she growled darkly.

"Yesyesyes!" the girl babbled hastily. "I was just… uh… preparing! Uh… it was… um… something… something like…" Her eyes flickered briefly, then widened as she remembered. Her hand went to the brooch over her heart, and she whispered the phrase triumphantly; "Make Up!"

Luna had to suppress the urge to bat the girl around the head for forgetting half of it anyway. But the transformation took. The ribbons of light flowed out from the jewelled brooch, enveloping her charge in the space between heartbeats, and when they faded…

… when they faded, it was Sailor Moon who opened her eyes again.

…

The crowd milled about in front of the building, already muttering mutinously. There didn't seem to be any sign of fire inside, and no alarms or sirens could be heard approaching. Some of the gamblers were already waving the alarm off as a hoax and calling for a move back indoors. Others were arguing with them, and more than a few people had peeled off the crowd and left in disgust.

All those still present, however, were distracted from the developing arguments when a voice rang through the street as if broadcast from every rooftop and window.

"Stop arguing with each other and being so violent! Gambling and drinking are vices in excess, and you're doing both of them! I am Sailor Moon, and in the name of the Moon, I'll purify you!"

Heads turned this way and that in confusion, until a flash of light caught their attention. Atop a car nearby she stood, hair-streamers blowing back in the wind, glaring at them with an expression of righteous judgement. Some of the assembled crowd recognised her from the papers; others were not of the reading persuasion. But regardless of whether they knew who she was, the crowd's response was almost universal.

Laughter.

The crowd gawped and jeered, pointing and peering at her. Ripples of laughter and hooted comments came from near the back, and she picked up on some of the threads of conversation going on.

"Hah, guys, check it out, there's some chick…"

"… hey, look, her skirt is blowin' in…"

"… what's she wearing, it looks…"

"… hear what she said, it was something like…"

"… old is she? And what's she…"

"… this some sort of entertainment thing or something? Cause it ain't all that…"

Temper flaring, Moon stamped hard, putting a rather large dent in the roof of the car she was standing on. "Hey!" she yelled. "Stop laughing at me! I'm a warrior of Love and Justice, and you're all possessed! This isn't a joke!"

"Sure we are, sweetheart," someone yelled mockingly, "and are you gonna make us fee- fe…" he trailed off into coughs, his taunting expression morphing into one of confusion, then pain, as wracking coughs shook his torso. Others were beginning to cough as well, like an epidemic spreading through the crowd fast enough to see. Moon's eyes widened as she saw the smoke beginning to curl out from the mouths of the first few to start. Grabbing for her tiara instinctively, she felt it morph into the disk in her hand. But… she couldn't throw it. Not at real people…

'Sailor Moon! Purify them! Like the others, last time!'

The reminder jolted her out of her hesitation, and she held the disk out in front of her like a shield. Most of the people were on the floor now, their faces screwed up in pain as the parasites inside them forced their way out. Moon glared at the wisps of smoke that were beginning to rise upwards, dragging their hosts with them.

"No you don't," she growled, and summoned up her anger at the horrible things. And… also some of the anger at the people they were riding, for taunting her like that, plus a little bit of righteous judgement at the things they'd been doing. That behaviour, that dark influence that had made them riot and fight and vandalise, needed to be purged. Commanding the silver light within, she found it easier to pull up this time, more responsive to her call. Almost like it wanted to be unleashed.

Moon was happy to oblige. She filled her heart with virtuous fury and channelled the emotion through the glowing disk her tiara had become. It shone like a searchlight, casting a beam of bright white light forward that washed over the whole street, glinting off metal and illuminating those exposed to it in an eerie radiance.

Under the unforgiving glow, the parasite-creatures screeched and twisted, writhing in pain as the smoke-stuff that made up their forms was scattered and swirled away. Moon kept up the pressure, kept the anger at what they had done to these people stoked bright and hot within her chest and let loose her passion in another blinding flash. The smoke-things were little more than wraiths by that point, all but dissolved by the sacred luminance, and the flash ripped what was left of them apart completely. In the face of the wave of magic, they simply ceased to be, undone completely, and a shuddering sigh ran through the prone people they had infected as they were released from their enthrallment.

Checking warily to make sure there wasn't anyone still standing, Moon lowered the tiara, and absently returned it to her forehead. She grinned, feeling rather proud of herself for that, and would probably have patted herself on the back had Luna not chosen that moment to break in with a sardonic comment.

'Very good, Sailor Moon, but don't forget – those were only the minions. The youma is still inside. And there may be others.'

"… ah," she gulped nervously. "Right. Yes." She paused briefly, remembering the last one. "… do I have to?"

Claws glinted in the light of the streetlamps above them.

"Okay yes ma'am Luna-sama, I'm going!" Moon still had no desire to feel those claws applied to her vulnerable ankles, and scrambled towards the door to the casino, carefully easing it open and slipping inside. She looked around cautiously, searching for any humanoid figures still in the large space.

'It's not down here,' Luna remarked, slipping past her. 'You'd probably feel it if it was. I certainly would. Hmm… upstairs, I think.'

"Right."

She advanced up the stairs slowly, cautiously, trying to feel forward for the youma lurking somewhere on the upper floor. The red emergency lighting painted deep frown-lines on her face. She couldn't hear anything, over the shrill noise of the fire alarm. Would Tuxedo Mask show up to save her if she got in trouble, she wondered? Maybe this time she could talk to him, or at least get a better look at him than last time. Or perhaps even…

"Gah!"

Moon dived back, hitting the floor shoulder-first as the dark something she'd barely seen flying at her smashed into the stairs where she'd been standing, punching a hole clean through the carpeted wood and throwing up splinters every which-way. She turned the motion into a roll to avoid the next one, and realised only halfway through it that she didn't actually know how to come out of a roll properly. With a yelp and a bruised back and tailbone, she landed hard in a sitting position next to a pachinko machine and ducked instinctively, pulling her tiara off in desperate panic.

The third blow slammed through the machine directly where her head had been, and she lashed out and upwards with the razor-edged glowing disk instinctively. She felt a brief resistance, then an angry scream from somewhere near the stairs. The long dark shape above her withdrew like a scalded hand, and she took the opportunity to scrabble around the machine and hide behind it. Pachinko balls fell out of the gaping hole with a series of tinkling clinks, pooling on the floor.

'Brat!' hissed a serpentine voice from the base of the stairs, audible even over the alarms. 'Come out of there now!' There was a reverb to the voice as it modulated strangely in anger. But no attack accompanied it, or any dark shape punching into her cover. Warily, she risked a peek through the gap, not wanting to poke her head out where it would be exposed.

She couldn't get a clear look, or see anything above the youma's chest. It seemed to be dressed in some sort of long, flowing robe, though, and from the way it was turning it wasn't quite sure where she was. It was trailing smoke behind it, venting it from the tips of its hair – gods, was that how it had been possessing people? And back to the matter at hand, had it not been watching as she'd scrambled behind the machine? Maybe it had been coming downstairs then – she was pretty sure it had attacked her from the upper landing. Speaking of which…

A dark tendril of something floated into view near its shoulders, and it took Moon a second or two to realise it was hair. It didn't move like hair, though. It was knotted and bunched into something that looked almost like a fist, and moved with purpose, deliberately. Moon couldn't help but stare. It could move its hair? And attack with it hard enough to punch holes through sheet metal or the floor? She would need to take it by surprise.

"Moon Tiara," she whispered, hand going to her tiara and plucking it from her brow. It hummed in her grip, shifting again into the lethal ring that seemed to fit her hand like a glove. Glancing again through the hole and getting a read on its position, she took a deep breath, ignoring the noise.

Then, in a single fluid motion, she stood, aimed and threw.

"Action!"

As the attack hurtled through the air towards the youma, she got a good look at it for the first time. Its skin was a mottled scaly green, and its tongue seemed to be forked like a snake's. Black hair drifted around it as if it were underwater, in grasping tendrils and knotted fists. Even as she stood and threw, the slitted eyes focused on her and two tendrils shot out, lengthening and reshaping as they went until the ends were viciously sharp blades. More hair massed to deflect the tiara. It disintegrated under the assault, prompting a shriek of pain from the youma as a mere glancing touch incinerated the locks down to the scalp with a hissing sound and a scent of burnt oil. But it was enough to deflect the silver projectile off onto a curving course back to Moon's hand, stymied in its assault.

And fast as the flashing ring was, the bladed hair-tendrils were going to get there first. Moon screamed, trying to dodge sideways. Her foot came down on the pachinko balls and slid, whipping out from under her and knocking her off balance. With a loud crash, she toppled over again, hitting the floor prone just as the hair-limbs whistled through the space she had occupied. The youma hissed in irritation, stabbing down randomly behind the cover and advancing to regain sight of its prey. It hit nothing but the floor, as Moon crawled hastily on hands and knees into the rows of slot machines, then dragged herself back upright and ran along the rows as quietly as possible, bent low so as not to be seen.

'You can't hide forever, brat!' warned the youma. It was looking rather dishevelled, and there were prominent bald patches from the damage Usagi had done to it. There was a crash as it tore one of the machines loose with its hair and threw it aside. 'I'll find you sooner or later, and my lord will reward me when I bring him your head! Come out now, and I'll make it painless!'

"Liar!" retorted Moon, using the trick that had come naturally to make her voice ring out sourcelessly as if from everywhere. "You surrender, or I'll punish you for spreading all this mayhem and chaos!" She got a furious hiss in return, and another crash. It seemed that the youma was quite content to take the casino apart bit by bit to get at her, if it had to.

Crouching behind a row of fake potted plants that separated the slots machines from what looked like some sort of bar area; Moon panted quietly and tried to think of a plan. Attacking head-on had not worked. She wracked her brains for anything else she could try. Now would really be a really good time for Tuxedo Mask to show up, but… he was nowhere to be seen. Okay. Okay then. That was fine. She could handle this on her own. She could…

'Sailor Moon.'

… stifle a shriek, and then duck low, terrified, as the youma looked over in her direction. She found herself staring into the crimson eyes of her cat, and scowled.

"Where have you been?" she hissed. "I could have used some help!"

'Then you shouldn't have let its first attack separate us,' retorted Luna, entirely unsympathetic. 'And help was what I was about to offer. I can distract it, make it turn around. That'll give you one shot. Make sure you make good use of it.'

Moon's animosity vanished. "Okay!" she agreed. "I'll be ready!" She watched Luna nod gravely and slip off into the shadows, then turned her attention back to the youma, peeking through the plastic leaves of the potted plants at the reptilian monster breaking its way through the slot machines. It was headed roughly toward her, orienting on the quiet shriek she'd made.

"Moon Tiara," she whispered, readying her attack and getting ready to stand and hurl it. Another crash as the youma threw a machine in her general direction, landing short. It was using the things it ripped up as a weapon now, throwing them around to cover a wider area and try to flush her out. Moon held her breath tensely, willing Luna to make a move soon.

Something clattered on the other side of the room. A stool, knocked over? A pool cue pushed off its table? Moon didn't know and didn't care. All that mattered was that the youma swung around, wrenching a heavy console from where it was bolted to the floor and holding it above its head with two huge claw-like appendages of woven hair. Moon sprang up, bringing the tiara round in a fluid arc that sent it soaring towards the monster.

"Action!"

Yet somehow, impossibly, the youma reacted. It twisted round with shocking speed, even before she had finished speaking, and its slitted yellow eyes widened in fear at the blazing disk shooting towards it. It stepped back in terror, bringing down the machine in an attempt to block the tiara. Metal shrieked as it carved a glowing red-hot path through the cheap steel and plastic of the bulky mechanism, but it was enough for the youma to hurl the whole machine aside, tiara still trapped inside it, to crash down on the far side of the room.

It started smoking – real, genuine smoke, which seemed almost clean compared to the youma's filth, and which set off the smoke detectors for real. The sprinklers promptly turned on, showering entire room.

Moon clenched her fists tightly, water running down her face and leaving her hair sodden. But the tiara didn't come.

'Now…' growled the youma, leaving oily streaks on the ground where it stepped, 'nowhere left to run.' It grinned, revealing a row of sharp, metallic teeth. 'I'm going to enjoy this…'

All of its hair knotted together into two huge tendrils and shot forward. There were blades forming from the appendages, and claws, and barbed hooks and worse things still. Moon stood petrified, wide-eyed, unable to make a sound.

And then, a split-second before they hit her, something long and thin and glinting blurred across the tendrils a bare metre or so from the youma's face. They lost cohesion and fell to the floor, mere strands of hair once again, and the youma screamed louder and more harshly than any sound it had made so far, clutching at the severed locks and staggering back to crash into a roulette table.

"Those who spread corruption and vice, and seek to defile beauty…" said a voice. Sailor Moon knew that voice. Her heart leapt at hearing it once again, and she turned eagerly to its source. Somehow, the fire alarms had turned off. Just for him to speak.

Silhouetted against a window on the far side of the room, Tuxedo Mask held his cane in the pose he had brought it down in. The rod had extended enough to cross the room in a blink of an eye, and cut through the youma's reinforced hair as if it were a hot knife slicing through a rice ball. "… I cannot forgive such people," he continued in an ominous tone. "Sailor Moon. Are you hurt?"

"Tuxedo Mask!" Moon's eyes shone with happiness, and she beamed at her tall, dark-clad saviour. "No, I'm fine! Thank you so much!"

He nodded, lips quirking in a faint smile beneath the half-mask as he strolled forward, pausing to pick her tiara out from the wreckage of the machine that was strewn around it. "Then allow me to return your tiara, fair Moon, along with the best of wishes."

Moon's heart fluttered at the eloquent speech. The youma was less impressed. Clawing itself upright, its remaining hair shrivelled an ugly greyish-white from where Tuxedo Mask's cane had sliced through it, the monster screeched at him.

'Insolent whelp!' it roared hatefully, 'You… you dare cut my beautiful hair! Maim me! I'll kill you, you brat!'

It lunged at him, claws extending, reptilian face a mask of hatred. But its charge was uncoordinated and clumsy, and Moon could see the faint smirk that crossed the man's face as it came at him. His cane whipped out again, and her eyes widened as a clawed hand went flying to disintegrate against a wall. Even as the beast screamed, the black-clad man cut again, and the youma was comprehensively disarmed.

Wailing in pain, grey already seeping across its wretched face, the monster collapsed to its knees. The masked man took a single step back, drawing back his arm. Usagi squeezed her eyes shut hastily, and heard a quick patter of footsteps over the wailing, followed by the faint whistle of the cane and a thump as a body hit the floor, dissolving into dust as it went. The wailing cut off abruptly. Less than a second later, there was another, fainter thump, accompanied by a pattering sound. Then nothing but the muffled sounds of the city from outside.

Tentatively, she risked opening her eyes. Tuxedo Mask stood before her, offering her tiara back. She blushed, accepting it and returning it to her forehead, and peered round him at the youma. There was a largeish pile of dust on the floor, and a smaller amount sprayed out several metres beyond it. Moon winced as she put together what had happened.

"Th… thank you," she stuttered. He bowed low, making her blush again. Then he turned to leave, his cape billowing as he walked to the door. Blinking at the abrupt departure, she gathered her wits enough to hastily call after him, "wait! Who are…"

But he was gone, vanished into the night. She pouted, and looked around for Luna, who she found sniffing at the dust that was left of the youma and frowning. After a moment, she looked up at Sailor Moon.

'Hmm,' she said quietly. 'Well, anyway. That wasn't too bad. But you still need to train more. And we need to be out of here soon, before the police show up. See if there were any other smoke-minions quickly, with the sensing technique, and then we can be off.

…

Walking back to the shrine, Usagi's complaints formed a backdrop that Luna mostly ignored as she paced along beside the teenager, occupied with her own thoughts.

"… should have asked him first! Though why'd he even run off so fast, anyway? Oh, do you think he likes me? And he's shy of being around me because I'm so beautiful… hee!" Usagi spun around giddily, hugging herself. "His voice is really dreamy when he does speak, too… okay! I have to make him more comfortable with being close to me! Then he'll get brave enough to ask me out on a date, and then be my boyfriend, and then…"

'He could be an enemy, you know,' Luna pointed out.

"What?!" Usagi glared at her. "What are you talking about? He's saved my life! Twice!"

'Which doesn't necessarily preclude him being an enemy.' Luna jumped up onto a fence to stare her charge in the eyes. 'Listen to me very carefully, Usagi. Just because people are helping you doesn't mean they're on the same side as you, or that they don't have their own goals. Until we know what he's doing and how and why he's doing it, we have to assume that he may have hidden motives.'

Usagi looked at her rebelliously. "Put like that, I shouldn't trust you," she objected. "You might have hidden motives! I don't know why you're helping me either!" She paused. "Uh… well… apart from fighting the youma, I guess. That probably counts as a motive. But still!"

'…' said Luna, her tail twitching slightly as she looked away. '… alright, fine. Maybe treating him as a potential enemy is an overreaction. Just… try to keep a clear head where he's concerned? As a favour? To me?'

"… fine." Usagi blinked as Luna nodded and began to move off down a side road. "Wait… aren't you coming back to the shrine with me?"

The cat looked back over her shoulder. 'No, if I go back there I'm just going to get mobbed again.' Pausing, Luna turned back and frowned at Usagi. 'Speaking of which, I'm still not happy about this job you've decided to volunteer for. You don't have time for things like that, you have a duty!'

"You're the one telling me I need to be more responsible!" Usagi shot back. "A job will teach me about that, won't it? And it's only a part-time one!"

'If that were all, I wouldn't be so worried, but a job somewhere I can't go, somewhere with territorial spirits who…' Luna trailed off, and thought for a moment. '… ah.' Reaching a conclusion, she looked up at Usagi knowingly. The girl shifted, refusing to meet her eye. 'I see. That's why, isn't it?'

"I don't…" Usagi mumbled, and looked down guiltily. "I just… it would be nice to have somewhere this whole Sailor Moon thing… can't touch me. You know? Somewhere away from it all, just sometimes."

Luna sighed. 'I suppose it is safe, given the protections there…'

"I promise that if there's a real emergency I'll come right away!" Usagi interjected, jumping at the slight wavering of Luna's position. "Uh… hmm. Though I'm not sure… maybe you could call my mobile?"

Few animals have a glare both as eloquent and dismissive as a cat's. Luna demonstrated hers, and Usagi flushed in embarrassment. "I mean… um…"

'I'll get you a communicator,' Luna sighed. 'It's about time you had one, anyway. And… I'll allow the part-time job. For now.'

"Yay!" Usagi cheered, bouncing up and down happily. "I knew you'd come around once…"

'But,' Luna interjected, 'I'm still not going to help you in your next battle.'

"Wh-what?" Usagi stuttered, confused. Luna might be annoyed over her spontaneity in making the decision, and she might disapprove of her working in the shrine, but compromising the fight against the youma because of it? That seemed completely contradictory to everything she knew about her feline advisor. "Why not?"

'Because your next battle, once you get back to that shrine and then return home tomorrow morning, is going to be explaining to your mother why you were out late at night half a ward away. Not to mention how you picked up a part-time job in the process.'

… oh. Right. That. She'd forgotten about that. Yes, explaining all of this to Mama, along with the state of her school uniform and… and how she'd been breaking her grounding to go out in the first place… was going to be… um…

"… ahhhh! Luna! You're mean! Help me! No, come back! Luna! Luna!"

And as Luna flitted away into the shadows, Usagi's protesting wails rose up into the night behind her once again.

…