The Crystal Age

Chapter Seven


Rei twisted the ring on her finger. The clear diamond winked back at her with a clarity she wished she possessed.

It had been a long day, and she had waited longer than usual in the cold winter air to see if Ami would show up this evening. Ami had late classes on Tuesday nights, and often times after class the two girls would go to a noodle shop for a late dinner and a brief chat. Sometimes they would forgo the dinner for tea in Rei's room. But as the purple-pink of evening faded into the starry night, there was no sign of Ami.

Rei rubbed her hands together in warmth, slipping the mitten back over her hand again. She had been waiting to tell Ami something important. To see the reaction on the other girl's quiet features would tell her, somehow, whether she'd made the right decision in accepting Kaidou's ring.

She stamped her feet in disappointment, but there was nothing else to do. With a brief sigh that left vapor trails in the air in front of her, she turned back toward the long steps that led up to the temple and the home behind it.

As she placed her foot on the first step, a scurrying noise caught her attention.

She turned slowly, peering into the gloom. Something was watching her, not far away, in the undergrowth next to the bus station. Its eyes glinted in the moonlight. Rei held her breath, reaching for a slip of paper in the folds of her miko's robe.

The creature tore out of the undergrowth and Rei let out a blood-curdling scream. She threw herself toward the bus bench and the thing narrowly missed her, landing awkwardly on the steps behind her. Rei gathered herself up and found one of the temple brooms lying not far from her. She broke it over her knee to make a sharp point and pointed it like a spear at the thing.

Whatever it was scurried around the steps, righting itself, finding her again, and, with a nasty, slavering, whuffling noise, came at her again.


Mamoru and Usagi winced at the same time.

They had just said goodbye to Makoto, Ami, and Yuki at the gate of the university, and the silence had only just started to become awkward when they'd both felt the jabbing pain that signaled an attack.

Usagi blinked. She usually only felt this sort of pain if Mamoru was in deadly trouble. But there was nothing around them. Just a silent street, the full moon, and the light white blanket of snow.

"There's something - a monster - not far from here," Mamoru said, his voice tense.

"That direction," he pointed.

Usagi looked to see him pointing toward where Makoto had turned to go on her way to the bus stop.

"Makoto-chan!" she gasped.

"Go on," Mamoru prompted, fumbling to find his locket.

"Transform!" he told her.

Usagi stared at him, eyes wide.

"I-I-I don't know how! I mean, I never do it on purpose."

"Oh, great," Mamoru muttered. He looked at her, then back at where Makoto had already disappeared. Beyond them both, Yuki was still standing with Ami at the gate of the school. It looked like they were just staring at each other. Well, Mizuno-san was staring at the sidewalk and her face was red. He could see it from here.

Mamoru grabbed Usagi's hand and, still trying to get the locket out of his shirt, sprinted toward Yuki.

When he arrived in front of the couple, he gasped to Usagi, "Go get Makoto."

He gave her a nudge and she ran quickly after her friend.

"I - uh -" he gave up and just spent time catching his breath, feeling like an idiot.

"Are you alright, Chiba-san?" Ami asked.

He caught Yuki watching him like a startled owl, clearly trying to figure out why his friend had suddenly gone insane.

Then the locket emitted a subtle glimmer of light and Yuki's eyebrows snapped down, his eyes clear behind their lenses.

Mamoru breathed a sigh of relief. He knew that sharp look. Yuki's brain had finally rebooted.

"Mamoru-kun has asthma," Yuki explained to Ami, beginning to beat Mamoru on the back so hard he nearly fell over into the snow.

Ami's eyebrows rose in surprise.

"I would never have guessed," she exclaimed, "You really shouldn't run like that in cold weather."

"Exercise," Yuki went on, still pounding Mamoru on the back, despite the other man's attempts to evade him.

"He's thinking of trying out for the soccer team."

"But, Chiba-san, you can't try out for the varsity soccer team. It doesn't work that way," Ami said, very seriously.

Mamoru straightened.

"Thank you for reminding me, Mizuno-san," he answered, "Yuki -"

Yuki shoved Mamoru behind him so that the other man could surreptitiously take out the glowing locket.

"Yes, thank you, Mizuno-san, for your thoughtfulness," Yuki jumped in, "I'm afraid we'll have to go now. So sorry to be rude, but Mamoru left his name and sensitive information about himself with a person he thought was a sports recruiter, and we have to make sure he gets it erased as soon as possible. It was probably a scam."

Ami simply stood there, her face not betraying whatever she was thinking.

Mamoru coughed hard into his hands.

Ami's continued silence only served to encourage Yuki's recovered verbosity and powers of invention.

"Yes," he went on, taking a step closer to her and saying, conspiratorially, "I've told him before never to give out his personal information to anyone he doesn't know, even if they tell him he's going to be the next Shinji Kagawa."

Ami's eyes widened.

"They told you that?" she turned to Mamoru.

Mamoru opened his mouth, then closed it. Then he looked at Yuki.

"You've got to see him on the field," Yuki explained, jamming Mamoru's bag over his shoulder to hide the growing glow of the locket now in his back pocket. From down the street came the sounds of a trash can falling over and something that might have been a scream.

Ami turned her head to look, and while she did Mamoru threw a death glare at Yuki, who shrugged and grabbed the locket, stuffing it under his hat just as Ami turned back to them.

"I think someone's in trouble down there," she began, pointing in the direction Usagi and Makoto had run.

"We'll handle it," Yuki assured her.

"But-"

"I hope to see you again, Mizuno-san," Yuki went on, ignoring the fury and panic rolling in waves off of Mamoru.

"Y-yes," Ami replied, confusedly.

"Until then -" Yuki went on.

"See you in class," Mamoru snapped, grabbing the other man by the collar of his coat and half-dragging him toward the darker end of the street.

Ami watched them as they ran off into the night, heard one of them trip and curse, then saw a brilliant flash of light and heard a startled yelp.

She tugged her scarf a little closer to her face.

She knew this all had nothing to do with her. She should just go home, make some hot tea, put on her record of La Nozze di Figaro, and finish My Lady's Champion in the private luxury of a steaming bath.

She knew that's what she should do, but curiosity, as it always did, was getting the better of her.


"Transform! Transform! Transform!" Makoto was screaming as she smacked what seemed to her to be a demented, giant rodent over and over again with a piece of someone's now broken fence.

"I'm trying!" Usagi shrieked back, dodging the weak fire balls thrown at her by the other rodent creature, and trying desperately to stay where she was on the column she and the other girl, the temple priestess, had managed to scurry half way up.

"Your foot is in my face," the dark haired priestess snarled.

"I can't help it!"

"Have you transformed yet!?" Makoto bellowed, smacking the nearest rodent over the fence with a swing that would have made Sadaharu Oh envious.

Usagi was as close to tears as she'd been in the past three years. It had been a trying day. Saving Tuxedo Kamen from monsters, finding out he was a good-looking med student, almost working up the courage to suggest they meet up tomorrow, then getting attacked again and yelled at.

"Transform!" Rei and Makoto both shouted.

Usagi blinked.

"Do-do you know about the magic?" she asked the priestess.

"I don't have a clue, and, frankly, I don't care to," Rei replied, scathingly, "But she seems to think it will save our lives, whatever it means, and I'm out of ideas and ofuda."

Usagi took a deep breath and gathered all her will.

And fell off of the column.

As she passed Rei on her way down, knocking her off as well, she heard an unkind remark from the priestess and was convinced it was the last words she would hear alive. In that brief moment she was determined to come back to haunt the other girl.

"I don't think that will be necessary," someone said.

Usagi looked up and realized she was not dead. She was not even bruised. She was on top of the priestess, who had cushioned her fall.

The rodents were not trying to kill her. They were trying to kill the newly transformed Tuxedo Kamen and his fellow Phantom Knight, Zoisite.

"It's them!' Rei and Usagi chorused at once, then did a double-take to each other.

"You know them?" Rei asked, quickly.

"Yeah, I -"

Usagi was enveloped by white light and began to undergo her transformation as well.

Rei hastily scooted away from her and pulled herself up using a bench.

When Usagi opened her eyes, she was Sailor M again.

"Are you some kind of angelic being?" Rei asked. She'd gone to a Catholic school, after all.

"No," Usagi replied shortly, then raised her scepter until it was pointed at the nearest rodent. She said something Rei couldn't catch and a powerful blast of holy light errupted from the scepter, destroying the rodent spirit.

Rei felt as though her inner senses had been fried just from being too close to so much power. Her head was swimming from the sheer number of auras of dark and holy energy swirling around her. She started to feel sick.

She stumbled, and a rodent seized the hem of her robe.

Sailor Moon was already running toward Makoto who was hastily beating off three of the rodent creatures. She didn't hear Rei cry out as she was dragged down and away from the group.

She was tired. She'd been fighting them off on her own for a long time and the cold of the winter snow sapped her strength. She struggled, but not as strongly as she had before. She knew the shadow rodent would take her to a hidden spot and eat her alive. She had to fight back, but she was so tired.

She came to as she was jarred by the sensation of the warm, hideous spirit body of the rodent going flying over her head. Someone's arms were already encircling her, and she was lifted into a cradle hold and carried.

She shook her head to clear it of the dark energy residue and looked up at her rescuer.

"Kaidou!?" she shrieked.

The man who had rescued her nearly dropped her and gave her a startled glare.

"Please, there's no need to yell in my ear, princess."

"Princess?" Rei echoed, bewildered.

He stood still, still holding her, and examined her closely. Rei felt her cheeks grow red at the proximity of his face.

"You don't seem injured," he said, at last.

"I'm not," she replied, more calmly, "So, it would be best if you put me down."

There was a brief contest of wills. Or perhaps it was more, she realized, a preliminary testing of the strength of each other's will. Why did it all seem so familiar?

He put her down, gently.

"Are you certain you can walk unaided? The beast seems to have dragged you quite a length."

"I'm fine, thank you. But what on earth are you doing here, Kaidou? And - and dressed like that!?"

Rei stepped away from him as she realized he was wearing one of the uniforms of the Phantom Knights.

He seemed confused at her exclamation. He looked down at himself, then back up at her.

"I'm...dressed as I always am, princess."

"Why do you keep calling me princess?"

"Because you are a princess," he explained, slowly.

Rei felt her cheek twitch.

"Kaidou, " she began.

"That's an odd nick name," he interjected, "What does it mean? And when did we become informal enough to call each other by short names? Is that why you don't want me to address you by your title?"

Rei put her hands to her head. She was tired. She was injured. Was she possibly hallucinating? Was she really dead?

"Hino-san! Rei! Oh, thank god, there you are!"

Usagi, herself again, and Mamoru appeared a few feet in front of her.

"Wait!" Rei started.

But Tuxedo Kamen had already transformed again when he saw Kaidou in the Phantom Knight uniform.

"Who are you!?" he shouted, brandishing the cane.

Kaidou, or whoever it was, put himself in front of Rei.

"I am Lord Jadeite. The Commander of the East and sworn guardian of the heir to the throne. Who are you?"

The level voice in which he rattled this off made Usagi and Kamen give him another wary glance.

"Jadeite?" Mamoru asked, then suddenly his transformation was gone.

"Does that mean you're another Phantom Knight?" Usagi asked.

But Jadeite didn't hear her. When he saw Mamoru's face clearly, he broke from Rei's side to throw his arms around Mamoru. Mamoru found himself in a tight embrace, one that spoke of intense emotion on the part of other man.

Jadeite pulled back.

"My liege," he said, after a moment, "I never thought I - that is, I feared the worst after...after Beryl sent the hordes through the gateway."

"Beryl?" Mamoru repeated.

Jadeite swallowed hard.

"I can't even begin to beg your forgiveness. But, I swear that we fought her, Endymion. We did the best we could."

Mamoru blanched as he saw tears brimming in the other man's eyes. Rei felt her heart swelling with pity for him, even though she wasn't sure now that she knew who he was.

"Whatever you did," Mamoru said, carefully, "I'm sure it can all be explained. We all make mistakes."

Jadeite stared at him.

"What do you mean? We betrayed you to Beryl. We destroyed the Moon Palace. You were there. I was there. Princess Mars was there."

He gestured to Rei, who blinked.

"Princess!" Usagi whispered, half excited and half confused.

"That's not princess Mars," Mamoru explained, slowly, "That's Hino Rei, a temple priestess and a friend of mine. And I'm not a...uh...sire or liege. I'm Chiba Mamoru. I'm a college student."

Jadeite continued to stare at him.

"Do you recognize all of us?" Usagi asked.

Jadeite shook his head.

"You seem familiar, my lady, but no...If you say you are not the prince of Earth, and you are not princess Mars, then..."

He broke off and gave a low moan, clutching his head.

"Hey, are you alright?" Usagi asked, taking a step toward him. Mamoru caught her arm and jerked her back before a flash of light enveloped Jadeite, who began to shake and sceam.

With a blinding flash, he suddenly disappeared.

Rei, Usagi, and Mamoru blinked at each other for a long moment.

"What," Mamoru asked, at last, "Just happened?"