She's not herself tonight.
Not at all.
Instead she has deep chestnut hair like Makoto's, with shaggy bangs falling across her eyes, tickling the already itchy fake eyelashes weighing down her eyelids.
The music is right beside her ear, thumping, so loud that it takes on a cottony quality and makes it feel far away. On stage, the light piercing her is blinding- the faces in the crowd are indistinguishable, just shapes in the dark. She doesn't know yet which one she's looking for, or if she's looking at all. This is only her second night at the club, and she's still in her trial phase. She realizes coldly that she has nothing planned. This is all whim and rage.
This is so easy. Usagi doesn't know whether to be proud or ashamed. She rakes her neon blue painted nails down her bare breasts and sighs for the men closest to the stage so they can see them rise and fall. That she can do this so easily, no shyness, just the Luna Pen's convenient adjustments recolouring her hair and eyes and erasing her telltale freckles, is something she'll think about later when she's at home in the shower. She can wash away the pen's enchantment and the sweat and glitter and doubt.
Again she lied to Mamoru, even though he would be out working that evening. She made up a friend this time. A friend of Akane's she's not sure exists, but insists does. This girl has dark brown hair with bangs, and danced with Akane. This girl is still in the scene. This girl still comes across yakuza bosses on the floors of the clubs she works. This girl gets close to them, to Akane's killer or killers.
Out of sight, but no doubt watching, the club owner is appraising her body as it sways and undulates against the cold metal pole pressed between her shoulder blades and softly insinuated between her ass cheeks. Usagi looks out of the crowd and can't make out eyes. Someone in this room knows something, saw something, knows someone, saw someone.
A few low-energy tricks that only take a little practise help her midway up the pole, and she closes her eyes on descent. The body the owner is appraising is toned and capable from battle, but rounded and padded from her love of sweets.
Usagi feels a new sort of power on the stage- one that transcends the feeling of putting down a youma in a strangely visceral way low down in her stomach. She tells herself she can afford to savour it because it's only the pretense for her real power, which is justified as justice itself.
Men. Power over men. Something she already has in her flirting, flouncing everyday manner with them when she gazes up through her eyelashes and they get flustered trying to hold doors for her or offer her seats. This captivated audience that has something or someone she wants is at her disposal in this way, and only in this way. She crawls on all fours to the lip of the stage. She knows she doesn't know what she will do yet, if she gets the chance.
Closer.
This power will get her closer.