Moon Soldier Revolution

A/N: First of all, let me say that I'm terribly sorry for everyone reading my FF. I've been busy and distracted a while, and all I have to present you now is this horrible chapter. T-T Forgive me for making you wait, and I hope that you don't track me down, barge into my house, and bash my head in for it! I tried hard writing this chapter and I myself think it's not much. But please, be patient with me and I'm sure the next chapter holds even more excitement than it does mystery, as opposed to the previous chapters... But anyhow, please give me honest feedback after reading this. I don't have a very good feeling about this chapter. Those of you who've beared with me even now, I thank you very much. :-3

Chapter 10 - "No Sense in Reality"

It was a sharp feeling.

Her body was telling her something, like something wicked was near. "Ugh... wha..." Usagi turned herself around and tried to process what was going on inside her, because she already knew that it wasn't pain. Chilled and warm at the same time, feeling so nostalgic like a head rush... It felt like a really off adrenaline. She knew it wasn't the strange vibe-feeling from the weekend, because that felt way different than this. It was just something else... like the feeling she got whenever she was transformed into Sailor Moon and someone was in trouble, but again, like something else. A difference was that this feeling was more intense, and urgent.

What exactly does this mean then? She didn't understand. She wasn't transformed, but could she feel trouble even if not as Sailor Moon? Did she have an affinity for the spirits now? She took a few seconds to look around, but no one else was there in the temple. She knew she had come in alone and it had remained that way. The feeling, however, seemed to get less and less intense after she gave it a few minutes, almost fading for some reason. Had it just been a simple passing due to stress? It still seemed to be there, however. The air around the temple had just felt strangely negative to her, unlike the soothing and mysterious aura that had been around it when she had first entered it several minutes before. She had to ask herself. Could it be a youma presence? She'd snooped around the half the shrine, thankfully unnoticed, and spent only about a good hour as the visitors out front were retreating from the premises. Nonetheless, she had felt stirring anxiety within her again. As much as she would rather prefer not to, her mind was telling her to break out the gear and go Sailor Moon otherwise...or was it her insecurity telling her to do so? She wasn't sure about any doubt going against it, nor any question. This was a place of spirituality and religion. It could be just that and the mystical air that surrounded the place, nothing more. Maybe she was suffering from paranoia? It wouldbe a possible consequence from worrying about her alter-ego too much lately. Karma hated her after all. It just hated every single organ in her body, not to mention her guts as well.

Usagi thought it over again for another moment, trying to ease up on herself. She didn't like to think so seriously like some of the grumpy-no-life's that had worked at the magazine company alongside her papa, before they'd just moved to Japan of course. It gave her a headache and was absolutely no fun, which was why school was so hard for her to go through.

After giving herself a few more minutes, she gave her mentality a chance and reached into her book bag for her "secret" transformation brooch, cold and familiar in her hands. Looking at it, she couldn't help but remember how she was supposed to be "investigating", which brought her right back to it. The only problem was that there wasn't anything suspicious in the temple at all. There was nothing around that would give her a reason to suspect or accuse anything, kind of like that crime show so popular in America... CSI: Miami was it? Well, there wasn't any chance that she herself was a whole investigation team that could solve anything in time of a few days. So why was she doing this again?

She closed her fingers around her brooch and cleared her mind of all her useless regrets. There was no use thinking about them now, not when she was powerless to change anything. Wasn't this all supposed to be destiny anyway? Ordained-in-the-stars kind of stuff? That's what the Shittenou seemed to believe. All these powers and saving the world mission was something they thought was their purpose, their calling to the world, and the fate that the spirits in heaven intended for them. But how did they keep having so much trust and fidelity? To her, they were her brothers, and she'd always want to stand by them even if the worse got worse. One of the reasons why she was going on with all of this was because of them. They always seemed to have faith in her, no matter what. Letting them down wasn't an option, even if it meant her own relief and happiness...

"Usagi-san?" Rei's immediately recognized voice suddenly filtered through all the mush and broke its way through her mental revelation.

Nearly jumping in surprise, she whipped her head around and instantly responded at the sight of the lovely miko standing at the temple's general opening entrance down the aisle. "Rei-chan! You're finally done with...uh, priestess duties!"

X-X-X-X-X

Rei furrowed her fine, dark brows and gave a single nod at the blonde. The girl was friendly and "odd" in her own way, but for some reason, a tinge of annoyance came about her whenever she was around her. Not to mention, she was also still wary of the peculiar waves that emanated from her. Usagi sure seemed normal enough, and there wasn't much of a sign that she was something more. No doubt, she definitely wasn't a youma. Her senses weren't rubbing her that way, but it was sure something else similar. "I can show you around now, if you still want Usagi-san."

"Sure, I'm still up for it!" Usagi grinned a white smile, and for a moment, seemed to look as if she were radiating. Her long, blonde hair seemed to look more golden and silk-like, and her fair skin was almost glowing.

"What the-?" She widened her eyes and blinked several times, but it seemed that she had only seen a trick of the light. The girl was the same, chirpy new-girl in the neighborhood, although her head prickled a bit somewhere in the back when she thought so. Maybe this was a warning for the future nuisance this "Tsukino" would be to her, considering she became some part of her life, which was a fair one in five hundred chance. Her thoughts on this quickly dissolved though when Usagi looked curiously at her.

"Uh, everything all right Rei-chan?"

She swatted a hand. "Yeah, I'm fine. It was just nothing."

The smile returned on her small face. "Okay, then you were going to tour me around?"

Rei let herself smile a friendly smile in non-verbal response. For some reason, she suddenly felt odd and very comfortable being near Usagi, who was stood all the way down the aisle of the temple from her. "Come on. This way, before my grandfather comes out from the bath and brings out his pestering nature on you."

She motioned for her to come follow her, waiting until she caught up before heading out of the temple itself and walking around another direction behind the connected, Japanese-housing structures of the shrine's sheltering area. In other words, she thought it would be all right to show an outsider parts of the Hikawa Shrine that visitors couldn't normally visit.

"...So what school do you go to Rei?" Usagi asked. She was obviously trying to start a conversation so awkward silences wouldn't rise up between them while they walked together. She couldn't blame her for it though.

Replying automatically, she said, "T. A. Girls' Academy, a private, gender-specific christian school." It wasn't so bad as other girls would make it out to be. Girls who were crazy-hot over guys and couldn't control themselves were the only ones who probably wouldn't make it there, which was really immature and unruly. But she kept her comments to herself, knowing that the worthlessness they valued at would be nothing if she only spoke them aloud.

"That explains why I don't see you around my public school...eh... Azabu-what's-it-called." she said.

"Public?" Rei's ears perked up just barely. Perhaps she'd already met Makoto and Ami? Before she could ask, she heard a sound coming from the side of the structure's wall lining, designed in traditional Japanese style. It sounded like irritation and angry bickering.

"...can't be here! I told you already!" came a familiar male voice. But hearing it agitated and vexed made it sound just a tad different.

Another male voice, hot in the dispute as well, followed after that one. It was weird though, because this one also sounded a tiny bit familiar. Her stomach seemed to turn over in response to it, not in the "stomach-turning-over-feeling-sick way" either. "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't come here to see you, whoever the hell you are. I came to see Rei!"

"How many times do I have to say it to you? Get lost! Do you want me to spell it out?"

"How about I let you spell things out while I continue with my own business here? I think it sounds reasonable to me."

Usagi raised an eyebrow. "Jadeite?" She slowly inched forward in wonder and curiosity until finally taking off to the obvious.

Rei went after her in the same direction. She followed the sounds of the voices, and found the two guys at the other side of the house. It was easy to tell they'd been having some serious disagreement, the way they stood with tension-filled auras pulsing around them so heatedly. "Yuichiro-san?"

"Jadeite! What are you doing here?" Usagi made a face at the curly blonde one she'd recalled seeing Saturday. But Yuichiro jumped at her before Jadeite or anyone else could have a chance to speak.

"Rei! You wouldn't believe this guy!" He threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. His over-grown hair bangs swept from his eyes when he talked to her. "I tell him it's closing time, I kindly ask him to beat it, and then when I try to get him to leave-!" He turned and shot an accusing finger at Jadeite. "This is one of your admirers that just one quit!"

Jadeite narrowed his eyes and grabbed his finger. "I don't need some low-life like you talking trash about me." He yanked him back holding his finger and nearly made him fall over, but more like making his nose graze the surface of the solid ground.

"Jadeite!" Usagi hurried over and tugged on his arm to release Yuichiro. "You'll hurt him!"

His eyes barely took another glance at him, but at Rei instead. "...Sorry about that."

Rei frowned. For some reason, she wasn't too worried about her grandfather's apprentice. She still knelt down and helped him up though. "Baka, Yuichiro." She muttered under her breath. "Couldn't you feel the waves coming from this guy? He's definitely not the average stalker."

Yuichiro turned his head towards her and pouted, pretty pissed. "I'm protecting you Rei. But this jerk was..."

She shook her head. "Don't go getting yourself in a fight, baka."

"...wrong with you? Why'd you do that to him?" Usagi's raised voice suddenly caught her attention, implying that she had been whispering beforehand and had unnoticeably increased the decibels of her voice.

She looked over at both blondes in a private conversation, but could already hear so many fragments of it that she had a bit more than a clue of what they was talking about. She stood herself back up and straightened up her posture like a respectable miko. "Hey, Jadeite right?"

The guy immediately answered, his foreign-like features turning her way. "Yeah, Jadeite." He smiled.

She was a bit taken aback, a little weirded out by the sudden flash of pearly-whites from him. What kind of a creep was this anyway? She studied him for a minute or two. Again, she thought he looked like a foreigner who spoke fluent Japanese. His eyes were a dark green, like olive almost, and skin a light complexion. He had a good body frame that gave him the masculine approach, which also led her to believe that he might be some aspiring model. He didn't look too bad, and the more she analyzed him, the more...the more her head got fuzzier. She scratched her head. Ugh, I'm gonna get a headache soon from all this crazy nonsense. "You seem to be a friend of Usagi-san's, so I'm not just gonna throw you out of here. But you should leave and come back tomorrow during visiting hours."

Jadeite's smile melted into a frown, and his green eyes seemed to dull in sadness. "...Fine. I'll go." He turned and began to walk in the direction past her, Usagi tagging along by his side with her a concerned expression developing on her face.

"Uh, sorry about all this Rei-chan!" Usagi said, trying to apologize with a "sorry" smile. She stopped in front of Rei and rubbed her shoulder awkwardly. "Maybe I'll take you up on that tour next time?"

Rei hesitated before nodding in agreement silently. Then she watched as Usagi waved and ran after Jadeite, her blond odango-twin-tails flying behind her in the air. With a grimace, she wondered why she felt so weird inside watching them go. For a split second, she had the urge to reach out and call them back. She took a step forward, but stopped when she felt something bulky under her sandal. "What the-?"

Yuichiro took notice to her immediately. "What is it Rei?"

She didn't respond. She moved her foot and raised an eyebrow as she picked up a jewelry type of ornament from the ground. It felt warm in her hands, like someone had been holding on to it a while before her. She examined the ornament and found shortly that it was some kind of pin or brooch. It was gold and encrusted with lightly-colored jewels, like pale pink. "...This is probably Usagi's. She must've just dropped it right now."

"That girl that just left?" Yuichiro ruffled his already-messed-up hair. He looked down the path leading to the Shrine's top flight of steps, empty. "They should be somewhere down towards the bottom. You should hurry if you want to catch them."

Rei nodded, clutching the brooch in her hand. "Right. I'll be right back then." She began to walk forward again. This time, she had a reasonable purpose. But as she walked, she realized how...awkward it would be to face them again. Or perhaps, to face that Jadeite who was with her after she'd sent him away. Either way, she willed herself to stop and squeezed Usagi's brooch tighter. "Maybe it's better next time then."

X-X-X-X-X

"Jed?" Usagi knew there was something wrong with him. He wasn't acting like his usual, crude, happy-go-lucky self. But as she looked up at him, he wouldn't say a word. They'd just left from the Hikawa Shrine and he wouldn't utter anything, not even a complaint or an offensive joke. The somber expression on his face was really beginning to scare her. "Tell me Jed, what's going on with you?" Her hopes weren't high that he'd respond, especially after she'd already tried several times. As she thought though, he didn't speak.

Jadeite's shoulders were slumped, and the way he walked wasn't exactly his normal pace. The way he was moving was more like shuffling his feet and looking straight ahead, which looked very much bizarre coming from him, who was actually a big egoist. He and the rest of Shittenou had more than a bit of egotism in them, even if they didn't realize it. So it was just abnormal to see any of them dragging their feet around like a loser.

She made a face. It was like she wasn't even there. "Talk to me Jadeite. I don't want to have to see that look on your face all the way home."

He didn't budge.

"Hello? Hellooo!" She reached up to wave her hand in his face. "I'm talking to you!"

Jadeite didn't twitch or make any sign of notice to her at all. He was a humanoid robot.

With a sigh, Usagi took his hand in hers and stopped in her tracks on the pavement. He walked on for a moment, but as soon as his arm went back as far as it could, he stopped as well. Her way seemed to work well when he turned his head back and finally spoke.

"What are you doing Usagi? We should get home before dusk comes catches up to us." He said in a normal voice. The only thing off was his tone, blue and low-spirited.

She squeezed his hand, larger than hers, and shook her head. "Okay, you tell me right now. What was going on back there at Rei's temple? And what's up with you now? Seeing you like this is...is not Jadeite! Did something happen yesterday? This morning? Something I should know about?"

"..." He stared at her. There was obviously something on his mind that bugged him, and he looked like he wasn't go to spill it all. "I'm just not having a good day Usagi. Can you give me a break and leave it at that?" He did his best to give her a pleading smile, which only dented her determination to force him into the truth.

Usagi gulped. She seriously hadn't expected any of this business to befall upon her that day. But it wasn't a bump in the road she could just ignore. Slowly, she dwindled inside to sympathy. Whatever it was that he was so down about, he probably wanted to deal himself for now, and she was powerless to do anything about something if she didn't have the details. "No fair Jadeite. You win."

A feeble attempt at a smile from him made sure that she wouldn't bug him anymore...for now. "Come on. I'm really fine, Usagi. It's best if we both get home though."

She forced a nod, but she was worried about him already. Not as a youma-fighting partner, but as a close friend and brother. "If that's what you really want."

He nodded his head as well. "Yeah, it is." He looked straight-ahead and started walking up the sidewalk again. "So let's go. I'll keep holding this hand of yours so you won't make a klutz of yourself like you usually do."

She let herself walk again, smiling. She had a feeling that he was actually feeling better holding her hand, but he, the macho Jadeite, just didn't want to admit it.

X-X-X-X-X

Zoisite cursed yet another swear under his breath, balling up both his fists.

He'd been sulking around the human's dimension for a short while, which was too much of a while anyway. He despised such a world with individual energy everywhere but not being put to good use. Everyone, wasting their time and incredibly short life-spans on useless otherworldly possessions and pitiful emotions... It was a despicable, vile sight to behold. But he had no choice but to bear it. After that unexpected extra visitor at that sacred temple place, he'd been unable to return. If he decided to go back to the Negaverse early, and either the servants or Queen Beryl noticed, he would need a very convincing and reasonable explanation as to why. What was worse, Queen Beryl did not like explanations for anything. It was better for him to dissipate his time here than to upset his queen.

He closed his eyes and cursed again.

For a little over an hour, he had been roaming the streets of Minato-ku in disguised, human form. It was the sensible thing to do if he was going to spend more than just a little bit of his time in that world, as what Nephrite and Jadeite had done. But they were inane fools to do so, especially Nephrite. Jadeite himself had already been a complete, mindless, failure to begin with. So it was expected and predictable that he'd eventually fail. The thought even made him snicker and chuckle to himself victoriously over one-upping him. As for Nephrite, he had become just like a disgusting human. If he had not spent so much of his time around these revolting creatures, he wouldn't have gotten so emotionally attached. It was such a sight to see what had become of him, mating with a human. His fate of disgrace and ignominy was far worse than Jadeite, whose fate was only pitiful and full of shame. Nonetheless, they were both just useless tools thrown from the box.

"...totally attractive..."

"Kya, he's hot!"

The effeminate voices made him open his eyes again. He stopped in his place, in the middle of the pavement somewhere downtown, and turned his head, hate accelerating faster through his veins. He was right. Two females watched him with eyes of excitement. They looked like they were in the stage of young adults, tall and thin. But it didn't matter to him what they looked like.

Almost unwillingly, he pasted on what seemed like a friendly smile for them. Before he could fall sickeningly, he spoke to them with a low, but menacing and threatening voice. "How would you like to die? The end will come about you soon, so live your petty lives while you can, bitches."

The women froze and widened their eyes in terror, perhaps more horrified and disturbed by his tone than the words spoken.

Zoisite, satisfied, slipped his hands in his pockets and calmly walked away. He hoped he'd branded those harlots with an unforgettable fear, as was the same for all the other humans that had thought to bother him earlier. "Fame and fortune" was what they'd offered him, more what he saw as faceless women. What use were those things to him? Besides, the power for this universe was already claimed by his one and only queen.

He continued with his casual walk, not stopping for another human again. As he reached a turn of the street, he found that more and more people seemed to be around. He became feeling increasingly unpleasant and aggravated. The only thing decent thing, perhaps, was the fact that the time intervals were becoming late and the sky was gradually fading into darkness. In other words, night was falling and taking away the wretched light of the sun. If only Queen Beryl were to at last conquer Earth, the shadows would last for eternity... He thought with pure malice.

Soon enough, Zoisite reached what was known as the "finer side of town", where everything was more scenic and picturesque to look at. He squandered more time, contemplating on destruction and malevolence as a smaller part of his mind took him walking around randomly. What could be done to achieve that goal quicker? He kept occupied to himself, doing all in his willpower to pretend he was somewhere else, rather than where reality actually had him. However, he could no longer take anymore, as he soon realized the number of human eyes on him while he walked. How dare they take advantage of his ignorance? He stormed off quickly, into the nearest empty, secluded location he could, which was an alleyway between a bakery and a cafe business. Once hidden, he promptly steadied the energy inside him, leveling every nerve to the same degree. Before another breath could be taken, he transformed and dropped his human disguise. He was Zoisite again, clad in his grey uniform and given General attire.

"You all make me sick." He muttered with a dirty look on his face, then jumped up against the walls of the alley in a zig-zag fashion. He made it to the roof of the cafe and put more effort into the last jump. It resulted in success as he steadied balance and floated in the air.

Zoisite gave a last, sweeping look over the town. He was now, more than ever, ready to return home. His eyes looked at each of the humans' faces, different, but all the same. No matter what individual personalities, appearances, statuses they all had, they would still be all the same. "Each and every repulsive..." He trailed off and turned his head back for a second. He made a face, seeing a strangely familiar face below. "That face...couldn't...be..." He teleported at lightning speed before he could stop to consider, closer to the ground again, but still floating up. As much as he wanted to return to the Dark Kingdom again, what he caught with his very own, unmistaken eyes was the most outrageous thing he'd ever seen in a long time, and worth it as well.

Short and curly blonde hair, sharp green eyes, that exact same figure... "That same face...no...it must be someone else!" He felt horror-struck, his insides balling up into the smallest size they could manage. It can't be...it cannot... "You're gone Jadeite!" He noticed himself shaking, but it was no lie that he saw his old rival walking down the pavement alone, blending in with human clothing and looking like any other on the street. How could this be? In a fit of anger, confusion, and disbelief, he teleported right into Jadeite's path, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and teleported again before anyone could notice a thing.