Yikes! It's summer and she's on a roll! This chapter is a tad bit unsettling, and was heavily inspired by Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. Which I'm obsessed with, by the by.

Episode 115: Er… I think this chapter retells what happens in the episode enough for you to understand it; I don't want to be too redundant. If not just let me know!

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;

Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;

Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:

The firefly wakens: waken thou with me.

~"Summer Night"' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"Mamo-chan!" Usagi cried, bursting into the apartment. "Mamo-chan, there was a - !"

"Oh, yes." He stood by the door to the balcony, gazing out over the street. His fingers pulled delicately at his cheeks; teeth gnawed in a slow circular motion on his lower lip. Time seemed stretched, gelatinous, distorted as if he were looking at it through a bubble. "Yes, I felt it, alright."

"So…" Usagi shambled over next to him. "So you think that girl – Hotaru-chan – "

"Hotaru?"

"Tomoe Hotaru."

"Tomoe Hotaru," he repeated, trying the name out on his tongue. "Hm." The firefly.

"So you think she could be… she could be… I don't know, who could she be?"

Mamoru bit down hard on his lip. "A – another Senshi? No… none of you exposed your powers before you were reawakened. So something… something dark, perhaps…"

"Not Hotaru-chan!" Usagi shook her head fiercely. "She's a sweet, kind girl. A good girl! A good friend of Chibiusa's…"

"Usako," he murmured, "you know that means nothing where the enemy is concerned."

"What about the Messiah?" she demanded, her eyes widening. "Could she be the Messiah?"

"Of Silence, though, or the one Uranus and Neptune are looking for? Well, they're looking for both, but…"

"Both?" said Usagi. "What do you mean, both?"

"Well, there's two Messiahs, obviously," Mamoru replied, beginning to pace. "One of Silence, which is what Rei and I keep seeing, and one who can vanquish the silence. Uranus and Neptune and Pluto are trying to find the – the Vanquisher, so to speak, in order to destroy the impending silence. And they thought that was you, originally, but – well, it looks like it's not."

"I'm sort of glad," said Usagi with a shaky laugh. "I – I'm kind of sick of having to vanquish things."

Mamoru chuckled. "Yeah, it gets to be a bit much, doesn't it?"

"So Hotaru could be either the Messiah of Silence or the Messiah of – Anti-Silence?"

"Sounds about right to me. If she's either of those, mind. She could just be…"

But neither of them could think of how Hotaru could get such power otherwise.

"Hey – you know, Mamo-chan – Uranus told us to stay away from her. From Hotaru-chan. She said… she said not to go near her, because… because Hotaru-chan said it herself. After she warded of the Daimohn, she ran away, she said she shouldn't see Chibiusa anymore. Why would Haruka-san agree with her? Doesn't she see that Hotaru-chan is confused? She needs help figuring out what's going on!"

"Either that, or she's dangerous," said Mamoru firmly. "Haruka might be overprotective, but she's also understands what's going on better than most of us. I wish I knew how, or I'd make her tell me…" He folded his arms in a menacing sort of way.

"That's right, Mamo-chan," said Usagi drily. "Go beat her up till she talks."

He rolled his eyes. "Hush, odangos."

Oddly, she had no retaliation, and together they stared out the window at the fading day.

"Strange," he murmured, "how everything comes alive at night."

"You mean the city?" she asked, her voice soothing and low.

"I mean everything. The air, the sky, the ground. Everything's realer. All the obscenities you only imagined before are suddenly so – so tangible." And the fireflies...

Usagi giggled nervously. "I think you've been reading too much poetry," she accused him.

He ignored her, too befuddled in the vast swarm of Feeling that enveloped him. "Usako," he murmured, "I'm afraid."

There's a simplicity in darkness, a simplicity that makes vision so much clearer than light.

"No, Mamo-chan," she said, her lip pouting slightly in confusion. "No, you don't need to be afraid…"

"But you don't feel it, do you?" he spat, suddenly frustrated beyond words. "Dammit, Usako, you don't feel it, tightening every day, getting harder and harder to breathe, you don't feel it pressing in on your head, hanging right above you, because it is, there's something coming and you – you have no idea!" His hand pressed tight against his chest, fingers clutching, clawing at the skin as if begging entrance into his ribs, just to have something to fill up the space – anything's better than emptiness and blankness and

Silence…

(So deafening it beat down on him mercilessly, like pounding faceless waves of corruption and destruction and death, it filled his ears and his eyes and his nose until he was drowning in it, swallowing it, and it soaked up his retinas, choked up his throat, filled his lungs to the brim, and it was all he could do not to scream – but even if he tried –

Nothing.)

"Mamoru – Mamoru! Snap out of it!"

A tight slap on his cheek brought him gasping to the surface of reality, and he found himself pressed against the door, one hand grasping at the glass, the other scraping against his skin, against his bones.

"God, that was scary!" Usagi whimpered, snatching his hand away from his chest. "God, Mamoru, you made yourself bleed…"

He glanced down numbly at his fingers, tensed and shaking in Usagi's grip, and found they were crusted with blood. "Oh," he said. "Gross."

"What was that, you baka?" Suddenly irate, Usagi stamped her foot on the ground and thrust her face up into what he usually thought of as, well, personal space. "What the hell do you think you're doing, scaring me like that? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I…" He gulped. "I… I don't…"

"You can't let it get to you, Mamoru, do you hear me? Because if you go crazy, I have nothing else to hang on to, do you hear me? Nothing else! So… don't… don't do that to me, God!" She whirled away, her chest heaving, his hand still firmly in her grasp.

"I'm sorry," he said, his mind still bland and syrupy and utterly confused. "I don't know what… it's just… it keeps eating at me, it keeps…"

"Nothing's happened yet," she whispered, pressing his captive hand to her cheek. "Nothing's over, nothing's begun. So don't let it get to you before you begin to fight, Mamo-chan. Otherwise it's already won."

"Already won," he repeated in a hoarse whisper. "No. No, it can't win. It can't. It can't take this from me." His free fist clapped against the bloody scratch marks on his collarbone. No one can take this from me. Not the world. Not my world. He stared down at the top of Usagi's head. Not her.

"Hey, Mamo-chan," she murmured, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb. "Would the other Messiah be, like, the Messiah of Loud Noises?"

He stood there for a moment, stunned into silence; then peals of laughter tore from his throat, and he pressed his forehead against the glass, cackling madly. He broke free of her fingers to pull her head against his side, and squeezed her tight. "God, I love you, odangos."

Bashfully, she smiled up at him. "I was kind of being serious."

"I know. That's why I love you."

She giggled and wormed deeper into his arm. "If that's the case, though, the Messiah would have to be Minako."

He cawed abruptly. "Yeah, absolutely. Or Rei, she can raise a hell of a racket."

Usagi shook her head. "Mina's louder."

"No, you're kidding! Rei-chan was designed for intimidation, of course she has to be –"

"Have you ever even heard Minako go on one of her obsessive rants? No, you haven't. So there." She stuck her tongue out at him. "Hey, you know, Mamo-chan, you're still bleeding."

"Yeah," he agreed, glancing down again. "That's really creepy."

But somehow he felt better, now that he'd torn through his skin. The fog in his brain, the fear, no, the terror, the deathly terror, had cleared somewhat, bringing him back to reality, back to simple things like pounding hearts and flesh and blood. Back to Usagi. And she was right. She was always right. He couldn't give in to Silence before the battle truly began.

He was ready.

So, seriously, you guys, if I start getting out of control with this taking liberties thing, please let me know. It's fun for me, but I don't know how it feels to read something and be like "...wtf where is she getting this from."

Thanks for reading! (And you guys have been AWESOME at reviewing recently - please please keep it up, I LOVE it!)

~SB