"Okay, so one last time!"

he drummed his fingers nervously against the edge of the table „She came in the early afternoon, played Sailor V, ordered a gigantic chocolate milk shake and a family pizza, inhaled everything and finally left without telling where she would go to?"

Motoki sighed, deeply worried about Mamoru's mental health when he was fanatically writing down some bullet points in his notepad.

"More or less, yeah."

He gave him a huffed look back. Mamoru didn't seem to be the slightest surprised by the reaction of his best friend and completely unaffected, he went on

"Can you recall the exact time when she got off the arcade?" He narrowed his eyes, waiting for an immediate and satisfying reply but he received nothing but a single shrug in return

"Mamoru, how come that you are you so obsessed with Usagi from one moment to the other? If you like, I can give you her number and you can call and ask her about her schedule for the upcoming week?!" Motoki decided to give him an ironic answer to his more than weird behavior.

"Frankly speaking, I have her number already." Mamoru explained unimpressed and added in his mind

'I am more than sure that her dream version gave me the correct number back then.'

"Oh, okay. Well, then help yourself. This is not my business."

Mamoru groaned but decided that Motoki was indeed not the right person to talk to as he seemed to be distracted.

'Probably a Reika issue.'

Mamoru explained again in his mind and nodded briefly to his best friend as he swung himself off the bar stool and walked out of the arcade.

While he was walking, deeply sunken in his thoughts, a familiar raven haired girl suddenly clung on one of his arms.

"Hey Mamoru! So nice to see you!" Ray put on her sweetest face she had in stock and didn't seem to let go of his arm at all.

Somehow, Mamoru didn't mind at all. He had just become a widower in his dreams, his best friend had no time for him in his real life, he had just discovered that he was a superhero named Tuxedo Kamen with something like a past life and there was no real-Usagi in sight. He felt pretty alone with all this chaos right now.

"Hey, is anything wrong with you?" Ray asked him lightly worried. With an artificial smile, he replied "No, everything is fine." and added in his mind 'I must find the Holy Silver Crystal. Only then I will be able to find out who I really am.'

Surprisingly, it was Ray who suddenly released her initially strong grasp. With blushing cheeks she excused herself.

„Uh ahh, Mamoru? I am sorry but I have to go...I just forgot that I'm having a meeting with some friends...I'll give you a ring!" She called out while she was running away as fast as she could.

He gazed after her, still sunken in his thoughts, but couldn't stay much longer in this special state when the tremendous pain in his head started again. This time, he made it into a little alley and after a few seconds, the masked hero jumped over the roofs of Tokyo, guided by an invisible power until he had reached a closed amusement park.

There, he watched the group of now four Sailor soldiers fighting against a youma. The unpleasant blonde floating bloke, which name was Zoisite he figured out within this fight scene, was holding a sparkling yellowish item in his hands. Mamoru narrowed his eyes, still hidden by bushes and trees.

'This must be another fragment of the holy silver crystal.'

He concluded in his mind. This time, the soldiers had been in majority and were more than able to defend themselves, so there was no rush for him to step into action as his transformed alter ego.

They even managed to get the shiny crystal from Zoisite who had to give up the fight this time when the youma decided to fight against the evil general. Grimly Mamoru left the battleground without any further action.

"She rainbow crystal should be in sort of safe hands for now. There it can stay for a while."

As it was late at night and Mamoru hadn't found Usagi at all, Mamoru was just tired and wanted to drift off into a restful sleep which he was granted throughout the night.

When he woke up in the morning, he only had a slight hint that he had stood again in front of this castle, looking up as Tuxedo Kamen to this mysterious princess but it hadn't been that new to him any longer what she wanted from him.

Besides, he was already on that mission. He had no idea how many of these fragments existed, but at least he had one, and so did the Sailor Senshi. Bad for the enemy, who were obviously also looking for the secrets surrounding the holy silver crystal.

This morning was filled up with a tricky exam but Mamoru was well prepared and wasn't nervous at all when he sat in a classroom of the university and started to write down the correct answers of the first questions of this test.

The studies had become something which was able to give Mamoru stabilization while the rest of his life seemed to fell apart. On his way back home, a picture of a couple hanging at the window of an art gallery suddenly caught his attention.

As if the artist had drawn him and the princess of his dreams.

'She...she looks like dream-Usagi.'

The realization hit him deep in his heart and painfully reminded him of the last dream he had when he was witnessing her funeral.

Mamoru was just about to turn around and step a little backwards in order to have a better look at the picture, when he accidentally bumped into a person. He looked down and noticed a little brunette woman picking up hectically some stuff. He rushed down as well and helped her to find her big glasses.

"Oh, I'm deeply sorry, I didn't pay attention where I was going." He hurried himself to say but got interrupted by the woman who made big eyes at him once her glasses were settled back on her nose and suddenly she grabbed his jacket.

"I...oh...well...would you..." she stammered nervously while she was busy fumbling on his jacket sleeves "would you like to pose for me?"

Had Mamoru understood her correctly? He was not sure but within the next moment this question was blown away when two Odangos appeared from nowhere and filled out the niche between him and the odd woman.

Frankly speaking, Mamoru didn't expect Usagi to show up in this situation. He couldn't decide whether he should hug her because she was so fantastically alive or whether he should shake her because she had evidently avoided him in the last few days. Actually everything was totally confusing and it got even more confusing when Usagi started talking

"Ahh ha, I see you are holding hands with her. I'll tell Ray about this!" She said by having a suspicious expression crossing her face.

"What? That's a misunderstanding, USAGI!" He pressed out hectically 'Ray isn't my girlfriend at all! This brown haired strange woman neither! I have someone already. Somehow.'

Before Mamoru would ever be able to send out this confession, he was interrupted by the woman who now was busy grabbing Usagi on her jacket sleeves when she took a closer look at her pretty face.

"Oh please, you'd be perfect for my next painting. Would you mind, modeling for me, please?" She asked by Bowing down deeply in front of the blonde pigtailed teenager.

Usagi was nearly freaking out.

"Modeling? I?!!!!!!!"

'Why not? You are the prettiest person I've ever met. You would upgrade any picture with your beautiful face.'

While he was mentally kneeling down and busy with worthshipping every of her breathtaking aspects in his mind, Mamoru hardly moved and said nothing of his thoughts out loud.

After she recovered from her shock, Usagi started to be fond of the idea being a model for an artist. As this woman probably seemed to be. Furthermore, she didn't make the impression at all to be a creepy gangster who would hijack both within the next second. Thus, Usagi's face changed to a rather benevolent expression.

"Mhmm, why not? I don't have anything else to do today." By saying this, she turned her face to Mamoru who was still standing next to her and had taken in a slightly protective position.

"Mamoru, would you come, too?"

It was out of the question to say no and as it had been the case so often in his dreams before, Mamoru would never be able to refuse a wish in reality to Usagi.

After a short walk, they arrived at a little house, surrounded by a beautiful garden. The woman kindly let them in and Usagi was instantly amazed by the lovely flowers and the general ambience the house welcomed them with.

Mamoru wasn't that impressed and received more and more the feeling that this modeling job was something he should add to his list of things he would never do in his life. At least not again and particularly not with Usagi.

He felt so nervous being so close with her and this model job wouldn't end up after ten minutes but would probably last to the late afternoon.

While the artist made tea and biscuits, Usagi looked around until she took a closer look at a painted picture. Since it was her natural character, she spoke her thoughts out loud.

"All those lovely pictures do look as the style of Yumemi Yumeno."

Suddenly they both heard a clinking sound of china shattering from the kitchen. Without hesitation, Usagi asked what seemed to be more than obvious now.

"Are you Yumeni Yumeno?"

Instead of an answer, Mamoru and Usagi had to listen to a kind of strange explanation.

"I want to let the people believe that I am pretty because how I do look in reality wouldn't meet their expectations when they visit my exhibits and look at my artwork.

'This is always the same crap! Why do girls believe they are not pretty enough?!'

Mamoru was quite upset with the way Yumemi was about to downgrade herself but got interrupted by Usagi who spoke out what he was about to ask the artist. More or less.

„Well, don't your family or your close friends know about you?"

Yumemi blushed by this question and slightly embarrassed, she turned her head to the side while she admitted silently

"I don't have any friends but I don't mind."

Without paying any further attention to the topic, she took a pink cushion and by laying it down on the wooden bench in her living room, she suggested Usagi to have a seat next to Mamoru.

Obviously this was too close for the pigtailed school girl.

"Next to this BAKA?! Nooo, not at all!"

"Geez, don't act like this!" Mamoru hissed back - by saying this he was touching the familiar verbal battleground - and turned his gaze to Yumemi "I don't want to model anyway."

This was making the browned haired woman look almost devastated and she begged at the bickering couple.

„Please, if you go I cannot find any new inspiration for my paintings. It's only for one day."

It was probably the rational and responsible part in him which let Mamoru stay and even Usagi didn't want to hurt the vulnerable artist any further when she finally took a seat next to her kind of arch enemy.

She seemed to be in her own world for a few moments when the blonde princess next to him started talking to herself, uttering a weird sentence like "It's Tuxedo Kamen I fell for and no one else."

Instead of giving Mamoru an appropriate answer to his question why she acted so strangely, Usagi turned away, crossed her arms and by flushing deeply, she pouted

"Thats not your business!"

'Oh hell yeah, you have no idea, Usagi Tsukino, how much you are of my business!!!'

was all he could think in response.