Dear All,
I hope you like this story so far...it has become one of my favorites and the reason lies in the upcoming chapters. With the following one (chapter 24), it's seven more to go. Enjoy and please let me know what you think.
"I have a vague feeling that I am working on a masterpiece!"
Yumemi said mischievously, mainly to herself while she had a peek at the non verbal scene presented in front of her showing nothing but two people deeply attracted to each other.
It had become very late in the afternoon and Yumemi had made great progress with nearly ten rough drawings of the couple in front of her.
Usagi took the opportunity to sneak behind her and looked over her shoulder while she was drawing with pencils.
"Geez! Is this me?!" She called out in utter amazement, left her spying position a few moments later and started walking through the living room.
"I really do envy you. It must be great to have such a special talent as you have. However, I want to be perfectly honest, I don't like it that you haven't any friends, though."
"Whenever I draw pictures, I wish that everyone receives pure happiness." She explained in return when she let the pencil sliding gently over the picture.
One thing even Mamoru couldn't understand and by saying out loud what he was thinking of her comment, he stroke a nerve.
"I cannot understand how you want to make others happy if you are not able to make yourself happy!"
He earned nothing but an incensed face from Usagi who replied to him pretty annoyed and by defending a stunned Yumemi, she taunted him
"You are a such a rude guy! Look at this lovely picture she had painted."
By saying this, Usagi had lifted up a painting of a couple and shoved it under Mamoru's face who nearly got a heart attack when he glanced at it.
'What? That cannot be true!'
It was again this insecure feeling if he was in a dream again or whether this was reality when he saw the painted couple in front of him.
Usagi blushed deeply by his emotional outburst but was calmed down by Yumemi quickly when she raised her voice to her models and explained.
"This scene shows a girl giving her lover a pledge of her love. I don't know either, but every time I draw this pair of lovers, I get very sad."
"You are so right Yumemi, I also feel very sad when I look at this couple."
Somehow, Mamoru had identified the star locket as the shown pledge of love.
'Why is it that it comes into my mind. Where have I lost it and why do I have this odd feeling that Usagi knows about this pledge as well?'
As it had become a kind of habit for Mamoru, being aware of things simply beyond his imagination, he decided not to think further about this. Perhaps sooner or later everything would make sense but definitely not now.
Half an hour later, Yumemi happily announced that she had finished enough drafts and this let Mamoru go. He was disappointed that the artist had decided to bring Usagi home but on the other hand he was relieved that he didn't have to spend more time sitting next to her.
"This was definitely enough torture for my heart." He murmured under his breath while he was about to cross a street. Something was holding him back to do it as intended, but when the pain in his head set in, Mamoru was fully aware of who was again in danger and needed to be rescued by him.
"Sailor Moon!" He sighed deeply once his transformation was completed.
"Is it you again who I have to protect?" He was mumbling this to himself while he watched the blonde heroine trying to escape strange flying stones which had been magically drawn by a blatantly very talented youma.
When a big stone was about to fell to the ground and therefore, ready to hit its clumsy target, a disguised Mamoru had stepped in a millisecond before the impact and successfully he had performed his famous damsel-in-distress-rescue-move.
Today Sailor Moon was not his main interest but rather a little sparkling stone which was in the hands of the blonde general of the dark kingdom, Zoisite.
He left the guardian of the moon without any further comment and followed the villain. Lucky him, Zoisite seemed to be in a combative mood and started the duel for the rainbow crystal.
With a simple trick, he froze Mamoru's capabilities for a few seconds and devilishly he threw a weapon against the masked super hero, powerful enough to hurt him seriously. However, this was destroyed by a golden shimmering moon tiara, thrown by no one else but Sailor Moon.
'She definitely has the same skills as Usagi when it comes down to throw a frisbee.' He admitted in his mind.
Quite upset, the evil general left the battlefield and escaped cowardly into the darkness.
"Sailor Moon, this time you saved me."
While she was walking towards him, the blonde girl dropped something.
Something precious. Something belonging to him and his past. Something connected to his heart.
When he tried to pick it up, he nearly touched her fingers as Sailor Moon was kneeling down as well in order to pick it up from the ground. She blushed deeply and said
"Oh, I guess this belongs to you."
"Princess!" It was just this single word which hit his mind but it stood for what his whole world was about right now.
"What? You know about our princess and that we are searching for her?" Sailor Moon gave him a bewildered but honest glance back.
"No, frankly speaking I didn't know about your mission but if you are looking for her, you better should keep this locket."
It was more than a feeling that Sailor Moon and her team were involved into what he was currently struggling with. For now and although he obviously had rescued her again and again, probably more often without even being aware of, he was not sure if the guardian of the moon was supposed to stand on his side or if she was his enemy. Particularly when it came to find the Holy Silver Crystal.
He was more than irritated when he heard her asking further.
"Oh thank you. Also, could you give me the orange rainbow crystal you picked up when we were in Yokohama?"
"No, I won't and please be advised that I can get your rainbow crystal any time! When it comes to those fragments...we aren't friends!" He hissed back and quickly escaped from this more than confusing scene. His mind was telling him that he had done the only right thing but his silent heart was nearly crying because of his rough behavior towards her.
Mamoru didn't know what time it was when he got home, and he didn't mind at all because that day was actually too filled with all the girls who were responsible for the catastrophic situation in which he found himself in.
"Sometimes I wish that the princess, Sailor Moon and Usagi were just one person." Mamoru muttered desperately to himself as he fell asleep. He knew that there was no longer any way to dream of Usagi and he no longer wanted to see the princess in his dreams.
Neither of them he met...but he was again in the Tsukino house when he opened his eyes. The comfortable couch of the living room had him back. In front of him a plate with a slice of the delicious lemon cake and a cup of hot tea, probably the mild green type which had such a tremendous impact on him in reality and in this second world he currently was in.
He was not alone in this room. A thoughtful looking Kenji was sitting in his armchair at the opposite side of the coffee table. By sighing deeply, he lifted up his sad gaze to Mamoru and spoke.
"Well, son. You came back for answers. This time it's your turn to ask the questions."
He cleared his throat and hold his little black notepad in his hands. Last time though, Mamoru hadn't noticed the little golden crystal printed on its cover.
"I...I...well, just...what happened?" He managed to say as he realized that this really could be an opportunity to find out.
"You see, Usagi always had been in a certain stage of danger because of this insane woman. Never I had assumed that this person would be able to make all of her threats come true though." On each corner of his eyes silent tears started to form. Kenji looked so vulnerable and broken.
"A woman? Which woman? What are you talking about?"
Kenji sighed again very deeply and finally he started to tell the whole story.
"Usagi had a kind of a stalker. Her name was Beryl, a young woman with bright red hair. She kept us fairly busy by sending us cruel letters that one day she will rule over this world and that she will destroy our little princess. We never believed her and in the first place it didn't look as if she would be that dangerous. If I had known that she was the whole time working on this horrifying plan to make her words come true, I would have attempted anything to protect my beloved girl."
Kenji had now proper tears in his eyes which were about to escape his endlessly sad eyes.
"Tsukino-Sama...please, what happened?"
Mamoru was startled. As if history had repeated itself again, that's exactly how it felt when he listened to the words of his dream father-in-law.
"The Moment it happened Usagi had just left your apartment and actually was about to meet up with Ikuko and me for lunch when Beryl came out from her hiding. She attacked Usagi from behind, without giving her any chance at all. It was a crystalline pale she was holding in her hands and it didn't miss its...target."
His last words nearly died as Kenji was visibly loosing his self control.
"Tsukino-Sama...how did you know what happened?" Mamoru tried to focus on the details in order to stay as calmed as possible. This was very difficult for him since he didn't want anything else but tell Kenji that Usagi was completely alive in reality and that this was nothing but a dream. However he had a feeling that he wasn't allowed to tell him and that there was a reason why he had to go through all this.
Something or better someone was trying to tell him a message through all his dreams. At the beginning he dismissed this thought but since the white haired guy had appeared when he was in Shinjuku, Mamoru had become fairly suspicious.
Thus, he urged Kenji to tell him as much as he knew in order to find out the truth behind all this...and was somehow rewarded when the dream version of Usagi's father explained
"There was someone who witnessed the attack and was able to tell the police about."
"Do you know who it was and why was I not there to protect her? I mean, she is my wife!"
Instead of giving Mamoru an appropriate answer to his questions, Kenji gave him a sad but honest little smile and pressed his hand
"The star locket will give you the answer. It is the connection to what is currently buried deep in your heart."
With a firm voice now, he added "Trust Sailor Moon. She will help you, and please...protect her. She needs you, Tuxedo Kamen."
In that moment of his dream, Mamoru wanted everything ... except to disappoint Usagi's father.