LoveInTheBattleField: thanks.

OrientalDanceGirl: you'll have to wait and see but they are there for a reason, the issues he's having that is. I've just written out the part of seeing their new enemy for the first time, going to be a mix of characters I've never written before so it should be interesting to say the least. And I'm fine, just trying to find the right guy for me to settle down with or convince the guy I'm currently having friendly relations with to settle down and accept that not everyone in his life is going to leave him. Yourself?

AimlesslyGera: thanks, there's so much to put into this already, I just want certain scenes to be believable for what's happened so far in the actual series itself. Its why I'm trying to make sure that the mythology is working out well to as I do pull from there as well.

3 reviews, that's nice, glad your liking this so far, things are about to get shaken up so please let me know your thoughts on what's coming next, I love to read what you all think, enjoy and please review! 😊

The end in the beginning ch.4

Mamoru POV

After we got done with that additional round of satisfying sex Usagi got up, with my shirt on her now as she decided to cook me a breakfast. Having spent the night over last night, asking Rei to cover for her, she got up early, something she'd gotten into a habit of when she began her job, and made me breakfast. It was French toast with a side of orange juice and coffee. I could hear her iPhone pumping out some music for her to dance to as she got the last slice done and, on the plate, a nice thin layer of butter between them.

I watched her dance as she had her hair messily up in a floppy bunnish looking do from our late-night carnal activities. I couldn't help but lean against the door frame cross my arms and grin at the sight before me. She was even singing along to it and while she didn't have all the lyrics down, she knew the rhythm by heart and was nailing and bopping along to all the bumps and beats that came in the song.

When she started to cock her hips out to the rhythm, I felt myself beginning to stir for her again, something that never failed when it came to her. I never let her know of my level of need for her before Galaxia came along. I didn't want to risk her tempting me anymore than she already did which was often enough. I know she didn't see it herself, but she was a highly attractive woman that any man worth his salt would fall over backwards to lock down.

Yeah I had a crappy way of showing it to her at first but had I not, if I didn't make fun of her at first, had I NOT been her frenemy and had I let her in so easily in the beginning, she'd have lost her virginity to me LONG before she actually did. That was the effect she had on me and my self-control. Before when she had it, I had to constantly restrain myself from trying to find MORE ways to be around her. More ways to fit into her life and be around her, with her, and wake up to this type of sight in the morning.

she spun around in the shirt she wore of mine as she finally noticed my presence, "Morning, thought maybe a nice breakfast would do us both some good for the day." I smiled, she never stopped trying to make me feel better about things. I smiled and already felt better today about things. Especially now that I got to hold her in my arms. I know I had to tell her about how I felt on the matter.

I looked at my cell for the time and found that we still had a good hour before I had to leave and before she had to be at school. Honestly this should have been discussed weeks ago, but I had some issues that I felt I needed to work through on my own before I spoke to her about them, yet I also didn't take into account if she had any issues with me being gone herself. She was waiting for me so we could discuss things together.

I sighed, "Usako...Usa..." I sat down at the countertop as she came around the corner and sat down herself, pouring some syrup on top of her French toast. She looked over at me and saw the expression in my eyes. Instantly she knew I was feeling a certain way. "What is it?" she asked, her hand going out to touch my arm. I relaxed at the touch and slid into the seat in front of her, "We need to talk about my time away. Where I was and what happened." she looked relieved, like she'd been waiting on this for a while.

I know I shouldn't have waited on this as I did but at the time I thought it was what was right, truth was I was afraid to show her any weaknesses and that's what you do when you're in a relationship, you see the good and the bad. "I felt like I was in a near dreamworld like state of unconsciousness. After Galaxia took my start seed, I knew I was dead. I had been dead before, but this felt...permanent." I explained as we stayed at the bar seats.

The breakfast lay nearly forgotten till both of our stomachs growled for food. I grabbed a slice of the toast and munched on it as I spoke. She nibbled on hers, chewing thoughtfully around the toasted bread in syrup as she listened thoughtfully to me, "I knew that my only way out was through you. I just didn't know when or if there would be a when." I could tell she wanted to talk but didn't as she let me continue to go on.

I put my hand on hers as I continued telling her about how I felt and how it felt to be in where I was. I watched her facial expressions change, going from a few different emotions in the span of a few seconds as I described how it was. The hardest part of this would be telling her of my own guilt in this as to WHY I felt this way...and WHY I felt guilty over it and WHY it was my fault in this.

I had held onto this for so long it felt both good and scary to get it out to her. I could only hope she'd forgive me. As I went along and told her all of my thoughts and fear all but what I knew was my fault I could see she was realizing there was missing pieces to the story I was giving her, I could see it in her eyes that she was curious and already wanting to question what lead me to thinking this about where I was.

So when I gave a pause that was for her turn to ask any questions she responded with, "Mamo - chan, maybe it's just because of the different perceptions of what we were living in at that time but, why do you think, why would Galaxia torture you or why would the cauldron do that to you if all she had to do was..." she struggled to find a nice way of saying 'kick your ass all over' as I knew that is exactly what Galaxia did.

In the span of a few seconds to. A few embarrassing seconds I might add. Could make one wonder what's more embarrassing, loose a fight THAT demand fast or when you're with your girl, or guy, coming to fast before you've even had a chance really to enter them. Both could be worked on but which one I wondered now was worse? Humiliation wise that is since obviously one holds more power and precedence than the other.

"In her world that she created?" Usagi manages to get the importance of the question out as I ponder my own stupid internal debate. Now I was going to have to admit to things and I braced myself internally for it. "Honestly so she could, or it could torture me for my failures in life. Not being able to protect and save people." that plane with its inhabitants comes to mind as I talk to her. I then take her free hand with mine.

"Not being able to protect you when you needed it. Not that I'm saying you need saving but..." she puts her free fingers to my lips, "I get it." giving me a small reassuring smile. I shove the last piece into my mouth before taking her free hand as she takes one last bite herself and hold it close to me, so she understands the depth that I was feeling about this. "I clung onto the hope that someday you'd find a way to get us out."

The expression in her face was stunned. I hoped I wasn't putting pressure on her for a past event, but I wanted to tell her the truth. "To save us. Galaxia, I know she knew this and instead of killing off that hope she used it. After all you can't torture someone who has nothing left to be taken away. At least that's what was going on inside my head." I tell her, Usagi responds with, "So she created an average world, with an average boring life that has all of your friends and family in it as torture."

You know when it's said like that it's hard to believe but when you think about it, as I did, it made perfect sense. "It had to be believable, so it had to be boring and normal. Aside from the potential new threat these days." we both acknowledged that. "Beyond that though, it had to have you in it and in it we were there together." for a moment I became lost in the memories of being in there.

Found myself breathing in deeply to remember that I wasn't in there anymore. It took her calming touch to pull me out of it. I looked up at her and smiled happily, "But after a little while I knew it wasn't real." I knew Usagi was going to ask how I knew, "How?" I only smiled that I already knew what she was going to ask me. "Because you weren't real. Your touch, your everything felt like nothing at all." she really had been more like a floating mirage in a desert when I was dead.

It was both saddening and gave me a sensation of hope that she was still alive. That seeing her meant that her memory hadn't yet faded. That it wasn't to late or anything. It gave me hope as much as it felt like it tortured me to see her and NOT be able to touch her or hold her. Much like I wanted to do with her right now. Hold her even as I was touching her. Her smooth skin making me want to touch more of her.

Even down to her syrup tasting lips that I suddenly wanted to kiss and nibble on. I would hold off on that though, wait until AFTER we get through this conversation before, we devil into anything sexual. "I know it sounds strange but that's how I knew then and know now that this is reality. That what I had experienced was from my time being dead in Galaxia's grasp." I was just a lucky piece in that puzzle though.

Thinking on it now, I was only able to leave and go back to Usagi cause of her actions against to help Galaxia freed all the star seeds that she stole. Since those weren't natural deaths they could be returned and freed. The rest where we were at weren't. "In there I couldn't feel anything. No touch, no sensation. Our star seeds remained undamaged so she could have unlimited supply to feed from." I saw Usagi's face.

Watched the emotions play as she took this in. The response I got though was shocking, "I'm sorry." that's when I saw the emotions come up fast. Her eyes started to water as she took it all in. She blamed herself. "I'm sorry I didn't notice sooner. I should have noticed something when I never got a call back or a text, anything. I let myself get subsumed into the new enemy at the time not knowing they were related to what happened to you." I took her in my arms to sooth her.

I never would have thought she'd take this as being her fault which just made me feel worse about what I had to say next, "Usako, there was NOTHING you did wrong. I promise you that this was - " but she cut me off, "How was it not though? I let it consume part of my life, I didn't reach out to the girls on it, I didn't tell anyone that I hadn't gotten a response really, from you till Haruka made an inquiry." I still held her but now wondered that myself.

"I have to admit..." she pulled away and looked up at me, "Part of me feared that since you were in the states that you'd either met someone else, someone more sophisticated than me or maybe...you saw that life beyond what we have was something you wanted more. That being here meant being stuck saving us from time to time. That it meant you were free to pursue your original goals in life." I was stunned she felt this way.

I looked at her as she continued on, "I felt so guilty that maybe being here was holding you back that I didn't want to tell the girls that I somehow might have driven you away. That that was the reason why you hadn't responded. I didn't want to admit to it and in failing to do so I feel like a part of me failed you." now my eyes were watering a bit, "Usako, trust me when I say this, you are NOT at fault here." she goes to talk but I cut her off this time.

"No! You're not. You know why? Cause I'm at fault." she looks at me in confusion not understanding why I'm telling her it's me that messed up and not her. She shouldn't blame herself for this, not when there was no blame to place on her. It wasn't fair, "I had a choice originally..." I admit, hoping she'll accept what I didn't tell her back then. What dilemma I had when I made such a life altering choice.

"Usa...both Tokyo University AND Harvard had accepted me." her eyes widened a bit, but words came out, "I decided on Harvard ONLY because it was my original plan to go with before we met. I had been planning on it for at least the last five years BEFORE we met. I pre-pared for it, planned it all out. I had everything set." I looked at her face as I told her what happened next.

"I applied there so that I could become the best doctor out there, to stop any other kids that I could from going through what I went through, but then I met you." her shoulders dropped a bit, almost as if she was feeling guilty now. "You made me realize that I could still be the best doctor out there no matter if it was Harvard or another of the top five schools in existence. So, I applied to Tokyo University to." she had a small smile on her face.

"It suddenly became clear; I could be my best because I had you in my life. Because of your encouragement. When I got the letter for Harvard in the mail accepting me, it was before the one for Tokyo came in, mainly cause I applied for Harvard in way advance before Tokyo, so when I told you about Harvard a strong part of me really wanted to stay here, I just wanted to be with you." I can see the shock on her face.

"So, when you encouraged me to go make my dreams come true, I knew that I had the most amazing special young woman out there. It's one of the reasons why I gave you this engagement ring." I toy with it lightly on her finger. Never once did I ever see it off her hand. She'd rather pick dough out of the silver parts than to take it off. It always made me smile to see that, "I knew that you were mine and mine alone."

now she was tearing up as I was, "I know it sounds stupid even to say it but, I knew a long time ago that you were my 'ride or die' chick, cause you were as hell bent on doing what was right even it meant sacrificing something on your end. You were willing to make the sacrifice of not seeing me every day for months at a time just to make me happy." she holds my hand now, our emotions beginning to get the better of us both.

"When we were at the airport that day and I gave it to you, seeing that look of emotion on your face, I knew in my gut I should have stayed here. I wanted to tell you that I couldn't leave yet when the intercom came on and announced my flight you walked with me to it. Strong as ever and I wanted to show you I was just as strong as you. I should have listened to my gut and stayed with you. Maybe if I had we wouldn't have lost the time we did together." I can't help but want to sulk a bit.

I can tell she wants to hug me but is waiting, it's as if she senses that I have more to tell. "There's also another confession I have. It's been on my mind for a while now." she encourages me to tell her, "I knew I should have called for backup that day. I should have called out to you, but I didn't, instead I tried to take on Galaxia by myself and died for my efforts. Had I made that call; those passengers might still be alive."

I might not have made it but she and the girls could have saved them...I push the last of my confession out as she takes my face into her hands, "Mamo - chan...you don't honestly believe that those passengers lives are on your hands do you?" I look to her face, seeing the shock and befuddlement, as if she can't understand why I indicated blame onto myself. "It's the truth Usako...Usa...had I made the call..." she puts her fingers to my lips to shush me as I seek out her watery eyes.

I don't understand how she doesn't see me at fault here. I saw it all to easily. "It's not your fault Mamo - chan, there was no way you could have called us." I was confused now but I know that this was my error. I know she was trying to assure me it wasn't my fault, but it was, "You don't know that." I try to tell her, to explain to her how this was on me. Those lost lives were ALL on me.

I bent my head down as she pulled it back up, a soothing small smile on her lips. "Actually, I do." now I was truly confused on how she believed that. Did she NOT understand what I was telling her? "The communicators that we have only work in our atmosphere. You would have gotten sketchy reception at best if at all. Hell, even cell phones wouldn't have worked as high up as you were. They call it airplane mode for a reason."

I arched a brow at her words and that's when I tried to recall how far out the reception really was on the communicators we used. Thinking on it now, would I have been able to get help had I tried? "Mamo - chan do you not remember when Rubeus captured the girls then went after me to get to Chibi Usa?" I nodded and felt annoyance creeping up at the reminder of it as I recalled it very well.

"Yeah I was pissed that you went off and got captured. I felt helpless being unable to find where you were and with no means of getting to you." I tell her, voicing my irritation from that evening, "I know you came back with the girls safely but still..." I voiced. "Mamo - chan, for starters I didn't go and 'get captured'..." she corrects me, "I went to confront him. Plus, I wasn't expecting for Chibi Usa to follow me." she mutters.

I remember she was irritated at that herself but what was done was done. "My point being, I didn't call for back up because I was out of range." she pulls hers out of her bag and shows it to me. A tiny little dot of green light shows up. "This little green dot shows that its online, that you have reception, BUT if there's no light at all, there's no communication to be had." it did make sense, much like the service on a cell if the reception is weak or dead then there won't be any service at all.

"I was up against a formal adversary who already had the girls pinned to giant dark crystal looking crosses, knocked out and drained of energy. It took me weakening him to get them released from his hold of them. When I beat him badly enough to get them loose, he activated a self-destruct sequence on board. He wanted to be able to take all of us down with him. It was only when he was out of sight that Rei commented on not making it back to earth since I was nearly tapped out." I was stunned to hear this.

I had never gotten the full story, just a summarized version of them winning before dispersing into the evening. We were just so happy to have a win after dealing with him and the sisters for so long, so I didn't question it. "It was Ami who convinced us to use our reserve energies to bring us all back home before the ship imploded from the inside out. Honestly we owe her our lives for that." she tells me.

Her eyes looking off for a moment, "That thing was obliterated seconds after we left. Point remains though that there was no reception to be had. I was trapped, isolated, alone, with a strong enemy on his turf. I had no choice, so I did what I had to do just as you did." she says as I ponder my own guilt and the reasons behind it. Did she have a point after all? She too was isolated and alone while dealing with an enemy.

Was she right? Would I have been essentially dead regardless? I wouldn't have LEFT the plane when she attacked so it's not like I would have jumped off the plane and skydived to earth for my own safety, who knows what she would have done with the plane or the inhabitants of it after I left. I didn't know at the time who she was or what she was after, not truly. Then there was the other question.

Would I really NOT have been able to call for them for help even if I had tried? I felt like I needed to try it myself but to get an accurate test I'd have to be in a plane at the exact time and location. The one factor that I couldn't replicate though would be whatever interference Galaxia caused at the time. For all I know she was causing a blockage that prevented any distress signals from reaching back down to earth. It honestly was feeling like a weight was gently being lifted from me.

Could it really be so that I couldn't have gotten a distress call out? That the events were going to play out regardless if I tried to call my Usako or not? However, one thing did sink it back down onto me. Even if I had and it HADN'T gone through, I would have at least tried and that was where I had failed at. I didn't try. "You have a very good point Usagi...you do..." I needed her to know how serious I was about this.

"But it doesn't matter if the call would have gone through or not cause the point is, I didn't even try to make it. I didn't try to call for back up. I tried to take on a new enemy on my own because I was arrogant and cocky. My pride got in the way and cost lives. Lives that could have been saved." I turned away from her at that point, not wanting to see the disappointment in her face as she came to the same conclusion I had.

To cowardly to see it, so when she placed her fingers and wrapped them around my chin and FORCED me to look at her angered face I gulped. Here it comes. "Don't you dare." her voice was low but stern, "Don't you dare blame yourself for that." my eyes widened now, "That wasn't you being prideful or cocky out there." she begins, making sure to enunciate her points as she spoke to me.

"Not when you were isolated yourself and fighting a new enemy, trying to protect people. No that was your natural urge to protect others coming to the forefront." her grip tightened on my chin as I shifted, "Look at me." I did, I fully looked into her heated eyes as she saw in me what I couldn't believe was still there. Belief. Trust. In me. It threw me off enough to not move away from her anymore.

"What happened on that plane, that was your duty of being a guardian of this world. You did what anyone of us would have done. You got up from your seat and took charge by doing what you could to ensure the safety of the passengers on board. You knew that the safety of the passengers were important and you went with your gut to help them over fleeing to help yourself. That's what pushed you to face her one on one." she tells me with such conviction that I can't stop myself from forming tears.

I accepted looking at her now and saw angry tears, "It wasn't arrogance. Galaxia was the arrogant one in the end. She got in a good shot on you and that was all. Fine you didn't win the fight but, in the end, we won the war and THAT'S what counts. I dare you to defy that." she quips as she drinks down her orange juice. "Now I've got to get ready for school." she leans in and kisses me softly but with a passionate twist in the end as she walks off to the bedroom to change her clothes.

She had some convincing points, and very true ones to, yet I couldn't shake the guilt I felt. I couldn't fully shake what I had going on in my head all this time. It's not as if one conversation can erase the month of self-loathing, I had been putting myself through. The month where I cherished her very existence in my life cause I thought in the beginning was a created fantasy to cause me further pain by ripping it away from me when I completely let my guard down and let myself feel relief and freedom.

I will always cherish her in my life, if anything that's one of the many lessons my time away has taught me. Its why I wanted to talk to her father at some point about her moving in with me in at least a semi-regular basis. Allowing them to get used to her NOT being there so much thus allowing us to be together more and NOT have to go through fibs and lies to let us have an evening or morning together.

Usagi POV

I close the door to his room as I take a breath. I know I should have told him how I was feeling about the plane crash. How the girls were feeling about it and how it made me feel but one, time was short since it was the am and I really did need to get ready for school so I wouldn't get detention and be late for my shift, and while Motoki was understanding of certain excuses repeats of them not so much…even from me.

Secondly, I could tell he really needed to get that out and I wanted to let him absorb my responses towards him before I told him how I had been feeling about all of it. Besides this morning was more of a reflection of what we had begun to talk about last night, about the plane and what had been discovered. I wanted him to understand that he wasn't the guilty party in this equation. He truly believed he was but really, the girls and I knew that despite how Galaxia got in we felt more responsible in a sense than even Galaxia herself.

We were so busy trying to deal with life and choose to deal with it over accepting a new enemy yet again in our lives, that we finally got a taste of normalcy again that her presence, her existence hit us hard for a definite moment. I mean when we thought Nehellenia was gone out of our lives we stopped training as hard as we usually did so we could take the moment of peace we THOUGHT we had.

We took our thought to be peace to be free from senshi life even for just a moment in time and ran with it. We buckled down in school got up the next grade, took up extra activities at school, we were leading as normal as a life as we ever had since we met…and it cost us. I shut my eyes and forced myself to breath in. It cost the innocent lives of those who didn't survive on the plane Mamoru was on.

I could only think of how if I had just told someone about the lack of communication, that I wasn't getting calls or texts from Mamoru even though I KNEW we said we would talk weekly I still ignored the lack of it in hopes that he was just busy with his new classes. We could have investigated Mamoru's non-arrival; the plane being missing. Fine we didn't know the flight went missing, we couldn't have known as it wasn't exactly advertised.

It's not like Harvard called anyone to say, 'hey where's Mamoru at?' because Mamoru has no actual next of kin, and his only family listed is Motoki and myself, but they never called either of us since we're not directly related to him. Motoki still has no idea about what all that went down, I know Mamoru wanted to tell him the truth, all of it, but wanted to also keep him from harm to despite my telling him that maybe if we let him, Naru, and Umino know, those closest to us that perhaps it could be better.

We could actually better protect them and help others to if they were to be attacked and needed the aid or something. Yet he decided that for now Motoki at least and the rest should remain in the dark. His need to protect everyone had come out during that particular discussion as I conceded to having it again at a later date. Point is Motoki and the others I felt by now should know especially since we'd been lying to them about this for years.

More to the point of that point is that Motoki had also been upset at what Mamoru told him what happened, or the lie that he gave to Harvard. Motoki wanted to write a strongly worded letter to the university, but Mamoru had to talk him out of it. Those two had a deep brotherly bond and I was glad he had someone to talk to about things. While technically Mamoru also had Haruka to go to, to talk to, I think since she teased him often, he decided against it. It didn't help that just to get under his skin she would occasionally flirt with me.

She, Michiru and I knew it was harmless, but I could tell Mamoru sometimes was a little jealous of my hanging out with them when the other girls weren't around. Not that he thought anything would happen far from it, he trusted all of us, he just wasn't a fan of her teasing at times was all, "You ready in there?" Mamoru called out to me as I nearly jumped in my skin, "Give me five." I called back as I got dressed for school.

As I left out of his place, I kiss Mamoru and tell him I'll text him later, "Let me know if you can come over afterwards." He says as I smile, "Of course." As I give him another kiss and leave. Once I'm out though I search our connection and feel how he's holding onto trepidations still. Not as strong as they were this morning but their still there. I hope that I'll be able to show him that this isn't his fault, that he's NOT responsible for it.

Yet I have a feeling I'll be seeing more of his books strewn about on the coffee table at some point. Proof that he hasn't let it go and is trying to bury himself in his studies to hide himself and try to take care of schoolwork at the same time. It's a practiced measure of his. He either hides in his studies or now hides in sex with me. While I love the sex, we do need to get it all out and he needs to accept that he can't save everyone.

I had to learn that long ago and to this day I regret those that we couldn't save, even Nephrite in the beginning. I still wish we could have saved him. The lives lost on that plane though, he did what he could given his options and tried to save innocent lives. I reached the elevator and used our connection to send love and happiness through to him. I looked back at his door as I stepped in and whispered, "Trust me that I'm right Mamoru."

As the doors closed, I sighed. This would be a long day and as I predicted it was. The classes seemed to take forever despite my interactions with my friends. I had a feeling it was because I had things on my mind but otherwise the day was the same as others, boring. So when we got out I made a deal with Ami that during my break at the arcade as we were going there now, that I would peak in to central where she would be at to see how things were going. It was going to have to do since the scan would be taking a long while.

She agreed as we went about the rest of our classes. It was later on after school when I walked over to the arcade for my shift that I nodded to her as she walked into the back to go through our secret entrance. I changed, grabbing the clothes I had in my little locker and putting my school uniform inside so I could work more comfortably so and NOT feel like I was still at school when now it was working girl Usagi.

Motoki had me taking care of customers as Unazuki was busy helping the cook make sure desserts for people since I had gotten many of those orders. I chit chatted with a few customers to make the wait seem like less time, so they didn't put up much of a fuss. After over two hours went by on the clock, we had already had a small rush of students coming in and lots of other patrons to make orders for.

I recognized some of them from high school but not a lot as I took their orders. After the small rush was done and it had been dead for at least fifteen minutes I decided to take that break, "Hey Unazuki can you watch things for my half for a bit, I'm gonna take five minutes." She assures me she has it, "No worries, but keep your phone on you, if there's a rush I'll send out a text." I nod and leave out through the back.

I slip on over to the secret entrance and go down the stairs to central where I see Ami with her glasses on hard at work as she sits on the chair closest to the main monitor and goes over the statistical numbers while scanning the various areas around. I look over to see Luna and Artemis also on nearby chairs to monitoring things with their little paws as they try to look and presumably at any anomalies they can find. I don't see anything remotely close to anything visible on the screen above.

It's both good and distressing at once as it merely means that whoever is here now is definitely laying low. Thus, making it harder for us to do our jobs to protect people if they're not being engaged. Granted we don't WANT them to be attack people, whomever 'they' or 'it' is but we do need to find them or it soon so we can figure out who were up against and what their agenda is so we can either stop it.

Helping whatever entity this is became mute the moment innocents were lost. They've taken lives and to my recollection while people have been attacked by our enemies before no one has actually died from an attack. The plane was the first and hopefully the last. I sigh, "Judging by the blank scanning screen I take it nothing is new or exciting." My sarcastic joke only earns a frown from a weary looking Luna.

her eyes along with Artemis's are obviously tired and despite the need to keep up the monitoring, are ready to take an extended break. "Well that's technically both good and bad news. No nothing is showing up yet, but we still have to finish the scan." She tells me. I take a closer look at the felines, "When was the last time you took a few moments to allow your eyes to shut?" I asked her as I walked up closer.

Her response was clear and cut, "Sometime last night. Neither Artemis nor I could sleep so we figured to get a head start once we heard about the new enemy." I frown at her, "Are we talking 10-11 or past 1am?" I asked as she looks to Artemis. He responds, "Closer to midnight." his admittance leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth that their so worried their losing sleep over it, "Yeah well a break is needed for you two then."

Luna made to protest when I cut her off, "You're not going to do us or anyone any good if your dead on your paws." another frown but seeing as nothing was on the monitor she reluctantly hopes off with Artemis in tow as they join where the rest of the girls are at while Ami yawns herself, "And how long have you been at it?" I ask her. She looks to me, "I worked to use the Mercury computer to enhance it." I arch a brow at her.

"It needed an upgrade, so I gave it one. Now any type of evil threat no matter how small will be detected. I came in directly after school and have been in front on it ever since." I still feel concerned though, "So why the yawn?" I ask, she sighs and admits, "I designed the program last night or technically around four am when I woke up. It hit me so I got right on it so I could bring it over." I nod my head as I usher her from her seat.

"Do I need to give you the same speech?" I tell her as she huffs in resignation and leaves her seat to go join the girls to. I look over to see that Minako, Makoto, and even Rei are on the couch, but they're not tired, not by a long shot. If anything, their the opposite, struggling to stay calm and not get anxious as the monitor shows nothing so far. Nothing for them to fight, nothing to hunt and go after.

It sucks to be a trained fighter and to be told to wait and hunker down till something definitively happens. You don't take a trained soldier and tell them to take a chill for hours on end. Not especially when you KNOW there's an enemy nearby that's lurking about waiting to make a more. There's bound to be a mistake made out of sheer boredom. "This waiting is a killer." Rei groans as she paces about, clearly agitated and waiting to pounce.

"It's a pain in the ass is what it is." Makoto snips, bouncing a ball against the wall. The dull thud of its repeat hits is enough to lull some of the others into a state of restlessness that keeps them from acting without thinking. Minako looks back and forth between her phone and the monitor, clearly unable to stop as the rest were. I look at it then at the girls, "Maybe we should take a more direct approach." I suggest.

This gets their attention, "How?" Rei as always is on board with a fighting with fire and bluntness approach, "I think we should set a trap of sorts. Let this new enemy think our guard is down." I start, "Let it think that we've ended our search and that we feel that it's not a threat anymore." I suggest further as Makoto stops bouncing the ball, "Let it think were weak, so it'll strike. I like it." she agrees as even Minako gets off her phone now, "This is based off the presumption that its watching us." she states.

I nod, "True, but it's also something we should try. I mean think about it. Yeah we investigate the sites of where an enemy has hit but we never, well not never, but how often do we actually try to lure then in?" the girls seem to think about this, "She's got a point." Makoto agrees, holding onto the ball in her hands, "We really do let the enemy come to us since they always have made that first move." Ami admits.

""Exactly I think this time we seek them out by acting like we've given up our search. Pretend that we're admitting defeat. Let it pops its head up and see physically what were up against." I advise as now Luna asks, "How are you so sure the new enemy will emerge while you guys act 'defeated'?" I look at them as we all give each other slightly tensed expressions before nodding their heads to let Luna and Artemis know how we feel.

They are our advisors after all. "Cause, after the plane crashed, we do feel a sense of responsible defeat after it. At least this way we can put a face to those responsible and make them pay for the lives lost and those hurt from the actions taken." I can see Luna's face soften at my words as Artemis says, "Then we need to be with you at all times going forward." he then looks to Ami as she agrees.

"We need to have that system connected to your communicators so that IF the enemy attacks we can be present and hear anything it might give away while you engage with it." I nod in agreement to what he wants. I look to my own phone now, "Okay as much as I'd like discuss the plans of what to do I have to get back to work, lets text it out so we can formulate this." the girls nod in agreement as I head up.

I saw Luna's pensive face before I left and knew what she was thinking. While she was glad that I had gotten a job and gained more responsibility at the same time duty fell to her first before anything really. Only the royal family came ahead of that and that was simply because it really fell in line with her duty moto. I did agree that duty was important, we lived it every day since I was fourteen, but we did have lives to.

We had to maintain them so we could survive and do our part in society to, not just be senshi 24/7. We were already on call all the time, regardless of where we were or who we were with, but we had to still be students, still be teenagers and still be there for friends and family. Soon enough more of the girls would get jobs and start to work part time to. Luna was only getting a taste of how things were with my part time job at the arcade.

What would happen when it was all of us working FULL time jobs? Would she put up a fuss or accept that while duty was a major priority, and innocent lives took the candle and the cake, maintaining our civilian lives and secret identities by having steady and stable jobs was a growing priority to. We were going to be graduating from high school soon enough and we already knew Ami would be going to medical school right afterwards full time.

I hoped though that Luna would start to accept all of our priorities in life and not just duty. They were all important. Don't get me wrong, I'd ditch work in a heartbeat to save an innocent and destroy a monster, it just doesn't meant that the job will still BE THERE when I return from that extendedly long lunch or dinner break and have the same repeat explanation to give if any at all to give to the boss I have.

Motoki's cool for now but everyone has their limits of what they can handle from an employee who's pulling a disappearing act on them all the time. So when it came to my job she wished I had more freedoms to come and go as I went so that duty could be before it but this was real life where regardless of WHO you were or WHO you knew, you still had to obey the rules and regulations of the work place.

Otherwise it could be seen as showing favoritism and could hurt moral in the long run. I had to explain this to Luna who wasn't too keen that I might have problems dropping a shift at the arcade to go to a battle or something if and when it happened and that if it were to happen enough it could result in a lost job or two and cause problems in getting future jobs because of that part of the potential history.

There's only so many 'family emergencies' one could use to explain away a disappearing act while you're on the clock taking care of either customers as I was or in the future when I had a career as a teacher to leave a class in the middle of a lecture to go fight a monster. I'd have a classroom full of students to take care and they would be as much of a priority to me as they should be.

So, I ignored her expressive gaze as I left back up the stairs. How Mamoru pulled off being his alter ego whenever he was on the clock at a job and got the call to save one of us, namely me, at all hours of the day or night was beyond me. Not to mention pulling it off if you're in the middle of a surgery or something equally necessary to NOT abandon at the first sign of trouble. That would be his career field after all.

These were things that I know Luna hasn't thought about just yet. Or if she has, she's not taking into account how this reflects or makes us look in the eyes of people that have NO knowledge of who we are as senshi and their trusty capped crusader. It's not like I can currently tell Motoki 'Hey mind if I ditch the rest of my shift to go battle a monster?' well if he knew WHO I was I'm sure he'd me go for that but he didn't.

However, he doesn't so I can't exactly do that. Recalling the fact that Mamoru seemed to make it happen for his side jobs had me curious on how he did it. I'd have to ask him about that sometime, right now however as I got back onto the arcade floor I pulled out my notepad and went to the first new table that had customers in it and took their order. Motoki nodded to me as he spotted me.

I smiled back as I went to the next table for more orders before heading to the window as I heard the ding of the bell signaling that the first set of customers food and drinks were ready to be served so my break was nicely timed out. I smiled and nodded as I left off for the customers to enjoy their meal in peace. I then looked out the window briefly and out at the rising moon as I wondered when this new enemy would make itself known.