*Our Maid manages to stand again* It's time for the almighty collective sigh. Now that we've all agreed that the Little Mermaid 2 was just about the worst movie ever made and that Chasing Amy is the only good romance that was ever made, and that the last chapter was filled with WAFF and my screen was dripping with syrup from all of that damn sap and well, um…Oh yeah! Things are actually going to happen in this chapter! Well, actually, it's quite the pivotal moment, and I'm sure someone's going to be mad at me by the end because um, well, oh damn, I'm not going to tell you what happens, just read! *collapses once more*
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The party was a blur of music, decorations, and people. Bulma had greeted the pair practically the moment they had entered, and whisked them off. Usagi decided that she had met more people that night than she knew at all. All of them seemed to be of great importance and had extremely long-winded names. She fought hard not to become too overwhelmed and finally simply resorted to smiling and saying, "It's a pleasure to meet you,"
She danced, she dined, she was interrogated several times over by various people she didn't even know. Rei was there, and she made it a point to talk to her quite a bit, and even succeeded in saving her from having to be interrogated a tenth time. The rest of the senshi were there as well, along with their significant others. All seemed to have found success after their parting of ways.
Ami was a doctor of some sort, one with a name that Usago could never hope to pronounce or understand exactly what they did, but from the sounds of it, she had become very important. She was engaged, and soon to be married as well. Makoto had opened her restaurant in Tokyo, as well as several others in Okinawa, and a second in Tokyo. She was also running a catering business that caused many members of the rich and famous to take notice. Haruka and Michiru had continued their wanderings with Hotaru in tow. Michiru painted and played her violin for various parties, with Haruka accompanying her on the piano. Haruka also continued to follow her love of speed and motor sports. Setsuna had not been there, and it was a surprise to no one.
Usagi listened to their stories, her mind reeling with the information. Here she was, listening to her friends' tales of their fame and success, and what did she have to say? She was secretary. She lived with her best friend who was also rich, famous, and had so much more than Usagi could ever hope to gain. She lived a sheltered, quiet life, where the farthest she ever really traveled was to the mall.
Up until that night, it had never really bothered her before. She had never truly envied Minako or anyone else that had more than her. When she had been younger, as Sailormoon she had always claimed that she fought only or love and justice. She didn't need power, or money, or material objects, just the love of her friends and family. But what she came to realize that night, is that when she had exclaimed all of those things, she had never truly meant them. She had had more than any normal person would ever have. She was a super heroine, with a star crossed lover, and a group of friends who would die for her. She had already had power, and fame. She had been promised a future of immortality, peace, and an entire city to rule over.
The ginzuishou was dying. She was dying as well. The future had sunk back into a darkened haze, full of impossibilities. Her lover was dead, and her friends had all left her in their own ways with him. She was powerless, alone, and had become another useless, normal person.
Was this what it was like to finally grow up? She wondered as another story began to be told, and laughter began. She listened, unable to shake the haunting thoughts from her head. Maybe she had begun to let go of her surreal morals, and begun to realize that the future that had been prophesized was really impossible. But then how could she just stand there at this party and pretend to be happy, carefree, and interested in these people? Why, when she was scared and helpless? She couldn't be with these people, for they were too far beyond her reach. How could she laugh as they did?
The sensation overwhelmed her, and she turned to leave. She had been right all along, it was a mistake to come.
She was not allowed to get very far. A hand reached out and halted her escape. She turned, facing her captor, trying to fight back the lump that was rising in her throat.
"Is something wrong Usagi-chan?" Michiru asked, her deep blue eyes showing their concern.
Usagi tried not to show her apprehension, and allowed the woman to hold her hand in place. Michiru was difficult for her to face, because there was little that could stay hidden from her gentle intuitive gaze.
"I'm fine, I just thought I'd get some fresh air, or a drink or something," she said, unable to mask her discomfort.
"Oh," Michiru smiled slightly in understanding. "It has been nice to talk to you again, we missed your smile the most,"
Usagi felt her throat tighten more. Why did guilt have to seep into her veins now? "It was good to see you again too, Michiru-san," Usagi managed a weak smile in return.
Michiru nodded, releasing her.
Usagi continued to flee, finding a door to one of the many gardens and slipping through it.
The small oasis was empty, and silent. Her footsteps on the stone path were the only sounds that echoed against the high ceilings. They halted, and with a small sob, she fell to her knees.
She sat there with her head in her hands for several minutes, before she heard footsteps behind her.
"Go away," she said quietly, not bothering to lift her head.
There was no response, but instead of hearing the sound of footsteps moving away from her, the quiet click of metal sliding against metal filled her ears.
Her eyes widened as she recognized the sound, and her heart froze.
The small explosion sent noises ricocheting off of the metal walls, and high into the ceiling, causing her ears to ring.
The white hot metal bullet tore into her shoulder, causing her to fall forward from the force, blood spilling onto her dress and trickling down her arm. She bit back the scream of pain that was working its way up her throat and hunched forward, gripping he injured arm.
The footsteps moved towards her again, quicker than before. A strong hand reached out and pulled her up. She was turned to face its owner, fear and adrenaline making it hard for her to think straight. For a moment she became lost in his empty ice blue eyes, beginning to wonder how it was possible for someone to have eyes like that, and how they were so oddly familiar.
The man tightened his grip on her forearms and lifted her up so that his face was close to hers, and her feet lifted slightly off of the ground. Her thoughts quickly shifted back to being simply of fear and pain.
"Where's the disk?" he growled, shaking her slightly.
Her head swam, and she was only able to mumble out a vague response. "What disk?"
His expression hardly changed as he moved one of his hands towards her bleeding shoulder. Her breathing stopped in realization as his thumb found its way into the bullet hole, putting even pressure against the torn flesh.
She screamed, beginning to black out from the raw pain. She remembered who he was. She had run into him a few days ago, he was the one who had been so rude to her when she had been knocked down, and her things had been dropped. But what disk? What was he talking about? Disk…the word rattled around inside of her head, and she had another revelation.
His thumb continued to probe into her still bleeding wound. They had both dropped things when they had run into one another, and both had picked up disks before leaving, thinking they were theirs. But Usagi had had his, and he had had hers. But that meant…this man knew about Tomoe, and Trunks…he couldn't be working with them…or was he? Was this Gero? She was going to die because of a mistake…
She choked back another scream. "I-I don't have it anymore," she croaked. "It's not here,"
He ceased his torturous actions for a moment, and then nodded slightly, dropping her.
The moment she fell, she scrambled to move away from him, thinking vaguely of escape.
He smirked slightly, raising his gun once more.
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The French maid is currently debating over whether or not to leave it at this…and well, seeing as the past two chapters were really short and stoopid, and this one's all exciting and should be longer and you probably can guess what will happen next…I'll keep going! Thank me later.
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Usagi sat up quickly, and felt her shoulder begin to throb. She examined it, noticing that there was a bandage now covering it, stained red from her blood. She looked around, trying to figure out where she was. She lay on a metal examining table, with all kinds of equipment and computers around her.
"You're awake!" Bulma, still in her dress, stepped forward with a relieved expression on her face. She noticed Trunks standing behind her, remaining silent.
"W-what happened?" Usagi asked groggily, rubbing her head.
"You don't remember?" Bulma asked, her brow furrowing.
"I remember being shot in the shoulder by a man with dark hair, and then-" she trailed off, suddenly thinking better of telling the entire truth. "I must have passed out or something,"
Bulma seemed to accept the reason. "Well, if it hadn't been for Trunks-san-" Bulma seemed to regret her words.
"T-thank you," Usagi said, though she knew that he was scrutinizing her. He didn't buy her excuse. She turned back to Bulma. "Is my arm going to be alright?"
"We removed the bullet, it should heal well," Bulma said. She was about to say something else, but was cut off by someone calling to her from the hall. "I'll be back to check you over," Bulma said, reluctantly following the call.
Usagi tried not to show her discomfort as she was left alone with Trunks.
"Are you alright?" he asked, stepping forward.
"My arm hurts," she said with a weak shrug.
"Can you think of any reason why you would be attacked by this man?" he asked.
"No," she lied, studying the table.
"You said you passed out after he shot you?" he asked.
"Yes,"
"But you screamed some time after the gunshot, how could you when you were unconscious?"
"Why do you care exactly what happened?" She asked suddenly, in anger. "I got shot in the shoulder, and it fucking hurts, quit interrogating me! I don't even know who the hell he was!"
"Well then why are you lying about what happened?" he asked.
"Where were you when I was getting shot?" she answered with her own question.
"Usagi, lying is only going to put you in more danger," he said, ignoring the question.
"Well then what do you know about this man that I don't?" she asked. "You seem to know a lot about him,"
"His name is Juunanagou," Was all he said. "And if he wants you dead, you will be,"
She stared at him long and hard, caught between her decisions. Did she really want to be hunted down and killed? But what would happen if she told the truth? Would she be killed anyway? "I can't tell you," she said softly.
Trunks seemed to finally lose his patience. He was too worried about her to play games. "Usagi, if you don't tell what the hell is going on, you will die!" he said, his voice raising. "I'm trying to help you!"
Usagi felt her resolve crumble. Her fear took over. "I-If I tell you everything, you promise, that you won't hurt me, or try to kill me, or anything like that?" she asked cautiously.
His eyes narrowed in confusion when he realized that she was serious. "Yes," he said after a moment.
She nodded slightly, and took a deep breath. "A few days ago, I took a disk home with me to print out some papers for Bulma-san. When I was leaving the building, I ran into a man, Juunanagou," she said softly. "He knocked me down, and we both dropped what we were carrying. Somehow, I ended up with is disk, and he ended up with mine. I went home and opened up the files, thinking they were just the papers for Bulma, but they weren't,"
"What were they?" he asked, though he had a feeling he already knew.
"F-files, things that talked about government experimentations, people with altered genes, things that I didn't understand," Usagi said, looking scared and upset at the same time. "I didn't mean to find out! It was an accident! I knew Dr. Tomoe for different reasons,"
Trunks was silent, so Usagi decided to continue. "Tonight, he shot me in the shoulder, and then, grabbed me, and asked me where the disk was, I couldn't figure out what he was talking about, so he-he grabbed my shoulder where he had shot me…I told him I didn't have the disk anymore,"
"So you know everything," he said finally.
Usagi was trembling form head to toe at this point. "I-I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, it was an accident, I shouldn't have looked at them, I should have told you or deleted them or-"
"Usagi," he cut her off, and gently placed his hands on her shoulders. "It's not your fault," 'She was going to find out sooner or later anyway,'
"I was just so scared," she whispered. "I don't want to die," tears that she hadn't noticed before began to slide down her cheeks.
The door opened, and Bulma entered. "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm not interrupting, am I?" she asked, her eyebrows rising as she caught sight of Usagi's tears.
Usagi quickly wiped them away, and shook her head. "No,"
"We need to discuss a few things," Trunks said, turning to his mother.
If it was possible, Bulma's eyebrows rose farther. "Well then, start talking," she said, pulling up a chair.
The past events were explained, including Usagi's two run-ins with Juunanagou, and how she had come to know about the experiments. Bulma listened quietly, though it was obvious that the wheels were turning very quickly inside of her head.
"So, now that you know about all of these top-secret things involving my husband and I, do you have any questions?" Bulma said finally.
"W-who is Juunanagou, and why does he want this disk?" she asked finally, not bothering to mention what a strange name it was to have in the first place.
"Juunanagou is an android that was created by Dr.Gero to wipe out the last remaining members of the Z Senshi project. The government saw them as a threat, and decided to rid themselves of them," Trunks said.
"Android?" Usagi echoed.
"Yes, the man that you know, Tomoe, was also involved with their creation," Bulma added.
"But Tomoe-san is dead! He was killed!' Usagi said in surprise.
"He helped with the androids mostly against his will, and when he tried to get out, he was killed." Bulma answered. "You might have heard of a few other deaths recently, the androids have been successful in killing almost all of them,"
"Androids? There's more than one?"
"Yes, two, Juunanagou, and Juuhachigou, a woman," Trunks replied.
"Only Vejiita, Trunks, and one of the other men's son are left," Bulma said. "I should call Chichi and get her over here, it'll be better to have everyone together," She stood.
"Won't they be after you to Bulma-san? I mean, you did help with the research," Usagi asked.
Bulma nodded slightly. "I know," She turned to Trunks. "I'm going to try to wrap up the party, try to tell Vejiita what's going on,"
He nodded.
"And Usagi-chan, you should stay here," Bulma added.
"But-" Usagi tried to protest, but Bulma had already left. She looked to Trunks. "Can I at least go home and get some things?"
"Sure, I'll take you," he said.
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The ride to her house was mostly silent, as neither was really in the mood to talk much. Usagi was trying to fight the urge to simply break down and cry at the total impossibility of it all. It seemed that she was never going to find peace. Things that always seemed completely improbable, unreal, and so very unlikely to happen, would simply appear, defying the odds, and give her hell.
She unlocked her front door and entered, barely bothering to flip on the light switch. She turned the corner that led to the kitchen, and halted in mid-step, a strangled scream pouring from her lips as she fell to her knees. Reaching forward with trembling hands, she touched the cold dead skin of Minako's cheek, stained red with blood.
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This chapter was such a bitch to write. And I'm sure you're all shocked and pissed or whatever, but what did say?! Didn't I frigging warn you that people would die?! Now there was something else I meant to say…oh yeah! One is the loneliest number. It really is. And there happens to be only ONE entry in my guest book, courtesy of the wonderful Miss Princess of the Monkeys, anyone care to make that number a little less lonely? Oh yeah, and I know there's not content, I'm working on that part…-_-;; Review if you aren't incapacitated. *falls over to join other shocked readers*