Twisted Fate
A Sailor Moon Fanfiction
Version: 2.0

Chapter 3: The Underbelly of the Airport

By: Azurite - azurite AT seventh-star DOT net
a.k.a. The Artist Formerly Known as Andi (or Andromida)

Site: seventh-star DOT net

Written for Mamo Day on the SMRFF Mailing List
lunap DOT com SLASH smrff

Edited: 08-31-09

Disclaimer: Sailor Moon does not belong to me. It is the property of Naoko Takeuchi and is licensed by Toei Animation, Kodansha Publishing, and probably a bunch of other companies that I'm not 100 percent sure or aware of. This is a not-for-profit entertainment venture only.

Author's Notes 08-31-09: Please see the Author's Notes in Chapter 1.


Usagi could barely see a foot in front of her, and was using her tactile skills to ensure that there was actually a shaft in front of her. There was a soft humming far in
front of her and to the left, and if she continued going towards it, she was sure they'd find an opening into the terminal.

It wasn't important WHERE in the terminal they ended up, just hopefully somewhere near the gate where Shingo's flight had arrived.

Mamoru, luckily, had a glow-in-the-dark sports watch, and confirmed for Usagi that indeed, Shingo's flight had arrived about five minutes ago. Usagi could only hope that her little brother wouldn't be too worried; judging from what Mamoru had said, he'd been babbling about the hundreds of things that could have happened to her; empty speculations as to why she'd left her cell phone at home.

'The goofball didn't think I was just as tired as he was and left it at home?' Usagi paused a moment to rub her eyes, adjusting slowly to the level of darkness surrounding
her.

Behind her, Mamoru paused, realizing there was no longer the tmp-tmp of Usagi's knees on the metallic shaft's surface. He had been desperately trying to focus anywhere but right in front of him—as his position directly behind Usagi gave him quite the view of her rear—despite the fact that his build put his head a good thirteen centimeters above her backside. Regardless, even in the dark, he could sense her movements, and the earlier sensations of brushing against her were too much to handle.

He couldn't risk it.

After all, she'd broken up with him for a reason.

Reasons, actually, he mentally corrected himself, since Usagi had practically given him a lecture when she left him. He had to say, it wasn't much of a surprise—but
knowing that didn't lessen the pain any.

After they'd broken up, Mamoru had tried to come up with a hundred excuses why everything she'd said had been a lie. That hadn't worked any, for as Mamoru
tried to enter the dating scene once again, he kept on thinking of her…and everything that had attracted him to her in the first place.

So then, he reasoned, the key was to forget about her.

He threw himself into his studies, rising through the ranks of the law firm where he had been interning, quickly gaining popularity with the counselors as well as the partners. By the time he completely graduated law school and passed the bar, he was already on his way to getting his first case.

And that had been just over four months ago. To think, only half a year ago, he'd still been with her…still…

'Snap yourself out of it man!' Mamoru chastised himself, following Usagi in silence as once more, she crept forward. The sound of her knees thumping softly on the metal echoed, as she kept heading to who-knows-where.

"Hey, Usagi." Mamoru paused, his knees aching from the past eight minutes of crawling nonstop. She didn't register his hail, other than to cock her head slightly in his direction, a movement which he only noticed because of the faint light source in front of Usagi.

"Usa!" he repeated, and she stopped, this freezing rather than even slightly glancing his way.

Usagi sighed and hung her head, wishing her heart wouldn't race every time he called her that.

'He didn't even say it affectionately, you fool. He's probably got a girlfriend now, and whatever you felt—whatever you thought you felt—in that silly bathroom was just… just a fluke.'

And yet, it felt like she was lying to herself. She shook her head almost mournfully, trying to rid her own inner chastisements about why she'd broken up with him out of her mind.

"What?" she sighed, finally flopping down as they reached a wider segment of the shaft. She hugged her knees to her chest, wishing that the fifty-some-odd meters they had ahead of them would simply vanish.

She wished that she HADN'T run away from seeing Mamoru, hadn't reacted so foolishly…hadn't gotten themselves locked in that stupid bathroom! Maybe then none of this would have happened.

How foolish she was.

"Where exactly are we going?" Mamoru asked slowly, thinking he'd upset her with his harsh tone of voice. It was bad enough she'd run away from him when she saw him in the terminal in the first place—run right into the bathroom, and started crying. Had he really hurt her so much?

When they broke up, it had seemed like Usagi was the cold and callous one. If women praised a man with sensitivity, then it seemed Mamoru had more than he ever gave himself credit before. While his one high school friend Motoki had told him to "lighten up" and "get out more," women flocked to him regardless.

Back in the day, Mamoru had been so focused on his studies—getting into a good school, obtaining a scholarship, and juggling his two part time jobs—that he hadn't had time for dating. That didn't change the fact that he found himself swarmed by admiring girls—many who were just as intelligent as he.

But he couldn't bring himself to even feign interest, not even for Motoki's sake.

After they'd broken up, Mamoru tried to think of reasons why Usagi was the flawed one—and yet whatever he thought of as flaws were truly human traits… and she'd been through so much in her life, more than he ever gave her credit before.

If he'd secluded himself from the world because of his own tragedies—losing his parents, and his memory of childhood—then she'd done the opposite upon experiencing pain and loss. He hadn't really known Usagi until they'd broken up— and he found himself mourning her, despite his initial anger, like a precious thing lost
to destiny.

But he'd tried to forget— tried to move on…and for the most part, it had worked. He had a social life not unlike like his high school days. Between preparing for cases, writing statements, and gathering witnesses for his clients, he didn't have time for much of a social life…let alone romance.

Many of the lawyers and partners went to a bar every Thursday, but for the year or so he'd been with them—and for the four months
he'd actually been known—he'd declined every outing. It just… wasn't his style. He was probably jeopardizing his potential for moving up in the firm because of it, but he could never feel comfortable in a bar with other men, getting drunk and hitting on local office ladies or the young bartending girls.

In any case, here he was now—with a woman he thought he'd never see again; never feel anything for, after how she'd hurt him…and wishing he could find some more intelligent words to say than "Where are we going?"

"…the shaft." Mamoru blinked, his mind finally registering that Usagi had responded to his question, and he hadn't been paying any attention.

"Say it again?" Mamoru repeated, cringing.

Usagi glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes, blinking at his obvious inattentiveness, and slowly repeated what she'd just said.

"Judging by the length of this from the bathroom's grate, there should be another opening about fifty meters and to the left of the shaft."

Mamoru blinked, envisioning what she'd just said in his mind. Indeed, there was a slight light source coming from somewhere in the distance—fifty meters was a good as guess as any.

"How do you know?" Mamoru asked, not wanting to be stuck in the shaft any longer than he had to. Despite it being an air ventilation shaft, spring in Tokyo was cool, and the fans often were left off, especially at this early time of the morning.

What was more, the metal absorbed the heat of the high-ceilinged airport terminal, so inside the tunnel was like the inside of an Easy Bake oven.

'Excuses, excuses!' Mamoru's conscience reprimanded him. Ever since that blasted elevator incident when he was nineteen—the day he'd asked Usagi to become his girlfriend, no less—he'd never been able to stand dark, enclosed spaces. The only thing keeping him sane right now, as it had been back then, was Usagi's presence.

Usagi wiggling in front of him as he was was just adding to the stress and perspiration creasing Mamoru's brow.

The fifty meters were soon covered, as Usagi had started crawling again as she spoke.

"I saw some plans for the airport back at TIA—Tokyo Industrial Architecture, if you don't remember—and the ventilation shafts are roughly seventy-five meters in length. Then they're supposed to divide into two segments one going out and down towards the main terminals, the other going towards the port suction, where there's a fan that could essentially hack you into sashimi." She paused for effect, mentally noting that the light source was getting closer.

Its luminescence was off, however. While the terminals and the bathroom had been glaringly bright, with fluorescent bulbs lining nearly every square meter of the ceiling, the shaft was dark, and the strange light that Usagi had been following looked like the reflection of a dim bulb on aluminum.

They rounded the corner in anticipation, Mamoru looking at his watch once more to make sure they weren't too late. Amazingly enough, they'd only been crawling for about twelve minutes now, and so if Shingo wasn't waiting for them at the terminal, it was a good bet that they could find him at the baggage claim, or perhaps
at a coffee machine.

Mamoru was just coming around the corner himself when he heard a distinct groan.

"Usagi?"

The aforementioned girl didn't respond—but she started hitting the metal with her fists, in a classic angry-at-the-world pose.

He glanced up to see what had enraged Usagi so—and he gulped as he found a light bulb attached to a single concrete wall—and it illuminated a sheer drop that went down at least one hundred meters.

Fate really loved them this morning.


Bleh…okay, not so much WAFF or much of anything in this chapter. But that's okay, because there will be flashbacks aplenty in Chapter 4! I'll come out with that as soon as possible…and I apologize for the last-minute quality of this… I knew I should have written it sooner!

Once again, Happy Mamo Day to all!