Twisted Fate
A Sailor Moon Fanfiction
Version: 3.0

Chapter 4: Sucked In

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 the WAFF vs. TAFF 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.


Mamoru wasn't sure what to say.

What could you say to your ex-girlfriend who'd just been trying to pick up her brother from the airport because he'd had a red-eye flight from the States coming back from college for his first spring break and inadvertently got the two of you locked into a bathroom and crawling through a ventilation shaft?

Mamoru sighed. Too long a thought, no possible answer.

"Usak-" Mamoru stopped himself, cleared his throat, and spoke again, "Usagi, maybe we should just turn around and try finding another route."

Usagi sighed, her head hanging. At this rate, wouldn't Shingo be smart enough to try finding a taxi and heading home? With or without money, he could probably get Ikuko-mama or Kenji-papa to pay the driver when he arrived at the house or something….

She felt terrible. It was all her fault. Maturity be damned, she still couldn't find it in herself to remember to bring her own cell phone when she went anywhere, and if it hadn't been for that ONE silly mistake, she and Shingo might be on their way home by now!

But instead, she was stuck in a dark, hot shaft with Mamoru. Her ex- boyfriend.

While crawling through the darkness, she'd tried desperately not to think of just who it was behind her—but she could sense his movements, could hear his breathing, and almost prayed that he'd speak, just so she could hear his rich baritone addressing her again.

Geez, how silly. There was a reason she'd broken up with him. Reasons, actually. They both knew it. Why then, was she suddenly feeling so guilty about the whole thing? To be sure, she hadn't expected to see him again -not any time soon, and certainly not tonight, on a simple trip to pick her brother up from the airport. His face shocked her so that she'd run into the bathroom crying. CRYING! That wasn't…that wasn't who she WAS anymore. It wasn't who she'd been for a long time.

Six months ago…it was an odd feeling of "long ago" and "just yesterday." And yet, the pain, like a wound re-opened, still seemed so raw.


"…We can't do this anymore, Mamoru."

Mamoru Chiba stared at the back of his girlfriend of six years. She was trembling, fists clenched at her sides, yet Mamoru couldn't approach her. Something about the way she was standing told him not to come nearer. He'd never—not once in six years!—felt this way around her, and it frightened him.

Why was she…?

"I've been…thinking about it for a while now, and I just…"

Usagi turned around, trying to mask the tears threatening to fall down her face. She'd worked so long and hard to build up this resolve, to tell herself that she didn't need Mamoru anymore—didn't need his attitude, his arrogance—when he ever had time for her at all!

They…they were both busy people, and romance didn't fit into the equation. Admittedly, his being with her throughout high school had helped her some, but she'd always had the nagging pain at not being able to experience that life like her friends had.

Chasing after idols, drooling after her male classmates… instead, she'd thrown her all into being with Mamoru, convincing so many people that they were right when… when they'd been wrong, all this time!

"I can't do this anymore! It's over! We're through!" Usagi spun on her heels and ran off, leaving Mamoru standing in the middle of the park—past the rose garden, near the lake, where their secret spot lay—and never looked back.

Had she, she might have seen Mamoru fall to his knees, a small red velvet-covered box tumbling out of his hands and opening in the grass, revealing a heart-shaped ring surrounded by diamonds.


Usagi flopped onto her rear and sat down, her profile illuminated by the single light bulb affixed to the concrete wall. She was a mere five feet from the seemingly-bottomless drop to parts unknown, and yet her face didn't show fear—just exhaustion.

"I want out of here as much as you do, you know." Mamoru griped, noting her frustrated and exhausted expression, sitting down across from her.

Usagi glanced at him, and noticed how tightly Mamoru was holding his knees against his chest. She smirked slightly, glad to see that the "indomitable" Mamoru actually had some sort of weakness.

"What, too cramped for you?" Usagi grinned, chuckling.

"YES!" Mamoru practically yelled, his voice echoing off the metal in the shaft. Usagi blinked twice, somewhat frightened that he'd reacted so…loudly.

His voice echoed a few more times before the shaft fell silent once more, and the two were left sitting inside the dim vent. Suddenly, there was a strange thumping sound, then a slight whirring, far away from where the pair sat.

"W-What was that?" Usagi murmured, her voice barely above a whisper.

Silence reigned for a minute, before Mamoru spoke.

"I've hated cramped spaces…ever since that time in the elevator. You do remember it, don't you?"

Usagi raised an eyebrow, wondering what that had to do with the strange noises they'd just heard. But then she realized what 'time' Mamoru was speaking of. She looked away from him, hoping the dim light bulb didn't reveal her blushing face. Oh, she remembered it all right. All too well…

At that particular moment, her kneecaps were much more fascinating than anything else at hand, and time seemed to go by slowly. Right then, getting out of the silly air vent didn't seem so important.

"Was it really that bad?" Usagi murmured, her eyes drifting shut.

She remembered that day, six years ago…


"Hey, Mamoru…! What's going on!?" Usagi had persistently followed him all the way to the Starlight Tower, wondering why he'd been acting so weird and talking all vaguely earlier.

"Usagi, just—just go home!" Mamoru yelled back at her, barely looking in her direction.

If he did, then maybe she'd see, maybe she'd be able to tell—but he just kept walking. Biting her lip, Usagi stomped after him, shaking her first at him all the while.

"No! Not until you tell me why you've been acting so strangely ever since I saw you earlier!"


"Ma-Mo-Ru!" Usagi giggled as she placed her hands in front of Mamoru's eyes, effectively preventing him grabbing his coffee mug, since he couldn't see where he'd placed it. The last thing he wanted to do was make a swipe for it and spill it all over his expensive law textbooks. He'd gotten them second-hand, but they were still more than he could afford. He was being cheap as it was, worming his way into Motoki's good graces and taking advantage of being his best friend: it meant free coffee whenever he came to the Crown Game Center and Parlor.

Mamoru rolled his eyes underneath Usagi's sweet-smelling palms.

"Hey, Meatball Head, mind letting me get back to my coffee?"

"Geez, Mamoru-san! I'm not Meatball Head, I'm Usagi—and why do you always have coffee? It's the middle of the afternoon, the start of a glorious weekend…!" Usagi threw her arms up in the air and spun around on her toes, twirling enough times until she was dizzy and toppled into one of the stools near the counter.

"Hey, Motoki-niichan, can I get two chocolate shakes?" Usagi called to her "older brother," the best friend of Mamoru and the son of the owner of the Crown Game Center. If it hadn't been for him, Usagi and Mamoru never would have met. It had been at a party that Motoki invited them both to that led to them ever laying eyes on each other.

"Right at you!" Motoki grinned, sliding the glasses towards Usagi. She caught them with amazing deftness, handing one to Mamoru while she sucked happily on the straw of her own.

"Here."

Mamoru looked at the bubbling blonde, one eyebrow raised in wonderment.

"Usagi…?"

The aforementioned girl, whose twin buns atop her head did suspiciously resemble a pair of meatballs with spaghetti ponytails flowing from them, suddenly stopped sucking and looked at Mamoru, surprised.

"You…you called me Usagi!" Before Mamoru could cover up his slip of the tongue with another fabricated insult, Usagi's face blossomed into the most beautiful smile he'd ever seen. She almost glowed.

Mamoru swallowed a lump that suddenly formed in his throat, quickly looking away and decidedly downing half of his shake in one swallow. He needed to cool down—suddenly he was very hot…

But why… why had she smiled at him that way? Why was his heart suddenly…?

Mamoru finished the shake before this dangerous train of thought could continue any further, and he quickly rose from his seat, grabbing his books and satchel on his way out, a mere wave of his hand signaling his departure to both Usagi and Motoki.

"Th-Thanks for the shake, Meatball Head!" And then he was gone.

Usagi followed his form as he walked past the glass windows of the arcade, noticing him pause slightly, and then break into a sprint.

"What the…?" Usagi's expression became quite confused as she sucked up the last of her shake up and quickly tossed a few bills on the counter before rushing after Mamoru.

"That's strange, Usagi didn't even play her favorite game," Motoki observed, taking the bills and the empty cups. "Oh well." He smiled as he headed away from the window, the tail end of Usagi's pigtails disappearing from view.


"I wasn't acting strangely!" Mamoru insisted. This time, he faced her, trying to muster up a stoic expression—an uncaring, bland expression that would make her angry at him again, and cause her to run away.

He hated being the cause of her tears, but…

"You were too! You've never called me Usagi before, and you just ran out like that!" Usagi shot back, defending her position adamantly.

She sure was determined…and Mamoru found it harder and harder to resist her shining blue eyes and slightly pouting lips. Ever since they'd met at that party, she'd intrigued him. She was quite a character—jubilant and cheerful, strong-willed and stubborn. And a klutz. But…

"I'm not listening to this anymore," Mamoru griped, and strode purposefully towards the tower, his pace quickening.

"Hey, Mamoru, I'm not going to let you get away that easy!"

Usagi dashed after him, the two so absorbed in their thoughts that neither noticed the sky darkening and the rumble of thunder echoing in the distance.

The inside of the tower was suspiciously empty that afternoon, especially considering the observation deck at the top was quite the tourist attraction. Often the Tower was rented out for big events and conventions, so the place was almost always packed with people—students, tourists, salarymen…

Mamoru tried to ignore Usagi's voice as it called to him, echoing off the high ceilings. It didn't work. Instead, he tried to rhythmically tap out a pattern on the buttons for the elevator—but Usagi's running closer—the loud tap-tapping of her feet as she neared him—drowned out the sound of his fingers tapping. Or maybe that was his heart pounding so loudly in his ears…

How was it that a mere slip of a girl, a silly, klutzy blonde named Tsukino Usagi, age 15, could do this to him? He was 19, he was mature, reserved… they were like night and day. And yet he was inexplicably drawn and repulsed by her…all at the same time.

Thankfully, at that time, the elevator "dinged" and Mamoru practically ran himself into the door trying to get in, repeatedly pushing the"close-door" button once he'd gotten inside. Since the tower was empty, the elevator wasn't full at all—in fact, no one besides Mamoru was inside the glass-walled apparatus. At least, no one was when he first got in. But just as the doors were closing, a slender hand threw itself between the heavy doors, effectively shoving them apart until the rest of the body belonging to that slender hand could push its way through.

Mildly surprised by her strength, Mamoru found himself face-to-face with Usagi, who looked quite winded, being red in the face, and having a small droplet of sweat forming on her brow.

The pout she'd worn earlier was still in place, only now she was huffing and puffing more, giving her lips a more slick, full look.

'No no no no no, I am not mesmerized by Meatball Head, of all people's lips! NO!'

Mamoru pinched his eyes shut and backed up against the glass wall of the elevator, expecting the worst.

She had him trapped now— cornered, quite literally.

"Ma-mo…" Usagi huffed, her knees giving as she flopped to the floor, "Ma…mo…ru!" She eyed him angrily from her place on the floor, wondering why he'd gone and run like that. He…he couldn't be scared of her could he?

Mamoru didn't say anything, for fear it'd give him away completely. Besides, as it was, he couldn't even hear what she was saying, since the sound of his heart beating and his blood rushing sounded so loud to his ears.

He'd never expected it to come down to this. He liked Usagi—a lot—to be sure, but he thought he could keep it his secret, and maybe that way, he could watch her from afar, and not have to worry about her rejecting him, or…

DON'T LEAVE ME!

Mamoru blinked, the strange voice echoing in his mind. It almost… it almost sounded like his own voice, from when he was younger.

For a brief instant, he'd seen himself, reaching out to two shadows, disappearing into the darkness—falling…

He didn't understand any of this. He'd never understood these feelings… no one had ever been around to guide him, and show him what love really meant. Was that even what this was? Was he in love with Usagi?

"Mamoru-san?" Usagi peered up at Mamoru curiously, now standing a mere meter away. It would be so easy to just…

Before Mamoru's train of thought could be completed, there was a flash of lightning—so close by, it was almost blinding, followed by a sudden booming of thunder. Usagi leaped into Mamoru's arms like a frightened rabbit. He could feel her tears dripping into his shirt as the booming sounds grew louder, the lightning crashing closer.

Raindrops began to stream down the curved side of the glass elevator, and with a sickening feeling, Mamoru realized that he was not only trapped with Usagi in the elevator, but trapped alone with her in the Starlight Tower during a huge storm.

Before Mamoru could think up any comforting words to offer the terrified girl in his arms, the elevator ground to a halt with a loud screech. The lights flickered for a moment, on, off, dimming and then brightening— and then snapping and flickering and going out completely. The two were left in the darkness, alone in an elevator,
with a storm outside.

This was bad.


'This is bad,' Usagi thought. She briefly wondered if Mamoru was as uncomfortable as she was now. She probably never would have remembered that day if Mamoru hadn't brought it up…but it wasn't as if she'd forgotten it entirely.

In fact, ever since she'd gotten trapped with Mamoru, bound with him in this twisted fate, she'd remembered more and more…found herself blushing in the dark, trembling, and subconsciously committing Mamoru's strong scent to memory again.

"…Anyway, let's get going back the way we came. Maybe we can take a path we missed." Mamoru's gaze didn't meet Usagi's curious one, and she sighed to herself, wondering where she'd gone wrong this time.

It was all a mistake, wasn't it… to ever break up with him? But back then, she'd been so sure!

"Hey, Usagi, he doesn't deserve someone like you," Shingo's voice echoed in her mind. Many months ago, he'd been so against any sort of a relationship with Mamoru. And back then, Usagi hadn't had the mind or the heart to listen. She simply couldn't imagine a future without him. She hadn't bothered to tell Shingo that she and Mamoru had already been going out for years, and it was only recently that she decided to tell her family.

Usagi's memories were interrupted by her bumping into Mamoru's backside—causing the blonde to blush crimson and rub her nose.

"Mamoru, what's wrong?"

"Do you hear that?" Mamoru asked, not a trace of emotion in his voice.

Usagi tilted her head in the direction he'd motioned to, hearing a faint whirring sound.

"It's probably one of the fans turning on. It's no big deal, they're protected from the rest of the shafts with grates on either side."

Usagi's assured knowledge came from the fact that she was the star of the Tokyo Industrial Architecture firm, and knew quite a lot about the layout of the airport they were in. Or she thought she had, given that she'd run them into a hundred meter drop, when she thought she'd been leading them to an exit.

Mamoru didn't say anything, and continued to crawl forward. Slowly, the shaft opened across and upwards, giving the duo enough room to stand up without having to hunch.

"That sound is getting louder," Mamoru noted, pulling his jacket closer to him. Indeed, a fan must have turned on, as the ventilation shaft had suddenly become many degrees colder. There seemed to be an intense wind filtering its way through the winding corridors, pulling at both of their clothes, tugging them towards its source.

The pair rounded another corner, and suddenly the sound of the whirring thundered in their ears.

"What IS that?!" Mamoru shouted, covering one of his ears while he tried to maintain his balance.

"No…" Usagi whispered, the strong winds nearly carrying away her breath, "The port suction!"

"WHAT!?" Mamoru shouted, coming closer to her.

"I can't hear you!" Usagi yelled back, trying not to cry because of the stinging air.

Mamoru strode forward, pushing himself against the powers of the wind, bracing himself with one hand on the wall, and using the other to wrap around Usagi's slender waist and pull her up against him.

The sound of the wind seemed to die down when they were in each other's arms, and for a moment, the only sound Usagi could hear was that of Mamoru's intense heartbeat…

Usagi swallowed, willing the blood that had so suddenly rushed to her face to recede back where it belonged. Mamoru didn't look at her, and Usagi settled into his warmth, knowing that she could hear his voice, being this close…

"The port suction—you mean the fan that's so powerful it could 'chop me into sashimi?'" Mamoru queried, a stony expression setting on his face. Usagi nodded slowly, gulping. This was all her fault…what had she been thinking, crawling into the ventilation shaft…!?

"And didn't you also say that the port suction also lead out to the airstrip under the runways?" Mamoru murmured.

Usagi shook her head—she hadn't said anything of the sort, but he was right— that was where the port suction went.

"What are you thinking, Mamoru?" Usagi cried, staring up at the young man. "You can't possibly go anywhere near that fan, it'll suck you in and slice you up! And this one doesn't have a grate like the others!"

Mamoru didn't respond, and only pushed Usagi away from him.

"Run!"

"Wha—!?" Usagi cried, tumbling backwards into the side corridor from which they'd come. She barely managed to catch sight of Mamoru losing his grip on the wall a few meters away from her—and go flying off into the darkness. There was a sickening crunching sound, and then near-absolute silence. The

"MAMORU!"


Geez, I can't write TAFF! Maybe "Quest for Vengeance" will turn out better on that end. Maybe I should ask for advice from the experts!? Regardless, I hope you liked this part!

I'm very sorry for not being able to get those three parts out I promised, but between school, after school (they call it a social life, I've heard), and co-ficcing with Siggy and Bonnie (I feel so blessed!) I haven't had much time. I even revised this entire chapter! So expect the next part soon—you can put me higher up on the Hit List if I don't come out with Chapter 5 soon!

Expect to see tons more from me soon— especially now that I'm watching SM: Stars!

Oh, and please review.

P.S. Bonnie rules.