Title: Split Souls
Author: AriallaZarinth
Chapter Three: The Royals
Email: crystalstarr89@yahoo.com
$$--break--
*3/24/03, Tokyo, Chiba Mamoru's apartment*$$
Usagi trembled in Mamoru's arms, confused and frightened. He murmured a string of soothing nonsense into her hair, gently stroking her back as he held her tightly.
"It hurt, oh it hurts so bad." Usagi tilted her head back, looking up at Mamoru. A moon flickered on her forehead. "It was like someone had been trying to crush my skull and then they succeeded." She pulled back slightly. Mamoru in response held her tighter, aching to keep her close.
"Usako,"
"Usako?" Usagi tried to pull back even more. "It was Odango Atama a few days before."
"So? Am I still just Mamoru-baka? The one who makes you angry?"
"Whatever you are now, Chiba-san, it is warped by this person inside me."
"Don't you see? The person inside me is /me/ somehow. His, my, name is Endymion,"
"Prince of Earth. She is Serenity,"
"Endymion's lover." Mamoru whispered.
"Princess of the Moon." The more she opened her mouth, the more her memories sharpened. "I remember... I was forbidden to go to Earth. We all were. Earth had abandoned the Alliance, no, had refused to be in the Alliance early on."
"You came anyway,"
"I met you,"
"We fell in love."
"NO!" Usagi shovered her way out of Mamoru's arms, backing away, arms held in front of her protectively. There was something in Mamoru's stormy blue eyes, an intensity that she had never seen in him. In fact, she'd never seen any emotion in his eyes, except for possible irritation. "I'm not going to be turned into something I"m not! I hate you, and you hate me. Nothing has changed."
"I never hated you. You were always mooning over Motoki; I had to make you notice me somehow." Mamoru's look was of pure horror. He clenched his teeth together. What was it about this girl that could always make him so loose-tongued?
The quiet noise of the TV was audible in the sudden silence. The emergency news alert broke the sobbing of some soap opera star, making a new focus point for the tension in the room. Mamoru sat down on the couch, finding the remote and turning up the volume. Usagi and Mamoru watched calmly through the story of a monster attacking in the park until the people's savior was mentioned.
"Eyewitnesses report that a single girl banished the monster. She is reported to look slightly like Sailor V and to have called herself Sailor Moon." A sketch of the superhero flashed on the screen.
Mamoru's memories tickled, but nothing more. Usagi fell with a thump onto the couch next to him, eyes and mouth in perfect circles. That golden moon flickered on her forehead again.
"A senshi of the Moon? How could that be? No one from my planet trained with the senshi except me when I began to learn the use of the Crystal." The pieces hit in her mind, though it confused her, "If I, if Serenity, is suddenly in my, Usagi's, mind, could part of me, the Princess be... no that's silly." Usagi shook off the suspicion as preposterous, as if the rest of the situation wasn't.
Mamoru wondered how Usagi couldn't accept Serenity as herself. He had absorbed Endymion completely.
"Two separate selves housed in one body? Usagi and Serenity. How could this be? You are one and the same."
"No! She is separate from me! I'm Tsukino Usagi, my parents are Ikuko & Kenji, I have a younger brother named Shingo! She is Serenity III, daughter of Serenity II and Solaris..." The memories faltered. "She lived on the /Moon/ as a monarch-to-be! That's insane!"
"But..you are just her reincarnation." Mamoru felt like he was a broken record, repeating the same thing over and over.
"Do you except me to give up a family, a whole life, because of some paranormal intrusion of my mind?!"
"Will you be completely honest with me?"
"Um, hai."
"A week ago, what did you think of me?"
"Mamo-baka, don't change the subject!" She blushed slightly, not even noticing the insult had turned into a pet name now.
"I'm not, you'll see. Answer." He kept his smile to himself over the shortened name and the blush.
"At first glance, you were incredibly attractive," she admitted grudgingly. Was that a blush on his face? "but as soon as you opened your mouth it didn't matter any more. You were a complete jerk with the biggest ego I had ever seen." Well, /that/ was definately a wince. "Yet you were so mysterious, and I could see the way you had bonded with 'toki-kun, I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to be someone you trusted like that, to really know you." She looked at him expectantly, feeling raw and vunerable in front of this cool upperclassman who constantly reminded her of her childish shortcomings.
"And now?"
"Now you have softened. I see how hard you try to protect yourself, like the way you flipped when you told me why you always teased me. I also see glimpses of someone else, someone Serenity knew."
"Look, you already relate your life and Serenity's. They mimick each other. We are almost the same age now as when Serenity and Endymion met."
"They are barely similar! Your life and Endymion's are barely similar! Terrans, even you High Royals, never left family! Your life is so not Endymion's; he struggled with the lies his father had passed down to him, the prejuidices against the Alliance! I noticed there's not a single picture of a person in this apartment! It's a freakishly neat bachelor pad! Where is your father? Your treacherous mother?" The last was Serenity to Endymion, the moon flashed again.
"Mamoru's parents died in a car accident when I was 6. I remember nothing of them. Gaia and Teron were loyal, just monarchs!"
"Defending your family, like always, Endy! If it hadn't been for them, we wouldn't have watched our friends-- " The blood that anger had rushed to her face drained away. Her eyes glistened wetly, and her hands flew to cover her mouth, mentally cursing it.
"What?" Mamoru blinked, confused. Usagi grabbed for the last of the sentence, but too late.
"The memories aren't constant. I don't know what I was just saying... Mamoru-san, your parents, I never knew, I'm so so so sorry...gomen...gomen..." She stuttered brokenly.
"No pity, Usagi-san. I will not accept your pity. It happened, and I moved on." Usagi did not have the courage to call him on that lie, so she fled before they could speak any further.
$$--break--
*3/26/03, Negaverse, Chamber of the Great Leader*$$
Beryl trembled, face pressed into the ground, trying to shove her pride deep, deep down to where it was undectecible.
"Stop fooling around, girl, and get those monsters of yours to gather me more energy!"
"Yes, Great Leader, I shall! There was only a minor setback. General, ah, I mean, um, I will have provided for it this time."
"Let it be so. You are no general over my army, girl, because these youma aren't organized enough to be called an army, but please me and perhaps I will honor you with that title."
"Yes, Great Leader, thank you."
"Get to work."
Beryl rose, grabbing hurriedly at her stave. Above, she threw herself on her throne, casting the stave aside. Thick blood welled from her hand. The stave was studded with jagged shards of glass, and in her haste to escape more of Metallia's anger, Beryl had impaled her hand on one of the shards.
"Jadeite!" She screamed.
"Yes, my Queen?" The general appeared, kneeling, with the other three watching in the shadows.
"Fix this stupid problem! Kill the girl! Nothing must stand in our way. The Great Leader is most displeased with you. Fix this!" Beryl continued to scream, blood rushing out of her hand onto her dress. "Fix it! Kill her!"
$$--break--
*3/30/03, Tokyo, Crown Game Center*$$
"Konnichiwa, Naru-chan!" Usagi called across the arcade from her perch at the new Sailor V game.
"Hey, Usagi-chan. Have you done that Social Studies essay yet? I just finished; it's a killer." Naru asked her best friend, touching up Usagi's odangos idly.
"Well...no...but 'toki-kun told me they were getting the new Sailor V game today, so I had to come check it out. I'll do that essay later." Usagi smiled innocently as Naru sat down at the game next to her. A small shiver ran down her spine when two hands gently squeezed her shoulders, followed by that melting voice.
"You really should take you school work more seriously, Usagi-chan. How are you planning on making it into high school? Or are you staying in 8th grade forever?"
"My schoolwork is none of your business, you conceited, um, snob! Why can't you just leave me alone?"
"Now is that any way to treat someone who's just trying to help?"
"Get a life." Usagi rolled her eyes and stood, shaking Mamoru off, "C'mon, Naru-chan, let's go get a milkshake!" The two girls walked over to the counter.
"Usagi-chan! Why were you so rude to that boy? He's really super cute," Naru asked quietly.
"Oh, Mamoru-baka? Everybody knows he only talks to me to tease me. He's--"
"Who are you talking about, Usagi-chan?" Motoki asked, delivering the two's desserts. "Mamoru-kun?"
"Who else?" She glanced at the man in question.
He was leaning against the Sailor V game, fingers plying the hem of his green blazer. Usagi noted the slight movement and wondered what's gotten under his skin. A girl was standing in front of him, tossing her jet black hair and fluttering bronze-dusted eyelids over violet eyes. She wore a TA Private Girls' School uniform, one of the richest school in Tokyo. Just the type of girl for Mamoru, pretty, rich, and probably smart too.
Usagi felt a stab of jealousy and heard a tiny voice in the back of her head murmur, 'Endy is mine; stay away from him!' towards the flirty girl. Usagi stood abruptly.
"I have to go, um, do that essay now. If I fail another assignment, Mama will ground me for the rest of my life." She supplied quickly, moving to the door, trying to avoiding catching sight of Mamoru and the girl.
"Ja Usagi-chan!" Motoki and Naru called. Their voices drew Mamoru's atention to the door. He excused himself and hurried out behind his princess.
Usagi wandered slowly down the sidewalk, having no real desire to do her schoolwork. Someone grabbed her from behind and ushered her into a derserted store.
"Huh? Mamoru?" She gasped.
"Why have you been avoiding me, Usako?" He mumbled into her hair, pulling her against him.
"Don't call me that! I'm not avoiding you! Let me go!" She struggled against him.
"Please, Usagi-chan, don't run from me. I know I wasn't the nicest person in the past, but I told you why I acted like that. You always set me so off balance." He tried to chuckle, but it stuck in his throat. "You're even doing it now. Won't you give me a chance?"
"Give you or Endymion a chance?"
"Me."
"Give you a chance? Nu-uh, don't think having a whole other person shoved into me is going to make me forget how puny you made me feel. Go back to your little private school girlfriend in there, and leave me out of your life!"
"Please, Usagi-chan! I know I was horrible; I want to make it up to you! Please...we can't just stay away from each other forever. Do you think it's just chance that we both had these people implanted into us, suddenly, at the same time?"
"Well, obviously, some weird psyche-beam hit the exact spot we were standing on and since we were together these two outta-whack ghosts landed inside us. That's all there is to it..."
"Usagi! Listen to yourself! We're reincarnations, not people hit by a beam! Besides, do you think Serenity and Endymion would consent to living apart? They love each other!"
"But we don't!" She pleaded, "They just got stuck with rotten luck!"
"Do you really hate me that much?" He whispered.
"I"m scared that this is all one big ploy for you to make me feel even worse...that's all."
"So you don't trust me. Please, Usagi-chan, please just give me a chance to prove all that you're saying wrong!"
"Will it make you let me go?"
"Probably."
"Fine. One chance."
"Thank you!" He grinned, "Will, that is, would you like to go to them, um, go to dinner with me Friday night?"
"I accept your offer, as ill-phrased as it was." She injected the barb with the acceptance. "Call me, or actually I guess I'll see you around before then. So we can work out the details."
(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)
Coming soon...Chapter Four: The Second Senshi
/\Sailor Mercury revealed!/\
/\Tuxedo Mask makes his first entrance...suitably adjusted to fit his new alter ego hehe/\
/\is the girl-in-the-arcade more determined to get Mamoru than he expected?/\
/\who is she, anyways?/\
Author: AriallaZarinth
Chapter Three: The Royals
Email: crystalstarr89@yahoo.com
$$--break--
*3/24/03, Tokyo, Chiba Mamoru's apartment*$$
Usagi trembled in Mamoru's arms, confused and frightened. He murmured a string of soothing nonsense into her hair, gently stroking her back as he held her tightly.
"It hurt, oh it hurts so bad." Usagi tilted her head back, looking up at Mamoru. A moon flickered on her forehead. "It was like someone had been trying to crush my skull and then they succeeded." She pulled back slightly. Mamoru in response held her tighter, aching to keep her close.
"Usako,"
"Usako?" Usagi tried to pull back even more. "It was Odango Atama a few days before."
"So? Am I still just Mamoru-baka? The one who makes you angry?"
"Whatever you are now, Chiba-san, it is warped by this person inside me."
"Don't you see? The person inside me is /me/ somehow. His, my, name is Endymion,"
"Prince of Earth. She is Serenity,"
"Endymion's lover." Mamoru whispered.
"Princess of the Moon." The more she opened her mouth, the more her memories sharpened. "I remember... I was forbidden to go to Earth. We all were. Earth had abandoned the Alliance, no, had refused to be in the Alliance early on."
"You came anyway,"
"I met you,"
"We fell in love."
"NO!" Usagi shovered her way out of Mamoru's arms, backing away, arms held in front of her protectively. There was something in Mamoru's stormy blue eyes, an intensity that she had never seen in him. In fact, she'd never seen any emotion in his eyes, except for possible irritation. "I'm not going to be turned into something I"m not! I hate you, and you hate me. Nothing has changed."
"I never hated you. You were always mooning over Motoki; I had to make you notice me somehow." Mamoru's look was of pure horror. He clenched his teeth together. What was it about this girl that could always make him so loose-tongued?
The quiet noise of the TV was audible in the sudden silence. The emergency news alert broke the sobbing of some soap opera star, making a new focus point for the tension in the room. Mamoru sat down on the couch, finding the remote and turning up the volume. Usagi and Mamoru watched calmly through the story of a monster attacking in the park until the people's savior was mentioned.
"Eyewitnesses report that a single girl banished the monster. She is reported to look slightly like Sailor V and to have called herself Sailor Moon." A sketch of the superhero flashed on the screen.
Mamoru's memories tickled, but nothing more. Usagi fell with a thump onto the couch next to him, eyes and mouth in perfect circles. That golden moon flickered on her forehead again.
"A senshi of the Moon? How could that be? No one from my planet trained with the senshi except me when I began to learn the use of the Crystal." The pieces hit in her mind, though it confused her, "If I, if Serenity, is suddenly in my, Usagi's, mind, could part of me, the Princess be... no that's silly." Usagi shook off the suspicion as preposterous, as if the rest of the situation wasn't.
Mamoru wondered how Usagi couldn't accept Serenity as herself. He had absorbed Endymion completely.
"Two separate selves housed in one body? Usagi and Serenity. How could this be? You are one and the same."
"No! She is separate from me! I'm Tsukino Usagi, my parents are Ikuko & Kenji, I have a younger brother named Shingo! She is Serenity III, daughter of Serenity II and Solaris..." The memories faltered. "She lived on the /Moon/ as a monarch-to-be! That's insane!"
"But..you are just her reincarnation." Mamoru felt like he was a broken record, repeating the same thing over and over.
"Do you except me to give up a family, a whole life, because of some paranormal intrusion of my mind?!"
"Will you be completely honest with me?"
"Um, hai."
"A week ago, what did you think of me?"
"Mamo-baka, don't change the subject!" She blushed slightly, not even noticing the insult had turned into a pet name now.
"I'm not, you'll see. Answer." He kept his smile to himself over the shortened name and the blush.
"At first glance, you were incredibly attractive," she admitted grudgingly. Was that a blush on his face? "but as soon as you opened your mouth it didn't matter any more. You were a complete jerk with the biggest ego I had ever seen." Well, /that/ was definately a wince. "Yet you were so mysterious, and I could see the way you had bonded with 'toki-kun, I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to be someone you trusted like that, to really know you." She looked at him expectantly, feeling raw and vunerable in front of this cool upperclassman who constantly reminded her of her childish shortcomings.
"And now?"
"Now you have softened. I see how hard you try to protect yourself, like the way you flipped when you told me why you always teased me. I also see glimpses of someone else, someone Serenity knew."
"Look, you already relate your life and Serenity's. They mimick each other. We are almost the same age now as when Serenity and Endymion met."
"They are barely similar! Your life and Endymion's are barely similar! Terrans, even you High Royals, never left family! Your life is so not Endymion's; he struggled with the lies his father had passed down to him, the prejuidices against the Alliance! I noticed there's not a single picture of a person in this apartment! It's a freakishly neat bachelor pad! Where is your father? Your treacherous mother?" The last was Serenity to Endymion, the moon flashed again.
"Mamoru's parents died in a car accident when I was 6. I remember nothing of them. Gaia and Teron were loyal, just monarchs!"
"Defending your family, like always, Endy! If it hadn't been for them, we wouldn't have watched our friends-- " The blood that anger had rushed to her face drained away. Her eyes glistened wetly, and her hands flew to cover her mouth, mentally cursing it.
"What?" Mamoru blinked, confused. Usagi grabbed for the last of the sentence, but too late.
"The memories aren't constant. I don't know what I was just saying... Mamoru-san, your parents, I never knew, I'm so so so sorry...gomen...gomen..." She stuttered brokenly.
"No pity, Usagi-san. I will not accept your pity. It happened, and I moved on." Usagi did not have the courage to call him on that lie, so she fled before they could speak any further.
$$--break--
*3/26/03, Negaverse, Chamber of the Great Leader*$$
Beryl trembled, face pressed into the ground, trying to shove her pride deep, deep down to where it was undectecible.
"Stop fooling around, girl, and get those monsters of yours to gather me more energy!"
"Yes, Great Leader, I shall! There was only a minor setback. General, ah, I mean, um, I will have provided for it this time."
"Let it be so. You are no general over my army, girl, because these youma aren't organized enough to be called an army, but please me and perhaps I will honor you with that title."
"Yes, Great Leader, thank you."
"Get to work."
Beryl rose, grabbing hurriedly at her stave. Above, she threw herself on her throne, casting the stave aside. Thick blood welled from her hand. The stave was studded with jagged shards of glass, and in her haste to escape more of Metallia's anger, Beryl had impaled her hand on one of the shards.
"Jadeite!" She screamed.
"Yes, my Queen?" The general appeared, kneeling, with the other three watching in the shadows.
"Fix this stupid problem! Kill the girl! Nothing must stand in our way. The Great Leader is most displeased with you. Fix this!" Beryl continued to scream, blood rushing out of her hand onto her dress. "Fix it! Kill her!"
$$--break--
*3/30/03, Tokyo, Crown Game Center*$$
"Konnichiwa, Naru-chan!" Usagi called across the arcade from her perch at the new Sailor V game.
"Hey, Usagi-chan. Have you done that Social Studies essay yet? I just finished; it's a killer." Naru asked her best friend, touching up Usagi's odangos idly.
"Well...no...but 'toki-kun told me they were getting the new Sailor V game today, so I had to come check it out. I'll do that essay later." Usagi smiled innocently as Naru sat down at the game next to her. A small shiver ran down her spine when two hands gently squeezed her shoulders, followed by that melting voice.
"You really should take you school work more seriously, Usagi-chan. How are you planning on making it into high school? Or are you staying in 8th grade forever?"
"My schoolwork is none of your business, you conceited, um, snob! Why can't you just leave me alone?"
"Now is that any way to treat someone who's just trying to help?"
"Get a life." Usagi rolled her eyes and stood, shaking Mamoru off, "C'mon, Naru-chan, let's go get a milkshake!" The two girls walked over to the counter.
"Usagi-chan! Why were you so rude to that boy? He's really super cute," Naru asked quietly.
"Oh, Mamoru-baka? Everybody knows he only talks to me to tease me. He's--"
"Who are you talking about, Usagi-chan?" Motoki asked, delivering the two's desserts. "Mamoru-kun?"
"Who else?" She glanced at the man in question.
He was leaning against the Sailor V game, fingers plying the hem of his green blazer. Usagi noted the slight movement and wondered what's gotten under his skin. A girl was standing in front of him, tossing her jet black hair and fluttering bronze-dusted eyelids over violet eyes. She wore a TA Private Girls' School uniform, one of the richest school in Tokyo. Just the type of girl for Mamoru, pretty, rich, and probably smart too.
Usagi felt a stab of jealousy and heard a tiny voice in the back of her head murmur, 'Endy is mine; stay away from him!' towards the flirty girl. Usagi stood abruptly.
"I have to go, um, do that essay now. If I fail another assignment, Mama will ground me for the rest of my life." She supplied quickly, moving to the door, trying to avoiding catching sight of Mamoru and the girl.
"Ja Usagi-chan!" Motoki and Naru called. Their voices drew Mamoru's atention to the door. He excused himself and hurried out behind his princess.
Usagi wandered slowly down the sidewalk, having no real desire to do her schoolwork. Someone grabbed her from behind and ushered her into a derserted store.
"Huh? Mamoru?" She gasped.
"Why have you been avoiding me, Usako?" He mumbled into her hair, pulling her against him.
"Don't call me that! I'm not avoiding you! Let me go!" She struggled against him.
"Please, Usagi-chan, don't run from me. I know I wasn't the nicest person in the past, but I told you why I acted like that. You always set me so off balance." He tried to chuckle, but it stuck in his throat. "You're even doing it now. Won't you give me a chance?"
"Give you or Endymion a chance?"
"Me."
"Give you a chance? Nu-uh, don't think having a whole other person shoved into me is going to make me forget how puny you made me feel. Go back to your little private school girlfriend in there, and leave me out of your life!"
"Please, Usagi-chan! I know I was horrible; I want to make it up to you! Please...we can't just stay away from each other forever. Do you think it's just chance that we both had these people implanted into us, suddenly, at the same time?"
"Well, obviously, some weird psyche-beam hit the exact spot we were standing on and since we were together these two outta-whack ghosts landed inside us. That's all there is to it..."
"Usagi! Listen to yourself! We're reincarnations, not people hit by a beam! Besides, do you think Serenity and Endymion would consent to living apart? They love each other!"
"But we don't!" She pleaded, "They just got stuck with rotten luck!"
"Do you really hate me that much?" He whispered.
"I"m scared that this is all one big ploy for you to make me feel even worse...that's all."
"So you don't trust me. Please, Usagi-chan, please just give me a chance to prove all that you're saying wrong!"
"Will it make you let me go?"
"Probably."
"Fine. One chance."
"Thank you!" He grinned, "Will, that is, would you like to go to them, um, go to dinner with me Friday night?"
"I accept your offer, as ill-phrased as it was." She injected the barb with the acceptance. "Call me, or actually I guess I'll see you around before then. So we can work out the details."
(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)(~)
Coming soon...Chapter Four: The Second Senshi
/\Sailor Mercury revealed!/\
/\Tuxedo Mask makes his first entrance...suitably adjusted to fit his new alter ego hehe/\
/\is the girl-in-the-arcade more determined to get Mamoru than he expected?/\
/\who is she, anyways?/\
