Disclaimer: Mine? Nothing. There.

at deviantart (deviation/28953876/) you can find a title picture to this story :) (If you want to see Usagi's hair)

This chapter I think rather sucks, but the confrontation had to come, hadn't it? So I can continue with the actual plot after that, please review! This story is getting so far away from what I actually planned and I don't really know what I'm going to do with it x

Chapter 4:

Usagi didn't know what to do. She needed her friends, she'd always needed them. Why did she have to choose? Why was it always so hard.

She felt the blood slowly flowing from her nose across her lips, falling in little droplets from her skin. She didn't care holding her head back, she didn't care how much it hurt – and it did, oh how it did. Haruka had a strong fist, and after all, this blow was intended for Seiya.

"He can't protect you. And he wouldn't." Haruka said. "He doesn't know who you are, what you mean to this world. He's a mere mortal. Just a hormone-driven boy that runs after every skirt he sees. ", balling her fists, fighting the urge to wipe the blood from her princess's face. It didn't suit her. It made her uneasy. And not because she was the one who had inflicted it.

Seiya smiled at the comment, Usagi glanced at him ever so quickly out of the corner of her eye and their gazes met for a short moment.

"Is it really important for him to learn of a name, a title, a fairy tale from the past to act in the present?" Usagi whispered. "Do you really think so?"

The whole scene was an omen for her, and a bad one. Her princess, her long hair cut short, the long mane, that long period of time and effort that it took to grow to its spectacular length – all had been in vain and destroyed in a single unthinking moment, the blood flowing away because of the consequences. Haruka wanted to scream. She wanted to kill. Who was this boy that he could destroy all they ever fought for so easily. She wanted to shake Usagi, wanted to scream and yell and cry. Did she know what she did? Did she know what she threw away?

The rest of the senshi had long gathered around their princess and the Outer Senshi. But why didn't Seiya react to this? Why did he stay so cool? Why didn't this freak him out, that Usagi could be someone else, that Huraka talked about protecting her, that she could mean anything to this world at all. That she was so important – Usagi, the clumsy, ditsy, lazy Usagi who was always late, always stuffed her face and cried when scraping her knee. Such a girl that seemed so ordinary, so average – compared to a national idol, a rock star, someone every girl in Japan dreamed to be with. How did he know what Haruka meant, why didn't he jump to the offence, telling them what a nice catch he was, that Usagi was lucky he gave her the time of day.

She couldn't have told him, could she…

"Don't you want peace?" Haruka retorted, brokenly. All her life she had searched for this girl, sworn to protect her, to make right what had been done wrong in the past. She had fought and protected a future that promised peace, a future she wanted more than anything else. Her king and queen, ruling for a better world, where love and justice ruled, and they didn't have to fight anymore.

"I don't want Crystal Tokyo." The blonde replied. She tilted her head to the side, the shorter bangs moving with her face as tears shimmered in her eyes.

Haruka hung her head low. She didn't want to see those tears.

A long silence erupted, until Usagi broke it tentatively, looking out of the window. "Every girl dreams of being a princess. But I didn't. I dreamed of owning a puppy. I dreamed of building sandcastles. I dreamed of marrying. I dreamed of being a mother to a bunch of children whom I could read to and play in the sandbox with. I dreamed of the little home outside town, where I would have my husband and my kids and a job at a small shop with nice colleagues, maybe in a bookshop where I read to little children again." She swallowed, hard. "The princess I wanted to be never had to actually rule, decide, or have the power to ruin everything. The princess I saw never would fight, never had to kill, never had to exile people because they were a threat. In her dream there wasn't any threat at all. No responsibility. No war she would always be a prisoner in, as she always had to protect it." Her gaze never wavered from the glass. Outside she saw people walking along the streets. She never wanted to be excluded from this. She wanted to live, not watch life from afar. She wanted to travel, make friends, paint her very first own apartment walls, plan her future, dance around bonfires in the night, paint graffiti on public trash bins, dance nights through and eat breakfast in the evenings, watch silly entertainment TV and make microwave popcorn and order takeout on dvd nights with her friends and run around town in her comfortable house pjs when she felt like it. She just wanted to be normal. These weren't things a queen could do.

"I'm not stupid. I know I'll have to fight forever." "Where darkness is, is light."She added as an after thought, and looked at Rei, then at Haruka "So why can't I have my life the way I want it then? Why do I have to be in a Castle made of glass, excluded from the world, as I had to be protected. Why do I have to be better than anyone else, superior. I don't want to be a queen. When all I would be would be a slave. A prisoner." She held her chin up high. "I need to be free, Haruka. I'm breaking"

The senshi didn't know what to say. They had no idea she had felt like this. They had never thought about it. They'd assumed she would feel just like them. Wasn't it supposed to be that way?

"Haven't I done enough? Can't I have my dream, too, when I'm protecting everyone else's?" She took a slight step back so she was on the same level as Seiya again, and took his hand into both of her's, then she sat down on the bench behind her. She played with Seiya's thump, and when she looked up and to her friends, she seemed so small and fragile and vulnerable, yet so full of passion for a dream she wanted to be allowed to persue. "When I come home after saving the world, I want to be in one I enjoy living in."

A pregnant silence followed in which no one said anything. Usagi closed her eyes and breathed deeply, while Haruka refused to look at them. She couldn't accept this. This was her princess. She had the responsibility for this world, she had promised it, this was the very reason she was reborn in the first place, to take her rightful place on the throne and lead the world into a better future.

"I understand." Minako broke the silence, and the other girls' heads snipped around and looked at her. "I- I know what you mean Usagi-chan." She suddenly was afraid, she looked at Haruka. She looked at Rei and Makoto. They looked so, so…. betrayed. "I've always wanted to be a singer. And I knew I never could, because I was bound to protect you as your senshi." Rei started to argue, but Minako continued quickly. "Not that I didn't want to do that! I believe in you, Usagi. I would die for you, you know that. It was never a question that I doubt my decition. You and our cause would always come first, and only after that my dreams." Minako stepped a little closer to them. "Yet I have to admit sometimes I feel trapped."

"I can't believe you!" Rei spluttered, looking at the others, then at Minako, then at Usagi. "This is so much greater and more important than any dreams. How can you act so selfish?"

"I would keep peace, Rei." Usagi tried, feeling guilty but also angry that she felt the need to defend herself and that she had to feel guilty in the first place. "That isn't the question. I love this world too much that I wouldn't keep defending it. And the people in it, too… I just don't want there to be a throne. And I don't want Endymion, and I certainly don't want Serenity."

With that she stood. "All I want is Usagi."

She looked Haruka in the eye. Who, after a long pause, said. "You know I can't accept this."

"I know" Usagi whispered, tears falling down her face, mingling with the blood that was drying on her face.

And with these words Haruka turned around and left the café.

The senshi didn't look at each other. They felt they couldn't. And Usagi's honest sobs broke their resolve.

Then suddenly Seiya shook his head and ran for the door, after Haruka.

"Sailor Uranus." He uttered. And that made her whip around, facing him, shocked. "I can protect her very well. And I will."

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