Author's Note: Did anyone else blink and basically miss September? Good lord, that was a fast and busy month. The good news is, because this whole story came out in a nonlinear snarl, most of this chapter was already drafted before the month started, and I just had to fill in some gaps and tame it into something actually worth reading instead of inventing a whole new chapter from wholecloth. So, really, that's the only reason you're getting this now instead of in November, because I barely had time to sit down and write all month.
Thank you to those of you who are reviewing and DMing me with so much excitement and enthusiasm about the story – I am so, so thrilled that so many people are enjoying my story so much and are so invested. I do also just want to remind a few of you that writing (especially writing well) takes time. When I'm feeling inspired, writing a thousand words can take me anywhere from a couple hours to a couple weeks, depending on how much free time I have. Because I have a personal life, a full-time job, and am helping run the Drops of Moonlight charity zine fan project, I don't always have a ton of free time to write. I absolutely adore receiving shots of enthusiasm about the story and am so excited whenever my inbox 'dings' with a new review; I love hearing about how the suspense is affecting my readers – someone telling me that the tension is killing them and they keep checking my Tumblr for updates because they can't wait for more can totally jazz me up. I just ask that people please not send me all-caps demands to post new chapters or point out that I'm active on other forms of media and therefore should have time to post a new chapter. A DM of 'UPDATE THE RUNNER UP lol' or anything else with a similar insistent tone makes me feel like my needs and the constraints on my time are being ignored in favor of what the reader wants, which makes me feel a little hurt, resentful, and can completely kill my writing mojo (or even make me want to hold off on updating just so I don't reward the behavior).
I love the enthusiasm and TOTALLY understand the desire for more story, I just also ask that you please be gentle and remember that I am a busy person and not just a writing machine 😉
Thank you also to Nari20 for serving as my Japanese culture consultant – I am forever grateful that you take the time to chat with me (often without context) when I have questions about Japanese etiquette and I can't find the answers online.
And, as always, thank you Flora~
Chapter 9 – What you've been missing
Though her professional and personal life could best be summarized as 'devastating,' Senshi things had been quiet lately – really quiet. And so it only stood to reason that when the Dark Kingdom decided it was time to end her break, they would do it in the most spectacular fashion possible.
Sailor Moon sprinted across the grassy fields of Aoyama Park, heart in her throat as she watched the distant helicopter lower its way down into the Akasaka US military base.
She had no earthly idea where Zoisite had gotten a helicopter – had been leaving her office at the end of the day when she'd seen the live news footage of him flying low over Tokyo, crowing about how not even the Sailor Guardians would be able to stop him now – but she was pretty sure that leaving the general and the five vaguely insectoid youma he'd brought with him alone in there, with god only knew what technology and weapons, would be catastrophic for Tokyo's citizens.
Her panting breaths stiffened as her feet hit concrete and a red-and-black blur in her periphery made her glance over her shoulder.
It was Tuxedo Mask, his cape billowing as he leapt from rooftop to rooftop, moving closer and closer towards her.
Her jaw clenched and for a moment she wanted to throw her hands skyward at the complete injustice of it all.
Obviously, she'd known she'd have to face him again sooner or later, but fuck. Did the first time have to be when Zoisite was in the middle of staging a hostile takeover of a foreign power?
The box in her chest cracked open, and she shoved this new feeling into it and stomped it shut again. This wasn't the time, nor the place. Right now, the only priority was getting Zoisite out of Akasaka. She was capable of ignoring Mamoru for at least the length of one mission.
Probably.
He landed next to her with a grace that she could never achieve even if she lived a hundred lives, and before he could even open his mouth she snapped them straight to business.
"Do you think you can scale the fence?" she asked, and in response he picked up a fallen stick, tossing it against the chain link.
With a pop and a sizzle, currents of electricity crackled through the branch. The newly charred piece of wood then tumbled to the sidewalk, filling the evening air with thick, harsh plumes of smoke.
"That might be a bad idea," he said, and she seriously considered picking up the smoking stick and hitting him with it across his stupid smug face.
Why had she decided sleeping with her superhero protector was a good idea, again?
"Okay," she said hotly. "You come up with a better plan, then."
"We could try the front gate," he suggested in that obnoxious, knowing drawl of his. "It's likely with the hostile takeover that it's been left unmanned."
Compressing her lips and setting her jaw at the patent obviousness of this suggestion, she shoved past him and stalked up to the front gate.
However, Mamoru had been wrong about one thing – even with the news coverage and the probable chaos inside the base, the small booth out front had not been left unmanned.
"Sorry, Miss, but this base is closed to civilians," the officer inside told her, only half looking up from the magazine he was idly leafing through.
"I'm not a civilian!" she protested. "I'm Sailor Moon! And there's an evil force currently trying to take over this base. You have to let me in!"
"Yeah, like I've never heard that one before," he said, his tone bored. "Though you're more dedicated than most, convincing your boyfriend to dress up as Tuxedo Mask, too."
Her cheeks went hot, and she very resolutely refused to look anywhere near Mamoru. "He's not my- He's the real Tuxedo Mask. And we really do have to get in, right away!"
"Visiting hours are on the third Saturday of the month, from 10:00 until 15:00. Until then, I can't help you. Now beat it."
She narrowly refrained from childishly stamping her red-booted foot against the concrete path. Here she was, trying to do the one thing she occasionally got half-right, and this jerk wouldn't even let her try!
"C'mon," she grumbled, grabbing the end of Tuxedo Mask's still-billowing cape and dragging him after her.
"Closed to civilians," she groused as she stomped away, her free hand digging through her tiny arsenal of supplies. "I'll show them a civilian."
Her fist dropped the cape when the Disguise Pen landed in her palm, and she glanced over her shoulder to make sure the rude soldier wasn't looking after them.
His attention was now fully buried in his magazine, and with a swell of triumph, she held up the small pink pen.
"Disguise Power! Turn me into an American soldier who can totally sneak past that asshat security guy!"
After weeks of frequent use, the barrage of ribbons and glitter was a welcome cocoon, transforming her into somebody who wouldn't constantly be questioned, belittled, and rejected.
As she struck her final pose, her streamers of hair tucked away and clad head to toe in an army uniform, she glanced up at Tuxedo Mask – and immediately blanched.
She'd completely forgotten. It hadn't even occurred to her. How could she have been so stupid?
Her stomach shot to the ground as she took in the look in his eyes – one she'd seen dozens of times over the years, as he studied at the counter of Crown or pored over his case files in bed next to her. It was the look he sometimes got when he'd just realized how to solve a problem, but he hadn't quite solved it yet.
Fuck. This was not about to end well for her.
But he didn't say a word.
He just stood there, staring as if it was the first time he'd ever seen her, his mouth agape in a way she hadn't ever seen before. His eyes flicked over her, down to her toes and up to her face, again and again as if on some demented cycle. It made her feel like her skin was crawling with tiny biting insects, and she inwardly debated if she would be able to escape from him if she just-so-happened to throw herself down the nearby staircase.
Based on how automatically Tuxedo Mask always seemed to appear to catch her, she had a feeling she would only end up in his arms at the foot of the stairs, that same expression still on his face, and she was absolutely certain that this would not be an upgrade.
So instead, she shrunk in on herself, braced for the worst.
"It was you," he breathed, and when she met his blue eyes she found them semi-crazed in a way that terrified her. "Those two weeks where I was getting hit on constantly… that was you, wasn't it?"
She could feel her face had caught fire and she ducked her head to her toes. She was pretty sure if she looked any more at his judgmental gaze, her whole body would go up in flames.
"That blonde boy… that's how… that's how you knew."
Mercifully, she was spared having to formulate a reply by Sailor Jupiter appearing next to them, panting and out of breath.
If Mamoru had realized how she felt about him – and if he hadn't quite yet, with those gears whirring he was at most seconds away – then she needed to be far, far away before the bomb went off.
As soon as they'd finished this mission.
Like an icicle, it pierced through her, left her cold.
Zoisite was inside a US military base, and the only thing she could think about was Mamoru realizing that she was pathetic. God, she really was.
"Ma'am, this area isn't safe," Sailor Jupiter was saying when her brain caught up with her surroundings, and under any other circumstances, Usagi might have giggled at the misunderstanding.
As it was, she was pretty sure she would never find anything funny again.
"There are hostiles on-base," Sailor Jupiter continued in her most patient voice. "And you should evacuate until you receive the all-clear signal."
"It's me, Mako-chan," she said, tipping up the visor of her uniform cap slightly, as though that would enable her friend to see through the Disguise Pen's glamour.
"Sailor Moon?" Makoto asked after a beat, squinting at her friend. She let out a huge exhale when Usagi nodded. "Oh, thank goodness you're here. The other Senshi are on the way, but since I live closest…"
Usagi nodded again, keeping her eyes trained on Sailor Jupiter, hoping that if she refused to in any way acknowledge Tuxedo Mask that the dashing hero might take the hint and conveniently disappear… leaving her and Sailor Jupiter alone to face the threat.
Even in her most downtrodden state, she knew Mamoru would never do that.
No, he would show up for her, he would save her butt every time she needed it, he would stand in high places and say his encouraging haikus, and then when the battle was over he would go home and crawl into bed next to someone else and laugh with them about sad little Odango Atama, the slacker girl from high school who he still had to see occasionally, who was so presumptuous that she dared think she had an actual chance with him.
She shook her self-pity from her mind, reminding herself again that this was not the time.
Stupid Zoisite.
"I'll find the breaker and turn off the fence once I get inside," she told Jupiter. "Shouldn't take more than a couple minutes."
Sailor Jupiter nodded. "The others should be here by then," she agreed. "We'll loop them in as soon as they arrive."
"Right!" she said, and turned and marched back up to the gate.
This time, the man in the booth jumped to attention the moment he saw her, opening the gate without even asking to see her credentials.
Restraining the urge to push her luck, to chastise him for not letting in Sailor Moon and the other Senshi and thus maybe sparing herself the trouble of searching for the breaker box – or of trying to figure out how to work a breaker box – she forced herself to walk past the gate and up to the building.
A few minutes and a little luck proved enough to locate the steel rectangle that housed the power supply for the base, but when she broke it open, everything inside was labeled in neat English.
Cursing the fact that Zoisite had picked the stupid AMERICAN base to invade, she squinted at the foreign letters. As a college graduate with a job at a prestigious international social work program, she was markedly better with the language than she had been as an unmotivated middle school student, but she still wasn't familiar with military slang like "Mess Hall" or "Barracks."
Scrolling down row after row of identical black switches, when she reached almost the very bottom her face lit up. She wasn't sure about the first word, "Peri-meter," but she definitely recognized "Fence."
She threw the switch, whirling to check if the power to the electrified fence had successfully been cut.
Unsurprisingly, the grounds of the base were much better maintained than the streets outside, and she couldn't find so much as a fallen twig to chuck at the interlinked metal to test it.
Fortunately – depending on your definition of the word – she was spared the hassle.
When she raised her head and looked up, she saw Tuxedo Mask standing atop a streetlight, his arms crossed and his cape whipping in the breeze, the pose made yet more overly dramatic by the rising full moon behind him.
She huffed when he leapt down, clearing the fence entirely. "You couldn't have done that all along?" she snapped, and he shrugged.
"I thought you might need backup," he said, his tone infuriatingly neutral.
"I'm doing just fine without you," she shot back, her own voice decidedly heated.
A rose materialized between his fingers, and he tossed it into the metal of the fence.
It bounced off unscathed and she loathed his satisfied smirk, too sexy for the setting.
"Of course. But I can still help, can't I?"
For a fraction of a second, she seriously wanted to throw up her hands, stomp back out of the base and just let the Dark Kingdom have this one. Or at the very least make someone else be in charge for a change, deal with the logistics and the secrecy and making all the wrong decisions.
She was so damn tired.
And then four other Sailor Senshi hurdled the fence, Sailor Mercury boosting herself up on the metal grating and Sailor Venus using one foot to vault off the razor-thin top.
At the sight of her friends, her momentary impulse to abandon the mission faded into a swell of shame that she stuffed down.
"Come on," she said to the girls, turning on her heel to run deeper into the military complex. They needed to find Zoisite before he got whatever it was he'd come for and took off in his chopper again.
Luck – or maybe just Zoisite's complete lack of chill – proved to be on their side. They'd barely dashed into the first building before they heard the prima donna's cackling echoing along the concrete walls.
Orienting themselves based on the sound and falling in step behind Usagi, the Senshi moved through the labyrinthine halls of the base, expecting a youma to pop out at every turn. But it seemed Zoisite had brought them only for his own personal protection, or maybe just his amusement, because as they wound their way through the deserted corridors, they didn't see a single soul.
Did youma have souls?
Usagi didn't have time to ponder this question. Before she could even start, she was shoved through a doorway, coming face-to-face with Zoisite.
"Yes, what." Zoisite's voice was sharp as he glanced up from a disorderly stack of papers, and Usagi's heart seized, her pending coronary incident relieved only when she remembered that she was still disguised as a soldier.
"Um, sir!" she said, doing a salute and hoping it looked properly American.
Zoisite seemed unbothered either way, shoving the pile of papers right off the desk where they fanned across the floor.
"Did you bring what I asked for?"
Her eyes went wide, pretty sure she was about to wholly blow her cover. How come she was the one who'd been pushed into this?
"Um." She glanced behind her, praying the Senshi had some kind of plan they hadn't bothered to let her in on. "Yes."
"Really?" Zoisite's eyes lit up, and he seemed to lose all interest in the blueprint or whatever it was that he'd been looking at.
He glanced over his shoulder, and when something in the shadows moved, Usagi realized with a barely suppressed jolt that there were youma lurking in the dark corners of this room.
Her inhale was a shudder, her lungs half-rejecting the oxygen. "Yes, sir," she said, praying he didn't ask for any more details, or decide that now that she'd 'reported' she'd outlived her usefulness and it was time to feed her to one of the rainbow-colored monsters. "It's out front. We should hurry and get it before someone else comes and finds it."
"Yes, it would be rather inconvenient if that little moon-brat were to get to it first… Not that they'll let her into the complex!" Zoisite threw his head back in a flurry of laughter and Usagi smiled weakly. She was undercover, after all, but she still really wanted to kick Zoisite in his stupid pretty face for deriving this much joy out of her nightmare of an evening.
"But…" Zoisite paused, looking her over. "You left it alone, unguarded? Why didn't you bring it directly to me?"
Her mind spun as fast as it could, trying to get her out of trouble. It had to be small enough to fit down the halls, she reasoned, if Zoisite wanted me to bring it directly to him.
"It's hidden," she said gingerly. "I concealed it in case I, um, got intercepted before I made it to you."
Zoisite's eyebrow arched, his lips pursing with obvious displeasure. "Queen Beryl won't be appeased until the Black Crystal is back in my hands," he muttered. "It's our only chance to find that Mystical Silver Crystal before the Sailor Senshi do."
He jerked his head, tossing curls over one shoulder as he snapped at the blue-skinned woman who skulked in one corner. "You and the other girls, grab whatever weapons you can carry and meet me out front. Five minutes. Don't be late."
Usagi pressed her lips together, heavily doubting her ability to fend Zoisite off by herself, let alone in only five minutes.
Nonetheless, she attempted some kind of a military march, leading the Shitennou into the hall and hoping she could remember the way back to the front door. Unlike Hiiro hospital, the Akasaka base didn't have any conveniently placed colorful lines painted along the floors to help her retrace her steps
Picking a direction at random, she trooped down the corridor and was relieved that Zoisite seemed to be following her without any suspicion – and, even more mercifully, without any comment. Her brain was already in overdrive, and she didn't need to make it worse by attempting to smalltalk with someone who would try to murder her the second he figured out who she was.
Her throat was dry, her plan was absent, and she couldn't spot a single Senshi anywhere. Things were kind of dire, and at this point she thought she would have gladly accepted even Mamoru's help – frustrated and angry though she might be, her pride wasn't worth dying over.
Not that she was getting much of an option one way or the other, what with everyone bailing on her.
Her ribcage could barely contain her heart, which felt like it had grown wings that now flapped frantically in search of any way out. Her eyes swept over each junction they passed, sure she was about to find ugly death lurking around the corner. She tried to count in her brain, to see if the paltry five minutes she'd been given before the youma caught up to them were almost up.
The soles of her army-regulation boots stuttered to a halt against the laminate floors as the front door came into view in front of them. Stunned that she'd managed to retrace her steps, but trying not to let Zoisite know, she gestured in front of her. "After you," she said to the Shitennou.
They stepped through the doors and Usagi watched as Zoisite's eyes scanned the lot, his elfin features pulling into a frown.
"They should be here by now…" he said, before his hand snapped forward, fingers closing around Usagi's throat and tugging her off her feet.
The tips of her toes just-brushed the top of the entryway steps as she began to choke.
"You betrayed me, didn't you? Didn't you?!"
Usagi's hands quavered, trying to claw herself free of Zoisite's terrible grip. She could barely get enough oxygen into her lungs to breathe, let alone to answer his accurate accusation.
She blinked hard, trying to correct for the way the edges of her vision were beginning to grey out. But with each blink, more and more of her sight seemed to go, until the only thing she could make out was a haze of black and red.
Without warning, her throat opened again, and her left hip collided painfully with the ground. Color came back into her world, but everything remained blurry as she fought through the convulsions of her lungs.
Above the hacking sound of her own breaths, she heard a familiar baritone: "Transform, Sailor Moon!"
Still coughing, she shoved herself up from her side and into a seated position. "Moon… P-prism..." the words were a wheeze, the bones of her hand trembling as she raised it over her head. "Power… Make-up!"
The magic wasn't worried about her physical weakness, the damage she'd already taken. Her henshin was as smooth as it had ever been, the sparkles and ribbons fluidly maneuvering her limbs through the transformation sequence.
She hit her final pose and looked up, finding Zoisite and Tuxedo Mask locked in a yori-kiri hold, broken only when Zoisite's eyes met hers and his grip on his opponent fumbled.
"Sailor Moon?" the general cried, his voice clouded with irritation. "You weren't supposed to be able to get onto the base!"
"How dare you be so arrogant!" Usagi fired back. "Choking innocent people and trying to hold Tokyo hostage using military technology? I won't forgive you!"
"As if I care about puny human technology!" Zoisite snapped, throwing up his arms in an effort to deflect the swing of Tuxedo Mask's cane. "Your pathetic military simply took something that belongs to me, and I want it back."
"Causing mayhem and destruction is not the right way to get something back! Besides, we can't allow you to have something that you'll only use for evil."
"And you still think you can stop me!" Zoisite let out a shrill cackle, a sharpened shard of obsidian crystal forming in his hand as he blocked another blow from Tuxedo Mask.
But Mamoru didn't strike again, seemed to lose all interest in Zoisite – instead, he was staring across the lot at her, his eyes going wide behind his domino mask.
"Usagi!"
Mamoru's yell sounded in time with the faintest prickling of the baby hairs on the back of her neck, and Usagi dropped to a crouch on instinct. She swiveled on her toes barely in time to see the electrified tendril that had just-so-narrowly missed grasping her sweep through the air over the tops of her hair buns.
The cyan woman with tentacles for arms looked stunned, using her gossamer wings to whip her body and her weapon back around and ready another strike.
Despite the palpitations of her heart as she watched her foe wheel across the starlight sky, Usagi's movements flowed with her breaths, her hand finding her tiara with the faintest jerking tremble. But once her fingers connected with the cool metal, it was all as natural as her henshin had been, her movements guided by the magic like a reflex. "Moon Tiara Action!"
She caught the discus in her hand as the other four Senshi burst out of the building. They stood in the doorway, chests heaving as the dragonfly-woman crumbled to moondust, her waist cut cleanly in two.
"Is it over?" asked Sailor Jupiter tentatively. They looked around the small lot – Zoisite had vanished in the fray, and the remains of the youma woman were blowing away in the late spring breeze.
"What about the other four youma?" Usagi asked.
"Took 'em out in the halls," Sailor Venus said. "We would've gotten her too, if Tuxedo Mask hadn't gone and abandoned us."
The aforementioned masked superhero appeared next to the group without comment, for which Usagi was grateful. She'd rather the girls didn't know how close Zoisite had come to choking the life out of her.
"What about Zoisite?" asked Sailor Mercury, and Tuxedo Mask shook his head.
"I lost track of him," he admitted. "The last I saw was a flurry of petals."
"Well," said Usagi, aching limbs full of nervous energy. "He was here to steal back the Black Crystal. If we don't find it first, he's just gonna try this again."
"One problem, though," interjected Sailor Mars. "We have no idea where to even look."
Usagi's eyes zeroed in on the security booth at the complex's gate. "Hold that thought." She marched across the lot, kicking the door to the small room open with a powerful blow.
The security officer cowered in the corner, his hands up to protect his face.
"Y-you really are Sailor Moon," he said.
In response, she grabbed the collar of his uniform shirt, dragging him to his feet and forcing his back against the wall.
"Listen up, mister," she barked. "Yes, I really am Sailor Moon, and I need your help finding something before the bad guys do. What do you know about a Black Crystal that the military found?"
"That… it was worthless," he spluttered. "They scanned it, thought it might be an explosive or something, but it was just a run-of-the-mill chunk of rock."
"Do you know where they stored it?"
"Lady, it was just a rock!"
Usagi gritted her teeth, biting out her next words. "I need to find it."
The guard paused, then coughed. "Top drawer," he muttered. "My kid collects crystals and minerals, I thought he'd like it."
Usagi released him, diving for the drawer and pulling it open with a bang. The Black Crystal sat on top of a pile of men's magazines, and she snatched it up.
"Thank you," she tossed over her shoulder, stepping towards the door as the security guard rubbed his throat.
She didn't make it out of the booth, though. A swirl of petals and a pointed obsidian blade nearly caught her in the gut as she moved to exit.
Zoisite's sneak attack knocked her on her ass, a stinging pain in her arm where the weapon had managed to connect.
The security officer yelped, but Usagi wasn't about to try to battle anyone in a two meter cube. Rather than charge her weapon, she hurled the crystal against the ground, driving her heel down after it.
The piece of carbon crunched to dust under her foot.
"Too late, Zoisite!" she cried, whipping her head up to glare at the man blocking the doorway.
The Shitennou's face contorted with rage, but before he could retaliate the little booth rocked on its foundations.
"Crescent Beam!" "Supreme Thunder!" "Fire Soul!"
Usagi heard the cries of her friends and raised her chin, grinning at Zoisite in triumph. She arched one eyebrow, her hand moving towards her forehead.
"Six against one, Zoisite, and the Black Crystal is gone. You feel lucky?"
With a grunted oath, another storm of petals swirled across the space, and then Zoisite was gone.
"That's it, I'm changing careers," she heard the guard's dazed mumble behind her as she climbed back to her feet, rubbing her sore behind as she stepped out of the booth.
"Sailor Moon!" The chorus of relieved cries met her ears, and she held up her empty hands in triumph.
"Any leads on the Black Crystal?" asked Ami, and a bubble of self-satisfaction swelled in Usagi's belly.
"Smashed. The asshat security guard had it in there the whole time, if you can believe it."
"What?!"
"You're kidding."
"I'd have to run the calculations, but those odds must be astronomically small."
Usagi shrugged, spreading her hands. "Odds, schmods. I've never been all that good at math, anyway," she joked.
"That may be true, but you've really stepped up your game lately, Usagi." When everyone turned to gape at the Senshi of Flame and Passion in disbelief, twin spots of pink bloomed on Rei's cheeks.
Usagi, in particular, felt shell-shocked by the unexpected praise, until Rei fired off her next words: "I mean, if you'd been better at this in the first place then we wouldn't even have to have this conversation, don't get a big head or anything."
"Hey, she's been doing her best this whole time, Rei-chan! Don't be so mean!" As she might have expected, Makoto was the first to leap to her defense.
Even as Usagi's shoulders sagged slightly in disappointment as the happy victory bubbles dissipated, her eyes were drawn towards Mamoru.
He was resplendent as always in his tuxedo, and he stood next to their group with his lips pressed in a firm line.
The chatter continued, with Ami pulling out her Mercury PC and tapping away, chiming in to support Makoto's defense with the occasional statistic about Sailor Moon's improved performance. Even Minako told Rei that she needed to lighten up.
But Mamoru said nothing.
Not then. Not later, after the Senshi had dispersed back to their homes. There was no text, no call.
Even if Sailor Moon was starting to get things right, it seemed Tsukino Usagi had already royally fucked up.
Normally after being so humiliated in front of someone she'd been sleeping with, Usagi would take great pains to just never have to be in the same room with them again, ever.
Back in her first year of university, she'd dropped a course because a girl she'd accidentally called the wrong name during sex was also taking that class. At least one of the clubs on her and the girls' do-not-visit list was there because Usagi had slept with a bartender and it had ended badly (admittedly, the others were on the list because Minako had gotten them kicked out). Usagi was no stranger to blindly avoiding confrontation.
That strategy probably wouldn't work this time.
She kicked herself, yet again, for making the incredibly impulsive and short-sighted decision to start sleeping with Tuxedo Mask of all people – never mind her immediate attraction to the cape-wearing vigilante or the fact that he'd turned out to actually be the acerbic but far-too-handsome Chiba Mamoru.
All things considered, with her general approach to self-discipline and delayed gratification, she may not have ever had much of a chance to make a different choice – but dammit, if every future Senshi meeting was going to consist of him sitting in absolute silence and judging her with his cold blue eyes, then they were either going to have to find a way to defeat the Dark Kingdom ASAP – like, tomorrow, preferably – or she was going to have to figure out how superheroes were supposed to quit. Because she didn't think she could stand it.
The idea of quitting, or at least finding a replacement to take over for her, was becoming even more appealing, as it was starting to seem like staying on as Sailor Moon and all the late-night commitments that it entailed might be beginning to impact her actual career.
At the moment, she was holding a stack of heavily marked-up documents that Watanabe-san had dumped into her inbox first thing that morning and wondering how in the world the prickly woman in finance had found this many things she'd done wrong in her weekly paperwork.
Minako often said that people aren't from Nagoya unless they really are out to get you. Questionable idiom – and a complete lack of information about where her colleague was from – aside, Usagi was somewhat uncomfortable assuming that a woman that she had to work with closely for the foreseeable future had it out for her for no apparent reason. Even if at least half the things Watanabe-san had marked up with her red pen were incredibly nitpicky and made her feel like she was back in middle school and suffering the wrath of Haruna-sensei once again.
She flipped through the stack – apparently she'd need to be more precise with her rubber stamping in the future, as she was just a fraction of a centimeter too far to the left – and sighed. When she'd taken this job – picked this degree program, really – she hadn't expected this much pedantic bureaucracy. She'd expected to spend her days helping people, but just correcting this paperwork would take her the better part of her sixty-hour workweek.
She wasn't sure that this particular scenario was what Ishikawa-san had meant about not having the time or energy to truly engage with her clients, but she was starting to feel it. Between this week's site visits and the accompanying huge pile of paperwork, plus correcting all the tiny errors from last week's huge pile of paperwork, she'd be lucky if she managed to get anything else at all done – including fighting off the Dark Kingdom. No matter how glad she might be for the built-in excuse to not have to see Mamoru, she simply couldn't keep stretching herself this thin with nothing to show for it.
She made a mental note to ask the princess, if they ever managed to find her, if she'd be interested in sponsoring a starving superhero for just ¥250,000 per month. But in the meantime…
Booting up her computer with a long, low exhale, Usagi flipped once more through the sea of red annotations that covered all she had to show for her last week of work. Then, she opened up a word document and let her fingers fly across the keyboard.
Dear Uchida-san, she typed, the tip of her tongue poking ever-so-slightly out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrated. It is with great regret that I must resign from my position as a caseworker for International Social Services Japan. This has been a very valuable learning experience, and I am incredibly grateful for it. She furrowed her eyebrows, staring up at the blank ecru wall above her computer screen as she tried to figure out a good reason for giving her notice, besides 'Dealing with all this red tape is a nightmare and I'm the wrong person for the job.'
Unfortunately, the last month has proved that I am not a great fit for your team. Despite this, I remain committed to ISSJ's vision, and I am more than happy to stay on and manage my cases until you are able to hire and train my replacement. She sucked in another breath, hoping that was adequately diplomatic. I wish you all the best with your future endeavors. Respectfully, Tsukino Usagi.
She tapped the button that autofilled her credentials at the bottom of the form – Caseworker, ISSJ, her desk phone number and email address – and skimmed over what she'd just written. Deeming it acceptable, she hit the 'print' command and hopped up, hurrying to make sure she made it to the printer before any of her colleagues. Even if they were soon-to-be-former colleagues, it was still bad form for any of them to find out she was leaving before she'd given proper notice.
She retrieved the printout and brought it back to the privacy of her desk to sign it. Her penmanship, as usual, was more a messy scribble than the busiest of doctor's ever could be, but she did try very hard to write her name as clearly and neatly as she could.
Glancing at the clock on the wall, she decided she'd take an early weekend. She could come in before regular opening hours on Monday to begin her transition out. That way, she could maintain as much professionalism as possible and there was no risk of any of her colleagues seeing her break down and cry.
She slipped her purse over her shoulder, clutched the resignation letter in her free hand. Then she headed for the elevator, half-hoping Uchida-san had already left for the day and she could just slip the paper into her inbox without having to have an awkward conversation about the whole thing.
Luck, however, was not on her side today. When she knocked softly on the cracked office door, Uchida-san's pleasant voice immediately called her in.
"Ah, Tsukino-san," Uchida-san said with a wide smile. "Excellent timing. I was hoping we might schedule a meeting next week to discuss how you're settling in here. Do you have time for a chat now?"
She pressed her lips together, trying to find the words. "Um. Yes, I do, but…"
Her fingers trembled only slightly as she offered the paper to Uchida-san, a fact that she was proud of, but they shook a whole lot more when she lowered them to her sides again. In an attempt to hide her nerves, she balled her hands into fists as she watched Uchida-san skim over the letter.
After a moment, her supervisor looked up at Usagi with an arched eyebrow.
"I'm surprised to hear that you feel this way, Tsukino-san," she said after a deafening pause.
Usagi refrained from shrugging, instead inclining her head in what she hoped might pass for a demure bow. "I thought it was the best decision," she said.
"I don't," replied Uchida-san coolly. She gestured for Usagi to take a seat in the chair in front of her desk, then tapped a manicured finger against the page. "This here: 'The last month has proved that I am not a great fit for your team.' Can you tell me more about why you think that?"
As she sat down, Usagi couldn't help but shrug. "I… I don't think my priorities are the same as the rest of the team," she said carefully.
"What do you mean by that?"
She had the same impulse to throw up her hands and stomp out that she so often did when dealing with Mamoru, and his apparent need to pretend to misunderstand her at every turn just to force her to embarrass herself in front of him.
"I mean that… well… I don't care if every client fills out every single form, even the redundant ones. Or if every form has been stamped in the exact correct spot instead of two centimeters over. I became a social worker to get to know people, to help them, not because I want to spend forty hours every week redoing forms until they're perfect, like I'm back in middle school and struggling with my Kanji penmanship all over again. If that's what you're looking for in a caseworker, then I'm not the right fit, Uchida-san. And I'm very sorry to have wasted your time." She gulped after her little diatribe, looking up to meet Uchida-san's eye and expecting the distinguished woman to look annoyed, to shoo her out of the office and tell her not even to bother staying on to help them train her replacement.
Instead, she looked pensive, her eyes skimming over the letter once more. Then, she looked up at Usagi again, her head nodding slowly. "Sometimes I think we would all do better with a bit less bureaucracy…"
Uchida-san dropped the resignation letter into the recycling bin next to her desk, then crossed her arms and leaned back against the cherry wood. "Do you know why we hired you, Tsukino-san?"
Usagi blinked. Was this a trick question? "Um. My credentials?"
Uchida-san's smile was wide as she shook her head. "While those didn't hurt, they weren't the reason, no. We hired you because you care. Not only is it audible when you talk about what drives you to be a social worker, but it's evident in the way your transcripts improved once you realized what you wanted to do with your life. You care, and you refuse to be scared off of caring when things get difficult. In fact, you would rather quit than devote your time to something that you perceive to be a waste of time and resources. That is an eminently rare trait, Tsukino-san."
Usagi dropped her gaze to the ground, dwelling on the chastisements she kept receiving, the red notes all over her work. "Nobody else seems to think so."
"Which is exactly why we need people like you. With a staff of worn-down drones and uptight worshippers of routine, things stagnate. You've been here for just over a month, and you've already identified ways to streamline efficiency and improve client services. I've heard a few rumblings around the office about you overhauling your client filing system to work better for you."
Usagi ducked her head. She'd never dreamed the director would have heard anything about her little project, and even if she was about to quit, it was embarrassing.
"Change might mean ruffling a few feathers," Uchida-san continued, "but people like Watanabe-san will adjust to the new routine, and be better for it."
Usagi gulped at the mention of her counterpart in processing. If she'd heard about the filing project… had Watanabe-san been complaining to Uchida-san about her? But her burgeoning spiral stopped before it could begin as her brain caught up with what Uchida-san was actually saying.
Or, at least, what it sounded like she was saying.
"S-sorry, did you just say… you like what I'm doing?"
"Well, I'm not going to endorse the idea of you deciding willy-nilly which forms you will and won't use, but if you come to me with a compelling justification? I think we can easily realign any obstructive red tape and make sure what we're doing is actually serving our clients."
She managed to hold her jaw shut, but it was a narrow thing. She felt like she had on the day Uchida-san had called her with the job offer – all her limbs and muscles out of alignment, and no idea of where she was in space.
"Why don't we plan to meet at the end of the month and discuss some of the ways you think we can improve operations?" Uchida-san continued on, oblivious to Usagi's shock. "You have a fresh perspective, a lot of ideas, and I think with the proper support you can make a big difference in the services we're able to provide our clients. You can present to me first, and then once we've thoroughly vetted your proposal I'll arrange a meeting with the board of directors."
Now her mouth went dry. The board of directors? Uchida-san wanted her to speak to the BOARD OF DIRECTORS?!
There was no chance she wasn't going to botch that. She needed to explain to Uchida-san that she had the wrong person before things went completely belly-up and she wound up fired. Quitting, at least, was defensible, but getting fired would be a permanent blotch on her CV.
"Uchida-san, I don't think…"
"I have every confidence in you, Tsukino-san," the older woman interrupted her. "I won't let you go before the board until we're both certain of the success of your presentation, all right?"
Usagi had enough experience being steamrolled by Luna and her mother to recognize a dismissal of her objections when she saw one.
"Um. Yes, Uchida-san," she said, falling back on the reliable response she always used when someone shut down her misgivings like that.
"Excellent. Now, I want you to keep doing exactly what you've been doing, but from now on with proper documentation which you'll report to me. It does take a bit of bureaucracy to undo bureaucracy, I find, but let's do our best to keep it to a minimum, shall we?"
Usagi nodded, not sure what else to do, and rose from her seat in front of Uchida-san's desk. When her fingers hit the doorknob, Uchida-san's voice rang from behind her.
"Oh, and Tsukino-san?" She turned to look behind her. "If you're feeling unhappy or unfulfilled in your work, come talk to me from now on. No more of this talk of quitting, all right?"
She nodded with a little gulp, then let herself out of the office.
She still had a job. And the head of operations at ISSJ somehow not only cared what she thought, but wanted to support her in streamlining things, agreed that they should be making more time for caseworkers to spend with their clients and provide proper support and care.
It was so far from what she'd expected that her legs were wobbling a bit, and she knew she wouldn't be able to focus enough to get anything else done in her final hour of the day.
So, instead of going back to her desk and pretending, she followed her original plan: she made her way out of the building and to the nearest Metro stop.
Uchida-san's supportive words still rang uncomfortably in her brain, and she didn't think she had the bandwidth to process them anywhere other than from the heart of her blanket cocoon. Aiming to distract herself, she stopped by the Hakuyosha Dry Cleaners on her way back across town, picking up the tops she'd borrowed from Ami the week before. Now that she apparently wasn't quitting, she was hoping that her friend would let her keep a couple of them for just a little longer, but she was pretty sure it would be rude to not at least offer them back first.
Letting herself zone out completely out on the walk between the cleaners and Ami's building, she blinked and found herself rapping her knuckles on the plain white door, decorated only with the blue cutout paper flower that Usagi had made for Ami back in college when she'd officially moved out of her mother's and found her own place.
It only took a moment before Ami answered the door, glasses on and an obvious stack of work spread out behind her on the low table at the center of her small studio apartment.
"Usagi-chan, this is a surprise," Ami said, but despite the bemusement in her eyes, her smile was warm. "How are you today?"
Usagi held out the half-dozen hangers full of professional attire. "I got them cleaned," she said by way of explanation. "But I was hoping maybe I could borrow a couple for a bit longer?"
Ami's lips pressed together as her eyebrows furrowed. "Of course, Usagi-chan, but I thought you were working on building your own wardrobe?"
"Well, yeah, but then I spent a lot of money on… well, it's a long story. But now I have to wait a little bit longer before I can afford anything nice. So if I could keep these for just another week or two…?"
"What about those tops from Mamoru-san? I don't think I've seen you wear either one even once." Ami asked, and every muscle in Usagi's body went numb. It was a miracle she managed to hang on to the hangers at all, really.
"Do you not like them?" Ami continued, for once apparently oblivious to Usagi's discomfort. "I told Mamoru-san the one with the heart-dots was just your style, but I'm sure it's not too late to exchange it if I was wrong."
Her blood roared in her ears as she tried to process Ami's words. "Wh-what do you mean you told Mamoru?"
A sudden, horrible, awful, unimaginable thought crashed over her: Was Ami the girl?
If all the blood had drained out of her body at once, she didn't think she could have felt worse.
Ami and Mamoru were so similar. They got along really well, and often sat together at Senshi meetings. Sometimes when the two of them started talking, she zoned out entirely – and not just because she was mesmerized by Mamoru's lips. More because she could only understand about half the words they were using – such as 'the' and 'and.'
Mamoru would be happy with a girl like Ami, and Ami deserved someone who was on her level.
But did that mean… Had she been having sex with her best friend's future husband?
Bile rose in her throat and she thought she might be sick, but she couldn't do it in front of Ami. Couldn't be a shittier friend than she already had been.
"Oh, I… I'm happy for you guys." The words almost choked her as she forced them out, cutting off whatever it was that Ami had been saying midstream.
Ami wrinkled her nose. "Happy? For what?"
"You… you and Mamoru? I'm sure you're a." She swallowed, determined to get the sour words out of her mouth. "A really cute couple."
Ami stared at her for a long moment, eyes unblinking as she spoke slowly. "Yes, if we were remotely compatible, I had any interest in him whatsoever, and he wasn't already hopelessly in love with someone else, I suppose we might be."
Usagi blinked. "You're… but you're… you and him… you're not? Are you sure?"
Ami shook her head, a smile on her face that might have been called a smirk had it come from anyone else. "Mamoru-san has been an excellent senpai to me as I have completed my medical training and sought employment. It's true that over the years we've developed a certain camaraderie, particularly since he joined the Senshi team, but no, there is no spark there. On either side."
"But then why would he take you shopping with him?!"
"Oh, he didn't. When I saw the set of blouses he had picked out for you, I insisted on taking him back to the store and exchanging them for something that you might conceivably wear. Honestly, I don't know why that man is so convinced that lavender goes with everything."
Ami paused, looking at Usagi in a way that made her feel naked.
"…Is that why you haven't worn those blouses? Because you thought Mamoru-san's girlfriend picked them out?"
Heat flared in her cheeks. "No?"
Ami nodded slowly. "I assume that means that Mamoru-san isn't the guy your supposed 'friend' is casually sleeping with, either?"
Her hands clapped to her face, certain her blush was visible from space. "What? Ami-chan, where would you get…" She trailed off with a sigh, lowering her protective hands as she saw Ami's skeptical expression – her friend was so obviously on to her. "How long have you known?"
"That you are in fact your alleged 'friend,' I've known from the moment you first told me. That Mamoru-san is your partner… about forty-five seconds."
She pressed her lips together, but then looked up at Ami again, the stormcloud of isolation from the last few months lifting as she realized that, now that Ami had worked things out, she no longer had anything to lose. "You said… You said that Mamoru is in love with someone."
"I did say that."
"Who is she?"
Ami winced. "It's really not my place to say. He's the person you need to ask, Usagi-chan."
"Amiiiiiiiii-chaaaaaaaan," Usagi wailed. "I can't ask him! We haven't spoken in weeks! He dumped me for that girl."
"Did he?" Ami's eyebrow arched high. "…He hasn't been behaving at all like someone with a new girlfriend."
Usagi shrank in on herself. "Well, I mean. Maybe he's not with her yet, but he was going to dump me any day. I just… I decided to speed things up."
"You decided…? Oh, Usagi-chan. You need to go talk to him. Trust me."
"Why would I go talk to him? What good would that do?"
Ami clicked her tongue. "I already told you, Usagi-chan. You need to hear it from him, not from me."
She shook her head. "Ami-chan… I can't."
Ami's head tilted slightly. "You face down energy-sapping monsters on a weekly basis, aced your university courses after years of applying minimal effort to anything academic, and you secured the only open position at a major international social work organization. Plus, you know exactly how to pacify Rei-chan when she's at her moodiest. I would think an open conversation with Mamoru-san should be the least of your worries."
Her head was jerking back and forth, sending blonde streamers spiralling around her body. "But I didn't- I didn't earn any of that, Ami-chan."
"Who did, then?"
There was a long pause, one that reminded Usagi of the way Mamoru would sometimes silently stare at her, like she was some kind of puzzle he was mentally working out. It made her skin itch.
"No-nobody. It was just luck."
"Your grades for the last eight years were just luck? I've been with you when you were studying, Usagi-chan. That isn't luck."
"Well, maybe not my grades, then. But the job? They only hired me because nobody else wanted it."
Ami snorted, but her eyes were all sympathy and understanding. "I don't believe that for a moment, Usagi-chan. In fact, I mentioned your new job to one of the women in my cohort, and she said that her boyfriend had also interviewed for your position and was devastated when they called him back and said that they were very sorry but they'd filled the position with someone they'd already had in mind before he even came in."
Her heart lurched. "What?"
"Yes, apparently he was a student at Bunkyo University, so from a somewhat less prestigious program than Meiji Gakuin. But you should check with your classmates, see how many of them applied for your job and weren't offered it."
Usagi's pulse was in her ears, leaving her able to hear the ocean swirling in her own head. To keep from drowning in it, she latched onto something else Ami had said. "But... I'm a terrible leader."
"No, you aren't. Do you honestly believe, given our respective backgrounds, that anyone else could have united the six of us? There's much more to leadership than flawless fighting skills, Usagi-chan. And besides, you can't trust anything Rei-chan says when she's relieved that nobody she cares about got killed but refuses to admit it."
She pressed her lips together, trying to hold her thoughts back out of fear of letting Ami debunk anything else. But Ami, as she always did, seemed to know anyway.
"Go talk to him, Usagi-chan. I promise, it will make you feel better."
It wouldn't, though. She knew it wouldn't, because hearing about the girl he loved from Mamoru could only bring her pain.
But after a few more attempts to spare herself the conversation by wheedling it out of Ami instead, her friend kicked Usagi out, insisting she had to begin preparing for her certification exams at the end of the year and that Usagi was only distracting her.
Usagi longed for a pebble or a can to kick along the cobblestone streets as she made her way home, and instead settled for stomping her feet a bit just to hear the clack of her heels.
Anything was better than the echo of Ami's words, or the reverb of that earlier strange and wholly unearned praise from Uchida-san.
She stopped at the rarely checked mailbox in the lobby, grabbing the stack of envelopes that nearly burst out of the absurdly tiny box just so she'd have something to occupy her hands in the elevator on her ride up to their sixth floor apartment.
After she stepped into the tiny cubicle and jammed the appropriate button, she flipped through several catalogs, a final notice on an overdue bill (though when she checked again, she was relieved to discover that it was addressed to Minako) and…
Her heartbeat turned to palpitations as she turned over a powder-pink envelope, addressed to 'Tsukino Usagi' in Mamoru's perfect handwriting.
She barely remembered stepping out of the clunky old elevator or walking down the hallway.
Hands trembling as they unlocked the door, she sagged against the frame when she realized Minako (mercifully) wasn't home.
Unseeing, she passed through the genkan without even kicking off her shoes. She dropped the rest of the mail somewhere on the kitchen counter and grabbed a knife from the sink, slicing open the pink envelope. Her mouth was dry as she pulled out the sparkly piece of stationary and seriously considered throwing it in the trash without even unfolding it.
What could he possibly be writing to say? Was this more practice for his mystery girl?
Though her heart hurt, her curiosity won out quickly, and her thumb flicked open the letter.
Her eyes skimmed over the contents of the letter – as always, in perfectly formed hiragana – and then they filled with tears.
To Usagi,
Sitting down to write this is… odd. It feels as though I've written this letter dozens of times already, into the curve of your breasts, the skin of your thighs. It seems inconceivable that you could possibly not know how I feel about you – but then again, we've never communicated well.
You've been my ray of light, my reason for getting up in the morning for as long as I've known you. It never seemed likely that you'd look at me, the dour upperclassman who only knew how to get your attention with taunts. I never thought it would come to this, that my feelings would become more than a wish carried on the wind.
These last few months have been the sweetest torture, a hopeless dream that I couldn't bear to wake up from. I couldn't stop, didn't want to stop, but to have you in my arms and still not have you? Hades himself couldn't have come up with a more divine punishment.
You asked about the girl that I liked – Usako, have you not figured it out yet?
There is only one girl, has only ever been one girl. I don't want anyone else.
I would choose you – will choose you – for as long as you'll let me, and beyond.
With love,
Your Mamoru-baka
AN: One chapter to go! 😘