Tokyo, Modern Day

The group of girls didn't bother Mamoru at first, but the louder they got, the more he felt himself sink into anger.

He was riding the bus toward the park to meet Nephrite–a last minute request the elder Shitennou sprung on him right as he sat down to do his homework. Regular life just didn't seem to matter as much now that he knew the truth, and watching these silly school girls, probably about the same age as him, giggle and coo over a love note one of them received was like nails on a chalkboard. He wanted to burn their joy, to suck them dry of their happiness, to make them feel even an iota of the pain he felt.

Just days ago, Jadeite had been struck down by a rogue youma during a battle with Sailor Moon and her cronies. Mamoru had just touched down, donning his Endymion battle suit, when the youma went from grabbing at Sailor Moon to penetrating Jadeite's stomach with its arms. Blood spewed out of him like a river, leaving everyone shocked, but especially Endymion. He rushed to his friend's side, holding back a guttural scream, and pressed his blond curls back.

Normally so full of light, Jadeite's eyes began to fade. As he lay dying in Mamoru's arms, he gurgled something about Sailor Moon and who she really was, but he was gone before he had a chance to spit it out. Endymion cried while holding his friend–no, his brother's–lifeless body against his, shaking him and screaming out his name.

Sailor Moon gingerly approached, but before she had a chance to say anything, Endymion was using his magic to travel back to Beryl. Everyone watched in horror as Kunzite extracted Endymion from Jadeite's corpse.

Beryl tried her best to show Endymion kindness, rubbing his back as he sat vacantly in one of the castle's many chambers. Her hand strayed down his arms, cascading across his muscles and finding their way to his sides. Was she really seducing him now? When she noticed his disapproval, she snapped back, whispered something in his ear about the malevolent forces of Sailor Moon causing the youma to turn. As soon as her scepter appeared, the youma's seemed to lose all control, bending to Sailor Moon's will before dissipating into the air.

Sailor Moon kept besting them time and time again. Each step closer to gathering enough energy to find the Silver Millennium Crystal was met with two steps back. Sailor Moon and the Scouts were impervious to The Shitennou's power, and the strain of finding resources weighed heavily on each of the generals. Once a group of tight knit brothers, their new lives on Earth had caused them to splinter.

No one trusted anyone. The stakes were alarmingly high. Mamoru himself found it difficult to sleep. And now one his oldest and dearest friends was dead.

Mamoru missed Jadeite. Of all the Shitennou, they were the closest. He had to admit, though, that his friend's final few days were filled with paranoia. Maybe he was so inside his own head that he took a misstep in his final battle against Sailor Moon. Maybe that's how the youma got him.

"Oh, hello there."

A voice snapped him out of his own self pity. Usagi was standing in front of him, holding her bookbag tight. Mamoru hadn't even realized the bus had stopped.

"Hi," he said quietly. He wasn't in the mood to talk, especially not to her. After running into her at the jewelry store a few weeks ago, he continued to run into her. At the arcade. In the park. Walking home from school. Each time was as annoying as the last. Usagi was clumsy and loud, she ate too fast and cried at the drop of the hat.

She and her friends were constantly fawning over his friend Motoki, constantly causing a scene and constantly annoying Mamoru in every way possible. Just two weeks ago–the day after Jadeite died–he was sulking at the Crown Arcade, avoiding Motoki's assault of questions: Did you get turned down for a date? Was it a bad test? Usagi came bumbling in, saw that he was down and slid straight into his booth.

She ordered an extra deluxe ice cream sundae with two spoons and proceeded to eat Mamoru's half when he said he wasn't hungry. Not exactly a way to offer sympathy to someone clearly having a bad day, he thought. It was funny and weird, but mostly annoying.

Now she was on his bus.

WIthout even asking, she plopped down next to him and let out a deep sigh. When Mamoru ignored it, she let out another sigh–this one somehow even deeper and longer–and tilted her head to look at Mamoru. First, she batted her eyelashes and then cleared her throat. Clearly something was on her mind.

"I get the feeling you want me to ask what's wrong," Mamoru said stoically. Usagi sighed again.

"Is it obvious that I'm upset?" She clutched her bag. Mamoru rolled his eyes. "There's just been a lot on my mind lately."

Mamoru didn't care what was on her mind. There was a lot on his mind, so much so that whatever she was battling would pale in comparison. How could this simple minded girl relate to the fact that he was battling an unspeakable evil in the name of bringing Earth to its former glory?

"A lot has been on my mind…" She said again, waiting to see Mamoru's response. "I'm burdened by so many things."

"Just spit it out." He crossed his arms and looked at her.

"Well," she sighed once more. "It's about my friend Naru."

Naru. Mamoru knew that name. He knew it because Nephrite had mentioned it just the other day. Now that Jadeite was dead, Nephrite was assigned to gather energy for Beryl. He did it very unwillingly. Just as Jadeite had been paranoid, Nephrite seemed a bit skeptical, too, sowing distrust among the Shitennou. He mostly kept to himself, but during one of his failed experiments, it slipped that he had met a young girl. And her name was Naru.

How did Usagi know Naru?

"What about her?" Suddenly, he was very curious.

"She's dating an older guy and I don't think he's any good for her," Usagi said. "I tried to talk to her about it but she just thinks I'm jealous."

"Well, are you?" Mamoru asked. Usagi turned bright red.

"No! I am not jealous of her!" She side-eyed Mamoru. "I am worried about her. She needs a boyfriend that isn't so old."

Naru had an older boyfriend. Nephrite mentioned Naru. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together.

"How do you know they're dating?" Mamoru asked, a hint of doubt in his voice. "Perhaps they're just friendly acquaintances."

"I don't think so." Usagi shook her head. "She doesn't talk about him the way you would talk about a friend. She is definitely in love with him."

"So then why ruin their happiness?" Mamoru hated needless meddling, especially when it concerned one of his generals. Perhaps he was using her for a bigger scheme. If Usagi got in the way of that, she could jeopardize his entire plight. Usagi huffed.

"Have you never once in your life been worried that a friend might be making the wrong decision?" She frowned. "A friend you hold very dear to you and you don't want to see get hurt?"

If Usagi only knew. Jadeite had been that friend. He tried to reason with him that this plan to restore the Earth Kingdom was the right one. As Jadeite's anxiety grew, he made stupid mistakes. If he had just stayed focused, if he had just persevered…

"Mamoru?" Usagi gently touched his arm, her face curved in concern. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Mamoru sat up straight. "I'm just thinking I can relate–to seeing a friend do the wrong thing and being powerless to stop it."

"So you can see where I'm coming from?" Usagi asked. Mamoru swallowed hard and nodded his head.

"Sometimes people have to make the wrong decisions, Usagi." He said coldly. "Sometimes people have to fall on their face and suffer because they didn't listen."

Usagi narrowed her eyes and cocked her head in bitter confusion. "Can you really be that heartless?"

"Heartless?" Mamoru spat back. "I'm a realist. People have to learn hard lessons on their own."

It was true, Mamoru did believe this. Before he met Beryl and began his mission to restore the Earth Kingdom, Mamoru liked to think of himself as more of an empath. He was sensitive and caring, patient and kind. These past few months had changed him so dramatically. Now, he was quick to anger and reveled in souring a mood. All of this stress pressed down on him like a vise.

"That's a really small minded way to see the world, Mamoru," Usagi rolled her eyes. The bus rolled to a stop and Usagi quickly gathered her things. Casting him a cruel glance, she charged off the bus and huffed down the sidewalk. Mamoru didn't even try to stop her.

Dusk was falling on the park where Nephrite had asked Mamoru to meet. The prince was late–strangely unlike him–and Nephrite was beginning to worry.

Nephrite used to come to this park all the time back when he was a graduate student. He liked to read his science textbooks under the big oak tree that sat in the middle of the grass, perfectly placed so that no matter where the sun was in the sky, there was always a bit of shade. When he graduated and took a job as an adjunct professor in the astronomy department, he didn't have time to come back and enjoy the sunshine.

Nephrite liked being an astronomer. He liked that the universe was always changing and yet so many things stayed the same. The draw of life outside this Earth was something that kept him up at night, and now knowing his past, he understood why. Life before was hard to remember, but ultimately there were parts that came back to him. It was less that his memories flooded back and more that feelings felt familiar.

When he was with Jadeite, for instance, or Endymion. Despite only having known them in this world for a short time, when they spoke it was like they had been together forever. Jadeite's death had been suspicious at best–a youma turning on him did not make much sense, at least not to Nephrite. And he had heard Jadeite's musings on Beryl and her true objective. If he had heard it, he was sure she had, too.

He never liked Beryl. He thought she was a social climber from the first time he met her at that summer fête. And the way she hungrily looked at Endymion–then and now–the way she watched him as he walked like he was a gazelle and she was a lion, he didn't like it.

Even with all his doubts, he knew better than to be bold. Rash decisions never ended well. He had to tread carefully.

Nephrite's plans to gather energy were not much more innovative than Jadeite's. Luckily, he had met Naru, a young girl who seemed overly eager to share her ideas with him about anything and everything. He asked her where people liked to hang out, what young girls were interested in, and she gladly gave him target after target without even realizing her error. Coupled with his mastery of the stars, he was sure his methods were effective. As for Naru, he could see the look of lust in her eyes, of seeing an older man and picturing the kind of romance older people experienced. But Nephrite did not feel that way toward her.

It was wrong to take advantage of her girlish sensibilities to help drive his plans, but after seeing what happened to Jadeite, he worried what fate might befall him if he failed.

"Nephrite," Mamoru's voice carried across the grass.

"Mamoru, you should really use my human name when addressing me in public." Nephrite chided. Mamoru rolled his eyes.

"Masato, excuse me," he said exaggeratingly. "I'll try to remember."

"You're late." Nephrite leaned up against the mighty oak watching as dark streaks of purple painted the sky. "Is there something more important than our mission that's keeping you?"

Mamoru flashed a sarcastic smile. "My apologies for keeping you waiting, I figured you might be with your girlfriend."

Nephrite balked. "Now where did you hear a rumor like that?"

"You need to be careful, Masato," Mamoru said sternly. "You're playing a bit of a dangerous game."

"No more dangerous than the one we've been brought into." Nephrite crossed his arms and looked up at the sky. A single star was breaking through the city glow. "Young girls are a great source of energy, so hopeful and so full of spirit. Leading her on isn't kind, but as Beryl always says–"

"The ends justify the means, I know." Mamoru shook his head.

"Speaking of, that's why I called you here today." Nephrite tapped his fingers along his bicep. "I have a new plan."

Nephrite's plans were no better than Jadeite's. Even if he thought his understanding of the stars helped guide his efforts, Mamoru wasn't so sure. Everything was failing. Farming all this energy was having no real impact, and it didn't help that Beryl was always so secretive about where this power went. All Mamoru understood was that the magic required to find and take the Silver Millennium Crystal needed energy and humans had energy in spades.

He trusted Beryl. She was his friend. She had always been his friend.

"I'm listening," Mamoru responded.

"I want to bait Sailor Moon to come out," he said. "She is a young girl about the same age as Naru. I have a feeling she might be the key to our success in this mission."

"So, capture her?"

"Something like that." Nephrite looked up to the sky. Stars were firmly twinkling overhead, a comfort and a reminder that there was a much larger universe out there.

"So when do we start?" Mamoru said casually.

"Tomorrow, noon. At the arcade," Nephrite responded. "And don't be late."

Without saying goodbye, Nephrite turned and crossed the lawn. His shoes squeaked on the grass as he made his way to the path, the lights now clicking on as night began to fall. Back when he was Masato, he enjoyed this time of the day so much. Now, it was a reminder of another failed project.

In a few moments, he would be back inside his Earth apartment. There he would shuffle through books about the cosmos, analyze pictures of nebulas billions of billions of miles away, and read about the latest scientific discoveries of the world. He would pretend to be a normal man–pray that he was a normal man–and try his hardest not to regret the day he met Beryl.

And then he would wake up and do her bidding.

He hated her for that.