This chapter, and the last one, will probably be the two shortest two of the bunch.
In an effort to avoid spoilers, all I will say is... have faith, y'all
Chapter 3: Duty
Summary: "The line of life is a ragged diagonal between duty and desire." - William R. Alger
Mamoru's prepared statement to the press about the Maboroshi no Ginzuishou got the city's attention in a big way.
The Dark Kingdom took advantage of the populous' newfound excitement and intrigue by having one of their generals appear on television as a so-called expert. "The Maboroshi no Ginzuishou possess the power to grant ageless immortality, but it is also instilled with fearsome power," a disguised Zoisite explained to the interviewer during his first of many TV appearances. "It could be anywhere, so we need everyone's help to find it."
The city descended into chaos. Old, dusty manuscripts were pulled from archives, museums' gem collections meticulously analyzed, excavations resumed in ancient ruins. People were searching their homes and other private spaces, all keen to find the magic gem with unfathomable powers.
While Mamoru didn't watch much television, he did read the paper, but even if he did neither, it was impossible to miss the frenzy in which the people of Tokyo found themselves caught up. A knot, which he was desperately trying to ignore, was forming in his gut, growing and festering along with his unease. He wasn't really sure what he expected when he submitted that tape, but it certainly wasn't this.
It was overwhelming.
Debilitating.
And the pain…
The pain was not unlike that of an exposed nerve - sharp and stabbing - pricking up and down his arms, legs, and torso; his head pounding, vision blurry.
The first day, he stumbled, hand to his brow and jaw clenched as he was overcome by the city's new found fervor for the Maboroshi no Ginzuishou. Motoki, not yet swept up in it all, was there to steady him, his concern searing Mamoru's skin where he touched to keep him upright.
But even this was too much.
Mamoru shrugged him off and staggered home, ladened with guilt after arriving safely for his immeasurable gratitude that he did not run into Usagi and her unusually prominent emotions. Normally, he couldn't get enough, would have swept her into his arms to let her warmth, affections, and likely concern for his condition soothe and comfort him.
But that day, Mamoru couldn't be certain that doing so wouldn't have killed him.
The next day he stayed home, curtains and blinds closed, the lights off, blanketing his apartment in as much darkness as possible to remove all the stimulation over which he had any semblance of control.
And there he meditated for hours, rebuilding and fortifying his barriers against the formidable emotions rampaging throughout the city. By the time he finished, his psychometry registered those high-running emotions as a low hum, but it left Mamoru numb and unfeeling, forcing him to navigate the following days in a kind of stupor.
His nearly blank stares, monotonous tone, and robotic politeness went completely unnoticed by his teachers, his classmates, and even Motoki, now all too entranced by the Dark Kingdom to pay him any mind. During this time, he never once thought of Usagi, on which he would spend a great deal of time dwelling afterwards as he came to grips with his careless recklessness in the coming days.
The fervor escalated, and the excitement kept building and building and building until it just suddenly...
…stopped.
Mamoru was studying alone in the school library when the city and its people fell silent. It was the absence of emotion that caught his attention, before he even registered the lack of the always present city noise; the static of nothing pricking his mind and body like a numb limb regaining sensation.
Yet, when he looked out the library window, he still felt nothing, because there was nothing to feel. His stunned ocean-blue eyes swept over the people lying on the sidewalks and in the streets, the unmoving cars and buses filled with bodies slumped in their seats.
He realized his mistake too late – not about the press statement, that would still come later - but numbing himself beyond recognition. He had been incapable of acting when the Dark Kingdom blatantly exploited his statement to the press, and now all of Tokyo was suffering.
It took that last thought to finally conjure up a thought of Usagi, and he was immediately filled with shame and panic.
Did she try to reach him?
What if she thought he was deliberately ignoring her?
Where was she?
Did she get swept up in all of this?
Was she… out there?
His stomach clenched at the thought, and the back of his fist dug into his lips as a wave of nausea crashed down upon him.
He needed to find her.
But he had a duty.
The senshi will be needing his help.
Was he allowed to be selfish?
Mamoru hesitated for the very first time since donning the Tuxedo Kamen mantle, as the battle raged between his head and his heart.
But the icy chill shooting down his spine finally pushed him out the door, his things left behind in his haste.
Sailor Moon was in danger.
If Usagi was out there, he would need Sailor Moon and the other senshi to save her.
At least, that's what he told himself to stamp down the guilt.
But it wasn't Sailor Moon he found when he arrived at the end of the mysterious pull, but Usagi, beautiful, precious Usagi, her long blonde hair pooled under and around her prone unconscious body, her satchel a foot or so away from where she must have dropped it.
Her current state crushed him, and the attacks of his demons, reinforced by his guilt and panic, dropped him to his knees.
Shaking hands lifted her off the hard, unforgiving ground and into his embrace. As his thumb rubbed too roughly against her too pale cheek, reddening the skin, he begged her to wake up, to please be OK, his voice rough and trembling.
Just as he began to fall apart, she stirred.
"Usako?" He gasped.
Her eyelids fluttered open in slow, dragging movements, her eyes unfocused and dazed. "Mamo-chan?"
He let out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "Yes, Usako, I'm right here," he murmured.
She's OK... She's OK... She's OK...
With a fatigued sigh, she closed her eyes and relaxed into him, her fingers loosely curling into his shirt. Mamoru wrapped her in his arms to pull her closer, one hand around her waist, the other cradling her head into the hollow of his shoulder as his cheek fell against the soft crown of her hair.
She's OK... She's OK... She's OK...
But his relief was shattered by the push of her two deceptively strong hands against his chest, and he let her go without any resistance. The sudden shift of her aura from alleviation into devastating mortification gave Mamoru what he could only describe as emotional whiplash, his still sensitive psychometry pricking his skin and distorting her confused panic.
Mamoru shook his head to clear the residual buzz.
"I'm so sorry, Tuxedo Kamen. I... I thought...you…" Usagi faltered, her face bright red, her hands bunching her skirt with a white-knuckled grip. Her eyes remained glued to the sidewalk as she bowed deeply and formally thanked him for saving her before quickly excusing herself and taking off at a run.
He watched her go through stunned eyes, his voice still lost somewhere within his confusion and rebooting sixth sense. Her dismissal wounded him deeply, the pain seeping past even his distorted psychometry.
Her words nagged at him though, but it wasn't until his agitated hand was halfway through his hair that he figured it out, beholding the glove on his hand with bewildered eyes after yanking it from his head.
He had no recollection of transforming into Tuxedo Kamen, hadn't even registered the damn mask on his face.
Mamoru face-palmed.
Of course she was so mortified. Usagi had been intimately embraced by a man she couldn't know was her boyfriend, an embrace she returned until she thought she knew better.
His other hand joined the one at his face, each pressing against an eye and against his guilt, his heart heavy in his chest.
There was so much for which Mamoru needed to apologize.
But what mattered more than anything else was getting Usagi somewhere safe.
So Mamoru charged after her in the direction she had run.
He found her standing in the middle of an empty road, her wrist to her mouth as she spoke into her ….. watch?
And was struck mute when the watch talked back, the tinny voice informing her Zoisite had fled, but they still needed to figure out a way to undo the damage he caused. It instructed Usagi to quickly transform and meet the senshi on the TV station roof so they could come up with a plan.
Usagi answered in the affirmative, then immediately straightened her posture and threw her hand high into the hair. Her voice was strong and sure as it rang out across the still evening air.
"Moon Prism Power, make up!"
In a flash of light and ribbon, Sailor Moon appeared where Usagi previously stood.
"Sailor ... Moon?" He spoke before he could stop himself, immediately covering his mouth with both of his hands in his shock.
A startled Sailor Moon whipped her head to him, her eyes wide and very, very troubled. "Tuxedo Kamen? Did you see...?" but mid-sentence, her fear gave way to anger, and her startled expression morphed into a fierce glare. "How could you!?"
"How... what?" He responded lamely.
"All these people!" Her anger flared with her frustration, and his eyes followed her arms gesturing in the general direction of the bodies lying on the ground. "How could you let this happen?"
That knot he'd been ignoring from the very beginning was now so large his stomach may as well be filled with lead; heavy, painful, and unforgiving.
Mamoru took a step back and balled his hand into a fist.
Sailor Moon was so conflicted, her emotions jumped from anger to confusion to sadness and back again, and it was all directed at him.
No, no.
Not Sailor Moon.
Usagi.
His heart wrenched within his chest.
"This..." he rasped, "this was never my intention."
His cowardice and shame kept his gaze off Sailor Moon when he spoke, and he was certain he'd never loathed himself more. So many people just paid the price for his mistake; for the massive favor he unwittingly granted the Dark Kingdom by sending that statement to the press about the Maboroshi no Ginzuishou being somewhere in the city.
Only when she didn't respond did he dare lift his eyes to her.
She was too quiet.
And watching him too carefully, her normally expressive bright blue eyes dark and unreadable.
He shifted with his discomfort.
"I needed..." he started.
What?
What did he need?
Help finding the Ginzuishou?
Yes, he lacked her power, but had he really been that amazingly naive, so breathtakingly stupid, to think the Maboroshi no Ginzuishou would just be laying around some place where the average citizen of Tokyo could find it?
God, he really is an idiot.
"You needed...?" She prompted.
Burning eyes took in Sailor Moon's hesitant and wary expression
He could have managed this from Sailor Moon.
But not from Usagi.
Mamoru looked away and sighed, long and deep, both hands now balled into shaking fists. "Listen, Usak-"
Her gasp, drawing his startled, widened eyes back to her face, was not from the use of her real name as he originally assumed, but from the sudden appearance of a pink-handled wand, topped with a softly glowing white crescent moon, floating beside her.
For which she reached with slow, tentative hands.
Where the hell...?
"Could it be?" She murmured to herself as she looked from the wand in her hands, to the unconscious people lying all around them, and back again.
Thinking.
Planning.
When Sailor Moon finally acted, she lifted that wand with both hands high above her head, following it up with her eyes.
"Please!" She implored the glowing object, "Give everyone back their lives!"
At her plea the wand flared to life, shooting a column of powerful bright, white light high into the bruised and darkening sky before crashing back down against the city in waves. The light was rejuvenating and warm, replenishing Mamoru's energy and that of the people all around them. Auras pricked at his psychometry as the people awoke.
He looked back to Sailor Moon -no Usagi- with open-mouthed awe.
She saved their lives.
o0o
Waiting for her to wake up was agony.
Immediately following her impressive display of power, Sailor Moon collapsed from exhaustion, her own energy depleted to replenish everyone else's. Mamoru, unsure what else to do, brought her back to his apartment, carefully laying her down on his bed and covering her with the blanket before leaving her alone in his bedroom.
And he has been pacing the floor ever since, both anxiously awaiting and dreading her waking up, needlessly peeking in through the open door even though he would feel the moment she did.
Mamoru wasn't sure she would want to talk to either of them, his alter ego nor himself, after what he had done. He was just so desperate for the Maboroshi no Ginzuishou; for the memories the woman in his dreams promised it would return.
But it was an amateurish mistake, made by a naive sixteen-year-old kid who had no business fighting monsters.
If Sailor Moon hadn't been able to return the energy to the people of Tokyo...
His stomach lurched at the thought.
How many of them – men, women, and children – would have died, if not for Sailor Moon? He was the one to commit this grievous error, yet he wasn't the one to correct it. Instead, his girlfriend was now lying unconscious in his bed from the effort required to clean up his mess.
Usagi…
Sailor Moon...
How was it possible that he, of all people, couldn't tell Usagi and Sailor Moon were one and the same?
He'd pretty much been obsessed with Usagi for almost as long as he's known Sailor Moon. They even look the same: same bright blue eyes and unusual hair. For weeks he's been rescuing Sailor Moon from youma attacks, touching and holding her close, and sharing words of encouragement when she was scared.
Why did his psychometry not clue him in on something so important, and so obvious?
Of course, her three friends were the other senshi.
And her cat...
Mamoru facepalmed for the second time that night.
There could only be so many black cats bearing yellow crescent moon markings on their foreheads.
An agitated hand started its way through his hair but paused midway.
Maybe his psychometry did warn him…
He'd had a connection to Sailor Moon since the very beginning, back when Usagi was only Odango Atama, the girl with the weird hair and unusually prominent emotions who had thrown a test paper in his face. But, as his feelings for Usagi grew, feelings he either hadn't initially understood or had lied to himself about, so too did that connection to Sailor Moon grow, and that draw and desire to protect her.
That connection led to some sleepless nights, either standing out on his balcony overlooking the city, or sitting on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. What kind of a man pursues a girl while having some kind of ...magical..? connection to another?
But he was drawn to both – to Usagi's brightness and warmth, her companionship, and the sense of normalcy she promised; to Sailor Moon's camaraderie, her stunning bravery against the Dark Kingdom despite her very obvious fear, and something else he didn't quite understand.
After he and Usagi started dating, that draw to Sailor Moon intensified, and he couldn't resist it, even hated the part of himself that didn't want to despite already having the perfect girl in his arms and in his life.
Knowing it was Usagi this whole time lifted the weight he'd been carrying for weeks.
But as that realization settled over him, his relief immediately gave way to horror.
This meant it had been Usagi this whole time!
It was Usagi he was lifting or pulling out of harm's way during battles.
Usagi had transformed herself into a stewardess for some reason while running to hop on the so-called '6 pm Demon Bus' driven by Jadeite before it was transported to another dimension.
With a hand to his mouth, he realized that it was Usagi with whom he had danced at Princess D's Embassy Ball; fallen over the balcony off the very high terrace. Before he was chased away by an irate Luna, he had even stood watch over her when the alcohol she consumed after the battle made her fall into a drunken sleep on one of the terrace benches.
His face fell into his hands.
How will she react when she learns Tuxedo Kamen was Mamoru this whole time?
How will she feel to learn he had set out in search of Sailor Moon but not her?
She would have been left lying unconscious on that sidewalk for …
He didn't want to think how long she would have been left there, or who else might have found her, because he had gone off in search of another girl, a girl he could not have known was Usagi.
Is "duty" a forgivable excuse?
But, really, what does that even matter?
He is Tuxedo Kamen.
As far as the senshi are concerned, he is their enemy. They've made that quite clear many times, Luna especially, through their reactions to him and their words.
This latest stunt certainly hasn't done him any favors.
Sailor Moon is the leader of the senshi.
There is no possible way Luna and the other senshi will allow-
A prick to the back of his head drew his gaze towards the bed.
Usagi was awake.
o0o
He knew the exact moment her eyes found him.
Usagi woke up slowly, her sluggish fatigue replaced with cautious apprehension as she took in the surroundings of the unfamiliar room. He hadn't brought her here, not yet, though there was a prick at his heart from the thought that his home, his sacred space, could be anything less than a source of comfort to the girl with whom he was falling in love.
When her eyes found him, still dressed as Tuxedo Kamen, that apprehension transformed into stifling shock and confusion.
Her eyes remained locked with his as she trudged towards him, breaking contact only to grab his mask from the chair where he had haphazardly discarded it along with his cape and gloves when he brought her home.
Woeful eyes searched his as she held the mask up to his face. "Why didn't I notice before?" She asked softly. "Mamo-chan, did... did you know?"
"No," he murmured with a shake of his head, "not until tonight."
He reached for her hand, anxious to lace his fingers with her hand and pull her close.
But she jerked her hand away and took a single step back.
And that simple action wounded him more than everything else.
There was a shine to her eyes, and the bite of her lip as her eyes drifted to the wall behind him.
"Today," she began hesitantly, "when you… when you found me, were you..."
"Yes," he sighed, "I was searching for Sailor Moon."
"Oh." Her hands fretted against her skirt, his mask long since dropped and forgotten. He didn't miss the fleeting hurt, jealousy, and embarrassment which sliced through her.
Mamoru supposed one might feel at least a little embarrassment from being jealous of oneself, not that he was judging. He probably would be too, if the situation had been reversed.
"What Tuxedo Ka- what you did," she corrected, apparently having the same issue reconciling his two identities as he did hers, "the press statement... The Maboroshi no Ginzuishou..." Those troubled eyes lifted to his, and he braced himself. "Are you our enemy?"
"No!" He insisted, too loud and too desperate. "No, Usako, I swear to you I'm not! I could nev-"
Her brow knitted, fingers still twisting and rubbing together. "Then why-"
"Because I don't have power like you!" He exclaimed. His hands tangled into his hair with his embarrassed agitation as he once again began to anxiously pace, and her startled eyes followed his every move. "I need to find the Maboroshi no Ginzuishou for my... so I can..."
Mamoru all but collapsed onto his chair with his face in his hands.
He hadn't intended to share this with her, not yet.
It was simply too personal, too private.
But he couldn't stand her wary eyes, nor the way her emotions were warring right now, the conflict caused by him and his actions, and now his silence.
"Mamo-chan, will you look at me? Please?"
She was kneeling on the floor beside him, her blue eyes gazing up at him through her dark lashes. There was an understanding to her gaze that immediately put him on the defensive. What could she possibly understand about his need for the Maboroshi no Ginzuishou?
But it was what he found lying underneath all that understanding that had his throat constricting and his eyes burning with tears he really did not want to fall.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, Mamo-chan. I can see that this is difficult for you. But..."
His stomach dropped when she trailed off and her eyes fell to the side.
"But?" He croaked.
When those beautiful blue eyes lifted to his again, the amount of heartbreak swirling with them finally pulled a single tear from his eye. It burned its way down his cheek, but he didn't wipe it away.
"We can't..." she sighed and started again. "I won't say anything to the girls or Luna about you being Tuxedo Kamen. I believe you when you say you aren't our enemy, and I want you to know I never once thought you were, despite what they said."
Trembling hands wrapped around his still folded together in his lap, and he very nearly ripped them away. Her heartbreak was so bitterly cold against his skin. "But we can't s…" her voice broke, and his heart shattered with it. "We can't see each other anymore."
His eyes clenched shut as a wave of heartbreak threatened to drown him.
"Usako-" her breath hitched at the use of the affectionate nickname, and he slid down to the floor in front of her, his hands lifting to cradle her face, which she immediately covered with her own. "But I... I don't want to stop seeing you," he murmured.
Don't leave me.
Please.
The blush across her face was pleasantly warm, but her eyes were so, so sad. "But Mamo-chan, you're Tuxedo Kamen. Luna and the girls would never let us-"
"Do they have to know?"
The movement from her startled gasp almost pulled her face out of his hands, but he held on tighter, and so did she, her widened eyes flitting between both of his.
He was willing to do anything.
But it was such a big ask…
…a treasonous ask…
Unfairly made of a girl in an impossible situation.
He understood this, yet still carried hope within the deepest reaches of his heart that she would choose him over her duty.
But that hope was short-lived.
"Mamo-chan, I-"
The beeping communicator on her wrist, so close to their ears, startled them both.
When she curled her fingers around his hands and lifted them off her face, he did not resist her. "I'm so sorry, Mamo-chan, but I have to go. The girls are probably looking for me, and they can't find me here."
The double meaning of her statement was not lost on him.
She collected her bag before heading towards the balcony door, and he dutifully followed behind her, keeping himself a few paces back.
In a flash of light and ribbon, she transformed into Sailor Moon, and then stepped out into the chilled evening air. He didn't follow, instead silently watched as her gaze swept out over the city, her fingers clawing into the railing.
Then she turned around.
Her fingers clutched at each other against the bow on her chest, her eyes bright and shining with unshed tears.
He couldn't take it.
His hands ached to reach for her, to comfort her.
And when he finally gave in and took that first step, his hand just beginning to lift from where it had hung uselessly at his side, a tortured sob ripped from her throat and her tears finally fell.
With a shake of her head, she spun on her heel, leapt off his balcony, up onto the railing, and out of his life.
His tears came only after she was out of sight.