He couldn't believe it, he was already caught. His guise should've prevented her from recognizing him but, maybe he underestimated her intuitive ability. What was he to do now?

Nothing, he decided. He just needed to commit to his new identity at all costs, there was no way she'd be able to prove who he really was.

"What did you call me?"

As he nervously responded trying to play innocent, she immediately threw the book she was holding towards his direction making contact with his abdomen, knocking the wind out of him. She clumsily made her way to her feet and then ran out of the library within seconds. When he managed to catch his breath and lifted his head up, he saw that she already disappeared from the library.

Everything happened so quickly that he hardly had time to grasp the situation. That reaction definitely wasn't what he had anticipated. He did nothing to provoke her but, clearly, she recognized him and felt threatened by his presence…even after that moment they shared those years ago. What had changed since then? This was not good, if her and her companions find out that the power of the dark crystal was back on their planet, they will see this as an attack and destroy all the progress they have made. Saphir was right, trying to get close to her was a mistake because now their plan to bring back their comrades may be ruined all because of him. His selfishness in going against his brother's one request, only caused him to feel the hurt of her rejection towards him once again. He thought of that fantasy he had of the couple sitting at the restaurant that he pictured themselves in and saw it all began to shatter away along with the hopefulness he was finally starting to feel in this new life of his.

The defeated man went to pick up the mess that was on the floor before more students walked in and decided that until the very end, he must keep up this façade no matter what. There was still a chance that things could turn around.

Usagi ran out of the school building as fast as she could, running through multiple blocks before she stopped to catch her breath. Should she contact the rest of the senshi? They were all in their club activities so she didn't think they would even be able to use their communicators right now. She decided that, for now, all she could do was just go home until she's able to inform them on what she just saw.

When she entered her house, she saw that no one seemed to be home at the moment, even Luna. She went up to her room, threw her things on the ground and began pacing nervously back and forth trying to think about what just happened, she still couldn't believe it.

'I don't get it. He died at that time, I saw him. How could he be back in the past? I mean, that was him wasn't it?'

She had a million questions running through her head and it was starting to give her an enormous headache. As she rubbed her head frantically in confusion she turned to the picture of her, Mamoru and Chibiusa that was sitting on her shelf. She picked it up and looked at it wondering if she should tell her boyfriend about this, but then again, she hasn't been able to get ahold of him since he left. Without him here, what would happen to her? But of course, she still wasn't completely sure on if that was actually Prince Demande she saw or if she simply mistook that man for him. Were those nightmares she's been having making her see things that weren't really there?

Lying on her bed, she thought about that time 2 years ago when Wiseman tried to kill her, she remembered that Prince Demande saved her and took the full force of that powerful blast which caused him to bleed uncontrollably. When she held him in her arms and cried tears of sympathy for him, she felt the final breath he took, and saw all trace of life leave him as he closed his eyes for the last time, or so she thought. Things had gotten so hectic after his death that she tried to think as hard as she could on if he could've possibly survived or not. It all happened inside the enormous shard of the Malefic Black Crystal that was implanted into the Earth and after she defeated Wiseman, it completely disappeared along with any evidence on if Demande's corpse was still lying inside of it or not.

It had been a long time since she thought about that last moment with him and as she replayed it over and over in her mind, she began to feel guilty about how she reacted if that was indeed him. He sacrificed himself back then for her and this is how she treats him? Those dreams, Mamoru, her responsibilities to save this planet, they were all taking a toll on her, she could feel it. Her head began to become cloudy and she started to feel the temples of her head pulsate. She decided that after she took a long nap, she would contact the other senshi about it and then tomorrow at the school they could investigate this new librarian to see if it was truly him or not.

The Next Day:

The students were released for their lunch hour so Usagi and her fellow senshi, decided that this would be the perfect time to catch a glimpse of this librarian to see if her mind really was playing tricks on her or not. Each of the four girls poked their head through the doorway of the library, hoping he was too busy with other things to notice.

There seemed to be a quite a few students checking out books at the front desk, most likely for their English assignment. After each one acquired their novel, they exited out of the library taking notice of the four heads stacked on top of each other and looked at them as if they were insane. But, with the line thinning out, they were finally able to get a good look at the man behind the front counter. The look on his face was inexpressive, not smiling or hardly acknowledging any of the students that were coming and going, even to the females who were clearly trying to gain his attention. His eyes seemed to have a sadness to them.

"Wow you're right that really does look like Prince Demande." Minako whispered.

"Yes he does, but, didn't he have white hair? This man's blonde." Ami spoke.

"Yeah it's strange, when I saw him yesterday for those few moments, I could've sworn that his hair was white but, this guy's hair and eye color are different now that I'm looking at him." Usagi replied. They took their heads out from the entry before he would notice them spying on him.

"So you guys don't think it's him right?" Usagi asked the rest of her friends.

"He looks like him but, you said he died back then right? What would he be doing here in our high school? What do you think Mako-chan?" Minako asked her, she had been silent this whole time.

Every looked to her and saw that her cheeks were extremely red and her eyes appeared glassy.

"Mako-chan?" Minako asked again.

"I don't believe it…he looks just like the older brother of the sempai that broke my heart."

"So we're back to that again, huh?" Ami said rubbing her temples before looking back at Usagi. "Listen, I don't think that it's him, people resemble other people all the time, it could just be a coincidence. However, take be careful around him and if he tries anything funny with you, contact us immediately and we'll be here to defend you."

"Thank you all, I guess I just over reacted." Now Usagi thought back to how she threw that book at him and felt terrible about it. She should apologize to him when school lets out, after all, she still had a book that she needed to pick for her and Seiya's assignment.

"We should go outside to eat our food before the hour is over." Minako suggested. "Rei should be on lunch break as well, so we can contact her and let her know that everything's okay."

"Good idea, I'm starving!" Usagi said excitedly. The girls then made their way to eat their homemade lunches with the remaining time they had.

The bell rang ending the school day, so Usagi gathered up her things quickly so that she could get to the library and find her book since she had the weekend to start reading it. As she walked outside her classroom, she felt someone grab her arm. When she looked behind her, it was Seiya.

"Hey, can I talk to you for a moment?" he seemed really serious.

"Yeah, but don't make it too long since I have to go downstairs to pick a book for our assignment." She was still slightly mad at him.

"I know, that's what I was wanting to tell you was that I'm really sorry about that. I could tell from the silent treatment you've been giving me all day that you're still mad at me and I don't like it. I know I should've told you about the rehearsals before having you be my partner but, you're the only one I feel comfortable being around besides Yaten and Taiki at this school so I took it upon myself to insist that I work with you so I wouldn't get stuck with someone else. Please forgive me."

She didn't expect him to apologize like this, maybe she doesn't have the right to be this mad at him. It's not like they had to work on anything together until they started writing their report so maybe the stress of everything that was going on in her life right now was causing her to overreact.

"Alright Seiya I forgive you, I'm sorry for how I treated you, I just feel a lot of pressure with….school right now. Whenever I pick our book, I'll let you know on Monday what it is, so that you can check out your own copy." Usagi hated admitting when she was wrong but she could see that he was genuine about his apology.

"I'm glad you're not mad at me anymore and I understand about being under pressure. As a member of the Three Lights, it's important that I excel in everything I do for this group, so that we can project a certain message that needs to reach our audience, if that makes sense, so these rehearsals are very important to me." He looked at the clock. "Speaking of which, I need to head over to right now." He went to go collect Yaten and Taiki who were patiently waiting on him.

'I guess he isn't such a selfish person after all.' She thought.

"Bye, see you on Monday, Odango!" he waved back to her.

'I take it back he's a selfish idiot!'

After watching the three boys walk away she happened to looked over to her right to see a group of girls that were upperclassmen at her school glaring at her intensely. One muttered something to the rest before they all nodded in agreement over whatever it was she said. She knew that they were talking about her and could feel the tension from them, so she took this as her que to head downstairs now.

Demande could hear the final bell for the day that dismissed the students from school, it was Saturday so his first week of working here was officially over. She hadn't come in today and he didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Her and her senshi would have surely confronted him by now if they truly believed Prince Demande was back on Earth but on the other hand, she may have been too frightened to see him again. Either way, it felt like such a long day that he couldn't wait until he was finally able to go home and get a day off. He felt like giving up and quitting but, he knew that he needed to save and make as much money as possible because who knows how long it would be until him and his brother could have another opportunity to make more. The library was completely empty since it was the weekend, so, he took out a book to read to pass the remaining time he had left in his shift.

After a few minutes of reading, he happened to look up and was surprised to see that Serenity's past self was standing right in front of his desk looking at him. He was shocked and didn't know what to say but, from the looks of her, it seemed that she didn't either, so, he decided to speak first.

"Come to throw more books at me?"

"Umm…I'm really sorry for the way I acted, I was expecting Mrs. Tatsumi to be working here but then when I saw you, I mistook you for someone else. I feel terrible bumping into you causing that mess and then leaving it for you to clean up and I'm especially sorry for throwing that book at you like that." She said sheepishly.

He continued to stare at her for a minute but then smiled at her. He was just happy that she wasn't frightened of him like he thought and maybe his plan can officially begin now.

"I didn't take it personally, I was just surprised when a girl whom I've never met before, decides to throw books at me and then runs away, that's definitely a first for me." He chuckled lightly when he saw that Usagi was clearly embarrassed. "Well now that we've fixed this misunderstanding, was there anything I can help you with Miss-?"

"Usagi Tsukino" she replied to him. "And yes, I actually have a report I need to do over a book written by an English or an American author. But, I'm not too familiar with any English speaking authors and thought that you may be able to help me find something?"

"Sure, I've been having students come in all day for that assignment, I'd be glad to help you, Miss Tsukino." He anxiously put his book away and went to her side. To be this close in proximity to her after all this time was like a dream.

They started walking towards one of the bookshelves and she then asked, "So, what's your name?"

"It's Tohru Satoshi. Mrs. Tatsumi-san seemed to have a sudden epiphany that she didn't need to work here anymore so I took over her position this past week. Things have been rather dull around here though, that is, until you came in of course." He chuckled again.

Her cheeks began to turn bright red, she realized how idiotic she must have seemed to him.

"So what kind of book were you interested in, Miss Tsukino?" he asked her.

"Well, I'm not sure exactly, but I was thinking maybe a story that had some romance in it?" she replied.

He started looking through one of the shelves before he picked one out to suggest for her, "What about this? William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet."

Her eyes lit up at him, "Yes, I've always wanted to know the story of Romeo and Juliet. My middle school did a play about this once but, I wasn't able to attend it. I just hope I'll be able to understand the dialogue in it, my English isn't very good."

"Don't worry everything is translated to Japanese so you shouldn't have any trouble understanding the story, besides if you need anything, you can always ask me for help. Come by here sometime if you'd like, it gets boring working here with no one to talk to and you seem like you would be good company but, you don't have to of course." He said.

"Oh, no my partner is actually not able to work on this with me for a while so I may take up your offer and come down here after school every day so I can get it read in time. Thank you for not being mad at me for what I did to you yesterday, all the other teachers at this school look down on me for my behavior, so for you to actually accept my apology and offer to help me is really nice of you." She told him.

"I just can't believe that, you seem like a sweet girl and you apologized so we'll just pretend like it never happened." They began to both be silent for a few moments.

"You have a very interesting hairstyle, what made you wear it like this?" he took a piece of her hair and ran it through her fingers.

"I'm not sure, since I was a little girl, I've just always worn it this way. But, I get teased for it a lot since it looks funny to some people." She said.

"Not at all, I think it suits you very much." He continued to let the strands flow through his fingers.

"Thanks." She said all of a sudden feeling shy.

They both smiled at each other as he stared deeply into her eyes, she was even more beautiful than the last time he saw her.

"Usagi-chan!"

They both looked over and saw a girl with short, blue hair walk towards them. He dropped the piece of hair of hers that he was holding.

"Ah, Ami-chan I thought you had your computer club today?" Usagi was startled.

"Something malfunctioned on the printer, so we decided to go home early while it's getting fixed. Were you able to find a book for your report?" She asked.

"Yes, actually Mr. Satoshi picked out Romeo and Juliet for me." Usagi gestured toward him then back at Ami. "This is one of my best friends Ami Mizuno and, Ami, this is our new librarian, Mr. Satoshi."

"Ah, so you're Miss Mizuno, I saw you were the top score for that test that's posted out in the hallway upstairs, it's a pleasure to meet you."

It all made sense now. He knew exactly who she was, Sailor Mercury, the guardian senshi of Wisdom and Intellect. He had looked upon that hologram time and time again that showed all of her guardian senshi holding up the barrier in Crystal Tokyo. In fact, he recalled that she was the one who commanded that they surround Neo-Queen Serenity with the quartz that had encased her protecting her from the blast of the Malefic Black Crystal and from him. He could see from her expression that she saw the resemblance of Prince Demande as well so he knew he would have to be careful around her.

"I'm very well acquainted with Mrs. Tatsumi and I don't ever recall her mentioning wanting to quit working here, it was quite the opposite, actually." Ami said with suspicion.

"You're right she didn't want to quit but, as she was training me, she mentioned that her husband's health is starting to decline so she made the decision that caring for him during the day would be the best thing right now. She seemed very sad that she had to go and kept bringing up how much she would miss the students here." Hopefully she would believe him.

"Oh, I had no idea, I'll have to go visit her sometime and check up on them." She then turned to Usagi, "Well since you found your book, did you want to walk home together?"

"Yes, of course." Usagi knew that Ami was wanting to ask her a million questions about them meeting on the way home."

As Demande checked out the book for her she said, "Thank you again Mr. Satoshi for being so understanding to me, it was really nice meeting you."

"You too, I hope you ladies have a great weekend." He said as he handed her the book.

"I'll see you Monday!" she said as she cheerfully waved back. Ami waved back with less enthusiasm and from what he could see, was trying to steer her out of the room as quickly as possible.

He couldn't believe the sudden development that just happened. One minute he was wallowing in self-pity, the next minute, she appears to him like an angel descended from the heavens to answer his prayers. This also confirmed that her fellow guardians attended this school with her. Sailor Mercury would be one thing but, the one he truly needed to avoid would the seer of the group, Sailor Mars. She would be able to sense the dark energy that he has been infiltrating himself with and no disguise would be able to prevent that, he could've of kicked himself for not thinking of this sooner. He hadn't seen her so far and hopefully never will. He then turned his thoughts back to Serenity and the smile that she gave to him; a look that she had never given him before.

'So your name is Usagi Tsukino. Beautiful…'

Now he wished Monday would come as quickly as possible. He checked his watch and saw that it was now time for him to head home, so he clocked out and left.

He entered his apartment and found that it was empty, which was strange since Saphir usually greeted him every evening when he returned from work. But just as he thought of this, Saphir happened to walk through the door.

"Hey, how does it feel to finish your first week of work?" He asked his older brother.

"It was great, I've really come to like it there." Demande replied, he couldn't stop smiling. "Where were you at?"

"I was actually just about to tell you my good news that I am officially enrolled in a university!" Saphir exclaimed.

"What? When did this happen?" He asked.

"Whenever you were at your first day of work. I figured since Rubeus and Esmeraude will eventually live with us, that we should find a way that we could make more money to support all of us so that's when I started to look into it. I found this one college, Kitasato University, had a Pharmacy studies program which I thought would be perfect for me since I have most advanced knowledge of alchemy in this time. I took the accuplacer for it and of course, passed with flying colors, I mean you wouldn't believe how behind humans of this time are in academics. I just got the acceptance letter today so whenever courses start to open up in a few weeks is when I start. But don't worry, I'm only taking night classes since someone needs to be here during the day advancing the Jakokusuishou's power. I was just up at the school signing up for my courses. Well, what do you think? I know I kept it from you but, I wanted to surprise you." Saphir told him trying to gain approval from him.

"I don't know what else to say, except that I'm proud of you. You never cease to amaze me in how much you look out for us. Maybe I'll eventually enroll too since you make it sound so easy." Demande really was proud of him.

"You can! With my impressive scores that I received, I was offered an academic scholarship, which is free money, paying for the majority of my tuition! Can you believe it? No doubt, you would be able to get scholarship money as well since you are far more brilliant than I." Saphir exclaimed.

"That sounds great." Demande responded.

His little brother had always idolized him as if he was a deity that had no imperfections. But, what he didn't know is that, in turn, Demande envied his little brother as well. He was always able to carry out his ambitions with a level head and never let anything that happened to him alter the integrity of the person he really was. In some ways he always felt as if he should have been the first in line for the throne.

"I say this calls for another celebration don't you think?" Saphir said cheerfully.

"But, I have to take my turn on working on the Jakokusuishou." Demande replied.

"You have your whole day off tomorrow that you can do it, we need to take breaks to clear our minds from time to time so that we don't burn ourselves out, it'll effect growth rate of the crystal since we're still not at the level that we were on Nemesis. Besides, humans use the weekends to rejuvenate from the work they do during the week and we should too."

"Well alright if you insist, but, I'd like to go somewhere this time with a decent selection of red wine." Demande smirked.

The Next Day:

At the Hikawa Shrine, all the senshi were gathered for an emergency meeting that included Haruka and Michiru to discuss the recent events of the attacks in Juuban.

Haruka spoke to the rest of senshi, "Thank you everyone for gathering here today, I know it's everyone's day off but, the attacks on citizens in this area are becoming more frequent. Michiru and I wanted to inform all of you that in the past 3 months, we have detected 6 beings that have breached the Earth's atmosphere."

Ami then interjected, "Six, are you sure? Let me see there's Sailor Iron Mouse, Sailor Star Healer, Sailor Star Fighter and Sailor Star Maker. That would be only four though. Who would the other two be?"

Michiru then spoke, "That's why we wanted to discuss the matter with you all. We have yet to encounter any of the new senshi but, we know that only you guys have witnessed these people for yourselves. We sensed the energy of the other 2 only briefly and are unsure as to who or what they are. They came to the Earth at a much later time then the first four so we we're thinking that there's a possibility that they may not have a connection to them. Try and think really hard on your recent battles with the new enemy. Did any of you see anyone else that were working with Sailor Iron Mouse or the Starlights?

They all began remembering the past few battles they had but seemed to come up nothing.

"I can't recall seeing anyone other than those four I'm afraid." Rei replied.

The rest of the senshi agreed.

"That's what we figured. We'll be keeping a close eye from now on, on these attacks. Just remember your duties on keeping the princess safe, while we try and locate the origins of these new senshi. We have Setsuna and Hotaru already up to date on the matter and if we find that any of these beings have entered our Solar System from another, then they are considered intruders and need to be dealt with by us." Haruka gave her final thoughts on the matter.

"If any of you find out any more information on the star seeds or the identity of the two unknowns, please contact me and Haruka immediately." Michiru said. She and Haruka got up from their seats, waved goodbye to everyone and walked out of the room.

"Two more people? Who could they be?" Makoto asked.

"I'm not sure, but, I suppose we'll be finding that out soon enough." Ami responded.

"Wait did Haruka and Michiru leave?" Usagi asked.

Everyone looked at her and saw that she was in the middle of reading a book and most likely didn't pay attention to any of the meeting that just happened.

"Were you seriously reading that the whole time? Ugh, at this rate the Earth is doomed." Rei groaned.

"Hey that's not fair, I'm trying to bring my grade up so I don't fail. Besides, it's starting to get interesting, I'm finally at the part where Romeo meets Juliet for the first time. You know it's funny, I see a lot of similarities between this story and our former lives in the Silver Millenia. The way that the Capulets and Montague's were always in disagreement reminds me of how the Moon kingdom and the ancient Earth of the past was. I'm so glad Mr. Satoshi suggested this for me." Usagi turned her attention back to the book.

"Speaking of which, are you sure that this Mr. Satoshi is really who he says he is?" Rei asked.

"Yes, even though I just met him yesterday and don't know much about him, he seems really nice and I think we can trust him," Usagi replied.

"Yeah I can't picture the Prince of the Black Moon Clan working in our school's library. That seems a little out of character for him." Minako giggled.

Ami commented, "Regardless we'll definitely keep a close watch on him. Just like Haruka said, we need to keep you safe no matter what and we don't want another incident like the one that occurred in Crystal Tokyo to happen again, especially since Tuxedo Mask isn't here at the moment."

"By the way, how are things going with Mamoru-san in America?" Makoto asked.

"They're fine." Usagi answered quietly.

"I imagine you miss him a whole lot." Minako added in.

Usagi responded, "Yes I do…more than you know."