Eight: What Do I Have To Do?

In which Zoisite bares his heart to Ami and retracts it again/Jadeite and Kunzite have a tête-à-tête with no better outcome/Rei and Mako find common ground/Beryl ponders her options Usagi looks for the real Mamoru and likes what she sees far too much/the Princess and her Guardian turn over two pages at once and/it's a lovely night for kidnapping the moon.

"Are you okay?"

Zoisite looked up at Ami, the frown on his face deeply etched. "What are you doing out here?"

Biting her lower lip, Ami bowed her head. "I'll go back inside, if you don't want the company."

Ami had turned and walked some feet along the veranda back towards Rei's room when Zoisite expelled a frustrated sigh and called to her. "Look, I didn't mean it. You can stay out here if you want."

Ami half-turned back in his direction, her expression troubled and embarrassed. "You look like you'd rather be alone."

Scuffing his toes in the dirt – a movement that was scarcely kind to his expensive leather shoes – Zoisite muttered in a voice just loud enough for Ami to hear: "I would, but then I've never really known what's best for me."

"I don't know what's best for you, either."

"You probably have a healthier perspective than a washed up evil lackey, Ami-san." The laugh with which he augmented these words made her wince, leading him to add wryly: "Translated loosely, that means stay, okay?"

She came closer to him, but she stood some feet away with her arms crossed protectively over her chest. "Sometimes it really is like you're speaking another language, you know."

Though he half-heartedly patted the space next to himself, Ami didn't step any closer. "I feel like I'm living in the totally wrong place sometimes, too."

"Are you cold?" she asked as she stepped forward tentatively; she wasn't sure at this juncture what would annoy him more…not doing as he said and sitting next to him, or invading his privacy by doing precisely that. She distracted herself from thinking about it when she explained her question. "You're shivering."

"I'm okay," Zoisite said, seeming to be wary of her concern. Wrapping his light coat about himself, he remarked rather gamely: "It's nice to be wearing my own clothes, anyway."

"I noticed you looked a little different. Did you go back to your apartment?"

"I certainly wasn't going to borrow Endymion-sama's clothes forever. One fashion faux-pas is forgivable enough…but to keep repeating it is ridiculous."

Not wanting to be drawn into a conversation about fashion, Ami slowly sat down some distance from the slender man and rearranged her own plain skirt. "It must have been nice, to go back to your apartment. You've been wanting to for ages, after all."

"For a while, yes."

The lack of pleasure in his voice had her frowning over at him. "It wasn't what you expected?"

"It was empty."

"What do you mean?" Ami asked, this time deeply startled by the bitterness of his voice.

"Everything there was different," and he was close it seemed to slapping the wood at his side in deep frustration. "I remember it, of course. I remember everything that happened in my life here on Earth...family. Friends. School and work and my hobbies. The piano…I played the piano, once. Did you know that? Did you find that on your little computer? But I couldn't even bear to touch it. There were no pianos in the Dark Kingdom."

It was hard to decide what bothered her more – Zoisite's lack of emotion about his real life, or the fact that all she wanted to do was make it better for him. "Doesn't that make you want it all back?"

"No. It's not real to me at all. It's like…I watched a television show of somebody else's life and now I'm just wandering the set of it once all the actors and crew have gone home. Everything I see in these places are just sudden moments from someone else's story."

The only words she could find were as lame as an old over-worked donkey, but she found herself near-whispering them anyway. "I'm sorry."

"I can't decide what's worse…not being able to remember anything at all, or being able to remember everything and have it all mean nothing."

Finding her voice gave her strength as she located words that she thought might help. "It means something. It means you have something to work for, like we do. An ordinary life."

The peculiar expression on his face had Ami's heart beating a little faster, her voice threatening to fail her all over again. "People like you will never be ordinary, Ami-san."

The only reply that she could think of strangely was the one that made the most sense to her logical mind. "The same applies to you, too."

This time it seemed to be his turn to be uncomfortable; he was looking away and up at the clouded sky when he spoke again. "Shouldn't you be inside, with Endymion-sama and Usagi-san?"

"I was concerned about you."

He cast a careful look, his voice carefully moderated to hold no discernible emotion. "Why, exactly?"

"You don't look very well."

That brought only silence from him as he looked at her with empty eyes. It drove Ami to look swiftly for something else to start a conversation with; she couldn't stand how far away he seemed even while sitting so close to her.

"What do you think she's going to tell us?"

"The princess?" Zoisite asked, and even though he looked away from her his attention seemed to have come down to earth. "Something about saving the world, I suppose."

"You don't sound too excited."

There was thin amusement in the smile he spared her then. "Well, after being on the side that wanted to destroy it, it's all a little bit peculiar to think about."

"Seeing Kunzite really upset you, didn't it?"

All his returning good humour disappeared immediately with that particular comment. "Anybody but you, Ami-san. Anybody but you."

"What?"

"If anybody but you had said that, I probably would have taken their head off for asking stupid questions. But you don't ask stupid questions. You're far too smart for that."

Though she hated to admit it, she really didn't have a clue what Zoisite was actually getting at. Therefore she simply forged ahead with what seemed like the best comment for the situation. "You needn't be afraid of him. I know he's powerful, but we'll protect you. You're one of us now, and we'll do everything to help you. And him, if we can."

"Help him?"

Ami offered the most sensible thing that occurred to her. "Maybe we can heal him the way we healed you."

Zoisite's smile was twisted. "He's too strong for that. He'd never accept healing from any of you…most especially the princess."

"How do you know?"

"I know."

"You don't have to be afraid!"

"I'll always be afraid of what he is capable of doing to me."

"Why are you more afraid of him than Queen Beryl?" Ami asked. The sharp look Zoisite gave her then had her hurriedly adding: "I can just…it's…I don't know. I just think you are."

"I am." The admission seemed to cost him less than she had thought it would. "He knows how to hurt me more than she does. She'll have him hurt me because of that. Possibly it would be punishment for him as well, for not training me enough to prevent this from ever having happened in the first place."

The bleakness of his words didn't gel with Ami's knowledge of Zoisite's association with the tall, cold man. That was the reason why she asked the question that she did. "Because he was your teacher?"

"Because he was my lover." In silence he then watched for her reaction with no discernible expression of his own. "What are you thinking?" he asked finally, voice still as unreadable as an ink-inscribed book washed in saltwater.

"…lover?" Ami was quiet a moment, blue eyes turned to the sky. The moonlight oddly didn't hurt, for all its brightness. "For how long?"

Zoisite's features shifted in almost-concealed surprise. "That's not the first thing I thought you would ask."

Turning her eyes to him at last, she told him carefully: "Maybe I'm not the girl you thought I was."

He seemed unable to meet her eyes for long, turning away from the hooded gaze that he could not quite interpret. "I don't know how long. Time…is strange in that place. We slept for so long, and then we woke…and things were just…the way they were. I was always at his side, from very early on. He realised I would be useful in his quest for control and power over much of Beryl's armies and territories." He shrugged then like it didn't matter, but Ami could sense pain at the thought of the reasons why he was useful to the cold man. "Better to have a fellow shitennou on your side than at your throat, especially when said shitennou is a vindictive, deceptive lying rat like myself. Nephrite would attest to that, I'd imagine. If I hadn't killed him."

It was the first time Ami had heard Zoisite mention Nephrite's fate of his own free will, and the first confirmation any of them had ever had that Zoisite had been responsible for the scene in the park all those weeks ago. Naru had claimed Zoisite had been there, and they had believed her. Still, it hadn't mattered then and Ami was sorry to admit it, but it didn't matter now either. "But you loved him," she pressed instead, her heart unable to accept that anyone could love and be so hopeless about that deep feeling.

"What does that matter?"

"I didn't…Nephrite…I…" Her babble was induced by Zoisite's cool question, but a moment of quiet gave her ample opportunity to sort her thoughts before speaking again. "I know your kind can love. Nephrite proved that to us. I just thought he was the exception to the rule."

Zoisite snorted, crossed his arms. "Who says he wasn't?"

"The look in your eyes when you say Kunzite's name." The former shitennou did not argue this fact, merely looked away. Ami reached out a hand to instinctively lay it upon his arm, small fingers tightening on the expensive suede. "You love him. Why are you so hopeless about saving him the way you were saved?"

Zoisite was staring at Ami's hand, but he wasn't shaking it off. "He doesn't want to be saved."

"You didn't want to be, did you?"

He expelled a shaky breath, the expression in his eyes darkening even in the full glare of the moon. "I don't know!"

"What if he wants you to save him?" Ami persisted, not realising that her hand was tightening into a grip that would surely hurt Zoisite. "Surely he loved you."

"Loved me?" Zoisite's bark of laughter was harsh as he shook off Ami's grip at last. "Don't be an idiot!"

Rocking backwards from the force of the wrenched arm, Ami could only gasp: "What?"

"Kunzite-sama has only regard for that which is useful to him. My use is over. There is nothing left for him to want from me." The sentences were staccato rapid-fire, bitter and cold.

"You didn't always think that, did you?"

Zoisite's patience with Ami's persistent questions was obviously wearing dangerously thin; the way he spoke his next question was silkily dangerous. "Are you asking me if I intended to betray you for his favour?"

Ami firmed her rounded jaw. She had always been taught to speak the truth as she saw it, and Ami was intelligent enough to see the truth in almost all places she looked for it. "You did."

Some of his anger seemed to vanish at that, his answer wry. "You're too perceptive for your own good."

"We'll always stand by your side," she said quietly, "but only if you'll stand by ours." Zoisite seemed to have nothing to say to this, only staring at her silently. That empty expression had her adding near-grandly: "And I promise we'll help him to realise that being saved…is what he wants."

Though she tried to make her words as confident as possible, it seemed Zoisite was having no truck with it as he waved a hand in dismissal. "Ami-san, just forget it. I don't even know why I told you any of this."

"Because you want to save him." The surprise in her voice would have made the situation comical, if either was in the mood for laughter. "And you need our help to do it."

"Just forget I said anything!"

Even though his volume had raised two octaves, Ami dug her feet in metaphorically and said stubbornly: "I can't."

"I told you to forget it!"

Ami immediately changed tacks, seeking a way in which to make the slender man believe. "You still have power."

"I don't," he muttered, and as he spoke he conjured up what seemed to be a small dancing flame in his hand. Though its heat was intense and its glow bright, there was something…clean about the magic that had not been observable in the old Zoisite. "This isn't what Metallia gave me. This is what I always had."

Ami, fascinated by the small, merry flame in the palm of his hand, reached out for it. Her fingers lingering mere centimetres from the flame, she turned blue eyes to him in curiosity. "What you always had?"

"Whatever I was back in the Silver Millennium, I sure wasn't helpless." Before she could ask how long he had been able to do such things, he gave her a wry look and extinguished the flame by drawing his fingers into his palm. "It hasn't always been this way…it's been coming back in spurts. Too bad my damned memories can't do the same thing."

"The princess will help you to remember--" Ami began, but it seemed Zoisite's yo-yo mood had hit an angry upswing again.

"What if I don't want to fucking remember? What if I just want everything back the way it was?"

Aghast, Ami could only reply: "You can't want that!"

"So you expect me to get used to being looked at like I'm worthless trash by the only person who ever really mattered to me?"

"We'll help him too—"

Zoisite broke in harshly, though his voice seemed near-breaking. "Weren't you listening? He won't want your help!"

"But…" The anguish Zoisite had let bleed into his voice had her voice trailing off, broken and lame.

"If I had my old powers," he said in a low voice, his green eyes cold as he looked at her, "I'd use them to make sure this conversation had never happened."

Ami started, looking at him wounded and miserable. "Zoisite-san—"

Looking purposely away, Zoisite said coldly: "I'm not interested."

"But…"

"Just shut up and leave me alone."

Drooping, Ami actually pondered pressing him for several painfully silent moments before she accepted this battle had been lost. She left him to himself, sitting in the moonlight on the veranda; when she looked back she saw him holding his head in his hands like it hurt.

She knew within herself how badly it most likely was.

"And thus, the princess of the fallen kingdom is revealed to our sight."

Kunzite inclined his head. "Indeed."

"And Zoisite is alive," the queen mused, tapping long nails about the crystal ball with its roiling magics barely-contained within.

"Yes."

Beryl's smile was thoughtful, revealing pointed canines that only reminded her observers of a cobra preparing itself to strike. "And theirs."

"Yes."

"How peculiar," she said, and her remaining shitennou might have heard amusement in her tone if they had thought her capable of it in such matters. "I always knew him for an opportunist, but I never did expect him to give up all that he so desired here. He was always a creature of the dark. The light was never his need."

Jadeite's words were calm. "It seems a creature's needs can change."

"So it would seem," she noted, giving him a look that was as suspicious as it was thoughtful. "I will want that traitor back."

It was Kunzite who answered this unspoken question, bowing his head even lower than he had before. "Of course, my Queen. It will be done."

"He is to be mine to punish, Kunzite," she responded immediately, an intrinsic warning in her voice. "Your student he may have been, it is my boon to deal to him his punishment for his treachery." Even as she made to say more, the blond raised his voice again.

"Queen Beryl-sama."

"Jadeite. Why do you interrupt?"

"I ask of you that I be the one to bring back Zoisite."

"Why do you go against what has already been said, Jadeite?"

"I feel that perhaps Zoisite will be warier of Kunzite, given their former relationship. All teachers must punish their students, after all."

The way Jadeite spoke – carefully, slowly, as if slowly working up to the eventual climax – suggested he was in it for a long argument, but Beryl surprised him. "Very well. Bring Zoisite to me any way that you will and I will deal to him."

"And in the meantime?" Kunzite asked, and though his attention was fixed on the queen, Jadeite felt the cool eyes rake over his form and shuddered.

"Meditate as you will upon what we shall do with the princess and the prince, as well as their senshi. I will give you orders as I decide them. First I need to consider the avenues open to us."

"Of course, my Queen. Give my regards to our Great Leader."

"Dismissed."

Jadeite was not surprised to find Kunzite walking along beside him as they left through the same cavern from the audience chamber; what did surprise him was that it was the silver-haired man who spoke first. It was usually more his style to force the other to speak first and lay out his vulnerabilities for Kunzite to manipulate at will.

"It is my task to deal with Zoisite."

Jadeite stopped, but did not turn to face him. "We all knew about you and him," he said, already trying to calculate the best way to play out this conversation. Tangling with Kunzite – whether or physically or magically or verbally – was an art form no-one had ever seemed to master, not even Zoisite.

"What I did with Zoisite and how I trained him is my own business."

Jadeite turned to the shitennou now, folded his arms over his chest as he quirked an eyebrow. "How you manipulated him to suit your own ends, you mean."

"You speak as if you haven't used other creatures to your own ends," Kunzite returned smoothly, no emotion flickering on the stony features. "Must I recall for you the fact that your misuse of Thetis contributed to your own downfall from the Queen's graces?"

Letting his mental gears tick over without allowing it to show in his expressions, Jadeite returned mildly: "Thetis was different."

"Because she was merely a youma? Jadeite. Few of our kind are strong enough to control one of our own as we desire. Your envy of my power over Zoisite is futile. He was never your tool and never will be."

Though he was frowning at the thought Kunzite believed him jealous of his influence over Zoisite, Jadeite decided it was easier to let it lie and poke at something else a little more. "Because he only ever wanted to be yours, yes?"

"I never recall you speaking so long to any of us, Jadeite – and I have not the time for pointless nonsense. What is it that you really want?"

Things were definitely not going well, but Jadeite couldn't resist a slightly off-hand comment that he wasn't sure was entirely a good idea. "Being alone all that time must have made me long for company."

"I myself long for no company, particularly your own." With no further leave-taking, Kunzite turned with a sweep of his cape and made to take one of the branching corridors leading away from Jadeite.

"You want Zoisite back."

Kunzite paused at this, but did not turn back. "I have no use for traitors."

"You will always have some use for him. But he won't trust you if you offer him a way back into the Kingdom."

That had him turning around, the icy gaze a frozen warning. "What makes you come to that conclusion?"

"Because we all know you have no tolerance for those who turn on you, until they prove their usefulness again," Jadeite explained easily, purposely keeping his voice calm and even. "Zoisite will come back to you, but he'll be wary at first. If I gave him opportunity to prove his worth through me, then he would come back to you far more easily."

"So you explained to the Queen."

Kunzite was giving him little quarter and Jadeite knew it; he was always perfectly aware that persisting might yield no better result. Kunzite was an immovable rock, frozen into the ground, but then ice could always melt. "I know you want to know why he did what he did. What would drive someone as devoted as him to leave you for the other side?"

"He is a treacherous, volatile creature. I should have expected little else from him."

Knowing Kunzite was unlikely to be so blind, Jadeite decided that he was just going to have to say it aloud first. "I think they did something to him."

"What could they have done to him to appeal to his desire for power and regard that he wanted from this place?"

"I intend to find out."

"He is mine."

Jadeite smiled faintly, though there was no humour in the expression. "He's Beryl's, really."

"Then aren't we all?"

"So she believes."

"So she believes," he echoed, and then he smiled. That was enough to make Jadeite take an involuntary step backward. So few people ever felt truly safe in the presence of this man. "Tread carefully, Jadeite. Just because you have spent so long encased in ice, it does not mean that you know how to skate upon it when it is this thin."

Jadeite shuddered as he turned away, knowing that the conversation had hardly gone well. The constraints upon the eldest shitennou's mind were far stronger than he could have believed, and it seemed not even his affection for Zoisite…he sighed, rested his hand lightly upon the wall for support while massaging a temple with the other.

"We're going to have one hell of a time bringing him around, Endymion-sama," he muttered.

She wasn't entirely sure how any cat could get quite this fat, but she was still not feeling inclined towards asking for any help with it. Adjusting it with care not to make her own discomfort obvious, Rei snuck a glance at Mako. She wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed or annoyed by the sympathetic look that the tall girl was sending in her direction.

Tossing her hair, Rei simply looked forward as she set her jaw obstinately. Her arms could fall asleep all they wanted, but she was going to carry this lump all the way back to the address they'd found on its collar. She kept time with the sound of Mako's boots on the pavement and steadily avoided her curious gaze.

"Why'd you ask me to come with you?"

The question surprised her – she wasn't sure that it was normal of Mako to be so diplomatic and avoid the question Rei knew she really wanted to ask. "Because I thought I might like some company taking this oaf back home," Rei replied immediately with a careful shrug, no guile whatsoever about her words.

"So why'd did you volunteer to take the cat back?"

She shrugged again, the movement as graceful and fluid as any she ever made…or at least, as graceful as she could be while carrying an overweight and slumbering tomcat. "I'm not really sure. I suppose I just wanted some time out from everything, from everyone." She adjusted the cat again, and added in a much quieter voice: "It's all so complicated now, after all."

Mako nodded at that, the gesture sombre; however there was a teasing element in her next words that made Rei blink. "That still doesn't really explain why you wanted me to come along, you know."

Rei was beginning to wish Mako had just asked why she wouldn't accept any help; these questions about her motives for spending time with Mako herself were beginning to make her uncomfortable. "Like I said, I wanted some company," she replied, deciding not to look at the other girl while she spoke. Instead she kept her eyes firmly fixed on the path ahead and just kept walking.

"You also said you wanted to get away from everyone for awhile," Mako pointed out rather curiously.

Stopping abruptly, Rei turned to Mako with an expression that was both resigned and annoyed. "To be honest with you, Mako, I don't…mind your company. It's…easier, being myself around you. I can't really say what it is about Ami or Usagi, but…I feel easier around you."

Mako took the confession well, knowing how hard it was for Rei to admit that she needed her friends at all. With a grin, she turned back to their path and started walking again. "You know, I always thought you and I would make good friends," she said thoughtfully, even as she wondered how far Rei would want to talk about this.

"We're friends," Rei muttered, but she didn't sound so sure of herself.

"Not the way Usagi-chan would like," Mako qualified, which drew a snort from Rei.

"Well, not all of us are quite as hyperactive as the rabbit."

"Probably not a bad thing, but then Usagi-chan is really cute."

Rei's admission was grudging and made Mako laugh out loud. "In small doses."

"Oh, give her medium, at least. But you know, Rei? I'm glad you asked me to come along with you."

Perhaps that was too far, because Rei purposely kept looking away and made only a non-committal: "Mmm."

In an attempt to change the subject, Mako tabled an idea with caution. "I suppose you don't want to talk about anything Moon Princess related though, huh?"

"Depends what you want to talk about," Rei replied, her brows furrowing as she thought about the delicate subject. "I mean…surely the princess will tell us what she thinks we need to know."

"But you don't think that what she thinks we need to know is really what we need to know, do you?"

Rei couldn't help but grin at the convoluted wording as Mako's voice trailed off in confusion at her own phrasing. "Yeah…I mean, I just…how far can we trust a princess who acts like she doesn't even need our protection?" Only seconds after saying this, she did add thoughtfully: "But if she can actually tell us something about who we were…who we are…then I suppose that I can't really complain."

"You really think we were all Moon people?" Mako didn't seem to expect an answer to her question as she looked up at the stars and frowned; she continued before Rei could even begin to formulate a reply. "It's so weird, to think we all knew each other once. And now here we are all again. Different, but I think still the same. In all the ways that matter."

"I would hope Usagi wasn't this much of a ditz back then, if she were the leader of the princess's guard," Rei observed wryly. "But…I think you're right. The important things probably never change."

"I wonder if Zoisite would agree."

"I do wonder what the princess will have to say about him," she admitted, privately only somewhat surprised at Mako's looking outside their own square, "but even then that's not really the most important thing. We need to know how we can bring down the Dark Kingdom once and for all."

Mako burst out laughing at this; at Rei's smoldering glare she slapped her shoulder affectionately and said: "You always were the most ambitious of all of us, Rei-chan."

"Someone's got to be, I guess," she muttered, but she was secretly pleased with her fellow senshi's assessment of her character. Ambition was a virtue, certainly, and it was a virtue Rei treasured in herself. "But you're with me, right?"

"I'm with Usagi. And the princess, of course."

"Then you're with me, because so am I. Though I know sometimes it might not look like it, I am with Usagi."

"And the princess?"

Rei was silent a moment; Mako was frankly unsure what to make of her pause in confirming the latter. "Of course I am."

There was silence a moment as they continued to walk in the cool night air; Mako said the first thing that came to her mind to break the quiet. She wasn't entirely sure it was the best thing to say, but she couldn't help but think that it needed to be said. "Maybe sometimes you should tell Usagi how much you actually do trust her, you know."

Rei didn't answer. Mako was about to press the issue when the dark-haired girl found something with which to change the topic. "This is it."

Even though she suspected that she shouldn't let this go, she knew that another opportunity would probably present itself; the timing wasn't right after all. Still, she couldn't resist a rather admiring – and pointed – comment at the other girl. "I can't believe you carried that lump all the way here by yourself."

"Guess someone can challenge you for the title of the strongest senshi after all, huh?" Rei replied with surprising high spirits, adding a wink on the end as she knocked on the door. Mako found that it made her laugh, and she couldn't stop even when the woman who answered the door looked at her like she was nuts. It felt good to be able to laugh at something, after all.

She didn't want to admit it, but it was…too weird, being alone with Mamoru now, in Rei-chan's bedroom. It wasn't just that he was Tuxedo Kamen, or the Prince of Earth. It seemed enough now that he was just Chiba Mamoru.

It was too easy to wish that Zoisite hadn't vanished to sit out on the veranda, and that Ami hadn't followed.

There was luckily a distraction in Rei's room that Usagi was all too happy to leap upon. While Mamoru seemed lost in silent thought in his private corner, Usagi flicked over pages of a well-read Sailor V manga. The girl-heroine seemed even more vivacious and incredible now that she had a real voice, a real face, a real presence.

She's the Princess…my job is to protect her. It was odd how that thought didn't disturb her in the way she thought it should. After all, all she had ever wanted was to be a normal girl – finding romance while getting through school well enough if only to graduate. Saving the world and a magical lunar princess had never factored into what she wanted from her life. But now…she recalled the feel of the moon-stick in her hand, and everything that made her normal…it just…

With a sigh, she set aside the manga.

"Mamoru-san." He didn't react to her words at first, still staring out of the window in his heavy silence. Chewing on her lip absently, Usagi tried again to strike up something approaching a conversation with the man who seemed now so distant from her. "Everything is so weird," she ventured in a louder voice, twirling a bit of hair around one finger.

"Mmm."

She wanted desperately to get his attention even though she had to admit herself that she was not sure why it was so important to her now. "We used to fight so much, I mean."

Those words made a shallow frown-line appear in his forehead. He turned to her and said in a voice she could not read: "We did."

The intensity of his gaze made a blush begin to creep up her neck and bloom across her cheeks, but she steadily ignored it. "It's strange how we don't, anymore."

The smile he gave her then was quietly tired, but brilliant all the same. "I can still call you odango atama if you like, you know."

Her first instinct was to stick her tongue out at him. "You're mean!"

Mamoru actually laughed out loud at that. "See, we can still fight if you like."

The sound of his genuine laughter was beautiful to her, and she realised that it was so simply because it was so rare. Why was it that she wanted him to laugh like that more often…and laugh because she had made him do so? "…I like it when you call me Usagi-chan," she said at last, smiling at him near-hesitantly as she wondered how dumb that comment must have sounded to him.

That had him raising an amused eyebrow. "You do?"

"It's nicer than odango atama, at least!"

Her defensiveness seemed to amuse him further, and for once his being amused at her expense didn't upset her as much as it usually did. "Probably suits you better, anyway."

"It does!" She crossed her arms over her chest, stuck out her chin in defiance even as she grinned broadly. "It's all because I'm a cute, happy girl!"

"You are indeed."

She had to look away at that; her attention then fell on the set-aside manga. It was hard to tell which reason really made her ask the question, but she did want to know about his opinion of the princess almost as much as she needed to change the subject at that moment. "…Mamoru-san?"

"Yes, Usagi-chan?"

"…did you always dream of her?"

"The princess?" The winsome grin faded as he contemplated this question very seriously. The eventual answer was quiet and careful. "Sort of. My parents died in a car crash when I was very young, you see. I was in the car at the time, and I was the only one who survived. I remembered nothing of anything afterward. Not even my name. They had to tell me everything about my life." He paused, took a deep breath; Usagi felt her heart begin to ache in tune with the pain that he was allowing to show on his face. "It was the worst moment of my life, realising I'd lost not only the people most important to me in the world, but that I'd also lost even the slightest memory of them. They were taken from me so completely that I just didn't know what to do."

Usagi's horror at this idea had her eyes wide and shining, seemingly near tears. "So what did you do?" she breathed.

Mamoru's shrug was deceptively casual. "I lived my life. My parents were wealthy enough that I was left with a healthy trust fund, and my guardians were kind to me. I didn't see them much then, and I don't see them often now. What was important was that they were always there for me when I needed guidance and assistance."

Usagi thought over this for a moment, finally saying in faint confusion: "…they sound more like teachers than parents."

"They were." Mamoru seemed vaguely amused by Usagi's uncertainty.

"That's so sad!" she exclaimed, tugging absently on one of her long pigtails. "I can't imagine not ever having my parents…or even my annoying little brother. How did you ever get by?"

"The girl in my dreams," he explained, this time with no distance in his eyes. He just watched Usagi carefully as if she could tell him something about this mysterious girl and why she was of such comfort to him. "She always spoke so gently to me. She was just a voice for so long, but recently…as I awakened as Tuxedo Kamen…she became clearer to me. A figure in the distance asking me to find the ginzuishou." He paused as he tried to explain something to himself before communicating it to the girl at his side. "She never called me her prince, but when Zoisite first did…it made a lot of sense to me. I suppose she's just going to confirm it, but I was the Prince of Earth during the Silver Millennium."

"And I was a Moon person," Usagi echoed softly, more to herself than to Mamoru. However, she fixed her blue eyes on the older man and said in a louder, stronger voice: "I protected her. I know I did. So we…we must have known each other back then, too."

"I'm sure I found a name for you as appropriate as odango atama back then, too."

"I hope not!" she grumbled, but she was smiling all the same; somehow the thought of knowing Chiba Mamoru back then as well as now, it was…comforting. Strange, given how he'd driven her nuts so often in this life alone. "But isn't it weird, to think we've known each other before? Maybe even been friends before?"

"It is." His smile was oddly sad, but kind all the same. "But it's also quite nice."

Usagi found herself really looking at him then. She'd never really thought about what his life was like before, but now, thinking of anyone she knew being alone like that ever had her saying in a rushed voice: "Let's be friends now, no matter what!" Without thinking, she reached out with both hands to press them over his, her grip warm and surprisingly strong.

Surprised at first, but then he turned his hand over and tightened his own grip on her hand. "No matter what," he echoed quietly. And wondered why the words tasted so bitter in his mouth.

Usagi drew back her hand after a long moment; there was a faint blush high on her cheeks as she looked outside. "The moon's so pretty."

She was obviously embarrassed and he knew that he was too, though he couldn't put his finger on precisely why. It was with relief that he welcomed the distraction that presented itself in the form of Ami, from both the stilted conversation and the emptiness of his palm without Usagi's small hand in it. "Ami-san," he said, with a polite nod in her direction.

"Ami-chan!" Usagi looked up with a big grin, a characteristic admired by all her friends. She inevitably looked happy to see anyone she considered worth her time, and that seemed to include most people she ran across. "…how's Zoisite?"

"He's not happy at all." Ami's voice was little more than a whisper as she took a seat on a cushion beside Usagi. "He is really taking this all very badly. He just…doesn't really know why he's doing anything that he's doing. It's hurting him."

Usagi balanced her chin on one fisted hand, screwing up her nose as she did so. Still, her expression was deeply thoughtful as she looked up at Ami. Something oddly mature in those blue eyes had Mamoru finding he had to look away from the picture she presented. "What do you mean?" he asked of Ami, wondering still what it was about Usagi that just…just…drew him in.

"He protected you and the princess, Mamoru-san…and it wasn't because he wanted to." This confession made her frown, and it was obvious she was near frustrated tears. "Something inside him is compelling him to do these things, and…and I think he's reaching the end of his patience with it all. All that feels real to him are his memories of being Zoisite, and today I think he just realised how much that personage is slipping away from him."

"Because he saw his teacher?" Mamoru asked.

"Yes."

"I wish I could heal him," Usagi brooded aloud, tugging on the moon-charm about her slender neck. "But only the princess can help, can't she?"

Ami bowed her head, her bangs obscuring her eyes. "Only if he wants to be helped," she said quietly.

Mamoru stood. "I should talk to him."

His progress was halted by Ami's soft words. "I think we need to let him be." Mamoru did seem to understand, sitting back down again, but Ami couldn't help but offer up a mental plea to the man in question himself.

…please, Zoisite-san. Whatever you remember, remember that we are your friends now…and that we will protect you as long as you need us to.

"Great Ruler," Beryl said reverently, bowing her head to the ground. She knelt prone before the great organic casing that housed the malevolent spirit which animated the entire kingdom she claimed dominion over, her voice low in supplication. "I come to you seeking of your wise counsel."

"Servant Beryl." The hoarse rumble of the voice reverberated through her entire being; of course Metallia's presence was concentrated in this sacred chamber, but the queen was truly everywhere. Her power was strongest in this holy place, and Beryl's own magics strengthened with the proximity of the true Queen. "I know what brings you to me."

"They were mine," the woman could not help but hiss, the words exploding from her like bullets from an automatic weapon. "They were mine. How can they be taken back?"

The imprisoned queen seemed unimpressed by Beryl's chosen wording. "They were always and forever bound to me, and not to you. You forget your place, servant."

"Forgive me, Great One," she humbled herself, even as her unnatural eyes snapped fire; she could be forgiven for thinking that because they were turned to the stone floor that Metallia could not see, but Metallia was beyond sight. She knew almost all in her realm.

"But the Prince of Earth's shitennou belong to this realm now!" Beryl continued, her voice rich with frustration. "I took them all from their demesnes and named them for the power that you grant us. How can they remember what they once were?"

"It was the girl," the voice rumbled, scorn evident in every word. "The girl who holds the moon-stick of the dead queen. It houses much power."

Beryl looked up at this, disbelief all over her pale face. "Surely that girl can't heal with that thing!"

"The girl is stronger than she looks," the entrapped queen mused aloud, her cocoon shifting in colour as her thoughts deepened. "She uses the moon-stick well, but have a care to remember that Zoisite was always the least bound of all Endymion's shitennou. He was the most loyal to his Prince, and the last to fall. He broke the bond of the stone because of that."

"They were always meant to be mine," the lesser queen hissed, hands curling into fists upon the breathing stone of the sacred chamber. "My guardians. I should have been Queen of the Earth, not that idiot moon-child!"

"Your fancies of the past are not my concern now," Metallia said coldly, the intensity of her voice obviously used to make Beryl aware which of them was truly in charge here. "The past is dead. You failed me once, Beryl. I gave you everything you needed to take your place at Endymion's side, and yet even with his shitennou you could not bring down the Moon Queen."

Her protest was bitter. "How was I to know she would kill herself over her spawn?"

"You underestimated the power of the love that drives them to do all that they do," and the disgust in her disembodied voice cut like a serrated blade through Beryl's own words. "Though you can not understand it, it makes it no less powerful. The Queen would have done anything for her only daughter and her kingdom. Do not even imagine for a moment that her daughter would not do the same."

"Her daughter is a fool and her Prince will be mine this time around." The vow was rich with force of Beryl's not-inconsiderable ambition. "She was a weak girl when I knew her then. She can't have changed much."

"I imagine she has," and there was something in her manner of speech that suggested Metallia was not expecting any input from Beryl on this matter. "She feels different indeed."

"Nobody ever changes in ways that really matter," the red-headed woman scoffed all the same, flexing her fingers like the power within wished to seep out and destroy the girl then and there. "I will have the shitennou back, and their Prince with them. The princess will fall, this time forever. I will use the energy of her death to bring you back into this plane, my Queen, and you will be as a goddess as I am ruler over Earth."

The conversation was drawing to a close; this was heralded by the distraction in the spirit's voice, the way her cocoon's light dimmed and wavered as she withdrew into herself. "His stone sits in the space appointed it in the shrine," the departing queen told Beryl calmly. "Take it. He is too far from it now for it to be of any use, but when he is back in the Kingdom you can influence him once more."

Beryl stood carefully in the long gown she wore, stepped easily over to the space in the wall of the chamber that was characterised by the four alcoves holding four roughly hewn stones. She drew the one that sat in the space corresponding to south on the compass, holding the dim stone lightly in the palm of her hand. The other three she ignored, though any observer would see that while two were equally as dim as the one in her hand, the western one was bright with a roiling, organic light. The flash of that stone caught her attention at last, the resulting question hardly surprising. "What am I to do with that one?"

"He is my concern, not yours." The disgust evident in her expression suggested that the fact the stone needed to be her concern was the direct result of Beryl's idiocy. "His death was complicated even without impinging memories of Endymion. You bring back Zoisite, and I will bring back Nephrite. Then you can have the prince and his shitennou and release me at last."

The woman bowed her head, the hand holding the stone held over her heart. "As your will decrees it, my Queen."

The sincerity of her words was perhaps in doubt, but as Metallia slipped into uneasy slumber she did not concern herself overly. Arrogant a servant as Beryl had become, as it was she and "her" shitennou would prove to be of great use yet…even those who were slipping so conveniently out of her grasp.

"We're together at last."

"We are." Luna spoke for the group, bowing her small head reverently to the young girl with the platinum hair. Sailor V had been the last to arrive, her moon-cat a slight but sure presence at her side. What had thrown all of her audience off immediately had been the fact that she was still dressed in the brief fuku of Sailor V, though her mask was not present. That was perhaps what led Rei to ask in a quietly authoritative voice:

"But who are you?"

The girl sighed, but there was a determined set to her lovely features that spoke of the fact she would not change her mind easily. "It's better if you don't know yet."

Mako frowned at this, folding her long legs beneath her. "How are we supposed to protect you, then?" she asked, balancing her chin precariously on one hand.

Even though she should have looked at least mildly ridiculous, dressed as she was in the company of six very ordinarily clothed individuals, something inside her made her shine.

Pushing some of her long hair away from her face, she said simply: "By trusting me."

"But there should be five of us, right?"

That question took her off-guard; her pale eyes were widening as she looked over at Usagi. "What?"

"Luna always said we were looking for another senshi," Usagi pointed out, furrowing her brow as she saw Sailor V's surprise. "The fifth. Do you know who she is?"

The direct question gave her further pause. Though she was capable of looking strong and confident, as she chewed her lip then she looked deeply young. The confidence didn't return until she glanced down at Artemis, who nodded faintly. She raised steady eyes to Usagi and said in a crisp voice: "Sailor Venus."

"You know her?" Usagi asked even as Mako spoke over her with: "You know where she is?"

The second blonde girl nodded. "She knows what is going on but she can't join us yet."

"Why not?" Mamoru asked.

"She has been watching out for me up until now," she told Mamoru in the slow careful way she had, so regal in her formal speech. "Sometimes I think that I trust her even more than I trust myself. Believe me when I say she will reveal herself when she is most needed."

"But why can't she come out now?"

"We should always keep an ace up our sleeve, Usagi-san." The explanation was as kind as it was brief, inviting no further argument. "Just know that she is watching over me all the time. When we need her most, she'll be right there with us."

"She must be really amazing, to have looked out for you all this time."

That made Sailor V laugh our loud, the sound light and sweet. It suited her right down to her pretty smile and sparkling eyes, as she chuckled: "She has her moments."

"So what do you know, princess?" Mamoru asked finally, bringing seriousness back into the conversation and her eyes.

"What do I know?" she asked, inviting further clarification.

"About it all," Mamoru pointed out. "Why we are here. What we are to do."

"We are here to defeat the Dark Kingdom," Sailor V said simply, though before anyone could speak she explained what she meant in further detail. "Queen Serenity of the Moon Kingdom sealed them away many years ago, during the fall of the Silver Millennium. She wasn't able to destroy them completely. That task falls to us, those she saved by sealing away until we were needed."

The phrasing made Usagi look more than a little taken aback. "Sealing us away?"

"You were reincarnated as the Dark Kingdom stirred again." The didactic tone of Artemis was responsible for those words, the white cat's eyes serious as he met Usagi's. "Now that you are all awake and are beginning to at last come into your powers, the Dark Kingdom is also stirring itself to full power."

"That seems to be a pretty big coincidence," Rei said thoughtfully.

There was no smile on Sailor V's face now. "It's not a coincidence at all. It was always meant to happen this way." Crossing her own long legs, she smoothed out the short skirt and frowned as she sought out the words she needed to explain. "We were born at a signal from the Kingdom. The dark energy grew strong enough that our slumbering spirits were awakened, sent into the world again so we could grow into ourselves and our powers once more. This is the way it was always meant to be."

A long slow breath was expelled by Rei, followed by a single reverent word. "Destiny."

"It's a powerful thing." And something in Sailor V's body – her eyes too old in a body too young – left not a single mind doubting that she knew from personal experience just how powerful.

There was silence for a long moment that was broken only by Ami's soft voice. It was the first time she had spoken up, though her computer remained silent and powerless in her still hands. "If we're meant to destroy the Dark Kingdom, what…what about Zoisite-san?"

That made Usagi sit up even straighter, giving a startled look to both Ami and Zoisite. The pair were seated together on the other side of the room, and even though Ami was usually silent, Usagi wondered what was holding Zoisite's usually over-active tongue this evening. "Yeah, Ami-chan's got a point…if Zoisite is part of the Dark Kingdom…?"

"Challenging me to a duel, are you?" he said, his first words of the conversation darkly amused.

Before Usagi could sort out any reasonable reply to that, Sailor V came in with quiet words of her own. "Zoisite is not truly of the Dark Kingdom."

"Then what is he?" Mamoru asked, as if the individual in question was not in the room and listening to every word that was spoken.

"Zoisite was a member of Endymion-sama's elite guard. He was also one of the Earth's shitennou." Before anyone could ask a definition of that, she raised a gloved hand in a near-imperial gesture that asked for silence and accepted nothing less. "They…were not like the princess's senshi, but they were not dissimilar either."

Luna was staring off into space, her eyes clouded and distant. "…I remember…"

Rei was picking at the cover on her futon, looking periodically between Mamoru, Sailor V and Zoisite himself. "Did they have powers like ours?"

"To a degree," Artemis explained. "They were elemental powers, mostly. They were associated with the four points of the compass, the four directions of the world. All were lords in their own right, kings of a fashion, but they existed to protect the King of the Earth…and that was what Endymion was to become, when he came of age and married the princess of the Moon."

"So why is Zoisite Zoisite, then?" Rei asked.

"The betrayal of the shitennou is why Earth fell to Beryl." Artemis spoke with a clinical detachment that still did not quite hide his distress at what had become of the world he had once been a part of. "With power over them, she held great sway over Earth. Endymion fled the carnage to seek help from the Queen of the Moon, but was followed."

Zoisite's silence was painful as he stared at his hands; Ami was giving him a worried look which he was steadily ignoring.

Mako let out a low whistle. "Why did they betray their prince?"

Sailor V's gaze was firmly locked in the direction of the only shitennou currently present. "I can't answer that."

Zoisite's lips were held tightly as he took in the way that everyone was staring at him now. "What makes you think that I can?" he exploded finally, holding his hands so tightly about each other it was as if they were bound.

Mamoru seemed unable to help himself. "You're the one who did it!" he shouted, fury and frustration evident in every harsh word.

The smaller man's face was as pale as bleached bone, but that only made the furious shine of his eyes all the more obvious. "I remember nothing!"

"Why did you do it?" Rei seemed unable to help adding her own two cents as she leapt to her feet, though she was trembling as she spoke. "How could you do it?"

"I don't remember!"

"Rei-chan, please."

"He has to remember," Rei said as she took her seat again, her anger quietening though her eyes were still bright with something that approached tears. "How else will we know he won't do it again?"

The words were practically spat at her feet. "Because I protected Endymion-sama against Kunzite-sama."

"What?" Mako asked, seemingly willing to be involved in the conversation again now that the shouting was dying down. She never backed down from a fight, but she had to be sure one was necessary before she would get involved. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Bowed his head, anger seeping out of him like sand from a broken hourglass. "If I can betray Kunzite-sama for Endymion-sama, then there's nothing left for me in the Dark Kingdom any longer."

"I don't get it." Mako said, giving a look to the answers as if she thought they might. The baffled looks that were returned to her assured her that they didn't – save for Ami. But Ami was not even looking at her, instead reaching out a hand towards Zoisite's arm nearest her.

"Zoisite-san—"

He shook off the gentle touch, crossed his eyes and looked at the others defiantly. "I loved him."

"Loved him?" Rei blinked.

"He was everything to me," he explained, words succinct and cold. "I gave myself over to him so much that he was the only thing that mattered to me. And yet even with that knowledge burning a hole inside my heart I still throw all of that aside when I have to choose between Endymion-sama and Kunzite-sama. It can't be any other way."

"…but he was your teacher, wasn't he?" Usagi asked in a small voice, her mind obviously trying to process all the implications of what Zoisite was saying. She was adding two and two and coming up with eight hundred and ninety-six.

"In all things," he said, low and ironic. "It made him much more than a mere teacher, Usagi-san."

"…but…how does that even work?"

Zoisite seemed to be taking some characteristic amusement in the situation at last, arching a well-formed eyebrow at the startled moon senshi. "Do you need me to draw you a diagram, or what?"

"I think we could do without that, thank you Zoisite," Mamoru protested, deciding now was as good a time as any to nip this interesting little development in the bud.

"Oh, come on, Endymion-sama. I promise I won't use you as one of the models."

"Good grief, I would hope not!"

There was a sudden sigh to break the banter; they all found themselves looking at the tired form of the princess as she laced gloved fingers together. "I don't have time for this."

"You should." Rei said quietly, and there was only disappointment in her words.

"Time is shorter than you know, Rei-san," the beautiful girl explained, her fingers still clenching about each other in what appeared to be nervousness. Sailor V seemed utterly unaware of what her wilful fingers were doing, however; she stood suddenly, hair falling about her like a silken curtain. "I must go now. I will meet with you all again soon."

Rei's eyes were wide. "But how are we supposed to find you?"

"I'll find you."

Artemis's reply was slightly more diplomatic than that of the princess. "If you need us before then, Luna can always try through Central Command."

"But princess!"

Sailor V turned back to Usagi, impossibly elegant and beautiful in the light of the moon streaming through the windows. "Yes, Usagi-san?"

"Can't you heal him?"

Giving him a long look that seemed to suggest she couldn't, she asked in an unreadable voice: "Heal him?"

"With the moon-stick." She held it out promptly, like she'd been wanting to do so all evening. "Surely…I did it this far. Can't you finish it?"

"No."

The flat answer was clearly the last she had been expecting. "Why not?"

"We need the ginzuishou."

"Could you heal anyone with that?" Rei asked quietly, even as Ami echoed the question herself.

"Yes."

"All of us?" Zoisite asked dully as he looked up at the shining figure she presented.

"All of you who live, yes. If you want to be healed."

Some emotion seemed to seep back into his eyes at that, a faint twist of a smile upon his lips as he asked of her: "What makes you think I don't want to be?"

"Because you don't know what to do with your freedom, do you."

The flat statement made him look away, both Sailor V and Zoisite apparently content with the silence their brief exchange had wrought.

"…so what do we do now?" Mako asked finally, hoping a little practicality would normalise the peculiar air that had descended upon the group. "I mean, sure we need the ginzuishou…so how are we supposed to get it?"

"I say we wait for them to make their move," Sailor V said without pause, gaze even and her hands stilled.

"Are you sure?" Mamoru asked, a faint frown-line breaking his forehead in two.

"Yes. This is enough for now."

"So what are we supposed to do in the meantime?" Rei asked, unable to prevent a note of snappishness from entering her voice. She couldn't help but think to herself: I almost wish Usagi had been the princess…at least then I'd have known what to expect and how to deal with her! A bubble-headed princess is beginning to sound a lot more attractive than this…self-sufficient mature girl-woman we actually got.

"We will keep the nijizuishou separate, to prevent them from surprising and overwhelming a single keeper," Artemis mused aloud. "Until we can gather all of them and rejoin them, I think that would be best."

"You can't leave now. We've barely started!"

"I'll know when you need me," Sailor V said quietly, a faintly sad smile on her face. "For now, this is the way things need to be. I'm sorry, Rei-chan. I might not be the princess you expected, but I'm what you've got."

Rei was silent.

Mamoru's voice interrupted the movement of the girl to exit the room. "Can I speak to you before you leave?"

"Of course," she said as she bowed her head. "Please don't be long."

"In private."

"…there shouldn't be any need," she said, her smooth feathers seeming to be somewhat ruffled by this curious demand. "You can say what you need to here."

"I don't think I can."

Sailor V's pale eyes passed over the quietly drooping Usagi, and then shuttered abruptly. "For a moment, then," she said firmly, nodding to the door. "I really do need to leave."

The pair left the room then, leaving the other four girls and two moon-cats alone. Before anyone could think to address Artemis the little cat nodded his goodbyes, jumped up, and vanished. Even as Luna began spitting tacks, Usagi stood herself and made for the door.

"Where are you going?" Rei asked, voice only slightly suspicious.

"The bathroom," she said, voice distracted and distant. "I'll be back in a minute."

Out on the veranda, Sailor V had already settled her slim body on the edge of the polished wood. She was looking out at the moon and seemingly lost in a world of her own when he said to her: "Princess?"

"Endymion-sama," she said in reply, and sighed heavily. "What do you want from me?"

"…it's all right if you call me Mamoru," he said slowly, nodding at the space beside her. "May I join you?"

"I prefer to keep things the way that they are," the blonde told him quietly, but she indicated the space next to her freely. "So what is it that I can do for you?"

"A lot, I think." After staring at his hands for a long moment, he let a long shaky breath go. "Princess, this is very hard for me."

"It is hard for all of us. Endymion-sama, but I can't tell you anything more than I have already said. It's not the time." Though her soft voice had been deeply apologetic in and of itself, she added quietly: "I really am sorry about that."

"I don't doubt you are." Meeting her eyes squarely, he told her the truth. "I don't want you to tell me more of the war of the Silver Millennium. I want you to tell me something else."

"What is it?"

"The princess of the Moon and the prince of Earth were to marry, as you said. Join their respective kingdoms…but the match was more than political."

The girl looked away like the sight of him suddenly burned her. "Endymion-sama."

"I don't remember much of anything," he mused aloud. "None of us do, except for Zoisite, but even then his circumstances aren't exactly the same as ours." The meandering thoughtfulness of his voice vanished as he stated in a hardened voice: "You don't trust him, do you."

"It's not that I don't trust him as he is now, though I have to admit that I don't," the girl explained, her voice so quiet it was hard for him to actually make out what she was saying. "It is just that while you all remember too little, I remember too much."

"It must be a terrible burden for you," he said quietly. "And it's a burden I want to share."

"Not yet." The words lacked finality, and she spoke them like they hurt. Still she refused to meet his gaze, looking away at the ever-changing orb of the moon.

"We loved each other, didn't we." The statement was flat as Mamoru at first kept all his emotions regarding this truth firmly to himself. "Then."

She wouldn't look at him.

His voice near-broke as he asked of her: "What's to stop us from loving now?"

Her eyes stayed resolutely away.

"Serenity." The name came to his lips easily, falling off his tongue like it had always been his to speak. "Serenity."

"Not yet."

He reached for her limps hands, grasped them so that he forced her to turn and look at him directly. She had shown so much confidence in herself and her mission before; why was she so lost now? "You feel it as much as I do."

"What I do or don't feel isn't important right now," she replied, some strength coming back into her eyes and voice as she tried to pull her hands away from Mamoru's strong grasp.

"What if it is all that will save us?" he persisted, not letting go.

"What?" she asked, surprised enough that her tugging stopped as her hands went lax in his.

"You are the one who will save us. I know that. It's all I ever dreamed about before you came. You need us, of course, but it's you." Mamoru leaned in closer to her, his voice fading to a low whisper as he told her urgently: "It falls to you to save us, but we will do anything to help you achieve that."

"What if I told you that staying away from me would be the best way for you to help me?"

Mamoru firmed his grip and told her easily: "I would understand that perhaps you don't always know what is best for yourself."

She started to pull away again, her lovely face seeming on the verge of tears. "Endymion-sama—"

He kissed her. It was a delicate gesture, Mamoru leaning in to catch her lips carefully and gently; it lasted barely a moment but caught as they were beneath the light of the moon, it could have lasted forever.

"Why did you do that?" she whispered as he drew away; he had released her hands and they had both risen to touch her lips in amazement, her blue eyes impossibly wide.

"The past doesn't have to rule us unless we want it to," he explained in a husky voice, his own hands falling to rest quietly on his thighs. "I'm trying to decide how much I might actually want that."

With her hair looking like ice caught ablaze in the moonlight, Sailor V stood and looked to the small white cat who had finally entered her field of vision. "I need to go," she said distantly, and if Mamoru looked hard enough he could see the way her hands were shaking.

Standing himself, Mamoru couldn't help but reach forward, ghosting his fingers over the delicate strands of her hair. If he looked deep enough into his memory, something like this….something like this… "I need you to stay."

"I can't." With that said she at last walked away, a slight figure of blonde hair and deep burdens disappearing into the shadows of the night that even the bright moonlight could not illuminate.

She was so concentrated on leaving, he so fixed on her vanishing form, that neither of them saw the small figure with the bowed head slipping further back into the shadows that had hidden her from them their entire conversation.

Dashing away her tears, Usagi couldn't help but feel utterly frustrated with herself. It made no sense after all, to be so hurt by what she had seen. She didn't love Chiba Mamoru! Tuxedo Kamen…well. That was different of course. It wasn't like she'd even known him, he had just been an illusion…like all the heroes of shoujo manga, he just waltzed in and waltzed out, seen only in a good light…

…but then I liked him even when he was actually in a bad light…and he was…I just…

Chiba Mamoru had always irritated her, and that had been enough to imprint him on her mind. She was so happy-go-lucky that no-one (aside from Shingo, but then what were little brothers for, if not being total pains in the butt?) had really ever driven her as crazy as him.

The turmoil in her mind was making her feel like screaming, and the weight in her coat pocket was only making her heart beat faster and more erratically. In frustration she pulled out the object at last; it blurred in her vision as her tears came flooding back.

The locket.

…I knew I should have given it back to him. I'm sure it's hers, after all…the princess gave his locket to him. And…and he never really gave it to me. It's theirs. Not mine.

She was clutching it so tightly that the catch that held the lid closed had released; it took some time for the tinkling music to filter through to her mind. With a barely withheld sob, she snapped it closed and the music died. Her frustration and misery heightening even in the ensuing silence, Usagi found herself balling up a fist and aiming the pretty golden locket at the cold concrete before her.

But she couldn't bring herself to let it go.

"It's not fair!" she shouted suddenly into the cold night, not caring if she woke up the people sleeping behind the tall walls of the quiet neighbourhood. Her tears beginning to fall unimpeded now, she slid down to her knees and buried her face in her hands. The locket was warm against the damp skin of her cheek.

"It's just not fair," she repeated in a hollow whisper as she wondered what it was she was really talking about.

"Life rarely is."

The even voice from behind her had her whipping around in horror; she was far from elegant in her miserable mortal form, however, and promptly sprawled inelegantly before the blonde man. "Jadeite!"

"Tsukino-san." Though she was lying before him in an incredibly prone and defenceless form, he made no move to step close to her. Rather he simply inclined his head in a most genteel manner and made a request that was no the less bizarre for its politeness. "I need to talk to you."

"No way!" she squealed, her hand reaching up to grasp at the other locket she carried…the one that would never let her down. "Back off, or I'm warning you…you're so dusted!"

Jadeite seemed unmoved by her panic. "It's about Zoisite."

"You leave him alone!" Usagi shot back, pulling her legs back underneath her; she wanted to stand, but given both hands were taken up with lockets she didn't have enough leverage to do so. "He's on our side now, like he's supposed to be! Like you're supposed to be!" she added, wondering what he would make of that.

His calm acceptance of this truth was not quite what she was expecting. "Hmm. So you do know now."

"Know what?" Usagi returned even as the henshin locket began to warm underneath her trembling fingers.

Running gloved fingers back through his thick hair, Jadeite gave her a look that was near-amused and partly apologetic. "I'm going to have to ask you a favour."

Though she would never be the sharpest tool in the shed, Usagi knew that despite his bizarre behaviour as of late, right now was a damned good time to be suspicious of his motivations. "What kind of a favour?"

"Right now?" Jadeite asked with a brilliant smile that had Usagi's eyes widening exponentially. "Just don't throw up on me when we go through."

"Through?" she repeated with furrowed brows, looking up at him in surprise. "Go through what?"

There was no time to provide an answer to that, or so Jadeite must have thought; even as the last word left Usagi's lips his hand was on her arm, yanking her back into the dark portal he called up with hardly a thought. The girl had no time to react, and when she did, her reaction was precisely what he had hoped it would not be.

"…I thought I asked you not to do that," he said with a groan, releasing her arm and stepping back far enough to avoid the splashback.

Usagi continued to retch, her face deeply pale; her eyes were bright with annoyance as well as pain when she looked up to glare mutinously at him. "You didn't give me a chance to make any promise," she snapped back, though she had to look away to continue throwing up.

"I'll give you that," he said with a raised eyebrow, and then shook his head. "So now what shall we do with this interesting little development, Usagi-san…?"

END CHAPTER EIGHT