Chapter 1: Arrival
"Oh, Mamo-chan, it's just awful! I can't help but feel like whatever is causing all of these disappearances throughout Tokyo is something we should be fighting!"
Mamoru Chiba sighed, pulling his future wife into his arms. "Usa, not everything is an invader from some distant part of the galaxy who's trying to take the Legendary Silver Crystal for their own gain. This isn't any different from a normal kidnapping, the police will solve it soon enough. Besides, the girl was only just reported missing yesterday. Maybe..." He trailed off, groaning at the sound of the doubt in his voice. Some comfort I am.
Besides, Usagi wasn't wrong to worry; there had been an alarming number of teenage girls going missing throughout all of Tokyo's wards. Just the day before, the parents of a girl who attended Usagi's school had sent their daughter's picture to the paper after she hadn't come home from her friend's house. The sixth this month, the article had reported. "The police are totally baffled," Mamoru remembered hearing Usagi's father saying over dinner. "At first, they told us to report it as a kidnapping ring that was going after teenage girls. But then they found that one girl's body outside of the shopping mall the other day. Apparently, it didn't have a scratch on it, even though the girl had been missing for three days! If anything, it looked like she just simply laid down and died." Much as Mamoru didn't want to admit it, these did seem like the kind of incidents that usually occurred right before a new enemy surfaced.
Mamoru was brought back into the present by Usagi's ranting of, "Girls shouldn't have to spend their spring break worrying about things like this! Of course, if anyone tried to kidnap me, they would be in for a nice surprise, wouldn't they?" She imitated the pose she always struck when she was doing her speeches as Sailor Moon, giggling. "Which reminds me, Michiru-san is doing a special performance over the break in Mitakihara, as part of the opening weekend for their new concert dome. She managed to get all of us tickets, and everyone else already said they could go..." She widened her blue eyes as far as they could go, hands clasped in a pleading position.
Mamoru groaned; now he knew how Chibiusa had learned to beg so well. "Alright, I guess we can go."
Usagi let out a squeal of delight, heading for the door. "Oh, I knew you would say yes! I'm going over to Ami-chan's to tell everyone else we're coming!" Before he could stop her, she had already left the apartment. He sighed, giving a small laugh. That was his Usagi, she always knew how to get him to agree to anything. It will be nice to get a change of atmosphere, he thought, looking out the window. He could see the construction areas where Tokyo was recovering from the fight against Sailor Galaxia that had occurred a month ago. Mamoru was still waking up from nightmares where her voice commanded him to kill Sailor Moon, his Golden Crystal and Star Seed clenched in her hand. Going to his computer, he opened up his browser and searched for information on Mitakihara.
He knew it was a relatively new city; people had only started flocking to it within the past 25 years. It was being called a city from the future, with gorgeous architecture and state-of-the-art technology blending together like the world had never seen before. Construction on the concert hall Michiru would be performing at had only been completed three weeks prior. Thinking about the disappearances that had been occurring in Tokyo, he searched "missing teenage girls in Mitakihara area". An notice concerning a fifteen-year-old girl named Yuko Himura appeared. Mamoru clicked the link and found a newspaper article about two years old. The circumstances were so similar to the disappearances throughout Tokyo, it was scary. He tried to track the story, but the rest of the articles that week concerned a fatal car crash that had killed two government officials and orphaned their thirteen-year-old daughter.
Giving up, he closed his computer down. Well, if the most similar case is from two years ago, it was probably just an unfortunate accident. Returning to the window, he wondered, So why do I feel as though we're heading straight into danger?
The new universe began as they all did. Homura's eyes snapped open, and were promptly greeted by the harsh white lights of the hospital ceiling. Pushing aside the thin sheets, she walked across the carpeted floor to the small bathroom that was available in all long-term wards. After a quick shower, she was toweling off when she paused, catching her face in the mirror. She hadn't actually bothered to stop and look at her reflection in quite some time, and it was a bit of a shock to see how much she had changed. Her body was stronger, her eyes harder. Being a magical girl had definitely changed more than her attitude.
She pulled on her uniform, slung her bag over her shoulder, slipped the ring containing her Soul Gem onto her middle finger, and headed for the door. The long-term ward was largely unoccupied, which Homura preferred. She had found it was easier for Kyubey to detect her when people were making a large fuss over her.
The walk to Mitakihara Middle School was so familiar by now, Homura knew she could have done it in her sleep. Upon reaching the center of the city, however, an unfamiliar glimmer caught her eye. Turning around, she couldn't help but gasp at the sight of the brand-new Mitakihara Concert Dome, which had been under construction in every other universe. A work of modern art in itself, it was made almost entirely of various glass layers, with ribbons of steel that Homura could tell had been incorporated more for visual appeal than reinforcement. Although it looked transparent in the glow of the sun, Homura could detect a turquoise tint to the glass that would make it stand out even more at night. "Isn't it amazing?" she heard a schoolgirl saying to her friend as they passed by. "Rumor has it that the city received an enormous donation from some famous musician that let them complete construction months in advance! They're opening it this weekend!"
Remembering Madoka's wish, Homura couldn't help but wonder if this was a sign of things to come. Could this universe be different?
Could this be the universe where I finally save Madoka Kaname?
