Episode 99
Recap: Yuichiro sees Haruka giving Rei a ride home and later, when noticing Michiru and Haruka together, assumes Haruka is Rei's boyfriend who's cheating on her. He picks a fight with Haruka (who's completely confused) and Rei is furious that he didn't trust her. He packs up to leave but a Daimohn attacks him before he can get on the train, and Rei and the other Senshi return his pure heart.
Excellent fight scene in this one. I didn't remember it like I did the previous episode, but it's actually quite good. Yuichiro's hilarious: "THIS IS ADOLESCENCE!" I rofled (since that seems to be a verb now…).
Now I was kind of at a loss of what to write for this episode, but I have a silly little idea… Now I know Usagi's birthday is soon, and that's June 30th, so let's pretend Mamoru's spring semester runs really late just to make this all work out. Deal? Cool beans.
He felt the alarm flare in his brain right in the middle of the lecture, and with final exams approaching, he knew he couldn't risk missing much of the class. Briefly, he let his mind zip to where the Sailor Senshi were trapped on a train track, with some new ridiculous Daimohn reeling toward them. He flinched, silent prayers coursing through his nerves; but he couldn't keep his focus on the battle for long without automatically transporting to the site.
She doesn't always need you, he told himself. She's strong, they're together. They'll find a way out of this. It's just another Daimohn.
And what if you're absolutely fucking wrong? shouted the more Tuxedo-Kamen-prone part of him. What if this is the one youma that can do her in? Are you honestly willing to risk her –
She can't die, his reason quipped back. She's perfectly alive in the future.
But what if time doesn't work like that? Maybe that was just the most likely future, but some freak accident…
He was seconds from leaping out of his chair and sprinting to the hallway and transforming then and there; but as his knuckles when white against the table, he refused to let himself weaken his resolve. You won't always be there, Cape boy, snarled his determination. It's just a fact. Now that things are smoother, now that she understands her power better, she's got to be able to handle it herself. Without you.
Before, physics was all that could distract him from Usagi; but all he could think of was the clock ticking down, and he barely heard the professor's explanation of the problem he simply couldn't touch the night before. Perfect.
He ended up not-quite-leaping from his chair as soon as the clock struck the hour, and not-quite-sprinting to the hallway with his bag flying out behind him, and not-quite-transforming in the broom closet two corners away.
But mostly, he did just that.
He found himself on the roof of a metro stop; peering over the edge, he saw the five Senshi gathered around a young man he knew he recognized – that boy who worked at the shrine with Rei, wasn't it?
He leapt down silently, and watched as Sailor Mercury pressed a pure heart crystal into the boy's chest.
"Yuichiro?" said Sailor Mars, shaking him. "Yuichiro?"
The color bled back into his face, bit by bit, but he did not stir.
"Why aren't you answering?" said Sailor Mars angrily. "You're supposed to be fine now!"
Mamoru reached out with the tingling static waves that connected to the place in his chest where things were either alright, or crumbling; and he found that Yuichiro was, thankfully, the former. "He is fine," he said. "Or he will be."
The Senshi turned in unison; Sailor Moon, predictably, cried out, "Tuxedo Kamen-sa -!" But then she stopped herself. "Just Tuxedo Kamen!"
Sailor Mercury giggled. Apparently she remembered that conversation.
"You're late," said Sailor Jupiter with a cheery wink.
"Looks like you handled things fine yourself," he returned. "It's getting dark; do you want me to help you get him home?"
Mars shook her head. "He'd get too disoriented. He'd probably beat me up without meaning to. No, just help me get him on the bench."
She knelt, sliding her hand beneath his arms, and the other girls moved aside, allowing Mamoru to grab the boy's feet. With a grunt, Mars stood, and for a moment Mamoru thought she was going to drop him – he was a tall kid, after all – but she pursed her lips and heaved him onto the bench anyway. She was a strong girl, though she didn't show it much.
"I'll stay with him," said Mars, a protective glint in her hard black eyes. "You all can go."
"Are you sure?" said Sailor Moon, her brow furrowed.
"Of course she's sure," Sailor Venus interrupted, her eyes wide and dreamy. "It's a lover's thing, Sailor Moon. You wouldn't understand."
Sailor Moon turned to him in exasperation, and he gazed back at her seriously. "She's right, you know. You wouldn't understand a thing about that."
She laughed; Jupiter and Mercury joined in.
"Is the coast clear?" asked Mars curtly, cutting through their laughter.
"Yeah," said Jupiter, craning her neck over the horizon, "but I think there's a train coming. You'd better hurry."
Mars detransformed and settled down with Yuichiro's head in her lap. "Go on, all of you. Really."
The way she said it, it sounded more like "Get lost already, would you?"
"Alright," said Venus, standing and fluffing out her skirt. "We know when we're not wanted."
"Good," grunted Mars. "Saves me a lot of trouble."
"Are you going to change?" Mercury, back in her school uniform, eyed the oncoming train anxiously. "You ought to hurry."
Sailor Moon caught his eye and giggled; it was a scheming kind of giggle, and it made him rather nervous.
"I want to fight a youma," he said, rather drearily. He refused to admit to himself that it was more or less a whine.
"We don't have to change back," said Moon, flouncing forward. "We could just prance around town like this."
He snickered. "Cape Boy and Odango Girl?"
"The heroes of Tokyo, of course." She grinned widely. "Care to join us, Venus? You could be… um…" She chewed on her lower lip. "Um…"
"Snappy, this one," Mamoru announced to Venus.
Sailor Moon punched him in response. "Can you think of a good nickname for her?"
"Well, not really… The-Superheroine-Who-Can't-Pick-A-Color-Scheme?"
Moon cackled gleefully. "She really can't, can she?"
"What's wrong with my color scheme?" cried Venus.
"The train!" Mercury screamed.
It was too late. The metro screeched to a halt right before them. Three teenage girls in high school fukus, one boy unconscious on a bench, and three others dressed as Sailor Venus, Sailor Moon, and Tuxedo Kamen awaited the four passengers who exited the train: two businessmen, who hardly glanced up, and a young boy and his mother.
"Look, look, it's Sailor Moon!"
Moon was rooted to the spot, a laugh dancing just behind her eyes though she was still as a statue.
"No, sweetheart, it's just some kids dressed up. Let's go."
"No, really, it's Sailor Moon and Sailor Venus and Tuxedo Kamen!" The boy broke free of his mother's hand and dashed up to them.
"Shiro!" she called after him, but he raced straight up to Mamoru and stared up at him in wonder.
"Are you really Tuxedo Kamen?" he whispered.
Mamoru nodded solemnly.
"Why are you just standing around at a train station, then?"
"Shiro!" repeated his mother, marching over to them. She bowed briefly to Mamoru. "I'm sorry, he's such an admirer of Tuxedo Kamen, although…" Her eyes scanned Mamoru briefly, a frown etched upon her lips. "Anyhow, I'm sorry for bothering you…"
"It's no trouble," he said, twitching his fingers, and he handed her a freshly blooming rose.
Shiro's mouth dropped.
The woman stared at the flower with a distinct apprehension, so Mamoru offered it to Shiro instead. "Arigato," he murmured.
"Let's go," muttered the woman, dragging him away. The little boy gaped over his shoulder at Mamoru until he was out of sight.
"You bakas!" Rei cried from the bench. "Do you realize if Kaolinite was still around just how much you could have compromised our identities?"
"Don't be so uptight, Rei-chan," said Venus loftily. "There was no harm done."
"Why are you so popular all of a sudden?" Sailor Moon accused Mamoru. "I always thought it was Sailor Moon who was the real…" She hunched her shoulders, searching for the right word, and gave up. "The popular one."
"Of course you would think that," Mamoru said cheekily. "Seems you were wrong."
"If you don't transform," said Makoto, who was eyeing Rei's beet-red face, "I think Rei's going to explode."
"You're right," Venus sighed, fading into her uniform. "She's going to blow a casket."
"Gasket, Minako-chan!" Rei barked. "The phrase is blow a gasket!"
"She's going to blow something," Mamoru muttered, and the girl next to him, who was suddenly Usagi, laughed.
"Come on, Cape Boy, before she eats you."
"I want to fight a youma," he complained. "I've been cooped up in classes all day and I've got finals coming up. I need to blow off some steam."
"You can fight me," said Usagi cheerily.
"You're right, you're as good as a youma anyway…"
"HEY!" she screeched, barreling punches into his abdomen. "You baka -!"
For such a skinny girl, she sure could make an impact. He grabbed her by the wrists until she gave up, half glowering, half grinning.
"Why do you think that woman was so skeptical?" he mused aloud. "It makes me wonder how many people stand around at train stations dressed up like us."
Usagi snickered. "Probably thousands."
"They arrive in droves," he narrated softly. "They gravitate by the millions to stand beneath the roof and wait for the passengers to arrive."
"You're so weird, Mamo-chan."
"WOULD YOU ALL LEAVE ALREADY?" Rei roared.
With a start, he looked around and realized he and Usagi were the only ones left. "Yes, Hino-sama, many apologies, Hino-sama," said Mamoru rather impertinently, and, with his cape still trailing behind him, he took Usagi by the wrist and dragged her off.
"Where are we going?" she asked excitedly, grabbing onto his arm. He loved how she did that –
not in the tentative flirtatious way that many girls used to impose upon him, but in a "I'm here and you're here and we're in the same damn place so let's go already" kind of way. It was refreshing.
"No idea."
"They're right, you know. You could compromise my identity if you don't transform."
"You find me a youma, and then I'll transform."
"Mamo-chan," she sighed, "it's strange, but you're acting very young."
He nodded slowly. "That's true. You bring out the immaturity in me, Sailor Moon."
"So this is my fault, Mamoru-baka?"
"More or less." His legs itched, to run, to burn, to pulse with that familiarity of adrenaline. "What do you say we go see if Haruka-san has a race?"
"At night?"
"You never know."
"Alright, but you have to change, Mamoru!"
With a low groan, he glanced around the empty pathway and flickered his cape into his very boring, very non-youma-fighting, very finals-taking clothes.
Okay so that was kind of on crack (I'M SO TIRED RIGHT NOW AHHH) and in no way influenced by my resentment towards midterms next week. Sorry you had to put up with that.
As always, I am in your debt because you read. (: