Disclaimer: All characters and locations belong to their respective owners.

6.
Days Go By (And Still I Think of You…)

September 3

The alarm clock went off at six on the dot, and through the sleep-thick haze Hiromi Go's "Goldfinger '99" blared like sirens on a shipwrecked island. That, and Chiba Mamoru woke with an urge to shave.

He sat up and, rubbing his eyes, looked out past the glass wall of his apartment. The sky was just starting to brighten. Sunrise already; and to think a few hours ago I went to bed. He sighed, stretched his limbs, and swung his legs off the mattress. He reached forth and touched the clock—

("MAMI!" the redhead shouts above the bass pumping from the game's speakers. "How much more yen you got?"

The blonde girl peeks inside her coin-purse. "Enough for one more game," she says.

"For the love of Gods, no more!" the shorter, blue-haired girl groans, hands on her knees and panting. "We've been here for almost three hours! I've got homework that still needs to be finished!"

"You're such a sore loser," the redhead clucks. "C'mon, one more game and then we blow this joint. Whaddya say?"

"You are the worst senpai I've ever had!"

"That's the ticket! Mami, drop the cash and make it bounce. And you," she tells the blue-haired girl, "quit your whining and shake that candy ass. Make it worth your while!" Then she slaps the girl's rear and laughs at the furious, offended glare directed at her. Mami giggles and the pink-haired girl next to her clutches her sides and guffaws. The brunette behind them rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

A moment later and "Goldfinger '99" plays once more.)

"What the—?" Mamoru retracted his hand and gawked at the alarm clock. He stared at his hand. What was that just now? While not a stranger to psychometry, this unique ability still managed to catch him unawares, even after two years since the last battle he fought as Tuxedo Kamen. Except…he had never experienced someone else's memory in this particular manner. If you wanted access to a person's memory, it had to be adjunctive with the object said person interacted with, and that girl whose eyes he had seen through…he'd never met nor seen her before.

Weird.

It was ten after six. The sun was slowly climbing over the skyscrapers. Hiromi Go ended with a bang and Porno Graffiti (what kind of name was that?) spruced the airwaves with "Agehachou".

Mamoru got up and switched off the radio—

("THEREISNOHOPE!—")

He recoiled and looked around. She sounded so close, as if she were standing right next to him. But it wasn't the redhead, it didn't sound like her. No, this girl was shrill, hysterical… and totally helpless.

What had he just seen?

No, not now. He had a busy day ahead of him, classes to attend and assignments to do. They would only interfere. These…thoughts, memories, whatever they were, could wait.

He went to the bathroom, did his business, and brushed his teeth. He pulled the razor and aftershave from the medicine cabinet, set the aftershave on the toilet seat and picked up the razor. Then he noticed his face. Really noticed.

My Gods, I didn't think I looked this bad. He knew he hadn't been getting enough sleep, but the dark craters under his eyes and stubble growing on his cheeks like grass was testament to how poorly he was handling himself.

Nine days. Nine days since Usagi had been attacked, and come eleven fifty-five this evening it would be ten days. And still she did not wake. Mamoru stayed by her side for hours on end, watching the rise and fall of her chest, the flutter and twitch of muscles between her brow, the intermittent hum of monitors hooked around her. It really did appear as though she were sleeping. The Tsukino family doctor, Dr. Himari, made it clear there was nothing wrong with her vitals. Her breathing was stable, her pulse and blood pressure normal, her heart rate slow but relaxed. The cut on her forehead was treated with alcohol and bandaged, which killed any chance of infection.

But Dr. Himari was as confused as the police were concerning their investigation. A person in a coma had to have been afflicted with external or internal sources: physical trauma, hemorrhages (such as bleeding caused by hypertension, aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations, and tumors), swelling and lack of oxygen to the brain. For Usagi to have been rendered comatose, she had to have suffered some sort of injury, and as far as Mamoru was aware she did not have a history of major illnesses or allergies caused by food or weather or conditions inherited from generations past.

Could she have been poisoned? Dr. Himari ordered a toxicology test last Monday, but the results were not expected to be released until the end of the month, news that had Mr. Tsukino up in arms and nearly escorted out of the building by security. Mamoru couldn't blame the man, but as a first-year student studying at Tokyo Medical University in Shinjuku he knew multiple tests had to be performed before it could be definitely confirmed that Usagi had not poisoned during the 'alleged' attack (as some critics on media outlets were voicing as of late).

Until it was time the results were received and read aloud to the curious Tsukino clan and the Inner and Outer Senshi, Dr. Himari would have to run those tests on Usagi's condition. CT scans and glucose tests were to be performed every three hours so he and his assistants could follow up on any possible changes during the period after the initial test and the next. And if it turned out that Usagi was not poisoned or diagnosed with life-threatening maladies…well, Mamoru hoped Dr. Himari was prepared to deal with the consequent fallout.

He hoped the girls were prepared.

He hoped he was, too.

"I can't keep doing this to myself," he said to his reflection. "It hurts…but Usako would want me to go about my days as usual. Go to school, visit Motoki at Crown Arcade, see how the girls are doing, she'd want that. Not this. So…let's do our best and keep our chin. What do you say, Mamoru? Sound good?" They nodded in unison. "Right, let's get moving. We're dawdling as it is."

So he shaved the stubble from his cheeks and ventured back to the bedroom. He exited a few minutes later in a navy blue sweatshirt (the temperature was at a comfortable sixty-five degrees, but it would drop to the low fifties when nightfall arrived), khakis, Western Oxfords, and a Swallows baseball cap. We all support the team, one way or another.

He was not expected to leave for school until seven-thirty, so he had more than enough time to whip together a breakfast he would not have to rush to finish and fly out the door (he had an unhealthy habit of sleeping in late when turning in early for the night, which was discarded when Usagi was hospitalized). Dishes were pulled from the cabinets and set aside on the counter. A pot boiled water and white rice while he retrieved a container of cooked tuna leftover from yesterday.

Soon he had his food laid on the table. Sunlight filtered cornflower slats through the blinds. Warblers chirped gaily.

Mamoru sat and ate and stirred a mug of hot green tea. The television, an old but operable twenty-two inch Toshiba, was tuned in to the local news station, Crossroads Channel 10. On screen a reporter was presenting a voice-over recap of the attack, footage alternating between night-shrouded Four Guardians Park and bright but overcast Crossroads General Hospital. It pained Mamoru every time he flipped through the channels, every time he heard the same key phrases repeated over and again by men and women: "Tsukino Usagi was found unconscious," "an anonymous phone call made at eleven fifty-five tipped off police," "Four Guardians Park closed until further notice," "so far police have not been able to obtain evidence." And so on and so forth.

It switched to a scene outside the police station, which was really a long, squat brick rectangle of a building. The fire house sulked beside its counterpart, standing tall and proud with its garage doors open and a pair of sleek, flaming red engines parked halfway in. A flock of journalists grouped around a podium manned by none other than Teguchi Tenkato, cameras flashing and microphones thrust close as far as their arms could reach. His associates lined the wall behind him, shoulders squared and spines erected in a manner that would knock straightedge protractors off the market. Their faces were painted on like dried papier-mâché.

Officer Teguchi appeared to be addressing the gathering. Mamoru fetched the remote and increased the volume until the journalist's voice resonated from wall to wall. "Very few have come forward for questioning and offered you little answer to the investigation. What do you plan to do about it?"

"We will continue interviewing any person who is willing to step forward and speak. Those who are withholding information we have not learned of will not be punished. You are more than welcome to speak openly or remain anonymous."

"And if nothing new is discovered, what then?"

Teguchi answered determinedly, "We intend to expand our search outside Four Guardians Park into the suburbs and the downtown areas. I am inclined to believe someone is out there who knows exactly what happened on the night of August twenty-fourth."

"Do you mean the person who called the 119 number?" another reporter asked.

Teguchi hesitated as if he didn't want to indulge the secret, but then relented with a nod. "Indeed. Unfortunately, we still don't know who she is. The women we have questioned over the week have said they were not awake the moment the attack took place."

"How do we know the caller is female?" a third interviewer posed. "What if the person is male?"

"I can assure you, Miss Usagi's guardian angel is most definitely female." A tall, gangly officer stepped up to Teguchi's side. The camera angle shifted its focus on him, captured the caramel tan of his skin and the trim pencil mustache bordering the ridge of his upper lip. Kenba I. was embossed on the badge pinned to his chest. "I answered the phone and relayed the young lady's message to the available units."

"Who's to say an attack ever happened?" a man's voice barked. "You haven't found any credible evidence that supports your claims!"

"Tsukino Usagi has been comatose for little over a week," Teguchi growled, eyes narrowed warningly. "I have seen her myself, as have the Tsukino family and Miss Usagi's acquaintances."

"You refuse to answer my question! Where is the evidence, Officer? Is there something you're hiding that could possibly incriminate the investigation?"

"How dare you!" Kenba snarled, starting forward.

Teguchi held his partner back with his arm. "No, you're right," he said to the off-screen man. "I won't lie to you when I say our investigation has returned nothing." He looked up from the thicket of microphones, hands knuckle-white on the podium. "As a matter of fact, I will go as far to say that if we had not seen Miss Usagi lying on the sidewalk during the storm, I would've come to believe we fell for a prank call. Whoever attacked her couldn't have picked a better time and place. There were no traces of blood, no patches of disturbed earth our dogs could detect or muddied footprints, nothing to prove there was a scuffle to begin with."

"Then why was Miss Usagi found the way she was? On her back with hands clasped to her breast, as if she were in an open casket?"

"Your guess is as good as anyone's. It may be a sign that the attacker regrets his or her actions…or it could be a way of laying out the victim's body before fleeing the crime scene; a warning to whomever attempts to put an end to his or her games." A dark cloud flitted across his face. "And that if the hunt is to continue, the victim's fate will be much worse than what has befallen Tsukino Usagi."

A murmur ran through the crowd like a cold, wet shiver. It sowed seeds of a diverse variety: anxiety, concern, curiosity, fear, and panic balanced on a platform ready to teeter into mad oblivion. Then there were weeds, invasive species of suspicion, doubt, denial, and conspiracy that latched onto flowers blossoming hope for the young Tsukino girl and leeched an iota of possibility the girl was ever going to recover and, to Mamoru's great dismay, given the justice she rightly deserved.

Mamoru wasn't a drinker by nature, never really was, but he wished he had a bottle on hand. Wished he could pop the cap and drain the contents until he was so smashed he couldn't tell if green meant stop or red meant go.

Instead, Mamoru grabbed his mug of tea with the same harsh grasp Teguchi had on the wooden podium and sipped. He paused, peered down the ceramic, and realized it was empty.

"We are not going to give up on this girl," Teguchi declared into the speakers. "Mark my words; we are not going to stop until this person is caught. We will comb all of Honshu, all of Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku if we have to, but believe you me there will be justice. Tsukino Usagi may have only been the beginning, but we must do all we can to prevent a similar incident from happening and maintain our well-being and the safety of our children…." The conference tapered off from there and switched back to the reporter at the news station, concluding that Crossroads Channel 10 would continue to follow the story for future updates.

Mamoru sighed and sagged in the chair. There was still nothing new…but something nagged him. Officer Teguchi said anyone who conferred with police could request for anonymity, but then stated that the force didn't know who the girl who had phoned 119 was. Had Teguchi misspoken and contradicted himself? It was likely he made a mistake and hadn't noticed. But didn't he say the girl wanted to stay anonymous at the hospital? If so, then Teguchi was in the wrong and shouldn't have breathed a word about her.

This raised a new question: Were the police keeping the caller's identity from them, the family and friends of Tsukino Usagi? Did they believe someone close to her to be the suspect? No, it couldn't be. Teguchi Tenkato was a man among men; well-mannered, polite, and faithful, but most of all he held out hope for Usako and the day he and his men apprehended the criminal. Why would he even think that?

The answer hit Mamoru like a wrecking ball to the gut.

"No," he moaned, and ran his fingers through his hair. "No, no, no…!" Teguchi was not that kind of man, but if an innocent man can be capable of murdering one person or a dozen, then anyone was more or less susceptible to do anything.

In which case, Teguchi Tenkato could be searching for a scapegoat to silence the skeptics.

Was he getting desperate? Could it be that because of the lack of progress and substantial evidence he was turning to amoral options? That had to be it. There was no other way around it.

Usako, Mamoru thought, what should I do? He lowered his head and touched his face to the table's cool surface. I wish you were here, Usako. You could make them understand. We're not bad people. We would never hurt you. We're good people, right? Haven't we been good to you?

This wasn't happening. It couldn't be.

They were good people. They had their ups and downs, had their arguments and cold shoulder moments, but they came around when they thought a few days away from each other was enough to segue back to that companionable mold humans are wont to share.

He was still asleep, tangled in the throes of a fever dream.

Usagi was a big girl. She could fend for herself. She was a Sailor Senshi; not the strongest nor the fastest nor the smartest, but the glue that bound him, the Outers, and the rest of the Inners together.

We all support the team, he chanted in his mind. We all support the team. We all support the team….

We all support the team, one way or another….

Mamoru sighed and closed his eyes. He sat there for a while, hunched over and agonizing like a Gothic version of Auguste Rodin's The Thinker if the Grimm Brothers labored in sculpture instead of composing fairy tales. When he looked up, he saw the clock hands were pointed at 8:00.

He swore under his breath. He wasn't going to make it to class on time, not unless he left now and waded through the horrors of early morning traffic. He stood from the chair, turned off the TV, and made for the door.

His hand stopped on the knob. He glanced back at the clock.

His first class would start in a half-hour.

Mamoru scoffed. He pulled a jacket off the coat rack, swiped his keys from the end table, and threw open the door. Screw the classes. One missed day wasn't going to kill him.

He needed to think. He didn't want to be here, nor did he want to be at school. He wanted to be somewhere else.

And that somewhere was Crown Arcade.