Ey yo, minna! Sorry it's been a few weeks, I've just had so much going on in my personal life, and there's this new show I'm hooked on called Castle, and… sorry. Excuse, excuses, I know :D Please enjoy! Sailor Moon is owned by Naoko Takeuchi and TOEI Animation. P.S., please don't be mad if I incorporate a little somethin'-somethin' into this story from my personal life. It's… not exactly good, but I couldn't think of anything else Anyway, as always, thanks for sticking it out with my insane membrane!

Usagi sits in the ICU waiting room next to Mamoru and Shingo, Mamoru's hand around her shoulder, Shingo's hand in hers. Somehow, in the midst of everything, Seiya still finds a way to slip into her mind. She's been thinking about him a lot lately, and not exactly in a good way. The way he's a bit too friendly towards her kind of… creeps her out. To a point that she has nightmares.

It didn't use to be this bad, it's just that… She sighs. She knows he's a good person, it's just that he has a tendency to be a little weird sometimes. A lot of other people like him for that, but that's the one thing, coupled with his feelings for her, that makes her shiver when she's alone at night in bed in the summer.

She knows he told Mamoru that he didn't have those feelings for her anymore, but she stills feels them there. She's not as naïve as she was once upon a time. She can tell when someone feels that way around her.

She's also seen him and Mamoru talking a lot more recently, being very friendly towards each other, so that's why she didn't tell Mamoru before hand. She didn't want to offend him, or, worse, have him tell Seiya.

"Get a doctor in there! Stat!" someone shouts, ripping Usagi away from her thoughts. She looks up to see the doctor that was supposed to be taking care of her grandmother looking around urgently, pushing his team around. Usagi's blood runs cold. Has something happened that wasn't suppose to happen?

"Doctor Shephard, her eyes are completely white!"

The doctor turns to face the person who spoke. "What do you mean, 'her eyes are white'?" he says in a low, menacing voice.

"I mean, there's no iris or pupil! There's just white!"

"Find the problem and fix it!" he shouts. Usagi tenses, and Mamoru squeezes her shoulder.

She stands, carefully, and warily moves towards the doctor. "Um... Doctor Shephard?" she tries.

"What?!" he questions, flipping around to face her with an expression of anger, stress, and—is that fear?

"I was just— I mean—" She swallows and sighs.

"Oh..." the doctor says. "Miss Tsukino... I'm afraid we have some bad news..."

"What's wrong with her?" she tries again, her voice shaking though she tries to keep it steady.

The doctor purses his lips. "Well..."

"Just tell me!" she almost shouts, gritting her teeth.

"This is a case we've never seen before. She was almost well again, but her health took a turn for the worse, and we don't know how. Now they're telling me that she has no irises or pupils. In all my years of treating people medically, I have never seen anything like it."

"Then go back to school! There has to be some cure for this!"

"Miss Tsukino, you don't understand. There are somethings that are untreatable. Even if we did know how to cure her, it'd be too late. I'm sorry to say this, but she has no time left."

Usagi's heart stops, and she hears nothing, sees nothing, except the sorrowful pity in the doctor's eyes that seems practiced, the calm and smooth words he spoke echoing in her head just like when she was sixteen, which words then were "neither survived," and now they echo as "no time left." But the situation remains the same.

She couldn't do anything then, she can't do anything now.

She sinks to her knees and cries, letting the sobs she had held in for so long roll off her body in one fell swoop. There are so many that she can't even get them all out. It's like she's choking on them.

Then there're warm arms around her, holding her tight. The owner is whispering something in her ears, she knows because she feels his breath on her skin, but she hears nothing but ringing and the echo of the doctor's words. "No time left." "Neither survived."

"Over, over, over," she repeats to herself, meaning both "It's all over" and "This all over again".

Her hearing now muffled, she hears her brother ask to see Gran. Then there's a hand on her arm pulling her up. The first arms help her up. They help her toward the hallway doors.

"No, no, no...!" she says, but she doesn't know how loud.

A soothing voice says something, but she doesn't know what. Then a door opens, and they move in.

A professional voice says something, and that something seems to make the warm arms around her disappear.

A door shuts and she whimpers. Something else is said. She can't tell what. The voice is familiar. It repeats itself, louder this time. She still can't tell.

Some force makes her sway side to side quickly, like she's being shaken. The voice says something different, and her hearing slowly comes back. "...to me! Sis!" it says, finally clear.

She turns to face her brother slowly. "Shingo..."

He raises his eyebrows expectantly. "Come on. Where were you; Lala Land?"

She nods, still getting her bearings, and he moves the curtains.

There sits a man in the chair Usagi slept in before. He wears a black suit and tie, a fedora, and old, black, circular, 70s sunglasses. He has his legs crossed and his fingertips touch, as if he had been expecting them to show up just then. Long, greasy, black waves fall around his shoulders.

He smiles. "I've been waiting for you, Sailor Moon."

Usagi grits her teeth, deciding to play dumb. "S-Sailor Moon? She's not even here?"

He chuckles softly. "They were right. You're too good to lie well. Your tell-tale lying signs are stuttering and sweating, by the way." He stands and holds his arms out in offering. "Allow me to strike you a deal."

She swallows. She's getting the worst vibes from him. They send chills down her spine. His cold voice is deep and evil-sounding, but calm and collected, as if he's playing chess and knows exactly how to win.

"You want the safety of mankind," he continues, "and I want the Silver Crystal. You have forty-eight hours to give it to me, or Gran-Gran goes bye-bye, along with your mother, father, and everyone else.

"What?!" she wheezes, tense, and clears her throat. "You have my parents?!"

He approaches her, removing his glasses. His business-black shoes clack against the linoleum floor as he walks. He towers over her, at least 7 feet tall, making her feel small and insignificant. He stares into her eyes, and she stares back, knowing now how inhuman he is. She stares into pitch-black pits save the slivers of red, cat-like pupils in the center. He grins widely, bearing at least five sets of one-thousand silver teeth, sharp as knives. His long waves fall over his shoulders and tickle her face, but she doesn't dare move, even if she could.

"My name is Lucifer Hades, and I own every soul in the universe. You're dealing with the Devil himself."

She swallows. His breath smells distinctly of blood, making her cold to the deepest pits of her heart.

He walks past her, out the door, and flashes one more smile. From so far, it looks normal, and so do his eyes, which even seem to take a light blue shade. He slips on his glasses again. "See you in two days."

As soon as the door shuts, Usagi's legs turn to gelatin, making her fall to the ground. She cries out, scared for her life.

"Sis!" Shingo says. "Do you know that guy?! He was lying, right?!"

Usagi can't speak, so she just shakes her head.

"So that means you're really..."

She swallows, trying to find her voice. "Sailor Moon."

He hesitates. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"Because it's too dangerous. I would never be able to live with myself if you died because of me."

He sighs. "How long...?"

"I was fourteen when Luna found me."

"Luna? Luna the cat?"

Usagi nods, not in the mood for humor. "Yes. The cat."

"But—"

"You don't live in the world you think you do, Shingo." She stands and puts a finger in his face. "Not a word of this to anybody, you hear me?! No one can know!"

"Okay, I—"

"Don't shit with me, Shingo! I'm not playing around with you! This is serious!"

"Okay, okay! I swear to God and on all that is Holy that I will not tell a single soul!"

She raises her eyebrows and he nods. "Fine. You are coming with me and we are going home." She grabs his wrist to pull him away but he yanks away.

"Wait, home? But what about Gran? And Yukio?"

Usagi faces him and gives him a look. "You're still not grasping the seriousness of this situation! That man just threatened to kill every single soul the ever has or ever will live, and all you can think about is your girlfriend and a dead body! You have to stay under twenty-four hour surveillance if you even plan on seeing that girlfriend of yours ever again! The entire universe is depending on this!"

"And why does this concern me?!"

Usagi face turns from white to red to purple to blue, then back again, and she takes a deep breath, past angry and afraid and stressed. At this rate, she'll have a heart attack before the end of tonight. "Because he saw you, Shingo. He knows we're related and he's going to kill your soul. Don't think for a second that he won't because he will. Our little human laws do not apply to him. I have seen people die because of things like this to much smaller degrees."

Shingo seems to finally understand what she's saying, because his face pales as his eyes and mouth widen. "H-H-H-H-He's the real deal, isn't he?!"

"Yes! Now, come on, we need to go!" She takes his wrist again, and this time, he complies. She pushes the door open but doesn't stop to look for Mamoru, because he's already there.

"Hey, what's up?"

"We're going home. Now."

"What? But why—"

She stops and turns around, and one look says it all.

"On the way home?" he tries.

She nods and continues on.

:D Gettin' it! :3 Thanks y'all!