A/N: Thank you for all the reviews on the last chapter. I hope you all enjoy reading this. Also, I wanted to give a special thank you to The Mysterious Blind Bandit for proofreading this and being my sounding board for bouncing ideas off of. Thank you and I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 9/? - Illusions of Serenity

"You think my grandfather is possessed by a youma?" Rei asked, taken aback by the mere suggestion, pulling Usagi out to the veranda of the shrine building for some privacy.

"I think so anyway…"Usagi said, trailing off in her thoughts. Usagi looked over at the dark-haired Miko and could see the smoldering rage boiling underneath that calm exterior.

"I mean, I could feel his aura and it definitely felt like there was a youma from what I could sense and it wouldn't be the first time I've heard of somebody being possessed by a youma because I remember hearing about the senshi back on the Moon having to deal with that a couple of times and his aura did feel a little bit like the youmas that I've fought since becoming Sailor Moon and…" Usagi rambled, her words getting more and more jumbled together as she tried to placate the girl. "I'm sorry!" Usagi practically squeaked as she offered Rei her quickest apologies for that judgement call. She had forgotten how scary Mars was when she was angry.

Rei looked at the poor blonde girl and swallowed her rage, after all Usagi had been Sailor Moon for a lot longer than Rei had been Sailor Mars, plus she had the memories and experience of her previous lifetime to draw on. "No, it's okay princess" Usagi winced at the title. "You were following your own instincts and you were doing what you thought was right."

"I just thought…" Usagi said, suddenly feeling unsure of her own instincts. "I could feel his aura, and it really did feel like he might have been a youma."

"I see." Said Rei, she didn't really notice anything about her grandfather aura, because it had just felt the same as it always had. "Well, I didn't notice anything different about his aura." To Rei, this meant one of two things, it either meant that Usagi was mistaken in her aura reading, or…

Rei didn't want to think about the other possibility.

"Anyway, I'm sorry I accused your grandfather of being possessed." Said Usagi, bowing low. "It was out of line for me to air my suspicions like that. You have my humblest apologies for dishonoring the Royal House of Mars."

"Usagi-san, princess." Rei spoke quietly as Usagi winced at the title. "I think you should leave now."

—

The Dark Kingdom was an unusually somber place that day. Nephrite, Zoisite and Kunzite were all in a dark mood after their failed attempt at flushing out Princess Serenity. The three men, standing in front of Jadeite's former chambers were unusually quiet.

"Leave his chambers as is." Ordered Kunzite. "Let this stand as a reminder of our failure and of our haste to attack the so-called 'White Moon's' infestation of the Earth."

The three men sealed the door to the room and walked away in silence.

"Kunzite?" Zoisite spoke up. "I don't want to be alone right now." Kunzite grabbed onto the younger blonde and teleported away, leaving Nephrite his own devices.

Turning back towards the sealed door, Nephrite allowed himself one last look. "It should have been me." He said, before making his way towards Beryl's throne room.

—

The throne room was an unusually empty place, with the usual crowds of Youma off elsewhere. Nephrite respectfully crossed the empty room before he placing his right arm across his chest, and bowed low before the throne.

"You have summoned me, my queen?" Nephrite asked.

"Yes Nephrite." Said Beryl. "I grieve for your loss, my Shitennou. While you may have had your differences with Jadeite. He was still one of the elect, somebody like yourself who has been here from the very beginning of our revolution."

"Thank you my queen." Said Nephrite, rising from his bow.

"However, the collection of human energy to offer up to our great ruler must still continue." Beryl explained. "I called you in here because, apart from Jadeite, you have the best knowledge of how the surface world operates, and how to use discretion."

"My queen," Said Nephrite. "I have been developing a technique that should be able to drain human energy without drawing too much attention from the Sailor Senshi."

"You have me intrigued Nephrite." Said Beryl, her eyebrows perking up. "Explain it."

"Every human being has a constant ebb and flow of energy, leading to occasional peaks." Explained Nephrite. "If I can drain a single human dry right at one of these peaks, I can provide nearly the same amount of human energy as one of Jadeite's mass draining techniques. I had originally planned to use a youma to raise this peak even higher. However, given the reliability of our Youma stocks at the moment, It doesn't seem worth the risk."

"This idea interests me Nephrite." Said Beryl. "I will allow you a trial run of this technique. Keep only myself and the other Shitennou in the loop. You are dismissed."

"Thank you my queen." Replied Nephrite, bowing before Beryl's throne in the traditional manner before leaving the throne room.

—

Venus and Pluto stood outside a very secluded nondescript office building in London, the only name of the door being "Dark Agency Talent Representation Ltd."

"Dark Agency? Do you ever get the feeling that the enemy isn't even trying anymore?" Said Venus.

"It would seem that they have been getting remarkably less subtle." Replied Pluto.

Venus looked at the door and summoned her chain out of her subspace pocket. "Let's see if anybody's home." Pluto grabbed her staff and held it ready.

"On three." Venus ordered as she began to whirl her chain around in one hand.

"One." Pluto's grip on her staff tightened as she summoned a garnet colored ball of energy.

"Two." Venus's eyes narrowed at her target.

"Three!" Venus shouted as the chain that was whirling around leaped towards the door like a python and cut through it, quickly popping out the hinges out of the frame. Immediately afterwards, the garnet ball of energy that was building up on Pluto's staff jumped off of it and slammed into the wooden door, forcing it out of the frame and onto the floor.

The two sailor senshi quickly moved inside and began checking every possible nook and cranny in the office for anybody lying in wait.

Once the two soldiers were satisfied that the office was empty, they met back in the lobby.

"Anything?" Asked Venus.

"You were right, Commander." Said Pluto. "I saw the history of this place, Danburite and Zoisite were both here at some point."

"Well good then, because I went through their filing cabinets." Venus grinned. "Guess who found copies of the deeds to every storefront they were using as a cover?"

"You didn't." Pluto looked shocked.

"Yep!" Venus was positively beaming at this point. "Let's see here…" Venus started leafing through the various deeds that the Dark Agency owned. "We've got a fortune teller in Tokyo… A cosmetics shop in Paris… A jewelry store in Beverly Hills… A gym in Tokyo, a pet store, also in Tokyo" Venus continued to leaf through the building deeds. "Wow a lot of these are in Tokyo…" Venus mused.

"Perhaps they were drawn to the Princess' energy without realizing what it was." Mused Pluto.

"Oh my god Pluto, look what I found." Venus grinned.

"Why do I feel like I'm going to regret this Commander." Replied Pluto.

"How'd you like to own a theme park?" Venus held the deed and the construction blueprints for an additional building to a theme park that was under construction in Tokyo.

—

Usagi had decided to give Rei a couple of days to cool off from what had happened at the last meeting. Even so, she had wanted to be absolutely sure that Rei's grandfather wasn't possessed by a youma, thus she was walking over to the Hikawa Shrine to talk to Rei's grandfather.

As Usagi approached the shrine, the one thing that caught her eye was the black Mercedes parked in front of the shrine's steps. Walking up, Usagi could faint hear raised voice coming from the normally quiet place.

"-once a year, on my birthday, and that's it!" That sounded like Rei's voice.

"I apologize for Dietman Hino's actions, Rei-san, but Hino-sama was unfortunately detained at the last minute." Came a male voice.

"He doesn't care about me, so why should I care about him." Rei retorted. Usagi reached the top of the stairs and saw Rei arguing with three men.

"Please don't make this difficult Rei-san." Came a second male voice, this one from a wiry short haired blond gentleman.

"You too Kaidou?" Rei asked.

Usagi walked tentatively closer to the altercation. As she got closer, Usagi watched as one of the men suddenly grabbed Rei and held the girl's arms behind her back.

"Now then, your father is waiting for you, Rei-san." Said the blond one, Kaidou, Usagi thought.

As she watched the men lead Rei down the shrine's steps, Usagi very briefly made eye contact with her, and it was as if she could see every ounce of shame that Rei felt.

With the three men not paying attention to Usagi, she watched as they unceremoniously shoved Rei into the black Mercedes.

—

Usagi carefully and discretely trailed the black car on foot, drawing on her experience and abilities as a Sailor Senshi and simply trying to follow the pull of Mars' aura. After what seemed like forever, and several close calls, Usagi saw the black Mercedes pull into an expensive hotel near the National Diet Building.

Looking around for a way in without drawing suspicion, Usagi pulled the Disguise pen out of her uniform's skirt pocket.

—

Rei Hino was angry a lot of people at the moment. Just over a month after her birthday, and her father finally deigned to spend time with her. As far as she was concerned, Takashi Hino had missed his chance to be a good father years ago.

Of course, looking into the suite's mirror, she was even more disgusted at herself. Instead of her traditional shrine maiden clothing, she had been asked to wear the white dress and cardigan that her fathers assistant had picked up for her.

It was incredibly expensive and made her look like every other politicians daughter.

And Rei hated it.

Hearing a knock at the door Rei looked up at the door.

"Room Service." Came a female voice.

One of her fathers assistants standing outside the room opened the door to let the girl in.

Rei carefully watched the room service girl as she walked in. Something about her movements seemed a little too fluid and a little too graceful to be a regular service worker. Then Rei noticed the girl's blonde hair.

"Usagi?"

"Hi Rei-chan." The blonde girl said sheepishly.