Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon.
Chapter 6 - Another
The Moon Princess had, once again, found herself lost in the ocean of new students who were flooding Meiji Gakuen for the nth time that day. It was not as easy as it had been in school, after all; back then all it took her to do was tailing her best friends around and plus, Juban high school was never that huge of a place. This university, however, was an entirely new planet for her albeit not as huge as the other campuses in the district.
There in the middle of one artery of the building she stood, with her blue eyes still on the quest of spotting her next class with the help of the map in her hands. Those eyeballs then crept a little to her watch. Five more minutes and she would be late for the course orientation. Perhaps the best solution to be done was to get some assistance from a person instead of a campus brochure.
The blonde parted eye-contact with the map before scanning the aisle she was in, filtering one or two persons whom she could probably inquire for the whereabouts of her upcoming schedule. Her choice for the task fell to a girl with short, reddish hair with thick glasses who was facing the wall magazine. Her petite figure was clad in a pink shirt and dark blue jeans. If Usagi was to answer why she picked out that girl, she was not sure either, but in her subconscious mind the resemblance between this new person and the bookworm Ami she knew was pretty strong and the two could be perfect mirror for each other if not for the hair color.
"Excuse me" She said, after squeezing in between the crowd to get a closer proximity with the said girl.
She had to wait for a few more seconds before she earned a puzzled look from the other, and by then she realized that the girl's glasses were thicker than those of Ami's.
"Me?" The red-haired replied her at last.
"Yes, um… Do you know where B-268 is? It's my next class, and I am lost"
"Is your next class 'Introduction to Japan Art History'?"
"Yes!" Usagi's smile formed instantly. "Do you happen to be looking for the same room?"
"Apparently yes"
"Great! We can walk there together! But, uhm… Have you figured out where it is?"
"Apparently yes"
"Ah, lucky!" Friendly as she had always been, the princess hooked her hand with that of her companion, and started dragging her without her approval. "Let's go! We really do not want to get in trouble on our first day, right…?"
"The name is Harumi"
"Right, Harumi-chan! Now, where is the room?"
Harumi turned out to be the only descendant of her family – a daughter of an eminent statesman, as Usagi got to know her while they passed classes after classes together. Their names were coincidentally in the same list of almost all classes except for one or two, and by the time they were sitting in the middle of hungry students in the cafeteria, the blonde began figuring out that character-wise, this new friend of her was not so alike with Ami, after all.
"So you thought that I was a bookworm like your best friend, just because of these thick glasses?" Harumi's hand immediately acted as a cover for her wide-opened mouth, trying to prevent the food from getting spat out due to her laughter.
"All people I know wearing glasses are like that" Red color had tinted Usagi's cheeks as her mouth protruded; the symptoms that the princess got every time she felt abashed.
"Just because all the people wearing glasses you know are that way, doesn't mean that all people with glasses are" Having regained her composure, Harumi proceeded on chewing her kare rice. Her manner of eating would make anyone guess anything about her status but being from an opulent family, for she munched rather nonchalantly with traces of rice surrounding her lips. "Say, Usagi-chan, you have a boyfriend already?"
"Me? Yes, I do, eheheh" The blonde stirred her strawberry juice with the straw, not entirely sure if she should feel joyful or vice versa upon the topic of her far-away boyfriend being brought on the table. One thing for sure, the question had returned Mamoru back to her mind, after all the effort she had done to quarantine her brain from it.
Her clouded heart must have been reflected through her oceanic eyes, for Harumi had shifted her expression and tilted her head. "You seem rather sad about it"
"Huh? Ah, no, it's nothing" Usagi shook her head. "What about you yourself, Harumi-chan? Have you got someone?"
"Physically? Yes. Psychologically, not quite"
"Eh? What do you mean?"
"I will tell you someday later, or rather, if we do get along, you will figure out by yourself" The girl with the glasses answered, and while doing that, she stood up placidly with an enigmatic aura.
It had stroke two when their last class for that day reached its end, and the blonde could be seen strolling on her way home with her eyes vacant. Harumi had headed home by car, to somewhere in a completely different route. To Usagi's surprise a dark-furred cat jumped down from nowhere and blocked her path, and soon she could see Luna before her.
"Usagi-chan" The feline smiled. "How's your first day at the new school?"
The princess' lips turned up, somehow relieved that her pet brought no bad news regarding youma whatsoever, and that she had no other intention but to inquire about the day. "It went great! I befriend a girl who is so Ami-chan! Well, not so much for her personality though…"
"Really? It's a relief, then. You had this empty expression all over your face as you were walking just now"
"Ah, I didn't even realize that" Sapphire eyeballs rolled up simultaneously, facing the sky. "Maybe I was just having this vacant feeling for walking alone once again after a long day with a lot of people"
For some moments she observed a mass of single bright cloud hiding the sun from their naked eyes. She knew Luna was awaiting her down there to make their way home together, but she could not help but to ponder over the blue horizon that gave birth to the forlorn in her heart. What could her best friends be doing under the same outstretched sky yet on so far away a land? What could her prince be doing?
"It would be really nice if we all could go home together just like the old days" The odango muttered under her breath. "Then we would all head for Hikawa or Crown and sometimes Mamo-chan would tag along"
"You still have Rei-chan, remember" Luna answered her. "Why don't we drop by Hikawa first then? You don't happen to have so much homework on your very first day, do you?"
"Luna, it is not homework anymore. It is assignment from now on"
"Well, I don't understand. A cat doesn't have to do this and that" The dark cat turned her head away, speaking in so arrogant a fashion.
"Luna, you little-" The beeping sound of her communicator was what halted her from venting out her anger to the pet. The fact that the fire-senshi was the only one staying here with her still could not hold her surprise back when it was indeed Rei who was on the screen. "Rei-chan. What is going on?"
"Where are you right now?" Rei shot her a question instead of an answer. Even from the screen Usagi could see her serious face.
"My last class has just finished and I barely get anything near home. What is it, Rei-chan?"
"I thought I could bring you along for some grocery-shopping errand" The raven-haired girl said, but her eyes were darting to her right and not on the princess.
"Doesn't that task belong to Yuuichiro?"
"He is not around, and I cannot bring grandpa for such a task because he will just end up making troubles with girls"
"Hooo so you asked me because there is no other choice of people?" Usagi's eyelids drooped in suspicion.
"I asked you because I thought you had nothing to do, baka!"
"Uh, yes… You are right, though"
"I know I'm right. I will see you at Azabu Supermarket, and don't slack off"
"Whatever is she thinking" Usagi grumbled after the withdrawal of the fire-senshi from the device screen. "Just because the others are not here doesn't mean she can make use of me to give her a hand for her errands"
"You're being too discreet" The voice of Luna reminded her that she was not without companion on the street.
"What do you mean, Luna?"
"Knowing Rei, unlike you, she is not a type who will need anyone's assistance for such simple tasks. She could go by herself for all she wants but she asked you anyway. What does that tell you?"
"Uhm…"
"It means she wants your company, and she probably knows you feel the same way. Don't you think she can feel just as lonely as you do?"
The words that escaped the feline's mouth apparently closed any possibility for a reply from the blonde. By then she had realized that she could not even respond with a 'she could have said so if she wanted me to spend time with her'. That sentence did not apply for Rei. Rei was too hard-shelled to peel her skin to show anyone her true feeling. She should have known that after 5 years of friendship, yet she did not.
"Let's get going then" Luna brought her back to the ground once more.
The evening would be a peaceful one; she thought as she stepped her feet on the ground again. They would meet the miko at the appointed place, she would end up purchasing all the sweets she did not actually need and Luna would scold her, while Rei would mock her endlessly to the point where they got into another war-of-words. It had been two weeks since the sudden shocking appearance of the terrible youma that had wounded Rei, and there had been none seen afterwards. She was pretty sure all was going well, and she needed not be anxious of all the precautions they had discussed before.
Two turns on the roads and a busy cross-section were all that it took, unfortunately, to shatter her wish for the halcyon days to continue.
"Aaaarrrgghhh!" An ear-piercing shriek was born to the air and was delivered in the speed of a lightning to their ears. Luna stopped on her track right away, and was followed by the blonde in a bat of an eye.
"What could that be!?" The cat took the initiative to alter the path on which they were walking.
Usagi tailed her closely behind and felt her heart pounding, not due to the increasing pacing of their run but more of the fear that it had something to do with youma. It could not be a youma, she thought; it took too long for the second youma to reveal itself after the first one. If someone or something was really plotting evil towards their world, surely they could not make such a slow progress as this.
Her hope was shattered to the ground, however, when they alighted at the scene of the crime that was taking place somewhere on their east, right in the middle of a dark aisle in between two buildings. The lack of light made it impossible for them to catch a perfect glimpse of either the youma or the victim, but Usagi could still make out the long hair and feminine figure of the frightened woman who was in the grip of a short, but muscled youma. In an instant she felt her knees weaken; the sensation of debilitation had touched her, for another unwelcomed moment they had been afraid of had finally occurred.
"Usagi-chan, this is terrible! Transform, quickly!" Luna's voice had grown sterner than it had originally been. "Usagi-chan?"
The cat turned her head in the intention of finding out what had held her owner back from motioning, and her eyes were revealed to the princess' features that had turned aghast.
"W- Why…" She mumbled, with unsteady tone. "Why is this happening again?"
"Usagi-chan, there is no time to be stupefied!" The dark-furred animal's eyebrows furrowed and her eyes were glistening with austere emotion.
Of course it had always been easier to say than to do, Usagi thought as her pet escorted her to a concealed spot; calming herself down at that very moment was almost the same as redeeming a raging storm. It made her feel sick, and nauseated, even, to have to pull out the brooch that would transform her into her other self – her superhero identity. It did not reach Luna's or anybody's ears obviously, but her heart was screeching out of the despair. Why was it that a long, lengthy era of peaceful life was never granted for her?
Having transfigured in her Sailor Moon form, the blonde paced up back to where the little, yet horrendous enemy had victimized its prey. The petite devil and its female target were both still there. The only difference from when they had discovered them was that the woman had lain on the cemented ground and blacked out.
"You little monster!"
The interpretation that the small evil thing was a male was obtained by the moon princess and her cat when the youma at last turned its head to their direction, with his teeth clamped and his black eyes shooting a grim glare. As if he was sparing no time for anything, the youma pushed his legs in its full power, which then enabled him to jump up high enough to land on top of the building. Sailor Moon watched with keen eyes as he instantly vanished after hopping in such a speed to another building's roof, and another.
"He is escaping!" Luna shouted after her senses made her realize of what had happened. "It is dangerous! He will find other victims!"
"What should we do then!? Follow him!?" Sailor Moon fixed her gaze at the very spot on which the youma had alighted, as if she still could witness his terrifying presence there.
"I can see no other option"
It was Luna who got her legs moving first along the bleak aisle, followed closely by the senshi behind. By the time the sunlight had made them aware of their own shadows once more, the princess took notice that she was running around the urban streets in her alter-ego form. Whether or not there were live-witnesses, she could not care less. All that was spinning in her mind was the probability of the dreadful future events caused by this new upcoming enemy.
"Sailor Moon!"
The strong, yet feminine figure of the blonde senshi halted its motion at once when the owner of the said body grasped the well-acquainted woman's voice. It was not a difficult task at all to find Sailor Mars at her right side; she was panting while approaching her in such a pace.
"Mars! You saw it!?" Sailor Moon did not quite show it, but she wished Mars knew that her presence was very much welcomed to her troubled heart. Maybe she was just too much of a scaredy-cat to face this alone, or maybe she was childish, but either way Mars' tough and sheltering aura felt more than enough for her at that moment.
"Yes, I did. I felt its inhuman air soon as I entered the area. Did you see where it went?"
Sailor Moon shook her head. "I didn't. He was too quick for us to catch"
"Can't you use your power to try to detect her, Mars?" The dark feline asked.
"I can make an attempt" The fire-senshi's point fingers naturally found their ways to her left and right side of temples, respectively, and in a moment after the princess and Luna found her eyebrows contract in full concentration.
"This way!"
In a sudden outburst of energy, Mars shot her eyes opened and launched herself dash to the right wing of the road. The extraordinary effort that Sailor Moon and the cat made to keep up with Mars' flash movements was not for nothing, for after a few miles a painful cry of a person – who was most likely the next target of their adversary, was already within the range of their hearing. As if the problem itself had not been big enough, it had to take scene on the top of a towering construction building.
"How are we going to-" Sailor Moon's question was not complete yet, but her companions had begun ascending the provided nearby stairs, which did not look so convincing to be steady enough. If she whined, though, either Luna or Mars would silence her anyway for sure.
But in the end it did not take them all the stairs to be able to meet the youma on eye level. His petite, but powerfully-built body had abruptly parachuted from somewhere above them and embarked a few stairs before them to cut them off their track, probably after having done with his previous prey upstairs. Then able to see clearly with the assistance of the sunbeam that slipped in through the holes of the construction, Sailor Moon observed the evil thing in its full figure. Her mouth slightly let out a gasp when a resemblance of a little boy was reflected from the youma. How could a demon turn a child into this monstrous shape?
"It's a little boy soul" Mars mumbled to her when their eyes met. "I can feel it"