'What am I supposed to do now? I can't turn into Sailor Moon or I'd reveal myself?'
The cascade of flames raced inexorably down the lift shaft in the Starlight Tower, quickly closing in on them menacingly.
'But if I don't do something, we'll all die!'
There was no other way. She simply had to do it. Never in her young life she had thought of sharing this intimate moment of transformation into her superhero alter-ego with HIM! Usagi blushed deeply, but was pretty sure what she would do next.
Damn sure!
Usagi raised her right hand high in the air and shouted the familiar magic words like never before.
"Moon prism power...make...UP!"
One by one, her fingernails sparkled open in a glittering pink radiance. Enveloped in shimmering, glistening light, her naked, perfectly formed body swirled magically.
Mamoru was dumbfounded by the sight.
He simply could not believe what he was seeing in front of him after the middle school girl with the unique hairstyle had shouted her strange command aloud. His eyes went wide, he was...completely stunned!
'What the hell is going on!
USAGI?!'
Within moments, pink ribbons emitted from her golden brooch, gradually morphing into a uniform and enveloping her slender silhouette. Her torso, her arms, her legs...even on her ears, her forehead and her topknots appeared the distinctive markings of the warrior with whom he had fought side by side against the negaverse so many times. In the end of this extraordinary process the girl before him received a magic veil that perfectly concealed her true identity.
If he had not witnessed this transformation just now, he would never have thought it was possible that his little meatball head could be behind this identity...and yet, there was no longer any doubt when she had completed her transformation and assumed the all too familiar fighting pose. His pupils were small. So small. But still he could now see the superheroine before him crystal clear.
"SAILOR MOON!"
Everything else then happened so quickly, yes, far too quickly for him to properly grasp. Before he even had a chance to react to anything further, SHE grabbed him by the arm and held her moon wand aloft, exclaiming aloud
"Sailor teleport!"
He felt a warm light gently surround him in this elevator hell all at once. It gently lifted him up and carried him away, rather like that menacing orange light that had manoeuvred Usagi and him into the Starlight Tower earlier.
Suddenly, the danger and the accompanying heat disappeared... and at that moment Mamoru felt that they had managed to escape certain death by flame.
--
Those very flames, which Zoisite had sent down the lift shaft with a cynical "goodbye" earlier, hit their target a millisecond after the blonde heroine had escaped along with Mamoru through her teleportation abilities.
A huge explosion occurred inside the lift shaft and completely destroyed everything inside. As the flames of devastation roared up the shaft and debris scattered across the floor of the top floor surveillance room, the blond general of the Dark Kingdom grinned devilishly, turned unceremoniously away from the gruesome scene and muttered contentedly to himself
"I will report to Queen Beryl that Mamoru has died in an accident."
As he laughed out loud at the last part of the sentence, Zoisite - surrounded by an extremely cheesy cherry blossom petal storm - dissolved into the now prevailing darkness.
Only moments after the evil general had left the supposed battlefield, the four Sailor soldiers arrived on the top floor via the staircase, along with their two cats. Confused, they looked around the huge, empty room. It was finally Ami who pulled out her Sailor Mercury computer, grabbed her blue VR goggles and began busily entering data on her little device.
Her other comrades had no choice but to wait for the result of Mercury's scan. With a furrowed brow, Ami finally looked up from her computer after a few moments and shrugged helplessly.
"There is no one here. I am not receiving any information regarding the Dark Kingdom, nor is there any hint of Usagi or Mamoru. Her communicator is still switched off."
Rei looked urgently at Ami, folded her arms and asked, visibly nervous.
"Are you really sure you saw those two in the lift earlier, Sailor Mercury?"
"99.8% sure, to be exact."
Ami returned with a serious expression, now looking at worried faces as she looked around the room.
"Do you think the two of them might have been kidnapped by the bad guys?"
Makoto voiced what everyone now seemed to fear. Luna narrowed her eyes, looking less than convinced of the possibility
"I have honestly no idea what the Dark Kingdom could want with those two. Surely Usagi wasn't transformed at all and Mamoru...?"
Ami looked intently at her screen again and now began frantically typing something on her keyboard.
"Wait a minute...there's something else. Some kind of energy...that...wait...there!"
She turned the screen around so that her comrades could also look at the information displayed on it. Now it was Artemis who perked up at the analysis in front of him.
"This is no ordinary concentration of energy, is this possibly...the Imperium Silver Crystal?!"
He was met with stunned silence in return for his guess. Luna continued to look critically at the screen in front of her
"No, the energy would have to be much stronger, Artemis... But it sure looks like this recording showed that the fragments may have all been in this location today."
"Crap! Then we're too late!" suddenly came from Minako, who had been silent until now. With a very serious face, she looked at her newfound comrades
"What should we do now? Usagi and Mamoru are gone. So is the suspicious energy of the Dark Kingdom and on top of that, we may have a whole other problem!"
Makoto clenched her fists and was about to storm back towards the exit when Ami stopped her
"Wait! It's not all that simple. Look. The energy was indeed very strong and came from seven different sources with a probability of 87.56 percent, but that is far from the amount of energy we would have to expect if the Imperium Silver Crystal were composed, at least according to my calculations. So Luna is right...at least 70.1 per cent."
The blue-haired warrior flipped her computer shut and with a deep sigh to the group, she explained
"I have no idea HOW they got here, but clearly all seven shards were united here in this place... just... whoever has all the fragments in their possession now...clearly hasn't put them together to get the Imperium Silver Crystal from them."
"Now, is that good or bad?" wanted Makoto to know as a precaution. Luna joined her and looked up at the tall warrior woman
"That's a pretty good question, Sailor Jupiter. I myself don't know how to put the rainbow crystals together to get the Imperium Silver Crystal either. So far, I've assumed it would happen on its own. Artemis, what do you think?"
The white tom cat blushed a little when addressed directly and explained awkwardly
"We don't know anything about that. Actually, a merging process should start immediately when all the shards are together. So either we were wrong... or something is missing?"
Ami retracted her glasses again and tucked her Super Mini computer into her skirt pocket. With a slightly perplexed look, she explained to the others
"At least I can't make out any more power sources here at present. Wherever they may be. They're certainly not here anymore."
Rei had said nothing for a very long time. Unlike the others, she was particularly concerned about someone who, for whatever reason, also seemed to be involved in this whole thing. She couldn't make sense of it yet, but could she assume that he was perhaps one of the enemies or that he had been kidnapped together with Usagi? No, never. She had to protect him and keep her thoughts to herself for the time being. Instead, she suggested to the others with a serious face
"Come, let's go back to the Hikawa temple. Maybe the sacred fire can help us find Usagi...if she's not here, she's surely found a way to escape the flaming inferno. I'm sure of it. She would never let herself be kidnapped and you know as well as I do that even the Dark Kingdom would bring her back voluntarily by evening at the latest. They don't have that much food for the glutton."
Rei's attempt to lighten the depressed mood obviously worked. Hope sprouted that the black-haired miko might be right and Usagi had long been safe. However she might have managed to escape this picture of devastation. The warriors nodded to her and finally left the top floor, determined to find Usagi as soon as possible.
--
Mamoru slowly opened his eyes and tried to look around. He still seemed to be hovering slightly above the ground. An opaque pink mist prevented him from seeing clearly. After a few more moments, the light had disappeared, and as his knees gently touched down on the asphalt, his vision became fully clear again.
The sun had set by now and the lights of the metropolis illuminated his surroundings. Clearly he had landed outside the Starlight Tower ... and she was right beside him.
She.
He still couldn't believe the spectacular sight he had just witnessed in the lift. He was still in complete shock. Actually, it would have been the end for both of them. It seemed futile for him to transform into his alter ego in the elevator just a few moments ago. He couldn't have done anything... but she... she possessed powers he would never have thought possible.
She.
"What happened?"
Mamoru heard a surprised murmur beside him. Completely stunned, the blonde warrior looked at her magical moon scepter.
"I can't believe it, it actually worked."
It seemed as if something had just occurred to her while she was talking to herself, or rather, someone had. Out of the corner of her eye she looked at him furtively at first and then spoke in a low voice as her cheeks turned a slight shade of pink
"It's over, please don't worry...you're safe now."
She continued to explain to him as her voice now started to become a little brittle. She even trembled a little at her stammered explanation
"Well, um, you know... I... I had no choice but to get us both out of there so alive... um... Surprise, hehe."
She was still kneeling slightly bent over, shrugging her small shoulders and waving at him uncertainly.
He could do nothing but stare at her. Usagi, his cute little clumsy friend with the meatballs on her head had transformed right before his eyes into the beautiful warrior of the moon, Sailor Moon. THE Sailor Moon... Leader of the Sailor Team, protector of the whole wide world. The girl with the magical powers, of which he had probably only seen a fraction so far.
Usagi was Sailor Moon.
Mamoru was still caught in a state of absolute disbelief. Completely out of his mind and taking a deep breath, he stood up and finally found his voice.
What the hell was he going to say to her now!
"Well, that was... um... quite impressive. T-thank you."
He heard himself saying.
'This is such a surreal situation.'
He pinched himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming and also to recover from his current state of shock.
"Oh, there's no need for that, I'm just really glad we got out of there in one piece. I mean, that was more than close."
Her blush deepened a notch as she began to realise that she had actually saved Mamoru-Baka's life. Hesitantly, she too stood up and gave him a sheepish look.
"I suppose Zoisite thinks you and I didn't make it out of the lift. That should give us some peace from them now. At least for a while."
Usagi was looking directly at him, trying to process what had just happened moments ago. Fair enough, the Dark Kingdom had now gained a slight advantage over the Sailor team by being in the fortunate position of collecting all the Rainbow Crystals. Actually, it had been all about that the whole time; this ominous mission to find seven rainbow shards and then form the Imperium Silver Crystal from them as well as to track down the Moon Princess by means of this crystal. Well, the first point could be considered done,apart from the tiny little fact that unfortunately all the shards were now in the possession of the enemy.
Funnily enough, Usagi didn't care at all right now because she was struggling with a slightly bigger problem for the time being. At least for her it was a rather huge problem.
'He saw me turn into Sailor Moon! Mamoru knows about me! Maybe he's shocked for now, but where do we go from here? Oh dear god, the sailor girls and Luna are going to be soooo angry with me. Should I even tell them? How can I keep such a big secret? Should I maybe lock Mamoru in my bedroom until the mission is accomplished so I can still live a more or less normal life?'
While all these questions were running through her pretty head, a completely different thing came to mind
'Mamoru is also looking for the Imperium Silver Crystal. But how does he know that such a crystal even exists? Okay, he keeps dreaming about a mysterious princess who begs him to bring the crystal. At least, that's what he told me in the lift... but it's not normal to look for such a crystal... unless...'
Usagi didn't allow herself to jump to any more conclusions. In the Starlight Tower she had already pondered that possibility, but it was just too far-fetched, too wacky, too fantastic, indeed...just too unbelievable...
He couldn't be Tuxedo Mask !!!
Mamoru was still caught in that unsettling state of not knowing what to say to her big time at the moment. It was all so surreal and felt so utterly strange, confusing, horrible, ridiculous...it was causing a storm in his stomach that went all the way up to his heart.
'For God's sake, I AM TUXEDO MASK, damn it! Surely I should be able to handle a situation like this properly by transforming myself too. I should reveal my other identity to her, as she did moments ago. Then we would both know about each other ... Or perhaps it would be better not to?'
The cards were reshuffled. Usagi and Sailor Moon were one and the same person. Mamoru now had certainty about that. In his real life, he had mostly bickered with her on the streets of Tokyo until now, but so much had changed between them recently. One could almost have spoken of a kind of friendship between the two. But the fact that Usagi was the fighter for love and justice turned everything upside down of what he had built up with Usagi over the past few weeks. Would they even be enemies now because they were looking for the same thing? But the object of their desire was in the possession of the enemy...Mamoru was simply overwhelmed by the situation and decided to retreat for the moment.
"I guess I'll be going home now..." he finally managed to say, trying to get back to normal business. As if nothing had happened at all!" he mentally slapped his forehead.
"What?" she said in response, completely flustered "No, wait a minute!!! Panic began to climb up her throat. Usagi couldn't just let him go without a hint of a promise not to reveal her identity. At least to the rest of the world.
"'There's something I really need to know before you go,' she looked at him with pleading eyes.
'Oh no, she's bloody clever, she's worked out that I'm Tuxedo Mask. It's pretty obvious, isn't it? Oh man, I'm so screwed!!!'
Mamoru was freaking out inside, but tried to look back at her as calmly as possible on the outside. With a quick nod of his head, he signalled her to go ahead with her request.
"Could you keep this... keep this a secret? Because I'd be so screwed otherwise!"
Shyly, Usagi pointed her index finger at her transformed appearance.
"Oh...yeah...yeah, sure."
Mamoru replied, rather stuttering his confirmation to her. He was about to turn away from her - 'good, she has no clue that I'm a superhero too. It's probably better that way for now' - when suddenly his wounded shoulder came back to him in an extremely painful way due to the falling adrenaline level in his blood.
He couldn't help but cry out loudly, "Damn it!". He almost blacked out. He quickly grabbed at his injured shoulder, which forced him mercilessly to the ground. The returning pain was all of a sudden more intense than before and hardly bearable.
"What? Woah, you're still hurt pretty bad, Mamoru. Let me help you, please!"
Highly alarmed, the superheroine knelt beside him and looked critically at the blood-soaked spot on his jacket...and then at her moon scepter.
"Mhm, I wonder... Mamoru. I'd like to try something. Please hold still as best you can, okay?"
"Don't worry, I'll take care of it when I get home." He tried to play down his disastrous situation and gave her a pain-distorted smile.
"It doesn't hurt too much, in fact it's nothing serious. I'll put a plaster on it and that's pretty much it...ahhh, arrgghh!" while he cried out again in pain, he knew that his attempt to trivialise his injury was definitely not going to convince Usagi. Quite the opposite.
Suddenly he felt something cold on his shoulder, which quickly warmed as soon as Usagi murmured some words. As if she was invoking some kind of magic formula
"Power of the moon...make it pure."
Warmth ran through his entire body, a strong energy that seemed familiar on the one hand and so powerful at the same time. For a few moments this surge of energy lasted until it abruptly stopped.
Mamoru felt better. Considerably better, in fact. As if the black energy of Zoisite's devilish crystal dagger, with which he had wounded him so badly, had completely escaped from his body. Yet he still felt the wound on his shoulder. Something else had happened in the meantime, because Sailor Moon was no longer sitting next to him, but the blonde middle school girl who had first met him in front of the OsaP jewellery shop almost eight months ago.
She had eyes as blue as the sky. There was something in her gaze that Mamoru couldn't quite interpret. Concern? Realisation?
Usagi frowned, crossed her arms and thought aloud, "Okay, obviously today is your lucky day. The wound is still there, but I just finished a first aid course at school. Now that you have realised that I am a fighter for love and justice, I can't let you walk around alone with such a big injury. Let me continue to doctor it. I insist!"
She sounded firm, Mamoru didn't know his clumsy friend like that. But had he known her at all? In one fell swoop, everything was completely different. Mamoru gave up his attempt to stay away from her for the time being. Somehow he felt relieved that she wanted to be with him in his injured state. Deep inside, he wondered if she really cared about him... about him, Mamoru Chiba, and not about his alter ego, of which she was probably also aware. At least she had a strong suspicion, for the moon sceptre had struck with its effect on him, and they were both aware of who Zoisite had just injured in the right shoulder yesterday.
‚Let's face it, she is Sailor Moon after all. The girl who obviously has the biggest crush on Tuxedo Mask. But even as Usagi, she was depressed beyond belief when the Dark Kingdom sent out love letters in my name. Surprisingly, though, she seems to care about me, her nemesis Mamoru-Baka.'
Of course, it would have been better to tell her who he was and why he was also looking for that particular crystal, but he just couldn't get this new fact out of his head.
'Usagi cares about me, she might even like me?'
"'Thank you.' Thanks again... I guess." He smiled slightly mischievously back at her. Usagi nodded barely noticeably, stood up and held out her hand to him. His previous expression now led to a grateful smile as he took her hand and finally rose from the ground. A slightly amused expression played around his lips as he explained to her
"I guess this is going to be another interesting evening after such an exciting afternoon."