There had been a lot of discussion about the issue of training, and in particular his need for it with the powers he was still unfamiliar with using, and in the end he and the rest of the Sailor Senshi had agreed to it. Mamoru-sempai had opted to stay back in Juban, citing his collage classes and the part-time job he worked at, something that Usagi had been particularly happy about, since it meant that the four of them would be alone at the pension house that Rei-san had rented for the duration of their training.

Trevor still found himself a bit worried, both about what might happen while they were gone, and of the Dark Kingdom taking any kind of interest; neither of those outcomes would be good for any one of them.

Apparently, there was a private beach outside the house, and the house itself was an old, three story mansion atop what sounded like some kind of a seaside cliff. Usagi was happiest about the beach, of course, but honestly Trevor was more curious about the views from the seaside cliff. He'd never seen anything like it; he'd never been anywhere but flat beaches, so he was all the more curious to see the view from atop one.

Given the look in her eyes, Usagi was clearly daydreaming again, hopping along beside him like the rabbit she'd been named after, and Trevor found himself smiling softly as he gently pulled her along.

"Are we going to be there soon?" he called out to Rei-san, since she would be the one most likely to know where the pension house they were all staying in was located.

"Just leave it to me, Trevor-kun!" Rei-san said, grinning widely as she jerked a thumb at herself. "I'll have us all there in no time!"

"All right, Rei-san" he said, smiling back as Usagi hopped along beside him, still clearly more immersed in her own imaginary world; she was clearly counting on him to guide her, so that was what he was going to keep doing.

~SM~

Trevor-nii had offered to carry her, once her feet had really started to hurt; he'd said it was because this was a good chance for him to practice using his powers, but she knew that it was really because he'd seen that she wasn't doing well and wanted to help her. He probably just didn't want to say something like that in front of Rei-chan, since he knew how she was about things like that.

Even the dark, spooky forest they were all walking through didn't seem so bad, with Trevor-nii close the way he was.

"Rei-san, are you really sure that this is the way we should be going?" Trevor-nii asked, as three of them – with her riding on Trevor-nii's back – continued on their way through the spooky woods.

"I'm sure that if we just keep walking, we'll get to the pension house," Rei-chan said, a small frown on her face; Usagi didn't know if she really thought that, or if she was just saying it to make herself and Trevor-nii feel better about being lost in these spooky woods.

Really, she didn't know if Ami-chan even believed what Rei-chan was saying.

When they finally did make it to the house, just before it had really started raining, Trevor-nii let her down from his back and all four of them – plus the cute little girl they'd met picking flowers on the way – Usagi blinked in surprise as she saw that the name in the sign was actually in English. Sure, there was a Japanese translation right above it, but it was still kind of weird.

"Oi, Trevor-nii, you might have the chance to talk to people in English here," she said, leaning over so she could talk to him without disturbing Rei-chan, Ami-chan, or the little girl who'd lead them all here; even in a creepy, old place like this, that would probably be a nice thing for Trevor-nii.

"Yeah, I might have," Trevor-nii said, sounding almost like he was trying to remember something; Usagi didn't know quite what he was trying to remember, but it clearly meant something to him.

Usagi wondered what it could be, but the double doors in front of them opened before she could ask him about what that might have been. The three people at the door were dressed in cosplay that was just as spooky as the house they were all staying in, and Usagi found herself clinging more closely to Trevor-nii as the three of them welcomed the little girl back into the house. Shuddering as thunder boomed in the distance, Usagi cuddled in closer to Trevor-nii as the three of them made their own way inside.

Sure, she was glad to be out of the rain, and at least behind walls while there was scary thunder and lightning outside, but the house they were all standing in was almost as scary as things were outside; if she hadn't had Trevor-nii right by her side, Usagi didn't know if she would have been able to handle things well at all.

"Sakiko!" shouted a voice that was almost scarier than the old house, and even the storm all around them; Usagi wrapped her arms tighter around Trevor-nii, and he even held her hands to comfort her. "Where were you?!" the scary man demanded. "Hurry over here!"

"Yes, Father," Sakiko-chan said, and Usagi couldn't help but hear how beaten-down – how defeated – the poor little girl sounded, even as she did as her father said and hurried over to him.

She and Trevor-nii shared a look, both of them resolving to help her in any way they could.

~SM~

When the four of them made it up to their respective rooms, Trevor couldn't help but find himself both amused and apprehensive at the prospect of not spending the night in the same room as his younger sister. Still, she was excited for the both of them to have rooms of their own, so he supposed that that kind of thing made at least some sense. Blowing out a deep sigh as he settled down on the bed that had been provided for him, Trevor looked down at his hands as he contemplated the powers he'd been using.

When he was transformed, when he was Golden Kamen, they didn't hurt him, but it'd been a long time since he'd had to use them without transforming; a long time since he'd even tried.

Maybe that's why Luna-sensei wanted to come out here, Trevor mused, leaning down to remove his shoes so that he could sit back against the headboard of the bed he was going to be using during his stay here with Usagi, Rei-san, and Ami-san. There was no question that practicing abilities that might very well still have the side effect of burning him from the inside out would be easier without the looming presence of his and Usagi's parents. They would have worried too much, and there would also be too much of a chance that they'd find out about the secrets that he and Usagi were keeping.

Neither he nor Usagi wanted to expose Mom, Dad, or Shingo-chan to that kind of danger.

The sound of Usagi screaming snapped Trevor out of his thoughts, and he leaped off of the bed with only a brief pause to slip his shoes back on. Yanking open the door, Trevor raised an eyebrow as he found himself staring up at one of the caretakers standing on top of a ladder changing a light bulb.

"Usa-ko, are you all right?" he called across the hall, catching sight of her staring up at the costumed woman with an unsettled expression on her face.

"Yeah," Usagi said, shuddering briefly, before turning a determined sort of smile on him. "Yeah, Trevor-nii. I'm okay!"

"It's time for dinner," she said, turning around with a satisfied expression on her face.

"Stop overreacting, Usagi-chan," Rei-san snapped, as the four of them made their way down to the dining room to have dinner together.

The meal itself was interesting, but only because the caretakers kept wearing their cosplay costumes all the way through it. He and Usagi shared a bemused look, before turning back to their respective meals.

"How did you find a place like this, Rei-san?" he asked, as Usagi went right back to eating.

"I mostly chose it because it was cheap and out of the way," Rei-san said, though she almost sounded like she was having second thoughts about that; though it was more than a little late for that kind of thing.

"I kind of like it here," Ami-san said, smiling. "The food is good, and I enjoy their costumes."

"Thank you," the man in the Frankenstein's Monster costume said.

"That's actually the selling point of this pension house," the man in the wolfman cosplay said.

"The selling point is cosplay?" he asked.

Before either of them could answer, however, the room all around them was filled with a low, almost mournful sound. He couldn't quite place where it might be coming from, since it was echoing through the walls in a way that made it sound like whatever – or whoever – was making that sound was all around them. Everyone else seemed to be scared by the sound they were all hearing – the two caretakers in particular – but to Trevor it sounded more sad than anything else.

It sounded like, whoever was making the sound, they were mourning rather than trying to scare anyone.

Rei-san was the first to leap out of her chair, though Trevor wasn't far behind her, and after she slammed open the door to the main room, the sight of a ghostly figure beginning to ascend the staircase only to vanish amid a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder greeted them. Trevor didn't know what to make of it, and given what he was hearing – amid the panicked, frantic denials from the three caretakers about seeing anything at all – it seemed that even Rei-san didn't know what to make of what they'd just seen, though both she and Ami-san had ideas.

"Yeah, I think a youma would have come right for me," he said in response to their speculation, narrowing his eyes slightly as he found himself remembering his previous encounters with Nephrite's youma, and his encounters with Jadeite's before them.

"Yeah, they probably would," Rei-san said, narrowing her own eyes.

~SM~

After putting Sakiko down to sleep, to rest after a day of training, Yureimaru found himself patrolling the grounds of the mansion he owned; moving around the grounds that his family had owned for time immemorial. Narrowing his eyes as he caught sight of the boy who had come with those foolish girls, kneeling over a withered flower under the deep shade of the trees, Yureimaru watched as the boy held his hands over the withering plant.

For a moment, the boy seemed to be doing very little, before a soft, golden glow sprang into being around the flower, and it began to return to health!

Could this boy also be a psychic? A healer? Yureimaru found his fingers almost instinctively clenching around the pendant he used to put Sakiko into a state where she was prepared to accept the training that he was imparting to her. As the young psychic settled back into a loose sort of seiza position, examining his hands almost as though he was surprised by what he had just done, Yureimaru decided that he would give this young psychic the same training that he was giving his daughter.

Walking out from under the shadows at the edge of the woods where the young psychic had chosen to train himself, Yureimaru gathered the pendant in hand and made his way over to where the young psychic was sitting. Setting the pendant to swing, just as the young psychic had looked up to greet him, he caught the young psychic's gaze just as he had always caught his daughter's.

"Come with me," he said, as the soft brown eyes of the young psychic hazed over in the same way that his daughter's would when he would train her. "Come."

Reaching out to take the young psychic's hand as it was offered to him, Yureimaru lead the both of them back into the house so that he could begin testing the young psychic's healing abilities. Yureimaru would need to determine just how refined the boy's abilities were, before he could begin constructing a proper training regimen.

~SM~

Wishing that she could have gone with those girls out to the beach, but knowing that Father wouldn't have approved at all, Sakiko made her way back into the house again. She'd picked a few flowers, hoping that Father would let her keep them so she could at least try to make her room less gloomy, and as she made her way to the back rooms where she and Father stayed while they had guests in the main house she hoped that Father was at least in a better mood than usual.

The sight of the only boy who'd come to her and Father's house with those three girls brought her up short, clutching at her flowers. The boy was sitting in her chair, and Sakiko shuddered as she realized that Father was trying to do the same thing to him that he'd always done to her.

"Father?" she called out, hoping to distract him from what he was doing to the boy sitting in her chair.

"Sakiko," Father said, turning to look at her; he didn't seem as stern and scary as he usually did, but with the boy sitting in her chair, Sakiko didn't think that was very good at all. "This boy has many things in common with you, Sakiko," Father said, pulling out the pendant he'd used so many times on her in the past; Sakiko shuddered, even though Father seemed to be using it on him rather than her.

At least for now.

"Show her," Father ordered, swinging the pendant again; the boy lifted his head, blank, soft brown eyes staring forward, even as he raised his left hand, cupping it like he was trying to hold something. "Show Sakiko your power."

Watching as a small spot of golden light appeared above the boy's left hand, Sakiko couldn't help but be worried for him. Father was looking at him almost the same way he'd looked at her, and she worried what he might do to those girls if they came looking for him. Father wasn't the kind of person who would take that kind of thing well.

Biting her lip, even as Father turned his attention back to the boy sitting in her chair, Sakiko hurried back out to the cliff; she needed air, and looking up at the moon had always made her feel better.

~SM~

Drying her hair after the bath that she'd just taken, Ami turned to see Sakiko, standing at the edge of the cliff that the pension house where they were staying stood atop. Finishing drying her hair more quickly than she had in awhile, Ami headed out to the cliffside, herself.

"Sakiko-chan," she called, making her way up to the side of the little girl, smiling slightly as she saw the flowers Sakiko-chan had collected.

"Oh, Ami-chan," the little girl said, turning with an unreadable look on her face.

"Oh my, how did you know my name?" Ami asked, thinking back on the time that she, the other girls, and Trevor-kun had all been staying here; it was possible that she'd overheard them talking.

"Oh, I was watching you from up here since the afternoon. Rei-chan's the pretty, mature one; Usagi's the cheerful, happy one who's scared of thunder, and Luna's the cat," Sakiko said, biting her lip for a long moment. "Also, that boy you came here with, he's like me."

"What do you mean?" Ami asked, feeling more of a chill than even the night air could account for. "Have you been watching Trevor-kun, too? Do you know where he is? Usagi-chan has been worried, since she hasn't seen him since this morning."

"Father found him," Sakiko-chan said, holding her flowers close, even as she hunched defensively inward. "He says that Trevor-kun is like me."

"What do you mean, Trevor-kun is like you?" she asked, but before Ami could ask anything more, the harsh voice of a Sakiko-chan's father boomed out over the cliffside.

"How many times must I tell you not to talk to strangers?!" the man demanded, grabbing Sakiko-chan's right arm so that he could drag her away.

"Father," Sakiko-chan said, her voice meek enough that Ami didn't think it was even a protest; the poor girl sounded so scared…

"Wait, sir," she called, but the man interrupted before she could say anything else.

"I thank you for introducing me to that friend of yours, but I suggest you three girls leave us to our own devices from now on," he said over his shoulder, clearly thinking that that was the end of their conversation.

~SM~

As Father dragged her back to the house, back to the room where he'd left Trevor-oniisan, Sakiko found herself wishing that she could have at least helped him to escape from what Father had been planning to do to him. He'd be happier if he was back with Ami-san and her friends; she had to get him back to them.

Looking up as she found herself back in the room with Trevor-oniisan, Sakiko bit her lip as she watched Father coax Trevor-oniisan over to stand at his side. When Father directed her to sit in the chair that Trevor-oniisan had been sitting in for probably the whole entire day, Sakiko couldn't help thinking about him. Even as she argued with Father, trying her best to convince him to let go of whatever obsession had driven him to bring not only her but Trevor-oniisan down into this room, but in the end he used the pendant on her too…

All she could think of was how Father never listened… how he was just going to do to Trevor-oniisan what he'd done to her for so long… How she just wanted Trevor-oniisan to be safe, and for Father to just go away…!

~SM~

The sound of a weird chant, down on the main floor of the house, drew Usagi's attention even though she still hadn't managed to find Trevor-nii and all the worry was finally beginning to wear her out. Looking into the room where the chanting was coming from, Usagi saw two of the cosplay caretakers doing some kind of strange ritual with a lot of candles. Trevor-nii would have probably said they were being silly, and that just reminded Usagi of how long it had been since she'd actually seen him.

Sniffling, feeling tears beginning to sting her eyes as she started crying again, Usagi fell to her knees, sobbing even as she heard someone else coming into the room with her.

"Oh dear," the voice of the woman caretaker – the one who was either dressed as a ghost, a vampire, or some weird mix of both – said, coming up from behind her and putting a hand on her right shoulder. "Don't cry, don't cry."

"Usagi-chan? Usagi-chan!" Rei-chan called, and Usagi turned as Rei-chan came into the room where she'd found the ritual with all the candles. "It's all right. We'll find Trevor-kun."

"When, Rei-chan? When are we going to be able to find him? He's been gone all day!" she said, bowing her head as she wailed and started crying again.

"We'll keep looking, Usagi-chan. I promise you we'll find him," Rei-chan said.

Usagi sniffed, holding onto Rei-chan even as the other girl stiffened. "What's wrong, Rei-chan?"

"Something is about to happen," Rei-chan said, just as the table and all of the chairs in the dining room started rattling.

The ofuda that Rei-chan had put on the back of the chairs all snapped off, and Usagi shuddered as the chairs slammed into the walls all around them, then started spinning around in a circle in the air. Biting her lip as she watched it happen, Usagi could only hope that Trevor-nii would be safe.

~SM~

"Stop that!" Ami shouted, slamming open the door to the room where poor Sakiko-chan had been taken by her father.

But apparently she'd waited too long to try helping Sakiko-chan and Trevor-kun, because something jumped out of Sakiko-chan's body, grabbed Trevor-kun, and vanished up the stairs with Trevor-kun's body dangling from its arms. The sound of a slamming door echoed down to them, and Ami had a moment to wonder just what that odd apparition had done to Trevor-kun, before it returned to the room.

Bracing herself against a sudden rush of pure force, Ami still found herself blown backwards and out the window. Still, the apparition's focus didn't seem to be on her – or any of the caretakers, or Rei-san, or even Usagi san – but on attacking Sakiko-chan's father. Ami could hear shouting in the distance, but at the moment, Ami was more concerned with the man in front of her.

He was in enough danger that she almost missed the sight of Rei-san and Usagi-san transforming; almost. Though she was quick to transform, herself.

Once all of them were in their Senshi forms and thus would be better able to deal with anything the ghost might try to throw at them, or recover if the ghost tried to throw them over the cliff, or even through one of the walls of the pension house itself. Still, as Sakiko-chan's father tried in vain to rouse her from the trance that he'd put her in to begin with, Ami made her way into the house.

If she could wake Sakiko-chan up, she would probably be able to stop or at least control the ghost, since she seemed to have summoned it in the first place.

"Father, please don't… Leave Trevor-oniisan alone, he's not… Father, I can't take this anymore, please stop…"

Biting her lip, knowing that Rei-chan and Usagi-chan would fight as hard as they could even if they couldn't damage the ghost with their attacks, Ami tried hard to wake Sakiko-chan from her hypnotized slumber. When Sakiko-chan finally did open her eyes, Ami took her hand and the both of them ran out to the back yard, where her friends and Sakiko-chan's father all were.

Where the ghost that Sakiko-chan had summoned was still threatening the three of them.

However, as soon as the ghost seemed to notice them, it vanished back into the house, leaving Ami wondering why it would just leave when it had seemed so focused on Sakiko-chan's father. However, when Sakiko-chan herself rushed after the ghost, Ami turned to share a look with Rei-chan and Usagi-chan. Wordlessly, the three of them agreed to follow her.

She didn't know just what it was that Sakiko-chan was after, but the Sailor Senshi would be there to help her.

~SM~

When she finally made it up to her old room, Sakiko found that she wasn't surprised at all to see Trevor-oniisan tucked into the bed she'd been spending less and less time in since Father had been forcing her to train more and more. The old stuffed animals that Mother had bought for her so long ago had been gathered up on the nearby dresser, and there were even some on the bed, too.

It looked a lot like the way Sakiko wished she could have set up her room for herself, but Sakiko forced herself to ignore that as she made her way over to the chair.

The ghost had brought up one of the chairs from the dining room, and seemed to be sitting in it. It was almost like the vague memories that Sakiko had of Mother, memories from before Father had become so strict about her training; memories of when she'd been sick, and Mother had tended to her while she'd recovered. She hadn't thought of Mother in so long, but seeing the ghost sitting in the chair by her bed, looking so much like her…

Sakiko rubbed her eyes, clearing the tears away, before she forced herself to start forward; forced herself to make her way over to the chair.

Throwing her arms around the ghost, the way she wished she could have thrown her arms around Mother, Sakiko forced herself to breathe again. She told the ghost that things were going to be all right, that Trevor-oniisan was going to be safe, that Father wasn't going to be mean anymore, and that Sakiko could take care of things on her own. Even as she did, though, Sakiko could see the three girls and Father watching from just behind the door.

As the ghost vanished, Sakiko turned to them with a smile, even as she heard Trevor-oniisan sitting up in bed…

~SM~

Explaining what they could to Sakiko and her father had been easier than Trevor had been expecting, since the both of them were both well-versed in and accepting of psychic phenomena and the need to keep them secret from the public at large. And now, with Sakiko-chan free of the expectations her father had been all but crushing her under, she was laughing like any little girl her age. She sounded a lot like Usagi when she was younger, really.

As the five of them all splashed around in the shallows of the beach, Rei-san hurled the ball they were all playing with at Usagi; Trevor, grinning, blocked it with a quickly formed shield.

"Rei-chan, that wasn't nice!" Usagi shouted, ducking behind him for a moment, before she climbed on his back.

"Usa-ko, brace yourself," he called back, turning his head so he could catch her eye, even as he concentrated on his right hand, forming a scoop in the same way he'd formed shields so many times before.

"Get 'em, Trevor-nii!" Usagi called back, laughing as he threw the water at Rei-san and Ami-san.

The pair of them shrieked with laughter themselves, splashing him as best they could, even as he raised more small shields, and Usagi scooped up the ball they'd been playing with. Sakiko-chan was laughing harder than he'd ever heard her in all the time they'd spent together, and Trevor found himself laughing, in turn. It was good, to have these simple moments; these times for family and friends.