Swimming under the water with Trevor-nii, Usagi noticed that Naru-chan seemed really sad about something. Glancing over at Trevor-nii, the pair of them nodded at each other as they swam to the edge of the pool where Naru-chan was sitting.

"Naru-chan, what's wrong?" she asked, once she and Trevor-nii had settled down on either side of where Naru-chan was sitting.

"I'm-" Naru-chan trailed off, chewing her lower lip. "I've just been thinking, I guess."

"What have you been thinking about, Naru-chan?" Trevor-nii asked, reaching out to gently put his right arm around Naru-chan's shoulders.

"There's a man named Masato Sanjoin," Naru-chan sighed, leaning into Trevor-nii's embrace. "And I… I think I'm falling in love with him. Now, I know what you're both going to say: I know he's older than me, but age means nothing in the face of true love."

"Naru-chan, maybe you should think about this," Trevor-nii said, as Usagi found herself shuddering, even as she tried to force herself not to. "I mean, do you know anything more about him than the fact that he's a tennis instructor?"

"I guess not," Naru-chan said, smile still firmly on her face. "Still, that just means I'll have the chance to get to know him better. I'll see you guys later, okay?"

She and Trevor-nii shared another, more worried expression; both of them knew by now that Nephrite had been using that name to disguise himself when he picked out people to harvest energy from for the Dark Kingdom. She didn't know just what Nephrite would do to Naru-chan if he ever found out how she felt about him, or if he already knew and was just planning to actually do something about it later.

Still, they were going to have to find a way to get Nephrite away from Naru-chan, before he could start another of his evil plans.

~SM~

When they'd finished school for the day, he, Usagi, the rest of the Sailor Senshi, and Mamoru-sempai had all met up at the Hikawa shrine to discus what they'd learned.

"There has to be some way to get Naru-chan away from Nephrite," Rei-san said. "We could try telling her who he really is, but it sounds like she's really started to fall in love with him, if what you and Usagi-chan said was right."

"Maybe we should wait and see what happens," Ami-san suggested. "Nephrite isn't likely to be able to hide his true intentions forever."

"Given the way Naru-chan seems to feel about him, it's not going to be that easy to explain who he really is to her," Usagi said, as Trevor found himself chewing the inside of his left cheek thoughtfully.

"There might be a way to force Nephrite to reveal his true intentions," he said, after a few, long moments spent considering how much danger Naru-san might truly be in, and just how eerily eager each and every member of the Dark Kingdom had been to capture him and bring him back to wherever it was they came from. "Even if he is a good enough actor not to react when one of the Dark Kingdom's targets is standing right in front of him, I might be able to draw out Zoisite, too."

"So, you're planning to risk yourself to try and save Naru-chan," Rei-san said, a slight smile on her face. "Well, I guess I shouldn't have expected anything less from my student."

"I guess," he said, smiling slightly, himself.

"If you're going to try to bait Nephrite, you should be careful," Mamoru-sempai said, a serious look on his face. "We've all seen what he's capable of."

"I know," he said, nodding. "I'll keep my communicator with me."

"We'll keep ours ready, too," Usagi said, sitting up straighter, and reaching out to hold both of his hands. "And, I'll help you convince Naru-chan, Trevor-nii."

~SM~

"Where is Nephrite?!" Queen Beryl demanded, eyes narrowing as she focused on her crystal ball, then turned to her youma with an expression of impatient rage clear on her face. "No matter how many times I call for him, he still won't show up!"

Laughing softly to himself as he heard Queen Beryl soundly cursing Nephrite's name, Zoisite teleported to the one place that he was certain that their wayward Heavenly King would be trying to take refuge. And, sure enough, Nephrite himself was standing right in the same place he always did when he performed those useless star-readings of his.

"You again?" Nephrite demanded, sounding annoyed and unimpressed at once. "What do you want?"

"My, my, what a cold way to greet someone," Zoisite said, finding that he couldn't quite keep from smiling, given what he had the pleasure of reporting. "Queen Beryl is furious, and she's looking for you."

"Kunzite told you to spy on me, didn't he?" Nephrite demanded, an ugly scowl on his arrogant face.

"Oh my," Zoisite said, not even bothering to hide the pleased smile stretching his own face. "Judging from your reaction, you don't have anything special planned. And this even in spite of the fact that you haven't managed to gather any more human energy, and you left capturing the schoolboy we've been pursuing up to me."

"I can't help but notice that you've consistently failed to deliver the boy to Queen Beryl, as well," Nephrite snapped back, folding his arms and glaring in a way that simply infuriated Zoisite.

"The trouble I've been having with that schoolboy and the Sailor Guardians isn't any of your business!" he snarled right back, feeling his fury steadily mounting at the amused smile spreading across Nephrite's arrogant face.

"I wonder if Queen Beryl would agree with that assessment," Nephrite sneered, clearly growing more and more amused as he spoke.

"You're the one Queen Beryl is furious with!" he shouted, unable to hold onto his composure in the face of Nephrite's determined arrogance. "Don't try to drag me down with you!"

"I'm going to be the one to obtain the Silver Crystal, Zoisite," Nephrite drawled, arrogant smirk still firmly on his face. "Though, I suppose I can allow you to make your play for the schoolboy, if I don't get to him first."

Snarling in pure fury, even as Nephrite turned away from him with that infuriating smirk of his, Zoisite teleported away; back to Master Kunzite's side, so that he could have at least some comfort.

~SM~

Chuckling as Zoisite vacated the mansion that he'd spent so much time in, Nephrite reflected that he probably shouldn't have allowed Zoisite's taunts to affect him so much as he had. Then, dismissing those useless thoughts from his mind, Nephrite concentrated on the Celestial Orb that he had used on so many occasions to search for the humans who would provide the energy that the Dark Kingdom needed.

He was, now, going to need the Dark Crystal that he would only be able to obtain if he compressed the Celestial Orb, changing its form so that he could transport it rather than being forced to use it in the single place where he could easily be trapped by Zoisite or Kunzite if they chose to act against him.

Once he held the Dark Crystal in his hand, Nephrite found himself already presented with another target: the human girl named Naru Osaka.

He wondered if that was the reason that the Sailor Guardians were so interested in the girl's welfare; it made sense, since otherwise there would be no true purpose for them to be interested in her. Even their care for the schoolboy made more sense, since he at least could stand and fight when they needed him to do so. Still, Nephrite found himself eager to start his search for the Silver Crystal.

He would not allow Zoisite to take this last chance at redemption that had been presented to him.

~SM~

Shuddering as he leaned into Kunzite's gentle embrace, Zoisite tried to gather what composure he could, after everything he'd gone through.

"He makes me so angry, Master Kunzite!"

Master Kunzite's warm chuckle rumbled through him, making Zoisite feel at least a little better about everything that had happened. "Let Nephrite do what he wants."

"What if he really does manage to find the Silver Crystal? I mean, I could just focus on capturing the schoolboy," and truly, he probably should, given how Queen Beryl seemed to be just as annoyed with him as she had been with Nephrite.

"If Nephrite does manage to find the Silver Crystal, we can simply steal it back from him," Master Kunzite said, a gentle smile on his face. "However, taking the schoolboy as well would likely give us even more to hold over Nephrite than simply obtaining the Silver Crystal," Master Kunzite continued, his smile becoming more calculating but no less beautiful. "Have one of your youma keep an eye on him, and send another pair to capture the schoolboy."

Turning slightly, Zoisite called for Yasha, pausing for a moment to receive her confirmation that she'd heard him, before curling up with Master Kunzite again; he'd have to give more thought to which youma he was going to send to fetch the schoolboy, however.

~SM~

Taking a deep breath as she stood in front of the doorbell for Naru-chan's house, Usagi rang it and then leaned back against Trevor-nii as the pair of them waited for Naru-chan or her mom to answer them. Chewing her lower lip, as she and Trevor-nii stood in front of the door, Usagi couldn't help wondering just when or where Nephrite was going to try to attack them again. She also wondered if Zoisite was going to be fighting on Nephrite's side, or if he was just going to be fighting Nephrite.

With Trevor-nii trying to use himself as bait for the both of them, it was all Usagi could do to keep her composure when the both of them met Naru-chan at the door.

"Trevor-kun, Usagi-chan," Naru-chan said, clearly confused to see the both of them right on her doorstep.

"Hey, Naru-chan," Usagi said, before Trevor-nii could say whatever was on his mind. "How about we go out to eat together?"

"That… Sounds nice," Naru-chan said, smiling as she switched her house slippers for a pair of outdoor shoes. "Are you thinking about the café near the Crown Game Center?"

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking about," she said, smiling as best as she could, considering everything she was already worrying about.

Both Nephrite and Zoisite could be planning to come after them, and she wouldn't even know it until they attacked her.

When the three of them had made their way to the café near the Crown Game Center, with Usagi and Trevor-nii both keeping an eye out for either Zoisite or Nephrite, Usagi found it harder and harder to sit still. Even as she and Trevor-nii ordered their food, Usagi found that she couldn't quite manage to stop fidgeting in her seat.

"Usagi-chan, is something wrong?" Naru-chan asked, looking worried as she set her coffee down.

Stabbing her fork down into the cake she'd been trying to eat, and had mostly really been picking at for the entire course of their meal, Usagi sighed. But, just as she was about to open her mouth to talk, the window they were sitting next to exploded, showering their table with glass shards.

~SM~

He barely had time to open his mouth, before Trevor found himself being dragged out of the café where he, Usagi, and Naru-san had all been sitting together. Dragged out by a youma that looked almost like some kind of strange, humanoid flower. A blast of petals and what he could have almost sworn was pollen hit him in the face, and Trevor found himself paralyzed, but for some reason not actually unconscious.

He didn't know just what whoever had just captured him – Nephrite or Zoisite – would want, why he was still awake for whatever they were going to do to him, but Trevor supposed that the only thing he could do was wait to find out. The sight of Zoisite, standing in the air in front of him, would have made Trevor shudder in recognition if he could have moved at all.

"Hello again, schoolboy," Zoisite said, grinning as he reached out to stroke Trevor's right cheek.

In what seemed to be the blink of an eye, Trevor found himself back in what looked like the darkened interior the mansion that he, Mamoru-sempai, and Usagi had escaped from the last time he'd been captured; captured by Zoisite, in fact, so it was starting to seem like Zoisite was the one who had been assigned to capturing him by… whoever it was that was in charge of the Dark Kingdom to begin with.

Feeling Zoisite grabbing his chin, forcing his mouth open as the flower-youma tied him to what might very well have been one of the very pillars that he'd been suspended between when he'd last been captured, Trevor watched helplessly as Zoisite blew one of his pale pink sakura petals into his mouth. It didn't taste like anything, but the strange haze that descended over the edges of his vision didn't seem to bode well.

Nor the smile Zoisite was wearing as he closed Trevor's mouth again.

~SM~

She hadn't known what to expect, after Usagi-chan had tackled her to the ground and the windows had been blown inward by some kind of strange force, but when the pair of them had struggled back to their feet and started to look around, she noticed that Trevor-kun was missing.

"Usagi-chan, are you all right? What happened?"

"Trevor-nii's missing again," Usagi-chan said, struggling back to her feet, even with the glass shards all around them.

"Yeah," she said, struggling back to her own feet. "We should ask Sanjoin-sama for help," she said, carefully stepping around the shards of glass all over the café floor. "He'll probably know what to do."

As the pair of them made their way out of the café, Naru couldn't help but notice how worried Usagi-chan seemed to be, and while it did make sense considering what had happened to Trevor-kun, she only seemed to get more worried when Naru mentioned Sanjoin-sama.

"Come on, let's just get back to my house, and I can call him," she said, smiling back at Usagi-chan as the pair of them made their way back to her house.

Making her way back inside, passing by Mom as she and Usagi-chan called out a greeting to her, and she went over to the phone. Before she could pick it up, though, the phone rang.

"Hello? Oh, Sanjoin-sama!" she exclaimed, smiling as she heard the voice of the man she'd fallen in love with nearly as soon as she'd seen him. "I was just about to call you! Oh, you want me to meet with you in Sankaku Park? Well, I'm going to be bringing a friend of mine, is that okay?" she paused for a moment, turning to look over at Usagi-chan as her friend kept fretting. "The both of us could really use your help with something. Okay, we'll be there soon."

"Naru-chan, are you really sure that this is a good idea?"

"I'm sure things are going to be okay, Usagi-chan," she said, reaching out to take both of Usagi-chan's hands in both of her own.

~SM~

With Naru-chan's blind faith in Nephrite more than obvious to anyone who took even a moment to listen to what she was saying, Usagi felt like she could only follow along as the pair of them made their way to Sankaku Park. It had been Trevor-nii's plan from the start: to use himself to bait either Nephrite, Zoisite, or both of them into attacking. Into showing Naru-chan just what kind of a horrible person he was.

Still, even with Trevor-nii gone, there was still the chance that she'd be able to carry out the plan he'd thought up; there was still a chance that just hearing about how Trevor-nii had been captured not so long ago would drive him to some kind of reaction, something that would let her show Naru-chan just what kind of horrible person Nephrite really was.

When the both of them finally found Nephrite, sitting on a bench near the middle of Sankaku park, Usagi found herself chewing the inside of her left cheek. Naru-chan was as happy to see him as Usagi had been expecting her to be, but the smile on Nephrite's face… Well, she couldn't tell quite what it meant, but she already knew that she didn't like it.

"I'm sorry to call you on such short notice," Nephrite said, though he seemed to be focused more on Naru-chan than on her.

"No, it's fine, really!" Naru-chan said, happily making her way over to the bench where Nephrite was sitting; Usagi, warier than she'd ever felt before, made her own much more careful way over to the bench where Nephrite was sitting. "Usagi and I were really hoping to have your help, anyway."

"You really want me to help you?" Nephrite asked, looking confused; Usagi wondered just how much he was really faking things, or if he was really being honest at all.

"Well, yes," Naru-chan said, turning to Usagi and beckoning her forward.

"My older brother was kidnapped," Usagi said, forcing herself to step forward, sticking her hands in her pockets so that if she did end up clenching her fists, Nephrite wouldn't see it.

Nephrite stared at her for a long moment, and she didn't know what he was thinking behind those cold, blue eyes of his. Then, he smiled; it was a small smile, sure, but Usagi could still see it. "Ah, I suppose that might be my fault. It seems that the people pursuing me might have thought to get to me through one of you."

"Wait, you're in trouble with someone?" Naru-chan exclaimed, turning a worried look on Nephrite as the two of them sat together on the bench that Usagi couldn't quite manage to make herself settle down on with them.

"There's an organization called the Dark Kingdom; they've been pursuing me for longer than I've known Naru-chan, and certainly longer than I knew that she had a friend like you," Nephrite continued, and Usagi almost found herself wondering if he really was trying to escape from the Dark Kingdom.

She didn't think anyone could have really been happy there, and maybe Nephrite was starting to realize that, himself.

With that in mind, Usagi made her way over to the bench where he and Naru-chan were sitting together, letting herself settle down on the opposite side of him.

"You know, I really think there might be a way you can help us," she said, biting her lower lip, wondering if she should call him by the name she knew him by, or the one that Naru-chan kept calling him, and in the end not quite being able to call him anything. "And, maybe there's even a way that we can help you."

"Yes, I think there just might be," Nephrite said, and somehow Usagi thought that the smile on his face might just have been that much softer than it had been the last time.

"Great!" Naru-chan said, jumping to her feet, a bright smile on her face. "Let's get going! It sounds like something bad might be happening to Trevor-kun, and we should probably hurry if we don't want it to get really bad."

"Wait," Nephrite said, even as he and Usagi both stood up together. "I think I know what we need to save your friend's brother," Nephrite continued, his attention clearly focused on Naru-chan again. "Do you know about the Silver Crystal?"

"The Silver Crystal?" Naru-chan asked, even as Usagi felt unsettled by the look in Nephrite's blue eyes.

She still thought it might be possible that Nephrite might be trying to escape from the Dark Kingdom, but she was starting to have her doubts.

"Yes," Nephrite said, a slight smile on his face. "We could trade the Silver Crystal for your friend's older brother. Then the both of us would be free from the Dark Kingdom."

Taking as deep a breath as she could manage, Usagi made her decision; she could only hope that she wasn't going to regret it. "Naru-chan, I'm going to trust you. Nephrite, I hope I can trust you," she said. "Moon Prism Power, make up!"

The familiar feeling of energy pouring into her as Usagi transformed into Sailor Moon again was accompanied this time by Naru-chan's shocked exclamation, and once the light cleared, a calculating expression on Nephrite's face. Sure, he covered it quickly, but Usagi knew she'd have to keep an eye on him. Sure, he might have hated Zoisite, but there was still a chance that he would try to go back to the Dark Kingdom.

"Usagi, you're Sailor Moon?!" Naru-chan exclaimed, looking surprised and also happy, at the same time. "Wow, that's amazing!"

"So, your name is Usagi, is it?" Nephrite asked.

"Yeah, and I know your name is Nephrite," she said, trying to be as kind as she could, so that she wouldn't end up driving him away if he was trying to escape from the Dark Kingdom. "I might not know just where the Silver Crystal really is, but I can help you escape from the Dark Kingdom, if that's what you really want."

Neither Nephrite nor Naru-chan seemed to know what to say in response, but Nephrite recovered his composure a lot faster than Naru-chan. Usagi hoped that it was because he genuinely wanted to help, to escape from the Dark Kingdom, and not because he was planning to team up with Zoisite to attack her, once they managed to find out where Trevor-nii was being held captive.

"Zoisite's mostly likely behind this," Nephrite said, after staring intently at her for a bit. "He's probably operating out of the old mansion you found your brother in the last time."

"Right," she said, nodding and suppressing a shudder at having to go back to that spooky old place, she tapped her communicator to signal the rest of the Sailor Senshi.

Before any of them could start moving, however, a youma leaped out of the line of bushes on their left.

"So, Nephrite, you are trying to betray the Dark Kingdom!" the youma shouted, throwing herself at Nephrite.

"Moon Tiara Action!" Usagi shouted in response, even as she heard Nephrite calling out his own Starlight Attack, and together the both of them were able to destroy the youma much faster than Usagi had ever been able to do on her own.

"Zoisite must have been using that youma to track me," Nephrite said, narrowing his eyes. "He'll be planning for my arrival, now."

"Don't worry," Usagi said, smiling back at him. "I'll protect you," she said, offering him a thumbs up, even as he looked back at her in confusion.