[Scene: A bar. The crowd is making panicked noises while men with halloween masks are pointing guns at the bartender as at random bar patrons.]
Gunman: Phones, jewelry, and wallets on the tables. Everyone cooperate and nobody gets hurt!
[Motoki and Minako are sitting at a table far in the back. Motoki's eyes are as wide as saucers.]
[None of the armed men are looking in his direction. He slouches in his seat and looks at the opened exit, just a few yards away at the back of the bar.]
Motoki: [to Minako] Sorry if this seems cowardly, but it's my second anniversary. I really can't afford for Reika to find out I'm trapped in a bar right now.
Minako: [nods and ducks down] Right behind you, manwhore.
[They sneak away then break into a run as they near the doorway.]
[Motoki backs up with a gun jabbed against his face as two more masked robbers, a man and a woman, appear at the exit.]
Female Robber: Oh, no. You two aren't going anywhere.
[The woman, in a Sailor V mask, grabs Minako from behind and holds a knife to her throat and drags her closer to the middle of the bar]
[At the front of the bar the robbers are locking the door, closing the shutters, and gathering up money and valuables. The bartender has opened the register and has handed over about a thousand in cash.]
Gunman: [brandishing a shotgun at the bartender] Now open the safe.
Bartender: [on the edge of hysteria] I don't know the combination. Only the owners know the combination.
[The gunman stares at him through the mask.]
Bartender: I can call them...?
Gunman: Guess.
Bartender: Guess?
Gunman: You've got five minutes to figure out the combination to that safe before we start killing hostages... One by one, until you get that safe open.]
[The crowd murmurs in fear.]
Gunman2: You said nobody is going to get hurt.
Gunman: If they cooperate. [waves his gun at the bartender] He's not cooperating.
[The bartender is weeping with terror as he starts entering combinations in the safe.]
[Minako's mind drifts to an earlier time. A time she is certain doesn't exist, as she remembers sitting on her bed in a yellow ballgown.]
[She'd snuck away from a party in order to meet Kunzite in her bedroom. It had been hours. Tears stung at her eyes because she was missing the party, and now she was certain he wouldn't show up.]
[Little did she know of the gristly surprise waiting for her back in the ballroom...]
[She'd screwed up. She allowed herself to be tricked, and she couldn't save anyone that day.]
[She starts to accept those aren't dreams. Those were memories of a former life cut violently short.]
[She had achieved so much in that life. The rendezvous was just her last fatal blunder...]
Minako: To hell with this.
[She kicks really high up, smashing the nose of the woman in back of her, and knocking her mask up. Minako spins, grabs the knife with one hand and the Sailor V mask with the other.
Minako: Nice mask.
[Minako dons the mask before tossing the unmasked woman aside with a judo throw.]
[The gunman with the shotgun aimed at the bartender turns to look at Minako]
Gunman: What the hell?
[Minako throws the knife, piercing the muscles in the robber's thigh and pinning his pant-leg to the bar. He screams in pain and has to drop the shotgun on the bar to staunch the bleeding. The bartender grabs the shotgun.]
Another robber: Get her!
[People scream and take cover and the bartender ducks down as three of the four remaining robbers open fire on Minako all at once.]
[The instant before they fire, Minako does a running leap and does a cartwheel over a circular table, bringing it down before her to act as a shield. She lies on the floor as bulletholes riddle the surface and a shotgun blast takes out the top half of it.]
Minako: [looking up at the ruined table] Rude.
[She uses the gap at the top of the table as a springboard as she leaps up onto another table, taking out another robber with her fist as she goes. Once perched on the table, a robber swings as her with a knife, but she merely hops back so the table flips up and hits him in the elbow. She grabs his hair and slams him face first into the table to stabilize it again. He drops and she leaps off the table and grabs one of the last two robbers and swings him around to use him as a human shield.]
[The other gunman shoots right at his legs, hitting him in the kneecap.]
Minako: [releasing the howling man] Now that was beyond rude.
[The bartender emerges from behind the bar with the shotgun aiming it at the last masked man]
Bartender: Drop your weapon!
[The mask man stands there, looking indecisive]
Minako: I'd do it. You're outnumbered.
[The robber puts down the gun and raises his hands.]
[The patrons, seeing the danger is over, start to emerge from behind the tables. They are staring at Minako with adoring eyes and some seem to be chanting under their breath. At first Minako can't make out what they are saying but the chanting grows louder and louder until it is nearly deafening.
Crowd: Sailor V! Sailor V Sailor V! Sailor V! Sailor V!...
[Minako smiles a happy smile for the first time in weeks and salutes them with a V for Victory.]