dotmoon.net
Directory

Hands Fall Together by Kihin Ranno

previous  Part Five: Sea of Strife  next

The sound of the door shutting so sharply, the sound of Hino Rei turning her back on her comrades and her duty, would no doubt go on echoing in their minds for much longer than it rang out in their ears.

For a few moments, no one could think of anything to say. No one could even look at each other. Mercury still had her hands on Tuxedo Kamen's shoulders, instinctively squeezing them a little. She wasn't sure if that was to comfort him or to remind herself that this was all still real. She had a tendency to forget that it wasn't all just a dream, and she was beginning to make a habit out of forcing herself to remember that she was still awake.

Tuxedo Kamen didn't seem to register the gesture regardless of its intentions, dropping his gaze to look at the little red pen in his hand, still glittering in the afternoon light. He swallowed, thinking back on the promise he had made to himself that he wouldn't allow anyone else to be dragged into this against their will. He had no one but himself to blame for this, and he should have counted on someone taking his offer seriously given what he was asking them to give up. Still, he couldn't help but feel shocked and more than a little betrayed.

Suddenly, Luna's tail swished back and forth, hitting Tuxedo Kamen on the back of his arm. The movement was hardly enough to rouse him, but he was certainly paying attention when Luna pushed herself off his leg, rounding in front of him. She was furious, her tail fluffing out to three times its normal size, her bright eyes flashing in the afternoon light.

"Well, I hope you're satisfied, Mamoru," Luna snapped, making Mercury jump a little at how ferocious the little cat could be. "You had absolutely no right to tell her that she had the option of backing out on her destiny."

"Luna," Tuxedo Kamen started, his voice sounding strained and a bit breathy.

"No," Luna interrupted. "You cannot tell people that sort of thing, Mamoru. I was amazed when Ami agreed to band with us when you all but told her that she could leave. Thank God she did, or you would probably be dead right now. That's why I was stupid enough to let you go on like that again today. Perhaps I assumed that all of the Senshi would feel some sort of call to arms. It was stupid of me to let you talk, and it was stupid of you to open your mouth in the first place."

Tuxedo Kamen sighed, clearing his throat. "Luna, I'm sorry. This isn't how--"

"It's as much my fault as yours, so don't apologize," Luna said, her tone making it sound like she wasn't really shouldering any of the blame at all. "But the fact remains that we need her. We need the Senshi, Mamoru. We need them to protect the princess and to save the world. There's only so much you can do on your--"

She was cut off by Tuxedo Kamen once again launching into a coughing fit. This one sounded worse than the last one, coming from the bottom of his lungs. He bent forward, his shoulders heaving. He was gasping for breath, trying to get enough air to force the cough out of his throat. After a few moments, it was beginning to look as if that wasn't possible.

"Mamoru!" Mercury cried, gripping his shoulders harder. When she saw how much he was struggling, she rubbed his back a bit, remembering a technique she had learned from her mother. It seemed to help some. The gesture relaxed the muscles a bit, and it likely calmed him down besides. "Just try and relax. I know it's hard, but fight against the cough and try to breathe, okay?"

Tuxedo Kamen nodded, knowing she was right, but finding that it was one of those easier said than done things.

The blue soldier looked back at Luna and said, "Luna, I'm just as upset about this as you are, but I think we have more important things to worry about right now."

All of Luna's anger had faded away when the coughing had started. She relaxed enough to just look tense as opposed to angry. She swallowed and said, "Just how bad was that battle, Ami?"

"Bad," Mercury said, still doing her best to calm Tuxedo Kamen down enough to breathe regularly. "When Rei started showing the signs... He put himself between us while I tried to figure out what to..." Mercury screwed up her face, taking one hand away from her comrade's shoulder and clenching it as tightly as she could. "I should have been able to help him. I tried, really, but--"

"I'm sure you did all you could," Luna told her, not sounding particularly convincing. Her focus was on Mamoru, not on Ami, and the girl would not begrudge the feline her preferences.

A minute later, the fit had passed, leaving Tuxedo Kamen utterly exhausted and panting to try and make up for the oxygen he hadn't been able to take in. He was still holding onto one of his sides, making them all wonder if perhaps his ribs were in worse shape than they had previously believed. He swallowed and said, "Is there any way to make this accelerated healing thing accelerate a little bit more?"

Luna narrowed her large eyes, her pupils readjusting to larger slits. "Your injuries are a lot worse than they usually are, Mamoru. I'm not sure that even that would be helpful at this point."

Tuxedo Kamen looked a little alarmed. "But if Rei won't help, then I can't afford--"

"We will worry about that later, Mamoru," Luna said as soothingly as she could. Unfortunately, it was quite clear that she was already worrying about it, and she was probably going to keep doing so until the problem was somehow solved. "Right now we need to concentrate on getting you fixed up... somehow."

Mercury looked to the left for a second, then nodded smartly. She rose to her feet, letting her transformation fade away with the blink of an eye. Then she looked out at the horizon and said, "We're going to have to take him to a hospital. Just as soon as I figure out where it is exactly."

Ami had a fairly good sense of direction, but she wasn't entirely certain of which direction the cultural center was facing. She glanced up at where the sun was, guessing that it was a little after one o'clock. Then she turned around, facing in the direction that she figured what she was looking for would be located. Indeed, several blocks away, she caught sight of a large white building she was all too familiar with.

"There it is," Ami murmured, unsure of whether she should relax or worry about what was going to happen next. She looked down at Tuxedo Kamen, almost asking him if he would be able to make it on his own. Then she shook her head and told him, "There's no way you can get anywhere without my help. Come on, I'll get you up."

She crouched down again, slinging Tuxedo Kamen's arm over her shoulders. The pair struggled to get to their feet, but they managed it somehow. Ami could already tell that the walk was going to be slow. There was a fairly large disparity in their heights, and Tuxedo Kamen was already leaning over at a fairly awkward angle to accommodate for it. Then again, Ami was willing to bet that he wouldn't have been able to stand up straight to begin with, so it was just as well.

"How are you going to explain me?" Tuxedo Kamen asked, grinning morbidly. "Say my white horse trampled me?"

Ami paused, shrugging as much as she could with the additional approximately one hundred and seventy pounds. "I'll think of something, but I think it would be better if Chiba Mamoru checked into the hospital."

Luna nodded in agreement. "I'd rather not think of the media's response to you."

He sighed and managed to shake off the magic, stumbling a little as he did so. Ami grabbed him before he fell, and Mamoru laughed a bit. "Mizuno Ami to the rescue now?"

"For the time being," Ami said neutrally. "Come on, there's a hospital just a few blocks away." She looked him over one more time, reconsidering his health. "Can you make it there or do we have to call an ambulance?"

"I think I can make it," Mamoru wagered cautiously. "But I'm not sure if I have my insurance card on me. In spite of my living arrangements, I am on a fixed budget."

"It'll be fine," Ami assured him.

He raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure about that?"

Ami nodded with certainty. "Yes, I'm sure."

"How do you know?"

"They know me, so I should be able to arrange it with the billing office," Ami explained leading them over to the door, opening it with some difficulty.

Luna trotted after them, saying, "They know you?"

"Quite well actually," Ami said as the group began what she assumed would be a very slow trip down the stairs. "My mother's been a doctor there for five years now."

-----


Tetis was content for the first time since her creation, whenever that had been. Youma had no memories of the times of their birth. There had been a period when they had not existed, and a period when they began to exist, but the moment when one thing ended and another began was of no consequence.

However, the second ending, death, was something that each of them was very cognizant of and quite desperate to avoid. They had now had a taste of this thing called living, and none of them was particularly eager to give up on it willingly. They were not a people prone to suicide. They were desperate for life, hungry for it.

Perhaps it had something to do with their penchant for collecting energy. Drinking the lives of others made them more aware of their own. Tetis couldn't be sure. She was too tired now to wax philosophical, and it was generally something she tried to avoid anyway.

The fact remained that Tetis now understood the word ‘serenity,' the one that Queen Beryl threw around in fury and hunger for vengeance. She, of course, was talking about something entirely different from the concept. Tetis was beginning to find it amusing that women named for peace possessed the ability to cause such rage and chaos, but such had been the price for their power.

But what did Tetis care for the Serenity the first or the second? What did Queen Beryl's vendetta matter to her now that she had accomplished her goal? What was the sense in killing and slaving before her now that she had taken Jadeite at long last?

She had first seen him shortly after her existence was confirmed. He had been with the other three, fighting amongst one another with the amiable rivalries that sparring could produce. Zoisite with his vicious bending of the rules and backstabbing that rarely came to fruition. Nephrite with his calculated movements sometimes over-thought and therefore often undermined. Kunzite with his quiet superiority and capability, never once brought to anger, though she could smell his capacity for the foulest sort of wrath.

And Jadeite, moving and striking like the fire she knew he feared. He was light weaving between them all, reacting more than acting. He was reckless, but not fearless. He had a look in his eyes that made her think that he had never heard the word caution for he had never needed it. He was the type that fortune smiled upon, as things worked out for him without much effort. He was hit, but never hard enough to leave a scar. It would take a heavy blow to knock the wild out of him, perhaps one even heavier than the great Kunzite could land.

He was fire with bright eyes and golden hair. He was vicious power, he was irresponsible reliability, he was a destroyer who would leave ashes behind so that all would remember the damage he had done. He was like that boy with the wings of wax who had flown too close to the sun. Except for Jadeite, the fire of the sun had only scorched him, leaving the memory of its damage and infusing him with its spirit all at one. Thus, he still flew, still laughed, but never again wanted to go near. After all, there were other dangers he could tempt.

Jadeite was fire. And Tetis was water. Deceptive in her calm, plotting in her silence. While beneath her still surface, she churned with a restlessness that would not leave her. Since setting eyes on him, nothing could still her. Nothing could tame her. She was as wild as he, but with the good sense to appear controlled.

It was the juxtaposition of her tranquil surface and her uncontrollable depths that had made her a killer. She had the thirst for blood, but the steady hand to rob others of their life.

She did not often drink it in as others did. She had no thirst for the energies of others. She had only thirsted for him.

That was why she killed. To be noticed. To be worthy. Perhaps to even be propositioned, but he kept his distance. He was willful, but he was determined. His duty would always come first for him. It was why he stayed away from her. He saw the looks she gave him, and knew that to bed her would have a heavier price than he was willing or able to pay.

So he took in the stupid ones if he took in any at all. The ones who did not realize how their predecessors had a habit of meeting untimely, bloody ends upon leaving his chambers. The ones who paid no attention to the twisted innards left out in the open for others to feed on, meant to be a warning. She should not have even had to say, "Touch him and I will bring you to ruin." But most of her kind were brainless. She had opened their skulls and seen for herself, seeing nothing much to constitute a mind.

He had known of course. He just hadn't cared. He had never cared much for her kind, and at times she thought that it was with good reason.

Yet never had she ceased in her want for him. Always she had killed for him. Always she had worked for him. Even as she genuflected before the damned queen, Tetis had bowed to him, pledging him her allegiance and her fidelity and all of her passions.

Until he had found need of her, he had kept his distance. Jadeite had been backed into a corner, and had no choice but to allow himself to be taken. Tetis did not doubt that he knew that his surrender had not been entirely willful, and she doubted that he cared at this point. He could sense Fortune turning her back on him, and he would do anything to carry her favor again. Even slake the desires of a murderous demon to save his hide.

She had wanted him since she had known what memory was. Now that her wanting had been appeased, Tetis rested for the first time since she had ceased to not be.

Whenever that had been.

-----


Tetis was lying on his chest, her hand idly tracing the outline of his abdominal muscles, but Jadeite wasn't paying much attention to that. He was glaring up at the ceiling above them, his hands clasped beneath his head. He was thinking, trying to plot, and failing; however, he was known for always trying and always pressing forward, so he did not turn his mind to other things. Not even the woman draped over him, a situation that would have demanded his attentions at any other moment.

Jadeite knew that having Tetis on his side was going to afford him certain advantages, but he wasn't sure how he was going to use her. She could collect energy as well as the next youma, but she was a killer. While that would be helpful in getting rid of the Senshi and that Tuxedo Kamen, it wouldn't be much use for his primary mission.

Regardless of what Queen Beryl had implied, Jadeite knew full well that the Awakening would always take precedence over anything else. She would revel and dance in the blood of her enemies spilt, but she would no doubt weep when the Empress came forth once again. Thus, he had to keep gathering energy. He had to collect the fuel that would power their assault.

His survival was imperative, and not just for his own instincts. He was valuable to them, and if Beryl were not so subjective to her fits of passion, she would have realized that. Jadeite was nothing if not devoted towards their goal, and he was determined to see it to its end. He would succeed on all fronts and be heralded in the Dark Kingdom for it, or he would die trying.

Obviously, he wasn't too keen on the alternative he had given himself.

"You're tense," Tetis observed, quirking an eyebrow in a manner she thought was alluring. She was right, but it didn't have its usual effect. "Care for another go?"

Truthfully, he wouldn't have minded, but his mission took precedence. Jadeite pulled one of his arms free and pounded on the stone headboard behind him. It was sudden enough to send most youma skittering into the shadows, and it had many times before. However, Tetis seemed all too content to meld herself to him, and she did not move nor even show any hint of surprise. In fact, she acted as if she had been expecting it.

"Of course I'm tense," Jadeite whispered fiercely through clenched teeth. "You told Queen Beryl I'd bring her back three corpses when I haven't managed to get one yet. Do you expect me to be calm?"

He wasn't nearly as furious with her as he appeared. After all, if she had not offered, it would have been demanded of him or he would have been killed. In a very strange way, he was almost grateful. It did not change the fact that he had no idea how to go about any of it.

Tetis let a quick puff of air out through her nostrils, flipping her hair over her bare shoulder. "Oh, that."

"Yes, that," Jadeite snapped, amazed at how flippantly she seemed to now regard his life. She claimed to be infatuated with him, she had saved him, and now she did not care for his desperation. It was vexing to say the very least. "My very existence, the act of breathing... It's something I've grown rather attached to over the years."

"Imagine that," Tetis remarked dryly, amused by his histrionics.

Jadeite glared down at her, still marveling at her attitude. "I'm serious, Tetis! I am not particularly eager to die! But if it has to happen, I'm not going out a failure who couldn't get rid of an amateur dressed like he's going to a funeral and a couple of schoolgirls! It's not going to happen!"

Tetis looked up at him, unmoved by his passion. He could tell from her posture that she would prefer it expressed in another outlet, and she found this expenditure irritating. He wanted to punch the wall again, but his hand still hurt, and he would not harm the other one.

"You have me now, Jadeite," she purred, smoothing his hair behind his ears. "Stop worrying."

He jerked his head, leaving her fingers hanging in the air with nothing to hold. "It would be easier to tell the wind to change direction."

"The wind would listen eventually," Tetis soothed. "If I talk at it long enough, eventually it alters course. Whether from my suggestion or by its own volition, all things must eventually change."

"You'd still take credit for it," Jadeite muttered, bitterly remembering her promise.

Tetis shrugged and readjusted herself in an attempt to stir him again. By force of will, Jadeite did not react, however much he may or may not have wanted to.

Tetis frowned at him, almost awed by his stubbornness. Then again, that was a trait of his that she had not found quite as appealing as some others. "Will nothing make you rest for awhile? If you don't, I can tell you right now that you'll either go batty or you'll become as boring as Kunzite."

Jadeite snorted. He knew Kunzite better than to ever consider the man boring, even in his stony silences. Still, it was a short-lived amusement, and once it had passed, he was just as ill-tempered as before. "A solution to my troubles would make me more susceptible to your womanly wiles. Womanly as a demon can be."

Tetis briefly appeared insulted, but she brushed it aside. She knew better than to assume that his cruelty was truly directed at her. "You should learn to not let your troubles consume you."

"You should learn not to add to them so that they have to," Jadeite countered.

Tetis waved her hand as if that could erase any validity in his point. "You are lucky that I did not keep silent. I didn't see any of your Shitennou coming to your aid. If someone had not spoken, you would never have had the chance to again."

Jadeite regarded her for a moment, considering something. "That was a risky thing to do."

Tetis smiled. It was the closest thing she would ever get to a thank you. "Not as risky as all that. I'm the closest thing to a friend Queen Beryl has. She has a tendency to listen to me."

"She has a tendency to listen to Kunzite," Jadeite muttered. "He's the one who brought down her order to kill the Senshi and her companion."

Tetis looked momentarily perplexed, but she brushed it aside. "The point is that there was no danger in me standing beside you. I'm too valuable for her to lose."

"And I'm not?" Jadeite asked, mildly offended.

"You are," Tetis assured him. "However, I had not incurred her wrath recently, unlike some people." In case he had missed her reference, she pointed at him, a smile curving onto her lips.

Jadeite growled in vexation, now hitting his head on the wall behind him. He was back to glowering at the ceiling, feeling that blaming an inanimate object was an appropriate response to his problems. "And now I'm right back in the position I began in with one more Senshi to deal with."

"You make murder sound like it isn't easy," Tetis observed.

"When it comes to those three, it isn't," Jadeite said wearily. "I just... I don't know what to do. Nothing is coming to me."

Tetis laughed throatily, sitting up and leaning in closer to his face. She ran her fingers along his jaw line, curving around his ear and into his hair. "Well, you haven't been able to devote all of your attention to it."

He snorted. "Yes. And you're not doing anything to change that either."

"Damn me and my demonic wiles," she quipped, her dark eyes sparkling.

"If I could just figure out a way to unsettle them," he muttered, starting to think that he might be on the verge of a breakthrough. "They're beginning to get used to our tactics, our patterns. If I could think of some way to alter them, to catch them off guard, it would be easier to defeat them."

"I am going to repeat myself for the last time, and this time you are going to listen. Re-lax." Tetis instructed him, enunciating the syllables separately in the last word.

"What makes this time different from the others?" Jadeite queried, almost interested.

"Because I already have a plan."

Jadeite blinked and looked up at her. She had said that entirely too conversationally for him to grasp its full meaning immediately. "You do?"

"Yes," she reiterated, laughing a little.

He found this most intriguing. "Would you like to tell me about it?"

"Maybe." Tetis smiled wickedly, placing both of her hands on his chest and shifting herself lower on his body. She crawled backwards, her head moving farther and farther away from his face and towards something else entirely. "First, you need to unwind."

That wasn't exactly what happened, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

-----


Rei had hoped that stomping up the stairs to the Hikawa Shrine would do something to improve her mood or at least allow her to vent some of her frustrations. Sadly, it didn't. All it really served to do was tire her, which only made her that much more annoyed with the world at large.

Perhaps it was foolish of her to be angry, but it was an emotion she was familiar with. She had hoped to take some comfort in assigning blame to the one who had attacked her, to the ones who had protected her, and to humanity as a whole for somehow bringing this plague upon themselves. But she could only convince herself of her rage for so long before she admitted that her emotions were much, much closer to fear.

She had been trembling ever since she left the cultural center, struggling to resist the urge to flee in terror. It would look strange for people to see someone running around Tokyo as if the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels. The sight of one person running might very well alert them to a danger that only she could now sense. They might try to run with her and slow her progress, or they might stop her and ask her to explain. Had she started running, she would have never wanted to stop until she fled Tokyo, Japan, Asia, and then ran right off the edge of the world and plummeted into the oblivion of what lay beyond the world. Still, she would feel as if the dogs were coming up behind her, either to devour her or drag her down to their home to suffer alongside them.

Rei felt some amount of shame from her reaction. She had always known about the existence of evil. She'd even been trained in banishing it, but she'd still never expected to have such a direct confrontation with it. She sensed the darker parts of people. She would either avoid them or watch them, finding some comfort in being able to pinpoint the source of corruption. If she knew evil's face, she would never have to know evil.

How was Rei to know that evil was not the sort of thing that could be avoided? How could she have guessed that her sixth sense had led her straight to it in spite of all her caution? Or perhaps it really was after her. Perhaps it had sensed her aversion and pounced, wishing to crush her for it.

Then again, it was more likely that it wanted to crush it because now she not only had the power to banish it, but to destroy it. She could kill it. It would likely fear and revile anything with that power.

She was thankful to have given it up.

Rei stood at the top of Sendai Hill just breathing for a moment before it felt like her knees were giving way. Before she crumbled, she forced herself to sit down, landing rather painfully on her backside. She felt spent even though the walk had not been much of a trek. Being attacked, having to defend herself, and realizing the reality of her fears had been taxing to say the very least. It was barely an hour past noon, and all Rei wanted to do was sleep for decades until she forgot how to fear.

She looked out at the street before her, half expecting either Mizuno Ami or Chiba Mamoru to round the corner to speak to her. Or maybe even that cat. They certainly hadn't expected her to walk away. She would have understood if at least one of them had come after her. She would have been enraged, but it would have made perfect sense.

How could they have expected her to join them? They were asking her to throw her life away. They were asking her to toe the line with death on a daily basis. What was she supposed to do?

She had other responsibilities. She had to care for her grandfather and the shrine. She had a life, no matter what they might have assumed. Perhaps it wasn't much of a life at the moment, but she had goals and aspirations beyond being a shrine maiden. She knew she was capable and talented, and that meant that there were a lot of doors open to her. None of them included fighting hell in a miniskirt.

How dare they? How dare they ask her to do this? And how dare they expect her to take the task on willingly?

Rei had no interest in joining them. It may have been her so-called destiny, but she wouldn't accept that. As far as she was concerned, there was no such thing as fate. There were choices to be made. She could choose to fight or she could choose to abstain, and her life would go on however she dictated it from there. She was someone who enjoyed being in control, and she was someone who was always in control. She would not entertain the notion that she was some pawn in a game. That was simply idiocy.

Besides, Chiba Mamoru or Tuxedo Kamen or whatever else he went by had given her a free pass. He had told her that she could leave. She had done nothing more than take him up on his offer. She had nothing to feel guilty and they had nothing to blame her for.

Still, as she looked out at the cars speeding by and the people meandering on the street, she couldn't help but see them as waiting victims. They went on, completely unaware of what had transpired at the cultural center. They didn't know that there had been a monster and a man who stole the energy of innocent people. They didn't know they were in danger by the very nature of their existence. And they certainly didn't know that their only defenders were a shy junior high girl and an arrogant, headstrong boy.

They were all in danger, and they didn't even know it.

Rei shook her head vehemently and forced herself to her feet. It wasn't her affair. Those people would just find someone else to do her job for her. Someone who didn't have a sick grandfather and lofty goals.

She turned to find her grandfather standing just behind her, looking at her. Rei jumped a little when she saw him, clutching at her heart. A split second later, she looked at him crossly and said, "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that."

He was looking at her, thinking about something. A moment later, she realized he was trying to read her. She had no interest in dealing with his scrutiny and walked past him. Of course, he followed her, but that was his prerogative.

"You're upset about something," her grandfather observed.

Rei tossed her hair haughtily, glancing over her shoulder. "Well, according to you, that's hardly an anomaly."

He pressed on in spite of, or perhaps because of, her attitude. "It's not the same, Rei. Did something happen?"

Rei stopped abruptly, her legs locking in a manner that wasn't entirely of her own accord. Had something happened? Well, yes something had certainly happened. Her class had been attacked, she'd nearly died several times, and then two people and a talking feline had offered to make this a daily occurrence.

"It's nothing," Rei insisted, fully aware that she didn't sound at all convincing. "The class just didn't go very well. That's all."

"That's all?"

Rei briefly considered telling him about the attack, but she very much doubted he was going to hear about it. It would no doubt be hushed up by the center as much as possible. Even if it did get out, her grandfather was hardly the type to keep up with current events. He hadn't heard about the Berlin Wall coming down until the week after it happened. Not that the news had particularly impressed him.

"Yes," she reiterated, flexing her stiffening fingers. "I'm going to go meditate. Try and unwind."

She left without another word, leaving her grandfather to marvel at the moodiness that teenagers experienced and how it seemed to magnify itself tenfold in his granddaughter.

"I am a very unlucky man," he muttered before going on about his business.

-----


Tanaka Sho was utterly, dreadfully, completely, horribly, and mind-numbingly bored.

He sighed pathetically, pushing the air upwards to blow his ginger-colored bangs straight upwards. He tapped his pencil to the beat of the latest pop hit playing on the radio, singing along under his breath, but this did nothing to alleviate his complete and utter boredom. All it really did was remind him of just how desperate for a distraction he was, and that did absolutely nothing for him.

Sho was still astounded that he could possibly be bored in an emergency room on a Saturday, but somehow, he had managed it. He was the current duty nurse who would also act as a triage nurse if the situation called for it. However, on this particular day, almost no one was coming in with any emergency of any kind, and it was driving him batty.

The only cases that had come in were the same old exhaustion cases they'd been getting for the past couple weeks, but that failed to have the same excitement that it had garnered in the beginning. That certainly had been attention-getting, back when everything was new and atypical. One exhaustion case was normal. Especially considering the elevating heat. Even two or three cases coming in within hours of each other wasn't anything to get excited about. But entire groups of people being led in to the emergency room because they had suddenly fainted without any warning or cause whatsoever? That had been thrilling.

Now it was nothing out of the ordinary. Today, those cases had been trickling in, and while he was sorry about the one little boy who had been carried in by his sobbing older brother, he couldn't say that it he found it all that interesting anymore. He had soothed and patted and patched up, but he had been snoring on the inside.

He had also been wondering why no one would just crash their car or drive a metal spike through their hand or something to break the monotony.

What he did find interesting was the reaction of the higher ups. They had been growing increasingly nervous about the number and the severity of the exhaustion cases up to this point. They had been on the rise and getting steadily worse. The various staff members and administration were beginning to wonder if they had some kind of epidemic on their hands.

Most of the doctors thought the idea was ridiculous. The patients shared no common blood types, allergies, or symptoms other than their acute exhaustion. In fact, that was usually their only symptom. It wasn't mono, it wasn't the flu, and it wasn't anything more serious. They were tested for viruses, for bacteria, for infections, for tumors, for just about everything that they could test for. They found nothing in common if they found anything at all.

Still, the sheer numbers was what worried the hospital staff, and that was why they were holding a meeting right now, trying to decide if they should release this sensitive information to the public. Sho thought that such an announcement would be just the sort of thing to jump start his day, but he'd been waiting for them to make that decision for hours now. He had seen no reporters lining up outside as of yet. But, it was still only early afternoon. There was a chance that one could still be called.

He would cling to that hope because it was the only thing that kept him awake.

Sho sighed longingly. "A nap..." he whispered to himself, folding his arms into a makeshift pillow. "A nap would be so amazing right now."

He was about to lay his head down when the automatic doors banged opened. Sho looked up suddenly and was surprised to find Mizuno Ami, daughter of the prominent doctor Mizuno Emi, stumbling through the doors. Sho was even more surprised to see a young man leaning on her heavily, coughing violently. He had several open wounds, he wasn't too steady on his feet, and Sho could tell that he was a few steps away from passing out. With his head wound, it wasn't paranoid to worry that he might not be able to get up again.

"Doctor!" he shouted, pushing himself out from behind the desk to help the young girl and her companion. "I need a doctor out here now!"

Though Sho played the perfect doting, concerned nurse, he couldn't help but feel his spirits lift a little. Not only did he have something to do, but the notoriously shy daughter of one of the finest doctors in all of Juuban had brought in a very handsome looking catch indeed. A project for now, and plenty of gossip for later.

Finally, a little excitement!

-----


It had been two hours since Ami had brought Mamoru to the hospital.

Ami was pacing back and forth in the waiting room, biding her time uselessly until her mother could come down and inform her of Mamoru's condition. She wasn't normally the sort of person who paced. She preferred to sit silently and contemplate whatever it was that was upsetting her. It was in those moments that she often found solutions to problems or insights into things she had never given herself the time to consider before. Even if she discovered nothing, she was content to remain still and meditative, properly waiting for news, good or bad, with poise and thoughtfulness.

Yet, for whatever reason, Ami couldn't sit still. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that she was slowly getting used to acting rather than thinking. She had always known that what she learned in school would need to be applied later in life, but she had never expected to be so active at this point. And she certainly would have never dreamed that her actions would have such important consequences.

She was perhaps doing even more good than her mother, who was healing the sick and wounded as they came to her. Ami was attempting to and sometimes succeeding at cutting them off at the source. She was doing some good in the world... She and Mamoru both. And now there was a possibility that he was severely wounded.

Ami had never been so terrified as when she'd watched him depend on her to move and even to breathe properly. She had regarded him as such a pillar of strength even before she had known of his other identity. There was a sturdiness and a dependability that Mamoru radiated without even meaning to that she took comfort in. He was a rock to lean on and a powerful force in spite of his lack of power. She absorbed some of that confidence into herself. It was the only thing that had kept her from running in fear at the battle earlier. He had silently given her some assurance that she was capable. Even at her weakest, she felt stronger than she ever had previously because of his presence.

To see him falter, to see him battered and unable to function under his own power, was scarier than any demon hell could conjure. She had feigned at being under control, and perhaps she had been due to the necessity of it. But now that she could think about what was happening, she felt like a child losing her father all over again. Everything she had come to expect was turned upside down and she was left alone while Mamoru struggled against something that he might lose against.

And all she could do was pace.

Ami was about to see if cursing would make her feel better when her mother came walking through the automatic doors. The ever graceful Mizuno Emi straightened her glasses with her forefinger, flipping through several papers on a clipboard and chewing on the inside of her lip, a habit she detested and claimed to have picked up from her ex-husband.

"Mama!" Ami called out in relief, running up to her in spite of the strange look the older woman gave her. "How's Mamoru? Is he--"

"Ami, how did you say Chiba-san got hurt again?" her mother asked, pursing her lips.

Ami stopped short, wishing that her mother had asked her any other question on the face of the universe than that one. She swallowed and began her story, doing her best to hold unwavering eye contact with the woman and laying her palms flat against her skirt to absorb the sweat coming off her palms.

"I don't know what he was thinking," Ami began nervously, swallowing even though there was nothing in her mouth to swallow. "He's usually so much more sensible than this... He was riding his motorcycle. He was driving pretty fast, so I guess he must have been in a hurry. Maybe he forgot to put on his helmet and that's why..." She was rambling and she knew it. And she knew that she only rambled when she was lying even though she didn't have very many occasions to lie. She stopped for a moment to collect herself before she began again. "Anyway, it was a sharp corner, and I suppose he leaned in too far, and he... fell."

"He fell," Emi repeated briskly, making a note of that on her chart. "And the bike landed on top of him, and they both skidded and flipped about on the road a bit before you got to him?"

Ami nodded. "Yes."

"Where did this happen?" Emi asked, narrowing her eyes slightly.

Ami's fingers twitched at her sides. "I... I'm not entirely sure. I was just out walking. I wasn't paying much attention to where I was at the time. I didn't think the hospital was too far so I grabbed Mamoru and helped him here."

Her mother didn't immediately respond, looking at Ami directly. The younger girl began to panic, thinking that perhaps her mother somehow knew she was lying and what she was lying about. She had never lied to her mother before. She wasn't particularly good at it.

Just as Ami was about to do something drastic like blurt out the truth or run away, her mother looked back down at Mamoru's chart, scribbling something in her oddly legible scrawl. "Well, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out. After all, people don't often leave their motorcycles lying in the street."

"Actually," Ami started in a voice that must have been a bit too loud judging by the way her mother jumped. Ami cleared her throat and tried again. "Actually, I forgot to mention this... His friend was walking on the other side of the street. He got on the bike and took it back to Mamoru's."

Emi stared at Ami blankly. "He took it back to Mamoru's."

"Yes," Ami repeated, tensing.

"He took the bike back to Mamoru's instead of helping you get Mamoru here?" Emi asked incredulously, making Ami realize her mistake.

"Well, Mamoru asked him to," Ami insisted. "I suppose we shouldn't have listened. He was rather incoherent at the time, but he was quite forceful about it. He wouldn't even let us move him. So eventually his friend agreed and took off before I could say anything."

Emi held her daughter's gaze for a few moments before looking back down on her chart, her pen flying over the paper. "You know, if that's true, Ami, then your friend Chiba Mamoru must have had a very strange accident."

Ami hoped that her panic wasn't as evident on her face as she thought it was. "What do you mean, Mama?"

"It looks more like someone beat him up," Emi remarked, trying to make her words sound casual, but still emphasizing her point well enough. "Badly."

Ami didn't know how to respond to that. Her mother had all but admitted that she knew that her daughter was fabricating the whole story. She was clearly upset by it, but she wasn't really doing much about it. Ami had never actually been in trouble with her mother before, and she wasn't certain of how she should react.

After a moment, Emi sighed quietly, shutting her eyes. "Ami, did that boy ask you to lie for him?"

"No!" Ami insisted sharply, unsure of whether to be thankful that she was finally being truthful. "He would never--"

"Ami, I realize that he is an attractive man," Emi said wearily. "And I understand that you are at the age where you are going to start... having an interest in the opposite sex."

Ami had never been so very certain that she wanted to die.

"Mother, that is not--"

"I don't want to hear it," her mother replied, though not unkindly. "Ami, this may not be my specialty, but I know enough about the human body to know that these are not the kind of injuries that are sustained in a motorcycle accident. Someone hurt him. If you continue to hang around with him, it is entirely possible that someone may hurt you."

Ami wanted to counteract that statement, but even though her mother had the situation completely backwards, what she was saying was still true. Ami thought back to Rei and how she'd walked out of their lives, to safety. She was refusing to take up the responsibility, and possibly saving her life in doing so.

Emi misinterpreted the confused and pained looks crossing her daughter's face. She sighed and walked forward, laying her hands on Ami's shoulders. When Ami did not look at her after several more moments, Emi tipped up Ami's face, smoothing her deep blue hair against her forehead.

"I'm sure he appreciates whatever help you have give him," Emi said gently, not wanting to upset her daughter further. Besides, Chiba Mamoru did not seem like the sort of thug every parent feared in spite of his owning a motorcycle. No, he was polite, intelligent, and even a little charming. If anything, he was someone who had been at the wrong place at the wrong time or pulled into an unfortunate situation somehow. As sad as that was, Dr. Mizuno could do nothing to help him. She had her own child to worry about. "You mustn't see him anymore."

Ami's eyes widened in fear. "But, Mama, I--"

"I won't hear any more of it, Ami," her mother said, a little exasperated. Without waiting for a reply, Emi moved away from her daughter, walking past her to continue on her with her business. "You might want to go home now, dear. I'm sure it has been a very long day for you."

She pushed through the doors, leaving Ami alone and stranded in the waiting room, torn between desire and destiny, and already knowing which one she'd choose.

She had loyalty to her mother. It was a loyalty written in their blood and the sort of thing that Ami found very hard to ignore. Nevertheless, there was another allegiance that had been placed there first, long before Ami had been born the second time. She had been a soldier before she had been anyone's daughter, hard as that was for Ami accept even then.

"Sorry, Mama," Ami whispered before turning and heading out the other set of doors.

-----


Laura was beginning to remember why she found Americans so insufferable.

Of course, it was her own bloody fault for getting separated from her tour group, wasn't it? She was the one who had been distracted by the so-called literature (in actuality very poor pamphlet) and taken a right when she should have taken a left. Or perhaps gone straight. If she had known what direction she was meant to have gone, she wouldn't be lost.

However, at the time, Laura had blamed the touring company for handing out pamphlets with very bad wording and several grammatical errors that she had been mentally fixing, hence the wrong turn. Now she was stranded in the middle of Tokyo without her tour group, without a map, and without an interpreter.

It had been her luck (or so she had assumed at the time) that she came across two other English-speaking tourists within moments of her plight. They had agreed to help her reach her first destination to meet up with the tour group, using their maps and their common sense. Laura had been elated and all too eager to follow them to the ends of the Earth. Just so long as it was on the way to her tour group's destination.

Well, as it turned out, the maps were out-dated, and Laura found that their common sense was not of much help when no one else could understand what they were saying. They'd been wandering around the city since ten that morning, and Laura was quite convinced that they had wound up in precisely the same place they had started in.

"There's no time to tie your shoe," the slightly taller woman who went by Kris chastised brusquely. Laura was certain that she was either a mother or an older child. Possibly both. She had been barking orders at the pair since they'd all met up, and it had long since crossed the boundary between understandable and irritating. "We have to get this girl back to her group sometime before the new millennium."

The other woman, who had possessed the audacity to wish to avoid tripping, was known to Laura only as Dezzie. Laura found this quite ridiculous as the woman had the sort of features that would lend themselves to a more classical name like Megan or Rose. Frankly, Laura felt ridiculous every time she said the woman's name.

As it was, Laura also felt inclined to violence every time Dezzie opened her mouth, so she did her best to keep speaking to her at a minimum.

Dezzie sighed tragically, straightening. "But Kris, we've been wandering around for hours and hours and HOURS, and we haven't even stopped to get a drink."

"I told you to get a water bottle before we left the hotel," Kris informed her. "And stop exaggerating. It's only 3:30."

Laura would have liked to point out that Kris had really only proved Dezzie's point, but there was no way she was going to get involved in this row.

"Yes, but I drank it," Dezzie said. "And I'm hungry. And I've had to go to the bathroom for the past hour and a half--"

Kris snorted. "That's what you get for drinking the water so fast, now isn't it?"

"I was thirsty," Dezzie maintained, her voice leaping up a few octaves. She also found it necessary to drag out several of the syllables, causing Laura to twitch involuntarily.

"You weren't thinking ahead," Kris corrected. "The same as always."

Dezzie actually stamped her foot. "You were the one who said we'd be able to get Laura back to her tour group in a few minutes!"

"I miscalculated," Kris supplied, her tone suggesting that it was really best if the conversation end very quickly.

"I just don't see what a harm a food and bathroom break would do," Dezzie responded.

Laura decided that it was best not to say that it was probably best if they kept her away from sharp objects at that point in time. She was just about to check the itinerary and see if the women knew where the next place on the list was, when a smooth male voice halted her movements.

"Are you ladies lost?"

Laura turned and found her cheeks turning a rather embarrassing shade of pink upon laying eyes on the very handsome (and, praise all the heavens, English-speaking) man standing to her left. She quickly cleared her throat, straightened her back, and ordered her cheeks to stop that ridiculous blushing. She was pleasantly surprised when they actually listened.

"Actually, she's lost," Kris clarified. "We're helping her."

"Oh, as if you have any idea where you're going," Laura retorted, having had more than enough of the other woman's disposition.

Kris bristled in a manner that made Laura quite certain that she was a mother. "Well. Since you seem to have found more competent help than us, we'll be going. Dezzie?"

Dezzie appeared to have an even more mortifying reaction to the man's presence. She was frozen in place, her mouth gaping open in a manner that reminded Laura of a fish she had eaten for dinner the other night. It hadn't settled well as she recalled.

"Dezzie!" Kris repeated forcefully, looping her arm through the other woman's and dragging her off. She squealed as she was picked up off her feet and taken around the corner, never to be seen by Laura again.

"Praise God," Laura muttered before turning to the other man. She pulled out that same pamphlet, flipping to the page where the day's itinerary had been printed. "Would you by any chance mind helping me? I was separated from my group this morning, and I've been trying to find them ever since. Do you know where this is?"

The stranger briefly glanced at the glossy sheet of paper. Then he looked up, gazing at Laura through a mess of blond curls, smiling in a manner than made her shiver in the summer heat.

"I'd be more than happy too."

Laura would have jumped for joy had she been of any other nationality, and gladly followed the friendly stranger, all too happy to be rid of Dezzie and Kris. For once, the day appeared to be looking up.

-----


Jadeite sighed, quickly realizing that Tetis's pride had been somehow wounded in this transaction. He first looked down at the body of the British tourist. Then he looked up at Tetis, who seemed irritated with him for some reason. Then it was back to the dead girl and up at Tetis again. This continued several times over before Jadeite finally spoke.

"Just out of curiosity," Jadeite began, inching back over to Tetis's side. "Would you have killed her if she hadn't been so clearly infatuated with me?"

Tetis bristled, folding her shapely arms across her chest, arching her back a little just in case he had forgotten it was there. "I asked you to bring someone back to take their energy. I did not say the bring back a pretty girl who wanted to jump your bones."

Jadeite grinned. "I figured you two would have so much to talk about."

Tetis scowled, clearly not amused.

Jadeite went over and placed a finger under her chin, tilting her head to look at him again. He narrowed his gaze, studying the look in his eyes. It was one he was accustomed to, just not one he associated with himself. It was pure jealousy, as pure as jealousy could be. Tetis was envious of a dead woman, and Jadeite found this both surprising and a bit funny. He did not admit to either.

"What are you jealous of?" he asked neutrally. "She's dead. At your hand no less."

"You took her energy," Tetis groused.

Jadeite shrugged, still unsure of what had upset Tetis. "You're a killer. It isn't in your nature to leave anyone alive."

"And you're not a killer?" Tetis retorted.

"I am Queen Beryl's faithful servant, and will do whatever it is she wants of me," Jadeite recited automatically, scarcely thinking of his words before he said them.

Tetis seemed to find his answer all the more vexing. She swatted his hand away and demanded, "Is that all you're concerned about? Her will? What of your own?"

Jadeite almost sighed, but he realized that the act was beginning to grow redundant, so he avoided it. "Tetis, as I have told you several times now, my will is to live. I have no aspirations higher than survival because at the moment it is all I can achieve. In order to accomplish that, I must fulfill the Queen's will, and so I shall."

Tetis glared at him, as if now realizing something unpleasant in him that she had not seen before. "I never would have taken the king Jadeite for a senseless lap dog."

It was Jadeite's turn to scowl. He stepped forward, making the distance between them almost nonexistent. "I wouldn't say things like that to me, Tetis. I've killed others for less. Don't add insult to injury by being hypocritical as well. You are just as bound as I."

"I never did anything for the sake of Beryl," Tetis spat back.

"Then for whose?" Jadeite demanded.

Tetis stared at him for a moment, perhaps conveying the answer to his question in her eyes. As good as Jadeite was at reading people, he could not decipher it this time. She realized this after awhile and drew back, shutting her eyes in frustration. "You're loyal. I suppose I should see it as an attribute."

Jadeite wasn't certain how to respond to that, a fact that unsettled him, but Tetis did not give him a chance to answer. Instead, she returned to a previous subject.

"This is my plan, Jadeite," she said, her mood improving as she distanced herself from the argument. "You were right. The only way to get to the Senshi is to change how we have been fighting up until this point. And up to this point, you have left your prey alive."

Jadeite looked down at the dead girl, beginning to comprehend. "So now we leave them dead."

"Exactly," Tetis said, beginning to get excited. "You said yourself that the Senshi are young."

He nodded. "Tuxedo Kamen can't be too much older."

"How much death do you suppose they've seen in their short lifetimes?" Tetis theorized. "How much murder? The thought that we're draining people past the point of awakening will sicken them."

"How do you know that their disgust won't make them stronger?" Jadeite queried.

Tetis smiled, her previous malice forgotten for the time being. "Because the young are more susceptible to fear." She began to walk forward, leading with her hips as always in his presence. "I plan to kill enough to make them piss themselves with fear. If they know we can kill innocents, they'll know we can kill them. I'm sure they'll realize that I won't be nearly as merciful on them."

Jadeite watched as Tetis curled herself around him like a snake around a mouse. He didn't like the idea of being the rat, but on the other hand, he didn't mind Tetis's proximity. He laid his hands on her hips, drawing her closer and said, "You didn't seem so merciful on this brat."

Tetis shook her head, leaning in. "Now why would you go and bring her up again at a time like this?" Before he could indulge in any more of his insufferable conversation, Tetis kissed him, wrapping her hands around his neck. Ever since the first time she had felt his lips on hers, she had wanted to feel it again and again and again for she knew better than to want it eternally. But she wanted to revisit it as she enjoyed the feeling of his fire entering her and scorching her blood. She would gladly let her skin burn off if she could stay at his side, and she was beginning to suspect that she would pay some price for this favor. She would put that off as long as she could, aiding Jadeite in his quest and keeping him close for as long as her hold would last.

She pulled away several long minutes later and said, "Later. One death will not be nearly as suspicious as ten."

Jadeite nodded and was instantly cold again, save his eyes. But then, that was a characteristic he had always had. He glanced back down at the corpse and said, "We should leave her out in the open. She'll be easy to find that way."

Tetis frowned. "For now, we leave her here. We'll move her later."

Jadeite raised an eyebrow. "And we are doing that because..."

"Because I'm not giving her the glory of the first found," Tetis informed him, disentangling herself before he drew her in again. "They might figure out she was the first dead later, but there's nothing I can do about this. Who they find first, that I have control over."

Jadeite laughed a little, though it wasn't necessarily at her. "You really didn't like her, did you?"

"No," Tetis said plainly. "And if you want to keep me in good spirits, I suggest that any more victims you lure out should be ugly or male. Preferably both."

"You are touchy today," he observed.

"I'm itching for another kill," she taunted, and turned to walk away from their temporary hideaway.

Of course, the real source for Tetis's irritability was much more tangible. Jadeite had gotten close to learning the truth, but only through asking her. And it was the sort of answer Tetis would never give him. He knew of her infatuation and of her adoration, but it was best that he never know of the other thing. The thing that she felt there was no proper name for, but the closest thing she could equate it with was a very inadequate little thing called love.

No, Tetis would never let Jadeite know that she hated that dead girl because he had chosen her. She would take that secret to her grave.

-----


Rei gasped as air suddenly filled her lungs, the force of her shock propelling her away from the sacred fire. She stared at it, face pale and hair clinging to her forehead. She was drenched in sweat, but the heat in the room was not nearly enough to stop her from shivering. It was no wonder that she was so frightened.

She'd never seen someone die before.

Rei couldn't remember when she'd ever had such a clear vision of the future before, and she was quite sure she didn't want to. But she knew that she'd seen that girl die, and that the guy who had attacked her earlier had been there as well. She didn't know the dead tourist or the girl who had been with Jadeite. Rei thought that he had called her Tetis.

She didn't know what this could mean. Was she now supposed to go out and find that girl and prevent her from getting lost in the first place? Or was she meant to keep her from meeting up with those two other women? How was she supposed to find her? Rei hadn't been privy to anything that could pinpoint a location. And on what day? Or was she somehow meant to get back in touch with those... people?

Better yet, was that even a vision or had she had a nightmare before the fire? On any other day, she would have trusted herself to tell the difference, but not that day. Too much had happened. She was too damaged to know fact from fiction.

But what if was real? What if something like that was going to happen, and she had done nothing to prevent it? What if leaving that pen on the roof hadn't been as good an idea as she'd thought?

"Rei?"

She spun around to see her grandfather standing behind her, looking very tired and very exasperated. And very old.

She sighed, wiping the sheen of perspiration off her forehead. "What is it, Grandpa?"

"You haven't eaten since breakfast. I can tell," he scolded, looking out at her sourly. "Come and get something to eat, or I'll throw a bucket of water on you."

Rei paused for a moment, and then nodded. She'd made the right decision. Hino Rei was no soldier.

"I'm coming. I'm coming," Rei muttered irritably. "You old crab."

She was just a girl.

-----


It hadn't taken that much effort for Ami to sneak up from the waiting room to the floor where she knew Mamoru would be. She often volunteered for her mother, and had even changed into the proper clothes for it. After all, walking around in blood stained clothing was hardly her idea of a fun time. Once she'd reached the floor, she'd struck up a conversation with a nurse who was making the rounds with some of the more serious patients, walking with her until she'd seen his chart hanging on the door. Only then did she make an excuse to leave, hanging behind. She almost walked right in, but quickly made the decision to knock lest she walk in on anything embarrassing.

There was a slight pause after her knock before Mamoru called out, "Who is it?"

"It's Ami," she said, her voice cracking oddly as she thought of several embarrassing things she could be walking in on. She cleared her throat demurely and continued, "Is it all right to--"

"Come in," he interrupted.

Ami glanced around to make sure no one was watching and then ducked in, hastily shutting the door behind her. Just as the latch clicked shut, Luna crawled out from under the bed, looking mildly put upon for having to hide when it was only Ami. The television was playing in the background - an old anime show that he probably hadn't been paying that much attention to.

"Are you all right?" Ami asked worriedly, walking over to the bed. Indeed, her concern was not entirely unfounded. He was wrapped up in a variety of bandages, already sporting various bruises of multiple colorings. He looked better than the last time she had seen him, but it still didn't suppress her frantic worry for him. She found that her heart was pounding in her chest and that she very much wanted to throw her arms around him in gratitude that he was sitting up in bed. However, her reserved nature was enough to remind her that that would be a very silly and inevitably embarrassing action, and it was enough to make her hold her ground.

Mamoru nodded slowly, holding his head as he did so. Two fingers ran against some of the seams of the bandage that rested there. He swallowed. "It's mostly just lacerations and contusions. The coughing fit earlier was from a pretty nasty kick to the chest, nothing to worry about. They gave me a muscle relaxant to help with that."

Ami felt her shoulders sag in relief. She hadn't realized how much tension she'd been carrying between her shoulder blades until she released it. The pain left there was enough to make her wince in pain. Still, she forced a smile and said, "I'm glad it wasn't anything worse."

"Me too," Mamoru joked. "I do have a concussion, and they might have said something about a bruised rib. I don't know. I was getting pretty tired at that point in the conversation."

"Vicodin kicking in?" she asked knowingly.

With that question, Luna turned and gave him a withering glare. He looked a bit sheepish at that and laughed, saying, "Well, actually..."

Ami narrowed her eyes, noticing something distinctly absent. He wasn't hooked up to an IV that she could see, which she found very odd. Based on the extent of his injuries, even if none of them were internal, he must have been in a lot of pain. Now that she took a closer look at his face, she could see how tight his jaw was and how he would occasionally flinch with the slightest movement. She drew closer to the bed, her eyes wide with worry. "Mamoru, don't they have you on any pain medication?"

Before Mamoru could answer, Luna piped up. "He refused anything that would make him drowsy. He doesn't want to be too out of it should another attack come about. Never mind the fact that he's down for at least a few days, accelerated healing or no."

"It's really not that--" Mamoru started.

"Mamoru, Ami practically had to carry you here," Luna scolded, whiskers twitching. "You are not light, and it was most definitely not an easy task. Now, if you had at least been of some help on your transport here, maybe I would not be so quick as to order you to bed. As it was, you were completely useless. Therefore, you won't be much use on your feet now."

The corner of Mamoru's mouth twitched. "I think you're exaggerating a bit, Luna."

"I am not. And I will tie you down if necessary, Mamoru," Luna threatened.

The look in her eyes made Mamoru think that perhaps she was capable of doing this, and it scared him a little. He quickly convinced himself that this was ridiculous. This conclusion was mostly due to the fact that he stopped looking at the cat and fixated his attention on Ami. Mamoru looked her in the eyes, trying to look as healthy, charming, and reassuring as he possibly could. "Ami, really there's nothing to be worried about. A little pain never hurt anyone, right?"

"But..." Ami began, looking fretful and unconvinced. "I was there Mamoru. I saw… I had to watch that. You must be in more than a little pain."

"I can handle it," Mamoru insisted.

Ami's eyes were wide, her hands folded at her stomach. She began clenching them and wringing them in a gesture she had no doubt picked up from her mother. "Mamoru, why are you doing this? I know that without Rei, we're at a disadvantage, but you can't shoulder the whole thing by yourself."

Mamoru felt his jaw tighten, enhancing the lines of his face. "It is just the two of us, Ami. Until we find the other soldiers or the princess, we're all Tokyo has. I can't afford to be incapacitated."

"But you are, Mamoru," Luna insisted. "There is no way in hell either of us would let you fight in your condition."

Mamoru's head whipped over in the cat's direction, looking as if he very much wanted to snap at her. He opened his mouth and promptly shut it again, mulling over the words he wanted to say but couldn't.

Ami quickly deduced what it was, oddly enough. It wasn't about playing the hero. He was worried that he might not have a choice but to fight. That Ami might not be able to do it alone.

She knew he was right.

Ami looked down, her dark bangs falling in front of her face. She took a deep breath to settle herself. She was quickly getting used to this treatment from the other two, and while Mamoru never said anything, it still hurt. Even if they were right.

"Promise that you won't go jumping into anything?" Ami asked softly.

Mamoru turned back to her, perhaps a bit surprised that she was reconsidering her position. After a moment, he nodded slowly. "I'm just saying as a last resort. I won't do anything stupid."

Luna sniffed. "Yes, because I haven't heard that one before."

Ami sighed quietly. "If you promise you won't try and get yourself killed... Then I suppose we don't have much of a choice."

Luna stared at her for a moment, before mumbling something under the breath. Ami suspected it was no more than a conceit that she couldn't very well force morphine down the boy's throat.

Mamoru smiled. "Thank--"

"You're awfully pigheaded. Do you know that?" Ami asked boldly, shutting her eyes. "Well, I'm glad you're all right at any rate. I just hope it stays that way."

Before Mamoru could respond, she turned and began to head for the door before the water began gathering in eyes. She was not going to cry in front of him. Whether it was out of her own pride or to spare him guilt, she wasn't sure, but the determination was the same in the end.

It was the familiar music signaling an emergency news report that stopped her at the door.

"This is Satou Hiromasa, reporting for Nippon Hoso Kyokai," a man announced hurriedly, bowing at the camera. Behind him was complete chaos. Investigators, paramedics, ogling bystanders, photographers, and many others that the group could not identify. "I'm currently in the Juuban district where the body of a British tourist, Laura Whiting, has been found just outside of a heavily populated supermarket.

"This seems to be just one in a rash of sudden, as of yet unexplained deaths across the district. Some suspect that this may have some connection to the recent cases of exhaustion cropping up all around the city. As it stands, three people are currently dead, and seven others have been reported missing in the time frame since the deaths began. Both police and health officials are refusing to comment."

The reporter might have gone on, but no one in the room was listening to him at that point. The camera had panned down to the dead woman at last, revealing a once vital human being now robbed of any life. Her pallor was a sickly grey, her mouth slack, and her eyes focused on nothing and everything all at once. The suggestion of the reporter was not necessary to make them look for other signs. It was nothing that any of them could pinpoint exactly, just an overall sensation that they feared they would have realized without the aid of the news anchor. It was too obvious, too fresh in their minds for any of them to overlook without effort.

"Serenity help us..." Luna invoked, her back arching.

"Oh, Lord," Ami gasped, her hand covering her open mouth. "She looks just like all those people... At the archery class, at the juku..."

Mamoru nodded gravely, thankful that there was nothing in his stomach. "The only difference is she's dead."

-----


Inoue Raidon was very tired. It had been a long day at work, and it didn't help that it was his first scheduled Saturday of the month. He had always been amazed at his ability to become so exhausted at just sitting at a desk day in and day out, pushing papers, and longing for some sort of magical reprieve or some sort of compensation. It was all in vain of course, but it didn't change his methods.

Raidon knew that he was not a particularly hard worker. He did just enough to get by, never doing more than he had to and never turning in anything particularly stellar. He wondered every now and again if he even had the capacity to do something innovative, but it didn't much matter to him. Even if he could do better, he did not particularly want to devote the time or effort to it. So, he continued maintaining his pace and plateauing at his current level, firmly deciding that life would be better if he didn't try too hard.

Still, his days were long even if they are not especially fruitful. That was why he almost always went to a bar near his office after work. He was often accompanied by two of his coworkers, but it happened that they were both preoccupied with other things for that evening. One's mother-in-law was in the hospital for something or another (he had made a joke that her bitchery was an incurable disease, so he didn't know why she bothered seeking treatment), and the other had to attend his son's eleventh birthday party as promised to his wife (who he otherwise never spoke to but for the exchange of favors). It meant that Raidon was going to have to drink alone,
but it wasn't as if he went to the bar for the purpose of socializing.

It was hardly a dive, but it was hardly upscale either. It was dimly lit and filled with the smoke of bad cigars. He was careful not to inhale too deeply for the first few minutes as it almost always set off a coughing fit. There were quite a few salarymen present, some of whom he recognized. He nodded at them by way of greeting, but otherwise didn't make an effort to strike up a conversation. He walked up to the bar and ordered his usual drink - a dirty gin martini straight up with olives. Just what he needed.

On his third sip of the alcohol, he happened to look over to his right and see something else he needed.

The bars frequented by salarymen often had a few ladies of questionable morals. After all, any male would want to unwind after a hard day's work. What could be better than a stiff drink and another sort of stiff altogether? It wasn't often that Raidon indulged, as his wife was still fairly talented in that department himself, but he was far from perfect. He was now under the distinct impression that he was going to fall short of being moral before the night was over.

The woman who had caught his eye was sitting just three seats away. He was shocked that she was alone, but then he didn't think that she could have been there for very long. He would have noticed her immediately if she had been. She was obviously of Chinese descent; her dress was really much appreciated overkill. It was cut in the traditional Chinese style with a high-necked collar and a slit that went all the way up to the top of her thigh, teasing him with slim, pale flesh. Her hair was like ink, caught up in a bun, but the dim light of the bar was enough to give it a liquid quality. The wine she was drinking was the same color as her dress and her lips, and he decided that he found all of these qualities very appealing.

Raidon downed the rest of his drink for liquid courage so to speak. Then he quickly shoved his left hand into his pocket, surreptitiously wiggling his wedding ring off his finger. He straightened his tie, smoothed his hair back, sucked in his slight gut, and walked right over to her.

She turned to face him as if she had been waiting for him for years. "Hello, stranger," she said, her voice making his blood run hot and cold all at once. She held up her now empty glass, a smile spreading over her painted lips. "Buy me a drink?"

Looking into her dark eyes, Raidon thought he probably would have agreed to just about anything she asked.

It was less than fifteen minutes later that she had him sneaking out the back door of the bar, stumbling around in the alley even though he wasn't that drunk. She giggled in his ear, grabbing the collar of his shirt greedily. She held his gaze with a somewhat frightening intensity as she backed up against the wall. Her eyes flashed underneath the streetlights in a hypnotic fashion. She curved one hand around the back of his neck and pulled him close, whispering, "Time to party, baby."

She pulled him forward, bringing his lips down to hers firmly. Raidon began to feel the start of what was probably a really excellent kiss. His heart beat faster, his breath stalled in his throat, his skin gleamed with warmth. But then he began to realize something worrying. His breath wasn't starting again and he was beginning to feel rather dizzy. He thought it must be the alcohol.

He pulled away and started to force out, "I'm sorry, I--"

She didn't let him finish. She kissed him again, and her eyes were wide open as the whites began to disappear, the night dark pools expanding and swallowing them whole. Raidon panicked, trying to pull away. He remembered the stories he'd heard at work about monsters roaming the streets and was now quite sure he had fallen victim to them. His suspicions were confirmed as her slight arms held him in place, her lips sucking the life out of his body. He heart pounded in his chest, struggling to keep beating, and his knees could no longer support his weight. He sensed impending doom, and his very lost thought was how upset his wife would be if he was found without his wedding ring.

Moments later, the lifeless body of Inoue Raidon fell to the dirty ground in a crumpled heap. His murderous consort stood above him, wiping her mouth unpleasantly.

Jadeite appeared at her side, leaning casually against the alleyway and standing above the salaryman's corpse. He looked at his companion dubiously and said, "You're going to have to wash your mouth out with peroxide before I do anything with it,
Tetis."

She turned to smirk at him, her hair fanning out with her movements. "Who's jealous now?"

"I am not jealous," Jadeite insisted with perhaps a tad bit too much vigor. "I am merely voicing my disgust that you were anywhere near… that." He gestured vaguely at the body, wrinkling his nose.

Tetis looked back down at him as well and shrugged. "I don't know. He's not so bad."

Jadeite looked offended, as if her opinion of this man somehow meant that the two of them were on the same level, and that was not acceptable. "He's fat! And he's old! Look, there are wrinkles. I can see them from where I'm standing."

"There's something to be said for a man with experience," Tetis insisted.

"Well, there is nothing to be said for a man who is fat!" Jadeite countered fiercely.

She laughed at him, falling into his chest so that he had little choice but to catch her. Tetis dragged her fingernail down from his collarbone to his waistband, saying, "I ask again… Jealous?"

Jadeite frowned and muttered something under his breath that Tetis doubted was an actual coherent thought. It was more than likely a disconnected tirade, so she didn't bother to pay attention.

"One mustn't be so picky with the woman who's saving your marvelous body, Jadeite," Tetis reminded him. "Besides... sacrifices must be made." She laughed at her joke, crushing it by pulling Jadeite's mouth down to hers.

Tetis ran her palms back up his chest as his arms wrapped around the small of her back, pulling her closer. He kissed her fiercely, grinning into her mouth when he felt her draw one of her legs up and hook it around his thigh. He smoothed his thumb over her kneecap and said, "We really shouldn't let ourselves get so distracted."

"That's seven now. I think we can afford to take a little break. Besides, what's that saying about all work and no play?" Tetis growled, her lips curving into a smile.

Jadeite kissed her again, moving his hand up under the back of her exposed thigh. He pulled away and said, "I have a very good response to that, Tetis. I'll let you know what it is in thirty minutes." He hoisted her up, pushing her up against the wall as she wrapped her legs around his waist. She was laughing like there wasn't a fresh corpse watching them the entire time.

-----


Though Ami had not had anything to eat since her breakfast that morning, it didn't change the sick feeling she had gotten after witnessing the news report. She had hastily excused herself to the bathroom, closing it before Luna could follow in after her. She'd knelt before the toilet, clutching the sides, and heaved and trembled until she thought her body couldn't handle it any more.

Ami was now sitting on the floor, leaning against the door and panting as if she hadn't drawn breath for a decade. She rested her palm against her damp forehead, pushing her navy bangs away from her skin. She was very tired and her mouth tasted entirely too much like bile and she simply wanted to rest, sleep, and forget that the day had ever happened.

But she couldn't forget. People were dying. People were actually dying.

Ami began to feel ill again, but she swallowed on a burning throat and willed it away. Then she grasped the doorknob and pulled herself to her feet, leaning forward in the direction of the sink. The heels of her hands hit the porcelain hard, the ache shooting up all the way to her elbows. She brought her feet forward and then turned on the tap. Cold water spurted out like blood from a vein. She cupped her palm and filled it was water, pushing it into her mouth to try and get rid of the taste of sick in her mouth. It was marginally helpful.

After spitting out the now dirty water, Ami took another handful of water and splashed it on her face. Then she went back to leaning over the sink, inhaling the scent of the water and letting it calm her as much as she could be calmed.

Which frankly wasn't much.

She'd been well aware of the possibility that she or Mamoru could be killed, but it had never before occurred to her that innocents could die. Perhaps she had taken it for granted that the enemy didn't really intend the people of Tokyo any real harm. At least not for the time being. That was clearly no longer true for whatever reason, and now at least three people were dead because of it.

Ami couldn't help but think that maybe she could have stopped it. After all, she'd been at the battle that morning. Jadeite, the man who appeared to be behind all of these attacks, had been there. He could have been done away with right then if only she had done something more. She'd done her best, but it hadn't been good enough. They would have all been doomed without Rei, and now she wasn't even with them. It was just her and Mamoru, and with him currently incapacitated no matter what he thought, it was just her, and she had no idea what to do with herself.

She wasn't that strong. She knew that. She was good with defense, and she could be useful as a tactician, but that did them little good with no offense to speak of. Mamoru was trying, but it really was a miracle he had survived thus far. Ami was beginning to think that his narrow escapes were becoming more and more contrived. He was going to run out of luck some time.

He'd almost run out of luck that day. If he refused to let himself rest, an impending decision that Ami was beginning to regard as an inevitability, his luck might run out within the next week if not sooner.

Ami screwed up her face and slammed her palms down on the sink with a strangled whimper. They hadn't known each other very long, but Ami cared about his safety. Seeing him hurt that day had been more than enough. It had brought out some sort of instinct in her. Maybe it was because she was a Senshi and her role in this was clearly defined, whereas not even Luna knew why Mamoru had gotten mixed up in this. Or maybe it was just because he was nice to her, and she was used to people behaving apathetically towards her, and she appreciated the attention.

Regardless, she didn't want him to do this to himself anymore. She knew that if only she were stronger, if only she could actually destroy their enemies, he wouldn't have to.

There was a knock at the door. "Ami? Are you all right?" Mamoru called.

"You've been in there for awhile, and we're worried," Luna added.

Normally, Ami would have answered, but she didn't want either of them to hear how she knew she must sound. She turned the water on full blast to drown them out. The force of the water pounding against the porcelain and the whistling of the pipes were enough to keep her from hearing any more of their pleas if there were any.

Ami continued leaning over the sink, staring at the water as it poured out of the spigot with renewed force. As she stared into the stream, Ami couldn't help but think that there had to be a way for her to help in another capacity. Surely there was something else she could do.

She pondered it for awhile, and came up with nothing. Ami then dipped her hand under the stream. The water pressure was enough to send her limp hand down to the bowl of the sink, spraying water everywhere. Ami jumped back out of instinct, staring.

Ami had an idea.

-----


"That cleric fancied you," Tetis observed with a sly grin on her face.

Jadeite shrugged casually, running a hand through his hair. "Well, that's not surprising. I mean have you looked at me lately?"

Tetis rolled her eyes as subtly as one could do such a thing. At one time, she would have said something along the lines of the fact that she looked at him constantly, which frankly was no exaggeration. However, now that she had Jadeite firmly within her grasp, she felt no qualms about giving it just as good as she got it. She did have to hold his interest after all, and a fan would never do that. "Is your ego getting bigger, or are you just revealing your softer side to me?"

"A little bit of both," Jadeite quipped, leaning back on the park bench they were currently preoccupied. There was something entirely unnatural about the two of them sitting there. It seemed far too pedestrian, far too normal a thing for a general of the Dark Kingdom and a high-ranking youma to be doing. Then again, it was best if they did appear ordinary. Word of the deaths was spreading, and it was imperative that they not look suspicious.

"The Sailor Senshi and that Tuxedo boy haven't shown up yet," Jadeite remarked.

"I said it would work, Jadeite," Tetis responded a bit testily. "I did not say it would work instantaneously."

Jadeite shifted uncomfortably. He was getting restless, and Tetis's calm was positively maddening. "Forgive me if I would like to do this swiftly. After all, it is my neck on the chopping block."

"You are both clichéd and impatient," Tetis said. "It is a very good thing you look the way you do, or Nephrite probably would have been promoted over you."

Jadeite scowled. Even in jest, he couldn't stand any implication that either of his subordinates were in any way superior to him, or that he had not earned his place. He was just as skilled a killer as she, and probably more so. He was prepared to march into battle in a frontal assault against the Terran nation. It was the Dark Kingdom that wasn't ready for him. "Any other youma would be struck for that. At least."

Tetis smiled, her white teeth glinting in the dimming light. "Well, I suppose I should be thankful that I happen to be the youma that screwed you in an alley an hour ago, hm?"

Jadeite laughed. "As if sharing my bed would be enough to save you."

"So why don't you then?" Tetis asked quite seriously. "Do you fear reprisal from Queen Beryl?" She leaned forward until her lips were practically brushing up against his, her rain straight hair falling in front of their faces. "Or is it something else?"

They both knew exactly what she was implying. Jadeite's face immediately became unreadable, every feature hardening into stoicism. She was close enough to make him uncomfortable, but he refused to give her the satisfaction of flinching away. She remained poised like that for awhile, eyebrow arched, and waiting for his answer.

"Excuse me?"

Tetis turned suddenly, trying to look as unpleasant as humanly possible. However, her face softened when she saw a little boy who looked as though he had been crying. "Yes?" she asked sweetly. "What is it, little one? Are you lost?"

"No," he answered, his voice warbling. "But my dog is. I left him alone for just a minute, and... My daddy just bought me the dog, and he's going to be so mad if he knows I lost it, and it's getting dark out, and he's probably really scared, and--"

"Oh, you poor thing," Tetis cooed, rising from her seat and walking over to the little boy. Jadeite quickly took her place on the bench, positioning himself to hide the small, furry pile they were hiding underneath it. Then Tetis extended a hand to the boy. "Don't you worry. We'll find your puppy. Okay?"

The small child nodded, taking Tetis's hand. Her long fingers curled around his as she led him away.

Jadeite did not watch them go.

-----


"Don't go with her!" Rei shouted to the air. She was sitting up in bed, drinking in oxygen, and feeling quite woozy from changing positions so suddenly. She'd gone to bed early, hoping to forget about the day, only to be confronted with more of these odd scenes.

They all ended the same way.

Rei held her head in both of her hands, keeping her eyes open for fear of seeing that little boy in her head. She almost wanted to cry, but that would have been suggesting that these things she was seeing were somehow real. They couldn't be real. No vision could have been that vivid.

They had to be dreams. They had to be manifestations of her guilty conscience or some other nonsense she had heard from that girl who sat near her at lunch who liked to babble about her father's psychology practice. They were not messages from the future or reflections of the past. They were just nightmares. Just her subconscious torturing her for not wanting to risk her life for the so-called greater good.

"Well, it can stop. Now," Rei growled, ordering her brain to cooperate. She knew that she had no choice. She had to do this. She had to. If she got hurt, who was supposed to take care of her grandfather? The closest thing he had to another relative was her father, and he hadn't even bothered to send her a Get Well card when she'd broken her wrist the year before. He had a few friends, but they weren't in much better shape than he was. She was all he had, and she could not afford to go risking her neck for people she didn't even know.

Not even little boys who had lost their puppies.

Rei's shoulders shook a bit, but she forced them to stop. She would not cry. Hino Rei did not cry unless she had a damn good reason to, and nightmares were not one of them. There was only one person in this world worthy of her tears.

She heard coughing coming from the next room, and she couldn't help but sigh wearily. She waited a few minutes to make sure that it wasn't a fit. When she heard nothing else from her grandfather's bedroom, Rei decided that it was best if she tried to get some more sleep. The next day may have been Sunday, but it didn't change the fact that she had to be up early in order to do her usual chores that had been neglected that day in favor of that archery class.

Rei groaned and flopped back onto her pillows, pushing all thoughts of monsters and fire and little boys out of her head. She pulled the covers up over her head, squeezed her eyes shut, and thought of the most pleasant things she possibly could, hoping she would fall asleep soon.

Part of her knew the truth, but she ignored it like someone was paying her to do so.

-----


After Ami had finally emerged from the bathroom, she had excused herself, saying that she wasn't even supposed to be there to begin with. She had left before Luna or Mamoru could say much of anything else, a fact that momentarily annoyed them both. After all, they hadn't discussed the new threat.

It was Luna that realized it didn't matter. There wasn't much one soldier could do.

Now night had fallen, and Mamoru was lying back in his bed, trying to sleep. He found that next to impossible, the image of the dead girl burned into his brain. He was supposed to prevent this sort of thing from happening. He was supposed to protect people. Now all he could do was lie around and feel guilt for his ineffectualness.

Perhaps that was another reason that he continued to refuse pain medication in spite of Ami's and Luna's sound advice. It was his own punishment, and reminder that while he could feel pain, there were other people who could not. He had only himself to blame for that.

Luna sat at his feet, her tail whipping back and forth as if marking the passage of each second. She had remained oddly silent for much of the evening, perhaps sensing that Mamoru needed to be left alone with his thoughts for a time. Nevertheless, she was not accustomed to silence, and she could not sustain it for eternity. "You should try and get some sleep," Luna said finally.

Mamoru snorted, bringing up a bandaged hand and rubbing his forehead again. It had become a compulsion ever since the moment he realized that his head was wrapped in gauze, just as it had been when it was a little boy and he had to be told what his name was. It was another memory that was aiding his insomnia. "I am trying, Luna," he insisted. "I just don't seem to be doing a very good job of it."

Luna's whiskers twitched. "I would begin by closing my eyes."

Mamoru glared in Luna's general direction before setting his head back down against the pillows. He heaved as great a sigh as his still smarting lungs would allow. "I just... can't. Not knowing that--"

"I know," Luna interrupted, her voice compassionate. "I know that it's hard, Mamoru, but you have to accept the fact that there wasn't anything you could do."

"Wasn't there?" Mamoru counted. "I could have helped her. I could have been… upright. That would have been a start. It would have at least given her a chance."

Luna huffed quietly. "You give yourself entirely too much credit. Even if you weren't injured, there's no way for us to pinpoint the location of enemies before they arrive. I very much doubt they're staying in one place for very long." Luna paused. "Furthermore, Ami has no way to track people. If she could lock onto an object they were carrying, that would be one thing, but--"

"I get it," Mamoru snapped. "It's hopeless."

Luna hesitated before speaking again. When she did, her voice was even softer than before, sensing that abrasiveness was not Mamoru needed. "We'll figure something out, Mamoru."

Mamoru shook his head, his eyelids fluttering a bit. "Are we that much good without Mars to help?"

"As far as I can see it, we wouldn't be much better off with her, so there's no sense in going down that road," Luna chastised. "Mamoru, based on how she was acting, she would have told us to take a hike even if you hadn't given her an option. So you're not allowed to blame yourself either."

Mamoru looked down the bed at Luna, almost feeling the urge to smile. "So, you're not upset with me?"

"No, I'm still ticked off."

Mamoru frowned. "I suppose I should be thankful for your honesty."

"You're welcome," Luna retorted smartly, her eyes glittering under the starlight.

Mamoru shook his head and fell into silence for a moment. A few minutes later, he asked, "Luna, could you bring her henshin stick over here?"

Luna blinked. "What for?"

Mamoru shrugged, not really having an answer. "I guess I'd just feel better if I had it with me. It's sealed up in the bags with my clothes in it."

"In the bathroom?" Luna asked, hopping off the bad to go investigate. "I don't see why you're worried about it. It's not as if the enemy is camping out in the…" Her voice trailed off as she disappeared into the other room.

Mamoru sat up a bit, wondering what could have silenced her. "Luna? What is it?"

Luna emerged a few minutes later, looked vexed. "Well, it seems that someone has already opened the bag."

It was Mamoru's turn to balk. "What?"

"Oh, I can do you one better," Luna continued. "They took the henshin pen."

Mamoru sat straight up in bed, now fully alarmed. "They took it? But why? Who's been in there since I put them there anyway?"

The two considered this for a moment before coming to the same conclusion at the approximately the same time.

"Ami."

-----


The next morning, when Ami walked out of her building to run a vitally important errand, she realized that she was the only one in her area daring to walk outside.

Ami pursed her lips, but she had been counting on some reaction akin to this. Granted, she never could have anticipated that people would take it to this extreme. However, given the rising death toll and the new speculation that these deaths had something to do with the "supernatural events" that had been occurring as of late, Ami supposed that she should have expected such an extreme reaction.

She had woken up to the news that there were now at least eleven people dead, including a five year old boy who had been found cuddling the corpse of his new puppy. His father had been the one to find him. After hearing that, Ami had decided not to eat breakfast.

There were still more missing, and everyone had been advised to stay indoors. Ami's mother had even called her half an hour after she had woken up, making Ami promise to stay in that day. Her mother, who had stopped believing in Santa Claus when she was three.

When Ami had tried to question her on the supernatural aspect of it, Dr. Mizuno had waved her off, offering up several theories to explain that away. A new breed of virus, an as of yet undetectable poison, or even sheer coincidence. Before Ami could decide whether or not she wanted to debate her mother on the issue, she was called away from the phone. Her mother had reiterated that Ami was not to leave the penthouse one last time before hanging up the phone.

It was the second time Ami had disobeyed her mother in her entire life.

Ami supposed that most people her age would revel in some sense of new found freedom or become slightly inebriated off of their rebellion. On the other hand, Ami choose good old fashioned fear, casting looks over her shoulder to make sure that her mother was not standing behind her. She was aware that fearing her mother was slightly absurd given what else was going on, but it was a fear that Ami could categorize as normal, and she clung to it as if it would save her from drowning.

Besides, Ami might still have been lacking in the offensive department, but she was fairly competent she would be able to handle herself lest a youma of some kind attack her. She had no way to defend herself against her mother.

In any event, Ami did not have much choice but to be out and about in the long run. Her business was imperative to their mission. If she was going to ensure that no more people would meet their ends that day, she was going to have to talk to a certain Senshi of Fire.

Ami had decided while recuperating in the bathroom that she and Mamoru could not afford to be short one soldier in spite of Mamoru's kindness on the subject. Mamoru was injured, and Ami was more skilled in thought than in action. But plans would be of little use without a strong force to back it up, and that was why they needed Sailor Mars, whether she liked it or not. Hino Rei might have turned them down initially, but Ami hoped that now that she had seen all of the carnage the enemy could cause, she might be willing to change her mind. She was still a good person, after all.

Or at least Ami hoped so.

The mini-computer had given her Rei's place of residence to begin with, but it had also been kind enough to provide her with a map after a few simple keystrokes. Sendai Hill was not terribly far from her apartment complex, but it was about a twenty minute walk. On her way, Ami was able to see just how much the city's crisis was affecting its people. She saw exactly twelve people on her way to Hikawa Jinja, a statistic that surely must have been some sort of record, particularly on a Sunday. Tokyo's slopes were always packed with people, and seeing it so empty was more than disconcerting. It also made Ami a tad bit more paranoid, being so out in the open. It made her walk quite a bit faster.

Ami reached Sendai Hill soon enough, and quickly realized that its name was hardly misleading. The shrine was indeed placed on the top of a rather large hill, but as it turned out, Ami was not going to have to walk up the whole thing. Rei was standing on the steps, sweeping up the debris that had accumulated over the night.

This was it. This was her last chance to get the Soldier of Mars on their side. Ami took a deep breath, prayed that her courage would hold out long enough for her to make her point, and began to ascend the stairs.

She reached Rei shortly, stopping when she was a few steps away from the red and white clad shrine maiden. Ami waited for the girl to notice her, but from the looks of things, Rei had not gotten much sleep the night before. She was leaning heavily on the broomstick, moving it back and forth at a snail's pace. She had been sweeping the same six square inches since Ami had arrived.

Eventually, Ami cleared her throat to attract Rei's attention. The other girl looked up, startled. She recognized Ami instantly, and did not seem entirely happy to see her. A few silent moments passed before Rei spoke.

"I didn't sense your approach," she said cryptically.

Ami furrowed her brow thoughtfully. She found that 'sensed' was an odd word choice. Most people would have said 'heard.' "You sound surprised."

Rei nodded civilly. "I am." Rei seemed to think that was the end of the conversation and turned, walking up the stairs before Ami was entirely sure of what she was doing.

"Wait, Hino-san!" Ami called out, jogging after her.

"No," Rei said in a low voice. "I know what you're here for, Mizuno-san. Let me tell you right now, I inherited my stubborn nature from both sides of the family. When I make a decision, I stick to it, and no amount of your convincing is going to change anything. You might as well go home."

Remembering the faces of the dead that she had seen on the television screen, Ami did not hesitate once in following after the other girl. "But Hino-san, we need you."

"I told you to find someone else, didn't I?" Rei responded, her voice growing tense.

"Luna told you that there is no one else," Ami retorted, now walking alongside the miko as she returned to the shrine. "You're the only one who can be Sailor Mars. That's just the way it is."

Rei closed her eyes and tilted her head up a bit. "Well, then I suppose you'll have to settle with being short one soldier."

Ami wanted very much to wring her hands, but she held them firmly at her sides. "We can't afford to do that. Especially now. Mamoru and I need all the help we can get. You were a natural yesterday in the battle! And you were so powerful. I know it's scary, but--"

"No, you don't know, Mizuno-san," Rei snapped, cutting the other girl off. "You may be very smart, but you don't know anything at all. At least not about me." Her harsh words were enough to make Ami pause before speaking, giving Rei an opportunity to plow ahead. "Now, if you don't mind, I have my grandfather and my duties at the shrine to attend to. I don't have time to participate in a hopeless argument you are never going to win. Goodbye, and good luck."

Rei started to walk up the stairs again, oblivious to what Mizuno Ami was going through. The girl genius was staring at the girl's back in utter disbelief at what she was witnessing. She had hoped that Rei was a good person. She had hoped that she would have been somehow affected by the multiple deaths that had occurred within hours of the Dark Kingdom's last attack. She had hoped that Rei would have at least given her a chance now that everything had gone to hell.

Rei was right. Ami could not even begin to understand it.

"How can you be so cold?" Ami asked, her voice high and shaking. "After everything that's been happening since yesterday... All those people... How can you just say that it doesn't involve you?"

Something in Ami's voice was enough to make Rei stop. She turned, looking down at the smaller girl, her eyebrows raised in silent question. She tilted her head to the side and said, "What on Earth are you talking about?"

"The eleven people who died last night," Ami voiced, enunciating every syllable. "There was a mother, a priest, a tourist, and... and a little boy and his dog for God's sake. How can you just--"

"A little boy?" Rei asked, her voice shaking. She descended the stairs quickly enough for Ami to wonder if she had tripped. Rei's face was ghostly white, her violet irises standing out frighteningly against the pale. "Are... Are you..."

Ami furrowed her brow even more, now thoroughly perplexed. "What is it?"

"Oh, God," Rei whispered, her eyes widening as something dawned. "They were real. The dreams, the visions... They were real, and they were happening... Oh, God." She looked away, gazing over Ami's shoulder.

Ami bent her head a bit, surprised at this revelation. "You mean you didn't know about the deaths?"

Rei shook her head, looking ill. "No. There's only one television at the shrine, and my grandfather and I don't have time to watch it. We don't read the paper, and... Oh, my God. It was real. It was all real. How could I have--"

Ami held up her hands, signaling Rei to stop. "Rei, I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

Rei's eyes darted back and forth for a minute before her eyelids fluttered closed. She stood there, breathing, apparently centering herself as a way to cope with what she had just learned. A moment later, she said, "Are there other people missing?"

Ami nodded. "Yes. Several. Why?"

"Because thirteen people are dead."

Ami felt herself get a little dizzy with Rei's words. She swayed a bit before almost shouting at the other girl. "What are you talking about? How can you know that? You didn't even know what was going on until I told you!"

Rei's shoulders sagged as if a building had been built atop them. She opened her eyes, but her lids were drooping. She looked much older than she had just one minute before. "I know because I saw them die."

-----


If Tetis had been under the impression that Jadeite was impatient before, he was positively frantic the next morning.

"This is ridiculous," Jadeite seethed, pacing back and forth as Tetis watched him with quiet amusement. She was seated quite comfortably, her eyes following his every move as he walked up and down the ten feet he had set aside for pacing. "Why haven't they come by now?"

The corner of Tetis's mouth twitched upwards. "Jadeite, don't be so anxious. It's unbecoming."

Jadeite rounded on her and snapped, "I do not live every second of my life for the express purpose of looking pretty."

"No, you live it for the express purpose of saving your own ass, right?" Tetis queried, a smile permanently fixed on her lips.

"As a matter of fact--" Jadeite began, his temper rising and his face darkening.

Tetis rolled her eyes in a manner that was uncharacteristic of her, and interrupted him. "Jadeite, this is quite ridiculous. We know that we have the Senshi's attention. The deaths are all over the media."

"No, eleven deaths are all over the media," Jadeite corrected, folding his arms across his chest. "I thought we left them all out in the open so that they could be found." He paused. "Then again, I suppose they wouldn't become any more self-righteous between eleven and thirteen."

"You're just annoyed Tokyo doesn't get to see the full extent of our handiwork?" Tetis queried.

Jadeite didn't answer, looking away thoughtfully.

After awhile, Tetis sighed and said, "Well, there's no reason for you to get so worked up about all of this. I've gotten you a fair amount of energy, and we know that the enemy is on edge. All we have to do is whip out the big gun."

Jadeite turned back to her, an eyebrow raised. "The big gun?" he repeated.

Tetis nodded, leaning back in her seat and uncrossing her legs. "Yes." She tipped her head back and said, "Everything up to this point has been to set the city on a precipice and to ensure that the Senshi and their masked friend know how much of a threat we are. Now we move on to causing such a scene that they have no choice but to come and save the lives of countless, helpless innocents."

Jadeite glared at her for a moment, more than a little vexed that Tetis hadn't bothered to pass along this information. She had been secretive from the beginning, more than likely assuming that if she tipped her whole hand to him, he would abandon her and do the work on her own. She had made it impossible to move forward without her by his side.

If he hadn't been impressed by her skill before this mission began, he would have been awed by her then. As it was, he felt nothing but frustration.

Still, he breathed in and then out, and said, "How are we supposed to find that many people in one place? No one's on the street."

"So, we don't look on the street," Tetis replied. Then she pulled herself up, all but slithering over to Jadeite and hanging on his arm. She ran the tip of her fingernail across his jaw, pulling his face towards her. "Why don't you relax, baby? We're going to get them."

Jadeite didn't seem as affected by her womanly wiles as he had been in the past. He didn't move away, but he didn't get closer either. "Forgive me if I'm a little less trusting of what you say. After all, you've kept me in the dark even though I outrank you."

Tetis sniffed. "As if I care about rank." Tetis dropped her hand, resting it on his thigh. "Why don't you learn to lighten up?"

"Why don't you learn a different tune?" Jadeite asked her, disentangling himself and moving away. "You know, your arrogance is very unbecoming."

Tetis shrugged, not put off. "What would you prefer?"

"At the moment?" Jadeite straightened and turned his face, showing her his profile.
"Silence."

Tetis blanched a bit, scowling momentarily. Her face softened a few minutes later as she reminded herself of how long she had worked to be in this position. She had made a few miscalculations, but it was no matter. She knew exactly how to make sure that Jadeite forgot about this unpleasantness. Conveniently, it would also make him permanently indebted towards her.

Tetis sauntered forward, whirling once she had passed him. She crooked her finger, bidding him to follow silently. Jadeite seemed to follow her interpretation of his order slightly infuriating, but he also found himself listening to her. He had started down this road. He wasn't going to turn back now. Besides, as much as he hated to admit it, he needed her for this.

That was precisely what Tetis was counting on.

-----


Upon hearing that her dreams had not merely been some manifestation of her guilt, Rei had felt that she had little choice but to invite Ami in and exchange information about the subject. She had made it clear that this changed nothing, but it would have been senseless not to tell the other girl of what she had seen since she was invested in the fight. They were currently seated Rei's room, kneeling across from one another at her table. There were two cups of tea between them, each untouched and rapidly getting cold.

"So, you get these sorts of visions... often?" Ami asked, trying to keep the skepticism out of her voice. It was odd for her to accept. Yes, she'd seen plenty of this sort of thing on television, but she'd never been confronted with it in real life. Then again, she'd never been confronted with superheroes before, so she supposed her trepidation was pointless.

Rei nodded, her brows knitted together. "I ignored these because I didn't think they were real. I mean, I do have visions, but they're often quite vague. Disconnected images, shadows, silhouettes... that sort of thing. But I saw these attacks… murders as if I were standing five feet away. That's never happened before." Rei sighed, leaning her elbow on the table and resting her forehead in her palm. "I can't imagine why it's happening now."

Ami frowned, thinking quickly to pull together some sort of plausible theory for Rei's problems. "Perhaps it has something to do with your powers awakening. When you became a solider, they could have strengthened." She paused, picking up her tea cup, but not drinking it. "Or maybe it's because you refused them."

Rei snorted. "The Powers-That-Be guilting me into joining you?"

Ami shrugged. "Do you have a better explanation?" she asked sincerely.

The other girl was stalled by her kind delivery of the query, and found herself mulling over the situation again in her mind. A moment later, her shoulders sagged.
"No. I don't."

Ami licked her lips. "Well, this is just a suggestion, but maybe if you agreed to fight with us--"

Rei didn't let her finish before shaking her head adamantly. "No."

"The visions might stop," Ami argued.

"The visions will stop if you do something about Jadeite and that woman... Tetis or something like that," Rei countered.

Ami's eyes widened as she realized the situation was becoming more dire with each passing minute. "Rei, we need you to do that. Mamoru is hurt badly, and there's only so much I can do."

Rei sniffed and muttered, "Not much from what I saw."

Ami looked down, stung by her words, but she knew that she couldn't get up. Her feelings didn't matter. What mattered were those thirteen people and anyone else who might run into Jadeite and his consort. Ami looked back up at Rei, her dark eyes narrowed and her back steeled as much as she could muster. "All the more reason for you to help us."

"I am not going to risk my life just because you're inadequate and your friend is accident prone," Rei snapped.

Ami gaped at her for a moment before firing right back at her. "How can you say that about him? He risked his life to save you! He hadn't fully recovered from the last fight, but he fought that youma for you! And now he's in the hospital because of it!"

Rei blinked, surprised that things had been that bad even though she had seen the fight with her own eyes. A moment later, she shook her head, willing away the guilt and the mental images that went along with it. "All the more reason for me not to get involved. People are getting killed, and I would prefer not to be one of them."

"More people are dying while we sit around and talk about it!" Ami yelled, a little surprised at her own boldness.

Rei got to her feet and shouted, "Who cares about those people! I don't even know those people! I watch my grandfather die every day! That's who I care about!"

Ami blinked. "Your grandfather?"

"Yes!" Rei snapped, feeling very weary. "He's old, and he's sick. I'm the only person he has, and if something happens to me..." Rei trailed off, unable to finish her sentence.

Ami was smart enough to do it for her. "He'll be all alone."

Rei nodded. "My grandfather comes first. He raised me. He took care of me when no one else would."

"How do you know those other people weren't just as noble?" Ami asked without missing a beat.

Rei threw her hands up. "I don't care if one of those people was noble or good. I really don't. All I care about is me and mine, and nothing you say is ever going to change that."

Ami looked at Rei for a moment, noting the tired eyes and the way her eyes were sparkling a bit more in the light. Then she got to her feet and said, "You're lying."

Rei was shocked. She'd never expected such a mouse of a girl to be so persistent. "What?"

"You're lying," Ami repeated loudly. "You do care about those people. If you didn't, you would have slept a lot better. And you wouldn't be denying it so passionately either." She walked around the table, bridging the gap between them. "You want to protect them just as much as I do. Maybe you don't want to feel that way, but you do. There's nothing you can do to change it, Rei. You can ignore it all you like, but I know that this forced apathy is eating you from the inside out. You can either change it, or let it consume you. It's your choice."

Rei stared at her for a moment before coming to a decision. She reached forward and grabbed Ami by her shoulder and began to lead her out of the room. Before the other girl could begin protesting, Rei launched into another tirade. "It is my decision. It is my decision to take care of someone I love or someone I've never met. It is my decision to choose to be safe or to choose to be reckless. And it is my decision to throw you out of my house."

"You're making a mistake," Ami insisted, trying to pull herself away, but finding Rei's grip too strong.

"No, I'm not," Rei insisted, pulling open the door and pushing Ami out into the courtyard. She then picked up Ami's shoes and all but threw them at her. "You can leave now," Rei said unkindly.

"Fine, I'll go," Ami said, pulling her shoes on. She reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out a red pen, forcing it into Rei's hand. She had seen the bag of Mamoru's belongings on her way out and taken it precisely for this reason. "But you keep that."

Rei narrowed her eyes enough to make a vein on the side of her head begin to bulge. "Aren't you listening? I don't--"

"Want it. I'm aware," Ami said, her tone almost sympathetic. "If you really want to keep you and your grandfather safe, you might want to take it. The enemy tends to seek out people like us."

Rei blinked, glancing down at the glittering pen in her hand. She swallowed and curled her fingers around it, hoping to glean some sense of security from it.

"Besides," Ami continued, backing away from the shrine. "I'm still hoping that you'll change your mind."

Rei looked up, doubtful. "I wouldn't hold your breath, Mizuno-san."

Ami turned to leave, ending the conversation with, "We'll see about that, Hino-san. But don't underestimate me. I can be just as stubborn as you people when I want to be." Then she walked forward at a brisk pace, disappearing down the stairs.

Even Rei, who loved to have the last word, didn't know what to say to that.

-----


Rather than teleport to the hospital, Jadeite and Tetis opted to walk, though it was an irritatingly quiet trek as Tetis had taken his advice to heart. It wasn't so much the silence that bothered him, but the way in which she was silent. She seemed to be quite smug and reveling in her superiority, which was ridiculous. He once again found himself thinking that had she been anyone else, he probably would have at least maimed her by now.

But he valued his life, and while he was confident that he could take Tetis on, he knew that he couldn't stand a chance against Queen Beryl.

He also knew that no one else would dare to treat him this way. He was equally irritated that he sort of found that attractive.

The attraction did not erase his desire to punch her.

Eventually, the pair arrived outside of a hospital. Jadeite turned to her, an eyebrow raised in question. Rather than annoy him further, Tetis broke her silence and said, "This is one place where we are sure to find people. Wouldn't you say?"

Jadeite considered this and nodded. Tetis wasn't wrong. The problem was how aware she was of her rightness. "I don't know how much energy we're going to obtain from sick people."

Tetis giggled and raised her arms. "Who said anything about collecting energy?"

Before Jadeite could demand to know what she meant by that, Tetis's crimson fingernails grew and glittered. Then she spread her arms out, her human disguise slipping away like water from skin. Three slender, razor sharp spikes protruded from her now blue arms. Her mouth closed and vanished from her face, and her eyes turned a frightening red, her pupil vanishing as if it were sinking into blood.

Several people were milling around outside, and they very naturally began screaming at the sight of a sudden monster appearing where once has stood a perfectly normal human being. They fled in terror at the sight, but Tetis didn't let very many of them get far. She giggled again before throwing both of her hands forward. Water shot out of them at will, but Jadeite knew her attacks well enough to know what she was doing. The powerful jets threw a paramedic into a nearby wall. The force was enough to shatter his skull, blood exploding out on to the brick.

Jadeite grabbed both of her arms before she could attack anyone else and shouted, "What are you doing? They're useless to us if you just kill them outright!"

Tetis narrowed her solid red eyes and hissed, "Do you want to get the enemy's attention, or don't you?" She pulled away and said, "If you want to steal energy, go right ahead. But you forget that I wasn't made to be a collector. I'm an assassin, a killer." She turned back to the chaos she had created and giggled, "And I do so miss the smell of blood and seawater."

Tetis leapt back into the one sided battle without waiting for Jadeite to respond, leaving him positively livid. He had not forgotten her true nature, of course. Tetis was a killer. He had always been aware of that. But she'd tricked him, keeping her council too closely. He should have known enough to force it out of her, but she had wisely thrown up a number of distractions along the way. She'd played him, and he now had no choice but to go along with her plan.

"Bitch," he hissed, before running into the disorder himself, snatching a fleeing nurse and draining her of her energy. Once she was dry, he dropped her and moved on to the nearest person.

They kept looking at him like he was the bad guy, but he thought that they really should be thanking him. After all, he was probably saving their lives.

-----


Mamoru had been attempting to take a nap. He had not managed to get much sleep the night before. First, it was guilt that had kept him awake, and then it was curiosity. He had no idea why Ami had taken the henshin pen or why she hadn't told him about it. He suspected it was mostly because she hadn't felt like speaking at all, but he still couldn't settle down with that weighing on his mind. He had finally fallen asleep at dawn.

He had been enjoying a surprisingly peaceful dream when an orderly frantically ran into his room, shouting at him to wake up. He didn't even notice Luna, who was sleeping at the foot of his bed.

"Wake up!" the man yelled frantically, shaking Mamoru awake. "I don't have time for this, wake up!"

Mamoru groaned, his eyes opening slowly. When they registered that a man with a very white face was screaming at him like all of hell was after him, Mamoru forced himself to be coherent. "What's wrong?"

"The hospital's under attack!" the orderly yelled.

Luna sat straight up, blinking at the man in surprise.

Mamoru didn't quite know how to respond to that. "It's... What?"

"There's some kind of monster that is killing people in the hospital!" the orderly shouted, his voice quickly climbing several octaves. "It managed to destroy the alarms before they were set off, and now we have to try and evacuate the hospital ourselves!"

Mamoru and Luna exchanged a quick glance before Mamoru instructed, "Get out. Take anyone you can grab, but get out."

The orderly seemed all too happy to oblige. Apparently, he'd just been waiting for someone to give him permission to leave. Even if was just a patient with absolutely no authority whatsoever. He just needed some absolution to settle his conscience, which was no doubt telling him to stay behind. Consciences had an annoying habit of being right, but rarely practical.

Before the orderly was out the door, Mamoru stopped him. "Wait!"

He turned around, clearly frantic to leave. "What!"

"Make sure you get Dr. Mizuno out," Mamoru ordered.

The orderly blinked. "She's helping move the patients who can't--"

"I don't care," Mamoru snapped. "Drag her out if you have to, but get her out of here."

Something in Mamoru's voice seemed to make the orderly listen to what he said. He nodded and then fled, presumably to go find Dr. Mizuno and throw her over his shoulder just to get out of the hospital alive.

"Do you think he'll do it?" Luna asked as Mamoru reached for the phone on his bedside table.

"No idea," Mamoru said truthfully as he frantically dialed Ami's number. "I hope so. I'd hate to lose faith in humanity in my line of work."

He finished putting in the number and waited as the phone at Ami's apartment rang once. Twice. Three times. After seven, the Mizuno's answering machine picked up. Mamoru cursed before Dr. Mizuno's cheerful greeting had finished explaining what to do and slammed the phone back into its receiver.

"She's not there," Mamoru explained irritably. He mulled over this development for a minute before he threw off the covers and began to pull his clothes on.

Luna bounded to the edge of the bed and said, "Mamoru, so help me--"

"What do you want me to do, Luna!" Mamoru shouted. "You heard what that guy said. People are dying. I can't get Ami on the phone. I have no way to get in touch with Hino-san, though if I did, she probably wouldn't come. There is no one else."

"Ami will be here," Luna assured him.

"How can you be so sure?" Mamoru snapped.

Luna looked at him evenly and said, "I have faith in humanity."

Mamoru paused at her words, but only for a minute. He pulled his shirt over his head as quickly as he could. He was feeling much better than he had yesterday, but he was definitely not technically well enough to charge into battle. Unfortunately, he didn't have any choice in the matter. "Even if Ami does get here, she can't possibly get here fast enough. I need to do somet--"

Before he could finish the sentence, he cried out in pain. He sank back down on to the bed, clutching his shoulder. He'd rotated it too fast getting his shirt on, and he was starting to feel woozy from standing up. Unfortunately, his concussion seemed to be healing the slowest of all his injuries.

"Do something?" Luna finished, positively spitting. "Mamoru, you can't even stand up! How do you expect--"

"I don't know!" he yelled, interrupting. He sat there, looking at her with a tortured expression on his face for a moment. Then he sighed and hung his head, screwing his eyes shut in an attempt to block out the world. "I don't know."

Mamoru punched the wall, helpless and injured and completely at a loss.

-----


Rei had attempted to continue doing her chores after Ami left, but it proved to be next to impossible for her to focus. The knowledge that people were actually dying had unsettled her considerably. It didn't change her position, but she couldn't get it off her mind.

"Why don't you go meditate in front of the fire, Rei?" her grandfather asked her after she had dropped a box of charms she had been taking out to the booth.

"I'm fine," Rei insisted, bending down to place the charms back into their box. "I just didn't sleep well last night. That's all."

Her grandfather sighed and stooped down beside her, taking her smooth hands into his withered ones and patting them in a gesture that was oddly affectionate. Rei looked up at him, eyes wide. Before she could ask him what he was doing, he said, "Rei, I can tell that something is bothering you. Now I don't know if this is about some boy you met at school--"

Rei rolled her eyes. "Grandpa, I go to an all girl school."

He paused and looked up at her. "Rei, please, I'm a very old man."

At first Rei was confused, but then she caught on to his meaning. She found herself blushing furiously and pulled her hands away. "GRANDPA!"

"Forget it," he said, stopping her tirade before it began. "My point is that something is obviously bothering you, and I don't know if it's trivial or not, but it's affecting you profoundly. So, I think you should sit before the fire." He gestured to the room where the sacred flame was housed, bidding her to go.

Rei followed his finger and swallowed when she saw the flames flickering through the slightly open doorway. She sighed, knowing that if she sat before the fire, she was likely to be tortured with more images of those who were dying at the hands of Tetis and Jadeite. Those were the last things she wanted to see, so she was understandably reluctant to follow her grandfather's advice.

"I'm not so sure that a good idea, Grandpa," Rei said finally, her voice quiet.

Her grandfather shook his head and said, "The fire speaks to you, Rei, and it shows you everything you need to see. It doesn't show you what you want to see, but always what you need. I think that whatever answers you seek lie within the sacred flame."

Rei mulled over these words for a few moments, suddenly aware of the weight of the henshin pen in her pocket. Before she was entirely aware she was doing it, she was crossing the yard and going into the fireroom, sliding the door shut behind her. She turned and almost glared at the fire, walking towards it in a manner that was likely irreverent, but she had heavier things on her mind.

"All right," Rei challenged, violet hair swaying with every step she took. "If Grandpa's right and you show me what I need to see, then show me. Tell me if I'm doing the right thing. Or convince me that I'm wrong."

Rei sat down before the fire, folding her legs up under her. She took a deep breath and concentrated before bringing her hands up and beginning the familiar chant, briefly reflecting on the significant of her words as she was speaking them.

"Rin." To face an obstacle.

"Pyou." The soldier

"Toh." To fight.

"Sha." The foe.

"Kai." To put one's whole heart into the struggle.

"Jin." To prepare.

"Retsu." To focus.

"Zai." To appear.

"Zen." To be the first one out in a battle.

The fire crackled and grew and prepared to show her the answer.

Rei was able to see things in the flames just as clearly as in her earlier visions, but rather than see one person pitted against the deadly pair from the Dark Kingdom, she saw scores of people fleeing a building. She quickly recognized it as the hospital that she had taken her grandfather to a few months previously for his pneumonia. Everything seemed to be in a complete panic. She saw several people lying on the ground. They might have been dead.

Suddenly, Mizuno Ami came running into view, frantically weaving her way through the people running away from the building. She looked around, searching for someone who looked familiar. She found one, and cried out his name, latching onto his arm. "Sho! What is this? What's going on?"

"You know those monsters everyone keeps going on about?" Sho asked, trembling and trying to pull away from her. "They're real! And they're in the hospital! They're just... They're just killing people left and right! There's so much blood, and... I have to get out of here!" He managed to pull away from her and took off running, disappearing into the sea of people.

Ami turned back to the hospital, her face white as stone. She trembled for a minute, standing still as people ran away around her. Several bumped into her, nearly knocking her down. Others tried to drag her along with them, but she pulled away from them, holding her ground. Then she whispered two words that seemed to make all the difference.

"Mamoru." A beat. "Mother."

Without another thought, Ami plowed through the streams of people, telling them to get out of her way and frantically moving closer and closer towards the hospital. She was someone with a mission and a personal stake. And she was someone who wasn't going to be stopped.

Rei blinked, and the vision was over. She sat on the ground, panting for a minute. She didn't want to believe what she had just seen.

More people were dying. So many of them were in danger. Everyone was terrified, including Mizuno Ami. But she kept going because there were people she cared about in there. She couldn't just stand idly by.

There wasn't anyone Rei cared about in there. The only man who meant anything to her was waddling around the shrine, probably miserable that no young schoolgirls had been by for him to hit on. He wasn't in danger. He was sick, but nothing was going to pop out and kill him.

Then Rei remembered what Ami had said about trouble seeking them out. Perhaps it wouldn't always be that way. There was a chance that she would somehow get mixed up in another perilous situation whether she wanted to or not. Maybe even her grandfather would be.

If the enemy won that day, neither of them stood a chance.

Rei narrowed her eyes and nodded, pulling the henshin pen out of her pocket. She didn't want to do this, but Mamoru had been wrong. She didn't have a choice. None of them did.

And she was going to make the enemy pay dearly for it.

-----


Ami somehow managed to pass through the nearly literal wall of people desperate to get away from the hospital. Few people seemed to notice her, and it was just as well. If they had, they might recognize her and drag her away before she had a chance to do anything. With Rei still set on avoiding this fight altogether and Mamoru set on fighting if there was no one else to do so in spite of his condition, Ami didn't have much of a choice.

Once inside, Ami ducked into an empty hallway and transformed. Then it was all up to Sailor Mercury.

She ran to where the few left inside were running away from. Some of them were bleeding or limping. Almost no one was helping the injured. Not even the doctors who had pledged themselves to doing so. Mercury wanted to stop, but she knew that in order to fix this problem, she couldn't treat the symptoms. She had to find the source and eradicate it.

Mercury reached the scene quickly, finding a blue clad youma holding on to a young, struggling nurse. Mercury assumed that this had to be Tetis, the woman Rei had been talking about earlier. She had the young woman in a choke hold, swiftly suffocating the woman. Mercury came to a halt and shouted, "Let her go, Tetis!"

Tetis looked up, surprised at being addressed by her name. She didn't have a mouth, but the way her eyes crinkled up seemed to suggest that she would be grinning if she could. "Well, if it isn't Sailor Mercury. Jadeite will be pleased you lot finally decided to show up." She looked around, still holding on to the nurse. "Where are your friends?"

"On their way," Mercury bluffed, curling up her fists. "Now let her go. I'm the one you want to fight."

Tetis giggled. "Are you sure you want to do that?"

"I am sure that I want to stop you," Mercury said. "There seems to be only one way to do that."

Tetis nodded, perhaps a little impressed. "Indeed there is." Without warning, she released the woman, who took a very large gulp of air while she could. However, Tetis quickly grabbed her by her ponytail and swung her into the wall. She hit head first, falling to the ground.

Mercury was momentarily preoccupied with her condition, taking her eyes off Tetis. This proved to be a very foolish mistake on her part. Tetis snarled and leapt forward, her arms stretching to cover the distance between her and the Solider of Ice. Mercury's yelp was cut off by Tetis's fingers closing around her neck. Then her arms shrank back to their normal size as Tetis tackled her to the ground.

The two skidded across the linoleum for a few feet as Tetis continued to cut off her air flow. She laughed from above and leered down at Mercury, hissing, "Stupid brat. You might know my name, but you have no idea who you're dealing with. I'm Queen Beryl's most prized assassin! And what are you? A child! A child trying to go up against a born killer. If I didn't know better, I'd say you had a death wish."

Mercury tried to pry Tetis's hands from her neck, but quickly realized that it was doing her next to know good and wasting precious time. Sailor Mercury knew that she couldn't overpower Tetis, which left her with only one option to get out of this mess. She thought back to the water pressure in the bathroom the day before, banking on her theory being right. She closed her eyes and prayed as hard as she could. Then she took her hands off of Tetis's thin wrists, cupped her hands against her stomach, and called on her powers in her mind.

A strong jet of bubbles shot out of her hands, turning into liquid as they hit the air. It was just powerful enough to push Tetis off of her. The youma screeched as she was pushed back, sliding back on the now wet floor with wide eyes.

Before Tetis could attack again, Mercury scrambled to her feet, almost gleeful. It had worked. Her plan had actually worked! She'd used her defensive powers and managed to do some damage. She couldn't help but feel triumphant.

Unfortunately, it didn't last very long.

"You dare to use water against me?" Tetis seethed. "My own element... Oh, you're going to pay for that one, you little bitch!" Tetis screamed and pushed her hand forward, bringing forth a much stronger jet of water than Mercury could ever hope to produce.

Mercury dove out of the way, running around the corner. She watched in mute horror as the powerful stream came into contact with a crash cart abandoned in the hallway. The water punched a hole in it instantly. It filled with water quickly and eventually exploded, unable to accommodate it.

Mercury swallowed and went right back to praying.

-----


Jadeite stomped down a hallway in another part of the hospital, choosing to separate himself from the chaos Tetis had caused in order to find some victims of his own. He rounded a corner, practically running into a female patient who had not been watching where she was going while evacuating. She looked happy to see him until he drained her energy away. Then he dropped her as he had done so many others before her and moved on.

He was still beyond furious with Tetis. Jadeite kicked an abandoned pile of charts and moved on, prowling for someone to take his frustrations out on. Namely, the Senshi and Tuxedo Kamen that Tetis had promised to deliver to him. That was her reasoning behind this whole killing spree. If the Senshi saw the greater threat, they would come to destroy it.

Tetis and Jadeite were just supposed to destroy them first.

But so far, not one of the trio had appeared. Surely they had heard about this mess by now. Word traveled fast in Tokyo to begin with, but news of tragedy was just like setting fire to a dry field. They should have been there by now, but so far,
nothing.

Jadeite heard some whimpering from behind a desk. He reached over it without looking and pulled up a secretary or something. The woman screamed as he began to steal her energy as well, but it was a task he was not going to get to finish.

"Hold it!" a voice called out, her heels clacking against the floor.

Jadeite dropped the partially drained human faster than anything in his life and whirled to see Sailor Mars coming towards him. He grinned and stepped out, saying, "Well, well... Sailor Mars. The soldier that the youma fear so much."

Sailor Mars stopped, her eyes narrowed and a battle stance assumed. "I wouldn't know about that. I do know that you're killing innocent people, and I'm not going to let it happen to anyone else!"

Jadeite grunted bitterly. "Yes, well. If that's your goal, then there's a youma in a jumpsuit I really ought to refer you to. It was all her damn idea."

"Don't act like you didn't go along with it!" Mars snapped.

Jadeite shrugged. "I just thought I ought to set the record straight." He paused, pondering something. "Not that it matters of course. I am about to kill you. I guess I really just wanted someone to know that this mess is not my doing, but it's not like you're going to have an opportunity to spread the news."

Mars didn't seem willing to listen to his ramblings. "Shut up and fight, Jadeite."

Jadeite was momentarily surprised by her eagerness to engage in bloodshed, but then there must have been some reason why the elder youma warned the others of her strength. He smiled and said, "Nothing less from the Soldier of War." Then he yelled and threw a ball of energy in her direction.

Mars quickly dodged the shot, but didn't have much of a chance to rest. She had to keep moving as Jadeite threw attack after attack her way. Eventually, her luck ran out as one of them hit her right calf. It sent her sprawling and would no doubt leave her unable to put any weight on it for awhile.

As soon as she came to a stop, Mars brought her hands up and conjured a tiny wheel of fire. She forced herself to her knees and called out, "FIRE SOUL!" A fire storm came flying towards Jadeite, wide enough to scorch the walls and reaching up to the ceiling.

Always wary of fire, Jadeite vanished from where he stood, only reappearing when the flames had cleared. He looked warily at the blackened walls, and then turned to face his opponent. She was on her feet, and though she was favoring her left leg, she didn't seem to have any problems with running towards him to attack.

Jadeite smirked. "My, but this is going to be fun, isn't it?"

-----


Mercury was not faring too well against Tetis. In spite of her recent triumph, the Senshi had absolutely no chance in overpowering the youma. They shared elements, and Tetis simply had a better command of hers. She was hardly dull either, though Mercury didn't have the time to stand around and compare intellects.

Tetis had abandoned her magic for the time being, choosing to focus on a purely physical fight, which also put Mercury at something of a disadvantage. She dodged several blows before Tetis landed a punch on the side of her face, sending Mercury reeling. She slammed her shoulder into a wall and winced in pain. She didn't know how she was going to explain that bruise to her mother.

The youma began to advance on her, but Mercury wasn't about to take another hit that quickly. She reached up and grabbed a rather hefty picture from off the wall and flung it in her opponent's direction. Tetis hadn't been expecting that and barely had time to move out of the way. As it was, the edge of the frame dug into her left arm. Black blood bubbled up from the cut, and Tetis shrieked in pain.

Mercury moved herself away from the wall in time to avoid a vicious punch that went straight through the wall. Tetis dislodged herself with minimal injury and continued her advance. Mercury dodged a few more blows, and even managed to get one in herself, elbowing Tetis in the ribs. Her triumph was once again short lived as Tetis launched a roundhouse kick to her midsection. Mercury was sent sprawling onto the ground, rolling down the hallway several feet before finally coming to a stop. She wanted to get right up again and keep fighting, but there was a reason why men who were punched in the stomach had a lot of trouble getting up again. She found that it was very hard to breathe, and thus, very hard to move at anything other than a snail's pace.

"You are a nuisance," Tetis snarled, stalking towards the fallen soldier. "And I cannot wait to opine that you WERE a nuisance." Tetis drew her hand back, presumably to call forth another water jet.

Mercury had read in novels that brave men had a tendency to face their deaths with their eyes wide open, and she supposed it made her a coward to turn away before the end. She waited for everything to end, trembling and still struggling for breath even though it looked as though she wouldn't have that ability for much longer.

Then she heard something fly through the air, followed up by Tetis shrieking in pain. Mercury's eyes flew open, and she could not help but gasp when she saw what Tetis was screeching about. The blue youma was holding her now bleeding rose, a ruby red rose sticking out of her palm.

Mercury looked behind her to see the black clad figure standing, his mouth set into a stern line. She could still see the edges of his head bandages peaking out from underneath the brim of his hat. "Tuxedo Kamen!" she gasped, wanting to follow up with an order for him to leave, but she found that was all she could get out at the moment.

Tetis whirled around and flung out her other arm. Another powerful stream of water came coursing out, heading directly for Tuxedo Kamen. Thankfully, he had positioned himself at a corner and was able to dodge the water before it hit him. With a growl, Tetis spun and launched another shot at Mercury. The blue soldier quickly rolled out of the way, ducking into one of the rooms.

Mercury peeked out to see Tuxedo Kamen emerge, drawing Tetis's attention away from Sailor Mercury. The youma began to advance on him, but Mercury wasn't about to let himself get even more injured after what had happened the last time. She leaned out of the doorway and shouted, "SHABON SPRAY!" This time, she flung her hands out, casting the bubbles across the hallway and creating a fog that left Tetis disoriented.

The assassin stood lost in a sea of grey, waving her arms in an attempt to disperse it, but to no avail. She looked around frantically, panting and moaning in pain as the flower had not been removed from her hand. She turned around a few times, staggering about in the hopes that she would run into one of her opponents.

She did. Tetis turned to face none other than Tuxedo Kamen himself. She was about to attack, when Tuxedo Kamen brought his hand up and dragged something across her throat. She felt something sharp cut into it, and her scream was abruptly cut off as it sliced into her voice box. The fog may have been thick, but Tuxedo Kamen was close enough for her to watch as her blood sprayed on to his white shirt. When he was done, she looked over and saw a bloody scalpel in his hand.

She tried to call him a bastard, but she found that she couldn't speak.

Tetis staggered away from him, clutching her bleeding throat. The fog cleared as Sailor Mercury neared where they were, gasping when she saw what Tuxedo Kamen had done. Black liquid was dripping on to the ground, Tuxedo Kamen was covered in it, and still more was coating Tetis's hand. Mercury gaped at her ally, looking a little ill.

Tuxedo Kamen was about to say something, when they heard a familiar shout from around the corner.

"FIRE SOUL!"

Mercury felt her heart skip a beat. "It's Mars!" she breathed. "She came!"

"And apparently there's someone around for her to attack," Tuxedo Kamen said, pocketing the bloody instrument and bringing up his cane. He looked at Mercury and said, "Watch her. Make sure she doesn't try anything. I'm going to help Mars."

Tuxedo Kamen ran past her, ignoring her fervent cries for him to stop. He rounded the corner, and was immediately confronted with none other than Sailor Mars and Jadeite himself having it out. Mars looked as if she had taken a nasty blow to the leg and was having trouble keeping her balance. It also looked as if she was bleeding from a cut on her forehead. However, Jadeite hadn't come out of the battle unscathed either. He looked as if a few of her fire blasts had winged him, and there was a long cut on his cheek, suggesting that her heel had grazed his skin.

The general looked up to see Mars's ally and growled. "Well, it looks like you didn't leave Mars to fight me on her own then. How--"

Jadeite focused on something, his eyes widening in what very well could have been horror. Tuxedo Kamen followed his gaze, looking down at his blood stained shirt. Mars too was staring at it, though Tuxedo Kamen wasn't sure if it was because of the color or the amount.

"Tetis," Jadeite breathed, putting all of the clues together in his mind. He advanced on Tuxedo Kamen swiftly, demanding, "Where's Tetis? What did you do to her!"

Before Tuxedo Kamen could answer, the party in question rounded the corner, Sailor Mercury not too far behind her. Tetis was still clutching at her neck with her good hand, her other one hanging slack at her side. She had not removed the flower. She looked up at Jadeite, her red eyes looking as if they might be welling with tears.

"Tetis!" Jadeite cried. He ran forward, knocking Mars out of his way. She nearly lost her balance and had to be supported by Tuxedo Kamen to avoid hitting the ground. Mercury saw Mars's condition and moved away from the reuniting foes to see if there was anything she could do to help.

Tetis seemed to be in a similar state, falling into Jadeite as he drew near. He caught her, going to his knees as her weight was suddenly added to his own. He looked down at her in shock as her black blood continued to pour out of her neck, staining his shirt. He shook her a bit, as if this was somehow helpful to her condition. "Tetis! Tetis, hang in there! I'll get you back to the Dark Kingdom. The healers, they'll--"

Tetis wheezed in a way that made all three of her enemies wince with pain. She brought a shaking, wounded hand to Jadeite's lips, attempting to shush him. When he saw the rose embedded in her palm, he gently reached up and dislodged it. A little more blood seeped out of the wound, winding down her blue arm like a river. Then she reached up farther and smoothed his cheek with her fingers as her eyes fluttered closed.

Then her hand fell to the ground, and Tetis was gone.

"No..." Jadeite breathed as a black smoke began to come out of her open wounds. He shook his head vehemently and shouted, "Tetis! No! You can't, you--" But before he was able to finish his sentence, Tetis's body had turned to water in his arms, flooding out onto the linoleum and mixing with the black seepage.

Jadeite inhaled the smell of blood and seawater, crushing the rose in his hand.

He looked over at the other three, bearing his teeth. With a pained yowl that almost sounded inhuman, Jadeite leapt to his feet and tossed an energy ball in their direction. Tuxedo Kamen pushed Sailor Mars out of the way, taking her down to the ground. When Jadeite moved on to Mercury, she was more than ready to dodge. Both attacks zipped down the hallway, impacting into a wall, and sending debris flying into the air.

"I'm going to kill you," Jadeite seethed, quaking with rage. "I'm going to kill you for what you did to Tetis!" He drew his hand back to launch another assault, when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. A lot of them.

Jadeite's last attempt to vanquish his foes had seemed to attract some attention. All four warring opponents were shocked to see at least twenty infantrymen from the army round the corner. They were dressed in full battle attire and carrying weapons that Tuxedo Kamen had hoped never to see outside of a war movie. The soldiers stopped when the saw the scene and aimed their weapons at all parties. "Surrender yourselves, or we will open fire!" one of them shouted.

Jadeite stared at the soldiers, sneering. Without hesitation, he brought his hand out and flung it outwards, creating some sort of magical pulse that rippled through the hallway. It was strong enough to send Sailor Mars, Mercury, and Tuxedo Kamen flying into the soldiers, and still strong enough to send them reeling back as well. They came to a stop twenty feet down the hallway, every one of them surprised at his power.

Jadeite pointed directly at Tuxedo Kamen and said, "You. You killed her. I know you did. And I am going to make you pay dearly for it. You will be BEGGING for me to kill you before I am through with you! Do you hear me? Begging!"

Before anyone could respond, Jadeite had vanished in a flash of light, leaving them alone.

Tuxedo Kamen looked down at Mars, who was still clutching his chest from when they'd been thrown backwards. Mercury had had the great misfortune of landing on top of a now unconscious soldier, but she seemed otherwise fine. Tuxedo Kamen reached out and laid a hand on her back, just to make sure that he wasn't fooling himself. "Are you all right?" he asked, panting.

Mercury swallowed and nodded, obviously shaken. "Yes."

Tuxedo Kamen then looked down at Mars, who seemed to have just realized their proximity and was slowly moving away from him. "And you? Are you hurt badly?"

Mars shook her head. "My leg hurts, but... I'm fine. I'm fine," she repeated as if trying to convince herself of that fact.

Tuxedo Kamen looked back at their unfortunate companions, seeing that most of them were unconscious or just coming around. He looked at the other girls and said, "We'd better get out of here before they get up. I'd rather not be a political prisoner this evening, if it's all the same to you." Knowing that Mars was favoring her left leg, Tuxedo Kamen reached over and helped the girl to her feet, glancing over at Mercury to make sure that she could stand on her own.

Mercury was a bit slower in getting up, but she was managing all right. Well, she was until the soldier she had landed on proved not to be unconscious and now holding her back. She yelled and tried to pull her arm away from him.

"Mercury!" Mars shouted.

"Let her go!" Tuxedo Kamen chorused.

The soldier looked up at the pair, presumably to demand that they all stay behind for questioning or capture or some other nonsense, when a black blur shot out from around the corner and settled on the soldier's hand. He released Mercury immediately, leaping to his feet and trying to dislodge the creature who was currently digging its teeth into his skin. It was in fact Luna, and she landed on her feet, her ears flat against her head and hissing.

"Leave him!" Tuxedo Kamen called to her. "Come on, let's go!"

Luna seemed reluctant not to get one more swipe in, but did as she was told. She turned and ran over to Mercury, who was waiting for her with open arms. The cat leapt into them, and Mercury jogged over to the other two. She and Mars took off running immediately. Once Tuxedo Kamen was sure they had gotten enough of a head start, he turned back to the soldiers, who were still in various stages of consciousness. He grinned wickedly at them and tipped his hat, before following the two girls as quickly as he could, his black cape billowing behind him.

-----


Some time later, Mamoru, Ami, and Rei were all hobbling out of the hospital. They were confronted immediately by a number of camera crews, demanding to know what happened. Each of them turned the attention away, although Rei choose to insult one reporter's mother on the way out. Mamoru wisely grabbed her arm and pulled her along before she caused too much of a scene. The trio moved away from anyone who could get their conversation on some sort of recording before Mamoru said anything.

"Well, that wasn't my idea of a restful Sunday," Mamoru joked lamely, petting Luna compulsively.

"You did well," Luna insisted comfortingly. "All of you." This was delivered rather pointedly at Ami.

Ami blinked a bit, color filling her cheeks. "What?"

"I ran down ahead of Mamoru hoping to find you, and I saw how you handled yourself with Tetis," Luna admitted. "That was a very clever use of your attack, and it's going to be useful in the future." Luna looked down, seeming a bit sheepish. "I'm sorry I didn't try to help, but--"

"Don't be," Ami interrupted with a soft smile. She reached up and scratched Luna behind the ears. "You did enough."

Rei looked over her shoulder and gazed out at the countless people who had been injured or worse in the last fight. She swallowed a lump in her throat and asked, "But did we do enough?"

Mamoru followed her gaze, sweeping the crowd until he found that he had to look away. It was true, they hadn't done their jobs as well as they should have. They should have found a way to go after Tetis and Jadeite sooner. They should have been better prepared for this situation. They shouldn't have to have a guilty conscience about multiple, needless deaths of innocents.

It didn't help that Mamoru still had the scalpel he had stolen from an operating tray in his pocket, and it felt much heavier than it should have.

"We did all we could," Mamoru said softly. "And we came together in the end. That's what's important."

Luna looked down at Rei and questioned, "What made you change your mind anyway?"

Rei looked up at the feline in surprise. No one was sure if that would because she had not expected to be addressed or if she was still getting used to the idea of conversing with a cat. Rei looked over at Ami for a moment and then shook her head. "My reasons are my own. But rest assured, I won't abandon you again." She looked back out at the aftermath of the battle, her eyes conveying volumes of regret. "Not after this."

Ami looked over at Rei in sympathy, wanting to say something, but unsure of how to comfort her when there was really nothing to say. After all, Rei had been in the wrong. How was Ami to make her feel better about that?

Instead, she decided that a change of subject was in order. "Do you think he loved her?"

Mamoru looked over at Ami in surprise. "Hmm? Who? Jadeite?"

Ami nodded. "He seemed so... hurt. After it happened I mean."

Rei turned back to the group, her mouth thinned into a thoughtful expression. After a moment, Rei said, "I think..." She thought back to some of the looks Tetis had given Jadeite in her visions. Even with all the carnage she had witnessed, Rei could see how oddly peaceful Tetis had looked when she was alone with Jadeite. She had looked like a woman who had finally had all of her desires fulfilled, all of her wishes granted.

"I think she cared about him," Rei decided. "And I don't think he was used to that."

Luna sniffed, her ears twitching separately. "Well, if they did have a relationship, they certainly deserved each other." She didn't say it with any affection for either party.

"Still," Ami said, pulling on the sleeves of her blouse with her fingertips. "I can't imagine losing someone close to me. I... I don't think I could--"

"Ami!" another voice called out from some feet away.

Ami looked up in relief at the sound of the familiar voice. A grin broke out on her face as she shouted, "Mama!" She ran away from her two comrades and over to her mother. Ami threw her arms around the woman, sobbing a little and very happy to find that her mother was alive and well.

Luna, Mamoru, and Rei watched the happy reunion from afar, standing in silence. After a minute, Rei looked up at Mamoru and said, "Thank you."

Mamoru turned to her and blinked, unsure of what she meant. "For what?"

"Saving me," Rei clarified. "If you hadn't been there, I would have..." she trailed off, unwilling to finish the sentence. "Well, thank you."

Mamoru nodded and said, "You're welcome."

"Tell me something, Mamoru," Luna groused, interrupting the moment. Mamoru and Rei looked up at her, taken aback by her tone. "Do you plan on always throwing yourself in the way of attacks like that? Do I need to perform some sort of aversion therapy so that you learn that energy balls are the sort of thing you're supposed to avoid?"

Mamoru rolled his eyes and said, "What was I supposed to do? Let her get blasted?" Before Luna had a chance to respond, Mamoru continued. "You know, I find it interesting that you and Ami were both convinced I was going to get myself killed if I fought again, yet I seem to be the only one who got out of it without any new injuries."

Luna narrowed her eyes, and before Mamoru could have much of a chance to bask in his superiority, Luna had reached out and scratched his neck.

"OW!"

"There. Now you're hurt."

Rei couldn't help but find his predicament slightly amusing, laughing half-heartedly. She couldn't bring herself to be really happy about anything. Not yet. Not after what had happened.

Ami quickly rejoined them, wiping away several tears from her cheeks. She sniffled and said, "Mother had to go tend to some of the injured and sent me home."

"I think we need to have a sit down," Luna said. "After everything that's happened, we have a few things to discuss."

"We can meet at the shrine," Rei insisted before anyone could say otherwise. She felt it was the least she could do after how she had behaved the day before.

Mamoru nodded. "All right then. Let's go."

But none of them moved forward. They remained fixed in their places, still looking out as people were transported to other hospitals. They watched reunions between families and friends, and they watched others mourn the loss of the ones they hadn't been able to save. They watched doctors and nurses and even volunteers run around in attempt to bring some relief to the injured. And they watched still more people stagger out of the hospital doors, disoriented and afraid, but breathing.

Unfortunately, the three soldiers couldn't get past the memory of the ones that weren't.

"We can never let this happen again," Rei whispered, her own voice weighed down with guilt, but her gaze determined.

Ami shook her head. "We won't. We'll be ready next time."

"This isn't going to be a repeat of the Silver Millennium," Mamoru vowed quietly. "We're not going to be beaten because we didn't expect such a strong assault. We're going to expect the worst, and we're going to be able to beat the worst."

The agreement passed between them, and only then were they able to move on and prepare themselves for the inevitable 'next time.'

previous  Back to Summary Page  next

The dotmoon.net community was founded in 2005. It is currently a static archive.
The current design and source code were created by Dejana Talis.
All works in the archive are copyrighted to their respective creators.