Chapter 13: The Return

-VERTEX ONE: 15.556984-

Azabu-Juuban

"Chibi-Usa! Chibi-Usa, it's time to get up!"

"Nnngh." The younger Usagi Tsukino, also known as Usagi Small Lady Serenity Tsukino, also known as "Chibi-Usa", Princess of Crystal Tokyo and future ruler of mankind, stuffed a pillow over her ears and rolled over, trying to ignore the voice and fall back to sleep.

It was no use. Ikuko-mama was well-practiced with this routine by now, having had many years to perfect it. "Chibi-Usa! You're going to be late!"

A tiny paw pressed against the pillow. "Small Lady, are you unwell?" said a concerned voice.

"I'm fine, Diana, I'm fine." With great reluctance, Chibi-Usa sat up, yawned, and rubbed sleep from her eyes. "Mmmf... g'morning..."

"Good morning!" piped the little grey kitten with the crescent moon forehead mark as she hopped down to the floor. "I would suggest you hurry, Small Lady. You mustn't be late! Besides, I smell that Ikuko-mama made sausages for you..."

Chibi-Usa's stomach growled. Blast it, she could smell them too. Now there was no choice but to get up. "I'm coming, I'm coming. Just let me wash my face."

In truth, "Chibi-Usa" wasn't quite so "Chibi" anymore... she was virtually a mirror of her mother at age fourteen, save for her pink hair and scarlet eyes. It was an issue that caused her some concern, knowing that she was fast growing out of the familiar nickname she had used for years. Some nights she lay awake thinking of possible alternatives, but each one sounded worse than the last. "Usagi-nisei"? "Usa-ni?" Just "Usa"? Blech. It wasn't as if she could call herself "Small Lady" in this time period either, save for around a select few people.

Downstairs, someone rang the doorbell. There was a rush of heavy footsteps and an "I'll get it!" from Shingo, followed by a very quiet voice, too soft to make out distinct words. A second or two of extremely awkward silence, and... "Chibi-Usa! Hotaru's here!"

"Oh, crap!" Neo-Queen Serenity would surely have scolded her for that one, but Neo-Queen Serenity wasn't here, was she? "Diana, how late is it?!"

Diana had moved to the fluffy cat bed in the corner of her room. She opened one eye, not bothering to get up. She didn't have school today. "Ten minutes until eight o'clock, Small Lady."

"Kyaaaaa! How did- My alarm... my alarm broke again, I can't believe it! Auugh, and I have a math test first period! I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm so dead...!"

A passing black cat with a crescent moon mark on her forehead identical to the kitten's briefly stuck her head in through the open bedroom door and watched the pink tornado inside as she tore through her dresser in a panic. "It's uncanny," muttered Luna, raising an eyebrow. "Deja vu..."

Azabu

Usagi Tsukino, twenty-one years old. Former schoolgirl, current housewife (well, house-fiancée, if that was a thing), and secret savior of the world many times over. A little less clumsy, but still very much a crybaby... and that was about it.

At last, Sailor Moon had hung up her fuku, returning to a normal, relatively peaceful, somewhat ordinary life. The mysterious prophesied disaster that was to befall Earth and lead to her ascension as Neo-Queen Serenity and the birth of Crystal Tokyo... it simply failed to happen. Five years after the final, vicious battle with Galaxia, it seemed as if it never would at all. Destiny, just this once, had gotten it wrong. Life went on... weirder than it was in the old pre-Senshi days, of course, with the addition of talking cats, a child from the future, and the assorted hang-ups and minor crises of high school, but she made it. Usagi graduated (somehow, Rei still wasn't sure how), and fell into the waiting arms of her beloved Mamoru Chiba.

It was the same Mamoru Chiba who now watched her at his side, sprawled across half of the mattress, fast asleep and snoring like a runaway chainsaw. Morning sunlight streamed through the windows of their apartment, warm and golden on them both. It would have been almost pastoral... if it weren't for Usagi's distinct lack of feminine behavior in her sleep. As if to prove the point, the golden rays glinted off the thread of drool hanging precariously at the edge of one lip, which shook violently with each snore.

Mamoru shook his head and chuckled. Same old Usako, he thought as he kissed her forehead and slid out from under the covers. He did so quietly, despite knowing from experience that his wife-to-be could sleep like the dead and would only wake up once she smelled breakfast.

Which she did, naturally. A perky kiss good morning, followed by Usagi's usual four bowls of rice, a shower for them both, then another kiss goodbye, and the day was on.

"It's my turn for dinner tonight, Mamo-chan!" said Usagi, standing at the door with her shopping bags. "Is there anything special you want me to make? I'm going out to the market today to buy ingredients, so just name it!"

Already seated in front of his laptop, Mamoru paused. Usagi was better at cooking than she used to be, but... well, to be honest, "better than she used to be" wasn't exactly hard, all things considered. "Beef curry and rice would be fine. Thanks, Usako."

"You always ask for beef curry and rice when I cook!" Usagi blushed and giggled. "I don't want my Mamo-chan getting spoiled..."

There was more to it than that, of course. Beef curry was one of the few dishes Usagi could make with some degree of success and a minimum of disasters in the kitchen... most of the time. "Don't worry," said Mamoru, smiling up at her behind his glasses. "You can't spoil someone who's already been spoiled."

"Awwww, Mamo-chan!"

"You'd better get going. There's a special on soba noodles today, and you don't want them to run out before you get there."

"Oooh, right! Thanks, Mamo-chan! Byeeee~..."

"Bye, Usako. I love you."

"Love youuu~!"

"Take care."

"I will!"

"Tell Sonoda-san that I said hello."

"Roger! Byeeee~! Love you!"

Mamoru shook his head with a smile and a good-natured sigh. If he didn't break this holding pattern now, their goodbye could drag on until noon, or longer. "Usako."

"Oh, right!" Usagi rapped herself on the forehead, right between her trademark twin odango. "Silly me... I'll get going! Usagi Tsukino, heading out!"

The door slammed, and there was a storm of rapid footsteps receding down the hall outside. As usual, Mamoru waited another minute more, just in case those footsteps should come back... but this time, Usagi seemed to have remembered her keys, and her purse, and her train pass, and her shoes. Four for four... very impressive. Now he could get to work.

"My Prince."

He didn't know how much later it was when he first heard the voices, or how long they had been there. Writing a quantum physics dissertation was absorbing work, and it was entirely possible that he could have missed it the first time it spoke. This time, though...

"My Prince."

There were precious few people who addressed him by that title. Mamoru Chiba looked up over the lid of his laptop, his senses on high alert...

... and saw an extra four people and a horse standing in the middle of his apartment.

The sight was all the more bizarre because nothing remotely like it had happened in the past five years. The world was safe, Galaxia and Chaos were defeated. Things like this just weren't part of his life anymore.

Or was that wishful thinking? Mamoru put his glasses aside and stood facing them all. Trying to maintain his calm, he spoke to them: "You called?"

The four translucent human figures shimmered as they knelt before him, hands on their hearts. All wore similar uniforms, iron grey with colored piping, but there their similarities ended. One was relatively young, with fair hair, striking ice blue eyes, and a smile that suggested amusement with the world. Next to him, an older man, far more serious, his hair long and wavy brown. Beside them, a very handsome blonde man with feminine, delicate features, who looked barely old enough to be in their company... and in hand with him, as always, was the one who was clearly their leader, young despite his white back-length tresses, his uniform accented with a flowing cape.

"Prince Endymion," said the phantom Kunzite, raising his head only when Mamoru motioned him to do so. "We, your trusted Four Heavenly Kings, bring you urgent warning."

"Kunzite?" said Mamoru, trying and failing to hide his surprise. Long ago, in another life, these four had been his most trusted friends and advisors. In this life, they were his mortal enemies before regaining their true selves after death. For their spirits to appear again, after all this time... "What is it, what's wrong?"

Now it was the horse's turn to speak... or more accurately, the pegasus. He was a beautiful pure white stallion with a golden horn, faint and insubstantial like the Kings, the span of his translucent feathered wings wide enough that they could touch both walls of the small space if spread. "Strange portents have been read in Elysion, my Prince," said Helios, his tone soft and sorrowful. "Your kingdom is in need of you, and your planet may be as well."

"Now?" Mamoru blinked. "Why now? Chaos was-"

"Defeated, but not destroyed." Nephrite's usual stern expression was far more grave than usual. "Still, this is far too soon for it to regenerate. The Princess's sacrifice should have dissipated it for another thousand years, at least."

"We fear this may be something new," said Zoicite, clutching Kunzite's hand tighter. "Something, or someone, is here that shouldn't be... an outsider."

Hairs prickled on the back of Mamoru's neck. Dark powers resurging was terrible news enough, but this... He nodded. "I'll come with you. Just let me leave a note for Usako."

"Please do," Jadeite's spirit rose and clasped his hands behind his back. "There is a chance that whoever or whatever this force is, it means no harm... but frankly, that chance seems slim. If it does mean us harm, then the Princess is in danger as well..."

Minato-ku Deca Supermarket

Hours later, Usagi was bent over two packages of diced beef, comparing prices when her cell phone rang sharply. "Uwaaah~!" The sound startled her enough to make her jump... and slam her head into the top of the freezer. The burst of pain made her lose her already precarious balance, and she fell like a ton of bricks to the market floor, knocked half-senseless, with ice shards in her hair and a half-dozen packages of cold diced beef sprawled over her.

"Tsukino-san!" said Sonoda the butcher, coming out from behind his counter. Tsukino falling over wasn't exactly a rare occurrence, but this stumble looked a good deal more painful than the usual ones. "Tsukino-san, are you all right? Let me help you up..."

"... c-can't eat any more sundaes, I'll throw up..." mumbled Usagi, stars dancing before her eyes. Mr. Sonoda's voice floated through the haze, and she shook her head, her blonde twintails whipping back and forth. "Th-thanks, Sonoda-san," she said, taking his offered hand. Next to her, her cell phone blared, sliding across the tiled floor as it vibrated. "Oh, whoever that is is going to get it!" Snatching it up, she checked the ID: Hikawa Shrine. Without pausing, she hit the answer button and hollered into the receiver. "Rei-chan, you idiot! You almost gave me a concussion! What are you calling for so early in the mor-"

Surprisingly, Rei was already hollering back, "Get to the shrine! Right now!" Something crashed in the background, and she shrieked. "There's someone here! Someone-"

"Who is it, Rei-chan? Is it a pervert? Did Yuuichiro peep on you?"

"No, stupid! It's-" Another crash, another shriek, and: "I-it's an attack! Someone is trying to-"

That was all Usagi needed to hear. Her blood ran cold... five years without so much as a peep from the forces of darkness, and now it was all happening again. The rest of what Rei said missed her completely... an attack. Now, after all this time. "Sonoda-san, I'm sorry," she said to the flummoxed butcher. "C-could you wrap up my things and hold them for me, please? It's an emergency..."

"Of course, Tsukino-san, but-"

"Thanksgottagobye!"

Hikawa Shrine, Sendai Hill

One cross-town bus trip and a long flight of stairs later, and Usagi Tsukino burst into the center of Hikawa Shrine, having followed the racket from within. Violently she slid aside the door to the fire reading room, already preparing a speech and the pocketspace where she kept her transformation compact. Whatever it was, if it had hurt Rei, it was going to pay. "Hold it! Stop right-"

Usagi blinked, at once at a loss for words. The speech she had been preparing flew from her mind, replaced by total confusion. "What the..."

Rei Hino was there in front of the roaring flames, a classic Japanese beauty as ever, resplendent in red and white shrine maiden robes, her long raven hair frazzled and her violet eyes wild. "Usagi!"

And Rei Hino was there in front of the roaring flames, a classic Japanese beauty as ever, resplendent in red and white shrine maiden robes, her long raven hair frazzled and her violet eyes wild. "Usagi!"

Usagi stared. There were two Reis in the room. Two absolutely identical copies of Rei Hino, both looking at her for help with the exact same expression. "Rei... chan?"

In stereo, both Reis cried out and pointed at each other. "It's a trick! She says she's me, but it's a trick! Don't believe her!"

For all the weird and inexplicable things Usagi had experienced in her life, up to and including meeting with her future daughter and her future self, this was one of the weirdest. Her head spun, and the world tilted out from underneath her. "I don't get it. How can there be two Reis?"

"Does it matter?!" shrieked the Rei on the right, stamping her foot in a display of her signature temper. "She's a fake, Usagi! Don't just stand there gawking, we've gotta do something!"

"I am not a fake!" said the Rei on the left... but far from an angry, passionate rebuttal, her response was cold, offended... she was dignified despite her terror and confusion. "Usagi, it's me, you know I'm the one that's real!"

Usagi stared back and forth from one to the other. "I-"

-static-

... and she swallowed, struck by the sudden, sure realization that they were both right...

"... so you gave me the Moon Stick, just to be sure you wouldn't be tempted to surrender the Silver Crystal to save Mamoru-san, remember?" said the Rei on the right, whom Usagi had started thinking of as "Rei 1". They now sat together in Rei's bedroom... one of the Reis' bedrooms, anyway. After few cups of very strong tea, they were all calmed down enough to talk things over peacefully.

Usagi nodded, her arms crossed and her brow furrowed. "Mmm-hmm. I remember that. All right, Rei 2, it's your turn."

The Rei on the left closed her eyes. Her hands were folded calmly in her lap. "I don't remember any of that," she said. "But I do remember when I fought Cooan of the Ayakashi Sisters-"

"Cooan?" said Rei 1. "Yeah, that's right, she and her sisters run a perfume shop in town now."

Her counterpart raised an eyebrow. "You didn't destroy her?"

Rei 1 gaped back at her in horror. "Destroy her?! No! She and the others were good people being used by the Black Moon Clan, why would we destroy her?! Usagi used the Silver Crystal to heal them all!"

"The Cooan I fought was hardly a 'good person,'" said Rei 2, her voice cool. "She murdered several people at my school in cold blood. I had no choice but to destroy her."

"Mmm-hmm," Usagi nodded. "I remember that."

Fuming, Rei 1's foot beat an angry rhythm against her bedroom floor. "This isn't getting us anywhere! We fought all of the same enemies, but how we fought them is always different!"

"Except for our first battle," said Rei 2. "During the incident with the disappearing people on the bus..."

"Yeah, the Youma bus driver. That was mostly the same for both of us. Why is that?"

"Mmm-hmm," Usagi nodded. "I remember that, too."

"Well then, if you remember, come on!" Rei 1 turned a furious glare on her friend. "Which one of us do you think is real?"

A pause. Usagi tilted her head to one side, and her brows knit together. "I don't know."

There followed a brief but furious scuffle as Rei 2 seized hold of Rei 1, attempting to keep her twin from wrapping her hands around Usagi's neck. For her part, Usagi cowered in a corner, wailing in fear and curled into a ball.

At Rei 2's insistence, another round of tea followed... after which Usagi's stomach made a sound resembling that of a disgruntled bear, so there were another few minutes of peace while Rei 1 fetched a box of rice crackers for her.

"Look," said Rei 2, raising her voice to be heard over the sound of noisy chewing from Usagi's direction. "Even if we are different people, we both have the same mission: to protect the Princess. Don't we?"

"Right." Rei 1 drummed her fingers on the table between them. "Whatever's going on, that's gotta be our first priority."

"Indeed. So we should assemble the other Senshi..."

Rei 1 cringed. "That... might be a problem. Ami's in Kyoto working on her fourth master's degree, Makoto's running her cake shop, Minako's on tour, Chibi-Usa and Hotaru are in school... and none of us hear much from Haruka, Michiru, and Setsuna these days."

"Wait," said Rei 2, frowning. "What year is this?" When Rei 1 told her, she looked aghast. "That isn't possible! Crystal Tokyo was supposed to-"

"We don't get it either." Rei 1 kneaded her brow, feeling a headache coming on. "Whatever it was should have happened by now, but... it never did."

"Mmmph..." Usagi swallowed a mouthful. "Yeah, we just figured we must have changed our future or something."

"But if Crystal Tokyo never formed, why would Chibi-Usa still be here? Why would she exist at all?"

Usagi shrugged. "Time travel stuff? Maybe we should talk to Setsuna. She'd know better than we would, right?"

At that moment, the three heard a sound they hadn't heard in years. It had been so long that it took them all a moment to place it... it was an alarm from the dusty communicator watch on Rei's shelf.

Usagi made a move for it and promptly fell over the table with a crash and a spray of cracker crumbs. It was Rei 1 who snatched the watch up, flipping open the lid. "What is it, what's wrong?"

The small, black-furred face on the screen was lined with concern. "Trouble in the shopping district, I've never seen anything like this!" said Luna. "Is Usagi with you? Someone needs to go there right away!"

Climbing awkwardly to her feet, Usagi made a fist. "I'm on it, Luna!" With her free hand, she reached into her pocketspace and called out: "Silver Moon Crystal Power, Make Up!"

There was a resounding silence.

"Eh...?" Usagi wiggled her fingers. She couldn't feel the shape of the compact, but it should have been right there at her command...

Rei 1 looked up from the communicator, frowning. "What was that?! Don't tell me you've forgotten the right words!"

"It sounded right to me. Perhaps..." Rei 2 swallowed, her composure beginning to crack. "Perhaps you should try another command?"

"R-right! Um, Moon Crisis, Make Up!"

Again, nothing happened.

Both Reis stared as Usagi proceeded to go through every transformation call she ever had in reverse order... and it was only on the last one when a brilliant flash of light filled the room:

"Moon Prism Power, MAKE UP!"

Juuban Municipal Junior High School

"I'm gonna die, Hotaru-chan."

"Chibi-usa-chan, no..."

"There's nothing I can do, it's all gone wrong! I'm never gonna grow up to be Queen... It's the end..."

Hotaru Tomoe patted her friend's shoulder. "I'm sure your mother won't be that mad."

"Are you kidding?!" Chibi-Usa raised the crumpled test paper, which bore dozens of marks in red ink, including a huge 30 scrawled across the top in what appeared to have been a fit of rage by the teacher. "Ikuko-mama's gonna have my head for this! You don't understand... back when I was little, she got so mad at Usagi for flunking tests that she needed blood pressure pills! I'm supposed to be the responsible one!"

"It'll be all right." Hotaru's lips curled into a sympathetic smile. "It's one bad test, she'll understand."

"Maybe if it was one, but what about the last seven?"

"... Oh dear." Sighing, Hotaru leaned back against the chain link fence on the school roof. She was still rather pale and a bit sickly, still shy, soft-spoken and unassuming, and still dressed mostly in black, concealing clothes when not in her school uniform... but Hotaru Tomoe's lonely social outcast status was a thing of the past. She was only beginning to grow into an extraordinary beauty, whose friendship with Chibi-Usa encouraged her to come out of her shell over the years. Now, it was a rare week when she didn't get any love letters in her locker or requests for dates... she politely declined them all, of course, but there seemed to be no hard feelings among the boys and girls who tried.

"How do you do it, Hotaru-chan?" said Chibi-Usa, looking up from her bento box with a glum expression and a piece of fried shrimp dangling dejectedly from her mouth. "How do you get to be smart, pretty, and popular?"

"I wouldn't say I'm all of that." Hotaru giggled, a low, musical sound, and her cheeks flushed faintly pink. "Perhaps it's because I don't have many distractions?"

"Mnnngh," moaned Chibi-Usa in semi-agreement. "Is the Literature Club still bugging you to join?"

"And the Computer Club, and the Tabletop Gaming Club," said Hotaru. "I admit, I was interested in that last one..."

The shrimp fell into Chibi-Usa's dipping sauce with a soft plop. "Those guys?! You can't be serious!"

"Have you seen the games they play? They're fascinating!" Hotaru's violet eyes shone. "They play with all these neat little miniature knights and monsters, and they use detailed charts and maps and graphs... and they're so intense when they play!"

Chirp. The sound came from Chibi-Usa's left wrist. Puzzled, she brought what appeared to be an ordinary wristwatch up to her eye level... this was Luna-P's default form these days, being less conspicuous than a floating ball with a cartoon cat face. She flipped up the lid and spoke to the screen underneath. "Hello...?"

A kind face with calm, sea green eyes and wavy turquoise hair answered. "Good evening, Chibi-Usa-chan. I hope this isn't a bad time."

"Michiru-san! No, of course not! Hotaru-chan, come here!"

Hotaru was already on the way to her side, hurriedly wrapping up her lunch box. "Michiru-mama, what is it?"

"I'm glad Hotaru is with you," said Michiru Kaioh, with audible relief. The fact that eternally serene Michiru sounded worried at all was a bad sign indeed. "Have either of you heard anything from Setsuna in the past hour?"

"Puu?" Chibi-Usa blinked. "No, I haven't heard anything, why?"

Michiru's image looked off to one side at something the girls couldn't see. An unreadable emotion flickered behind her eyes. "Stay close together. There may-"

Her image dissolved into snow and white noise, and there was nothing more.

"Michiru-san?" Something was definitely wrong; Chibi-Usa could feel a peculiar sensation, a prickling feeling like being watched... "Michiru-san, are you there?"

-static-

The hiss of sound came not from the communicator screen, but from all around them. That prickling escalated, and now Chibi-Usa could feel the hair rising on the nape of her neck. She felt the arrival of the newcomer seconds before they appeared, and...

"Ah-!" A brief, plaintive cry came from Hotaru's lips as she was seized by a violet aura that lifted her inches off the ground. Her back was ramrod straight, her eyes opened wide...

"Hotaru-chan! Hota-" Chibi-Usa stopped, struck dumb as she saw it:

The glyph of Saturn, shining bright on Hotaru's forehead.

Oh no.

Hotaru's transformation happened with no magic words, no flashes or sparkles, no posing, none of the usual hallmarks. It only took an instant for Hotaru to fade, and for Sailor Saturn to appear in her place... the true Sailor Saturn, at full strength once more.

One look at her face was enough to confirm which aspect of her was now in control. When Hotaru transformed normally, it was still her wearing the fuku: Hotaru's face, Hotaru's eyes, Hotaru's small, friendly smile. The true Sailor Saturn was as separate from Hotaru Tomoe as night was from day. There was no warmth in her eyes or in her smile, only cold, clear, distinct purpose. Her only purpose.

The Senshi of Ruin, the forbidden one, the harbinger of destruction, was awake once more. She took hold of the Silence Glaive as it materialized, and pointed its wicked, curved blade at the new arrival standing across the roof...

Chibi-Usa's blood froze in her veins. The figure wore a ragged black cloak, and in the shadows of its hood lurked the vague shape of a grinning skull. One bony hand carried a twisted metal staff with a jeweled crown. A specter of death... but for Chibi-Usa, its form was horribly reminiscent of a monstrous being that still haunted her nightmares. No, that's not possible! The terrified thought raced through her brain. We destroyed him, he can't be back-!

"Small Lady," said Saturn. It sounded like Hotaru speaking, but... but for one thing, Hotaru never called her "Small Lady". That was hardly any comfort. "Do not fear. That is not the creature that you think it is."

"S-" she mumbled. Her mouth wouldn't work right. "S-Saturn?"

"Stay behind me." She turned an icy stare on the specter. "You know who I am. My awakening means that a great calamity has befallen this world. It is my duty to end it, whatever the cost."

The specter made no sound. It raised its twisted staff, and a burning red scythe blade erupted from the jewel in its crown. The folds of its cloak billowed around it as it charged...

A tempest swept the rooftop as the scythe blade crashed against the Glaive's with a thunderous roar. Saturn held her ground, staring right into the darkness beneath the specter's hood without fear, without hesitation as she intoned: "Silence Buster." At point blank range, a spiral of bright energy tore into the specter, blowing it back across the roof and slamming it into a concrete wall with bone-crushing force.

Behind her, Chibi-Usa watched, paralyzed in awe and terror. Now she fully understood why Saturn's true awakening was such cause for dread, why she never fought alongside the rest of the Senshi in normal circumstances. This kind of power was not only a threat to the forces of evil, but to Saturn herself and everyone around her...

There was an expression almost like pity in her eyes as she trained the Silence Glaive on the specter. "If you can hear me, do not move." Odd, it was almost like she was addressing someone familiar. "I will bring an end to your suffering." Once more she raised her blade...

"Wait!"

Saturn froze, and Chibi-Usa stared. The voice came from Saturn's lips... but it wasn't Saturn's voice, it was Hotaru's...

"Please, you have to stop!" Her cold expression lit up, and panic flashed across her face. "We need to call the Princess, she can-"

And Saturn answered, low with regret: "This is beyond even the Princess's ability to help, little one. Far too much damage has been done already, and more will suffer if I do not act."

Back and forth, Saturn and Hotaru argued... her two aspects had never been in conflict like this before. It was all the distraction the specter needed; it picked itself up, the red lights beneath its hood glowing-

-static-

- and Saturn/Hotaru howled and dropped to her knees, clutching at her temples as if her head were about to burst.

"Saturn!" Chibi-Usa came to her side, clutching her shoulders. "Saturn, what's-" Her eyes grew wide with terror.

Two symbols flickered back and forth on her best friend's forehead, battling for dominance: the violet glyph of Saturn, and the black star emblem of the Death Busters...

-static-

Now Chibi-Usa screamed as well, her skull splitting in two, and though she couldn't see it, she knew exactly what was happening: her crescent moon, her birthmark, was fading in and out, alternating with an inverted black crescent. Something was tearing her apart, unearthing the long-buried essence of Black Lady... doing the same to Hotaru, trying to uncover the Daimon beast called Mistress 9...

This can't be happening...!

It's all gone wrong...!

The specter approached them, a burning red blade extending from the jewel atop its twisted staff. It raised its scythe high, and brought it down...

... where it clashed against a green shield of energy that repelled its fall, throwing off flaming sparks.

Whatever it was their rescuer had done, it worked: Chibi-Usa felt her true self reform with an audible snap, and next to her, Saturn/Hotaru slumped to the surface of the roof, her glyph asserting dominance over the black star. Weakly, she crawled to her friend, wrapped her arms around her, and felt a heartbeat, thank heaven. "H-Hotaru-chan...?"

Her friend's hand squeezed hers. "Chibi... Usa..." Hotaru. Not Saturn, Hotaru. Her pulse was racing like a bird's, but she was all right. "Who is...?"

Chibi-Usa looked up, blinking her bleary eyes, and for the first time, she beheld their rescuer. The first thing she made out was long blonde pigtails streaming behind the girl as she shielded them with her power. Warmth and relief flooded her, and she opened her mouth to call Sailor Moon's name...

The name never made it past her lips, for it wasn't Sailor Moon at all. A much younger girl, she was dressed in white, in a costume with bows, ribbons, lots of frills, and a wide tiered skirt. As more details became clear, Chibi-Usa saw that the white costume was accented with pale pink, yellow, and green colors, almost pastel... she was dressed like springtime. The blonde pigtails that she had mistaken for Usagi's were curled, ending in spirals... and instead of Usagi's trademark twin odango, she wore two pink hair ribbons, which fluttered as she poured more energy into her shield.

Again and again, the specter brought its blazing scythe down on the girl's shield. The stranger in white winced but held her ground, her golden eyes set and determined. Inch for inch, she pushed back against it, visibly straining until she finally made out an opening. With a concentrated blast, she sent the specter sailing over the chain link fence and off the roof. It made no sound as it fell.

Chibi-Usa's mouth hung open. "That was... how... who are you?"

The stranger in white didn't answer. She seized first Chibi-Usa's hand, then Hotaru's, and ran with them both, dragging them with supernatural strength toward-

- toward an ordinary white wooden door that now stood by itself on the school roof.

"W-wait," gasped Hotaru, stumbling to keep up with her. "Where are you taking-"

The stranger in white shook her head, the door flew open, and they were gone.

The Juuban shopping district was like a scene from a horror movie. The sun was setting on a mob scene, a crowd of bizarre and monstrous creatures, hundreds of them, all clustered together. They roared, cried, and howled in a demonic cacophony, all clawing or pounding or scratching at the steel security shutters that blocked their access to the jewelry store on the corner.

In the front of the mob was a withered form with skin gnarled like an ancient tree and a red mark resembling a vicious scar on her forehead. Her fists battered at the weaker steel covering the store's front door... it was already denting, in another few minutes it would give way. "You can't hide in there forever!" she cackled to the humans she knew were inside. "Soon you'll be ours! Soon you'll belong to Dead End!"

Inside the store, a young man huddled behind one of the display cases, taking great fistfuls of his spiky brown hair. "This is a nightmare!" he wailed to the woman next to him. "Where the heck are the police?!"

"The police aren't coming," said his wife. Her eyes were shaded beneath her red bangs.

"What about the JSDF, then?! There's gotta be someone who-"

"You saw those things outside, you know they're not human! Do you really think that any army in the world is going to be able to stop them?" She rose, cradling her only weapon and crossing the floor.

The man stared at her in disbelief from behind a pair of thick round glasses. "Have you gone crazy? What are you doing?!"

Before his wife could answer, a muffled explosion thundered against the door... which finally gave way, falling off its hinges. The mob's leader grinned madly as she stepped over it, yellow pupils aglow in her black sclera... "All of you," she called to the other monsters, "bring any humans you find here to m-"

Something crashed against her skull, and her body crumpled to the floor. Moaning, the Youma called Morga clutched her wound and looked up at the fool that dared to harm her... and her unearthly eyes widened in recognition. "You...!"

Naru Umino, neé Osaka, stood over her, wielding a metal baseball bat now stained with blue-green blood, her stance strong despite the heavy pregnant swell of her belly. Oh, she remembered this particular monster well... she couldn't forget that ugly face if she tried. "I'm only giving you one chance," she said, raising the bat for another strike. "Get out of my store."

An enraged scream tore from the Youma's throat. Her arms stretched grotesquely, curving in half circles to seize Naru by the neck. "It's all your fault!" hissed Morga, bringing the young woman close to her fanged maw. "If it hadn't been for you..."

Naru pounded at the gnarled arms, her vision flickering as the monster raised her off the floor. She could hardly breathe, Gurio was screaming in terror behind her, but... "You'll..." she choked, forcing the words out and trying to smile, "... y-you'll be s-sorry..."

"Oh, really?" Withered lips spread into a cruel grin. "I think not, little Naru-chan. You're coming with us."

Clawed hands tore the bat from her grip as Morga dragged Naru out into the street, into the very center of the crowd of monsters, cheering and hollering for joy... they smelled the coming slaughter, they could almost taste the young human's fresh blood and pure, youthful energy. Yet she still pulled herself to her feet, staring them all down, unafraid. Putting her hands on her round belly, Naru drew herself up to her full height, facing her end without blinking. At the edge of the mob, she heard Gurio, now shouting bloody murder and trying to fight his way to her with his bare hands. Her heart grew warm with pride for her husband... when it counted, he came through, as he always did.

The sky above turned rapidly from violet to black, and the stars gleamed as they came out, their light winking down from between a scattering of clouds...

Inch by inch, the mob grew closer. Naru recognized quite a few of them, the nightmares that plagued her all those years ago, returned once more. After all the strange incidents during her school years, she never really believed that these things would stop happening to her, even after five years of peace... That was why she always kept the bat close at hand, just in case.

"Naru!" Gurio had broken through, or more accurately, the demonic creatures had shoved him through. Blood trickled from his lip, his glasses were cracked, and his shirt was torn to pieces, but he was all right. He was alive. "I'm sorry, Naru, I tried to get the bat back, but-"

"Gurio." Softly, Naru took her husband's hand in hers. "It's okay. You were wonderful."

Despite the warmth of her hand, he shuddered. "Is... is this it? Is this how it ends?"

Naru said nothing. She put her other hand on the swell of her belly.

Now Morga came forward through the crowd, her claws extending inches past her wrinkled fingertips. "I have a score to settle with you, human!"

"N-Naru?" said Gurio, drawing close to her.

"Shhh."

Step by step, Morga approached the couple, and when she was within striking distance of the young woman's stomach, she raised her arm...

"Hold it!" The voice rang out strong and clear from the top of a nearby lamppost.

A ripple effect spread through the crowd at once: the joyful racket ceased, replaced by frightening murmuring.

At the same time, a brilliant smile spread across Naru's face as she squeezed her husband's hand tight. "I knew it. See? It's gonna be all right, Gurio. Just watch."

As one, the entire crowd, human and monster, looked up to the top of the lamppost. Overhead, the clouds broke to reveal a pale crescent moon, its light shining down upon the feminine figure perched atop it, arms crossed and pigtails blowing in the evening breeze...

Now the murmuring stopped, and at least a quarter of the mob emitted horrified gasps.

"Trying to deny a young couple their right to raise a family is unforgivable, I won't allow it!" she shouted, blue eyes aglow with righteous fury. She raised one gloved hand, silhouetting it against the moon above as she began the speech she knew by heart... "For love and justice..."

"No," whispered Morga, shaking her head and shrinking back in disbelief. "No, not again...! It can't be!"

"... the pretty Senshi in a sailor suit..."

Tears welled in Naru's eyes. She mouthed the next words along with her rescuer, her heroine, the person without whom she would be dead or worse so many times over, without whom she wouldn't be here, holding her beloved husband's hand and cradling the child growing within her...

"... I am Sailor Moon!"

Half of the mob screamed in mortal terror.

Atop the lamppost, she crossed her arms in the classic pose, and finished: "In the name of the moon... I shall punish you!"

Sailor Moon had returned.

END OF CHAPTER 13