USAGI IS DEAD II DEAD IS USAGI
by DARK DAY FOR ANIME

Diclaimer - Sailormoon is owned by Takeuchi Naoko and Bandai, so
these characters really belong to them, except ones I made up.  This
means I'm only using the Sailormoon characters for purposes benign.
I'm not a ripoff merchant like "Anya Romanov".  ^_^

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"This is it, folks!  Over the top!"

Take a Long Line - The Angels<

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OPENING STANZA....


	"So....  Why kidnap me like this?  Why tie me up and all...."
Usagi stared up from the floor, where the chair she was tied to 
had fallen, at her captor with a mixture of anger and fear, and 
both because she was staring at herself.  Something she had a hard
time getting used to.  After all, it wasn't everyday that you were
kidnapped and ripped from the stream of history by someone that 
looked like you....

	Her double merely grinned, almost drooling in the process, a
lascivious expression that only heightened Usagi's disgust.  
"Because they will chase you here....  By removing you from that 
stream of history, I have changed everything that was to follow.  
Even my own creation.  And yet, I still exist."

	Her double held her hands aloft, staring at the ceiling in an
almost messianic fashion.  She stopped and looked down at Usagi, her
eyes wide and manic.

	"What does that say to the concept of the time paradox, eh?  
What does that say about my existence?  I'm strong enough....  
POWERFUL enough... to resist the pull of the paradox."

	Usagi recoiled as her double leapt forward, slamming her hands
down on Usagi's shoulders.  "I can do anything, because I've been 
removed from the seed of my own creation.  I am now an individual 
entity, with thoughts and feelings of my own, dragged from the 
worlds of the dead by a power greater than you can conceive.  Now I
shall change time, to create a universe where the destiny to which
you were born shall come to pass...."

	Usagi was about to say something, when her double clamped her
lips over hers in a passionate kiss.  Usagi couldn't fight her 
strength, and felt sickened by the expression of lust, or love, or
whatever it was her double was trying to express.  The double pulled
herself away, panting heavily, and gripped Usagi by the back of her
hair, pressing their cheeks together.  She pointed a finger in the 
air, a distant expression on her face.

	"Yes....  Together, we shall change HISTORY!  Like it has 
never been changed before...."

----o

Part Seven
The Long and Twisting Road to a Shy City I

----o

CHANGES....


	Mamoru turned the key to his apartment door, and immediately 
he knew something was afoot.


	He'd just said goodbye to his beloved Usako, having seen her 
home after a wonderful dinner at a reasonably expensive restaurant.
Of course, Usagi, still being 16 and reasonably immature, went nuts
over the food and took a hefty bite out of his tight budget.  Good
thing he'd saved up for just such an possibility.

	Feeling happy after receiving a goodnight kiss, he'd decided
to walk home, it being a warm night and all.  Well, walk was a 
relative concept.  Float would be more accurate a term.  The 
relationship between both Usagi and himself, despite being a little
rocky at times, was beginning to settle in....  For the first time,
he'd begun to get used to the concept of actually being in love.


	Not that he hadn't felt anything for Usagi before, but he 
often wondered just how many of those feelings were being driven by
the emotions of his past life.  Because of this, he had always felt 
a certain nervousness.... an uncomfortable feeling, about being 
close to Usagi.

	There were other factors, of course.  The drives of his past
life, virtually working against the relationship....  The momentary
intervention of Rei (he had almost allowed himself to fall for her),
the rather incestuous closeness of Chibiusa.... (a scary thought in
retrospect)....  There had been so many things that had scared him
from committing to the relationship.

	But now....  Now he felt totally at ease with her.  Not only 
was he settling, but she was beginning to fall into the pattern of 
her Serenity persona.  This emotional stability.... this quietness,
had finally cemented the feelings he had been ignoring for so long.


	It still didn't change the fact that, as soon as he'd opened 
the door to his apartment, he just KNEW something was up.  The first
thing to stand out was the Usagi in the butler's tuxedo (something 
of an irony, there), standing in the doorway.

	"Ah, the man of the house has finally arrived."  She said, in 
a slightly cultured accent that was totally unsuited to her.  
"Please follow me, master Mamoru."  She bowed and gestured into the 
apartment.


	Mamoru was so astounded that he followed her in, speechlessly.
All the lights in his apartment were on, and lining the walls of the
loungeroom were a half dozen Usagis, in french maid costumes.  Not 
that he minded this, it was just a little out of place.  For a 
start, there was only supposed to be one Usagi.  But too much was 
happening, too quickly, for him to think things over in a logical 
manner.

	"Wh....  What on Earth is going on here?  Who are you people?"
He stopped at the entrance to the loungeroom.  The butler turned and 
scowled at him, lowering her face with patent disapproval.

	"Master Mamoru, it is not good to keep our lady, Serenity, 
waiting.  Please proceed to the bedroom forthwith."  She turned and
stepped over to the doorway that lead to the passage.  With a 
flourish with her arms, she turned back to him and gestured to the
doorway.


	As Mamoru slowly stepped into the room, the maids bowed, one 
by one, as he passed.

	"Welcome home, Master Mamoru..."  They would say.  He looked 
at them.  Each and every one of them was precisely the same.  The 
golden hair, done up in those super-kawaii odangos and ponytails, 
sitting underneath the little caps.  The black and white dresses,
hugging their waists' in a rather interesting fashion.  The short, 
frilly skirts....  The suspenders and stockings....

	Mamoru found himself drooling.  Despite his misgivings about 
the situation, his ecchi side had taken the controls.  This could be
heaven....  Then again, this was Usagi....  It could be hell on 
Earth....

	He shook his head, trying to clear out those thoughts.  What
was he doing?  He was allowing the situation to get control of him.


	"Hurry up, Master Mamoru....  the Lady Serenity grows 
impatient."  The butler peered from the passage door after stepping 
through, beckoning to him with an arm.  Mamoru managed to avert his 
gaze from the maids and followed her, through the passage and up to 
his bedroom door.

	He could smell the gentle fragrance of incense, wafting from 
the tiny cracks around the bedroom door.  The butler stood beside it 
and watched as he sniffed....  A kind of soft musk.  He placed his 
hand on the doorknob to open it, only for the butler to smack him 
across the back of that hand.

	Whipping the hand away, he stared at her with surprise.  "What
did you do that for?"  It IS my bedroom, was what he was going to 
add, but he wasn't given the opportunity as the butler leaned 
forward, prodding him hard in the chest with a very stern finger.

	"One should not enter the domain of the Lady of the house 
without announcing one's presence."  She chided him.  He swallowed
as she softly tapped on the door.  This was nuts.  Now he was 
letting himself be criticised by someone who may or may not be 
Usagi....

	"Haiii...."  Said a soft voice from within.  Mamoru jumped, 
even though he expected an answer.  After all, what else COULD he
expect?

	"Ma'am....  His most gracious Lord Endymion has arrived home."
The butler Usagi looked at Mamoru with a cheeky grin.  Mamoru smiled
back, more a nervous reaction than a knowing expression.

	"Ah.  Send him in immediately."  The voice carried a hint of 
amusement, and the butler smiled, nodding to Mamoru.

	"Now you can enter, my lord."


	Mamoru looked at the butler, then at the door.  Slowly, he 
mustered up the energy to bring his hand to the doorknob again.  He
turned the knob, opened the door, and looked within.


	"Ah, my dear Mamo-chan....  Where have you been?  It is so 
late."  Said the seductive figure of the young woman, dressed only 
in lace underwear, lounging on the king-sized bed that replaced his
normal one in his massively enlarged bedroom.

	His jaw hit the floor.  "Usa.... ko....?"

	"Hai, Mamo-chan?"  Usagi smiled.

----o

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH....


	Usagi staggered through the corridor of the Hotel, away from 
the Activities Room, feeling less than fortunate to have been saved 
by that dirty, lewd Security Guard....

	It was only then that she realised she was being followed....
By a young girl.  Younger than herself.  The girl had been sitting 
off to one side in the Activities Room, and had been spared the more
violent ministrations of the Security Guard and his cohorts, 
probably because all she did was sit there and do nothing.

	The girl had a pasty white face and deep shadows around her 
eyes.  Her light brown hair was unkempt and unwashed and she wore a
dirty red jumper and grey skirt.  She was barefoot.


	Usagi looked back at her as she shambled along, nervously 
contemplating what fresh hell this denizen of the Hotel wished to 
bring to her.

	This was what was going through her mind when she struck the
door at the end of the corridor, leading to the safe stairwell she 
had been told to take by the Security Guard.


	She fell to the floor, dazed.  For a few minutes, she was 
lying back in a hot spring, counting Pen^2's as they floated past.
Then she felt herself being shaken awake by a soft and gentle hand.

	"Oneechan?  Oneechan?"  Usagi opened her eyes, and stared up
into the girl's almost soulless, dark-rimmed peepers.  "Are you 
alright, Oneechan?"  The girl mumbled, helping the stunned Usagi sit
up.

	"I....  I think so....  Who are you?"  Usagi looked at the 
girl, who was kneeling next to her.

	"Who am I?"  The girl blinked her tired eyes.  "I am....  I 
was....  My name was....  It's hard for me to remember."  The girl
looked away.

	"Yeah...  Great."  Usagi rubbed her forehead.  "Oh, I could
murder for a aspirin right now...."

	"Aspirin?"  The girl turned back to Usagi.  "I seem to 
remember that word...."

	Usagi looked at the girl as if she was mad.  "What do you 
mean, you seem to remember that word?  EVERYBODY knows what aspirin
is."

	"They do?"

	"Yes."

	"Sorry.  I've been a bit out of it for a while, now."

	Yes, thought Usagi, you look like you have.  "Do you know 
where we are?"  She thought she might try and ask.  There was no 
harm in it, at least.

	"The Hotel."  The girl replied, absently.

	"Thanks.  I know this is the Hotel.  WHERE is the Hotel, is 
what I wanted to know."

	The girl continued to look at her blandly.  "Only the manager
of the Hotel knows that.  The rest of us know better to ask.  You 
would be well advised to do the same."

	"Thanks, but no thanks.  I'd rather check out of this no star
dive.  Call me a bad guest, but I'm not exactly enamoured of its 
facilities."

	"Rina."  The girl said, suddenly.

	"Eh?"

	"Matsumoto Rina.  Yes, that's my name.  Been a long time since
I told anyone.  So hard to remember, now....  Can't remember when I 
got here...."

	"Ano...  Rina?"

	"Hai?"  The girl smiled at Usagi, tiredly.

	"Can you help me to my feet?"

	"Hai."  Rina stood, helping Usagi to do the same.  "May I be
permitted to ask you your name?"  She leaned forward, staring into
Usagi's face blankly.  Usagi swallowed.

	"Usagi....  Tsukino Usagi...."

	Rina chuckled.  "Rabbit on the moon.  How quaint."  Her face
became a bit more serious.  "I take it you were thrown out of your
room?"

	"Umm....  Yeah.  By the room, no less.  Why do you ask?"

	"You wouldn't be wandering around the Hotel in your underwear,
otherwise.  I was thrown out of my room, too.  It took me five days
before I could find myself an even barely decent set of clothes."

	Usagi looked down at Rina's dirty clothes.  "How long ago was
that?"  Rina frowned, then turned in lost thought.

	"Umm....  I can't quite remember.  It was a long time ago....
I think I stepped into the Activities Room about a month ago.  I've
been in there ever since...."

	"A month ago!?!?"  Usagi felt a cold shiver run through her.
Getting out of this Hotel might be more difficult than she thought.

----o

MORE CHANGES....


	"Well, I must say, here's another fine mess you've gotten us
into...."  Princess Serenity, aka Usagi, stared down at the silence 
glaive, the handle of which was protruding from her chest.  In front 
of her, the young Sailorsaturn shifted her feet, hands behind her 
back, looking like a schoolgirl who had been caught out doing the 
wrong thing.

	"I tripped, okay?  It was an accident."

	Behind her, the amorphous figure of Pharaoh 90, who had been
the intended target of the glaive, facefaulted and fell to Earth in
disbelief.  Serenity and Saturn watched as it crawled into a corner
and muttered.

	"I give up.  How am I supposed to feel anything about 
conquering the universe when the forces of light are so bloody 
incompetent.  I'm sure it wasn't like this for Metallia....  Mumble
mumble turtle scrubs mumble mumble...."


	"Looks like we got it demoralised."  Saturn muttered, cringing
under a disbelieving stare from Serenity.

	"You could, at the very least, whilst performing a Death 
Ribbon Revolution, to rid this world of menaces like Pharaoh 90, 
check to see if anyone is in range when you swing this thing 
around."  Serenity coughed blood as she pulled the glaive from her
chest and held it out to Saturn.  "Yours, I believe."

	"Umm...  Yeah, thanks."  Saturn took the glaive and turned
back to the shambling presence of Pharaoh 90.  "Now, where were we?"

	"Death Ribbon Revolution.  You'll find it in the dictionary
under D, next to Dork, Dickhead, Dumkopf, Dipstick and a couple 
other words not worth repeating right now."  Serenity offered, and
promptly died.

	"Oh yeah, that was it."  Saturn waved a finger in the air as 
Serenity's body fell at her feet.


	Pluto, Uranus and Neptune watched this train of disastrous 
ineptitude from a safe distance....  Safe being a technical term
considering nowhere on Earth was safe, now.

	"Well, there goes your messiah."  Uranus turned aside to 
Pluto, who shrugged.

	"So what.  I can't always predict when strange young women are
going to jump out of the doorways to the worlds of the dead and trip
up a sailorsenshi in full flight."  Setsuna put her hands up, 
helplessly, reminding the others of the Serenity lookalike with the
strange expression of madness on her face, who had, as Pluto stated,
stepped out of nowhere and put a foot in Saturn's path, causing the
aformentioned events.

	"Where did that silver-haired bitch go, anyway?"  Neptune 
rubbed her chin as Saturn started the end of the world with much 
banging and crashing of thunder.

	"Dunno.  Probably back through the same doorway, or another 
much like it."  Rumble crash rumble.  "Doesn't look like we're going
to get an opportunity to find out, does it?"

	"DEATH RIBBON....  REVOLUTION!"

	"By the way....  Is it 'Ribbon' or 'Reborn'?  Never could work 
that one out...."  Neptune asked Pluto.  The elder senshi was not 
given an opportunity to answer.

	Everything exploded into a large expanse of white....

----o

INTELLECTUAL INTERLUDE....


	"Aww bugger shit damn!"  Makoto found herself floating through
a series of blue clouds, all of which were immediately recognisable 
to her, much to her chagrin.  "What the hell did you do this, for?  
I don't wanna ever come back to this place for as long as I live."

	She looked over at Naiad, who was also floating, mesmerised by
the patterns of the blue clouds.  She roused herself from her 
musings.  "Ah, yes, well....  There was something I had to ask you."

	"What?"  Makoto looked up at the blue sky, lit by a pale blue 
sun.  Was everything here blue?  Not really....  Most of the clouds
themselves were wispy and white....  Something she'd obviously 
failed to notice on her previous visit.  She still didn't want to be
here....  To take notice of these amazing little packets of detail.

	"Before I entered the doorways of the dead, to find who it was
that had been playing with time, I experienced a vision....  within 
the dream of Tranquility, the Queen to be of the Moon Kingdom."

	"Oh her."  Makoto blinked without understanding.  Naiad 
sighed.

	"Serenity's replacement."

	"Oh her."  For a few moments, Makoto was none the wiser, as 
Naiad proceeded to pull out her hair.  How could she be in the 
presence of such a decerebrate individual, the Miko thought to 
herself.  Then a look of realisation crossed Makoto's face.  "You
mean Naru-chan, don't you?"

	"Naru-chan...."  Naiad thought for a few moments.  "Her next
life....  Well, whatever....  I experienced this in a dream of hers,
and somehow, you were connected to it."

	Makoto's face became an expression of exasperation.  She 
wasn't really vaguely interested in this thread of conversation.  
"In what way?"  She asked, painfully.

	A figure fell between them, crying out in mortal fear as she 
did so.  Makoto watched herself, dressed in her traditional, and 
lately lamented, green and white senshi fuku, tumble towards a small 
object that was floating in the lower cloud decks.

	"Oh...  I see...  That way."  Makoto sweatdropped.  "Well, 
that's kind of hard to explain, really...."  She looked up, and saw
the door close on the passageway of the dead she had fallen through
in the dim distant past.  A passage that lead to Earth, shortly 
before all of her friends....  All that she knew, with the exception
of a very few, were killed.

	"You said you never wanted to return to this place, again....
Why?  What happened here?  And why would the Queen-elect dream of
this event?"  Naiad rubbed her hands together, desperate for the 
answer to the dream.

	Makoto sighed, looking back down at her.  "How would I know, 
fer chrissakes....  I'm not her.  Maybe she had eaten too many pork 
dumplings for dinner or something...."


	Naiad rubbed her face with her hands and counted from ten to 
one.  "How about the events that are taking place here?  Why do they
hold such a sense of fear and trepidation for you?  Enough to make 
you resist returning...."

	Makoto turned away.  Not easy to do when one was floating in 
mid-air, thus negating any solid surface with which to actually 
balance the motion.  "I'd really rather not talk about it....  It's 
too personal."

	"How did you find yourself in this place?"

	"I'm not sure....  One moment I was on Earth, the next...."  
Makoto pointed a finger upwards, then dropped the finger down 
towards the rapidly disappearing object.

	"A door to the worlds of the dead opened up beneath your 
feet?"  Naiad seemed prompted by searching Makoto's thoughts.  The
senshi curled up, holding her knees.

	"Stay out of there.  This mind belongs to me."  Makoto spat,
bitterly, shivering with anger.  Naiad was surprised by the vitriol.

	"I'm sorry...."

	"No you're not.  You read my thoughts...  Entering the very 
core of my being in a cavalier manner.  Don't you ever give thought
to your actions?  To what you're capable of doing to others?"

	"What are you afraid of?  In this place?"

	"Fortress Makoto, that's what my mind is.  I will kill you if
you even so much as try to do what you just did, again."

	"Jupiter...."  Naiad started.

	"Take me away from here."  Makoto turned, almost lashing out 
at Naiad....


	For a fraction of a second, Naiad saw a being of immense size
and ethereal beauty....  Its form made of gossamyr-like thread.  It
descended upon what looked like a floating glass and metal airship.  
And immediately, Naiad realised that this was the fearful memory 
that Makoto was hiding within....

----O

	MYSTERIOUS FRIENDS....


	"I feel strangely tired..."  Usagi said as Rina helped her 
through the doorway to the stairwell.  Rina nodded in the blank 
manner she seemed to have perfected.

	"You do, after a while.  It might have something to do with
all the crap you go through in here, but it's like all your energy
is slowly drained out of you...."

	Usagi looked at Rina's face.  The whiteness of her pallour,
combined with the dark rings around the eyes, made her feel a 
certain queaziness.  "You look pretty awful, you know that?"

	"Thanks.  I try to keep up the image."  Rina chuckled.  "I
started to look like this after the first few days.  It seemed to
get better, every time I tried to get back into my room.  Almost
like one has to stay in their rooms to remain healthy in this 
place."

	"Why did your room throw you out?"

	Rina looked at Usagi, tiredly.  "I was confused, okay?  I 
didn't know the room was trying to look after me.  It wanted me to
be warm and comfortable.  For me to sleep in that nice warm bed.  
Forever.... and ever and ever...."

	"Forever?"

	"That's the thing, you see.  The room is like a womb....  It's
almost an allegory to death.  You just want to curl up and let the
darkness of an eternal sleep take you over in there."  Rina turned
away, staring blankly ahead of her.

	"Then....  Surely, getting out of those rooms is a good thing,
is it not?"  Usagi let out a short gasp of strain as Rina helped her
to sit on the first step of the 'down' stairs.  Rina sat beside her.

	"It's like birth, you see....  Once out of the womb, the world
starts taking a physical and emotional toll on you.  You start to 
die in a colder and more horrible way, both inside and out."


END OF PART 7

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Next Chapter - "A Long and Twisting Road to a Shy City II"

   _________
  /    @    \  		DDFA (The Right Dishonourable Mark A Page)
 / / ^   ^ \ \ 		ayanami@merlin.net.au
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 /           \		the Tapes and Co-Founder of the Saitou-chan
 \___________/		Appreciation Society - Adelaide Japanese
  /_/     \_\  PU		Animation Society

Version 2.0 - 24th Jun 1998