Antiseptic.  That was all Usagi could seem to think as she
walked along the orderly streets of her home.  The Upper City was
so clean, so freshly scrubbed.  Everything was neat and tidy and in
its place, the people neatly dressed, hiding behind their facades of
respectability, the buildings sitting squarely in their tidily landscaped
lots.  This was a place of nice proper right angles and serene beauty
and, above all, order.
     She recognized just how unlike her these thoughts were.
After all, she usually basked in the peace and serenity of the Upper
City, taking it for granted.  But today, she felt like it was all a lie.
How could she believe the world was so flawless, so proper, when
her best friend had been revealed to be her most implacable
enemy?  How could she continue to believe when her entire world
had been turned upside down and her environment just ignored all
the turmoil and pain in her heart?
     It actually made her long for the chaos of Undercity.
     She walked slowly along a road she'd walked many times
before, trying to shake off the heaviness in her heart.  This road
skirted the precipice that had been formed by the great earthquake
back in '67, following its ragged curve.  The cliff was one of the
natural boundaries that divided modern day Tokyo between the
shining lights of the Upper City and the dark pulsing heart of what
was now known as Undercity.  Something deep in her chest ached,
and it took her a moment to realize what it was.
     This was the road that she'd always taken to Rei's
apartment.  And often, very often, they'd walked it together.  She
paused by the Lookout, a small park set off the road in a pocket of
almost unruly greenery.  Unruly for the Upper City, at any rate, she
thought wistfully.  She tarried a moment, gazing at the view past
the railing.  Undercity sprawled out below, a tangle of buildings and
streets and people.  Off to her right she noted the steady glow of
one of the seven Crystal Wards, and even thought it was still
daylight in the distance she could make out the baleful red glow of
the Rift, the diseased heart of the Undercity's darkness.
     By night, the view would be spectacular, the cool glow of
the ward towers contrasting with the hot virulent pulse of the Rift.
The view from Rei's apartment was nearly as good, and Usagi had
spent many nights idly wondering at the odd beauty of the
Undercity as seen from afar.
     Close up, of course, it was quite different.  As Sailor Moon,
she had battled creatures from nightmare in those streets and alleys,
and the previous month she had nearly died vanquishing Metallia
and Beryl.
     The damage from that fight was still visible, even from
here.
     The breeze, still retaining summer's warmth but tinged with
the crisp promise of winter's inevitable arrival, blew her ponytails
back gently, and she sighed, drawing deeply of the sweet air which
for once failed to ease her agitation.
     You're just stalling, she told herself.  You decided to do
this, now stop putting it off.  The sooner you see her, the sooner
you can fix this.  Show Haruka-san that she's wrong, that they're
all wrong.  Show her that being the princess means more than
having the power to destroy something like Metallia.  Show her
that Rei-chan won't be your enemy, that she doesn't ha ... hate you.
     Even in her thoughts, it was painful to articulate that word.
The memory of her previous death, captured for the ages by some
piece of Silver Millennium technology and preserved by her
guardians, flashed in her mind with a force that was almost physical.
     She wanted to ask why.  She'd wanted that since the day
she'd managed to provoke Haruka into showing her that holo-clip.
And now she'd be able to.
     Her feet seemed to carry her of their own accord, and soon
enough she was looking at the familiar profile of Rei's building.
She paused again, tugging nervously at the collar of her school
uniform jacket.
     The creature had vanished in a cloud of smoke, frozen by
Rei's ward and immolated by the blast from Usagi's rod.  Usagi
had turned, caught between the exultation of victory and the shock
of witnessing Rei's transformation, and caught the other girl's
gaze.  It had been just for a moment, but that had been long enough
to see a mask of cold detachment slam down over whatever swam
in those violet depths.  And then Rei ... no, Mars, had turned
silently and walked away, and when Usagi had called out, she
hadn't turned.  She hadn't even slowed.
     But neither had she attacked.  Haruka was wrong, after all.
Rei had only been shocked by the unexpected revelation, just as
Usagi had been.  Now that they'd both had a chance to recover,
they could talk it out.
     After all, they were friends.  They were.  That was all that
mattered.
     The doors parted silently as she entered the lobby.  Nobody
answered when she buzzed Rei's apartment, but that was okay.
She had an access card, after all.  She swiped it through the reader,
blushing at the memory of the warmth that had blossomed in her
when Rei had given her the card.  Such a little thing, but at the
same time a casual intimacy that meant more to her than she could
explain.  She hadn't allowed herself to become that close to anyone
for so long, and she hadn't realized the void in her heart until she'd
met Rei and the others.
     Haruka, Michiru, and Setsuna had protected and guided
her, sheltered her, and cared for her.  She loved them, but it wasn't
the same with them as it was with these girls.  With Rei, Ami,
Minako and Makoto she laughed, fooled around, hung out, and did
things you did with your best friends.  It was warm and
comfortable.  She wouldn't give all that up without a fight.
     The elevator hummed quietly to itself on the way up to the
top floor, and Usagi began to fidget.  She'd rehearsed what she
wanted to say, how she wanted to open, but now she was having
doubts.
     And what if the others were there?  That thought gave her
pause.  If Ami, Minako and Makoto were, as she strongly
suspected, the other three senshi, then she might have to face them
all at once.
     On the other hand, that might make things easier.  Or ...
     She was still dithering when the elevator eased to a halt at
the fourteenth floor.
     ("Who do they think they're kidding?" Rei would often
complain.  "You can call it the fourteenth floor all you like, but it's
still going to be the thirteenth!  What a stupid superstition!")
     Taking a deep, steadying breath, Usagi set off down the
hall, the deep carpeting muffling her footsteps.  There were only
four apartments on the top floor, all corner units.  Usagi had always
thought that Rei's family must have a lot of money to put her up in
such a gorgeous place, but that was one subject Rei rarely spoke of,
even to her.
     Finally, she stood in front of Rei's door.  She clasped her
hands, shuffled her feet, and tried to swallow past the lump in her
throat.  At last, she lifted her hand to the doorbell.
     She only caught the movement out of the corner of her eye
at the last moment.  Turning, she barely had time to register the
sight of Sailor Uranus bearing down on her before strong arms
swept her up, carrying her away from the doorway.  Neptune and
Pluto appeared from the stairwell as if by magic, and before Usagi
could blink the door to 14C had been kicked in.
     Through her shock the situation finally registered, and she
tried to struggle free of Uranus's tight embrace.
     "REI-CHAN!" she shrieked.  "NO!"
     "Don't!" Uranus hissed as Usagi began to struggle wildly.
"Princess, it's too late."  Usagi shook her head wildly.  Tears
of impotent rage welled up in her eyes as she struggled against
Uranus's superior strength, ears painfully attuned to any sounds of
struggle from inside the apartment.  Uranus's arms tightened,
crushing Usagi against the tall girl's chest.  Usagi was now sobbing
openly, trying to reach the brooch on her chest.
     "No!  NO!  STOP IT!  If you hurt her, I'll ... I'LL HATE
YOU FOREVER!  FOREVER!  I'LL HATE YOU ALL!"  Her
tears were soaking into the fabric of Uranus's fuku as she trembled,
pushing ineffectually at her senshi.
     "I know."  The words were whispered, and Usagi froze at
the raw agony she heard there.  Breathing raggedly, she pulled her
face away from Uranus's body and craned her neck so she could
see the other girl's face.  Uranus was hunched over her, almost
protectively, and her face was contorted with pain.  When her eyes
met Usagi's, the girl could have sworn there was a gleam of
moisture there.
     "I know," she repeated, her voice hoarse and jagged.  "But
at least you'll be alive.  I'd rather die than fail you, princess.  If this
is the price I pay to keep you alive, then so be it."  Usagi felt tears
gathering at her chin, clinging for long moments before
succumbing to gravity.  There was no denying Uranus's pain, but
still she didn't let go.  Not until Neptune stepped out into the hall
through the broken door.
     "We're too late," she said softly.  "She's cleared out."

#####

     She'd stood in this very spot many times before.
Everything should have been familiar; the sights, the sounds, the
colours and textures and feelings that being in one of the few
places she felt truly at home usually evoked.  But there was a sense
of wrongness about everything, like she might turn around and see
a door where there never had been one, or walk around THIS
corner and find it snowing while the sun was shining around
THAT one.
     Having the underpinnings of your world yanked out from
under you, she thought darkly, will have that effect.
     The silence in the capacious garage was broken only by the
ragged pings of her car's cooling engine.  She noted absently that
Minako's motorcycle was here, but Makoto's wasn't.  Apparently,
they'd ignored her message.
     Typical.
     She rubbed her eyes, stifling a groan.  Unloading the things
she'd managed to throw into the car would have to wait until she
was in a better mood.  For now, she had other priorities.
     She was not looking forward to this.
     A door led directly from the garage into the main house and
she passed through, feeling a weight that she hadn't even been
aware of lift from her body as she did so.
     Yes, somewhere along the way she'd come to think of this
place as her sanctuary.  She dearly hoped that didn't change in the
coming days.
     She kicked off her shoes in the entryway and stuffed her
feet into a pair of house slippers.  As she passed down the dim,
quiet hallway she slung her purse onto a cluttered table, then
shrugged out of her black trenchcoat, tossing it negligently over the
back of an overstuffed chair as she entered the main floor sitting
area.  Minako was there, draped bonelessly over the mate to the
chair now holding Rei's coat.  Her head rested against one arm and
her long, bare legs hung over the other, bobbing in time to
whatever beat was being fed through the wireless stereo
headphones the lovely blonde was wearing.
     Because of the angle, Rei's entrance was hidden from her
friend and partner.  Fighting down a sudden surge of irritation, Rei
stalked across the floor towards the oblivious girl.  Minako was
wearing shorts that had been pared away to almost nothing and a
black t-shirt adorned with a large red imprint of lips on the front.  It
had been cropped almost as severely as the shorts, revealing an
expanse of flat, taut belly and a tantalising glimpse of the lower
curve of the girl's breasts.
     Rei stopped, leaning over the chair, and saw that Minako
wouldn't have noticed her entrance in any event, seeing as how her
eyes were closed.  Her head bobbed gently along with her feet,
causing the bow of her black hair ribbon to sway like a blossom
caught in a playful summer breeze.
     Reaching down, Rei grasped the headphones and pulled
them apart, then released them.  The snap of the earpieces making
contact was followed immediately by Minako's startled yelp.  She
sat bolt upright, glaring up at Rei.
     "Well, well," she grumbled, pulling the headphones down
around her neck, allowing a tinny, beat-heavy din to escape into the
air.  "Hino Rei-sama, leaver of cryptic messages."
     "I wouldn't have had to leave a message if anyone'd been
here," Rei shot back, her already frayed nerves twanging
dangerously.  "Speaking of which, where the hell is everyone?"
     "Mako-chan had to go out," Minako said, stretching
languorously.  The motion pulled her abbreviated t-shirt up in a
way that Rei normally would have found most distracting.  Now,
though, she found herself fighting to keep a lid on her temper.
     "Everybody was supposed to be here," she gritted, speaking
slowly and enunciating each word with exaggerated care.  Minako
pouted briefly at Rei's disregard for her show, then sat up.
     "You said not to go to school and to wait here for you," she
sighed.  "But we didn't know when you'd show up, and Mako-chan
needed some things.  Geez, Rei-chan, what's the big deal, anyhow?
Why all the cloak and dagger stuff?"  Rei ignored the lovely
blonde's protests, stomping into the kitchen, where she began
rummaging around noisily.  Since she spent most weekdays at her
apartment in the Upper City, she tended not to store a lot in the
house.  And, sure enough, she was out of wine.
     Well, hell.  Just the way her week was going.  She opened
the fridge and found a bottle of white, grabbing that.  Not the nice
red that she preferred, but there was that saying about beggars and
choosers.  She plopped down at the kitchen table, plunking the
bottle and a wineglass in front of her.
     There was a lot of chrome in the kitchen, courtesy of
Makoto.  Two extra fridges, a huge stove, and many other things
that didn't really interest Rei, but at least Makoto kept the place
spotless.  She caught sight of herself in one swatch of gleaming
chrome, looking tastefully dressed-down in her white t-shirt and
jeans.  Carelessly, she filled the glass to the brim and toasted her
reflection.
     Here's to you, she said silently.  When you screw up, you
really go all out.
     Then she drank deep, feeling the bite of the dry white in her
mouth, spreading first cold, then drowsy warmth down her throat
and into her gut.
     "Geez, a little early for that, isn't it, Rei-chan?" Minako
asked, padding into the kitchen.  "I mean, the sun's not even over
the yardbird yet."
     "Yardarm," a voice said from behind her.  Rei didn't turn,
just waited until Ami came around and sat down opposite her.
     "Whatever," Minako said breezily.  "but when in Rome ..."
Mercifully, she chose not to finish the saying, instead grabbing
herself a glass and plunking her barely clad butt in one of the spare
chairs, where she cheerfully poured herself a drink.
     "Rei-chan, I was just checking the newsnet upstairs," Ami
said gravely, slipping off her wire framed glasses and tapping the
end of one earpiece against her lower lip.  "There was some sort of
incident at your school yesterday afternoon, apparently.  After the
initial report, though, someone clamped a lid on the story and
there's been no mention of it since."  Minako froze with her glass
raised partway to her lips.
     "Is that what all this is about?" she asked sharply, all trace
of playfulness gone.  Rei laughed, a short bitter sound.
     "Oh, yes," she confirmed, taking another drink.  "That most
certainly is what this is about.  I'd hoped to have everybody here,
but one of you can fill Mako-chan in later."  She stared down into
her half-empty wine glass, suddenly at a loss.  Now that she was
faced with telling them, she had no idea how to begin.
     "Okay, babe," Minako sighed.  "Spill it.  What happened?"
     "We were just getting ready to leave when it attacked," she
murmured, cradling the glass carefully in her hands.
     "Rift-kin?" Ami asked as Minako drew in a short, sharp
breath.  Rei nodded.
     "Some kind of rogue darkling," she told them.  "A hunter type."
     "They're even appearing in the Upper City now," Minako
scowled.  "The bastards are getting bold!"
     "But how did it get there?" Ami asked.  "The defences ..."
     "I don't know, but it did," Rei broke in, determined to get
this over with.  "The first I knew there was trouble was when I
heard screams.  Then people were running everywhere.  I led Usagi
away, but we got cornered, and that thing was coming straight for
us ..."  Ami went pale and Minako jerked upright in her chair.
     "Usagi-chan?" Minako blurted.  "Oh, no.  Rei-chan, is she
all right?"  Rei reached for the bottle and refilled her glass.
     "Oh, she's fine," Rei told her with a brittle smile.  Ami seemed to
grasp the implications of the situation immediately, though.
     "She saw you transform," Ami said softly.  Minako
blinked.
     "Oh," she said.  "Um.  She didn't take it well, huh?"  Rei
stared into the glass, trying to fight down the swirling morass of
emotion that threatened to drown her as she remembered that
moment and the way she'd thrown caution to the wind, exposing
herself to protect her friend.
     "Yes, she saw me transform," Rei breathed.  "And I saw her."
There was a confused silence for a moment.
     "You saw her ... what?" Minako prompted at last.  Rei
raised her eyes and met Minako's gaze evenly.
     "Transform," she clarified.  "I saw her transform."
     "I don't get it," Minako said slowly.  "What ...?"
     "It's simple."  Rei took another drink, barely tasting the
wine.  "Tsukino Usagi is Sailor Moon."  Then she sat back and
waited.
     Minako just stared at her.  Then she turned to Ami, who for
once seemed completely out of her depth.  Then she turned back to
Rei, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
     "C'mon, Rei-chan," she said disparagingly.  She appeared
ready to burst into laughter, but her mirth died stillborn as she
stared into Rei's eyes.
     "No," Ami whispered.  It's not ..."
     "Oh, come ON," Minako snapped.  "I mean, don't get me
wrong, I love that girl, but there's just no way!  She'd fall flat on
her face and get eaten by the first youma or demon she ... and, I
mean, she just couldn't be!  This is not fun ..."  Rei dropped her
glass, slamming her palms against the table top as she half rose
from her chair.  The glass toppled and trailed wine in its wake as it
rolled across the table, but it didn't break.  Rei glared at her fellow
senshi, daring them to break the startled silence that followed.
Neither did.
     "I saw it," she said at last, her voice low and even.
"There's no mistake.  Usagi is Sailor Moon.  And the story being
spread by the survivors of Beryl's lot is that Sailor Moon is the
White Moon Princess herself.  It's pretty simple, no?"
     "But ..." Minako whispered.  "But her senshi have been ...
they ... she wouldn't, Rei-chan, she just wouldn't."
     "Wouldn't order her senshi to attack Jupiter last year?" Rei
finished for her.  "If it hadn't been for sheer luck, they would have
taken her out.  And Pluto chased you through the old docks back
around New Year's, too.  Not to mention ..."
     "You can't be suggesting she ordered all that done," Ami
broke in, her brow furrowed.  Rei whirled on her, her temper
flaring.
     "Are YOU suggesting that she doesn't know what her
senshi are doing?" she snapped.  "They've attacked groups in
Undercity flying Shadow Court colours!  They leave other bounty
hunters alone, but try to kill us when we cross paths!"  Ami shrank
back in the face of Rei's tirade, and the fiery girl tried to reign in
her temper.  If she gave in to it now, there'd be no stopping until it
was totally spent, and her friends didn't deserve to be on the
receiving end of that.
     "It's pretty clear," she went on in a more moderate tone,
speaking carefully, "that this time White Moon intends to rule
alone.  The truce is over, my friends.  And if Usagi is their princess,
then she's calling the shots.  That makes her the enemy."  Her voice
didn't even shake as she said those words.  She could hardly believe
it, but she was grateful nonetheless.
     "So what are we going to do?" Minako asked, still in shock.
"I mean, you're not planning to fight her, are you?"  Rei let her
head hang down, long raven hair hiding her face from the others.
     "No," she said at last, her voice so soft it was barely
audible.  "As long as she stays away from us, then no.  But if she
and her people give us no choice, then we'll have to fight them."
She raised her head to stare at each of the shell-shocked girls in
turn.
     "I suggest you come to terms with that," she said coldly,
"because if past experience is any indication, if they decide to
come after us they're going to be serious.  And if we're not serious,
too, then we'll end up very dead."

#####





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