hieroglyphics | | psl — dark kingdom arc redux, electric boogaloo.

That hiccup and her the words that follow her dismissal of his concerns have him shifting her into his left arm so that he can snatch the champagne glass from her with his right hand. He had (wrongly) assumed that because she was drinking it, that it was some sort of sparkling grape juice concoction and not actual one, but one sniff of the glass's contents tells him that he was wrong.

"It wasn't punch to begin with," he tells her, stretching out his arm so that he can set the glass on the railing of the balcony. "You're drunk."

It wasn't punch?

Well, that explains a few things. She thinks. She's not sure. She can't think very straight at the moment. It's like everything is swimming. She's never been drunk before in her life (this one, anyways).

She should try to pull away from him arm, put he always feels so warm, it's hard not be drawn to it.

"Oh. That's never happened to me before."

Yes, it has, he almost says, momentary taken aback by a memory of her drinking wine that Zoicite had offered her. Wine that was apparently stronger than what was brewed in the Moon Kingdom. She'd been an adorable, handsy drunk then... Kind of like now.

"Come on, let's get you some water."

Discreetly as possible, though not without once again catching the notice of her feline companion, Mamoru steers her back into the ballroom and to the refreshments table. There, he gets her a bottle of water and opens it for her, holding it out encouragingly.

"You're going to hate yourself in the morning if you don't stay hydrated."

She's still half leaning on him as they walk, much bolder than she would be normally, than she would be if she were sober. She doesn't question why it feels so natural to be close to him like this, she just allows herself to enjoy it.

She lets go of him reluctantly so she can take the water bottle. She doesn't know why but she trusts him. And that's enough to get her to drink from the water. It's cool and refreshing; she hadn't even realized how thirsty she still was until she started drinking.

"You should get home," he suggests, venturing: "Do you live anywhere nearby?"

He's not prying. If he wanted to pry, he could break into her school's database and obtain her address. He just wants her to get home safe without passing out anywhere or being taken advantage of. As it is, she's yet to drop out of her henshin and people are starting to notice, which has him stepping away from her to shrug out of his jacket and set it on her shoulders.

"Not too far." Normally, she would have transformed back by now, but in her inebriated state she's being a little more careless than usual. She smiles and hugs his jacket close to her. It's warm and smells like him.

Why is that smell so familiar? Like she would know it anywhere.

"Usagi."

It's said as he tugs her into an alcove near the exit, some sort of temporary storage space that wasn't being used for this event.

"You're still Sailor Moon. You need to transform back before we leave. Can you do that?"

She frowns in confusion. He shouldn't know who she really is. But -- he's not wrong and she's not sober enough to be too upset about him figuring things out. Instead she just nods a little, touching her brooch so that she transforms back into the dress she had been wearing before --

At least that transformation hadn't warn off yet otherwise if her dad was still around here somewhere things might get real awkward real fast.

Had he known her father was here, he might have insisted that she go home with him. But how would he explain away his daughter's presence here when the guest list was so exclusive, Usagi had to sneak in? Nevermind her drunken state or the way she'd been clinging to him, a boy her father didn't know.

"There better. Let's go."

Falling back on old (very old) habits, Mamoru takes her hand and tucks it into the crook of her arm, leading her out of the alcove and the event altogether. Thanks to the glamour of her disguise, they look like nothing more than a pair of distinguished guests who had a little too much fun and were on their way out.

"Is this the right way?"

She had tried to talk to her dad earlier, to see if he'd realize it was her, but the glamour worked well and not even her own father recognized her. No one except the other senshi and Luna --

And him, somehow. Tuxedo Mask. He seems to know so much about her than she does him -- she has no idea how true that is now. But usually he's gone so quickly after a battle -- is it bad if she basks in his prolonged presence a little longer.

"I think so. Luna would know better than me."

Usually she doesn't slip about Luna so easily but...she's not exactly in the right state of mind right now. Nor does she realize the cat is trailing behind them to keep an eye on them (mostly him).

Perhaps if he hadn't regained the memories of their past life, he would've already fled and left tending to her to someone else, but he feels responsible. Unaware of Sailor Venus having already awakened, Mamoru assumes that he's the only one who remembers their past lives. Mercury and Mars don't seem to have a clue, and neither does Luna, who ought to have recognized him. She caught him sneaking around with Serenity as often as Venus and Kunzite did.

Luna at least seems to clue in to Usagi's bad drunken directions and bounds ahead, meowing at them in attempt to get him to steer her in the right direction. It works, and Mamoru prides himself on not blurting out that he knows Luna can talk and instead just playing around with her faux meowing. And while the Mautian (Mauling??) walks to the front door and sits on the mat, waiting for him to follow, he instead sweeps Usagi into his arms and leaps up to her window in a single bound.

How he knew her room was on the second story is beyond him, but he knows, somehow, this is her room. And that she always forgets to latch her window, so it will slide open easily. Enough for him to step inside with her still in his arms.

"I didn't want you to get in trouble for coming home drunk," he explains, setting her back on her feet.

In all honesty, it would serve Usagi right if he did blurt out her knew about Luna -- they weren't exactly subtle about communicating in public. She had talked to her cat on the bus in front of him before. Not that she realizes that the Tuxedo Mask who is escorting her home is the Mamoru Chiba who had overheard her and her cat but still.

The point is, the ability to keep a low profile was clearly locked out of their memories too.

But soon she's not thinking of Luna or anything other than the way it feels to be swept up in his arms. He feels warm, again, and she can feel her heart beating wildly in her chest.

"That's probably good, Mama gets on my case enough as it is." And it's a sign she's sobering up a little that she can string together a coherent and relevant sentence.

"Thank you."

Her sobering up is also a sign that he should leave. There are too many things on the tip of his tongue that shouldn't be said until he's had time to analyze whether they should be said at all, and her feline companion is now perched on the bed, glaring at him disapprovingly in a manner he's certain she doesn't know is reminiscent of before.

Of long, long ago.

"Drink more water and sleep," he tells her, patting her awkwardly on the arm as he takes a step back and climbs back up onto the windowsill. "And watch out for the punch."

And then he's gone, darting off in the direction of his apartment so he can discard the rented tuxedo he stuffed himself into (since he didn't attend the ball as Tuxedo Kamen, not technically) and stand in the shower with cold water beating down on him as he tries to get his thoughts to properly realign. Remembering his past life is a revelation like no other, and when he gives his name as 'Endymion' at Starbucks the next morning, he decides that going out right now isn't the best of ideas.

So he feigns being sick for the first time in his life and skips a week's worth of classes. He does the work from home, turning in assignments virtually so he doesn't fall behind, taking time to adjust to his new reality.

By the time he finally leaves his apartment and heads to the game center to ~~see if the princess is there~~ see Motoki, he knows why he's never been sick. He knows why he's always been able to sense lingering danger. Why he had those dreams of Princess Serenity, but not why he was reincarnated alongside the girl he was forbidden to see and her court.

She watches with a mixture of amazement and disappointment as he races off. Vaguely, in the background, she can make out Luna's warnings. That she needs to be careful. That they don't know if Tuxedo Mask is an enemy or not. They don't know if they can trust him. And yet, why would he make sure she got home safely if he was an enemy?

Never mind that he seems to know she's Sailor Moon.

But she goes to sleep, and things get busy as there's a new transfer student in the school, Makoto, and a new scout as well, Sailor Jupiter. Luna says she has to be their leader now, to lead them to find the princess and the crystal and it just seems like...such a heavy burden. She doesn't know how to be any sort of leader. She can barely keep her grades up.

The meeting with the others is over by now but she doesn't want to head home just yet -- so she's engrossed in playing the Sailor V game, thinking about how drawn she feels to the other hero. Is she one of them too? Luna said they could look into it. Needless to say she's so lost in her own thoughts (and her game) that she doesn't realize who's just walked in.

He almost calls her Serenity. Almost.

But he has a better handle on himself now, doesn't feel the iron grip on his head that threatens to send him tumbling thousands of years back. It's now more like a cold ache somewhere in the back of his subconsciousness. A sad reminder of what was and the threats that they're having to face all over again.

Memories that keep him awake at night wondering if the Dark Kingdom would've gained a foothold on Earth and attacked the Moon regardless of if he fell for Serenity. Surely he didn't start a war because he fell in love with a girl, right?

"Odango," he greets, looking up from the Pac-Man game he's playing nearby. As if nothing has changed. (Everything has changed.) "Looks like you're on your way to beating the high score."

Edited 2022-06-21 03:56 (UTC)

"You."

Except it's not said with venom so much as surprise. She and Mamoru weren't exactly friends or anything but she had noticed his disappearance all the same -- had found herself wondering if he was okay.

(She's noticed Tuxedo Mask's absence since the night of the masquerade too, but she hasn't put the two and two together.)

She's distracted long enough that the enemy in the game gets the best of her and "GAME OVER" flashes across her screen.

"I was so close!" She's pouting and sticking her tongue out but she's never been able to beat the high score, she probably wouldn't have this time either.

"Here, let me try."

Without warning, he moves from his game and sits down on the bench beside her in front of the old school style Sailor V game.

Having never taken a good look at this game before, he freezes with his hands upon the controls when his eyes land on the sprite he'll be manipulating. Sailor Venus. He'd recognize her anywhere, even in a fuku that wasn't the orange one she donned while leader of Princess Serenity's guard thousands of years ago. (Perhaps he wasn't meant to look too closely at this game, perhaps no one was. Maybe that was inherent in it's design, as he can feel power flowing through this machine that's almost alive. An aura that wasn't bad, but not something that should be associated with an arcade game.)

"This is jump, right?" He taps his fingers lightly over the button, feigning getting used to the controls before making his attempt at beating one of the levels.

She's still teasing him for ruining her run when he suddenly offers to take a chance himself -- sitting down next to her. He's not usually so friendly with her -- he's not rude necessarily, but she wouldn't call them friends. And yet she finds herself not minding so much.

(She's glad the others left, Makoto would tease her endlessly if she found them playing together like this).

"It is. And then the other one is the attack button." Her finger brush briefly against his as she shows him, a familiar warmth accompanying the touch.

A jolt of electricity sits through him when she touches him, and it's all he can do to keep himself from flinching in response to how powerful it is. Memories of the princess showing him how to use the communications system in her rooms so he could contact Elysion flash through his mind. Her melodic voice like a bell as she laughed as he punched in the wrong patterns.

"Okay," he says, clearing his throat. "Let's see if this is as hard as it looks."

...it's not, actually. It's quite easy. Mamoru finds himself blowing through the first few sets of levels with ease, and it's only the later ones that give him any sort of challenge. When he hits the end, it asks for him to enter his name into the high score panel. Instead of typing in his own, he puts hers.

"For ruining your run," he says.

It's almost frustrating, how quickly he takes to the game. It's taken her weeks to get as good as she is at it -- feeling as drawn to the game as she did the other scouts and Tuxedo Mask (little does she realize that's because one of the other scouts is communicating with her through the game).

It surprises her when he puts her name in. It's nice -- and again not that they're enemies but they weren't exactly friends either.

"Thank you."

It's not the same as beating the game herself, but it's still nice to see her name at top.

There's a reason she was drawn to him, but the reason is locked to her while her memories of the distant, ancient past are still locked away. He wonders if that has something to do with the missing silver crystal, if she won't awakened until the powerful gem her mother once wielded is found.

He wishes he knew where it was.

"You're welcome." Mamoru turns to smile at her and catches the time on the wall. He jumps up. "Shit! I have class in ten minutes. Sorry, Usagi. I have to go."

But in his hurry, he leaves his bag behind. Full of all his books and notebooks and pens, all kept neatly within organized compartments. If she tries to hand it to him outside, she'll find that he's nowhere in sight.

(Using his abilities to parkour across Tokyo to get to class on time? Absolutely.)

Wait did he actually use her real name?

He also left behind his stuff. Like....all of his stuff. Part of her has to resist the urge to be nosey and poke around it. It's probably just stuffy text books anyways.

She would have went to his fancy school to return it after classes -- but life as a soldier of justice is never over. One of their enemies begins to spread negative energy waves across the televisions and it begins to wipe out people in mass, herself included. But Tuxedo Mask finds her and encourages her to transform and save everyone. She manages to do it --

But she passes out afterwards. She doesn't remember much after that except a familiar warmth carrying her. She began to feel healthier, not just physically but spiritually as well. But she still needs sleep after all that. When she wakes up she's still in her fuku....and in someplace she doesn't recognize. She finds a broken watch in her lap. It has lunar phases on it.

Tuxedo Mask's?

She transforms back into her regular self. She had transformed in front of him -- again. He seems to know everything about her. But he's always helping her. There's no way he could be the enemy.

—she's awake.

He felt her stir into consciousness before she actually opened her eyes, and he has half a mind to put the mask back on. To keep up the illusion that he's someone she doesn't know. Perhaps that's the thing he should have done, but he made the mistake of leaving his mask, cape, and top hat on his desk chair in the bedroom. He'd shrugged the pieces of costume (battle tuxedo?) off haphazardly after bringing her here, immediately heading to the bathroom to see to her wounds.

Except they'd healed, and he'd sat on his bed beside her dumbfounded until he realized he must have done it. That possessing the ability to heal was something he had in common with his past self. So instead, he'd seen to cleaning the blood from her skin and making sure she was comfortable and left her to sleep it off.

And now she was awake and likely confused and alarmed about being in some stranger's apartment, leaving him with little choice but to reveal himself to her.

Gathering his courage, he steps into the bedroom from the hall. "How are you feeling? You were out for a while. I'm sorry about bringing you here, but you were still transformed and I didn't want your parents to see you. I assume they don't know you're Sailor Moon."

....Mamoru?

Why is she in his apartment? And how does he know she's Sailor Moon? She's almost about to say she tried to tell her dad once and he thought she was joking but then she spots it -- the discarded cape, hat, and mask. Why didn't she notice it before. His soft voice? Those blue eyes that feel like they look right through her? She gently rises to her feet, grabbing the mask. She holds it up to his face to see it for herself -- but that's not all she sees.

Maybe it's being this close to him when he's already awakened. It's hard to say -- but flashes of old memories flood her mind. A golden crescent moon glows on her forehead as her clothes change again -- not into her fuku but instead into the flowing dresses she had worn as the princess, centuries ago. She remembers it now -- how awfully things ended before. Him dying. Her taking her own life.

Maybe this time, their story could have a happier ending. There's a warmth and glow in her chest and between them the crystal is drawn out of her body, where it had been lying dormant. It seems to be emboldened by the power of their connection.

"Endymion?"

Whatever he was expecting her reaction to be, it wasn't this. Not him triggering an awakening in her, something that brings him both unbridled joy and a deep sense of regret. He had wanted her to just live as close to a normal life as she could, to be the sort of carefree she hadn't had the opportunity to be in their previous life with all the pressures of being a princess bearing down upon her shoulders.

And now that very princess is before his eyes once more, Usagi taking on the form of his long lost love. It makes him wonder how he ever managed to be so blind, for she looks the same as she did then. How did he not realize the girl in his dreams was the one he kept bumping into on the streets?

Mamoru takes a step towards her and in a flash, he's in his princely form. "Serenity."

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