Chris Davies An Inevitable Outcome Production In Association With Naoko Takeuchi and CLAMP Tomaranai mirai o mezashite Having the infinite future in mind Yuzurenai negai o dakishimete Embracing the dream that I will never surrender THE INFINITE FUTURE An Alternate History of The Together Again Universe Chapter One April, 1994 Osaka Naru looked out at the city of Tokyo from the observation deck of the Tokyo Tower, and smiled. It was really strange that, living so close to the landmark, she'd never visited it, but life was strange. The last couple of years had convinced her of *that*. She was just glad that her love had been able to find time to come with her. It would have been better if they'd been able to come later tonight, but her mother probably wouldn't have appreciated it. Besides ... there were disturbing hints in the air that the nights in the heart of Tokyo weren't going to be *safe*, exactly, for a while to come. Naru smelled the scent of his cologne before she felt his arms embracing him from behind, but only smiled. "It almost looks alive, doesn't it?" she asked suddenly. "The city?" he asked. She nodded. "Pulsing, beating ... moving in time to a distinct, recognizable rhythm." She shook her head, feeling his chin muss her hair. "I don't see how anyone who looks at something like this can deny that *things* have their own life. I bet if you could look at the world from far enough away, but with enough detail, you'd see the whole world as one ... big ... life." There was a silence between them. "Mystical this afternoon, aren't we?" he teased gently. She turned her head just enough so that she could give him a look. "How can anyone go through what we go through on a regular basis and *not* be mystical?" "There is a certain logic to your position," he agreed soberly. She sighed bemusedly, then turned around to face him, looking up into his dark blue eyes. She started to go up on tiptoe. "People are staring, you know," he said. "Let 'em stare, they may learn something," Naru replied as she leaned in to kiss Chiba Mamoru on the lips. After a certain duration, she settled down again, to look at the crowd. The vast majority of them were junior high school girls on their class trip. Naru wasn't sure, but she thought she saw a few staring in their direction embarrassedly -- or should that be *enviously*. After only a few seconds of listening to their chatter, she had to shake her head. "Was I ever that innocent?" "Yes," Mamoru answered definitely. "I'd like to think you still are." She snorted. "You're confusing me with a certain dumpling-headed princess." He sighed. "I'd thought the two of you were getting along better these days," he said, and there was more than a note of plaintiveness in his voice. She couldn't meet his gaze, quite. "I *try*. I really, really *try*, but she does so many things that are almost *calculated* to drive me berserk! It's bad enough that she'd rather go off and play snuggle bunnies with you know who than try and figure out what to do about Nemesis. We're running out of time on that front, and --" He pressed a finger to her lips. "I know that you're going to be able to handle it." Naru shook her head. She wasn't nearly as certain. She watched as a short girl with hair that was only a few shades lighter than her, dressed in a red school uniform, stormed past with a determined look on her face. "And if we don't, all these children will ... will ..." She broke off. Something strange was happening. Something about that girl -- Mamoru sensed her sudden disquiet. "What's wrong, Naru-chan?" She ducked around him, trying to see where the girl was headed. She caught a glimpse of her standing and staring at two other girls -- one with long blue hair in a uniform of the same shade, and the other with light brown hair, large glasses, and a green uniform. She started to focus. Then there was a sudden explosion of light. She heard a number of shouts, including one from Mamoru's throat, but ignored them. A single harsh syllable created a shade before her eyes, shielding them, and giving her clear vision. The floor beneath the trio of girls had turned into a liquid, and was busy swallowing them. Naru blinked, to make sure that she was seeing properly. And in that instant, the light faded. A tap of her fingers dispelled the shade, and she saw clearly that the three girls were only sitting on the floor. Two of them -- the blue-haired girl and the one with glasses -- were busy crying their eyes out. The red-head wasn't crying. Her face looked as though it had no expression at all -- it was almost numb. But Naru couldn't miss the look in her eyes. It was a look of anguish and confusion that was beyond the comprehension of most people, thankfully. It was the look of suddenly lost innocence. "What happened?" Mamoru asked quickly. People crowded around the trio before Naru could do anything -- friends, classmates, what have you -- and shuffled them away, separating them. "I'm not sure," she replied after a moment. "But I think we need to set up a meeting with the others, *soon*. "This may be vital." * * * "Could you be a little more specific than just, `something magical happened?'" Mizuno Ami asked politely. Naru tried to articulate the sense of what she had experienced for several seconds, then turned to glare at Hino Rei. "How do *you* explain this sort of thing to them?" Rei shrugged, smiling faintly. "I don't even try, usually." "Great," Naru sneered. "Look, I don't know how to explain what I *felt* when I saw it. I've told you what I *saw*, now what do we do?" Ami frowned, considering. "I've been reading a bit about alien abduction, to try and determine whether or not it might have its origin in a Nemesis plot. Some of what you describe does echo the accounts of the abductions." Naru let out a sigh. "Thank you, Ami. So what should we *do*?" "We should probably maintain surveillance -- if Nemesis is also watching them, we'll be able to figure it out fairly quickly," Ami explained. "Ummmm ... what kind of surveillance are we talking about, here?" Tsukino Usagi said, delicately raising a hand. "We could probably work in shifts -- each of us take a turn watching ... three girls ... hmmm ..." Aino Minako trailed off. "Ami, loan me a pen and paper? I can start working out a schedule --" "Uh, you mean, twenty-four hour a *day* surveillance? I mean, when are we going to find time for that? I mean, we *are* just starting summer break, but I was kinda looking forward to --" "We'll *make* time," Naru growled. Usagi ducked behind Rei, who gave her a mildly irritated glare, before turning back to look at Naru. "Naru, do we even know who these girls are? I mean, we can't exactly go hunting after them without knowing who they are." "I *thought* of that. Fortunately, all three of them are rather popular at their respective junior high schools. The blue haired girl is named Ryuzaki Umi -- she's the captain of her school's fencing club. The girl with the light brown hair is called Huouji Fuu. The red-head is called Shidou Hikaru -- something wrong?" "How did you find this out?" Rei asked, looking puzzled. "Listening to conversations?" Naru was silent for a moment, and did not quite meet Rei's eyes. "After a fashion," she finally muttered. Rei immediately guessed what Naru meant by that, and groaned. "Naru, you didn't." Ami wasn't far behind. "You took it out of their minds, didn't you," she said. To her credit, she probably didn't *mean* to sound as accusing as she did. "It doesn't work like that," Naru protested, angrily. "They were --" She broke off, and looked for a moment at each of them, somehow seeming to grow angrier with each passing second. Finally, she burst. "Hell with this! Look, I've told you what happened. I've *done* my part. Now you can just decide what you're going to do, and I'll do what I *have* to do." She stood, turned, slammed the door to Rei's room open, and stalked out. She stood on the porch, staring up at the stars and thinking dark thoughts, when she heard a soft step behind her. "Kind of hard on them, weren't you?" she heard Kino Makoto ask. "They weren't exactly prepared to be *soft* on me, were they?" she replied, trying to hold on to her anger. It was hard, though, with Mako-chan. She didn't fully understand why the friendship she'd felt with Usagi before the awakening had been transferred to the taller senshi -- maybe it was that she also knew what it was like to be frightening, maybe the kindness she'd shown to Umino when he'd finally figured out that neither she nor Usagi were interested in him -- but Naru was glad to have at least one friend left. "You didn't finish your explanation. Maybe if you had, they would've been sorry for thinking that you --" "It's like hearing," Naru interrupted. "If someone talks, you can't help but hear it. But you can choose to listen, to turn *noise* into *signal* ... that's what telepathy is like. People make all these sounds -- thoughts -- that a telepath can choose to listen to, and understand." "That wasn't so hard," Mako-chan noted. Naru looked away. "I got angry," she muttered. "Oh really." Naru sighed. "Yes, I know ... for as long as you've known us both, I've *been* angry with her, haven't I?" "Pretty much," Mako-chan agreed. "It wasn't always that way ... once upon a time." She looked up at the stars again. "The night that it all changed wasn't that different from tonight." * * * March, 1992 Her mother had been acting so strangely, all day. Pushy and forceful towards the customers, she had been distant towards Naru -- the exact opposite of the way she usually was. And now there were strange noises coming from within the jewelry store that provided them with their income. Naru crept down the stairs, frightened but also strangely curious. She peeked into the show room, and let out a gasp. There were several customers lying on the floor, their faces seeming to be in great pain. Tiny crackles of lightning seemed to be flaring from the jewelry they were wearing. Her mother was standing among them, her back to Naru. "Mama?" she whispered. "What's going on here?" Slowly, ever so slowly, the head of the *thing* that looked like her mother turned completely around on its neck to look at her. Two large red blobs where her eyes were supposed to be stared at her, and a mouth full of fangs was set in a rictus-like smile. "I'm not your mother, dear," it said in a parody of her mother's voice. "I am --" "Youma," Naru whispered. She did not know where the word had come from, but it seemed so right. The youma paused, and stared at her for a long moment. It then let out something akin to a gasp. "YOU!" it shrieked, and darted towards her faster than Naru could have believed. Taloned hands swept up and grasped her throat. She began to struggle helplessly against the iron grip of the youma. "It *is* you," the youma hissed as it strangled her. "Lord Jadeite will reward me greatly for the proof of your death, B--" "Hold it right there!" The youma turned to glare at the suddenly opened doorway, and Naru was also given a glimpse of her apparent rescuer. Standing in the doorway, a blonde-haired girl, her hair done up in two long pony-tails, and dressed in a costume that looked like a modified seifuku, was silhouetted by the moon as she glared at the youma. Who promptly answered, "Says who?" The girl opened her mouth to retort ... then couldn't quite seem to get any words out. "Um ..." Naru thought, strangely. There was a faint, furious whispering from around the girl's feet. She smiled suddenly, and began to speak. "The pretty, sailor-suited soldier of love and justice! Sailor Moon! And in the name of the moon -- I'll punish you!" She posed. <*This* is my rescue?> "Sailor Moon?" the youma hissed. "Never heard of you. And I doubt that I ever will again!" The youma threw Naru to the side, slamming her into the wall, and leaving her to slump to the ground in a great deal of pain, as it dashed towards the "soldier of love and justice". Who freaked out. As she watched the antics of her "savior", one thought kept running through Naru's mind, far more potently than the pain she was in. she thought with mounting irritation. When at last the bodies of the customers rose up as zombies to fight at the youma's command, Naru was more or less reconciled with the idea of dying. she reasoned morbidly, She considered that further for a few seconds. Suddenly, a bright red rose blossomed in the youma's forehead. The head then proceeded to explode, and the headless corpse collapsed into dust. "At last ... at last I've found you," came a soft, deep masculine voice from above. Naru looked up towards the large window in the front of the store, which had been closed earlier, if she remembered properly. Standing there was a man with dark hair and eyes, dressed in a strange suit of grey armor and a cape, with a sheathed sword at his side, gazing down at her with love. At her. At Naru. He hopped down to the floor, and slowly approached her. "It's you. It *must* be you." "Ummmm ... excuse me?" interrupted Sailor Moon. She looked around in mild confusion at the unconscious bodies of the customers, freed by the youma's destruction from its control. They both ignored her. "Do I ... know you?" Naru asked the stranger. There was something so compellingly familiar about him, but -- He was now close enough to touch. "Do you know me? You taught me to love this world again. You gave me the strength to do what *was* right, not what *felt* right. Don't you know me? I'm Endymion. Don't you remember?" And she did. "Ahhhh ... what's going on?" Sailor Moon asked, now *very* confused. They turned to look at her, and blinked as one. "Serenity?" they asked in chorus. "What?" asked a different voice. Naru looked down at the floor, and saw a small, bewildered looking black cat standing not too far from Sailor Moon -- or Serenity, as she now knew her to be. The cat seemed familiar, but she couldn't quite place her name. "What are you talking about? This is ... she's not Princess Serenity, that's *absurd*." Endymion frowned at the cat. "Of course she's the Princess, Luna. I should know, I was engaged to her for years." That was the start of a very long night of explanations ... * * * "You're right, I can't imagine what that's like," Mako-chan agreed. "To suddenly realize that your best friend in the world was suddenly your romantic rival --" Naru turned to stare at her in shock. "She is *not* my romantic --" she burst before seeing the faint smile on Mako-chan's face. "Arg -- that is not the point!" "Isn't it?" Naru let out a sigh. "I don't *know* ... *he* *chose* *me*. I don't have any reason to be jealous. But every time I look at her ... and the worst of it is, this was always part of us. I *always*, even before I knew, thought of her as being a little spacey, but I figured she was just doing it to be cute. But --" "She *does* just do it to be cute," Minako's voice interrupted. She and Ami headed down the hallway towards Mako-chan and Naru. "You should know that, Naru. If the war against Jadeite and the others didn't prove it, and Ail and Ann, and --" "I know, I know ... I *know* all of this, but I can't seem to realize it when it's happening. I'd *like* to like her. Mamoru wants us to get along, and --" She broke off. "Why are the two of you out here?" Ami blushed vividly, which pretty much told Naru everything. Minako, showing a great deal of decorum, replied, "Well, Usagi-chan and Rei-chan wanted to be alone to ... um, read some manga together, and --" Naru snorted. "I might have known. Any time we try to hold a meeting it turns into a make-out fest." "Like you don't know what Mamoru-san had for dinner before each of your meetings with him?" Mako-chan asked in a teasing tone, causing both Naru and Ami to flush. "That's not the *point*," Naru bit out ... then let out a sigh. "Oh well. I suppose I should be grateful that neither of them is male, or by now they would certainly have --" And then she knew. Naru said a very long, very old curse involving Queen Serenity and twenty lit candles. Ami didn't flush -- she went white. "What the hell?" Mako-chan asked. Naru didn't bother to answer. She turned and headed up the hallway, her face set. She reached the door to Rei's room, and flung the door open without bothering to knock. Rei darted her hands out from under Usagi's blouse as Naru stormed in. "I've just figured out who that girl is." "Huh?" Usagi asked, startled and confused. "The girl. The red head. The one I sensed something strange about *before* whatever the hell it was happened." She took a deep breath. "I've seen her aura somewhere before." "Where?" Rei asked. "In the Silver Millennium. Days before the fall. She was much younger then --" "You mean that she's like us? Reincarnated?" Usagi asked. Naru shook her head. "No. Her mother ... her mother asked me to send her baby daughter, body and soul, to the future -- in hopes that she would be safer there. I never knew exactly when it was that she arrived --" "Naru-chan ... why are you telling *us* this?" Usagi interrupted. Naru took a deep breath. "Because the mother was Princess Serenity. You two are her parents." TO BE CONTINUED Author's Notes If you haven't figured out by now who this Naru was in her past life, smack yourself. Next time, we'll see her transformation. Please note. This is an alternate universe. *Anything* can happen. "Sailor Moon" was created by Naoko Takeuchi and brought to North America by DiC and Mixx Publications. "Magical Knights Rayearth" was created by CLAMP and brought to North America by Mixx Publications. This story, while incorporating elements of motion pictures and magazines held under copyright by others, is copyright 1998 by Chris Davies. Nobody sue me okay? Chris Davies, Advocate for Darkness, Part-Time Champion of Light. "WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?" -- Death, in "Reaper Man", by Terry Pratchett. http://www.ualberta.ca/~cdavies/hmpage.html