Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Run Away ❯ Chapter 3

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

THREE

"Rina! Rina, did you hear?!"
Usagi sat up in her bed and looked away from her book, annoyed. It was just getting to the good part. "No, but I do believe you're going to tell me weather I want to or not."
The blond who rushed in yelling Usagi's new name at the top of her lungs was followed by a brunette young man, about Usagi's age of seventeen.
"Like we would ever keep a secret from you, Rina!" He said laughing.
Sighing, Usagi placed her Sailor Moon book mark in place. Three years it had been. Three long years. In that time, Usagi found herself a new life. She was no longer the flaky clutz she had once been--though she was still quite the clutz. She brushed her red dyed, waist length hair over her shoulder and slid her legs over the edge of the twin sized bed. Usagi had change her appearance as much as possible by dying her hair dark red and wearing gray non-prescription contacts with non-prescription glasses. She wore tall shoes to make her seem taller then she was, and she no longer wore a shirt or dress, ever. Just jeans and shirts. Once she had gotten used to the heat more or less, she found ways to wear what you wanted and not die of heat exhaustion. Which brought up a funny memory for Usagi. After she had finally gotten her English down, she learned that a kuroi kishi for her, was a 'black flag' for Americans. She also learned that on the military air base behind the airport in Yuma used flags to communicate the possible dangers of exercising that day. A green flag meant 'good temperature. No dangers.' A yellow flag meant 'so-so temperature, use caution.' A red flag was 'too hot, use extreme caution.' And a black flag in one way or another, meant 'Death.' and then everyone will give you a different was of saying 'Don't be stupid.'
Nick's voice brought her out of her reminiscing.
"Nani?" She asked him. Every so often, Usagi would go back and forth from Japanese and English. Her and her friends joked around and said that she spoke Japanglish. It was a sort of parody of Spanglish, which was a little bit of English and a little bit of Spanish. Living on a border town of Mexico, you got a lot of Hispanics.
Nick smiled. "You're day dreaming again, Moonie."
Usagi smiled. Nick, some how, had dragged the fact that she was Sailor Moon out of her when they had first met, and ever since then, he called her Moonie.
"I said, 'When have we ever really kept a secret from you?'"
Usagi quirked her mouth and scoffed. "How about the time you neglected to tell me you were gay and forgot to lock the door?"
Nick looked over at Tara, the blond, who was snickering at him. "It was common knowledge."
Tara and Usagi broke up laughing.
"Yeah! If you knew English!" usagi shot at him. "Now that is an anatomy lesson I could have skipped, thank you!"
"yeah, and from that moment on, you demented her virgin mind past all recognition!" Tara cried at Nick.
"Well, you were a hopeless case! I had to work on someone!" He threw at her.
Usagi held her hands up, "All right, now! What was it you were going to tell me, I'm assuming, before I'm really supposed to find out."
Nick and Tara plopped down next to her on her bed. Usagi smiled at both of them. She had never had friends like them. Naru had been close to her, but like the two of them. And they weren't so close to her as the senshi were, but very close.
"Well, Rina..." Tara started and looked at Nick.
"You're getting adopted." Nick finished.
Usagi shook her head at them. "That all you had to tell me? That there's actually some one out there who hasn't heard to the Terrible Rina T?"
"No," Tara shook her head now.
"The people who are adopting you, are in Japan."
usagi felt her jaw drop. I-I'm...going home?
"Told ya she'd be speechless." Tara said holding out her hand. "Pay up."
"Yeah, like I have money. C'mon, Tara. You should know me by now."
Tara flicked Nick's nose with her finger. "Shuddup, I'll get it out of you, one way or another."
"Sorry, Girlie, I only do that with my gender."
"Eewe! Gross! Like even! I meant I'd flog it out of ya later."
"You mean I'm going to Japan, like Tokyo, Japan?" Usagi asked, finally over she shock.
"That only just now sunk in?" Tara asked. "Sweets, you're getting slower ever day."
"Yes, you're going to Japan. You know, like the place on the other side of the world. The place you've been dying to go to since you got here." Nick answered.
Usagi looked sadly at them.
"Why are you so sad looking?" Tara asked.
"You look like one of us just died!" Nick chuckled.
Usagi sighed, "You might as well have. I won't be able to see you for a long time!"
"Rina? Are you brain dead?" Nick inquired like it was a likely possibility.
"Ever here of a letter? Or vacations?" Tara demanded.
Usagi scoffed again. "So? I won't be able to talk to ya every day."
"You wouldn't be able to do that after graduation anyway. Remember? You turn eighteen in November. As soon as you graduate, Mrs. K's gonna tell ya to hit the road." Nick reminded her.
Usagi twisted the corner of her mouth up, "Hum. I guess you two are right. Why is it you two always insist on making me feel better when you know I know that you're not at all happy about me leaving either?"
Nick answered her first. "Because we like to pretend that you don't know us as well as we know ourselves."
Usagi giggled. They talked that way for a while until dinner, when Usagi got her second surprise that day. It turns out, the people adopting her, were her real parents. Imagine her surprise! So, when a week later, the day arrived that she would be leaving, Usagi had decided her was definitely going to stay with this family, unlike the others that had tried to adopt her. She set her baggage down next to her as she waited for the St. Jude van to pull up. She played with her necklace without really thinking about it. About a year or so ago, Tara had noticed that Usagi had one of the coolest compacts that she had ever seen. Tara pined day and night over it, though carefully not around usagi. When Nick told her for the thousandth time how pathetic Tara looked, Usagi decided to give it to her. She had her crystal taken out and welted into a crescent moon pendant. it fit ever so nicely in it, and hung from a long chain that reached past Usagi's chest.
"Rina?" Tara said hesitantly.
She and Nick stood behind her with hands behind there backs.
Nick looked at Tara before he spoke. "We know that we could have given these to you at the going away party, but they weren't ready yet."
"So here." Tara said as they both pulled their hands out.
They both held small boxes. Usagi felt tears well up in her eyes. She silently took the boxes from them and opened them. The one Tara was holding held a silver ring called a Cladah, something of a friendship ring, among other things. The one that Nick had held a silver choker with three charms. When put together they made a Celtic cross.
"There's an engraving on the back of the cross." Nick said.
Usagi flipped it over, hands trembling. It read, 'Itsu ken Suki Matsudai.' Usagi gasped and let her tears flow freely. She threw she arms round both of them and they cried as well. As the van pulled up, Usagi quickly pulled the charms apart and handed one to each of them. She kissed them both good-bye and was loaded up on the van that took her took her to the air port and her long lost home. Usagi let one last tear fall as she put the choker on and slipped her crystal under her shirt. Peace and Love Forever. Thank you, guys.

All through the plane ride home, Usagi was steeling herself against seeing her parents again. No matter what, she could not let them know who she really was. She still may look like the same person, but her disposition had come into a complete make over. For one, she was sarcastic, dry humored, and facetious. Her grades were better the she'd ever had in her life, nearly straight A's. Her vocabulary was just past extensive, though she only used it when she wanted to shut someone up. She read other book besides mangas, however, mangas where still her favorite. And lack for better words, she was a smart ass, literally! So when she got off her plane in Tokyo, she felt more then confident that she could handle anything that was thrown at her.
Let's see, Mom, Dad, Shingo, Chibi-usa...OhmaGod!
Well, maybe not anything that was thrown at her.
God, I can't face Mamoru! He just had to show up didn't he?!
Usagi carefully schooled her face and pulled out the picture that Mrs. K had given her, playing her part and 'Rina' perfectly, and glided up to her family. Usagi's hands began to cramp, and she realized her had been holding her black leather back pack strap and her book with a death grip.
"Hi, I'm Rina." she said in faked careful Japanese, like it had been a very long time since she had last spoken the language and not just three years ago.
Mrs. Tsukino smiled and answered for the group. "Hello, Rina. I'm Ikoku, and this is my husband Kenji. This is Shingo; my son, Chibi-usa; my niece, and this is Chiba Mamoru; he's a friend of Chibi-usa's."
As well as she might have learned how to school her emotions and facial expressions, Usagi couldn't keep herself from flinching at the sound of his name. She'd never say it aloud, at least right now, but she was still in love with him.
That may explain why you always turned those guys down, dooffy! Well, one of the reasons, but it seems he didn't notice, thank you Lord!
"Well, it's very nice to meet all of you." she said in earnest. "And, I know what's on all the tips of your tongues. Mrs. K told me that you were looking for your run away daughter."
The family all looked hopeful, and it killed Usagi to have to hurt them like this, but she thought it best to shoot down their hopes now, rather then keep them guessing.
"I'm sorry, but I'm not her. I know that I look a lot like her, but I'm not. I just hope that I'm good enough."
She watched as their faces fell. It broke her heart to have to lie the them. But then, my whole life's a lie now...
"Don't worry, Rina. We won't turn you back to the orphanage now. Although, you don't have to stay with us; you're old enough to be on your own here, but if you want to-"
Usagi smiled. "Don't worry about that. I still have a year of pure laziness coming to me weather I take it or not!"
"Rina, we were planning on taking you out to dinner tonight. Do you like sushi?" Mr. Tsukino asked.
Usagi nearly started laughing. Just ask Mrs. K! I begged her to call out for it enough!
"I don't know. I've never had it, unless you consider McDonald's Filet of fish sushi!"
That got a chuckle out of all of them, even--to Usagi's surprise--Mamoru. From hat she could tell, he wasn't exactly the chuckling type anymore. She must have really hurt him bad for him to be like that. Usagi made a note to schedule a session of verbal bashing later on that night. She'd done a lot of that in the last three years.
"Well, wasn't expecting that one," Usagi whispered under her breath as she caught a flash of a smile directed at her.
At that moment, Mamoru seem to realize that he was smiling and turned on his heel.
"You're not coming with us, Mr. Chiba?" Usagi called after him innocently, contrary to her anterior motive. She desperately wanted to see more of him, see if she couldn't get past the walls he'd put up around his heart, and find out what he really though t about her leaving.
Mamoru stopped and turned slightly, not quite looking at her. "No, I'm not part of the family. I shouldn't intrude."
Before anyone could protest, he left it at that and began is walk again..
"See you around, then." I love you, Mamoru.
"Yeah, sure."

After the Tsukinos had dropped Usagi's things off, then went to dinner. It had a been a new restaurant that Usagi had never seen.
Guess a lot happens in three years.
It was hard not to stand up and scream 'I'm home!' to her family every time they talked about 'Tsukino Usagi, their run away daughter.' So when she got home, she was nearly bursting at the seems to tell someone. She almost ran to her room before Mrs. Tsukino told her where it was. Usagi swung the door wide open to find the black cat curled into a ball at the foot of Usagi's bed. She shut the door quietly behind her and pressed her back to it.
"Luna?"
The black head snapped up, revealing a tuff of blond fur above deep, dark orange-brown eyes.
"Usagi-chan?" the cat whispered in disbelief. "Is it really you, Usagi-chan?"
Usagi put her hands on her hips. "Who else in their right mind would actually try and talk to a black cat from the moon?"
"Good point."
"I thought so."
"Usagi, why are you here? Never thought I'd see you again." Luna said tightly with repressed anger.
"Neither did I." usagi replied with a sigh. She walked over to the bed and sat next to the cat. "Look, Luna. I know how idiotic I must have seemed, doing something like running away like that, but think about the position I was in."
"The position you were in?! What about us?!" Luna's eyes became more orange then brown.
"Exactly. Do you honestly think that I would sit by and not try to do something about what the media was going to do to all of you? I know they had in wrong to begin with, but all they would have to do is keep someone on you twenty-four, seven, and everything would unravel. Although, how they thought the Yuuichirou was Tuxedo Kamen, I'm still trying to figure out. Haven't come up with a good explanation for that one, yet. Anyways, I know that 'I'm sorry' isn't really much for three years of abandonment, but that's all I have since I figure that you don't consider my promises very credible right now. I just hope that it'll hold me until you guys all forgive me."
"....As long as you've found your brain while you were in America, I think I can mange a forgiving mood right now." Luna climbed into Usagi's lap and brushed her head against her Sailor Senshi's hand. "Just don't do it again, Usagi. You have not idea what it did to us. We don't even see each other outside of battles anymore."
Usagi cradled her cat and scratched her ears. "I won't, Lovey. Now, what's happened in the last three years?"
"Well, for one thing, we have been battling since you left. We found and defeated three other enemies. Everyone has survived each of the battles. We've gained four new senshi. Sailors Neptune, Uranus, Pluto--whom you already know--and Saturn. The enemy we're up against now is stronger then all the others put together. I don't know if even with all of them we can defeat this new evil. No mater what we throw at them, they come back."
"Well, I'm back, and I don't intend on let you battle alone, at least not when you need me."
Luna gasped, looking in the direction of the door. Usagi looked up to see her now fifteen-year-old daughter.
"So you are home, Usagi." Chibi-usa said nonchalantly closing the door.
"Chibi-usa, I-"
The younger girl held up her left hand. "Save it. Look, Usagi, I just want to know why you left." She held out her hands pleadingly. "Why did you leave us to fight on our own?"
Usagi looked her in the eyes. "I had to."
Chibi-usa dropped her hands. "We could have died." She said thickly. "Did you think of that when you were thinking of running away?"
Again, Usagi looked into the girl accusing eyes. "Yes, I did."
"Then why?"
"I already told you I had to."
"Why don't you give me a better answer?!" Chibi-usa demanded.
"Would you actually listen to it?! I told Luna the whole story because I knew she would let me finish. If I try to elaborate anything to you, you'll interrupted me again and again, and I'll lose my temper, like I am now, and that won't make a good impression that I really am sorry for what I did, will it?!"
"Why are losing your temper with me?!"
Usagi put the can down on the bed and locked the door before she answered. "Because, not matter what I did, I still deserve a chance to explain why I did it."
Chibi-usa crossed her arms, "So, explain."
Usagi scoffed. " I don't have to. I have excellent hearing, Chibs, I knew you were outside the whole time. That's why I pitched everything just loud enough for you to hear."
Chibi-usa flushed. "B-but..."
"Don't worry. I'm better at it then I should be. Believe me, you don't want to know why I became so good at it."
Flashback to Nick's current boyfriend.
"Anyways, what would you have done in my place?"
Chibi-usa looked at usagi levelly. " I guess, with your limited intelligence, the same."
Her wrist-watch beeped.
"Chibi-usa! Jubian High!" It was Minako's voice.
"Right!"
"What was that?!" Usagi cried as Chibi-usa swung open Usagi's window.
"Senshi Business. Wanna come? You haven't seen me morph yet." Chibi-usa replied with a sly grin.
Usagi's eyebrow rose involuntarily. "Morph?"
Chibi-usa nodded and held up a heart locket. "Moon Prism Power...MAKE UP!"
Usagi's jaw dropped.
"What?" Luna asked Usagi with her own sly grin. "She's your daughter. You thought she wouldn't be a senshi, too?"
"Huh." Usagi said ironically. "Moon Crystal Power...MAKE UP!"
Chibi-usa and usagi were both engulfed by pink and silver light. With translucent bodies, ribbons wrapped around their torsos. The ribbons formed the suit, boots, and gloves. Usagi's hair grew to it's original length as it did it's self in odanga buns. At the same moment, Usagi's and Chibi-usa's odanga jewels, earrings, tiaras, and chokers flashed into place. Sailor Moon and Sailor Chibi Moon now stood in Usagi's room.
"Shall we?" Usagi asked.
"We shall," was Chibi-usa's reply and they leaped out the window together.

"Mercury Aqua RHAPSODY!"
"Mars Flame SNIPER!"
"Missed me you little BRATS!"
Usagi and Chibi-usa ran up to see the battle in full swing.
"Mercury Bubbles...BLAST!"
A dense fog filled the air around them so they could see very little of the battle or the enemy.
"Chibi Moon, go help the others. I don't want to fight unless I have to."
Chibi-usa looked to make and angry protest. "If you want me to stay without making the same problems that I left in the first place, I have to get a new identity. It'll look a bit suspicious if the Same day Rina showed up in Tokyo so did Sailor Moon. I'll jump in without hesitation if I'm needed, I promise. Now go!"
Chibi-usa looked unsure, but she nodded and disappeared into the fog.
"Everyone!" cried an unfamiliar voice to Usagi. "While she's distracted by the fog! Together!"
"Mercury Aqua RHAPSODY!"
"Mars Flame SNIPER!"
"Jupiter Oak EVOLUTION!"
"Venus Love and Beauty SHOCK!"
"Pink Sugar Heart ATTACK!"
"Space Sword BLASTER!"
"Submarine REFLECTION!"
"Dead Scream."
"Silence Glaive SURPRISE!"
"Tuxedo the Smoking BOMBER!"
An enormous blast of light, so bright that Usagi had the shield her eyes or else be blinded, cut through the fog. Usagi nearly cheered until she heard and evil cackle.
"Heheh! That's all you got?"
A long caped figure came into Usagi's view, and she was just barely able to make out Tuxedo Kamen's figure and--
And a hand about read to slice him to ribbons! Over my cold dead BODY!
Usagi rushed at the hand and landed it a hard kick.
Suddenly the fog dispersed, reveling Usagi to everyone.
"Sailor Moon?!" the four inner senshi cried in Unison. Tuxedo Kamen stood dumbstruck. Just behind him, the witch gathered her power in hand.
"Um, Tux?" Usagi said nonchalantly as she looked at him. "You may want to move about a foot to your left." She glanced again to the villain. "Now."
Just as he did so, a ball of negative energy flew past his head. Usagi tilted hers ever so slightly at admit it past her as well. She glanced behind her to make sure it wasn't a 'special bomb.'
Usagi quirked her eyebrow at Tuxedo Kamen.
"You'd better pay attention, Tuxie. I'm not always going to be around to save you." She calmly walked past him and put herself in between him and the hag. "Now, I'm going to make this easy for you. Be a good little minion and run home to 'Mama Villain,' or you just may get hurt."
The witch raised her own elegant eyebrow. "And you would be?"
"Thank you, I was waiting for a que. I'm Sailor Moon, Champion of Love and Justice. On behalf of the Moon, you're punished!"
"That was supposed to impress me?" The villain asked, obviously not.
"No," Usagi replied shortly, "I just haven't said it in so long, I had to do it again."
She produced her scepter. "Now this. Moon Scepter HALATION!"
The hag screamed in agony and faded into moon dust. "Impressive, no?"
All the senshi gathered around Usagi then. "Usagi, where have you been." Asked Minako.
Luna--who had been with Luna and another cat, no kitten, and just now appeared--and Chibi-usa, wisely kept there mouths shut.
"Around." was Usagi curt reply as she walked past them to leave.
"Who are you anyway?" asked a tall senshi with short hair. She sounded like the one that Usagi hadn't first recognized.
"Well, I'm Sailor Moon, Champion of Love and jus-" She stared sarcastically.
"Cut the crap, Usagi." Minako interrupted just as sharply as Usagi's first reply.
Now that was different. She's didn't remember the senshi ever really cussing. Then again, neither did she until she became an American.
"Just give us a straight answer."
Usagi narrowed her eyes. She did not feel like fighting now. "It's as straight an answer as you're gonna get. That's all you need to know. Luna now everything else, she knows where to find me if a battle happens. That's enough for now. I may be Usagi, but you're not going to find anyone around here with that name, so don't bother. I'm trying to make sure I stick around this time, and if that means keeping it from you so I don't get harassed, so be it! So drop the subject and let it die in peace." Usagi turned on her heel and walked away again.
"Usagi! Usagi get back here!" Minako shrieked.
"Sorry, I haven't a clue as to whom you are referring to, oh! And I won't be at ever battle if I can help it. Je ne." Usagi called back over her shoulder. She then put those forced lessons to use and leaped onto a fire escape later and then to the roof to get lost. Se leaped from roof top to roof top until she felt it was safe enough to demorph on the roof of crown arcade. She climbed down and decide to walk from there. When she turned the corner, unfortunately, she ran in to a familiar torso.
"Oof!" She grunted, going down hard.
"Oh! I'm so sorry," Mamoru cried.
Oh! Don't worry," Usagi replied dryly, "my butt broke my fall."
Mamoru chuckled and gave her a hand up. "Well, I'm still sorry. It's Rina, right?"
Usagi brushed herself off. "Yeah, and you're Mamoru?"
He smiled and Usagi's heart got lost somewhere in the vicinity of her throat.
"Yeah, what are you doing out so late on your first night in town?"
Usagi had actually rehearsed this several times on her bounding leaps from the shingles.
"I used to live here a couple of years ago. Kinda explains why I speak fluent Japanese, huh?" She scratched her head and continued with her story as he guided her out of the way of oncoming foot traffic.
"Yeah, it might."
"Well, my parents, I guess they died. I don't really remember what happened before my fourteenth birthday. All I know, is I was found wandering around and Social Service found me." She grimaced at him. "Sound very Anastasia, huh?"
Mamoru chuckled again. She smiled and looked him over. He wore blue jeans and a black turtle neck, with his olive green blazer; Usagi's favorite of all his out fits. She found herself staring, and him noticing and hastily glanced away embarrassed and hot cheeked.
Why did he still have to be so damn attractive?!
"I'm sorry," he said suddenly. She looked at him confused.
"For what?"
"I embarrassed you." he chuckled, obviously flirting...but did he realize he was doing so? "All I need is for my ex's cousin on me for bothering you on your first night back."
Usagi perked up. Maybe he rally was opening up. "Really? Tsukino Usagi was your ex?"
"Yeah, but I got over her." he replied off handily.
And yet again, he twist the knife in the already repeatedly stabbed heart. Well, let's see just how embarrassed you can get!
"Well, then, maybe some lucky girl will snatch you up, now. I'm surprised on hasn't, unless you're..." She raise her eyebrow expectantly at him.
Mamoru promptly choked. Usagi grinned.
"Um, no. But I have had my share of famine courtiers. I just don't have time for them."
With that lingering glanced. Yeah, right!
"Yeah, that's what my b.f. says, too."
"You have a boyfriend?" he sounded genuinely disappointed.
"Hardly. I'm not the kind of girl that the guys I've met want to go with."
She was loving this! It was like slow torture! Playing dumb was so much fun.
"Why not? You're a pretty girl."
Yeah, I can tell. You obviously don't know you're flirting, otherwise you'd tone it down a bit. Hummm. Well, that means I'm the first since I left.
"I know that, I'm just not the kinda of girl who puts out, if you get me."
He creased his eyebrows in thought for a moment before they flew up and got lost somewhere in his bangs. His black hair looked so great in the night and neon lights.
"Is that all America guys think about?!"
Usagi sighed, remembering a few of those guys. "More or less...more, actually."
Mamoru actually laughed this time. "Look, do you need a ride?"
"Truth be told? Yes, I'm lost, again." She looked around. She really didn't have to fake being lost. The only thing that looked familiar from here was the arcade she was standing next to.
"All right. my car is over here." He walked her to his red Mustang and took her home.