The Play – Act II Scene I

Coincidences

            The school bell rang, yet the class remained completely silent until the sensei had finished speaking.  The sensei nodded her head in conclusion to her lesson, and the class immediately stood quickly and quietly, the class prefect raised his hand and the class bowed their thanks to their teacher.  Once she left the precinct of the classroom, the room came to life with a buzz of excitement from the students eager to relax and mingle with their friends during their recess.

            There was always gossip to catch up on, people to see, and in this case, Umino was the popular man of the day being the only source of information about the new student that would be arriving later this afternoon after their lunch hour. 

“Well,” came the authoritative voice of Umino standing on a desk, “the student’s name is Shunei Hameiji as you all know, she is moving to Juuban from Tokyo by herself.  Apparently she is from a very rich and expensive famous school in Tokyo.  The rumour is,” the students hushed for his revelation, “she has a vendetta with our own Mizuno Ami-san.”  Gasps vibrated across the room, “she wants to be able to beat our Ami-san without people accusing her of having an unfair advantage being educated in a prestigious private school out in Tokyo.”

All eyes turned to Ami, she shook her head, “of course that is not true, we are friendly competitors in the rankings, there is no vendetta to settle, honestly Umino-san, I have no idea where you get these rumours from.”

“UHUM!”  Umino cleared his throat as he missed the undivided attention that he was getting previously, “the two of them have been vying for the top spot in the Japanese examination rankings for a very long time, it seems that our Ami-san will finally have someone to challenge her for the top ranker in this school.  From what I have heard, she is also very talented in gymnastics, dancing, the flute, and even tennis.  I saw her arrive yesterday, she drove her own sports car and drove towards THE precinct.”

They all knew what he meant by THE precinct, it was where the richest of citizens in Juuban lived; in their school, only the Mizuno family lived there, not even the Osaka (i.e. Naru) family was able to afford the area.  And of course, there was the small matter of the car; she would have to be one of the first people in the school to own a car, not to mention a sports car.

“Does she have a boyfriend?" One of the male students yelled.

“I don’t have information about that.”  Umino answered.

“Is she pretty?”  Another one yelled as the class erupted into laughter.

“Well that is entirely dependent on the taste of the individual, but,” Umino held up an envelope between his fingers, “if you are interested, I have been supplied with a limited number of pictures of her in her leotard during a gymnastics competition, and I am willing to sell those pictures to you all for…”

Umino never got the chance to finish what he was saying, when the envelope was quickly snatched away by Ami, who tore the envelope in shreds. 

“AMI-SAN!!”  They all yelled.

“Umino should not sell anyone’s photos for a profit, specifically those which have been taken without the permission of the person, it is wrong and immoral.  I’m sure that we can all wait to meet her, it wouldn’t hurt us to be more patient.”  Ami snapped as she left the classroom.

             As the lights dim, the stage clears leaving Usagi sitting on one of the chairs in the spotlight, “it was then, we should have known that something was wrong, we should have known then that something had changed her, we should have known… and we should have done something about it.  The excitement, it all got to our heads, I didn’t think for an instance that things would change the way they did, and that from this particular moment in time, everything would go past the point of no return.  We left her out in the cold; we never thought that this would happen; we had never anticipated anything like this.  If only we had been warned, if only… if only we could do it all again with our hindsight; things would be different, she would have never…”

The light dims.

The Past - Reality -

As Luna and Artemis lay in the sun on the park bench, their minds wandered off into the world that was the past, their memories although incomplete, had provided them with enough to fantasize on.  With the warm sun on their backs, they stretched in content, moving slightly to allow the sun to touch their bellies.  Artemis wriggled his hind paw when he felt a fly launching towards it, he shooed it off; however, when it persisted, he kicked his paw outwards to hit the fly.

“Ow… I mean… MEOW!”

Artemis immediately sat straight and looked at his partner, “I’m so…” he stopped at the pointed glare, it was then that he noticed there was the smoky blue Persian cat sitting in front of their park bench looking at them with his head slightly cocked.  “Meow,” Artemis began to lick Luna’s face to apologise.

The Persian cat remained for a few seconds, both of the cats finding his stare rather unnerving.  They almost sighed a breath of relief when his tail uncurled from around his elegantly trimmed feet, as he walked away slowly from them. 

“We almost blew it,” Artemis said beneath his breath.

“And you almost knocked my eye out.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Not good enough.”  Luna snapped back, “shush, someone is coming.”

They turned and were surprised to find that an old man coming towards them, his quiet steps had deceived Luna’s ears into believing that he was further away than he really was.  The old man’s respectably short white hair reflected the beams of sunlight, each strand as white as the clouds above, untainted by the stray black or yellow hair; in contrast to his bushy grey eyebrows and moustache adorning his upper lip.  His golden green eyes were bright and intelligent even behind the dark black plastic rimmed glasses that he wore.  Sitting himself next to the two cats, he exclaimed to no one but himself, “ahh… a black and a white domestic shorthair, exact markings, a very good match indeed.”

His well-manicured fingers dug lightly into their necks, scratching the area just behind their jaws, his movements were exact and pressed accurately onto their most sensitive points.  They found themselves extremely taken to this old gentleman, the familiar waft of spicy cologne, the gentle hands, and even the soft woollen fabric of his pinstriped suit.  They could not help but wonder if Endymion-sama would have been like this had the Silver Millennium not fallen. 

The Play – Act II Scene II

The Beginning

“I can’t believe that you two are actually late for lunch.”  Rei said when she noticed that Usagi and Minako had finally joined her for lunch at their meeting point between their schools. 

“It was all Usagi’s fault, she was nagging Umino about the new student.” Minako replied defensively, perhaps to defensively for anyone to believe.

“I just wanted to know what she would be like, she is supposed to be really smart, and if she is…” Usagi looked into space, “I might actually start passing more of my tests, I mean, Ami-chan is doing a great job… but I need more time with her than she can afford and… can you imagine?  I will probably start getting good marks!” 

“I’ll start to worry when that happens, you need more time than anyone can afford.”  Rei raised her eyebrow and smiled slyly under her hand as she continued to eat lunch, “I had a premonition this morning, that’s what I called the lunch meeting for.”

“What did you see?” 

“It’s not much, as you know, nothing that I see is concrete, it’s all open to interpretation and analysis, but I have a feeling that a presence, an evil presence is coming, and will be coming closer to us than ever.  I don’t know if it might mean that the youmas are going to become much stronger from now on, and possibly more regularly than before.”

Artemis looked up suddenly, “what do you mean closer, do you mean physical or mental infiltration, or relocation closer?”

“There is no question about it, we are talking about relocation.  We have been through everything together, we are not a group that can be easily infiltrated, unless there is some sort of a brainwashing.  But, it also means that we have to be on alert, there is a force coming towards us, and a lot of things will change because of it.  To combat brainwashing techniques, we should definitely try to stay together more, we don’t want to be alone when a youma strikes or we could get into a lot of trouble.”

“What kind of force are you talking about?” Ami demanded.

“There are two forces coming, one is extremely evil, and another is pure, the latter is probably SailorMoon getting another boost in her energy, the first one… I don’t know, it is completely off the scale, like the pure energy that is coming.  If we don’t beat it…” Rei trailed off for a brief second, “either way, the coincidence of the new girl coming is too much, she is probably either a slave, or the root source of that power.”

“No she’s not!  I mean…” Ami dipped her head, “we can’t make assumptions like that about someone we’ve never met before.”

“I’m not telling Usagi to moon-dust her or anything, I’m just saying that we should keep an eye on her and be careful, she might mean serious trouble for us.”

“I think you are jumping into conclusions, it’s just a coincidence, nothing else, you are reading way too much into someone coming into Juuban.  In any one day there are hundreds of people who leave and come into Juuban, either for work, school or for good, there may be a thousand more ways that Juuban can be invaded by a strange force.  Just because we know of one particular person coming in, it doesn’t mean that we can fixate the evil on her, she might be the pure force.”

“Maybe, maybe not.  Ami-chan, we know for a fact that Usagi is the Princess, she represents light and purity, and there probably isn’t going to be another personification of goodness hanging around, whether or not the new girl is the source of evil might be open to debate, but whether she is the source of goodness, I’m afraid that that is not open to debate.”

“Why not?”  Ami said insistently, “why can’t she be the pure force?  There isn’t a rule out there saying that it’s not possible.  I’m telling you, she can’t be evil.”

“Ami-chan, the way you’re talking, you sound so sure of yourself, how can you be sure that she’s not evil?”  Luna asked, breaking off the conversation that seemed to have caught no one’s attention other than Rei and Ami. 

Ami dipped her head again, staring at her bento, she could not meet the young woman’s eyes, her voice was hesitant as she stammered, “I just think that she deserves a chance, that’s all, I got a chance from Usagi-chan when we first met, I know what its like to have people pointing at me and spreading rumours and digging into her past.  We all have things that we have hidden, things that we are sworn to secrecy about for the sake of other people, things we are ashamed of, I just want to give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“Ami-chan, you seem to know her.”  Artemis prodded.

“How?”  Ami challenged.

“The way that you talk about her, you’re so sure about her and her past, it would almost seem as though you are vouching for her,” Luna said in an unusually motherly tone.

“Ami-chan, try one of my cookies!”  Makoto shoved a box of cookies in front of them, interrupting the intense conversation that was occurring.  “What?” She asked with complete innocence, “fine!” 

“I know nothing.”  Ami forcefully as she stood and pushed Makoto’s bento away, “if you’ll all excuse me,” and left them.

 As the lights dim, the stage clears leaving Rei sitting on one of the chairs in the spotlight, “we were all so sure that Crystal Tokyo would happen, we were all so sure that all of us would be a part of it… but we were wrong.  I can freely admit it now, now that all the proof has been gathered, and all signs point to me having made a terrible mistake – I forgot what being a team was.  And in having made that mistake, I pushed Ami-chan away, threw her into the arms of another.  It was my fault because I had flatly denied her of her points of view; she had to seek solace from another team.  If only we had known that nothing was a certainty, if only I’d known that Ami would do what she did… I would have done things differently, I think we would have all done things differently.  I know that its so easy to say ‘if only’ but I regret having dismissed her like that, I regret having… well, been the cause of all the events that occurred later.  I was the cause of the whole fiasco, I can’t deny it, no matter how the others try to tell me otherwise…”

End - Act II
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