by Sailor Mirage

email: sailor_mirage@hotmail.com

Hi everyone! This fanfic's based on the original series, and set after Sailor Stars, but there's no major spoilers or anything like that. Just to warn you - there's absolutely no action in this. It's totally a one-person narrative. So if you can't live with that, tough. ^_^ Any comments would be greatly appreciated, so please email me: "sailor_mirage@hotmail.com" Thanx!!

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The Crybaby Usagi's Splendid Transformation

or

Be Careful What You Wish For

I guess most of my life I've just wanted to be different. I, Tsukino Usagi, have always just been an average junior high-school student, going to an average school, with below-average grades. Just like nearly any girl my age you could pick off the street, I love talking on the phone, eating, hanging out at the arcade, and I just hate studying! I've even got an average family - Mother, Father, Brother, Sister. Typical. Average.

Nearly the only thing I had to distinguish me from all the millions of others were my grades... I can't remember ever getting an A+, or even just an A, on anything! My usual grade was somewhere between 3% and 40%; maybe sometimes as high as 55%, if I was lucky.

What a thing to stand out for - being the worst, or close to worst student in school. I always blamed it on being stupid or slow, but deep down I knew I wasn't stupid and that I'd have good grades if I actually tried; maybe not perfect grades, but at least a B average.

I never liked being the worst student. I hated getting 27% on my test, then glancing at someone else's and seeing that they had aced it. I hated seeing my name last on the lists of exam scores. The big red X's on my paper, sensei calling my mother to tell her how I had failed another test and if I didn't shape up I was going to have to repeat the year. I always tried to laugh it off and act like I didn't care. I think I fooled everyone but myself.

But I was just too lazy to bother with school. I had a "51 is a pass" attitude, but sometimes I'd even forget that. There were just so many better things to do than study! Studying was boring and so... average. I always figured that I'd just start studying a little before my High School entrance exam, and I'd be fine. Somehow I actually managed to pass. Looking back now, I haven't a clue how I did it.

But I always hated being average, and wished that I could be different, and just stand out somehow. The first time I heard about Sailor V, I wanted to be just like her. She was smart, and pretty, but most of all, she was _different_. Little did I know, I was going to get my wish.

On an average morning, I was frantically racing towards school, late as usual. I saw some little boys picking on a cat, so I scared them off and made sure the kitty was okay. It had a bandaid on its head, so I took it off. The bandaid had been covering an odd, crescent shaped mark on the kitty's forehead....

How was I to know that one little act of kindness would change my life forever?

Once Luna got me to change into Sailor Moon for the first time, and defeat that first youma, everything was different. All of a sudden, my wish had come true! I wasn't "average" any more - now I was different! Perfect, right? On the surface, sure."But wait," you say! "Now you're famous! Your face is on the front page of every newspaper and thye talk about you on the morning news! There's too many Sailor Moon fan clubs to count! There's hardly a single guy who wouldn't sell his soul to have a date with you! Everyone wants to be just like you!"

Well, that's just the surface glittering prettily. That's the stuff I wanted to be like Sailor V for. But, the truth is, being a Senshi is one of the hardest things there is to do. You have to confront huge ugly scary monsters and act like you know what you're doing. You can't act scared because the enemy'll see that and use it against you. You have to live with the fact that if you screw up, the fate of the world and billions of innocent people is at stake. If any innocent bystanders get hurt, its your fault. You should have been more careful, and you should have been paying more attention. When you find out there's a youma, you just have to drop what you're doing and go. No, it doesn't matter if you're having a bath, or sick, or finally at the front of the line to get into that movie you've been dying to see, or on a date with your fave guy, you just have to go. It doesn't matter if you have to spend all your pocket money on bus or train fare to get to where the youma is. It's your duty. And you have to accept that you could die doing that duty any day; that you may have to sacrifice yourself so others can go on living.

Then there's the responsibility... How do you think I felt, me, carefree, happy-go-lucky Usagi, when all of a sudden I couldn't goof off, or cry, because now I was a Senshi and I had _responsibility_. Responsibility, oh, how I hate that word. When you're a Senshi, you have a responsibility to the city, the country, the world, to protect it from evil, no matter what that takes. You have to be responsible and not let evil hurt anyone... You can't decide, "Nah, I don't feel like saving the world today. I think I'll go to the arcade instead" because you have _responsibility_.

That's the way it is when you're a Senshi.

I've never been sure what I want to do with my life. I'd like to be a singer, but I'm not musical at all. I'd like to draw mangas, but I'm no artist. When I sew my stitches are big and clumsy, and sewing's boring, anyway. Last time I tried to cook anything I forgot about it; when I came down from my room, the kitchen was full of black smoke and dinner looked like it had been hit one of Mars' Fire Soul's.

But at least before, I had a choice! As soon as I became Sailor Moon, everyone was always saying I couldn't be what I wanted to be, because I had a "destiny." I remember once just a little after I had first become a Senshi, I mentioned to Luna that I had a school assignment to write an English essay on what I wanted to be when I was an adult. I told her I didn't know what I wanted to be, and asked her if she had any ideas. She said,

"Usagi, you're Sailor Moon! You have responsibility to others, and are destined to protect the Earth."

Destiny - right! First, I was destined to protect the city, then I was destined to be the leader of the Sailor Senshi, then I was destined to protect the Moon Princess, then it turned out that I _was_ the Moon Princess! Later, I found out that it was really my destiny to be the Queen of Tokyo 1000 years in the future.

What happened to me? Where's my say in this? What if I don't _want_ to be a Queen? Well, Usagi, you don't have a choice. It's your destiny.

It's not that everything that's happened to me is bad - on the contrary! From being a Senshi, I've made the best friends I've ever had and ever will have! Also, I've finally found that the guy I always found annoying before, is really my true love! More destiny stuff there, but this time it's good.

I sometimes wonder, though, what my life would be like if I wasn't Sailor Moon - if I hadn't even noticed the little boys picking on poor Luna. Well, some people would say "You wouldn't have all your best friends!" Sure, I wouldn't have Rei and Ami-chan and Mako-chan and Minako-chan and everyone, but I'd have other people for best friends! I've never had a shortage of friends, in fact, I think I'd have more friends if it wasn't for all the Sailor Senshi buisness. See, people can think you're kinda rude when suddenly you have to bail on a study sesh or a movie you've been planning for weeks 'cause "something came up." Naru-chan used to be my best friend in all the world, but we started to drift apart when the rest of the Senshi joined the team. Being a Senshi takes up a lot of your time. Apart from the battles and such, there's meetings to discuss strategy, and training. Training takes a lot of time. After a while, I started spending nearly all my out of school time with my new friends. I guess I sort of neglected Naru-chan and all my "old" friends, but it didn't seem like that at the time.

People would also say to me, "You wouldn't have Mamoru!" That's true. It's hard to imagine life without my Mamo-chan, but I guess if I'd never become a Senshi, that's what it would be like. I'd probably have other boyfriends on and off, but no one like Mamo-chan. Or maybe if it's so much my "destiny" to be with Mamo-chan, we'd have gotten over our differences somehow.

I'm not so sure I believe in all this destiny stuff. It seems to me it's all chance that made the Sailor Senshi who they are today. I mean, on that first day, if I'd just got out of bed 20 minutes earlier, I'd probably not even have run into Luna. Or what if Ami had moved into a totally different district of Tokyo, or even to, say, Osaka instead? What then? Or if Luna never found me? Who would be Sailor Moon then? Who knows... maybe even Naru would be Sailor Moon, and she'd be saving _me_ from youma all the time! I guess I'll never know...

That kinda makes me think, if I _could_ go back in time, and if I knew all the stuff that'd happen to me as a Senshi, would I choose to be Sailor Moon, or would I turn a blind eye to the little boys tormenting a poor kitty...?

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DISCLAIMER: Sailor Moon, the Sailor Senshi, and other related characters are property of Takeuchi Naoko, Toei Animation, Kodansha, Bandai, and a whole bunch of other big important companies. However, this story is _mine!!_ Please do not copy it or distribute this fanfic without my permission.