"Shifting Positions"
Part Three
by Luna and Phoebe

Disclaimer: Sailormoon is the property of Naoko Takeuchi (lucky her); Phoebe's still pouting about that.*Luna rolls on the floor laughing like mad* (Have you ever seen Phoebe pout? Probably not. But it's sooo funny!)

"Here I am," Kunzite said when he entered the church.

"Fine." Nephrite stood below the big window waiting for him to come closer.

Kunzite went towards him. "What did you have in mind?" He was now wearing his uniform again. Usagi had finally fallen asleep so that he could change his clothes.

"It's simple. Every youma I sent out was immediately attacked by the senshi. But if there were someone in great danger who needed their help I had enough time to attack them when it could do them most harm namely when they are distracted with helping you. The youma wouldn't dare to hurt you, you know that. So you don't have to fear any harm."

"How do you hit on the idea that I would fear our youma?" Kunzite asked in a challenging tone.

"So are you in?"

"Hai. When do you plan to get the show on the road?"

"As soon as possible. After we have beaten Sailormoon and the other senshi we have no more enemies to fear on our search for the genzuishou."

"Mh, don't you think you are a bit effusive? When you've defeated Sailormoon you don't have the senshi as well. Don't underestimate them."

"We will see."

"All right, contact me when you are ready to start," Kunzite said and left the church. He didn't like that place.

Usagi slept peacefully but not at all relaxed in the comfortable bed when Kunzite returned. He absently discarded his jacket on a chair before entering the bedroom. The door squeaked again and he cursed it. Usagi didn't seem to notice. 'Good. At least she is sleeping now.' The king grinned slightly when he recalled a similar situation. The difference was that this time this girl was lying in the bed and not Zoisite. He had woken up immediately and complained for the rest of the night about Kunzite coming home so late and not being able to do that quiet enough to let him sleep. At least this change had one advantage.

"Better I bring you home now, little one," he whispered while he watched her sleeping. 'But I can't risk that you tell someone about this incident. If Zoi is still a part of you he will come back on his own.'

Kunzite collected some dark energy in his hand and touched her forehead with one finger.

"Sleep and forget!"

Then he took her in his arms and teleported to the Earth Realm back to her home.

"Konban wa, Tsukino-san," Rei greeted and bowed. Ami and Naru stood behind her.

"Rei, Ami, Naru, what are you doing here? Usagi isn't at home. Isn't she with you?" The woman was obviously concerned.

Suddenly Rei sensed something. It was the same sensation she got everytime someone of the Dark Kingdom was nearby. "Usagi wanted us to come here at this time. Could we wait upstairs for her?"

Ami gave her a look. 'Liar!'

"She certainly won't mind if you wait in her room, at least it's her fault." Tsukino-san let them in and returned to the kitchen.

The three of them went upstairs. Ami and Naru put the screws on Rei. "How can you dare to lie to Tsukino-san? She's Usagi's mother!"

"Stop complaining all the time. I know what I'm doing. And by the way, there is something strange in here. I feel it." A deep look into Ami's eyes made the genius understand.

Rei opened the door to Usagi's room and almost fell back in the same instant.

"What's the matter, Rei?" Naru asked frightened.

"Take a look yourself," Rei thundered and banged the door open.

Usagi was lying in her bed and snored loudly. "See? Just what I said. She is sleeping and dreaming of something great while we do everything in our powers to find her."

When Naru stepped closer to the bed, eyes wide, Ami pulled on Rei's sleeve and whispered into the other one's ear, "Rei, what about the feeling you mentioned?"

"It's gone. It was there just for one tiny moment. I don't know, maybe I'm going nuts or I'm just too tired." She yawned demonstratively.

Someone walked up the stairs. It was Usagi's mother. "Girls, would you like some --" She stopped when she saw her daughter lying in the bed. "Usagi!" she exclaimed in surprise. To the girls she said in an attempt to apologize for the wrong information she gave them down at the door, "She must have come in when I was too busy to notice her."

Ami smiled and shrugged. "It's all right. We are relieved that she's here. I think we should let her sleep. It was a hard day."

Rei stood beside her cross-armed and pouted. Naru just heaved a sigh and grabbed her arm. She pulled her outside the room following Ami.

Down at the door Usagi's mother said them goodbye.

"We'll fetch Usagi tomorrow morning and make sure that she isn't late. Sayonara," Ami told her.

Zoisite was roughly woken by a thundering "Usaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagiiiii! You're going to be late again!!!"

She jerked up and looked around when the door was ripped open. "Get out of the bed," a woman yelled at her. Zoisite involuntarily followed her order and fell out of it in shock. "And get dressed! I put your school uniform on the chair, it's freshly ironed," the woman said already leaving.

"Where am I?" she wondered still dazed. Everywhere were little rabbits printed on the wall paper. The whole room was colored in a garish pink. "Yuck," she muttered. "A decorator's nightmare." Deciding to do what the woman had ordered her she put on the uniform, getting to the conclusion that a bra was an absolutely insidious piece of cloth.

Walking around in the room she tried to remember how she could have come here.

'Kunzite, where are you?'

Stopping in front of a mirror she gulped. The long hair was still stuck in this meatball-style. 'About time to remedy that. If I have to live in this body *gulp* I can at least change its appearance.' With that she began to fumble at the pigtails and opened them. After some while she also found a brush and a barrette on the desk and made a loose pony- tail. 'That's more my taste.'

"Usaaagii! What are you doing? Hurry up, Ami is already coming."

Zoisite blinked and looked at the black cat talking to her. She had a crescent moon on her forehead. "Strange."

"Strange? Usagi, you have to hurry up if you don't want to be late again."

"I'm never late," Zoisite stated. 'So Usagi is this body's name. Fits somehow.' Zoisite didn't mind the cat to speak to her. 'If it's possible to swap bodies then why shouldn't cats speak. I normally talk to demons, how unusual is that?'

Suddenly a small boy appeared in the door, grabbed her and pulled her downstairs.

"We are going to be late if you continue like this," a blue-haired girl scolded. A black-haired and a redhead stood behind her.

"What did you do with your hair," one asked.

"The old style got on my nerves," Zoisite explained staring at them. 'Who are they? Darn it!'

"About time," Rei commented. "Now let's go."

When they were out of the yard Naru stopped Zoisite. "What about your school bag?" she hinted.

"What bag? School?" Zoisite queeried.

Everyone turned around to her and looked at her in surprise.

"Usagi, are you off your rocker? What's up with you? Since you left the hospital you are completely confused. Maybe it's the best we bring you back," Rei suggested.

Zoisite shook her head violently. "No thanks!" She ran into the house agian and returned after some minutes with the schoolbag.

"Now we are really late," Ami said. "Let's hurry up."

The three of them ran down the streets to the school.

"Tsukino Usagi!" Haruna-san said in a threatening tone.

Zoisite was confused. 'Have I done anything wrong?'

"I'm really surprised to see you here in time."

Zoisite made a face.

"Let's hope it stays that way. Now, sit down!"

There was only one chair left in the room so she walked over to it and obeyed.

'Everyone demands something of me. I WANT BACK INTO MY OWN BODY!'

"Today we are going to discuss a new aspect of fractions combined with roots," Haruna-san declared to the class. 'Am I tired.' Zoisite laid her head down on the desk. Unexpectedly there was a kind of dizziness overwhelming her. 'What?'

"Usagi!"

Usagi and Zoisite shot up. "Huh?"

Zoisite who felt how the other ego rose to the surface made a tactical withdrawal and decided to let the other one take over until he would be needed. When, that was his decision to make.

"Tsukino Usagi, are you sleeping again?"

Usagi looked around and wondered how she got there. The last thing she remembered was that she had fought as Sailormoon against a new youma of the Dark Kingdom. And then? 'What -- what has happened to me? Why am I here? What time is it? Where are Ami and Rei? Is this a dream?' Her thoughts were interrupted by a woman standing in front of her and ordering her to go to the blackboard. "Haruna-san?" she asked.

"Hai. Now--" A finger who was pointed at the blackboard finished the sentence.

Usagi blinked and took a look in the direction. When she saw all the numerals written on the black background she swallowed hard and ducked her head. "Do I have to?"

"Usagi! To the blackboard!"

She gathered herself up and shuffled to it. On trial she took the chalk in her hand and looked up and down the board. "I can't. That's too difficult," she sighed.

Zoisite decided to take over before the situation got any more embarrassing.

The teacher didn't trust her eyes when she saw how Usagi scratched the chalk in a hurry over the board's surface, solving problem after problem. After some seconds the girl put the chalk down and freed her fingers from the white dust. Then she walked gracefully back to her chair and sat down.

Zoisite allowed Usagi to take over again.

Haruna and all the others in the classroom stared at her in surprise.

'What's up with that girl,' Haruna wondered. 'Maybe Ami gave her some extra lessons,' she tried to explain to herself, but didn't believe it truly. Obviously at a loss for words she said, "Well done, Usagi," and patted her shoulders.

"All right, let's see how she solved the problem. You see, because she added those two fractions after creating two equal denominators she could extract the root of this term and substitute it with this variable here. Then she just had to put it in brackets because of the different signs and sum it all up in the end." The class was puzzled. While Haruna attempted to explain each single step to the class Naru watched Usagi. Rei was right. Something was terribly wrong here. Usagi used the rest of the lesson trying to remember what had happened to her.

On their way back home Naru patted Usagi on the shoulder and said to Rei and Ami, "Usagi has passed all lessons with bravado."

Usagi simply looked at her but said nothing in return. She seemed stiffened somehow and not as proud as she should be. Or would have been.

"What has she done?" Ami asked.

Naru counted on her fingers. "First there was Math. She was sent to the blackboard and had no difficulties to solve all the tasks that were given there. In fact she was extremely fast. Then she corrected the Japanese-teacher after almost every fifth sentence because of their lacking grammatical structures. In English she knew every new word before the teacher could explain their meaning to the class and in the gym-lesson she was the first who crossed the finish-line after our threethousand meter run this year, while all the others crawled in some minutes later - including me."

Ami smiled over her face while Rei gave Usagi a suspicious glance. She recalled a story from an European author about someone making a pact with the devil and getting supernatural skills.

Naru looked at her watch. "Oh boy, am I late. My mother said that I have to hurry, because we have to go to an exhibition today. See you tomorrow." With that she ran away and was gone.

Rei looked after her and shook her head. Then she noticed that Usagi turned around again. She did that every fifty feet. Strange. Very strange indeed. "Usagi, would you stop doing that. Damn, tell us what you are up to. You can trust us. But stop behaving like a lunatic. That's creepy."

All of a sudden Usagi ripped her eyes wide open. She shook her head a bit, drew a step back and then raced down the street at full speed.

Ami and Rei looked at each other in surprise and tried to follow her.

When they reached her they saw how a youma - hovering over a crouching strange looking man- shot some energy balls at Usagi which hit her and made her fall backwards. The man stared at her saying something they couldn't understand. Immediately Rei and Ami transformed into Sailormars and Sailormercury and ran over to Usagi in order to rescue her.

"SHABON SPRAY!" Sailormercury cried and soon fog was spreaded everywhere preventing them to be seen.

"Mars, I take Usagi while you try to help that man."

"Mercury, wait!" Mars yelled after her, but Ami had already disappeared in the fog. Grumbling she walked over to the place where she expected him to be. Something dark hit her. She shook her head and saw the youma over her. "FIRE SOUL!"

Mercury dragged Usagi away from the battlefield and slapped her slightly in order to wake her up. Slowly Usagi opened her eyes. "Ami! What--? Where--?" She was totally confused.

"Usagi, you have to transform. We need your help here." Ami turned her head when she heard Rei's call for support from her planet the third time. "Usagi, fast!"

"MOON PRISM POWER MAKE UP!"

"FIRE SOUL!" Mars shrieked again. Her attack didn't work on the youma. It was only enough to bounce the monster back and shield herself from its attacks.

Mercury was turning to Sailormoon to look back at her when a second attacker appeared out of nowhere and grabbed the leader. She ran towards him and immediately had to dodge his attack. Sailormoon twisted in his grip and tried to get free but wasn't able to open it.

"Heeeeeeeell--" A hand closed over her mouth, muting her at once. Then they disappeared.

Mercury watched the scene helplessly.

Mars fought with all her powers, using her fire alternately for defence and attack. But mostly she was busied dodging the youma's attacks. All of a sudden a rose hit the ground where the youma was standing. She turned her head and searched for her rescuer. Tuxedo Kamen was standing atop a garbage can and was about to start speaking when their enemies dissapeared. Irritated they looked at each other. Looking back over her shoulder she saw Mercury standing alone and staring into the air. They ran towards her. "What has happened. The youma and that man have vanished from one moment to another." Mars looked around. "Where is Sailormoon?"

Ami stood still totally paralyzed. "They have taken her. Mars, this was a trap, nothing more." Fear gleamed in her eyes.

END OF PART THREE

Part Four

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