Her thoughts were in turmoil as she tried to blend into the crowd, finding herself bumping against other students; she murmured her apologies without her mind’s registration, and continued to walk blindly to a direction that was unknown even to her.  She was scared of him because she wasn’t sure who he was, when she had first met him, she had had the same flashback – the problem lay in that the flashback had nothing to do with him.  Last time, she had pushed it to the back of her mind, but this time, she knew that it was important; there could be no reason why her subconscious was reminding her of the same incident, twice.  It had been a moment that she had shared with her friend, Kunki, years and years ago now, she couldn’t figure out why the man standing before her, Lord Takeuchi, could evoke such memories, twice.
        Ami shook her head in frustration as she kept on walking, Lord Takeuchi was supposed to be either with his father, or dissipated into the universe by SailorMoon’s ‘Moon Healing Escalation’; but no, he was somewhere behind her, chasing her.  It was with that thought in her mind when she suddenly found her head ploughed into a young man’s chest, “oh no!  I’m sorry, I… sumimasen!… Zoicite-san… I mean, Asano-san!”

        “Okay,” Makoto demanded angrily, “what do you want from our Ami-chan?”
        “No, that’s where you are wrong,” he stood up from the ground, his face red – partly from the annoyance and partly from embarrassment at being ‘attacked’ by a bunch of girls, “the question is, what do you want with me?  I’ve done absolutely nothing, other than wanting to talk to an old friend of mine.”
        “And can’t you see what type of reaction you’re causing to her?  Are you really an old friend of hers, or are you some crazy stalker?”
        “I’m her friend, and that’s why I want to understand what’s going on, I want to know, why this is happening?!”
        “Like you don’t know.”  Minako said.
        “MINNA!! (Everyone!!)”  Usagi yelled through the crowd, “matte! (stop!)  Minna, he is supposed to be Kunki Saito-Sato, not… at least Mamo-chan said that he is not supposed to be…, you know…”  she faltered, trying to convey her meaning saying as little as possible.
        “My apologies,” Rei looked into his eyes as she spoke, her gaze piercing through his mind, “please accept my apologies on behalf of my friends, Saito-Sato-san,” she reached out to shake his hand, “we may have mistook you for someone else who has been trying to harm our friend.  If will join us as Sakana at 5:00pm, we will try our best to help you find Ami-chan, but it would not be fair if we do not speak to her first.”
        He nodded, his eyes still ablaze as he turned and left them, he then half turned and yelled over his shoulder, “and you’d better not be tricking me.”

        “Princess!  It is an honor to meet you once again, it has been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of your presence.”  Zoicite immediately said, kneeling before her, he took her hand and kissing it passionately as though it were her lips.
        “Please!”  Ami quickly withdrew her hand, she could feel the people who were staring at her, having a famous ice-skater practically at her feet… she wondered how many more scenes she would be a part of before the school year even began, “don’t call me that!”
        She stared at him, it was like her greatest nightmares had all decided to come true this year; first, it was Asuka; second, it was Lord Takeuchi; third, it was Zoicite.  Zoicite still scared her despite the full year and a half that he had spent convincing her otherwise, he may not mean her any harm, yet, he reminded her of the harm that she had experienced.  It wasn’t fair to him, she knew that, whatever their past had dictated, she remembered not, and it didn’t seem fair to her either that she should live dictated by the memories of one person.  She didn’t know if she wanted to remember that past though, the idea that she had once fallen in love with him… he of the Negaverse, the ex-Earth General.  And even if she remembered, did she have to continue the life of the past in this life?  By not obeying the memories of the past life, she didn’t disrupt the timeline, because despite future having been written in Usagi and Mamoru’s case, she firmly believed that life was what one made of it.  Nor did she believe that the her of the past would love someone so arrogant, and overly sure of himself… someone that she could not imagine loving now… no, something must have gone wrong, she must have either been a crazy woman in the past with strange tastes or his memory did not serve him right.
        “Ah… but my princess, you are a princess, born of the highest, rarest, and purest blood; blessed by the gods from the time of conception to have eyes as bright as day, and skin as fair as the cleanest snow.  The gods have made a picture of perfection, so perfect is your being that the goddesses must hide in shame and envy of your greatness.  Descended from the noblest of lines, educated by the most learned, the swan bows to your graciousness, and the moon will not shine for she cannot compare to your beauty.  You, princess, are splendid in all of your ways; nay princess, you may deny it in voice, but your very being bears the title of royalty.  Your modesty, princess, is only proof of your graciousness and kindness to even the poorest of peasants and murkiest of men.  And now we stand again, in one place, my fair princess, the gods have truly bless our union, ‘tis but destiny that we shall meet again; alas dearest princess, for time, space and place has dictated that our paths shall cross again.”
        Ami could hear the snickers around her, and the giggling at this display of the old language, in such ways at that!  She blinked in quick succession, taking a step backwards she stared at him with wonder – how could he not be embarrassed?  Her mind came up with an idea to worm herself out of the situation; she cleared her throat and said as loudly as she could, “well, well, who would have thought that you would rather do this than to tell the truth about your rumored love life?”  Turning around, she addressed the crowd that had formed around her, “and for him to complete this dare, he has to kiss one of you young ladies, any volunteers?!”
        The females of the crowd surged forward and surrounded Tsuzuki Asano the famous teenage heartthrob ice-skater; Ami, using this as a cover, slipped away, thankful that she would no longer be the center of his attentions.  As she walked towards the direction of her first lecture, she found that her interest was not in the place that she was heading, but at every hay-blond head that was around her.  Her eyes were drawn to each head, examining their faces to check that he wasn’t Lord Takeuchi, but she felt her heart leap at each face, scared, yet strangely excited to face him.  There was something inside her that made her want to see those lightly grayish-green eyes again, because it was as though he saw through her, just then, in that tiny second, his eyes seemed to tell her that he knew everything about her, her whole past, but she wasn’t scared, she felt curiously comfortable with someone seeming to know everything about her although she knew nothing about him.  She was scared, only because her brain told her so, only because her brain couldn’t stop reminding her of the fact that he had been the commander of one of the sectors of the Kuriverse; true, he had done nothing to harm her, but the idea of it was enough to haunt her.

        “Rei!  What do you think you are doing in letting him come back?”  Minako yelled.
        “Because something is wrong,” Rei started with a faraway look in her eyes, “think about it, Kunki Saito-Sato is supposed to be Avarice, but Lord Takeuchi comes back as Saito-Sato-san, now, we know what Avarice is supposed to look like, and we know what Lord Takeuchi is supposed to look like, right?”
        The girls nodded.
        “The question is, what does Saito-Sato-san look like?  This question can obviously only be answered by the people who knew him before he disappeared, that is, Ami-chan, and Mamoru-kun.  Well, Mamoru, tell us, does he look like you had expected him to?”
        “Urr…” Mamoru scratched his head as he conjured out memories of his good friend, and then mentally adding a few years of aging and maturity, “yeah, I recognized him today even though he hadn’t introduced himself, I haven’t seen him since he’s been back, his parents removed him to their country house.  I’ve been talking to him over the phone, and I have to say that I never suspected that he might be a different person…”
        “Precisely,” Rei said, “so, there are two possibilities.  Either he is the same person he was before, so, he is the real Saito-Sato-san, or, the Kuriverse studied his behavior before he was captured so that they could capture Ami and trick her for six months so that she would be mentally so fragile that they could kill her.  But there are so many glitches in this theory…”
        “…that they could have completely destroyed her when they had held her in Kuriverse-Go.”  Usagi finished quickly for Rei.
        “Not to mention that the whole deception would have taken them nearly seven years to pull off like this, and the Kuriverse never thinks so far ahead, oh, and the major problem, we didn’t even know that we were the senshi since Luna and Artemis hadn’t awoken; it would have been so much easier form them to have just destroyed as there and then,” Minako added.
        “That’s right, but you missed the main point,” Rei began again, “Lord Takeuchi gave Ami-chan the KuriGo-kagi (the fifth dark key), and the Kurozuishou-Go (the fifth dark crystal), true, we stole the zuishou (crystal), but he willingly handed over his kagi (key) and gave her these extraordinary powers; there is no reason why they would have done that.”
        “Wasn’t that a bit silly that they gave him all this power when he was just a human?”  Mamoru asked more to himself then anyone else.
        “He was brain-washed, but something in him triggered…” Minako’s skills in analysis began to kick in as the commander of the previous senshi part of her took over, “… it wasn’t his memory, because he didn’t remember even up to the last moment, but it was the goodness in him that was triggered, and when we simulated SailorMoon’s attack, he disappeared like the rest of the Kuriverse affected humans…”
        “… but we assumed that he had been sucked into the porthole.”  Usagi finished Minako’s analysis for her, “how do we make sure before we let him back into Ami-chan’s life as Kunki?  Rei-chan, you obviously don’t think he is under the influence of the Kuriverse anymore, what can we do to prove it?”
        “I’ll do a reading.”  Rei stated simply.
        “We’re meeting him this afternoon Rei-chan!”  Makoto quickly said, “where are you going to use the sacred fire to do the reading?”
        Rei held up the ribbon that was on her hand (note:  The Japanese Politician’s Woman), “I just need a small flame to confirm what I think.”
        They were startled from their own little world that they had formed while discussing the identity of the former commander of Kuriverse-Go when the bell tower that was behind them chimed, striking eleven o’clock, “we’ll meet at Sakana and we’ll find out what Ami-chan feels about this whole thing okay?”  Mamoru said.
        The girls nodded and all of them quickly dispersed through the congregation that was still gathered at the Kiyomori Square as they headed for their own classes.  Although each of them had a different class to attend, only one thing occupied their mindset – was Lord Takeuchi really who he claimed to be?

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