Chapter 2
=========

   "Hi, Ami-san..."

   Ami turned around to look at Hajime; she smiled, said hi, and
turned around to start on toward the temple.

   Hajime wouldn't have this at all.  He ran up until he was side by
side with her and started talking before Ami could reacknowledge him.
"Ami-san, I'm really sorry I wasn't there after school the last two
days; I've been pretty busy lately...you must be angry at me, aren't
you?"

   No reply.

   "Well...I guess leaving you there for a half hour isn't very nice,
I understand...if you don't want to..."

   At that point, Ami finally turned around, looked at him sweetly,
and said, "No, I'm not angry with you at all, I'm just in a hurry!"

   Which startled Hajime for a moment.  Once he recovered, he asked
quite meekly, "You aren't?"

   "Of course not!" Ami said.  "Do you want to have some tutoring
after school next week?  A half hour before I go to my juku?"

   Hajime thought for a moment, and then replied, "Sure...how about
Tuesday we start?"

   "Tuesday?  Why can't you start Monday?" Ami asked.

   "Oh...well...uhm...I have some work to do...that's all," said
Hajime.  Not a complete lie, Hajime thought.

   "Really?" said Ami.  "You have a job after school?"

   "Heh heh..."  Hajime took his glasses off and wiped off a bit of
sweat which formed on his brow.  "Well," he started, "I've got a part
time job, yes...uhm...Do you mind if I walk with you to wherever you
are going?"

   "Oh, sure.  I'd like to talk with you a little more," replied Ami
as she restarted her brisk walk.  "So, what do you do?"

   "Uh, me?" replied Hajime rather sheepishly.

   Ami giggled, "Of course you!  Who did you think I was talking
about?"

   "I don't know; wasn't thinking I guess," he said as he tried to
think of just what to say to get of the subject.

   They continued on for a moment in silence when Ami finally broke
it with a quiet, "Well?"

   "Well what?"

   "What do you do, of course!"

   "Oh, that,"  Maybe _this_ would work, thought Hajime.  "Well, I
work over at the Kondo recording studio...just do some cleaning over
there."  Hajime breathed a sigh of relief.  Not entirely untrue.

   "Interesting...that's pretty close to my apartment...maybe I could
visit you after school one day..."

   Hajime looked at Ami in disbelief; what did he do?!  "Uhm...sure.
why not?"  He mentally slapped himself; why did he just say that?

   Ami smiled and said, "Okay...Monday you'll be there...right?"

   Sighing heavily, Hajime replied, "Yeah, sure."  Oh well, better
make the most of it, he thought.  Keep your spirits up, Hajime!
"So," he said, "you live near the studio, eh?"

   "Yes..."

   "Then," he said, "why are you going over here, out of the city?"

   "Oh, I'm just going to a friend's place...Hajime?"  Ami looked
back to see Hajime strangely quiet...almost in a trance...his eyes
were closed as he walked and he did not make a sound.  Ami looked
back to where she was walking, wondering what he was thinking...

- - -

   The other four girls were in Rei's room, attempting to study.  Or
at least three of them were.  Rei was in there, sleeping face down on
her bed, simply too tired from the fire reading which she did that
afternoon.  Much to everybody's surprise, Usagi was putting in some
fairly decent effort into her studying.

   Just as Mako was starting to explain a problem to Usagi, again,
Rei started making some noise...literally noises: grunts, groans, and
heavy breathing interrupted the three's study session.  They stopped
and wondered aloud what Rei was thinking.

   "Maybe she's having a bad dream," Makoto offered.

   Minako started to say something but stopped once she noticed how
open Rei's eyes were; they stared blankly ahead as Rei's head turned
slowly from left to right.

   "Look at her face...her eyes," Minako tried to point out, but by
the time she said this, Rei's eyes were very closed and she had
started to revert to her face down status.

   "Look at...ow!"  Usagi turned her head quickly back...what was
pain...

- - -

   "Isn't their a Shinto shrine close by?" Hajime asked.

   Ami thought this question was somewhat unusual, which didn't
prevent her from answering it, "Yes, that's where one of my friends
lives."

   Once she said this, Ami noticed that Hajime was somewhat taken
aback by this.  "What's wrong?" she asked.

   Without thinking, Hajime replied, "I'm sorry..." and didn't say
another word.  "Uhm..."

   Now, Ami was getting worried.  "Are you all right?  Why are you
sorry?"

   Hajime looked all around, as if a solution to this problem might
be embedded in one of trees he passed by.  He looked to his watch,
and, feigning sudden shock, said "Oh no.  I should have been at work
by now.  Sorry...gottta go.  Bye Ami-san," and he ran in the opposite
direction.

   "Strange," Ami said to herself...

- - -

   The first thing that Ami saw when she went up the steps and past
the torii of the temple was Rei limping outside.  Immediately Ami
rushed to her and asked "What's wrong?"

   Rei tried to brush Ami off, but couldn't as she forced her to sit
down on the steps of the temple.  "Nothing," Rei said.  "I'm just a,
a little tired."

   "You look terrible!" exclaimed Ami.

   "Do you need a drink?" proffered Usagi, who had just exited Rei's
room and went outside, along with the other three.

   "Yeah," complemented Minako.  "You were making a lot of noise in
your room.  Are you sure you are okay?"

   Rei opened her mouth as if she was starting to talk, and then
decided not to.  However, her mouth didn't share that feeling, and
impulsively, she said, "Do you ever feel like you are being used?"
Rei closed her mouth quickly, bringing her hand to it as if to make
sure that it stayed closed.

   Usagi was the only one with any sort of reply: "Yes, I do..."
she said blankly.

   Rei continued, "I feel something big is going to happen..."

- - -

   "OH MY GOD!  IT'S HER!  I FOUND HER!!  SHE'S HERE!"

   Hajime was jumping all around the room.  He was bouncing off the
walls and in quite a literal fashion.  He was at the studio along
with Fumiko and Yasunori and he was trying to, quite unsuccesfully,
tell them what he had found out.

   "Geez," said Fumiko to Yasunori, "the last time he was like this
was when I introduced him to espresso at a Hannibal's coffee in
Tacoma."

   "Really?" he replied, "ONE espresso?"

   Fumi-chan answered, "No, five actually...it was quite good."  She
then said (actually, shouted) to Hajime, "WHAT?  WHAT DID YOU FIND?"

   That had no effect on him.  Time for drastic measures.

   Both Fumiko and Yasunori eyed each other with a smirk.

   "So," she asked, "what will it be this time?"

   "How about some Final Fantasy soundtracks?" he asked

   "Good idea," and immediately, Fumiko retrieved a digital audio
tape, inserted it into one of the many backup DAT players which
odorned the mixing room the three were in.  Soon, two monitor
speakers filled the room with the booming sound of the music of the
game Final Fantasy 4.

   Almost as quickly, Hajime got out of his hyperactive state and
into a trance like one, silent, still, listening, heeding only the
music.

   A few seconds later, Fumiko turned off the player.

   "First of al, he's got to learn how to do multi tap echos on lead
instruments.  The trumpet has every echo coming from the same stereo
pan position, which is very boring.  Second, his use of comping
strings in the background is not effective at all, since all they do
is mimic the trumpet lead.  The harp is the only redeeming...what?"

   "You back down to Earth now Hajime-chan?" Yasunori said with a
somewhat impish smile.

   "Uhm...yeah...anyways," Hajime started, "I know where the inner
senshi are now."

   "Oh really?" said both Yasunori and Fumiko in tandem.

   "Yes...they're all local...three of them go to our high school!"

   "And," interrupted Fumiko, "how would you know this?"

   At this, Hajime stopped.  He would be ashamed telling them how he
retrieved such information.  "Well...uhm...you know..."

   "You did it again?!" exclaimed Fumiko.  "You know that that will
get you into trouble.  You'll be rooted out if it ever is well known,
you know that."

   "I'm sorry," apologized Hajime, "but some good came out of it this
time...we've got to get their help...and soon."

   "That's a given...but...when will we get to them?" inquired
Ya-chan.

   "Monday.  Here." stated Hajime quite simply.

   "HERE?!  Are you nuts?"  Fumiko was somewhat alarmed by this
strange proposition.

   "It's quite simple, really," explained Hajime.  "We don't go to
them.  They rescue us."

   "You're crazy.  That's just crazy," replied Yasunori.

   "Ano, Ya-chan?" Hajime said.

   "What?!"

   "I do not know what you believe, nor will I ever probably fully
understand everything you believe, but I believe that Sailor Moon is
invincible..."

- - -

   He kicked the box a second time, this time making its contents
spill out.  The ornate sticks were spewn all over the floor.  One of
them unwillingly bore the weight of the kicker.  It then gave way and
rolled underfoot.  The kicker of the box then fell to the ground with
a satisfying thump.  In any other situation, this would have been
cause for laughter.  But Nobuo was not laughing.  The man at his feet
soon got up and went into his face.

   "Do you understand?!  There are only ten in here...we WANT FIFTY!
If you short change us next time, you will IMMEDIATELY die!"

   "Fine then.  But then, your boss will not be able to fulfill his
demands.  Now I know that you wouldn't want that, now would you?"

   The man in front of him was infuriated.  He slammed his fist into
Nobuo's chest, causing him to go crashing down to the floor.  As
Nobuo clutched his chest, the other mocked him, "Sixty years you've
been here, you must have had a pretty good life; you probably
wouldn't mind dying..."  He went out the door, oblivious to Nobuo's
son's verbal abuse, which soon died out as he tended to his father...

- - -

   "Interesting...now that's an understatement if I've ever heard
one..."

   "Well, perhaps you've never heard one, because that is all this
will ever be,"

   "Really?  How so?"

   "Let's put it this way.  What are the chances that we can catch
her, under circumstances which favor us to an impossible degree?  Us
having choice of location, choice of time, choice of her immediate
protection, and most importantly, amount of resources we can
allocate for the job?"

   "Let's not look at that...we might as well just look at two days
from now and...sir!"

   The two men stood at attention as the man walked quietly, briskly,
through the double doors.  They noticed that his healthy blue shade,
which was present the last time they saw him, had turned into a
somewhat violet luster, which one described in a whisper as "quite
interesting...sort of like rhodium..."  No one questioned if he was
human..."Human?!  How absurd, to be like them, those...those..."

   "Colonel Shimizu!"

   Takao immediately snapped out of his trance and replied to the
blue face which had gotten into his face.  "Sir, yes, sir!" he said
as he saluted.

   "Colonel Noto!"

   Eiji crisply snapped his hand to his forehead and saluted as he
also replied "Sir, yes, sir!"

   "At ease."

   The relaxed a bit as the blue (and rather large, and tall) mass
moved around them to the desk behind them.  He sat down at it, and as
he did so, the two turned around to face him.  On the desk in front
of the many papers was a large brass plate which stated in ornate
script, "General Morita Kazuki"

   Kazuki propped his feet onto his desk and stretched.  "So, I hear
you have some interesting news to report..."