Chapter Text
Usa-chan swung her legs as she sat beside her papa. Mama was having the baby, so they were at a hos-pi-tal. They had been waiting for ages already, and Usa-chan wanted to explore, but papa had told her to stay with him and not get lost, because the doctors were all busy and wouldn’t have the time to help her if she got lost. She saw a vending machine down the hall.
She asked papa for coins for the juice, and, distracted, papa gave it to her.
Usa-chan reached up. Reached and reached. But she couldn’t reach to put in the money. Frustration had tears welling up in her eyes when someone took the coins from her and inserted them.
Surprised, Usa-chan turned to look at the person who helped her. It was a boy, bigger than her but not an adult. His head was wrapped in bandages, so Usa-chan thought he must have an ouchie. But since he didn’t have the Doctors’ white coat, she thought she could ask him for help. “Thanks,” she told him with a bright smile, frustration forgotten. “Can you push the apple juice button?”
The boy nodded mutely and pushed the button like Usa-chan had asked. He was so nice! “Usa-chan is Usa-chan! Who are you?”
The boy shrugged. “They say my name is Chiba Mamoru, but I don’t remember anything.”
“Mamo-chan is nice!” Usa-chan cheered happily, but then frowned. “Does your head have an ouchie?”
“Yeah.”
“Usa-chan kiss it better?” asked Usa-chan, worried for her new friend.
Mamo-chan frowned a little. “I don’t think that’s how people heal. Wouldn’t the Doctors have already tried it?”
Usa-chan pouted. She pulled on his arm, so that he bent toward her, and on tiptoes, the pressed a loud kiss on his bandaged forehead.
Something triggered in the back of Usa-chan’s mind, but at the same moment, papa called for Usa-chan. They could go see mama and the baby now! She sprinted back to papa.
“Hey! Your juice!” Mamo-chan called after her.
“Mamo-chan can have it!” she called and waved to him as papa scooped her up to his arms, rushing them deeper into the hospital.
‘*’*’*’*’*’*’*’*’*’*’*’*’*’*’*’*’
I stared at my reflection in the full body mirror in mama and papa’s room. Large blue eyes, chubby cheeks and golden hair pulled into two buns atop my head. A bunny on my pinafore dress and yellow crescent moons on my pink house slippers.
All as expected of a three-year-old girl called Tsukino Usagi.
Except… Except.
I wasn’t Tsukino Usagi. Nor was I Princess Serenity. I was someone else. Had been someone else. A normal someone else. Someone else who had watched the ‘90s anime and read the manga Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. Well… almost read the manga. I’d started and had gotten through until the Sailor Saturn thing had started, but had been distracted by real life and never finished. Or… had died before finishing. But I had watched the anime… years ago.
But how could I be Usagi? Had I simply remembered a reincarnation between Serenity and Usagi? Or was my previous life one before Serenity? The person I remembered being wasn’t happy-go-lucky and didn’t have Usagi’s endless faith in humanity, and I didn’t think I could be like the Usagi from the anime or manga I remembered. I wasn’t overly cheerful and outgoing, and I loved reading (if not studying, but at least I read actual books as well as “just” manga) and was a homebody who rarely involved myself in other people’s business.
Besides, was this the anime or manga ‘verse? Not to even mention the live action or Crystal?
Or… was this some alternate college or coffee shop universe without Senshi or Silver Millennium? Just one with all the other characters but with Usagi being me?
But then I remembered all the things that might be coming: the Dark Kingdom, Ail and An, the Black Moon clan, those witches, that Dead Circus thing, Nehelenia and finally Chaos. There was no way I’d survive if I didn’t do something, and honestly, this time I wanted to live a full life. And… I had wanted to be special and go on an adventure.
All these things would change me, I knew. Maybe for the better, or maybe for the worse, no one came back unchanged from an experience like the future would bring. “The Shire has been saved. But not for me.”
First step to surviving the future: gymnastics and some form of martial arts. Second step: learning all the kanji. Step three: learning to run in high heels.
With a first sigh of many, I toddled back to my new room and flopped on my new big girl bed, face buried in the pillow.