:: Greenstone: History ::

Tsukino Usagi was having a typical morning, running late to school. (People who wonder how Usagi can stay so thin, given how she eats, need only look at how much time she spends sprinting to somewhere she should have been fifteen minutes ago. It must be very aerobic.) What was atypical was the police road block she ran past. It looked as though every car in the street was being inspected: a major security operation. Usagi slowed to a walk to watch, curious. Just ahead of her she noticed her friend Naru - and there was another strange thing, because normally Naru would have been happily rubbernecking just like her. Instead she seemed to be walking along in a daze, unaware of the activity around her.

'G'morning, Naru-chan!' Usagi said. After a moment, Naru collected her thoughts sufficiently to reply, 'Morning.' Usagi thought Naru was not looking a hundred percent, and said so.

Naru heard her friend's voice, but at the same time she still heard the voice she had been hearing since that fateful night in the MS department store. The voice echoed in the winding corridors of her mind, contradicting itself, confusing her.

I think you're the cutest girl at Juuban Junior High... words that filled her with a thrilling hope, but then, the thunderbolt struck. Sailormoon! Show yourself. Reveal your true nature! Which part of it did he truly mean? What was going on? How does Sanjouin-sama really feel about me?

The ordinary world, in the shape of Usagi, grabbed her by the wrist and hurried her along to the indubitable reality of school. They got to homeroom in the nick of time before the bell, and Usagi collapsed at her desk, spent.

'Usagi-san! Have you heard the latest?' Umino Gurio materialised at her elbow with another fast-breaking news story. 'The Crown Princess of the Diamond Kingdom is visiting Japan!'

The Diamond Kingdom, it transpired, was the world's number one producer of jewels and gemstones. (Probably one of those central European countries you can just make up without anyone noticing, like Syldavia.) A gala banquet would be held at the Diamond Embassy that very night, hence all the security precautions Usagi and Naru had seen. Princess D would be exhibiting her legacy, a valuable heirloom hitherto kept secret from all the world. (As far as I can tell, the name Princess D is a reference to Princess Diana, the joke being that this princess is not blonde and glamorous. Nor, one hopes, bulimic and dead before forty. According to Warriors of Legend, many foreign embassies are located in the Azabu-Juuban district, so this is a reasonably plausible storyline.) No one knew what it was going to be, but it was sure to be fabulous. Speculation ran rife in the classroom.

'I'll see it tonight, and I'll tell you all about it.' It was Naru, who had kept silent until then. Usagi and Umino gawped at her. 'Remember my mother owns a jewellery shop?' Naru asked quietly. 'We were sent an invitation.'

Naru didn't look as though she felt lucky, but then, her mind was on other things...

A major media frenzy was in full swing, headlines shouting 'Last Mystery of the Century Revealed Tonight!' and 'Princess D Arrives in Japan With Secret Treasure!' Such is the power of the printed word that even the people of the Dark Kingdom had heard about it. (Well, of course they got newspapers. And there was a subscription to Nakayoshi that no-one was willing to own up to.)

For whatever reason (and I really can't follow the logic of this; suffice it to say that it's a plot point directly from the manga. If Naoko-sensei writes it, it doesn't have to make sense) Queen Beryl thought the secret treasure might be the ginzuishou, the mystical silver crystal she had assigned Zoisite to locate. It looked as though Zoisite might finally get some work done - until Nephrite stepped forward and said firmly, 'I will handle this.'

'Yes, but events on Earth fall under my jurisdiction,' Nephrite said. Leaving Zoisite sputtering at the unfairness of that, not to mention the noive, he repeated to the Queen that he would deal with the matter.

Ignoring Zoisite's discomfiture, Queen Beryl smiled. 'If this is indeed the ginzuishou, it will be a most gratifying outcome. With the ginzuishou we will be able to resurrect our great ruler, and the dominion of the Dark Kingdom over earth will come to pass.'

'I have my ways,' he said brusquely. 'Mind your own business.' And with that outstanding piece of rudeness, he was gone. (I can't decide whether speaking to Queen Beryl like that was incredibly ballsy or just incredibly dumb. A bit of both, I suppose.)

By this time, there was practically steam coming from Zoisite's ears. With all the self-control he could muster, he addressed the Queen. 'Nephrite has made one mistake after another. Why do you allow him to continue?'

A poisonous smile flickered over Beryl's plum-coloured lips. 'He's in a tight spot now. He must be desperate...' (Yes, folks, people management as practised by the pointy-haired boss in Dilbert. Nephrite lives in that Gothic mansion so he won't have to work in a cubicle under a jolly sign saying 'You Don't Have to Be "Evil" to Work Here, But It Helps!!')

It was Zoisite who felt desperate. As he always did at times like this, he fled for comfort to the only person he trusted, the only person who would derive no pleasure from seeing him fail. Love takes strange shapes and grows in stranger places; like life, it will find a way to exist in the most inhospitable niches. We don't know why. It's just a damn good thing for everyone that it does.

Whine

'Kunziiiiite! The evil queen of the Dark Kingdom's mean!'

Zoisite pressed his face against the reassuring warmth of Kunzite's jacket and told him the whole infuriating story.

'Zoisite,' Kunzite said, 'the first to lose his nerve loses everything.'

'But, Kunzite-sama...' Didn't he understand? Kunzite had always understood Zoisite.

'We can do away with Nephrite whenever we like. For now, let's see what he's got.' Kunzite smiled, and Zoisite remembered all over again why he loved him.

Luna, too, felt that the Crown Princess' visit might be important, but for different reasons. What if this Princess were the one she and the Sailor Senshi were supposed to seek out and protect? It might sound improbable to Ami, Rei and Usagi, but it was worth checking out. The difficulty was that any contact with Princess D would be hampered by a team of bodyguards.

'We know that too damn well!' Rei exclaimed fiercely. 'How about using your brain to get around it?'

'Don't glare at me like that!' Usagi whimpered, and started to snivel. Ami, in her recurring role as Sole Sane Senshi, suggested that they should at least be in the area of the Embassy that evening, and try their luck. The meeting over, Usagi and Luna wended their way home, Luna scolding Usagi about her sense of duty, or lack thereof.

'Welcome home,' said her dad, popping his head around the living room doorway, straightening a bow tie around his neck. In fact, as he came out into the hall it became clear that he was in full evening dress.

'It's for my job with the magazine,' Mr Tsukino said. (He's a photojournalist.) 'See you later, hon.' He bustled out.

'I'll get into that banquet somehow,' Usagi fumed, 'by hook or by crook!' Lightbulb! 'I know!'

'What are you up to - oh, no, don't!' But Luna couldn't stop her whipping out her disguise pen and taking on the appearance of a princess in a ball gown.

'Really?' Luna brightened up for a moment, before she saw Usagi waltzing herself around the room. Duty just doesn't come naturally to some people...

Still another person was obsessed by the ginzuishou. Haunted by recurring dreams, Chiba Mamoru woke up with only a memory of a mist-shrouded maiden begging him to find 'the silver crystal'... the difficulty being that he didn't know what it was.

As the opulently-dressed guests filed into the hall of the Diamond Embassy, Ami and Rei hung around hopefully outside. In honour of the occasion they were wearing their party dresses, but they were as nothing compared to the confection of silk and roses in which Usagi sashayed past them. Leaving the man on the door desperately trying to find some mention of Princess Ivanovitch on his guest list, she walked straight in. (So much for security, huh?) A glittering spectacle met her eyes in the main ballroom: whirling dancers, all in masquerade.

Only one other person had not come masked: another young girl. She stood against the wall, looking as though she rather hoped no-one would notice her. Someone had. Nephrite, in white tie and tails, recognised her and thanked his lucky stars.

Naru looked up from her unhappy reverie at the sound of the words 'May I have the pleasure of this dance?' Her mouth fell open when she saw who had addressed her. He lifted his mask slightly. 'It's me.' (No kidding.)

'Sanjouin-sama?'

'Are you here by yourself?' he asked, taking her hand, perhaps not realising her heart went with it.

It's me!

'Y-yes. My mother couldn't come...'

'I never expected to see you here. It's turned out to be the highlight of my evening,' he murmured as he swept her out among the dancers.

Tra la...

Usagi saw the two of them dancing, but owing to her deplorable inability to recognise hairstyles, did not realise it was Nephrite. She was simply happy for her friend, getting to dance. A camera clicked; her father was moving through the crowds taking pictures for the society pages. He didn't recognise her, thinking only that his daughter might look a bit like that pretty young woman when she grew up. Everything was going like a dream until a woman carrying a glass backed into her, and spilled her drink on Usagi's dress.

As Usagi hurried off to find a bathroom and clean herself up, she passed a shadowy figure. Tuxedo Kamen gazed at the door to Princess D's dressing room, guarded by two men in evening dress, and reflected that if the secret treasure were the ginzuishou, it might give him some clue as to his own identity. He noticed Usagi, and a shiver of déja vu ran through him. It was as though he had known her long ago...

Naru and Nephrite left the dancefloor, and moved out to an open balcony. The cool night air did little to clear Naru's mind; she was in a happy, overheated haze. Sanjouin-sama was wonderful after all... everything was going to be all right. She didn't care what happened to her now. He said she was like the stars in the sky; did anyone ever receive a more beautiful compliment? And then he asked her to look into his eyes, and Naru felt sure the next thing would be a kiss.

She was horribly mistaken. A malign aura flared around Nephrite. His hair was lifted on an unnatural breeze, and a kind of flame of darkness rose from him, flickering and flaring, blackening the air instead of brightening it. The flame arced through the air and enveloped Naru, permeated her being, darkening and twisting her. The wicked smile on her lips matched Nephrite's. She was his creature now.

Even as a princess, it's no fun being here by myself. Usagi was just beginning to feel like a wallflower when she was asked to dance... by Tuxedo Kamen. As they swept out onto the floor, she felt that this was something she had done before... perhaps in a dream.

The guards outside Princess D's dressing room tensed as a figure walked towards them.

It was a red-headed girl in a party dress, a strange-looking girl with wild eyes and purplish skin, but she smiled cheerfully and said 'Only me! I'm Naru-chan, Princess D's friend.'

Princess D, just then, was feeling very friendless. She stared at her bespectacled reflection, wishing she were prettier - then maybe people would pay some attention to her, instead of just the treasure. (Isn't it a sad world that makes girls feel this way?)

Naru wriggled past the guards and beamed at the princess. 'I'm Naru-chan! May I come in?' The princess was only too glad to have company, and the guards left them alone.

'All I want is the secret treasure,' Naru replied. Before D could move or speak, the shadow-flame darted out of Naru and into her. As the dark aura spread through the princess, Naru collapsed on the floor with a sigh. The evening was over for her, at any rate.

And the story of this episode is over too, for Naru-and-Nephrite shippers. Highlights of the rest include

Princess D going postal under the influence of Nephrite's shadow.
the interesting sight of Nephrite crouching by the rubbish bins outside the embassy. Those of you feeling pissed off with him at this stage may feel free to make comments like 'yeah, crouch there like the trash you are!'
Nephrite's remark to the precariously dangling Tuxedo Kamen: 'Consider yourself lucky to die with a beautiful princess.' Aw, a backhanded compliment for Usagi.
Usagi and Tuxedo Kamen's dramatic, if aerodynamically impossible, parachute descent with a parasol.
Princess D's hysterical reaction to realising Luna can talk.
the revelation that the secret treasure was simply a solid diamond statuette of the princess herself.
the spectacle of Usagi, drunk as a skunk..

'Phew.'

'Ew. Stinky.'

Suffice it to say that after a fierce battle, from which he was forced to retreat, Nephrite left in high dudgeon, realising he had been wasting his time all evening. Naru woke up in the dressing room with no memory of what she had done. For Usagi and Mamoru, a momentous evening, culminating in their first kiss; for people interested in the important couple *^.^*, a very frustrating experience!

Masquerade