Light of Hope

Chapter 16

"Ordinary life!"

She echoed, carrying a huge portion of sarcasm in her voice.

"I wish I could have my normal life back sometimes." She continued with a small voice now, her gaze a little forlorn, starring through the room. "I am totally frightened because of the fact that my best friend is in love with one of our enemies...Nephrite...and I don't have a clue what I shall do now."

This was a topic Mamoru honestly wanted to avoid as it could change happenings of the past if he would get involved into it. Fortunately an idea came up in his mind and he gave Usagi a warm smile in return. She was so selfless by caring the most for her friends.

"I think I know someone who could give you an advice...why don't you ask Motoki? He is a very good person to talk to."

Now Usagi was a little shocked because of his suggestion and her head turned a couple of nuances into a deeper shade of red when she confessed silently.

"Well, I don't know if we ever have talked about this in your time...but I have a some sort of...crush on him."

Her confession resulted into a huge burst out of laughter for Mamoru and while he was wiping away his tears, he explained to his quite astonished future fiancée.

"Don't worry at all, its okay Usako. I should have known that my time travel has a lot of things in place for you which you don't take into account in the first place. Just go and ask him, I don't mind at all...frankly speaking, it was - or better - is more than obvious that you adore Motoki."

Usagi was still puzzled but decided to do as suggested. As soon as she had left, Mamoru took the time without having her around and transformed Artemis T into some sort of a shield which was able to absorb the little girls energy and thus made her invisible for the enemy.

Diana and Mamoru were still unsure how to extract the Star Seed and also didn't know how to provoke bump ins between Usagi and past-Mamoru in order to trigger it to appear but decided to stay patient and watched the little girl for the time being.

It worked very well for a few weeks. Same with the living together with the Tsukino family. Mamoru was even able to pick up his study when Diana promised to babysit little Kousagi. Everything was great and looked like a normal life.

Apart from Usagis mood.

A lot had happened after she had decided to confront Naru with the dark side of the men her best friend fell for:

Nephrite died when he tried to protect Naru and she almost seemed not being able to recover from this huge lost. A frightening parallel for Mamoru as Usagi would probably face the same situation in the future.

What if he couldn't bring Galaxia's Star Seed back to his time? This problem caused him nightmares regularly and he was more than relieved when he woke up in the nights and found Usagi being at his side, breathing evenly and sleeping like an angel. A situation he got used to quickly and definitely didn't want to change.

He was actually a super hero all through and had never hesitated to sacrifice for the one he loved, for this planet, for everything he stood for. However, carrying not his own Star Seed had changed Mamoru in such a way, that he hardly could resist living the life he was currently captured in...and which he wanted to keep more than anything else.

"It is the wrong choice."

Diana kept telling her mantra and tried to encourage him to think differently whilst she was with Mamoru and Kousagi in their bedroom, entering the lastest information into her computer concerning the developments around the appearance of Sailor Jupiter.