Why had he done it? He took out the black crystal and turned it back and forth in his fingers, wondering. He hadn't even been thinking of the crystal when he attacked Yasha; he had cried out the girl's name. He stared at the crystal as though it could give him some answers. Instead, in his mind, he saw her tear-streaked face as she defied the Senshi for his sake.

"Hmpf." He shook his head, trying to clear it so he could keep trying to work out the puzzle. Why had the kurozuishou directed him to Osaka Naru when by now it was very clear that she had nothing to do with the ginzuishou?

Another image came to him, unbidden – a memory of her smiling at him. Is this love? he wondered. Is that what the kurozuishou was responding to?

He shook himself again. "Ridiculous." If he wasn't going to meet some horrible fate creatively devised by Beryl, he was going to have to keep his mind on the problem, and come up with some serious answers. Fast.

* * * * * * * *

Naru fumbled her way through school the next day in a confused daze. Everything her teachers said went right through her head and out again. She didn't want to talk to anyone, especially not Usagi, who kept trying to get her attention.

At the end of the day, instead of going home she slumped down onto the bottom of the slide at the playground by the primary school. She was too tired and confused to walk home or do anything. She sat there, head buried on her knees, recalling the events of the night before – the fight between Sanjouin-sama and Sailor Moon, who was really her best friend Usagi, and how Sanjouin-sama had saved her. Who was she supposed to believe? Who was really the evil one here?

"Naru-chan."

Naru didn't look up at the sound of Usagi's hesitant voice. It was impossible to believe that her friend was evil, even unintentionally, but then that would mean that Sanjouin-sama had been lying to her all along. She couldn't bring herself to believe either of those possibilities.

"Naru-chan, I wish you could just forget about him...."

Naru hadn't meant to say anything, but she couldn't help it. If only she could get her best friend to understand... "Usagi-chan, haven't you ever been in love?"

"In love? Um, well, yes..."

"Then you should understand how I feel."

Naru still didn't look up, but she heard and sensed Usagi walk over to her and sit down in the sand near her feet. "Tuxedo Kamen-sama," Usagi whispered.

"Hmm?" Despite herself, Naru glanced over at her friend. Usagi looked almost as woebegone as Naru felt.

"Tuxedo Kamen-sama. You know how he always shows up to help me. But I don't know what side he's on. I don't know if he's on my side or if he's another enemy. I don't want him to be the enemy. So I know how you feel. But, Naru-chan, Nephrite is the enemy. That night at the department store, he tried to crush me and Tuxedo Kamen in an elevator. Tell me how someone who isn't evil could think of doing something like that."

"He isn't evil." Naru's mind grappled with what Usagi had just told her. "Maybe he's had to do some evil things. But I really believe, deep inside, he's good. I can't believe that everything he's said to me and everything that's happened between us has been a lie. I just can't."

Usagi sighed and stood up, brushing sand from the back of her uniform skirt. "Maybe you're right, Naru-chan. Maybe there is good inside him. He did protect you last night. It would be great if you could find the good in him and help him change. But I just don't want you to get hurt."

"I won't get hurt, Usagi-chan. Don't worry about me."

* * * * * * * *

"...And I can't find him anywhere, Kunzite-sama." Zoisite knelt on the floor next to Kunzite's throne, his head resting on Kunzite's knee while the older man stroked his hair gently, over and over. But even his lover's soothing touch wasn't enough to calm Zoisite after learning that Nephrite had attacked his servant Yasha and then stood by while Sailor Moon destroyed the youma.

"Now, Zoisite," Kunzite said. "You shouldn't try to attack Nephrite directly. You know he's stronger than you, and now we can't even count on loyalty to our Great Leader to restrain his actions. You need to stay within your own strengths, and go about this a different way. Surely you can think of something to lure him out of hiding, and set a trap for him."

"Of course." Zoisite looked up at Kunzite's stern, handsome face. "Of course, Kunzite-sama. You're right. And I know just the thing." Zoisite stood and teleported, to give instructions to his next three best youma.

* * * * * * * *

After poking at her dinner and staring futilely at her homework all evening, Naru decided to just go to bed. She slept fitfully, not quite dreaming, her mind racing through everything that had happened since she first met Sanjouin-san.

A movement at her window disturbed her, startled her into sitting up. A vague outline, the shape of a man... "Sanjouin-sama?"

The figure faded into view. Not Sanjouin-san; this man was more slightly built, with long tawny hair tied back in a ponytail. He was almost too femininely beautiful to be a man but not at all feminine in his shape. He floated, sitting in mid-air, slender legs crossed at the knees. He wore a grey military-style uniform and knee-length boots.

Naru shrank back and pulled the covers over herself. "Who – who are you?"

"So you're that fool Nephrite's little human girl." The man twirled a tendril of hair around and around one forefinger.

"N – Nephrite?" That was what Sailor Moon had said Sanjouin-san's real name was...

"I was curious," the stranger went on, "about what he sees in you. And what you might see in him. You know, of course, that that whole story about Sailor Moon being evil and you need to help 'Sanjouin-sama' find the ginzuishou before it's too late is a load of trash. Finding the ginzuishou is my job; Nephrite just wants to find it first to win favor with our Queen, Beryl."

How did he know what Sanjouin-sama had said to her? "Who are you?" Naru asked again.

"My name is Lord Zoisite, girl. Like Nephrite, I am one of the Lords of the Dark Kingdom. Our intent is to destroy the earth. And that is what Nephrite has asked you to help him do. I just thought you'd like to know."

"I – I don't believe you! You're lying!"

The man shrugged. "Ask him yourself. Oh, and tell him Zoisite sends his greetings."

Before Naru could say anything else, the stranger disappeared, leaving behind a swirl of cherry blossom petals. He had to be lying, he had to be... She got out of bed, walked to her desk, and picked up the phone. She dialed Usagi's number and asked to speak to Usagi. But when she heard Mrs. Tsukino call out, "Usagi-chan, it's Naru-chan on the phone!" she changed her mind and hung up. What the stranger – Lord Zoisite – had said was the same thing that Usagi had been saying. She wouldn't find any comfort there. Naru took a deep breath, gathering up her courage, then opened her diary to the page in the middle where a single, unidentified phone number was written. She dialed the number, which she had never done since he had first given it to her, and waited, her stomach twisting with each ringing on the other end of the line....

* * * * * * * *

From his hideout in negative space, Nephrite felt something tug at his mind. He turned his attention from remembering when he had danced with Naru at the Diamond Embassy Ball – no, from trying to figure out where that operation had gone wrong – and focused on the distraction. It was his telephone, he realized, the phone at his Earth mansion. And only one person had that number.

He teleported to his house and picked up the phone. "What is it?"

"Sanjouin-san." Naru sounded upset, almost like she was crying. "I need to talk to you. At the park where we were last night."

"Naru-chan, what's wrong?"

A sniffle. "Lord Zoisite sends his greetings." The line clicked as she hung up.

Nephrite stared at the phone in his hand, swearing in every language he knew. Zoisite had found out – well, of course, the sneaky rat was bound to eventually – and had decided to insert himself into the situation. He started to call Naru back, to tell her to stay where she was, it was too dangerous to go out, then realized he had already wasted precious seconds and she was probably already on her way to the park. Still in his Dark Kingdom uniform – pointless to try to hide it now, and there was no time to waste – he teleported to the park.

* * * * * * * *

He was waiting there when Naru, still in her pajamas and out of breath from running and crying, arrived at the park. The first thing that Naru noticed was that he was wearing a gray military-style uniform very much like the one the strange man had been wearing. She stopped several meters away from him. "You lied to me!" she yelled through her tears.

"Naru-chan, I –"

"Why did you lie to me?"

"Now we've got you!"

Naru turned abruptly at the new voice. To her left she saw the impossibly long, sharp thorns shooting towards Nephrite. Like before, there was only one thing she could do –

* * * * * * * *

Nephrite turned at the youma's voice and saw the thorns shooting towards him. Too late he also saw the girl run into their path. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion then: the thorns tearing through her chest and shoulder, the Senshi (what were they doing there?) calling out their attacks, the screams of the youma as they were destroyed, his sprint to catch Naru before she hit the ground. He couldn't imagine that her small body could hold as much blood as was already soaking through her orange pajamas and into his uniform; she already felt cold and light.

"Nephrite-sama," she mouthed as he gathered her into his arms, "I'm sorry –"

He couldn't think of anything but getting her someplace where she could live. With that one, focused thought in his mind, She has to live, he teleported, Sailor Moon's anguished cry of "Naru-chan!" echoing in his ears.