In spite of her attempts to dismiss the woman as crazy, Naru kept the business card in her pocket. As she traveled to and from work the next few days she fingered it, trying to tell herself that the whole thing was nonsense but at the same time growing more and more tempted to go to the Crystal Sky Gallery and see what this was about. She remembered the name Yumeno Yumemi; she was an artist who had come onto the scene with a sensational burst of popularity about eight years ago. Naru had heard about her and had taken Usagi to see her paintings, colorful, impressionistic portrayals of a fantasy world. Usagi had even ended up modeling for Yumeno-san, ironically with Chiba Mamoru, whom she couldn't stand at the time but who was now her husband.

Naru had been invited to the wedding, a year ago. She went, although she wasn't asked to be part of the wedding party. Usagi's attendants were the group of girls she had started drawing close to in junior high. The group seemed to share experiences and be close in ways that were hidden from Naru, and gradually Naru had been completely shut out of the circle. That had hurt, to see them sharing Usagi's special day with her while Naru was relegated to being a mere guest, and it had left Naru with a self-pitying sadness to see Usagi in a beautiful white lacy gown, glowing as she vowed her love and faithfulness to her true love and to see Mamoru take Usagi in his arms and give her their wedding kiss. Naru couldn't help but picture the scene in her mind with herself and Him as the bride and groom. Sternly, she had forced herself to mentally paste Umino's image into the groom's place, but that hadn't helped.

Naru wondered if the picture for which Usagi and Mamoru had posed was still on display with Yumeno Yumemi's other paintings, or if it had been sold. Or perhaps it had been given to the couple as a gift, since it had seemed to magically foretell their romance.

It didn't matter; she wasn't going to go to the Crystal Sky Gallery. The whole thing was silly, a blast from the past that she didn't need.

But still Naru kept the card. She couldn't stop thinking about it. Finally she decided that she wasn't going to be able to stop thinking about it until she actually went to the gallery and saw for herself that it was just paintings, nothing more, and this whole business was just a crackpot viral marketing scheme or something. Since weekends were busy at the store, Naru had her days off on Tuesday and Thursday. She decided to go on the following Tuesday afternoon. Maybe it would be a fun date for her and Umino; they hadn't gone anywhere in ages. Their big New Year's Eve date had been to a party thrown by another of the graduate students in his department. There had been beer, lots of fried crunchy things, and a lot of conversation about biology and department politics, none of which Naru found the least bit interesting. If Umino came with her to the gallery, they could just have a nice time together and she wouldn't start thinking about weird things like what Mikami-san had said about who she really was.

* * * * * * * *

That Sunday when she stopped by Umino's place after work she showed him the business card. "Do you want to go to this gallery with me? I met the owner the other day and she personally invited me."

"Nah." Umino glanced at the card, then turned back to his laptop, where he was going over research notes. "Sounds boring. Probably just a bunch of pictures that look like they were painted by three-year-olds. Besides, Yuki and I have to work on our seminar presentation."

"Don't you remember seeing Yumeno-san's work a long time ago, when she first became popular? It's really good, and she even painted a picture of Usagi."

"Nah, I don't remember that. Oh, and didn't you see in the news, about the weird things going on in that part of town?"

"No, I didn't see anything." Naru had very little interest in following the news; it always seemed to be bad and depressing, which she didn't need any more of in her life. Besides, even if she was interested, she was just too tired every day when she got home from work to do anything except fall asleep.

"You didn't hear about it? There were these monsters, or some kind of weird creatures -"

"Monsters?" Naru scoffed, though her insides went cold. She remembered, though it didn’t seem like many other people did, all the times Tokyo had been attacked by strange, evil creatures. Too often, she had been the target of their attacks.

"Yeah, monsters. Anyway, the Sailor Senshi have been showing up to fight them, but they haven't been able to do anything. So the monsters just drain energy from a bunch of people and then disappear when they're done."

"The Sailor Senshi? That's an urban legend." More than a legend, actually - Naru remembered being rescued by the Sailor Senshi more times than she could count. But she preferred not to believe in them, or to rely on them. The one time when their presence had really mattered, they had come too late.

"No, they're real - there are too many eyewitnesses for them to be fake. People have posted pictures they've taken with their camera phones on the Internet. But their powers don't seem to work any more. It's dangerous in that part of town, and I don't think you should go there."

At least he cared enough to say that, Naru thought. "Well, I want to go anyway. I'm curious. I wish you'd come with me, but if you and Yuki need to work on something, I guess I'll just go alone."

"Suit yourself." Umino had gone back to his notes.

* * * * * * * *

The Crystal Sky Gallery was high up in the Takara International Finance Tower, a glass-walled highrise located in one of the city's most fashionable and upscale shopping and business districts. The building housed the offices of international law firms and financial companies, exclusive boutiques, and luxury apartments. In the Gallery, the glass walls made it look as though the exhibit area was open to the sky. The paintings, framed in slender gilded-wood frames, were hung on whitewashed steel pillars arranged around the interior of the space. Naru wandered through the gallery, looking at Yumeno-san's lovely paintings of a fantasy world of palaces, flowers, stars, and royal lovers. She couldn't find the painting of Usagi and Mamoru.

The paintings were beautiful, but Naru couldn't see anything unusual about them - until one caught her attention, a painting of a young red-haired woman in a pink dress with a big blue bow on the back. Naru walked over to study the painting more closely. The girl's long, wavy hair was the same color and texture as Naru's. She was reaching up a hand to a uniformed man who seemed to be descending from the sky, or perhaps he was ascending away from her. His hand was stretched out to the girl. Although the color of his hair was ambiguous, something about the wave of it and the shape of his face convinced her that this was a picture of Him. Nephrite. She forced herself to think the name.

Though it seemed impossible, she was certain that this was a painting of her and Nephrite, though the scene bore no resemblance to anything that had happened during the short time they had known each other. First Mikami Tetsiya-san, and now Yumeno Yumemi. How did they know about him, and her feelings for him?

"Do you like it?" Naru turned at the sound of the gentle voice at her right shoulder. A woman in a soft yellow dress stood there. She had long straight brown hair and wore large round glasses. "I'm sorry, I hope I didn't startle you. I'm Yumeno Yumemi. Do you like the painting?"

"I..." With the famous artist standing right there, Naru found herself tongue-tied. "It reminds me of - I mean, it kind of looks like -"

"You can have it, if you'd like."

"I - I do like it, I'd like to have it, but I couldn't possibly afford -"

"It isn't for sale. But I think you are the person I painted it for, years ago. So I'm giving it to you. I'll go wrap it up for you."

Before Naru could stammer out her acceptance and thanks, Yumeno-san had taken down the painting in its slender gold-painted frame and carried it away to a room at the back of the gallery. After a few minutes, she brought the painting back, now wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. "Enjoy the painting. If you have any questions about it, please come back or call me." She handed the package to Naru and walked away, leaving Naru standing speechless.