"That was an amazing show!" Umino said for about the tenth time since they had left the theater. Naru, looking out the window of the taxi into the night, made herself turn and smile at her husband as he burst out singing another chorus from the musical they had just seen.

"I agree, it was very good," Naru's mother said from the front passenger seat of the cab. Umino and Naru had taken her to see the sold-out touring Broadway musical as a treat for her birthday; Umino had managed to score the outrageously expensive tickets courtesy of his extensive online network of friends.

Umino finished his off-key rendition of one of the most famous choruses from the musical, but he was still grinning like the junior high boy she had started dating so long ago. He had gotten contact lenses not long before their wedding, and as Naru had always suspected, he was much more handsome without the thick round lenses that had always obscured his brown eyes. But it was starting to look like he would never grow out of his dorky streak. He started rattling off long lists of trivia about the stars of the show they had just seen. Naru's mother replied with "Really?" and "I never would have guessed" and other polite things that Naru was tired of trying to make herself say.

Naru turned back to the window, resting her cheek against the icy glass. It was April, and the weather had suddenly turned cold again. Naru suspected it wasn't a natural cold at all, but another crisis for Sailor Moon and the Sailor Senshi to fight. She had suspected the truth about Usagi and Sailor Moon for years, had even hinted at it a few times to Usagi. She had even guessed who Tuxedo Kamen and some of the Senshi were. But her friend had never come out and admitted to being Sailor Moon. Maybe Usagi thought she was protecting Naru by not telling her the truth, but Naru's enforced ignorance hadn't seemed to reduce the number of monster attacks she got caught up in.

She rubbed her rounded belly as the baby shifted inside of her and stuck a foot up between her ribs. Only two and a half more months... Hopefully the baby would bring the spark of joy into her life that just wasn't quite there in her marriage. She shouldn't be so discontent with Umino, she told herself. He had been good to her; he had been there when she needed a friend, after the man who was her one great love was murdered in front of her(although Umino had never known about this), and as her best friend had drifted away from her, caught up in other friendships and another life.

"Hey, Naru-chan," Umino said, "do you remember, back in eighth grade, that talent contest we entered? We practiced a song and dance together, and you made me wear a dress?"

"Yeah, I remember," Naru said.

"Who won that, anyway? I try to remember, but except for the song we did, and the fact that I wore a dress, it all goes fuzzy."

Because it hadn't been a contest at all, but an evil plot to steal energy. The memory of the cold, weak, sick sensation of having her energy drained left Naru feeling shaky and nauseated. So many monster attacks, so many evil plots and schemes, anything and anyone could turn out to be dangerous, and you could never trust that anyone was who they seemed to be. Even her own mother had been replaced by a monster once, a long time ago. "I'm pretty sure it wasn't us, anyway." Naru forced herself to smile again.

"Yeah, you're right. I wonder what we were thinking."

Naru's smile became more genuine. They had been good friends; they could still have that, even if their marriage wasn't exactly what she wanted. "We were just a couple of dumb kids, no dumber than anyone else who entered that contest."

"Yeah." He gave her hand a squeeze, which she returned. Then he burst out with another song from the musical. Naru's smile turned into a wince and she looked back out the window. Through the thin coating of ice on the window, she could see, far below, moonlight glinting on waves....

"Excuse me? Driver?" she said. "This isn't the way we need to go. We live in the Juuban district."

The taxi driver, who sat directly in front of Naru, turned his head to look at her--turned it a full ninety degrees so that his head was completely backwards on his body as he stared straight at her. Naru froze, and her heart seemed to stop. The driver's eyes glowed silver and he grinned, showing sharp teeth in a cadaverous face. "Sailor Moon should have listened to our warnings not to interfere!" With a burst of maniacal laughter, the driver stretched out his body and disappeared through the roof of the cab as the vehicle suddenly sped up and skidded on the icy cliffside road. Naru's mother lunged to grab the steering wheel, but the wheel twisted itself out of her grasp with a force that flung her to the other side of the car. The taxi spun in a circle, then shot forward across the road and through the metal guardrail to fly end over end down the seaside cliff. "Naru-chan!" Umino shouted as he threw himself across her. As though from a distance she could hear her mother screaming...

Then everything ended with a violence of force and noise that overwhelmed all of her senses.

* * * * * * * *

Bright lights...A confusion of sounds: electronic beeping noises, hisses, clicks, people talking, saying words that ran together into meaninglessness. A blur of faces hovered over her. The last thing she knew, she had been in a car that was plummeting end over end down a cliff. How had she landed here?

It was a hospital room, of course. One of the faces resolved into blonde, bun-topped ponytails and large blue eyes shimmering with tears. Usagi brushed a tangle of hair away from Naru's face. How did I get here?... Naru tried to ask, but something blocked her voice.

"You've got a breathing tube in, Naru-chan, so you can't talk right now," Usagi said. Her tall, dark-haired husband Mamoru came into focus behind her. He rested a hand on Usagi's shoulder.

The baby. Naru brought one hand, trailing a maze of tubes and lines, to her stomach. It was flat and slack. No bulk and weight of the baby; no comforting, familiar movement inside of her. In panic, she looked up at Usagi again. Usagi's mouth trembled as she tried to speak.

"Umino-san," a male voice said from the other side of the bed. Naru turned her head to see a white-coated doctor standing there. "A separation of the placenta from the wall of the uterus occurred during the accident. You were bleeding heavily, and we had to deliver the baby by emergency C-section in order to stop the bleeding and save your life. Unfortunately, the baby was far too small, and too sick from lack of oxygen due to the bleeding, to be able to survive. I'm sorry."

Bleeding...save your life...baby too small and sick to survive.

Her baby was dead. The world seemed to grow very dark and close around her. Naru closed her eyes, feeling hot tears leak out. She screamed silently, the plastic breathing tube blocking her voice.

"I'm sorry, Umino-san." The doctor touched her shoulder. Still silently crying, she opened her eyes. The doctor showed Naru a white card. "Your son's feet and handprints." Naru took the card. The black prints were so tiny, more like a doll's hands and feet than a real baby's. She dropped her hand, the card still loosely held between her fingers, back to the bed, and wept.

She was too sore and tired to cry for long. She looked back up at Usagi, who still sat there, stroking Naru's hair. What about her mother and Umino? Were they all right? Did they know about the baby? She mimed writing on the card the doctor had given her. "Do you want to write something?" a nurse asked.

Naru nodded. The nurse handed her a notepad and pencil. Mom and Umino ok? Naru scrawled, her hand so shaky the words were barely legible.

Usagi looked at the note, then burst into tears. She turned to her husband where he stood behind her and buried her face against him. Mamoru cradled his wife's head in his arms, stroking her hair and shoulders, and looked at Naru. "I'm sorry, Naru. They didn't make it."

The world darkened even more, and rocked as though the earth itself was coming apart. Her mom, dead. And Umino. And her baby. All dead, killed by the youma because of her. Darkness closed in over her as blocked screams tried to force their way out of her body.