The R-break up has ramifications far into the future. You can't mess with destiny - even your own - and not expect some kind of retribution.

Prologue

Chiba Mamoru was drunk. Contrary to what he been lead to believe, it did not seem to make anything any better. In fact, he noted that if anything it made things much worse.

He was still haunted, guilt-stricken and heartbroken, only now he also had trouble walking and forming coherent thoughts, and right now his wallet was feeling what he was sure his head would feel in the morning.

At least, he figured, he'd be too wasted to dream anything that night.

Although he was still two years below the legal drinking age in Japan, places didn't seem to care if you weren't twenty years old yet as long as you paid cash and looked old enough to be out at night by yourself. At least, this place didn't.

The small dive bar he had just exited was within stumbling distance of his apartment, but now he had to figure out in which direction he had to turn to arrive back home. He leaned against the ally wall, dizzily.

Above him, a streetlight flickered a few times and went out, casting him into semi-darkness amid the haze of silver and orange from the rest of the city - outside his sphere of darkness.

"Are you lost?" a melodic, sympathetic voice asked at his elbow.

"Very," he mumbled, "I don't... think I can even explain how much."

Cool fingers curled around his elbow, and for some strange reason Mamoru didn't jerk away from a stranger's touch like he usually would have.

"Let me get you home," she said, softly.

He didn't ask how she knew where he lived. He just walked beside her shadowy figure down the ally and across the street to the familiar stairs that led up to his front door. It was too late at night, the lobby doors were locked, the lights off. Mamoru swayed on his feet.

"You need your key," the voice said, sounding so sad that he actually felt sorrow for her- that she should have to see him this way. It was a backwards, spiraling feeling that had him reeling more than the shots of whiskey he had knocked back just minutes ago while trying desperately to erase the image of tear-filled blue eyes that was burned into his brain.

He fumbled and dropped the small metal object a few times before finally fitting it into the lock and opening the lobby doors. The elevator was another adventure, he couldn't remember what floor he lived on, and the mystery woman was no help.

"I don't remember, either," she sounded apologetic. "Let's just try each one."

He remembered after the fifth floor, that he lived on the tenth.

When they arrived on his floor, the lights in the hallway were on, brightly burning, and he squinted after the darkness of the streets, lobby and elevator. Blinded, he stumbled to his door. He dropped his key again, three more times, before he opened the door.

She followed him inside, shutting the door behind her. Neither of them turned on any lights.

It was another adventure removing his shoes, but he finally managed. Then, he collapsed on the sofa, buried his face in his hands. "The room won't stop spinning," he choked out, his voice hitching.

A glass of water was pressed into his hands. "Drink," she said kindly. Mamoru looked at the water, and then up the woman offering it. He still couldn't see well in the dark after the hallway lights seared in his retinas. She swam in his vision. His hands were shaking as he sipped the water.

He gagged and put it down on the table, shaking his head. "I can't."

Mamoru gasped for air and repeated the phrase again, his voice pleading, "I can't. I can't..." He dropped his head into his hands with a sob.

Arms suddenly circled his shoulders, soft hair fell across his face. He leaned into her shoulder, desperately. She was startled when he wrapped her arms around her waist. "Usako." The name was like a prayer on his lips, like the desperate plea of a ruined man. It made goosebumps break out on her arms.

He wasn't in his right mind. It wasn't just the alcohol. She knew her presence was altering his aura and confusing him; it wasn't her intention to have shown up right outside the bar just as the young man staggered out, looking like a lost little boy. But she couldn't just leave him alone. She could never leave him alone.

But it's not like he'd remember any of this ever happened. And not just because of the whiskey.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, her voice trembled with unshed tears."I don't know why he's doing this to you." Endymion was not a self-destructive individual, he never had been. If anything, his personality swung in the other direction. None of this made any sense.

She knew from her brief visit into Sailor Moon's mind that Usagi had been heartbroken, utterly devastated by the break-up. But this man she held - this man was just destroyed. She brushed damp black hair back from his face tenderly.

"It's a warning," Mamoru managed to say, his fingers were tangling in her hair. His tears were still falling on her neck, his body still shaking.

She shook her head, "No, he said it was a test-" she recalled again from Usagi's memories of an explanation which hadn't happened yet in this time.

But she stopped, because she knew that didn't make any sense, either. Maybe it was her proximity to Mamoru's damaged psyche, allowing her access to view the content of dreams themselves from his mind, but suddenly she felt something like dread drop into the pit of her stomach. What was King Endymion trying to do?

"Mamo-chan," she said, pulling back and putting his face in her hands. He moaned at the name. "Mamo-chan," she repeated, gently. "Go to sleep. And no dreams tonight." To her surprise, he kissed her, clumsily, desperately, and she let him - but only for a moment. She stroked his face and felt him relax under her fingertips and fall into slumber.

"Just a few more weeks," she whispered to him, "and you'll be with her again."

He'd awake with no memory of her, and no hangover, either. The latter was her gift to him. The former was just a fact of the time rift correcting its mistake.

Neo-Queen Serenity felt the time rift slam her back into the 30th century just in time - she had been starting to feel the effects of existing in the same place as her past self. She found herself on the floor of her room in Crystal Tokyo, dizzy and sick.

Serenity swallowed dryly. She knew it was important to notify Sailor Pluto that she encountered another time rift left behind by the Black Moon's careless time travel within Crystal Tokyo's city limits. She figured she'd have to admit she spoke to a 20th century resident although nothing too major took place and the time rift would repair itself and erase that event anyway.

She wanted to discuss Small Lady's return. And the progress of the rebuilding of the city after the defeat of the Black Moon clan just days before.

She'd have to eventually even sit up.

But now she couldn't even bring herself to move.