So! This is the start of two rather exciting (to me lol) things!

A four-way (ha!) fanfic writer challenge - myself, Floraone, irritablevowel and uglygreenjacket all challenged ourselves to write the same fic trope - and it turned out we all had different interpretations, ideas and time frames and we are so excited to share them all with you! The trope we picked was the 'sex pollen' trope - and my fic is the first to be published of all of them. Keep an eye out for the rest to be coming soon!

This fic is also the first chapter of my NSFW multi-chapter exploration of Usagi and Mamoru's relationship - this will be my focus fic-wise for the near future and I'm so excited about it. I will be posting chapters here that will be continuations, one-shots, character explorations, humorous to heart-wrenching stories, all with the theme of exploring the more adult size of UsaMamo.

I hope you enjoy this fic and please as always tell me what you think!

Ps. the final chapter of Boy Next Door is coming up, I've got it mostly written. And hopefully will not be leaving that world completely behind me, either. :)

The glittering walls of the Dark Kingdom caves were beautiful in their horror with shapes like skulls and empty eyes, twisted horns and demon faces. On a pedestal of green, damp stone sat a crystal ball, where a scene replayed again and again.

The scene was that of a battle, but it wasn't focused on the movements of the monster or the young-adult warriors fighting it, short skirts and long hair and magical attacks. Instead, the crystal ball focused on a young man's face, lifted to the viewer - blue eyes behind a white domino mask, a fringe of dark hair across his forehead. The image froze right when he was mid-yell, lips parted, a flash of white teeth.

One pale, long-nailed finger stroked along his image. "Endymion," Queen Beryl purred.

"Hedone!"

The youma approached Queen Beryl and bowed. The creature had half long-flowing locks of hair, half shaved head, half masculine features, half feminine, dressed in robes that resembled ancient Roman garb - if the ancient Romans had favored the neon colors of purple and blue. "Yes, My Queen?" the sickly sweet voice syruped.

"I have a very special assignment for you." The queen pressed her fingers together and blood red lips pulled into a slow, evil smile.

"First, you'll need to lure Tuxedo Mask into battle..."

Which Hedone knew meant first luring Sailor Moon into battle, because it was the most effective and efficient way to get Tux to make an appearance. The whole Dark Kingdom knew Tuxie had a thing for Moon, but Hedone knew better than to ever mention anything like that in earshot of the queen. You don't get to be one of Beryl's direct reports without knowing a thing like that.

"Then I want you to make sure you shoot him directly with this energy."

Whatever it was, it was purple, gaseous, and unusually sparkly for typical Dark Kingdom fare. Queen Beryl had it housed in a glass contraption that would shoot it like a gun, and made sure to impress upon Hedone to aim it directly at Tuxedo Mask's face and make sure he breathed it in.

"And then... you bring him directly back to my chambers."

Hedone could only assume the purple gas would incapacitate Tuxie, so hauling his limp body back to Queen Beryl to do... whatever it is she wanted to do with him (once again, you don't get to be one of Beryl's direct reports by asking a lot of questions) should be an easy enough task. All Hedone really had to do was keep Sailor Moon and her annoying little senshi from ruining everything, which was irritating but not impossible.

"Yes, My Queen," Hedone murmured, taking the purple, sparkly energy and leaving the cavernous throne room with a bow.

Of course, as they always do, the plan all went to hell.

The empty docks lined with warehouses wasn't exactly scenic in the first place, and the giant youma didn't help the view.

"Supreme Thunder!" Sailor Jupiter hurled her lightning at the monster in front of her, while Sailor Mercury quickly tried to analyze any weak points. The youma was very strong, good at both dodging and simply taking attacks.

She was attacking them with blasts of dark energy, and seemed to be aiming mostly for Sailor Moon, who kept being knocked off her feet in more and more uncomfortable positions.

"Hey, stop that!" Moon shouted, annoyed. "Give me a chance to get up again, it's only fair!" She hurled her tiara at it in frustration, but the golden disc barely seemed to ding the monster.

"It's not a person!" Mercury cried from behind her computer visor. "It's just a youma, through and through!"

"Does that mean my healing won't work?!" Moon wailed, catching her tiara deftly in one hand while peering over Mercury's shoulder.

"I don't... think so..." Mercury said, "but you can try?"

"It can't hurt." Sailor Venus landed gracefully next to Mercury and Moon, narrowing her eyes at the creature before her.

"It can't hurt to try, or it can't hurt the youma?!" Moon asked.

Sailor Mars rolled past, shooting a fireball from her hands. "Seriously?! Quit yakking and just do it!"

"Well, it's an important distinction, Mars!" She pouted and put her hands on her hips. "I can't just be pulling the Moon Stick out every five minutes! It takes a lot of energy an-"

"LOOK OUT!" Venus cried. The youma, seeing her opening in Moon's distraction, sent a deadly beam of dark energy right at Sailor Moon who had no time for fight-or-flight - only for 'stand there and brace yourself.'

The rose that was thrown dart-like into the ground blocked the dark energy from reaching Sailor Moon, absorbing it or dispersing it, or somehow making it go away. No one was quite sure how those roses worked (maybe not even their master, but he was tight-lipped on the matter. On most matters, actually, to the chagrin of most of the senshi).

"Beautiful girls need not be tainted with the ugliness of dark energy! I, Tuxedo Mask, will not forgive this offense!"

Sailor Moon turned her love-struck eyes to her hero. "Did you just call me beautiful?" she gushed.

"Not now," Mars hissed at her, rolling her eyes.

The youma, as well, was pleased to see the real target of the attack show up. "Finally," Hedone muttered, pulling out the glass-barreled gun aiming and firing so quickly no one saw quite what was happening.

No one except Sailor Moon.

Not quite known for her reflexes, she nonetheless was known for being unable to take her eyes off of Tuxedo Mask, so seeing the purple, sparkly, strange-looking mist coming his way, she did the only thing she thought to do - she threw herself at him in an attempt to push him out of the way.

Unfortunately, he outweighed her by quite a bit, and she wasn't able to knock him down out of the line of fire. All she succeeded in doing was throwing herself in his arms and putting herself directly in front of the spray of mist as well.

It wasn't unpleasant.

It smelled sort of like vanilla and cinnamon and Chanel No. 5, and she swore she heard a few notes of Marvin Gaye?

Then it was over and she was thrown on the ground, coughing. Her senshi ran to her, calling her name.

"Are you - cough, cough - okay?" Tuxedo Mask managed to ask her and she nodded.

"I think so. You?"

He nodded.

"Merc, what was that stuff?" Jupiter asked. The senshi of water was already mid-analysis even before Moon had finished hitting the ground.

"It's..." she paused. Cleared her throat. Blushed crimson.

"What?" Mars demanded. "Are they going to live? Some of us have final exams in the morning."

"And some of us are the youngest female ever to be accepted into medical school and should be respected," Jupiter said, pointedly, nodding her head toward Mercury.

"And some of us should be more careful about giving away massive clues to our secret identities in front of you-know-who," Venus said, pointedly, nodding her head toward Tuxedo Mask.

"And some of us are just waiting to hear if we've been poisoned," Tuxedo Mask said in response, his hand on Sailor Moon's shoulder protectively. "All due respect," he added, tipping his hat to Mercury with his free hand.

"It's harmless," Mercury said. "Medically, anyway. You've been attacked with... um... an extremely powerful, um. Aphrodisiac."

"Is that something that makes you throw up?" Moon asked, kneeling down and putting a hand to her belly. "'Cause I feel kinda sick..." She blinked. "Never mind, it passed." She tilted her head. "Now I'm kinda hungry. Oh wait." She went pale, and then pink. " ... That's not hunger."

"But why would the youma shoot them with an aphrodisiac?" Venus was saying, confusion written on her pretty features. Mercury shrugged, color still not leaving her cheeks. As a budding doctor, and a mature 19-year-old, she wasn't embarrassed about sex itself as much as the idea of talking about this situation in front of Tuxedo Mask, who remained completely stoic and unflustered by what was happening - on the outside.

But thanks to her scan, she knew his vitals and pupil size, heart rate, body temperature, brain activity and blood hormone levels were all in accordance with extremely heightened sexual attraction. (Of course, a much milder form of these reactions would appear on scans she did of him during normal battles - as long as he was near Sailor Moon.)

Sailor Moon's vitals, of course, were all over the damn place. That girl was a hot mess at the best of times. (Mercury thought this with only the warmest of affection).

"Is no one going to explain this to me in terms a college dropout would understand!?" Moon demanded, flailing a little.

"Love drug," Venus said. "Makes you horny."

Moon's jaw dropped for a moment, then she inhaled for a follow-up question before they were interrupted.

"Excuse me." The syrupy voice of the youma sounded slightly put out. "Did you forget about me?"

"Honestly, kinda," Moon snapped.

"If you'd just step aside, I've only completed half my mission," Hedone said.

Tuxedo Mask stepped front of Sailor Moon protectively, seemingly to have forgotten he was the originally target of the purple mist. "Stay away from her," he said.

"I plan to," Hedone said, annoyed. The mist hadn't seemed to knock anyone out at all, which was assumed to be the plan. Oh well. That's why you always have a back-up. Hedone threw out an arm, sending a net-like substance toward Tuxedo Mask. He managed to dodge most of it, the rest wrapped around his arm, pulling him to the ground. "You are coming with me."

"What?!" Sailor Moon cried. "Oh, I don't think so." Pushing her way past Tuxedo Mask, Sailor Moon stood between him and the youma with one hand on her hip.

With a spin of her free wrist, she pulled out her Moon Stick, already glowing with power. With one swipe downward, she used it to break the net, dissolving it into thin air. Tuxedo Mask scrambled to his feet, ready to back up Sailor Moon in an instant should she need it.

But she didn't.

"You come here, messing up my Saturday, you spray me with some mystery perfume stuff, and then you try to kidnap my crush?! And I'm just supposed to be okay with this? Think again, youma! In the name of the moon, consider yourself punished as heck!

"MOON HEALING... ESCALLLLLAAAAATIOOON!" She screamed the attack with almost animalistic fury. And, as it turned out, it did work. It not only blasted Hedone, but the wall of the building behind her as well, making a spider web of tiny little cracks appear across the wall.

It certainly did make Hedone scream in pain and disappear, whether back to the Dark Kingdom ("I don't get paid enough for this!") or burned to a crisp they never found out, but it left Sailor Moon behind, heaving breaths, wiping her brow, her skirt and hair fluttering behind her in the slight wind.

"That's right," she muttered to the space where the Youma used to be, with a jut of her chin.

"Woah, that was hot," Venus said under her breath. Three pairs of eyes turned to stare at her.

"Uh... I may have gotten some of that stuff secondhand," she mused, hand behind her head.

"Well, we better get you AND Moon back home safely into cold showers," a new voice said, as Luna jumped from a nearby tree where she'd been observing the battle. Artemis joined her.

"Separate cold showers, Venus," he added to his charge, and Venus rolled her eyes.

"It wasn't that hot," she said.

Distracted as they were, the senshi didn't notice the wall behind Sailor Moon start to crumble, but Tuxedo Mask - who hadn't been distracted for a second from her victorious form - did.

"Look out!" he managed to find time to call, but even has he said it, he tackled her away from the falling wreckage. Unfortunately, it started a chain reaction of crumbling buildings, as the surrounding warehouses began to collapse too, effectively trapping them behind a giant wall of rubble.

"Well, now she's on the wrong side of that wall," Venus said.

"Sailor Moon!" Jupiter whipped out her communicator. "Sailor Moon, come in! Are you hurt?"

Sailor Moon's tiny face appeared in the communicator, staticky and cutting in and out. "Oh my god, help me!"

"Are you okay?"

"Yessss for now, but what if I die here I'm only 19 there is so much left to do I never even got to try the newest flavor of ice cream at Ben and Jerry's!"

A new voice came in from outside the view of the communicator. "Sailor Moon, are you okay?"

"Oh, Tuxedo Mask is here!" Moon's face brightened considerably. "Everything's okay then!"

"Tell her to tell him to keep his hands off her!" Luna shouted.

"Moon, we are going to get you out!" Jupiter said. "Hang tight!"

Jupiter was saying something on the communicator, but Sailor Moon couldn't really hear what it was.

All her senses seemed to be filled with Tuxedo Mask, his scent, his touch, the concern in his eyes through the mask as he brushed one gloved hand across her cheek.

"Are you okay?" His voice was so warm, so dreamy...

"Yes," she breathed. "You?"

"Yes." He was so close. One thumb moved down her cheek. "Thank you for rescuing me before."

"Thank you for keeping me from getting smushed by a building."

"Sailor Moon!" Jupiter's tinny voice was coming the communicator again. "Sailor Moon!"

Blinking, Sailor Moon returned to her attention to the communicator. "Yeah?" she said, breathlessly.

"We are going to blast our way thr-. It'll take - a- or - two- kay?"

"Huh?"

Tuxedo Mask's hand had drifted from her face to her shoulder, and he was still close enough she could feel the heat off his skin as they both looked at the communicator. Jupiter's face finally disappeared in a haze of rainbowy static and the screen went black.

"Oh no!" Moon shook it and even hit it against the rubble a couple times, but it was done for. "It must have been damaged when I fell."

"Well, it sounds like she said they'd be here in an hour or two…"

"Yeah..." She dropped the useless communicator on the ground and tore her eyes away from the man in front of her to survey her surroundings. They were in one of the warehouses, although the collapsed building didn't afford them much room - it was about as big as half a train car, Moon guessed. Daylight leaked through some cracks in the wall, too - not big enough to get through, but big enough to let in air, light.

Sighing, she leaned back against the wall and shifted her legs, looking at her companion helplessly.

Since the ... aphrod... uh, love drug had hit her, the tingle between her legs whenever Tuxedo Mask was around was less 'lightly pleasant' and more 'throbbingly uncomfortable.' It seemed difficult to gather full breaths, and while she could certainly try to focus on other things to get her mind off him, (such as dusting a youma,) now that it was just the two of them - and he was right here - all she could think about was how her entire body seemed to ache to press against his. And there were no distractions!

Now if she had only been allowed to go home after the battle... take a shower... all to herself... maybe then she could fix the issue - but now she had company and what were they supposed to do? Make small talk? Slowly she lifted her gaze to his, and realized he'd been looking at her with the same intensity.

Oh, yeah, he got hit too...

In fact, Tuxedo Mask had been in several stages of hell since the first inhalation of the purple mist. Whatever the Dark Kingdom had planned for him, (and he could assume it was nothing good,) there was really no point in heightening sexual attraction to this level when there was really only one person he felt this attracted to in the first place. And she was currently sitting less than half a foot away from him.

Sure, he'd always noticed the way the uniform skirt fluttered around her shapely thighs, how her impossibly long hair flew behind her like battle flags when she chastised an enemy, how sweet her lips looked when she breathed her thank you's after a daring rescue. He'd been smitten with the blonde heroine since day one - although considered it prudent to hide his feelings until true motives and identities could be found and revealed. Although he'd figured out who she was - the girls weren't nearly as secretive about their identities as they thought they were - he was sure she could not suspect her masked crush was the same older boy who'd teased her since she was in high school. And he'd wanted her since then, too. Being attracted to Usagi Tsukino - Sailor Moon or not - was simply not a new experience for Mamoru Chiba no matter the circumstances.

But now, now this was middle-of-the-night-just-woken-from-a-dream type of turned on, this was shaking-just-under-his-skin turned on, this was uncomfortably-obviously-physically turned on and she was right there. He could smell the salty sweet tang of her sweat, see the soft curls of hair around the shells of her ears. It took all his iron-strong self-control to keep his eyes off her legs, off her chest, off the plump pinkness of her lips, just focused on her eyes. Keep her calm, keep her safe, he told himself. Think with your brain, Chiba, not your dick.

She turned luminous blue eyes to him, helplessly. "I'm so uncomfortable," she murmured. She bit the top of one the fingers of her right glove and pulled at it with her teeth, then did the same to a few other fingers, finally pulling the whole glove off and tossing it away. She pressed the pads of her bare fingers to her forehead. "I was just thinking, if I was home right now... I'd be..." Her hand brushed against the pleats of her skirt. "You know... Anyway, heh, ironically this is the exact situation I'd be imagining."

"Being trapped in an abandoned warehouse?" He was impressed his voice didn't break, although it did tremble a bit. Is it dangerous to have this much blood relocate in my body this quickly? he wondered off-hand.

"With you," she said. With her bare hand, she pulled off her other glove, slowly. "I've always wanted you but this is like... whatever this stuff was... damn, ya know?"

"It probably heightened a normal hormonal response, kicking it up into overdrive and pushing away inhibitions on top of it," he said. He ran a hand through his hair, knocking off his hat and not really caring. Somehow it'd stayed on through all the other chaos but...

Moon made a sound between a sigh and groan. "You have nice hair."

He made an incredulous sound. "I have nice-"

"Can I touch it?" she interrupted, shifting to her knees and reaching up.

"Of course..." And just like that he found his gaze at chest level, bow and all, while her fingers buried themselves in his hair, fingernails scratching gently at his scalp, running down the short hairs on the nape on his neck.

She sighed, shutting her eyes and lowering her head so her cheek just brushed the strands. He smelled so very, very good.

He sighed into her neck. Strands of gold, silken hair fell across his cheek, down his arm. His hands twitched, desperate to touch her, to caress her sides, skim along her skirt, slip under it... He forced them still.

"When you said 'normal hormonal response,'" she murmured, hands moving to his shoulders. "Did you mean, um, that it just intensifies what's already there?"

She lowered herself to sit on her legs, so they were face to face, noses barely touching.

He clenched his fists into the fabric of his cape, nodded.

"Does that mean you... if you were here with someone else... I mean..."

"It's you," he managed. "It's the drug, but it's you. It's..." He swallowed. Nodded again. "You."

A genuinely touched, delighted smile broke across her face. "Really?" Then, "Then how come I'm the only one going insane right now?!"

"You aren't."

She looked at him, almost suspiciously. Her gaze snuck lower, but the fabric of his cape was obscuring any physical evidence of arousal and he seemed almost as... together as always. "Really."

"I just have a very ... restrained... personality." He let her take his hand, let her slowly remove one glove. Her fingers against his bare palm sent flickers of her emotion through him - and also sent him a silvery memory he couldn't quite place that flooded him with longing. His resolve was quickly fading.

"So that kiss at Princess Dia's ball, that was 'restraint'?" She dimpled a smile at him and tilted her head, and there went some more of his resolve. Damn, but she was sexy.

"You always tend to weaken my self-control," he muttered, taking his hand back and removing his other glove, mostly to give his eyes and hands something to do.

Moon considered. That was true, she mused. Ami had figured out a while ago that Tuxedo Mask's true identity was one Mamoru Chiba, who remained coolly polite to everyone he met, save Usagi - whom he sought out, teased and openly laughed with (okay, laughed at, if she was being completely honest). It seemed Usagi rained hell on his self-control no matter what form she took. She preferred the effect Sailor Moon had on him right now, though, that was for sure.

"You could show it more," she pouted. "I practically swoon over you in battle and you always seem like you barely like me."

He cupped her face in his hand, heart thudding at the soft warmth of her skin, the slip of her hair as it curled beneath his fingers. "I like you," he murmured. Unbidden, his thumb caressed her lower lip and her eyes became glassy, half-lidded.

"I like you too," she murmured, catching his hand in hers and pressing her lips to his thumb, tongue darting out to flick against the tip, just slightly. "And I find self-control really, really overrated."

"God, that's so hot," he breathed out, all resolve completely crumbled as he pressed his lips to hers.

"Love-Me Chain!" Venus shouted, taking her turn to blast at the stubborn rock of the wall.

They were making decent progress, between her chain, Mars' fire, and Jupiter's lightning. Mercury kept an eye on the stability of the building telling them where to blast to have the most effect (and to make sure they didn't accidentally crush the two trapped inside), while also scanning the girls to make sure they didn't overexert themselves.

"Okay!" Mercury said. "Times up, go rest."

Wiping her brow, Venus took a grateful seat next to Jupiter, then nodded at Mars who rose to take her turn.

"I'd give my left tit for a margarita right about now," the blonde said.

"We have lukewarm water," Jupiter offered, "and a half-drunk Pocari Sweat that Rei found in her subspace pocket."

"Cheers."

Luna was pacing. "I just hope that girl keeps her wits about her. I don't trust her one bit with that boy. Especially with that drug in her system."

Artemis yawned, licking a paw. "There is nothing we can do now but trust their judgement."

If Tuxedo Mask had been in hell before, this surely had to be heaven. Her kisses were frantic, passionate, and he was happy to respond in kind, tongue delving into her mouth to meet hers, to taste more of her intoxicating sweetness.

She was as overly enthusiastic and vaguely clumsy with this as she seemed to be with everything else in her world. Her hands tugged at his clothing with unskilled and fumbling movements, fluttering from helping him pull an arm from his jacket, to running fingers through his hair, to caressing down his chest. Between her wandering hands and the impossibly long strands of hair falling across his face, arms, neck, it was like she was everywhere at once. It was the most insanely and bizarrely erotic thing he could imagine and it was driving him crazy in the best way possible.

He kept one hand on her waist, steadying her, the other cradled the back of her head, fingers luxuriating in the hair he wound around his fingers. They had started with her still kneeling beside him, but now somehow she was half-straddling him, melting into him, and he had enough common sense left to know tumbling to the ground would be slightly painful when the ground was dirty concrete.

"Hold on," he managed to say, bracing himself against the ground with one hand. The other unhooked the cape from his neck and he turned to spread it on the floor. Sailor Moon sat back on her knees, catching her breath, her body immediately protesting the lack of closeness.

When he turned to face her again, she literally made grabby hands toward him until he embraced her again. This time her mouth found his neck, where she (or maybe he'd done it, it was fuzzy) had begun to unbutton his shirt - and she pressed her lips - and then swirled her tongue - to the pulse point there. Eyes rolling back slightly, he pulled her down onto the cape with a groan.

"This is taking forever!" Luna complained.

"Would you like to take a turn?" Mars snapped, sitting down hard next to Venus.

"At least she knows we are coming for her," Mercury said.

Venus smirked. "So is he, I bet, right about now."

Mars rolled her eyes. "Usagi is a lovesick spaz, but Tuxedo Mask as been nothing but respectful and almost distant with her." She took a swig of water. "He's also stoic as hell. Magic sex dust or no, I don't see him doing anything crazy."

"I can't get it... off..." she hissed in frustration, pulling the neck of her uniform. His hands were tantalizing her through the thick fabric and she wanted them on her bare skin, like, yesterday. But the enchanted clothing was not made to be removed by human hands, and it was giving its mistress all kinds of trouble.

"Hold on," he murmured, grabbing the top of her uniform's neckline in his teeth. Then, the sound of fabric ripping made Sailor Moon gasp out loud. Suddenly, she was finally able to wiggle her arms out of the bodice of her uniform, and with his help push it down past her waist. Then his mouth was on her flesh, her head thrown back while she bit back a moan.

"Does Usagi have condoms in her subspace pocket?" Venus asked, suddenly, pausing her attack and looking very worried.

"Hurry please!" Luna said.

"I'm pretty sure I made sure to give her some last time we went to Condomania in Harajuku," Venus said, looking relieved again.

"Hurry please!"

A muffled blast shook Moon and Mask from where they lay, entangled in each other's arms basking in the afterglow. Hair mussed and half falling out of her odango'ed style, Moon sat up and covered her mouth with her hand.

"Oh no, they are almost here!" No WAY that was two hours! she thought.

Tuxedo Mask sat up, and began gathering their clothing from where it was strewn around them (some things thrown a rather impressive distance away). He had by far more little pieces to put together, but Moon's uniform was practically shredded.

She held it up and sighed. "Mr. Self-Control," she said, nodding sagely.

Unable to stop himself, he caught her face in his hand and pulled her toward him for one long, passionate kiss. "I find self-control really, really overrated," he said, against her lips.

"I know what I can do," Sailor Moon said quietly. "I can fix everything, but I have to... detransform and transform again."

He nodded, slowly. She met his eyes, almost apologetically. "Can you... not look?"

"I wouldn't dream of it," he said. It was her secret to keep.

He turned away, watching the light dance on the wall as the presence behind him changed. Became... smaller. More vulnerable. Then, "Moon Prism Power... Make Up!" the familiar power surge, the flow through his veins, the familiar connection and Sailor Moon was once again standing behind him.

"Okay," she said, and only then did he face her.

And she was right. She stood before him in her complete uniform - bow tied and shiny, bodice unripped, skirt straight - not a even hair out of place.

As if nothing had ever happened. He gave her a sad half smile and she returned it, as if saying 'yeah, I know.'

It was then the senshi blasted through the rock.

"Sailor Moon!" "Are you okay?!" "Well, you still have your clothes on, that's good." "Or bad, depending on how you look at it." "Venus, really?!" "Sailor Moon, HONESTLY! It's definitely time for you to go home!"

From the circle of senshi and cats, Sailor Moon searched out Tuxedo Mask's gaze.

"Thank you, as always, senshi, for the rescue," he said. He bowed slightly to Sailor Moon. "Farewell."

"Bye," she whispered, meeting his eyes through the mask for one last, charged moment.

Just like that, he was gone.

"Pulling his disappearing act again, huh?" Mars said, shaking her head ruefully. "Well, some things never change."

"C'mon." Jupiter swung a strong arm around Sailor Moon's shoulders. "Let's get you home."

"Home sounds good," she sighed.

Well, Usagi considered, as his scent lingered on her even after transforming back in civilian clothing, Tomorrow at the Crown should be interesting...