dance2

AN: Part Two, take Two! People actually want me to continue this, so I trashed the first version- from now on, the entire story will be told entirely from Buffy's VP. I haven't worked on this in almost six months, so feel free to shred it.... also, my spell-check STILL isn't working.... *blush*

Quick Japanese Phrase Guide (not Really Necessary, but it helps a little- Usagi will use these words to color her speech):

Buffy was dozing through attendance. There was a seat that was conspicuously vacant, and she frowned slightly, wondering if Usagi had managed to get home at all. It would be just her luck to save the ditzy blonde, only to have Usagi get captured again. Still, she had been out patrolling until almost four am, and was having a hard time trying to find enough energy to care.

Xander was attempting to give her significant glances, but she ignored him, listening as Mr. Parnell continued down the list. "Harris, Xander."

"Present," she replied, settling back into the wonderful world of inattention. Now if she was lucky, she'd be able to catch up on her missed sleep through this class....

"Sikeyno Usagi," he called, and Buffy tried to keep from thinking of all the nasty things that could have happened to the cheerful girl. Buffy hated to admit it, but there was something about Usagi that made a person feel special and want to be around her.

"Sikeyno Usagi?" he repeated, when no one answered him the first time. "Hmmm, odd. Not here on the second day?" he muttered to himself as he flipped his pen over, ready to mark it with the infamous red ink teachers everywhere seemed to prefer.

Just as his pen was about to touch the attendance record, there was a loud "BAM!" from the door. The class spun around to see the door slam open and Tsukino barrel around the corner. Somehow or other she tripped over Sean Quance's feet and ended up sailing forward in a classic fall. Buffy wondered how the girl was able to roll to a stop in front of Mr. Parnell's desk without flashing the entire room, especially considering her VERY short pink skirt. The entire class just stared at the spectacle, unable to think of exactly HOW to react.

The girl blushed and bounced to her feet in record time, and started to bow repeatedly, apologizing in a mixture of Japanese and English for being late, something about sleeping in, and not having anyone waking her up and missing breakfast and not being able to figure out the bus system since she forgot the buses ran on the opposite sides of the street and she had been waiting on the wrong place and had ended up halfway across town before she realized she was going the wrong way and...

Buffy tried not to laugh. Usagi was babbling almost as much as Willow did when the redhead got nervous. It was interesting to hear Usagi attempting not to mix up her languages, and she almost laughed at the confused look on Parnell's face.

Mr. Parnell finally managed to shut the girl up long enough to get a word in edgewise. "It's ok this time, Usagi, just don't do it again."

Usagi gave him a dazzling smile and murmured thanks, bowing again. Then she slid over to her seat and took out her notebook and began to flip through it before settling on a page. Very carefully she picked up a pen (with pink ink, Buffy noted with amusement) and started to write. She nibbled on the tip and glanced around.

The two blondes locked eyes, and Buffy was once again swamped with a wave of surprising sensations. Caring, love, faith, and charity seem to shine like beacons to her darker soul, and it was only through sheer force of will that she pulled herself out of the deep pools of blue.

Usagi, for her part, just looked at her with a combination of fascination and confusion. Buffy noted that there was nothing even resembling fear, and she was forced to wonder if the other girl was either incredibly powerful or incredibly stupid. Her vote was for stupid after seeing her dash off into a Sunnydale night- NO ONE did that if they valued their life.

Usagi was the one who broke eye contact, shifting her gaze down to the paper in front of her. She yawned rather dramatically and rested her head in her hands, falling asleep.

The Slayerette gang met in the library for lunch, as was their habit when something big might be going down. Giles closed off the antiquated place to the other students (not that any of them would have sought sanctuary there) and they would chat over their food, Xander doing his best to steal the girl's desserts.

Buffy was nervous, having had far too little sleep and far too much time to think over what the strange man in the cemetery had been up to. She hated not knowing someone's motives because it usually was a BAD THING. So many disasters happened to her through out the course of her duties as Slayer that she felt she had a right to be a little jittery.

Xander was munching on two Twinkies at once, gleefully smearing the white stuffing all over his fingers in the process. Willow was enjoying a small serving of yogurt with granola, while Buffy had resorted to chocolate- it had been one of those days.

Giles straightened his glasses the way he did whenever Buffy was giving him a headache. Which was far too often, whenever he paused to think about it. "So you saw a man in the cemetery who knew you were the Slayer?" he asked, trying to clarify her tired ramblings.

"Yup. Right after I saved Usagi from Angelus," Buffy said, taking another large bite of her Hershey's bar. She didn't CARE if it was bad for her, she could excused the calories.

"Are you sure you were actually saving her, that it wasn't fake scene?" Willow pressed, speaking with a little more confidence.

"Of course I'm..." she began, but lost confidence before she could complete the sentence. Pieces began to fall into place, and she didn't like the picture she was seeing. "Usagi said that she was meeting her boyfriend, Mamochan, in the cemetery. Maybe he set her up, since I honestly don't think she's capable of it," she said slowly. "Usagi is one of the purest people on the damned Hellmouth."

"Which makes her great demon bait. Maybe her boyfriend brought her over here for some kind of ritual sacrifice or something."

Willow flipped the computer on and started to pound the keys, sneaking bites of her lunch between clicks of the mouse. "I'm hacking into UC Sunnydale to get some information on him. Maybe see if I can pull up a picture or something."

Buffy nodded and Giles frowned at her. "Are you going to have something besides that garbage for lunch?" he asked, glaring at the chocolate.

"Yep," Buffy said, stealing one of the many Twinkies that Xander had left sitting on the table, unwrapping and biting into it with a rebellious air. "Any luck?" she asked Willow.

"There's no Mamochan listed, so I'm looking under exchanged students. Just one more sec and I should have it.... ah! Chiba Mamoru- his last name is first, that's the Japanese fashion- age twenty, orphan, excellent grades, pre-med major... darn! I wish this modem wasn't so slow. I'm downloading his student picture, you can see if it's the guy you saw in the graveyard."

Buffy leaned over Willow's shoulder eagerly, nodding grimly when the picture finally came into focus. "That's him," she said grimly, reaching out to touch the picture. "I still can't tell what color his eyes are, though," she said, more to herself then the others.

"Okay, so we've played 'Name that bad Guy,'" Xander said, stuffing yet another of the over-processed treats into his mouth. "Now what do we do with that information?"

"We arrange to meet him, of course. I'm sure Usagi would love to introduce her beloved Mamo-chan to her newest friend, right?" Buffy said. "She strikes me as the kind of person who LOVES a crowd. How about inviting her to the Bronze tonight?"

The other Slayerettes gave her nervous glances. "Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, we don't even know what kind of creepy-crawly the creep is," Willow said.

Buffy shrugged. "The Bronze is a public place. He won't dare attack us there unless he has a lot of back up. Besides, Giles can hang out and watch from above to see if he recognizes him."

Giles looked very uncomfortable with the situation, but agreed anyway. Buffy rose to her feet. "I'll go invite her. Do you want to come, Will?"

Willow nodded and stood up as well, but Xander remained seated, opening up a pack of Ding Dongs. "You girls have fun, I'll see you in class," he said, munching away happily.

After disposing of their garbage, the two girls walked to the lunchroom to find Usagi. They found her in the center of a group of people. The group was one of the oddest she had ever seen- it contained everyone from the nerds and computer geeks to the jocks and cheerleaders. Cordelia, who still kept her association with the Slayerettes filed as TOP SECRET, glanced up from the Snapple she was sipping at with somewhat resentful eyes. "Look, it's the freaks," she said coolly.

Usagi, though, wasn't deterred. She smiled at Buffy happily. "It's nice to see you!" she said warmly, waving a hand at the packed table. "How about sitting down and talking to me?"

A couple of the people scowled, obviously jealous. Usagi had a quality about her that made people want to be close to her, and they didn't like the way Willow and Buffy had been able to grab her attention immediately. Then Usagi laughed, and everyone calmed down, feeling as though they were being soothed.

Buffy didn't want to be soothed. She wanted to get this over and done with as soon as possible. "Usagi, you haven't seen much of Sunnydale, have you?"

The girl shook her head, the long ponytails swaying freely. "Iiee. I've only seen a little, and the little I saw I didn't like," she said slowly, her eyes darkening before she smiled brightly again. "But Mamo-chan and I plan on seeing more of it tonight."

Perfect opportunity. "Would you like to see the local hang out? Me and my friends are going there- it's a great place, live music, decent juice bar. It's what passes for a life in this town. You can bring Mamochan too," Buffy said.

Usagi scowled. "His name is Mamoru. No one calls him Mamo-chan but ME," she said defensively, then the frown melted from her delicate features. "It does sound like fun, though."

Buffy smiled and gave her directions, arranging to meet her at eight. Cordelia's eyebrows kept rising, but she mercifully kept her mouth shut, sensing that there was more here then meets the eyes.

Buffy and Willow turned to leave, pausing to glance back at where Usagi was holding court, paying attention to everyone while making sure no one was left out of the conversation. They'd never seen all these groups fused together so well.

Buffy sat in the Bronze at her usual table with Xander and Willow, sipping from a Virgin Strawberry Daiquiri. The music tonight was good, but none of them felt like dancing, even though the beat practically throbbed through their bones. She clenched her chilled glass tightly, though she was careful not to exert her full strength. It wouldn't do to shatter the glass and cut herself; after all, she would be Slaying later tonight.

Xander was making some kind of ridiculous comment about how teachers resembled creatures out of the imagination of Dr Suess when Cordelia sidled over, under the pretext of getting ready to insult the Slayerette crew, not letting on that she actually wanted to talk to them. "So what are you up to?" she asked Buffy suspiciously.

"Yes. You're planning something with that Usagi girl. Please tell me she isn't some kind of demon from hell- I STILL haven't gotten the slime out of my clothes from the last time," Cordelia complained.

Buffy looked around, making sure no one was listening. "We're not exactly sure- we think she's fine, but her boyfriend knew I was the Slayer."

Cordelia groaned and took a seat. "Great. Just peachy," she said, adjusting her thigh-high socks with a pretend pout. "So we get to stop another monster from creeping out of that hole? Like Angelus wasn't enough?"

Buffy flinched at his name, but gamely continued onwards. "We might. Anyway, we're luring him here so we can get a closer look."

"Wonderful," Cordelia muttered, but made no move to rise. "I think I see Usagi," she said suddenly, her face smiling attractively. "And WHO is that looker with her?"

The looker, as Cordelia had aptly called him, was the man Buffy had seen the night before. He was wearing dark clothes that offset the pale blue Usagi was wearing perfectly, and had one arm wrapped around the blonde's slender waist protectively. He looked up at Buffy and their eyes met again. This time they were close enough for her to get the color, and she wondered why she felt as though she should have known all along.

Blue. Mamoru's eyes were a deep, cutting blue that had seen everything the world had to offer, and rejected almost everything as well. She felt herself being evaluated, and didn't like how he made her feel as though she should be bowing before him, swearing fealty.

None of the others seemed frozen as Usagi led her boyfriend to them. "Mamo-chan, these are my new friends Xander, Cordelia, Willow and Buffy," she said, pointing out people. "And this," she said with shy pride, "is Mamoru, my koibito."

Mamoru bowed slightly, then offered his hand to Buffy. "I understand this is your custom?" he said in a voice that was more heavily accented then his girlfriend's.

Buffy took his hand carefully, shaking it with a firm grip, resisting the urge to squeeze too tightly. Mamoru kept his eyes on her face, and the others noticed the obvious tension between the two. Usagi wasn't about to have any of it. "Mamo-chan, can you get me a drink?" she asked sweetly.

Mamoru sighed and headed for the bar, while Usagi sat down. "Is there something wrong?" she asked with some concern.

"Well..." Buffy hedged, trying to think on how to ask the girl if her boyfriend had something sinister planned. "Not really," she said finally.

Usagi didn't look convinced, but accepted the comment at face value. "That was odd, though. Mamo-chan usually isn't like that towards strangers. He's usually more friendly. He didn't offer any of the rest of you his hand," she said.

Just then Mamoru returned, carrying a cola, which he handed to his girlfriend. She happily started to drink at it.

"It's a wonderful chance to see the world," Mamoru replied curtly, not really paying attention to anyone except his girlfriend, who he cast surprisingly gentle looks towards, and Buffy, who he looked at with concern.

The others continued to pry, but received almost no information out of him. When Usagi finished the last of her drink, he held out his hand. "I feel like dancing. Usako?"

Usagi giggled and took it, laughing as he pulled her to her feet. "Do you guys mind?" she asked apologetically.

Usagi waved and the couple vanished into the writhing throng. "Did anyone else feel that was utterly pointless?" Cordelia asked the group in general.

Buffy shook her and wrapped her light sweater around her body. "No. It confirmed that he knows that I'm more then what I appear. Let's get Giles and go."

Twenty minutes later, the entire Slayerette gang (plus Watcher) were wishing that they had stayed at the Bronze. They were quite hard-pressed.

It had begun when Buffy had spotted some activity in the graveyard. Any idiot who had lived in Sunnydale for more then a week knew that nighttime activity in a graveyard was usually a BAD THING, and since Buffy was the Slayer, it was her duty to deal with it. So albeit somewhat reluctantly, she headed into the graveyard, her friends on her heels.

Bad idea. Angelus was rather annoyed about last night, and had designed a counter strike. Apparently sacrificing skill for numbers, he hurled at least thirty vampires at the Slayerette crew.

Hopelessly outnumbered, the Slayerettes banded together, watching each other's backs. If they managed to stay in piece for a while, Buffy would eventually dispatch the vampires, since almost all of them were freshly made. The only older vampire there was Angelus, and he seemed quite content to watch from the tree branch he was sitting on, clapping like a spectator at a baseball game.

Predictably enough, it was Cordelia who got into trouble first. Two of the vampires closed in on her from either side, and the others were too busy fending off their own attackers to help her. One of them seized her while she attempted to shove her cross in its face, causing it to pull back, hissing in pain. The other used the opportunity to jerk her with preternatural strength, the cross slipping from her fingers onto the ground.

The vampire who was holding onto to her was about to take a bite of her neck when he was interrupted by a voice. The voice was clear and determined, ringing through the night like a clarion bell: