Prologue

"That...was....DISGUSTING," Venus complained as the Senshi gingerly cleared the scene of their latest battle.

"I think I'm gonna crawl into the bathroom for a week," Jupiter groused.

"To bathe or throw up?" Mars asked.

"Maybe both," the taller Senshi replied.

"We should get out of here quickly," Mercury whispered, hurrying her pace.

"Hey! Wait up! Ow, ow, ow, my feet..." Moon whined.

"Hey, it's no picnic for us either, odango-atama," Mars snapped, "but do you really want to be SEEN like this?"

"...good point," the princess agreed. The five Sailor Senshi sprinted out of the area, Moon complaining about her abused feet the whole way.

* * * * *

The students who had been trapped inside the building during the battle rushed from the school, staying well clear of the site of the battle.

Well, with one exception.

Tsukino Shingo stealthily approached the place where the Senshi had fought the monster, schoolbag slung over one shoulder, carrying a shopping bag he had 'borrowed' from behind the teacher's desk. In all the confusion, especially as their teacher had been one of the monster's victims and was well on her way to the hospital, he doubted anyone would miss it before he had a chance to slip it back into the school later.

The school day had been viciously interrupted by a horrible sewer monster. It had erupted from a toilet in the boys' restroom, and quickly made its way through the halls of the school, covering everything in a thin film of slime and spreading a horrendous stench that made over half the people in the building violently ill.

A quick-thinking janitor had repelled the thing with a fire hose, washing it out into the courtyard before it could accost any of the children, but it continued to wreak havoc around campus, draining the strength of anyone it could get close to, permeating the air with a vicious stench.

After several minutes, the Senshi had arrived, and began doing battle with the monster. It was a tough, brutal, disgusting fight, as the sewer thing made no bones about flinging the matter of its creation at the sailor-suited warriors, and the Senshi themselves were proven to have the same olfactory weaknesses as ordinary beings.

At one point in the middle of the fight, the monster had launched several globs of vile muck while the Senshi were in midair, and they were unable to alter their trajectory enough to avoid landing in it. The gunk thickened and hardened around their feet, and left them open and vulnerable to an attack that surely would have taken them out...even Tuxedo Kamen's thrown rose didn't seem to be able to impede this monster.

So then, faced with certain, smelly doom, the Senshi had used the only tactic they could think of to avoid their fate.

They jumped right out of their shoes.

While the monster was vulnerable after its finishing attack missed, the Senshi quickly teamed up on it, and Sailor Moon finished it off. The various muck that the monster had left all over the school began to decay into a crusty, crumbly powder substance, and the Senshi beat a hasty retreat, wanting to get far away from the stench that lingered after the sewer monster's demise.

And though everyone else was busy getting ready to leave the area as well, Shingo had remained, because he'd noticed one thing nobody else had:

The Senshi's assorted footwear was still on the battlefield.

Now, let us pause a moment to examine the workings of Shingo's mind.

It is well-known and documented that Tsukino Shingo is a Sailor Senshi otaku. To him, the Senshi are the greatest thing that ever happened to Tokyo, they were so graceful and beautiful and cool and why couldn't his baka sister be more like them, and their mystique fascinated him. He kept a scrapbook full of clippings from various newspapers and tabloid rags, depicting the exploits (real or imagined) of the legendary warrior girls, and his collection of Senshi memorabilia and paraphernalia was unmatched.

And now, Shingo had the chance to snag the most rare, unique Senshi-related swag of all time.

To the biggest fanboy in Tokyo, this was tantamount to being personally handed the freshly-used panties of a popular and beautiful idol singer.

Using some paper towels he'd snagged from a restroom (not the same one the monster had come out of, thankfully), Shingo gingerly began working the five pairs of Senshi shoes (well, two pairs of boots, two pairs of shoes, and one pair of somewhere-in-between) free of the crusty, smelly crud they'd been mired in. Mercifully, the fetid fecal filth flaked off fairly freely, having crystallized to the consistency of coffee grounds once the monster was destroyed. Still, they were rather badly soiled, and Shingo was careful to keep them well away from his nose as, one by one, he stashed the prized footwear in the shopping bag. Once ten unique items of apparel had been collected for posterity, he stood, brushed himself off with the last paper towel he had, and began making his way home.

* * * * *

"Tadaima!"

"Okaeri nasai, Shingo-kun!" Ikuko called out as her son walked in. She frowned. "Mou, isn't it a bit early for you to be home?"

"A monster attacked the school," he said with a shrug. "The whole campus is filthy and half the students and teachers had to be rushed to the hospital, so..."

"Oh my, how horrible," Ikuko said. A few years ago, she'd never have believed such a story, but it had recently become rather well-documented that there were bizarre monster attacks in Juuban on a regular basis. Of course, the Sailor Senshi were always on hand to deal with any threats, and to date there hadn't been many, if any, fatalities from the attacks. Still, Ikuko often worried about the safety of her children... "Were you hurt? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I wasn't anywhere near it," Shingo replied. "Hey Kaasan, can I borrow some of your cleaning stuff? I've got something I wanna clean up and polish."

"Oh? What is it?" Having come out from the kitchen, Ikuko now noticed her son was holding a shopping bag (where'd he get it? she wondered), and assumed whatever he wanted to clean was inside. "Is it in there?"

"Yeah, but I wanna get it cleaned up first before I show everyone." He grinned. "But it's the coolest thing in the whole world!"

"Well...okay, you can borrow whatever you need, just be sure to spread some paper or something if you're going to be making a mess."

"Hai," Shingo replied before heading to the closet where the household cleaning supplies were kept.

Retreating to the kitchen, Ikuko smiled to herself. Her children kept her entertained, if nothing else.

* * * * *

"So you were running around barefoot after the fight?" Luna asked, barely suppressing a feline snicker. "I really wish I'd gotten there in time to see that."

Usagi glared at the cat walking along the fence beside her. She'd found Luna waiting for her not far from her school, and proceeded to fill her in on the day's activities. "It's not funny, Luna! That ground was really hard!" She frowned. "I just hope we're not all barefoot again the next time we transform; that'd be embarrassing."

Luna shook her head. "Won't happen...the uniforms completely reform every time you change; that's why no matter how torn up they get, they always look brand-new next time you fight. Remember when Mars snapped a heel? It didn't stay snapped."

"Yeah, I guess." Usagi shrugged. "Maybe I'm worrying about it too much."

"You certainly are, and it's not like you," Luna replied. "Not that I mind hearing you talk about something else besides boys, manga, or stuffing your face for once, of course."

"Luna!" Usagi growled, swiping at the giggling cat with her bookbag.

* * * * *

Shingo frowned at the pile of shoes and boots, spread out on a thick mat of manga pages he'd spread out on the ground. He'd had to sacrifice a weeky shounen magazine he hadn't had a chance to read much of yet, but he decided this was more important than some manga, and he could probably get one of his friends to give him their copy when they were done with it.

A roll of paper towels—the white, absorbent kind, not the evil, rough, flimsy brown kind like he'd found in the restroom—rested beside him, several wads of used towels already stuffed into a wastebasket after he'd used them to remove the dried, crusty flakes of shit from the Senshi footwear. Now they lay there, still filthy, but no longer encrusted with crud.

He pondered the problem of polishing them. No shoe polish he knew of would work well on these; he didn't know much about shoe polish beyond the black and white varieties, and he was fairly sure that would ruin these rather than clean them up. With a sigh, he dipped a sponge in a basin of soapy water, picked up one of Sailor Moon's red boots, and began to wipe at it.

To his surprise, the filmy muck on the boot wiped right off. Encouraged, he continued the process, occasionally squeezing out the sponge and dipping it back into the basin. Several minutes later, a pile of wet, almost-clean shoes sat on an edge of the paper mat, glistening with the water he'd used to wipe them down.

Setting aside the basin and sponge, he selected a thick, fine rag, the kind you use to clean expensive stuff with, and began slowly, meticulously wiping each of the ten items of footwear clean and dry. By the time he was finished, five pairs of Senshi shoes gleamed brightly in the sunlight coming through the window, ready for action or proud display.

"Shingo, I just wanted to let you know there's a snack waiting downstairs when you're finished..." Ikuko poked her head in.

"Okay, Kaasan," he replied.

"So, what've you got there...a~re?" Walking in and squatting down beside her son, Ikuko looked at the items her son had been meticulously cleaning, eyes wide. "Shingo?" she asked. "Is there something you want to tell me?" *Why is my son collecting women's shoes?*

Shingo beamed. "What do you think? This is gonna be the best part of my collection...nobody else'll have anything like this!"

"Uhhh...they're very lovely, but...shoes and boots? Women's shoes and boots?"

Shingo looked at his mother and huffed. "SAILOR SENSHI shoes and boots, Kaasan," he replied in the tone one takes with someone who should get it but doesn't. "The Senshi left these behind after the monster attack, and I sorta picked 'em up when nobody was looking."

Ikuko blinked. "These...belong to the Sailor Senshi?" she asked, looking at the footwear. *They DO look a bit...unusual...*

"Yeah. See, the monster shot some gunk that stuck them to the ground, and they couldn't move, so before it could attack they jumped right outta their shoes and finished it off. I guess they either forgot about them or just didn't want to try pulling them out of the gunk."

Ikuko examined the filthy water in the basin, the pile of wadded paper towels in the wastebasket, and the flecks of detritus scattered about on the manga pages. "Hmm..."

"I mean, it was really gross. I almost didn't, but..." Shingo shrugged. "How could I pass up a chance like this?"

"Well...I guess it's okay," Ikuko replied. "And you did an excellent job of cleaning them up." She frowned, and turned a stern look toward her son. "But if the Senshi show up wanting these back..."

"I'll give 'em back, but I don't think they will. I hope not, anyway. Nobody else has stuff the Senshi actually wear in their collections."

Ikuko shook her head and chuckled. "You kids and your hobbies...well, I have to go finish dinner. Clean up this mess and come down for your snack if you want it." With that, she left.

* * * * *

"Tadaima!"

"Okaeri nasai, Usagi-chan," Ikuko said as she walked downstairs. "How was your day?"

"It was okay," the blond girl said, shrugging. "You?"

"Oh, fine. Your brother had an interesting day, you know."

"Hontou?" Usagi feigned surprise; she couldn't let on that she knew a toilet monster had attacked her brother's school.

"Un," Ikuko replied. "There was a monster attack at his school. A lot of people had to go to the hospital, but the Senshi stopped it."

"Sugoi!" Usagi said, going into her 'pretend-the-senshi-are-cool-like-Sailor-V' routine.

"Why don't you go up and see your brother later, he found something rather interesting today," Ikuko said. "Oh, and I have a snack whenever you're ready for it."

"Thanks, Mama," Usagi replied, accepting the offered plate of cookies and can of calpis water and making her way upstairs.

* * * * *

Shingo had an interesting puzzle before him.

He'd cleaned up his mess from earlier and washed his hands thoroughly, and was now examining his find in closer detail. As he did so, he noticed something peculiar about one of the pairs of shoes before him. Specifically, Venus' shoes.

"How the hell does she get these things on, anyway?" he asked, turning one of the orange high-heeled sandals over in his hands. There was a thin leather strap that didn't seem to be connected to any other part of the shoe, and yet was still somehow connected. It had no buckles, and by all rights it looked like anyone trying to wear the shoe would end up with it sliding off the first time they took a step. It mystified him.

The others were interesting in their own ways. Jupiter's were part boot, part athletic shoe, with thick laces and lower heels. Mars' pumps were just what they looked like...red, patent-leather pumps. Mercury's boots and Moon's boots seemed to have the same general design, with the exception that the heels on Moon's were higher, and those also had the only ornamentation to be found on any of the shoes, the small crescent moons near the tops.

It never occurred to him for even one minute that some might construe it as odd that a young boy was obsessing over womens' shoes the way he currently was. Otaku just don't worry about things like that.

* * * * *

Usagi paused in the hallway as she heard her brother muttering in his room. She leaned closer to have a listen, not really interested in what he was saying or doing, but sparing the attention out of boredom and the sisterly desire to know what her brother was up to so she could use it against him at some point in the future.

"—the hell does she fight in these things?" Shingo muttered from the other side of the door. "Weird..."

Curious, the teen pushed open the door a bit, and was rewarded by a sight that almost made her drop her afternoon snack.

Her brother, sitting on the edge of his bed, turning a red leather pump over in his hands.

Now, most older sisters, confronted with the sight of their little brothers fondling high-heeled shoes, would have a field day. But at the moment, Usagi found herself unable to formulate any coherent plan of sibling rivalry attack, because she recognized that particular shoe.

And its twin, which was lying next to a pair of orange shoes she knew all too well. Which lay beside green ones, which lay beside blue boots...

Which lay beside an all-too-familiar pair of red boots she herself wore on occasion.

She slid the door open further, and called out, "Shingo?"

Her brother looked up, and for once didn't make the usual retort about his sister invading his room. In fact, he was too lost in otaku rapture to remember to fight with her. Instead, he waved her inside. "Look what I got today, Usagi!" he said.

Walking in, the odango-haired girl examined the pile of footwear on the floor and looked at her brother strangely. "What...?"

"The Senshi were at my school today fighting a monster!" Shingo exclaimed. "They left these behind, and I grabbed 'em and cleaned 'em up! Aren't they cool?"

"Uh, yeah...but what...?"

"Nobody else in the whole world has anything like this!" Shingo ranted, lost in his own little fanboy world. "Isn't it the greatest?"

"Sure, Shingo," Usagi said weakly. She picked up one of the tall red boots, examining it carefully. Her brother, she had to admit, had done a rather thorough job of cleaning the toilet monster muck off the shoes. "So, what're you going to do with them?"

"I'll keep 'em, of course," he replied. "For my own little Senshi collection. Like I said, nobody else has anything like it. Everyone I know'll be so jealous!"

"Right," the blond replied. "You're not...gonna do anything weird with these, are you?"

"Huh? Weird? What do you mean?"

"...nevermind." Shrugging, Usagi turned to leave, forgetting all about the cookies and drink she'd left on the desk in her brother's room. By the time she'd even think to remember the food, Shingo would have already consumed it.

* * * * *

"What's wrong, Usagi?" Luna asked as the teen walked into her room and plopped down on the bed.

"Shingo has my boots," she said. "And Ami's, and Rei, Minako, and Makoto's shoes. He's got all of 'em."

The cat blinked. "He does?"

Usagi nodded. "He must have stayed behind after the attack and collected them. He brought them all home and cleaned them up for his 'Senshi collection.'"

Luna laughed softly. "Well, there's no harm in that, I suppose."

"No harm? Don't you think that's a bit weird?"

Red eyes peered up at blue ones intently. "Would you rather some stranger had them? Maybe taking DNA samples and trying to figure out who you are? Or putting them in a museum, or copying the designs to make a fortune in the shoe market, or just being perverted with them?"

Usagi blinked. "Well, when you put it that way..."

"They're just shoes, Usagi. Like I said, you'll have more when you transform again. They can't do any harm, and it won't hurt anything for Shingo to add them to his little collection. Though why anyone would want boots you'd stuck your smelly feet in is beyond me..." The cat nimbly dodged a thrown pillow.

"My feet do NOT smell!" Usagi complained.

"Whatever you say, stinky," Luna said with a catty grin.

Chapter One

Three years later...

"Shit...shitshitshitshitshit," Shingo muttered as he stormed through the front door.

"Hey! Don't talk like that, dammit!" Chibiusa snapped from where she sat with her friend Hotaru in the living room.

Hotaru giggled, then looked up at Shingo. "What's wrong, Shingo-kun?" she asked.

"It's Mika's birthday, and I totally forgot," the boy moaned miserably. "I asked her over, and she'll be here in a bit, but I don't have a present for her..."

"Oh, that's terrible," Hotaru said.

"Baka, forgetting your girlfriend's birthday. It serves you right," Chibiusa huffed.

"Chibiusa-chan! He feels bad enough about it already...don't you, Shingo-kun?"

"Yeah." Shingo plopped down on the couch beside the two girls, putting his head in his hands and moaning pitifully. "What'm I gonna do?"

"Well...do you have anything you could give her, or make something out of as a last-minute gift?" Hotaru asked.

"I don't know..." the boy said. "I just don't even know what to give her, really. I'm never any good at this kind of stuff."

"Tell you what," Hotaru said, standing. "I'll help you find something, okay?"

"Hontou?" Shingo asked, looking up at the small, dark-haired girl.

"Hai," she replied, smiling brightly. "I'd be happy to help!"

"Arigatou, Hotaru-chan!" Shingo stood, and bolted upstairs. Hotaru followed him at a more sedate pace.

"Hey, wait up!" Chibiusa groused, following the two of them for lack of anything better to do.

* * * * *

"You sure do have a lot of unusual stuff," Hotaru commented, leafing through a binder stuffed with news clippings detailing the exploits of the Sailor Senshi. There were also action figures and models of the Senshi, a few T-shirts, and some other such paraphernalia stuffed in a box.

"Heh...well, I used to collect anything I could get hold of about the Sailor Senshi," Shingo said, blushing. "I was kinda obsessed. Then I got to junior high, and I didn't really have time for it anymore, and they haven't been seen much lately, so...I kinda grew out of it, I guess." He shrugged.

"Sou ka," Hotaru replied as she repacked the box and pushed it back into the closet. As she did so, she bumped against another, larger box, and carefully removed it, trying not to dislodge any stray junk from the haphazard pile in the corner.

Shingo saw the box Hotaru was pulling out, and his eyes widened. "I'd forgotten all about those," he said quietly.

"Hmm?" Hotaru asked, opening the box...and staring at its contents. Beside her, Chibiusa was similarly wide-eyed.

"I used to call that my greatest treasure," Shingo said. "I guess I could still think of it that way in a sense. It's still pretty unique."

"What...?" Hotaru gasped, lifting a familiar boot out of the box.

"Sailor Senshi footwear, left behind after a monster attacked my school about three years ago," the brown-haired boy explained. He laughed. "Everything was dirty and smelly, and most of the kids were eager to get the heck outta there, but I stayed behind despite the mess and the stink just to get my hands on those. I was really, really obsessed."

"Sou..." the dark-haired girl examined the contents of the box. "You took really good care of them, I see."

"Polished them nearly every day," he replied, a touch of pride entering his voice. "Well, until I didn't have time and then forgot I even had them. They're easy to take care of, though." He paused. "Say...you think Mika would like...?"

Hotaru caught his meaning, and picked up the red pumps that had once belonged to Sailor Mars. "I think she'd love these. They match her hair and everything."

Shingo, being male, never once considered the possibility that taking fashion advice from a girl who routinely wore form-fitting black outfits that covered everything but her head and hands might not be a good idea. All he saw in his mind was "Girlfriend's Birthday + Expensive-Looking Shoes = Happy Girlfriend = Not Getting Killed or Dumped = Maybe Getting Laid".

"Let's find a shoebox and some wrapping paper then, quick!" Shingo decided.

* * * * *

"Hello, Mika-chan!" Ikuko said. "Happy birthday!"

"Thank you," Kayama Mika replied as she slipped off her shoes and stepped into the house.

"I heard Shingo run upstairs a bit ago; I think he's wrapping your present." She smiled. "I figured you'd be coming by, so I made some special cupcakes for you kids today."

"That's very nice of you," Mika said, blushing as she walked in. A moment later, Shingo came down, along with Chibiusa and a girl Mika recognized from the school she and Shingo attended...Tomoe Hotaru, she placed the name after a moment.

"Hi Mika-chan...happy birthday," Shingo greeted, walking over and hugging his girlfriend.

"Thank you, Shingo-kun," Mika said, smiling. As the group seated themselves, Shingo held out a box to the redhead, his face approaching the color of her hair.

"Ummm...for you," he said with a blush.

Ikuko emerged from the kitchen at that moment with a tray of cupcakes. "Oh? Is that your present from Shingo-kun?" she asked. At the girl's nod, Ikuko seated herself and said, "Well, why don't you open it and show us what he got you?"

"Hai," Mika said, joining the others around the living room table. She carefully unwrapped the box, then lifted the lid...and her eyes widened. "Ara..."

"I hope you like them," Shingo said.

The redhead extracted the pair of red leather pumps from the box and beamed. "They're beautiful..." She looked at Shingo. "They must have been so expensive...I can't..."

"Don't worry about that, Mika-chan," Shingo said. "Please don't worry. All that matters is making you happy."

Mika's eyes shone. "Oh, Shingo-kun..."

Ikuko smiled. "Why don't you try them on, dear?"

"Are you sure?" Mika asked. At the woman's nod, she slipped off her house slippers and socks, and gingerly stepped into the shiny shoes. She carefully stood, taking a few shaky steps in the high heels. "They fit great," she said. "Thank you, Shingo-kun, they're perfect." She sat down and took them off, putting them neatly back in the box and slipping back on her socks and slippers. She then leaned over and kissed her boyfriend on the cheek.

Shingo blushed and rubbed the back of his head. "You're welcome, Mika-chan. You'll have to wear them when we go out sometime."

"Hai!"

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