950/The Princess is Who

The Princess is Who
Date of Scene:	31 December 2023
Location:	Pikarigaoaka Ward
Synopsis:	Michiru and Setsuna arrive home after the events at Soryuu Shrine and debrief with Haruka present by way of communicator. Plans are made to reunite the couple while still guarding their precious wards.
Cast of Characters:	Michiru Kaiou, Setsuna Meiou, Haruka Tenoh

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Michiru Kaiou has posed:
Michiru Kaiou arrived home in the early evening, and all she had was questions. She had been sent along with some of the others to assist in the purifications needed to foil the Midnight Tokyo plot, but then something happened. A monumental surge of purification magic that came from somewhere that did all their work for them. It was good that the objectives were met, but Michiru couldn't help but wonder how it had happened, and how it caught her so much by surprise.

As soon as she stepped thru the door, she knew she was alone in the mansion. She didn't even bother calling out. The currents and eddies of magic were calmer than they had been in weeks, not even a ripple of disturbance from the presence of another person. It was just as well because she needed time to think, to process what had just transpired, and to distract herself from her worries. They had gone to fight, after all.

So she went to her suite, got out her violin, and did the thing that calmed her the most. She played it.

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
From the backyard, there's a muted flare of light, fortunately blocked from outside observation by either the privacy walls, several well-placed trees, or the bulk of the house itself.

Though since said house is part of the blockage, the slight flare should be visible from some of the rooms. For those sensitive, the pulse of magic from someone displacing themselves in space/time is probably a clue, too.

There's another brief flare of cosmic nonsense as Sailor Pluto drops her henshin halfway across the yard, then she quietly slips into the back door and makes her way to the kitchen.

A twist of her wrist has her Senshi Communicator dropping into her hand, and she absently drops it onto the kitchen island after initiating a call to Uranus and setting it to speaker mode...at which point she heads straight over to the fridge while she waits for Haruka to pick up.

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
Sailor Uranus really should make more use of the communicators. She's bad about that, trying to deal with everything on her own, and not worry the other two unless she has to. She doesn't want to be an anchor. The other two have been doing things longer, in one case eons longer. So much so that at first she doesn't recognize the feeling of the communicator calling her. But eventually she 'picks up' or accepts the communication. "Yo." she says, because what else do you say?

    "Wait, I thought this was Pluto. Stupid thing." she says, for a bit confused because she can't see Pluto. But she can hear. Not so much Setsuna rooting around in the fridge, but Michiru's violin. "Neptune?" she asks, out loud. Did call her just to play violin at her? From Pluto's device? Probably not.

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
Michiru Kaiou felt the ripples of magic from Setsuna's arrival, but she had just started another piece of music, and she was the kind of girl that finished what she started. And so it was that she kept playing long enough for Setsuna to walk into the house, start the call, and send notes down the hallway, into the kitchen, and through the aether into Uranus' ears in the liminal space around the Gates of Time.

When she finishes, she very carefully puts Marine Cathedrale away in its case, and then stows that case in her own little liminal space. She would never leave something as precious as her Stradivarius just laying around Earth. Then, and only then, does she run out of her suite and down the hall toward the kitchen. It's either where people will be, or on the way to where they'll be.

She walks in, and sees Setsuna--and only Setsuna--and she panicks just a little. She wasn't there. She doesn't know what happened, and she doesn't notice the communicator, so there's only one question on her lips.

"Where is Haruka?"

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
When Haruka picks up her communicator and asks, Setsuna glances over and realizes she'd pointed the pickup the wrong way and calls out, "Sorry, Uranus...I set the communicator down wrong. Gimme a moment and I'll fix that."

She pauses for a moment, "...and by the sound of it, Neptune's just finished meditating into strings, so she'll probably be down in a few moments."

That said, she grabs a few more things and walks back over to the island with a container of some of the leftover ham from thanksgiving and a bunch of other sammich fixings.

Absently, she reaches over and adjusts her communicator...then fiddles a bit with the pickup so that it shows a little hologram portrait of Uranus while hers should show a similar little hologram picture of the kitchen just as Michiru runs in.

Setsuna sits down on one of the chairs, "She's back at the Gates guarding things...there were some...DEVELOPMENTS, shall we say."

She taps her chin, "Hrm...how best to put it? We beat all the Shittenou and made them run...Usagi's boyfriend either had a bit of an episode or he was faking it REALLY good and fought us all...one of the Shittenou is apparently sweet on Naru...Usagi's boyfriend has a sister who is a ghost...Oh, yeah...said boyfriend got purified...and turns out he's actually NOT a minor staff officer...he's the Earth Prince from back in the day reincarnated..."

She trails off for a moment...then snaps her fingers as if remembering something some minor detail she just forgot, "...oh yeah! We found the Princess! Turns out it's Usagi. Who knew?"

She then starts making a few sandwiches.

After a moment, she looks over at Neptune, "...so I take it things went okay for your team?"

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
Sailor Uranus - very clearly still in henshin - continues to call the other two by their senshi names because she's around other people, even if it's people she trusts. There's a protocol.

    Pluto lays out the relevant points. "Oh also one of the other Dark Energy girls stabbed one of Hematite's boys in the back. But other than that she's got all of the really relevant points. I'm standing by here in case Tall and Creepy gets any ideas or in case any of the other boys tries to get us back... and because I feel strongly that I should, right now." Uranus says.

    "It's good to hear your voice, Neptune." Haruka may have worried an incy bit. Like she does whenever Neptune is out of her sight. "You too, Pluto, but this is your house and you were just here." she says with a wink.

    "Usagi being the princess feels insane but she's like eight feet behind me and glowing, so."

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
"Oh," is all Michiru has to say to Setsuna's first comment. There is a look of relief on her face, knowing that Haruka is okay even if she's not home. She walks over to the kitchen island and slides up onto a stool, the relief spreading to the rest of her when she sees the little holographic Uranus. She's okay. It's okay.

She listens attentively, mostly focusing on Setsuna, but glancing aside toward Uranus to see her reactions. It's a lot to take in, and Setsuna really buried the lede, so she ends up just sitting there for a few moments frozen in silence. She's processing. But then Haruka says her name and she smiles.

"It is good to see you too, my prince," she says, that relief in her voice. Then she turns toward Pluto and nods. "You could say that, yes. And now I understand what happened. That white light; it was Princess Serenity, wasn't it."

If she's surprised that Serenity is Usagi, well, she's keeping that to herself.

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Setsuna pauses where she's assembling her third sandwich, "Oh dear heavens, yes. So everyone's dogpiling one of the Shittenou...I never really got the name of which one, Hematite goes nuts about it, and ends up tanking just about everyone's everything."

She shakes her head at that, "...given that said 'everything' included three or four Senshi attacks plus a bunch of other stuff? Yeah, that DID NOT go well for him. So he ends up broken at the bottom of a shallow crater, Usagi loses her mind, runs over...and then she pulls the Silver Crystal itself out of her Soul and tells Death itself 'Fuck off, he's MINE'."

She pauses and smiles at the memory that she is doing her level best to inscribe permanently in her mind so she never forgets it...that perfect moment of Usagi becoming the Princess and pulling her Prince from beyond the brink of Death.

Then, she shakes her head, "And that's what released that huge pulse of power. I'm pretty sure they felt that one over in America, at the very least...so expect a LOT of confusion over the next few days until the Veil settles everyone down again."

Then she goes back to making sandwiches.

She's on her fifth one now.

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
Sailor Uranus nods. "Yeah, it was kind of a big deal at the time. But... it also felt right? It's hard to explain. Seeing someone weild such incredible power and just being like 'yeah that tracks' is... a strange feeling, to say the least. I suspect I'll find it stranger once I return to being me." she says, assuming the other girls will pick up what she means.

    "I recognized her immediately though. The dress, the hair. It's funny, because of course, that's Usagi's hair, and Sailor Moon's hair, but I guess the Veil keeps us from really connecting those dots logically." Uranus muses.

    "Recognized Endymion immediately, too. Earth prince from back in the when. I started protecting... both of them... pretty much without thinking. I didn't really have full focus back until Serenity gave me permission to stand down. The guardian was very loud at that moment."

    "I don't know how long they're going to be here, but I'm probably going to stay here for a while. Until I'm sure there's not a big counter-attack coming. It's the first time that I can say I felt like where I needed to be wasn't precisely by your side or moving with the wind." she admits. "It's strange, seeing these half-memories become real and full, all at once."

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
The memories of her old life never seem to faze Neptune. Perhaps it's because she lives in a world of ambiguity and magic, peering into the future as she so often does. Is it really all that different to look into the past? Really, what she's learning the most here, is she needs to pay more attention to her present.

"Of course you're staying," Michiru says with a light laugh. She knows better than to try and dissuade her. Besides, it makes strategic sense. "Just come home to me on the wind as soon as you're sure," she adds.

Then she reaches over and grabs one of the sandwiches Setsuna is making and takes a bite, chewing it thoughtfully and then swallowing. "Mmm. That's good," she says. Then a beat later. "No wonder we listened to her."

Setsuna Meiou has posed:
Setsuna nods along with a lot of what Uranus says, but then adds, "Once I get a bit of food in me, I can go back and spell you from that side. I can watch from the Gate side and you can pop back and keep an eye on things back Earth side with Neptune together."

Because keeping those two apart unnecessarily for any length of time is cruel in her eyes, "...though to be honest, I think the chances of direct retaliation are pretty low. The Gates are almost certainly beyond the Enemy's ability to reach for more than a few different reasons. And after a few days, things on that side are likely to cool off, since from what I understand, Endymion is planning to poach all the rest of the Shittenou and purify them as well...which will leave that group weakened enough they'll almost certainly have to shut down operations in order to recover...which should give US a chunk of much-needed breathing room."

She then nods in response to Michiru, "...yeah, looking back, I SHOULD have been a bit more questiong, but that was probably my subconscious having figured it all out and not allowed to tell the rest of me."

She shrugs, then gets up and walks over to one of the cabinets to grab a pair of gladware containers and loads a pair of sandwiches into each of them before taking two for herself and sliding the last one over to Michiru.

Haruka Tenoh has posed:
    Sailor Uranus nods along as Setsuna talks. "Yeah, right now I'm kinda stuck because I feel ancy because I can't see Neptune, and I would feel ancy if I couldn't keep an eye on Serenity as well. Like a long lost... friend, perhaps. Different than you two, more distant, but... closer than an average person, and... a responsibility." she says. "I wonder if that's how it'll be for you when you see her, Neptune." she muses aloud.

    "Well, I would be fine if that happened. As much fun as it is to go out and trounce youma every night, I'm not sure I've got it in me to do those big fights every night. There was gravity and tree roots and debris and it was generally a mess. I think for a moment or two I might have even looked unkempt." she says. "But seriously, it kinda sucked, and I'm glad it's over, and if we can snag the rest of the group and put The Enemy into sad hibernation for a bit I'm all for it. Though, eventually, we're gonna need to kick that butt."

    "Well, it stands to reason if you already knew you wouldn't waste time thinking about it. Even if you couldn't know you knew..." she says, hands on her hips. "...Yeah I can't wait to see you. Both of you. Seeing Serenity again though... it gives me hope. Her and her guy together like that. You can feel that's a big win on its own. Now all we gotta do is keep winning."