1101/Little Talks

Little Talks
Date of Scene:	09 February 2024
Location:	Radiant Heart Academy
Synopsis:	Somehow, despite everything, Sunbreaker and Sailor Moon are - almost friends. It makes it easier for information to flow between them. Sunbreaker learns a little more about Beryl, Sailor Moon, and ancient kingdoms. Sailor Moon learns a little more about Sunbreaker, and, - leylines?
Cast of Characters:	Hinoiri Kirara, Usagi Tsukino

---

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
It was a calm, peaceful night... when Usagi would get the text from an unknown number.

'Sunbreaker here. Tell Moon to meet me on top of the fish market, two blocks from RHA, one hour. She leaves the murder stone at home or I bail. Yeet. Don't text this number back, not my phone.'

Then, of course, she left. Heading down to the location to meet the other girl...

Sunbreaker was standing, arms crossed, leaning against the edge of the roof. Looking frustrated and annoyed. But when didn't she?

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usagi was having a nice, normal night, having decided when she would talk to Coco about the key Sunbreaker had given, and found that she was actually pleased about the idea of being able to sleep normally again. It wasn't like she hadn't known she hated having nightmares - it was just, now that they finally had a path for a solution, it was like some of the weight had fallen from her shoulders.

Which lead to a scene like this - dozing on her couch, Luna in her lap, a let's play of a new game playing on her phone -

A text from Sunbreaker -

Wait, what?

Usagi reads the message with growing bafflement, Luna peeking over her shoulder -

"Do not leave the Silver Crystal," she says sternly.

"I'll ask Mamochan to hold it!" Usagi counters easily.

"It's the most precious artifact of the Silver Millennium?!" Luna counter-countered.

"He's the most precious man in the universe!"

Sailor Moon won the argument, of course.

She's on the roof, in an hour. "It's not a murder crystal, you know. I've never, ever murdered anyone!"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker glanced up at her and sighed. "No murder crystal? Good. And you say that, but I'm not taking any risks, just because I like you doesn't mean I trust you." Then she blinked and her cheeks went a little red. "A-and I don't even like you. Ugh." She lifted a hand to her forehead and shook her head.

"You mentioned before you wanted to talk about rules and stuff, right? Well... before that, we need to come up with a better way to do... this. I can't just knock some civilian out by energy draining them and then texting Usagi-chan in the hopes she gets a hold of you in time. I mean, I can. But I shouldn't. If people at Obsidian knew I was doing this, I'd be in deep trouble, you know. You better appreciate the fact I'm even chatting with you."

She seemed... testy today.

"... I've got some info for you, too. But... I need info from you, first. What... do you know about the golden kingdom, the moon kingdom... and the rainbow crystals? That is something you're caught up in, isn't it?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Sunbreaker liked her? That's as mystifying as her not trusting her is straightforward. She's tempted to say she'd left the crystal with her boyfriend, but one, she probably shouldn't mention who has it just in case, and two, Sunbreaker thinks she's Chiyo-chan, and that would just be more miscommunications.

A single school could only house so much!

"Wait, you did what? Sunbreaker! You can't just take people's phones and their energy!" She's giving her such a disappointed look. "I've got a burner phone; I'll give you the number, okay?"

When you date Darien Shields, you get used to the idea of burner phones. Now that she dates Mamoru Chiba, they're still holding onto the lesson.

"I do appreciate it - honest. I'm a little surprised you did so much for rules - wait. Who told you about... Obsidian, probably, huh?"

She presses a hand to her forehead.

"I don't know as much about the Rainbow Crystals. But the Moon Kingdom is - it's where I was from, in my past life. And the Golden Kingdom is the kingdom that once ruled all the Earth, fourteen thousand years ago, in a time no one but some of us Senshi and the Shitennou - and, and Beryl - remember."

She's sure that Sunbreaker knows who Beryl is.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker blinked a few times. "Burner... phone? Uhhhh... great. I'll figure it out. Just... get me a number or whatever. Damn it. I hate this world..."

Sunbreaker did sigh, at least. "It wasn't just the rules. If it was just those, I'd have let you come to me. But... yeah."

She reached up and put something to her lips... Wait, was she smoking?!

... No. It was one of those miracle pops of Chiyo's. She paused... and then tossed one to her. "You've probably had plenty, but here anyway. I got far too many of them. Past life, huh? Fourteen thousand years ago... aren't you just super special, then. So... you don't know what they're for, then? Or are you just not going to tell me? How about we cut to the chase. I've been asked to retrieve them. I'm still deciding if I'm going to succeed or not. You, Sailor Moon, are getting an opportunity to tip the scales for or against in this case. Up to you. I didn't *have* to come and play nice. I don't *owe* you anything right now."

"... But I figured I would give you this shot, at least."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"It's a cheap cellphone that doesn't have your personal info in it," Sailor Moon explains. She's not going to examine the curl of fondness that washes through her, explaining the concept. "It's hard to track them, so you don't have to worry about doing identity shenanigans."

Hopefully Sunbreaker won't take offense to being taught something.

And then she raised something long and white to her lips and Sailor Moon almost squawked about the dangers of smoking -

Only for it to turn out to be a Silver Crystal lollipop. The irony - especially when one is thrown at her! She pops it in her mouth, of course.

"I love these," she says around the lollipop. "Uh, well, I only found out about them because some jerk turned into a youma at the arcade, and - I guess I can't deny being special? Like you, I guess, we're both kind of fish out of water, except I'm a fish who was also born here and you're a fish who came over from the big ocean and I'm really torturing this meta-thingy, huh?"

Even she is confused by where she was going with that.

What she's not confused about is what's happening here. This is a chance to get Sunbreaker to help her instead of Beryl. And she needs to capitalize. She needs to build their relationship points!

"They open a doorway to a secret kingdom in the Earth," she says, honest, "That's about what I know, anyway. It's like, the last of the Golden Kingdom, and Beryl destroyed that place once, she doesn't deserve to do it again. I just meant that I'm not an expert on 'em. I could tell you a lot more about Silver Millennium and about the Golden Kingdom."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker blinked a few times and then... "Yeah. That's pretty smart. Burner phones. I'll need to see about getting one of those. Obsidian pays well, at least. It'd be a lot easier if I could just text the people without having to play these identity things. Whatever..."

She did give a little chuckle. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Like liking your own book or whatever..." she mumbled. "It's not really the same though, Moony. You were born special. I became special through hard work and perseverence. Ambition. Don't compare us. We're really not the same. I'm not sure if it'd be better or worse if we were," Sunbreaker pulled the sucker out of her mouth and idly stared at it.

"Yeah. Beryl mentioned that. Apparently the other two she broke. Frankly, it sounds a lot like a child throwing a tantrum because she broke her other toys and now she wants some new ones."

"... Okay then. Tell me about this silver millennium and the golden kingdom and how it ties into you." She sat down, one leg out, one bent, oddly relaxed while she looked up at Sailor Moon. "You can come sit. I won't bite. And if I wanted to hurt you you'd... well. I've already done that."

She'd be quiet for a little bit, her gaze down.

"I don't kill. I don't do mind control. The former can't be undone and the latter just... it just creeps me out. I don't target animals. They don't understand what's happening. I don't... want to cause needless suffering. So if I cause suffering, there's a reason. I don't care who I have to hurt to get what I deserve."

"... There are people who will destroy your world. I'm not one of them. I may be a monster to you people, but I'm not a sadist. Believe me when I say if there was another way, I'd try it. But there isn't. So you'll just keep trying to stop me and I'll keep having to do it anyway. Those are my rules."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
She didn't get mad about being taught something! Victory for Sunbreaker-Sailor Moon relations! On the inside, a mini Sailor Moon jumps up and down in excitement. On the outside, she smiles brightly, and then - ah, and then the smile fades away, and she nods, slow.

"You're right. We're not the same, not like that. We might both have magic, but you worked your way to have what you have, and me - I really was born with it."

Her mother's daughter, twice over. She's worked hard to become better at being Sailor Moon, to be a figther, to control her power, but she'd been born to that power. She is and will always be Sailor Moon, Princess Serenity, the daughter of a queen.

She grimaces at the description of Beryl, anger tightening the corners of her mouth at the thought. Silver Millennium and her life as Princess Serenity - it waxed and waned like the moon itself, sometimes far from her thoughts, sometimes so close that the old feelings feel new and fresh.

"Alright, I will. I mean - why not? Especially if you're going to work with her, sometimes." She hates the thought and her face expresses as much, but she walks closer, settling herself down besides Sunbreaker, kicking her feet a little.

When Sunbreaker speaks, she listens.

"You're not a monster," she says, quiet and firm, "You're a girl like me. Maybe not entirely like me - but, in the big ways, the general ones... Sunbreaker, I'm glad you have those rules. That you don't kill people, and don't do mind control, and - it's important, I think, because you do a lot of bad stuff because you have something you want, but you have limits, too. You're not just... riding down as far and fast as you can, just for the heck of it."

She draws her knees up, looking out over the city.

"The reason I said it's not a murder crystal is because it's not. I've never killed anyone, even if... even if I got accused of it," and her lips twist in a frown, at the thought. "I don't want to kill anyone - but I've thought about it. Not like, wanting to kill someone, but... like you said. There are people who want to destroy this world, and - I wouldn't want to kill them, but if it was this whole world or their life... sometimes I think about what I'd do. I think I know what my moon mama would have done."

Those kicking legs are drawn up, so her knees are to her chest, and she wraps her arms around them.

"You asked, so - fourteen thousand years ago, my name was Serenity. I was in love with the most wonderful boy in the world, and it was forbidden. My mother was Queen of Silver Millennium, an empire of planets that spanned most of the Sol System, and Endymion was the prince of the Golden Kingdom of Earth, a planet our people were forbidden to enter. I was really, really not supposed to meet him."

The faintest smile touches her lips.

"We love each other. And Beryl destroyed everything we loved for it."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker, at least, loved to learn things. She had a passion for it. Sure, she went too far sometimes... but learning was... nice. She loved to learn. To study. To understand. Things. Concepts. People...

"I don't think it's going to be easy for either of us... I have rules... because... if you don't have rules? You break. I'm going to do a lot of terrible things. You're going to stop some of them. Others... not so much. And... I don't care." Yes, she did. "Dark energy helps with that. Takes the edge off. It hurts, you know. Like having something burning under the skin. Tearing at me. But... it's power. The only power I have here. I can... have here. That's the difference. You're... sailor moon. You have some magic doo hickey that chose you, a past life. You take the dark energy out of me? I'm just... a human. Simple. Mundane. No. Worse. A human who used to be a unicorn. I'd be... pathetic. But with dark energy? Accepting that pain? Working with it? I can be... what I need to be."

"... But I'm not dumb. I know that there are risks. So I made my rules. I won't break them. Even if it kills me. Because the moment I do? Then... I can't come back from that. I won't be me anymore."

She leaned back against the edge of the roof and sighed. "I am a monster, though. If you could have seen the way she looked at me... how disappointed she was... I want to go home, Sailor Moon. And I can't. Not now. If I fail... then never. But I won't fail. I've seen my destiny. And I know what I'll become. And... this will all be worth it in the end."

Sunbreaker listened, though. And sighed. "So she fits it, then. A spoiled child who thinks herself a sovereign. Who believes she has the right to rule... but you know, that's not what makes a good ruler a good ruler."

"A good ruler has to be... strong, but delicate. Powerful, but gentle. Graceful, yet fierce. Your world does it so *wrong*. You shouldn't be born into a right to rule. Where I come from... it's earned. You have to be strong. Smart. You need to be... worthy. Most never can be. It's not about your blood... And if you'd rather burn the world... than let it fall from your fingers?"

"Then you never deserved it."

"... I have something else for you. You can tell the others, but be very, very careful who you tell this to. Because this *cannot* get back to Obsidian. Are we clear?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
She thinks Sunbreaker must care, a little. No one who hurt so much didn't care. But who is she to argue? To tell Sunbreaker how she must really feel?

"Hematite told me, before. For him, it was like wasps buzzing under his skin. I don't really... understand it? Because for the longest time I didn't want to be Sailor Moon. It's scary, you know? So part of me still doesn't really - get, wanting all this enough to be willing to hurt like that." What can she be but honest in this moment?

She doesn't say that she doubts that Sunbreaker would ever be mundane, just like she doubts that Naru will be forever. Some people just seemed - larger than life. Sunbreaker is one.

"Thank you for... telling me your rules. I'll remember them."

If she could meet that - she, who looked, she would... but hwo can she convince Sunbreaker that she doesn't have to do this? "I guess that's true. You'll do what you feel you have to - and I'll do what I have to. And maybe we'll both get to be happy with it, in the end."

Maybe knowing all this would help if someone else ever wanted to kill her for being a pain.

"It's weird, you know? Earth has been my world my whole life, and now, sometimes I hear that - your world - and I think, 'but it's not.' And, it's not all blood. It's like - the emperor, that's blood. But we vote for the Prime Minister, and lots of places have people vote, for the person who we think will lead best." a pause. "That is not what it was like in Silver Millennium, but... my mama was the first and only queen. I'm not ready to be a queen, so - princess it is. Princess Serenity, then and now."

Still a princess. Still destined to lead, because of blood and power.

"Beryl wishes to rule, but her desire for - blood and power trumps all of that. She's awful and there's no low that's too low, for her. She doesn't care about being a good ruler... she cares about winning."

Sailor Moon turns her head, looking at Sunbreaker, focused and intent. "I'll be careful. I don't want you to get hurt."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker gave a soft chuckle. "I... can't be mundane. You were destined to not, perhaps. But... if I'm mundane? I'm nothing. You... I doubt you could understand that." She looked at Sailor Moon and she just smiled. "I... think I used to know girls like you. In a lot of ways you do remind me of Usagi-chan. Kind. Sweet. Gentle. Inviting. The kind of person... who just lights up the world around them."

"... Someone who had everything. 'Moon mama'. Things like that. I bet... you had parents. People who loved you. Maybe siblings. Close friends. The kind of girl everyone loved growing up."

"... It might not be so bad, being normal... if that was what you had. What your world was... is like. And magic must be scary, taking that away."

She closed her eyes and rested her head on her knees. "That wasn't my life though, Sailor Moon. Mine was empty. No friends. No family. Nothing. I've been here for... months, now. I came to another world. They know I'm here. Not even a... nobody ever came for me. When... they were going to kill me? You know what I thought?"

"I thought it was over. I thought it was going to... be... over. I figured it had all come full circle. I'd been abandoned by my parents, by my mentor, my world... and now I'd finally just... die... on this backwater world, another monster they purged."

"And then... you. You came for me. You. The girl who's power I tried to destroy. It... still... doesn't make any sense. You... hate me. You should, at least. I... kind of hate you. But... I think... I kind of... like you..."

"... I sometimes wonder what things would be like... if I was from this world. Since coming here... I've... found people who do kind of care for me. Who... like me. One in particular who... actually... seems to want me to be happy. By Sora... happy? Me? I don't even know if I can be."

"... But I want you and your lot of sparkly, happy girls to win. Which... is good, I guess. Since you will. The leylines of this world have been tampered with, Sailor Moon. All of them. Artificially. They've been moved. I don't know how. I could do it, sure... over years. Per leyline. But something has moved all of them. Between here and a place in america and france."

"Most of the people in Obsidian think it's normal. But we studied leylines where I'm from. Nobody in Obsidian understands magic like I do. I did tests. I looked into it... this is artificial. This is why, every time we fight? More of you girls keep popping up. Why all these forces are gathering here in Tokyo."

"It's why your lot are going to win in the end. The game is rigged. In your favor. It'll probably take a while, mind. But I plan on getting everything I need and getting out of here before that happens."

"... We're not friends though, Sailor Moon. Not... now. We can't be. Our paths? Are too much in conflict. I can't give up on achieving the greatness I'm destined for. No more than you can give up on protecting these people."

"... But if things had been different? If we'd been from the same world? I think... I might have liked to have been your friend. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't... at least a little... wish things were a little different."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usagi had been mundane all her life. Serenity had never known mundanity.

Sailor Moon is the best of both of them, the end of any chance that normal could mean mundane, could mean non-magical, could mean -

What life was.

Still, she imagines that if her life had been different - her first, her second - that maybe she would cling onto this life.

In a way, isn't she already? Isn't her every nightmare hammering it in, how much she can't bare to imagine her life without this power, without these battles, without friends who would fight with and for her?

Haven't they shatterd her illusions of a happy day where, on her eighteenth birthday, the magic drained away?

She is Usagi Tsukino, Princess Serenity, and Sailor Moon. It's been months, not years, but she already can't imagine life going back to how it had been.

She won't tell Sunbreaker that, though. She hasn't been able to tell Naru, or Mamochan. It won't be Sunbreaker who hears this first.

"I don't hate you," she says instead, "I actually kind of like you too. Even though you do awful things, and even though you have fun being kind of terrible - you're smart, and you have rules, and ambition, and rules, and you're a lot of things I've never been but think are really cool. I'm glad there's someone else who wants you to be happy, because - I do too."

She thinks a lot of problems have been caused by Sunbreaker being so unhappy. So unloved.

But even those thoughts and these soft confessions can't prepare her for what Sunbreaker says. Mostly because -

"But... why would someone do that?"

Weren't leylines just - as they were? Like, the equator, you didn't just - pick them up and move them.

But Sunbreaker was saying someone had.

And that they had so that they would win. An imbalance in this whole - thing, from the beginning.

"If... if someone could do that..."

Move the very currents of magic on the planet. Shape the planet, in a way -

She had to tell Mamochan. And Kazuo-kun, and Naru-chan, and they needed to put their heads together, and -

"Then why is it all happening now?" She doesn't mean to say it, but - "There weren't this many of us a genaration ago. If the leylines were all moved then - what's happening now, that even with that, we're all coming out now?"

It's not the most important thing. But it's -

"I think we'd be friends too." She wonders if they still can be. "Things can always be different, you know. I'm not gonna tell you to stop, because you'd never listen. But when it's over - I hope we can be friends."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker gave a light chuckle. "Yeah... yeah. I wanted to just be the angry, rawr, destructive monster. It'd be easier, you know? There were a few times I just... thought. It'd be easier. To not have rules. To just... do it. I'd have probably won by now. But... I blame Sora. If I came home... bathed in blood... I don't think I could look her in the face. It's one thing to hurt people, to destroy... things. But if I... killed you girls... I doubt... I could ever live with myself."

"... I wish you people on this stupid planet weren't so likeable. It'd be soooo much easier if all you did was get in my way. But nope. You almost make me want to be a part of this world. I sometimes think about it."

"... But I'd have to give up everything. My home. My dreams. Everything I've ever worked for. I can't. Not just so I can be a nobody on some backwater rock orbiting the sun."

"... And I would be a nobody, don't think I wouldn't. Even if you 'like' me... I'm never going to be anybody's first pick for anything. Not there. Not here. Anything I have... I have to carve out."

Sunbreaker gave a shrug. "No idea. It must have taken years. I'd say a few thousand years ago. I doubt it happened during your silver millenium, though. Not quite that old. But old. So old they've settled. I couldn't say why it's triggering now. I mean... it could be anything."

"Maybe it's you awakening. Maybe it's one of the other girls. I'm sure it'd be easy to believe 'Oh, I'm sailor moon and I'm an ancient princess and so now I've awoken, obviously all of this is because of me!' But likely not."

"You're a moon princess. There are princesses of other worlds. People of all kinds of power. The portal between Kirakirafantastica opens up here and I came through. It's more likely that you came now for the same reason almost everyone else did. Just... be careful who you spill this to. Most in Obsidian don't know. It might give them... ideas."

She started to slowly get to her feet. "It was nice talking with you. I'm going to still get these Rainbow Crystals. I don't really trust you lot with them. But I can at least say they won't get to Beryl. If I need to talk with you again... maybe I'll get a burner phone. Either way... I'll see you around, Moon Princess. Sweet dreams."