2218/Throne of Lies

Throne of Lies
Date of Scene:	09 January 2025
Location:	Administrative Office
Synopsis:	The morning after Rabbit Hunt Take Two, Usagi gets Kyouka and Naru into Kyouka's office and shares with them what's been learned. Timetravel might as well happen - but someone else's future doesn't have to be ours. Also? A reminder that leaving people in the void between timelines is just killing people with more steps.
Cast of Characters:	Usagi Tsukino, Kyouka Inai, Naru Osaka

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Usagi Tsukino has posed:
It's before morning classes, which is how Kyouka and Naru know that Usagi is serious - usually she would be sleeping in until the very last possible second, and then sprinting for her classroom with all the grace of a drunken gazelle.

Instead, she's in Kyouka's office, in one of the chairs, with Kyouka and Naru, and she's drinking Naru's first cup of coffee (heavily sweetened with cream and sugar), and she's staring at the sunny poster on Kyouka's wall like it's mocking her.

"The future," she says finally, around the coffee cup, "They're from the future. The people who have been after Chibiusa are from the future, because she's from the future, and we have time-traveling bad guys from the future."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    To be entirely fair to Usagi, Kyouka has been mocked by that very poster on more than one occasion, so her instincts are pretty good in the realm of detecting potential mockery.

    Kyouka herself is not much of a morning person- years and years of operating on a nights-first schedule will do that to a person, but she does usually make it to school on time. Point is, this is early for her as well, and Usagi isn't the only one cradling a cup of coffee like its a lifeline.

    She sits behind her desk and regards the girl who is speaking. "At least they're not from the past." She says, with some amount of prejudice. "Time travelers from the past suck."

Naru Osaka has posed:
BEFORE morning classes. Before. Like early. In a time when Naru is often off having a run and Usagi is faceplanted and snoring.

This morning, the one token morning person has ensured that the pair of not morning people who SUGGESTED this time of day, have caffeine. Naru sips her coffee, looking awake and put together and wisely ignoring the damn poster.

"Well." Naru considers that tidbit of information as its presented. "That sort of felt inevitable at some point, you know? It's not like we haven't been the people from the future before."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"I don't even want to think about why you have that opinion," Usagi says with the kind of resigned bleariness that comes with any adult having a wild but probably reasonable but wild opinion. "I wish they were not from any future. At least now we know what wrong one Chibiusa-chan meant when she screeched 'I'm in the wrong one' when Mamochan got shot."

She really, really hates that in their lives her beloved fiancé getting shot is the most normal part of that sentence.

"They thought it was 1994," she says, with the kind of disdain only a Zillennial can summon for what they consider the ancient past. "Because in 2025, billions of people are supposed to be dead from the world being a ruin."

And thus why she's chugging coffee and awake at this unfathomably early time (it's like seven am).

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka acknowledges Naru's point with a tip of her head. She sips her own coffee slowly. She's not the brainiest person at any time of the day, her forte being more tactical quick-thinking rather than high-concept stuff, but she is playing over this idea in her brain.

    "How does that even work, anyway?" She wonders. "I mean, you'd think if we changed the past, it would also change the future. For example, if they came back from the future and say, killed me, or you, or anybody, all the things that person had done from then on would be erased, so the future would change. The future is tied to the past- it seems like it should be easy to change the future by travelling back in time and messing with stuff. But how do you go to the wrong past? It seems like simply by acknowledging our past as 'the past', their future (which has a different past) should simply cease to exist. In which case they've basically all defeated themselves by the act of time-travelling."

    She blinks a few times, slowly. "Unless it's not just the future, but also a different dimension. You know, a parallel world. In which case they're not so much time-travellers as alt-u guys who think they're time-travellers." She's read a lot of manga, you know.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"There's a lot of theories on how time actually works." Naru IS the thinky kind of student, and hey.. seven am is a perfectly reasonable tiem of day if you ask her. "One that semes to be paning out based on Chibiusa's comment is that major changes in the past cause the timeline to be split.. like coming to a fork in the road. The other path does not stop existing because you chose to go left rather than right." She sips from her coffee thoughtfully.

"So it sounds like Chibiusa probably expected to be on some varient of the right hand path.. to stretch a metaphor.. and isn't." Naru mmms softly. "Better or worse, hard to say. And yes.. it's sort of akin to parallel worlds, but more parallel time streams."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"It's complicated, is what I know, and Ami-chan and oh, definitely Suna-san, would probably know what's actually happening better than I do, but... I really hate that you kind of hit the nail on the head, Kyouka-sensei." Usagi scrubs a hand down her face, grimacing.

"The one we ran into last night - as far as we know, there are five, no, six of them? Four sisters, a red-haired guy in cargo pants, and a Prince Demande - tried to kill Princess of Sarek, who she thought was Sailor Mars, because I kind of sort of gave Sarek-chan and Amy-chan permission to fake being Senshi to get information out of them, because they wanted to do it anyway, and I kind of regret that because she wanted to burn Sarek-chan's head off to break my heart, because in the future I sit on a throne of lies?!"

What the HELL.

"I'm supposed to be a housewife!"

Deep breaths.

"Which is to say... that... I would say they definitely want to destroy the future by messing up the past. Except it's not their past. It's our present. And their nothing. But she didn't care."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "To be entirely fair to them," Kyouka says, "And I'm not doing it to give them any credit, merely to say I can understand their line of thinking, it's probably rather hard to accept that you've somehow ended up in the wrong timeline. And even if they can't achieve their original goal of re-writing their own future, a little vengeance against their enemy, or a version of their enemy, can do a lot to soothe an upset ego. If I had to guess that's the motivation."

    She sits back a bit, huffing a small breath. "You may have stepped out of the 'housewife' timeline," a tilt of her head towards Naru, acknowledging the other girl's explanation of branching timelines, "long before this Usagi-chan. Somehow I have trouble seeing you upon a throne of 'lies' though. Doesn't sound very comfortable."

    She sips her coffee again. "Regardless, I have personal reason to believe that this whole 'alternate worlds based on different decision timeline bullshit' is actually real so I'm willing to accept that explanation without further debate. Honestly in the end does it even really matter? They try to hurt you, we stop them. Doesn't matter why they're doing it or where they came from."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Throne of lies doesn't sound very stable either." Naru mmms softly. "And just because you aren't currently a housewife doesn't mean that you aren't going to yet become one. Even in this timeline."

The Fade is still a thing, even if every birthday they pretend a little harder that it's not. Someone's birthday was less than a week ago, the thoughts are still very fresh.

"I mean.. Inai-sensei has a point." Naru gestures to the woman. "They try and hurt us, we stop them. It's not SO different from everything else we've faced, except for the whole broader perspective of if we're trying to send them back or something."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Kyouka is making some fair enough points, especially in regards to them soothing a hurt ego - that definitely sounds like what had motivated Koan, but - "I just wish they'd focus on finding something else to do," she grumbles. "But you're on the money. They just... want to hurt me, for things some other me did."

But then Kyouka says the exact wrong thing, and she puffs up like a pufferfish, cheeks puffed out, - "I have not -" luckily, Naru kicks in around thing, saying that she could still be a housewife in the future, and she settles down a little -

"Yeah... I am definitely going to be Mamochan's housewife! Someday, things will definitely calm down enough for that. But there won't be a throne of lies. And hopefully, I mean... for there to be a throne, that sounds like... a lot of bad things would have to happen. Just, practically speaking. With the whole, National Diet, and the Emperor, and all."

She has tried not think about 'world in ruins' and 'billions dead' and 'throne' all in conjunction, because? The thoughts that creates?? Are pretty scary???

"You're both right though - in the end, they're more bad guys who think they're doing the right thing, and we're going to stop them, the way we've stopped every other one. But sometimes! These situations really do feel like, 'well this might as well happen', you know?!"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Have you considered that a castle is just a really big house? And if you're married, you're a wife. You can be both a queen and a wife in a big castley house, and then technically all of the above are true." Kyouka is both good at saying the wrong things and not above teasing someone she considers a friend. "I still can't really see the throne of lies though."

    She shrugs again at mention of the political ramifications. "The future's a long time, Usagi-chan. Things change, one way or another. The important thing to remember here is that apparently these guys are not from our future, which means that no matter what they say or believe they know, it doesn't mean anything to use. I mean, maybe it represents one way things might end up. But a might and a maybe is a far cry from any sort of prophecy."

    She smirks a little bit at Usagi's final comment. "Magic is magic, kid. Trying to categorize it as 'predictable' is kind of antithetical to the point."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"There are a lot of people, and things, that turn up that I really wish would get different hobbies. These aren't exactly the first, nor are they going to be the last." Naru sips from her coffee.

"More bad guys, more reminding them that they are not the ones in charge." Naru nods in agreement. "There's all sorts of things that MIGHT happen, and our actions today are what decides the things that DO happen. We get to choose the path that we're on."

Naru nods to Kyouka's comments. "I mean.. magic is sort of predictable, but that's neither here nor there in this conversation."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"...Oh, I hate you," Usagi tells Kyouka, very conversationally, and obviously with no hatred. "A castle is a house, and a queen can be a wife, and oh that's so mean."

But she's smiling, and giggling into her coffee at the thought, because yeah, okay, fair played, a castle and a queen and a house and a wife can all be together in one lifespan.

"And... yeah, I know it's not like, guaranteed to be our future, but like, that it could be a thing at all... wouldn't it be great if they were talking about some other, other Sailor Moon?" A puff of air, but she settles back into our chair.

"The bigger problem is still figuring out what to do with them. I mean, besides beat them up - they're really strong, by the way, it's kind of been great that they haven't come back in a group, because they're really strong - because... I mean, maybe we can lock them back up in their bad-wrong future but... I kind... of... don't think we want to do that either. That's Chibiusa-chan's home, and she doesn't deserve that either."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka asides to Naru, "Magic follows rules, which can be predictable in some ways. The problem is that there's always more rules you weren't previously aware of, which makes it awful hard to predict what is or isn't possible." She shrugs a little. "I guess that's true of a lot of things, though."

    To Usagi, she says, "They are talking about some other Sailor Moon, for all intents and purposes. While there's a core to who we are, some elements that don't change, a lot of who we become has to do with our environment. The choices we make and the people around us that cause us to make them, either intentionally or not. An 'evil you' could just be a you that had a bad time and didn't have the support she needed to get through it with minimal damage." She shrugs. "But that's not who you are. And there's no sense in worrying about, or feeling guilty for, things you might have done. Make the choices you think are right, trust your friends, and that 'other' Sailor Moon will never exist in any way you need to worry about."

    "Have you considered banishing them into the void between dimensions? I suppose that's not really any better than killing them."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"While dropping them in the void is tempting, its probably not ideal." Naru agrees with a faint smirk. Because yes. It really is just killing them.

"They are talking about another Sailor Moon." Naru agrees. "One who walked down different paths, and sits on a chair of lies. Sorry.. a Throne of Lies, which still sounds unstable and uncomfortable." She gestures at Kyouka as the pair of them say the same thing. "You are not responsible for the paths you did not choose. You only can affect what you DO choose, and you're a good person, who does the very best she can with the information she has."

Naru glances to Kyouka and then back to Usagi. "Which includes not dropping them in the void."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"Yeah... and I mean, maybe what they see as a throne of lies, is just like, a lawnchair of uncomfortable truths, or something." They are stretching this metaphor beyond it's breaking point, but she thinks of Chibiusa, and she doesn't think - she can't think - that she was raised by an evil Sailor Moon. "But I guess - Kyouka-sensei! That does just kill people!"

Oh she is terrible for giggling about it, but well. But well.

"Yeah. The only thing I'm responsible for now is working with everyone to kick their butts until they give up... or until we have to stop them from doing something they can't take back."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "I am the requisite 'bad person' who says that sometimes 'just killing people' is the best possible choice to prevent the most possible suffering." Kyouka says, with a faint sigh. "But I will admit that we are too early in this particular game to make that call, in any case."

    "In any cast, kicking their butts until they give up has always been and will always be a solid plan. So you have my full support."