624/Questions of Philosophy

Questions of Philosophy
Date of Scene:	21 October 2023
Location:	Penguin Park
Synopsis:	Usagi Tsukino and Michiru Kaiou meet again, for the first time since the Outers drew a line between themselves and the Soldier of the Moon. Can the differences of opinions between the Outers and Inners really be solved?
Cast of Characters:	Usagi Tsukino, Michiru Kaiou

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Usagi Tsukino has posed:
The last time Usagi had passed through Penguin Park on a patrol, she'd come across Hannah and her well-wishers being attacked by a youma and a magical boy working for Hannah's uncle. This time, she'd found no monsters - not a single one, all patrol - and she was taking a moment, just to sit on the swings and kick her feet, relaxing.

Tomorrow, there was to be a masquerade ball. Luna had made sure that they could get in, to investigate the chance that the D----- Kingdom and it's mysterious treasure were the Silver Crystal, and it's princess their princess. A mysterious heirloom, with mysterious powers? A princess coming of age, coming to Tokyo, now?

The odds were good, weren't they?

And she needed the Silver Crystal. Needed to find it, and their princess, and keep them safe, and bring about a miracle, because Himeko needed one.

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
Michiru didn't routinely go on patrol by herself, especially not now that Uranus had awakened. They really were best as a tag team. But tonight, she just had this impulse to go walking around Pikarigaoaka. It felt important, and she'd learned to listen to those intuitions. It wasn't until she got to Penguin park, and saw Sailor Moon sitting on the swing that she understood just why she'd stepped out of the house.

Sitting there like that, Usagi looked every bit the girl she was, even though she was in her henshin. It's simply impossible to look tough when dangling one's feet from a swing.

Neptune quietly approaches from directly behind the blonde, doing her level best to be quiet, and then when she's just a couple meters away, she calls out. "Slow night?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Neptune's presence wasn't sensed at all - Sailor Moon had no special detection abilities, no sixth sense for newcomers, nothing like that. One moment, she was alone. The next - a voice, calling to her. A familiar one, never mind that they had only met twice.

Usagi lifted her head, meeting Neptune's eyes, and she couldn't help the frown that twitched into being on her face, the impulse to skirt her eyes away.

"Yep," she said, "Quiet night, no monsters so far. Are you here to tell me I'm wrong, like Uranus?"

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
Michiru laughs lightly, and then steps around to sit down on the swing next to Usagi. "She sure is stubborn, isn't she?"

She pushes her legs and sets the swing move along a very short arc. "I've been thinking about something you said," she says quietly. "You said we won't save the world by killing girls your age."

She lets that sit there for a moment, and then finally looks aside at Sailor Moon, "You're not wrong about that."

Of course, that does leave a question as to what she _is_ wrong about.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
It's not what Usagi was expecting. Not the laugh, and especially not the comment, the idea that anything she said had struck a chord with one of the Outer Senshi. Her frown deepens, her obvious confusion showing.

"I know I'm not wrong about that," she says, slowly, "But why don't you tell me why you think I'm not wrong about that?"

Because it can't be this easy.

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
"I said what I said, then, but I've not been able to stop thinking about what you said," Neptune explains. She looks up at the sky, it's hard to see much because of all the light pollution, but the moon is out, waxing crescent, shining down on the park. She looks at it and sighs. "And thinking about how I want to do things _differently_ this time."

She stops her swing from moving and then turns to look at Sailor Moon again. "We Outer Senshi were meant to protect the Silver Millenium against threats from outside the solar system. The Inner Senshi were mant to protect against threats from inside. The fact of the matter is, we three are weapons to be aimed at threats that are frankly much worse than Sunbreaker."

She looks back up at the moon and starts to rock in her seat again. "I've seen the end of the world, and she's not the one raining destruction down on everything."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"You're not weapons at all!" This is almost certainly not the point that Sailor Moon should be latching onto right now. It's the point she's latching onto anyway, twisting on her swing to scowl at Neptune. "You're not weapons, and this isn't Silver Millennium, this is Tokyo, on Earth. Maybe instead of running off half-cocked and sure that you know what mistakes we made last time, you should get used to that?"

It's meaner than she intended, harsh, but she doesn't soften her tone, not yet. This is not quite the same girl that Neptune met in the cafeteria.

"I get this feeling, and maybe I'm wrong, but it's like you all are looking down on me, and the Inner Senshi. Uranus told me she blames us, kinda, for what happened. For the world ending. Is that how you feel too? Is that why you're so determined to keep things the same, us in our place, doing our thing, and you in yours? Because - I don't know if this is really about Sunbreaker. I think this is about us."

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
"Of course we're weapons, Usagi. We're _senshi_," Neptune says, simply, looking aside at Sailor Moon. "And you're right, this _isn't_ the Silver Millenium. The threats are all here and we _don't_ have Queen Serenity. We _don't_ have the Silver Crystal. There is so much we don't have, that we had then when we failed."

"But we're doing things differently already. But one thing that's not different is that Uranus, Pluto, and I were given the strength and ability to fight the kinds of threats that actually _are_ leading to the apocalypse I've seen. So, especially if there's more girls your age running around trying their hands at villainy, it's probably kinder to them if they run into you and the other senshi than if they run into us," she says.

She turns her eyes back up to the moon again. "You were right to stop Pluto, Sailor Moon. I see that now. I think Pluto sees that now. Uranus will see it eventually."

There's a pause.

"In the meantime, we won't kill anybody but youma. But if you want to be kinder to those villains like Sunbreaker, you'd best keep them off our radar, because a fight with us will end poorly for them."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
That's stupid, Michiru.

It's a the tip of her tongue, ready to boil over, no -san, no polite acknowledgement of Michiru's position as her elder, all passionate frustration - but the words never fall from her lips. She sucks in a breath, shuts her eyes against tears whose origin she doesn't understand. Sure, she's a crier when she's mad, sad, happy, scared, surprised, any emotion under the sun, but she's not yet that mad, that sad, that - that anything. And yet, she has to squeeze her eyes shut to seal away the wetness, before it can undermine her.

"Maybe we'd have the Silver Crystal, if you helped us look, instead of running off to fight mysterious apocalypses we don't know anything about."

Her eyes, still closed, squeeze and scrunch, one more time before she opens them again, still shining but not set to overflow. Maybe it was the thought of the queen, whose name she hadn't known before now, lost to them, and the daughter they were still looking for, who would not see her again. Maybe it's frustration, that walls are still put up, that she's still not understood. Metal clink where her gloved hand squeezes the swing's chain.

"Being senshi doesn't make us weapons. It makes us people with power and responsibilities. Weapons are like, tools in someone else's hands. We are people who make choices. Choices like - killing, or not killing."

She swallows. A part of her is validated, that Sailor Neptune believes she was right. A part of her is frustrated to even feel that way, because she knows she's right.

"We all have power. You and Uranus and Pluto - maybe you had a different responsibility back then, but we're all powerful. It's not like you're too strong to be fighting people like Sunbreaker. If anything -" and she cuts herself off, shaking her head. Not the point. "You're still looking down on us. You're still thinking you're stronger, aren't you? But fine. That's fine. I will do that. If all you can think to do with your power is kill people, I don't want you to fight with me."

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
Neptune sets her swing back into motion, looks up at the moon and is just silent for a few moments while she thinks. Finally she sighs, and then says, "I think you misunderstood me, Usagi-chan. I said we're not going to kill people, but the attacks we have are big and destructive. Maybe we're not weapons, but the only _weapons_ we have in our arsenal are the big ones. That's why I'm saying it's better if we're not fighting the villainous girls our age. Because there's no such thing as a delicate Deep Submerge or a subtle World Shaking."

Her feet stick to the ground and stop her, and then she rises up out of her swing. Holding onto the chain with one hand, she turns so she's facing Sailor Moon. "I can't speak for the others, but I don't look down on you. I think you're doing the best with the knowledge you have, and I think you're doing a good job."

She takes a breath and lets it out. "We may not be weapons, but we are _senshi_, and we need to be strategic. It's okay for us to be pursuing different priorities. You'll find the Silver Crystal, I'm sure, and if we come across any leads, we're not going to just ignore them. But there _are_ other things that need paying attention to as well. That's why we're here."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Maybe she is misunderstanding her. Maybe she's frustrated, that things are not simple, that this one thing could not be simple, that even blistered and burned she had to turn her back to Sunbreaker to stand against the people who should have been her allies, because their priorities were abhorrent to her. Maybe she resents the Outer Senshi, for that, just a bit. A part of her wants to trust them, to trust Michiru now, to welcome her with open arms and make this right - and another part of her remembers those judging eyes, the silence which spoke volumes in the face of Pluto's screams, Uranus' anger.

That part of her wants to snap, wants to snarl that her tiara slices enemies in half, that she's had to spend weeks learning control because her default state was to expend so much power that Inai-sensei feared her clashes would break the barrier that let them train unnoticed. That part of her wants to say none of the Senshi have delicate weapons because all of them who had offensive powers that could terribly destructive if they let themselves get out of hand. That part of her, frustrated and seething over the Outers, and Minako-chan, and Rei-chan, and realities that refused to let anything be simple, wants to live down to the worst of her gamer instincts and say that Neptune and Uranus and Pluto needed to get good and learn control too.

She swallows that.

It's not helpful, not nice. It was making assumptions and looking down on the Outers, the same way she hated feeling looked down upon. They were her feelings, but they didn't need to be said.

"Thank you." Because Michiru is trying. Is offering the olive branch. Is stretching out her hand. "We're all doing our best with all of this."

A slow and steady breath, because she had let too much go unsaid, had not responded enough, had - "Did Pluto tell you about the Midnight Tokyo Project? Did she tell you about Obsidian trying to merge our world with the Dusk Zone? That's what I'm paying attention to. That, and the youkai popping up all over the city, and the guns that shoot out souls that keep popping up, and the Silver Crystal and our missing princess. If there's something else going on, that needs paying attention to, I want to know. Because maybe we can have different priorities, but - I'd love to know what you're doing."

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
Neptune doesn't miss that slow and steady breath, that _control_. Sailor Moon wears her heart right there on her sleeve, and so it's easy to see the feelings well up. But Neptune recognizes the effort by just letting the whole situation deescalate.

"She did mention the Midnight Tokyo Project. It is absolutely horrifying to think about," Neptune says, a frown on her face. "So are those guns. Obsidian really is a terrifying opponent to be facing, with all of the resources at its disposal," she says. As if she and Pluto aren't both ridiculously wealthy themselves.

She shakes her head then. "A lot of what I'm doing is feeling the currents and eddies of magic, to sense the threats before they get here, so that we can be better prepared," she says. "Uranus is still getting her bearings, and Pluto, well, she's doing what she's always done, except for now she's not tied down to the gates."

She lets go of the chain then and glances around the playground before looking back to Sailor Moon. "I won't keep you in the dark, Usagi-chan. I promise."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
So they do know, about the Midnight Tokyo Project. And they do know about the guns. But they haven't helped... because they haved other concerns. Like letting Uranus get up to speed, what, easier? And tracking down threats that aren't here instead of handling the ones that were.

The part of Usagi that had been envious and jealous and a little mad, after Cure Wukong mentioned not being used to the experiences had had to get used to fast flares up again, just thinking about it. The Outer Senshi as a three person team, working together, understanding each other, helping each other figure out how all of it worked and getting to avoid getting their hands dirty in the real fight, because they could leave Usagi and her team and everyone else to do it while they looked for threats yet to come.

Usagi had fought monster after monster after monster her first week, never knowing if she would have help, because she was alone except for Luna. And Uranus was getting her bearings. Uranus was getting her bearings and thought Usagi was -

"Well, I'm glad the three of you have each other to do that with," she says, bright, cheerful, smiling as warmly as she could when her insides burned.

"If you could let Pluto-san know I want to talk to her, that would be great. I want to see if she has anything on that translation with the Midnight Tokyo Project."

And then she stood herself, ready to head in the opposite direction. "Thanks, Michiru-san. I appreciate that. Good talk?"

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
Neptune feels the tension woven into those words. She doesn't say anything, because Usagi doesn't say anything, but it's there. She wishes it weren't, but what can she do?

She smiles and nods.

"I'll be sure to. I know that the Midnight Tokyo Project has been a priority for our research. It's not as simple as a youma we can go out and fight, right?" She pauses, then and looks at Sailor Moon and dips her head. "Good talk. I'll see you around, Usagi-chan."

Then she turns and heads off back the way she came.