Scene #758: Planety Revelations

Owner	Pose
Usagi Tsukino	It's an occasion long in the making - all five of the Inner Senshi, awakened at last and gathered in one place, under a single roof. Luna had, after securing permission from Rei, suggested that everyone gather at Hikawa Shrine, being that it was far more secure than a dorm room, especially once as well-visited as Usagi and Naru's. The trip had been quick - there was a bus route directly from Radiant Heart Academy to the hillside that Hikawa Shrine sat atop. It was the ''stairs'' that been the problem, Usagi dragged herself up them with much despair. "Makoto-chan, this is my least favorite part of Hikawa-shrine!" Had been said more than once. Luna, nimbly climbing the stairs without a single complaint, had scoffed. "That's because you hate exercise, Usagi-chan." But they'd made it - and gathetred together, and Usagi was sat at the table, holding the Moon Stick in her hand, showing it to her friends. "Luna said this is mine because I'm the leader," she explains, "And she promised that she'd give us some answers about - well, us, and more about being Senshi."
Rei Hino	Rei was waiting at the top of the stairs for the other girls, and makes no effort to help any of them up. Why would she? They're ''stairs''. She does call out to Usagi, "Just think about how great your legs will look for your boyfriend!" much more loudly than she needs to, and then grins evily. She turns and makes her way towards her room once her guests are close enough to the top of the stairs, to escape any strangulation attempts from Usagi. Seated around, she makes sure everyone is offered tea, and then kneels by the table that is frequently used for studying, impromptu lunch dates, and Senshi Business. She looks at the Moon Stick, and makes a noncommital 'hm.' noise. Will she get a Mars Stick if she spends some time at the arcade? She has no idea how to videogames. "I'm glad to have the chance to get to know you better, Makoto-chan. We didn't have much time to talk at the ball." she says teasingly. The memory of seeing Sailor Moon get dragged along the wall like a toy by the possessed Princess Dia drifts back up from the dark parts of her mind, and she feels guilty again for not being able to help. She looks down at her tea while she gathers her thoughts.
Minako Aino	Minako herself hadn't been at the ball, strange as that might seem...but such was the nature of being Sailor V...when she wasn't also being Sailor Venus anyway! "Is that why your legs look so good Rei-chan?" a voice calls back, Minako herself apparently having arrived moments behind the pair and happily striding her way up the stairs. How dare she be this chipper! Drawing after the shrine maiden the non-bunny blonde sits herself down, happily accepting of any tea to be had.
Makoto Kino	Makoto made sure to greet the other girls with a rather unnecessarily formal bow on their arrival at the top of the stairs, before settling in around the table. Her smile in answer to the teasing is a rueful one. "That's an understatement. It's nice to finally meet you all properly, without all the chaos." She curls both hands around a cup of tea and looks curiously at the moon stick that Usagi shows to them. "Well," she says slowly, "whatever you have to tell us, Luna, I'm listening."
Usagi Tsukino	"My boyfriend loves my legs!" That's what Usagi had shouted while she was on the stairs. Sitting at the table now, she tries to project calm and serenity, instead of pouting and tackling her friend and trying to tickle her mercilessly. She sets the Moon Stick down, using her teacup instead, twisting it around in her hands, this way and that. "I am sure that you have all had questions," Luna says, and she sits on the table, with the audacity that only a cat has, and the acknowledgement that at least being on the table makes her somewhat closer to everyone else's height. "Questions about why you were chosen to be Senshi, about the enemies you've face... and I am sorry to have withheld it from all of you." She looks around the table at the five girls gathered, from Usagi to Rei to Ami to Minako and finally Makoto, the last of them to be found, the missing piece of their whole who had awakened in the most bombastic of fashions. "I have told you all about our mission - to find both the Silver Crystal and our Princess. I haven't told you - why, we have to find them, but all of this is connected, and... I didn't tell you, because it's hard to discuss. I didn't want you all to... not believe me. I apologize, now, for my secret keeping, but with all of us together, I trulyu can't justify keeping it all in. Some of this you may have heard from others. Some, you may have remembered. If that's the case... I hope you won't mind hearing it again." Usagi leans forward, hands still grasping her teacup, focused on Luna more than anyone else. She's been arguing with Luna about this for days, trying to get more out of her... "A long time ago - fourteen thousand, one hundred and fourteen years ago, if we were to be near as precise as Sailor Pluto might manage - there were two kingdoms. Ours... and theirs. And ours was known as Silver Millennium, for our Queen Serenity had ruled for many, many years, and created an era of peace that was all that many citizens had ever known. Silver Millennium governed every planet and body in this system, now known as Sol, by the humans of this time - every planet, save one. The Earth alone was not a part of Silver Millennium. In that era all of you - all of the people you had been - were guardians then, too. Guardians of our Princess, Serenity."
Rei Hino	Rei just gives Minako a mysterious smile in return regarding the legs comment, and a 'of course he does' smile to Usagi for hers, and does not comment on Makoto's legs because dang Makoto has legs for days. Rei remains quiet once everyone has settled in. She shows Luna the respect she deserves by looking her in the eye during this, and not looking around the room, to see everyone else's reactions. Earth wasn't part of this Silver Millennium? She was born on Earth. It's her home planet. The only one she has ever known. It's... Strange to think that she was... Well... "Were we... Aliens then? Are we..." She looks around at everyone despite having decided not to. "...Were our past selves even human?" Not the most pressing part of that story, but... If it turns out that she isn't entirely human... Like the things that she fights... That ''they'' fight? Well, her sense of identity is already pretty scattered as a teenage girl who found out she had magic powers just a few months ago -- what feels like a lifetime ago. Now there's past lives, and not being from Earth, and... Rei rubs her forehead and tries to adjust. Be the perfect Rei. The shrine maiden who is always kind, and so strong, and always smiles. The one that people around her see. Not her friends... But everyone else. The ones who don't know her true self. "That must have been a difficult secret to keep, Luna. I can see why you had to be careful. We face enemies who can control minds and possess people. If they found out both our real identities and our connection we have to Silver Millennium... They could use our families or friends for their aims." She looks at the Moon Stick. "Like for information about the Silver Crystal."
Makoto Kino	"Fourteen thousand years..." Makoto's voice is a murmur. "It's hard to imagine." Some days, even high school feels like a world away. The scale of time Luna has explained to them seems almost impossibly abstracted from Mako's point of view, difficult to wrap her brain around in any concrete sense. "...What does that mean for us now?" she wonders, after contemplating it for a moment. "We're here, as Sailor Senshi... and we're not the only ones trying to find the Silver Crystal. What about the other kingdom that you mentioned? Where does that fit in?"
Minako Aino	Minako was...strangely, uncharacteristically silent as Luna offers her explainations, finding far too much interest in her tea for the moment. Of all of them, she remembered the most thanks to Artemis, remembered her death, remembered most of them falling... it was painful, haunting, even if it wasn't this life. Still eventually the cup would be empty and she offers Rei a comforting...well, lean. Her hands were far too busy holding her cup as it it was the only shield against the thought that technically she had been holding the same secret to a degree.
Usagi Tsukino	"All the planets ''except'' Earth? Luna, are you saying we're ''aliens''?" Usagi's teacup has been abandoned. Her hands are flat on the table. Her jaw is dropped. Her eyes? Enormous. She and Rei are in much the same place, their thoughts fixed on the alienness of their past lives. She'd known that she ''had'' a past life - that she had fought and died, even if she remembered next to nothing of it. What she remembered was - So much of it was softer, and sweeter, than what she had been told. But none of it had ever hinted at ''this''. Luna dips her head, looking at Rei and Usagi first, "You were... not, human, anymore than I was a simple cat. You were of the Silver Millennium and in appearance, you were... not much different from now, honestly. The people of Earth called the people of the Silver Millennium Lunarians, as Queen Serenity's seat of power was the Moon." What her memory reveals, when she looks at them - they were much the same, and she has to assume that that was on purpose, the Queen's spell acting. For it not to be such a shock, such a change, to not at some point, look in the mirror and not recognize themselves - "And it was indeed a time so far beyond ordinary comprehension, that most would go mad to think of it. Fourteen thousand years... far beyond what humanity thinks. The societies that existed then -" she goes silent, shaking her head. And Usagi is, for the moment, silent too. She is thinking of Setsuna. She is thinking of screaming for weeks and months and being the last one left alive. She is thinking of fourteen thousand years trapped. She shudders, quiet. "It was a difficult secret to keep," Luna agrees, and her ears are turned down. "But what it means for you all now is that - despite our best hopes - you have inherited the troubles of your past selves. The other kingdom - was the Golden Kingdom. We called the planet Terra, inhabited by the Terrans - by humans, in an era so far erased from history that none of this world recall it at all." She has no idea if there are ruins, if there are remnants, but given that humanity as a whole seems to believe their societies so much younger than they are - "They were not evil." This is important. It might be confusing, to the Senshi, to hear - they are human, after all, why would humanity be evil. "But they were young, the Terrans. Younger than our Silver Millennium, and less advanced. The Queen declared it forbidden, to interfere with Terra. I remember that much. We were never to visit the planet... but the people were people. Some of whom were good, and some of whom were not. Our Queen wanted to see them reach their potential... but she did not get the chance. They were young, and under our very noses, without our knowledge, they were corrupted by our enemy - Dark Kingdom, and their wretched Queen, Beryl." The name is spat with venom, with hatred. "They were our enemy. Their forces - they were Terran forces, humans roused against us and youma fighting side by side. There was evil at work, something that acted against us even more than the Terrans and they - were able to breach our defenses." She's quiet. Her voice thick with tears, forced to stop. Usagi continues. "Luna and Sailor Pluto have told me... some things. Not all of this, but - we were all killed. We - lost. There was no one left. And the Queen - she used the Silver Crystal to seal the enemy away and to make sure we would all live again." Luna nods, grateful. Her whiskers tremble, and so does the rest of her. She slumps, no longer sitting, looking very tired, and very old. "That's right. The enemy that hunts you now, and hunts for the Silver Crystal too, is the very same that struck our kingdom down then."
Rei Hino	Minako leans on Rei, and Rei does not make any effort to move away. She listens to the story, thinks on what she has seen in her visions, the few fragments of her memory, and everything that has happened since awakening to the fact that she is Sailor Mars... She leans back against Mina in turn, and when Luna slumps down, Rei reaches out a hand to just rest on the Moon Cat's back. Comfort for their guardian of secrets and lives and history. Not human, huh. "I guess that explains seeing Earth in the sky on the day I died," she mutters not entirely quietly. "It's not like I could just summon it up whenever I wanted, but... The most vivid, and possibly only, memory that stands out to me from then was being killed. In the sky, I could see the Earth." And something else. "And a giant shadow, with sharp teeth, and glowing eyes. It was..." Her mouth is dry, and Rei lifts her tea cup to her mouth, and realizes her hand is shaking as the cup clatters briefly against its saucer. She regains control and drinks enough that she can speak again. "I've felt evil. From people. From monsters. From objects sometimes. But it was... A thing they were thinking, or feeling. An act they wanted to commit. Their intent, or the inent of something else that was working through them. Like Luna says, people are people. Some are good, and some are not. And some can be both, depending on the situation." Her empty cup is put back down. She didn't even realize she drank it all. The tea pot is picked up next, to provide Minako a refill, and then Rei. "Even inhuman beings aren't all bad. Like that... Youkai cat from the other night." She shakes her head. "That shadow though?" Rei swallows and puts her free arm around Minako, because she needs more comfort as she keeps the vision of that thing in her mind, to describe it accurately. But all it comes down to is this: "That shadow was evil itself. Not an act, or thought, or some dark energy. It '''was Evil'''." She breathes out carefully, slowly, trying to keep up the front of being calm through this, and knowing she's failing. "I believe that if it wanted to corrupt someone, anyone, that person would be corrupted. Period." She can't even promise that Sailor Mars could resist, let alone simple Rei Hino. "I don't know what they want the Silver Crystal for, but we can't let them have it, no matter what."
Makoto Kino	This is all... a lot. Makoto's eyes widen slowly as Luna unfurls the full scope of the story before them; from the look on her face, it's clear she's having some trouble fully processing all of it. When Rei speaks up, what she adds brings an expression of dismay to Makoto's wide-eyed face. "I had no idea," she admits, ducking her head a little. "If the Dark Kingdom is back, and they're looking for the Silver Crystal - it's a lot more serious than I realized, that there's that video going around and everything, isn't it?"
Minako Aino	The arm around her was comforting, as comforting to her as she was hoping to be for her fellow Senshi, but Rei's words? It brought a subtle look of pain to the usually bright blonde. She remembered the fight, remembered the feeling of sinking the blade into her foe as her own life was ended...and remembered each of her fellow senshi falling. But part of her had hoped, deep down, that the others wouldn't have to carry that pain. "We'll protect the crystal and the princess, no matter what. We're together, we're stronger...and we have more friends and resources to help us. We won't let them win..."
Usagi Tsukino	"You... remember that, Rei-chan?" Usagi asks quietly, her voice hushed, her tone hurt. She aches for her friend, just ''thinking'' of her remembering such a thing. Dying. It was one thing to know, another thing to - remember. To have that image in your head, the last thing you ever saw. And she shivers, at the description of the shadow, with eyes and teeth and - evil. Something utterly horrible. "Yes. The enemy that corrupted the Earth, that lead to our ruin... Queeen Beryl was a being of pure evil, and that which strengthened her - only our Queen, with the Silver Crystal, held the hope of stopping them. And she did, for so many thousands of years -" But that protection has faltered now. Not failed - not entirely, not when the Earth itself has not risen up in support of that great evil, but it has faltered. "It is a very, very bad thing, that the Silver Crystal is so well known. We have been fortunate - many are capitalizing on it as a fad, or trend, something to market items, and that has kept the world as a whole from searching frantically for it, but -" "The video was a mistake," Usagi says quietly. "It wasn't supposed to be shared. It was just supposed to be a stopgap, but now that it's out, we have - it's not all bad. Instead of the five of us looking for the Silver Crystal, there's all kinds of people looking and sharing and most of it's hoaxes, sure, but that means our enemy has to dig through all those fake leads too." She's not going to say it could be worse. But. "The Dark Kingdom is ''scary'', but Minako-chan's right. We have more friends, and we have resources, and we - we're going to find crystal and the princess and defeat them for good, this time."
Rei Hino	Rei's hand unconsciously drifts to her chest, right over her heart, as she thinks about that memory. "Yes. Someone I loved. Possessed by that same evil. I remember looking up at him and not understanding why or what was happening. How he could be with..." The Enemy. She knows his face. But for some reason she can't recognize it. It's... The same way that a henshin works, she guesses. Her mind just can't recognize someone she knows, even while looking at them. ''I wonder if that means that who he was at the end was already a transformation from who he was when I loved him.'' She sighs deeply. She can't remember much else. To only know someone you love betrayed and killed you, to know you loved them but not why or any good memories that would justify those feelings, or the resulting hurt... "At least I can't feel it. It was someone else. A different girl. A different Sailor Mars. Soul or not, I am not her. And it won't end the same way again." She is certain about that. And the determination is in her voice and on her face. She believes in her friends and her allies. But Makoto brings up something that stirs a memory. "Usagi, have you told Luna yet? About what happened on Halloween?" Why bring that up now, one might wonder. She looks at Makoto. "We might have found our Princess already."
Makoto Kino	Makoto can't help but wince a little in unconscious sympathy at Rei's words. Remembering her death - that would have to be bad enough. But for it to have involved someone she loved, lost to the same evil that now hangs over them? "That sounds awful, Rei-chan," she says softly. "I'm sorry." It's probably for the best that Rei soon diverts the topic. Mako sits up a little straighter, brows lifting, and looks between Rei and Usagi. "Really? What happened on Halloween?" Clearly she's not heard about this either.
Minako Aino	Minako's eyes close as they speak, the memory of the shadow shared but Rei's speaking of betrayal and love lost was...something else. Her hand moved, a comforting squeeze of the other girl's hand given before nodding her head. "Our lives now are our lives. Usagi," she begins, pointing her other hand to each of them in turn. "Ami, Matoko, Rei...Minako. We were them, us, the lives past, but this life is ours now and this world is our home to protect together." Talk of Halloween has her shifting, turning her gaze back to Usagi.
Usagi Tsukino	"That's right... this is our life now. No matter what happened before, or who we were before, we get to choose what happens now. We get to choose who we ''are'' now!" And then Rei throws her under the bus that little bit, by bringing up an important topic. Thanks, Rei-chan. Luna's ears prick at the mention of finding the princess. She stares at Usagi just as much as Makoto does, and Usagi winces. "I said... something. A bit. But. I mean! What happened was... really.. full of ghost stuff?" She sighs. Luna's ears prick. "Are you speaking of Himeko Soryuu?" Wait, what? "Luna - did you have a reason to suspect Himeko-chan?" Hey, hey, wait - "I was once informed that a ghost had a dream about the Silver Crystal, and the need to awaken the Princess. As Himeko Soryuu is the only ghost in our acquaintance I suspected this must refer to her, but I hadn't considered the idea that she could be the princess... and you have not spoken much on the subject of Halloween, Usagi." Informed? By who?! But - but Rei's already put her in the hot seat, so she sighs and spreads her hands. "I really didn't get all of it, but Himeko-chan is a ghost, and she died like a - centuries ago. Like, the warring states period a long time ago." The fifteenth and sixteenth century. "On Halloween... her Mama tried to do... something? To her. And she refused her, and she - transformed. She was beautiful, and had a golden wind, and she's told me before, that there's a princess of light maybe trapped in her shrine, and I've wanted to check it out, but, Himeko-chan is... apparently... sort of... trying to become a god of death? Or, a part of her is, it's ghost stuff, and I know we have to follow every lead, and we'll check it out no matter what, but I didn't want to say she could be the princess without looking into it first, and I... would our priness be born without us?" Her voice is soft with hesitation and guilt. She really should have brought it up sooner.
Makoto Kino	"Okay," Makoto puts in a little plaintively, "all I really understood out of that was 'ghost stuff'. Would our princess be a ghost? Wouldn't that, you know... also be a pretty big problem?"
Rei Hino	Rei considers the objections. She doesn't want to argue a point she's not sure of, and potentially send them in the wrong direction. She didn't know about the warring states thing either. She honestly thought that Himeko was Darien's -- or Mamoru's -- little sister, who died under tragic circumstances. Thus... The desire to bring her back. "I don't know about any of that." she admits. "I only know that we've reincarnated once already. Isn't it possible it may have been more than once? That something happened to her early, before she was ready to awaken, and so she has been a ghost all this time... Waiting for us to be reborn again and awakened, to save her? Perhaps even..." She closes her eyes, thinking about the Soryuu. "Perhaps evenm hiding part of herself away, so that even if evil found her, it wouldn't find her true self... Or the crystal." She squeezes Minako's hand back. Then Rei opens her eyes. "She had... Something. A golden light. I could feel it inside of myself. It was familiar in a way, but also alien. ...Maybe a poor choice of words given that we were apparently aliens in a past life. Again, I..." She runs a hand through her hair and sighs. "I don't want to send us on a wild ghost chase. But she had something tremendously powerful inside of her, something she could control to some degree, and it was renewing, and healing, and restorative, and I felt like ''I'' was healed, and I was just standing nearby. I've felt more whole, the pain of that final memory... I could never fully feel it, but it no longer has a hold on me anymore. I'm content to let that past be the past, and not worry about if I could have done something differently." The shrine priestess shakes her head. "I'm sorry, I'm not making sense." She takes in a breath and lets it out slowly. "If Himeko Soryuu isn't ''our'' Princess, then she is ''somebody else's'', and she has something powerful in her possession. Something that gave me hope even in a bleak situation. Something that made believe miracles could actually happen." Then she smiles at Usagi. "Like you do, Usagi." Then she looks towards Luna. "She knows about things she shouldn't if she's uninvolved, and she's trying to help us achieve our goals." She directs her eyes to Makoto and says. "If our past selves failed fourteen-thousand years ago, and some evil stopped us from being with our princess centuries ago when we got another chance... This might be the last miracle that Queen Serenity could give us. A final chance to save her, here and now, before what ever evil ended her life can take her beyond our reach again. And if she's not the Princess she advised us to find, and that is wholly possible... I feel that the Enemy having her would be just as bad or close to it as them having the Silver Crystal. We don't need that awful Shadow to be able to heal its wounds with the power that Himeko possesses."
Minako Aino	"You're right," Minako nods, looking to Rei. "Even if it's not our princess, our power or our kingdom, we can't allow any power like that to end up in the hands of the Dark Kingdom..." Talk of miracles and things denied brings another nod and a smile. "A chance to be with our princess...to be together as we are and have what out past selves couldn't? That alone is worth fighting for."
Usagi Tsukino	"Ghost stuff is the main thing I understand too," Usagi says, and reaches out, catches Makoto's hand, "I'll tell you all the details I know, soon, I promise, but - ultimately, Hematite's looking for the crystal because his little sister, Himeko-chan, is a ghost. We're both hoping that with it's power she could... she could come back to life." Cough. "And Rei-chan's not ''wrong''. We don't really... know for sure that this is our second time around, and not our... third, or our fourth or -" she shudders at the thought. "And either way, we definitely can't not look into it - at least, some of us. There's a lot going on, between all the threats that are happening, so - there's a lot of things to ''do''. A lot to look into. Some of us could keep looking into Himeko, and some of us could keep hunting for the crystal, and all of us keep our eyes open, to look for our Princess, and the Phantom Silver Crystal. Whether it's Himeko-chan or not - I'll try to help her. She's important to me." And because they don't want whatever power Himeko has to be taken, either. Luna dips her head. "I agree with Usagi. There are many things you are all looking out for... and I've shared what I know, now. I will hide nothing else, from here. This was - the last, major secret. Your origin story, as it were."
Rei Hino	Rei nods. "I agree. We can't let the Dark Kingdom succeed. And... We won't lose anyone this time. We're ready."
Makoto Kino	Makoto gives Usagi's hand a little squeeze and she nods. "It's okay," she promises. "I don't have to understand ''everything'', anyway. If it turns out this Himeko-chan is the princess, then we'll deal with it... and even if she's not, she's important to you. That's enough of a reason." She looks down into her cup of tea, takes a deep breath, and sets the cup down on the table. "Anyway, we know what to look out for... and now I know a little more about why. So, thanks, Luna, for sharing everything." Her eyes skim around the table, resting briefly on each of the others. "I won't let you all down."