Sailor Pluto stared at the Time Gates in puzzlement. Sure, everything seemed to be going fine: Sailor Mars had awoken, Sailors Mercury and Jupiter were on course to follow suit, and Sailor Venus would be arriving back in Japan soon. Neptune was due to awaken in a few months, and naturally, Uranus would follow soon after. Endymion was dealing with his personal problems. Saturn… well, she was still looking for Saturn.
As for the Princess… well, she was easy to find. The light show from a few nights back had been centered on her location, after all. She was glad, of course, to see that Serenity the Younger had made the transition to this time period—but she’d never expected her to be so skilled… in fact, she seemed to have more skills than her previous incarnation had ever had. In fact, if she didn’t know better, she’d say the girl had somehow developed Senshi abilities—except what she could do seemed to go far beyond that level. On top of that, her foreknowledge seemed uncanny for someone who neither had training to use something like the Rei’s Great Fire, nor had access to the Time Gates. And then there was her disturbing tendency to take what appeared to be jewels out of a subspace pocket and start talking to herself… though she didn’t really seem to be talking to herself, as she only spoke half of the conversation, as though someone else was there. Is she really talking to someone, or is she just schizophrenic?
Of course, Pluto would have been troubled even without the Princess’ mysterious behavior. Even though she’d scoured the timeline and found no trace of anything unusual, she just couldn’t shake the feeling that something had happened. Something important. She tried to brush it off as a simple forking in the chronology (and the oddity of the Princess’ behavior would probably support that), but those happened all the time—this felt like something… bigger…
Ugh. Maybe I’m just getting paranoid. After all, when one is accustomed to being nigh-omniscient, any sort of confusion is unsettling. But somehow, she knew there was something more here. And as she looked over the recent events in Usagi Tsukino’s life, she saw something that left her totally convinced that things were out of whack.
Why is she crying herself to sleep every night? Once or twice wouldn’t have been a big deal, but this was the third night in a row! Somehow, she just knew that this was definitive proof of her suspicions—even if she wasn’t quite sure what it was that she suspected. Usagi Tsukino had no reason to cry herself to sleep every night and wake up every morning from obviously troubled dreams—and Pluto hadn’t a clue why.
But she needed to know.
And there was only one way to find out.
Usagi woke up early… again. Her parents weren’t quite sure what to make of this. Sure, it could be a sign that she was finally maturing… but her overall mood abruptly changed at the same time, and that had them concerned. Sure, their daughter tried to continue acting like the bubbly, happy-go-lucky girl they knew, but they could also tell that it was an act. In fact, Ikuko was starting to get nervous—hadn’t she read somewhere that sudden changes in sleep patterns could be a sign of clinical depression?
If Usagi noticed her parent’s concern, she didn’t give any indication. She quickly ate her breakfast and headed off to school. She sighed to herself as she contemplated her predicament. “How am I going to get through this all by myself? Sure, I’ve got nine ghosts of my friends, but it’s just not the same…”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem for very long…” Usagi started at that… she was pretty sure that was Setsuna’s voice, albeit with an unusually playful tone—but why wouldn’t the ghost of the Time Guardian show herself? It wasn’t as though there was anyone arou—
“Excuse me.”
Usagi was jolted from her thoughts by the voice behind her. She turned and saw a green haired woman in a seifuku holding a large key; such was her surprise that without thinking, she blurted out, “Pluto?!”
“So you are the Princess.”
“How… how did you find me?”
“Not here… someone might find us—and we have some sensitive things to discuss.”
“The Time Gates?”
“Exactly.”
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(Posted Sun, 19 Mar 2006 18:44)
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