Pluto teleported back to her home. “I’ve got good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?”
Uranus sighed. “Might as well be the good news.”
“The good news is that the princess has marked the date of the ‘accident’ on her calendar, so I can use the Time Gates to examine all of the major accidents that are set to occur that day and see if any of them involve a Hotaru—that way, we don’t have to go through this entire pile.”
“And the bad news?” asked Neptune.
“The accident’s in less than two weeks, and we don’t yet have a plan to keep the Princess away from it.”
Uranus groaned. “Are you sure we can’t just force her to stay away? She may be strong, but to be stronger than the three of us combined…”
“That’s just it—she may very well be more powerful than all of her Senshi combined, with the possible exception of Saturn—and I’m not even entirely sure about that. Among other things, it would explain why she thinks we need to improve before we can adequately assist her. But as I’ve said before, I also have grave questions about her mental health, and power mixed with mental instability is rarely a good combination. And even if we could force her, we don’t yet know which accident we need to protect her from—in a country the size of Japan, hundreds of accidents happen every day.”
“In other words, we’re looking for a needle in a slightly smaller haystack.”
“At the moment, yes. I can start scanning the Time Gates now, but thanks to the principles of chaos theory, the details of a particular day probably won’t start clearing up until about a week before, so unless the ‘accident’ is severe enough to make the 5 o’clock news, I probably won’t be able to get any useful information.”
“Then you might as well help us go through these stacks,” replied Neptune. “There’s no sense in wasting effort on a search that’s not likely to be fruitful.”
“That is precisely what I was thinking.” Pluto sat down and began glancing over the bio of Hotaru Tanaka, a teenager living in Osaka.
Usagi didn’t wake up quite as early as she had the last few days; the dream her Senshi had prepared for her was the kind that one doesn’t usually like to wake up from. Still, she did wake up at a reasonable time, and when she had her breakfast, her parents noticed her improved mood (bringing relief to Ikuko, who was, nonetheless, going to keep reading up on teenage depression—one can never be too careful when the wellbeing of one’s child is at stake).
She was in much better spirits as she walked to school, though she was still concerned. She had eleven days until the accident, but she had little idea about how to go about stopping it, or even rescuing Hotaru from it. It wasn’t as though she could just walk up to the Tomoe home and tell them what was going on; none of them would have any reason to believe the ramblings of a fourteen-year-old girl that none of them knew.
She continued thinking as she approached her school. Perhaps I can do it the way Chibi-Usa did—I can try and become Hotaru’s friend… After all, she wasn’t that much older than Hotaru, so it probably wouldn’t be that strange….
But then, she didn’t know what Hotaru’s personal habits were like before the accident; but then, that problem was easily solved. She checked her watch—there wasn’t much time, but it would be enough to get the information she wanted. She ducked into an alley, took out her compact, and concentrated on Saturn’s Star Seed.
Saturn appeared, still in the form she had as Mistress Nine. However, before Usagi could ask her about her personal habits, the “ghost” stopped her. “Usagi, before you say anything, Pluto thinks you should know that her younger self is capable of monitoring your half of the conversations we have, so you’d better be careful when you speak out loud.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“You’ve already talked to her about Sailor Saturn, but you apparently forgot that the other Outers weren’t on friendly terms with me until after Pharaoh 90—before that, they wanted to kill me, because they thought I was a menace.”
“Oh yeah… that’s right…”
“And considering how paranoid Setsuna was acting during your first conversation, it’s a safe bet that she has been monitoring your conversations. Pluto thinks you may have already inadvertently given her enough clues for her to figure out Saturn’s identity.”
“Oh no! What should I do?”
“First off, calm down. Based on the information you might have given Setsuna, Pluto thinks it will be a while before she discovers Hotaru. You just have to use your head, and remember that you’ve got a paranoid Time Guardian looking over your shoulder.”
“But how am I supposed to…” Usagi trailed off, not sure how to finish her sentence in a way that would be properly ambiguous.
Fortunately, Saturn understood her meaning. “You should be able to learn to communicate with us telepathically; Setsuna won’t be able to monitor our conversations that way. But there’s not enough time for you to learn that now—you have to get to school.”
Usagi nodded reluctantly.
“Talk to Mars when you get home from school—this sort of thing is her milieu. Once you’ve got that down, you can ask me your questions.”
Usagi nodded again as she returned her compact to its place and hurried off to school.
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(Posted Tue, 28 Mar 2006 01:58)
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