Usagi Quest (CK3/Princess Maker) (Sailor Moon)

There will come a time when you fully appreciate this poem. In the moment, admittedly, you don't understand all of what was just said. But as you admit that to those around you, to the dear friend who was your very own knight before you even knew you needed her, and to the foreign knight of a different sort of queen, they look at each other. And they work together to translate it for you. And you have seldom felt more understood than you do as you come to realize what that American poet, herself over forty years dead, had to say about things like this.

The three of you share a very few tears, before you and Minako finally make your way back to the Crystal Millennium building to continue your day.

Because there's so much for you to do-

Makoto insisted, absolutely insisted, on there being a reasonable variety of places in the Crystal Millennium building where someone could sit down in a comfortable chair and nurse a mug of hot chocolate. Including a pair of admittedly very small lounge spaces that have locks on the doors, to which only Senshi have keys.

You absolutely agreed, of course, for obvious reasons. But you're still grateful to her for bringing it up. This isn't the first time you've appreciated the fact that the little lounges are there. But it may be the time you've appreciated it most, in the weeks since the furniture finished showing up.

You allow yourself a few minutes. A few. You need them.

The cat flap in the lounge door clicks loudly as- you glance to be sure- Luna levitates it open, pads through, and drops it shut behind her. The locks aren't meant to keep her and Artemis out, after all.

"Oh, hi, Luna!" You wave, feeling a bit more cheerful for the sight of her. She wasn't at the house when you first woke up, and in the whirl Minako's kept you in since you came to Crystal Millennium, you hadn't seen her until now.

"Good afternoon, Usagi. It's good to see that you're up." Luna's words are just a little clipped. She only talks like that when she's really upset. Not that you blame her.

You wince. "I'm sorry."

She gives you a quick, almost dismissive nod, then takes a deep breath and sighs. She shivers for a moment, then crosses the room and hops up into your lap.

From her new seat, she twists to look up at you. "You're forgiven. But until I know that you are really sorry, you're going to have to deal with me sitting in your lap. You're not disappearing on me again!"

You know what? You can handle that. You absolutely deserve this punishment. You idly spend a minute or so petting Luna, just reminding her that you're here now, and that everything is alright.

You're near the end of your hot chocolate, and you set down the mug on the table beside the cushioned chair, turning to look at Minako. "So, that's… pretty much everything that happened in Choshi City, right?"

Minako nods, then stops. "Well, there WAS one more thing. Because Rei woke me up in the middle of the night, see-"

"No, you covered that. The hammer youma."

"Oh, right, yeah, I mentioned that. Sorry. Then I think that's everything."

"Okay. So… how did things go on Tuesday?"

Minako huffs, crossing her arms. "You know that you are way too busy, right?"

You wince. This is getting embarrassing. "You… aren't the first person to complain about that today." You sigh.

"And I won't be the last, because pretty soon I'm actually going to tell Rei and Ami you're back and then throw you to them." Your first reaction, wait, they don't know yet?, is largely forgotten under the sheer force of the stare Minako fixes on you as she continues. "Listen, either you need to slow down your schedule, or you need to not go scaring us like that. We barely managed to cover for you for a day, Usagi. We might have been able to keep it up for a while longer between us, especially if we figure out how to get Haruka and Michiru back from their little one-way jaunt to the Middle East-"

"What?"

"They're fine, they just accidentally ended up on the wrong end of the continent. I checked in with them earlier. Anyway." And once again, Minako holds you with that crackling blue stare, that weight of I was there, you weren't that she so rarely brings to bear and that you still don't have any real answer to. "Anyway. The next time you go barging into the afterlife and challenging the spirits of death to Irish stand-down or whatever happened, you either back off or you take whatever knocked you out this time and you kick its ass. Because we need you. You hear me?" She slaps her hand into her cupped palm. "You're our princess and we need you!"

Your friend, your near-sister, your near-twin in some ways, stares at you a moment longer, leaning forward in her chair, impassioned and angry and at least a little hurt. You look down, embarrassed.

"I'm sorry."

"I know whatever you did, you did your best. I know how it is." Minako shakes her head. "Anyway. Tuesday. Tuesday was kind of a mess, Usagi. We had a lot to do and we're lucky Ami's memory is as good as it is, because otherwise I'm pretty sure we'd have forgotten some of your appointments. Rei and Ami went to MCAT and then to talk to Nanoha like they planned, and they wanted it all that way, but that was about four or five things for them. And well… Somebody had to check up on the Amazons. And we kind of got the idea that might need to be the main thing somebody did that afternoon. Because. Uh. The Amazons. And Haruka and Michiru were off chasing the Knights of Oblivion, so Makoto and I went to Nerima."

Your eyes widen. "Wait… do either of you speak Chinese?"

"I can manage a little. Anyway, here's what happened."

"We went to this cafe in Nerima that they're using as kind of a… safehouse? Hideout? Something like that. There was this cool old lady. Uh… you remember the one in charge of the Amazons from the raid, Liuli? I think Cologne is her grandma or something. So we got to talking, but then this old man came in. He had people with him; I think he was doing the big guy making an entrance' thing. There was a yokai of some kind, but he stayed outside."

"What did he do?" You frown.

"Well, he seemed kind of gross. There was something wrong about him. Like he sees people like they were the furniture, or maybe like a dog or something. I didn't like him. Anyway, he started talking about throwing political weight around, apparently he's big with the Diet…"

Luna interrupts. "Fudo Kazanari."

Minako shrugs. "Yeah. I figured out it was him later. I'd never heard of him until I came back to Japan and you mentioned him, Luna. Not that that says much. Makoto had heard of him before, uh, this year, but didn't recognize him on sight. Anyway, he really was trying to weight his throws. Talking about having all the Amazons thrown out of the country. I know he's Genjuro's dad, but I don't know how he thinks he could tell Samui what to do. I don't think she'd do it. But then he talked about how he wouldn't try to do that, as long as some of the Amazons agreed to send some girls to some fancy music school. I have no idea why that's important to him. Maybe it has to do with Dr. Sakurai and the singing magic armor? I'm pretty sure he's planning something, anyway."

Luna nods from your lap. "Endymion did mention something about him having a lot of influence with MCAT, now that I think about it. And he mentioned something about Jadeite now getting involved in a music school."

Minako purses her lips. "Oh. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense." Her eyes narrow. "Do you think Jadeite's planning something new and evil? Ami didn't seem to think so, but…" She trails off.

Luna tilts her head. "No way to be sure, yet. And… Usagi? From what I've learned from your father, among other things, Fudo Kazanari is never not planning something. We'll need to keep an eye out. But you have people for that." She wiggles slightly.

You turn back to Minako. "Why didn't you mention any of this while we were doing the healing stuff? Genjuro's his son…"

She just stares back at you for a moment. "Would that have changed your mind about healing him up?"

"Well no, of course not!"

"Exactly. So, one time for one thing, I always say!"

You sigh, deciding not to make an issue of it. It worked out okay, after all. But then you remember what you were talking about. "So… what did the Amazons do?"

"Well, the other ones all looked at Cologne, and Cologne just cackled. It was awesome. I want to be her when I grow up. Well. Um. Maybe after grown-up me grows up. When I'm old enough that being wrinkly… nevermind. Anyway! The cackle! She said, uh, 'don't give orders your men won't follow.' And he got all huffy and had… well I think the yokai must have been an oni, or some kind of mutant thing, I dunno. It had the head of a bull and a body like a gorilla's and wings on its back and a long tail and the tail had a snake's head on the end. He told the oni to 'make her rethink things,' but she just squinted at the mutant oni thing and it passed out!"

"That must have been quite impressive…" Most of your mind is still on trying to piece together the creature that Mina described. It's a bit hard to put together, but you think you can see it.

But she sounds downright enthusiastic about the whole thing. "I know, right? Anyway, he said 'I see. Think about my offer. I will return.' Then, and this was the weirdest part, he turned to me and said 'Thank you for your assistance last night.' Though it was really flat, like he was thanking a piece of furniture that did him a favor."

Luna frowns. "What do you think he was thanking you for?"

Minako stares off into space and somehow you know this is how you looked when you didn't know the answer in class, all those times… but then she gives a hah! of triumph.

"I know! Maybe it was for the 「Love Crescent Shower」 rain bucket they used on Genjuro!"

"Hm. That might explain it. At the time, that was most of the healing magic that had been used on Genjuro, and I gather his injuries were… serious."

Minako nods somberly. "Very."

Luna goes on. "And even a bad man, a man without decent feeling, may at least try to thank someone who has done him a service, or his son a service. If only to make sure they're more likely to do it again if it ever comes up."

"That would explain it… Anyway. I'm pretty sure that wherever Genjuro vites his get-a-mins from, his dad must know the place, because then he grabbed the mutant oni thing by the tail and dragged it out of the cafe. And the only part that might have been crazier than Fudo Kazanari saying 'thank you' to me, I guess, was that nobody else, none of the Amazons, seemed even a little surprised by it. Not by the man, or the mutant oni thing, or Cologne just staring it all down like it was nothing. So… that's how the meeting started."

Luna sniffs. "Quite a start."

Minako shrugs. "Hey, it was Nerima, what can you do. Anyway, the rest was just… news. Cologne thanked us for Cendrellion's head-" You wince, thinking that maybe, if you'd been awake, things might have ended differently, but it's too late to change that now.

"-Which apparently they need to give to the Chinese government to get them off their back or something. Sorry, Luna, I know you explained it to me." Minako sighs.

Luna turns to look at Minako. "In fairness, I'm not sure any of us really know much more than that."

"Oh. Okay! Anyway, Cologne was so glad that when she heard about it- I think she has some kind of magic phone thing going, maybe like those rattles Onogoro made and Sir Fred stole, anyway, when Cologne heard that Liuli actually had Cendrellion's literal head, she came back in a hurry somehow. Don't know exactly. I don't think she just ran across the ocean at three hundred kilometers an hour or flew by flapping her ears, but I wouldn't put it past her. She'd been hoping to meet with you, but we explained that you were still sleeping it off and that was okay, but she wanted to give us a present and I told her we should wait until you were awake and that was okay too, but she mentioned a bunch of things and Makoto's too responsible not to take notes but I'm pretty sure I got this list right anyway."

You trust Minako, but you'll probably want to check Makoto's notes, you decide. "Okay, go ahead."

Minako chuckles to herself for a moment. "It's honestly kind of wild how much magical stuff Cologne has in her basement. Like this baby pacifier that can charge up with elemental magic, and then if whoever's biting it gets scared or taps the magic, they get a blast out the front"

You stop, resisting the urge to actually scratch your head, trying to imagine what possible use something like that might have. Would it be so a baby could protect itself? But… how could a baby possibly use something like that responsibly?

"What… who… WHY?"

"Hey, I don't know either. There were a few things I thought might be interesting, I'll run through them later. Plus, well, a whole lot of things like the pacifier, and Cologne mentioned that she'd already given MCAT something they came for earlier after one of their people asked for broken things. She gave them this little piece of singing metal she said she got from a walking talking skeleton a few hundred years ago." Minako shrugs. "Weird, but I've seen weirder, so whatever ships MCAT's floats, I guess. Anyway, aside from the interesting things, there were elemental pacifiers, telescoping battle stilts, stuff like that, there were some of those gag electric shock rings for prank handshakes, but actual weapons you could electrocute someone with. I mean, a regular someone. They don't really hurt when you're us."
Luna suddenly stiffens in your lap, popping to her feet as though she senses some dark and terrible hidden force. She hops down to the floor and swarms up onto the arm of Minako's chair, staring at her accusingly.

"And how do you know that?"

Minako pauses. "Just checking."

"Oh? And did you have any help with this checking?"

Luna's tone is positively acidic, no wait, you're pretty sure Minako would be immune if it was. Her tone is worse than that. Luna's Tell The Whole Story You Messed Up stare is a terrible, terrible thing. Silently, guiltily, you thank your lucky stars that you've managed to shape up in the past three months. Somehow, you know that if you were still as much of a goof now as when Luna first met you, she'd be hitting you with this all the time.

Minako, certainly, seems to have no defense against it.

"I… um."

"How much property damage are we talking about here?"

"Not much. No surprises for anyone."

"Ah. Good." Luna stops. "Wait. This meeting happened in Nerima."

Minako gulps. You can't bear to see her like this anymore, and you finally interrupt Luna's interrogation, smiling gently at your friend. "It's okay. We need to know what happened, but we love you anyway."

"There was… kind of a fight. It wasn't my fault, she came after me!"

Luna pauses. "Wait, who came after you?"

"Okay, so, um. Let me tell the story. Cologne had explained the items and we'd taken a break for dinner, and this cute boy came in and I think he was just trying to order something. The place is sort of still actually a restaurant I guess. And then he saw Makoto and me and he stopped to talk to Makoto, who apparently he recognized, and I think he mistook me for you wearing a different outfit but I cleared that up and we got to talking a little and it was kind of nice talking, all suited up, to someone more or less our own age who isn't a little bit afraid of me because I'm a superhero, you know? It was fun."

There's a set to Minako's smile that you haven't seen very many times before. Maybe two or three times; only once that you're sure of. It reminds you of the arcade, even if she looked a little different at the time, what with the whole 'magically disguised as a boy' thing. You let her go on.

"...And, uh, okay, so apparently Liuli's daughter Shampoo is kind of known around the neighborhood and I guess she's his girlfriend or something because, well, I didn't notice this until later but Makoto says she was staring at us. And then she came over to the table and started shouting at Ranma, and most of it was, well, I thought I speak a little Chinese but the Amazon dialect gets funny, especially when they're mad, so I didn't understand most of it. But she started pointing at me, and I didn't like that so I stood up, and then suddenly Liuli ran up and started shouting at Shampoo, and I didn't get most of it except that she said 'NO KISSING' three or four times for some reason. And then Cologne was there and there was some more talking in the Amazon dialect-"
"-And then Liuli said to me, and I was a little surprised by this, 'Promise not to break her too badly.' I didn't know exactly what she was talking about, but Makoto gave this weird grin and said 'She won't break anything she can't fix,' and I didn't really know what was going on so I shrugged and nodded, and then Shampoo was talking in Japanese, a bit broken up but I could understand her, and said, uh, 'this one asks older sister for the honor of a sparring match, a test of martial technique.'

You're surprised. "That sounds… pretty polite."

"She was smiling like this when she said it." Minako does a thing with her teeth that is very technically arguably a smile.

"Oh."

"I figured I'd better say 'yes' just to get it out of her system. But I'd already said I wouldn't do anything I couldn't fix, so, uh. That kind of ruled out most of my spells, but I've always done pretty good in hand to hand, so I wasn't worried. Besides, I figured, she's not… like us, right?"

"Well, no."

"That's when she shook my hand and I found out about the magic buzzer."

"...Oh."

"And like I said, it really doesn't hurt worth mentioning, but that was when I figured it was going to be one of those fights."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't know how many you've had like this, but when you're up against them alone… One trick I've learned fighting youma is that you really have to be willing to get wacky. Improvise. It's doable, but if you expect to square off and box like the Marchioness of Kingsbury, you're going to have a hard time even if you're really strong. Well, unless you are Makoto. She's the exception. But she's got a lot of talent, heheh. Anyway, Shampoo…"

"Yes?"

"Shampoo… is creative. Also, I'm pretty sure she's figured out our trick for pulling stuff out of thin air."

Since you, yourself, are still not entirely sure how that trick works, you can understand Minako's tone of grudging admiration.

"Now, the first bit wasn't impressive. She wasn't punching like, well okay, she was punching like one of the little youma. The ones that haven't ramped up much. I caught those, but it made her mad. I think she was underestimating me."

You smile. "Maybe it's the glamour. You never look beaten up, right?"

"Maybe. Maybe she thought I was too pretty to be dangerous-" Minako smirks, then shrugs- "Though she wasn't exactly chopped liver herself, I have to admit. Or maybe it's just the bow on my head. Some of the shouting and cursing later was about that. Anyway, I don't think she took me seriously until I caught the first few punches and tossed her into the wall. Lightly. After that she sharpened up a little and more people started paying attention. They were just pulling back the furniture, making a space for us…"

You shrug. "It's Nerima. Go figure."

"Yeah. I noticed Makoto moving furniture with the rest of them. Funny place. Kind of a nice change of pace, in a way. Anyway, Shampoo bounced off the wall and I thought she was jump-kicking me but when I sidestepped she did this twisty thing and got out of the way when I grabbed for her, so she was past me and she yanked a sword off a rack on the wall and came at me again."

Luna frowns. "It sounds as though she was honestly trying to kill you."

"Uh, maybe? Anyway, I guess I was messing around, so I drew my own sword."

Luna half-stiffens in surprise, balanced on the arm of Minako's chair. "The one you found on the moon?"

Yeah, but I wrapped it up pretty good in the Love-Me Chain to keep from hurting her-"

You blink. "Wait, isn't that thing sharp?"

"Not if I don't want it to be. So she came after me with a sword, and…" she laughs nervously, rubbing the back of her head. "Okay, I don't actually practice much with swords or anything, so she damn near levered the thing out of my hands before I realized what she was doing. I don't think she allowed for how strong we are, though, because the angle was bad but it wasn't that bad and I got her back over and thumped her sword into the wall and it stuck there and I gave her a good swift kick in the rear for good measure, heheh. And then came the part where I think she must be yanking stuff out of thin air, because she yelled in that funny Chinese dialect and reached into her sleeves and pulled out a couple of maces with heads the size of her head. And she's definitely doing some kind of anima thing with them like a proper cartoon character because they pack a wallop when you let her connect. I wasn't expecting them to be that much harder to catch than her fists… which is, ah, how I went and let her knock me through the doorway. Sloppy." Minako shrugs.

"So that's how I found out what a Nerima street fight looks like. I guess I was having too much fun to want to stop, so I kept sidestepping for a bit. I got her in a full nelson but I couldn't really squeeze without, ah, breaking the promise to her mom, among other things. And it turns out she, uh, knows how to get out of a full nelson as well as I do and she was strong enough for that stuff to, uh, sting a bit. That was when I started taking her more seriously, because she's actually good at what she does even if she's just plain not as strong as we are. But the last kick bought her a bit and she had her maces back by then."

Minako takes a deep breath. "It went on from there a while. Trying not to hurt her was actually kind of tricky. Now, Luna? I swear, she did like… 99% of the property damage."

The Mau looks at her sternly. "Really. You only did one one hundredth of it."

"Uh… okay, maybe a few one hundredths, I dunno. She had hand grenades. And… stuff. There was a lot. She's better at smashing up wood and concrete than she is at smashing up Sailor Venuses; we dodge better. Really, though, her best move was the noodle attack."

Your jaw drops. Luna's jaw drops.

"She attacked you with noodles?"


"They were very, very sticky, but she underestimated my appetite. In the end, Love and Justice prevailed! Well, more accurately, I got her into a hold she couldn't lever out of and hung on until she figured out trying to knock my teeth out wasn't going to work, but close enough!"

Minako stands up sharply. "Now! We have had enough of break time! I am throwing you to the Rei!"

---

For some reason, you have butterflies in your stomach! For several reasons, even…

At some point in the next few hours, you make up your mind on which of the items you express interest in to the Amazons of the Cat Cafe, and receive as an exchange of gifts for something you never saw and would rather not think about. In the last moments before she throws you to the Rei, she describes the items of real interest as:

[ ] The Wok
"Well, okay, so the Amazons mostly USE it as a wok, but they say it's actually a magic bowl and if you use it right you can look into the dreams of other people. I remember you said you did something like that with ancient princess Serenity, and I thought maybe if we had this thing we could go with you!"

[ ] The Leaf
"It was this big leaf from a banana tree. It had been pressed and preserved or something and they said it used to be part of a magical fan that could make windstorms. I wasn't sure it'd be interesting, but then I remembered Dragon Ball, and I know that's just a manga but apparently Akko-chan was a real person so I just don't know what to think anymore. Although now I know Cologne's never heard of Dragon Ball, anyway."

[ ] The Sword
"There was a sword. A magic one, definitely. Made from the whitest metal I've ever seen, and yes that's including the 「truesilver」 in the chandeliers in your palace. The whole thing was made from the white stuff, except for a pearl in the hilt that was the size of, well, it was oval. Couple of centimeters. And black. Really black, like 'I think someone forgot to draw in this part of the universe' black, I had to poke it to be sure it was there. Anyway, the Amazons said to be careful to keep the sword clamped down because if you leave it lying out, it spins around in circles kind of slow-like. It was weird."

[ ] The Snake Statue
"And there was this statue of a snake. Big coily thing, with crystal fangs. Cologne says the snake can cure 'most' poisons, but it can only do it once for any one person.