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

You look.

You see.

You exclaim!

"...Nanoha? What are YOU doing here?"

Nanoha sounds a bit… strained. "Uhh… well, um…"

Come to think of it, you have a hard time concentrating while you're carrying things. Well, you used to. "Are you all right, Nanoha? Am I too heavy?" You can't imagine a Pretty Cure, even a little-girl Pretty Cure or a too-young Senshi like Minori, having trouble holding your weight, but you don't actually know if Raising Heart gives-

「Altering Barrier Jacket Manifestation! Applying Physical Reinforcement!」

-Well, that answers that question. Almost immediately, Nanoha's arms stop trembling. Taking a relieved breath, Nanoha gives you a wide smile - A little too wide, like she's trying to distract you from something. "I'm fine, Miss Sailor Moon, and no, you're not heavy, but you are kind of… uhh… big. Oh, no. I mean, bigger than I am. I mean… Sorry."

You giggle softly, shaking your head- and accidentally bumping one of your buns into her shoulder. "It's okay. You're doing…" You stop. "I'd say 'fine,' but what are you doing out of bed?"

It feels a little weird saying something like that to someone only about five years younger than you. But every time you've had to act like a mom to your time-traveling daughter makes it a little easier.

Nanoha winces just a little. "I don't quite understand all the details, but I promised Raising Heart I'd get more sleep like you said as long as she'd wake me up if anything happened and then she said she heard Director Samui calling for help earlier and that you'd been calling each other a lot and I thought maybe I could do something…"

Thinking about it for just a moment, it stands to reason that Raising Heart is, along with everything else she does, sort of like a communicator herself. If you are a phone, maybe you can hear when other people call on the phone? Something like that…

There is a faint ghostly whisper of discomfort in the back of your mind about all this, like you're missing something important. But deferring to ghostly whispers is why you just spent the past several minutes getting spun around in midair circles and falling all the time, so with an inward mental huff, you ignore the thought for now. You trusted Nanoha even before she caught you which you have to admit was a sweet thing for the girl to do, and Nanoha and Raising Heart are friends, and that's good enough for you.

"Nanoha, thank you for thinking of us, but we have this under-" Even up this high, a particularly loud explosion reaches you and interrupts you. It's followed by a string of smaller explosions.

And looking up and over at Nanoha's face, at the strange angle, looking at how earnest she is, and hearing what's happening down there, the lie on your lips dies. This is right at the very top of the list of places that you don't want Nanoha to be right now, but you aren't going to lie to her. You don't have this under control.

And you can't help but realize that she'd have been perfectly within her rights to answer the question 'what are you doing here' with 'the same thing you are, Sailor Moon.'

Trying to argue straight against that would feel so hypocritical, but…

She's so young. Only a couple of years older than Mini.

You sigh softly and admit the truth. "Right… we don't have everything under control here. But that's the problem. This isn't a Jewel Seed, and it is really dangerous, and I don't want you to get hurt- we'd all feel terrible, Nanoha…"

Nanoha looks away, and in the strange washed-out color of the flarelight you're only half certain you see a blush forming on her face. Feeling unhappy with yourself, you go on. "...But somehow, I don't think you'll get back to sleep if you go away now. So here's the deal! I'll let you stay-" you reach up and over to tap Nanoha on the nose- "but only if you follow some rules!"

Nanoha twitches, startled by the tap, then looks down into your face- well, down and over, given how much taller you are even with her still carrying you. The effect on her is almost electrical, and you can see resolve flash in her eyes. "Right! Of course!"

There's a split second of awkward silence between you two, and then Raising Heart delicately interrupts.

「As Her Sublime Highness would discuss rules of engagement, perhaps Mistress would like a stable platform for conversation?」

"Uh… oh! That's a good idea!" Nanoha mumbles something under her breath and Raising Heart shifts a little underneath your back, and suddenly the girl's face is being lit by pink light from below. She sets you down. She's even shorter than you, so it's a little awkward when she does, but you easily keep your balance and look down to see a swirling spell circle forming a disk in midair that feels very much like a floor. You can mostly see through it to the ground.

Being a Sailor Senshi and leaping along rooftops has mostly cured you of vertigo. Mostly. You're just… dizzy from all the spinning and teleporting and getting thrown around. That's all. You take a couple of deep breaths. Sometimes you forget to do that when you're transformed, but it always helps.

The circle is a few meters across, easily large enough for you and Nanoha to stand without having to crowd together in the middle.

And now that your feet are back on solid not-the-ground, you take a moment to stretch, raising your arms high overhead. Then you pat Nanoha gently on the head, much like you would for Mini, and smile at her.

"Thank you for catching me, Nanoha. That was very sweet of you to do."

She stares up at you, wide-eyed. Even with the strange lighting, you can tell that her cheeks have definitely gone a little red this time. Hopefully she isn't offended by what you've done. "I- I'm sure you would have been fine, Miss Sailor Moon! You were teleporting back and forth so fast before, I knew you wouldn't just hit the ground! But it just seemed… different this time, so I thought I should, uh, do something." You hear a strange electric crackling sound and look down. You see that Nanoha is shuffling her foot back and forth a little.

A certain gentle amusement lifts one corner of your smile a bit higher. "Well, either way, I still appreciate it. Now…"

A thought occurs to you. You look down into the sky for more rockets, just in case… oh no there's one right there… wait. Something's different. The rocket isn't twitching in little zig-zags, and isn't flying a straight path. It's sort of arching in a big curlicue- you realize it's going to miss you entirely even if you do nothing, which is a first. "Um."

You look at Nanoha, confused though not displeased. "Did you see all those rockets that were flying around on the way here?"

She looks at you with attention that's practically riveted on you, almost as if sparks are about to start flying. "Yes! Why?"

"That one-" you point as it flies up and off into the distance at an angle- "isn't really chasing anything. Did you do something?"

Nanoha, wide-eyed, silently shakes her head, then looks at Raising Heart…

「A simple matter. Mistress has released me to deploy automated countermeasures. To prevent interruptions, I am luring the lesser constructs into exorcism range with targeted emissions, then singing the spirits forth from their chassis.」

You find yourself squinting oddly at Raising Heart, because that sounds… odd. "...Oh. Uh, thanks…"

「It is not difficult. The projectiles are not reinforced against countermeasures, and their tiny souls offer negligible resistance.」

Somehow that… does not make the whole thing more comforting. But you don't want to discourage Raising Heart for trying to help. Especially given how hard a time you were having a minute ago. So, you fall back on politeness as best you can. "Well, I appreciate it anyway. That's very… helpful."

「You flatter me, Your Sublime Highness.」

You asked her not to call you that… ugh, this is just getting awkward.

And so in a way, it's lucky when Nanoha looks past you, tilts her head to peer at something distant and down on the ground, and points. "Sailor Moon?"

"Yes, Nanoha?"

"What's that?"

You turn and look. And you see… well, Senshi eyesight is something more than human, and you see, in the distance, marching towards MCAT headquarters, you see…

…You see more of the Onogoro soldiers. Not as many as in the first bunch, but the samurai and other mages are sort of a circle around a large group of other… things. Creatures. People. It's hard to be sure where one kind begins and the next leaves off.

There are walking beasts made out of stone or something like it. Some of them are about human-sized, while others are quite a bit larger. There are living animals. Some look like dogs though they're improbably large compared to the humans around them. There are things that look like strangely distorted tigers. There are also- your fists tighten angrily- yokai whose posture is tense and crazed, and you think you can see collars on their necks. And then there are things where you wish you were sure if they were yokai- people- or if they were just very strange animals, but you're not. Some of the things you see, at least from this distance, you cannot recognize as any kind of creature you've ever heard of.

And that whole column is marching, in the distance, towards the north gate. You turn, leaning a bit dangerously out over the edge of Nanoha's magic platform, and… oh no. There's another column headed for the west gate, and another for the east gate. The east gate. Where Minako was fighting. Where… where you look down, at all the smoke, and you see a few things happen. Oh. Oh no.

You turn very briefly, very quickly to Nanoha.

"Good job spotting that, Nanoha! Now, I need to call Sailor Mars. Right now."

---

Matsu Nakatomi forces herself to concentrate.

She needs to ignore the way her armor, already hot after a run in the summer night, has overheated even worse from having its magic tested again and again by swirling storms of metal flecks that left so many long bright scratches through its enchanted enamel.

She needs to calm the lingering worries about the wounded, who are mostly being treated by what hasty spells the force can manage, with a few to be left behind under light guard. They can wait for the real healers who are coming up with the reserves, the summoners, the beastmasters.

To concentrate.

She can do this. Can get it right, give the kind of speech she'd always imagined giving, remembering how earnest everything about this war sounds when Father and Uncle talk about it, remembering dozens of examples of oratory, putting the pieces together like a project. Open. Speak of the dangers, of the hope of victory and the peril of defeat, of the cause for hope, and close.

She gives silent thanks to the motley bunch of quick-reacting volunteers, retainers of half a dozen lords at the company's front. The mages who are keeping up the angled barrier wards and, importantly, flinging smoke and confusion-curses all the way to the feet of MCAT's gates. That's not easy, but rallying the men would be a lot harder without them, without a few minutes' respite. There'd be bombs raining down among the Onogoro ranks, not just unaimed bullets.

She draws a deep breath, twists her fingers together to amplify her voice, and begins to speak.

"We don't have the time for long speeches, and after what we've stood together, we don't need one. The gates are still ahead, with all their guns, all their demons, and the Sailor Senshi besides. They'll fight savagely! There's a long battle, a long war, between us and an end to the chaos. But if we don't carry this through, though, they'll turn all of Japan into their playground, and whatever monsters they say they're fighting, the devils we know will be just as bad, like they were in the old days!"

She doesn't allow herself to stop and worry about how the men are taking the speech. Momentum. Vigor. Passion. She goes on.

"Remember, though, that one of their fiercest came at us, and we're still here, and she's not! They can be beaten! They can be restrained! Even mad spirits can be made to change, to soften, to never see us as prey again! And if they need to be taught the lesson again, we will make that happen, as our ancestors knew the way! We didn't need the summoners and the beastmasters in the old days, so though they're welcome to help out now, by the time they get here, they'll know we've given them an open door!"

She turns and draws her sword, flourishes it, and-

"FOLLOW ME!"
And the roaring shouts from behind her seem, for a moment, to drown out the scattered gunfire still coming from ahead. The warriors behind her break into a run. Her warriors, she realizes. Not just ones temporarily borrowed from some old head of household who isn't here or from Lord Ogura, who's stunned on the sidewalk behind them with only one of his guards to look after him.

No. This is her attack. She's doing it! She's really doing it! Uncle would be so proud of her!

Something underneath it all feels… wrong, twisted somehow; something's gone wrong, she can feel it. But right now, she owes her best to everyone who's ever trusted her up to this day, and that's what she intends to give. The possibility of today, or something like it, has been the point of what she's made of herself all her life.

It must be the fear, trying to get at her from a strange angle. She won't let it win!


The top of the compound wall is a seething mass of lingering spells that Matsu wouldn't want to set foot in, even warded. She doubts that there are any MCAT stay-behinds. But- wait. Uncle warned her that MCAT's rank and file would use them to even the odds, to make up for having only a handful of renegades and the claws of their devils. And what came their way on the approach proved that true!

The image of blasting the doors down with some heroic exertion of quick magic and charging into the compound in a mass- it's what she imagined, earlier tonight. But what next? A different image- rockets, bombs, grenades, coming right at her, against the hemmed-in mass passing through the gateway, gives her pause. And so as a few of the more ambitious elementalists get ready to burn the gate hinges off, she shouts for them to stop and take just a little more time.

As she traces the sigil, she can't help but imagine a description of what's happening, only in the style of the old chronicles: Lady Nakatomi Matsu, age twenty-four, took command and led a company of warrior-mages to seize the east gate of the yokai-occupied castle, though the spite of a maddened kami stood against them-

A couple of hand grenades, tossed over the wall to burst against the company's umbrella screen, interrupt her train of thought, leaving her with only a few words.

"Did you only think it was worth fighting for beatings and chains, and not for a maiden's innocence?"

What did the rogue kami mean? What maiden?

Spite. Maddened.

She pushes aside a momentary impulse to stop and worry about that and gets back to work. Inhuman reasoning is best left to the inhumans, they say. This is tricky work, they'd say. This battle, in this war, is what she spent her life up to now preparing for the possibility of, finally in arm's reach. They'd say.

Not now, damn it!

She finishes the sigil and looks behind her. Four old Nakatomi retainers and five young volunteers stand ready behind her. A similar gaggle of mages have lined up behind the dapper man in robes with heavy embroidered wards, the one who's put the mirror image of her work on the other leaf of the gates.

She shouts "GO!" and they go. Elemental fire and acrid transmuted chemicals assault the gate hinges, and with an effort of will, Matsu pushes with nine other mages behind her, concentrating solely on creating the wrenching, tearing-metal sound of the gates coming loose of their mountings.

Matsu's warriors pick the gates up by force of magic and pushing them ahead like the snowplow on a locomotive. They're solidly built, with steel plates welded onto sturdy frames, and they're going to need to be.

---

By this point, two of the three main gates of the MCAT compound are down. While the timely arrival of Kazanari's flying squad at the west gate prevents Lord Bojo's forces from making an immediate penetration into the compound, Lady Nakatomi's freshly rallied forces are considerably more successful. Advancing under a mixed bombardment of smoke and psychoactive magic, the eastern attack force largely avoids the density of fire that might otherwise have fended them off despite the departure of Sailor Venus. The defenders' morale does not entirely break, but by the time their commanding officer gives the order to fall back, several of the attached yokai, more independent-minded than the rigid command structure of most of the human soldiers, have already departed the wall.

Not all of these, however, have given up the fight. Anticipating such a development, Moriko, a bakeneko veteran of the 1946 rebellion and much more recently of the Choshi City raid, has taken the liberty of emplacing a quartet of directional mines on the MCAT lawns, aimed directly at the gate. While the glamors she used to disguise the mines from allies and enemies alike have already evaporated under the glare of MCAT's own star shells, their presence went unremarked upon given that nearly all attention was focused on the battle outside the compound.

By the time the first Onogoro samurai reach the foot of the wall, Moriko has already sprinted back to a position among the sandbags near the foot of a two-story office building, then leapt up to scramble up the wall and onto the roof. The building, prepared as part of the Kazanari Faction's planned administrative expansions, has been of little use to MCAT except as a storehouse for office supplies and miscellaneous goods.

She waits as the retreating humans, some of them, break into a run, as a few of them, struck by panic, toss weapons aside. She waits as the raging frustrated oni and a few other men and yokai who took too long to get the message clear the blast zone. She curses her bad luck when the Ministry troops don't just smash the door down and come running through fat and stupid. And when she finally sees movement in the smoke by the gates and triggers the detonator with the lightning reflexes of her kind, she immediately regrets it when she realizes what that movement was.

Unfortunately for MCAT, the impatient use of claymore mines does little to reverse the situation. The detached gates catch the shrapnel from the inner pair of mines entirely, ringing like enormous gongs under the storm of steel. Much of the outer pair's effect is wasted on them as well.

With the Ministry forces still holding interlocked barrier shields to their left and right flanks, the mines cause only one serious wound and a handful of minor injuries. They do, however, at least slightly disrupt the momentum of the assault. This, combined with the delay incurred while Nakatomi's forces converted the MCAT compound's own gates into improvised mantlets, gives the MCAT defenders just enough time and breathing room to partly salvage the immediate tactical situation.

Under the self-echoing direction of a brash red-blue pair and their especially fierce cyclopean comrade, the oni sprint ahead of the humans and then turn before they can enter the cover of the buildings. Even that fraction of the human soldiers who have begun to panic mostly skid to a halt and consider alternatives. The most desperate of the men are seized bodily and thrown back into the sandbag positions by the oni, who are already humiliated and angry at having been forced to abandon the wall.

While the Camp Asaka MPs deployed to MCAT headquarters are trained for broadly similar hazards as part of their standard physical training regimen, those of MCAT's own soldiers who have begun to rout are not. They are caught unprepared, and two are regrettably injured upon landing.

Combined with the efforts of the human officers and noncoms, the oni's sudden decision to act as barrier troops narrowly prevents a rout. Reinforcements, some of them carrying new heavy weapons, are close by, and the handful of yokai who fled the wall ahead of the human forces' retreat begin to return to the line.

But the enemy will soon cast aside their bulky protective cover and tight but restrictive interlocked spells and make another rush. And this third line of defense by the east gate is much sparser and shakier than its counterpart by the west gate.

---

Rei Hino, Sailor Mars, puts aside the thought of her communicator and turns to Captain Sano, who in turn has just taken his hand off his radio earpiece. He looks even grimmer than Rei feels.

Rei decides to summarize what she's heard. And to leave the bit about Nanoha out of it. "Sailor Moon is up in the air, and sees columns of Onogoro warriors, beasts, and enslaved yokai coming from the north, east, and west."

Captain Sano nods. "Division headquarters was just telling me that a high-altitude aircraft circling us sees much the same on its cameras. Not good. And we have another problem. Ground Force can't send in their helicopters as long as the Onogoro guided missiles-" he sounds a little unbelieving as he says the words- "are a threat. If those things do as well against the helicopters as they seem to do against other things in the sky without you ladies' interference, we'd have a massacre on our hands."

Rei is no fool. "You're asking for more of that kind of interference."

"I have hopes for the west gate, and Director Samui tells me they've got even more surprises in store for Onogoro over there. But the east gate… I could very much use the helicopter units. It would be very good to have those reinforcements- and those TOW missiles." The captain looks at Rei. He looks very worried. "Can you ladies… can you promise me the rockets will be under control, or nearly so, for the next ten to twenty minutes? Because I can't ask them to make an exception unless I'm sure. I'd be gambling with the lives of a hundred men."

Rei pauses. She doesn't know what a TOW missile is, but she gets the idea. This is a difficult question, with more than one answer, possibly including "Don't bother the helicopters, I'll run out there and handle it myself."

Usagi trusted Rei to handle things while she was busy earlier, but… Nonetheless, Rei calls her princess before she answers the captain.

---

Status Update!

Onogoro First Wave: ANNIHILATED
Onogoro Second Wave: STRUGGLING FORWARD SLOWLY
Onogoro Third Wave: ADVANCING TO REINFORCE

MCAT HQ Eastern Front: WAVERING
MCAT HQ Western Front: THREATENED BUT HEAVILY REINFORCED
MCAT HQ Northern Front: GATE HELD, DISTANT THREATS REMAIN
MCAT HQ Internal Security: ???

Special Event!

JGSDF air cavalry reinforcements approach the scene, but observe heavy MANPAD activity around the MCAT headquarters. They will be keeping their distance unless they are assured that the rocket threat is under control. Only the Sailor Senshi are in a position to grant such an assurance, and they will not do so unless they are convinced they're going to be able to entirely stop the rockets reliably.

Last round, Sailor Moon engaged the rockets singlehandedly in mid-air. This mostly, but not entirely, neutralized the rockets' ability to threaten targets other than herself.

It may prove easier to just do the same job the reinforcements would do, but more directly…


Choose options for each of the four Sailor Senshi actually present, and for Nanoha Takamachi. So long as "EVADE" remains the strategy, no more than two Senshi can choose 'ACTIVE' options. Any number of Senshi can take 'PASSIVE' options. Any Senshi whose actions are not specified by the plan will adopt their 'DEFAULT' options.

Nanoha does not count as a Sailor Senshi, and Usagi believes she will be effectively immune to the god-binding ritual. She is free to take 'ACTIVE' options at will.

Senshi action options must be voted on as a plan.

As an optional, non-mandatory part of a plan, the action "Stop Evading" can be added. No character need be assigned to this task. Plans with 'Stop Evading' can assign all four Sailor Senshi to 'ACTIVE' options. However, the +15 bonus for 'Evasive Tactics' enjoyed by the Sailor Senshi against god-binding attempts will be effectively lost.


DEFAULT OPTIONS
Default options are those which the Senshi would autonomously adopt as part of the 'Evade' strategy. Any Senshi whose action is not specified will take the following actions. Bear in mind that a default action is not necessarily inferior to the alternatives.

Sailor Moon: Observe from the top of a skyscraper outside the god-binding ritual's range. Teleport in if things seem truly desperate.

Sailor Jupiter: Aerial reconnaissance, out of the god-binding ritual's range. Potentially susceptible to rocket attack.

Sailor Mars: Coordinate the Senshi from inside the MCAT command center. Susceptible to a god-binding attempt if she is located by Empty Faces. Acts as close-in defense against Empty Face attack on the command center.

Sailor Venus: Run in among.the buildings of the MCAT compound, avoiding prolonged contact with enemy main forces but pouncing on any small breakaway units and otherwise trying to provide indirect support. Susceptible to a god-binding attempt in case of bad luck.

Nanoha Takamachi: Nanoha seems very likely to take orders, especially from Sailor Moon, right now. The Senshi aren't sure what Nanoha will do if she isn't given any orders, but it will probably be well-intentioned and energetic.

ACTIVE OPTIONS
These actions involve direct conflict with the enemy or conspicuous activity in full view of the enemy. Any one Senshi can be assigned to any of them. Any Senshi will attempt to do any of these options to the best of her ability. Results may vary depending on both ability and luck. There are no write-ins.

-[ ] Try to do something about the Empty Faces
-[ ] Try to do something about the rockets
-[ ] Violently interfere with an Onogoro attack axis (pick one direction, north/east/west; any one character can only interfere against one axis)
-[ ] Battlefield healing/buffing

PASSIVE OPTIONS:
These actions do not involve direct conflict with the enemy or conspicuous action in full view of them. Write-in passive actions are allowed, subject to the constraint just mentioned.

-[ ] Try to figure out where the Onogoro troops came from.
-[ ] Try to figure out where the god-binding ritual is coming from (This option is now available to all characters, though effects will vary depending on the character's powers and skills.)
-[ ] Call For Support (Write-In: Who you gonna call?)
-[ ] Write-In: