Again, please bear with me as I attempt narrative
I unlock the door, cautiously and push it open, as the others crowd in the corridor looking around. Usagi is making some kind of exclamation to one of the others, as I hold the door open and let them walk in.
“Are you sure this is okay?” Rei asks, as they walk past me into the entryway, “Won’t anyone mind?”
I shake my head, glancing towards the kitchen, and peeling the note off the fridge, “No. I’m sure not, it’s not as if we’re going to be horrendously loud, and most of the people near here are at work right now anyway. Mama-san…” I read the note, “She won’t be back until later. She left for us to order food.”
“Order food?” Makoto inquires, spinning a couple of circles around a few feet away from me in the kitchen, “This is amazing! You could fit my kitchen in here twice over. You can’t order food with a kitchen like this! You should use it!”
I blush.
“That’s easily fixed!” Rei points out, “Mizuno-sama said to buy food? If we buy food for Makoto to cook, that’s still food.”
“But…that’s too much trouble, Kino-san,” I demur, “We came over here for other things, not to make you slave cooking for us.”
“I want to,” she says, taking my hand in hers, “Please, please, let me do this. It’s no trouble at all, and it’s much more fun to cook for more people than just myself…” she beams, and then gets a wicked smile, “It would insult me more to refuse.”
“Oh, say she can!!” Usagi comes running back over from the window in the living room where she’d been marveling that she could see her house. Luna hot on her heels, “Mako-chan’s cooking is awesome, and I should know I’ve been stealing half her obento for a while now!”
Makoto laughs, “I can make things a lot better than that obento.”
Usagi’s eyes practically twinkle, “You have to say yes, Ami-chan you have to! I have to taste this delicious food, look at me, my mouths watering,” she has hold of my hands and is practically on her knees.
“We have things to discuss,” Luna says, jumping up onto the breakfast bar, “What if this takes a while?”
“I can talk and cook at the same time, Luna,” Makoto responds, “Plus there’ll be the time it cooks after preparation. How much do we have to talk about?”
Luna muses on this for a moment, and seems to think its’ a viable course of action as she doesn’t protest.
“As long as you really don’t mind, Kino-san…I-I guess it would be alright.” I answer.
“I don’t mind,” she says, “Truly. Now if you’ll stop calling me ‘Kino-san’”
“She’ll get there,” Rei says, leaning across the counter from the other side, next to where Luna is, she absently ruffles Luna’s fur and smoothes it back down, “It took her a few weeks to get to –chan with us, but we’re working on it, ne, Ami-chan?”
I chew on my lip, “Yes. Sorry. I just—it’s a thing.”
“Always so formal,” Usagi teases, “You could be a…um…what are those people they go and they talk with everyone and make nice.”
“Diplomats,” Rei mutters, “and no, she couldn’t. They’re also liars. Ami-chan’s far too nice for that, leave her be.”
“Ah…sorry, sorry, Rei-chan,” Usagi replies, “What did I say?”
Rei doesn’t say anything for a moment, apparently chewing on something. Makoto looks over at me, from where she was browsing the fridge apparently looking for ideas of things to make. I shake my head. I have no idea. After a moment Rei forces her face to brighten, “It’s alright. Let’s just go get food, so we can get back and discuss our plan of action, ne?”
“Yes.” Makoto says, closing the fridge, and borrowing a sheet of paper from the notepad next to it, to scribble some things down, “I have a good idea for something, so I’m ready.” I hand her the two rolled up bills that Mama-san left, and she folds them quickly slipping them into her pocket, and the four of us, Luna safely back inside Usagi’s back-pack troop back out of the apartment and to the market a few blocks away.“Put on some Aino Minako!” Usagi exclaims, excitedly, sitting down on the stool she has pulled up to the breakfast bar.
“No-no!” Rei cuts in putting up a hand, sitting next to Usagi also at the bar. I’m getting drinks for everyone, glasses on the other side of the counter.
“If that happens,” Rei continues, “You’ll rope Ami-chan into singing along and we’ll not get anything done.”
“I would not!” Usagi exclaims.
Makoto looks bemused, chopping vegetables, and scraping leftover bits off into the trash can.
“You would, Usagi-chan,” I answer, setting drinks in front of both her and Rei, “You have before.”
She looks horrorstruck, “Ami-chan! You’re supposed to defend me!”
I flush, “Is there anything I can help you with?” I offer, setting a drink down where Makoto indicates she wants it by using the pointy end of the cutting knife.
“No, not right now,” she says, “that’ll do me, but thank you,” she looks around, as I look for a small bowl to put something in for Luna, “I don’t think I’ve heard Aino Minako,” she says, “why is she such a big deal?”
“Haven’t heard?” Usagi exclaims, “Haven’t heard Aino Minako? Rei-chan we have to put her on, this is—this is awful. How can you not have heard her?”
Rei puts her head down on her arms, “Usagi-chan, it’s not so big of a deal…”
Luna taps a claw against Makoto’s glass to draw our attention. She sits back on her haunches wrapping her tail around her front paws.
“I think Luna wants to get along with the meeting,” Makoto points out.
Luna nods, “Yes, yes. As I told Ami-chan and Usagi-chan when they were first awoken, there are four senshi to guard one princess. With you four girls we have our four senshi. So, it’s going to be important for us to keep an eye on everything right now, and watch for signs of the princess. Usagi-chan! Pay attention!” she lowers her head down to where Usagi was tracing the pattern on the counter top.
Usagi looks up, with an extremely guilty expression on her face.
“What about Sailor V, Luna?” Rei asks, “Did you ever find anything out about her?” Luna frowns, “I was never able to talk with her…” she shakes her head looking down at the counter top, “and there’s so much I still don’t remember. It’s very difficult,” she sighs and sits down, resting her head on her front paws, “So, have any of you had any strange dreams or had any inklings on anything?” I hesitate.
“Yes, Ami-chan?” she asks.
“Well, it’s not so-so much an inkling as it was just thinking on things…”
“Say it anyway.”
“Well, a theory I had was sort of confirmed when Ki…Mako-chan,”
“Yaay!” Makoto calls, “Bravo.”
“Yes, well, when she became one of us, with the henshin and was Sailor Jupiter. It means that we’re for the most part named for planets, ne? Except for Usagi-chan being Sailor Moon, and we don’t have a Venus, or Saturn and so on. So, why isn’t there a Sailor Earth, or any of us named for planetary moons?”
“Ami-chan this isn’t a homework assignment!” Usagi exclaims, “You were seriously thinking about all of this, it makes my head hurt,” and she massages her temples making a put-out noise.
I chew on my finger, “I get bored,” I consent, “Deducting on our senshi incarnations is a welcome change from homework.”
“Well we need to,” Rei says, “I have been trying fire readings, but they’re usually unclear, well, I say unclear, but what I really mean is a massive headache causing jumble. If Ami-chan can figure something with her amazing intellect more power to her, maybe something she’ll come up with will trigger someone’s memory,” she looks at Luna hopefully, as I try not to blush again.
“The astronomical monikers do seem to be a pattern,” Luna consents, “Perhaps because we seem to be…well, you seem to be protecting the Earth…it’s because it doesn’t have it’s own guardian,” she shakes her head, “I really don’t know. I’ve been wracking my brain, but the more I wrack the less I seem to remember,” she sighs again, “I keep feeling how important it is, something big is going to happen soon, and I don’t think I can prepare you any more than I have. I really-really wish I could remember more.”
“It’s okay Luna,” Makoto says, offering her a piece of fatty meat that she’s not using, “We understand how frustrating it must be, don’t we?” she looks around at us hefting the knife as if we would disagree, “Do you even know how come you’re a talking cat, and not a person wandering around trying to find us?”
Luna shakes her head, and it almost seems as if she’s blushing beneath the fur, “Moah,” she says, mournfully, “I have no idea. About the only thing I can think of is if a person ran up to you on the street and told you that you were a senshi, and that you had magical powers you probably wouldn’t believe them…but I’m a talking cat, that’s pretty strange to begin with…although some of us,” she looks at Usagi, “some of us thought they were dreaming,” she sighs, “I guess that’s my own fault for only managing to get a hold of her when she was getting ready for bed. The rest of you, found during the day…it was slightly easier.”
Usagi nods, “You woke me up, Luna. I have dreams like that all the time.”
“You have dreams where talking cats wake you up?” Makoto inquires, with a strange smile. Whatever she’s doing she’s apparently finished, because she puts the pan into the oven, and sets the timer, “Ten minutes,” she says, moving to get check on the pan on the stove top and turn it up so the water will boil.
“Well, no,” Usagi says, toying with her fingers, “not since I was little, but I have dreams where I wake up from a dream and I’m actually still dreaming,” she pauses, “So that was the big important meeting?” she continues, “Luna! Here I was all worked up, and…”
“Usagi-chan,” Luna says, still with seriousness permeating her tone, “It is important. All of this is very important. Things are building. I’m sure very soon we will not be fighting youma, but whoever it is that’s controlling them. We can’t assume that our enemy is clueless. They may well know more about us than I have been able to remember. It cannot have escaped them that they have fought different people. They will probably assume that we are much better equipped than we are, as far as knowledge goes and could attack with full force,” she emphasizes ‘full force’ by smacking the counter top with her paw, “We have to be prepared. We have to find someway to train…and beyond that you must be very careful to tell no one else of who you are, not only will it put yourselves in danger, but them as well.”
The information gave us a lot to think about, and also gives me a bit of a sense of foreboding…
