Scene #1958:

Owner	Pose
Usagi Tsukino	"Thanks for suggesting this place, Haruka-kun," Usagi says when they meet up outside, looking around, not especially stealthily, at the few people loitering around the Ice Cream Parlor. Her own idea hadn't been a ''bad'' one, but meeting at the ice cream parlor, grabbing a treat and a booth, and speaking privately was definitely better than lurking near the Outers' house to share the news outside for fear of scaring Hotaru. "Let's grab ice cream and a corner booth, there's not too many people here..." She's not putting off telling Haruka. That's not the problem. Part of the problem, admittedly, is ''saying'' it, but she's met with the others, and connecting with the Outers and sharing in person again is important.
Sailor Uranus	Haruka smiles back at Usagi. "Sure, it's a nice enough place, and we get ice cream which is always a win." she says. "So is this a good news talk or a bad news talk?" Haruka asks while they stand in line for the ice cream. "Just generally. I'm wondering if this is a day where I should try a new flavor or if I should get the old standby - you know, that way I don't get bad news aaaand end up with sucky ice cream?" she asks. Her mood is jovial but she knows that when speaking to other Senshi - other magical girls, really - that things can get Seriously An Apocalypse Is Coming mode pretty fast.
Usagi Tsukino	"Definitely a get the old standby," Usagi sighs, "Because it's bad news... about our friend with the glaive." With that, she leads them into the ice cream parlor and gets in line, then casts a considering glance at the options for ice cream. Rather than getting too experienced, she too thinks she could use a standbye, and when they get to the front, asks if she can have a build your own sunday, with one scoop of ube ice cream and another of strawberry, topped with chopped nuts, whipped cream, and a cherry. This is definitely going to be that kind of talk. ...honestly, she needs to try and spend time with Haruka more often, when things ''aren't'' falling down around them.
Sailor Uranus	Well, the 'friend with the glaive' comment made Haruka pause visibly and then she nods. "Sounds like I'll need two scoops." she says, getting a double with a scoop of Black Raspberry and a scoop of Mint Chip atop the waffle cone. She will, of course, have no trouble with it dripping or otherwise being messy. She pays for the both of them, and gestures to the isolated back booth. She lets Usagi sit in and she doesn't so much sit across from her as sprawl there, sighing. "Alright, well, I figured the period of relative peace after you mob-stomped the old hag couldn't go on forever." she says, sighing. "Let me have it."
Usagi Tsukino	"Definitely a two scoop day," Usagi agrees, and then, when Haruka pays, offers a bright smile and an aborted gesture that makes it clear Haruka was ''this'' close to getting hugged before Usagi considered that this might make the ice cream fall. Once they slide into their spaces, she digs her spoon into her ice cream, not scooping so much as a stirring it around a little. "Okay, so, the other day... me and a couple of others, we ended up facing off against a woman ex-Hemachan said was... Eudial. She works in Glaive-chan's... family business." Trying to be surreptitious is not her forte, but she's trying. "And, she had one of Hinoiri's old towers, and made a weird portal, and summoned a monster, and that was all usual stuff, until the tower sent out this like... ping." A pause. "Molly-chan's Device caught a scan, and we asked Ami-chan and Rashmi-chan to check it out, and they said it's a really close match to... Glaive-chan's...passenger. And that the ping was likely looking for her."
Sailor Uranus	Haruka has a plastic spoon on her napkin which she utterly ignores in favor of eating ice cream the way it should be eaten. She doesn't seem as put off from the sugary treat as Usagi is by the news, either. At least until Usagi says 'glaive-chan's passenger' at which point her eyes go wide and the ice cream is moved away from her mouth. "Passenger." she says, mouthing the word carefully. "That's a way to put it, yeah. The boy who brought her to Setsuna and Michiru - he said she wasn't going back to... where she was... because she feared it might make the situation tougher. The passenger situation. At least, that's what Setsuna told me, so all of this is second-hand, but." "Do you think they're just looking for her? If so it's strange they waited so long to resort to doing it with magic. Or do you think it's something else?" she asks, leaning forward a bit despite herself, concern visible on her face.
Usagi Tsukino	Once her side of the news is shared, the ice cream ''does'' get eaten, at least to an extent, little scoops of each taken onto the spoon and devoured. "I couldn't think of a better way to describe it," she says, a little apologetic, "I'm still kinda getting used to the idea, but, that sounds right. I mean... it sounds like she's been calmer, because things are more peaceful where she is now?" Avoiding ''directly'' saying that she's with Haruka, just in case they do have someone who's listening in. "I don't know," she admits, "I don't know what would have changed, except, Hinoiri said she swiped a GPS thing from one of Gaitou's guys, and they were looking for something too, and I don't know, maybe it's a coincidence, but... it seems unlikely? Unless there's more like... Passenger-chan, maybe? I don't want to get us on the wrong track, but... if that other department ''is'' involved, maybe it took them so long because they had to... ask for help?"
Sailor Uranus	"She's been... well okay I'm not sure I'd describe her as 'calm' but she's been... bright, and happy, as far as I know." she says. "I do sometimes get the sense that she's hiding things from me, but that could just be because she's a kid and I'm kinda responsible for her, so I worry." the older girl admits, shrugging, and somehow her ice cream defying gravity during the motion to not fall to the floor in a new tragedy. She considers Usagi's comments a little bit further. "Well, the whole thing with Beryl probably shook them up pretty good." Haruka surmises. "She was a big wig and now she's just big dead. Plus there were some Obsidian folks fighting her, I heard? So. Probably caused a shakeup. Maybe they're only now getting back on their feet. A bunch of crazy jerks probably don't work well together in the first place."
Usagi Tsukino	"Well, calmer than when ''I've'' met her," Usagi fixes, though it's good to hear that Hotaru is bright and happy. Just because Usagi has nightmares about her, and doesn't trust her as far as she can throw her in civilian form, doesn't mean she begrudges her happiness, or anything. "That's... a little worrisome, if the things she's hiding are about her health, or her condition," Usagi says, frank, "But if she won't tell you, I don't know if asking her about it directly will make her clamp up." And then she pauses. "I mean, is she really a kid? She's not that much younger than me, she was in... grade 7 last year, right?" Maybe that's impolite, but Usagi finds it hard to think of herself as a kid, these days, and Madoka had been in grade 8 last year, and so was Sayaka, and given all that ''Sayaka'' had had happened... Some days, it feels like you're a kid - Shingo's age - and then you're... a mahou, and then you're an adult. And that's it. "Yeah, I think so. Beryl ticked off a bunch of people, but she still had a ''whole'' department, and then she died." She closes her eyes for a moment. "It's probably going to get even worse when we do that again."
Sailor Uranus	"It's a shame you've only met her in troublesome circumstances." Haruka says, being careful with her words, or as careful as a Haruka can be. "And everybody hides things. You should know that as well as I do. Especially from their parents or their close-enough-to-it." she says. "I can ask her, though. If anything's gotten worse or more troubling." she says. "Maybe she'll tell me, or maybe I'm the one who's overworrying about nothing." she says with a shrug before stopping to grab another mouthfull of ice cream. "I mean, you and I would have been considered full-fledged adults in a different time." Haruka notes. "It's all relative. In other countries we're old enough to drive, in Japan we aren't." "And that's before you get into all of the apocalypse business. I think we - the Senshi - were older before, but we're not now, and the duty is no less heavy." she notes. "And... yeah. I've been listening to the wind and it feels like we're about to be out of the calm before the storm and into another storm." she says, cryptically. "I've been trying to enjoy it while it lasts."
Usagi Tsukino	"Yeah, it is," Usagi agrees, readily enough, "I've been careful to avoid running into her in... private places. I don't want to make her feel bad, but I'm not - exactly eager to see her, either." It's not a hard boundary, but it's a faint one. "I'm open to meeting her under better circumstances, maybe, but - I can't just forget things, easily." She doesn't mean it as an insult, and she hopes it doesn't come across as one - but she can't forget that the first time she met Firefly, two people died in front of her eyes. Was killed in front of her eyes, scared and cringing. She doesn't know if Haruka puts it down to the house guest, or maybe it's just because she's seen her more. But... "I think it's worth asking. There's hiding things and hiding things, you know? My mama and papa don't know about everything I do, but I also don't live with them anymore, and I'm not risking as much." Even if she tries to be very protective of her identity, because of her family, who she loves and who absolutely don't need trouble of the magic kind. "Yeah, I know. In another time, we'd be adults, but - I guess I don't really see her as a kid? I mean, she's just about my age, and I don't see myself as a kid." She shrugs. It's academic, really. "All of you were older than me, I remember that. I was... about this age, but I think everyone else was like.... maybe Inai-sensei's age or thereabouts? Something like that." Physically at least, seeming to be in their twenties. "Yeah, I've been enjoying what we could too. Having jimono be the worst thing that happened this summer was kind of nice."
Sailor Uranus	"I understand." she says, and manages to hold back any kind of comparison to Hematite, because she knows what Usagi's first meeting was like. And then with the rest of the work, Haruka sighs. "She didn't exactly get to be a kid till recently, that's my read on it. So maybe she's a little bit behind you. Spent a lot of time alone, in and out of doctor's offices, in that big Tower with a bunch of crazy ladies till she made a friend or two." she says. "We joke about it, but most of the people that work in that tower are off their rocker, selfish, and terrible role models. And then there's the ones who have Dark Energy on top of ''that''." she says, half-joking but also serious. "I understand but I also think, at some point, you should give her a chance to be the girl and not the monster. Even if you're watching at a distance or whatever." Haruka pauses. "She really looks up to Sailor Moon, you know." She looks up to a lot of people, but that doesn't make it less true.
Usagi Tsukino	"That's not really... what I was thinking of, acting young, I mean. I don't know her, right? I don't know how she act. I just meant that it's hard to think of someone who's basically my age as a kid, especially when they're in the fight too." Maybe if Hotaru was like her little brother, someone who wasn't in the fight and had to be protected from it all, who couldn't get involved... but she's not. "I mean, I don't really... joke about it," she adds, and looks at Haruka seriously, "My fiancé like, he spent a lot of important years of his life there, with those awful people. Growing up there could not have been easy for her, and I don't dismiss that. I'll... maybe I'll see her. But I can't promise I'll forget. She was my first real failure, you know. That girl died in my hand, and I couldn't save her. She begged and I couldn't save her." And that's what's made Hotaru such a trauma. "That was the first time I ever ''met'' her, Haruka-kun. And the second time, she wasn't the monster when she tried to stab me a dozen times. And then she ''was'' the monster, and nearly killed me and Ami-chan." She sighs, a little, shoveling ice cream in her mouth. "I don't hate her, but every single time I've met Glaive-chan, it's been ''bad'', so maybe she looks up to me, but, I'm still... wary. Himeko-chan was like, a death curse that was maybe eating my fiancé for a while, and I loved her. sO I get that you and Michiru-san, and Suna-san love her. I'd never ask you not to."
Sailor Uranus	Haruka paused and turned her eyes away from the other girl to fixate on the ice cream. "I... I'm sorry. I try to advocate for her because I'm responsible for her, you know. Now. I wasn't then." she says, quietly. "But when it's all laid out like that it's... yeah, that'd be hard for me to swallow, too." Haruka agrees. "I don't think you're being unreasonable, Tsu- Usagi-chan." she says. "Just so you know - I have to try, but I get that it's not always gonna work." she says, with a sort of half smile that she interupts with the ice cream - which is now more cone than ice cream. She eats in a clean way, but quite quick. Her voice lowers. "And just so you know... I know she's our ''responsibility''. And that we do have to ''contain'' her. I love the girl, I'll never not love the girl, but if she becomes the monster..." she pauses. "...I know my ''duty'', too. I know who I was and who I am. I take it seriously." she says, looking across the table firmly at Usagi. "I don't forget that there's a threat there. Even if I'd like to." she says. It's something that has, occasionally, kept her up at night, even. She was there too, not as close as Usagi was, but she's seen the issue. "I'm also not naive enough to think Obsidian wants her back just because her Father misses her." she says. "But it doesn't mean she's not a good kid who's going to get as much of a chance as I - as we, Michiru and Setsuna and I - can give her." she says. "I won't ask you to forget those moments. I can't either. I'm not gonna ask you to take her out for ice cream or anything. I'm not going to press you on this." she clarifies. "But I have to be that advocate for her too. Because not everybody can." "And if Obsidian is looking for her, to drag her back to that stupid skyscraper, they're gonna have to go through me - through us, through the Outer Senshi, and I hope through the inner senshi as well. That's what's most important. Because whether you love her or fear her or both, the best outcome for everyone - well, it's not going to be her, going back to that place."
Usagi Tsukino	"You don't have to apologize," Usagi shakes her head, "It's not something to apologize for. You care about her. And you want her to get the things she wants, and to be cared about, and for all your people to get along, right? It's what... it's what people do." She does understand that, and it's why a part of her ''does'' wish she could just get over it - but she's hesitant, because she also doesn't want to make it ''worse''. "I don't want to make it worse. I don't want for her to get upset, not when we don't know what makes her... passenger come out. Twice was plenty, definitely, and... it sounds like she's had a good run with you all. I don't want to ruin that." Her voice is discomforted, as she says it. Haruka's voice lowers, and she speaks of duty, and Usagi nods. "I know you do. I'm not worried about that. And... if it came down to it," her voice shakes, a little, "I'd rather it was me, than you. I don't want it to come to that, I don't think it has to, she's still someone who doesn't ''want'' that, from everything you all say, and I believe that we can... keep the peace, if we try. I told my friend this, once, Hannah-chan, and I'll tell you - it would hurt you. So I don't want you to have to be the one." If it comes down to it, she's already - once before - and she doesn't want to, at all, but there's a difference between not wanting to and breaking your own heart in half to, and Usagi has chipped her heart, but she hasn't taken in Hotaru like she was her own. "But it won't come to that. We won't let it." And then Haruka says that she hopes, and Usagi looks at her for a moment, just looks at her, and says, "I already told the Shitennou and the Inners. We're not letting them have her. Not just because it's too dangerous, but because we don't want her going back."
Sailor Uranus	"You don't have a sword." Haruka says, plainly, and for a moment quite coldly, for a moment she's not speaking as Haruka Tenou, Mysterious Racer and Cool Androgynous Girl. No, that comment is spoken as Sailor Uranus, despite the lack of henshin, with a level of gravity that she rarely lets out. "I do. I mean it when I said she's our responsibility - my responsibility. I won't hear her scream like a youma." she says, and pauses, and blinks, and looks at her ice cream cone intently. "Anyways... what I mean is..." she begins, and pauses to take a large bite out of the cone and 'how do no crumbs fall seriously' "...that it's handled." she finishes. "But the fact that you've already discussed what to do - decided what to do? THAT'S what I need from you on this, though." she says, pointing a finger towards Usagi. "My group, and the Shitennou, and the Inner Senshi too - You. The leader who can bring us all together. I sure can't. Michiru sure can't. Maybe Setsuna, she's the talker-ist of us. But not like you can. She's not The Princess with Capital Letters. The one we're all bound to, either directly or indirectly. You - you can make things happen where we'd fail on our own. That's what I can see. That's why I'm glad we can talk like this, can have ice cream together, can fight beside each other. Because I want to do it all alone - I want to kick down the doors of Obsidian and dare them to come near my house - but I know I can't. But the senshi, the shitennou, and all of our connected friends and allies? There's no way anyone can get through that." she says. before another crumbless bite is taken from the waffle cone. "I don't need you to like her - it'd be nice. I don't need you to be ready if she becomes trouble, I have that. But if I want there to be no trouble in the first place, for the monster to stay put - that miracle, that's what I need Usagi Tsukino, Princess Serenity for." she continues. "...it's greedy, because I know I already got one miracle from you, in Paris. Hopefully, this one doesn't require quite the same 'scale' of miracle."
Usagi Tsukino	"No," she agrees, and her tone is all a princess' understanding, a diplomat's compassion. "But I have a wand." She could say that it's not ''just'' youma who shout Refresh, but, that's not really the point, is it? The point is that just like Hannah, Haruka is determined to take the risk of shattering her heart. Usagi won't push further, not now, anyway. She stirs up her ice cream, eating it a little messier than Haruka's somehow, insanely neat bites. She listens to Haruka, and what she wants, and maybe it is greedy, but isn't Usagi the ''most'' greedy? Doesn't she want everything, as she always has, peace and love and a future, happiness and good food and warm beds and ''love'', repeated again, because it's so important, so necessary? "You're talking to me," she say, and smiles faintly, "I didn't talk to everyone so we could ''handle'' it. I talked to everyone because I want a miracle too. Because I want days where we aren't counting the apocalypses on two hands, and a future where everyone can breathe easy and smile. Even people I don't like, because that's what everyone should have. I came to warn you, because I can't do it without ''you'' either. You and Michiru and Setsuna, you're a part of this too. Inners and Outers and Shitennou, we're all guardians, protecting our precious planet, our precious people. We have the same goal, and we'll make sure we have that smiling future, together."
Sailor Uranus	On this, Haruka agrees, and smiles. "I know who I'm talking to. That's why I know you'll understand." she says, smiling back at her. "Maybe you won't always agree and that's okay, but we're striving for the same goal, and the same future, and the same happiness." she says. "I'd also like to spend more time with you, and with our allies; the senshi and the shitennou - in a non-apocalypse-discussion kind of way." she says. "I've been thinking about throwing a party. For everyone. Maybe should have done it sooner, but I feel like we're kind of all busy at times... and... I want to celebrate. Because we won one. A big one. And I don't know, maybe we should have a party? Like a 'witch is dead' party." she offers. And she leans back and looks around. "Maybe an ice-cream party." Then she laughs. "No, I guess that's silly of me, right? We're not kids, you're right. None of us are. We... fight so that other people can be, though. So that they don't have to live in a world that's all dark and sucky." She folds her arms, the cone having long ago disappeared. "At least, that's what I think."
Usagi Tsukino	"I would too. I was thinking that, we all should spend time together when there's no apocalypse, no disaster, no problems coming around. I'm always on campus, and around the city, but we shouldn't just see each other by accident, you know?" A nod, slow. "A party would be good. I think, earlier, it would have been... maybe too much. A lot happened, and it was - it was a bad time, even though we won. But now, we're back in school and we had a whole summer that was pretty ''good'', and it'd be good to have... a get together, a party, whatever we want to call it. It's not silly! There are a lot of us, and it can be easy to fall into cliques. The Inners, the Outers, the Shitennou, the polycule," one of those is not like the others, Usagi. Usagi! "We should get used to spending time together. And celebrate for good, that she's ''gone''. Suna-san talked about it once, having some kind of get together, and we talked about a vacation of some kind..."
Sailor Uranus	She smiles much more broadly than she has. "I really don't like the idea of us being kind of two seperate teams, if I can be honest. I understand how it happened - it was that way in the past, and we're all seperated from you by at least a grade... or more, in Setsuna-san's place - but I also think that... I'd like to close that gap. The past is the past, and with the defeat of Beryl, I feel like we've overcome a lot of our past demons." she says. Then she takes a moment. "Polycule?" she asks, and then she shrugs. "Nevermind." She has enough on her mind right now! "A vacation is harder for me to fit in with the race schedule." she says, forgetting the Senshi she's talking to isn't privvy to that sort of thing, but talking to Usagi is so easy, it always has been. "But a party? I can totally do a party. We can do it at the house or if it's too weird to do it at 'our turf' we can have it at the Crown or something?" she offers. Her cell phone starts to buzz and she scowls at it. "Ah, I'm going to have to return this call soon." she says.
Usagi Tsukino	"I don't like it either, so I'd be happy if we could be one team, instead of so many," Usagi says frankly, "I think, because everyone else lives on campus, or used to - Mamochan is leaving, Tama-kun doesn't live on campus - it's just easier to run into each other, to clump together, coming and going, you know? But I'd like us to try." It would be nice. To have one group, and she doesn't ''need'' to be the leader, even if she's kind of taken the role, because as long as they all work together, they'll sort it out - "Oh, it's because you need a whole relationship chart to keep track of who's dating me and Mamochan," she says cheerfully, in the face of that nevermind. Race schedule? Is Haruka-chan actually racing in something? Maybe sports? "Crown would be good, I think, Motoki-kun is really friendly with us - plus, we uh, kinda have a secret base under the Sailor V machine, and you should maybe see it at least once?" haha. Oh, a phone call - "No worries. If you need to go, I can make my way back!"
Sailor Uranus	Haruka has a lot to process. She silences the phone, for now, and looks at Usagi. "Relationship ''chart''?" she says. Then, not wanting to be judgemental, she adds "Well, whatever works for you." with a shrug. Her phone goes off again, Haruka scowls deeper at it, and silences the call a second time. "...did you say base under the Sailor V machine?" she asks, incredulous, and is about to add something else when her phone buzzes, a third time. "Oh for the love of..." she shakes her head. "...Sorry, I have to take this APPARENTLY." she adds. "Uh, what is it Jones-san says..." she says, holding up a finger. "We'll have to put a pin in that." she says in not-a-native but actually not awful English. "It means we have things to talk about later." then she stands up and bows politely. "Sorry to have to run but." The phone buzzes again and she points at it with an accusatory finger. "Text me, Usagi-chan." she says, before picking up the phone and yelling a frustrated "WHAT" in English at whoevers on the other side of the call as she walks out of the parlor, with some clear frustration in her movements.