717/Tea Party

Tea Party
Date of Scene:	15 December 2015
Location:	A Teahouse
Synopsis:	Ami and Minako meet to discuss two plans - 'track down the Dark Kingdom' and 'discover the secret of resurrection'. Minako greatly disapproves of one of these.
Cast of Characters:	Minako Aino, Ami Mizuno

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Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor V makes plans to meet 'near' tea, not 'for' tea or 'over' tea.

Specifically, she's behind a tea shop in an alley, kneeling down uncomfortably behind a dumpster and just hanging around. Exhausted, she wants to collapse down onto something soft but the only 'soft' thing is a pile of trash bags.

Artemis lays on them and it's fine for him. She'd probably get tetanus from scrappy metal.

Ami Mizuno has posed:
Ami Mizuno has been awake for far longer than she should be. Rather than sleeping, she's been overdosing on caffeine and nodoze. So when she arrives in the Alley, Sailor Mercury looks exhausted, and even her henshin sits on her slightly askew.

Wrinkling her nose, Mercury observes to Venus, "What a lovely new smell you've discovered."

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor V is more exhausted and a little burned up and not drinking caffeine. Also, technical dehydration.

"It's not me. It's the trash," she says. She raises her finger up and points at the dumpster. "It's the thing you're standing by."

She drags herself up to her feet now. "What are you doing?" she asks, straight out. She's pretty sure her intent is obvious, but she elaborates anyway.

"What are you working on? What have you found out? And why are you keeping secrets from me?" She tries to keep an edge of accusation and frustration from slipping into her voice.

Ami Mizuno has posed:
Sailor Mercury looks her friend over, then sighs. "Venus, you look worse than I do," she notes quietly. "Look, I have a lot to tell you, and I will tell you most of it. But," and here she banishes her henshin, becoming Ami Mizuno once more, "only if you come inside and have something to drink with me. And maybe something to eat. You look like you need it."

Minako Aino has posed:
The lovely Sailor V claims that she can't just go into a mortal tea shop and have some tea. It would ruin her mystique, get attention, and distract her from the task at hand.

"And... Ami-san, it's impolite to judge a girl by her bed covers," says the bandaged, bloody, bruised, exhausted girl in the trash who manages to uphold quite a bit more vanity than the situation would justify.

"But fine. I'll come to your tea place. But you need to give me my answers."

Ami Mizuno has posed:
Ami smiles wearily at Minako, then shrugs a little. "Deal," she promises, then leans in to offer a shoulder to the other girl. "Why are you so beat up, anyways? Do we need to get you to a hospital instead of a tea house?"

Ami directs them both inside, and even holds the door for her friend. She orers a coke for herself (at a tea house!? seriously!?) and pays for both meals without blinking an eye, then sits down at a seat.

"First," she notes, "I traced Mamoru's phones, like you asked. I've also been looking into ways to bring him back. And I'm keeping secrets because I'm working with someone who could get in a great deal of trouble if her allies know she is working with me. Reputations," she notes. "But I'm safe, and we're making progress."

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor V sits down in the corner and tries not to draw any attention to herself. She has what can best be described as partial success. When you return with drink, she's just sort of slumped down into the seat and enjoying how the comfortable seat conflicts with her body's worn out feeling.

"I don't need a hospital. I don't have time for nonsense right now," she says, sitting down with the expression of something that would resemble a pout if it didn't conceal so much anger.

"Great. We got three things to go through. None of it is pleasant."

Ami Mizuno has posed:
"You have time," Ami replies with a sigh, "you're just not willing to take it. At the very least, find someone who can heal you. You're no good to us dead, Minako." She rolls her shoulders a little, then slides Minako's tea to her, before popping the top on her soda. Ami takes a long, slow drink, before continuing.

"First," she says, "I traced every one of his numbers back a week. All three behaved as expected until the barrier went up." She rubs her nose, then says, "That's when things get weird. In the midst of it, I noticed the barrier being modified. As if someone were rewriting the spell. My research into his phone history shows that at that exact moment, all of his phones started relaying their signal all throughout tokyo; as if the signal were being bounced through every tower. It's typical misdirection, and very hard to crack. I haven't been able to discern the real location, yet, but I'm still trying. Even after the barrier went down, the misdirection continued for about an hour, and then his main phone line went back to normal. The other two were still misdirected." Pause. "They're still misdirected. The main line continued through Tokyo on routes that Mamoru might normally take until the text which reached all of us. At that point, it moved directly towards the meeting area, and was lost when ..." she pauses, here, then clears her throat.

"Look, Mina-chan," she notes quietly, "I really appreciate what you did for Usagi-chan that day. I saw what really happened. I know who really killed him. But I really appreciate that you took that for her."

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor V gets a little rude and interrupty. "I know who really killed him too," she says at a volume entirely inappropriate for public discussions about felonies. "It was me. But we're not here to talk about how I'm messing everything up, we're here to talk about you," she says, and it sounds meaner than she means for it to sound. She calms, though, minutely.

"I suspect it isn't 'misdirection'. Kunzite, Google Hacker doesn't really fit their M.O. When you walk to their world, you're sort of 'everywhere but nowhere'. You can follow them, you know, once they rip open the way. You can transform nearby and get sucked through, if you're exactly on target," she says. Mostly confidently. She doesn't drink anything.

"Just find the spot they kidnapped him. Narrow it down. Then we can get them."

She seems a little pleased with the news and is content to leave it to you, but she goes back to the other, less pleasant topic she's been sitting on.

"I don't want you keeping secrets about her from me. It suggests either she's up to something bad and needs to be put down OR you don't trust me. There's no other result. I don't like either of them," she explains.

"Secrets will get us killed."

Ami Mizuno has posed:
Ami sighs and leans forward just a little, clutching her drink with both hands. "That's good to know," she says, "but I can pick any one of a hundred locations. Unless they kidnapped him at the Orphanage, in which case ..." she trails off, then shakes her head. "But we saw him after that, and he did heal Jupiter." Reaching up, Ami rubs her nose faintly.

"The secrets I am keeping are only where I'm at," Ami notes quietly. "You already know I'm working with Ms. White. I just can't give away the place we're meeting. I'll be careful, Mina, I promise. But you've got to trust me to do this. Usagi-chan ... she can do it again, Mina-chan. She can reset it all. She can end this entire world. We can't let her know that. And we can't let her do that. If we reset again, we'll forget all over agian. That doesn't work. We've got to change the story this time, before it's too late."

Minako Aino has posed:
"Then don't pick a hundred locations. Pick the right one. Go back to the beginning and narrow it down as best you can. If you can't find me one, find me two. Or ten. Or a hundred. Or a thousand. Or a straight line from one end of town to the other - I'll go all of them myself," Sailor V swears, serious.

"Ami-san! Don't be distracted by whether he healed Jupiter or not - he *also* tried to kill Moon. At some point, he turned on us before I killed him." That's her interpretation. "Probably not a consensual turn. Probably. But it's the Dark Kingdom behind it. It has to be!"

She actually does get around to sipping her tea, the perfunctory 'cool off' period being as much for the temperature of the tea as it is for Sailor V.

"I understand you're going through a lot of stress. But I need you to not talk--" she pauses, searching for a word. 'Crazy' is too casual. She wants to say 'stupid' but it feels cruel and alienating. "--that way. Don't talk that way. About resets and resurrection. It's a waste of our time and your talent. I'd prefer your loyalty to 'us' rather than to others."

It sounds meaner than intended. Frustration and exhaustion take a toll.

"I mean-- Ami. Dead is dead. Please. Please. Put more effort towards protecting our princess than our princess' assassin. Tell me how to find the ones responsible for this, not Hannah's weird feel-good plans."

She repeats "Please," three times, low and quiet.

Ami Mizuno has posed:
Ami nods her head. "I'll find it, then," she promises Venus. "But I can't give up on this plan. It's not Hannah's, it's Usagi-chan's, and it's mine."

Ami puts her cheek down on the table, then sighs. "I know you don't like the plan, Minako, but if we don't have him ... she's going to do it again." Pause. "And again, and again ... I can't keep doing this."

"I've got to change the story," Ami raises her head and stares at Minako. "I knew it was her," she tells Minako. "I knew and I didn't tell you. And now he's dead because I didn't tell you."

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor V fiddles with the big senshi ribbon on her chest for a bit. She wanted to slam her fists down onto the table and make a loud racket to punctuate all the things she was about to say, but is constrained by the public.

She thinks Ami chose the location on purpose, just for that. It rankles.

"You give her too much credit. And too little credit. She won't do anything to hurt us. What she WILL do is be in danger if you don't do my plan. MY plan. Not Hannah's. Not Usagi-san's. Mine. Important decisions should not be made by a heart-broken girl in the middle of the most traumatic moments of her life - or yours. It's cruel to entertain that notion."

"So. Just do what I ask. Ever minute you're vacationing with Hannah instead of doing what I ask is giving the Dark Kingdom more time to try again."

She tells you her plan in extreme brief, which involves a text message saying (paraphrased): 'I'm going to black mail you because I figured out who you are and Sailor Moon is'. Perfect Shitennou bait. She assumes you understand her intent.

Ami Mizuno has posed:
Ami's expression hardens just a little at Venus. "I'm following your plan," she points out. "But I'm not going to abandoning what I know to also be required. I'm not vacationing with Hannah, and I'm not going to stop doing this. I'm going to bring him back, Minako-san. You can either support me in this, or stay out of my way. I'll find you where they took him, but I'm still doing my thing, too."

Minako Aino has posed:
"Great. You do that. Maybe you can bring back all my dead friends too," she says. It's not sarcastic at all, just wounded and defeated and not wanting to talk about it any more.

"Ami-san," Sailor V begins. She says it with an upward inflection, to hold her 'turn' to speak. But it's the longest hesitation yet. She's uncertain if she should go on.

"I don't know if you're angry at me and guilt-tripping me. Or if you somehow stumbled onto the most hurtful combination of words you could possibly say."

"But please stop talking about 'I knew and I did not tell so he is dead'. Just stop."

She collects up some money at her side by reaching down perpendicular to her hip and it's just there somehow. Ostensibly, it's to leave on the table to pay for tea so she won't 'be in your debt' - in actuality, Ami paid at a register. She starts to get up to leave, aiming herself right for the door.




"*I* knew all my life and I didn't tell any of you."