View source for Art Deco (Takashi Agera, Sailor Earth)

{{Cutscene Header
|Date of Scene=2018/04/25
|Location=D-Point?
|Synopsis=Takashi and Mirai discuss upcoming things, and Takashi sees what she's doing when she's not in Tokyo.
|Cast of Characters=47 217
|Tinyplot=Sailor Earth
}}
Takashi Agera stepped out of the Dusk Zone onto the frozen plane, and huddled his lab jacket around him as the wind whipped the tail of it. There was a storm here. There hadn't been before. Part of him wondered if that was a portent. He ducked his head down and pushed on, until he hit the cave.

Takashi had never made it to the cave himself, not when it was... what it was. When it was Beryl's fortress. His red blood stained the snow outside. He took a hit aimed for Mamoru Chiba. He died. Dying was an unpleasant experience, even when it didn't stick. He was sometimes surprised he didn't have a scar.

But now it was one of the few places on Planet Earth to have any real quantity of Golden Kingdom history, and Energy. That's why Sailor Earth, christened also Mirai Chiba, spent so much time here when she wasn't watching her quarry or stealing his energy through the forged link.

Even with zero real connection to that place, that time, now that he knew what to look for, to sense, Takashi could feel it, the echo like cosmic background radiation of what the world once was before time was time.

He didn't take the stairs down, he floated, because the stairs were coated with frost and snow. And Earth's footprints. She'd been outside, then back. Once he reached the large atrium she'd held up in he saw why - more art she'd dug up from the ruins around. The ruins must have been more extensive than he'd thought. Something to factor in for future plans...

"Mirai?" Takashi called, and then the sound of boots on the floor came from a distant hall, followed by Sailor Earth - the girl with eyes like a stormy ocean and hair like a raven's. She spent her time as Sailor Earth because that was the form he'd created her in - it was acting like a normal girl, Mirai, that took more energy and effort. She -was- Sailor Earth, the rest was a mask.

"Agera-san." she said, her voice a little high but a little sad as she looked around.

"I got your message - you needed help?" He looked around. "An art excavation that's too big for your own stuff or something?"

"No, no, not that. I've got.... I've been... someone invited me to a birthday party. But I know the address. It's the fake me." Takashi blinked, but didn't say anything. It was... impressive how the Jewel Seed had corrupted his creation slowly, and she now believed in both the reality of her creation and the surety of her primacy, all at the same time.

"So... either it's a trap, a trick, or a coincidence?" Takashi suggested. "First off, you should go. It'd be odd if you didn't and it'll give me a chance to complete a major work - If they don't know you're coming they'll all be local pretty soon to protect the other, and if it's a trap or trick they'll be there too. I'll give you something to make sure you can beat an escape..."

Takashi's device appeared as the gauntlet, and he reached into the central black sphere that he'd turned into a sort of portable hole, rummaging around. "Ah. Here. If you need to beat feet, crack this. Actually you could probably just show them what it is and threaten to and they'd let you scoot." He handed her a strange sphere wrapped in a sort of cloth. She peeked at it, smiled, and nodded before wrapping it again.

"Oh... and I'll need a present." She noted.

"Who's it for?"

"Sora Hisakata." 

"Guess the location is why I wasn't invited." Takashi mused. "I'd send along a present with you but I suppose that'd be a lot of a tipoff." he mused with a grin. 

"Takashi-san?" Earth asked, coming closer. "How long will I have to wait before I can see all of this again, in person. All the subjects of the art I look at, all of the things I feel and remember?" Her eyes sparkled like motes of lightning on a clear sea.

"Mirai... we're not trying to bring back the past." he reminded her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "We're creating a future that surpasses all of the permutations of the past. This world, the Golden Kingdom, any world. Why be the queen of the inferior past when you could wear a crown in the superior future?"

Mirai turned her face away. "Right. Yes." She didn't seem convinced. Takashi shrugged. "Keep working. You're doing a good job."

What Takashi didn't tell her as he turned to leave again was that she had become the experiment, the way her forged Linker Core, Mamoru's Energy, and the Jewel Seed all interacted with each other being a source of invaluable information about the way powers worked, and the true nature of what Takashi believed to be the last remaining Jewel Seed on this particular plane of existence. A secret as old as Belka or perhaps more. And somehow, so fitting...