View source for 3058/Love and Beauty Schlock

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2018/01/12
|Location=Pikarigaoka - Seiyou Public School
|Synopsis=Sailor Earth's one-on-one with Minako Aino.
|Cast of Characters=40,217
|pretty=yes
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{{Poses
|Poses=:'''{{#var:40|Minako Aino| (40)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Minako Aino is in gym wear, which means the most boring white t-shirt ever and simple blue shorts that aren't very flattering but good for making face dives for volleyballs!<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;She isn't diving though because that means having a partner for tossing them at her. She's alone, so she's practicing serving by picking up volleyballs from a big basket and bopping them over the net, trying to hit white 'X's made in tape on the other side of the net.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Artemis is sitting in the bleachers next to Minako's bag. He's shiftily trying to steal the tuna salad Minako made for lunch. Minako sees it. Minako doesn't make a move to call him out on it yet. Not until he has it in his hand so he can jump and Tuna Salad can explode everywhere all over the bleachers probably when he fails to keep hold of it during the jump.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Bop! There goes another Volleyball.

:'''{{#var:217|Sailor Earth| (217)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Sailor Earth - Mirai Chiba - has had enough sitting on her hands. Takashi said a lot of the right things, but without actions, it didn't change her circumstances. "Wait for the right moment" he'd said after first telling her to 'prod and poke' - she wondered if there would ever be a right moment. Well, she'd decided, the right moment was right now.<br /><br />She didn't want to start with one of the boys, the knights - so even if it was harder to follow the line through Bunny and to the senshi, she'd been doing that. And that's how she ended up here, pushing the outer doors open to the gym.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Bop!<br /><br />She waited for the serve to stop bouncing before she started walking. She walked like Mamoru. You could see the closeness between them even before you looked into her eyes, before you saw the oceans reflected in those blue orbs.<br /><br />"I'm afraid that... your name here escapes me." she begins. "But watching you practice, I am reminded of practices in a time before this one that you lead me through."

:'''{{#var:40|Minako Aino| (40)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Minako Aino watches the ball hit one of those white x's with a dumb grin and she turns to pick up another one when the doors open and she begins to say. "Hey! I reserved the gym in the off time! Go away!" she calls out. Then she pauses. Oh. There comes her serious face.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Oh, come back from ShenZhen already?" she asks bluntly.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Artemis stops trying to steal Tuna Salad and pay attention and tries to hide behind the backpack. But his tail and ears peeking up betray him easily enough.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"It's Minako Aino. You can call me Minako Aino." because 'Mina' is reserved for friends. "Yeah well you're mistaken because that probably didn't happen." she says bluntly. Also the word 'Probably' for some reason. Huh.

:'''{{#var:217|Sailor Earth| (217)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>She visibly rolls the name around in her mind for a moment, picking up the meaning. "You know, it would really hurt me to hear that you don't remember it, except I've already gone through that like, a dozen times, and I'm starting to get a thick skin about it." She walks over to a basket of volleyablls and balances it on her upturned palm.<br /><br />"One of us is mistaken. Either you are or I am." she admits. "But you were the one that taught me to listen to my heart, in that brilliant world of golden light, a lifetime ago." She shifts the ball to her other hand.<br /><br />"I remember all the lessons you taught me, more clearly every day. I also see also the ways in which I haven't been following them very well." She looks at Minako, waiting for the reaction to that admittance.

:'''{{#var:40|Minako Aino| (40)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Minako Aino crosses her arms a bit as she stops tossing volley balls. Her eyes look upward behind Earth a moment towards her bag and back down to Earth. "I don't know your name excpet 'Sailor Earth'." she says rather seriously and cooly.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"You keep talking like you're sure. Maybe Ascydopolis was right and you're just poor and confused." she says bluntly.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Well maybe you should start following them and stop making boys into weird Shittyenou clones." she says.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Artemis does maybe giggle at that last one.

:'''{{#var:217|Sailor Earth| (217)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>'Earth' shakes her head. "You do know my name, you just assign it to the wrong person. You -should- know me as Mamoru Chiba but you don't, you know someone else as that name." she states firmly, with a lot of very real force behind her words. Not a threat, but a sort of extreme sureness.<br /><br />"...but I've decided to let him hold onto it for a while. So you can call me Mirai Chiba." A pause. "No relation." she notes.<br /><br />"I had another name but... I can only get close to the memory of it. It started with an E. I know that. But not Earth."<br /><br />"I'm as sure of this as I have been in anything since I woke up." she stomps her foot a bit petulantly on the ground. "I remember it. I feel it. It's alive in my heart. I... wish it was alive in yours. I wish you remember me. It's painful to be around you all. It's painful to walk the earth knowing someone else is using its gifts to be... not me. To live a lie. That's how it feels."

:'''{{#var:40|Minako Aino| (40)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Minako Aino listens to this as she doesn't roll her eyes, or anything. She's listening. Even as 'Mirari Chiba' makes a tempermental slam of her foot to the ground like a child. She makes a face at Earth that is both annoyed, frustrated and concerned all at once, somehow.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Okay fine." she says bluntly. "You keep claiming you're him." she says.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"That doesn't make sense. Mamoru is a damn decent guy and I think if he was stealing your power it would be accidentally and he'd give it up if that was the case. Because I don't think he LIKES seeing other people suffer like that." she says cooly.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;So what does she do? She does the same test on the last guy she had misgivings out as she grabs her arms and tense and--- a sickening crack.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Artemis winces and maybe mouths 'this again?'.<br /><br />"Oh look, my arm's hurt!" she says, and there is some red on her face because YEAH THAT HURT.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"So what are you gonna do about it?" she asks through gritted teeth. Also god how easily she was able to do that.

:'''{{#var:217|Sailor Earth| (217)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>"I'm not claiming I'm him I'm claiming..." Mirai begins, with a half-hearted sigh until - that sickening crack fills the air. It echoes off the walls, off the laminated hardwood floor - and for a moment, she doesn't move. She just looks at Minako - and it may be this moment that gives worry, but it may also just be the sheer effect of shock.<br /><br />But after that moment of pause, Mirai reaches up and her eyes wide. "Venus!" she says, with the V loudly prounounced and then the rest much quieter like she'd remembered not to call her that directly in the open. "What did you just do to yourself!?"<br /><br />She's almost frantically responding, putting one arm behind the blonde and the other hand on her shoulder, channeling...<br /><br />A very familiar sort of healing energy into it, one that calms not just the injury but also makes the emotional distress also want to go away...<br /><br />Except for there's still that nagging something is off, like the taste of an artifical sweetner. But it's dim, especially compared to the other feelings.

:'''{{#var:40|Minako Aino| (40)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Minako Aino eyes Mirai and what she does. She wants to see how she reacts. Concern and chiding apparently. Okay. That's a start. Then before she can answer the girl is channeling.... weird energy into her. That feels familiar.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Minako Aino doesn't need calming from her self inflicted wound. If Mirari failed she'd just call an ambulance and blame it on a Volleyball injury.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-and drive up the school's insurance premiums! But regardless, soon, she's healed? And she feels weird. Like. It was familiar. But. Odd. Really odd.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Well. I was testing you. And you uh." she says. "I'm not sure if that was a pass still."<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;But it's gonna give her plenty to mull over as she seems suddenly unsure. Artemis is noticing too with a bit of unapproval.

:'''{{#var:217|Sailor Earth| (217)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>"You could've..." she stops, and immediately breaks, putting distance between the two of them. "You ... you're still testing me. You're absolutely Venus. You know though... I was worried."<br /><br />There's a pause. "Did you test him, too? Did he pass? I'm... trying to figure out who he really is. He says he doesn't know but I don't believe him. He can't be me because I'm me."<br /><br />She shakes her head. "This shouldn't be so complicated, you know. I carry all of the memories of the Princess of Earth... all of the times with you - and with Bunny - and... it's real. I can't see inside your head so I don't know what's real to me. I don't know anything but the thoughts in my own head, and I guess it's the same for you."<br /><br />"Are you okay? Doing that is... it makes me feel more tired than I remember. Probably because I'm... to be diplomatic I'll just call it 'sharing'."

:'''{{#var:40|Minako Aino| (40)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Minako Aino wiggles her shoulder a bit and rocks it and it's fine mostly. That's odd. She keeps a straight face and trying not to let her face betray certain feelings she's feeling. Like confusion for one.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"That's fine. But it is complicated because you're effectivly ask us to drop a friend like a brick just because you say so." she says a little flatly.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"It's not like some Queen is about to come wisk you away because she's a capital B-word, because he's the one that helped handle that." she says.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"If you're tired, then you should go laydown." she says. "But I'm gonna make this clear. The Mamoru I know helps people, even if it's a really, really dumb idea. If you so much as lay a hand on him or anyone else I know again, I don't give a crap if you're the real deal, got it." she says sternly.

:'''{{#var:217|Sailor Earth| (217)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>Mirai nods along, until Minako gets stern. She almost looks cowed for a moment - and then she looks at Minako, right into her eyes with those deep blue ones. And the calm ocean behind them suddenly becomes a turbulent storm, and she stops somewhat slouching, rising up to her full and substantial height.<br /><br />"Minako Aino. Venus. Guardian." she says, each of those words said as though they all convey different but vitally important meanings. "You may not 'remember' this, but in the Golden Kingdom, one of the most important lessons you taught me was that while I had a team of Guardians, I had to be ready to fight on my own, to fight for what I believed in, and fight for what I loved." She keeps that stormy glare fixed firmly on Minako.<br /><br />"You wouldn't let me stand on the sidelines. You pushed until I fought you. And you probably don't remember this part, but I beat you silly. And you're not as strong as you were the last time because you don't remember your strength. And I love you but I will use that love to gain the strength to make you see the truth if you can't be reached by soft words and memories." There's an almost terrifying, putting-her-foot down about this, that same way Mamoru Chiba gets when something has absolutely offended his sensibilities, or threatened Usagi or the Shitennou. More than a tone, it's a style of energy, the psychic version of an immovable object. Flecks of gold, like small peices of gold leaf, flare up in her eyes.<br /><br />And then the world shudders and with the bright flash of light in the shape of a golden quartered circle, she just vanishes, the symbol fading away into fog. It wasn't a jump to the Dusk Zone, but something altogether different.

:'''{{#var:40|Minako Aino| (40)}} has posed:'''<br><span></span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Minako Aino is listening with glazed over look at this because. Now she's actually starting to believe that story because it's very much in line with things she might remember about the Golden Kingdom and the Silver Millenium. But still can't be.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Can it?<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Before she can say much else. She's gone in a flash. That's... different.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Uh..." she blinks.<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Yeah, wow." says Artemis. "That.. that was something."<br /><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Yeah." says Minako, squinting a little in confusion.
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