II. In which a not-so-chibi Usa is confused
Truth be told, Chibiusa was not depressed.
Oh, sure, some people seemed to think that she was depressed, but she was most certainly not. What was there to be depressed about? Just because her mother wanted her to reawaken the Asteroid Senshi and begin her training as a soldier with them, despite the fact that there had been no crime or evil-doers of any sort since Galaxia's time, or because she was sixteen and had never once been on a date, despite the fact that she was the crown princess of Crystal Tokyo and apparently very pretty according to her mother and father (but then, they would say that, wouldn't they), or because she was failing her math class, no matter how hard she tried to study, or because her spring allergies were acting up, there was nothing to be depressed about!
Oh, yeah, and she hadn't seen Elios since before she had come home to Crystal Tokyo. The apparent love of her life, and she hadn't even seen him in… Well, a thousand years, or else about six years, depending upon how one looked at it.
Either way, it was a long time not to see the person who was apparently the love of your life.
Okay, now she was depressed.
She stood up from the pink divan upon which she had been sprawled. Candy wrappers littered the ground around her. It was like a war had gone on, between the chocolate bars and all the other little candies. And who had won? Why, Chibiusa had won, of course, what with her most supreme weapon—teeth.
Wow, she thought. If she was bored enough to come up with scenarios like this in her mind, she really needed to get out.
Ah, but where to get out to? Crystal Tokyo was filled with teen hangouts, but she didn't have anyone to go with. Hotaru, although still her friend, didn't seem to have time for her anymore, what with all of her duties. It was the same with the other senshi. She could understand, too, why they maybe didn't want to hang around with her anyway. They were all in their twenties, and even though that wasn't that much older than she was, she had to admit that they were all infinitely more mature.
So she matured slowly, maybe. It was a trait she had probably gotten from her mother.
Well, come to think of it, she didn't want to be a little kid anymore. She was sixteen, and she should start growing up. That had always been her dream, hadn't it?—to grow up and become a lady. Even before she had met Elios, it had been her dream. Now she had a good reason for wanting this, but had she acted at all to make it a reality? No. So perhaps that was why her prince had never come back to her. The solution was simple, then—grow up, and fast. Hopefully, she thought, within the next two weeks.
But how to go about doing this?
What did grownups do that she didn't? Well, her mother and father both drank coffee in the mornings, which was something she sure wouldn't do. Coffee was disgusting. …But if she was going to learn to be a grownup, maybe she had better learn to like it?
Of course, her parents drank beer sometimes, too, and she knew that no matter what, she could never learn to like that.
What else did her parents do that she didn't? She thought and she thought about the matter, but nothing else came to her. Oh, sure, when she had been little she would have said "They like sitting around and talking" or "Momma likes to go shopping," but now she found, at sixteen, that she too enjoyed these things. So what was it, really, that seperated her from the adults?
She would have to go on a mission, that's what she would do. She would go onto the streets of Crystal Tokyo, disguised as a normal citizien, and she would observe real adults in their natural habitats.
Hurriedly she pulled on some "regular" clothing, as opposed to the princess dress that she wore most days, and pulled her hair down from its buns, which would make her easily identifiable to the people of Crystal Tokyo.
Diana, who had been placidly sleeping on her bed stirred and looked over to her mistress.
"Lady," she asked with a yawn. "Are we going somewhere?"
"I'm going somewhere, Diana. You can't come."
That woke the grey kitten up.
"I can't come?" she asked, hopping down from the bed and making a beeline toward Chibiusa's feet. "Why not? I always come."
"Not this time, Diana. You're still just a kitten. Wait 'til you grow up some more."
"What? What?"
"Diana," Chibiusa said, drawing herself up to her full height—although it wasn't nearly as impressive in street clothes as it would have been in her princess dress, "I am going to grow up."
"Grow up? But Lady, how are you planning on doing this?" Her demeanor became serious again. "And why can't I come along? I want to grow up, too!"
Chibiusa sighed.
"It's different for you, Diana," she said, sitting down on a nearby chair, and then lifting the kitten into her lap. "You're a cat. You don't need to grow up like I do. It's different for people."
"How?"
"Well… Have you ever met a boy kitten who was so wonderful and handsome that you thought you wanted to be by his side all the time?"
"No."
"That's how humans and cats are different, then, Diana."
Diana puzzled over this for a moment.
"But what about my mommy and daddy?" she finally asked.
"Don't worry about it," Chibiusa said, allowing the kitten to jump back down onto the floor as she stood up. "It'll happen to you eventually, too, and that's when you'll need to grow up."
"But Lady… I want to go with you."
Chibiusa stood at the door, now, looking back at her guardian cat.
"Don't worry about it, like I said. It'll happen when it happens, Diana, and anyway, I won't be gone long." She pushed the door open and stepped through.
"Oh," she said, turning once more. "And if my parents ask, tell them… Tell them I said I went for a walk and will be back soon."
"Yes, Lady," Diana sighed, jumping back up on the bed.
However, as soon as the door was shut and Diana could no longer hear her lady's retreated footsteps down the hallway, she jumped down once more, and went to the door herself. Very briefly, she morphed into her human form in order to open and close the door, and then she became a cat once more, padding silently down the hall in the direction that her mistress had gone. Like hell she was going to let Chibiusa do this alone. And besides that, Chibiusa had never actually said where she was really going to go. She just said she was going to grow up, and that could mean any number of things, all of which were frightening to Diana—especially considering the short skirt that she had put on.
So Diana followed her mistress using her keen sense of hearing, through the hallways, and at last out of the palace entirely. She kept a safe distance the whole time, and planned on doing so until it was too late for Chibiusa to force her return to the palace. Of course there was no chance of her coming into contact with any real danger, not in Crystal Tokyo. That wasn't why Diana was following her.
It was just that, well… Maybe Diana wanted to grow up, too.
Notes: If you noticed a little symmetry between the first and second chapters… ^_^ You're not crazy, don't worry. BTW, I apologize for the formatting in this. Uploading HTML documents to fanfiction.net has a tendency to mess with my formatting—especially by inserting extra spaces. I apologize if that makes this hard to read, but… I can't really do anything about it, because uploading regular text documents messes up my formatting *worse.*
Anyway, I hope you're liking this so far! Please keep reading, it gets more interesting from here, I promise (and hopefully slightly less serious)!
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