The day has finally come and Manami is pretty nervous. Can he pass his history exam? Mixed manga/anime canon. Written for the 25th Anniversary of the Stars arc and the 30th Anniversary of Sailor Moon.
Rated: K - Parody/Humor - Words: 2,403 - OC
A/N: I'd like to thank Seren_Kat32 for helping out with the description of the Dark Kingdom's HQ.
"Alright everyone," called out the invigilator, "your time begins now. "
The last word echoed through the room and was accompanied by a flurry of papers being turned over. Nerves getting the better of him, Manami merely stared at the booklet laying in the desk in front of him.
Crystal Juban High School History Entrance Exam 29-
Rather than finish reading the title, Manami instead nervously opened the booklet. He hated history.
Explain what a Star Seed is and what the difference is between it and a 'true Star Seed'. 5 marks
Five marks!? Manami wracked his brain and vaguely remembered Haruna-sensei mentioning that this year's test would be looking for lengthy explanations.
A Star Seed is a kind of cut jewel that is generated by the Galaxy Cauldron. They are the foundation of all life in the Galaxy. Most Star Seeds are gold but true Star Seeds come in a variety of colours, are referred to as Sailor Crystals and are possessed only by planetary guardians. However, some non-Sailor Senshi life forms possess Star Seeds similar to Sailor Crystals. If an untrue Star Seed is artificially removed from someone they will be transformed into a creature known as a Phage who will appear to have some items of clothing similar to a Sailor Senshi.
Manami desperately hoped he hadn't been conflating what he'd read in his textbook with any playground rumours he'd heard.
Name the buildings that were the seats of power for the Silver Millennium before and after the 20th century respectively. Briefly describe the exterior locations of each.
Easy!
Pre-20th century: Moon Castle. Beautiful. White and silver.
Post-20th century: Crystal Palace. Also beautiful. Glittery with a lot of spires.
The Holy Grail is gold and what other colour?
White.
Manami chewed the end of his pen and scribbled out the answer.
Red.
How did Sailor Moon first obtain the Holy Grail?
Oh!
She got it when the three Talismans, the Garnet Orb, the Space Sword and the Submarine Mirror were combined together… Or was that something to do with summoning Sailor Saturn.
It was so hard disentangling what he'd learned in class, what his parents had told him and all the movies, TV shows, mangas and other dramatisations that had been made over the years.
Explain what the Holy Moon Chalice is.
The what!?
Manami was almost certain there was no such thing as a Holy Moon Chalice. Like so many people his parents had a replica ornament of the chalice and they always called it the 'Rainbow Moon Chalice'. Maybe it was one of those politically correct things his parents always grumbled about where the school board decided to rename something.
Deciding it was best to presume it was the same item, Manami was then torn between two possible answers.
He wasn't sure if the item was attached to Eternal Sailor Moon's weapon or if it was merely a more powerful version of the Holy Grail. He decided to leave it blank and come back to it later.
Look at the two images below.
Manami obeyed. The picture on the left was of a glassy blue orb supported by a white handle and base and flanked by white wings. The image on the right looked similar in shape but the orb was simply a flat circle, the wings and handles were shaped differently, there was a star at the centre of the circle and the item was over all more colourful, the star and centre circle being red.
Place a tick next to the image that accurately depicts the Holy Moon Chalice.
Manami's pen was actually on the paper, ready to place a tick under the redder chalice when he paused. The redder chalice looked just like the ornament in his house, but what if that was the Rainbow Moon Chalice. It was certainly more colourful than the other image. He again left it blank and moved on.
What are the unifying physical features of a Sailor Power Guardian?
Manami suppressed exclaiming in delight. This one he definitely knew.
Sailor Power Guardians are all miniature versions of the Inner and Outer Senshi. They keep the castles located on the moons of the eight planets within the Solar System, exempting the Moon itself. It is however rumoured that the Moon Castle has a power Guardian known as Diana the Moon Fairy.
Name the known locations where Sailor Power Guardians are most commonly found. 7 marks.
Mariner Castle of planet Mercury.
Phobos-Deimos Castle of planet Mars.
Io Castle of planet Jupiter.
Magellan Castle of planet Venus.
Miranda Castle of planet Uranus.
Triton Castle of planet Neptune.
Charon Castle of planet Pluto
Titan Castle of planet Saturn.
Now wise to what was expected from higher mark questions Manami threw in some extra details.
The latter four are monitoring stations to watch for inbound external threats to the Solar System. The castles are believed to be integral in enabling the Sailor Senshi to obtain their Eternal forms. It is believed that the Crystal Palace on Earth serves a similar function.
Where was the headquarters of the Shadow Galactica?
Sagittarius Zero Star.
Once more, uncertainty gripped Manari and he scribbled out the answer, replacing it with a new one.
The Ginga TV studio.
What is a Dream Mirror? 3 marks.
A Dream Mirror is the physical manifestation of someone's beautiful dream. It can be used by a third party to look inside someone's dream, often at their pain and distress. If shattered it will leave the owner dead or comatose.
Which organisation targeted civilians for their Dream Mirrors and what particular Dream Mirror were they looking for? Name how they first infiltrated Old Tokyo and draw their insignia.
The Dead Moon Circus, enemies of the White Moon. They were looking for the Golden Dream Mirror. They infiltrated ancient Tokyo during an eclipse and posed as a genuine circus.
Their insignia was far tricker for Manari to render. The most he managed was a black dotted eye.
To compensate, he tried to score a bonus point with a little extra information.
Their ship was a gigantic flying circus tent and they had a whole fleet of them.
He looked back at his own answer and the bizarreness of it hit him.
Their ship was a gigantic flying sailing ship.
That seemed merely less bizarre to Manami so he scribbled out both answers and moved on.
What were the Amazon Stones? 3 marks
They were magical orbs wielded by the Amazoness Quartet a.k.a. The Sailor Quartet. They are theorised to either be the Quartet's Sailor Crystals or devices used by the Dead Moon Circus to control them.
Name the two owners of this mirror.
Manami beheld the printed image of a beautiful ornate mirror.
Queen Serenity and Queen
Nehalennia
Nehellenia
Nehelenia
Would they really penalise him for a minor misspelling?
Which organisation targeted civilians for their Pure Heart Crystals and what particular Pure Hearts were they looking for?
The Death were looking for the Three Talismans which were supposed to reside within three pure hearts.
What in particular did they employ to obtain Pure Hearts?
Daimon Eggs.
Name their base of operations and its location.
Their base of operations was the Mugen/Infinity Academy which was located in the Omega Area of Sankakusu district of old Tokyo.
Draw their insignia.
Drawing their insignia was far easier. Or would have been if Manami could be sure what insignia to draw.
It was definitely either an infinity loop or a black star.
He settled on the infinity loop as that made more sense. The black star must have belonged to the Witches 5.
True or False. The above organisation possessed an item called the Taioron Crystal?
Was this a trick question because the proper name was Thyoron Crystal? Or was that another invention of the dramatisations?
Which adversary of Sailor Moon's made use of the Dark Crystal
Easy!
The Black Moon Clan.
Name and draw the crystal used by the Black Moon Clan
Manari scrunched his face up in confusion. Why would the test paper give the answer to the previous question? Did the examiners make a mistake?… Unless.
He restrained himself from swearing.
Now he remembered that the Dark Crystal was used by the Dark Kingdom. The Black Moon Clan used the Black Crystal!
No, wait. That wasn't its name, or at least not its full name. Its full name was…
The Malefic Black Crystal
The Evil Black Crystal
Beguiling Black Crystal
Diabolic Black Crystal.
Black Poison Crystal.
Manari felt a wave of despair. He truly sucked when it came to crystal lore.
He made an attempt to draw the crystal, initially just drawing a black diamond with a shorter top and longer end. Then he panicked and turned that into a jutting spike, then a series of jutting spikes then scribbled everything out and rendered a kind of black chandelier looking crystal..
Describe a typical Black Moon Clan U.F.O.
Gleaming crystal spikes, like a sea urchin, sat atop a torch-like object.
Give the full name of the Black Moon Clan's place of origin. 3 marks.
Finally, something easy!
The secret tenth planet of the Solar System, the Black Moon, Planet Nemesis
Manami couldn't help but notice that the exam paper didn't ask him to draw the ebony 'frown' insignia of the Black Moon Clan. Evidently, after their invasion, it was deemed inappropriate, like drawing the symbol of those bad guys from 20th century Europe.
Describe the appearance of a Dark Henge and their primary purpose.
Dark Henges were small emerald green statues rendered in the appearance of Black Moon Clan member Esmeraude. Their purpose was to manipulate the small amount of negative energy at locations known as Negative Points. If a Dark Henge accumulated enough Dark Power they could open up a Dark Gate and enable the Black Moon Clan to conquer the Earth.
Name all the Crystal Points circa the 20th century and their collective purpose in the 30th century. 5 marks
Oh, this one was way too easy.
Crystal Points are six locations that generate an energy known as Crystal Power. Collectively they form the foundations of Crystal Tokyo and were pivotal in its defence from the Black Moon Clan. The Black Moon Clan attempted to corrupt them with negative energy in the 20th century in order to complete their invasion in the 30th.
The locations circa the 20th century were:
Otafukuya: A cosmetics store.
Bob-Floy: Teenage Neo-Queen Serenity's favourite ice cream store
Hikawa Shrine: Former home of Sailor Mars.
Lucky Charms House: A store that sold assorted jewellery and fortune-telling items
Juban Supermarket
Chess Tower: The location of the international chess tournament and site of the 1993 match between Sailor Mercury and Black Moon Clan member Berthier.
Give the full name of Neo-Queen Serenity's Star Seed and draw it.
Manari groaned at this most impossible of crystal lore questions.
The Mystical Silver Crystal.
The Legendary Silver Crystal
The Illusionary Silver Crystal
The Phantom Silver Crystal
The Illusory Silver Crystal
The Silver Moon Crystal
The Moon Crystal
The Imperium Silver Crystal
The Empyrean Silver Crystal
The Pink Moon Crystal
Giving up on naming it, Manami attempted five different drawings. One was a chunky diamond quartz. Another, a leaner teardrop diamond. The next was round, almost like a golf ball. The Final two attempts rendered it more like a flower.
Place a tick next to the correct of the next two answers.
When the Sailor Starlights travelled to Earth in the 20th century they posed as the boy band known as the Three Lights. Did they do this by:
a) Dressing as cisgendered men
b) Using magic to transform themselves into cisgendered men
c) Deactivating their transformed states and assuming their civilian bodies which appeared as cisgendered men
d) Employing the Kinmoku people's natural ability to change certain physical biological features of their bodies
10 marks
Yes! This one question could help make up for a lot of the others he'd gotten wrong. And Manami was 100% certain about what the answer was too. It was-
"Time's up! Pens down!"
This time Manami did swear.
Over a month later, when the results came back, Manami was crushed by his less than stellar performance. But then, he thought, school wasn't everything. He wasn't great at history, but he did know of one historical figure who was a very poor student, but turned out to be a pretty great queen.
A/N: I thought of this story VERY last minute and wanted to get it out on the last day eligible for the Stars arc 25th Anniversary. Hence it is in a bit of a rough shape and I might clean it up later.
It occurred to me that the Star Seeds are so vitally important to the Stars arc, Sailor Stars and retroactively the Sailor Moon story over all that they deserved a bit of spotlight themselves. But then my OCD kicked in and I thought about all the other miscellaneous items and what not scattered throughout the series that I had no plans to celebrate nor include in other stories I was writing.
So, to compensate, I came up with the idea of lumping them all together in this story and using the concept of a history exam as a way to account for the differences between canons.
The main character for this story is supposed to be the baby Usagi and Mamoru looked after in the Hell Tree arc of the anime. I figured that would be a little bit more interesting than a wholesale OC and Manami could believably have been young enough to still be a student even after the events of the Black moon arc.
Also just to let you know I am involved in a discord called 'Moonlight Legends' which is dedicated to sharing all sorts of Sailor Moon fanworks, including other fanfics. If you would like to join so you can share your own work, get help with your current projects or just connect to other fan creators shoot me a PM and I'll send you an invite. All are welcome!