PGSM: The Second Story
an: The main problem of the henshin is beginning to look like it will get resolved.
Tokyo, Summer, Present Day
The Crown karaoke parlor had remained largely unchanged in the years that had followed their battle, and Aino Minako still felt as though she was trespassing on a scared place when she stepped through the door and flashed a badge that she hadn't used in years at the eyes of the boy at the counter. While it was after midnight, Minako wasn't bothering to hide who she was – she had more important things on her mind and in the eyes of many of Japan's youth she was almost a has-been until her latest CD was released domestically next month.
It was late at night, and Minako had finally managed to slip away from her management and Michiru Kaiou to be alone and finally have a chance to think. There was just something about her that set Minako on edge – despite the fact that they worked so well together.
Minako was nervous, her newest CD was a departure from her previous work, and her die-hard fans might not like the soulful music that she had pleaded with manager and record label to produce.
Still, this issue paled in comparison to the greater problem that lay before her.
Attacks.
In broad daylight – and far brutal than ever before.
She was terrified. They couldn't transform, and the forbidden Senshi from the past life were dispatching of these enemies without a care for the human life involved in their battles. Senshi Venus did not back down from a fight and even now the dread was mounting. This was just like the last time they had to fight – only now they were together and powerless, instead of simply leaderless and alone.
She couldn't let her team down again. They had to protect the princess, to protect her innocence from the violence that was on the verge of breaking out.
Her lips moved silently as she pushed open the door to the secret room in the basement of the Crown. The air was still here, a place to think and to meditate. To pray, if she so desired.
Aino Minako was not religious. She liked the ceremony of Christian churches and loved Japanese festivals. Yet this prayer was to an ancient patron goddess – one of whom she had once been considered an avatar, for understanding. She had promised herself when she lay in a hospital bed years ago that she wasn't going to fall back to the old ways that she had remembered from the past life. Those gods were long dead and could not help her now.
But to ask for power, to be able to take on the mantle of Senshi Venus once again, seemed like a reasonable breach of her resolve.
She had come to this place, where the Senshi had gathered during the last war, because it was the seat of their power. Usagi was their queen, she just didn't know it yet – and potentially never would.
Yet Aino Minako had to fix this before it got out of hand.
In the past life, the guardians of the outer rim had been banned from the Moon's court because their duties were so extreme and important. There simply wasn't time for them to be bothered with petty and oftentimes ceremonial appearances on the Moon when their duties lay so far away from the center of the kingdom. Venus' consciousness told her that they should not be trusted, because their presence alone indicated that they had an agenda that did not jive with that of the Inner Guard and the princess.
Minako was inclined to go along with Venus on this, but her need to formulate a plan, to figure out how they were going to fight if they could not transform any more, was far more pressing.
She pulled a chair from the table at random, slumping into the pale red frame with a weariness that she had not felt in years.
How had she managed to do that? How had she managed to use her powers without the transformation? Minako looked down at her hands, her expression puzzled. There was no reason that they should be anything less than powerless mortals at this particular point in time. The future was something entirely different all together, but that was years from now and Minako didn't even want to think that far into the future.
Her thoughts were reserved for the present at the moment.
Between her fingers, Minako's eyes caught sight of a cream colored envelope laying on the tale. She leaned forward and picked it up with cautions fingers. There was no address, just a series of marks in a hash-mark pattern that Minako did not recognize. It was like a code, but the markings were unlike anything that she had ever seen in this life.
Using one manicured nail, she slit open the envelope along the top and pulled out the contents. Unfolding the thin sheets of paper she nearly dropped them.
Suddenly, she recognized the language, and was kicking herself for not seeing it sooner. Venusian had several forms of written text – this one among the oldest and rarest, a cypher that she would have to decode. What was this doing here?
There was something about the recent events that made Minako want to cancel her tour and spend the time getting to the bottom of this. She would not have the past interfering with Usagi's chance to be happy. With all of their chances to be happy. It simply was not something that she had planned for – fighting again.
The nursery rhyme, a remnant of a childhood long ago on Venus drifted back to her unbidden and Minako recited the words from memory as she read the letter. It detailed – at least, to an extent – the events of the past day and how exactly they were supposed to combat them.
Senshi Venus, as the leader of my daughter's guard it is your responsibility to keep my daughter out of this conflict as best you can. The silence is coming and the danger is mounting for her existence in this life time. I cannot trust the planet into her hands once more, for the power that saves worlds, also destroys them. Please use your skill as her guardian to keep her out of this, and with this promise you will find your will to fight once more.
Aino Minako's gaze was steely as she set down the letter. Her duty was to the princess, not some ghost from her past. She would not allow herself to be dictated to, not after what had happened the last time. Even now she felt the pangs of that depressing isolation in the midst of her illness – and she felt the radiating joy at the thought of how stubborn and defiant Hino Rei had refused to let her be alone.
Minako could never express in words how grateful she was for that.
She would call Rei and tell her of this development in the morning.