9
Chibi-Usa popped into the Sorceress's cave. It wasn't Esmeralda's place that she left just a few days earlier, but the cave belonging to the Sorceress of the Winds. The cavern was empty.
After removing the magical slippers, Chibi-Usa rummaged in her bag and slipped on her own well worn shoes. She turned toward the entrance when the sound of rustling cloth announced someone's approach.
Puu the black cat ball floated through the curtains and toward Chibi-Usa. It exclaimed with Sailor Pluto's voice, "There you are; we have been so worried about you since the explosion at the Time Portal."
Chibi-Usa cried and hugged the ball. "I just want to go home!" She dug out her Time Key, it was all twisted and blackened. "This didn't work when I tried to go home. I have been in the strangest places."
The Sorceress of the Winds joined their conversation. "I have been working on these to send you home as payment for retrieving my missing slippers. She held out a pair of shiny pink shoes. They work just like the Silver Slippers."
Chibi-Usa stuffed Puu in her bag, held the twisted Time Key between her palms, and tapped her heels together three times, repeating "There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home."
Opening her eyes after the disorienting transition, Chibi-Usa looked around. There it was in the distance, the gleaming spires of Crystal Tokyo. Home at long last. She ran toward the city on sock feet, her scuffed, battered shoes and Puu forgotten in her bag.