Sorrowful Ice Dancer Uranus! A Friendship Between Senshi
Seeking help hadn't been the best idea. She'd run into a wall. Misora wanted to apologize to Kyoko, she wanted that more than anything, but she didn't know how to go about doing that. There was only so much she was willing to do, especially when it came to being demonstrative in public, when it came to romance. Even though Misora had kissed Kyoko in the fish market, that was because she'd been so happy to see her alive and smiling that she hadn't been able to think straight. Now...now it's different. I'm in full control of my emotions and yet...yet I still find myself wanting to do something stupid in order to get her back.
Misora had gone to the ice rink at 10 AM. It was her day off, but she still wanted to keep in shape. One day of training would mean everything to her and her career. Dressed in a pair of spandex black pants and a leotard, a pair of gloves with the fingers cut off, and her hair pulled back...Misora reached for her music box and pressed a button. Immediately a semi-poppy Italian song came on and she dashed out onto the ice. The fast and steady beat sent her blood pounding and she started a series of jumps and feet changes, her silver ponytail whipping around her as she started a corkscrew spin. She needed the speed and the adrenaline rush to help her forget.
"L'arcobaleno é la mia scia. Che navigo in cerca di quella montagna di luce all'alba melodia. Mi portano indietro ad un tempo passato..."
Misora dashed from her spin to circle once more around the rink, lifting her back leg in a graceful stretch, just gliding along as she let her movements consume her and her thoughts drift into the background.
"Gli uccelli che volano alti nel cielo d'oriente. La rotta è sicura quell'isola cela un tesoro..."
Truthfully, Misora wouldn't even bother to notice someone if they came in at the moment. And she performed a graceful leap, her blades striking the ice in a very satisfying way.
~ * ~
Mujou had had it with Pathos' nagging! In a desperate attempt to escape his guardian's scolding, the college student ran, sketchbook in hand, into a nearby ice skating rink, yelling something at Pathos about "training in here," before slamming the doors too quickly for the owl to follow him.
Finding a spot to sit on the nearest bench, Mujou sat and grabbed a pencil from his backpack, beginning a rough sketch of a figure performing a double axle. Looking up to try and find a good model, Mujou noticed a skater preparing to leap. Focusing on her motions - the line of her hands, the angle of her ankles, the way her clothing moved with the wind...
As the figure skater jumped from the ice, Mujou's eyes glanced over her face, and realization hit him like an enormous wind - that girl was Misora, Sailor Uranus!
Hurrying to finish the basic outline of her figure, Mujou hastily stood, grabbing his sketchbook and placing the pencil on his ear as he jumped across a few benches (nearly tripping over a couple) to reach the entrance to the rink. Stepping onto the ice without a second thought, Mujou cried, "MISORA-CHA-" before promptly falling on his behind with a yelp. Wobbling to stand up (and failing at each attempt), Mujou waved - or was it flailed? - at Misora, trying to get her attention. Amazing luck, that he would find Sailor Uranus here, in an everyday ice rink! It was almost like she was a normal person!
Misora had been in the middle of a combination (triple axle with a double toe loop) when she heard someone calling her name in a very familiar voice. Landing easily, her blue eyes amused as she saw Mujou, she had to wince as he fell on his behind on the ice.
"Foolish boy..." and she glided over to him as easily as if she was floating. "Don't you know better than to come out onto the ice without skates?"
Even though her words were chiding, her tone was almost...fond. He may be a fool, but he may be just the person to help me forget about my own troubles for a while. Reaching a hand down, she hauled him easily to his feet, remaining perfectly balanced and still. Making sure to keep a hold on his arm in case Mujou decided to take another spill, Misora took a few breaths, not realizing how much she'd exerted herself until just now.
"What are you doing here?"
Blinking as he searched for an answer that wasn't "I was procrastinating," Mujou smiled nervously for a moment, and then answered in his most nonchalant voice possible, "Well, I figured that it was a nice day for an ice rink!"
Pretending as though randomly visiting ice rinks was completely normal, Mujou nodded assuringly, before continuing, "Thank you so much for helping me, Misora-chan! I don't know where I'd be if you hadn't helped me off of that ice..." Taking a moment to actually ponder this, Mujou decided, "I suppose I'd still be on my rear-end, but well...I'm not anymore, thanks to Misora-chan!" Laughing enough to disturb nearby skaters, Mujou patted Misora on the back rather roughly, almost as if she were an older brother.
"Oh! But..." he mumbled, more to himself than to her. "What are you doing here, Misora-chan?" Looking around the rink, he failed to see a certain ball of sea green hair. "More importantly, where is Kyoko-chan? Aren't you two, you know, INSEPARABLE like Haruka-chan and Michi-I MEAN, I know, you're not like them at all, right?" Grinning and hoping to Heaven that he hadn't just embarrassed himself even more than he thought he did, Mujou tried to compensate by reasoning, "Well, I think you two are lovers - you ARE lovers, right? Because if I got that wrong, then I'm SO sorry! Gomen na sai!"
In a panicked frenzy, Mujou let go of Misora's arm and attempted to bow, before his head collided with the ice, cracking it slightly as he tumbled to the ground in a heap. "ITAIIIIIII!" a childish cry of pain echoed throughout the rink, as passersby looked at the moron who'd just fallen onto the ice.
Misora almost shook her head and asked him not to call her that. After all, they weren't that close and she felt years older than him...not today. Don't spoil his day. At the questions about Kyoko, Misora's features darkened a little and she let go of his arm. That would probably explain his fall onto the ice. That and the fact he was a little klutzy and Misora's heart softened. Much like a certain princess I know.
"Come on, Mujou-kun, let's get you onto the benches and off the ice."
With that, Misora hauled him to his feet once more (revealing surprising strength) and guided him back to plop him down on the benches. After leaning over to examine his head and see if there were any injuries, she began to answer his questions.
"As for what I'm doing here, Mujou-kun, back home I was an international figure skater and was well on my way to competing in the Olympics. My trainer Chinmoku would have a field day if I was out of shape just because I was fighting evil in another dimension," she chuckled a little before rising and going back out onto the ice, leaning against the wall. "Not to mention I haven't seen one cinnamon bun in this entire city."
Which had been disappointing, because Misora would have bought a baker's dozen and brought them home to help her brood. But that would just make Chinmoku even crazier if I put on all that weight. So maybe it's a small blessing.
"And the reason Kyoko isn't here is...well..." she looked around and leaned in closer. "She and I were on a mission and although we retrieved what we were looking for, the enemy got away with a soul. The stress and other emotions got the better of us...and we fought. She went back to stay with that couple in the fish market and I've been at the apartment ever since. Things will work out eventually though...I just have to find her and apologize."
Glancing at his sketchbook, Misora smiled a little. "Were you sketching me, Mujou-kun?"
Mujou blushed a little at all the sudden closeness between him and the ice skater. It was as if he'd been leaning against her door, waiting for her to open it, when she finally did and sent him sprawling onto her floor...or the ice. Either way, he was grateful that she felt that they were close enough for her to confess this new dilemma she'd been having with Kyoko-chan. Despite his gratitude, though, he couldn't quite find the right words to comfort her - tact was never Mujou's strong point, which had been obvious when he'd asked about Kyoko as if their romance was a public affair.
"Well," Mujou started, not sure what else to say to make her feel better. "I'm sure Kyoko-chan will forgive you if you just go to her to apologize!" he practically shouted, before realizing that there were actually other ice skaters in the rink. "After all, you two seem to go so well together..." he continued, quieting his voice to a stage whisper. "I'm sure that she feels just as badly as you do," he exclaimed quietly, patting Misora hard on the shoulder as if Kyoko feeling bad was somehow a good thing.
Now noticing how awkward he was being, Mujou murmured a little to himself before looking down at his notebook, back up at Misora, and down again, before realizing that he should probably change the subject. "Oh!" he yelped in surprise at his own revelation. "Um, uh..." he stuttered nervously, afraid that Misora would just sneer at his sketch like she had the last time. "You see," he poked his index fingers together, trying not to focus on the ice skater's intimidating face. "Ano...I was just here to sketch ice skaters, and...and..."
This next part came out in a panicked, terrified blur. "Well, Misora-cha-I mean, Misora-sama! I just noticed you there! And you looked really good! And I figured I should draw you! And stuff!" Arms flailing as he explained himself, Mujou finished with a sigh, panting. Looking back to his sketch, he pondered for a brief moment before saying, "You're a very good skater, Misora-sama, and I just...I just wanted to capture that sort of beauty in my artwork."
Realizing what he'd just done NOW only sent Mujou into more of a hyper frenzy of apologies. "Oh, no! I mean, you're beautiful, yes, but I certainly wouldn't want to come between you and Kyoko! Gomen-nasai!" he yelled across the rink, bowing again and almost losing his balance before bringing himself back up. Clearing his throat, he tried to bring the conversation back to a good note.
"Besides, Misora-sama," he said with a pathetic half-smile. "I have a girlfriend..."
~ * ~
Kakera often skipped school, under the guise of being ill and delicate; with a talent for looking ill and delicate the teachers only clucked their tongues in sympathy and didn't mind so much, as the little foreigner looked green and sallow and wan all at the same time in a mystifying combination helped by a bad foundation.
More often than not Pearl was out scouring souls. Sometimes, though, all he really wanted was an ice cream and a bit of light entertainment. And not as Kakera, which could get dicey: today was a long blue wig and scarlet contacts because everybody loved that one girl from Evangelion, what's-her-face. Too much going out as Kakera would never do. And a hat - needed a bit of height, hair up on top to add to that. He inwardly whistled a jaunty tune and surreptitiously adjusted his fake bra, wondering if he could get in a hot drink before or after. He'd been tracking the soul for a while, and he was tired of chasing.
It was overly odd, Pearl noticed, to hear the strident tones of another person and identify it as one's boyfriend, even if it was one's fake boyfriend as a girl and it absolutely did not point to any at all worrying gender issues with the person and aw who gave a hell anyway. The disguise was good enough: the height would confuse Mujou, who was as easily confused as a puppy who had been spun around in a typist's chair five times, and anyway, he was talking to the raging lesbian whose soul had aroused his attention in the first place.
Dimly he dredged up the Raging Lesbian's face from his memory: Yuki at school had an adorably homoerotic passion for ice-skating and every so often made them go to the rink. She was not so nifty on her pins and would never compete in anything higher than the Under Seventeen Junior Certificate For Losers, but nonetheless diligent practice made her drag her long-suffering friends along. The Raging Lesbian came there often, and Yuki yearned platonically for her layback spin. Sometimes it was good to have shrilling teenage friends.
He tossed his mane of fake blue curls and put on a suitable expression: somewhere between fawning admiration and deep respect. Low-key, a little fluttery, lowered lashes; check, mate, camera, action. Pearl trudged near the benches and edged in on the flailing conversation like a car passing on the road, bowing low over his skates, hat pinned so tightly to his hair that only a hurricane or an act of God would take it off.
I have a girlfriend, she heard Mujou say. Oh, Mujou, you faithful retard, you, Pearl thought fondly. Maybe he could be distracted by some shiny object long enough for Pearl to suck the soul and go.
"Excuse me," she said, Blue-Haired Girl, the mantle of Pearl thrown off entirely. Her view was entirely for Misora: if she looked at Mujou she had the sneaking suspicion she would get the giggles. "My friends and I - " (Who cared that there were no other friends in sight, it was all good) " - were admiring your form. Do you train with Takemi-san?" (Made-up coach: no chance of being caught out there.)
Mujou really was doing his best to try and offer some comfort, Misora realized, and she tried very hard not to chuckle at his efforts. He was awkward at best and downright painful at worst, but Misora felt cheered up immensely. At his compliments to her beauty, she had to smile and shook her head a little bit. He really is quite...a child. Despite his age. And the burden that's been given to him. For his sake, she hoped Mujou retained a bit of that childishness. It would help in the future when things began to become harder and more enemies began to appear. At his stuttering about a girlfriend, that caught Misora's surprise and she chuckled a little.
"Mujou, Mujou," she reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Just Misora. You do not have to add an honorific to the end. It's just easier that way. And as for the girlfriend, I hope that she's a very nice girl. Besides, just because you compliment someone on their looks does not mean they'll take it the wrong way. Many people have told me I am nice-looking after all, and unless it comes from Kyoko, I never attribute it to their being attracted to me."
She smiled a little and straightened when a mane of blue curls caught her attention. A young girl was approaching them and asked her who her trainer was. And she was ignoring Mujou completely, which made Misora raise her eyebrow. It was not good manners to interrupt someone's conversation and not even acknowledge the other party.
"No, my ice trainer is Yamamori-san. My off-ice trainer is an American. But thank you for your compliments, I've been training very hard," and she turned back to Mujou. "I'm heading back out onto the ice, so feel free to continue your drawing, Mujou."
Inclining her head to the young girl, Misora went back out onto the ice, feeling decidedly calmer than before. It showed in her skating. Where before it was aggressive and hard, meant to work off anger and built-up tension, now it was smoother, more relaxed. Misora stretched her leg out in an arabesque style to perform a backward outside edge spiral. Conscious of her pose, Misora had to concentrate all of her strength in maintaining the graceful position. Like a ballerina, she had to maintain the graceful pose while looking as though she was light as a feather. Her blue eyes were intense as she held the position...mostly for Mujou's benefit, but also because it was a great conditioning exercise.
Nodding vehemently at all of Misora's reassurances, Mujou bowed deeply before grinning and replying, "Of course! Thank you so much, Misora-chan! I'll go and finish drawing you right away!" The exclamation points were almost tangible in his voice.
Running quickly (and slipping on the ice quite a few times, avoiding falling through sheer luck) back to his bench, Mujou promptly sat and took out his sketchpad. Misora's poses were as magnificent as usual, and Mujou struggled to capture such beauty in his drawing. Still, he drew a basic sketch of her figure's shape, then outlined the body, taking note of how the sinews of taut muscle moved as Misora did. He noted how her elegant gestures - even the slightest flick of the wrist - matched up perfectly with the music. Trying to get a picture of the entire scene down in as much detail as possible, Mujou's attention was suddenly distracted...
...when Misora passed the girl who'd inquired about her skating coach. Maybe it was simply the girl's shocking blue hair that took his attention off of Misora, but for some reason, he felt as if he had to stare at her. Something was telling him to examine her more carefully...it was almost as if he'd met her before somewhere, though he couldn't quite place his finger on it.
Shaking this feeling off as he continued to try and accurately portray Misora's figure on the ice, Mujou instead focused on how Misora's hair blew in the wind, and the expression of focused tranquility in her eyes as she danced. The peace found in those eyes...it was almost as if Misora was striving to maintain it.
Oh whatever! There were too many people around to attempt subterfuge; and worse, Pearl's hapless boyfriend was present, which meant that being around even in perfect make-up and a seamless other persona she would never get the ice-skater by herself. The only other option was to cause a riot.
The blue-haired girl ducked down into the row of featureless, slightly damp stands and into the dark, and if anyone noted that when the blue-haired girl disappeared she never reappeared ever, nobody said anything. It was only thirty-seconds later that the glamour had overcome him and Pearl stood on the other end of the stands, jumping down from rack to rack, nimbly standing on top of the barrier that separated the ice from the non-skating zone.
He considered introducing himself, but: "I'm bored!" lacked panache. So did "I'm bored, and you're ugly!". "I hate it when I spend five minutes tinting my eyebrows only to have my plan ABSOLUTELY FOILED" would have been inarticulate. Never mind.
Pearl leapt down on the ice, skateless and nimble, sliding forward and flinging himself wholeheartedly at Misora's back before she had the chance to react or before anyone else could think about yelling at the skateless wonder.
"Halfway back! Newborn Reversion!"
His voice rang out over the rink, echoing slightly in the huge space; and the grip had held true. A pinpoint of pale light started at the small of Misora's back, and Pearl flung himself back - laughing, mainly in order to get some amusement of the situation - as the girl began visibly shrinking. Unfortunately this had an adverse effect in Pearl falling over on the slippery surface, but picked himself up well.
~ * ~
Misora had just been skating along, minding her own business, when all of a sudden...she felt the familiar presence of an enemy. Turning her blades and skidding across the ice, Misora didn't have any time to react when all of a sudden she felt someone touch her back.
"Halfway back! Newborn Reversion!"
Whatever she had expected, it certainly hadn't been that. She suddenly felt herself starting to shrink. Her clothes were becoming far too big for her and she could sense that something was very, very wrong. When the shrinking finally stopped, she looked at herself and realized that not only did her clothes not fit anymore...
"I'm eight years old!" she screeched, her high-pitched voice reminding her further that she was a kid. And had no control over her emotions whatsoever. "Why you little bitch, I'll kill you!"
And even though her skates were about three sizes too big, Misora started skating as fast as she could over to Pearl and immediately...went for her ankles. Giving new meaning to the term "ankle-biter". I just hope Mujou transforms and gives me a hand before something else goes wrong!
~ * ~
Events had unfolded faster than Mujou was able to keep up with them, and before he'd even noticed the figure that had dashed so effortlessly for Misora, a small, child version of the figure skater stood in the place of the once-tall, slender woman. Reduced briefly to stammering, Mujou stood and collected his bearings before hiding as much of himself as possible behind a nearby trash can (no one would have noticed him anyway - most had either run away from the suddenly violent scene, or had also been reduced to watching in a combination of awe and entertainment).
In the next instant, a loud shout resounded across the rink; "Machi na sai!" Standing in the doorway to the rink, his countenance shaded, Sailor Psi stood, glaring at the opponent who was becoming more and more obnoxious as they met time and time again.
Pointing an accusatory finger at the villain in white, Sailor Psi declared, "Ice skating is a dance performed by beautiful girls with the minds to make something of their passion!" Turning now so that his entire visage was visible, Psi continued his introduction. "Intruding on such a gorgeous Me-ro-dii is something I won't allow!
"In the name of the mind," he lifted a hand in the air before kneeling on the ground and striking a rather pointless pose. "I will punish you!"
~ * ~
Two things warred for Pearl's attention: the eight-year-old mercilessly gripping his ankles that he was gracelessly trying to kick off, and the fact that no matter where he went there was Sailor Psi. "You have got to be kidding me," the Black Moon retainer said. "How about a restraining order, Sailor Psi-cho? Yes! That's right! I called you a psycho! Because it's a funny word joke!"
Pearl was pressing one booted foot into Misora's face in an attempt to push her off. Life was not going well.
As Sailor Psi made his introduction, Misora was trying hard to fight the boot that was in her face. The little punk! First this twit makes a move on Kyoko and then she turns me into a kid!!! Yeah, she had no control over herself whatsoever at the moment. Misora as an adult got cold when she was mad. As a kid on the other hand...
"I oughta kick your ass you fruitcake pansy! How dare you turn me into a kid? And get your stinky, icky foot outta my face!" and she did a very childlike thing: Misora leaned up and started to bite at Pearl's leg, intending to leave marks as her nails scratched her leg.
This was one very unhappy little kid.
~ * ~
Suddenly, everything seemed to be going horribly wrong (as it had in a certain other battle...). Placing his hands on his hat in a panic, Psi jumped up and down worriedly, "Oh no! No, leave her alone!" Torn between the direness of the situation and the terror of actually entering the ice rink, and without his usual owl companion, Sailor Psi closed his eyes, yelled out, "Here I come!" and without a second thought, leap onto the ice rink.
In a flurry of violet, Sailor Psi slipped about in a zig-zag shape, trying desperately to aim at Pearl while flailing and generally making awful attempts at being graceful. Through some miracle of God, he didn't fall on his Bishounen Behind, but instead was trapped in some sort of meaningless sequence of awkward motions designed to prevent him from slipping, but also to prevent him from doing much else.
Eventually, through movements that few people probably could follow, he somehow winded up clinging to a wall of the rink, holding on for dear life and appearing nothing at all like a warrior. His arms trembling underneath the weight of his own body, Sailor Psi looked about desperately for some means of stopping this chaotic battle, but on the ice, there were no objects to pick up with the power of his mind. He would have to rely, instead, on his Psycho Cannon, which was not only unreliable to aim with, but which would also possibly damage Misora even if he aimed correctly.
But since when did Sailor Psi take such things into account?
With no other options beyond simply watching events unfold, Sailor Psi lifted his finger to his forehead, calling out "Psycho!" and summoning a ball of violet light around his finger. Aiming carefully (or as carefully as he could without falling face-first into ice), he finished the attack: "Cannon!" A beam of violet light shot toward his opponent...
...and just missed, instead colliding with the ice merely feet behind the obnoxious little girl. Still, the miss wasn't a complete loss; the force of the resulting explosion, which sent shards of ice flying everywhere, might have an effect…might…
Pearl proceeded to shriek like a girl at the impromptu hailstorm: the fist-sized chunks of ice flying everywhere were discomfiting, to say the least, and flailing her sleeves over her head was not the greatest of cover techniques. Why did Sailor Psi always have to come and ruin everything? Last time he had shown his tendencies by jumping in Pearl's personal space in the nudey: now he was joining hand-in-hand with the Tiniest Brat who was gouging deep holes in Pearl's leg.
"I HATE YOU!" Pearl bellowed at Sailor Psi, before being chunked in the head by a particularly large piece of ice and falling ass-backwards. "I HATE YOUR RACISM!"
~ * ~
The attack had not been something Misora had expecting. So she was blown back and wound up behind the ice rink wall with cuts all over her arms and body...just as she was starting to grow back to normal size. Finally! As soon as Misora was herself again, she adjusted her clothes and grabbed her henshin stick.
"Uranus Crystal Power, Make Up," she whispered.
With a flash of navy light, Sailor Uranus crouched low behind the wall for a moment. Once she was certain she could do this, she leaped up from her hiding place and landed gracefully on top of the wall. "Looks like even an amateur like Sailor Psi can get the best of you. Heralded by the new crisis, Sailor Uranus, appears with might!"
And with that, Uranus jumped gracefully into the air. Wind wrapped around the sole of her boots and with a flash of silver light, ice skating blades had appeared on the bottom and she landed on the ice easily. With one hand, she drew her Space Sword and tipped it to the side.
"Space Sword Quasar!"
Three blasts of silver energy shot from the sword and headed straight for Pearl. Uranus turned to Psi as she glided over to him, acting as though Pearl wasn't even worth paying attention to, even after she'd turned Uranus into a kid. I'll thank him…after this is all said and done.
"Not bad, Sailor Psi," that was all she said as she glanced back at Pearl.
Thankfully, the ice was slippery enough so that the boost of speed meant that the rotating silver stars missed Pearl's head; they crashed into the ice with muffled thumps, sending more splinters of cold shrapnel everywhere. What the hell? Sailor Uranus was suddenly on the scene like a big ol' wedge of butch, making Pearl's life a misery once again. The pure-souled skater had disappeared.
Pearl was pissed.
The ice was at least rougher now, and easier to find purchase; the Black Moon Clanner somersaulted up to balance lightly on the railing, running away from the sharp ice shards that were still falling like not-so-gentle rain from heaven. He picked up one of the dirty ice pieces, and with every single softball skill (not that there were many) he chunked it straight into the small of Psi's back.
"Hey," Pearl hollered, "both of you suuuuuuuuck," and with that uninspiring endnote flipped away back into nothingness. There was the far-off echo of something that sounded like, "I'll get you next time!" but the girl had teleported away.
"Kakoi-ITAAAAAAAIIIII!" Sailor Psi was cut off mid-compliment to Uranus by the ice Pearl had mercilessly chucked at him. Tears in his eyes, Sailor Psi yelled brokenly, "I'll punish you!" before turning to face Sailor Uranus again.
"Sailor Uranus! That was amazing!" he shouted, bouncing up and down in glee. How Misora could be good at so many things was beyond Mujou - when he even tried one thing, he always managed to muck things up, but Misora... "That was just as good as when you were ice ska-I mean, um..."
Realizing that he'd nearly given her identity away, Sailor Psi instead coughed for a moment, mumbled a few "Eto"s, and smiled nervously at the Negaverse Senshi.
Uranus crooked up the corner of her mouth as she watched Pearl get away. But at least it was without her soul. I have a sinking suspicion that I was the target this time…even though losing her soul would have probably helped Kyoko forgive her, it would have most likely gotten her smacked upside the head too. Once Pearl was gone and the rink was deserted, Uranus transformed back into Misora and sighed as she stepped up onto the bleachers to change her skates for her shoes.
"Mujou, you did well today. In fact, I think that you attacking Pearl may have saved my life, if not my soul," once her shoes were on, she rose and tapped her toes to make sure they were snug, skates slung over her shoulder. "And for that I thank you."
But for now, Misora had to go. She had to find Kyoko and make it right. This encounter, and the one with Iblis, proved that she had to make up with her lover and find her fellow Senshi. Especially Maki-imotou. She's still so young. As Misora pushed open the doors, the petals from a cherry tree fell and began to swirl around her...very reminiscent of a certain Sailor Senshi Mujou was familiar with...
"And you know Mujou...for a moment...you kind of reminded me of a certain princess. Come by the rink anytime."
With that, she was gone, heading off into the sun as the sakura petals continued to swirl in her absence. I'll find Kyoko and I'll apologize. Damn my pride…this is war. I could have nearly lost my soul. I'm not going to let something like that happen without apologizing to my koneko-chan. And she headed to the metro to find her way home.
Blushing in awe at his fellow Senshi (amazing! He was really "fellow Senshi" with Sailor Uranus!), Sailor Psi walked slowly outside, following Misora mindlessly (and forgetting entirely to henshin out of his fuku). It felt good to finally know that she appreciated him - things were starting to look up for the Crisis Senshi (and thus, the Universe)! As the sakura petals floated down from the treetops, brushing past Misora in the wind, Sailor Psi blinked a few times before a sharp caw in his right ear snapped him back into reality.
"Mu-err, Sailor Psi!" an all-too-familiar voice squawked at the still-flabbergasted boy. "How many times have I told you not to run off like that? You've got to pay more attention to me and train more, or else..."
Suddenly noticing the flurry of sakura petals, Pathos paused briefly before one flew right into his open beak. "Blasted trees!" he shouted through a mouthful of sakura. "Are you even listening, Sailor Psi?!"
Looking over to Pathos with a grin, Psi merely shook his head before teasing him with, "I'll race you back home!"
In an instant, Psi took off...
...and fell flat on his face. "Itaaaaaaaiiiiiii!"
...Okay, maybe things weren't quite looking up yet...