Bonus Interlude

Interlude: Powerful Embrace

Walking with a cane is, as you expected it to be, difficult. Despite the timeless qualities you possess, guiding you through all the time you have spent before the gates since long ago, this is the thing that makes you feel your age for the first time in over a thousand years.

You are Setsuna Meioh, and with purpose you walk the streets of Nerima Ward toward one of your private residences. Since tethering yourself so fully in this era after the schism with the Small Lady’s future, having multiple places to rest was at first simply a pragmatic move on your part. Sensible to help prevent you from becoming too familiar and attached to the world where you would rest your head when not at your vigil.

Without the certainty of Crystal Tokyo to look toward, that vigil became less necessary. Before this newest enemy, you were just watching for major shifts in the timeline. Thankfully those were few until this latest bout.

However, with the vigil relaxed and freedoms ordered to you by the woman who chose not to be your Queen, you found attachment. After the betrayal by one of the first friends you had made outside of the relatively small circle of guardians you have long existed to be a part of, you made short attachments. Quite familiar with the unrequited love you would bare in another time, you instead sought fleeting comfort.

Most of these entanglements went as you foresaw and planned.

One did not.

Given your tendency toward reclusiveness, you were able to keep the others from noticing. Both carrying that which was not expected, and living as such after. Time split between a quiet house in Nerima and the Gates of Time when not briefly and enigmatically appearing before your comrades, so far away in Minato ward.

The first place that had ever truly felt like home to you had been when you took care of Saturn reborn alongside Haruka and Michiru. You know you truly feel that here as well as you open the door.

Before you, the house is a mess. This was expected, you didn’t have time to call between falling back to earth and regaining consciousness. Nor were you ever alone long enough to do so without raising suspicions. Still, such odd bouts of no contact are expected of you. The state of your living room is a testament that everything is normal.

Such irresponsibility. Smoothing your pencil skirt you sigh and close the door behind you with enough force to make the catching of the lock noticeably audible.

More than that, as you trade your pumps for slippers, there remain familiar flats on the mat. School started at least an hour ago.

“Just because I was caught up with work, that is no excuse for you to skip school,” you scold to the house you know isn’t empty.

A jumble of motion and scrambling limbs sounds in the near distance. You ignore this initial reaction to your return and instead set about picking up the area around the couch. The leg Mikage Chiba removed the enemy’s infection from still hurts and proves to give you some trouble leaning down to the task.

She explodes into the room, long hair in a shade matching your own pitching forward ahead of her as she skids with difficulty to a stop on the carpet. The padded feat of the costume pajamas you think she is simply too old for now are not offering her the best of traction as she hurriedly sweeps the room and locks onto you as you kneel in front of the couch.

“Mom!” she dives over the back of the couch toward you, arms wide.

Irresponsible, loud, and lazy; though counterbalanced by an intelligence that had her auditing an AP class while still in her first year of Junior High and an incredibly friendly demeanor. Very much unlike your own youth. Still, you wouldn’t trade her away for anything. Even as you drop your cane and let out a dignified yelp of pain at her impact as you fall over, thankful to not have a coffee table placed among your casual seating.

That alone served to remind you why you have kept her secret, and so far away from the others. If what held true for the children of the Inner Senshi held true with your own, then you will keep her from that world until you know she is needed. Until you know she is ready to bear your burden and wield power over a fundamental force of the universe.

“Oh no,” she sparks up frenetically as she helps you up in sheepish apology for knocking you down, “I just didn’t want to miss when you got home,”

She pauses as you grope for your cane and use it to help steady yourself as you rise and return her hug, earnestly.

“It’s okay,” you sigh and lace your fingers through her hair, “I’m home now,”

She eyes the cane with worry before tilting her head nearly straight up to meet your eyes.

“What happened?”

Interlude End