Unsafe Safe

Characters: Saturn no Senshi, Chibi-Usa

Words: 1,035

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The fact that most people thought she was an emotionless tool to be used at their discretion was not something that had escaped the view of the Dosei no Senshi, nor was it something that she particularly resented.

It gave her the freedom to be as brutally honest as she wanted, to dictate what she needed done, when, where and how she wanted it without the useless niceties that plagued court society.

She'd existed with this persona in mind for over a thousand years until she was called upon to do her duty as the Senshi of Silence and Destruction and erase the existence of the Silver Millennium and any beings that had managed to survive the fallout of the war...

...Poor bastards...

Of course, she would have been perfectly happy returning to her forced self-imposed slumber for another few millennia, had it not been for the troublesome interference of Serenity. She would have if only the Queen hadn't decided that she was one of those suffering who deserved a second chance at life and had thus been reincarnated on Earth.

And what a reincarnation!!

A frail mortal girl with a psychotic, possessed father who was trying to kill her!

The former Crown Princess of Saturn could hardly wait until her current incarnation realized just what a screwed up hand she'd been dealt and decided to do something about it. Preferably of the violent variety. And stopped being so damned cheerful all the time!

Her prayers were answered momentarily when the girl's father had attempted to resurrect Chaos through her, thanks to the machinations of whatever megalomaniacal demon had worked its way into his psyche. She thought that maybe that would finally be the last straw. That she would finally be free.

No such luck...

Even with a third personality trapped running rampant through her head, the infuriating little girl somehow still managed to keep a tight hold over the other two beings occupying her head and vying for control and STILL managed to be bloody cheerful about every damn thing under the sun!

She'd been wrong and she bitterly hoped that when she was finally able to exercise her true powers, she would be able to burn out the other personalities once and for all and destroy the genius who kept managing to seal her deeper and deeper into Hotaru's consciousness.

It seemed as though her prayer had finally reached her patron god, Hades when the cage around her consciousness was finally, finally shattered and she was able to regain control of her own body and of Hotaru's mind, exterminating the embodiment of chaos that had taken up residence there and thoroughly obliterating the consciousness of that flawed, frail (cheerful!) girl she'd been trapped inside for years.

That last fact, that she was free and Hotaru was gone, was such a relief to her that she really didn't even mind that much when the High Princess defeated her and subsequently re-reincarnated her.

It was her personality inside the now healthy body. Hers, The Crown Princess of Saturn, not some traumatized earthling.

She accelerated her own growth to mid-teenage where she could exercise her powers as much as she wanted without worrying about her body suffering the consequences. Albeit under the watchful eyes if the Royal Family and their asinine army.

Because she'd realized that emulating the behaviors of her life previous to being one of Serenity's lapdogs would probably get her sealed again, she kept a tight rein on her true thoughts around the majority of people and acted as similar as possible to Hotaru had (even accepting that name as they were equally unlikely to accept her true one calmly) and remaining almost constantly optimistic, polite (bloody fucking cheerful!!) and friendly as possible.

The flaw in her deceit came in the form of the new High Princess Serena, who traveled back and forth from a future where her mother ruled as Queen.

She's been the best of friends with that frail, idiotic naive earthling and noticed immediately when her personality had been supplemented and was being faked.

There was a grace period where the Princess didn't comment on the situation (as if expecting an admission of guilt), that lasted well through their teens and continued until her dolt of a mother decided to put the entire world to sleep for a couple hundred years (10 to be exact).

Serenity-or perhaps more accurately and less confusingly Chibi-Usa- had gone back to the future for the last time just before the sleep, but not before giving the girl who'd impersonated the friend she's dearly loved and lost a hard look. Harder than anyone had ever seen cross the young woman's face.

"We'll have to talk about this, of course."

The Princess of Saturn started with the look and the serious tone but realized, finally, that the jig was up and that the time to explain herself had come.

She nodded slowly and the pink-haired girl turned and went back to her own time through the time gate.

She'd had to wait a nerve-wracking 1020 years for the timelines to coincide again and for that day to finally come. When the High Princess returned from the past for the last time, frown etched across her brow at seeing the Senshi of Saturn standing at the forefront of the crowd of Senshi greeting her return.

"Ready to have that talk now, Hime-sama?" Chibi-Usa opened and closed her mouth several times, struggling to find an answer to no avail, resembling a large pink fish before emulating that millennia old nod and walking over to the soldier who had deceived everyone she held dear, striking her soundly across the face, ignore the expostulations of surprise of the rest of her family and friends.

"Well," The Senshi of-no...Hotaru, mused, holding a hand to her throbbing cheek, "I suppose I deserved that."

She'd probably come to regret dropping her facade in the future for the fallout that it was to bring but right at that moment she found that she didn't really mind too terribly.

The prospect of inspiring that blaze of emotion in the now reserved Princess was something that she looked forward to with a perverse sense of achievement.