Works. (Even with time to rest, they should avoid exhausting themselves... But they can spar hand-to-hand.)

Practice that Sailor Moon Punch.

And her Sailor Mercury Dodge!

Mutual benefit.

It's fun, even without the stronger abilities in play. 

For sure.

Just fighting and jumping around doesn't seem to tire them out, either – though Mercury will call a halt when she starts getting hungry. 

Yeah, all right. Moon could eat too.

She de-transforms.

Back to that cafe?

Worked well enough last time.

She leads the way. Once seated, she takes several magazines out of her backpack, from a fairly wide variety of publications. Each of them has the relevant Aino Kinsei article bookmarked. She also has a notebook with some clippings from shorter articles, plus her various notes. The Takarazuka Revue and SEVENTEEN articles seem to be the most recent, with the former apparently more about the upcoming musical and the later more about the idol herself.

"Looks like a thorough amount of research."

"I didn't have much free time around cram school and all, but... It isn't too hard, if you keep up with things as they come out."

"There's my mistake, then. I'm more or less starting from nothing."

"Most of what matters is covered by my notes, honestly – I did those last night – but there might be some details in the longer articles that I'm missing."

"I'll get started with your notes then?"

She passes them over, then sets in to read the longer articles.

(Her notes include information on both Sailor V and Aino Kinsei – the first reported sighting of Sailor V was almost exactly two years ago, and Aino Kinsei debuted as an idol early last summer. Kinsei's legal name is Aino Minako, and she's a Libra born October 22nd, 1974, so she's also 16 and in the second year of high school – Ami couldn't find out what school she attends, though given her idol career she's probably doing some kind of distance course or homeschool. (Nobody, not even Luna, has any idea who Sailor V is, and no one's published a good picture of her face.))

No obvious connections there, which is expected, really, otherwise Ami would have seen it already.

She passes over the articles next.

The SEVENTEEN article is a good length, but it's fairly fluffy. Kinsei mostly talks about fashion and makeup tips for her iconic sparkly style (the interviewer notes that there's a Tokyo street fashion movement inspired by her, Kinsei laughs and says maybe they can get Sailor V type fashion as a trend next), with some personal life details – she is in fact homeschooled, and she travels all over the world now, which is amazing! Her debut tour ended in London, and she spent a few weeks vacationing there after. She loved the city, though she ended up missing her beloved Tokyo even more! She also promotes the musical, and reveals there's an anime in development and a manga that'll be publishing in Nakayoshi soon ("I'm only peripherally involve in those right now – me, the mangaka Naoko-sensei, and the anime's director all get together for lunch from time to time to make sure we're on the same page, but my focus is on the musical! Though, if the musical does well enough, the anime might bring me in to voice Sailor V as well <3")

The Takarazuka Revue dedicated a significant portion of an issue to the upcoming musical – there's a news summary of Sailor V's timelines and sightings, including the best photos anyone's gotten so far – she was caught on camera foiling a tuxedo-clad jewel thief, though the camera didn't get a good look at either's faces behind their masks. There's biographies and statements from the cast, plus glossy photographs of them in costume. Angel is depicted both as Endymion (in a black tuxedo with a golden half-cape) and as Sailor U (in a blue serafuku with a yellow bow, the inverse of Sailor V's colors) in her spread, her characters edited together so they're posing back to back. There's a lengthy interview with Aino Kinsei as the main feature.

A major highlight, once they're past establishing general background information and chatting:

Interviewer: So, why Sailor V?

Kinsei: Well, I've dreamed of writing plays since I was a child, but I never could figure out exactly what. Then, while I was in London after my debut tour, I ran into Angel – she was there visiting family. It was the kind of wild coincidence that can only be fate! And London had two superheroes whose costumes looked a lot like Sailor V's at the time, who saved our lives when the cafe we were at got attacked by monsters! Afterwards, Angel and I couldn't agree if those two were allies or rivals, and they did inspire some if the dynamic between the musical's Sailors.

Wait, two heroes like Sailor V? I haven't heard about that before!

Yes! It hasn't been widely reported in Japan, but there's been at least brief sightings of Sailor V copycats all over the world! As well as increasing strange events, which have everyone worried. The ones in London appeared to fight strange monsters, though when the monsters stopped showing up, so did they.

Interesting. So this musical was the idea of you and Angel?

Angel would probably just say all she did is encourage me! But she was a big help, and I couldn't have done this without her. We pretty much ad-libbed a lot of the scenes and even some songs, and then she laughed at me when I rushed to write stuff down t.t Her memory's amazing, she could recite back everything we'd said, repeat every spontaneous dance move perfectly. 

Is that why she's playing both the love interest and an antagonist? I've seen speculation they're secretly the same character. Is something going to be revealed – ?

Usually I'd chide you for asking for spoilers, but I'm sorry there's not much to spoil... Endymion's character had a complicated development. I wanted to imagine a civilian life for Sailor V, and that meant making a friend for her. Naoko-sensei's a romantic and thought we should have a boy who's her rival in her civilian life, but her ally as Sailor V – I had to put my foot down, only girls as Sailor Guardians! But I did think it'd be funny for Sailor V's civilian friend to secretly be her rival Sailor U, so we wrote things that way at first... But getting Angel to play a woman is impossible!

Hah! She's a very strict otokoyaku. I was surprised you got her to agree to Sailor U!

Sailor U is a very masculine and athletic girl, so it works out. But I couldn't stop laughing at Angel trying to play Sailor V's friend, she was acting like she'd never worn a skirt before in her life. She finally got exasperated with me and told me to just make her character a masculine woman, too. After all, Sailor V in her civilian life dreams of being an idol, so perhaps her friend dreams of being an otokoyaku. I agreed, but then when we were showing what we'd worked on so far, Naoko-sensei was over the moon about our chemistry! She and Angel were the ones really encouraging each other, Angel started teasing like she was about to kiss me!

Oh, this one's going to be popular with her fanclub. Are we getting a kiss on stage?

Maybe ~

But Naoko-sensei's editors in Nakayoshi really did want her to include a romance, for the junior high girls demographic. And I didn't mind an excuse to write love songs! But the anime director didn't think a main cast lesbian romance would be approved – the anime has a younger target demographic – and even in manga, it's hard to get away with if you aren't already famous. But we were so close to finalizing that I did NOT want to add in yet another character! So we changed Sailor V's friend to Endymion, and removed the direct connection between him and Sailor U, though we didn't want to recast either character, especially since Angel is absolutely perfect as Sailor U and it's her fault the romance got inserted in the first place! The manga or anime will likely add a new character at some point for Sailor U's civilian identity, but no decisions there yet.

I'm sure we'll get plenty of fan comics adding that connection back in. 

I'm really looking forward to all the fan energy! It's been amazing as an idol, but it's even nicer feeling like I'm part of the same group as everyone else, you know? I'd love to see what everyone else creates!

...

So why Endymion? That's an odd name.

That was Angel's idea, once we decided to make her character male. Apparently he was a character in Greek mythology, a humble shepherd who fell madly in love with the moon goddess Selene. Selene wished for him to be immortal, so Zeus cursed him to sleep unchanging for eternity. It's a very sad story, and I thought I'd like a happy ending for them, where Selene comes to Earth and Endymion wakes up. It also fit very well, because Sailor V has this distance from her civilian life, you know? Her place in the cosmos pulls her away from her dreams again and again. And even when she loves someone and wants them to join her, it's a cursed love, because her life isn't safe, and being a Sailor Guardian just seems so sad and lonely to me. Bringing someone else to be with you just curses them to live the same distant life. So there's this tension throughout her story.

It continues on from there, mostly about her writing process – the scores she claims came to her in dreams, or were things that just emerged while ad-libbing, but the writing itself was a frustrating back and forth... But nothing else substantive about who Sailor V is, or what Kinsei's connection is. 

wow she's pretty, no wonder she's an idol Not the point. Focus. Oh look at that picture of her and Angel. Maybe Erika will also join the shipping club. Argh, that's not the point either!!

Okay. Sailor V appearances around the world, Kinsei touring around the world. If one were to be conspiracy-minded, that could be a connection. How does the sightings timeline line up with the concert schedule?

That isn't in the article for worldwide (though the London sightings at least line up with when she and Angel were in England), so Ami pulls out her little clamshell computer. "It might take me a while for this, most of the sites are in English," she warns, "And not everything in newspapers will end up online."

"I can cross-check the Japan sightings with her foreign tour, come at it from the other side."

"I'll ask Luna, as well."

"But Kinsei-san claims there were two Sailor Guardians in London – one of them can't be Sailor V, unless she can duplicate herself. And... I need to look, but I'm not sure I've seen Sailor V called a Guardian before. Isn't that the word Luna's used for us?"

"That's... a good point." She was probably too distracted by Kinsei's pretty face to notice.