Hera’s Garden was a small florist shop in the Aoyama area that was all but overflowing with greenery as we pulled up to it.

“This is a restaurant?” I asked, as the glass windows and signage all pointed to it being a florist shop.

“Nah,” said Mina, putting the car in park. “But it’s lunch time and it’s owned by the best cook I know.”

Artemis pulled himself out of my purchases and followed Mina in leaving the car. “I’m starving,” he said, grumbling..

We all strode into the store which, in itself, felt like stepping into some kind of vibrant rainforest, teeming with life. The scents of all the flowers stacked on the shelves were almost overpowering with their aromas.

A young, shorter gentleman stepped out of a backroom, dressed in a green apron, khakis and a rolled-sleeve button up shirt greeted us as we stepped in, but stopped as he spotted Mina, dropping an armload of roses.

“ふかみさん！” Fukami-san!” he sputtered in shock, his voice a little higher-pitched than I was expecting. He was a smaller, cute boy with short hair and a rounded face. I considered for a moment that he was almost a little girly, but he carried himself in a masculine way. Even as he leaned down to pick up the roses. Who was I to make judgements on gender, anyway? “しのはらさんにあいたい？” “Are you meeting Shinohara-san?”

“はい階段を上ります,” she chirped. “Yep! We’ll just head on upstairs.”

“失礼します,” I said nervously as Mina cheerfully pushed on through to the “employee’s only” part of the store. “Please excuse our intrusion.”

The young man nodded, a warm smile on his face as we passed. I couldn’t quite figure out why, but his gaze lingered. His name tag had the name Toru on it, and despite the fact that I wasn’t attracted to men (at least, not to my understanding), he did look remarkably attractive. Was he checking me out?

“Meow,” said Artemis, butting his head against my ankle insistently. I shook my head to clear it and followed Mina.

The back room was less visually impressive, but no less overpowering in scents. Nursery lamps nurtured the growth of plants in rich loamy soil in the troughs against the walls. There were tables where flowers were in the process of being trimmed for sale. And, in the far corner, there was a staircase upwards.

Mina led us up the stairs and to a door, which she knocked on.

“まこちゃん！遊びましょう!” she called eagerly. “Mako-chan! We’re here!”

There was the sound of footsteps and the door on the other end unlocked and opened.

She was huge. Even as a taller foreigner, she was a few inches taller than me. She looked on the heavier side, but that was obviously from the fact that she was visibly pregnant. She wore an emerald green sweater that hugged her prominent chest and her light brown hair cascaded over her broader shoulders. Her swollen belly was visible beneath the apron she wore over her clothes.

Even being pregnant, she carried a sense of confidence and strength. Her arms were visibly toned beneath her sweater and her eyes, which showed kindness at the moment, still carried a core of powerful energy. She was a lightning bolt to her very center.

There was no denying who this was. The rose-earrings, the flower shop, the height and the… talent… all of it pointed to the last member of the Inner Senshi.

Sailor Jupiter.

She wasn’t like I imagined her to be. I had imagined her being this strong, imposing badass. While being a florist certainly suited her, I had been imagining that she would have become a policewoman or a professional MMA fighter or something more action-packed.

But I realized the fact that, even as a visibly pregnant mother, she was still very much a badass.

“Welcome,” she said, her voice warm. “Please come in.” Her gaze fell upon me without any surprise. Regardless of my makeover, she knew who I was. The brooch at my neck was probably a good indicator.

Mina led us into Mako’s upstairs apartment, which was small, but still remarkably homey. Next to the broad windows, even more plants happily drank in the sunlight, letting smaller sunbeams stream onto the tatami straw mat below. Artemis immediately made a beeline for the sunbeams to lay down and bask in their warmth.

At the center of the room was the heated table with the blanket streaming out from it, a kotatsu. A TV was quietly showing the news as it hung on the wall

In the other corner, a small-ish kitchen was alive with the sounds of sizzling and boiling and all the scents to match.

“Let me finish this, and we can have some lunch together,” said Jupiter, turning away from us and back to the kitchen, she gestured to the kotatsu, “Please, have a seat.”

“I smell fish,” said Artemis, following her to the kitchen.

While she reached down and set down what looked to be a fresh cut of fish on a plate for Artemis, Mina and I sat down around the comfortably warm kotatsu.

“Holy shit…” I said, in awe of her. When I had told Carla that she was my favorite Sailor Scout, I hadn’t been completely honest. Matoko Kino was my first crush, too. Her strength and her undeniable femininity were so overwhelmingly enticing… and even as she acted as if she were a simple thirty-something year old mother-to-be, that power and attractiveness was still there.

As I cast around the room for anything else to look at, I noticed, on one of the walls, there were martial arts belts and what looked to be a few trophies displayed on a nearby shelf. The manga and anime had made her out to be a karate expert, but I knew from watching clips of her fights that she had experience in a broad range of fighting styles beyond karate, such as aikido, judo and muay thai.

“Oh my god, you are just so adorable…” said Mina, grinning ear to ear as she settled in beside me. “You really are such a fujoshi…”

I blushed, “I mean… I watched the show… I guess…”

She shook her head. “Nuh uh… You are absolutely… hm… what’s the English word? Oh, ‘geeking out’. You can’t keep her eyes off her and you’ve been blushing since we stepped into the room with her.”

I felt my warm cheeks grow even warmer. “No! It’s uh…” I tapped the surface of the kotatsu table. “Just the heater… really…”

“And, here we are…” said Jupiter, returning with a massive armload of food. “We have, nabe,” she set down a steaming hot pot with a mix of seafood and greens, “nikuman” she set down a steaming basket of warm meat buns, “and saba shioyaki, just to make Artemis happy.”

“Itadakimasu!” cheered Mina as she took up a set of chopsticks and began to load up her plate.

“Go ahead,” said Jupiter, smiling warmly as she pushed the basket of buns towards me.

With shaking hands, I managed to pluck out a bun and take a bite. The bread was so light and fluffy, but the inside was unbelievably succulent and sweet barbecue pork. I nearly melted into the floor with how tasty that first bite was.

“Amazing…” I moaned, devouring the thing desperately. “Thank you so much, Shinohara-san.”

“Makoto Shinohara,” she said, bowing respectfully. “Mako, is fine. It is an honor to meet you, Miss Moore.”

“No, please,” I said, waving her praise aside, “The honor is all mine. You… you’re incredible! Amazing! I… I’m such a huge fan!”

She smiled wide, “You’re too kind… but I’m just a simple florist, honestly.”

“Nuh uh,” I said, shaking my head, “I’ve seen your work on news reports and video recordings… You can fight. Heck, you were the one who really got me to take my martial arts seriously.”

She shrugged, as if her fighting prowess and the wall of martial arts trophies were more of a hobby than any kind of defining trait. “Honestly, I took up martial arts to learn how to control myself more than anything else. I already knew how to fight. Martial arts taught me how to fight without seriously hurting people.”

I blinked in surprise at that answer. It made sense, for sure, but it was surprising to see the disconnect between the warrior amazon that I had built up in my head with the quiet, kind mother-to-be that sat before me. My expression must have given me away because Makoto chuckled faintly.

“You look disappointed…” she said, sipping at her cup of hot tea.

“No!” I sputtered, trying desperately not to offend my idol, “No… I just…” I looked over to Mina who was happily going for her second plate. “I… you all are… a little different than I expected you to be.”

Mina looked visibly offended. “Excuse me?!” she said through a mouthful of meat buns, “Are you saying that you don’t believe that I could be a movie star?”

The fact that she said this with her cheeks stuffed with food like a chipmunk answered the question for me, but I decided not to press the issue. “I think that I’ve only ever seen you as superheroes… defeating monsters and bad guys. It’s just strange to see you… settle down?”

Makoto sighed. “You must understand that our careers as Senshi came at a cost for us. We missed out on having a normal childhood. We were, in essence, child soldiers. Yes, we had the memories of our adult past lives, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that we lost something. We lost our youth, and we agreed that we wouldn’t lose our adulthood too.”

I rocked back in shock. She was right, of course, but it was jarring to suddenly have the story I admired so much be associated with the words “child soldiers”. “I’m… sorry…”

Mina spoke up, swallowing her food. “Look… we helped people and we made a difference. There’s no regret in that. But… we live in a world of heroes. There are others who can pick up the slack. We’ve done our time. Now there’s a new generation to step up.”

“Tell me, Moore-chan,” said Makoto, her voice full of concern, “You aren’t going to be spending your whole life doing this, are you? Just constantly fighting?”

I looked down at the table, thinking. I had been so intent on being a hero that I’d never bothered to think beyond that. In theory, I really had achieved my dream, but it did feel incomplete. I thought of the Senshi I’d met so far and they’d moved beyond their roles as heroes. What kind of future did I want for myself?

“I don’t know…” I said miserably, “So much of my brain has been focused on being a hero and… changing into my real self… I never really gave much thought to the future.” I looked up at her painfully. “So much of my life has been eaten up by… what I was missing.” 

Makoto nodded to herself. “I think… it would be best to tell you a story,” she said, setting down her chopsticks. “I know that you have seen the stories shown in manga and anime and in the news… but here is one that you have not yet heard.”

She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “There was, as the stories go, a girl by the name of Makoto who became a classmate of Usagi’s and was chosen by fate to become Sailor Jupiter. This is all still true. But there is a story which came before that. One that you would not find in the comic pages.”

“There was, in Usagi’s class, a very crude and delinquent boy. He did all the sorts of things that delinquent boys tended to do. He got into fights, he skipped classes, he would commit petty crimes. He did all of these things because, deep inside his heart, he felt empty and hollow.”

“He tried to fill that hole with fellow delinquent friends or girls that were drawn to his power, but the hole never went away. No matter how many fights he won, or girls he kissed, he still felt hollow and empty and alone.”

“One day, he came upon his fellow delinquents harassing a girl from his class. He knew this girl as the beautiful, yet somewhat silly, Usagi. His friends insisted that he should ‘make her his girl’ but as the boy looked upon Usagi, something in his heart stirred. He couldn’t let them hurt her. He knew, deep inside himself, that he had a duty to protect her, so he chased them off.”

“It was then when a certain black cat saw what was inside of this empty boy. She saw through to the heart of this boy, and saw that deep inside him was actually the heart of a princess! The boy was so sad inside because he had forgotten that he used to be a princess in the time before and secretly longed to be a girl again.”

I gaped in awe as I began to realize what Makoto was telling me. I felt my heart hammering in my chest as I struggled to catch my breath and tears welled at the corners of my eyes. I saw, as she told the story, the pain in her gaze and felt it as my own. Because it was my own. 

She was like me…

“So,” she said, swallowing hard, “There was a monster that attacked Usagi. And the boy saw this and wanted to help her. And that cat told the boy that if he wanted to save her, he would need to change to become a warrior. He agreed and was given a magic wand to change himself. But when he changed into a warrior, he was surprised to find that he had become a girl, too. But there was no time to question it and so he focused all his power and brought lightning from the skies down on the monster.”

“When the battle was done, the boy was confused about what to do next. He wanted to give back the wand and walk away. But he also wanted to fill the hole in his heart. It took Usagi’s kind words and honesty to give him the courage to stay and to keep fighting against evil.”

“Over time, the boy’s memories of being a princess began to return. And as he used the wand to fight monsters, the boy’s body began to change. He was afraid of these changes and he was afraid of becoming a girl, too. He was afraid of what his parents would think and if everyone would make fun of him. He was afraid of not being as strong as a boy should be.”

“One day, the boy decided that he would stop being a princess. He threw away the wand and promised himself that he would never change again. But then his friends were attacked by a monster… and they needed his help. He cried and he cried, because he was so scared of being a girl. He tried to fight the monster with his bare fists, but it didn’t help. He was so broken and afraid... But then, Usagi looked at that boy and asked him a question.”

She took in a shuddering breath and let it out.

“‘Mako-chan… why do you smile so much more when you’re a girl?’”

She fell silent for a moment, smiling faintly.

“The boy couldn’t find an answer,” she said, wiping away a tear as she continued, “He tried and tried but he couldn’t answer her. Until, finally, like a flash of lightning, he knew why.”

She looked into my very soul as she met my gaze. “You know the answer too, don’t you Moore-chan?”

I nodded, my throat tight. “Because she was always a girl on the inside.”

“That’s right,” said Mako, breaking into a wide grin, “And when she accepted that about herself, her wand came back to her. She changed and fought the monster and saved her friends.”

She looked at Mina with a smile as Mina was busy stuffing her face, “So… that girl had to tell her friends the truth about herself. That she wasn’t a boy and she couldn’t keep living like one.”

Mina swallowed her bite as she looked up at Mako, a little guiltily. “It was surprising. Mako-chan was such a big and scary boy before she changed. And… well…” she blushed, “I was kind of struggling with my feelings for girls at the time, myself. It was all kind of confusing. But… then Usagi spoke up to all of us and said, ‘If Mako-chan wants to be a girl, then she’s a girl. We’ll treat her like one and support her, because we’re all Sailor Senshi. She’s one of us.’”

Mako sniffed as she wiped away more tears. I had to do the same. “So,” she said, sighing, “Slowly, that girl began to accept the changes. The good changes and the bad. The more she began to look like herself, the more her old delinquent friends turned their back on her. Her parents disowned and abandoned her. But her real friends never did... Mina-chan helped her learn how to dress and look like a girl and Izumi-chan helped her change her name on all of her papers… so Makoto, the mysterious transfer student girl from another school, joined the class one day. And the boy, who had always been skipping school, never came back.”

She fell silent, and while I was entranced by her story, a few questions came to mind.

“So… your name is still Makoto, in and out of the stories?”

She nodded. “When Usagi was putting the story together, she asked everyone what they wanted their fake names to be. I asked for the same name… I never wanted to be called anything else but my real name… Makoto.”

“And… in the stories… your parents…” I trailed off. It was a little gruesome, but in the stories, Makoto Kino had lost her parents in a plane crash.

“My parents abandoned me… I was forced to become an orphan in high school and take part-time jobs to survive,” she said with determination, “My mother and father had no place in my story anymore, so Usagi had written them out.”

“Right,” I sighed, frowning at my plate of barely-touched food. “And… in the stories… there was a boy who rejected you? Or… Makoto Kino?”

She pressed her lips together for a moment, looking away from us for a moment. “When I still thought I was a boy, there was a close friend… My senpai. We were inseparable. We got in trouble together and he never left my side… and when I changed and this friend had lost the boy who he was so close to, he looked all over for me.” She swallowed hard for a moment. “I couldn’t bear to see him so sad… and, as I was growing more comfortable as a girl… I realized I had feelings for him too...Eventually… I confessed… everything.... And he… he didn’t… he couldn’t…”

She fell silent. She didn’t need to say anything more.

“My girlfriend… she did the same…” I said, shivering in spite of how warm it was in here. “I… I understand.”

Mako nodded. “It’s difficult. Other people have this… picture in their heads of who you are supposed to be. And… they grow to love that picture so much, they sometimes forget that you are supposed to love the person… not the picture.”

I nodded, taking another meat bun and devouring it. “So…” I said, swallowing my food, “The changes… are they permanent?”

She nodded.

“And… uh… complete…?” I gestured in embarrassment to her belly. She rubbed it with a wide smile and nodded again.

“Can… can Izumi do the same thing for me that she did for you? Change my documents or whatever? I… I think I need to become a transfer student, too.”

“I am sure she would be happy to,” said Mako, leaning forward, “But… that comes with a question, Moore-chan. What is that transfer student’s name?”

I had been thinking it over for a while, and as I sat across from this woman who had suffered as I had suffered, I was finally ready to say it out loud.