"They're sailor senshi." Mercury offered no more than that. Even when she relented enough to give more, she said nothing of why they were here. "Sailor senshi from across the galaxy."

Hadn't Usagi felt it? No, perhaps she hadn't; even Mercury recalled Venus' frustration with Usagi's slowness to develop those senshi senses. Or perhaps she had felt it, now that she had a frame of reference for it: the unmistakable aura of stars and planets.

"However," she adds. "The one they just destroyed for you was also a sailor senshi." There was some grim satisfaction and dark pleasure in being the one to show Usagi the truth: she could no longer naively assume that 'senshi' means 'comrade'.

She never could.