1142/Trust

Trust
Date of Scene:	04 March 2016
Location:	Jadeite's Palace
Synopsis:	Wherein Minako and Mamoru talk about Dark Kingdom endgame, sad Senshi, doomed Kunzite, strategy, loose cannons, and incidentally, unintended potty jokes. There is a lot of dialogue. It gets stabby at the end. Readers under five feet tall may wish to bring floatation devices.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Minako Aino
Tinyplot:	Power's Out

---

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Jadeite's palace: peaceful and orderly, possessed of a calm and quietude (unless lots of people are there) that few places on Earth can match. It's the easiest place to catch Mamoru, since one needn't look far for him should he be there, and it's also the easiest place for a Sailor Senshi to spy on him, since its guardian is the only one of the purified Shitennou who can safely move about outside this pocket dimension, and is infrequently present to tattle on arrivals.

Most of what Minako's seen when she's come to see what Mamoru or the boys is up to is, if Usagi isn't there, Mamoru doing one hell of a lot of catching up on schoolwork. Sometimes Zoisite or Nephrite helps him with it; sometimes he's just leaning on Zoisite while he does homework and Zoisite paints his nails. Sometimes he's coming back from the direction of Zoisite's palace with Nephrite, both of them looking somewhat frazzled.

When Minako arrives this time, Nephrite's just leaving and Zoisite's nowhere around, and Mamoru's holding his physics textbook and just looking at the cover, face blank and tired.

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor Venus might have been around before without making a big deal about it or revealing herself, but this time she announces her arrival by stepping out in the open.

She makes sure to wait until she's alone and nobody else is around Mamoru. Even though she's by herself, she approaches at an angle. She stays close to cover. She checks all the angles, even upwards, for hidden Shitennou. She reaches out with that extra perceptive sight of hers that borders on a second sight; it's better safe than sorry.

If she hadn't been such a bright and peppy girl (or at least a good actor), the silence would be awkward. She mostly just stands there waiting to be addressed.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru and Minako have a few things very much in common, and one of those things is a very deeply ingrained understanding of masks.

Before Minako steps out, she's looking at Mamoru without one. When she steps out, it takes him a second to look up, and when he does, he's wearing a couple of them: the 'I'm fine' mask, accompanied by the 'Mamoru Chiba' mask.

He puts his physics textbook aside, setting it on the wooden boards of the low porch, and unfolds himself to stand, taking a step to get out from the shade of the overhang and into the sun. There's a slight smile on his face. "Venus," he says by way of greeting. "I'm glad you're here. I've got information for you."

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor Venus might wear a mask but it doesn't hide the expression on her face, although she's restrained herself nicely. She's specifically trying not to speak. As few words as she can.

"I'm sure you are," she says, not sounding sarcastic but not sounding as if she believes it as a greeting.

"I've been collecting some information lately. So. out with it. What's going on?" she asks, as if each word is heavy from her mouth.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
After that, the masks drop again, and what's left is the boy who's just trying to hold everything together when he can't even leave. He shoves his hands in his pockets. "Zoisite and Nephrite are well on the road to being okay; they're both functional and dedicated to helping defeat the Dark Kingdom. Kunzite is wholly controlled again, but we knew that would happen the moment he stepped outside these places. Beryl predictably flipped out when we got Nephrite back, but when we got Zoisite back, controlled-Kunzite essentially lost any and all reason to be careful."

He takes a breath and looks away, face still visible, but having to avoid looking at Minako for a moment in order to gather himself. It's only a second, and then he looks back; when he does, it's obvious to Minako that he's trying to suppress how not-okay he is, again. "I have links with all of them, something like the one I have with Serenity, though obviously not exactly the same. I can tell their mental and physical state, I can get their attention, I have limited empathic and psychometric communication capabilities with them. Right now, Kunzite is alone, and what's left of him is locked away and screaming. By being really careful and routing through the door to his palace, I was able to connect to the part of him that's locked away, where the controlled part of him can't see. I found out that his instructions at this point are to take all the energy from Tokyo and feed it to Metalia. I managed to get him to put it off, buy the Senshi more recovery time."

And then he starts really having a terrible time pretending he is in any way, shape, or form 'okay', and this is nothing like his objections when Sailor V asked him for help killing Mamoru Chiba -- she thought he had a tough time with the idea of killing, then, and it turned out to be something else. She knows he's spent a lot of effort trying to get his guys free of the Dark Kingdom. She knows he's paid dearly for it, and she knows all about the fracturing of the team after he got taken.

She also knows all about the look of gratitude he gave her when he saw she was willing to kill him if he couldn't be saved.

He crosses an arm tightly over his stomach and leans the other elbow on it, hand up to briefly squeeze the bridge of his nose, or maybe his tear ducts. It's a second's worth of realizing he can't school his expression, even behind his hand like that.

He starts conversationally, and manages to keep it that way. "Mercury's figured out a way, while she's been laid up, to bring Kunzite back purified with a real flesh-and-blood body if he dies-- but I didn't understand before I started doing this that he's literally in agony every moment he exists in the dark energy construct, and he cannot kill himself. So when we do fight him, and the only way to keep Tokyo alive is to kill him," he looks up at Minako again, and if nothing else, his blue eyes are resolute, "I'll do it. Or whoever has the opportunity first will, but I will be actively looking for the opportunity."

Minako Aino has posed:
"We don't need time 'to recover'. But we do need time."

Sailor Venus narrows her eyes a little bit. She drinks in the information, not looking too surprised by any of it. "And of course we can bring him back. I pretty much figure if I die any time, I'll just come back again." It's a thing she said to Artemis once after she was particularly reckless/brave because she was mad at him and then didn't say ever again. But there's a minimal kernel of truth to it, so it bears repeating now.

"Still... ugh. Now everybody is gunning for Kunzite."

She says it and it makes her angry. Not like she's pleased at all.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I'm not gunning for him," Mamoru says, eyes overbright like someone who's too tired to keep from crying, but who's already cried too much to have anything left. "I've been holding his hand as much as I can bear it. I've been trying to give him hope. The only hope he's been willing to take from me is the hope that someone will be able and willing to kill him before Metalia makes him eat the world. I've been trying to get him to realize he's not alone, and the only thing he's been able to take from that is that the desperation's gone, he can put it all off another couple of days by being a perfectionist, basically."

His voice wavers toward the end, then almost catches before he's able to turn it into something resembling a laugh at 'perfectionist'.

Like, 'oh, Kunzite.' Like, 'you ridiculous person.' Like, 'I love you.'

"It's literally not his body. Neph didn't understand until I showed him what's going on, what it's like to be Kunzite locked inside that construct, not even able to talk, not even able to think. I can show you too, if you want."

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor Venus gives Mamoru a little, disinterested wave. "No. No, thank you. I'm... I'm sure I can imagine it. I'm sure I don't want to feel that," she says, easily. "I got a pretty good idea, anyway," she adds, clearly not trusting the offer and keeping herself safe and free.

"And I know you're not 'gunning' for him. I like to believe I've an infinite capacity for love and forgiveness. Bigger than everybody else's. It's just beaten by an infinite capacity for betrayal. Somehow, people get 'V is bloodthirsty' out of it. I'm glad everybody is starting to understand the situation

"Still. I'm of two minds. The immature part of me is angry that my team who dislikes me so much finally comes around to my thinking and understanding and just wants recognition. The other part is just happy my point got across."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"You're the first on your team that I've told," Mamoru says after a second of silence, a second of his jaw working. He's looking at the middle distance between the grassy lawn and himself; his hands come out of his pockets again and he wraps his arms around himself, cold even in the sun. "I only told Nephrite because he caught me with my hand on the door and I had to show him why what I was doing wasn't super dangerous to me. Zoisite's probably figured it out."

Finally he gaze slides sidelong back to Minako. "They don't even dislike you. They think you're trying to make you dislike them to keep yourself cut off. It would probably help if you stopped sounding angry with them. Moon thinks you hate her and doesn't know how to fix it. Nobody knows how to fix it, how to make you happy with them. They want to work with you but they feel like you've declared war on them."

He sighs, and one hand comes up to push his hair away from his face, and he shifts his weight again. "Obviously, I wasn't here, so I don't know what started what, and this close to the end, I really don't care. All you have to do to make them stop panicking and flailing and arguing is be nice to them, and understand that this time around, none of them remembered anything you did until later, and none of them has been through as much emotional torture and experience as you have.

"There's a lot of stuff that people-- especially people like you and your team-- people who run on hope-- can't understand until they've lived it, and telling them to hope for the best and expect the worst doesn't work until they have the experience of the worst happening. It's like with kids, right? You can tell a kid not to put their hand in the fire or they'll get burned, but they don't know what getting burned feels like yet, so even if it's a good warning, it won't work very well until they understand that pain. Forgive them, work with them. They need you, and you need them."

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor Venus is terrible with kids and has "creative" ideas about how to raise kids, so she doesn't agree with the analogy. But it's not because she has a better one or even understands it. "Eh, I'm nice enough. I'll try to be 'nicer', although I never believed in mollywhopping people. It makes them soft," she admits. "But... yeah, I'll try. I'm still gonna call them out and say I told you so, but I guess I can try. They need to KNOW this or they're gonna get hurt."

"We almost lost Mercury. That just can't happen. I can stand being unhappy, or taking big risks, or knowing not everybody 'understands the pain' or hasn't 'sat on the rice cooker' like you described... but we can't be so reckless."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru shakes his head. "If you're going to tell anyone 'I told you so', tell me. Tell me for thinking I could get my brothers back without hurting anyone. Tell me for thinking I could save Kunzite before the end. Tell me for showing up to the obvious trap at the orphanage even though we literally knew it was a trap for me. Tell me for getting the girls to back me in trying to get them back in the first place. Telling them will only widen the schism; they know. Believe me, they know. They won't forget. Grinding their faces in it will only damage their morale, and we're going to need every sliver of morale we can possibly get if we're going to flatten the Dark Kingdom."

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor Venus purses her lips. "I'm pretty sure you don't want to hear my opinions on the subject. And there's no way I can take it from you that everybody just suddenly 'knows better'."

"They said they knew better when I warned them not to trust Kunzite because he'll assassinate them. When I said the generals would cause trouble. When I was 'sure' about some of their identities. When I said who might be enemies. When I asked them to trust me."

"I'm not saying they CANNOT have learned. I just want to verify it. Reinforce the lesson. They can keep despising me, but just... be a team! Because every time I take it on trust and face value, somebody goes and causes trouble or gets themselves hurt. And then afterwards, I'm not even saying people need to get on their knees and praise me. But just a little acknowledgment would be nice."

She just waves her hand a little more. Not particularly upset. More of a rankling unhappy feeling than anger or shoutings. "I feel like I need to go join the Dark Kingdom for a little while to get any respect. Maybe get killed. I bet they'd miss me when I'm gone. Or at least see how much harder things are."

"It's just... ugh. Mercury should be dead. YOU should be dead. Nobody wants that to be the truth. But it's my responsibility to make sure it doesn't happen. To remind and warn and teach and yeah even rub it in faces so it never happens again. I'd rather be hated than alone."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Mi-- Venus. I have always respected you, even when you were trying your hardest to make me believe your mask," Mamoru says seriously, says gently. He takes a half-step forward. "I know you're right. I know I've done stupid things. Mercury is kicking herself for what she let happen. Moon is having to deal with my nightmares in addition to hers. The girls feel like you're at war with them because of things like doling out I-told-you-so instead of giving them sympathy when they get burned by doing something you told them was stupid -- they need your support, not your castigation. The quickest way to get them to do something your way instead of their own way is to come up with a solid plan and hand it to them. Not to tell them that their plans are wrong, but to give them something to replace them. You're not going to get that acknowledgement you're craving from them by telling them they screwed up when they know they screwed up. Instead of being their taskmaster, just be their friend. That's what they expected. That's what they want. They want to laugh with you and cry on you, they want you to laugh with them and cry on them."

Suddenly Mamoru looks very small, somehow, and his voice is very soft. "Even at the worst of things in the Dark Kingdom, Kunzite still let me cry on him. Right now he's locked away and all I can do is hold his hand somewhere in the back of his soul. And I'm the one who sent him back out. And it was so that Moon wouldn't be crippled by the loss of her friend, all ethics aside."

He reaches up to rub his face with his hands. "And it's her heart that's going to win this. Being careful, yes. The people who watch the sidelines and who watch backs being extra cautious and vigilant, yes. But it's her love that's her strength, it's her friends that are her strength. So as hurt as you are, please understand that she needs your support more than your lessons, right now."

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor V impassionately nods her head a few times. "Sure. I HAVE done that. That's practically all I do. Not that anybody notices. But sure, I'll do that," she comments.

"And I'm not 'hurt'. I'm not angry. I'm not bloodthirsty. The problem feels like it's more that everybody wants to run off and be a hero so badly."

"So trying to pull people together to be a team doesn't seem like I'm working with them, ironically enough. It seems like I'm not supporting what they want to do, but castrating them."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"... castigating," Mamoru can't help correcting with a massive wince. "And it's not support of what they want to do they're looking for. It's emotional support. Support of what they're feeling. And they want to give you that support, too, but you tell them it's fine and you're not upset, and then you tell me what you've been telling me, and it's pretty obvious to me that you're hurt because they're not listening to your warnings and your priorities. Keep your priorities. Act on your priorities. But hug them. Tell them you know it sucks and that you're sad too. Agree that it's not fair. Let that stand. Don't correct them when they're already upset, just hug them. And give them plans. Give them things to do. If you give them things to do they won't hare off so much. It's not a matter of wanting to be a hero, it's them desperately wanting to get things done, to get things fixed. So give them things to do, and to fix."

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor Venus narrows her eyes and stares at Mamoru, lips pursing up and nose wrinkling. "Urg. I know this. It's what I do. But... I suppose you're just trying to help. It's good advice, it's just being directed at the only person who doesn't need it."

"Maybe try to spread that around to everybody else. It's weird how nobody trusts me when I'm the one whose done the least betraying of everybody involved, senshi included, but you're right. Maybe I'm too hard on everybody."

"Still, going easy on everybody just sets low goals. I'm of the opinion you should shoot the stars and you might accidentally hit the moon."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"... well, accidentally hitting the moon seems to be going around," the prince says with absolutely zero irony, shoulders turned a little inward. "I'll do what I can. Just... give them hugs, and don't turn them away when they try to hug you. Go easy on them, let me be the bad cop for a little while. Then when we've won, I'll tell everyone how it was your plans we used, and how you were trying to get us to win."

Taking a deep breath, Mamoru edges back out of the sun to sit on the porch; all his body language is tired, he's actually exhausted. Pretending he's not is getting harder. "You might think it's better to be hated, but it's actually really horrible for a team whose strength lies in love and friendship to be at odds with each other. It weakens you guys against the Dark Kingdom-- and the opposite is true, too.

"At Walpurgisnacht-- my Shitennou and I were all working together, and it broke Nephrite free. Zoisite and Kunzite were already on my side. Zoisite pretended to kill Jadeite so that Beryl wouldn't come after him. So-- thank you for letting us come, even though you didn't want us to. Piece by piece, love is provably taking that shit apart at the seams, Vwee-P." It's obvious he wants to say Mina-P but she's in henshin and avoiding the Shitennou, so he keeps restraining himself. It may be that that substitution was not the best idea.

There's a brief pause, and he gives Minako a humorless smile. "And hey, you don't have to rescue your team from the Dark Kingdom, so I'd advise against getting captured and brainwashed to wake them up. It's a lot more trouble than it might initially seem to be."

Another, briefer pause, this one purely for comedic timing -- it's necessary to do in order to get the full impact of 'explaining the joke'. "That's gallows humor," he explains unnecessarily, and completely deadpan. "And dramatic irony. Because it never seemed like a good idea."

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor Venus just says she doesn't get the joke. She doesn't seem to be joking, either.

"I don't want to be hated. I don't know why everybody thinks I'm so broken and self-defecating. I thought you of all people would understand," she stresses, not sounding joking or pleased.

"Everyone else is lucky. When they found out who they were, it was a bonus. They were Reis or Makos or Bunnies or Amis and then they were more. They had more. They were better. It helped them get what they wanted."

"When Artsy found me, it was a proposition. An exchange. I gave up so much in exchange for promises in the future. I just had to do things for others and for the senshi. I fought the Dark Kingdom."

"I... k-killed the boys who loved me. I melted my friends. For the team. And because of it, the Dark Agency kept going after me. Then I killed you after you betrayed me... and everybody else is falling in love and thinks I 'wanna be hated'."

"When everybody remembers things, they're happier and fuller. All I remember are nightmares."

"Buyer's regret, you know? It just seems remarkably unfair, that's all," she says, not even sounding a little bit bitter. "I'm glad you're alive. I'm glad everybody else is happy. I'm glad we saved our friends, even if they betrayed me. For reals. But as politely as I can express it and without meaning any offense - you' telling me to be more loyal and more loving is either remarkably inappropriate or it paints me as the worst villain here, and I don't want to know which one it is," she explains. It's all very factual and straightforward and she takes great pains to not make any accusations or sound self-pitying. It seems effortless.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The boy's forearms rest on his knees, his hands loosely hanging between them, his shoulders still hunched in, and he listens. And he doesn't even blink at 'self-defecating'. He doesn't. (He really wants to. He doesn't.)

He listens, and it's Mamoru-- he really listens.

When Minako finishes, he's quiet for a second.

Finally, "Is it betrayal when you're tortured until you're catatonic and then filled with dark energy and made to forget you existed beforehand? Or did I betray you in another way? It's important for me to know, so that I can apologize and try to make it up to you, somehow. Because you don't deserve any of that. You've been fighting and making sacrifices longer than any of us, and you don't deserve it."

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor Venus gets all sorts of frustrated. "I dunno. You tell me! Maybe? I mean, yeah, I'm not even blaming you, per se." She pronounces it 'pursy'.

"I'm just saying... it made my duty harder. Yeah, I know you love her, but love fades, lovers abandon you, but duty should be forever."

"'Beryl brainwashed everybody' is a convenient excuse. Once, in England, I was chasing some Dark Agency stuff where a bunch of people were brainwashed. Young, old, rich, poor... LOTS of people went missing."

Boring, long story made short: "No Dark Agency at all. Just really convincing con artists with clever half-truths."

"I feel like a jerk even admitting this, but I don't have any dreams now. Everybody else is gonna be geniuses or marry rich guys or follow their goals. I'm just gonna die forgotten in some vigilante justice accident in college or something. I mean... I don't know if this is a bigger betrayal, but sometimes, I have a dream where I just stop - I don't betray anybody, kill anybody, sell out anybody. I just stop and go do stupid, petty things, like 'have friends' or 'play volleyball' or 'watch more movies'. I don't even know if I WANT that."

"So no, I'm not even blaming anybody. I'm just jealous of everybody else's luck. My issue, I guess. It just seems unfair. But life's unfair, then you meet a cat. I'm not even mad at you."

She seems mad sometimes, but she's not lying.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"No, if I actually betrayed you, if I actually betrayed anyone, I would totally blame me," Mamoru says earnestly, "I'd deserve it. And maybe love fades for a lot of people, but listen, I died for her once and I'm determined to live for her now. I didn't stop fighting. I'll never stop fighting. I fought to come back. I couldn't do it on my own. I didn't know if I could even live long enough to let you help me, but I did. And you guys never stopped fighting to get me back. And it worked. Sometimes this works. But it never works if you're just on your own. If it does, it costs you too much. It cost you your dreams. It cost you your loves, your friends. I know you don't want to be hated, I know you don't want to be alone; you said you'd rather be hated than alone, and I get that. The lesser of two evils. I do get it."

He finally stands up again, and hesitantly takes a step toward Minako. "I really do get it. I was never normal, so I don't have anything I could go back to. Maybe I didn't remember being betrayed before, maybe I was happier not knowing they were fooled and stolen from me and turned against everything they had loved-- but remembering the good parts and the bad parts is better than not remembering anything at all, for me. We're different, in that, and I get that, too. I don't have a normal, but I used to wish I was. I used to wish I was like my classmates. I used to wish I had a family, had friends. But I got used to being alone, I got really good at it, even when I started having nightmares. I don't ever want to go back to that. I get not wanting to be alone, and I know you don't want to be hated, but I don't think that it's an either/or. I don't think you need to be hard on them in order to keep them from dying and leaving you alone. Maybe you just think I'm a dumb hopeless romantic idiot for thinking that, but it happened to me last time. I stopped communicating with my Shitennou. I was hard on them. I yelled at them. They stopped telling me things because I just told them they were wrong. I loved them with all my heart but I was so angry because they weren't listening to me-- I drove them away.

"I don't think you need lectures on loyalty. I never said you were disloyal, I never even implied it. Hell, given the givens, I'm pretty sure you know how viscerally I understand betrayal. I also understand when it's not betrayal, even if it looks like it. None of them are betraying you. You've just been betrayed so many times that everything that hurts or is stated badly or even just looks bad can be misinterpreted as it, because you're braced for it to happen again and again.

"Maybe I'm wrong. I'm willing to believe I'm wrong. But all I see is all of you bleeding, and right now, it's not the Dark Kingdom doing it. The Dark Kingdom's behind it, sure, they started it. But they're literally not doing anything right now. Kunzite is buying us time. Again. I don't want you to ever have to stab anyone again. I don't want her to cry. I don't want anyone to cry. I'm not dumb enough to think that can all happen with just hope and hugs, but you know-- I'm serious about taking turns, here. Let me be the sword, Venus. Just for now. You be the hope. Maybe just this once -- since you're not fighting on your own, and you're not hoping on your own, and Usa is turning that hope into the only weapon that can obliterate the darkness -- maybe just this once, it'll work. Your Princess is stronger than people give her credit for. She'll be even stronger if we all believe she can do it. She'll be even stronger if we all give her our support, our strength, our hope.

"And then maybe you won't even need to be jealous anymore. Maybe it'll turn out that it isn't luck. And maybe everyone will actually get to be happy, instead of just pretending for everyone else's sake."

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor Venus bites back just a little, some of it prideful. "I'm not crying. I never cry. The Dark Kingdom hasn't hurt me. I never bleed."

"I mean. Not abnormally. Only regularly, in natural ways. I'm a mature young lady," she says in a huff, making an easy little gesture with her fingers. She means to intimate a sword.

"I picked up the sword. I don't get to just be hope unless it's a swordful hope. That's what I'm good for."

She mentally makes sure she says 'what' and not 'all'. Prepares herself for the sentence, makes sure she doesn't misspeak the wrong words. Then, she's immediately back to business.

"Either way, Kunzite. We can get him back. I always had a tinkling it could be done. We know how to get to his palace - we should get him now, before Metallia gets that energy. Before it's too late. Even if we go in half-cooked. Even if it's not a full group."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru holds out a hand, then two, close enough now that Minako can take them if she wants to-- or let him hug her if she wants one.

"I can borrow the sword," he says softly. "You can share your duty. It all comes down to the same duty, doesn't it? Protect her, and destroy the Dark Kingdom. My guys protect me-- but they protect her now, too, and all of you. They understand how everything's connected, now."

If she doesn't come any closer by then, he doesn't move back, but does drop his arms again. "And yeah. I was thinking about that. He's powerful-- but his palace is set up to make guest law more powerful than he is. And I can keep everyone alive if I have to. We'll need more than the Senshi, though. I can ask Usa to get as many people together as she can and we can literally storm the castle and see if he shows up."

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor Venus doesn't offer hugs or swords, in any configuration or combination. "No no, that's fine. Just worry about keeping people under control."

"That... that probably goes for anybody else we bring. We trust a lot of people who probably shouldn't be trusted. I'd rather not bring difficult wild variables when what we need are a good, strong core of trustable people."

"Loose cannons can be a problem. Especially when their strategies don't line up with ours. "

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru looks wry, and hooks his thumbs in his pockets. "Homura-chan quit WPS and is making an active effort to make up for her past indiscretions. If I'm there, I can also keep a lot of otherwise loose cannons from going off in directions we don't want them to. In other words -- yeah. If I'm conducting tactics, I can keep pretty much everyone under control but you."

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor Venus comments she should get Gully to reveal as much about WPS as she can while they're weak and not actively out attacking people or causing trouble.

"Honestly, I'm of half a mind to tell Virtue that all Puella who aren't personally vetted are just out-and-out enemies, no matter what anybody thinks. I don't like her. She criticized me and put me in a bad situation. It was disrespectful. Her leadership got her team killed - she's was either a saboteur trying to off all of WPS or just.... a really bad strategist. But I suppose everybody wants to forgive her while encouraging ME to be the team player instead of vice-versa."

"But yeah, I guess I should be eager to bring her onto MY team now. By all means. Invite her along. Don't ask the team leader's opinion. It's more fun when it's a surprise. Because having one 'friend' in front of me trying to kill me and the peeps I hold dear isn't enough; gotta stick another behind me to really up the challenge."

That is sarcasm.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru shrugs slightly. "She's not a strategist or a leader, and she'll follow my lead. Your team is the Senshi and Virtue. There's a lot of Virtue I don't trust. You don't trust my team. Half the time I'm not sure if you trust me. But if it makes you more comfortable, I won't invite one of the people I trust most to have my back personally. You can vet anyone I suggest. The only people I will not bend on are Jadeite and Nephrite-- I'm making Zoisite stay out for unrelated and selfish reasons. But I'd appreciate it if you weren't sarcastic."

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor Venus takes a long time to respond, eventually letting out her breath in a controlled little huff instead of something angry. She asks about who Mamoru doesn't 'trust', but quickly goes on to another topic.

"Again, this holier-than-thou tone considering who I should be trusting is a little hard on me when it's from you, all things considered. Maybe take your own advice. I'm just expressing a reasonable concern on how she's dangerous when she's on a team. My team. And instead of going off on her, I'm trying to explain the very real issue. You could say I'll handle it or how can we make it work, but instead you, like EVERYBODY ELSE, just blow me off like I'm being unreasonable."

"This, by the way, is what I mean by 'not respecting my opinion'. Bring the Shitennou! All of them! That's a pretty big concession for me, considering what's happened with the Mercury incident, all things considered. I'm not even blaming them when I say it - but that's a risk. A big risk! With huge potential consequences. I'm not just thinking about my own life, either. I wouldn't even mind dying, but I don't want to risk my people unnecessarily if I can help it!"

"You all ask me to do the impossible, then complain when I address hard parts. As nice and careful as anybody can in this situation!"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru lists a few people in Virtue that he doesn't trust to various levels, and then adds on all the people in Virtue that he doesn't know at all.

"... I already said I'd handle it," says Mamoru patiently. "I got annoyed and a little sharp when you got sharp and sarcastic with me. That, by the way, is how arguments start."

He waves a hand around. "She's not dangerous on a team. I also explained that: she is not a leader or a strategist; leading is not the same as being on a team. I said she'd follow my lead. Now: Homura is the first real friend I've ever had in this lifetime. She's had my back longer than anyone else. I'm sorry that things fell out the way they did between you, but starting your argument with 'I don't like her' is a poor debate tactic when you're talking to a kid who grew up with no friends. That, however, is immaterial: I won't ask her to come. I will handle the people who do, unless I know nothing about them, in which case they're going to be your responsibility unless I get briefings on their strengths so I know best how to deploy them. So: come up with a list and stop being a jerk. We'll get this done. It'll be amazing. We'll win. I gotta do my physics homework now."

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino/Sailor Venus gives a lifeless, careless, absolutely defeated little wave of her hand as she turns. "I said I don't like her because she killed people. Responsibility is a big thing with me."

"But. Sure. Bring her along. I'm glad she's so much better than me at being your friend. Good luck," she says.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Who hasn't?" asks Mamoru bitterly, not expecting an answer. And then he just crouches down on the grass, then sits, then curls his hands over his head.

That's where Zoisite will find him later.

Who knows how Minako's cat will find her.