469/Spotless

Spotless
Date of Scene:	18 October 2015
Location:	Earth Court Frat House
Synopsis:	At the same time as 466/Pretty_Doctor_Iris_Shelby Mamoru finds himself unable to actually deal with the evidence. He calls the one person he thinks can handle it: Hannah Sharpe.
Cast of Characters:	Hannah Sharpe, Mamoru Chiba

---

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
A couple of minutes after Rei's left with Usagi in her arms, Mamoru's still sitting exactly where she left him, slumped on the floor leaning against the bed, blood all over him, all over the floor, tracked to the door.

Ten minutes later, after making the mistake of trying to get up to clean it himself and only making more of a mess, desperately trying not to think about whose it is and how it happened and failing completely, he's curled up on the bathroom floor. He's more of a mess than anyone who'd remember who he is has ever seen him, and he knows--

--knows--

--he can't do this alone. He already couldn't help Usagi, and he can't help himself, and he hates himself for all of it.

He'd love to just pass out, to just be unconscious and not have to think about any of it, but... he might dream, and Rei might come back and see everything, and see him like this, and half of him thinks he doesn't have any right to try and maintain his pride and half of him thinks he doesn't deserve help, and finally he just shuts himself off because he cannot actually cope. He shuts himself off, receding into the cold shell where he'd spent most of his life, unaffected, and he lets autopilot take over.

-----~*~-----

Hannah's phone rings, wherever she happens to be at eleven o'clock on a Friday night, and it's Mamoru's number.

When she can pick up the call, his voice sounds undefinably different. Somehow closed off from the usual tones she can read like a book, it's a pleasant mask, cordial and aristocratic, devoid of any real emotion. "Hannah," no honorific, "I need your help. Preferably right now. I'm at my apartment. I'm not dying and there's no one else here at the moment but--"

Hannah Sharpe has posed:
Hannah groans as she's awakened by her phone. Day and Night might mean little to her, but, her internal clock runs as well as anyone else's.

Cue the groggy voice of one Hannah Sharpe.

"Huh? You better not be a telemarketer at this hour or I swear I'll find you and kick you in the..." Pause.

That tone is strange. The voice, familiar. And every single 'bad juju' sense that Hannah has goes off immediately. She bolts upwards, almost instantly awake.

The girl's voice is unrepentently worried almost immediately.

"Mamoru. Shut up, deep breath. I'm there in five."

She doesn't even bother changing, instantly henshin'ing, and grabbing Boris' attention.

In exactly four minutes and thirty seconds, plus some wind-based lockpicking if the door's not already unlocked, there's a dog and a gasping Hannah in her Miss White suit. Notably, Hannah's in one hell of a physical condition, and she doesn't get that worked up unless she's done a brutal run. Here? She's doing so /in Henshin/.

It's right about then that she smells the blood, and she and Boris are loud enough for the whole house to hear.

"Who the hell did this to you, who do I need to call to patch you up, and how hard do you want me to beat them down!? It's okay, I'm here! What do you need!? You'll be fine! I've got your back, big bro!" Comes Hannah as she outpours pure worry and love for her pseudo-sibiling.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru's voice has the echoey quality that bathroom tile lends, and floats out from the open bedroom door.

"It's not," says in that same detached tone he had on the phone, "my blood. I can't clean it. Please help me clean it. It can't stay. I can't look at it."

Boris will see steady, heavy, small footprints coming out of the bedroom to the actual 'front door' of the apartment, like someone with small feet was carrying someone else; there's blood in the carpet, though not much. Most of the apartment, in fact, is untouched.

Raging Tempest will detect trace amounts of dark energy, and the lingering prettiness of Sailor Moon's magic, and the scent of Mamoru's, and absolutely no active magic or potential thereof remaining.

There's a sour note against the coppery smell of the blood; someone's been sick. Probably the upperclassman himself.

The attack happened in the bedroom itself; the evidence is hopelessly useless for a crime scene investigation, which is good, because there won't be one. There are some scuffmarks on the floorboards, the scents of fear and confusion, of fury and panic and grief. And, of course, the red. Mamoru is, in fact, still on the bathroom floor, folded up; judging by other evidence, he very likely dragged himself there.

"Please. Floor first. It's been half an hour. Can't let it set. I can't help you, I'm sorry."

Hannah Sharpe has posed:
Now Hannah's really worried, as she finally gets the scope of the blood and Mamoru's condition. The readings from Raging Tempest don't help, either.

Not his. That means he dragged someone here. Sailor Moon's magic. She only met her once, but that kind of blinding, pure energy leaves an impression.

Hannah's smile is brittle and mournful.

"...This world doesn't deserve a guy like you. Don't ask twice. On it." Comes Hannah. She's terrible at consoling people, and so she does what she can. Action.

Mage and Familiar and Device share a silent conversation with a crackle of party-line magical communication. A plan forms. There's too much blood for Hannah and Boris to clean up conventionally without specialists. No, they need magic for this.

Hannah and Boris take deep breaths, Raging Tempest offering mental encouragement. She's the type to work on direct, powerful magics. But this needs control and subtlety worthy of Homura herself. But maybe, just maybe, the trio can work together and manage it.

The hum of wind magic from Hannah, Boris, and Raging Tempest is strangely gentle. This isn't the fierce punishing winds she's known for, but a controlled, elegant dance of magic similar to that of Hannah under the influence of the converted grief seeds. The pure evil is lacking, however.

Unnatural wind seeps through every part of the apartment, then blows and billows towards the offended bathroom and carpet. Air molecules meet blood, and massage both sickness and the red of the body up, up, up into the air. It's a film supported by the air itself, Hannah sweating as she serves as the center for such a delicate dance. It's more difficult than any combat she's had, and her linker core strains. She doens't care. Muscle strains, bones creak, and a small portion of her blood boils in her veins as she puts the strain on her body as she's so wont to do.

The pain is ignored, only the slightest gasp of suffering from all three as the mess is congealed into an orb, and teleported away, magic and all.

Right into a containment cell at WPS Headquarters. That unique mixture of magic, rage, despair, and various fluids might make an interesting research bit. Hannah is opportunistic, even when well meaning.

Hannah leans forward, gasping, and shoves herself to her feet with pure stubborn tenacity and worry for Mamoru. She sounds exhausted as she walks to the bathroom, Boris trailing her, and then there's a strong pair of arms trying to gather up Mamoru into hers. If she can pick him up, it's off to the bed she'll lay him.

"Don't...worry. I owe you three times this much at least. Can you tell me what happened?" She asks, gently. If he allows it, she'll gather him up in the bed, stretched out, head in her lap as she gently rubs his scalp and hair.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The cleansing wind lifts everything it can see, and though it's not in the design to do so, it burns at Chiba Mamoru's mind and soul as it goes along. The stains on wood and fiber and skin are lifted from the physical world, and that gentlest of breezes gathers them and removes them from his sight.

He watches dully, the automatic part of his mind analyzing the stresses to his friend and annotating when he can hear her distress, slight as she lets it sound; the blanket inclusivity is caught and appreciated on a clinical level, and the perfectionist in the boy is impressed.

Raging Tempest and Boris will see that he's ashen when Hannah lifts him up; she can feel his trembling weakness, body physically spent for any number of reasons. He looks like he's a step away from where he was when Pierrette drained the life and power out of him, and his breath comes shallow. He doesn't resist at all, not even her hands on her head, in his hair--

--but that comes with its own problems.

There's such a black well of self-loathing and despair flooding him, and he's not home. None of the power is there, none of the warmth, none of the peace or stillness. The calm is artificial, a mechanical device overlaid like a carefully constructed net of chain and wire, keeping the roiling sticky black mass of self-blame and insuffiency and shock and fear and horror out of the way of his ability to act-- inasmuch as he can act at all when this wrecked.

That construct is old and organic, it fits his mind like a perfectly tailored garment. He built it long, long ago.

No images come at the touch, nothing's taken; there's no magic. There's no magic at all. Only the complete vulnerability of an untrained empath with nothing left with which to guard, to wall.

"I was fighting alongside Sailor Moon. She attacked Riventon and got through. In retaliation, he nearly killed me-- which I suspect was for the purpose of getting her off the field. It worked. She said she ran away with me. Took me here," he laughs because it's ironic and he recognises it, but the laugh's not real, isn't even dark, "because she knows Mamoru and thought he would know what to do. She did something and found me, I could feel that-- and Kyou-- Apatite. Had followed her. Showed up here to kill her. I woke up and tried to stop it--"

The tears are there again, though his tone is a precise and calculated retelling of events. They're silent, just coursing slowly down his face.

"--but I wasn't fast enough. She was speared through the gut. Apatite was shocked, and sounded like Kyouko-chan when she said she was sorry, and she fled. I caught Sailor Moon and dropped henshin. I didn't have enough left to fix everything. I used everything I had to get the worst parts, and I called Sailor Mars. Mars took her away. She was conscious. Delirious, but conscious. She might be okay. I can still feel her. I think she'll be okay."

Hannah Sharpe has posed:
The ashen-faced boy is drawn only tighter against the warm embrace of Hannah, her care unbound, exposing the better part of her soul.

She takes the well of despair and self hatred into her own self, teeth grinding at the pure force fo it all. But she 'stands' stalwart, enduring, as she's battered by the force of his emotions. She bites her lips, not caring a wit for the damage his own pain causes to her. He seeks to draw it in. Stubborn, forceful, she deigns like some kind of rebel to take all of that suffering into herself.

Some small part of her says she deserves that kind of pain.

The darker part of her soul says devour. Take all of that unguarded energy. Suck out everything, and leave nothing left. She resists, actively, against her darkest half, and clings tighter to the boy against her lap, rubbing gently and warmly.

Hannah rejects her darkest nature, and draws on the hope of Ao Karina, Madoka Kaname, Cure Gull, Cure Boost, and even the strength of Homura Akemi.

She sighs, and hugs Mamoru close. A burst of dark magic, and Hannah relaxes.

A bitter smile. "...I really do have the worst taste in lab partners." A long suffering sigh.

An eye closes. Such a complicated situation.

"I get it. An attack by Riventon-san, followed by one by Kyouko-san in her alterted state. Mamoru. Do you trust this 'Sailor Moon'?" She asks, suddenly.

"If you do, believe in her. She feels like Cure Gull to me. An innocent, naieve girl that believes in the best of people no matter what." Comes Hannah. Both eyes close.

A squeeze to his shoulder.

"...Tuxedo Kamen. If that's the kind of girl she is, then she's too good for this rotten, abhorrent world. You'd better protect her and abide by her with everything you have. So what is it?"

Hannah is suddenly forceful despite Mamoru's situation, merciless, her voice offering the kind of importance that changes lives.

"...I'm sorry I'm asking this kind of question when you're like this. But I need to know. Answer me. Is she worth you dieing for?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Of course she is," Mamoru answers, confused, the web of chain holding his consciousness apart from his emotions dissolving suddenly, and something pure finally shining through: part of it is through Hannah's efforts to absorb the mess of negativity and self-hatred and bleak despairing helpless weakness, and part of it is through her talking about the best parts of his favorite subject.

His soul's still in there, drained of magic as it is, linker core empty, grimed by the remnants of Riventon's attack that Sailor Moon wasn't able to completely disperse-- his heart is still a pure heart, his capacity for magic undiminished though its reserves are exhausted; his love is still a bright and true thing, untarnished and untouchable.

He's motionless in Hannah's lap.

"I trust her with everything. She's worth living for, and she's more than worth dying to protect. She's the most important person. You know me-- I'll always prioritize the lives of people who can prevent more damage to this planet. I'll always make sure they can keep fighting, and if I can't, I'm not doing my job-- but I'd drop that in an instant if she needed me. I'd give her my life if she needed it."

Hannah Sharpe has posed:
One part of Hannah is utterly impressed by the despair her darker part sucks in, all of that bleakness devoured like a hungry animal. Then she smiles.

A weak soul, and yet so strong. Hannah grins.

"You're going to die because of that trait." She offers, softly, even mournfully. Her energy drops from her, long depleted. Only body strength would support good Mamoru in her sisterly lap.

Rub rub scritch!

"I know. That's what's hard about you, Mamoru. You sacrifice everything without regard to yourself. That's what worries me." A sigh, a hug and a nod.

"I'm going to meet her. This Sailor Moon. And I'll judge her for myself."

A sigh.

"Until then, sleep, Mamoru" She offers to the young man, ruffling gently.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Look out," Mamoru says sleepily, "she'll punish you in the name of the moon if you don't..."

And then he dozes as Hannah ruffles his head, not noticing when she and Boris leave.