Revision as of 04:37, 14 December 2015

Mamoru Chiba has posed:

Last time, in The Orphanage Trap:

Mamoru sees the beam redirect and kicks himself for not remembering that STUPID AGGRAVATING THING KUNZITE CAN DO; he can only hope it-- okay, it hits Hannah, he'll apologize later, but at least he knows from experience she can tank it and not actually die. On the other hand, Jupiter just stepped in front of him, and she's yelling something-- yelling--

--oh no; it parses as the transforming kid-- his old roommate, dammit, god DAMNIT-- impacts with Jupiter in front of him, and he's knocked back into her. Reflexively, one dress-shod foot snaps out to kick the kid away, but there are burns everywhere, she's /still burning/; he doesn't care if she's screaming or stoicking or kicking and struggling, he grabs hold of her with one arm and bites off the glove of the other hand, then scrambles back away toward the door to the lobby, his bare hand firmly on her face. "I've got her, I've got her--" he gasps out to reassure Venus and Moon. "She'll be okay keep fighting--"

He's at least getting out of sight of Kunzite, right? He's getting out of sight of Kunzite, and he'll get Jupiter back up in fighting form, or at least back to being able to watch his back--

Out of sight of the battle raging:

Tuxedo Kamen drags Sailor Jupiter out into the lobby, then turns into the side office, already healing, already stopping the horrible burning, focusing all his attention on the Soldier of Thunder and Courage. "Jupiter you're so brave-- I'm so sorry-- I'm so sorry!"

He's crouched over her, one hand still on her face, biting the glove off his other hand to more easily brush over the wild and devastating burns and get Makoto out of the woods. After Tuxedo la Smoking Bomber, he doesn't have as much ready energy at his fingertips to produce miracles, and he knows he can't spend it all-- not today, not now, not with all of them fighting and Kunzite right out there; he has to keep enough to remain at least marginally effective, and Jupiter's going to have to go to Dr. Shelby's clinic no matter what he does, but he can at least keep her from dying, he can at least get her stable, make it hurt less...

Jadeite has posed:

This could have been so much easier, it occurs to Jadeite somewhere, in the distant part of his mind. It could have been SO much easier if Mamoru had just accepted where he belonged and gone with it. Nothing is ever easy, however, and part of Jadeite also knew that. They do everything the hard way. Even this.

He can't afford to make himself known, or give Tuxedo Kamen the chance to defend himself. There's no time for witticisms or laments. They'll have that discussion later, if they have it at all. Right now, Jadeite has a limited window of opportunity and an important task to fulfill.

Which is why he just kind if appears, behind Mamoru's field of vision. He waits just a little bit, just enough to be sure that Jupiter will survive her burns, or maybe to be sure that Jadeite won't get hit by a backlash of that warmth and comfort and acceptance if he accidentally makes contact. He can't afford that, either. He girds his heart with the ice he's always surrounded himself with, until there's almost hoarfrost on the taser he holds in one gloved hand, right before he reaches out and jabs the naked prongs of said taser into the skin of Tuxedo Kamen's neck. He doesn't hesitate in pulling the trigger.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:

The hard way. In some sense, this is the easy way. Beating him up, taking him down in front of his face, having to watch his eyes-- he was so messed up by this fight today anyway, he was losing it already; watching his eyes as he's betrayed -- though it isn't a betrayal, is it? He'd said he was enemy to the Dark Kingdom already, he'd said he'd never stand with them against the Senshi -- but it would feel like one. It would look like one, despite stated loyalties.

This is the easy way.

Mamoru, cape and mask and all, does not see it coming; he cannot brace to tank for what he doesn't know is there. It's a surprise. It's not even magic. Sailor Moon will feel it, so it'll have to be covered for-- after all, there's nothing about being shot with a taser that is pleasant or lacking in pain.

The black-haired boy seizes up, immobile; he makes a sound, maybe a scream; there's a half-second where he's trying to use his power anyway, trying to send his strength to his hands, trying to attack but he can't, and the floor beneath them shifts--

(Tense moments pass at the edge of the battle and then there's this horrible sound that happens, thunder raging around inside of a bottle. It doesn't last long, but it lasts long enough, which is to say it happens at all. It's possible under all of that noise of the air splitting itself apart and rushing back together, there's a scream.)

And then it's over; he's unconscious and Jadeite can remove the taser-- maybe in a moment to make absolutely sure the boy is down for the count-- but he's already collapsed, twitching.%r

Jadeite has posed:

The sound of the taser's anemic zapping is amplified; illusion magic comes so easily to Jadeite, it's so simple to make a big deal out of nothing. The thunder that roars in the enclosed place is nothing but sound and fury. The scream beneath it is real enough, and so is that lurch that happens. Jadeite will never be sure if it was the ground or his heart that did it.

Easier to think it was the ground.

Releasing the taser's trigger, Jadeite leans down, scooping up the spasming form of this person who is supposed to be his friend. He doesn't even bother to straighten; they just blink out of existence from the side office, leaving Sailor Jupiter unconscious where she is.

They reappear in a room that simply writhes. Literally. The walls seems to be consantly moving, squirming with something unholy and a little bit alive. In the center of the room are a pair of stone diases, one of which is already occupied by what appears to be a clay statue in Mamoru's likeness. Jadeite sets the dark-haired boy down on the second, secures him in place with thick, uncomfortable bands of ice and stares at him for a heartbeat or longer. Then it's Jadeite's visage that shifts, quiet suddenly, between one blink and the next. He adopts Mamoru's appearance down to every detail, and then he adds a few--dirt and injuries that could have come from Jupiter's power. A heartbroken expression that, for the barest of moments, actually reaches his eyes. He blinks away again.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:

(Back at the orphanage, "Tuxedo Kamen" -- Jadeite -- comes stumbling back out of the door of the side office after the fury of the storm has passed, looking, well, not too great. Totally done is appropriate. 'Battered' would probably be a compliment. He's singed at the edges, soot smeared and clinging to the tear tracks on his face where the mask doesn't cover, and expression tight and distant. He kind of looks like a building fell on his heart, and maybe a little like the rest of him got caught in it too. "She's-- she's going to be okay. She'll be okay," he gulps, and the frantic need to leave is visible in the blue eyes behind the mask. "But I need to--"

He needs to go. Moon can recognise that lack of cope. "I'm sorry."

Jadeite, wearing Mamoru's face, retreats.)

Meanwhile, he unconscious Tuxedo Kamen is right where Jadeite left him on ice (ha ha). He looks almost peaceful, but for the fact that he's held down by restraints that won't give, magical ice that won't melt until Jadeite tells it to. He looks so young; when one knows the shape of the face the mask ostensibly hides, it really hides nothing.

He was so happy to have met Saburo. So happy.

He was so happy to have met Jadeite, for as long as that lasted.

As Jadeite steps back in, the boy's beginning to stir, brow furrowing, discomfort becoming evident before awareness seeps back in.

Jadeite has posed:

The very moment he's back, Jadeite drops the illusion. There's no need to perpetuate it or cause confusion, after all. As he returns and steps into Mamoru's field of view, he is as immaculate as he ever is, fully uniformed, hair as precise as the rumpled mess it prefers to grow can be. Collar buttoned to the throat. Nothing to show the faults in the glacial ice. No indication of the cracks.

He takes his time, considering Mamoru laid out on the dias. His eyes flicker from the figure of Tuxedo Kamen to the youma lying in wait, and back again. "I told you, didn't I? You belong with us. You have to be able to feel it. You must. You'll understand soon."

Jadeite lifts one hand after a moment, adopting a gesture that might be familiar; it's the same way he holds his hand when he collects energy in his palm to take back to Queen Beryl. Something goes tight around the edges of his expression. "This might hurt."

Kunzite has posed:

In that time that Jadeite's considering Mamoru, there's a flash of shadow and a bleed of energy; and in its wake there's Kunzite, his whites and grays marred by a band of black. A partial version of one of his shields, hiding whatever it is that has his jacket in even more disarray than usual. His expression is tight, his motions stiff, but he takes the steps necessary to bring him up beside Jadeite all the same -- two paces to one side, one behind. Close enough for association. Close enough to intervene if things start to go wrong. Far enough to let Jadeite try whatever it is he's trying.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:

By the time Jadeite's actually speaking to the boy on the floor, Mamoru's fuzzily coming to; it takes him a long moment to focus on Jadeite, and he's buffering the blond General's words rather than parsing them for a few seconds.

His face is already tight; he hurts. He hurts everywhere, and the ice is cold and ungiving. But his expression, pained and confused and still on the edge of helpless rage and panic and lack of ability to deal with anything that's happened today-- anything-- it gives way to a fierce scowl when Jadeite's words finally filter into place in sequence.

Something to focus on. Something to remind him of who he is now and who he was countless aeons ago, not who he was three years ago or five minutes ago.

"You belong with me," he says through his teeth-- and then Kunzite's stepping up beside Jadeite and his eyes narrow, and he's already thinking, the gears are already moving behind those Earth-blue eyes. "You have to remember--" he starts, but then Jadeite's lifting his hand and it turns into that gesture and Mamoru suddenly can't talk fast enough because he can't talk at all.

He can't talk because he's screaming.

Jadeite has posed:

Jadeite lets him scream for a while, maybe as long as minute. He doesn't gather energy, but he doesn't seem to be gathering much of anything else, either. Before Kunzite can interrupt him, however, Jadeite's own attention span cuts the effort short. He drops his hand, and the tugging that's been causing Mamoru pain without any resolution just stops. Jadeite looks to the side and curses, faintly, beneath his breath. When he looks back to Kunzite, there's fury and frustration hidden in his eyes, buried down deep just to provide a protective layer over his doubt and his pain about what they're doing. He manages to only sound a little petulant when he says, "I suppose we'll have to do it your way."

There's a little digital notification that's completely out of context with their current reality, muffled by cloth. He frowns, and immediately his attention redirects to pulling what appears to be Mamoru's phone out of his pocket. "Hnh."

Kunzite has posed:

"Next time, practice on someone less important first." Kunzite's tone is sharper than usual -- they're both ravelling at the edges, no matter how well the masks are in place. He moderates it a moment later, adding, "The rest was well done, though. If that's the worst slip in a plan with that many moving parts, there's no cause for complaint." The worst slip of Jadeite's, at least. Kunzite's -- well. That one only hurt himself, really.

The white-haired General lifts a gloved hand; shadows flare around him, and flow to cover Tuxedo Kamen in darkness. The fierce cold doesn't, can't, touch Jadeite's ice; it draws at the boy's energy instead, pulling hard. Most humans that he concentrates on this hard are unconscious in seconds, at best. But this, too, lasts too long before he can pull the boy under, and then set about baring his arm. The meticulousness of disinfection is almost a parody, mocked by the situation, by the writhing of the walls, by the memory of screams. And after the needle goes in, he's watching the boy as well as the drawn blood. Watching for signs of waking. He can't just keep draining him for the duration; too risky. Beryl gave orders not to kill him.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:

Tuxedo Kamen is reeling; he's trying to focus through the echoes of pain he couldn't have described if he'd wanted to; he's not entirely there, but he's hanging on to the determination that he can't let this happen, he has to find a way out. His eyes are a little wild once he takes a couple of sharp breaths and tries to focus again on the two Generals. It's hard to breathe. It's hard to see. The walls don't bear looking at but they're awful things in his peripheral vision-- someone so important? Kunzite said he was someone so important-- a plan with so many moving parts-- this whole thing really was set up just to get him?

Those kids. Everyone getting hurt. Those kids. The place he grew up-- having to admit to his friends where he came from, showing his weakness in front of all of them because he got himself in over his head-- those kids. He knew all of them. Al of them. The things they attacked with... their own pain, turned into weapons--

--just to get him.

Kunzite's lifting a hand and Mamoru's eyes flicker to him sharply, even as he's still trying to catch his breath. He opens his mouth to say something else, then clenches his teeth: he won't scream again. He won't. He won't. He'll-- it's happening again; it never doesn't hurt--

But it is a mercy that it ends up in unconsciousness this time.

He rests on stone. The finery fades; that's no longer Tuxedo Kamen there, it's the Infinity high-schooler in his uniform, tie as red as the ribbon that holds his neck badge. His glasses are askew, his unruly black hair mussed, his face pale and shadowed.

But he rests on stone.

His arm is disinfected; Kunzite begins to take blood, watching him all the while. That means that Kunzite is watching his face when his eyes flicker open, breath shallow, and they're not only wild now-- there's an unreasoning terror behind them, as unbalanced as he already was. His arm automatically flexes as he tries to rip it away, unthinking, but goes nowhere because of all the ice. "No no no NO NO NO NO--"

Jadeite has posed:

Like a scolded child, Jadeite's face goes hot and red the second he's reprimanded. He looks to the side, taking only seconds to compose himself and cover that fire, too, with a rime of frost. Instead, he redirects his attention to the phone, making no comment on how he's certain he would not have allowed himself to kill Mamoru, or even really particularly damage him.

He's confronted with a security measure that makes him frown. It only takes a few seconds for Jadeite to figure it out, and while Mamoru is still actually unconscious, the blond General delicately lifts his hand, careful not to touch his skin, and presses a thumbprint to the screen. Unlocked!

Then he's texting. And probably looking through Mamoru's selfies. Gross.

He isn't thinking, when Mamoru starts to come back around. He looks up, just barely, from what he's doing on the phone, and moves without walking to stand by Mamoru's head, above his crown where it's hard to see Jadeite. With one gloved hand, he reaches down to soothe his fingers over Mamoru's forehead, petting at his hairline and up through that unruly hair. His voice, being his own voice, must by necessity sound so much like Saburo when he croons, half a whisper, "Shhhhhh, shh, shh, shh, shh. It's going to be okay."

Kunzite has posed:

"Healers," Kunzite snarls, but that sound's softer than it might have been, too. The shadows flow away from Jadeite's hand, concentrate down on the boy, trying to put him out again. If only briefly. Less brief than Kunzite had planned on, a second time. When he comes back up, though, the needle is gone; there is gauze where it had been, and Kunzite's gloved hand applying pressure, and Jadeite still at Mamoru's head.

"-- still well done," Kunzite is saying to Jadeite. "As soon as you're ready, then. Take that, and use it, and wake it; that should be enough to make my part possible. Then we can set it in play, and --" He shrugs, but it's a contained gesture. Only his right shoulder, and a far smaller motion than usual, and something tightens hard around his eyes and in his breath when he does it. "Your choice whether you come back to see the rest, then. I'll see to it you have credit with Her either way."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:

Wild; terrified-- and then a hand on his head, through his hair, and a voice he trusts-- and Mamoru is out again.

When the next piece of skipped time and sanity is over and the boy scrabbles at his consciousness like someone drowning trying to catch a rope, Kunzite's speaking again. There's still a hand in his hair and he can't track everything that's going on, he can barely track his own sensations. But he's trying so hard, so very hard.

"S-saburo--?" he breathes out, stilted and hesitant. He's so cold. Everything hurts. He's so cold. But Kunzite is there, Jadeite is there, everything's going to be okay, even Saburo said so--

No. No, that's wrong. Kunzite and Jadeite there mean everything is not fine. He's too cold, he can't move, they-- there was a needle; he shudders-- they took his... they took his blood. 'Wake it'. 'My part'. 'Set it in play'. What are they doing? He's on his back, he can't see much, he can't see the false Tuxedo Kamen. Nothing is making sense, which means he's missing vital information. He should have faked still being out, but his eyes are open again; he's furious with himself that the tear tracks on his face are damp once more, and it's insult to unrelenting injury that the liquid tickles his face, that he can't reach up to scrub at it.

His voice gets steel behind it, then, desperately trying to build up some illusion of control of himself. "What the hell are you even doing."

Jadeite has posed:

Without apparently thinking about this, either, a gloved hand moves from Mamoru's hairline to flick away the first wave of those tears. It's Saburo's voice, again, quiet and calm, that says, "We're taking care of things. Shh."

But it's Jadeite's hand that lifts from Mamoru's head to accept the vial being offered. Jadeite that moves back, clasping the vial so carefully to his chest just to lean over it, faintly, in a bow. That's to Kunzite. He doesn't actually come back into Mamoru's field of vision as he moves, so it's impossible for the boy to see how Jadeite goes to the waiting clay youma, how he so carefully and attentively adds Mamoru's blood to an unfired porcelain heart that already contains two other powerful, precious substances inside. He closes the heart into the chest of the youma and then--

--it's anticlimactic. At the very most there's a gesture, and the youma wakes, rolling open eyes the color of Earth's oceans as seen from space. Jadeite takes a step back to allow the thing room to stand, and has a flash moment of looking proud of himself. Another step, and he's just about in Mamoru's periphery, accidentally as that is, when he focuses an almost boyish, hopeful expression on Kunzite for just a few seconds, like a puppy waiting for the praise and approval of its master.

Kunzite has posed:

There's nothing said out loud, not this time, not at first. There's only the turn of Kunzite's head to study the youma, as Jadeite works; and there's the way his expression shifts when those eyes open. That shade of blue. Some of the tightness dissolving. Some of the usual calm returning. Not precisely relief; not precisely not -- only that they sank very nearly every lead they have into this, and that color is the most critical sign that it has a chance of paying off.

Still nothing said, though. Not quite yet. Kunzite makes a gesture, a clear come-here, to the youma; studies its gait and its body language as it moves. Releases Mamoru's arm and rises, stripping off his gloves as he does, taking the steps necessary to meet it just outside of Mamoru's view and study it at closer range. A small nod, and he places his bare hand on it and transfers the energy he'd absorbed from the boy. His power, to the power in his blood in the creature's heart. Something to shield the dark energy that fuels it from Mercury's scans, from the miko's perceptions. Something to make it feel right to them. Something as honestly Mamoru as his blood and his roses.

And under the touch of that energy, the youma does not crack, or wither, or die.

"Perfect."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:

"Sa--Jadeite. No. No you're not taking care of anything. You're not--"

The hand moves away from Mamoru; Kunzite moves away from him. The seventeen-year-old prince is alone in the dark and cold, bound to the floor by bonds he cannot break, ice he hasn't the strength to crack. He's alone. He's cold, he's hurt, he's desperate, he doesn't know what's going on. And he's angry with himself for feeling bereft when Kunzite moves away, when Jadeite moves away.

Things are happening he can't see. He tries to break the ice. He struggles as they operate in silence, pulling up what strength he can, trying to tap the reserves Hannah saw his limited access to, trying to open up the source of the power he's finally admitted he has-- he pulls; the energy is a golden thing. Even as Kunzite's putting his stolen energy into the youma, that same beautiful, bright, living energy, pure and whole and sacred, straight from the heart of the earth-- it's moving through the floor, through the stone dias, through the ice. Moving into Mamoru. He's fighting. He's fighting to gather his strength, to save anything he can, to save himself, to stop this stop them help Usagi help the Senshi get his family his brothers his memories his planet--

--"NOT PERFECT. NOT. KUNZITE, STOP. JADEITE, STOP. Stop. Just stop it! You don't have to do this-- we can help you-- we will help you-- we'll bring you back where you belong-- you belong with me! With ME! And I won't let go of you, of that, I'll never let go, I need you back, I NEED YOU--!!" he yells, and it's panic, it's panic. He can't get enough power, he doesn't know what he's doing, he doesn't know what's going on, only that everything is wrong and if he can't figure out how to stop it everything will be gone. The senshi aren't here. They can't help him. He's reaching--

--Kunzite can feel him reaching, can feel the energy flare to life, reaching out, reaching past the confines of the room, of the pocket dimension. Reaching out for help. His mind and heart.

Kunzite has posed:

Perfect.

Kunzite's voice cuts across Mamoru's shout, cold and controlled. "Jadeite, see if he's carrying anything else." He doesn't look to see if Jadeite does that; it's a necessary step, but the instruction's as much to give the other General something to focus on as anything else. Kunzite himself and the youma are already moving, perfectly synchronized. Both their hands ungloved now. Coming up beside Mamoru. Going down on one knee, mirror-image. Their hands toward each other, clasped. Their outer hands, bare, curving over either side of Mamoru's face. Grey eyes focused, winter-cold steel. Blue eyes calm and deep as earth's oceans.

Kunzite reaches, in turn, and it's hard, it's hellishly hard. He burned energy like mad in the fight; he's burning it now, not having taken time for medical care -- it's one of his own forcefields holding his side together where Kyouko's spear tore it apart, and the bleeding and the pain aren't helping any. He can't even spend attention on trying to steal the energy Mamoru's summoning for himself. So he spends his own, profligate and determined, face draining to ashen-pale, and reaches --

-- to intercept that reaching-out of Mamoru's. To steal his power. Not for himself, not even through himself -- to amplify the ability stored in the youma, to accent the energy stored there, until for an instant, to that connection the youma feels more like Mamoru than Mamoru does himself.

And then, through the blood, through the essence of the roses, he takes hold of that silver-gold bond and pulls.

It is sacrilege, what he's doing. It is desecration. And it is perfectly fit that the price of what he's doing is that he must be in contact with Mamoru while he's doing it. Every instant of what it does to the boy is shared.

Jadeite has posed:

It has occured to Jadeite, in times before right now, that maybe the Dark Kingdom's methods aren't necessary. Most of the time, when he follows that thought too far he gets hauled back into the terrible place where the Dark Kingdom's hold is reinforced on him, his conviction renewed in its purpose even against his natural proclivities. Some of the time, he manages to keep it to himself, because he has a sworn duty no matter how much he dislikes it, and fulfilling that duty means ensuring his brothers are safe. If he performs, his brothers do not come to harm. It's that simple, and he's worked on that theory for a long time, now. It's the only theory that keeps him afloat.

But now this is happening, and that voice is calling his name, and something in Jadeite just wants to respond. He tries to choke it down and box it away as he's given instructions, but mostly this just results in Jadeite having a few seconds of access to Mamoru before Kunzite joins him. He's patting down the pockets of Mamoru's clothes, searching for anything else he might be carrying, but then he's also too close, just for a second, and just for that second the expression on his face is too-wild, showing too much, teeth gritted and eyes wide. He hisses his words almost too quiet to be heard, "Just. stop. fighting!"

By the time Kunzite comes to kneel with the youma, Jadeite is no longer touching Mamoru. He doesn't want to interfere, to risk disrupting the ritual--no, that isn't it. He wants no part of this. He wants no part of this. He doesn't want to have made that youma, or brought it to life, he doesn't want to have kidnapped this boy on the dias, he doesn't want to watch his brother do this, he doesn't want any of this. This is wrong, this is wrong, and for the first time in all the time that he can remember--

--Jadeite thinks maybe there's something worse than losing his brothers.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:

Something worse, not perfect, not perfect at all.

Mamoru's eyes, wide and desperate and panicked and confused, as unthinking as an animal caught in a trap, and in a split second he'll break through the weird walls of this magical dimension and Usagi will feel what he feels, all of it, physical and emotional and magical, and she'll save him, she'll come save him.

They're touching his face.

Something that feels like home: a sunny peace, that warmth and golden brilliance, that feeling like the ground is more solid than it's ever been and the forests and oceans and mountains of the whole earth are in concert; a place that tastes like forever and a joy that is real, there for the taking.

Jadeite is gone. Saburo is Jadeite. Kunzite is meeting his eyes and he can't even see them until he does and they're silver and they're not even as cold as they were on the bridge, in a moment he finally remembers where gold and red intercepted grey and let him see the bright warm glow of his Princess. They're not as cold. And that makes it both better and worse.

Even before Kunzite steals it, Mamoru's heart is breaking.

The power is stolen first, first and again, and he's hurting again with that blinding wrenching fearful wrecking pain he felt when Runealy took his magic and then when Hinote took it again. The vast majority of it is a sleeping giant buried under rolling ancient hills, entangled in myth and dream. He's connected to it, it's part of him, but it's untouched and untrained and unknown. What Kunzite can get is strong enough even still, strong enough to heal or hurt, to break mountains, to break the barriers between this place and the honest Earth, especially when mingled with that silver--

What he can feel even beyond the panic and outrage and shock and pain and fury and confusion and betrayal, what Kunzite can feel, it's a small hand clasped over the edge of a precipice, waiting to pull him back; it's a door opened to the safety of a home with a well-tended hearth, glowing warm and life-giving in the bleak midwinter. It's the assurance that these things are real and unchanging, that life is hope and hope is life. And the heart behind it is cracked and splintering, and still trying to hold itself together.

The boy doesn't make a sound, and that may be even worse.

Kunzite grabs hold of the silver-gold bond, commits unholy desecration of that which is most cherished, most hopeful, most forgiving and loving and endless. Everything goes white hot with the most excruciating agony, feeding back through the touch and burning every piece of that golden forever, that warm hearth, in firestorms and glaciers and the end of all the world. The burning brand in the earth, quartering the circle, appears and glows brilliant, blinding gold on the boy's forehead, and he finally screams.

"These are the results of this dirty world and our glass hearts, Tuxedo Kamen."

He screams because is soul is being ripped from him, what makes him real is being gutted. He screams because it hurts and he's not thinking and it's so much worse than when Jadeite tried to take his blood without needles. He screams because

"I'm incomplete," Tuxedo Mask says with a shrug to Hannah's comment about becoming strong, himself. His tone is frank and brittle. "I don't even know who I am; half the time I'm not even sure I'm real."

He's shattering and fighting to keep Kunzite from taking the bond away because it's the only thing he knows is true--

"Sometimes I feel like I'm a placeholder. The only reason I can be anything at all is because that night, and every night since, there's been a princess in my dreams. She held me when I was afraid, she kept me company, she made sure I knew there was someone who loved me."

colors too real to be true, a sunny day with air too clean, too pure and new, laughter and love and companionship, drinks around an unfamiliar board game

unthinkable agony and steely resolve, relief and despair, the feeling of a sword through the chest and falling--

a girl made of moonlight, luminescent, standing at the top of a set of wide white stone stairs with such long, long hair, crystal silver tears running down her indistinct face and reaching, reaching

He still, still reaching-- Mamoru Chiba's throat is raw and his voice is almost gone, but still he fights, still he cries, still he tries to keep what's his, to keep all of what's his, to hold on to that bond and to dig and grasp for another he feels must be there, to pull back, to strain with his diminishing strength to wake Kunzite up--

"Sometimes I think I've already found her. But I can't get a read on anything when I can't recognise my friends."

--and then his soul is bleeding out, his magic is drained, his face is ashen.

His heart is still beating, but he's not awake, and perhaps-- all the Earth will know something is wrong, somehow, deep within. Maybe only in dreams, where honesty is possible.

Jadeite has posed:

This is Wrong.

Jadeite listens to that awful sound coming out of Mamoru, feels the power moving through the air in the vaguest of ways, and he knows it is Wrong. He looks down at the things he's pilfered from Mamoru's pockets--phones, phones, phones for days, some coffee-flavored candy and a funny-looking pen with an enormous gem on one end, thinks of the life he'd lied to touch tangentially onto. The life he was never a part of but that he felt he should have been. That wasn't wrong. Not like this is. Not like this is.

He just can't handle it anymore. Grip tightening on the pen until his knuckles go white under his gloves, Jadeite squeezes his ice-blue eyes shut and just kind of vanishes from the room and the echoes of those screams.

Kunzite has posed:

Kunzite's hand finds Mamoru's face, completes the circuit, and there is light, and warmth, and home, and almost -- it almost works. It almost might have. It almost turns out very differently.

But against that light, there is blackness. Against that warmth, there is the radiant dark.

Some of what Mamoru feels from him (and it is all from him; the youma has as of yet no more emotion of its own than the clay it was made from) is familiar. Keen, intense focus; a calm less steady than it should be, but still immense. Loyalty and responsibility. But the familiar parts of those last are reduced to threads, the constant background consideration of Jadeite's stability, of how Beryl's temper affects it, of the sense of a missing limb that is Nephrite's absence. And home -- home is an almost vanished concept. What's left of it is a flash of bright hair, is the imagined sense of small hands tending the wound in his side, a sharp needle to mend it, a sharper tongue to flay him with scorn for his, his letting his guard drop.

Something else tries to swell beneath that, a sense-memory of weight on his shoulders, of pressure in his hand, of sun and warmth, of the scent of roses. It tries, and the blackness rolls over it and takes it, drowning it among shattered shards of memory, personality, self. And when Mamoru remembers gold and red --

The darkness does not even have time to rise. Kunzite's mind buries that memory itself, hiding it from him before it can destroy what's left of his sanity; before it can raise a despair that would dissolve those threads that still bind him to his brothers. That let him care just enough to keep moving, to survive one day and another, to stand between their damaged selves and Queen Beryl's ire, to keep them all alive. That -- that much he can hold on to, can preserve as light against the dark. Threads. No more.

All the rest is claimed by the blackness. Loyalty turned to it. Focus upon its goals. Even the fierce protectiveness he once felt has been transmuted, protect replaced by destroy. And that blackness has been thwarted, in recent days, in recent hours. Symbols have plagued it, threatening its fringes. Endymion's sword. Venus' crescents. The mark that Jupiter drew in lightning. These things should bring hope, should bring reinforcement to Mamoru Chiba's silent pleas.

But the circle in which those threads are arranged is missing its center. It can't support these things without collapsing; and therefore hope is something exiled, something shattered, something to be drowned before it can be born.

If Kunzite had managed to preserve a fraction of faith. If Jadeite had managed to communicate his. If Mamoru had had a moment more to reach outward, and could fight with even the slightest fraction of the Moon's purifying silver, instead of Earth's healing gold. It would have gone differently.

But the blackness rises, roused by the efforts of the fight, and drowns image after image before Kunzite's mind can examine them. Without their influence -- -- he feels it. Panic and outrage and shock, agony and fury and confusion, betrayal most of all. He feels every instant of heartbreak. Every tongue of fire, every freezing droplet that feeds a glacier. Every trace of uncertainty building till it threatens madness. Every tiny fraction that breaks. Everything. He can't see it. But he can feel it.

And he can work through it, with that terrifying focus, because it may be nearly killing him, but it is so very much like something he understands. So very much like the forgotten part of him, far at the back of Kunzite's fractured, shifting, ever-edited memory, that has not stopped screaming since the Fall.

When the bond finally seats itself in the youma, when the only pain left is his own, the silence left in its wake is a physical shock.

"Jadeite." Kunzite's voice barely reaches a whisper. There's no response. It takes him seconds to lift his head, to survey the chamber, to find that he and Mamoru are alone.

There is no surprise in him. There is no sense of betrayal. This is so small a thing, against what Mamoru felt, that it does not even register. There is so much damaged in him now, so many recent memories he dares not examine, that nothing registers as emotion; nothing outside the moment can be regarded long enough to make sense. There is only the next thing to do, the next step to take. Beryl wants these things done; this is necessary to pursue them.

Not everything that Jadeite found vanished with him. Kunzite sorts through what did not, his hands hardly moving and his fingers not wanting either to straighten or to bend. Finds what he needs. Transfers it to the youma, and rises, and takes the both of them to Earth in a brief wash of shadow. The energy expenditure damages his remaining reserves; once the youma is gone about its orders, he inflicts a brief blackout on a likely building, draining power to himself. (His extant operations in Tokyo are gone, sacrificed to the scheme; his new ones not yet ready to replace them. There is energy enough yielded by his operations in the Middle East -- but that is for their Queen, for their Great Leader, and not to be called upon merely for his own needs.)

From there, then, it's a simple matter. Go back to watch an unconscious boy be unconscious, or go after Jadeite, work on him, bring him back to something that can even from a distance be mistaken for an even keel. Settle him until he can set foot in Beryl's throne room again without her growing suspicious just of the way he stands. Between the two of them, the course to take is obvious. There is only one choice: follow the threads.

Shadows take him again, and he steps into the cavern cut off from the Earth, and settles on the stone floor, far too aware of the pain where his side and back were pierced through. Echoes dog his motions, half-seen visions of things he doesn't remember, can't risk remembering. What he can remember clearly is the sense: one moment at a time. Waste none of them. Keep moving. And sitting in wracking agony beside an unconscious boy, one hand resting on his forearm, seems somehow more like moving forward than any pursuit could.

Somewhere else, somewhere not in the room, somewhere attached to the absurd little pen that Jadeite stole, a bright gem sparkles with the same promise that the cavern denies: that you can be anything, if you only want it hard enough. That maybe, if you want it hard enough, you can even be yourself.

And somewhere in Tokyo, a creature with a cold, cold, white clay heart glowing with endless stolen silver-gold -- it moves with Mamoru Chiba's face, with Tuxedo Kamen's mask, and with orders to obey.

"Find her. Cut out the Senshi's heart. Kill Sailor Moon."