Formal wear, it should be noted, is somewhat more restrictive than a business suit, even if both are well-tailored. All those extra layers involved. The white waistcoat buttoned neatly over white shirt, the short-cropped jacket with the long tails. The hidden suspenders. The bow tie. The white silk gloves. Why gloves? Why is that a necessary component?
But the wearer who scrutinizes himself in the mirror is familiar enough with the latter kind of outfit to make the tuxedo work. It's already adjusted to his measurements, all those finicky extra folds neatly placed where they should be. What has not been trained into him by years of posing as a well-dressed businessman he has learned from a life in a different kind of uniform, when capes were a mandatory element.
Nodding in satisfaction, he scoops up a top hat and saunters down the hall to where the others are waiting. With a dramatic flourish of a red and black cape, Nephrite, steps into the living room, does a twirl, and pops the hat on his head at a jaunty angle. "Well?"
Even an untrained eye would never mistake him for a certain other figure who runs around in a tuxedo and hat. His long hair, though tied into a low curly ponytail beneath the hat, is still impossible to miss. No amount of tailoring will make his thicker build approach Mamoru's lean frame. Still. It's not a bad approximation of what Tuxedo Kamen wears.
Why gloves? Why, because gloves symbolized peace, honor, amity. Bloodstains never come out of white; a white-gloved hand is a hand without the promise of a fist.
In other words, they're completely inappropriate at the moment, but custom is a tyrant at times.
Kunzite, where he's crouched beside Mamoru's current sickbed -- sickcouch -- lifts his head to study Nephrite with care. The words that come to mind first he sets aside. "As good as it's going to get," he says instead, glancing to check on a couple of the details. Watch chain? Yes. All right.
There is an obnoxious digital shutterclick sound from a smartphone, and a curly-haired blond comes out of the kitchen, checking the shot. "Awesome." He glances at Mamoru on the couch and makes a face. "Are you serious, he fell asleep in the middle of this? Okay, no, I definitely need more pictures, then. Do some cape poses. Look dashing. No wait-- look overly dashing," Jadeite says, scooting around the back of the couch to take some more shots, definitely skirting far and away around Kunzite as he does so. Not out of lunge range, but just out of arm's length.
Somewhere in the middle of this nonsense, he adds the illusion, too. Mamoru cape shenanigans. "You definitely make a better Tuxedo Kamen than I do. Say something. Ugh no don't. No, you better." His phone's disappeared into his pocket and Kunzite or no Kunzite, Jadeite's leaning over the back of the couch now and really carefully reaching to put his fingertips under his prince's. Still him. Still there. Why do they have to keep doing things like this.
Producing a camera has the exact opposite effect of instilling shame in Nephrite. Jadeite's urgings only make him ham it up more. It really is a shame that Mamoru is not awake to watch Nephrite besmirch his image with some positively scandalous poses. "It's all in the cape movement, see? You gotta embrace the drama of it."
He makes a sour face at the order to say something. "How do his speeches go? I can never follow them. Something something justice? Is that good enough?"
Jadeite weaved his illusions so smoothly that it is only when the camera is pocketed that Nephrite notices the body he looks down at no longer quite looks like his own. The man who now looks like Mamoru Chiba in a mask and cape turns to Kunzite, because if anybody could recognize some detail out of place, it is going to be him. "Alright, for real. Are we good?"
Mamoru ... has the power of psychometry.
Sleep may not be enough to let him escape these images.
"Somehow," Kunzite admits, "I don't think I've ever actually heard him give one." Mostly, granted, because when Kunzite was opposing him under Beryl's orders, he made a point of getting Mamoru angry enough in the preliminaries that the first words out of his mouth when Kunzite actually appeared were Tuxedo la Smoking Bomber. "Try to avoid the phrase 'more unforgivable than Stargate Universe,' though."
That may or may not have been an indignant sound from the kitchen just then.
One more look is given, studying the details of hair, the shape of cheekbones, the angle of shoulders. It's around the eyes that Fiore always seems to look. "You're good."
Mamoru's fingers curl around Jadeite's lightly as his eyes open blearily and focus on...
...himself.
He stares for a second, then glances reassuringly at Jadeite before returning his gaze to Tuxedo Nephrite and looking faintly wry. "Flowers have a language steeped in the history and tradition of secret love, and to twist those unspoken words into a message of hatred and destruction is unforgivable. You have taken the loneliness of a lost boy and disguised lies and maliciousness with a perverse mockery of the sweet perfume of floral linguistics, and I, Tuxedo Kamen, will not stand for it."
A beat. "Or you could just rose it. How's your aim?" His free hand fumbles in the sheet pooled up around him and pulls out an Elysian rose, offering it with the cant of his hand rather than actual heavy lifting.
His thumb brushes over the back of Jadeite's hand. "Can you get me some water before you go out with Neph?"
Looking more and more uncomfortable, despite the reassurance Mamoru's offering, Jadeite's shifting his weight where he leans -- and when Mamoru has a reaction to seeing himself across the room, and unmistakeably guilty look flashes over his face again.
It's with a profound relief that he nods firmly and straightens up, then gets the hell out to Acquire Water Before Invisibly Following Faketux.
The grin that overtakes the false Tuxedo Kamen's face is entirely uncharacteristic of Mamoru. "Aw yeah. We're really doing this."
"This" being, probably, the worst plan any of them has ever come up with. And he is absolutely including the memory-eating youma on that list.
He stares at Mamoru as the speech just comes pouring out of him like that is a perfectly normal thing for a human being, let alone a very ill one, to come up with on the spot. "How do you even--yeah, you know what, I'm stealing that. Tradition of secret love, eh? That'll show him."
Nephrite--Tuxedo Kamen--crosses the room and kneels beside the couch. They are not, any of them, often prone to kneeling in this life, but sometimes the situation calls for it. His face is nearly level with the one that mirrors his, maskless and a little more pale though it may be. "I shoot a giant starry laser beam at things. It's not really a precision strike. How good do you think my aim is?"
He takes the rose from his prince's hand anyway. One more convincing prop. One more good luck charm.
Flowers. He'll be able to remember that one, yes. "Come back safe," Kunzite says. And amends a moment later, "Preferably before Makoto kills the rest of us for going along with this."
And the crooked grin that that pale face gives its mirror in response is encouragement all on its own. "Sounds like it's smoking bomber good. Come back quick, Neph. Don't die or next time you get resurrected you have to clean the bathrooms for a year."
Mamoru lays a hand briefly over Nephrite's, then withdraws it. He's glad of the gloves Neph is wearing. They mean that none of the sick worry pooling in his gut can leak through the touch.
"Okay, let's go," calls Jadeite as he comes in with a glass of water, handing it to Kunzite so Mamoru doesn't spill it everywhere.
He's in henshin now, and is having a little trouble looking at Nephrite-- but the illusion holds steady, flawless. "The roof is fine. There's goddamn flowers on the roof. And no potential dead-looking Puella Magi."
He heads sharply for the door leading to the elevator lobby, wishing he had pockets to jam his hands into.
For being such a terrible plan, it is a remarkably simple one. They need intel. They need to know more about the pink light in the sky that has been the focus of Nephrite's telescope for weeks. They need to know about the home of the toxic flowers that are poisoning the Earth. And Fiore has been so eager to bring Mamoru there. So what if they just... let him?
And so here stands Tuxedo Kamen, openly visible on the rooftop, evil pink flowers blooming inches from his polished black shoes. Jadeite is here, but invisible. The unseen source of the illusion that makes him so convincing.
Tuxedo Kamen peers down at the nearest blossom. The fierce anger in his eyes is, surely, no different from the same anger those blossoms have witnessed in those eyes before. "Flower language is about history of mad hot love! Turning that shit into hate is the worst! You turned flowers into a pile of lies, and I, Tuxedo Kamen, will not stand for it!"
The speech could use a little work, but the cape flip is most convincing. Tuxedo Kamen points his rose directly at the flower. A challenge. "Come answer for your crimes, Fiore."
In truth, it would not have mattered how convincing Nephrite was or was not. The sentinel Xenians on the rooftop have very specific orders: report when the black-haired man in the mask shows his face in public. They respond to those and those alone -- how are these creatures of a hivemind supposed to understand the nuances of human personality? It's not their fault their master believes there is only one person of such a description in the city.
So, at the conclusion of the faux Kamen's speech, the flowers do as they are ordered. One sends an instinctive Fiore and the Mistress, while several others unspool their buried vines and lasso them out to hold the target in place. Report, immobilize, wait. Such a simple job for so many months of nothing.
Luckily, they need only hold him for a moment. Fiore would never keep his best friend waiting.
He's there in a swirl of petals that fall to the ground and disappear in the dusting of pink already scattered on the roof. And that smile is far too wide for any trace of innocence to remain.
"So you've finally deigned to show yourself again," he says, footsteps clack-clacking against concrete as he makes his way to the trapped Tuxedo Kamen. "And, my my, without any of your so-called friends around? I had thought you couldn't breathe without their permission. Or without that blonde vixen whispering in your ear. What luck."
It takes several seconds of silent gloating for the alien to close the distance completely, and when he is only inches away, he takes yet more time to look him over, from his shined black shoes to the scarlet of his cape -- to the domino mask that frames his blue eyes. He has been fooled by illusion before, after all; he will not allow himself to hope until he knows this is real.
Thankfully, as Fiore's face softens from bitterness to an excitement so incredulous it's almost sad, it appears Jadeite's magic passes inspection.
"...have you really come back to me, Mamoru-kun?" he asks, cautiously reaching out a hand to touch his cheek. "Did you finally remember our promise?"
Invisible and inaudible, Jadeite waits at the far side of the roof, in a patch of open space where he won't be brushing accidentally against any flowers and alerting them to his presence. Surreptitiously, he turns the shutterclick sound off on his phone.
More surreptitiously still, he starts taking a lot of pictures. He's not sure what he'll do with them yet. Maybe give them to Ami. Maybe just... keep them. Just in case. Because this will obviously all turn out well enough to joke about later. A drinking game, perhaps.
It is not until there are vines snapping around his limbs, pinning Nephrite in place, that it becomes real. This is not a game anymore.
The alien gloats, believing his prey is captive at last. Nephrite swallows the laugh he wants to let out, and maintains his angry glare instead. He draws on what he remembers of Mamoru's interactions with Fiore in the past. "They are my friends. But so are you. I don't want you to hurt them anymore."
'They're my friends.'
Fiore may as well not hear another word after that -- and it's possible he doesn't, from the way his expression sours, the way his hand drops away like a stone. He has not come to join him in the home he's prepared for them in the stars, then. Some cruel coincidence has caught him on the roof this time, and he is not any closer to seeing the truth than he was the last time they spoke.
...no matter.
"They are *not* your friends," he growls. "I'm your only friend. I'm the only one who could ever understand you. And I'm the one who promised to return to you."
Petals rain down over the both of them, and as they blow past Nephrite's eyes, he will see reality begin to shift, from the grey of the rooftop he knows so well to fields of pink, rolling hills upon hills of flowers, beneath a night sky of stars that shine coldly in the darkness.
"Even if you won't keep your promise, Mamoru-kun...I will!"
Fiore's fist reaches out to ball up his captive's lapel, pulling him into the air without the aid of the Xenian vines, and with the rushing sensation of all noise and life fading away into a vaccuum, he pulls both of them through to the asteroid that will be their home.
For a place so full of flowers, the air smells of pestilence and death -- and a dot of white, a sphere of blue hang in the sky much more closely than they should.
(On the roof, Jadeite has switched to recording as Fiore's expression sours; the blond's own expression has gone grim. Whatever information they can get-- it's just a phone recording, not the Mercury visor, but maybe her analytics can get something out of it. Add it to the numbercrunch pile for Eternity MAIN to work on. Something. Anything.)
(It's not until the flower petals settle and there's no trace of either Nephrite or Fiore that he stalks back to the stairwell door, left open, and goes to rejoin the others and wait.)
(It shouldn't be long. Seconds, and he'll be back. Seconds.)
(Any second now.)
All of his multiple lives, Nephrite has gazed up into space. Many times, he has dreamed of being there. In the cold void, surrounded by thousands of stars.
There is no time to feel wonder at the black sky now, no time to feel awe and wonder at the Earth no longer being what he stood on but something that floated far away. He looks instead at the mass of land (so small) that they stand on. The flowers covering every surface. So much pink.
Yes, it is only supposed to be a few seconds that he lingers here. A few seconds to see whatever he can, and then use the combined energy of Earth that his prince and his brothers gave him to return. A lot can happen in a few seconds.
"This is it?" He asks Fiore, looking past him at the flowers though his shirt is still caught up in his fist. "This is where they're from?"
For some reason -- who can fathom the mind of this alien in its current state, honestly -- Fiore's eyes brighten at the question posed to him. He doesn't know exactly what he'd been expecting: screaming, maybe, begging for those annoyances to come save him. Perhaps even declarations of hatred, if their brainwashing of him had progressed far enough.
A question was not what he'd expected. And a question he can work with, at that.
A question is the beginning of a conversation, and they haven't truly spoken in so long...
"Aren't they lovely?" he says, and the gentle way he lowers Kamen to his feet is a far cry from the rough hand that tore him from those vines moments ago. He turns on his heel, throwing his hands out to indicate the masses of pink around them, as a child might show off a particularly amazing sight. "They're not from here. Not really, I mean. This is where I grow and keep most of them, but I found the first one far away, many lightyears from here. I'd searched for so long..."
Fiore looks over his shoulder, practically glowing at the sight of his friend standing here, with him, completely and blissfully alone in their home made of flowers.
"...this was the only flower worthy of the rose you gave me."
He smiles, then with tender slowness, snakes his fingers in between Mamoru's.
"Mamo-chan."
A little bit of latent illusion might have clung to Nephrite after they left Earth, and Jadeite, behind. A bit of the false image mingling with his shadow, taking the shape it wants to take. But it is only seconds, if that, before Tuxedo Kamen ceases to look quite so slim. Before his short blue-black hair gives way to long brown curls. Before chocolate brown eyes are looking back at Fiore through the mask rather than Earth-blue ones.
Before the alien can realize it, his fingers, intertwined with Fiore's, tighten to bone-cracking pressure. And now there is a smirk on what is definitely Nephrite's face. "Tell me more, pumpkin. I'm dying to hear about it."
Now would be the time to start concentrating on teleporting. Yes, right now.
Suddenly, the bones of his fingers are grinding against each other, there's an unfamiliar, mocking voice next to him, his few moments of happiness crumble like wilted flowers --
Suddenly, it is not Mamoru standing next to him at all.
It takes less than a second of Fiore's eyes to snap to his side, and even less for their fondness to turn to hatred, stark and furious and betrayed. He jerks his hand away with a strength that should not have been possible -- aided by his awakening wrath, no doubt -- and all but leaps backward on the hillside. Away from the lying *thing* that made him believe in Mamoru's love for him, even for a moment.
"YOU!" he yells. Despite himself, his eyes are burning with tears. That he could be fooled a second time with illusion, that he could allow such filthy humans to toy with him so...how shameful can he be? And now, to show weakness in front of those who hold Mamoru's heart captive? "You lying SCUM!"
There's only one way to end this now. They may have succeeded in their little trick -- but they will pay for that success in blood.
Forgetting the arsenal of weapons at his disposal, forgetting even that his monsters surround them on all sides, Fiore launches himself bodily at the brown-haired man in Mamoru's clothes, propelled along by a burst of magic that ripples through the artificial atmosphere. One hand is stretched in a fist, but the impact alone would be a terrible blow, saying nothing of the shoulder poised to drive into his ribcage.
Yes. Oh yes, this one will pay. For all the pain he's caused, and doubly so for that torturous moment of joy.
It was such a good plan.
Wait, no, it was never really a good plan. But for one moment, it was going very well. Fiore was tricked. He brought him to the asteroid. Nephrite can feel it, that distant pink light that he has memorized the look of from a distance. Now it pulsates with its wrongness beneath his feet. This is exactly what he came here to see. And he even got to make a smug remark, moments before vanishing into thin air.
Only a teleport from an asteroid in space back down to Earth is significantly more complicated than hopping from one end of Tokyo to another. So he does not vanish into thin air. A very angry, very solid Fiore slams into him before he can. Nephrite may be in henshin under that tuxedo, but he was unguarded, poised to slip away instead of bracing for an attack. He feels the crunch of his ribs before he is thrown to the ground.
Flowers don't provide nearly the soft landing that he would have hoped for.
With an audible impact and a distinct, if muffled *crunch*, Fiore's body collides with Nephrite's and the two of them are sent tumbling over the edge of the hill, head over feet over head, green hands clutched at black fabric so tightly that an odd bump tears a piece clean away. It's several seconds of dizzying motion before they finally come to a halt -- he wastes no time when they do.
The vines here are almost more serpent than plant, but they are no slower at their tasks, nor are they easier to break. At the instant of Fiore's command, they have bound themselves around Nephrite's wrists, around his shoulders and waist, around both his ankles. Really, the only target left free is his neck.
Whether that's a comfort or a sinking horror is entirely up to him.
"Did you think you were going to get away with that?!" Fiore demands, disheveled and half-crazed from his position atop the Shitennou. "Did you think I was going to let you *escape*?" Even through his shouting, the notes of strain that accompany tears tug at his speech, and he rather unflatteringly cracks on that final question. Gritting his teeth, he drives his fist into his gut, as though in doing so he can hide just how well he was fooled.
"You're going to die here," he says, even and much quieter now, grinding his knuckles against the flesh beneath them. "And I'm going to dump your body at the feet of those you call friends. I hope that's what you wanted them to see when you planned this."
Another vine's been moving slowly across the ground as Fiore speaks, wrapping itself around Nephrite's foot, firmly but not enough to truly hurt --
"But first, I'm going to make you suffer."
-- and the vine *wrenches* that foot to the side, until it is at a sickening angle to his leg, until he hears the snap of bone and screams of pain.
Nephrite never came up here under the illusion that it was a safe thing to do. But the idea of being trapped, bound like an animal and pinned beneath the crazed alien who never wished him well to begin with, did not really enter his list of possibilities. Sinking horror is among the things he is feeling as those vines snake around his limbs (along with "ow" and "oops").
But still, he grits his teeth and tries to tune out Fiore's shouts and the pain in his ribs. All he needs is to concentrate long enough to get off this stupid rock. Don't think about the crushing grip of the vines. Don't think about the murderous intent of the guy sitting on top of him.
And then there is a crack. And all he can do is scream.
The screams come easily, and oh, Fiore is not disappointed. But screams need air, and that's not a privilege he can give a liar.
So he closes that screaming throat with his fists and waits for all sound to die.
"You could never understand how Mamoru feels. You could never understand how *I* feel," Fiore whispers, mere inches away from Nephrite's face, close enough that two of those traitorous tears fall from his eyes to stain the fabric of the tuxedo. "You never would have done this if you did. If you knew -- how agonizing it is to be alone. You would not tear the one friend in my life away from me."
The grip of iron tightens, and the dull glow of the vines seeps into the wellspring of life within this man, stealing it away even as it flickers and struggles against the lack of oxygen. Such a petty human need, but one that must be terrifying to go without.
"Perhaps now you've learned, though," he says, and he is laughing, cruel and bitter. "You're all alone up here, after all. Dying thousands of miles away from any hope of rescue. Powerless to save your pathetic planet. You're going to die, and it will mean nothing."
The vines pull and pull at that energy, until its nothing more than a wisp of a trickle, and the skin beneath his hands is cold. "I hope this little game was worth it," he says, in what he hopes are the man's final moments. "*Pumpkin.*"
In a flash, they are both gone, the Xenians glowing like so many stars against a backdrop of deep pink. And, with a thud, Fiore has dropped Nephrite's limp body on the carpet of his own home, in the face of all those who love him, and who never thought it might go this far.
Whether Fiore hears it depends on two things: how quickly he teleports away from the apartment, and whether or not the Xenian lets him. Odds are good he hears it and she makes him forget: after all, she made him forget the visceral pain on his only friend's face, that day out on the sidewalk. She made him forget the truths that Mamoru showed him in the warehouse. She ripped him from himself in her own furious fear when Mamoru held his heart and Makoto tore at her, showing teeth in her proof that it was literally she who held it in her grip.
That doesn't stop the gut-deep anguished cry of horror from echoing in the apartment, out of the apartment, into Tokyo's air and through the portal into the asteroid, before it's cut off. Fiore's friend's voice.
"NEPHRITE!!"