The Problem of Mamoru Chiba

Makoto's apartment is not big - aside from the bathroom it's pretty much all one room, a kitchenette blending into the living room blending into what is clearly Makoto's bedroom area at the other end of the apartment. But it's clean and tidy and comfortable, full of homey little touches and potted geenery wherever Mako can find the space for it. Right now it smells sweetly of Makoto's favorite rose tea, a cup of which she sets down in front of Rei with a slightly rueful smile. "It's not much," she says, "but please make yourself comfortable."

After pouring herself a cup of tea as well, she settles herself down on the floor by the coffee table. "Sorry for asking you to come over on such short notice, Rei-chan," she says. "We'll probably need to have a senshi meeting really soon, but with everything that's already going on, I kind of wanted to hear what you think about some things, before I go upsetting Usagi-chan or Ami-chan with them."

Rei smiles at Makoto as the tea is placed before her. She accepts it and takes a sip before saying, "Well, it's certainly cozy. It suits you, really. I like what you've done with it."

Rei seems happy enough to see Makoto, but she's also got a few questions on her mind. Well, they're here to talk. It'll probably come up.

"Right, well. That makes sense. Usagi-chan doesn't really take bad news very well." She shrugs her shoulders, as if saying 'it can't be helped'.

Rei leans towards Makoto a bit before adding, "I actually have something I'd like to ask you about, but you first. You called me here, so it must be pretty important."

A quiet little laugh escapes Makoto, who is clearly pleased by what Rei has to say about her living space. It doesn't take long for her expression to grow serious, though. After Rei has spoken, Mako nods in understanding; "Got it."

Then she takes a moment to pick up her cup of tea and organize her thoughts a little. "It's about Mamoru Chiba-san," she says. "I know you were going to be keeping an eye out too, so for all I know you're already ahead of me, but - in any case, we should definitely compare notes, because it turns out I was completely wrong about thinking that he might be Nephrite. Actually, it seems like Nephrite is after him for some reason. Nephrite wasn't attacking him, but he seemed kind of freaked out anyway... Mamoru-san did, that is."

"I have been," says Rei, swirling her tea by gently tilting the teacup around in a circle. "Honestly, he doesn't seem like a bad guy. If he /was/ with the Dark Kingdom, then he sure doesn't belong with them. However, he told me something last night that I wanted to check with you. Just to make sure he wasn't lying."

Rei sits her teacup down, props her arms up by her elbows, and clasps her hands together. With a grin, she says, "He told me that some guy from the Dark Kingdom tried to steal his energy. He told me that you saw this happening and decked the Dark Kingdom jerk." The almost giggling look on Rei's face clearly shows she approves of that.

"Chiba-san didn't mention his name, though. Maybe he didn't know it, or something. He seemed more concerned about being treated as a possession of the Dark Kingdom or something." Rei takes up her teacup and sips it for a moment before continuing, "From what you're telling me about Nephrite, it sounds like he was telling the truth."

"... but even if he isn't a badguy, he's very clearly involved in magic. That's clear, one way or another."

Mako laughs again, this time very wry and slightly embarrassed. "Yeah, he told you the truth, pretty much. I mean, I don't know if you could say that I 'decked' Nephrite or anything, but I did take a shot at him. I didn't have a chance to transform, it probably would've gotten messy if Nephrite hadn't decided to back off."

She stops there to take a sip of her tea, and lets out her breath in a quiet sigh. "Anyway, you're right. I'm not sure what's up with him. I don't want to think he's a bad guy, but it's not like I'm good at telling when somebody's lying."

The teacup is set down carefully on the coffee table, and Mako stands, crosses the room to her vanity to pick up a sheet of paper and bring it back to where Rei is sitting. She places the page down on the coffee table for Rei to look at - it's got some calculus notes on it that demonstrate far too able a grasp of the subject to belong to Makoto, but more significant by far is the pencil sketch of a female figure with long, flowing hair.

The drawing is light on details. The face has no features filled in save for the crescent moon sketched beneath her bangs. The hairstyle, aside from 'long', is mostly a suggestion. But nevertheless, the image is strangely, hauntingly familiar. "He told me he doesn't know who he is, but he's looking for a princess. I think it might be our princess. And I think, from what he said, he thinks so too."

So it was the truth. Rei relaxes visibly, and then starts to look a bit sheepish. "I was... actually maybe a bit mean to him. I mean, it seemed like he was Nephrite, and then he was hitting on Usagi-chan during her birthday, so it was like... I dunno, I guess I felt like someone important to me was being threatened."

She sips, saying, "I probably should've waited. Well, it's not like I hurt him or anything."

Rei watches as Makoto gets up, finds the piece of paper, and sets it on the table. Rei glazes over the Calculus stuff. There's some squiggly lines and something that looks like a malformed capital 'E'. She'll have plenty of time to learn what that means when she's not in middle school. What /is/ important, to her, is the image of the princess.

"You're kidding..." she says, increduously. "W-wait. Who /is/ this guy? He's searching for our princess, but he's not with us and he's not with the Dark Kingdom either."

Rei leans down over the table to look at it, brushing her hair back so that it doesn't fall into her tea. "I... I might have to do a fire reading on this. This is his homework, right?"

"I still think we should keep an eye on him," Makoto says as she settles back down at her place by the coffee table. "But... yeah, I know what you mean. I wasn't sure that he was Nephrite, but suspecting him was still pretty bad." She makes a rueful face, rubbing idly at the back of her neck.

Mako watches as Rei studies the drawing, and nods in answer to her question. "Yeah," she says. "He gave it to me, so I don't think he's expecting to get it back or anything. I saw it by accident, that was how we ended up talking about what he's looking for. He said something like..." She frowns, digging up the memory. "He hopes I might know who she was - the princess. He said he dreams about her, and he wants to keep her safe."

Frowning, she looks down at her tea. "I wanted to believe him."

Rei sits back upright after studying the picture. She still doesn't know what to think about this. In Rei's mind this has gone from 'normal everday weirdness' to 'no this should actually not be possible'. She's still trying to process what it means. "Yeah... we should keep an eye on him, just to find out what the Dark Kingdom wants from him. I don't think he's a bad guy, though. At least, he doesn't seem like one."

Rei takes a moment to adjust in her seat, and takes another sip of tea. "Besides, it's not that far out of the way to check up on him. I um... I gave him a disposable number he could use to call Sailor Mars if he needs to. If I get an emergency call from him, I'll let you and the others know."

Rei stops for a moment, before also adding, "Yeah... he also told me a bit about Puella Magi, about how rough they had it and how we should be nice to them. Like... he really seems to care more about his friends than he does about himself. I don't know. I mean, it /could/ be an act, but it doesn't feel like one."

At this, Mako cracks a smile again. "At least you think so, too," she says with honest relief. "I trust your judgment a lot more than mine on this kind of thing." Feeling as though a weight has come off of her, she stretches, arms reaching upwards. "That's good," she adds. "He has my number, too. Just as myself, not as Sailor Jupiter... but the way he was talking, I'm still not sure he hasn't figured that out somehow. Even though I have no idea how."

She really seems less concerned about that than perhaps she should be. If Rei agrees that he doesn't seem malevolent, it is at least not an emergency. "So, what now? Should we let Usagi-chan and Ami-chan know, or did you want to do a reading first and see if that gives you any more ideas about what's going on?"

Rei raises an eyebrow at Makoto. "I don't know. I'm not sure. I mean, Sailor V seems to know who we are, or at least she knew where we were doing our fire reading. Still I will say, to be specific, that he told /Sailor Mars/ that 'Kino-san' came to his rescue, so he clearly at least thinks there's a connection there."

Rei's lips are flat line for a moment while she thinks it over. "I want to do a fire reading on him, but I don't think we need to wait on that. I think we can safely conclude that he isn't an enemy, regardless of what he knows."

With a smile, she looks to Makoto, saying, "I think I will need to do a fire reading soon, though. Do you mind if I borrow this picture he drew? I'll bring it back when I'm done, but it'll help me focus my reading if I have it."

"Sure," Makoto answers without hesitation, gesturing toward the piece of paper in a 'help yourself' fashion. "Whatever might help."

With this settled, she hunkers forward a little, propping her elbows on the edge of the coffee table and beginning to frown, as though thinking uncomfortable thoughts. "Sailor V was there the first time I transformed," she says, "so she might have seen. But I don't know how Mamoru-san would know. Or how Sailor V would know about things like that reading. At least V-san's a heroine so I don't see why we'd need to be worried about her knowing, but..." Her eyes lift to meet Rei's, brows drawn together in worry. "Either we haven't been as careful as we thought, or something else is going on and I don't know what it could be."

Rei sighs. "I'm not sure. I mean. I thought I was being careful, but did we make a mistake somewhere along the line? If we did, we might be in trouble. Yet, the only ones who seem to have figured us out aren't all that evil."

Mars shrugs. "It's not like he called me Rei or anything. Maybe it's like what we know about him. We know he's involved and don't know who he is. Maybe he only knows that we're involved and doesn't know how."

She shrugs. "We may have given too much away at some point. I wish I could just be sure."

Rei accepts the offered paper and puts it in a binder. She'll need it later. "Actually... you could come with me to the shrine if you wanted. It'd be easier if I could tell you right away what I see."

Rei stands up, shoulders turning slightly towards the door, but still looking at Makoto for an answer.

Makoto's answer is to immediate follow Rei's example in getting to her feet. "Let's do it," she says. "Better sooner than later, right? Especially if we did slip up somewhere along the line."

She detours slightly, collecting the teacups and carrying them into the kitchenette to set beside the sink, but leaves any further cleanup for later; instead, she moves to join Rei, pausing only to make sure she has her house key on her before she makes for the front door.

Rei walks out of Makoto's house as soon as the thundergirl is ready to go. Rei leads the way back to her shrine, taking the best bus routes and so on. She talks to Makoto along the way, but most of it is mundane stuff. How school is going, funny stories, and so on.

When they finally get back to the shrine, Rei leads the way back to the room with the firepit. She places the picture down near the fire pit before turning to Makoto and saying, "Give me a moment. I need to get dressed."

It may seem a bit nitpicky to change clothes for such a thing, but proper dress can be an important part of the ritual. When she comes back out, she's in her priestess outfit.

"Alright! So I think I'm ready to start. Anything else I should focus on before I begin?"

Makoto doesn't question Rei's methods. Her understanding of how this whole process works is fairly sketchy, but Rei's results speak for themselves. Once they've reached the shrine, she just settles in to wait while Rei gets ready.

The question give her pause for thought for a few moments. "I'm not sure," she admits. "I don't entirely understand how all of this works, but it kind of seems like it'd be best to keep it simple, doesn't it? More chance of getting a clear answer?"

Rei nods, saying, "Yeah that's about right. Focusing on only a few things helps to get a specific answer, but you don't always get the answer you want regardless of how you ask."

Now ready to begin, Rei kneels before the fire. She closes her eyes, taking in a deep breath, before opening her eyes and looking at the picture. Mamoru's picture. Of the Princess.

She chants and makes various hand gestures, each one is precise, but they flash by too fast to be closely studied. She could probably explain it if asked, but now probably isn't the best time to ask.

Between the fire, the focal point of the picture, and Mars's own innate talent, surely she should recieve /some/ vision.

The fire is always home for Rei, and always a flickering and destructive beauty, mesmerizing and intense, crackling and licking at the wood it devours. Sometimes the visions it grants are horrors, and sometimes delights; frequently, they require a lot of decryption.

Today, the fire is appropriate for what Rei can see: familiar uniforms on familiar unfriendly faces, fighting amid mass destruction, panic and death. The burning ruins of majestic buildings, broken temples and broken people.

A flash of silver, tears glistening on a face too bright to make out, swords crossed and the blind chaos of battle.

Endless stairs, the fog of untethered dreams; a beautiful and untouched glade deep in a primeval forest, moonlight filtering through silvered leaves; a tall black-haired figure in armor, caped, waiting while the moonlight coalesces playfully around him.

Endless burning stairs that disintegrate into nothing, twisted metal and wreckage scattered and rent between and atop rocks at the bottom of a cliff, the tide coming in; the moon full above and crying-- the moon is crying.

There's the blazing brand of a cross within a circle burnt into the blue planet hanging in the sky, and it breaks apart into four pieces as the waves come in and wash away the fires and sink the continents. A small hand weakly pushes metal from the rocks, bleeding.

Silver tears glisten on a face too bright to make out, and a slender white hand brushes blood from a dark, still face, turned away.

Rei continues with the chanting. Her eyes close. The ritual becomes a trance. Her chanting and motions become rhythimic and too-perfect. She is deep within her vision quest.

Images pour into her mind, all at once, and she suddenly stops. Hands are still, chanting quits. She mutters, loud enough for Makoto to hear, excerpts from what she sees in cold monotone.

"Destruction, fear, death. Fallen majesty. Crossed swords. A knight in a moonlit forest. Wreckage. Tears from the moon. Earth blazing, shattering. Silver tears."

Rei shakes for a moment, and then suddenly awakens from her trance. Her breathing is heavy. "That was... I just..."

She brushes her hair out of her face and looks over at Makoto, still short of breath. "I don't know what I saw... but it seems really important." Rei turns towards the image of the princess, looking at the picture. "The moon was featured prominantly. There's a very good chance... that this /is/ our princess, but I can't understand the rest."

Makoto, for her part, keeps quiet and very still, making herself as unobtrusive as possible while she watches Rei meditate. The last thing she wants to do is be a distraction.

It is increasingly difficult to sit quietly still when Rei begins speaking. Somehow she holds herself back - but the moment Rei's trance breaks, Mako pushes away from the wall and hurries toward her. "Are you okay?" she asks first. "That didn't sound good."

Letting Rei catch her breath, Makoto frowns, chewing over what she's heard. "You said some things," she points out. "Destruction and death, the Earth on fire and shattering. A knight in a forest, and silver tears from the moon." An impatient hand pushes her bangs back from her eyes. "So, Mamoru-san is definitely connected to our princess somehow, but how?"

Almost as soon as she asks it, a thought flashes across her mind. "Rei-chan, do you know if Luna's ever said anything about the Moon Princess having a knight - or a prince?"

Mars takes a moment, but she does recover. "Yeah... yeah I'm fine. It was just... it was powerful. I'm not sure how else to describe it."

Makoto asks something about a knight or a prince. Rei shakes her head, "She never mentioned anything about a prince that I recall... but you know, the man I saw in my vision... /could/ have been a prince? He was wearing armor, but I can't imagine why a prince /wouldn't/."

Rei shakes her head. "... but that's speculation. I mean, we already know there was a Moon Princess, so some kind of prince isn't too much of a stretch. However, that doesn't really tell us much one way or another, and the 'prince' didn't look like anyone I've seen before."

Rei concentrates for a moment, trying to think. "Actually... I couldn't see his face at all. However, there was a moment when I saw two faces, one too bright to make out and one dark. The dark face was bloodied, and the bright one was crying."

Rei frowns, mulling it over. "Between that and the image of Earth being struck with a giant firebrand, all I can say is that whatever happened was probably a tragedy."

Mako listens, thinking hard over the things that Rei says, and nodding slowly at her conclusion. "Yeah, that's certainly what it sounds like. Because of the Dark Kingdom, do you think?"

But none of this answers the question of how Mamoru Chiba fits in, or how he knows about the princess, or why the Dark Kingdom would be interested in him. "...what if..." Makoto muses aloud, "...what if Mamoru-san is the prince, or knight or whatever? Reborn, like we were?" Her eyes find Rei's as the thought starts to realy catch hold. "He's what the whole reading was about, right? That could explain why he's looking for the princess, and why the Dark Kingdom would be after him."

"I dunno," says Rei, somewhat sceptical. "I mean, that sounds like something out of a romance novel. Too good to be true."

She does take a moment to tap her chin.

"Well, actually, we can't discount it that quickly, either. If Mamoru is a prince, and we're looking for the Moon Princess... couldn't that also mean that they were at war?"

Rei frowns, and then shakes her head. "No that can't be it. Mamoru's not a bad guy. He's not against us, or at least I don't think he is. And whatever that last vision was, with those two faces I couldn't see... that /wasn't/ a violent moment. It seemed more romantic than that."

She sighs, and after a moment she smiles up at Makoto, standing up after having finished her reading. "Well, it'd be /nice/ if it turned out to be that sweet. Something to offset the disaster. Though it's a problem for Usagi-chan if Chiba-san's already spoken for by the Moon Princess. Maybe she could still be happy with Tuxedo Kamen or something."

Well, that went from zero to awkward in nothing flat. Makoto abruptly looks away at nothing, a hint of a flush coloring her cheeks as she tries very hard not to think about Usagi and Tuxedo Kamen. "Maybe..." she echoes weakly.

Oh. Oh, dear.

"Anyway!" With a determined wrench Mako shifts the topic of conversation back to the most immediate point of concern. "It looks like we definitely need to have a team meeting sometime really soon. Usagi-chan and Ami-chan need to know what's going on. Luna might be able to help us make more sense of things, too."

Rei blinks as Tuxedo Kamen is mentioned. Oh geeze, maybe she shouldn't have said anything. "A-ah... don't worry ab- I mean... oh nevermind."

Rei is going to have to make a shipping chart just to track things now. Makoto likes Kamen? Geeze.

The topic moves onto something else, and Rei is grateful. "Yeah, we should. We have a lot to talk about."

Rei rubs her forehead. Wow. "Well, thanks for coming over, Makoto. We might have some cookies around here. You want some?"

"Haha, sure." Just like that, the awkwardness is left behind, a passing moment easily put aside in favor of the now. Makoto grins brightly at Rei and her suggestion of cookies. "If you don't mind, that is. You know I won't say no to snacks."

They do indeed have a lot to talk to their team about, and plenty of concerns to chew on. But at least for right now, those things can wait a little while as Makoto and Rei go in search of cookies.