Paris. It's a beautiful town. It's full of sights and smells and foods that are virtually unheard of in Japan.
It's also twelve hours difference, and although Ami Mizuno is generally decent about handling jet-lag, this one is hitting her harder than usual.
This is why in the middle of the day, she is lying in bed, still in her pajamas ... texting.
And judging by the look on her face, she's getting angrier. And angrier. And angrier.
After a moment, she huffs and throws her blue Virtue phone across the room with a loud noise of frustration.
And then her personal phone starts beeping incoming messages.
"For the love of ..." she starts to say, then picks it up and frowns. She hastily sends several more texts, which beep back at her. Then, finally, she pushes send with a much more definitive stroke of her thumb than before and (with a bit more delicacy), sets her personal phone aside on the nightstand.
Rei, sharing a room with Ami, gets a front row seat to all of this. She was reading along with the channel until it was clear that Venus was being a basketcase again and she just rolled her eyes. "She wants us to respect her? Woman doesn't even respect her own self. She doesn't treat us with a shred of respect and yet she demands it as if she's entitled to it. Meanwhile she's throwing her henshin on the ground in some kind of tantrum."
Rei leans back in her bed, head against her pillow, looking at the ceiling. "You know... it actually pissed me off when she did that. These henshin pens aren't toys, you know? They're our identity. They're who we are." She produces her own, holding her red pen in her hand as she studies it. "This, right here, is my fate. My destiny. As someone who can see the future... no, as a Sailor Senshi, this is as vital to me as my own blood."
"Handing hers to me as if somehow I could replace her... like I would even want to, is an insult to me and also herself. Yet she feels like she can even talk about respect."
Rei voices her opinion here, in private, since Usagi did ask for the conversation to end, or at least not happen in front of literally all of Virtue.
Ami reaches up to rub at her face. She says nothing in response to Rei for several long minutes. Then, eventually, she rolls to a sitting position, right foot tucked beneath left knee as her other foot dangles from the bed.
"Sorry," she says to Rei quietly. "I shouldn't have let her anger me like that. And I definitely shouldn't have thrown my phone." She clutches the bed to either side of her hands, and stares across the gap towards Rei's bed. Except she isn't really looking at Rei.
"I just don't understand what she want from me," Ami explains frustratedly. "It's like she doesn't listen to anything I have to say, doesn't respect my opinions or my ideals. Everything we do works exactly how Minako wants it to, or she throws a temper tantrum and I'm the bad guy. Or, I guess, in this case, Akemi-san and Tomoe-san were the bad guys, but I still think she's just mad at me, in particular, and taking it out on them. That comment about not working with the enemy felt an awful lot like a callback to right before Christmas, when I was working with Ms. White."
Rei waits until Ami responds, and then she listens to the entirety of what Ami says before saying a word. After a moment or two of silence, she kicks her legs over the edge of her bed and sits up straight. Her legs dangle a bit and her hands push against the bed on either side of her. She looks down at the floor. Then she responds.
"Honestly... I didn't get it at first either. I think it goes a bit deeper than any of that, though. This probably sounds a bit weird but... I don't think she wants to be respected."
She pauses for a moment to consider what she says, but then she responds.
"See, we did respect her. If all she wanted was respect, then she already had that. Instead, she found a way to sabotage it. She found a way for us to lose respect for her. She threw that respect away. She wants us to not respect her. At all."
"As for why she'd want that, who knows?" Rei shrugs. "She's obviously hurt. Maybe she's harboring some kind of self-hatred, or maybe she finds some kind of validation in like... she knows she's smart, but she wants to be the only one who knows that. Maybe she wants us all to hate her so she can feel justified in feeling sorry for herself because no one recognizes her 'genius'." That last word gets air quotes.
"I know that seems strange, but it certainly seems to fit her delusions, doesn't it?"
Ami gives Rei's hypothesis probably more thought than it really deserves. Not that the hypothesis is a bad one or undeserving of proper consideration; it's more that the bluenette seems to be processing it from about a hundred angles.
Suitably, she seems to turn off for a full minute.
When Ami looks up, it's with a thoughtful expression. "The thing is," Ami notes, "she seems to think she's some sort of Carmen SanDiego or James Bond. A super spy whose 'mission'," verbal quotes, but they're so there, "is to befuddle everyone into underestimating her, so that she can implement her plans unexpectedly. And ... I mean that's worked for her before. It certainly worked to bring out Kunzite so we could trap him.
"But," Ami says hesitantly, "I feel like now that we all realize she's that clever, she's foundering without any idea what to do to regain her anonymity. And instead of working with us she's just pushing us away. I don't know how to help her. I can't possibly help her when merely talking with her infuriates me. I feel like she completely undervalues my time and my efforts on behalf of the team. And that leaves me wondering why I should possibly value her opinion at all?"
Rei's legs kick as they dangle over the edge of the bed, and she picks up her phone to exchange some texts with Usagi, but that exchange is short lived and happens mostly while Ami is on pause. By the time Ami resumes, Rei's phone is already put away.
"Thing is... if she's going to work with us, then we need to be let in on that secret. Otherwise we're going to have thrashing, just like this. She isn't really accomplishing anything by doing that. She's just frustrating us."
Rei shrugs, and says, "Frankly, she could probably fool a common youma with that kind of front, but at the risk of sounding every bit as egotistical as I am? Between you and me being on the same team, there isn't much that's going to get past us. Kunzite didn't seem to fall for it either. Or maybe he does, and that's why he regards her as crazy and irrational."
Her red-painted nails reach behind her and begin stratching the back of her head. "... honestly though, It doesn't really feel like a master plan. It feels more like an emotional need. The way she throws around accusations and insults... the way she so quickly plays the victim card. It seems like some kind of lizard brain thing that she can't quite get past. Also... I don't really think there's much we can do to help her. If I knew of a way to do that, I would've done it already."
With a sigh, she adds, "Frankly I don't see it getting any better. This is a lesson that she needs to learn, and it's not something we can teach her because I don't really think she'll ever listen. I have nothing useful to offer on that front."
"Well we've got emotional needs, too," Ami murmurs quietly, as she hugs herself. "Like the need to not feel like archery targets, and the need to be treated as equals, and the need to not feel like someone who should be our friend and ally is actually doing more harm than those who happen to have a slightly less shiny moral highground to stand on." She's not talking about the Dark Kingdom, it should be noted. No, they are pretty much just dirty as it gets.
"I shouldn't have told Usagi-chan to go away," Ami mumbles quietly. "She offered to come in here and snuggle. Now I wish I'd said yes. Now I'm not angry, I just feel really ... taken advantage of. I guess that's it." She looks up at Rei, then smiles. "Sorry. Not by you. I really appreciate that you've been so willing to trust me, even when I don't explain everything fully. I just ... even when I do what Venus asks, she accuses me of being a waste. Like with telling you about the thing Kunzite shared with me. Why would she think I hadn't done what I said I would?"
Rei smiles, and she adds, "Yeah, we do have emotional needs. She is most certainly trampling all over them, and that does not in any way make her a nice person. She's being cruel, she's being selfish, and even if my theory offers some kind of explaination, even if it turns out to be accurate, the fact remains is that's not an excuse. She's being very hurtful to us, and we don't deserve that."
Rei smiles at the mention of Usagi, and says, "Personally, I wouldn't have minded it if Usagi were here. I feel like she's hurting over this, too. Honestly Minako-san is causing a lot of trouble over what literally amounts to stuff she makes up in her head. Like yeah, the information thing, and everything else she said to you that night."
Rei holds up several fingers and begins counting them off, "Let's see, you successfully managed to deduce what happened to Mamo-kun, which took a lot of work. You also helped us interrogate Kunzite and find critical information, even if we can't share it right away. You also brought us to Paris, which is awesome, whether or not your hunch pans out. Which considering your track record it very well might. That's not even counting the tons of times you've helped us in battle."
She flips her hands in the air dismissively, saying, "You've done tons and tons of work, and so have all of us, so for her to act like she's the only person taking this seriously is a ridiculous joke. It's just part of her 'I'm the only smart one' fantasy."
"Zoicite's email mentioned an address in paris, too," Ami points out gently, as if to back up her hunch. "I'm pretty sure we're going to find something here, even if it's not what I may be hoping for."
She sighs and pushes off the bed, pads barefoot to the wall, and kneels down to pick up her phone. Her personal buzzes over on the nightstand, but Ami doesn't stop to inspect it right away. Instead, she makes sure the virtue phone isn't damaged, then heads back to set it down on the nightstand.
Ami drops down onto Rei's bed, next to the Mars senshi, and sighs quietly. "So what do we do?" she asks, as she reaches for her personal phone to investigate the lateset buzz. A text from Usagi, with a lovely sculpture of dolphins jumping through the waves. That brings a small smile to her face.
Rei glances at Ami as she sits down next to her, then the Mars senshi leans over to put her head on Ami's shoulder, leaning against her. The picture of the dolphins brings a smile to her face. "That's really cute."
At the question, Rei's mouth becomes a flat line. "What do we do? Like it or not she's one of us. I don't know what to do with her. It almost seems unfair, to have someone who is supposed to be our sister just... stab us in the back like this. Regardless of whatever excuses she says or how she wants to spin it, I feel like she's the only traitor here."
Rei leans more on Ami, closing her eyes. "Personally? I think we'd be better off if we gave her what I think she wants. Don't respect her. Treat her like she's crazy and unpredictable, because she is. She can't be reasoned with, so don't bother trying. If she actually does something smart, that doesn't change all of the crazy and hurtful stuff she's doing."
Rei's lips curl into something that isn't quite a smile or a frown. "At least... that's what I think, and what I plan on doing."
Ami looks up from her phone towards the raven-haired girl on her shoulder, then sighs. She puts her arm around Rei and gives her a hug. Turning her phone off, Ami once more puts it on the nightstand between their beds.
"We're going to need her," Ami notes quietly. "Kunzite said there's a creature as much more powerful than Beryl as Beryl is more powerful than he. Endymion is nearly as powerful as Beryl. I suppose ... perhaps we should start looking to Virtue for more reliable sources of assistance. Hotori-san, Storm Knight, Hansuke-san."
Ami lets out yet another sigh. "Kyouko-san is not virtue, and she's not reliable. But at least she's predictable. Mostly. Maybe Princess Runealy," she murmurs in thought.
Rei is hugged, and she wraps her arms around Ami's stomach as she continues to lean on her. "Yeah... we do. There's no telling what role she'll play, but I don't really know if I can trust her either, and I don't really know if I can consider her our leader until she starts acting like one."
Rei frowns at the mention of the creature more powerful than Kunzite, or Beryl. "We might have to do that anyways, regardless of whether or not Minako-san comes around. Kyouko is a long-time friend of Mamoru-kun, so she at least would want to help. She's also hot-headed, but for some reason I still trust her more than I trust Venus right now."
Rei's eyes open for a moment, and she adds, "Mamo-kun had a lot of friends. We met them all that one night. Some of them might be willing to help."
"She's not my leader," Ami notes to Rei quietly. ""I most certainly won't follow her orders if I don't think they're good ones." It's not even stubornness, the way she's saying it. Just honesty. "Usagi-chan is my leader. I will do whatever I can to help her," she explains.
"The problem with Kyouko is she's so ... impulsive," Ami says softly. "I can't trust her not to go try and take on the Dark Kingdom all by herself. And she doesn't have the power for that."
Ami considers the 'lot of friends' and nods. "Miss White, at least, I think I can trust. At least as long as we don't mind working 'with the enemy'. Perhaps Akemi-san, as well, although her agenda is unclear to me. But Mamo-kun trusts her, and I do, too. Maybe Frost Knight, as well, although he seems to have some grief with Mamo-kun that I'm not sure of. Still, I'm sure he has the right intentions." Oh how wrong she is.
Ami smiles, briefly, then brings her other hand up to gently lay atop Rei's head. She pets the Martian senshi gently, the same way she pets Usagi.
"Yeah, same," says Rei, in agreement. "My loyalty is to the princess, to Usagi-chan. I'll support her the best way I know how, because that's my fate, and I have faith in that fate. Regardless of how badly it has gone in the past."
Rei smirks as Ami talks about her concerns with Kyouko. "Yeah, I'd say that's about right. She does what she wants to do, and she has to look tough while doing it. I suppose that's all the more reason we'll have to keep our little secret about what Kunzite told us, right?"
"I honestly haven't heard of Frost Knight before. As for working 'with the enemy'... well... frankly I don't think that's the right way to look at it." Rei's hug tightens for a moment, and she cuddles a little closer. "What is it that Sailor Moon keeps talking about? Love and Justice? Love means forgiving people's faults, especially if they want to help. Rejecting someone who wants to do what's right, regardless of their personal reasons for doing so, isn't really 'Justice' either. I don't just think we should work with them, I think we're obligated to, by the ideals that our group is formed on."
Rei smiles as Ami begins to pet her. She adds, "We're not like any nonmagical army, after all, even if we call ourselves soldiers. We should be true to who we are."
There's some tension there, deep within the bluenette's body, that seems to melt at Rei's translation of Usagi's words. She slumps a little towards Rei, resting her own head atop the miko's. Both arms go around Rei, and Ami just holds on as if Rei were a life preserver and Ami lost at sea.
"That's it exactly," Ami whispers quietly. "We can't just turn them away because of what wrongs they may have done, or what disagreements we may have. They want to help. We should let them help, and help them become better people in doing. We can't save anyone by killing or refusing them. We can only save them by helping them, and showing them that we want their help in return."
Rei nods, without removing her head from Ami's shoulder, so Ami can feel her soft raven hair moving against her arm.
"Yeah, that's right. There's a reason why our Princess's most powerful move is 'Moon Healing Escalation'. That's what we're supposed to be doing here. Healing people, especially those who need it."
Rei smiles, and chuckles, "Besides, if we want to get Mamo-kun back, along with the rest of his friends, we should at least be open to the idea of forgiveness. I think we owe ourselves that."
"It was never really a question, for me," Ami admits quietly as she just holds on. "Mamoru always said he wanted them back so ... I thought that's what we were doing. I thought that was the whole point."
Ami reaches up, now, to wipe at her eyes. Little tears that don't even really make sense to her.
"But Kunzite isn't ... even human anymore," Ami mumbles quietly. "He's more like a youma than a man. If Usagi escalates him, he'll die. And I don't ... know how to stop it. All I've got are some crappy half-finished notes on how to raise the dead. And I'm pretty sure that won't work."
Rei chuckles, once, as Ami mentions it not even being a question. "He did, and we have the means to make that happen. I think that is the whole point, and I don't think that's going to change at all. We've already got Jadeite back. We just need four more."
Rei is unaware of Ami's tears, at least until she sees that hand reach up to wipe her face. One of her hands reaches up to pat Ami on the shoulder, before resting there.
"Not human anymore... I wonder how they managed that. If it's really possible to just... alter him that way... there has to be some way to bring him back, right?" She speaks more out of hope than logic, at this point. "I don't want to believe it's pointless."
"I don't, either," Ami says quietly. She sighs and disentangles from Rei, then slowly lays back on the miko's bed so she can stare at the ceiling. Bare toes wiggle against the carpet as Ami thinks. And yet again she wipes her eyes clear of tears.
"I have a few theories," she explains. "But none of them are great. Maybe Beryl has his physical body in captivity, and he's only allowed to cast his mind through these avatars. Or maybe she shredded his physical body and put him back together. Or maybe he isn't nearly as freed as we want him to be; maybe Venus is right and he really is still our enemy. Maybe ... this construct was never Kunzite, and the real Kunzite doesn't know it exists. There are so many things it could be, Rei-chan. And I don't have the evidence I need to figure it out."
Rei sits up straight as Ami pulls away to lay on her bed, turning her head to watch what Ami does. Then Rei lays backwards, staring up at the ceiling, too, the back of one hand resting on her forehead while the other arm rests on her stomach.
"If it's a construct, and the real Kunzite is elsewhere, that might be the best case scenario. That means we can still save him. If his body has just been replaced wholesale, though... that would mean that there wouldn't be much left if Moon-chan used escalation on him, wouldn't it?"
Rei closes her eyes, thinking about the possibilities of that. "I wonder how that would affect Zoisite, or Nephrite. Or Mamoru, for that matter. I wonder if they could be affected in the same way."
"I don't know," Ami admits quietly. "I just don't know." She shakes her head and stifles a yawn, then cranes her neck to look at the clock in the room. "Geeze, it's not even dinner time. And the French eat dinner really late."
Ami sighs and rolls over to put an arm around Rei's stomach, curling her legs up close. "I should probably take the nap I told Usagi I was gonna," she mumbles as she buries her nose against the miko's shoulder. "We should try and get on a local schedule, for the week."
"This was supposed to be a fun Christmas Gift," Ami mumbles unhappily. Okay, sure, it was also work. But she hadn't wanted the drama.
Rei wraps one arm around Ami as the water senshi moves closer, and then her other arm moves to join her. "We should, yeah. This is our first day here, so we'll just have to adjust."
Rei's a little worried about a nap turning into a full night's sleep, but if it happens then it happens. She's starting to feel a bit tired, too.
"It is fun, Ami-chan. We can try to ignore the bad parts, at least. I mean... we're in Paris! How could we beat that?" Rei smiles, holding Ami tight. Rei didn't want the drama either, but she doesn't really feel like there's anything she can do about that, or anything Ami or Usagi could do about it either.
Ami closes her eyes and sighs, contented in the warmth of Rei's hug. She's not Usagi, but in some ways that's better: Rei doesn't squirm like Usagi. "Sorry I got all yelly at her," Ami repeats quietly, then yawns against Rei's shoulder. "I'll try not to think about it again this trip. I want you guys to have fun while we're here. That's why I brought everyone: so we could have fun, together, before school starts back up."
Ami gives Rei a gentle hug, then mumbles, "I'm going to take a nap. Wake me up in an hour? Then I promise I'll get dressed and we can go do some shopping before dinner."
"I can't hold that against you," mumbles Rei. "... but probably best to move on."
Rei squeezes Ami in her arms for a moment, and then glances over to the time. "An hour? Alright." She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a cellphone. She brings up a timer, sets it for an hour just in case she forgets, and then places it on the nightstand. Then her arm goes around Ami again.
"Yeah, let's have fun together. Go shopping, go sightseeing. There's a lot of fun to be had here."
"In a bit though," Rei gently adds, "... after your nap."