Friday night:
Naru: I'm fine. I have questions. New ones. Again. New ones.
Kazuo: Do you need to be picked up?
Naru: Please? I want to go to the gallery opening first, but I don't think I'll manage to go and walk home after.
Kazuo: Sounds like you might need an escort to the opening, too. Where are you?
Naru: I'm fine. Just drained. <insert location downtown here> Kazuo: Drained is not fine, particularly when attending something likely to draw more attention. Three minutes.
Kazuo: Naru targeted again. Drained but coherent, still wants to go to her gallery opening. Giving her an escort for it.
Kazuo: FYI: Naru attacked and drained again tonight. In reasonable condition. Seems unrelated, possibly random incident; will follow up with her in morning and let you know if I find any connections.
Ami: ... 'fyi', as if somehow this is just okay. When we are done ridding this planet of asteroids and plants, you and I need to have a very long talk about a very many topics, if I don't just resign entirely.
Ami: Did you tell Usagi?
Kazuo: Third incident in two weeks is not okay, no. Watching her family's place tonight. Yes, I've told Usagi.
Ami: I guess that's all I can ask. Thank you for informing Usagi and myself, and for watching over her.
Ami: If I don't respond for a while it is because I am possibly going to turn my phone off for a bit. I am running out of cope.
Kazuo: Understood.
"Don't look now. But over there, in that corner, looking at that weird little sculpture. Isn't that that girl from dance class? Osaka-san?"
"I think you're right. And there's her creepy dance partner. Do you think they're here together?"
"He's bringing her something. And I've been watching. She's not talking to anyone. Including him."
"She looks exhausted."
"She looks half-dead."
"But a really good half-dead. That's such a pretty dress. Do you think we should -- call someone?"
"Not yet..."
Saturday afternoon:
"Look, you have Luna with you. If you decide for a break...she'll take over for a bit. Just think about it, okay? I'll buy you coffee~!"
The figure listening to Usagi's painfully cheerful voice has been in the immediate vicinity of a certain building all the night before, and all this morning. Coffee might be a notable temptation. It's not enough of one. "Thank you for the offer. But I want to talk with her personally, as soon as she wakes up, while the details are as fresh as they're going to be. And while I respect Luna on many levels," which is why a certain cat is being permitted to shed on his lap undisturbed, "if there is trouble, I'd rather have more available to meet it than an intimidating scratch in the face."
If there are claws 'accidentally' sunk into his thigh at that moment, he doesn't make a sound. He does sink fingertips into the hard-to-reach fur behind Luna's ears.
"Yeah." Usagi grants over his phone, "Just let me know if she does wake up. Yeah, okay. Okay. Whoop, shopper in distress needs rescued. Call me!"
Escape at last.
Kazuo Takeba goes back to petting an alien, watching for signs of other aliens, and waiting for some hint that Naru has finally woken up.
There are thirty-three minutes remaining till the deadline he set himself, after which he will in fact go in to make certain that, in her exhaustion, she has not accidentally spun herself some weird monstrous cocoon.
Thirty three minutes remaining.
It's almost a typical teenager trope to sleep the morning away, even if it's wildly unusual for a Naru.
Nineteen minutes remaining, and the apartment that has gained itself an overnight stalker, and a 'cat' supervisor is still irritatingly and frustratingly quiet.
Seven minutes remaining.
Was that a sound? A quiet thump? A little rattle? The little sounds that could be someone stirring and padding about within.
Could also be something hatching from some weird monstrous cocoon as well.
One is rather more likely than the other.
Unless things in weird monstrous cocoons are prone to making coffee and having the smell waft temptingly.
Cats have certain privileges. They are permitted to leap down, and to do things like peer in windows, even if the process of getting to a point from which they can peer in an upper-story window may be a complicated one. It's only when Luna makes her way back from her sneaky patrol that Naru's phone signals another text.
Welcome back. Your friends should have covered for you at school. Are you set for breakfast, or shall I bring you something?
(Somewhere else, Usagi's phone signals yet another, though she may not notice it till she's escaped her shopping trip with Suzuki. Luna says she's awake.)
The happy bleep of her phone prompts Naru to retrieve it and find a lot of text messages waiting. The newest one gets attended to first and she leans against the kitchen counter to reply.
Good morning. Was that Luna? I have coffee started, there's breakfast here. Are you hungry?
Message sent, Naru pads about the kitchen, finding her own breakfast, pulling together simple enough cereal.
Her answer is only: Tell me when you're ready for visitors.
He doesn't address 'hungry.' Usagi fussing over people who are awake in lieu of being able to fuss over people who aren't has a habit of producing more effects than just sudden mooncats as stylish shoulder decoration.
And he's willing to wait a little longer if necessary. Because accidentally intruding not-explicitly-invited on Naru still in her nightclothes might be one thing, but doing so in front of Luna would be likely never to be lived down.
The reply comes promptly enough. Anytime.
Naru glances down to confirm that the utterly casual and lazy outfit of leggings and baggy t-shirt are, in fact, generally presentable and then goes back to eating cereal while watching coffee drip through the coffee maker.
Naru's scetchbook is on the table next to her, closed and just waiting as she crunches through cereal.
The knock at the door comes shortly thereafter; when he's let in, Kazuo is, yes, still wearing the same clothes from the night before. The anonymous black suit is probably as close to an invisibility cloak as he can get with his hair still visible. It's in reasonably good shape, for the amount of time that's elapsed.
Probably largely because for the hours on end of lurking in the dark, and the predawn, and the very early morning, he had better ways to watch, and higher places to hide.
He studies Naru carefully for a moment. "How do you feel?" he asks in lieu of an in-person hello. "Any aftereffects, any pain?"
"The pain wasn't horrible, and quit when she stopped draining me." Naru explains as she closes the door behind him, and then heads back towards the kitchen, and where the coffee has finished brewing. "I've got a bit of a headache, and I feel sort of not entirely awake yet, but I think its more from sleeping too long, and at weird times. We'll see if I wake up more when I actually wake up more."
Naru pulls down one mug, and holds it up in his direction in offer of pouring two cups rather than just one.
"Thank you for staying. You didn't have to, but I appreciate it." Naru comments.
"Food should help with the headache." So might coffee. Kunzite answers her offer of the second mug with a nod. "Also with wakefulness. Your hands look steady." And she hasn't spilled any of the cereal on her shirt, so it's a honest steady rather than an extra effort. "And it was no trouble; I appreciated a quiet evening, for once. Any trouble with your hands or feet? Pins and needles, numbness?"
She. So it was a she. That's a start.
"No pins and needles, but vaguely stiff and sore. A bit of a combination between what it feels like after a really overkill active day yesterday, although it wasn't, and then staying crazy still and not stretching properly." Naru can even pour coffee without spilling it everywhere and offers him a mug.
"I did nearly fall, getting up out of bed, but it was down to just kinda stiff after a good stretch." Naru does admit to that. "No fuzzy headed, which is nice. Also, I had no idea that different energy drains could feel so different."
Naru comes back to curl up in her seat, the cream and sugar for coffee already on the table.
"Energy's a broad category," Kunzite says. "Consider the number of varieties of matter there are. Or take a single category, the number of liquids. Drinkable liquids. The number of kinds of coffee." He lifts the mug to her. "Energy is just as broad. Something that feeds on emotion is likely to feel different from something that feeds on life, or spirit, or luck. And each of those will have its own varieties."
This is not something that they cover in life-science classes.
Kunzite's variety of coffee appears to be black, which is probably not surprising. The cream and sugar are left alone, or at least left to any Naru-based depredations.
"I do find it concerning that you're getting so much experience with it so quickly," Kunzite says. "It seems to suggest that there's something attracting them to you, or coordinating them. Fiore certainly chose you in particular, but he's not known to be working with anyone else."
"I hadn't considered it like that. Fiore's was very fuzzy feeling. Hers was very sharp and cold, really uncomfortable and kinda painful." Naru agrees, and she can't be so terribly stiff and sore, as she tucks her legs up to sit crossed-legged on her chair. Her coffee does get adultriated with both cream and sugar, not quite rendering into dessert, but it's approaching it.
"She self described as a vampire, and I was her choice for feeding on." Naru explains as she takes a sip from her coffee. "So it really did feel like wrong place, wrong time. Apparently the fact that I could chat with her is weird for non-magical girls." She considers that and then mmms.
"Cold is a frequent side effect. Heat is a form of energy too; there might have been an actual draw on your body heat, or it might have been how you interpreted the energy loss." No comment is made on the adulteration. Sugar and fat help substantially with recovery, after all.
Kunzite listens to that self-description without so much as a twitch in his expression. "It's rare for most people, yes. Most either don't notice the drain, if it's subtle --" 'self-described as a vampire' is not subtle, let alone the cold and pain -- "or shut down rather than process the experience; they panic, faint, curl up and whimper. Talking is unusual. Talking sensibly, almost unheard-of." He lapses into his usual habit, wrapping hands around the mug rather than drinking from it. Possibly literally consuming the heat it gives off, given what he just said a moment ago. "What did happen?"
"I do tend to confuse people by not freaking out. She even commented on it." Naru sips from her coffee and considers where to start, rather than the haphazard tidbits she's been providing so far.
"I decided to go to the gallery opening, so I was walking from the metro stop to the gallery and a girl came up alongside me looking all worried and nervous." Naru starts the story at the beginning, or near enough to. "She asked me if I was worried about walking alone, and after a brief exchange, she yanked me into an alley." She takes another sip of coffee. "She started to drain energy, and I asked her if she was planning on killing me, and she pointed out that killing humans was silly as she needed to feed off them. I never did get a name, but she was once human, and is no longer, and is coping poorly with the transition. Very rapid mood swings. Apparently she can never make the drain entirely pain free, so no subtle possible, and she usually drains quickly so they pass out quickly, but with me? I suspect the conversation was just confusing enough, or I ticked her off enough, that she wanted to make it hurt longer."
"Rapid mood swings are a common problem, either with a new transition or with a situation that's destabilizing. The darkness in the mind compounds itself and spreads whenever and however it's given a chance. Consistency isn't valuable to it. The things it needs in its host's mind contradict both each other and reality; it does best when its hosts are busy pushing themselves too far off-balance to notice." Kunzite studies his coffee as he's speaking; glances up to Naru after. "Understand that I say 'host' instead of 'victim' because, while some infections are forced on their subjects, some are created by the subjects themselves. And many are both -- a seed planted from outside, but nurtured by the person it was forced on, harbored and fed."
"I get the sense that it was fairly new and fairly unstable. She was struggling a lot with embracing being a monster, but at the same time, it felt like she was also feeling guilty about feeding from humans." Naru was clearly paying attention even while being drained. "She kept telling me about people who were both pulling her to try and reform, and people she felt had betrayed her trust in them, and I'm not sure if the attempts at self acceptance as a 'bad guy' were driven by someone else's influence, or herself."
Naru drinks a bit more coffee and then mmms softly. "The only name she mentioned was Kukai Souma, as someone who had been helping her, and for whatever reason, she isn't keen on him anymore. She looked to be about my age, but that's fairly unhelpful in vampires, I suppose."
"She might not last long, then." Matter-of-fact, straightforward, as if he were estimating the duration of a bout of rain. "The concentration on betrayal suggests that her trajectory isn't good; that's the fastest way to cut herself off from anyone who might reach out to her, and isolating herself like that will keep her from slowing her fall."
-- not quite like talking about the weather. The variations in the words, the changes in tone, are flattened out a little more than usual. For once, his lack of expression is in part a considered act, rather than a habitual or natural one.
"Kukai Souma." The name's repeated, slower, and the sound of it returns to more normal-for-him. "Did this vampire by chance allege that he'd lied, or broken promises? Long purple hair?"
"I tried to point that out to her, but she wasn't in a place to really grasp it. She might consider it later though. The seed of 'not everyone is the same' was planted, however. If it has opportunity to take root, is a whole different matter." Naru is thoughtful as she uncurls one leg to stretch and then the other, before resettling again.
"Apparently Kukai interfered in ... something.. she wasn't clear on it, and caused her to overdrain a friend, who is in a coma. That was really heavy on her mind. Something about her friend's girlfriend, but by that point I was pretty flat. I always have trouble paying good attention when I'm getting near to passing out. It's annoying." Naru is rather matter of fact about getting to the edge of her body's tolerance for abuse.
"Contradicting reality," Kunzite says, linking that not being in a place to grasp what Naru was saying back to the effects of dark energy in general. There's an entire conversation that could be had there -- possibly an entire lecture series, or graduate degree -- but he leaves it aside, implicit in that connection, and turns his attention to what Naru's saying about Kukai.
His expression barely changes. But Naru's watched him with her artist's eye enough to know he's not happy, and for some particular reason.
"It's been a while since I've seen him," he says. "Maybe it's time we caught up. I take it that's a yes on the hair."
Having trouble paying attention while passing out must be normal. Since he doesn't say anything about it.
"Oh! Um." Naru has to think about the hair and then she nods. "Used to be a dancer, I think, based on her complaints about what she had to give up in her new life. Which also implied that it was relatively new.
"I saw Kukai um." Naru muses. "A week ago, perhaps a smidge more. We went shopping, I got Ami's lion at the flea market with him. He seems nice enough, if perhaps focused on the sports thing."
"So what can you tell me about vampries." Naru asks plainly enough and then adds, only a moment later. "And about that vampire, because I think you know her."
Perhaps focused on the sports thing. Faintest of twitches at the corner of Kunzite's mouth. "I have no idea what you mean."
More serious, again, though there's hardly a visible change. "If your vampire is the one I think it was -- she calls herself Lacrima. She was human; according to someone who counts both Lacrima and myself as friends, through no fault of her own, her humanity was stripped away from her, and replaced with the dark. She's an obligate vampire, yes. I've been asked to see if it's possible to help her conserve energy, have to feed less often. I've met her in person, once; at that time she was largely confused, uncertain, reacting like a child with an infected wound -- both hurt, and lashing out at those who try to hurt and to help alike. She's been associating with Riventon. She might learn things from that. Or the proximity of his own corruption might be dragging her down."
About vampires in general ... he leaves that off, for a moment. Lets it be just a little longer. Because his phone chimes for attention, and he pauses to check it, then turns it and reaches over to show Naru the text.
Usagi: Thank you! Give her hugs for me! Tell her to take it easy!
"She feels as if she's a bit beyond that now. She's still lashing out, but it feels more like she has trust issues." Naru quirks her head and nods. "Apparently she had an agreement about feeding with whoever she overdrained, and there were a lot of times when she just declared that because one human had betrayed her trust, all would. And that she couldnt trust them anymore, so she should just enjoy being a monster."
"Although to my ear, it sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince me." Naru notes thoughtfully before she leans over, setting her coffee down to look at Kunzite's phone.
Naru smiles warmly and reaches for her own phone, no doubt to text Usagi herself. "She did leave me still conscious deliberately, I'd told her that I'd like to still go to the gallery opening, so if she could leave me awake, I'd appreciate it. She wasn't going to, but changed her mind at the end. Which was promising. She still had some level of curiosity as well, she could be engaged in conversation, even if I couldn't always predict her reactions."
"She's had trust issues for at least two months, with the same primary focus," Kunzite says. "From what I've gathered, it seems to have involved Souma asking her to try to feed less, while he tried to find other solutions for her, and Lacrima deciding that this was obviously an attempt to murder her by forcing her into self-starvation. Clarity and perspective are frequently early casualties. On the other hand, I haven't heard of her trying to murder him in return so far, so she must be keeping some degree of hold on sanity. Her leaving you awake suggests the same. And is appreciated for other reasons. It's impolite to leave young women unconscious in alleys."
"I may have asked her to leave me somewhere that I wasn't likely to get robbed if I was unconscious." Naru ahems softly, looking faintly sheepish. "I had thought that keeping my sketchbook with me would keep it safer than here at home, but it occured to me that if I was unconscious in an alley, it was probably going to be safer at home."
"She remembered to thank me for the energy, which was also nice, and a sign of some grasp on sanity as well." Naru nods in agreement and then makes a face. "Feeding less isn't a really useful strategy. I mean, is anyone especially rational when they're half starving?"
Naru pauses a moment, reaching for her coffee again. "Is the girl in the coma still alive?" She asks quietly, calmly.
Is anyone especially rational when half starving? "It depends on the individual. Conserving energy helps some -- not getting into fights, not using magic, keeping physical activity at a reasonable level. Others have the option of spreading the damage -- draining a larger number of people a smaller amount. Lacrima doesn't seem to have that choice; the power she has access to is very specific, at least in its current form, and has the unfortunate side effects you noticed. A few can use other forms of energy, though they're rarely as powerful; blacking out an apartment building's power yields substantially less than draining one adult from bored to unconscious."
Kunzite studies his own coffee again, and actually drinks some of it, finally. Which is when Naru asks her other question.
"I don't know," he says, straightforward. "I don't know who she is."
"I wonder if Kukai knows." Naru muses thoughtfully. "It would do her state of mind good to know that she was recovering, if she is. If she's not, then the thought is moot, I suppose."
There's a quirk of Naru's head as she considers the differences in energy, and the ability to use multiple kinds, if with different exchange rates. "Okay, that /is/ cool. Being able to take electrical power rather than life energy? That's just fascinatingly cool." She hunhs softly, shaking her head a little, as if she can't entirely wrap her head around it. "So she can only use human energy? Clearly she can choose how much to take, on some level at least. She didn't drain me to unconsious, she could change how quickly, and so on. I should think she'd have some degree of being able take a little from more people, but her trust issues would never let that work. Although there's probably more going on than I entirely understand from just meeting her once."
"There's the concern of finding enough targets. Hunting the way she has to is time-consuming, and the pain she inflicts bars the easier methods. More efficient for her to select individuals and drain them unconscious." His eyes flicker a trifle narrower for a moment. "Her selection criteria could use refining."
Kunzite pauses for a brief moment. "Also, thank you for the compliment, but that's one kind of fascinating that I prefer being at a distance from now."
"I'm not sure if I'm glad or disappointed that I never got to properly distinguish your flavour of energy draining. There was too much else going on. I am glad that it's not something that's going to come up again." Naru agrees with a bit of a smile and then gets more serious again, uncurling to stand and move back over to the fridge.
"Are you sure you're not hungry?" Naru offers as she gets herself more breakfast. Clearly rebuilding energy stores requires more than cereal to fuel. Quiche, by the looks of it.
"It was painful, but not unbearably so. Like ice shards under my skin, is the only way I could describe it. When she stopped, I had a lot of trouble trying to stop shivering, but that passed fairly quickly. Before you arrived even, so that is pretty quick." Naru dishes herself out a slice of quiche onto a plate. "She did wonder if the quick drain was more or less painful than the slow. I expect it would be more but over so fast you barely notice."
"Glad," Kunzite says. He does not volunteer clarification.
The offer again gains a brief shake of his head. "Food was dropped off for me at the same time that Luna was," he says. It's easy to forget that Luna's there, when she's not participating in the conversation. She's being cat-quiet, at present, listening; soaking up information to have on hand if the other girls need it. Or maybe just playing chaperone. Or maybe curious whether Ami's right, for all Kunzite knows. "And the sun was out for a while this morning, before too many people were. I've recharged. You still need to."
Whether that means he thinks she will in fact need all the quiche is an open question.
"You're probably right about the difference between fast and slow. It usually works that way, except where the pain is produced by secondary effects. Not an experiment I'd care to run, though." Kunzite acquires a small, brief frown. "Ice shards under your skin. Did it actually feel intrusive?"
If Luna goes exploring, the apartment isn't all that unduly exciting, at least not in the main public areas of it. Tidy and neat, minimalistic even, almost on the edge of impersonal.
Naru brings the quiche back to the table, cold and not bothering to heat it up. She at least thinks that she's only going to want one slice.
She might be delusional.
"I tried to think on that, but it was distracting to focus on exactly how the pain felt, and makes it hurt more. No, I don't think so." Naru replies thoughtfully, stabbing her fork into the egg pie. "My working theory is that the chill was a side effect, like feeling the absence. Although I suppose I've got no evidence one way or another, about it being intrusive."
"You haven't been showing any symptoms now, and there's at least one regular target that Souma was keeping an eye on. So I doubt there are any long-term problems. I was curious mainly in case it gave a better perspective on Lacrima's power, and through that her situation."
Coffee. He should drink more of it before it gets colder; he suits action to thought, and then absently considers the way Naru's holding her fork. "You asked about vampires in general. I'm having difficulty answering that question, largely because it is, again, broader than you might think. Is there anything more specific you're looking for?"
"I'm less headachey and less fuzzy now than I was when I woke up. And breakfast only made me starving, so I'm feeling fairly confident in saying that I'm fine." Naru confirms as she gets going on second breakfast. It might be a hobbit based meal plan today.
"Even saying 'it's a broader topic', answers a fair bit." Naru points out. "It means that not only are they a known quantity, but that more than just one type exist. I was surprised that she stole energy and not blood, although grateful. Getting blood out of that dress would have sucked a whole lot." A pause. "No pun intended."
"Improving, then. Good. See if you can find some fruit when you're done with that." Carbohydrates, check; protein, check; covering a little wider a span of vitamins might help. Of course, when Naru is done with the quiche will be an excellent question, too. She did bring the rest of it out to the table.
(She may or may not be wondering if this is how Usagi manages not to gain weight, by now.)
And then there's the other topic. Which she really does need to know more about, the way her life has been going. "A large number of types exist. How large, I don't know. Many of those types are likely to be represented only by single individuals. Among those I've encountered, far more take some form of energy than take blood; blood isn't particularly nutritious in and of itself, and seems to itself be useful primarily as a carrier for energy. Most of them don't actually refer to themselves as vampires, though. That might have been some form of unconscious selection bias; I didn't think of myself that way, and found most of those who preferred the term annoying and pretentious."
"No wonder your household goes through food at an alarming rate, if using powers takes energy." Naru takes another bite of quiche and then smiles. "Effectively, I'm a battery. That's kinda amusing, all in all." She reaches for her coffee, and finds it empty. She stands again, her body language returning to more teen girl bouncy too, as food and caffeine work their magic. She reaches for his cup too, at least to warm it up.
"I didn't consider you to be a vampire, so that's an interesting perspective on things. I can see how it fits, however." Naru pours coffee into mugs and then returns to the table.
"There's a lot of baggage that comes along with the label of 'vampire'." Naru smiles a touch. "Which some probably find to be useful, and many do not." She considers a moment. "If there's mostly singles, it'll be hard to know if the differences in feel of energy drain are individual or by type."
The assumptions inherent in that are probably a little disconcerting.
"Mamoru's household goes through food at an alarming rate because it houses five teenagers and half an Usagi." Yes, he actually uses her name. "Also because we have a constant flow of injuries and other temporary disorders. Power usage contributes, but it's the least of the factors." ... because if Naru's a battery, Mamoru's a generator. No need to go into that, though.
He yields his cup to her reach; there's maybe half an inch left in it. Slower than she is. Either understandable or shameful, depending on one's viewpoint, and odds are good he doesn't care which.
"There may still be common ground between the singles. If a flowing cloud of fog that changes color when it feeds and one of the ubiquitous bat-winged demonesses both consume energy by prodding a victim to anger and absorbing the energy he releases when he attacks a third party..." It should probably not be quite so easy for him to come up with examples, in any kind of rational universe.
But she's skipped a topic, and there might be an important point, there. Kunzite glances back at her for a moment. Studies her, face first, then hands. "The body that I used to have was constructed out of stolen and corrupted energy, condensed into a physical form. I could maintain it temporarily by using other energy sources, but only by devoting a great deal of time and attention to that. And even if I'd spent all of my time harvesting, I wouldn't have been able to repair it without feeding off of humans. It would have degraded over time -- I'd say it would eventually have died, but 'dissolved into metaphysical toxic waste' would be more accurate. So. I was a being that had once died, then been returned to life as a creature that required stolen human life essence to survive. Dictionary definition."
"Which does remind me that there's cookies for the household. And banana bread, and a pie. It's peach cherry. I'm not sure what I think of it, the next one will be better." Naru gestures vaguely. "I know Makoto isn't feeding you guys, and I hope she's alright, but I do assume you guys have it in hand, or you wouldn't still be here drinking coffee."
"Fog and bat wings.. they both probably really hate you. And would probably at least dislike me." Naru considers that as she returns to eating, now that she's got her coffee and doctored it up to suitability.
Naru eats as Kunzite explains the details of his former undead status. She doesn't seem to be deterred from eating, even over the phrase 'metaphysical toxic waste'. "Interesting. I didn't realize that. That's interesting, all in all. Was Melanite the same? I don't remember her stealing energy, unless she was very sublte about it." She nods to him. "It is a fairly dictionary definition although from my perspective, you didn't automatically track as 'undead', but of course, I didn't entirely think that was a /thing/."
Out of all the things in this conversation, it's the mention of Makoto that causes Kunzite to stop responding, for a moment, at all. Only looking at her, completely nonreactive.
Then he reaches for his phone and thumbs out another text.
His head's still bent, watching for any sign of a response, when Naru asks about Melanite. "Melanite went to Beryl of her own volition," he says. "Beryl didn't need to take any additional steps to ensure her loyalty. She was a teenaged girl who had managed to remember enough about magic to reconstruct some unpleasant spells. She did drain energy, but she tried to be subtle about it, and she did it only to increase her power. Then again, most creatures that can do that do it for that reason, even if they do it to survive as well. If you remember a news story last fall about a gas leak in an ice cream store, that was her.
"I didn't track as undead because I had a reasonable amount of control over the construct; I'd spent all the rest of my existence in a human body, so I expected that one to react more or less like one, and made it do so. The differences would have grown more notable over time. I was already getting the blood wrong."
His phone chimes, and he studies it; it chimes again before he can respond.
"Is the sudden flurry of texting a good thing, or a bad thing?" Naru asks as she continues to eat while Kunzite supervises his phone.
"She was good at subtle." Naru nods thoughtfully, letting her thoughts chew quietly on the notion of going to Beryl voluntarily. And gas leaks in ice cream stores.
Naru pushes her empty plate away, the slice vanished rather quickly, but she doesn't immediately go for another slice. More coffee instead.
Kazuo: Naru is asking about Makoto. Your choice on what to tell her.
Usagi: Tell her...the truth. Secrets don't seem to do any good. At least if things go weird, she'll be informed.
Usagi: Wait no! Do you think that's a good idea?
Kazuo: I can't give an informed answer on that. Your choice.
Usagi: Ug JERK! Fine, what's your opinion!
Usagi: No, you know what? Tell her.
Usagi: Knowledge is power, right?
Kazuo: Yes. But not the power to keep Luna from biting me if I give away your girls' secrets without your permission. Thank you.
Usagi: Yeah, I guess. You're welcome. Jerk.
"A necessary thing," Kunzite answers, as the flurry continues for another few moments. Melanite's subtlety ... that's let lie for a few moments.
Then Kunzite lifts his head and lays his phone down on the table, paying no apparent attention to the cat that leaps up onto his thigh and peers down at the display. Well, almost none. Only one hand settles around his coffee mug this time. The other is paying the cat's Danegeld. "I didn't think it appropriate for me to be the one to decide whether or not to tell you that Makoto is not in fact all right. I don't have many of the details; I'm on call if the Senshi decide they need my assistance, but --"
Luna turns her head and, deliberately, bites the hand he is petting her with. Kazuo holds it still rather than challenging her teeth, then resumes petting when she opts to let it go. He doesn't appear to be bleeding, at least, and she goes back to purring after a few seconds, even if it manages to sound disgruntled.
He doesn't stop speaking while she's inflicting whatever reprimand. "-- I don't know much of what they've found, or what they're planning. I know they'll tell Nephrite, and I know he will move heaven and earth if necessary to be certain she's safe. That's enough."
"I am going to assume that if Luna actually wants something, she'll let you know?" Naru asks as she watches the cat hop up on Kunzite and make her opinion well known with her teeth.
An arch of Naru's brow comes at that biting and then she chews on her bottom lip a moment and nods. "I try not to ask too much. I know I'm not supposed to know, but I do wonder, and I get curious. So. Thank you for that." She drinks from her coffee, using it as a momentary distraction, perhaps. "I hope it all works out. I imagine everyone's pretty worried."
"I think that's a safe assumption." Kunzite's tone, as usual, doesn't change. Luna's ears flatten a little for a moment, before he shifts the petting to what's apparently a more desirable spot. Mooncat bribery.
"Usagi seems to disagree with your not being supposed to know," he adds. "So. You already know that Nephrite was badly injured, Thursday night a week ago. And Mamoru told you that Kino-san was angry with us." Really, really, really. "She was justifiably angry when she left the apartment, but still in enough control of it that she was able to help Mamoru with Nephrite. Sometime between then and when Mizuno-san saw her, Friday or Saturday, that turned into what was described to me as a 'mad rage.' I would have expected her to contact Usagi to shout about how angry she was with us. As of Monday, she hadn't contacted Usagi at all." Or been in school. She's been out all week.
"This Thursday, someone somehow managed to get a read on her. Kino-san's charged with dark energy. Not a trace amount, like the chocolates; she's full of it, and drawing power from it. She's as paranoid as Lacrima, as sure that others are conspiring against her. The girls are trying to track her down, but right now she's moving faster than they can follow."
Luna has not, it should be noted, bitten him again.
"I.. yes." Naru nods as Kunzite starts detailing out the timeline of injuries and irritations and angry. "I knew about Nephrite being injured, and yes, about her being ticked." She doens't comment on Usagi's disagreement about her supposed to know or not, but she does nod as Kunzite details out what he knows.
Naru blinks at the fact that Makoto is charged with dark energy. "Oh! That's.. not good at all. How does that sort of thing happen?" She quirks her head as she thinks on that. "Technically, the others /are/ conspiring against her, so she's not wrong. And she knows their tactics and strategies, so of course she's a step ahead, she can probably predict everything they'll do, because it's what she'd do."
"Given that it's Kino-san? Either she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or she went to vent her anger in some fashion and attracted the wrong attention, or possibly someone targeted her." Kunzite mentioned before that it was, for some people, possible to corrupt themselves. Evidently he doesn't think Makoto is one of those people. Oddly enough. "There was a power outage shortly after she left, but -- that's notable, but not actually evidence."
He pauses to regard Naru, then, thoughtful. "My understanding is that she believed the others were specifically conspiring to force her to be Jupiter. Since they are not in fact doing so -- they are not responsible for her being born, and there is ongoing evidence that Usagi is not about to try to compel any of them to work with the group, unless sniffling occasionally in their absence counts as compulsion -- technically, she was entirely wrong at the time."
Jupiter's ability to analyze tactics and strategy is not touched upon.
"Ah! Different flavour of paranoia then." Naru nods thoughtfully. "I can't picture Usagi forcing anyone to do something hard enough to make them flee to the dark side. She'd cry at them, and sniffle and made big doe eyes, but that's about it." She drinks a bit more coffee and considers. "Is there something else that makes her feel compelled to be Jupiter, that she's just blaming the others for, because it's convenient? Or is it more likely just the dark energy completely messing with her head, and I should stop speculating without knowing anything."
Naru gives a little shake of her head, as if reminding herself not to get too far ahead of herself. "I won't bother Ami too much then, until they've settled things with Makoto."
Kunzite eyes Naru across the table, his eyelids dropping a barely perceptible fraction. "She's confusing Usagi and Beryl," he says. "Determining the degree to which she's thinking straight is left as an exercise for the student."
There's a brief pause, and he adds, "Mizuno-san is likely to not to be answering her phone for a couple of days, yes. I trust someone will be making sure she remembers to sleep and eat."
The someone in question pushes her head firmly against his hand, demanding. Clearly there's the actual tyrant in the picture.
"It's probably still pulling from her thoughts somewhere." Naru points out. "Even if it's all shuffled up enough to be confusing Usagi and Beryl." She frowns a little and nods at the mention of Ami and not answering her phone.
Naru looks to Luna directly. "If I can do anything, let me know." She doesn't elborate, but instead stretches her legs out and then stretches entirely, working out more of the lingering stiffness. "You guys can't catch a break right now, can you?"
Kunzite shrugs slightly. "Last weekend was all right," he says. "I had the chance to hit something that a few other people actually made fall over. A dream-thing that was leaving people comatose. Also, I understand that Usagi really did give Mamoru a jar of dirt after the pirate movie marathon. We take our victories where we can."
"A dream thing?" Naru hunhs softly, accepting that dream things, and the hitting of them, are a perfectly reasonable way to spend one's weekend. She smiles. "What did you think of the pirate movies? They're silly. Fun, but silly." She is finding enough energy to start to be more animated as she sits, and as she moves, absently serving herself another slice of quiche.
Elvensies. Clearly.
"I don't know how that one works," Kunzite replies. "Dreams aren't among my specialties. But Mamoru owed a dreamwalker a favor, and someone needed to pay it back for him."
Apparently there is a category of that kind of thing, too.
Obviously, it is not, in fact, yet time for Naru to go looking for fruit. More egg first. And less fraught conversation. "Keira Knightley is beautiful. The scriptwriters should spend the next dozen years making annual public apology to Naomie Harris. The music was largely not a waste of time. As for the rest -- keeping track of who was currently betraying whom in which way, under what sets of claimed pretexts, and for how long is not one of the things I missed about life at court."
"Do you dream?" Naru asks, almost at random, but it's probably not entirely all that random.
"Keira Knightly is beautiful." Naru is confident in agreeing there, with no blushing or giggling. "I liked the music." She agrees and then she smiles. "I liked the elaborate and over the top politics, and the various outrageous outfits that they made Johnny Depp wear. His outfits were enough for me to enjoy the movies. They're fun. I haven't watched them in ages."
"Yes." Straightforward answer to a straightforward question.
There's another brief twitch of a smile. "Ah. I suppose you might not have noticed that I don't have a particular eye for fashion." If, that is, she'd been in a coma herself for the entire time she'd known him. "Clearly that's the element that made you and Usagi appreciate them more." Nothing to do with Orlando Bloom, of course.
The topic of dreaming is left aside for the moment. Naru is finally slowing down on the eating, only getting partway through the next meal in a row before she reaches for her sketchbook.
It's been hours, after all.
"You totally have your own sense of style, Kunzite." Naru smiles, flipping through the pages of her sketchbook absently as she does. "Movies sound good for this afternoon, actually." She looks over at him and then asks. "I presume that you are fleeing? You'd be welcome to stay and watch movies. Or ignore movies and read if you want."
"Thank you for the invitation. But I can't take you up on it. No-one's contacted me to tell me what's been set on fire while I've been gone, which means I have half a chance of catching them before they can hide the evidence."
... it is possible that he might actually mean that.