One moment there's no one there on the tower, and the next there's a boy stepping out of the shadows, wearing stylish winter clothes in dark greys. He's looking at the screen of a flip phone; it lights his face up literally, because it's dark out and the little screen's bright. His expression shifts from worried and annoyed to something that looks an awful lot like someone just stabbed him, and he takes the phone and hauls back to smash it against the metal girders.
On the screen is a series of text messages from what Homura probably knows at this point is Usagi's number. The only ones visible, should she stop time to look, are the last three.
<PHONE> You text Usagi Tsukino: it's okay. i like you. i really do.
but that's also a problem, because i shouldn't, because i have a
really jealous girlfriend, who's also my boss. i'm getting rid of
this phone, i'm throwing it in the bay. maybe someday we'll talk
again. thank you for being kind to me.
<PHONE> A text from Usagi Tsukino at Wed Jan 13 20:40:48 2016:
...okay. You deserve better, I think. And I like you, too, just so
we're clear. Um, why hello, little fishes...
<PHONE> A text from Usagi Tsukino at Wed Jan 13 20:41:27 2016:
Texting you makes it hurt less.
Homura Akemi had a sneaking suspicion that she knew what this was about, regardless of what excuse Endymion gave her over the phone. She almost teased Endymion for 'sounding scary', but decided that might as well be an admission of guilt.
Yet, as Homura Akemi approaches the tower in timestop, she can't help but notice the phone. Reading the last few texts, like the busybody she is, she frowns. Suspicion confirmed.
She reaches out to grab the phone out of the air. In this moment, it would be so easy... but then Endymion would know, for a fact, what happened to his phone. She retracts her hand, letting it smash against the girders as time resumes. It's a sacrifice. One she decides to make.
She's a good distance away from Endymion when time resumes. Her hand rests on her shield, and she watches him with careful eyes. "You wanted to talk?"
Usagi is in Paris. There's no way this could end in an Escalation. The moment this becomes a fight, she'll have to leave.
"Don't give that number to normal girls," Endymion says, looking at the pieces of shattered phone spilling off the tower by his feet. "That's a burner I just bought. I'll buy another one, and I'll give you the number. If you want to coordinate anything with me, or if I want to coordinate anything with you, regarding Walpurgisnacht or anything else, that'll be the number you'll use."
He still doesn't look up at her; his voice isn't despairing, isn't angry, isn't cold-- it's nothing at all. "And I'm wiping the other and hoping that's enough to destroy records, but it could be tapped or monitored. I am our Queen's consort, Homura-san--"
Here, Endymion looks up, and his eyes aren't the bright possessed red, but they are bleak if someone who knows him as well as Homura does is looking at them; they're at odds with the wry expression on his face, showing something that might, in some world, resemble affection. "--and she's very jealous. I wouldn't want her mistaking some innocent girl I happened to run into for some kind of threat to her ownership."
Homura watches his eyes. She watches them very carefully. She knows Mamoru, and trusts him, or at least she would... but she also knows that he isn't himself.
She frowns as Endymion explains himself. She looks away, but only for an instant, as he speaks. Her on-edge tension is turning into a growing apprehension. At the word 'consort', she quickly buries her disgust deep.
The look on her face is an imitation of one she used to wear by habit. An attempt to be stoney and cold. Yet the face she habitually used to wear in her overwhemling despair isn't here, and behind those almost-blank eyes is a look of sympathy.
"I understand. I wont explain my actions. That's not a rabbit hole we want to go down. I did not understand your... situation. She's just a girl who was concerned. That's all. Not someone I considered a threat to you." Homura decides not to explain that Usagi is very much a threat to Beryl. She decides not to explain anything at all.
Her hand is still on her shield. Even with that look in his eyes, she still can't help but be concerned. "If you get a new number, you can text it to me. My number hasn't changed."
Homura Akemi pauses. She almost asks something dangerous. No, she's done enough dangerous things as it is.
The relief is palpable; Endymion's shoulders sag a little. "Thank you. I will."
Then the boy straightens a little, jamming his hands in his pockets, and tilts his head slightly. "In the meantime, I accidentally ran into Sailor V: she told myself and Kunzite that while yes, she could coordinate relatively large elements of the battle, she would be aiming for us as much as for the witch. She may or may not have made a bargain-- she'd just informed us she'd killed Jadeite, so I checked, and"
(he is looking directly in her eyes)
(he is reading to make sure he can get her expression)
"I could find him, he was still alive."
Then he glances away again and hunches his shoulders slightly. "So the threat of picking us off one by one if she didn't get us 'all as a package' doesn't hold so much water, but if she does happen to find Nephrite before I do, he wouldn't see her coming. I'm choosing to believe she meant 'all of us as a package' to be instructions that we were all to attend the battle. If it's not, then at least you have warning that my men and I may be defending ourselves as much as we're covering for the rest of you. We will be there. And we will be concentrating our efforts on keeping you all in the battle, since you and yours as offense and me and mine as defense seems the most efficient configuration with our relative levels of experience and combat specialties, and their particular applications with this sort of opponent. If you would do us the favor of at least trying to stress that if they shoot their shields in the back, they will be easier for the witch to shoot at, I would be obliged."
Homura's not as unreadably dead as she used to be. The expression that flickers across her face is... almost mocking dismissal, as if she's been told a very obvious lie. "I'm not sure I'd trust that girl anyways, from some of the things I've been hearing about her. I can't stand people that I can't rely upon, but now that the word's out I don't think there's any way to keep her out of it."
Homura closes her eyes and shakes her head. She's relaxing, a bit more than she should be. She remembers that and her eyes snap open again. "It's funny. I thought that something that threatened us all would unite us, at least briefly. If anything I seem to have aggrivated the conflict. I wouldn't blame you if you decided not to tolerate attacks from her."
Homura frowns, feet turning away as she says, "... I'll explain it, but I'm sure that girl wont listen. Even if I tell her that her arrogance will lead directly to the deaths of innocent people, that there will literally be people who will die because of her interference, I doubt that'd get through her head. I've known girls like that before. So caught up in their self-righteous rage that they commit folly after folly, attacking even those who only want to help them, until their long litany of mistakes adds up to their own death."
She might be thinking a bit about Sayaka, Mami, or Kyouko when she says that.
Turning back to Endymion, she tilts her head. "I almost hate to say it, but girls like her a lost cause. It may be easier to remove her from the fight, if it comes down to it. I doubt anyone else is as crazy as she is."
"She's... not crazy," says Endymion reluctantly. His hands come up, but only so he can cross his arms, jam his hands under them, breath fogging the air in front of him. "We are a very, very real danger to her and to those she loves. Just because I know that my Shitennou will take my direction in the fight, and that I will not permit them to attack anyone that's not the Witch or a Familiar, doesn't mean she knows it, or can necessarily even afford to believe it.
"She is as invested in the Senshi as I am in my men-- if they're going to be there, and you are going to need them-- then you'd have to kill her to keep her out. Please don't do that. Kunzite believes she's necessary, and I believe him. If worst comes to worst, I'll ask Kunzite to drain her energy and give it back after the fight. She already hates us. She can hate us a little more."
Homura, for a moment, looks confused. Venus... not crazy? Well, she sure could've fooled Homura. "That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is this: If that girl decides that I am her enemy, which is apparently a thing that she has already decided," if Shinobu's words are to be believed, "then all of her years of experience cease to be an asset and begin to be a threat. Maybe you look at her and only see intelligence and power. I look at her and I see someone whose cooperation I clearly do not have. Her strength only makes her a bigger threat. One I can't afford to ignore."
She makes a very loud 'tch' noise as the senshi are mentioned. "I swear... if I did not know Sailor Moon herself, I would have written them off by Sailor V's actions alone... but if Kunzite says she's necessary, then I'm inclined to believe him."
Homura reaches into her shield, and produces a grenade. She doesn't toss it, but she does show it. "Actually, for taking her out of the fight, I was just thinking I could blind her with flashbangs. She can't shoot at you if she can't see, and even if she just starts firing randomly then she's more likely to hit that massive Witch than any of us. I do have plenty of these, and I'm pretty sure I could handle her aggro."
The grenade vanishes inside her shield again.
"Trust me, if she's as crazy as she seems to be, I wouldn't waste my time killing her. She'd manage that on her own just fine."
Endymion tilts his head back a little, looking up at the sky, the stars-- the moon.
His gaze is unfocused, his expression pensive. "If you want to find out more about her-- you should talk to Kunzite. When you have time."
He looks back at Homura, then, and links a hand around one of the girders, leaning 'dangerously' out over the emptiness below, casually and carelessly. It's like swinging his feet. "Most of what we're doing right now is preparing for Wilpertschnausnit, and he probably has stuff he could tell you that I don't know. Uh, I mean, about what to expect from the Senshi that I wouldn't know, because I really haven't run into them that much. But: you are perfectly right. I'd just rather you were as distracted as little as possible in the fight itself. I'll cover you as I can; I'll have a lot of backs to watch."
Hauling himself back upright, Endymion actually smiles at Homura, lopsided but honest. "Thanks. For a lot of things. Since you're busy, I won't keep you-- I have to get back to looking for my missing idiot brother. I'll text. Just-- don't give the number to normal girls," he stresses super hard. Comically meaningfully, in fact.
"I like your rose, by the way." As he's saying this last, he's inching backwards off the platform, and he falls and vanishes into the air without a sound.
"Well, it's not only a matter of time, but also of opportunity," says Homura, "... but I might ask him. If I get the chance."
She isn't entirely sure she cares, but then that's something that Madoka has been trying to get her to work on. Caring more, that is.
Despite knowing Endymion's capabilities, seeing her friend (brainwashed or not) lean so far over the edge leaves her with an unsettling feeling. She doesn't like it. That actually managed to bring back her stone-cold face.
"Yeah... I don't want to be distracted either. I think taking down that Witch is the most important thing we could all be doing that day."
When Endymion smiles at her, Homura atually manages to smile back, though the smile doesn't quite touch her eyes. "No normal girls, huh? Well, if I have to give out your number, I'll make sure it's to someone who can handle Walpurgisnacht-related business."
On the compliment regarding her rose, Homura actually reaches up to touch it. Her smile gets a little more genuine. After Endymion vanishes, Homura whispers. "Once I'm done saving the city... you're next."