Chapter Four – The Reluctant Smile
"I had no idea," Usagi whispered, her voice lacking any true breath or potency. She had felt the anger drain from her as Kurai told her of Kage, of his transformation from a happy boy into the foul, dissonant person that she knew. It became very easy to see why he was so harsh. Usagi's heart had tugged when Kurai had told them of finding Kage and his sister, both lying in a swirl of their family blood and both seemingly void of life. The loss of her brother would be dire to her, she imagined, and she couldn't begin to understand just how disastrous the loss was to him.
The very thought of losing Shingo made her shiver and knit her hands.
"Kage was never the same," Kurai continued, "and he slowly started becoming more distant. He started smoking, picking fights with anybody who crossed him badly and instigated a very heated quarrel with Yamito."
The name was enough to snap Usagi's attention and her eyes fell on him like prey. "Yamito?"
Kurai nodded, though obviously waning in his attempts to stay objective in his emotions about this. His glasses had fallen from his nose into a waiting hand and he was rubbing the bridge of his nose, his eyes seeming much older than usual. Though Usagi's thoughts paraded around Kage's tragedy and the very essence of the name Yamito, she found Kurai to be an unspoken hero in their lives.
"Kage is really jealous of Yamito," Suteki said, killing the silence which had gripped him since the discussion began. He too seemed very different now. The usual luster of his smile was jaded, though not of fault of his newly found human interests. History was the greatest killer of smiles. The trials contained in their past lives were bitter and cold and each of them seemed bound by this forsaken destiny which had the ability to follow through time and space. Suteki seemed a bit weary. "Everyone saw Yamito's power. I hate to admit it, but Yamito was a lot stronger than even Ryu. No one knew why. Well, Kage got this crazy idea that Yamito had the ability to end the entire war on our world; to take out all of the Priests and even Anubis. He started blaming Yamito for the death of his sister, I think."
"However, Yamito feared that part of himself," Kurai added.
"With good reason." Haruka added even further.
Kurai could only nod, his eyes cast onto the floor with unnatural reverence. Ami was barely keeping her seat, staring at him with placid eyes and a beating heart. How hard it was to be the voice box of a race and the only rational center for investigation. Her counterpart, but even more so her lover, had taken the difficult task of weaving all of their lives together in an attempt to bring order to the chaos. Sadly, she watched it take its toll on him with each passing word. "Kage absconded from his obligation to us, moving more as a separate entity in searching out the killers of his sister. Though he resented Yamito, he truly detested the three who killed Yamamori Mika," Kurai said, his eyes oddly moving up onto Haruka and Michiru.
"Three?" Usagi asked.
Kurai once more nodded, his eyes staying long on the two girls. "Yes. Senso was but the bait. It was the two Legendary Scion of Uranus and Neptune who performed the deed."
Haruka and Michiru mirrored the room as they stared, wide-eyed and credulous at the history which soon caught up with them. Kage's dire need for competition with Haruka suddenly became more viable and even his practice of have very jagged and almost offensive conversations with Michiru came to light. The looks he would steal at Haruka took on an entirely new shade, one of hidden hatred and misplaced compensation. They had merely dismissed it as part of his personality, but now they had tales of woe to contribute to his personality.
Haruka grimaced and furrowed her eyebrows in a moment of tribute to her rival.
Kurai watched their reactions with great interest, though oddly smiled when they reacted in the ways which they did. "How perverse that he would endear himself to the two counterparts of those he hates the most. Yet, this leads me to deduct the reasoning behind Kage's dissent to Eve's service."
The others looked to him.
"I believe Eve has brought the Legendary Scion here to act as incentive for Kage to do as he is doing. Senso is no more, yet Kage still yearns for his revenge. Since Yamito is..." Kurai continued, though winced at his own words and frowned, looking down to the glasses in his hands. "It seems the only logical conclusion."
Usagi was being tossed around like a leaf in a churning river. Her emotions ran wild, from the deep grief she felt for Kage to the mild hope at his reasons and even the spikes of aspiration with every spoken name of her illicit beloved. Rei's broken face accompanied the name in each instance, making her feel guilt and remorse as well. A great void in her heart for Mamoru was fought over, though hope had also taken residence and was growing. There was so much going on that she barely had time to notice when the night sky outside was lit by a massive red glow.
Each of them turned, their faces stained by the red light. At first it was eerie, but as reds faded into orange and then to black, they all stood on edge.
"Fire!"
Downtown Tokyo was ablaze with the life he had once lost. Buildings were crackling and cracking, weaning under the intense strain of their own weight. A few had already come down, but there were endless others to choose from. Kage found that he could barely focus long enough to do so. Each building looked so wrong, so heretic. Unbroken glass, reflective sidings, concourse lines and even the proud profile of each building disgusted him, making him long to see the carnage of his old world. Piles of rubble were slowly changing the world back into what he knew and he began looking through them for her.
"General, the senshi of this world will be here. You must leave and see to it our forces obtain their goal," one of Eve's acolytes said, eagerly standing by Kage's side and watching him look into a pile of debris.
He was ignoring her. With his celestial blade slung in his shoulder, Kage tossed a rather large metal beam aside and peered under it, his face concentrated at the task at hand. Upon finding nothing but twisted metal and trash, he stood straight and ran his hair back with his hand. "Huh, nothing. I was sure I saw something here before." Turning to the acolyte, his brow lowered and he snorted, as if her very presence was a sin. "I don't need some thing telling me what I need to do. She wants an army? Then go get one! Leave before I look inside you next."
The acolyte stepped back a moment, genuinely intimidated by him, and quickly bowed out of some lewd respect for him. He snorted loudly. In a gust of wind, she was gone and Kage turned to an untouched street, his face still brewing a sour look and his hand shifting across his sword.
The night was harboring the masses from any massive loss. Many of the buildings were empty, though that fact was lost on Kage as he stared up at each one and tapped his neck with his blade. All he saw was laughing faces in each window, embracing lovers across the balconies. Each and every plane of glass reflected a warm mood and it began to stir a great rage in him. All buildings, large or small, began the life that he was denied.
The crescent wave of energy he snapped from his sword ripped a great canyon across the road and impacted into the building with a great thunder. As the night was lit with a great red fireball once more, the building came crashing down in a heap of smoke and debris, hindering all sight for the moments it took for the dust to sleep around him.
As it did, seven figures appeared around him in a wide circle. They all kept a very wide berth, but each was facing him through the failing smoke.
"Go away. I'm busy," Kage said candidly and used the leg of his hakama to wipe the dust from his sword. Sailor Moon was the first to step a bit closer and purify through the dust, her face having an unnatural sense of pity for him. Soon each of the senshi, but also Kurai and Suteki, were visible through in the night air. Kage sighed heavily and put his eyes on Sailor Moon, though obviously not regarding her seriously as a threat. "You shouldn't bring humans to a fight. They might get hurt."
Suteki's face was unnaturally focused. "What are you doing, Kage?! Have you gone bonkers?"
"How's human life," Kage replied, turning his eyes to Suteki with an almost grin on his face, "Hitoshi?"
Suteki was beside himself and stared with an open mouth. While the others were quite confused with why Kage had called him that, Sailor Moon blinked, hearing Yamito call Suteki that name as well. Suteki was instantly fuming and hurling a shaking fist at Kage, though from a safe distance away. "You promised! You promised you'd never say my name again!"
What an interlude. The little spat came at the most bizarre time but Suteki was instantly ready to start the next world war over such a sin. Sailor Moon had always considered Suteki to be a very strange name, but he was, after all, from a different world and prone to the rules of that place, not theirs. However, upon hearing that Suteki's real name was Hitoshi, she felt a bit put off by how fierce he was reacting to it. It wasn't until Kage spoke again that she felt the reality of the situation come down on her like a falling tree.
"Only Yamito can use it, right? Fuck you all. I'm tired of living in his shadow and trying to get by on second class power and ability. Jupiter gave me the great equalizer," he snarled and held out his sword with great fervor, "and I'll show you how!" The blade of Jupiter began to glow very brightly and electricity coursed over the metal like a living sun. The amount of energy focused onto that blade was incredible and each of the Sailor senshi looked upon Kage with a new level of understanding of his intent.
"Kage!" Sailor Uranus hollered, but he couldn't hear her.
As the ground began to shake and a wind began to blow, they all witnessed that this sword was something very anomalous as far as the Scion had come. None of the others possessed such a weapon and it truly seemed celestial in its origin. Kurai and Suteki were blown aside by the wind, helpless as Sailor Mercury and Sailor Venus were both barely able to stay standing.
It was a great buildup.
"I'll turn this city back to the way it was! I'll find her in the rubble and everything will be fine! Then even Yamito won't be able to stop me!" Kage bellowed and began laughing. His laugh was something which ran cold across the ears of those who could hear him and Sailor Moon braved the wind to look upon him; upon the maddened glow of light which had constricted around him from that sword.
At once, she felt that Kage was no longer able to see well. The resonating laugh which bled in her ears frightened her and warned her. Normally cool and contained, Kage seemed now was wild and unpredictable as the lightning which was swarming over his sword and body, threatening to consume him in a fiery blaze more brilliant than a thousand destroyed buildings.
Then, she saw someone.
So did Kage.
His was barely able to see the figure walking towards him through the light. Though distant, the figure slowly was getting closer and seemed to have no fear of the energy which was embracing him. Though embittered to the scene around him, Kage's eyes suddenly shallowed and his heart forgot to pump. The girl walking towards him looked at him with those green eyes; green eyes holding the capacity to care for him no matter what happened. The fearlessness of her stride betrayed her to him and his hands loosened across his sword, forcing the light and lightning to weaken some. Though he was weak and his jaw seemed locked tight, Kage was barely able to breath out her name.
"Mika?"
As much as the name hurt her and made her smile, Makoto stepped through the torrent of energy and rage to stand before him, unaltered and unafraid. Though she did smile, her smile felt plastic and weak in the wake of his great scripture and worship of the name. A human was more able to defeat this foe than a thousand senshi.
His was such a delicate anger.
Staring up at him, she felt the energy dousing even more and the look in his eyes was heart-wrenching. A face that was able to show so much hate was now broken, open to the realm that the single name brought upon him. Even as he held tightly to the grand sword and still wielded its great power, she could see that all of the malicious rage had seeped out of him, which was truly a testament to how much he had cared for his sister. His life had been dedicated to revenge, but a name tamed him. Makoto almost felt a little guilty for not being Mika. She soon set forth to heal him.
"It's me, Kage. It's Makoto. I have something of yours and I want to give it back to you," she said, reaching her hand across her nape of her neck and letting out a calm breath. Even in his most languid state, she felt at ease holding to the locket around her neck. With nimble fingers, she opened the locket and held it out for him to see, though she didn't remove it from her neck just yet.
She wanted to keep him close to her, if only for a moment longer.
"Here is Mika, Kage. She's been waiting for you to come back."
The others were speechless as they watched her, facing him down in her human state. Even as senshi, they were reluctant to confront him, but she was effortlessly keeping him under control just by standing in front of him. His anger had been subdued by valor.
"Mika..." Kage said again, one hand tearing away from his sword to reach out for the locket. His heart began beating each moment he got closer to it.
While his face was widely showing his every thought, Makoto's own heart was beating faster. Was she getting through to him finally? Would he see that he did have something for him in this world? Would he see the girl behind the locket? A small part of her defied these ideas and scorned her for wanting it. She would be betrayed and hurt, for nothing as perfect as earned love could ever exist for someone as tragic as she. Yet, she waited for him to come to her.
She saw the very moment the madness took him again.
"You..." he muttered, his eyes shifting from the locket to her once more, though now they were laced with the same anger and traps which had defined him to her. Perhaps what frightened her more, however, was that this anger seemed to morph, changing into something new. It was an unsure anger, a lashing anger that seemed so weak in her mind. The moment before he reacted to her a second time, she saw that his anger towards her was turning into a shade of fear.
"Makoto!" Sailor Moon yelled, watching the girl sent flying away from Kage by a flash of light. Makoto hit the ground on her stomach, a pain ringing through her, and she coughed, tasting a warm sting of blood in her mouth. As three of the Sailor senshi fell around her and guarded her, Sailor Moon turned to help her and bled her concern through wide eyes.
Makoto, against all of her character, looked away from everyone, even Kage, and stared at the ground with nearly fallen eyes.
Betrayed again.
As Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune cautiously approached Kage, they marveled at the empty look on his face. He stood staring at Makoto, his eyes still wide with a sort of forlorn fear that defied description and harnessed hope. He was acting so strangely now that both stopped their advances, but continued to call out to him and try and talk to him.
Kage was in a flurry of confusion and anger. It was like nothing he had even felt before and it was something that broke all of his standard methods of control. Feeling unsure and weak, he stepped back away from them all, his hand barely able to keep his sword in hand, and his lips moving, as if in speech. The others were equally confused by this, and then absolutely gasped as he simply disappeared in a blast of lightning. For having spent the night confronting Kage, they were aghast at just how benign his exit had been.
Sailor Moon saw no such state. Holding Makoto, she felt flustered at just how pathetic she looked. Makoto's hand was tight around the locket, but her eyes were loose and cast at nothing on the ground. Her face was placid but her lips were clenched together over a false, fearing smile. Even with her friends around her, Makoto felt alone at the moment.
"I can't help him, Usagi. I tried, but there's too much hate now. He even hates me, too," she said, just loud enough for Sailor Moon to hear. Sailor Moon watched as tears built in her eyes, but they would not fall. Makoto was frustrated and hurt and alone, but Sailor Moon just held her a little tighter and forced herself to smile just a little bit.
"Don't give up, okay? You're the only one who Kage has ever looked at like that, Mako-chan. You stopped him from destroying more of the city. I think..." Sailor Moon said with a bitter laugh and wiped a few tears from her cheeks, "I think Kage can only hate you because only you can love him. I think he's afraid of you."
Makoto blinked a few times but soon looked up to her, wiping a few tears from her eye with the palm of her hand. Seeing Sailor Moon's face made Makoto feel grades better and she laughed softly also, nodding and holding her hand tightly. "Thanks, Usagi-chan."
Sailor Moon couldn't help but hug her softly and smile. "I won't give up on him if you won't."
"I had no idea," Usagi whispered, her voice lacking any true breath or potency. She had felt the anger drain from her as Kurai told her of Kage, of his transformation from a happy boy into the foul, dissonant person that she knew. It became very easy to see why he was so harsh. Usagi's heart had tugged when Kurai had told them of finding Kage and his sister, both lying in a swirl of their family blood and both seemingly void of life. The loss of her brother would be dire to her, she imagined, and she couldn't begin to understand just how disastrous the loss was to him.
The very thought of losing Shingo made her shiver and knit her hands.
"Kage was never the same," Kurai continued, "and he slowly started becoming more distant. He started smoking, picking fights with anybody who crossed him badly and instigated a very heated quarrel with Yamito."
The name was enough to snap Usagi's attention and her eyes fell on him like prey. "Yamito?"
Kurai nodded, though obviously waning in his attempts to stay objective in his emotions about this. His glasses had fallen from his nose into a waiting hand and he was rubbing the bridge of his nose, his eyes seeming much older than usual. Though Usagi's thoughts paraded around Kage's tragedy and the very essence of the name Yamito, she found Kurai to be an unspoken hero in their lives.
"Kage is really jealous of Yamito," Suteki said, killing the silence which had gripped him since the discussion began. He too seemed very different now. The usual luster of his smile was jaded, though not of fault of his newly found human interests. History was the greatest killer of smiles. The trials contained in their past lives were bitter and cold and each of them seemed bound by this forsaken destiny which had the ability to follow through time and space. Suteki seemed a bit weary. "Everyone saw Yamito's power. I hate to admit it, but Yamito was a lot stronger than even Ryu. No one knew why. Well, Kage got this crazy idea that Yamito had the ability to end the entire war on our world; to take out all of the Priests and even Anubis. He started blaming Yamito for the death of his sister, I think."
"However, Yamito feared that part of himself," Kurai added.
"With good reason." Haruka added even further.
Kurai could only nod, his eyes cast onto the floor with unnatural reverence. Ami was barely keeping her seat, staring at him with placid eyes and a beating heart. How hard it was to be the voice box of a race and the only rational center for investigation. Her counterpart, but even more so her lover, had taken the difficult task of weaving all of their lives together in an attempt to bring order to the chaos. Sadly, she watched it take its toll on him with each passing word. "Kage absconded from his obligation to us, moving more as a separate entity in searching out the killers of his sister. Though he resented Yamito, he truly detested the three who killed Yamamori Mika," Kurai said, his eyes oddly moving up onto Haruka and Michiru.
"Three?" Usagi asked.
Kurai once more nodded, his eyes staying long on the two girls. "Yes. Senso was but the bait. It was the two Legendary Scion of Uranus and Neptune who performed the deed."
Haruka and Michiru mirrored the room as they stared, wide-eyed and credulous at the history which soon caught up with them. Kage's dire need for competition with Haruka suddenly became more viable and even his practice of have very jagged and almost offensive conversations with Michiru came to light. The looks he would steal at Haruka took on an entirely new shade, one of hidden hatred and misplaced compensation. They had merely dismissed it as part of his personality, but now they had tales of woe to contribute to his personality.
Haruka grimaced and furrowed her eyebrows in a moment of tribute to her rival.
Kurai watched their reactions with great interest, though oddly smiled when they reacted in the ways which they did. "How perverse that he would endear himself to the two counterparts of those he hates the most. Yet, this leads me to deduct the reasoning behind Kage's dissent to Eve's service."
The others looked to him.
"I believe Eve has brought the Legendary Scion here to act as incentive for Kage to do as he is doing. Senso is no more, yet Kage still yearns for his revenge. Since Yamito is..." Kurai continued, though winced at his own words and frowned, looking down to the glasses in his hands. "It seems the only logical conclusion."
Usagi was being tossed around like a leaf in a churning river. Her emotions ran wild, from the deep grief she felt for Kage to the mild hope at his reasons and even the spikes of aspiration with every spoken name of her illicit beloved. Rei's broken face accompanied the name in each instance, making her feel guilt and remorse as well. A great void in her heart for Mamoru was fought over, though hope had also taken residence and was growing. There was so much going on that she barely had time to notice when the night sky outside was lit by a massive red glow.
Each of them turned, their faces stained by the red light. At first it was eerie, but as reds faded into orange and then to black, they all stood on edge.
"Fire!"
Downtown Tokyo was ablaze with the life he had once lost. Buildings were crackling and cracking, weaning under the intense strain of their own weight. A few had already come down, but there were endless others to choose from. Kage found that he could barely focus long enough to do so. Each building looked so wrong, so heretic. Unbroken glass, reflective sidings, concourse lines and even the proud profile of each building disgusted him, making him long to see the carnage of his old world. Piles of rubble were slowly changing the world back into what he knew and he began looking through them for her.
"General, the senshi of this world will be here. You must leave and see to it our forces obtain their goal," one of Eve's acolytes said, eagerly standing by Kage's side and watching him look into a pile of debris.
He was ignoring her. With his celestial blade slung in his shoulder, Kage tossed a rather large metal beam aside and peered under it, his face concentrated at the task at hand. Upon finding nothing but twisted metal and trash, he stood straight and ran his hair back with his hand. "Huh, nothing. I was sure I saw something here before." Turning to the acolyte, his brow lowered and he snorted, as if her very presence was a sin. "I don't need some thing telling me what I need to do. She wants an army? Then go get one! Leave before I look inside you next."
The acolyte stepped back a moment, genuinely intimidated by him, and quickly bowed out of some lewd respect for him. He snorted loudly. In a gust of wind, she was gone and Kage turned to an untouched street, his face still brewing a sour look and his hand shifting across his sword.
The night was harboring the masses from any massive loss. Many of the buildings were empty, though that fact was lost on Kage as he stared up at each one and tapped his neck with his blade. All he saw was laughing faces in each window, embracing lovers across the balconies. Each and every plane of glass reflected a warm mood and it began to stir a great rage in him. All buildings, large or small, began the life that he was denied.
The crescent wave of energy he snapped from his sword ripped a great canyon across the road and impacted into the building with a great thunder. As the night was lit with a great red fireball once more, the building came crashing down in a heap of smoke and debris, hindering all sight for the moments it took for the dust to sleep around him.
As it did, seven figures appeared around him in a wide circle. They all kept a very wide berth, but each was facing him through the failing smoke.
"Go away. I'm busy," Kage said candidly and used the leg of his hakama to wipe the dust from his sword. Sailor Moon was the first to step a bit closer and purify through the dust, her face having an unnatural sense of pity for him. Soon each of the senshi, but also Kurai and Suteki, were visible through in the night air. Kage sighed heavily and put his eyes on Sailor Moon, though obviously not regarding her seriously as a threat. "You shouldn't bring humans to a fight. They might get hurt."
Suteki's face was unnaturally focused. "What are you doing, Kage?! Have you gone bonkers?"
"How's human life," Kage replied, turning his eyes to Suteki with an almost grin on his face, "Hitoshi?"
Suteki was beside himself and stared with an open mouth. While the others were quite confused with why Kage had called him that, Sailor Moon blinked, hearing Yamito call Suteki that name as well. Suteki was instantly fuming and hurling a shaking fist at Kage, though from a safe distance away. "You promised! You promised you'd never say my name again!"
What an interlude. The little spat came at the most bizarre time but Suteki was instantly ready to start the next world war over such a sin. Sailor Moon had always considered Suteki to be a very strange name, but he was, after all, from a different world and prone to the rules of that place, not theirs. However, upon hearing that Suteki's real name was Hitoshi, she felt a bit put off by how fierce he was reacting to it. It wasn't until Kage spoke again that she felt the reality of the situation come down on her like a falling tree.
"Only Yamito can use it, right? Fuck you all. I'm tired of living in his shadow and trying to get by on second class power and ability. Jupiter gave me the great equalizer," he snarled and held out his sword with great fervor, "and I'll show you how!" The blade of Jupiter began to glow very brightly and electricity coursed over the metal like a living sun. The amount of energy focused onto that blade was incredible and each of the Sailor senshi looked upon Kage with a new level of understanding of his intent.
"Kage!" Sailor Uranus hollered, but he couldn't hear her.
As the ground began to shake and a wind began to blow, they all witnessed that this sword was something very anomalous as far as the Scion had come. None of the others possessed such a weapon and it truly seemed celestial in its origin. Kurai and Suteki were blown aside by the wind, helpless as Sailor Mercury and Sailor Venus were both barely able to stay standing.
It was a great buildup.
"I'll turn this city back to the way it was! I'll find her in the rubble and everything will be fine! Then even Yamito won't be able to stop me!" Kage bellowed and began laughing. His laugh was something which ran cold across the ears of those who could hear him and Sailor Moon braved the wind to look upon him; upon the maddened glow of light which had constricted around him from that sword.
At once, she felt that Kage was no longer able to see well. The resonating laugh which bled in her ears frightened her and warned her. Normally cool and contained, Kage seemed now was wild and unpredictable as the lightning which was swarming over his sword and body, threatening to consume him in a fiery blaze more brilliant than a thousand destroyed buildings.
Then, she saw someone.
So did Kage.
His was barely able to see the figure walking towards him through the light. Though distant, the figure slowly was getting closer and seemed to have no fear of the energy which was embracing him. Though embittered to the scene around him, Kage's eyes suddenly shallowed and his heart forgot to pump. The girl walking towards him looked at him with those green eyes; green eyes holding the capacity to care for him no matter what happened. The fearlessness of her stride betrayed her to him and his hands loosened across his sword, forcing the light and lightning to weaken some. Though he was weak and his jaw seemed locked tight, Kage was barely able to breath out her name.
"Mika?"
As much as the name hurt her and made her smile, Makoto stepped through the torrent of energy and rage to stand before him, unaltered and unafraid. Though she did smile, her smile felt plastic and weak in the wake of his great scripture and worship of the name. A human was more able to defeat this foe than a thousand senshi.
His was such a delicate anger.
Staring up at him, she felt the energy dousing even more and the look in his eyes was heart-wrenching. A face that was able to show so much hate was now broken, open to the realm that the single name brought upon him. Even as he held tightly to the grand sword and still wielded its great power, she could see that all of the malicious rage had seeped out of him, which was truly a testament to how much he had cared for his sister. His life had been dedicated to revenge, but a name tamed him. Makoto almost felt a little guilty for not being Mika. She soon set forth to heal him.
"It's me, Kage. It's Makoto. I have something of yours and I want to give it back to you," she said, reaching her hand across her nape of her neck and letting out a calm breath. Even in his most languid state, she felt at ease holding to the locket around her neck. With nimble fingers, she opened the locket and held it out for him to see, though she didn't remove it from her neck just yet.
She wanted to keep him close to her, if only for a moment longer.
"Here is Mika, Kage. She's been waiting for you to come back."
The others were speechless as they watched her, facing him down in her human state. Even as senshi, they were reluctant to confront him, but she was effortlessly keeping him under control just by standing in front of him. His anger had been subdued by valor.
"Mika..." Kage said again, one hand tearing away from his sword to reach out for the locket. His heart began beating each moment he got closer to it.
While his face was widely showing his every thought, Makoto's own heart was beating faster. Was she getting through to him finally? Would he see that he did have something for him in this world? Would he see the girl behind the locket? A small part of her defied these ideas and scorned her for wanting it. She would be betrayed and hurt, for nothing as perfect as earned love could ever exist for someone as tragic as she. Yet, she waited for him to come to her.
She saw the very moment the madness took him again.
"You..." he muttered, his eyes shifting from the locket to her once more, though now they were laced with the same anger and traps which had defined him to her. Perhaps what frightened her more, however, was that this anger seemed to morph, changing into something new. It was an unsure anger, a lashing anger that seemed so weak in her mind. The moment before he reacted to her a second time, she saw that his anger towards her was turning into a shade of fear.
"Makoto!" Sailor Moon yelled, watching the girl sent flying away from Kage by a flash of light. Makoto hit the ground on her stomach, a pain ringing through her, and she coughed, tasting a warm sting of blood in her mouth. As three of the Sailor senshi fell around her and guarded her, Sailor Moon turned to help her and bled her concern through wide eyes.
Makoto, against all of her character, looked away from everyone, even Kage, and stared at the ground with nearly fallen eyes.
Betrayed again.
As Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune cautiously approached Kage, they marveled at the empty look on his face. He stood staring at Makoto, his eyes still wide with a sort of forlorn fear that defied description and harnessed hope. He was acting so strangely now that both stopped their advances, but continued to call out to him and try and talk to him.
Kage was in a flurry of confusion and anger. It was like nothing he had even felt before and it was something that broke all of his standard methods of control. Feeling unsure and weak, he stepped back away from them all, his hand barely able to keep his sword in hand, and his lips moving, as if in speech. The others were equally confused by this, and then absolutely gasped as he simply disappeared in a blast of lightning. For having spent the night confronting Kage, they were aghast at just how benign his exit had been.
Sailor Moon saw no such state. Holding Makoto, she felt flustered at just how pathetic she looked. Makoto's hand was tight around the locket, but her eyes were loose and cast at nothing on the ground. Her face was placid but her lips were clenched together over a false, fearing smile. Even with her friends around her, Makoto felt alone at the moment.
"I can't help him, Usagi. I tried, but there's too much hate now. He even hates me, too," she said, just loud enough for Sailor Moon to hear. Sailor Moon watched as tears built in her eyes, but they would not fall. Makoto was frustrated and hurt and alone, but Sailor Moon just held her a little tighter and forced herself to smile just a little bit.
"Don't give up, okay? You're the only one who Kage has ever looked at like that, Mako-chan. You stopped him from destroying more of the city. I think..." Sailor Moon said with a bitter laugh and wiped a few tears from her cheeks, "I think Kage can only hate you because only you can love him. I think he's afraid of you."
Makoto blinked a few times but soon looked up to her, wiping a few tears from her eye with the palm of her hand. Seeing Sailor Moon's face made Makoto feel grades better and she laughed softly also, nodding and holding her hand tightly. "Thanks, Usagi-chan."
Sailor Moon couldn't help but hug her softly and smile. "I won't give up on him if you won't."
Kage found no solace in the chamber, no area for his hate to transcend that fear he felt just moment earlier. He knelt, leaning forward on his sword as it impaled the ground before Yamito, his eyes fallen desperately across the ground and his mouth hanging open in longing breath. He had no idea what had happened, for he truly saw his sister as that Sailor senshi approached. The feelings he had felt when she was near were very real, but only when he had seen her for who she truly was did he force himself to revile at her and lash out.
Why?
He couldn't answer the question and pressed his eyes shut, grinding his teeth as he agonized over something he couldn't explain.
"Don't fucking touch me..."
Eve, who had entered upon surprise of his presence, recoiled her hand at the threat and blinked, unable to see his face but fully able to feel his mood. Her eyes uneasily moved up to Yamito's face and she grimaced. She could see the field that had protected him had finally dissipated, yet she could make no moves on him until this unstable Scion was gone. So, she dedicated her time once reserved for lustful satisfaction to soothe her ailing general. "What troubles you, my love?"
Kage shuddered a bit, the muscles in his back quivering without cause and he coughed loudly, feeling as if he were choking on his own breath. How weak he felt. Weakness had borne into him a moment's lapse of judgment. "I couldn't defeat the senshi. I have enough power...why can't I win?" he asked, more to himself than anyone else.
Eve looked wearily at the blade stuck in the ground before him, the blade he leaned on so heavily. It was the only mark for which she held the last Scion with any fear, and she saw a great opportunity to secure her dominance.
With soothing tones and a near brush of her body, she knelt next to him and smiled a very devious smile, almost vicious in its sincerity. "Your past troubles you, my love. You attachment to the guardian who betrayed you," she said, running delicate fingers across the blade. His eyes didn't follow, but he felt the resonance within his hands. Her touch didn't seem so alien to his blade, but his skin crawled at her proximity.
She did have a point. Forsaking his planet had left him with only one thorn; his sword. It still held the symbol of Jupiter on it and the scar on his shoulder ached from it. His power focused through it, but she came when he was using it. The one source of power which he knew equalized his deficiency in energy also came at a price; conscience.
Without it, he would have no connection to the one he feared so much.
When Kage abruptly stood, Eve blinked and watched him, seeing the confidence laden on him once more. He stared up at Yamito with renewed hope. "I don't need the power to win. All I need is myself," he snorted and turned away, walking towards the exit with no second thought. The sword was left impaled in the ground before Yamito; a tombstone for this grave of his. Kage wouldn't need it anymore.
Eve laughed softly to herself, her eyes moving up to Yamito as well. In mere moments, she would have something which aroused her in such a way that even Anubis quiver inside of her. The buried god may have been her power and birth, but she felt the breath of life and the burn of lust. Whatever Yamito had become, she wanted it. She wanted him.
Unable to control herself anymore, she stood and reached towards his face, reveling in the sensations that would come when she was able to feel his skin. The young man was very handsome and very powerful. It was no wonder not only the Sailor senshi of Mars loved him deeply, but also the Moon Princess herself. So much contention over one person.
She almost felt sorry for her little puppet in her chambers.
Fury had no gage as an arc of lightning burned her hand. The face of Yamito laid only breaths away but her hand was denied, prevented by a web of electricity which stemmed from the sword impaled in the floor. Eve stared at it, then quickly looked to the exit to find Kage lingering, though not looking back into the room. She was fuming with anger, but she could find no words to assault him.
She received only a laugh and a wagging finger, berating her for her lust. "Don't think I couldn't see your intentions. You asked me to give up my sword," he said almost in pleasure, and soon left her with his parting words. "No one touches Yamito unless I say so."
He left her to her enraged screaming.