Chapter 58: Absence of Evidence
Kasios, his heart pounding up so hard he could feel it in his esophagus, leaned over to peek out of the closet, eyeing the lavatory door all the way across the massive room. He imagined his son emerging out through it, simulating the strong reaction he would have on the sight of him right now, imagining himself finding a way to suppress it. He thought about the excuse he'd give his son on why he was poking around in his closet. His mind rapidly constructed how he'd deal with the scenario if it came up.
And then, he realized every second he spent standing here made it more and more likely he'd have to deal with such a scenario.
He took off, awkwardly hugging a messy ball of assorted clothing in his arms, practically sprinting across the rich, expensive carpet, now regretting how comically oversized the palace's master bedroom was.
Not making anything easier was the awkward collection of garments in his arms. He had rolled up the jacket, shirt, and pants around the top hat and mask, trying to make sure it all stayed together. He could hear the water running in the lavatory, which hopefully was an indication he still had a little bit of time to make his escape. He was trying very hard to not actually process any information right now, as the tsunami of thoughts that had flooded him the moment he started to put the pieces together were practically paralyzing, and he needed to get out of the Earth Palace to have time to adequately process them.
The former High King darted out into the hallway, feeling tremendous relief at having made it this far, but that solace was quickly broken as he turned to the right and immediately came face-to-face with a young, black-haired woman, wearing the purple uniform of a palace maid.
"Ah!" she gasped, quickly leaning forward in a bow. "Y-Your Highness!"
"Eh, uh, listen, you," Kasios stammered, quickly becoming quite defensive, hugging the collection of garments closely, unable to shake the feeling he had that everyone else in the universe was an enemy right now. "Listen! I'm not here, okay?!" he barked.
"Uhh, uh, what?" she babbled, clearly scared by Kasios's display of aggression. Even in retirement, there was no doubt that a palace maid's place was far, far below that of Kasios, and getting on the former ruler's bad side was a one way ticket to having your life ruined.
"I'm not here!" he repeated, advancing on the black-haired maid, subconsciously trying to make himself appear as big as possible to intimidate her. "I-I'm not here, and...you didn't see me! You didn't see me, tell nobody that you saw me, or...or I'll have you killed!"
She gasped, nervously glancing over towards the High King's bedroom door, then looking back to Kasios with dilated pupils.
"Uh, w-wait, no, no, uh…" Kasios squeezed his eyes shut down hard, shaking his head. "No, no, I didn't mean that." He sighed. "Okay, okay, uh...I...no, I…I have a surprise for Endymion." He pointed towards the bedroom door. "I...I came here to give him a surprise, but...it's not a good time. So, uh...I'm leaving. And...and if he knows I was here, it'll ruin the surprise. S-so, I don't want him to know I was here. Okay?"
"O-oh, o-okay," the maid said, quickly nodding her head up and down.
"S-sorry, I...I didn't mean to react like that, you just...I'm not going to have you killed," Kasios said. "I just, I really need Endymion to not know I was here. I'll come back...later, I'm leaving. Just, Endymion doesn't need to know I was here, okay?"
"Absolutely, Your Highness," she said, bowing yet again. "I see no harm in that." Though still visibly tense and rigid, she at least seemed to be calming down.
"G-good, thank you," Kasios said. "Just...carry on. As you were." Kasios, aware that time was still a factor, darted around the palace maid with agility that he had not had reason to display in many years, dashing down the hallway.
She turned to watch the former High King run off, still unable to shake the feeling that things weren't as innocuous as Kasios claimed. She was about to return to her duties and try to put this curious incident behind her, when she heard the door opposite the High King's bedroom pop open.
"Don't worry about it," Kunzite's commanding baritone was a stark contrast to Kasios's emotionally-driven tone from a secunda prior. The palace maid almost found it calming in comparison, even though it was coming from someone as menacing as the Earth general.
Kunzite emerged from the room opposite Endymion's bedroom, staring the maid down.
"Sir!" she said, snapping to attention and bowing yet again, not used to being directly addressed by so many powerful people in such a short span of time.
"Do as he says," Kunzite ordered her. "Pretend you didn't see him. It'd be a shame if his surprise was ruined." He nodded. "Run along."
"Yes sir!" she said, relieved to be given permission to extract herself from this rather stressful situation. She spun around and took off, moving almost as fast as Kasios had been a moment before. Kunzite watched her for a few beats, then ducked over to Endymion's room, not willing to waste any more time, knowing that everything he had just arranged would be worthless if he couldn't clean up after himself.
Moving with purpose, Kunzite marched across the massive room, making his way over to the walk-in closet. The pile of assorted garments were still there, just in front of the door. The closet door was hanging wide open, as Kasios had unsurprisingly not taken the time to close it when he made his escape.
The white-haired Earth general wasted no motion in scooping the pile of clothes up in his arms, not so much as a beat of time being spent on being displeased that he was reduced to handling laundry. With a systematic efficiency borne of a truly sharp mind, he began distributing the mess of cloth out onto the various hangers and clothes frames that he had pulled them off of. With a speed that even the most experienced palace maid would have been envious of, he replaced each item of clothing, leaving the room as it had been a couple minutas ago. The High King and Queen would hardly notice anything.
As a final touch, Kunzite grabbed the now-empty frame that previously held Endymion's Tuxedo Mask disguise and dragged it to the back end of the room, back where it had been hidden from obvious view on the right side. Obviously, the fact that the frame was now barren would be easy to see, but as Endymion kept the outfit hidden, he would likely not notice it had gone missing for some time.
Kunzite looked around, senses on high alert, comparing the mental image in his mind of the closet from earlier today with the one he was currently looking at. It was never going to be identical, but he very much doubted that anyone outside of him would be able to pick up on the tiny differences. Forcing himself to accept the miniscule details that he knew wouldn't quite match up, he left the closet, shutting the door quietly behind him.
He couldn't hear the water running in the lavatory anymore, so he knew time was running short, and he would prefer to not have to explain why he was lurking around in Endymion's bedroom, so he sprinted across the lush carpet, using an awkward stride to try to reduce the sound of his footfalls.
Before he got to the bedroom door, he heard the click of the lavatory door open, and quickly improvised. Turning around and putting his back to the bedroom door, he tried to make it look like he had just entered the room, turning to look at Endymion as he exited the bathing chamber.
"Feel better?" Endymion asked as he sauntered out into his bedroom, wearing only a white bathrobe. He looked eased and relaxed, looking over his shoulder.
Queen Serenity, also wearing nothing but a robe, emerged behind the High King, red around her eyes as if she had just been crying. "Y-yeah," she said, a weak smile on her face. Kunzite thought she looked happier than she had been in quite some time.
Kunzite cleared his throat, getting both royals to focus their attention towards him.
"S-sorry, Your Highness," Kunzite said, bowing towards his charge. "I can come back."
"Actually, I was about to call you," Endymion said, placing his hands on Serenity's shoulders as she went up next to him. "Everything alright?"
"Yes," Kunzite answered, relieved that it looked as if he wouldn't even have to cook up some excuse as to why he had come here.
The High King smiled, patting Serenity's shoulders. "I think you're going to like this one, Kunzite. But it will require some work on your end."
Kunzite smiled. "Go on, Your Majesty. I'm all ears."
Endymion sighed, guiding his wife over towards the bed. "I, uh...I've been convinced, Kunzite. I've been thinking a lot recently, and, well, I think we've done all we can with our side project."
Kunzite visibly flinched, his friendly smile flattening in an instant. "I'm...I'm sorry, Your Highness?"
"If it makes you feel good, Kunzite, know that your words have influenced my decision," Endymion continued. "I just wasn't letting them...truly reach me until now. But, I've decided it's time to move on from our imperium business. We've made enough money."
Kunzite had lots of practice in his life on suppressing panic and giving away nothing with his body language or facial expressions. But the distress that Kunzite was feeling, manifesting in a pounding in the back of his head, broke through. He only caught himself when Endymion tilted his head curiously towards his finest general.
"Not the reaction I expected," Endymion said.
"O-oh, no, no, I'm...just very surprised!" Kunzite said, quickly recovering. "It didn't seem like you were, uh...considering leaving until we didn't have any imperium left!"
The High King chuckled, giving a noncommittal shrug of the shoulders. "Maybe I felt that way, but...I've reconsidered."
"You're sure?" Kunzite asked stiffly.
"Are you trying to change his mind?" Serenity asked, glancing over her shoulder at the general.
"Not at all!" Kunzite said. "Just...well, there are things I need to do in order to end our business arrangements, and they're quite permanent, so...well, we should be sure before we commit to anything."
"I'm quite sure of my decision, Kunzite," Endymion said. "Whatever you need to do to clean this up and sever our connections to the criminal underworld, see that it's done."
"Right away, Your Highness!" Kunzite said, quickly spinning back to the bedroom door and preparing to make his departure.
"Kunzite?"
The general froze awkwardly, like a naughty child who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and turned back to the High King.
"Are you sure you have enough information?" Endymion asked. "You don't have any follow-up questions?"
"O-of course, Your Highness, forgive me," Kunzite said, giving his head a violent shake.
"You feeling alright?" Endymion asked, sitting down at the foot of his bed. "Do you have a few in you, by any chance?"
"Certainly not," Kunzite said. "My apologies." He cleared his throat. "Uh, our...the imperium. What do we do with it?"
"We'll do what we need to do to make sure our split with our business partners is amicable," Endymion said. "That may require some heavily discounted merchandise, particularly to Seiya's crew, but that's fine. Seiya's been a solid partner, the least we can do is make sure his home galaxy survives the immediate future."
"We'll negotiate," Kunzite said quickly. "Seiya will be thrilled, I'm sure we can get a solid final settlement."
"I'm not sure about the exact split, but we'll see to it that our galaxy is taken care of by whatever we have left." Endymion swallowed down hard. "We'll make sure nothing can trace back to us, and then arrange for the agency to find the supply of raw product." He grinned. "Hate to do it, but can't really do anything else if we want to truly be done with it. And maybe I owe it to them after all the grief I've put them through."
"Sounds good," Kunzite said. "I'll start on that immediately." With that, Kunzite hurriedly made his departure from the room, going as quickly as he could without it seeming odd.
He got out past the door, fighting to look calm and stoic. The moment he had turned the corner down into the hallway, however, he started awkwardly shuffling faster. After a few steps, confident that the High King and Queen couldn't hear him anymore, he took off into a full sprint, covering massive amounts of ground with each stride.
The panic that he had forced himself to swallow was resurfacing quickly, each step he took without spotting Kasios further affirming that the elderly man had made a hasty departure. Not breaking his stride, he removed a small tablet device from his waist and pulled it up in front of his face, not even caring how strange he must have looked to any palace worker he happened to pass.
After a few beats, he slowly went to a gradual halt, seeing exactly what he didn't want to see after pulling up the logs from the palace hangar. Kasios's private ship, The Solari, showed as having docked just over a minuta ago, then departing just a secunda ago. Clearly, the former High King was in a great hurry. And, unfortunately, Kunzite had a feeling he knew exactly why he might have been in that hurry.
Kunzite huffed a powerful breath out of his nostrils, wincing, quickly accepting that things had already gone beyond his capacity to control. He turned around, looking back down the large hallway he had just run down, fighting the urge to go back to his room and put some holes in the wall out of sheer frustration at the horrific timing of events. Useless an act it may have been, it seemed about as productive as anything else he could have done.
"
Kasios's head was throbbing as he guided The Solari down through the atmosphere of Mercury, descending rapidly towards his retirement manor down on the surface. He felt ill and queasy, and was so incredibly distracted right now he hadn't noticed the little autopilot indicator light down near the bottom of the center console, flashing, trying to get his attention. The Solari, being a state of the art space vessel, had the most advanced autopilot system in existence. In fact, the entire trip from the Earth Palace back to Mercury could have been accomplished with the push of a single button on the part of Kasios. The former High King knew this well, and had utilized the autopilot countless times in the past, but his brain was just too full of other thoughts right now.
He reached up to wipe the sweat from his forehead with the back of his right hand, just barely able to make out the navigation computer announce in a monotone voice that he was closing in on his manor's hangar. The ringing in his ears was almost enough to make it impossible for him to hear anything else. He glanced over to his right for a brief second, peeking over at the passenger seat, where he had placed the 'Tuxedo Mask' outfit, then looked back in front of him towards the expanse of ocean he was speeding across. The entrance to his manor's hangar was rapidly getting bigger as he closed in on it.
Unfortunately, Kasios didn't process the elementary connection between the quickly-shrinking distance between him and the hangar, and his need to slow his ship down. It wasn't until he was just a few hundred paces away that his survival instincts kicked in and got him to quickly yank back on the throttle. Anyone watching the ship's approach would have assumed it was either malfunctioning or the pilot was heavily inebriated.
Even worse, Kasios having to shift his focus to the ship's speed took his focus away from its orientation. It pitched down a bit, lurching towards the ground just as it was about to enter the concrete enclosure. The bottom side of the ship slammed down into the bottom lip of the entrance, with a mighty thud of groaning metal and cracking concrete.
Kasios would have flown right through the front windshield of his ship if he wasn't securely strapped in. Fortunately, that was something the ship did automatically on takeoff, or else he may very likely have forgotten that as well. The whiplash from impact, however, jerked his whole body around violently as the ship's forward momentum dragged it across the hangar floor.
Of course, none of this would have happened had the former High King engaged the auto-pilot, which never failed to produce a flawless docking process. A clear-minded Kasios would also have been more than capable of docking a Class-A starship. These facts occurred to the former royal as his head slammed into the headrest of the pilot seat, dazing and stunning him.
The ship did screech to a halt in the middle of the hangar before causing much more damage, but Kasios was rapidly losing consciousness, vision fading and blurring as alarms blared in his ears, a tiny trickle of blood running down the side of his face.
"
"I think he might have been drunk," Endymion said conversationally, stroking his chin as he looked over at his bedroom door. "What do you think?"
"Oh, who cares if he was," Serenity said, laying herself flat down on the bed, head on the pillow, undoing the tie around her waist for her bathrobe. "Trust me, alcohol helps tremendously when it comes to dealing with you."
"I'm not upset about it," Endymion said. "Just strange for him to be that rattled."
Endymion's communicator disc started to vibrate on the bed's end table, pausing the conversation. The High King got to his feet, meandering over towards the disc, making the mathematically-likely assumption that whatever the call was about, it wasn't worth running over.
Removing the earpiece off the side of the disc, Endymion slipped it into his ear and pushed his thumb down on the center button. "Endymion speaking," he said.
It took all of two beats for Endymion's face to shift heavily, skin pulling taut into a surprised frown.
"Excuse me?" He blinked rapidly. "When?"
Serenity detected his change in demeanor and sat up, propping herself up with her arms and looking over at her husband.
"What's his status?" Endymion asked, immediately starting to move towards the door. "I'm on my way."
He ripped the earpiece out of his ear as he ended the connection, pocketing both the earpiece and disc.
"What's the matter?" Serenity asked.
"Dad crashed his ship," he said, words laced with concern that he didn't even bother trying to hide.
"What?!" Serenity practically vaulted to her feet, coming only a few finger-lengths short of launching herself off the side of the large bed. "Is he okay?!"
"I'll find out," Endymion grunted as he ripped the door open, not taking so much as a beat to slow down and address Serenity's concerns.
"Wait!" Serenity cried, jumping off the mattress down to the floor. "Clothes!"
Endymion was just about to slam the door shut behind him, when his wife's single word suddenly pulled him out of his tunnel vision. His world expanded to encompass more things than just his father, and he looked down to see he was still in his bathrobe.
With an annoyed vocalization, he spun back around into his room, quickly ripping the robe off his body.
"
Kasios, after a couple minutas of fading in and out of consciousness as he had been pulled out of The Solari, placed on a wheeled gurney, and guided up to his manor's living room, finally started to get his mind straight. Alyx, Kasios's personal live-in physician, was leaning in close to Kasios's head, inspecting the wound that had developed when it had slammed against the headrest.
"Your Highness, can you hear me?" he asked, with the concerned and frantic tone of one who had been asking the question multiple times without a reply.
"Yeah, yeah, yes," Kasios replied, eyes fluttering around as he continued to work to try to get the blurriness out of his vision. "I can hear you."
"What do you remember?" he asked, pressing something cold up against the back of Kasios's head. "What's the last thing you remember?"
"Uh...you know...I kind of remember everything," Kasios said. "But...I don't know, I was in and out. The...the crash, the gurney, people...shit."
Alyx nodded. "That's good, Your Majesty." He started gently placing his fingers on Kasios's neck. "Let me check here. If you feel any sharp pains, say so."
Kasios winced down hard, prompting Alyx to quickly pull his hands away. "What?!" he asked.
"No, no, it...it wasn't anything you did," Kasios replied, shaking his head. "I'm, I'm fine, I was just...my neck is fine. I'm just trying to remember, uh...I was coming back from the Earth Palace."
"Right, right, um, the autopilot must have malfunctioned during the landing," Alyx muttered.
"No, no, I...I was doing it manually," Kasios said, the light flickering to life in his head at the mention of the word 'autopilot'. He immediately felt even stupider than he already did on realizing that this entire accident could have been avoided with a single press of a button.
"Why?" Alyx asked.
"Um...I...I don't know," he said. "I don't know."
"Alright, just...don't worry about it right now, just...seems like you're fine." He resumed running his fingers and prodding along Kasios's neck. "Physically, I mean." He reached down and gently pulled the top half of the gurney up so that Kasios was sitting up on a slight incline. "We'll discuss the details of the crash later."
"Uh, the ship...what's going on with the ship?" Kasios asked, suddenly remembering the bundle of evidence he had been hauling with him.
"It's fine, I think," Alyx responded clinically. "Not really my area of expertise, but it looked largely cosmetic. I'm sure some of the hull components will need to be replaced, but it's the last of our concerns right now."
Kasios immediately gave his personal doctor an alarmed look.
"Oh, uh...my apologies, Your Highness. I didn't mean...you're fine, I think. Just, we need to be sure." He leaned Kasios forward and started to run his hands down his spine. "Alright, let's get you looking as good as possible for your son."
Kasios suddenly sprung back into the reclined position, slamming his back against the gurney cushion, pinning Alyx's arms behind him. "What about?!" he asked immediately.
"Uh, Your Highness, please, no sudden movements right now!" Alyx said, yanking his hands out from behind the former royal. "Your son, the High King, he's on his way. We called him about the accident, he should be here in a couple secundas."
Kasios wasted no time in swinging himself off of the gurney, landing on his feet and immediately marching down the hallway out of his main living room. Alyx watched in shock for a beat or two before quickly giving pursuit.
"Your Highness, please!" he begged. "That's a very bad idea right now!"
"Hold on!" Kasios grunted. "Let me deal with this!"
"D-deal with what?!" Alyx asked. "Whatever it is, someone else can—"
"Stay. Here!" Kasios ordered, twisting around to look behind him. "I'll be back after I do what I need to do! Stay here, wait for me, I'm going to be fine. This isn't a debate!"
Alyx, despite clearly wanting very much to continue having the debate, fell silent and watched as Kasios marched down the hall. No matter how likely it was that the former High King would be fine walking around for a little bit, this was certainly not proper protocol, and Alyx didn't know how he would justify allowing his sole patient to so much as stand so soon after a significant crash. But, he had no choice, so he stood there.
Kasios made quick work of the distance between him and the hangar, taking long strides down the halls of his retirement manor, imagining that his son might be poking and prodding around in the hangar right now, checking out the damage on The Solari.
Steeling himself for the possibility of running into his son, he barged through the double-doors out into the small ship hangar. Despite his attempts to prepare himself mentally, he still stopped short and tensed up the moment he saw inside the garage.
Endymion was maybe a dozen paces away from the side of the crashed spaceship, his own personal space vessel parked off to the right side of the docking rack. Quickly, Kasios forced himself to move forward, determined to distract the High King from possibly checking inside the ship.
"Whoa whoa whoa!" Endymion said, turning to look at his father as he marched forward. "What are you doing?!" He advanced on his father, accomplishing Kasios's immediate goal of getting him away from his ship.
"I'm fine, fine!" Kasios yelled, gesticulating towards his son.
"Why are you up?!" Endymion asked, looking very alarmed. "Why did you get up?! You were in a crash, you shouldn't be walking around!" He pointed over his shoulder at the ship. "Remember, dad?! Remember?! You were in a crash!"
"D-don't talk to me like that, I remember, I remember everything," Kasios said, the two members of Earth royalty coming up right next to each other, Endymion glancing about, trying to size up his father. "I'm fine, I just...they told me you were almost here, I wanted to greet you." He forced himself to smile, as if everything was normal, as if he wasn't suddenly questioning everything about their relationship.
"You are not fine," Endymion insisted. "I was about to come to you. You should have just waited."
"Oh, it's nothing, nothing!" Kasios said. "Look at the ship, I knocked some paint off. Maybe redecorated a little inside. Trivial."
"Dad." Endymion pointed over his shoulder. "The hull cracked. It'll have to be replaced. You were moving fast when you crashed, this thing doesn't crack without some serious impact!"
"Oh, well...look, look at me, do I look okay? I do!" He pointed up at his own face. "I look fine, I am fine!"
Endymion sighed, shaking his head. "Look, uh...what happened? Do we have to sue StarMatic? That autopilot should be flawless."
"Oh, uh, no," Kasios said. "I...look, this is gonna sound weird, but—"
The doors into the ship hangar were suddenly thrown open, just as Kasios had done to them a moment before. The former and current High Kings of Earth both turned to see a tall, well-built man storm into the room.
"Your Highness, what are you doing?!" he demanded, hands out at his sides as he rounded on the two.
Kasios threw his right arm out towards his head of security. "I already heard it from Alyx and my son, I don't need to hear it from you, Mekti. Zip it."
Mekti stared at Kasios with the sort of incredulity that should have been reserved for things like the former High King suddenly sprouting a second head.
"Dad, were you not using autopilot?" Endymion asked, scratching the back of his head. "Did...did you try to dock manually?"
"Y-yes," Kasios said, trying very hard to sound casual, as if that might convince his son that what he did was normal. "Came in a little too steep, too fast, had to jerk things around to avoid a worse crash."
Mekti, who was just a few paces away now, looked mortified. "Why?!"
"Because, I...I felt like it," Kasios said lamely. "Wanted to practice." He shrugged. "Oops."
"Dad, do you...do you need a personal navigator? I can get you one, no problem," Endymion said, not at all buying what his father was trying to sell. "Just, I'll get someone with a lot of flight experience, you won't even have to sit in the pilot seat anymore."
"Don't you dare get me a 'personal navigator'," Kasios said strongly, pointing his right index finger into Endymion's chest. "I am not a ninety-year-old man, I can sit in a damn pilot seat and turn on an autopilot."
"Can you?" Endymion asked. "Because I'm not so sure now."
Kasios grunted, not even having to pretend to be annoyed now. A small part of him even forgot that he was quite possibly face-to-face with the biggest criminal in galactic history and the man he had been chasing for years. It was as if they were just a concerned son and a father denying his own mortality, for just a moment or two.
"Look, you wanna jump in your ship right now and cruise around?" Kasios asked, sweeping around his son and moving towards where The Bastion was parked. "Do I need to prove it?"
"No!" Endymion shuffled to get in front of his father, blocking him and pushing his palm up into his chest to get him to stop moving. "No, dad, it's...it's fine. Calm down, I'm just worried."
"Well, don't worry," Kasios said gruffly. "You're a busy man, you've got a Kingdom to run, you don't need to run over here like this because I got in a little scrape-up."
"It's not…" Endymion shook his head. "Okay, if I leave, you promise you'll go lay down and do what Alyx tells you to do?"
"Sure, sure, of course, but, really, I'm totally fine," Kasios insisted. "I'll go...I'll go see him right now, just...go on." He reached up and lightly smacked his son on the shoulder. "I'm fine. You can go."
Endymion hesitantly nodded. "Right." He turned to Mekti. "You got this?"
"Oh, uh, Your Highness." Mekti bowed towards the High King. "Sorry, I...distracted."
"I get it," Endymion said. "Alright, I'll get out of the way." He turned away and started heading towards The Bastion, glancing over his shoulder tentatively as he got further away from his father. "Be safe!"
"Oh, I...I won't be making this mistake again," Kasios said, waving towards his son. "Believe me, I...yeah, I've learned."
"It's the switch up on the right hand side, near the top," Endymion said, a hint of playfulness in his voice now. "Maybe get a big sticker next to it or something."
"Get out of here!" Kasios snapped, a little more irritated than he wanted to sound perhaps. As Endymion started to board his ship, Mekti huddled up right behind Kasios.
"Your Highness, let's go, we don't want this—" he started.
"Wait," he said under his breath. He watched Endymion like a hawk as he climbed the ramp into his ship. He did nothing else until he saw the ramp close up against the bottom side of the ship, only then willing to turn towards his head of security.
"There's classified materials inside my ship," he said quietly, trying to speak without moving his lips. "Agency business. I'm sure Endymion won't leave until he sees me go back inside, I'll come back for it, but nobody is allowed anywhere near this ship until I clear it. Got it?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," Mekti said quickly, just trying to get Kasios back into the care of Alyx as soon as possible. "Let's go."
Kasios swept around his head of security, marching past him and towards the doors back inside his manor. He resisted the urge to look as he heard the engines on Endymion's ship fire up, now occupying his mind with what his next moves would have to be.
"
"I'm being monitored constantly and routinely checked on by my personal physician," Kasios said, holding his communicator up towards his face, sitting on a stool in the middle of a dimmed room, a complex holographic display being projected up in front of him in midair of the solar system. "I'm fine, Grandmaster, thank you for the concern."
"Well, I'm just a little concerned. If you're not well enough to come into The Savery, maybe you should just take some time off. I'm sure we can keep things together for a few days," the Grandmaster said.
"No, no, absolutely not necessary. I feel fine, it's just a precautionary thing, me not leaving my home," Kasios insisted. "I can do everything at one hundred percent effectiveness and efficiency, I assure you. I just need to do it from here."
Grandmaster Orion was silent for a couple beats. "W-well, okay. Uh, ship crashes are no joke. If you need to take some time, all you have to do is ask." He paused. "So, um, here's the thing. In order for you to work effectively, you're going to need to be given access to a lot of data."
"Right, right, I was hoping you could open up a connection to my computer here," Kasios said.
"It's just, it's a lot of highly classified information. The kind of information we typically don't let outside the wall of The Savery for any reason," Orion said. "If there's anyone in this organization that I trust, it's you. But really, if anyone else gets a look at anything from our system, it can be a problem."
"Grandmaster, I'm retired!" Kasios said. "I practically live by myself, nobody's going to see anything, you have my word!"
"Alright," Orion replied. "I'll open up a connection between our system and yours. But the sooner I can close it, the better I'll feel, so get back in the office as soon as your doctor clears it."
"Oh, believe me, I can't wait to get back," Kasios answered. His eyes wandered over to the right, slowly focusing in on a pile of clothes he had stacked up on the table. "Contact me whenever you need to." He lowered the disc to his side and severed the call, sliding to his feet and taking the pair of steps he needed to get up next to the garment collection.
Slowly, he reached forward and grabbed the rim of the top hat, lifting it up and flipping it upside down, peering down into the lining. He wasn't sure what he was looking for as he brought it closer to his face, but he felt obligated to look for something. It was the best lead he had on the Tuxedo Mask case since the agency had first laid their hands on a sample of the ultra-pure imperium, after all.
"
Endymion reclined back on the tan-colored chaise, a serene expression on his face that spoke to the massive load that had recently been taken off of his shoulders.
"You know, now that we're here, this is actually kind of nice," Endymion admitted, leaning back and looking up towards Kunzite standing a couple steps away. The two young men were out on the balcony just outside Endymion's room. "If I hadn't decided to step away, we'd be in that laboratory right now, working."
"I had a feeling you'd be happier once we were actually out," Kunzite said. "I spoke to our former business partners."
"Good news?" Endymion asked hopefully.
"Mars wanted me to pass along a message," Kunzite said. "He said thank you for all the money, and he appreciates you bringing him into the business. No hard feelings. And he assured me that he'd be keeping quiet about our partnership for the remainder of his life."
"What about Seiya and his boys?" Endymion asked.
"Thrilled," Kunzite answered. "We came to an agreement that both of us were satisfied with. We're about to have more gold than we're going to know what to do with."
"Oh, I have a few ideas," Endymion said slyly.
The balcony door opened, Serenity walking out as she was putting her right hairball up. "Mom just called," she said, walking over towards her husband, wearing nothing but a white silk dress. "Your dad's not going to make it to dinner tonight."
Endymion couldn't help but notice Kunzite's disposition making an immediate and obvious turn south the moment Serenity mentioned Endymion's father. "What's the matter?" he asked, eyes on Kunzite as he asked Serenity for further information.
"Oh, she said he's just not feeling well," Serenity answered. "Mom said she could come though she assumed you wouldn't mind."
"Oh, no, that would just be unacceptable," Endymion said dryly. "She, uh, didn't say that my father was on death's door, did she?"
Serenity's face crinkled, looking over at her husband. "Why are you joking about something like that?"
"I'm not, I'm trying to put Kunzite's mind at ease," Endymion said, watching his general startle at the mention of his name. "He seems to be under the impression that my father's barely clinging on to life, based on the look on his face."
"Oh, uh, sorry, Your Majesty," Kunzite said quickly. "Uh...just, it's not good, being...not feeling well." He internally winced at how awkward that sentence had come out.
"It...happens," Endymion said. "Don't let it bother you too much. Things are going incredibly well right now, Kunzite, it'd be a sad waste to spend a second of your time on being upset about anything right now." He put his hands up behind his head. "I think he's embarrassed, honestly. That crash in his hangar, wounded pride. You should have seen how he reacted when I went to check on him. He'll get over it. Can't lie about being sick forever."
"U-uh, yes," Kunzite said, nodding. "So, our tracks have been completely covered. The only thing left is the remaining supply of raw imperium."
"And to figure out what to do with all this money," Endymion muttered under his breath. "Start probing around on Venus, they have to be thinking about cashing out. We might have to outbid Mercury, the sooner we start collecting information the better."
Kunzite nodded. "Um, Your Highness, just to loop back on your father really quick, you haven't...spoken to him since the crash, then?"
"Not a word," Endymion said, glancing over at Serenity as she sat down on the chaise next to him. "Like I said. Embarrassed. I can tell when he doesn't want to see me or talk to me. It'll pass."
"Mm," Kunzite grunted. "That's all I have, Your Majesty."
Endymion languidly waved his right hand towards the balcony door. "Dismissed. Remember, Venus! Opportunities like this only come around once every few centuries."
Kunzite stalked away from his charge, towards the door, smile fading the moment he was out of the High King's field of vision.
"
"I don't mean to sound like I'm trying to rush you back, or trying to get you to put your own health in jeopardy," Grandmaster Orion's voice filled the dimmed room. "I'm just wondering, when can we expect to see you again on The Savery? Again, it's a bit of a security risk, allowing our private data to be accessed from the outside."
"I assure you, Grandmaster, I'm being extremely cautious with all data." Kasios was sitting next to a large, silver microscope up on his desk, eye up against the lens, focus split evenly between the conversation with the Grandmaster of the agency and the greatly magnified object in the microscope. "I'm sure I'll be back into The Savery shortly."
"The accident was over twenty days ago, and it's my understanding there wasn't any major damage, is that still true?" Orion asked.
Kasios pushed a button right beneath the lens, a gentle whirring from the machine accompanied by the object he was examining being moved slightly. "Yes, I wouldn't be working if there was actually something severely wrong with my health."
"Right, well...I have to be honest, Kasios. I'm a little unclear on what you've been doing since you started working from home," Orion admitted. "Obviously, what you're capable of doing is somewhat limited if you can't leave your home, but we've seen a notable decrease in black market imperium busts over the last fortnight, which is when you started working from home."
"I understand that, Grandmaster," Kasios said, nose wrinkling in annoyance as his attempts to parse some relevant data from what he was looking at through the microscope were consistently failing. Each angle he viewed the object from looked no more different or interesting than any other. "I...I'm not getting fired, am I?"
Orion chuckled. "Of course not! I'm not...I'm not accusing you of anything, of course. You're the last person I'd accuse of not doing your job. But it's been a very, very long time since we had a real lead in the, uh...Tuxedo Mask case. I have to believe that the piece of evidence that could break this case wide open exists out there somewhere, we just need to find it. And the sooner we find it, the sooner we can stop looking incompetent."
"I'll be...I'll be back on The Savery soon, Grandmaster," Kasios said, distracted, pulling his right eye away from the microscope in annoyance. "Believe me, I want to be there."
"Alright, um, good enough for me," Orion replied. "Call in to the meeting later." The connection was severed with a click.
Kasios grumbled, looking over to the right of the microscope setup at a large sheet of paper lying on the table. The artist's rendition of 'Tuxedo Mask' from years ago, back when this seemed like an amusing novelty of a case. A man wearing a top hat and masquerade ball mask. There was so little else you could say about the basic sketch of a man's face, that to say that it could have been High King Endymion really wasn't saying that much. It could have been just about any normal looking male, including himself.
With a sigh, he reached down below the microscope and opened a drawer, pulling it out. One of the black dress shoes that Kasios had taken from Endymion's closet twenty days ago was inside, having been the object under the microscope's examination a moment ago. He picked it up, looking down at it in his hand, scowling.
He had been spending most of his time ever since his discovery of the outfit closely examining every single piece of it, trying to find something he could use. His eyes hurt from looking at black fabric for minutas on end, and his brain was sore from trying to think of nes ways it could be investigated. He had put it under intense ultraviolet light, had it tested for traces of various substances, put every single thread under a microscope, and every other thing that the former royal could think of that might give him something he could actually work with. But, the longer he spent checking it, the more it became clear that he wouldn't be convincing anyone of anything with it. And, loathe he was to admit it, the outfit and the artist's rendition was all he had.
He slammed his palm down on the desk next to the sketch, a loud thud and a sharp pain in his hand the only rewards he got for it.
"
"Third straight," Endymion said under his breath, looking down at the carpet beneath his feet from his seat on the right edge of his bed.
"What's that?" Serenity asked, sounding half-asleep, curled up on the other side of the bed from Endymion. The master bedroom was heavily dimmed, the sun having gone down a few minutas ago and the royal couple preparing to go to sleep.
"Third straight," Endymion repeated, twisting around to look at his wife. "Dad, that's the third straight dinner he's canceled."
"You said it yourself," she said slowly, rolling over on her back, facing the other way now, towards the large part of the massive room. "He's embarrassed."
"Long time to be embarrassed," Endymion said, scratching the side of his face. "He grew so close to Chibiusa, now that she's living here you'd think he'd want to come visit just for that."
"If only there was a way to easily contact him," Serenity said, sounding rather disinterested in the conversation. "Like, a tool you could use that you carry around wherever you go that makes it possible to talk to him from anywhere in the galaxy."
"Sarcasm doesn't suit you, you know," Endymion said.
"I could have sworn a lot of things didn't suit you a few years ago," Serenity replied quickly. "Didn't work out well for me. Speaking of which, did you burn that awful outfit?"
"Huh?" Endymion twisted back around to look at his wife. "What are you talking about?"
She reached her right arm up to point her thumb back towards the walk-in closet door across the room. "I noticed earlier today, that stupid Tuxedo Mask getup isn't there anymore. You got rid of it, right?"
"Uh…" Endymion blinked rapidly a couple times before nodding dimly. "Y-yes, yeah, yeah."
Fortunately, Serenity was in no state to pick up on how oddly Endymion was acting and had no reason to not take him on his word. "I just meant, you had it destroyed, hopefully. You wouldn't want someone finding it and having it lead back to you."
"Uh...huh." Endymion got to his feet. "Right you are!" He quickly circled around the bed. "Absolutely correct!"
"What are you doing?" Serenity picked her head up a bit to look at Endymion as he moved to the other side of the bed.
"Oh, uh, you just reminded me, and...I want to go make sure I got all of it," Endymion said, nervously shifting his weight back and forth. "The outfit, I mean. You know, check to make sure I didn't miss a, a cufflink or something. Just double-checking!"
Serenity's head fell back onto her pillow, too tired to pursue how strange her husband was acting right now. Endymion took the opportunity to hustle across the significant expanse of carpet, over to his giant closet, mind racing already even without visual confirmation. Things rapidly started adding up in his head. The ship accident, Kasios's erratic behavior, not visiting for nearly a cycle…
He quickly slipped through the closet door, then stalked all the way back into the rear-end of the massive chamber of clothes, making his way past rows and rows of expensive, fancy garments, getting to the back rows just a little shy of the shelves loaded with accessories. Sure enough, one of the frames close to the right-side wall, unlike every other frame in the room, was empty. The High King, mouth hanging open slightly, staggered over to the metallic clothes hanger, as if a closer examination might reveal that the outfit was hiding behind it.
He grabbed it, moving it slightly to the side, glancing down to the floor, but there was nothing. He took a few moments to search his memory and see if he could recall moving the Tuxedo Mask clothes somewhere else. Quickly, however, he abandoned the thought, sure that he would have had no trouble remembering doing something that significant. The set of garments had become rather important and symbolic to him over the years, after all.
With a rattled sigh, he reached up to scratch the back of his head, trying not to let panic consume him even as the only logical conclusion was coming into focus for him. With a tremendous push of willpower, he fought back the wave of uneasy nausea, using the empty outfit frame to steady himself a bit. Taking in a deep breath, he forced himself to head off towards the closet door, back out into his room. Even if there was no way he'd be able to sleep right now with all the pinpricks he was feeling in his stomach, he'd at least lay there restlessly until the morning.
"
"Good morning, Mekti," Endymion said, trying to sound conversational and casual. "How's my father?" Endymion leaned forward a bit at the center control console of The Bastion, observing the clear blue expanse of ocean water beneath his ship as it zipped through Mercury's atmosphere.
"O-oh, uh...is he not answering calls, Your Majesty?" Mekti asked, his voice crystal-clear through the audio connection emitting from the console in front of the High King.
"Well, no, I...I'm actually headed to the manor right now. I wanted to see him in person. Haven't spoken to him since the accident, I think he might be, uh...how do I put this? Avoiding me out of some sense of embarrassment? So I thought I'd drop by." Endymion absentmindedly played with one of his cufflinks.
"Oh! Oh, alright, Your Majesty, sounds like a good idea to me! Um, just...just put a call in to the hangar controller before you get here, they'll certainly approve your entrance," Mekti said. "Yes, Kasios is most certainly here, and he's awake, I think he'll be happy to see you!"
"Well, actually Mekti, I was sort of hoping it could be a surprise," Endymion replied, carefully considering his tone and words to not give away any hint of a possible ulterior motive. "If I call into the controller, I'm sure my father will be notified before I get there. I called you first, because...well, not that it's a big deal or anything. I would just prefer that he didn't know until I was there. So, any way we can arrange for that?"
"C-certainly, Your Highness!" Mekti agreed. "Uh, sure, I'll handle it personally! Just meet me in the hangar and I'll escort you to Kasios, and it'll be a surprise! I think he'll like that, he's been extremely busy lately, something like this might help."
Endymion nodded. "See you there, Mekti. Thank you for your help."
"Not at all, Your Highness," Mekti said. "It's a great honor!"
Endymion killed the connection with a press of his right index finger, leaning back in the pilot seat as the auto-pilot functions continued to push his ship towards the beach property where Kasios had constructed his retirement manor. His face changed so fast it was as if he had put on a mask, becoming stony and hardened as he considered exactly what he would say, and how he would say it, knowing that it was possible his life hung in the balance.
"
Kasios nearly fell off the stool on the abrasive sound of loud knocking coming from the door to his dimmed office chamber, steadying himself at the last second by grabbing the edge of his desk. Frowning with annoyance, he looked over towards the office door.
"Your Highness, come here please!" The former High King recognized the voice of his head of security.
"I don't recall lifting my order that I'm not to be disturbed when I'm in here," Kasios said loudly, getting to his feet, debating on whether or not he wanted to go to the door or simply demand privacy through it. "I'm busy, Mekti. If the manor isn't on fire, I'm sure it can wait until dinner."
"Your Highness, please, this is quite important, you're going to want to see this!" Mekti insisted. Kasios was visibly surprised to hear his head of security not immediately drop the matter, and his curiosity almost overtook his annoyance.
"W-what, you're doing surprises now?" Kasios lumbered over towards the office door, quickly glancing around to make sure nothing confidential was out in a way that it could easily be spotted from the doorway. "If this is some sort of surprise birthday party, you're three cycles early, you know."
He twisted the doorknob open and pulled it in, giving an unamused look out into the comparatively-brighter hallway, expecting to see Mekti holding a tablet or some other object of note.
"AH!" he shouted, jumping back a good step and a half, unable to hold back on his snap reaction on seeing his son, in casual royal regalia, standing over the right shoulder of Mekti. He could feel every hair on his body stand at attention the moment he saw Endymion, a cold chill sweeping through his body.
The easy, amicable smiles on the faces of Endymion and Mekti quickly melted into befuddled expressions.
"Uh...dad?" Endymion's face contorted cartoonishly. "Are you okay?"
"Your Highness?" Mekti followed up, waiting for the man he had sworn to protect to stop looking as if he had just seen a ghost.
"I, uh, uh," Kasios babbled, giving his head a vigorous shake. "Yeah, yeah! You, uh, you surprised me, is all."
"Uh huh," Endymion said. "Thought I'd stop by, see how you're doing. Didn't expect my mere presence would give you a heart attack."
"No, no! I'm fine!" Kasios said. "Just, a little startled."
Endymion shrugged. "If you say so." He took a step into the office chamber, prompting Kasios to quickly run up to him and put his forearm against his chest.
"Uh, son, uh...look, I've got some...sensitive materials in this room, confidential stuff," Kasios said quickly, pressing back against Endymion.
"Dad, are you...serious right now?" Endymion asked, sliding to his right a little bit to maneuver around. Kasios shuffled over to keep in front of him.
"Y-yes, uh...it's not that I don't trust you or anything, just...nobody except me is supposed to be in here until I clear it of all confidential materials, it's a matter of security!" Kasios insisted.
Endymion gave his father a reproachful look. "Then I won't look at anything, just...calm down. We're both on the same side, aren't we?" He gently nudged Kasios over, edging around his father into the room, glancing around. "A little dark in here, is this because of the accident?"
"Uh…" Kasios looked to his right, his head of security still standing there at the threshold of the door, unable to hide his bewilderment at this strange interaction. "G-go on, dismissed, get out of here," he ordered.
"Y-yes," Mekti said, turning to the left and running off, clearly able to pick up on the context clues that Kasios wanted this meeting to be private.
"Son, son," Kasios said, going up behind the High King and grabbing his left shoulder. "Really, I promised the Grandmaster I'd keep people away from all information collected from the agency while I was working from here."
Endymion gave a sharp, sour-sounding laugh, turning to look at his father. "Dad, what's gotten into you?" He shrugged. "You think I'll turn you in? Get you in trouble? It's just you and me here. We're family. Doesn't that count for something?"
Kasios blinked a couple times, resisting the temptation to scowl. Finally, he relented. "W-what do you want?"
Endymion scoffed. "I haven't seen you in almost a cycle. You haven't even called. I thought maybe the crash gave you amnesia and you forgot you had a son. I wanted to check in."
"Oh, well...you could have called," Kasios said, purposefully not looking anywhere in the room other than right at Endymion, knowing that if he glanced elsewhere he'd just draw Endymion's attention to something that he didn't want the High King to see.
"Maybe," Endymion admitted. "But I really wanted to make sure you were alright with my own eyes, in person. And I have to say, the jury is still out on that. You're acting very strangely."
"Oh, oh, I'm...I'm really working hard lately," Kasios said, dismissively gesturing with his hands. "Sorry, I'm not myself right now, it's just work stuff. The-the accident kind of put me on edge, working from home changed things, I've just really been...throwing myself into agency stuff recently. Really busy."
"Your grand-daughter misses you," Endymion brought up conversationally. "I understand you're busy, but surely an occasional dinner together is worth it just for her."
"Oh, oh, yeah, I miss her too," Kasios said hurriedly. "I'll be getting back to those dinners soon, I'm sure. Just...give me some time."
Endymion nodded. "So, want to go out into the lounge room, get a drink?" He pointed his thumb over his shoulder. "Seems like you don't want me in here, let's go out there."
"Ah, actually...that thing I said about being busy, still applies, I, uh, I don't think so," Kasios shook his head. "Sorry, uh, son, I don't want to be rude, and I know you came all this way, but you really should have called ahead. I-If you don't have...something specific, y-you should...probably just head on back."
Endymion gave a tiny sigh. "Right. Okay. You're catching the bad guys?"
"Oh yes, definitely," Kasios said with a stilted chuckle. "Like you wouldn't believe."
"Well, as long as I'm here, I did actually have something I was wondering about," Endymion said after a moment's pause.
Kasios's eyes were darting back and forth between Endymion and the door, as if he was trying to will his son to turn around and leave with micro-gestures. "S-sure, go ahead. As long as it's quick."
"I won't be long," Endymion assured him, sounding perhaps a little sardonic. "Something of mine went missing recently. I was wondering if you might know anything about it?"
Kasios chuckled awkwardly. "W-what, someone...stole something from you?"
"Maybe," Endymion said. "One of my outfits went missing from my closet. The garment frame is still there, so I'm sure I didn't imagine it or mis-count. Did you take anything from my closet in the last few cycles, by any chance?"
Kasios looked like he had locked up for a moment or two, as if he had completely frozen, but before it became too obvious he put up a veneer of dismissiveness. "W-why would I take anything from your closet? Uh, it's probably a maid or a servant, sometimes you end up hiring one with sticky fingers. Happened to me once or twice."
"No, I don't think so," Endymion said, a barely-detectable change in his voice tenor managing to suck much of the casual atmosphere out of the room. "I have clothes in that closet that's studded with diamonds, some of the accessories are worth five figures alone. The outfit that disappeared was one of the least valuable things in that entire closet, actually. It wouldn't make any sense to steal that one and nothing else."
"W-well, I'm stumped then," Kasios said. "W-we don't even wear the same size," he added with a chuckle. "But, yeah, I haven't been anywhere near your closet in some time, sorry."
"It was a tuxedo," Endymion continued, breaking eye contact with his father and casting a brief look around the counter space inside the office.
"Okayokay, w-whatever it was, it wasn't me!" Kasios said, panicking a bit as Endymion started to probe the contents of the room with his eyes, pulling his attention back towards himself. "Look, son, j-just get another one made, okay?! It's not a big deal, you have a live-in tailor, just get a new one!"
"Hm," Endymion grunted, refocusing his vision over to his right, having glimpsed a curious collection of objects piled up on one of the countertops. "Black, white undershirt, had a cape. And a top hat."
Kasios glanced over to where Endymion was looking, feeling the bile rising in his throat, panic reaching a fever pitch as he realized what he had spotted. "Son, son, I really—"
"Almost three finger-lengths tall," Endymion continued, turning away from his father and going over to the black hat he had spotted on the counter against the southern wall. "And, uh, it came with a white masquerade mask, just covers the area around the eyes."
Kasios took a step towards where his son was headed, intending to jump in front of him and try to block his path. However, almost immediately, he realized that the gesture would be pointless at best, and counterproductive at the worst. At once, the building panic inside Kasios faded, knowing that the pretense had already fallen. In a way, it was almost calming, knowing that the time for pretending had passed.
"Looked sort of like this one," Endymion said, plucking the hat up from the counter, holding the rim between his fingers and spinning it about. "Just like this one, actually." He blinked a few times, waiting for his father to give a reply, but was given nothing but silence. "In fact, dad, I have to say, I'm quite sure this is the one that was taken from me." He pursed his lips, glancing down at the garments that were messily stacked beneath where the hat had been resting. "Curious, yes, this...I believe this is it. Tuxedo, undershirt, cape, pants…" He poked and prodded through the clothes pile, briefly investigating each item. "Now that's curious. What use would you have for any of this? We're not even the same size, like you said."
The High King finally got a response out of his father in the form of a dulled thud and click. Endymion looked over to his right just in time to see his father shut the office door and lock it. Gone was the scared look of panic, replaced a determined scowl. He didn't let his gaze drop from Endymion as he secured the door's lock, giving it a quick tug to make sure.
"Dad?" Endymion said, tilting his head. "Dad, you alright?"
Kasios marched over the short distance between he and Endymion, footsteps made silent by the carpet beneath his feet, his stare trained directly on Endymion's face the entire time.
"Something the matter?" Endymion asked. "You don't look happy right now." He dropped the top hat back to the counter, turning to directly face his father.
Kasios stopped right in front of his son, still seemingly trying to bore a hole in his skull with the power of his stare, refusing to say or do anything that might qualify as a response to Endymion's inquiries.
"I don't like it when you're not happy, you know," Endymion said.
Endymion didn't know what he expected to happen, but as Kasios brought his right fist up in a blur, driving it right into the left side of his head in a blistering sucker punch, it was safe to say he hadn't quite expected that. The High King was sent sprawling to the floor, staggering back before tumbling over, just missing grabbing the edge of the counter to keep himself upright. The force of the blow sent a clear and sharp pain through his skull.
Before Endymion could get back up, Kasios stepped forward, towering over him, and reached down to grab him by the collar and turn him over. Dragging him back to his feet, Kasios roughly pushed his son into the nearby wall.
"YOU!" he snarled. "YOU!"
"Dad! Dad, Gods!" Endymion gasped out, reaching up and grabbing Kasios's wrists, trying to rip them off of his collar. "What in the—"
"All this time, all these years, it's been right in front of me!" Kasios continued, each exclamation accompanied by another push back into the office wall. Endymion, while tall and physically fit, was noticeably thinner and more slight of stature than Kasios, so the older man was able to manhandle his son with his strength, particularly with the added benefit of adrenaline.
"Dad, I don't know what the hell you're getting at, but—"
"Tuxedo Mask," Kasios said through gritted teeth. "This whole time, operating out of the god damn Palace!" He leaned in closer to Endymion's face, the High King panting and looking quite cowed as Kasios continued to firmly press him against the wall. "That bullshit 'vacation' you went on with Kunzite? What were you doing? Making deals with distributors?!"
"Dad, dad, dad, stop!" Endymion pleaded, finally managing to get Kasios to relax his grip on his shirt collar enough for him to at least stand on his own. "Dad, you need to think about what you're saying!"
"Kronos? He wasn't teaching you shit, you were...you were working together!" Kasios continued, sweat dripping from his nose and running down his face. "You spent a god damn year pumping imperium into the biggest smuggler in galactic history! Serenity's suicide? Getting Chibiusa moved here? It was all to get her away from YOU!"
"Dad, come on!" Endymion insisted, putting his arms inbetween Kasios's and pushing them outward, trying to get him to let go. "Get off!"
"All that time you spent on those idiotic 'space yachts'? What were those?! Your labs?! You meet with distributors on that thing?! You had those four girls in prison killed to protect your ass!" Kasios practically looked demonic as he ran off the long list of accusations. "Sorry sack of SHIT!" He roughly slammed Endymion back into the wall one last time before backing off a half-step and letting him go.
Endymion, wincing, gingerly straightened himself up, putting an open palm up towards his father. "Dad—"
"Don't dad me, you son of a bitch!" Kasios snapped.
Endymion sighed. "...Kasios. I don't know where any of this came from. But you need some time away from your work, these things you're saying are absolutely insane!"
"If it takes the rest of my life, I'm putting you in a cell on The Savery for this," Kasios hissed. "This whole galaxy is going to know about what you've done."
"Kasios, stop!" Endymion said. "Kasios, listen to yourself! The Earth Kingdom has been in our family for a millennium! What you're talking about, the things you're saying, do you know what happens to all that if you go through with this?!"
"You think I give a shit about that?!" Kasios sneered, nostrils flaring.
"You should!" Endymion spat back. "A former High King accusing his son and heir of...of all these absurd things, think about how that looks! We'll be a laughingstock, you'll be a laughingstock! You don't want that, that's how you'll be remembered!"
"I'll be remembered as the man who took down the biggest scumbag the galaxy has ever seen," Kasios seethed.
Endymion winced, then gave a tiny nod. "And then what? What happens then? Think it through! The agency seizes the Kingdom, they'll put some puppet in control of it, a thousand years of our family's rule is OVER if you do that! Are you really willing to throw all that away?" He raised his eyebrows expressively at Kasios. "Please. Think this through."
Kasios sighed, body visibly heaving as he did so. "I'd rather see the Earth in a trillion little pieces, before I'd see it under the rule of someone who does what you do," he countered.
Endymion just stood there, silent, before settling on his next words, putting a tremendous amount of thought into them. "Kasios. Nobody. Not a single person in this galaxy is going to believe any of this. You have to understand that, right?"
Endymion thought that he maybe saw his father's simmering rage come down a notch as the two men continued their hushed conversation.
"You must understand it. That's why you're here, by yourself, playing with my clothes in the dark." Endymion nodded. "I'm the High King. Maybe the most powerful man in the solar system. My reputation is sterling in every Kingdom. Every single person who knows the first thing about me, knows me to be a mild-mannered intellectual. You make these accusations against me anywhere in this galaxy, you get laughed out of the room."
Kasios just stared Endymion down, still scowling deeply, gritting his teeth down hard.
"The agency won't go after someone like me. Not without a mountain of clear evidence. Evidence that doesn't exist." He jerked his head towards the ceiling. "You try to even suggest any of this to the High Council, you'll be removed from your position before the end of the day." He heaved a sigh. "You know what I'm saying is the truth. You can't win. And whatever you think about me, whatever...crazy things you've convinced yourself I've done, you're my father, and I care about you."
He gave a pleading look to his father, drawing on every bit of familial emotion that existed in the bond between the two of them.
"So I don't want to see you waste the rest of your life on this." He put his right hand out to the side. "I understand. You've been chasing this person for years. You're sick of not getting anywhere close to him, maybe a little desperate. So you latch onto a couple of...coincidental fragments, and you convince yourself of all this insanity, just so you can finally believe you're on his tail. But the best thing for you, and for everyone, would be to forget about all of this." He slowly brought his right hand down, in a calming gesture. "Whatever it was that made you think that I was...even capable of any of this. Pretend you never saw it. And move on." He gestured with his left hand towards his father. "You've got a long life ahead of you. Don't waste it chasing around something that you'll never catch. Please."
Kasios had no immediate answer for his son's plea, just staring him down, gradually managing to bring his violent heaving breaths down to something that wasn't approaching hyperventilation.
"You got your communicator?" Kasios asked sternly.
Endymion nodded wordlessly.
"Right now, you call Serenity," he ordered, voice low and gravelly. "You call her, right now, you tell her to come here. Tell her to get her things, tell her to bring Chibiusa. She lives here now. Once she's here, we'll figure this out."
The moment Kasios said his wife's name, Endymion's expression hardened. As if a boy had become a man right in front of Kasios's eyes. Gone was the wide-eyed appeals to emotion. With an expulsion of breath, Endymion steadied himself. "Not a chance," he said aggressively.
Kasios, for the first time since locking the office door, was off the attack. Shaken by Endymion's sudden transformation, he was now taken by sheer incredulity, looking at the man his son had become. Any doubts that Kasios might have had were banished. Not with evidence, not with a confession, but with a facial expression. And the anger temporarily subsided, replaced by hurt.
"Gods," Kasios said in barely a whisper. "I was the first thing you saw when you came into this world. I raised you. Taught you everything I could about how to rule. How to be a man. And I don't know who you are." The former High King's mouth hung open slightly in disbelief.
Endymion's nostrils flared, sensing some weakness now. "Then, for your own sake, Kasios. If you truly think that I'm this man you've conjured up in your head. And if you think I've done all these things. Then I suggest you tread lightly."
The two men, father and son, just stood there, staring each other down, each of them trying to figure out where they could possibly go from here. The entire universe seemed to condense down to a small square box a few paces in size, just the two of them, every other issue and concern in existence not existing.
"
A/N: HAD to use my favorite scene from the entire series.
Again, sorry this took so long, life has been kicking my ass lately. Probably will accelerate things going forward, but at this point it's tough to assume much of anything.