Authors notes: Kia ora! Just a quick note to say…well. Chapter four. Things are moving on, aren't they? Once again things are quite chit-chatty in this chapter as I finish the set-up and really launch into things. I wanted to do some serious editing to this chapter when I wrote it, to be honest, but it just didn't quite work. I couldn't bear to cut any of it out.
At any rate – if you're out there and reading…thank you so much for coming along for the ride. I'd love to hear from you, too – what works and what doesn't is something that's always good for me to know. Personally I'm not sure how my characterisations of Usagi, Rei and Kunzite are working out, but then I can't help but think – they've got a lot of time to prove themselves yet.
In the meantime, I'll just let Zoisite snark his way through another chapter.
None of these characters or situations belong to me. I'm just playing, after all.
"I have found a replacement for that worthless weasel."
"Replacement?" Though Kunzite was neither in the habit of displaying surprise nor of challenging his queen, the ensuing words slipped out as carelessly as one of Zoisite's characteristic smirks. "But there's no-one--"
"Question me again," Beryl said idly, fingertips moving the sharp nails gently over the shimmering surface of her globe, "and I'll find you much less…fulfilling tasks to attend to."
There was nothing to say to this and thus Kunzite remained silent, though he had a fair idea she was bluffing. In the end he was all that she had left, besides her legions of near-brainless youma. To their limited credit, some of them actually could think their ways out of the proverbial paper bag, but plenty of them could just as easily spend eternity in one.
It appeared that Beryl had convinced herself that she did have another commanding officer besides Kunzite, as she announced: "I have to prepare the replacement myself and it will take time." Elegantly she shifted her body in her throne, the movement as sinuous as that of a serpent. "In the interim, you'll just have to pick up where your protégé so thoughtfully left off. The fool ran with the kurozuishou so you'll just have to make up for it. I am modifying another crystal, though it was always Nephrite who was the artisan there."
With the ensuing disgusted flick of one of Beryl's hands, a nearby youma found itself abruptly lacking its left arm; she paid it no heed as it started screaming in agony. Kunzite himself did not twitch at the brief spectacle; it bled itself out before long, or at least it stopped screaming. Beryl's habit of mindlessly killing youma was just another part of life in the Dark Kingdom, especially when someone had irritated her as much as Zoisite had.
Beryl looked down at her nails, tapped them thoughtfully upon the sphere that could concentrate so much of her spirit and energy. "Another lovely situation fostered upon us by the mind of an ignorant child," she mused, and her frown deepened.
Biting his tongue kept Kunzite from saying something he already knew he would regret.
Looking up quite suddenly, Beryl gave him a smile that might have been made her extraordinarily beautiful, if not for the dark aura that so constantly surrounded her. "I'm sure you can improvise until then. For now I need to have you concentrating upon more worthy matters, but watch the Senshi. I doubt the little girls can find the nijizuishou on their own, but I do not like Sailor Moon wielding the dead Queen's moon-stick."
The way her lips and tongue distorted the reference to the former Queen of the Moon belied her great disgust at having to speak of the deceased silver lady. Now was certainly no time to annoy Beryl further, though perhaps the twitching form of the armless youma on the floor might have pointed out that that was obvious earlier, if it still had any life left to do so. With this firmly in mind, Kunzite said humbly only this: "Of course, my Queen."
"Of course," she echoed, looking decidedly irritated, perhaps because Kunzite was giving her no reason to actually take out her frustration on him. "I am relying on you to find the next nijizuishou, Kunzite – failure is certainly not an option."
It's not an option, Queen Beryl – it's a strong possibility. Kunzite was however the most tactful and diplomatic of all the shitennou, so of course his words were far more sensible than that. Still he did have to wonder what was making him say them given he knew what kind of mood she was in right at this moment. "I must inform that I don't feel it possible to locate the carriers so easily. It is logical to be able to sense them when they are in close proximity, but widen the range and the likelihood of this decreases exponentially."
Beryl snorted, less annoyed than he had thought she should be. "Take it now if you must, fool," and a crystal somewhat similar to Zoisite's emerged from the ball with deceptive ease. "The range of it is nothing like its predecessor, meaning you will have to descend to earth to actually use it, but it seems to me that the carriers are indeed concentrated entirely in Tokyo."
"That really narrows the field indeed." And the words were spoken without thought, with enough bitterness that for a moment Kunzite was not even aware that he had spoken them himself. It was, in fact, as if Zoisite was standing beside him and muttering a snide commentary as had been his occasional, nearly suicidal habit.
The irony of this was apparently not lost on the Queen as she launched into a brief closing tirade. "Sometimes I wonder if you picked up the habit of smart-mouthing me from that idiot protégé of yours. If you did, it is indeed unfortunate. I no longer wish to hear him mentioned in my presence, unless he is being hauled in for my judgement. Dismissed."
Kunzite looked momentarily like he wished to complain, but schooled his features in obedience. "Of course, my Queen." He bowed his head, and vanished in a brief glow of blue light.
The wave of one long, pale arm dismissed the gathered youma from the throne room; not even the carcass of the dead youma remained, as it had been borne away by its neighbours. There was no comradeship in the gesture, however. It was likely as not that the youma would be ending the day on someone else's dinner plate. This fact was of no consequence to the Queen of the realm, as Beryl turned her attention to the task before her. Spells were complicated things to weave, and even more complicated to unravel…if, of course, one wanted the one bound to resume his former existence.
And yes, Beryl certainly wanted him back in one useful piece. Like the others, he had belonged to her…and even in her direst fits of displeasure, Beryl knew that they would always be a necessary part of what she had yet to accomplish.
Besides, they were hers now – and as far as she was concerned, they always would be.
Mamoru's apartment had some interesting décor now that Ami and Zoisite had spent the morning taping up small pieces of cardboard and putting them over the gaping holes in the glass. What had surprised Ami the most about the little task, however, was not that Zoisite had helped her without complaint, but that he had suggested doing it in the first place.
She had to wonder what had brought on his good mood. In theory it could at least be partly because Mamoru had locked himself away in his room to work on some of his university studies, which had obviously been rather rudely interrupted by the addition of a sudden house guest. Still, when he had found that Ami was taking the day off school to act as his baby-sitter rather than Mako or Rei, he had seemed rather pleased about it.
Really, it was probably better just not to think about it.
Sitting back on her slippered heels, Ami admired the neat patchwork of glass and cardboard they had made of Mamoru's poor windows. "I guess that's something."
"I don't think it takes anything away from the ambience it had before, certainly," Zoisite remarked rather wryly, tugging absently on the end of his long braid. "Less draughty, mind you. It'll do."
Ami nodded, looking away from the thoughtful face of Zoisite. If someone had told her last week that she'd be skipping school to fix Chiba Mamoru's windows with the man who had tried to enslave Urawa, she would had asked her mother to refer them to a good psychiatrist. Then again, her life had become increasingly odd since the day she went to cram school an ordinary girl, and came out a sailor fuku-clad heroine.
"Yen for your thoughts?"
"Huh?" Ami nearly squeaked, caught out by the smooth question of the man sprawled gracefully beside her.
"Never mind. I don't think they're worth that much." One elegant hand barely covered his mouth as he yawned massively. After indulging in a long stretch that was oddly feline in its execution, Zoisite then looked longingly back to his disarrayed futon. "What I wouldn't give to go back to sleep."
"Why don't you?" Ami asked sensibly, gathering up the last of the cardboard and the masking tape. "I'm just going to go back to the homework I was doing before you woke up, anyway. I'll be quiet. I'll even close the curtains and work in the corner, if you like."
Zoisite propped his chin up on one tight fist and gave her a searching look that made her swallow uncomfortably, and concentrate a little too hard on a task that really didn't require much thought. Besides, she had picked up all the tape and cardboard already. "You're really too nice, you know that?"
Pushing herself to her feet with one hand, the other clutching her things to her small breasts, Ami found she couldn't look at the former shitennou. "I just…like to make things work," she murmured, taking the things back to the cupboard she had found them in earlier.
"Yes. I sort of guessed that." The way in which he watched her, as if when he looked he looked right through her, made Ami uncomfortable. Even the sound of his voice, deeply thoughtful now, made her feel like he not only knew everything about her, but that she wanted him to know all of it. "I used to know someone a little like you – so ordered and calm and sensible. Not as nice, though."
Ami closed the cupboard quietly, finally looked around at him from where she knelt across the room. "Was he a friend of yours?" she asked softly, meeting his eyes for a fleeting moment.
"No. No, not a friend." Looking away, he seemed as far away as the ends of the world as he gazed out across the late autumn sun hovering in the smog above the bustling city.
A sharp pain made her look down at her hands; she was surprised to see that she was holding them so tightly that her short nails were biting into her skin. Any attempt to relax them only made them tremble. With a sigh, she looked back up at the Zoisite caught adrift in his confused memories, and gingerly changed the subject. "…would you like something to eat before you go back to sleep? Some breakfast, maybe?"
"Too nice," he repeated while still watching the dirtied sky, and then shook his head. His eyes were as clear as the sky was not when he looked over at her, the colour of Chinese jade. "I'm not going to go back to sleep after all. I think maybe I'll read for a while." Having said this, he elegantly pushed himself to his bare feet and padded over to Mamoru's insanely packed bookshelf.
Ami watched him select a heavy text, looked across at her own scattered notes. "…can I ask you to help me with something?"
"Your homework?" he asked, indicating what she had been working on before he had woken up, what she was looking at now. "Oh, I don't know. They could construe that as cheating, and while I personally think cheating's all well and good when you need to get ahead in life, I know your type don't tend to swallow that one too well."
Why did she always want to smile when he said such things, even when she wasn't entirely sure that he was joking? "No, I meant…the nijizuishou."
At least he was to the point, his answer as fast and sharp as the snap of a whip. "Nope." After a pause to reflect on what he had said and the startled look on Ami's pale face, he did at least add: "Sorry."
"But—" she said weakly.
"Drop it."
"Okay." Her voice was very small as she drooped her head, quietly moved over to her collection of books. Zoisite watched her, wondering for a moment why he cared that she looked so miserable at being rejected so completely and so quickly. Only twenty seconds of this passed before he spoke again; he always had been an impulsive creature.
"Ami-san?"
"Yes?"
Those blue eyes, calm now, seemed to stare right through him. They were like…too much like…and then nothing like his eyes at all. "Too nice," he finally repeated, but didn't say anything more. With hands that trembled just barely enough to be noticeable he returned to the thick textbook on genetic engineering he had taken from Mamoru's extremely overstocked bookshelf.
Mystified and flushing slightly, Ami returned to her work on complex equations involving imaginary numbers, even though her mind couldn't quite let go of the thought that she should be using the well of knowledge she had before her to work out how to locate the next nijizuishou carrier. Still, she was fairly clear on one thing – Zoisite might tend to be slightly more polite with her than the others, but she was not the kind of person who would be able to force him into doing anything.
No. That was better left to people like "Endymion-sama."
In the end she didn't bother pressing it even when Mamoru came back in, having used his time away from the pair in the living room to organise his troubled schedule and study. Setting aside her books, Ami offered to make him something before he had to go to the university to do some on-campus work he could not avoid; Zoisite barely looked up when she asked him if he wanted anything. A non-committal "Mmm" seemed to be the best thing she could get out of him when he was so embroiled in a world made up of four base pairs, some sugar and a bit of phosphate.
When lunch was presented Zoisite only picked at his, eating perhaps two or three forkfuls of the sweet pancakes Ami had so thoughtfully made. Mamoru was the complete opposite, demolishing her fare with a gusto that made her blink; the only thing that allowed it to make sense was the way he kept checking his watch throughout the whole operation. When he had at last set down his utensils and thanked Ami for the meal, he then set about issuing a solid warning.
"Don't you dare lay one finger on her, Zoisite. I won't be far away, and I'll be back here in a flash if you try anything." Mamoru shrugged into his jacket by the door, toeing off his slippers as he did so. "I can sense when any of the Senshi are in trouble, not just Sailor Moon, all right?"
Zoisite snorted, brushing out his long hair where he sat cross-legged on one of the couches. "Now why would I want to hurt Ami-san? She's about the only one who had managed to be civil to me for more than ten seconds running."
Mamoru paused, and dropped his voice further. The low tone of it combined with the serious slash of blue in his face that were his eyes emphasised his gravity. "I'm warning you – hurt her, and you'll regret it for a very long time indeed."
"I wouldn't harm a hair of the head of any of your little harem girls," Zoisite returned almost kindly, blinking innocently at his host across the room. With an exasperated sigh, Mamoru leaned down to finish tugging on his shoes, and combed his fingers through his hair one last time. Ami had to admit that it hadn't helped – he still looked distinctly harassed.
Picking up his case, Mamoru made as if to leave without saying anything more – it seemed that temptation was too strong. He tossed back over his shoulder: "And try to make yourself useful, would you?"
"What would you like me to do, Endymion-sama?" asked Zoisite in a tone of complete boredom, having by now turned the television on. Thankfully it was still on mute. "Clean the kitchen floor with a toothbrush?"
"It'd be a start, I suppose."
The reply was as innocent as his big green eyes. "But yours is the only toothbrush in the house."
"Oh, forget it."
Ami watched Mamoru slam out of the apartment, winced. A quick glance over at the house-guest assured her that Zoisite was undisturbed by the exchange, channel-surfing in silence with the mute button still on. She wondered why she wasn't more nervous about being left alone with him, given that she was the least martially-inclined of her sister Senshi, but…
…like I told Mamoru-san…I just don't think he'd hurt me.
The television flicked off, catching her attention; a look up showed her that Zoisite was tossing the remote aside and tugging his knees up thoughtfully beneath his chin. Though he did not look in the mood for a conversation – in fact he looked rather pensive – Ami's tongue got away from her.
"I'm not a harem girl, you know." Even though she was startled to have found herself saying such a thing, Ami did try to hide it. The distant impression she got from Zoisite, however, was that he could see right through her.
"Of course you're not. You're a little too smart for that." Giving her an appraising look from the couch, Zoisite tossed his loose hair and smiled in a manner than would have been called snide if it hadn't been as amiable as it was. "Of course, though, in some cultures the only way a woman could have opportunity to use her brains as you do was by becoming a courtesan."
"I'm not one of those, either," she said, surprising herself with the firmness of her voice. She did lose that a moment later when curiosity took over as the dominant emotion. "But I didn't realise you knew any Terran history."
"You'd probably be surprised," he observed, cocking his head in a rather judgmental fashion. A deep blush was creeping up the back of her neck when he remarked rather offhandedly: "You'd make a rather pretty geisha, though."
"Can we stop this conversation?" she asked in a voice barely kept level.
"Perhaps," he said, stretching out his long legs again. "If you'll admit that I'd actually be a far prettier geisha than you."
Ami couldn't help but laugh, though she personally thought it sounded a little hysterical. "What?"
"Say it."
"You'd be a much prettier geisha than me." Shaking her head, Ami looked back down at her work like it was all written in ancient Greek. "You're a little odd, Zoisite-san."
"The wonders of a moon-stick, I suppose."
Ami eventually managed to school her attention into returning to her homework, but Zoisite seemed very quickly bored by this. Within minutes he was prowling impatiently around the room; when she finally looked up he was picking at the roses in a vase on a small table and scattering the petals across the floor.
"Zoisite-san, is something bothering you?"
"You know, I really need some clean clothes," he said, by now picking at the shirt that was definitely beginning to look a little worse for wear. "I'm sure I must have several closets full of clothes – if you people would let me go home."
Ami's pen slowed a moment, but she forced it to pick up its former pace again. "I don't think it's such a good idea."
"So what am I supposed to do? Wear the same thing for three days running? No offence, Ami-san, but even someone like you should realise that that is fashion suicide."
The pen halted at this, and she cursed her pale skin as it started to flush again; this time it was genuine embarrassment. "I'm not really into clothes."
"Really?" Zoisite asked, irony rich in his voice. "I had no idea."
Though she doubted the words were intentionally cruel, Ami couldn't help but feel the bite of them. Gnawing her lip, she said in a very light tone, one she hoped would not break: "…couldn't you like…borrow something from Mamoru-san, maybe?"
"Oh, Ami-san," and held his head in his left hand like it hurt him deeply. "And you've seen that terrible green jacket he left the house wearing."
"What?"
"Let's just say that Endymion-sama would probably benefit from fashion tips from a blind man," came the tired reply, Zoisite once again pacing the floor like a caged panther.
Ami continued looking at the mess of symbols before her that was her homework, and tried to settle herself down a little. "Well, I can't take you home by myself. We'll have to wait for someone else to turn up."
"With bated breath," he said dryly, and threw himself back into a couch with a theatrical sigh. "I suppose we could always go back to your homework."
She didn't know what made her say it, given she was already feeling the stress of Zoisite's irritation crawling under her skin. But she did say it. "Or maybe you could help me with the nijizuishou."
Staring at the ceiling, his reply was fortunately half-bored rather than irritated. "I've already told you, I doubt I'd be any help to you." Even though he had sounded dismissive then, he suddenly looked across at her, hard. "Can I ask you something?"
Meeting his eyes at that moment was rather easier than she thought it should have been. "Will you ask me no matter what I say?"
Zoisite laughed at this, long and hard. Ami thought she might have joined in, if she hadn't been so damned surprised by how lovely his laugh really was. "You see, this is why I think I like you. Unlike the other Senshi and Endymion-sama, you actually listen to what I say." Ignored her rising blush – a blush that was rising for reasons totally different to the ones before – Zoisite continued. "You're right, I'd ask you no matter what you told me to do either way."
"So why ask?"
"I was always told that if I couldn't actually be polite, at least I could pretend to be. Can't say it's a piece of advice I've always followed, but you know. The influence of some teachers is the kind you never forget."
Zoisite was referring to something that went further than what he was allowing her to know, but it was easy enough to pick up on the fact that he would not let her go any deeper, not now. Ami was left only with the real option of saying: "So what would you like to ask me?"
Returning to the conversation with a blink, he said: "If you hate me for what I tried to do to that friend of yours."
"…you mean…Urawa-kun?"
"Was that his name? I don't think I remember." The words were offhand and something about the way they were said made Ami strongly doubt their validity. "It's just this, Ami-san – of all the Senshi I've met thus far, I'm perhaps most intrigued by you. Don't ask me why, I most likely wouldn't tell you even if I knew. It is just that I refuse to make 'friends' with a girl when she might be inclined to stick a knife in my back the second I present it to her." A smile crossed his features then, a very beautiful one that might have been comforting if not for the accompanying words. "You see, that's my job, and my job alone."
"I don't think I hate you," she replied all the same, meeting his eyes evenly.
"You don't think so?"
The scrutiny of his gaze made her want to turn away, but she fought it, kept to his strong gaze. "I've…never really thought about it. I mean, sure, you made me angry, but…I mean, you were just following orders, right?"
An amused expression curved his full lips into a smile that was deeply sarcastic. "It was just fortunate that I found the orders rather fun. I might not have followed them otherwise."
"Are you trying to make me hate you?" she asked quietly. It could have been entirely the wrong question, but the way that Zoisite's smile lightened seemed to suggest that it had indeed been the right one after all.
"Blunt. I like that. It seems that only the really smart ones figure out that that's the way to deal with me. Congratulations, Ami-san." With that he yawned, took a long sip from the tall glass of water he had earlier set upon the coffee table. "So you don't hate me, right?"
"No."
"Good to know. Can't say I hate you, either. I think even when I was filled with Metallia's little evils I didn't hate you all that much. You didn't tend to piss me off as much as Sailor Moon did." After a second, he raised one finger to his lips, and smirked broadly. "Oh, excuse my language, won't you?"
"No. I won't."
A snort of laughter was his first response to the prim refusal. "You'll have to. Can't help it, I'm afraid…but I'm glad to know we won't fall out at some future date because I tried to turn your little boyfriend into a youma." He paused there, and then added curiously: "He was your boyfriend, right?"
This blush immediately coloured what felt like her entire sheath of skin deep scarlet. "No!"
Her embarrassment barely seemed to register with him as he fingered his chin and gave her an appraising look. "Hmm. Pity. Everyone should have a boyfriend, after all."
"Everyone?" she squeaked, for even in her mortification she found his wording peculiar.
"Oh, yes," he confirmed, taking another long sip of his iced water.
"Even you?" she couldn't help but add.
"Especially me," he said with relish, finishing the glass of water. "And Ami-san, you do realise that you're vibrating, don't you?"
Stumped for a moment, Ami stared dumbly at him…until she realised that he wasn't speaking utter nonsense after all. "Oh! I linked Mamoru-san's phone to my computer…he's just txting me to ask if you've killed me yet," she explained as she took out the small blue gadget and flipped up the screen.
Zoisite rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "Can I txt him back and tell him that I have?"
"No."
Casting his eyes over at her now, he had to snort. "No wonder they say you're no fun."
"Who says I'm no fun?" Ami asked idly as she tapped away at a reply to the actual question, which hadn't been as politely phrased as she'd indicated.
"They do. And They know a lot. What does else Endymion-sama say, anything else I need to worry my pretty little head about?"
"He'll be home in a couple of hours."
"Great. I'll set up a trip wire across the front door, shall I?"
Ami hit the key to send the reply, looked up at Zoisite with a strange glint in her eyes. "You really are very strange."
"Hey. You want help with that chemistry homework or not?"
"I don't really need it," she admitted with a grin that she couldn't actually manage to hide. Zoisite, fortunately, didn't appear to care.
"No. I don't suppose you do."
Cautiously she couldn't help but add: "But I do need help with the nijizuishou."
For a moment she thought she'd gone too far – the dark-blond man looked for a very real moment like he was about to explode. Slowly the tension left his long body however, and he spoke easily and calmly. "Look, let's just leave it until Endymion-sama gets back, all right?"
Given that almost-display of his still nasty temper, this was perfectly fine with Ami all of a sudden.
It was ninety minutes before Mamoru returned; about five minutes after he entered the apartment Rei called from her school on her communicator, interrupting the argument that had started between the two men. "I said I'd met the others at the shrine, so we I could do a reading," she explained as girls visibly milled behind her, ready to leave the school for the day. She gave Mamoru a hard look, adding: "You should come to the shrine."
"I think you should all let me go home," Zoisite announced from behind Mamoru, earning a sweatdrop from Ami and a sceptical look from Rei. "I mean, come on? These clothes? They were fine the first day I wore them, but this is just getting stupid."
"Not until we work out what is going on here," Mamoru said firmly.
Rei couldn't help but add her two cents. "Besides, you really want to go home? What will you do if they find you?"
Zoisite opened his mouth, then shut it quite suddenly. "Fine. I'll stay."
"Fast agreement," Mamoru observed with a raised eyebrow.
"You want me to disagree?" Zoisite asked politely, but the edge to the words suggested a verbal joust sounded like a good bit of fun to him right about then.
"You like to argue, don't you?"
"All part of my charm."
This had Mamoru rolling his eyes skyward, certainly. "Somewhat dubious charm, perhaps."
"I want to stay, all right? Does that satisfy you?"
"Guess it will just have to," Rei pointed out, itching to get back to the point of this particular conversation. "So drop it already."
The light tone of Zoisite's reply was deceptive, especially given the way his fingers were clenching into fists at his sides. "You're really bossy, aren't you?"
Mamoru decided to take control of the situation at last. "Look, Rei-san. You meet the others at the shrine. We three have got some stuff to talk about; maybe we'll meet you over there later, all right?"
"What stuff?" It seemed that Rei couldn't help but always act a little bit suspicious; rather than being irritated by it, Mamoru actually found it somewhat refreshing. Even though all the girls were only fourteen years old, he couldn't help but think sometimes that their general naiveté would one day get them into a fair amount of trouble.
"It's about the nijizuishou," Ami elaborated for him.
Rei looked like she wanted to know more, but she quickly accepted that getting into a technical discussion where Ami was involved could be extremely hazardous to one's academic health. "All right, then. We'll just see you later." Her bright young face disappeared from Ami's screen, that returning to the files associated with the detection of the remaining nijizuishou.
Mamoru braced himself to return to the battlefield, knowing that he had to take this particular bull by the horns if he actually wanted to get anything useful out of it. "Right. Back to your powers, Zoisite."
Zoisite blew out an exasperated breath, already back in form for the battle. "I don't have any powers, Endymion-sama," he repeated, his expression showing he was extremely annoyed at having to repeat this fact seemingly every five minutes.
"But you must have," Mamoru persisted, showing his own stubborn streak. "I mean, normal human or not, you were shitennou…and obviously something more than that, if you actually knew me as a prince. Surely if we can be normal and…super, you can too."
"Your logic is impeccable." His voice was as dry voice as autumn leaves and about as inclined to be useful.
Impatient now, Mamoru snapped back: "Zoisite, just shut up and do something."
The sneer that crossed his face was dark, and made Ami recoil. It was far too reminiscent of the Zoisite they had originally known, though Mamoru seemed to frustrated to actually notice. "That a direct order, Endymion-sama?"
"Will it make you do it?" he asked in a cool voice that was totally at odds to the fire snapping in his eyes.
"Yes," Zoisite muttered quite suddenly, looking away. "Damn this stupid compulsion to listen to every word you say!"
For a moment the poor stuck-in-the-middle Senshi could only look between the two men, who by now were not looking at each other. Fortifying herself with a deep breath, she made to enter as a conciliator and hoped she wasn't blundering too badly by doing so. "I agree with Mamoru-san," she pointed out, wincing a she waited for the glare from Zoisite that never came. "Logically, if you knew the prince personally back then…and Luna says it's likely that we all lived back then, once…surely you have some power."
Inclining his head, Zoisite gave Ami an approving smile that made Mamoru look faintly ill. "See? Logic works better than bitching at me. Thank-you, Ami-san."
Ami blushed faintly and ducked her eyes; Zoisite's charm was not to be denied, no matter how much Mamoru liked to pretend it did not exist.
"But what do you expect me to do? I'm not Senshi like you, which makes me wonder how much power I could possibly have. For all I know, I turned because I wanted it." He paused to consider this, and then added in a shrewd tone: "It's not like I'm going to try to yelling whatever you girls yell before you transform or anything. Besides, you wouldn't even catch me dead in one of those Sailor fuku of yours."
"Oh, they're not so bad," Ami said half-thoughtfully, now tapping away at her computer.
"You're telling me," muttered Mamoru, though the Look that Zoisite and Ami both gave him assured him they'd both heard what he had just said to himself. Smartly he coughed and ducked his head, quickly changing the subject. "Do you have the kurozuishou? Maybe—"
"There's no way any of you could use it," Zoisite interrupted sharply as he pre-empted Mamoru's direction of conversation. "You're all too damned pure."
"Like you?"
"I'm not pure," he said in disgust, "but I'm not dark, either. Like most people I'm now somewhere in between."
Rolling his eyes, Mamoru found it upon himself to point something out to Zoisite. "I didn't mean use it, anyway. I wanted to know if Ami-san could analyse it. She mentioned that the moon-stick has a capability of reacting to the nijizuishou when close by, but not at any distance…perhaps she could analyse your kurozuishou and cross-reference information to make a programme of her own, one with a much wider scope."
"Good plan," he replied easily, "with just one flaw."
"Flaw?" asked Ami as she raised her eyes to look at him in confusion.
Zoisite produced the crystal with all the flourish of a career magician, facial expression as deeply awry as the state of the kurozuishou. "It's kind of a shirozuishou now."
Ami stared at the white crystal with her mouth wide open; it was several seconds before she thought to raise a hand to cover it. "…what did you do to it?"
"I rather imagine the moon-stick is responsible for this one – or the one wielding it, at least." A twist of his wrist revealed the colour was consistent across the entire object; it shone silver, white, transparent, opaque…not a sliver of black remained. "All that positive energy must have wiped it clean, like dragging a duster impregnated with acid across a chalk board."
"So it's broken?" Mamoru asked, almost dumbly.
"I'd assume so," Zoisite replied ironically, obviously just avoiding tacking genius! on the end of that particular sentence.
"But you don't have any power," he shot back quite sharply, seeming to regain rapidly his aplomb. "How would you know?"
Zoisite flicked the shirozuishou to the so-called prince, who almost fumbled the unexpected gift. "Then you do it."
"…I don't know how," he said, raising it to the light in wonder.
"Welcome to my world, Endymion-sama."
Mamoru tossed the crystal back, and Zoisite caught it with far more skill than he had just done. "Just help Ami-san, would you?"
"No." His voice and expression would not have been out of place on a petulant two year old, and it was that observation that had Mamoru's temper rising again quite sharply.
Through teeth gritted, he said slowly and near-calmly: "I told you to do something, and I want you to do it."
The smile he got in return was beatific but mocking all the same. "Good for you."
"Zoisite—"
Even though all signs up until that point were suggesting that the former prince was to be the first to lose his temper again, it was the volatile shitennou who exploded. He leapt to his feet quite suddenly, blood suffusing his face as the reins holding in his ill-humour abruptly snapped. "I don't have to do anything you tell me to!" he all but screamed at the seated Mamoru. Eyes flashing deep jade, he shouted in a voice that could bring down mountains: "You have no power over me!"
"Don't I?" Mamoru asked, the calm he displayed under this fire while Ami shrank away deeply regal and oddly comforting. "I mean, you are the one who suggested that I do—"
"You don't." Shaking like a leaf in a gale, Zoisite looked like he was about to fly apart at every moment – and that was indeed shrapnel that no sane person would want to be struck down by. "You don't."
With that, Zoisite ran out of the room to the balcony, slamming the sliding door behind him so hard that it cracked.
Ami belatedly realised how badly she was shaking herself when she tried to stand and found that her knees were completely incapable of supporting her slight weight. "Mamoru-san—"
The apparent prince, however, was far more calm than the little Senshi could ever hope to be. "It's all right, Ami-san," he said in a low voice that held the distance of entire ages long since past. "I'll deal with him."
When Mamoru entered the balcony – sensibly deciding to avoid for now the issue of another broken pane of glass – he found that Zoisite was sitting on the balcony again; he was up on the thin ledge with his long legs curled up so that he could rest the pointed chin of his pensive face upon them. In the sharp afternoon light he looked shockingly young, and it occurred to Mamoru that he truly had no idea how old Zoisite really was.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked, the question coming to his mind from seemingly no-where.
If the look on Zoisite's face was anything to judge by, he found the question as patently odd as did Mamoru himself. "Personal question, isn't it?" The disdain in his voice was nearly as tangible as the ledge of the balcony itself.
"You just didn't look like yourself."
Zoisite looked away, voice even more bitter and disgusted – if that were actually possible. "You don't know anything about what I should look like."
"Maybe I should."
It seemed that in a state like this, anything could set the former shitennou off again. That particular remark incited him to storm right back inside, voice raised in fury. "Just shut up already!"
Mamoru stalked after him, his own temper beginning to flare. "Do you really think that's any way to speak to a prince?"
Zoisite whirled around, one hand catching the glass on the coffee table and sending it flying. Ami winced at the sound of breaking glass, closing her eyes against the display but not her ears. "I don't care if you're Lawrence of bloody Arabia! Leave me the hell alone!"
Bringing a hard fist down upon the mantel, Mamoru all but bellowed: "Listen to me!"
Entirely unimpressed by this display of frustrated anger, Zoisite simply screamed back: "Fuck you, Endymion-sama. Just fuck you!"
The words hung in the air like rain frozen in time; they all but echoed in the ensuring silence. The only sound that entered the quiet was the heavy breathing of himself, the shitennou…and what sounded like the withheld tears of a Senshi. Seeking to bring his temper back under some control, Mamoru looked at the small ball that was the Senshi of Mercury upon his couch and sighed. His anger was already seeping out of him like sand through a sieve, but the sight of the shell-shocked Ami-san only made the sand fall faster. "…you're upsetting Ami-san," he said finally, directly the words at Zoisite and wondering why he was bothering.
The words made Ami blush deeply despite the still-obvious fear in her every cautious movement as she sat up straighter in the chair. Mamoru did have to admit he didn't blame her for being overwhelmed by the sudden explosive argument; had he not been caught up in the fury of it he probably would have retreated himself. "I…I…"
Mamoru's observation actually seemed to do some good, however; Zoisite lowered his own voice even though fury still animated his every move, made his eyes shine like dark mirrors. "She doesn't want to get involved, Endymion-sama. Leave her out of it."
"Chivalrous, aren't you?" he asked with a snort that explained explicitly exactly how he viewed the idea of Zoisite as anybody's knight in shining armour.
"Would have thought that was more your domain than mine, but then I guess you never can tell," he remarked coldly, and then crossed his arms over his chest. "Just leave her out of it, would you?"
And silence reigned again while prince and shitennou engaged in a stare-off that would had made anyone's blood run cold.
"Zoisite-san?" The name was spoken in a small voice, but a strong one. Ami was nobody's fool, and even though she knew setting Zoisite off again would be far from her best idea to date, she was perfectly aware that letting this go on would only make the situation much worse.
Oddly Zoisite stopped looking at Mamoru like he wished to use him in chemical weapon experimentation; he unclenched his fists, took a deep breath, even managed a small tight smile. "Yes, Ami-san?"
"Can you help me please?" Her voice was softening even as it gathered more strength. The strength of Mercury, after all, lay in her power to bring calm to any troubled water, to build bridges that would withstand any storm. "I mean…even if you don't have any power, surely you know something about this."
The reply was without words, was only the expelling of a long breath. Ami was convinced he was not going to co-operate when he abruptly flopped down on the couch beside her and pulled the hand holding the computer around so that he could see the screen. "Mineralogy was only vaguely my speciality," he explained nearly mutinously. "I know some geology, a fair amount of inorganic chemistry, and then a lot of organic…or at least my Terran identity does. Things worked a little bit differently in the Dark Kingdom." Pushing his long bangs out of his eyes, he gave Ami a pessimistic look that made her feel monumentally stupid – a state entirely unfamiliar to the clever girl. "I'm not sure I could ever translate that to you, when you don't know anything about black sorcery."
Swallowing back her hurt, Ami found that her words could still be strong if she forced them to be. "We could try. I'm quick, and I like to learn."
Zoisite's face twisted, and then cleared quite abruptly. "Then we'll try it."
"Co-operative all of a sudden, aren't you?" asked Mamoru in a low voice, crossing his arms as he leaned back against the wall. Watching the two together on the couch made him uneasy, even after Zoisite had apparently decided to let his temper cool back into a more normal state.
Both face and voice were deceptively sweet as he looked up at Mamoru. "Would you prefer me being argumentative and obstructive?"
"It would feel a little more familiar."
"But things are different, aren't they? I thought we agreed I was going to help you find your princess, and you were going to stop the Dark Kingdom from finding me."
Mamoru's voice was low, his words probing and flat. "But you want something more than that."
Zoisite's lips tightened. "Leave it."
"You do?" Ami asked in surprise, looking between the two engaged in the silent stand-off with curious bewilderment. "What is it?"
Turning to Ami with a tight smile, Zoisite said very nearly gently: "I said leave it."
"But if we can help you—"
"I told you to leave it." Ignoring the cool shock on Ami's face, he took the computer from her. "So tell me, how does this piece of junk work?"
"So can we really trust him?"
Rei crossed her legs, frowned as she turned away from the fire to her waiting friends. "The fire says it…he…" A shake of her head indicated her annoyance at her inability to clearly express what she wanted to say. "You cleansed him, Usagi. Removed all the negative feelings that were eating him away inside."
Mako raised an eyebrow, half-amused and half-sceptical. "You sure? He's still got a bit of an attitude, if you ask me…or ask Mamoru-san's windows, for that matter."
"I think that's just the way he is." The dismissal might have rankled at Mako if Rei hadn't been uncharacteristically gentle about it. "But he's not what he was. That's obvious enough."
Luna's question was sensible, low. "Could he go back to being what he was?"
"I don't think so. Nothing's certain, but…I just doubt it." Sometimes it really frustrated her, when she was unable to communicate to her fellow Senshi the deep trust she had for what the fire could tell her.
Usagi played with a strand of her hair, chewing on her lower lip in lieu of having any real food to distract herself with. "So he's a good guy, just like that?"
"Not that easy, I think. But he's about as normal as he'll ever get. Your healing wasn't really complete, you know. If it had been, he wouldn't have all these screwed up memories of the Silver Millennium, or even of being Zoisite."
Usagi thought about this, unable to take offence at the words because Rei meant no real offence by them – she was only stating a simple fact. "Like the carriers just…go back to being normal?" she thought aloud, looking to both Rei and Luna for validation.
"Yes. But I don't think that you had enough power to do that to Zoisite."
"So what if it wasn't enough to wipe away all the negative stuff inside of him? Surely there's something left…"
Luna's words were strong. "Fighting any demon takes time. The internal ones are the worst. All we can do is keep an eye on him."
"Maybe it's not even worth it, you know?" That was Mako, the tall girl stretching out her long legs before her on the wooden floors of the shrine building. "I mean, what if he doesn't know how to find the crystals anymore?"
"I think there's still something in him that he can use, if he ever really tried to find it." Rei said softly.
"Power?" Her voice was doubtful as Luna tried to seek a better definition of what Rei was purposely leaving unspoken.
"He has some, I think," and the dark-haired miko stood up to stretch her cramped muscles. "But I wouldn't know for sure unless I brought him here. Which I've been telling you to do from the beginning."
"But he really is okay?" Usagi stressed, not even managing to look embarrassed when her stomach started to rumble like a untimely volcano.
Ignoring this – they'd already had an afternoon snack – Rei nodded. "Yeah. Though something is bothering him."
"Bothering him?" Usagi looked dumbfounded. It was certainly not an unheard of expression for her heart-shaped face to sport like it was this season's hottest fashion. "Like what?"
Wincing, Rei began to comb her fingers through her long hair. In all actuality she had been dreading the turn of the conversation in this direction, because she knew that she was never going to be able to accurately explain her feelings upon it. "You can see he's on edge," she began, wondering if she in fact could.
"If I were him, I'd be freaked out about being found by Beryl, too." Curling up her legs beneath her, Mako shrugged at the looks the others gave her. "Wouldn't you be?"
"That's not it," and then Rei shook her head at her own words as she corrected her own mistake. "At least, it's not all of it. He is worried about being found, but there's something weird about it."
"In what way weird?"
"I think…" How to express it? She could clearly remember how it felt herself, but…what the fire had murmured had been a hard pill to take. The emotions that had washed over her, seared at her every nerve ending and knocking painfully against her heart…they had been deep, personal feelings. Her understanding of the fire readings meant she knew why it was so hard for her to evaluate the mirrored feelings it had displayed to her – she had simply never felt emotions this intensely, or in such a contradictory fashion. There had been fulfilment and loss, fear and love, warmth and cold, contentment and frustration…opposites warring with one another to make up the troubled mind of a trouble man.
"There's something that makes him want to go back," Rei voiced slowly, "but I don't think it's a desire to be what he was."
Usagi looked away, moved beyond words by the strength of the expression in Rei's dark violet eyes. "Maybe he left a girlfriend behind, or something," she murmured, her heart skipping slightly as she all but read Rei's mind.
Silence rocked the room a moment – and then Mako burst into explosive laughter. "Man, I wonder what kind of girlfriend a guy like that would have…he'd probably be prettier than she was!"
"Maybe." Rei took no offence at Mako's reaction, but she did not join in; after all she didn't want to admit it, but Usagi's sudden words were rather on-track indeed.
Something was indeed a little amiss in the universe when Tsukino Usagi was right, and straight off the bat to boot.
"We should probably go back over there, or something," Rei continued in a low voice, already fishing out her little red communicator. "Ami will be wondering where we are." A few presses of the appropriate buttons, and the blue-haired Senshi popped up on the little screen; Rei was unable to give a greeting before a bubbling Usagi beat her to it.
"Ami-chan!"
"Hi, Usagi-chan," Ami said with a small smile which vanished with her next words. "Listen, is Luna there?"
The little cat leapt up onto Rei's shoulder, peered down at the communicator. "Yes."
"I need to discuss some things with you. Can I come over?"
Interrupting the cat-genius conversation, Rei couldn't help but say sharply: "Didn't you guys say you were all going to come by here?"
"Um…Zoisite's not in the best of moods," Ami said, looking back at the room behind her before returning to face them with a wry grin and a lowered voice. "Mamoru-san doesn't think we should risk taking him out anywhere."
The voice in the background was crystal clear to everyone involved in the conversation. "It would be nice if you could talk about me behind my back when I'm OUT of earshot, Ami-san. Boy oh boy, do we have to work on your sneaky and conniving side."
"And you'd know all about that, wouldn't you." Mamoru was also out of the shot, but his voice was just as clear as Zoisite's.
"Always better to be taught by a master than a novice, Endymion-sama."
Moving away from the bickering pair, Ami was obviously smiling but still looking a tad harassed by having to "live" with the two men thrown together by unfortunate circumstance. "I think it'd be better if one of you took my place for a while, and then we can work things out from there. But it's really important I see you now, Luna."
"All right," the cat said, taking charge. "I'll send one of the girls back over," and nodded at Rei to shut off the communications link.
With the push of one finger, Rei did so; she then turned her face around slightly to give Luna a slightly dark look. "We should really bring him here."
Shaking her head, the little cat hopped down from her shoulder. "Like you said, Rei-chan, these things take time."
"Yeah." Rei arched an eyebrow as she tucked the little scarlet gadget away in one of her large sleeves. "Did I also forget to say that who knows how much time we actually have?"
Finally setting the computer aside, Ami removed her glasses and rubbed at her reddening eyes. "This could take a while," she mused, and then found she needed to cough. She hoped she wasn't getting sick; the last thing she needed right now was a cold.
"No kidding," Zoisite added as he leaned back, stretching out of the taut position he had been holding himself in ever since they had begun to work. He did not look much better than she did.
With her hair now pushed away from tired eyes, Ami closed them and for a moment leaned back in the couch. It was a blessed moment of relaxation for her, marred only by the knowledge that in a moment she would have to get up again. "Let's leave it on the back-burner a while, then." Without moving, she then added: "I'll get going over to the shrine now, while there's still a bit of daylight left."
"Whatever you say." Zoisite too had leaned back in the couch, closing his eyes and for all intents and purposes actually appearing to be asleep.
"Okay." Ami had by now opened and given Zoisite an odd look that Mamoru wished he could understand. There was no time to dwell on it, for she dropped her gaze to gather her things together while Zoisite remained motionless and uncooperative in his chair. "I'd better go, then."
Zoisite did not speak again until she was almost out the door; he surprised both of his companions by sitting up straight and raising a hand in farewell. "See you later, Ami-san."
Turning, her school-case held in both hands before her, Ami allowed a small smile to cross her face. "Bye, Zoisite-san."
Mamoru was about to remark on the way that Zoisite stared at the closed door long after Ami had used it when he turned to him, green eyes hard. "So. Endymion-sama. When are you leaving?"
"…it's my apartment," he replied evenly, wondering why on earth he'd ever thought that maybe Zoisite would behave once left alone with the person he could not help but call "Endymion-sama."
"Sorry. I forgot." The sarcasm was as heavy as an overfed whale, and possessed all the subtlety of a baby elephant. "I spend so much time here I was beginning to think it was my place."
Passing a hand over his eyes and frowning seemed the only option left to him – well, besides the less sensible one of throttling the former shitennou with his own ponytail of hair. "If you'd behave for five damn minutes, I could take you places."
Zoisite snorted, remarking icily: "You sound like you're talking to a three year old."
"Funny that." The stare-off lasted a few minutes, Mamoru breaking it when he finally said: "One of the girls should be over soon."
Being the one to look away was making Zoisite sulky, that much was obvious. "Which one? The pyro, the klutz or the butch one?"
"There's no need for that."
Zoisite grinned, quite widely; it probably wasn't the best thing for him to find amusing, but Mamoru had to admit that it was perhaps good that at least his mood seemed to be improving. "Probably not. Aside from the fact it makes me feel better."
Reaching down to tidy up several of the text books Zoisite had taken from the shelves and then randomly pushed aside, Mamoru remarked almost idly: "I thought you wanted to be on our side."
"Ah, that depends on your definition of want, Endymion-sama," Zoisite pointed out, crossing his legs and wriggling his toes absently. For reasons anyone was yet to figure out, Zoisite never wore house-slippers. Admittedly, they did have more important matters to attend to than what the shitennou did or didn't wear on his feet, however. "You see, it's partly compulsion, partly need, partly want." After standing Zoisite strode to the window, his strong fingers cupping his elbows as he crossed his arms, surveyed the darkening city through the newly cracked window. "…I want to be free. It's just different from wanting to be on your side."
"I don't understand," Mamoru said as he paused to watch the slender figure silhouetted against the window, cast into darkness and nearly without identifiable feature.
The laugh he gave was low, thoughtful as he tuned around to give Mamoru a smirk. The expression's power was muted by the flicker of melancholy in his eyes. "Don't panic, Endymion-sama. I won't be switching sides. I can't. There would be no-where for me to go, because I sincerely doubt that this can be reversed. I'm more or less a normal human now, and frankly? I'd think it's better this way."
He had to ask the question that came to his mind at those words. "Kind of hard to be normal with memories like yours, I'd wager."
"You have absolutely no idea." With his mouth still open, Zoisite clearly looked like he was about to say something else. In the end he did, but Mamoru had the distinct impression that Zoisite had actually changed the subject. "Don't you have classes you should be at, instead of babysitting me?"
"They'll wait, most of them. I can catch them up and go to the ones I need to, like I did today," he explained, finding some comfort in thinking of the minutiae of his normal life rather than focusing on the strange reality of what was really going on here. "Besides, as Rei-san said, you're probably better off at the Hikawa shrine."
"I can look after myself."
"That remains to be seen."
"Look, I am perfectly capable--"
"What if they find you? What then? You're going to protect yourself with what, a frying pan and possibly some ammunition made from kitchen ingredients?" Mamoru tried to soften his voice when he realised how sharp it had become, but he did get the distinct impression that it had not worked. "Until this is sorted, you'd be better off with us."
Zoisite twisted his mouth up into something halfway between a smirk and a grimace. "My prince in shining…evening wear." Sitting back down on the couch, shaking his head so that his long hair caught the changing light and set it ablaze, he started muttering to himself. Mamoru only caught the very start of the tirade. "I can't believe this…it's just…"
Deciding to leave it by getting up and making to move to the kitchen, Mamoru did attempt to add one thing. "I know it must be hard--"
Zoisite's interruption was sharp, as sharp as the way in which he snapped his head up to fasten his dark eyes on his companion. "It's a lot of power to lose." Even though Mamoru was not actually looking at him, Zoisite held up the crystal and shook it. Even though he had long since discovered that that mental and physical avenue was closed to him now, he still felt his mind move in a familiar fashion, attempting to let loose the focused sorcerous force that would set the crystal ablaze with energy. "I used to be able to hold this in my hand and call up so much…oh."
"What?" Mamoru asked, not looking back as he slipped through the kitchen door.
Zoisite's voice was low, stunned. "It's working."
The words made absolutely no sense to Mamoru until he turned to see that the shirozuishou was projecting a column of white light right into his living room. Nearly stumbling over his own two slippered feet, Mamoru sprinted back into the room and to Zoisite's side, dropping to his knees at the side of his couch. "I thought you said you had no power!"
"I don't." Amazed, his face even more pale painted in the harsh white light of the transformed crystal, Zoisite looked oddly young, oddly lost. "It's…bringing up the carrier."
"Are you sure?" Horror mixed with delight was the principal expression on Mamoru's face, which was a stark example of chiaroscuro in the nearly painful glow of the shirozuishou.
"Yes." The odd twist about the words had Zoisite looking over and frowning at what he saw. "Why the stupid face?"
Mamoru could not drag his eyes away from the projected person for the world. "That's Reika."
Wrinkling his nose made his earlier aura of youthful innocence under the pure glow fade right away. "Reika?"
Mamoru's voice had the barest tremble in it as he raised one hand as if to reach out to touch the immaterial girl; he let it fall without actually trying. "My best friend's girlfriend."
"Behold the might of the coincidence," Zoisite said as he tightened his own bare fingers about the crystal; it was warm to the touch as he let the image fade. "Well. It looks like you and I have a date tonight with your little Reika."
Beginning to gather some of his poise now that the initial shock of the projection (both its source and its revealed quarry!) Mamoru snorted, leaned back on his heels. "I don't think so."
"Oh, we can go Dutch if you're broke, Endymion-sama. I won't think badly of you," Zoisite assured him sweetly as he tucked the crystal reverently away in one pocket.
Rubbing at his eyes – a combination of general tiredness and the strength of the shirozuishou's light were really make him think longingly of the eyedrops in his bathroom cupboard – Mamoru just had to remark ill-temperedly: "…were you always such a smart-ass?"
"I can't help it if I'm charming." With a toss of his hair, he gave Mamoru a speculative look. "Are you going to get her for me, then?"
"What, you think you can actually get the nijizuishou out of her?"
"Bastard."
"…excuse me?"
"…that's a bastard of a good point." Zoisite smiled angelically up at him, still fiddling with his long hair as appeared to be his unfortunate habit. "And the answer to your question, incidentally, is…no. I don't think I can."
"So why should we go and see her tonight?"
Spreading his hands in a supplicating gesture, Zoisite said airily: "I just like to do things right away."
"Never would have guessed that," Mamoru sighed while wondering how much aspirin and paracetamol he was going to be going through in the next few days. As it was, he was already beginning to think he deserved at least a dozen complimentary shares in a large pharmaceutical company. "But it would be helpful if you could think about these things first."
"You should tell your little Sailor Moon that some time."
"I figure I wouldn't be the first to try – and fail." He shook his head at that, tried to sort out his thoughts into a more linear order. "Besides, you honestly think I should call Reika out of the blue at six in the evening? Yes, that would look good. I'll just go call my best friend's girlfriend, shall I? And what will I say? 'Hey. Reika-san. It's Mamoru, you know, Motoki's friend…want to come over? Oh, no, there's nothing odd about it at all. Nothing sinister or dodgy. I just want to take your nijizuishou out and turn you into some slobbering monster, but really, it's okay. I have a loud-mouthed blonde friend with a pointy pink wand who'll fix that right up. She's only fourteen, mind you, and she'll cry if you try to eat her, so just don't bring the salt, huh?'"
"Endymion-sama." A raised eyebrow gave Zoisite's lovely features an amused slant, one that was also startlingly attractive. "I had no idea you had such a finely-developed sense of humour."
"…I really don't like you calling me that," he remarked as he looked away, the words unplanned. Still, he had to admit that they were perhaps the truest words he had spoken in some time – despite the fact he used the authority the name gave him against Zoisite, the shitennou addressing him by that title really did set his skin crawling.
…but then, all those years ago, he did betray you, didn't he…?
"And I don't like calling you Mamoru, but one of us has to get what we want." Yawning as widely as any Siamese cat, Zoisite gave him an incurious look. "You know, Endymion-sama, I really don't even know if this…kurozuishou, version 2.0, will actually release the youma."
"Really?"
With a shrug of his shoulders he conveyed his nonchalant attitude towards the thought. "Why should it? Serenity-sama wanted to hold the spirits, and I can't see that any force allied with her would release them."
Mamoru pressed his fingers against his temple and wished that it was possible to get a brain massage. He was certainly willing to have one right now. "But don't the crystals hold them captive?"
"Probably."
"Nice answer." Mamoru muttered, and wondered if brain replacements were available instead.
"Hey. Did I claim to know everything?"
"Possibly not, but you like to act like you do."
"The problem with being better than everybody else, Endymion-sama, is that people tend to think you're pretentious."
"Read that in an encyclopaedia, did you?"
"No, a shop window." Having apparently decided that he was the victor of this latest verbal joust, Zoisite looked to his futon eagerly. "I'm going to bed. We should go see Reika-san in the morning or something, and take those little girls along for the ride. After all, if we do manage to yank that nijizuishou out like a rotten tooth from a dead horse's head, then you'll attract some unwanted attention. Guaranteed."
Shaking his head at the analogy, Mamoru began to wonder where he kept Reika's number. "I'll give her a call." With that he reached for the cordless phone, planning to take it into his room where he could at least get a little privacy.
"Oh, and Endymion-sama?"
"What?" he asked, not looking back to see what Zoisite was up to now.
"Tell her that it's more likely Usagi-san will try to eat HER, if we forget to feed the Moon-child before letting her out."
"…and he thinks MY sense of humour is off…" But he laughed anyway. It made picking up the phone and making the call just that little bit easier, after all.