This chapter is angst and nijizuishou. It's all good…right? Thanks for reading if you're still out there, and I hope to hear from you in regards to what I'm doing right and wrong. I'm one of those feedback whore types, of course.
In which memories are just where one has left them - debates on princesses, stupid leaders and the cookies of the dark side start arguments - crystals find the light of night and - Zoisite finds the past has an unusual way of catching up with him.
The Kingdom had not changed at all, but then he had only been away from it for several days. Why would it change in so short a space of time?
His mind and body protested loudly at his return, calling it ill-planned and near-impossible, but in this state Zoisite did not care. The familiar weight of his uniform was heavy against his body, blessedly normal; even with the crawling weight of negative energy buzzing in his ears and dogging his every step, Zoisite pushed himself on further. Every familiar twisting of an ever more twisted corridor brought him ever closer to the one…the only one…
He stumbled, but did not fall. The darkness was eating away at his mind, his vision blurring and his muscles screaming in agony as it tried to absorb the negative energy around him, and then rejected it utterly. Grimacing, he pushed himself on further – what did pain matter, when he was still here…still waiting…maybe wondering…
"Kunzite-sama!" He gasped and swayed when the figure stepped into his view; with a total lack of control he fell forward, stretched his hands out uselessly. Even with his goal so obvious before him the agony of being a bright creature caught in a web of utter darkness was devouring him alive, leaving him feeling like a fly with all fluid sucked from its body, a dried up husk of nothing.
"Zoisite."
Not even the harsh coldness of that flat voice could stop Zoisite from revelling in the fact that the man of ice and darkness had caught him. "Kunzite-sama…I came back. I couldn't stay away."
"Obviously."
Closing his eyes, unable to stop himself from leaning into the cool body, Zoisite searched for tears that would not come. His body was burning under the onslaught of Metallia's power, every inch of his skin feeling as if it had been doused in accelerant and set alight. Into the dense fabric of Kunzite's binding uniform he whispered hopelessly: "…you don't want me back."
There might have been pity in his voice, had Kunzite possessed even an iota of any such thing. "I have no use for you."
Zoisite tried to swallow, found that he could not; there was seemingly no fluid in his body, dried up as he was by the evil that burned him even as he still clung to the only thing that he had ever wanted to die for. "…no…"
"No use. No beauty."
"No," he whispered again, feeling Kunzite pull away from him, letting him fall to the ground. He felt no pain as he hit the hard rock, but then perhaps the intense press of darkness against his skin had seared every nerve end into non-responsiveness. That vaguely comforting thought was burned away into ashes when he felt the scorching agony of watching the cold man turn away, walk away, leave him to this lonely fiery death. "NO!"
"All you had for me to utilise is gone," Kunzite said as he stopped, a shimmering column of grey and white in the darkness of the darkest of all kingdoms; he was as cold as ice and yet did not seem at all disturbed by the fire consuming his former lover. "And you didn't even retain your beauty."
Zoisite looked down at his hands; even though he felt that they should be ablaze with fire and smoke, they looked as pale and flawless as they always had. They mocked him with their cleanness, their apparent purity. "I look the same as I always did," he whispered, voice only the crackle of parched autumn leaves.
"You were so beautiful, but now you're ugly," he murmured, and still did not turn around.
"No!"
"Tainted by the light."
"But I haven't changed! Kunzite-sama, I'd never leave you—"
The dark man turned to him as quickly as the striking cobra; his hand was tight about the delicate throat as he held Zoisite high, pressed the slim body back against the curving wall so hard the smaller man thought his spine would break like so much fragile blown glass.
"You'll leave me now," he said, as calm as the sea that held a rip deadly enough to drown all oxygen-loving creatures unfortunate enough to challenge its strong pull.
"No," he choked, suffocating as the hand of gloved ice crushed his larynx with fingers as strong as steel cables. "Kunzite-sama, don't…I…please!"
And then he looked into his eyes, into pale platinum eyes that were as mirrors even in this darkness. It was there that he saw reflected a dark, withered creature of age, saw the figure that Kunzite saw…faded beauty disfigured and malformed by the light.
No creature of the light can exist in the darkness…and Kunzite is that darkness. He can't live without it…you know that. You might live in daylight, but he'll always live in night…in night…in night…
"I'm dying,' he whispered, and at last he felt two tears slip down cheeks that still felt as smooth as porcelain to him.
"Good," Kunzite hissed, and clenched his throat with fingers sheathed in white until everything went black, and black, and black.
"Damn," Mamoru muttered; as he swam into Zoisite's focus, it became apparent that he was rubbing his head and looking rather bemused. "Do you kill everyone who ever tries to wake you up, Zoisite? I hope you have a damn decent alarm clock in that case…sheesh!"
Disoriented, arms flailing useless as he tried to find himself in space and time, Zoisite could only manage a choked: "What the hell is going on…where am I?"
"Oh, great," came the sigh from Mamoru as he sat back on his heels and failed at trying to look patient. "Don't tell me we're going to have to go through this again – wait a second." Realisation schooled his features into hard granite, eyes flashing blue fire as he pushed his face right up to Zoisite's and demanded near-harshly: "Who do you think I am, exactly?"
At first Zoisite could only look at him with the wild eyes of an untamed lion, then casting an uneven stare about the room. "Endymion-sama, what's going on? Why do you look like…why am I…what's happening? Is Beryl here? Has the war begun?"
"Zoisite. Get a hold of yourself!" Mamoru, shaken more than he could admit by Zoisite's incomprehension of reality, put his hands on either of those slim shoulder. Shaking him like a rag doll so his head moved uselessly on his neck didn't make Zoisite anymore responsive to reality, however. "Tell me what you see, what you're thinking about!"
"I…my head…what is happening?" Zoisite's eyes widened as he looked at Mamoru closely, horror beginning to dawn there with an intensity of feeling that had Mamoru's mind reeling. "Is the princess all right?"
Mamoru's voice was guttural, desperate as he clutched at this peculiar straw with all the force of a dog latching onto a bone. "Tell me who she is!"
"Endymion-sama…Serenity-hime…she…" A hand floated to his head as Mamoru held him steady, the green eyes clouded and confused. "What's happening to me?" he wondered aloud, voice broken and distant, as if he was slipping away to a place where Mamoru could not reach him. In fact, the dark-haired man was getting the distinct impression that that was in fact what was really happening.
"Zoisite! Hang on to those memories! Hang on to them, just for minute longer!" Even though he tried to speak with complete command, his voice was breaking as he felt the…the…familiar presence…in the shitennou slip completely away. "Zoisite--"
"…it's gone." His head was hung low, long strands of his sweaty hair obscuring the drawn face. "Shit. For a moment there…I knew it all." Shaking his head like that might order the scattered memories was all he could think to do, but the fading knowledge was as insubstantial as any half-remembered dream. "Shit."
Sitting back so suddenly he nearly fell over backwards, Mamoru slammed a fist against the carpet. "Dammit. That could have helped us more than anything, you actually remembering the Silver Millennium." He paused long enough to let out a long sigh, the silence feeding him a realisation that had him looking very sharply at Zoisite. "I still have no idea who you were to me, but you speak like I'd recognise you on sight…and you named her."
"Named who?" Zoisite asked, looking up with a frown. "The princess? Who is she?"
"Her name was Serenity." He was quiet for a moment, and then said reverently: "Like her mother's."
"…well, now," drawled Zoisite, looking suitably unimpressed. "That's pretty damned helpful."
"Shut up, Zoisite," came the muttered retort. "You dragged me out of a perfectly good dream of my own at five in the morning, so you could at least try to be polite."
"It's five in the morning?" Zoisite began to take in his surroundings in order to locate a clock that would corroborate Mamoru's story, but instead noted that the Senshi staying tonight was still apparently fast asleep. "…she must sleep like a rock!"
"I'm getting the impression she could sleep through a hurricane and a tsunami, possibly with a moderate earthquake to boot." Affectionate and wry, Mamoru's answer was still rather sweet as he looked at the lightly snoring Usagi. "Never mind. She's got a heart of gold."
"Good for some." Zoisite wasn't paying much attention to the conversation any longer, however; as he raised his hand carefully, he realised it was shaking so badly he couldn't hold it still at all.
Noting this, Mamoru frowned and asked the question that immediately leapt to the front of his mind. "What the hell brought those memories back like that, anyway?"
"I had a nightmare."
The distant pain in that sentence had Mamoru watching Zoisite very careful for any physical cues as to the contents of that dream. "About what?"
"Things." Zoisite was still shaking, and he felt it become worse instead of better as the memory of the dream hit him full force. One hand stole to his throat, as if in doing so he would find bruises marrying the smooth white skin. "Things…I don't want to talk about it."
"You really think that's such a good idea?" came Mamoru's sceptical reply.
"I…" Even as he pushed himself to his feet, he nearly fell because his body wouldn't stop trembling long enough for him to regain his balance. "I just…I can't! No!"
And in the vein of many a tantrum, Zoisite retreated to the small balcony outside of Mamoru's apartment. With a long slow sigh, Mamoru cast a look at Usagi – still sleeping like a baby and now snoring like a pig – and followed Zoisite outside.
"We spend way too much time out here."
Zoisite cast him a dirty look, but at least he no longer resembled a Parkinson's patient off his medication. "The openness calms me. The Dark Kingdom…is not for the claustrophobic." He couldn't help but tighten his fists as the memory of the dream caressed his mind with unkind fingers. "Shit."
The only thing that distracted him was the fact that Mamoru didn't reply – instead, he was left watching him walk away, back to the warm interior of his apartment.
"What are you doing?" he asked, almost stupidly. "Aren't you going to try and comfort me?"
Mamoru stopped just inside the door, turned to give Zoisite an incredulous look. "Are you kidding? I want to get some sleep!"
The smile that nearly crossed his lips shocked Zoisite; in the end he satisfied himself by just snapping: "Some prince you are."
"I'm beginning to think I could say the same about you and whatever it was you were supposed to be to this prince."
Zoisite looked away, unable to meet the half-formed accusation in Mamoru's eyes.
"I would say it's all in the past, but I think the past is beginning to catch up with us now," Mamoru added quietly, voice even and cool.
A bitter laugh under his breath tainted his reply. "Master of the understatement, aren't you?"
"Among other things." And still Zoisite would not look at him, though Mamoru did not appear to care. "I'm going back to bed. You?"
"It's dawn. I don't think I'm going to bother going back to sleep."
Mamoru raised his hands, shrugged. "Keep it down, would you? Usagi-san could obviously sleep through D-Day, but me?"
"Whatever." He didn't bother watching Mamoru leave, not this time…not when the memory of the dream was so bitter against the back of his mind.
I can't go back…not in this state. But I…Kunzite-sama. How am I supposed to return to you when I know in my heart you'll never have me like this? Working against Beryl is one thing…but betraying you is only betraying myself.
It was Sunday now, and indeed the sun was beginning to crack the space between land and sky on the horizon already. Sunday meant the little girls had the day off…and he was not looking forward to the thought of having them here all day. Watching the sun rise, as slow and steady as the tortoise that won the race anyway seemed to assure Zoisite that it was going to be a long, long day indeed. And it hadn't even really started yet.
Many hours later, knowing the coincidences that seemed to govern their very existences, Kunzite descended to earth to widen the range of his makeshift kurozuishou from Yumeno Yumemi's home. It hardly took a moment to discover the carrier of the next nijizuishou; the dark-haired woman was smiling in the image conjured of her, feminine and lovely in lab-coat and heels.
"Pretty girl," he mused, and felt a small smirk about his lips as he wondered how Zoisite would react if he'd heard that remark fall from his lips. The expression faded just as quickly as he realised that Zoisite would not hear such a thing at all. As inclined as he had been to baiting the younger shitennou with comments designed to make his eyes flash and his blood boil, he never realised not being able to see such a display of childish temper would leave such a…a hole in his dark life.
Irritated, he banished the thought of the still-missing shitennou. As lovely as Zoisite had been, there was nothing to be gained in dwelling on the fact that he was now gone, that his useful lifespan had long since expired. Zoisite had surely run for a reason – for he was alive; Kunzite did not know how he shielded from Beryl, but he would never be able to sustain that level of sorcerous skill for long – and an individual Beryl surely now viewed as a traitor to the Kingdom would be of no use to Kunzite in gaining the power he needed to release Metallia.
That had been how it had all started, of course. Kunzite had forced the unstable Zoisite under his wing when the elder and more powerful of the two had calculated that Zoisite's brand of chaotic insanity would be a perfect foil to his own cool attitude to his goals. After all, Zoisite was more useful as ally than enemy, as Nephrite would be wont to admit had he not already been killed due to the sakura's scheming.
But then it seems not even you could tame the loose canon that was Zoisite…because he's gone now. Pity. He was useful indeed. Still…he would have become a liability eventually. His hatred of Beryl would have led to her disposal of him sooner or later…silly child! Why did he never learn the most important lesson of all…that in order to defeat Beryl from outside, one must defeat her from within? After all, she would never expect her most loyal shitennou to be the one to wield the instrument of her own downfall.
Still. There was no time to dwell on how Zoisite could have helped his plans, not now that he was gone – for surely he was. Beryl wouldn't let Zoisite back into her fold, and even if the sakura returned to Kunzite for help, there would be too much risk in accepting him back when his existence would incur Beryl's total wrath.
…but wouldn't it be worth having him back all the same…?
Impatiently, Kunzite firmly banished all thoughts of Zoisite from his ordered mind. There were nijizuishou to collect, after all…and then a darkness to spread across the entire world.
"…Motoki has a GIRLFRIEND?"
Nobody actually answered Mako's question, but it was not because it was rhetorical (even though it actually was). The reason nobody answered her was just because everybody present had already taken turns repeating Mamoru's original "Yes." By this present stage, everyone had finally picked up on the fact that her repeated query did not mean she hadn't actually heard them right the first time.
"So she's happy for Zoisite and I to come over this evening," Mamoru continued, as if Mako had not even spoken at all in the first place. "She's quite busy at the moment, but I managed to get her to give up a bit of her time."
Rei nodded, looked down at the watch adorning her slim wrist and frowned. "How long do you think this will take?" she asked, directing the question at Zoisite.
With a half-shrug, Zoisite didn't even bother to look up from the little print-out from Ami's computer he was puzzling over. "I don't know."
"Can't you guess?" Mamoru asked, apparently totally incapable of keeping the edge to his words from creeping out of his mouth.
This got Zoisite's full attention, the small man turning the full force of glaring green eyes at the tired student. "Seven point eight-five hours," he snapped peevishly, tightening his rose-bud lips into a sharp, ugly line.
Mamoru snorted, itching for another argument with his houseguest even though he knew how unhelpful it would inevitably be. "We don't have that long."
"I don't know that it's going to take that long!"
Ami cleared her throat, just barely able to keep the squeak out of her voice as she decided to step in and nip the argument right in the bud. "Zoisite-san?"
"…yes, Ami-san?" Oddly enough, he responded immediately to Ami's query, evening his voice and calming his glare as he turned his attention to her instead.
"We could make a mathematical model, if that would help? With the right data we would take into account the likely variables and--"
"No, don't bother," he interrupted impatiently, waving a dismissive hand in blatant indication that what she was saying was unimportant. Seeing Ami's slight hurt, he softened his voice even as everyone else wondered why he was bothering. "I can just guess. If I can actually get it to work, I estimate it won't take any longer than what it used to when I used the kurozuishou."
"Unless she turns into a gross monster and tries to eat me," Usagi moaned without thinking, tugging nervously at one of her pigtails. As inclined as she was to dash to the rescue of anyone she knew when the situation presented itself, she still wasn't too good when it came to having this much warning about what was going to try to devour her next.
"Don't worry," Mamoru said, with an affectionate glance at Usagi that had her pinking in a shade to match that of her moon-stick. "We'll make sure to give Reika something to eat before she turns into a youma, just for your benefit."
"Can we leave her as a youma?" Mako asked suddenly, her eyes lighting up like she'd just had a really fantastic epiphany. "Motoki-san won't want to go out with a youma…will he, Mamoru-san?" The blinks she received from her comrades assured her that this great epiphany was not to be received as well as she'd hoped it would be. "What?"
…four fourteen-year-olds girls, a talking cat and a pretty boy who drips verbal acid – what a great little club this is! Wonder what I did to deserve membership? Pushing this amusing but ultimately pointless thought aside, Mamoru said firmly: "Right. So, in order to find the princess, we're going to have to do something a little…horrible here. You guys all okay with that?"
Zoisite laughed out loud, the sound oddly beautiful for all that it was as brittle as aged porcelain. "Why are you even asking me that question?"
The look Mamoru gave him was hard, challenging. "I had hoped you'd feel a little bad about it."
Another one of his mild, elegant shrugs was the only real answer Mamoru received aside from a careless: "Whatever."
"It's for the princess." It was Rei who spoke for the Senshi, perhaps because Usagi had managed to find a hard candy in one of her pockets and was currently near-choking on it in her hurry to say something of her own. "And it's not as if we're going to run off and leave her like that. We have the moon-stick after all."
"And I can use it!" Usagi managed to gag out finally, though her rather beatific smile had Mamoru smiling at the display rather than rolling his eyes.
"We know." Zoisite muttered, rather less amused by the act than his "prince." "Still, have to say, can't wait for the princess to come back and claim it off you."
"What – this belongs to her?" Pulling the stick from where she had last stashed it in her shoulder bag, Usagi stared at it rather dumbly. "I thought – Luna!"
But the cat was too busy giving Zoisite a long speculative look to pay any attention to her charge. "How did you know that?"
Zoisite met the feline gaze unwaveringly. "Some memories are made of hardier stuff than the others. I just remember seeing it in the hand of the Queen…so in theory it's the princess' now."
Mamoru's own question was just as sharp, coloured slightly more obviously with a hint of desperation. "What do you remember about the princess?"
"Nothing. I told you that already." The tone of Zoisite's voice was flipping back between boredom and wariness, a dichotomy that had Mamoru's hands and heart tightening into what felt like three separate fists.
"You obviously remember something."
The tightness of Zoisite's voice was reflected in the tensing of his slim body, his eyes narrowing in a way that was all too reminiscent of the Zoisite that they had all known originally. "Barely anything."
Usagi stopped staring at her moon-stick long enough to give Zoisite a rather hopeful look. "Are you sure you really don't know who the princess is?"
That seemed to be enough for Zoisite for that day – he all but exploded at the blonde Senshi with enough force to scare her off bursting into immediate tears. "For the ten thousandth time, YES!"
"Yes, you're not sure?" she asked in a small voice, clutching the pink stick to her small breasts. "Or yes, you're not sure you're sure?"
"Oh, for crying out loud!" he snapped back, pushing himself violently to his feet. Before anyone could react to his sudden movement, the shitennou had stomped off across the room and slammed his way out onto the balcony.
"…he's kind of moody today," came Usagi's weak observation; her voice gained strength again as she abruptly wondered aloud: "…and is it just me, or is he moody every day?"
"Come on, Usagi-chan. He's not used to all of this," Mako pointed out, looking the least rattled of the Senshi by Zoisite's latest temper tantrum. It had to be assumed that perhaps it was because she was still trying to wrap her mind around the entire Motoki/girlfriend idea. "I mean…he didn't ask for this or anything."
"He just got thrown into this…and with you, too," Rei pointed out wryly, crossing her ankles and looking rather wearily amused. "I can understand his pain, believe you me."
Ami frowned at Rei's phrasing, but she did add quietly: "Yes, Usagi-chan. Imagine how you'd feel if you suddenly switched sides like that."
Wide eyes and a wider mouth demonstrated aptly how aghast Usagi was at this idea. "But I'd never switch to the dark side!"
"Oooh, I don't know about that," Rei said, and then rather surprised all of those watching by raising cupped hands to her mouth. Her subsequent heavy breathing was muffled and distorted by the way she held those hands. "Come to the dark side, Usagi," she intoned in a deep voice. "It's got…cookies!"
Mamoru stared at Rei – he'd never thought the girl to have much of a sense of humour, and what she did have appeared to be a bit odd. But it certainly had him laughing himself stupid.
"Hey! That's not funny!" Usagi complained, crossing her arms and pouting deeply. "…but…Mamoru-san, do you have any cookies? I'm hungry now!"
That sobered him rather quickly, as a pained expression suddenly crossed his face. "Rei-san, why did you have to bring up cookies?"
"What, you still haven't learned to stock up before Usagi comes over? Slow learner, aren't you?"
"How do you expect me to stock up?! She eats more in a sitting than I do in a year!"
"Why is he so moody, anyway?" Usagi asked suddenly, chewing on her lip as – fortunately for the now-fretting Mamoru – the thought of cookies apparently escaped her attention for the time being. "I mean, I know that all of this had to be weird for him, but…I healed him, right?"
"I think you're obsessing about the healing, Usagi," Rei remarked, blowing her fringe out of her face and sitting up somewhat straighter in her chair. "How many times do I have to explain this to you? You healed the darkness in him, but all those little personality defects that led to him allowing the darkness inside? You can't fix those. The moon-stick doesn't start personalities from scratch, after all."
"Pity. Yours could have done with it," Mako muttered; apparently the growing realisation that Motoki did in fact have a girlfriend was beginning to sour her mood.
"Excuse me?"
"I think maybe he's having trouble assimilating all the memories he has been left with, anyway," Mamoru said, more to break up the impending Rei/Mako argument than anything else. "He was dreaming last night…and I think it was something to do with the Silver Millennium, and his fractured memories of it."
"Really?" Usagi asked, brightening as she leapt on the idea with all the enthusiasm of a mildly psychotic kitten. "We should ask him!"
…and wasn't she just the one who pissed him off with a previous game of twenty questions?! Still, Mamoru was trying to be diplomatic about things, so he only said evenly to Usagi: "He really doesn't seem to remember much. I don't think he wants to talk about it anyway."
"So?"
Fortunately it was Luna who spoke, and her words were slightly more polite than the ones that had popped into his head. "I think you should have picked up on the fact that if Zoisite doesn't want to talk about something, he won't."
"It's not right, for him to have all these memories," said Rei quietly, her fingers on her chin as she stared at the wall like the force of her glare could make the answer to her following question write itself there. "What did you do?"
"It was an accident!" The defensive words were near shouted, Usagi quite abruptly becoming extremely upset; Mamoru had to marvel at the power Rei's approval obviously had over the sillier of the two girls. "I didn't mean for it to happen this way!"
"Yeah, you really don't know how to use that thing." The bitterness was hard and sharp like fractured, dying coral. "You'd soon as bonk someone over the head with it as actually HEAL them."
"Rei. Enough. All right?" The harshness of Luna's interruption indicated perfectly well that her patience was wearing terribly thin. "What's done is done."
"I know." Oddly the dark-haired girl didn't seem to be feeling inclined to taking offence at Luna's words; rather, she just ducked her head and sighed. "Sometimes I think I know that better than any of you."
Silence. It was broken only by Luna coughing uncomfortably (inasmuch as a cat can cough uncomfortably) and remarking: "Besides, once we get the ginzuishou…I think it will help."
Blinking wide eyes, Usagi gave voice to her favourite question. "Really? How?"
"The healing powers of the moon-stick are partly intrinsic to it, but they are amplified greatly by the ginzuishou."
Usagi looked down at it, where it lay in her lap. With one fingertip she traced a small indentation in the lower curve of the sickle moon, her frown deepening a groove in her forehead. "Is this where it goes?"
"I…yes. I remember." The little moon-cat seemed distant for a moment as she herself stared as if hypnotised at the moon-stick, but she gathered her thoughts together quickly enough. "I think perhaps if you tried the healing again with the ginzuishou in place, you'll heal him. Properly. Fill up all the gaps and blow away the last of the dust."
"I just don't get something," Usagi said finally, glancing first at Mamoru for a brief second and then squarely at her cat. "He has all these memories of living on earth now, right?"
Nodding, Luna was rather impressed by the thought her charge now seemed to be putting into the situation – better late than never, after all. "Right. The moon-stick created a life for him to live outside of the Dark Kingdom."
"…so why doesn't he…what's the word…incisively…go for those ones? I mean, we keep calling him Zoisite and he doesn't seem to really care about his earth life at all."
"Except for his wardrobe," Ami remarked without thinking, and then she pinked as everyone gave her an odd look.
"…and the word you were looking for was instinctively," Luna remarked as she looked away from Ami with a small frown, "but…I think it is because the moon-stick didn't manage to erase his memories of the Dark Kingdom. I guess there were just too many memories in his mind and it had so much trouble creating new ones in the brief time you gave it, that it couldn't erase all it needed to."
"When you stopped, he was in the Silver Millennium." Everyone looked at Ami as she said this, but even under their startled looks she continued easily, perhaps it was because she was thinking out loud rather than addressing her friends directly. "Remember the uniform he was wearing? It…I think it was the uniform of some sort of soldier on Earth."
Luna's gasp was as sharp as a new sword. "Endymion's guard!"
"What?" Usagi asked, startled.
Mamoru's reaction was more visceral; he felt as if someone had punched him in the gut with the truth and then run away with it, laughing all the while at the fact he hadn't seen it for long enough to understand it. "…I had a guard?"
"I…no. I don't…I can't support that. It came out of no-where!" Luna hung her head, features tight with partial recollection. "…I…I need to talk to Mamoru-san later. Still, to get back to the point," she said strongly, indicating the subject was now dropped, "the moon-stick obviously pulled all of his memories out and created the new, so that for a moment Zoisite had lived three lives, all in perfect memory, two of them simultaneously."
"Oh, boy," Mako breathed.
"It's no wonder the moon-stick knocks people out the way it does. I rather imagine it does a similar thing for the nijizuishou carriers, without the creation of a new life. I think for a moment they remember everything of what they once were. And then they are returned to who they really are now and all memories of the event are erased." With a shake of her head, Luna then pointed out: "With Zoisite, he was simply too strong. You may have healed him, but the memories never assimilated themselves. He obviously remembers the Silver Millennium in bits and pieces, especially if he dreams of it, but…"
"…but he remembers and clings to the identity of Zoisite precisely because he knows that that is the life that he actually led." Ami's voice was wondering as she completed Luna's trail of thought. "He knows enough to realise that all memories he has of earth are fake, and so he remembers what is real."
"It explains a lot to me," Luna agreed.
"So just because he remembers being Zoisite and prefers those memories, it doesn't mean he wants to be him again?" Rei's question was slow, but only faintly suspicious.
"I don't think so. You've seen his heart in the fire, Rei-chan. What does it tell you?"
"That it hurts him." Looking away, Rei hid her own troubled thoughts by asking aloud: "So the ginzuishou will fix that?"
Luna was still nodding, her eyes grave. "Especially if the princess holds it."
Mako's question was sudden, almost light-hearted. "Can anyone use it?"
"The ginzuishou?"
"Yeah."
Luna blinked, and then seemed to find the answer to a question it was obvious she'd never really thought would be a relevant one. "…yes. That is why it must never fall into the hands of the enemy, but…it has more meaning when it is in the hands of one of the royal line of the Moon. More purpose. It was created by these people, and it was made to sing for them. Others can force it, but like anything, it works better when it yearns to be used. It only does that in the hands of the queen, or the princess."
"Sounds rather cool. I can't wait to see it," Mako said enthusiastically, and then asked rather eagerly: "D'you think I could have a go?"
"It's not a toy, Mako-chan," came Luna's rather stern reprimand; however, her next words made her entire small body droop like it carried the weight of the world. "In fact if it is used to its full – or even it's near – potential, it will kill the one who wields it."
"Whaat?!" Usagi gasped, paling quite considerably even as the other girls drew in sharp breaths beside her.
"That is how Queen Serenity died. She used the ginzuishou to save the souls of her people, and she died for it." Luna's sorrow was tangible in her quiet voice, her pain obvious even though she could scarcely recall her former master, the woman who had sacrificed so much to protect her kingdom and theirs. "That is about the most of what I remember."
"Who did she save them from?" Usagi asked in a hushed voice, blue eyes seemingly haunted by this sombre revelation. "The Dark Kingdom?"
"Yes."
"But now they are back?"
"Yes."
"So why should we make the princess use it?" Rei asked quite suddenly, eyes flashing with bright fire as she realised the severity of the situation. "It obviously didn't work the last time, and I'm not meeting the princess only to tell her to kill herself with the ginzuishou just to see if it'll work the second time around!"
"It would be the princess's choice." Luna's voice was low, starkly pained. "But I will not say that to her either."
Mamoru was the only one who replied, voice as flat as an earth rolled to a pancake by the weight of the universe. "Maybe you will have to."
"Mamoru-san! How can you say that?"
He didn't answer her, only looked out the window to where Zoisite was sitting on the edge of the balcony; it was obvious from the tightness of the skin about his eyes that he was wondering how much he had heard. "I'll go and get him. We should get over to Reika's house soon, she's expecting us…or me, at least. You girls are just back-up, all right?"
Grumbling, Mako was still obviously a little distracted from the matter at hand. "I want to see his girlfriend!"
"What, so you can feel sad about it? Don't, Mako-chan," Mamoru advised rather kindly. Still, he was not about to tell her that Reika was likely to moving to Africa very soon. No point in getting the girl's hopes up, after all. "Besides, if anyone other than Zoisite and I go in, it should be Ami-san."
"But she doesn't even like him!" she protested.
"…Ami-san needs to see the new crystal in action to get some data on it."
"Trust Ami-chan to want data instead of a date," Mako snorted, and then looked embarrassed. "Er, no offence meant, Ami-chan!"
Ami's smile was small, but very genuine. "None taken," she said sweetly, and then turned a serious little face to Mamoru. "Do you want me to come in?"
Mamoru nodded and shrugged at the same time, a quite peculiar gesture to watch in action…particularly when combined with the come inside now dammit! gestures he was making at a scowling Zoisite. "Sure. If Reika-san wants to know who you are, we'll just say…oh, I don't know. She might believe you're a student at the university too – you're smart enough to get around that one – but it might be just as easy to say you're Zoisite's girlfriend or something."
Ami turned into a tomato at that precise second, or at least an approximation thereof. "What?"
The recently returned Zoisite snorted, examined his nails with the air of complete and utter boredom with useless pillocks of princes. "Endymion-sama, you are a twat."
"No, I thought I was a prince," Mamoru warned quietly, causing Luna to stand up and take charge.
"Enough arguing, kids. Can we go now?"
"I can't believe Motoki-san has a girlfriend," Mako seemed unable to stop from grumbling as they all trooped out of the apartment to the stairwell. "I mean, if Mamoru-san doesn't have one…"
"He did have one."
"…oh. Um. Sorry, Rei-chan." Mako had the good grace to look completely embarrassed by her little faux-pas.
"It's okay," Rei said softly, and then gave Mamoru a slight smile. "Isn't it, Mamoru-san?"
"If you say it is, Rei-san."
"It is. After all, we're all working together to find the princess, right?"
Though he smiled at her gently, his only vocal reply was a much less warm: "Let's just go."
Once outside, Rei walked up the front with Mamoru, while Zoisite and Ami seemed to be embroiled in a strange little conversation over the Mercury computer. Mako, Usagi and Luna trailed further behind, Mako idly kicking a stone and frowning to herself.
Usagi, on the other hand, watched the dark-haired pair in silence until she knew she could no longer hold it in. "Ooh, I wish I knew how he does that!"
"Does what?" Mako asked, so startled that she inadvertently set her stone skittering across the road and out of her range.
"Gets Rei-chan to be nice to him," Usagi grumbled, tightening her grip on her shoulder bag. "It's not fair!"
"Well, she's not always exactly nice to him if you'll remember, Usagi-chan."
"Yeah, but she…she's nice to him now." Drooping, Usagi sighed: "I guess my plan didn't work after all."
"Understatement of the year," Luna remarked, and then winced when she saw the crestfallen expression on Usagi's face. "Ooh, Usagi-chan, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that…things may be a little messed up, but I think you did do the right thing. After all, this will help us find the ginzuishou, and then the princess. And there's nothing wrong with that."
"So I really did okay?" she asked in a small voice, hope scribbled all over her pretty, still-childish features.
"I'll always wish that you'd at least asked before you did it, but no there's no point in regretting it now. We can't turn back time."
"We should be able to, you know," Mako said, quite suddenly with a determined look on her sharper features. "We're the Sailor Senshi, after all! We're so cool, we should be able to do anything – including turning back time!"
"I wouldn't get yourself so worked up about it, Mako-chan. It's never going to happen," yawned the moon-cat. "And I certainly hope everyone's had a good night's sleep. Who knows what's going to happen here?"
After that, it was mostly in silence that they completed the journey to Reika's apartment. The only real drama began when Zoisite stopped dead just outside the apartment block, stepped back hurriedly with his hands raised. "I'm not going in there."
"What – what's wrong?" Ami looked rather startled, and not just because Zoisite had backed right into her and nearly sent the pair of them tumbling to the hard concrete in a knot of limbs.
Zoisite's face was nearly bloodless, the skin colour harsh and unnatural in the fluorescent light of an overhead lamp. "He's in there," he said in a voice barely above a whisper, hands tightening into fists that were strained enough to nearly draw blood.
"Who – Kunzite?" Mamoru asked, frowning at the way Zoisite seemed to be drawing in on himself, like an animal priming for the inevitability of fight or flight. From the tone of his words it was easy to gauge which way Zoisite was currently planning to go.
"I'm not going in there," he repeated, lips whitening as he bit them deeply before twisting them into a scowl. "You don't need me to, anyway – the nijizushou's being released even as we speak."
"…oh, god," Mamoru muttered. "Reika-san! …girls?"
Mako whooped quite suddenly, already whipping out her henshin wand; of all her fellow Senshi, it was obvious she was the one who most enjoyed the thrill of the actual pell-mell dash into battle. "Time to open up that can of whoop-ass!"
Zoisite frowned at the little display and raised an eyebrow; even when he was obviously distressed, it seemed he was completely incapable of keeping his snide little asides to himself. "…I have no idea what you just said, and I think I'm actually fairly happy about that."
"Hey, if you want to sit on the sidelines and miss out on all the fun, be my guest. I'm going in there to kick some youma butt!"
"But Zoisite!" Usagi was the one who stopped Mako from charging into the fray like a bull heading for the red cloth, even though she wasn't speaking to the tall brunette at all. "Can't you help us? I mean – you know him, right? You should be able to tell us how to defeat him!"
The slender blonde was laughing even though it was certain he was finding nothing really amusing about the entire situation at all. "Sailor Moon. He taught me everything I know – and that is one master I am sure I will never surpass."
The oddly gentle hand of Rei on her shoulder pulled Usagi's gaze away from Zoisite's. "Come on, Sailor Moon."
"I haven't even transformed yet!"
"Better hop to it," Mamoru said with a wry grin, which brought only a snort from the former shitennou.
"Well, maybe she'd do it if you stopped staring at her with drool running down your chin."
"Oh, stuff it, Zoisite," he said even as the girls began to take off; only he and Ami remained now with the slender man, the blue-haired girl uncertain as she held her henshin wand in one loose hand.
"You'll be okay?" she asked him hesitantly, still not transformed.
"Shoo. Go on," he said coldly, waving his hands at her. "You never hesitated to blow bubbles at me when I was harvesting, now did you? Go!"
But even when Ami left, slightly bemused and hurt, Mamoru stood watching Zoisite with a sceptical look that was calculating and dubious in equal proportions. "Maybe we really shouldn't leave you by yourself."
"You think I'd run off? Well, maybe you'd be right," Zoisite said as he leaned back against the nearest wall, crossing both arms and legs impatiently as he did so. "I mean, I need to get some new clothes before I'm reduced to borrowing yours. I mean, you might like the cape and hat ensemble you've got going on there, Endymion-sama, but just between us? I think it makes you look like an emaciated penguin."
"Duly noted and then forgotten," Mamoru said dryly and without taking any real offence. "Stay here, Zoisite. Because if you're not on our side, you're on theirs – and I consider ditching us at the battlefield to be a switching of sides, all right?"
He clicked his heels together in an exaggerated gesture and saluted with a sneer. "Yes sir."
Reaching for a rose pulled from the air like a rabbit from a magician's hat, Mamoru said in a voice he thought far too kind for the odd man: "It doesn't have to be this hard, Zoisite."
Zoisite rolled his eyes skyward, but there were no stars to glare at tonight. "I like things hard."
"Obviously."
With that much said and done he turned, transforming into the "emaciated penguin" as he did so; bare seconds later he'd caught up with Sailor Moon. Apparently the blonde had been waiting for him only bare metres away, watching the conversation that had so quickly degenerated into yet another quarrel.
"Are you sure he'll be okay?" she asked immediately, concern evident in every inch of her nervous frame. "What if that Kunzite guy comes out this way and finds him?"
"I don't think that Zoisite would let himself be found if he doesn't wish to be, even in the state he's in now." With a near-impatient shake of his head, Mamoru had to wonder when and not if Usagi's painful naiveté would get her into serious trouble. "He may have lost most of his abilities, Sailor Moon, but he's far from powerless. I want you to remember that."
"You don't trust him?"
"Do you want me to?"
"…I don't know!" The frustration didn't sit at all well on Sailor Moon's shoulders, the little blonde not built to have to bear such burdens. "We should…I should believe in the moon-stick…but…"
Tuxedo Kamen made to say something in reply, but a heavy crash from inside had him realising that truly, time was of the essence and was not made to be wasted in situations such as this. "We'll talk more about it after this."
Together the man and the girl ran inside to where the three other Senshi stood facing a scene that made Mamoru's blood run cold – Reika frozen in silent agony, Motoki on the floor, silent and immobile.
"Oh, that is so it," he muttered, blood beginning to boil. Looking up he caught his first glimpse of the tall silver-haired man holding the crystal and supervising his friend's metamorphosis into a youma; he might have said something rather choice had Sailor Moon not beat him to it with something…rather less choice.
"…wow. He's cute!"
Tuxedo Kamen rolled his eyes to the ceiling, pulling out his cane and wondering what particular god hated him today. "Oh, boy…"
Zoisite rubbed at his eyes, then looked down at the watch on his slim wrist. They'd been gone for only a few minutes, but already it felt like an eternity. He hadn't moved from his spot at all, but despite his baiting of Mamoru he hadn't really intended to. Not even with the thought of his Kunzite-sama so near…so near and yet as far from him as the moon itself.
It was harder than he thought it would be, not running into the building and just flinging himself upon the mercy of the greatest of the shitennou. And it would be upon his mercy – he knew more than enough about his lover to understand that when it was explained to him where he had been, Kunzite would not take the news well.
But that thought didn't make the memory of that dream hurt any less…and it was only because he knew how accurate the dream had been. Oh, he couldn't know for certain that his "cleansed" body with its history as a normal mortal would react so negatively to the all-pervasive darkness of the Kingdom, but he knew that he couldn't live there again. Not like this.
…funny. Never thought I'd be too pure for anything…
From the apartment came the sounds of crashing and banging, of a few things breaking – someone wasn't going to be pleased about footing the bill for that, certainly. With a wry smirk, Zoisite thought that that was proof enough he'd changed – when under the thrall of the Dark Kingdom, he'd destroyed plenty of both public and private property and not thought a thing of it. Now, however, the back of his mind was keeping count of the sounds and categorising them into "harmless," "expensive" and "total write-off."
…and what if all those sounds are Kunzite killing those Senshi and Endymion-sama, hmm? What are you going to do then? Run away and hide like a useless little rat even though you know he'll find you again, one way or another? And that surely, you'll be handed to Beryl for punishment like so much youma trash?
Zoisite rubbed tiredly at his eyes, slid down the wall until he was sitting on the pavement with his back to the cold brick. Under ordinary circumstances, he never would have sat down on the dirty concrete, but then in "ordinary" circumstances he could levitate four feet off the ground quite easily.
…but those weren't the ordinary circumstances…these are…aren't they?
The sky was cloudy tonight, though at least it had stopped raining much earlier in the day. Not a star was in sight, though the moon did peek out shyly from behind a thin cover of its own. Looking at it only reminded Zoisite of what had brought him here, who had brought him here…and he knew that the chances of reversing that spell were slim.
"But I was dark once," he mused aloud, staring at his short, well-filed nails. "Could I be dark again?"
…or maybe, after being touched by the moon-stick, returning to Metallia's influence will just kill you stone dead.
"Kunzite-sama," he muttered under his breath, struggling deeper now with the burning urge to run inside, to throw himself at his feet, to tremble beneath the heavy gaze of platinum eyes. But surely Kunzite wouldn't help him when he was like this – there would be no rational reason to. Kunzite appreciated only two things in those he paid any heed too – beauty, and usefulness. He had told Zoisite on many occasions that he could be the very embodiment of both.
It doesn't mean he loved you, idiot. Certainly not the way you loved him!
His head and his heart were beginning to ache again, and even the sound of what seemed to be an interior wall being pulverised didn't distract him from his own desperate thoughts.
I could…the only way…Kunzite-sama, you tolerated me only when I amused you, when my beauty charmed you, when my skill was useful to you. I fear I will provide no amusement in this body, but what if I…perhaps the crystal would…
Zoisite shook his head, trying to battle through the warring thoughts that suddenly made themselves apparent in his desperately roiling mind.
…the crystal could heal Kunzite-sama! The moon-stick barely healed you, it couldn't touch him – but if Sailor Moon held the ginzuishou…if the princess held it…Kunzite-sama could be as healed as you, free from Beryl, yours alone…!
But then, the thought that entered his mind suggested that his own healing had been less complete than any of them really knew.
…Kunzite-sama will never leave the Kingdom…he hates the light too much. He's too loyal to Beryl. But if you gave him the crystal…gave him all that power that he loves so…we could kill Beryl! He would be free…and it doesn't matter if I die. It doesn't matter if the Senshi and Endymion-sama die. If Kunzite-sama has all that he wants…then what more could I want…?
With a loose fist, he began hitting the wall at his back slowly and rhythmically, his frustration burning inside of him. The two completely different options were burning a hole in his heart…Kunzite was everything to the lowest of Beryl's shitennou, but the Prince…the Senshi…
…I can't betray them. Not again.
The uninvited sudden thought shocked him, but only momentarily – the movement on the wall above him pulled him from the darkening twilight of his mind. He looked up from the shadows, but the vague trace of energy he could feel was not recognisable to him. For the briefest of seconds he wondered that he still had the ability to sense the energy aura of an individual, but then he'd always been a creature of instinct. Even though his memories of his life in the Silver Millennium had more holes than Swiss cheese, in the hazy life he'd lived before he'd turned to the Dark Kingdom he knew there had been something different about him. Of course there had been! Why else would he have been chosen to be…to be…
To be what, you memory-less idiot?!
No, it wasn't Kunzite above him now. But it wasn't his de facto protectors, either.
"He got the nijizuishou." That voice was female, frustrated; the tone of it vaguely conjured up an image of the Senshi of Mars. Still, this voice was lighter, sweeter. That still didn't serve to make her apparent anger any less.
The second voice – lightly male – swore in a fashion that had even Zoisite looking a little taken aback in his shadowy corner.
"We were too late," the girl – girl? But there was a heaviness to the voice that made her sound older! – continued, sounding progressively more annoyed. "We could have gotten it if we'd come just a little sooner."
The male voice replied then, thoughtful and firm in the same words. "We'd better get involved now after all."
"Are you sure?" The surprise of the girl was almost palpable in the cool night air. The note of hope to her words, however, was what really caught Zoisite's sharp ear. "It could be too early…too risky. You're the one who said I should wait."
"And now I'm the one saying that there's no point in waiting any longer." The voice, despite being light, was very firm. "We should keep an eye on things and help where we can…we don't need to reveal ourselves fully, but we can get involved when we need to."
There was disappointment in the girl's voice that Zoisite couldn't quite understand. "No point in ruining it all yet, right?"
"Precisely. Come on, let's go home."
No more of the conversation was audible as the two figures disappeared into the light; when Zoisite stood from his seated position at the bottom of the wall, he saw they'd vanished completely. "Who the hell was that?" said quietly to himself, even as doubt at the validity of his own question gnawed at the back of his mind.
He knew who it had been.
Too bad he couldn't remember enough to actually comprehend it.
END CHAPTER FIVE