"Holy shit, it's cold!"
Jadeite shivered, his arms grasping himself tightly against the raging and bitterly cold wind in this frozen wasteland, and the general decided right then and there that he hated the cold. Positively loathed it. He was going to go home and turn on the heat. And light a fire. And sit in scalding water. And vacation to Ecuador, and whatever the hell else, so help him, so long as he was as far from coldness as he could possibly be.
"Does it remind you of home, Jadeite?" his dismembered friend drawled, and he sneered, glaring at his own shadow, which was emblazoned with the bright red eyes of his current superior.
"Don't say things like that, because when you say it, it isn't funny!" the blond cried, and the shadow snickered. "Eternal Sleep was better than this; at least it wasn't windy there!"
His shadow simply chuckled. "I was not talking about Eternal Sleep, Jadeite," his dark companion said softly, detaching the general's shadow from him and standing it upright, forming a dark figure of smoke and shadow that moved by the red eyed man's will, leaving Jadeite feeling a little off, hazy as though he was missing something.
"Wait, hold on, I-"
"Come along," the man said, and he drifted off, seeming to float on air, the smoke billowing out behind him and becoming lost on the harsh wind. Confused, Jadeite felt compelled to follow the ghostly figure of his shadow that was no longer his.
For hours, they walked in this tundra. In the beginning, Jadeite tried having a conversation, or asking questions, but each time, he was met with either silence, or answers like, "You'll see," and, "In time, patience," and the irritation of it all forced the general into silence, brooding instead on how much he hated the cold.
After some time, the surroundings changed, and the two were suddenly heading down through a deep canyon, the snowy mountains around then shielding them from the wind. They were not there long before they entered a hole in the side of the mountain; a deep, spacious cave that tunneled deep under the mountain they were just walking beside.
To Jadeite's everlasting frustration, it was even colder here.
"When I was a child," the shadow said, his voice echoing off the cold, stone walls, and Jadeite jumped, not expecting any noise from his silent companion, "I heard stories about stones with immense power. With it, a person could obtain limitless potential, and could become like gods among men. They perform miracles, make the impossible possible. When I existed among the living, I dedicated my life to hunting them, just as your kingdom did."
"Like the Silver Crystal?" Jadeite asked, slowly rubbing his hands together to keep warm and watching his breath freeze in the air before him.
The shadow sighed. "Yes. The Silver Crystal is one of these."
"My Queen…my kingdom was obsessed with finding it. To revive-"
"Metalia," he inserted, and the blue eyed man nodded. "When in the right hands, these crystals can easily revive the dead."
"Is that why you're after it?" Jadeite asked, and the shadow froze. "To come back to life?"
"I…I am not after the Silver Crystal," he whispered, a distinct edge of sadness and loss in his voice. "It is a lost cause to chase down that crystal. It is nothing but a path of madness. So many have needlessly lost their lives trying to obtain it when it is impossible."
"Is that how you died?"
"I am not dead, not really," he stated matter of factly. "My body is still a living thing somewhere. I sacrificed my heart to save my life, and as a result, my soul was torn to pieces. It took me many years to recover, but I have enough to return to my body. I need one of these crystals to help me anchor my soul to my body again."
"So," Jadeite said, thrusting his hands into his pockets, relaxing without meaning to do so as the air got warmer. "We're doing all this to get your body back?"
"More or less, yes."
"So…did this happen to you because you were after the Silver Crystal?"
The man sighed, a sad, hollow thing that pulled at the general. "Yes. I wanted power, and I wanted glory, and I thought the Silver Crystal was the only way to get it. It was only after I was ripped to pieces that I realized it was an impossibility. It is anchored to Sailor Moon. Nobody else can touch it."
"So what are we after?" Jadeite asked, processing all the information and making mental notes to ask about other things at a later date.
"I have hunted down another crystal that is of equal power. We are after that."
"Alright. To what end?" Jadeite asked, and the shadow wavered. "I'm willing to bet you're not doing this for the love of life. Why go through all this just to live again?"
"Let's just focus on the task at hand," the red eyed man said sadly, and Jadeite fell silent, a tug of something he could not recognize where a compassionate heart should have been.
They continued on in silence for just a little while longer, the biting cold becoming much more temperate. The blond began to feel a tightening in his chest, a tremendous anxiety that gradually built until he had worked himself into a panic, a change of state that did not go unnoticed.
"Shall we stop for a moment? You do not look well," the shadow said, and the poor blond began to openly hyperventilate.
"I've been here before!" the man cried, trembling and grasping his head and trying to stave off an overwhelming sense of terror.
"Yes, you have," the shadow said quietly, but his voice seemed to echo in the spacious, massive room none the less. "It's your old home. This is all that remains of the Dark Kingdom."
Jadeite groaned and squatted down close to the floor. "Beryl is…she's dead, right?"
"Yes. The Dark Kingdom is little more than ruins now. Beryl, Metalia, and all their soldiers, for the most part, are dead."
"I feel…I feel like it's-it's not gone," the general stammered, suddenly feeling cold again despite the temperate air. "I still feel dark energy, it…it's…"
"It takes a while for so much dark energy to dissipate," the shadow said, seeming to become more vibrant and more solid in the presence of such darkness. "And there are still some here perpetuating the energy as well."
"Youma?" the general asked, swallowing as he stood on shaky legs.
The shadow seemed to beam with a crafty, smug demeanor. "I don't know. Shall we find out?"