In a crossover setting like this one, where we know that TSAB-style combat mages routinely conjure up 'barrier jackets' that provide considerable protection, it would be reasonable to suppose that when Endymion is running around as Tuxedo Mask, he's doing the same thing or something closely related.
And unlike the Manga, he doesn't seem to have any trouble remembering the SilMil/Elysion era, so he's probably not under the impression that he doesn't have powers.
If she ever appears in something with Hideaki Kusaka, a post Dark Kingdom Youma PSA maybe, she'd only 4 steps away from Kevin Bacon (though that connection does need some links that haven't come out yet in this timeline).
If she ever appears in something with Hideaki Kusaka, a post Dark Kingdom Youma PSA maybe, she'd only 4 steps away from Kevin Bacon (though that connection does need some links that haven't come out yet in this timeline).
If we're counting future events, she's only one or two degrees from Kevin Bacon—Minori's first attempt at time traveling dropped her onto the set of The Darkness (2016) for about two hours before Pluto tracked her down. Many believe the jumpscare/baby fake-out was one of the better scenes in an otherwise mediocre horror film.
Hmm, it's a bit unclear if Chief Harris's abilities are either:
Mage All Along: Raised in a mage community and hiding behind the Masquerade, but has suddenly found himself a touch more "qualified" to handle recent events.
Wild Sprout: A stressful magical encounter led to a spontaneous Awakening.
Government Approved: "Welcome to the LAPD, congrats on the promotion, now just step into this circle of runes for a second."
Considering Chief Harris keeps referencing his own inability to control his powers, I'm leaning heavily towards Wild Sprout. He also specifically ends up talking about a lot of high stress events in the city, and hints at others since he arrived.
Also, if the LAPD had the ability to just make "Espers" I don't think the Federal Ranger program would be relying as heavily on mechs.
Wow, that's quite a shift in modus operandi. At this point, my bet is the Evorb is either outright possessing Mohr-iarty, or is implanting him with a compulsive desire to "experiment."
"Field Commander William Mitchell, NCA. I have two LSR rangers with me, Lieutenants Greyson and Rawlings. Ready to deploy however you would prefer." Mitchell says simply. There's no push of ego, no jockeying for jurisdiction that Harris had been expecting.
I know someone else made the reference, but I figured visuals. Plus, I never get to be the one to do this.
Carter Grayson, "Red Ranger?", Former Firefighter. I believe, but can't find confirmation, that he was the one in the first episode of the show who saw one of the monsters during a normal firefighting operation. He also is one of the "If I am resting, innocent people might be in danger" types, like Usagi and Nanoha
Joel Rawlings, "Green Ranger?", Aerial Stuntman and Sky Cowboy. Starts off as the arrogant show-off type. Gets better.
Commander William Mitchell, canonical leader of the Lightspeed Rangers.... one of whom ends up being his daughter and another his son. There is a demon deal in his past in canon, which may or may not show up, and he is shown to be a stickler for the rules. But, wise and VERY good at his job.
"Look. I chant the incantations in the ancient and mystical language, i draw the circle of elemental sigils, and by these methods i violate causality, thermodynamics, and the laws of motion. Just because you can make it Science doesn't make it Not Magic."
"They were very, very sticky, but she underestimated my appetite. In the end, Love and Justice prevailed! Well, more accurately, I got her into a hold she couldn't lever out of and hung on until she figured out trying to knock my teeth out wasn't going to work, but close enough!" Minako stands up sharply. "Now! We have had enough of break time! I am throwing you to the Rei!"
You wince. There's no stopping Minako when she gets like this. You know that you deserve the chewing-out that each of the Senshi are going to be giving you; you just wish they'd all come together and do it at once. Dragging it out like this is exhausting.
Probably not as exhausting as the past couple of days have been for them, you have to admit.
You, Minako, and Luna had tucked yourself away in the little lounge- honestly nothing more than a refurnished office with a keypad lock on the door- on the seventh floor. It's nice to have a few rooms in the building that only the Senshi can access, well away from the places where your visitors or students would have reason to be. A place where you can call your friends by their real names, reasonably sure that no one will overhear. Of course, they're small converted offices, small enough that if you tried to gather all the Senshi together in either lounge, the seating wouldn't just be cramped. There'd be at least two people sitting in someone else's lap.
Probably more than two, if you count Artemis and Luna.
Part of you wants to turn the seventh floor- now that Artemis is planning to use most of the sixth for his lab- into a space that is just for magical girls, especially the Senshi. A safe haven. Then again-
A palace of safety on the fair silver Moon, beyond the sorrows of the motherworld, where demons cannot go, for it is far beyond their reach, and dare not go, for it is safe
The memory strikes you with a shiver as you pass through the door, and it takes you a moment to remember the practical question of how you'd make the place accessible. You don't really come back to yourself all the way until Luna brushes up against your leg.
Minako's already started leading you out and down the stairs, chattering on at what seems like a thousand words a minute about some of the things she saw when the Amazons talked about sending you a gift, and you wonder where she's taking you.
She starts to take the stairs backwards, looking up at you as she talks.
A little voice in the back of your head, one that sounds quite a lot like Mom, says that she shouldn't be doing that. That it's dangerous, and a bad example for Mini or anyone else that looks up to you and your friends. On the other hand, you routinely run at express-train speeds over uneven rooftops in high-heeled boots without putting a foot wrong, so you find it hard to imagine that Minako will actually fall... you keep listening to her.
"-So there's this wok, well okay, the Amazons mostly use it as a wok, but they say it's actually a magic bowl and if you use it right you can look into other people's dreams. I remember you said you did something like that with ancient Princess Serenity, and I thought maybe if we had this thing we could go with you!"
[X] The Pensive Wok of Dreams
The thought of the other Senshi being able to see the sparkling city you remember from traveling into Serenity's dream is- you freeze again You begin to stumble over your own feet, catching yourself only through those same reflexes that let Minako back down stairs in high heels.
The words fall out of your mouth almost faster than you can pronounce them. "That! That's the one I want!"
"Uhh… Okay?"
You shake your head. "Yeah. Sorry. I'd just… I'd like that. I'd like that very much." You would. You'd so very much like to show your friends the beautiful world the moon was. One that so few now remember, and that only you- and, you suppose, maybe a Sailor Pluto, traveling through time- have any way to reach.
Minako frowns, then plucks at her bow. "...Just remember, this isn't exactly the outfit with the brains, Princess. I'm not sure it'll do what I say it does."
"Close. Enough."
As you speak those words, Minako's toe touches down on the third floor landing, the bottom of the stairs you've been traversing. This is the library floor, and the location of the other Senshi-only lounge. And it's that little lounge that she leads you to. Her gloved fingers dance across the keypad Alice gracefully paid for, and even more gracefully gave Ami the instructions to program so that not even she or the technicians she'd hire would know the code.
Minako sticks her head through the door. "Hey, you two, sorry about the delay but there was some stuff to get out of the way before we got all tied up and look at the star of our show!" She flings the door wide open. Ami and Rei see you and surge to their feet.
And in far less time than it takes to speak a word, Minako turns her close-combat instincts to the purpose of conversation. She twirls behind you, gives you a quick little shove, and quite suddenly, you are through that door and under their gaze.
For a moment there is silence. You look at Rei, then at Ami. Both girls shake their heads, rolling their eyes at Minako's antics.
You clear your throat. "...Hi. Uh, where's Sailor Jupiter, by the way?" You make sure to use her heroic name for now, while the door is still open, this much farther down the building.
Ami blinks, and some reflex to answer the question seems to take her over. "Trying to follow up on an MCAT divination and see if it points at any of the stray youma from the Choshi City raid. She'll be here, though. And…" She trails off.
It's Rei who starts talking about what must be on both of their minds. "And we're so glad you're okay and back up and around. Thank the gods for you."
Rei looks at you, and all the world falls away. Like the two of you are the only ones here. Her eyes shine with unshed tears, and they are darker than you've ever seen them. Something there is… scary. A gaping emptiness that waits, quietly, for something more. You barely notice the way that you lick your lips, as all at once your mouth has gone dry. And perhaps that's because there's more than just darkness covered by shine, there. There is a sharpness to Rei's gaze that you've only ever seen when she is angry.
You aren't sure of the right words for what you see, what you sense, in her. You have to wonder what it was like for Rei. She was there, right beside you, in the mist in Cendrellion's cave. What kind of impression did you leave, from the last time you saw her? When you struck down Drella by her side, and then… you hurt yourself. You hurt yourself to try and fix what had been broken. When you brought back the life of a man whose name you still don't know.
You can already tell, somehow, just from knowing her and seeing the look on her face, that she blames herself for what had happened. And you struggle to find the right words.
Luna's tail brushes past you as she enters the room, slipping past you in the doorway. You glance down, and the moment is broken. The rest of the world shudders back into focus once more, and you remember that it isn't just the two of you in here.
Minako's behind you. Luna is with you. And Ami, for her part, smiled shyly in her seat as you took Rei's words in, as you stared at her, clasping her hands in her lap as you've seen her do so many times. No stream of words, of facts, logic, and information, pours forth from her. Not right now, anyway.
But when she realizes you're looking at her now, she nods fiercely. "Yeah. That's… that's right."
You realize that Ami's eyes have that same shine, even if her expression doesn't carry quite the same… captivating fire… to compete with Rei's right now.
…
Luna could get past you without pushing you, which is just as well given the size difference. Minako can't, but clearly doesn't care. She twists and wiggles past you into the room, beaming and waving to Rei. She starts to open her mouth. And then there is the softest of sounds, a sudden gust of wind, as Ami rises from her seat to stand right in front of Minako. She smiles very brightly, perhaps artificially brightly, at her, and puts a hand on her shoulder.
"Venus! Just the person that I was looking for!"
Your instincts scream 'Danger,' but you can tell that it isn't you that is in danger at the moment.
"I… You have?" Minako starts, before she recenters herself. "That's… good? I have some homework and-"
Somehow, you can sense the indefinable aura of a plan ceasing to go according to plan. The grip of Mercury tightens, though the smile remains unchanging. The temperature in the room drops quite noticeably. "That's perfect, actually! You might remember Mana, that girl we met a few weeks back? She helped tutor everyone. It seems that she's the kind to go above and beyond! She's downstairs right now."
With the exact look you would have on your face if your plan had succeeded far too well, Minako opens her mouth and closes it silently, once, then twice. Weakly, she replies, "Doesn't Mana live on Hokkaido, a thousand kilometers away?"
"It's more like eight hundred and fifty, and it wasn't a problem! I was testing my teleport algorithm!" Ami smiles, entirely not reassuringly. "I had plenty of time to go fetch Mana while you were off doing your things with our princess!"
You don't create monsters; that's Naru's job. But if you'd created a monster and it was scaring you, you'd look exactly like Minako does right now.
"She's created something just for you! Spent the better part of a week on it, even! She calls it her 'Superheroine Scholastic Savior System'. Said that she noticed you were good with English, so created a name that she'd thought you'd like. She remembered you mentioning being out of school for an entire year, so she's put together a full plan to get you back up to speed in just a few weeks. So we should go talk to her. Right?"
Ami's smile is so pure that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Nonetheless, a tinge of absolute panic crosses Minako's face as she is pulled out of the room.
A moment passes, then Ami sticks her head back into the room. "Moon. Don't get too busy, okay? I want my turn, too."
"Oh, of course!" You nod vigorously, and only the tiniest fraction of your nodding is fueled by fear.
It takes a few more seconds, but somehow you sense that she's actually left this time, and you look back at Rei, looking at you. And the room gets warmer. And on some level, you're grateful for Luna's presence, because it would be hard for this to feel even slightly normal without someone else here. You try to avoid thinking chaperone.
The third floor lounge is about the same size as the seventh floor one, and you sit down just a meter or so from Rei- within arm's reach, you avoid thinking. You take a few quiet breaths, not sure what to say first. And then a shadow crosses Rei's face, and she is the first to speak.
"I'm sorry for… forgetting the hammer youma."
And that isn't what you were expecting. It takes you a moment to change gears, but there's only one thing you can honestly say. "After everything else that happened, I think anyone would say that that's forgivable."
Rei looks down at the floor. "If he kills anyone else, then they wouldn't say that."
"Hey." You speak softly, absent-mindedly reaching out as you forget to avoid the thoughts you had earlier. Your fingers brush Rei's chin as you pull her gaze up to meet your own. "None of that. You may have forgotten to pull the youma out of the wall, but that's fine. And anything he does now is his responsibility, not yours. Youma don't have to kill people if they don't want to. Besides, if I was a big nasty monster, and I got sealed inside of a wall after fighting a fiery goddess, I'd probably decide to throw in the towel and just stop hunting people, you know?"
Rei grumbles out a half-hearted answer. You have a feeling that this won't stop troubling her right away. She'll hold onto this for a while, no matter what you try to tell her. All you can do is be there for her, the same way that the rest of the Senshi are always there for you.
Well, unless it counts as "not being there for you" when they apparently get teleported halfway across the planet. Someone really needs to explain what happened to the Queensgard to you. But that, you decide, is a future Usagi problem.
"So!" You say, clapping your hands together. "Mina and Mako went to go and speak with the Amazons. What else happened yesterday?"
"After school, Ami and I went to MCAT headquarters to cover some of the meetings you'd lined up. Ami decided she really wanted to talk to Jadeite, and I… don't think I'm quite ready for that." Rei purses her lips for a moment, then goes on. "Now, first, Dr. Sakurai wanted to talk to me, but I think she went away disappointed. I didn't understand a lot of what she was trying to say, and the magical gadget she showed me was…" She shrugs. "Nice, I suppose. I think she might have been happier talking to Ami, but Ami was already talking to Jadeite by then. Dr. Sakurai seems very driven. She wrapped up the conversation pretty fast when she realized we didn't have a lot in common and that I wasn't going to promise to let her glue monitoring gadgets to you while you did stuff, and then the Director's secretary, the fat man, showed me in."
You nod. "I remember him. He was pretty nice to me every time I've spoken with him. Very courteous, too."
"Yeah. Now, the first thing the Director wanted to talk to us about was about seeing to the wounded, not just Mr. Kazanari but the others, both from the Choshi City raid and from other things. And a couple of youma she really wanted Moon Healing Escalation cast on. But-" she smiles subtly- "I imagine you already took care of that."
"Except those two poor women Shakoukai turned into wax statues." You shake your head.
"You'll take care of them." She stares at you with that intense certainty, that faith, that… you're still not sure how to handle it, really, when your friends look at you like that. When she looks at you like that.
You pause, frowning. "What about Drella?" You remember one of your last thoughts before you tried to raise a man from the dead- which was that somehow you'd done something wrong when you purified her. Because she came back looking starved, almost skeletal.
"Well, Ami's the one who talked to Jadeite, and Jadeite had a little to say, but the last I heard, she- Drella- was in a fairly regular hospital and… stable. The doctors think she just seems very, very hungry, like someone who hadn't eaten in months. They say it's a miracle her organs didn't fail… but I think we both know whose miracle that was." She smiles at you again, strangely, with fire behind it, still with that faith.
You're not sure you deserve it. That hasn't happened with anyone else you cast the Escalation on. Maybe you'll never know if you did something wrong. Or maybe Jadeite told Ami. You'll find out later, when Ami isn't homeworking, you guess.
Rei gathers herself, and goes on. "So that was the first part of what Director Samui thought was important. But she didn't seem worried, so much as concerned to make sure we knew about everything important. I think the Director knew we'd do our best for all the hurt people, and certainly that you would as soon as you were back. Then she asked me a question I wasn't quite sure how to answer…"
"Why not?"
"Mostly that I didn't have the answers Samui was hoping for. Apparently you told her about the castle on the Moon at some point?" She doesn't sound particularly surprised or upset, but you can guess that she didn't know. You feel a little awkward about that.
But surprisingly, it's Luna who apologizes. "I'm sorry, Sailor Mars. If there'd been more time before the meeting, I would have tried to give you some kind of briefing. I do mostly manage to keep track of these things, but…"
Rei leans over and lightly pats Luna where she sits in your lap. "That's all right. I think it'll all work out, somehow. But… Director Samui wanted to know a lot about us. Who we are, where we came from. Whether we're trying to bring back the Moon Kingdom. One of her questions, exact words, was "Technically speaking, would you consider yourselves a part of the Japanese political landscape, or as outside visitors, simply passing through?"
She looks at you significantly, and you're not sure what to say to that. You finally settle for "Ah," feeling rather inadequate at the moment.
Rei smiles, looking a bit weary. "Exactly. So… well, I told her that we aren't a Japanese country, or a political party, or anything like that, and I said there aren't enough of us. Even if we counted all the Pretty Cures we know of, that's…" She stops, counting on her fingers. "Twenty-six people?"
"You could count Endymion. I'm not sure how to count Nanoha or Yuuno…"
Rei shrugs. "Anyway, I asked her what she'd think of someone asking her if the yuki-onna count as their own country. There's a lot less of us, whatever us means, than there are yuki-onna."
"That's… a pretty good point…" you admit, though on the inside you feel sad, thinking and remembering what the moon looked like before the Fall. Or at least what that little part of it looked like.
Rei lets you think for a moment before she goes on. "And as for the idea of bringing back the Moon Kingdom… well, I told her the truth. I don't know what the future holds for us. I know we're not planning to take over the whole world, but… I wouldn't mind creating something new. Earth has so many countries that they have to keep replacing the maps in the classrooms; there's room for a new one on the Moon. Not to rule an empire, just… to be there."
Rei whispers something, very softly. You decide, on balance, to pretend you didn't hear the words "Empress if you wanted to be" in the middle of that whisper. Rei apparently decides to pretend she hadn't said it. Luna just nods solemnly in your lap, as though something perfectly reasonable and unremarkable just happened.
Rei falls silent again, for another ten seconds or so, long enough that the pause becomes awkward. Finally, she smiles sheepishly. "I also, ah… decided not to mention that there's apparently a bunch of people in frozen storage tubes on Mercury. Explaining that would have been more than I was ready for, and besides that, things got… complicated."
"Complicated?"
"Well, she started asking questions about the Amazons; the conversation just… flowed that way." Rei shrugs. "So… I told her what I know. Didn't see why not. I think some of it surprised her, though. And she seemed pretty glad to know it. It took me a while to go over it all, longer than I'd expected. By that time, well, we'd started after school and the time was running along, and she's busy all the time. So… She thanked me for my time. It surprised me. You never expect someone with an important position to be grateful for anything." Rei shakes her head. "But they treat us differently, as Sailor Senshi, don't they?"
You remember having had similar thoughts in London, and occasionally since then. "I think for some of them, it wouldn't be different if we didn't have those powers. Maybe for others, it would be."
"I'd like to think so. I don't know." Rei shakes her head. "Now, she mentioned one more thing, which was that a few, uh, special detectives had wanted to talk to everyone about… what you did at the Genai hospital."
Oh. You… remember that. You went there to heal a sick girl- her name was Nodoka. A girl whose disease had resisted normal medicine and even magic. The disease proved more stubborn than you had imagined, so you had to be more stubborn than you imagined being right back.
Rei lets out a long sigh. "It turns out that there was a murder at the hospital the same day that you visited. And it wasn't an ordinary murder either."
"Wait, what?" You… you didn't know.
"One of the nurses." Rei's face twists in disgust. "They found her… desiccated. Drained of all her blood, and dried out. I'm told that she looked like a mummy. Then someone-" she has to stop for a moment, then forces herself to go on- "folded up her body and stuck it on a shelf in one of the storage closets. They… they had to identify her from dental records."
"Oh. Oh, gods…" You stare at Rei in shock. That's horrifying. You don't know what in the world could have caused that, though…
Usagi Tsukino is shocked, a scrambling mass of questions and horror. But Sailor Moon has a simple answer. Whatever did that, whatever killed someone, and then treated their remains in such a brutal and disgusting manner, needs to be put down.
"MCAT's already looking into it. And I… talked with their lead investigator. He was younger than I expected- older than we are, sure, but I'm not sure he's even out of high school yet. He was… arrogant. But-" her eyes flash- "we managed to get past that."
The man who thought of himself as 'Shibuya' even before he discovered that mind reading is possible, and who now does so with a truly rigid mental discipline, opens the door to the small office space set aside for his interview. He frowns slightly. There are a great many advantages to working with MCAT. But it is, perhaps, a little worrying that so much of the government-funded organization's working spaces look so much like the cheap offices that he used to rent out.
No matter. This will serve for what he needs to do today. It seems that MCAT at the very least understood what he had been hoping for, having removed all but one of the tables from the room. They even bothered to properly set it up in the center of the room for him.
Shibuya does one final sweep of the room, checking for any bugs or recording instruments that MCAT might have left behind. Unless they're more subtle than he believes plausible, there are none. Shoddy. And a shame. Having a second recording of his questioning would have been useful in the future. Perhaps he should request something of the sort the next time that he has the chance to question a suspect.
Not that the 'Sailor Senshi' are actually suspects here. They simply don't act like serial killers. To be sure, he at least briefly considered the possibility that secretive murders somehow associated with major uses of their abilities could form a plausible modus operandi. But the lack of mummified corpses folded into pretzels in any other places they've operated makes it seem vanishingly unlikely.
Still, though Sailor Moon almost certainly isn't the killer, her presence at the crime scene was by far the most unusual thing to happen that day. He'd been hoping to speak to her as soon as possible. Instead, he's got… one of the others. Sailor Mars. Who wasn't even at the hospital that day, by all accounts. Well, that may not turn out to be entirely worthless. One never knows.
Shibuya sets down his tape recorder, tests it briefly, then pulls a chair up to his side of the table, positioned at just the right distance and angle so that when he sits down, he can easily swing his feet up onto the table.
There's an art to this. Shibuya's not the sort to put on an act for others' benefit just for its own sake, but he knows well how powerful first impressions can be. Putting the right foot- or the right wrong foot- forward can throw someone off guard.
From what he's gathered, Sailor Mars is the most… serious... of the Sailor Senshi. Flippancy will upset her, hopefully enough that she lets slip something she'd rather keep quiet.
What that might be, Shibuya isn't certain, but as he sees it, it's probably the only way he'll salvage anything from this interview now that he's learned Sailor Moon isn't coming.
Most interestingly, but of least immediate use, she might let slip something that proves one of his theories as to the Sailor Senshi's civilian identities- he's quite certain that they have them. More pragmatically, she might call for her boss instead of wasting her time and his talking to him.
He sets those thoughts aside as the knob turns. The door swings open, and Sailor Mars enters. From their reputation for fighting monstrous creatures, he'd half expected a towering, muscular woman, an Amazon as it were, but she's of quite ordinary stature. Conventionally beautiful, strikingly so, though not really his type…
He nods to her from his seat, and watches as her facial expression twists a bit in stiff, formal distaste. Probably brought on by his casual posture. That's data- but. It's… difficult to get a read on her. To retain anything subtle or subliminal about her expression. Broad-strokes emotions seem clear enough- she's clearly a bit wary, a bit tense. But the why of it, the things that would normally be her tells- they're all blurry. Difficult to recall. And now that he thinks about it, that difficulty seems compulsory. Something psychic, or magical, or whatever one might call it.
A useful trick, that. Especially useful as a politician's weapon. A liar's weapon.
The two of them sit down together at the table, and he clears his throat.
"I intend to record this conversation." Shibuya flips the switch on the tape recorder. "Is that acceptable to you?"
"I don't see why not." Sailor Mars shrugs.
"Very well. I am Kazuya Shibuya, of Shibuya Psychic Research, stationed out of Shibuya. I know, I've heard all the jokes already. And you are, I presume, Sailor Mars?"
"Yes."
Shibuya bounces a handful of straightforward informational questions off her. Questions whose answers are unsurprising but worth having for the record. And then…
"How would you describe your connection with Sailor Moon?"
"..."
She pauses for quite a long time, and there's something there, something mostly screened off by that maddening 'politician's weapon' glamour that's messing with his mind. At last, she answers.
"She is my liege lady, and I am her samurai."
Interesting. Spoken like a woman from another time, or another world… or a very strange person from this time and world. Circle back.
"Where were you at the time of the murder?"
"That would have been… the afternoon of Monday, June 2nd, yes?"
"Monday the first," Shibuya corrects.
"I would have been at home, with family."
"Can you provide any details or corroboration on that?"
"Not at this time," she says, still rather stiff. Naturally not, the Sailor Senshi guard their civilian identities very closely. If anyone else knows, Shibuya hasn't met them, or hasn't wiggled it out of them.
His head aches from trying to concentrate on her expression, to get any clues at all out of this..
"And can you comment as to Sailor Moon's whereabouts on the afternoon of Monday the first?"
"She was at the hospital, healing that sick girl… among other people." Sailor Mars does not relax; she's definitely on her guard now.
"Sailor Moon is on record as having arrived at 4:16 p.m. that afternoon, yes." You nod. "Sailor Moon also has a reputation as being able to transport herself instantly or nearly so from place to place, at will, without passing through the intervening space, isn't that true? One might call it teleportation."
The woman in the oddly gleaming sailor fuku stops to think… and gives a politician's answer. "I can't say whether she has that reputation, but she has the ability. MCAT already knows this."
"True. Now, given that the body was not found for some time, and was in an advanced and anomalous state of decomposition, we haven't been able to precisely identify the time of death. It is entirely possible, even likely, that the nurse was already dead when Sailor Moon arrived at the hospital. Does this surprise you?"
"Not at all."
"Interesting. She's not here, one of her 'samurai' is, and the 'samurai' can't attest to where she was during the entire possible timeframe of the murder. Nor, I suspect, can…
"It occurs to me that it would be quite easy for Sailor Moon, whose whereabouts for the day before 4:16 p.m. are as yet unaccounted for, to have entered the hospital beforehand. While she would no doubt stand out in a crowd, it occurs to me that there are… options… for avoiding such attention. And your organization has considerable, dare I say unknown, resources, such as the remarkable psychic effect you are already projecting upon me. Can you provide any clear indication or alibi to rule out the possibility that Sailor Moon surreptitiously committed the murder herself?"
Sailor Mars' eyes may, or may not, literally flash with inner light at that moment. It was hard to be sure, just now.
"I don't think you actually believe she would have done it."
"I fail to see how that opinion of yours is relevant. It's a pity that she's not here to answer such questions herself, though. One might even say a convenient pity…"
The strange crackling sound he can't quite place doesn't strictly interrupt him; he'd finished his sentence. But his train of thought stops, trying to place the sound for a second before Sailor Mars answers him
"Do you want to investigate what happened at the Genai hospital?"
Shibuya's eyebrow rises slowly. "I am investigating."
And she replies to that with a complete non sequitur.
"I was covered in blood."
Her voice sounds… shaky. Shibuya frowns. "What do you mean?"
And the words tumble out, and quite suddenly Sailor Mars sounds less like a heroine and more like a survivor.
"Under the mall. In Choshi City. Yesterday. One of the youma tried to kill me with something. To stab me in the back while I was helpless. A man died blocking that weapon from reaching me, and it exploded and I was covered in blood and then somehow Sailor Moon dragged him back from the dead like he'd never been injured, and then she passed out. And it's been almost a day now, and she still won't wake up. I don't know when she will, and I can only have faith that she ever will. And if you dare to say one more unkind or suspicious word about her, when she can't be here to answer back, I will have to leave and never speak to you or any of your associates ever again. Because you will have made me far, far too angry. And that will probably interfere with your investigation, Mr. Shibuya."
The Sailor Senshi's last few words come out as a hiss. Shibuya feels the temperature of the room suddenly rise, much as it's been known to drop around himself. It rises quite a bit, in fact, before fading back to normal.
Sailor Mars is breathing deeply, with her hands in her lap.
Shibuya looks down at the shallow depressions that Sailor Mars' clasping fingertips left in the edge of the table. Ah. That would be where the crackling sound came from.
Which is, he supposes, a… yes. That's just the phrase to use right now.
"A valid consideration."
Some lines of investigation are best prioritized over others. For many reasons.
"The ghost boy you told us about… They've met him."
"They have?"
"In fact… he, the ghost boy, was attacked on the same day you met him. And seems to have, just recently, run away from the hospital with one the investigators, a girl named Mai. Who was, ah, excitable. Very kind." Rei smiles weakly. "It was a relief to get to talk to the rest of them, apart from Mr. Shibuya. Did you know they have Shinto ritual spaces already in place at MCAT headquarters?"
"That… would be pretty fast, wouldn't it?"
"Well, yes, but I can understand why. They have a fair number of priests. Anyway, there was a hurt spirit, and I knew you wanted to find out what had happened to the ghost boy, and well… not all rituals are about evil spirits, or chasing spirits away. So we got something going- Dr. Matsuzaki, who was helpful there- and called the little boy up to talk to him. And we learned… a lot, about the evil presence that threatened him, so that's progress for us."
You feel more and more concerned about all of this by the minute. You shake your head. "There was a murder at the hospital and the little ghost boy was in danger… this doesn't feel like progress."
"It does if it turns out that those are connected attacks."
That… somehow hadn't crossed your mind. "You think there was a single youma, or something like that, behind both attacks?"
Rei nods. "And I may be able to help track it down, or at least give us somewhere to start. To their rituals, the evil presence was only a shadow. But with the spirit right there, when I did the fire reading… I saw a woman. A young woman. A girl? Evil, cruel, monstrous, but with human shape. I didn't recognize her, though."
You gulp. "Did you get a picture of her?"
Rei shakes her head. "No. It's hard to take photographs of a figure in flames, even with the readings. But… I suppose I could try to call up her face again."
"I think we'd better do that."
"Are you okay with meeting the boy ghost again? Unless we go over to Shibuya to find Miss Mai, I'm going to have to do a calling." Rei looks down at her hands. "It's so strange. Grandfather taught me a lot over the years, and… it worked before, sometimes, a little. But not like it does now. Before becoming a Senshi, I'd only ever done a single real exorcism, and I could barely even feel the spirit's presence. Over the weekend, I was called in for an exorcism and I caught the spirit with my hands before escorting it off the grounds. Everything has become so much clearer, so much more than it was before I was a Senshi."
You smile, rising to your feet. "And you're great at it! So, the calling. Is it something you'd… do here?"
Rei shakes her head, glancing away from you. "No… Not without a proper space set up for rituals. But I could at the shrine." She looks thoughtful.
You lean forward a bit, offering her a hand up. "Well, then. I'll have us there in a jiffy."
She looks even more thoughtful- and a little worried. "Let me send a message to Ami- and promise to have you back soon."
Oh. "Uh. Right!" You nod vigorously, remembering what happened to Minako. You might not be quite so vulnerable to the same terrible fate, as you once would have been… but you know something would go wrong.
She murmurs indistinctly into the communicator, listens to it closely, and nods. "We'd… better make it fast." She sighs, and reaches out to you. You take her hand, and
flicker
In a blink-quick moment, you appear among the trees behind Hikawa Shrine. The only people who should be walking here, as a rule, are the shrine's keepers. And even then, Yuuichiro's duties keep him away from this place exactly because you use it for arrivals so often.
As you emerge from the treeline, you see Rei's grandfather sweeping dust and grime from the pathway. One of Rei's ravens rests on his shoulder. You can't tell the birds apart without listening to them speak, though Rei herself always seems to be able to. You exchange slight nods with the old man, and pass him.
The small stone building at the center of the shrine carries a quiet dignity so obvious to your senses that you feel you can almost see it in the air itself. Rei slides open the gate in the low fence around the structure and lets you through, then carefully and ceremoniously opens the door of the building itself. As you cross the threshold, the sense of dignity in the air grows- thicker, somehow, and more distinct. This place feels, you sense, a little bit like Rei's own presence. Or perhaps it's the other way around, and there is something so essential about Rei that comes from this place that you recognize it in her.
You're not exactly a religious expert, but even you know that this is the sacred center of the shrine, the home of its kami. Normally, you shouldn't be here. Only the priesthood are allowed. You trust Rei to have made the right decision, bringing you here.
You see a beautiful stone mural carved into the back wall, showing a young woman carrying a paper lantern. Folded prayer tags hang down from the edges of the stones. But that seems less important than the utter simplicity of the fire at the heart of Hikawa Shrine. A square of iron slats, old and hand-forged, joined at the corners to form a raised perimeter around the sacred fire. There is no extravagance here. Only warmth, and peace, and a sense of… of depth. As if you are leaning over the edge of a rooftop, looking down at the ground far below.
But as you might, now, as Sailor Moon, look down the side of a skyscraper without fear of falling to the bottom, so too you find that here there is no worry, only an understanding of the weight of the knowledge kept here.
You glance at Rei, who's dropped her transformation. It seems hard to imagine that she'd have had time change into her miko robes while you were looking at the mural and the flame- you blush slightly at the thought. So you can only guess that she was dressed like that before she transformed today in the first place. Maybe she knew you'd want to come here? Has there been enough time for her to do it, since school let out for her?
You frown, dismissing the thoughts and trying to act like you're in a sacred place. Is it disrespectful for you to remain Sailor Moon here? Should you de-transform back into your regular clothes here, or would that be… you don't know and you're kind of afraid to ask Rei…
No no, it's fine. Nice to finally meet You. That's a nice Aspect.
You freeze, suddenly, looking at the far wall again.
Was it a trick of the swirling smoke, or did the girl in the stone mural just wink at you?
Rei moves silently, approaching the flame at the center of the room, kneeling down and murmuring a prayer. The words carry a weight of magic or something like it, but they don't feel like a spell.
Half a minute or so passes. Rei rises smoothly to her feet again, then turns to face you. Bringing her hands together in a sharp clap, she starts to move. She chants, she gestures, and this feels more like a spell, but still somehow different from other works of magic you've seen.
And at last, at the end of it all, Rei drops into a perfectly ordinary tone of voice.
"And you, Mamoru, lost and alone, I beseech you. Please, answer my call. We would like to speak to you. About the Bad Hat Man, and the monster that tried to eat you."
Mamoru… Oh. Oh dear.
The boy's name is Mamoru. You think- you hope so very much that you're wrong. You know a Mamoru, or at the very least, you know the body of a Mamoru. One who lost everything at around the age of the child-ghost that you encountered at the hospital.
And Endymion has a certain affinity for tuxedos and top hats.
Somehow, even as the air in front of Rei begins to shimmer, you hope against hope. Please. Don't let this child be the ghost of Mamoru Chiba. The body of Endymion, a man that you call an ally, the love of your past life, and most importantly a friend.
Then something… strange happens. The sacred fire surges high. Flames leaping up, licking across the interlocking slates of the roof above you. The air in front of Rei splinters open, peeling back in a cross-hatched pattern that briefly reminds you of a maw full of teeth. You see a perfectly ordinary room on the other side of the gap, where a girl not much older than you is standing, pouring tea. Her eyes widen and the cup overflows as the tiny shape of Mamoru steps across. The fractured space closes and smooths over behind him.
The ghost boy floats quietly for a moment, staring at both of you, before recognition changes the look on his face. His voice is somber, soft, small. "Sailor Moon. And… Sailor Mars? You look… different?"
This ghost… seems to have seen through Rei's disguise as Sailor Mars, perhaps? Can she see through yours? Or is it something about this magic, or this place? That is… interesting and worrying in equal parts.
You look to Rei, letting her decide whether to confirm that. She nods to the boy. "Yes. It's us."
"Have you… found the bad hat man?"
Rei opens her mouth, but you step forwards slightly.
You have to know.
"Mamoru." You speak softly. "That's your name, isn't it? Mamoru Chiba."
You can feel Rei's gaze shift to you, but you stay focused on the spirit in front of you. The little boy is quiet, solemn, downcast. He clasps the faint outlines of a ghostly teddy bear to himself and nods.
That is what you were afraid of.
You sigh softly and nod. "Then… Yes. Yes, I have found the bad hat man."
"You have?" Rei asks, but the ghost barely spares her a glance. He's looking at you with a sudden intensity that seems terrible to behold on that child's face, even if- perhaps especially if- the face is a thing of shadowy translucence.
"Yes, but I know him by a different name. He's called Endymion."
Rei gasps. The ghost looks down at his hands. Confusion spreads across his face. "Endymion. I… I know that name."
You shake your head sadly. "Now that I've figured out who you are, I'm not surprised. Once, before I ever met you, I learned the story of how Endymion gained his- the body he now wears. If I may, I'd like to tell it to you."
The faint background sounds of Tokyo around you seem to disappear. Even the sound of the sacred bonfire fades to a soft whisper, as you repeat the story Endymion once told to you. Of how he was just a voice in the back of little Mamoru's head when the boy was born. How he watched, experiencing life through Mamoru's eyes, until one terrible day.
The car crash. The death of Mamoru's parents. And the moment when Endymion was left alone in a young child's head, wondering where Mamoru himself had gone.
Mamoru's face and eyes are flat, dull, still, in perhaps a way only the dead or the nearly-dead can be. He floats there for a time, saying nothing. Then something about him ripples, as though he is trying to draw a deep breath, or as close to it as a ghost can come.
"The bad hat man… didn't mean to hurt me?"
"No. He didn't." You confirm.
The boy floats there for a few more moments, and tiny tears of frustration, confusion, pain, begin to form in his eyes. "I… But the bad hat man is the bad hat man. He's bad. But… Sailor Moon is good? And she says that bad hat man is not bad? But… he's… But you…" He sobs. "You can fix this? You can make me whole again? Can't you?"
That… That is a whole other thing. You've only just realized that you know this child. That you know his body. That the bad hat man is Endymion. That this… is… very, very much not simple.
"I…" There has to be something that you can say here. But-
Rei's hand lands softly on your shoulder, and the ruffled fabric there shifts gently under her touch as it wouldn't for a falling boulder. She speaks carefully, keeping her gaze locked with Mamoru. "Honored spirit… Even if we could return your spirit to your body… It has been more than a decade now. We can't bring your parents back."
You nod. "It's been a long time, Mamoru. I can't… just turn things back to the way they were before. I can't undo the past." A strange disquiet flutters in your heart, as you say those words.
You've overcome death once, after all.
But the words don't feel… false, not even to that heart. Still, even if they're not false, that doesn't mean they're final. So you go on. "But just because we can't do that, doesn't mean we can't do something. It's just… going to take time. To think, to plan. Maybe to prepare."
The child nods, and for the first time his eyes look older than the rest of him. "I… I know I'm dead. Time doesn't pass for me, not like it does for alive people. I can… wait." And then the boy is a shivering child again, and not a spirit that's been bodiless for longer than it walked the Earth in life. "Unless the monster finds me."
Rei's hand stays on your shoulder. She leans forward, and you find the way she puts some weight on you to balance herself… oddly comforting. "Now that is something the Sailor Senshi can do something about. But… we need your help again, Mamoru. We can fight monsters. Even the monster that tried to eat you after you met Sailor Moon. But to do that, we need to see her face again. So we can find her and stop her. Please, it's very important. Can you do that for us, before we release you back to where you were?"
The boy smiles softly at Rei. "Miss Mai is very nice. I think you'd like her." Then, he begins to fade, growing paler and more transparent, and finally vanishing completely.
Concerned, confused, you open your mouth, but before you say a word, Rei jerks. Your hand blurs to brace her, but she doesn't start to topple. But her eyes flutter closed, and when they open, they're different. Worryingly so, unlike anything you've ever seen from her. Something in them seems… like a mask of death drawn over life, or a mask of life drawn over death. She keeps her hand planted on your shoulder, but raises her other hand upwards. And the flames leap high, roaring and dancing against the roof once again, before they settle. Before a shape emerges from sparks and smoke.
Even after that figure is fully formed, it takes you a moment to recognize it as the shape of a woman, a girl. And longer still to recognize it as anyone in particular. The sharp, pointed teeth like fangs are probably a metaphor of some kind. And you hope that the horrible, horrible hungry smile on her face is… oh. No. No, somehow, you know it isn't. That's not a metaphor at all. That's as true to life as any photograph. And…
You feel, somehow, less like Usagi Tsukino and more like Sailor Moon than you have at any moment since you woke up earlier this afternoon.
You draw a deep breath. And you turn to look at Rei again. Her eyes seem quite ordinary now, or as ordinary as they ever are, and she's studying the figure in the flames. Obviously making sure to memorize that face, that girl, who you suspect she's never seen in her life before today, and maybe yesterday. She jerks slightly in surprise when you begin to speak.
"I think I know where to find her. I'll… be seeing her tomorrow. At-" you look around willing your sense of 「espery」 to tell you if anyone's looking or listening, and though Someone is aware of your presence, somehow you can tell She's not listening to the details of your speech- "at school."
You try to calm the feeling in your mind. How could you not have known... but then again, how could you? You sag a little. Rei looks at you, concerned.
"This… you're feeling something like how I felt about losing track of the hammer youma, aren't you?"
You smile weakly. "I think so."
"Well, at least it sounds like you know where to find your stray demon," Rei huffs.
You can't help yourself. You manage just the barest shadow of a chuckle. "I guess I do."
Rei nods. "We… should probably get back to Crystal Millennium. Mercury's the one who really understood the stuff Yuuno said and so on, plus… she might get impatient if she doesn't get the chance to explain."
You smile a little bit more. "Can't have that."
And Rei puts her hand in yours, and you shiver for more reasons at once than you feel remotely capable of sorting out. You teleport, taking your leave from a place of sacred fire to a place of a bit more warmth.
...sigh...well, I think things have gone as well as can be expected. We've confirmed the mystery child's identity and he's agreed to let us try to figure out some way of helping him. Ahma's been identified as a danger to people, and we can start figuring out what to do about that.
I mean, we've killed better people for worse reasons. Youma can at least be said to be corrupted and mentally influenced, but AFAIK Ahma's just a teenager who discovered her talent for really fucked up magic and happily started using it in the worst ways possible.
In a blink-quick moment, you appear among the trees behind Hikawa Shrine. The only people who should be walking here, as a rule, are the shrine's keepers. And even then, Yuuichiro's duties keep him away from this place exactly because you use it for arrivals so often.
Shinshoku: Yes, our festival was a major success, pulling in visitors from far and wide. I hope that the Hikawa Shrine has been doing well? I would hate to consider the thought of you languishing in obscurity. Grandpa Hino: Oh, the Hikawa Shrine is doing well, thank you. No big festivals for us lately, but we're kept plenty busy, what with being the exclusive Shrine used by the Sailor Senshi. Shinshoku: ...Exclusive? Grandpa Hino: Oh, yes. Our groundskeeper has been instructed to keep clear of a specific area, so that our visitors may more convienently bend time and space to arrive.
Glad to see me adding in some paranormal researcher and detective Intrigue monsters panned out so well. I don't know what their actual numbers would be, but I know they'd be high, and variable.
Mai has become a mobile daycare. If she starts dragging around an army of dead kids that piper demon from Inuyasha will be put out of a job.
Can we even put Mamoru back? If we can should we? I'm of the opinion we should maybe have Naru get some Endymion DNA and make a homunculus body if we don't simply help the kid move on.
I thought I'd already told you lot what to do about 'Ghost Boy'?
"Ore wa Mamoru Chiba. At six years old, I was cast from my body by Endymion. In order to come back to life, I must become a Masked Warrior and gather the souls of fifteen heroes."
