1735/Plucking A Rose

Plucking A Rose
Date of Scene:	09 July 2024
Location:	Dorms #3
Synopsis:	Taro Yamada has decided to deliver Mamoru his apology fruit basket. Adrien has decided to check in on his neighbors. And Beryl has finally decided to demand the return of what belongs to her. The Slasher is powerful, but Thetis is no slouch, either. Mamoru's luck has finally run out. CW: Descriptions of injury, drowning.
Cast of Characters:	Taro Yamada, Mamoru Chiba, Adrien Agreste, Beryl
Tinyplot:	Dark Kingdom Finale

---

Taro Yamada has posed:
Taro Yamada takes a deep breath before he knocks on the door. "Mamoru Chiba?" No response. He sucks in another deep breath before he knocks again. "Are you home? I have a delivery. I can just hand it to you and leave."

The Back Street Slasher had told Sailor Moon he'd give her boyfriend - her fiance(!!!) - an apology fruit basket for slashing him, and neither the Slasher nor Taro were ones to go back on their promises. He'd given himself a ccover story of saying he was the Slasher's henchman and now, after, oh no, at least a month?? He was here to deliver.

Taro's more nervous than usual, so he's in a baggy red hoodie and sweats despite the heat, his black bangs almost hiding his eyes entirely. He looks about ready to vibrate out of his skin with nerves.

The basket on his arm, meanwhile, is practically emitting shoujo sparkles. Skewers of candied fruits line the edges of it; each skewer has the fruit cut into different patterns: flowers, moons, cats, stars, and ovals. (He only had so many cookie cutter patterns to work with, ok?)

In the center of the basket is a small cake with pink icing. The cake inside, not that anyone could tell, is lemon flavored and the icing strawberry; the cake is decorated with a rose made from strawberry slices, a mochi crescent moon, and a shimmering sugar oval that bears some resemblance to a mirror, or to the portal to the past Beryl made months ago.

Even if Taro was an evil and wicked being (which he definitely was), he couldn't ignore that he'd seen an engagement right in front of his eyes! Just because he was a man eating vampire-yokai didn't mean that he was some kind of rude guy who didn't celebrate a couple! His ma had raised him better than that!

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru comes to the door taking a lollipop out of his mouth, laptop and textbook open on his bed, sock-footed and wearing a plain white t-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts. His glasses are more-or-less clean, and he's left blinking at Taro's statement.

He takes the lollipop out of his mouth, staring at the enormous fruit display, and he opens his door wider and steps aside. "No, come in! You should have some too! Will you? Who's it from?" A beat. He draws back a little, squinting. "Wait, is this from the back street guy? It's really big, it's really big... is it a really big apology? You know him, right? Is he part of obsidian? Come in anyway is that a little cake? There are fruit bunnies!"

Mamoru is so full of mixed emotions, here. And he keeps noticing details, but watching Taro's face for reactions to what he's saying. But he's so full of mixed emotions that the Endymion is really showing.

Adrien Agreste has posed:
The dorm next door made it rather easy to hear when Taro was knocking and calling for Mamoru. That was easy enough to ignore.

Adrien was working on slowly sipping a latte and enjoying the caffienated drink. Tonight was Mario Kart night which meant he'd need to be up later than usual. It was still an hour off for timezones to line up properly with his friends in Paris, though. All the more reason for his curiosity to finally get the best of him when he hears the mixture of wary and delighted remarks from Mamoru out in the hall.

By the time he's gushing over the fruit bunnies, Adrien's given in and opened his own door to lean around the corner curiously. The blonde catches hold of the door frame in one hand while just leaning out to grin over at the pair, one familiar, and one not--Wait. Wasn't that the guy that was selling food by the portal?

"What's going on out here? Hi Mamoru, and..." He tips his head toward Taro a moment thoughtfully. "I recognize you but I don't think I ever caught your name?"

Taro Yamada has posed:
There he is. T-shirt, shorts, glasses, hair ruffled... It really wasn't fair! You couldn't trust pretty boys, and yet Mamoru Tuxedo Guy Enderman seemed like a class act! Even the rumor mill said he was good enough for Usagi! And there's a sliver of skin showing between his shirt and his shorts and Taro is Not Looking.

"It's from the Back Street Slasher, yeah. I was tagging along on a witch hunt and apparantly your girlfriend yelled at the Slasher to apologize to you? And since I'm a vanilla human who can see magic, he shoved a bunch of money at me and told me to make a fruit basket. And I feel like trying to give a big monster like that his money back would be a bad idea, right?" He's trying and failing to keep eye contact, and his cheeks are starting to pink. He's flustered, not only because getting to see Mamoru Tuxedo Guy in the daylight is, uh, he sure is a guy! Wow! But also because Mamoru's acknowledging the Slasher! Him! AFter all his hard work!

"He didn't really stick around. I know he's not Obsideon, though, I'm pretty sure he's older than the company. The cake was my idea - I heard you got engaged and thought you should get something nice to share with your girlfriend. The skewers are for you to share with Usagi and anyone else you're dating? I hope I made enough..."

And then he is jumpscared by another pretty boy, with big gooey eyes and strange blonde hair. "Hi. I'm Taro Yamada? I just started attending a couple months ago, I'm in the other dorms. I got commissioned to make him a fruit basket since I bake as a sidle hustle?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"What he said," Mamoru laughs at Adrien, gesturing him into the room too. "And Taro-san, this is Adrien Agreste."

A beat.

"Wait, you made this?" he asks incredulously, doing a doubletake. Hurriedly he backs off to clear things off the desk and ever so politely fail to notice the fluster or the pink. "It's incredible, you're an artist!"

He peers into the center of the basket again as he helps Taro move it to the desk and set it down. "That cake is impossibly cute. I'd better not cut it open without Usako, eh?"

There's another pause, and it's clear Mamoru is thinking, imagining, imagining Sailor Moon yelling at the Back Street Slasher to apologize. It tracks, given their interactions during the business with the Terribad. "She yelled at him to apologize and he sends a custom hustled fruit basket. I don't get that guy. I still have what he said stuck in my head. He thought my tuxedo was neat. Who says neat?"

Adrien Agreste has posed:
Adrien Agreste grins broadly in greeting when Taro introduces himself. Mamoru's urging for him to come in as well is accepted easily enough. The door is released, and he moves inside while taking the moment to shut the door behind them all out of habit. You just don't leave doors open.

"Oh, hey! Nice to meet you, Taro-san!" His expression softens a bit as he realizes what some of the topic of conversation is about. "It's okay if you're talking about 'business'," he offers with a jovial grin. "I've known about that for awhile. Ran into similar things back in Paris," he explains. "Though thankfully I'm far less of a target here." Mostly.

Hearing that Taro made the cake and fruit he leans forward to regard it with a low whistle of apparent approval. "Wow, that really looks amazing. You're very talented, Taro-san!"

A small chuckle comes as he looks to Mamoru. "Well, you *do* pull off a tailcoat tuxedo rather neatly. I've never even worn one yet and I have worn a lot of tuxedos."

Taro Yamada has posed:
"I spent some time working in a pastry shop a while ago, and I have discovered I stress bake over the last few months," Taro says, carefully setting down the basket with the cake. "There's a sugar glaze on the strawberries to keep them good longer and the mochi is fresh, but if she can't come over tonight, you should put it in the fridge."

Wait, why is he inviting Usagi over if he's engaged to Sailor Moon? Eh?? Is? She??? Actually Sailor Moon?? There are rabbits on the moon... There's some math being slowly done in his head right now.

"I was bitten by a monster as a kid," he explains to Adrien, "so I don't have any powers, but I can see all the supernatural stuff. Obsideon picked me up for HR, but I am off the clock so I didn't see anything and I don't know anything." Scouts honor! He sees nothing, he knows nothing. Business and personal are strictly seperate. "Besides, Mamoru's Obisideon rival is a few chopsticks short of a kitchen drawer. I'm staying as far away from her and her latex bunnies as possible." Fuyuko said to avoid Beryl, so he is avoiding Beryl!

And, hmm. He can't admit he was the one who said neat, so: "I did some research - the Back Street Slasher is an urban legend that started up in the 60s and 70s. I dunno if a Japanese yokai that old would be terribly familiar with Western clothing? And..." Hmm. "I've only met Usagi twice, but she seems like she could yell a yokai into submission. She's got an energy like a shrine maiden, you know?"

It's close enough!

Beryl has posed:
In the midst of all this conversation, these well-wishes, that fellowship, lurks an uninvited guest.

An irritated uninvited guest, which is truly the worst kind, because it's not as though she were asked to be here... Well. Her queen asked her to be here, and that trumps the rights of the one who lives here.

Especially when 'the one who lives here' is a traitor, long-allowed to walk free. Queen Beryl had had higher priorities, than reclaiming a single boy-toy, but things have changed. The Doom and Gloom Girls have been highly successful in claiming energy, and Thetis has been no slouch. Their great leader is recovering at an admirable clip, and it's time. Mamoru Chiba has been off his leash for too long - especially if he thinks he has the right to his own life, the right to seek happiness with another woman.

Usako, huh? Thetis would be sure to report that little tidbit when she turned him over.

She's in her liquid form, waiting within the pipes in the wall, seeking the perfect opportunity to strike...

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"You're right, you're right, it's a tailcoat with white tie, not a tuxedo, you're right," Mamoru says, waving a hand in laughing acquiescence as he takes out his phone. He takes a step back and holds it up to take a picture of the basket and then one of the basket and Taro, then sends them off to Usagi and Kazuo and Jadeite with the caption 'apology food for us!'

Then his phone goes back in his pocket and he lifts his eyebrows at Taro. "You did a lot of research on that guy, I don't blame you if he's shoving money at you-- but what rival do I have at Obsidian? And what do you mean, latex bunnies?"

Such an curious and amused look, and he selects a star-shaped piece of pineapple and takes the plastic off, then takes a bite.

Adrien Agreste has posed:
Adrien Agreste flashes another grin toward Taro trying to be as reassuring as possible. If he'd brought something like this, paid to or not, he couldn't be all bad. Right? Right. "I knew Mamoru before he left Obsidian too. Although I didn't quite know as much about it then as I do now," he adds with a chuckle. "But I don't hold it against him. Even my father works with Obsidian on some level, and he's not ..." A hand lifts to wave dismissively. Evil. Bad? No, he wasn't going to say such things.

"Sorry, Mamoru. You know my job is modeling clothes. The particulars are drilled into me so much I think I could tell you what something is while blindfolded."

The talk of the rival causes him to give a quiet little laugh. "Oh maybe he means that woman you threw me under the bus with? Saying I was Prince-like? Not sure about latex bunnies though." A pause before he adds, "I also don't recommend trying to wear latex. Very not fun."

Taro Yamada has posed:
"He's got a wikipedia article, you know? And a couple low budget horror movies, and some video games. He's not as high profile as Kuchisake-onna or Hanako of the Toilet," two incredibly famous urban legend yokai, "but it made things easier."

He worked for that wikipedia article! 50 years of attacking civilians and swapping forms, trying to get them to remember SOMETHING while not getting arrested, shot or hit by a car. It's hard work, being an urban legend!

"OH, uh. The creepo lady who blew up the bank and her baja blast bitch?" Taro asks. "I'm told she only hires scantily clad women with magic powers? Hence, latex bunnies." Can you believe that??

(And that will track for Mamoru, since he's heard the Slasher's obscenity-laden rant about Beryl's hiring practices.)

"Obsideon's evil, but this is the best job I've had in my life. Knowing my coworkers might try and kill me on a whim sucks, sure, but that happened to me when I was a waiter too, and when I worked retail. Beryl's not the first mega-entitled make-up caked Karen I've been employed in proximity to, but she's probably the most conceited and the most likely to hire a pack of yapping chihuahuas to fawn over her every step."

Beryl has posed:
Mamoru takes a bite of star-shaped pineapple, clearly distracted. The equally distracted blonde is Adrien Agreste, son of Hawkmoth, a man she notably didn't work for, and who her Queen no longer needed, now that the Doom and Gloom Girls had been completed. The other one... claimed to work for Obsidian, but in one of the weaker divisions - also no one her Queen needed.

This was the moment to strike, with them all distracted, and Mamoru with his mouth too full to call out whatever hokey transformation phrase he'd been saddled with sense abandoning the power that Hematite had been so lovingly blessed. Thetis shifted in the pipes, prepared to burst through the sprinklers overhead -

And the irrelevant boy insults her queen.

The sprinklers burst, spraying frigid water over the room with the force of a firehose, bruising force, and from that mass of water, comes Thetis, in her youma form, blue-skinned, mouthless, vividly red eyes narrowed murderously. With a wave of her arm, the downpour gathers together into a single enormous stream of water, which she uses to slam Taro into the wall on Mamoru's side of the room. The plaster caves under him.

And then she turns, grabbing Mamoru by the shirt-collar.

"Mamoru Chiba," she says coldly, "You should have at least tried to make it difficult to find you."

Wow, victim blaming on top off everything else.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
With his mouth full, yeah, for sure he can't henshin into Tuxedo Kamen--

--but he can for sure transform, for a second time in front of Thetis, directly into Prince Endymion. He does this and shoves out at her, swallowing his mouthful of pineapple. "You two GET OUT!" he yells, instead of a henshin phrase and instead of actually processing what kind of danger they're in--

--he just needs three seconds to teleport, that's it, that's all he needs--

And even if he can't get her to let go of him, he can absolutely produce a rose from nowhere, as is his wont, and brandish it. He does that, and the rose is in his terribly scarred right hand, beauty held in an unsightly mess, no glove covering it anymore.

"I SAID I was sorry! GOD you're such a pain in the ass--"

Adrien Agreste has posed:
Adrien Agreste watches with clear amusement as Mamoru starts to eat the pineapple with such enthusiastic gusto. Before he can even think of something funny to say, the sprinklers go off.

Like water canons.

He instinctively throws his arms over his head feeling the bruising force of the water that pelts down on him. He barely has time to even react to that when Taro is thrown against the wall, and Mamoru's changed, and-- And Plagg was in his room still.

Adrien clenches his fist feeling the ring on his finger dig in from the grip. One phrase is all it would say and he was near enough to where Plagg was that it *should* work, but--

Get out. Right.

Adrien dives toward the door.

Taro Yamada has posed:
Owwwwwww. This is not the worst Taro has been hurt, but it's been a while since he's gotten banged up in human form. He can feel his ribs twinging. He manages to get his arms up to protect his head; he's not concussed, thankfully, but the arm he braced himself with will be black and blue for weeks.

He could do something as Taro. He could go out the window. But that would mean leaving Adrian and Mamoru behind.

With Her.

He hates Beryl and her Baja Blast minion. He hates how Beryl has so much power and uses it to be such a JERK, and not even in a cool way. He hates how Baja Blast put a little kid in harm's way and perverted the kid's love of dolls. Above all, he hates his own powerlessness, the way he couldn't raise a hand against Daifuku Dessert Girl because she reminded him of Chiyo, the way he hesitated to fight that knightly girl at laser tag because her face still had traces of baby fat. He hates how weak he feels, like he was back then, as the wooden creature bit down and left it's energy rotting inside him-

"I ate it all. Catch me if you can," he growls, and Dory in the toy coffin in his pants pocket stirs -

The room is thick with fear; the Slasher looms, angled face shadowed under his hooded cloak, his eyes glowing red. He is deathly silent as the red blade grows from his palm, as he swings his hand down and shears through the arm Thetis is holding Mamoru with. Inside of her arm is empty, like someone had cut open a porcelain doll.

His other hand slams into Thetis's side and the blade burrows in, in, in, trying to suck up blood and energy, but all that's inside of Thetis's hollow body is darkness.

"R U N," he growls to Mamoru, to Tuxedo Guy, to Prince Endymion, because the Back Street Slasher is great at running, at hiding, and he wasn't that frightened child in the alley anymore, and he was a wicked and evil creature but he didn't hurt kids -

What kind of messed up adult would hurt a kid like that?!

The hand that cut the arm off swings back, then lunges down, down, down, towards her neck, because he was strong enough that no one would hurt him again, no one would hurt anyone again, a strong enough monster wouldn't let anyone get hurt again!

Beryl has posed:
No time for chatter. No time for acknowledging his half-hearted, mocking apologies. Thetis turns on Mamoru - on Prince Endymion - and she can't smile. She has no mouth.

There's a rose in his hand, a damaged, unsightly hand, and Thetis' eyes flick to it, scornful, even as she lashes out at him with a rush of water-whips, aiming not to damage or kill, but distract. "Our Queen will see to it that that is flayed, that you may heal it properly. You should have done it already!"

Chiding, punishing, callous, and she's distracted by him, because she only needs to wear him out enough to get him to the Dark Kingdom -

That's why she doesn't notice the transformation of the useless boy from Human Resources, until her arm is hitting the floor, fingers loosely twitching where they had gripped the cape, and then a stab to her back, and then -

Her head twists around on her neck, until she can face the Slasher even with him standing behind her, and she cannot smile, because she has no mouth, but her eyes are full of malicious glee.

The limb on the ground twitches, becomes water, flows up to reattach to her body, and she is in pain, yes, but she is in fury, more, and the sprinklers are still dripdripdripping and she yanks down, lifts up, and the water that has seeped into carpet, walls, blankets, clothing, bodies, everything, rises into a flood that crushes Prince Endymion and the Slasher alike, condensing into solid bubbles of water around their heads, impossible to breathe through.

"So you have power, after all," she says coldly, "You're just too weak and pathetic to do anything with it. So the Back Street Slasher slunk his way into Obsidian to beg at our feet for money because you're too wretched to make it on your own, and to soothe your pride you go around in your weak little human form, spreading stories, pretending to be strong."

She condenses the water around his head, flushes it down, down throat and nostrils, into lungs, and her eyes are alight with malice.

"You should have kept hiding."

And then she turns, to Prince Endymion. If she's still awake - if the water bubble around his head hasn't been breathed in, hasn't been enough, he'll see her, radiating malice, fury in her eyes.

"You have been summoned by our Queen. And if you continue to resist, I will drown every child in this building I come across until you return on bent knee. Starting with your little blond friend."

Adrien Agreste has posed:
Adrien Agreste gets to the door without any issue even as Thetis captures the pair in bubbles of water choking off their air supply. He could leave. He should leave... But would he be able to leave, transform, and return in time to be of any help? Thetis was already talking about dragging Endymion off.

The door is flung open, but rather than dive out he turns to grab the chair by the desk in both hands.

"Plagg!" He yells out a single time. Some French word no doubt, it certainly wasn't one that he had spoken around these folks before. It's his last chance to alert Plagg to needing help though as he takes a deep breath and holds it. Whirling around back toward the fracas, the chair is swung out at Thetis. No 'let him go' or witty remark. He was holding his breath in case... In case.

He just had to say the words. They didn't have to be *heard*, and the Kwami would only take a moment to show if needed now.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Not. If. I. Kill. You.

That's what's in Endymion's blue eyes, eyes blue like the ocean as it's seen from space, like the pretty blue marble in the sky of the Moon--

He's holding his breath, a partial lungful of air; he's dropped his rose and he can't call out his attack, but he can lunge past the water whips to grab Thetis's bare arms where there aren't massive curved spikes coming out of them and shove emotions and images at her: Beryl dying brutally, Thetis dying at Serenity's hand, the dark kingdom collapsing, Jupiter calling down sublime thunder, the feeling of drowning--

Something deeply unpleasant that Thetis has never felt before.

Then other feelings -- other ways to die. Being stabbed through the heart, with the strange and wildly painful sensation of it trying to beat around the sword. Being killed by a combo of a whole bunch of mahou attacks at once (though he didn't quite die, the experience was largely the same).

Then the memory of the itching crawling stinging sensation of dark energy boiling beneath his skin, and the pain that comes with it, and he WON'T BE TRICKED, she doesn't have TIME for this, for going after everyone in the school if he continues to resist. Another rose, while he's hanging on, digging screwed-up fingers' fingernails into Thetis's arm, and he--he can't keep holding his breath.

There are spots in his vision.

He manages to drag the stem of the rose down Thetis's other arm, and-- he takes a breath and convulses--

Taro Yamada has posed:
Taro has drowned before.

Of course he has. He was born in 1946, he left his home in 1963; there's been plenty of times he's played too close to the water and fallen in. Changing into the Slasher wasn't just the best solution, it was the only solution; as long as his dolls were intact, the Slasher could survive anything. He just needed to wash up somewhere and get hs lungs emptied out, and he'll be fine.

So he doesn't panic when the water envelops his face. Thetis's words crawl slowly through the water into his ears, disdain and belittlement. He'd argue, but his time is limited; he only gets one chance, here and now.

Baja Blast survived an arm off and a stab that would kill any normal human. The Slasher can't kill her. Tuxedo Guy can't either, not with him choking like this. Even if Adrien was able to call an ally in time, could they survive?

There's one play to make. The Back Street Slasher is not the strongest in Japan yet, not the smartest, not the fastest, but he'd bet he's survived the longest -

He slashes with a palm blade, leaving a long cut that mars her pretty face, and he CHARGES. His other hand grows a blade and cuts through the door like a hot knife through butter; he grabs Adrien and carries him through the door, into the hall, away, away -

His straining lungs try to suck in air. He breathes in water. Half a hallway and a world away from Thetis, the Back Street Slasher falters, sinks to his knees, still using his broad back as a wall between her and Adrien.

Beryl has posed:
Mamoru makes her feel. The wretchedness of grief, of death, of mourning and fear and terror and loss, endless loss, the terror of incoming death -

But she is Beryl's creature, forged from a split of her own energy, strengthened by their Great Leader, and she will now bow to him, even if the lungs she doesn't have scream, even if the mouth she doesn't have wishes to scream -

She punches him in the gut. Not with her full strength, but with enough force that reflex enough will see to his mouth opening, his lungs forced to demand air -

The Slasher cuts her face, mars the blank emptiness of it, and as he flees and runs she blasts water after him. He sinks to his knees.

The water slams him and Adrien both down the rest of the hall, into a wall. It caves. The hall is soaked. Their bodies, soaked. The bruises? Immense.

The water in the Slasher's lungs condenses into ice.

Let him suffer.

She turns back to Mamoru, eyes wild with rage, and through contact, he can feel it -

How happy she would be to slaughter everyone here. How it would give her nothing but the greatest joys to make them suffer, how she is a youma, she is a monster, she is the endless churning wrath of the ocean and she will drown them all -

And then she teleports away. With him.

The room is neatly divided, once more. One side, marred only by the odd, stray drops of water, and the fallen petals of a rose. The other, soaked and dripping and tangy with salt-water, a wall caved in with a body mark.