300/A Ruinous Pair They Make

A Ruinous Pair They Make
Date of Scene:	23 August 2023
Location:	Soryuu Shrine
Synopsis:	Hematite has some questions.
Cast of Characters:	Pyrite, Mamoru Chiba
Tinyplot:	Lost & Found

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Pyrite has posed:
    The Soryuu Shrine is as it was seen last. Nothing has changed. Like here, and only here, is a bubble of eternal stagnation. A Shrine untended by its carers for many years, that has eaten up all the life in the area, and where it's night time even when it's day time.

    It also, as always, looks utterly abandoned.

    The doors into the main shrine are open, and only darkness lies within. No light illuminates anything beyond the threshold, even if directed at it manually, whether by mundane source or by magic. Himeko never appears from there or goes in there.

    Is that where she died?

    If so, it is understandable that she would have an aversion to it.

    But then again, with such a hungry void sitting there, waiting to gobble up whatever and whoever comes too close, anyone would have such an aversion.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Hematite historically hasn't been afraid of facing down hungry voids. Or darkness. Or Himeko.

He teleported in this time, instead of walking, and it was to the steps in front of the shrine-- so now that's where he's standing, hair and cape hanging down in the dead air, not even a breeze breaking the stillness.

He could call out for her, but he's having a day of ripping off bandaids, isn't he.

He takes off his gloves, and walks up and toward that door, and sticks his gloves in his pockets, and considers the fact that he could be wearing black nail polish but isn't, and he flicks his cape back so it's hanging down behind him instead of around his shoulders.

And then he strides in because Himeko doesn't care if he's being theatrical or not, and nobody else is looking.

Pyrite has posed:
    Something flies by Hematite's head on the right and smashes against the door frame of the shrine suddenly, and loudly, cracking the unnatural stillness and silence like a thunderclap. The pieces that fall to the ground are plastic, and metal, and electronics, and a pair of blinking digital 'eyes' that slowly die along with their owner. Himeko is standing back near the gap in the low wall, at the top of the stairs that go allll the way up the hill from the street below. She is in the throwing position, her eyes are glowing bright red, and she is looking at Hematite the way she has never looked at him before.
    She is utterly furious. There's no smile, no frown, none of the expressions or emotions or behavioral tics that people have come to expect from her. She is enraged and she has just thrown a Black Jade at Hematite's back to stop him from entering the shrine proper, from stepping into that void. It didn't hit him, but the message is clearly regardless. And if it isn't, then she states it out loud.

    "That cannot come out, and you cannot go in."

    Not even when Himeko was that... Thing with too many hands has she tried to give Hematite an order or threatened him like this. Tried to kill him, sure, but even that murderous desire was an act of joy due to a perceived salve for her loneliness.

    This looks like she'd sooner tear his limbs off than let him go a single step beyond the threshhold.

    So, there's a decision to make.

    Does he go forward?

    Does he go back?

    Or does he stay right where he is, straddling two places claimed by Death?

    Does he cross the river... Or not?

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Apparently the decision is an unconscious one: Hematite stops and turns exactly where he is, and just watches Himeko for a moment, silent and unmoving.

Finally, he says, "Good, I was looking for you. Why would someone write 'Welcome home, Himeko' under the wallpaper at Nephrite's house?"

Nothing gives away his state of mind right now -- not his stance, which is only as guarded as it usually is, nor his expression, which is neutral and pleasant.

Pyrite has posed:
    Himeko does not answer. She still just stands there, the whites of her eyes black, a glowing red half-circle in place of irises in each. She does lower her arm. But that's all the ground that she cedes.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Answer my question to the best of your knowledge, please, Himeko," says Hematite, and his voice is even and patient. "You're currently suspect number one in stealing Midnight Tokyo Project information from Nephrite and doing considerable damage to his house in the process, but someone wrote that on the wall under the wallpaper, and knowing why that might be could, I think, do a lot to clear your name."

There's the smallest twitch of a smile in one corner of his mouth, distantly amused and affectionate both. Distantly. Wasps are buzzing under his skin; he hasn't held Himeko's hand in almost two days. There's thunder in his ears, and the knowledge that somewhere, there's someone who never made him douse the light when he had nightmares, is keeping the buried gold of his true self present in a way it isn't usually. But it's under the roiling dark energy, and that still filters everything -- the regality, the love, the hope, the sense of identity -- that should be armor. Muted, but he has a lot of willpower: arrogance, jealousy, something that's not quite resignation anymore, and shreds of personality carefully applied on a case-by-case basis.

Calm blue eyes, as dark and glimmering as the oceans of the Earth high in the Moon's sky, regard Himeko unwaveringly. "That's another question you must answer truthfully: did you tell anyone anything about the Midnight Tokyo Project?"

Pyrite has posed:
    The ghost's lowered hand twitches. There's still anger and malice beaming out of her eyes, but her face is at least now just a scowl instead of homicidal. "Step away from there." is all that she says. She is fighting the compulsion, and all of the fetters on her. Here, so close to her site of death, things become hazey and malleable. The temple grounds and shrine itself are leaning inwards, exerting pressure upon this confrontation.
    "All else w-waits." Her head twitches to the side and her eyes close briefly, before she regains control and resumes staring. Not glaring anymore.
    Perhaps she realizes anger won't resolve this situation. Maybe it's the gleaming golden part of Hematite's soul that calms her.
    Maybe she's just forgetting who she is again now that she's here.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It's another staring contest, like two cats. It lasts a good five seconds before Hematite takes one small step--

--she can see his weight shift before he moves--

--towards Himeko. He doesn't break his gaze.

"Then you must also tell me what's in there that can't come out, and why you don't want me to go in," he says to her with inexorable patience, and this whole conversation, he's given more direct commands than he has since he brought Himeko out of the shrine. There was only one mincing of it, one 'please' that framed a command as a request.

Pyrite has posed:
    The transformation is immediate once Hematite steps away. She's back to being Himeko the little sister, the girl haunted by her own past, and the fear that she'll be abandoned again. Tears well up in her eyes and run down her face as she starts towards Hematite and then races to hug him.

    Despite the fact she's crying, her words are stable, not the hiccoughing or shaking of someone sobbing. "Pain is in there and you will suffer if you enter."

    She presses her face into Hematite if permitted, until her voice is muffled. "I have performed no vandalism of the Nephrite's home. I told Inai-sensei that the Midnight Tokyo Project exists, and that you do not like it, and advised her to have her magical students investigate it."

    Then she turns her head so her cheek is against her onii-chan-slash-senpai and says, "I do not know right now about the writing. It has not happened yet." Great, that's vague and confusing. But ghosts, what can you do.

    The last answer she gives, however, is this: "That cannot come out because I say it cannot." That's a non-answer and defiance, and her whole body is trembling at doing so, but she is stubbornly refusing on this one point. Though, enough arm-twisting will definitely force her to obey, it might permanently damage their relationship.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
He catches tiny girl when she runs up to him, and he lets her press her face into him, and his heart and stomach are both in knots, and he takes a step to one side of the shrine doors so it's the wall behind his back. Then, still holding on to Himeko, he slides down until he's sitting with his back to the outside wall, cross-legged, and he pulls her into his lap, and he kisses the top of her head.

"You cannot decide for me whether or not I take on more suffering," he murmurs against her hair. "Life is pain, Princess. And I know you like being a ghost, but I would prefer to stay alive." Then he just holds her for a moment, arms enfolding her, and even if it doesn't bring the same kind of comfort that it might for someone who's not a ghost, he's warm and alive and vital, that gold a vasty cave beneath the dark blasted landscape above it.

"If the others object too much to you having told Inai-sensei to have her girls look into it, if I have to tell them, then we should have some backup plans for where you can go."

Pyrite has posed:
    She clings and embraces and curls up like she has never done before, perhaps the vitalness of Hematite to her existence finally truly viscerally understood. "...but if you don't become a ghost too then you'll disappear someday and then I'll be alone again..." The shaking starts. The contact with Hematite, the understanding, and their mutual cycle of devouring each other, now with that sliver of gold visible, is enough to push the ghost girl over the edge into further physical completion of her psuedo-body. Enough that she is capable of tremors of weeping, and the convulsions of a newly-formed ribcage.
    She shakes her head, still doing her best to remain clear and calm despite her spiritual and physical forms rejecting the notion and demonstrating their displeasure by making her breathing finally go rough and ragged. "All of your suffering is a-already in there. It will not... *Hic* Won't be more suffering. It's all that was t-taken. *Hic*" She has no comment on backup plans for where she can go. Either she doesn't know what to say, or the idea of someone doing something to her shrine hasn't occurred to her.
    "I could tell you didn't--" her speech turns into mumbles and hiccouphing as she loses the capacity for clear communication. But they don't need words to understand each other when they're like this. She could sense the displeasure over the plan, even as she tried to help it work. And when it was clear how opposed to it that her anchor to this world was, she took action indirectly, even as she continued to excitedly plan to help Zoisite and Jadeite and Nephrite. She can do both.
    Unless this situation comes up.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Her Majesty has promised us immortality," Hematite says softly, cheek against the top of Himeko's head, and he rocks them both gently. "And the Silver Crystal can bring the dead to life. If you were alive, you'd be able to grow up alongside the new friends you've been making."

He believes it, he has to believe it, but like this, she can tell that there's part of the list of assumptions that doesn't wash and he's not looking at it. It's not on purpose-- it's like he forgot. It was a pain that he doesn't have to feel, the idea that this is all wrong and he can't fix it. But he has a piece of comfort even for that: "And if we don't find the Silver Crystal, and if Her Majesty does not or cannot give what she's promised, then someday I'll die and you'll be there."

Quiet, and quiet, and Himeko can tell that Hematite is thinking, is turning things over in his head. There's the faintest breeze through the dead air, and it makes the lack of sound slightly less oppressive and ruffles their hair, physical and real and now. The lost boy leader of the Shitennou breathes out the smallest sigh. "Someday soon, will you let me take back my pain? It's mine, and I'm missing so much right now that it's hard to tell which way I can turn. You're right. I hate the plan. I hate it so much it makes me sick. But the thing that's inside them, that presses against their wills and bends them, bent them to work on this. I don't want that thing to get me, Himeko. And I don't want anyone getting hurt protecting me from it, and I know they will, and that makes me sick too."

He kisses her hair again, and breathes, and breathes.

"I know dying would take these worries away. But-- I don't want to die."

Pyrite has posed:
    Quietly listening, no answers, no protests, just learning and listening.
    "You can have your pain if you truly wish it." she says, her ectoplasmic lungs stabilized already. The sclera of her eyes are back to being white, the irises just a dull red instead of the vibrant glowing brick-red when she is using her powers, or Absolutely Furious apparently, as she looks up at Hematite. "I touched it in the Nephrite's soul. I want to eat it. If you don't want it inside of you, then I will merge with you instead, and when it tries to take control, we will eat together. Can we?" She sounds hopeful, not like 'oh, I am hungry for more power so here is an explanation of why you should definitely let me eat an energy field larger than my head', but rather, 'Maybe this will solve both of our problems and we won't have this nagging feeling anymore that we're forgetting something, or possibly everything'.
    She glances at that void inside the shrine. Here, on the porch outside, overlooking the decayed and crumbling temple grounds, where no living thing remains in a hundred meter radius, aside from Hematite, even that void seems more lifeless. A one-way door.
    "And if you don't want to die, then you shouldn't go in there. Because, That cannot come out." She is adamant about that, at least. Whatever 'That' is. It's spoken of as being separate from the pain and suffering that has been siphoned away. They may buzz and consume and devour each other, and even find some Light in there somewhere to replace what was covered up or taken, respectively, but the inside of that shrine is more forbidden than anything else.
    This dead thing, that cannot change, is helplessly quivering over the idea of not making Hematite a ghost, something she would never have considered giving up on due to a ghost's obsessive tendencies. Whether her panicked arguing that is window dressing for the fact she realizes she can't do anything to dissuade him will stick? Who knows. She'll forget at some point. She'll forget until there's no one left but her again, and then she won't even remember who she is now. Resurrection? Immortality? She wants neither of those things. And she might receive none of those options.
    In order to avoid that, she finally speaks one of her two secrets. "I have been trying to sever your connections so that your only attachment is me. I would then find a way to arrange your death, and bind your soul to mine. THen we'd be together forever. If you have more than a few attachments, it won't work. You might become a different type of ghost, or just pass on... I don't know. I only know how it works for me and Shiro. But telling Kyouka Inai about the project was an attempt to make you more attached to me, and also to distance you from those who came up with and pushed it upon you."
    She sort of collapses in on herself (not literally, thank goodness) now that she has revealed herself. There are enough fetters on her in combination with the earlier compulsion to answer truthfully and to the best of her knowledge that her resistance has been whittled down severely. She would probably answer or offer information on just about anything right now.
    And yet she still resists revealing what's really inside the shrine.
    If one of her secrets was, 'I was going to make you think everyone who cared about you betrayed you until I was the only one you had any affection towards and then murder you', what the other secret might be is, in most sane human beings, cause for concern.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"You want to eat it?" asks Hematite, moderately horrified now. "I don't think you should eat it. I don't think I could help you eat it, even if I let you in and we did it together. I'm pretty sure it would eat us."

His arms tighten a little bit around her, a little bit more; he's frightened of the thing she saw in Nephrite's soul. He doesn't want it to take Himeko from him, he doesn't want it to take anyone from him. Himeko can absolutely feel the little spiral of terror that he squishes into the hug before it can build up into something worse.

His face is in her hair again, and the golden sliver of warmth that is there isn't something he can feel; he shivers. "You can't take them away from me," he murmurs, finally. "They're mine. Even if that thing is in them, they're still mine. But I understand, now. Thank you for telling me, Himeko."

He leaves aside the question of going in, why it would make him die, just for now, just like Himeko left his musing about contingency plans for her if she should need to hide from the Shitennou. He doesn't understand that, but it can wait. The door may be lifeless, one way, but-- all the same-- at some point, the threshold will be crossed.

For now, he sighs, and it's the sound of a different kind of resignation, the kind that's been dealing with dark energy for two years. "I truly want my pain back. It's mine. If it's too much, I'll lock it away where I've been putting my memories until I can deal with it."

Pyrite has posed:
    Himeko hugs back. She might only be like 1/10th of a person right now, but she will take whatever she can get. This entire situation has left her completely discombobulated. Is she dead? Is she alive? Is she a ghost? Is she a curse? Is she part of this man who is her mentor and brother? Does she want him to be part of her? Has she given up on the plan to kill him? She is in turmoil, and that means her mind and the inside of her body may be literally spiralling around chaotically. A ghost has only a tenuous grip on reality at the best of times. When she isn't even sure if that's what she is anymore, she doesn't know where to go, in any sense.
    "I understand you're scared of it, and that you're worried about your friends. But I really think I can eat that thing. I just need to get strong enough. It should be possible with enough energy. Because that thing is also just using a massive amount of energy. When two souls of roughly equal strengths compete, the soul with the stronger will usurps the other." She closes her small hands around Hematite's uniform, her forehead against his chest. "Please just don't ask me about what is inside the shrine. That cannot come out."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I don't understand," says Hematite apologetically, and he strokes her hair, and his breathing is even and calm, and the hidden core of him is like bedrock even when he is not. "But I don't have to understand right now. I believe you. At some point I will need to know more, but not soon."

The boy feels the terrible confusion in Himeko, and all he can do for it is offer a warm dark underground steadiness, the kind warmed by heat from the blood of the Earth, with banked violence and renewal always a someday promise. All he can offer is that sliver of gold, unflickering and unmoved.

"Please don't worry, Himeko. You're mine too."

Pyrite has posed:
    Himeko closes her eyes as her head is patted, and she is told she belongs, reinforcing that bond they have. She doesn't need to close her eyes. She can see without them, without anything, but maybe not in the future when she's more human. Being resurrected? Is that even possible? What does that mean? Her remains--
    Everything goes blank.
    --standing in front of the void lurking within the shrine, and she turns back to Hematite and offers her right hand. "I told you I wanted to kill you. You might die from this. Are you still willing to take back your pain? Himeko Soryuu is still able to shoulder it. She can shoulder it forever, even after she is forgotten by everyone."
    Weird switch to third-person speech, but ghosts. Who even knows what they're thinking. Especially when they just skip ahead to the future while their awareness is out. It always seems to happen whenever she tries to remember what happened to her and how she--
    Everything goes blank.
    "--on't understand." she says in a shaking voice as she watches the taller woman in the basement room, with her back to Himeko. "Why did you call me back here?" Himeko clutches the fancy skirts of her party dress in both hands.
    And the white-haired woman turns to face her and--
    Everything goes blank.
    --standing there at the top of the steps that to the temple grounds, and down to the street below, and a boy with short black hair and one with white hair are walking by, and one of them looks up and sees her there, and for a moment she's surprised and excited. Someone finally sees her? Can she communicate? Will they come up here if she waves?
    She raises her hand, but the boys run away. She couldn't see their expressions and doesn't know why they ran, but it's easy to assume it's because they just saw a ghost.
    But those two aren't even born yet, right? So isn't this happening out of or--
    Everything goes blank.
    --starts to push to separate from Hematite. She knows she could just split her existence between multiple places or revert fully to ghost form and pass through those arms, but she wants to get up properly. If she's going to be alive someday, then she should start acting like it. Once she is up on her own feet she walks the few steps to the shrine entrance, and sticks her left hand into the void. She turns, and looks back with her red eyes at Hematite solemnly but also tiredly. Do ghosts even get tired? This one does apparently. But now she's--
    Everything goes blank.
    --on fire. Why can't Darien and Naru see it too? They're both on fire. But she hugs her older brother, and puts her face into his side, and mutters, "If kami are real, then why is everything burning?" She waits and waits for the flames to start burning her too, but like everything else she waits for, they never come.
    Everything goes blank.
    She waits for Hematite to make a decision. She wishes that they could just stay here alone together forever, and that the decision will never come.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It's easy for him to lose himself, lose his way, when he's here. He holds on tightly most of the time, and he's held himself and what identity he's been patching together out of scraps and yellowing cellophane tape very close today, because today he's had to be a boss multiple times and you have to have a leg to stand on in order to put your foot down.

(Usagi helped. you're not that scary, she texted. shut up you're not evil, she texted. That kind of thing helps him patch the crumbling infrastructure. If I go silent it's not you, it's the summer job. More texts, with Kazuo. Steadiness and punctuation, helping him prop the load-bearing walls. And more, with Koji and Naru and Kyouka and Zoisite, texts he had to wipe from his phone but that he hasn't forgotten, used to ground him.)

(That's all so necessary right now.)

Time is the dream you wake up from because someone said your name right next to you, but when you open your eyes, there's no one there. Underwater and with a delay pedal, reality is the loud thing you can't remember that jolted you as you were drifting to sleep. Dreams are only tatters of themselves, except when there are words and questions, and then there are only the holes where they used to be.

It's easy for Himeko to push herself away from Hematite, and he looks up, missing the echo of the little ghost's words from the other day, on the bench with Naru. He looks up at her, and her tired red eyes, and he can feel his mouth forming the word 'yes', can feel his voice in his throat powering it, can feel his stomach twist as he hears the word fall from his lips.

"Yes," someone says, and it's... Hematite who says it, firm and solid and real, and he listens to himself add, "Pain won't kill me. Himeko is important and I don't want her to have to shoulder mine and hers. Mamoru is important too, and needs to be who he is, which includes that pain. Was I so selfish as to wish my pain on a little girl? I'm so sorry."

Pyrite has posed:
    "She chose it." is her reply to the apology. The ghost girl seems vaguely displeased with that fact. Like someone stole the opportunity from her to perform this task that she just said she is already performing.
    Then there's only one thing left to do then, isn't there? "Please take my hand. It will start as soon as we connect. It will stop when you let go. Anything remaining will stay on the other side." She looks away from Hematite, from Mamoru, and looks into the void with her eyes glowing red with resentment and anger, but not at her big brother.
    "Whatever That may say to you, it cannot come out."
    Her extended hand waits. A hand of a memory that has lingered behind in this place far beyond the recollection of anyone who might care to recall it. A story unknown to the world, rendering Himeko Soryuu as though she had never even existed to begin with.
    No wonder there's a void here. Without even realizing it, the whole world has been trying to erase even her ghost. That isn't something that goes away just because she was given someone to follow and some legs to walk wtih.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There's something about all the phrasing, the third person, that nags at Hematite. She chose it. And, whatever That may say to you, it cannot come out. Himeko chose it. Whatever remains when he lets go will stay on the other side. She chose it. And, Himeko can shoulder--

Hematite holds his breath for a second.

He came here months ago and fought her, and cut away the darkness, didn't he? And he's been feeding her darkness ever since. It cannot come out.

(And that was before you changed your name!)

Whole civilizations have been forgotten, wiped from time and space and living memory and history. Whole worlds have been forgotten, with nothing left. The universe reclaims every piece of dust, in the end. When this Earth is no longer here, this shrine will no longer exist either.

He lets out his breath, and, still sitting crosslegged on the steps next to the gaping doors, Hematite decisively clasps Himeko's hand.

Pyrite has posed:
    This girl's existence now is too spread out to concentrate it in any one time or place. Even standing here in front of Mamoru, Himeko Soryuu isn't specifically here. So the moment they touch, when hands clasp, and the specter's sort-of-there hand clenches with all her remaining strength like she's just been electrocuted, there is a scattershot of things living people aren't supposed to have in their heads, leading the way for every bit of pain, suffering, doubt, loneliness, concern, fear, anger, and everything else that was put away for another time over the past almost three months. Since their violent meeting in June, her introduction to the others in July, and her gradual growth into what she is now here in August, they have been through so much in such a little amount of time.
    It feels, perhaps on both sides, as though they have known each other since they were children together, but only one of them grew up.
    And it feels like they've never met.
    And it feels like there is still more to come as long as the fate they are making together doesn't diverge.
    Visions of possible futures, threads of karmic destiny spreading out and spanning moments, feelings, places, people, thoughts, and concepts, while a constant, never-ending chatter of a little sister wanting her older brother to tell her what to do, to see her, to understand her, to shape who and what she will become until he is satisfied with her, runs in the background. From the moment they first contracted, to now, three months of questioning, doubting, wishing, hoping, fearing, Wanting, needing, and so very rarely receiving, because she didn't know how to communicate it.
    That's being communicated now, but that very fact exposes another truth.
    Her resistance to the bindings upon her has been lowered nearly to the point of non-existence. She is trying to filter the pain she is channeling, to reduce how much it hurts her big brother. It's tearing holes through her psyche, and sending the shards of her flying, where they occasionally pass through the astral body of Mamoru Chiba. That's where these glimpses of thought and memory and spectral weirdness are coming from.
    Even now, giving back what was placed upon her, she is trying her hardest not to make anybody else cry.
    The Death Curse, the Other Himeko, the Dark Apprentice, and even the semi-living girl that is forming with Mamoru's guidance, are all different branches of the same tree.
    That tree is a good girl who doesn't want anyone to hurt like she has. A tree of light.
    And that good girl is on the other side of that void, while her darker half, with sickly and rotting branches trying to survive in a world without sunlight, is, while resenting and hating and fearing her other half, sacrificing herself to channel another's suffering.
    What a ruinous pair this brother and sister make.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Oh.

He wasn't there a minute ago, and now he is, he very much is. He doesn't try to let go. He doesn't try at all to let go; that little hand grips to his like electrocution and Hematite-- Darien-- grips back just as tightly, she's a ghost she's a ghost he won't break her hand; she's a ghost and he's alive and did you know

did you know that ghosts can feel as much pain as living people, despite no nerve endings?

The past three months sting, they sting, but he's had a better handle on himself since Himeko took his burden, and he's not alone in the middle of despair now, but here it all is come back, from before that, from before things were lighter. If he thought things were difficult now, it's only because he forgot what came before. And he only forgot because Himeko took his burden.

He grips more tightly still, and their hands are like welded iron. There's a distant sound like a sob that someone somewhere makes, grief for both of them, for the ancient little girl who never grew up and for the--

There's a pain in his chest.

--for the boy that grew up aching for the other pieces of his soul, who at least wasn't as lonely as he could have been. Takashi kept him from being wholly alone. But there's grief nonetheless; there's waking up in a hospital on your sixth birthday (he's sixteen now, only now, his birthday just happened? it just) and being told your own unfamiliar name and that your parents, of whom you have no recollection, are dead. There's being met by a tall woman with red hair--

There's a sharp shocking pain in his chest.

--and asked if he felt like he was missing someone, missing something. There's the sensation of something awful and viscous and sharp like needles clawing its way up the inside of him, encasing the light, shrouding it in caustic ink, and he can't heal anyone else. There's someone who used to be able to heal, someone who used to be able to feel what others felt, who used to be able to dream true dreams and some of them were so lovely and some were wretched but now they're all gone.

(His heart tries to beat around it, and it slices more of it every time that complicated set of interlaced muscles convulses.)

She looked so gentle before she took everything away.

(He didn't take an oath. He swore no fealty. He just wanted to find them--)

They've never met, the ground opens up around them and it's like the earthquake in 1923 all over again, everything's on fire and did you know? Did you know? Even a marble palace can burn and burn, until there's no air left at all. He wanted a little sister, but not just because he didn't want to be the air, and a daughter would take precedence-- he wanted a little sister because who doesn't? But none ever came. The palace healers had whispered that he was a miracle.

Mamoru is crying, silent after that single sob, and he won't let go. He doesn't let go. That's his problem, isn't it? He won't let go of the Shitennou, either. Or of hope. The Yomi took Himeko's, but there's so much hope under the dark energy, hidden, a wellspring.

(The sword twists in his heart and his mouth works to produce words, but blood comes out instead, and his back hits the ground but he can't breathe anyway, and someone is screaming.)

"Not for my sake," Hematite hisses, "not for my sake!" Mamoru cries out. The words are too hard to hear in the wind but the images in the midst of the searing heartbreak are real: stop, stop trying to absorb it back, stop trying to buffer the shrapnel, stop, I'm strong too! I can be strong! Please, seeing it hurt you hurts me too!

"Oh," breathes Endymion, moving, his armor scraping across the step of the shrine as he reaches with his other hand to cover the back of Other Himeko's hand, sandwiching hers between both of his. "But I love all of you."

Mamoru catches his breath, barely, his t-shirt clinging with damp of exertion and the heat of the day and the unbearable mortification of having skin, and he holds on and he lets his head rest against the blackened outside wall of the shrine, and he reaches with hands that don't exist to pull the shards of this girl back, to collect them, to keep them to put back. And he grieves for the girl trapped in the shrine, and he grieves for the girl he's trying to hold together, and he grieves for all the branching possibilities of personality, because she is a ghost.

And still, the dark energy is there, filtering everything through sludge and sharp tetanus debris and fire ants, and Mamoru ignores it-- scrapes away at it with the sword that should have parried the one in his heart-- claws it away with bleeding fingers until there's enough of his Light visible to be a problem for him--

--but also enough to push it toward both Other Himeko and the Himeko in the shrine. I'm sorry, he doesn't say. I forgive you, he doesn't say. They are themselves.

Pyrite has posed:
    She warned him that That cannot come out. She warned, because she can't do anything to stop it from happening now. Not when she's stretched so thin, falling apart, extending a hand into the rift between this world and the next, to siphon agony from the half of her that she just wants to die and disappear and be gone forever because she hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, HATES that glowing verison of herself that embodies everything she doesn't have, but Wants.
    Compassion, mercy, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, hope, and all those other things, that are completely contrary to what she is. Because Himeko is a creature of darkness, and death, and hate.
    Isn't she?
    What else could she be? That's all she can remember being. That's what the tendrils that gobbled up the core of her said, the whispers of the discontent souls within Yomi, the Land of the Dead, who wanted their goddess back and if they could not have her then a new one to sit upon the Cursed Throne, and that was Himeko Soryuu, wasn't she? Why does she know this, she was never told it, the darkness was always just there, a part of her, and how could she be a creature of such spite, madness, jealousy, and vengefulness, and desperate longing for the things she lacks, the things that the Himeko inside the shrine has and just gives away freely, like they're nothing, like they have no value at all, like Himeko wouldn't tear herself to pieces to have enough forgiveness just for herself.
    How can any creature in the universe be so selfish as to offer compassion even to herself, to say she understands, to not try to break out because she knows how scared her other half is of losing her place? It's so, so, selfish for That Himeko to forgive This Himeko, and why is she crying now, that's stupid and pointless, and it's a distraction, and she has to keep going, because she can't do anything else, because now she is just a conduit for Everything, right up until she's Not.
    The transfer ends. There's more of her left than Himeko expected. Maybe because of Hematite, Darien, Mamoru, and Endymion working together to gather up her pieces and put them back. But she is still burned out, and her Want is even greater now, because now she has tasted all those things and knows she can't have them.
    Love is forbidden to a creature as wretched as her.
    She despairs.
    But she is content in her despair, because she has done what she set out to do.
    Her brother can handle all else.
    Now she just wants to rest. She'll just close her eyes and stop thinking for a while, and maybe she won't even bother waking up.
    Maybe she won't be anything at all.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
And Mamoru did not let 'That' out-- he pushed that gold to both of them, which is only something that lends strength, something healing, something to rejuvenate. His head is swimming and his heart full sore, fragments and memories whirling around in his mind, his cluttered sense of self disconnected from the moment in time. He didn't let out the small girl in the shrine, he didn't, and he's shocked into engaging in the present by the awareness -- through their handhold -- that Himeko is exhausted and in despair.

He can't panic, he can't fall apart, he can't take any time to recover because even if she thinks she doesn't deserve love or forgiveness, she does she does she does. He's saying it out loud--

He says it out loud, here and now, in an August summer night: "Himeko, I love you. You're my apprentice Pyrite, remember? And you're the little sister I always wanted but never had! I didn't let her out, Princess, I didn't do it. Please stay with me?"

Mamoru holds her, tugged back over to him as he leans back against the shrine wall in his t-shirt and jeans, like everything is normal, like anything can ever be normal again. He holds her and rocks them both like he did before, and one of his hands comes up to brush her hair away from her face and cup the side of it, and he gives her more golden energy until the dark energy closes back in around the tear he'd made. And then he gives her dark energy, because she's still what she is, and that's been what she can use to build herself up, and he needs her.

"I need you, Py-tan. I need you making injustice speeches when we fight magicals, I need you helping me, I need you terrifying people who probably don't deserve it. I love you and I need you. What do you need? How can I get you to stay? Do you need me to do something? I forgive you for trying to cut me away from the other people I love. And how could I ever blame you for wanting to murder me? I'm a huge pain in the ass."

If love and forgiveness and need don't do it, maybe distracting her with humor will. Or maybe distracting himself with humor will stop his hands from shaking, his voice from wavering. Maybe duty will serve. "And you need to tell me-- has it happened yet now? Can you tell me who wrote on Nephrite's wall yet? What's the home she was welcoming you to? Come on, please Himeko, please Pyrite-- you're so old, but you're such a baby--"

Pyrite has posed:
    Himeko gurgles on some sort of vile black caustic substance as she is held in Mamoru's arms. Maybe it's her ghostly insides dissolving and congealing as the weight of all of that Dark Energy usage finally claims its due. She's trying to speak, but she just keeps coughing up that steaming ebony ooze that then stains her face and throat. She's turning transparent. She looks like she's going to disappear at any moment, not at peace, she's still too cursed a creature to be at peace, but at least no longer resisting her fate, whatever that might be.
    Barely, just barely, the process halts as Mamoru feeds golden Light into her, and then Dark Energy when that's covered back up like dark clouds passing over the Moon (or the Sun, some delusional part of her whispers), and she stabilizes. She's still ethereal, a blue-white creature that looks more like the traditional ghost of Western culture, with minimal details other than the basic form, translucent facial features, and a suggestion of what she was wearing in life.
    Cyan orbs that can be seen through their own lids, through their own face and head, rotate towards Mamoru. "Not yet." she whispers distantly, in a mildly echoing voice. Then they turn towards the Shrine. "Not here."
    A little bit more solidity comes back to her, swirling and shifting patterns and colors, growing darker, more opaque, more and more of her familiar self reappearing and then locking into place.
    Eventually, Himeko Soryuu is being held by Mamoru Chiba, and while a faint outline of blue remains, she is as complete as she is going to get for now.
    One hand reaches up to touch the side of Mamoru's face, and she finds herself asking distantly, "Boy, why are you crying?"
    Then a small smile. "Sew your shadow back on."
    Then she leans up and gives a small kiss on the cheek to her older brother.
    The red returns to her eyes, and so does her... 'Realness'. Her presence. She's physically here again.
    "I'm sorry for upsetting you, onii-chan. Do you really love me? Do you really forgive me for all the hurt I've caused you? That I've caused everyone?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Yes!" His face is wet-- he doesn't cry for many, but today is a day and Himeko is a person who it's called for. Her hand touches his face, and her words pull at something, a story in the back of things, where the young are forever young and there are bright stars to guide them. There are so many stories like that. The Prince of Lost and Found.

"Yes I really do, I really do," he repeats almost nonsensically, and he hugs her close. "And you didn't cause me any hurt I didn't ask for, you only tried-- that's different. Please don't do that again, that-- trying to lessen my pain by taking shrapnel to the gut, I mean, that really does hurt..."

He laughs, maybe a little unsettlingly if anyone but Himeko were to hear it. "Now-- now we have to figure out how to keep you safe because... I did want you to tell, I did, but now Inai-san's taken that information and gotten so loud with it, and Nephrite already thinks it was you-- I'm going to have to tell him something. Anything. Something. I'm going to go after Inai-san so that nobody else does. And I-- I remember not being like this, Hime-chan. It's going to be hard to be like this. But I can do it."

Oh right, he's still got dark energy telling him stupid things are great ideas and that he can handle it and be fine, and making it hard to think straight on top of having difficulty because of what they just did.

Pyrite has posed:
    "Okay." she answers as she sits up and hugs Mamoru back. "Okay, onii-chan. We'll do it together from now on. Carry our Light, and I'll carry our Darkness. I'll be your Shadow who follows you everywhere you go." A Shadow, huh... And Nephrite's been brought up... How coincidental that Nephrite's Shadow is a Soul Projection too.
    "All is well, Mamoru-onii-chan. We made it through, the both of us." Then she corrects herself. "All of us." Even That part of her in the Shrine is still intact. Maybe... Maybe the Light Himeko can come out someday after all. She'll need to think about it.
    "It does not matter what the Nephrite believes, or the others. They will listen to you. If they hate the plan as much as we do, then perhaps they are only looking for an excuse to abandon it. It does not matter now. I will start over as many times as I need to, in order to make it to the end with you all. If you need to leave me behind, do not worry. I will catch up. It is a Shadow's purpose to follow the one who casts it."
    Himeko rests her chin on Mamoru's shoulder. "Don't let the shadows kill your Light. Send them to me. I will teach them not to mess with the two of us." She grins and closes her eyes.
    "An onii-chan and imouto are not so easily parted."
    There's a wrenching stab inside of her. 'Ah, but a mother and her daughter are?'
    She doesn't know what that means. But she's used to voices inside of her by now. They may try to reappear again, to twist her, to torment her, to try to leak into Mamoru, but she is so much stronger now, and so much more aware.
    Every demon who worms their way inside will be eaten.
    Even if she has to empty Yomi itself of all its dead, she will eat them all.
    Her right eye is closed. A tired, content smile is on her face.
    But her left eye is open. It looks around independently of its owner. Then it, too, closes. Himeko's smile widens just a little bit more.