2762/A Museum Heist! No Wait, It's Another Thing

A Museum Heist! No Wait, It's Another Thing
Date of Scene:	30 November 2025
Location:	Penguin Park - Museums
Synopsis:	Tuxedo Kamen and Kunzite demonstrate their phantom thief chops when they break into Art Museum @ Pikarigaoka to investigate the magic exhibit artifacts. As they explore, they uncover more unsettling echoes within the artifacts and in a fit of desperation search the curator's office. The problem? She's still inside. The positive? She was hoping for the mahoujin to arrive.
Cast of Characters:	280, Mamoru Chiba, Kazuo Saitou
Tinyplot:	Kill the Fade

---

Maryam Siddig (280) has posed:
It's late into the night - not so late as to exhaust on a school night, but enough that the vast majority of businesses are closed, most especially the Art Museum at Penguin Park. While the museum - and indeed, Penguin Park as a whole - has a security team which patrols the floors, this is a fairly safe area, and that security team isn't especially worried about anyone breaking in.

Even if the Natural History museum did suffer some hooligans causing near-catastrophic damage to its ground floor.

The Museum has certainly not got the sort of security and defenses which might deter a phantom thief and his shadow. It's exhibits - paintings, silk screens, scrolls, sculptures, works of pottery and so much more, could be easily targeted by one willing...

But not for the first time, the target of after hours visitors is the Magic in the Making exhibit, taking up the top floor of the museum. Without the security team examining bags, and the waiting staff eager to share insight, the exhibit is quiet, almost melancholy.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The aforementioned phantom thief does manage to disarm the alarm system and pick the lock on the roof door within ten minutes-- and For Some Reason the cameras pointed at it aren't doing their jobs-- but he lets out the tiniest hiss of delight when the last tumbler falls into place. The dopamine hit is something else; the prince stands gracefully and smirkingly, fingertips buzzing with accomplishment.

There's sneaking down the stairs, of course, and avoiding cameras thanks to the camera detector in the party, but-- then they're there and the melancholy exhibit feels more, to Mamoru, like it's holding its breath waiting to have its secrets uncovered.

"Let's tackle them together," he suggests in a whisper that is unnecessarily close.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
The shadows around them are just a tiny bit more intense than usual - Kazuo's power spreading out about them, hunting for unseen threats and security measures, magical and mundane. Looking for the presence of energy fields that might hint at traps waiting, if the exhibit is in fact bait. Looking for the subdued crackle of tamed lightning in the walls that tells him about the cameras they couldn't mark on their first visit, too well hidden or too small or added later. Looking for the curling tendrils of power that might suggest a more magical guard than the patrols they're listening for. Cooler, as well, as he hides their body heat. Just in case.

It's a good reason to stay together. Also unnecessarily close, but not so very close as to be in each other's way.

Kazuo doesn't answer Mamoru out loud; there's just a nod of his head toward their preferred first target. With the Black Moon clan gone, they've actually had time to plan.

Maryam Siddig (280) has posed:
Guards avoided, cameras circumvented, and there's no traps, or at least, none that can be detected by virtue of energy.

The melancholy of the exhibit is more projection than truth - there's no sense of living energy, no sense that something is alive within this exhibit space. But there is energy - there is life - the memory of it, at least. Everything here was created by someone, cared for by someone, loved by someone. So many things here were imbued with feelings tender and spiteful, and all of them have been gathered and brought. There's two objects which draw the eyes - and hands - of the visitors:

The first is a silk painting of a man astride a horse, looking down upon an expanse of scenery, accompanied by the gesticulating form of a miniature of the man, wielding a sword and resting half inside of an egg. The painting is protected in a glass case to prevent the elements from damaging it, the case protected by an electronic lock.

The second is a sculpture of Alexander the Great, depicted with far-off gaze and planted spear, a small being perched upon his shoulder and whispering into his ear. The sculpture is the height and breadth of a man, stood upon a pedestal. Exhibit visitors can walk about the statue, but a velvet rope and signage requests that they maintain a two foot boundary to avoid damage to the ancient piece.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
An electronic lock on the glass case housing the painting-- Tuxedo Kamen lightly places his fingertips on Kunzite's arm, taking a minute step to one side to make a little more room for his boyfriend to work. (He is very very aware of Kunzite.) Waiting in silence, it's only a moment before he can get his hands on the painting, reaching back behind it with his glove off to touch the hidden side of the canvas.

There's the faintest whisper of gold in the chill air and Mamoru glances back and winks at Kazuo, and then looks startled, his other hand coming up to cover his mouth. He drops it to touch Kazuo again, and the images flood in after his standard filter-in: it's a fraction of a memory, the painter standing in the spot the painting shows, filled with melancholic pride.

The artist was clearly elderly, the ghost of aching joints and fatigue floating in the back of awareness in the memory, used to it -- and they had been a master of the craft. They'd painted their own memory, watching the charismatic figure of a leader respected, loved, as he accepted advice from a most respected advisor, the embodiment of the general's own bold genius. But he was watching-- it was a memory, an adult, an adult with a Chara-- "Ayoooo," the prince whispers. "You get all that?"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kunzite isn't the expert with computer systems that Zoisite is, but this doesn't require expertise, as far as he defines it - just a little minutely focused redirection of energy. He lets fingertips hover over the lock, shadows flooding into and through it, and a moment later it's opening for Tuxedo Kamen without its reporting systems ever noticing or logging that it's anything but holding securely fast.

Dimmer shadows curl forward, entwining with that whisper of gold without interfering with it. Eyelids flicker in a blink out of the usual order, but he's steady as Mamoru shares what he sees --

"Not only that he had it," Kunzite breathes back, "but that the artist remembered. Yes."

And he shares in turn, as they withdraw from the case, as he delicately disentangles from his contact with the lock. A tiny trace of residual energy gleaned from the painting, one reminiscent of the campus these last few months. Not a direct contact, not something Mamoru's psychometry would glean from the past, but an indirect one: someone or something who had been in touch with the Crystal Heart or something very like it touched this, too, and a trace of the energy left on that person or thing rubbed off.

When it happened, he doesn't know. Only that it did.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There's no hum of agreement, only the trace of it in Mamoru's touch. There's a background wariness regarding the secret-keeping adults of their school, except for Kyouka who can't keep secrets and is barely an adult anyway-- he's a little sour that that energy's here and their whole mahoujin community is in the dark about so many things, but that's very brief. Did no one think of recording the woman storytelling--? But: he wrenches his attention back and drifts silently over to the statue once they've finished closing up the glass case, still holding Kazuo's hand. Tug, tug.

When Mamoru touches the sculpture of Alexander, he gains a flash of a different sort - not a memory of the sculptor, but a memory of the stone itself, like a building's memories: the excitement of discovery! The piece, created after Alexander's lifetime, lay undiscovered for thousands of years-- then finally, uncovered as part of a 1975 excavation of an ancient site in Sicily. The excitement of discovery is twofold: the joy of the archaeologists who found it, and then the secondary joy of those who understood what they were seeing, what they had found. "Look! That must be a fairy of some kind, it's got to be-" "We don't know that" "The gods weren't ever depicted like this" - an argument of intellectuals, people with not an in-depth study of magic, but a knowledge of it that allows them to connect dots and pieces in a way that the archaeologists hadn't. They argue spiritedly, and agree that they have to claim the piece for their own collection.

Tuxedo Kamen's feathers are ... ruffled. He grips Kunzite's hand. "That's not a million years ago," he breathes. "Like fifty. Mahou shoujo archaeologists--"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Hands held, and Kazuo follows, checking the connection on the velvet rope for its own alarms, finding none, staying amusedly outside the boundary as Mamoru crosses it. Riding along on the memories buried in the stone -

- on a glimpse of the sense of one of the archaeologists -

- and there are two curves building in his mind, less graphs per se than the feeling of fluid dynamics. One of the age of the mahou depicted in the artworks, across time.

One of the age of the artists and observers.

And the way the curve has to turn and build, if those archaeologists weren't an anomaly themselves, if they really had lost a decade off the age of retention of memory between their time and Kyouka's barely-an-adult-anyway magical career.

Maryam Siddig (280) has posed:
The memories fade once they've been experienced, but the artifacts remain. They're ancient things, and the painting has been carefully maintained for years. The ownership has been tracked and some of it is presented there, on the informational plaque the museum is offering.

The statue is different. The statue's plaque confirms that it was uncovered in 1975, on a dig funded as a joint project between an Italian university and another, with a blended team of young archeology students. There's a picture of the three young people who were the first to expose the statue, with their names beneath. Two young men and a woman, their eyes bright with excitement, their voices still ringing in Kazuo and Mamoru's minds as they eagerly discussed the truth of what they'd found.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru takes a picture of the plaque with his phone, finally "remembering" to let go of Kazuo's hand in order to do so. He straightens up and vanishes it again, then just-- regards the statue of the man who'd conquered the world known to him before dying young.

The masked prince turns away from the image of the king, carefully handing his cape over the barrier before bumping into Kunzite on purpose. "Hey," he breathes, suppressing the laughter behind dark blue eyes, "wanna make out here?"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kunzite turns his attention away from the picture on the plaque to smirk at Mamoru. "Bored already?" he murmurs back. "Trying to summon some guards for the entertainment?" In lieu of his and Usagi's date-crashing youma. At least it'd be a different kind of disaster.

Granted, his eyes are sparkling too. But what he says is, "Maybe after we're done with business."

Maryam Siddig (280) has posed:
As the two boys flirt with one another, the museum is silent, bearing witness in the way that only an object can - without judgement, without care. The many pieces of this museum are monuments to magic, to mystery, and therefore, inevitably, to love and all that comes as a result of it.

The portrayals of these two conquerors have nothing else to offer, but there are still a great many more items in the museum, from the very old to the old but significantly less so - as they wander in observance of paintings and statues, effigies to the long lost and the imagined, they may find their attention caught by any number of more recent treasures -

a shining jeweled egg with a dark surprise hailing from Russia,
a large sentimental painting of a group of fantastic figures settled for an ordinary meal painted in mid-century America,
and a third piece, pictures of graffiti from a wall that had been later washed clean, but had once depicted the outlines of three figures spray painted in black, their clothes layers of additional spray paint, wispy colors and styles, each of them armed - a rod, a sword, a shield. Words, tagged across their forms in bold white. YOU'RE LOSING US.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The prince of smug nerds looks pleased behind the mask. "I'll hold you to that, and to me~" he murmurs before they go drifting through the dark again. Many of the things he trails his hands against have nothing meaningful to give him, even if the things themselves are interesting to him, things that caught his attention. The entire place is silent, but for the low breath of the ventilation system, and finally, Mamoru comes to something that does answer when his power calls.

Something he was already incredibly careful to touch, because-- it looks like-- it looks like something no-one should be touching, ever, except the person it belongs to. It's the lightest of fingertip-touches to the edge of a gilded ruffle.

Maryam Siddig (280) has posed:
The most delicate of items is the one that the golden prince has brushed his fingertips against, and perhaps it's fitting that the most delicate sensations is what answers him. It's a Faberge egg with a base of wrought gold, designed with delicate whirls, the egg portion of the piece about seven inches in length and four across at the widest point of its circumference. Thin gold bars are layered across the egg's enamel surface, as though caging in a jewel.

It is unmistakably a Soul Gem.

The enamel coating, tangerine-orange and shined to near translucence, is what creates the impression of a perfectly smooth gem captured by gold. The color is brilliant at the top, along the far edges, but an illusion of metalwork and contour demonstrates a darkening at the center of the 'jewel', as though corruption were seeping out from its very heart. The jewel has been 'cracked', broken up to reveal a shadowed interior. There's a light fixed onto the display, shining within that interior to reveal what lies within.

Every true Faberge egg contains a surprise, and this one is no different. Usually, the surprise is displayed with the egg closed, and the surprise presented separately...

But Mamoru can feel the faintest wisp of emotion, the remnants that cling to the piece, and he knows that the positioning here is very intentional. This is the intended view of a piece made to warn others.

Within the cracked open Soul Gem is a clockwork monstrosity.

It bears the head of a ceramic doll with the top of their skull blown open, blown glass and shards of sapphire and ruby connected to the rest of the head by strands of sterling silver wire. The head is connected to the skeletal arrangement of a horse's neck and body, each joint articulated by a miniscule black pearl. The legs are formed from the muzzles of hunting rifles, the hooves etched from bullets. The tail is the bladed edge of a knife.

Oh, Anastasia, a memory whispers in Mamoru's ear.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Tuxedo Kamen freezes with his fingertips on the egg and makes a sound like someone else's grief, and he reaches for Kunzite blindly as he regains motion and pulls away from the display. He reaches for Kunzite, and he also holds his other hand to an ear, as if blocking out a sound on one side only-- and he rubs at his ear and lets that hand drop.

Reached for and caught, and Mamoru's hand is trembling a little as he shares the feeling of the memory's speaking, and the whisper itself, and he pulls Kazuo closer to the exhibit and points. See it!

The sick feeling he always gets when he thinks about the fate of Puella Magi is still there and he's trying to work around it, and the egg is so lovely and so horrifying, just like a Witch. The missing princess...

If Kazuo's unfamiliar, Mamoru gives him a very broad-strokes background of the Russian Revolution and Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova, and the awareness that there's an American animated movie about her, and there were pretenders and there's the faintest echo of one of Mamoru's earliest hobbies -- daydreaming about lost princesses.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Hunted down. A family in despair, despite ongoing negotiations and a treaty that leaned heavily on their existence - told they would be moved elsewhere, then suddenly isolated and killed.

A doll struggling for the freedom of a maddened, frantic ride, but the ride itself is made of death.

Kazuo clasps Mamoru's hand, and follows where he leads, and shifts so that his other arm can go around Mamoru for a moment. Leaning, supporting silently, concentrating on him.

It's a very distant part of his mind that is observing the skill in the creation of the miniature 'surprise,' and considering that while the artists who created it did not necessarily have to know what they were creating, the person who designed it, the person who left the memory, did. And to design that -

Research. Later.

Mamoru's grief (and it is grief, he thinks, even if Mamoru does not name it that) is now.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It is grief, even if it isn't Mamoru's; Mamoru has gotten good at both grief and holding other people's feelings. Only the slightest part of it is his, and it's grief for a child's fantasy, that maybe she got away. The prince leans into Kunzite, Mamoru leans in to Kazuo though. This is now, and he's silent for a long moment, slowly relaxing-- when he takes a sharp breath of realization.

He doesn't remember researching Anastasia Romanova.

He holds the realization for later, they have business, they're broken in to a museum and touching things-- okay well he's touching things--

Tuxedo Mask exhales, squeezes Kunzite's hand, and moves on to the next unremembered loss while dragging his partner along behind him, hand in hand. But it's not a loss, it's a family-- a painting-- again he'll touch it once alarms on it have been deactivated.

Maryam Siddig (280) has posed:
Grief, in all its horrors, is indeed the emotion that fills the final gift to the Romonav family. Even when Mamoru no longer touches that delicately crafted egg and its grim surprise, the emotion lingers, heavy in the mind, a coating lingering in the throat.

Where the Russian treasure had been in a sealed container, the painting - entitled A Family Luncheon by Patricia McDowell - is carefully hung on a stretch of wall with other paintings, each given appropriate space so that a small number of visitors could gather, if desired, around a given painting without blocking off the others. A Family Luncheon is a lively affair, a six foot by three foot painting on canvas in a golden-oak frame, the vertically oriented canvas used in combination with perspective to create a viewpoint of a table extending far from the viewer, crowed with people of carrying ages... and sizes.

There are four adults and three children, all dressed in their Sunday best, and and only two of them - a young girl seated besides a smiling woman captured in the act of wiping her mouth with a kerchief - are depicted as especially close in appearance to one another.

The use of family in the title is expansive, rather than restrictive - this is a family of choice rather than blood. The seven aren't alone, however - each adult and child alike is accompanied by an odd miniature of themselves, dressed in their own unique styles. They're clearly not dolls, given that some are captured in gesticulation and conversation, others in the act of eating perfectly normal sized food from terribly small plates, but only those with the proper knowledge could hope to recognize them as Chara.

The piece is lively and warm, a portrait of Americana, with none of the secret menace of the deceptively beautiful egg. Kazuo and Mamoru can both enjoy the deft brush strokes, the warm colors, the emotion captured in paint and canvas.

And yet when Mamoru touches it, he and Kazuo will find that it too is imprinted by the weight of loss. A memory, captured in the canvas, hands that had gripped this very frame, shaking as they sought to contain the depths of their emotion.
"Why don't you remember?!" An aching cry, frustration and fear. "Mom, this was us! Your friends and mine, and our guardian chara, the Sunday dinners we always had -"

"Of course I remember Sunday Dinner, we've only hosted them since you were born, MaryAnn," this voice is frustrated too, and concerned, and firmer with age. The painting knows this voice intimately - it was brought into existence by the hands that belong to this voice, "But these guardian whatevers - you know I always encouraged your flights of fancy as a girl, but that's all they were -"

"But Van's right here! Why won't you look at her?! You lost Wata, and now you act like she was never real, instead of helping us find her!" Two voices came to the holder of the painting then. One, small, high pitched, like a young child, beloved by the one who had imprinted this memory. The other is the painter, the mother, strident. They speak at once.

"I don't think she can see me-"

"There's no one else here! You're too old for imaginary friends -"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
All of a sudden, the sorrow snaps to fury and Tuxedo Kamen is holding Kunzite's hand too tightly, and Kazuo can tell, even beyond this memory that smacked them both in the face with its depth of emotion-- a depth of emotion that's the same reason Mamoru was very careful in picking out the antique furniture he did, furniture that wouldn't stab him, furniture that had been loved instead of used up. Happy furniture!

This looks like a happy painting, but it's a snapshot of a good memory that will never ever happen again, which would make it wistful for anyone else--

For Mamoru it's a gutpunch. And he's angry, he's furious, because whoever that was-- this was taken from her. This was taken from them both. This life, this reality, this joy, this part of who she was-- and later, certainly, the hands that held the painting forgot. Stolen. Stolen. He feels hunted.

He feels like he wants to break things. His hand's too tight on Kazuo's. His breathing is shallow as he unhooks his rage and puts it away in a box and loosens his grip on Kazuo's hand, touch glowing as he apologetically heals what would probably turn into bruising.

The mask hides the damp on his eyelashes in the poor light, but his touch doesn't.

"Let's-- keep going," and he breathes between the words. "As much as I can stand."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
There's a flurry of questions prompted by Mamoru's realization that he remembers something he doesn't remember, but the curiosity and speculation are promptly bundled away, held for later, just as Mamoru's reaction to it is. There's a flicker of amusement, and a flash of a remembered image of Amy Faust tumbling sidewise into a tangent at a bad moment - but neither of them are her, and she's been doing so very much better with that; it's a brief warmness, now, rather than a remembered irritation.

A tiny shadow licks at the edge of the frame, then behind it to breathe the scent of the canvas without quite coming into contact. Checking for that faint hint of the Crystal Heart? Well. Yes. Anything else that can be found, but that specifically.

The date of the painting is surveyed (even Patricia McDowell's birth year, if that's included), then the painting itself - and most of all Kazuo studies the adults in that chosen family. The ages they're depicted at. Marking them down on that internal chart, adding data that can be plotted. Magic, unlike science, is something that varies depending on the experimenter. But the techniques of analysis can still sometimes be used. Sometimes. And he didn't sleep through all his high school classes ...

And then Mamoru touches it.

For Mamoru the memory is a gutpunch, prompting rage at what was stolen.

For Kunzite, it's only a detail. Something to note down, to add to the information, to consider that something happened so quickly that the child didn't have time to adjust.

For Kazuo --

When Kazuo was small, his father simply didn't come home one day.

This tears at something in him. It's not the same. It's nothing like the same. For this child it must have been worse - because her mother, too, didn't come home, but her mother was also still there.

He doesn't notice the pain in his hand until after Mamoru heals it; as the glow fades, he lifts their joined hands, turns the carefully to press at least the side of Mamoru's hand against Kazuo's heart.

A deep breath. "Right," he murmurs back. At least the next one is - pictures of graffiti. Not the graffiti itself. The brush of shadow against a hidden corner is a tiny one again; he doesn't expect anything, here, but it's worth checking. A rod, a sword, a shield. One wonders if there was a chalice somewhere, once. Perhaps the first to go.

He tries not to wonder that too deeply where Mamoru can see it.

Maryam Siddig (280) has posed:
The painting is still and silent - it has no words to share, only lingering regrets, mourning. If Mamoru were to search, were to dig, he would find it, in the depths - the warmth and affection that this painting was begun with, the love and joy, the long hours of completing the sketch and then the line art and then the painting itself.

He may not wish to dig that far. It means going through more of the pain, after all.

Kazuo's shadows, on the other hand, can feel something much more concrete - another flicker of the Crystal Heart's energy, that same faintness that says that there was at least one someone in close contact with that artifact who has been in contact with this artifact. It's impossible to tell if it was the same person person as the one who gathered the Faberge egg.

His eyes, however, can easily and plainly gather information, for the date of the painting is included - it was completed in 1956, sold to the museum in 1976. The artist was born in 1927, and was greatly inspired by the works of Norman Rockwell, though she preferred to take inspiration from her own life, and that of her daughter, MaryAnn White nee McDowell. The artist produced many works, though only this one is currently available for the exhibit, produced on loan from the Seattle Art Museum.

The exhibit they approach next is a series of photos of graffiti spraypainted on the walls of the Seattle Children's Theatre in 1998. The photos was originally captured as part of a criminal investigation into the vandalism of the wall, and preserved by the Seattle Police Department and the Artistic Director of the Children's Theatre, who found the work striking, even if he didn't appreciate the spraypainting of his artistic home.

All of this information is available on the placard included with the piece, as is one more item on display: a handwritten note from an alleged original artist, lambasting the art director for removing the piece.

The photos capture several angles of the spraypainted graffiti, the product of a single night of dedicated work:

Three figures, each of them faceless shadows, their clothes and weapons to speak for them. Where they are featureless shadows, their clothes are depicted in bold colors - dark blue, falu red, and leapfrog green - each brightened by safflower yellow.

There is a warrior with a sword, their billowing pants wisping into blurred color where feet should be, the safflower of their jacket's detailing bold against the shadows and the vivid red. A veil flows from the gold spray of a hat atop their head. There is a defender bearing a shield, a deceptive playfulness in their leapfrog green dress and green-white-safflower sash, their twisted and layered hat leading into a safflower-fringed tail. The dress seems like it should hinder them - it doesn't. In the center, there is a wizard in dark blue, safflower yellow consuming their jacket, dark blue making up the trim of the jacket, the length of the pants, the curve of their magician's rod. They are bold and brilliant and fading, layers of grey and white and black seeping away the boldness of color, their hands and faces featureless, their identity vanished.

The alleged original artist never identified themselves. Their note is full of frustration, anger, but the conclusion is blunt: 'the worst part is that you don't know what you're losing, and soon, neither will we.'

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru's hand stills against Kazuo's heart, is held there close, warm. Mamoru doesn't dig into the picture any more.

They're both raw, but Mamoru's not done yet, and he knows that as long as he's ready to go again, Kazuo won't want to stop. They need to get as much information as they can before one of them has enough.

When they get to the photographs of the graffiti, oh, Mamoru is in a fight with Endymion over the lack of a chalice; Kunzite can feel a gut-deep set of emotions surging up from the back of nowhere and Mamoru trying to dissociate, and this is the first time this has happened since the week after Usagi brought his Endymion memories back.

It's as Endymion henshins up wordlessly, still hand-in-hand with Kazuo, that the heartsick, impotent fury bubbles over and the images come tumbling out of Endy's memory, a family that worked in the palace, the mother, Ianthe, in the kitchen and he always would beg for snacks, laughing; her son Theotimos underfoot, her daughter Aristomache around eleven, a heishi in training for the Golden City.

The sword, the bright red and gold, the blur of her feet, the embroidery on her veil-- he doesn't know who this bearer of that henshin was, they Faded before he was even born-- he remembers Aristomache's face, her voice, her getting tonguetied at Kunzite whenever he checked in on her; he remembers her friends... the lack of a chalice, the lack of a chalice.

Melite. The chalice, not even in the picture. The youngest of the girls training to be heishi, at eight, was already an accomplished healer, and he looked in on her during her lessons pretty frequently -- he'd told her teachers he thought she would be as good at it as himself, when she went and fixed her own eyesight.

Ligeia, the staff, the fiery little wizard in her rich dark blue and gold, almost ten, and her fraternal twin sister Zosime with the shield, taller and broader in her lovely green armor dress, which she fought in as cheerfully as Mars fights in heels.

Who knows if the girls were reborn and lost their memories, or if when they died they left behind henshin items that could be used by anyone. Who knows if the chalice has been destroyed, or only become separated from its mates? Endy was never sure whether the magic inside the objects was a living spirit or just a spell, but... but the kids...

Endymion missed them. The photo is from 1998, almost a decade before he was even born and he feels like he wants to throw up. He missed them, he missed them, he MISSED them, if it was them they finally got to grow up but then they were STOLEN, they were stolen and he missed meeting them--

The image of a generic filing cabinet and rifling through it in a darkened generic messy academic's office is a plan. A plaque on a door he'd seen when they were there in the daytime, months ago. Curator.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Patricia McDowell was twenty-nine when she painted a group of adults with charas. It was sometime after that that she scoffed at her daughter. Her daughter, who might well still be alive.

But that's the catch. They can't find anything out by talking to MaryAnn, even if she is alive. She lost her mother's Guardian. She lost her mother. And then, in time, she lost herself. Even if she had her own daughter - even if the chain of chosen-family dinners continued -

Kazuo quells that line of thought. They have more to do here, and then patterns to sort out, before he lets himself drift in speculation. Now they get to visit 1998 - the impossible past, when the Internet was still a foreign thing to so many, all archaic flashes and enormous Comic Sans.

This time - this time it's Kunzite that stirs, even before Mamoru blends to Endymion - but it's that change, and the fury and memory that rises, that touch off the details. Waiting in the kitchen for the last of a package to be put together - it had been ready, but a moment's discussion about the progress of Pherenike's pregnancy led to a repackaging with fewer ingredients and more cooked food. A little boy edging carefully closer and asking questions, till Kunzite realized that Theotimos was concerned about the possibility of another sister. Looking in on Andromache's and Zosime's training a little more often after that, part as always to evaluate their skill for himself, part so that Andromache'd remember her teachers weren't the only ones watching her -

Her friends are more of a blur. The tiny healer, of interest largely because she was of interest to Endymion. Ligeia - he'd been brought in to provide an extra layer of shielding once or twice, in a couple of particularly explosive practice sessions. Zosime he knew by her skill, by the amount he'd trust her to do her job if they needed to, growing slowly over time. Not by the person, not so much as Endymion did.

And the wave of added rage, that Endymion missed them, that they were STOLEN -

It's not Kunzite's own anger. His anger is at himself, for the way he took them away from his prince. But Endymion's anger gives Kazuo a space to remember who and when he is now.

Absent, in the back of his mind: 1998. Add a few years for them to have a chance to settle down. They might have gotten married. They might, eventually, have had a kid or two.

It wouldn't be so hard for those kids to be their age, or the senshi's ages. Even a little younger.

He cuts that off, too, before he can explicitly reach 'Endymion might not have missed them' - but he tucks that thought away. Seattle's big. They have so few clues. But something, something might give them a way to trace those lives. Later.

Something.

When Endymion generates the image of a hypothetical filing cabinet, Kazuo simply nods back to him. There's no question. They have at least to look.

And if the files are electronic, then at least they'll have a fix on where to come back with Zoisite.

Maryam Siddig (280) has posed:
Museums, like zoos and aquariums and concerts halls, have a front stage and a backstage. Front stage is what people pay to see, what they expect to witness: decorated to the nines, covered in art, polished surfaces and well-kept exhibit halls. Backstage is where the work happens, solid and real and straightforward.

Magic in the Making is no exception to this rule; the exhibit is expansive and the area well designed, lighting helping with the transition between the eras and regions of item groupings. The backstage though - through an employees only door, with a lock that won't be difficult for this duo to surpass - is neat, sure, but plain. It's a long hall with several small offices, an exhibit storage area with no decoration. One of the offices is labeled with the curators information. It's unlocked, which might be a pleasant surprise.

It's occupied, which might not be.

The woman inside is taller than average for Japan, her skin a warm brown, her glossy hair loosely gathered in a thick plait. She's dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt under an emerald green blazer, sitting at a desk and pouring over documents.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It's his right hand Endymion opens the door with, psychometry still feeling raw to the point that he's got his shields back up to touch anything. His left hand's idly on the hilt of his sword at his waist, and it's with fluffy hair with a little curl to it, raised eyebrows, and wide blue eyes that the prince stops in his tracks, momentarily blocking his guardian from view--

He's a striking image, and the bone white and grey shadow behind him is more striking still, when Endymion steps aside to let Kunzite in as well. "Sorry, Curator-san, we were trying to break into your office to go through the documentation on your exhibit," he says after a second's awkward silence. "Please don't do any silent alarms, we'll just teleport out and you'll forget."

A beat. "I'm Endymion," he says apologetically, "Crown Prince of Earth, Heir to Elysion, and I'm a beleaguered high school student who just ran into upsetting stuff in the display. This is Kunzite, first of my Guardian Knights. He's a grade ahead of me. We wouldn't have broken anything--"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
There's a twitch of Kazuo's head to the side as they approach the door - a hint of light in the crack beneath it - but without contact, with both their driven distraction, he doesn't catch it in time to warn Endymion without making noise. It means that there's a noticeable frown on his face as the door opens, that relaxes into mild neutrality in the second of awkward silence.

And then the words "sorry, Curator-san" are spoken, and there is just the hint of a mild wince and exhale as the bone-white-and-grey shadow steps resignedly into the office. The shadow of his hand passes briefly over the doorknob, and he tests wordlessly for that similar energy upon it, just in case.

He does not test the curator directly at this time. This is weird enough for her without the office being flooded with ominous chill shadows.

"Apologies for being slow," he says instead, leaving whose apologies ambiguous rather than speaking for Endymion. "Unpleasant distractions come with the territory."

Maryam Siddig (280) has posed:
It's not every day that Maryam Siddig works late into the night, though it's more often than her eyes appreciate, her thick-lensed glasses heavy on her nose at this hour of the night. It's happened more often than not here in Tokyo though, aware as hse is of the possiblity of something - special, happening. There's evidence there, that special things have been happening for some time, but she's had the misfortune to miss them.

Well, there's no missing the armored young man with a sword standing in the door of her office. There's no missing the shadow at his back, all bone-white-and-grey either, and in spite of herself and the building giddiness in her abdomen, she finds herself asking, quite severely,

"And does not breaking things extend to not leaving visible fingerprints on the artifacts you touched, Prince Endymion, Guardian Kunzite? It will be quite difficult to hide fingerprints if they were left behind."

No admonishment against breaking in, against touching, only against the possibility of their having left something unseen. She then turns a touch pink, flustered by her own response and shakes her head.

"No, apologies are unnecessary - I - well, once an artifacts' protector, always an artifacts' protector, I can't just turn it off... welcome, and please sit."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Endymion turns a little pink himself, one hand up over his breastplate and blue eyes wide in startlement. "--!"

A half-second later, a line of crackling light, like self-activating charcoal, passes over the prince and leaves him in his masked transformation. "Don't worry, I moonlight as a gentleman thief. The kind that touches everything but doesn't steal it-- I've gotten very good at not leaving prints and just being a leaving prince."

He sweeps an incredibly theatrical bow, fluffy hair and cape and all, and he takes the seat as directed. "I'm sorry, I'm also a showoff. But I'm afraid I'm definitely on the back foot-- can we start with the things we got angry about so we don't lose more momentum--? It's the three from the Seattle graffiti. There were four objects. There should have been four kids-- the items had voices and long memories, for teaching their bearers. I can tell you about the four bearers I knew in my first life, but... 1998 is like almost thirty years ago? Is there any more information on that art, is there anyone-- is there anything..."

The masked boy trails off, and gives the white-haired boy next to him a faintly hapless look. "Or maybe that's not the most important thing to start with. Maybe it's-- how do you believe us?"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
She assembled the exhibit, Kunzite doesn't say - because her answer may or may not have anything to do with the obvious one. "I didn't need to touch anything," he says mildly to the curator, "and everything I affected remains as it was. No damage, not to the exhibits or to their security." He'll take Mamoru's word for it on the fingerprints. After all, they never did get any police coming to talk to him after breakins and youma-fights.

He does not attempt to sit. He does, however, find a spare chair that only has a stack of books on it, and a spot on the corner of a filing cabinet that will accommodate about four-fifth of that stack's footprint, and gently shifts the books from one spot to another using his cape as a barrier between bindings and hands. The Prince of the Earth and gentleman thief can have a seat if he wants one.

Maryam Siddig (280) has posed:
Maryam looks at the Prince who dubbed himself in Endymion as he starts, his wordless noise of - offense? Surprise? - not nearly so captivating as the transformation that passes over him, as ancient armor is exchanged for a dapper tuxedo and domino mask.

"My word, you look just like something out of that show my younger brother watches... Detective something... and yet that was so clearly a transformation, even if it was remarkably quick... and you left no prints, and caused no damage?" She isn't quite skeptical, except for the professional skepticism. "Before you leave, I would like a list of those items you touched, if only to be certain, and to review our security. I trust your gifts will make it so you aren't too closely captured, but I would rather be careful, I do hope you understand."

There's an obvious sincerity in her voice, which makes it clear that the doubt is nothing against them and very much about the concern she has for her artifacts. It's the same concern that leads her to watching Kazuo very closely as he shifts aside her books to make room. She doesn't stop him, doesn't even breathe a word of warning, but she watches quite closely.

"There were things you were angry about?" Her brows furrow, lips pursing, but she listens, and surprise breaks over her face. "I'm afraid that you know more than I do of those artifacts, if there was a first life involved... but no, I'm sorry. As you say, it was nearly thirty years ago. The photos and letter were shared with the Seattle Art Museum by the then Art Director - I could provide you with his name, but I believe he's retired..."

First life was clearly a surprise that she is trying not to stumble over too much.

And then there's the perfect question. "A fair question, given how rare that must be. My name is Maryam Siddig, Prince Endymion, Guardian Kunzite, and I believe in magic, which is why I believe you. I do not have magic of my own, and I do not possess the gift to see through that which obscures magical happenings, but because of that, and a good deal of other happenings throughout my life, I can converse on the subject."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Of course! Is it all right if I follow you around as you look at what I touched so I can show you where? Professional curiosity, I want to know if I'm as good as my hype," the young masked prince says brightly after a laugh-- this is what he regrets; she's delightful and he's completely lost his steamroller mood and he'll forget to ask things because now he's excited and she's engaging. He lightly thunks his head and shoulder against Kunzite's side as he sits back in the chair.

Then he tilts his head up and back to look at his first guardian, and he says, "I'm gonna," and he takes his glove off, and straightens up in the seat. "Curator Siddig," he says respectfully, "I'd like to tell you who I am, and I'd like to bring a whole bunch of kids to talk to you, if that's all right. I'd like it if they can come transformed, and be able to speak freely, so we'll need to sort out a time and a place, if the museum after-hours is too much to ask for."

He holds up his bare hand. "And I'm a touch empath and psychometrist. It works well as an intentions-meter and lie detector. It also might accidentally show me something that upset you recently. But I need to know if you're connected to Obsidian or another shadowy tentacle organization of doom, laying bait out for us when we're already on a timer."

So he holds his hand out, over the desk, expectantly but still very politely.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"Retired people may still remember things they saw when they were working," Kunzite says quietly. "So the name would be worthwhile all the same, and appreciated. Thank you, Siddig-san." So long ago. So long out of date. So much behind. They weren't even born yet. Was she? - best not even to think about it, let alone ask.

And then Mamoru's straightening and using her title, and Kunzite quiets, keeping an absent partial eye on the stack of books. Just to make sure he doesn't brush it with his cape. It's only almost completely safe up there.

Maryam Siddig (280) has posed:
"That would be fine - it would likely be easier for you, and it would certainly be easier to show you what acceptable contact looks like, before your next break in." She's not even objecting to the idea of a next break in. There's a good deal of information shared with her, forthright and spilling free, and Miriam is terribly excited about much of it, particularly the opportunity - "That is what I wanted."

She realizes that might sound suspicious, and clears her throat.

"That is what I wanted for all of you - to be allowed to meet you, and share with you your history. You may bring as many as you like, and share my name - though I would ask that you be cautious, for..." She hasn't confirmed that he isn't with Obsidian. The realization comes across her face, regret and worry and deepest concern, that shutters her eyes as she watches his hand, and takes in his powers.

"It would seem we both worry about Obsidian's reach," she says, then, "I'm sorry, Prince Endymion, but first contact is too early for that. Just as you have secrets you protect, there are many things I must keep close to the chest. I can swear to you, on the Radiant Heart itself, that I am not of Obsidian."

As Endymion processes that, she turns to Kunzite, and nods, gravely.

"Quite right. Retirement doesn't dispel knowledge, not - for those of us with mundane knowledge, at least. I will share with you his name, though it will be up to you to find him."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
It's after Maryam says that she can swear to him that Kunzite confirms to Mamoru, speaking quietly but still speaking, "There were residual traces of the Heart's energy everywhere. Not direct contact, but contact with someone who'd been near it."

And then he bows to Maryam very slightly, cautious not only of the books but of disturbing any of the rest of her sedimentary organization. "Even the ability to make the attempt would mean a great deal. Thank you."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
He doesn't look at all offended as he takes his hand back and puts his glove back on with a nod, quick and businesslike. "Fair and valid," he says, then tilts his head up to Kunzite again, listening. He nods once more, then looks back at Maryam. Faintly apologetic. "I'll still ask the Headmistress for your bona-fides tomorrow, before I tell anyone else to come. But me, I'm Mamoru Chiba, and when I'm this well-dressed I'm Tuxedo Mask, and I got married on the moon and we got pictures. I'm willing to discuss a lot of my stuff, since Obsidian already knows who I am and some of what I can do. I'm Mahou MSF, because I'm also a healer, and my stupid brother is a supervillain."

And then he gets this slow-dawning nerd grin. "I'm sorry did you just call this first contact? You are so real for that and it's so funny. I guess we are an elusive and ephemeral community... I want to know, if we can't kill the fade in time, I want to know now how to remember what I've known all my life, that magic is real and adults can't remember it. I want to know how to keep believing."

Another beat. "I want to tell you so much! I already apologized for being a showoff, but-- you're also--" He's smiling and is face is turning redder, but the light in here is dim, maybe Maryam Siddig can't see it. "I feel like you have a fridge that likes drawings on it, but, I have to be so careful with you. You don't have a whole team of anthropologists backing you up and we're-- a lot, haha. Once it's okay, I'll tell them to be gentle with you."

Maryam Siddig (280) has posed:
"You could sense that?" Maryam sounds astonished, and curious too. "Fascinating. I haven't handled the Crystal Heart in... a long time. We gave the piece we held to the protection of Radiant Heart, and I had thought all traces of it would have gone."

Interesting.

"You can certainly ask the Headmistress about me," now there's a hint of annoyance in her voice. "Had it been up to me, she would have introduced us directly, but we disagreed on how and what information was to much at risk when it came to our priorities - you children, for her, and the artifacts, for myself."

Mamoru Chiba, Mahou MSF, Obsidian has all his information - concerning - he has a brother who is an enemy - concerning.

"You lead a very concerning life," she says honestly. "But it must certainly be an exciting one. I don't... what I can do, will not defeat the vanishing you'll experience. The protection that guards you all... I can't even be sure I'll remember that you, Mamoru Chiba-san, are the same as Prince Endymion. The two of you are the first that I've ever met." A vulnerability, to admit that. "Which is why it most certainly is a form of first contact. Though I believe that a part of it is that I believe. I was raised to believe. I believe. If that has been your experience... maybe that's what it is, too."

He's getting red - she can barely see it. Perhaps he's nervous - or thrown - or worried.

"You don't have to tell them to be gentle. I would like to meet them."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"If you're willing to handle being asked fourteen questions on separate tangents every time you pause for a breath - and that's only from the first three of them - then we don't have to tell them to be gentle. If you like more oxygen than that, we'll do our best to warn them." Kunzite's openly amused, now, considerably less worried himself. No observation from him about that hint of annoyance. It doesn't seem to be oriented directly at Mamoru, after all.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"My whole life has been incredibly concerning," Mamoru says with a burst of laughter; he's unrepentant. "And I've been lectured until my loved ones are blue in their faces, and we'll find out in the next couple of days what you do remember-- I assume you have some system of note-taking; I'll also remind you at whatever intervals you like if you want."

He does a cheap magic trick, flips his hand around and pulls his hat out of midair, then digs in it to get out... a business card. It has his name, Chiba Mamoru; it has his phone number and email; it has a bandaid on it. He flips it over and produces a fountain pen from thin air, then leans over to use her desk to write on it: Mahou MSF :D

This, he holds out with a gloved hand. "That's not magic at all." His other hand turns over and produces a rose, which he places on her desk. "This is. It's a weapon that can cut through concrete, metal, and magic. It doesn't need water to stay nice, until it gets used, and then it's just a regular rose. I'm not--"

He coughs and turns a little redder, hand over his mouth for a second. "Sorry. I'm not... trying to be romantic or something, it's literally my schtick, I can't imagine pulling magic forget-me-nots, though that would be amazingly useful."

Tuxedo Kamen stands, glancing at Kunzite again, and as Kunzite makes room for him to lead them out, he says to Maryam, "If you want to set up your phone's recorder, I can also tell you the sense impressions I got when I touched the exhibits. The faberge egg was made by someone in the know who was close to Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova, who was a Puella Magi..."

Maryam Siddig (280) has posed:
Perhaps it is the fate of magic, to have a concerning life... Maryam will contemplate that, and take notes, in the hopes that she will remember. She smiles, faint, and amused at his sheer excitement. "I do have some note-taking skill, yes. I'll be sure to keep this on me - and I have a business card for you, as well!"

She is tickled pink by the business card, wondering if this is the norm for the young Mahoujin, to have business cards to share. She does indeed offer up a business card in return - Maryam Siddig, Museum Curator, for the Museum of Islamic Art. There's some information on the other side about the traveling exhibit and how she's the chief project curator.

"Fourteen separate questions... well... perhaps if we made it small groups," she laughs a little, looking at Kunzite in interest. "I would love to meet your friends. To ask them questions too, for I certainly have questions for all of you! As much as you're trying to not overwhelm me, I wish the same for you."

A rose is handed to her, and she twirls it gently, poking at what seems to be an ordinary rose, that she knows is not, and she carefully places it in a cup, intending to retrieve a vase for it later. Later, because Prince Endymion and Guardian Kunzite have stood, and Maryam stands to follow them, and at the recorder suggestion, hurriedly reaches to do just that.

"Yes! I would love to know more, that artifact was donated by a wealthy family in..."