2725/Kai-tan and Tuxy

Kai-tan and Tuxy
Date of Scene:	21 May 2025
Location:	Crystal Millenium
Synopsis:	King Endymion speaks with his own future Nephrite-to-be before he takes up the mantle-- and the memories.
Cast of Characters:	Nephrite, Mamoru Chiba
Tinyplot:	Black Moon Clan
Tinyplot2:	BMC: Dimension Future

---

Nephrite has posed:
Miyake Kaito had spent a good deal of his time in the Infirmary, after the crew had returned from that wicked planet. Time he'd spent talking with Minako and helping Isamu, and generally making himself somewhat useful in the wake of everything. Keeping busy for hours, it was good to corral the whirlwind of thoughts that might otherwise overwhelm him.

He felt deeply about a lot of this, and not always for reasons he understood. Things inherited, perhaps. When he'd passed by the room where the King's other self-- the Tuxedo Mask of another past-- was laid up and unconscious, he had paused only briefly to watch them. A twin of himself with dark brown hair asleep in the bed just across from him, in a similarly terrible state.

A surreal vision. It stayed with him even as he went to get some rest, though he avoided returning to check on his grandmother just yet. The name Nephrite was echoing around in his head, as if the first utterance of it had only managed to stay and get slowly stronger, gathering resonance.

It was loud, as he rested elbows upon the crystalline outcropping of a balcony. Looking out over the bay, the horrid swell that remained of it, and the obelisk that poisoned their world.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
A ghost can't knock on the door, even if he can arguably pet a kitten. It might not have mattered-- the word the King says next to Kaito is the one that's drowning out all the other words in Kaito's head.

"Nephrite."

The man's motions are stiff, the projection of him faded at the edges. The voice the word was spoken in, resignedly hopeful in the midst of emotional devastation, reveals that the burden on his intangible shoulders is so weighty it's a miracle he's still sane. He wants. He wants. He doesn't want to burden them. He has to.

"Miyake-san," he grants, having made himself a little more normal.

Nephrite has posed:
There it is again. Nephrite. In that voice, it sounds very different. Like hearing the song that is stuck on loop in his head, and finally being freed of it. Relief, almost, but even more than that, a sense of stange equilibrium.

He should really straighten up and bow to the King, but he doesn't move that much from his place, leaned against the balustrade. He turns lazily, so that instead of looking outwards, he's looking over the apparition. Even the ghost's eyes are terrifically sad, he thinks, and tired in a way that very few other people can understand in their world.

"The King knows my name." He muses, and gives an amused little quirk of his mouth. "It's really true then, isn't it? Nephrite..."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"The King knows your name." It's a repetition, it's a sigh. "It's true that you can be Nephrite," Endymion says, looking away, uncomfortable with the scrutiny-- then looking back, and his focus is clearly returning; his edges are sharper, and something about his resolution shifts higher. "If you want. One might think I, as your king, could just order you to take up the job, the memories. I won't. You know, obviously--"

His voice is still a little flat in the depressed way; he's making an effort at inflection, but he's nothing, in this moment, like the easy benevolence and good cheer the King's public face nearly always bears. He's not even the King that greeted the young heroes and the refugees that poured into the palace, brave and heartened.

"--Sailor Moon missing and my daughter corrupted, and the Earth's clock ticks on while my watch is stopped... I can only ask for your help. But when I ask for your help, in a way I'm asking for the rest of your life."

This is not the legendary hero, the unbreakable king. "There are bad memories, too. The four of you betrayed me, twice, and the first time it ended the world, and the second time we stopped it. But-- you'll remember growing up with me, the first time, even though I don't. And you'll remember about two hundred years of being a ghost in a rock, summoned whenever I needed advice or a friend."

Nephrite has posed:
A knowing hum is offered, along with the soft incline of Kaito's head. His hair as red as his Grandmother's own and just as wavy.

"It caused trouble for my grandmother, people assuming she had some sort of affair with a villain, you know. Apparently, in that other time... where they all come from, there was some care between those two, even when he wasn't a good person. But he still treated her badly."

He made a slight face. "The Nephrite here died evil, when Baa-chan was young. That's what she said." And, while he was certainly relieved there wasn't any truth to the accusations of familial resemblance in this timeline, that he wasn't looking down the barrel of some strange I'm my own grandpa nonsense, it had still remained lodged like a stone in his heel. Sharp when he stepped.

"Two hundred years... that's less time than I've been alive. You don't remember before all that bad, so it's just that two centuries of fairly limited containment and interaction. He couldn't really do much harm like--" He gestured to Endymion. But his curiosity was there. "Did he really make it up to you, so quickly?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"They were victims of Beryl's machinations, manipulations, and then mind control, and I can't have been paying as much attention as I should have been. It... they thought they were trying to protect me from the Moon's influence, they believed her that the Moon was spying on us and wanted, oh, all kinds of things, but especially the Earth's darling magical prince..." says Endymion, dismissing his sceptre, letting his hands hang empty at his sides, cape falling over the fronts of his shoulders.

The air moves, at least, but the King doesn't move with it. He's unnaturally still, not disturbing or disturbed by the currents and eddies, not breathing, fading at the edges a little bit again as he gets distracted. "I grew up alone. When four ghosts in rocks told me they were reborn to be with me but were suborned by that-- witch. I... found four friends and another reason to hate a dead monster."

Nephrite has posed:
Reborn to be with him. Brows rose and fell, conceding to that much, as strange as it sounded. "Well, being born into a family with such a close tie to your own... That's no coincidence. That's the result of a very strong will, and I suppose I'll take credit for that."

His brows furrowed, and his eyes-- the colour of richly stained wood-- dropped between them. He did right to stand properly, stepping away from the balustrade at least to settle on hand on his hip and the other upon holstered gun. Improvised from a droid's arm, and other scrap, he still carried a rifle on his back, given to him by a Puella of the past. Gas mask sat on the side of the pack at the small of his back, and his attire seemed to suggest mechanical repairs or that he had been engaged in similar work.

"You know, I was a lonely kind of kid, too. My parents weren't around much. I spent a lot of my time with Baa-chan or Umi-ojii... mostly in masks."

A short nod, and he looked to the faded face of the King. So like that boy in the infirmary, not that much older looking, but the eyes-- those eyes were ancient. Something about looking at him presently made the popular imagery of the King feel fake, somehow. Just a facade.

"Tuxedo Kamen... he was my imaginary friend for years. I had a little... toy of him. That feels weird to say now-- I'm not a freak or anything. But," He held up his hand, "It was a security thing. I felt close to Tuxedo Kamen. I didn't know why. Everyone just thought it was a kid thing. But I really felt... connected to that. When I outgrew it, I missed it. But it wasn't the same. Something was missing, and nothing filled it anymore."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
For a slow and even breath of time, the half-dreaming King thinks about this, distracted by something in the palace, or in the ground. "It's not weird," he says wryly, and it's like the sound's coming through water and then suddenly air, in clarity. "It's adorable. Kai-tan and his Tuxy."

The King's face is still turned outward toward the bay, but he is sidelong-looking at Kaito from behind his mask, and he's smiling a little, affectionate first and teasing second. And then he visibly pauses, and frowns, and then blinks. "Wait. You were cosplaying as me?"

This momentary delight does at least resemble the popular imagery.

Nephrite has posed:
An exaggerated sigh returns Kai-tan and his Tuxy, but it's true enough. When he was very little... When he was a little older, though... "I won a few contests, as a teenager. I really upped my game."

His mouth ticks into a smirk.

"It's been a long, long time since I had my run at that. I just really liked that idea of being a masked crusader. A handsome gentleman that appeared with roses, doing what needed to be done. Espousing justice during a different time." A shrug, with a hint of levity and sincerity. "It was the everyman thing. You had no idea who you were or would be, back then. It could have been anyone behind that mask-- I could be that man."

He chuckled a little bit. "It made me feel connected to something bigger. And now, I've done sorts of things, I've sailed all over the world." A look turned over his shoulder, back towards the poisoned bay, and he grew more serious. "Seeing what's been done to it... is hard to stomach. I feel like my heart is broken."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Yes," the King's ghost whispers.

The air moves, the indistinct sunlight comes filtering through the smoggy, choked sky, and the palace stands still against the devastation, the Senshi back to their tasks after having been spelled for a time. The silence of the city is sickening. The silence of the land is sickening.

"It's killing us as surely as it killed those families who listened to Death Phantom's violent lies," he says, turning away from the balcony entirely, walking back in, but otherwise not going anywhere. "I only hope that when they leave again, they'll come back..." He trails off, then refocuses.

"I think I'm going to have to talk with your grandmother about you, because she had to know who you looked like eventually, even with all the mask-wearing," King Endymion says, annoyed into animation.

Nephrite has posed:
A cynical little smile, and Kaito follows. Not necessarily to stalk the King, but to return to work if he can help-- he can't stay idle. There's more to be done.

"I told that young Koji-kun I'd help him put together a chair for your counterpart, among a few other little things that need to be seen to..." He reminds himself, and tilts his head as he walks. "I'll admit, now I do feel a little badly. Apparently, I've been goofing off for the past few centuries... I'm sorry for that, for what it's worth."

A look is sent sidelong to the King. "Listen... I want to help. We'll see these guys off, and then... I'll see about that stone."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Eyebrows go up at a man a quarter the King's age calling someone young, and there's a sort of air of 'do go on' for a half second into the reminder of what happened, and the reminder has a visible effect. Endymion's smile dims then fades; he takes a moment to gather himself, and he nods. "Don't feel badly. I'm glad you had time to see the world without being tethered to me. At least it won't be literally, anymore."

He's awkwardly silent for a moment, fidgeting with his gloves, after an abortive movement that looked almost like it could have been a hug how the hell does he recover--

"Thank you, Kaito-kun," he says regally, nailing it. "I'll let. You, uh, get to it."

Nephrite has posed:
"Thank you. Your Majesty." Kaito retuns it almost perfectly, intoned in such gravitas, and then ruins it with a slightly too-florid bow. He's not trying to mock the man, he's certainly not trying to be disrespectful. Rather, he's trying to be light-hearted or optimistic in a time of grief.

But he's not smirking when he rights, walking backwards for a few steps. In a more genuine motion, he gives a far simpler, casual salute of two fingers from his brow.

"I will."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
He's a ghost, ghosts can ghost. King Endymion fades out because he has succumbed to awkward and he has to face everyone again and he has to regain his cool first. But in his posture: it'll be all right, he won't be alone except for a kitten, anymore. They'll... figure something out.