321/Sincerity and Respect: Black Roses

Sincerity and Respect: Black Roses
Date of Scene:	27 August 2023
Location:	Administrative Office
Synopsis:	Hematite goes to menace Kyouka Inai. It works as well as can be expected.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Kyouka Inai
Tinyplot:	Midnight Tokyo

---

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There's the lingering scent of dark energy in the administrative building, but it's not overwhelming-- it's stale, it's not unusually thick, it's not recent or strong.

There is, faintly, the scent of roses.

Once Kyouka opens her office door, both scents are overwhelming, the sweetness of the roses interlaced and tangled with evil magics; the literal walls have velvety black roses climbing them, even. The window's not blocked off, but it's behind Kyouka's desk chair, which turns around at the exact same speed Kyouka usually turns it around--

--and sitting in it is a dark general, smiling, holding a long-stemmed black rose carefully, like a dart.

Hematite, the bloodstone, magnetic. Fragile. Breaks when exposed to too much dark energy.

Hematite, with shaggy shoulder-length-ish glossy black hair, eyes the same color as The Blue Marble, face young and looking affable. His Shitennou uniform is dark grey, and the trim -- and his cape -- are silky black.

"Hi," he says, his voice achingly familiar. "I think we should talk."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Approaching her office, there's nothing to Kyouka's gait or posture which suggests surprise. Not only can she literally smell what's waiting for her, but she's been expecting it. She's been warned, but even if she hadn't been, she knew it was only a matter of time. You don't do the sorts of things she has done and get away scot free. You always have to pay the piper. The question is whether or not the deeds are worth the cost. She thinks so. But one never really knows until it's time to pay the bill.

    She opens the door, unhurried. Soft grey eyes take in the black roses... and the figure sitting in her chair, turning around to face her in mockery of her usual performance.

o.O (does it always come off so much like a supervillain? Or is it just him?)

    Without saying anything, she closes the door behind her, quietly. She's wearing her usual work clothes- trousers and button-down white woman's dress shirt. Slowly she pulls off her sunglasses, folding them and hanging them in the neck of her shirt.

    "Hematite, is it, then?" She asks, voice somewhere between resigned and amused. "I think maybe we should."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Oh good, she did warn you," says Hematite pleasantly, and he waves his free hand, and did you know if plants grow fast enough, you can hear it? The roses grow over the door behind Kyouka, making sure it stays shut. "Have a seat," he gestures at the one for students. "I mean, or don't."

He doesn't get up, for now.

He's also not smiling anymore.

"You're very noisy. If you've been doing it to get a conversation, all right, but you're going to have to hurt for the information one way or another. I thought you might prefer physical to mental, which is why I came instead of one of my colleagues."

Now he gets up, and he leaves the one rose on Kyouka's desk, and she can see that his stance, his body language, reflects combat-readiness. He's hyperaware of where she is.

"My apprentice got blamed, initially, for the break-in in my colleague's home that resulted in you getting your hands on some Midnight Tokyo Project information. Good for you. You got it. Didn't you FUCKING know you should make sure you PROTECT your sources?"

Wait.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Yeah. Awful polite of you to send a warning at all. I guess that is sorta the way the mafia works, huh? First the scare tactics, then the real scare tactics, then the physical pain?" Kyouka's hand slides into her pocket, her stance casual, as she approaches down the length of the room- a glance behind her as the roses cover the door. She doesn't seem unduly worried... but someone who knows her well enough would notice the tightness around her eyes. Her attitude is flippant but some percentage of that, maybe most of it, is front.

    She doesn't protest the order to sit. If it's meant to humiliate her, having her play the role of 'student', she doesn't give any satisfaction, just throws herself into the chair, slumped back, and raises one foot to plant her shoe on the corner of the desk. "If a little pain is the only cost for saving lives, I'll gladly pay it." She says, pinching the bridge of her nose with two fingers and sounding tired, before lowering her hand to look at the now-standing Hematite. "If I was scared of pain, I would have quit this business a long time ago."

    At the accusation regarding Hematite's apprentice, brows are raised. "I do protect my sources, Hema-chan. If your 'apprentice' got blamed for a break-in which, I'll add, I had no part in- maybe you should examine the reasons for the blame falling where it did rather than assuming I somehow arranged it. I'm good, but I ain't that good."

    "Did you come here to punish me or just lecture me all day? I had enough of that when I was fourteen."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Not so much meant to humiliate her as 'now you see how much more comfortable your chair is' -- -- --

"God you're annoying," Hematite lets out between his teeth. "You don't protect your sources because you don't look both ways before crossing the street! My apprentice has a dark energy construct as a body, and she has a ghost cat, and a dark energy construct cat robbed my colleague. I know you got information from my apprentice because I literally told her--"

He's getting so mad, and then he gets mad because she's getting him mad. He de-ruffles his feathers, and comes around to glare down at Kyouka. He fitfully shoves her feet off the edge of her own desk. "I really want to hit you to make you understand that you are legitimately putting more people in danger by operating this way than we are by having a Midnight Tokyo Project in the first place. And I really want to hit you because you're a huge pain in the ass. But the first doesn't actually work, and the second isn't actually a good enough reason to hit someone, dark energy or no dark energy."

Hematite then lightning-speed grabs for Kyouka's hand, and he teleports them--

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Bam Kyouka's feet hit the floor as Hematite shoves them off the side of the desk, and she shifts more upright in her chair, her expression mercurially shifting from faux-bored to angry like a grease fire igniting in a bacon pan. "Well how the hell was I supposed to know your apprentice has a ghost cat, that's not exactly on the standard list of approved household pets, who the fuck meets a little girl in a coffee shop and just assumes she has a ghost cat at home! Besides it's not like I even knew there was going to be a ghost cat involved, you are giving me far too much credit, which seems to be a problem everyone around here fucking has!"

    "Oh, excuse me? Excuse me? She's on her feet now, getting in his face, "I'm putting a handful of people in possible danger because your co-workers are assholes, and somehow that's worse than a plan that could legitimately kill millions? What are you on you-"

    And then they're gone.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
--to a chilly, dripping tidal cave. There's the ocean out there, choppily reflecting the endless sky. He immediately lets go of Kyouka and steps back.

At least the floor of the cave is sandy, which is less slippery than wet rock.

"I fucking TOLD YOU the plan wasn't going to work!" says Darien, who has dropped his henshin. "And then I made the mistake of trusting you a second time, even after you went straight to Usagi with what I said the first time! And now either I beat you up and make shit up about what you said because I KNOW nothing you say is going to be any good to pass around at work, OR I let one of the other guys come after you, and they beat you up or just take whatever they want from your mind! You are gonna have to give me something, Inai, and neither of us actually wants you to bleed today."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    --whoof. She might not fall on her ass, having stoof up at the last second, but she stumbles as the level of the floor changes, taking her a few steps away from Darien, who is now Darien again.

    "News flash, the plan did work." Kyouka snaps back, regaining her balance and turning to face him. "And I'm sorry if your little apprentice got blamed for it but there seems to be something you're having trouble understanding."

    She walks up to him, and... she's quite a bit shorter than him even with their disparate ages so maybe it doesn't have the effect she's hoping for but she's good at glaring regardless. "There are degrees of evil Darien, and sometimes hard decisions have to be made to prevent disasters. Fucking hell, you never understood this no matter how many times I've told you."

    She's literally fuming, like you can almost see the wavy heat lines from the top of her red hair. "I'm sorry people had to get hurt. I'm sorry I betrayed your trust! But people getting hurt, even nice people, even people you love, is not too big of a price to pay to save the lives of hundreds of strangers. I'm sorry, it's not. And telling someone you profess to care about to be careful because of the same co-workers you're so fucking scared of getting their hands on me is something I would do again, and again, because guess what, Darien, as you are now you are not trustworthy!"

    "I said this at the mall and I fucking mean it. Let me reiterate. I will do whatever it takes to protect this city and the people in it. I will leave a wake of destruction in my path the likes of which your little sixteen-year-old brain can barely comprehend if it stops the world from ending which, it seems, is a very real possibility if your 'Midnight Tokyo Project' goes off as intended."

    "My oaths are inviolate. I will not back down. If you need to hurt me, then fucking hurt me. Make it look good. But you, sir, are fucking stuck with me."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Darien reaches out and SHOVES Kyouka. Hard enough to knock her down, not hard enough to knock her into the wall-- he's not in henshin. "You fucking WANT to bleed, don't you!" he cries out. "You don't want to work with me at all! You just want to be right, you want to swim around in being smugly fucking right, and you know what? I didn't take any oaths at ALL! I didn't! I need to get them out and you're taking away every last piece of spare time I had PULLING this shit, and that thing is in their heads and it is NOT in MINE, and I don't WANT it to be, and the more time I lose to trying to keep your sorry ass alive, the less time I have to get my guys safe before they figure me out! I don't give a shit about your stupid little insults, I just don't want anybody to die, and you are MAKING THAT REALLY HARD."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka falls on her ass on the sand, wincing and thumping at the impact, but before the displaced sand has even settled she's back on her feet and back in Darien's face. She doesn't shove him back but she does poke her finger in the middle of his chest.

    "Well aren't you just so fucking lucky!" She's shouting now, almost shrill. "You think it's easy, doing this shit? Sometimes I feel these oaths, these promises I made, like chains! They stop me from doing what I think needs to be done and I have to trust that they're right even though I don't fucking see it! You think this is me being a pain in the ass? Friend, you ain't seen me at my worst and you have those oaths to thank for that! So why don't you get all the way off my back before I put you on yours!"

    "Your problem, Darien, is you see your people and that's all you see, that's all you care about. I know you feel trapped and I know you want to save them but newsflash, Darien, their lives are not worth more than a stranger's just because you love them! You cannot sacrifice a city's worth of people to save a handful no matter how much you love them. I won't let you, because you'd never be able to live with yourself afterwards."

    "So maybe you need to stop worrying about me. I don't need you to save me. I don't care about being right, I care about the balance sheet, and I am not willing to let you sacrifice your soul to save them or to save me because I know that's not what anyone wants, except maybe you, because its easier to be a martyr than a survivor!"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Hooooly shit, you REALLY think this is gonna work," Darien says, and then he grabs the finger getting poked into his chest and bends it back away from him. He's not trying to break it. He's looking down at her, scowling, and then it stops being a scowl. It stops being a glare. "You don't understand. I didn't make any oaths to Beryl. I didn't make any oaths to her boss, who I won't name. I am not bound by magic, only by the fact that--"

Now he's yelling, and he grabs Kyouka's shoulders and shoves her away harder because she keeps getting in his face, "--I FUCKING RECRUITED THEM. The plan! Is not! Gonna work! How many times do I have to tell you IT WILL NOT WORK? Don't be putting this on me like 'oh a whole world is not more important than the people you love' because THAT WOULD NOT HAPPEN. It's not even fucking approved yet!"

Darien turns on his heel, and as his hair spins out, so does his cape; he's Hematite again, and Hematite grabs a stalactite and wrenches it off, then throws it really hard out to sea.

There is no visible splash.

He punches the wall and it breaks rock, shards and splinters and dust fall and filter down from the point of impact. "I don't want to hurt you," he mutters. "You need to stop fucking yelling, you're very shrill and stupid and I might just leave you here. Also, I called you a martyr first. Maybe I'll just leave and tell Jadeite where you are."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka winces as her finger is bent back, even if he doesn't break it, but... something, some kind of understanding passes behind her eyes as he says that he didn't take any oaths, putting it in a different light.

    But then he's yelling and he shoves her away and this time she falls and spins to hit the sand with a thud on her shoulder, because he really is a lot bigger than her and when she's not actively resisting she's easy to fling around. She rolls over onto her back, pushing herself up, and she's not yelling anymore but she's glaring at him.

    "How can I trust you? How can I just take your word for it, Darien? You say it's not going to work but you're all fucked up in the head, dude. You're not seeing straight. I don't need to be right but I cannot take the chance that you are wrong."

    He henshins, throws a rock in the water, punches the wall. Her face twists slightly... and there's a sudden metallic ping and she's back on her feet, and suddenly she's henshined too, in all white and gold.

    "This isn't a zero sum game, Hematite. But if we're going to play at all I'm not going to sit on the sidelines and simply trust that you're telling me the truth. You might not be bound by oaths but you're still lousy with Dark Energy and I know what it does to you- to people."

    "You can leave me here. You can try. But I'm not joking, Mamoru. I am a revenant born of your mercy. You cannot get rid of me. I am the judge of worthy foes, and the knife-edged truth. Sincerity and respect. There is simply no other way it can be."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I thought you were the terror that flapped in the night," Hematite grumbles, turning back to see Kyouka's henshin, and he raises his eyebrows. "I have nothing to do with your origin story. Was I even born yet?"

That may be a very suppressed shiteating grin. It could be indigestion.

"Anyway, nice coat. Also, I remembered a lot when I went to go have a fight with my apprentice over your bullshit and found out she was holding memories for me. Chiba. My family name is Chiba. Since you remembered."

He looks down at his hands. "We should probably have an actual fight. You have a barrier, right? For the thing I don't know about?"

He's apparently done arguing.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Mamoru Chiba." She says, musingly, and her tone is suddenly soft, almost amused. "It's nice to meet you. It's my experience that origin stories, much like all stories, hardly care about actual dates." She actually grins. "Suffice to say that some things are just destiny."

    She shifts her weight. "I do. But it might look better if we didn't use it. They already know you teleported. Take us somewhere nobody will be around. We'll make it look nice and dramatic." She stretches her arms up over her head, cracking her knuckles.

    "Don't go easy on me. Worst thing that happens is I die. But experience has taught me that absolutely will not mean I get to rest, so I'll try really hard not to.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Lol," Hematite actually says like that, "I'm going easy on you to start. Please go all out in defending yourself so I can see how hard I can go without killing you." A beat. "I actually like your godawfully annoying old lady self, I say with sincerity but zero respect."

Then he holds out his hand. "We're going to a haunted district on the far side of Juuban. If you can't walk afterwards, where should I drop you, the nurse's office?"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Kid," Stellar takes a step closer to him, and extends her hand. "I don't know how to not go all out." She grips his hand with hers, ready for him to teleport them back from... wherever this is.

    "Don't worry about dropping me anywhere. I have my own exit strategy. Besides, it might look like you weren't trying hard enough, if you go out of your way to drop me at a hospital or something."

    A pause, before the teleport. "Darien Shields is an annoying, smug asshole. Mamoru Chiba, him maybe I could call a friend."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Hematite takes a deep breath of the air over a different beach, under different stars, but with the same salt smell of the ocean--

--and he gives Kyouka a quick, lopsided little smile at her last before he teleports them back to Tokyo, to the overgrown houses and deserted, broken streets of Himeko's shrine's forgotten district.

Time to fight.