605/Inner Conflict: Face to Face

Inner Conflict: Face to Face
Date of Scene:	16 October 2023
Location:	Soryuu Shrine
Synopsis:	The being behind the Dark Energy Impacts is confronted at the Soryuu Shrine...
Cast of Characters:	Pyrite, Mamoru Chiba, Usagi Tsukino, Rei Hino, Amanda Faust
Tinyplot:	Inner Conflict

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Pyrite has posed:
    The Forgotten District is expanding. It's growing like a living thing, forming new neighborhoods with people and places and things that never existed, but they exist now and have their own histories, and dreams, and origins, and so now they have always existed. It might be only a matter of time before it starts bleeding into neighborhoods that were there before they were created wholecloth from nothing. This district used to be connected to Juuban Ward after all.
    That's probably where it will start.
    The clues are still scattered. The answers wisps of dream stuff in their ephemereal nature that keeps escaping those who seek it. All that is clear is that Himeko the younger, the one who most of those here met for the first time when she still looked like an under-sized ten-year old, and Himeko the elder, the teenager close to Usagi's age who confessed the awful history that led to her existing in this time period long after her death, are both with those who have answered the call to stop the spread before it goes any further.
    Even though this district is their home too, and its growth is a direct consequence of a prior version of themselves turning it into an uninhabited and abandoned place, where living things can exist but where nobody lives, and ghosts walk unseen by most in the streets... They want to prevent it. These two have grown beyond the bounds of what they were.
    The Dead Don't Change. It's a rule for a reason. They may interpret new information within the same patterns they are accustomed to, and in the context of their experiences, but who and what they are, the patterns they repeat, do not actually change.
    If Himeko, in any form, could potentially break that rule...
    What would she become?
    This might be her chance to find out, by defying the fate bestowed upon her.
    A fate that has been twisted and bent by everyone she has met, their love, their courage, their patience, their happiness, their sadness, their pain, and everything else. The willingness to treat her like a person, even with every example that shows that she is not, may be creating a path for her to walk. Where does the path lead?
    Let's find out.
    The Forgotten District, as usually, looks like Silent Hill. It is ruined, abandoned, foggy, with strange noises and furtive movements at the edge of one's perception, and signs of things having been through here without evidence of those things being human.
    The road that switches back and forth up the side of the hill, towards the forested area surrounding a certain Shrine, is relatively clear of debris at least. Cars that have been thoroughly picked part by scavengers are the most common sight along the sides of the road, but the closer one gets to the Shrine, the more cars and houses and everything seem to have been left intact -- or as intact as they can be with years of exposure to the elements. It's strange though. This neighborhood used to overlook a body of water, over which the sun would rise.
    There is no body of water to the east of here.
    Or if there is, everyone has forgotten that too.
    So the fog is just... Here. Without source, and in defiance of any time of day or weather one may be experiencing before venturing through the gap in Juuban to here. One moment, it can be bright and sunny and warm. Then, walking through the tunnel that cars used to drive through, it's like a cold, wet cloth has fallen from above and obscured the sky and is touching skin all over, leaving it extra sensitive to the changes in the air and temperature, and more alert to the strangeness.
    Even people utterly blind to the supernatural know upon coming here that this is not a normal place to be. Anyone with even a shred of awareness can feel in their bones the unnerving sensation that they are being watched.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Every time Usagi signs up for more ghost nonsense because he needs backup, Mamoru is more and more proud of her -- and, as Hematite, here in the Forgotten District where Metalia can't see and the world is a different kind of dangerous, he takes Sailor Moon's hand as they walk.

"This is where we fought," he says to Himeko, holding out his other hand for whichever of them wants to take it, "do you remember? Or does only Pyrite remember?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
This is not her first time here. This is the main reason Usagi Tsukino didn't freak out, all the way here. The first time, she'd been confronted by the (possibly fake) Princess of Europe seeking a miracle. This time -

Well, this time she's got Mamochan and Rei-chan (who doesn't know about Mamochan and may or may not be glaring daggers at her for still not explaining about Hemachan) and Amy-chan too, plus Himeko-chan and the littlest Hime-chan. It's enough to make the place lively and fun and not at all like a scary video game level featuring a lurking monster ready to start chasing you around at any moment.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

She's very glad to have Hematite's hand to hold. Definitley isn't looking back to see if Sailor Mars is glaring at her.

"I'd ask if you should be fighting your little sister, but I fight my little brother all the time, so..." Sailor Moon looks around a little nervously, but manages to keep a smile on her face even so. Maybe it's a bit of a rictus grin, but she's trying!

Rei Hino has posed:
    Sailor Mars isn't happy with Hematite's presence (OR WITH THE HANDHOLDING), but she is trying to keep her animosity focused outwards, on all the spirits and spiritual energy surrounding them. She has never seen or felt anything like this. How can a place like this even exist in Tokyo and not be setting off every psychic in the city?? Here she is, having prophetic visions and nightmares of impending armageddon in several iterations, and as soon as she stepped through the tunnel, she started feeling like the End had alaready come and gone.

    There's nothing but Death here.

    Nothing else that matters.

    Is this that Silence she has dreamed of? Is this the world if they don't stop what's coming?

    She looks over at the two girls with similar features. It might just be that everything around her is dead so she can't tell, but even now, she senses no evil from either of them. They might as well be normal girls. How many other ghosts have I met without knowing it? she wonders before casting her gaze around again at the abandoned houses and businesses. Everything just left where it was, like people were going about their daily lives and then just disappeared. Here one moment, gone the next.

    She mutters under her breath, "Is this what is known as being 'spirited away'?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    The Red Puella Magi transforms well before they reach the Forgotten District, just in case, and just... shifts her costume into a cute Red Riding Hood outfit so that anyone who sees her will assume she's on her way to some Spooky Month festivity. (Yes, she's well aware that with the ability to produce a rocket launcher it is perhaps more of a stealth B. B. Hood costume.)

    She's not sure just *when* they crossed the barrier between the rest of the world and... whatever they're calling this place, but hearing the others speak draws her out of her thoughts and makes her look around and notice that *there are no people around in a suburb of Tokyo*. "Heh, that's how siblings are, right? ...Shit, we're in. Look, there's no people. What do you call this place?"

    Mars mentioned people being spirited away, and Amy recalls a more American-centric comparison. "Or like they've been... uh, what would be the word in Japanese... like in Revelations. The faithful gone, only us left."

    She walks over and gently slaps a hand on an abandoned car, as if checking it's real and physical. "What makes this place take this form? Is the specific stuff... real? Is the structure constant, once made? Or do we get a different 'Abandoned Suburb' layout each time?"

    She looks over at the two Pyrites. "What exactly are we expecting to run into?"

Pyrite has posed:
    Hime-chan takes Hematite's hand, while Sailor Moon holds the other. She looks a bit confused as she tries to think back. "Himeko knows." she points at the older Himeko with her opposite hand. "Think we were still only one of me when you fought--" she pauses, some small self-preservation instinct making her hesitate to give away information needlessly. Or maybe one of her fetters that remains. "...Your enemy." She then thinks. "We split after. So I probably know too." Then she leans over, past Hematite, while still walking alongside him, rather than halting the procession. "Ne. Ne."
    The older Himeko says, "Hematite-senpai fought That Person here. There was some damage, and it disturbed the local spirits, but it was a brief fight." Now Hime-chan knows too if she didn't before. It's so convenient to divide your ectoplasmic brain functions between a bajillion fragments of what used to be an intact and sane mind! Wait, no, not convenient, I mean the opposite of that.
    She hesitates to explain to Sailor Mars that most people moved, and many of them... Well, that might lead to questions of how/why, and who might be responsible, and that's a conversation that is probably coming up soon, but that the teenaged Himeko feels too guilty/awkward about to bring up on her own. "There was a disaster here many years ago. After everyone moved away, it was abandoned, and with all the spirit activity, people just... Forgot it existed."
    She looks oddly at Amy. "What?" The car is real, and slapping a hand on it makes noise. Noticeable noise in the virtual silence. Much like their footsteps and voices, it carries, even if it seems to be getting swallowed up into some vast open space and not echoing back to them. But hitting the car? That echoes.
    Himeko squints. "I was going to suggest perhaps we should attempt to maintain stealth as long as possible, but we're already being watched. Still... Please don't upset the local ghosts. They aren't hostile right now, but might become so if disrespected or disturbed."
    Then she looks up, to that place they are definitely being watched from. The forested area, with a straight path to the base of a set of stairs, that lead up to an open temple grounds, and a shrine one room in size.
    She has spent so much time there that is should feel like home. But for some reason, today she feels like the intruder, rather than the one being intruded upon.
    "Is home," Hime-chan says by way of explanation to Amy, looking at her like she is the roughest potat in the pot. "Do you not have home? Is okay. You get used to it."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I see," Hematite says to the Himekos, and then he smiles crookedly aside at Sailor Moon for a second. "Well, we... had a different relationship at the time. It was a pretty cool fight, though." A beat. "I also fought Inai-sensei here. Sorry about that, again, Himeko-chan. At least I kept it away over by the tunnel."

There, see, Rei, he's also holding hands with the littlest ghost. He's only, from what she's seen of him, ever acted in the interests of the good guys. It's just that there's so much dark energy...

...he smiles, and there's something-- he's tied to this place somehow, too; it must be because this is the littlest Hime's home, and he's... her brother? There's something not entirely right about his expression when he says, "It's so haunted that it fell off the maps. A few days ago it spread a little into an older part of Juuban. There's too much, there's spillage. The sea-wall's crumbling. But it's all real, it's just also all ghost--"

Hematite looks back, as they're walking, to the car that Amy made echo, and he frowns as he looks ahead of them again. "I wonder why the acoustics..." he trails off. "Where's Shiro?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
That powerful feeling of animosity... it was known to the world as - the feel when your good friend hates your (boy)friend! If they weren't currently in a mist-shrouded district abandoned to rot and fester with the dead, Sailor Moon would probably be trembling about that.

Good thing(?) there's so much worse happening?

"I can't imagine you missed that many, Mars-chan!" Sailor Moon says, supportive, "I mean, she's a special case. Not like other ghosts you would see."

She's trying, and has tried, to avoid giving away Himeko's name, her identity. This is mostly to protect her, but also to protect her and Mamochan, because Hematite having a sister named Himeko and Mamoru having a sister named Himeko might be a little much to expect someone to ignore, you know? And she would really, really, really prefer that people not know that her boyfriend is THE Dark General of the Dark Kingdom, or put together that he put Hannah in the hospital, given how the Outers had reacted to Sunbreaker doing the same thing to someone else. Besides - at least Rei-chan's only met him when he's doing nice things! And Amy too, for that matter. None of them have any reason to expect bad things from him!

The slap to a car makes her cringe, the echoing making it super, duper, extra, ultra clear that they are right here where they don't belong doing things they probably shouldn't, ahahaha...ha...

"Everything you see is real here. It's a part of Tokyo. I've been here, before - I met up with the Princess of Europe - you know, that girl, the Red Princess?" Yes, distraction. Distraction from testing anything else... ah. Ahead of them is a forested area, with a path clear through. Rising above, a shrine.

The princess of light, from inside the shrine?

There's been an article in the news, about a visiting princess with a miraculous crystal. There's this shrine, that Himeko had once, in a time where Usagi drowned with worry, said a princess lived. A princess that was her, just like there are two here now.

She should probably have mentioned it to Rei-chan. If Himeko-chan is right... if there is a princess up there... she will.

She promises.

"If this place is spilling over into Juuban, we've just got to... ah... pull the drain?"

Rei Hino has posed:
    Yes, Sailor Mars is suspicious, but she's not going to, like, attack Hematite. He isn't doing anything wrong per se. She can't sense Dark Energy. But she can sense Evil. And regardless of if Hematite wants to be or what his intentions are, there is Evil all over him. "Sure," she says briefly to Sailor Moon. She would very much love to believe that ghosts aren't slowly trickling out of here and starting to dwell among the living. That... Is bad. The living and the dead have to remain separate. Entangling them too much leads to bad things happening.

    Like slowly blurring out outright erasing the boundary between this world and the next.

    Isn't that the threat that Midnight Tokyo poses? Just a different sort of hell.

    She sighs as she turns her head to look back at Amy, and give a smile. She's a newbie. Mars has been a Senshi for a while now, but she is still pretty new as well. So answering basic questions, if she has the answer, is not a burden. It will help center her. "The Rapture," she answers. Not that she believes in it, but her civilian identity goes to a Catholic School, and studying religion leads to learning all kinds of things, even about different branches of a religion, like some Christians believe.

    "As for danger... As far as I can tell, there is something above us, high up the hill. I can't see it from here, but it can see us. While respecting the dead here is a good idea, especially if they died violently or with unresolved matters from life..." She will definitely have to come back here and perform purification ceremonies so that they can rest in peace. "...I don't think taking overly long to confront the one behind this is going to grant us any advantage. We might want to just jump up there." She pauses. "You can do that, right, Puella Red? At least for Senshi, we get stronger, faster, and more agile, so we can do rapid, repeated jumps to travel quickly around." If not, someone can carry Amy.

    Shiro. Shiro, Shiro... "...Was that the cat you were calling out to at the butcher shop?" she asks, squinting at Hematite.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amanda is of rather a different opinion than Mars on some things, it seems. Hematite may be evil but he still deserves help with his sister. And what's wrong about the living and dead mingling? Isn't one of the long-term goals of civilization to end death? So if the living and dead are the same, wouldn't that be achieved? Fortunately, they're not presently discussing echatological matters.

    Amy winces and jerks back away from the car at the echoing sound. She didn't think it'd be that loud! "Sorry..." She looks at the others, embarassed. "But still, whatever's here can probably detect us anyway, right? We must stick out, the living, when everything else is..."

    Forgotten? "People can't just *forget* a place this big! There's, there's GPS and aerial photography! People would *notice* a forgotten town on maps! ...I don't know what's worse, if this is non-euclidean space weirdness that doesn't map properly to Earth's surface, a little suburb that doesn't fit on the map because there isn't room, or if this is SCP-grade bullshit that warps people's minds to not notice it in sattelite photos..."

    Home? She looks at Hime-chan. She thinks of that sad little apartment. Undecorated, with every free moment spent in front of a screen, away from reality which repulsed her for reasons she was never conscious of at the time. "...Yeah."

    She looks curiously at Hematite. "You fought Inai-san? I thought she didn't fight... Who's Shiro?"

    Hematite did WHAT?! Yeah, good thing HANNAH'S GIRLFRIEND doesn't know that!

    "Unplug the drain? *is* there even a drain, though?"

    ZA RAPUCHA. "Ah, yeah, I guess you just treat it as a loneword." Beat. "...I'm an atheist, for the record. Although perhaps Athar is a better word, if there's a god bestowing powers on Pretty Cure."

    Can she get there quickly? "Oh, uh, yeah, I think you saw me rocket jump, right? And yeah I can do the rooftop-to-rooftop thing when transformed. Stronger and tougher too, even though I'm so little now. Part of why I transformed before we came here... In case we got suddenly attacked."

Pyrite has posed:
    Hime-chan and Himeko look at each other in understanding after Hematite speaks. "Oh, you meant that fight." They thought Hematite meant the one with Kyouka, which they were trying to avoid mentioning the name of in case it affected secret identities somehow or something, but if it's just being tossed out there... "We thought you meant the one with Inai-sensei. Yes, we of course remember our fight." Then the older Himeko looks up towards that dark gap in the trees that the stairs disappear into, denying a view of the shrine at the top. "We fought up there." she says. Then as she steps forwards, she says to Puella Red, "Please don't rocket jump up there."
    As per Mars' suggestion, they make their way up the hill by whatever means are available to them. Hime-chan has her eyes closed as she floats up through the air with Hematite. They move rapidly until her eyelids. "Looking," is her eventual answer on the matter of Shiro.
    The older Himeko seems to be using some sort of telekinesis to emulate the super jumps of the mahou. She did tell Usagi that she was psychic after all. The older Himeko is much more similar to her big brother in that regard, powers-wise. She arrives at the top alongside everyone else, and looks with unease at the stairs across the street. A straight walkway. Then up the stairs. Then...
    "Hey," calls a voice. It's still distant, still up that hill, at the top of the stairs, but it's also down here, with them. Himeko hesitates, and then reaches out a shaking hand to try to take Sailor Moon's free hand. She's much more scared than her determined face would tell. She will only step out into the street when everyone is ready.
    The rocks that may have been dislodged during the jumping process made their own painfully loud clattering and clacking as they rolled downhill. But their voices still don't echo. And neither does the one up there.
    "I was just wondering..." the voice continues. "What exactly do you think a ghost is?"

Pyrite has posed:
    Himeko steps forwards. Hime-chan is still floating in the air, but her psychic abilities are weaker than her older self's, and she is not made of Dark Energy. She is psychoplasm, like Himeko, but less expertly crafted. She is thus, appropriately, weaker. Like the child she is.
    The oppressive feeling of death grows stronger as the party moves closer. Though dark, the trees don't start to look truly sickly until they reach the base of the steps. And though they are dense further up as well, they are also increasingly dead. And so is anything nearby. Things moving in the underbrush, strange mushrooms that look like bloody fingers, unexpected chittering of weird beasts, all of those also diminish as they climb the long staircase towards its apex. Until those still walking on the ground are stepping on a carpet of dead insects, squirrel skeletons, and similar long-dead things. Dry. Not even bacteria to break them down. A welcome met for the shrine for dead gods, and devoted to a Kami of Murder, who became something Other after long years of abandonment.
    "People frequently think of ghosts as the spirits of the deceased who have yet to move on... But I see it a different way." the voice says, just as close as when it was far above.
    "A ghost can be a lot of things. A memory, a daydream, a secret. Grief, anger, guilt." Beyond the waist-height stone wall surrounding the open, square-shaped temple grounds, the wreckage of the fight between a Dark General and a Nightmare Given Form are still evident. Fist marks. Craters. Broken masonry. Splintered wood. Strange long burn marks like a tentacle of acid slashed through the trees. Dead birds lie scattered around, killed in mid-air the moment they passed over the shrine.
    "But, in my experience, most times they're just what we want to see. Most times, a ghost is a wish." In the center of the temple grounds, just in front of the steps leading up to the wooden porch like area that borders the Soryuu Shrine on all sides, there is a throne or chair or something else fancy to sit on. And there are human skeletons scattered all over, though they belong to no human who has ever lived on this plane of reality.
    Sitting in the chair, there's a girl with dead, pale skin, slanted, half-narrowed red eyes with white pupils, long black hair, a black military uniform with a skirt, a sword at her side, one leg crossed over the other while her cheek rests lightly on the backs of her gloved hand... And a mysterious, barely-there, Mona Lisa smile.
    "Well?" Pyrite asks, with amusement in her voice. "What do you think?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"That's the one," Hematite confirms in Sailor Mars' direction. He squeezes Usagi's hand again, warm and solid, the strength of his hand at odds, a little, with the increasing abstractness of what he says. "I'm glad you remember, little princess."

He doesn't address Amy's incredulity in the face of ghosts. She's American.

In fact, he doesn't address many of the questions actually posed in his direction, or questions he knows the answers to, because he's too busy watching and listening to the place-- and then when it's time to get this show on the road, he's too busy giving Usagi a quick mischievous grin and scooping her up to fly to the top, though he keeps pace with the little Hime-chan flying, too, and the others jumping below.

Then he sets Usagi down, and they all move closer, and there's a voice he knows like the one, besides his own, that's loudest in his head.

Mamoru accepts this.

The oppressive feeling of death is overwhelming, is a heavy weight; there's a way that Hematite always deals with this, and he's sinking into it again. Usagi being there is making it a little harder to dissociate, but -- he manages it, he's quiet, he floats in the back of his awareness. Himeko is taking Usagi's other hand. Then she steps forward.

Hematite does too, and-- his hand slackens in Usagi's grip and he takes another step forward (small bones crackle and crunch under his feet like dead leaves), and another (scorch marks are scuffed on the stone), and he puts his hands in his pockets and stands there facing what looks like his apprentice, but doesn't entirely feel like her. "Don't you know what I think?" he asks in return, with returned mild amusement, somewhat self-deprecating, but warm. Warm and affectionate. "Some of you is in my head and my heart and my shadow. Some of you is a wish, some of you is a dream, some of you is your own memory that's bled into this place, some of you is the memory of this place itself, and what happened to you for so long, and the screaming and the fire-- some of you is lost, and there are great big parts of you I haven't found yet. Do you think it's possible to love all of someone without knowing all of them, princess? Or... kami?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"People can't take pictures of us either," Sailor Moon says, shooting Amy an odd look. "Haven't you noticed the weird messes up stuff like that? 's not surprising they can't see this place either."

The whole place is practically dripping with weird. It's not a place that people are meant to be, that regular souls thrive in. There are a lot of other things said - about ghosts and the living and the dead and rapturous times or something, but she's not following along too closely - every straight noise makes her flinch a little, but soon, they are making their way up. She would have made her own way - really! She would have! Climbing, leaping, hopping from branch to branch like a graceful flying squirrel or something, she would have done it - but Mamochan grins at her, that mischievous smile, and then she's being held by Hematite, as he flies them up, and it's just more efficient.

Really! It definitely isn't about being safe in his arms as they're carried up. When he sets her down, she studiously avoids Sailor Mars' gaze in favor of looking at Hematite, and the two Himekos. They're close, now, and -

A voice calls out. Sailor Moon holds the older Himeko's hand tight in her own, squeezing with as much care and love as she would give her own younger brother. Her back is straight, her shoulders stiff as an iron rod, and she walks with Himeko, step by step, never letting go.

She walks with her through the overbearing weight of death and loss. As the trees give way to sickened speciments, to skeletal branches poking through the trees. As plants give way to rot. As mushrooms like grasping, bloodied fingers poke from the soil. As strange, unseen things scurry in the diminishing underbrush. As they break through, until there is nothing but a carpet of death to walk through, insects, skeletal creatures, the corpses of birds, so many it's impossible to avoid stepping on something. It would be enough to have her shivering, squirming with fear, if not for the Himeko holding her hand, needing her support. She's got to be strong. She's Sailor Moon - she has all this power, because others need her to help them. Questions are being posed, about the nature of ghosts and the dead and she doesn't have an answer.

And then she sees who's on the throne, who's sitting beyond all that wreckage and all the tension goes out of her, and she smiles, warm and bright and excited, "Py-tan! It's you. Are you trying to figure out what you are? Does it have to be just one thing? Can't you be all of those things, and what Hemachan said too?"

And she pokes his cheek, Hematite's with her other hand, because Himeko-chan still has one of hers. "Of course you can! Why even ask? And why ask if she's one or the other? Can't Himeko-chan be princess and kami and sister and school girl and everything else too?"

It's not that she isn't aware of the aura, of death and despair and the corpses all around. It's just - this is Himeko-chan is Himechan is Pyrite, is Hematite's sister is Darien's sister is Mamoru's sister. She held this girl while she cried. She offered to see the ducks with her. She laughed at her adorable little speech.

Rei Hino has posed:
    Sailor Mars... And Rei Hino, for that matter, don't have the same emotional connection to all this that Sailor Moon does. But she would never want a little girl to suffer alone, to be scared, or hurt, or abandoned. For her, a ghost is not something to be scared of. A ghost is a creature of pity, a victim of circumstances beyond their control. She recognizes Pyrite as the girl from mall, and the naming scheme clues her in on her affiliation without even knowing anything else.

    The walk to see her on her throne, with human skeletons that have black and red energy crawling all over them like maggots, that just radiate evil, far more than Hematite, because they have been dragged straight from Yomi to be here, has been unpleasant, to say the least. But seeing Sailor Moon holding that ghost girl's hand, she follows her leader, and believes in Moon's heart. And in her own, which is telling her that this is a girl in dire need of help.

    She doesn't want to intrude on family matters, but... "You know you don't belong here, right?" she asks softly, gently. Not patronizingly, but like someone having a conversation with a child, where the content is mostly emotion-based. Empathy that lets them communicate without explaining everything in words.

    "I'm Sailor Mars... I'm Sailor Moon's friend and team mate. We would like to help you go to your loved ones. What is happening to this place, and the way it is affecting the city... It has put a lot of people in danger. You didn't mean to do that, but if this keeps going, then someone might get hurt." She takes a step forwards, trying to ignore the crunching sound and sensation of walking on dead things, and to hold out her gloved hand. "Would you let me help you?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    They can't take pictures of us either... "Yeah but... like... I mean we're just people, this is... this is *multiple neighborhoods*! It can... it can effect things on that scale? If that's the case there could be, there could be like *actual kaiju* running around that we just can't see and oh shit *are* there?! Is that a thing?!"

    What is a ghost? "I don't know. Who are you? ...Are you a ghost?"

    Amy pouted only *briefly* when asked not to rocket jump. She alternates between walking and superjumping. "It is pretty amazing. I've gotten used to it now, but... pretty amazing we can do this." And then there's a carpet of skeletons. "WOAH creepy." She tries very hard NOT to look at the ground except peripherally. But that's not practical, when there are things MOVING. Which might be dangerous. And there's an off feeling. Instincts screaming at her to get out... but they're all moving on, right? She forces herself onward, but who knows what toll that will take. Ironically, Hematite is much better at his chosen method of dealing with it than she is. While he retreats into the back of his awareness, she can only put up a thin barrier. Like she's driving a car that she's all too aware can get damaged, potentially getting wrecked and forcing her to get out. Or what's outside potentially breaking through the windows and attacking her like a movie monster.

    "Move on... to what? Is there an afterlife??"

    Oh gods, there's an actual deathlord or something on her throne SURROUNDED BY HUMAN SKELETONS. That's a bit much, even for Amy! Adults can be scared of things too! She shrinks away a bit, suddenly wishing Hannah were here.

    "A wish... for what? You mean, Humanity's wish that there's something... after?"

    She can't really follow all of what Hematite's talking about. Just what *is* Pyrite? Extending the earlier metaphor, Amy pulls a pile of maps out of the basket behind his seat and tentatively selects 'Neverborn' -- or, perhaps, death-aspected, multilayered and multifaceted entity from beyond reality that carries its own pocket space inside or around it -- as the best available descriptor of what she's dealing with, but opening that map just reveals a big blank space with a question mark with only a few notes around the edges; she is just way, way in uncharted territory right now.

    "...I don't know. I didn't know ghosts were real until now. There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than were dreampt of in my philosophy."

    She glances away, thoughtfully. "They *could* be Humanity's wish that the afterlife is real. They could be psychic impressions left by humans. They could be spirits from some other plane of existence. They could be spirits or lifeforms that dying humans' desires and feelings leave impressions upon--or perhaps are shaped by living humans' wishes that there's something after, that they could still see their lost loved ones. It would be reckless to commit to any of these hypotheses yet."

    She looks at throne-Pyrite. "Whatever they are, you're clearly no normal... no mere 'ghost' -- or, perhaps, those lesser apparitions are not true 'ghosts'."

    She glances at Sailor Mars and then back. "I don't know about belonging or who belongs where, although if this surrounds you, there's... it's hard for you to really *be* in the world, the reality of humans, isn't it."

    After Mars finishes her peace and steps forward, Amy looks to her and then to Himeko again. "...But you're willing to talk to us, unlike Witches. You've heard me speak earnestly. I'm here to help. I want happiness for everyone, when they'll allow it -- and that includes you. If you're willing to talk, then tell us plainly: What do you truly desire? What's *your* wish?"

Pyrite has posed:
    Pyrite gives Hematite a patient smile. "Hm. Not exactly..." She raises her head a bit and does like a 'look at all this' gesture, palms up, almost like a surrender pose. "...I meant what do you think of what I've done with the place!" Then she goes back to supporting her cheek on the back of one hand. "But I catch your meaning. People are many faceted, and each one of those facets is just as real and valid as any other. Confronting the prism of your mind and soul means facing uncomfortable truths about yourself. For example, even though you love your sister very much, and she loves you back, and you try to spend time with her even if you can't be with her all the time..."
    Pyrite sits up, and leans forwards a bit at the waist, as she grasps the arms of her chair. "When you and I strengthened our bond here, on these very temple grounds, afterwards you must have noticed that I became more coherent, easier to understand, more logical... I was adapting to the era I am in." Then she grins nastily. "And then I reverted back to how I was before, insipid and clueless and mentally blunted and quick to solve problems with violence and killing, just like my big brother -- or the one from when we first met at least."
    Pyrite sits back, raising a hand to slowly tap, tap, tap the side of her head with her index finger. "You never even questioned it, did you? The backslide in cognitive ability. You just accepted it, because the sister you could see, the sister you could feel in your soul, was the same. Wondering why or digging any deeper was something you just didn't have time or energy for. Easier to disassociate, right?" She drops her hand to her lap, as she moves on to the next person. "That one. The older one, she has greater maturity, but she's still absent-minded, lost, uncertain. She doesn't have what she needs to operate independently for long. She still looks to those around her for guidance, for an example to follow, but she's just barely there, hanging on with the tips of her broken, dirty, bloody fingernails, even after being split off."

Pyrite has posed:
    Pyrite reaches out to play with one of the skeletons leading against her chair, cupping its jaw and pulling it close to rub her cheek against. "I would understand if Hematite thought that maturity had gone to her, but neither of you examined it. You, who cares so much, and feels so strongly, and can reach the true emotions of others... You didn't see past the surface either. Nobody did." She shakes her head slowly, unamused despite the barely-there smile, as she lets go of the skeleton and pushes it aside to clatter on the ground, like some simulacrum on a bone tree. "I wasn't there to receive that hug and reassurance. But thanks anyway. I'm sure the faker appreciated it. It probably made her feel more real, and like she might actually be able to make a place for herself in this world. But you've noticed, haven't you? Please tell me you've at least noticed that every time Pyrite is around, both of those Himeko disappear, and they combine to become Pyrite. Neither of them is real, and they don't have the strength otherwise. They just keep dividing as they break, and break, and break..."
    Then her gaze moves to Sailor Mars. "Are~? No one has explained anything to you, have they, Mars-chan? You don't know the slightest bit of the history between me and them, or their relationship, or who I really am, or any of it!" Her smile drops completely as she tilts her head downwards a bit and glares up at the Senshi of Fire. "But you still came in here to try to judge whether or not I belong here? Offering to erase me from existence, as if you know anything about my circumstances? What profound arrogance. If you want to know how much your 'help' is wanted, just take a look at those two."
    Little Hime-chan is standing far away from Mars, eyes still closed, but frowning deeply. The older Himeko is doing everything she can to keep the fear and hate out of her eyes as she keeps nervously sneaking glances at the one capable of purifying and exorcising ghosts. She is gripping Sailor Moon's hand so tight, but after the commentary about how not-real she is, how she isn't even a person, all the strength in that grip is practically gone. It's like having it explained to her has made it real, broken the illusion.

Pyrite has posed:
    Finally, she lazily turns to regard Amy. She stares at her silently for several seconds, then says, "You know what the Veil is, and you know how it works. This entire area is affected by it. Even birds fly right into it without realizing it and drop dead out of the sky when they pass over the Soryuu Shrine, because their life force is so much weaker than a human's. It takes much less time to drain them, you see. Anyway, it's not that complicated. If I painted 'Overthinking' on a wall in a dungeon, you'd be stuck there for hours trying to figure out the meaning behind it."
    She faces forwards again, and claps her hands together excitedly! "Okay, enough of that. Time to reveal my sinister plan to you, so you can try to stop it and fail utterly!"
    The older Himeko raises her free hand, red eyes gleaming with anger and hurt, and releases a blast of telekinetic force that turns everything in front of her into a cloud of dust, and debris as the explosion echoes across the entire neighborhood.
    Except no, she didn't.
    It was reversed as soon as it happened.
    Her hand is just pointed, palm out, fingers stretched, and nothing happened.
    This, more than anything else so far, seems to have made Himeko turn absolutely pale, as she realizes she really is an intruder here. She has separated too much from who she used to be. She isn't the Soryuu Kami anymore.
    "My wish, is to create a story, about a girl named Himeko, who is alive and well in the current era. It needs to be a wish so big that it overflows its confines, and floods everything. Then I will live inside that wish, a ghost within a ghost, resurrected on her own terms. I've been laying the foundations all this time. Planting seeds that will start rumors, spread dreams, and create the fiction of my existence. A wish that big, however... An ocean is not enough. This must not be Himeko the Ocean anymore. I need to create Himeko the World."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
'Didn't have the time or energy.'

Who does? Honestly? There aren't enough hours in the day.

"You warned me," Hematite says softly. "Didn't you. That we might both become lost, if I fell even just a little bit. And nothing in this world is fair, so I can hardly complain about being put on a pedestal when you were, too, and then had it pulled from under you?"

He doesn't sting, right now, though he knows that he should. (He stings.) It doesn't hurt because nothing can hurt him like this. (His heart hurts.) Unthinkingly, his hand comes up from his pocket to cover the center of his chest again, and he half-turns to look at Usagi and the Himekos. (Everything hurts. He asked for it.)

He faces Pyrite, and-- "But you've been using me. You've put bindings on me as surely as I've put them on you. I'm not going to let go of you."

He warned her.

Abruptly Hematite blips out of sight, cape and all, and there's a movement behind Pyrite's throne, at the entrance to the shrine proper--

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
She doesn't expect it, the way Pyrite speaks, behaves, the upset, the obvious anger. There is a Himeko holding her hand, and she is pale and afraid, her grip weak. Sailor Moon wants to rock back, wants to regroup, wants to defend herself and ask how she should have known and what she was supposed to think -

But Hematite moves.

Sailor Moon moves.

His is the flicker of teleportation, there and gone, appearing behind Pyrite, lunging for the shrine lurking behind her. He didn't tell her his plan. He didn't explain.

She doesn't need him too. Himeko is in her arms, now, that older Himeko princess carried, tucked to her chest, not abandoned, even as Sailor Moon vaults forward, leaps over Pyrite's head, makes no effort to fight and every effort to push Hematite forward.

Pyrite might try to stop him. She might sense what he does, is apparently bound to him and he to her, she might be reading his soul, even, know his every move, maybe, Usagi doesn't know, she doesn't know how this works -

What she knows is that he was going there so she'll help him go there because she doesn't want to fight Pyrite if she can help it, doesn't want to blast or hack or hurt the girl who had been made into a kami, and Mamoru has the best chance of knowing what to do.

She's his little sister, after all.

The Himeko in her arms is probably jostled to heck and back in all this, but she's still held tight, held firm, the superhuman strength of Sailor Moon's arm enough to ensure she's not abandoned, even as Sailor Moon presses her hand flat to Hematite's back, all their combined weight and her force of momentum meant to carry him forward.

She has nothing pithy to say, no snarky comments, only out of breath sincerity.

"Sorry we upset you, Pyrite-chan! I can't let you do what you want - but that doesn't mean I don't want to help you live again!"

Rei Hino has posed:
    Arrogant? Perhaps so. Ignorant? Yes, assuredly. But Mars is resolute that this Pyrite doesn't really understand what she's saying or doing. Her mind is twisted by sensory deprivation, ruined by being dead for so long, her perspective warped by not being human anymore but still trying to hold onto a human shape. Ghosts frequently don't truly accept that they are dead, and those that do rarely want to be sent to pass on. Rei isn't an experienced exorcist, but she has vague memories of seeing her mother's spirit at her funeral when she was younger. Her mother... Did not linger.

    Others she has seen in cemeteries? Sometimes the living can be the restraint that keeps them from passing on. They can be an anchor

    She is not an exorcist. She deals with dispelling curses and lingering negative emotions. She brushes small curses off of normal people for a small donation to the shrine, and casts evil spirits away from those afflicted by them. She has fought youma, and creatures from the Dusk Zone, and... Bone... Trees... And Jadeite and the man with the black crescent moon, and... And a cat bus.

    She is confident she can exorcise this spirit. But as much as she may believe that the two girls who are apparently Hematite's sisters shouldn't stay here, a point was made. She shouldn't judge without knowing the circumstances.

    And... No one told her the circumstances. She was left out of the loop. This isn't the time to be hurt. No time to be selfish. The failed attempt to destroy the shrine that never actually happened because it was reversed instantly, is like a match being struck. Hematite teleports, Sailor Moon leaps, and Sailor Mars chants briefly before throwing her ofuda at the girl in the chair. If they're all heading for the shrine...

    Maybe they intend to destroy it? Well, it's a good thing Puella Red is here, with rockets. Exploding things is her specialty, right?

Amanda Faust has posed:
    The older one? For a moment, Amy thinks she's being talked about, then realizes she means one of the Himekos.

> If I painted 'Overthinking' on a wall in a dungeon, you'd be stuck there for hours trying to figure out the meaning behind it.
    "HEY! ...It's just the right amount of thinking! I offered to help you, you know!"

    Himeko explains her master plan. To rewrite reality, to wish herself back to life... or into existence as a mortal being.

    Amy considers this, holding a curled finger to her chin. "So what happens to everyone else in Himeko the World? You probably don't want to exist alone. Is the new world otherwise the same as the old?"

    And then everything goes to hell. A fight is starting.

    And something about this... reaches her, inside the car.
    The red Puella leans forward, sweeps her hand to the side. "So you're going to fight her?!" Her throat tightens. She can't keep the emotion from her voice. "You're going to kill her?! For the crime of wanting to live again?! Is there no hope?!" She screams, "Is this what being a magical girl is about?!"

> Sorry we upset you, Pyrite-chan! I can't let you do what you want - but that doesn't mean I don't want to help you live again!
    Well, Usagi's words certainly do contradict her actions. Can she be trusted?

    Sailor Moon takes the lightning bolt and *still* kneels over her protectively. 'R-Red-chan - are y-you okay?'

    She thinks I'm worth protecting.

    Even when she learned, later, what she protected, she still...

    Maybe Usagi *can* earnestly want to help even someone like this.

    But uh... what is the plan, then, exactly?! Amy is left a bit out of the loop!

Pyrite has posed:
    There's a lot to respond to. Words that should be said. Time taken to communicate. Questions to ask and answer. Understanding to be reached.
    Not enough time or energy.
    Easier to disassociate.
    Pyrite is right in front of Hematite when he teleports to the entrance of the shrine. It's difficult to escape from one's own shadow. She wraps her arms around her big brother, and her senpai, and hugs him. "That can not come out." she mutters before falling backwards, using Sailor Moon's push as momentum, and drags Hematite into his own shadow with her.
    Pyrite is still on her throne, which multiplies into several thrones as soon as the ofuda crosses the temple grounds. The ofuda lands on one of the thrones, shattering the illusion. "Just pushing ahead, huh? You have shown your true feelings despite claiming to want to help. Typical." She rises from her seat, and holds up her sword in its scabbard. "There are Three Treasures, known as the Imperial Regalia, here in Japan. A sword, a mirror, and a gem. The sword was lost. As a result, I am not the only one who wields it. You will meet the other eventually if you have not already. But, right now..." She grabs the hilt of the sword and begins to draw it. "...I am its master, and as the Princess of this country, in blood and name, I am the only one entitled to use it." The sword burns like the rising sun as it emerges, molten, and furious, but does not brighten the surroundings, just casts them in a hostile hue.
    "Test your fire, Mars, against a sword brought to Earth from somewhere else. This sword, of my divine ancestors... Forged on the Moon. Let us see which burns brighter."
    Another Pyrite, sitting on one of her the multiple thrones, looks to Amy and smiles sadly as she squints her eyes. "Those who you love the most are those who cut you deepest. Thank you for trying." The small Himeko, the little Chibihime, moves to stand by Amy. She opens her red eyes suddenly.
    The Himeko in Sailor Moon's arms has had a moment spread across time to process everything. She looks back to her younger self. They don't have the strength individually to become Pyrite. Neither of them is real... But if they are together... She hugs Sailor Moon as she rests in the senshi's arms. "I'll do my best. So you do your best too, okay?" She disappears. Just gone. Chibihime is gone too. A second Pyrite stands there, but one in a white dress. "I understand." she says simply as she looks back at the darker Pyrite.
    Her red eyes gain vertical slit pupils as cat ears form in her hair and poke up out of her head.
    "Shiro is me."