1559/Burnout

Burnout
Date of Scene:	18 May 2024
Location:	Subway Station
Synopsis:	CW: Graphic description of injuries. After Hinoiri drains and burns Mamoru, Sailor Moon goes to get him with the help of Sailor Mercury, Kunzite, and Jadeite.
Cast of Characters:	Usagi Tsukino, Kazuo Saitou, Jadeite, Ami Mizuno, Mamoru Chiba
Tinyplot:	Sunset of Sora

---

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
It's a dark, stormy day, and the sun may as well have vanished, the Earth may as well have stopped turning. The world exists, but does it really? Does any of it even matter? The four lines of pain across her thigh, where Luna's claws dug to catch her attention, barely sting compared to the incomprehensible horror.

It doesn't stop Luna from speaking. "Usagi, what happened?! You just collapsed - you weren't speaking - I don't think you were even breathi- "

"Track Mamochan's communicator." Her voice was raw, never mind that all the screaming was in her head. "I can't feel him. Something's wrong. Something happened. I can't feel him, so I need you to find him, I need you to find him now!"

It's a command, a scream, and Luna reacts to it as promptly as she had every one of Queen Serenity's orders.

Usagi reached for her phone, making two calls. The first:

"Kazuo-kun," her voice is chill, "Luna's tracking him. I know you'll get the others. I'll meet you all on the roof. If he's dead, we blow up Obsidian after all and never mind anything we told Kyouka about stupid plans."

The second:

"Ami-chan," her voice, still chill, still tightly wound, "Mamochan is hurt. Meet me on the roof of the dorms; we're going to find him. Don't tell anyone else yet - I told Kazuo to get the boys."

Hurt, because Kazuo could feel the loss, the absence, the emptiness in the world, but Ami-chan can't, isn't bound to Mamoru the way she is. With Ami-chan, she can cling to hope - with Kazuo... with Kazuo there's only the specter of grim possibility.

A few minutes later, she is on the roof, Sailor Moon rather than Usagi Tsukino, starting what should have been a date in her fuku.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
The only thing that slows the conversation down is that Kazuo had to step back out of his reflexive henshin in order to answer the phone. All that he said to her was, "Yes."

Because whether or not he agrees about blowing up Obsidian, now is not the time.

Phone calls go out while he's headed upward. "Mamoru's down. The girls are on it. If you can get to the roof without calling attention to yourself, do it." And he waits, silent and still, like a ghost or a death omen, for the others to gather. For instructions.

Moon gets to make the decisions, now.

Jadeite has posed:
It's like the world has ended all over again.

He felt this once before, thousands of years ago, barely a few weeks ago - the ever-present feeling of his prince's heart beating in his chest gone, gone, gone.

He takes a minute to breathe, calm down, because he needs to be ready; then the call from Kazuo comes in.

"I'm on my way."

He's the next to arrive, face as cold and pale as ice, ready to be commanded.

Ami Mizuno has posed:
There's not even a response to the text that Ami receives because there really was little time to waste in such a case. This was serious enough that it trumps all other things which may be deemed 'important' to the studious senshi.

Sailor Moon needed her. More importantly, Usagi needed her. She knew how tightly bound Mamoru was to her, and the Shittenou, and that spurs her on all the quicker.

It's only moments after the others alight on the rooftop that Sailor Mercury joins them landing solidly from her jump. Without even thinkign of it she steps toward Sailor Moon to wrap her in a quick, tight hug. It's tight, and firm, and quick because there wasn't going to be much time for comfort.

"I can have Luna feed the information on his communicator to my visor," she states immediately. She doesn't even bother offering platitudes. That wasn't important right now.

"Ready when you all are." Her hand snaps up to pinch her earring bringing the visor out with it's watery shimmer as it solidifies to feed her real-time data.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Kunzite, Jadeite, and -

"Ami-chan," Usagi breathes, as she's hugged, quick, tight, and it's almost enough to break the preternatural grip she has on the absolute maelstrom of emotion she is inside. When Sailor Mercury steps back, she drags in a quick breath, punching every feeling down.

She's holding the Moon Stick, clenched tight enough that only genuinely superior magic craft is keeping it intact. The Silver Crystal's light is a tightly draw, bright point, a laser point of focus rather than the usual gentle candle-like glow.

"Luna was able to track his communicator," Sailor Moon says then, looking from one face to the other, knowing none of her usual cheer, her usual hope is present, "He's at a subway station in Pikarigaoka. The communicators don't give vital signs..."

"A fact that I will be looking to correct as soon as possible," Luna's no-nonsense voice says from their communicators. "Sailor Mercury, I am routing all information I'm receiving from Mamoru-kun's communicator to your visor, as well as general communications going across major channels. It seems like notifications have started to reach local emergency responders -"

"Then we need to reach him faster," Sailor Moon says, and flips the Moon Stick up, vanishing it into her dimensional pocket. She holds out her hands. "Mercury-chan, you're the best with visualizing data. Focus on the location - everyone else, link up. Sailor Teleport is the fastest way to get to him."

As soon as hands are joined, she'll be pushing out power, passing it from hand to hand, starting the base point for that circle to connect from.

He's not dead. He can't be dead. The world might feel empty and wrong but he is not dead.

But if he is...

If he is, Kunzite knows what she said. So does Luna.

Once they're all connected, there's a bright flare of light. The roof tiles beneath their feet crack, and four blazing points of light race across the sky.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It's a short journey by rooftops, an almost instant one via Sailor Teleport. Luna's tracking has led the small group to that subway station, and the GPS coordinates alone would leave them by the entrance, but the visualization and the data from the communicator help. There are no police around, no emergency workers -- but the train schedule says the next train hasn't arrived yet. Maybe that's why. There aren't many notifications going out yet.

The place is silent except for the noise of traffic from above, the ventilation systems, and phones ringing and not being answered. There's the scent of cooking meat in the air. The place is full of dead or unconscious people, commuters, students-- and at the bottom of the stairs, one of the crumpled figures is still smoking... a boy with his back to the stairs.

Along the wall there's a girl who's not crumpled, she's laid out carefully and none of her burns are touching the floor -- she's the only other one with burns.

Both the girl and the boy are in civilian clothes, which are also burnt--

His glasses are smudged. He's on his side with his legs beneath him, and when they come around they can better see what was only partly visible from the back: burns on his chin and cheek, already blistering, a really bad, deep burn on his left shoulder and burns down that forearm -- that's the arm he usually cape-tanks with. His right hand is so badly burned on the palm, between the fingers, the fingers, everywhere; the back of it is explosively bruised. His shirts -- t-shirt and button-down -- are part burnt away, and there are burns beneath them, too.

Mercury's visor shows instantly that no one in the station is actually dead. Mamoru is not dead, the burned girl's not dead, none of the other, unburned people are dead. Just unconscious.

Over the loudspeakers comes the announcement that the next train is delayed by four minutes.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Power moves from hand to hand, along that circle; Kunzite cannot contribute to guiding the effect, but he can add to the power, can help to keep it focused, can use his powers at last to help the rest of them, even in such a small thing at such a terrible moment --

He'll have to remember to do something about the roof tiles before it rains. But that's for later.

For now, what he says is, with a voice that is terrible only in that it is so calm, so reasonable - "I'll handle the girl." Because he can. Because the others should have their consciences unburdened, their minds undistracted, so that they to pay attention to the important part.

He doesn't even know yet if they're taking them elsewhere, or taking four minutes to analyze and getting out of the way. It doesn't matter. Let them work. And let them care.

Ami Mizuno has posed:
Sailor Mercury reaches out to take the hands of Usagi, and the others. A firm nod is given as she focuses her attention to the coordinates that were fed through her visor. The overlay of the city map helped significantly as she visualises their destiation while sharing her power through the link with the others. A cool, calm wash of power that she hopes might, somehow, offer some soothing sensation to the others however breifly. It may not be much. It was just a hope.

The power is focused as she prepares and finalizes the teleport to bring them right to the entrance of the station. Where her visor scans and starts to inform her of multiple casualties.

"Oh Darkside," she mumbles falling back to an old oath from another time before her thoughts gather up properly. "They're alive, just drained and burned! He's down here!"

The stairs are taken two, three at a time, until she's skidding to a halt just past where Mamoru was so she can get a proper look. Hopefully BEFORE the others do so that they won't see--

Too late perhaps. "He's... badly burned, but alive," she assures while her gaze darts over him trying to determine the best way to move him. "Mostly second degree burns, but his left forearm and that shoulder, and his right hand, are third degree. He was likely trying to block," she reasons even though the detail is probably not needed.

It's only then that she looks to the girl that Kunzite said he would care for as well as the others with a perplexed expression. "Who *did* this?"

Jadeite has posed:
Jadeite allows Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury to use his power, to channel it - he has few skills useful as the situation is right now, but he can give them strength.

Which they all need quickly when they arrive on the scene. So many drained, a mahou lying in fitful unconciousness and Mamoru -

Instincts honed thousands of years ago helping Zoisite learn his powers kick into gear. "We need to remove burnt clothing near the burns - but NOT if they're stuck on them - and run lukewarm water over them," he says. "My ice will be too cold and damage them - Sailor Mercury, can you summon water we could use for that? Sailor Moon, I can help with removing clothing from the injured areas if you want to treat here before teleporting to a hospital. Maybe he was knocked out cold before his powers could kick in? And we just? Have to keep him stable until we can get help and it will be fine."

It will be fine. It will be fine. He's not dead. He will be fine. He has to be fine.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
The scent of cooking meat, of burnt fabric, the persistent ringing of phones unanswered, the loudspeaker, soullessly announcing a train delay, the delay of help, and Sailor Moon rushes into the subway station. There are people, in the station, scores of them, collapsed like broken dolls.

Sailor Moon's eyes skim over them. Not ignoring, but deprioritizing, in favor of -

"Mamoru!"

Collapsed at the base of the stairs, still and motionless and burned and there's only one real possibility, one real answer to the who and she doesn't care about the why, not when she looks but doesn't feel.

Usagi will never quite remember the scramble down the stairs, only that in what seems merely the blink of an eye, she is at his side, barely hearing Kunzite's voice as he states that he'll handle the girl -

The girl, also covered in burns, the girl collapsed and still, the girl neatly laid out behind Mamoru, and he must have protected her, he must have protected her and this is the end result -

She reaches for him, tentative and slow, trying to place her hands where he isn't injured, choking back horror and sorrow at the sight of his face, his hand, his everything, her eyes look and see and memorize, every wound, every injury - she hears but barely registers Mercury's voice, not after alive - not until who.

There's anger, tucked deep, deep in the burning pit of her soul, and she can't feel him through the gloves, draws her hand back and peels the elbow length glove off with her teeth and reaches for him again, her hand to his uninjured left hand, and she chokes in horror to feel -

Nothing. Nothing at all.

There's no sense of him, no dreaming feelings, no golden touch of home, not even a ghost of his pain, there's just - nothing.

Only Mercury's solid reassurance that he's alive tells that she isn't kneeling before a still-warm, cooked corpse.

"Sunbreaker," she bites out, voice tight, remembering a walk through dark streets, remembering burns and pain and the way her shirt clung to her flesh. Rage lances through her voice, "There's something - yes, we should start with what we can, there are so many people here, we can't teleport them all, so we should at least start, I don't know if we can teleport him like this - I can't feel him. I'm touching him - and there's nothing -"

Her voice breaks, the horror and the fear for him and the aching burning love making her voice raw -

"I'm going to try the Silver Crystal. I don't feel it - but there's got to be something -"

In an instant, it's in her hands, that shining gem, and it shines, no longer a compact laser but the roaring of a bonfire, blasting light.

She can't heal flesh and bone, not the way he can, but she has so much power. She can give it away. She can give it away, give and jumpstart and hopefully, it will latch onto him, onto what she can't find, that golden beating heart of his.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There's nothing for the Silver Crystal to latch on to, there's nothing for it to refill so that he can start to heal himself. It does help, a little; it helps the people who were drained unconscious, the people who start to stir; it helps Mamoru and the girl breathe more regularly, though it's still shallow, and if their faces weren't puffy and too-pink they'd be ashen.

Ami Mizuno has posed:
Sailor Mercury stands staring a long moment with the light if several lines of data reflecting from her visor in her eyes giving an almost eerie glow as she just stares at Mamoru's form. At Sailor Moon reaching for him. It was her turn to go quiet. Even Tamaki's urge to help with first aid is momentarily not listened to as she just... Reads the data scrolling across her visor. It's checked, and double-checked, and triple.

A hand descends on Sailor Moon's shoulder when she tries to use the Silver Crystal to reach for Mamoru's power to help his healing. The hand simply rests there as Mercury's expression looks stricken with her eyes squeezed shut.

"He... Sailor Moon. Kunzite, Jadeite." The hand squeezes against Usagi's shoulder a single time, and she continues with a pained, too-calm voice.

"He's not reading as having any magic. It's gone. He's empty."

The hand falls away as she nods a single time. It was time to get to work so she crouches beside Mamoru pulling out a small first aid kit from her subspace pocket to withdraw scissors for cutting the clothes. Her own magic rises up to summon some soft mist to surround the area. Not freezing, not outright wet, but cooling. Calming against the skin of all who feel it. It was the least she could do at the moment.

"It's possible he's just drained so low that..." No. The data wasn't lying. Her head drops down, shaking as she can't even finish her own attempt at reassurance to the others. "We can teleport them to the hospital. It's our best chance."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
It helps Kunzite, in a way, too; with Jadeite and Mercury by Mamoru, he's crouched down beside the burned girl, his hands resting just above her burned skin to help him direct and finesse his power without making actual contact. The Crystal's light lets him focus more clearly - lets him believe a little more firmly that he can do this, can draw excess heat from the burned areas, to keep the burn from multiplying itself worse. A gentle coolness, constantly but slowly replenished, until Mercury's mist comes to take its place in a gentler way still, and he can draw back to being a watch over the temperature shifts, helping to regulate when needed.

He doesn't lift his head at Mercury's news. He doesn't visibly react at all. It's not that much like Kazuo; it's very much like Kunzite.

Jadeite has posed:
It smells like the war in here. (It's fine.) Bodies cast aside like broken dolls on the floor. (It's. Fine.) His prince is on the floor and still and Sailor Moon curls over him like she did so long ago. Like the world was ending. Like it's ending all over again.

(But Mamoru is alive. It's fine. As long as he's not dead, everything will be fine.)

The Silver Crystal's energy washes through him; the panic buzzing at the edges of his soul is washed away with it. If they needed him to create a shield or summon ice attacks or a rapier, he could do it, no problem. And when Mamoru awakes -

Mamoru does not awake. Mamoru still lays there, chest rising with shallow breath, his skin too pale or too red. He's been drained completely. Entirely mortal. Unable to heal himself.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

He looks to Sailor Moon. "If we need to teleport, I can be the battery - most of my powers won't be any use for first aid here anyway. If you think we can't, I can be the one to call for an ambulance in my civilian form."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
The Silver Crystal's light sinks into everything and everyone that lives, that draws breath. Those drained unconscious begin to stir ever so slightly. Mamoru's breath is ever so slightly easier. The girl, too.

Otherwise, there's nothing, and Sailor Moon's breath breaks as a hiccupping sob, and she clenches her fist around the crystal, focused on love and healing and sorrow -

Sailor Mercury's hand descends to her shoulder, breaking concentration. The light sputters. The words shatter any hope of that light sparking another miracle.

Empty. Gone. Empty.

A thought, a memory, comes back, like the scent of burned flesh, like the agony of breath, of a voice that threatened -

    What kind of pathetic user needs a TOY to do MAGIC, huh?! My power is REAL! And you know what? I'm going to BREAK YOUR TOY, then we'll see how much your FRIENDS CARE ABOUT YOU WHEN YOU'RE NOT ANY USE TO THEM!

It's not in his hands, it's not on the floor, so she reaches, carefully, not for his shirt but for his pockets, digging in to find -

The pocket watch. Intact, but there's no tell-tale tick, and the hands don't move. It's gone as still and quiet as its owner.

Jadeite is seeking direction. She looks up, on her knees, blue eyes dark with sorrow and the pocket watch cradled in her hands -

"...I don't think teleporting is a good idea," she says quietly, "I don't know if this is a good idea either, but - carry him. We've never tried teleporting injured, and when we teleported someone without magic before -" Naru, when they fled the portal, "There were enough of us to spread our energy around. There's only four of us."

If something went wrong, she doesn't want to leave him. As much as carrying him, moving him would surely hurt, would surely jostle wounds and perhaps, horrifyingly, split blistered and sore skin, it was better than trying and failing to teleport him.

"Kunzite, you carry the girl - I don't see burns on anyone else, so, Mercury-chan, can you spoof a call to emergency services, get them here for everyone else? It's these two who need a doctor now."

It's a question, but not really - she's already standing, stepping back, making space for Jadeite to move. She wishes it was her, but she's a foot shorter than Mamoru in heels, and she is not risking him out of the petty desire to be the one to hold him close.

Ami Mizuno has posed:
Sailor Mercury crosses her arms over her chest to hug around herself a moment. It's not much comfortbut she was watching how Usagi was hunting for the pocket watch and knew before it was even pulled out what the result would be. If the Silver Crystal didn't bring any spark back to him she didn't know what would.

"Yes, we should..." She didn't feel up to making the call. Instead she switches over to the communicator requesting, "Luna could you please call the authorities anonymously? Request paramedics for multiple people passed out. Possible fire or gas leak." The usual fake answers, though in this case it was rather plausible.

When Sailor Moon requests he be moved she steps over to regard him looking over the vitals that go over the visor. "He's ... stable. We could move him. He's going to be in a lot of pain, though, and may move from the discomfort. Otherwise he's safe to move."

Jadeite has posed:
"On it. I'll be careful, Mercury," Jadeite says, kneeling down next to Sailor Moon and begins judging how to best carry Mamoru...

...And softens, turning to his princess. He gently touches Sailor Moon's shoulder.

"We're going to get him out safely. He's going to be fine. Mamoru doesn't need his magic to be strong; he's going to survive for us, so we'll take care of him in turn."

He doesn't know who Sunbreaker is or if the loss of magic will be permanant, but he knows that much. His prince - Endymion - Mamoru - all three of them, or the one of him,or all of him - he would live. Jadeite would ensure it.

(The princess would not turn a blade on herself again. He would not let himself shatter. They will live, and they'll do it well!)

(And if Serenity permitted it, he would be her blade against this...breaker of the Sun.)

He hefts Mamoru in a princess carry, arms secure, his pr - his friend held to his chest, Mamoru's breath against his neck. Breathing. Alive. (it's fine.) "Lead the way."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Mamoru's safe to move. Kazuo lets himself exhale, very softly, and do nothing for a moment but be aware of the sensation of the air in his lungs and throat, the way the muscles around his ribcage work. Breath drawn in, and then he's considering the girl - one side of her is safe to touch, but there's no way around needing at least two, so minimizing the contact with the most damaged skin is still important - placing his hands, sliding arms under her, lifting with utmost care. Mamoru's safe to move. The girl isn't hurt as badly as he is. So she's safe to move, too, but ... taking all the care he can.

He surveys the rest of the stirring people, coming back to themselves after the Crystal's light; wonders for a moment how many seconds have passed, something he wouldn't generally need to wonder. Doesn't ask. Only waits, because Mamoru is collapsed at the base of the stairs, and he will not hurry them, and he will not go past or over them. They'll all be out in a moment. He'll follow the others, that's all.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"Of course, Mercury," Luna says over the communicators, and they'll hear the quiet sound of her voice in the background, making the calls - more than one, to mimic a proper emergency, to get people moving.

When Mamoru is lifted, there's a sickeningly wet sound, as his seared flesh is lifted from the ground he'd been abandoned on. The ground itself is damp now, from Sailor Mercury's cooling mist, but there's a dark stain to indicate where he had been, and Sailor Moon feels her gorge rise, looking, staring, seeing.

Her hands cup the pocket watch, clasp it close to her chest.

"He's going to be okay," she repeats, and looks to Jadeite, who she knows loves Mamoru, and looks to Kunzite, who she knows loves him, and looks to Mercury, wh she knows loves her, who she knows cares, and -

"He's going to be okay," she repeats, for everyone. "Let's get them out of here."

And she leads the way, up the stairs, out onto the surface level, and then, onto the roofs.

There are people who see them, the four cosplayers carrying a boy and a girl in ragged clothes, and most of them assume it's some sort of bizarre art, that the injuries are costume, make up -

But there are going to be stories about this, for sure. Sailor Moon guides them to the rooftops, "Mercury-chan, fastest route to the hospital?"

And then they'll follow her lead.