2084/Volition

Volition
Date of Scene:	20 November 2024
Location:	Mitakihara Ward
Synopsis:	Time to put the past behind us.
Cast of Characters:	Kyouka Inai, Fuyuko Yuuhi, Mamoru Chiba

---

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    It's been a harrowing few weeks for the younger version of Stellar and her companion. Each night, it seems like their powers grow weaker, less reliable. What used to be as easy as breathing now requires thought, concentration. Even then sometimes it doesn't work.

    The arguments have been endless. Corona had told them that this as happening because they were 'doubled up' in this timeline, and that there was only room for one 'set' of them in this world. Stellar, for her part, had never been comfortable with the idea of trying to off their older counterparts for their own survival, and when Lacuna had tried she had not been successful.

    As time has passed, however, options have grown thin. After long nights of arguing back and forth, of looking for other options, finally Stellar had agreed on this all-or-nothing bet. They would go together to try and take down one of their elder copies. If they succeeded and it worked to restore the powers of one, they would then go after the other.

    If they lost, well. The result would be the same as doing nothing.

    This is why they are perched atop a building along the route Kyouka takes from her job at RHA to her apartment. They had scouted it out ahead of time. Now they wait for her to arrive, in henshin. Stellar is jittery, bouncing on her toes. "Are you sure we're doing the right thing?" She mutters, though it's a question that's been asked and answered a dozen times this night alone.

    Questions need to wait, anyway, because about that time is when Kyouka pulls up on her bike, guiding it into the parking spot on the edge of the road alongside her building, setting the kickstand and pulling off her helmet, unaware of being watched from above.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
It certainly has been a harrowing few weeks since Lacuna's failure. She resents the growing weakness, not only in herself but her partner, and she can't help but blame herself for beign too weak to get the job done. If she had only succeeded, then at least one of them wouldn't be going through this!

They're weaker than they've ever been, weaker than they had been as twelve years half-heartedly bickering with their mentor when he tried to rein them in. The arguments that have brought them here have been as repetitive as they are frustratng - Lacuna's not a monster, she's not excited at the thought of killing, but they're getting weaker and weaker, and who knows what will happen to them, when they don't have anymore magic. What if the weakness starts effecting their bodies, next?

This is the argument she came back to, again and again.

"Probably not," Lacuna says, honest and stubborn, watching her partner's future self, that boring retiree who was somehow even better than her present day partner, park her bike. "But we've been over this. I'd rather do the wrong thing than lose you."

It's embarrassing to be this honest. It's necessary. What do they have to lose?

So she hauls herself onto the roof, giving all her focus to the spread of the liquid dark over her hands, and dives off the rip. She'll hit the ground hard if she misses Kyouka, but she'll tuck and roll and get back up. She might be losing her power, but she's still durable enough for this.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    To say that Kyouka was not anticipating trouble was not exactly correct- on some level she's always expecting trouble. On top of that, although the prior attempt on her life by Young Lacuna had been some weeks before, she hadn't forgotten about it, or the possibility that it would happen again. That said, it's not as if she was expecting to get leaped upon on this particular evening, in this particular place. She was anticipating walking into her apartment, cracking open a beer, and eating some cheap ramen for dinner, not fighting for her life.

    Thankfully, said life has prepared her for such idyllic evenings being few and far between. Her magic sense alerts her to the incoming attack mere moments before it strikes, and before Lacuna can even complete the swing, she's henshined in a flash of golden light, her arm coming up to deflect and redirect the attack. Lacuna doesn't precisely miss, but the hit doesn't do any damage. Rather, the boiling darkness meets the flashing golden light with that howl of mutual-annihilation, and Lacuna is sent rolling away, not quite as hard as if she had missed. "You again?" She asks with exhausted resignation.

    This is only compounded when Young Stellar drops down as well, her bone-white naginata held forward, golden lightning crackling along its length. Kyouka regards her wearily. "So she talked you around, did she? That's different."

    "I don't want to do this," young Stellar says, setting her jaw. "But if it's you or me, it's gotta be me. I'm sorry."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
The shriek of feedback as their magics repel each other causes Lacuna to grit her teeth in frustration, and the softer landing means she's able to roll to her feet easily. Her darkness wavers, only to solidify as she scowls furiously.

It wasn't that she'd forgotten the way that this Kyouka seemed to be able to sense her arrival before it happened, but she doesn't understand it. Once was a coincidence. Twice is telling her that there's something at play she doesn't understand, which isn't a good thing on a mission to - kill.

"This isn't what we wanted," Lacuna says grimly, "But I'm not letting her die. So it's you, and then it's me, and then we can make sure this shitty future stays safe."

And she lunges for Kyouka again, but this time, while one hand strikes out with a blade of void-born darkness, the other strikes with a plain, old-fashioned knife.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka's hand is in her pocket, and she's got her phone. She can do some simple things with it just by feel.. one of them is hit the button she's assigned as 'panic button'. All that means is it sends a pre-programmed text out to a few people. Fuyuko, Mamoru, a couple others. A simple code which means 'hey, could use a hand here'. She does it without actually taking her phone out of her pocket, her eyes on Lacuna as she speaks.

    "I know you won't understand this, but we aren't the ones who need to make sure this future stays safe." She says, tiredly. "We had our time for that, and we did an okay job. But it's not our turn anymore."

    One thing Lacuna may not have realized is that although Kyouka is no longer able to use offensive magic, she's never quit her plain-old physical training. In fact, she's probably increased it, since it's her only line of defense. That knife might have caught her younger self, who only thinks of magical attacks as a threat. This Kyouka expects it- or at least, isn't surprised by it. She blocks both strikes, one with each arm.

    Which leaves no arms left to block when Young Stellar leaps in over Lacuna's head, naginata angled down in an overhead sweep. She shaves a few red hairs off Kyouka's head, but the older woman again proves all that training is not in vain as she ducks, twisting to the side, letting the naginata hit the sidewalk as she simultaneously twists away from Lacuna.

    "Corona lied to you, kids." She snaps as she backs off a few paces. "You're not going to get magically fixed if you kill us. You're not real."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"Why would she lie to us?" Lacuna snaps, and her knife is not getting through that shield, but she can be a distraction, until - damn! There she is, twisted away from them again. "It makes more sense for you to be lying, and her to be telling the truth. Why would one of Aurora's allies lie?"

If anything, Aurora and his colleague would want them here, to fight. Maybe their future selves aren't the ones who need to fight here, but she isn't in her right time. Neither is her Kyou-chan. They aren't where they belong. And if they can't get back, then they'll belong here!

And across town, Fuyuko is starting to heat up her own dinner - a stir fry - when her phone goes off. Frowning, she crosses the kitchen to check her messages, and -

"Fucking hell, she's buying the beer this time," she snarls, before transforming and rushing off to catch up to her idiot partner, and equally idiotic set of fakes.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "She's lying to you because she's trying to mess with us and you're just a convenient tool to do that." Kyouka says, weariness evident in her voice. "It's our fault you're here.. chalk it up to a lesson not to mess with horrible arcane technology you don't understand. She's just taking advantage. She hates us." She doesn't say why- it wouldn't help the situation. And she's not entirely sure of the truth of that anyway.

    "Anyway," She makes a sharp gesture with her arm, trying to track both of the teenage menaces while keeping her distance, "it doesn't matter why, it only matters that it's true. You're not going to accomplish anything by killing me, even if you could. I'm sorry for your situation, really I am, but I ain't about to lay down my life only to have you fizzle out anyway, so you need to go home if you don't want it to happen even sooner."

    "Young Stellar makes a face at her older self. "Look, I don't want to hurt you," She says. "But I also don't want to 'fizzle out'. So how about you-" And she suddenly darts forward, naginata whirling, "stop talking so much and start fighting!" Kyouka is able to block the attacks with a series of swift movements. Notably, when her shields hit the naginata, there's no howling dissonance like when they hit Lacuna's magic. There's great showers of sparks and actual impacts, implying that if nothing else, Stellar's magic could actually be effective against herself.

    That is until, mid-swing, the lightning suddenly fades from the naginata, seeming to drain away from it. Seeing it mid-swing, Kyouka reaches up and actually catches the weapon in her fist, causing Stellar to gape for a moment before trying to tug it away. "Not.. now, dammit!" She hisses.

    "Give it up, kids, this ain't happening." Kyouka says, releasing the shaft of the weapon and causing Young Stellar to stumble back a few steps.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru was arguing with his cat. He's probably not going to admit it.

He gets the text from Kyouka and stares dumbly at his phone for a half-second, then tells Anko, "I'm going to go help Kyouka," he says as he holds up his watch. "Earth Prism Power, Make Up!! But I really do need that communicator back, and I really don't want to admit to Luna that you hid it from me--"

This on his balcony, and then he shuts the door and takes off, jumping to the roof across the street, and then bounding away off the rooftops on the way to Mitakihara--

Until he remembers he can teleport, and sighs, and appears on the sidewalk across the street with a dim glow surrounding him. He sees two on one and immediately flings his hand out, yelling at the yelling young Lacuna, "Tuxedo la Smoking Bomber! Why WOULDN'T one of Aurora's allies lie? Aurora is dead! This is bullshit and you've been played!"

Along with his action, a (kind of mid) attack wings through the air across the street, the punchy laser Mamoru's so proud of. It could be stronger, but this at least had the element of surprise.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Lacuna wavers, at the exhausted tone, but only for a second, before trying to track into a blind spot, preparing to attack with all she has, or distract. "I'm not chalking up us losing our powers to a dumb machine!"

Fizzle out. Fizzle out. The idea that they would just disappear, like a screensaver that's been turned off, chills her to her core. It's not an understanding of the world that she's willing to accept. It's not a reality that she's willing to accept. She will fight to the very end to deny that reality, because otherwise -

The blast that comes her way is unexpected, a boy appearing from nowhere, and she throws up her arm, darkness swelling, and -

Doesn't manage to absorb most of the blow. She's pivoting, but her power weakens, then outright dies, and the beam strikes her in the shoulder with bone-jarring force. Her teeth don't rattle, but it's close, and she scowls furiously at the boy, recognizing him from previous encounters.

"You," she snaps, "Should stay out of this! We have not been played! We're fizzling out and we aren't going down easy!" And then, because her counterpart is making more headway than she can, against her older self, Lacuna goes for Mamoru, void-black power flickering back into existence as she dives straight for him.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka glances briefly towards Tuxedo Mask as he makes his typically flashy entrance, complete with punchy laser. "Well, I'm glad someone listens to my cries for help." She calls to him, her tone snide but real relief hidden amongst it which he can likely detect. She can't afford to do more though, because her younger self is already coming at her again, the lightning again crackling down her weapon due to an applied force of will.

    She sees Young Lacuna going for Mamoru, though, and calls out again, "Watch yourself! They're still dangerous and you dying isn't much higher on my list than me dying in terms of things I want to happen tonight." As she says this, she sidesteps a blow from Young Stellar, then begins an exchange of blocks and parries with the younger girl which have an eerie similarity.

    "It's not the machine causing you to lose your powers it's just that.." She grunts, blocking a particularly ferocious blow, "They're not your powers to begin with! You're our memories, we screwed with something we shouldn't have and somehow made you real! But you're not us from the past, you're just memories set free to walk around!"

    To be fair she doesn't know this for a fact- it's jsut what makes sense based on what she does know. It's enough to cause Young Stellar to pause though, frowning, weapon still held ready. "So we're not.. in the future?" She asks, hesitating at the idea.

    "You're not anywhere, not any more than the reflection in the mirror is somewhere." Kyouka says, exasperated. "I'm sorry to have to break it to you, but that's just the way it is."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Would you stay out of it if your Stellar were being tag-teamed?" Tuxedo Mask retorts indignantly, jumping instantly out of the way of the attack, overhead. Then he's behind and above Lacuna, and he pulls out a rose and flings that at Stellar's naginata.

His attention is still on young Lacuna though, and he jumps again, landing directly behind Lacuna and trying to punch her in the back, knock the wind out of her. "Why don't you use your time fizzling out doing what you do best, slaying monsters? We're all of us--"

Tuxedo Mask jumps again, and throws a rose at Lacuna's voidstuff to see what happens. "--we're all of us except for Kyou-chan and Yuuhi-san-- going to fizzle out, Lacuna! We're all going to forget, which might as well be dying!

One thing that can be said about Mamoru's fighting style is that he dodges stupidly, annoyingly fast. "And we're going to spend the time until then killing monsters and saving people!"

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
The someone who doesn't always answer her cries for help rolls her eyes as she teleports into being beside Kyouka just in time to hear that.

"Forgive me for thinking you could last against a pair of pipsqueaks for a few minutes," Fuyuko says, clad in her own version of Lacuna's henshin, her dark shields flowing around her forearms.

But young Stellar has stopped fighting, for the moment, and young Lacuna hasn't - not that Mamoru is having a terribly difficult time with her, between her magic not functioning properly and the fact that she's good, but still at an age where she relies on her magic as much as hand to hand.

He doesn't manage to punch her in the back of the neck - she dodges that - but his rose breaks her void even as her void breaks his rose and she starts, staring in surprise, barely sweeping into a low kick to try and take his feet out from under him before he tries to strike her again.

"There's fizzling out and there's laying down and dying! And I know which of those things I don't want to do," she glares, pressing on with attacks, swipes of her void when it works, punches when it doesn't. "I'm not just - Stelchan can't just - no! I won't accept it! I'm more than a memory!"

That's always been her problem, really, Fuyuko considers. She's never been able to accept what she didn't want to. She's too stubborn for that, always has been. This living flashback is an embodiment of all the things that lead her to the place she's destined to go, a place this stubborn girl who would rather kill than see her other half die, could never imagine.

"All you are is memories," she says coldly, beside Kyouka. "That's all either of you are. Memories of a time, and of people, who don't exist anymore."

That young Lacuna, that memory, apparently she managed to actually get her Kyouka to try killing. That's something she could never imagine her Kyouka doing."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    It's not that Kyouka would never consider killing someone, under the right circumstances. If the choice was one life, or the world, she'd take that life. But for herself? Would she kill someone innocent to save herself?

    She wouldn't. It's telling, though, that Young Lacuna is at least as much concerned for Young Stellar as she is for herself. None of this is as simple as self-preservation. But that doesn't mean that it's any more the right move.

    When Fuyuko appears next to her, Kyouka huffs out a breath, half-relieved and half-amused. "I'm not in danger of dying here, Fuyuko." She says, "but this is our mess. We need to clean it up together."

    Young Lacuna seems to have no desire to surrender, to stop fighting, and she's still trading blows with Mamoru, but Young Stellar now finds herself facing both her older self and that of her partner. Her eyes dart between them, a pensive scowl on her face as she holds her naginata in a more defensive posture. "You found a way to avoid fizzling out," She says, speaking to the older pair. "If you can do it, so can we."

    "Yeah but it didn't involve murder," Kyouka replies, "and it was our own choice."

    Probably. But we'll get back to that problem later.

    "You're being manipulated, and your solution isn't going to work." She takes a step towards the younger Stellar. "So how about you just quit this nonsense already. Now you're even outnumbered."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru is aware of the real Lacuna arriving, and he doesn't laugh but he does half-smile for a second-- he's too busy to look, and he's definitely mentally buffering what Lacuna said so he can enjoy it later. Meanwhile, he's also fighting: he's inhumanly quick and that makes up for him being out of practice with hand-to-hand.

It doesn't completely save him-- twice, the void almost hits him, and once it does before he pops it with another rose, it having eaten part of his armor and left a hole in his tailcoat and vest and shirt. One of the punches lands solidly on his jaw, which makes him lose his footing when she sweeps a kick into his feet.

Tuxedo Kamen throws himself forward to make a three-point landing and push himself up into another jump, flinging his arm to his chest. "Tuxedo--" he starts, landing on a lamppost, then jumping up to someone's window unit.

"--la Smoking--" he continues, then jumps over Lacuna again and throws a rose at her void with his other hand.

"--Bomber!"

That one was not a kind of mid attack.He's really occupied fighting young Lacuna, yeah. "Stop and listen! It's not laying down to die if you go out fighting!"

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Lacuna is the one refusing to stand still, refusing to surrender, and thus she's the one experiencing the futility of fighting on. Sure, she gets her hits in - sure, there's a savage satisfaction in her fist connecting with Tuxedo Kamens jaw, with her void tearing through his fancy henshin - but it isn't enough. He gives as he gets and her magic falters as often as it works and she is weaker than she should be and he is steadfast and powerful.

She sweeps his legs in a low kick and he stumbles, and a part of her is already thinking that after this she still has to take the both of them, her other self and Stellar's, calculating the odds and knowing she'll come up short, but refusing to surrender.

And then Mamoru launches himself up, light building in his palm. A rose breaks the void again, magic dissolving into shadowy dust of nothing, and the beam glows brighter and brighter and he was already tall - did he have to be on a tall thing too?

"You're not real," Fuyuko says, cold and flat, looking at young Stellar with something like pity in her eyes, though in her case, pity is both dispassionate and annoyed. She doesn't look at Stellar and Lacuna and see frightened girls, trying to sustain themselves. She sees old memories, imposing themselves on reality, refusing to die and stay buried, insisting on being acknowledged. "You can't avoid fizzling out when all you are is a forgotten relic. She is Stellar. I am Lacuna. And the two of you are nothing but a mistake."

And the beam hits Lacuna just as hard as those words do, full in the chest with her void broken. This one is not mid. This one bowls her over, knocks her back into some poor bastard's parked car, one of Kyouka's neighbors sure to come out to an unpleasant surprise. The alarm goes off, loud and insistent, and Lacuna is dazed, amidst the crumpled metal, and the noise doesn't help.

Go out fighting, he says, as if that isn't what she's trying. Her fist, covered in void, slams through the car's dash, dissolving it from the inside out. The alarm stops.

"I am listening! If I'm doomed and dying, then who the hell is worth dying for besides her?!"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Young Stellar is looking increasing unsure of herself- she was never the one who wanted to do this in the first place, not really. Not that she was all for surrendering either, or that she was afraid to fight, just that surviving by killing someone else never seemed like the 'right' decision to her. She had let Lacuna talk her into it, because she cared about the other girl as much as Lacuna cared about her, but faced with the reality of the situation- that they weren't going to win this fight even if they were okay with the result- she finds herself at a loss for what to do.

    "We don't have a lot of options here. Do you expect us to just give up?!" She asks her older self, and might have even waited for an answer if at that moment Lacuna wasn't hit by Tuxedo Mask's attack, sending her flying back into a car. Hearing the girl's cry, Young Stellar stiffens her visage, and with a sudden crackle of re-kindled golden lightning along her weapon, launches herself back at the older version.

    Kyouka is able to deflect the attacks, her shields meeting the blows of the weapon in a quick succession of moves, sparks flying, both combatants shifting in a fluid series of strikes and blocks, though she makes no effort to hit the younger girl in return. Eventually, Young Stellar pauses, breathing hard, as the lightning around her spear crackles and threatens to die again.

    "If you're doomed anyway," Kyouka says, responding to Lacuna's words but still looking at Young Stellar, "Then why try to kill us too? Taking someone out with you, someone who isn't your enemy.. that ain't very heroic. Not the way I see it."

    Young Stellar scowls, glaring at her from only a few feet away at this point. "If you're really me, you have to know.. I can't just disappear. I refuse to."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Tuxedo Mask is also frustrated. "You're dying already--" he starts, and this time he throws a rose at her face, petals-first, as he calls out "Tuxedo Exfoliant Rose!"

If it hits, it hits like a hard fistbump that explodes into petals and glitter. "And so is she! And you're not gonna solve that by fighting a losing battle against the real versions of you-- go out fighting monsters together! You do a lot better fighting monsters than people!"

He exhales, dropping off the lamp post as he digs in his pocket for a second-- just until Young Lacuna punches a void through the car alarm, at which point he stops digging and stands there in the middle of the street, watching her. "You're like sisters, right? Better than sisters. And she didn't want to kill, did she. And you don't really want to, either, do you."

He takes a step forward, his cape drifting behind him and then around his ankles, and he looks grim. "Your choices are pretty much go out fighting a monster and saving someone's life, or get killed here for no good reason."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
The glowing rose does hit, and Lacuna shrieks in outrage -

"Did you just hit me with glitter!?" Yes he did. He's also hitting her with hard-hitting facts, things she doesn't want to acknowledge, things she fears she can't deny. Even as she forces herself to her feet, wobbling a little from that last hit, she clenches her fists and takes a fighter's stance.

"We've been fighting monsters! All we've done since we were here is fight monsters! It's not helping anything!"

There's a difference between dying in a fight, and looking for your death in one. It's becoming clear to Lacuna that she won't get to choose the former - that with her powers weakening, with Stellar weakening, any fight they go into will be their last, not because they were outgunned or outmatched, but because they'll be looking for death in every fight, trying to end themselves.

It doesn't feel like a hero's death. It feels like suicide by monster, and it tears at her insides, to imagine that for the two of them.

"It doesn't matter what we want! We're not getting what we want! But I - if it won't work -"

And as this battle of words is underway, not far from Tuxedo Kamen and Lacuna, the battle of magic between Stellar and Kyouka is ending. Stellar is scowling, defiant.

"You don't have any choice but to disappear."

The voice isn't coming from besides Kyouka anymore. No, now it's coming from right behind Stellar, as Fuyuko leans down to speak directly to her ear. She's taller than Stellar, even more so than Lacuna usually is, and before Stellar can try to strike her, she's grabbed her by the back of her jacket, lifting her up like a naughty kitten. With a swing of her arm, she has Stellar hauled up, face to face, and where Kyouka had appealed to heroics, Fuyuko is choosing to lean into her true nature.

"You always were too stubborn and stupid for your own good. You're already dead. You disappeared years ago. We grew up and left the two of you behind, like the outdated, unwanted, wrecks that you are." Stellar's probably trying to kick and fight, but Fuyuko has a strong grip, and the void beneath her. If Stellar's powers work, it will just send her flying away. If they don't -

Is that a risk she's willing to take? Probably. That's probably why Fuyuko throws her to the ground and turns her back on her, making it clear she doesn't see Stellar as worth her time at all.

"And you," she snaps as she talks towards her counterpart, mostly ignoring Tuxedo Kamen. "He's tried to give it to you kindly, he's tried to give you an option, and since that isn't working, I'm cutting in. You're wasting my time. You're dead. She's dead. The relationship you have is dead."

Lacuna flinches at the word dead, every time, the pit in her stomach twisting, and she finds herself retreating, for the first time, backing away with every step closer her future self takes. There's banked fire in Fuyuko's eyes, self-contained but ready to become an inferno.

"What are you talking about -"

"You want to know how dead you are? In about six months from now, from you perspective, Kaito's going to die for the sake of every pathetic, worthless civilian in this godforsaken city. They're going to write an article about it. They're going to lecture about the irresponsibility of youth, of how he was probably drunk and stupid, and should have been at home studying, making something of himself."

"You're going to lose your ever loving little mind about it, and then you're going to kill Aurora to steal the gems meant for our would-have-been-successors, all so you can burn this place to the ground. That's why that walking ragdoll sent you after us, that's why you're being manipulated, and that is why you're doomed. You don't get to go back. You don't get to keep going. Your fate, and hers, are to become us."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    It's not that the words Tuxedo Kamen is saying aren't true, or meaningful. It's just really not what either of these girls want to hear, which might make it feel like he's shouting into the wind. Kyouka will thank him for trying, later. When things aren't quite so fraught.

    When Lacuna appears suddenly behind Young Stellar and picks her up like that, forcing her to struggle against both her strong grip and the impact of her words, Kyouka steps forward, face going grim, hand going out. She is genuinely about to hit Fuyuko to force her to drop the younger Stellar, and if that doesn't say everything that needs to be said about their current relationship then nothing will. Luckily Lacuna drops the younger Stellar before it comes to that, or else this fight might have gotten even more complicated than it already is.

    Young Stellar is left on the ground, pushing herself up, head hanging. It's clear she isn't badly injured or anything, her struggle is more internal. Fighting to find something to hang onto, to give her the motivation to push herself back up.

    Fuyuko moves off to lambast her younger self, but Kyouka only has eyes for the struggling form of her past in front of her, and she abruptly moves forward, going to a knee on the sidewalk before the younger version of herself. A hand reaches out, settling on the girl's shoulder. "Don't listen to her," She says, softly but not so soft as to be unable to be overheard. "You don't want to disappear, and I get that. But look,"

    She looks up, her eyes fixing on Fuyuko and Young Lacuna, and her voice gets louder, ringing with that crack of stubborn conviction that both versions of Lacuna will be all too familiar with, which appears whenever she knows she is right (whether or not the world at large agrees with her.) "You don't disappear. You aren't dead. Because you're me. You become me. And I'm still here- still alive. Still in the fight. We're still here." She acknowledges Fuyuko with an incline of her head. "And despite it all, despite everything she says, we're still together." Someone without proper context might misinterpret that statement but to them, themselves, it's clear what she means.

    "Despite everything, despite the world stacked against us, despite gods setting us against each other, despite monsters and mayhem and rules of the universe that declare it shouldn't be so, we're still here. You're still here." Her eyes move back to Young Stellar, who is looking up into her face with intense grey eyes.

    "Like everyone who's ever tried to end us has found out, one way or another... Stellar and Lacuna don't disappear. We don't die. We endure. We roll with the punches and we keep fighting. That's the future you have ahead of you- ahead of us. You have nothing to be scared of."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru's vaguely aware of, in fact, having had a similar jerk conversation with one of the two walking memories -- he can't remember if it was Young Lacuna or Young Stellar, but he for sure remembers that the retort was 'well we'll do it differently'.

He knows they can't.

He also knows that his help isn't necessary anymore, but he's going to stick this story out, he's going to watch, so someone other than the two of them knows what happens.

Knows for at least a couple of years.

Maybe he'll write it down and put it in the shed.

Tuxedo Kamen slips into the shadows next to the building and leans against the wall, healing himself absently, out of the fight.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Lacuna looks up at Fuyuko with all the dread and fear one owes a natural disaster, an unstoppable event. This is what it means to grow up - to watch as you become someone else, to see a stranger in your own skin, to read the fragments of who are in someone who sees the world beyond you.

"That can't be what happens," her words are feeble, her hands shaking. The flickers of magic die. Her legs give, and she sinks to the ground. "That can't be -"

"It is. You'll give it everything you have, every one of you, and it won't be enough. Everything you thought your future could be, isn't. I'm what comes next."

Fuyuko looks down at her, and at least there had been pity for Stellar. Maybe it's a good thing, that Lacuna won't meet her eyes now.

Kyouka cuts in, loud and strident, righteous as ever, platitudes that ring as truth from her.

"She can tell you where you're going," Fuyuko confirms, but there's no mercy in her voice. "I can tell you who you are."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Young Stellar holds the gaze of her older counterpart- her grey eyes searching. Kyouka doesn't shy away from that gaze, from who she used to be, recognizing herself in their search not only for truth, but for meaning. "Who you are," Kyouka says, "is no different from who you've ever been."

    Slowly Young Stellar pushes herself up to her knees, then to her feet. She looks at Kyouka with renewed interest, as if seeing her for the first time. The henshin outfit which is more or less identical, but a more mature cast to her features, a slightly more filled-out frame. It's not the physical she's really looking at though. It's the person.

    "Maybe you're not as lame as I thought you were," She admits after a moment, casting a glance back towards Young Lacuna which is both apologetic and defiant, yet full of love regardless. "I think.. really, I think maybe becoming you wouldn't be so bad after all."

    Suddenly there's a crackle of energy, golden lightning flaring between the two versions of Kyouka like static feedback. It's startling, but neither seems threatened by it, and it's not like some slow, melodramatic dissolution. As Young Stellar loses the stubborn desire to be someone separate, and as Kyouka accepts that this willful, annoying brat is as much a part of her as the teacher she views herself as now, the magic that had been sustaining her existence simply loses its form. Abruptly, Young Stellar simply breaks apart into a swirling mass of golden motes of energy- motes which flow over en mass to surround, and then seem to absorb back into Kyouka herself. The energy of the memory that the door had taken from her, given its own form, returning to her. Becoming a part of her again.

    Slowly she stands up, the glow fading away, leaving just one single Stellar. She glances down at herself, then back up towards Lacuna. "I am who I've always been, and nothing's going to change that." She says, a hint of defiance in her voice.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Kyouka is the infinitely more reassuring figure - as confident and self-assured as Fuyuko, but without an edge that bleeds one dry. She is the steadfast bedrock, the foundation upon which creation is made.

Is it any wonder, that Stellar sees herself in those eyes, that she recognizes her own heroic spirit, not siphoned or diminished, but honed?

Is it any wonder, that when she goes, Lacuna cries out, wordless and guttural, that her heart splinters, torn asunder by loss?

Stellar becomes golden light, becomes motes of energy which surround and suffuse Kyouka, and she is gone, and Lacuna claws at the earth beneath her as tears water the ground.

"We are, who we are," Fuyuko replies, meeting that proud gaze before looking down at the girl in front of her, weeping and grasping at the dirt, and lowers herself to one knee.

She's ready for the blow that rushes for her, catching Lacuna by the wrist before her fist can connect. Lacuna isn't ready for the knife that plunges into her chest, the thud of the handle as the blade is neatly sheathed in her flesh, the gush of the blood that spills forth.

She shudders and gasps and her eyes are filled with anguish, with anger. It was always her vice, that stubborn refusal, that urge to destroy so the old could be made new.

"All you are, is a part of me," she says, the closest she can manage to kindness. "So I knew you wouldn't go easy. You don't need to accept me. You just need to know that I am who you are, and there's no you without me."

Maybe those words reach Lacuna, finally. Maybe it's just the damage to her body, matching the wound to her heart. There's no one to tell them which it is, or how it was supposed to go -

There's just the crackle of energy, as Lacuna stares into her counterpart's eyes as the life leaves her own, before she's nothing more than motes of violet light, rushing into Fuyuko, returning to her that which was siphoned away by the door.

Even the blood is gone.

Fuyuko stands slowly, shaking her head. The knife is clean, but she wipes it off with the edge of her dress anyway.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It's not easy to watch, to see, as even animated memories die. It's not easy to watch a girl disappear into motes of golden light, as warm as Kyouka's embrace of her younger self was. But it's really hard to watch lifeblood pour out, and the boy who healed himself has hands that glow faintly even now. They glow as the urge to fix it gets fought back, fought down, boxed and put aside for someone else some other time, someone it's possible to actually save.

She didn't take the way out that was offered; she said it herself, she wouldn't be getting what she wanted anyway. This was the only way this could have gone; Fuyuko knows herself.

This was never his fight.

He still crosses his arms over his chest, hugging it, his hands under his arms; he watches as the living snapshot dies, dissolves into energy and violet light, rejoins the one whose memory she was. But it had to be a knife.

This won't stay with him the same way as the DG girls in the catacombs do, the same way as the deaths of his friends in the catacombs do -- the young versions of his two mentors (of his friends) weren't real. They were never real. They just looked it.

It might stay a little while, like when he killed the youma disguised as Cure Wing.

For now, Mamoru pushes off the wall, deliberately dragging one foot a little to make a little shhh on the concrete sidewalk. If either of them looks at him, he offers a silent halfassed invisible-hat-tip/salute, but otherwise he doesn't say anything as he steps into the air and teleports out.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka glances over to catch only the tail end of how Fuyuko deals with her past. Cutting it away, as she always had. She doesn't judge- doesn't speak out against the violence. These girls were never real- or rather, they were real, but they weren't here. They were just memories. And we all have to deal with our painful memories how we see fit.

    She brushes herself off.. glancing over as Mamoru teleports away, but noting his departure but similarly making no comment.

    A long moment of silence stretches before she walks over to Lacuna, her henshin dropping as she does.

    "Wanna go get a beer?" It's not a peace offering- peace is an illusion, and the war between them was never about these girls. But sometimes you just need to remind yourself that the past is the past, it's gone and it won't return no matter how hard it tries.

    The future, on the other hand, is another matter entirely. And Kyouka would much rather keep her eyes focused ahead than behind.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"You have no idea how much I could use a beer," Fuyuko sighs. She stows her blade and looks at her counterpart, relieved in part by the lack of judgement in those often harsh eyes. This wasn't a nightmare - they've both lived through far worse - but it was frustrating, embarrassing, and above all, vulnerability inducing.

The past isn't something they've erased. She isn't so foolish as to think that. But it is behind them, with the road to the future stretching forward, giving them a path to climb to better conditions ahead. Even Fuyuko isn't so stubborn as to ignore that.

"I won't even complain about paying, this time. But next time we're trying one of my dumb ideas."

But there's a wryness to her tone, something teasing, rather than blaming. This isn't a return to putting the blame on Kyouka - it's an offering to continue standing beside her, working with her, hand in hand, dumb idea atop dumber idea.