2882/By Any Other Name

By Any Other Name
Date of Scene:	18 December 2025
Location:	Campus Gardens
Synopsis:	Mamoru and Masato go for a walk in one of the traditional rock gardens, except Mamoru puts a labyrinth in it as he explains why he wants to change his name.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Nephrite

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Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It's cool but pleasant, after school -- Mamoru'd been quiet and thoughtful all day, through classes, through lunch -- and now he's dragged Masato out to where there's a large meditative garden and a couple of rakes, and people have walked through the last time it was raked, and Mamoru sweeps ahead to pick up a rake and start leveling it with the back.

"I want to make a labyrinth in here," he says, "not a Witch one, just a medieval Western one. Sometimes they look like crop circles. I'm afraid I'm doubling down on changing my name. Or is it just deciding to after due consideration?"

The prince is straightened up for a moment, and he gives Masato a defiant look that's also a little (a lot) vulnerable.

Nephrite has posed:
With pocketed hands, Masato is the very picture of idle-- shirt loosened to give a hint of chest and his hair a perfect cascade of waves about his shoulders, having gained length over the last few months.

He makes a face at the urge to build a labyrinth, though he's unsurprised. Such an urge reflects the sacredness of an introspective journey, following the winding path back to the centre. It's not a maze, or a place intended to confuse that Mamoru envisions, but one of reflection. It's about life.

So of course, it's a precursor to the very next thing out of his mouth.

A brown brow ticks higher and he peers at the other boy. "At the center of the crop circle was a red name..." He muses, and clicks his tongue. "So you're certain, now?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I'm sure. Every time something rears it's head in my heart going no, don't let go of that name, it's either pedantry or bitterness, and I don't want either in my future," Mamoru says slowly, a breeze picking up and brushing at both their hair. "It's a lot of things."

His hair floofs and he reaches up to push it back, then walks around smoothing the garden in a spiral around the central rock. "But the primary thing is, am I going to let pride mar the happiness of being invited into such a big family? Because it's pride too, not just pedantry, not just unwelcome undeserved bitterness that tastes like Hematite, which is where the taste in my mouth was going every time I thought about it."

Nephrite has posed:
A small, thoughtful hum leaves Masato's throat, and he continues to watch Mamoru. He doesn't bother to move about, grounded where he stands like a sturdy tree while the other continues his tidying.

"You say pride like it's a dirty word." Masato notes, thinking back to when Chibiusa was lashing out in her hurts, and what he said to her of his own pridefulness then. "Or a wound. Marring happiness... is 'Chiba' really such a scar on your idea of peace?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"'Dirty,'" Mamoru repeats, then laughs a little. "The child I was before my sixth birthday was a Chiba. His parents were Chibas. The doctors told me that so was I. I said, all right. What else was I going to say? I was six and didn't know anyone or anything, didn't remember anything, not even my name. Then, after that, Mamoru Chiba was a miserable child with one friend. Since getting out of Obsidian, wresting that name back from them, I've made something of it-- but the Mamoru is the important part, isn't it? And who do I protect?" There, he's smiling.

But he keeps smoothing things out, then squints out at the sand for a moment before toeing out of his shoes, then his socks, and stepping into the sand in his bare feet. Setting the take down, he takes off his tie, shaking it out, and ties it around his eyes. "As Endymion, I have no surname. King Endymion has no surname. Royalty doesn't. And in this life? I don't need 'orphan' to keep following me around, which it will if I don't have a well-established, well-respected name like Tsukino, the name of lawyers and judges and politicians. The name of Sailor Fuckin Moon, man..."

He's grinning, and he's begun shuffling through the sand, blindfolded and barefoot. "When I'm not letting 'but I am of Earth tho' get in the way, or letting Hematite get in the way, or letting gender bullshit get in the way, I'm so happy, Masato. Neph. I'm so happy. I'm so happy every time I get more family. And she has so much family. I want to be in it, I don't want to take her out of it."

Nephrite has posed:
When Mamoru smiles, Masato cannot help but smile back at him, though it's a more muted reflection of the expression. Sapphire eyes have that sparkle of fondness to them, all the same. He's listening, and though he's also prompting and poking at certain things, that is part of his job here, he thinks. It's for Mamoru to verbalise things that he needs to.

"You can be proud without being arrogant." Masato agreed, as if that were the truest pearl of wisdom he had learned, and tilted his head. "Being 'of the Earth' can be something that exists inside us, as a sacred but quiet thing. It will, and does. It's important, but we're not just echoes of history, either."

This much, he mused on from his own personal feelings, as well. There was always, buried under all of it, a small layer of old things. The shape of them, in Usagi 'becoming Chiba'. Moon, submit to Earth. It was untennable in the truest sense, the cause of another indeliable hurt, and one that he and the other Shitennou had well elarned to sidestep now. This time, Mamoru's happiness existed without obstacle in them-- when Pride became overbearing, as in his case, long ago.

"You're right, though. The important part is you. Mamoru."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"'Of the Earth' is everyone now, though," says Mamoru really quietly, his steps slowing for a moment, but not stopping, when he finishes, "because everyone the Earth's people killed was reborn here, too."

His pace picks back up; he's turning at the correct angles and at the correct intervals for a relatively simple five-circuit Chartres labyrinth, sight unseen, with chilling feet in the cool sand. The big middle rock is the center, for sure. He huffs out a breath that's almost a laugh, except wow it's not.

Nephrite has posed:
Masato laughs a little. It's a chuckle, but even that is deep. One of his hands leaves his pocket and sinks fingers back through his hair, combing back wisps of fringe and holding them clear of his face. The small smile remains, more wryly now.

"That's the real kicker for me, you know. There could be no surer proof of the love that was always there, than that..." And what a heavy thing to say, even though they both recognise it so simply. So much had healed, so many things had been put to rest. But the retracing of steps was ever present, just as Mamoru mapped out his path now.

The pendulum-like cadence of his movements through the quadrants felt particularly fitting, for their movements through lives and times.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"The sand feels really nice," the fluff-haired prince says absently, sticking his hands in his pockets. "I know exactly where you are, where Kazuo is, and the other boys, and Usagi and Chibiusa, and if I think about it really hard and stay still, I can also know where Kyouka-sensei and Taka-fuckin-shi are..." It's just gentle chatter as he goes, a litany of names. "People I'm connected to for Reasons. The people I use to orient myself, or have historically, when I lose my way. Metaphorically, or like, literally in Witch labyrinths."

His feet are starting to get too chilly and he will not succumb to cold feet at this time. He picks up the pace.

"But yeah, me being Mamoru is the important part. And so is ahh fuck my feet are getting cold, so is um-- you know, so is Usagi winning and getting Taka-baka big mad."

He pulls the tie down back around his neck, looking down, then carefully stepping over things and into prior footsteps to avoid messing up his labyrinth. "I like these because they're like... there's nothing to solve. There aren't any distractions. There are no offramps. You just think about what you've done."

Nephrite has posed:
"Well, there is that. Not that it's Takashi's business, but between it being Usagi's family in particular that lifts you out of 'orphan' status, he's going to take that insanely personally." As per, he thought.

Usagi 'winning', though. In amongst everything else, that part stands out to him, and Masato lifts his chin slightly. It is the most visual hint of his want to inspect that further. Just the wording. It was a little spike in the otherwise level talk.

"Is there something to do with Usagi-chan that you've been trying to solve, lately?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru blinks, hopping over to sit on the winter grass and get his socks and shoes back on. "Not really. We have a conversation on hold while she processes stuff. I brought up to her that I want to join Candidus Cordis, and there's something she doesn't like about that, but she's still figuring out what. There's plenty of time before graduation, though, anyway, for us to talk about it."

Sock one, sock two. Shoe one, shoe two. They are, for the record, rich brown men's Chelsea boots with the black outlines of roses decorating them all over. They deserve far better than this school uniform. He gymnasts himself to his feet and brushes the grass off his trousers.

"But people are hard. Emotions are hard."

Nephrite has posed:
Comprehension slowly settles in, and Masato gives a silent 'ah'. Candidus Cordis. Usagi has emotions about it. He nods slowly. He too has emotions about it.

"It's about the Fade," he observes, and this makes sense to him-- he can understand why she would be processing that. He is also 'processing' his feelings about all that.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There's a sudden bubbling laugh. "I don't know what it's about," Mamoru says, spreading his hands. "We didn't get that far. I'll poke her about it in a month or something, I'm not worried."

Nephrite has posed:
"Good..." Masato is at least mildly relieved that, despite the Labyrinth and the cyclical meaning of such a thing-- and the relief of not needing to solve such a process-- it is not counter to anything he does need to solve. At least, nothing concerning Usagi, presently.

Still, the revelation of the nature of Candidus Cordis and the decision to become Tsukino do not seem, in Masato's mind, to be entirely unrelated. Both concern Mamoru's future.

"Because all of this certainly has me thinking about the Fade. Again. For the thousandth time in so many months." Masato sighed to mutter, "Even before the wedding, Taka-baka and I had a conversation concerning the Fade... I won't say this Candidus Cordis business hasn't stirred me up again."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Good, because we're going to kill it," Mamoru says fiercely. "Even if it's just-- if it's-- we're going to kill it. Whatever Takashi is doing with it, we have to stop him." His hands are in fists now, fallen as Masato spoke, his laughter gone. "What's-- ugh, let's keep walking, I have to warm my feet back up. Let's go to the Shed, we can visit the bonsai."

He leans the rake up against where it was leaning before, then stamps his feet once, twice, and starts walking. "What did Takashi say to you about the Fade?"

Nephrite has posed:
"Yeah. The last thing anyone can afford is an unchecked mad magi-scientist that nobody remembers is, in fact, an Obsidian Director." Masato states this clearly, because it is true and he knows that it is. There were many ethical arguments and personal feelings at odds, because at times, Masato had dreaded the Fade as yet another confusion upheaval in his life and identity, and at others he had welcomed the thought of being released back into the false bliss of ignorance.

There could be no normal life for them, even beyond the Fade, where Riventon still continued on his path-- not with Mamoru so squarely in the crosshairs. For all the control and manipulation and power Riventon had proven himself capable of, he would have forever been a spectre pulling the strings of their lives, only they'd all be sitting ducks to the fact of it. On the heels of using Beryl's bullshit, that fact left a very personal dread behind it.

He pocketed his hands again, and walked. "It came up when we were talking about Hiddenite-- whatever he was selling about 'his wavelengths' and how 'things can be truthful and also wrong'. That cryptic thing he does when he's being really smug but wants you to play the game. He made a jab about everything being on a ticking clock for us, but not for him... and how I used to be a force to be reckoned with, at Obsidian." Blue eyes slid sidewards to Mamoru. "How it was fortunate I know longer am."

There were many things, tucked into all of the strange and insidious things Riventon had said or done, over the last six months or so, that Masato constantly carried.

"I remember saying to him, if I was no longer a Shitennou, I would still be your best friend. That it would be enough. He said, given the things our friendship has survived, he didn't believe something like the Fade would tear us apart, either. We said other things. They were actually nice." Masato murmured. "He said, 'know that I'm always on your side, as well'. Which, in retrospect, is kind of concerning."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Funny how 'your side' works when he almost killed you with me as a weapon," Mamoru says a little bleakly, scuffing his schmancy shoe's sole against the gravel path and hunching his shoulders with his hands in his pockets. "I said-- to Shindo-kun, actually, I said, I don't know if I'll be able to save them. Dude he completely dunked the Star Drivers, he made them run away. By himself. Tsunashi showed up and managed to punch him through his shields, but Riv still had enough juice that he could have taken the four of them together, probably doing combos. He's something like Beryl-strength, and he's still taking the field on the reg."

He shudders, hunching his shoulders further and quickening his pace. "And I still don't want to see his face. It makes me so mad. He makes me so mad! Like, unreasoning rage if I think about it too long mad, and that way lies the dark side... I didn't even THINK about if the Fade got us Riventon would still be doing shit and even if he didn't accidentally a magical nuclear winter he'd keep us in a terrarium." A beat. "Not literally. What he told me was that--"

The prince's voice wavers a little. "He told me I should be a doctor, that I kept fighting without the strength to and it kept nearly getting me killed, and he'd be glad of the Fade taking me."

Nephrite has posed:
The grim set of Masato's handsome features deepens at that news-- the Star Drivers forced to retreat. They knew that Riventon was hoarding a great deal of strength now, to be sure. But to be faced with the facts so plainly and frequently now was like carrying a stone in the pit of one's stomach.

"If he got his way, I'm pretty sure the entirety of Tokyo would be his terrarium, with us as the centerpiece." Slightly sarcastic, but Masato genuinely didn't think it was an untrue thing to say. "What's that video game with the little people in it? Like a dollhouse--"

He couldn't remember. Masato shook his head. "But, yes... I guess that's the thing I keep going over. He's looking forward to when we both bite the Fade, and he's stated it very specifically to both of us now." His mouth ticked. "He counting on it. And he's probably got whole lives laid out for us on the other side of it. In my case, I think he half hopes that I'll end up seeing things his way and joining up with him again to help protect you or the others 'properly'."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Wow," says Mamoru glumly, shaking his head. "I don't know if it's like... insulting that he thinks you'd betray me like that again, especially after he ate Beryl's portal? Or just evidence of how out of touch he already was."

That's some faith right there.

"Which kind of... I mean, he didn't think his using Beryl's magic, or close enough to it that there was no difference in the feel of it, would piss me off like it did."

The prince walks in silence for a moment, the breeze lifting his hair again. His shoulders finally relax, and he takes his hands out of his pockets to push up his glasses. "Okay so one, we need to see to both your haunted houses. Fade aside. Kazuo is point man on the Fade stuff, which is really funny, because one of the properties of kunzite is that it fades in the sun--"

Mamoru is definitely looking sidelong at Masato now, grin tugging at one corner of his mouth.

Then he shakes his head. "Sorry, anyway, I don't want to spend all my time angry so let's not talk about Taka-baka anymore right now. Because you're right about the dollhouse, and I've spent altogether too much of my life without enough agency."

Nephrite has posed:
"Good thing he hardly goes out in it, then," Masato says of Kunzite, jokingly thinking of the amount of time he spends in a dark room watching screens. But he nods, because it really is about agency-- not just Takashi, but the matter of the Fade itself. The nature of how Magic finds people, and how it now withdraws with a startling rapidity that seems altogether too recent to be ignored. Whatever his own personal feelings, Masato really had to swallow the fact that, for better or worse, they were locked in on preventing the Fade. He knew that, but as Mamoru said-- sometimes emotions were hard.

"Yeah. I've managed to convince my father that there's a prospective buyer interested in a private sale, and that we could save money by cutting out the real estate agency entirely. I told him that you're a recently married associate of mine with a young daughter, very private, and interested in the area. New money." Not untrue, technically. "He's dubious, but at this point, he's become impatient enough to humour me. But... it also means, he's going to be getting on a plane soon to settle the matter and formerly disown me, probably."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Disown you? New money?" two huffs in a row, but the second one is laughing. Mamoru takes out his phone while they continue on their walk, and he texts Usagi, not knowing she's on a very important hangout with her girlfriend-- but it's not like he's expecting an immediate response anyway. Before he re-pockets his phone, he texts, and murmurs it out loud as he goes,

Mamoru TXT Usagi: hey masato needs us to impersonate a very private newly married young couple with a young daughter to his dad hehe

He says 'hehe' instead of laughing, then laughs as he hits send. "At any rate, if he doesn't buy it and... let us buy it-- the house-- we'll figure something out. Something involving a million trusts, and shell companies I guess."

Nephrite has posed:
"I am very good at fraud," Masato grants, with a tilt of his head, "But the name Tsukino... you know, actually, it may help. That's a name he'll take seriously."

Even as they walk, Masato sways for a moment like a great tree in the breeze, "So be it. You'll be Tsukino Mamoru, and I'll be Kino Masato, and we'll be happy men." It's a lovely thought, and he says it so casually, as if it's already a fact. His sigh comes almost wistfully, on the back of that. "It's gotten bad. My mother's old deer scare-- every time it goes, the rooms change around. It's disorienting. I almost got stuck in there, last time. There's plants and trees growing out of walls and floors... creeping vines..."

He shook his head. "I've done everything I can to contain it, and Rei's wards have helped keep it from escaping the house, but inside it's a mess."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Ugh I want to go right now!" the prince says, and there's the Shed up ahead. "I'm sorry, I don't mean-- I'm taking this seriously, it's just that it could be really fun, also? Like when I released the emu on the seventeenth floor of Obsidian Tower. It was serious, but it was also fun."

A beat. "I MEAN, not that this is the same kind of serious, but it would be the flavor of adrenaline, you know? I want to get my hands on it."

Mamoru jogs the last few meters to the Shed door, opens it, then holds it open for Masato. "But anyway, yeah, we'll be very happy men!"

Nephrite has posed:
Masato peers at him with a quizzical, if forgiving look. The Emu thing has him close his eyes in a small wince. There's so many things like that, too. Mamoru's been enthused about this house since Masato brought it up, and if it were anyone but Mamoru, he might be terribly bothered by it. But it is Mamoru. He smirks despite himself.

"You're incorrigible. You know that?" He says with some affection, ducking through the Shed door.