2689/A Plan of Non-Attack

A Plan of Non-Attack
Date of Scene:	13 July 2025
Location:	Mamoru's Apartment
Synopsis:	Masato, Ami, and Kazuo avoid the heat while planning to ... er ... avoid the heat. Or avoid disrupting Zoisite's outing with Saphir while keeping an eye on it, anyway.
Cast of Characters:	Kazuo Saitou, Nephrite, Ami Mizuno

---

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Outside, 'hot' is no longer the applicable word. 'Swimming through your own imminent death' might be more appropriate. In the top floor of the building, though, Kazuo has been doing rounds every so often as Kunzite to keep the temperature down...

... but 'every so often' is sometimes just not enough.

And it is a sure bet that Mamoru's apartment is kept at a human level, because Mamoru keeps doing things like going outside, and because that way Kazuo gets more Zoisite visits as their fireboy steadily works his way through the available ice.

At the moment, Kazuo has just finished dropping the temperature again, and dropped out of henshin (would it be ethical to bake their next opponent alive? yes? no? probably no) to refill ice trays. Again. Because if you are the only comfortable person in the weather, the tradeoff for being smug is getting to treat the people who keep verging on needing medical attention. Out on the balcony, towels are hanging to dry, which may or may not happen in this humidity, but it's worth a shot.

Nephrite has posed:
Masato has been getting noticably more tan, with the Summer rolling on. He's given himself over to light athletic wear, expensively branded but practically cool-- and what his a very light spell to keep the wind moving, and the air flow a steady little stream around him? Hardly anyone should notice, but he seems to bring the very slightest breeze along as he opens the door the the apartment.

With a cooler bag slung under one arm and a large Chinese Oak bonsai in the other, Masato's voice can be heard across the apartment. "-- bastard sun can do it's level best, I'll just keep getting more handsome, Ami-chan."

Removing shoes, he steps inwards in house slippers. "That's so much better... the gods damned cicadas out there, screaming. They know it's hell."

Ami Mizuno has posed:
Ami couldn't make use of her magic outside of henshin. Saddled with her backpack and stil dressed for school--tough, she'd lost her blazer fairly early on in the day because no--the senshi almost looked to be melting by this point. She'd even taken to walking ever-so-slightly behind Masato, just to catch the tail end of his micro-breeze. Any relief was better than none.

Then there was the relief that was the apartment, supernaturally cooled by one mahou's persistent efforts, and the world's happiest sigh left her with near explosive force. That, after all, was much better.

"They'll be haunting my dreams, Masa-nii." She agreed, following suit in losing her outside shoes in favour for slippers that were more respectful of the home. "I'm half tempted to try my hand at making a blizzard. Get me close enough to the bay, I'm sure I can manage it."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
By this time, there are certainly slippers in Ami's size. It is not impossible there are slippers with tiny pale-blue bows sewn onto them to mark them as Only Hers. After all, Mamoru has signed up for a life built around Usagi's ideas of cuteness.

"Some of us like hell," Kazuo comments. "Though that may be the only time in my life I group myself with cicadas." He pulls a random soda out of the fridge and comes to offer it to Ami. It's pineapple. Obviously that is Mamoru's fault. It is, however, cold, and that may be all that matters. "Masato, what are you doing to that poor tree?"

Nephrite has posed:
"I'm protecting a precious family heirloom from unecessary stresses," Masato answered fairly casually, moving towards the dining table to set his loads down. The Elm was set carefully, and slightly checked over, before he took the cooler bag off and peered back at the others. "It's been through enough as it is... I don't want to set its recovery back even further in this heat."

To an observant eye, Masato was wearing a handmade woven bracelet with a single star charm, unusual given the most likely thing to otherwise grace his wrist was a golden watch. But further hint existed in his hair-- currently, tied back low with what was unmistakably Makoto's sort of green-baubled hair tie.

"I brought my bar, or some of it." He says, unzipping his bag.

Ami Mizuno has posed:
Well, Ami didn't have a bar and it was very thoughtful of Kazuo to have brought a soda over for her. This was met with a grateful dip of her head and then the air cracked for its opening.

She wasn't the world's biggest fan of pineapple, but it was certainly refreshing today. A little bit tart, a little bit sweet. But, most importantly, it was a lot bit cold. Whatever composure she might ordinarily have had was lost in a handful of gulps, each one addind more fluid back to her body, before it finally fell away from her face about two-thirds lighter than it had been.

Meanwhile, Masato had been explaining his tree and Ami was fighting hard to keep the dissolved gasses from escaping in a particularly obvious way. A hand covered the lower-half of her face before she could find the space to speak again.

"That was exactly what I needed, thank you."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Protecting it from stresses? "By bringing it here?" Kazuo arches eyebrows at Masato with amusement, but no Anko manifests instantaneously to investigate the tree. Possibly she is also cranky about the heat. Possibly Mamoru is napping and she is seeing if she can get away with napping on his face. There are many possibilities. He glances at Masato's hair tie, and modifies the next question - "I presume it had enough water for the trip." Okay, modifies it into not a question.

The young man who may not understand what the words 'off duty' actually means lets Masato's comment about his bar alone, in favor of giving Ami a slight bow. "I'm glad to hear you're taking more care than Mamoru was. He'll be all right, but he pushed himself pretty far today."

Nephrite has posed:
"It's been in my apartment for some months." Masato muses absently, gathering various things from his back-- a shaker, a few bottles, and some fruit. "I don't let this one out of my sight. Too important. The heat's sapping its strength."

The clipped nature of how he says it suggests that this is not something he has humour about. "The other two that were important I've salvaged, too... My mother's prized pink azalia tree is with Mako-chan. I gave it to her before all that time-travelling."

His head tilts, "The other's in the new garden nursery in the Shed. It's not bouncing back... we're looking into why."

Ami Mizuno has posed:
"Sailor Mercury may or may not have made an appearance or two throughout the day to douse herself with water." Ami said this with a perfectly straight face as she set about shrugging her backpack clear with a jiggle of plush bluejay. "Spontaneous ice-cold water is a fairly useful thing to have sometimes."

The senshi popped her backpack open to recover the Mercury Computer, before slipping past Masato to set the device not too far away from the bonsai. Sadly, it wasn't for the diminutive tree--neither this one, nor the sickly one in the Shed. Ami, after all, was not in possession of particularly green thumbs and Izou was almost certainly more helpful there.

But, with Izou in mind, the screen blipped on and displayed a fairly loose assortment of Devicer trinkets in a kind of schematic-with-notes form. Then, at the bottom right, was a desaturated little icon. A stick-figure with angry eyes and blue hair. Which was a good thing, it was when they icon became vibrantly coloured that they probably had unwanted tourists in town.

Ami sipped at her soda again.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
... and very definitely not repent. In this instance.

"Then we'll find a safe place for it," Kazuo says to Masato, and 'we' does not mean Izou or Mamoru. "The cats are already being bribed to leave greenery alone. Even Anko understands that you don't upset Makoto."

A tilt of his head, and a little frown, at the mention that the third isn't bouncing back. He doesn't ask - Masato's touchiness about the first one means that Kazuo is willing to leave it aside unless he wants to talk about it. And as a gardener, he's decent as Izou's pack mule, so there's little he can offer either...

... and then his attention is drawn down to Ami's stick figure. Somehow he suspects that's not a picture of the blue-haired person in the room.

"His brother turned up the other day," he says to Ami. "Shopping. No luck talking him down, but Chibimoon might've made a little of a dent."

Nephrite has posed:
Masato leans to look over, taking stock of the stick figure and catching some context. He snorts derisively, and shakes his head, continuing to prep his own little drink station-- curiously, none of the bottles, syrups, sparkling juice or otherwise, seem to actually contain alcohol.

"She deserves to knock out a few teeth for keeps, anyway," he murmurs unkindly, and glances at Kazuo from the corner of his eye, "It won't be long now before he comes unstuck. Too many little chips at his pride ought to be shoring up now."

Ami Mizuno has posed:
Sapphirine gaze lifted from the screen to catch Kazuo and Ami offered an agreeable nod.

"Mina-chan mentioned that she'd ran into him while picking up some snacks." She grimaced. "Evidently, he's still a little bit fixated and that doesn't fill me with a great deal of comfort. If there was anybody who deserved to get a half-decent shot off on him, though, it's probably Chibiusa."

A few taps at the Computer and its display swapped out for a three-dimensional rendering of an imagined lab. It rotated a little before once more being replaced by a much simpler blueprint. Her brow lifted a little as she scrolled about.

"I intend to keep a close watch on the location of the signal when Izou-kun takes him for their--" Oh no. She didn't want to say date, not in front of Kazuo. "Outing. If you'd like to also keep an eye on where they are, too?"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"Mamoru broke his nose, but I think Chibiusa did more actual damage." Kazuo's eyes do not precisely sparkle, but the amusement is there, all the same. "She asked him, if in his eyes New Moon was a puppet rather than the real person, who he was." There's a little nod to Masato. Not long at all before Demande comes unstuck. Especially if he winds himself up around that one.

The imagined lab prompts another twitch of Kazuo's eyebrows; there a nod in Ami's direction in turn, whether or not she's looking to catch it.

"I'd like very much to keep an eye on where they are," he says. "I've been planning to do that by keeping in reasonable reach of Mamoru. That ought to be close enough to respond if something happens - though I suspect that 'something' is more likely either to be their prince cracking, or someone running into them who recognizes Saphir and decides it's time to take him on. Would you prefer I keep a more remote watch?"

Nephrite has posed:
Masato didn't much care for any of it, and he'd made that clear in various directions already. He wasn't about to labour the point. At the very least, he'd been assured enough recently of Izou's shift in priority-- his initial secrecy and the manner in which he particularly related himself to Saphir, and the mercurial fixation driving all this in the first place-- to accept that the other Shitennou needed to see it through on his own terms.

It was almost cruel, as much as merciful, for Saphir. The taste of a life he would truly never partake in, and experiences that would never truly be his, but understanding perhaps a consolation. But there was something to be said of clarity, when facing death-- seeing oneself in the opponent's blade, as it were. Nephrite had known that moment, once.

For all Saphir's workings, between alchemised carnage and the doomed loyalty he felt, he'd be allowed to chose how his demise would be spent-- perhaps he may even take some responsibility. But acting against Demande seemed a little far-fetched.

"Making sure this goes as smoothly as possible, without obviously crowding them or tipping the brother's hand, is a fine tightrope to walk," Masato poured off some juice into his shaker, "I could set up an illusion to help hide us, if we decide to settle in somewhere close."

Ami Mizuno has posed:
"I'd be more concerned with doing things in the way that you're most comfortable with, Kazuo-kun." Ami glanced his way as she spoke with a faint smile. "Everything else equal, you've got more investment in the specifics here."

She shrugged lightly and nodded in agrement with Masato. He was right. It was a very fine tightrope to be balancing along.

"Trusting in Izou-kun is one thing, but we're also being implicitly asked to have trust in our blue-foe." Ami wrinkled her nose. "Which I, for one, am having a much harder time doing and there's nothing that I've heard so far that makes me want to."

She lifted a brow again. "Would you prefer me to stick closer?"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"Variation is good," Kazuo says to Ami. "Mamoru can tell if something happens to Izou. If I can see him, I can catch his alarm - he'll move faster than I will, but that means that if something happens to him I'll be able to see it. If Masato's with me and Mamoru, so will he. If he's with you, you have better mobility if something does happen. If something happens that hits the entire area they're in - if you're out of it, you can call for help." He lifts a hand palm-up, turns it over. "Or if you're closer by, you can tell what it is. So I'd prefer you to do things in the way that you're most comfortable with, too, as long as we know what you're doing. You know your strengths better than we could."

Nephrite has posed:
Masato nodded, turning a look to Ami as he tipped a sparkling clear liquid into the shaker next. "If you want me with you, Ami-chan, we can also sit in an air-conditioned, camouflaged Ferarri."

His brows rose as if that would sweeten the deal, but it was a less serious addition. "But, you being more mobile and defensible is something I'd prefer. We could also keep to a higher vantage, if you'd rather. Especially if Kazo-kun here's going to keep eyes on the prize, we might be better served keeping a perimeter check for... inbound complications."

He inclined his head, capping the shaker and holding it out t her. "Gently shake this while chilling it, please?"

Ami Mizuno has posed:
"You pitch a good sale, Masa-nii." Ami said as she contemplated the potential for an air-conditioned Ferarri for a few moments before she just shook her head. "No, no. You're right."

Her attention shifted to Kazuo again. "He's right--we should probably be back a little further with a good vantage. Masa-nii and I, that is, you're probably best suited close enough to respond to Izou-kun. I can keep track of their precise location with the Visor and we're in a better position to deal with inbound complications."

Absently, Ami took the shaker offered to her and then stared down at it for a moment. She frowned at the request, sighed, and took her Pen. After all, she couldn't exactly fulfill the request out of henshin.

Ami cleared her throat gently, indicating that the boys should probably find something else to look at for a second, and then got to business--"Mercury Power, Make Up!" and a watery twirl, complete with sparkling lights and a final little splash.

By the time they'd turn back, Sailor Mercury was shaking and chilling Masato's mocktail for him.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"Being able to put up a shield in advance is useful," Kazuo agrees to Ami, and turns to examine the bonsai. In detail. Tiny leaves! ... and sparkles that he does not let tug his attention.

He is not going to laugh. Not at either of them. Not at the mocktail. Not at the concept of 'camouflaged Ferrari.' No. There will be no laughing. There is an elm. Thank you, tiny elm.

Nephrite has posed:
Masato pats Kazuo on the back with a fairly pleased look, as if he's particularly proud of the way Sailor Mercury is helping shake up some frosty refreshments, but he won't say it. The particular smirk is so specific, and it seems that he's perfectly aware of Kazuo's struggle not to laugh, somehow.

"I'll get us some glasses," he grins at the now henshined Ami, "And we'll start drawing up a plan of non-attack."

With a wink, he turns towards the kitchen. "You're such a gifted artist, Ami-chan."