2280/Someone Who Knows Too Many Corn Facts

Someone Who Knows Too Many Corn Facts
Date of Scene:	30 January 2025
Location:	Mamoru's Apartment
Synopsis:	Kazuo talks to Tamaki about dark energy, and the fact that Rubeus got them fighting amongst themselves in about three seconds flat ... and possible ways they can plan to counter this. 'Know thyself' was not Tamaki's plan for this evening.
Cast of Characters:	Kazuo Saitou, Jadeite

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Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Mamoru's apartment is remarkably quiet, with Mamoru and Usagi out ice-skating. (No, the boys are not going to skulk this time. Mostly because they're out ice-skating with Makoto and Bow.) It is not entirely abandoned. Mostly because Kazuo absolutely shamelessly took a Makoto-meal out and reheated it with the utterly cheating care he can use - when your powers include perceiving energy, knowing when something is at the absolute right temperature is just a matter of practice - and used the scent to lure a Tamaki.

There is no serious talking while food is involved. That would be impolite to the food and to the cook, and Kazuo is not entirely convinced she can't punch them both without actually having to leave the skating rink to do it. But he settles back on the end of one of the couches afterward, and his eyes are more serious than they've been in the four days or so since the attack at the Crown.

"So," he says. "This Crimson Rubeus. He learned something important about us. He's going to try to use it to his advantage. We need to be prepared."

Jadeite has posed:
A Tamaki is lured easily. For all that Tamaki has been trying to stay on top of taking care of himself and doing his homework, a premade dinner goes a long way in helping him along. So does a Kazuo freshly freed from his surveillance room.

Tamaki eats silently, companionably; gets gently bullied out of doing dishes; has flopped on one of the couches to mess with hsi phone and wait for his companion.

"So," Tamaki says. "My head wasn't terribly clear, given the darkness - is the thing he learned that we're vulnerable to darkness? Or that we're the ones hosting Chibiusa?"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"I think he expected us to be the ones hosting Chibiusa," Kazuo replies. "But they don't know for certain where we are, yet. No. He learned that we don't have a good way to cope with dark energy. That it'll skew our thinking fast; that he, or any of the others of them that can set it up, can use it to set us against each other."

He stretches, and leans back a little further. Easier, in some senses. Relaxed. Which of course just means that if he has to move, there's no inbuilt resistance to overcome.

"So we need to work with that. To be aware of our weak points, and our temptations, so we can set ourselves not to give into them... and so we can avoid poking each other in them at the wrong moment." He glances up, and the expression he gives Tamaki is just a touch rueful. "You may have noticed that my weak points involve perceiving someone as being condescending or thinking they're better than me, and also flying off the handle and hitting people."

This is possibly an improvement over his Silver Millennium incarnation. Though his Silver Millennium incarnation didn't care so much about thinking he was being condescended to. That part is all new.

Jadeite has posed:
Tamaki nods, considering. "Indeed. It seems like the four of us didn't make it in his era, which is advantage and demerit both. He does not know us, but he can see our flaws clearly as we fight."

And, as the last few battles have shown, Tamaki has some very, very clear flaws. Which he is aware of.

(But he is not so much aware of the way Kazuo stretches and leans. The Shittenou are used to moving in tandem. He shifts to keep in balance with Kazuo.)

"Exactly." He considers reaching out to pat Kazuo, then reconsiders. Would that be. A good idea? "I went up on my politeness to put you at ease, you read it as condescending, you punched me. It happens. You're still doing far better than in our first lives." It wasn't great! But he gets it! "And I became more aggressive trying to defend Chibiusa and Mamoru. Which is probably a remnant of the issues from Beryl, but is less than ideal in a fight."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"I can tell you," Kazuo says with thorough amusement, "I'm a lot more at ease when you're not using that accent. Decades of media villains tell us all that anyone who sounds English and isn't either elderly or rotund is clearly up to something." He lifts his own hand, not to pat, but to turn it over in midair. "Which is exactly my problem. I'm used to being stereotyped. My grandmother's from Iran, so obviously I am a sneaky, disease-carrying thief and con artist, and probably involved with drugs somehow. Which is how I wound up dealing with a lot of my problems by punching people, for a while. I need to step on both sides of that, hard. And I've been practicing for a while keeping rigorous track of 'what would Mamoru approve of, or disapprove of, when he's in his right mind.' That helps. Having it down to something solid enough that the darkness has a hard time skewing it ... helps."

He tilts his head to one side. "What could help you keep wanting people to be safe from turning into a problem?"

Jadeite has posed:
"My parents wanted me to speak classy so I had diction lessons as a kid," Tamaki says, staring up at the ceiling. "My parents are both in stressful corperate bullshit jobs, and I wanted to help with all that. Plus my dad was expecting people to be really judgy about me being mixed in America. Which doesn't compare to what you had to deal with, since I got the cushy white looking American experience until I moved to Japan, but it's on my brain. Being able to swap between farmer hick and someone who can eat thousand dollar canapes in Vegas."

it's not the same. It's NOT. But it's in his head anyway.

"I'm not mad you punched me. I mean, I *was* full of darkness at the time. I don't want to be a dick to you. And I've been trying to keep track of what Mamoru would approve of and disapprove of - but then. Danger happens and all I can think about is how everything went down on the MOon, and in Paris, and in the past, and I just - my gut reaction to him being in trouble is to FIGHT. And that was useful before! I don't know how to stop?"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"There's no comparing. America is its own kind of weight. Trying to crush everyone into the same fake smiles, and if you're not born with the face they want for them, there's nowhere for you to go but flat. The question is. What voice do you want to be using? If you need to sound like Prince William to be yourself, then I'll learn how to deal. But I'll be very surprised, too." Because when Tamaki's startled... that's not his voice.

And then Jadeite answers that, and Kazuo sits a little more upright and blinks at him. "-- Tamaki. What happens in a fight when you go blindly with your gut reaction?" Besides, you know, punching the person who's carrying Chibiusa at the time.

Jadeite has posed:
"I never really thought about what I wanted to be? I met Mamoru when I had to move to Japan and then I wanted to be by his side. That was about all the thought I put into it."

Who is he? He's a Shittenou. He loves Mamoru, and he's Kazuos friend, and he's learned to care for Usagi. What else does he need in his core? Clay and ice are molded to whatever is needed, and so is he.

"I get my ass kicked if I go with my gut reaction in a fight," Tamaki answers. "Which is why I don't do it when I'm myself, and why I kept on getting annihilated in Obsidian. But I need to get a grip so I stop doing it with darkness."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo inclines his head to Tamaki, listening, listening, and then nodding a little more at the end. "If you go blindly with your gut reaction," he says, "then you're letting the enemy make your decisions for you. Which usually results in an ass-kicking, yes. I'm not saying don't listen to your gut. It's telling you what's important. But you need to listen to it, then choose your own reactions. Which can be its own problem - you know that; there's not always time to do much thinking in a fight. So we work out options ahead of time, and figure out when and how parts of them can get slotted in."

His eyes gleam. "I can tell you that when your gut reaction involves telling Mamoru what to do, you probably shouldn't run with that one," he adds, laughing. "Suggest, ask, observe, give opinions ... all of those. But trying to tell him anything will get you as exactly nowhere as it ever did."

A beat. And he pushes. "When it's telling you that the only way to save the people you care about is to do something terrible. What do you hold on to? What's true enough that you can see it through the dark?"

Jadeite has posed:
"I know that. I don't know how to train that in darkness, but maybe I need to just do it more normally? Figure out what's my gut being a grade A weirdo and what's my gut being a 14,000 year old bodyguard. And - you know you can override things if you ask, right? I trust you to steer me right."

And at Kazuo's words about telling Mamoru what to do, and about what he's doing in the dark - he laughs. "You know what? Me trying to boss Mamoru around WAS me trying to do things in the dark. I saw him tossing Chibiusa and I know he'd never hurt her on purpose, but we did a lot of shit things on accident when we were working for Beryl. And if that happened and he hurt her on accident while he was Hematite, he'd never forgive himself. So I kind of - I didn't know how else to say it? Like hey, Mamoru, I know you're having fun, but also be careful? How am I supposed to do that next time?"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo admits, "I'd've gone with -" He straightens up, and puts on a very specific expression. A sort of visible longsuffering 'really?', ameliorated by affection. And he says, with a familiar dryness, "Try not to drop her, would you?"

He relaxes. "That's probably a bit farther than you should go. We've spent a lot of time over the last year making sure he knows that that's not actually my suggesting he'd drop her, just rolling my eyes out loud as he goes off to do the ill-advised but fun thing. Again." The grin's a bright spark, much like Tamaki's laugh.

"That's ... honestly why I've been prodding you a little, off and on, about who you are. I can push at Mamoru safely, because he knows he can push back. He knows that I'm solid, that I'm not going to break or have his push go through me or any of a hundred other bits of weird. But you've been trying to define yourself by your relationships to other people. That means when you push at them, they can't push back safely. They don't know what's going to happen, or how they might hurt you, or how much. What they might break. What they might push through. What damage they could do." Kazuo glances down at his hands, then back up and over at Tamaki, and there's something there that's almost an apology: almost a 'sorry it took me so long to figure out this was a problem.' "So that's something we need to work on, too. Holding on to wanting to be by Mamoru can help. But if that's all you've got to hold on to, sooner or later you're going to run into trouble. So. Homework. Think about what you can hold on to. Think about what you value in yourself. What you aspire to be, what qualities you want to have. What you would want to be depicting if you drew or sculpted yourself. Practice that when we're not under stress - so you can fall back to it safely when they come for us with the dark again."

This time it's a slash of a grin, almost a threat. Almost. If showing it weren't a sign of closeness in itself, and therefore a signal that he's teasing. "And if you need practice with prepping tactics so you can pull on them ... you can always stop by kendo club. The skills won't transfer directly to what you do, but the same principles hold, if someone sticks with it long enough to beat it into their head. Shindo and I can help."

The way he says 'help' suggests that not stopping by kendo club might be the more survival-oriented option. Or at least feel like it, in the aftermath of the first few sessions.

Jadeite has posed:
"Casual and funny. I can do that." Or at least he can try. "I don't think he'd go off the rails as Hematite - but then again, I didn't think I'd go all weird as Jadeite at the fire station, either, and I started ranting like a cartoon villain, so. May as well be prepared?"

Better safe than sorry. He may not know who he is, but he has a decent idea of who Mamoru wants to be and -

Uh. Huh. Hm.

"...So the only way I can strengthen those relationships is to be my own man? I - I know that's not the way it should be phrased," he says quickly, holding a hand up, "But I'm processing. I need to be me so that if I lose one of my people, I don't fall apart?"

....It makes sense. It feels terribly alien. "I don't know who I am yet by myself other than an artist and someone who knows too many corn facts. i can start from there?"

IT's homework he can do, homework he WILL do Creating teh boundaries of his soul.

And then he grins back at Kazuo. "If you 'help,' then the least you can do is come in with the bandaids and painkillers after. I know that if I go in there, it's going to be like fighting a centipede with 100 peg legs." He'll do it! But Kazuo has to patch him up after.