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The base of the building had once been a restaurant, the top floor accommodation but now it lay silent and abandoned. Windows for the most part boarded up, except for the odd uncovered cracked pane that gave glimpses into space.

It was one amongst many such abandoned buildings, the only thing distinguishing it from its fellows being the fact that the two stories meant that it was slightly higher than the others...

Well that and the figure sitting atop the roof.

It had been by chance that Athene had even come out this way, the dark-haired eternal having been on the trail of a youma.

The youma was dust now, but Athene hadn't moved to continue on with his patrol - had instead made his way up to the roof - cutting a lonely figure as he sat looking pensively over the rest of the city. His only companion (if it could be called that) a cup of mostly full take out coffee that rested within easy reach of his hand.

Lost as he was in his own pensive thoughts, Athene hadn't noticed the civilian passing by.

He did however notice the flare of the chaotic aura, a part of him noting that it felt like a Dark Mirror aura and a strong one at that.

But whilst it was relatively close, it hadn't been on top of him close and so he hadn't paid too much attention to it.

Perhaps he should have tried to, perhaps even made an attempt - even if it was a token one - to go and check it out.

He didn't.

Because whilst he did plan to continue on with his evening patrol eventually - the key word was on 'eventually'.

And perhaps it was yet another indicator on what a lousy senshi he was, perhaps...

However right now Athene was feeling a little too mixed up and troubled to care.

As it happened however, it seemed that the source of the other aura had also picked up on his aura.

Or perhaps it was just chance. Nothing more than coincidence.

Either way it belatedly sunk in that the aura's source - whoever it was - appeared to be heading in his direction.

He was standing when the other swung himself up and over onto the roof, the cup of coffee cradled in his hands, his back turned as he started quietly "I'm not looking for a..."

His voice trailed off however as he belatedly realised that he recognised the other voice, for all that it had been a while since they had last crossed paths.

"Evening Remarque" he turned as he spoke, the greeting friendly enough - polite enough. There was a tired note to his voice and a pensive look in his eyes beneath the semi-rimless frames of his glasses. "I was just... Thinking I guess."

At least he was if you could call staring out over the city 'thinking'.

It seemed kind of silly to keep standing whilst the other was sitting and so Athene once again reclaimed the spot where he'd been sitting, edging the coffee that he wasn't really drinking as he did so.

He was silent for a few moments after Remarque asked his question, gaze still on the city.

"I.. I don't know" he said at last, before thinking it over and amending it to. "Well, actually that isn't true." A quiet sigh "Things have been better."

He didn't elaborate, but he did glance over, looking up at the taller senshi as he said "Do you ever have moments when you wonder just what it is that you're doing?"

"It's never been that clear cut on our side" Athene said quietly as he absently reached out to pick up the take out cup, holding it cupped in his hands, although he made no move to drink any of the contents "We don't have goals per se - at least not as a group."

Not that it was any big secret - after all it was kind of well known just how disorganised Order was.

He looked out and over at the city "We can have personal goals though, we do have personal goals and mine were relatively simple."

His hands tightened subconsciously on the cup in his hand, his gaze still on the city "I've never had particularly grand goals or fancy ideals, all I wanted to do was to protect people and avoid having this war that I seemed to be part of by virtue of existing turn me into a murderer."

There was an unusually bitter note in his quiet voice "It turns out that I was deluding myself about the one" he'd found that out at New Year's when he had found out the awful truth about the youma and realised that he had broken the promise that he had made to himself many times over. Had known that he was going to continue to break his promise... "But then I thought that I could at least try and protect people." He was an eternal senshi, he was supposed to be better than the hopeless senshi that he had been as a basic senshi and the marginally less but still hopeless senshi that he had been as a super senshi.

He thought about the unknown senshi from the gymnasium and then of the man who had once been Ploutonion of Saturn being held out like some sort of macabre trophy by the General Queen and his own uselessness in both events "But I... I can't even get that right."

Athene looked over at Remarque startled at the other's jab, but he managed a small smile at the taller senshi's words.

"You're pushing" he said simply, although he wasn't upset by it and hopefully the matter-of-factness to his voice would clue Remarque into it too.

He found himself hesitating for a moment however, the words sparking the echo of something - something that seemed almost familiar - although he couldn't quite put his finger on why, despite a part of him feeling like he should.

He shook his head slightly at himself, the small smile fading as he answered Remarque's question "I do have my team and they're great - they really are" he hesitated before sighing quietly "But all of them would have handled things so much better than me, because they're a lot stronger than I am."

It was something that Athene had acknowledged to himself a long time ago, just as he had acknowledged that he was not particularly cut out for the battlefield. He looked up into Remarque's eyes "I do know that I need to get stronger, I do know it" he found himself hesitating "But sometimes I find myself wondering if there is really a place for someone like me in all of this, but I'm not sure changing sides is really the way to do because that changes people" for a moment he thought of Atë and then Vespa "And I.. I don't want to be stronger at the cost of not being me any more."

"People get to keep their memories?!" The words came out as a half-blurted statement of surprise.

He had always thought otherwise, because despite his experience of those who had changed sides was meagre, he had come across those who had taken the step - like Vespa and like Atë.

Although come to think on it, now that Remarque mentioned it both of them had been a Negaverse and Order swap. Vespa to Order and Atë... Atë to the Negaverse.

Athene shook his head slightly not wanting to think about the dark-haired corrupt who he had first met during a training session that Castor had put on, instead looking over at Remarque as he added "People get to stay as them?"

Then he flushed slightly as it sunk in that he was probably sounding like a parrot and he looked away in order to fiddle with the take out coffee cup.

A coffee cup that was most certainly cold.

Athene was still looking at the coffee cup when he admitted eventually "I'm kind of envious" his voice was very quiet as he spoke the words, although Remarque was close enough that he could probably hear what he was saying. "I'm not sure that I've ever had that complete certainty about what I'm doing.. That I don't have doubts about what I'm doing sometimes." He continued to stare at the cup as he added "Sometimes it feels like my only worth in this is to be a good soldier and I'm actually a very lousy one."

He'd said as much to Thraen once on the night that they'd quarrelled after he'd tried to stop the other from murdering a Nega-General turned Lieutenant.

Because beads were and remained an even worse fit for the battlefield than flowers.

To be honest Athene couldn't say that he disagreed with Remarque was saying.

Not completely.

Because the taller senshi was right - the White Moon was both fragmented and leaderless...

And whilst there were some, perhaps, that might have counted the Moon Princess - Athene most certainly didn't count himself amongst their numbers.

Athene couldn't even say that he disagreed with Remarque's suggestion that their overall goals were particularly different - and whilst he continued to hate the energy draining that the Dark Mirror Court had in common with the Negaverse - it wasn't as if he could hold his own side was a pure shining beacon of righteousness.

Because between the joint Order and Negaverse ambush on the the Court à la the joint DMC and Negaverse ambush on the Order meeting three years back and Prince Castor heralding his return and in the form of a mountain of broken Negaverse bodies, he would most certainly be lying...

And Athene tried very hard to be honest to at least himself given that he'd had to tell so many lies in the course of his powered 'career'.

"Thank you" he said at last and whilst it wasn't a yes, neither was it the flat out no from the other times that Remarque had brought the subject up.

He'd been staring at the coffee cup, but at the other's admission of rather fighting for the White Moon over the Negaverse, he shifted his gaze to look back and across at Remarque, his gaze visibly startled for a moment, but at the other's stern follow up he nodded "My lips are sealed" his quiet voice was serious as he added "For what it's worth you have my word."