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What was she supposed to do with this?

Even as a member of the Negaverse, the sensation of youma in the vicinity was still sickening and unfortunate. They didn't necessarily feel like allies. The looks the small animalistic youma gave her hinted that they weren't her allies.

Were they attacking her?

No.

It seemed that she had come upon a set of youma that were out for a feeding, as it were, and Nembus found herself incredibly uncomfortable with that. She would have rather come across other agents. She could talk to them. Perhaps she could patrol with them. Maybe they could share a quota. Maybe they would be more reasonable than attempting to talk to a youma was, especially these small animal types.

Awkwardly, she reached out a hand to one, calling out a, "Maybe you--"

And the youma turned back towards her and hissed loudly.

Well.

Okay.

Maybe she should just...

Back away.

The hiss was suddenly cut off in a grotesque screech, and Nembus winced, watching as the youma went from a whole creature of some sort to a split creature of some sort and then dust to the wind.

Who did that?

Probably the encroaching aura, she figured. It felt similar in strength to hers, she noted, and thus far, the experience she had with supers had not been tremendously positive. That surgeon senshi had charged her at the first moment. The squire had charged her, too, though she had seemed to change her tune a bit later on. Nembus quickly shifted to a defensive stance, ready to blind and run if necessary.

That was her usual trick these days.

But then she saw who it was.

White bodice, so White Moon--Order--as it was. But a long coat. An admiral's hat. White hair. It didn't go so far down these days, short in a braid. Her eyes were black. Her voice was...

Familiar.

Nembus' defensive pose fell into something else entirely, a stance Nembus herself wasn't even sure she could name. Shock? Confusion? Happiness? It was Stillwaterite. Stillwaterite was in front of her. She was alive. She was okay. Super Stillwaterite was in front of her. She was no longer stronger than her. They were the same.

No.

This was Super Sedna.

They were not the same.

"And you were demoted," noted Nembus, voice shaky and wry all at once, taking a step closer if she was allowed. "How..."

She swallowed, thickly.

"How are you?"

Nembus was glad to see the axe go all the way down. She couldn't help the way she side-eyed it as it did.

She wished she didn't.

Her eyes shifted back up to Sedna, fidgeting just a little bit in combination of her own nerves and not knowing what to expect. Sedna remembered her, that much was clear. She was glad for that. She was glad she didn't have to see Sedna and call out to her, only to have confusion returned. They still had that connection. It hadn't been lost. It hadn't been lost, even if they were no longer the same.

What kind of toll had been taken from Sedna, though? Was it just her level and those memories?

"I'm glad to hear you're," Nembus swallowed, again, this time swinging her arms out in an attempt to make her palms stop sweating. Maybe she should take her gloves off. That'd probably work better. "I'm glad you're adjusting. I was hoping you'd be okay over there, you know? We may have been there before but it's also this unknown... thing."

It was one thing to talk with Order.

It was another to be Order.

"I'm," Nembus glanced to the side, noting another youma in the distance. She ignored it. Should she be honest?

Why would there be anything wrong with being honest?

Sedna was still Stillwaterite. Stillwaterite was still Sedna.

"I don't know, actually."

And that was the truth.

"I mean, I got promoted." She paused for a moment and let that sink in, before continuing, "but I mean, I got promoted."

When Sedna said she understood, Nembus relaxed a bit. The fidgeting continued, but not at the same speed. Her shoulders slumped just slightly.

They weren't the same, but at the very least, they were once the same. Sedna had made decisions about her life that took her into a different track than Nembus, but Nembus knew one thing: when Sedna said she understood, she actually did. It wasn't a lie.

Of all people, Sedna was the one who most understood.

Her smiles didn't seem as wide as they were when Nembus had first met Stillwaterite, but Nembus did observe she was smiling.

Good.

Her face didn't deserve to be marred with frowns.

Nembus started to open her mouth to ask another question, of which its contents she was uncertain, before Sedna started to speak again. She stayed silent, listening, nodding along where appropriate. It made sense that purifying didn't solve all her problems. What was lost with her forced corruption stayed gone. There was no miraculous regain of memories. There was no reuniting with her civilian family. There was no going back to that. What was done was done, even if it was done without their permission.

(And yet she couldn't stop thinking about that Christmastime nightmare--)

But it sounded like Sedna had found a group that fully supported her with open arms.

And not only that, she sounded so convinced. She sounded so sure of herself, sure of her choices, sure of the people she trusted, sure of the fact she was moving forward, sure of the fact that she had chosen something that mattered to her.

It was something Nembus lacked.

"I'm glad it matters," it was a life that was hers.

With a momentary pause, she continued, "I'm a little jealous." And that was probably the understatement of the century. It boiled within her. Part of her wanted that confidence. A smaller part of herself wondered if she could somehow steal it away and take it for herself. "You sound so certain of it. Not your path, but your choices." Nembus' chuckle held no mirth.

"I don't even know if I can trust my choices."

There was lower to go?

The idea of it wretched her like a knife, like that damnable invisible cut that surgical senshi had given her. She didn't want to go lower. This already felt awful. She already felt lost. She already didn't understand. She already just wanted to find peace and a place where she could hide and perhaps try to process twenty missing years of existence.

She knew a choice had been taken from her. It had to have been. Why else would she be here? Why else would she be here, remembering so little of a life she once had where she wore white? What had been done to her? Was it a trick? Was it a trap? Was it a lure? Was she just so powerful that the Negaverse decided they wanted her as their own? Had Marcasite been her friend? Did she just want them to be united on one side? Could they be friends under that paradigm? Was friendship even possible when one side decided to take the life of another?

But Sedna was implying things could get worse, because the extant confusion meant that things hadn't gotten to their worst point yet.

Where was the bottom?

Another bitter chuckle escaped her lips at the idea of a fear of the unknown. "If it were that," Nembus replied, glancing down at her feet for a moment before looking up to the taller woman, "I'd be afraid of myself."

But was it somewhat that?

"I mean, I guess," Nembus swung her arms again, before throwing them behind her back, constraining her fidgeting to a place unseen, "I guess there's a part of me that does fear even more unknown. At least I'm starting to understand the Negaverse. At least I'm innately familiar with their motivations. At least I have a team here, I have some form of stability, I have a home, I have a life I've managed to cobble together, a job."

A job directly mired in the media which was controlled by the Negaverse, but that was a portion of it she would leave well-enough alone.

"But I also fear what this is. What I am. What my presence here means. If it means anything. I fear those I'm friends with. I love those I'm friends with. I fear what I once was. I'm obsessed with what I once was. I don't understand how to go forward. I don't know if the memories are something I can put behind me. I don't understand if these are questions I can ask. I don't even know if my general would answer me if I did. I don't know if I can trust her answers even though I feel like I can innately trust her. I like her. I do. We're friends. But if like you said, the one behind my," she scanned her brain banks for the right word, "integration was likely the one behind my corruption..."

They lived together. Marcasite housed her. They hung out as civilians, willingly. Delilah had been Jade's escape. Delilah had been to Jade's holes in the walls, ate with Jade, shopped with Jade--

Nembus shuffled her feet for a moment.

"I wish there was an easy answer to all these questions."

In some ways, Nembus was always exhausted, really, hidden behind a facade of smiles and friendliness.

In other ways, she didn't have the context to understand ever feeling any different.

The first question made her stumble back, for a moment, and her eyes widened a bit at the thought. Did she want to understand the Negaverse? Would there be a benefit to it? There was a part of her that always wanted to know more. She spent more time in the databases on her tablet than she should. She wanted to understand. She wanted to have the context. She wanted to be the expert. Nembus wanted to be able to understand everything about the organization she had found herself forced into. She wanted to help other people understand. She wanted to be the one that new forced corrupts could come to.

But perhaps being forced into it was enough to tell her all she needed to know.

She was right about the connections. Connections were one of the things that kept her the most muddled. She had Order connections, in theory. She also had connections to Marcasite. Connections to her team. Connections to other corrupts that hadn't purified, like Amazone. Connections to Vitriol, the half-youma. Connections to--

The color drained from her face at the idea of asking Marcasite.

Nembus knew it was the logical answer. Delilah knew it was the logical answer. The only one who had the full answers to the questions she had was Jade. The only person who could answer for it was Jade. The only person who could possibly help her find peace with what happened, or at least help her stop asking questions on how it happened, was Jade. Sedna knew that because she had gone through the same thing. She had to ask. She had to know. And Sedna was right, was it worth dealing with this just to not ask?

But if she asked, would she have to run away, like Sedna did? Would she have to move out? Would it sever that connection?

But Sedna didn't run away.

She had people to run to.

Nembus let out a heavy sigh to a breath she wasn't aware she was holding.

"I know I have to ask her eventually. Ma--," she paused, sighed, and glanced away, "she's the only one who has the answers to my questions." Sedna and Stillwaterite were the same person. They were also not the same person. Chaos told her to keep it secret. She couldn't tell Order what their connections were. "But I don't want to. So much of my life is tied up with hers. I," but there were no other answers.

Nembus sighed, shaking her hands out. She had made them a little raw with all of the fidgeting.

"How do you make such deep connections on the other side?"

It was rather assuming, but it was different when Sedna said it.

Because Sedna was still Stillwaterite, and she understood.

When Sedna offered her hand, Nembus took it and squeezed it, but just a bit. No need to give her hand a vice grip, she reminded herself. Even as a small part of her reviled back at having an aura that was decidedly unpleasant so close to her skin--

At Sedna's mention of having a different situation from hers, Nembus' shoulders slumped just a bit, and this time, it wasn't because she was comforted. Right. She had had connections on the other side. Nembus had never run into anyone who recognized her. No one had ever said, oh hey, look, it's Nembus. No one had known what she once was, except for, perhaps, Marcasite. No one who could tell her what had gotten severed from her. No one who would cheer her coming back, as it were.

But Eurydike had been nice to her too, she noted. Just because he hadn't known her before she was corrupted didn't mean he was hostile. Perhaps it ultimately wouldn't matter if she just kept ... reaching out.

"Oh, speaking of that bottle nonsense, I ran into Genbu," offered Nembus, chuckling lightly. "Not to change the subject. But she said Seiryuu and her were good. Asked about you too. I told her you were okay." At this, Nembus squeezed her hand again. "Didn't mention the sideswap thing, but I guess you can if you ever run into her."

Seeing as she seemed to be part of Eurydike's circle, it was definitely possible Sedna would end up seeing Genbu again, in Nembus' opinion.

"But ah," Nembus turned to the side, sighing lightly. "I don't have any of those people who knew me who cared about me, I think." She wished she did. She wished she had people like Sedna. She wished she could take them and possess them and-- "I'm gonna have to start from scratch."

She had done the same with some of her Chaos allies. She had done the same with Stillwaterite herself.

"But I guess that's no different than anything else in my eight months of life."

Sedna seemed surprised by the mention of Genbu and Seiryuu, and Nembus shot her a small smile at that. Other people on the side of Order that at least cared about Sedna's well-being. Having people on both sides that cared.

That must have been nice.

She felt a twinge of jealousy again, but she softly reminded herself that Genbu had talked to her in the first place. That was something they both had.

"I've got you," and she meant that, no matter how little that encompassed.

Maybe it encompassed more now, with her being promoted.

Nembus jumped a bit when the squeeze was returned, seemed even more surprised when she was pulled on a bit. She turned her gaze up to Sedna's face, wide as her blue eyes were for just a moment. Did she say something wrong? She probably said something wrong. She did that a lot. She had managed to hurt Vitriol by getting awkward, she knew. She always felt like she was walking on eggshells in her conversations to figure out what was appropriate, and it was getting easier, but sometimes she misstepped when she didn't realize one thing could be taken another way and--

Wait.

Sedna and Stillwaterite were the same. But they also weren't.

They weren't the same anymore, in the same way Nembus and Sedna weren't the same. Sedna wore white. She worked with Order. She carried an axe and dusted tiny angry youma like that monster in front of her. But most importantly, she was over there.

In spite of herself, Nembus bawled, burying her head in Sedna's chest.