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Ransomite had no interest in murder, thankfully.

There were very few things that motivated him on patrol, these days, or to even do the patrol in the first place. Instinct, to some degree. Duty. To the Negaverse, yes, but also his team, and more specifically to his general. Safety. For himself, to keep attention off himself, to avoid any questions as to why he was being derelict in his duties, but also for the three men he considered his husbands. If he started to be troublesome, perhaps they would go after them. Perhaps they would go after Zebulon in particular, who had already crossed paths with and even briefly raised the interest of a general.

It did, unfortunately, mean he was out for a reason and had a small ball of energy in his subspace pocket to show for it. He had extracted it from a club-goer that had been interested in him. Ransomite had left him drowsy, not knocked out, and that was good enough for him.

He was en route to another club, hoping to scrape enough off the top of attendees that he could go back to the rectory with minimal guilt when she interrupted him. She, a member of the White Moon, who was much more powerful than him and making him suck in a breath of unease.

Except she was just waving, and saying hi, and she seemed non-hostile, and she seemed familiar.

Very familiar.

"Hey," he took a deep breath and tried his best to seem nonthreatening. "Is there something I can do for you? And--do I know you?"

'--back then, it was Sylvite.'

Sylvite.

Sylvite.

Ransomite felt the wind rush out of him, leaving his mouth to open and close ineffectively once or twice before he could get his composure back. He had not heard from Sylvite in enough time to make him nervous, in enough time to make him worried. In enough time for people to start whispering.

This answered a question or three, he realized dully. It wasn't that Ransomite was unfamiliar with the ability to turn to the White Moon side of things. But he had seen what had happened in the park, how quickly those that did were ripped away or apart. It felt too dangerous. The Negaverse had whole dossiers on people. What stopped them from seeking revenge for traitors? Did people risk their families by turning to the White Moon?

There was a dull ache in Ransomite's stomach and a knot in his throat that he couldn't quite put a name to. But, he didn't get the chance to ponder the concept much further, not when he couldn't help watching her staff and feeling the ramifications of its presence work their way into his mind. She had seemed endlessly loyal to the Negaverse, at least in front of him. In fact, she was one of the reasons--one of the only reasons, sometimes--he felt he could justify his presence in the Negaverse.

"General Sylvite." The name sounded wrong as soon as he breathed it. "You left." He looked back to her staff, a note of uneasiness he tried not to show. What would she do, now? What did it mean, now? How long did he have until she decided that talking to him was beyond the limits of what she'd be willing to entertain? She didn't seem to recognize him.

That didn't help the dull ache in his stomach. Of course she had left. Why bother speaking the obvious?

"I suppose this is why you haven't asked for a check-in recently." He rubbed the back of his neck uneasily. "I was your subordinate. We were working on how theology related to the Negaverse's aims and goals." How theology could justify what they did.

Did this mean she'd decided after all that there was no true justification?

Her response to his use of her old name made his stomach flop over and his heart sink. Swallowing, he offered an awkward, utterly inadequate, "sorry, Nectaris. Won't do it again." Her old name had sounded wrong the moment he had said it, but acknowledging her new name sounded just as bitter, if for a different reason. Why did he care? She was the enemy now, wasn't she? Worse, a traitor? Should he not be reporting her? Ransomite didn't think for a moment he could actually bring her in himself, so it was probably safer not to try that, anyway, right?

Right?

Her frank admission that she'd left did surprise him, but it wasn't anything compared to the broader situation as a whole, and it wasn't exactly helping him find his footing. Ransomite did not like being off-center, and her attesting to being tricked into joining the Negaverse in the first place didn't help. Tricked? Tricked how?

That flop of his stomach was still trying to settle as she admitted to the Negaverse torturing people--something he somehow didn't find terribly surprising, because of course they did. Was that not what turning humans into monsters was? Into demons? Stealing that right and power from the one person who should have had the right and ability to make that kind of determination about people's souls?

He could still see the aftermath in front of him of someone who had used to be a person--

Had Ransomite been tricked? It had been a while ago, but he could remember General Zircon approaching him and telling him there was a real, concrete way to save the world. Complimenting, complementing his religious nature. Was that a trick, too, or was he just an idiot for believing her?

At the same time, his eyes darted to Nectaris' staff and stayed there for an uneasy moment. Did she consider him among the torturers? She could probably impale him with that staff. Would she?

Would he not deserve it, at least for the role he'd played in supporting those going against God, even if he, himself, did not take starseeds-- He cleared his throat with a harsh grating noise. "We did not eat souls," which sounded like a narrow justification for something that he was deeply uncomfortable with and one of the cruxes of their conversation. "I do not. I know they are offered as methods of healing," by consumption, "or quota gathering," for their machine's eventual consumption. He remembered the two starseeds that glittered between Adonis' fingers as he held them out to Sylvite. He had done his best to ignore them, but it did no good and the glittering felt as hollow as fool's gold--

"You had another subordinate who defected before you." Ransomite shifted his weight from one foot to the other, a desperate attempt to mask the growing knot in his stomach, a sick feeling that grew the more he stayed in her presence. "I'm sorry, you didn't tell me his name. He left, though; he felt the need to repent for his sins. Teshuvah, you told me." Perhaps that might help her find him on the other side. Perhaps it would protect them both from the dangers of defection.

Even explaining their purpose and his project felt ridiculous, now.

"It is arguable that the Negaverse is violating God's Will." Because he had said her directly to her before, even if she couldn't recall it, it did not feel like a violation to repeat that. "But in scripture, there are arguments that may contradict that argument and help soothe others who may want to purify for similar reasons. I was collecting them."

Had collected several. She had taken them down.

It hadn't been enough.

He had been an idiot--

Every word out of Syl--Nectaris' mouth was a jarring confirmation that she couldn't remember a thing, and the sinking feeling it brought in his gut suggested that, maybe, that was for the best. It obviously made it easier to separate herself from the Negaverse, from what they'd told her. It made it easier for her to point the flaws in the Negaverse's reasoning with a sharp incisiveness that cut at the doubts already in the back of his own mind.

Made it harder for him to swallow the words he'd been expected to understand, believe, follow.

Perpetuate.

"You were interested in religion, but from more of a conceptual standpoint than from any kind of personal belief." The clarification felt right, proper. "You'd wanted to know what it was that made people act the way they do in the name of it. You were more interested in the words themselves than the Word."

What was he more interested in?

Nevermind that right now.

"And what of it made the Negaverse so intolerable that they'd rather leave and lose their entire identity than stay in it."

Was it that intolerable for him?

Nevermind that. Was it safe to tell her that he was a priest? He wanted to believe that Nectaris wasn't any more the type of person to use that against him than Sylvite, as small as he felt in her presence. He stole a glance of admiration for the way she stood strong with her staff before his stomach threatened to turn itself entirely inside out.

What she said made him feel even smaller. She wasn't wrong, and that was the worst part. Everything she said was correct. He took a deep breath and let it out as a heavy sigh.

"They do. Frequently, even. People have used the Word to justify any number and kind of monstrosities in the name of a God they claim to honor with their actions." Ransomite reached down in himself, steeling himself, forcing his heart rate to slow down before it could start affecting more outward signs like his breathing and posture. Was that what he'd been doing in their talks? He'd set out to approach it without doing the same abhorrent thing, but he remembered how uncomfortable he had been.

For a moment, it wasn't Nectaris and her weapon he was worried about, but retribution of a more divine nature. Though, God worked in mysterious ways. Would it not be fitting to have it be Nectaris--

Her followup question gave him a way out of the spiral that train of thought was threatening to go down. "No." The answer to that was easy. "I'm not mad at you for leaving. I couldn't be. I'm just," he thought about it for a moment, "surprised. I suppose I never suspected you'd leave."

A pause, but only for a split second while he got up the courage to say what came next, or was it to prevent stopping himself from saying it?

"I thought you might have had misgivings, so I can see the reason you left." Unspoken aloud, but what he fervently hoped was communicated in that glimpse of sympathy was, 'but no more than I'd had'.

The senshi's body twisting, warping, into the body of a demon--

"Neither one of us liked the way the Negaverse works with youma."

Ransomite did as he was told.

He waited.

"Technically, yes, I suppose." He sighed heavily, casting his eyes upward for a long moment. Ransomite gazed up into the sky, then ventured, "but at the same time... I don't know that I'd say you were trying to justify the bad things you were doing." It struck him as curious that he wasn't contesting that they were bad, these actions carried out under the Negaverse's central dogma. "I think you genuinely wanted to know." He turned his eyes back to her. "You weren't taking advantage of me or anyone else, or my faith. At least, no more than anyone else. I think..."

He paused to choose his next words with utmost care and precision.

"I got the feeling you were hoping, more than anything." Hoping there was something there to justify it, maybe not to him, but maybe to herself. The same as he, himself, did.

How could he blame her for that?

There was sympathy in his eyes, though he reflexively buried it back down, knowing that showing the enemy--no, not her, never her--sympathy was dangerous. "So you lost your family and friends, then, too." An ache in the center of his chest as he thought about what if, what if he no longer remembered his friends, his family? Sister Gail?

The other three? What if their faces and names disappeared from his memory? The thought of it made the ache in his chest intensify and form a lump in his throat. He spoke carefully around it, doing his best to conceal it in the thickness of his voice. To conceal the thickness of his voice. "I hope, sincerely, that it's worth it."

The 'for you' hung unsaid in the air, unsaid and incomplete. 'For you'.

'For me'.

Ransomite felt like a scolded cat, and he ducked his head briefly. He cleared his throat, debating what to tell her as he shoved his composure back into place. "I, well," he paused, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I don't know, I don't think about it much. I try not to power up if I don't feel like I have to." Then, as if he felt he had to justify himself, "and I don't take starseeds. Just energy, when I have to."

When the higher-ups looked too closely at him, when even his being in Infiltration didn't do much to save him from falling short of quotas. When he couldn't afford them to be looking at him too closely, lest the other three get involved somehow. He could still remember the way Prehnite had talked about Zebulon. Would Zebulon make a good agent? Probably. Did Ransomite want Zebulon to become an agent?

No.

Hell no.

And why is that?

...Well. "I'm not justifying it," and that sounded pathetic even to his own ears. "I don't like it..."

'It's evil, I promise.'

'Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil--' If he didn't like it, then why was he doing it? "But I have too much dependent on this." He knew what the Negaverse did to traitors. There was no shortage of stories. He'd even seen first-hand. What would happen if he decided he didn't want to do it anymore?

Going to the house where the other three lived, walking inside, why is the smoke alarm going off? What is that smell? Where are the other three, their cars in the driveway? Walking through thickening smoke to the kitchen. Not seeing the pot boiling over on the stove.

Seeing the bodies on the floor--

Ransomite swallowed, trying to keep his face as neutral as possible. "I can't just leave my life behind. My work as a priest is important to me. I can't just disappear." Either into a new identity, the way she had...

Or into an early grave.

'Hail, Mary, full of grace--'

"A lot of people would struggle if I did."

She had a point. With all of it. He ran a hand through his hair. "...Yeah, I know. I just..." But did he? Did he, really? He hadn't known what was going on under the surface of the Negaverse at first, either, but now he certainly did. For all some of the higher-ups tried to rein in the more extreme fringes, taking people's energy and lives was still a crucial part of how the Negaverse operated. It just was.

And he knew damn well he couldn't continue to abide by it. Not when it was something he actively did not want for Zebulon, nor for Dise or Tobias. And if he had to sit there and examine why that was, he knew damn well why that was. And if he had to sit there with the fact that he did not want them in the Negaverse, why, then, was it okay for him to remain in the Negaverse?

Nectaris had shed everything she could to get away from it.

To be honest, she didn't even need to give him the puppy eyes, but they certainly didn't hurt her case. He winced despite himself, the first to break eye contact. "I'll... keep thinking about it. I promise." He took a step back. "Uh, have a good one. Til we see each other again, yeah? Be careful out there."

And then he was gone, slipped away through the shadows and out of sight.

Was he running away?

...Maybe.

Yes.

But her words repeated themselves in his mind. And the promise he'd made to her. It wouldn't be any effort to keep that promise. He already couldn't not think about it. ...What was he supposed to do now? She said he didn't have to choose right then, but it wasn't like he could keep sitting on it, was it?

He was running away, and he wasn't going to be able to keep running away. The issue was now in active pursuit and wasn't going to give him peace until it caught him and forced him to act. He knew this.

...Ransomite needed to make sure he wasn't forced to act, that anything he did was on his own time and under his own agency...

But that meant--

...Yeah.

Yeah, it did.