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"You haven't demanded one," he said, and his voice was oddly neutral. Or maybe just odd. Resigned. The torch was passed to her again as he rattled a particularly fragile-looking cell door, but it was stuck fast into the stone and all he did was make a rat squeak in alarm. The rat squeaking was the worst: high-pitched, followed by skittering. "If you did, I'd say 'which.' I've got several. Give me a name and I'll answer to it, Nemesis."

The torch was taken back from her hand. "Not 'dude'," he amended shortly, and got back to work.

He'd given her a Look when she persisted with dude, but otherwise she was given the best seat in the house when it came to staring at his back all day long. His coat flared out in two tails behind him, a bit like a man's suit jacket. "Blue and black hair," he said. "Blue and black skirts. Decay. You said it yourself attacking me." Tap, tap, tap. The drone of their footsteps was unbearable. "You think you live in some kind of vacuum, living, fighting, nobody catching your goddamn name? It's not rocket science."

The shape of his impatience was a little more familiar now. "Look at me. What am I wearing? What can you tell?"

"White is good. Yes." She'd gotten something right. He still sounded terse -- they stopped as he held the torch up to another cell, the walls deeply scored with tallymarks. Hundreds and hundreds of days. Some poor prisoner had stayed in there longer than anyone should have, though now there was no sign of them at all. "The Negaverse don't wear white. Trust your instincts here. If it's wearing white and not a senshi, what is it?"

Dude didn't answer her question. Then who told you? He seemed more intent on how the colours of things told you The More You Know! factoids, but he sounded as though this was incredibly important. Dude had revealed himself to not be a frivolous man. Not one joke cracked, not one word minced.

"Yes," said Dude, and his voice was filled with a dour sort of approval. Nemesis was two points up. "Cavalier, the knights of Prince Endymion. Their weapon's the rapier. Only the Captain carries the knight's sword -- a cutting blade. Be grateful you missed the days where you would've been on the receiving end."

There was something strangely empty in him as he described it, a moment of animation followed by weird blankness. Dude said, "Colour's rank and name. Pale blue for the Captain, gold for his second. Green and red for the other Shitennou." The iron tongs scraped briefly against the wall, and he paused at another torch as though contemplating a swap. "Six cavaliers swore to Queen Beryl when their Prince trothed with an enemy Princess. Kunzite, Nephrite, Zoisite, Jadeite. Charonite. Consider why I'm giving you a history lesson."

At the end of the cell block they were in, there appeared to be a solid wooden door, locked and barred. The other end was a blank stone wall. If nothing else was clear, it was clear they were trapped in this cell block, with nothing but two rows of cells and a door promising anything other than further imprisonment.

Nemesis stopped.

The fact that she stopped annoyed her, and coupled with him putting off her question she was one irritated senshi. She held the torch tightly in one hand and fought the urge to ask him to stop directing everything. Later she would do it. Right now, she needed to get through that door. Damon wasn't here, he was in none of the cells that lined the walls, and he wasn't huddled in some dark corner, nor trapped inside one of the iron maidens (she had checked warily once or twice). The only option for her was to get through that door and to the other side, and she would be damned if anything kept her from getting out of this closed area.

"Which one are you?" she pressed on, despite how she knew he was hunched over with his ear against the door, probably listening for something. Nemesis doubted he would hear anything. "I'm right, aren't I? I thought all of them were gone, or something, except Kunzite and Charonite... I think that's them, Kunzite definitely." She had picked up a small amount of information, but for the most Nemesis had simply been doing what she thought she should do. If something felt right, she did it, be it fighting Negaversers off of defenseless civilians, or youma too. What information she had retained from her briefing when she was first awakened, and later that huge senshi meeting, could be inaccurate. It wouldn't be that surprising.

Dude raised his ear away from the door and pressed against the wood, running his fingers down the grain. The door looked in much better nick than every other door they'd come into contact with. This was good; it meant other people; but this was also annoying in that the one door they wanted to open looked as thoough it might be a problem.

"Guess," was all he said to her. "You've guessed enough so far."

Finally Dude tried the handle, wrapping one gloved hand around it and pushing it down.