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Eliza was alive again, she was alive and she was a knight! She had magic. Despite being in a battle excitement ensued. She was dressed in such color, such lovely fabric and she could help but to smooth her fingers of the fabric.

She was however reminded that this was a battle when she was brought to her knees by the dark energy and then it seemed it was over and she was literally tossed falling bottoms up in the atrium in Chronos.

She untangled herself from another and reached out to help pull her up. She looked like she was in a lot of pain.

"Are you okay?"

Maia excepted the hand so that she could be pulled to her feet and nodded when the knight asked if she was okay. "I have seen worse days," she said softly, "it will be okay."

Eliza nodded and watched as the other turned seemingly looking for something or maybe someone.

((Its so late, night all))

Bismuthite had been off having his own skirmishes with senshi and the like, and now it seemed like the fighting was drawn to a halt. And he unceremoniously flopped on his a**, breathing hard, but coming under control. He had exerted himself, but really hadn't stood out. He had done his duty. No more, no less. He'd drawn blood, and bled. It wasn't the first time his silver hair had been made sticky and tinged with red, granted a good bit of it was his own.

He couldn't help but be frustrated. He had never considered himself average. No~ far from it in fact. But his skill on the battle field was proving nothing miraculous. Obviously the beginners luck he'd had in Elysion had worn off.







---





Bellatrix was thankful for the pause in the battle, but she wasn't taking the time to rest. She had to find Themis, and then she had to get a hold of herself because damn was she having an emotional crisis right now. The civilians - the ones that hadn't been 'awakened', anyhow, were dead and the senshi had failed them. That more than anything had the Eternal Senshi worked up. Add to that her entire neutrality stance was kinda of rendered null and void. Now she had much to reassess, and no time to sit down and mull it over....

"What?" Move her.. oh. "Right." Carefully she did what he asked, and then very slowly at up with the help of her hand curling around his shoulder for support. Any hostility he may have been projecting at her was absolutely lost on the poor girl at this point in time, her priorities more inline with willing the room to stop spinning around uncomfortably.

She'd never had a head injury before, and she was very happy for it. Apparently they sucked, big time. Gingerly she touched two fingers against the back of her head, feeling for the lump she was positive must be forming there.

"Sorry about the rough landing, I'm not really sure what happened." Near victory, lights, ???, head cracking against a rib and rough landing on one of her fellow dark mirror senshi. She frowned, trying to recall what exactly had happened, but gave up after a moment and pushed herself to her feet before offering her hand down to the young man she'd flattened.

A glance around as he turned and shifted on the ground, he was not sitting up let alone standing up. His head hurt from impact with the Great Youma and he was tired. "Think the youma would like a starseed?" A question to anyone who'd like to answer. He didn't pull the aforementioned item from his pocket, even as he wiggled on the ground to get comfortable, planning to attempt some sleep. They couldn't leave here, that much was obvious, and if fighting broke out again it couldn't be done whilst tired, or over tired.

Hiding a yawn, with a sleeve of his coat, the blond brushed his hair from his face and scrubbed at his face. A few areas on his face felt a little tight, like something sticky was drying on his skin. Unknowingly, he was brushing the blood droplets off his face. For a brief moment he wondered how many had died during this battle, how many on both sides. He knew he'd killed at least one - a senshi. He wanted to think on it but he knew that would be bad, it would ruin him for anything which may happen while stuck here in space. So once again he pushed thoughts to the back burner, he'd think on things when it was all over. He just hoped with some sleep the pain in his head would stop, that when he woke he wouldn't feel like s**t. He didn't even think about food, an obvious problem to come when they all woke; assuming they all would go to sleep.

(If you wanna interact with a sleepy Beni, answer his question or anything else, just quote me. I'm turning in.)

Darn, if she was a little faster, she could have thought of a line like that. Not that it was a competition, of course. That would be silly and immature. As she relaxed muscles that had been tight with focus, Sugilite tried to ignore the waves of pain that throbbed up her arms and legs. She had taken a beating, there was no doubt. It took her iron self control to keep her hand steady as it brushed hair out of her face and back into place in her bun.

"Well it was quite gracious of them to give us all this space to regroup and relax in, not to mention remove any chances of more cheeky little knights popping up like rabbits."

Again, using all her meticulous self control, Sugilite pulled up a bit of rubble and sat down as though it didn't hurt all over when she breathed. She looked over the fallen enemys and allies, wondering if perhaps there were still any starseeds around. She could really use another pick-me-up, before the fighting started again. A cold compress, at the least. It did seem that she'd let herself go, and when she had time, she would be appropriately embarrassed. Thankfully for now, no one had noticed. Or was commenting. She closed her eyes, and let herself relax.

It was... quiet. Relatively quiet. It was calm, and it was still. People were moving around him, allies, but their voices seemed garbled and far-off. He was looking for someone, and until he found her, the rest of them didn't matter; they mattered, of course, in the same manner that all of the civilians who had died mattered, but they didn't matter until he found her. He could grieve for the civilians once he was certain she was all right. He could blame himself then, he could sit with her at his side and he could take stock of what had happened, could begin to think of how they could progress. He could find Chronos, and he could make certain that she was all right. He could talk to the other senshi, the knights, and he could introduce himself to the new Knights of Chronos. He would do all of that, in due time, after he found her.

Of course he'd seen her go over the edge. In the heat of battle, he'd tried to keep an eye on her, even if that only meant scanning the battlefield whenever he had a breath of a moment, looking for her familiar shape and form. Seeing her locked in battle with someone her equal in strength -- if not her better, likely her better -- had not rested easily on him, but he trusted her. He knew she would be all right. He trusted that she would be fine. She'd promised.

And then she'd gone over the side, and still he trusted. She could come back. Whenever she liked, she could come back; she just had to phone back, she just had to gain her bearings and return. Logically, it would only be a matter of time until she arrived. That was why he was pacing the floor, walking between fallen comrades without so much as offering a hand to any who needed assistance. He was searching their faces, his mask long gone, violet eyes unfocused and darting quickly to and fro; they seemed to say no, not you and nevermind, you aren't who I want each time they passed over a face.

She had to be there. He knew it.

"Virgo?" He called, his voice steady, strong. Leo rarely held command in his tone, but as he repeated her name, his voice carried above the murmurs of the assembled. "Virgo? Has anyone seen Virgo?"

From somewhere across the way, a bodiless voice called back, "She went over the side!"

He balled his hands into fists at his sides, spit gathering in his mouth, dread furling in his stomach. He ignored the voice, beginning to stalk across the pretty marbled floor, resuming his search.

"Virgo!" This time, there was a desperate pitch to his voice. She was here, somewhere. She had to be. She was coming back to him.

She had to be coming back.

"Virgo, where the <********> are you?" He demanded, no longer caring that there was an audience; no longer noticing them. There was a strange look on his face, misshapen and scarred as it was; his eyes were unfamiliar, hard. Panic was there, certainly, but there was something else flirting with the corner of his mouth, tightening his jaw, peeling back his lips.

It was anger.

She couldn't do this to him. Not Virgo. The universe couldn't do this to him. Not after all that he'd lost already.

He'd died for them. He'd died for all of them. His body had been incinerated, his bones charred and turned to dust. He'd shot himself in the head. He'd lost, too, he'd lost Sagittarius, he'd lost Jude -- he'd lost his Captain, he'd lost teammates, he'd lost years of his life --

He'd lost so much, they couldn't take her as well.

They could not take Virgo from him as well.

Unbeknownst to Leo, he had stopped moving, his chest rising and falling heavily, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. His face was flushed, his eyes were far away and distracted.

Soldier Leo was not coping well.

The feline coughed. The dust had managed to find its way into the manx's throat. However, when the child offered her quiet apology, she let out a small dry laugh.

"...apologies all around, Hygiea..." Carefully, she licked the child's arm before she gave her orange-haired senshi some directions.

"...I think we still need to find your teammates... keep an eye out for Iris or Irene... I don't know if you've met Eunomia yet... but she is here too..." The two she had found had managed to abandon the place where she had left them, making it much harder on the cat-and-child pair when it came to reuniting with them.

~

"F*ck... my... life..."

A yellow suited senshi was definitely stating aloud what pretty much every senshi and knight was probably thinking. The senshi casually pushed whoever might have been piled on her away, glancing through the small pile up to see if she recognized any of the faces.

Nope. Not Eunomia, not Irene, not Hygiea.

Rather than pay much mind to the others who had piled on top of her initially, the blonde glanced around. "...place got trashed..." she grunted out. Sailor Iris was pretty good at stating the obvious. Rather than try to dwell over things that had bothered her during the battle and what was bothering her now, she began to trudge along.

It almost seemed as if the Senshi of Rainbows had woken up groggy and was on her way to find herself something to wake herself up. It would have been an incorrect assessment. "...where th'f*ck are they?"

Every second that she didn't return felt like a personal betrayal. Virgo had promised. They'd talked about this, about how she always risked herself, unnecessarily -- and perhaps it had been necessary this time, somewhat, but -- she was the shield. She was the shield. She wasn't supposed to be on the front lines. She wasn't supposed to grappling with Negaverse officers, throwing herself bodily in harm's way, neglecting the protection of the Princess to wage a war that the rest of the Zodiac fought. She was the goddamn shield.

She was supposed to stay close to the Princess, and she was supposed to protect her. She was supposed to protect herself, protect all of them. Most importantly, she was supposed to stay back; she was supposed to be all right, she was supposed to take their damage and deflect it, she was supposed to --

"Supposed to," he whispered, his words raspy. His tongue flicked out, moving over his lower lip, and it disappeared back inside his mouth. Virgo wasn't supposed to go. Not again. Not like this.

Irrationally, he blamed her. Why hadn't she been with Chronos? Why hadn't she been holding her shield? Why the <********> hadn't she been doing what she was supposed to do, what they talked about, her duty --

Rage was ugly. It blinded him, it welled inside of him like bile and poison. He felt it in his stomach, his chest; his heart hammered against his ribs, his throat went hot and tight. Virgo hadn't done what she was supposed to do, just like he'd talked to her about, and she was gone. She'd been over the edge, and she wasn't back. Not yet. Was she coming back?

Was she even coming back?

How could she do this to him?

His legs were shaking, and he abruptly fell to one knee, the weariness of battle combining with his emotional turmoil and robbing him of the ability to stand. It was good that no one had approached him yet; who know what he would say to them if they did? Would he say anything at all? How could he explain what he felt, what he was coming to believe in his heart even though there was still time?

He didn't want to believe she was dead. He didn't want to believe she'd left him, just as Benny had, as Jude had. He didn't want to think that everything he treasured and held close to him was tainted, marked for death, but what else could he believe? Their lives were a vicious cycle. Grow up, but never grow old; live and protect, serve and sacrifice, and what could they expect from the universe in return?

Violent deaths.

Loss.

Their sacrifice, every time, for a White Moon whose numbers far overwhelmed theirs, and yet they were the ones to fall, one by one, like toy soldiers.

Tears were streaming down his face, his breath coming in short, hiccuping sobs, as he curled a hand into a fist above his heart. Was he sad? He didn't feel sad.

He felt...

"I will..." What? What would he do? It certainly wasn't despair on his face; it was fury.