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She had actually passed the library a couple of minutes before running into the youma.

This particular enemy seemed humanoid, a supernaturally tall and elongated creature that seemed to lack a jawbone. The hole that made up its mouth gaped, and would have provided a clear view down its gullet if she had had the nerve to look. Instead, she kept her eyes on its hands, which ended in sharp nails. It was rather clear how she knew they were sharp; there were three shallow gouges across the back of a thigh. She ducked another swipe, throwing her hands over her head to protect her face.

Sailor Virgo was very relieved she hadn't yet passed Tony; it meant that maybe he was still at the library, or maybe not in the area at all. The latter option seemed infinitely more favorable, since, well, he was squishy and human and she was much more durable. She didn't consider the possibility that he might have left, but simply been too far behind her for her to see him when she glanced over her shoulder.

Probably she should have. The creature shuddered forwards a few steps.

On the good side, she was better at fighting humanoid monsters than tigers. On the bad side, a civilian had just jumped on the youma; its knees buckled but it didn't go down, a kind of strange keening issuing from its throat. (Throat? Did it have a throat? It had a neck, so that would suggest a throat--)

"Nique ta mere," Virgo said, frustrated. She shook her head to clear it of what felt like mental cobwebs. Whatever this monster was, it had more than sharp claws going for it; she had almost dropped her guard at that undulating cry. Then she launched herself forward at the youma; it took a break from trying to catch sight of the man on its back and lashed out again, but this time she managed to slap its wrist away, wrap her fingers around the appendage and yank. It stumbled, her shoulder impacting its chest. "Mr. Darrow!"

It was, in fact, the erstwhile librarian. Frustration vanished to be replaced by sheer panic. "You're going to rip your stitches," she said, her knee slamming into the creature's stomach. Her tone was admirably calm, for being a fifteen-year-old girl fighting a monster a good foot and a half bigger than she was. Then it managed to catch hold of her shoulder with one hand, the bow around her mid-back with the other, and hurl her away. She tumbled, and in an odd parody of last time she'd had to punch out a starseed-eating monster, she rolled head-over-heels a few times before landing on her hands and knees. Whipping her head up, she ordered, "Drop!"

The reason was clear enough; the youma was reaching over its shoulders to grab Tony and send him after Virgo.

The last of their concerns? Mr. Darrow was in danger, the youma was going to catch him and eat his starseed and he would be dead and it would all be her fault! And if he got hurt, it would be her fault for not dusting the youma faster--

She had just gotten to her feet when Tony came flying at her; her hands came up to cushion the impact a little but she didn't have time to brace himself. They went down, hard, and if Virgo hadn't been superpowered she might have been unconscious. Instead, she was dazed for a few moments--enough that the monster was pressing its fingers together to form an awkward pick and raising its arm to strike before she could focus enough to realize there was still danger. Virgo got one arm under her and forced a roll, just in time for the sharp fingernails to slam into the asphalt just where she and Tony had just been.

Although it seemed, luckily, that the fingernails were not indestructible. They had shattered and split to the quick, no longer useful for jabbing, stabbing or anything, really. And the monster had thrown back its head, keening again. "You stay here," she said firmly as she pushed herself up. She was dizzy enough, still, from impacting on her head that her stance was a little unsteady; but she was up, grabbing the creature's wrist and yanking again. Its ribs--so it did have bones--cracked audibly at their reintroduction to Virgo's knee.

It seemed that, with the proper motivation, Virgo was quite good at taking youma apart. The monster's keen turned to an outright inhuman scream as she shoved it away, hard enough that it fell prone.

Normally this would have been where she stepped on its neck and strangled it, but she hesitated, looking over her shoulder to Tony. Killing a tiger monster was different than killing a humanoid creature--she didn't want the librarian to be scared of her...

That urging was all she needed; spurred onward by the fact that it seemed he would not hate her for it, she kicked the monster's arm out from under it and stomped, with a crack, on its skull. The bone shattered under her heel like an eggshell, splattering her with thick black gunk from the knees down. But it accomplished what she needed it to; the monster fell to tiny pieces, then crumbled to dust. Virgo stared at where its skull had been just moments before, looking rather like she was not going to move.

There was a strange tink-tink sound as something gem-shaped and faintly glowing clattered to the ground, among the grains of whatever the monster had been shaped from. She jerked her head to look at them, and then her face contorted. "Oh no," she said, taking the steps over to kneel in the black dirt and gathered up the tiny object. Then, seeming more frantic, she searched through the remnants of the youma; two more of the little objects joined the first. Each of them glowed dully.

Kneeling on the asphalt, she stared at the glowing jewel-shapes, rolled them in her palm. She had, of course, found youma with starseeds in their stomach before. But always, always when there were bodies to whom the starseeds could be returned around--she saw nothing. Had seen nothing. Where had these come from? How could she return them?...

She shook her head and wiped at her eyes, curled her fingers around the objects and stood. "Are you okay, Mr. Darrow?" The petite senshi crossed over next to him, knelt there carefully. "I'm sorry."

"Uh-huh," she said, unfolding her fingers to reveal the youma's treasure. The starseeds rolled about in her palm, making a rather commonplace sound like glasses clinking against each other. "The youma eat them, but they don't." She looked up and down the street, hoping to see an unconscious body or three. Nothing. And hadn't she expected that? Absolutely nothing, no way to save them...

She pushed one starseed towards her fingertips. "They are like your soul," she explained. "Without them, your body is empty. It can't live for very long..." And the time it took for the body to reject its own starseed was very short. How would she know whose starseed was whose?

There weren't any bodies. It didn't matter. She stared at the glowing objects; they were cold, much colder than she would have hoped. One of them began to gutter out. "These must have been taken a while ago." It wasn't fair; she'd failed, and now these people would die.

The senshi shook herself back into the present. Time enough to berate herself later; civilians needed to be helped now. "Do you need a walk home, or the hospital?" She didn't like how unsteady Mr. Darrow looked.

She nodded, solemnly. Not wanting to go to the hospital was an understandable thing, she never wanted to go to the hospital again. Virgo wrapped her fingers up over the starseeds again, flushing dully at the contact between their hands. It seemed sometimes like he might know how she felt, but other times... not so much. She glanced up quickly, then back down to her closed fingers.

"I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head. Talking about things she had done wrong wasn't very high on her to-do list. She had screwed up, not gone fast enough, and now three people were dead. The best she could hope for was that she could keep Mr. Darrow safe. Or at least get him home safe. She hauled herself to her feet and extended her hands to him to help him up. "I'll walk you home. Where there's one monster, sometimes there's more."

After a minute, she added, "And it's not your fault. You have nothing to be sorry for. It's like my papa always says, there is nothing in this world worth your sorrow."

"Sometimes Papa is really smart," she said, shrugging. She had seized the end of the purple bow on her back, and was knotting the starseeds carefully into it in case they happened to run across one or two or all three of the youma's victims. "Sometimes he is dumb. That's how it works. I think that's how it is with most people." The bluenette wrested Tony's briefcase away from him almost immediately; her strength, in this form, was much greater than his, and she wanted to feel a little more useful. She hitched it a little bit higher and hurried to catch up.

Giving him a little bit of a frustrated look, she nodded. She liked Tony, so why wouldn't she keep him safe from the monsters? "I'm okay," she said. It had scratched her, yeah, but she didn't think she was bleeding. She touched her free hand to the back of her thigh, examined her fingers. There wasn't any blood, not that she could see in the dark. "See? I'm okay."

Every so often, one of the starseeds would give off a disconsolate clink. When they did, she would look around as if startled--looking for the bodies, maybe. "Mr. Darrow?" She looked up at him, a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Why aren't you scared?"

She listened, quietly. What Tony was saying made sense--it was why she went out after dark, because she was scared for other people. But she wasn't Tony's responsibility. Everyone in Destiny City, especially good people like Tony, was her responsibility. She switched the briefcase to the other side and wrapped her now-free arm through his. "Don't be," she said, "I will protect you."

Her expression was a little less serene when she looked up at him. "I'm scared." She didn't say it very loud, as if worried someone might hear her. "I'm scared all the time, and I cannot tell Papa or Dad or Pop and not even Maman--" did Virgo have a French accent right then, or was it just his imagination? "--and my brothers, I can't tell them." The Princess had no Opal Crystal, the Captain didn't believe in the Zodiac and sometimes she worried that the Zodiac didn't believe in the Captain, either. Their enemies kept getting stronger and they all just stayed the same.

"Bad things are happening, Mr. Darrow," she said, and she didn't elaborate any further than that.

She did pick back up on a different line of conversation. "I will keep you safe. The meaning of 'senshi' is soldier, and soldiers fight to keep the civilians safe." It sounded like she had put a lot of thought into this, and she had; it was also clear, looking at her, that she meant what she was saying. "So you don't have to be scared."