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The flicker of the broken street lamp was doing nothing for Castor’s vision. Shadows moved in hazy images in the night fog and the light scratch of claws on pavement echoed in the silent dead place known as Destiny City. More specifically, Destiny City Park. Castor has heard the scream of an older man and by the time he’d arrived, it had been just moments to late. The body was still warm, but the light was gone, his life stolen. His starseed taken. Castor felt a sting of pity for the man, homeless and left to fend in the cold and wet spring night, but his pity didn’t last long. The youma that had gotten to him was still on the prowl, and from the energy signal being given off, it wasn’t something small and weak. It was on the move, and if it was as strong as the signal Castor was getting, it would attack again and soon.
Running into the fog after it had been a bad idea, but it had to be done, there just was no other way. And now, the sounds, or lack of sound, was putting him on edge. What was worse?

The spot where the youma had lead him to was their spot. The one where dreams had become real. Hope had welled in his heart, right next to love. It was their spot. The place he’d told her he loved her. The first one he’d loved. The first true one he regret breaking the heart of. Their spot. Their bench. The place where everything had gone to heaven and then descended into hell. It reeked of a negaverse plan, but it was too late to back out now. The silence was staggering, and when the lamp flicked the whip of the youma’s tail, caught his leg, knocking him down, the chimera youma jumping into view. Snake tail, head of a bat, body of a panther, and colored darker then the night sky. It reeked of dark energy and Castor hardly had time before it dived for him, the cry of his attack, fist raised.

Contact. The beast screamed as he did, one of it’s claws connecting in revenge, but his own attack had broken it’s leg, cause it to crumple on landing. Hissing, Castor could feel the blood running down his arm. It wasn’t deep thankfully, and it would heal in a day or so. But the battle had to end now. His super attack, a wide area, the shards of deadly ice came down and the youma gave it’s death cry and then like that, faded into dust, blowing away effortlessly in to wind.

What hadn’t faded was the energy. Someone powerful was watching him. Castor didn’t want to contemplate just who.
“So, is this it then?”

“Please, don’t.” Her voice. It was her voice saying those words to him. The memory of her face floated in his mind. The golden honey eyes, the blue shade of her hair, a halo of color around her delicate features. “Don’t. She died. Are you so cruel to use her against me, even now?” Her death was a break in his heart, and with the recent recovery of Audrey, Castor thought he was ready to set the past behind him. But how could he? His heart had all but broken and shattered when he’d been given the evidence of her death, and when faced with loosing Audrey, he’d almost given up. But Audrey had returned. Linarite was dead. She had to be, or else he could never move on.

And at the sound of booting hitting the bench, he didn’t dare look. But when he did-his expression went from saddened to pained. His head shook. “You can’t be alive.” His hand reached into his pocket, gripping the earring he’d given her. The proof Taranis had given him of her death. “How?” He brought the earring into view, voice rising. “He killed you! He killed you because I couldn’t!” He watched her reaction, hoping this was some trick. She couldn’t still be alive. She couldn’t be. She had to be dead. “I couldn’t kill you, I had become too invested. Too involved.” He hated this feeling. “I hated the fact I couldn’t stop myself from feeling for you.”

All the loss, al the pain in his heart was coming back. He thought he’d locked those feeling away, that they could wither and die. “I felt a lot of things Lina! God I felt-“ He tried to find the words inside of him. Castor deeply wanted to say it, to say he never stopped loving her. Not even when he loved Audrey did he ever stop loving her as well. It wasn’t fair to them, to either of them. But his heart was torn. He loved them both. And it broke his heart.
Each description of what she had suffered, what she had endured…all because of him. Of his love. Love, that word of four letters that had driven him to the edge of hell and back. The word that wholly encompassed just what he had to blue haired general. Castor loved Linarite, and not even death, real or fake, had managed to break his heart from that emotion, no matter how hard he’d tried.
“I wanted you to hate me. Hate me enough so when we reached our end there would be no regret, no pain. But I failed.” He’d fail not only himself, but her. And it had done nothing more the cause them the very pain he wished to spare them from. Heartbreak.
“You’re right Lina.” That name, the nickname he had once whispered in shadows softly, wishing so hard to have the power to change it. Change everything. His face hardened from the soft expression of forgotten love. He moved forward, fist curled, ready, attacking. His dream was just that, a dream.
“This is the end game.” To give her a world free of darkness.
“I can’t love you anymore!” To give her a world where they could have been together.

He wanted to scream back at her. Tell it was a lie. All a lie crafted to break both their hearts, to let them both live, if in but an empty shell. He had always loved her. He’d loved before he’d even know that it was love he felt, and not just lust. He’d loved her to the point when she turned from him he’d felt loss so painful it burned. He loved her to the point it could have killed him. He loved her even when he’d been told to kill her. Even as he’d forced out lies, openly trashing her, begging, praying for her hate.
He’d never stopped loving her.
Pain blossomed as her strikes connected. Doubling over, he managed to grab her staff, allowing him to upright and not become totally prone. “If I didn’t love you then why Lina?” He bit back the pain, swallowed it, used it as rage to fuel his strength. “If I didn’t love you then why am I here now?” As they danced, his grip on the staff didn’t waiver. “Why would I have cried for you if not out of love?” A twist, and the staff was thrown into the fog, his fists swinging widely. “I never stopped loving you! Not since the beginning! I always loved you!” Tangled, he hissed at her. “Even now I can’t stop myself from loving you Linarite.”

“I wanted you to hate me!” He grunted, a punch landing where the youma had cut him. “I wanted you to hate me, hate me enough so no one could question you, so you could fight me. You had to be able to hate me! Goddamn it.” Nothing worked like he planned. Nothing was going like it should. “I’m here because I’m supposed to fight. I’m supposed to protect. I-“
It burned him. It burned deeper then he remember. The blinding pain that came with having someone reaching in and touching his starseed. He didn’t want death. Not like this. Grabbing her hand he tried to hang on to prevent the seed’s removal. Once it was gone so was he. His life would be nothing. The name Castor would mean nothing. Audrey would wake up alone. Marlo would be left behind trying to run a company once owned by his hateful uncle. All of the people that mattered he’d be leaving behind with death. Audrey, the other woman, the innocent in all of this. She deserved better than him. She deserved better.
Struggling, Castor reached out. His free hand found blue, pulled it close. Why, why was this their fate? Why couldn’t they have been born just like everyone else? Why could they simply have been? So many questions. The feeling was known even through the blinding pain. The touch of her lips, the faintest kiss. A last goodbye. “I saved people everyday.”He was struggling to hold on, his free hand falling, unable to hold up. “But I couldn’t save you.” He gasped, pain intensifying. “I wanted to-to give you that world.” Why did it hurt? Why did this have to hurt so much? “I wanted to give you the world where we could have been together.”

“I love you.”

He wanted to cry. Rip to world apart with the injustice of it all. He’d been told what he was doing, what he fought for would save them, all of them. So why, could none of his power save her? Why, in the face of the very force that had supposedly been what drove the senshi into being on earth fighting, couldn’t save a single person he cared for? What was love doing, if only causing so much pain? Castor saw Audrey in his mind. She didn’t know about this side of him, she never could. Not until he was dead, or the darkness was vanquished. Audrey loved Elzo. Linarite loved Castor. And both men loved them in return. What was love? It was pain, it was sacrifice, it was nothing and it was everything. It was gave him the strength when he had none. It was hope. It was also this. Forgiveness. Just as she forgave him, he forgave her. Or as he’d told her, he had nothing to forgive her for. She was. He loved her, despite her faults. Despite her position. He loved her.
“Don’t be sorry.” Her grip on his life loosened, it was all he needed.
“Never be sorry for loving.” His free hand curled into a fist. “Just forgive me.” His fist swung.

There were two types of pain Castor had known. One he’d known since he’d first had the ability to recall memories of the past. That was physical pain. It was universal. No one could be spared physical pain forever. It was something he’d encountered almost everyday in one form or another. It was simple pain. It didn’t need thought or feeling. It just was.
The second pain was emotional. He’d know that from childhood as well. Rejection from family, from friends, from the world. He’d felt it. He’d known it best with her. With Linaritie. She’d shown him how much pain love could be. How much pain three simple words could create, even now. She had cause him so much pain, so why did he hesitate? Why, even after she had cause him so much pain, both physical and emotional, couldn’t he end it? Why couldn’t he just simply kill her?

He loved her.

And no matter all the pain, it was her salvation. Love was her final defense against him. Love saved her from himself. But watching her cry, begging for death showed him what he thought was the darkest, most painful part of love. Sacrifice. Sacrifice he was unable to give. A sacrifice he didn’t want to accept but had to, for them both. “Forgive me.” Then just when his heart hung by the single thread of love, of thinking that with this act it could end, he found the end of the pain didn’t come with the end of life. The end was watching it happen. It was watching the magic fade away, watching the glamour vanish. And the honey gold eyes the haunted him turned out to be the same eyes he woke up just that morning, filled with love. The darkest part of pain was watching the blue curls of the woman he had to kill turn into tangles of blue belonging to the woman he planned to marry in just a few months.
The single thread broke under strain. Castor in the single moment knew the ultimate pain. Knowing that he had to kill everything he loved. Everything he’d ever fought for, every emotion, every conflicted feeling was for nothing.
He’d never find that happiness. He’d never get to marry Audrey Collins. He’d never get to take her to the beach like he promised. Never get wake up to her face each morning. Never get to hold her each night, telling her how much he loved her. Never. Watching her accept it, waiting for it.Love caused so much pain.
But it had given so much in return. All the small joys he’d taken for granted. Every memory of her. Of them. Love had shown him just what he fought for. His fist lowered as he pulled Audrey into his arms. Whispering into her ear. “I swore I would never leave your side Audrey.” He held her as close as he could. This was the end. And he knew it. He couldn’t face a world without by side. He couldn’t live a world without her. She was his reason for fighting, she was his reason for fighting. She was his everything. The magic was in him and it began to focus above the forbidden couple. “I love you Audrey, I always have. A smile his signature smile. The one she woke up to each morning. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you that world I promised. But I won’t leave you I never will leave you alone. I’ll be by your side, always.”
This was the end.

The voice came as a shock, jolting him from calling out from the attack that would have ended everything All the pain, the sorrow, the suffer. The attack that would have ended with two bodies, bloody, broken and cold. The final attack, the one that would signal the end of their love and the warmth it had given them. The girl had a stange look about her. Powerful. Regal. ******** if he knew just what was going on anymore but when he saw her eyes Castor couldn’t turn away. The question felt like a vice. How could he prove she deserved a gift? Metallia was the darkness was it not? What lay behind the negaverse. For it to grow in power as a price- The vice lessened as blue eyes turned to look into golden brown. Reaching into his pocket he pulled it out. The tiny beaded charm she’d made him. The one he usually kept hidden, out of sigh. Tonight he’d pulled it out, no rhyme or reason. It just felt like the thing to do.

“I can’t.” The words came before he could think about them, about what he was saying. “I can’t prove anything. All I can prove is how far I am willing to go, how much I’m willing to give.” He brought the charm between them, putting her hand to his heart. “I can’t prove anything, because that night when she placed her hand over my heart, she proved to me that she was just as human as I was. And each time after she proved she could love me just as much as I loved her. She proved to me with each kiss, each smile that what we had was real, that no matter how much darkness was inside of her, she could still love me. No matter what I said, no matter what I did, she loved me just as much as I loved her.”
Looking back to Cosmos, Castor face was set.

“She tried to kill me, yet failed each time. She faced her comrades and was hurt because she loved me. She risked her own life because she couldn’t stop loving me. You ask if I can prove she deserves a gift? That if you do whatever it is you plan to do, Metallia will grow in power?” Blue eyes locked onto violet. “I can’t prove anything she hasn’t already proven herself. All I can do is fight. If this will mean Metallia gets strong then I’ll find a way to get stronger. She proved herself a million times already. All I can prove is how far I can go for her in return.”