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Tanzanite was smiling.

It was a small smile, perfectly practiced and so easy to fix on her face by now that it had become second nature.

”Don't forget to smile, and make sure to squint. It'll make it look like you mean it.” Audrey smiled as she helped latch the necklace around Aree's throat. She fixed the small flowers in her hair, and set a reassuring hand on Aree's shoulder as her arm moved to rip them out.

This smile did not reach her eyes. This smile was like a dam, holding back a flood of anger and malice that filled Tanzanite to the brim and seemed always on the verge of breaking through that calm exterior. It widened to reveal sharp teeth, and after a long moment of Tanzanite simply watching, it settled into a closed grin. She bounced a heel against the wall, watching as the senshi and Negaverse slowly dispersed. Some kept up their battles, but Tanzanite spared little attention for them.

“The old days,” She said at last, amusement thick in her tone. Tanzanite laughed, a horrible sound that seemed dominated by the youma's voice. She slid off the edge of the building like a kid might slide into a swimming pool, her wings catching the air and carrying her down in a surprisingly graceful glide. While flight might have been something new to Tanzanite, the wings that bore her were more than familiar with it. Instinct guided Tanzanite now, even as her feet touched down on the asphalt some ten feet from Castor.

In truth, Tanzanite could barely remember a time before her arm. As her human side slowly died off, so had Aree Cadence's memories. The night that had brought Tanzanite and Castor so close and yet had so violently pulled them apart was now blurred and faded. She remembered their fights. She remembered losing her arm, watching Castor's wide-eyed face as her eyes closed for what she had thought was the last time. Again, as the power of the Negaverse consumed her, burnt her out from within and rebuilt her entirely, he had been there to witness it. Castor had been a staple in Tanzanite's life, but whatever connection they might once have had had been severed.

The moment he'd taken Linarite, Castor had given Tanzanite more power than he knew. He had taken her only reason to hold onto the humanity that left her weak, susceptible to their ridiculous talk of love and life and redemption. He had opened a door against which Metallia had been knocking for the better part of two years. Now, Tanzanite was committed to that cause. Overwhelmed by it. Castor had taken something from her. Ares has taken something. Nemesis and Scylla and Gunn. They had all taken bits and pieces of her, left injuries that only Metallia's power could heal. Now, she existed only to repay that kindness. It was in the way she stood and the way she spoke, the way those silver eyes never seemed to light up, even in battle; Tanzanite was seeking death.

Then again... hadn't she always?

“I'm not going to kill you, Castor,” her clipped laughter had a harsh edge to it, and Tanzanite let her gaze stray to Pollux, “I'm going to kill him. Then, I'm going to find Lina, and I'm going to destroy everything she has. I am going to drag her back and lay her body in front of Metallia, and I am going to turn her into something wonderful. I am going to find every ally. Every friend. Every family member. I am going to make them bleed, Castor, until their bodies will pile high enough to black out the stars.”

Tanzanite smiled.

“And I won't feel a thing.

“Oh, Castor,” the name was a breathy hiss, spoken as though by some kind of jaded lover. Their history was complicated at best. At worst... well, it was a good twenty-five percent Castor trying to redeem her, and the rest was mostly violence and tragedy. They were the first to complete their journey, in a manner of speaking. The first to access the very sources of the power that had kept them fighting for years. It had always been so close between them, neither able to hang onto any advantage for very long.

Now, he could not have been more correct. Even had a magic existed powerful enough to pry open Metallia's grip, her human body no longer existed. Too much damage had been done, and purification would have left little more than a broken girl with mere minutes left to writhe in agony, gasping for breath before she died. It would have been an unspeakably cruel punishment.

“When will you learn. I have no buttons left to push. There is no skin left for you to get under, so save your profanity for someone who cares. Save your threats. Your nostalgia. Save all your precious humanity, I find it... distasteful.”

It was as though a switch had been flipped off in Tanzanite's mind. In the presence of the Negaverse, she was capable of a great many emotions. Love, even, did not fully escape her in her own overprotective way. She knew sympathy when she spoke to Lyra, understanding when she quietly listened to Scheelite's plea. Unlike Charonite, she did not lay a hand on those who failed. She did not threaten them or terrorize them. With those who served the same power as she, Tanzanite might as well have been a patron said. After all, she was only half a monster, and that half seemed reserved almost entirely for moments like these.

“You're going to kill me, Castor?” Tanzanite's laugh was hollow, “Really? Is that your plan? You're going to kill me?”

The small laugh grew into a raucous fit, and for a moment her entire body shook with the sound. The whisper of feathers and the rattle of chains echoed the noise. She drew in a deep breath, and with that simple act, the air around them lit up. A moment of focus carried a wave of energy from those who stood in the surrounding streets. Even Castor would be able to feel the slight tug, though the energy of such a strong senshi would not be so easily siphoned. Her head rolled to one side, then the other, vertebrae snapping like bubble wrap. The spikes that formed her strange crown laid back into that nest of purple hair, and her wings stretched wide.

The energy collected around her, shimmered over her skin like a coat of cinders, and Tanzanite leveled her now-black eyes on the man before her.

“I've survived unspeakable things, Castor. I have seen horrors you could not imagine, felt pain that would make your heart stop cold. I have been dismembered, burnt, skinned, carved, decayed, and blinded. I have had my body torn apart and pieced back together in the forge of a power you could not begin to imagine. And you think that you are going to kill me?”

The way she phrased it, it was easy to see why she though it must be some kind of joke.

“Don't let them lie to you. Death is easy, Castor. It's peaceful. It's quiet. At first you're sad to go, to leave behind all you didn't do, but you don't hear them whispering anymore when you die. You don't feel him in your head, or hear his voice. The screaming goes quiet,” her voice fell to a whisper, and a truly happy expression crossed her features as she held onto the memory, “and you're just... gone.” Tanzanite lifted her gaze to his, and for the briefest moment, there was that flicker of real emotion. It was barely there, a ghost of a girl long gone, but it was there.

“And then something pulls you back, just as you're ready to let go,” she said, and Tanzanite came crashing back to reality. Her expression hardened, and that momentary flicker was snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane.

“Because once they carve out everything inside of you, once they've pulled out your heart and your guts and let them fall out onto the floor, there's nothing to stop her from getting in. So you want to kill me, Castor?”

Tanzanite sneered, and her long claws began to slowly extend.

“Trust me. You can't.”

“You think it's that easy. How cute.”

Tanzanite found nothing cute about Castor's ignorance, but she smiled nevertheless. Death was not so simple now. It was not a door she could simply walk through. There were no pills on which Tanzanite could overdose. Her blood was too thick to simply slit her wrist and be done with it. Hell, throwing herself off of a building wasn't even an option. Tanzanite's body could take a beating that would turn a normal person into a fine human paste, and still she would not stop breathing.

More than that, Tanzanite had for the first time a reason to survive. No matter how lonely her existence was, or how painful, she had a purpose. She had someone and something to protect. Aree Cadence was dead and gone, but Zac? Serah? Ladon and Billy and Matthew? Those people still lived, and Tanzanite was hell bent on making sure that was always the case.

If Tanzanite was truly the evil one, as the senshi always claimed, then there was nothing they could do to punish her. She was already paying for her crimes.

“As a human, I was a girl with a life, Castor,” she said quietly, “I had a family. A sister,” her gaze locked on Pollux just as the boy turned to run. Aree's human life had been a miserable one, and there were few happy memories to make her think twice about it being snuffed out. “But do not make the mistake of thinking that Tanzanite was ever that girl. I chose this.”

And in a way... she had.

Before she could move to chase Pollux down with full intent to rip him limb from limb, Castor took action. Tanzanite's reflexes were sharper than any senshi could hope to match, her speed and strength a true wonder to behold. She didn't have the magic that the first Prince of the new generation of senshi wielded, but Tanzanite hardly needed it. Beryl was the sorceress, and Tanzanite would leave such ridiculous things to her.

You didn't need spells when you could throw a punch that hit like a semi-truck. It also became rather difficult to invoke magic when you were being choked to death. Teleportation was an option, but there was something more important Tanzanite needed to do than avoid that speeding disc of light. She moved, but there was the sudden hiss, and the sickening smell of burning flesh. The tiara sawed through one wing like a knife through butter, striking home in the vulnerable youma flesh. The cut was clean, cauterized the moment it was opened, and the limb slid from the joint and hit the sidewalk with a gutwrenching thud.

Tanzanite stumbled only briefly, suddenly off balance as a good fifty pounds was hewn from her left side. She caught her balance and straightened, and for the most part seemed... intrigued. She did not scream, or even cry out. That simple pain was nothing when put next to the agony of Nemesis' decay, or the simple brilliance of Ares' brand. It did, however, seem to captivate the General-Queen for a moment. She shifted her second set of shoulder blades and tilted her head at the stump, a gesture that seemed more animal than human. It was as though she were discovering something new, something fascinating.

The energy that had gathered around her only moments ago was slowly absorbed, sinking into her skin until the glow faded. It gathered at the blackened, charred place where the wing had been attached, like tiny spores of light rising to the surface of the wound, growing long tendrils of glowing sinew. Like illuminated tentacles they grew, wrapping around one another, weaving in and out until the skin at her shoulder began to grow and stretch over them. The glowing fibers branched out to form feathers that darkened and cooled to a deep black. Within moments, the appendage has grown fluidly from the wound, as the one on the ground slowly collapsed into dust and was carried away by the evening breeze.

“I told you,” she whispered, but Tanzanite was not smiling. Her expression was as dead as her voice, matching that peculiar energy signature. While most officers felt like the presence of a dark energy, Tanzanite's was an absence of it. Her power came directly from Metallia now, and her energy signature reflected the same all-consuming presence. It was an absence of anything at all. An absence of love and light and life. A nothingness that seemed to pull in even the light around her.

“You can't kill me.” Tanzanite smiled, and her arm came forward swiftly, black claws extending in an attempt to skewer the Prince against the brick, “And I can kill you a thousand times, but you'll only be reborn. So I suppose this for forever, then.

You and I."

The hail came down like a hammer on glass, shattering those claws as Tanzanite whipped her hand back with a pained and angry howl. The claws drew suddenly back, and any humor had gone from her face. The expression that reigned upon those pale features was nothing if not inhuman. Grey eyes were lost in a field of inky black, save the pale glow of silver irises. Her lips were pulled back in a snarl, revealing canines and molars sharpened to a wicked point. It was the reaction of a wounded animal, and Tanzanite's fury was suddenly focused entirely on the man in front of her.

”Save me?” she hissed the words, her soft voice overwhelmed by the youma's ethereal tone, “You made me, Castor. All that I am... is because of you. Are took your sins and forged them in fire, but you.”

That smile returned as Tanzanite spread both hands and wings, silhouetted against the pale glow orange of the city lights.

“This is your creation, don't be so modest. What Charonite did to me was only because of you, Prince of Hail. If not for you, I would have lived. If you had never picked up that pen, I would still have my life. I might have been there to save my family. Oh, Castor.

Castor, I thank you.”

Tanzanite flexed her frostbitten fingertips, and from the youma's gnashing mouth, that whiplike tongue slowly slithered out. It twisted at her ankles, lashing through the air with a sharp snap as though testing its range. She paced slowly around him, her head swiveling slowly so that she could keep her unblinking gaze upon him.

“Do they know, Castor? Do they know If not for you, hundreds of people would still be alive. That if not for you, darling Saiph would still have a heart beating in her chest?”

“Oh, words would not do it justice, my Prince, “ she sighed quietly. There was a sense of rapture in her voice, and the very thought sent a shudder through her wings, “If only you could have seen the way she screamed as I gutted her like a wild boar. I can only imagine what it must be like to see your organs ripped out of your body- oh!”

Her features widened in false surprise, her head tilting just a little too far to one side.

“No, I remember what that is like so very clearly. Nemesis was so kind as to show me just how it felt, and I shared that beautiful moment with Saiph. Before I ate her starseed, and her heart along with it.”

Tanzanite was smiling wildly, clearly reveling in the memory of that moment. She watched as Pollux turned; lesser prey upon which she would not waste her time. Black eyes rolled back towards Castor, and the Black Phoenix spoke, the rasping voice without its human counterpart.

“She's mine,” it rumbled the words in an almost guttural tone, her lips movings just a bit too slowly to syn with the words, as though poorly puppeted. The arm lashed forward, whip snapping out to try and wrap around his ankle and pull him forward.