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Kerberos casually plopped himself onto a bench, partially closing his eyes. He was tired, but for once, he was more sober than not, because he had already been out for a long time and he hadn’t actually brought a drink with him, this time around. So he was relaxing and trying to stave off a hangover, because that was even less safe than being out just drunk. He could feel a first-stage aura nearby, and that made him let out a tiny, frustrated groan. The last thing he needed, right now, was someone trying to hassle him, but he also did not care enough to try and move.

Maybe it would be someone he knew and wasn’t likely to attack him. That would be nice. He could talk, but fighting was out of the question.

She was finishing her patrol. Tonight was going to be an early night because she was backed up on homework even though it was still technically a holiday break. Kepler had told herself it would be fine to focus on the internship until it got closer to the time to return to school and what did she do? The teenager waited until the last possible second and now her papers were going to be hurried and rushed. No doubt she’d receive a C or worse.

I can always make up in extra credit.. she thought to herself as she cut through the park. Usually the park was a nice, quiet place but the deeper she got into it, she felt a familiar tug of Chaos energy. Coming to a halt, she spotted a familiar mass of hair and frowned.

It was that one Corrupt Senshi she’d fought recently.. Things had ended.. less angrily and more she felt so bad for him. It could be pity, but she wasn’t familiar with feeling it for people, as cold as that made her sound. He.. seemed tired.

“Hello…?” She didn’t speak loudly or step too close incase he had a bad reaction to seeing who she was, but it wouldn’t hurt her to talk to him. ….Right?

Kerberos turned to look at her, and gave the Senshi what he hoped was a welcoming smile. “Oh, hey, I remember you,” he said. He didn’t really carry any bitterness over her picking a fight with him - at the time, he had sort of looked like he was threatening someone, and she hadn’t done any serious physical damage or anything like that. It was easy to brush it off, because unless she tried to attack him again it didn’t really matter.

“Look, no energy this time,” he said, spreading his arms wide to indicate innocence as best as he could. “So maybe we can skip the yelling? Please? I’m starting to drift from drunk to hungover and I’d like to, you know, not.” He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead and exhaled.

Kepler gave him a soft smile and spread her own hands. “Not attacking.. You really don’t.. look well and I guess the hangover explains it,” she moved a little closer so she didn’t have to speak too loudly. Every now and then her parents would come home, drunk and she’d have to deal with the consequences in the morning, tending to their hangovers with aspirin, coffee, and some sort of greasy, spicy food.

“I don’t think I ever introduced myself before..” She waved one of her hands, indicating she meant the past, what had happened. “I’m Kepler. Words is my game, apparently. Do.. you mind if I sit?” No, there would be no yelling. At this point there’d be no use because he wasn’t hurting anyone and caused her no reason to attack him. She waited a beat or two before going to sit down on the bench, tucking her skirt under her and just looked him over. “Did you get in trouble for… last time?”

“It’s too bad, I usually pride myself on looking fantastic,” Kerberos said, and he reached up to preen his hair a little as a dramatic gesture towards making himself look “better.” Mostly he was just being over the top in all things, as he often was. It made for a decent defense mechanism, in its way.

“Kerberos, of Asphodel,” he said, scooting over a little. “Go ahead,” he said, gesturing, but she didn’t really seem to need his permission. “I didn’t, no. Got the energy to where it needed to go and got a lecture about responsibility. I’m hoping it’ll keep them off my back for a little longer.” It would have been better to skim a little every night, but he hated doing it at all these days and couldn’t really make himself want to bother.

She watched as he fixed himself up and just gave him a helpless smile. “I don’t mean you don’t look fantastic, I just meant you look like you’re in pain.” She was almost whispering as she looked out in front of her, crossing her legs at the ankles, stretching them out and leaned against the back of the bench.

“....At least you ...well didn’t get beat up or anything. You made it seem like that’s what they’d do if you didn’t bring it back.” Kepler really hated herself for letting him get away with the energy, but she would have hated it more if she let an already unhappy man get beat up and suffer because they were both trying to follow orders. Thinking on that, the red-head turned her head to look at him and just sighed a bit. “Keberos.. I don’t think I’ve heard of you before, but I don’t tend to keep up with Chaos aligned names. Unless you’re Rutile and Azurite.” That had been a fun memory of the future. Those two were going to track her down and murder her one day and she knew it.

Still, she’d be ready. “Do you often talk with the enemy?”

Kerberos laughed a little. “Yeah, that’s true too,” he agreed, pressing the heel of his hand harder against his forehead and trying to ignore the depression in the middle of it (god he hated those holes, why did they even exist.)

“If I hadn’t brought it back, I...really don’t know what would’ve happened. I’m already hearing about my ‘failure to live up to my previous performance’ and ‘insubordination’ and ah yes, there are ‘suspicions of disloyalty.’” He let out a tiny exhale between gritted teeth. “I hate this stupid ******** organization.” He said, finally. Azurite was a name he knew - she had been fun to spar against, but Kepler’s perception was obviously very different. The consequence of being on the other side.

“I do it way more often than I should, actually, that’s probably part of the problem. It’s either fight or talk and I’d rather do the latter.”

So this was common. Interesting. Kepler just tilted her head to the side and nodded a little. “The others.. some of them might not be so keen on me talking with you instead of attacking on sight. There are those who don’t like anything Chaos, no matter if they like what they do or not…”

So he admitted his utter hatred of the Negaverse side and she bit down on her tongue to keep from asking him again why he didn’t purify. There were just too many people he’d be giving up. It would be like why she would never corrupt. Not only did her hatred of Chaos side factor in but there was the fact she would be leaving everyone behind. Yumi, Ida.. She’d be letting so many people down and honestly? She didn’t think anyone should have to have that pressure on them.

“You’re not a bad guy to talk to,” Kepler admitted after a moment of silence. “At least so far.. Uhm. ...So I wanted to apologize for bringing up purification before.”

Kerberos nodded. “I used to be like that,” he admitted. “It was...I don’t know. I was angry. And then I got a look at what was going to happen if I kept on the path I was on...and...I didn’t like what I saw.” He stared down at his lap, folding his hands and fiddling with his fingers. “It wasn’t pretty.”

To say the least.

He looked back up at her, and he smiled a little. “It’s fine. Everybody seems to. And I mean, it...it makes a lot of sense, I just...have too many people I can’t leave. My family, my boyfriend, my friends…some of them are officers too, and I have to make sure they don’t do anything stupid without me.”

“I thought I could be like that but it seems circumstances have changed. I suppose I could wait and see if they attack first but that might get me killed..” Kepler let her voice trail off and her brows knit as she looked up to the starless sky. She knew it was only starless because the lights here had dimmed them, but it was still sad to look at an empty sky. One of Kepler’s hands went to her book shaped broach and she fiddled with it a bit, tracing the shape before nodding at Kerberos’ words.

“Mn… It’s, I suppose, the same reason I couldn’t voluntarily leave White Moon. I know too many people that I would disappoint and upset. Yumi.. She’d be absolutely devastated if I did. No boyfriend to speak of, but lots of friends.” She turned to look at the blue haired man and just offered a thin smile.

“And I suppose you thought about just.. not powering up? I don’t know if it’s different for your group..”

Kerberos nodded, sighing quietly. Nobody had an easy time of this. There were too many chances for things to go wrong, on both sides. (How many lives had he ended, and how many more had he ruined, as an Ascended? Too many, he knew that much. He had ended and ruined too many even in the present.)

“I’m glad you understand,” he said, a faint smile on his face. At least someone did, that was better than he was used to. It was always “why don’t you leave,” like that was the easiest choice in the world. And maybe he would, if he could find a way to make it easier for the people he cared about. But right now? He wasn’t going anywhere.

“It’s different,” he said. “I could quit, sure, but they know where I love and somebody would be knocking on my door...it’s just like not doing quotas. Don’t demonstrate full loyalty to the organization and they start...cracking down.”

The Senshi of Words listened with a sympathetic ear and just clicked her tongue softly. She could understand someone coming to knock on your door, cracking down to make sure you follow the path that’s given to you but at the same time.. She’d heard whispers of Senshi who just never henshined up again and they seemed to live ordinary civilian lives. So far, for her, that temptation had never arisen but she could understand the longing for someone who’d been doing this for some time and had seen the worst the world, and other planets, had to offer.

She tapped the heel of her shoe on the cement below her and then rubbed her neck around her choker. “..One day it won’t have to be so life or death, I hope. Sometimes I don’t think I belong fighting, that I ..should honestly just be a normal girl. There are other days when I’m glad I am what I am. I definitely meet interesting people, if nothing else.” Kepler thought about that a bit more and then looked over to him again.

“So what are you doing out tonight if you’re not, you know, trying to grab energy?”

Kerberos shook his head. “It will never stop being life and death. It won’t stop until one side is totally obliterated.” He knew it. He had seen it. And the images of that future would never leave him, unless somehow they were wiped from his memory (he wondered if purification could, or would, do that. But that seemed too kind, no, surely it would take his happier memories of being Alex and leave him with the painful ones as penance for all he had done.)

“I’m being physically present. If someone higher-ranked finds me, I can say I’m waiting for a decent mark, or something. I am also sobering up somewhere away from home so my boyfriend doesn’t worry.”

There was no way that was true. Kepler was sure that somehow this whole war could end without one side completely dying out. There had to be some sort of middle ground to it. Her face collapsed as he spoke like that and she looked away from him.

With a practiced motion, she got up and dusted her skirt off before turning around to face him, hands behind her back. “Since you’re not hurting anyone tonight and trying to sober up.. I’ll leave you be. I should probably get back to my patrol. I don’t want anyone getting hurt under my watch.” Of course someone would and Kepler would beat herself up about it, but she was trying to work on that.

“Until we meet again. I hope it’s not for a fight.”

With that, she waved and then jumped onto a street light and then out into the darkness. One day, should they meet not powered, she’d like to talk to him about these things at great length. She knew this ending was abrupt, but they were likely to talk in circles about these things for hours. Better to chalk it up to a difference in opinions.