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Paracelsian knew he needed to get re-acclimated to patrolling every night. This was what he got for sleeping in for a while, he supposed. The road felt a bit hard on his feet for some reason, which bothered him, because it wasn't like glamour shoes wore out. He was really, really, out of it, apparently.

Which was bad, because he felt a prickly bright aura not too far from the street he was walking down. A not so small prickly bright aura. That was no senshi, nor was it a Page. A Squire was afoot. Depending on who was on the other side, he could be in for a rude awakening.

Still, he didn't want to immediately get off on the wrong foot. Walking towards the aura, he raised one hand in a tentative greeting. Something like hailing a ship that could be friend or foe. Would the enemy open communications, or would they be unresponsive?

A friendly greeting was a good start. It felt good to not be attacked on sight. Paracelsian nodded in acknowledgement and tipped his cap a little. "The usual," he replied. "Villainy, extortion of energy, trying to figure out where the lieutenants went. It would be nice if they didn't step face first into trouble."

Paracelsian gave the Squire a looking over. Something was wrong with her eye, some kind of painfully obvious injury. He put his efforts towards not staring at that, instead gauging her stance and potential combat readiness. Honestly, she seemed nice enough, and he visibly hesitated to ask her something, his lips parting slightly but nothing coming out. He was, of course, going to ask her to donate energy, but he felt kind of bad about it. It probably wouldn't hurt to ask, but instead he waited for her to make the next move. What would happen would happen.

Paracelsian shrugged at the barbed question. The question of heroes and villains was out the window to a degree. There were only people who made existence hard for others and those that didn't. Maybe. "Mm, well, what you consider villainy is simply the preservation of a way of life for some. It's sad, but it's true." He noticed her stance relaxing, just a bit. A more opportunistic agent would have definitely taken advantage of that for an ambush strike. He wasn't that agent though, was he?

Even with the voice of the agent he could be in the back of his mind, he couldn't bring himself to strike. In fact, the Squire's next question sent his urge to attack into a screeching halt. For all he knew, she was waiting for his guard to drop first and she was tougher than she looked (who knows how she really injured her eye?), but he took the bait all the same. "That's a good question," he murmured, pausing to pull the inquiry over in his mind. "I... can't say it does. I'm not without regrets." He hit upon something here. "Let me ask you this, though. Does it make you happy when your people harm mine? Do you really think it's a victory when a senshi or Knight manages to kill a Negaverse agent?"

Almost unconsciously, he shook his head. "It would be nice if people were reasonable and we could just be as we are, but it's plain to see that's not the case." Though his mouth was hidden by his scarf, his own brows were knitting. There was a deep sort of sadness that he couldn't quite hide here.

Paracelsian's eye contact was going all over the place. These were tough questions, ones that required heavy thought. Maybe he was being too honest in his answers, but he got the feeling that the "wrong" answer wouldn't earn him too much of a reprisal. "Some people live their lives, yet have the 'misfortune' to be powered by Chaos. There's more to an agent, or even a senshi, than their affiliation." He felt compelled to elaborate a bit further, even if it blew his cover some. "Heh. We can't just forget the powered life, though I'm sure people have tried. It would be nice if senshi could do what they did and the Negaverse agents went about their daily lives without drastic conflict, wouldn't it?"

The sudden reaction to his counter question nearly made Paracelsian jump, though he realized that her reaction was merely strong, not dangerous. "I agree with you, though I feel that some others don't. Those are the dangerous ones, the ones that perpetuate the cycle of people killing each other to eliminate threats. They exist in both Chaos and Order. As I see it, preservation is a vital goal for any powered person, not just of others, but of the self as well. I think, perhaps, it would behoove all of us to focus on living our lives the best we can without making disasters for others."

Pendour's next line made Paracelsian wrinkle his nose, though it was an involuntary sort of gesture of mild irritation, if it could be called that. "No regrets? You've either been very lucky or you've twisted your moral compass to defend yourself. It must be nice to be pure enough to have no regrets." The sharp bitterness in his voice surprised him and he wasn't sure why. He shook his head. "No. It's not unreasonable to stand against what Chaos brings. However, you ought to consider that some Chaos people are standing against what Order brings in return." He couldn't help but feel that this woman was a bit too convinced of Chaos's evil and Order's goodness, or at least Chaos as an attacker and Order as a defender.

Paracelsian sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. "You are not making this easy for me," he muttered, a small edge creeping into his voice. "I've learned that purification erases memories and identities. That alone can terrify some people into staying where they are." He wasn't terribly fussed about it anymore, but he remembered that he had been for a while at some point.

The building tension was readily apparent in his body and what could be seen of his face. "You've paid, you say..." He pursed his lips behind his scarf and shook his head, one hand tensing into a fist. "So, you lost an eye and gained some scars. Different mistakes have different prices. Maybe foolishness was what you paid for, but me..."

The Captain was becoming more agitated as he went on. Super Sailor Bezel's lifeless face flashed before him. "Yes, I carry regrets. A senshi's life was the price for my current rank. It was in self defense, and maybe I should have broken the cycle and returned her starseed, but I have no way of knowing that she wouldn't have tried to kill me all over again if I did." He knew that wasn't going to go over well, and that only stressed him further. "I could say I nearly paid for just going about my business with my life. But the actual cost was much deeper. A piece of my being was exchanged for continuing to exist." The irony struck him: didn't purification take a piece of one's being in exchange for continued existence? The realization did not feel good.

At this point, Paracelsian's voice was an intense hiss, irritation and stress and pleading all blended into one. "You're concerned about 'what Chaos does to people?' If I had my way, that wouldn't be a concern. People would live as they are, no matter what they awakened as: senshi, knight, agent of Chaos." He shifted into the truth of the matter: his tattered and foolish plan to reform the Negaverse. "I wanted to make the Negaverse more reasonable. I wanted the next generation of Lieutenants to use their heads when going about the city. I wanted to make it so that people would stop killing each other, but the only way to do that was to climb the ranks so people would listen. And to do that, I had to kill a senshi."

Now Paracelsian was gritting his teeth, biting back a scream, a wail, some unleashing of pure emotion. Both fists clenched now. Would he strike the Squire? Probably not. His efforts were all going towards keeping himself together right now, and that was all on him, not her. "I..." Even with one syllable, his voice was trembling. "This. This is all useless, isn't it?" He made no attempt to elaborate further. If he opened his mouth again, he didn't know what would come out.

Paracelsian opened his mouth to say something, anything, but then Pendour began to play her ocarina, and all of the raw emotion and indignation seemed to fall away, breaking apart and dissolving back into the turbulent sea of soul that it emerged from. What shifted into its place was a feeling of stillness, of calm, almost of healing. He had no doubts that the Squire was playing no ordinary song; this was definitely Knight magic. Despite a vague nag of feeling disgruntled about being magically subdued, he did not resist. The feeling of peace was welcome. The tension slipped out of him, and he almost seemed to droop, as though all the emotion was what was holding him up.

He'd missed her inquiry of what Chaos would ask of him, and if they would listen to him. It sort of drifted over him as Pendour played her ocarina and her magic. He didn't think he'd be able to answer the questions properly anyway. He did answer her more recent request, however. "Yes. Tell me your story. If you feel comfortable with it, I would also like to know your name." He genuinely wished to know the identity of this compelling Squire for a few reasons. He was unsure if he wanted to log her in the records, but he had another idea in mind. If he wanted to communicate with her again, he could possibly harangue another Knight (or maybe even a senshi, depending on how their communication system worked) to send her a message.

"Pendour... I will not forget your name so easily." That much was true. He would not forget the name of the knight who had challenged him so thoroughly. Paracelsian listened to the story, pursing his lips behind his scarf. A half-youma general sounded like a distinct Negaverse persona, and yet he had not heard of such an individual. "I can agree with you on one thing: that this general behaved in an unnecessarily cruel manner. However, I have not heard of such a person yet." A beat passed. "I can only hope that someone has disposed of him already and that is why I have not heard of him. It may seem incongruous, but he would have no place in my ideal Negaverse."

Ideal. Right. That was the issue right there. "I will see what I can find in the database about the general that hurt you. I may not be able to do much if he still exists and is active, but at the very least I can monitor him." He nearly said "keep an eye out," but caught himself. He took a few steps away, shaking his head. "I will let you go tonight, Pendour. If you ever wish to donate your energy for my cause one night, you may seek out Captain Paracelsian of the Negaverse. I've heard a rumor that Knights can send a message to anyone as long as they know their name, so... now you have mine."

He hesitated before continuing on, but all the same he was not sure that he wanted to linger in this space much longer. He continued walking away; if the Squire wanted to pursue him, he would not object, though he preferred that she stay where she was.