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Head bowed, Jadeite knelt in deference before the obsidian altar.
“Jadeite, you have failed me twice now.” The voice was like an icy wind through a graveyard. “I assume you know the consequences?”
“Yes my Queen, I offer my deepest apologies.”
Queen Beryl pursed her lips and caressed a long, talon-tipped, hand over the crystal ball floating before her. “I will give you another chance. But you had better gather plenty of energy for our Great Ruler this time.”
“Fear not my Queen. I already have a plan in mind…”
Pacing back and forth across his chambers, Jadeite frantically consulted the various notes and blueprints he’d collated the past few months, praying some kind of plan might come to mind.
Whilst he had escaped Queen Beryl’s wrath this time he was not confident he could survive another failure. He’d have to manage the next operation closely and carefully, making sure he got as much high quality energy as possible. Above all else he needed to put the operation into action quickly .
But how, and where, could he reliably (not to mention stealthily) gather energy?
He knew the general location of course: the Jûban district of Tokyo. Nephrite had long ago determined with that Celestial Map of his that Jûban was the location where particularly prime energy was concentrated; though not even Queen Beryl could deduce why. Given the interference of the Sailor Moon (and more recently Sailor Mercury), Jadite had even wondered if Nephrite had tricked him, deliberately drawing him to the area the Senshi frequented thereby ensuring his energy gathering schemes would fail.
Regardless, Jadeite couldn’t disagree that Jûban was bountiful with energy so he would once again target humans from there. Young humans would be best, and girls best of all. He’d found them particularly full of high quality energy, especially when their minds were set upon their shallow pursuits of love and romance. How pathetic.
However, he couldn’t simply repeat his Midnight Zero radio scheme. The authorities (and the Senshi most probably) would be on the lookout for something like that, thereby causing complications. He’d need something original.
That was when he came across a road map. A road map depicting the intersection of five slopes…and of a particular bus stop at the heart of them…
The afternoon sun was high in the sky when he set foot on the Hikawa shrine grounds.
Internally, Jadeite gently chided himself. A shrine like this should have been the first place he’d thought of for his various schemes. All these people expending their mental energy on their hopes, dreams and worries? It was a veritable goldmine for the Great Ruler!
As he peeked out from around a tree his eye fell upon a gaggle of giggling schoolgirls admiring charms they had just purchased from the shrine.
“Togashi senpai is sure to notice me now!” said an auburn haired girl, her cheeks practically crimson.
Jadeite’s prior schemes had already given him sufficient experience to know exactly what such charms are for.
“Ah, a man after my own heart!”
Jadeite jumped slightly and whipped his head around. Eventually, his green eyes fell upon the diminutive figure of an old, and rather bald, gentleman in shrine attire.
“Pardon?” he said, taken aback.
The tiny man pointed exaggeratedly at the gaggle of girls in the distance. “How glad I am to be alive and have working eyes that I might behold such fair maidens!” exclaimed the old man in a sing-song, almost Shakespearean, tone. “Then again, the young men around here are quite a sight too.” The old man threw Jadeite a wink before unleashing a bellow of a laugh that seemed too large for such a small figure.
Jadeite stood frozen in utter disbelief. Was this tiny little man… flirting with him!?
“Say young man! How would you like to come work at my shrine!?”
The bizarreness of the situation momentarily repressed the anger and indignation welling up inside of him. Once the moment passed, Jadeite began to slowly, subtly, summon a portion of his energy. He rather fancied incinerating the old geezer right on the spot, but his better judgement won out. This old man would be his slave until he wasn’t needed anymore, then Jadeite would make him pay for his disrespect.
Deliberately, he locked eyes with the old man, a feat the geezer seemed all too willing to accommodate . His temples strained as energy pooled within his brain, preparing to unleash itself telepathically and overwhelm the old man’s mind.
“Grandpa! Stop bothering that guy would ya!”
Jadeite’s energy rescinded as his gaze strayed from the stout old man and onto the young woman approaching them. Had she not identified the old man as her grandfather Jadeite would never have guessed they were related. She was tall, lean and lithe, with long raven-black hair and piercing violet eyes.
It was those eyes that particularly drew Jadeite in and he found himself once again dumbfounded; albeit for decidedly different reasons. The energy he’d gathered throbbed for a moment, bringing him back to reality. He could unleash his technique upon the girl too, further securing his control over the shrine. It would be simple and the most logical, safest course of action.
“I think I would like to work at this shrine, sir.”
Jadeite’s face remained still and collected. It gave no trace of the surprise he felt over the words that had just escaped his own mouth. By contrast the girl and her grandfather made their surprise all too apparent, even the old man taken aback that Jadeite had accepted his offer.
“That is…if there are perhaps living accommodations?” amended Jadeite.
A rather obvious faux cough later and the old man had composed himself. “Yes. I believe that can be arranged. Well then, if you’d like to come with me Mister…”
“Jed. Just Jed,” said Jadeite.
“Alrighty then Jed, let me show you where you’ll be staying, working, reeling in the young ladies and whatnot!”
Though the old geezer bounced off at an alarming speed, ‘Jed’ decided to follow at a far more leisurely pace, slowing to a halt as he drew level with the old man’s granddaughter. “I didn’t catch your name, Miss?.”
“Rei. Rei Hino.”
The young shrine maiden shot Jadeite another piercing look. The act sent an odd burning sensation across Jadeite’s lips. And he rather liked it…
As he carried the towel and water across the shrine hallways, Jadeite once again wondered why he hadn’t simply controlled the Hino family. Or at least, installed one of his Youma in their place? Why was he subjecting himself to menial labour and working undercover like this? The thought was momentarily banished from his mind as he reached the door that was his destination. Instead he felt nothing but hot anticipation.
Rei was in there. Whilst she was tending to the blonde girl she had rendered unconscious earlier, to all intents and purposes he would be alone with her for the first time since he’d begun working at the shrine. With the delectable burning sensation dancing across his lips once again, Jadeite slid the door open.
“Rei-san, I have bought you a towel and water.”
“Ah, please leave them there,” she replied.
Jadeite kept his head bowed, his blond fringe covering his eyes. He didn’t want Rei to notice his disappointment at the presence of the blonde girl’s friends.
“Yes ma’am,” he said stoically before sliding the door shut again.
“We want good-luck amulets for love!” chorused two particularly simple looking schoolgirls.
“Sure, which colour do you prefer?” asked Jadeite from within the stall.
As the girls blushed and made clumsy attempts of flirting with him, Jadeite maintained a jovial (and thoroughly convincing) smile.
He despised the pretence, but it was nevertheless necessary. The more he indulged these love struck fools, the more amulets he sold. Which meant soon he’d regain Queen Beryl’s favour with the energy he’d gather.
And, as a purely coincidental side effect, he’d earn the Hikawa Shrine a tidy profit. Wouldn’t Rei-san be pleased about that…
The cawing of the twin crows failed to deter Jadeite as he knelt before the door to Rei-san’s meditation room.
“Your meal is ready,” he said softly after sliding the door open.
His warm tingle worked its way through his body, though he wasn’t sure if that was because of the large fire at the centre of the mediation room, or the raven-haired vision kneeling before it.
“Go away, I cannot concentrate!” barked Rei. Despite the distance between them, there was no mistaking the daggers her violent eyes were staring at him with.
“My apologies.”
Despite the rejection, as he slid the door closed again, Jadeite permitted himself a small smile. Rei-san was somehow even more beautiful when she was mad.
He wondered how alluring she might look when she finally learned the truth of what he’d been doing here. Though he hoped that wouldn’t be for a while yet…
Jadeite’s heart was filled with regret.
Regret that he would never get the chance to tell Rei-san how he felt. To hold her. To kiss her.
He wondered what that might’ve been like. Something inside of him, something distant,sounded out with absolute certainty that it would have been akin to kissing fire itself.
With that realisation some of Jadeite’s regret seemed to ebb away and his lips burned. As did his face, his hair and his entire body, the pain gripping every fibre of his being beyond all description. And, fleetingly, through the flames that now consumed him, he saw her.
Rei-san. Sailor Mars. Her face contorted in a determined fury and disdain.
She was perhaps the most beautiful creature Jadeite had ever had the pleasure of laying eyes upon. And, despite the agony, he was in that moment grateful. Grateful that she would be the very last thing he saw.
With that, he at last became ash, never truly aware of the bittersweet gift fate had given him in his last moments.