SERIOUSLY?

Wednesday night -- closing in on midnight. Ami's left perhaps ten minutes ago, but presumably there are lights still on.

And Makoto receives a text message from a source she more frequently sees checking in with her about whether there's anything out of the ordinary he should pick up while getting groceries.

All it reads is: "Has she told you about the trip yet?"

The lights are still on, yes, and the response to the text comes very quickly.

Very quick, and very short. Just one word, in fact.

'SERIOUSLY?'

That would be a yes, then.

'Shall I stop by? Capital letters seem less than satisfying.'

This time the answer is not as immediate - mostly because Makoto is temporarily occupied by going to the front door of her apartment, letting out a wash of light from inside as she opens the door and leans out for a narrow-eyed look around. Up and down the street, then up towards the rooftops of the buildings around hers.

Eventually, though, the response text comes through: 'you might as well, I'm already up'

... there: check. Not close. A block or so down, too far to see any details from. But close enough to see a flash of a streetlight on the white of a cape as he leaps down.

It's a couple of minutes before there's a knock at her door. He must've walked the normal way.

He gets in one knock, maybe, before the door yanks open under his hand - she was waiting for him, of course. Makoto stands in the entryway, in her pajamas with her hair still pulled back in its ponytail, phone in her hand and a very unimpressed look on her face.

Without a word, she steps back from the door to clear the way in. That appears to be about as close to an invitation as he's going to get right now.

Phone still in his hand, jeans and white shirt; he fell back to normal before coming close, all right. The door being yanked open and way cleared may have been a more hospitable reaction than he was braced for. Kazuo bows to her gravely all the same, and steps inside without speaking.

There is a lengthy silence; Makoto studies Kunzite, sharp-eyed, folding her arms in front of her chest. Finally she lets out a breath in a little chuff of sound. "You don't have much of a sense of self-preservation, do you? You could've at least given me a night to sleep off some of the mad."

"And if she hadn't talked with you," Kazuo says, "waiting till morning would have run making sure she did straight into school tomorrow. It didn't seem like a good bargain." He reaches up, pushes hair back out of his face. "I'm glad she did it on her own."

A little 'mf' sound and then Makoto is turning away, walking across the living room carpet to put her phone down on the coffee table. "So now she's running off halfway across the world with that asshole, just the two of them and a lab that's probably full of dark energy and bad ideas." Straightening, she turns her regard back toward Kunzite, faintly accusatory. "Why'd you encourage her?"

She knows already, of course; Ami told her. But she wants to hear it from him.

Shoes are slipped off, which means he's followed her only perhaps a step when she turns back and her look halts him again. He looks like he always looks, sounds like he always sounds: not much evident emotion or reaction, not much concern for matters of the moment. But he still stops at that look. And he still answers.

"Because she's the only one who has a chance of finding out who's using Agera."

This, she also knew. But knowing that it's true doesn't make it any less irritating, and Makoto grimaces. Ugh.

"With no warning," she states. "No backup. Nobody to have her back if he surrounds her with so much bullshit that she starts to lose perspective."

It's pointless to say it now. Ami was the one to have this argument with, and she's already gone. But still.

"No warning," Kazuo agrees, "because the situation was rigged to give Agera no warning, no time to think it through and second-guess his own reactions. I'll grant the hypothetical possibility that the discovery of an immediately at-risk facility with personal importance to him might be genuine, but it seems far too convenient for that to be at all likely."

He shifts his weight, coming quite literally to a more stable position. "But not no backup. Talk with her. Daily. She's planning for that, and there are a couple of methods you can use that neither Agera nor anyone else there can presently fake. If her behavior changes, if she's not acting right, if her monitors show a sign that she's attacked or drugged -- between our powers and yours, we can have the group of you assembled in enough strength to cross the distance within minutes."

Mako is quiet for a while after that, wrestling inwardly with the conflict between knowing the truth when she hears it but still wanting to be angry. Eventually she sighs, shoulders sagging with it.

"I hate it when you guys make sense," she grumbles, still scowling. "I should've punched you while I still wanted to."

"Next time," Kazuo suggests, "just get it out of the way on sight. I'm fairly sure even Mamoru won't hold it against you." And in the long run it might be less painful than, say, Nephrite's methods of vengeance: less violent, more psychological water torture.

He lifts a hand and reaches out toward Makoto, all the same. "Am I missing anything that you can see?" he asks more quietly. "It's not too late to derail this, if it needs it."

She looks at the hand he reaches out, but Makoto makes no move either towards or away, just shakes her head in a quick jerk of motion that flicks her ponytail behind her. "Nothing I can think of," she says, frowning in lingering irritation. "She's got a lot of stuff set up to monitor herself and ping us if something goes wonky. I just don't like it."

"Neither do I." The admission is straightforward, as Kazuo lets his hand drop. "She needs to be closer to the rest of you, not farther away. I don't like the risk involved. And I don't like the amount that we might miss seeing while she's gone. But I don't see any better options."

"We've still got that Fiore-alike who attacked Naru-chan and what's-her-face the fake Sailor Earth to worry about, too," Makoto points out. "The timing kinda sucks." A beat; she draws in a breath between her teeth. "Well, there's always something. We'll just have to do the best that we can."

"At least the shadows are apparently through trying to eat the city for the time being; Tsukiko and her allies seem to have that one in hand." Kazuo runs a hand over his face, this time, without even the excuse of white strands straying. "And there's Naru's race in a few days, but since the Fiore-alike, the random targeting seems to have settled down somewhat. And there's Naru's boyfriend, who seems to be dead set on dealing with monsters by punching them. Do you think you might be able to find a little time to work with him, if your schedules work out? I can't think of anyone else qualified to judge whether he'd have a chance of getting anywhere other than eaten."

This at least finally manages to distract Makoto from how annoyed she is; catching herself, she blinks up at Kunzite in surprise. "Naru-chan's boyfriend?" she echoes. "The one with no magic?" She takes a couple of seconds to consider all of the implications, and the conclusions she draws have her wincing a little. "Ooh. Yeah, I can try him out, although martial arts alone... We'll see, I guess."

"The one with no magic," Kazuo confirms. "Kyouko and I talked about him a little; I'd considered sending him to Homura Akemi, since she uses apparently mundane weaponry. Kyouko says Homura enhances hers with magic, though." He folds his arms, and that familiar little frown turns back up. "We might try asking Naru to draw him something, if we can figure out what, and see if that kind of enhancement will work in turn. But that will require Naru to be drawing again, and my understanding is that she hasn't done much of that since the Fiore-alike. Unless she's been saving her sketching for school?"

"I'm not sure," Makoto admits with the faintest trace of guilt. "I haven't really noticed one way or the other. She did pretty good in that fight, though, especially since it was her first time transforming."

Distracted, she reaches up to push some stray curls away from her eyes. "Either way, I think it'd probably be best to see how the guy handles himself first. Then we can figure out where to go from there?"

There's a brief nod to her from Kazuo. "I think you're right," he says. "There are too many things we don't know yet. One step at a time."

At least they'll have something to keep them busy.

"Yeah," Makoto agrees, very wryly, "'cause the bad guys are always so good about letting us do that." Her hand rubs across the back of her neck before she lets it drop. At least the mad has mostly burned itself out by now.

"Anything else that I should know about?" she wonders, managing a lopsided half-smile. "Or can I actually go to bed at some point before it's time for school?"

Kazuo bows to Makoto -- not quite with the usual self-enforced gravity. Something a little deeper than that, and a little more fluid. "I think your sleep time has been intruded upon enough. Thank you." He turns to fetch his shoes, presumably on the way out.

Makoto trails after him - not to hurry him out, she's hanging back enough to let him move at his own pace. She does laugh a little, a soft hitch of exhaled breath. "Thank you," she replies. "For checking up. Even though you thought I might punch you."

"Believe me," Kazuo says. "I don't believe you would ever do so without good reason." He glances over his shoulder at her, and there's a hint of an actual smile on his expression. "And I appreciate the incentive to think very hard before risking giving you a good reason."

Makoto's eyebrows lift at those words; this time when she cracks a grin, there's a spark of genuine humor in her eyes. "It's good to have an understanding," she quips. "Good night, Kunzite."

She waits until he's on his way, waves before she closes the door behind him.