flameandpassion | 48 [Text]

He's back home for now. But he might come back. Others have before.

[She's awful at that, she knows. Yet she tries.]

I think I'll miss him if he doesn't.

He won't have his memories.

No. But he'll still be Cloud.

... everyone goes home in the end.

[Neutrally.]

Yes. [And she truly wants to go home.]

...Yet it doesn't make it easier for us to see people we care about go before we do.

... in my world, I don't have a family, like Usagi does.

[She slides her hands into her pockets, her eyes hardened.]

I was raised by my grandfather. The senshi -- they are my family. My friends are my family. They're everything to me.

If Usagi -- [No. Usagi isn't going to leave her here.] -- leaves, I will see her again. Minako, Hotaru -- Setsuna, Haruka, Makoto, I'll see them all again, when I eventually go home.

And Al, Cloud, most of them, I can rebuild what I lost, if they ever leave.

[She begins to walk again.]

But some of the people in this world -- if I lose those memories, if they lose those memories, I will never get that back.

[Raven is frozen in place. As if you had slapped her in the face real hard. Because that's just what you did, Rei.]

So... how do you think I feel?

[Whoever leaves she doesn't think she'll be able to rebuilt anything and she won't see any of those who are here again.]

The same way I do. The same way any of us do.

[Her tone is still neutral. It's a fight to keep it that way.]

We're all trapped here, but that's not the real curse.

Then why do you speak as if I didn't?

[Raven is an expert at keeping her tone neutral when she's just boiling underneath. She see right through it.]

No. The curse is that this world, as chaotic and irrational as it is, still feels real. And thus we all end up forgetting we were never supposed to be here in the first place.

[She spoke that way because Rei doesn't often share how she feels. But Rei ignores the question, for now, to focus on the real problem.]

It feels real because it is real.

But we'll forget about it all once we're back home. And it will be as if we never were gone. What kind of reality is that?

One I'm not going to give up without a fight.

You don't want to be sent back anymore then?

I have a duty to perform there. I have to be sent home.

But I refuse to give up my memories.

I see. You're already planning to go to the Inner City, to try and face the Animus again.

I was planning that as soon as we left.

Than you might want to know about something I learnt from the Animus.

... what did you learn from them?

They said if someone were able to see them, that person wouldn't be able to come back here.

...Of course we have no way to know whether or not this is true. [It's not as if the Animus can be trusted but still.] I thought I'd tell you.

... they were there, in the Inner City.

I know. They said that too. But you didn't actually see them, did you?

I didn't have to.

[She felt them.]

They're spirits. There's nothing to see.

They're everywhere. Sometimes I can sense their presence here too. At the beginning and at the end of events.

[There's something odd, in Rei's expression, at Raven's statement.]

Sounds about right.

[Raven notices and frowns a bit.]

What is it?

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