The masked man stands atop the frozen over Tokyo Tower, looking down at the world below where people had mostly come out of their homes for the moment to enjoy the rare sunshine. While they may never know what horror they were rescued from this day by young men and women, the reality of it is this entire city came close to a bitter, cold death that neither army nor government could handle.

"Solstice...do you think they can succeed?" he asks the air, as a small presence crawls out and peeks out fro under his cloak, letting loose a small sound that sounded somewhere between a squeak and a chirp. The ferret crawled out and looked about while clinging to the cloak for balance. The masked man merely shook his head a little.

"...Perhaps, perhaps not. I lack confidence still...the task seems insurmountable. Scorpio didn't even die today like I had hoped...and then there are eleven more after him to extinguish, much less healing this scarred Earth. A handful of children stand against the army that defeated the world. Even if I could use my full power to aid them directly, it is still difficult...not that it's an option: they have to grow to handle it themselves otherwise they won't be ready when..." he starts, as the Ferret hisses a little.

"...You're right...thinking about it just depresses me. The only thing I can do is act when necessary." the masked man states, leaning against a metal work and then idly watching below for the moment.

After the youma battle, Sophia went home and collapsed on her bed. Everything took more out of her than expected. Horrifying images played in mind, so while her body was rested after the day long nap, her mind was completely out of sorts. She turns to the window to see that there is still a small amount of daylight out. She remembers what Nazo said. The masked man seemed to want to work separately from them all, and she can’t comprehend a reason why. And she had questions that maybe he could answer. She wills herself out of bed, and out to Juuban.

She keeps her eyes upward, looking for the masked caped man before spotting him on top of Tokyo Tower. “Of course, he is someplace hard to get to…” she sighs. She briefly ponders how much easier this would be if she had teleportation powers before taking the normal way up. Before reaching the closest window to Nazo, she puts on the orange mask. They seemed to have the wanting to keep the secret identity thing in common.

She looks outside of the giant windows. The sun setting over Tokyo was a beautiful sight, but she realizes she has no clue how to get outside from there. She tries to catch Nazo’s attention, knocking on the glass. “Help?” she mouths.

Amarissa was out just wandering the streets, looking for inspiration. After everything that had happened earlier, even though she had taken a nap since then, she still wanted to wind down. For her, that meant painting. So dressed in jeans and a lavender pull over hoodie, she had gathered her set of water color paints, two brushes and a small canvas and walked out of the house.

With no particular destination in mind, she eventually ended up standing before the Tokyo Tower. Looking up at the tall metal and glass structure, she decided that the view from the top would make a good subject. She didn't notice the other familiar figure (Sophia), and instead made her to the top where she did recognize the masked man from the theater.

"Oh, I didn't expect to find you here, or anyone else for that matter. The view is nice, but it would be better if it was spring or summer. Do you think we can really do that? That we have a chance against a force that's taken over the whole Earth?" she asked quietly, voicing the doubts that had bothered her since their 'victory' at the theater.

"Solstice...let Venus out..." he says boredom in his voice, having noticed Sophia's 'trapped' state. The small ferret hopped off his shoulder and ran along the rails until it found a door that was partially obstructed from Sophia's perspective and then pushing the thing open with surprising ferret cleverness, hoping Sophia would take the cue to approach.

As Amarissa asked about their chances of victory, Nazo turns and tilts his head slightly.

"Of course, and without you and the others there is zero chance. The military or of the world as they are have the effectiveness of ping pong balls in bringing down a wall of brick. It is quite possibly an easy analogy to say they are fighting a force of nature..." he says, having a slightly dark chuckle at the comparison.

Sophia sees the little ferret. She mumbles to herself, “I get lost way too easily.” She walks over to the door, stopping to pet the small animal momentarily. Getting there, she stares at Amarissa for a bit. This was unexpected. The masked girl asks awkwardly, “Erm… which senshi are you? Or are you just here?” It was difficult to tell for some odd reason. If senshi form made one’f identity difficult to tell, were masks even necessary? However, she sort of likes the orange mask. She didn’t have to become a senshi to remain anonymous to some extent.

Either way, she gets comfortable and sits down on the roof, looking over the city. “Nazo,” she asks, “So what exactly was on the roof this morning?” She never got to what they were fighting up there. And their large talk was delayed for some time when emotions were less high and the area held fewer military personnel. “From the damage and stuff, it seemed like it was large...”

Amarissa considers this for a moment, then nods. "I have seen that with the military and what little defense the world in general has put up. Obviously not enough, or we wouldn't be in this situation. A youma like the one at the theater would have taken many more lives if it had been soldiers instead of us," she says quietly. Then turns as she hears footsteps, smiling at the other senshi. "Ah, Venus. I expected you would come. You have so many questions, so many doubts. Not a bad thing, though," she pauses as Sophia asks her question. "If I wasn't a senshi, that question would certainly let the cat out of the bag wouldn't it?" she laughed, "I'm Sailor Moon, or Rie. Perhaps, knowing my identity, you will give me yours?" she questions. Then settles down with paints while waiting for Nazo's answers, of which she was also curious.

"One of these days you guys need to stop playing the identity game with each other..." Nazo states, shaking his head slightly and facing away from the two girls for a moment, looking at the ground below and the people upon it.

"What was on the roof was a member of the Zodiac, or at least that is what human society in this time calls them. A highly powerful combatant who calls upon the darkness between stars in the sky to empower them and inflict terrible, terrible damage. As you may have noticed, the purple haired girl was no longer there. That is because I had to send her to be purified at a shrine, or else she would have died horribly from the attack known as Scorpio's Venom. This malady strikes both flesh and soul, causing rapid decomposition of matter and corrosion of the soul due to dark Negaverse energy. Had that attack hit one of you, it would be unlikely you would be alive now...the only reason she survived is due to an abnormal healing attribute within her." he says, looking at Moon and Venus behind his mask...sizing them up.

"Saa...but that's depressing, so let's focus on something more productve, something useful...Your next goal should be to locate the Silver Princess. There is one in this city whom is capable of using a powerful artifact known as the Silver Crystal...this artifact once in the correct hands is capable of defeating the Negav....er...Covenant, once and for all....of course there also remains to be the task of finding the Silver Crystal, along with defeating the members of the Zodiac whom will inevitably be drawn here once you start making headway against their organization." he says, chuckling slightly.

"That cat should have told you some of this by now, I begin to wonder if rescuing them was even worth the trouble now...perhaps they are brain damaged. Maybe we should have fresh Chinese one night" he states with a slight chuckle, facing away at the horizon again. His sense of humor had bits of dark moments.

Sophia looks at Nazo curiously as he talks about secret identities. “Isn’t that like the pot calling the kettle black?” she says in English. “I don’t know. I would like to keep this part of my life and the rest of my life separate. I don’t really want family and friends to be dragged into what I am doing or worried about me. It just seems easier this way,” she says after switching back to Japanese. “Besides, the mask is so very stylish. I can’t just give that up. I am sure someone like you would agree.”

As Nazo continues to explain what was on the roof and its power, Sophia gets noticeably worried. To have her very soul corroded and burnt away wasn’t really what she was expecting when she signed up for this job. But then again, there were a ton of surprises thus far for her, and none of them good. “Thank you for saving Valdis,” she says. If her friend had that sort of fate, Sophia probably would have a difficult time recovering from that.

She listens to the rest of what Nazo has to say with no interjections. “I guess I hold the most unpopular opinions in this group… Saving them is always worth the effort. To die a monster, to die in pain, no one deserves something like that. Artemis told me that we were here to create a utopia, not slaughter those unfortunate enough to get caught up in the Covenant. I want to repair everything done to this world and that includes them. Brain damage or not. They had families and friends once who would want them to return one day.” Mostly mumbling to herself, she asks, “Am I really the only one who cares about everyone, even the worst of them all?” She doesn’t expect it to get answered, but the thought depresses her. Perhaps, she was really was the worst senshi and somewhat defective. Why couldn’t she just accept that they were monsters, and leave it at that?

“However, I guess I should focus on the important part here. Can we back track a little, please? Silver Princess? Silver Crystal? I need a little bit more information here… What are you talking about? Are these things really so powerful that it could defeat the entire Covenant? And by that, do you mean just kill every creature ever associated with it?”

Amarissa continues to paint as Nazo starts to explain things, and listens intently to the conversation. Sophia was asking all the same questions she had, even if she ignored Amarissa's. She thought for a moment on the the mumbled musings, seriously considering things. "There's one thing that I don't think you understand, Venus. First, no, you're not the only one that cares about people. However, the Covenant isn't 'people.' They're monsters that are trying to destroy this world, the actual people, your family and friends. They don't care about sympathy, most of them are created monsters like the golems, that gain too much power and then evolve into worse things. Some used to be people that chose to serve the Covenant. But none of them will hesitate to kill you, if they get the chance, and you shouldn't either," her voice quiet but firm, carrying easily in the empty space as she interjects before Nazo answers anything else.

She sighed as she looked out on the view, setting her brush aside for a moment and standing to walk to the edge. "I don't like to hurt people either. I would rather we didn't have to do this, that everyone in the world could just get along. But that is impossible. Having these doubts doesn't make us bad senshi, it makes us good people. We would be monsters, heartless as the things we fight, if we didn't care, if it didn't affect us and make us question. But at some point, we have to decide what's important. Yes, there are people that get dragged into the Covenant against their will. It's almost impossible to tell which are which. All we can do is try to make the best judgement call and I can promise to at least use Pure Soul on every enemy before it dies so that at least they don't die corrupted. I can give you that, at least." Amarissa says, turning to smile at the other girl before going to continue her painting. She decides to add Nazo and Venus into it, for amusement.

Nazo shrugs in indifference to what Sophia had said about identities.

"If it were relevant to remove my mask then I would, however there is more than an aesthetic reason for why the only part of me you see is bits and pieces of my hair. If I were to openly expose myself, then powerful forces would fixate on me and cause problems with my mission. It isn't equitable, but it is reality." he says calmly, then listening to the concerns of the two senshi as the remarks were interjected.

"The enemies you face seek to use humanity's survivors to grow more powerful indeed. There is no simple answer, but something you may wish to consider is this: the Covenant members with intelligence willingly joined for greed, lust of power, desperation, or whatever motivation. They made a choice to sacrifice that which made them human, giving in to the temptation of easy power to dominate those without it. It is the root instinct of humanity. The fact that you still persevere to care is admirable." he says calmly, understanding that Venus had a very pained conflict within her. "There is no easy answer, but I firmly believe the life of one innocent is worth more than twenty mongrels who gave up their soul for power." he says, a faint coldness tempered with conviction in his words.

"You will be most pleased to know however, that the Silver Crystal is an artifact capable of cleansing all of the chaos energy infecting this world. That alone will not completely heal the world, but I believe that attaining the crystal is the first step. That has the potential to even save the souls of those who gave up if they haven't dived too deep into Chaos and turned into monsters.."

Sophia smiles back at Amarissa. At least, she understood somewhat and the promise makes her feel a tiny bit better. “Sorry. And thank you. I don’t know… maybe I reserve some hope for even monsters. I want to believe everyone can change, even the worst. I believe that nothing can actually embody absolute evil. There is a twinge of good even in the worst somewhat. Maybe I am completely wrong. Maybe there is no hope for any. Maybe for some but not others. I don’t know… it is what I choose to believe. I am well aware that they won’t hesitate to hurt me. But honestly, I think if either of us really cared about our personal wellbeing, we wouldn’t have gotten into all this… Not really the best line of work for keeping healthy. I will defend myself and innocent people to best I am able. I promise that as well. I think we all agree the uncorrupted need to our protecting. But I need to believe that there is way to help even some of them. I just need to find a way. If only I was better at this…” Maybe with time, she could find a solution. Maybe with time, none of them would need to fight.

“I don’t know. It makes me sad that she died like this. That it had to end like this because we didn’t have another way. Did she have a name? Did anyone care about her ever? I can’t really adequately express what makes me so sad about the situation. Maybe it is because it is the first thing that I have really hurt. I would’ve liked a funeral for her, maybe. So here, I am grieving the death of a monstrous creature like a crazy person. And being depressed over the fact that it seems like I will have to hurt a lot of things, monsters, people. I still don’t even know if there is a real difference between those categories. However, I am obviously praying on the idea that there isn’t.”

Sophia takes a deep breath, and starts to lie back against the building. “I normally hold myself together better than this. But today was more than I was mentally prepared for. Did I tell you this was my first time doing this today? I’ll try to be more cheerful next time we meet.”

As Nazo speaks about the Silver Crystal, Sophia obviously lights up a little. It was some good news that she needed to hear. “So basically, there is someone in know where she or the crystal would be. Got any suggestions for us? Also, why can only the Silver Princess use the Crystal? How will we know when we find this world working tremendous miracles. This sounds amazing. However, I have no clue where to even start on that search. And I am guessing that you don’t her?” If she couldn’t work miracles, she would fight to the end of the Earth to find the person who could. However, one thing sticks with her. “And after that, what is needed to fix the world?”

Amarissa nodded at Sophia, not really saying anything else. The other girl went on a sort of explanatory monologue, and Amarissa just looked at her, a sort of sad understanding on her face. The other senshi was terribly torn, but at this point she was the only one who would be able to fix that or somewhat resolve the conflicting issues. Only time would tell.

She quietly continued to paint as she listened to Nazo talk more about this Silver Crystal and matching Princess. Once again, Venus was asking all the questions on Ama's mind. "I'm also curious about how we're supposed to find this person and artifact. They both sound invaluable and highly useful to our cause. I'm assuming that, like us, this Princess won't know that that is what she is? and also assuming, the artifact is not in her possession already?" she muses.

"The cats will be able to guide you to find the Silver Crystal, when you have located it, the Silver Princess will be drawn to it and reveal herself to you. They have been dormant this whole time, since the senshi whom would protect the Princess have been dormant as well. That is to say, until now." he says with a slight chuckle muffled beneath the mask. Then the question that Sailor Venus asked was quite the good one.

"There are three factors involved in this whole project. One, the Silver Crystal which can purge the influence of Chaos Energy from the Earth, shutting down the source of the Covenant's power that has been draining it's capacity to support life, which will also likely restore the cycle of seasons. Next is a force capable of healing the Earth itself, and restoring it's ability to host life. Eight years of arctic snow coupled with dark power infecting it has certainly given Mother Terra a struggle to exist. While your greenhouses work for now, they are not a permanent solution. Lastly, a third force will be required to restore the ecosystem such as the withered plants and animals back to a position where the ecosystem can sustain itself. I don't have details on what these latter forces are currently." he says, then taking a few steps to the other side of the walkway of the tower.

"It isn't an easy path, but the alternative is an absolute certainty of extinction." he says, then turning and looking at Venus and Moon. "However...something slightly less gloom and doom, you two performed well today overall...would you like a refreshment of some sort? I can certainly provide something to suit your tastes." he says, passively indicating that the knowledge he had on the Silver matters was completely shared, and that it would be best to move on to a different matter.

“Nothing worth doing is ever easy, right?” responds Sophia to the explanation. She had some faith in the other senshi and herself to carry out the mission handed to them. “I actually feel a bit better knowing that there is an actual plan or direction, even if a difficult one.” It is enough to give the confused girl some hope for the future and raise her spirits.

She shyly grins at the praise. They did manage to save Tokyo. She may not have done much, but she played a small part.

“Hot cocoa would be great since we are all out on top of this cold tower. Nazo, does anyone tell you that they appreciate you? Because thanks for helping us out earlier, and explaining stuff now, and offering to get us drinks.”

The masked man seemed to have so much information. She wonders what exactly he is, but doubts that he would reveal much. Nazo seemed while benevolent to be rather distant. However, it may be worth asking a few of her questions to him for answers. “Have there always been senshi and knights? I am guessing that we aren’t the first since you and Artemis seem to understand a bit about it.”

Amarissa had a thoughtful look on her face, having taken a momentary break from painting to listen to Nazo's explanation. It did sound really difficult but as Venus had said, nothing worth doing was easy. "The theory sounds easy enough, though the application I can imagine will be most difficult. I hope it won't take too much longer as I can certainly see your point about the enviroment," she says. Then noticing that he wants a change of subjects, nods at his question about beverages. "I second that. Thank you for all the help you've provided so far, and any you might perhaps offer in the future. Hot cocoa does sound good right now," she almost muttered the last, biting her tongue in thought. She then proceeded to put the finishing touches on her painting, adding color to Venus's mask and Nazo's cloak, detailing the ferret. The rest of the picture was black and white, so the colors were a nice contrast.

Hearing Venus's new question, she glances up. "Yes, I've been curious about that too. What happened to the other senshi or knights? Why did so much time pass without any?" she asked calmly.