"Yup, glad to be able to see you too," Zoisite rasped out, voice hoarse from so many weeks of disuse. "You might like to let up a bit. I'm about to be killed by your exuberance."

Jadeite grinned sheepishly and let go of Zoisite. "How do you feel? Bad, right? I would feel lousy too if I had been stuck in bed for weeks! I can't imagine not being able to move for so long. How did you manage it?"

Zoisite rolled his eyes. "That's a good question, one that I'm not sure I can answer. Anyway, I need to get up and stretch a bit before you hear my bones creaking." He grabbed hold of Jadeite's shoulders and started to lever himself out of bed. But he just couldn't move his legs no matter how hard he tried to. His legs just didn't want to listen to his orders.

"What's up?" Jadeite asked inquisitively. "I thought you were dying to get out of bed? Got weak legs now?"

"Shut up," Zoisite muttered absently, still trying to wake his legs up. After a few seconds, he was beginning to get worried. "Jadeite," he mumbled. "I can't feel my legs."

A worried expression settled itself permanently on Jadeite's face. "What do you mean by that?" he asked guardedly, hopping off the bed to stare at his emerald-eyed friend.

"Just what I said. I can't move my legs."

Jadeite slapped at Zoisite's knees. The youngest General didn't even yelp. "You didn't feel that?" Frightened green eyes looked up into blue ones.

"No. I can't feel anything from the waist down."

Jadeite gulped. "I think we have a problem here. Let me go get the other two. Wait a moment okay, Zoisite?" Without waiting for an answer, he bolted out of the room.

Zoisite flopped backwards on his bed and wriggled his fingers. He didn't like the way things were going now. If he was indeed paralyzed...resolutely, he shook his head. Best not to think about these kind of things right now.

"Zoisite is paralyzed from the waist down?" Kunzite asked numbly, pen dropping from bloodless fingers. His face was as colourless as Jadeite's, his eyes widened in shock.

"At least that's how I think things are," Jadeite replied, running one hand through his short hair and then ruffling the loose bangs in exasperation. "He said that he can't move his legs and he didn't feel anything when I hit them really hard."

Kunzite rose from his chair. "Jadeite, you look over these for me," he said curtly, dumping the young blonde in his chair and shoving a stack of loose papers and the pen in his hands.

Zoisite was playing with his ice crystals when Kunzite burst into his room. He looked up in annoyance at first, but said expression soon evolved into surprised pleasure when he realized who his unannounced visitor was.

"How are you feeling?" the silver haired General asked gently.

Zoisite flushed and tried unsuccessfully to quell the anger and fear welling up in him. "Come on, I'm sure Jadeite told you about my legs. You've come to confirm the bad news, no?"

Kunzite shook his head. "It's not as bad as I feared. Though it may seem stupid and insensitive of me to say this, but at least only your legs were affected and not your sight or hearing or brains."

"I'm a cripple, what's so good about that? Urgh."

"So, you're going to lie down here and moan about your circumstances? You're going to wallow in self pity when you could be doing something constructive for yourself?"

"Hey, it's so obviously easy for you to say all these. You're not the one who can't move about. You're not the one who's going to be reliant on everybody else for your every needs now! You're not the one who's going to be looked down upon further! Don't tell me what I should be doing and what I shouldn't be doing!" Zoisite snapped furiously, eyes flashing.

Kunzite caught hold of Zoisite's hands and forced him to release the ice crystal he had clenched in his fist. The crystal floated unhindered in the air between the two men. "Then it's time for you to brush up on certain skills," Kunzite concluded. "You're not going to have to rely on anyone if you can achieve finesse in your control over levitation. I'm going to make sure of that."

The crystal dropped onto the floor where it shattered irrevocably. "Oh?" came the quiet reply. Then Zoisite grinned suddenly.

"What's up?" Kunzite asked, a little worried with the shift in the younger General's mood.

"It's been a long time since I had a chance to rant and rail and use my voice," Zoisite replied. "I think I needed the release." He looked down at his blankets and twisted his hands in them even as his cheeks coloured. "Help me to the bathroom?" he asked softly, an embarrassed flush lighting up his face. Kunzite offered him an amused smile and scooped him up easily.

"Is he ready yet?" Jadeite whispered, trying his best not to peek around the door. Beside him, Nephrite shrugged, smiling at his friend's restlessness. It was infectious; already he could feel himself wanting to fidget.

"Damn it, Jadeite. He'll come out by himself when he's ready. Stop twitching! You're making me feel restless as well!" Nephrite whispered back, grabbing hold of Jadeite as the blonde paced by.

"Oops!" Jadeite grinned, leaning against the wall, all good humour and mischief and frisky as a puppy.

"You know, Kunzite's been working so hard. We ought to throw a party for both of them," Jadeite mused, tapping his right foot on the floor.

"Don't even suggest this to both of them," Nephrite murmured back with a twinkle in his eyes. "We all know how touchy they are about this. They are in the preliminary stages after all, and Zoisite still-"

"I heard something about me. Out with it. What were you saying?" Zoisite asked, hands on hips with one slender eyebrow raised.

"Oi, Zoi-chan. Don't be so defensive about everything!" Jadeite laughed, slapping at Zoisite's back and causing the diminutive man to lurch forward.

"Jadeite," came the expected warning as Kunzite shut the door behind him with a soft click. "Try not to unbalance Zoisite, okay?"

"Kunzite, stop mothering me! I'm perfectly capable of doing multiple things at one time now. I'm not going to land flat on my nose because of a pat on the back-oomph!"

All three Generals' eyes grew comically big as Zoisite suddenly fell forward, arms in a mad windmill attempt to regain balance. Kunzite stepped forward with his arm outstretched and managed to break the blonde's fall.

"You were saying?" Jadeite wheedled with a lopsided grin.

"Shut up," Zoisite muttered. They set off and Jadeite had to admit that Zoisite's illusion was perfect. It looked as if he really was walking down the corridor like any of them instead of floating just above the floor.

"As realistic as ever," Nephrite complimented with a smile. "Now, just how are you going to get on your horse?"

"I'm riding with Kunzite," Zoisite answered with an exasperated tone to his voice. "And you guys had better not say anything," he warned.

"Nah. We've got more confidence in you two than that! I'm sure you'll be able to stay on the horse this time," Jadeite replied blithely, alluding to the previous time when Zoisite tried to get reacquainted with his stallion and lost his balance. And of course who was on hand to save the day but Kunzite?

Zoisite didn't even bother to prepare a retort for that. He was used to Jadeite's comments and he was quite aware that Jadeite would never give up teasing him. And besides, he was determined to enjoy the day today. After Serenity had told them two weeks ago that the shields were not enough to defend against the youma attacks, Zoisite had reached out with his mind to ascertain that as a fact. All their wards were simply disintegrating under the combined force of the youma blasts that never seemed to relent. Even the strongest, most complicated shields were wont to give way if subject to endless barrages of power. So Zoisite had been immersed in shield spinning as he raced to replace the shields broken down by the youma. The others had been working as hard as he had been to try and find out the mysterious source of power for the youma, they had to have gotten the energy from somewhere. This was the first time that all four of them had decided on a break, and Jadeite had suggested a trip out of the Capital where they would be undisturbed.

"Nephrite, you're not working are you?" Jadeite asked reproachfully as he stretched out full length on the grass. The mahogany haired General was propped against a tree trunk, his eyes closed and a crease line between his eyebrows.

"He's only helping me stabilize the wards," Zoisite said apologetically and then added with a wicked gleam in his eyes, "I didn't mean to take up his quality time with you."

Jadeite scowled. "Hey, since when did we say we were together?"

Zoisite laughed, a tinkling golden sound. "Well, if you want to trot out rumours about me and Kunzite, you'd better be prepared to have the same done back to you!"

Jadeite mumbled a few things under his breath, and Zoisite could have sworn they revolved around something bloody. Suddenly, he hooked his hands around Zoisite's shoulders and tugged him closer so that their heads were right next to each other.

"So," he asked in a conspiratory whisper. "Where have you two progressed up to?"

Zoisite spluttered indignantly. "Jadeite!" he hissed, raising his hand to bonk his friend on the head. "What rubbish are you saying?"

Jadeite's eyes widened and he hissed back in mock-horror, "You mean you two haven't even kissed?" Without even a pause to allow Zoisite to draw breath and defend himself, he continued. "How long have you two been together? Two months? Three? And you mean you two haven't even kissed?" Jadeite drew in an exaggerated breath of surprise. "How...how...um..."

"Shut up Jad," Zoisite ground out between clenched teeth, stealing a glance at Kunzite and relieved that he hadn't really caught this conversation. 'We're just good friends, okay? So stop all your speculations!"

Jadeite gulped. Zoisite looked really angry this time and he held his hands up in supplication. "Sorry, Zoi-chan. I didn't mean for you to take it this badly." But he supposed that Kunzite wasn't the kind to take the initiative when it came to these kind of matters, and Zoisite was probably still too unsure about himself and about Kunzite.

Suddenly, Nephrite lurched forward and opened his eyes and the other Generals were surprised to see a trail of blood from his mouth dripping down his chin. Struck by a wave of fear, Zoisite linked up to his wards and at that very moment, they shattered. He felt as if he'd been dealt a heavy physical blow, very much akin to being beaten up savagely by ten thugs. He was thrown forward by the impact, coughing out blood as he tried to support himself with his hands. Jadeite was in no better shape himself, but with Nephrite supporting him, he managed to fight his way upright.

Kunzite looked the best off physically, but they could all see the strain in his eyes and he fought to keep his wards up against the unbelievably powerful psychic attacks.

"Kunzite! Take your wards down now!" Nephrite shouted out, grabbing Kunzite's shoulders with his free hand. "Take your wards down before you sustain serious injuries."

"Not yet," Kunzite gritted out, shaking off Nephrite's hand. "Nephrite, direct a third of the army to the palace to defend the Queen and send the rest out into the streets to battle the youma. After that, come to the palace and look for me. I'll be stationed right next to the Queen. Zoisite, you and Jadeite teleport to the Capital and take command there. Make sure you two direct the citizens to the shelters as well. Go now. I think the youma will be entering the Kingdom somewhere near the palace and the market square."

As soon as Kunzite had finished speaking, Zoisite and Jadeite had pushed themselves to their feet, albeit a little unsteadily, and were already disappearing in their teleportation tunnels. Nephrite vanished as well, linking a trail from his mind to Kunzite's so that the eldest General would know when he was in the palace. And Nephrite was not a second too slow for Kunzite just managed to snatch his wards away from the youmas' final attack and spare his conscious from being battered into oblivion. The three stallions left in the clearing shuffled a little when Kunzite's signature blue flash slowly dissipated but resumed cropping at the grass and the sudden treat of sakura blossoms contentedly.

To say that the courtiers were in a hysterical state of panic wouldn't have described the situation at all. More than once, a soldier had to bash an idiot unconscious to prevent him from clinging on to him in hope of protection. Nephrite swore, one of the more potent ones which he'd picked up from Jadeite and Zoisite's admirable repertoire, and issued orders to the soldiers to ignore the idiots. The palace guards would be able to evacuate them to the safety chambers by themselves - they were trained for that kind of exercise anyway. And the first of the youma had arrived. The cramped, close quarters of the palace were unsuitable for any kind of fighting, let alone the vicious all-out fighting that erupted whenever soldiers went up against the monsters, and as such, the casualty rates would always spiral much higher than if the battle was fought on open ground. Nephrite visualised the palace gate in his mind and found that the youmas' teleportation gate was framed between the two gate posts. The flood of youma seemed endless.

*Kunzite, should I try to close the gate?* Nephrite hollered into his peer's mind. He could feel Kunzite shaking his head.

*You won't be able to do it alone. Pull either Zoisite or Jadeite in when they've more or less control of the situation on the streets. In the meantime, just go for an all out slaughter.*

Nephrite gave his senior officers a few more orders before heading off to where Queen Serenity was. With all the little pockets of fighting scattered across the vast palace grounds, it was impossible to oversee every single one of them. The veterans should be able to organize the greenies enough to present considerable resistance against the youma.

"Zoi-chan, you doing all right?" Jadeite shouted, his voice carrying clear over the din of the battle and collapsing houses. Zoisite found himself marveling at his lung capacity.

"Yeah. Just shut up and concentrate on your fighting!" Zoisite yelled back as he alternately slashed at a youma and froze a few more further down the street when they tried to swipe at a couple of petrified children.

"Oh, don't worry about me," Jadeite shouted back with a grin. "I do some of my best fighting when I'm talking." A fireball rolled down the street that Jadeite was in, burning the youma to ash. Time enough later to worry about the damages incurred after they won the battle.

"Jad, don't do that! They are still people on the streets. Don't catch them in your attacks."

Jadeite presented Zoisite with a cheeky smile. "My eyes are sharper than that! 'Sides, I've been in more battles than you have. I know what I'm doing, don't worry!"

Zoisite frowned as he raced to the children's side. "You kids shouldn't be out on the streets," the blonde said quietly, pushing them in the direction of the nearest shelter. "Hurry up!"

The youngest of the children, a tiny tot of barely three years old, tugged at Zoisite's sleeve. "I can't move," she cried out, staying stubbornly rooted to the ground even when the older children tried to drag her along. Zoisite ground his teeth and picked her up.

"The rest of you, move it!" he shouted, flinging enough ice daggers at the youma that were closing in on them so that a path was cleared for the kids. He was pleased to see that they ran like hell when presented with the chance to do so. Which left the little girl with him...It was going to be difficult carrying her and fighting the youma, but Zoisite wasn't going to throw her away just like that. He might be cold and suspicious of people but he wasn't going to add 'bastard' to his collection.

Jadeite craned his head this way and that, searing off the heads of youma that got in his line of vision. He could have sworn that Zoisite was in the street next to his...where did he go? The stench of burnt flesh, blood and ash was overwhelmingly disgusting and it made thinking slightly more of a chore rather than an everyday reflex. The soldiers were doing well in their efforts to kill the youma, and Jadeite left them to look for Zoisite.

Zoisite looked all around him and at the youma surrounding him. The little girl clung a little closer to him, almost cutting off his air supply in her fear. The petite blonde sighed and did a quick check to ensure that the only things in his vicinity were youma and inanimate things before he stretched his hand out in front of him....and the air beneath his hand exploded with sakura blossoms that spun outwards at frightening velocities.

Jadeite pried out a pale pink blossom that was embedded deep into the wall of a half demolished house. "Looks like Zoi-chan was here, ne." The ground itself was littered with white and pink petals and blood stains. He picked up his pace, encountering dead youma all along the way. "Zoi-chan's really on a rampage here, ne.""Zoi-chan, what's this about?" Jadeite asked, looking at the two of them with a rather dubious expression on his face.

Zoisite shrugged and straightened his long sleeves, his lips curling in disgust at the green youma blood stains there. "She was part of a bunch of kids who lost their way enroute to a shelter. I-ah-I had to bring her along with me cos' she was too frightened to move."

"Why, Zoi-chan, I do believe you've got the parental instincts!" Jadeite smirked out. "Never thought I'd see this side of you."

"Shut up," Zoisite muttered, his face flushed an embarrassed red. The little child looked at the two of them with big, round and rather glassy looking eyes.

"She's in shock," the older blonde remarked, staring at her. "The shelter's just a few metres down the road. Hurry up and get her there. We've got work to do. I'll cover for you in the meantime."

"You've really got a lot to say today," Zoisite grumbled as he hefted the girl into a more comfortable position for both of them. It took a few seconds to see through the illusion-ward and then Zoisite was running for the inconspicuously door set into the ground. The whine of Jadeite's fireballs filled the air as he killed off another two youma.

"Is that my child?" came a breathless voice after Zoisite deactivated the protection-ward on the door and yanked it open. The surprised soldier stationed on the other side hastily moved forward to hold the girl, but a dirt stained woman beat him to it.

"Karisawa!" the woman cried, hugging the child tightly to herself. "Thank Goodness you're safe. I was so worried..." She looked up with the intention of thanking the beautiful but severe-looking young man, but Zoisite was already closing the door again and resetting the wards.

"Took you long enough," was Jadeite's enthusiastic response at seeing Zoisite again.

"I know, I know!" Zoisite exclaimed. "How are the troops doing?"

"Shouldn't we go check it out?"

Zoisite heaved a sigh. So this was the battle-crazy Jadeite who yo-yoed between insanely blasting youma to bits and making snide, biting remarks. Without bothering to respond, he ran off into the direction where the sound of battle was the loudest.

"Ne, Zoi-chan."

What now? Zoisite thought irritably.

"Don't you get frost bite from handling your ice sword so much? What happened to our good ol' metal stuff?"

Zoisite looked heavenward and begged for patience. "I do not get frost bite, and I lost my sword somewhere back there. Let's just move it, shall we?"

Queen Serenity was, surprisingly enough, holding her own against the youma that actually managed to get through the defense wards that Kunzite had constructed around her and her personal retinue of guards. The ginzuishou, the precious royal family heirloom, was put to good use now in imploding the youma that dared to touch her. Kunzite simultaneously blasted three youma, repaired the hole that youma had bored in the defense wards and sent a call out to Zoisite.

*Hurry up and finish off the youma on your side. Nephrite needs your help in closing off the portal here,* Kunzite said in his normal unhurried voice. Zoisite rolled his eyes. Why did he make it sound as if massacring more than ten thousand youma was as easy as killing a score of ants.

"Hey, we need to hurry up. Nephrite needs us over on his side."

Jadeite grinned out. "Hah! He's asking for our help? And I thought I'd never see a day when he would need to do so! I tell you, the end of the world must be coming soon."

Zoisite expressed his urge to zap Jadeite by killing off a few more youma. "Well, the end of the world WILL be here if you don't keep quiet and help me and the rest of the men here."

Jadeite grabbed hold of Zoisite's hands, ignoring Zoisite's gasp and the trails of blood dripping from his palm as he interrupted a volley of sakura blossoms.

"You idiot! Are you trying to lose your hands? How the hell are you going to handle your sword?" Zoisite scolded as he snatched his hands out of Jadeite's to examine the other blonde's hands.

“That's not important. Zoisite, do you trust me enough?"

"Enough to do what?" Zoisite snapped, still sounding very angry, and even the sakura that exploded in the midst of the youma exacted more damage than ever.

"Enough to link minds with me so that we can deal with these pesky creatures once and for all."

Zoisite glared at Jadeite. "Have you lost your mind? There are our people in the midst of those monsters as well?! You're not going to kill them off as well are you?"

Jadeite punched Zoisite in the arm. "Of course not, moron! I'm suggesting that we close off the gate that these monsters are coming through. Then the soldiers can see an end to their bloody business. That's what Nephrite needs our help for at the palace side." He yanked Zoisite closer and stared straight into his friend's startled emerald eyes. "You don't think I'm that ruthless do you?" Then he laughed suddenly. "Of course I'm not!"

Zoisite pushed Jadeite away, his cheeks colouring slightly. "Sorry."

Jadeite waved his apology away. "Don't be," he said brightly enough, but Zoisite thought he heard a sad, resigned undertone to his words.

"I'm serious, Jad. I'm sorry I misunderstood you. Of course I trust you. Always."

"Urgh," Jadeite mock-grimaced. "You're so mushy! Get away from me." What he said and what he did were two totally opposite things for the next moment, he pulled Zoisite in a tight embrace.

"Thanks," he whispered, and then he was dragging Zoisite down the street. The soldiers knew better than to interrupt, but some gaped at the retreating figures for too long and lost their lives for that.

"Wow, you're really easy to drag along when you're floating," Jadeite observed. "You were such a chore when you were dead weight!"

The youngest General scowled and punched Jadeite, but he breathed easier now that Jadeite was back to his reckless casting of fireballs. Even still, he nearly hit his friend again after one blew up too close in his face for comfort. The place where the portal was sited was crammed with youma and soldiers alike, and if not for the escaping tendrils of power shooting from the portal, it would have been difficult to distinguish it from the masses.

"What do we do?" Zoisite asked, spraying ice crystals at the youma, careful not to hit any of the soldiers. It was a difficult task to say the least because everybody was forced to move about constantly, him included. Jadeite closed his eyes for a moment to better visualize the gate in his mind and figure out the best way of closing it down. Just as Zoisite was master over defense wards, so was Jadeite master over teleportation tunnels. But even he had not seen such a large scale one safe for those mentioned in books, and even then the reference to such portals were few.

"Jad, nobody's stopping you if you want to meditate for a while, but you're in the middle of fierce fighting, remember?" Zoisite asked, blocking a youma's sword swing from carving Jadeite's face into mincemeat. A moment later, the ice sculpture of that youma was sent careening into the midst of it's brethren.

"I think I know how to shut down this annoying thing," Jadeite said very slowly and very carefully.

"Do it then," Zoisite returned impatiently. "I'm running out of water here. That was the last ice crystal I had."

Jadeite blinked. "Huh? Running out of water?"

Zoisite held up one sakura blossom between his first and second fingers in front of his face, debating on where to throw it. An instant later, it zipped through the air and sliced the throat of a youma just about to impale a soldier with its sword. "I have to draw on water from somewhere to create my ice crystals, don't I? I can't just manufacture them wholesale from nothing. So the air's getting really dry now and I don't want to draw on it some more for my water supply or you guys will die of dehydration. Which means you've really got to hurry now Jad."

"Yes, yes, oh-wise-and-thoughtful-one."

Zoisite sighed. "Just shut up and move!"

Jadeite pouted. "You know, I think I prefer the mushy Zoi-chan from earlier on," he said mournfully, a puppy-dog expression on his face. His theatrics aside, Jadeite was an extremely skillful fighter judging from the way he picked off youma one by one unerringly in quick succession.

"Can you get me up there?" Jadeite asked, pointing at the roof of one of the few miraculously intact houses.

"Said is done," Zoisite gritted out, slicing a youma into two clean halves, and he pulled Jadeite along behind him. Forcing the laws of gravity to bend for one person was simple enough, if you had the talent to do so of course, but Zoisite wasn't quite sure about bending the laws for another person. He was pleasantly surprised to see how easily he achieved his goal and the sapphire-eyed General was suitably impressed by Zoisite's speed in doing so.

"This is going to be better than teleportation in the near future. Teach me how to levitate, will you?"

Zoisite smiled. "Kunzite can teach it to you better than I ever will." He surveyed the scene beneath him. "What do we do next?"

"It shouldn't take a lot of energy out of you," Jadeite mused softly. "I should think that we'll have enough left for Nephrite to use later on, and Zoi-chan's ice crystals and sakura blossoms draw close to zilch energy out of him." He looked at the portal once more, desperately running as many possible scenarios through his mind. "Imploding it should be the best method. Granted that perhaps a few of our soldiers may be sucked in as well but exploding it would be even worse. I wouldn't know how to block the damage."

Zoisite grabbed hold of Jadeite's arm before he could sketch the cipher in the air. "No, don't implode it. I'd rather you explode it. The consequences would be easier to handle and I can guarantee you that the casualty rates will be lower too."

Jadeite raised one fine eyebrow and then he realized what Zoisite was planning to do. "You're confident?" he asked slowly, fingers moving through the air, knowing that it was a purely rhetorical question. Zoisite nodded firmly, and opened up his mind as fully as he could. A moment later, Jadeite linked up to him. Ordinarily, it would have been impossible for two people with weak mind powers to share their energies, but Jadeite and Zoisite were so used to it during the latter's illness that they were able to successfully bypass that difficulty.

*It may hurt a little,* Jadeite warned before ‘pulling’ Zoisite's energy out.

That hurt as much as if Zoisite was experiencing a really bad case of heart burn. A little wouldn't have been the adjective he would have chosen, that was for sure!

The portal was guarded by a ward barrier, but that didn't bother Jadeite - not with Zoisite's knowledge and expertise at his disposal. He smashed it the first time round, feeling a sense of satisfaction race through him as the ward shattered irrevocably, and now the portal was next. It proved to be an absurdly simple task to switch sigils so that the energy flows were unstable and collided with one another. The explosion, when it finally came, was one of the biggest affairs he had ever seen. And the most beautiful thing about it was the shimmering ward barriers on the Kingdom's soldiers, their startled expressions showing through the transparent layers clearly as debris and youma parts rained down on them and harmlessly bounced or slid off.

Jadeite sank to his knees as they suddenly gave way after the surge of adrenaline through his body lessened. The dust and dirt was clearing and the wards were disappearing too when a youma suddenly reared up in front of Jadeite. The General was still too fuddled to think, much less act, and his energy streams had yet to return to their normal unturbulent flows. Dumbly, he stared at the sharp claws aimed directly for his eyes...and blinked in uncomprehending surprise when the youma's claws missed their original target to spear harmlessly in the ground next to Jadeite's hands.

"You've been sitting down here for a fairly long time," Zoisite commented dryly, a wry twist to his mouth and something in his hand.

"I thought you said you weren't going to draw any more moisture from the air?" Jadeite asked, saying the first thing that popped into his mind. But upon closer look at Zoisite's sword, he swore softly to himself. There was a trail of blood streaming down the younger blonde's thumb, and the ice blade was faintly reddish in tone. He used his own blood.

Zoisite noticed Jadeite's look or horror and tried as nonchalantly as he could to redirect his attention. "Say, I think Nephrite is going to have your head if you don't get us to the Palace quick." The ice blade dissolved into the air and Jadeite realized with a start that he had been staring.

"Said is done, Zoi-chan." With a flourish, he opened a portal with a wave of his hand. "I know exactly where Nephrite is. Just come with me." And he pulled Zoisite through his teleportation tunnel which so neatly folded up into oblivion once they were through.

"It's about time, you guys!" Nephrite huffed out as the portal opened above his head and Zoisite had to snatch at Jadeite to prevent him from tumbling down onto the youma below.

"You all right, Zoisite?" the mahogany haired General asked, squinting at the blood stains, bruises and numerous cuts on him. The healing factors in the Generals' blood had long been used up. Zoisite gave him the thumbs-up and a small smile. Next to him, Jadeite wasn't as quiet.

"Hey! Neffy! How come you asked about him and not about me? That's not fair!" he howled, a fireball glowing in each hand. Nephrite kicked at a youma and winked up at him. "In that case," Jadeite drawled out slowly, "take this!" He threw the fireball at a youma further down the hall, knocking it over and causing it to crash into another youma and yet another. The domino effect was regrettably halted by a pillar that was in the way.

Nephrite ran a youma through with his sword and used it as a spring board to join Zoisite and Jadeite at the ceiling.

"I seriously have got to ask Kunzite to teach me levitation," Jadeite groused, then yelped as Nephrite bonked him on the head lightly.

"That's not important," Nephrite chided. "The Kingdom soldiers are tiring out fast and we've got to get to the portal to close it down. It's bigger than the one that you closed down in the streets so I'll be handling it here. You guys are tired too aren't you?" he asked gently.

"Hey, don't get our spirits flagging yet," Jadeite objected with a grin which Zoisite mirrored to a lessor extent. "You and Kunzite have been working hard too. But yeah, I'd like to see the end of this business already! It's dragged on for faaaaaaaarrrrrrrr too long."

*Kunzite, we're going to shut the portal down now. I suggest you tell Serenity not to use her Moon Sceptre as far as possible until we've destroyed the portal. If she warps the energy flows when we're trying to warp it, I doubt even Zoisite can manufacture a ward that will shield us from the explosion that follows.*

Zoisite swayed and bumped into Jadeite as the few sakura blossoms that accompanied his portal drifted slowly to the ground.

"Zoi-chan, are you all right?" Jadeite asked worriedly, supporting the younger blonde by wrapping his arm around his shoulder.

"I'm fine," Zoisite replied, waving away Jadeite's concern. "Don't bother about me and don't disrupt Nephrite's concentration."

Jadeite hrumphed in doubt. "Okay then, at least sit down!" he exclaimed, pressing Zoisite to the ground. The younger blonde didn't resist as much as he should have ordinarily, which led to Jadeite worrying even more.

Nephrite motioned for Jadeite and Zoisite to stand next to him at the window - quite a difficult task for the corner of the room that Nephrite was standing in was very narrow, no thanks to the strange designs and shapes of the palace rooms. But they also complicated matters for enemies trying to maneuver through them.

"I can't afford to be very gentle when I'm drawing energy out of you," Nephrite warned with a tinge of apology in his voice. "It'll be a touch and go affair. Even for me," he added almost as an afterthought.

If Zoisite thought that Jadeite's drawing of his energy was bad, then this was beyond hell. He doubled over in agony, his right hand clawing at his left arm and vice versa in a futile attempt to distance the pain with another perhaps more tolerable one. It really couldn't have been more than an instant, but it felt like eternity. Then he felt two pairs of hands on him. One pair was cold and clammy, and they were steadying his shoulders. The other, in sharp contrast, was large and hot and they were pulling his hands apart gently. Emerald eyes looked up into concerned silver and sapphire ones.

"Don't do that, Zoi-chan," Jadeite chided softly. "You're only going to hurt yourself even more. See, you're bleeding already."

"How long more is he going to take?" Zoisite croaked out, the only thing preventing him from moving was Kunzite's steady gaze.

"You didn't feel it? The portal's down already," the eldest General said with a hint of a smile. "Nephrite works very fast."

Zoisite was dumbstruck. "The portal's down already? I thought he said that it was even bigger than the one that Jad and I shut down? How come he managed to close it so fast? I-"

Jadeite smiled playfully and tapped Zoisite on the head lightly. "You're babbling, Zoi-chan. You're even worse than me now!" He got up from where he was crouching beside the younger blonde and walked off after giving Kunzite a suggestive wink. That prank earned him a mental spank.

"Serenity?"

Kunzite suppressed the urge to sigh at the playful General. "Nephrite's gone to see her already and Jadeite's not far behind. She's safe. The soldiers will be more than able to take care of the remaining youma. After we closed the portal, they lost the link to their power source so they shouldn't be a problem at all."

"So it's over?" Zoisite asked, not even bothering to get up.

"Uhm," Kunzite agreed and stared in surprise as Zoisite's lovely emerald eyes rolled up and he fainted rather unceremoniously in his lap. The silver haired General's normally stern face broke into an affectionate smile. "Don't work yourself so hard," he whispered down at the figure in his arms. As he staggered to his feet with his precious bundle, he added, "Well done, Zoi-chan."

Lord Cyphllype walked down the charred, sorry-looking corridors of the palace with a heavy tread, his mind concerned more with the loss of his honour in front of the Queen rather than the damage wrought by the invaders. He felt betrayed and misunderstood, furious and disappointed with the judgement of Serenity. But he was not so lost in his thoughts as to overlook the soft footsteps coming his way. His first thought was one of panic for he had no means of defending himself should a youma come his way and decide to kill him. But when the owner of the footsteps came into view...

"Lord Cyphllype," Kunzite acknowledged frostily, not bothering to look at him for more than a second, and already pushing past him. The limp figure in his arms was infinitely more important.

"General Kunzite," Cyphllype answered in a tone that was close to a growl. His old but still very keen eyes raked in the sight of the silver haired General cradling the demon in his arms and his lips curled into a disgusted sneer.

"Going off to play with that demonspawn?" he spat out.

Kunzite reined in his rising temper and managed to reply in a tone that was only slightly less than civilized. "Zoisite happens to be your son, so if you consider him demonspawn, that makes you the demon."

Cyphllype drew himself to his full height, ignoring the ache of his back. "He is a bastard. No son of mine would come out looking like him," he declared proudly.

Kunzite snorted. "That's a relief! He not being your son would probably explain why he's so much more gifted than any in the Tzael family line." Ignoring the other man's red face and protests, he proceeded on. "But if you would put away your blindness just for the moment and really look at Zoisite for what he is rather than for what your prejudiced eyes would take him to be, you would find that he is really like any other son hoping that his father would accept him and trying his best to make him proud." Kunzite personally didn't care for Cyphllype but he honestly thought that perhaps if he managed to get the stubborn old man to acknowledge Zoisite, the younger General had somewhere to start to rid himself of the shadows chasing him. Shifting Zoisite so that his head wouldn't flop over his arm so much, Kunzite felt his heart twinge a little.

"He is not my son," Cyphllype replied stonily and wouldn't say anything more. General and Lord stared at each other for a few long, tense moments before Kunzite brushed past him.

"I don't know how much of your life you've spend sleeping, but if you continue to do so, you won't be able to go out and greet your fans," Jadeite quipped, bouncing up and down on Zoisite's bed. The formerly-asleep blonde cracked open one eye and glared at his friend.

"You'll be the one sleeping for a long time if you don't stop that," he growled. "I'm still tired. Go away!"

Jadeite laughed and tapped at the bridge of Zoisite's nose with one slender finger. "I honestly didn't think you had such a bad reaction to Nephrite's pulling power from you. We were honestly quite worried when you reacted the way you did. Even my first time wasn't this bad."

"Why are you telling me this for?" Zoisite mumbled from his position face down on his pillow. Then suddenly he sat upright, the back of his head nearly hitting Jadeite in the nose. "What happened after Nephrite started pulling power? I can't remember anything from that moment on..."

Jadeite's eyebrows shot up into his hair. "You can't remember? You were fairly tearing the skin off your arms and you can't remember?" His eyes tracked Zoisite's as they looked down at the white bandages stretching from the wrists all the way up to the shoulders. "You have a really bad reaction to people trying to pull power off you. If I were you, I'd take special precautions or the next time you're up against a youma mage, it could just knock you unconscious by sucking your power."

Zoisite flopped over. "Youma mage? What's that?"

"We were more fortunate this time that no youma mage accompanied their troops down. The last time one did, Nephrite nearly lost his life trying to find out which attack could take it down. It's basically the youma version of us, save that they've got about the same power as Serenity has when she's using her Moon Sceptre."

Zoisite whistled softly. "So how did Nephrite kill it?"

"He didn't manage to. He collapsed due to exhaustion. I closed off the portal linking to the youma world and so cut off the youma mage's link to its power source as well. It then had roughly the same power as us so Kunzite managed to take it out after one damn long fight." Jadeite leaned back on the bed and blew a bubble into the air. That earned him a hit on the head by Zoisite, who muttered something about disgusting habits.

"Who do I have to thank for this then?" the younger blonde asked, looking at his arms again.

Jadeite chuckled. "Make an intelligent guess. Who's the only one who can manage to carry you back to your room looking like the fairy tale prince and his princess? If I'd carried you, I'd have dragged you on the ground!"

Zoisite wisely ignored the jibe and instead felt around for his hairbrush. "And what's this about meeting people? Isn't that Nephrite's specialty? What does it have to do with me?" he asked, finally locating the brush and attacking the tangles in his hair with many a wince and yelps of pain.

"Your fans, Zoi-chan, are creating fantastical stories about how you saved the entire children population or something like that." He frowned. "If I had known that you'd gain such popularity because of an easy feat like that, I'd have gone picking up little children too."

Zoisite made a face and continued tugging at his hair. "That's silly. All I did was escort the girl to the shelter for Goodness' sakes! It's not like the other soldiers didn't do that either!"

"But you're a General, and Generals don't exactly do these kind of things. Come to think of it, we're supposed to be inside the palace giving orders and sitting around a strategy table or something like that."

Zoisite raised an eyebrow. "None of us would just stay around doing nothing. 'Sides, if you'd spotted the kids first, you would have done the same that I did."

Jadeite shook his head with a rueful expression. "No, I would have cleared the road for them but I may not have carried that little girl so far. You're better than you think you are. Anyway, the soldiers are also very amazed that you crafted the defense wards for them." The sapphire-eyed General scratched his hair. "Granted that none of us are geniuses in spinning your kind of wards but still, the fact remains that you cared enough for them."

Zoisite pushed the other General away and his face was flaming red. "That's enough, Jad. I need to use the toilet now."

Jadeite had on the enigmatic half smile that he'd always displayed on his face when Zoisite first met him. "Hurry up! You can't keep hundreds of people waiting can you?" He crinkled his brow in puzzlement as Zoisite just sat on his bed not moving.

"Hey, I thought you said you needed to use the toilet?"

Zoisite sighed. "I'd rather have the person I love return my feelings than a hundred people I don't love professing theirs for me."

Jadeite suddenly pulled Zoisite into a hug. "What's this Zoi-chan? First you get all flustered and hot-tempered when somebody even suggests that you're attached. Then you start getting all melancholic and everything! You've got to be more patient! Give Kunzite time! You know very well that your feelings are reciprocated!"

Zoisite nodded meekly, won over by Jadeite's rather passionate outburst. "Okay, now I really have got to go use the toilet." He slipped off the bed and floated off. As door clicked shut, a knock sounded on another door.

Jadeite opened it and pulled the person outside in. "It's all yours from here," he grinned, giving him a thumbs up sign. "Give it your best shot! He's been pining for you!"

Nephrite raised one eyebrow. "Jadeite, just let them do things their way!"

The blonde's grin grew wider and he happily jumped into Nephrite's arms. "They need a bit of pushing sometimes. You can't expect everything to happen the way it did to ours did you?"

The corner of Nephrite's mouth quirked upwards. "Ours was an exception." He stared at Zoisite's now closed door. "Kunzite shouldn't have any problem at all."