Psychomachia: noun. rare. Conflict within the soul, or between the soul and the body; an instance of this; a literary or artistic representation of such a conflict.

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Joker finally had Cure Beauty where he wanted her, so broken that not even the magic of the Märchenland queen could protect her.

He didn't even try to hide his smile.

He could have cut the irony with a knife. He had heard the Precure's speeches about friendship so many times, whether in person or when he had looked into the past to see how his generals had failed to defeat them yet again. The ladies' spiels could wax poetic indeed, but friendship had ultimately been Cure Beauty's undoing. The silly girl could not decide between studying abroad in Great Britain or remaining in Japan with her pastel comrades. Thus Joker had used her turmoil to make the perfect trap.

He had brought her to his room—which is what he called the pocket dimension he had retired to when the real world bored him; most of the time it resembled a circus tent—and unless he willed it, no one could enter or leave. She put up a valiant effort to ignore his arguments—he could give her that much credit—but ultimately her own repressed emotions could not reconcile with her fear of disappointing her loved ones. Unable to cope anymore, Cure Beauty's unnecessarily frilly, blue uniform dissolved before his eyes.

Blood-red spotlights beamed down on them from all sides. Joker watched as Aoki Reika collapsed to her knees, then to her hands. Without her mass of spiky hair, lace-trimmed battle skirt, and high-heeled boots, she looked so small—her simple, soft dark-blue hair unimpressive—her slim, petite figure more pronounced in her blue school uniform. This defeated creature was no longer a Precure of legend, but a mere schoolgirl lost in her despair.

Joker uttered an amused, satisfied chuckle. He had lost so much because of this girl. Emperor Pierrot's defeat mere minutes after his first revival—the constant failures of the three subordinate generals—the Precure gaining more Cure Décors and unleashing the powers of the Royal Clock—Emperor Pierrot's ultimatum to the generals to neutralize at least one Precure or suffer his wrath—Joker's own obligation to step in and kill this girl after Wolfrun, Majorina, and Akaoni had all proven useless—all of it could be traced back to one moment.

The moment Cure Beauty had challenged Joker to a duel and distracted him from serving his king.

No matter. Joker could at last fix his mistake.

He conjured his sword from thin air, specifically the sword he had used months ago during their previous battle. "It's over, Cure Beauty," he smiled.

He took his stance, stepping back a little to give the death blow the proper thrust. For the fullest irony, his black eyes aimed for the area near the left shoulder blade: he would send the sword straight through her "noble heart."

He stood ready.

He continued to stand ready for just an extra second more.

Then a cry distracted him.

"Reika-chan!"

He recognized it as Cure Happy's voice. No doubt the other three Precure were close by.

The red lights softened to green before Joker realized he had let them change. He swiveled his head, able with his magic to see the candy-colored, big-haired ladies and that blonde fairy searching the school archery range from where Joker had snatched Reika.

"Oh?" He smiled and lowered his blade. He turned to Reika. "This is a rare occasion," he told her affably. "Let's have everyone join in on the celebration."

Reika didn't even seem to register her friends had called her.

Good.

"If things go well," he added to himself, "I can take care of all of them here."

He raised his hand to snap his fingers, intending to open the portal to let the other four and their fairy inside—

"What do you think you're doing?" a high-pitched, deadpan voice asked behind him.

A grunt escaped his lips as Joker spun around, but then he blinked mutely at the sight that met him.

A miniature version of himself floated in front of his face, but instead of his quad-colored hair and white-and-purple jester ensemble, this apparition wore different shades of blue, reminiscent of the turquoise peak of Joker's hair. Even the white mask on its sharp face had a tint of pearl blue. The thing was about the size of Joker's skull. Despite its short stature, its spidery hands (with blue fingernails instead of black) sprung a cerulean deck of cards from one palm to the other in a minatory fashion.

Joker frowned, raising the ridge of one black eye. "You can't be my conscience," he said in disbelief.

His doppelganger snorted. "Of course not, Joker-san. We chained that fool up in the basement and feed him every other month." The blue creature swept itself into a stiff, formal bow that did not even try to be respectful. "I am merely the physical manifestation of your common sense, and it's been a few months since you last listened to me, desu ne?" The little thing used Joker's verbal tic of adding a lilt to the last two words, but it sounded mocking.

He blinked again at the pipsqueak. "What."

His common sense folded its blue arms. "Frankly, I'm getting a little tired of being ignored during this crucial time for Pierrot-sama. So, since I made the long journey from the recesses of your deranged psyche, I think you could stand to listen to what I have to say."

Joker pinched his own chin, giving the thing a sweep of his black eyes. "I always thought my descent into madness would be less self-righteous."

His common sense bared its white fangs. "Spare me your jokes. I know you better than you know yourself, Joker-san."

Joker opened his mouth to reply, but Cure Happy's and the other Precures' cries cut him off.

"Reika-chan! Reika-chan!"

"Are you here?"

"Can you hear me?"

His common sense pointed toward the source. "First off, soundproof your room before that Aoki girl snaps out of her despair. You know the Precure always get their second wind when they're together."

"That is sensible," the jester agreed, snapping his fingers. The girls' shouts ceased at once.

"Naturally," his common sense said. "Which is why it would've been foolish to try to take them all on at once. One would think you didn't really want to end Cure Beauty."

Joker snorted. "Of course I want to get rid of her. What good does it do me to keep her alive?"

"So, why haven't you done it yet?" It flitted to its left, floating between Joker and Reika. It straightened its small body, pointing an accusatory finger at the larger's masked face. "Since I probably won't get another chance to speak to you face-to-face, especially with Pierrot-sama's revival so near, you're going to hear what I have to say. Once I'm done, you're going to run your sword through your prisoner without turning it into a big theatrical production. Pierrot-sama shouldn't have to be defeated because of your showboating yet again."

A flinch crossed Joker's face, but he refused to let the preachy thing get a rise out of him. He calmly rested the tip of his blade against his other hand, considering the turquoise runt. "I'm the smartest being in the Bad End Kingdom after Pierrot-sama. When did I ever stop listening to you?"

"You want the exact date? The Eighth of July, right after Pegasus Night."

Joker averted his gaze.

Pegasus Night (as the Märchenland fairies called their wish-making holiday) had been when he kidnapped the Precure's little fairy and had stolen the Décor Décor. The warriors had come to the Bad End Kingdom the next evening, and that had been when the Precure defeated the Bad End generals and reduced Emperor Pierrot to a spike-covered egg.

"That wasn't entirely my fault," he began, narrowing his eyes. "The three subordinates fought against the Precure too."

However, his common sense scoffed. "Oh? What about when you chose to participate in a duel with that girl?" It jerked its hand toward Reika's back. "Remember what happened?"

The blue-haired girl did not seem aware of what was going on a few feet behind her, too weighed down with the supernaturally influenced despair Joker had set on her. Perhaps this wasn't actually happening—which made the timing for a mental breakdown most inconvenient.

Joker lowered his gaze. "I wasn't the only one fighting that night," he insisted again. "The three subordinates—"

"—Are all useless, as you yourself said yesterday, remember?" his common sense replied. "If you had done your job instead of sampling Cure Beauty's hair like it was ice cream, Pierrot-sama could have already destroyed the Milky Way by now."

Joker's sword arm fell to his side. "That was an intimidation tactic."

"Was it?" the turquoise apparition returned. "If you wanted to intimidate her, why didn't you tie her up with your cards and make her watch as you tossed the Décor Décor into the volcano? Or scatter all the Cure Décors across the cosmos like they were Easter eggs?"

Joker didn't have a response.

"If you had listened to me," his common sense continued, "I would've told you not to engage with her, but something made you stop hearing my voice, Joker-san."

The apparition held up its blue-back deck and lifted a card. It tossed the flat object to the side, and the tiny card expanded until it was size of a notebook.

Joker saw his past self floating above where the three generals faced off against the Precure when the girls had arrived in the Bad End Kingdom. Pop, the male fairy in the Precure's group, threw smoke bombs as a cover for Cure Happy to launch into the air like a pink missile and rescue their missing companion. The past Joker intercepted her, pulling out his purple cards for a fight—and then a flash of blue ice knocked into him, momentarily stunning him and making him lose his power of flight.

"You laid in wait for the pink girl," his common sense narrated. "You could've snuffed Happy out like a candle. Then she shot at you," it added with a disdainful sniff at Reika.

The footage continued. As the past Joker fell, Cure Happy continued on her way, and the jester landed upside-down in a caldera with the blue magical girl and that male fairy. Cure Beauty calmly and determinedly stared at the dust cloud that arose from Joker's impact. Although the card did not play sound, Joker knew she said she had suspected someone with Joker's cunning would wait to make his appearance. He could almost hear the tenacity that had caught his attention that July evening.

"Then she challenged you to a fight," his common sense said. "But did you do the sensible thing and disappear? Did you stop Cure Happy? Did you toss that fairy or some of the Cure Décors into lava? Did you put out a decoy Décor Décor and hide the real one someplace safe, like in Saturn's orbit? No, you found a pretty girl with ice powers more compelling than your master's life."

Joker let out a soft hiss at the accusation. "She's a six out of ten," he retorted. "Possibly a four."

His common sense's expression did not change. It snapped its tiny fingers. "Let's fast forward, shall we?"

The past footage sped up, zipping right through the lengthy duel. It resumed normal speed right when Cure Beauty gained the upper hand and blew him away with her Precure Beauty Blizzard spell. As Joker watched, the Star Décor he had stolen—and had brought out to taunt Beauty—fell from his person. The past Beauty spotted the charm as it drifted down and caught it easily.

"Because you didn't listen to your own common sense, you didn't put the final Cure Décor in a hiding spot. You could've sent it here—" it gestured to the surrounding circus tent "—where Beauty wouldn't have found it. But instead you were showing off, stooping to puerile hair-pulling on top of hair-licking. Then Beauty took the Décor from you, and the Precure got it. Then the Precure fought Pierrot-sama, and you failed your master."

Joker's shoulders slumped.

His common sense seemed to take notice of the change in his demeanor. It floated closer and patted his nose at the tip which his mask did not cover. "But you can learn, Joker-san," it said, its voice giving off a tone that could have been called sympathetic if Joker thought any part of his psyche could experience true sympathy. "After you kill the girl, you'll have fixed your mistake, and Pierrot-sama will be so proud, desu ne?"

Joker lifted his chin. "Yes, he will."

His common sense teleported to Joker's right wrist and tugged it. Joker obediently lifted the blade. "So, murder Beauty clean and quick, and we'll go out for real Roman gelato later. How about it?"

Joker gave the pipsqueak a half-smile. "I haven't eaten gelato since Pierrot-sama stopped visiting Italy." He didn't particularly like sweets himself—too much of a reminder of the brief time when he had lived in Märchenland—but he had made an exception for things his king had enjoyed, back when Emperor Pierrot could enjoy anything besides absolute suffering.

After a moment of thought, Joker shrugged. "Why not? Celebrations are in order."

"Wonderful!" his common sense said in a bit of gratuitous English, much like how Joker would've done. It curled itself into a tight blue ball and did several aerial somersaults. However, Joker could tell it wasn't acting the Fool (as Joker himself would've behaved around the three subordinate generals to keep them perpetually underestimating him). The thing seemed genuinely happy that Joker would take its advice.

Have I really not listened to it for that long? Joker readied his blade once again. The sooner Cure Beauty died, the sooner things would get back to normal for him.

"We'll figure out what to do with her cadaver when we get back," his common sense chirped, clapping its hands as it hovered by his left shoulder. "Maybe we could mount it like a scarecrow and collect Bad Energy from the Precure—"

"But are you really sure you want to do that?" another voice purred behind Joker, slightly deeper than his common sense.

Joker spun around. "What the deuce?!" he demanded.

Another doppelganger floated beside him, sitting in the air with one leg crossed over the other. Instead of blue clothing and hair, this one wore shades of red, similar to the middle section of Joker's hair. However, where his common sense was the size of Joker's skull, this personage was easily two feet tall.

Joker's common sense drew out its blue playing cards again, poised to strike. "You stay out of this!" it shouted at the taller apparition. "He's going to listen to me from now on, understand? The universe isn't going to destroy itself."

Joker glanced between the two creatures. "And who are you?" he asked the red one, frowning.

It unfolded itself and bowed. "I'm the physical manifestation of your self-interest and self-love, you handsome genius," it said, giving Joker a playful smile. "I'm that voice that has let you have so much fun over the years. Remember when you added all these trapezes to your circus? My idea." It stretched its lanky body leisurely, waving toward the dark ceiling of Joker's room. It slowly turned its head back to Joker. "Don't you want to hear what an evil creature like me has to say first? Get all the pros and cons before you make a decision?"

Joker raised the ridge of one black eye. "Why are you bigger than my common sense?"

"Because you listen to him more than me!" his common sense seethed, spinning toward Joker. "Skewer the girl like Pierrot-sama wants you to, and then you can hear that idiot out."

His self-interest shook its crimson head. "Don't be so hasty," it said jauntily, and it drifted over to Reika. It landed on its high-heeled boots beside her. With Reika slumped over her knees, it had no trouble propping an elbow against her shoulder.

Reika did not react.

The red manifestation tugged at a strand of her dark hair and turned its small masked face toward Joker. "Don't you think you're wasting a golden opportunity, Joker-san?"

"He does not!" his common sense fumed, zipping up to the bigger fragment of the jester's psyche. "He has to end this girl properly in cold blood before she can use that Smile Pact!"

His self-interest hummed out a laugh. "You mean… this Smile Pact?"

It whirled around and swiped at Reika's skirt, drawing out the round pink Pact from her right pocket. The lanky personage sprang back like a cat and spun itself in two deliberate circles. With considerable speed and strength for something of its size, it flung the magical compact at Joker as if it were a discus.

Joker caught it with his free hand.

The blue figure goggled at its red counterpart, its black eyes almost the length of its mask. "...How did I miss that?" it squeaked, shamefaced.

His self-interest chuckled. "See? The threat's been neutralized, and this girl isn't going anywhere. Nobody enters or leaves your room unless you will it, Joker-san, desu ne?" it sang.

Joker looked down at the Pact. It was definitely real, so maybe this wasn't all happening in his head. Either that, or Joker had already grabbed it himself and just imagined the red imp had thrown it at him.

Questions for another time.

He glanced between the magical pink case and his sword, considering this development. He probably should listen to his common sense and kill Reika without further delay. However, as long as he held the Pact, Cure Beauty was no more. Reika had no hope of fighting him in her mortal body.

The thought brought a genuine smile to his wide lips. "I'm listening, Self-Interest-san."

His common sense grumbled something and drew back to Joker's side, sitting on his broad purple shoulder. "Hide that thing before you forget," it ordered.

With a flick of his thin wrist, Joker sent it to one of the many secret places in the dark regions of his room.

Joker's self-interest strolled back to Reika's side, folding its arms behind its blade-thin back. "Common Sense-kun is right about one thing. You could have killed this Beauty multiple times since July. It's been almost five months, desu ne? Let's see; it's November now." It counted on its sharp red fingernails. "That's one hundred and twenty-four days, times twenty-four hours... Brings you to two thousand, nine hundred and seventy-two hours you could have used to send this girl to the great beyond."

Joker sucked air through his teeth. He imagined Emperor Pierrot trapped inside his egg, and he imagined the anger which radiated off it when the king had discussed what to do with the three generals for their failures. However, now in his mind Pierrot-sama knew about all his dealings with Cure Beauty, or lack thereof.

His heart gave an uncomfortable thump. "When you put it that way…" he murmured.

"Which is why he needs to kill her," his common sense argued. "Pierrot-sama needs him."

His self-interest held up its hand for silence. "I'm getting to that. Don't rush me." Raising its long arms gracefully, it sent itself into a spin, revolving on one leg around the vacant girl as if it were a planet going around the sun. Its voice warbled as it spoke, "Think of all the ways you could have killed her when you weren't hunting for the Miracle Jewel, Joker-san. Stab her in her sleep. Snatch her from her bath and spirit her to an active volcano. Or you can place her above shark-infested waters and give her a paper cut. Or bury her alive on a different continent. Or deposit her into outer space."

"Not bad ideas," Joker agreed, glancing at his sword. All those sounded both effective and fun.

"Y-Y-Yes!" it agreed, dropping the English word like the real Joker would have. It stopped in a graceful pose, arms extended and its bent leg now stretched to the side like a ballet danseur. "Imagine the despair of the Precure if she disappeared, and there was no forensic evidence to say what happened to her. Always wondering if she were alive or dead, the ultimate battle between hope and despair for teenage girls, wouldn't you say?"

His common sense nudged its elbow into Joker's cheek. "I like the outer-space one," it confided in his ear. "She'd be dead in thirty seconds, boiled alive. A poetic end for an ice girl."

His self-interest clearly heard its counterpart's compliment because it bowed deeply. "Yes, Joker-san," it continued, "you could kill Beauty. But consider what you'd be losing if you just did it now like a common thug." It twirled about-face and sauntered to Reika, now pressing its hand against her smooth head. "You've been watching her for nearly five months. But hasn't it also been kinda fun?"

Joker gritted his teeth. "I'm not a voyeur for human girls," he snapped.

His self-interest maintained its cheerful expression. "Of course not. You didn't even think Beauty was that remarkable before your big duel. She was just a people-pleaser and a run-of-the-mill heroine whose heart was as pure as her looks. Who wants that kind of positivity in their life?" It shook its skinny finger. "No, no. Her appeal is strictly intellectual, desu ne?"

"Strictly," Joker agreed.

The blue figure snorted. "Is there a point to this, or does being the manifestation of Joker-san's self-love mean you like the sound of your own voice?"

The red one held up its arms in a buoyant shrug. "Consider this. You've been tirelessly trying to revive Pierrot-sama and find the Miracle Jewel, but what has kept you from your goal? Why does Joker-san have to step in and defeat the Precure? Because your three subordinates have all proven themselves useless."

"Indeed," said Joker. Emperor Pierrot had made Joker deliver ultimatums to the three generals that they had to destroy just one Precure if they wanted to keep their current lives. Still, none of them had been able to get a single victory. "All of them were useless."

"But let's consider Beauty for a moment," said the red figure, resting its chin on its hand to stare down at the blue hair it leaned on. "Before July, you had written her off as an emotionally repressed doormat. Then she caught you with a sneak attack, knowing you could simply kill her as soon as look at her, which proved she had some backbone."

"True."

"She then gave you the best duel you've enjoyed in a long time. She was everything you had hoped for in facing a warrior from the legends you had grown up hearing. In a word," it said, raising its black eyes, "she was interesting."

Joker's own gaze slid over the huddled, broken girl. Even though their first duel had ended in his defeat, up until the moment the blizzard spell hit him, he had actually felt… elated to get into the fight. She had offered him a true challenge. Using not just brawn, she had her own brand of cunning in battle, and that unbreakable spirit had compelled her to keep fighting him, to keep the game going.

"That she is," Joker whispered.

"And it didn't stop there, did it? She's surprised you so many times when you've used your magic to spy on her goings-on. Remember when you found out the generals had wasted an entire day with the girls in Majorina-san's amusement park and didn't even collect Bad Energy? You used your cards to analyse the past to find out what went wrong, and what did you see?"

It drew out its own burgundy-backed deck and lazily flicked a card in the air, where it levitated. "Our proper lady waving pom poms," the personage tittered.

An image of the Precure appeared on the white front, standing in formation as Cure March's cheer squad while the green fighter played a brief baseball game against Akaoni. Each girl waved pom poms in her corresponding color. Beauty shook her blue pair without even a self-conscious pause, her wide eyes sparkling.

"Did you ever think you'd live to see the day?" his self-interest asked.

"Not at all," Joker grinned back.

His common sense snorted. "She was doing it with the rest of the group. Japanese schools place considerable value on teamwork and unity, I've found. She was just supporting a teammate like a good Student Council Vice-President. And March and Beauty were childhood friends anyway."

"But the fun kept going!" his self-interest sang, jumping into the air and spinning thrice before it landed again.

The footage on the card changed to the scene at the swimming competition with Wolfrun. The canine general dived into the water and started dog-paddling at a leisurely speed while Beauty stared at the pool—and the green-nose shark Akanbe in her lane.

"Beauty froze the water because Wolfrun-san cheated," his self-interest narrated as the blue warrior sent a blast of ice, "and she skated across— No, no!" it lilted, once again briefly slipping into English. "Not just skate. She did a lovely little spin, didn't she?"

As the red figure spoke, the past Cure Beauty set off down the lane, but her determined expression melted into a playful smile. She curled her slender limbs into a scratch spin. When she finally touched the far wall, she stretched into an elegant camel-spin position.

"Even she's not above pouring salt into the wound of her enemies, no?"

"Not above it at all," Joker said, surveying that pleasant grin on her face. His breath quickened a little, but he couldn't imagine why.

"And she beat Majorina-san at Old Maid. The generals play that game constantly, and you need a real poker face to fool an expert like Majorina-san. The noble-hearted girl obsessed with finding the true path can 'con a conman,' as it were."

Joker's tongue slid across his wide lips. "Go on."

The red creature spread its arms out, throwing back its variegated head. "Do I need to mention the time Majorina-san turned Cure Happy into a robot and Beauty figured out how to fly her by reading that huge manual in a short amount of time? Do I need to remind you of how quickly she adapted to playing Prince Charming in that Cinderella book? Or what about the first time she fought a Blue Nose Akanbe? Wasn't Beauty the only Precure who avoided being captured that day? Even though she's the type to prefer plans and structure, she also performs excellently under pressure."

"True, true."

"And at the school's cultural festival, during the fashion show when her classmates dressed up as fictional characters, what did our Beauty choose? Some wholesome fairy-tale heroine who helps people and who gets her happy ending? Of course not!"

It flicked a second card at Joker, which the jester caught eagerly, dropping his sword. The blade landed with a clatter, but Joker barely heard it.

"She dressed herself as Kaguya-hime, one of the Bad End Kingdom's most tragic ladies. Beauty's favorite picture book has a sad ending!"

Joker studied the photograph greedily. He had seen the image before, but now his eyes scanned it in a new light. Reika stood on the stage, wearing two red ribbons in her soft, dark-blue hair and sporting a lovely light-blue kimono beneath a diaphanous outerwear. Two stage props made to resemble green bamboo stalks stood on either side of her while a mural of the moon laid behind her. Her dark-blue eyes sparkled serenely beneath the spotlight, and she radiated a clear stage presence even in the still shot.

"Kaguya-hime is a cultural icon of Japan though," his common sense pointed out, but now even the high-pitched voice sounded interested as it leaned over to gaze at the picture. "Beauty comes from a traditional family, so it makes sense for her to admire her."

"Very traditional," his self-interest replied, and it shifted its weight to both feet only to spring into the air. "So, Joker-san, I have a question for you."

Joker raised his eyes to meet his fragment's gaze as a new excitement arose within his chest. "What? What?" he grinned, gripping the photograph.

His self-interest laid the side of its hand against its mouth and lowered its voice. "Wouldn't Beauty make a wonderful Kaguya? Metaphorically speaking, of course." It winked.

Joker's grin widened with realization. "Ha!"

"Oh, that's evil," the blue figure murmured, caught between disgust and admiration.

Joker wagged a finger at the red apparition. "I like the way you think, Self Interest-san."

It bowed. "I make your life that much sweeter, don't I?"

However, his common sense slapped its tiny hand against Joker's pale cheek. "You said it yourself when you picked her to kill. She's the smart one, the keystone of the Precure. You have to get rid of her."

"Technically, I will be," Joker replied, stepping toward Reika. Why did he never think of this before...

His common sense tugged at his elfin ear. "You've muffed up your chances to kill her in this past hour alone! When she was at the archery range, you could have stabbed her in the back instead of speaking to her. Instead of throwing that dart at her target to show off, you could have laced it with poison and thrown it at her—"

Joker smacked the blue pest away without slowing his pace. "Surely, you can see the sense in this plan?" he said, running a leisurely, appraising gaze over his huddled enemy—who would not be his enemy for much longer.

His self-interest nodded cheerfully. "Why terminate Reika-san now when she still has so much… potential left to exploit?"

Joker licked his teeth, uttering a soft sound of vicious delight. "Precisely."

A/N: Like it? Hate it? Helpful feedback is welcomed here! And if you were curious, "psychomachia" can also be a term for the "shoulder angel" trope. If you win a trivia game show and become a millionaire, remember to give Zabbie Q a cut of that prize! (*nod, nod, wink, wink*)

My apologies if the "desu ne" came off as gratuitous. Honestly not trying to be a weeb here. It's just that in going back over episodes to write this fic, Joker seems to say—ahem, sing that phrase enough times to make it into a drinking game. I have a hypothesis that if it turned out Joker was originally a fairy like Wolfrun and the others, his verbal tic would have been "desu ne."