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 Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2022 8:19 pm
Strictly speaking, Reiki probably didn’t need to go out and patrol on a Friday night—especially not after running into, of all things, an Eternal senshi. Double especially, hosting a show was probably fair enough reason to just go home from the bar without spending any time on any senshi nonsense tonight.…… On the other hand, powering up into Murikabushi did clean up his makeup for him, leaving him fresh-faced when he powered back down. God, that was going to save so much time and money he could’ve spent on makeup remover.
And, well, since he was powered up anyway, why not stash his drag bag and wig-case in his subspace pocket, then take some time to patrol on his way home.… It didn’t need to be too intense or anything, just hop around the roofs of Destiny City, feeling around for any youma auras (thankfully, none showed up), or some new Dark Mirror auras to go meet (alas, none of these, either), or—!! About halfway home, Reiki perked up at the feeling of a distinctly Negaverse-type aura. Took him a couple tries of playing hot-or-cold with himself before he figured out where it was coming from……and unfortunately, he led himself to an alley where he couldn’t particularly see very well. At least, not from on top of a roof.
Running headlong into a dark alley sounded like an objectively stupid idea, no question. Never mind doing so when Reiki had no idea what kind of Negaverse shenanigans he’d be wandering into. Something about the aura felt……weird. Kind of familiar, but kind of not? And the way it was familiar felt……like Toráin’s.
Oh, god, Reiki’s conscience-or-something-like-it decided to pipe up. What if it feels different because they did something to him? Something worse than forcible corruption?
Granted, Reiki didn’t know offhand what could be worse than that—but he didn’t give himself time to think about it, either. Instead, he hopped off the roof, into the shadows. As soon as he landed, he called out, “Toráin? Toráin, it’s me…?”
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Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2022 9:05 pm
Arsenolite was having a pretty damn good night. Monoceros was brightening up and making friends, he was slowly making his way towards General, now, he was sure of it. He'd been making excellent progress in starseed capture, even if he hadn't been super great at the intelligence gathering thing. He wasn't perfect at this sort of thing, but he was getting better, he just knew it. He was chasing that General dream and chasing it hard.
Then he heard someone calling out Monoceros's civ name like they had any ******** business to be doing so while powered up and he ripped his hand from the chest of the civillian whose starseed he'd been trying to take more gently and shoved the body to the side, looking up at the Dark Mirror Senshi.
"Oi, idiot!" he shouted angrily, "Don't you know to keep those names to yourself when you're dressed up? Any ******** Order moron could be hanging around here in their own civvies and hear you calling out to someone and connect the ******** dots! Do you have any thoughts in that stupid little brain of yours, or are all you Mirror morons actually that self-centered and airheaded? If you're privileged enough to know his name, you ought to ******** care about his personal ******** Dark Mirrors. Vain bastards, the lot of them.
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Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2022 9:24 pm
“Hey, ******** off, you presumptuous d**k,” Reiki bit back before giving himself a chance to think about this. If he had thought about things, he might have considered things like the fact that whoever he was talking to wasn’t entirely wrong, except for how—“First of all: as if those judgmental, self-obsessed Order idiots would even notice anything going on. Second of all, as if they would assume there was anything going on and not that, oh, I don’t know, some other stupid civilian was calling out to a different stupid civilian! It’s not like being a senshi means your aura sense is constantly turned on.”
Or if it did, then maybe that was also broken about Reiki’s ******** idiot powers that didn’t want to work reliably. Or maybe he’d been too overwhelmed by the whole………everything about becoming a magical boy right in time for Pride season to mean that he and his entire Haus were booked, blessed, and busy, and time for him to have obligations on campus because graduate school was suffering, and time for—
“Anyway, it’s not like I know any other name to call him. All I know is his name’s Toráin, he’s the senshi of porcupines, he’s on good terms with some tragically attractive ******** named Valjean—” Who Reiki was! not! going to feel sad about! Not right now!! Not when this ******** guy clearly had not ever, in his entire life, had enough verbal altercations with someone who could actually push back—“and there’s some massive bag of dicks in his life called Arsenolite, who I wouldn’t call a ‘real piece of work’ because, from the sound of it, that would give a bad name to everyone else who’s ever been called a real piece of work.”
Huffing, Reiki crossed his arms in the universal expression of impatience and being truly done with someone else’s s**t……but his grip on his elbow loosened somewhat as he glanced down at the—“Wait, did you just murder that guy?”
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Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2022 9:49 pm
Arsenolite raised his brows at the comment about aura sense, crossing his arms and tapping his foot until the strange senshi's stupid little rant came to a horrified end in the manner of a question.
"If you're finished..." he said icily, frowning severely, "Yes, aura sense is there always, like, duh? Unless.... you mean also sense it in civ form, and, uh, no. No, that's not how that works, but it's also not ******** hard to guess by our looks alone who and what we are, dipshit. Never, ever assume you're safe from eavesdroppers or peering eyes when you're in public. I don't care how dark it is out here. There's all sorts of magical and mundane items that can show you things in the dark, things you're not supposed to see, and all sorts of s**t."
He dropped the crossed arms and flipped the starseed in the air like it was a little coin, eyeing the senshi carefully. "By the way, you'll call him Monoceros. That's his proper name. Anyway, yeah, I took that guy's starseed, what of it? We need them to fight off the Order ********. Unless you need to energy drain the guy first?"
He wasn't feeling particularly generous or anything, but it wouldn't be hard to pop the seed back in and let the guy get a drain in before he took it back out. It wouldn't be any trouble, technically. Plus, this senshi apparently was friends with Monoceros, to some extent, and Arsenolite didn't intend on ******** up that bridge for him. So the hand holding the starseed went to linger over the guy crumpled on the ground, a single eyebrow raised questioningly.
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Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2022 10:11 pm
“Of course I ******** meant that, Hawkeye!” Since this guy hadn’t shared his name yet, Reiki could only guess by the presence of the bow and arrows. The only archer who came to mind was one, Katniss Everdeen, though, and she deserved better than being compared to this ******** guy. Clint Barton could deal with it, though. “You’re the one who said that some hypothetical Order-slave could be ******** around in their civvies, and sense us, and ooooh, connect the dots about you, or me, or To—Monoceros.”
As much as Reiki did not enjoy conceding that this wannabe Robin Hood had a point? Unfortunately, when it came to using people’s proper senshi names, he kinda did. Reiki glowered about it like a kitten being subjected to bath-time, because he still wanted to punch the messenger, but he couldn’t justify taking a risk that might endanger Toráin.
“And yeah, they could look at us—but how do they know that’s not his proper name? How would they even know to look at us? Which was my point: those smug, shallow little ******** with the bleach-stain auras wouldn’t be able to sense us if they’re in their civvies, like you said in your original hypothetical, and for all they know, the name they heard belongs to some random white-collar guy who just had a sexuality crisis at a drag show or something. So, why would they even think to come investigate? Those people never look outside their own self-righteous mental bubbles, even when they want to proselytize at you. But!”
Reiki flapped a hand in the general vicinity of the person whose starseed ******** Hawkeye had decided to up and steal. “What did he even do, though? Needing energy is one thing, but…” Come on, Reiki thought but reconsidered saying out loud. The Negaverse can’t claim a high-ground over the Order-slaves, then just turn around and murder innocent people for no reason.
Except………well. Everything he’d heard from Valjean and Toráin made him think that……yes, actually: they could, they would, and they did, often enough for it to be so much a thing that they also convinced Valjean, and Toráin, and who knew how many others that the universe was better with their old selves entirely erased.
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Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2022 12:03 am
Hawkeye? Well... that was better than Katniss, he thought with a grimace, glancing back to the bow strapped to his back. He pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled deeply, reminding himself of why he wasn't going to physically engage with this senshi. He was someone important to Monoceros. He was someone important to Monoceros. He. Was. Someone. Important! To! Monoceros!This was much harder than he originally thought. He didn't even bother to respond to the senshi's stupid backpedaling and sputtering over the finer details of civ vs powered names and whatever bullshit justifications he was trying to trip over to cover his own a**. He knew it was bullshit. "Uh... wrong place, wrong time?" he said, "Some kind of drunken vagrant who tried to jump me. Tried to mug the wrong idiot, though." He smirked a bit. A little white lie wasn't anything to him, not when he could see the hesitation in the senshi's eyes. A silly little reason was better than simple convenience, of course. "By the way, I'm Arsenolite," he introduced, "And if you wanna gather energy from an easy source tonight, better say so quick, because the longer this stays out of him, the harder it'll be to put back in, if you need the energy. Otherwise I'm sticking it in my subspace."
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Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2022 4:52 am
Well, that explanation sounded about as real as Jacquelyn Vaughn’s tits when we came back for senior year at Meadowview, Reiki thought but did not allow himself to say. It took literally biting on his tongue to make himself hold back on that read, especially considering who ******** Hawkeye apparently really was……but Arsenolite was absolutely on his last gay nerve, and calling him out only seemed to make him act like more of an outrageous p***k than he already was.
Also, Arsenolite technically had enough plausible deniability that calling him out would’ve taken more focus than Reiki could really muster up, right this second, when his blood Adderall levels were much lower than he liked and every part of him burned, pined, and perished to get the ******** away from Arsenolite as soon as possible.
“No, I’m fine,” Reiki said with a dismissive wave and a pointed refusal to give this jackass even a cursory thanks for the offer. Whatever the energy draining equivalent of blood money was? Reiki wanted none of it, thanks. Looking down at the guy Arsenolite was killing, even briefly, sent a cold chill to the pit of Reiki’s stomach, which only exacerbated the desire to get away from here, from Arsenolite, and from all of this. “I’ll just go. I shouldn’t have bothered you just because your aura felt like his for reasons other than 'oh right, Negaverse.'”
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Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2022 2:33 pm
Arsenoltie shrugged, slipping the starseed into his subspace and giving the other guy a cocky grin.
"No worries," he said assuringly, "A friend of 'Ceros is a friend of mine, uh... Darlin', I've forgotten your name."
He put his hand on his hip and raised a brow at the other. He'd already introduced himself, and the senshi had failed to do the same. He could ask Monoceros later, sure, but it was better to get an answer from the guy now. Easier, when he held all the cards of information without needing to needle for it from Ceros. An upper hand, in case he ever needs one again. This guy was probably gonna tell Ceros they'd met, but still.
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Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2022 3:14 pm
Well, that’s because I didn’t give it to you, ******** Hawkeye, Reiki bit back on because really, what was the point in saying it? Arsenolite probably wasn’t stupid enough to notice that Reiki hadn’t given it to him—nor did he really want to. Why did he owe Arsenolite anything? When he could do something—should do something—to try and make him put the starseed back, but couldn’t think of what to do, much less how to make himself just do ******** exactly. He was letting Arsenolite get away with murder, so he didn’t owe the son-of-a-b***h anything.
“It’s Tagame,” Reiki said. Yes, it was a lie—one based entirely in throwing out the first fellow Japanese queer Reiki could think of—but frankly, naming himself as Murikabushi still felt like a heinous lie as well and that actually was Reiki’s proper senshi name. For the sake of selling the fantasy—one in which he was a Bad b***h, an elegant queer villain who’d earned the right to ojou-sama laugh, and not starting to feel sick about the man down on the ground—Reiki threw in a gratuitous curtsy and did a flourish with his wrists. “Sailor Tagame, of hunger and the Dark Mirror Court.”
……God, he hoped there wasn’t a real Sailor Tagame out there. With all the random names he’d heard out of his fellow senshi so far—Elsa, Daphne, Sappho, Bélénos, Valjean, Kerberos, and now, Monoceros—there very well could’ve been one. But—if that happened and made anything awkward, well. It sounded like Future Reiki’s problem.genovianprince Pseudonym borrowed from Tagame Gengoroh-sensei, who does not have an asteroid or other celestial body named after him, so at least Murikabushi’s only misappropriating ONE person’s identity.
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Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2022 3:26 pm
Arsenolite nodded, memorizing the name easily. "Hunger, huh? Cool. Nice to meet you, then," he said, giving another little cocky smirk before teleporting back to the Negaverse. Heh. He hoped that gave the guy a little bit of a shock. It was always fun to mess with those Mirror guys.
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Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2022 4:21 pm
Reiki was well prepared to wander off for a little while, then double back—but thankfully, Arsenolite ******** off on his own. “Wish I could say the same,” Reiki muttered to no one in particular. If an approximately tree-sized drag senshi talks to himself in a forest and only he’s around to hear…… he mused, but it did nothing to help steady his nerves any.
Staying around the body was unlikely to help with that……but by the same token, Reiki couldn’t imagine that he’d feel any better about simply leaving. No…… No, even if the guy who Arsenolite killed was just a nobody in most people’s eyes, he deserved better than that.…… As Reiki knelt down beside him, he noted the nondescript jeans and half-undone button-up that screamed boring, middle-management with no idea how to dress for a night out, as well as the tattoo exposed by the open shirt. A cartoon unicorn on his hind legs, wearing a tuxedo and holding what looked like a green carnation.
Reiki gulped, seeing that. One of his own people, in the middle of Pride season, and he’d done ******** and a bag of chips to help save him from Arsenolite. Hands trembling, chest cold and heavy with the sense that he was doing something very, very wrong, Reiki rifled through the man’s pockets. Thankfully, it didn’t take long to find his cellphone and his wallet.
According to his driver’s license, his name was Raymond Callahan. White male, mid-forties, brown hair all a mess, thanks to Arsenolite. He had some kind of account with a linked ATM card at Destiny City Credit Union. A Meadowview school ID named him as a member of their science faculty, who’d started after Reiki graduated but had definitely overlapped with Nariko and Tatsuya.
Probably not computer science, Reiki thought to himself as he looked at Raymond Callahan’s last-gen iphone. For all he appreciated the protective case with fanart of Jason Todd kissing Tim Drake (Something off RedBubble maybe?), it seemed like Raymond Callahan had been more concerned with protecting his phone from drop-damage than from any prying eyes. True, he couldn’t unlock it by himself, but Reiki didn’t need to hold the phone over Raymond Callahan’s face to see his notifications.
There were four: one batch of unread emails and three text messages. In the oldest one, Callahan’s mother told him she was looking forward to having him and “[his] boys” over for dinner on Sunday. Reiki briefly wondered about any kids Callahan might have had, but the middle text seemed to contradict that: someone named Boyd, who had his name saved with the emojis of a wedding ring, a sparkly heart, and a cat’s face, had sent Callahan a text, asking if he knew anything about someone giving “Rory-Bear” trouble at work.
The most recent text had come from someone named Rory, who had his name saved with the emojis of a lipstick kiss print and a bear’s face. He’d sent Callahan, have fun at mandys party, baby! hope miss sayuri’s number kills with the cry-laughing face emoji.
Reiki didn’t feel his hand go limp, but he heard the phone clatter to the pavement. This man, Raymond Callahan, had been at the show earlier, probably with the bachelorette party full of ladies who Tiffany had ******** before (at least, according to her, and Reiki trusted his drag sister implicitly). Someone who might’ve been Callahan and his husband’s boyfriend had pointed out Reiki specifically, or at least Miss Sayuri Kurobara Disobedience, as someone to watch.
And when it had actually mattered—when he could’ve thought up something to help Callahan, to get his starseed back before Arsenolite took it to the Negaverse—Reiki had done nothing. He talked so much about drag artists as protectors of their queer communities, and he’d. done. nothing.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. As he fumbled the phone and wallet back into Raymond Callahan’s pockets, Reiki felt his eyes sting. Felt the tides within them rise. He tried to stay quiet, as quiet as possible anyway, but his breath still hitched in his throat as he tried to wipe the tears away. No, no, he didn’t have the right to cry about this. Not when it was his fault, for having had the opportunity to change the outcome and doing absolutely nothing. “I’m so sorry…”
Guilt bore down on Reiki’s shoulders, making it hard to sit upright, much less force himself to stand.…… He had to, though, didn’t he? He couldn’t just call 9-1-1 from his cell……except Reiki’s legs didn’t want to cooperate. He could barely pull himself together enough to get his drag-bag and wig-case out of his subspace before he powered down. At that, he only managed because his phone was in his drag bag, and he needed to call.… He couldn’t just leave Callahan here, not when it was Reiki’s fault in the first place that Callahan wasn’t going home to his Boyd and Rory-Bear, that he’d never answer their last texts, and that he wouldn’t take them to his Mom’s for dinner on Sunday.
Stupid though it was, once he dialed the three little numbers, part of Reiki hoped that no one answered. But of course they did. 9-1-1 emergency dispatch—that was only the vast majority of their <******** job.
“Please, I…I was walking home,” he told the dispatcher, “and I found him? There’s a man, he’s in this alley—it’s off Hickory Grove, right between the Panera Bread and the urgent care.… He wasn’t moving, he wouldn’t wake up, please.…”
As soon as the dispatcher confirmed that someone was coming, Reiki let himself flop over. Scooting so he could slump against the wall seemed to take Herculean effort. Still, he managed it. Regardless of Hell or high water, he’d stay here until the paramedics came. And, no matter how badly his hands shook, he managed to fire off two texts:
text to Haruhi Might be going to hospital for some rando again. text to Haruhi I don’t think this one’s gonna make it
……Seriously, why didn’t being a magical boy come with a ******** instruction manual?
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