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 Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2023 10:49 pm
Demeter bit her lip, trying to maintain positive body language. Gotta remain upbeat, even though her nerves were totally frying here! Murikabushi was just so nice, and she really hoped he could help her learn how to fight. But the idea of going to Mirrorspace... Freaked her out a little. Going into any very much non-Earth space freaked her out, to be honest. There was just so much that could go wrong! Not that she didn't trust Murikabushi, he helped her too much for this to be some kind of trick, but... Weh. Still, she tightened her grip on him and smiled sunnily up at him. "Ready to go when you are," she chirped.
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Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2023 2:55 pm
Frankly, Reiki didn’t blame Demeter for seeming kinda tense and clingy about this whole “going to Mirrorspace” thing. Hell, he was required to call Mirrorspace “home” at least some of the time because he unfortunately happened to be one of its senshi instead of a senshi who’d gotten lucky enough to be Awakened in a way where they got to go help people for real (without being subjected to random interrogations, or having their motives questioned, or treated like they were Obviously Lying), and do literally anything that improved anybody’s lives in any materially meaningful fashion (outside of their own lives or whatever, because <******** you, got mine” was really the ******** attitude of anybody who deserved or respected the inherent power of a senshi’s starseed), and visit actual space……
And yet, despite being one of Mirrorspace’s ******** pets in his own right, even Reiki thought that any duration spent there constituted “too much time in Mirrorspace.”
………Still, he couldn’t deny that Mirrorspace provided a relatively safe location in which to go over self-defense basics with her—assess what she knew, give her some pointers and make sure she knew some good basics, etc. Hopefully, the soft dirt of his little island would provide some good cushioning in case they knocked each other around a bit much. True, Demeter had perfectly valid reason for getting clingy, given the chills that came with passing through the mirror, and the just plain unnatural feeling of……everything in this place.
“Stick close to me okay, Sweets?” Reiki didn’t think he needed to tell Demeter that, but better safe than sorry. Leading her through the mirror that led to the citadel and the mirrorscape, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he could all too easily mess this up and get her hurt. He’d never taken someone from another faction into Mirrorspace before, and the specter of what Sinope had done to Faustite’s family loomed large over his awareness. Would something similar happen to Demeter if Reiki let himself get negligent?
“So, in that building,” he said, gesturing down the pathway at the citadel, “we’re going to stand on a big mirror in the floor? And it’s going to take us to my little space here. Nobody will bother us and it’s pretty soft. Just……stick close to me, okay?”
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Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2023 10:15 pm
Demeter nodded to him, though she definitely had not been planning on any personal exploring—there was a difference between doing that around the city that she knew pretty well, and the spooky alternate dimension place she most likely couldn't leave on her own! She was not completely stupid, thank you. She preferred not to think of herself as stupid at all, but.... she had, admittedly, quite recently, done some very stupid things, and now was not the time to think about that thank you for your input brain!!! "Standing on a giant mirror inside a church feels blasphemous," she commented with an ironic smile, following him closely.
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Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2023 11:00 pm
“Eh, it’s not really a church, honestly? More of a citadel.… Plus, most churches don’t have mirrors on the floor,” Reiki said, looking around the big room he’d led them into, with the vaulted ceiling. Over on the pedestal sat the journal that Acubens had left behind like some kind of guest-book, and for the umpteen-dozenth time, Reiki considered going over there and writing some kind of note for her.
For the umpteen-dozenth time, he decided to absolutely veto the idea because……what would he even have written? ”Hey Onee-san, it’s Murikabushi, just thought you should know that I’m showing a little White Moon basic senshi around to give her some lessons in self-defense because she has healing magic. Her name is Demeter, she’s a sweetheart, please be nice to her”? No. No. Nah. ******** not. After how Logos had acted about being on any friendly terms with White Moon senshi, the last thing Reiki needed was for Acubens to get on his ******** case about finding friends wherever he ******** could, because finding them within the Court was basically ******** impossible.
Whatever, though. Not his ******** problem. What Acubens didn’t know couldn’t be a pain in Reiki’s a**.
For the time being, he walked out onto the mirror in the floor and reached out for Demeter. “We’re gonna need to mirror-walk again. And apologies in advance for how boring my little island in the void is. It’s honestly not worth all the fufuraw of getting there.”
Only things it had going for it were the kitsunebi in the corners, lighting up the place, and the thicket of black roses that he’d grown. But the heroin-colored dirt-or-sand-or-whatever was soft enough that it’d give them a nice shield for any slipping and falling that might’ve happened while pushing each other around. That was the most important thing.
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Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2023 7:01 pm
Okay. So there was a difference between churches and citadels, she supposed. Interesting. And yes, neither would likely have mirrors on the floor but it still felt some kind of wrong, okay! Taking a bit of a shakier breath than she'd like to admit, she squeezed Murikabushi's hand and let him take them into the mirror, hating the feeling of the travel, but— "Wow, this place is pretty!" she blurted immediately.
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Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2023 8:56 pm
For all plenty of people in Reiki’s life enjoyed calling him out for his relentless and often not very good for him or his wellbeing optimism, Demeter totally blew him out of the water in that regard. One moment, he was staring out at the vast expanse of white sand-dirt-whatever-substance, marred only by the single eight-foot thicket of pure black roses. The next, he was blinking at Demeter in open confusion.
“……Seriously?” He tilted his head, but it didn’t make her definition of beautiful make any more sense. “It……it’s kind of empty and devoid of anything worth commenting on, honestly?” Well, the black roses were nice, and very much Reiki’s Thing. But if the crystal-encased one he’d gotten from Almadel was anything to go by, they also existed up on the actual planet Murikabushi, where they would’ve looked significantly prettier.
Or, at least, they could have existed there.
If the Murikabushi starseed had been reincarnated in someone who actually deserved it, and who the planet wanted for its senshi, as opposed to Reiki, who apparently ticked off neither of those boxes but had decided to force the matter because he suffered from the perpetually, eternally Basic b***h disease of wanting to be special. Just like the only line the Reiki knew from Oliver Wendell Holmes (which Reiki only knew in the first place because he’d always seen it misattributed to Shakespeare): Nothing is so commonplace as the wish to be remarkable.
At least Reiki was a Basic b***h who’d eaten a decent meal before meeting Demeter for this little excursion. Which may not have counted as a victory for anybody else, and honestly, good for them. Reiki hoped with all his heart that they never had to endure the humiliating ordeal of treating completely simple things like “ate dinner tonight instead of telling myself that skipping was completely fine and nobody would care if I just didn’t eat” as if they were achievements.
Waving his hand dismissively, he tried to give Demeter an encouraging smile. “Whenever you go to space and visit your planet, I’m sure it’ll be way prettier than this dump. But anyway, let’s start with a simple question: have you ever learned any self-defense-type anything before?”
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Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2023 9:43 pm
Demeter frowned a bit at him—was it so hard to take pride in your own space? she wondered. Sure, it did seem a little empty, but... Maybe she really was just one of those annoying glass-half-full people. It looked pretty enough to her. So she chose to keep her opinions to herself—besides, maybe... It was just one of those Chaos things. That... the area made you feel sad and depressed so you kept feeding it energy to try and make it do something. The thought made her incredibly sad, so she shelved it for the moment and took a deep breath, summoning her sunny smile to beam it at him. "I can only hope," she said warmly. "As to your question, uh, no." She smiled sheepishly.
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Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2023 1:03 am
……Well, this wasn’t going the way that Reiki had thought it would. Jeez, he said that his little heroin-covered baseball field/hovel was a dump, but he wasn’t like, calling Mirrorspace a gods-forsaken, freezing cold s**t-hole (at least, not out loud), but Demeter was getting, like……upset. With the frowning. And the obvious aura of being Disappointed In Him (or at least in something) but also refusing to call him out and just tell him outright what he was doing that had made her frown in the first place.
Was it really a big deal to just……say factually accurate things about his space in a horrifying magical realm that ran on nonsense and lived off of human life-force energy? Maybe Reiki said them in a bit of a negative way? But that wasn’t the same thing as being negative, right?
Ugh, whatever.
“Okay, well, don’t worry too much—or try not to, okay?” Trying to pick things back up instead of dwelling on the negativity, Reiki kept his tone upbeat and tried to give Demeter a reassuring smile. “There’s no magical one-size-fits-all answer to anything with all of this. There are some good rules and guidelines to learn, but every situation is going to be different. Every youma or monster from outer space is different, every Negaverse agent is different—so keep an open mind and stay flexible. If something’s not working in some situation, then try something else.
“My first personal rule?” He held up a hand like he was going to put the other one on a Bible and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help him God. “Try to avoid throwing punches, if you can help it. Being a senshi makes us more resilient than most people, but it doesn’t take a lot of force to seriously damage your hands. It takes a lot of practice to learn how to make fists that minimize your risk of getting hurt by punching, and in the heat of the moment? You might not remember those techniques. Even Mike Tyson? He’s a boxer, he literally punched people for a living, and one time, he got jumped and broke his hand from punching the wrong way. So, we’ll go over those techniques if you want? But I recommend using them as little as possible.
“Open-hand strikes are more adaptable, you’ll have more control over them, and you can do as much if not more damage with them than with punching. And the first one, everyone knows how to do. Although……”
Looking down at Demeter, Reiki pouted.
This height difference was problematic.
……Well, Mirrorspace’s crystals did things when you broke them open, so maybe, Reiki only needed to pull one out of his subspace and give it a try. The blue ones didn’t seem likely to help, the red ones would probably only make more fire, the white and green and yellow ones didn’t feel right either, and the violet ones, he knew, would only add more roses to his pile. But the gray ones, though……?
Cracking one open and scattering it, Reiki found that it made a little stone platform, perfectly sized for Demeter to hop up on and be within hitting range of his face.
“Alright alright alright,” he said. “Now, I want you to slap me as hard as you can, okay?”
As if it helped emphasize the request, he turned his cheek and gestured at it.
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Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2023 10:30 pm
Demeter wasn't sure what the weird tension was, but... it faded, and she tried to shake it off. She had to pay attention to the lesson he was going to give her. Part of her suddenly worried if the tension had been part of some bigger play to lure her here and then kill her, but she found the notion ridiculous, and put it out of her head. No need to stress herself out over nothing. "Slap you?!" she squawked after she'd popped up on the rock. "But—But—"
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Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2023 10:43 pm
Reiki blinked down at her, a bit bemusedly. “Yes, sweetie, slap me. I can’t help you if I don’t know what you’re working with, what you already know how to do, and all of that. Advice needs to be tailored to each specific case.”
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Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2023 11:03 pm
Okay. Okay, yeah, that made sense, she could totally do this. Totally. She lifted her hand, reached out, and— Shut her eyes and hit Murikabushi so softly it felt like she barely touched him even to her.
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Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2023 11:35 pm
Once again, Reiki found himself blinking at Demeter in utter confusion. That……had technically satisfied the request that she slap him in the face. But it had barely felt like anything—reminded him of Aunt Satomi’s cats when they batted their little paws at sunbeams—and……well. Okay. Reiki took a deep breath to steady himself and stay grounded. Everybody had to start somewhere. Patience, Ojiisan always told him, no matter how many times Reiki proved himself over and over and over again to be Murasaki’s Grandson, which was to say “Not especially gifted in patience, actually.”
“Okay,” Reiki told Demeter, keeping his voice gentle and his body language open. “So, we have some work to do. But that’s okay. Trust me, I only had any foundations when I started going to self-defense classes with my mom? Because I got bullied all the time and it felt like ‘fight back or the other kids would put me in the ER eventually.’ First thing’s first, always slap with your dominant hand.” Demonstrating which one it was for him, Reiki held up his left hand. “It generally has more strength and you have more practice with making it do what you want. That means it’s less likely to flail around or go limp and mess up your follow-through.
“Next, there’s your stance.” Rather than try to rearrange her himself, Reiki turned so he was facing the same direction as Demeter and demonstrated the right stance. “So, when you’re getting ready to slap someone, plant your feet. Go with whatever position is most natural for you—” For Reiki, that meant putting them about shoulder-width apart. “—because you want to make sure that you can put enough power into your swing. When you launch yourself into it, you want to come from a place of strength, and power. Like……” He considered for a moment, trying to pick the right strong animated divas to inspire her. “Think like Garnet. Like Megara. Like She-Ra. Think like you’ve got the power inside you, and you’re gonna show these youma and nasty people who’s the boss.
“You also want to keep your hips loose. They’re instrumental in delivering a solid slap, m’kay? You want to move your arm as little as possible because if it’s moving, you can’t keep it firm enough to make the slap count. The real motion in a slap—and where it gets the kinetic energy to make the impact count?—comes from your hips and shoulders. Watch me.”
Arm locked in place. Feet planted. Hips loose like a rubber band. Reiki gave himself a moment to imagine Greg was standing right in front of him, to really picture that ******** a*****e and imagine that he was there for the slapping. Then, he pushed off with his right foot and, with the grace that came from over a decade of dance classes and only slightly less long spent learning the art of drag from Miss Sibyl, slapped the air where he’d placed his mental image of Greg’s ******** face.
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Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2023 7:32 pm
Demeter gave him a nervous giggle at the comment about having work to do. It kind of reminded her of Captain Li Shang, but Murikabushi was far nicer. She suppressed the ridiculous impulse to break into a modified version of I'll Make A Man Out of You and focused on Muri. "Okay... Okay," she muttered to herself, shifting her body around. She could do this. She had to. She wanted to be a good fighter, to defeat chaos in the name of the moon, and all that. "So... Like this." And then, following his example, she leaned forward and gave him a much nastier slap than she had at first.
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Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2023 9:58 pm
Even expecting the slap to come, Reiki still felt staggered as the impact connected with his cheek. He still blinked at her for a moment, same as he had when she’d barely thwapped him, save that a dark, red mark shaped like her hand stood out, clear and proud, on his face.
“Yes!” He let that burst out of him before his brain had entirely caught up with the situation. “That was excellent, sweetie.” As Reiki’s brain progressively got itself sorted in the present moment, he gave Demeter a broad, eager grin. Rubbing at his cheek, he told her, “The big thing to work on with slapping is just learning the motions, so you can do them faster. Youma usually aren’t going to stand still and wait for you to hit them.
“And another thing to keep in mind? So you always do as much damage as you mean to, never more? When you want to startle somebody, keep your fingers pressed together and try to only hit with them and the mounts of your palm.” He held up his left hand, demonstrating for her. “When you really want to hurt someone, though? Spread your fingers out—creates more sites of sharper impact—and put most of the force into your palm. If someone has enough force and knows what they’re doing, they can knock somebody out with a well-placed open-palm strike.”
Which was probably a good thing to cover next: WHERE to hit someone. “For the next lesson: because you are a young lady of culture, may I presume you are familiar with the classic romantic-comedy Miss Congeniality?”
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Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2023 12:17 pm
Demeter blushed as he heaped compliments on her, fiddling with the hem of her skirt and still feeling bad about hitting him. Almost immediately, she got distracted by her outfit—was this really the permanent outfit? Like, would it not change seasonally to match the current state of agricultural harvesting stuff? She should be covered in strawberries and pink right now, not pumpkins and orange! Ugh. She still thought it was cute, don't get her wrong, it just didn't fit and it bugged her so much. Why couldn't she have a cool changing outfit, huh? Oh, Murikabushi had asked her a question. She snapped her head back up, wincing as she ran back through what had just happened, hoping she could—yup, okay. "Yeah! 'All you need is a light jacket'," she quoted with a giggle. "Um, I only remember... Isn't it SING? Solar plexus, instep, um... knee, groin?"
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