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 Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2023 1:07 pm
Quote: Prompt 1 (Diamond Dust): This time of year, snow is common. What’s uncommon is the single, strange snowfall where each snowflake that fell glistened like tiny diamonds. For the most part, the snow seems fairly normal—it’s cold, wet, and melts just like any other snow, it just also happens to look like tiny little gems are falling from the sky. Depending on who you’re with, it’s either incredibly strange, or incredibly romantic. When the snow is coming down at its strongest, crystalized snowflakes trickle down with the rest of the snow. These are roughly the size of a quarter and are light and hollow. They are fragile, like glass, but glisten like a fine cut gem. No one can explain this anomaly, but these small snowflakes won't melt. And they are all over Destiny City. You can find them gently falling to the ground, or lying in the fresh fallen snow. There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly magical about them, but they are beautiful and make pretty keepsakes.
Tonight, he wasn’t doing that. The mere fact that he wasn’t doing that set something buzzing beneath Reiki’s skin, refusing to be quieted. Even approaching Kerberos’s bench with three fun offerings in hand, Reiki felt impossibly awkward about the intention hovering at the back of his mind. He wanted to simply sit here and gossip like always, letting Kerberos enjoy the fresh hot chocolate, some of Yuki’s strawberry and chocolate fudge brownies, and his holiday gift-bag that Reiki had meant to give Kerberos before Christmas had happened, but he’d plum forgotten.
The gift-bag had plenty of fun in it, too. Should’ve been a perfect excuse to just breathe easily. A hand-crocheted scarf done in red like the red all over Kerb’s fuku. A little notebook with fanart of the dog and cat from Kitbull on the cover and entirely unlined pages, in case Kerb ever needed to sketch something (also, a post-it note by the cover art that read, It us, but which is who?) The first volume of Mo Dao Zu Shi’s somewhat contentious English translation (another post-it note, this time attached to the title page, read Wei Wuxian is just like me fr and I really hope you like him, but it’s okay if you don’t. Hmu if you like the story though, I’ll hook you up with the rest of it 🖤). And four different “buy ten drinks, get the eleventh free” cards that Reiki had filled up while getting drinks for them over the past year and saved so Kerberos could use them whenever he wanted.
Yet, in spite of having a perfect opportunity to be normal and have a cute time with nothing stressful about it, almost immediately after sitting down, Reiki had asked for help with something.
Not just any ordinary something, either. “I just—I really need to talk to Ida, okay, Blossom,” Reiki had said not very long ago, still sitting on Kerb’s bench, hands clasping at each other so tightly that it got more than a little uncomfortable. “I don’t… I’m not trying to cut you out of it or anything, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about this when we’re done, plus you’ll be free to ask her for her side of the story, but……please? It’s really important for me to talk to Ida. For my own sake, but……for my family’s sake, too. I can’t leave it up to some if on a winter’s night, a traveler should find a Princess tea, or like, leave talking to her up to whether or not random chance lets us find each other. But then, I don’t have a way to call her for myself. So, can you……? Can you, please?”
Because Kerberos was a good friend, he’d called Ida for Reiki’s sake. Had asked her if she’d meet him down by North-End Park’s playground—a site chosen mostly because the slides and monkey-bars got too slippery to be safe in winter, which meant (in addition to it being night-time) that they likely wouldn’t be interrupted by any civilians, and also a little bit because it was far enough from Kerb’s bench that trying to eavesdrop probably would’ve been too much of an inconvenience, or at least separated him from his duties on soul-saving detail for too long to justify.
(In his heart, Reiki didn’t feel the second criterion particularly necessary. In his heart, he trusted Blossom not to eavesdrop. But right now, Reiki’s anxiety was driving the decision-making more than his heart, and his anxiety kept pointing out that Kerberos was a good, kind person, who worried about people an awful lot and inexplicably found Reiki endearing, so eavesdropping to help a friend was possibly something that Kerberos would consider doing.
Even if it was only a 0.0001% chance, said Reiki’s anxiety about this entire situation, he needed to account for it in setting things up. Otherwise, Something *BAD* might have happened.)
As he waited for Ida, Reiki idly meandered around the assorted playground equipment with another gift bag in hand (this one, a lovely royal purple, as opposed to the blue with red and silver stars that he’d given to Kerberos). Desperately, he tried not to think too hard about……any of this. If he started counting off the minutes and the seconds, he would wonder why it was taking so long when he had no real idea what he’d just made Kerb interrupt Ida in doing. If he started mentally rehearsing what he wanted to say when Ida got here, Reiki would psych himself out, come up with too many possible ideas but never pick one to commit to, and probably end the conversation without asking for the help that he and Haruhi needed right now.
If he started haggling over whether or not he deserved a chance to escape the Mirror and be himself again, he’d inevitably conclude that he did not because not only had he accepted the Awakening he was given without question, thanks to his Stupid-a** ~*Sparkly Doki-Doki Feelings*~ about a boy who was too good for him in the first place……but then, Reiki had also gotten Haruhi dragged into all this, in the Mirror because that’s where nis Kiki-chan had awakened, and where Haruhi was now also miserable. Maybe Reiki had mostly tried to use his magic to help people and protect them, but he hadn’t done jackshit to atone for the original sin of Trying To Change Himself For A Cute Boy Who Didn’t Even Like Him That Way. Arguably, the only evidence that he’d learned anything was that Faustite had never threatened that his happiness depended on Reiki fundamentally changing everything about himself as a person.
Likewise arguably, Faustite had never done that because he so rarely got the chance to be happy……but both that fact and “No, see, my It’s Complicated emotions about this rather notorious General-Sovereign are totally evidence that I have learned my lesson about stupid boy problems Because Reasons” felt like exceptionally stupid arguments that would get a b***h hanged by the wrong aggro White Moon a*****e (or subjected to illness-inducing spectral music……or attacked by <******** geese). Even knowing that Ida-hime-sama was nothing like the assorted White Moon jerks who’d chosen violence with Reiki when all he’d done was exist and try to help people? He didn’t want to press his luck and ruin his chances.
Maybe Cybele would still help him if he made things fall through with Ida. Miss Queen b***h Supermodel of the Cosmos would probably come for Haruhi. But……Ida was, in Reiki’s opinion as a lifelong mahou shoujo enjoyer, everything that a magical girl was supposed to be. She’d given him one of the first real clues that had started him down this path, and the one that had mattered the most.…… Even with Daphne kicking him, and Anser setting her geese on him, and Fang making the most heart-breaking sad puppy eyes whenever circumstances forcibly reminded him that they belonged to different factions, Reiki could easily imagine a reality in which he’e would’ve stayed more or less content in the Mirror. Maybe not exactly happy, but not actively miserable to the point that people in his civvies life had long since noticed, either. If he’d still gotten entangled with Faustite in that reality, then he probably could’ve endured a lot of indignities and uncomfortable requests from Mirrorspace.
Except Ida had let him feel what he was missing. She’d taken his hands with no reservations and let him feel the way that she felt, all the time. After that—after abruptly realizing that he’d been empty, the whole time since his Awakening, and moreover that it didn’t need to be that way—how could anyone have just gone back to acting like everything was fine? Trying that hadn’t worked out so well. Getting starseeded on Astraya had made it impossible to deny that he’d felt like a ******** mess. Whatever Langite had done to him when Cybele popped her own princess wings, that had thrown everything into clarity sharper than before.
Pausing in his paces, Reiki glanced up at the sky.…… Oh. Oh, it was snowing.…… From the faint tinkling sounds in the gift-bag, like something bouncing lightly off of metal (specifically, the metal casing on the orchid and jasmine scented candle he’d found at some cute family-owned hippie place in town), he guessed that, once again, the snow was coming down in those little crystals that didn’t melt.…… Had he been in a better mood, Reiki might have thought to collect some that he could hot-glue all over a garment later for some extra sparkle, but he couldn’t bring himself to bother right now. Likewise, he couldn’t bring himself to hope that Ida liked the candle, the crocheted scarf, and the metal water bottle with the art of little orchid blossoms and fairies—not when his mind stayed steadfastly stuck on worrying whether or not the yarn he’d used for Ida’s scarf had been the right shade of purple.
As much as he liked the crystal snow, facts were simple: until Ida got here, ambling around the playground, weaving idly through the different playscape pieces, and softly singing to himself were the only things keeping Reiki from falling into an abyss of anxiety and despair. By most people’s estimations, Christmas being over meant Reiki had lost the right to sing the song currently helping him stay relatively grounded—“‘Happy Christmas,’ I wrapped it up and sent it, with a note saying ‘I love you,’ I meant it.…”—but that was because most people were boring and simply did not understand that Wham!’s “Last Christmas” could be enjoyed at any time of year, regardless of season or actual proximity to the holiday in the title.
“Now, I know what a fool I’ve been.…” Reiki cast a long glance out at the grass around the playground, looking for any sign of Ida. “But if you kissed me now, I know you’d fool me again.…”Whimsical Blue oh my god, this went on so much longer than intended. emotion_bigheart muri, why must you always do this with Just Having A Lot Of Feelings!!
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2023 5:56 pm
Getting a message from Kerberos had sent a little thrill of excitement through Ida when she had finally powered up after her shift at the hospital. She'd felt that mental tug that meant a message, but it had had to wait until she could finish and slip away, ignoring the tiredness and hunger for just a little while. Winter and the holidays always meant an up-tick in the number of people in the Emergency Room at DC Memorial. More than just the usual holiday shenanigans, there was the strange magic that always filtered into the city this time of year, causing accidents that needed tending. Christmas had been the only real break from the double shifts, and only because she'd spent Christmas Eve at the hospital.
It was only slightly disappointing that Kerberos' message had not been an offer to get coffee or hang out, but rather a surprising request of another sort. Murikabushi? She hadn't seen the Dark Mirror in... months, that she could remember. Maybe something she should have kept a better finger on, but... well, now was an opportunity to make up for it.
North-End park was an easy enough trip to make across the rooftops, the snow falling around her in soft clouds of sparkling flakes. Part way there, the soft shhhh had turned to crystalline tinkles and crunching under foot. The orchid senshi stopped long enough to pick up the crystal snowflake resting on the powder and wonder at it, collecting more as she went. Destiny City... one never knew what strange magic would come out over the holidays. Last year's ice flowers had melted quickly, leaving nothing but a memory of themselves and Fang in the snow. Maybe this year she'd get to keep a little piece of it, tucked among the flowers in her hair.
The cold night remained quiet and still when she finally approached the park and its playground, dropping from the neighboring building to pace towards it, snowflakes in her hands. Inner senses stretched wide said it was just her and one other signature here, a signature she knew meant Dark Mirror. Not as strong as Chariklo's had been, but a familiar feel just the same. Through the sound of far off traffic and the fall of snow, she could hear a soft voice, faint enough it was hard to follow.
"Muri?" She called as she stepped onto the buried sand of the playground, reaching out to run her fingers down the cold metal support of the swings. The falling snow made it feel like the park was wrapped in a blanket, the light a haze cast by the streetlights and diffused through the falling flakes.
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2023 7:54 pm
Maybe Reiki would have better noticed the approaching aura if he’d paid closer attention. Unfortunately, trying to keep himself calm enough to have the eventual conversation meant a certain degree of getting wrapped up in his own head. In turn, that meant he gasped at hearing someone call out to him—only to sigh in relief and feel silly when it was the exact person he’d been waiting for, whom he’d specifically asked Kerberos to please call for him……to please call for him so Reiki could talk to her about something important.
Something so important that, as he left the playscape to join her by the swings, he would’ve sworn he felt the blade of a knife pressing up against his throat. (Of course, he didn’t feel that. Drama-seeking brain wanted to inject more drama into things, the way it always wanted to do with him. Which was crazy when the situation already had so much drama wrapped up in it, but—well. Reiki had never claimed, would never claim, that his drama queen tendencies were rational.)
“Ida, hi, you……” He’d started speaking as he got closer to the swings, but quickly felt like he’d taken center-stage, opening night, and immediately blanked on every line. “You came, I—thank you……thanks, I’m really glad you came,” Reiki fumbled—and while doing multiple consecutive pratfalls all over his words, he knocked one of his hands against the gift bag. Remembering that it existed, he lifted it up and held it out to her. “This! It—you, for—it’s not much, honestly? It’s really not, I swear. And it’s not what I asked Blossom to call you here for? It’s just, you know? Winter gift-giving season? And I wanted to……for you……y’know?”
By Saint Oscar [Wilde], Saint Marsha [P. Johnson], Saint Freddie [Mercury], and Saint Divine, Reiki sounded completely ridiculous. The most of all possible “middle school straight boy doesn’t know how to talk to girls because his friends saying girls have cooties traumatized him” energy. All tea, all shade, all pink lemonade but only as long as it was the turbo-caffeinated murder lemonade from Panera ********. Reiki could do this. He had to do this. Not only for his own sake, but for Haruhi’s, too. Better to just be out with this instead of prolonging the awkwardness.
He made himself hold a deep breath for a few seconds before trying again.
“……Sorry,” he said softly, . “If I seem frazzled or like a mess or anything? It……it’s just because I feel like kind of a mess? I have for a while, and admitting what the issue is—I really, really didn’t want to? For a lot of reasons, I didn’t want to. But none of those reasons is worth compromising who I am in the ways that I’ve been doing, it’s just……”
Shaking his head, Reiki let himself sigh. He looked Ida directly in the eye as he said, “I need to get out. Of the Mirror. One of my cousins needs to get out, too. White Moon Princesses have helped some of my friends leave the Negaverse before and I…… I know you can’t do it right now? I still have to go on the quest to get my duplicate starseed out of Mirrorspace, and before that, I have to talk to my family? But……can……please……?
“And I get it if you need, like, collateral, or proof of genuine intent, or something like that first? I don’t know, letters of recommendation from my White Moon friends? Blossom would probably write one for me. But I just mean—I totally understand? If you need something more than sparkly eyes and begging before you get involved in helping clean up my stupid mess that I made my-stupid-self? Especially after the whole epic disaster that happened last spring with Faustite—I mean, come on, right? After that, I wouldn’t blame any White Moon princess for wanting whole-a** background checks with credit history and everything. But……”
Reiki trembled. A nearby swing’s chain clanked ever so slightly as he curled a hand around it, clinging to what little extra support it offered. “But can you……? Is it only Negaverse souls that you can save? Or can you purify Dark Mirror senshi, too?”
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Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2023 1:10 pm
The person who approached her was not the confident young man she'd met in the past. Nervous and stuttering, he struggled through words that normally poured out of him and she felt her heartbeat pick up pace in response. Something very important was happening, though it lacked the flavor of terror that would have told her it was something very bad. She wanted to reach out to him immediately, but there was a gift to attend to first.
The offered gift bag made her eyes widen and she flushed with pleasure, a wide, soft smile making crinkles around her eyes.
"Muri... that's so sweet of you..." She murmured as she took it from him, letting him continue to stutter along through whatever it was he was trying to get out. Important indeed, as he wound around to the core of it... that he wanted to leave the Dark Mirror. A stillness settled over Ida as she let him finish, her mind awhirl with thoughts and feelings, chief among them a sort of excitement that was entirely childish and unworthy. There was concern there too, mostly for him and what this would mean for him, to outweigh that little fizzle of 'finally doing what she had all that power for'. The excitement, at least, passed quickly as he wound to a close, replaced instead with a deep, sad compassion.
Muri... How could he ever think that she'd require references from him?
Finally, his questions still hanging between them in the chill air, she reached out and took his free hand, gift bag hanging from her wrist, and turned it over to press the few snowflakes she'd gathered into it. Her dark eyes were soft as she held that hand in both of her own.
"Muri... I don't need anything from you but to be told this is what you want." She said gently, giving his hand a squeeze. "You don't need to prove anything to me, especially, but I also need you to know, in case you ever find anyone else doubting if someone will help them... Even if you were Faustite, asking me to try again, I would do it."
Ida was very solemn about this, trying to put all of her conviction into the words she spoke with calm clarity.
"I will always try, no matter who it is, what they have done, or what has happened in the past." She said, her thoughts flicking for a moment to the fresh scar on the back of her leg, hidden by her tights. "I may take more precautions for both of our safeties, but I believe very strongly that even a small chance it will work is worth trying for. Always."
It was hard, trying to convey the strong feelings she had around the concept of purification. The belief that... everyone deserved the chance to be free, that crossing that line changed someone in a fundamental way, that a life on the side of Order, the possibility of a new and steadfast ally, was worth everything... Life was so exquisite and precious. Anyone on the other side could be, no, was a irreplaceable friend waiting to be freed...
"I need you to know that... I've never purified anyone before, at least... this time around." Ida said as she shifted, pushing down the nerves that wanted to creep into her own heart. "But I remember how to do it, and yes, Dark Mirror senshi can be purified. Its just a different process. Chariklo said she had to find her starseed... like you said."
She didn't know the exact process of it, but she would figure it out. This was too important to not try her best at it.
"I will do the very best I can to help you, and your friend too. Just let me know when you are ready. You said you were telling your family? You know this will mean a new identity for you... and a lot of things you're going to have to give up, for your own safety. Its a very big, very serious step, and I don't blame anyone who finds the cost too much... but I can help with anything that you need to make it just a little easier for you."
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Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2024 4:30 pm
Listening to Ida, letting her take his hand, and seeing the clear passion in her for this mission, Reiki felt filled with a sensation that he’d always felt most clearly from Ida and Kerberos. It said, clear as a bell: *This* is what a magical girl is supposed to be.
And she was, in his opinion. Ida was everything that a magical girl was supposed to be. Everything that a magical girl princess was supposed to be. Here she was, coming all this way just to meet with him, when they hadn’t seen each other in ages, meeting him with the same kindness and openness she’d always shown him, and believing him about how badly he needed to get out of the Mirror……saying that she’d still do whatever she could to help Faustite, if he were to come to her again……
“……That’s really good to hear—not?” Reiki shook his head slightly. “Not the part about you helping me—I mean, that part is good to hear, but……” Talking about Faustite with White Moon friends always felt like tap-dancing in a field full of still-live landmines from out of World War Two. Pretty unavoidable, Reiki thought. Considering everything he knew that Faustite had done to people and how much he very likely didn’t know about? “Look, I promise, I don’t have any illusions about who Faustite is and what he does to people. I’d never ask anybody else to give up their probably very fair grievances with him just because he’s been kind to me personally. Even our history with each other hasn’t been perfectly smooth or anything; I spent about six months genuinely thinking he hated me, based on how he acted, and feeling like ‘Well, that’s fine, I’m an acquired taste, he doesn’t have to like me and I won’t force him to.’”
Reiki sighed softly. “But I also know that a lot of terrible things helped make Faustite who he is. And I’m not saying that his pain is more important than anybody else’s because that kind of Pain Olympics garbage is so pointless and degrading? It’s just……it means a lot to me that you’d still help him if he came to you genuinely. Because even if I have to stand up to him pretty regularly, or fight him to protect someone else someday, I don’t want to give up on him.”
It felt so strange, going this long without any particular swish or panache, without so many sassy quips and objectively unnecessary flourishes, without all of his usual sparkle. As performative (sometimes overcompensatory, sometimes self-protective) as Reiki knew that flair was, to some degree, it also felt……like his most authentic self. Everything about that was Him, even if he did it to a heightened extent at XYZ point for whatever QRS reasons. Reiki Rokugin was loud. Reiki Rokugin was flamboyant. Reiki Rokugin was too flaming for the word “flaming” to insult him, unless he decided to take exception to the sheer outrageous understatement of it all. Ever so much like his Obaasan, Reiki Rokugin was often Too Much™ and he would do Too Much™ well past the point when he should have stopped.
Yet, tonight, coming to Ida like this? With this request that meant so much to him? Reiki’s most authentic self didn’t feel up to all of his usual theatrics, bombast, and drama, drama, drama. His most authentic self didn’t feel like blistering reads or snarky, rambling anecdotes that he only hoped he could wrap up into a “wow” finish.
Under the halo of moonlight, streetlamps, and the glittering, crystalline snow, Reiki’s most authentic self felt raw, and shredded, and terrified. Putting up any front about it would have felt like a betrayal of that self, and for no good reason.
Even so, he had it in him to nod at Ida with conviction. “As for me, this is what I want,” he confirmed for her, voice certain, even if it came out softly. “It’s what I need. I can’t…… Ugh, I feel like there’s no way to say what I’m feeling that doesn’t sound like I’m also condemning people who don’t make the same choice? And I do have a lot of big problems with draining people and all the ways the Court tries to justify that? But it isn’t really about that, in my heart, for me? That whole debate was something I tried to distract myself with for a while, like going ‘Well, it’s okay, I can be with the Court but not drain anybody, I’ll act like a White Moon senshi who wears black, it’ll be a cute time’? Maybe that all worked for a while, but in the end, it’s not really what my problem was?”
Laying his free hand over his heart and his brooch, Reiki felt an ache twist down in his chest-pit, around where his starseed rested. “It—it’s all about how Mirror Chaos works on a starseed,” he explained, shoulders sagging from the emotional weight of it all. “I don’t want to say Mirror Chaos or Negaverse Chaos is better or worse on the whole; I don’t think the question is that easy. But for me, the way Mirror Chaos works has been one of the worst things that could’ve happened to me. I didn’t really notice at first, because there was the rush of excitement, getting to be magical and have power like this.…
“That subsided a little bit pretty quick, ‘cause I got irresponsible, and I hurt some people before I met you, with either my magic or Mirrorwraiths. Kerberos, Faustite, Fang, and this civilian guy I know who’d hurt somebody I care about before. The first three were mostly accidental. And yeah, I intended to hurt the last one, but I felt like s**t about it afterward? Even him turning his life around after didn’t make me feel better about what I did because it felt like ‘If the Order senshi who interrupted me hadn’t done that, I might’ve just left him to die and denied him the chance to do better, and who am I to make that call? That’s not how my family raised me. It’s not the me I want to be.’
“And it……” Reiki broke off briefly, breath hitching ever so slightly as he buried his lips in the back of his hand. He shivered, more from the intensity of his feelings than from the cold, cold night. “……It goes back to my grandfather, the one who helped raise me? I’ve only ever known him to be kind, patient, a sort of rock to the family, and most important for this story, sober. But in my civvies life, the reason my Dad bucked a family tradition and didn’t name me after his father? Was that they weren’t really speaking when my brother and I were born. Like, sending messages through my grandmother, at most. And it was because of my Ojiisan’s drinking……except, he worked so hard to do better, and to fix things between him and my dad, so he could any kind of relationship with his grandkids.”
Although he felt the sting in his eyes that had accompanied a lot of crying recently, Reiki felt powerless to stop it. He didn’t even try. Just let the tears well up and spill over. “Ojiisan is one of the most important people in my life. He’s only in my life at all because he made a lot of mistakes, and a lot of them hurt my dad and my aunt, but he worked really hard to do better……and I would’ve denied that chance to somebody else—somebody who didn’t know what hit him because he’s a civilian, he doesn’t know about all of this—because I decided that hurting someone I love meant he couldn’t change. And, like, how is that not massively hypocritical, right? I love my Dad. My Ojiisan hurt my dad. Even if I mostly know that hurt from other people’s stories, not from seeing it, it happened, and taking that same chance away from somebody else like I tried to do……”
Giving himself a moment of silence to just feel miserable and ******** up about all of what he was saying, Reiki shook his head. “But as much of a mess as I am about all that,” he went on, “it’s really not the most important thing, to me.… It isn’t not important, but it’s not the most important. Which—feels so selfish to say? I mean, I feel like I should care more about how other people are affected, but……”
He shrugged dispiritedly, feeling helpless. Another round of tears spilled over onto his cheeks. “I can’t live like this, with the way that the Mirror’s Chaos works on you,” he told her. “It felt weird when I first met Kerberos and he tried to energy-share with me. Then, you energy-shared with me and it was like……like not noticing that you’re hurting until something takes the pain away. Then, up on Astraya, this robot who was from Murikabushi, the world? He pulled out my starseed, and Kerberos got it back, but both of them—they were shocked by what it looked like? Kerberos said that starseeds are supposed to burst with light and color, but Dark Mirror starseeds……they don’t do that.
“And maybe I’m being over-sensitive or imagining things, but it’s like I can feel that, when I power-up. Even in my civilian life, it’s started spilling over and causing problems. I keep ******** up self-care things that I know are important for me, and blowing off any concerns about what happens to me. Knowing about the Chaos cage around my starseed makes Murikabushi feel like I’m on stage in someone else’s beautiful gown and hair and makeup, fumbling through someone else’s perfectly choreographed talent routine, waiting for everyone to realize that I’m a fake. It feels like all of this garbage I used to hear growing up was right all along. Trying to be a Dark Mirror senshi, I just feel so……”
Reiki hesitated, remembering how badly Levi had taken it when he’d said the word burning up his lips and the tip of his tongue. But truly, no other word that he could think of captured how he felt:
“Broken. I feel broken with the Mirror, and I can’t……” He shook his head once more, as if reassuring himself of something. “I know what I’ll be giving up, but……I can’t live like this. I’m surviving like this at best. That’s the biggest reason why I have to talk to my family, y’know? I ran into this White Moon senshi around Starfest, Asmodeus? She used to be Dark Mirror, and she told me what to do. But I can’t do it until I talk to my family.”
He bowed his head, looking away sheepishly. “I’ve been working to put things in order for a while now. But too many people from my high school class just disappeared. One of my old friends, his parents had all of their kids go missing on them like that. My family’s already been so worried about me, I can’t put them through something like that. My cousin and I are set up with somewhere to land after it all goes down, and I just want my family to know that I love them more than anything, I don’t want to abandon them but I also don’t want to die, and that I’ll be okay.”
For a moment, Reiki considered whether or not he needed to say anything else. Probably not. Although he’d been more raw and open than swishy and snarky, he had lived up to his usual practice of saying the most things, all the time, always. But—one thing lingered in his mind, probably not of central importance to anything, but a big deal to Reiki regardless.
“Plus, I’ll need a new civilian name, right? This White Moon Mauvian I talked to before said something like that.” After kicking Reiki in the head like a little a*****e, but Mister Sparkles had been helpful eventually, so whatever. “And I’ve been thinking……even if it won’t be exactly the name I would’ve had, if my dad and my grandfather had been on speaking terms when I was born? I really want to take my grandfather’s personal name as my own, and……it sort of doesn’t feel right? Doing that without asking him first?”
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Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2024 8:08 pm
Ida listened quietly as Murikabushi spoke, letting him pour out everything that had clearly been building up inside of him. Things he'd likely been thinking about for a long time, maybe even obsessing over... and really seemed like he needed to speak, to set the words and feelings free. The least she could do in all of this was listen to him. He was going to be making the biggest change of probably any life... and he'd be giving up everything that he had now, cutting nearly all of his ties.
"Chaos, either kind of chaos, twists people. Not many realize its happening to them, the effect is so subtle. The Dark Mirror might not be as dangerous as the Negaverse, but they are still... influenced." She smiled gently as he cried, gently stroking his hand with her glowing one. "Your family might not understand at first, but... its hard to imagine a family wouldn't want you to be free, even if it means losing you. Just... be careful with what you tell them. I don't want to think anyone in your family is in the Negaverse, but its impossible to know. If someone finds out you're leaving for the White Moon, it might force their hand."
Awful thought, but a practical one. But maybe if he exposed himself to them first, maybe that would root out anyone else? There was always still a chance though... nothing was completely safe when you shared your identity with others you didn't already know as an ally.
"But hopefully everything goes well, and your grandfather approves. It sounds nice, being able to take his name. It'll be too dangerous to go by your old name, in case anyone knew it in the DMC or the Negaverse. I don't know what the Dark Mirror does about people who purify, but its safer." She gave his hand another squeeze before she straightened up.
"You sound like you have something of a plan going. Do you know when you want to do this? Or do you want to figure it out after you talk to your family? I know we don't really have any phones that call across factions, but Kerberos is a sure way to find me any time you need me."
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Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2024 9:38 pm
“Oh, yeah, I……” Reiki bit his lip, wincing over the sheer weight of what he had to think about, here. “Plenty of Dark Mirrors know my name? Most of them, I trust not to do anything crazy with it, though. The one who has the most motive—I don’t know, whatever Mirrorspace has twisted his head around into believing about energy-draining? He has too much integrity to hurt my family just because I hurt him. Even the one who has the second-most motive, doing anything with my civilian identity would require her to deal with something that hurts her feelings instead of letting her drown in an ocean of perpetual good vibes, so like……”
With a brief shrug, he shook his head and rolled his eyes. Truly, the best and most accurate facial expression to make when it came to Lete. “At most, I can see her throwing a cupcake in my face and loudly calling me a slut for leaving, or something. She’s annoying, she’s wildly irresponsible, and her magic is pretty nasty, but she cares about family too much as a concept to go after mine just because I’m going to give Mirrorspace a talk like ‘It’s not you, it’s me, but in a way where it’s definitely also you, anyway the point is we should see different people’ and go find my peace elsewhere. My other friends in the Court who know my name, I can’t see them doing anything with it. And I don’t know about Remarque or anybody else, but……I guess I’ll have to find out.”
Reiki shrugged, uncertain if he could justify saying how he felt in the moment—namely, that the worst sin of the Dark Mirror Court, on the whole, was that they refused to stand for anything. That they wanted to build up Mirrorspace, they even used that to justify draining energy from people who had no means of protecting themselves, but nobody had ever given Reiki a solid and coherent answer as to what it all was for. What did it mean. What greater good was being served by them ignoring all of the people in the real world who needed help in order to go play with their ******** crystals and build up a magical realm that didn’t even seem to work correctly, in Reiki’s mind (because working “correctly” would’ve required any semblance of stability on Mirrorspace’s part, never mind the ability to make a table that actually functioned as a table, rather than looking like a whitish-gray ripoff of Van Gogh).
Maybe he felt it, and maybe it had some degree of basis in fact, but that didn’t mean it was the actual truth. Not to brag (in the privacy of his own head, to nobody but himself), but Reiki had developed a real talent for being wrong about things.
Still, there were more important things at hand. “I mean, I’d like to just do all of this right now, honestly? I am so completely over trying to be a Dark Mirror senshi when I’m really bad at it, and my whole relationship with Mirrorspace is giving very—to quote decorated contemporary philosopher Janet Jackson—‘what have you done for me lately?’ But……” Reiki shook his head. “I love my family more than anything, y’know? Getting them all in one room for this is gonna be the challenge. Faculty meetings this, and doctor’s appointments that, and the prof my brother TA’s for dumps so much s**t on him. Then, one of my little sisters plays pro soccer and the other one is a competitive figure skater, but……they’ve been so worried about me, I can’t just run off without saying anything. I know they’ll understand, I just……need them to know that I’m going to be okay.
“As soon as that’s done, though?” Swallowing thickly, he looked to Ida with absolute certainty. “I’ll be ready.”
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Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2024 9:45 am
Ida nodded, not the least bit envious of the towering mountain of effort and difficult conversations Murikabushi was going to be tackling. There was only so much she could do to make it easier on him, even as she regretted how little that was.
Impulsively, she threw her arms around the dark mirror and hugged him tightly, taller and broader though he was.
"Call me whenever you need me, for whatever you need." She said, cheek against his chest. "Even if its just for moral support. I'll always come."
Things were going to be hard for him... he was going to have to find a colossal amount of strength within himself for this. She knew he could do that... he'd already done so much.
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