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 Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2024 7:22 pm
Kaifeng didn’t usually wander far from Helene when they went out on patrol together. Why do a silly thing like that when he could instead be with his zhiyin, where there were hands to hold and someone to fight beside as necessary? Tonight, however, Kaifeng and Helene had found a pair of youma while patrolling. Interrupting them at their youma business had gone easily enough……until they’d separated and run off in opposite directions.
As a strategy to avoid getting dusted, it made sense and Kaifeng couldn’t entirely begrudge them their desire for self-preservation. All creatures in his experience had an impulse to protect themselves and their own survival. And splitting up made sense for the youma, undoubtedly, since their strategy had meant that Kaifeng and Helene had needed to each chase one down. However much it made sense, though, Kaifeng still didn’t enjoy the youma’s cleverness about this, or the fact that they’d forced him to go without Huan-ge.
At least, on the upside, the youma didn’t have its own partner for backup either, which meant Kaifeng had an easier time taking it down.
He frowned as it dusted, however. Yes, the youma aura had disappeared, the way that it always did when youma got poofed back to wherever they went after getting knocked down in a fight. But another Negaverse aura still remained, easily on par with Kaifeng himself—and, well, that would need to at least get investigated, wouldn’t it? Offhand, Kaifeng didn’t notice anybody acting too strangely.… A couple people who might have had energy drained, but who could have just as easily had rough, exhausting days at work, so nothing too out of the ordinary, really?…… With a deep breath and a huff, Kaifeng set off in the direction of the aura (or following it as closely as he could, anyway).
If the person attached to the Negaverse aura wasn’t actually doing anything wrong, there didn’t need to be any violence between them. But if whoever they were did turn out to be up to no good, then Kaifeng would have to stop them. He was a Squire of Saturn; this was his duty to the people of Destiny City.
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Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2024 1:59 pm
Sakuraiite was not, on the whole, someone who paid special attention to auras. If someone on the other side decided to hassle her, she would simply hassle them back; that was the way these things worked. And leaving a trail of exhausted people that pointed towards her was simply a side effect of being diligent about her work for the Negaverse, if you asked her. Let any fool that wanted to fight her come and fight her, and she would have an excellent time showing them why she was not to be trifled with.
Still, she did change her direction, sauntering towards a Squire's aura that felt...close enough to be potentially entertaining. Drawing energy from civilians was all well and good, but it was also only so entertaining for so long. Dealing with the other side...that kept things interesting.
When she found the Squire, she regarded them with curiosity. They were pretty, whatever else there was to say; purples and reds that were characteristic of Saturn, and a large beating stick of a weapon. Of course, no weapon could compete with the ability to extract a soul from a chest, but Sakuraiite supposed that she'd have to get close for that.
"Looking for trouble, Ser Squire?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2024 6:17 pm
……Well, that was a surprise. Not the fact that the Captain turned to meet Kaifeng head-on. In his experience, Negaverse types often had that kind of confidence, even if they maybe shouldn’t have, so the greeting made sense enough.
What truly drew Kaifeng’s eye, though, was the specific person who greeted him: half-youma, pretty obviously, with features (her antler, ears, tail, and very exposed feet among them) that reminded Kaifeng more than slightly of a qilin, ruby red eyes that seemed like they saw everything and then some, and splashes of vibrant pink among the sea of black that made up her uniform. Last time they’d crossed paths, Ida-jiejie had swooped in with the rescue, since Kaifeng and the then recently awakened Selenga had only had their Page weapons.……
Kaifeng had never learned her name, but there was no mistaking the Captain who’d had the audacity to bully Ming-er, the night when he’d first awakened as Page Selenga of Ida. What nerve! That was Kaifeng’s Ming-er, and bullying him was Kaifeng’s job!!
“That depends, meimei,” he said, tilting his head at her and trying to keep his cool, for the moment. “If all these people groaning like they just got off from a second consecutive clopen shift are your handiwork? Then yeah, we’re gonna have a problem.” He considered keeping the recognition to himself……then decided that that sounded silly and tacked on, “Long time, no see, by the way. I’m guessing the lesson about picking on people your own size—magically speaking—didn’t stick so well, huh?”
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Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2024 6:25 pm
Aha. The voice was familiar, even if it had taken her a moment to place the face. This was the Page that had so boldly challenged her to protect a civilian; a Squire now, stronger. Her failure, in a way, because if she'd ended him that night, he never would have powered up.
Oh, she did so like cleaning up her mistakes.
"Ahh, yes, lovely work, isn't it?" She laughed. No point in pretending that she was anything but pleased with everything she'd done, after all. He knew what kind of monster she was; he could deal. "How about you? Still punching outside your weight class? If you are, I'm surprised you're still alive, most Generals aren't nearly as friendly as me. And there's no pretty Eternal to back you up tonight."
No, instead, he was deliciously alone, and deliciously at her mercy.
She ran forward, aiming to close the distance between them, and as she did, she called on her aura of fear. Let him remember what he was toying with.
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Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2024 6:45 pm
“Most of the Generals I’ve met take themselves too seriously,” Kaifeng quipped back. “Wound up tighter than can possibly be healthy, the lot of them. You can push some of them into a total meltdown just by being pleasant and upbeat when they stab you.”
Not that any pleasantness got a chance to last tonight.
Same as she’d done that night with Ming-er and Ida-jiejie, the Negaverse Qilin-meimei started glowing purple. With that glow came a chill coursing down Kaifeng’s spine, a knot tightening itself around his lungs, and a lurch of dread in the pit of his stomach. Probably, he thought, these were all things that most normal people might have felt anyway when looking at this meimei and her monstrous countenance full-on.
Probably, the skin-crawl sensation and the uptick in heart-rate were things that people might have felt at Kaifeng’s own Wonder.
Still, Kaifeng steeled his nerves and pushed off, just narrowly managing to dodge her charge attack. Close call. Too close, if he were honest. But he hadn’t gotten this far as a Squire by buckling in the face of any malefactors who challenged him. Nor would letting her go have been a responsible use of his power as a Knight of Saturn.
“You’re wrong, though, meimei,” Kaifeng called out, rounding back on the Captain and running back in her direction. “I may not have an Eternal with me—but you’re the one who walks alone.”
Calling on the power of Saturn—on the spell that his weapon had absorbed up at his Wonder with Huan-ge—Kaifeng focused and swung his club in the Captain’s direction. His blow wouldn’t hit her physically, but he trusted that the magic didn’t need him to.Noir Songbird Kaifeng swings his weapon at a single target within a 20-foot radius. The target is knocked back by a burst of air, cold as death. When hit by the chill, the target is seized by a brief but powerful feeling that they have died and no one cared. This attack has three uses.
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Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2024 7:15 pm
He was quick on his feet; Sakuraiite had to appreciate that. It made him a more worthy opponent, and it meant that this wasn't going to be as easy as she'd feared.
After all, if he'd frozen up and let her just pluck his starseed, that would have been no fun. A completely anticlimactic ending to the whole thing. She pulled herself up, and whirled back around to attack him again--but he swung his weapon at her, and while she managed to skip away from the hit, something else struck her.
It was cold, and it knocked her back, sending her skidding a few feet away. But the worst part was the coldness that settled in her heart.
It was--it was wrong--she was still alive, she was sure of it, and yet--no.
No, it couldn't be. Arsenolite would care, if some idiot Squire killed her.
....Wouldn't he?
"What have you done to me," Sakuraiite hissed, angrily. "I should kill you for that!"
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Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2024 7:35 pm
“They don’t teach you much about us different flavors of Knights in Negaverse School, huh? Do they, meimei?”
Part of Kaifeng’s heart ached for her: Chaos or not, and regardless of whether or not her existence was entirely natural, she was still a person. Whatever his magic had done, it had caused her pain. Considering what he had learned so far about the souls who’d been buried at Kaifeng—considering what happened when Kaifeng called on his usual pool of magic—he could guess at some of the themes.…… Being neglected. Being forgotten. Being abandoned in a place where nobody had any grave markers because all were equal in death, and all the remains interred at Kaifeng the Wonder had been equally unwanted.
But another part of Kaifeng steeled himself in response to her threat. “Saturn is the planet of death, meimei, and me? I protect the final resting place of outcasts and exiles, the last home for souls whom no one else would take,” he told her, holding his club out again. Although Kaifeng felt very much the same as usual—very much himself and very much the Liánlí flavor of Kaifeng—as he stared her down and offered the Captain this education, he felt something else welling up within him, too. “Unless you want to meet some of them up close and personal? I suggest you clear. out. now.”
Whatever this was, it felt……not entirely unlike Xīngyì? But also like he wasn’t entirely the correct answer either. Like maybe it was something bigger than him and Liánlí, both.
It felt like conviction. It felt like Kaifeng.
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Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2024 7:44 pm
forever."
With that little bit of invective, she teleported away.
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