|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:17 pm
Had Reiki asked, had this been any other time when they could have laughed together about it, Ida might have told him how much she liked his shirt. Another more serious time, she could have confided how little she felt like a princess sometimes. Like it was a title and power bestowed on her to use to help others, not something she was, inherently. How much more of a princess Reiki seemed, with his flare and his confidence.
The face on the bench seemed to finally settle, like remembering something you had forgotten at the sight of the henshin pen, and Ida recognized Murikabushi. It leeched the tension out of her as her shoulders dropped a hair, her smile blossoming freely now. Of course it was obvious who it was now, though it was both a surprise and something of a solemn honor that Reiki would choose to trust both of them with this part of himself.
It was her first instinct to drop her own henshin as she came to join them, but caution held her back. As much as she trusted Kerberos and Muri, there was always that chance that someone would happen to see it… see her without her glamour. Duty held her back, knowing how much she would risk just to make someone a little more comfortable and return trust for trust. It made her sad, a little, to think of it that way.
“I got your message.” She said as she offered both men a smile, before bending to offer the back of her hand to the dog on Kerberos’ lap. “I came as quickly as I could.”
Slanting a glance over to Reiki, she let her smile fall away, her face falling into solemn lines.
“Its okay that you came like this. I can understand why you wanted to. I know how big of a step you are taking… and you know I will help you any way that you need. Is this… this means you’re ready now? Everything is in order? We can… move forward whenever you are ready.” A hint of a smile showed in the corner of her mouth, barely there, for Kerberos’ comment. “This isn’t something I’ve done before, for real anyway, but I will do my best for you. We can start a new tradition.”
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:18 pm
Perking up at the presence of another New Person, Cersei lifted her head enough to sniff curiously at Ida’s hand. It only took her a moment to decide that the New Person—someone whom Her Person seemed to regard quite positively and meet with a smile—seemed very Friend-Shaped. Eyes bright and tail wagging pleasantly, Cersei didn’t quite leave Kerberos’s lap, but she nevertheless nosed at Ida’s hand and licked at her wrist with a gentle kiss.
Reiki didn’t particularly worry about Cersei meeting new people. Sometimes, new dogs could be a gamble, but that mostly wound up being due to the other dogs and reasons on their parts that Reiki had no real way of being able to predict. With new people, Cersei tended to do very well. Still, he sighed in relief when she met Ida so positively. Having his best girl take well to somebody he liked quite a lot felt like a good omen for the rest of tonight, and considering what all Reiki needed to do yet, he’d take whatever he could get.
(Maybe it wasn’t his business, but the part of Reiki that loved a good gossip had to wonder what was up with Ida getting here so quickly after Kerberos had messaged her.… The cute little phones that Order senshi had were great, sure—way better than Mirror senshi’s dinky compacts—but……had she been coming over anyway? If so, was there more to see between the two of them, yes or no?
He wasn’t going to make A Whole Thing out of it at the moment, not when he had so much yet to do tonight. But maybe later, after the hard work was done, he’d get a chance to nudge one, the other, or both of them and ask if he was seeing things or did they really have some cute little sparks flying between them.)
For the moment, though, Reiki listened to Ida and nodded along. “Yeah.… Yeah, it took a little while to get things set up, but? Everything’s ready now,” he said. “My cousin just had nis last day at work. The family knows what’s going on and we’re all set up—oh, I……” Looking to Kerberos, Reiki added, “I actually kinda have something for you? It’s in my subspace, so I’ll get it out when Yuki gets here? It feels even more poignant, in light of what we were talking about before……”
Reiki looked back to Ida to explain, “Yuki is my best guy? Queerplatonic partner, that is? He’s coming to pick Cersei up and get her home so my cousin and I can go handle our business with Mirrorspace? And Blossom and I,” he gestured vaguely between himself and Kerberos, “we were talking? And figured out an old connection that really means a lot to me to know about?”
He both did and didn’t want to say more than that. Restraint won out over Reiki’s natural inclination to talk forever, though, not least because so much was bound up in said past connection. He didn’t feel right about saying it outright when he couldn’t tell his side without bringing up things that should’ve been Kerberos’s story to tell or not.
On top of that, Reiki’s phone cut in to prevent him from losing the impulse-control war and running his mouth too much. Before he could start Saying Words that might have been too much, a loud, energetic but musically pretty stripped down track started playing, a queer, punk cover of a normally much less gay song from This Is Spïnal Tap.
Abruptly very aware of the lyrics, Reiki gave Ida and Kerberos an apologetic grin like Please don’t judge me negatively for how sexual this is—but that acute awareness unfortunately made it harder for him to handle his phone. Trying to pull it out and answer it already, Reiki fumbled it once, then twice.……
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:18 pm
If Yuki were being honest, he would’ve had to admit that he still didn’t entirely understand what was going on tonight. Yes, ******** had explained it to him multiple times by now, but something about all of it—even in light of the magical girls are real and ******** is one because of course he is part of it all—still didn’t quite click in his head. Even watching Haruhi power up a little ways off from North-End Park left something about this whole situation feeling………weird? In a way that Yuki couldn’t quite place?
A way that made even less sense to him than the situation in general, honestly. If Yuki accepted the premise that magical girls were real, then it only made sense that Reiki would be one of them and that he would probably get himself into Some ******** Drama about it. So, his brain snagging about and debating the logic any aspect of this was pretty silly when……yes? Duh? Obviously all of this was perfectly logical.
At least it was going to be over soon, as he understood things. Heading into the park, Yuki just needed to find Reiki at some bench where a magical friend of his liked to hang out. There were a couple more steps after that, sure, but Reiki and Haruhi were almost out of this s**t situation that they’d wound up in. The sheer enormity of it all—which maybe didn’t feel so big in the grand scheme of things, but felt impossibly huge to Yuki personally, especially because his ability to affect things as a civilian with no magical powers felt so very limited—left Yuki feeling daunted. In turn, this made him sharply turn his focus toward whatever all he could do anything about.
For instance, at the moment: calling ******** and hoping that he had his phone’s ringer on so Yuki could use it as a Boy-Location Device.
The sound was faint at first, given the distance, but following it made it grow louder. By the time Yuki spotted and moved toward a bench that seemed to have three people around it, he could clearly hear the lyrics, I love him each weekday~! Each velvety cheek day~! My love gun’s loaded as I dock at his port! Take aim at what’s inside his jockey shorts~!
“Oh yeah, like you’ve ever topped anybody before,” Yuki deadpanned, hanging up to spare ******** any further indignity. The way he was fumbling his phone, he looked a bit flustered at having his ringtone for Yuki abruptly shared with his friends—both of whom would have very obviously seemed like members of the Destiny City magical weirdness factions even if ******** hadn’t told Yuki so before leaving tonight. Better to just shut the ringtone up and gently tug on Reiki’s ponytail. “Thank you for always making yourself easy to find.”
Definitely easier than both of the friends who were with him and Cersei right now. Sure, they had some pretty distinctive outfits—the marks like glowing tattoos, as well, certainly stood out—but relative to the fact that Destiny City had also bunny-people from outer space and half-youma-demon-or-whatever boys who were literally on fire running around? ******** two friends could’ve easily passed themselves off as a pair of really dedicated cosplayers, had they felt so inclined.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:18 pm
If anything, Reiki only blushed more fiercely when his ringer shut itself up. He knew even before he heard Yuki’s voice that the sudden silence meant that Yuki had to be close. Feeling the tug on his ponytail, he tilted his head back and blinked up at Yuki.
“As if you’d have me be anything but entirely, irrepressibly myself,” he pointed out, managing a smile (small and tired, yes, but a genuine smile regardless). Sighing softly, Reiki looked back to his magical friends. “Ida, Kerberos, this is Yuki, the queerplatonic best guy I mentioned. My cousin and I are landing with him when the main event tonight is over. He’s also gonna get Cersei home so I can go argue with Mirrorspace about setting me free. Gorgeous, Blossom and Ida-hime-sama are good folks. I don’t think I’d be here without them in different ways? And, uh, if you wouldn’t mind……”
Pointedly trailing off, Reiki held up Cersei’s leash, not enough for it to tighten for her, but just enough for Yuki to take it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:18 pm
Seeing the obvious request spelled out in front of him, Yuki nodded and took the leash off of ******** hands. The next step before them was probably meant to be a little two-step where Yuki shifted around to the front of the bench as Reiki stepped back, then he powered up into Magical Girl Reiki and Yuki roused Cersei and took her home. But for one thing, Cersei seemed pretty cute and comfy right now, getting to know two whole New People and being given affection (which ******** showered her in all the time anyway, but still, Yuki couldn’t blame the good girl for enjoying it).
For another thing, though, Yuki caught Reiki by his jacket before he could use his shiny pen to shift into magical girl form. He didn’t linger on kissing ******** for too long—bad idea, when ******** had s**t to go do, and Haruhi (or Volterra, or whatever nis magical girl name was) was waiting for him—but nevertheless, some casual reassurance in ******** favorite way couldn’t go wrong.
“Give ‘em Hell, Pretty Boy,” he said when he broke the kiss off and let go of Reiki’s jacket. “You’re gonna do great.”
He didn’t need to know what was going on, magically speaking, to know that.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:19 pm
Although Reiki didn’t expect to get kissed like this, he welcomed it, melting easily into the contact. He was just as easy about letting it go, though. Sure, he would’ve happily made out with Yuki all night under any other circumstances—but, like, not tonight, was the point.
Not when Reiki needed to use his henshin pen to power up so he could go deal with ******** Mirrorspace and get this whole process of leaving the Court done with already. Once he had his Murikabushi fuku on, the only thing that held him up was reaching into his subspace for the Thing that he’d mentioned having for Kerberos: a paperback copy of Ojiisan’s memoir about his sobriety.
“……My grandfather sent it for me to give you,” Reiki explained, holding out the book for Kerberos to take. “A ‘thank you’ gift from him and my Obaasan. They only know that you’re sober and that my magic triggered you that one time, nothing else?” He would’ve liked to hope that him not telling Kerberos’s whole story to people behind his back went without saying, but one could never be entirely certain. Better to reassure him that Reiki hadn’t said too much to people without Blossom’s consent. “I think Ojiisan might have signed it, too? But he asked me not to look, so I haven’t?”
Without knowing it, Reiki was correct in his guess. On the blank side on the back of the title page, Kerberos would find the message from Ojiisan:Quote: Kerberos,
I wish that there had been a chance for us to meet in person. Kiya speaks very highly of you, but he has also explained that your magical work is very dangerous and that he does not want any harm to come to the family. In lieu of being able to meet you, I wanted to send you something, as both someone walking his own path of recovery, who wishes you well in your own journey, and as Kiya’s grandfather, who is unspeakably grateful that his grandson has such good friends to help him through this process.
I may not understand the magical aspects of this situation, but I know what it looks like when Kiya diminishes himself for someone who doesn’t truly value him. From the outside, that seems like how things have been with him in dealing with this “Mirrorspace.” As Murasaki and I have told him already, we would rather have him alive and well than tearing himself apart, even if it means we cannot see him. Yukiharu being there to help catch him gives us some peace of mind, since he won’t let Kiya neglect himself as he sometimes does. Knowing that Kiya has friends with him helps even more. Thank you, for being one of those friends.
Take care of yourself as well, and please be well. Remember that everyone has their own light to share with the universe, and no one else can replicate yours.
Best wishes and infinite gratitude,
Dr. Kiyoshi Rokugin.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:20 pm
Kerberos wasn’t really expecting another civilian to show up, but clearly this was someone important to Reiki—and frankly, seeing in person that he had someone who loved him, cared about him, and was going to make sure he was okay? That mattered, a lot. Maybe Kerberos didn’t know Yuki very well, but it was pretty obvious that the two of them were close, and he’d be leaving his friend in good hands.
“Yuki,” Kerberos said, “if you’d like to wait here until Reiki gets back from Mirrorspace, that should be alright. Between Ida and I, if anyone nefarious comes poking around, you and Cersei should be well-protected.” He could understand not wanting to leave a friend, not at this critical moment.
When Murikabushi handed him the book, he took it gingerly, and nodded.
“Thank you,” he said, “or well, I guess—Yuki, can you tell them thank you, from me? I…really appreciate it.” And he meant it, genuinely. He liked to think he mostly had his sobriety under control, but hearing other people’s journeys never stopped being helpful. And beyond that, it was a heartfelt present from the family of a dear friend—a friend that they were, in many ways, committing into his care.
He did not intend to let them down.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:21 pm
While Ida was not, traditionally, a dog person, but there was something so sweet about the dog’s round face and the way she licked Ida’s wrist. She couldn’t help putting both hands around her face and gently stroking her, murmuring how good of a girl she was. It was a comforting thing, as all animals seemed to be, and it helped steady some of Ida’s nerves. Muri had people who loved him, who would take care of him and be there for him on the other side of this.
She nodded along as Muri explained who Yuki was, which made the ringtone make sense and also soothed some of her worries when they were joined by another civilian. Ida straightened as she was introduced and offered a warm smile in return, her fingers curling gently together over her stomach. And then she watched with a faint sense of… something a little melancholic as the two kissed, though she averted her eyes politely.
“Your cousin…” Ida said tentatively, when the two had parted. “You’ve been mentioning them through this process, and I know they want to leave too. Did they want me to also be the one to help them with this? I don’t think we’ve met before, and I know there are other princesses that could help them. I’m happy to help them either way, but if they’d like to meet me first, to be more comfortable with the process or ask any questions, I’d be happy to do that. I’ve only really talked to you and Kerberos about this, and I know it’s a big step to take.”
She nodded to Yuki as well, her eyes shifting to him. “And if you have any questions, I can try to answer those too. I don’t know how much you know about all of this, and I’m sure its a bit confusing.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:21 pm
Seeing Yuki settle in despite the fact that he and Cersei were free to go home, Reiki didn’t know how to feel. As much as he trusted Kerberos and Ida to keep Yuki and Cersei safe, Reiki also knew that two transcended Eternals would attract a lot of attention from people in the Negaverse, and maybe from some of the less ethical Dark Mirrors—especially when one of them was a Princess and probably very well known as such after the battle with the Blights, whether she was in her full hime-sama geish or not. Several things ranked as acceptable costs of purification. “Losing Yuki and Cersei because somebody from the Negaverse showed up with a mind to start trouble” distinctly did not on rank on that list.
“You know, you and Her Grace are also allowed to just go home, Gorgeous,” Reiki pointed out gently, quickly turning back to Ida and moving on to her question about Haruhi because……well. On one hand, it was more important. On the other, Yuki was going to do a thing called “what he wanted” and very little that Reiki could say would change that. They fit together so well, in that way.
“My cousin was hoping that you could be the one to purify nem, yeah,” Reiki told Ida cautiously, half-afraid of scaring her off and half-afraid that he’d done something wrong and ruined everything by thinking that it was implied that he and Volterra would need to purify together. If he had, then—Reiki would work with it. He would need to. After he and Haruhi had already set so much of their previous lives on fire for this, he couldn’t let everything fall apart for them just because he’d ******** up one aspect of communicating with Ida about the process for tonight (even if it now seemed to be a pretty big aspect of things). “I don’t know if Volterra will want to talk beforehand or not? Ne will probably get back before I do, so ne can decide that for nemself, I guess? But ne isn’t always the best with new people? I could try to get a different princess or Cosmos to come for me, if you need me to? Volterra doesn’t trust like that very easily, though……I’m pretty sure me trusting you is the big reason why Volterra’s trusting you. So, ne might not do well with asking Miss Cosmos or a different princess?”
Volterra’s reluctance to trust so easily was probably smarter on nis part than Reiki’s tendency to take people at their word when they showed him who they were, even if that meant accepting things that most people saw as being in tension with each other (for example: Faustite being dangerously violent, vindictive, and possessed of a very short temper, but also having been harmed in some very big ways that had violated his agency, his soul, and his body, and that reality had fundamentally denied him any real closure about). But………oh, well. That wasn’t how Reiki did things, and good thing for both of them that he didn’t.
He left off his belief that Cosmos probably wouldn’t come for him if he wished upon a star like Asmodeus had said. Haggling over that wasn’t the point, and Reiki somewhat suspected that Kerberos, Ida, and Yuki would all tell him that he was wrong (even though Yuki had no way of knowing for himself).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:22 pm
”If that’s what… ne wants, then it would be my honor to help nem.” Ida said quickly, her nerves feeding off Reiki’s in a way that left her anxious she’d made him anxious, or somehow implied she didn’t want to help. She took a deep breath as she went over the questions, trying to parse everything and come around to something coherent and useful.
“I will help in any way that I can. I want to make sure everyone is comfortable and confident in what will happen, because I know it’s a very big deal for someone to go through a purification. Because it is my technical first, I also want to make sure I do my part right.” She said, feeling her way through things in a slow and methodical way. Communication was important. They all needed to be on the same page for this.
“You said Volterra will get back before you? So… you’d like me to purify you both at once?” Ida hesitated, thinking back over the few purifications she had witnessed… which failed, or didn’t actually happen. Others, she was not quite sure should be counted as experience, considering those memories had never come true… Could she trust them as accurate, despite that? In that dark future, she had only ever purified one person at a time… and always, it had left her exhausted just with that one. But… she’d always been exhausted, in those memories. Doing too much with too little. Could she do two, now? Maybe if she brought them all to her asteroid, which she’d planned to do anyway? It was still a very tall order…
Dark eyes slanted at Kerberos, offering him a wordless question. Had he witnessed anything like this before? Had anyone else tried two at once?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:23 pm
Kerberos looked thoughtful. “Two purifications at once is possible,” he said, after a long moment. “Difficult, but possible. Cosmos did it, for some friends of mine,” so much less complicated than dancing around them being his exes, when they were very distinctly his friends, “and she seemed…as tired as Cosmos ever gets, after.”
He exhaled. “But I can help you, if you need. Some extra energy from a fellow Transcended to carry you through.” And…he believed in Ida. Believed that if she wanted to do this, they could make it happen. Together. For two people who wanted out of the darkness.
Chaos would fight hard to hold onto the souls it had corrupted, Kerberos was sure. They’d just have to fight back harder.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:23 pm
……Oh. Reiki hadn’t thought about……literally any of this, at least not the parts about how much energy went into purifications. Part of him, he suspected hadn’t thought it all that necessary to consider, because Ida-hime-sama was a princess—a princess whose world had loved her enough to let her Transcend, at that, and in Reiki’s gay little brain, basically the epitome of everything that a magical girl princess was supposed to be—which obviously meant that she could do anything, right? Didn’t seem very fair, if you asked him, for Ida’s magic, the magic that she’d brought out against the Blights in the subway, to replenish other people’s strength and charges of their magic but leave none for her.……
(Another, considerably less relevant-at-the-moment part wanted to ask what Kerberos’s friends who’d purified together had done to be so special that Miss Ever-Sparkling Pastel Rainbow Supermodel of the Cosmos herself had shown up for them like that. It wasn’t the point. It also wasn’t remotely fair when Reiki knew literally nothing about these friends of Blossom’s aside from “they were his friends and they’d purified out of the Negaverse together.” For all he knew, they really were That b***h-flavored material, the sort of people for whom Cosmos would actually step away from whatever important things she spent the majority of her precious time doing. Not that he was jealous or anything. He was, but not in a way where he wanted to be pointlessly cruel about anybody else being That b***h. Reiki just wanted to know what a b***h had to do out here in these streets to be worthy of a sideways glance from the great Alpha and Omega mahou shoujo in the sky, so that he could subsequently do something like it himself.
Not that he would’ve known what to do with Cosmos’s attention if he’d ever managed to get it. But this was perpetually Reiki’s problem in all things, always: he wanted too much, usually only for the sake of saying that he’d gotten the thing or, worse, simply finding something to want.)
Listening to Ida and Kerberos debate the matter of Ida doing two purifications at once, Reiki wilted and swallowed thickly. If you can’t do us both at once, he wanted to say, then please take Volterra first. It’s my fault ne is even in the Court to begin with. Ne wouldn’t have gone to Mirrorspace with Elsa if not for me trusting him. Sure, fine, Cosmos wouldn’t come for me if I called on her because I’m not important like that, but it’ll be okay. I can go crash at my drag mom’s or something for however long you need to recover after helping Volterra, it’ll be fine. I’m always fine.……
Reiki didn’t say any of those things, but only because Yuki probably clocked that he was on the verge of doing something self-sacrificial and arguably stupid. At least, that was how Reiki chose to interpret the Pointed, Significant Look that Yuki threw his way, both brows arching as Yuki tilted his head and gazed over the upper rims of his glasses like Are you completely dead-a** certain that you want to do or say whatever stupid bullshit it is you’re currently thinking about doing and/or saying? Are you really sure about that, ******** the best that Reiki didn’t open his mouth: ultimately, the verdict came down that doing two purifications at once was possible, and Reiki had to resist the urge to sigh in relief.
“……I’m sorry,” he said softly, lacing his fingers together and then unlacing them, twining them up in each other only to let them go again, fussing with his half-fingered gloves and wondering if they’d at least be purple on the other side of all this or if they’d be white like most of his fuku probably would be. “I—uh.…… I mean, I can’t say I don’t know why I didn’t think about that? It’s just that the reason is really silly.”
It also made him feel wildly immature……though there was a sort of liberation in that: magical girl princesses obviously had to be mature—regardless of their faction even, as Remarque well proved—and since Reiki wasn’t, at least he didn’t have to waste his time trying to ******** impress anybody so he could earn the magical girl princess power-up. Better for him that he could freely be a messy b***h whose only proximity to princess anything would come from Ida-hime-sama and his stupid t-shirts.
Still, he looked at Ida directly as he admitted, “I didn’t even think about any potential restrictions on purifications because—I guess, in my head, nothing could ever stop you? Like, if you set your mind to it, you could do literally anything you wanted? Because, y’know, you’re kind of everything, like a magical girl princess Barbie? But, uh? Should I……” Reiki shrugged. “Do you need me to get anything for you on my way back? I can grab snacks or extra water or something to maybe help take some of the edge off?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:23 pm
“You can take some damn care of yourself and get back in one piece, for starters,” Yuki chimed in, smirking fondly at the bemused pout he got that screamed Excuse me, are you Ida-hime-sama? Shrugging, Yuki added, “I know you weren’t asking me, but I felt I should make my position known. Especially since you’re being unhelpfully vague about this whole ‘Volterra will get back here before I do’ thing.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:24 pm
“Oh, yeah, that, I just meant……” Reiki shook his head and waved a dismissive hand at nothing in particular. “The whole gist of this asinine mirror-quest is that we have to fight some evil mirror-double of ourselves, right? Like, it’s giving me very teas like ‘Superman 3 junkyard scene; Ikari-kun and Leliel in the sea of Dirac; Double Trouble reading Catra to filth for her own good; Trigon Teen Titans summoning copies of Starfire, Cyborg, and Beast Boy to fight them while he ******** with Raven’s head; ‘I am smart, and capable, and free in all the ways that you are not’ from out of Fight Club; and Dean Winchester on at least four different occasions.’”
With a shrug, Reiki concluded, “If Mirrorspace wanted me to fight a copy of Elsa or Faustite, we might be done with quickly. But between a b***h talking so much and a Mirror-copy that will likely do the same, the stupid quest might take a while for me, y’know what I mean?”
Truly, in Reiki’s own opinion, his logic was unassailable.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:24 pm
Ida’s eyes widened as her face flushed wildly pink at Reiki’s words, at his firm belief that… she was something far more perfect and wonderful than she felt she was, or could ever be. She pressed her palms to her cheeks, taking a deep, steadying breath. She wanted to deny everything… bring out all the reasons she wasn’t this magical princess he thought she was. All the ways she wasn’t strong or smart or all the ways she had failed over the years. How he couldn’t put her on such a high pedestal, because doing so would only set him up for disappointment… But. Admitting all of that now would only undermine his confidence in what he was going to do. He wanted her to purify him and his cousin because he truly believed she was what he thought she was. Breaking that illusion now would just… ruin everything he had been working towards.
Cosmos had purified two people at the same time, Kerberos had said. Ida would not have compared herself by any stretch to the senshi that wore that name. She was half fable, except that Ida knew she was real. The senshi that guarded the cauldron… Her being able to purify two people did not really equate to Ida being able to do so… But the look on Reiki’s face at the possibility she couldn’t? Ida felt her chest squeeze. She took a deep, steadying breath, pushing aside all her worries and feelings of inadequacy, packing them down into a little corner of her heart where they wouldn’t get in the way.
“If Kerberos says it’s possible, then I’ll do it.” She said, putting as much confidence into her voice as she could manage. It didn’t matter that she had doubts or worries… she’d do it because she had to. Both of these people were depending on someone to help them. Someone had to, and they were asking her.
“Why would you have thought about it?” Ida said as she spread her hands, letting them fall away from her face. “You’ve never done it before, and it sounds like you’ve never witnessed one before either. I don’t expect you to know everything about what’s possible or isn’t…”
She summoned up a tremulous smile as she shook her head. “I’ll have everything I need on Ida. Plus Kerberos, and if it’s okay, I’d like to take Illyria, my bonded Mauvian, too. Between the two of them, they should be able to take care of me, and hopefully you too while I’m… occupied. And hopefully, Illyria can help you with the things you’ll need after… like new sensei phones, and things for your identities.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
