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 Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2023 7:25 pm
Whatever was wrong with Faustite, it had left Reiki feeling capital-C and italics Concerned. Hard not to feel that way, honestly, or at least it was hard for Reiki. His feelings about Faustite had finally decided to settle into something distinctly more positive than not……still refusing some kinds of categorization, but Reiki could live without knowing for certain the specific flavor of like that he felt……if it eves wound up mattering. If Faustite’s mystery illness killed him, Reiki didn’t imagine it would make much difference how he felt about him or didn’t.
Mirrorspace, for its own part, seemed hellbent on trying to make him feel like nothing in the world mattered, aside from Mirrorspace itself. Felt weird for Reiki, avoiding mirrorwalking after letting himself get used to that means of fast-travel, ******** honestly. Every time he tried to just go from home to Scandals more quickly, Mirrorspace whined at him, and tugged on his skirts, and acted like Reiki was a heartless wretch who had neglected Mirrorspace quite terribly—as if it had even offered him that option! Since New Year, he’d visited that frozen, miserable s**t-hole almost every night, for hours at a time, always lingering until he got the feeling like Mirrorspace had satiated itself.
Every single night, the same arrangement: he powered up, some mirror nagged at him to please come visit, and he allowed himself to slow down enough that he ventured into Mirrorspace proper. Then, he stalked through the ever-shifting hallways, or tried to see how far the “Mirror City” [the tiny park with nothing interesting about it] went, or paid a visit to his heroin-covered baseball field. Anything, as long as he ******** around until Mirrorspace finished acting like a romantic cheater who wanted more than anything to bait Reiki into screwing something up, all so it could justify blaming him for everything that had ever gone wrong in all recorded history and projecting its own guilt onto him.
On top of that, Reiki had only gotten a little bit better at exiting from the mirror he’d actually wanted, following his trips to Mirrorspace. After tonight’s round of nonsense, Mirrorspace spat him out from one of the Court’s alleyway mirrors in an area of town he didn’t recognize at first. Only by making his way to Mid-City Park did Reiki get some sense of his bearings. Not very much of one, true—he rarely came around these parts, nor had much reason to—but at least he knew how he’d get home from tonight’s random exit point that Mirrorspace had chosen for him.
First, though: a proper patrol to get the sour taste of Mirrorspace out of his ******** mouth.
Reiki had barely started said patrol before he wandered into a children’s play-court styled to resemble different locales from The Wizard Of Oz. No signs of youma making trouble, Negaverse operatives causing problems, or anyone from his own Court who needed to get slapped over some wretched misbehavior. He probably should’ve moved right on, but instead, Reiki lingered a moment at the start of the play-court’s Yellow-Brick Road. Smothering his concern for how it might have looked, he shook out his ponytail with a soft gasp.
“Toto,” he said into the night, at no one in particular, “I think we’re not in Kansas anymore.…”
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Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2023 9:42 pm
There was a strange sort of Chaos that sometimes flickered on the edges of Dagon's senses.
The idea that there might be multiple varieties on Earth was not totally foreign to her; Chaos came in so many forms, and the one that stalked her world was not the same as either of those she had felt on Earth. And, she had to admit, she was curious. Would this be a group related to the Negaverse? Something wholly different? She wasn't sure, and she itched to find out.
She'd mostly let them pass her by in the past. Not this time. This time she made for Mid-City Park,. where she felt the aura, and trailed towards it. About her level, and distinctly...Senshi-like, in its way. And as she approached, and finally got a look at the person it belonged to, she felt a heavy note of recognition.
She frowned. crossed her arms. Tilted her head to the side, wracking her memory for why it seemed so familiar-and-yet-not.
"....Who are you?" She asked, bluntly. "Apologies, I just--feel as if we've met, but I know that we haven't."
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Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2023 10:41 pm
Reiki felt the approaching White Moon aura as he traced his feet along the Yellow-Brick Road painting, but he didn’t tense up or worry about it overly much. There was always some risk involved in this, sure? But his track record with the White Moon was pretty great so far. Most of the instances when he’d had a less-than-stellar encounter had been about something else entirely: Angelica’s broken heart, Anser’s magical girl trauma, and Daphne……
Well, that encounter had definitely been about Reiki (or at least about Murikabushi…or at least what Reiki had done while trying to be Murikabushi, whatever that meant), but Daphne had also been completely in the right to object to him draining Michel like he’d done, which meant that Daphne had actually done nothing wrong and didn’t deserve criticism.
As the aura grew closer, Reiki looked around for where it could be coming from……and found himself facing a gorgeous White Moon senshi. One look at her blue skin, the fins around her ears, and the slight webbing between her fingers said she was in the same kind of situation as Fang and Daphne and so many others: a senshi from outer space, who’d probably lost her entire planet to Chaos and had now, somehow, made her way to Earth. And, gurl, Miss Terror From The Depths wanted to talk to Reiki? Felt something familiar about Reiki?
“Yeah, we definitely haven’t? I’d remember someone with a look as fierce and glamorous as yours.” Maybe the first adjective would’ve sufficed……but Reiki couldn’t guarantee that this Starfleet senshi had met the right sort of swishy queer to introduce her to the queer lingo sense of the term fierce. So, clarification felt like a good idea. Giving her a small but warm smile, he came closer and held out a hand. “Sailor Murikabushi of Hunger.”
A small note of guilt twisted in the pit of his stomach, compelling him to add, “…Also of the Dark Mirror Court, but that’s not……?” He shook his head, waved his other hand dismissively. “That’s just……a whole thing. I can’t make promises for anyone else in my faction? But I don’t drain energy or any of that, and I try to protect and help people, rather than hurting anybody, but……” Another hopeful smile. “How about you, Sailor…?”
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2023 12:08 am
Well, this stranger didn't seem entirely confused about meeting a Senshi that wasn't human. Perhaps he'd run into others like her before--certainly Dagon knew she wasn't the only one. That made things easier, all in all.
She smiled, and moved to take his hand, and as soon as he said his name, it clicked, and she let out a little, involuntary "Ah!"
...It was hard to guess, really, how he would react to the information she was about to present. But she'd asked if they knew each other, and now she knew how they did, and it would be rude to dodge the question, she supposed.
"We have met before--or, ah. I met the last Sailor Murikabushi, many centuries ago." Before everything had gone wrong. Before her world had been invaded, poisoned, cut off, killed. "I have to confess: I've never encountered your Dark Mirror Court before. Could you tell me more about it?"
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2023 2:14 am
At the other senshi’s moment of recognition, and even more so at her explanation, Reiki perked up (beyond mere pleasantness and into the realm of genuinely perky). “You—you knew him? You knew Airan?”
Dimly, it occurred to Reiki that being so excited to learn about his past life……didn’t seem to be something that other Dark Mirrors did. Not that he’d discussed it extensively with any of the other Dark Mirrors he knew, but……they all seemed to be more focused on the here-and-now. Which, in fairness, made perfect sense and Reiki hardly wanted to forget about the present moment—or worse, the people who needed protection right now—in favor of space adventures to learn more about the magical past. But looking at Kerberos, Ida, and Encke was a clear sign that these things were not diametric opposites. Ida even proved that paying attention to things in space could be important and necessary for protecting the Earth. If she hadn’t caught the signs of the Blight so early, thanks to visiting her planet……
Motioning for the Starfleet senshi to follow him, Reiki led her over to a bench—clearly visible from where they’d stood, still out in the open, but hopefully, more comfortable for having a chat. “So, the Dark Mirror Court,” he said, immediately trailing off into a deep breath. As he tried to decide where to start with his explanation, he reached into his subspace for, one, his thermos, and two, one of the bottles of water he kept there, sealed and chilled, to share with anyone he ran into who might’ve needed it.
He didn’t know if she needed extra hydration, or if her people would have some problem with the plastic bottle, or anything else…but it didn’t hurt to just……be kind and make the offer, holding the bottle out for her to accept or refuse.
“So, we’re Chaos—which? I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that.” Reiki quirked his brows and his shoulders. No sense in beating around the bush, he guessed. “We’re of a different sort than the Negaverse. I don’t know how their auras feel to you, but to me, they always feel sharp-edged and cold. And I do not at all claim to be an expert on what the actual differences between us are? I know that the way Chaos gets infused with our starseeds seems to be pretty different? I’ve met a few people who left the Negaverse for Order, and the Chaos-removal process that way sounds pretty purgative? Like, the Chaos is actually injected into their starseeds? But ours is……”
Reiki paused, shuddering a bit at the memory of Astraya……of Kima……of his golden tendrils piercing Reiki’s chest and ripping out his starseed.…… “Apparently, for Dark Mirror senshi? Our Chaos is more like a coating on our starseeds. Or like a straitjacket.” At least, thinking about it too much sometimes felt like that for Reiki. “Which is something I’d really like to ask someone about? But there don’t seem to be a lot of us who’ve made it to Eternal.… Really, there aren’t very many of us at all—nine months here and I’ve met more people from Order and the Negaverse than from my own Court—but without more higher-ranking senshi, I suspect there’s a lot of history and knowledge about who we actually are, as a Court, that’s becoming increasingly esoteric just because no one is sharing it anymore.”
Although he shrugged, that idea upset Reiki more than most things about the current state of affairs within the Dark Mirror Court. Partly, because it meant he kept getting stymied by wanting to know something and having no one to ask. Mostly, though, it offended and hurt him on the level where he was very much Murasaki and Kiyoshi’s Grandson: Obaasan and Ojiisan had taught him early on that, in order to really build a stable future, you needed to have a decent grounding in history and the knowledge of those who’d come before.
Either way, he’d probably given Miss Terror From The Depths enough to digest for the moment, and—letting her have a word in edgewise seemed only polite.… That, and Reiki did need a sip from his thermos.
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2023 2:59 am
Dagon nodded. "We met, a few times, and he stole an opportuntiy to visit my planet once--ah, and where are my manners. Sailor Dagon, of Dread." She introduced herself with a little bow. "Let myself get distracted. It has been...a mixed bag, finding old friends."
A soft sigh passed her lips. That was the politest phrasing she could manage, when things with Retzian weighed so heavily. But Stirling had been a more positive experience, on the whole, and that gave her hope. Especially since Murikabushi seemed almost excited, glad to know someone who knew who he had once been.
She wondered what corruption did to a Senshi's connection to their world. Had Murikabushi ever seen his home, ruined as it no doubt was?
This would not be the strangest conversation she'd had, in any case, and so she went with him, and gratefully accepted the water--people on Earth were so eager to share food and drink, it was a charming custom--and sat down on the bench, crossing one leg over the other and listening as she opened the bottle and took a drink.
Chaos, it seemed, worked in myriad ways. No surprise--its infections, it seemed, came with as much variety as there were stars in the sky. No surprise, but distressing nonetheless.
"Chaos, to me, has always felt like a sort of pervasive wrongness. A thing that should not be. Yours is....cooler, than the Negaverse's, to me. Like deep water, I think. Something that seems deceptively peaceful, hides its dangers." But perhaps that was the way of this Court. "None of what I have found on Earth is at all like what is on my world, either. It is fascinating to me, I must confess, how Senshi and Knights are much the same everywhere, without Chaos, but Chaos itself is so...malleable. So many things."
Fascinating, and a little frightening.
"Unfortunate that there is no one to tell you more. Senshi should have mentors to guide them, even Chaos Senshi."
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 8:34 pm
Nodding along as Dagon spoke, Reiki paid close attention to her words and the knowledge that she had to share. Not that he’d learned nothing from Fang or Daphne—far from it, considering that Fang’s reaction to his magic had been instrumental in Reiki finding out what it even did—but Dagon seemed, somehow, older than both of them.… Which might not have been that much of a difference, in the grand scheme of things, when all three of them—and presumably any other Starfleet senshi who were or could ever be running around on Earth—had survived some absurdly long time (long enough for friends of theirs to die and get reincarnated, even), but……it was hardly insignificant.
Not when Fang seemed effectively close to Reiki’s own age, albeit a bit arrested in some regards, Daphne seemed like little more than a teenager, and Dagon seemed far more experienced than any of them.… So much more to learn about these Starfleet senshi, and Reiki could only imagine how much he didn’t know. Mentally on the edge of his seat, he drank in all of Dagon’s wisdom, and took a few moments to consider everything, when she’d finished.
“Well, it’s not quite that we have no one? There are Mauvians who’ve been touched by Chaos, and they work with the Negaverse and the Dark Mirror Court pretty evenly, as far as I can tell. I’ve worked with two of them who are pretty amazing, they really helped me figure some things out with my magic and the business about how being a senshi actually works.…”
There was just a massive “but” hanging here, and Reiki had to allow himself a dramatic sigh before he could say it. “But your take on things with our Chaos—deep water hiding something nefarious? That’s about the most accurate description I’ve heard of anything to do with the Court. And I guess I’m biased here? Because my family, in this reincarnation, a lot of us are historians? It’s obviously bad to have senshi running around with no idea how to use their powers, especially if you’re going to ask them to do something so blatantly, obviously immoral like energy-draining innocent people, but with the Court, specifically?”
Reiki shook his head. “The story I’m thinking of isn’t really mine to tell, in full? The person who told me didn’t specifically invoke or ask for confidence, but—Negaverse or not, I don’t want to betray his trust in telling me. The most important part, though? Is that, a while back, some Dark Mirror senshi did absolutely heinous things to this guy, put him through Hell, did him harm on purpose and the Court just……” Reiki shrugged. “Took away his henshin pen so he couldn’t power up, but otherwise, they let him just……run. Didn’t do anything to help or make reparations to the guy he brutalized, either. Then, I’ve heard all kinds of implications—from people with the White Moon and with the Negaverse—all about other ******** up things the Court has either done or passively allowed to happen?
“And I don’t even know how many of the other Dark Mirror senshi I know are even aware of this. Because nobody tells us. Because it’s like……” Pushing his bangs back off his forehead, Reiki allowed himself to slouch. “It’s like no one even cares about the history here. Very ‘I didn’t personally do the bad thing, so it’s not my problem, why do you expect me to care’ kinds of energy.”
At least, that’s how Reiki felt about the Court’s lack of history education. In the back of his mind, he really, really hoped that nobody in the Court ever tried to spew some garbage about ‘our ******** up history is not my problem’ and started sounding like his Mom’s two eldest brothers. Leagues of difference between Imperial Japan’s many atrocities and the magical girl gang war—but still. Didn’t Reiki get enough of that garbage from putting up with Uncle Kaoru and Uncle Mako?
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:37 pm
Dagon couldn't help the way her nose wrinkled at the mention of Chaos-touched Mauvians. That was a tragedy--that Chaos even stole the guides and aides of the Senshi, that the technical genius of the Mauvians was turned to dark ends. A genuinely disturbing prospect, and one she would have to look into further.
The story Murikabushi told made her exhaled, and she gazed off, briefly, lost in thought.
"Disciplining Senshi is quite troublesome," she said. "I don't know exactly what power structures your Court has, but in the past....there were certainly Senshi who did heinous things, and escaped unscathed, because there is little that anyone can truly do to curb their power." A wry smile crossed her face. "An unfortunate aspect to the power that we wield. Even more unfortunate that your Court has one such Senshi among their number."
But that wasn't all of it, was it.
"I hope that there are those in your Court who care more, because to abandon or ignore history is....well. Foolish." Dagon shook her head. "But perhaps that is something you can do. Find your elders in this Court. Speak to them. Learn what they have done, and seen, and know. And make your own decisions about the things that you learn."
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Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2023 8:13 pm
The disapproval was starting to come through from Dagon, but that was to be expected, Reiki thought. Compared to certain other bisexual Christmas elves and Untitled Goose Girls who must not be named, Dagon at least seemed like she was trying to keep an open mind? But if Chaos had killed off her entire world, the way it had done to Fang’s and Daphne’s, then maybe there was a limit to what she could tolerate? Or for how long she could tolerate being around it?
After all, Reiki might have had the same starseed, but he wasn’t really the person she’d known before. Yeah, he got gussied up in the same fuku—or reasonably similar, at least, as he understood—but that didn’t mean he was the same as the Airan she had known.… Didn’t obligate her to do anything for him.
Still, Reiki couldn’t help getting a small smile over everything Dagon had to say. “Y’know, it’s such a relief, talking to somebody who actually gets that? About our power being so outrageous and so easy to wield irresponsibly? Maybe it’s a side-effect of having this whole…” With a roll of his eyes, Reiki rotated his wrist and made a vague gesture that even he couldn’t have been able to translate. “It’s this ongoing nonsense with the Negaverse—at least, with one specific team. Trying to tell them things like ‘Actually, I’m not okay with being a weapon concealed in your collective sleeve. My magic can and has triggered addicts—one of them being this team’s General, even—and I don’t feel comfortable with just throwing it around, the way you people are after.”
Reiki let slip a soft ugh sort of sound. “Some in the Negaverse care about the sanctity of life and being responsible with our magic? But from what I’ve seen, the ones who do mostly tend to get out of there, eventually.”
Shaking his head, somewhere between sadly and pensively—trying desperately not to think too much about Toráin (or whatever name he went by now, when he wasn’t being Monoceros)—he said, “Digging up any elders in the Court might prove difficult. I’ve only met four who weren’t stuck as basic senshi, and the one super in the mix didn’t seem to know much.” In fairness to Morpheus, Reiki vaguely remembered him mentioning some kind of head injury or something? But that was beside the point. “Hopefully, I can find someone, though.”
Someone like Levi, for example.
To whom Reiki still owed a serious conversation anyway.
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Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2023 11:44 pm
Dagon smiled, wryly. It was strange, to have such casual conversations with those infected by Chaos--centuries ago, when her world was first infected, she would never have expected it. But, well, it had bene a long time, and this was a different world, and those corrupted by Chaos here had perspectives that were important.
Better to know her enemies, anyway. The more she understood about the Chaos here on Earth, the better prepared she would be to fight it.
"Well, I don't exactly have a pleasant sphere either. My magic is a weapon, and like any weapon, it must be used responsibly. There are spells that have positive applications despite seeming negative on the face, but we are soldiers, first and foremost. We are made to fight, to protect our worlds, one way or another. To be aware of the danger inherent in your magic is important."
At least he seemed mostly opposed to the Negaverse. That was a net positive. If Chaos was divided against itself, that meant they were likely going to be far less efficient at doing any real damage here on Earth.
"I wish that I had more direct guidance for you, but I've only been on your Earth for a year, and this is the first time I'm even meeting one of your Court." She shook her head. "But best to get information from the source."
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Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2023 2:51 am
Listening to Dagon’s thoughts on her sphere and her magic, Reiki couldn’t help but think about Encke, and their whole conversation, back in the summer. All of it left Reiki feeling so……“Illusion never changed into something real; I’m wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn.”
Maybe with a side of “I want to be the girl with the most cake. He only loves those things because he loves to see them break. I fake it so real, I am beyond fake.”
(That had been happening more and more often lately, he’d noticed. Not that Reiki had never previously borrowed song lyrics to explain himself or his perspective on any given thing—part of constructing a lip-synch number rested on doing exactly that, when you did numbers like “Madame de Pompadour doing Reba McEntire’s ‘Fancy’” or “the ‘it’s the music, not the story’ number, with its mashing-together of (among other things) Miss Saigon, Full Metal Jacket, Memoirs of A Geisha, M. Butterfly, Madama Butterfly, 2 Live Crew, David Bowie, Nancy Sinatra, Nicki Minaj, and Gloria Gaynor.”
……But still: he’d increasingly relied on song lyrics to express his own moment-to-moment emotions ever since going to the Black Mirror with Levi and Soya-hime. Reiki had slipped into this tendency slowly, but ever since New Year, it had happened more and more often, and thinking about it too much only made him feel nauseated, like the correct answer was wriggling just beneath his skin but wouldn’t let him do anything about it.
Feeling so deeply alienated, even dissociated, from his own emotions—it wasn’t like Reiki. He might’ve sometimes been confused in how he felt or had conflicting feelings on any given subject—Faustite came to mind, mostly on account of being the clearest example in the past year or so—but even so, Reiki could normally express that confusion as confusion, without needing to resort to Marina and the Diamonds (“The lower I get, the higher I’ll climb, and I will wonder why I got dark only to shine”) or Rufus Wainwright (“All these poses of classical torture ruined my mind like a snake in the orchard. I did go from wanting to be someone, now I’m drunk and wearing flip-flops on Fifth Avenue. Once you’ve fallen from classical virtue, won’t have a soul for to wake up and hold you”).…
And yet.
And yet.
And <******** yet?
Even the sense of estrangement registered as estrangement in Reiki’s mind only after first coming to him in another set of Marina lyrics: “In the Valley of the Dolls, we sleep. Got a hole inside of me. Living with identities that do not belong to me.”)
—Not that he could begrudge himself any confusion here, really.
A Chaos Mauvian had been the one to help him sort out what his magic really did so he could listen to Heliodor’s actual good suggestion about not fearing his magic. Faustite had enabled and facilitated their meeting until things had abruptly gone tits-up. But there seemed (in Reiki’s mind) to be an unspoken assumption with everyone on Team Spicy Eggplant, save Heliodor and maybe Tama-san, that Reiki’s magic was best used as a weapon……that the point of him learning more about it was so he could learn the best and most effective ways of using it to hurt people. Maybe Faustite might’ve gotten the opposite idea through his head after their last conversation, but—well. That was assuming a lot about how much Faustite ever thought about Reiki, and he didn’t imagine Faustite really did that much. Aside from his current illness, he had several other cute sluts who gave him infinitely less trouble, so why bother wasting thought on a Mirror Thing?
On the other hand, while certain Order senshi had chosen to meet him with violence, regardless of whether or not he’d actually deserved it at the moment, they seemed more like exceptions than rules. Five different Order senshi and one Cosmos Knight had decided to, if not outright believe in him and trust him to use his magic responsibly (Ida, Amsvartnir, Kerberos, Fang—with the latter two even forgiving Reiki for his magic hitting them how it did), then at least give him good advice and something kinda sympathy-adjacent as fellow senshi with complicated and dangerous spheres (Dagon right now, and Encke before her). Moreover, even if Encke being with Order didn’t necessarily undermine all of Reiki’s feelings about how the White Moon would never accept magic like his—yes, plasma was dangerous but it was also just a naturally occurring state of matter, unlike fundamentally messy things—Dagon being the senshi of dread and with the White Moon felt like……maybe there would have been room among their ranks for the senshi of hunger after all.
……And it literally did not matter. Only accomplished reminding Reiki that he’d never be an actual good magical girl like Blossom, like Encke, like Dagon or Lysithea or Ida-hime-sama, like Monoceros-not-Toráin would surely be by now. Thinking about this made his forearms feel so much heavier in his lap, burdened even more than Atlas holding all création on his shoulders, simply from the silver bracers that marked him as a senshi in thrall to the Dark Mirror Court.
—Still. None of what Reiki felt right now was Dagon’s fault. How could it have been? Only thing for that was to take a deep breath, and nod, and try to keep his voice even and steady as he said, “I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of us. One of my friends on your side? He’s been a senshi for something like a decade. He was Negaverse first, before he got out and left for the White Moon, and I think his time with the Negaverse might’ve overlapped with when they and the Court had a more formal alliance? I’m not certain of that, but it might’ve been the case? Still, I don’t know if he’d actually personally met one of us or not before he met me last summer.”
Reiki might need to ask Kerberos about that, if his brain decided to be annoying about wanting An Actual Answer. For now, though, Reiki focused on telling Dagon, “There aren’t very many of us. The Negaverse team I’ve had run-ins with? They have at least as many members as all of the Dark Mirror senshi I know, then I’ve run into multiple other Negaverse assholes on top of them.”
In his head, Reiki silently counted them off: Elsa, Sappho, Bélénos, Volterra, Morpheus, Acubens, Remarque, Logos, and Quetzalcoatl vs. Faustite, Albite, Helio, Tama-san, Miss Jada the Sharp-Dressed Ma’am, Abbey Roadkill in the bodysuit, Imouto-san, Space-Buns, Fire And Blue’d, and someone named Cryolite who hadn’t been present. Who even knew how many others were or were not on their team. Then there was Arsenolite, Little Miss Xenia, Sailor Huge Tits of Who Cares, Infuriating Valjean And His Infuriatingly Tiny Hot-Pants, that Lieutenant who’d come over to fight with them during the battle in the subway, and the General who Monoceros had fallen for (whom Reiki had not met in person, but knowing that he existed counted enough in Reiki’s book).
“It’s a similar story with everyone I’ve met on the White Moon side: I’ve met more of you guys then people on my own team.” Kerberos. Fang. Ida. Monoceros, even though they hadn’t seen each other since his purification. Encke. Amsvartnir. Angelica. Anser. Pendour. Shoqafa. The redhead with the purple skirt who’d stood up to Valjean before Reiki had Awakened. Lysithea. Daphne. Some obnoxious Knight or other on Astraya who’d made a lot of trouble by trying to fight the nice aliens in the matchy-matchy uniforms (not that Reiki had met her met her, but he remembered her and he wasn’t ******** impressed). And now, Dagon herself as well. “Frankly? I’m closer to my White Moon friends than most of the other Dark Mirrors I know.
“I know there are other Dark Mirrors who I haven’t met yet?” Sappho’s brother, his husband, and Levi’s sister/Acubens’s wife, for starters. “But still, so much about how we do things just reminds me of this line from a story I like?” Well, a movie, but that was pointless semantics. “‘You cannot find peace by avoiding life.’ Or another line from a different story? ‘How nice—to feel nothing and still get full credit for being alive.’”
Sighing, Reiki shook his head. “So……yeah, that’s probably why you haven’t run into us before. Because so many of us would rather hide than stand for something, as if the power in our starseeds doesn’t give us a responsibility to protect the people who can’t protect themselves. Which—I know, I know. I’m Chaos, so I am one of the things that people need to be protected from, but……”
But I don’t want to be, Reiki thought but did not say. But I only wound up stuck down here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire, and getting stabbed to death? Because I want a boy who’s too good for me and I didn’t get briefed on the fine print here. And I wish so badly that I’d awakened White Moon, on the objective best and correct team in the first place, and that I could just be a good magical girl, but……? ‘Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal.’
For the moment, Reiki shoved those thoughts to the back of his mind. They were firmly and unquestionably not Dagon’s problem. He’d only met her tonight. No matter what friendship she might’ve had with Airan, Reiki couldn’t be allowed to burden her like that.
He shrugged. “Just because I got found by a Mirror Eternal and a Chaos Mauvian? Doesn’t mean that I’m okay with doing nothing while innocent people are dying out here, y’know?”
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Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2023 3:09 am
He was lost.
That much was entirely obvious. Murikabushi, whoever he was under the trappings of the Senshi of Hunger, was terribly lost, and there was no one who was going to give him any guidance. Perhaps those he knew were doing their best, but were working with incomplete information themselves. So much had been lost, when worlds died and were locked away. And even those of them who did still know things had been trapped away from any outside contact for so long as to render their knowledge useless.
It didn't matter, what Dagon knew about Airan, because nothing about who Airan used to be would help his reincarnation in the here and now, not when he was so trapped by Chaos.
"You must hold onto the heart that believes inaction is wrong," Dagon said, and she moved closer to him, and tapped her fist against his chest.
"I have seen Chaos manifest itself in many ways. I have seen it cling to the lust for power and violence in men's hearts. I have seen it raise monsters from the depths of the oceans to drag ships below. It is insidious, cruel, and powerful. It seems as if, perhaps--and I am truly only guessing here, I am no expert--but it may be that your Mirror makes your people more willing to accept such inaction, because it benefits it." She shrugged her shoulders.
"I cannot say for sure. But I can say: do not stay. Find a way out. There is always a way out. No Chaos infection is forever."
She had to believe that, at least. Had to believe that her world could be cleansed of the poison that had grown into its very roots.
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Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2023 10:41 pm
At the light tap on his chest, Reiki looked up. He couldn’t help going soft and a bit starry eyed as he listened to Dagon now.… What she was saying? It felt so hopeful, because even with the horrors she described Chaos wreaking on people, on their planets, she also said that it didn’t last forever. And Reiki wanted so badly to believe that, to believe in the way out that Dagon spoke of (and that Kerberos didn’t press with Reiki any but might well have had in mind regardless).
None of it made sense, though.… A way out existing in the first place meant that Levi must have either been ignorant about such things, or stayed with the Dark Mirror Court despite them.… Was he maybe ignorant about what Chaos really did to people? What it did to all of the worlds out there in the universe? What it would do to this world if Metallia and the Negaverse had their way? As much as Reiki felt Annoyed with Albite for any number of possible descriptions of their last encounter, some part of him had seemed genuine in trying to argue that Reiki had had the wrong idea of Team Spicy Eggplant and their intentions. If Chaos had distorted Albite’s perceptions so much that he apparently didn’t understand why Reiki felt disinclined to trust people who’d ignored Faustite telling them not to suggest torture, then maybe it had done similar thing to Levi? To Acubens?
Maybe Dagon was right in her guess about the Mirror’s Chaos making people feel more complacent with doing nothing.
For the first time while thinking about which Chaos faction would’ve been luckier for a senshi to fall into, Reiki felt extremely “It’s not symmetrical or perfect, but it’s beautiful and it’s mine” with a little bit of “And you can’t stop me ‘cause I’m the queen of the castle! Get down, you dirty rascal”—or was it maybe “If you brought me diamonds, if you brought me pearls? If you brought me roses like some other gents might bring to other girls? It couldn’t please me more than the gift I see”? ……Either way, Reiki (liked to think that he) knew himself pretty well, and the thought of what Chaos might’ve done with his lust for life, his propensity for boredom, his lack of reliable impulse control, and so many other traits of his if Faustite and Tama had found him in the alley that night, rather than Levi and Soya? Made him feel more than slightly sick.
………Blessed! That was the word he wanted.
Blessed. Lucky. Relieved.
Relieved to only be the worst, most annoying Dark Mirror Senshi instead of whatever beautiful monster the Negaverse’s Chaos might have made of him.
“I don’t know what the path out might be or not, what it might look like,” he told Dagon, swallowing back the thoughts screaming at him that it didn’t exist, because it couldn’t, because why else would someone as noble, and selfless, and good as Levi still be in the Dark Mirror if he could’ve left at any moment? Aside from how an alternate possible explanation had presented itself (and moreover, it didn’t threaten Reiki’s mental image of Levi as Not Someone Who Would’ve Stayed With Chaos Entirely Willingly), voicing the I don’t think Dark Mirror senshi can get out idea that he’d held for so many months might have only pointlessly upset Dagon. Worse, it might’ve seemed ungrateful.
Looking her in the eye, Reiki promised, “But until I find something? They can’t make me okay with doing nothing. It… Partly, it’s not my nature? I get bored and restless way too easily to just do nothing. And more than that?” He shrugged. Maybe he couldn’t tell Dagon everything—it might’ve been dangerous, not just to both of them, but also to the two women Reiki was about to mention—but he could at least give some credit where it was due. “My Mom and my Obaasan in this life—er, my grandmother, that is? They’ve been my heroes my whole life, and neither of them is ever okay with doing nothing, so…? I learned from two of the best.”
Depending on some people’s definitions, they might have argued that what Mom and Obaasan had taught Reiki was how to be a stubborn, perpetually unsatisfied malcontent, but……well. Factions came and went, alliances formed and dissolved, the meanings of different labels shifted and evolved—even when the label was something supposedly intrinsic to his very being, like Senshi. Through it all, Reiki was Noshiko’s Son and Murasaki’s Grandson before he was almost anything else.
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Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2023 11:38 pm
"I can search for it for you, as well," Dagon said. Perhaps understanding how people were freed from Chaos would help her understand alternate ways to free her world. Perhaps...there were answers out there, for her. And in seeking them, perhaps she could help someone else.
She hoped so. She wanted that, very badly.
"You have a good family, Murikabushi. It seems that my old friend's starseed landed exactly where it needed to be." She tapped his chest again, and smiled. "I am glad that you know your own heart well. It will serve you, as you seek your way out."
Perhaps that was what had kept her alive and uncorrupted. Pure stubbornness and a surety of purpose. And obviously, her world's magic, what of it was left, struggling to ensure that its protector lived long enough to save it.
"I am glad to have found you again. I look forward to seeing what you become. Murikabushi."
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Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2023 12:16 am
Hearing that offer from Dagon—then hearing on top of it her certainty that he was capable of all this they were discussing, that the Murikabushi starseed had wound up in the right place, that this entire situation wasn’t hopeless bullshit on and on forever and ever amen—Reiki couldn’t help smiling. A small smile, and closed-mouthed, but soft, and earnest, and daring to hope that she was right about him. That, even if he wound up being right about leaving Chaos being a privilege unique to the Negaverse, then maybe, at the very least, he could make the most of his situation and still, somehow, find ways of being a good magical girl, of helping people.
“Thanks, Dagon,” he said gently, but unreservedly. “It……it means a lot to me that you think so.” More than he really wanted to put words on at the moment, considering how often Murikabushi of Hunger felt like someone else’s beautiful pageant gown, with someone else’s cincher and pads and wigs and tits and heels, and Reiki here, struggling to fumble through someone else’s prepared performance for the talent portion.… But, for once, being addressed as Murikabushi didn’t feel any kind of Wrong. “And—hey, if you ever need anything that I can help with? Please, don’t hesitate to ask, okay?”
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