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 Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2023 1:39 am
▶ in a video, playing on a cellphone Most of the screen is taken up by footage from someone playing Dragon Age: Inquisition. Their Inquisitor is a male Dalish elf mage, and their current party-mates are Dorian Pavus, Cullen Rutherford, and Blackwall. Controlled by a player who knows well what he’s doing, the party progresses through the battles in Suledin’s Keep. In the lower left-hand corner of the video, a picture-in-picture view showcases two bespectacled young men. Yuki, the one currently playing the game, sits in a large, comfy and ergonomically designed gaming chair, at the desk he has set up for gaming streams while running them on his PC. Although currently rather small and sometimes blocked by his co-star, his t-shirt is mostly visible: black, with a screen-printed design of two sparkle heart emojis, one featuring the green, white, gray, and black stripes of the aromantic pride flag, and the other featuring the original eight-stripe gay pride flag designed by Gilbert Baker.Reiki, meanwhile, occupies the best seat in the house: Yuki’s lap. While he’s not entirely turned sideways—trying to still cheat toward the camera (a boy’s gotta know his angles!)—he nevertheless keeps one arm draped over Yuki’s collarbone and his long legs with their black thigh-high stockings dangling over one of the chair’s arm-rests. More of his outfit is visible than Yuki’s, though it’s rather low-key by Reiki’s standards: the red plaid pleated skirt from his homemade dupe of the St. Magdalena’s uniform, and a black lolita separates blouse with pink lacy details, unbuttoned over top of a tight black t-shirt featuring the cover art from Hole’s Live Through This album.
As the Inquisitor leads his party through a certain door, one of Reiki’s legs bounces and he squeals excitedly. “Ahhh, it’s him it’s him it’s hiiiiiim!”Snorting, Yuki shakes his head and rolls his eyes affectionately. “What, like we’ve never played this side-quest together before?”“No! But I always love him, okay? He’s so much fun……”“Ah, the hero arrives,” says the man waiting inside this room of Suledin Keep: a desire demon known as Imshael. “But is it hero, or murderer? It’s so hard to tell.”Although still quite starry-eyed over Imshael, Reiki slouches, pouting ever so slightly. “Never get used to the accent the directors made Gethin do, though.…”▶ in a video, playing on a cellphone “So, this is the demon called Imshael.”
“Ahem, *Choice*. Spirit.”(In what is, perhaps a testimony to exactly how many times he and his queerplatonic partner have played this side-quest, Reiki perfectly mouths along with this dialogue, giving a face that’s suitably huffy and offended.)
Not that this felt like the best use of his time, nor something necessarily safe to do while powered up.… But, on one hand, Reiki had had a really long day. He’d gone to Mirrorspace twice, in the hopes of keeping it more or less appeased, taken Cersei on a very long walk between those two visits, and hit up most of his usual patrol routes and haunts in which to look for trouble, only to find them almost distressingly peaceful.
On the other hand, if trouble decided that it wanted to show up, Reiki didn’t want to have to waste any time on powering up. Better, he thought, to stay powered up—the old, familiar principle of If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready—and be able to better pick out any oncoming youma, non-youma Negaverse auras, troublemaking nonsense monsters from outer space, or, like, whatever else felt like coming his way.
As the dialogue he knew quite well played out down on the screen, Reiki looked up to cast a glance down the hill and around the park. He didn’t feel anything particularly amiss, at the moment? But it never hurt to stay vigilant, in addition to staying ready. You never knew when circumstances could change.▶ in a video, playing on a cellphone “True to my name,” Imshael purrs to the Inquisitor, “I will show you that you have a choice: it doesn’t always have to end in blood.”“Yeah, no duh, pretty man,” Reiki drawls. He pouts, but looks mostly unperturbed as Yuki reaches out of the shot and comes back with a large metal cup of water. “If the things I want to do with you ended in blood, then I don’t care how sexy-voiced you are; I would never call you for a second round.”Hearing this nonsense in mid-drink, Yuki sporfles—only narrowly avoiding both a spit-take and letting the water go down the wrong pipe. “Oh. My god,” he groans, which quickly gives way to giggling. “Just—I cannot—daisuke, ******** style="color: #582788">Reiki preens, looking exceptionally pleased with himself, then leans in to kiss Yuki’s temple. “Daisuke, Gorgeous.”
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Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2023 12:31 am
Lilith had been out as Hinata. A late night walk to clear her head, to get out of the spiral of anxiety surrounding her deteriorating circumstances as Lilith. Not that anyone around her knew quite how thoroughly they were deteriorating, but deteriorating they were.
Her General was dying. His team was a barely-leashed crowd of rabid dogs, and once their handler was gone, she suspected that it would not be a good time. Even less so for pretty Corrupts who made eyes at girls in white and had no desire to see them broken and repurposed for the Negaverse.
What would Keiko be, after all, if Lilith dragged her in? It seemed likely that she would lose the girl she loved in the process.
But she'd come around a corner, and looked up, and spotted a familiar figure.
Murikabushi of Hunger. The one Faustite had hauled to the basement of the Farnsworth Building. The one they'd interrogate, threatened.
Hinata felt her heart leap into her throat.
She ducked away, pulled out her pen, powered up. He seemed distracted, and it gave her the chance to approach, slowly.
"Murikabushi?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2023 4:41 pm
A single check of the area didn’t really count as vigilance. Strictly speaking, Reiki could have learned that already from any number of potential sources—but right now, tonight? He didn’t much enjoy the notion of thinking about that. Not when patrolling meant having to go out like this, risk being seen by people Like This, and otherwise allowing people to Perceive Murikabushi when they also, by necessity, identified Reiki himself Like That.
Maybe if Reiki had actually paid attention to his surroundings instead of minding his phone, he would’ve noticed the Negaverse aura blipping into existence as someone powered up. Might have noticed it popping up somewhere else in the park, nearby the picnic tables he’d claimed as His Spot For The Time Being. Might have put his phone away before someone got close who, if he’d been thinking about anything actually relevant to his life as a senshi, would have registered to him as Potentially Nefarious and definitely not someone who he wanted to risk letting see his phone.
Instead, the sudden voice made him startle. With a yelp, even. Adding insult to his self-inflicted injury, he fumbled his phone and dropped it onto the table……which felt even stupider when he turned toward the voice and saw one of the people from Team Faustite whose name he hadn’t caught, back at the Farnsworth.
“Imouto-san,” he greeted her back, overall pleasantly, but with a sigh as he forced himself to calm down. “To what do I—”
“And then we all live happily ever after,” a gruff voice audibly purred on his phone. “Well, not all of us—but who’s counting?”
Reiki pursed his lips. Right. He had to turn the stupid thing off to shut it up. Busying his hands with that, he finished his original thought, “Can I help you with something tonight? Or……to what do I owe the pleasure, I guess?”
Not carrying any messages for her boss, most likely, since Faustite could do that just fine for himself. Not unless his condition had gotten measurably worse. But if that were the case, then surely, he’d have done the sensible thing and spent what time he had left trying to save himself alongside the people who loved him. Wasting time on a super senshi from a different faction who gave him no allegiance beyond personally liking Faustite and probably didn’t mean anything to him, when he had all manner of other boys?
Didn’t make sense. Reiki wasn’t special like that.
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Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2023 9:43 pm
Lilith hadn't entirely intended to sneak up on him; apparently, Murikabushi really was absorbed in whatever he'd been watching on his phone. His phone that she was going to politely ignore, as much as the urge to comment on it bubbled behind her lips--that was Dragon Age, that was Imshael, the kind of games she played on her downtime because when people came to her streams, they expected to see her showing off in Overwatch 2 or Apex Legends.
But she bit her tongue, metaphorically. Murikabushi had made it more than clear how he felt about the prospect of any sort of civilian identity sharing. He would not want her to know anything about him, she suspected--and, honestly, not without reason, she was pretty certain.
So she put on her politest smile, tilted her head to the side, and turned into Polite Negaverse PR.
"Ahh, I didn't mean to bother, Kagami-san. I just wanted to check in. I know my fellows made a pretty terrible impression, and I was hoping you hadn't had any more unpleasantness from them?"
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Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2023 10:38 pm
……Well, that was ******** Weird. Enough so that Reiki wrinkled his nose and tilted his head, as if doing this would somehow force Imouto-san to somehow make more sense. Which she currently did not—or, to be more honest about the situation, she might have made sense to someone else, but Reiki felt incredibly disinclined to trust any of this politely smiling, totally vapid, “we are all very good friends because all of us are Chaos rats and black fukus mean that we like each other very much and will walk backwards into Hell together, it will be just the loveliest ******** time, won’t it” bullshit.
“Well, I did have it out with your boss again but that was back in November and we talked it out like adults back in January.”
Reflexively, Reiki curled his left hand around the one that had gotten somewhat moderately a little bit scorched by his lapse in judgment vis a vis touching a boy who was literally ON FIRE. The scarring could’ve been a lot worse. Faustite’s Silvadene cream had helped in the moment. After he’d cleared out, Reiki had gone to North-End Park, to Kerberos’s bench specifically, like “What’s up, slut, sorry I don’t have boba tonight, hey by the way, does your pretty, shiny healing magic work on dumb bitches who may have slightly kinda touched a half-youma who’s on LOTS of fire?”—and that had helped enough that Reiki hadn’t needed to lie that much to Everyone In The Family Not Named Haruhi. Honestly, he didn’t need to shield his hand from Lilith’s view, but……it made him feel better.
“Last encounter with him was trying to keep some feral little a*****e from the White Moon from taking herself out while trying to kill him. But other than Faustite……” Reiki shrugged. “Ran into Heliodor back in November? Which was pleasant. But……yeah, no, I’ve barely seen any of you around, even when I have been looking for you. And the only unpleasant things have been, A., that Miss Cybele and her mid-tier high school production of A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream-looking fuku wanted to murder him even if it took her out as well; and B., that he’s a complete mess physically in ways that……”
Reiki sighed, wilting and looking away from her. He couldn’t deal with looking at Imouto-san or keep up his bravado while getting vulnerable enough to admit, “I’m worried about him. And I know that I can’t help. And thanks, I hate it.”
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Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2023 12:19 am
Lilith nodded. "Good," she said. Good to know that apparently, the ravening dogs on her team could be reasoned with, and that they weren't all out for blood all the time. "Do you mind if I sit down?"
She waited, to either receive permission or not. No reason to ask and then be so rude as to sit anyway.
She noted the way he shielded his hand. Wondered exactly what he was lying to her about. What he was covering up, protecting. But she would probably have to do quite a bit more prodding before she got him to open the rest of the way up. A project, of sorts.
"Mm. We're all worried about him," Lilith chose her words carefully. "Thank you, for keeping him alive. He's very important to my brother, and," a wry smile, "the only one of my superiors on the team I really respect, truth be told. I joined to serve under him. I don't exactly want to find out what might happen if he were no longer around."
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Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2023 7:55 pm
With a brief nod, Reiki budged over so she could take a seat. Maybe he didn’t understand what was going on right now—maybe he didn’t really get why she’d come to see him, what she really wanted, why they were playing nicely, or pretty much any of it—but it would’ve been rude not to welcome her to sit when she was technically being so polite.
“By the way, I never asked your name?” He shrugged, hoping she’d answer but leaving it open for her to decide she didn’t feel like it. “Or your brother’s either, but that one’s less of a priority, considering you are here and he kept glaring like he wanted to kill me in my sleep to assert his dominance as the number one femboy in the room……or to get back at me over what my magic initially did to Faustite, which—?” Reiki made a small, throaty noise that echoed how he had previously moved his shoulders. “That one, I’d understand and respect. I wouldn’t agree with it, given certain pieces of context? But I’d understand and respect it.”
Part of him wanted to keep pointlessly cradling the hand that had gotten scorched. Insisted that she might think the wrong thing if she happened to notice the remnants of the burn scars that Reiki had inflicted on himself with Faustite as both unwilling proxy and unwilling weapon. What wrong thing specifically, this impulse did not say, but definitely, she might think The Wrong Thing, and it might Cause Problems, and then everything would be Bad And Terrible Forever, and it would be Reiki’s Fault Because Of Reasons.
……A significantly louder part of his mind, however, decided that he didn’t care because holding his own hand like this meant being able to effectively use neither of them and was increasingly making him feel stupid. So, Reiki folded them together in his lap, neither trying to reveal nor trying to hide the singed fingertips that his gloves, with their half-chopped-off fingers, so conveniently revealed.
Pretending he hadn’t just left that opportunity open, he supposed, “I want to say Faustite’s lucky to have such a loyal team? Even if several of them are utterly garbage at listening when he says ‘no torture, no murder’? But this entire situation sort of undermines the idea of anything in his life being lucky. ‘Dying of mystery illness that no one can identify because half-youma are so idiosyncratic that, even if more humans did consider them fully people in their own right, studying them in any way that could lead to, like, clinical treatment guidelines? Might be functionally impossible’? Nothing ******** lucky about death by institutional cruelty.”
He sighed, and considered for a moment exactly how to say what he meant. Then, giving her an earnest look he went with, “For what little it’s worth? Anata-gata no miuchi ni nani ga okotte iru, kokoro yori okuyami moushiagemasu.”
From the bottom of my heart, I’m deeply sorry about what’s happening to your family.
It wouldn’t have flown with most people—Reiki would’ve sucked it up and expressed his sympathies using the blunt instrument of the English language, no matter how much he hated it for its utter lack of subtlety and nuance (such as including a pronoun for her but not himself, and including the “gata” suffix to make it more polite, as a way of showing her respect)—but……she’d reacted like she knew what Imouto-san meant. She’d called him Kagami-san in turn. Those facts in mind, Reiki hoped that she spoke enough Japanese for this to not come off as massively rude in the way that Onibaba-sama liked speaking Japanese around people she knew didn’t understand her, so she could say whatever rude-a** things she wanted without incurring consequences.
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Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2023 9:01 pm
Lilith dropped down onto the picnic table's attached bench, crossing her ankles and leaning back on the table itself as casually as possible. It was hard to do anything casually in her Senshi uniform, and usually she didn't mind that, but right now it was a little annoying when she didn't want Murikabushi to think that she was just flaunting to distract him or whatever.
He didn't exactly seem like the type that was distractable that way, anyway. Not that she had any particular evidence except for her own gaydar, but still. The vibes were pretty Gilbert Baker, in her personal opinion.
"I'm Lilith," she introduced herself, "and my brother is Alkmene. And if it's any comfort, it was definitely the second thing. He gets very...." She gestured, broadly, with one arm, as if that was a substitute for actually picking a word to describe her brother's behavior. "Mm, extra. About people he's decided are His, in some way or another. And Faustite is his husband, so, you know." She shrugged. "But he's a grown man and if you and he run into each other, he can apologize for himself."
Or he could continue to be a brat, but Lilith was not her older brother's keeper.
Her eyes flicked to his hand, caught as brief glimpse of what looked like burns--ah. Remnants of some encounter or other with her General, then.
Interesting.
She might press him about it, if things went well enough. If not, better to let it go.
"Mm. They are loyal, aren't they." Lilith's gaze briefly drifted away, guiltily.
They were. She was not, precisely because they were so very....intense.
"They murdered a Captain who disrespected him, once. A doctor who treated him as a science experiment instead of a person. Covered it up quite thoroughly. I wasn't there, but Alkmene was. He crowed of it. A victory he was all too proud of."
A soft sigh passed her lips.
"Arigatou gozaimasu, Murikabushi-san. I wish this were not happening to us. It's made so many other things so much more complicated."
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Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2023 11:13 pm
As Lilith took a seat, Reiki couldn’t help but empathize. “Y’know, your fuku looks fierce and all,” he said, gently and with great sympathy, “but it has got to be Hell to move in. It’s like this other Dark Mirror I know and how ne got some pretty sizable heels on nis fuku when ne’s not used to walking in them at all. Looks great on nem—which ne hates it when I say that, but it’s true—but the practical considerations…” Reiki tsk’d and shook his head. “Such a mess.”
The fact that the Dark Mirror in question was his cousin……mmm, that didn’t really matter. Better not to share it because Haruhi probably didn’t want to be on the Negaverse’s radar in any meaningful way. Which Reiki couldn’t blame nem for, honestly. As the cousin who had put himself on the Negaverse’s radar, it honestly kinda sucked. Even if Faustite was frustratingly, endearingly complicated in messy ways that Reiki didn’t feel like trying to put a name on because every time he tried, the words decided to elude him in every language that he spoke with even a fragment of passable fluency.
Besides, there were far more interesting things to focus on. Maybe Lilith wasn’t saying very much, but even in the blunt linguistic instrument of English, she’d left him so many terribly fun lines to read between. They, meaning Alkmene and presumably the rest of their family/team/whichever-term-they-liked, certainly were loyal……but the suspicious use of a third-person pronoun would certainly seem to exclude Lilith herself from that group. Which, if he was perfectly honest with himself, he could more than identify with.…… More than a little bit, at that.…… Plus, he could name more than a few people in the White Moon’s ranks who all either openly wanted him to join them (Dagon, Anser) or who probably did but had been polite enough to not overly push him about it (Kerberos, Fang, Amsvartnir, Encke, Ida-hime-sama).
“That’s easy to imagine—your brother peacocking about killing someone who mistreated his husband, I mean.” Not that Reiki had actually seen Alkmene in the act of peacocking about jackshit, but……yeah? Yeah, that tracked, based on what little Reiki had seen of that one’s behavior. “Can also imagine that it’s made a lot of things more complicated……especially if other things are, uh. How to put this……” He hummed, tapping his un-singed fingers along one cheek. “Especially if you respect your General, but feel like your loyalties……could be better placed.”
Which, as soon as he said it, sounded more nefarious than he’d intended. Or anyway, it did to him. So, quickly, in the hopes of seeming less like he wanted to go snitch on her, Reiki tacked on, “Realizing that you might want something you can’t have in your current position? It’s kind of garbage, isn’t it?”
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Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2023 12:09 am
Lilith snorted, a wry smile crossing her face. "It's not so bad, I'm used to wearing skimpy things, but it is sort of annoying sometimes, worrying that the girls are going to launch an escape attempt." A gesture at her chest, to emphasize exactly which "girls" she meant. "I hope your friend doesn't have to deal with that, at least. Your Dark Mirror outfits look a bit better at containing that particular calamity."
It was sort of a funny thing, to be sitting here and having this ever-so-casual chat with Murikabushi, when...well. Any casual interaction with people allegedly "on her own side" was....deeply complex and more than a bit ******** up.
Adnd what he said....what he said made her swallow, uncomfortably. Look away. Focus on the trees in the distance, and go a little limp, sagging backwards with a sense of guilty weight.
"....You too, huh."
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Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2023 1:40 am
“Mn, not so much with the escape attempts, no,” Reiki supposed, nodding in understanding about which “girls” Lilith meant. “Ne did end up with sparkly bits around the chest that ne doesn’t really like, though. They fit really well with what ne’s the senshi of, if you ask me, and I personally think they look pretty, but……” He shrugged. “I’m also not the one who has to wear them, and it’s not really my place to decide how ne feels about them.”
If only the other can of worms he’d opened up could’ve been as easy to discuss as Volterra’s so-called titty sprinkles.… Even though he’d been the one to pick up on the subtext and nudge it closer to the main-text, Reiki hugged himself, looking down and away from Lilith, wondering how to even answer her ostensibly simple question when so many potential answers bubbled up inside his chest, screaming for both attention and the privilege of being the one he said out loud.
“……Yeah,” he started, after a moment’s pause while his brain scrambled to catch up and remember how to make words instead of ******** static. “It’s just this……this thing, y’know?” Making an uneasy, awkward little sound, he rubbed at the back of his neck. “I always felt like something in my life was missing? Like there was something I was supposed to be doing, but I didn’t know what? Then along comes this beautiful guy who’s too good for me, and a talking cat—the first cat in my life who hasn’t treated me like garbage—and they say I can be a magical girl, all I have to do is walk through this weird mirror.
“So, of course I do, because……obviously, right?” Dropping his hand back into his lap, Reiki started idly fiddling with the half-fingers on his gloves. “And initially, it’s like ‘Yes. Okay. Obviously, this is the thing that’s been missing the whole time’……which doesn’t even last a ******** week. My literal first time out in the Dark Mirror geish, I sic a Mirrorwraith on this ******** guy who’d treated some people I care about like trash—and get all stupidly dramatic about pouncing on him and going ‘Oooh, my drag family sends their regards’—and this cat-girl Order senshi from outer space comes out of nowhere and kicks me. We actually wound up having a nice talk—her ‘sort your ******** life out’ speech for me notwithstanding—and she’s really a lovely person. She’s been through a lot, but she has a good heart, y’know?”
Reiki swallowed thickly. “……She gave me a chance to take Michel to the ER instead of letting him die. ‘Show me that I can trust you at least a little.’ So……I did. And he lived. And when he got out, it……” Breath shuddered into him when he only meant to inhale. Thanks, he hated it. Making him sound……he didn’t know what he sounded like, but he didn’t feel any of the bravado he’d put on all over the Farnsworth basement while Team Spicy Eggplant had had him cornered, and that made his nerves itch with anxiety.
“The damnedest thing? He started turning his life around. Quit drinking. Started making amends to people he’d hurt, including the drag siblings of mine he’d ******** around with. He—Michel’s doing a lot better now, and he almost didn’t have that chance? Because even though my family raised me better than that—even though I know how important second chances and genuine apologies are because I probably wouldn’t know my grandfather, one of the people who has always unconditionally been there for me, if not for him getting sober, apologizing and actually meaning it, and promising to do right by his grandkids like he didn’t always do for my Dad and my aunt when they were growing up, and I—”
Feeling the sob bubble up inside him, Reiki tried to tamp it down. Tried to bury his mouth in the back of his wrist because it was humiliating to cry like this, and it made him feel naked, and Lilith literally had not asked. Not that it mattered, because the sob came out of him anyway, and the tears spilled over soon thereafter.
“If Daphne hadn’t stopped me, I would’ve taken that chance away from Michel and probably felt ******** justified about it. Because—well, he hurt people I consider family, so kinda ******** him, right?” With one hand, he took off his glasses, so the other hand could more easily rub the tears away. Doing this helped exactly not at all, but at least Reiki tried. “After that, things just kept adding up, y’know? One of my best friends in all this? Ex-Negaverse senshi, and you’d never guess it if he didn’t tell you so because everything about him is just so……‘this is what a magical girl is supposed to be.’
“My other best friend just got out of the Negaverse a little while ago and I almost cried that he still remembered me. All the senshi I’ve met who seem like magical girl role models are with the White Moon. I haven’t drained anybody since last May and I’m honestly kinda waiting for Mirrorspace to snitch on me to Prince Remarque, or for him to realize that whatever out ******** quotas are? I’m seriously under them and have absolutely no interest in quote-unquote ‘correcting’ that state of affairs?”
Throwing up sarcastic finger-quotes didn’t really make him feel better, but it did make Reiki feel a little less helpless about everything, so he guessed that was good enough. “And……I don’t know? But none of this feels like what I signed up for when I heard the words ‘Wanna become a magical boy.’ I planned on a lot more saving innocent people, not……the ******** garbage that we do to them.”
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Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2023 2:04 am
Lilith listened. Really listened. And what she was hearing made her wilt.
Her feet came up to rest on the picnic bench, her arms came around her knees to pull them in, and she sort of wished that she could fold in on herself and disappear. Because what she was hearing...it was so very unlike looking in a mirror. Murikabushi understood, it seemed, sort of--but his reasons for wanting out of the Mirror were so noble, and all that when the Daerk Mirror was...well, certainly not involved in half the awful s**t the Negaverse was. And here he was, dissatisfied with them.
What would he think, when she confessed the truth? What would it make him see her as? A grubbing, selfish opportunist, perhaps. Not worth the chance to get out of the Negaverse, when she only wanted to leave to protect her own hide and to get to continue seeing the girl she liked.
"It's not....quite like that, for me," Lilith admitted. She exhaled. "I like what the Negaverse gives me. I like having the power to pay back gross dudes with draining and worse, when they're nasty to me or some other girl. I like being Lilith. I like my team, even, mostly."
But not entirely.
"....But there's a girl, for me. She's on the other side. And I really....really like her, and I think that if my team found out that I've been slipping off to make out with the enemy, that I've let her take me to space, all of that....I wouldn't survive the encounter. Better to get out while I can, not least of which because if things go wrong for Faustite, this whole operation is going to fall apart like a house of cards."
She smile,d wryly, tiredly.
"I'm not a very good person. Or a very good magical girl. But I'd rather not die because my alleged team decided that I was a threat to them. So, here I am."
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Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2023 2:50 am
Not that Reiki felt, per se, good before Lilith started explaining her own side of things? But listening to her put a sinking, chilly feeling in his chest—not entirely dissimilar, actually, to the way he felt when it felt like Mirrorspace was only giving him the ‘all clear’ to leave for the night because it wanted him to understand something but didn’t want to explain itself in a way that made ******** sense—and……ugh. Was he doing whatever thing he’d apparently done to Faustite before that had made him think Reiki would be like all the White Moon senshi whose desire to help him was contingent on pitying him and trying to drag him kicking and screaming into the alleged ‘win-state’ of humanity, as if his life had no value if he stayed half-youma?
……Reiki didn’t rightly know. He wasn’t Lilith, so he couldn’t guess. But for starters, once he’d put his glasses back where they belonged, Reiki slipped down from the table itself to join her on the bench like a normal person who sat in normal places with a semblance of respect for anybody else. He couldn’t really do anything about being tall, but at least he could even things out a little bit by not sitting so far above her, on the table, like a ******** heathen.
“I don’t think it’s my place to judge if you’re a good person or not,” he said, after taking a few moments to mull it over. “Which—I wasn’t kidding about being Catholic? But I also grew up Shinto and Buddhist, and on top of that, I go to a very queer church where no one cares if I show up in my slutty dupe of the Saint Magdalena’s uniform because I have to go host a drag brunch after Mass. So, between that and a lot of stuff with my family, I, uh. Sort of didn’t get the same grounding that a lot of other Catholics get in ‘Judge everybody because we’re all dirty, broken sinners who have to be shamed and guilt-tripped into not being like that’ Catholicism? My Jesus is a queer, polyamorous, proto-socialist power-bottom who defends and respects sex workers, stands up for those who can’t protect themselves, and was totally in on the alleged betrayal thing with Judas because they were lovers in league against Original Sin.”
Reiki shrugged as though all of this made perfect sense and did not sound like a bunch of patently ridiculous heresy, but mostly, to fill the silence as he gave himself a moment to breathe. “And—I don’t know you very well. I don’t know your life. And without even a fraction of that knowledge, I have no place to condemn you for anything.” Idly rubbing one eye, he added, “Plus, I mean? I’d be full of s**t if I said I hadn’t thought things like ‘Y’know, if I’d been Awakened into the Negaverse, I might’ve wound up on the team of cute sluts, and I’d probably be sleeping with Faustite because I’m a messy b***h and he’s more real than the vast majority of men, which I appreciate. And then maybe he’d set my ex on fire for the crime of making me sad, or steal his starseed because I couldn’t do it myself, or something.’ Somewhat more achievably, I’d also be lying if I said I hadn’t considered breaking my ‘Let’s not do that again, I don’t like it’ rule about draining and siccing a Mirrorwraith on that same ex.
“So……I don’t think I have any real high-ground to say if it’s wrong or not? That you like ******** up gross dudes? And having things about the Negaverse that you like……just makes sense? I mean, they obviously offer something in their recruitment speeches, or else people wouldn’t keep joining, right? But……” With a soft sigh, Reiki gently nudged his shoulder at Lilith’s. “You’re talking about giving up things you enjoy, that are so important to you, and that make you feel powerful when the world definitely does not like letting girls and women feel that way. When the world at large really prefers for Asian girls and women to be submissive, docile, disempowered, and waiting for some big, strong white man to come and save them. And……”
Another shrug. Another soft, throaty noise. “Giving all of that up to be with the girl you love? That sounds really romantic, to me.”
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Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2023 9:03 pm
Murikabushi was kind. That, Lilith could not help but recognize. Kind, and also very funny, and there was something comforting about being in his presence. At least, she felt marginally less guilty for her own choices when he didn't rebuke her for them, or turn and walk away like "how dare you want to purify for less pure reasons than mine," or anything like that. Whcih, in hindsight, was kind of a ridiculous thing to be worried about, but Lilith had never breathed a word of these thoughts to anyone, so putting them out into the universe at all was stressful enough for her.
But at least he wasn't shunning her.
She smiled, wryly, back at him.
"My family was never really religious. Dad was Lutheran in theory, Cuervist in practice, and the only Trinity he really cared about was Jim, Jack, and Johnnie. And Mom.....maybe she's kept some practice, in secret? But I can't imagine Dad tolerating any of that. He hated her teaching us Japanese enough." She exhaled, curled in a little closer. "Which is to say that a lot of the details are lost on me, but I know enough to know that yeah, that sounds pretty wildly heretical, but if it makes you less of a judgemental person, that's cool."
And at least she wasn't the only one who liked the power that Chaos gave. Even the nasty power.
"But, I mean....it's not all about her. It is, I guess, at its root, but it's more about...if I could have her and the Negaverse, I'd be fine with that. But I can't, and." She paused, sighed. "I'm choosing her, which I suppose is romantic, isn't it? Though I haven't really...told her. I'm afraid, I think, that I might lose her. My brother forgot everything he knew about being a Senshi when he corrupted. I....don't want the same thing to happen to me. I don't want to promise her that I'm coming to her and then....lose my memories of her."
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Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2023 2:07 am
Listening and nodding periodically came easily to Reiki; the trick was hearing what people said and trying to check himself on how he perceived what they said.… He hadn’t done very well at that with Faustite, on multiple occasions. He hadn’t done very well with Heliodor, that time on the roof. Going back to the root problem, Reiki hadn’t done very well at that when Levi had said “Wanna become a magical boy” and Reiki had heard it as “Wanna become a magical boy (protector of life, defender of the innocent, righter of wrongs, champion of love and justice)” instead of somehow intuiting that it had actually meant “Wanna become a magical boy (glorified parasite in a cute outfit, bound to an extremely ******** shady, ******** magical realm that none of us really understand and can’t control, forever doomed to have people make the worst assumptions about you that they can because wearing black makes you a Universe-Assigned Villain and condemns you to Judgment).”
……At least nothing Lilith had to say seemed quite that messy. Complicated and nuanced in its own right, absolutely, but she was being fully forthcoming, even about things that she apparently thought he ought to judge her for. Some other time, maybe it’d be right to go over his mental distinction between situations where he tried not to be judgmental, and situations where he unleashed that impulse because some b***h needed to get read to filth. Not right now, though. Not when Lilith had so much she was carrying inside her and so much of it seemed so messy.
“Well, to start with, I think you should talk to her,” he said gently. “Because—I don’t know her or how she might feel or anything? But if you did end up forgetting her and didn’t warn her in advance? Then, you wouldn’t even know to tell her anything. She might go looking for you, and find you’re not there, and maybe she could find the purified you, but it might be tantamount to finding a stranger who just happens to look like somebody she loves. And……I don’t know about the memory loss, either? But my friend who got out? He only forgot about the powered-down me, which—? I can understand being a thing to forget, nice of Cosmos or whoever not to risk screwing over my family because one of the less ethical White Moon types tormented Monoceros until he gave up my name? Or maybe there’s no way of knowing what somebody will forget? It’s nice that I’m not completely gone for him? At least he remembers something?”
He remembered Murikabushi. Monoceros remembered the costume, and the magic, and the senshi face that didn’t even feel real. Felt like pretty lies, and empty words, and someone ******** else’s clothes. Felt like a thing—not a person, but decidedly an “it”, a thing—but Murikabushi felt like a thing Reiki might have put in his pockets to drown himself, Virginia Woolf-style.
But it was all that ‘Ceros remembered of him anymore. It was all of him that Kerberos and Fang had ever known, all that Amsvartnir and Ida had ever known. Reiki could only call Murikabushi “his” in the same sense of something that didn’t belong to him but had fallen into his temporary possession anyway………but it had to be of him because, with some of his friends, it was the only thing he had.
“And……not that it helps, but……” Sighing softly, he pulled his phone out of subspace. Unlocked it with the passcode since facial recognition was pointless right now. “Not exactly the same as what you’re dealing with……” He bit on his lip ever so slightly, he flipped through his photos, in the folder labeled Cersei heart emotion_rainbow . “Exact opposite thing in a way, actually? Because my ideal situation would be getting out of this, and going up to my planet, and being able to help people without getting accosted by rude-a** Neptune Knights and really aggro, traumatized but trying their best goose-themed twelve-year-olds……but even if I knew how to get out? It’s a complete no-sell if I have to lose my girl.”
Which, he realized, probably sounded more than a little bit odd—hence the necessity of the photo. Picking one was hard—it was always hard; Reiki had too many pictures of his Best Girl and all of them were perfect, because Cersei herself was perfect—but he’d settled on showing off one from Yuki’s last birthday.
Looking down at the image of Cersei on his lap, fore-paws draped over his shoulders while she assaulted his face with kisses and he laughed and smiled……it sort of hurt. Yuki’s birthday had been before Astraya, before Reiki’s starseed had gotten ripped out and then returned to him because it was broken, or anyway, there was something wrong with it that meant it couldn’t turn a robot into a real boy. Reiki had still felt optimistic and happy and excited about Mirrorspace, and the Court, and being one of Mirrorspace’s senshi.
Plus, as far as he knew, Faustite had probably been stuck in the grip of immeasurable suffering while the guy whose magic had put him there……had spent an incredibly enjoyable night with his QPP and his dog, playing some ridiculous and inexplicably French Revolution-themed fighting game where Robespierre’s big fancy finishing move involved putting his opponents through a guillotine.
And part of Reiki wanted to find a different photo, given that his real face was in this one, but……that fact, to him, only emphasized how serious he was. “There’s my family to think about too,” he said, “but they’re humans. You can talk to humans. Explain things. Make them understand.…but with Cersei……?” Reiki swallowed thickly. “Cersei saved my life. I can’t just abandon her. Maybe that wouldn’t matter to some of the sanctimonious assholes who think they’re so good and pure because they got ******** lucky about being Awakened by Order cats? Because, oooh, Chaos bad and what the ********, she’s just a dog, but that’s……”
Shaking his head, he shifted his hold on the phone, so Lilith could look at more Cute Dog Pictures, if she felt like it. “There’s no ‘just a’ anything about dogs. And even if there were, she’s my dog. I’m her person. And I don’t care if Mirrorspace starts actively trying to murder me, or how much I hate it there, or how badly I want to just be with Order. If I can’t get there without abandoning Cersei, then……okay, no deal.”
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