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 Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:35 pm
……but now, the rains weep o’er his halls, with not a soul to hear.
Slipping out of the first mirror he found, Reiki re-entered the real world with a heavy sigh. That… Whatever the ******** all that had been in Mirrorspace, ******** it all the way to Hell. Honestly, though. His lips still burned as if he’d smashed them into a tray of broken glass and rubbed them around until he bled too much to feel it. Kissing his own ******** Mirror-spawned copy had………well, it had worked, he guessed, so maybe it didn’t matter what it had actually been or not.
As he shivered from the overwhelm of it all, Reiki looked around to see where exactly he’d come out. He needed to get back to North-End Park. Back to Volterra, to Kerberos, and most importantly, to Ida-hime-sama. They were probably worried about him, if all that nonsense had taken as long for them as it felt like it had taken for him.…… Fortunately, Reiki recognized the part of town where he’d stumbled back into reality. From the all-night diner across the street to the flower-shop adjacent to the bright neon sign hovering above the door, where Nick—one of the bouncers who didn’t hesitate to get in scraps if assholes tried to jump the queens or the patrons while they were leaving—insisted that some teen who’d tried to use a fake ID could come to the drag show as long as they wore one of the orange “Do Not Serve Me Alcohol” bracelets……oh, of course Reiki knew this place.
How could Reiki not recognize this place as well as he did himself, considering how much time he’d spent at Scandals?
He needed to get back to North-End Park. He knew this fact only slightly less well than he knew the bar he’d found himself beside, and the alleyway where Levi had once saved him from a youma.…… Fitting, Reiki guessed, that he’d come out here while he had his hands cupped around his Mirrorseal and stood, mere moments away from getting out of the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Maybe the people in the Court weren’t terrible human beings in the same way that Greg was, but Reiki trying to be part of their world when he, on a fundamental level, simply did not belong there? Made the entire experience so much worse than any of what Reiki’s trash-bag ex had put him through.
Still, for all Reiki really, really needed to get moving……he could take a few more minutes, right? Just to look up at his home bar, and wish so badly that he could stay without it killing him inside, but……for now, he had to get gone.
“Thank you,” he whispered to the bricks, closing one hand around his Mirrorseal so the other could run down their rough, red surface. “Thanks for always being there for me. I don’t know when I’ll be back, next. But……you’re something special. Stay gold for me, yeah?”
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Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:35 pm
Elsa wasn’t sure why he was here.
If he was honest, he wasn’t sure why he was Elsa.
Powering up had felt…strange. Wrong. Of late, something in him felt misaligned, and every time he called on his Eternal magic, it felt like it was backfiring on him. Like something was…wrong. Like even once he came down from the blind rage of his magic, more fury than he knew what to do with still lingered at the edge of his senses.
He’d blacked out, once. Come to who-knew-how-long later, and had not powered up after that. And now he’d been cornered by some white-haired Eternal with fire magic who took exception to him draining energy, and the only way to chase her off had been to call on his magic, and—well. It had worked, but he felt….fuzzy. Around the edges.
Being outside Scandals was not helping.
Not least because the last time he’d been here as Elsa, he’d made perhaps the worst mistake of his time as a Senshi. He’d thought—he’d wanted—hoped—he wasn’t sure. He’d thought Reiki would be a good fit for the Court. Maybe he’d thought that bringing in the boy he liked—the boy who still made his chest ache, who probably hadn’t meant to make him cry with the little bag of gifts he’d left but who had done so anyway—might give him some sort of…in, or something. As if sharing this part of his life might win Reiki over, which was stupid, and could not have worked worse, really.
And feeling miserable was not helping with the rage blurring at the edges of his thoughts. Clawing, biting, like it wanted to take him over, the way he used to lose himself in barfights before he got into therapy. (Therapy that he’d stopped attending, because how do you explain to your civilian therapist that your magical superhero identity is feeding your rage issues? And if he couldn’t talk about the most important thing going on, what was the ******** point?)
Really, he shouldn't be here. It was doing the opposite of helping him clear his head.
He ducked into the alleyway beside the building, the one he knew housed a mirror, intending to dive through it and go home, but—
There he was. In all his glory.
“.....Murikabushi.”
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Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:36 pm
Hearing that name—the name that would maybe, finally, feel like his own once this was all over—Reiki startled. Gasped softly. Whipped his head around, and honestly, even knowing better, some part of him hoped that he wouldn’t find himself face-to-face with the exact person he knew he’d find.
Even Faustite would’ve been preferable right now. Sure, he might’ve tried to do something crazy, violent, and potentially homicidal to prevent Reiki from doing what he meant to do tonight, but what else was anyone supposed to expect from a Negaverse General-King? Besides, if worse came to worst, Reiki knew what his magic did to Faustite and had significantly fewer compunctions about hitting back in self-defense with him (he would’ve preferred not to do so, but if push shoved, he would). But to find himself looking straight at—
“Lev—Elsa, you……” Reiki swallowed thickly. He didn’t know what to say.
Well, no, that wasn’t entirely accurate. He knew how he felt. He had at least some ideas of what he wanted to say. But Reiki really didn’t know what he was allowed to say. Wasn’t as though anyone had ever covered “Help, I [M28] am leaving this one magical girl faction, and I really hurt this boy I like [M28] who’s a part of it, and I don’t want to judge him or to make him hate me but I just can’t live like this anymore” in any lessons he’d gotten in things like etiquette and conflict resolution.
Really, the closest Reiki thought anyone had gotten was Obaasan’s immortal wisdom—“If you can use your mouth to lip-synch that delightful song from Cardi B. and Megan Thee Stallion, Kiya, then you can use your mouth to tell that boy you fancy him”—and that……felt somewhat less than helpful, at the moment. What was the point, when Levi liked Reiki, who technically wouldn’t exist anymore in an hour or so?
“What’s wrong? Are you……” He cut the stupid question short, but let the sparkly, earnest eyes stick around. “Did something happen?”
Maybe there wasn’t any point in expressing concern—maybe there was even less of a point than telling Elsa anything about fancying him—but at the same time, how could Reiki not? When something about Elsa’s movements and general bearing felt……off, in a way that made Reiki worry? Dropping his one hand from the bricks, holding the other (and with it, the Mirrorseal contained in his fist) to his chest, Reiki left the shadows behind to join Elsa. Gently, carefully, he reached out to nudge some of the hair back off Elsa’s face.
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Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:36 pm
Those ******** sparkly eyes. The rage that blurred at the edges of Elsa’s awareness flared, angry and biting—how dare Murikabushi look at him like that, how dare he act like he cared, how dare he after everything.
He flinched away from the hand reaching out to push away his hair, and shook his head. As if that would do anything to dissuade anything.
“I’m fine,” he lied, “there’s nothing to worry about,” there was so much to worry about, “just got into a fight with some White Moon Eternal.” True, at least. “You’d probably like her, she’s got the same opinions on energy draining that you do.”
Why the ******** was he acting like this, like he had any right to take his stupid, petty, heartbroken feelings out on Murikabushi, like it was somehow his fault that Elsa had them, like—ugh.
He pressed the heel of his palm to the side of his head, a sure way to convince Murikabushi that there was nothing to worry about and he was the most super fine.
“It’s whatever. Her magic sucked, but so does mine, so she got out of there pretty quick after I went full monster.”
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Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:37 pm
None of Elsa’s behavior screamed “fine” to Reiki, but that flinch and the little shake of his head said everything that Elsa was holding back. Why he bothered, Reiki couldn’t fathom, when Reiki had broken everything and ruined whatever could’ve possibly been between them. Not needing to be told twice, he pulled his hand back from Elsa, slowly at first, but as it got closer to his other hand, Reiki moved it more quickly. No sense in continuing to offer contact that Elsa didn’t want.
Even though Reiki wanted to keep offering it.
Even though something was obviously wrong, and in this moment, Reiki wanted nothing more than to help make it right, even if doing so made him late getting back to the park and made Blossom, and Volterra, and Ida-hime-sama get incredibly annoyed with him.
“I never said you were a monster,” Reiki pointed out, his mouth latching on to the first thing it occurred to him to say, regardless of whether or not it was a good idea. “And not liking energy-draining doesn’t mean I agree with everyone else who doesn’t like it. This one Saturn Knight friend-of-a-friend doesn’t like energy-draining.” Probably. Reiki didn’t actually know offhand what Michel’s thoughts on energy-draining were. Given his general everything, though, Reiki could guess that they were most likely negative; anything else wouldn’t have made any sense. “But if I ever see Michel of Saturn again, the only reason I won’t shove him off a third-story roof and into a youma’s gaping maw is that losing him would make Fang sad.”
Truly, an unforgivable crime, then, even if Michel was a ******** a*****e and Fang was just too good and sweet of a person to stand up to him about it. Worse, he likely also would’ve been disappointed in Reiki instead of angry with him, which would’ve emotionally devastated Reiki in a way that he absolutely didn’t want to learn about for real. But………that would happen or not later. Not present-moment Reiki’s problem to worry about.
“……Whatever,” Reiki huffed. He didn’t have any right to say the thing tingling on his tongue right now—he knew that he didn’t—and even if Elsa had wanted his help, the Mirrorseal in Reiki’s hand said that he especially didn’t have any right to say this. But getting accused of wanting to make friends with White Moon people who, as far as Reiki could tell, sounded like Michel and worse? It stung so badly that the words bubbled up, unbidden: “Not like it’s new for you to cut me out of the loop about something important. Gomeiwaku okake shite, moushiwake gozaimasen deshita. Meant no offense by trying to care if you’re alright.”
The language and form of the apology were formal, humble, so utterly impeccable that even Sakurazawa Hikaru—Reiki’s onibaba-sama back in Kyoto—wouldn’t have been able to take issue with it, if he’d needed to deliver the apology to any of her most esteemed husband’s staff or something similar. But the edge of hurt in Reiki’s voice—the growing awareness on Reiki’s part that actually, yes, everything was broken, probably forever, and it was his fault, and he couldn’t even be mad at Levi for never forgiving him, in light of everything—gave the words an edge that, strictly speaking, they normally should not have been allowed to have. Placing Levi above him in the way that the apology form did, likewise, wasn’t something Reiki meant for real.
If anything, his tone had taken notes from Ojiisan and his ability to make an apology or gratitude sound like <******** you” when he wanted.
“As the decorated contemporary philosopher says? ‘It’s me, hi; I’m the problem, it’s me.’” Bowing at the shoulders, Reiki dropped his free hand and lifted his skirt sideways so he could curtsy properly. While he focused on enacting the much larger gesture, the other hand opened up, exposing the Mirrorseal to view. “O-jama shimasu. Kanben shite kudasai.” Reiki huffed. “Live long and prosper, Elsa.”Quote: Notes for Muri’s gratuitous Japanese:
ご迷惑おかけして, 申し訳ございませんでした / gomeiwaku okake shite, moushiwake gozaimasen deshita: “I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience” or, more specifically, “I deeply apologize for how I have inconvenienced you.” A very formal apology, expressed in extremely humble language. Usually reserved for situations where the recipient of the apology is in a position of power and authority over the person giving the apology, and/or where the offense is especially severe. As Muri notes, he is not using the formal language genuinely, but with a sardonic edge and a lot of hurt that gives it an edge of “okay, ******** you too, then.”
お邪魔します / o-jama shimasu: “Excuse me for disturbing you,” “I beg pardon for the intrusion,” or “I’m sorry for being a nuisance.” Can be used both formally and informally; a common use for it is when you enter someone else’s home. The お / o- prefix adds a level of respect and formality. In this context, 邪魔 / jama is used to mean things like “obstacle,” “nuisance,” “hindrance,” or “intrusion,” but it has an additional level of meaning that Muri means to invoke right now, where it is also used in Buddhist spiritual contexts, referring to “a devil or demon of perversity, a hindrance to the practice of Buddhism.” So, with regard to Elsa and Muri, “I’m sorry for holding you back and obstructing your ability to be a good Dark Mirror senshi.”
勘弁してください / kanben shite kudasai: lit. “Please have mercy on me,” but it is used more as a particularly intense form of apology. Can be used in both formal and informal situations, for all kinds of relationships between the speakers, but it is almost always used as a way of expressing regret and taking responsibility for an incredibly serious offense, like cheating on a spouse (or wanting to be a White Moon senshi and trashing pretty much everything about the DMC, last time you spoke), damaging your company’s reputation (or giving other people in Destiny City a weird idea about what the DMC is about and stands for because you are both very loud and very bad at being a Dark Mirror senshi), and keeping a deep, dark secret that harmed someone else (or leaving the DMC for the White Moon and telling your senshi oneesan [Acubens], your friend and low-key mentor whom you affectionately address as “slut” [Kerberos], your friend’s nuisance-a** little cousin [Lete], your Court-friend who practices weaponized uselessness [Hybris], and your extremely on-fire “it’s complicated” [Faustite]………but not telling the boy who got you into all of this in the first place, because you didn’t want to bother him).
So, like, there’s definitely a seed of genuine feeling in Muri using this apology, but he is currently saying it with a tone like “Live long and prosper ().”
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Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:37 pm
Elsa probably deserved this. This and more, really—all of the verbal aggression, all of the snapping, considering that Muri certainly seemed to think he’d been sold a false bill of goods when Elsa extended his hand and asked him, right out of ******** Aladdin, ”Do you trust me?”
Reiki had said “yes.” He probably felt like that trust had been abused, given how he saw the Mirror. A view Elsa simply couldn’t reconcile—not really. Or maybe one he didn’t want to reconcile.
“You didn’t,” he acknowledged, “but you haven’t seen my magic. When I say go full monster, I mean it very literally.” There was something dead in his voice. Something exhausted. Because his magic did make him a monster, very literally, but also…there was the red at the edge of his vision, a fury that seemed desperate to grab him and drag him down, that wanted him to lash out, to make Murikabushi stop running his ******** mouth—
Like being so opinionated wasn’t something he’d always loved about Reiki—
He pressed the heel of his hand to his head again, brain swimming with the effort of parsing through two languages, one of which he was way less familiar with than he was with, say, English, or Hebrew. Butt he valence—the tone—even fi he didn’t really recognize the words, even if he had to paw through them and turn them over in a brain that felt like soup, he got the <******** you, too,” he snapped back, and then his eyes flicked to the sparkling thing in Murikabushi’s hand. It shone, silver and bright, and Elsa had never seen a Mirrorseal before, the thing a Senshi needed to leave the Dark Mirror, but he knew, in an instant, what it was.
“............You’re ******** leaving,” he said, and that hot, red rage roared, and he took another step back, shaking his head as if that would make it go away. “Good, ******** you and all your self-righteous bullshit.” What was he saying? He didn’t really want—
He’d thought he wanted a chance to fix things—
But here he was, breaking them even more, because apparently, every bit of progress he’d made on fixing his anger issues was going up in ********,” he said, though it wasn’t really directed anywhere. Except, maybe, at himself.
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Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:37 pm
“Shut up!” Reiki’s cheeks flushed hot and pink with indignance. He hated them for doing that, for making him look like some stereotypical tsundere who only existed to cater to the fantasies of cishet men. “Did you even ******** listen to me, Levi?”
From where Reiki was standing, it really didn’t feel like he had. Maybe it was down to Reiki saying too much, the way that he always managed to say too much. But in the moment, a chill of betrayal flared up in Reiki’s chest and twisted like a knife. Even with everything that he’d ******** up between them, Levi had always understood him.
No, they hadn’t seen eye-to-eye in their last talk, but that didn’t mean Levi had failed, in any way, to understand Reiki or his points, just that they didn’t agree with each other. In a world full of people who insisted that Reiki had to be lying to himself (that he was actually a trans girl because why would a real boy ever want to be femme and dress the way that he did), and people who accused him of pretending to be a girl to trick straight men (as if he were not perfectly open, all the time, that he was a boy and he wasn’t interested in being some straight guy’s experiment or dirty secret), and people who refused to even try to understand him just because he was himself, at all times, without compromise, meeting anyone who understood him so easily meant the world and more to Reiki.
Why did Levi’s understanding have to exclude this from what it covered?
“I told you why I’m leaving. ‘I’m the problem. It’s me.’ If any of this were about my self-righteous bullshit? I’d be ******** staying because Remarque can’t be the only one in the Court who cares about their position in the larger fabric of the war!” Did stomping his little pump into the cement actually accomplish anything? No. But it felt Correct to do, right now, as Reiki curled his fist back up around the Mirrorseal.
“If it were about my self-righteousness, I’d stay because <******** somebody needs to care about keeping active tabs on the Negaverse beyond chasing youma down as pest control. I’d stay because isolating in Mirrorspace is going to get people killed in the long run—because that’s what isolationism literally always does—so ******** somebody should actually deal with all the shady, White Moon cabrones who attack any Chaos auras on-sight, and stand up to them, and try to make them knock if off!
“But I can’t—” Reiki gasped softly, as if he might have started sobbing. But he didn’t start. His vision didn’t even blur with tears. With the back of his free hand pressed to his mouth, he took a deep, shivering breath, and although he was quieter when he spoke again, this helped exactly not at all with restoring any sense of calm: “Mirrorspace wants me to be content and happy when all it’s offering me is lies, fairy tales, and empty garbage that can’t even pretend to be what I asked for. Maybe it’s different for Remarque and Acubens because Mirrorspace likes them better. Maybe Hybris, Bélénos, and Sappho are happy with what Mirrorspace gives them, because it’s easier for them to be whatever Mirrorspace wants them to be.
“But that’s not me, Levi,” Reiki all but outright begged, even though he had no right to beg Elsa for anything, after everything he’d put this poor boy through. “You know that isn’t me. And I don’t regret my time with the Court; I really don’t. If I’d just gotten found by some White Moon Mauvian from the start, I might not have seen all the nuances that so many of those unfashionable little bitches in white don’t want to see, like gods forbid they ever admit that they might be the problem. But……”
Sighing softly, Reiki shook his head. “Trying to be with Mirrorspace—it’s like, there’s something else that my heart wants to be, but Mirrorspace keeps going ‘You’re perfect, you’re beautiful, you look like Linda Evangelista, now sit down, shut up, and stop trying to better yourself.’ And there’s something else my heart wants to be doing, but Mirrorspace just goes ‘Why am I not enough for you’ when it’s like—I don’t know, <******** off, maybe? ‘Who said literally anything about you, Mirrorspace? Because I sure didn’t.’”
Which arguably made part of Reiki’s problem something about how he didn’t have it in him to let Mirrorspace be le grande dame Miss Diva of the world when Reiki himself needed to be The Drama instead. But that was beside the point.
The point, as it had been before, remained simple: “‘It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem,’ Levi. ‘It’s me.’ Mirrorspace shouldn’t need to change everything about itself just because one stupid, loudmouth drama queen didn’t fit in there. At the same time, *I* shouldn’t have to change everything about myself just to make Mirrorspace happy when it’s incapable of giving me what I really want.… I can’t stay in a place that makes me feel broken when all I’m doing is being myself.”
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Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:38 pm
The buzzing in his head was getting louder. Red-black bled over Elsa’s vision, staining everything in front of him. He’d been angry before, yes—but this was—new.
There was a coldness to it. An ice that sank into his very core. Elsa’s anger had always run hot and fiery before, loud and passionate, but this—it felt like it was freezing him from the inside out.
”You shut up, always talking, always justifying, you—agh,” he gasped. Both hands came up to clutch his head, as he tried to force himself to focus, to actually hear what Reiki was saying, not just a torrent of words that meant nothing but he’s leaving, he’s going, you were stupid for thinking he would understand, that he would stay, that anything would ever happen between you because violent, bloodthirsty little monsters don’t get to fall in love with princesses—
Under other circumstances, he would have heard Reiki, would have understood, would have told him that he needed to do what was right for him, that it was his soul and only he knew what he needed. But that would have required him to be able to process anything over the encroaching haze of violence.
It all felt like static, in his head. Something inside him burst—the cold night got even colder, and when his fist few for Murikabushi, his skin had gone pale, his cheeks hollow. Halfway to the monster.
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Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:38 pm
Despite everything that Reiki had already said—despite everything that he very easily could have continued to say—he did shut up when Elsa snapped at him. But not because Elsa asked for that. The scream of pain, though. The obviously worsening headache. God, ******** this—ignoring how Elsa had rebuffed him before, Reiki steeled his nerves and stomped closer. Sometimes, when somebody was too out of it, you had to overrule their own wishes and refused to let them ******** destroy themselves, and with Cosmos as his ******** witness, Reiki would accept Levi being pissed off at him later as long as Levi was, indeed, alive to even be pissed off at him.
He only paused to wiggle his hand under his flouncy overlay and, more importantly, to nestle his Mirrorseal down his bodice. Reiki had pulled the same maneuver countless times with tips he’d collected during a show. Rolling around on the floor to The Divinyls’ “I Touch Myself,” Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott’s “Work It,” or Madonna’s “Like A Virgin.” Flouncing around the audience’s tables to Britney’s “Boys,” Christina’s “Candyman,” Megan’s “Thot s**t,” the mashup of “Rumour Has It” and “Someone Like You” from Glee, or Marina’s “Primadonna.” Freeing up both hands so he could cup them around Elsa’s cheeks to help ground him back in what was really happening and insist that Reiki only wanted to help, that leaving the Court didn’t mean turning his back on Elsa……
And then Elsa’s fist slammed into his chest.
………What?
The shock that Elsa had hit him smacked into Reiki’s brain before the pain. First, a p***k like the Mirrorseal was pressing into his chest. Then, an eruption of it, hot and screaming, as if Elsa hadn’t simply punched him, but had punched into his chest—the same way that Kima had done on Astraya, the same way that Faustite could do if he ever got sufficiently sick of Reiki and tired of suffering him to live. Elsa’s fist, whether he realized it or not, had hit the spot where Reiki had nestled his Mirrorseal, and as he grit his teeth, forcing himself to look at Elsa and whatever was wrong with him—what the ******** in the world could change somebody’s features like this? Why did Elsa actually look like some kind of monster? What the <********> was happening here on this night?!—Reiki felt something throbbing in his chest, like his starseed had taken the punch and not his tits.
“Elsa, stop,” he begged, fumbling back a couple steps, then raising his arms, ready to try and catch Elsa’s next punch, or block him, or whatever needed to be done. “Please.… I don’t want to fight you! I never wanted that!”
He didn’t want to use his magic to defend himself, ********, if Elsa didn’t stop, then maybe, Reiki would need to.
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Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:38 pm
The first sound that came out of Elsa’s mouth was something guttural. Inhuman. A monster’s snarl, not a person’s words. He lurched forward, like he wanted to take another swing—
And then, it was like his mind registered, all at once, what he was actually looking at. Who he was actually looking at.
The color came back to his skin—though only somewhat. At least the gray to it now was more natural, more human, more alive; even if Elsa looked stricken. Even if…even if his chest hurt in a way he’d never felt before.
“I don’t—” His legs wobbled, and he forced himself to stay upright. It was like all the exhaustion that came from using his magic was hitting him all at once—except he hadn’t cast the spell, not now, not here, not on purpose. “My magic. It’s…broken. Out of control. I need to go, and so do you, I—” His voice cracked, in a way that Levi’s voice never cracked, and his fingers twisted in the upper part of his gloves. “I’m sorry. Go…go find your Princess. Do what you need to do.”
He moved to get past Murikabushi, to get to the mirror behind him. He needed…he needed to be away. To not put anyone else in danger. If he could lose himself like this at Reiki, who would be next?
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Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2024 1:39 pm
Reiki didn’t know what he was seeing, not really? Everything was happening so quickly, and so little of it made any sense at all. No magic Reiki had ever seen could transform someone like it was doing to Elsa right now, but what did he know? Magic, presumably, had very few actual limitations when you got down to brass-tacks because it was literal magic. But Elsa wasn’t acting like he’d called on anything? And his casting gesture—he had to take off his gloves and slam his palm into the ground, didn’t he?
The shock slowing Reiki down made it easy for Elsa to move past him.
Except realizing that Elsa was leaving sent a jolt of energy back into Reiki. He whipped around, calling to Elsa’s retreating back, “Wait! I’m not—you need? You can’t go in there alone! Shouldn’t I……”
But Elsa did go in there alone. As he dove into the mirror, Reiki trailed off and stared at the empty space before him, wide-eyed and trembling with anxiety. Going into Mirrorspace when Elsa was so raw like that—that couldn’t possibly be good for him, right? Even if Mirrorspace didn’t actively mean him any harm, it was wild in there. Fundamentally unpredictable. Ever and always changing. What if Elsa got himself lost? What if he took a wrong turn and couldn’t find his way out again? What if……
Reiki sighed softly, pulling out his Dark Mirror compact for the last time. He’d rarely used it to send messages to anyone while actually one of Mirrorspace’s senshi, really not wanting to bother any of the rest of the Court with his bullshit problems, but he couldn’t let this go. After all, he wasn’t currently the one with the problem.
“Remarque,” Reiki said into his compact, his voice earnest and his tone respectful, “it’s Murikabushi. I know I don’t have the right to ask for anything, seeing as nothing’s really changed since we last spoke. Just finished getting what I needed from Mirrorspace, literally on my way to meet my White Moon Princess. But I’m not asking for myself.” Pausing for a moment to haggle with himself on the wording, Reiki sighed. “I’m asking for *Elsa*. There’s something wrong with his magic. We ran into each other and he wasn’t well. He seemed like he was sick or something. Wasn’t acting like himself. We argued, then something happened. He came at me with a punch, and his face—it almost looked like he’d started turning into a youma or something? Then he ran off on his own into Mirrorspace. And I can’t go after him, but……I don’t think he should be alone right now.… Please? If you can spare a moment to check on him?”
With another sigh, Reiki put away his compact and took the Mirrorseal back out of his bodice. Trying not to let himself worry too much about things that he couldn’t control, he slunk off through the alleyways and headed for North-End Park.
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