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The Lantern Festival (7) : Scientists have been hard at work trying to understand the strange, glowing qualities of the luminescent caterpillars found in the caves by the reservoir. The caterpillars still shrivel up if they are taken out of the caves but their glowing secretions have been processed into an organic paste that can withstand the outside world. The city is selling paper lanterns infused with various seeds. The glow paste is full of minerals to support healthy plant growth without risking damage to the environment; all lantern purchases come with a small packet of activating power that will heat the paste up enough to mimic the effects of a candle without the concerns of flammability. When the glow paste loses its heat, the lantern will return to the Earth and upon the first rain (or any contact with water) the paper will dissolve and the seeds may begin to grow. All proceeds from the lanterns are put right back into the community to support local conservation and environmental protection efforts.
Murikabushi had been trying to keep his head down since that whole incident last week with Almadel, and the space-bugs, and literally all of that. An obvious problem with this entire notion was that “Murikabushi” and “keeping his head down” went together about as well as neon green glitter-vomit polka dots and flaming pizza sauce red spandex. He wasn’t good at being quiet. He wasn’t good at being subtle without several rounds of revisions. He didn’t like censoring himself, shutting up and sitting down, or literally any of that. Under most other circumstances, an entire week of largely avoiding being seen by anybody magical was, for Muri, tantamount to a five-hundred-page confession that he was in Kind Of A Bad Place right now.
He wasn’t, at the moment. Or anyway, he didn’t feel any more or less unstable than his usual default state of being tempestuous, varying degrees of self-deluded, and overly sensitive about things that probably didn’t matter because he largely couldn’t do anything about most of the things he cared about that did matter. But still, meandering through the lantern festival tonight? This was the most time Muri had spent powered up in a decently lit public place since the adventure up to Almadel’s museum. He wasn’t even letting himself touch the lanterns, much less set one up for himself. Vaguely, he wondered if Yuki’s cousin had had anything to do with picking out the seeds that ever went into the lanterns, considering how seriously Toki took his work landscaping for the department of parks and rec—but that thought couldn’t keep Muri distracted for long.
On the one, single, most prominent, inevitable and undeniable hand, the longer Murikabushi spent sticking to the shadows and trying to avoid being noticed by anybody. Said hand had spent the past week tempting Kiyoshi all the way through his shifts at Puppy Paws, telling him to ignore the impulse to avoid being seen because acting like that wasn’t him. During most of his meet-ups with LiánlĂ—ongoing attempts at getting the hand of making “content” that could tide him over until he could get back in seedy queer bars, where he belonged—Kiyoshi’s whole brain had itched with the thought that somebody Chaos-affiliated would notice him out and about sooner or later, so why bother hiding. Why bother walking home in his civvies when he could’ve gotten there faster if he powered up and put Muri’s enhanced speed to use (he’d thankfully more or less stopped face-planting into mirrors out of habit, but a b***h still moved faster powered up than not).
Those intrusive thoughts annoyed the ******** out of Kiyoshi, acting like they had any right to interrupt his lessons in learning to create “content.” Posting asinine garbage on Tiktok and Youtube crushed his soul enough as it was and yielded none of the rewards that he got out of performing live, with an actual audience. Needs must, because until it was safe for Magdalene Yotsuya Wilde to debut back in a Destiny City queer bar, Kiyoshi needed something to sustain him, some ******** way of getting his drag out there. The last thing he needed while trying not to feel like the world’s most vapid a*****e while getting into a goth cheerleader fit and vamping through the “HOT TO GO!” dance under one of LiánlĂ’s ring-lights?
………Okay, well, the actual last thing Kiyoshi needed was Faustite finding him and forcibly dragging him off to the Negaverse, since he was perfectly capable of doing that now. But the second-to-last thing Kiyoshi needed was nagging little b*****d-thoughts reminding him that he hated being quiet and politely behaving himself. Arguably, doing this betrayed the entire reason why he’d set his entire life on fire and told Mirrorspace to go ******** itself and pray they never saw each other again unless Mirrorspace wanted to get torn down to studs and set. on. FIRE. In what universe did quietly staying away from anybody’s notice constitute Kiyoshi Sakurazawa, aka Super Sailor Murikabushi of Hunger, being true to himself?
But on the other hand, he really had clocked several people he knew from the Negaverse at Almadel’s little shindig, including what had sure seemed like the vast majority of Faustite’s team. A few faces, Muri hadn’t recognized, so maybe they were just new (though one had definitely been an Eternal senshi and one had been a Captain, so either they were scary-hypercompetent overachievers who’d ranked up really ******** fast, or they’d gotten reassigned to Faustite, or they were new inductees who’d powered up among the White Moon, or maybe they’d just been there the whole time and Muri simply hadn’t met them, what the ******** did he know). Also, Muri hadn’t seen Miss Jada, Abbey Roadkill, or Lilith’s Femboy Brother among their number, three big-to-him names missing. None of them had gotten advance warning about what he’d planned to do in purifying unless Faustite had told them, and who the Hell even knew with Faustite?
Regardless of the specifics, though, the simple fact remained: Muri had seen a lot of people from the Negaverse up at Almadel’s, and the only hope he had was that maybe they hadn’t seen him. Seriously, how ******** presumptuous, acting like Jet—a very busy and very important man who had a lot of important s**t to do—would ever notice one little Dark Mirror dropout out of a group over a hundred strong. Muri couldn’t help wondering if anyone had noticed him, but as he wove his way through the part of the park where the lanterns hung, he was trying his damn best not to think about it.
He wasn’t succeeding. Fidgeting with a pomegranate red star charm he’d found earlier in the evening wasn’t helping. But success or not, Muri was trying his best and that had to count for something, right?
Feeling another aura flare up on his senses almost felt like the universe telling him to relax and have some emotional candy. Better yet, they were Eternal (or maybe a Knight) and they weren’t with Chaos, so if anybody showed up who wanted to start anything, they’d probably be good people to stand with. As he got closer to them, following the feel of their aura, Muri tried to look around for anybody who had either the tell-tale tramp-stamp wings or an appropriately fancy outfit and a weapon. Whether he knew them or not, they weren’t Negaverse and Muri really needed someone like that in his life right now.
“Hey,” he called out as someone’s silhouette finally started to look and feel correct. As he closed in the last little bit, they came into clearer relief and—“……Encke? Is it……” Murikabushi paused mid-step, glancing up and around at the lanterns with his lips pursed tight. He deadpanned, “Crazy sense of deja vu right now, don’t you think.”
Tone aside, Muri kind of thought so. Two years ago, he and Encke had met for the first time underneath Star Festival lanterns just like this.
Seixxana_ZI
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