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 Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2026 12:00 am
Kaifeng had been thinking a lot, ever since burying the urn for Arcalís and strengthening that bond with his Wonder. The battle on Niflheim, for example, lingered in his mind. Certainly, everything had worked out well, and the very immediate danger of the situation had called for violence in the name of self-defense. But at the same time……
Or there was the interaction that he and Helene had had with the reincarnations of Asshai and Industria (the latter still Industria, just wearing a black fuku with a cracked chest and forehead in this life, while the former now went by Cryptomelane as an officer of the Negaverse). Something had gotten miscommunicated there, and it had inspired Cryptomelane to move to attack. He’d been trying, Kaifeng guessed, to protect his lady right in the moment, and Kaifeng could respect that? Same as he stood by his use of violence to protect himself and Helene. But if there had been another option……
The conundrum felt very spiritual, therefore heavy in his chest. On one hand, there were all the old Helenian beliefs that he’d tried to learn about from Huan-ge. While Liánlí hardly lived up to most of them—and admittedly didn’t try to with some—so much of what gege had to say about Helenian practices of restraint sounded so different from how Liánlí lived most of his life. But that was what drew him to it. Holding himself back challenged him, but it felt like a good way to avoid harming innocents as much as possible, like how they, Muri, and Elsa had done with the kosopods up at Almadel’s museum.
On the other hand, there was the spirituality Liánlí had grown up with. Serving as Kaifeng of Saturn had brought him back to his Buddhist faith in several ways that he hadn’t expected. In particular, he kept returning to Dìzàng-púsà, and his commitment to emptying every naraka and saving the souls condemned there. Xingyi-ge had venerated Dìzàng-púsà enough to keep several paintings, statues, and other icons of him all over the tower at their Wonder. Something about their calling as the Knight of Kaifeng, as the caretaker to the people buried there, had moved Xingyi-ge to value mercy so highly, and Liánlí-Kaifeng felt strongly drawn to that same idea.
If Kaifeng had something available to him other than the old magic that threw out bursts of deathly cold, or channeling and calling on the spirits interred at his Wonder……
All of this wasn’t necessarily the best to be mentally carrying around while out on a patrol. As he made his way across the buildings around Eastwick Park, Kaifeng tried to focus on the smells of early spring, the sound of his boots on the different roofing materials, and the feeling of the light breeze in his braid. Anything to keep him focused on the current moment, instead of getting all wrapped up in these “coulda woulda shoulda”’s and miscellaneous “what if”s that he couldn’t speak to. It wasn’t as though he could just change his magic; he simply needed to exercise restraint and responsibility with it, the way that Huan-ge would.
He slowed in his paces as he picked out the feeling of a Dark Mirror senshi’s aura. Diverting from the path, he moved closer to them, but nothing on an initial glance seemed amiss. Maybe there were some of those shade-creatures flitting around? But Kaifeng admittedly didn’t know what to look for, aside from knowing that it was difficult to see them under any circumstances, and he couldn’t spot any civilians nearby who seemed out of sorts, the way they so often got when that little one in the lilac and seafoam was out and about, being a rancid nightmare to everyone in her path.
Considering the lack of anything untoward going on, Kaifeng moved to turn away from the Mirror senshi. Their aura felt less powerful than his own, and getting approached by a full Knight for no reason could’ve put them ill-at-ease. Kaifeng tried not to meet the Mirror senshi with hostility, but he’d heard plenty of Muri’s stories from before he’d purified, about getting attacked for Existing While Dark Mirror. He didn’t want to come off like that to some poor Mirror senshi who, by all available evidence, was just minding their own business.
But then another aura flared up.
Youma, undeniably, and it was on the move.
Chaos or not, a youma wouldn’t care when faced with a Dark Mirror senshi. They’d make as good a snack for a youma as any Order senshi would.
Shoving aside everything else, Kaifeng leapt from the low roof he’d wandered to and bounded into the park. As he moved toward the Mirror senshi’s aura, the youma’s got closer too. Seemed like he’d made the right call.
The Mirror senshi came into view first. Petite and curvy, brunette, cute little fuku—but Kaifeng didn’t take in too many of the details of her appearance. Instead, he darted in front of her, putting himself between her and whatever Nega-beast drew closer. The trees currently covering it began to tremble as it approached, but Kaifeng held himself ready, staff raised and ready to swing.
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Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2026 1:56 pm
Sappho did not like youma. She thought that was a fairly reasonable conclusion to have reached, in her time as a Senshi; youma thought that Senshi were delicious snacks and she did not want to be a delicious snack. Except in the way that a cute girl might think she was.
That was not the current point. The current point was, she had been chilling, chilling, maybe a little tense because there was a Knight nearby but Ekstrom had been super cool so chilling, right up until she heard something in the trees and realized there was a youma nearby. she'd flung herself off her bench to put space between her and it, and that was when a physical body got between them; it was, she realized after a moment, the Knight, probably, and at least he seemed like he was on her side.
"Please help me," she said, very quickly, all too glad to duck behind him and let him take point as the creature--the size of a big cat, but with the shape of a rhinocerous with a lion's man and, she suspected, a rhino's attitude--prowled out of the trees. "I have magic that will not help me at all because I don't think a lion-rhino cares how cute and innocent I am."
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Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2026 3:27 pm
“Probably not,” Kaifeng agreed, locking eyes with the lion-rhino youma. “At least, I’ve never met one who cared about that.”
Maybe this guy wasn’t the worst-looking beast he’d ever seen from the Negaverse, but it didn’t need to look awful to be a credible threat. Didn’t need to be the biggest to make itself a similar kind of problem, either. Quickly thinking things over, Kaifeng tried to size up his options. Two forms of magic available to him, and they’d probably both work well enough, but……
Eugh, maybe the spell that he and Helene had found at his Wonder would prove less effective in this situation? The way it worked when he used it, the spell tended to hurt sapient people more than beasts, and the way this youma scraped one of its hooves through the dirt, it felt distinctly more in line with beasts than with people. With youma who were more on the level of non-sapient animals, did they really care about feeling like they’d died and it hadn’t mattered to anyone?
Probably not.
But on the other hand, the spell was more controlled. It only went after one target, while Kaifeng’s channeled magic didn’t care who it hit. Getting the poor Mirror senshi caught in the crosshairs wouldn’t have helped protect her very well.
But then, the youma shifted. It threw itself toward him. Breath held, Kaifeng ran up to meet it, caught the beast’s horn with his staff. He probably wouldn’t get a good opportunity to swing at the youma now, which meant that both his single-target spell and simple physical violence would prove harder. As the thing tried to push through him, Kaifeng firmly planted his feet and pushed back.
The youma butted its horn against his staff again, and—crrrrraaaaaa—
It was a soft sound, a threat of something snapping more than the swift, sharp sound of a proper break. But it made Kaifeng’s eyes go wide regardless. Was this thing more powerful than it looked? Normal youma weren’t supposed to be able to mess up a Knight’s weapon like this.
Dammit.
Considering the only other likely option before Kaifeng had fast become letting the youma make a meal out of the poor Mirror senshi—
“Stay back about ten feet, meimei,” Kaifeng called out, glancing back at her ever so quickly. The bench would’ve gotten her off the ground but also put her too close to the youma. If it diverted while Kaifeng was channeling, it could’ve gotten her so easily. “When the clawed hands come up, don’t let them grab you.”
Trying his best not to think about the threatening sound he’d heard, Kaifeng slammed his staff’s reinforced metal end into the ground. He called on the magic he knew so well, silently trusted the Mirror senshi meimei to get back. Worst case scenario, he thought as the familiar ghostly hands clawed their way up out of the ground and grabbed for the youma, Kaifeng could apologize and give her some aftercare once the monster of the day had been taken care of.Noir xx Songbird Knight Magic: Undead shades claw their way out of the ground within a ten-foot radius of Kāifēng. Anyone within the ten-foot radius—including allies and Kāifēng himself—will feel a sense of recognition, like they should know who these dead people are, but the shades appear too mangled by death and decay to be identified as any particular person. For the duration of his channeling, the shades will also cry out like “remember me,” “how could you forget me,” etc. The shades will attack anyone in the ten-foot radius but Kāifēng, including allies, but being incorporeal, they do no physical damage. Anyone hit by the shades will experience deathly chills and a heavy feeling of being watched. (This magic is currently manifesting oddly, as one of the anomalies that can precede Cosmic Resonance. Instead of creating a fear-inducing “watched over and judged by some superhuman presence” feeling, the magic currently creates a more comforting sense like “someone is watching over you.”)
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Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2026 3:49 pm
Oh, that thing looked ugly, and while Sappho knew the Knight's staff had to be magic, that didn't exactly feel reassuring in the face of something that looked dense. Not in the way of being dumb--though probably that, too, it didn't look like one of the youma that might be smarter--but in thew way of being thick. Heavy. A brick shithouse or whatever.
She swore she heard the staff straining, and that sent a little jolt of fear crawling up her spine.
"Don't have to tell me twice," she said, quickly when he told her to get back, and she went running for the other end of the little clearing, hopingt he youma didn't break from him and find her.
She was not quite fast enough.
She felt a hand grab her ankle, and she expected something...well, terrifying.
Instead, it was...strange.
She felt almost...protected. Like something was watching over her, a strangely comforting sort of feeling for the visuals of mangled corpses (which were totally gross, mind, but....magic was as magic did.)
"This isn't so bad," she said, hovering at what she presumed was the edge of the Knight's magic. "Seems a little off for stopping a monster, though."
And yet the creature looked almost confused, like it couldn't quite understand what it weas experiencing. tHat was a little sad, Sappho thought. Maybe it hadn't known much love and care in its weird, monstery life. She had no idea how the Negaverse treated youma; certainly they seemed to get thrown to the wolves a lot, so the idea that this particular poor baby hadn't experienced much in the way of kindness or care seemed all too possible.
Not that she needed to be feeling sorry for it when it totally would eat her if it got to her, but she did, sort of.
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Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2026 4:45 pm
……Well, this wasn’t supposed to be happening.
Even as he felt his magic hitting differently—not the same sort of feeling as Helene having his back but definitely a feeling of someone looking out for him that wasn’t at all how his magic normally felt—Kaifeng held out hope that maybe that was all in his head. Yet, the youma’s reaction suggested otherwise, and the Mirror senshi confirmed it. Something wasn’t going right with Kaifeng’s magic. That didn’t stop him from calling on it all the same, but he did falter.
Faltered enough to give the youma room to fight for control of the situation.
It wailed, its expression still perplexed and more than slightly lost. Enraged by its own confusion, and maybe by the feeling of protection that was apparently coming for it, Kaifeng, and the Mirror senshi, the youma charged back toward him. Only with a gasp—in the splittest of fractionary tiny seconds—did Kaifeng manage to shift his staff back up to defending. Pushing back kept the youma from getting any further. But the thing roared this time, banging its horn against the bamboo of Kaifeng’s staff.
This time, though, its efforts paid off.
A CRACK! cut through the scene like a clap of lightning. Kaifeng’s arms dropped, hands falling apart. His staff had broken, snapped clean in two. Eyes wide, he stared at his weapon like this would somehow manage to put his staff back together. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Offhand, Kaifeng didn’t think the glowing marks on his forehead and the backs of his hands had anything to do with making him or his weapon stronger? But he’d bonded so intensely with his Wonder, he couldn’t help feeling like a broken weapon wasn’t supposed to happen after that.
As if it understood what it had done, the youma fell back a few paces. Took a moment to ready itself. Then, it made another rush for Kaifeng.
But it had done him a kindness: a broken staff was easier to use in close combat. When the youma closed in, Kaifeng threw himself toward it. He swung for its face with one half of his staff. Once he’d knocked the thing off its balance, he brought the other half down on the wretched little creature’s head.
That, it seemed, did the trick.
Hardly Kaifeng’s favorite way of handling a situation, even one with a youma, but at least the creature groaned and collapsed into dust. Let it go……wherever youma went off to when they’d been dealt with. It wasn’t bothering anyone else tonight, and that was the important part.
With a sigh, Kaifeng turned back toward the Mirror senshi. The smile he managed wasn’t quite as bright as he might have given her on a different night, but………well. He had some kind of issue going on. Maybe something was just off tonight? Or maybe he’d need to look into things further? Either way, it was hard to be a hundred percent sunshine right after having his weapon broken by what seemed like a pretty bog standard youma.
“Are you doing alright after that,” he asked the Mirror senshi. “Oh, I—uh. Kaifeng of Saturn, by the way. And—yeah, my magic doesn’t usually feel like that? But as long as you’re alright, that’s the important part.”
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Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2026 4:55 pm
Sappho jumped, at the sound of that awful CRACK. She was pretty sure weapons weren't supposed to do that--were they? It wasn't like she knew anything about how they worked or whatever, just...
That seemed wrong.
At least the youma died quickly under solid blows from the now-broken staff, so that was something? She remained uneaten, which was her biggest concern in the present moment, so that was also, equally something.
"Uh," she said, and she forced a little smile herself, even if this whole situation felt very off the rails. "I'm fine, thanks, I'm Sappho, and...I hope you're okay, too?" She supposed she owed him the decency of asking, given that he'd protected her from a monster that she probably could have handled in theory, but not without getting hurt.
"Thank you. For stepping in."
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Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2026 5:32 pm
“Yeah, of course.” Kaifeng found it a little easier to smile in the face of this part. He didn’t need any thanks for doing something like this, but it was always nice. And frankly, considering some of the bigger nasty things out there—the Calamitous Hollow came to mind, and the way that the Moon Queen’s hologram had said it wasn’t the only big b*****d to worry about—getting along with the other magical people in Destiny City, regardless of faction, gave him some peace of mind. “People in this town have to look out for each other, right? Too many awful things for anybody to really be safe on their own.”
His specific feelings about and history with people involved in the Dark Mirror Court didn’t really matter. Knowing from his own experiences and from Muri that Mirror senshi were generally alright, sure, that had informed some of Kaifeng’s approach tonight. But it didn’t matter as much as the bigger issue.
A bigger issue that Kaifeng wasn’t going to be able to address in any capacity if his magic and his weapon were messed up. But……maybe this would be something like any rips and tears to his uniform in combat. Maybe he could power down, power up again tomorrow, and everything would be fine. One night, while unsettling, couldn’t be treated as indicative of the whole. Trying to build a pattern over one example wouldn’t work. Kaifeng would just……need to keep an eye on things. Play it as safe as he could.
Talk to Huan-ge about it, too. Maybe he’d know something that could help point Kaifeng in the right direction.
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