Or at least, he didn’t feel like they had been. His grades weren’t disappointing. He hadn’t let himself slip up in any kind of egregious ways. He was snapping at his parents a lot, he’d gotten a couple temporary time-out bans from Instagram and Tiktok because apparently ugly, shitty people could not help being jealous of him, and he couldn’t stop thinking about a guy he had no chance in Hell with and even if he did, Tianyi was an Order senshi.
One of the space alien Order senshi at that. He was different from most of them, but a thousand years as an Order senshi would probably prove hard to shake.
Spending time powered up as Ilmari didn’t really help much, either. Gave him the chance to get out whatever frustration he couldn’t vent at the gym, but then there’d simply end up being more of it later. This proved especially true on nights like tonight, when the matter of doing his damn job had gotten so rudely interrupted by the Hell-on-heels Order skank whom so many of Ilmari’s teammates inexplicably tolerated. The one who swooped in out of nowhere, right as Ilmari’s starseed donor of the day crumpled over, and glared at Ilmari in a way that, despite Murikabushi having no actual power over him, still fixed Ilmari to the spot.
(Maybe his teammates wouldn’t tolerate this heinous b***h anymore, though, when Faustite got better integrated back into things? Ilmari could certainly hope. Maybe Faustite didn’t remember the rudely tall slut in the enormous sleeves, the obi sash and massive bow, and the collar that drooped way too low on the back of his neck. That would easily get rid of whatever protection the slut-faced hoe-bag had enjoyed for so long. It had to.)
Part of Murikabushi wanted to know how Albite could even deal with his shitty little secretary, but……well.
In fairness, Muri didn’t think Albite had actually been dealing with the brat for………a while. Not through any fault of Albite’s own, as far as Muri knew? Just, things with his husband were messy, and of course that would reduce anybody’s spoons for being able to deal with some tightly wound little nightmare of a person, whose favorite hobbies appeared to be harassing people, talking s**t about a b***h but never to a b***h’s face, and making Lete look perfectly mature by comparison.
Tonight, in an alley near one of Destiny City’s historical theatres, Ilmari had apparently decided to do that by getting grabby with civilian starseeds again. Prior to watching the little blonde’s hand plunge into someone’s back, Murikabushi had considered leaving Ilmari alone. Ostensibly, Ilmari hadn’t been doing anything besides Existing While Negaverse, and dealing with him at all was a special kind of Hell, one best reserved for tech billionaires and a General-Sovereign who might inspire him to get his s**t together. Then, he’d gone and ruined it. Rushing to catch the civilian had been Muri’s first priority, lest they wake up with a skull fracture.
But once he’d set them down and relatively out of the way, Muri pushed himself back up to full height and held out an expectant hand.
“You’re gonna want to give that back, Ariana,” he said coolly, arching a brow. “Unless you want to have a problem tonight, in which case, please continue showing reckless disregard for other people. It really distracts from how empty and broken you like to pretend you aren’t.”
“Oh, ******** you,” Ilmari snapped. “You ********, like……” Keeping one hand clenched tight around the starseed, Ilmari waved the other one around in Murikabushi’s face. His own cheeks, however, flushed hot and scarlet when this elicited no reaction. “You sanctimonious ******** skank! What do you even care what I do! Nobody asked you! Why don’t you go ******** off to outer space and play with your little planet, and your little ruins, and nothing that even matters to anybody on this planet!”
“Charming,” Murikabushi drawled. “And definitely not a stupid question, either. Obviously can’t be that I care about stopping you from murdering somebody for the same reason that I cared about stopping the Calamitous Hollow—”
“—uuuuuuuuggggggggggh—”
“—or about helping rescue Heliodor when some bitches from my side kidnapped him.” Feeling extremely not listened to, Murikabushi bat the backs of his fingers against Ilmari’s brooch. “Look, you’re clearly late for your naptime, and I don’t want to use my magic against somebody in your delicate condition—”
“You don’t know me! There’s nothing wrong with me!”
Murikabushi fixed the mouthy little s**t with a flat, extremely unimpressed expression.
He could’ve refuted that (alleged) argument. He could’ve run down every single thing about Ilmari’s appearance and behavior that screamed I am the exact binary opposite of Doing Okay, please help me like an air-raid siren. He could’ve gone point by point through explaining why he had a good idea of exactly what was wrong with this little s**t because he’d been there before too, and living through such things oneself tended to make them easier to spot in other people.
Instead of dignifying the nonsense, though, Murikabushi gently whapped Ilmari’s brooch again, then turned up his palm so Ilmari could deposit the starseed.
“Give it back and we won’t have a problem,” he insisted, tone calm and collected. “But if you keep pressing your luck with me, I’m going to hit you with my hardest magic and we can learn what it does to you.” Beat. Just a little pause to render what he said next more effective. Regardless of the situation, Murikabushi remained a consummate drama queen; he knew how to deploy these things. “Do also remember that I’m the senshi of hunger, Galinda. Factor that into your calculations, then do the smart thing. I want to resolve this peacefully, okay?”
Out of respect for Negas like Albite, Heliodor, and Jet, if nothing else (since Ilmari really wanted to make it difficult for Muri to respect him outside of, like, the vague “basic level decency toward other sapient individuals” kinda way).
That threat gave Ilmari pause.
He ******** hated that it gave him pause, but……hunger magic sounded like A Whole Thing. Pressing his lips together into a thin line, Ilmari clutched the starseed close to the crack in his own chest. Maybe this b***h wouldn’t even do it. Threats were one thing, but going back in the intel database had involved reading several reports from Faustite about how Murikabushi was some candy-a** priss who was married to the idea that life was precious or ********. He might not have had the gumption to make good on that.
On the other hand, another Chaos aura flared to life nearby. A Dark Mirror one, sure, so they wouldn’t be as reliable as another Nega—but they’d be better than ******** nothing, so Ilmari would take it. If he pretended to think for long enough that they got closer, maybe Ilmari would have some backup.
Noir Songbird
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2026 9:01 pm
Sappho wasn't usually one to get in the middle of a fight, especially not one between Order and the Negaverse where there were 50-50 odds on the possibility of both of them deciding she was a mutual enemy, or whatever. The Dark Mirror could only reliably trust the Dark Mirror, Persephone and Tantalus had drilled that into her well enough.
But the thing was, she'd been out as Blair, catching the tail end of Alistair's rehearsals for his latest show, and when she'd hugged her brother and handed him into the custody of his partners, she'd decided to take a quick walk and maybe become Sappho for a little bit and scoop a little off the top of the local public's energy and then go home (or go to her Realm and play around with crystals or just sit with her feet in the pond, one of those things.)
And she wouldn't have gotten involved in the fight, except as she wandered near the alley by the theatre, she swore she recognized one of the voices. and as she came around to see a familiar very tall Senshi--except now he was in white instead of black--she beamed.
"Holy s**t, Murikabushi! Look at you, all sparkly! You look good!" She gave the twiggy b***h in Negaverse colors a quick up-down, and put her hands on her hips. "Is this loser hassling you? God, the Negaverse is such a ******** pain."
She could see the unconscious civilian. She could bet she knew what that meant. Hopefully two on one odds would make Blonde b***h Barbie reconsider his life choices.
Feeling the Dark Mirror aura flare up on his senses did not immediately strike Muri as anything that needed his attention. Not nothing, definitely worthy of some attention, because his former comrades in the Court were (for the most part) lovely people with whom he had no quarrel (Lete notwithstanding)……but only once Murikabushi had gotten the civilian’s starseed back and sent Ilmari on his way. Even when the Mirror senshi approached the alleyway, he didn’t think much of them, watching Ilmari’s gaze drift all over the alley while the little one did some intense thinking.
Then, the Dark Mirror senshi called out. And Murikabushi lit up at that voice, progressing to full-on megawatt beaming as he turned toward a friendly face he hadn’t seen in a while.
“Sappho! How’ve you been, gorgeous!” They did still have a Starseed-theft Situation on their hands, so he didn’t let himself indulge too much in Enjoying The Fuku, Feeling His Oats, and letting Sappho see. “I’m sorry it’s been a while. I got in this whole funk, and I had to sort through a lot, and y’know, it led to purifying ‘cause Mirrorspace wasn’t working out for me. Looks like it’s been good for you, though!”
Which was fair enough, in Murikabushi’s mind. Chaos or not, Mirrorspace had a different MO from the Negaverse—or, more specifically, from what he’d gathered about Metallia’s MO from hearsay, since her MO didn’t even necessarily seem to align with Faustite’s, never mind what Murikabushi knew of Jet’s. And it did make Murikabushi smile, seeing people in the Court do well for themselves and live their best lives. They deserved that, especially considering how many of them had been through some awful s**t before.
Insofar as Ilmari had actually been thinking about the “return the starseed or not” issue—not very much, admittedly—he got derailed by the Mirror senshi’s actual approach. Whatever brief flare of hope he’d had for backup, it withered and died when she and Faustite’s b***h-whore greeted each other like old friends. Even though his parents had raised him better and generally expected better manners from him, Ilmari did nothing to hide his shock and disgust for this turn of events. Brow furrowed, mouth agape, everything about him radiating a vibe that only refused to ask for a manager because Ilmari knew that doing so would make him look worse.
“Hey,” he snapped. “Excuse you, I am not a loser—”
“Honey, loser would be an upgrade from the way you usually behave.” Murikabushi cast a quick glance back at Ilmari, arching both brows. “You made up your mind about that starseed yet? Because I’m not leaving until it’s back where you took it from.”
Honestly, he kind of had to marvel at the fact that Ilmari had not yet remembered he could teleport.
Oh, he would probably make some gentle, attentive dom very happy someday, if he ever decided to stop being a shitty little bully.
“Technically, I think I’m doing the harassment, babe,” Muri explained as he looked back to Sappho. “But Ilmari here is going through some kind of issues in his personal life and thinks that gives him the right to steal starseeds. So, it’s harassment of the ‘put that thing back where you found it or so help me, it does not belong to you’ variety, y’know?”
Noir Songbird
Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2026 1:40 pm
"I am so much better now," Sappho said, "but some of that has to do with taking time to focus on me and really, like, get my s**t figured out, you know?" Because goodness knew her s**t had been atrociously messy for a very long time.
"Glad to hear the same's true for you and that the dorks in white are treating you right." And honestly, forget the dork in black who was causing trouble for both of them. Except that she couldn't, because he still had a person's life in his hands, so she'd have to figure out how to get him to give that up.
Baby steps.
"Stealing starseeds is massive loser behavior, I'm afraid," she said, waving a dismissive hand his way. "And it doesn't count as harassment when it's getting starseeds put back where they belong. Like, if you don't want to be hassled, maybe don't try to murder people? Seems really really simple to me."
She gave Ilmari her most doe-eyed, innocent face.
"So, yeah, you really should listen to my friend here, because I'm totally with him."
cw: fatphobic, body-shaming bullying out of Ilmari
Whatever was happening in front of him, Ilmari absolutely hated it.
He couldn’t entirely be surprised, he guessed. He knew from the team and from old intel database entries that Murikabushi had been with the Dark Mirror Court initially. Faustite’s entries in particular had emphasized that the leggy skank didn’t seem to care about faction loyalty so much as individual merit or choices or whatever. Ilmari himself had commented on similar things in the database before.
But he burned with indignation over this entire debacle because it wasn’t fair.
When the Mirror slut looked at him with those innocent doe eyes, he glowered back at her, still clutching the starseed close to his clavicle. Where did she get off? Acting like this when she was fraternizing with Faustite’s pet White Moon whore instead of standing in solidarity with someone else empowered by Chaos? It was almost as bad as Murikabushi himself, flicking his fingers against Ilmari’s forehead, right next to the cap.
“Y’know, it never fails to surprise me,” Murikabushi said, giving Ilmari the sort of Look that usually came with a patronizing oh, honey. “By that I mean, how quickly you guys with the Negaverse switch between being perfectly normal people and then acting like it doesn’t matter when you murder people. Not only murder, but cutting off every future life they might get to have—”
“Eugh,” Ilmari said, groaning. “Do you ever keep your annoying, twink death opinions to yourself?”
“No. Absolutely not,” Muri quipped back without missing a beat. “Also, ‘twink death’ implies that I’ve ever been a twink. Words mean things—”
“I don’t. CARE.”
“Well, that sucks for you, I guess.” Looking the little ******** in the eye, Muri held out his hand again. “You can put yourself out of this alleged misery very quickly, y’know. Just give up the starseed and you can go.”
“Yeah, right.” Ilmari huffed and let his lower lip jut out, even though it would probably accomplish even less than it had been getting out of his parents recently. “Because that’s gonna make my team look good to the Negaverse. ‘Well, I was doing a good job of meeting our quotas for everybody but then I got cornered by Faustite’s favorite loudmouth skank and he made me give up the starseed I rightfully took.’”
If Ilmari didn’t pull this out, he was gonna need to pull so many energy orbs to make up for what he was losing.
“And where do you get off helping him?” He turned back to glowering at the Mirror senshi. “Like, what? Does he do his little ‘oooooh honey, yes miss girl, serve, work, c**t,’” he deadpanned, sounding like the whitest cisgender homosexual to blister from getting so badly sunburnt in Puerto Vallarta, “bullshit routine and lie to you for the sake of your self-esteem, and that’s why you just go along with him?”
”Oh my god, Ilmari.…” Sensing that this little tantrum would end with Ilmari earning whatever Sappho felt like doing, Murikabushi nudged up his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Or did you lose your ******** brain when you let yourself get……y’know, like that.” As if it perfectly illustrated his point, Ilmari gestured at the Mirror senshi’s body. “Fat, desperate, and stupid is no way to go through life, you know!”
Noir Songbird
Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2026 4:32 pm
Honestly, Sappho was already starting to run out of patience with the whining. It wasn't impressive, it was just kind of sad--and on top of that, Muri was right. They weren't talking about a stolen pen, they were talking about someone's soul.
(And all their future lives, which was a little crazy and unfathomable to Sappho, but whatever.)
But then, the miserable ******** vanilla Biscotti in front of her had to make things ******** personal, in a way that Sappho was far and beyond over hearing from other people.
Her smile remained on her face. Innocent. Cute. Still very thoroughly "look how precious I am."
And then she strode up to Ilmari, swung her fist, and punched him directly in his shitty little face.
"You're less creative than the girls I went to middle school with," she said, "but the difference is, no one can put me in detention for shutting you up. Now give me the ******** starseed, you miserable little Instagram b***h."
In his own mind, Ilmari had said something very smart and cutting, and Faustite’s whore was just grousing at him because Murikabushi didn’t appreciate his wit. He was going to get such a good grade in bullying malcontents into behaving, something that was both normal to want and possible to achieve.
Back out in reality, however, Sappho’s fist crashed into him like a wrecking ball.
Slammed into his cheek. Got a loud, undignified oof! out of Ilmari as she sent him reeling back into the wall behind him. As he staggered, Ilmari tried to keep hold of the starseed—but he also flailed, trying not to lose his balance and end up on his a**. His grip, without his consent, loosened and as he tried to keep himself on his feet, he felt the starseed slipping away from him.
In a perfect world, Murikabushi wouldn’t have needed to hone his instincts about rushing in to catch starseeds as they fell.
Alas, he did not live in a perfect world. He lived in one where different assholes from the Negaverse regularly made this necessary, even though they had other options available to them than literally killing every possible future life that someone might have had. At least Muri had his game on lock, and when Ilmari let the starseed slip, Murikabushi was there to catch it. There to deposit it back in the civilian’s chest, kneeling beside them to make sure that the starseed returned to its home safely.
They didn’t rouse immediately, but as their soul settled back where it belonged, the civilian on the ground groaned, indicating that they were alive.
Looking back up to Ilmari with a flat expression, Murikabushi told him, “Okay, Galinda. The civilian isn’t going to die and you lost because you had to be a shitty little bully. You can run along, now.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Ilmari huffed, hugging himself as he stomped toward the exit from the alleyway and “accidentally” hip-checking both Murikabushi and his Mirror b***h friend on the way. “Neither of you is better than me for this, okay? You just………you guys suck.”
Uh huh, sure, Murikabushi held himself back from saying. Take it easy on whatever candy you’re using to fuel your patrols. These peaks and valleys in your blood sugar make you insufferable to deal with.
Aside from the fact that saying so was cruel on its own, it would be more so considering what Ilmari was probably dealing with. Not that he’d outright said as much—Murikabushi didn’t expect him to do that, either—but there were some themes that he’d noticed in trying to deal with Albite’s little secretary. He seemed to think that picking on people’s weight and body shapes was the worst insult imaginable and really terribly clever of him. He was always tightly wound and the idea that he might not be perfectly doing his little task of the day upset him a great deal. His emotional control seemed, like, only somewhat better than toddler levels of self-regulation.
Murikabushi really hoped that he was wrong in what he thought these things all added up to………but every time he crossed paths with Ilmari, he felt more and more certain that he was.
For a longish moment, Ilmari’s heels clacked down the sidewalk, away from Sappho and Murikabushi. But when they finally slipped out of what Muri could hear, he said to Sappho, “All I had to do was get bossy with him and that little s**t seriously forgot that he could teleport out that entire time.” So much the better for Muri, Sappho, and most importantly the civilian, but……still. “Anyway, you wanna walk for a while, sweets? Catch up, now that he’s gone off to sulk about how we were soooooo mean to him?”
Noir Songbird
Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2026 11:25 pm
Sappho rolled her eyes. Getting hip-checked by a miserable little stick wasn't exactly the worst thing that had ever happened to her--in fact it was mostly just annoying.
"He really thought he was doing something there, didn't he," she said, deadpan, and she rolled her eyes. "I cannot believe that he totally forgot he could leave at any time. Like, to our benefit and that poor guy's," Sappho waved at the poor civilian, "but....damn."
She glanced after where he went. That boy had things wrong with him, she was sure of that, but frankly it was none of her damn business.
"I'd love to walk and talk with you," she said, "and it really is good to see you again."
At least this whole thing wasn't totally miserable.
