[closed] can't you feel your true calling?

[avemortis]

Who: Mutsumi & Jamil
What: Their joint awakening and a vague vision of a past life
When: Mid-late April 2377
Where: downtown Chalra City
Warnings: insufferable teens

Mutsumi doesn't get called on to make appearances with her parents on television as much as she did when she was little, but the public never forgets about Wakaba and Minami Mori, and they'll never really forget about her, either. The anticipatory tone in every question directed at her only seems to increase with time. Always asking, even if in veiled terms, when Mutsumi plans to join her parents in show business.

Oh, you play guitar, don't you? Do you have any ambitions of being a professional musician, Mutsumi? I bet your father could connect you with one of the best producers in the industry!

These questions are getting more difficult to answer as she gets older. And it seems to be more exhausting than ever. Her limbs feel leaden as they exit the studio, and it isn't until they're out in the open night air that she realizes just how suffocating the green room had felt. She stops to suck in a deep gulp of air. Neither of her parents so much as turns their heads.

There's a car waiting outside, but Mutsumi quietly intones that she'll walk home. The chauffeur who doubles as security directs an uncertain glance at Minami Mori, who only smiles, her eyes creasing, and steps into the backseat of the car. Three doors slam shut in succession, and the black sedan peels away from the studio lot, Mutsumi's skirt fluttering in the aftermath. The lot is quiet then, and to her own surprise, her shoulders drop and she lets out a sigh.

Downtown is just as busy at night as it is during the day, and while Mutsumi normally isn't too worried about being recognized on the street, the late show only just finished airing. She doesn't have anything to hide her face, so she keeps her head low and ducks down a narrow side street, its sidewalks illuminated by the sign for a cramped bubble tea shop. It sparks a memory of the band, an idle afternoon spent at the station shopping center, and she looks down at her phone. The wallpaper is the same as last year: a photo of the band in the studio, taken at an awkward angle.

She's preoccupied enough that she hears a crash and a startled yell before she looks up, stumbling back a half-step. Emerging from the bubble tea shop is a larger-than-life-size silhouette of the mascot, an anthropomorphized bubble tea drink, its footsteps thundering. The man who had screamed scrambled past it and down the alley in a panic, dropping his own drink in the process.

Comments

[snizier]

It doesn't matter why Jamil is out at this hour. He isn't supposed to be, but sue him if he wants a little breathing room. The penthouse is plenty secure; even the doormen have been vetted by the Family. Kalim is safe and presumably still asleep. Jamil can go for a walk if he wants.

He's mindless in where he goes, and when he looks back at it all in the future that will maybe be further proof it's all destiny. He doesn't even like this boba place; he's made better drinks himself at home. But it's where his anxious feet take him, and there a few things happen in quick succession.

The first is that Jamil sees a vaguely familiar-looking girl staring at her phone in front of the shop. Because it's his job to be aware of everyone that Kalim could possibly encounter, there is a brief moment where he thinks, Is that Mutsumi Wakaba? before he is immediately distracted by the emergence of what appears to be a giant monster in the form of an anthropomorphic plastic glass of tea, chasing a screaming man.

What?

Before Jamil can process any of that, his instincts take over and he yanks Mutsumi away and behind him, so that Jamil is between her and the, uh, tea monster.

"What is that?!" Maybe they should be running too, quite frankly.

[avemortis]

Jamil's hand on her arm startles her, and she stumbles into step behind him with a small catch in her breath. The moment he touches her, everything seems suddenly surreal, bathed in a dim, wavering light — Jamil's voice sounds both close and far away, like light filtering down through water. Her head begins to swim. Has she ever seen him out of Kalim's company before?

The strange thing bearing down on them both defies explanation, and time seems to slow down. She opens her mouth to say I don't know, but only manages to get out a brief sound before the sound of rushing water fills her ears, and then two voices that sound very much like hers —

I want them back.

I only wanted to protect her!

[snizier]

The sense of unreality hits Jamil a split-second after Mutsumi, at the worst possible time. The thing running towards them seems to speed up and slow down at the same time, paradoxically, the difference in perception nauseating. There's a ringing in his ears like an explosion just went off. He feels like he might collapse.

His first thought is actually that he must have missed some long-release poison at dinner that's only affecting him now, and if that's the case what's happening to Kalim, who ate the same thing--he hates that his first thought is of Kalim--

But at the same moment he realizes that isn't it, his thoughts seem to continue themselves without his bidding. A voice bizarrely like his own rings through his head:

I want to be the one to protect him.

It's at that point that his threatening collapse becomes real and Jamil's knees hit the pavement.

What?

[avemortis]

Mutsumi goes down with him, because he's still got her by the arm and she doesn't react fast enough to catch herself. She falls to the ground next to him, hitting the pavement on her side. She feels like she's underwater, and she can't tell if the distant voice she's hearing is Jamil's or if she's really even hearing it at all.

It begins to recede as she pushes herself upright, going out like the tide, and she all but coughs for breath. She opens her mouth to ask Jamil if he's okay, but before any other thought can take hold, she sees a small ball of wavering light, growing brighter by the moment. Reality seems so much more present now, but everything still seems to be going in slow motion, and without thinking, Mutsumi reaches a hand out to that light. She closes her hand around it, and there's a dazzling flash — and then, the sensation of an unfamiliar object in her grip.

[snizier]

Unlike Mutsumi, the world only seems to feel more muddled and confusing for Jamil the longer he spends in this strange space. His body still feels so heavy, and he's hearing voices and now seeing bizarre floating balls of light. He must have ingested something that's currently causing his brain to break down, and he's too preoccupied trying to figure out what that could have been that he misses the mysterious light coming from his own suddenly-present keychain.

But wait... if this is poison after all, then why is Mutsumi reacting to it all? Finally, it occurs to him that there could be something else going on; he releases his grip on her arm enough for her reach to close the gap, suddenly feeling like whatever is about to happen, he needs to just let play out.

And hopefully it will quickly, because the boba monster is almost here...!

[avemortis]

Mutsumi lurches forward a little as Jamil lets go of her arm, and her eyes widen as the light fades from between her fingers. She opens her hand to see an unfamiliar cell phone charm decorated with stars, and as the world still seems to be playing in slow motion, she stares at it in blank confusion.

Then, with a sharp intake of breath, things click into place. She moves on some newfound instinct, like a girl possessed, getting shakily to her feet as she closes her hand tight around the charm. She raises it over her head and calls out in a voice that sounds too far away to be her own, "Supernova...shine on!"

The world around her flashes bright, then runs black as all light leeches away. It's cold, but she feels safe, like arms around her shoulders — and just as she begins to think that, the darkness erupts into a panoply of light and color, dazzling her vision. Though she feels lightheaded at first, she's oddly steady on her feet, and by the time the light fades and resolves back into the real world, there's a strange clarity of purpose that staves off the paralysis she'd usually be feeling about now. She feels different — and at a glance down, she looks different. She can feel a mask obscuring most of her face. Just as she's getting her bearings, new light takes shape between her hands, and after a moment she feels the weight of an electric guitar in her grip, the light fading to a bright pink. Her eyes widen a little further. It looks so much like her guitar at home. 

Time is starting to speed up again, and she knows she doesn't have time to act. Jamil is still down, and if she can do anything...

She can. She can feel it. Just like with the transformation, the words seem to come from somewhere else. She strums out a chord, then another, a haunting lulling that turns to pale smoke as it leaves her guitar.

"Somnus mortis."

It'll slow down the boba monster...but it won't be enough.

[snizier]

Well. Okay. If Mutsumi is interacting with all of this then he can't be hallucinating. Right? The idea causes an odd sense of calm to fall over him. Somehow, the concept of magic existing is the less alarming option. Everything else he can process afterward.

The acceptance of it all seems to cause everything to slot into place for Jamil. He observes, detached, as Mutsumi drives the monster back with her guitar chord; instinctively, he seems to understand that his turn is next. When the small orb of light appears to him in turn, he reaches for it without hesitation, and is rewarded with a phone charm of his own: a crescent moon attached to a small red feather.

Jamil grins in satisfaction.

"Supernova, shine on!"

He's dimly aware of magic affecting the rest of his body, but his attention is drawn to what's most important: the light shining brightly from within his fist extends further outward and then shapes itself into a curved, hemispherical dagger, with its twin appearing in his other hand.

He exhales. The boba monster, staggered, turns toward this new threat. Jamil brings his daggers to bear. "Lunar Strike," he breathes, and in the blink of an eye has shifted behind the monster, giving him the perfect shot at the conveniently placed vulnerable spot at its back. Nothing personnel, kid

[avemortis]

With a flash of light, the boba monster explodes into dust at Jamil's attack, and Mutsumi finds herself taking a few steps back, coughing. The sense of unreality persists, a weird halo around the edges of her consciousness, but now that the fight is over, she feels like she's been brought back down to Earth.

Only...she hasn't. She's still holding this magical guitar, still wearing these unfamiliar clothes that somehow feel right all the same, and the person with her...when Mutsumi looks at Jamil, she seems to see another figure superimposed over him, and the briefest of memories flashes into her mind — the two of them, side by side. Wait, is it them? It feels so close, and yet so far away...

"Jamil...?"

It is Jamil, isn't it? She'd seen him transform. But he's also...someone else, now.