madimpossibledreamer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
madimpossibledreamer) wrote2025-07-08 02:10 pm
madimpossibledreamer) wrote2025-07-08 02:10 pm
Entry tags:
Promising Youth
Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/SMT Devil Summoner Raidou Kuzunoha (Will of the Yatagarasu)
Summary: Ethan wants Raidou's help to test something.
Word Count: 1261
Rating: Teen
Ethan snarls. It’s kind of impressive that he manages to be worse about jealousy than Xander is. The whole actual adult love triangle was a little wild, but maybe it actually made sense that once the skeletons started coming out of Giles’ closet, they’d all fall out at once. Among other things, he gets a feeling that Giles is mostly focusing on Jenny as more punishment for Ethan, which is working but is also getting a little too soap opera for Xander’s taste. “Oh, stop your worrying. I wouldn’t have anything bad happen to my protégé.”
Xander finds himself fiddling with the hilt of his sword. He’s picked up a few habits from his time as Raidou. Honestly, the sword might be kind of like his safety blanket, along with the gun. A physical representation of the knowledge that he’ll never be completely helpless ever again. They call those symbols, and sometimes even talismans, his mind reminds him. “I’m definitely not your apprentice.”
“Who else around here summons demons?” Admittedly, the chaos sorceror is a bit of an expert, even if he does remind the 18th uncomfortably of all those stories he’d heard of Rasputin.
“Multiple people. Including Giles,” Xander points out calmly.
“...I suppose you are correct, but I am the one with the most experience,” Ethan counters, not stumped for long. “In any case, I consulted with Rupert.”
Gouto here would express his disbelief, loudly. Xander just inwardly shrugs and sharpens his sense of observation. He can’t fully protect himself from betrayal or ambush, but if he’s paying attention it can certainly help.
And he doesn’t recognize this entrance into the high school. It wouldn’t be out of the question that the original architects included secret passages or whatever, because this is Sunnydale, but also he could be equally and easily convinced it’s something Ethan did. He’s not too worried about getting caught with weapons on school grounds, partly because, well, they’ve never gotten called on it before and partly because if even the Troll looking for something to get them all in trouble doesn’t catch it, then he’s probably pretty safe. Actually, the most pushback he’d gotten had been from Giles, skeptical about the use of guns. Raidou has, so far, found that it’s mostly a matter of using the right ammo, the same as the sword.
“If anything goes wrong, they will come looking,” Ethan assures, and for a moment Xander panics a little. That sounds like something to keep him docile until he’s already sacrificed. But then, as Ethan’s hand shakes a little when bringing items out of his bag of tricks, it becomes clear that...no. He’s concerned. He hadn’t even been concerned when they’d been breaking his connection to Janus. His hands are, fortunately, steady as he lays out the painted wood he’d stored in the weapons cage.
And suddenly Raidou gets it. More symbols. He tries not to get his hopes up, but he can’t see any other reason why a top-down view of two fox statues and the front of a shrine would be painted carefully on the boards. It’s when Ethan stands between the two, gestures for Xander to stand just behind the statues, and starts chanting with familiar words that Xander knows his hunch is correct, though, he has to caution himself, just because the effort is being made does not mean it will work. Especially as it has been modified.
Lights begin to glow, the room spinning and fading around him. He closes his eyes against it, a seasoned Devil Summoner’s precaution against entering dizzy or worse, and then when the feeling fades and he opens his eyes, he can tell at a glance this is the Dark Realm of Sunnydale, and his guess that Ethan had modified the Ritual of Entry to allow himself to serve as both anchor and participate himself had been correct. They stand next to a Dragon Cave, the energy twisting skyward.
“I suspected being a disciple of Janus would help here,” Ethan announces with satisfaction. “I tried the same with Rupert at our lovely headquarters, but it failed. Our best guess is that it required the ambient energy from the Hellmouth to work, which we have now demonstrated to be the case. But the Cave there was connected to the outside world, correct?”
“Yes, usually to areas important to the business of Devil Summoning: places where they gather, perform fusions, and the like. I can’t see why the stronghold of the Yamatarasu wouldn’t count.” Okay, it’s a glorified headquarters, a refurbished abandoned mansion in town that they’d bought and remade to their own ends, but given the number of people that had remained involved even after Halloween, with some lingering abilities and skills, it’s not as big of an exaggeration as it might have been.
They find that yes, that works. They do have to make the trek back to the library, but any reluctance or exhaustion has vanished entirely. Exiting to the library is also, apparently, possible. They only fight enough of the enemies in the immediate area (feral versions of vampires, what a surprise) to confirm that he can gain mag from doing so, and he even manages to find and confine a Dark Watcher, a giant humanoid ghost that doesn’t say anything. It’d been more of an experiment than anything, because the fact that it doesn’t speak creeps the hell out of him, but it is, supposedly, a Wind Order demon with Scout, which he had been kind of wanting, so it’s...better than nothing. He’ll probably want to figure out the trick to summoning two at once before he goes experimenting there, though.
“I’m glad to find you are all right, Xander,” Nix informs him with a smile. He’s curious about how much the demons can sense inside the tubes, but questions of that kind can wait until later. Now that he knows he can.
“Same,” he admits, putting a hand on his hat and turning to Ethan, blushing a little—he’d forgotten how nice and supportive the demon was. “Thank you so much.”
“I thought, some Devil Summoners if we can’t even summon devils,” Ethan states modestly, but it’s slightly undermined by the smug air he’s exuding. “If you could lend me one of your empty Tubes, I can compare it to, say, a jinn’s ring and see if I can’t figure out a way to manufacture one as well.”
“Probably the trickiest part is the mag source inside.” Raidou doesn’t know exactly how it works, but he does know there’s something in there to sustain the demons while they’re confined.
“I could try to help. And if I cannot explain well enough, Žiburinis might know,” Nix suggests, and, well, it’s worth a try. Raidou can practice nearby while the two tinker.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/SMT Devil Summoner Raidou Kuzunoha (Will of the Yatagarasu)
Summary: Ethan wants Raidou's help to test something.
Word Count: 1261
Rating: Teen
It’s a little strange. Technically, Xander’s never actually had Gouto following him around and commenting on absolutely everything, but he still remembers that, and if nothing else, he did actually have demons doing it, in experiences that actually happened and weren’t just false memories. Walking now through life in silence with no one commenting on everything other than in his own mind is a little surreal. Xander himself is no stranger to voicing the sarcastic observations, but Raidou had gotten a little out of practice. It’s kind of important someone say it here, though, so he does. “You do realize if something happens to me, you’re going to be sleeping on the couch, and you can’t afford to do anything else to scare him off at the moment.”
Ethan snarls. It’s kind of impressive that he manages to be worse about jealousy than Xander is. The whole actual adult love triangle was a little wild, but maybe it actually made sense that once the skeletons started coming out of Giles’ closet, they’d all fall out at once. Among other things, he gets a feeling that Giles is mostly focusing on Jenny as more punishment for Ethan, which is working but is also getting a little too soap opera for Xander’s taste. “Oh, stop your worrying. I wouldn’t have anything bad happen to my protégé.”
Xander finds himself fiddling with the hilt of his sword. He’s picked up a few habits from his time as Raidou. Honestly, the sword might be kind of like his safety blanket, along with the gun. A physical representation of the knowledge that he’ll never be completely helpless ever again. They call those symbols, and sometimes even talismans, his mind reminds him. “I’m definitely not your apprentice.”
“Who else around here summons demons?” Admittedly, the chaos sorceror is a bit of an expert, even if he does remind the 18th uncomfortably of all those stories he’d heard of Rasputin.
“Multiple people. Including Giles,” Xander points out calmly.
“...I suppose you are correct, but I am the one with the most experience,” Ethan counters, not stumped for long. “In any case, I consulted with Rupert.”
Gouto here would express his disbelief, loudly. Xander just inwardly shrugs and sharpens his sense of observation. He can’t fully protect himself from betrayal or ambush, but if he’s paying attention it can certainly help.
And he doesn’t recognize this entrance into the high school. It wouldn’t be out of the question that the original architects included secret passages or whatever, because this is Sunnydale, but also he could be equally and easily convinced it’s something Ethan did. He’s not too worried about getting caught with weapons on school grounds, partly because, well, they’ve never gotten called on it before and partly because if even the Troll looking for something to get them all in trouble doesn’t catch it, then he’s probably pretty safe. Actually, the most pushback he’d gotten had been from Giles, skeptical about the use of guns. Raidou has, so far, found that it’s mostly a matter of using the right ammo, the same as the sword.
“If anything goes wrong, they will come looking,” Ethan assures, and for a moment Xander panics a little. That sounds like something to keep him docile until he’s already sacrificed. But then, as Ethan’s hand shakes a little when bringing items out of his bag of tricks, it becomes clear that...no. He’s concerned. He hadn’t even been concerned when they’d been breaking his connection to Janus. His hands are, fortunately, steady as he lays out the painted wood he’d stored in the weapons cage.
And suddenly Raidou gets it. More symbols. He tries not to get his hopes up, but he can’t see any other reason why a top-down view of two fox statues and the front of a shrine would be painted carefully on the boards. It’s when Ethan stands between the two, gestures for Xander to stand just behind the statues, and starts chanting with familiar words that Xander knows his hunch is correct, though, he has to caution himself, just because the effort is being made does not mean it will work. Especially as it has been modified.
Lights begin to glow, the room spinning and fading around him. He closes his eyes against it, a seasoned Devil Summoner’s precaution against entering dizzy or worse, and then when the feeling fades and he opens his eyes, he can tell at a glance this is the Dark Realm of Sunnydale, and his guess that Ethan had modified the Ritual of Entry to allow himself to serve as both anchor and participate himself had been correct. They stand next to a Dragon Cave, the energy twisting skyward.
“I suspected being a disciple of Janus would help here,” Ethan announces with satisfaction. “I tried the same with Rupert at our lovely headquarters, but it failed. Our best guess is that it required the ambient energy from the Hellmouth to work, which we have now demonstrated to be the case. But the Cave there was connected to the outside world, correct?”
“Yes, usually to areas important to the business of Devil Summoning: places where they gather, perform fusions, and the like. I can’t see why the stronghold of the Yamatarasu wouldn’t count.” Okay, it’s a glorified headquarters, a refurbished abandoned mansion in town that they’d bought and remade to their own ends, but given the number of people that had remained involved even after Halloween, with some lingering abilities and skills, it’s not as big of an exaggeration as it might have been.
They find that yes, that works. They do have to make the trek back to the library, but any reluctance or exhaustion has vanished entirely. Exiting to the library is also, apparently, possible. They only fight enough of the enemies in the immediate area (feral versions of vampires, what a surprise) to confirm that he can gain mag from doing so, and he even manages to find and confine a Dark Watcher, a giant humanoid ghost that doesn’t say anything. It’d been more of an experiment than anything, because the fact that it doesn’t speak creeps the hell out of him, but it is, supposedly, a Wind Order demon with Scout, which he had been kind of wanting, so it’s...better than nothing. He’ll probably want to figure out the trick to summoning two at once before he goes experimenting there, though.
“I’m glad to find you are all right, Xander,” Nix informs him with a smile. He’s curious about how much the demons can sense inside the tubes, but questions of that kind can wait until later. Now that he knows he can.
“Same,” he admits, putting a hand on his hat and turning to Ethan, blushing a little—he’d forgotten how nice and supportive the demon was. “Thank you so much.”
“I thought, some Devil Summoners if we can’t even summon devils,” Ethan states modestly, but it’s slightly undermined by the smug air he’s exuding. “If you could lend me one of your empty Tubes, I can compare it to, say, a jinn’s ring and see if I can’t figure out a way to manufacture one as well.”
“Probably the trickiest part is the mag source inside.” Raidou doesn’t know exactly how it works, but he does know there’s something in there to sustain the demons while they’re confined.
“I could try to help. And if I cannot explain well enough, Žiburinis might know,” Nix suggests, and, well, it’s worth a try. Raidou can practice nearby while the two tinker.