thenearshore | [OPEN] Ain't no stopping sunshine / Ain't no stopping me

Entry tags:

[OPEN] Ain't no stopping sunshine / Ain't no stopping me

Who: Kairi and OPEN
What: Catchall + Leo-Roxas Party Prep
When: All Month, but special prompts for July 1-2 (April 2nd-7th)
Where: The Far Shore, all over
Warnings: n/a

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PROMPT A - All Month: Before 10am (with or without Hajime)
[ Kairi and Hajime have taken to jogging in the mornings. You could very easily flag one or both of them down to say "Hi!" You could also use it as an excuse to have your character stop by the Artemis-Baldr temple later on if they see Kairi and remember something else they want to talk about. ]

PROMPT B - July 1-2: Lunch & Early Afternoons (Nimbus Errands)
[ After Kairi's request for pictures of Roxas or Leo goes up, she'll be bouncing between picking them up, buying supplies, and checking in at Forrest's temple for his side of the party prep. How is she getting around so fast? By riding Goten's little orange cloud friend. This time she actually got permission to borrow it for the 48 hours immediately before the party, so that hopefully Roxas wouldn't notice how long she was gone just from all the walking!

Feel free to flag her down from her cloud or assume she's visiting your character for a party-related reason. ]

PROMPT C - July 1-2: Late Afternoons & Evenings (Party Prep at Baldr's Place)
[ Maybe you saw Sora's announcement about the Leo + Roxas party, or Kairi's BBS request for pictures. Or maybe you saw Kairi out jogging earlier, or riding around on Nimbus doing her errands.

The point is that after she gets that much accomplished, she'll be holed up in a locked room of the Baldr temple getting decorations ready and stocking some of the non-perishable snacks for the party. ]

PROMPT D - All Month (not July 1-2): Afternoons & Evenings (Training)
[ Kairi has mentioned more than once to more than one shinki about Spell training, and more than one god about Swordsmanship or Hand-to-Hand training. Why not follow up on her offer? They can go somewhere else entirely to train, it doesn't have to be the Artemis Temple. After all, they might bother the 17 deer and 1 bear and... all of the other animals hanging around. ]

PROMPT E - Artemis-Baldr Temple famjam CR
[ You may be interested in Kairi's other log where she regained one of her memories. Feel free to tag that one or follow up in here too. ]

PROMPT F - All Month (not July 1-2): Wildcard!
[ I'm available on

frudence for plotting something out! Or if we talked about a thread previously, feel free to follow up on it here! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Wandering back to the school after taking a day of rest makes the most sense to Kairi, returning to see how things are going there. In the end, she finds not Hakkai but a fellow student she's only met in passing before. Without knowing him very well, the first thing she asks of course is whether he's a god or shinki.

Being a shinki means they have one simple option to practice on that doesn't require being inside a classroom with Hakkai, at least - since Kairi's been practicing spells with the other shinki a lot lately. Kind of funny that practicing a spell like Bind counts as "taking it easy" for her.

So here they are, out on the lawn of the school.]

[ Spell casting is a little different from psychic powers, he finds. Nagi isn't sure if having the aptitude for one gives you an edge for the other. But intuitively, he knows they are of different schools. Maybe that's why he thinks it could be a good idea to be trained by someone else in this.

He stands there staring at her, probably longer than is polite. ]

Where do we start?

[She doesn't mind taking a little longer to get acquainted with one another. All they know are each other's names.]

Well, how are you with Borderlines? Feel pretty good with both forms? Or cutting only what you want?

[She asks assuming that everyone even knows there are two forms the way she thinks of it - offensive and defensive, dagger and wall in her own colloquial way.]

[ Nagi nods. He's used both types of Borderlines, but hasn't seen a whole lot of action lately. ]

I could be better, [ he says honestly. It's not modesty speaking; he just knows there could always be room for improvement. ]

Well, the important thing is you know how they work. Some people I started trying to train on spells before they could even cast Borderline properly, so I try to make sure I ask now.

[ She smiles, warming up to him faster than he'll warm up to her, but this is a good start. ]

Spells are a lot like that - where the shinki who breaks through the Borderline wall is the one with a stronger willpower, it's the same with resisting and casting spells. Bind's the first one I learned and the one I've known the longest, so I could start with that one if that sounds good to you?

[ Not sure if he'd even heard of the spell before. ]

[ He doesn't smile back, but mostly because he's not in the habit of smiling, not because he's trying to be rude or anything. ]

I've read about it.

[ He took notes on it, too. But the book was stolen from him shortly thereafter, much to his vexation. At least he got what he needed from it. ]

You need to know their name to cast the spell.

[ She's used to it by now. ]

That's right. You know your name that your god gave you? It's that one.

[ As opposed to their real names. ]

I also found out that if a shinki has two names, you have to use all of them apparently.

[ Which is both a statement and a question. There was one time she offered to practice with a friend, who didn't tell her he had two names until she failed to use the spell on him. ]

[ He nods. That's good to know. Some shinki have multiple gods, as he well knows. He finds this concept rather odd. Why make yourself beholden to more than one person? He doesn't think it's a betrayal or anything so dramatic and emotional. He merely thinks it's not advantageous for a shinki to be at the call of more people than necessary. ]

I only have one.

[ He pauses and looks at her expectantly. ]

[ This is the part where she's starting to get more hesitant, because everyone else she's trained with she knew before now. So if she drags her feet a little, she thinks it makes sense. ]

Okay, me too. You can try it on me once and I'll try it on you and we can go back and forth, if that seems fair to you?

[ She wants to believe that if she's the one training him, she can at least resist him the first time, but that's what the training is for too. As much for her as for him. ]

[ He gets it. There's some degree of risk you have to take to gain knowledge. It's not like anything wishy washy like 'trust.' You have to endanger yourself a little bit to gain something more in return. Nagi has done the risk analysis. (He's also seen her posts on the network and has some idea of her helpfulness).

It's the same kind of risk he took with Schuldig, too. And he had more over him than Kairi. ]

Sure.

Alright then.

[ She relaxes a little more. ]

My vessel name is Gouki.

[ She sticks out her right ankle, where the character glows briefly. ]

And if you've read about it, you know the incantation, so go ahead.

[ Kairi braces her mind then, knowing that something restricting her movement is coming, and trying to feel that light inside her that connects to Roxas. Exemplar or not, she cares about him, and wants to be a Hafuri for his sake and hers. ]

[ If she's testing his knowledge, this is no need. Nagi is the diligent sort and has studied up on this, as much as he could, anyway. He glances at the tattoo on the ankle and nods.

He closes his eyes, picturing the word in his mind before he opens them again and calls out the name with a snap of his wrist. ]

Gouki ... Bind!

[ Kairi stands mostly still, but her hands go out to either side, then her right hand comes up into her Borderline pose. It's comfortable, a focus element she knows. Instead of actually saying 'Borderline', she just sets her expression and mindset as if she was - as if she was casting the Wall form out in front of her and repelling his spell the same way you would a ping pong ball.

She's the one who's practiced, she tells her self. She's the one who's gone up against a half dozen other shinki and repelled them too. She won't be bound by him. That's what she tries to believe.

At any rate, if he's learned about her through the BBS, knows how friendly she is and saw her speak out about Ablutions... this is the most intense he'll have seen her to date. ]

[ Nagi knows not to judge someone by their appearances. He doesn't look like much himself, being short and youngish, but he could stop bullets if he really wanted to. This girl is pretty good at this. Better than him, he thinks.

It's not a very good feeling, being bound. Nagi doesn't like it very much, but he knows he has to get accustomed to the feeling so he knows the ins and outs of it. Any moment's hesitation is enough to paralyze you, like a deer in the head-lights. It's disturbing and disorienting. ]

You've done this a lot?

[ He asks, pausing for a moment to gather himself for his next attempt. ]

[ She managed to resist his spell, and she gets a few attempts in on him too. "Riki... Bind!" But after several back and forth's, it's his turn again. She managed to Bind him, but he hasn't managed to bind her. So she smiles at his question. ]

Yes, I have. Over a month now.

[She started learning from Kazuma on June 4th, a very important day to her, because he'd seen her interest on the BBS. ]

With a lot of people too, with a lot of different learning styles. Taught a bunch of times too.

[ With a range of skills from Goten - pure intuition - to Erk - much more bookwormish. ]

Alright, your turn again.

[ So it doesn't take too long to get some mastery over it. It's just a matter of practice. This is probably Nagi's own setback, given how little he interacts with other shinki. Today is an attempt to rectify this, anyway. ]

Okay.

[ Nagi tried to teaching Gojyo how to move things with his mind, once. He wasn't a great teacher, probably because you can't really teach something you know intuitively. It's possibly the same with spells. You just know you can do it, and so you do. This is the mindset he has when he tries again: ]

Gouki ... Bind!

[ Kairi was distracted by trying to anticipate his timing. But then he said 'Okay' first and Kairi was a half second too early. This time, she ends up actually casting her Borderline instead of defending. She holds her hand out, saying: ]

BORDER--

[ But then the familiar chains start to wrap around her and her eyes go wide. It's a weird moment, because she doesn't like being bound any more than he does, but she supposes she should be proud he accomplished it.

So now she has to wait, hand outstretched in the Borderline gesture, until he releases her. ]

Edited 2017-04-30 22:59 (UTC)

[ It works, this time. Somehow, he had a feeling that it would. Is this why it worked? Or was she caught off guard? Maybe a combination of both. He tries to get a sense of that feeling for future reference.

The hold seems to keep her until he decides to stop. This takes a degree of concentration too, he finds. He pulls back mentally and the spell breaks. ]

It worked...

[She looks a little stunned when he lets her go, but that's to be expected. She's was being controlled and now she's not.]

Yeah, it did! Congratulations!

[Kairi can't really be too upset, considering that she got off several successful attempts on Nagi earlier.]

I guess we'll see if you can defend it as well as you can cast it now!

[She raises her hand, takes a deep breath, and is ready to go for another spell.]

Riki... Bind!

[And it works, at first. However, after five seconds of holding it like that, convinced that he hadn't been able to defend against her again... there's a small spark of light at his neck. And she feels her spell snap, like maybe he DID defend against it, but if so was that light a power of his...?]

[ Defending, he finds, needs more work. His brow furrows (or at least he does so in his mind) as he feels the telltale suffocation grip that paralyzes him each time. He uses his mind to push away from the sensation, thinking that perhaps if he concentrated hard enough, he can dissolve the spell before she has the chance to release him.

And it seemingly works, when suddenly he can breathe again and the constricting feeling evaporates. He stakes a brief stumble forward. ]

...

[ He's presses his fingers reflexively to his neck where he thought he saw a flash of light. ]

Did I just break your spell?

I don't know, did you?

[She points at her neck.]

I saw something glow there. Was that a power you have? I don't have any magic myself, but I know some shinki do...

[And that's why she's had to focus so much on her Shinki abilities.]

No, I can move things with... [ Glow? So she saw something too? But that's where...

His eyes grow wide. He pulls his collar down and tries to take a look. It's an awkward angle, so it's hard to tell. Is it really gone? ]

[She knows he was going to say something else, but he seems to be really confused so she steps closer to try and help.]

What is it?

[She holds up her phone.]

If you think something's wrong, I can take a picture with my phone and show it to you?

[ Nagi is fiercely private, so the idea of getting his picture taken on someone else's phone doesn't sit well with him. He shakes his head and pulls out his own phone, turning the camera to selfie mode (he doesn't take those very much...or indeed at all) and stares at his own reflection. ]

It's gone...

[ He touches his fingers to his neck where his tattoo used to be. What does this mean? ]

[Well now she's still worried, but she does put her phone away.]

What's gone?

[She has a suspicion, but she's never seen it happen in person before... and apparently that can break a spell? Geez. What a way to find out...]

[OPEN] Ain't no stopping sunshine / Ain't no stopping me

M05 w/ Nagi - afternoon of July 10th

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