006 | High School Debut

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: Substitute teaching
When: All day April 5
Where: A large public school in Tokyo
Summary: There are too many teachers sick and the Far Shore residents need to help fill in!



For some reason or another, many teachers have gotten sick just as the new school year is starting! In a panic, the school is seeking out every substitute teacher they can find, which is still not enough, and so the gods have to step in as reinforcements. And the Heavens are insisting on Far Shore residents helping strictly because this sickness seems so darn suspicious.

So anyone who looks old enough is being asked to step in as a substitute teacher and anyone who looks young enough is being asked to blend in as a new student, all to help the school and find out what exactly is causing this mysterious illness plaguing only the teachers of this school. There are many subjects open to teach and all Far Shore residents are expected to act as if they properly belong in this school while conducting their investigation. That means you'll have to teach properly or attend classes, depending on which role you've taken on.

Some gods might even find it useful to try and get information out of students by possessing one of their own, therefore guaranteeing the trust of the others around them. It's all up to you how you choose to investigate!

Newcomers will find the following note in their pockets as they are transferred to the school:

Greetings and apologies for the strange introduction.

I am sure you have many questions and concerns, but you have appeared at a very inconvenient time. Please attempt to help us, if you can, and we will reward you to the best of our abilities.

If you have any questions, you can seek out the counselor. Too many students underestimate what a good counselling session can do towards helping to alleviate their fears and uncertainties.

Kindest regards,
☼ Amaterasu ☼



Classes

Being a big school, there are dozens of different subjects available. As teachers, you can practically teach anything you would like to, and as students you are facing a constant stream of completely different kinds of information. Maybe the school needs to tone it down a bit on how many different subjects they offer...

Hallways

The hallways are always a great place to mingle and get to know the other students in the school. You'll see all sorts in the hallways, ranging from the beautiful girls being followed by their fanboys all the way to the delinquents who are promptly making their way away from the classrooms for the rest of the day. Hopefully somebody around here will be able to give you a heads up as to what's going on.

Lunch

Lunchtime is the easiest time to gather gossip and information. Whether you are staying in the classroom with a bento or heading to the cafeteria to wrestle for some bread or spending your lunch in the faculty room with the rest of the not-sick teachers, you will find that both the students and the faculty are more prone to chatting during lunch. And a lot of them talk about a curse laid on the school because of the late principal...

Counselling

Surprisingly enough, there is a white-robed shinki in the counselling office of the school, and the golden chrysanthemum of Amaterasu can be found on her tunic as well as on the door to her small personal office. Oddly, all of the other students and faculty keep passing the door by, but the counselling shinki simply continues to smile gently all the same.

FINAL BOSS

Turns out there is something causing the illness in the teachers, and it's an exceedingly large ayakashi, one so large that no single god could possibly take it down. You'll have to all work together to weaken it enough for the rending to work on it.

The battle for the FINAL BOSS will be posted on the OOC date of July 17, all threads involving destroying him should go there when it is posted. All other events leading up to the FINAL BOSS battle should slowly build to figuring out that an ayakashi is at work.



In Summary:

• Blend in
• Make sure to go to class
• Don't forget lunch!
• Investigate the illness
• Seek counselling if you need it
• Defeat the FINAL BOSS
• Have fun~

Comments

[ lunch ]

[killsthebuddha]

[ Sanzo is taken aback by the immediacy of how much he regrets stepping into the faculty lounge. There's nothing that should set his heart to racing, but it is. It feels like...

He isn't sure. Nothing he's experienced before in his too-limited memory, but then nothing about the way his intuition and sense of his surroundings could be logically defined. Of everything he's run into during this play-pretend bullshit, this puts him off balance.

It's just reflex, and one that he's going to choke down because like hell he's going to let the cockroach and Elsa catch on to anything going on in his head. The lounge is sparsely populated with some asshole puttering around and talking to some scant number of teachers, and there are no ayakashi.

Rubbing the bridge of his nose as if to ward off a headache, he moves to sit at a table by himself. ]

[existentialcrisis]

[ And then Ukoku is there, flopping down into a chair across from him. His little throwaway coffee cup is almost empty; at this point it's just a semi-obvious prop.

He doesn't say anything immediately. His expression, though, speaks volumes: it's cheerful and content and a little smug all at once, like someone just told him he's won a month-long vacation.

Finally he leans partway across the table over his coffee cup, voice low and solicitous: ]

Don't be so unfriendly.

[killsthebuddha]

[ Some small amount of surprise reaches his face for a moment, but then he's pressing his lips together in a flat, disapproving line. Pulling back as much as his seat allows him in reflexive response to the way the man leans in, he makes no effort to hide his tense body language.

This isn't a Near Shore mortal he's dealing with. He doesn't have to. ]

Get out of my face. [ The words come out as a low snarl. ]

[existentialcrisis]

[ Nothing. Relative to the reaction he expected, anyway.

Ukoku drums his fingertips on the tabletop once and withdraws, back to his own side, raising his hands in surrender. ]

Sorry! You just look so tense. Is everything all right?

[killsthebuddha]

[ A week and a half ago, he awoke to realize he's an amnesiac forced into a position of obligate servitude. A day after that, the faux-god and her first shinki had gone to the underworld and returned battered and nearly broken. Yesterday, crazed evil spirit lizards had tried to molest him, and he'd learned that he was, somehow, tied to two people here.

Today, he met two men that looked alarmingly like them. He's fairly convinced he's the damaged, failed reincarnation of someone they knew. If he thinks about the past, he's reasonably certain he'll die. Right now, for no reason whatsoever, there is a low grade, atavistic sense of wrongness pushing at the edges of his conscious mind. He doesn't know why, and presently he has to try to keep from stinging two faux-gods because he'd clearly gone awry when making his life choices.

Nothing is currently anywhere near right. Pride makes him stubbornly set his jaw and refuse to acknowledge it. ]

How's this your business? [ He bites out the words, and regrets them almost immediately. That invited response rather than shut the whole thing down.

He should have gone for a simpler "fuck off." ]

[existentialcrisis]

[ Which totally would have worked.

Some of Ukoku's outward friendly demeanor slips away, and he regards Sanzo in silence for a moment, hands laced together under his chin.

Such an angry boy. ]

Well, it's not. [ He sits back, watching a few other teachers across the room idly. ] But a little stress is understandable. They really throw you to the dogs here, don't they?

[killsthebuddha]

[ Usually, the aimless hostility works pretty damn well to drive people off. It's his first line of defense, and it's rare that someone disregards it so blithely.

No, not blithely. He sees that shift, recognizes what he thinks to be a facade. It's not hard to when, even as the man looked around the room, he doesn't think he should look away. What the hell did this fucking weirdo in the dinosaur-print shirt want?

His eyes widen in something like recognition before narrowing suspiciously again. ] Whoever the hell you think you're talking to, you're not. [ He's jumping to conclusions, but with the day he's had, it'd make too much sense. ]

[existentialcrisis]

[ Ukoku looks back at him slowly, mild and inscrutable. What a thing to say. ]

Is that true? I am talking to someone, unless this is all my imagination—but I don't even know your name. [ He pauses, picking apart the edge of his coffee cup. ] Maybe you don't have one.

[ Would that bother him? That's an intriguing idea. ]

[killsthebuddha]

[ Names? He's got too many of them. Two mark along his spine, hidden away- Youki, Genki. But maybe it does bother him. He'd have bristled regardless, but the dig gets him to actually volunteer information even if he thinks he's been recognized ]

It's Genjo Sanzo. [ He had names, but that one's his. It should, by all rights, have been wiped clean like so much else, but fragments had been left behind. A name. A priest's raiment. A gun. A scroll he kept close because he felt like he couldn't dare part with it, hidden by the untucked button-down shirt he wore.

They're his. They shouldn't be, but they're his. ]

[existentialcrisis]

Genjo Sanzo.

[ He says it as if it presents a problem, frowning at Sanzo, chin propped in his hand. ]

You don't really look like a Genjo Sanzo.

[killsthebuddha]

[ He crosses his arms, willing himself into a more disinterested posture. It's a barely passable facade from a distance and he knows it, much less up close. He needed to regain some control here, of his reactions if nothing else. ]

But you look like an asshole, and here we are.

[existentialcrisis]

[ He laughs even though it's just about the response he would have expected—these little I'm not even bothered by any of this and I don't care at all please believe me reactions are always welcome. ]

That's no way to talk to your colleagues! Relax, Genjo.

[killsthebuddha]

[ Maybe he was reading too much into this. It doesn't help that he's so unsettled, his nerves jangling. It's worse to know that his blanket hostility is getting him nothing.

Goddamn is he so damn done with today. ]

Tch, don't lump me in with the likes of you.

[ But he's rapidly constructing that 'don't care' appearance he'd been going for. He makes himself glance away, running his fingers through his hair in a studied gesture of disinterest. ]

[existentialcrisis]

'The likes of you,' he says. You must know something about me that I don't.

[ Ukoku just sits there for a moment, smiling. ]

Well! I'll let you sulk in peace. [ He gets up. ] It was very nice to meet you, Genjo Sanzo.

[killsthebuddha]

Yeah, you're some shitty dinosaur shirt wearing fake-god.

[ It comes out as more as an under-the-breath mutter to himself than a direct statement to the man. His eyes cut back to him when he stands, narrow and scrutinizing in sharp contrast to his studied posture.

He doesn't ask who he's dealing with here. He doesn't want to prolong the conversation, and it's a galling to realize just how tightly that ominous sense gripped him.

But it's as undeniable as a child's fear of the dark. ]