open/catchall: a sensei's job is never done

[reformedsinner]

Who: Cho Hakkai and you!
What: Kicking around the Heavens, refereeing pet conflicts, providing an education and continuing to test his new medication powers on unknowing human subjects
Where: Various
When: August 6 - 10, 2016

Chicken Feed - August 6

[Hakkai owes a few thank-yous for the help he got while he was sick. As annoying as it is to have needed so much help, he can't exactly ignore it; so he's gone the domestic route, made up a truly astounding number of small fruit baskets and other little food gifts, and is paying visits to the temples of his helpers to leave them by the front door.

He knocks first, of course, to deliver his thanks in person, but if no one answers he'll just leave the basket with its little thank-you tag.

At Sharak Sanzo's temple, he encounters a slight snag, namely, the fact that he can't seem to get anywhere near close enough to leave the basket on the front stoop. It's shielded, and he's going to have to wait until a resident wanders by.

A few of the resident chickens notice his presence, and peck their way thoughtfully in his direction, and Hakkai considers them, and considers the basket he's brought Sharak... and opens up the large bag of freeze-dried mealworm treats to start tossing them to the chickens. Until someone notices and lets him in, passersby may notice Hakkai crouched on the roadside surrounded by a dozen eager hens, offering little dried worms to each one by hand. It's only a matter of time before he starts convincing them to do tricks.]

Reading, Rites & 'Rithmetic - August 8 & 10

[Hakkai's at the school for his classes as usual, but before and after class, he's also putting up some hand-written flyers in the downstairs hallway. They read,

Seeking Shinki & Anyone Willing to Teach Shinki Spells

Practical Daily Lessons: Borderlines, Spellcasting, Shinki Combat Advice

Knowledge Shared is Knowledge Gained. Contact Cho Hakkai If Interested.

They're also illustrated with helpful hand-drawn ayakashi in a creepy, technically proficient but over-detailed style that makes the creatures even more grotesque. Hakkai, when not teaching or pasting up flyers, can be found in the library on the ground floor grading math workbooks.]

Herding Cats - August 9

Kishi, he doesn't want to play with you.

[Hakkai is standing in his temple's entryway, doors thrown wide, addressing a black-and-white cat in an exasperated tone. The cat is on his hind legs, pawing at Hakkai's knee and patting his thigh entreatingly as he meows at the white dragon curled up on Hakkai's shoulders. Another cat, a grayish tabby, trots up to the tableau, sits down, looks up at the dragon and adds her demanding meow to the first cat's.

Hakkai looks like he's developing a headache.]

Musha, no. Kishi! Down.

[Reluctantly, the black-and-white cat drops back down to his haunches and meows again. Hakkai lifts a finger scoldingly in their direction.] Go play.

[Suddenly, Jeep flares his wings, catches the wind, and drops from Hakkai's shoulders to soar up and a few feet further away from the entryway, into the front street. Musha and Kishi tear after him, eager paws kicking up dust from the roadway.

Jeep, midair, transforms, and a jeep thuds down onto the street right in front of the cats' noses. They yowl, hiss, and break for the safety of the temple, moving so fast there's nothing but a few floating hairs left in their wake. The Jeep's headlights blink on and off in something that looks a lot like silent, smug laughter, and Hakkai sighs wearily.]

Well, that's one way to teach them.

Heavenly Delivery Service - August 6 - 10

[When he's not otherwise occupied, Hakkai's still taking his homemade, and divinely powerful, medicines down to followers praying for healing. He has a large and carefully sectioned toolbox, padded with folded cloth for the glass jars and bottles, that goes with him, and a long handwritten list of prayers. Even with teleportation taking him to the general area, he's having to do some walking around and asking directions before he finds the proper house.

It doesn't help that quite a lot of them are in apartment buildings, although, at least, gods don't need to be buzzed in by a resident.

Anyone near enough to one of his prayer delivery locations might find themselves approached by a young man in a monocle, clearing his throat politely as he shifts the extremely large and heavy toolbox he's holding, and glances down at a memo pad in his free hand.]

Excuse me. Would you happen to know where...

[He flips a page.]

Happy Takada Apartments is? It's supposed to be somewhere in this neighborhood.

Comments

[smilingbullet]

[ Obviously it’s fun to creep people out at times too. ] I’m just being honest.

Yeah, predicting how people’ll take it isn’t all that easy. I didn’t know you draw though.

[ You learn new things about your friends occasionally, which is also fun. ]

[reformedsinner]

Yes, it's a hobby I tried picking up a while back!

[Although his subjects tended to protest the depictions... well, at least ayakashi are supposed to look a little creepy.

With a cheerful little chuckle, he shrugs.]

So, would you be interested in attending, D2? Or perhaps teaching? There are quite a few new shinki who could use help with their borderlines, or would like to learn spells.

[smilingbullet]

Yeah? It's a cool hobby. And you do it well.

[ He looks at the text on the flyer, and he hums thoughtfully. ]

I guess I could help a little with some spells. I'm still learning some things myself, though, and I dunno how good I'll be at it.

[ Sometimes, he lacks confidence. Even though he's very capable once he's out in the field. ]

[reformedsinner]

Oh, really? Which ones have you learned?

[He might lack confidence, but if he just has the knowledge--

Well, Hakkai only knows Bind himself. He'd been more focused on combat applications, and the more new shinki who know certain spells already, the more they can share them. And prove, perhaps, that they can be trusted with that kind of information... or just be better prepared, if necessary, to fight back. He still doesn't trust the authorities in the Heavens himself.]

[smilingbullet]

Bind and silence, but I haven’t really gotten to try them out much. It’s sort of hard to find people who’re willing to let someone try them out on them.

[ Sometimes, trust plays a role in these things.

He knows them more theoretically than practically. And he knows more about the Bind spell, since he copied the book on it from the library while he had the chance, and has reread the text several times and done what he can to practice both. ]

But teaching is learning, right?

[ Also, they probably shouldn’t trust the authorities in Heaven. They don’t trust them, so why should they trust them when they don’t? ]

[reformedsinner]

It's one of the most effective learning methods. [Hakkai smiles cheerfully at D2.]

I know Bind, myself -- Kazuma taught me -- but it's the only spell I had the chance to master, and I can't use it now.

[He shrugs, still smiling, and adds:]

But I should still be able to teach it. You'd be very welcome as a teacher too, should you wish to get in a little extra practice.

[smilingbullet]

Mm, no, I guess it’d be hard for you to do that now.

[ No god can use shinki spells, so that’s only natural. ]

I’ll think about it. It would be useful for more people than me, trying and seeing something makes a difference from only hearing about it. But if anyone can teach it from theory it’s you.

[reformedsinner]

I can, but I can't teach spells I don't know -- so I'm really only able to teach Bind.

[He shrugs, smiling.] And borderlines, of course. I think some of our new shinki still need help with that.

[smilingbullet]

I figured, demonstrations are pretty useful in learning.

[ He sighs. He knows from having to teach one of his friends who had arrived the same day as him about borderlines and a lot of other things much later than she should have learned them. ] How is borderlines not the first thing they’re taught at the training sessions? It should be obligatory. [ A LOT of things should be obligatory. If only for the sake of self defense or self preservation or...stuff. ]

[reformedsinner]

Not everyone wants to ask for help when they arrive, I suppose. There's only so much you can do... and it takes some people longer to master it than others!

[Some people have special circumstances, too. Yata and his odd fire problem, for example. Hakkai shrugs.]

They do try to teach it, but still.

[smilingbullet]

Yeah, I know. [ SIGH ] But it’s because it takes a different amount of time for different people that they ought to start as soon as possible. Then they have more time to practice.

[ But yeah, there are some cases of special circumstances. He would find "overprotective god" in the badder, counterproductive kind of special circumstance. They mean well, but it ends up being a bit of a problem sometimes. ]

[reformedsinner]

I can't disagree. Really, the people who don't start early are only hurting themselves.

That's why I think this could be useful, though!

[They should have realized how important it is to learn by the time they've been around for a little while, and if they need the extra practice, practicing under the eye of a more experienced shinki is more helpful than practicing alone.]

[smilingbullet]

It definitely could, yeah.

[ Honestly, there’s no doubt about it. ]

Are you going to be putting up flyers around the Far Shore, too?

[reformedsinner]

Once I've made a few more, I'll have to, yes. Please feel free to spread the word yourself!

[He pauses, and adds, delicately:] But I'd rather not advertise on the BBS. Most of the older gods are very encouraging, but some seem ambivalent about the newest shinki learning too many powerful techniques. It might appear threatening.

[smilingbullet]

Sure, I will do that. [ This is about things that every shinki should know. ]

Are they afraid that we'll try to overthrow them or something? [ There are certainly some things that needs to be fixed but overthrowing them would not be the best solution to the problems. ]

[reformedsinner]

I'm afraid Susano'o may have made a bad impression.

[One of the new gods has already tried a coup, after all. It ended with his intestines strewn across the Great Hall and a Heaven full of corrupted, controlled ayakashi, and his shinki in the custody of Amaterasu's shinki.

But he'd tried. It's a wonder they haven't kept the new gods and shinki under stricter control. Amaterasu seems to be ... forgiving.]

[smilingbullet]

[ He makes a face. He’s heard a little about that, though it happened before he showed up and hearsay is only hearsay in the end. Not all information may be completely accurate. ]

One person’s actions isn’t everybody’s actions. But it’s easy for people to do that.

[reformedsinner]

No, one person's actions are only that person's, but when they don't know any of the newcomers well enough to trust us....

[He shrugs.]

All we can do is prove ourselves trustworthy, and take care of our own interests in the meantime.

[smilingbullet]

Yeah, they don't. And they need to give people a chance to be able to do that. On the other hand, they don't really give us reason to properly trust them in return, if most of them avoid us all the time.

[ Sigh. Well, they can take care of their own interests but prove themselves trustworthy would be a little harder without both sides being willing. ]

As long as people are mistrustful of each other, or at least try to work with each other, things won't get easier for anyone.

[reformedsinner]

I agree. Perhaps we'll convince them to open up, though, eventually.

They have already grown more open to the newcomers; when I first arrived, they were much less friendly.

[Which is saying something. Still, they'll nod to newly arrived gods and shinki on the street now, and won't avoid them around the meeting hall. It's something.]

[smilingbullet]

One can only hope and try.

[ Though he's sure some people on their end are not at all helping, too. ]

Was it very bad back then?

[reformedsinner]

Mm. I think they were putting more effort into... controlling us at first.

[He shrugs, glancing away.] And there were some unfortunate events, as well, that eroded trust. I'm not sure how many of us were here for White Day anymore.

[smilingbullet]

I see... How were they trying to do that?

[ "Unfortunate events" could be a lot of different things, but in these situations they might be extra bad. ]

What happened during White Day?

[reformedsinner]

They tended to keep us busy with odd-jobs, and avoid sharing any information. It's not too different, to be fair.

... as for White Day, well. We were given boxes of chocolates that had been infected by ayakashi and asked to distribute them to humans. Any gods or shinki who tried to eat them were badly blighted, and any humans who ate them were plunged into extreme despair. I'm afraid there were quite a few deaths.

[Although they'd tried to stop it, and destroy the ayakashi, once they realized what they were doing. There had just been too many of them, in the end.]

[smilingbullet]

Yeah, that does not sound very hard. It’s not like they don’t have us do stuff that count as odd-jobs now, but it sounds like you weren’t allowed to be involved with the bigger stuff?

[ What about prayers? God can still hear them? He doesn’t know how that works. But were they allowed to go fulfill them?

His eyes narrows as he takes in the full extent of what the White Day incident would mean. ]

Who exactly was it that made and gave you that chocolate?