23 - Crazy Cat Shuffle

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: Crazy Cat Shuffle
When: September 20
Where: Shibuya & Ikebukuro, as well as the Far Shore
Summary: The new Crazy Cat mascot keychains are sparking real passion in Tokyo's hot spots. Brawls have broken out over the extra-rare versions, and all of this angst is attracting ayakashi. The gods have been asked to step in before things get out of control.







Crossing Crisis

The Shibuya scramble crossing is always busy, but it's especially wild today. Ten new Crazy Cat vending machines have been installed at the mouth of the alley across from Shibuya Station's exit. Rumors are flying that these machines have extra Blue-Star Cats in them: the very rarest kind! A crowd of hundreds of excited fans have gathered, but the people at the front of the lines are buying lots of cats, and the mood is starting to grow sour as the people at the back of the lines begin to wonder if there will be any left by the time it's their turn.

This crowd needs crossing guards... or just someone who can snag some of those ultra-rare Cats and sell them to the back of the line for crazy cash. Everything a god does is righteous, after all.

Sunshine Struggle

Crazy Cat machines dot the Sunshine City complex in Ikebukuro. The machines here are attracting some particularly nasty ayakashi: jealous little purple creatures with too many legs that stoke buyers' envy and need for more and better collectibles. Under their influence, it's not just the Cats going fast. The local stores are selling out of everything cute on the shelves.

Worse, some of the ayakashi victims are turning to theft when they run out of pocket money. Time to exterminate those bugs before they start a new crime wave.

Taking Stock

Accident? Sabotage? No one's telling, but a delivery truck carrying boxes of new keychains to restock the machines blew a tire and overturned on a major street. Under the influence of those greedy little ayakashi, collectors are descending on the wreck to snag their favorites before the police show up.

The dazed driver doesn't know what to do, the crowd is starting to get violent, and those Cats do look amazingly cute. And appealing. And, for that matter, valuable.

Bad Kitty

The cat keychains are super cute! Even gods or shinki might be tempted to buy one and take it home, but taking these keychains back to the Far Shore will give away their hidden secret. It's not just human envy that's attracting ayakashi to the Crazy Cats. There are ayakashi hiding inside this batch of cute kitty dolls, and bringing them through a shrine to the Far Shore will force the hidden creatures out of their plushie prisons.

They're big, they're mad, and they're hungry. And the Heavens are full of souls that smell delicious.

The ayakashi escaping from Crazy Cat dolls on the Far Shore resemble gigantic (taller than a person at the shoulder) versions of the cute plushie cats, with very real and sharp teeth and claws. They run and attack at random once released from the dolls, so even gods and shinki who did not bring the toys back could be faced with a fight. The patrolling shinki will do their best to hold them back with borderlines, but they need help to rend these crazy cats before they do too much damage!

In Summary:

• Placate the crowds
• Squash bitty ayakashi
• Struggle with temptation
• Defeat the cat invasion
• Have fun~

Comments

[blizzardrock]

...Mhm. [He buries his head in his arms.] Sorry.

[He's quiet for a long moment.]

I didn't think...there would be anything worse than remembering just someone's death and not knowing why, or even who they were to you. [He was wrong. Knowing exactly who someone was to him is far worse.]

[But he did semi-deliberately avoid answering Shun's last statement. It's too soon.]

...You're not going to go after the ayakashi?

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun hums slightly in agreement with that. It would be more confusing to not know, but it also dulls the pain a bit. It's definitely more painful to know someone's important to you and lose them anyway.]

Knowing is worse, in my experience. I've never not known who someone was to me when they were taken, but if you know, it's more raw. You feel the pain more because you understand what it is you've lost.

[And while Fubuki is avoiding answering directly, it's clear that whatever Izumo was to him, it was something important.]

Not without a shinki. I was on my way to find Kotori when I ran into that one.

[blizzardrock]

[...You understand that there was nothing you could have done, anyway. And in some ways, that's worse than the guilt of knowing that there must have been something you could.]

...Yeah.

[...He shifts his arms slightly.]

I saw Kotori...she shouldn't be too far away. You should go. [The ayakashi aren't going to rend themselves.]

I'll return to the temple... [No promises that he'll stay there, though.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun isn't exactly enthused about the prospect of leaving Fubuki in this state, but there's not a lot he can do for a loss like this either. He knows sometimes that it's best to just have some time to himself to think about it, and surely Fubuki can't spiral too badly in the space of a few hours.

He's somewhat hesitant about it, but he straightens up.] I'll believe that when I see it. If Kotori's back that way anyway, I might as well walk with you.

[And also double-check that they're not being besieged by any more cats.]

[blizzardrock]

[Fubuki doesn't move.]

Shun...you can teleport.

[Is he insinuating that Shun doesn't even have to walk to find Kotori, or is he asking to be teleported to the temple? He's not sure himself.]

[revolutionfalcon]

Teleporting doesn't let me keep an eye out for any more of those cats. And I can only feel the direction of my shinki, not your exact location. So I can hardly teleport straight to her.

[Not to mention Shun doesn't even like teleporting unless he has to, but that's beside the point for now. He's mostly just going to eye off Fubuki to see if he's actually going to stand or whether he should just find another way to get him back to the temple.]

[blizzardrock]

[...He keeps his face averted as he gets up.]

...Sorry. [The rush that had propelled him through the ayakashi a few minutes ago has faded entirely; if he didn't already know how his mental state can affect rending, he might try it. But honestly...he doesn't even want to. He's still carrying the urge to do something, anything—but fighting ayakashi isn't it.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun keeps watching until Fubuki gets up, then starts walking back towards the temple. He's only going slowly until he can see Fubuki's following him, though.]

It's hardly something you can stop in this case. [Grief affects all of them, shinki or not, and it's not something that can just be clamped down on.]

[blizzardrock]

[He lags behind a bit. And it takes him a long time to finally realize that he should be doing lookout.]

...Shun...where did they come from? [He wasn't on the Near Shore when it happened.]

[There's also something else that might be bothering him about it, that he'd must have noticed right at the start, but he can't recall what it is.]

[revolutionfalcon]

The Near Shore, I think. Some stupid cat keychains are driving people mad with obsession over there. That ayakashi looked like one of them, but bigger, so I'm wondering if people have been bringing the keychains across.

[It would make some kind of sense that the keychains were cursed or contaminated, not unlike those chocolates from a while back. There's a precedent, and he doubts just those tiny ayakashi running around on the Near Shore would have the power to cause riots like that.]

[blizzardrock]

[...The far shore. That's what he'd thought seemed wrong. But it sounds like there's already an explanation for it...]

[He continues walking silently.]

...Sorry, Shun.

[He puts a hand over his face.] ...Can you teleport me?

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun doesn't question why Fubuki wants that, because there's a good dozen or so reasons it could be. Instead, he just reaches over to grab Fubuki's shoulder.

On the next step, they're in the underground floor of the temple, just in front of the stairs, and Shun lets him go.]

Even if you don't want to calm yourself down, it'll probably be more private down here. [Nobody lives downstairs yet, for starters, and it also has the training room, the oversized not-quite-a-bath-probably-a-pool monstrosity, and the tunnel to the hot spring.]

[blizzardrock]

[A little laugh escapes him. “If you don’t want to calm down,” he says. ...Considering Fubuki’s outburst of violence earlier, maybe he deserves that.]

Thanks.

[He starts ascending the stairs.]

...Be careful out there.

[revolutionfalcon]

[Well, Shun tried to direct him to the more isolated part of the temple, at least, so he won't be blamed if Fubuki ends up being accosted by one of the other residents.]

I'm always careful. [And since he still doesn't know where Kotori is beyond that it doesn't feel like she's inside, he starts ascending the stairs as well. He doesn't really like using his teleportation unless he needs to.]

[blizzardrock]

[He’s headed for the garden, without quite realizing himself that that's where his feet are taking him.]

...You’re not going to teleport back? [He assumes Shun would have checked the temple for a shinki, first. He seemed to be coming from that direction when Fubuki spotted him... And this...this doesn't seem like one of those times where Shun would have proceeded even if he didn't have a shinki with him.]

[revolutionfalcon]

Not much point. It feels like she's in the garden. [Shun points diagonally behind himself, which is, sure enough, the direction the garden would be in if they were outside. He can't feel exactly where in the garden she is, but with that vague direction it's not particularly hard to guess.]

I don't teleport unless I need to, anyway.

[blizzardrock]

[His step skips at the reminder that Shun knows where all the shinki are. Bringing Fubuki to a private place is one thing, but even now Fubuki isn't sure he'll be able to stay put for long...Shun might come to find him.]

Shun...

[...He really doesn't have a good excuse for what he's going to do. He doesn't even know what he's going to do.]

[He stays silent until he's almost reached the garden.]

...You can feel...when we're in distress, right? If I'm not in danger...please don't come after me.

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun glances over to Fubuki like he's half expecting something like what ends up coming next - he doesn't really seem surprised to hear him say it, at least. He does, however, let out a mild hiss of frustration.]

I can mostly just feel if you're feeling powerful negative emotions, or I think if you're badly blighted. So unless you're already badly injured or you're feeling fear or something because of being in trouble, I can't guarantee I'll feel it. And if I have reason to think you're making this worse for yourself instead of better, I'm also not going to guarantee I won't come after you.

[But that's more if he doesn't see or hear from Fubuki in several days or something along those lines, so he considers that reasonable.]

[blizzardrock]

[...He won’t go missing for several days, at least.]

...Thanks.

[It’s all he says before Kotori comes into view; he smiles faintly at her and then moves past her, leaving the task of explaining to Shun.]

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun lets out his usual faintly dismissive noise at the thanks, especially since he doesn't really consider it a concession. But he at least lets Fubuki go, focusing on Kotori and the fact that he needs to find out how far this ayakashi spawning goes.]