December Training

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone
What: Information and Training
When: September 25th
Where: Bishamon's temple, the Far Shore
Summary: Training and informational sessions for newly arrived gods and shinki



Gods and shinki arriving at heaven's meeting hall are, should they allow it, guided to Bishamon's temple, where a reception area and a traditionally styled dojo and training ground have been made available for the day. The gods and shinki are free to take their time during this day to learn about the details of their new life from Amaterasu's shinki or from the many veteran new god and shinki volunteers.




God Training

Newly arrived gods are escorted into a Western-styled reception hall within Bishamon's temple for an informational meeting covering the basics of proper god behavior, although the minor deity conducting the meeting is in too much of a rush to take questions afterwards. They are encouraged to discuss the information with each other and ask questions of more experienced gods, as well as instructed to guide their new shinki appropriately.

Shinki Training

Various shinki volunteers, both in the white-and-gold of Amaterasu's shinki and in Bishamon's red-piped black uniforms, are stationed around the dojo, passing out helpful informational pamphlets. They will be happy to instruct the newcomers in the use of the borderline as well as offering an explanantion on the basics of what is expected of a shinki and the importance of teamwork with other shinki and with gods. Shinki are encouraged to work together to practice what they've learned and discuss their perspectives.

Someone has brought two overflowing boxes of back issues of From Ama, the Heavenly magazine, which includes profiles of successful shinki and gods, historical tidbits, and the occasional magazine quiz to help shinki determine how well they're currently working with their god or what their greatest strength might be.

Physical Training

The dojo is stocked with a wide variety of practice weapons, traditional and modern, to offer some practice opportunity to gods who, for example, find themselves with a sword shinki but are at risk of cutting off their own toes. It's also useful for veteran new gods wishing to train with their current partner shinki.

This month, a clever shinki magician has created a dozen straw-stuffed training dummies, some with sword-length sticks and some with polearm-length sticks, that have been enchanted to really fight back. Unfortunately, the spell isn't perfect yet! They're good training partners, but sometimes they might go a little haywire and try to smack passersby.

Rest and Refreshments

Along with bottled water, there are several large boxes of energy drinks and vitamin drinks in small amber glass bottles, and an array of protein bars and meal bars. One particular shinki in white, a bespectacled twentysomething man, is explaining the health benefits of everything on the table (even the water!) with great enthusiasm to any guest who looks even a little confused. It takes great tact to discourage him.

Party games have been set up on the lawn near the refreshments table: Twister, Kubb, lawn Jenga, and more.

In Summary:

• Get all the information you can handle
• Veteran new gods and shinki are welcome to volunteer showing the ropes
• Get in some training
• Play some games
• Spectate if you want
• Have fun~

Comments

[bussounoshima]

[Ukoku's probably happy to know that, wherever he is.]

It happens to everyone, gods and shinki. [Sharak gestures at the temple around them with her cigarette.] Even the real gods- I have no clue where the real Aditi is, and neither does her family.

[At least, from what they told her and Sharak isn't convinced that they were lying. She pauses for a moment before continuing.]

You vanished too, for a while.

[They need to discuss at least a little of that. There are still people left on the Far Shore that will recognise Genjo.]

[killsthebuddha]

[ Ukoku probably can’t actually be happy, though that isn’t much of a consolation prize.

He’d vanished, too. He resists the entirely foolish urge to echo her. Absently, he realizes that the cigarette he’d been smoking had burned down to the filter, and goes through the motions as he works his way through that statement. ]

I’ll apologize, then, for making you rehash old conversations to bring me back up to speed. [ It’s a careful statement in ways he usually wasn’t, but it feels entirely warranted. ]

[bussounoshima]

I'm just repaying a favour.

[It's funny, how their roles have been reversed. Though Genjo's still the one laying on the floor of Aditi's temple on the verge of passing out. Perhaps that's just a universal constant.]

You were a shinki then. By the time I'd arrived, you'd already started to remember a few things. That's not unheard of either, by the way.

[killsthebuddha]

[ Genjo Sanzo spends entirely too much time going against things that he can’t possibly win against. She’ll get used it it in time. Everyone else that’s had to deal with him for any length certainly hasn’t had a choice in the matter.

There’s a lot he wants to cover, but there are priorities to focus on. ]

I take it that we don’t know how to force that, either. [ Not with Gojyo being a problem. ]

[bussounoshima]

[Sharak hesistates but-] No, we don't.

[Genjo's theories about Maten are all well and good, but correlation does not imply causation. She was unconvinced at the time and she still is.]

Trying to discuss the past with any shinki is a bad idea. You'll get a feeling if it comes up telling you to stop. It's possible to force yourself to ignore it, but that won't help anyone. Blight appears on shinki that are told of their pasts without remembering it themselves first. Too much of that and they turn into ayakashi.

[Axel was a while ago, but people remember the lesson learned.]

[killsthebuddha]

I wouldn’t have accepted that. [ There are too many ways this could have gone bad. He knows himself too well these days. ]

If a shinki goes out of their way to try to recall, do they turn into an ayakashi as well? [ Without his memories, just how suicidally reckless would he be? He can’t imagine handling that gracefully, not when too much of his identity was tied up in being Genjo Sanzo, 31^st of China.

Suddenly, the idea that Gojyo’s disavowed his past entirely makes entirely too much sense. ]

[bussounoshima]

... In theory, yes, if they dwell on it too long.

[Most shinki stop when they notice the blight on their neck and most ablutions have more to do with guilt than memories, but it makes sense. Dwell on what you can no longer have and you lose yourself.]

But no, you didn't accept that. Actively taking measures to try and undo the memory loss is safe enough though. Researching, experimenting, that sort of thing. It's dwelling on the specific things that must have happened in your past that is dangerous.

[And, of course, how they died. No wonder so many shinki seem to decide they just want a blank slate.]

[priforprince]

[ This is a dangerous proposition, Adrien. Hibiki only allows high-quality tables in her presence. They are all made of extremely hard woods.

The kind to attract trouble, however, just sneezes and frowns. A cold? It'll be an outrage if gods can get sick. ]

[killsthebuddha]

[ Well, he didn’t turn himself into a murderous abomination. That’s... something.

Today’s clearly going to be one for accepting the little victories. ] So what was I doing?

[ He might not have gotten anywhere trying to figure out how to free himself from being trapped as a shinki, but it’s worth investigating. ]

[bussounoshima]

[It's okay to be proud of the little accomplishments. But now they're straying into Genjo Is a Dumbass territory, which makes Sharak furrow her brow a little. If anyone can even see the difference.]

A little while before I arrived, there was an incident where you managed to activate the Maten sutra. After that you, and others who were present, began to remember things.

[She'll refrain from mentioning Goku in particular for the moment. It'll only worry him and it's not necessary information for the current topic.]

Ukoku Sanzo encouraged you to make the connection and the two of you were... working on that. At least, you were. I think he was just having fun playing pretend.

[Playing teacher, playing house, working his way into Genjo's head, teasing Sharak with the influence he had over the young man... It'd all seemed like a game to him. Maybe he'd gotten attached, but Sharak remembers how easily he'd dismissed Genjo's abilities as soon as the man was out of earshot to her. How annoyed he'd been by any sincere compliment to the man.

All that is far from the worst of Ukoku's crimes, but it'd struck a personal chord with Sharak. She'd hated it.]

[killsthebuddha]

[ Genjo freezes, going pale as if his blood pressure plummets precipitously. The floor may as well have fallen out from beneath him, but then he locks eyes with Sharak.

It’s grounding. ]

It’d be his style to take advantage of a coincidence like that. [ This is going to keep him up at night for a while. The idea that Ukoku had an opportunity to take full advantage of his lack of memory, and that he’d apparently been vulnerable and stupid enough to let it happen. It’s utterly mortifying.

What had he done? ] It’d be nothing but a game to someone like him, and I can’t believe I fell for that.

[ Yes, he can and all too easily, some little part of him wants to point out. He ignores it. ]

[bussounoshima]

[Sharak keeps Genjo's gaze steadily, sitting upright and firm. A strong, solid presence that fills the room. It's the only kind of comfort that's appropriate.]

I couldn't believe it either. [If her tone is a little sharper than it normally is, talking to her colleague, it doesn't last. It comes from a well of concern and affection that had never really been resolved, just put aside while she tried her best to protect what was left.

It had been an educational experience.]

... Ukoku himself was less of a problem than he could have been, at least. [That had been more of a personal thing, all in all, and the personal matters of Sanzos aren't important.] I'll answer whatever questions you have about what happened back then, though of course I wasn't aware of everything.

[erogappa]

Fuck.

[ He spits, turning away. It was too good to be true, wasn't it? He tried to do a good thing, and it turned around and bit him in the ass. Ah, but wait. He turns back to Blondie, folding his ar-- that is, clenching his hand into a fist at his side. There's a warning buzz at the back of his mind, cautioning him against asking too many questions, but he's gotten pretty good at finding the limits of what he can and can't know. ]

You know me. Don't you.

[killsthebuddha]

I don’t know who the hell you think you are. [ He’s practically snarling, visibly insulted. It’s true, not even an attempt at deflection here. Gojyo has opinions about who he is that are dumb as hell, and that’s dangerous right now.

Everything hurts, Genjo is tired, and none of that has any effect on whether or not he ends up in a fist fight with the kappa in the next few minutes. He’s not the only one with a handicap here, at least. ]

[erogappa]

[ That was a yes. God fucking dammit, that was a yes. ]

You're damn right you don't.

[ He jabs his finger back toward the portal entrance. ]

You want help, you go beg it off Sharak. [ The name is a curse. ] The old Sha Gojyo's dead, and the new one doesn't want anything to do with any fucking sanzos.

[killsthebuddha]

Tch. I’m not looking for help, you useless bastard. Don’t think so highly of yourself.

[ Hakkai and Sharak had been too soft with this idiot. He’s actually kind of pissed, now, legitimately so. How dare Gojyo drag him all the way out here and start pulling this kind of stupid bullshit with him. ]

Don’t mistake me for being the same kind of priest as Sharak Sanzo. [ Fuck it. He goes after him, quicker than a man in his condition ought to be able to move, going to grab him by collar of his shirt. He hasn’t thought this all the way through, but maybe it’s just so he can knock some sense into that idiot head. ] I don’t give a shit about anyone named Sha Gojyo.

[alchemists]

I think this is turning into a misunderstanding.

[killsthebuddha]

[ Something about her tone braces him up. He’s got a lifetime of experience in keeping his own personal tragedies just that, and he’ll have time for it to haunt him later. More than that, business comes first.

Still, the color isn’t coming back to his skin any time soon. ]

What happened with Ukoku is a dead end. [ It’s a snap decision, but it lets him go forward. ] Maten isn’t the right choice for undoing a divine spell, so I’m more interested in who affects us now.

[ He’s had to have made enemies by now, right? ]

[erogappa]

[ He's not going to hit somebody as badly injured as Blondie is. Shove, maybe. Genjo grabs his shirt, and Gojyo gives real thought to shoving him backwards, all the way onto his charcoalled ass, and leaving him there.

But he doesn't do it, because he's better than all these assholes. ]

Then quit feelin' him up!

[reformedsinner]

I'm not yet convinced that the things we experience here have much to do with reality. Still, better safe than sorry.

[Their bodies aren't -- quite -- their real bodies. It's not too much of a stretch to think that death might also not quite be real death, but if deaths can be final, they're inconvenient, at minimum. But getting philosophical about the meaning of death is not much more useful than philosophy about the meaning of life; Hakkai sails ahead to a new topic.]

Have you had the chance to talk to Sharak Sanzo?

[killsthebuddha]

Don’t drag people around if you’re going to be an asshole! [ There’s a moment where he realizes something pressing.

He can’t punch Gojyo in the mouth while he’s got a grip on his shirt, not when all of the abused nerves in his injured arm are screaming. He shoves him, a move that rocks Sanzo back more than it does Gojyo, and takes a swing at him that’s clumsy enough by his standards as to be embarrassing. Still, someone needs to knock him upside the head. ]

[projectsilvergaze]

[Why are human's so testy? She steps back, holding up her hands.]

I do not mean to be prying, I was only concerned. Besides, The Subject doesn't need to eat, I'm not human.

[nibelungvalesti]

[This is the opportunity she sought. Her forward shield shoots around to catch the impact of his fist, and in that instant she lunges past it to flank him, her sword descending towards him with the full strength of a goddess.]

[kuroi_taiyo]

I could?

[ He'll think about it. Just as he's considering and picking up one of the bottles of water. He is actually thirsty and hungry, but this stuff just felt like enough of a betrayal where he decided to lash out and cause the weird shinki more distress and trouble. ]

You say that, but after just showing up, I'm still figuring out more of who I am. This could be how I deal with stress. That or I'm that kind of a terrible person. Could go a bunch of ways.

[ So you just... Ah, twisting the top broke whatever kept the bottle closed. It wasn't like popping off a cork or cap. ]

Is there even anything fun to do, or does everyone just train and prepare all the time?

[lionhearrt]

[ He pulls out a cigarette and lights it with a finger as he slips it in his mouth in silence. ]