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

[killsthebuddha]

[ They do a great job of keeping the conversation where they can read in between the lines right up until Sharak’s hand is held out. He is visibly thrown for a moment before he manages a flat look. ]

What. [ It’s not actually a question. He’s still not thinking in terms of some of the tricks available to so-called gods here, though he might have balked even if he were. ]

[bussounoshima]

[It's been a while since anyone actually refused an offer to hold Sharak's hand, for whatever reason. Probably because just about everyone on the Far Shore would know what she meant without being told. Sharak just raises and eyebrow and moves her open hand closer.]

I said, I'm going to show you something. Come on.

[Genjo really is kind of cute.]

[killsthebuddha]

What’s that got to do with it? [ ‘That’ was said as if her offer of her hand was somehow entirely alien and potentially offensive. He’s not holding her hand to go anywhere, thank you very much.

He even starts to shift away just slightly. ]

[bussounoshima]

[Walking would be fine- Sharak doesn't even like relying on the powers given by this place generally- if Genjo weren't so obviously injured. She'd be impressed if he made the trip to either of their temples. He'll also doubtlessly want to come back here later to find people, which he'll need his strength for.]

Genjo.

[Listen to senpai, Genjo. With an eyeroll, she reaches out and lightly takes hold of his wrist. Then there's a rush of energy, the sound of chickens clucking in the distance, and they're in Aditi's foyer surrounded by floor cushions that are perfectly arranged for priests to collapse onto.]

It would only have been for a second, you know.

[killsthebuddha]

[ If it were anyone else pulling that stunt, they’d lose that hand. He looks briefly disoriented when they teleport, but that might be more his own tiredness playing at odds with his need to be aware of his surroundings. No threats that he can pick up on, not that he really anticipated her to blindly teleport them somewhere dangerous. ]

Thank you, but I’ll pass next time. [ It’s a dry statement. He’s not motivated to make much of a fuss, but still. ]

[bussounoshima]

That's fine, but sit down then.

[If he's going to be walking back later, he needs his rest. Sharak takes a seat and lights a cigarette. The temple is safe as anything can be here. Kouten's barrier hums around them to anyone sensitive enough to notice. The chickens and rooster cluck happily outside, ready to throw a shitfit if anyone approaches.

And Sharak is here. That's security enough.]

You look even worse than the last time I saw you.

[killsthebuddha]

[ Settling down carefully on a cushion, he takes a moment to get as comfortable as he can. It’s not terribly successful, but he can appreciate being able to sit down somewhere again. For the first time since he’d arrived, he finally lets his guard down somewhat. ]

Do I? This shouldn’t be a surprise to you, as far as I remember. [ Narrowly avoiding obliteration by Nataku was a little rough. ]

[bussounoshima]

Oh, you were pretty bad when I saw you. [In India, at least. He'd still been injured when they met here, but he'd had a little time to recover then.] All burned up in the backseat of that car.

[And then she'd gone to check on her charges, to visit the youkai village nearby and make sure they were all safe. Then Nataku had arrived to declare his intentions.]

If you remember something else, please let me know.

[If someone could please tell her that her people are safe, she'd declare all debts paid.]

[killsthebuddha]

[ So she was being dicked around, too, it seems. His eyes widen slightly, surprise briefly flitting across his face.

He’s starting to get pushed past his limit for meddling god bullshit right now. ]

You’re missing Nataku and his shikigami, for one. When that brat god went after a village under your protection, my party came to see what made him such a worthwhile replacement. [ Because going into battle against a god with injuries like his had been the completely normal, rational thing to do. Sharak would understand. ]

[bussounoshima]

[Even Sharak Sanzo isn't immune to everything, unfortunately. She's not surprised to hear Genjo had gotten involved, the kid had made enough of a ruckus to attract attention even during the period she remembers. That he'd involved himself while injured is also normal and rational. Civilians had been endangered, after all.

(If he'd had another, less normal and rational, reason for involving himself while injured well. She's not going to criticize her colleague.)]

I can explain about those villagers, if you'd like. [She doesn't think she needs to, though. Genjo and the others are smart enough to figure it out.] I remember Nataku and- I think- his shikigami. [It wasn't long after their appearance that she'd arrived here, but it's a term that makes sense.] I'm missing your arrival, but that's not unheard of around here. Even for the so-called "gods".

[The ones who are supposed to have intact memories can't rely on that anyway.]

[killsthebuddha]

[ It’s always been easier to pretend they’re getting into trouble for the sake of their own personal reasons. That they’d dropped everything to back Sharak up and protect those villagers, well...

Somehow, it didn’t seem worth acknowledging. ]

You didn’t miss anything worth talking about. My memory cuts out during the fight, but we were holding up our end. [ He wonders if he’s missing something, if he’s suffering the same sort of amnesia as well. His definition of ‘holding up’ might be different from anyone that had been watching that fight, but he knows they wouldn’t lose it. It wasn’t an option, and that confidence of something that must be the case comes through despite his appearance.

He feels worse than he had during the conflict, though that’s mostly because the painkillers and adrenaline wore off. With a grunt, he slumps backwards on the plush pillow he sat on, giving up on any pretext of dignity. Finally, with the chance to drop his guard, it starts to catch up to him. He’d pull himself back together later. ]

[bussounoshima]

... Well, with the famous Genjo Sanzo Party helping us, surely no god stands a chance.

[Sharak smiles. She doesn't know any better. But she takes comfort in Genjo's confidence anyway- and she does know that he and the others are capable in a fight. Sharak doesn't have much room to criticize them on that front herself. In something like this, she can probably trust them enough to get by.

But for now, she should probably focus on making sure her junior doesn't die of his wounds.]

Get some rest. You can move to a bed if you want.

[Though the floor here is very comfortable.]

[killsthebuddha]

[ He exhales in a sound that might have been a laugh, or something as close to it as Genjo ever got. Rest is tempting, but he distracts himself by clumsily producing his Marlboros from where they were tucked away. He mutters his response around the filter between his lips, not bothering to sit up as he lights his cigarette. ]

I’m not here to sleep. There’s shit left to do. [ He doesn’t know how to stop until he’s completely incapable of moving forward. It’s a lifelong bad habit, but he’s always been driven. This time, the motivator is subtly different. He still needed to continue his journey, yes. He still absolutely needed to recover his master’s sutra, to stop the Minus Wave, but...

Somewhere along the line, things had changed within the Genjo Sanzo Party, or maybe just within Genjo Sanzo. ]

[bussounoshima]

There is.

[A lot of this shitty place seems to be just waiting around, killing time until they find something, but still. There are things that they need to do, both in terms of figuring out what's happening to them, finding a way home, killing people who need to be killed, and wrangling their friends into a respectable state.]

You're behind. [Sharak taps some ash off her own cigarette onto the floor.] We'll have to catch you up properly, I'm afraid.

[killsthebuddha]

I’m done with being behind. [ He’s never been a fan of having to catch up. They were going to have to figure out how to get ahead of this, though it can’t be easy if Sharak’s been here long enough to settle in properly.

The temporal issues were really starting to frustrate him there. Time wasn’t supposed to be so relative. ] Where are we on figuring out who’s responsible for this?

[ Who to shoot is a comfortable topic to address first. ]

[bussounoshima]

Not very far. [It's an irritating topic.] There was some conspiracy against Amaterasu that took advantage of our presence, but they've been quiet lately. That's the only lead we have there.

[And not much of one. She's not convinced those guys aren't just taking advantage of a situation someone else set up, but the way they've gone quiet for no discernable reason makes her wonder.]

The mechanics of some of the spellwork- or the theory of it- is going a little better. I have some ideas, at least, but it's hard to prove anything conclusively.

[killsthebuddha]

Shit. [ No real leads just figured. There’s not a lot of good news to be had here, for all that he can’t complain. If she’d had proper leads, she would have handled it already. ]

You can’t just experiment freely. [ It’s more an agreement than anything else. The risks would be too high for everyone involved, and he can’t imagine her being reckless with people’s lives. As much as he chafed under the possible restrictions of this curse on them, it’d be damn near suicidal to try to work out a way to break the spell without taking any precautions. ] It’s not like anything I’ve heard of before.

[ But his education had been abbreviated for obvious reasons. ]

[bussounoshima]

["No, but wouldn't it be fun?" Ukoku Sanzo's voice briefly haunts Sharak's head for a moment, much to her frustration. Fun, maybe, but far too risky with lives other than her own. Not worth it. She shakes her head.]

Don't be so sure.

[Sharak gets her phone out and fiddles with it for a bit before pulling up a post she'd had bookmarked. She passes it over to Genjo and gestures at it.]

Read that. Does anything in there remind you of something?

[They're peers and equals, but she can't help the slightly teacherly tone she takes on there. Genjo may not remember asking for her help in learning magic but Sharak does.]

[killsthebuddha]

[ He takes the phone, squinting briefly as he adjusts how far to hold it from his face in order to read through the whole thing. By the time he finishes and hands it back, his cigarette’s burned down far enough that it’s an effort to ash off to the side without getting it on the cushion. He manages, if barely. ]

I didn’t think of shikigami. I should have. [ It’s somehow more unsettling. He should have, though, fresh from going against Nataku’s effortlessly created and recreated soldiers. ]

If that’s the case, I’ve got no reason to be injured. What did I do to piss these bastards off? [ He’s not sure he’s entirely serious for all that the situation was, of if he’s just grousing for the sake of it. It’s likely just deflection from his own anxieties, not that he’ll ever admit it. Still, it seems like it’d be an effort to recreate his wounds when people that were supposed to be far worse off were actually whole and healthy. ]

[bussounoshima]

[Sharak waits patiently, giving Genjo an approving look when he makes the same association she did.]

I didn't make the connection until I heard all that. Who's ever heard of someone using a person's soul as medium? [Conclusive proof of an actual soul would be weird enough but. Even for bad priests, there has to be some acceptance of that shit.] But it's what the gods here have been doing to make shinki for centuries. Attach a name to a wandering spirit and create a spell to transform them.

[It's not a direct translation for how shikigami work in their own world, but it's close enough in theory. At least for the purposes of understanding.]

Hakkai and I thought it might be... psychosomatic. They're already playing with everyone's memories. Rather than designing everyone's forms individually, it might be easier to let our own minds do that. [Genjo remembers being fucked up, he arrives fucked up. Gojyo doesn't remember having a youkai mark, he doesn't have a youkai mark.] ... That or your popularity is to blame again.

[killsthebuddha]

I don’t know which is worse— doing it to myself, or the grudge of one of these gods. [ Psychosomatic burns. What bullshit.

He takes a slow drag on his cigarette, considering the idea, and speaks slowly and thoughtfully after a long moment: ] There was one time... my team had an encounter with a vessel able to pull an individual’s soul from their body and store it.

Hakkai described it as being within another dimension. While he and Goku were trapped, there had been no indication that they were simply souls as far as they knew, or something like that. [ Which is a bit vague, but they’d all had enough going on that it hadn’t been worth hashing out the details once they’d gotten them back. During that time, continuing on had always been at the forefront of Sanzo’s mind, and then— well, suddenly there had been other things to deal with. ]

When the vessel was broken, an exit opened and they were able to leave. After that, they awoke in the bed their bodies had been left in.

[bussounoshima]

[Well, that's new information. Hakkai failed to mention that when they were discussing this topic. Sharak leans forward, interested.] That sounds familiar.

[It lacks the "soul as a medium" aspect they're trying to figure out here, but the separation of soul from body, being taken to another dimension, that all sounds relevant to their situation. It's something, at least.]

What kind of vessel was it? Did you get to examine it after it broke?

[killsthebuddha]

[ He’ll connect it together, if somewhat slowly. It’s a matter of working through from start to finish, but he knows this situation is probably feasible for all that his magical education was lacking in several key areas. (Briefly, it occurs to him that this might be a chance to do some real research since someone has apparently made time mean jack shit here.) ]

A gourd with some kind of eye. It could reach out with vines- [ Tentacles, really. It’s a memory that makes his skin crawl. ] -and Gojyo broke the damn thing before I could inspect it. That said, it was a tool used by someone that considered himself a protégé of Ukoku Sanzo’s. [ More or less. That kid that had been manipulated by Kami-sama didn’t need to be brought up. ] If whoever brought us here goes for three out of three on Sanzo priests, you could always ask him.

[ It’s not an entirely facetious suggestion. ]

[bussounoshima]

[Research is one of the few things they can do, though how "real" it is, Sharak's not sure. Every time she goes to the library it feels like she may as well be picking out books at random. Still, there's a stack of them off to the side somewhere.

Sharak listens quietly until Ukoku is mentioned, making her lip curl briefly in disgust.] If they bring that bastard back I might have to throw caution to the wind and just kill him.

[Except he'd probably get off on that, so she won't. Also. Surprise, Genjo, guess who's been around.]

He never mentioned having anything like that before.

[That fucker. To be fair, the idea that they were all shikigami hadn't been fully developed yet so it hadn't really come up in conversation but still. That fucker.]

[killsthebuddha]

[ It takes him just a fraction of a second too long to react.

And then he’s sitting up a little more abruptly than he should. Ow. There are more important things to focus on. ]

Back-? That crow fucker was here? [ Yes, she’d just said that, but it’s taking him a moment to process. Ukoku is a special sort of sore spot for him. ]