February Training

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone
What: Information and Training
When: October 15th
Where: Meeting Hall, 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 the Meeting Hall, 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 traditional reception room within the Meeting Hall for an informational meeting covering the basics of proper god behavior. A minor deity is giving the speech, and none of the white-robed shinki enter. 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 in the white-and-gold of Amaterasu's hosuehold 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 explanation 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.

A training game has been set up through a section of the Meeting Hall gardens, with little cut-outs of ayakashi hidden in the landscaping, tucked into bushes or taped under bridges. Prize ribbons are being offered for every ten "ayakashi" a shinki (or team) discovers.

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. Several magically animated straw-stuffed training dummies, many of which have been carefully mended and patched with neat black stitching, are set up on the lawn with a white-robed shinki hovering nearby to watch over them. They make good training partners, although anyone who comes too close risks being targeted for a sparring match whether they wanted one or not.

The pond behind the dojo has had dozens wooden poles sunk in it, spaced a few feet apart, with a bunch of brightly colored ribbons tied around the pole in the very center. Some of the white-robed shinki are practicing scaling the poles and leaping from one to the next, until they get close enough that they can snatch a ribbon from the center pole, and several have fallen in and are being teased by their fellows.

Rest and Refreshments

Instead of snacks being served at the training session, this week, white-robed shinki with little flags are conducting groups of newcomers and volunteers down to the Tokyo Daijingu shrine and into a street festival currently being held in Tokyo. Traditional dance troupes are performing on street corners, and vendors have every kind of fall street foods, from barbecue to takoyaki, chocolate-dipped bananas and red-bean pancakes. New arrivals will get a white-and-gold envelope with spending money for the fair, although gods and shinki who have had some time to settle in will have to handle their own lunch expenses.

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
• Go to a festival
• Spectate if you want
• Have fun~

Comments

[blizzardrock]

[He would protest, but healers exist and this temple has been hosting training sessions for a while now (and theoretically should be prepared for injuries), so...] Make sure you don't get caught...

[He glances back, and then to the course again.] I wouldn't say so, no... [All the pranks that Fubuki is inclined to think of don't involve...injury.] Have you been doing stuff like this the whole time and I didn't notice?

[kokuyoyo]

Probably.

[Reassuring, he knows. At least Chikusa lowers his hand, reclining further into the grass.]

But then... it's as much as for their own good as mine. It's not as if I'll kill them... [His gaze flicks over to Fubuki.] ...which is what you're interested in.

[blizzardrock]

["Probably"...] That's... [He trails off, because honestly, he doesn't actually know what he wants to say. Whatever Fubuki might think of it, if Chikusa's been doing this kind of thing all along, then he's probably fine.]

[But at the mention of killing, his fingers clench, briefly.] ...What makes you think...I wouldn't have said something anyway?

[They trained with knives together once before that ever came up, after all. —No, wait. Training with knives was exactly when killing had come up...]

[A small laugh escapes him.] Is that what you think of me?

[kokuyoyo]

You keep asking about other people's wellbeing. It's... not subtle.

[Chikusa can at least notice that kind of trend, even if he doesn't entirely understand it. A small huff slips out of him.]

[blizzardrock]

[He ducks his head to hide his expression.]

That kind of thing...isn't meant to be, you know?

[Then he leans a hand on his palm.] If you can say a thing like that...then I take it you won’t mind if I ask how you’ve been doing?

[Despite the levity that that question implies, his actual tone is dead serious.]

[kokuyoyo]

Tired. [At least one will never want for simplicity and blunt honesty with Chikusa.] There's been... too much that's been happening.

And Hakkai was stupid...

[blizzardrock]

[That gets a laugh out of Fubuki, dispelling a bit of the tension he's been holding.]

Heh. Is that right.

[He looks over more seriously at the next part, though.]

I don't think I know who that is.

[He draws his knees up.]

...What happened?

[kokuyoyo]

...One of the idiots who died and had Orihime make that request.

[Chikusa is mildly surprised that he's not familiar with him... but then again, while Hakkai has a position running the school, not everyone attends it.]

The dying was one thing... but then all that sort of trouble.... and he wouldn't even stick to his own mess. [A long, drawn out sigh.] How troublesome.

[blizzardrock]

[His fingers tighten.] I...see. [He hadn't had the energy to attend to many of the details of that kerfluffle, and after it ended, it hadn't seemed to matter much.]

[He forcibly averts his mind from thinking about gods who died, instead—]

Yeah, it was trouble. Yell at him a little for me, would you?

[kokuyoyo]

He was already punched for dying and kicked out for a while... So no.

[Punishing Hakkai has been done enough. Chikusa doesn't seem to be too bothered for it, position and expression the same as always, but that's nothing new. In this case, at least it's mostly true.]

[He's still a little annoyed at him but... things have been fixed as well as they can be, he thinks.]

[blizzardrock]

...That's alright, then.

[He does some careful mental gymnastics to avoid thinking about things he isn't prepared to and doesn't want to think about, and his mind eventually lands on—]

Still not up for flan?

[Random, yeah. But that had come up when Fubuki was trying to convince Chikusa not to lock away his emotions, and Fubuki...may in fact be a hypocrite in that regard. He still believes it, but...saying it is one thing, doing it is another.]

...What did end up happening with that, anyway? You didn't go after that person again, did you?

[kokuyoyo]

[...That's sure one way to change the conversation. It's also one way to actually have Chikusa look at Fubuki properly, slowly turning his head to blink at the other.]

...Unless it's right here, immediately.

[It's not food he's going to go out of his way for, especially when he's in the middle of something... even if that 'something' is so far just petty dickery. He's still staring a little as he shifts to the next bit of conversation.]

You'll have to be more specific.

[blizzardrock]

[The sound he makes is half a snort, half a laugh.] That sounds like you...

[And then the expression slips off his face as he lapses into silence. He wants to just say, "nevermind," but that would make him seem totally random, and if there's one thing he wants Chikusa to take him seriously for, it's this.]

...The person you were going to kill.

[kokuyoyo]

[There are a few people he wants to kill, but... if he had to name one in particular...]

[Chikusa finally folds his fingers away from the borderline form he'd been using up until now and leans forward, knees bending further upwards so that he can rest himself against them. Not much seems to have changed... besides a certain darkness resting in his empty gaze.]

...I couldn't get close enough last time. And there's been.... too many people involved lately. As soon as it quiets down enough....

[The 'how' is still something he's working on, but he's going to finish this. He doesn't have any doubt there.]

[blizzardrock]

...Chikusa. Don't kill.

[It lacks conviction, even to his own ears. One of these days...he's not going to be able to say it at all.]

...Killing generates guilt. It’ll affect your god.

[kokuyoyo]

[A slow, slow blink.]

...I won't feel guilt. I never have.

[This is perhaps not entirely true... but those memories are a little more fuzzy than anything, beyond Ken.]

[blizzardrock]

[...Well that must make certain things easier.]

[—No, wait. He shouldn’t think like that.]

I suppose that means you’ve never regretted it, either.

[kokuyoyo]

No. There's never been any reason to. Most people tend to deserve to die anyway.... in my experience.

[Granted, most people he's set out to kill have been criminals, but still...]

[blizzardrock]

[That may be true...but that may also just be a justification. He wants to weaken that conviction, because killing...is bad, but he's not sure he should. "Some things deserve to die" is the only thought that allows him to create borderlines that are worth anything.]

[It's a moment before he responds.]

That doesn't work for you all the time, though, does it? [Because, Fubuki assumes, otherwise Chikusa wouldn't have made that network post after the moon-viewing night.]

[kokuyoyo]

...No, it works pretty well.

[Sorry, Fubuki.]

And even if they don't deserve to, explicitly... It's not like I'll really care about them most of the time. They're strangers.

[blizzardrock]

[...The effect of the moon must have done something, then. But it's strange, none of the people he'd talked to had seemed like they thought the emotions were outside themselves.]

[...Maybe he'd misunderstood something. Chikusa had said that he'd been angry, after all, even if he'd also said that he didn't like it.]

That comes pretty naturally to you, doesn't it? [Behooving Chikusa not to cut off his emotions had been...ill-advised, then. If all you can feel are anger and exhaustion...]

...Don't kill someone I like, ok.

[kokuyoyo]

Ah.... [His gaze finally drifts back to the people practicing on the poles, no longer being (currently) harassed.] Killing people takes effort...

....but I don't know who you like anyway.

[blizzardrock]

[Exactly. If Chikusa doesn't know that the person he's killing is someone Fubuki likes, that might give him pause. ...Of course, that's assuming Chikusa cares, but Fubuki never assumes that people don't like him, so.]

[He slides his thoughts away from how much effort killing must take.]

...You haven't killed anyone yet, have you? [He doesn't intend it, but he puts a slight stress on "anyone."]

[kokuyoyo]

[Oh Fubuki.]

[The question has him pause, blinking slowly, and his fingers flex against his knees.]

That.... depends on what you mean.

[blizzardrock]

[...He wants to say he’s surprised. But after finding out that his own god has killed and Fubuki didn’t know, his views are no longer that strict. (...Maybe they never were. After finding out that Chikusa was planning it in order to protect somebody, he stopped arguing it. He doesn’t know if that makes him a bad person.)]

[But at the same time...]

...I meant what I said. What kind of distinction are you making?