June Training

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone
What: Information and Training
When: December 7th
Where: Outside the 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 rear of the Meeting Hall, where 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.

Once they've had a chance to have things explained, they'll have the chance to relax and enjoy an afternoon party.




Meeting Hall

God Training

Newly arrived gods are escorted into a much nicer room than the warehouse where the last set of new gods got their informational speech. It's a smaller meeting room, with tatami floors and a small dais at the front of the room where the speaker stands. A minor deity is giving the speech, and none of the white-robed shinki enter.

The speaker delivers her welcome speech with the intonation of someone who's practiced it many times. Newly arrived gods 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. They are allowed to remain in the room as long as they wish, should they want to discuss questions with each other or with more experienced gods who are here to help out.

Shinki Training

Various shinki in the white-and-gold of Amaterasu's hosuehold are stationed around the dojo, passing out informational pamphlets that have been freshly printed. They will be happy to answer any questions or instruct the newcomers in the use of the borderline. They also accompany their answers, or lessons, with 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.

The dojo is back to its old, fully functional self; a set of motionless straw targets line one wall, to be used by people practicing with any of the weapons spread out on tables or hanging in racks on the walls. Outside, six animated straw targets wait in an area marked off with red ribbons and warning signs. Anyone entering the marked area may find themselves in combat with one (or more) of the magical training dummies. Those who leave the marked area, though, won't be chased.

Physical Training

Beyond the dojo, a scavenger hunt has been set up throughout the grounds of the Meeting Hall. Brightly colored plastic balls are hidden in shrubbery, tucked into support beams, floating among reeds in the ponds, and lurking in even cleverer hiding places. When a god or shinki gets their hand on one of them, they will burst open to reveal a hidden prize, such as candy, small toys, or accessories. How many can you find?

As well as the scavenger hunt, the white-robed shinki are engaging in more serious physical training and will be happy to let new gods or shinki join them. Sparring matches with practice weapons from the dojo, jogging laps around the hall, sit-ups, push-ups... or, for the younger shinki, competing to see who's the fastest to climb a tree.

Rest and Refreshments

Midafternoon, once the last of the scavenger-hunt prizes have been found, the white-robed shinki will turn their hands to clearing away the training equipment and laying out a lovely buffet table. Bright lanterns are hung from the trees, and a few shinki even take up a station on one side of the training area and begin playing shamisen, koto, wooden flute and drum. Although their instruments are traditional, their music selection ranges from some very classic Japanese tunes to others that sound surprisingly modern. The koto player can really rock!

Old and new gods and shinki alike are welcome to circulate, socialize with their friends, partake of the buffet food and enjoy the music. There's even room for those who feel inspired to dance, and plenty of privacy offered by the extensive garden for those who would rather retreat with their new partners to have a serious conversation.

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
• Relax at a party
• Have fun~

Comments

[swordofzero]

Shinki Training

Not having a name Suzaku couldn't join in with the borderline practice this time and so he focused on physical training. The investigation of the forest in the mountains had made it clear that he really should carry a weapon with him. He was skilled in unarmed but he couldn't fight ayakashi with his fists.

Actually getting a weapon would be difficult but something like a staff would be easier to get hold of than a sword so it is a staff he is practicing with today against one of the moving practice dummies.

He's moving fast, using both ends of the staff as he keeps the dummy at a distance. It was much better than fighting against a straw target.

Physical Training

Even better than fighting moving dummies was fighting actual people and so Suzaku was happy to join in the sparring with some of the white robed shinki in lieu of the scavanger hunt. Though he thought the hunt was a good idea for some of the younger shinki and gods, the children probably learned faster when it was presented as a game.

But he didn't feel like playing games. He still feels strange, slightly lost and he focusses on training to distract him.

He's not just sparring, he also runs some laps, does push ups. He's focussed but he nods politely at anyone nearby, those he knows even get a smile and he is happy to pause to help anyone who needs it.

Physical Training

[dredefulchilde]

Joscelin is off to the side, sitting with a pile of prizes in his lap. Some he came by honestly, but most were stolen from slower shinki. Actually, most were stolen and Joss doesn't feel any guilt about it. As far as he's concerned, he won them fair and square.

Now he's happily examining his misbegotten gains and sorting the prizes by type. The candy is of special interest, especially the chocolates. He likes chocolates. The toys are somewhat less exciting, though there's a little plastic airplane that looks promising.

He glances up from his very important work to heckle a shinki running laps nearby.

"What, you didn't want to play?"

[swordofzero]

Suzaku didn't stop running completely but he did slow down when he was spoken to and smiled at the young boy sorting through prizes. It seemed like he had quite a haul.

"No, I didn't." Running laps much better suited his mood today than colourful bursting prizes. Nevertheless he keeps his tone bright, not about to being down a child's mood. "It looks like you were good at it though."

[dredefulchilde]

"Mm, yes. And everyone else was far too slow."

No false modesty here. Joscelin is the winner of the scavenger hunt.

"I don't understand why people run for exercise. Why bother if there's no need to? It's not like anything's chasing you."

[swordofzero]

Suzaku just smiles, not minding the bragging when it came from a kid. It was good that he was proud of his victory.

"I think the point is so that when things are chasing you you can get out of the way." He shrugs. "Or run at things that are attacking others. It also helps your stamina, so you can keep going for longer."

[dredefulchilde]

Joscelin doesn't look very impressed. He already knows he's fast--look at all these prizes!--and doesn't particularly want to train at being faster.

"What do you do around here for fun besides running in circles? It seems very boring."

[swordofzero]

"A few weeks ago everyone went to an amusement park on the near shore." Suzaku hadn't. But it seems like the thing a child would want to know happened sometimes. It might not be the sort of thing Suzaku was comfortable with but he knew other people found such places fun.

"There was also an Autumn leaves viewing last week, I was not there but I believe there were games and food."

[dredefulchilde]

“So the possibilities are seeing other shinki be sick on a merry-go-round, looking at dead leaf matter, and running around in circles? God’s wounds. Are you quite certain that this is Heaven we’re in? Because it sounds like my definition of hell.” He’s being dramatic, of course, and he’s too proud to admit that he thinks he might have really liked to go to the amusement park, but still.

“Hasn’t anyone here heard of video games?”

[swordofzero]

Suzaku just looked at him levely, this place was far from hell. But he was only a child and he guessed that leaf viewings were probably not of great interest to one so young.

But he would have thought the amusement park would have caught his attention. "I am sure there are video games. I've not played one but even if there are none in the Far Shore then there are arades and such on the Near Shore I am sure you can go to."

He's pretty sure the Far Shore will have game consols somewhere, some of the gods or shinki were bound to play video games.

[bass_instincts]

The scavenger hunt brings Shin close the the training grounds where he spys Suzaku. He could have sworn that he'd seen the same kid earlier fighting pretty intensely against one of the animated dummies. He walks over to Suzaku and holds out a brightly coloured piece of hard candy. "Hey, you're going to work yourself into exhaustion," he offers with a bit of a smile.

He might not look like the friendliest person with bright blue hair, holes from his empty piercings, and he is still wearing the uniform from the juvenile detention center he died in, the serial number emblazoned in black on the grey shirt. There's gauze around his wrists where Adrien had fixed him up earlier. But the expression on his face is sympathetic and a little worried.

[swordofzero]

When Suzaku had arrived a month ago it had been in a skin tight flight suit holding a loaded gun and so the only reaction the boys appearance gets is the understanding that he is probably new. He understands the clothes as some kind of prison uniform but he also thinks he saw the boy earlier during the shinki training and he's not about to pass judgement on someone for an unremembered past.

"I'm nowhere near exhaustion." He smiles politely, the sympathy is strange coming from someone he doesn't know but he takes the candy. He doesn't want to be rude by refusing.

"Have you just arrived today?"

[bass_instincts]

Shin gives a warm and charming smile, "It's that easy to tell, isn't it?" He laughs it off, relieved that Suzaku wasn't making any judgements. "I'm Shinichi Okazaki," he says. 'Shin' is also one of the ways that the kanji on his neck can actually be read.

He frowns a little, "I don't know how you could be training so much all day and not be exhausted." Suzaku didn't really look that tired now that he's stopped, but Shin can't even imagine doing that much physical training and not collapsing.

[swordofzero]

"Kururugi Suzaku. It's nice to meet you Shinichi." It was pretty easy to tell, hopefully he would be found by his god and be able to get changed into different clothes soon.

He shrugged. "I like exercising." It was true, he much preferred days like this where he could train all day than fays filled with very little to do.

[bass_instincts]

"I guess if it's what you enjoy you don't need as much of a break," Shin admits. When he moves his head to look over the training area, the name on the side of his neck becomes a lot more visible. It's actually the same character for 'shin' as used in his name. "I guess when you find something you like it clicks, even without memories," he muses softly. "Are you new here too?"

[swordofzero]

Suzaku saw the kanji and noted that it was the same as the Shin in Shinichi, that seemed strange but he guessed there was nothing to say that their vessel names could not be similar to their actual names.

At least he didn't think so. "I've been here just over a month, so I guess I don't count as new anymore." He shrugged, he still felt like there was a lot he didn't know. But at the same time he had learned a lot in a month.

"Your god has found you already?"

[bass_instincts]

"Yeah, I met Adrien a little earlier today." He'd been good to him so far, and neither really had spent any time fussing over his outfit. Adrien got him out of the restraints he'd arrived in and even bandaged where the leather had been bitingly tight. He's glad that his death injuries didn't carry over, or he would have suspected that it would have been much worse.

Of course, his god being Adrien meant that his vessel name was also a pun. Not that Shin really minded. Of course he doesn't know that Suzaku already knows Adrien, or their history here. As far as Shin knows, there's little reason such an industrious shinki would go without a name, so it seemed obvious that "You must have a god too, right?"

[swordofzero]

"Adrien is your god?" It hasn't been that long since Suzaku had learned of Adrien's change from being a shinki to being a god. He is glad that Adrien has found a shinki so quickly, he wouldn't want Adrien to be alone after all. Not that he thought Marinette and Snake would leave him to feel lost or confused.

He shook his head. "Lady Grell, my goddess, disappeared a weak ago. That happens sometimes. People disappear from the heavens. No one is certain on where they go."

[bass_instincts]

One of the other ways to read the Kanji on his neck is also 'mao', or cat. With Adrien's sense of humor, Suzaku might be able to figure it out, or at least that Adrien made a pun while naming Shin.

The idea of someone just disappearing though, or more specifically the possibility of Adrien just disappearing, has Shin suddenly feeling on edge. "Anyone can just disappear? Is there no warning?"

[swordofzero]

Suzaku is somewhat aware of Adrien's odd sense of humour, he has been on the wrong side of cat puns at least once. He makes no comment on the name. Either Shin knew and was alright with his gods sense of humour or he didn't or wasn't and Suzaku didn't want to embarass him.

Though in hindsight embarassing him over cat puns would be preferable to scaring him. "No there's not. It happens frequently enough to be worrying and no one knows where they have gone, though many people seem to believe they are sent back to their homes. Sometimes people return. There is a lot we don't understand about this place."

[bass_instincts]

"What do the people who return say?" He was worried about the thought of just waking up unnamed and alone. Before he'd gotten a name he really didn't think he cared all that much, as short as that time alone had been. But now that he'd gotten a god, the idea of being abandoned tugged at a spot between his chest and his stomach.

[swordofzero]

"I'm not sure." He shrugged, Lady Grell had actually been someone who had disappeared in the past and returned but she had never spoken about it to him. She had not been the one to tell him in the first place.

"I know that Hakkai Cho was once a Shinki before he became a god, he said he didn't remember anything inbetween even though he disappeared for a short time. Adrien also was a Shinki until a few days ago, though he did not disappear and return."

No one knows. That was the only certain thing Suzaku had learned in his time here. No one knew what what was going on.

[justclaws]

[He is used to it now.

[Yes, it probably was too much to hope that missive he had sent to the Gods of this world - the one in which he had stated, he believed quite categorically, that he did not want or need another shinki - had had the desired effect. Every time, he compares it to the tug that he feels from his brothers' presences, the intensity of the sensations that swept over him and dragged him under when first he laid eyes on the Princess: every time it comes up lacking, an inferior, a - what was the term? - mass-produced version of something his own world had done first and better. Very well. Here we go again.

[A young man, this time. Dark hair, determined eyes, training (in the absence, Kija presumes, of a name) with a staff. He watches for a time, wondering once again what the protocol is in these situations; he decides that continuing to watch would be impolite. He steps forward. He wonders if he should be looking welcoming or businesslike.]

Excuse me. I believe we need to talk.

[swordofzero]

[He's been training for hours, training was a good distraction. He had a lot to think about. Even though he had known strange things happened here knowing a thing and witnessing a thing were very different. He wasn't sure what to think about Adrien suddenly waking up a god. Just as he still wasn't sure what to feel about Lady Grell's disappearance or about the fact he would be assigned another god. Probably today if people were to be believed.

He is moving through movements with the staff when he realised someone was watching him. He stopped just as the man spoke and brought his staff up so he was holding it against him, but not in a threatening way. His posture is very much like that of a solider.]

Hello. Can I help you?

[justclaws]

I hope you can.

[How else is he supposed to put it?

[It never gets easier, that is another charge to add to the extensive list of grievances Kija has about this whole business. He never knows how best to break it to another man that he is supposed to give up his humanity to fight for him. Perhaps there genuinely is no good way.]

My name is Hakuryuu Kija. I believe that we are to be partners.

[He sighs. Adds, because it never gets easier, because he sees no reason not to:]

I am sorry.

[swordofzero]

[This was his god then? Since arriving in the heavens over a month ago Suzaku had met a lot of people, but he had not met this god before. Suzaku smiled at him though it faded a little at the apology. Why was he apologising?

It confuses him and he blinks, not sure what to say or do. Why the apology? Was he apologising for the fact he was his god, or was he about to inform Suzaku he wasn't needed? Did that happen? Suzaku saw no reason why not. After all gods were humans who had been brought here, many might not wish to be partnered with a person they had never met before. Just because the heavens told them to.] Pleased to meet you Hakuryuu Kija. [A pause at the name, because the expectations of politeness and honorifics fluctuated so much between gods that it was confusing to say the least.

I'm Kururugi Suzaku. [He probably already knew that. But it felt rude not to introduce himself. He gave a shallow bow, still uncertain.]