thenearshore | 34 - Love is in the Air

34 - Love is in the Air

Who: Everyone!
What: An enterprising pair of shinki is trying to spread love throughout the Far Shore with exciting blind dates.
When: February 14
Where: Hot romantic spots throughout Tokyo
Summary: Blind dates on Valentine's Day? Sounds like fun (or possibly a disaster, but everyone needs some good disaster stories.) That's not all that's going on, though. Ayakashi are looking to chow down on the negative emotions that a romantic holiday can generate, and those who aren't busy with their own dates might be sucked into helping out followers who need help to make the day go well.

The Dates

Blind Date Matchups

Date One: The Romantic Brunch.
Couples will find themselves with reservations (and pre-paid coupons for the prix fixe menu) at a swanky French restaurant with a wide balcony overlooking the lake in a central Tokyo park. They can dine on dainty pastries, sweet milk coffees, bowls of grapes and hothouse strawberries, and a selection of fancy chocolates and petit-fours-- plus, some of the trees in the park are blooming in holiday-appropriate red and white!

Date Two: The Aquarium.
Couples scheduled for this date have tickets to a rooftop aquarium in Ikebukuro: brightly colored fish, animals including penguins, seals and pelicans, a small petting zoo and plenty of shadowy, secluded nooks to cuddle in make for a fun lunchtime date. The tickets even include admission to the one o'clock penguin and seal show!

Date Three: The Amusement Park.
This date sends couples to spend the evening enjoying themselves at a seaside amusement park. Ride the roller coasters! Take selfies with the costumed attendants! Share an overpriced ice cream cone while you watch the fireworks after sunset, then wind up the night with a ride on the colorfully lit Ferris wheel with a romantic view of the Tokyo skyline.

Ayakashi Menace

dove

shadow

teddy bear

need

Praying for Love

Wild Card

In Summary:

Enjoy your dates
Fight some ayakashi
Make sure to answer prayers for a good Valentine's Day
Have fun~

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[A borderline could hold the ayakashi at bay, but Ginia doesn't want to risk lifting the one on the door. She keeps up a flurry of slashes, cutting its limbs and separating them enough it can only flop over and flail as its flesh tries to knit back together.

The alarm goes off. Ginia sighs in relief as the confused clerks direct people out the door. A few small coin purse ayakashi bounce off the barrier, scrambling about in confusion. As the last person exits, Ginia splashes her flask of water in a wide arc, stunning the smaller ayakashi and splashing a fair amount in the teddy bear's face.]

[As soon as people start fleeing, Shun snuffs the small fire and brings his hammer to the ready, eying the coin purse ayakashi dropping here and there. When Ginia stuns them, he takes the opportunity to attack while they're still stunned, sweeping through quite a few of the little purses in one swipe.

He's got one eye on the bear, though, since that one seems to be a bit more stubborn.] We should check the store once we've dealt with these ones. Make sure we get rid of any that are hiding.

[Once the last person is out of the room and the smaller ayakashi taken care of, Ginia moves her borderline to put up a shield in front of the bear as it charges. It slams the barrier with surprising force, held back, but hitting with more intensity than a creature its size should.]

Agreed. I'll keep the bear focused on me, you hit it from behind.

[As the bear moves to go to the side of the borderline, Ginia drops and resets the barrier, slashing at its flank to draw its attention back onto her.]

[Shun nods slightly at that, and ducks to one side as the bear starts going for Ginia. With its attention elsewhere, he has no trouble sweeping his hammer into its back and bursting it into white light...though as soon as that brighter burst of it emerges, the display of flowers Shun had pulled the bouquet he set alight from starts to flicker and ripple with movement.]

...Seems like some of them aren't content to just be found, then.

[One problem down, countless others to discover. Ginia hisses in annoyance and turns toward the flower display. Her fingers drop into the halberd position and she focuses on slicing only the ayakashi and not the flowers, cutting on the exhale.

There's a flutter of movement as an oily substance shapes together and takes neon form. A gecko-like ayakashi skitters away with lightning speed from the display and toward a shelf, a cut along its back already beginning to knit together.]

[As Shun sees the gecko move, his eyes narrow slightly, observing the movement and pulling his bottle of blessed water from his belt. He throws a line of the water between the gecko and the shelf it's trying to reach, causing it to reel back and hiss as it skitters just as quickly back towards Ginia.]

We're going to need to pin this one in.

[Ginia throws down a borderline to cover the shelves and splashes an arc of blessed water in front of her feet. The ayakashi recoils from the puddle of water, eyes twitching in agitation. Taking advantage of its confusion, Ginia slashes two borderlines on its hind legs. The borderlines cut deep and it runs left, slower from its injury, though its flesh knits back fast.]

[Shun takes advantage of it having been slowed, throwing another line of blessed water where it tries to veer left. With the injury, it can't veer back quickly enough to avoid it, and ends up drenched and momentarily stunned. It's long enough of a pause for Shun to swing his hammer down, getting rid of it.

Things go quiet again, but it definitely doesn't feel quite like the place is clear to Shun.] Now we might actually get the chance to check things over.

Agreed. I wouldn't be surprised if there's something hiding in the employee-only areas.

[Ginia's gaze falls over to the hammer. Hey there, Kotori.]

Can you call Kotori out for a few minutes? Having a second borderline to secure the back could help.

[Shun frowns slightly, as if weighing the advantages and disadvantages of that, but figures he can call her back in again if they run into something in the back.] Return, Kotori.

[The hammer glows white for a moment and reforms, turning back into the shape of a woman with hair in a messy curl on one side of her head and wearing a somewhat rumpled kimono. Kotori offers a brief wave of greeting as Shun starts to head towards the back, scanning over the store as he goes.]

Keep an eye out behind as well, in case there's anything else that's concealed itself like that lizard.

[Ginia returns the wave before surveying the store front. Ayakashi can gather anywhere, but they're drawn to spots with where negativity can concentrate. Ginia pours a bit of blessed water onto her hand and sprinkles it around the checkout counter, waiting to see if anything stirs. Nothing, thought that doesn't mean something isn't around.]

Never ends, doesn't it.

[Ginia changes to text-to-speech on her phone as she brings up the rear.]

We rend, we chase off ayakashi, they eventually return or gather elsewhere.

[Kotori splits off once they get near the back area to go and cast a borderline back there, while Shun glances back as Ginia sprinkles water over the counter just in case anything comes up. When it doesn't, he keeps heading on through.]

They're created from negative emotions, aren't they? Negativity isn't going to disappear, so if it's some kind of innate part of this world that it turns into ayakashi, then they're never going to vanish.

[Though he hasn't really spoken to the other pantheons about whether that sort of thing comes up where they're from.] We just have to keep getting rid of them as they come.

[Such is the reality of the world. It'd be nice to dream of a world without suffering or strife, but what would that really look like? It's impossible for everyone to be happy when happiness varies so much for everyone. And even if they're around to answer prayers, it's also impossible for them to make everything right nor is it their job to solve every problem.

For as damaging as the cult is and as poorly they're going about things, Ginia can understand the base desires. Who doesn't want things to be better, to hurt less? But draining people of energy and trying to displace gods isn't the way to do it.]

It's a shame Heaven is so heavy-handed when it comes to ayakashi. There's value in understanding them more, learning how they work.

[Knowing how to control them. The obvious answer, but unsaid.

Ginia pauses by a closed storeroom, listening for any ayakashi muttering on the other side. There's only silence, but she opens the room cautiously.

In the darkness, something stirs.]

[Shun glances back slightly at that - he's heard of those kind of desires before.] Sounds like Ebisu's been rubbing off on you.

[It's not necessarily a bad idea, but from what he'd heard about Ebisu from other gods, it has a tendency to leave people who dabble in it very dead. And from the sound of things, last time it hadn't just been Ebisu himself.

Kotori is just coming back from securing the back door when Ginia opens the storeroom, and when Shun catches a glimpse of something moving in there, he doesn't hesitate to call her back.] Come, Shouki!

[The familiar hammer returns to his hand as something starts to emerge from the storeroom, pushing against the door - it almost looks like a melted blob of...something. Possibly chocolate, though it's made of whatever it is ayakashi are made of nonetheless. It's slow-moving, but large, and its form starts to ooze out towards them as Shun takes a few paces back, grabbing for his canteen again.]

We're going to need to weaken this one. [It's too big for him to just try and take it down with Kotori straight off, even if it is slow.]

[Guilty as charged. But Ginia knows the wishes of her temple, knows they would like Ebisu to live a long, happy life. Knowledge is useful, but with all the sacrifices Ebisu's temple has endured, she would never ask any more of them. Others can research. Let Ebisu live.

Ginia tries to close the door, but the ayakashi presses back and oozes out the door, forcing it open again. She backs away, dropping her borderline from the front door to press against the ayakashi. It can't reach them immediately, but there are enough inches for it to ooze the space between the borderline and wall to get at them. She slashes at it, but with how viscous the ayakashi's shape is, the slashes are barely noticed.

Pouring blessed water helps, a solid shell forming on its surface like a hard candy, but Ginia uses the reminder of her water. She shifts the borderline to block off the hallway.]

I'm out of water. If I hold its attention, can you grab more for us? It might be the only thing that works.

[Shun looks a little uncertain about that, but they don't have a lot of options right now, so he nods slightly and gestures for her to throw him her bottle. He's still eying the ayakashi, focusing on it a little himself, and while bits of its outer skin dry up and flake off under the use of his powers, there's too much of it and it's too oddly formed to make that a useful method of attack.]

It shouldn't take more than a minute. I've got a spare canteen I can pick up on the way as well.

[He doesn't always bring a second because it's just inconvenient if he turns out not to need it, what with how much he carries, but in cases like this, it's useful to know where it is so he can just sweep through and grab it if he needs it. He'd leave one of his birds to draw attention, but he knows from experimentation that he can't get more than a certain distance away from them, so it would vanish as soon as he teleported anyway, so it's best to focus on getting there and back quickly.]

[Ginia tosses the bottle back his way, attention back on the ayakashi. Damn, even with the danger of setting the place on fire, knowing the song spell for fires would be useful right about now. She holds her ground as the ayakashi continues to slap and ooze against her borderline. Her wall is solid and it won't get through, but there's not much else she can do but watch it.

In the full light of the hallway, it's really no more than an oozing ball, constantly moving and rolling. At least it's slow, though the dripping tentacle-like limbs its slapping at the borderline have reach. Gross.]

[As soon as Ginia's bottle gets to his hand, Shun disappears, flicking through his shrine and then on to the Far Shore and down to the blessed water pools in his garden to fill the bottles. He keeps his spare canteen concealed near there anyway, and grabs it once he's done with the other two just before he teleports back.

He reappears in just about the specific spot he vanished, figuring it's best not to risk that the ayakashi might've reached anywhere else in the hall, and tosses Ginia her bottle back as he uses his other hand to slash a line of the blessed water out against the ayakashi.]

Catch.

[If there's anything to be thankful for, it's the ayakashi doesn't try to do more than lash at the borderline and inch forward. By the time it even seems like it's considering going another way, Shun returns. Ginia catches the bottle and turns back to splash it onto the ayakashi.

It twitches and recoils from the stream of water, skin hardening under the harsher deluge. Ginia slashes at the hardened skin, cracking it enough to create a gap to pour more water in.]

[Taking his cue from Ginia's move there, Shun throws more water into the gap, hardening the surface on an even deeper level and making the thing release an odd, gurgling noise that might indicate it's in pain. It's starting to shuffle back, as if trying to get away, but the hardening of its surface seems to be giving it a harder time moving.

On noticing that, Shun splashes some of the water down around its base, hardening its form there as well and making it list to one side.]

[More and more, the surface hardens. It still cracks and splinters, but doesn't rebound as quickly. The limbs are easier to parry with borderlines as it feebly lashes out, looking more like a bubble of hardened candy with each splash of blessed water. Ginia makes sure to chip into it with borderlines, carving out deep cracks to make it easier for Kotori to rend.]

[As Ginia chips further in, Shun continues splashing with water, into the cracks and letting her get deeper into it with the slashes. As the hardening gets closer to its core, something colourful and more akin to the appearance of a typical ayakashi becomes visible from under the layers of sludge.

Shun doesn't hesitate to aim for it, with the thing practically immobilised and what seems to be a weak point wide open. Sure enough, when Kotori's vessel hits that point, it bursts into a flash of white light, taking the disgusting outer layers with it as it disappears.]

[Chalk up another win and a note for the mental ayakashi bestiary. Ginia exhales and releases her borderline, capping her bottle and tucking it back into her purse.]

First time I've seen one like that, I hope it's the last time. Talk about a pain to fight.

[Ginia swipes some of the remaining blessed water on the floor over toward the wall. Outside, there's the sound of sirens pulling up.]

Sounds like there's our cue to finish up.

I think I might've seen one before, but it wasn't one I fought directly. [He's definitely quietly echoing that sentiment about it being an absolute pain, though, letting out a faint hiss as he puts his canteens back on his belt.

At the sound of the sirens, he glances back sharply.] Probably for the best. We must've gotten rid of most of them by now.

[It's not a big hallway or back storage area. The room the blob ayakashi was hiding in contained an additional handful of small, easy to handle ayakashi. Ginia blocks off the storage room's door as Shun and Kotori rend them, keeping an eye on the door.

The remaining room is the utility closet with the breaker, free of ayakashi. As they exit out the back door, it closes as the door to the hallway opens.]

Wish we could have swept the front again, but I think this place will be okay for awhile. Thanks.

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