( Open ) - to leave a place, causing it to appear empty

[tuishou]

Who: Neji & Estinien, OTA
When: February 6 - Current
Where: Far Shore
What: Shinki meets his God. Shinki decides to figure This out, whatever This is.
Warnings: None. Yet.




✖ ( estinien ) [He's in the training hall. It's familiar. It takes Neji a moment of standing towards the back of the gathered crowd of souls to blink back the fact that he's heard this before. Shinki. Borderlines. Something in him alights at the mention of the Ayakashi and then he remembers it's because he's fought them before. So then why is he considered "new"?

Because he has no God, he figures.

It makes him want to reel in frustration but Neji finds himself proud of remaining stoic (and it's a silly thing to be proud of, but this, he knows, is him) and finding the doors. It's considerably chillier outside than inside where bodies are beginning to train, spar, waste their breath demanding answers from Heaven itself. The first thing he does is tear off the silly name tag.

It's never... failed, really, to wait for his God to come to him. So Neji crosses him arms, exhales, and does just that. If his jaw is squared shut and he's searching delicately for anywhere else he could be besides here and now, fully and successfully mimicking a teenage boy, well... he'll only apologize if called out on it.]

✖✖ ( ota ) [The days following his (re?-)encounter with his God, Neji sets out from the temple of Quetzalcoatl during what moments he can steal to go unnoticed. It's a habit, whether old or budding, and Neji isn't about to question where it stems from. He's curious about the surroundings, about what scenery and images align with memories of the Far Shore, curious about what names will mean. It's not an excitable endeavor. There's a tentativeness to this. There's a reason to be wary and careful in his steps and an equally convincing reason to be brimming with hidden hope. The nagging feeling of I don't know isn't one that Neji finds particularly easy to discard or grow used to. So he decides he shouldn't do either.

He's a quiet presence most times, simply a shinki with a bored face and blank eyes taking a stroll after a day's work. Even the hubbub of Valentine's Day does nothing but elicit a small frown from him-- apparently he's allergic to cooties and those sorts of things (he isn't, not really, but nobody needs to know... That.)

He walks the parks, he maps the routes to temples, and mostly he feels like he's just there. (And maybe he should have stayed through the Training Day lectures after all...)]

Comments

[reformedsinner]

[Hakkai doesn't take long walks for fun -- he doesn't have the time, between his divine duties, the school, and trying to carve out time for his friends and his shinki -- but he does have a dog, and Bon needs company on his long late-afternoon walks or he causes havoc wherever he goes.

At first, the young man with long black hair walking towards him on the road doesn't make him look twice. There are probably hundreds of shinki of the old gods who affect more traditional styles; long unbound hair isn't unusual at all.

But he's not in a uniform, and, as he comes close enough for Hakkai's nearsighted vision to reveal the details of his face, Hakkai's steps hesitate.]

... Neji?

[tuishou]

[That thing nearly looks like a lion-- which is a great way to find out that Neji has never, in fact, seen a real lion. Some strides forward, Neji still attempting to subtly figure this creature out, he feels like he needs to at least acknowledge the man walking it.

He doesn't take as long as Hakkai does, apparently, to put a name to the figure and then the face. But he loses his upper hand (why is he thinking of it like this?) when he balks. Stops in his steps as if his feet suddenly were lead. Neji pockets his hands, hears his common name, and can't help the lost look that washes over his face.

Damn.

He nods.] If you aren't more careful Hakkai-san, you'll sound as lost as I am at being here. [When there is no memory to look back on, the freshest of what does exist springs to mind. He and Hakkai had worked together. Neji knows this.]

[reformedsinner]

Will I? I'm afraid I haven't been away. But it's been a long time since I saw you here.

[Since Neji's disappearance, the disappearance of his capricious final goddess-- it has been a very long time indeed. Hakkai's smile is mild, not acknowledging the lost look flickering on Neji's face. The lost look that he's acknowledging, even, aloud.

He folds his hands as Bon sniffs curiously at Neji's feet, the fur of the dog's massive ruff falling forward far enough to leave just his muzzle and the glint of almost-hidden eyes visible.]

You remember.

[It's not a question. Neji had known his name.]

[tuishou]

[Neji keeps a steady gaze on Bon. Didn't Hakkai know it was rude to let pets approach anyone they liked? Eventually, he becomes satisfied that the dog is mild-mannered, and lets it be. It isn't avoidance, more so curiosity and an absolute under-exposure to animals in general; still, Hakkai would indulge him and not bring light to it if it were, Neji decides. Don't you love snap judgements?

His mouth has formed a pensive frown when he looks back to the older man.] I knew time had passed. The world is different. [Seasons, peoples, trends--

that awful reservedness around this man, who he's now stuck thinking is beyond an accomplice, and possibly an ally. Possibly.]

I remember. [Some.] Am I not supposed to? I have no memory of where I've been and I like to doubt "alive" has been an option. [Does this happen when a shinki loses their name for so long? The question burns on the tip of his tongue.]

[reformedsinner]

When anyone has been gone for long enough -- shinki or god -- it's rare for them to remember when they return.

[He exhales, looks up at Neji, and smiles; it's a small smile, mostly in his eyes, and much more sincere than his usual masklike grin.]

Still, I'm glad you do. I have a photograph to return to you.

Do you have another god now?

[tuishou]

[Behold, yet another example of why he shouldn't prize impressions over information (the valid kind) and Neji grinds his back teeth with distaste at another slip-up of his in so little time. Vulnerability, while not of his doing and not complete, was going to be a ruin for him.

He'd have to be quick to patch it.

And Hakkai-- something to return? So it was a matter of caring or of trust.] A photograph? [Clearly more important than the fact of service. Again.]

[reformedsinner]

[Clearly, much more important. Hakkai pulls out his phone, scrolling down the contact list until he finds the name again: Hyuuga Neji. There. So.

The last conversation they'd had over text pops up helpfully as he clicks on the name. He taps the photograph of Yuri, curled on her side in a welter of blankets in the dawn light, and still half asleep; he taps 'send.'

And, quietly, puts his phone back in his pocket.]

[tuishou]

[He's forced to slip his hands free of his pockets, feeling off-balance in a way that isn't true when the phone on his person vibrates, then beeps. (If you don't believe one of the firsts tasks he set himself to was to do away with cutesy or irritating ringtones that come default to the device, you would be wrong.) It's been unnerving that Hakkai never gave a spoken reply. He thumbs (nonchalantly) to the new message from Li Tieguai. (A God, and to think he'd been so casual to address the being...)

There's a tentativeness to this. There's a reason to be wary of what's to come and an equally convincing reason to be brimming with hope. Hating not to know, Neji blinks back resolve and he opens the attachment.

And he hates the skin he's in for not allowing him to gasp, or widen his eyes for longer than the reactionary moment, but this is him. This is him with a heart that's aware that it has long since stopped, and it feels just like a weight inside his body. The weight is impossible to ignore, and Neji exhales through his nose to relieve some of that-- tension? No. He adores the picture. The lady it shows.

He swipes it off his screen and hope bubbles into the quicker movement of placing his phone back where it will be safe, of meeting Li Tieguai's eyes with brilliant white.

But he's realistic and does not smile despite the new-- solace, sustenance, contradictions.] She isn't here now, is she?

[reformedsinner]

[That's--

-- hope, Hakkai thinks, maybe; certainly Neji's eyes are a little wider, his movements a little quicker as he looks up at Hakkai like the teenager his face suggests he still is. Will always be, now, if his death is in fact the truth, and not a lie like Gojyo's, like Hakkai's.

He shakes his head, an old ache shivering behind his sternum.]

No. I'm sorry. She hasn't returned.

[tuishou]

[Neji tells himself he isn't disappointed.

He nods. He hopes he won't have to put a name to the emotions that grip his chest. The best way to attain that is of course to move... forward. Old self is buried with practice though Neji still believes he has no reason to build a mask because of it. He sighs.

Cautiously he extends a hand to the dog-thing, like you're supposed to do when meeting a new animal (right?)] It may be for the best.

[And he wishes, dumbly, that the dog was white. He likes its wild hair.] I can't even remember giving the photograph to you, for one. I thank you for its safekeeping, Hakkai-sama. Would it better to let myself guess or rely on your mind for my complete memories of the Far Shore, I wonder?

[reformedsinner]

[Bon whuffs and begins licking Neji's hand; his tongue is big enough and his enthusiasm indiscriminate enough that he's also licking a considerable amount of Neji's forearm.]

I was honored by your trust.

-- And I'll answer any questions you have, although we weren't close enough that I can tell you everything about your time here.

apologies for being late

[estinien]

[This is it; the one thing Estinien has been thinking hard about since arriving. It was all too easy in a way to challenge things as they were presented, to pull apart the talks of being a God and working within the far and near shores. Estinien knows he can yell and shake his fist and resist fate all he wants. It's when someone else is brought into the fray that it begins to get tricky. He'd been lucky with the last batch; there had been no shinki for him then.

It doesn't take long for Estinien to take roost on the edge of the roof, standing and folding his arms as he keeps an eye out for anyone moving around. He'd never been one for the indoors, preferring the fresh chill air outside for now and it doesn't take long before he spots Neji.

So. This was it then. This shinki would be getting someone who couldn't even fend a dragon off in the end as their God. Estinien isn't even sure how Aymeric manages this stuff.]

How long are you going to stand down there?

we are all late on this blessed day orz

[tuishou]

[He was a soldier used to phenomenal sight- having death rob him of it and having no memory of why he ought to rely on a sense others do not have, have made Neji grow-- complacent, almost. He retains the sharpness that makes him himself but he'd been a servant to Gods before and not ever once had he been a ninja. So clearly old roots would... not wither, but get buried deeper in his being as new information and wants and challenges arise. So that's all a very long winded and purple-prose laden way of saying: Neji did not notice Estinien, though Neji in literally any other time would have told himself that he should have. Neji was too busy thumbing through the phone, reading off lists of names of those populating his Contacts.

He doesn't startle; he's Neji despite it all. And it's the suggestion that he'd been watched that makes him frown.

There's a very small handful of reasons why anyone would spend their time watching him, very few reasons why someone would want to lord themselves over him seeking height. He hates that he dreads it, and loves that he's bored sounding when he meets Estinien's gaze.] I am doing what everyone else seems to be doing: I am waiting for Heaven to show its hand and give me a better offer than that school back there.

[estinien]

[ So someone who doesn't startle easy; it's a good start at least. Estinien isn't sure if there's any kind of hidden criteria that shinki need to fulfill when being chosen to come here and someone easily spooked would require more work than Estinien is sure he wants to put into this whole thing.

It's not even anything against Neji; anyone of them would get the same reaction. The whole Heaven and Hell thing is so far over Estinien's head he can't help but wonder when he has moments to himself. Was it all some big joke? A fever dream? For now it's a mystery, almost as much of one as the person in front of him. The dragoon hops down from the roof, peering at Neji with a hint of curiosity.]

Everything here is better than that school back there. Unless your standards are truly that low.