36 - Dragon Dance

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: Help the Heavens cover for a missing goddess at her temple festival.
When: March 18
Where: Near the Sensou-ji temple in Asakusa
Summary: After Kannon's disappearance last year, the Heavens are concerned that things might go wrong at her temple's March 18 omikoshi festival. They've asked new gods and shinki to attend the festival and keep an eye out for trouble. Meanwhile, trusted newcomers and older gods and shinki alike are watching over the cultists that have been identified.






The Festival

Shrine-carriers, musicians and dancers congregate early in the morning in their matching outfits to get organized into their parade. Luckily, all of the parade participants this time are alive and well. There aren't even any troublesome ayakashi hanging around... so why is everyone having such bad luck?! Laces are breaking, costumes tearing, small children are getting sick from nerves, and even the drums seem to have gone out of tune. It looks like this parade is going to need a whole lot of help to prevent disaster.

For those who aren't busy with the parade preparations, food and souvenir booths throng the area in front of the temple. There's traveling games, too, and plenty of people showing up early with their families to find a good spot to watch the parade. This is one of Tokyo's most popular temples, so it's quite a crowd!

The Stakeouts

Any gods or shinki who were told about the cult problem by Amaterasu -- or anyone who might have heard from friends and allies about the plans -- can help Amaterasu's shinki keep a tight watch on all of the known cult members. Her shinki are looking for any sign of the young gods who she believes are behind all of this trouble, but are there other clues that might be found by a keen observer? Join in on staking out a cult member, and see what you can see.

Current cult members that the shinki are watching include:

• Mitsui Ryou - lives alone in a medium-sized apartment, appears to work a 9 - 5 schedule with occasional late nights.
• Imai Takeru - lives in a small two-story house by himself, has an unpredictable schedule.
• Shimoda Tsuki - lives alone in a small apartment with a lot of plants, works retail with varying shifts.
• Oota Saburo- lives in a medium-sized apartment with his wife and two young children, works a 9 - 5 schedule with frequent work trips.
• Maeda Shinnosuke - lives alone in a small, messy apartment, works construction (early mornings, long days.)
If your character is taking part in the surveillance of any of these people, please feel free to comment to the Cult Clues thread below with the name of the character they're watching, and the times that they're watching that character, in order to learn what they might see. (Note: surveillance doesn't have to take place only on the 18th. Characters can take part in watching the cult members at any time after Amaterasu's announcement on March 8.)

The Parade

At noon, the parade begins. Misfortune is still dogging the participants and the crowds around them, but it looks as though everything will go all right up until the final turn as the heavy, gilded shrine turns back towards the main temple building, tips, and slowly falls over sideways, straight for the crowd.

What's worse, when the shrine hits the ground, it cracks open -- and a huge, jellyfish-like ayakashi wearing a giant white mask with a single black eye inscribed on it heaves its way out and begins lashing its tentacles in every direction. People stung by the tentacles are driven into a furious frenzy, and fights are breaking out everywhere. Stop the humans from fighting, take care of the injured, and destroy the ayakashi before the situation gets any worse.

The Pursuit

In the middle of the fighting crowd, two white-robed shinki are chasing after a very average-looking salaryman in a tan coat. He doesn't seem to know that the shinki are chasing him, but he is moving fast, and they're in danger of losing track of him. They're calling out to any Far Shore denizen close enough to hear, shinki or god:

"Don't let that guy get away! He knows what happened!"

Anyone who has met or spent time staking out Mitsui Ryou will recognize him as the escaping salaryman. If your character takes part in the pursuit, please comment to the Cult Clues thread with a link to your thread - the character who successfully catches Mitsui will be determined by RNG on January 6, 2019.

In Summary:

• Attend the Sensou-ji festival
• Enjoy food and games
• Help Amaterasu's shinki stake out the cult
• Fight a masked ayakashi
• Have fun~

Comments

[trustheart]

[Chris grunts, not happy with how up close and personal he's getting, but unable to really do anything about it. At that moment, Luger runs up, and nods to Chris, her quickly muttering the words needed to turn him into his vessel form.]

I'm afraid not! Alchemy and heretical science isn't magic, even if it doesn't really seem like it!

[mithrarin]

No idea if I can help with it then! [The Dust Storm has only ever worked on magic, but then, he's only ever tried it on magic.]

[...Not that it much matters, he figures. Now that Chris has invoked her shinki, he's useless here except as a distraction, a second target to give her time. So he'll play that role, delivering stinging swipes with his sword to anger the ayakashi and keep its focus on him.]

[trustheart]

[Chris fires off a quick round of six shots, which, aided with borderlines, allows Chris's aim to consistently strike certain points, blasting off a sizable chunk of the ayakashi that doesn't reform.]

Nice job! Try going for one of the tentacles! Maybe we can destabilize it enough to take one of them off!

[mithrarin]

[Well, this one seems pretty simple. Dust lifts one hand and opens his fingers; his sword, rather than falling, blurs into a vortex with enough strength and power that it draws one of the tentacles in through the force of its wind. Sucked in, countless small cuts begin appearing on it, and it also is pretty stuck so long as Dust can keep this up.]

[Which isn't forever!]

[trustheart]

[Those thousands of small cuts are joined by a riddling of bullets from Chris's minigun, and then a round of gunfire from Luger, which successfully rends the tentacle from the beast's body.

But it wriggles and writhes as if it were still alive, and immediately lashes out at Dust once it hits the ground.]

[mithrarin]

[Dust parries with such force that it rings through the air and makes the ground tremble, dust and debris roaring out from around him in a circle. The impact makes both Dust and the tentacle recoil, but he recovers first, and whips his sword in a rising arc that sends the tentacle skyward.]

Rend it!

[trustheart]

[Chris fires up at it with both her miniguns, blowing off large chunks of the ayakashi and destabilizing its form. Then, she takes aim with Luger and fires, blasting through it with her shinki's bullets, destroying it.

Chris lets out a heavy, weary sigh, dropping down to one knee. That got pretty intense for a moment. And that still left the big guy, who had used the loss of its tentacle to put some distance between them...]

[mithrarin]

It's getting away.

[Dust doesn't call it intense. Not by his standards. He grips the Blade of Ahrah tight as he straightens up, looking at the ayakashi retreating. Are they going after it? Or rather, is she? Because Dust will, of course. Never mind the blight staining the fur of his face and hand.]

[trustheart]

[What can she say, getting into several fights with this thing and pulling off a rend is pretty exhausting.]

Yeah... I know... give me a second, alright? I'm superhuman, not invincible!

[If this were a Noise, she'd be able to blast it to kingdom come, and take down something more massive. But these ayakashi fights keep ending up being a war of attrition.]

[mithrarin]

[War of attrition... He's just glad to actually see an ayakashi die, for a change. Or even a part of it. Months of battling them to standstills, wounding them only to know they would escape without him ever being able to kill them...]

[His work isn't done, though.] I'll chase after it, then. You catch your breath.

[trustheart]

Yeah... I'll follow after you soon enough. Good luck.

[mithrarin]

[Dust takes off at a run, tail and cloak streaming behind him. No rest for the wicked.]