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

[ittenbari]

Uh...

[Sakon bends backwards to dodge someone else's flying punch, but still manages to keep eye contact with Minako.]

I was trying to get outta here, but...

[It's not working.]

[reloves]

Oh, come on! You just have to ru--

[ But as Minako steps closer to Sakon to try and reach him - maybe to physically pull him out of there, judging by how Minako usually goes about these things - something unexpected happens. Someone tries to punch Sakon, but since Minako was heading towards him, it ends up hitting her instead.

Straight on the head, too, which makes her drop to the ground. Woman down, alert, woman down. ]

[ittenbari]

Hey!

[It's hard to call someone out who's already busy punching someone else...]

Ah, dammit...

[Retaliation isn't the best idea at this point, not with Minako about to get trampled. He manages to crouch down and haul her up, but keeping her supported and dodging punches at the same time isn't the easiest thing to do.]

Please be conscious...please be conscious...

[reloves]

[ At least Sakon has some luck here - Minako is very conscious, and it becomes obvious pretty quickly once she starts groaning from the pain. Her body is still a little limp though while she's recovering. ]

What was that.. A bear..? [ She does sound a little out of it though for the moment. ]

[ittenbari]

[Oh boy...]

Sure was! Big old bear! That's why we gotta get outta here.

[Easier said than done. It's hard to fight people off when you can't really use your hands.]

Running is good. When you can do that, you let me know.

[reloves]

Sure, I'll let you know once the world is done spinning..

[ Yeah, she's still not fully recovered. Maybe you'll just have to drag her out of here somehow anyway, Sakon, since Minako sure doesn't seem capable of doing it herself right now. She's slowly regaining her footing, but that's pretty much the whole extent of it so far. ]

Geez, why does my head hurt so bad...

[ittenbari]

Uh...bears.

[Gonna stick with that as an explanation.]

Listen, we gotta get outta here before the bears find us, right? So either you've gotta walk or I've gotta carry you and neither one of those things seems like a really good idea.

[He has to shift back and forth to shield her from the chaos of the crowd. If this keeps up, he's not even going to be able to see a way out.]

[reloves]

[ She nods, even though just moving her head like that looks like it makes her more wobbly. ]

I-- I can walk..! Those bears have nothing on..

[ Minako takes a step.

And promptly almost falls down again, only held up by the fact Sakon is supporting her. ]

.. me.

[ Maybe carrying is the better option between two evils. ]

[ittenbari]

Yeah, uh...

[This isn't going to work. He easily sweeps her up into a princess carry, inadvertently knocking someone over with her legs as he tries to turn around.]

I promise not to drop you, but I probably oughta run...

[reloves]

[ There's no resistance whatsoever against him scooping her up like that. Especially since Minako wouldn't even have the energy to do anything about it even if she wasn't okay with it. ]

Then just.. run already.

[ With her still seeming half-dazed, it comes out kind of mumbled - more like a whine than anything else. She doesn't seem very concerned about the possibility of getting dropped. ]

[ittenbari]

Running!

[It's not the easiest thing to do, considering how many people there are crowding the area and how irate those people are, but he manages a pretty good speed through the mess.]

Not sure how far we're gonna have to go! Seems like it's a pretty big mess everywhere. What the heck is going on, anyway? There's no reason to be this mad!

[reloves]

You didn't see..?

[ Minako sure did see the moment the ayakashi broke out. And even though she hasn't seen its tentacles riling people up, she's seen an ayakashi that had a similar effect before - so it's not too difficult to put two and two together.

Even in her half-dazed state, yes. She's slowly starting to recover a bit though. ]

It's got to be the ayakashi.. They tend to do that to humans.

[ittenbari]

Maaaaaan...one of those creepy things again?

[No wonder everything is a mess.

He ducks behind what's left of a turned over festival stall and tries to figure out just where they can go from here.]

Kinda between jobs right now, so there's not a whole lot I can do about it. Should probably actually work on spells at some point...

[reloves]

[ For a moment Minako blinks at him blearily - it's kind of hard to figure out what "between jobs" means in this context when your head feels like it's been thoroughly scrambled, but she slowly catches on. There's a bit more energy returning to her eyes too, like she's slowly getting better. ]

I'm not sure if Zelda is around here either.. [ Especially not with the chaos going on, which means her goddess could be anywhere, if she's even still around the festival at all. ] But-- even borderlines can help weaken it a bit, right..? We should at least do something.

[ Even though Minako still doesn't look like she's in a great state to fight ayakashi, despite her mind slowly returning to her after the punch. ]

[ittenbari]

Yeah, the something we should be doing is getting you out of here, especially if there's one of those things around.

[He's surprisingly adamant about that. Usually, he's pretty easy to push around, but put him in his element and he's not afraid to put his foot down.]

Gotta find an opening and make a break for it. Tons of gods showed up for the festival, so someone's bound to have a shinki that can take care of things.

[reloves]

Are you sure?

[ The upside here - for Sakon, anyway - is that Minako isn't putting down her foot about helping out as much as she regularly would have been. Maybe even she realises she's not exactly in the best position to fight, despite still wanting to. ]

What if they can't handle it and just needed a few more people to make it work out..?

[ittenbari]

Hey, I wanna help out, too! Believe me, I do, but sometimes you gotta look at what you can do right now instead of what you might be able to do. Play the cards you have, you know?

[As he talks, he's busy looking over the area around them, judging the situation with a much more shrewd look in his eyes than usual. This is clearly a situation he's accustomed to, whether he remembers it or not.]

Right now I can get you somewhere safe and you can go get better before you go running off to help, right?

[reloves]

[ There's no immediate reply. Especially not by Minako standards, which means she's giving an immediate, instictive reply to most questions that come her way. In this situation she's quiet for a moment though, because it really doesn't feel right to just run off, no matter what he says.

But she'll just be a burden if she tries to fight and just.. fails in this state, right? So.. ]

Fine.. [ She sounds reluctant. Almost pouty. ] I'll try to get better quickly.

[ She's more trying to convince herself than him about that, really. ]

[ittenbari]

Not too quickly! Getting a good thump to the arm or leg or back or whatever isn't so bad, but you got whacked right on the head! That's where you keep your brain, you know, and those don't get fixed easy. Mine doesn't work so good on the best of days, so you can be sure I'd sit out a few rounds if I was in your position.

[This is patently untrue, but it sure sounds good.]