thenearshore | Closed

"Guess all we can do is wait until the tournament. I'll get a bit more practice in." They're all dying of work at Ebisu's temple, but that doesn't mean they don't get breaks. Ginia is pretty sure she can beg some of the card players to spend a break playing a match against her, especially for the sake of a prayer and some kids. "I'm going to grab a few things and head out."

Ginia thanks the shop owner for letting them use the space, buying a few more booster packs, card sleeves, a deck box, and signing up for the tournament. The large purchases can't hurt, but getting kids back and shopping is the more sustainable goal.

The day of the tournament, Ginia shows up early to scope out the mood. There are a few pre-teens, including the ones they helped out, having a friendly pre-tournament match. Ginia smiles as she watches them, hanging out of sight as she waits for Shun to show up.

Shun has most of the usual supplies already, but he buys a few of the most recent booster pack when he signs up for the tournament as well, even though he doesn't really need anything else for his own deck. It might still be useful in future, or he can take anything sought-after back to the shop so it can get sold on.

On the day, he doesn't show up much later than Ginia. He's in more civilian-leaning clothes than he usually wears, including a black shirt with a white design of a branch of flowers and a falcon on it, and has a bag hanging over his back that has what looks like it might be a card binder poking out of the top.

Also the weight of his usual supplies and weapons stash hidden underneath something at the bottom, because he can never be quite that casual.

"No sign of the others so far?" He inclines his head to Ginia as he comes in, looking over the current group.

Ginia raises a hand in greeting. She's also dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt with a cat print on it. There's a backpack slung over her shoulder with her cards inside. The only weapons on her are the knife Kimi gave her (and more as good luck charm), and a large bottle of blessed water tucked into her bag. If there's a threat to deal with, it'll be ayakashi more than anything else. Go ahead, cultists, try to crash a local card tournament aimed at kids.

"Not yet. Judging by their personalities, I'm thinking they're the kind to saunter in at the last minute. Turn out is better than I thought, looks like our group convinced their friends to come."

Ginia tilts her head lightly toward the entrance.

"I'm thinking I might put a borderline across the doorway to keep any possible ayakashi at bay. I think everyone is old enough they won't readily notice it and it'll rule out any behavior problems because of them."

Because sometimes assholes are of their own making.

"People will be able to pass through freely, but I might have to let it fall if I need to focus a bit. I'm assuming you have water on you too?"

"Wouldn't surprise me. Inconveniencing people just because they can seems like their brand of stupidity," Shun says rather dryly, glancing back at the door. If they're people who are going to target kids just because it's easy, he feels like they'd go for the other easy routes in being obnoxious and insufferable as well.

It's not a bad idea to put up a borderline, though, and Shun nods a little in agreement. "I do. I'd at least figure their behaviour in general isn't ayakashi since they were acting like that in multiple places, and we probably would have noticed if they had any hanging onto them. But there's no sense courting the risk of any getting drawn in by their attitudes either."

They're probably going to lower the mood just by being in here until they lose, and even that has a risk of drawing ayakashi if the people in question get sour enough about it. Which seems like a very real possibility to Shun, so he's definitely not going to turn down the precaution.

"Usually people don't bring really young kids to tournaments, so I'd be very surprised if anyone was young enough to notice it."

"I came back yesterday to check on things, didn't see any ayakashi naturally drawn here." Without the troublesome group around, it's a pretty friendly place. Even the stress caused by the teenagers isn't any more than the problem a average shop might face. They're probably fine, but staying on top of things never hurt.

About twenty minutes before the official start time of the tournament, the owner calls for any last minute sign ups and checking the roster to see who is here. As predicted, the teenagers saunter in about ten minutes before the start; Ginia strikes her borderline down as they enter, brushing off any possible ayakashi that might have latched on. With everyone gathered, the drawing for the first round of matches begins. Ginia matches up with another adult unrelated to their problem, but notices she'll match up against one of the teens if he wins his first round and she wins hers.

Giving Shun a quick thumbs up, she goes to her assigned table and sets up her cards.

Shun's first match is also an unrelated party, an older teen who seems friendly to the younger players but also quite fresh to the game himself. As Shun sets up, he watches the situation with the others - the turnout for the tournament is decent, so for the first round, it seems like most of the potential pair-offs have missed each other.

The kids are seeming confident going up against older players, though, and for the moment the teens are also against older players, so Shun largely just keeps an eye on things during the first round. His opponent tries, but they're enough of a newcomer that it doesn't take him more than a quarter of the designated round time to handle them.

He does, at least, shake their hand for a good game and give them some advice on their deck, which seems to be welcomed considering their lack of experience. As far as Shun's concerned, the last thing they need is more people put off from the shop because of unpleasant players.

Ginia's opponent has been playing for a bit longer, but is a casual player, here for the fun of playing against other people. He's politely chatty as they play, happy to talk about his kids (the reason he got into the game in the first place) without trying to be a deliberate distraction. It's a nice match as they go back and forth, exchanging monsters and counters and chipping away at each other's health pool. When Ginia ultimately wins, she knows it's because her last two draws worked in her favor. It's a good test of her deck and for her first real match, it was fun. She shakes his hand, complimenting him on the match.

She glances over at her next possible opponents. There's a tenser mood over at the table, one of the targeted teens looking a bit smug as he plays. Ginia checks her notes on his deck, one designed to overwhelm with weak monsters that rapidly grow in power with each one on the field. However, stopping the avalanche effect is easy if he can't build momentum and her deck is designed around canceling out card effects and preventing summons. Her smile is thin as she watches him win his match, leaving the offered handshake hanging a bit and giving in only because everyone is watching.

It's a good time to drop her borderline and relax a bit as the first round finishes up. All the kids are moving forward, avoiding another round of facing each other or the teens. Ginia smiles at Shun and gives a thumbs up as she takes a seat at the next table, dropping her borderline back in place. Her smile is thinner as she looks at her opponent, staring him down as she shuffles her deck. All right, time to take this more seriously.

Shun gets another unrelated party for round two, but with the sorting of the rounds, the losers are getting paired against the losers and winners against winners - it's only a matter of time until they run out of alternate pairings. But with Ginia going up against one of the teens first, Shun's keeping an eye on things over there as he starts his own game. He's familiar with that type of control deck that's being used, and while it's hard to break if it gets running, if it gets interrupted during setting up, it's basically a sitting duck unless the person running it has enough skill or luck to recover.

His current opponent is a little bit younger than Shun himself, but quite confident, if not to the point of the bullies. The deck he's using is one that's rather inventive and different to what a lot of the people today are playing, and it's not one Shun's played against before, so it takes him a little bit longer to play around it. That said, once the game is over, he's definitely interested in taking some time out to discuss the build and strategy with the player, who seems very happy to talk about his ideas for it, even while Shun continues keeping an eye on Ginia's round.

The key is to not give away the mechanics of her deck too fast or burn through needed cards and come up dry later. Her deck at first glance is a pre-built deck at its core, but with some careful substitutions and additions, it can keep repopulating the cards she needs into her hand. But sometimes sacrifices need to be made in favor of more information and set up. Ginia gauges her losses as she takes another hit to her HP pool and moves a monster to the graveyard, letting her opponent fall into a false sense of security. He has a few monsters, a shaky foundation but nothing she can't deal with. It's the bigger monsters she needs to watch out for. Another round passes, more set up on her end. There's a smug smile as he lays down a powerful card, confusion crossing his eyes as it activates a trap card on Ginia's side. She offers an innocent, surprised smile as she removes his card from play entirely.

Having the budget to spend on cards and long-time collectors to borrow from also helps. As he sputters over the legality of her card, Ginia calmly pulls up the official rule book on her phone, pointing out the card and set it comes from is accepted in tournament play. The referee assisting with the tournament comes by to look at the situation, agreeing Ginia's move is entirely within legal play. His lynchpin banished, Ginia sweeps the rest of the match, preventing him from summoning anything too powerful and locking down the monsters on the field. Her own monsters - innocuous and saccharine mermaids - slash away at his HP pool until he's done for. Ginia gives Shun a surreptitious thumbs up before offering a handshake. Her opponent grudgingly accepts it before hurriedly gathering up his cards.

Her next match up puts her against one of the kids, but it's also the first round matching up one of the kids against a bully on the winner's bracket. As Ginia drops her borderline, she studies the current set up. There's a chance for the bullies to work back up through the loser's bracket. Whether it's her or one of the kids, someone needs to manage that side too.

Shun watches the end of the match from a more reasonable distance, so he can overhear how things are going properly. He's not surprised it ends up turning in her favour - people who play like the teens do don't tend to respond well to unexpected upsets to the way the deck is supposed to play. It's the difference between someone who's playing a good deck that they really know and put work into and someone who's playing a good deck just because they saw someone else doing it.

The fact that the guy tries to make a judge call on card legality speaks enough for how little he actually reads up on the game he's supposedly good at, and the rest of the game proceeds about how Shun expects. And so they head into the next round - unfortunately, it appears that Shun's intended opponent had to run out for something and doesn't come back within the first match time, leading to that being called in his favour after ten minutes. Another ten and he gets the round, but he's planning to spend that time watching over the game between the kid and the bully. He figures what Ginia chooses to do in going up against the kid is her business, but he doesn't want the one up against the bully losing her nerve.

It doesn't seem like a problem initially, though. The girl seems quite ready to show the bully what she's learnt since they last fought, and the match gets on a roll promptly, both sides starting strong.

Ginia gives her opponent a warm smile and shakes his hand.

"You're doing good. Even though I'm new, give it your all, okay?" she plays through her phone. The kid nods, expression steeling in the way kids can get when they're ready to focus and go in seriously. He's made it this far and Ginia has no doubt he can go further. She has the benefit of an powerful deck through money and the tactics to play it well, but she lacks experience. It's a deck she's only dabbled in while her opponent knows his deck and the game quite well.

He matches her counters with ones of her own, playing a deck that forces discards and allows him to cycle his own cards back into his hand. He plays well and Ginia has to admire the mechanics of his deck as he manages to stall her down to one card in her hand. As he launches an attack that takes out her health pool in two attacks, Ginia grins as she shakes his hand again.

"Teach me how your deck works after you beat everyone else?"

"Sure thing!" He says, returning her grin and giving her hand a firm shake.

Ginia gives Shun a thumbs up. "I'll hold the fort down on the loser's bracket." Having focused on her game, she's not sure how the other match turned out, but she's ready to boost someone ahead or hold the bullies back.

Shun isn't too surprised to see Ginia lose to one of the kids - they have been playing for longer, all else aside - but his focus is a little more on the match between the kid and the bully. The bully makes a powerful play, evidently having had to build their hand up a bit to get there, and replaces their creatures on the field with much more powerful ones, flipping a card that will make them all extremely difficult to get rid of.

The girl merely flips another card in a chain, leaving the bully gaping as stacked effect rules mean her card completes its effect before the protection kicks in, wiping the creatures from the field. The protection is still there, but without the creatures, it's less than useless as the girl's turn snowballs into a winning move, their HP already having been depleted considerably by the fight up to that point.

Shun gives a somewhat approving nod as the bully storms off to gripe to their friends, and he approaches the girl to discuss her tactics briefly before coming back around to Ginia.

"They're doing well. I might not even have to step in here, though I hope they don't mind losing to each other when the winner's bracket gets small enough. Someone has to win outright."

That's good to hear. There's a request for a quick break and the store keeper is happy to oblige, giving everyone fifteen minutes to grab something to eat or drink. Ginia keeps her borderline as a few people head out of the shop before letting it fall to give herself a break.

"I imagine they'll handle losing to each other well enough. They can have fun with it. Can't say the same for the bullies." There's one left in the group and they're all huddled together. With two in the loser's bracket, all they need is one more loss each to get knocked out.

"How about you? Having fun with all of this?"

Shun keeps an eye on the bullies as they have their little conference, but they seem quiet enough for the moment (thankfully), so most of his attention goes to Ginia when she starts signing.

"At least they'll be respectful about it, which is more than I can say for those idiots," he remarks, which is pretty much his way of saying he agrees with her thoughts on it. As for the talk of fun, he frowns a bit and glances away.

"I'm...still working on thinking about it as something more mundane here. There's a fire you get out of people when this kind of thing isn't just a game, or is a bigger fixture than it is in this world. I don't really get that feeling from the people here, but they don't have a reason to be like that."

Sometimes a game is just a game. Maybe on higher levels of play with prestige and bigger prizes at stake, there's more of a fire in people, but it's still not the same level as it was in Shun's world. And maybe that's better for Shun too, having a bit of separation from the game and a life-or-death situation. She gives him a few seconds before whistling to get his attention back so she can sign again.

"You should consider looking around for other tournaments to play in. Even having people to talk strategy with could be good." Her head tilts toward the store owner, making the rounds and chatting with the players around. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you wanted to coach kids once in awhile. It could be good for you, Shun."

Once she whistles, Shun's attention comes back to her rather sharply, as if he had been musing on it a bit. She's not wrong, though, and he hums slightly as if in reluctant assent before moving his hands to sign back. He's found it's sometimes easier to do that instead of speaking, when it comes to difficult subjects.

"It's been good talking strategy here. I'm still just worried about coming back to my world in the wrong mindset. Like I shouldn't be doing this sort of thing until the war is over."

On one hand, he's largely gotten past the idea of thinking the people he's lost don't want him to move on. On the other, moving on is still difficult when the thing he's trying to move on from still isn't over.

"I think you're underestimating how much relaxing could do for yourself as well as cutting yourself short in your ability to dive back into action when you return home."

It's an argument they've been over before and she still thinks his arguments against getting soft are ridiculous. He's been here for over a year now. He could go back as soon as tomorrow, he could be here for ten years. Who can tell these days. He might not even remember this in the end if he's pulled back home out of the blue.

"Don't act like you're the only person who can end the war too."

She has a point about the fact that he might be misjudging his ability to jump back in, but he takes on a rather sour expression at that last remark, signing back with a kind of forced steadiness.

"There's maybe a dozen able combatants left in my world including me, and less than another dozen left from the group who I've been crossing worlds with. I'm not the only one, but there's few enough already."

Shun knows she's aware of his world having been attacked, but he's not sure he's ever explained precisely how bad the situation is on the front of people remaining. The majority of those still alive are the civilians who managed to flee after the Resistance forces were targeted.

"Is it that hard to believe someone would have trouble moving on from something that's still happening?"

Ginia knows he's not the only one who can end the war and is aware he's aware too, but the whole situation isn't one he's ever explained. Now isn't the time either. Maybe one day, away from other people, with food, she'll finally step over the line and fine out what the hell the whole situation is.

"No, it isn't. I imagine I'm only as together as I am because I don't know what I've done." She can sure speculate on everything though. Sometimes Ginia wonders if working herself into exhaustion at Ebisu's temple is her way of keeping herself distracted. She can't deny the other shinki there have been immensely helpful in helping her settle in.

They too are still recovering from deep trauma. They're all suffering together.

"But I'm not asking you to move on. I don't want to see you standing still though."

Having seen a bit of Ginia's past, Shun figures she's probably right about that. He's seen with others that not remembering can destroy people just as much as remembering, but things are different for different people, and Ginia has always seemed relatively better off for not knowing.

Shun would like to bite back that he doesn't stand still, ever, but even he would probably say of late that he has slowed down. As such, he settles himself a bit before signing back.

"The losses earlier in the year pushed me forward in some ways and slowed me down in others. I've come to one of those points where it's harder to keep moving forward because you need time to think about how you're doing it."

Which is, at least, a sign that he has been thinking about it, but figuring out his boundaries and thoughts on this sort of thing has been taking some time with how detached he's been from it for a while.

"As long as you're thinking about things." He's had a lot of rough losses, the most among her friends if she had to quantify it in someway. "I'm not trying to nag, I just worry."

It's the cost of friendship. People begin returning from snack runs and bathroom breaks. Ginia filters any clinging ayakashi off with a borderline at the door before rising to change tables.

"I'll see you at the end of the tournament. Good luck."

"I haven't had much choice but to think lately," Shun replies, a faint hiss coming through his teeth at the admission. For better or worse, the recent losses have given him a push. It's just lucky that push ended up meting out to finally hammering it home that not everyone he's lost wants him to suffer under the weight of sin and responsibility on their behalf.

At the parting remark, he inclines his head and switches back to speaking. "You too. Though it's looking more and more like we won't need it."

Things are going fairly well so far. In any case, Shun heads off to check the pairings for the upcoming round.

Ginia's next round puts her against one of the teenagers, the one whose backpack she'd cut open. He's a little moody as they take their seats and start to set up, but before they start, he awkwardly offers his hand for a handshake.

'Uhh, good luck this round.' He mumbles. Ginia smiles and gives his hand a firm shake. He's not a bad player at all, though it's also clear he's not too familiar with his current deck. He looks surprised as he gains an edge, countering her cards and chipping away soundly at her health pool before she manages to take control and stall enough to get the cards she needs to win the round.

"Good game. You're pretty good. That's a pretty unique deck you're running." Ginia plays to him after the match.

He looks embarrassed and gestures over at the leader of their group, the only guy left on the winner's bracket. 'It's his deck. He said I shouldn't play my deck.'

Ginia frowns and looks over at the other teen. "What's wrong with your deck?"

He mumbles something too quiet to hear as he begins putting his cards away. Ginia watches him put his cards away before hurriedly typing out a message.

"If you want to play with someone that's not a jerk, the regulars here are pretty nice. They won't care what kind of deck you play."

'They're all kids.' He looks midly affronted in the way older kids get when associated with anything they see as anything too kiddish.

"We're playing a card game aimed at kids. Better playing with kids than someone who won't let you play what you want, right?"

He shrugs and puts his cards in his backpack, shuffling away to watch the rest of the tournament. Ginia sighs. Whether he remembers the conversation or not remains to be seen, but maybe it'll sink in.

The tournament continues on. Ginia is eventually knocked out by an admittedly one-sided match against one of the kids, leaving him to head the top of the loser's bracket. With him, the first girl they'd seen in the shop, the head teenager of the group, and Shun, the remaining four is a promising match up.

Most of Shun's rounds are relatively uneventful considering how high in the bracket he's ended up - with the teens already in the losers' bracket, he doesn't really have anything else he needs to do, and the kids are doing a perfectly good job of winning on their own.

The remaining four being who they are just has him hoping that the two kids don't get paired against each other, but thankfully, that doesn't end up being the case. It's Shun against one of the kids and the head teenager against the girl, something of an odd match-up considering their placements. Though Shun can't help but wonder if the manager might've had something to do with that, considering he seems as interested to see the outcome as the rest of them.

In any case, Shun sits down across from the kid, signing over to Ginia as he does.

"Keep an eye on the other game for me."

He'll likely need to keep his focus to win this one, with the kids so determined to make it through, but in the end, only one person is going to win today and they all know it. It's just a matter of who it ends up being.

"You got it."

Ginia's also pretty sure the manager might have something to do with the matchup, but there's no harm in it. Win or lose, the kids seem pretty confident and the teens had a healthy dose of humbleness. For the most part. One of the teens is pretty much sulking as he watches the game, but the teen Ginia talked to is talking quietly with some of the other players.

The girl looks a bit nervous. Ginia gives her a thumbs up and a supporting smile, mouthing "you got this," to her. She nods, steeling herself as she shakes her opponent's hand. He wins the coin toss to go first, making some aggressive moves to get his creatures on the playing field. However, she reacts just as quickly, getting her deck in motion with her own creatures on the playing field.

He has powerful cards on his side, but his strategy is brute force. Her deck needs a bit of setup, but hits hard once it's running. It's a close match, her deck stalling his attacks with counters and careful sacrifices. She pulls off a hell of a combination to defend against his attack and fight back, winning with a mere 100 hp left.

'That last move was illegal!' he erupts, hands slamming on the table as he stands up. Ginia barely takes a step before the manager swoops in. His expression is stern as he calmly walks back her move and why it was legal.

'You, however, are not using tournament legal cards.' The manager taps one of the cards he has on his playing field. 'This card was banned in the latest ruleset and therefore you should be disqualified. However, we are a casual, local tournament. This is for fun. If you disagree, you're welcome to leave.'

Enough is enough it seems for even the most tolerant of store owners. The teen reddens as he grabs his cards and throws everything back into his bag.

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