thenearshore | 008

They're only making it worse by stubbornly sticking to their ways. They won't believe that things are different with us, or that their way of handling things might not be the best one, and it's hurting their image even more.

[At the very least, Bishamon seemed more flexible when he met her earlier today, but his actual conversation with Amaterasu on that post hadn't been promising. If that's the face they're presenting to the heavens at large, he can't really fault people taking issue with it.

Jumping to the next branch down and then the last in sequence, Shun glances back briefly.]

Did she give any details about it? [Information is information. In the meantime, he drops from standing on the branch he's on currently to hanging on it in one smooth motion, then lets go and drops neatly down to the rotted patch of ex-vegetation below.]

[Ren silently walks along his branch for a moment before actually replying to any of that. He likes Shun, and being another person who usually fought with a card game automatically bumped him pretty high up on Ren's list of preferred people, but this is one area where they're probably going to disagree for a long time.]

That depends on which ways and which of us we're talking about.

[Frankly, he's only gotten more sympathetic toward the way things are "supposed" to be since their last talk (a whoooole lot of that was because of how Yukine's post blew up), so while he can sympathize with being annoyed about being here, that's about where his sympathy stops. That said...]

But I do still think they could be handling things better, and I don't really blame anyone for being upset with it.

[He jumps down to the next branch and then the last one, where he drops down to sit on it for them moment.]

She didn't, but I didn't really press her for details either. I've been a little busy making sure she doesn't think I want to fight her just because Hi-kun can't control himself with her.

[He especially doesn't want her to think that he's asking about past rebellions to get some pointers for a future attempt or something.]

That's probably a conversation better to have when things aren't like this. [He tilts his head in the direction of the still-spreading fire, which by this point has reached the opposite branches of the tree Ren's still on. He's quite aware he and Ren don't see eye-to-eye about the finer points of how this place works, but it's nothing he's so adamant about that he's argue about it in the middle of an attack like this. There is a slight incline of the head when Ren recognises that it's hard to take issue with anyone having a problem, though, and he leaves it at that.

He hadn't considered the difficulties having a shinki like Ren's must cause, and he gives a slight hiss in response.]

Right, I hadn't thought about that. Obviously your shinki hasn't calmed down any since we last talked. [Shaking his head slightly, his eyes shift back to the fire.] This kind of attack for what we've seen of the heavens so far, though...it'd take complete fanatics out of the new gods to want to go through with something like this. We barely know about the old gods, let alone enough to judge whether they deserve a violent revolution.

[His tone when he reaches those last words runs a shade disbelieving, because the last group he encountered deserving of that actively murdered most of the population of his home. That's not the kind of thing that's easy to hide.]

And whoever did this clearly didn't give a damn about the collateral damage, either.

Well, he was starting to calm down a little...

[Yesterday, he might have even sung higher praises than that, but Hibari's feelings yesterday and his feelings today were two entirely different animals, unfortunately.

And the fire has reached his tree, so it's time to go. And it's time to try another thing that he's really only ever seen Asaka do, which is to flip backward off the branch, because this is as good a time as any and he has to keep joy in his life somehow. So up go his legs and backward he goes...but the branch is a little big for Asaka's usual maneuver, so Ren ends up letting go of the the branch too early and he falls and lands on his back.

Still, he didn't land on his head so it could have been worse!]

No, they didn't. [Speaking of collateral damage! But other than a slight wince as he sits up, he doesn't seem to be too hurt.] Well, hopefully no one is fanatical enough to consider some kind of follow up to this. But I think we would have seen evidence of it by now if anyone was...

It doesn't sound like that lasted long.

[If Ren wants to go into detail, Shun imagines he will, but for now he's assuming it's something relatively private between god and shinki.

Shun watches Ren's movement and opens his mouth about at the point Ren lets go, but then just closes it again because it's obviously too late for a warning. Instead, he watches Ren fall with a faintly incredulous look on his face, and leans foward a little to look down at him when he lands on his back.]

You've never actually done that before, have you? [You learn the timing when you do things like that often enough, as he's already familiar with.

After Ren stands, Shun takes another few steps away from the fire, heading back towards less smoky skies. Given the taboo ayakashi incident from the other week, he's not going to say fanatics are always easy to spot before they move.]

It's hard to tell with some people here. Maybe this'll at least keep anyone who's just dissatisfied with the heavens from siding with these idiots.

[He is awfully tempted to just start complaining about his terrible luck with shinkis, but...he's already done a fair bit of that today, so the particular observation just gets a small shake of his head.

And at the other one, he huffs and pouts a little, which looks even more childish than usual from his position on the ground.]

No, but Asaka always makes it looks so easy...

[It's really too bad she isn't here, because she would have gotten a kick out of seeing him attempt and then utterly fail at that, too. Once she got over her initial heart attack.

He winces again as he pushes himself to his feet, but that's all the complaining he'll be doing about any self-inflicted bruises as he follows along after Shun.]

Well, that's true, especially if they're smart enough to keep to themselves. And anyone who showed up today is an unknown. And there's definitely going to be someone complaining that Amaterasu-san didn't see it coming, especially if she tries posting another apology...

[In his opinion, Amaterasu really needs to stop apologizing to everyone personally, primarily because of that very issue.

...And he lost his train of thought here by going into everyone who has the potential to side with these idiots.]

[Raising an eyebrow slightly at Ren, Shun takes a few quick steps towards the nearest tree that's not on fire before leaping up, kicking off the trunk and grabbing hold of a branch, swinging up into the position Ren had been in shortly before. A moment later, he leans back and lets himself slip off, his body reflexively correcting with a half-flip to land back on his feet on the ground. The whole thing doesn't take more than a few seconds.]

Anyone who knows what they're doing makes things like that look easy. That's the whole point of reflex and training.

[Point having been made, as far as he's concerned, he waits for Ren to catch up before moving on. All the points he's making are basically the ones Shun was thinking when it came to potential dangerous parties, though he does shake his head slightly at the last remark.]

I was one of the people complaining on her last post, but if anyone expects her to have seen an attack like this coming, they've never been in real combat before.

[That's the closest comparison point he has to this right now.]

[...You are so lucky his awe of casual demonstrations of skill outweighs any indignation he might have over being shown how it's actually done, or he wouldn't be pouting nearly as cutely right now.

He does maybe kind of wish a tiny bit that he could watch Shun doing that a few more times, though.]

Mmm, I haven't been entirely supportive of her either-- [although you would have to read pretty deep into his posts to see that] --but it does seem silly faulting her for this. Hopefully more people will see it that way than not, so she has fewer people wasting her time.

[That's not exactly the look Shun was expecting the demonstration to prompt, and his brow furrows faintly at Ren before he decides it's really not important given the situation.

Given his and Ren's previous conversations on the topic, he wouldn't have figured Ren to be all that unsupportive of Amaterasu, so that's information to him, at least.]

As long as she doesn't come out with another useless apology. The first time, it might've been reassuring to some, but the second time it was just asking for people to criticise her for doing that instead of doing something about what had happened. [Like him, for example.] Not offering us a post to do it on might give her more time to focus on this.

008 | OVERFLOW

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