jigokulogs | APRIL 2022 EVENT

APRIL 2022 EVENT

1. HANAMI

The week of the Night Parade is marked by the traditional symbols of Spring in Japan. Somehow, several city blocks have been turned into cherry blossom groves as a show of goodwill by the Sutoku Alliance. These cherry trees don't feel normal. They are more like spectral manifestations. Rumor has it they grew so quickly because they're planted on top of a graveyard. That's just a rumor, though. Don't pay it any mind! Don't listen to any whispers you might hear if you walk through the rows of trees alone and certainly don't dig under them for proof of their provenance.

Accompanying the hanami are copious amounts of food and drink. Such as dango, specialized bento, sake, and festive drinks. They are all available to purchase from stalls near the spectral grove. The refreshments may have a little something special added to them:
Ingredients that promote peace (calming any angry or upset feelings)
Ingredients that promote romance (gives soft, warm feelings towards the first person you see).
These effects are mild and only last as long as you're in the boundary of the grove. Eat, drink, and be merry with your fellow lost souls.

2. KANAMARA MATSURI (NSFW IMAGERY)

In addition to the simple joys of flower viewing and the cherry blossoms blooming, new festivals pop everywhere. They are inspired by various regional festivals from all over Japan. Some of these are benign and feature your normal festival fair. Others are a little more unusual, such as the Kanamara matsuri-inspired treats. You can thank the Tamamo Clan for this. Don't mind the giant phallus being carried down the street or the wooden phalluses you can ride on or the interesting mascots walking down the sidewalk, or the suggestive vegetable carvings.

Surprisingly, none of these foods are spiked, at least not more than the experimental recipes had been during the parade preparations. The spirit of the thing is more just the amusement of genital-based foods rather than anything meant to entice a sexy sort of good time. That will come as the parade rounds out onto the bath district...

3. HADAKA MATSURI

cw: nonsexual nudity

If that cheeky festival isn't your kind of fun, maybe the hadaka matsuri is more your speed. The Department of the Enma are probably the most stressed out faction in the entire city, so the Enma has allowed them to put on a festival to blow off some steam! It's a bit different from the traditional celebration: it's not contained to just men and it's not contained to a shrine.

This event is a mobile mob of nearly naked people and youkai running after a cart with a masked person throwing out small sticks. They represent good luck for the people who manage to nab them. There are far fewer sticks than there are people present and everyone will do a lot to get one of the coveted prizes. Try not to get in their way!

Or you can get caught up in it all and try to snag one yourself to see what your fortune holds. (No, the Enma isn't participating. Too dirty, for his tastes.)

4. FESTIVE FUN

A. SUMO
Some other festivities you might come across are miniature sumo tournaments put on by the Shuten Clan. Raised dirt circles with chalk rings on the outer perimeter pop up seemingly everywhere. Two people are allowed in the ring at one time and there are strict rules to be followed. If you disobey the rules, you may find yourself suddenly ejected from the ring with magical or physical means, and at the mercy of a Shuten enforcer.

Play by the rules to beat your opponent and victors will find themselves rewarded with a strong bottle of booze. The winners of each bout are handed out a commendation by Toraguma himself, which comes in the form of a commemorative sake gourd. This is probably the kind of prize you'd expect from an Oni at a festival like this.

B. FOOD RUNNERS WANTED
If you're in the mood to pad your pockets, maybe you want to help the Tamamo Clan out by running food delivery. This opportunity is available to anyone regardless of affiliation. Runners will be fitted with a contraption to carry the food orders on their person and may proceed either on foot or on a small motorbike. Be careful and make sure not to drop anything! Any ruined or undelivered orders will come directly out of your pay.

It's harder than it looks not to drop the food with all the excitement going on and your delivery recipient may be similarly hard to locate.

C. HOT BATHS (NSFW + cw: optional aphro)
The Tamamo Clan has set up a sanctioned orgy in one of their larger brothels. Rooms are available for whatever your heart desires, including one with exposed windows if you like being watched or if you want to watch in kind. Baths and pools are available for all your indulgent fantasies. Everything you could need is at your disposal: toys, restraints, costumes, lubricants, condoms, aphrodisiacs in many forms. It's a proper bacchanal celebration!

All that matters is your consent and enthusiasm.

5. NIGHT PARADE

One of the primary highlights of the Night Parade are the fantastical floats depicting scenes of legendary events. Keen-eyed observers may note that the humans are portrayed as the bad guys in most of them. While a few of these are mounted on motorized vehicles, most of them are carried by people. That means you'll probably be called on to help carry one along the parade route. It's a fun job, if exhausting.

If you're not the type to wear yourself out carrying a float, ride on one instead! There's plenty of things to toss out into the crowd along the street; candies and trinkets. Dress up in a fitting costume and walk around the float. Have fun scaring bystanders or just have fun hamming it up and celebrate the peaceful night.

5. FIREWORKS

The parade's central stop is the festival square in the heart of the city, just under the shadow of the Kaigo no Bou Tower. There is a stage set up here where the four faction leaders and their personal entourages have assembled. All of them are giving pretty typical speeches. The Enma has declined to give one, having no patience for unnecessary oration. Tenkohime gives praise to the unifying factors of love in the city, while Toraguma rallies the crowd like a sports hero; encouraging them to get stronger and do better in the coming year.

The Daitengu is the last to speak and they also seem to have the largest entourage. The entourage is quite conspicuous: White Wolf Tengu, each standing well-taller than the Daitengu themselves. They are carrying massive broadswords strapped to their backs and hunting about the area for anything suspicious with keen eyes that seem to see right through the crowd and the heat of night.

The Daitengu's speech is also pretty typical, although much more humble than their fellows. Mostly, they just wants to hurry up and get to the fireworks. Just as they finish speaking, the sky lights up.
There are a few peaceful moments beneath this spectacle as the crowd enjoys the display of unity and phantasmal wonder that this unique and strange world has created.

But the explosions aren't just in the sky. One particularly loud boom seems to rattle the very earth beneath the crowd. That is the only warning anyone gets before...

6. A NIGHT PARADE TO REMEMBER

Every manhole cover on the street bursts open, injuring anyone that was standing nearby. Far worse is the deluge of steam that rushes out from the underground. Pillars of hot, blinding steam spill into the air, quickly filling the streets. The luminescence of the festival lamps and city lights are diffused and blurred into singular blobs of color, obscuring all vision and making it impossible to see what's going on. The panicked cries of the crowd also make it impossible to hear. Everything happens so suddenly, so violently, that ascertaining what's going on takes time.

Too much time.

In the chaos, gunshots are heard. They seem to come from several directions. Fighting is breaking out. It's difficult to tell from where and who is in the brawl. Previously unseen figures in full-body black coverings appear from nowhere, rushing the stage. They zoom past any Lost Souls nearby, ignoring their presence. They are focused on a singular goal. The barking of the White Wolf Tengu further indicates the goal of the attack.

Struggle in the steam, help others get to safety, get caught up in fighting the other factions, try to protect the Faction leaders, or try to keep up with the black-suited youkai rushing the stage; do as much as you can.

When the steam finally begins to clear, however, there will at least be one thing that is certain: the Daitengu has been killed.

Welcome to the April event!

If you have any questions about event content, please ask them here!
We also have OOC top levels for Shuten Sumo Results, Tamamo Partner Cards, and Hadaka Luck Draws!
If you have questions about the game itself, please check out the premise, FAQ, and rules pages.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[the words meet her distantly, as if she recognizes them but can't fully process them at the moment. something unpleasant? reaching up to touch her cheek, her shoulder - it's just a smear of blood mixed with dirt on her skin, a byproduct of working as fast as she can. this dress is a lost cause now, with what will stain it by the end of it all, and she feels like saying it's a job hazard. whatever stains you, whatever blood falls, if most of it is inside her patients, she's alright.

her eyes are honest, human - reflecting the sincere focus she has to look to the injured.]

...Yes. Are you in need of assistance?

[if she has to defend her methods because they lack magic, she's prepared to. she can't have anyone simply turning her away when they need help based on what she is - and the half truth is better than getting into explanations.

[There is another moment of silent deliberation in the space of her answer before Matoba hangs the string of his bow onto his right shoulder in order to shrug his arm out of his left sleeve. With a suppressed wince, shedding the sleeve of both his haori and yukata beneath, he reveals the wound pierced straight through the side of his left bicep.]

[Like this, he could barely hold his bow up, much less steadily to shoot. What a nuisance.]

There's a reason my clan wears black, [He chuckles humorlessly, keeping his right hand tight over his arm to slow the bleeding.] I'd like to get this over with quickly. With all of them in a panic like this, they're too distracted to hunger for a taste of my blood.

All of "them"?

[her brow furrows tightly, but her hands are automatically moving, gathering supplies. cleansing away blood to see the injury better, judging if there's anything still lodged in his arm, and creating a treatment plan from there. but talking means she usually can get a more cooperative patient and therefore can work faster than if they're too tense and pulling away.]

[Sinking his weight against the brick wall of the alley, Matoba steels himself as she gets to work; it's obvious he's suppressing any flinching or pain hard, his eye boring into the wall across the way. Talking might keep him busy, but with all his control being maintained like this, he might say some things he shouldn't. Luckily, the wound doesn't seem to have left a bullet- it must have pierced all the way through. Close range?]

Haha. The little ones, scurrying around. If they weren't distracted like this, I'm sure I'd have a dozen or so on my back, trying to climb the ladder with this rare opportunity.

[His head shifts to glance down the alleyway, where youkai were still wandering about, shook, and trying to find their friends and loved ones.]

....It's good for them to learn fear, once in a while, although this isn't really how I would like them to learn it...

Edited (lil edit based on a mod answer about the weapons!) 2022-04-03 16:24 (UTC)

[looking at the wall, he won't see the flicker across her expression that is her repressing questions, instead working to cleanse the area and make sure no gunpowder is left before needing to proceed with the bandages. he's fortunate it didn't hit bone and shatter, or he'd be unable to use that bow at all.]

Careful with that sort of speech, sir. One might see an opportunity to say you had a hand in this chaos.

[Doesn't he know it. The what-ifs passed through his mind until they were repressed as he'd stoically made his way through the clouded streets and past frenzied and panicked ayakashi, searching for someone who could mend it.]

[It was a battlefield. He supposes it was his birthright, even if it wasn't the one he ever expected.]

...I suppose you are right, [He acquiesces after a long moment of stony silence, as if it pained him to admit it.] Let me rephrase that. Seeing ayakashi squabble amongst themselves like this makes me feel a bit better about when it is my human colleagues who cannot see the forest for the trees.

How is the damage? Can you fix it? [He isn't looking at it.]

I can't fully fix you, but I can do one of two things. I can stabilize you enough for now to get you to where the more intensive medical aid is, and you might have to go to a clinic to complete your treatment. Or, should you be willing to trust me, I can give you emergency stitches that they'd likely give to you anyway to start your muscles back on mending themselves, and then you would likely go to a clinic for checkups on your healing progress.

[as she says this, she's still keeping a firm, steady pressure on his wound.]

Either way, after this, your primary concern is getting out of the battle and to a place where you can rest in peace. There's no way to evaluate the condition of your nerves out here, but the less you try and use that arm for now, the better likelihood you have of being able to shoot your bow again soon.

So, sir, make your choice, and I'll take care of you.

[Intensive medical aid. That probably meant some manner of youkai hospital, given circumstances. Matoba's stomach clenches in dread, but he fights the clench his jaw is trying to set in, in order to preserve his stoic appearance.]

Give me the stitches. I can handle receiving them right now. [Without anesthetic, he knows that means. Between that and submitting his body to be examined in a facility run by youkai, he'll choose this. In any case, having almost had his eye torn out of his face just a few short years ago, he's endured no lack of horrific pains up to now; why not add another?]

[There's a short consideration for whether he should bite down on something, and he decides that it was an unacceptable weakness to show, for the moment.] ...There's no use in drawing this out further. The job has already been completed. [His eye hardens on a brick across from him.]

As you wish. You'll want to be sitting, for this.

[she already is kneeling down on the pavement to be closer, the alleyway providing enough shelter for now. she can't give him full anesthesia in this condition, but she can give him something to take the edge off, and prepares a syringe. it's a kindness, to make all of it more bearable.]

[It is a kindness, as is the warning, and they aren't ones that Matoba will discount. For all of his lifelong training in repression (and the muttered jokes of his community), he's not made of stone.]

[Slowly, the man sinks to the ground, forgoing his usual kneel for the comfort of sitting cross-legged with his back propped against the wall. A local anesthetic is more than he was expecting, and he'll take it, even if it means his arm will be even more useless than it currently already is.]

[He wishes he had, at least, his shiki servants to make up the loss- but hoping for power you don't have is the hope of fools.]

You're Alliance, aren't you? [He thinks he should probably shut up for this, too, but one of the little tics he hasn't totally managed to squash out of himself is talking too much.] The Daitengu... Did you...?

[with hands that have done it a thousand times, she injects him with the anesthetic, carefully applying it in the area needed before she turns to the rest of her tools and prepares to sew him back up. while he'll need treatment for the external ones eventually, internally, she gives silent thanks that there's the sort that will go away on their own, and those she starts with. realigning the muscle, so scar tissue won't form in wrong ways, needle passing through in strong, even movements that bring him back together.

the steam may be in the air, chaos might be near, but not a whit of it makes her waver. like every time before, after surgery, to mend cuts or otherwise, whenever this task was needed.

he mentions the Daitengu, and she pauses for a fraction of a second before resuming her work.]

Yes. But they said nothing could be done - they were hit in too critical an area. I only hope they did not suffer unduly, that their pain was brief.

[bitterness creeps into her tone regardless. where does that leave them, then, leaderless and new and easily crushed?]

[He forces himself to relax with a long, slow breath out his nose, and tilts his chin up slightly as he feels the muscles unlocking in his shoulders and back. His arm begins to go slack and by the time he's being worked on, he's tilted his head to the right in order to shift his peripheral vision.]

...An ayakashi with that much power, being killed with meager weapons....

[He had gotten there late, after finally dragging himself and his injury down from the rooftop where he had been shooting, too far to make it to the stage in any useful capacity when it mattered. There were a few glimpses of the Daitengu's form that he'd gotten, but the guards were adamant that none were to get close.]

[Still, some of the details stuck with him.]

Those wings.... You carry one with you, as well. Did you notice, then?

[The lack of wings, on the Daitengu.]

Notice what?

[sorry, Matoba, but when she's trying to focus on sewing your muscles together, she needs more direct questions. besides, she's already on edge that he might have noticed her lie about being human, when the lines were blurred with her self and their self, and she feels the calming sensation over her mind like feathers on skin.

steady. finish the job.]

[He really probably shouldn't distract his surgeon while she's working on him, but it's like being at the dentist's office and they keep asking you questions even though they're working on your mouth. Or.... that in reverse, at least.]

[The talking kept the nerves at bay. And beside that, the information was a necessity as much so as being treated, at this point, in the aftermath of the fact that their leader was dead, their faction now ripe for the pickings.]

[Matoba shifts his eye back slightly to view her wings, regrets it as he sees the blood in his periphery, and shifts it back again.] There were no wings on that body. I wonder if that "Daitengu" was truly a Tengu at all.

[The White Wolf Tengu insisted that it was because the Tengu had simply hidden their wings when they weren't needed, but Matoba has his doubts. In a way, it would make perfect sense. If the Alliance was truly an equal membership to equal opportunity, the candidates for the position of Daitengu could come from any of the member clans and not just the Tengu. Just because most were not privy to their original identity, that didn't mean that logic didn't dictate this possibility.]

[It was a messier kind of shedding one's identity than the position that was the head of the Matoba clan. Everyone knew who Matoba Seiji was. Everyone had known who he would be, since birth, because the position was his birthright. But it came with the same rules, the same restrictions: after inheriting, he was no longer Seiji. The Daitengu, too, was that sort of faceless tool for their clan.]

Perhaps there are some disagreements within the Alliance.

Does the Daitengu need to be one by blood to be one by position? And perhaps the title isn't the only thing their mask confers.

[as she says this, she's aware distantly of the iron mask hanging at her hip, how important it is to her. how it granted her power, though her "self" fell back. how it became a lifeline. it's not so farfetched to think the same thing might happen again.]

As we are, disagreements are natural, since people have the right to their opinion, not clamped down upon by one leader. Even among their advisors, I doubt it was harmonious. But right now, who truly did it is not so much the problem.

[words fall out of her mouth as she continues to tie her knots, strengthening his stitches.]

As the newcomers, we naturally become the most suspicious people here.

[Matoba nods as Emily follows his line of logic.] You could say-- [He stops himself, then lets out a short huff of amusement, made shakier by the current task,] I have some experience with the concept.

[He turns his head away slightly again, and the paper charm over his eye masks the rest of his expression. Perhaps what Emily meant was something a little more literal, but inheritance was a similar thing all around.]

[His free hand flexes and tightens in his palm, trying to wring up the tension the rest of his body was desperately fighting down as his wounded arm is stitched back together. He's going to have to find medical supplies and painkillers tonight, on top of going through everything else that's happened.]

Even despite the fact that they are well aware that they have stripped us of any power? [He snorts lightly; there's equal spots of bitterness and amusement to his tone.] Not that there is usually much logic to being a scapegoat. I suppose you're right.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

APRIL 2022 EVENT

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sorry that he's nuts emily

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cw: needles, stitches

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