jigokulogs | May 2022 IC Mingle

1. WELCOMING COMMITTEE

The influx of fresh Lost Souls means the factions need to have a little welcoming party for them. The leaders realize things have been chaotic in the city. So some recreational activities are in order. All Lost Souls will receive a message from their respective faction leaders with orders to go have some fun.

The Shuten Clan are given an advance on their first paycheck and told to go to the Celestial Phoenix Casino. A big sign on the half boarded up door proudly proclaims UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT. What happened to the old management? It doesn't matter and stop asking questions! The important part is that all games and machines are half-price and there are special prizes available in exchange for your chips and tokens. Games range from the traditional Western style (poker, roulette, slots) to Japanese favorites (cee-lo, koi koi, cho-han).

As for prizes, they have a selection of designer goods, including some particularly nice bracelets, necklaces, and watches!

The Tamamo Clan are given a considerable number of drink vouchers for Crimson Moon Karaoke, where they can sing their hearts out and while absolutely smashed. Private rooms are cheap to rent and they even offer a special discount for groups of two or more. The karaoke machines have any songs you could possibly want, which is a little suspicious, but don't question it! Just get drunk and have fun. By all means, extend your time as you wish and drink up to get in the proper mood. This is an important bonding opportunity.

Oh yeah, as an important note: the rooms are soundproof. You can get as loud as you like, be it with singing or... something else. Don’t do anything Tenko-hime wouldn’t do!

Members of The Sutoku Alliance are given tickets to Fiance of the Funeral Procession at the Pluto Theatre and Cafe. The tickets include free food at the cafe, including beer. Sure, the star may not be a Sutoku member but that doesn't matter too much: getting butts into seats at Sutoku-owned theaters is what’s important. The Daitengu rented the theater out for the day, so there is plenty of time to mill around both before and after the show.

Make a day, or night, of it!

A funeral-based romantic comedy melodrama as the viewing fare is probably a tasteless joke on the Daitengu's part. But hey, y'all aren't still mad that they crashed their own funeral and then took off laughing, right?

Right?

The Department of the Enma members are told that they're going to be doing a team-building exercise. What exactly does that mean? That's right, it's community cleanup time! You get to clean up cans and trash in the street! You get the honor of using a department-issued bike with an attached cart to wheel around the city and pick up trash! How exciting! Teamwork is encouraged, of course. Teams that collect enough garbage will get one (1) voucher for mini-golf.

Please be aware of the local homeless population as you work, they won’t be happy to see you. They normally collect the cans in the mornings as a meager source of income that you’ll be dipping into. They're probably just not happy with Enma officials in general though. Sorry!

2. IT'S RAINING, IT'S POURING...

By the time you're done with your faction-sponsored fun, the sky has decided to open up. Hope you brought your umbrella! The rain is bad enough that walking home might not be an option right now. So take refuge in one of the many nearby nightlife spots.

Not in your faction's home territory? Doesn't matter! Make some friends outside your group or maybe get into a fight and cause some trouble. There's always the third option of ignoring everyone and drinking yourself silly instead! The rain has to let up eventually… right?

Hopefully you aren't caught near one of the cursed Haniwa figures that have been popping up around town. Their aura really dampens the mood and may even start to cause some dramatic and frightening hallucinations if you and your rain-stranded friends stay near them for too long. But remember! Do not break the figurine. Just try to move it somewhere else? And hopefully not get drenched in the process.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The young man in green has been drifting through the gambling tables, smiling and cheering on winners (or quietly commiserating with losses), but as he heads to the bar, his shoulders are slumped forward like he's exhausted, even though it isn't really very late.

As he's ordering a drink, Minato spots Chris at the table, dithering for a second -- he's not sure how much older he is than her so he doesn't want to be weird -- but frankly, her fish-out-of-water vibe is nearly a perfect mirror of his own feelings. So he makes his way there, though doesn't actually sit down without permission.

"Hello. Forgive me asking- are you doing okay?"

Chris looked up from her crowd-watching, surprised to see that someone had gotten near her without her noticing. She blinks a few times; being approached by a guy has her put up her guard a bit, but she also knows that if he's here, he's probably just one of the group being friendly. If she's gonna be a Shuten, she needs to get to know others.

"I'm fine," she said. "Just trying to figure out what I'm doing here."

Minato gives a sheepish laugh, rubbing the back of his head. "I could say the same thing. Back home I'm just a student--" roninsei, not teidaisei, he mentally scolds himself; but it's too ingrained at this point "--and not really a part of... all this." 'All this' could mean the aggressively noisy casino around them, or it could mean their induction into the yakuza, or it could mean the literal underworld city around them... or it could be all three.

"Do you mind if I sit down? It's no problem if you'd rather be alone."

Either way, Chris understood his meaning. It was more than likely all of those things anyway, at least by her reckoning.

She gave a small snort, before looking the other way.

"Last I checked there's nothing stopping you," she said. "Just don't get any weird ideas, alright?"

His face colours, and he holds his free hand up in a denial: "I, no, no 'weird ideas'! Not that you aren't-- that is to say..."

Good old Minato, messes up talking to girls even when that's not even what he's trying to do.

He clears his throat, pulling up a chair to cover the moment and sitting opposite. "... It's just reassuring that not everyone in Shuten is... I don't know. Seven feet tall and eats live oxen for breakfast."

Chris had to suppress a laugh. Okay, this guy was too awkward to do anything untoward.

"If you think that's bad, you should see my boss back home," she said. "Mountain of a man, trained himself to kick ass off of martial arts and action movies. I'm pretty sure most of his diet consists of protein."

Looking too pathetic to be threatening is surely against Shuten code, but if the yakuza is going to grab people off the street and induct them without instruction, Minato really can't be blamed. (Does Toraguma drink respecting-women juice?)

"Martial arts... like samurai movies?" There's a spark of genuine interest there. Movie nerd who's tragically too far back in time to have seen Kurosawa films. "My--" Mentioning a friend in another faction might be a mistake. "--friend says there's some kind of mystery film playing, but he kept talking about projecting illusions in the theatre... Does that bear out where you're from?"

Chris tilted her head.

"You've never heard of movies about martial arts?" she asked. "Bruce Lee? Jet Li? Those kinds of people? And of course I know about stuff like that! They're super common! You don't even need a theater, you can watch them at home!"

Minato gives her an equally baffled look.

"Those names, they're Chinese actors, right? I don't know if the theatres at home would be showing films from China..." Don't make him explain the state of international politics as it relates to Taisho-era Japan, he'll need much more than one sake to lead up to that and he still wouldn't know where to start. But that does remind him, belatedly, that what he thinks of as 'the present day' might not sync up to... "I'm from 1922."

Chris just stared at him for a moment.

"I'm from 2045," she said, quietly. She's just going to let that hang in there, so they can both absorb what the other is saying.

2045... The scale doesn't quite strike him the same way, though the only thing he can think of is Ruikou's translated novels: At least it's not eight hundred thousand years.

He just starts laughing quietly, with a hand on his forehead. "Ah, martial arts to science fiction. I see... What is the shape of the world, then, a hundred and twenty years from now?" Though 'now' isn't the right word, given Hell is running on its own schedule.

Chris looked nervous. "I'm not sure I should tell you, honestly," she said. "How do we know we're not from the same world? We could cause a time paradox."

He'd mostly been joking -- at some point the absurdity of the situation has fully set in -- but Minato seems to draw up short at that last phrase.

"Time paradox..." The Ruikou novel had discussed that, hadn't it-- not at length, considering its time traveller hadn't had any qualms about jumping back to his present with news of the far-flung future. But it was a sobering reminder of... other reasons not to poke that bear. "...Forget I asked, then."

He shakes his head a little. "An easier question, then... What do you do, back in your normal world? You mentioned your boss?"

Chris froze when he mentioned her boss, and looked thoughtful for a moment before finally answering.

"Not exactly sure of what part of it I can talk about," she said. "Sorry."

Minato's already holding his hands up a little; an "easy, easy" gesture. If nothing else, he's had a lifetime practise in reading when conversation has wandered into uneasy territory.

"...I should be saying sorry. I just keep asking awkward questions, don't I?" He gives Chris a slightly crooked smile, as if to say, no hard feelings, and looks out into the casino.

"I suppose it doesn't matter, with our... 'new' boss. I haven't met him yet, but... from the stories it sounds like 'seven feet tall and eats oxen' would be underselling it."

"It's not your fault I have weird answers for em," Chris shrugged. "And...yeah. I haven't met him either, but he sounds like a piece of work."

May 2022 IC Mingle

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