come_sailaway | When the guidepost is away...

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When the guidepost is away...

WHO: Yatogami and you!
WHAT: Exploring the ship, meeting new people
WHEN: Rest of November
WHERE: All over the place

[Note: Yato has some passive powers at play because he’s a god. Unless he draws attention to himself he cannot be noticed by humans who don’t have some sort of connection with him. They will also not remember his name nor the fact he was part of an interaction until they have a connection. Other creatures though, are fair game. If you have questions don’t hesitate to ask.]

To say he was disoriented when he opened his eyes was a bit an understatement. Yato opened his eyes and found himself resting comfortably on a couch of some kind. He couldn’t remember. He was fighting and then... did he die?

He drew in a deep breath and let out a low, pained groan. It didn’t feel like he was dead. Yato sat up slowly, he could already tell under his clothes he was bandaged in a few places. That didn’t stop him from unzipping his track shirt and pulling his t-shirt away to look down. He could feel another up under the fringe of his hair. Bandages, no blight. Okay, he could work with that.

“Rekki!” He called, holding out his hand, presumably to catch something and...nothing.

I. Deck

Catching Yato early in his voyage around the vessel would have him looking around and calling out for someone. “Kazuma?”

At both ends of the deck he’d hold out his hand and call again. “Rekki!”

Nothing. Absolutely disappointing. “Bishamon is going to kill me.” He muttered under his breath.

Presumably, those he would run into would be humans he had yet to draw their attention and he would offer a smile. “Hello!” He greeted, literally out of nowhere. “Don’t suppose you’ve seen a guy, about twenty, glasses?” Hopefully he wouldn’t startle them too much.

II. Fate’s Design

“How can you be so stupid and eat all my chips!” Yato lamented, using his fist to pound lightly on the slot machine, like it’s the slot machine’s fault he’s just unlucky. It was a good thing there were many chips in abundance really.

“I swear, if she’s thinking of me right now-” He banged on the slot machine again as he lost, again. It was somewhat noisy and easy to attract people’s attention like that at he rate he was going.

III. Atrium

It was there that Yato was melting into the background, collecting his thoughts while perched on a banister. How it was he got in that exact position might be a mystery.

Humans wouldn’t catch sight of him sitting there, drooped with exhaustion and his brow furrowed in worry.

IV. Everywhere Else

This was a less than ideal situation really, he appeared to be trapped on a ship disconnected from everything the best he could tell and completely unarmed. Again.

Yato had on his biggest smile in that moment. He didn’t have a pen or paper in hand, nor did he have a phone number that he knew of so it was going to have to be old school.

He would approach everyone and anyone, no matter what they were doing. “Hi!” He chirped brightly. “I’m Yato, local god of fortune, let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

Yato was very much not in the mood for this. He was tired, his body ached and this was not the best day. All the same, he would do his best to smile and engage the public, seeking out human connections.

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Yato didn't look like he was bothered by her expression of mild annoyance. It was pretty typical, people always moved about their daily lives and if he wasn't outgoing or persistent, he'd fade away into nothing.

As it was, he had his brightest customer service smile in place.

"I'm a real god." He answered easily. "I exist to fulfil the wishes of humans."

Bright cheerful (forced) smile meet flat, unmoving stare. A battle for the ages, no hint of quarter given on either side except — what's that? Clarke's eyes notably narrow into a squint, still curious but almost immediately wary. Because exist to does not factor in —

"Do you like fulfilling the wishes of humans?"

He blinked because that was quite a question. Did he like it? That didn't really factor into it, although most of the time he did like doing things for people if they truly liked him. He'd do anything for Hiyori.

"Of course I do." Yato answered, even though that was probably the strangest question he'd been asked. It was true, mostly.

"It's why I exist, because someone wished for me to."

It feels like a pertinent question to ask, and while he answers with conviction, Clarke still has to wonder. Half of the Dioscuri seem to detest humans, Venti only half understood by them, Pirate Jenny as old and powerful as weather patterns but entangled and oh so human in her own ways...

"But you're only existing here, on this boat, right now — based off the whims of a megalomaniac and pure, rotten chance." Those feel like they could come across as fighting words after the man in front of her just introduced himself as a god of fortune. Clarke's fully aware, even as she says them. But doesn't balk because it's the truth so far as —

"...so far as we've been told. Would you like to sit down, Yato?" There's like, two other chairs crowded around this relatively small circular table, in true coffee shop coziness.

"Is that so?" It was less fighting words and more like Yato was trying to get a sense of what said megalomaniac wanted and he wasn't feeling anything. He couldn't hear a particular wish one way or another. Being summoned somewhere, or waking up somewhere he didn't intend to be wasn't exactly out of the ordinary.

"Is this person..." Yato began as he sat down, brow furrowing a little bit. "A teenager? Brown hair, about sixteen?"

He let out a slow exhale. "Might've introduced himself as Kouto Fujisaki?"

...that wasn't the exact response she expected.

"Uh, no." And for an awkward second, Clarke just blinks.

"No, I don't think any of us know his actual name. But the Captain manifests more like... a man in his late thirties. Sometimes he's just smoke and shadows, and is easily hundreds of years old. He's been at this for hundreds of years, at least. Who's Kouto?"

She called him the Captain, he was clearly the one driving the ship then, right? Yato tapped his finger idly on the table as he considered that. Hundreds of years, well that was also somewhat interesting.

"Doesn't sound human." He commented, although that was a whole other set of issues. He shook his head at the question. "No one important." That was definitely a lie, because he would push forward.

"So, anything I can help you with?"

Yeah, typically one doesn't assign a faceless megalomaniac a temporary identity then brush them off as no one important. Clarke purses her lips but... doesn't push on the subject. She doesn't know Yato, and is also a resolute sort of tired that means on some level she just doesn't care. Wouldn't immediately unless she hoped to get something out of the god-person in front of her, and everything she could want he's seemingly offering up without even being asked.

The hand with the book in it has been resting on the edge of the table thus far, but now she shifts and draws it into her lap.

"Depends. What exactly can you do?"

Sway fate like Castor and Pollux, or simply offer hope and a feather on a breeze like Barbatos?

"Well I can do just about anything you ask me!" He offered, turning on his brightest smile, after all he was trying to win her over.

"I have a very wide array of experiences and it'd be great if I could help people with their wishes."

The majority of humans didn't want to know anything he could actually do, but rather their short-term problems were easy to fix. It was entirely possible he didn't register her question.

See, but this feels like too good an opportunity. Too easy a thing, too nice an offer, and too... too much of everything. The nail of her ring finger starts working at the skin around her thumbnail, an idle sort of pick pick pick like the beat of a metronome.

"So if I asked for a —"

Woah, hold your horses, Clarke. Try not to be drawn in, remember to look that gift horse directly between the teeth.

"...Do you really think it's a good idea to walk around and offer people anything? Not everyone here's a bad person, but something's eventually going to try to take advantage of that."

"For the most part, it isn't a problem." Yato responded, because honestly that was true. The majority of people were good, but troubled. Until he had a better way of getting his name out, making the offer was all he could do.

"I can turn down a wish if I don't like it." At least, he was hoping he could do that. "Most people wouldn't make those wishes."

It could be a problem here, she can't help but think. After being told time and again that every passenger here would eventually turn on each other, that their Captain need never hurt them directly because they'd figure out ways to do it to themselves... There's no such thing as good guys, after all. Just because most wouldn't ask for horrible things under normal circumstances doesn't mean some among these desperate few would bat an eyelash at the chance.

"So if someone asked you to pop this bubble of reality we're all living in, even if it'd kill us all, you'd say no right?"

Could he do something that could destroy the fabric of a reality? Yato couldn't help but wonder that, and like Kofuku he probably could do some serious damage if he wanted to. If he could cleave heaven and hell, he could probably destroy something like that. It was the kind of chaos he would revel in.

"I'd like to avoid requests that end in death." Yato said with a small frown.

Edited 2022-11-20 07:21 (UTC)

That is, of course, the right answer. Objectively. Frustratingly, though Clarke does wonders to keep the furrow line from crossing her face, instead just tilting her head to the side ever so slightly. Do you like prolonged, assessing eye contact Yatogami? Because it's happening right here and right now.

"Right, as I'm sure everyone would hope you do."

She sees that frown, and briefly also has to wonder if he could but — none of the other gods have managed it, right? Though Pirate Jenny sure did threaten...

"But if someone asked for a well-balanced, well-made, maybe even well-magically imbued sword, you'd say..."

"Most people would hope for that." Yato agreed, because it was true that most humans didn't wish for murder and death.

He raised an eyebrow at the question.

"Well..." Yato considered that. "It's not my typical request. People usually need help with problems as opposed to wanting material things and I don't know how I'd get something like that but I could try and figure it out."

A magically imbued sword? Where would he even begin with that? Human weapons weren't like shinki, they didn't typically have such properties.

Ah. That sounds a lot like a no, but a gentle one. In all ways but physically, Clarke waves it off.

"Don't worry about it, that was just a hypothetical." Now for her own tight customer service smile, which is nowhere near as bright and shiny as his, but in true exhausted fashion doesn't quite reach her eyes.

"Are you new? I haven't seen you around before." (This is, of course, laughable beyond her understanding and somehow even more funny the first time around.)

"If that's what you want, I'll do my best." Yato responded, hypothetical or not. He had a duty to look out for people and hope they remembered him. His life as he knew it depended on it.

"Yeah, we haven't met before." Yato assured her with a smile. "I woke up here on this ship." He waved his hand. "Been a strange day really."

She really, really ought to push that point at least. No, don't bother, it's fine because Clarke doesn't even really have any idea how to use a sword, just picked up a wooden practice blade two weeks ago but... Color her curious to see how this could pan out. Besides the conversation has already moved on.

"I'll bet it has. The first... few weeks here can honestly suck. Then whenever it gets better one minute, the next one inevitably gets even worse." Pessimistic, yeah, but they are all relatively fresh off their friends getting body-snatched by vengeful ghosts that tried to kill them all during a Halloween party.

"Did you get to ask Friday all your questions at the muster drill, or do you still have some that need answering?"

"I wasn't really thinking about how it was or anything." Yato said honestly, because as far as he knew he was just transplanted to a different place. "I'm not clear on why I'm here but there doesn't seem to be an easy answer. If you're right and it's the Captain who wants me here then..."

He considered that. "I wonder what he wants from me."

"What makes it so bad? So far it looks like some kind of cruise ship."

Oh, no no no. Clarke wants to take that idle considering tone and bury it in ash and grave dirt. She sits up a little, braces her book-free hand against the edge of the table and leans in a little.

"All he wants, from you and me and everyone else here, is for us to suffer and die so our pained souls can feed this ship like a battery pack. That's it. Nothing grand or great about it and no matter how pretty the ship is, you're just here to die."

"Die?" Yato repeated, looking at her with a more serious look but he was listening to her carefully.

"How would I do that?" It wasn't that easy to just kill him. If he just wanted him dead, why was he sitting there right then? He would've died if left to his own devices. He was trying not to think about that problem at the moment.

"I mean, on this ship." He specified.

This guy and his oddly metered reactions and follow up questions... Oh right, this god and what he probably perceives as invulnerability.

"I don't know." Can't predict the future, and can't immediately assess the weak points of beings she has little to no context for. Clarke had run into Pirate Jenny's squall with little more than a handgun and desire to make the storm stop, but it's not like she'd have been successful.

"Drawn and quartered, ripped apart by the undead, blunt force trauma, shot in the head, having the moon dropped on you... There's a lot of possibilities. Resounding answer is: probably painfully."

"Drawn and quartered sounds messy." Yato answered, wrinkling his nose. "Humans can't kill me." He explained.

"Other gods can kill me, but humans and their wepons can't." Yato tilted his head. "At least they can't kill me that way."

What if he did die? He crossed one arm over his stomach. He didn't want to die needlessly, especially if...

"You don't know anyone named Hiyori do you?" He asked, finally looking somewhat concerned.

Oh, yeah, her own smile melted right around the death speech. And now Clarke's features buckle back into wary regard.

"...There are other gods here. And magicians who can kill them." He hasn't served her up any real slight, but damn is it a sour thing to be reminded of the frailty of humans against bigger things out in the world. How could any of them really hope to land even a glancing blow against the Captain when he could subjugate and contain gods without being one himself?

And, funny thing, there is someone with that sought name on board. But not the right one, and Clarke's never met him so.

"But no, I've never met anyone named Hiyori."

That was worse news. There were people that could kill him, and he wouldn't reincarnate if he didn't have a lifeline. That made this place infinitely more dangerous.

Yato scoffed lightly in his own bit of frustration. He needed to find a lifeline. He was sure of that.

"This day.." He cut himself off. He couldn't do anything about the situation unarmed, for sure, if he could do anything at all.

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