When the guidepost is away...

[tossmealifeline]

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.

Comments

[skaikru]

Wanting to just survive is simultaneously the most selfish and least selfish thing anyone could do. In that regard, gods are a bit humanlike. Relatable, at least.

There's a pause, as Clarke weighs the name Hiyori against return favors, and comes up wanting in the equation: she doubts this woman could have done absolutely nothing for the god currently sitting across from her, and yet somehow be so important as to have been mentioned multiple times in this conversation.

Then an additional long pause, then the quiet and careful: "We're not your usual flock here. Just... be careful with that."

[tossmealifeline]

"I'll be careful." He promised instead. Hiyori had done far more for him than anyone in his life, but it wasn't a matter of favours or not.

"Besides, I can always turn down requests." No one said he couldn't.

[skaikru]

Quite convinced there are people here far more manipulative and deceptive than they seem on the surface level, Clarke still winces. Someone smart could take a series of small, innocuous requests and still manage to turn them into something destructive and awful — death isn't only accomplished by wishing outright for someone to die.

Eventually she shakes her head a time or two, then pauses; nods instead. "Alright, good enough. I'm assuming you've been at this for a long while and know better than anyone else."

[tossmealifeline]

"Long enough that I couldn't possibly tell you how old I am." Yato laughed. Mostly because he had no idea. Time passed and that was it.

"I've had a guidepost for the last year so it's been going well." He didn't have one now though, he'd be relying on instinct and whatever he thought Yukine would say.

[skaikru]

Yeah, that tracks. No one's ever given her exact dates of birth and no one's exactly thrown a birthday party for a god since arrival on the ship. But also none of the other gods or wannabe gods have ever mentioned —

"What's a guidepost?" Excuse while she quietly thumbs through the ever-growing list of Serena Eterna-specific terminology, inevitably sticking on... "Is that like an anchor? Or servitor?"

[tossmealifeline]

"A guidepost is a god's lead shinki. I only had one..." He had two now but that was temporary, probably. "So he was my guidepost. Bishamon has like I dunno, twenty? Kazuma's her guidepost."

That was conveniently who he was looking for. "Anyway, so your guidepost is the one that lights the direction they think you should take. So, I've been working on being a god of fortune so Yukine had me taking as many jobs as I could and destroying 100 malevolent spirits a day, minimum." He sighed. "He's so strict!"

"It's their job to look out for my best interests and guide me in that direction."

[skaikru]

Wow, different worlds and different strokes for different folks but... gosh if that doesn't sound a lot like a really good, very dear —

"So, a friend."

Eh, no that isn't quite right based on conversational tells. Clarke purses her lips trying to parse out shinki in terms she'd better understand, and gets stuck somewhere between second in command and tether to the mortal world. It's super fun walking into conversations with gods and having no idea what you're doing. But at least this Yato guy seems forthcoming.

"How'd you destroy spirits?"

[tossmealifeline]

"More like some kind of family. It's a comforting structure for them." Although he's seen what having too big a contingent is like, and he's not sure he would do that. Bishamon's woes in that area were neverending.

There were many things Yato wouldn't disclose, but the basics weren't really a secret and likely wouldn't apply to her.

"It's an exorcism of sorts. Malevolent spirits turn into often very large monsters because they feed on people's negative feelings. They often attach to a person to try and influence their decisions and to corrupt their soul. If they're alive, there's always a possibility they'll resist. They also devour the souls of the dead who haven't moved on, corrupting them and making more." Yato considered that for a moment.

"So." He waved his hand a little bit. "I need a shinki to perform that kind of service, but I can slow one down without one. All of the gods can do that, except Kofuku, who makes everything a million times worse if she uses hers. If she could perform an exercism, I'd be surprised. No one in their right mind would let her try. She's not supposed to have a shinki at all."

[skaikru]

Well, that's certainly topical.

Clarke lets slip a slight scoff without really meaning to, then almost immediately sets her teeth into her lower lip and winces apologetically. It wasn't directed at Yato specifically, more the situation at large because —

"Well, we really could have used you and some of your shinki last month. A handful of previous passengers came out of the literal woodwork and took over our bodies." A pause, wavering before offering reassurance she's not entirely sure of: "We... did okay exorcising them ourselves."

Slaughter, it'd been slaughter.

"Not apples to oranges, though. They weren't monsters, just the souls of the dead who wanted to escape. I don't think any of the gods here had any luck with them, they... probably weren't immune to it either." First time she'd considered that, honestly. Clarke died about seven minutes into the hellscape of the Halloween party, and though her body had gotten up and walked around and committed atrocities, it hadn't been her in the drivers seat. When the two of them part from this coffee shop, it won't be her only lapse in memory.

"But when you say make everything a million times worse... How much worse could something like that get?"

[tossmealifeline]

"I've heard about that." Yato said with a little nod, but he hadn't been there, there was little he could've done.

"I'd like to say I could've done better but the truth is I don't know. I wasn't here and I didn't get to see what was happening so..." At least Yato understood his limitations. Sometimes he had puzzling issues, like Hiyori's, that required serious thought or investigation.

"Ugh." He could just remember Kofuku interrupting his fight with Bishamon and shook his head. "There's a couple of things she can do, and one of them is divination as to where a vent will open up. Once we dispatch all these malevolent spirits, more appear because every so often there will be a small opening to the underworld, which is how they get out. We call that a vent."

Yato sighed. "When she uses Kokki, not only does she bring about financial turbulence in the markets which annoys Ebisu to no end, but she can open those vents inadvertently. She's a very friendly person, but a god's inherent nature can't be changed."

[skaikru]

Coming from a world with no financial metric, Clarke cannot fully comprehend how upsetting that might be in a pre-apocalypse world. But the idea of attempting to usher unwanted guests out of one door while inadvertently opening another is... profoundly disturbing. She's still stuck on last months events, and there's the rumbling thought that maybe they hadn't expelled all the ghosts from their ranks, or that it could happen again at any given moment... They don't even know where this 'vent' originated from, do they? How could they really hope to eternally plug it up?

"...right. I think I understand. Sort of a... double edged blade, even with all the best intentions."

[tossmealifeline]

"Right, which is why Daikoku does his best to limit her effects on the world. He won't stop her if she wants to do something, because that's how it works, but he'll try and talk her out of it. Most of the time she's good about sticking to small time stuff."

Yato didn't have a moral judgment, a lot of people had malicious wishes, that and poverty existed which meant so did Kofuku. If she didn't do her job she wouldn't need to be there.

"Even if she's asked to get involved, sometimes she'll say no because she knows how devastating her powers are. It's the same with me, I don't just use mine without thought either."