Thirty stories high and miles out from the shores, to die well before it left the ocean center, a wave rose and sailed the air in a thunderous arc. And on that wave's crest, a strange figure, tattooed, masked, and bedecked in oriental gear of a most ancient fashion. Usa surfed for the newer worlds below, in the south Pacific. Usa surfed for a home beyond.
The waves coming in with the surf and hitting the beach went from a foot tall to two feet; for now that was their only warning, and it wasn't one picked up. The three Neo Elementals walked along the ocean edge of the teeny island, all enjoying the fact that for once, they were all off work at the same time. Their schedules hadn't been nearly as packed when they were just living weapons, but things had changed. For now, Death smiled teeny at their War, while Lexi looked her over, confused.
"...You can't be a Caprice, though."
"Why not? There's like ten of them!" She snapped, throwing up her arms in agitation.
"Yeah, 'cause they're clones of each other." Lexi pointed out. The War paused before frowning and crossing her arms.
"Oh! What about Ares?"
"It's too on the nose, it'd be like us calling you Axe. And I think that's a guy's name anyway..."
"...Athena?" She suggested. Lexi shook her head. The other War, Clash, had made them all promise not to use that name. The War kicked a seashell into the sea while Death poked at a crab with her finger. It scuttled away and she giggled mischievously.
"Oh! I know! How does Wendy sound?!" She said, looking between the other two, excited. Death slowly nodded while Lexi smiled, and the War put her fists in the air and cheered. The chain of her weapon clinked from the motion.
Twenty stories high and halfway down the Korean coast, Usa wondered what would await him. What tasty waves and souls would be there when land broke his balancing ride at last?
The bells on his braids were the first offshore warning before the three foot wave splashed around the Elemental armor and a giant fish with a yokai man atop it nearly smacked the newly christened Wendy in the face.
She was as graceful and light on her feet as all her sisters, which was why she was first drenched by the wave and then stumbled before backpedalling and falling on her butt with a squawk of confused indignation at the fish-and-man.
Death and Lexi looked at her, then to each other, and then to him. Wendy shoved herself up and dusted sand off her wet pants, hoisting her axe to a shoulder and frowning. Death was doing her best to wave and gesture the flopping fish back into the water, while Lexi took two steps over and then hesitated, eyeing him and tilting her head.
"...Hi there!" She smiled and waved, despite him being maybe eight feet away. "Was that you on the wave?.... How'd you do that?" She asked, her eyes and the fishes meeting. She blinked and looked startled.
A long spasm of confused Jaoanese responded to her, before he reached into a pocket, pulled out a sopping and fairly upset looking white snake that glistened with magic, and bit its head off. He replaced it in his obi again as a hiss began to emerge and, chewing, held up a finger. Then he answered in translated English. "Hello, women armed for war. I mean you no harm."
His voice was odd, almost falsetto on the forenote but basso profundo on the surnote, which made the blend roughlt akin to a steam engine in motion trying to hold a conversation. A great deal of whistling shriek imposed over thunder.
"It was I, Usa, who rode the surf's waves to meet your lands," he agreed, putting his fish over his shoulder and looking at them as his fanged teeth tried not to interlock. "I did not anticipate meeting your armies so swiftly. I am not here in violence, though I will not surrender out of hand."
"May I have your names?"
"Sure! I'm Lexi, and this is Wa- Wendy." She said, waving again. The War put the head of her axe into the sand and looked him up and down, her frown fading to be replaced by a thin, guarded line. Death stepped forward and smiled at him like they were old friends sharing a funny secret before curtsying. Being in overall command, this was her function to perform.
She made hand gestures and gave him meaningful looks for about a minute before pausing, realizing it wasn't translating, and sighing. She sidled over and drug Lexi to where she'd been standing, waving between the two of them and putting her hands on her hips.
"...Is that snake okay? Er, I mean-" She could feel Death's eyes and pursed lips on the back of her head. "Well, welcome to the islands! We're not really looking for violence either. It's been a really good day, why spoil it? No surrender either, though." She grinned.
"What brings you here? Are you from far, far away?" She asked, honestly not knowing. Her primary experience being amongst Kobbers and then normal people had left her a little adrift.
"I come from the grand land of the Gods, the isles of tears, the home of Wa, and within it, the Gensokyo domain. It was a refuge for a time when this world did not believe in magic, but that time has abated. I merely had to walk from my mountain lakes down to the Hakurei shrine to reach the portal to Tokyo, and then sail the waves to my hearts' desires again. Admittedly, I did have to convince them that I actually lived in Gensokyo and did not break in, first. I have been... very... quiet for a long time, on still waters and still emotions. The thrill of abundance and life once more is intoxicating."
"The snake is alright," he nodded. "It is a tool. The whitesnake translates. I make certain to renew it after use, although she may be grumpy for a time."
"I come to Do. What is there?"
"Do?" The three looked at each other again, a lot of communication passing silently in seconds. Lexi and Death turned back to him while Wendy picked up her axe and shuffled closer.
"Well, a whole lot! Every island in the chain is different, they all have their own stuff No two beaches are the same. Even the explored ones haven't really been settled or poked through, and some of them are dangerous, if you change your mind about the violence. But there's neat secrets across them all... The main one has everything you'd want, shopping and zoos and theme parks and-"
"Uncle Phil's Go-karts and Paintball!" Wendy chimed in, leaning forward. Death made a face; She just didn't see the fuss about either one.
"This Uncle of yours has tied the game of Go to carting? What exquisite balance must be required to strategize without losing pieces while in mid gallop. It sounds quite tempting, but it is the sea's challenges that call my feet for now- do you smell Kappa?"
Indeed, they do! Specifically two kappa walking along the beach, one far more exuberant than the other. A bobbing head of blonde hair, and a long, single green braid hanging from the other's head, make it clear to people who know them that it's Chiharu Senritsu and Kasumi Arata, taking a day off from work and a beach stroll along with it. Noticing the unfamiliar gaggle ahead of them, Chiharu immediately runs up ahead, Kasumi sighing at her exuberance. "Hello! I don't believe we've met before!"
"No, no, see, Uncle is his first name, he owns the land and all the stuff on it, like, y'know, batting cages and mini golf-" Wendy started, before turning and scrunching her eye at Chiharu. Her resemblance to Clash was weird, even without the pointy teeth or half the hair. "Are these those? Kappa?"
"...Nope, we haven't. Hey there! I'm Lexi, it's nice to meet you." She said, not waving on purpose so they wouldn't think she was slow. Death danced over and clasped her hands, beaming, while Wendy turned to peer at the Kappa and then Usa before hesitantly smiling.
"How did you know?" The War asked the surfer, while Death curtsied and Lexi forgot herself to wave at Kasumi, before hesitating at the frown.
"The lakes and rivers have a scent all their own, and the cucumber tone beneath it is telling. There is a trifle more earth blood than I expected, though. Black and roiling like pitch, flowing through the... rolling horseless carts. They may have more of that, honestly. Hmm."
He put a hand under his chin, sniffing. "What was that name, it was something the men used for lanterns and swords. Cooking. But a different actual substance. Oil? River and cucumber and oil."
"Ah! I am being rude. I apologize sincerely. A thousand pardons. I am called Usa, and what of yourselves? And what is the name of the silent member of your company who signs with hands?"
Chiharu smiles and shakes hands with the people there. "I'm Chiharu! From Kawashiro Technologies - you might have heard of me! And that's my friend Kasumi! Your friend is right, we're both kappa. He's got a good nose!" Kasumi, for her part, looks over at Usa and grumbles a bit. "Tch, calling me river... I'm an ocean kappa through and through." The more cheerful kappa begins to go over to the three, waving again. "So, what are you here for? You remind me a lot of one of our best workers - Clash, her name is! Physically, at least."
Kasumi does, however, decide that this bizarre, surfing fellow who can identify them by scent alone might be worth talking to you. "So. You're clearly a youkai, based on appearance... guess you don't have a full human guise yet. What type?"
"Oh, uh, yeah." Wendy said, smiling and off balance. "I know Clash. I'm her- I mean, She's MY clone." She emphasized, mostly for her own benefit. They were both 6'5', but somehow Clash still cast the bigger shadow. "We're all off work today, so we thought we'd have some fun on a place we haven't been to before... There's still a whole lot of those, though! It's been almost six months and we haven't seen much more than the main island."
"Later on we're cooking hot dogs." Lexi supplied in tones of near reverence. Whatever animal they came from, hot dogs were the very best. "Wait, Kawashiro technology? That's so cool! All the kiosks in the mall have knock-offs of your stuff, but none of it is as good as the real thing..."
"Huh? Oh, uh, hmm..." Wendy looked at Death, who had stopped glancing between both kappa and was looking at her with a small, sphinx-like smile. "She's Death. Not, y'know, THE death, but A death." The silent girl spun in place and then made jazz hands at them. "It's a long story... "
"Shinigami," he inclined his head to her and mused. "What am I? I suppose you might best call me an Oni, but there are inflections and cultural distinctions assumed that I do not and will not fit. Hannya are closer superficially, particularly the masks the humans have in their lovely Noh. No, but I digress. What I was called when I last walked was 'Daikijin'. I would have stopped at Daiki if it didn't keep more people from interrupting the contemplation of the waves. Gods are not easy to live up to as a name goes, but great devils are not a thing to bother lightly."
"I apologize to have incorrectly assumed your home, kappa Kisume, and hope that this will not need to end in excruciating if thrilling violence with gore soaking the soft strands of the beach. I haven't fought in even longer than leaving the Barrier. Do I need a human guise to avoid that particular dreadful delight?"
"Do you sell wares to them, at these malls? Are clones Youkai I have not yet encountered?"
"Kasumi. Not Kisume. Tch." She rolls her eyes, but leaves it at that, clearly not preparing for a violent fight. "No, you don't. Not around here - people look even weirder than you. All it's really good for is not standing out. I'd have a harder time in court if everyone was distracted by scales and fangs and webs instead of what I look like right now. I'll give you this, you're the first Daikijin I've ever met."
"Malls? Yeah. Those are markets, but fancier. You'll see them on a couple of the other islands if you give it a look."
Chiharu, meanwhile, is busy happily talking to the elementals. "Oh, neat! That explains the similar looks, then. I know she's from some other world and was made for combat, but I never learned that much about the details... I should ask around sometime! There's a lot of you now, aren't there?"
"Wha- the knockoffs are back? Ohhh, Nitori's not going to be happy about this... on the other hand, hearing people we don't know say we're better is going to be good for her ego. Do I tell her? Decisions, decisions..."
"Oh, no, clones are..." Lexi stroked her chin and thought best about how to put it. "If we took some of your blood and flesh, and then used magic and science to make a copy of you, that would be a clone. Like, an exact copy-"
"Well, not exact-exact. He'd be different than you because you'd have lived totally different lives, you would just be twins, physically." Wendy quickly cut in. "Yeah, Clash, and I and that other little one were all put together for War back on Solis. She's been taking her sisters and the Alternates back there to fight, but she won't let us come... Wants us to try being free first." She shrugged and leaned on her axe.
"Yeah, you guys are way better. I bought a pedometer that was supposed to be like the ones you all make, but the screen cracked after a couple of miles and it won't turn back on!" Lexi said indignantly. "Malls are the coolest unless you work there, then the magic is kind of gone. Once you see behind the food court, you can never go back." She admitted.
The fanged looming man frowned deeply at his mistake and began to write out the pair of names in the sand with his fish. 'kisume', 'kasumi'. He circled the right one and then repeated the process six times more before hurling the creature into the sea and clapping his hands. "Otherworld twins, magic markets, wandering yokai. The world truly is ready for return. What else lies within these islands?"
"Is the ocean wild?"
"What else is on the islands... well. There's our company, there's some more beaches- oh, there's the bar. You might be interested in the bar, it's full of weirdos." Kasumi says. Chiharu winces and hastily steps in. "What she means is that the King of Beasts bar attracts the abnormal and interesting for its patrons! To quote their press release. You'd fit right in, probably!"
"Oh, well, if it broke like that, then I'm definitely telling Nitori. She's going to love that! I mean she won't love that your thing broke, but she'll love to hear that the knockoffs are falling apart. It's going to be the perfect justification for her usual mantra of "you pay for quality!" Of course, that's really just her rationalization for price-gouging, but... we keep that on the down low."
Kasumi looks away from the babbling Chiharu at the mention of her home. Looking out to sea, Usa can tell that her expression looks a little wistful... even if the coke bottle glasses hide her eyes a little. "It's... a lot more wild than any other body of water. The ocean is its own thing. Rivers, lakes, ponds, canals, even inland seas... they're all defined by the land. The ocean doesn't let the land shape it, the ocean shapes the land."
"Sometimes I think about living in it again, but I have too much here to move out."
Death silently laughed at Chiharu while Lexi grinned. "I don't blame you! I heard Nitori loves money so much she's got a swimming pool full of it- er, uuh, w-what do you do at Kawashiro? I just work the floor at Abercrombie, and Death manages at the Meh Burger." Lexi said, hurriedly trying to get her foot out of her mouth. "I wish they'd make me a manager, but I don't have a social secretary number." She frowned.
Death danced over and peered at the circles and the sea.
"Well... Like we said, we have food at our car. Come with us? We'll build a fire and make burgers and hot dogs!" Wendy said, looking around. "I think we have some other stuff too- You- well, nevermind." She clammed up.
"You are of the Korean peoples, then? You sear dogs?" inquired the reclusive monster, blinking. "The whitesnake may not be working entirely properly after all this time, or perhaps the concepts are simply new. A car seems a cart with context. Bur Ger... are we eating Mongolians? A little tough, but rich meat on them."
"..." Kasumi opens her mouth and then closes it as she thinks over what to say. "I feel like it's going to be easier for them to show you and explain then. Some new things are hard to talk about abstractly."
Chiharu laughs at Lexi's comment. "Honestly, she probably would have a pool if she could get away with it! But she knows she needs that money for the business. She does a surprisingly large amount of reinvestment. ...Oh, me? I'm the maintenance chief of staff, and the chief accountant! But my husband helps with the first so it's not too much work. And Kasumi is-"
"Head of legal. Top lawyer. The person who keeps Nitori from getting her ass sued into the ground."
Chiharu winces. "Don't mind her... she had to deal with a patent troll yesterday. She's still unhappy."
"Oh, so you two are the top paperworkers?" Lexi asked on the way to their car, her fish-eyes wide. "That's so cool! How'd you both, you know, get there? Did you work your way up and stuff? I know lawyers have to pass school and then jump over a bar or something..." She chattered, glancing uneasily at Kasumi. That frown made her uneasy. Clash had told them stories about the grumpiest Kappa, but she'd thought they were just legends.
"We're not of any people, we were made. Well, not Death, but kind of? A little old lady thought we were all Italian sisters once, but I don't think she got it when we told her the truth." Wendy said in an aside. "Yeah, just wait for show and tell! You're going to love it."
Death squinted at him before giving Wendy a meaningful look.
"She wants to make your hamburger herself." She explained, with no trace of irony.
"Trolls can be patently hard to deal with, it is so."
Patiently, he forded out and picked up his fish again, then reached down to his obi again. "You seem somewhat ill at ease. May I offer you a drink? I don't believe the brine has altered the vintage too much, although I admit, the passage of time may have distilled it to the point where sniffing it would kill a normal man."
"Fortunately," he smiled, "none of you are such."
"...Eh. You know what? Sure. I could use a drink." Kasumi looks at the offer, but then over at Lexi. "I spent a lot of time studying, then took an exam. That was all I needed. Not that it was easy. ...Well, admittedly, I was there for Nitori from almost the beginning. Chiharu, too."
Chiharu waves with a grin. "Yep! I used to just tinker with machines, but we needed an accountant since all our experienced ones stayed in Las Vegas. So I did some studying, and now... well, I'm not the best, but i'm pretty good! It's pretty fun, honestly, working with numbers. A lot like fixing machines, really!"
Wendy reached out for the Obi, but Death out her hand over her's and slowly shook her head. Wendy shrugged, chagrined, smiling and bouncing her head as they walked. The car wasn't that far away; all they had to do was follow their own footprints.
"I don't mind numbers, either, they're not that hard. There are different kinds of lawyers, right? Are you just a business one, or do you, I don't know, dabble?" She asked over her shoulder, excavating the trunk of their beat-up PT cruiser. Since all three of them shared the vehicle, all three of them more or less lived in it just like their room. By yanking on it, she managed to remove the cooler like a stone from a wall.
"Yeah, Lexi is good at math, but bad at reading. I can read but I'm bad at Math, and Death, I... Don't know. You can read and add stuff up, can't you?" Wendy asked, Death nodding. "I think she just can't really get technology. This one time she locked herself out of our room-" the silent girl was doing a good job of trying to laugh and change the subject, but without words it just didn't work. "-and she was outside for hours! I think she tried to break down the door-" Death looked pained.
The kodomaru sake-barrel that emerged from the tying sash obi was something closer to the name at its size than otherwise should have been a one-man drink, in that Usa's barrel was a barrel. He listened to their wizardry with a stoic expression before pouring a drink loosely for himself and then offering the kappa the object of relatively her own height and slightly greater girth. The devil looked mildly embarrassed for the first time since making it ashore as the alcohol rendered him honest. "I, uh, may have left my cups in a different country entirely, Kasumi-san. Sincere apologies."
"...I'll do my best." Her best, in this instance, is tipping it very slightly over. Chiharu watches with a LOT of concern, but Kasumi spills only a tiny sip into her mouth, and then puts it up. "It's good, but that's enough. ...I can't hold my alcohol well. At all. So that's all I can have for right now. " Still, she looks over the barrel with interest, impressed by the alcoholic beverage.
"Me? Business lawyer, most of the time. Contracts, court disputes, all of that. I don't really branch out beyond that, I like to stick with what I do. Go outside of that and you run a lot more risk."
"It happens! Not everyone's good with technology. Clash took a long time to figure it out. But now she can use laptops pretty effectively! I'm sure you can learn if you try!" Chiharu smiles.
Death gave her an uneasy smile; for whatever reason, she still had to guess how to work the register at work. Something about it slipped over and beyond her brain. She carried their chairs with her to a midway point on the beach, while Wendy combed over and looked for driftwood on the beach. Finding enough, she set it up before igniting the head of her axe and lifting it out once she had a fire going.
"Usa, do you want some smirnoffs? We brought raspberry ones." Lexi offered, holing them out to Kasume and Chiharu. "I uh, know what you mean about alcohol..."
Wendy caught her side-eye and frowned, crossing her arms. "It was one time! One time I had too many!"
"We can never go back to that karaoke bar." Lexi muttered, spitting a hot dog on a stick and holding it over the fire.
Having been about to inquire about smeared noffs before seeing the item in question, Usa wisely held his tongue and instead gauged sizes. It would be something less than a shot and something more than a teaspoon in the looming devil surfer's grip. "I will gladly take your offering, if you will take something in return. Balance is sacred. Is there a service I may do or a foodstuff I might hunt and retreive? Do you wish a weapon, or someone killed? Hmm... perhaps my spells? I lack for a shrine contract or the spellcards the excitable young women around the barrier were running about with, but I do have some slightly older enchantments."
"Forgive me if I ramble, I pray, I am a very old man, and time alone has made me forget what is good to say and to withhold from others. It is a trait I need to reacquire, because one cannot worship on the waves properly if one's mind or body are out. You fall, uncoordinated, undisciplined, either actually onto your face or into hard, dark times when you cannot control and adapt. Just as one must keep clean to prevent corruption, one must keep one's capabilities and one's debts in order to avoid staining one's life-"
"Ah, there I go, preaching. And after such a mistake to lawyer-sama. I ought to ride the wooden board again in penance instead of the challenge of a living, rebellious fish," he looked askance. "Forgive me, many words for one day, I will be silent, but yes, I would like to taste of these smirnoffs if I may pay you somehow. Perhaps intimidating this Kareoke to regain access to their bar? Do you know where they dwell?"
"Well... I don't know. We're good at killing, and we have all the weapons we need." Lexi admitted, handing them out. "I guess you can get us back into the karaoke bar, it was pretty fun while it lasted. Oh, and if you do, you haaaave to come with us! The first Long Island is on me." She said, smiling at him.
Death took over the burgers on a tray, delicately assembling each one like little towers. From the expression on her face, she was concentrating but having fun.
"Well, hold on, though. What kind of weapons do you have? Anything really ne- cool?" Wendy asked, hoisting her black, two-handed axe up for emphasis. Before she forgot, Lexi took a business card from Kasumi and pocketed it. She knew she couldn't afford her, but it was nice to have, at least.
"Hmm."
He looked at his hands. They were large, but not necool, by his estimation. Taking a sip, all that he could much take before draining each glass he was given, the very large Japanese creature began to rummage. What would be of an interest enough to display to a guest or a new acquaintance?
Looking increasingly consternated, Usa removed several lumps of rust, broken and twisted metal, and fizzling magic from his general stores about his person, the untended and unused things nigh on unrecognizable even to himself. A receipt for a suhi bar and a single, stolen blank exorcist contract from Reimu's shrine also emerged, alongside several coins, a great many crabs, two carefully wrapped waterproof novels in old kata, and one dolphin, alongside a host of old supplies for doing magics.
"I"
Then the iron rod fell out, looking withered, but intact, and he felt invincible again. The thing was more like a modern street lamp than a stick, carved all along with various things he'd done in a manner not unakin to a modern jet pilot's kill silhouette's or a medieval knight's tapestries. It was headed by a glass globe at either end which crackled with electricity, and the clear sky rumbled ominously for a moment before he shook it.
"Does Washimaru count?"
"Ooooh." Chiharu looks at it with a bit of awe, inspecting the weapon from a safe distance. Sure, she was more about the modern technology these days, but there's always some admiration there for the old-style... especially since this was a lot more impressive than just "an iron rod." "How'd you get it? How does it work? And have you considered potential upgrades to increase the combat capabilities? They could be yours for just-"
"You're hanging around Nitori too much." Kasumi interrupts. "...Still, it's impressive." She looks at the burgers, tempted to take one but thinking that'd probably bring too much ire upon the kappa duo.
"I wrestled a storm Oni when I was young and stupid," he laughed. "Now I am old and slightly less, but I might do it again. It was good exercise and a better tool. He regretted it soon after, when a brave samurai took his head off. Fifty feet tall, couldn't get a willing partner to save his life, poor fellow. All the shapeshifting and weather tantrums in the world and he still couldn't get a kiss. So he made dungeons to hold beautiful women in, annnd the humans resented that a very great deal."
At least half-again shorter than the thing he claimed to wrestle, he took on her second question next. "Washimaru combines an Oni's invincible iron rod with the songs of the elements, and- upgrades?"
"It could do more than push the island two feet off its bedrock or hurricane? Goodness. I- well, you kappa always were clever, but I'm racking up debts rather quickly for just coming back to the world... what- what would you want?"
Death saw the stare and pranced over, very nearly forcing a burger on a plate into her hands. Whether or not her making them had done anything was yet to be seen, but she pointed to a tray of condiments and fixings before going back to cooking more. Wendy had already taken two, while Lexi pulled on rubber gloves to eat. The War hopped over the dolphin and peered close at the surface of the pole.
"Geeze, fifty feet tall? I wish I could kill something that big." Her gaze snapped to Chiharu. "Wait, Kawashiro has upgrades for weapons and stuff? I thought you guys just made gadgets and office supplies." Her pupil was widening like her sudden warm smile. "What- what do you have?"
"Well... it'd depend on the specific work, and on the nature of the upgrades, but... oh, here's a good way to check it!" Chiharu tosses a catalog to him. The prices are... something, alright. They're clearly going to be very expensive, but the work is top-quality! "Depending on what it's made of and how it works, we can do all sorts of things to improve it! Give it more close-range capability, add in several specialized tools, and all of that!"
Kasumi shrugs. "There's good money in those markets, and we have the capabilities. I guess you never saw the times our mecha appeared in the news, or when Nitori fired a missile half the size of the robot itself."
Poking one of the burgers gingerly, he bites it. There were not cows in his time. This was clearly a mistake of nature. Or perhaps it was the right move, at the rate he begins to go through the burgers if left unchecked. Perhaps cows would be extinct well before now if he was left to his own devices. It is, as much as to say, of course, that he absolutely loves the things, although not entirely so much the relish. The mustard is confusing but intriguing, and the catsup, well, the catsup goes on everything.
The chewing also prevents him from having to confess that he can't quite read the catalog and never saw the news. Instead, he mutters, when there is enough breath between meat and bun to behave himself, a "gomen nasai".
"No, I don't think I was free then... We kind of turned up when everything was winding down last year." Wendy admitted, craning over Usa's shoulder to eye the catalogue with longing. Her axe was a beautiful piece of black killing metal, but the stuff she saw pictured at made her heart flutter. A rocket-powered blade was probably a terrible idea, but it still psyched her up just to imagine.
Death had whipped up a hot dog platter to go with the empty plate of burgers, and she giggled before going back to cooking.
The surface of Lexi's glove snapped, and she sighed before tossing it and the already smoking sandwich into the fire, putting a fresh pair on. "Clash really wasn't kidding about any of you... I uh, thought she was having fun on us for awhile, but I guess not. Will you both and the other Kappa be around this year, too? I kinda hate to think we missed you all, you... Both seem nice." She said, looking awkward in the firelight.
"Tch. No false flattery." Kasumi looks at Lexi, before sighing and continuing on. "We'll be around as long as the Kobbers are, at least. Nitori hasn't decided what we'll do afterwards, but she wants to stick around as long as the Kobbers are so she can make a ton of money off them. Nitori believes they're some of the best places to keep big business rolling, so once they move, she'll figure out what to do then."
Chiharu hops in excitedly, practically pushing Kasumi out of the way. "Oh, what'd she tell you about us? I'd really love to hear our reputation!"
The blonde kappa waves at Usa. If nothing else, he's got her fooled for right now.
Lexi hunched her shoulders, caught out, before she soldiered on. "Well, I think she was just kidding, but once that you were all actually water lizards with big ol' teeth and claws-" she squawked when a hot dog smacked her in the side of the head, whipping around to meet Death's upraised arm and surprised, irritated look. "Well, they asked!... Anyway, mostly that there's hidden depths to all of you. Even though she was way taller than everyone in the warehouse, she said the people with her worked harder than she did until she got really good at it. Let's see... Oh! If Nitori is ever in danger, we're all supposed to come defend her. Clash made us all promise."
"I'm really glad you ran into us, I sort of still didn't know who Nitori was until, y'know, now." Wendy chimed in, panting over a miniature gravitational direction unit. They were normally for missiles, but there was a sale on retrofitted ones...
"That too. Mostly she told us about how nice you all were to her even when she first showed up all weird and crazy." Lexi said, looking between her two sisters. "Like, no one made fun of her, when they found out she was eating lunch in the bathroom they invited her in, stuff like that." She shrugged and smiled.
"She was not kidding," Usa sipped, and looked at the clones. "I wanted to wear my own face out today, but assuming guises that don't look like they're going to eat you is a way yokai get along around you. Hold on, I'm very, very rusty, and they've managed cute well, so it will probably be worse still by comparison, buuut you may as well see."
Sort of folding up on himself and rearranging features, dwindling in stature and proportion, he managed gangly to their small and rough shod bearded hermit to their fine corporate appearance. Compared to the rod, he was pretty well a fourth the size previous, and something of nose to nose with Wendy... albeit a great deal skinnier than the War. The spindly beanpole little recalled the shape of the great devil, although it did somewhat a homeless DND wizard with a few too many teeth and a partial transformation into a scarecrow. He felt at his nose and frowned, deeply. "Bad at it," he reemphasized.
"I was aiming for 'adorable child' to counterpoint theirs," he admitted sheepishly. "I need a good bit more practice."
"Awww, don't spoil it." Chiharu smiles, a mouthful of fangs visible for a second before she closes her lips again. "He's right, though! It's a relatively new technique, it makes talking to other people a lot less awkward. Nitori would have a harder time getting taken seriously if everyone thought of her as freaky fish lady instead of high-powered businesswoman! And Kasumi-"
"I think she gets the point." Kasumi shrugs. "It's okay. I still don't have the form exactly as how I'd like it. I want to be six feet like this, but..." Kasumi gestures to her 4'11'' frame. "I've been trying."
"Clash is a pretty good worker. I still have a few complaints about Nitori's decision-making skills, but I'll admit that one worked out very well in the long-term. Same with Sonic Man."
The three looked between Usa's transformation and Chiharu's flash of teeth with interest. "Awesome! I mean, I've seen worse stuff trying to pass, there's this big hairy guy with huge feet- well, huh. I guess that makes sense, since normal people probably wouldn't buy stuff from scary fish-lizards or hang ten otherwise... Normal people are weird though." Wendy said, the killing machine loading up a hot dog. "I think we manage cute well too, but we're stuck like this and it kind of draws attention."
"I wish I could get my eyes different. I feel like I always look surprised." Lexi admitted. "Does it feel weird for either of you? To transform, I mean?"
"Imagine you are rolling yourself up into a ball in a locked chest, except you can no longer feel anything outside the ball's boundaries. Tingling, then absence. A sense of being severely cramped and restricted. A compressed, confined shell," the big fellow answered, eye spasming mildly before he began to swell back outward. "They may have made it more comfortable, or maybe it will become so with practice. Stepping back to the real is terribly relieving for me, though."
"It... takes a while, admittedly." Chiharu mentions. "Don't feel bad - when I was starting out, I could never change without forgetting something. in my appearance. You'll get used to it, you just need to keep practicing! Although... not in public, usually. It looks weird to people who aren't youkai."
"Oh, Mario? Don't mind him. He's weird but harmless." Kasumi looks back at the elementals. "It does, at first. You're basically changing your entire form, removing some of your most useful features. I'm still not entirely used to eating with these teeth - how are you supposed to tear anything apart?"
"With your bare hands!" Wendy advised.
"Huh. I wish I could turn different... I dunno, that sounds pretty gnarly. All of our magic stuff is pretty much about killing people, but I never really thought about utility. I guess otherwise you all would scare tourists away!" Lexi laughed. "You'll get it, Usa, for sure. You can practice on us, if you want!"
"So what all kinds of magic can you guys do? Curses and explosions and stuff?" Wendy asked, looking between Usa and the Kappa hopefully.
"Curses, and explosions, and stuff," agreed Usa mildly. "A hefty hand of utility. In recent years, I hear they started invoking my brothers as spirits of protection in ceremonies, but that isn't really my magic as I know it."
Attempting again,
He shrunk into a distinctly muppet like figure, with features as though some drunk had tried to fusion dance Miss Piggy and Yoda. The appaling porcine long eared dwarf covered in wrinkles rolled over to stand on his wobbly, shriveled hands. "Some Yokai are good at manipulating elements, some at essences. They'll hurl water, they'll make anchors, they'll shoot spiritual qi. You may have heard of the danmakus if you are of long acquaintance with our kappas. Some magics are to talk, some magics are to hurt, some magics are to heal. Some can do more than one thing, ho."
"For instance, the great barrier crafted opens 'gaps'. It is her power. This can be used in utility to shield, as it had been for our till-recently hideaway and sanctuary, or to travel, as it cuts the distances between boundaries... or to kill, if she opened the borders between the walls of your brain lining or closed the space between rib and heart."
He thumped his own chest hard for emphasis after rolling back to his mossy feet and hrrmming at a burger of rather larger comparative size now. "In essence, a magic's application is limited to your imagination, your capacity, and your skill. You could feasibly heal someone so much that they die instead after a point, with the body completely unresponsive to pain or signaling. In general, though, forgive, forgive a rambling old fellow, most people use it the way it's written on the tin. It's safer. It's easier. You make a fire to use a fire more often than you do to suck the air out of a room."
"Most of us kappa?" Chiharu hmms, and hmms... "Not much, really. Magic isn't something you just know, it's something you learn. He's right that you have potential for one thing or another depending on your nature, but there's always an element of practice in it. It's why I don't really have any magic! I never really cared for using it, so I just learned what I needed to look human and focused on technology. Kasumi is the same way."
"I prefer battles of words to ones of spells and weapons." Kasumi looks over at Usa. "Nitori, though... Nitori went all-in on the spellcard system. Between that and actually developing her own innate ability, she blew a bunch of time on studying and learning. I mean, she makes it work, but it's not for me. I'll stick to what I know I can win at."
Peering at the dwarf over their fire with a wide eye, Wendy slowly nodded and looked thoughtful as she chomped through a cheeseburger. "Huh! Our magic is a part of us- like the wings on a bug or claws on a cat. I don't think we can learn so much as practice. Everything we can do kind of ties back to fighting, pretty much. They didn't make us for anything else."
"There's a lot of difference between generations and models and stuff, but we all follow general rules. Like, you've seen Clash fight, right? She's... A little stronger than me, but not a lot!" Wendy protested quickly. "I think she can do some stuff I can't... But we're pretty alike. That other little War, she's not completely like us, but, well, we're still all clones and still all kind of similar...
"I wish our's was like either of yours. I like being stronger and faster than everybody else around, but I can just rot stuff. It's really not that useful... Plus I have to be careful, once I sneezed and completely ruined our curtains." Lexi sighed.
Death shook with laughter before looking between the Kappa and the gremlin, black ribbons briefly waving around her like a sea urchin before they retracted again. She smiled secretively.
"You rot things, hmm? Can you do it to will?" Usa asked speculatively. He fished out a fruit. "If you focused on this mango, for instance. Can you ferment it into the basis of a liquor, or will your power obliterate instead of stopping at fermenting?"
He tapped his head. "Magic takes practice and memorization to do even in what we make standard practice, no doubt. They tell you true. But ingenuity and practice can produce useful results if you dream and it doesn't kill you."
"Say, creating this human medicine I hear tale of, this penicillin. They derive mold and rot and make it into a cure."
He reached a massive hand over to pat her head. "It also nourishes plants as mulch, the rot does. You could make a fine gardener with fine control, I would like to think. But before I ramble too far afield, we ought to see, I expect. There's every chance it could be incredibly useful as a non weapon."
He sat cross legged, placing the mango well away from himself, and then, having another thought, put a shell under it. "Even someone like me can have value sometimes, so I fully believe in a spirit as bright as yours, if you want to try. If not, the kappa are sensible! Sticking to what you know you can win at is a way to avoid much frustration, even if it also closes potential growth. And potential is never certain. You could indeed waste time and effort for nothing, just as it could redeem itself in ways you seldom even imagined."
"Life is balance, but we can't always see the right direction to take or even where the wave is we sail."
"It really depends on what you want to do. Some people - like Nitori - want to get out there and do all they can. She wants to keep going, making more inventive technologies, working on her powers, and figuring out what she can create. Some people are like that hellbird, where they keep focusing on what they know they can do and getting better and better at it. Me?" Kasumi looks at the two with her usual air. "I'm fine with what I do. I'd rather not throw myself into something else when I don't want to."
"I mean, it can work! I only took up accounting recently, after all!" Chiharu smiles as she looks around. "But I wanted to do that, and I think that's the important part. ...Speaking of, what DO you want to do? I dont think you've mentioned if you have any long-term goals, any of you!"
Lexi smiled happily at Usa when he pat her head before kneeling down in front of the mango, shaking out her hands. It was a small orangish dot in her overlarge pupils. "I guess I never thought about it depending on what you want to do. It's not the journey, it's the destination, huh?" She asked them, her right hand suddenly bursting into a migraine-yellow light. Furrowing her brow, she poked it with her finger, the skin beginning to already ripple and warp.
"Yup, I can do it at will and control the strength. They made Pestilences from all the work out into trying to reverse-engineer natural Deaths- They never did make one, did they?" She asked her Death, hurriedly re-focusing on the liquifying mango, She was trying to keep the center from bursting and splattering them while it ran in rivulets, the liquid in the shell an ugly clear and brown. Death shook her head and winked.
"Well, anyway, I'm a newer model. I'm all about this rot, not the diseases we usually carry and mix. Most have one more than the other, like super, suuuuper old Pestilence who hangs around Clash- uh, don't tell her I said that." She coughed, dipping a finger in the rest. She was concentrating, trying to set up a cycle instead of just a blot- and she thought she had, until she sniffed it and made a disappointed face.
"I dunno... I wouldn't drink it. I didn't know I could do that though, that kind of proves what you each were saying!" She shrugged cheerfully. "I never even thought about gardening... Do you have any more fruits?"
At the mention of goals, the three Elementals looked between each other before smiling with various degrees of unease. "I, um-"
"I'm kind of just trying to hold on until the Kobbers come back. We really lucked out, falling into their laps, but I'm still not really sure there's a place for us in this world." Lexi admitted, coming back to the fire. "I think we can make it, but it's still kind of a day-to-day life. We should come up with some, and soon." She said to Death, who nodded disappointedly.
"Actually, uhm, well- do any of you know Yamame? When we first came here we were empty-headed, and just, really, really dumb. But she had this extreme book club every couple of days where we'd read and learn stuff, and it was awesome, and uh- she really didn't have to, you know? But she took an interest in us, and she uh, she helped me get my GED... I don't think I could've without her." Wendy wilted and smiled small, not looking at any of them.
"So I was thinking, maybe, I don't know, I could keep going to school and get a degree and maybe be a teacher or something like that. I know I'm scary looking and all, but, I don't know, I think it sounds like something I want to do." She said uncomfortably, snapping to Lexi with her hackles raised like she expected her to laugh.
"I have heard of the spider before, though we have not met, and I suspect she would not say the same of me," he answered in due turn. He lifted the mango. "I am strong of constitution, old, and encouraging you. Few will mourn if it does not go well, and it has every chance to."
"It could certainly use some malts, sugars, rice or so, but not bad for a two minute magic and an ordinary fruit," he evaluated, coughing into his hand and fanning himself with his fish. "At the very least, it did no more harm than it should have, and that speaks well of your fine control."
"Or his belly," muttered the fish mutinously, and Usa bagged it quickly.
"Honey and something to stabilize it, and a few days in darkness like the Yamame of lore would weave in, and it should be a fine liquor. But no, I fear the only other fruit I have is not for eating," he apologized. "I hardly knew she was such a scholar. If she has aided you to an extent you dream to do so yourself, that is a grand accomplishment indeed. Have you given thought yet to what you would wish to teach?"
"You seem of a nature slightly closer to us than to the humans I remember. And, you know, if the likes of Reimu can stick around," he laughed behind his hand and rolled his eyes. "I'm reasonably sure someone could be talked into letting you into Gensoskyo if you do find this world over daunting in goal. I, myself, claim no goal but to see and learn this new place the humans have built, and to balance once again. It's pretty impressive, is it not, all of this? The very skies crawl with their inventions."
Chiharu looks at the mango with a bit of concern. She's probably not going to touch that. Still, she watches impressively as Usa eats it and doesn't die horribly! She smiles, deciding to join the pep talk. "See? Off to a good start. You'll do fine, I'm sure of it! And besides... I've seen scarier teachers. Even in Gensokyo the village has a teacher that... but that's a long story. The point is, in a world like this, don't let being weird get you down! It didn't stop us!"
"We don't look weird, though."
"Yeah but people know we're weird!"
Kasumi rolls her eyes, before catching what Usa says. "If you're looking for what the humans do, you're in the right place."
"Middle school english and gym." Wendy answered immediately. "I did a little research and stuff, and I think that would work the best. Elementary school is where the real money is, but you need more certificates and diplomas before they'll look at you. I don't care about how much I make anyway... I just think that way I can do the most good. I guess I could always teach science and English, but since I'm me, Gym can always be a fallback." She explained, looking between them gratefully.
"We look weird and we are weird, so I guess you're right; we'll just have to accept it." Lexi shrugged, while Death raised her eyebrows and looked down at herself. She wasn't weird.... "I want to keep trying in these islands, at least. We three have to stick together! It's kind of a big world out there."
"Hmm. How do I best observe the humans while I strongarm them to let you back into the bar? And do you have directions?"
"Well, if you're at the bar, it's easy! They'll just let you sit and watch, no matter how weird you are! Just... no trying to attack or hurt the other patrons. They reeeeally don't like that." Chiharu smiles at Lexi during this, as well. "Hey, that's a good way to think about it. It worked for me and Nitori and Mizuki and Kasumi. Just stick together and you'll make it through!"
"The bar? Let's see. Go down that way, take a left at the corner... then go straight...." Kasumi rattles off a few instructions, and soon, Usa has the path he needs to the bar.
"You know, we live at the hotel! If you want, Usa, we can probably give you a ride there. It's almost time for things to start up again..." Wendy said, picking up some of their trash and tossing it into the fire. "I guess Death can sit in my lap and we'll tie your fish to the roof like a mattress."
"You wish to... crawl into that strange metal skeleton, and thereto ride. Very well, but please forgive if there is little leg room."
"Well, if you're heading off to the hotel... we'll leave you to it! We've still got a couple more things to do." Chiharu waves to Usa and the Elementals.
"...Good luck. I'll expect to see all of you soon." Kasumi says.
The waves coming in with the surf and hitting the beach went from a foot tall to two feet; for now that was their only warning, and it wasn't one picked up. The three Neo Elementals walked along the ocean edge of the teeny island, all enjoying the fact that for once, they were all off work at the same time. Their schedules hadn't been nearly as packed when they were just living weapons, but things had changed. For now, Death smiled teeny at their War, while Lexi looked her over, confused.
"...You can't be a Caprice, though."
"Why not? There's like ten of them!" She snapped, throwing up her arms in agitation.
"Yeah, 'cause they're clones of each other." Lexi pointed out. The War paused before frowning and crossing her arms.
"Oh! What about Ares?"
"It's too on the nose, it'd be like us calling you Axe. And I think that's a guy's name anyway..."
"...Athena?" She suggested. Lexi shook her head. The other War, Clash, had made them all promise not to use that name. The War kicked a seashell into the sea while Death poked at a crab with her finger. It scuttled away and she giggled mischievously.
"Oh! I know! How does Wendy sound?!" She said, looking between the other two, excited. Death slowly nodded while Lexi smiled, and the War put her fists in the air and cheered. The chain of her weapon clinked from the motion.
Twenty stories high and halfway down the Korean coast, Usa wondered what would await him. What tasty waves and souls would be there when land broke his balancing ride at last?
The bells on his braids were the first offshore warning before the three foot wave splashed around the Elemental armor and a giant fish with a yokai man atop it nearly smacked the newly christened Wendy in the face.
She was as graceful and light on her feet as all her sisters, which was why she was first drenched by the wave and then stumbled before backpedalling and falling on her butt with a squawk of confused indignation at the fish-and-man.
Death and Lexi looked at her, then to each other, and then to him. Wendy shoved herself up and dusted sand off her wet pants, hoisting her axe to a shoulder and frowning. Death was doing her best to wave and gesture the flopping fish back into the water, while Lexi took two steps over and then hesitated, eyeing him and tilting her head.
"...Hi there!" She smiled and waved, despite him being maybe eight feet away. "Was that you on the wave?.... How'd you do that?" She asked, her eyes and the fishes meeting. She blinked and looked startled.
A long spasm of confused Jaoanese responded to her, before he reached into a pocket, pulled out a sopping and fairly upset looking white snake that glistened with magic, and bit its head off. He replaced it in his obi again as a hiss began to emerge and, chewing, held up a finger. Then he answered in translated English. "Hello, women armed for war. I mean you no harm."
His voice was odd, almost falsetto on the forenote but basso profundo on the surnote, which made the blend roughlt akin to a steam engine in motion trying to hold a conversation. A great deal of whistling shriek imposed over thunder.
"It was I, Usa, who rode the surf's waves to meet your lands," he agreed, putting his fish over his shoulder and looking at them as his fanged teeth tried not to interlock. "I did not anticipate meeting your armies so swiftly. I am not here in violence, though I will not surrender out of hand."
"May I have your names?"
"Sure! I'm Lexi, and this is Wa- Wendy." She said, waving again. The War put the head of her axe into the sand and looked him up and down, her frown fading to be replaced by a thin, guarded line. Death stepped forward and smiled at him like they were old friends sharing a funny secret before curtsying. Being in overall command, this was her function to perform.
She made hand gestures and gave him meaningful looks for about a minute before pausing, realizing it wasn't translating, and sighing. She sidled over and drug Lexi to where she'd been standing, waving between the two of them and putting her hands on her hips.
"...Is that snake okay? Er, I mean-" She could feel Death's eyes and pursed lips on the back of her head. "Well, welcome to the islands! We're not really looking for violence either. It's been a really good day, why spoil it? No surrender either, though." She grinned.
"What brings you here? Are you from far, far away?" She asked, honestly not knowing. Her primary experience being amongst Kobbers and then normal people had left her a little adrift.
"I come from the grand land of the Gods, the isles of tears, the home of Wa, and within it, the Gensokyo domain. It was a refuge for a time when this world did not believe in magic, but that time has abated. I merely had to walk from my mountain lakes down to the Hakurei shrine to reach the portal to Tokyo, and then sail the waves to my hearts' desires again. Admittedly, I did have to convince them that I actually lived in Gensokyo and did not break in, first. I have been... very... quiet for a long time, on still waters and still emotions. The thrill of abundance and life once more is intoxicating."
"The snake is alright," he nodded. "It is a tool. The whitesnake translates. I make certain to renew it after use, although she may be grumpy for a time."
"I come to Do. What is there?"
"Do?" The three looked at each other again, a lot of communication passing silently in seconds. Lexi and Death turned back to him while Wendy picked up her axe and shuffled closer.
"Well, a whole lot! Every island in the chain is different, they all have their own stuff No two beaches are the same. Even the explored ones haven't really been settled or poked through, and some of them are dangerous, if you change your mind about the violence. But there's neat secrets across them all... The main one has everything you'd want, shopping and zoos and theme parks and-"
"Uncle Phil's Go-karts and Paintball!" Wendy chimed in, leaning forward. Death made a face; She just didn't see the fuss about either one.
"This Uncle of yours has tied the game of Go to carting? What exquisite balance must be required to strategize without losing pieces while in mid gallop. It sounds quite tempting, but it is the sea's challenges that call my feet for now- do you smell Kappa?"
Indeed, they do! Specifically two kappa walking along the beach, one far more exuberant than the other. A bobbing head of blonde hair, and a long, single green braid hanging from the other's head, make it clear to people who know them that it's Chiharu Senritsu and Kasumi Arata, taking a day off from work and a beach stroll along with it. Noticing the unfamiliar gaggle ahead of them, Chiharu immediately runs up ahead, Kasumi sighing at her exuberance. "Hello! I don't believe we've met before!"
"No, no, see, Uncle is his first name, he owns the land and all the stuff on it, like, y'know, batting cages and mini golf-" Wendy started, before turning and scrunching her eye at Chiharu. Her resemblance to Clash was weird, even without the pointy teeth or half the hair. "Are these those? Kappa?"
"...Nope, we haven't. Hey there! I'm Lexi, it's nice to meet you." She said, not waving on purpose so they wouldn't think she was slow. Death danced over and clasped her hands, beaming, while Wendy turned to peer at the Kappa and then Usa before hesitantly smiling.
"How did you know?" The War asked the surfer, while Death curtsied and Lexi forgot herself to wave at Kasumi, before hesitating at the frown.
"The lakes and rivers have a scent all their own, and the cucumber tone beneath it is telling. There is a trifle more earth blood than I expected, though. Black and roiling like pitch, flowing through the... rolling horseless carts. They may have more of that, honestly. Hmm."
He put a hand under his chin, sniffing. "What was that name, it was something the men used for lanterns and swords. Cooking. But a different actual substance. Oil? River and cucumber and oil."
"Ah! I am being rude. I apologize sincerely. A thousand pardons. I am called Usa, and what of yourselves? And what is the name of the silent member of your company who signs with hands?"
Chiharu smiles and shakes hands with the people there. "I'm Chiharu! From Kawashiro Technologies - you might have heard of me! And that's my friend Kasumi! Your friend is right, we're both kappa. He's got a good nose!" Kasumi, for her part, looks over at Usa and grumbles a bit. "Tch, calling me river... I'm an ocean kappa through and through." The more cheerful kappa begins to go over to the three, waving again. "So, what are you here for? You remind me a lot of one of our best workers - Clash, her name is! Physically, at least."
Kasumi does, however, decide that this bizarre, surfing fellow who can identify them by scent alone might be worth talking to you. "So. You're clearly a youkai, based on appearance... guess you don't have a full human guise yet. What type?"
"Oh, uh, yeah." Wendy said, smiling and off balance. "I know Clash. I'm her- I mean, She's MY clone." She emphasized, mostly for her own benefit. They were both 6'5', but somehow Clash still cast the bigger shadow. "We're all off work today, so we thought we'd have some fun on a place we haven't been to before... There's still a whole lot of those, though! It's been almost six months and we haven't seen much more than the main island."
"Later on we're cooking hot dogs." Lexi supplied in tones of near reverence. Whatever animal they came from, hot dogs were the very best. "Wait, Kawashiro technology? That's so cool! All the kiosks in the mall have knock-offs of your stuff, but none of it is as good as the real thing..."
"Huh? Oh, uh, hmm..." Wendy looked at Death, who had stopped glancing between both kappa and was looking at her with a small, sphinx-like smile. "She's Death. Not, y'know, THE death, but A death." The silent girl spun in place and then made jazz hands at them. "It's a long story... "
"Shinigami," he inclined his head to her and mused. "What am I? I suppose you might best call me an Oni, but there are inflections and cultural distinctions assumed that I do not and will not fit. Hannya are closer superficially, particularly the masks the humans have in their lovely Noh. No, but I digress. What I was called when I last walked was 'Daikijin'. I would have stopped at Daiki if it didn't keep more people from interrupting the contemplation of the waves. Gods are not easy to live up to as a name goes, but great devils are not a thing to bother lightly."
"I apologize to have incorrectly assumed your home, kappa Kisume, and hope that this will not need to end in excruciating if thrilling violence with gore soaking the soft strands of the beach. I haven't fought in even longer than leaving the Barrier. Do I need a human guise to avoid that particular dreadful delight?"
"Do you sell wares to them, at these malls? Are clones Youkai I have not yet encountered?"
"Kasumi. Not Kisume. Tch." She rolls her eyes, but leaves it at that, clearly not preparing for a violent fight. "No, you don't. Not around here - people look even weirder than you. All it's really good for is not standing out. I'd have a harder time in court if everyone was distracted by scales and fangs and webs instead of what I look like right now. I'll give you this, you're the first Daikijin I've ever met."
"Malls? Yeah. Those are markets, but fancier. You'll see them on a couple of the other islands if you give it a look."
Chiharu, meanwhile, is busy happily talking to the elementals. "Oh, neat! That explains the similar looks, then. I know she's from some other world and was made for combat, but I never learned that much about the details... I should ask around sometime! There's a lot of you now, aren't there?"
"Wha- the knockoffs are back? Ohhh, Nitori's not going to be happy about this... on the other hand, hearing people we don't know say we're better is going to be good for her ego. Do I tell her? Decisions, decisions..."
"Oh, no, clones are..." Lexi stroked her chin and thought best about how to put it. "If we took some of your blood and flesh, and then used magic and science to make a copy of you, that would be a clone. Like, an exact copy-"
"Well, not exact-exact. He'd be different than you because you'd have lived totally different lives, you would just be twins, physically." Wendy quickly cut in. "Yeah, Clash, and I and that other little one were all put together for War back on Solis. She's been taking her sisters and the Alternates back there to fight, but she won't let us come... Wants us to try being free first." She shrugged and leaned on her axe.
"Yeah, you guys are way better. I bought a pedometer that was supposed to be like the ones you all make, but the screen cracked after a couple of miles and it won't turn back on!" Lexi said indignantly. "Malls are the coolest unless you work there, then the magic is kind of gone. Once you see behind the food court, you can never go back." She admitted.
The fanged looming man frowned deeply at his mistake and began to write out the pair of names in the sand with his fish. 'kisume', 'kasumi'. He circled the right one and then repeated the process six times more before hurling the creature into the sea and clapping his hands. "Otherworld twins, magic markets, wandering yokai. The world truly is ready for return. What else lies within these islands?"
"Is the ocean wild?"
"What else is on the islands... well. There's our company, there's some more beaches- oh, there's the bar. You might be interested in the bar, it's full of weirdos." Kasumi says. Chiharu winces and hastily steps in. "What she means is that the King of Beasts bar attracts the abnormal and interesting for its patrons! To quote their press release. You'd fit right in, probably!"
"Oh, well, if it broke like that, then I'm definitely telling Nitori. She's going to love that! I mean she won't love that your thing broke, but she'll love to hear that the knockoffs are falling apart. It's going to be the perfect justification for her usual mantra of "you pay for quality!" Of course, that's really just her rationalization for price-gouging, but... we keep that on the down low."
Kasumi looks away from the babbling Chiharu at the mention of her home. Looking out to sea, Usa can tell that her expression looks a little wistful... even if the coke bottle glasses hide her eyes a little. "It's... a lot more wild than any other body of water. The ocean is its own thing. Rivers, lakes, ponds, canals, even inland seas... they're all defined by the land. The ocean doesn't let the land shape it, the ocean shapes the land."
"Sometimes I think about living in it again, but I have too much here to move out."
Death silently laughed at Chiharu while Lexi grinned. "I don't blame you! I heard Nitori loves money so much she's got a swimming pool full of it- er, uuh, w-what do you do at Kawashiro? I just work the floor at Abercrombie, and Death manages at the Meh Burger." Lexi said, hurriedly trying to get her foot out of her mouth. "I wish they'd make me a manager, but I don't have a social secretary number." She frowned.
Death danced over and peered at the circles and the sea.
"Well... Like we said, we have food at our car. Come with us? We'll build a fire and make burgers and hot dogs!" Wendy said, looking around. "I think we have some other stuff too- You- well, nevermind." She clammed up.
"You are of the Korean peoples, then? You sear dogs?" inquired the reclusive monster, blinking. "The whitesnake may not be working entirely properly after all this time, or perhaps the concepts are simply new. A car seems a cart with context. Bur Ger... are we eating Mongolians? A little tough, but rich meat on them."
"..." Kasumi opens her mouth and then closes it as she thinks over what to say. "I feel like it's going to be easier for them to show you and explain then. Some new things are hard to talk about abstractly."
Chiharu laughs at Lexi's comment. "Honestly, she probably would have a pool if she could get away with it! But she knows she needs that money for the business. She does a surprisingly large amount of reinvestment. ...Oh, me? I'm the maintenance chief of staff, and the chief accountant! But my husband helps with the first so it's not too much work. And Kasumi is-"
"Head of legal. Top lawyer. The person who keeps Nitori from getting her ass sued into the ground."
Chiharu winces. "Don't mind her... she had to deal with a patent troll yesterday. She's still unhappy."
"Oh, so you two are the top paperworkers?" Lexi asked on the way to their car, her fish-eyes wide. "That's so cool! How'd you both, you know, get there? Did you work your way up and stuff? I know lawyers have to pass school and then jump over a bar or something..." She chattered, glancing uneasily at Kasumi. That frown made her uneasy. Clash had told them stories about the grumpiest Kappa, but she'd thought they were just legends.
"We're not of any people, we were made. Well, not Death, but kind of? A little old lady thought we were all Italian sisters once, but I don't think she got it when we told her the truth." Wendy said in an aside. "Yeah, just wait for show and tell! You're going to love it."
Death squinted at him before giving Wendy a meaningful look.
"She wants to make your hamburger herself." She explained, with no trace of irony.
"Trolls can be patently hard to deal with, it is so."
Patiently, he forded out and picked up his fish again, then reached down to his obi again. "You seem somewhat ill at ease. May I offer you a drink? I don't believe the brine has altered the vintage too much, although I admit, the passage of time may have distilled it to the point where sniffing it would kill a normal man."
"Fortunately," he smiled, "none of you are such."
"...Eh. You know what? Sure. I could use a drink." Kasumi looks at the offer, but then over at Lexi. "I spent a lot of time studying, then took an exam. That was all I needed. Not that it was easy. ...Well, admittedly, I was there for Nitori from almost the beginning. Chiharu, too."
Chiharu waves with a grin. "Yep! I used to just tinker with machines, but we needed an accountant since all our experienced ones stayed in Las Vegas. So I did some studying, and now... well, I'm not the best, but i'm pretty good! It's pretty fun, honestly, working with numbers. A lot like fixing machines, really!"
Wendy reached out for the Obi, but Death out her hand over her's and slowly shook her head. Wendy shrugged, chagrined, smiling and bouncing her head as they walked. The car wasn't that far away; all they had to do was follow their own footprints.
"I don't mind numbers, either, they're not that hard. There are different kinds of lawyers, right? Are you just a business one, or do you, I don't know, dabble?" She asked over her shoulder, excavating the trunk of their beat-up PT cruiser. Since all three of them shared the vehicle, all three of them more or less lived in it just like their room. By yanking on it, she managed to remove the cooler like a stone from a wall.
"Yeah, Lexi is good at math, but bad at reading. I can read but I'm bad at Math, and Death, I... Don't know. You can read and add stuff up, can't you?" Wendy asked, Death nodding. "I think she just can't really get technology. This one time she locked herself out of our room-" the silent girl was doing a good job of trying to laugh and change the subject, but without words it just didn't work. "-and she was outside for hours! I think she tried to break down the door-" Death looked pained.
The kodomaru sake-barrel that emerged from the tying sash obi was something closer to the name at its size than otherwise should have been a one-man drink, in that Usa's barrel was a barrel. He listened to their wizardry with a stoic expression before pouring a drink loosely for himself and then offering the kappa the object of relatively her own height and slightly greater girth. The devil looked mildly embarrassed for the first time since making it ashore as the alcohol rendered him honest. "I, uh, may have left my cups in a different country entirely, Kasumi-san. Sincere apologies."
"...I'll do my best." Her best, in this instance, is tipping it very slightly over. Chiharu watches with a LOT of concern, but Kasumi spills only a tiny sip into her mouth, and then puts it up. "It's good, but that's enough. ...I can't hold my alcohol well. At all. So that's all I can have for right now. " Still, she looks over the barrel with interest, impressed by the alcoholic beverage.
"Me? Business lawyer, most of the time. Contracts, court disputes, all of that. I don't really branch out beyond that, I like to stick with what I do. Go outside of that and you run a lot more risk."
"It happens! Not everyone's good with technology. Clash took a long time to figure it out. But now she can use laptops pretty effectively! I'm sure you can learn if you try!" Chiharu smiles.
Death gave her an uneasy smile; for whatever reason, she still had to guess how to work the register at work. Something about it slipped over and beyond her brain. She carried their chairs with her to a midway point on the beach, while Wendy combed over and looked for driftwood on the beach. Finding enough, she set it up before igniting the head of her axe and lifting it out once she had a fire going.
"Usa, do you want some smirnoffs? We brought raspberry ones." Lexi offered, holing them out to Kasume and Chiharu. "I uh, know what you mean about alcohol..."
Wendy caught her side-eye and frowned, crossing her arms. "It was one time! One time I had too many!"
"We can never go back to that karaoke bar." Lexi muttered, spitting a hot dog on a stick and holding it over the fire.
Having been about to inquire about smeared noffs before seeing the item in question, Usa wisely held his tongue and instead gauged sizes. It would be something less than a shot and something more than a teaspoon in the looming devil surfer's grip. "I will gladly take your offering, if you will take something in return. Balance is sacred. Is there a service I may do or a foodstuff I might hunt and retreive? Do you wish a weapon, or someone killed? Hmm... perhaps my spells? I lack for a shrine contract or the spellcards the excitable young women around the barrier were running about with, but I do have some slightly older enchantments."
"Forgive me if I ramble, I pray, I am a very old man, and time alone has made me forget what is good to say and to withhold from others. It is a trait I need to reacquire, because one cannot worship on the waves properly if one's mind or body are out. You fall, uncoordinated, undisciplined, either actually onto your face or into hard, dark times when you cannot control and adapt. Just as one must keep clean to prevent corruption, one must keep one's capabilities and one's debts in order to avoid staining one's life-"
"Ah, there I go, preaching. And after such a mistake to lawyer-sama. I ought to ride the wooden board again in penance instead of the challenge of a living, rebellious fish," he looked askance. "Forgive me, many words for one day, I will be silent, but yes, I would like to taste of these smirnoffs if I may pay you somehow. Perhaps intimidating this Kareoke to regain access to their bar? Do you know where they dwell?"
"Well... I don't know. We're good at killing, and we have all the weapons we need." Lexi admitted, handing them out. "I guess you can get us back into the karaoke bar, it was pretty fun while it lasted. Oh, and if you do, you haaaave to come with us! The first Long Island is on me." She said, smiling at him.
Death took over the burgers on a tray, delicately assembling each one like little towers. From the expression on her face, she was concentrating but having fun.
"Well, hold on, though. What kind of weapons do you have? Anything really ne- cool?" Wendy asked, hoisting her black, two-handed axe up for emphasis. Before she forgot, Lexi took a business card from Kasumi and pocketed it. She knew she couldn't afford her, but it was nice to have, at least.
"Hmm."
He looked at his hands. They were large, but not necool, by his estimation. Taking a sip, all that he could much take before draining each glass he was given, the very large Japanese creature began to rummage. What would be of an interest enough to display to a guest or a new acquaintance?
Looking increasingly consternated, Usa removed several lumps of rust, broken and twisted metal, and fizzling magic from his general stores about his person, the untended and unused things nigh on unrecognizable even to himself. A receipt for a suhi bar and a single, stolen blank exorcist contract from Reimu's shrine also emerged, alongside several coins, a great many crabs, two carefully wrapped waterproof novels in old kata, and one dolphin, alongside a host of old supplies for doing magics.
"I"
Then the iron rod fell out, looking withered, but intact, and he felt invincible again. The thing was more like a modern street lamp than a stick, carved all along with various things he'd done in a manner not unakin to a modern jet pilot's kill silhouette's or a medieval knight's tapestries. It was headed by a glass globe at either end which crackled with electricity, and the clear sky rumbled ominously for a moment before he shook it.
"Does Washimaru count?"
"Ooooh." Chiharu looks at it with a bit of awe, inspecting the weapon from a safe distance. Sure, she was more about the modern technology these days, but there's always some admiration there for the old-style... especially since this was a lot more impressive than just "an iron rod." "How'd you get it? How does it work? And have you considered potential upgrades to increase the combat capabilities? They could be yours for just-"
"You're hanging around Nitori too much." Kasumi interrupts. "...Still, it's impressive." She looks at the burgers, tempted to take one but thinking that'd probably bring too much ire upon the kappa duo.
"I wrestled a storm Oni when I was young and stupid," he laughed. "Now I am old and slightly less, but I might do it again. It was good exercise and a better tool. He regretted it soon after, when a brave samurai took his head off. Fifty feet tall, couldn't get a willing partner to save his life, poor fellow. All the shapeshifting and weather tantrums in the world and he still couldn't get a kiss. So he made dungeons to hold beautiful women in, annnd the humans resented that a very great deal."
At least half-again shorter than the thing he claimed to wrestle, he took on her second question next. "Washimaru combines an Oni's invincible iron rod with the songs of the elements, and- upgrades?"
"It could do more than push the island two feet off its bedrock or hurricane? Goodness. I- well, you kappa always were clever, but I'm racking up debts rather quickly for just coming back to the world... what- what would you want?"
Death saw the stare and pranced over, very nearly forcing a burger on a plate into her hands. Whether or not her making them had done anything was yet to be seen, but she pointed to a tray of condiments and fixings before going back to cooking more. Wendy had already taken two, while Lexi pulled on rubber gloves to eat. The War hopped over the dolphin and peered close at the surface of the pole.
"Geeze, fifty feet tall? I wish I could kill something that big." Her gaze snapped to Chiharu. "Wait, Kawashiro has upgrades for weapons and stuff? I thought you guys just made gadgets and office supplies." Her pupil was widening like her sudden warm smile. "What- what do you have?"
"Well... it'd depend on the specific work, and on the nature of the upgrades, but... oh, here's a good way to check it!" Chiharu tosses a catalog to him. The prices are... something, alright. They're clearly going to be very expensive, but the work is top-quality! "Depending on what it's made of and how it works, we can do all sorts of things to improve it! Give it more close-range capability, add in several specialized tools, and all of that!"
Kasumi shrugs. "There's good money in those markets, and we have the capabilities. I guess you never saw the times our mecha appeared in the news, or when Nitori fired a missile half the size of the robot itself."
Poking one of the burgers gingerly, he bites it. There were not cows in his time. This was clearly a mistake of nature. Or perhaps it was the right move, at the rate he begins to go through the burgers if left unchecked. Perhaps cows would be extinct well before now if he was left to his own devices. It is, as much as to say, of course, that he absolutely loves the things, although not entirely so much the relish. The mustard is confusing but intriguing, and the catsup, well, the catsup goes on everything.
The chewing also prevents him from having to confess that he can't quite read the catalog and never saw the news. Instead, he mutters, when there is enough breath between meat and bun to behave himself, a "gomen nasai".
"No, I don't think I was free then... We kind of turned up when everything was winding down last year." Wendy admitted, craning over Usa's shoulder to eye the catalogue with longing. Her axe was a beautiful piece of black killing metal, but the stuff she saw pictured at made her heart flutter. A rocket-powered blade was probably a terrible idea, but it still psyched her up just to imagine.
Death had whipped up a hot dog platter to go with the empty plate of burgers, and she giggled before going back to cooking.
The surface of Lexi's glove snapped, and she sighed before tossing it and the already smoking sandwich into the fire, putting a fresh pair on. "Clash really wasn't kidding about any of you... I uh, thought she was having fun on us for awhile, but I guess not. Will you both and the other Kappa be around this year, too? I kinda hate to think we missed you all, you... Both seem nice." She said, looking awkward in the firelight.
"Tch. No false flattery." Kasumi looks at Lexi, before sighing and continuing on. "We'll be around as long as the Kobbers are, at least. Nitori hasn't decided what we'll do afterwards, but she wants to stick around as long as the Kobbers are so she can make a ton of money off them. Nitori believes they're some of the best places to keep big business rolling, so once they move, she'll figure out what to do then."
Chiharu hops in excitedly, practically pushing Kasumi out of the way. "Oh, what'd she tell you about us? I'd really love to hear our reputation!"
The blonde kappa waves at Usa. If nothing else, he's got her fooled for right now.
Lexi hunched her shoulders, caught out, before she soldiered on. "Well, I think she was just kidding, but once that you were all actually water lizards with big ol' teeth and claws-" she squawked when a hot dog smacked her in the side of the head, whipping around to meet Death's upraised arm and surprised, irritated look. "Well, they asked!... Anyway, mostly that there's hidden depths to all of you. Even though she was way taller than everyone in the warehouse, she said the people with her worked harder than she did until she got really good at it. Let's see... Oh! If Nitori is ever in danger, we're all supposed to come defend her. Clash made us all promise."
"I'm really glad you ran into us, I sort of still didn't know who Nitori was until, y'know, now." Wendy chimed in, panting over a miniature gravitational direction unit. They were normally for missiles, but there was a sale on retrofitted ones...
"That too. Mostly she told us about how nice you all were to her even when she first showed up all weird and crazy." Lexi said, looking between her two sisters. "Like, no one made fun of her, when they found out she was eating lunch in the bathroom they invited her in, stuff like that." She shrugged and smiled.
"She was not kidding," Usa sipped, and looked at the clones. "I wanted to wear my own face out today, but assuming guises that don't look like they're going to eat you is a way yokai get along around you. Hold on, I'm very, very rusty, and they've managed cute well, so it will probably be worse still by comparison, buuut you may as well see."
Sort of folding up on himself and rearranging features, dwindling in stature and proportion, he managed gangly to their small and rough shod bearded hermit to their fine corporate appearance. Compared to the rod, he was pretty well a fourth the size previous, and something of nose to nose with Wendy... albeit a great deal skinnier than the War. The spindly beanpole little recalled the shape of the great devil, although it did somewhat a homeless DND wizard with a few too many teeth and a partial transformation into a scarecrow. He felt at his nose and frowned, deeply. "Bad at it," he reemphasized.
"I was aiming for 'adorable child' to counterpoint theirs," he admitted sheepishly. "I need a good bit more practice."
"Awww, don't spoil it." Chiharu smiles, a mouthful of fangs visible for a second before she closes her lips again. "He's right, though! It's a relatively new technique, it makes talking to other people a lot less awkward. Nitori would have a harder time getting taken seriously if everyone thought of her as freaky fish lady instead of high-powered businesswoman! And Kasumi-"
"I think she gets the point." Kasumi shrugs. "It's okay. I still don't have the form exactly as how I'd like it. I want to be six feet like this, but..." Kasumi gestures to her 4'11'' frame. "I've been trying."
"Clash is a pretty good worker. I still have a few complaints about Nitori's decision-making skills, but I'll admit that one worked out very well in the long-term. Same with Sonic Man."
The three looked between Usa's transformation and Chiharu's flash of teeth with interest. "Awesome! I mean, I've seen worse stuff trying to pass, there's this big hairy guy with huge feet- well, huh. I guess that makes sense, since normal people probably wouldn't buy stuff from scary fish-lizards or hang ten otherwise... Normal people are weird though." Wendy said, the killing machine loading up a hot dog. "I think we manage cute well too, but we're stuck like this and it kind of draws attention."
"I wish I could get my eyes different. I feel like I always look surprised." Lexi admitted. "Does it feel weird for either of you? To transform, I mean?"
"Imagine you are rolling yourself up into a ball in a locked chest, except you can no longer feel anything outside the ball's boundaries. Tingling, then absence. A sense of being severely cramped and restricted. A compressed, confined shell," the big fellow answered, eye spasming mildly before he began to swell back outward. "They may have made it more comfortable, or maybe it will become so with practice. Stepping back to the real is terribly relieving for me, though."
"It... takes a while, admittedly." Chiharu mentions. "Don't feel bad - when I was starting out, I could never change without forgetting something. in my appearance. You'll get used to it, you just need to keep practicing! Although... not in public, usually. It looks weird to people who aren't youkai."
"Oh, Mario? Don't mind him. He's weird but harmless." Kasumi looks back at the elementals. "It does, at first. You're basically changing your entire form, removing some of your most useful features. I'm still not entirely used to eating with these teeth - how are you supposed to tear anything apart?"
"With your bare hands!" Wendy advised.
"Huh. I wish I could turn different... I dunno, that sounds pretty gnarly. All of our magic stuff is pretty much about killing people, but I never really thought about utility. I guess otherwise you all would scare tourists away!" Lexi laughed. "You'll get it, Usa, for sure. You can practice on us, if you want!"
"So what all kinds of magic can you guys do? Curses and explosions and stuff?" Wendy asked, looking between Usa and the Kappa hopefully.
"Curses, and explosions, and stuff," agreed Usa mildly. "A hefty hand of utility. In recent years, I hear they started invoking my brothers as spirits of protection in ceremonies, but that isn't really my magic as I know it."
Attempting again,
He shrunk into a distinctly muppet like figure, with features as though some drunk had tried to fusion dance Miss Piggy and Yoda. The appaling porcine long eared dwarf covered in wrinkles rolled over to stand on his wobbly, shriveled hands. "Some Yokai are good at manipulating elements, some at essences. They'll hurl water, they'll make anchors, they'll shoot spiritual qi. You may have heard of the danmakus if you are of long acquaintance with our kappas. Some magics are to talk, some magics are to hurt, some magics are to heal. Some can do more than one thing, ho."
"For instance, the great barrier crafted opens 'gaps'. It is her power. This can be used in utility to shield, as it had been for our till-recently hideaway and sanctuary, or to travel, as it cuts the distances between boundaries... or to kill, if she opened the borders between the walls of your brain lining or closed the space between rib and heart."
He thumped his own chest hard for emphasis after rolling back to his mossy feet and hrrmming at a burger of rather larger comparative size now. "In essence, a magic's application is limited to your imagination, your capacity, and your skill. You could feasibly heal someone so much that they die instead after a point, with the body completely unresponsive to pain or signaling. In general, though, forgive, forgive a rambling old fellow, most people use it the way it's written on the tin. It's safer. It's easier. You make a fire to use a fire more often than you do to suck the air out of a room."
"Most of us kappa?" Chiharu hmms, and hmms... "Not much, really. Magic isn't something you just know, it's something you learn. He's right that you have potential for one thing or another depending on your nature, but there's always an element of practice in it. It's why I don't really have any magic! I never really cared for using it, so I just learned what I needed to look human and focused on technology. Kasumi is the same way."
"I prefer battles of words to ones of spells and weapons." Kasumi looks over at Usa. "Nitori, though... Nitori went all-in on the spellcard system. Between that and actually developing her own innate ability, she blew a bunch of time on studying and learning. I mean, she makes it work, but it's not for me. I'll stick to what I know I can win at."
Peering at the dwarf over their fire with a wide eye, Wendy slowly nodded and looked thoughtful as she chomped through a cheeseburger. "Huh! Our magic is a part of us- like the wings on a bug or claws on a cat. I don't think we can learn so much as practice. Everything we can do kind of ties back to fighting, pretty much. They didn't make us for anything else."
"There's a lot of difference between generations and models and stuff, but we all follow general rules. Like, you've seen Clash fight, right? She's... A little stronger than me, but not a lot!" Wendy protested quickly. "I think she can do some stuff I can't... But we're pretty alike. That other little War, she's not completely like us, but, well, we're still all clones and still all kind of similar...
"I wish our's was like either of yours. I like being stronger and faster than everybody else around, but I can just rot stuff. It's really not that useful... Plus I have to be careful, once I sneezed and completely ruined our curtains." Lexi sighed.
Death shook with laughter before looking between the Kappa and the gremlin, black ribbons briefly waving around her like a sea urchin before they retracted again. She smiled secretively.
"You rot things, hmm? Can you do it to will?" Usa asked speculatively. He fished out a fruit. "If you focused on this mango, for instance. Can you ferment it into the basis of a liquor, or will your power obliterate instead of stopping at fermenting?"
He tapped his head. "Magic takes practice and memorization to do even in what we make standard practice, no doubt. They tell you true. But ingenuity and practice can produce useful results if you dream and it doesn't kill you."
"Say, creating this human medicine I hear tale of, this penicillin. They derive mold and rot and make it into a cure."
He reached a massive hand over to pat her head. "It also nourishes plants as mulch, the rot does. You could make a fine gardener with fine control, I would like to think. But before I ramble too far afield, we ought to see, I expect. There's every chance it could be incredibly useful as a non weapon."
He sat cross legged, placing the mango well away from himself, and then, having another thought, put a shell under it. "Even someone like me can have value sometimes, so I fully believe in a spirit as bright as yours, if you want to try. If not, the kappa are sensible! Sticking to what you know you can win at is a way to avoid much frustration, even if it also closes potential growth. And potential is never certain. You could indeed waste time and effort for nothing, just as it could redeem itself in ways you seldom even imagined."
"Life is balance, but we can't always see the right direction to take or even where the wave is we sail."
"It really depends on what you want to do. Some people - like Nitori - want to get out there and do all they can. She wants to keep going, making more inventive technologies, working on her powers, and figuring out what she can create. Some people are like that hellbird, where they keep focusing on what they know they can do and getting better and better at it. Me?" Kasumi looks at the two with her usual air. "I'm fine with what I do. I'd rather not throw myself into something else when I don't want to."
"I mean, it can work! I only took up accounting recently, after all!" Chiharu smiles as she looks around. "But I wanted to do that, and I think that's the important part. ...Speaking of, what DO you want to do? I dont think you've mentioned if you have any long-term goals, any of you!"
Lexi smiled happily at Usa when he pat her head before kneeling down in front of the mango, shaking out her hands. It was a small orangish dot in her overlarge pupils. "I guess I never thought about it depending on what you want to do. It's not the journey, it's the destination, huh?" She asked them, her right hand suddenly bursting into a migraine-yellow light. Furrowing her brow, she poked it with her finger, the skin beginning to already ripple and warp.
"Yup, I can do it at will and control the strength. They made Pestilences from all the work out into trying to reverse-engineer natural Deaths- They never did make one, did they?" She asked her Death, hurriedly re-focusing on the liquifying mango, She was trying to keep the center from bursting and splattering them while it ran in rivulets, the liquid in the shell an ugly clear and brown. Death shook her head and winked.
"Well, anyway, I'm a newer model. I'm all about this rot, not the diseases we usually carry and mix. Most have one more than the other, like super, suuuuper old Pestilence who hangs around Clash- uh, don't tell her I said that." She coughed, dipping a finger in the rest. She was concentrating, trying to set up a cycle instead of just a blot- and she thought she had, until she sniffed it and made a disappointed face.
"I dunno... I wouldn't drink it. I didn't know I could do that though, that kind of proves what you each were saying!" She shrugged cheerfully. "I never even thought about gardening... Do you have any more fruits?"
At the mention of goals, the three Elementals looked between each other before smiling with various degrees of unease. "I, um-"
"I'm kind of just trying to hold on until the Kobbers come back. We really lucked out, falling into their laps, but I'm still not really sure there's a place for us in this world." Lexi admitted, coming back to the fire. "I think we can make it, but it's still kind of a day-to-day life. We should come up with some, and soon." She said to Death, who nodded disappointedly.
"Actually, uhm, well- do any of you know Yamame? When we first came here we were empty-headed, and just, really, really dumb. But she had this extreme book club every couple of days where we'd read and learn stuff, and it was awesome, and uh- she really didn't have to, you know? But she took an interest in us, and she uh, she helped me get my GED... I don't think I could've without her." Wendy wilted and smiled small, not looking at any of them.
"So I was thinking, maybe, I don't know, I could keep going to school and get a degree and maybe be a teacher or something like that. I know I'm scary looking and all, but, I don't know, I think it sounds like something I want to do." She said uncomfortably, snapping to Lexi with her hackles raised like she expected her to laugh.
"I have heard of the spider before, though we have not met, and I suspect she would not say the same of me," he answered in due turn. He lifted the mango. "I am strong of constitution, old, and encouraging you. Few will mourn if it does not go well, and it has every chance to."
"It could certainly use some malts, sugars, rice or so, but not bad for a two minute magic and an ordinary fruit," he evaluated, coughing into his hand and fanning himself with his fish. "At the very least, it did no more harm than it should have, and that speaks well of your fine control."
"Or his belly," muttered the fish mutinously, and Usa bagged it quickly.
"Honey and something to stabilize it, and a few days in darkness like the Yamame of lore would weave in, and it should be a fine liquor. But no, I fear the only other fruit I have is not for eating," he apologized. "I hardly knew she was such a scholar. If she has aided you to an extent you dream to do so yourself, that is a grand accomplishment indeed. Have you given thought yet to what you would wish to teach?"
"You seem of a nature slightly closer to us than to the humans I remember. And, you know, if the likes of Reimu can stick around," he laughed behind his hand and rolled his eyes. "I'm reasonably sure someone could be talked into letting you into Gensoskyo if you do find this world over daunting in goal. I, myself, claim no goal but to see and learn this new place the humans have built, and to balance once again. It's pretty impressive, is it not, all of this? The very skies crawl with their inventions."
Chiharu looks at the mango with a bit of concern. She's probably not going to touch that. Still, she watches impressively as Usa eats it and doesn't die horribly! She smiles, deciding to join the pep talk. "See? Off to a good start. You'll do fine, I'm sure of it! And besides... I've seen scarier teachers. Even in Gensokyo the village has a teacher that... but that's a long story. The point is, in a world like this, don't let being weird get you down! It didn't stop us!"
"We don't look weird, though."
"Yeah but people know we're weird!"
Kasumi rolls her eyes, before catching what Usa says. "If you're looking for what the humans do, you're in the right place."
"Middle school english and gym." Wendy answered immediately. "I did a little research and stuff, and I think that would work the best. Elementary school is where the real money is, but you need more certificates and diplomas before they'll look at you. I don't care about how much I make anyway... I just think that way I can do the most good. I guess I could always teach science and English, but since I'm me, Gym can always be a fallback." She explained, looking between them gratefully.
"We look weird and we are weird, so I guess you're right; we'll just have to accept it." Lexi shrugged, while Death raised her eyebrows and looked down at herself. She wasn't weird.... "I want to keep trying in these islands, at least. We three have to stick together! It's kind of a big world out there."
"Hmm. How do I best observe the humans while I strongarm them to let you back into the bar? And do you have directions?"
"Well, if you're at the bar, it's easy! They'll just let you sit and watch, no matter how weird you are! Just... no trying to attack or hurt the other patrons. They reeeeally don't like that." Chiharu smiles at Lexi during this, as well. "Hey, that's a good way to think about it. It worked for me and Nitori and Mizuki and Kasumi. Just stick together and you'll make it through!"
"The bar? Let's see. Go down that way, take a left at the corner... then go straight...." Kasumi rattles off a few instructions, and soon, Usa has the path he needs to the bar.
"You know, we live at the hotel! If you want, Usa, we can probably give you a ride there. It's almost time for things to start up again..." Wendy said, picking up some of their trash and tossing it into the fire. "I guess Death can sit in my lap and we'll tie your fish to the roof like a mattress."
"You wish to... crawl into that strange metal skeleton, and thereto ride. Very well, but please forgive if there is little leg room."
"Well, if you're heading off to the hotel... we'll leave you to it! We've still got a couple more things to do." Chiharu waves to Usa and the Elementals.
"...Good luck. I'll expect to see all of you soon." Kasumi says.
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