isleofavalon | May catch-all

Entry tags:

May catch-all

🧙 WHO: Gokudera and absolutely anyone
⚔️️ WHAT: Mid-May catch all (training and other stuff that comes up)
🕒 WHEN: Mid... May? Before the event
🗺️ WHERE: Multiple places
⚠️ WARNINGS: violence, mentions of past sexual slavery, language

A. Training Grounds

Larry is sitting out in the middle of the training field, blowing bubbles to contain lit sticks of dynamite Gokudera is throwing into the air. Gokudera has discovered he has elemental magic and is working on what he can with wind, trying to push the bubble back towards his familiar, or up safely away from them both. He’s not successfully done either, and has just been creating useless gusts. The dynamite explodes in the bubble, the bubble pops, and knocks him down. This is getting very very tiresome, and his gusts don’t seem to be getting any stronger or going where he thinks he’s aiming them.

“Fuck... why isn’t it working?” He glares and pushes himself back up.

B. The Red Spring

No new arrivals from Namimori, it seems. Gokudera had spent the day watching new arrivals climb the cliff, wondering if he’d see someone from home. The journey back had been familiar and helped somewhat to clear his mind. But he’s been looking forward to bathing in the Red Spring. He feels partially new to Avalon after his reawakening, gone for years, and his body aged and scarred, when he’d apparently never left Camelot. Anyone who recognizes Gokudera from last month or any time prior will see the difference. Those who responded to his network post will already understand. But for those who have never met him, he’s acting very much like a new arrival.

The teenager lowers into the spring, the trunks he’s wearing keep him decent, but there is nothing to hide the vivid burn scars and long tally-marks down his back. There’s a black leather half-choke collar about his neck, and occasionally, there is a glow from beneath it, against the skin of his neck that looks like it’s burned many times over. Despite the fact that there is electricity attached to his neck, he fully submerges for a moment, then surfaces and decides he’ll play with the more illusory side of his light magic.

If you are unlucky enough to be anywhere near him, he’ll walk right up and offer you his entire left arm. It’s not real. It’s a smoke bomb, a prank, but hey, as far as your character should be able to tell, he just took off his arm and is handing it to you.

“Hey can you watch this for me? Thanks.” And then he’ll be getting out of the water so his familiar can be amused.

C. Wildcard! Seriously. Do whatever.

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"Yeah, just hold it for a moment."

Gokudera's impressing himself with his light magic. He already had a really good grasp on it, but it's another thing entirely to disguise his weapons as body parts while maintaining that his own arm is missing.

The bomb goes off, the arm vanishes, and Gokudera is laughing on the bank of the spring while his familiar slithers out of the water and leaves a pile of sparkling marbles behind Nobunaga to either step on, or to receive as a gift. The sea monster is strange, and as soon as it's out of the water, it camouflages. Gokudera isn't going anywhere, just delighted and surprised that his prank worked.

Luckily, he laughs, doesn't drop the marbles, but leans down to examine the familiar... only for it to disappear.

"Nice!" All the beams, as he returns the marbles. Listen, maybe they're expensive, and ninja need to hold onto their valuable supplies? "Light magic? I'm kind of jealous!"

Beware, because he just hops right in, across from Gokudera to soak. "All I've got is healing. Very boring. Seems like everyone fun has light magic."

Gokudera blinks at the marbles and shakes his head, puts up a hand to refuse the marbles. "Thanks, but I've got too many." He isn't expecting the other to get right into the water with him, and so he jerks back to keep a good foot or so of distance between them.

"It's not. It's useful!" Not trying to reassure this guy, but Gokudera had some capable healing magic with his Sun flames outside of this world.

"I uh... no." Lately people have been calling him fun, which is odd. Gokudera's used to being a regular stick-in-the-mud. "I'm not, really. Do I know you?"

Oh. What to do with them? All right, he'll just... tie a small pocket in his towel... revealing that he's carrying a ridiculously long knife there too. Never bathe without one.

"No?" Nobunaga's confused why Gokudera would assume that, but maybe it's another culture thing. The future is a lot to catch up on! "Healing is useful, but it's boring and exhausting! And I hate having to wait for after the fight!" A small whine. And he sunk back up to his neck, resting his head on the rocks. "Oda Nobunaga: Demon King of the 6th heaven." Very normal greeting.

Gokudera watches and gives a gentle chuckle. If his familiar notices, there will be more marbles appearing in the pocket. He notices the knife and feels a bit uneasy, but doesn't show it. He doesn't have a visible weapon, just his bombs, but he's got enough scars on him to show that maybe he's been cut a good too many times.

"There really is no emergency hospital in this world, is there? You should look into starting something like that, and then you'll get all manner of accidents and wounds to attend to to keep you busy." From training alone, Gokudera has needed a healer. It's a shame he isn't friends with any.

The introduction has the bomber blinking, silent, then he grosses his arms (yeah they're both there). "No way. Prove it."

"Ugh," Nobunaga groaned again, "I'd rather do almost anything else." Listen, healing is for Ieyasu. He values it vastly, but --

Wait, what?

"How?" Nobunaga opened an eye to stare at Gokudera. Also both arms are still there?! What? That's so boring! "I have an oni familiar, does that help?" AN EXHAUSTED SIGH. And he snaps his fingers, whether or not Gokudera wants the familiar to show up or not. At least Kimon (the oni) is only a little bigger than Nobunaga himself. "See, this is why I want light magic. I'd trade. Then I could look the part."

Gokudera glowers at the remark that Nobunaga wouldn't want to heal people for a living. Why not make a profession out of magic?! There is never a short supply of idiots who hurt themselves, or people that get taken advantage of and need help.

"No. That just means that your familiar is a-" Oh shit! It really is one! Gokudera is clearly alarmed. He's a bit frozen in fear, staring at the Oni.

"How? Do I look like I have light magic?!"

Because he wants to be the idiot getting in danger, damn it!

Nobunaga waves Kimon away. Oops. He really is kind of scary, huh?

"No, you made the ninja bomb look like an arm!" Sparkles. That's so cool! "Miwako changes her hair, and I could make myself look even scarier than Kimon!" He's so enthusiastic about it! "Light magic is amazing! You can even do the shields! Or do fireworks without wasting gunpowder! Or blind people, or destroy ghosts! Do you know how hard it is to beat up slimes with healing magic?" This also might be why he doesn't have light magic, he's a failure at tricking people or going invisible, because he's too fucking loud and showy.

Then he should just do... idiotic, reckless things!

It's bad enough Gokudera doesn't trust this guy, and then he summons an oni right in to bathe with them! He's met an Oni before!

"Slimes?" He looks confused and shakes his head. "It's just a bunch of trickery! It's- What?! Who's destroying ghosts?!" He's never heard of anything like that!

"You could use your healing magic so it seems like your stamina is endless in combat, though. While your opponent tires out, you can just keep going!" There! Useful!

Oh, rest assured, he does. A lot. Ask him about his war on his pancreas.

"Me. I had to stick slimes in jars, and there was a bunch of ghosts there too."

You were the one telling him to prove he was the Demon King! Got a better idea?!

A SIGH. "No, it doesn't work like that, because it still drains you of energy. I try to replenish it with sugar, but it doesn't convert fast enough. That's why I'm here."

That is not the same kind of healing for injuries.

"How do you think light magic would come in handy against ghosts? Slimes, I could see, but ghosts?" He's never fought a ghost before.

Yeah, do something else aside from calling out a familiar!

"Sounds like you need to work on your magic every day and only a little bit at a time. The same way you'd work out, but just... with magic."

Well, he couldn't go fight the minotaur, because he was busy having to heal people! It's not as fun!

"Because they'd probably explode from the light particles bouncing back and forth like rainbows in a prism! Try it!"

Oh.... the face Nobunaga gives Gokudera at having to work every day very little and patiently...

This face. This is the face.

He doesn't want to.

Another groan.

No.

Fuck no.

"Magic is for nerds." He doesn't know if he's using that correctly, it also doesn't matter.

"You know ghosts can haunt places in broad, bright daylight, right? I don't think that's how it works..." Gokudera says. Now... some sort of demons, maybe? But what does he know of demons? Nothing. This would be another opportunity for Oda to prove himself, if he wants. If not, oh well.

The remark about magic is like a slap in the face, and Gokudera gets up. "You're not going to get any better saying shit like that! Fight your Oni or something, then. Maybe if you're lucky, he'll give you a black eye for practice."

"That doesn't put the light inside them," Nobunaga pointed out.

He arched his eyebrow as Gokudera got really riled up. Apparently nerd is a more egregious insult than he thought!

"I have been fighting him!" He's the Demon King, did you expect otherwise? "Oh sit down, I already said, light magic's really cool!"

"Light and ghosts have nothing to do with each other. A spirit can exist whether there is light or not. Inside, or outside of them!" Maybe he's wrong. Then he's just arguing to argue.

It's not that he doesn't like being called a nerd, but it's the idea this guy doesn't want to improve his magic, which would be really really helpful. The number of people Gokudera has not been able to help, that he's seen suffer... To take something like healing magic and think so little of it is offensive.

"I don't care what you think about light magic." Gokudera says, stubborn and not sitting back down. This guy hasn't proved that he's any kind of Demon King, and Gokudera thinks little of him now with his opinions on healing magic voiced. If they could trade magic, he would readily do so.

"Huh really?" Nobunaga only knows demons, ghosts, spirits, magic, and gods are fake in his world. "Have you tried it though?"

He does practice healing. Otherwise, he wouldn't be annoyed with using it. "Okay," Nobunaga nodded. That's it. He's pretty sure he already proved the Demon King with Kimon, and Gokudera hasn't told him otherwise anyway. He definitely thinks this is about the nerd thing though.

"I've not met any ghosts, and if I have. I don't think I've met one I disliked enough to try and damage it. They're already dead, why would I want to mess with them?" Rude.

Practicing and appreciating are two totally different things. Gokudera is already determined to not like this guy. First he calls him fun, and then he's seeming less than thrilled about small daily, persistent practice.

"You should be grateful you have any magic at all. So-called 'Demon King'" See? Not convinced.

"That's fair."

Nobunaga just groans. Again. "Demon King of the 6th Heaven. See?" He just rests a hand over his eyes, dramatically. "This is proof I won. No one even knows what it means."

He moved to rest an arm on the rocks and head on the arm. "You don't become the Demon King with magic." He sounds pretty insulted about it! "I guess not much of the Ikko-Ikki survived, huh?" Or like... any of them. Complete genocide. "There were a Buddhist cult in the 1570s by the Western Calendar, that kept threatening Tokugawa Ieyasu, undermining him, and when I tried to help him negotiate, they sent back our messengers' dead corpses. That's the kind of hell we took for granted." An eyeroll and he glances over at Gokudera. "It's not so literal. It was what the monks, and Takeda Shingen, and the more devout Buddhists called me as propaganda to try to remind people not to let me corrupt them with candy." No, really, it's true. "I know that sounds stupid. That's because it is."

Sigh sigh sigh. "How about you? You got a name or do you like to be invisible metaphorically too?"

"See...?" See what? It's not like it's obvious! He's only ever heard of Nobunaga. He's never seen him before. Gokudera stares, looking as though he doesn't believe, even though this guy is listening off literally all the proof he'd ever really need. It does sound stupid, but then... the truth usually does in one way or another.

He nods. Okay, guess it's true. Even if this guy isn't Nobunaga, it won't hurt to let him pretend. Gokudera's convinced, but he isn't going to act like it ~~because he's a little shit~~.

"Gokudera Hayato. And I'd be invisible all the time completely, if I could."

That's fine, Gokudera, if you remember your history classes, Nobunaga was called the Fool Lord of Owari for most of his childhood leading his own teacher to commit suicide out of shame to try to shock some sense into him. In other words; he's used to worse.

"Why?" Is it... because he thinks he's ugly? He's not pretty like Ranmaru or Jyushi, but apparently Mitsuhide is considered sexier than Nobunaga, and Gokudera doesn't look too different from him! However... this is a train of thought, even the idiot King knows is better left unvoiced.

He didn't have much in the way of history classes. One year of middle school in Japan, and then three years of private teaching with his own teacher in Italy where the education wasn't really centered around Japanese history. It was far more broad. Still, he's read of Nobunaga, and that's part of the reason he has so many doubts about whether this person is real or not.

"Then I'd be left alone." Not to say that he dislikes company, but thinks that most other people would be happy without him. "And everyone would be much better off." Which all sounds a lot worse than how he means it.

Nobunaga narrowed his eyes.

"Wouldn't tricksters be bored if left alone? Why do you care if everyone else is better off or not? Just try to enjoy yourself first, before worrying about something like that. Aren't you a little young to be this guilt-ridden already?"

Edited 2021-05-14 00:36 (UTC)

"Tch I just did that for my familiar. He was bored, not me!" Which is partially a lie. Gokudera likes to play pranks, but not very often. He'd learned some new tricks thanks to his sea-monster familiar and was just testing them out.

At the mention of him being too young to be guilt-ridden, Gokudera's expression sours some. Obviously, Nobunaga has no idea what the bomber has been through. He's not just going to complain and share his life story and traumas, so Gokudera rolls his eyes and grumbles that it's none of his business. After all, he's been through more than most people twice his age!

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