The Day of Thunder

[Doji Hikaru]

Hikaru nodded slowly. "Very strange indeed." He paused a few moments, his expression serious as he looked around. It somehow reminded him of a place he had seen before. Perhaps in a dream? The thought was unsettling.

He turned back to look at his two companions. "It is my understanding that Shinsei summoned us here. It is my fervent hope that it is to defeat the corruption. Somehow." Hikaru sighed. "I have been hoping for such for many years now."

[Ryoshun Yukara]

"He said I would find an answer here - I hope it is an answer to the madness."

Her expression darkened. "My efforts thus far have only delayed it - and at cost. I do not wish to continue like this for my remaining days. I do not know that I would last."

[Akodo Kenji]

Kenji had no hopes or dreams like that but nodded at the words of the other two regardless. "That would be a great boon to the clans indeed." He repleid after a moment.

"Do you think that's why Shinsei asked us to be here then?" The young lion asked his tone curious. "I admit to not know the man well, so I'm not quite sure how to read him or his intentions." His intentions had to be good though, right? So many had answered his call.

[Ryoshun Yukara]

"I do not know him, but he knew... more than a stranger should."

With a faint shrug, she added, "Therefore, I assumed him to have wisdom sufficient to lend his words weight - and he advised I come."

A dry chuckle slipped her lips, and she continued, "Besides, a man carrying such a rock everywhere he goes must have something driving him. That alone is worth investigation."

[Doji Hikaru]

"Weight indeed." Hikaru murmured dryly. Crane did enjoy double meanings, after all.

He shook his head. "I can't claim to understand the rock. Does it have a purpose? Is it supposed to mean something." Hikaru shook his head again. "That would be a question for him, or perhaps for other monks."

"The Kami do respect him for his wisdom, though." Hikaru said. "With everything that is happening, this gathering must be about the corruption. It must." Hikaru's jaw tensed, hands clenching down at his side.

[Ryoshun Yukara]

"As a monk, I similarly don't claim to know his reason."

Yukara shrugged. "Perhaps a penance, a personal challenge. Perhaps he feels it a useful allegory to teach his students. Maybe there is a sentimental attachment?"

Flicking her prayer beads between her fingers, she counted internally, wood, wood, jade, wood, wood, jade...

"We all have our own way of seeing the world. To him, it may be the clearest tool for a certain job, no matter what the rest of us believe."

[Akodo Kenji]

"Maybe he just likes that rock?" Kenji offered. "I once knew a man with a lucky stone he carried everywhere." Hadn't kept him from losing it though.

"But I do hope that we are here for fighting the corruption. It would certainly make this journey worth taking."

[Ryoshun Yukara]

"Indeed. I have not come far, but every day here is a day not spent on my own tasks... and a day spent without an answer to the larger sickness that plagues the land."

She affixed the garden with a pensive look. "The wheel may turn, but it feels that it spins too quickly these days. Souls coming and going too soon, and not always in the correct directions. Things are not as they should be."

[Doji Hikaru]

"Unfortunate for him, then, that he does not like a smaller rock." Hikaru murmured.

He nodded to Yukara. "But yes. You're right. Things are not as they should be. I have no particular spiritual gifts, but even I can tell it. Corruption, these dreams..." His frown deepened. "Lady Doji fights against them even now."

[Ryoshun Yukara]

"How does one fight dreams?"

Yukara seemed baffled.

[Akodo Kenji]

"I'm not too sure myself." Kenji mused. "Maybe you just get so tired you can't dream?" He'd had that sort of exhaustion before. "When you sleep like a rock you tend to not dream after all." The Lion added in explanation.

A small frown crossed his lips. "But well, that's not exactly fighting."

[Doji Hikaru]

"Lady Doji is a Kami." Hikaru said, straightening. "They are more than human. They have abilities beyond what almost any of us can attain..." He frowned, "-although not all. Their children often seem to have some of their gifts."

Again, he shook his head. "I do not understand how she is doing it. But Lady Doji is fighting against the invasion of the corruption through force of will, or prayer. Somehow."

[Akodo Kenji]

"Well, we don't need to understand how something happens to be sure it happens." Kenji offered in a tone that he hoped encouraged the Crane a bit. The man seemed to need a bit of it

"And I'm sure what she is doing is helping, more then say of us could truly know."

[Ryoshun Yukara]

"Not all things are tangible."

Yukara nodded. "Whatever happens in other realms... one must take on some measure of faith. That is the nature of prayer and spirit."

[Doji Hikaru]

Hikaru took a deep breath, seeming to steady himself. "Yes. She is." His lips curled up at the corners. "As it happens, her art is sometimes beyond me, too."

He looked at the strange woman. "It sounds as though you have some experience in spiritual matters. Is that so?"

[Ryoshun Yukara]

"Some."

Yukara offered a small shrug of the shoulders, expression bland. "I was the student of a monk who taught me many things, and taught me how little I still know. I am not a priest, but I do seek harmony with the realm and draw strength from its nature."

Chuckling, she offered a bow of her head, holding up her prayer beads before her, "I cleanse madness and darkness - though sadly sometimes I must use bronze to do so."

[Akodo Kenji]

"I can't say I know much about art myself." Kenji mused mostly to himself, as that topic seemed to pass by quickly. "But something of a monk then?" He added with a note of interest. "Sounds like a fine line to travel being both a monk and not one."

He'd likely pick just one or the other himself. "And the type to hunt monsters from the sound of it. Sounds like difficult work you do."

[Ryoshun Yukara]

"Yes. It is difficult. It weighs heavy, having to decide if a mind is truly beyond saving." Her expression was distant, but she continued, "That being true, however, I do not think being a monk, or not a monk, is necessarily such a simple thing. My master told me that anyone can study the world - a monk is simply someone who has been freed to do so with all their being. In a way, we are all monks... to one degree or another. We all consider the spiritual, at least a little."

[Akodo Kenji]

A small frown made its way onto Kenji's lips as he reached a hand back to rub the back of his neck. "I'm sure your Master is a wise man Ryoshun-san, but I don't think I'm a monk." He didn't have any intention to be one either.

"I'm just a soldier after all, I'm not here to sit around and consider the spiritual all day."

[Ryoshun Yukara]

"Then you are only a tiny bit monk." She chuckled. "I do not have all day to think on the spiritual... yet I still ponder when time allows. We are blades, yes, but blades that think. That is what elevates us from the beasts."