π Toua Koumyou SanzΕ Hoshi-sama the 30th γε
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voidtreckerexpress2021-01-06 01:21 pm
its_dad_sanzo) wrote in voidtreckerexpress2021-01-06 01:21 pm
there's more than meets the eye, there's more than meets the price [OPEN]
Who: Koumyou Sanzo, OPEN
Where: Carriage J: Music Carriage - upstairs, in silence
When: Forward-dated to Jelly 4!
What: Sneaky solo martial arts practice a couple days before the next mission. Folks are welcome to catch him doing his thing, despite his effort to be secretive. If you ask for lessons (in anything, ever), he will almost certainly say no... but folks are totally welcome to try to convince him. (Also if anyone wants to just ATTACK, he'll adapt accordingly.)
Warnings: Otoha thread has some sensitive topics (warned in the comment titles). Devero thread same and same, but also some kinda graphic self harm injury shit from Koumyou etc.
if you can't see the sky there's too much artificial light
Muscle memory requires rote practice. Patterns mastered, then broken, to keep one's actions independent in a real fight. Even at his level, Koumyou needs to sharpen the blade once in a while, lest he lose his edge when he needs it most.
Koumyou Sanzo has picked a time when most of the train seems otherwise occupied. Maybe it's the middle of the 'night' and they're sleeping, or perhaps this is a typical meal time in the dining car. One way or another, he's gone out of his way to have as few witnesses as he can, tucked upstairs in the silent music car.
He stands still in the middle of the stage, and checks one last time that the room is truly empty, at least here at the start. Satisfied, Koumyou drops his center of gravity, bare feet sliding into position. One hand tucks against his shoulder, the other out before him, fists loose.
Breathing carefully, in through the nose, and out through the mouth... slowly, he lets his eyes slip shut.
And then he begins to move.
A block, a duck, a shift to one side. Another block; flowing, diverting an imagined attack away with the edge of an open hand. A step back, one kick at the level of a stomach. Spinning to the right, his braid and the long ends of his clothing flutter behind him. Fluid, each graceful movement morphing into the next without hesitation or pause.
There is nothing rigid here. Not until it's needed. A fist tightens at the instant of impact, not a moment before. The snap of force in the air, even without a real target, is audible in the quiet room.
If one watches him for more than a second, one can almost see the invisible opponents rushing him. They come from all directions; some are even armed. With a knife he side-steps, with a sword that he ducks beneath to rise again with the arc of an uppercut palm-strike. To a chin? A nose? ...A throat?
He flips as though it's easy, as though up and over someone who had been rushing to tackle him from behind. Landing, the heels of both palms snap out in a strike to their back, his whole body behind the movement. And then he's gone, rolling backwards, momentum changing directions as fast as a stray gust of wind. Up with another kick; that foot comes down, and he spirals out and up into a spin-kick aimed even higher than his own head.
Sometimes, he gets quite close to the drop off the stage. But he never actually touches the edges, and he certainly never falls.
Koumyou's braid whips behind him as he moves. His long sleeves flutter behind each sweeping attack or diversion of his arms. The hem of his robe skims against his bare ankles with every wide movement of his legs. Light though it is, the bamboo breastplate on his chest barely shifts on his thin frame. The sutra certainly doesn't go anywhere, though the ends and the back both flutter as if it were real paper.
It would be easy to turn this into a dance, and it would be equally easy to turn this into death. There is not a single second in which he isn't moving, flowing, striking, diverting.
If left alone, this will go on for a while longer.
His eyes do not yet open; his movements do not yet slow.
He will not lose his edge.
Where: Carriage J: Music Carriage - upstairs, in silence
When: Forward-dated to Jelly 4!
What: Sneaky solo martial arts practice a couple days before the next mission. Folks are welcome to catch him doing his thing, despite his effort to be secretive. If you ask for lessons (in anything, ever), he will almost certainly say no... but folks are totally welcome to try to convince him. (Also if anyone wants to just ATTACK, he'll adapt accordingly.)
Warnings: Otoha thread has some sensitive topics (warned in the comment titles). Devero thread same and same, but also some kinda graphic self harm injury shit from Koumyou etc.
if you can't see the sky there's too much artificial light
Muscle memory requires rote practice. Patterns mastered, then broken, to keep one's actions independent in a real fight. Even at his level, Koumyou needs to sharpen the blade once in a while, lest he lose his edge when he needs it most.
Koumyou Sanzo has picked a time when most of the train seems otherwise occupied. Maybe it's the middle of the 'night' and they're sleeping, or perhaps this is a typical meal time in the dining car. One way or another, he's gone out of his way to have as few witnesses as he can, tucked upstairs in the silent music car.
He stands still in the middle of the stage, and checks one last time that the room is truly empty, at least here at the start. Satisfied, Koumyou drops his center of gravity, bare feet sliding into position. One hand tucks against his shoulder, the other out before him, fists loose.
Breathing carefully, in through the nose, and out through the mouth... slowly, he lets his eyes slip shut.
And then he begins to move.
A block, a duck, a shift to one side. Another block; flowing, diverting an imagined attack away with the edge of an open hand. A step back, one kick at the level of a stomach. Spinning to the right, his braid and the long ends of his clothing flutter behind him. Fluid, each graceful movement morphing into the next without hesitation or pause.
There is nothing rigid here. Not until it's needed. A fist tightens at the instant of impact, not a moment before. The snap of force in the air, even without a real target, is audible in the quiet room.
If one watches him for more than a second, one can almost see the invisible opponents rushing him. They come from all directions; some are even armed. With a knife he side-steps, with a sword that he ducks beneath to rise again with the arc of an uppercut palm-strike. To a chin? A nose? ...A throat?
He flips as though it's easy, as though up and over someone who had been rushing to tackle him from behind. Landing, the heels of both palms snap out in a strike to their back, his whole body behind the movement. And then he's gone, rolling backwards, momentum changing directions as fast as a stray gust of wind. Up with another kick; that foot comes down, and he spirals out and up into a spin-kick aimed even higher than his own head.
Sometimes, he gets quite close to the drop off the stage. But he never actually touches the edges, and he certainly never falls.
Koumyou's braid whips behind him as he moves. His long sleeves flutter behind each sweeping attack or diversion of his arms. The hem of his robe skims against his bare ankles with every wide movement of his legs. Light though it is, the bamboo breastplate on his chest barely shifts on his thin frame. The sutra certainly doesn't go anywhere, though the ends and the back both flutter as if it were real paper.
It would be easy to turn this into a dance, and it would be equally easy to turn this into death. There is not a single second in which he isn't moving, flowing, striking, diverting.
If left alone, this will go on for a while longer.
His eyes do not yet open; his movements do not yet slow.
He will not lose his edge.
no subject
"It's only been... five days? Six? Rocket launchers they sent after me probably cremated him but he deserved a better resting place..." His voice is a bit strangled and he scrubs at his face with his sleeve. No. No tears. He can't cry.
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It just seems like the kind of thing that might matter, to this guy? Might bring him some comfort? And that's all such things are good for, in Koumyou's experience. It certainly can't matter to the dead, or to the gods.
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He sniffs again. "... Shouldn't be bothering you with this, I'm just some newbie asshole who doesn't fucking matter."
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And he tilts his head to one side, slightly.
"...I'm a priest," and the moon. "Listening to people's pain comes with the territory, sometimes. It's fine."
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He's heard it so often that he sometimes has a hard time not believing it.
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"Others' opinion doesn't make it so."
cw: incest and also bad things to babies
He's doing an okay job of keeping his voice steady - there's no love lost there, apparently.
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Similarly, what he says next is with the same certainty as plain fact.
"No one chooses how they're born, it certainly doesn't make anyone a monster."
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He pauses. "... Well. Other than my father. That was satisfying."
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Is Otoha just a serial killer, or does he have a purpose behind it?
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There was no remorse in his voice whatsoever.
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Which, yeah. That's pretty fucked up, Otoha. But so is a lot of things in Koumyou's experience.
"Would you still do it now, if you were told to by those same people? After your friend tried to break you free of it?"
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He pauses and shrugs. "I knew that when I was in it, but didn't know any other life or other responsibility. And I have to balance life for the humans and the yokai of Shinjuku. So they've got to go. The rival gangs have to go."
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Until recently, and then only kind of.
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And Koumyou finally takes his hand off Otoha's shoulder, to fold back into his opposite sleeve.
"I also kill as part of my profession."
Yes, as a priest. Perhaps less surprising after getting bounced off the floor by him a few times, but still. That could have been learned purely as non-lethal self defense.
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"... There's a difference between the two. I know I have a soul now, but what sort of thing that soul belongs to is a different story. ... I might not have to wonder about it for a while, anyway. The previous Karas was there for over four hundred years. A lot can happen in that time."
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Just gonna. Call you out, here.
"I don't know you well enough to like or dislike you, but you have yet to convince me of your monstrosity, if that's a goal of yours."
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Can you really hate yourself if you barely consider yourself to have a self?
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But they've veered pretty far off topic, so he steers them back to it.
"That doesn't mean you don't matter."
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Well. He doesn't have to say it.
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Koumyou's amused, for a variety of reasons.
"The people on this train are going to matter the shit out of you."
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"It's just going to happen, so you may as well see it coming."
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