wordcount: 4522 (+5)
Location: Forbidden Kingdom - Esaka’s Low Tier
Amaterasu: level 8 EXP:
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (41/80)
Pit - Level: 8 - Total EXP: 270/80Sakura +5Amaterasu burst out of one of the low tier dojos, her letter of recommendation, held in her jaws, flapping in the wind. A moment later a gang of fighters came piling out the same door, their leader yelling “get back here mutt!” at her. She did not get back there, and instead swerved between confused pedestrians, and before she ducked into an alleyway and then behind some storage crates in-order to lose them.
There she waited, ears raised and alert, until she was quite sure they’d lost her. Then she turned to go, only to find a Yokai materializing out of the spirit world behind her. It was a hulking mass of muscle with wickedly sharp horns, skin spikes and claws. It was also wearing a stretched out T-shirt that said “No. 1 Jun Kazama fan” on it.
“That signature. Hand it over.
You don’t deserve it” the
big oni demanded, showing not a hint of fear of the divine wolf he, unlike the fighters, could see the truth of.
Said wolf, finding that maybe this recommendation was far more trouble than it was worth given the woman’s popularity and the inexplicable value people put on a bit of paper she’d written on, still refused by way of tucking the bit of paper back in her divinity, gripped her massive sword, and squared up for a fight.
About twenty seconds into said fight Amaterasu emerged from the alleyway, leaping out of the way of a huge fist that smashed into the ground, startling the passers by.
The Big Oni hesitated for a moment, and then emerged from the alleyway, bellowing that “This is between me and her!” and then rushing to engage the wolf in a street fight as the other fighters gave them space rather than intervene. All except one.
The yokai suddenly found its vision obscured and let out a noise halfway between confusion and indignation as the sole of a boot connected with its face. The bulky oni was stopped in its tracks, one leg still raised as if it had frozen mid-charge as its head bent back. Its assailant pushed off of it, landing back on their feet near Amaterasu along with the tell-tale flap of feathered wings.
"Princesses, goddesses- what is it with you guys always finding trouble?" Pit asked, mostly rhetorically judging by the little smirk on his face.
He then glanced down at Amaterasu, casually questioning her.
"Did you find a dojo yet?" Time was starting to run out after all, and it was only by happenstance that Pit had been around since he was still looking around for one while he waited for Sakura to get back with news about his first choice.
The oni's eye twitched. Caught by surprise it had just gone still, but now not only had someone gotten in the way of it obtaining its oshi's precious autograph... they had the gall to act like it was no big deal too?!
"Didn't you hear me?!" The yokai shouted, slamming its foot down and bringing its head back down to glare at the pair. It snorted heavily from its snout and without hesitation leapt forward with one massive fist pulled back. "I'm separating that prize from someone unworthy of it!"
Amaterasu leapt up and to the side out of the way of the punch, barking twice to answer no to the dojo question, before pausing time and wasting ink by drawing “try steal ->” on the Oni’s shirt, with the arrow pointing at Jun Kazama’s name as way of explanation of her ongoing issue. She’d maybe just gotten unlucky, and her attempts to join weapon wielding dojos might have overexposed her to a more dishonorable crowd, but the attempts at theft and extortion were certainly getting on her nerves.
Sakura jogged closer to the commotion, having been scouting out a potential dojo pick for Pit. Looked there was another troublesome yokai causing problems. Amaterasu, the giant wolf, was getting challenged into a fight by the big oni. And it looked like Pit was here, too.
”Come on, guys! Give ‘em what for!” She cheered.
”You can take him, right?” She asked rhetorically.
Amaterasu barked once for yes even as she unleashed a barrage of prayer beads burst smg style into the oni’s flank. Pit had flitted around to the yokai's other side, summoning a divine weapon of his own. He knew actual weapons were permitted in these tournaments, but outside of them he thought it would be fun to fit in with the city of martial artists by using the Breaking Palm. As his right arm lit up on cascading colors, called back to Sakura,
"Of course!"As the oni grunted and wobbled after the beads slammed into it, Pit thrust his hand out. He struck solid muscle, but that was no issue - he had a little bursting power of his own. The space between Pit's palm and the oni's skin glowed for a moment before the gathering energy erupted and the two were pushed away from each other, drawing another angry yelp from the would be thief.
If Pit understood the divine writing that had appeared on the oni's shirt and everything it had been shouting, it was trying to get Amaterasu's letter of recommendation.
"Get your own letter!" he told the monster on the goddess' behalf, jumping up into another flying kick. The yokai raised its arm to block and caught the attack in its forearm, but this kick was stronger than the last, making the oni stagger back towards Amaterasu.
The divine wolf lunged forwards, arching her back in just the right way that her divine disk went spinning off of it in an arch such that it bashed the Oni in both of his shins. As he was unsteadied by this blow, she leapt up, her snout to the heavens, and then tumbles forwards at the top of her jump to do a full forward spin. In so doing she brought the disk on her back slamming down on the head of the Oni, sending him stumbling back towards Pit.
Sakura punched the air preemptively, standing alongside a small crowd and a smattering of passing yokai in the Stream.
”Hit him hard!!” She hopped back and forth.
Encouraged by Sakura's cheering, Pit grinned as he once again gathered energy into his hand just after landing.
"You got it!"The oni attempted to recover quickly, but it wasn't fast enough to evade the next strike. Pit crouched and sprang up to deliver an empowered uppercut to the underside of the oni's chin with his palm. It was strong enough to make the yokai see stars, even if the small burst of light hadn't half-blinded it already. Pit had hoped to send the oni crashing down onto its back, but at the last moment before falling it snorted heavily and threw its weight forward. Instead of falling over it collapsed onto one knee, dazed and with its head spinning.
Right before the executioner's blade, Amametarasu finished charging up a sword strike, and brought it cleaving down onto the Oni’s neck, separating his head from his body. Or his corporeal one anyway, as, once again, after being slain, the Yokai was simply banished back to the spirit realm, where it could only impotently rage about the injustice of this situation.
He was quickly put to heel not by force but by a combination of mockery for himself and minor applause for the victors coming from the crowd. This included one hurled insult in the form of “Ha, you yokai should know better than to tussle with divinity!” that came in a voice that sounded startlingly familiar to Pit, but when followed back to the source was revealed to have come from a oversized
gauntlet wearing figure rather than Consul Z.
For her part Amaterasu looked briefly pleased with their clean victory, before inclining her head in Pit’s direction as thanks for his aid.
"Oh, uh, no problem," the angel verbally replied. He had quickly gone from smugly triumphant to completely thrown off upon hearing the other god's deep voice. And not only his voice, but the divine aura the man had even felt like Z's - and it also felt a little more familiar too, in a different way. It was totally weird. But there was no way that guy actually was Z, right?
The rainbow markings on Pit's arm evaporated and formed a small glowing ball before it, too, blinked out of existence to be stored wherever the rest of his arsenal rested. The angel squinted his eyes at the bearded god before he and Amaterasu reunited with Sakura in the crowd.
"How was that? And how did it go in the High Tier?" Pit asked the street fighter, quite eager to hear her answer even with the strange feeling the stranger gave off.
”Uh, it was like, totally freaking awesome?” Sakura said.
”Did you just get a compliment from Zeus? Also, we should totally fight.” Sakura tapped on her heels. At the mention of the high tier though, her smile turned a little more apologetic, and she rubbed the back of her head. Of course ‘how it went’ was answered by that body language alone.
”Ah, sorry Pit-san. My word’s not good enough for a fast track all the way to the High Tier. I don’t think anyones is.” She said.
Amaterasu had assumed as such, which was why she was down here waving her letter around, and not up there. No that she could have gotten there to do so in the first place, but still.
Either way, it seemed like she and Pit were in the same boat at the moment, and so she looked at him with a tilt of the head to see if their captain had any bright ideas now that his former one was out of the picture.
Although said captain had genuinely hoped to skip the early levels and join up with the esteemed World Warriors, Sakura had already told him earlier that she didn't think it would work so when she returned with confirmation it wasn't that big of a disappointment.
"Darn! I bet if they saw me in action they'd change their mind! ...but thanks for checking anyway," he said to Sakura. He didn't sound too put out by the news, though his wings did droop slightly.
"We can definitely fight though! We could do it as a warm up before the real matches start tomorrow!
"And..." He'd been circling back to everything Sakura had said, but he paused on the last topic. His eyebrows were pinched together and he stared ahead, in thought. If Sakura and Amaterasu looked closely, they might be able to actually see the gears in his head turning.
A compliment from Zeus. Did she mean that god? She must have, right? It was a name he hadn't heard in quite a long time, and thinking about it now was calling up old memories of a friendly, helpful old god. The face he pictured in his head was not the same one they'd just seen, but he couldn't just chalk it up to two deities with the same name when there was that familiar vibe to the other guy. And then there was Z, and how he fit into all this. The Consul had a static feeling aura, same as this Zeus, and didn't Zeus start with a Z?
It sort of felt like Pit was on the verge of a breakthrough in figuring something out, but then the time caught up with the trio. The digital alarm of a random passerby's phone sounded, and as they raised the device up to silence it Pit snapped back to the present. Right, they were still on a time limit!
"...and me and Amaterasu have to hurry up and join a dojo! Then we've all gotta pick tournaments to sign for and get registered!" Pit didn’t know the exact time now, but he had heard over the linkpearl earlier that they’d only had a couple of hours to get everything squared away. And that had been a while ago now!
"Do you know where the registration is, Sakura? Maybe we can just join one on the way there?"Sakura felt like Pit still might not completely understand how Esaka worked. Her fault, obviously. Still, she was happy he wanted to fight. If it was up to Sakura she would spar with him- with anyone- over and over again.
”Yeah, sure! You two can just pick one. Or, I guess-” Sakura glanced at the piece of paper Amaterasu had. Sakura still wasn’t sure what that was all about.
”Um, yeah, let’s just go I think?”With two of the three of them still dojo-less (whether due to being driven out of them or just being much too picky), they had to get a move on. It was Pit's intent to just swallow his pride and settle on whichever establishment would let them join while on the way to get on the tournament lists, especially since he and Sakura had already talked about it not mattering
too much which dojo they were a part of and their strength alone would be able to carry them through. He did take that to heart, but she was part of one of the best and most famous dojos so of course she could say that!
"Ho there!"
The Seekers really hadn't made it very far at all before the booming voice from earlier called out to them, and a heavy hand was laid on both Pit and Sakura's shoulders. The man spun the two of them around, and they were unsurprised to see the gauntlet-wielding, exomis-wearing, braided-bearded face of the deity identified as Zeus.
”Whoops!” Sakura exclaimed.
He grinned widely at all three Seekers, including the divine wolf. Just as his comment from before implied, he could easily see her true nature. "Do my ears deceive me or did I overhear you lot are looking for a gym to join?"
”Um, yes, that’s right! Or, these two anyway. I’m kinda just tagging along.” Sakura explained.
Zeus nodded heartily. "I see. Three new members would have been excellent, but two will do just fine!"
Pit shrugged off the man's hand. He would have fixed the god with a suspicious stare (at least until he untangled his earlier thoughts), but it almost sounded like they'd been offered an invitation by the guy.
"Wait, you've got a dojo you'll let us join?""If you're good enough!" Zeus replied with a laugh. "I saw that brawl with the yokai; this goddess here has one of the low tier's most well known ladies vouching for her, and the both of you can fight! So get through one little trial at our gym and you're both in! Come on, give it a try, I won't take no for an answer!"
So less an invitation and more a demand, that was par for the course with gods as Pit knew them. The angel very nearly rolled his eyes.
"Always with the trials! I dunno if we have time for—wha!"Zeus had taken hold of Pit again and spun both he and Sakura back around once more, pushing their backs to guide them forward. He looked back at Amaterasu, bidding her to, "come, come! You'll fit right in!"
With her allies being dragged off, the goddess had no choice but to follow. Well technically she did have a choice to just run off and ditch them, but it certainly wasn’t one she’d ever make, and so she padded along beside them and their jovial abductor.
The muscular god brought them down the street and through an alleyway that he only barely fit through, then a little ways down another side road until their destination was within view. Like many other dojos in the low tier, the building left a lot to be desired. Its outside was the same Japanese aesthetic as most of the rest of Esaka, save for an elaborate, eye-catching metal and neon-lit sign that hung above the entry door. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume most of the gym's money had gone into this one feature that proudly displayed the
name of this particular dojo.
They didn't have much time to really look at the outside though, because as soon as they stood before the entrance Zeus picked both Pit and Amaterasu up by the scruff and tossed them inside. He let out a booming laugh before looking down at Sakura. "Feel free to spectate if you wish! We all love praise around here. Maybe you'll even change your mind and swap dojos after you see US in action! Ha Ha Ha Ha!"
Sakura smiled sheepishly.
”Hey, anything could happen.” She said.
Amaterasu had not yelped when gabbed and tossed. She had not. Had she had a voice and been asked, she would have fervently denied it. She did at least manage to arrest her tumbling fall via double jump and land, elegantly, on her paws, hiding almost all possible hints that she might have been embarrassed.
Unfortunately, she only hid the ones that would be picked up by none canines, which meant she failed to account for the immaculately sculpted
jackal man who turned to face them as they arrived vie divine sky mail.
There was a brief flash of amusement on the jackal’s features, canine and human both before his features fixed themselves into a rigid deathmask of a look, and spoke with tones at once quite as a grave and booming like a coffin slamming shut.
“Welcome to our humble temple. Do you come as supplicants, or seek to claim a spot in our pantheon? Either way, I, Anubis, protector of graves, guide to the underworld, god of funerary rites, shall arbitrate on the weighing of your worthiness” the jackal man, Anubis, declared with solemn self importance.
Pit (who had definitely yelped when suddenly tossed in) had hopped to his feet at this point. He glanced quickly around the main room. The dojo's interior was less Japanese in design than its exterior, if only because decorations from many other cultures had been built on top of the base. Chinese and Norse decor clashed in one corner, while prayer tables that would have been at home in Greek temples sat snugly beside Japanese altars already burning with incense.
Of course a lot this was lost on Pit, besides the fact that the whole place was buzzing with divine energy.
His eyes found Anubis once more, as well as a few other people that had poked their heads out from deeper rooms to see what was going on. Going through a god's trial was one of the last things Pit wanted to do right now, but they
were already here, and with some luck maybe it would just be something straight forward for once since it was only to sign up with this dojo of low tier deities.
So Pit puffed out his chest, threw one hand out towards himself and Amaterasu and declared,
"we're joining up!"Might as well get this out of the way and end up getting what they wanted in the end anyway!
“I see” the god replied, drawing out the e’s as he did so, before beginning to say that “then we’ll begin with an initial test to see if you are worthy of-” only to be cut off as Zeus came barging in through the doors “Skip that part! I’ve seen them fight, they have warriors' hearts! You don’t need to get the scales out for them, Annie. What I really want to see is how strong those hearts beat!”
The Jackal god merely sighed at the nickname, it seeming to be a fight he’d lost a long time ago, before requesting “names first then, so you can be heralded at the beijing of your practice match”
They're taking this stuff really seriously, Pit thought to himself. It made sense though, doubly so if these gods were stuck at the bottom of Esaka's totem pole. It must really sting their pride. Though the angel initially hadn't been on board with the plan Zeus had suddenly thrust onto them, he had to admit that the dramatics were starting to get him a little excited.
"I'm Pit, servant of the Goddess of Light, Lady Palutena, and captain of her royal guard!" Pit proclaimed proudly. He waited a beat for his fellow initiate to state her name before remembering that she actually couldn't. Or maybe these gods could understand her barking? Just in case they couldn't, Pit said,
"...and this is Amaterasu, Goddess of the Sun! And, uh... slayer of yokai!"He added that last part on because he had no idea what kind of titles she might have had, but it probably worked.
By pure coincidence, he was entirely accurate, as Amaterasu’s Yokai kill count was in the hundreds. Or that of the one Galeem had stollen’s was anyway. This one had rather more undead and demons to her name than that one.
That wasn’t the important coincidence however. The important one was that upon saying the divine wolf’s name, a goddess armed with a bow and wearing a crown like a
sunrise approached.
“She would be ‘the charitable’ too, it seems” Anubis commented as he looked down impassively on the wolf’s letter of recommendation that noted the act that had earned her it in the first place.
“Then she’s got one more than you then, eh Amaterasu!” Zeus joked, causing confusion in the wolf and brining a quirk of a smile to the sun crown’d goddess’ lips before she replied with quiet refinement that “Well, the sun
does give out its radiance for free, grant’s life to all things, so it is quite a fitting one, is it not?”
Once she had arrived, she kept that smile, even as she looked down upon the divine wolf, and asked “shall I call you usurper, pretender or sister, little wolf? For I too am Amaterasu, goddess of the sun”
The divine wolf startled at this revelation, beginning to take a half step back, only to catch herself and boldly stepped forwards, asserting her claim on the name.
“Ah, how impractical. A silent goddess” the goddess replied to this act “I suppose I shall perform your test, then, and see if you are worthy of my name?”
The wolf took another step forwards towards the goddess, which was all the answer either of them needed.
By this time more gods and goddesses had appeared to line the dojo and get a look at their potential new recruits. Men stroked their majestic beards and women turned to make comments on their first impressions. With one Amaterasu paired with the other Amaterasu for the dojo's trial, and their third guest only there to watch, that left one newcomer to take care of. A tall warrior woman in a revealing peplos and golden helmet and armor stepped forward to stand alongside the humanoid sun goddess, raising her chin as she looked down at the strangers, before her gaze eventually settled on the angel.
"I suppose then it's only fitting if I take part in proctoring these initiates, if you've been brought in by my father," the
goddess said. "I am Athena, goddess of wisdom and war, and I shall be handling your trial, servant of light Pit."
Pit eyed the spear and shield she wielded, especially the eerily familiar visage embossed on the latter's surface. That head of snakes could only belong to one person. His vision lingered there before he looked back up at Athena, putting on a confident expression.
"And you'll see I'll pass with flying colors! Let’s get started ‘cause there's no time to lose!"“Indeed, the hourglass runs short, if you intend to compete in this week’s tournaments” Anubis agreed, before gesturing to the central floor of the dojo and requesting “If you will take your places, newcomers, at the center of the dojo, facing away from each other, I shall begin the battle rites”
As they did so, he quickly explained the rules: “All weapons are permitted, as are all styles of combat. A god cannot be felled as easily as a mortal after all. However, you will not strike an opponent who is knocked to the floor. Instead the Battle will continue until one participant is knocked down and unable, or unwilling, to stand and fight after a 3 second countdown”
At this point the two seekers were standing back to back (or back to tail) facing down their opponents. Amaterasu’s eyes were fixed with her human(oid) counterpart, but when Anubis said that “divine power charging and godly guarding conditions are in place” she glanced to the side in confusion.
Luckily she had Pit to voice said confusion for her, as his puzzled expression turned from Athena to Anubis, and even out to Zeus and Sakura.
"Uh... what? I've heard of edge guarding but not godly guarding. I guess the power charge stuff is like a meter, though?"He knew some people, especially powerful martial artists, had some sort of metaphysical 'meter' that ramped up as they fought, but it didn't apply to him. Or so he thought, anyway. It had been a while since he'd brushed up on these kinds of terms.
“Timing a block perfectly will negate any and all damage from the blocked attack” Anubis explained succinctly, before declaring “now, without further delay, let us begin!” before his hand, eyes, and all the shrines began to glow with divine power, which then spread out and covered the entire dojo floor, blinding all within for a brief moment.
When the light returned, the two seekers found themselves in far more splendorous surroundings, and with no one in sight but their opponent, even if they could feel the eyes of the spectators, divine and yokai alike, upon them nonetheless.
