prismatica | video | call out to the afterlife

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video | call out to the afterlife

[ Shino gets the camera rolling, and backs up, leaning forward and looking to where the light is, leaving him looking off camera. ]

The blinking light means it's on, right? [ He breathes out in a huff, straightening up and reaching for the table at his side. His fingers linger there, pressed against barely visible pieces of paper. ] Okay, so I don't know how to show pictures I've drawn except like this, and I have a few people that aren't here but might show up sometime, so if anyone sees them, I'd appreciate you letting me know.

[ He picks up the first, then shows each of them, one after another. ]

This is my little sister, Hamaji. And this is my older brother, Sousuke. They're the most important that I know about right away. Hamaji wears black dresses with lace and sturdy heeled shoes, and Sousuke is usually dressed like he's part of the church. You can find him in buttondown shirts, too, like this. [ He lets the drawings be lowered to show the white buttondown he's wearing. The pictures are set on the table, and he gathers up the next few. ] Then there might be one of these guys...

This is Kobungo, Genpachi, and Keno. They're the people who'd most likely want to find me. Genpachi might be in or out of military uniform? Kobungo is sometimes in his inn uniform. Keno always tends to dress traditionally.

[ These are set back on the table, his hand lingering on the surface. He looks to his last drawing, seems to frown, then picks it up to show the camera anyway. Once there, the dog is clearly given more depth to their eyes than literally any of the people, and that's... for reasons! ]

Then there's this guy, Rio Satomi, who'll probably be frowning and angry, because if I can't stand being here, he's going to hate it even more. I guess you could tell me if you see him, too.

[ All the pictures are now back on the table, and a crow, who had been off camera for most this, hops in camera and starts prodding at the drawings while Shino addresses the camera. ]

My name's Inuzuka Shino, and you can contact me on this weird phone if you see any of them in the future. Thanks!

[ He smiles, waving at the camera, as the crow picks up a drawing and attempts to fly away, over the camera, leading to Shino darting forward, hitting his comm, sending it flopped flat to film darkness as he calls out for Murasame to drop that, don't eat the drawing, you stupid bird, and then a fumbling click as the feed finally ends. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Like that!

[Blonde was close enough for her to laugh a little at his response, nodding.]

Ehe, I am kind of short... but there are other types of jinba, yeah. Mountain types like me, we're stockier and stronger... and then field types, they're faster and lighter!

[ He smiles, somewhat abashed but uncertain why. He's got the right image in mind now, doesn't he? That's all that really matters. He can identify a blonde-horse jinba. ]

Are there seaside types too? Strong swimmers, good fishers?

[ He has no idea how that'd work, but he also has no real idea what field types would be like either. Fields, mountains, who knows? It all makes its own sense, like people with different builds based on where their generations of ancestores have been living. ]

Gosh... I've never seen the ocean in my world, but... I'm sure there are jinba who must work and live there!

[Would they be field types, probably? She's not sure, thinking it over right then and there.]

They must be better swimmers than me, just 'cause they'd be used to it, right? Real strong kickers!

[ He nods, warming to the topic. ]

If they stay well balanced in boats, too, I bet their legs are incredible! And not panicking if you fall into the ocean... do you think they'd kick-fight sharks?

[ ............. okay, that's ridiculous. He rubs at the back of his head, looking embarrassed. ]

Just seems like you guys would have a better kick than anyone with softer human feet.

Yeah, that's true! Sharks are the fish with the rough skin, right? I bet a jinba could win against that, sure!

[Not that she actually knows what a shark is besides seeing their tanned skin on swords before, but-]

My husband can go up against bears and wolves and win, so- we definitely kick good.

[All that hoof.]

I think so, yes! I haven't seen one myself, but I've seen their fins.

[ it's been a delicacy given to him in his younger years, as one in a long litany of traditional medicines to try and help his overall health. none really worked, but most had to work to some degree, considering he made it past ten, even if he was always small for his age. ]

Wait, he fought bears and wolves just with his hooves? He has to be a strong fighter! I wouldn't dream of doing that bearhanded.

[ He'd use Murasame, of course, but that's not the point. Does he know anyone other than the bros who'd go up against bears and wolves by choice. Then again, did... her husband do this by choice... ]

It sounds like the mountains are dangerous where you're from. Do you have anything ayakashi or other youkai to worry about on top of the bears and wolves?

Mmm, he's the strongest man I've ever met! He saved me from wolves once and didn't even get a single scratch!

[Don't mind the little blush, or the way her she unconsciously pats her cheeks with her hands to try and calm down. Newlywed and all that.]

In my world I don't think we have any youkai or ayakashi... I mean, I've heard lots of stories? So maybe we do, but they just hide really well? After coming here and meeting some demons, I'm not sure anymore!

He certainly sounds impressive.

[ He's actually not been around many young married couples, so he's a little sweet on the way he can tell she's enamoured of her husband. So nice, seeing these things in their first blush. He hopes their marriage goes the way of all the nicest ones, long lived and filled with all the joys and tears of a life well lived. May neither of them meet tragic endings!

Such a wish in his heart, but he takes care to not let it project. He doesn't know what might happen here, if it's different or the same as back home, and he doesn't want to find out. Murasame responds even when Shino doesn't realise. Giving form to the formless, life to the dying, there are things one should not do, and yet, still can.

So instead, he'll simply smile, and set Murasame down on the table. The crow flares his wings and hops in a circle, then settles down again, turning his head to watch the camera with one black eye. ]

They mostly hide where I'm from, and few people would ever run into them. Or survive running into them, for one reason or another. [ The difference between Yukihime and Kokonoe is great, after all. One simply lives in winter and appears to the dying, the other actively usually eats men, normally going by the name of Yashahime. Keno is her heart in many ways... including the literal. ] It's not safe for them or humans to cross paths for the most part. But you say you've met demons here?

Mm, he is. I'm kind of biased, I guess, but...

[Okay, it was hard to explain to some people with how gruff and distrusting he could be of meeting new people, but. She knows better! If he can just get to know people they'd realize why she thinks he's so amazing.]

That sounds like the stories from my world... that if you met one and managed to get away you'd be really lucky, since they tend to eat people... or lure them to dangerous places, that kind of thing... But the demons I've met here are mostly really nice!

[She pauses, looking up a moment and trying to be... a little less positive. Should probably describe them more realistically.]

Or, well... They're not evil, I mean, like how I always thought they'd be. I've met like... four now!

[ He laughs at this, grinning and resting his hip against the table. Murasame doesn't bother moving, blinking slowly and staying put on top of whatever drawings lie under his feet. ]

I'd like to think you would be! Why not be biased? You married him, didn't you? Seems like a good enough reason to me.

[ He has no dealings with romance, but he knows some of other people's, and shouldn't one be biased toward their lover? Genuinely caring for them tends to mean that people look past their weakest qualities to focus on their best. Maybe also nag them about their worst, but hey, out of love, right? That's family, or the start of any family looking to take on kids of their own. ]

Mm, there's a lot more of that... guardian gods will kill, depending, too. Or a demon might save your life. They make their own decisions, as much as we do.

[ The whole pause and admission they aren't evil, versus "really nice," gets him to smile... a little less brightly. ]

Make that five, if you want. [ He hooks a thumb at Murasame. This is the same as pointing to himself, but he doesn't state that, since in his mind, he's Human, Thanks. But Murasame is, by his very origins and being, demonic. Godly. Chaotic? No one really seems to know, and he has not much to say on it either. ]

[Konoha can't help but laugh a little bit herself, glad he seemed to get it and also, selfishly, that she'd had a little chance to gush. She's been trying to keep it under control, but!!

She just bites her lip a little and nods. She did marry him after all.]

I think that's it, though- all the stories just describe them as evil, but... they seem like they could be good or bad just like humans can, just... from what I've seen, I mean.

[Except he points at the crow, and...]

- Eh? Your crow is a demon, too? I thought it was just a really well-trained bird!

[ Please, gush about family! He prefers that, loves hearing it, compared to the more mournful stuff... or hating family. Or wanting to die. Things he doesn't understand, doesn't know how to understand, even as his lack of full recollection of his own life means there are things he simply doesn't know he doesn't know involved with all of that. ]

Good, evil... it's all from a human perspective, isn't it? I don't know how it is elsewhere, but back home, someone told me demons are born from the shadows in human hearts. They're only given form because people have given them life from their own dark thoughts, fears, and natures. Humans are some of the scariest people around, in that sense.

[ Said more quietly, because yes, he's fought and dealt with demons of different kinds, but he's friends with more, quietly understanding the harmlessness of others, and studiously avoiding a certain fuzzy eyeball with a giant appetite. These are all topics more complicated than a black and white good or evil. ]

Murasame? I wouldn't say well trained is a word that applies to him...

[ Murasame's head whips around and he quarks a denial at Shino: ]

Not trained!

[ Just very fond of his bearer, and that fierce love is not always a good thing; it is theorised to be Shino's doom in the end, if or when it turns sour, or when it's great enough to turn to fear and devour him whole.

But who wants to think about that? Not him! Nor how he, technically, isn't human by scent or spiritual feeling. He's human in his heart and mind, and that's what matters. ]

See? He's just a greedy thing. Always trying to steal my meat or eat strange things!

[ Which then Shino ends up taking in but he's never going to think hard on how any of that works, because who wants to think about what a demon you host in your body does with the things it eats when it, well, is hosted in your body. ]

[When he says that, that humans are some of the scariest things... Konoha can't help but avert her gaze a moment. The wars that had decimated and enslaved her race, that had killed her parents, her husband's father, that had killed her adopted parent's natural children... those had all been started by humans. They did terrible things. But those same humans had also taken her in as an orphan and raised her as their own...

So she doesn't want to believe it. That humans as a race were like that.

It's easier to look at the crow instead, "Murasame", and be shocked that... it talked.]

It talked...

[Which she accidentally said out loud. Oops.]

Ah- I'm sorry, I didn't know... all the demons I met here look mostly human...

[ He's from after World War One, but before the second; humanity is both the best and worst of itself. Yet he clings to it, believes in the best of humanity, because in his eyes that's what shines brightest. For darkness to exist, there has to be sufficient light, and the light is always brighter to cast shadows as deep as some demons he knows.

Humanity is worth fighting for, and believing in.

Murasame lifts his head, turning it further in an exaggeratedly birdlike way. ]

Demons are humans. Humans are demons.

[ Sounds more cryptic when stated by a bird, but he settles into preening himself right after, dropping the topic just like that. ]

... Ignore him. [ Shino says, placing a hand on Murasame's head, meriting a grumpy noise of of the crow. ] Demons come in all shapes and sized and kinds where I'm from; this is just one possibility.

[ For Murasame, one of many. ]

Mostly human? What gives your demon friends here away?

[Oh... That was. Confusing sounding. Deep, but confusing.]

Ah... they have pointy ears... or animal ears... not the moonblessing, either, just. Naturally.

And they smell sort of... like animals. If that makes sense...

[ He blinks, registering both these facts while thinking about the brothers in oni form. ]

... Uh, not really? What kind of animals?

Ah...

[She tries to think of how to describe it without being rude, absently rubbing at her nose- more sensitive than a human's but not quite as keen as a true beast's.]

Depending on what type they are, I guess? I know some dog demons... and a wind demon... and before I came here I met a water demon... and they all sort of. Smelled like what they were?

[She guesses Murasame would smell like a crow, but- That one's obvious!!]

[ He blinks, since... that makes sense, even if it's not how he's ever scented demons back home. Maybe it was? But most aren't animal related, huh...

He wonders what he and Murasame smell like. One would think bird, but he has a feeling it's more metal and rain and something dark and hulking. This isn't his demon's true form, after all, and no natural animal can stand being around either one of them in close quarters. ]

I guess that makes sense... demons just kind of have their own scent back home. Maybe extra ones depending on what they are, but it's two different things, I think?

Maybe it's different depending on the world? Some of the ones I know are from the same world... and I've met all sorts of people that don't exist in mine now, and sometimes I didn't figure out what they smelled like until I got here. Like "androids", do you know any of those?

[Not that demons and androids were the same in any other way but... this talk of scents, but!]

I found out when I went to a world with it that some of them smell like plastic... but before I found out plastic I couldn't quite figure it out. So many your demons would be like that for me?

[... though she supposed they could test it?]

I guess that makes the most sense with it being different... I've come across so many different kinds of people with different things about them that'd be strange back home. I haven't met anyone who says they're an android... but I know what plastic is, so there's that?

[ Are androids... plastic? Really if he knew it was more like they were advanced robots, much more svelte and singular than the GIGA units they'd traveled the Nothing in, it'd make sense! ]

You'd know as soon as you were around us, so seems like we'll know whenever we meet. Assuming we meet? These picture phones are so weird...

I met a lot back in the group I was with before I came here... and some of them smell like oil and metal, some like this "plastic" stuff... so I guess it's just. Different worlds and all sorts of other reasons.

[Oh-]

I guess I could just sniff for crow? My sense of smell isn't that great, though, I'd have to be kind of near you... but we could meet sometime! This city is so large, but I prefer talking in person to these phones anyway... We don't have them in my world. Or... anything at all like them.

Half the smells around here are enough to give me a headache... how does a city with people who end up with super senses part of the month stand being like this?!

[ Let him complain, even if he looks abashed a moment after. Ah, he doesn't need to complain in front of her! ]

I... don't know if that'd work? The sniffing. Meeting up is probably easier. I definitely think it's better than these picture phones!

No, I totally get it! Mines better than a humans, sure, but anyone better than mine must be so overwhelmed, I thought...

[Complain away!]

Do you want to, then? I don’t mind- you seem nice!

[And it may be naive but... she’s nearly a half ton of muscle, so. Unless someone has shown themselves to be physically stronger she accidentally assumes she can handle most human shaped people if she ended up being too trusting...]

Mine's not necessarily better, just more sensitive to some things...

[ He's Normal. Normal, okay! ]

Huh? Yeah, why not? I don't mind, and you seem nice, too.

[ He smiles at that; on the bright side, he's honest, and he's not much of a danger overall. Not to someone who isn't intending to harm him grievously, at least. ]

I'm not so great at navigating around here yet... where's someplace easy to meet up with someone? Hard to get lost finding?

[and who’d want to do that???]

How about the Greatmoon Groves? On the east side there’s a park with lots of benches?

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