Description: The Karuta District. Ryuhaku Todoh's home. A storm steadily approaches. The time for training has begun. Master Lieutenant Japan beholds the extent of Drake's artistic chi manipulation... and IS NOT IMPRESSED. He demands a more simplified method of delivery, and Drake struggles to adhere. Special features include: Todoh vs. God. (Winner: God)
The Karuta district. When someone reads these words in these here logs they're going to go, 'oh, okay, Todoh's place.' Yeah, one can do that if they want. Sure, the dojo might be the only place of any actual note over here, and even that... is... kind of a stretch. It's a quiet enough residential area, where most of the city and Americanization often seem to be held at bay by some old people in funny clothes who want to live the rest of their lives in peace (excepting somewhat local high school Taiyo).
They have not yet succeeded in getting old Ryuhaku Todoh out of their lives. They never will. They'll have to suffer at least a good forty or so years more of it, depending on how much the fates hate mankind and skilled fighters alike in which to allow someone like him to continue to exist within the capacity he does.
There's a bit of rain and a brewing thunderstorm over Southtown. The elements. Chi, the underlying power of the world. Some would say they are connected which is how some create fantastical chi effects in fighting that mimic these elements down to the very finest scientific detail. Many treasure these skills as one of their defining traits in virtually every inch of their lives.
Especially if all they seem to do is fight and get in trouble. Like this loudmouth (but MIGHTY), Todoh, who stands before a lake out in the open park, where it is a bit colder than it usually is this time of year while people are clearing away. He's fanning himself unnecessarily, given the aforementioned slight, slight chill. "You see those people, kid? Do you? Do you? All of them scrambling indoors like it isn't a good day to be out! Well guess what! In my world," where he does seem to be, "EVERY DAY IS A GOOD DAY!! Every! Single! Day! Because the heavens know better than to get in my way, ooooooh, why back when I was your age there was hail at my head and I got fed up with the sky throwing hail at my head that I beat the crap out of it!! Yeh hah hah hah!!!"
The rain starts getting a little worse at the boast.
God ANGRY! God SMASH!
Drake, a.k.a. "kid", stands beside Todoh, steadily getting soaked in the downpour, nice, customized gi getting all rumpled. His hands are linked behind his back, head bowed slightly with a mutely confused look on his face at Todoh's preaching. The rain, by this point, is dripping from the tips of his bangs.
"Impressive," he lauds, utterly subordinate. For a long time. Then finally: "How'd you manage that?"
The head lifts and turns aside, regarding Todoh with huge, inquisitively rounded amethyst eyes dominating the most of his face - an expression betraying his youth.
Ryuhaku Todoh does not heed the increased rainfall, for the world is not his oyster. It is his bitch. Or that is what he would like the world to believe, perhaps. His fanning slows as the doubting question is asked. The one doubting question. His right eye starts to twitch.
"Because I AM AWESOME!!!" Shouted so loud that it could be mistaken for a crack of thunder, a fan held so high that it almost begs for him to be struck by lightning. Except it doesn't. Holding his arm up, he'd be the tallest thing in this open area. That's gambling with one's life! But... this is Todoh.
"And if you stick with me out here, boy, I can't say you'll be as awesome! But you can leave 'em in awe, which isn't... half as good BUT CLOSE TO IT! It's better than being just some! ...Some loser!" This is Todoh math in action, folks, better start revising your schoolbooks with the absolute value of Todoh's opinion of self and others as he relaxes the arm and finally turns to properly face him.
"And that means you don't stay cooped up in one of those loser gyms all the time, oooooh no! It's too stuffy with the air of utter losers! But here! You can feel it, yes. The little thing everyone who is worth calling themselves a fighter," his eyes narrow in a dark, hostile manner, "if a mere exaggeration," which then goes back to loud boasting, "draws from! You know what I'm talking about, yes?" YOU HAD BETTER.
The eyes somehow widen at this question, and Drake's frame stiffens in tension. Snap. Critical question. Out in the rain. What in the rain could be something fighters all draw from? What is essentia-oh!
"Water?," Drake supposes innocently, eyes curving up in a tentative squinty-eyed happy face.
You know the look. Everyone knows the look.
The 'master' stares at Drake's answer. Even though he is either an inch or an inch shorter than the wrestling heartthrob, somehow, just /somehow/ he is capable of overcoming this slight height deficiency to stare down at him. Then again he looks down on taller people all the time! Rage and indignation seem to build up higher and higher over seconds, until the very bursting point...!
"Aaaaaaah, close enough," Todoh handwaves with his free hand as rain lands and collects in his clothes, making it just slightly heavier, stepping through mud that no doubt should be staining his socks enough that he may not be able to bring /them/ into any household around here, but this is Todoh, who cares little for other social taboos as to where he can or can't be, the disappointment running through him as though he were sad that a small child didn't yet understand a fact of life they should be familiar with at their age.
"But what I speak of is none other than chi! NOT CHEESE!" A fist shakes again full of impotent rage. "Ooooh, I had some crazy foreigners ask me if all fighters ate cheese and you know what! Me and the sky came together and beat the crap out of them! And guess what! It's all over the place! Here, there, over there, hell, everywhere! Yours for the taking, kid! And you know what you got to do with it?!" Pop quiz question, number two!
Drake continues with the big, innocent smile... until the 'acceptance' is given, and he exhales a tiny, puffy sigh in relief. Ohhh. -Chi-. Makes sense.. kind've. From what he truly knows of it, Todoh's right. It's everywhere. But the next question zips Drake's attention right back over, brow furrowed. "Uhh.."
Judging from what he knows of Todoh...
"...Beat the crap outt'a things with it?"
"Damn straight!" And out comes the fanning again with an... almost... approving nod. ALMOST. The rain just gets worse. There's enough of it that either of them will have to speak up to be heard, one way or the other. "Masters such as ME," oh you wish you could call yourself that, no matter how awesome you really are, Todoh, "don't have aaaaaaaaaany trouble, but since you're so freshly picked, and green, and new to this," despite the fact Drake is an established name in wrestling and more or less matched the elder Todoh in a fair fight which he conveniently ignores for the sake of his view of reality, "I'm choosing to ignore this sky trying to FRONT WITH SOMEONE WHO CAN KICK ITS ASS THANK YOU VERY MUCH," shouting this while looking to the sky briefly, "juuuust to get you started on something... easy, yes."
That or it may just be another excuse for Todoh to avoid taking a conventional shower. One of the two. (Do you know how many days he's been in that outfit? Do you?) He then suddenly raises his hands up to that sky he has (supposedly) whipped into submission, calling forth a brilliant display of might and power that his (present, perhaps temporary) pupil may consider a turning point in their lives (if they hadn't already seen it several times), forming the yellowish-orangeish bright chi that pierces the gloom and leaves... well... the same gloom it displaces in its wake as he guides his arms downward with a sharp kiai before it disappears back into the aether from whence it came.
"You get a look at that?! That was chi! Chi as a formidable weapon! The deadliest weapon! By me. Yeh hah hah!"
Drake sets his gaze on the chi intently and eases back a step from it cautiously. Can't ever be certain around this guy. He's sure if he trained with him for twenty years, he'd still be uncertain of him. Still, Todoh is his trainer. ..Right? He thinks he is, anyway. So the master's ego must be stroked. "Yes. It hurts. I know," he compliments with a small bob of his head. "Did I.. demonstrate my chi to you earlier? I can't remember..."
"Earlier? Bah! What matters is that you show me how you do it right now!" Todoh crosses his arms while the rain continues to soak him, which hardly bothers him in the least because... well... he is who he is. And whatever Drake demonstrates had better be chi! Not that crazy stuff a bunch of other dumb kids seem to use nowadays that will totally be phased out of the fighting mainstream in five years, or so Todoh thinks.
"C'mon, now, don't be shy, try it! Worst I'll do is take this here sky and some foreigners and beat the crap outta you for wasting my time, that's what!!" So encouraging. But where are the supposed foreigners? Anybody who has half a mind (fighters excluded) have already sought shelters indoors from the weather.
He breaks the arm cross again a few minutes later to fan himself while he waits and sees how his present student expresses their chi, for surely it will bring him to tears. Happy tears or angry tears, well... only one way to find out from there, it would seem.
"Well.. okay.. it takes a lot outt'a me, though...," Drake admits. He draws in a slow breath, then exhales it, visible as wisps in the heavy air.
Drake's eyes drift shut, and he begins focusing, concentrating on his center - something he usually attains when immersing himself in combat. His footing shifts, feet a shoulders' width apart. His hands curl into fists and set low before himself in a stand-by stance.
The eyes remain closed. The breathing slowly evens out and steadies itself.
Something begins to happen then.
Wreathes form over his arms, from elbows to fists, encapsulating the limbs. The right arm is shrouded in a pulsing aura of sparkling white, while the left burns with a flaring, shimmering black. Without opening his eyes, he begins to draw his hands back slowly, left foot sliding back deeply to set him into a low backstance.
"Domino..."
The amethyst eyes open again, and he pivots into a forward stance. The arms thrust forward at the same moment, palms vertical to each other.
"HELIX!"
A thickly condensed beam of sparkling white fires from the right arm, while a similar beam, only shimmering black, surges from the left. The two separate beams converge and spiral between themselves, forming an even more massive stream of chi in a double helix. The energy continually pours forth from the arms, clearly forceful from the subtle shift in Drake's body to brace himself against the recoil. After several seconds, the massive beam ceases to stream from Drake's arms, and it dies out in the air ahead of them. ...At which point Drake turns a hopeful look onto Todoh.
The Todoh (since Kasumi is not played one can get away with calling him The Todoh, in the instance stuff like 'The Best' or 'The Greatest' or 'The Conqueror' are not to one's fancy) folds his fan almost immediately at 'takes a lot outt'a me,' which is an extremely early warning sign of absolutely everything he thinks is wrong with so many 'lesser' styles he keeps seeing run around! (No matter how often these... 'lesser' styles end up beating him senseless in Saturday Night Fight but let's pretend those fourteen nearly consecutive losses didn't happen... pfffthahahaha)
He has at least the common grace to let the whole thing play out. The shining of white and black on either arm, wrapping together into a single, beautiful strike. So pretty, so intricate! It would win the world over for the beauty of its form alone. It paints Todoh's face white and black in its luminescence against the dreary weather. Then it simply fades.
The previous pose would also like to apologize for lying about inevitable crying. There is none. That above pose will never lie about Ryuhaku Todoh's emotional responses to anything ever again and will sit in the corner without having a snack. But enough about that pose.
"BAAAAAAAAAAAH! That's what you're doing wrong, kid! Right from when you said 'it takes a lout out of me' I knew I was in for a treat I'd spit back out on a plate and beat up the waiter for refunds!!" A vein nearly bursting from his forehead at the sheer audacity of this display, he steps out ahead of Drake, too miffed to look him in the eye as he hunches over and spreads his feet apart a bit. "Look! Look what I'm doing! I'll do it as many times as it takes for you to get right!!"
He raises his arms up again. "No fancy glowing crap at the arms! You just reach up!!" Of which he is already doing. "You call it!" He shouts on top of another shout as the blocky, unappealing but OH SO DEADLY (yeah right) three-segmented chi... bar blob thingamabob rather slowly descends in the air. "Gravity can take over just fine, but if you wanna speed it up!" He throws his hands down to guide it downward with the more familiar descending speed one may attribute to it. "Efficient! No wasted movement! That's the problem with all you damn kids and your... your flowers and fires and horse wagons and, and, and that crap! Too much effort wasted on making it pretty and then I see them all 'awww, wah, wah, I'm tired' and THAT WON'T DO! What do I seem like to you, some kind of one-trick pony that can only do one thing once, huh? Huh?!" ...Please don't answer that.
He turns around to Drake just as the rain starts getting heavier and heavier as thunder encroaches from the distance. The two of them really should get indoors sometime soon, but one of them sure doesn't have the sense to. "Try again!" The supposed master instructs through clenched teeth, clapping hands above his head up on high so loudly it might be a thunder crack in itself. "Don't waste time with that fancy crap! Just make it and sling it! If you can't do it ten thousand times a day you're doing it wrong!"
Drake squeaks in surprise (yes, he squeaks) at Todoh's reaction, nearly toppling over. "B-but.. I'm not used to using chi too much! I've only just started getting it to flow with my body fully!" The small protest is immediately regretted, and he quickly appends, "I-I'll do my best, though!"
Just as Todoh instructed, Drake attempts to simply reach out and grasp the chi (in a metaphorical sense, of course), and yank it back. He succeeds in getting a glimmer around his arms of the appropriate colors, but as the arms are pulled back, the auras fizzle.
Making a face, Drake attempts again. The auras return, and he pulls his arms back sharply. The dull, lackluster auras remain, and he thrusts his hands forward. The chi simply fizzles uselessly off his fingertips.
The elderly eyes narrow again at the pathetic attempts to grasp at chi once more. This young one has much learning to do. But at least he's not like that purple haired kid with the hat who fooled him into thinking he was doing it right and then turned his back and consorted with that little Kyokugen cultist with the pigtails and the ferret and the poofy pants (who has actually been going on magical morality adventures outside of the involvement of the Kyokugen dojo for months on end but Todoh's never been one to let bygones be bygones, considering... oh... everything).
"You keep trying with two! Try with one, just one why don't you?! One point! The best for focus!" Todoh himself does technically use two arms but that's more for accuracy, if there is indeed any sort of technique to 'summon chi, guide down, repeat until other guy gets bored and dies of boredom' because some may wonder that is the only way that Mr. Big bit it in that old peoples' home fight against Todoh and Adelheid.
He steps off a little to the side again in hopes that where he was moments ago, there will be something involving a practical chi burst within, oh, the last five seconds. "This rain makes this kid's stuff! Why that's one of nature's most natural expressions of its power... next to me!" And he dumps on people who use watery chi? "So do it!"
Drake grits his teeth a little at the beration and ducks his head. "Y-yeah.. okay.. one hand? Alright.." This is what Drake signed up for, he reminds himself. He has to expect to be pushed. Only way he'll grow! And besides, if he gets it going quicker, his oh-so-memorable Domino Helix technique can be even faster and more potent! Huzzah!
So with renewed gusto at that thought, Drake thrusts a fist out. White aura! He pulls the arm back! ..No aura!
Fizzle.
"Crap."
Drake thrusts his other arm out. Black aura! He tries pull the arm up instead of back. The aura dims. This.. is likely due to a lack of concentration. And when the arm is brought down, the chi simply leaks off his fingertips.
Of course someone should expect to get pushed around by Ryuhaku Todoh whether they are a student or not, he has his opinions about the world around him and they are very strong ones. Obnoxious ones. Loud ones. Many people have begged to differ throughout. With varying degrees of success.
At least he hasn't started making funny appearances in places around Drake's stage background yet. But it is only a matter of time before the inevitable. Let's talk about a different sort of inevitable.
Some people say, you can't say a lot about the way Todoh does things. But there is at least one thing he certifiably knows well above all else, to a nearly nauseating degree - efficient use of chi as a weapon. Has it gotten him anywhere by its lonesome? Well... you tell us, faithful viewers and log readers!
Todoh snorts. Or sniffles? Maybe he's going to get a cold being out in this rain! Common sense dictates it's time to stop. Todoh did not vote for Common Sense in the last election and does not agree with its views on reality! At which point he tries to go to the arm responsible for the white aura to grab it by the wrist, if Drake allows him with a quick snap of his right hand.
"How about you just shove it?! Save yourself an arm movement or two, none of this... this cherry picking I'm seeing! Chi isn't... cherry picking!!" And if Drake lets him keep his grasp (or to grab one to begin with) he just yanks that poor, tiring arm back and forth like he were trying to get him to throw a proper punch. Yank yank yank.
The arm is yanked about as Todoh desires, Drake giving no fight back, since he's, well, the student. "M-Master Lieutenant Japan! It's hard to focus my energy when I don't go through the motions! I'm trying!," he insists. A thoughtful look then crosses his face. "Or should I just call you Master Japan?"
That moment of confusion comes to an end when his left hand gathers a faint aura of black chi. Without drawing it back, Drake just throws the arm forward - awkward, at best, since the other arm is captured and all. Predictably enough, nothing happens. The aura just goes away entirely. "Gahh!"
Master Lieutenant Japan, as he has somehow taken to be called in some circles (or one... by one person...), eventually lets go of the hand. Rather, he sort of discards it with an upward toss. Disappointed, annoyed, and altogether beginning to question where he's going to go with a kid who has been poisoned by the (in his own deranged, self-important little mind) superficial fighting cultures of today that seem to only want people who make intricate and pretty little chi patterns as opposed to, oh, focusing on making them PRACTICAL WEAPONS OF DEATH.
Then his mood inexplicably brightens to a nearly insane all-knowing grin on the question. "Yeh hah hah! My strength goes beyond the mere reaches of Japan! East! West! North! South! Center!" Lightning crashes a few hundred feet behind the two which may unsettle Drake but not Todoh, who here has professed to have beaten the crap out of the sky. Nobody should be out doing anything in this weather!
"Some would say I have become Super Japan, master of--" Lightning strikes mere tens of feet away from Ryuhaku, who doesn't jump. No, he turns his head and narrows those beady little angry eyes at where the lightning struck as the downpour of rain is but almost sufficient to pull a flash flood around this area if it keeps up. "Ooooh, I'm so scared. You damn sky!!" He waggles a finger scoldingly at the very heavens themselves. "DON'T MAKE ME SPANK YOU! THERE WILL BE SPANKING, OH YES, AND WHEN MR. HAPPY SUN COMES OUT IT'LL LAUGH WITH ME!! THAT'S RIGHT! YOU BETTER BE AFRAID!"
There is a bright, terrible flash above. Both of Ryuhaku's hands thrust upward, making a cupping motion with his hands as he single-handedly challenges one of nature's fiercest natural expressions in but a single flash.
The cracking noise is deafening. The light is blinding. Moments later, it fades, showing a kneeling Todoh burnt to an... almost humorous degree, except that these sorts of things are not what normal people get to walk away from.
"Oh, fine, we'll call it a draaaaw," goes Ryuhaku as he wobbles back up to an even wobblier stand. "C'mon, kid, let's let the nice thunderstorm nurse its pride in solitude. Yes."
Drake furrows his brow. "Super Lieutenant Japan? Buh-.." Lightning. Zomg. Drake begins to assess his surroundings, checking for objects that would logically draw lightning - like metal poles, tall trees, or old men. Drake is much to close to an old man to feel safe right now. Specifically because this old man has been challenging the very sky, and.. a believer in luck, Drake might not be, but karma? Sure. Maybe. Sometimes.
And Todoh continues berating the sky!
Drake simply gives him a bewildered, helpless look. "Ma-"
FLASH.
Drake is left standing there, mouth agape, staring at a crispified Todoh. Unable to really form a coherant sentence at that, he simply nods. A weak, disoriented nod. The sky just got angry enough to zap Lieutenant Japan. That's.. unusual.
"Nnrrrrrgghpbh," goes who would call himself Super Lieutenant Japan as he stumbles off away from the lake, and the park, his hair standing all the way on either end like some kind of crazy afro. He sure does have a lot of hair for an old guy, not one of those hairs gray.
"C'mon, you know the rain? It's because it's sad. Yes. Very sad. Yeeees." His voice is weak, trailing off every now and then as he continues ambling along like nothing happened. It would appear that Drake has gotten off of further ridicule against unfavorable weather conditions - for now. His feet drag across the slushy mud of the park back towards some other part of the Karuta district he will likely curl up and rest in. It is not necessarily to his home! For all Drake may end up finding out, he might suggest they camp out in a soda machine. Somehow.
...Todoh's done it.
Log created on 19:48:50 09/02/2008 by Drake, and last modified on 12:02:38 09/05/2008.