Kyuden Shika

"If that were the case, if it were something that practice and hard work could solve, then I would be pretty upset with my family. I was sent to our Shugenja school originally. Then when they figured out I was not speaking with the kami I was pulled out and sent elsewhere. If this was not some combination of being in this place and having performing spiritual ritual... If it was something else that has been there all along..."

To be told you have a gift, then told nevermind, then fond out you did have it. He'd be pretty miffed if that were the case.

"You're thinking about your family studying me again then?" he asks, not seeming to be bothered by that.

"Ame-kun. Since the Shika know and have not sent out any warning, I suspect they don't consider them more threatening than any other spirit in the area."

Yasu laughs a bit. "I kind of am. If you somehow have tapped something that awakened that sense in you? Most priestly family would be very curious to study that. I honestly have never heard of such a thing. But if a blade or a mirror can have a spirit awaken in it?"

Bai just stayed quiet since she has no idea on what happened earlier in the evening.

He looks to Bai as he explains the experience in detail. "I don't know fully what it was. Cannot begin to fathom it. Only describe it as I remember," he says. "Hajime began his koan, while you helped me to focus. I looked inward for a moment and saw... a black cloud forming over my sight. Then it cleared and I saw bright specs of light all around." If she had been paying attention she would have seen the black spots on his iris surrounding his pupil. Had they been... tiny pupils giving him additional points of focus?

"The I could then feel all of it as much as I could see it, through all of my other senses. The most clear being sound. The spirits here laugh, and play everywhere. I could sense emotion and feeling from them as well. The desire to protect and defend the gardens. The feeling of connection and attachment within the temple, Everywhere else, a mischievous sense of playfulness except for the feeling of... water. I'm not sure how to describe how I know what that feels like. Then there were the two presences at the inn. One simply being, the other... malevolent. Through it all the laughter and shouts were deafening. It was the first I'd ever experienced something on such a scale. Each spiritual being in a radius from that tower we were in to at least as far out of the city as..." he looks to Bai, "...Ame-kun. And I couldn't make sense of it particularly well. I think I pointed in the directions, but I had to struggle to hold on to the feeling of where the evil was. It was... habit. My first thought being that it needed to be removed to protect the people here," his eyes watered a bit at the thought and retelling of it all.

He looks to Yasu... "And Renjiro-san, the poor boy. I... could have handled that better. I was just so panicked to find the gaki. I didn't want it to hurt anyone and I must have terrified him in my rush."

"I see..." Bai nodded "Interesting..." She pondered. "I wonder..." She became pensive.

"About what?" he asked.

"I guess I am not that attuned to the spirits. I barely sensed Ame kun with my ritual." She shrugged "Then again I am not quite as good."

"It was three people working together, in a spiritually focused center. And I've actually been talking to spirits since before I was walking," he says with shrug. "That's how I first met my grandfather who is my namesake."

"I'm the one who scooped the poor kid up, so that can't have been fun for him. But it would have been a lot less fun for everyone if you just left him be and he *was* something nasty. Seemed like good instincts to me." Yasu says. He should get trained though."

She smiles at Bai, "That kind of thing *does* strengthen with practice though. You, or I, would probably sense something like that better if we were trying 5 years from now. I'm not so familiar with how the kind of thing Murato-san does could change over time. Or if it was just...this place having so much spiritual energy and all the little aids to help align your concentration. We'd have to try it under more controlled conditions to get a better idea."

He nods at that. "Perhaps one day. Though I am certainly not up for it at this point."

His eyes move to the floor once more. It was difficult to try to wrap his head around.