Hiroshima Pt 2

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maia_icon.jpg

Scene Title Hiroshima Pt 1
Synopsis Maia and Kamui meet after the disaster that was Takamagahara

When one of your greatest enemies tells you to go off to somewhere to atone for your own messups, you kind of do it. Maia wrinkles her nose as she wakes up on the plane as they just arrived. It was a long trip, and she was able to talk to Haldor, but considering he was headed to Japan to speak and train with Sojobo for a bit, who knows what might happen! They may interact with each other. Still, she wrinkles her nose as she opens up her cellphone and peers at the pictures of the babies back home.

She surely got attached to them, and she starts heading out of the plane, having arrived in Hiroshima proper. It's a pretty city now, for places that have been bombed by the power of atomic fury anyway.

It really is a pretty city, all rebuilt and for the most part normal looking at least on the purely physical level. With her senses for spirits though the place is awkward on another. Things feel malformed here, twisted, warped. What seems to be a beautiful statue as she passes by has a spirit slumped and slagging, partly melted and weak. Even here at the airport things are like that, for all that the body of this place is well the spirit of it is very very sick. Very damaged. She walks in a land of the broken and the profaned, even if the people walking around her have no sense of it.

That definitely gets her attention. A malformed twisted spirit. She blinks for a few moments and just peers towards the statue for a few moments, pursing her lips as she runs her fingers through her hair. She bows low in front of the statue for a few moments before speaking in still fluent Japanese.

"Excuse me, but is everything all right? WHat is.. wrong with this place?"

The spirit stirs to life as she awakens it but even that is a weakened halfway effort, a head turning right past her as if she is not there to see. The reason why clear a moment later, the spirits eyes look to be melted from it's skull and it is simply empty sockets which now regard the world. "Burns" the spirit says weakly, "It burns and it will not rest."

"What burns?"

Has the atomic bomb affected the resonance of the city? That's entirely possible as she hrmms and she studies and peers the spirit of the statue, hrmming for a few moments, just trying to find out more.

The statue gives no answer, whatever limited supply of words it provided seem to have exhausted it's strength. The spiritual aspect really does look.. partly melted.. ripples hinting it has heated and cooled, heated and cooled, a process repeated over and over that has finally left it in this sorry state. Not so much as to actually destroy the spirit but certainly it is damaged. Everything here is damaged. The airport is a new place, it's spirits should be vibrant and young and healthy but instead they all show similar patterns of wear.

The city takes Drop it like it's hot, to a whole new level. Maia frowns as she lets the spirit fall back to sleep not wanting to keep it in pain. she takes her things and starts wandering the city, deciding to walk around with her luggage at first just to see how the rest of the city fairs.

The airport is built near the water, about as far from the city proper as you can go. As she advances northwards into the city itself she finds that the effects are if anything even worse. For the most part the effects are not manifesting in the physical world, but one park she passes is full of plants and shrubs just withering away with spirits that look to be handling some oppressive heat especially poorly. She is starting to feel it now herself where she did not at first, an incessant hot wind blowing against her skin. A presence of force felt even from some distance.

HOT! It's HOT! Really hot! Beads of sweat form on her forehead as she wrinkles her nose and starts fanning herself, pursing her lips as she heads towards the one park, wrinkling her nose as she looks at the oppressive heat. She feels bad for them and starts peering at the various plants.

"Um, would any of you like help? What's going on?" she asks curiously.

"Help" "Help" "Help" Cry out all the various plant spirits weakly, a note of desperation in their cries. Never very powerful to start with that are far less so in their current state. Those pitiable frantic cries all they are really capable of. Begging and pleading with her to do something to help save them.

Maia hrmms for a few moments, looking around to see whatever mortals might be nearby. Once she's satisfied that she won't be caught, she takes a deep breath, muttering something under her breath as she takes her hand with the ring in it before starting to draw the kanji for CLEANSE and WATER in the air.

The two magatama representing fertility and water on her ring start to glow brightly as she closes her eyes and kneels on the ground, pressing her palm to the ground. The area is being cleansed of any blight nthat may be affecting the plants before a light 'rain' starts as water condenses over the various plants to try to cool them, and her off.

Maia's actions are having an impact, the focus of her power and her care for them rippling through the local spirits and reinforcing them for a time. Wilted fronds lifting to be almost to normal. "Thank you" is cried out from so many voices, a garden made up of so many individual parts all of whom seemed to be suffering. All of which seemed to be in pain. "Nice lady" "Strange Lady" "Sun Lady" the chorus continuous although kind of goes quiet at the one voice mentioning the sun. Something there discomforts them.

So many domo arigatos! Fortunately, she is not roboto! Still, she smiles warmly, wrinkling her nose as blinks a little at the mentioning of the sun. Her mother is a sun goddess, albeit one who lost her powers, but still. She looks up towards the sun, squinting a little as she tries to shade her eyes as she eases on up and purses her lips.

"Preethi, that's what you're doing? Making the spirits here suffer?" she muses under her breath as she takes a deep breath and starts looking at her map. She wants to go to the memorial where the bomb was actually dropped! And she wants a taxi to get there too!

Finding a taxi is not difficult, the city does see it's share of tourists coming to gawk at where there once was detestation. The driver is well familiar with the bomb site, that too makes for a popular tourist destination. Getting close though that might prove difficult for Maia. While the other people do not seem effected with her attunement to the more spiritual side of things for her the blasting heat is very real and she is heading into the source of that wind. Even within the cab waves of heat washing over her feeling as it might make her skin crack, her eyes peel out of their skul. Turning a corner suddenly she can see what must be the bomb site but.. there is something else there. Intangible to the physical world but a brilliant beacon on the metaphysical, a towering spire of flame and light towering far into the heavens.

It's soooooo hot! Her skin suddenly becomes dry and she wrinkles her nos, just making enough water to keep herself moist and sane. Hot spire is hot! She turns away from the towering spire of flame and light as she tries to stop the taxi, "Here is fine, thank you. I'll come the rest of the way.." Damn, this is one serious heatwave. Still! Her gaze can penetrate through bright lights. What else is there that's around?

So far as Maia can tell that pillar of light and fire stands almost exactly where the memorial of it's impact rests. Around it are what you would expect of any tourist destination, even grim ones. Little souvenir shops, places to eat, more mundane businesses going about their day to day affairs. The regular business of the city. The spirits here are of course almost uniformly in awful shape, they look not just twisted but drained. Their power slowly consumed by that roaring fire to fuel something happening within.

Oh geeez. That doesn't look good and she continues to look at the spirits, frowning the entire time. She clenches her fists tightly as she hrmms for a few moments and asks to leave her things (clothes and such) at a nearby shop. Fortunately, they hold it for her as she starts to look at the pillar of light as she starts to head closer and closer. She's drenched in her own sweat at this point..

Deep within that fiery pillar is.. a person. Or what might become a person. What Maia appears to have just stumbled into is the ongoing apotheosis of a new god, or perhaps a new titan? Japan has lost it's sun, it's ruler of that part of the cycle and for all that Preethi might have gained her power she is not of this land. No replacement has stepped forward. So here, in a place Maia's mother would never look due to the shame of past failures.. here something new is growing. A developing being of nuclear fire, a growing incarnation of nuclear war? The spirits of the city slowly being burned to ash, siphoned away, all their energy brought here to fuel that furious inferno and to forge something entirely new. Nature abhors a vacuum and this is it's developing answer to the void Amaterasu have left.

Oh. Shit. Maia gasps as she wrinkles her nose and for a moment, she really wishes she had the cloak of Mikaboshi once more. Still, she wants this creature's attention, as stupid as it may be for now. She winces a bit, feeling the heat emanating fromthe creature as she runs back to grab her things. After a quick apology to the shop owners, she rushes back out dressed in her shrine maiden clothes. Her immaculately white blouse with the long red skirt hugs her frame as she's grown a bit since she's worn it in the past. She's clutching on tightly to her golden bow, and well a shrine maiden holding a bow isn't an uncommon thing in Japan. See, she's smart like that!

Still, she wrinkles her nose and knows it might be futile, but she wants to get the thing's attention. Her eyes widen as an arrow of pure light forms in her fingers, no longer caring if people are watching. She looks towards the creature as her own body starts glow with a warm, healing glow as she tries to take advantage of the sun's rays to give life back to the various spirits around her. She cries out in a self righteous rage.

"The sun and light is meant to nourish and help things grow, not to wither them to ashes! begone vile spirit!" before letting the arrow fly towards it.

The crowd does react a little to her, shrine maidens holding a bow may not be a totally uncommon sight but they aren't usually firing arrows of pure light into what seems to be thin air. Is she shooting something live action? Is that the girl from Super Amazing Gods? No, not the one with the nice chest dressed all in white, that is Helena. The other one.

In terms of the effects of her action she seems to garner no attention whatsoever, there may be no attention to gain. This power, this force, however huge and destructive it might already be is still.. embryonic. Not fully formed. Growing. Given time it might grow to greatly alter the destiny of Japan for good or ill but at the moment it is like a fetus tight within a fiery protective womb. The arrow sails towards it and the flight fragments, brilliant tendrils of it wrapping in and around the pillar and seeming to only strengthen it. Whatever this thing is, it does not fear the light.

WOOOOSH! The arrow of light disperses, though that's no real surprise to Maia. She blinks a little and wrinkles her nose as she stares at the fiery protective womb and hrmms for a few moments. She keeps the bow in her hands as she closes her eyes and mutters something in her breath. She's totally channeling the Sailor Senshi right now with her outfit as this time not an arrow of light is formed, but one that is incredibly large, made of water, much like the spear she used to impale the cobras with in Takamagahara.

She wrinkles her nose as she really is attracting mortal attention at this point as well as stretching the SFX budget before she lets go, letting the large water arrow fly towards the fiery pillar of doo. DOOOOOOM!
The crowd is getting even more excited as the special effects budget goes up still more. The not quite there physically there pillar of water responds somewhat differently to the arrow of water. The majority of it passes right through it, water soaring past to wash away furniture and disrupt the dining of of a nearby resteraunt. The spirit of the water though does react, recoiling away as if in agony and steam billowing up and away and being drawn into that pillar once more. Nuclear fire even in it's infant stages appears to be /hot/ and while this definitely got a more favorable reaction (from a destructive standpoint) than the arrow of light she has still not done much to phase it. It stands, an imposing primal force of furious power.

Oh crap! It was all spirit, not exactly having a physical force and those on the other side gets a huge splash free of the young shrine maiden. Maia blinks and bows towards them as she chirps, "Gomen!" towards them before looking back towards the imposing primal force. She so wants to make a giant coathanger of water, but that would just be in bad taste as she starts to head towards the pillar instead, trying to get closer, hopefully not burning up on the way.

Hot pillar is /hot/. This is not fire. This is not the sun. This is the very incarnation of a blow that defeated a people and a pantheon taking on a new life and it is /agonizing/ to grow closer to. It's very presence seems to tear at Maia's soul. To threaten to dissolve her into her component parts and churn her ashes to the wind. It is not.. malevolent.. simply very very destructive.

Maia gets as close as she can, wincing as she feels the heat seem to tear away at her very existence. Still, she has to bear this, as she wants to get close as she peers up towards the embryonic spirit inside. She blinks for a few moments and closes her eyes while putting the bow over her shoulders as she stares nup at it, trying to at least communicate with it.

"Why? Why are you doing this to my people? My country? Why?"

The figure within even up close is hard to make out, brilliantly glowing and pulsating although finally as she gets this close to behold it it does turn to face her. Words rippling out with explosive force and heat as it answers her in the voice of a child, "I have come to burn away the darkness forever. I have come to light the sky. I have come to bring my brilliance and my glory to these lands. I have waited so long.. so long.. but finally I am to be born. Finally I shall bestow my brilliance to all who live here and to all the places it's people have spread."

"Your brilliance? Your glory? You are killing everything! The spirits of the land, the trees, the buildings. You are killing Japan, burning it to ashes instead of letting it be nurtured. There is a balance that must be upheld. Light that burns out the darkness completely is not a light that is nurturing. It is one that is oppressive, one that harms those it seeks to protect. Your glory? Pfft,it is not your glory, it is your wanton sense of destruction that you bring here.."

Angry Maia is angry. She shakes her head and wipes beads of sweat from her brow as she continues to stare up towards the child spirit. "If you want to help these lands, stop killing it!"

"I do not understand" Says the pillar of fire sounding confused, lost, "Is not the darkness bad? Is not it evil? Is it not to be destroyed?" The pillar pulsates with another brilliant ripple of glowing energy. "It will be. This land has lost it's light. I brought it once before, illuminated all that lived here and purged them of their shadows but.. I was not wanted. Not cherished. But now I shine once more! Surely much will be destroyed but is it not worth it! Is it not wonderful! When I bring my light to all the people they will love me for it."

Oh geez. This is not something Maia really wants to defend, the darkness. She hates it, she's been scared of it since she was a little girl, but she sighs and looks down fora few moments before peering back up towards the pillar of fire.

"The darkness, much like everything, can be bad. There has to be a balance. Good and evil, Light and Darkness. Too much of one thing is bad, and it is through a balance of both that things grow and are nurtured. The plants need the light to thrive and grow, and creatures need the warmth of the sun to go out. But there are also creatures that need the darkness to hunt to eat and feed their own children. Creatures also need the darkness so their body knows it is time to rest. Too much of one thing is never good. Your light will eventually become as oppressive as the darkness which you abhor.."

The fire swirls and churns, flickers and burns. It really is agonizing for her to be this close, her ichor feeling ablaze with a thousand pinpricks of fire threatening to seer her divine spirit away. Still her words are having an impact and the childlike voice finally asks, "What choice? I want to be born. I do not want to die. I want to live as you live. I want to leave these shores and walk amongst the world. If not here, where?"

Oh, she's definitely going to regret this, but she's already regretting being here as it hurts like a bitch to be even this close. She wrinkles her nose as she remains standing where she is and she hrmms, not wanting to remove the siprit entirely.

"Then let me take care of you. Do not feed off the spirits of this land. Be born, let me take care of you until we can find a place that you would be free share your glory with.." she offers.

"I need time.. time.. I must feast to grow" The fiery destructive spirit says almost plaintively. "Even if you could move me where would I go? Where could I exist? I cannot help but to feed on that which is around me. To consume is my nature. I thought it was good.. for with me bright they need not fear the dark. But even if it does them harm I cannot stop." A brilliantly glowing head turns towards her. Watching. Hoping that she can present some solution to it's impasse.

"Muspelheim is the realm of fire. There is fuel there to feed fires for all eternity. There you can grow and thrive." She's making another deal with the devil here as she hrmms for a few moments and purses her lips, but at least it would get it away from the spirits of Hiroshima.

The fire churns awhile more and it says, "Find me a home and I will go. Secure me a place I am welcomed and I shall go. For now I must grow where I was planted. Feed where I was first given life. I have no other choices. But if they do not want my glory they need not have it. If they do not want my light I shall shine it elsewhere should I have anywhere else to go."

Gah. Why do things have to be so difficult. Maia wracks her brain for various places as she hrmms and she realizes a few things, grinning the entire time as she stares at the spirit for a bit. "I know of a place where you can grow and thrive where your glory will be appreciated by others. Pele, the goddess of fire of the Hwaiian Islands has long disappeared and yet there are those who still worship her. There you can supplant yourself and have worshippers that you can nurture and protect."

The column of fire ripples and pulsates. The size of the spirit of something need not reflect it's true power and that aspect is shrinking. Imploding. Forcing itself inwards and folding in and upon itself. Soon where there was such a towering mass of destruction there is instead a very tiny model of a very old atomic bomb. An egg waiting to be hatched.

"Why do I have the urge to go to Soku no Kami now?"

Maia sighs softly as she starts to approach the chibi fat boy as she hrmms for a few moments. Not quite sure if she can throw it. Then again, she doesn't really want to nuke Hawaii either, cause come on, that's like Pearl Harbor overkill. She takes a deep breath and hrmms for afew moments and wrinkles her nose to see if she'll still burn to a crisp as she moves closer.

The heat is subdued but still present. It's still hot normally and seems to get very hot in rather random pulses. Maia might be able to wrap it up in some wet clothes for now and get it away from here but if she wants to transport the thing on any sort of regular basis she is going to have to find something rather better insulated.

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