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Post by Itsuki Hasegawa on Oct 25, 2022 11:52:40 GMT -5
Sequel to Lessons in the Library. "Stacks, computers, right..." Muttered Itsuki, face a-flush with burning embarrassment lovingly painted in scarlets and pinks blended with the pale tones of his skin as if by some classical artist trying their heart out to depict the photorealism of contradictory shame. Why had he magically assumed Professor Alexander was married and had kids again? The priest shook his head in disbelief at himself. And he was supposed to be a man of the community and their needs, perhaps he needed to re-evaluate his assumptions and prejudices if his first thoughts were ones like that. Pushing the abashed tension out of his chest with a steady breath, his ears burned with the spreading tint of shame as they made their way through the open doors of one of the various libraries the University of Oxford. Student once again, Itsuki eyed the familiar expanse of multi-floored space open before them. As one of the modern collection it wasn't exactly the Bodleian Library but, like all of the collections on offer, it offered some special historic item or another while the main bulk of the work was more recent, up to date and adhering to modern methods more becoming of proper research. People moved to and fro, lost tourists, busy students and all manner of faculty attending their duties here, there and everywhere. Clearing his throat to both draw the attention of Professor Alexander and let someone lost in their notes know he needed to slip by, the smart-clad alcohol peddling priest pressed out into the library proper, seeking out a more astute hidey-hole with which to inquire after his spiritual teacher's guidance. Ah, excellent, political studies, just about nobody who actually used this particular library gave half a fuck about anything these books had to say. Taking the turn to step down the quiet, dusty corner that seemed to cry out for even a single political leader of the country from the past five or so years to read a book, any book, the brown-eyed lad turned at last to face the pseudo-fatherly ghost. Perhaps that was why he had assumed. "So, where about do we start looking?" He inquired in hushed tones. |
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Player
I have nothing to say.
Cole
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Post by Cole on Oct 25, 2022 19:01:52 GMT -5
Cole looked at the fullbringer with a vaguely amused look, ”Oh right, you’re like, a decade younger than I am. Wikipedia's been around since you could read. Probably never had to really find something in a good ol' fashioned library.”
The man gave a small shrug, and gestured at the large movable bookshelves that made up the archives, ”Well, simply put, we’ve got a few options here. The first is spending what could be hours moving the stacks around to try and find if my notes are here.”
He smirked, clearly that was not an ideal option, ”We might be able to log into the network and see if they’ve been logged in the system.”
The Shinigami made a grand, sweeping gesture, allowing his reiatsu to pulse ominously, the feeling creating a small sucking sensation somewhere deep in Itsuki, ”Or, we use the greatest power available to us.”
Fingers crackling dramatically with electricity, he pointed down the hall towards the lobby. Just as quickly as his show had started, it ended, and he gave a wolfish grin to his former student, ”You tell the librarian that you’re doing a research project and you’re wondering if my research journals ever made it to the library after I passed.”
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Post by Itsuki Hasegawa on Oct 26, 2022 17:34:44 GMT -5
Itsuki wrung his hands in non-commital response, neither confirming nor denying the quantity of research he had engaged in by asking monks and using one hundred percent legitimate file borrowing websites through which to procure the most crucial components of his university work.
It was a miracle if Professor Cole never noticed his textbook for the class had been cobbled together from grainy JPGs and stolen colour printer credits by using expired student IDs that had never been removed from the school system. Come to think of it, even the glue and thread had been borrowed from the library.
Accessing the network sounded like a trivial and easily attainable method, conjuring only a gentle sweat on his brow in the wake of his previously pondered liberation of the university's excess library fun points. They may have been more diligent regarding the retiring of student IDs from the system.
"How could a monk pass up a chance to learn new ways to exert their spiritual prowess?" He joked stiltedly, trying his best to draw away from the dull pain in his chest that punctuated the embarrassment of his outburst earlier. Honestly, he was mostly trying to brush free those last flecks of high-strung feelings from his messy mind.
Approaching the desk a bespectacled woman with her hair pushed back into a ponytail drew eyes away from a terminal and smile up at Itsuki, brows quirked in wordless invitation.
"Hi, do you happen to know if Professor Alexander Cole's research works were posthumously published here? I'm looking for some of his materials for my dissertation." Such a practiced politeness and formality to that tone.
The woman clattered away on the keyboard before smiling up at him again in all that politeness returned.
"Journal of Theology Volume 72, Issue 1 from April 2021 is the most recent one. First floor on the left at the top of the stairs or the right of the lift. If you want his preliminary notes they should be in the preliminary papers section of Volume 73 of the internal monthly digest for January on the same shelf. Getting hold of the actual raw journals will mean submitting a signed request." Came the concise direction.
Itsuki smiled a little broader and nodded, turning to depart. Expression faltering back to muted neutrality the monk continued to stew and broil the pot of burning questions his brain was current immersed in.
Plucking the laminated blue and white book from the mid-shelf he strode off to a stray table nestled away on the other side of the floor. It had the good fortune of being just close enough to a reading room that nobody would use it while being far enough away that they could probably speak quietly. Setting the books down, Itsuki leafed through the table of contents and got to page turning.
"Well, Professor, it looks like the published paper is a rerun of your most cited work in honour of your contributions, I don't know about these notes in this other journal. This does look like enough or uh... Well." He itched his chin against the mild needling of anxiety. "...Are we 'borrowing' the things from storage? Last I checked neither of us actually have an active status here."
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Player
I have nothing to say.
Cole
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Post by Cole on Oct 28, 2022 13:20:35 GMT -5
Cole, for his part, popped over the counter to watch the woman’s search results, being an invisible spirit did wonders for your ability to shoulder surf, ”Interesting…”
Someone had continued on his research, or at least tried to publish some of his notes after he died. While it was unexpected, it wasn’t unprecedented. But, even more interestingly, his raw research notes weren’t actually here. The hard drives, journals, contents of his apartment laboratory, and even the contents of his office at the University had all been LLC that had funded all of his research. Granted, none of those locations were where he kept the most potentially dangerous results of his research; but still, unfortunate that it had been removed from his ability to immediately obtain it.
He vaulted back over the computer desk as Itsuki started to move away, ”Nope, no break-in shenanigans. It’s bad news for me, looks like my grantor took possession of my research, it’s not even in storage on campus. I tried to figure out exactly who it was when I was alive, but I ended up in a labyrinth of shell companies and LLCs and couldn't find the root of it.”
He held a small thing about the size of a thumb drive to the journal, pressed a button, and a copy of the document appeared in his hand, ”Yeah, like you said, this is more of a retrospective of some of more cited stuff; not the most accurate stuff, mind you, but the most well received.”
Professor Alexander chuckled as he flipped through the journal, ”You wanna know something particularly ridiculous? Apparently multiple spiritual organizations were following my research into the afterlife. Naturally, none came to point me on a more correct path.”
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Post by Itsuki Hasegawa on Nov 1, 2022 14:31:44 GMT -5
Itsuki's upper lip curled and left cheek crumbled into a mild snarl of distaste against the idea.
"Reminds me of the type of people in theology you get in all fields, out in STEM and such. The kind who hoard their knowledge for themselves and are the only ones who know how to do the job properly and are too afraid of letting the new kids take a proper shot so they don't get displaced." He responded.
Chest heaving with a sigh, the monk yearning to be a student again itched at his abuse collarbone, pleased to find no pinholes or larger from their prior demonstration and practical exam. "I suppose that's all irrelevant now, spiritual secret societies be damned."
Anxiety crept in beneath the back of his ribs, roaming up to caress his heart and lungs.
"Since we're not breaking in..." Trailed the cautious tone of a man leaning towards what was, apparently to him, a delicate change of topic. "May I inquire as to if we're to pursue another method of acquisition or perhaps any other works while we're here? If not I'd quite like some of those answers if you're still up for it, Professor."
Itsuki's expression had returned to a more neutral one, watching the 'invisible' man before him with bated breath. "Like, say, what exactly are either of us?"
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Player
I have nothing to say.
Cole
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Post by Cole on Nov 1, 2022 21:06:23 GMT -5
Cole gave a slight shrug, ”I can’t really fault them, to be honest. At least knowing I’m going to have to find the center of the labyrinth is a step in the right direction. And while some of my most important research is potentially dangerous, most of my notes are pretty much useless.”
He scratched the back of his head, looking a little bit embarrassed, ”Not because of any code or purposeful obfuscation. It’s a nightmare combination of my awful handwriting, poor tendency to show my work, and my copious use of shorthand. It’s probably no good to anyone without me leaning over their shoulder.”
The black robed man held the small device to the second binder of notes and another copy appeared that he could manipulate. He quickly paged through it, then both of them disappeared into the tool. ”Well, fair is fair. You helped me get my notes, I got no problem filling you in. You’ve already got spiritual awareness, which is more than I had when I was alive. That'll make stuff easier to wrap your head around.”
Cole faced away from Itsuki, and held up a finger, tracing lightly glowing symbols in the air to aid his explanation. Drawing in the air as if it was an invisible chalkboard; first, he drew a large circle, slashed horizontally in half to display the difference between life and death. ”Simply put, the normal cycle is this. A person lives, they die. They are reborn in the afterlife with no memory of their previous life. They live a life in Soul Society, and when they die, their essence is sent back to the mortal realm to create new life.”
He spun an arrow off of the tail end of a mortal life, and showed a branching path, ”Anomaly one. A mortal dies with a strong enough bond or emotion to linger on in this realm. These entities are known as pluses, and can be seen by spiritual aware mortals like yourself. Three options exist for pluses.”
The first branch went to the afterlife, the small detour being minor, ”One-A, and the ideal one. They are found by a Shinigami like myself, who provides them with a soul burial and sends them to the afterlife, where they live a second life in Soul Society.”
The second branch moved out, and then was swiftly intercepted by the third branch, ”One-B, the plus is devoured by a hollow, which is the result of One-C. If a plus exists too long on the mortal plane, and becomes overcome with despair or any other strong emotion, they become what we call a hollow. They seek to fill the void inside them by consuming other souls. When they meet their end at the blade of a Shinigami, they, and all the souls they consume, do not have an afterlife, their essence returns to the mortal realm.”
Cole tapped his chin for a moment, thinking what he could add to his little diagram to make it more clear, ”Fundamentally, pluses, hollows, and Shinigami exist on a different 'frequency' of reality. People like you, who are spiritually aware can see this frequency. However, only a fraction of the hollows that exist are in this realm at any given time. Ditto the Shinigami, while we have Soul Society, Hollows can retreat to a separate plane of existence that is disconnected from both the realm of the living and Soul Society. They leave it to hunt, and usually drag their victims there to consume them. We call that realm Hueco Mundo.”
He glanced at the circle, then back to Itsuki, ”I know I haven’t answered your ‘what are we’ question yet, but are you following so far?”
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Post by Itsuki Hasegawa on Nov 3, 2022 9:30:35 GMT -5
The student nodded along to the teacher's admission of practically coded and ciphered work. It made sense but was something of a struggle for the young priest to imagine, his awareness shifted to the expanse of his own work stuffed into that leather satchel. Everything that wasn't an in-class note was over-explained and long winded, all too often he was getting distracted with some entertaining or inspirationally prodding aspect of his work. It has become a necessity to elaborate extensively or risk losing what he was on about after a four or five page tangent on the colour of Raijin's boots or some such thing.
Trivia aside, his attention was drawn into much sharper focus as the real juicy meats of delectable, illegal information came to light. Ah, such a dirty bomb's worth of knowledge. A muted cough rumbled out into a clenched first, his body rattling his windpipe as a reminder that holding his breath in anticipation was a bad idea. Clearing his throat with a murmured apology, he pressed on.
"It strikes me as odd that no memories are retained in the next life but I suppose that's just the way things are. I must admit it hadn't occurred to me a soul would fail to be ferried across though plenty of religions support the idea of soul predation or lost souls. Funny, how we sort of seem to assume all the strife comes after making your way across." Itsuki's expression yielded a wry smile. A gentle, momentary squint surfaced as he dwelled upon what would become of him personally in so short a time. Amber eyes returned to the Professor's with a smaller, plastic smile, the type of obfuscating politeness he had often veiled his concentration with. "Lucky, not to be dragged under and simply left on the mortal plane, hm...?" Mused the monk aloud. His voice was damp with a misting of despair, the type rolled about the mind and tongue many times over, covered with the tired wrinkles of being folded out and put away countless times. Itsuki shook his head, waving his hand to dismiss the notion. "I think I understand. Samsara is in working effect, disrupted by being or being devoured by impure, corrupted souls. When the corrupted souls are purified, samsara continues."
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Player
I have nothing to say.
Cole
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Post by Cole on Nov 3, 2022 21:47:40 GMT -5
Cole nodded at the sketch of the cycle, then gave his old student a smile, ”You’ve got it for the most part, and you’ve stumbled upon the thrust of my living research. As well as one of the big questions I am pursuing in the afterlife. Bringing us to…”
With a dramatic gesture, he pointed at Itsuki, ”Anomaly two. Mortal or spiritual beings born with higher concentrations of reiatsu, or spiritual pressure.”
He drew a large T and put ‘life’ above the left column, and ‘afterlife’ on the right column. In the left column, he put A, B, and C. On the right he wrote D, E, and F. ”There are a few categories of creatures with these enhanced levels. Anomaly two-a; seers, mediums, and people who are aware of the spiritual world. These people are the most vulnerable to beings like hollows; as the increased spiritual density of their soul is enough to be a tempting meal, but not as high as…”
Next to the B he wrote a single word, Fullbringer, ”People like you. Whose spiritual pressure is high enough that they can utilize their reiryoku, or spiritual power, to create specific effects, usually unique to the person. Your ability to form your reiryoku into attacks takes the form of those nails you use. I form it through various magics I’ve developed.”
The Shinigami continued, ”And anomaly two-c, Quincy. Using their reiryoku they have the ability to manipulate reishi, spirit particles, basically the atoms of the spirit world. There’s not much known about them, but the big issue with them is that when they slay a hollow, it deletes the hollow and all of the souls it has consumed. They don’t reenter the cycle, they’re simply obliterated.”
He paused for a moment, ”And, just to review terminology. Reishi is basically spirit atoms, reiryoku is spiritual power, and reiatsu is spiritual density. Still with me?”
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Post by Itsuki Hasegawa on Nov 4, 2022 8:53:06 GMT -5
Newly-polished metal of the clasp on his leather satchel snapped open. Partially faded and ink stained about the edges, that University of Oxford ring binder was slid out and placed atop the desk. Flipped open to the last few empty plastic walles some hundreds entries deep, the student hurriedly flicked open a cheap lined A4 refill pad he'd vandalised with various sigils and religious paraphrenalia years ago.
Itsuki cleared his throat as he optimistically shook an old pen to life.
"Reiatsu... anomalies have a higher than average concentration... mediums... hollows..." He murmured along, anchoring keywords in his mind as the pen skittered shorthand across the page, crude emulations of the spiritual light show staining the air scattered alongside sentences here and there. His notes were such a non-linear mess littered with little addendums and asterisks, daggers and more to connect the loose spread of information as it flowed in. It was readily apparent why his more developed notes retaken later were more sprawling and elaborate.
An especially appreciative expression surfaced against that cluster of types and definitions given, nodding enthusiastically. Scribbling a rendition of the columns as he caught up, the student spoke aloud to address him more directly without looking up from the page.
"I think so, Professor. Aside from asking them to blow apart a hollow and see if it is erased or not, is there any easier way to differentiate between Quincies and..." His finger traced the page, hovering just above it. "...Fullbringers like myself?" Tap, tap, went his finger on a different term.
Leaning over to the bulk of his notes he flicked back to a section dedicated to the depiction of the bear-skulled hollow from years past. The page to the left of the spread listed it as, 'Bear-Faced Oni/Yokai', soon enough the terms scored out, leaving it reading 'Bear-Faced Oni/Yokai Hollow'. The corrections done, he at last turned his gaze up to the Professor, pen at the ready.
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Player
I have nothing to say.
Cole
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Post by Cole on Nov 4, 2022 22:53:50 GMT -5
”I’m not sure how to explain it. Neither Quincy nor Fullbringers are nearly as numerous as Shinigami or Hollows. You’re actually the first Fullbringer I’ve met. But your reiatsu feels different; it’d be like me trying to explain the difference between blue and green. It’s a sense you’ll have to train, but you should be able to tell the difference between various spiritual beings pretty easily in time.”
He hesitated for a moment, ”That being said, I’m a bad example. My reiatsu is…strange, and I’m not entirely sure why. It’s fairly unique, and doesn’t exactly feel like a Shinigami’s should. One of the other mysteries I’m working on.”
He turned back to the table, and moved to the ‘afterlife’ column, ”So, to this column. Anomaly two-D, Shinigami. These are pluses with heightened spiritual density. They are found and trained by the Shinigami organization, and their reiatsu increases with training and experience. Most channel their reiryoku through their zanpakuto for varying effects; some, like myself, prefer to use magic.”
”Oh, sidebar: memory and spiritually aware individuals. To my knowledge, when a spiritually aware individual dies, they remember their lives; their spiritual form is close to their mortal form. Their abilities, if they have any, usually follow them in some aspect. Often reforged by death into a zanpakuto of their own.”
The shinigami gestured to himself, ”Once again, I’m a weird exception here. I didn’t have a lick of spiritual awareness before my untimely demise, but now I’m quickly rising through the ranks of the shinigami. My big research project, and the notes I was hoping to find here, was creating a way for someone who wasn’t spiritually aware to remember their past life after they died. CLEARLY, I SUCCEEDED. ”
He didn’t even realize he was raising his voice through the sentence, but the screaming from his zanpakuto rose in an enormous cacophony that threatened to drown out his own voice in his ears. It had never been quite this bad, and it became an unbearable physical pain in his head, one word rang out through his mind, clear and solid through the swarm of voices. 'Thief.’
As quickly as it came, it passed. He wasn’t sure when he fell to his knees and began gripping his skull, but he cautiously stood up. Cole panted through gritted teeth, ”Sorry about that. I’ve had some issues with my sword on occasion.”
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Post by Itsuki Hasegawa on Nov 5, 2022 10:06:09 GMT -5
Elevated volume prompted Itsuki to set down his pen, brow quirked and no effort made to conceal an openly quizzical expression. Studying the Professor's own expression there may have been some hint of something or another, it felt too strange a place for a sudden surge of passion. Whatever, a footnote at best, the student wasn't about to stem the flow of information.
"So reiatsu is at least in foundation, uniform across each race but may be modified by some aspect of the individual?" He queried, trying to draw attention away from the moment to ease the teacher. "And I can expect to retain my memory after death. Does that, ah, include the death trauma itself or is that situation eased somehow?"
Not one to leave a moment to stand wasted, Itsuki continued to scribble away.
A quick pencil sketch of Cole's zan' no larger than his thumb marked out an entire little corner of the page to investigate this matter. Bulletpoints littered with one or two word remarks stretched down the page with enough space for just as brief answers or remarks. As soon as these straneg shorthand queries were assembled he leafed back to an older cluster of pages in the ring binder. A somewhat macabre and sad display, a series of investigations into interpretations of the afterlife. Thoughts webs and replicated depictions of cycles, colour-tagged flecks of paper relating to other sections. Naturally, the first page opposite this introductory page centred around the concept of family kami and the ceremonies therein. Itsuki ticked a small slither of a green post-it note appended to a sentence, something about an idea of the individual being cleansed of memory after judgement as a form of purification.
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Player
I have nothing to say.
Cole
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Post by Cole on Nov 5, 2022 13:12:53 GMT -5
Cole slowly stood back up, allowing the episode to pass and slipping easily back into lecture mode, ”Not sure, to be honest. I don't remember my death specifically. But there are probably under a thousand spiritually aware humans running around at any given time. Most probably die by hollow attack, drawn by a feast of dense reiatsu; they never make it to a proper afterlife. The sample size is pretty small, and it’s pretty close to taboo to talk about your former life for Shinigami, so actually asking is even more difficult. But this actually dovetails with another mystery I’m trying to piece together; most Shinigami are actually born in Soul Society as normal spirits. They, like spiritually aware mortals, generally grow in spiritual power until they are noticed by the Shinigami and taken for training. They look like their spiritual mothers and fathers, which implies they’re not some miscarried soul from earth.”
The Shinigami gave a small shrug, ”It ties into the whole mystery of the cycle I’m trying to puzzle out. Did you have any questions specifically about Shinigami? I can try to answer what I can provided I’m not breaking any opsec protocols. I know more about them than the other categories, given that…”
The former and still professor gestured to himself, with a faint smile, ”You know.”
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Post by Itsuki Hasegawa on Nov 5, 2022 21:11:48 GMT -5
"Fresh souls made in the afterlife and you're sure population isn't a problem? That's ridiculous." Was Itsuki's first out loud thought. Loose logistics rolled in his brain like ping pong balls. Something was direly amiss. "So perhaps new souls are not in fact created and added to the cycle when living, mortal men and women have children but in fact in the afterlife?" He hurriedly leafed back through his foldered notes. "Kami forfend, the layers of recycling go even deeper. I suppose this means the production of new souls is in some way regulated according to the demands generated by the mortal population and those escaping the cycle. But then if souls are being generated by ... then ..." His mind jumped entire carts of the thought train and blew up the engine. "...So there must be some kind of enforced or automated quota to produce new souls? Argh! I hate rough outlines, I have a lot to ask at the door next month."
Itsuki rifled back to the empty plastic wallets at the end of the binder, leafing through his rougher notes in kind. "Shinigami, right." He declared as much for himself as his teacher. "You're not some variety of yokai or kami luring people to death. You seem more akin to servants of Enma or if you prefer, Yama." Squinting at the odd term atop a sketch amongst his notes a brief pause came. "It's all good and well to hunt and purify, what is your function on the other side?"
Tap, tap, went a pen driven by a fizzing mind. Oh dear, his rate of speech had already shot up.
"In addition, zanpakutou, soul cutting sword? I think. Aside from purification what's worth knowing about them, is their composition or structure unconventional considering the threat, is it simply reishi?"
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Player
I have nothing to say.
Cole
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Post by Cole on Nov 6, 2022 8:09:57 GMT -5
Cole nodded, he had run through the same line of thought, and found no sufficient answers, ”Unfortunately, there’s no pamphlet you’re handed when you cross the veil. It’s strange, it’s like most intellectual curiosity is dead in most souls. I seem to be one of the only ones that is trying to figure out how it works. I get a lot of “that’s just how it is” when I ask questions.”
He raised a finger, pointing back at his rough sketch of the cycle, ”Because, here’s the thing. The cycle is self-reinforcing. As I mentioned, spiritually aware humans, and some souls, grow in power throughout their lives. The cycle is fundamentally ignoring the first law of thermodynamics. Spiritual energy is apparently being created; I have more power at my fingertips now than I did when I graduated from the Shinigami Academy. You will find that you grow in power as well.”
It was something that he had no clear answer to; but he believed the cycle was probably building to something, he just had no idea what. ”Near as I can tell, there is no way to convert physical matter to spiritual, but on both the living and the dead side, the total ‘spiritual mass’ of the system is increasing. Life is being created and growing on both sides of the cycle.”
The man shrugged slightly, doing his best to block out the rising sounds of the voices in his head again, ”Perhaps the question becomes one of memory once more. Maybe there’s a problem on one of the two sides. Maybe no one was supposed to remember. Maybe everyone was supposed to remember. Maybe memory was supposed to be retained into a new mortal life, true reincarnation with memory; you hear about that with the lamas, after all. To be frank, going to the afterlife just created more questions for research.”
The shinigami sighed and moved onto the next question, the cacophony in his mind faded as he did so, ”No, and I think most yokai probably have their basis in hollows. They’re not all enormous threats that can tear through souls like paper. If one had to pretend to be an umbrella to get their prey, I can see that being an inspiration for some spiritually aware individual seeing it. You’ve got our job in the living world pretty nailed down, on the other side we’re basically everything from police to bureaucrats. Simplest way to put it would be the spirit world government.”
He shook his head, ”If you end up in the Academy, I’ll happily explain zanpakuto to you. But that’s a bit of the opsec I mean. But yes, it is still made of reishi, as am I these days.
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Post by Itsuki Hasegawa on Nov 6, 2022 9:51:10 GMT -5
A loose but muted tut escaped, scrawling a large question mark beneath his vague depiction of the sword and a print of the word reishi. A cluster of new notes littered with marks linking them to prior ones populated the next page from the revelations.
"Thank you for your directness about the restricted nature of information regarding zanpakutou, Professor." Offered the student, mild consternation in his voice clear from this apparent roadblock.
Running through his notes at the tip of a pen hovering above the page, tiny dots were left next to three of his sentences.
"If you'll be so kind as to humour a little more interrogation." The student shined a genuine smile. It was clearly the first breakthrough moment in years. "Transitioning to a government role even in the afterlife must still provide a number of advantages." The mutiae of the benefits of state-sponsored research went unspoken. "Have you maintained your role as a researcher on the other side, are all shinigami expected to perform police level duties despite their primary professional focus or skills?"
Tap, tap, went the pen again on the third dot, a habit to keep him focused in busy places or circumstances like this where the mind can wheel forever with a million questions. "How are people such as myself who have dedicated their time to mortal perceptions of religion treated? Retaining memories must make for some interesting conflicts when, say, a head monk turns up."
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