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yumemigaoka2024-07-07 02:09 pm
beautifuldreamermods) wrote in yumemigaoka2024-07-07 02:09 pm
Tanabata Log
YUMEMIGAOKA
As it is every year, Yumemigaoka's annual Tanabata festival is held at the street just outside of the Hikawa Shrine. The street and the shrine itself have been closed off during the day beforehand and despite the absolute rancid weather, the community has come together to get the festival space set up and ready for everyone to enjoy. And somehow, as they usually do, things just seem to come together somehow.
Come seven in the evening, the street opens to pedestrians and the festival finally kicks off. A steady, misty drizzle of rain persists through the entire evening but somehow, it just adds to the dreamy atmosphere. Hanging lanterns twinkle with raindrops and cast a warm glow over the street, paper stars are fluttering gently down from strings strung between lampposts and stalls line the full length of the street with food offerings, festival games and just about everything in between. In the wake of all the chaos over the last few months, isn't it nice that some things are still simple, quiet and unchanged?
For folks looking for games, they can enjoy:
- ⧖ The most popular stalls, the shooting games! Using a gun loaded with paper bullets (so, you know, mostly harmless) the aim of the game is to get a clean hit on one of the prizes along the back of the booth and knock it down! The prizes are mostly candy, snacks or kids' toys but they're deceptively hard to get a good shot at...
⧖ Goldfish scooping, a summertime classic! Using a scooper with a thin sheet of paper for the net, try your best to catch as many goldfish swimming around the water below. Do well enough and you'll win a prize and you might even be able to take your goldfish home - make sure to take good care of it!
⧖ Senbonbiki is basically pure luck - bundles of prizes, usually candies and small toys, are strung up along the top of the stall and you just have to give the corresponding other end of the string a tug. Whichever bundle of snacks comes down is yours! Of course, if you're particularly unlucky then you might get a dud or penalty prize... but surely nobody's luck is THAT bad, right?
⧖ Ring toss! Throw rings onto targets marked "1" through "10", each worth different amounts depending on where they land. Beat the high score and you'll win a prize! Though do you really want to walk around the whole festival with a giant plushie under your arm all night...?
There's also a ton of options for Japanese street food; some traditional, others more modern takes. There's fried stuff, grilled skewers, rice balls, all manner of delicious noodle dishes and mountains of sweets too; taiyaki, chocolate covered bananas, shaved ice, cotton candy, and just about everything and anything else you'd want to spend an evening stuffing your belly with. And naturally there are plenty of drinks available including freshly squeezed fruit juice and tea and some booze for those who feel like playing with fire.
Aside from the rest of the festivities, the main event is really the hanging of wishes - it is Tanabata, after all. A few tables at the top of bottom of the street have been set up to carefully shelter them from the rain and have a whole rainbow of tanzaku for people to write and hang their wishes on the bamboo trees both in the street and in the shrine down below. You can hang as many wishes as you like, if you're feeling particularly greedy, but...
The festival doesn't really reach its peak until darkness falls and, undeterred by the continued drizzle, the Hikawa Shrine lights up the sky with its famous annual fireworks show - it's always pretty spectacular but perhaps out of spite for the nasty weather, it looks even more fantastic than usual this year.
With the fireworks done, the festival begins wrapping up and it's time to head home. But just as with last year, the night's festivities seem to have only just begun and as you drift off to sleep that night, you feel a gentle unmooring as you're carried off to somewhere new...
THE DREAM SPHERE
Most people in Yumemigaoka seem to have known what was coming tonight and sure enough, it's happened again - a week's worth of dreams of a strangely vivid image, an enormous bamboo tree with a wide canopy of leaves under a dazzling night sky, just like last year. And, just like last year, when you fall asleep on Tanabata evening, you find yourself arriving Somewhere Else.
The dream unfolds as an expansive open field, drenched in the silvery light of a magnificently star-spangled sky above and cut through with a river of flowing water that reflects the sky so clearly, it looks to be filled with stars of its own. Just like the real festival, there's a fine rain drizzling down from the sky, filling the air with mist and the sweet fragrance of the hundreds of tiny, bell-shaped flowers swaying lazily in the grass. And at the center of the field, just as it was last time, is the bamboo tree from your dreams. In the year since last Tanabata, it seems to have somehow gotten even taller and even though it's so huge, though, it doesn't seem like a threatening presence at all. Its branches are spread out even wider than before, hanging low enough for you to reach out and touch and this time, they're not just weighed down by tanzaku strips but glass wind chimes, too, that tinkle and sing whenever the breeze rustles the trees.
It seems tht once again, the magic of those two starcrossed lovers has allowed everyone in Yumemigaoka to cross the Dream Sphere tonight, Dreamer or not! The effect will only last until morning, at which point the dream will unravel, so you might as well enjoy it while you're here. Many of the mundane dreamers will find they're able to move differently in the Dream Sphere, running faster and jumping impossibly high and long distances with nary a scratch to show for it; no magic of their own yet, but at least enough to have a little fun while they're here.
There's a little bit of natural magic at play here in the environment, too. If you approach the tree with a wish in mind, there's no need to write it down; it'll appear in pretty, sparkly ink on an appropriately colored tanzaku strip, already tied to the tree. Or if you go to peer at your reflection in the river, you might see it take on a shape that reflects the wish you're carrying in your heart.
... Except...
What sort of things are you really wishing for? The things you won't admit out loud to anyone, or even to yourself? The deepest wishes right in the darkest part of your heart that you want more than anything? Unfortunately for you, this tree seems to be of a mind to grant wishes and once it's gathered enough of everybody's tanzaku, there's a bright flash of light...
And suddenly everyone's secret wishes have been made manifest... though only in the Dream Sphere, of course. These can be anything from silly wishes to something more serious - the important part is that these secret dreams and wishes have been pulled out of your head and put on display for everyone here to see! How on earth are you going to deal with this gracefully?!
Regardless of what you choose to do, the apparitions only last for an hour or so before fading away and the sky lights up with a beautiful meteor shower that seems to go on forever. You're free to stay and watch the meteor shower and enjoy your last moments in the Dream Sphere for as long as you like but eventually, as you're watching the stars streak down from the sky, the dream around you begins to gradually fade away until you find yourself stirring in your own bed. Though it was an exceptionally busy dream, you find you're well rested and... okay, maybe a little embarrassed after all that.
Nobody will be able to return to that strange field or find the dream to stabilize it but... maybe that's fine. Aren't some things all the more special for only happening once a year?
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[Chaosbringer doesn't know the meaning of the word 'surrender'! In fact, there are multiple words he doesn't know the meaning of! Only one is relevant at this time.]
If you're in need and someone's offering you a hand, take it. Pride isn't worth pain.
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But even if it makes her a hypocrite, she just... she can't. ]
No! I don't want to...!!
[ She just... she can't take anybody's hand. This is the one thing she has to be able to handle on her own. ]
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[Reaching over his shoulder, Chaosbringer yanks the Purple Lighting Dreamsmasher free, the blade shifting audibly as it unfolds into a larger, broader configuration.]
Beat me and I'll leave you alone. Lose and you talk.
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But if it's the only way to get him to leave, then... ]
F... fine...
[ Despite the claim that this is the "Hibiki way", she really doesn't look very up to it as she puts her fists up, gauntlets shifting into a battle-ready form. ]
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Bringer of Chaos! Ultimate Lightning Fury Slash --
[Chaosbringer vaults into the air about twenty feet or so, turning a dramatic flip at the peak before he descends with his sword leading the way.]
-- MAAAAAAAAX!
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[ As Chaosbringer leaps into the air, music starts to play from Hibiki, and she jumps backward to dodge the incoming sword. Upon touching back down on the ground, Hibiki immediately kicks off of the ground and launches herself back towards Chaosbringer with her fist raised...
...but as her song starts, something feels off. ]
My right hand of the decision to keep breaking through exists within the echoing sound known as "me"
Ahead of asking, "Why? How come?", and in the courage I can carry
There is no hesitation wrapped within my fist
[ Something feels off, she can feel it in her own song... but she brushes it off. She can't be worrying about that right now...!
She clenches her fist tight, the thrusters in her gauntlet rocketing her forward to deliver a punch while Chaosbringer's sword is still in the ground. ]
Be brave! (Let's shout!) Go in a straight line, whatever lies head
Send it forth! (Let's shout!) Fight with all I have in a single dive
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[Come on, Hibiki, how can you sing that and not recognize just where your whole 'I got this it's fine' argument breaks down?]
[Chaosbringer yanks his hand back, the sword flowing with it like liquid mercury to wrap around his fist in a gauntlet of his own. As she launches forward, he hurls his own punch to meet hers in midair! Dramatic collision!]
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Gh…!!
[ Her fist clashes with Chaosbringer’s, and for a moment it holds strong, but… ]
GWAGH…!!
[ Her fist falters first, and she’s blown away. Hibiki, of all people, loses in a contest of pure strength, flying backward as a result. ]
Ngh…! Knock down the walls, drive my heart in
For as long as there's a song inside me
I'll believe in justice, I'll grip it tightly
And become a flower that blooms tall in my own color!
(I'm not a hero)
[ She stubbornly refuses to give up. She flips midair and recovers, pushing off the ground with her hands into another flip that lands her back on her feet… and immediately launching back towards Chaosbringer, fists clenched tight…
But her output’s dropped. Gone is the explosive burst of speed, the unstoppable straight-line charge that she’s so proud of. Even though she hasn’t quit, even though she’s still singing… she can’t anymore.
She swings at him, a panicked expression on her face as she tries desperately to keep her output up, to prove that she hasn’t lost the song in her heart. She forces out whatever energy she still has, and her gauntlets respond, morphing her fist into a spinning drill, but… ]
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[No. To drive his message home, Zeke deploys the ultimate technique, the supreme Chaosbringer move, that which makes the heavens tremble and the children weep...]
[As she comes closer, he reaches out to grab her face.]
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Gah...!!
[ Honestly, if Hibiki had her usual force behind it, grabbing Hibiki's face in the middle of an attack wouldn't be enough to stop her. She still has plenty of ways to inflict damage from there... martial artists, man.
But she doesn't, and her face gets grabbed, resulting in the drill around her fist immediately disengaging. Out of pure reflex, Hibiki immediately uses the rest of her momentum to swing her body up, latch onto her arm with her legs, and start pulling on his arm...
But her strength is dropping even faster now, and instead of hitting Chaosbringer with the feeling of having his arm wrenched off by some crazy midair armbar... it's considerably more tolerable. ]
Hngh...! Gh...!!
[ She's a stubborn one, that's for sure. ]
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...Look, this is getting sad. Legitimately depressing sad. Can we call it here and get back to you acknowledging and addressing your issues?