post palace takeout! [week 5]

[beathollow]

( at some point a bedraggled lot in yukatas manage to make their way to the dorm, shower and patch themselves up. and then mafuyu makes a very earnest request that they all go out for dinner, and, well, apparently many struggle to refuse her.

this is how they find themselves in something akin to a denny's or an ihop at like, midnight.




as one does. )

Comments

[vogelfrei]

He died hundreds of years before I was born, actually. A historical figure I admire.

[ No offense taken, despite the obvious offense. ]

[goei]

Ohhh, got it.

Dunno why people do that. They're old and gone, shouldn't you be tryin' ta surpass them?

[vogelfrei]

The world doesn't only change for the better. There are some ideals that are lost with time and worth getting back to.

[goei]

Well sure, but that doesn't mean ya gotta idolize the people, idiot.

When I think of famous swordsmasters like Musashi and Yagyuu, I'm just thinkin' of how I can make them look like fools in comparison ta me.

[vogelfrei]

[ Oh, that makes him smile wider. He likes that attitude, even if his own won't be changed by it. ]

To be fair, I wouldn't mind becoming a better pilot than Agnika Kaieru.

[ He's not, right now. In fact, he very much crashed Agnika Kaieru's car. ]

But that would not negate the way he inspired me in the first place.

[goei]

[Considers this.]

I guess that's normal. Though when I think about it I dunno if I was inspired by anyone in particular ta pick up the sword. I guess my dad? He was a proper samurai, even if he wasn't that good or nothin'.

But then pretty early on people started callin' me a prodigy so then I just kept goin' cause it was fun and I was good at it.
[As Lady Gaga would say, he lives for the applause.]

[vogelfrei]

A family line of swordsmen, huh?

[ Getting into the business of killing people just because you're being praised for it... Well, that's one way of living your life. ]

You must have started training very young then.

[goei]

[To be fair to him, the killing came a little later.]

Mm. Me and Ryouma both, though his family had more status than mine. Before we even started proper trainin' I can remember swinging around sticks we found in the dirt.

[vogelfrei]

[ Of course they were also childhood friends....... of course........... ]

I can understand the fascination. My preferred fighting style in my mobile suits is also sword-based.

[ There is nothing cooler than a big robot swinging two big swords around, you cannot change his mind. ]

I took fencing classes as a child, but by now my skills with an actual sword are rusty at best.

[goei]

[The more they get along in this thread, the more hilarious the current situation is.]

Wait, yer giant robot thing has a sword? It's not just like shooting lasers and stuff??

[The look on his face makes it clear that he thinks giant robot sword is ever better than lasers.]

[vogelfrei]

[ One nice night at Dennihop before the horrors of projecting your worst issues on each other! OH BOY.

Anyway, McGillis is delighted that Izou seems interested!! He'd been wondering he he'd think swords on a robot don't count since it's not a real swordsmans' hand but... ]

The last two I piloted, Bael and the Grimgerde, are both dual wielding. The swords are their main armaments.

[ There's like almost zero lasers in IBO, actually. ]

Bael was Agnika Kaieru's machine - I picked the Grimgerde's swords to practice for flying it.

[goei]

[Listen swords are swords and Izou is someone who values Rule of Cool. Whether he'd consider McGillis a swordsman is another issue.]

No kidding! Normally I use two swords too, but fer some reason my wakizashi didn't come here with me.

[So the way Shadow Izou fought was in fact his normal methods.]

I'm glad that even in some crazy robot future people still use swords.

[vogelfrei]

[ McGillis is fine with not being considered a swordsman in specific, as long as Bael's dual wielding is appreciated as being Objectively Awesome. Thank you for agreeing with him on his absolute favorite thing in the world!! ]

There is no reason to fully replace something that strikes so elegantly and effectively true.

[ There is a reason he wanted to fight Shadow Izou and that reason is that he thought it'd be cool. Also weird existential thoughts about power. But also that it'd be cool. ]

Bael's swords are made to cut open a path into the future.

[goei]

[Ok now that's a little too shonen for Izou's tastes, and he does snort at that.]

Now yer just bein' ridiculous. Swords are made fer killin'. It's the actions of the person holding the swords that's got meaning behind it.

[Swords are just tools at the end of the day.]

[vogelfrei]

[ Fine, fine, bring him down to Earth from his grandstanding, why don't you! ]

Some swords can only be wielded by few.

[ Man who a) uncovered the legend of needing to be chosen is bullshit and b) holds onto it anyway ]

But it's not as though I disagree with you. A sword without a proper wielder remains merely an object.

[goei]

Yeah. Unless it's one of them magic swords like those Round Table guys got. That Lancelot guys's way too uptight fer my tastes though.

[Hey McGillis do you have any thoughts about the Arthuriana characters.]

[vogelfrei]

[ He should have seen this coming. He should really have seen this coming. ]

... Lancelot.

[ He should have, but he did not. Izou, your social circle is going to give him a heart attack one day. ]

Yes... one would expect him to be uptight. Chivalry is very important to medieval knights - in legend anyway.

[goei]

[Luckily my Chaldea doesn't have Artoria in it so Izou can't deal McGillis a mortal blow by mentioning lady King Arthur.]

Yeah yeah, that chivalry stuff seems like a pain. Samurai have bushidou, but I'm not really a samurai so I don't have ta care about it.

[vogelfrei]

Why aren't you one? Personal choice or circumstance?

[ He's not going to judge hard if it's just personal choice to not bother, but with the heritage it feels like a pertinent question. ]

[goei]

The Kinnou-tou existed ta try and remove the shogunate from power, so I feel like that kinda goes without saying. Plus we're not serving a lord or anything a samurai would normally do.

Even though I died before it was over, the revolution we were involved in basically was the end of anyone bein' samurai at all, once it succeeded.

[vogelfrei]

[ It's weirdly frustrating to not know a lot about the shogunate or the history of Japan as a whole. McGillis is going to have to hit the library after this. ]

All of this is very far in the past for my world and most records have been lost... Mind summing up the key points of what you were fighting for?

[ He's not asking for anything in depth, he knows that's not really Izou's place in things, but he can presumably sum up the base idea. ]

Revolutions have always held great appeal to me.

[goei]

I mean I'm the wrong guy ta ask, Ryouma was the one all wrapped up in politics, not me.

[That said.]

Basically, the shogunate started relaxin' the whole policy of keepin' foreigners out, but the way they were doin' it, everyone was saying they were letting 'em just run roughshod all over. It was especially affecting all of us in the west where a lotta the trade was happening and the people in the capital always were lookin' down on us anyway.

So the goal was ta take down the shogunate and make a new government that properly served the emperor and all the people of Japan, not just the rich guys who were benefittin' from the way things were.

[If any of this is wrong it's Izou's fault for misremembering and not mine. it's IC.]

[vogelfrei]

[ McGillis would have judged Izou heavily if he'd refused to answer altogether, but instead the man actually delivers a perfectly decent explanation! Look at that, you can do it after all!

Thanks to the general lack of historical documentation in the Post Disaster era, McGillis continues to lack enough context to truly evaluate Izou's political affiliation from this, but it's a start. ]

Not a bad reason to fight a revolution. Did it succeed, in the long run?

[goei]

[Izou is honestly smarter than he gives himself credit for. Not by a lot but. Some.]

Yeah! I dunno how much I actually helped, but the rest of 'em made it happen. Ryouma's a national hero and now Japan's one 'a the most powerful countries in the world!

[HE'S VERY PROUD]