Come to Jesus Meeting [Closed/Koku]

Even after almost an entire year of non stop construction the city of Karakura was far from complete. only about thirty five percent of the work was finished and that was only in the outer regions of the area. the heart of the city had been sealed off as a 'cataclysm zone' that was currently too dangerous for people to visit due to residual after effects of the 'terrorist attack'. this was greatly aided with the strange mists and atmosphere that clung to the area. occasionally people would sneak into the zone and disappear, or be found mauled to death by some strange animal, or be driven insane. only certain people were allowed to enter that zone and the majority of them wore the Kosa emblem.

in fact the kosa was often seen aiding in the restructure of the city, from housing and schools, to infrastructure for business to dealing with the aftermath of the attack that had so devastated the city. Fortunes seem to pour forth from their coffers and only a portion was from government funds. they were always in search of 'unique talent' and would supply jobs for many of the survivors in order for the city to once more be a place to live in.

the amount of effort to juggle all of the work was enough to break any normal human, yet the man in charge of the Kosa and largely responsible for getting the work underway was also dealing with a lot more responsibility then just that. luckily however he was far from normal these days. It had been a few months since he had decided to forgo sleep entirely, and while he found it occasionally annoying and demanding on his body, he was able to accomplish a workload that would cripple others and allow him to continue the more demanding duties that he held responsibility for as well as the important projects that he could not just cast aside.

currently he was working on one such project, in a side room attached to his office, that was more a lab then an office. Charts and books lay scattered or piled high around the room, books on crafting using the ancient Japanese sword smithing techniques, charts of Onmyodo magics that had been passed down for ages, diagrams of ancient magical formations and techniques designs both old and freshly created. scrawled on blackboards were lists of material components and mystical items that actually had physical representations lining one of the walls. other projects could also be seen scattered around the room as well, diagrams of the city with strange marks overlapped on top, and even an alchemical looking setup using strange plants that were carefully being processed. All were things he was working on to strengthen Kosa, or to protect the city of Karakura from a repeat that ravaged it.

Currently pouring over a ancient tome hand written by his distant ancestor Abe no Seimei himself, Kokuou was focused on learning onmyoji forging techniques. The ancient arts of learning to weave onmyodo magic techniques and embedding them into a blade. If one possessed the right materials one could forge weapons of great power from simply flying swords to weapons equal to the legendary kusunagi blade. yet Kokuou was going further then that, gathering unique materials and refining them using the ancient scriptures to gain the finest of material. the next step would be to travel to the proper forging site, since the ones here were too poor to do the proper forging.

Sensing Raphael enter the main office he carefully marked his place in the book and moved to the doorway as he asked.
"So what brings you here this time Raphael?"

words: 617
gp:12
total:12

ooc: what is up with that title raph?

"hmm not sure.." Kokuou said to Raph as he considered what kind of work he might be suited to help with but was currently unable to come up with a project or task that would require Raphael's help. He did pause for a moment as he considered the man's other question, about how long it had been since he slept. "two.. no wait three..." he answered after taking a glance at the calendar to confirm today's date. constantly working made the days seem to blend together making it slightly difficult to tell one day of the week from the next, despite the Eidetic memory he possessed. "Yes, it has been about three months since then." he said offhandedly.

Drawing energy directly from the world around him, he could erase any fatigue he might have felt, and he could even draw enough to actually sustain himself, entering a training state that would allow him to not have to take breaks to eat or sleep, however he was not so far gone that he intentionally ignored meals, although he usually worked throughout those meals. Brushing aside the matter however as inconsequential he nodded his head as Raph said that he had been impressed with his ability to keep up with both the reconstruction efforts of the city and work on the projects around him. drawing directly from the power of onmyodo had aided him greatly, and combined with the Shikigami servants that he could control his efficiency in handling these issues were easy, after all while he might not be able to sleep, everyone else had to at some point, which allowed him to work on other projects or catch up with the work he had been dealing with.

"Physical? you could say it is something like that. sigh.." Kokuou paused for a moment to collect his thoughts and figure out the best way to explain things to the man in front of him. "Look outside and you will see destruction all around you. We trusted that the worst we could expect were some hollows attacking some innocent people, or maybe a building burning down. None of us expected the level of devastation that we experienced. Our Defenses were too limited and our Forces were too weak. We trusted too much in the Shinigami to provide us support and when they were slow to respond we lost too many lives, too many souls that were obliterated. The thing that lead the Arrancar forces, It possessed power that surpassed even Adimus's power, on a whole new level that at the time i had not truly believed existed. Of course you know all this already, not just from reports by Kosa but also from the Vigilant.

This is something that is designed to help prevent something like that from happening again. To correct the imbalance that we faced. I am combining onmyodo magics and forging them into a physical matrix to imbue them with power that any can use. I mean you have heard of Magic Swords before right?" He said with a laugh in the end. "Of course these items do not necessarily need to be a sword, or even a weapon. One can incorporate them into magical talismans and scrolls and the like. You have seen some things like that before i am sure, this is just the next step in that project. A great deal more complicated requiring unique material as a basis and then i will have to locate a specific point to forge the item."

There was certainly more to what he was planning then what he simply told Raph, but even he was not sure he could accomplish the work that he had started those few years ago. To reveal his entire plan, it felt like he would be challenging fate itself to interfere if he revealed his full plan, and it had a high risk and chance of failure, so he would keep the full details to himself simply so he did not create greater expectations for his work then he was sure of.


Words:677
GP:13
Total:25

Sadly enough, Koku couldn’t really think of anything that Raph could do that might be helpful, and so once again Raph was relegated to practically sitting on his hands. He hated that. He wanted to be doing something, not standing there to listen to someone. He was restless, and if he had anything that he could actually be doing to be helpful right now then he would be. He wanted time to help Koku, he just felt absolutely useless standing here. But there really wasn’t anything that he could do. He wasn’t as knowledgeable with the spiritual arts as much as his friends Koku and Weylin were; he was good to be able to move things, especially nowadays.

Yet when Koku explained that it had been nearly three months since he’d last slept he felt a tinge of concern. He’d heard something fairly similar from Weylin. Was it possible that the two men were beginning to transcend humanity in their own ways? And, if so, was it possible that Raph would be able to do so and he was just failing to? What was it in them that made them pursue such extremes of humanity? They weren’t men. They were monsters. But weren’t they all, in the end? Raph didn’t have much room to talk, after all. He was a man that could lift and throw mountains, fire beams of plasma that could burn through six inches or even a foot of solid steel… There was a lot that he could do.

Everything that Koku said was true. Raph had always felt that the shinigami were often too slow to respond, and when they did so often underestimated the threat to the World of the Living. He’d read the reports on it at Vigilance and had seen a few from Kosa. The original reports were all UN reports about the terrorists that had launched the bombing and how they’d been found caught confessed and incarcerated in the United States. Such reports had all kinds of glowing testimony from the police chief of California who apparently had apprehended several people that matched the description of the “terrorists”. The very thought that anyone would’ve left the area after the destruction of Karakura Town was absurd to say the least, especially with the amount of destruction that was caused.

The REAL reports had scientists that had been given access to special equipment that could detect reishi and reiryoku. This information was then dissected and analyzed by aware spiritualists who then wrote up the official report. The arrancar attack had been led by an unidentifiable being with an incredible amount of power. The problem was that the data that had been gathered was too little to provide a clear understanding of just what had come with them.

Even as he stood in the room with Koku, though, he knew what it was. He’d seen it once when he was in Las Noches. A being that had originally looked like the arrancar that kidnapped him had appeared and threw him out of Hueco Mundo.

But quickly the conversation switched to… a new design that Koku was working on. “You’re forging the magic that you work with into a physical object? That bears a distinct possibility of danger, doesn’t it? People throughout history have done so, to be sure, but what do you plan on doing with them? Are you going to arm your soldiers with them? Are you going to create some kind of elite group of new super soldiers that will bear both your magic and this blade?” Raph practically heard his voice raising. “Have you thought beyond the project? How will people respond to arming other with blades, especially with how tied into the government you are? How are you going to explain that to the people in the government? Have you thought of these things at all? Or are you simply bull rushing through with your project?”

Words: 655
GP: 13
Total: 35

Kokuou raised an eyebrow as Raph started to speak raising concerns about the dangers of forging magic into a physical object. what was he going to do with them? would he arm his soldiers with them? create an elite fighting force of super soldiers to wield both magic and might? those were very good questions but they were not the only ones he voiced. Raphel continued to question, had he thought beyond this project. how would people respond to arming others with blades? and how would the government view this considering how many ties he had with them? how would he explain this to the government? Kokuou resisted laughing at the man before him, because he voiced these words out of concern. A good subordinate should never be afraid to question their superior when they felt that he would be in error, and did not even mind that Raph was beginning to raise his voice.

"Relax." Kokuou told the man before him waving him back into the chair that he appeared to be half raised from with only a hint of amusement in his voice. yet as he again spoke a certain steel filled his voice. "Let me answer your final question first. Have i simply been bull rushing through this project? No. This project has been in existence before the events of Karakura Town, but re purposed and revitalized a bit more recently. The creation of these blades can be a rather simple task, but only for those who actually possess the talent and knowledge. Even you yourself could forge a weapon and imbue it with the simplest of spells if you studied hard enough. Depending on the Grade of weapon the difficulty increases. But something so simply created is like... aluminum." Kokuou said pausing to search for a word that matched his meaning. As he spoke he casually reached over beside his desk and took out of a umbrella stand a broad sword that had been set there as a display piece. utterly light and extremely sharp, yet it was the weakest grade of weapon, and with a simple expenditure of strength was able to crumple the weapon like a used tissue before dropping the remains into a trashcan.

"The more powerful the weapon, the more difficult it is to create. The rarer the materials must be to use in the crafting place. Some weapons require you to craft them in certain places of power, or at only certain times of the month or year. To outfit all my soldiers with a weapon that would not fail them, something at least marginally comparable to that of a Zanpakuto blade would require too much time. Perhaps in time we could create weapons that would allow even the weakest of soldiers to at least allow them to fight spiritual forces, but that would be far in the future. Equipping a small elite force would be the wiser decision. They are not a tool that will be handed out like candy to all that ask.

The government will have no part in this, they simply have no say in the matter. Understand this. The Government is interest in Me because of my clan. Not the Kosa, but because of the Abe clan that was once separate from it. We had a long history of spiritual matters. Our Magic, Our Omnyodji were the strongest, and for a long time we controlled the Bureau of Onmyo. Our Duty was to Divine the future and protect the capital and Emperor from Evil spirits. We controlled the earth and prevented it from destroying the cities utterly. That was the role of the Court Onmyoji. I am a pure blooded descendant of the most powerful Onmyoji, who governed the halls of the Bureau of Onmyo until certain nobles managed to get us disposed of that seat. Events have conspired to return that seat to the Abe clan, so if i were to tell them that it was in the defense of the country they would not care. They prefer to remain in ignorance however which is to our advantage.

Now you raise the question as how people will respond to arming others with blades? You are not well versed in sword and firearms law. The purchase and ownership of certain swords within japan is legal if they are properly registered, although in most cases the items would be labeled as national or cultural artifacts. Swords that are not produced by licensed smiths, such as those created by machine processes, are prohibited. yet those made with traditional materials and methods are legal to a certain degree, which is how The Japanese military is allowed to carry swords. However you are taking the idea of a sword too literally. How will people object to something if they do not realize what it is?" Again Kokuou reached around his office, although this time he only reached as far as to the top of his desk, picking up a slender letter opener and flipping it in his hand for a moment before releasing a wave of power that caused it to grow to the same size as a normal sword. After displaying the weapon to Raph he allowed it to revert back to the letter opener and then casually tossed it in front of the man. "Keep it if you wish, maybe you will find it useful."

"A weapon takes on many forms Raphael. Sometimes it is a tool for killing people, and sometimes it is a tool for killing monsters. Sometimes it can even ..." Kokuou stopped himself with a shake of his head clearing his thoughts."You asked me what i planned on doing with them? These weapons were a stepping stone to something more, a way to sharpen my skills for the task ahead of me and a way to help strengthen those below...

"Is there a distinct possibility of danger? Yes, As in all things. the project that i am currently working on i will admit has a much higher degree of risk. Is actually rather dangerous but i am willing to accept that risk. To accomplish goals, risk must be taken."

Words:1025
gp: 20
total: 45