Fuda creation ((closed RP for Matt and Kusuriyuri))

[edomedpeddler.livejournal.com]

The requisite three days had passed for Matt to learn the characters Kusuruyuri had given him. A brief note had been delivered letting him know that the teacher would be in his office for the lesson. Kusuriyuri had warded the room to keep his own energy from spreading beyond the confines of the room. The tea service was still in the room, as was the low table, but now there were only two cushions, one for teacher, one for student. The only other supplies in the room were several stacks of paper, ink stones and brushes. One of the papers had a yin-yang marked around the edges with the five elements.

Kusuriyuri waited, drinking a jasmine green tea while he did.

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[gamerspy.livejournal.com]

Matt arrived pretty promptly after receiving his note; being late for classes is one thing, but a private lesson - a total favour to him - was another thing entirely.

He knocked on the door.

"Hey. Kusu - uh, Kusuriyuri?"

[edomedpeddler.livejournal.com]

"Come in, Matt-kun," Kusuriyuri calls through the door. "And, your shoes, please." The tatami mats on the floor do not hold up well under shoes. "You have practiced?" he asks as he pours another cup of tea and one of water.

[gamerspy.livejournal.com]

"Hah, I've not been called Matt-kun in a while... would you prefer it if we speak Japanese?" He rests one hand against the wall to yank his boots off, then comes to sit across from Kusuriyuri.

"Yeah, I've practiced." Learning the characters had taken no time at all, but he'd still put in a conscious effort: practicing the stroke order with the ink and brush Kusuriyuri had given him, looking at the links between this and modern kanji. In one gloved hand is sheaf of parchment. "Brought my homework with me."

[edomedpeddler.livejournal.com]

Kusuriyuri smiles at his student's eagerness. "Which ever language you are most comfortable with. It seems this place translates unless you do not wish it to." He takes the parchment from Matt, examining the characters.

Nodding, "Your penmanship is adequate. It could be improved. But, that will come with more practice." He hands over a piece of paper. "Write the first four, one in each corner and the fifth in the center," he instructs.

The first five are the elements, the focus of their lesson today. 火　水　木　土　金 (fire, water, wood, earth, metal).

[gamerspy.livejournal.com]

"So you've been speaking Japanese the whole time? Huh. That's weird." Matt says all this in Japanese anyway. It seems appropriate, what with the mats and the tea and the kneeling and so on.

He knows the stroke order now, and places each character in the appropriate corner (he knows a little about traditional Japanese symbology) with metal in the middle of the page. They might be slightly archaic no really, ignore the modern kanji for now but the similarity is pretty easy to spot.

"Like this?"

[edomedpeddler.livejournal.com]

"I do not know what language the others are speaking, but I cannot assume everyone here speaks Japanese," Kusuriyuri murmurs. "The only other language I know is not a human language." He pays careful attention to how Matt holds the brush, how he creates each character and the energy he puts out while doing so. Unsurprisingly, the last is completely missing. Matt's grip on the brush is also too close to the bristles, more as if he is holding one of the quills or other writing instruments Kusuriyuri's seen around.

"They are correctly placed," Kusuriyuri murmurs. "Now, the first, fire. What energy does fire put out? How does it feel? Think on that, concentrate on that, and write it on this page," he says while passing over another piece of paper.

[gamerspy.livejournal.com]

"Most of us are speaking English. I mean - Mello and Near and A and all that. I couldn't say for the whole school." He thinks of he and L getting busted while speaking Japanese in McDonald's and grins to himself, ducking his head. "What other language do you speak?"

If it weren't for the silent spell sessions with Mello, Kusuriyuri would be getting a fairly blank look right now. As it is, he imagines himself casting a fire charm for a moment before he begins. Crackling energy: consuming, warming, fierce...

[edomedpeddler.livejournal.com]

Kusuriyuri waits until the kanji is written again. He is surprised at the strength of Matt's ability to focus on fire. It usually takes careful explanation of what fire is before most are able to summon it. "I speak my mother's tongue, the language of the youkai, as well as Japanese. And, well done." He hands Matt another piece of paper. "Water this time."

[gamerspy.livejournal.com]

"Oh, yeah. Of course. So you didn't always live in the human world?"

To be honest, Matt isn't really concentrating on his conversation with Kusuriyuri. It's simply a habit to mutter or talk to himself while he concentrates; Wammy-style training makes it easy enough to continue a conversation while he does so.

"Water, okay..." This is the character he's clumsiest at writing out. Still. Water is - a bit trickier than fire. He's also never cast a water charm before, though he can imagine easily enough. Deep, reflective, strong...

[edomedpeddler.livejournal.com]

"Wet and cold," Kusuriyuri murmurs, wanting Matt to add that to his water energy.

"No, not always, but it is more interesting." Kusuriyuri isn't used to seeing the ability to divide and concentrate so intensely and well before. Had he felt wavering in the energy coming from Matt, he would have reprimanded him. As it was, he'd allow it as there were times wards needed to be constructed under pressure.

[gamerspy.livejournal.com]

"Physical stuff too, right," Matt mutters. He thinks of the sound of waves crashing on the beach.

If Kusuriyuri thinks this is something, he should see Mello or Near do it. (Or L, for that matter, but then Matt hasn't seen that either.) Matt can hold up to six tasks in his mind at once before he starts to waver; he's seen Near concentrate on a room full of screens without a hitch.

"Yeah? Is it like the Shinigami realm, where you're from? Mello told me a bit about that... I mean, it was second-hand info even then, but still."

[edomedpeddler.livejournal.com]

"Physical and essential, yes," Kusuriyuri agrees. After a moment, he adds, "You have a strong positive relation to water and a negative one to fire." It is only an observation and delivered as such.

"I have met a kami here and they are not from where I am from. There are several worlds, worlds for akuma, worlds for youkai, worlds for kami, worlds for the dead. Some overlap, some do not. The human world has some connection to several of the worlds but is protected from the worst of them." If Matt wants to know and shows no sign of wavering, then he doesn't mind answering certain questions.

[gamerspy.livejournal.com]

"Associations, I guess." He's never liked fire, even before Mello burnt the shit out of himself and B locked Matt in a burning room.

He finishes the character, but doesn't look very happy with it.

"So there's probably several human worlds, right? With this place as a hub or something..."

[edomedpeddler.livejournal.com]

"That may be so," Kusuriyuri murmurs. "It would fit with everything we have witnessed."

He reaches over and holds his hand just above the paper. "Too much earth. Here, hold your hand over mine."

Turning his hand palm up, he focuses the feeling of pure water, cold, wet, deep, healing. "That is water, its essence."

[gamerspy.livejournal.com]

Matt does as instructed, placing his gloved hand over Kusuriyuri's.

"... oh. Dude, I can feel that." He blinks. "Does this mean I'm having more trouble with the element I like than the one I don't?"

It may be a little misleading to say he dislikes fire. After all, he's best friend with Mello.

[edomedpeddler.livejournal.com]

Kusuriyuri shakes his head slightly. "It is more your associations with fire are more...purified, focused than your associations with water." He frowns slightly. "You were focusing on a lake or the sea, a shore, yes? That would explain the added earth. Draw your focus out to the deeper waters and rewrite the character, please." He hands Matt another piece of paper.

[gamerspy.livejournal.com]

"The sea. Well, seashore. Right..."

So no thinking about how awesome the beach was. Got it.

This time when he draws out the character he doesn't talk, focusing entirely on the immensity of the ocean, as well as the other aspects Kusuriyuri had mentioned.

[edomedpeddler.livejournal.com]

"Good," Kusuriyuri murmurs when Matt finishes. Another piece of paper. "Now wood. Living, growing, strong, flexible," he adds by way of prompt for the proper energy.

[gamerspy.livejournal.com]

He's glad of the prompts; wood might have given him a little bit of difficulty. Now he has something to focus on, though...

[edomedpeddler.livejournal.com]

Wood is possibly one of the more difficult since it is not often that people pay attention to it the way they do to the other four. "Think of a forest, growing, the smell of decay and growth, the feeling that everything around you is growing, changing, remaining the same," he murmurs softly as he vaguely remembered his teacher doing so very long ago.

[gamerspy.livejournal.com]

Matt suddenly remembers L complaining about Kusuriyuri's 'philosophical bullshit', and almost snickers; but he keeps his focus, finishing the character slowly. He can tell he probably needs to spend time on this one, to get the right - vibe? Associations? Something like that.

[edomedpeddler.livejournal.com]

Kusuriyuri holds out his hand again. "Here." He focuses on the feel of wood as he did with water. He pushes the energy a little harder so it is very clear what wood feels like, the melding of water, earth, fire into a unified whole, the feel of living, growing, becoming.

[gamerspy.livejournal.com]

"I'll get the next ones myself," Matt promises.

Needing help twice in a row? Sort of embarrassing.

[edomedpeddler.livejournal.com]

Kusuriyuri smiles. "Wood is difficult," he says softly. "The others are more individual, more separate, but wood is blended. The balance of it is not easy if you do not live around it."

He hands Matt another piece of paper. "Earth. Solid, cool, stable."

[gamerspy.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, wood isn't really something I'm around much."

Apart from the massive fucking forest you can actually see from his window, but whatever. Maybe it'd be more accurate to say he doesn't care about wood; at least he has some opinion on the other elements.

Earth, for example. He couldn't give a concrete association with it, the way he did with fire and water, but it seems much, much easier to focus on.