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 Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 6:27 pm
The curtsy was actually kind of refreshing. Illo wasn't used to such a elegant thing, and so did the next closest thing he could in return with a Gong Fu bow, palm and fist.
"Exchange, huh? Then I'm not the only foreigner here. Good," Illo said returning her smile. "I am Illo: Twenty-fifth Iron Phoenix." And once he realised that probably meant nothing to her, "... Um, that is to say I come from a long line of ones searching for an end to madness. We call this the Truth, and with it I will be Death's most powerful ally." He was able to say it with some kind of pride, thankfully, and avoid the aching tone he'd held about the Brotherhood for some time now.
"So," continued the Phoenix repositioning himself on the bar, "what brings you to Shibusen? Are you one of the weapon techs?" He might have known the answer to that if he'd had his soul perception, but alas that was not the case.
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Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 7:05 pm
Kara Lazarus
DWMA Foreign Exchange Student
Deep In The Abyss Of Light Slumber
We Sway With Half-Closed Eyelids.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◈ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◈
Kara stared at Illo with a blank smile on her face as she had no idea what his title meant... that is until he explained it. "Ah! Okay! Sounds interesting!" she stated with a smile still. When asked what brought her to shibusen, Kara tilted her head "Huh? I told you, silly. I am part of the DWMA exchange program," she replied. She clapped her hands rather lightly then "I guess Lord Death was worried about humans becoming more and more uneasy with him and other non humans so he created an exchange program that allows ordinary humans such as myself to participate in some of the events other meister and weapon students experience," she explained with a soft smile.
◈ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◈
Now, one, two, three! We shall become one.
Now, one, two, three! We shall evade death.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 7:36 pm
To this Illo shook his head and gave a small snicker as he went on filling the bucket with the crystalline water he'd brought from who-knows-where. Clearly he was trying to cover up for his misunderstanding earlier.
"Right," he said, "but I'm talking about what got you interested in Shibusen in the first place." And while it was a pretty intriguing place, everyone, even the meister/weapon teams, seemed to have a special reason for coming here: from simple revenge stories to trials of madness to a quest for ultimate reality.
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Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 8:04 pm
Kara Lazarus
DWMA Foreign Exchange Student
Deep In The Abyss Of Light Slumber
We Sway With Half-Closed Eyelids.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◈ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◈
Kara tilted her head to the side again as she heard Illo "Hm? A specific reason?" Kara glanced upward as she thought to herself for a few more seconds before her cheerful smile appeared again "Well ever since I was little I heard about all the incredible stories about the DWMA and what good everyone there did for the world. I really wanted to wake up one day and discover that I had the potential to be a meister or a weapon but..." she shrugged "I never really gained any unique abilities or have the soul that would work with that. When I heard about the exchange program, I thought it would be the opportunity I was looking for to experience what meisters and weapons experience," she explained with a smile.
◈ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◈
Now, one, two, three! We shall become one.
Now, one, two, three! We shall evade death.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 8:14 pm
"I see," said the Phoenix on an upswing, "I felt the same way for a while." He'd really meant about the whole 'doing good' thing, but for the sake of appearances and conversation he would take a more upbeat route.
"When I was young, just starting in my training, I had no abilities to speak of, and my soul was as pathetic as a squirrel's. ... But, with proper guidance from my brothers," he continued sounding more inspired, "I found my Way, and ten years later here I am, only a janitor, sure, but matched by few in battle." He really liked to see new faces around here. Illo decided to give the abs a rest and work on his neck. Flipping down to standing, he gave a smile to Kara and, putting his feet up on a pole, balanced himself on the ground with nothing but his forehead.
"But that's mostly because they forget to train their vital areas," said the monk with a victorious chuckle.
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Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 5:26 pm
Kara Lazarus
DWMA Foreign Exchange Student
Deep In The Abyss Of Light Slumber
We Sway With Half-Closed Eyelids.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◈ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◈
Kara watched Illo quietly as he spoke and was silent for a moment or two before speaking. "Wa? You are a janitor here?" Her surprised expression turned into a sulk "Everyone that works here is so skilled..." she muttered to herself. She glanced at him again as he was balancing himself on his forehead. That was pretty impressive though her head and neck kind of hurt by just watching him.
◈ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◈
Now, one, two, three! We shall become one.
Now, one, two, three! We shall evade death.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 8:22 pm
(Because this is the first thing a new student should see. lol) Of course Illo didn't think any of this, the training or his unnatural strength in proportion to his position, was odd, and looked stupidly for a moment up at Kara while he searched for why she found it so.
"Of course I am," rejoined the monk with not a hint of apology. "But not everyone who works here are so diligent." He used the term instead of strength to showcase his philosophy on earned skill; this was congruent with his situation. "Just because I'm a janitor doesn't mean I'm not strong; just because other teachers outrank me in certain decision-making processes doesn't mean they haven't lost to me before."
"... Aren't you glad we're skilled though?" He couldn't help but wonder about the trailing off of her voice as she said this. Getting up, Illo picked up a piece of rope that looked somewhat like a noose and slung it over the parallel bar. As he listened to Kara he would situate his jaw under the rope and, taking a huffing breath, would take his feet from the ground and into lotus to hang there by the strength of seemingly nothing but his spine.
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Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 8:30 pm
Kara Lazarus
DWMA Foreign Exchange Student
Deep In The Abyss Of Light Slumber
We Sway With Half-Closed Eyelids.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◈ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◈
Kara nodded "I suppose that's true... Mother told me I should never judge a book by it's cover," she explained. She didn't seem to be paying attention to what he was doing with the rope at first. "It is a good thing that everyone here is strong though. I guess it wouldn't make sense if... if... uh..." she stopped and watched as she man literally hung himself. "Eh?! What are you doing?!" she managed to say, her voice raising in pitch as she was genuinely freaked out. "J-Just because you are a janitor doesn't mean you should end your life like that!" she said rather quickly.
◈ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◈
Now, one, two, three! We shall become one.
Now, one, two, three! We shall evade death.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 8:50 pm
This routine, or at least this part of it, always required more concentration than others. Because of this Illo found himself missing the initial attempts to dissuade him to "hang himself" made by the new student. His eyes were shut in tight meditation, and his palms laid clasped together in his lap. Overall it looked very much like he was in fact not committing suicide but rather taking a new approach to the same end he was looking for with the other exercises.
"Mm?" Grunted the monk softly as he hung there by the entwined fibers of his dedication. Using his hands to lift himself up, he was able to take the pressure off his jaw to speak. "What do you mean? I would dare do something as selfish as that..."
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Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 8:59 pm
Kara Lazarus
DWMA Foreign Exchange Student
Deep In The Abyss Of Light Slumber
We Sway With Half-Closed Eyelids.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◈ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◈
Kara took a few moments to recompose herself before taking a breath and speaking again "I... Never mind..." she said. She paused and just stared at him for a moment or two "That is the strangest training method I have ever seen," she stated.
◈ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◈
Now, one, two, three! We shall become one.
Now, one, two, three! We shall evade death.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 9:09 pm
"That's what they all say!" said the monk with a laugh. He was standing now, something of a glimmer in his eyes. "But it pays dividends in battle. It's meant to strengthen the neck and jaw. Could you imagine if I didn't do it??" Next he picked up his broom. He could get plenty of those. He presented it to Kara like some kind of ceremonial piece.
"Here, allow me to demonstrate." As he said this he found a place to prop the broom up and set the tip in the center of his throat. With a quick huff he was ready to start. "The throat cannot be hardened, for it has no bones or muscles supporting it--except the spine. However, with my training I can harden it, so that it's not a liability." At this point Illo began to lean forward with all his strength. The broomstick bowed and creaked until finally SNAP!
"... There, you see?" His smile was sort of childlike, like he'd just gotten a good grade on a school project: prideful in the most genuine way.
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Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 9:12 pm
Kara Lazarus
DWMA Foreign Exchange Student
Deep In The Abyss Of Light Slumber
We Sway With Half-Closed Eyelids.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◈ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◈
Kara didn't say anything and watched as the guy demonstrated his neck strength by snapping a broomstick in half. That made her throat hurt just thinking about it but then again... Illo had trained himself to do such a thing... As he smiled at her, Kara still had a surprised look on her face though she began clapping, looking rather impressed by his little show.
◈ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◈
Now, one, two, three! We shall become one.
Now, one, two, three! We shall evade death.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 9:20 pm
"Thank you! Thank you!" Cheered the monk as he took a bow. He hadn't had a fan in, well, ever, and he'd been lying if he said it wasn't fun. He only wished he could levitate. That would make the show even more fun!
"But if you think that was great, you'll really love this," said Illo with excitement. Taking his hands to his heart chakra, he began pacing about and reciting his patented chant. It was the gateway to his otherworldly powers, and it had a certain ethereal pressure to match with its cascading echoes. This went on for a good while, but something appeared to be wrong. Try as he may, Illo couldn't trigger his third eye to open.
"... I'm... I'm sorry," said the monk blinking rapidly. "This never happens to me, I swear!"
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Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 9:41 pm
Kara Lazarus
DWMA Foreign Exchange Student
Deep In The Abyss Of Light Slumber
We Sway With Half-Closed Eyelids.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◈ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◈
Kara watched Illo with a clueless expression as he began chanting.... but nothing happened... Kara continued clapping though since she didn't know what was going to happen. Then he apologized so she assumed that meant something went wrong or didn't work. "Oh! It's fine..." she replied, a small smile appearing again.
◈ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◈
Now, one, two, three! We shall become one.
Now, one, two, three! We shall evade death.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2016 9:46 pm
But Illo was not so quick to let it go. He was pacing now out of nervousness, angst, rather than concentration. Taking a seat, the monk continued to ponder aloud saying,
"I don't understand," he began flicking his hand which had held his chin out to the nine heavens, "I should be able to open my third eye easily." Admittedly he was talking more to himself here than Kara, and so, upon noticing this, he rejoined with the best smile he could muster to match hers.
"It's probably nothing. So... Have you attended any classes yet?" He'd switched subjects, but this would weigh on his mind continually through the evening. Internally he was sifting through scenarios that would bring this one, and could find nothing that led him to an answer.
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