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gallusrostromegalus · 1 year ago

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In honor of the season, what are holidays like in the spirit world? Have they been infected by Christmas yet? I imagine they inherit some popular ones from the world of the living, but also the unique holidays of the afterlife must be wild.

You come to me, on the eve of the High Holiday of Halloween, and ask me about Christmas??

I'm kidding, you're asking about holidays in general but my unsuspecting Agnostic Ass just got jumpscared by Mariah Carey, and I'm sensitive. It's not the season. Not for another 48 hours at least. Do Not Violate The Sacred Treaty.

...

Anyway, this ended up in my drafts for a few days, so: Christianity has not really gotten a foothold in soul society, but via cultural osmosis "Xmas" has. Nobody in a Shinto afterlife believes in monotheism, but they love a holiday and a Saint is practically a Kami anyway, but.... It's "Xmas" because the holiday in no way remotely resembles Christmas as practiced in the living world.

---

Scene: 4th Division hospital, a few days after Rukia is rescued and Aizen departed for Las Noches:

"-CHAD!!" Ichigo bellows, almost falling in through the doorway of the hospital room, wheezing.

"I am very sure you are not supposed to be out of bed." Chad frowned, looking up from the copy of the history of soul society Captain Komamura had lent him to read while he recovered.

It was strange, to be in the care of the very people he had thought to be senseless killers not two weeks ago, but he was finding the Shinigami a generally agreeable lot. Even if the captain that controlled the hospital reminded him unpleasantly of a nun with her chaste dress, soft voice and understated but constant threat of violence.

"YOU NEED YO HEAR THIS-! He- hee-" Ichigo stumbled over to his bed and curled up on his side overcome with giggles.

"... I'm beginning to think I am incorrect." Sighed the pale-haired man at the door, frowning down at Ichigo.

"Jushiro Ukitake, I don't think I've had the pleasure of your acquaintance yet, Mr.-?" The man introduced himself and offered Chad a hand.

"Uh. Yasutora. Sado Yasutora. But everyone calls me Chad." He mumbled, cautiously shaking hands with the stranger. "You're um. You're Miss Rukia 's boss, right?"

"Yes! I believe you are her friend with the pet parakeet and good throwing arm, yes?" Ukitake beamed at him and Chad was suddenly struck by the idea that he'd seen Ukitake at a family reunion before - Impossible, obviously, but the man had the intense aura of a distant uncle. "Good show that, she loves being hurled at an opponent!"

"Oh. Thank you." Chad mumbled, Ichigo finally catching his breath. "...What are you incorrect about?"

"Christmas, apparently." Ukitake frowned, and Ichigo dissolved into snickering again. "He says you're something of an expert on the actual mythology, I only have third-hand accounts, you see-"

"No!" Gasped Ichigo, reaching over to tug at Mr. Ukitake's sleeve. "You gotta tell him!"

"I am Catholic, yes." Chad nodded. "-go on. It can't be less accurate than the version Dr. Kurosaki- Uh, Ichigo's dad- gave me last year."

"Yeah it can-" Ichigo wheezed.

"Well, ah- Christmas is a birthday celebration for an important religious figure, right?" Ukitake tried.

"Yep!" Chad nodded, giving Ukitake a thumbs up.

"The birth of Rudolph, the Star-nosed reindeer?" Ukitake tried.

Chad stared at him blankly for a moment, before his thumbs-up slowly wilted into a thumbs down and Ichigo vibrated silently with hysterics. Chad opened and closed his mouth a few times, hand waving, then covered his mouth, searching for words. Eventually he reached out and gently put his hand on the captain's shoulder to explain as delicately as possible-

"...No." Said Chad.

Ichigo rolled off the bed with a dull thud.

"-I am, however, fascinated." Chad elaborated. "Please continue."

"...I'm really sorry that I am this ignorant of your religious dogma." Ukitake winced.

"It's- don't worry about it. Tell me what you think happens on Rudolph's birthday." Chad said, sitting back and pressing his hands together.

"Well- oh, how does it start? Right- there's the Monks- Saints? that give out presents to well-behaved children during the winter holidays- Saint Claus, Saint Nicolas and Saint Kringle. And they're all very old men, and with good judgement about who does and does not deserve presents, so they're called the three wise men!"

Ichigo made a noise like a teakettle from the floor.

"Oh. Oh no." Chad giggled.

"And they travel the entire world giving out presents, but that's A Lot of houses and it was taking them longer and longer so they prayed to... I forget the name Catholics have for Amaterasu. Guadalupe?"

Chad made a noise not unlike a violently squeezing a rubber duck, and started to shake.

"-So they pray for some help getting all the presents to the children, and Whoever She Is says they're doing good deeds, but she wants to see if they're REALLY worthy of that kind of miracle, so she sends them on a journey to recover some lost holy treasures, and on the way each of the holy men wrestles with and tames a demon representing some vice or another-"

"-I. I think you've gotten the Star of Bethlehem mixed up with The Journey West." Chad realized, hands pressed together in front of his face.

"Yes that's right! She marks the direction they're supposed to be going with a bright star! So they go West, following the star! "-Ok the three wise men traveling from the east following a star part is, in fact, accurate. What's this about demons?"

"It's some sort of allegory about how all the Saints are virtues so the demons represent the vices people fall into around the holiday- Being punitive or penurious and ruining good things for others. They all had weird names-" Ukitake frowned.

"What's going on?" Captain Kyorauku asked, sticking his head in the door.

"You'll know!" Ukitake chirped with excitement. "-What are the three demons the saints conquer in the Christmas myth?"

"Krampus the Child-beater, Scrooge the Miser, and... Ah fuck I always mispronounce the last one. He's green and he sucks? The Goonch?" Shunsui frowned.

"THE GOONCH?" Ichigo shrieked from the floor.

"I. I think you mean The Grinch." Chad said, experiencing a brand new combination of horror, delight and fascination that felt like the emotional equivalent of a shrimp color.

"That's him! Oscar The Grinch!" Shunsui nodded. "Why, its only August? Also, what's Kurosaki doing on the floor?

"We are apparently very misninformed about the mythlogical origins of Christmas. This amuses Kurosaki to the point of hysterics." Ukitake explained, lightly nudging Ichigo aside with his foot and sitting on the foot of Chad's bed.

"Your version is so much better." Chad said, vibrating with excitement. "What are these treasures they're supposed to get?"

"Oh you had to ask- Shunsui love, you were the one that heard it all from Captain Kuchiki when he did his tour in the living world."

"Oh for fuckssake of course it's Byakuya-" Ichigo groaned from the floor, and Ukitake gently kicked him in the ribs to shush him.

"Uhhhh... Let's see-" Shunsui scratched at his beard."There's Eight Lost Treasures, they're all magical bells that give anyone who rings them supernatural abilities- there's the Bell of Speed, Bell of Grace, Bell of Balance, Bell of Cunning, Bell of... ah fuck. I always forget the two in the middle... -Oh! Bell of destination- not like fate, like, always being able to find your way to where you're going. Bell of Affection, Bell that gives power over wind and Bell that gives power over lighting!"

Chad blinked at him, then slowly crumpled into a ball.

"...Mr. Yasutora?" Ukitake asked, gently touching his shoulder.

"This is amazing. I love it. I'm going to die." he whimpered, voice high and tight as he struggled to breathe from laughing.

"We may have already lost Mr. Kurosaki." Shunsui muttered, poking Ichigo's shoulder with his toe. "Anyway, they conquer the demons, get all the magical bells and make it to the distant city, aand Amaterasu says 'Great job!" Ukitake continued, enthusiastic as they approached his favorite part. "-But she says 'Here's your final test: I'm going to give a special gift to one of these creatures, you tell me which is the most deserving of my favor.' and then she turns them loose in some kind of farm with talking animals. They're all good and noble animals that have done many brave deeds- dogs saved children from drowning, horse that ran across a battlefield to deliver a message that stopped a war and so on- eventually the saints find a brand new baby fawn with a bright red nose. Since it was born just that morning, it's never done anything of note, and the other animals don't really like it because it's red nose means its kind of sickly and it cant see well so they don't want to play with it."

"YES!" Chad cheered, making the connection.

"Oh, that part is right?" Ukitake perked up.

"Not even remotely, but it's amazing. They pick the fawn right?

"That's right! The saints tell Amaterasu that the Baby deer Rudolph is the one that deserves her blessing, because while all the animals here are noble and good, no good deed is better than another, and of all the animals, the sickly little deer is the one that really needs her help."

"Oh no." Ichigo whimpered from the floor. "That's actually like. genuinely heartwarming."

"Amaterasu applauds them, because they've made the right choice, and she gives the power of the star to the baby deer so it very literally glows like a headlight, and She turns the eight magical bells into a herd of deer that all have the powers the bells they were made from had, so Rudolph has a family and the three wise men have a team of nine magical deer to pull the flying sleigh she gives them, and then they are able to deliver all the presents to all the children of the world in one night, and they do it every year on Rudolph's birthday, because he was the first one to receive a proper Christmas present!" Ukitake finished, giving Chad an excitable two thumbs up.

Chad, slowly tipped forward, faintly hissing with silent laughter, then rolled off the bed to join Ichigo on the floor. Ukitake peered after him with concern, until chad slowly raised a weak, shaking hand up to give Ukitake a thumbs up back.

"-What I can't figure is how the bucket of fried chicken fits into all that?" Shunsui pondered, and the boys shrieked with laughter.

#AEIWAM #An Elephant Is Warm And Mushy #Bleach #Bleach fanfic #chad yasutora #jushiro ukitake #shunsui kyoraku #ichigo kurosaki #Christmas mention #new frontiers in Syncretic Mythology #five or six kinds of blasphemy in one go

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