The New Winds

Aiichirō's day went pretty badly, but quite better than yesterday — at least he did the wrestling exercise he trained for correctly. But everyone else seemed to do much, much better,even those who did not train at all.
So there he was, on his focused studies hour, searching for Ginkarasu. He watched how his friends went, and he did well on Architecture!

Ginkarasu is hard at work attempting to keep an area of the dojo free of mud. And people keep walking in and out, so he keeps recleaning it.

Rain days! Aargh!

There he found him... Still on his part of the cleaning duty. Aiichirō nodded and looked around for a sweeper, helping Ginkarasu on it.
"Everyone is studying now."

"Yeah. So many people are so very talented! So far I've just been really good at not getting hit." He shakes his head. "I bet people are getting real competitive."

"I'm not even good at this. And I am catastrophic at jiujitsu too. And barely could do the first day evaluation check." He said, sweeping the floor.

"But you knew all those obscure knowledge things!" He looks up, "I only knew things about architecture because of you!"

"But those are not bushi things. And I really didn't want to focus on engineering, but apparently it's all I'm worth on."

He frowns a bit. "Do you want some help in learning how to defend yourself?"

"Would love to. The Jiujitsu ones helped a little, but I still made a fool out of myself."

He nods at that. "I'd probably try and focus on how to avoid getting hit. And maybe kenjutsu? I'm trying to learn kyujutsu as well, which once I found a bow whose string doesn't break, seems to be going okay for me."

"If you usually break bow strings, you must be being too harsh with them. Or not. Don't know a lot about bows, but I know something about Kenjutsu. And war fans as a weapon, as odd as it sounds."
He looks to Ginkarasu.

A brief nod, "Oh yeah! Have you ever practiced with metal war fans? They can be really sharp!"

"Yes. We usually practice first with the normal fans, then we were given the metal ones when our sensei was confident enough on our ability not to hurt ourselves by accident."

"I've never practiced with them myself, just been impressed by them. You have to be really confident to use them against a sword."

"They are an off-hand weapon. You use it to parry strikes."
He looked at Ginkarasu again, corner of the eye.
"You know... I usually did well at my dojo. Not incredibly well, but well enough. And since most people did well, I wonder sometimes if you are bringing me bad luck."

He winces, then looks to Aiichiro.

"It's..it is possible. I'm sorry. That's what," He gestures at his face and the myriad of white spots all over it. "That's what everyone thought growing up. I'm no Golden Carp like the Yasuki everyone knows. I'm the Silver Raven. Harbringer. Marked by death. Not as good as gold."

He sweeps some more.

"I'll understand if you don't want to be friends. It's what happens most of the time."

Aiichiro thought sometimes before on breaking up of sorts, but now... He didn't say that with any expected reaction in particular — it was just something that he said without thought, without care. But he could see how it affected Ginkarasu with the explanation — to live feeling that you had no one nearby at all, no one to rely on — and it was a feeling he could relate to. Feeling like this your entire life was awful, and no one deserved to feel this way.
When Aiichirō fell, he was comforted. Multiple times. He thought he knew how to do it towards others now.
"Ginkarasu-san." He said, looking at him, trying to think on what he should say next. It was harder than he thought.

"It's why I didn't want you to owe me a favor. People get angry when they owe someone a favor they think is unlucky. I thought. I thought coin was easy. No favors. But you never wanted to pay."

He sweeps more, even strokes. "Weird. The Otomo was very insistent on favors being more important. And her servant only left one zeni. And you don't make an Otomo mad when your family needs the Otomo to say yes so your parents can trade a bunch of mochi for a banquet to the Emperor and turn that into food for the Wall."

He bends down to make sure the spot he's sweeping isn't just darker floor instead of mud.

"So maybe she shows up tonight, and returns the favor. Maybe I learn something. Maybe she starts losing too, because she dared talk to me. Maybe my sensei sent me so my unluckyness will ruin this whole thing."

He starts sweeping again. "But that's my kharma. You don't have to be burdened by it. It's probably better for the clan if you make lots of friends who can help you do Kaiu things."

Ginkarasu was frustrated. Quite of angry. Fighting against this kind of thing was fruitless if the person didn't have the initiative to stop it by themselves. He could argue that he didn't own anything or that's because he never said the price, but it wouldn't help. Aiichiro continued to sweep the floor.
"I kind of lost track of what you were talking about, but if it's because people aren't paying you, I can make up for this. You can take how much you want from my bag, but leave at least seven zeni so I can make an offering to the shrine when I pray."
He looked again to Ginkarasu.
"When I said that everyone was studying, I meant that you are the last one left cleaning up as far I have seen. People finished what they had to do already. I can end this for you if you would like, I don't mind it. Like, I'm already sweeping anyway." He tried to make it sound like it wasn't a big deal.

He looks to Aiichiro a second.

Then shakes his head. "I figure cleaning is a good way to train your ability to find the dirt. It's a type of studying."