Authors notes, read these! This is an entry for Zokusho's Mostly Lucky Star Forum's eleventh fanfic challenge. Now, the problem is that the theme for this challenge was: "Write a shameless Self Insert" or "Write a bad fanfic". I tried to make this an enjoyable read anyways (looking back, I failed), but please give it a read.
Anyways, here we go!
A Dipper Rises
Satori shook her head as she tried to come to terms with what had happened. One second she was going to bed, and the next she was in this wasteland, transported within a millisecond. At least she wasn't alone in her predicament. She heard confused thoughts all around her, and all of them asked roughly the same thing (with varying levels of profanity):
"What the *BEEP* happened!"
Amongst the transported individuals lied Marisa, whose landing involved getting getting thrown face-first into the dessert-like ground. As a result, she was slightly more confuzzled than usual. But even with her splitting head-ache, she knew one thing. When she caught the person behind this (AKA Yukari), she would give that person a piece of her mind. In other words, she was gonna Master Spark till the world caught fire.
"Okay, who needs an anchor to the head?"
To her left, Marisa could see the captain of the Palanquin ship, Minamitsu Murasa. Like everybody else, she seemed to have been moved against her will. And Marisa could hear that the captain was on her side when it came to gap-hag smackdown.
"According to miss Kirisame here, it is the youkai of boundaries, Yukari Yakumo." Satori spoke up, possibly to stop the ghost of the shipwreck from going berserk on someone. Though Marisa found the three-eyes' presence inside her head really annoying. "That was rather rude, Marisa."
"Compared to what I'm gonna do to Yukari, it was like holding a charity event."
There was a general agreement amongst the kidnapped people. All of them knew Marisa, and they knew Marisa knew pretty much every troublemaker in Gensokyo. And even if she lied, Satori would be able to tell.
Mokou smacked her knuckles together. "So, how are we gonna bring the old hag out here?"
"I am afraid that won't be necessary" a voice nobody recognized boomed from everywhere and nowhere. "For the true perpetrator is I!"
A well time lightning bolt appeared out of nowhere, and as the light faded a silhouette appeared in it's place. As the gathered youkai (and the single human) regained their eyesight, they saw a human male in his late teens. White hair adorned his head and his eyes were shielded by a pair of nondescript glasses. His body was covered by what someone with outside knowledge would recognize as a school uniform.
Marisa, however, paid no attention to that. She quickly grabbed her broom, transported with her on arrival, and flew towards the newcomer.
"Take this!"
She flung her arm forward, releasing a myriad of small stars in all the colours of the rainbow towards the white-haired boy. He adjusted his glasses using his middle finger, after which he dodged to the side.
"Did you truly think an attack of that caliber had a chance of hitting me?" He did a backwards somersault in the air for no apparent reason, before landing on the ground below. "I am Kaito Michishige, member of the Pen Club and survivor of the Ayumu incident!"
""No, I didn't. That was just to initiate the duel." Marisa reached within her ropes and pulled forth a small octagonal object. The mini-hakkero. "This is where it begins." And ends, Marisa wanted to add, but she knew better than to assume that. After all, she learned this technique after dodging it herself. She held the Hakkero in front of her, aiming it towards Kaito.
Love sign: "Master Spark"
An enourmous amount of energy passed through the small device, completely obliterating all in it's path with the signature sound of a giant, magical laser.
As one might have expected from his bombastic boasting, Kaito levitated off the ground and flew out of the destructive path.
"Good to see you aren't holding back, witch." He said, eyeing his opponent through his clear glasses. "I wasn't wrong in choosing you for a warm-up."
"I'll give you a warm-up!" A voice shouted behind him. Promptly followed by a lot of fire.
Immortal: "Fire Bird -Flying Phoenix-"
Fujiwara no Mokou, the eternal being of flames, had snuck up (slash-flown behind) the outsider in the midst of the battle and unleashed a fiery phoenix shaped projectile of death upon him. With all the speed Kaito could muster, he turned mid-air and narrowly managed to dodge a burning defeat.
"So you've decided to join the fun as well, Miss Fujiwara?" Kaito said, throwing the pseudo-human an aside glance. "I'm afraid your flames aren't enough for you to win this."
"Then it's a good thing they aren't all we've got!" A third fighter had entered the fray. "Even if you aren't Yukari, I'll show you no mercy!"
Capsize: "Dragging Anchor"
Kaito had barely managed to stabilize his flight before a freaking anchor flew right in front of him, grazing the tip of his nose. The deadly projectile left in its wake a lesser swarm of bullets, each of them trying to the boy out of the skies. Unfortunately for the girls, Kaito avoided every single one of them. Minamitsu, thrower of the flying anchor, flew behind her opponent in an attempt to mitigate this. With a tremendous heave, she pulled an imaginary rope towards her, dragging the ship-wrecking anchor with her. It took all the strength Kaito had at the moment to dodge it once more, but he succeeded, to the chagrin of the dead captain.
"Another pawn has joined us!" The arrogant villain smiled has he greeted his opponent. "Captain Murasa, your infamous hishaku is no match for my own weapon of choice."
Minamitsu just stared at him like he was an idiot. Her little, bottomless ladle? That was what he was afraid of? She hadn't even used it yet in this battle. Of course, Minamitsu couldn't rely entirely on her anchor, so she had planned to use it eventually, but that plan was postponed when Kaito readied his first attack. Marisa, Murasa and Mokou all readied themselves to dodge, for none of them knew what the man was planning.
The only one of them who should have known instead spent her time staring in a surreal horror at the glasses-wearer. It wasn't the fact that he had kidnapped herself, an old enemy and two total strangers that frightened Satori, nor was it the fact that their attacks had little to no effect on him. It was the fact that she couldn't read him. Her third eye stared endlessly at his visage, but not a single thought, desire or emotion was visible. It was a trait Satori had only seen once before, and she hadn't liked it back then...
"BEHOLD MY POWER!" Kaito shouted with his hands raised as if beckoning the skies for rain.
"THE POWER THAT HAS BEEN PASSED DOWN THROUGH MY FAMILY BLOODLINE FOR GENERATIONS," another well-timed lightning bolt split the sky, which was slowly turning crimson,
"THE POWER THAT EARNED ME MY VERY NAME," energy began to gather between Kaito's hands,
"THE ALLMIGHTY," the energy went out of balance, with more gathering near his right hand,
"INVINCIBLE," the energy stopped gathering and it's glow slowly subsided, revealing the form it had taken.
"BIG DIPPER OF THE OCEAN!"
Despite the severity of the situation, Marisa couldn't help but chuckle. The mighty enemy that had dodged all of their attacks with was currently holding an overgrown wooden spoon in his hands. It wasn't even prettily decorated or anything. In fact, it could use some sandpaper polishing. But no matter how ridiculous he looked, Marisa wouldn't underestimate him. Even the weakest fairy can shoot down a dragon using the spellcard rules.
So, to put an end to his posing, Marisa decided to throw some more stars at him. Some people might accuse the ordinary witch of being a one trick pony (technically a two-or-three trick pony, but that was being overly literal), but she chose to view as her own signature style instead. And if it worked, she would be pretty damned stupid if she didn't use it.
Of course, it didn't work in this situation. Even though Mokou and Murasa supplied with their own charms and bullets, they were all consumed by a raging flame that had appeared inside the so-called "Big Dipper".
Big Dipper: "Sea of Gehenna"
Kaito hardly looked at his opponents as he lowered his weapon down to his waist. His gaze wandered into realms unknown as he slowly pulled the dipper through the air, as if every centimeter required tremendous strength. Then, with a mighty roar, he tore the dipper out of whatever was slowing it down, unleasing a mighty firestorm from the head of the spoon upon the hapless girls. Marisa and Murasa predictable flew the hell away, but Mokou simply glared it down. As the flames engulfed her, Satori (who was out of range) heard something on two fronts. Her ears heard a terrible scream, and her eye heard an incredible amount of pain and surprise. Marisa looked mildly surprised at the events.
"He's even burning Mokou... Just who is that guy?"
*Ø*Ø*Ø
Mokou wasn't one to lie. While this hurt alot, and was probably one of her more painful deaths, she'd encountered worse, like the time when she had Kaguya's Hourai Branch surgically operated into her. Without sedation. She had then spent the next 5 hours battling her way out of Eientei again. But that was a tale for another time. No, the pain wasn't why she screamed. Mokou screamed because it was fire burning her like this. Mokou has had her fire-related abilities for quite a while, and wreathing herself in flames was actually one of her preferred Kaguya/late-night drunk deterrents. So getting burned by flames was an entirely new and not at all pleasant experience for the last surviving member of the Fujiwara family.
Unfortunately for the little Kaito, Mokou was used to new and surprising experiences. A thousand years of dying in creative ways would do that to you. So she answered his spellcard with one of her own.
Deathless: "Xu Fu's Dimension"
Charms of blue and red erupted of of the flame-covered girl, entrapping Kaito in an advance construction, continuously barraging him from both his front and his back. In the meantime, Satori approached the witch and the captain for a discussion of the plan.
"As you've noticed, this guy isn't normal." Her third eye turned in it's socket, switching between the two girls in front of it and Mokou fighting in the distance. "We cannot beat him like this."
Murasa rested her anchor on her shoulders. "We can take him, I'm sure. We just need to get one goo-"
"I cannot read his mind."
"An-"
"I'm a satori, we can read everybody's hearts."
"You su-"
"Yes. You were just thinking of curry."
Murasa felt very tempted to smack Satori over the head right now. Satori promptly took a step back.
"Anyways, you are probably overestimating him, Satori." Marisa tried to lighten the mood a bit. "The only reason you cannot read his mind is because nothing happens up there. Why else do you think he'd pick a fight with the four of us?"
And for some strange, inexplicable reason, Kaito was able to hear them over the sound of bullets trying to kill him. And he saw no problem in explaining why he was third-eye proof.
"Fools! My mind is operating on a higher level than yours! There's no way it can be read by the likes of you!"
"Shut up and die!" Was all Mokou had to say on the matter, and to prove her point, she increased the power of her spellcard. The charms now managed to actually hit Kaito, much to his displeasure. Satori could have sworn her third eye picked something up when the boy was hit.
"Enough of this charade!" He shouted as he placed the Dipper in front of him, facing Mokou. "I will break you!"
Fire Burst: "Emerald Firestorm"
Like the name might have suggested, a gazillion green fireballs flew out of the dippers head towards the consumer of the Hourai elixir. Mokou, however, stood her ground, not being pushed back a single centimeter from the barrage. Despite having her hands and arms scorched from the flaming assault, not a single look of fear, doubt or panic disgraced her face. A fact Kaito really should have payed more attention to.
"Don't forget that there are more than one enemy in this fight!"
Flood: "Venus at the Bilge"
In a torrent of raging waters, Minamitsu appeared behind the flameweilders. The very same waters that once took her life were now following her every beck and call, and she had every intent to crush her opponent. With great speed she flushed past Kaito, dragging the titular flood along with her. Had one payed attention, one could see a scared look on Kaito's face right before the bullets struck him. Naturally, Satori noticed this.
"His mind isn't totally blank..." Satori looked thoughtfully at the kidnapper, before turning towards Marisa, who had decided to let Murasa have a little fun on her own. "Could you hold him still for a while? I have a plan that mi- Good to hear."
Once again, Marisa felt a little violated that her thoughts were being read, but Satori had gotten the right idea. Besides, Marisa had a theory she'd like to test. "I will captivate him with my womanly charms!"
"No, you won't."
"Ah, you got me. But I will captivate, no doubt about that."
And with that, Marisa speed off towards the battlers, and was mildly surprised that Satori followed her.
Kaito was currently busy dodging the combined forces of Mokou's charms and Murasa's flood, so he didn't noticed the witch and youkai approaching.
"Mind if I join?" Marisa said and proceeded to attack without waiting for an answer.
Magic Sign: "Stardust Reverie"
A myriad of stars flew out from Marisa's center and magic circles towards the male human, some of them where even redirected towards him after they had been initially shot in the wrong direction. And, of course, Kaito hardly had time to think oh crap before Satori emerged from the cover of stars and unleashed her own spell card.
Recollection: Terrible Souvenir
The third eye that adorned her chest shone brightly as laser sights surged out of it, all of them aiming at Kaito. The spiraling patterns of bullets ensued that the boy, in his hurry to dodge the lasers, crashed into the still-flowing charms and watery bullets of Mokou and Murasa. Naturally, the boy wasn't pleased at this.
"Annoying little twerps!" With a mighty slam of his dipper, he dispelled all the bullets around him. "This shall be your END!"
Flames began to surround the Big Dipper, running alongside its shaft with a perilous speed. It coated the weapon, enveloped it in its orange tongues and extended long beyond the end of the wood.
Ancient fire: "Surts flammehav"
With a powerful swing, the flames soared through the air with the intent of striking down the opposing girls. They formed a flexible blade over ten meters long, and where it touched the ground, nothing but scorched earth was left in its had the unfortunate fate of being the first standing in the way of the spell card and was promptly divided in two for her troubles (not that she hadn't gotten used to such things by now). This served as a firm warning to the others not to get hit. A warning they managed to heed by frantic dodging.
Fortunately, Satori's plan was beginning to unfold. Inside Kaito's mind, a small seed had taken root. A seed that was bearing fruit this very second.
"For some weird reason I cannot pretend to know, you've managed to deceive my third eye, Kaito Michishige." Satori said, after she had stabilized herself following the boys attack. "But even you feel the primal emotions. Even you can't help but dread the coming of pain and the prospect of death."
The satori threw her arms out wide as she explained the situation further. "Your darkest memories and worst fears! All of them are as clear to me as an open book! The mind is easily molded, it's weak points just as easily exposed! So this is where the battle truly begins, and your end will come!" Satori pulled forth a card from her inner sleave, and initiated her spell card. "This nemesis of a spell card comes from the depths of your history!"
Recollection: "Icicle Fall"
This time, Marisa couldn't hold back her laughter at all. Kaito had either found a fool-proof way of fooling Satori, or else he had a REALLY screwed up concept of threat. Satori's outstretched hands released several icicles, each of the slowly approaching Kaito. With a snap of her fingers, Satori also released a series of smaller bullets to cover up the rather obvious blind spot right in front of her.
Kaito, meanwhile, was currently sweating bullets. If Marisa's first theory was correct, then Kaito was an actor the likes of which appeared once a century. He was busy trying to desperately move left and right to avoid the oncoming projectiles. And Murasa saw this as an opportunity.
Anchor Sign: "Ghost Ship's Long Moorings"
Yet again did Murasa unleash an anchor upon the white-haired boy, except that this time, he couldn't dodge. And as it smashed him into the ground, Kaito realised that it wasn't going to let him go soon. The anchor weighed him down like it had taken many a ship in the past.
"Hey, leave some for me as well, ghostie."
Marisa wasn't going to let the captain take all the fun. Grabbing her Hakkero tight, she flew up and above the trapped Kaito, and silently murmured her spell to her reactor. Then she released her beloved annihilation.
Star Sign: "Dragon Meteor"
An almost infinitely powerful laser descended upon the encumbered boy, obliterating the ground around him as it did. Satori heard an incredible scream of pain echo inside his brain alongside the remnants of terror still lingering after the Terrible Souvenir.
As Marisa's blast faded, Kaito emerged from the smoker crater, the anchor that bound him had been annihilated. He pulled the Big Dipper of the Ocean forth once more, preparing another inferno for launch.
Of course, none of the girls present wanted that to happen.
Ultimate Fi-
"Beating us won't be that easy!"
Recollection: "Bad Fortune"
As Kaito was about to release the flames he had gathered, Satori responded with releasing another one of his bad memories. Dark energies imitating that of a curse goddess erupted from Satori's hands, spinning in circles and firing bullets towards the white-haired outsider.
Like the last time, the attack seemed to threaten Kaito far more than it really should. Not that the newly resurrected Mokou cared about that.
"This is for bisecting me, punk!"
Everlasting: "Phoenix Tail"
As an inferno huger than any Kaito could have dreamed of conjuring appeared out of Mokou's body, Marisa and Murasa decided to try and keep him down, seeing as he was too stupid to die from pure firepower.
"Let's do this, Anchor Captain."
"Already ahead of you, Thieving Witch."
Light Sign: "Earth Light Ray"
Drowning Sign: "Deep Vortex"
As the impressive display of fire, water and laser obscured any visage of Michishige, only Satori had any idea of how their opponent was doing. And amongst the pain that danmaku always brought, she noticed an emotion that never brought anything good with it. The emotion that once took Koishi from her. Anger.
"It's not over yet..."
"YOU BET IT'S NOT!" Kaito's voice boomed from deadly vortex of magic. "You've attacked me for the la-OW... Last time, girls! THIS WILL BE YOUR UNDOING!"
The barrage of attacks that Mokou, Murasa and Marisa kept up was devoured by fireballs of all the colours of the rainbow. Like most sane people would do, they immediately backed of to a safe distance. As expected, Kaito stood in the former epicenter of the attacks, with singed, torn clothes and a crazed look on his face.
"And this time, I mean it."
Ultimate fire: "Blazing Poseidon"
It was a horrendous attack. It had no weak spots, no frailties, not a single safe spot. There was nowhere to hide and you couldn't run far enough.
It was a massacre.
*Ø*Ø*Ø
"I did it!" Kaito laughed exhausted. Using that attack had drained him. He couldn't even keep his Dipper manifested anymore, so it had turned to ashes. "It took everything I had, but I beat them."
He landed on the ground, standing above his beaten opponents. They were alive, danmaku couldn't kill after all, but they could hardly move a muscle.
Marisa's hat had been disintegrated, burned to a crisp five seconds after the attack begun, her apron lied tattered across the battlefield, and a splintered broom could theoretically be assembled from the broken pieces that decorated the now sufficiently broken battlefield. Satori, on the other hand, lied unconscious across a boulder, her third eye now like that of her sister. Of Murasa, all that was left was a pile of melted metal. Her body was nowhere to be found.
It was only with great strain that Mokou, the human that couldn't die, managed to look upon the guy who had beaten her. Kaito himself smiled a merciless smile.
"Now, I'll just have to-ARGH!" The student was stopped from finishing his sentence by a searing pain crushing his mind. Mokou looked on in bewilderment as Kaito's hand tore into his skull, trying to relieve him of whatever was tormenting him like that. "NO! I'm not ready yet."
His voice got distorted, like a force from beyond was stretching slowly and painfully. With the few remains of strength he had left, he tried to batter an imaginary opponent away.
"I just need a little more time! Please!"
Finally, his powers gave up, unable to fight whatever was attacking him. Mokou watched as the boy fell to the ground, screaming one last word. "!"
As Kaito lied lifelessly on the ground, Mokou saw a portal open behind him. Human hands appeared out of nowhere and tore a hole in the very fabric of space and time. As it grew to a size large enough for a man to pass through, a blonde woman equipped with an umbrella pulled herself out it.
"I had a feeling someone had been playing around with pocket dimensions." She said, before casting her eyes upon the defeated Mokou. "Why, hello there Mokou. Remember to clean up your guts before leaving this place, okay?"
Had Mokou had the energy, she would have sighed. There was no way to clean up all those charred remains that was once part of her body. Still, she recognized the figure in front of her. Yukari Yakumo, the original suspect of the kidnapping case. As the manipulator of boundaries, it was a given that she could come here. Wherever here was anyways.
The ancient youkai then took a look at the burned out boy, and seemed to think for a second before asking the phoenix:
"So, do you guys want a lift back? No need to worry about this sleepyhead. He got here on his own and he can get back on his own." Yukari paused for a second, before adding: "At least, I think he can."
Mokou wasted no time before nodding weakly, and Yukari proceeded to open up gaps near every girl in the vicinity. As she quickly pushed her arm into the gap near herself, it appeared out of each other gap and pulled the respective girl back into it (Mokou both wondered how that worked and dreaded what would happen to the Murasa, given her lack of a body). Right before Mokou was thrown into the torn world, Yukari asked a pretty weird question.
"Any idea why that guy is feigning death?"
The End.
Authors Notes:
Hi guys, whoever managed to reach the end. This is Omegahugger, and this has probably been the worst roller-coaster ride I've delivered yet. Lots of bumps and possibly a few holes in the tracks. And the camera sucks, working a bit like the mirror from the Snow Queen. And the mascot just lost his head, leading to an unearthly sound scaring all the kids. And this metaphor has officially gone wrong.
Anyways, in case any of you were wondering, the looks and name of Kaito Michishige was taken on the character from Pen, Paper, Action! (also called Umiyuri), a little project we've worked on at Zokusho's Mostly Lucky Star Forum. Of course, I completely eradicated his personality and gave it some of my own, so think of it as an entity called Regguh Agemo possesing the poor dude... He wasn't responsible for his actions, okay?
His attacks were drawn from things I could see myself use, and in case you are wondering, "Surts Flammehav" means "Surt's Sea of Flames" in danish. Surt was a jætte (Jotun or giant, if you want), who would light the world on fire at Ragnarok and wielded a sword burning brighter than the sun, sometimes called Lævateinn (I only noticed that reference after deciding the attack...).
Oh, and Jeiku is an easter egg. Some will get it, some will not.