Kirisame General Store; Touhou-ri Village
9 years ago
The Kirisame General Store is bustling with activity today, both inside and outside, not because of a huge customer flow, but rather because the store's owner is having an inventory check, with assistance from his employees.
"Textiles, wooden carvings, decorative mantlepieces, ornamental swords..." Store owner Kirisame Daisuke said as he went through the inventory checklist.
"You missed these." Said a white-haired man as he placed a box before Daisuke.
Daisuke eyed the box briefly before raising his head to look at the white-haired man. "Fine china vases. Thank you for reminding me, Morichika."
The man, Morichika, waved his hand a bit. "All part of my job." He said. "By the way, your wife said she has something she wants me to pick up..."
Daisuke glanced over his shoulder at his home, the Kirisame Manor which is just down the street. "She's with my daughter right now. You can go ask her yourself. I'm very busy right now. Just tell the servants that I gave you permission to enter."
Morichika bowed politely. "Pardon my interruption, and thank you for the directions." With that, the white-haired man walked past Daisuke, letting the store owner resume his work.
...
Kirisame Manor
The Kirisame Manor isn't huge in any way, but it still bore the marks of a rich family being its tenants, with intricate paintings decorating its hallways, and bonsai trees and a koi pond decorating its central garden. There are also servants and the occasional bodyguards moving about in the hallways, doing their jobs. In every way, the Kirisame Manor looked like a typical Yamato manor...
With the exception of one room.
Instead of a paper sliding door like any Yamato household would have, the room is closed from the hallway by a solid wooden door with a western-looking door handle, and hung on the door is a small sign that says "Marisa's room" written not in Kanji or katakana, but in a western script.
If one was to press an ear against the door, they would hear the voice of a middle-aged woman speaking in a way that sounded like she is telling a story.
Indeed, that's what is happening right now: the mistress of the manor is telling her daughter a story.
"And so, Peter and his friends held their hands together as they shared the effort of enduring the excessive energy of the Power Stone which threatened to tear them apart. Then with a burst of stamina, Peter is able to briefly control the energy.
'You're mortal! But how?!' Exclaimed Ronan as he watched in utter disbelief of Peter's containing of the Power Stone's energy.
Peter, with a stare fueled by defiance, delivered to Ronan, 'You said it yourself, freak! We're the Guardians of the Galaxy!'
After throwing the warlord's insult from the previous day back at him, Peter then opened his left hand, firing much of the Power Stone's energy at Ronan.
Ronan yelled out in agony as the energy of the Power Stone quickly overwhelmed his body, before it tore him apart and reduced him to dust! And so ends the villainous career and life of Ronan the Accuser, for good!
Then with an amazing tolerance of agony, Gamora quickly slammed a container orb on the Power Stone, encasing it before it could kill anyone else."
As the mistress of the Kirisame household paused her storytelling briefly, a tiny pair of hands can be heard clapping. Those tiny hands belonged to the young mistress of the Kirisame household.
"Awe-some!" The young mistress said as she continued clapping her hands. "They kicked Ronan's ass!"
The mistress knelt down, coming face-to-face with her daughter, before raising a finger to flip the young mistress's fiery red hair, the same shade of red as her own. "Language, Genevieve. I told you a dozen times."
The young mistress groaned upon hearing that. "Moooom! Stop callin' me Genevieve!"
The mistress grinned a bit. "Why not? It's your name, Genevieve Rainymist..."
The young mistress, Genevieve, groaned again. "But I prefer bein' called Marisa!"
Before the mistress could tease her daughter any further, someone knocked on the door of the bedroom.
"Alright, Genevieve, I'll be right back to tell you the ending to the story..." The mistress said, earning yet another groan from Genevieve.
The mistress stood up and went to the door. With a push of the handle, she opened it...
To find a bespectacled white-haired man standing at the other side.
"Oh, it's you." The mistress greeted. "Why are you here?"
"商品があるって言ったのか?" Said the man.
The mistress scoffed. "Rinnosuke, I know you speak my language. Don't pretend you don't."
The man, Rinnosuke, looked like he was embarrassed about something. He cleared his throat a bit before speaking again, "As you wish, Mrs. Kirisame..." this time in the mistress's language.
The mistress groaned. "And don't be so formal. We're old friends, remember?" She told him. "And call me by my real name, please..."
Rinnosuke stiffened a giggle. "Well then, have it your way...Claire Rainymist..."
The mistress, Claire, smiled in satisfaction. "Good enough." She said. "Why are you here, anyway?"
"About that..." Rinnosuke responded. "You have something you want me to pick up?"
"Oh, that." Claire said. "It's right here..." She added as she bent down to pick up a small chest she left next to the door. "Here's everything I asked you to pick up, including the chest itself."
Rinnosuke scrutinized the chest for a bit. His senses is telling him that one of the few items inside the chest is a device capable of controlling people, start wars and destroy worlds. But it sounded ridiculous to him, so he assumed it must be his senses being wrong.
"That's all?" He asked.
"That's all." Claire answered. "I've got nothing else to pawn off this week."
Rinnosuke scrutinized the chest a bit more before taking it off Claire's hands.
"Anything else?" Rinnosuke asked.
"My little girl says hi." Claire answered as she glanced over her shoulder.
"Hi, Rinno~" Genevieve, or Marisa as she preferred to be called, greeted with a wave of her right hand.
Rinnosuke waved back with a smile. "Telling her some of your strange stories again?" He then asked Claire.
"You mean awesome stories..." Claire rebuked in a friendly way.
Rinnosuke laughed a bit at that. "Well, then. I'll see you again, Claire..."
With that, Rinnosuke turned and left.
Claire then closed the door.
"Alright, mom. Now tell me what happened to Peter and his friends after they kicked Ronan's ass!" Marisa said excitedly.
Claire slowly turned around to face her daughter, and smiled.
"I was just about to get to that..."
Character profiles
Kirisame Daisuke
Birthday: 16th of June, 2082
Birthplace: Gensokyo
Species: Mundane Human
Skills and Abilities: none
Hobby: Collecting fine art pieces.
Likes: Fine art pieces.
Dislikes: Unnecessary waste of resources.
A merchant known all over Gensokyo, Kirisame Daisuke runs a huge market of trading fine goods. He has all sorts of valuable items in inventory, from simple household items to intricate pieces of art, all of which he would sell at times.
Though there are occasions where he deemed something to be priceless, and kept for his own collections.
He earned some flak from his peers for marrying a western woman, and rearing a half-western daughter who behaves like a delinquent.
...
Morichika Rinnosuke
Birthday: 30th of September, 1875
Birthplace: Gensokyo
Species: Half-Youkai
Skills and Abilities: able to recognize the name and function of an item with a glance (not always correct, though).
Hobby: Collecting strange items.
Likes: Fancy-looking items.
Dislikes: Shoplifters and frauds.
At first glance, nothing's strange about Rinnosuke aside from his silvery white hair. In actuality, he's a half-Youkai hybrid who's older than Gensokyo's current human population. Only the Kirisame family members know about his heritage, though they don't mind it as he's a friendly person who regularly interacts with them and helps with their businesses.
He has the ability to know about the function and purpose of an object by looking at it. Although not only is this a hit-and-miss, the descriptions given are sometimes incomplete, leading to oftentimes embarrassing mistakes that could've been avoided by simply reading the instruction manual.
...
Claire Amanda Rainymist
Birthday: 7th of April, 2077.
Birthplace: "Not Gensokyo"
Species: Mundane Human
Skills and Abilities: none.
Hobby: Retelling stories from the outside world.
Likes: Fancy items, action-heavy stories.
Dislikes: Traditionalists.
Claire Amanda Rainymist is the only person living in Gensokyo who isn't really born in it. There are rumors that she may have been from the outside world, but she has declined to respond to any of those rumors.
Likes to make a lot of references to the outside world's works of fiction, even telling them as stories to her daughter.
Gave her daughter the middle name of "Genevieve".
And so ends the introduction of Young Maiden's Chronicles: Exotic Inventory, which is Curiosity of Lotus Asia adapted for the YMC-verse.
You're probably wondering: "Is that the climatic scene of Guardians of the Galaxy that Marisa's mom is telling as a story?" The answer for that: yes, that is indeed the climatic scene of Guardians of the Galaxy. When other girls get told stories about fairies and magic, Marisa gets a retelling of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films.
And you're now probably wondering: "How does a Gensokyian know about the plot of a movie from the outside world?" Well, about that, let's just say Claire's not exactly from Gensokyo...
Actually, that would explain how Marisa knows about outside world pop cultures: it's because she learned about them from her mom...
"And that, as they say, is that..."
Afterword ends here.