Author's Notes: I guess this should be started the way all people wanting to write good Self-insert fan fiction should start. That is, to toe the line of, but not quite apologize for doing it in the first place. So yeah, this is a bad idea and I'll probably screw up somewhere down the line. But I don't know that yet, so there's room for hope. I guess. Before we get going, just acouple things I felt were worth mentioning.

For starters, yeah, the OC is being shipped with a canon character. I figure if I'm doing one big ill-advised thing I may as well go for broke, so that's the thought process here.

Something else worth listing is the title. I'm not completely satisfied with it, but it's more pragmatic because I'm not entirely certain where I'm going yet but that remains true regardless.

Beyond that nothing else really worth mentioning, so... have at it, I guess.

Update: As of around 10:00 mountain time, the Thirtieth of August, I have rewritten the chapter. I wasn't entirely satisfied with it going in and two of the reviews I have gotten thus far made me want to play around with how the chapter is. Hopefully this doesn't happen every time.

Chapter 1: Impromptu Midnight Stroll

A forest sat illuminated beneath the full moon of a pleasant summer's night. A warm breeze weaved through the evergreens shading the forest floor and came out into a small clearing. The only noise was the song of bell crickets, complemented every so often by the sounds of rodents rushing through the brush. Nearby, a mountain rose high into the air, with several wisps of smoke rising off of the mountain into the heavens. Were you to ask most anyone, they would say this could be considered the perfect night.

So to punctuate this idyllic scene, from the clearing came several loud fuckwords, all existing as some combination of a whine, a moan, and a yell.

Well, the operative phrase for that statement was "most anyone." The source of the previous string of profanities, one Jack Erickson, really did not care about how nice tonight was. Which is really the more expected reaction to waking up in a clearing in the woods.

"Well, least the moon is full. Silver linings," Jack grumbled as he walked out from under the tree. Well, whatever happened hasn't stopped me from speaking to myself. Good to know.

Jack fished a smartphone from his pocket and checked the reception. No bars. Scowling in annoyance, Jack performed the same strange ritual he had done since he had first gotten a phone, which was to lift it above his head and shake it as though it would cause a cell tower to burst from the Earth like a gigantic metal plant. It has never happened before and it didn't this time either.

So Jack was left to leave the forest he found himself in using his own outdoorsmanship skills. He began checking around the clearing for any way he could've come here in an attempt to trace his way back. And that came up empty. So then he attempted to navigate his way home by the stars, only to curse the science class narcolepsy of a few years ago. With no other options, Jack elected to wander out of the clearing and see where that got him. Clearly, Jack's outdoorsman skills are not top notch.

"Going that way, are you?" came a voice from somewhere else in the clearing, stopping Jack dead in his tracks.

Now, as a purely rhetorical question, if you were lost in the woods, do you think the first other person you would meet would be a blonde, golden-eyed woman in an expensive purple dress? Neither did Jack, but that's how it went.

Jack, finding this odd, walked up to the strange woman from nowhere and asked what the problem with his choice of direction was.

"Well, what do you expect to find that way?" the woman asked.

"I figure maybe a road, maybe a police station, or…" Jack trailed off, rapidly losing confidence in what he was saying.

The woman smiled slightly, before saying, "Seems like you really don't believe you'll find anything either."

"Well, I don't plan to stand in this clearing all night, so I hope you have a suggestion," Jack said.

The woman glanced off into the trees, seemingly regarding what he had said as a joke, before pointing her parasol over her shoulder and saying, "The mountain."

"Hmm, sure is," Jack said, smiling the smile reserved for clever people and people who think they're clever.

"I'm trying to help you here, no need to get snippy," she said in a tone of faux-offense. "Anyway, near the top of the mountain is a shrine. I suggest you get climbing now." With that, she turned towards the treeline and began to walk away.

Jack spent acouple seconds considering what she said before it dawned on him to ask if he had any other options, and started to ask, only to find himself asking the air. She had left about as abruptly as she came. Still though, the mountain was the best bet he had right now, and he also didn't care to stick around the neck of the woods where people vanished at will, so he shrugged, put his hands in his pockets and started off in the direction of the mountain.

Akifumi Adachi looked at the Shogi board in front of him and for the millionth time in the span of the last ten minutes wished he hadn't spoken earlier. It didn't feel like impending doom going in. Just one of the other guardsmen going around and asking if anyone wanted to play the Captain in Shogi. One mention of, "Oh, I haven't played against her yet," later and he found himself trapped in the most hopeless game of his entire life, while ten other tengu crowded around the board, their eyes boring into his skull while his Captain nonchalantly danced around every move he had made to this point.

Just as Akifumi reached for his gold general, Captain Inubashiri held up a hand to stop him. Her ears began twitching and she sniffed at the air once or twice. She immediately got up from a sitting position, retrieving her shield and the large sword that accompanied it.

"All of you," she said, motioning towards the group of tengu still crowded around the Shogi board, "come with me." She then looked towards the other tengu floating above and shouted, "If anyone comes through here looking for me, tell them I've found intruders!"

The group of twelve tengu departed from the waterfall. One of them moved to Momiji's side and asked, "Intruders, Ma'am?"

"Two. One human, the other," she paused to take a confirming sniff of the air, "umbrella."

Akifumi, bringing up the rear, sighed in relief. Compared to playing the Captain in Shogi, combat was fine.

Jack had never been an easy scare. When he was a young kid he could watch a horror movie and be asleep, peacefully, half an hour later. He was the person who laughed his way through horror games and didn't really mind walking alone at night. With few exceptions, Jack could only really get scared if he worked himself up into it. Which was, of course, what he was doing right now.

His walk up the mountain had started okay, occupying his mind with thoughts of Gundam models and video games. But then, as the canopy got thicker, he began picking at his own brain, imagining what was outside the cone of light given off by the flashlight on his phone. Confusing the noises of small animals for something larger stalking him through the brush. The long and short of it is that Jack was not enjoying his hike.

Finally tiring of having small heart attacks brought on by squirrels and birds he couldn't see, Jack paused at a thicket of bamboo, and finding one of a length he liked, wrestled it out out of the ground. Not only did it settle the nerves he had been riling up himself, if there really was anything in these woods he was confident a whack with a bamboo stick was going to at least make it consider maybe it had better things to do. Happy with his weapon, Jack continued along down the path.

In a tree a few meters away, a pair of mismatched eyes watched the human turn away from the several pieces of bamboo shooting out of the ground and begin walking in their direction.

This is perfect! He hasn't figured out I'm here and he already seems a bit tense! I knew it was a great idea to come to the mountain!

Kogasa hooked her legs around the branch she was sitting on and positioned her free hand to help her swing down into the human's line of sight. As she did this, the human below was close to passing beneath her branch.

Alright. 3… 2… 1… "BO-"

WHAM!

Something slammed into his head, knocking Jack flat. He barely managed a groan before the weight of an entire other person slammed down, backside-first, on his midsection. As if the universe was trying to add one last joke to this physical comedy routine, a geta fell out of the air and smacked him square in the face.

As his head swam laps, he heard a female voice apparently having a panic attack. "Oh no! Is he dead? Did I kill him? He's no good to me dead! A dead person isn't surprised, that's not how it works! A dead person is just dead! Can I ask his ghost?"

Jack managed a groan.

The owner of the voice looked over her shoulder, and saw Jack attempting to blink his eyes back into focus.

"Oh, you're not dead!" she exclaimed, "That makes this much easier! Did that surprise you at all?"

"Well, I guess I didn't expect a concussion today. So that's surprising enough," Jack deadpanned. Good, the sarcastic part of my brain still works, he thought, rubbing the throbbing ache from his forehead.

The voice broke out laughing, and cheerfully exclaimed, "Yes, I knew my intuition was right! This mountain was a great place to surprise people!"

Who am I talking to, anyway? Jack thought, directing the screen of his phone towards the source of the voice. And the red-blue heterochromia and turquoise hair he found under the phone's light made him wonder, briefly, if he had somehow run into two people coming from the same costume party.

Kinda cute, anyway. I can think of worse people to crash headfirst into on a mountain, Jack thought. "Well, I guess I'm glad to have been a help, Ms…" Jack trailed off, inviting the girl to give him her name.

"Kogasa. Kogasa Tatara," Kogasa introduced herself, "Nice to meetcha."

"Jack Erickson. Likewise," Jack said. He looked down and continued, "Now Kogasa, could you uh… get off of me?"

"Oh, sorry," she said, as she leapt off of his torso and smiled sheepishly. "You're not hurt, are you? The 'landing on you' thing wasn't really part of my plan."

"Oh no, I've had worse than this," Jack said, picking himself up off the ground.

"Oh, well that's good," she said. "If you don't mind me asking, why are you up on this mountain? It's dangerous for people like you to be up here."

Guess there is something up here. Bamboo was a good idea, I guess, Jack thought. "Well, I ran into someone else a bit ago and she directed me to a shrine near the top of the mountain. You wouldn't happen to know where that is, would you?"

"Oh yeah, I know where you're talking about. Would you mind terribly if I showed you the way up there?" Kogasa asked.

"No, it's fine. I only need directions, really. Rather not be a hassle." he said.

"Nonsense," Kogasa said, grabbing him by the sleeve of his coat. "I'd be happy to show you there."

"Well, okay. On the condition that I can have my arm back," Jack said.

"Oh, sorry," Kogasa said, releasing his sleeve.

For the next twenty or some minutes, the two walked up the mountain, managing to strike up a conversation about nothing in particular. Upon reaching a length of the path where the trees spread out some though, Kogasa noticed something peculiar.

"Jack," she said, interrupting his explanation as to why open-toed shoes bugged him, "do you hear anything?"

"Uh… no," Jack said. His eyes went wide as he caught on with what she meant. Earlier, there had been sounds. The chirping of crickets, birds flying between branches, squirrels. Now it was quiet, no ambient sound aside from the wind in the trees.

"Look out!" Kogasa yelled, swinging her right arm around to Jack's back and knocking him to the ground as a flash of silver whizzed above his head, claiming a few hairs as it went.

Looking around, Kogasa found herself surrounded by a group of the mountain's Guardsman Corps.

Getting back up, Jack was greeted with the sight of several dog-eared people with swords.

The shortest one among them, hefting a sword as thick as a surfboard with no strain, spoke. "This is as far as you get up the mountain. Turn back now, or else."

Jack was beginning to think there was more to tonight than just being lost in the woods.

So that's one chapter down (and updated) out of I don't know how many. Hope you enjoyed it. Constructive criticism and comments welcome and appreciated.