Shinobu's Inn
Chapter 1: All Down To Me Now
Shinobu Maehera had just returned from her latest shopping excursion, arms adorned with brown paper grocery bags as she stepped up the stairs to the Hinata. The sky was slightly overcast, the clouds overhead threatening snow as the temperature had grown quite brisk. Shinobu reached the top of the stairs and walked towards the Hinata Inn, a girls-exclusive dormitory, and her current place of residence. However, this dorm was unique in the fact that the manager was male.
While normally that would probably be a bad thing, in this situation one would be surprised at the authority the residents held over their manager...
...
Shinobu walked into the Hinata expecting something eventful to happen; she thought Keitaro would have been launched into a complimentary free-fall by the curtosy of Naru or Motoko, or that one of Su's inventions would have caused something to explode, but to her surprise, nothing happened. Infact, the house was completely quiet. Completely, deathly quiet. Too quiet.
Darkness greeted Shinobu as she walked into the Hinata. The TV was off, and all the lights were out. She heard no one speak, and she heard no activity from the house. The wind blew softly, rustling the trees outside. The clock ticked on the wall, powered by its own batteries, of course.
Now, this was particuarly peculiar because it was both day time and it was highly unlikely everyone left at once to do something. It was just barely mid day, it was the weekend, and somebody would have told her, surely, that they were all going to be out simultaneously or have gone somewhere together or... In any case, there was no indication that the residents should be out at this time; no notes, no prior communication, anything.
The initial reaction to this situation was to promptly freak out. "U-Urashima-senpai?...N-Narusegawa-senpai!?", Shinobu called out, and nothing happened. No responses, no movement, the house was empty. "K-Keitaro-senpai!?", Shinobu called out once again.
Shinobu cautiously stepped towards the kitchen; she might aswell pack the groceries so that they don't get neglected. Entering the kitchen, she flicked the light switch. Nothing happened, again. Shinobu, despite her level of worry steadily increasing, sat down the bags and started moving foods and drinks to the fridge. Shinobu opened the refridgerator, which was off because it, unlike the clock, did not run off of batteries.
Shinobu's worries of the power being out drifted to how the food would go bad, and potentially be wasted. Shinobu placed the groceries back at the table, and came back to the fridge to open it up again. Upon opening it, Shinobu was greeted by a transparent, admittedly cartoony green ghost staring back at her.
"Heoh!" said the ghostly figure, as it waved its hand at her.
And thus, Shinobu screamed.
"Kyaaaahhhh~!"
Shinobu immediatly bolted out of the kitchen, and out of the Hinata, hastily shutting the door behind her as she tried to readjust her breathing. She had never seen anything like that, and while there were times she wondered about the existence of ghosts, she never imagined they'd look like that. Shinobu calmed herself- surely, that was just some holographic projection. Su was probably laughing her little rump off in her room somewhere, viewing the kitchen safely from a camera or something. Surely.
Shinobu slowly opened the door to the Hinata, and looked inside.
There was a green ghost juggling couch cushions, and another one with the shade of a lamp on its head. There were more just flying about the room, and in and out of walls, all of them making unintelligible but characteristic noises.
Shinobu's jaw dropped, mouth gaped open as she tried to speak, but words no longer came to her. Today was quite a day for the young girl, and so she fainted.
x-Intermission and things! (p.s. ai know this dis be standard FFnet fare but italics be fer THINKIN aight we koo we koo k we koo)-x
"W-what...where..." Shinobu thought as her wits returned to her. Her vision restoring, she was ready to examine the room, but then she was interrupted by a familiar voice.
"Wakey-wakey Shinomu~!", the voice belonged to none other than Kaolla Su, the resident technological prodigy with a penchant for chaos and fun. Looking around, Shinobu noticed she was in Haruka Urashima's tea shop, a quaint little structure quite close to the Hinata. Haruka wasn't here, however.
"What...what happened?" Shinobu asked as she rose from her nice nap in the middle of the doorway to the Hinata, although she was exiting a bed of sorts, now.
"Well~, you see... I was kinda workin' on a ecto-transmodifi-gradiential-plasmatic spurf, and one thing lead to another..." Su elaborated as she sheepishly scratched the back of her head.
"So you filled the entire dorm with ghosts." Shinobu deadpanned.
"Yeah, that's pretty much the gist of it!" Su smiled, quite pleased with the results of her experimentation.
"Atleast I know you made them, you should probably be able to reverse the process to make them or activate them or um... however you got them there, you can get them out, right?" Shinobu asked, eagerly awaiting a positive answer that would quickly solve this whole situation.
"No no no, I didn't make them, I just summoned them! My device attracted them like flies to a pancake!" Su cheerfully provided. "...Oh and about the whole 'getting rid of them' thing..." Su cautiously pondered how to finish her sentence.
"...Su, please, please tell me we can make these evidently real ghosts leave the dorms..." Shinobu was nervous.
"...Do you want the ideal answer, or the real answer?" Su questioned.
"...I have a feeling I won't like the real answer..." Shinobu was very nervous.
"Well, here's the thing; I have absolutely no idea how to stop the ghosts!" Su clarified, holding her arms up in the air with cheer.
"...I-is that supposed to be a good thing!?" Shinobu was now terrified.
"But fear not, Shinomu~!" Su yelled, joyfully. "I may not have an idea, but I have a plan on how to stop the ghosts!" Su again clarified.
"...Please don't scare me like tha-" Shinobu was interrupted.
"And you're going to carry it out!" Su finished, pointing at Shinobu.
"W-wh-what!? Why me!?" Shinobu shouted out, quite unwilling to step foot back in the Hinata any time soon.
"I've got to hold down the fort here, Shinomu! Them ghosts aren't gonna be polite and keep their noses out of my stuff here, are they?" Su elaborated. "Besides, I've got somethin' for ya!" Su stated as she walked over to her bright yellow, shiny machine. The main component to it was round, while numerous pipes stretched from it and into the floor, walls, and ceiling of the tea shop. In the center was a window, allowing one to peer into the machine; which mostly a hollow space with a opening leading into it.
"I don't think Haruka-senpai will like your idea of renovating..." Shinobu added, staring at the huge contraption.
"Nonsense, Shinomu~!" Su replied, digging around in a pile of gears, parts, and various metally things as she pulled out what looked like a vacuum cleaner. "Ta-da~!" Su yelled, quite gleeful as she presented the vacuum cleaner to Shinobu.
"Su, now's not the time to do a little spring cleaning! Ghosts are running rampant across the Hinata, and I don't know where anyone went!" Shinobu was growing impatient with how futile the situation seemed.
"That's not it, Shinomu! Lookie here!" Su directed Shinobu to the vacuum cleaner. "You see this hose?" Su lifted the hose to the vacuum, which had a funnel on it. "I adjusted the wind regulators and turbulence generators to make it superior at ecto-suction than any other vacuuming brand!" Su proudly explained.
"I don't think that's how vacuum cleaners work, Su..." Shinobu said as she nervously stared down at the vacuum.
And then a ghost came out of the wall!
"W-Waah~! Look out!" Shinobu shouted as the green ghost floated into the room and taunted, raising his hands to his ears and making silly faces.
"Watch and learn, Shinomu~!" Su gleefully shouted as she pulled out a flash light and pressed a button on it briefly, emitting a flash of light.
"Egah!?", the ghost shouted as he froze in place, white as a sheet. Su then activated the vacuum, and it emitted a whirlpool of wind, the enormous suction power of it rocking objects a bit and disturbing anything loose in the room. The ghost struggled to escape the wind vortex, and grabbed objects and flailed about in order to escape, but Su rode the vacuum as it tried to resist the suction power. The ghost eventually was too tuckered out to resist anymore, and was pulled into the hose of the vacuum cleaner, where he was pumped into the inside of it.
"...I can't believe that really worked." Shinobu stated in disbelief.
"I can!" Su happily replied, patting the vacuum cleaner. "And this isn't just any vacuum cleaner! This is the Polterghost-HINATA!" Su explained with pride.
"I see... so are you planning to catch every ghost with this?" Shinobu asked, unsure of what to think of the situation anymore.
"Nah, you are!" Su answered slightly smugly.
"W-wait, what?" Shinobu's body was not ready.
"I already told you, I need to stick around here and catch any strays that dare go near the Hinata-Anti-Ghost-Laboratory!" Su elaborated, "So you'll have to be the one who goes out and liberates our homeworld from the wibbles!" Su passionately instructed Shinobu.
"S-Su! I can't do this! Why can't you just ask Motoko or Naru? I'm sure they would have no problem doing this!" Shinobu yelled out, in attempts to not be in this situation anymore.
"Oh, they got captured." Su stated plainly.
"W-what!?" Shinobu decided today was not one of her best days.
"I don't know where the ghosts took 'em, but they're somewhere in the Hinata still, atleast. I know they can handle themselves, Shinobu!" Su clarified, "Also, catch!" Su threw a DS at Shinobu
"H-hey!" Shinobu caught the DS. Opening it up, she found it had an active game on it. "Su, after all you've just told me, this isn't the time to play games!" Shinobu was confused.
"That's not a game, silly!" Su explained, "It's a map and a communications device! So I can call you from anywhere in the Hinata!" Su was quite pleased with the result.
"Hmm, that's actually pretty convenient..." Shinobu atleast felt reassurance that she wasn't going to be completely alone in the Hinata. Shinobu tucked the DS-esque device into her pocket.
"There's no time to waste, Shinomu! You've gotta get goin'!" Su stated, lightly shoving Shinobu out of the tea shop, along with the Polterghost-HINATA.
Shinobu turned back towards the door and started banging on it. "H-Hey! S-Su!" Shinobu called out, displaying her lack of confidence in the situation and of herself.
"Don't be such a fraidy-cat, Shinomu~!" Su replied from the other end of the door, which was now locked aswell. "Besides," Su's voice grew more serious, "It's all down to you now, Shinobu."
Shinobu paused for a moment. She paused for a few moments. Her gaze drifted to the Polterghost-HINATA. "All down to me now, huh?..." Shinobu felt her pocket for the DS-esque communications device. "...I can't let everybody down now..." Shinobu became aware of the climate outside the tea shop. It was night now, with the only illumination being from the distant buildings, creating for a solemn atmosphere. Shinobu walked towards the Hinata. It began snowing. The blue tint of the world and the tinge of cold on her skin, Shinobu stared at the door.
"... It's all down to me, now." Shinobu was as ready as she'd ever be, as she opened the door to the dark house, and stepped inside.
- AN -
heyo friends it's FANFICTIONING TIME, if ya wanna know some JUICY INTEL ai'm yer GUY YO
so here's the rundown: GHOSTS be from LUIGI'S MANSION: DARK MOON (or LM:2 if yer not in MURICA), and she'll be usin mechanics from DAT GAME, incase ANYONE NEEDED TA KNOW because ai feel ai DIDN'T MAKE DAT CLEAR YET
also ai'd like FEEDBACK so ai can know if ai'm doin ANYTHING WRONG aside from how ai TYPE IN AUTHOR NOTES / INTERMISSION PERIODS, flamers will be hugged and cuddled dearly as if they were my own so go ahead and HIT ME UP WIT ANYTHING
oh yeah we needed a DISCLAIMER, just ta be on da SAFE SIDE...
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters, products, or the Love Hina series! I only own my mind, which is not for sale, thank you very much!
so we KOO YALL cuz if so SEE YA NEXT TIME in SHINOMU'S WONDERFUL WOOBLY WONDER EMPORIUM