[HIT SERIES 'INFERNO' MAY BE PUT ON INDEFINITE HIATUS]
That was the headline featured on the Daily Inquirer, the newspaper in the hands of Yukari, clad in her bell-bottoms and turtleneck sweater while sitting on the static-humming TV. "Oh, dearie me, that show's been on and off since ever!", she huffed. "I tell you, give it another 4 or 5 months and suddenly a new episode pops up!"
She then closes the paper and sets it on her lap. Looking towards the broadcasting camera, she smiles sweetly. "Hello, hello, my darlings! Welcome back to the Void! I hoped you like the previous episode. Boy, aren't Cirno and Rumia just sweethearts? What? The end credits bonus shows that Cirno's still an idiot? Well it wouldn't be that ice fairy without it!"
Suddenly, the sound of canned laughter filled the studio. Yukari laughed along with it but it cannot be determined whether her laugh was genuine. Lowering her hand to the dial on the TV, she tunes it until it reaches a channel where an advertisement for tomato soup was playing. "Jokes aside, don't we just love soup?"
Canned laughter plays. "Oh, hush it, dang it! It's not even funny!"
More canned laughter ensued, much to Yukari's displeasure. "Ugh, fine! Do what you want. I'm a running riot today, apparently…", she grumbled as she flicked her bangs.
Hahahahaha!
"Do you want me to turn you into soup?!", she screamed. "I swear, one more laugh and you're going to the Refinery!"
Silence reigned after her outburst, the only sound remaining was the overacted cheerful cheesy ad narrator describing how wonderfully delicious Yakumo™ Tomato Soup was and that with a price of $3.99, it blew the competition out of the water. Yukari, on the other hand, was feeling none of the cheer as she took deep breaths to calm herself down before looking back into the soulless lens of the camera.
"My, oh my! What has gotten into me today? I am so terribly sorry that you had to witness that horrid scene."
Suddenly, a letter floated down from above into Yukari's lap, prompting her to open the letter. "Huh? What's this?", she intrigued. Her eyes slowly scanned every word of the letter. As she kept reading, her expression gradually became that of fear. She then slammed the letter onto the TV and leapt for the camera.
"Hey, hey! Come on now, boss lady, it was an accident! I promise it won't happen again so please don't take me off the air! Please!"
Then, a loud snap was heard and much like before, the whole environment has changed yet again with a sobbing Yukari pleading from inside a screen. This time, however, the screen was that of a computer monitor and the entire 70s television studio from before was now a video on YouTube under the title, 'TV HOST LOSES JOB LIVE ON AIR! FUNNY!'
"Hello, hello, everyone," greeted a disembodied voice. "It is me, Yukari."
Aside from the computer screen, everywhere else appeared to be void of anything animate or inanimate. Yukari herself was nowhere in sight. The only source of illumination was the blinding brightness of the computer monitor in the dark.
"Keep your eyes on the screen. There is no point in trying to look for me for I am everywhere yet I am also nowhere. You can try to run but who knows what lurks in the infinite darkness of the void? Unspeakable evils lurk in the darkness."
An ominous presence could be felt but there was nothing that could be seen. "So, while you're here, dear viewer, why don't I show you something light-hearted?", giggled the voice, contrasting the bleak monotonous droning from earlier. In the search bar, the words, 'Gensokyo Soup Cans' were keyed in by an unseen entity. The search results from those peculiar keywords brought several odd videos. Some depicted the very same soup commercial from the 70s Yukari TV set. Some showed various girls with odd hats doing stupid things with soup cans. The most notable one, however, is the one titled, "It is all soup now" which had over 10 million views. The thumbnail appeared to be like that of a gaming channel's in the sense that it had an edited photo of the face of a long-haired girl with a tacked on spliff and 8-bit sunglasses next to a pile of soup cans. At the bottom of the video, it listed the channel owner as 'LunarRekter99'.
"What I am about to show you is little different from what 70s 'me' had shown you. In this particular instance, all of the videos you see—apart from the one featuring the 'me' of the 70s instance of Gensokyo—all take place within this instance of Gensokyo that you and I are in right now. Much like the last time, the 'you' of the 70s instance is still there, dealing with a jobless hippie."
"Hmm? What was that? Is this instance like the Matrix, you say? Well, I cannot tell you for sure but, if you came to that conclusion seeing this PC and the empty dark surroundings, you're close but no dice." The mechanical hum of the fans in PC filled the silence of the bleak void. Then, the cursor on the screen began to move, heading for that video.
"Well, without further ado, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!"
The NEET and the Day Everyone Became a Soup Can
30 seconds.
30 seconds were left on the timer.
The team of four mono-eyed, white armour suited mercenaries were scrambling around the map to look for the last enemy. The enemy in question? Props. Basic everyday items that were strewn around the map such as a bicycle, a couch, a potted plant or even a car. It was the very nature of the enemy that made it difficult because they could be anything in their line of sight but this team were pros; they managed to wipe out most of the hiding props with two minutes to spare. But now, with less than 30 seconds left, they were panicking.
[Mikomiko]: dammit where is this last guy?!
[SparkingRabu~!]: dunno
[MikoGreen]: guyzzz we gon lose this
[definitely not Dio's grill]: shuddup mikogreen. You jinx this I'll kill you.
[SparkingRabu~!]: dio plz
[definitely not Dio's grill]: dio yes
[Mikomiko]: rly guys? Rly?
[LunarRekter99]: lol
*DEAD*[CapDaKappa]: Wow… Really?
*DEAD*[1CE9]: roflmao
*DEAD*[EdshotMachine]: I take back every word I said about them hacking. This is funny.
[Mikomiko]: stfu scrubs
[LunarRekter99]: u mad bro?
The player under the username Mikomiko was infuriated. She seriously wanted to type an array of expletives in the chat but there were now 15 seconds on the clock. They seriously needed to find this bitch and make her eat her words. Or his words. She did not know nor care. All of her teammates were in all four corners of the map which was really just a single double-storey house with a small backyard.
*DEAD*[1CE9]: hahaha omg they blind
*DEAD*[1CE9]: ur jumping up and down and they don't c u at all
Damn it all! Where in the hell is she?! Was this karma for laughing at that one player that kept accusing her team of wall hacks when they located and decimated them in less than a minute? These damn scrubs were laughing at her team. To make things worse, the chat implied that the target was moving, not even bothering to hide properly. She called out to her teammates that she was going to check the kitchen while the rest should continue searching in their respective places.
5 seconds remaining.
Entering the kitchen, she could see that it was full of items that did not look out of place. The fridge looked fine, the chairs and dining table were still in place and the assortment of spices and cans by the spice rack did not appear to be moving. She had no time to lose. She must be reckless. Whipping out her submachine gun, she emptied her entire clip at everything in sight. Her health suffered greatly as the game penalises damage to actual props but at this point, better to win dying.
2 seconds remaining.
Knowing full well that her next course of action will kill her, she unloaded her secondary grenade shot into the kitchen. It was a guaranteed kill for anything in that area. However, as the counter was about to hit zero, when the grenade was about to hit the floor, a soup can dashed out from behind the fridge and zipped away to safety. 'FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-!', was the only thing that went through Mikomiko's mind as she saw this unbelievable asspull before her eyes.
**PROPS WIN**
*DEAD*[1CE9]: gg
*DEAD*[CapDaKappa]: gg
*DEAD*[EdshotMachine]: nt
[LunarRekter99]: ez pz
[LunarRekter99]: git gud
*DEAD*[Mikomiko]: fuck off
"Heh, someone's salty."
Kaguya stretched her arms with a resounding pop as she swivelled around her chair. She was feeling good after a satisfying round a Prop Hunt. Being an immortal, un-killable princess from the moon meant that she had a lot of time to kill and sometimes picking fights with her fellow immortal, Mokou, just did not cut it. So, Kaguya, with nothing else to do, decided to pick up gaming. At first, the very concept of video gaming was foreign to her and she sucked at everything she played, even Pong. Now, thanks to her ability to never die and remain ageless, she had all the time in the world to be a professional at any game she picked up. She once collected all the Pokémon in Pokémon Moon and got them all to level 100. Even the legendaries and shinies.
When it came to the online multiplayer scene, she started off with Counter Strike where the Gensokyo netizens were first introduced to [LunarRekter99]. Having unholy amounts of hours of experience in many FPS's, she was known as the embodiment of 'rekt' as any team she played with would always win 16-0 regardless of what map or whether the other team used cheats. A notable highlight that floated around the internet was of her first match ever in the game. It featured her winning the final round of the game in a 1v5 clutch in which she was left with only a Five-Seven to her name with no armour. Kaguya, who was unranked at the time, was threatened with the infamous 'clutch or kick' by her own teammates as they were desperate to maintain their perfect win. Since then, she has branched out to different games using the same moniker which gained her internet notoriety. However, not every game has to be a competitive hellhole, which was why she played this game of Prop Hunt to begin with; to have fun with her online friends. Even though she knew full well who her friends were in real life, she could never be bothered to leave the house.
She yawned. Rubbing her eyes, she checked the time to find out that it was already 4 in the morning. "Wow. That's getting kind of late. Eirin's going to chew me out again if I slept in past noon. I guess I'll call it a night."
Bidding her friends a goodnight, and laughing at a certain salty shrine maiden, she turned her beast of a desktop PC off and headed straight for bed. However, she was not aware that she was being watched and that an awful surprise awaited her when the sun rose…
xxx
The birds were singing a beautiful tune on this fine morning. The woodland creatures of the Forest of the Lost were prancing about merrily. The sun's ray kissed the roof tiles of Eientei, Eirin's base of operations for creating medicine and home of the moon rabbit, Reisen, the earth rabbit, Tewi, and last but not least, the NEET l33t lunar princess, Kaguya, who was currently in the middle of groggily rubbing her eyes with an angry glare towards the stray beam of light peeking from her door, grumbling something about how it was 'too early for this' or that rain had better come soon so she could have an excuse to stay indoors.
Once upon a time, she would have loved all of it. Unfortunately, that was a long time ago when she still did princess things and cheated many a bachelor out of their lives with impossible requests so she now finds the concept of human interaction to be repetitive, dull and needless. She was not human anyway she did not care, much to Eirin's dismay as the medical prodigy has always been trying to get her to take up a job since Kaguya's lifestyle has been causing the electricity and internet bills to climb. To be fair, she did have one which was running a Twitch stream of herself playing but she never used the earnings she gained from it to help pay the bills at all. Why pay bills when you can max out your gaming rig to an absurd degree?
However, one can never stay in their room forever as they would need to fulfil their basic needs to continue living. Kaguya was no exception to the rule although she does it to avoid discomfort rather than the threat of death. Starving in the morning was not a clever way to start the day and she can testify to that considering she has once died of starvation after neglecting to eat for a month to grind in World of Warcraft; sustaining consciousness only with a mountain of energy drinks. So, she set foot outside her room and walked along the sunlight-exposed walkway to the kitchen.
Entering the kitchen, she noticed that it was strangely devoid of smells of cooked food and sounds of banter surrounding the dining table. Then she realised that there were no people but herself. 'Huh, strange… I usually get chewed out by Eirin at this time of the day because I 'need to rise early and make myself useful',', she thought. 'Wait. Does this mean that I can finally talk back because she slipped up this time? No, that can't be right. Reisen and Tewi aren't here either. They can't all be sleeping in, are they?'
She checked the clock that hung over the stove. 12:00pm. This was weird.
She then checked Eirin, Reisen and Tewi's rooms. All were empty.
Walking back into the kitchen, she saw something that she did not notice on her first entry; three soup cans on the dining table. Each with their own unique colour pattern and…names. It so occurred to Kaguya that each of the names of the cans matched with those of the people that she was looking for. Blue and red can for Eirin, purple-red can for Reisen and white and orange can for Tewi.
'Oi, oi, oi! What the heck is this?!', she mentally screamed, her eyes squinting as she tried to discern dream from reality. 'Those are souvenirs, right?! They can't be actual soup cans, right?! If this is a prank, this is one helluva prank!'
She cautiously picked up the Eirin can and read the label. 'Filled with medicinal goodness!' She then shook the can a bit, a light sloshing sound could be heard with every shake. This was no mistake; they were real soup cans.
'Ehhhhhh?! Really?!', she thought with bulging eyes. 'They have turned into soup?! No, it cannot be! It cannot be? Wow, nice pun, me. Wait! That's not the point! Are they really soup now? What about the others? Are they soup as well or is it just them?'
She gulped. This was a mystery that needed solving but solving it required her to the one she loathed: going outside. But first, breakfast was in due order so she opened the fridge and ate a slice of strawberry cheesecake that had a note on it claiming that it was Eirin's. Since Eirin was soup anyway, it was not like she could do anything about it. Her hunger sated, she then decided to wait for a few hours for the sun to set a bit so she could conduct her search without being scorched by the sun.
After the clock struck 4, she felt that it was time to make her move. But then she remembered that she had not taken a shower in three days so she took about an hour to make herself feel comfortably clean. After showering, she felt readier than ever to set foot into the brave outdoors. However, lunch has not been had. Since she already ate the only meal in the fridge that did not require actual preparation, she opted for instant noodles instead. Nothing can go wrong with chicken flavour.
It was now 6pm. The sun was now setting fully; the sky painted a magnificent amber. The crows were cawing to signal that night will follow suit. Flying amongst the murder of crows was Kaguya, who had finally got around to actually doing what she wanted to do. Her long black hair flowed freely in the air as she floated down to the Human Village which appeared to be awfully quiet in this hour of the evening. Feeling grateful she brought along her phone, she used its flashlight function to see better in the darker parts of the stores and homes of the village. She also made use of her ability to manipulate the eternity to keep the sun in position so that she could spend as much time as possible without the night ever coming to replace the day.
Searching through every nook and cranny of every storehouse, home and establishment in the village, she could confirm that there were no people nor youkai present. What she did find however, were an array of soup cans, each collection possibly corresponding to the number of occupants in the buildings at the time of what she theorised to be the 'cannification' of Gensokyo. Her blood ran cold. This could not be happening right now. She flew over to the Hakurei Shrine only for her to scream bloody murder upon the sight of a red and white soup can on top of the shrine's donation box along with a black and white one. The same thing happened in the Moriya Shrine as well where three soup cans—green, yellow and maroon—were seen lined up by the shrine's entrance.
Her heart was beating so hard she could not hear anything but her own heartbeat. Everywhere she went, soup cans greeted her as if eager to confirm her suspicions. To prove that she has not gone mad. It was clear to her now that everyone but herself has been turned into soup cans especially after her visit to the Underground where she saw the terrifying sight of thousands of soup cans scattered about in the streets of Old Hell. If she had a drink for every time the words 'soup' and 'can' came together in her mind, she would make Suika blush with her immortal alcohol-damaged liver because this was beginning to look absurd. Then again, she remembered that Gensokyo never operated in a way that people can recognise as common sense.
This was too much. It must be a dream.
She cancelled her ability to manipulate the eternity to allow night to commence as she flew straight to her room in Eientei, slammed the door shut and locked it and huddled up in a corner covered up in her futon.
'Why is this happening? This is too much! It's crazy! There's no way! There is no feasible way that everyone became soup cans one day! Yeah, that must be it. I have gone crazy. Eirin was right about playing video games for too long. My sanity has finally crumbled away! It must have been a figment of my imagination and when I wake the next morning, she and the rest of Eientei will be laughing at me for how silly I was behaving. Yes. That's right.'
After trying to convince herself that it was all a dream, she fell into an uneasy slumber.
The very next day
The birds were singing a beautiful tune on this fine morning. The woodland creatures of the Forest of the Lost were prancing about merrily. The sun's ray kissed the roof tiles of Eientei, Eirin's base of operations for creating medicine and home of the moon rabbit, Reisen, the earth rabbit, Tewi, and last but not least, the NEET l33t lunar princess, Kaguya, who was staring intently at her door with frightened eyes. Her pajamas were wet with cold sweat as she tried to process what she saw when she got up to have breakfast earlier.
She woke up feeling refreshed, happy that her nerves were at ease. It was truly the best start of a new day and she never felt happier to see the sun's ray peeking from under her door. Breakfast was the most important meal of the day and it was a good day to make herself some toast with scrambled eggs. So, when she swung the door open with revitalised energy, the last thing she expected to see was an ocean of soup cans right by her doorstep as far as the eye could see. She never slammed the door so hard in her life.
'Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay…calm… the FUCK…down, Kaguya. You're still tired. If you open the door again, they'll be gone!'
She opened the door. The cans were still there but this time a lot closer.
SLAM!
'FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK NO! NO! NO, NO, NO, NO!', her mind screamed. 'This is no longer absurd, this is outright CREEPY! I could've sworn they spaced farther when I first opened the door and now they were not only closer but inching towards my room! That's some Weeping Angels shit right there and I want none of it!'
Her mind raced to calm itself down as she tried to rationalise the whole thing. However, everything ceased when she heard a soft thud emanating from her door.
"STAY AWAY, CANS OF SATAN", shrieked the immortal. "If this was because of my tactic of choosing a soup can to win Prop Hunt then I beg of thee, O evil metallic casing of liquid solid food, to forgive me for the sins that I have committed!"
For a while, it seemed like they heard her pleas as she did not hear any thuds after that. Breathing a sigh of relief, she cautiously got up and tip-toed towards the doorknob. As her slender fingers were about to touch it however…
BANG!
"Kyaaa!", she screamed as she stumbled back in shock. The loud bang then turned into a maddening chorus of bangs and slams that reduced the princess into a sobbing wreck. This was not how she wanted her life to end. This was not a fate she could live with.
Her eyes bulged as she saw her door strain under the stress of the constant pounding. Peeking under the door, she could catch a glimpse of multiple cans of soup of varying sizes jumping up and down to break her door down. She rushed to empty out her closet, drawers and study desk and pile them in front of the door. To be extra sure, she made a point to then chuck the closet, drawers and study desk into the pile.
Whatever happens, she was not going to open that door.
14 days after incident
The pounding has finally stopped. Kaguya, now visibly malnourished, kept her eyes on the barricade. It has been close to a week since she had water and 2 weeks since she ate proper food. She did not mind dying but at this rate she was going to run out of bottles to do her 'business' in. Careful not to attract attention, she took a pair of scissors and chipped away at the wall of her room until she could see a beam of light shine through. Peeking through the hole, she tried to assess the situation outside.
It seemed that there were no more soup cans to be found. However, she was still paranoid so she took it upon herself to navigate through Eientei via the crawlspace between the roof and the ceiling. As she crawled through the dusty narrow path, she stopped every now and then to be on the lookout for any sounds of moving cans. After what seemed like an eternity (3 minutes), she finally made it to the kitchen.
She moved one of the ceiling panels of the kitchen bit by bit to avoid giving her position away. Looking down from where she was, there were no cans in sight. Even the Eientei cans were gone too. There was not a soul in sight and it was all clear. However, she refused to come down. She was afraid to come down. Why? Because of one anomaly.
There was freshly cooked food on the dining table.
'No. It's a trap!', she reasoned. 'They're trying to lure me out by making food because they know that I haven't eaten in 14 days!'
Reaching into her pocket in the tight crawlspace, she pulled out her phone. During the 14 days of horror for her, she used the time to hack into the public surveillance network of Gensokyo so that she could monitor the movement of the soup cans. She felt like hitting herself for neglecting to check this first before moving into the crawlspace.
Waiting for the live footage to buffer, she gulped in anxious anticipation. Then, the feed came on, showing several notable locations such as the Forest of the Lost, the Forest of Magic, the compound of the Scarlet Devil Mansion and the Human Village. She could not believe her eyes; there were actual living, breathing people out and about! Trading! Gossiping! Having fun like normies!
Tears ran down her face as she felt a joy that could not be properly expressed with words. It was also the first time she has ever felt glad to see another person or youkai. If the footage was true, and it must be true for it was supposedly live, then the food down there might be a meal prepared by Eirin for her!
Casting away any form of fear and paranoia that she had carried for the past fortnight, she gleefully jumped down from the crawlspace to give whoever made the food a hug. However, in her excitement, she did not see the screen stall after the first few seconds of footage. If she did, she would have seen the screen replaced with a feed showing cans of soup flooding every area shown.
When she did come to that realisation, it was too late.
It is all soup now.
A/N: Hey there, Kobe here! This story here was sort of inspired/requested by a friend of mine who randomly came up with the idea of 'Gensokyo but with soup cans' while we were having a chat. I hope you liked it and stay tuned for more!