Touhou Doujin: Grimoire of Dawitsu

Super Youkai Warhead, Nitori Kawashiro

Nitori Kawashiro is a Kappa. Human mimickers may ask: What is a Kappa? Well, it's not surprising if you don't know, as most Kappa run away at the sight of a human. Why they do it, I don't know, but their relationship with humans seems to be good.

Nitori is a particularly confident Kappa, and was more willing to talk to me than most Kappa. But even then, that was probably only because I'm a youkai... anyway, she said that the Kappa want nothing more than to make sure the humans are safe, so make the appearance of a dangerous location like Youkai Mountain more dangerous than it actually is by making themselves look like a skittish race of hunting-type youkai. That said, Nitori ran away from me when I first approached too. I think they're genuinely skittish as well as putting on a show for the humans. Anyway, time to talk about Nitori specifically.

Personality

Nitori, when she isn't running away, is an inquisitive, mechanically apt young girl and can fix just about anything she's come across before. Whenever she comes across something she doesn't recognize, she soon learns how to fix it- by taking the object apart and putting it back together. That means if the first version of an object she finds is a broken version of the object, then she'll be confused when she tries to fix a more intact version.

She loves machinery from the outside world, and I decided to bring some technology across from my house. Knowing she'd try and take it apart, I brought some old, throwaway headphones and a George Foreman toasting machine that hadn't worked for about a year. Almost instantly upon me showing the devices, she took a screwdriver to them. When that didn't work on the headphones, she used other, smaller tools. She had never seen an auxiliary jack before (Gensokyo dwellers should check Rinnosuke's guide to outside world technology for details) and asked me if she could keep it. I reluctantly said yes. I don't know why, the headphones weren't that good, I had better ones at home anyway... but I didn't want to part with them. Anyway, she then showed me an MP3 player and thanked me for giving a solution to her problem of what the small hole in the top-right corner was for.

She also kept the George Foreman, but said she'd seen a miniature oven before, except the other one relied on Microwave Radiation. She sure knows a lot, that's for sure. Anyway, I showed her how to use the MP3 player. Looked like the former owner was a bit of a game addict- it had soundtracks from Sonic the Hedgehog, Crash Bandicoot, Banjo Kazooie and... the Touhou Project. Gensokyo dwellers shouldn't ask about the latter. I played some music down the headphones, and she loved the music. She said that she had heard speech across machinery, but never had she seen something that could store musical performances. I would have told her about how there's technology to create music without performing it, but I wouldn't want to risk showing my laptop (another outside world device) to her in case she took it apart.

Notes on Mimicry

Nitori has moderately good Danmaku. Her technique is simple- set a spread line-wall of crystal-type Danmaku with plenty of spacing in between each line, and then fire shots within those gaps. There's still plenty of leeway for the opponent, but they have to plan in advance to take advantage of it. Otherwise they'll find themselves stuck and unable to dodge the attack. Her spell cards are very different to her simple attacks, and show her mastery of technology to the full.

One application of technology is her optical camo suit spell card- here she obscures her form, and forms criss-crossing danmaku as well as simple ball-type danmaku. The criss-crosses are actually refracted and concentrated light, and the light crossing over is similar to what the none-concentrated light that hits your eyes is doing- giving two separate, yet superimposed images. The conflicting messages in your brain make you think that she's simultaneously transparent and opaque at the same time. Wonderful stuff.

Unfortunately, she's still very noticeable in the suit- except not as her, just as an obscure, translucent strange thing that's shooting things at you. So it isn't that great. However, I've managed to mimic something far greater than her ability to create Danmaku- I've mimicked her aptitude for mechanics- I can now dismantle a remote control and rearrange it so it controls my in-mansion speaker system's volume!

I could get Yutaka to do that, but let's face it, being able to fix and alter things by hand gives you a certain pride, doesn't it?

Typist's Notes: Nitori and I have a similar set of interests. It's a real shame that she doesn't have powers similar to me or else she may well be the best mechanic in Gensokyo. She loves to know how things work, something which is necessary when manipulating surroundings.

I wonder, if I taught her some basic quantum physics and low-grade magic, perhaps she could figure out how to invent things all on her own without needing to use other ideas pasted together.

Or she may just use that power to make a robot army like most gifted mechanics in fiction- and I wouldn't want that.