(A MATT MAN TRAPPED IN A MATT LAND)
Click. The door to the newly-founded Genso-Makai embassy swung shut behind me.
It's off the main streets, and specifically placed in the south-east sector, before the developed wealthy estates and the Hieda residence, but after, well, anything related to the main street.
It was a relatively fast construction project to get this instated, partially because this building was already here. As it turns out, the village hit max capacity for structures a long time ago. Between the minimalistic practices, and the ease of purchasing property, reformatting what was here didn't prove any issue to the Human Village's internal processes.
The actual smoothing over of this process was a long and boring endeavor of yelling at old people, and using the fact I'd given them a gold bar half previously to sling my political weight around.
Finally, there was my actual purpose behind establishing the embassy. It was really convenience through profit, but from here their presence should make things generally easier to do all-around. Except, perhaps, being able to walk alone at night.
I approach the front desk.
"...Ah." There's some blonde woman working here. "Hello, little one." There's nothing much remarkable about her, except she's tall and blonde.
This embassy has some simple parts. Reception and handling, the hole, and paperwork.
From the entrance, the left door is paperwork. It's as interesting as it sounds. I'm not even sure why a village this crappy has paperwork, to begin with. Everything should be word-of-mouth, for maximum bullshit.
The entrance is reception and handling. This woman is who they threw here to run people through the paperwork, I guess.
"Hello?" She waved at me again. She doesn't even know who I am, which is great.
To the right, is the hole.
Moving past her, I walk up to the embassy's right side. The door it's behind is here, and I swing it open.
Crea~k. Here we are. It's… it's a hole. There's an incline of rock and dirt into the earth. It was actually here to begin with even, so I just kind of left it like it was.
Walking around the edge of the room, I get to where the incline begins, and start walking down inside. The architecture of the under-village caves are puzzling and weird.
This hallway, in particular. It too was here to begin with, which made hiring twenty million moles to dig it out a non-issue. I still needed some excavation people, because as one might imagine, a non-maintained cave duct is not the most tidy or functional thing.
I was decent enough to have wood beams put up. Last thing I need is for this to be blown wide open because the entire cave system collapsed in on itself, or something. Considering some of these ruins, that's not a new thing.
The entire floor here is stone. Beneath it, seems to be some kind of solid roof. It ends some ways ahead, before another incline begins, into what I consider the 'main tunnels'. I'm not sure how big it this stone slab thing is, but it'll probably have to go, some day.
Ideally, all this yin-yang adorned bullshit will be gone, when I give enough of a crap about this place. Right now it works, and that's enough.
On my way through the tunnels, I meet what looks like a Makai citizen in passing.
"Mmh…?" Her dress is some kind of odd fabric, akin to flower petals, a luminescent lavender and black. Her eyes have no pupils, but do have the coloration that would go around them, making them seem empty. "Oo~h. Aren't you the cutest thing…?"
"Excuse me." I give it a brief pass, and some respect. I'm not one for that sort of thing, but when you don't do that, they actually heckle you.
"Mmm? Wait, wai~t…" She calls out for me, but I continue. This is usually how it goes, for these more regal types. They leave me alone after long enough.
...Like, right now.
Stumbling down the rocky, dirty incline into the deeper cavern, I stare at the torches hung up on the walls.
shoom- broom… As always, there's some kind of echoey noise this deep. It comes from below, and can be heard from some halls. I'm not dumb enough to track down what the hell that is. Not alone, anyway.
I take a right down here. Despite this depth beneath the village not being very low, I'd like to add an elevator somewhere stupid anyway. It'd be convenient when it's done, at least.
Down here is a temple-like plaza to mirror the center of the village above it. More dumb yin-yang orbs adorn various pillars and stonework, down here. I should hire someone to take a chisel to that.
Not just because fuck yin-yangs, but also because it seems to distract Makai citizens.
I step up to this imp-looking girl, who's giving one of the yin-yangs a glare.
There's a series of Makai-established stands and things under here, made up of strange woods, or in some cases, very fancy metals.
"Ah…" Someone approaches me.
I face her. She-... she looks dangerously like Marisa, for some reason.
"Hi…" Her voice is somewhat quiet, at first. She's not quite as… large as Marisa. Not so ornate, not so rambunctious. "I just got here."
Good for you. I'm pretty sure the directions out are just 'go forward and take the first left'.
Oh, right, the portal to hell. It's pretty neat looking, actually.
In the midst of the temple area, where there was once a statue maybe, there is now a large, translucent thing that hurts to look at. A warp in space, the colors distorted, intersecting, the light between this area and the mirror area in Makai trading contact through the… the thing.
This witch girl who's approached me is ironically discreet in appearance. I question her. "You. What can you do?" Time to conscript an illegal alien.
...She looks standoffish at first, but replies anyway. "I- I… I burn things." Oh.
Good enough. "I'll pay you, to help me explore these caves." Ironically, being discreet like this seems to always be beneficial when regarding Makai citizenry.
This is because, if you tell them you're a political figure of any sort, when you're a powerless cat like me, that's pretty much just asking for trouble. I'm pretty sure half of the things here know super cumstorm hypnosis.
"...Sure." She's responsive enough to the idea. "I don't have much better to do, honestly. My friend's on the surface, already."
Well, that's nice. "Let's go." With that, I turn to part from the stands and the Makai folk. For the best, as well. When you're around too long, they start to smell you out like sharks.
Then you have chicks like this. She's probably secretly a tarantula monster waiting to inject me with horniness, or something. Or not. It's hard to say either way, really.
It's time to scope out some more of the caverns for expansion. I may not be able to build within the city, but I can build under it, for sure.
Let's go. "Hey- wait for me…" Somehow, it takes this girl a moment to catch up to me.
Who is she, by the way. "Who are you, actually?"
...She blinks. "My name's Yuki."
Yuki the not-Marisa fire mage who might secretly be a deadly touch tarantula spider. Perfect. Alright, we're ready to roll.
First, I trail us back to the intersection where everyone has to go through, to reach the surface.
thoo- thoom. Echoey noises come down the hall, from somewhere very, very far off. Now, we can follow it.
"Stay with me." I request of Yuki, as if it weren't obvious. "Also, keep the way lit."
"Su~re." She gives a nod, and then-
FWOO~M! Oh, good.
She expels an entire deluxe flamethrower wave of fire at the roof, and sustains it. It's both loud, bright, and so hot that I have to move away from her.
"Less fire…!" Lest she smoke us out, rather than anything else.
fwoom. Alright, that's still very dangerous and stupid, but we're not at risk of burning all the oxygen instantly.
"Keep it pointed at a wall." I recommend. "If you burn me, I'll die."
"O- oh, sorry." She apologizes, and then-
fwish. The fire goes out entirely. "I won't make anymore, okay?" This is going to be a long day.
/ / / / MAD FLUFF OF FLUFFMANO / / / /
Yuki now has a torchlight expelling from the palm of her hand.
Having taken the straightaway from the Makai-central-whatever-portal-place, we eventually found a decline down into where the echoey noises were coming from.
boo- boom… clack. They're still coming from down there, somewhere.
Amidst the grey and dust, we eventually stumbled our way from the round, downward… crack of the world, and we found some sort of long hall.
Well. 'Hall' is pretty generous. It's a series of jagged stones that happen to be horizontally traversable.
Along the sides here, odd stonework is ingrained amidst the grey rock, along with massively decayed wood, and the frames for paper walls. The paper itself is probably dirt, at this point.
"So holy…" This is apparently Yuki's holy place. "Is all of this place like this…?" Yes.
We continue through this passage, as it curves somewhere.
...Then, we find quite a sizable room. Just the torchlight from Yuki's palm is not enough, almost.
This big room goes quite far up, and seems to at least feel central to the human village above. There's even two 'paths' out into the caves down here, and-...
Hmm. This incline's too steep and jagged to use. The cave actually goes up, and into some crack in the wall, above here.
...When we stand still, I can hear running water. There's a river, down here, somewhere.
...You know what. Considering how bad the village water situation is, I may have just struck gold.
bhoom- click. That must be the sound of the Doom Slayer, somewhere in hell, clearly.
It came only from the rightmost cave, down here.
"We're so lost." Yuki has gotten comfortable, apparently. "Maybe we should turn back. We might find one of those azure faces, if we don't. Or, you know, gem sprites. Rape spiders. Um… elementals, too?"
What the hell are you talking about. "No." You can burn everything we see, I'm pretty sure.
pap. Something falls from the ceiling near us.
"Aa- I- I told you!" She seemed to jump at that, and hold her arms out-
Fwoom. A ploom of fire washes out, lighting up the room.
"im keebler" Oh. It's just one of those. "frost me"
...Yuki lets her hands dim. "O- oh. I'm so stupid. It's just a magic dust mite." Magic dust mite.
"look at all the fluffy things we can do" It bends over, and starts swinging its featureless butt in the air. "one two three"
fwoo- fwoof. That somehow spawned two friends right beside it, which continued to do the same.
Fwoo~m. Yuki cleanses them with fire. "Sorry. We don't need things making noise, right now…"
...Well, they'll at least serve as a landmark. Let's go find that noise, until I get bored enough to retreat.
We pass down the right hallway. It's like the 'hallway' we came from, only it curves another way. Wood, rocks, and the occasional yin-yang painted piece of garbage.
Then, we come to a decline. In fact, there's an incline and a decline, the former to the right, and the latter to the left. However, the way up is blocked by what looks like… broken crap. Dead wood. If we burned that, we'd be in deep shit.
"What's with all the broken stuff…" Yuki questions this. "Our buried stuff is mostly rocks and forts."
Good question. I take the left path. Let's just- stumble down there…
It takes me a good few minutes to not kill myself on the way down. I'm very glad for this tiny body now, because otherwise I'd probably have gone 'fuck it' quite a while ago.
Clic- click. I land on the floor here. And, holy shit, it actually has a floor, down this far. The air feels weird, and being down here period, things-that-eat-cats or not, feels unhealthy.
Yuki just floats down here, not willing to put up with the dumb rocks. "There's-... there's a lot of holy, here. We shouldn't be here."
...Oh. Wait. I look around this 'room'. It's actually a room, which I can hardly believe.
It's a wooden and stone room, a very intricate sort of combination design that looks like nothing on the surface today. Or, rather… it looks vaguely like the Hakurei Shrine.
The way we came in is actually the result of a rockslide of some kind, apparently. This room seems like it's supposed to be sealed.
fvhir- vhir- vhir. The cave creaked, and then something in the middle made an echoey noise. It was the echoes we heard before, intensified.
In the middle of the room is a square pedestal. It marks the center of a badly-scraped yin-yang design on the floor. They really fucking loved their orbs, didn't they.
Mounted in this pedestal is a sword.
It's a katana, the glaring metal like stars in the dark cave. Japanese is written on the stone faces below it. Staring at the sword directly hurts my eyes somehow, the pitch white dots emanating from the otherwise dark sword simply not natural to any capacity.
It's time to play 'should I or should I not touch that unholy demon relic'. Considering it's probably Hakurei in origin, all things considered, it's probably not going to be amazingly spectacular. Or, it will be completely broken- in the game design way- and worth picking up.
"That's-..." Yuki stays quite well away from it. "That's dangerous…"
I think the safe assumption is that it's a trap, at this point, considering how crazy it looks.
There are even cloth flags in here, mounted to some of the walling. There's some kind of flower on them. Pink, orange, blue, red, and white banners. How old.
The oriental look is alright, but I could do with more of those flowers, and less of the yin-yangs. Maybe this place can be hollowed out into a tourist attraction.
vhi- hh- hh- hh… Some kind of shuddering echo comes from the blade. It's probably haunted.
"We should leave." Yuki is actually resolute about something, for once. "This is not good."
...Perhaps a closer look. It's a sword, at least. I'm a cat, so if anything weird happens, I can bounce away and into forever.
So, I step closer. Eventually, I get in range to vaguely make out the Japanese-
vhi- vhi- vhi- vhi-. The closer I get, the louder the humming becomes. My skin's starting to tingle, some kind of pulse vibrating through me as I near the thing.
The 'stars' on the blade warp and roll around on the metal, as if it aligned completely improperly with my vision, or the metal's dimensions simply were weird for it.
kri- krack- krack! kra- kri- krik…! Once I'm very close, it feels like I've stuck myself next to a fireplace, a hazy warmth coming from here. If this thing's radioactive, I'm gonna have it stuck up someone's ass.
Reaching into the warmth, I take an experimental poke at the katana's guard.
/ / / / BLOODLINES / / / /
...Where the fuck am I.
From here, I look up on a sunny staircase. My eyes adjust to the blinding light. Maybe poking that sword wasn't a smart idea.
These well-maintained stone steps lead up a huge hill, of some kind. At the top, I see a torii gate.
...To my left and right are all sorts of structures. This is not the human village.
...I abandon the staircase, and jog towards the strange, oriental structures-
VHIR! O- oh. I am… back at the staircase. I just got very dizzy, from trying that.
Apparently there's no way to go, but up. At each side of the staircase is a rich red wood rail to enunciate it. In fact, there are huge torii gates overhanging it, and the structure ahead is great and shrine-like, seemingly made entirely of multiple levels of paper halls, with a great door leading into some kind of main room.
I paddle up the stairs kitty-style. There doesn't seem to be anyone around to watch me.
...At the top, the door inside is already open.
I step into the sun-baked hall. From great windows above, big pools of sunlight bathe the wood floor before me.
A great stone throne stood at the other end.
Seated inside it was a suit of armor. It had one arm on what seemed to be the katana I'd poked, and the other arm was seemingly obscured by a great, red-white cloth, which traveled from the throne across half of the room's width.
I meet the gaze of a black-haired woman. She seems rather content, there. Maybe I won't bother her.
...Despite our distance, I can feel when her gaze meets mine. "You, there." Hi. "...Youkai girl."
...There's silence as she waits for me to respond. I don't.
"You're here for this." She raises the katana with her one arm. "Am I wrong?"
"...I could take it or leave it." I decide. Perhaps this is just some kind of initiation rite.
She blinked slowly at me. After another moment, she shook her head. "Such indecision. It is no matter. I know why you're here."
Sitting up in the chair, she lets out a breath. "Yet another beast who has stumbled upon this blade, now that all has fallen to ruin. Perhaps it is a mantle of our failure. Or, perhaps, you truly have stumbled upon something remarkable."
Focusing on me again, she seemed to scoot forwards in her chair. "Do you know, that this blade is not yours?"
I'm not sure what she's talking about, and I'm not sure if I care either. "It's probably not."
"You came here knowingly, then." The armored woman declared. Well, if she wants to look at it like that, sure.
She casts her arm across her form, reaching for the cloak-
FWIP- WOOSH! She casts the entire, great rug-sized red cloth away from herself, obscuring her form for a brief moment.
When it was gone, she was standing. Oh. She actually only has one arm.
With her blade extended grandly, she glared forward at me. How tall is she, actually? "Have you any words? You, who have abandoned your humanity?"
What am I supposed to say. "...Were you left handed?" She only has her right arm.
...She says nothing in direct response to that, but we share a full silence. I'm not sure whether or not to be satisfied by that.
Sweeping the blade back again, she inhaled. Then, she yelled. "My name is Kiyoko Hakurei! Engrave my body with your power!"
BOOM! She stomped ahead once, and the entire floor shook. I felt that. Hmm.
Oh. I do have my weapons in this… place, at least.
I start to lug my rifle from my backpack-
WOOSH! The wooden floor vibrates, as she springs from her position. The wood itself let out a circular, unhealthy ripple as she spiralled to my left, taking off the floor impossibly fast.
FWI- WOOSH! Oh. Stopping her spiral mid-air, she does one last three-sixty a good distance away from me-
KRIK- SHI~NG! That-... that was bright. A flash of white encapsulated the entirety of the area below my eyes.
I look down. Somehow- I fold forward towards the floor-
spla- splack- thud- thud.
ow- ow my torso fuck fuck fuck
…
Kiyoko let out a sigh. "My only regret, is that I cannot kill you in reality."
fuck fuck you fuck
Looming over, she aimed her blade down, and drove it into the throat. My throat.
Clack. The blade pierced it, meeting the floorboards beneath almost effortlessly.
/ / / / HURT / / / /
Fuck! Ouch- fuck! My- ngh…
Thud. I land on the floor, feeling at my throat- and my midsection…
Oh. I'm not dead. In fact, I'm untouched. I still fucking feel like I hurt, however.
"He~y. He~y!" Yuki waves down at me. "Don't di~e, kitty! Stay with me~!"
"I- I'm fine!" I bark back… which, since I'm a cat, I mewdle back instead. "Get- away."
...That wasn't so bad, after all. I didn't actually die, so I don't really have any reason to care about this. Maybe I'll come back with Shikome, or something.
But, I'm tired of all of this cave nonsense now. I think I've scouted out enough useful real estate for later.
"Let's go." I address Yuki. She has been no help at all, other than being a flashlight. "I think we're done here."
/ / / / PAIN / / / /
Fresh air is really nice, actually.
"Thank you, I think…?" Yuki thanks me for leading her to the surface, she thinks. "Now I just… gotta do all that paperwork…" She gives the small line towards some piles of paperwork a mournful stare.
We're currently inside the embassy, by the way.
...Hmm~. What do I do next? Once I get a team for optimizing this lower tunnel, perhaps I'll get something in order for actual development.
It might be time to hire some actual construction people. Oh, actually…
I need to make sure the ID situation is on the up-and-up, too. Maybe I can accomplish both, or so.
First, I'll probably want to get out of this embassy. Which does remind me: Makai tourists get some passport things to exist instead, because we want more of them and less everything else. It's diversity. I did try to make them pay for it, but so far my attempts have just been nightmarishly difficult, due to many of them using their own weird bumfuck currencies that don't mean anything. I would not like payment in scalera, thank you very much.
Ignoring Yuki-whoever, I just leave.
Ah, the sun. That's pleasant, compared to way down under.
Let's go check on… the guards. I still need to start the process of getting them actual things. Man, babysitting this asswipe of a town takes patience alright.
I wonder if my nazi uniforms came in, too. Alright, let's head to the guards.
...For some reason, I feel good about the sunlight.
Crossing out of the alleys before the embassy, I end up on south main. There's not a whole lot going on here.
Also, for some reason, mostly just guards are outside right now. Maybe it's sleeping day.
Ignoring this, I file into the alleys just aside this street, and aside west main. More specifically, this is… the south-west sector that I'm skirting along.
After this long, I've become more intimate with where's what in the human village. That is to say, I got familiar with a compass, and discovered the bamboo forest is south, the mansion and shrine are east, and the magic forest is north. West is a fuck lot of nothing.
With enough of wandering through the semi-sun accented alleys, I reach the guard headquarters. It's going to be interesting, seeing if the orders have arrived.
Click. The front door swung open smoothly, with a single click of the main handle. I've finally got someone to fix that goddamned squeaking sound most doors in Gensokyo seem to make. Let's see it come back in a few days.
The front lobby is as you'd expect. Front, and lobby.
There's some interesting shit here in general. You know, aside from how bad this front lobby can be, from virtue of being a government establishment.
"...Mmh?" A old woman looks up at me from her front desk.
There were about three front desks, but most of the time, only the center one is manned. Between the center and left one is a entryway into the rest of the complex.
"O~h. Hello, there!" Of the clerks in rotation, this old woman was friendly. "Little girl…"
Most clerks immediately need manhandling for identity purposes, being naturally anti-youkai, and therefore anti-small-girls by nature. I don't think anyone has enough gall to argue with this old lady, however, and there's so far been no reason to care about her.
"Hi." I greet her plainly. "I'd like a tour pass." They have those, here. I think. She's the only one who hands them out.
"Oh, why, sure…" No questions asked, even. "Are you from the village?" I spoke too soon. Yet…
"Yes." It's not a very challenging question. The obvious answer is 'no'.
...Turning to me, in spite of my nazi officer cap and official loli business attire, she hands off a orange paper pass of some vague description. "Here ya go~. If anyone gives ya trouble, just send 'em ta me…" Of course.
It's such a vague and weirdly offhand thing to ask for a guest pass, or to ask for a tour, that I'm pretty sure it won't ever be a problem. It's more convenient for me this way, because otherwise this takes ten minutes to process the other clerks being assholes.
With the guest pass thing in hand, I gaze into the back of the guard headquarters.
There's a round counter back here, manned by a few other of the old clerks. We need a little shit as a diversity hire.
"What the hell do I-..." Oh, hey. It's one of the men who has received armor. "Really?" He seems to be struggling with putting it on. "It's so heavy, though…"
"That is not my problem." This old balding asshole gives him sass. "If you'd like to file a complaint, I have the paperwork ready."
"Fuck you. Shut up…" This man's pretty forward, at least. While he looks down at his armor things, I pass by him.
In the back of the room, four women dressed up similarly to Reimu share ice cream.
"What's wrong, Kaneru-chan?" This short, earth green-haired girl turns to her fellow Chinese knockoff Reimu. "You look kinda sad…"
'Kaneru', this auburn not-Reimu, shook her head. "Nothing. It's just… I was thinking, is all."
Right. These girls are the chucklefucks from something called the 'Artificial Hakurei Project'. It's really just a lot of hot air and girls playing dress up. I'm pretty sure some guard captain set it up because he had a hard-on for Reimu, and now it's just around here.
"...Was it about him?" The short girl I forgot the name of spoke to her friend. "The guy, from that day…?"
"Yeah." She nodded. "I- I still never… I wanna know if he had a family. We're indirectly responsible, you know…"
Well, that's enough of that. Let's see if my deliveries are in.
I head through the south-east door, behind the guard headquarters.
...Oh, yes.
Back here, I see a few preliminary boxes. I've ordered nazi uniforms of a few sizes, for some of the town guard. It's surely no huge issue, to dress up some of them. Perhaps I'll keep the scale limited, due to costs, and the fact it's quite an unarmored uniform. We'll see, however. The guard still needs entire revision to even work.
...I can't really move these boxes inside, myself. I'll get one of the burly men on the higher floors to do it.
Moving back inside, I pass the Hakurei wannabes on my way to the stairs up.
"I don't really know where he went either, the old captain. The other girls didn't wanna talk about it." The-... girl who's name started with 'K' spoke. "I really want some damn answers…!"
This second floor has carpeting, and paperwork. It's where I had to do some boring shit to get the IDs in order here, and the outfits. Also, armor. It's just-... uugh.
This floor scares me. I skip immediately to the third.
We're now at the top floor, by the way. This thing's three stories tall.
Only the guards up here move to stop me, one of them with a big red spear moving to glare at me. "You."
I hold up my guest pass. He just closes his eyes, shakes his head, and gets out of the way. It's really surprising what you can do with this.
...Up here, to my surprise, Okita actually sat at the big desk, halfway thrown across his big comfy leather chair he'd bought. The old, wooden throne sat abandoned at the side of the room.
"...Oo~h?" He perked up slightly at my presence. "Hehe~y! It's you! The-... cat lady!" He seems to remember me, at any rate. "I show up for one damn day, an' I'm bored outta my mind here!"
When I approach his desk, I notice he's stabbed a stack of paperwork with some form of knife. It's pretty appropriate.
I'm really only here for a few reasons, at this point. "I came to see how the ID situation's panning out."
Some seconds later, he began to grin. "Ooh. It's panning out, alright! We got a pre~tty chunk 'a change burnin' a hole in a sealed room on the second floor."
My question was more about the general tallies, but I guess an immensely vague financial report is fine too.
"I meant, overall. Tally of those issued, of what kind…" I list some key data I'd like to think about.
He patted the nearby paper he stabbed. "Somewhere in here! Nearin' a grand 'er two, in total. Bu~t… there have been more than a few complaints!"
fwoof. From under the desk, he pulled out a stack of tiny slips. "Y'make the complaint papers tinier, and people just send in more!" For how tiny the slips were, it was a pretty tall stack.
"...What's the gist of them?" I assume it's just people vaguely hating the ID system, which is ignorable. Human villagers shouldn't need to bother with it, unless some of them have just been too retarded or lazy to go retrieve their free one. That's probably happened, but that's just too bad.
"Confusion an' pissed off people." Okita summarized. "Buncha youkai ones, people who're thinkin' their hardships are a result 'a angry youkai, actual crimes, an' then uh, idiots!"
So, about what I expected. Well then-
"Also!" He held up a very singed report, from the stack of voiceless whining. "This one's ta you, personally!"
Oh. That's good. It's also in hand-written Japanese, which is both honorable, but also not readable.
Ri~p. I tear it in half. Despite this, I'll hold onto the two halves, so Aiko can read it to me over a glass of milk later.
"Youkai crimes?" I smell blood. "What kind, and where?" They're digging their hole deeper by making scenes. Of course, if they can be connected to this ID event, at any rate. Random acts of idiocy are the norm, and won't mean as much if they're not a direct relation.
...Then again, for how stupid some of the villagers are, there's a lot of just obliviousness from all of them. Making a scene of a scene… hmm. We'll have to see.
"Nothin' terrible." Okita waved it off. "A little punchin' and kickin', but y'know, s'just about what everyone expected from this. What- didja mean you didn't ever see it?"
...I shake my head. "Not particularly." The village's individual things don't really interest me.
His one eye flicks up briefly. "Tsk. Not very observant, are you, neko-chan? It might not be fresh hell out there, but you'll see people shittin' themselves every other day! Especially the hidden youkai!"
Not so hidden, then, are they? Regardless, if they pay, it's whatever. I should be seen as an advocate of co-existence.
Crea~k. He got up from his cushy chair. "Whe~lp! I'm off ta hit the town. S'enough stabbin' boring papers fer one day."
Hmm? "Where are you going?" Those papers should be worked over.
He snorts. "...I know I only got one good eye, but that doesn't mean you don't got more than one good ear!"
What the fuck is he talking about. "Those papers need to be done."
Waving that request off, he meanders towards the room's back. "Uh huh. I ain't an-... well, I am an accountant, but I ain't your accountant! Hell, you're the accountant, now! Hehaha~!"
Okay, really. "Those papers were issued to the guard. Which, you currently man. We can't get anything done with you refusing to do the work assigned to you. Unless, this position doesn't suit you."
"Yer right, it don't!" He seems to take my words in stride, again. "Y'shoulda thought about that before givin' me silly papers to stab- ah, sort through! Besides…"
Strutting towards me, he looks down to meet my gaze. "All papers, per council staff parsing, may be signed by all the pencil pushers trapped in this joint, and not me. Clause instated so the captain can pussyfoot however he wants without always bein' tied down. Would do ya a little good to at least half-ass this gig ya just dug yerself inta."
He smiled wider. "Don't go gettin' yerself confused, now. If ya've been here any respectable amount 'a time, you know how fast they clear out assclowns."
"Would that include you?" I really don't need a talking down to by this old guy with an eyepatch.
"Hehehe~!" I especially don't need to be talked down to by an old guy with an eyepatch who giggles like a little girl. "Kitty's got claws! S'just some friendly advice!" With that, he really begins to leave.
...That's that, then. I'll just push that horseshit through the council myself, then.
That's fine, but it's fairly irritating. Oh well.
I step up to one of the final guards of this place. "Ten thousand yen to move some boxes up here." Time to make myself at home some more.
...Slowly, he begins to set his adamantite spear aside, and starts to move to assist me. "Auh, sure…"
/ / / / HUMANITY'S VANITY / / / /
I got that done. The armor parts and nazi uniforms have been relocated three stories up.
Cla- clack. A heavy armor part is placed on the floor, because it's fucking heavy, and I can't lift it well. "Nnh." Do you realize how expensive fucking armor is? Both time-wise and money-wise? Not that money matters to me here, since this is using the village's funds, but really…
Thankfully, by comparison, nazi uniforms are somehow cheaper. Not by a lot, because they're magically enabled and resistant to dark elements, but they don't take eons to build with metallurgy magic.
If what the crazy eyepatch man had to say was anything to go by, we have about two thousand people in the human village. This is even after all the murder, arson and insanity. I didn't think that many people could live here, but I remember even on the outside, towns could have a disproportionately huge amount of people in them.
Crea~k. There's a balcony door behind the captain's lounge chair thing. It swings open, to reveal Aiko there. Her greeting is curt. "There you are."
Hello. "...Have you made contact with any troublemakers, recently?"
I don't think I've mentioned it here before, but I'm also working on relocating below-average intellect people and criminals. As Yukari has made clear before, murder is off-limits, but peaceful relocation and negotiation should be fine. No one will miss them, anyway, as long as I don't start feeling like just deporting people I don't like.
Additionally, time is relatively of the essence, so for starters, I've simply sent Aiko to go find prospective idiots to send packing. They'll still technically be part of the village, and still being useful and living a life… they just won't be seeing the sun again, ideally. I'll still need construction and guards to help maintain that situation, or else I'll just be letting psychos loose in the underworld, and I don't actually know how that would pan out.
"A few." Aiko is quite summary. I feel like my people are getting lazier each day. "I've little confidence in this idea of yours."
You've made that abundantly clear already. "Mmm. It will be some moments, until I get the underground stuff in working order." Perhaps she should man that situation. Considering her skills, it shouldn't be difficult for her.
"...I would imagine." She folded her arms. "Admittedly, it is far easier to work in the light of day, now. I'm interested to see where you plan to take this village."
I might have money, but I'm pretty sure I'd be fucked if I did anything very very impactful.
Cr- cr- creak. The leather chair nearby groaned.
When I looked, Yukari was there.
She gave me a little wave. How polite.
"...Hello." We might as well get this over with, then.
Aiko narrows her gaze at her. "Who are you? ...Or, should I say, why are you here?"
Yukari waved her hand at Aiko. "Oh, hush. Have some milk."
thunk. Aiko staggered back, a tiny cardboard milk carton beaning her in the head from above. "Ngh- you…!"
...Then, her gaze met mine. "I'm not typically one to get straight to the point like this… but, if you're going to have this much of a hand in the village underside, figuratively and literally, we will need to talk."
Well, that's refreshing. "Sure." Don't expect me to listen, however.
...She purses her lips for a smug look. "Mmm. Well, for starters, you've killed about… what, thirty humans so far? Although, you've done what I've said regarding the daily homicide limit… I'm afraid I'll have to put a stopper on that, now."
Didn't think that one through, huh. Oh well. "Is youkai homicide and outsider homicide still permitted?"
She gave me a nod. "Oh, yes, certainly. Have fun."
"Aren't you not the type to talk to important people in person?" It feels awfully out of character, for Yukari to confront me this much.
She rolls her eyes. "Hmm~. I was gonna have someone relay it to you, but I supposed one last direct chat would be nice for you. Besides, you're not very important." So you say. "Be sure to inform your cute little darling, for me. Or, would that be lover, now?"
"Or what?" I've yet to see her make good on anything. "You'll tell my mother?"
"Yes." She nods bluntly. "...Bu~t, I'd simply let you find out."
clunk. She placed a suitcase on the desk. "I'm going to ask you to take a hands-off approach, to this village internment camp idea of yours. Do not get me wro~ng, it's a splendid development of sorts… but you see, humans require a delicate touch."
She's being vague. "What do you mean?"
"You will arrange the workers, the paper, and the money… and my people will let it rise from there. Or, in this case, burrow." She gave me a soft smile. "This is the last time we will speak together, probably. If you ever need something of mine, you may visit my club, or speak to a one-eyed accountant. But, do be aware too, that money talks. If you haven't the capital, your words may never reach me through the middlemen."
Really. "Why, though."
She twitched her nose. "Ah. I simply don't like you. And, it is true, it has been awfully cumbersome to make so many manual appearances. But, this is the village, and my presence easily passes without note within here."
That much was obvious, I guess. "Do you like the new embassy?"
...At that, she gave a casual head-tilt, and a rise of her brows. "Mmm. I like it. I suppose it drove the result of that bet home. You found quite an appealing way to amplify the positives of it."
Hmm. "How about the nazi outfits."
She gave a very subtle snort. "Well, anything minor and taste-oriented is fully within your territory, I suppose. I'm fully neutral on simply refurbishing the guard here... and, perhaps it is thoughtful thinking for the future. You will come to know what I like, and if you don't… well, you'll know."
That was fairly succinct, as a whole. Aiko's simply glaring her down right now.
"Remembe~r." She held out a finger, pointed up. "Arrange the underground assets for me, reduce fatality by policy, reduce manual personal fatality to nothing as well, and keep a mind of yourself."
"Fatality by policy?" I declare it 'kill yourself' day. Everyone is obliged to obey by punishment of death.
She gave me a nod. "Yes." ...I suppose I'll just assume what that is. "If you want the details, why not ask your new friend?" Hmm? "Tata~."
Once she was done being elegant, a gap opened in the chair beneath her, and she sunk into it clumsily, almost looking like she didn't mean to do that.
...Aiko faced me. "That doesn't happen every day."
It does for me. "How convenient of you to be here, right now. I need some things read for me."
She rolls her head. "Hmph. You are such a bore."
What did I need read, again? Oh, right. I took the scorched, torn up note thing from my pockets. "Here." We'll start with this.
...Aiko put the two pieces together. "Hmm. This is a death threat." Oh.
"From?" Time to ostracize them.
...She rolled her eyes. "It's a council misconduct claim. It's anonymous." Oh. Who cares. "It says… 'I think I know who you are. You'll die for what you've done to this village'."
Just like all those scam emails who also know who you are. "Nice. It really shows me what I'm supposed to improve upon."
Aiko snorted. "Ye~s. Well, until they come to us in person, it doesn't mean anything."
Hmm. Now, for these boring papers…
/ / / / TEN HOURS LATER / / / /
It's not actually ten hours later. Aiko and I have hit the town, because boring papers are boring.
Today's been fairly weird. The school should still be in session for Shikome at this hour, now that I think about it. I wonder what the hell she even does there.
"Ah." Aiko looks up, along north main street, the road we're currently on. Small Packages is on north main, actually… along with the Golden Grin. "There seems to be a skirmish ahead." What?
...Ahead of us, on the village road ahead of Small Packages proper, a woman in a mint green kimono glowers down at two woefully underwhelming guards.
"You'd dare ask capital of me?" Her gaze is ice, and also venom. "To so simply wander the roads? Has humanity stepped so low?"
"Look- we're just-..." This kid guard swallows his saliva. "We're just doing our jobs. No ID, no entry. We gotta ask you t'leave…"
...She begins to clench her fists. "Oh. I see how it is. You rob me of my sister, then you close your borders…"
I turn to Aiko. "Where's the skirmish."
She gives me a flat stare back. "That yuki-onna is clearly tilted." Tilted. "A fight is soon to break out, once she is angered enough. She is on a one-way track to disappointment and rage."
Huh. Well, Aiko should be able to take care of anything like that. Actually… perhaps we should wait.
Aiko leans towards me. "If she kills them, will that not be… homicide via policy?"
What. "It's not my fault."
"...This clearly resulted through the ID legislation." Aiko argues, for some reason. "Therefore?"
"Therefore, it's not my fault." Legislation is legislation. It's not my fault when the morons act like morons. "Oh, well. Just kill her first, then."
...Aiko began to crack her neck, before reaching behind herself.
Shi~ng. She drew her eight katanas, between each finger. "I'll ask for my pay after, then." Very good.
...As she walks up to them, a different guy walks up to them, as well. Time for me to watch how this plays out.
Upon sighting the katana kitty, the supposed yuki-onna widens her eyes.
"Um…" One of the scraggly kids holds up a clipboard. "We can help with some of the paperwork…"
Aiko stops behind them. "Guardsmen. Step aside."
Upon turning back to her, the boys immediately jumped out of their skin, and flailed away. "Ah- ah…!"
"Ngh, damn it…" But, there was also some dumb-looking fop who limped up to them. "I was looking to give them-... a piece of my mind."
Aiko simply ignores this sad, strange man. "Yuki-onna. I apologize for my uncivil request, but I must ask you to die, for my ambitions."
"What is this…!?" The yuki-onna stepped back on the village road. "How dare you!?"
"Hmh…!?" The grey-haired fop made a hard gaze. "I suppose I must ask-..." He felt at his stomach. "What are two youkai doing, in these walls?"
Aiko shot him a stare. So did the yuki-onna.
Then, the yuki-onna shut her eyes, for just a moment.
Fwi~sh. Within each of her tightly clenched hands, a blade formed. "Fine. You may retreat without dishonor, nekomata."
Aiko tensed her blade arms. "Quite a call, from the slow jewel that is a snow woman. I'll make silk of your black locks."
"What the hell is going on!?" The straight-haired man barked out. "This village- has gone to piss!"
Aiko finally addressed his existence. "You will be one who is sealed away. I'll reconsider if you aid me in your duty, here. I am a village conscript, maintained by law."
"You will join her fate." The yuki-onna threatened him.
He traded gazes between the both of them, his glare intensifying. "Co- conscript!? You!? What kind of idiot do you take me for? I'd sooner skin you myself!"
...Aiko nodded, at that. "You are lucky I may only act by self-defense, or in partial, human scum."
Baring his teeth, he then glared the yuki-onna over. "And- I don't suppose you are a conscript as well!? Be this a tu- turf war!?"
"Uneducated lump." The yuki-onna sneered down at him. "Do you not see? Your village has taken to turning youkai against itself, for individual gain. Your kind stop at nothing to ruin and tarnish. For this-... I wish to see you all dead."
"I will win." Aiko spread her eight katanas out now, ready.
...Put in the middle of the best situation, the adult-ish looking villager reaches around his waist.
swish. He brings out this really crappy looking rapier. It looks like it's made of tinfoil. "Then-... is it true!?"
"Sir!" One of the kid-like guards calls out. "Ge- get away from there! Just- let them-…!"
...He just blinks dumbly at them.
A fight was about to break out, on this otherwise serene afternoon. A passing gale blew through us, and it felt okay.
The yuki-onna held both of her ice blades out, in a similar grand posture to Aiko's-
Fwi- fwi- fwish! Behind her back, four more were generated, flashing into existence.
Then, Aiko flicked forward.
SWI- CLINK- SWI- CLINK! She was a whirlwind of blades, ripples in the air around her rolling out in an oddly water-like fashion as she came at the yuki-onna in the form of a tornado, almost.
Eyes wide, the yuki-onna drifted back, sixteen sharp strokes meeting the two ice blades she had out. "Nnh…!?" As they crumbled, she cast her arms together.
From her sides, two ice blades came out, thrusting for Aiko's stomach.
"Over he~re!" That's when Aiko rolled out of the air behind her.
SWA- CRACK! As she rolled overhead of the yuki-onna, her eight katanas cleaved the two ice blades placed defensively behind and up of the snow woman in twain, leaving her with just two now.
Fwi- fwish. She slowly began making more. "That speed…!"
Click. Aiko landed on the dirt path before her, her back to the yuki-onna. She flicked her gaze back, her eyes widening. "Can't see me!"
fwish. Then, she was gone, her form blurring out.
In the air around the yuki-onna, watery ripples in the air were visible, and her eyes were wide. She brought up her blades, and her arms.
SHINK- SHUNK! Eight strokes marred an arm, bands of flesh and cloth flaring out. "Nn- enh-"
CRACK- SWISH! The same happened to the other arm, smashing straight through a sword in the process, only four strokes leaving bright red bands.
"I won't fall!" The yuki-onna bellowed out. "Ice!"
woo~sh. Around her form, an expanding pulse of frost began to flare out, snowflakes and visible winds whirlpooling around.
SWI- SWISH! Despite this, Aiko's blades came up in a tornado of strokes behind her. I was able to see her for a split second, as she'd stopped to gauge the ice storm, and where was best to attack.
After her swings, long locks of black hair fluttered to the floor, along with strands of mint green cloth.
WHI- WHISH! Aiko's movements away from the cold were audible-
"Hna~h!" As the man fell on his ass and scrambled back, the growing blizzard encompassed a chunk of the dirt road, growing wide in the bright day, like a marble of diamond. I can feel the wind from over here.
FWASH! CRACK! Oh? This is very fast…
Aiko was, in the span of about two seconds, frozen, went sliding down the entire road and into the square, broke free, and was now darting back towards the yuki-onna. Whatever the ice did, it made her completely visible again, not that it was super helpful at this point.
Shu- shu- shunk! "Hnn~!" Aiko leapt into the air, clearing half the height of Golden Grin in the process. Spikes of ice erected from the floor beneath her, but she was way too high for any of them to be effective.
CLACK! In an instant, Aiko landed.
"Stealth Walk!" She let her katanas and features hang.
fwi- fwish. She was behind the yuki-onna again. "You make me yawn-"
Shi- crack- shi- crack- shink! Skidding back on her katanas and her heels, she cleaved through a myriad of tiny, pinprick ice spikes that erupted beneath her.
"My- my azure defense…" The yuki-onna hugged herself. "You mean nothing, to it!"
FWASH- FWOOSH…! In one instant, ice crept up along the floor, freezing the yuki-onna within a dome of ice. That seems counter-intuitive…
...Closing her eyes, Aiko took the lazy-looking, crestfallen stance she liked to use before going batshit insane and teleporting across the universe. "Cat Sign…" Oh, boy. "Shank Shun!"
FWOOSH! Her form vanished, a storm of wind whirling from where she was.
...Hmm. Just, a big lump of ice, in the middle of the road now. Out of context, this would be puzzling.
KRA- KRA- KRABOOM! Wh- what the fuck.
The building next to me featured a large, eight-claw scar, the front of the building practically folded in.
SWII~SH- SWISH- SWISH- SWISH…! Along the dirt floor, random arrangements of claw marks begin to materialize all around the ice boulder. Then-
KRACK- CRACK- SWCRACK- CRACK- CRACK! They convened on the icy boulder, carving it into shreds of icy shrapnel and diamond dust, which rained down on the nearby buildings and roads. It was almost instantaneous, and I had to shield my eyes from the icy wind that billowed off from the encounter…
"Da- dahmn…" Whirling from the icy mess, the yuki-onna had her arms up, frost billowing off of them. "Cursed-"
SHUNK. Four katanas met her in the stomach. "Nn- nnh…!?"
"Pitiful." Aiko's gaze was bland.
Shink. She retracted the blades.
The yuki-onna kneeled. "Nn- no…" Red flowed from her open wounds, staining her now trashy kimono.
"I suppose you will be worth a high bounty." Aiko looked down at her bloody katanas. "I'll send my condolences to your sisters."
"You…" The fop began to walk up to them.
...Aiko looked at him with her same resting intense expression.
"Were you truly conscripted for this, then?" He asked of her. "A youkai, in the name of the village?"
She gave him a nod. "Why, indeed. You may even ask the governmental body, here. The council fully sponsors any help it can get."
"That is folly." He frowned. "If they're truly as you say-..."
I step up to them plainly. "Hello." I shall now assure him.
Reaching into my suit, I draw my card. "Chief Financial Officer. Yes, I sanction these actions."
...There was disbelief in his gaze at first. Then, after reading the card, he glared at the floor. "That's-..."
I twitch my tail at him. He meets my gaze again. "You-... you are youkai too, are you not? The village is compromised!?" Hmm.
"It took you this long, to realize?" Aiko actually smiles, at him. "It is too late to do anything, now. Do not worry, however. The future I have in store for you is quick and painless."
She turns to the yuki-onna. "But first, my money." Reeling her katanas back, she poises herself to finish the job..
The yuki-onna stares up at the blades, her gaze drained and airy.
"Y- youkai!" Barking out, the fop raised his rapier. "Ah- air slasher!"
Woosh. Aiko stepped back from his thrust easily.
Thud. He fell on his stomach after missing. "Ngh- damn it…!"
"There will be a special place in hell, for humans like you." Aiko glowered down at him. "Any more of that, and I'll see if we can make a deal, for you…"
Finally, she centers upon the yuki-onna again. "As for you, there will be no future." She reels her katanas back. Interestingly, the yuki-onna's blood has all crystalized, like ice. It looks almost ruby-like in color. Maybe we should kill more of these.
The yuki-onna's form is still. Maybe she already bled out.
SWISH. Aiko swung.
Her katanas passed through slush. The red was actually scarce, as the yuki-onna seemed to be… made of ice, in the end? Is this how snow women die? It's disappointingly boring.
fwush. The blood actually loses its ruby tint, for the most part, and the cloth and everything that belonged to the yuki-onna became slush.
...I nod at this.
Aiko huffed. "Curses, indeed." She turned to the man. "You're going straight to hell."
"That is enough." I decide. "We don't need any trouble." After all, we can't put down a lame human villager like this.
Aiko looked at me examiningly. I assure her, since she apparently needs it. "You will be paid now." Time to dig through my cash…
She looks confused for a moment, ironically, before retaining her ever-intense stare. "...Hmm~. I suppose your naivety comes with perks after all, kitten. I will accept one hundred thousand yen."
"That's quite a price hike." I claim instantly. "What would you say is the reason, for that?"
"Thieving beer for a tenth of the price is appropriate, as such is a tenth of the difficulty." She declares. "I may have allied with you for gain, but now I charge appropriately. You are not worth charity work, and I am not a dog."
...Fine. One grand, then. "Alright. Let me sort it all out."
Hmm. Well.
"Nn- ngh...?" Did that old guy seriously hurt himself trying that one thrust. "My- arm…" Amazing.
With a sigh, I shell out the money. "I suppose it was worth it."
She snorts. "Indeed. Now, if you'll excuse me…"
fwish. Oh. She's gone.
...I watch the old fop slowly get onto his legs. "Oo- ow… god, damn…" What a loser.
Well. I just blew a bunch of yen. That was just about infinitely worse than having Shikome kill people for free.
"im a snifflesworth" When did this monstrosity get here. Did it spawn in the dirty ass floor, like a nightmare does?
The guy just shakes his head at it, as it tries to look cuddly in front of his face. "Agh- get, get…"
Once he's dissuaded the dust disappointment, he just shoots me a sour look. "...Tell me. Why does the village-... side itself with youkai?"
"Because, fuck you." Honestly, who the hell are you.
...Closing his eyes, he just shakes his head. "This-... this is all my fault." What.
"How." Did that fall hurt your head.
"If only I hadn't taken that damned dark magic practitioner…" He seemed oddly remorseful. "My rank and estate would not have fallen into the impoverished gallows. Ngh-..." He felt at his gut, again. "I- I still feel where that damned demon felled me in true combat…"
Who even are you. "That's nice." Felled in the truest of combats, probably. Wait, demon? "What kind of demon?" Maybe I could use this…
He shook his head. "A child of demon- of youkai, obsessed with the arcane, and hellbent on disrupting our government."
Do you mean me. If you do, I'm poking your eyes out. "What do they look like?"
He scowls at me. "Now that I think it, you too are a youkai child, sent for the same purpose. Yet, if I cannot best the scout your kind has sent before, I have no power to stop you."
With that, he turns away from me. "...I've decided. I'm leaving this village, starting today." Oh. "Civility has no place among the uncivil, and I know where I am unwelcomed. I concede the human village to you, for now." ...Yay?
"Seriously, who the hell are you." I'm actually lost.
...He raises his chin to the air, looking away too far above me in an attempt to retain haughtiness. "Sanjiro Coda, of the now likely defunct Coda clan. You will do well to remember my name, kin of youkai."
Okay.
...Slowly, a cart is pushed by us.
"Hey." A plain woman with brown hair smiles at us. "Do you two want some ice cream?" She's an ice cream salesman.
...Sanjiro and I exchange glancing looks.
"Fi- fine." Sanjiro consents to this. "For the road, I suppose…"
"Sure." I just blew the rough equal of a thousand dollars, so I might as well spend some more.
The woman gives Sanjiro a dry look. "Oh, I remember you."
He blinks, before furrowing his brows. "Hmm?"
"You're that perverted aristocrat." She frowned at him. "Coda, was it?"
"Strike me when I'm down." He just slowly shook his head. "But, I will return, someday."
She snorted, at that. "What, are you leaving? The village?"
"Indeed." He held his rapier up. "I will find a way to make myself stronger. For, I will be he to save this land from the youkai."
She just let out a sigh. "...Well, okay. You'll probably die out there, you know."
He nodded simply. "I know." Good.
...She gestures down to her flavors, now that her cart is halfway setup.
"Vanilla." I decide simply.
"Pistachio." Sanjiro requests the mint green ice cream. Who the fuck picks pistachio.
I take another look at the slightly ruby slush stain on the ground nearby.
"Goodbye forever." Sanjiro gives a melodramatic wave to the ice cream saleslady.
She grins at him. "Go- goodbye, I guess…"
Once he's down the road far enough, she turns to me, and gives an awkward smile. "Somethin's not right with him."
"You think." He's very fucking insane.
I watch him leave, as the day kind of ages. I wonder how often villagers do choose to just leave. What if all of them did that? Would that be grounds for Yukari giving me a forcible indefinite time-out?
As he leaves-... uh.
From a nearby alley, a mint-green clad woman stumbles out, before looking around, and doubling back. She was holding her stomach, where she would have been stabbed, and I could still see her serrated clothes and messily chopped hair.
...I think a refund is in order. I look around for Aiko, but she's long gone. I may have been bamboozled.
Seeing her, that Sanjiro guy beelines for her. Maybe he'll finish the job for me.
Oh, well. I'll have a talk with kitty tomorrow, then. I pay her a ten-times premium on a job, and she can't even finish it right. Did she know it'd turn out like this?
How irritating. I suppose that will be a topic for later.
Well. I've got a few options left for today, then. I could meander aimlessly around that youkai brothel under that one pizza parlor, or I could head back to Small Packages to see how things are holding up. There's really nothing interesting at the former, but maybe there could be? Hmm.
No~. For now, let's check back. I could always hit the town at evening, if I was curious.
/ / / / A FLUFFLE ROASTED TO PERFECTION / / / /
I step into the bar at late day…
Vanilla looks small behind the counter, as usual. Today, it seems we have some usual suspects.
"Mgh- mmh…" Albus downs some of a bottle.
That navy-blue girl who belonged to Seiga is here, just dozing at the counter.
"Mmm~." There's also a very strange girl, between her and Albus. It's curious…
And then, there's this thing. "snugsnugsnug" There is a fluffle here. It's loli-sized, and eating one of the unoccupied seats. "snugsnug!" Metaphorically, I mean.
Despite its weird pronunciation of 'snug', Albus elbows it away when it gets close. "Mmh. No…"
Coming around the counter, Vanilla found the fluffle, and it found her. "snugsnug" It got close to her, and tried to sniff.
Easily, she apprehends it with both arms. With force, she splays it upon its stomach on the counter.
pap- pap- pap. She slapped it on its non-existent fluffle butt a few times, and it wiggled, before finally taking to the floor. "waaa~l"
"...Good." I see she's taken the spanking approach to the fluffy menace, for some reason. "Hello, by the way."
"He- hey." She gives me a wave, as I move behind the counter…
Ah. She's deposited the good money, back here. That moment when you don't have a cash register, so you just dump money on the floor.
What's with this weird girl. She's got heart glasses on, and blonde hair done up in pigtails.
"Who're you?" Probably not a question to ask your customers, but those heart glasses strike me oddly.
She smiles wider. "Hey. I'm Stephanie!" Oh? She might be an outsider, then.
"Hi." I greet her casually.
"I'm Stephanie!" And, she's insane. Par for the course, really. Or, perhaps she's some lunatic from Makai. It's gonna be harder to tell, these days.
...I was just about to wonder, 'why don't we get any normal people', but there's a bunch of generics at the back tables that I never mention because they're so totally mundane and uninteresting, most of the time.
Also, Albus and this sorta tubby dark girl are normal, in the way that they just seem to be here to drink and loaf around.
"You are so funny!" Stephanie turned to Albus, and said complete nonsense.
...Albus doesn't even look at her. I can only assume she's been doing this all evening.
Well, that's great. I inhale some of the bar air. Rgh- someone's been smoking, somewhere. I need a no-smoking policy.
...Shikome should be getting back at some point. Until then… I'm not really sure what I want to do. I've been at this village thing for awhile.
Where the fluffle used to be, there is now Sakuya.
I've actually been at this shit long enough for Sakuya to appear again. Unfortunately for her, I have gone loli. Once you've gone loli, you never go back-oli. Ow.
She's staring me down, probably because I'm closest. Oddly, she takes a quick once-over of Albus, before centering her gaze on me again.
"Where is the outsider?" She asks me, gazing down at my kitty qualities.
Me no speak Japanese. "...Gone." Blown away.
"Gone?" One of her brows raised. "Gone where?"
"I don't know." Pain. A lot of pain, actually. "She's not around." I misspoke, but that works.
"She?" Sakuya was indeed further confused. "...Hmh. I suppose there's nothing here for me, then." Yes, quite.
"Hi! I'm Stephanie!" Who the hell is this Stephanie chick.
Sakuya simply ignores her. Then, she is gone. Very good.
There's really no reason for Sakuya to learn anything about my identity, so life shall continue to be good. Shikome should still be getting home, soon. Well, 'home'. I think we may consider this pub of ours home. We sleep here every day, after all.
Someone else stomps in. They're- ah.
Fujiwara no Mokou, the fire person who Shikome killed that one time. Immortality works faster than I had thought. Too bad she's so easy to kill that it doesn't matter.
She comes up to where Sakuya used to be. Maybe today is national 'kill yourself' day.
Her gaze locks on me, at first. Let's not waste any time. "What brings you here?" Maybe that was a little conspicuous, of me.
"You." Mokou focuses on me, for some reason. Probably because I just talked to her. "Shikome belongs to you, doesn't she? Councilwoman."
"...Am I?" Let's play dumb, a little. Although, how the hell did she learn of me? I don't believe she saw me much, even as 'Matt', rather than cat loli girl.
Mokou makes a strange expression. "What the hell do you mean, 'am I'?" ...I suppose it was a stupid question. "I saw her at the school. You sent her there on purpose, didn't you?"
Fortunately, she has also asked a stupid question. "For an education? I thought she could learn some things…" The loli voice actually helps.
Maybe not with Mokou, however. "She told me who sent her. I asked around, about you." Doesn't that breach student-school confidentiality? If that law even exists here. "You're behind that new ID law. And, apparently, what they said about you hanging out here was right."
What they said, huh. At this point, that could be a lot of people.
"I know you've been killing people, too." Mokou leans into the counter. "Do you think no one noticed? The disappearances, and the recent bunch of obituaries? Secrets may be easy to hide in this village… but, I'm not a regular villager."
"Who says they'd be u~s…" Let's be casual lolis about this.
Mokou's gaze was blunt. "The deaths were all similar. Punctures, followed by consumption, with the draining of soul energy. I've taken some of the remains to Eientei."
Now, why would she go about that? Unless, she knew she would find something from doing so. Considering how on edge she seems to be, it only makes sense. "...Don't you dislike them?" I know vaguely of Mokou's relationship with them.
"Right now, we have a common enemy." Mokou glared down at me. "I saw what happened to the bamboo. You're not just a threat to humans, but youkai too."
...Okay. "So?" I plead the fifth. "Does anyone even like youkai?"
"...So, huh." She takes a step back, and slides her hands in her pants pockets. "I'm your executioner."
Is that so. "I'm sure the villagers would like another death. Especially of a little girl like me."
"It doesn't matter what they think of me." Mokou's frown deepened. "Not that it would be my fault, if they never found anything."
"I- I'd see…"
Beside us, Vanilla spoke up. "I would know!"
This entire bar is also full of people. "I think there's a lot of people around us that would see."
Mokou rolled her eyes. "Well- it doesn't have to be right now. Y'see- I'm kinda experienced with holding grudges. This bar will be your prison. I've got time to kill."
Really, now. "All for me?" It seems disproportionate.
"You and your cronies are behind all this death and pain." Mokou answers plainly in turn. "The time I'd spend means literally nothing, in comparison."
Oh, come on. "They can't be in pain if they're dead." ...It might hurt a little at first, but it's not like they can be sad about it now. First times are pretty painful too, right?
"Then, where are the souls of the bodies?" Mokou tilted her head back. "Riddle me that."
"...I'm not a shinigami. How should I know?" My response is curt. Because, really, this is pretty out of proportion. Not that that's anything new, considering Gensokyo. Everyone's very trigger-happy, in a very hypocritical way. But, who am I to judge their self-righteousness?
Mokou snorted. "...Alright, then. If you take ten steps outside this bar, I will kick your ass. If you leave with company, I'll find you when you're alone. If you have someone sneak you out, or chaperone you, I'll find a way to separate you."
That reminds me. "...Do you have an ID?" It would be neat if I could have her escorted out on the premise of her not having one.
...From her pocket, she slid out a basic, human card. "Surprise, shitface."
Then, she turned away. "By the way. Just a heads up. I ain't the only thing after ya, either."
In the front door, Shikome romped in from the darkening outside.
"You could kill me, and still be trapped here." She gave a grin back at me. "...Although, I dunno what the fuck you did to get some of that shit after you. I made a few friends along the way, even."
The floor thudded softly, as Shikome came up around the counter. She had a legion of loli-sized fluffles following her, and they all had these tubby cloth hard hat things on. One of them was missing theirs, and Shikome seemed to be wearing it.
fwoof. fwoof. She stole one from a fluffle again, and softly popped it onto my head, brushing off my nazi cap in the process. She did the same for Vanilla.
THI- THI- THI- THINK. Then, her tendrils came out, and impaled all the fluffles, deleting the rest of them.
"Don't wait fer me, now." With that, Mokou began to strut out of the bar. "I'll just be doin' my job, from now on."
I wonder. "Miss! Is there anything you desire?" I ask, as she leaves.
"Heh!" She makes sure to give a bitter 'heh' back at me. Then, with that, she had left the bar.
...Guess I won't be going anywhere, tonight.
Let's go outside and take ten steps in place.
"Shikome. Follow me." It's time to do something about this.
...I put on my nazi cap on top of my weird kindergartner hard-hat bonnet thing.
/ / / / LOLI-SIZED NUGGETS / / / /
I am now just out the front door.
I march in place ten times. Step, step, step, step.
...Well, I'm not on fire or dead. Eat shit, fire woman.
"...Stand in the middle of the road." I instruct Shikome.
She does as I say. I step out slowly with her, gaze to the rooftops, and along the road.
I don't even see her. She's not down the road, or up in the air. Maybe she went into an alley like a coward.
The Golden Grin looks particularly bright, this evening. I let my eyes travel up it, to the rooftop.
Mokou is up there. She holds a heavy weapon in her arms, propped against the rough, modern building edge of the Golden Grin's roof. That's a sniper rifle.
...As if she knows how to use that thing. Guess she realized she can't just light me on fire, up here.
We need to fill the underground with methane. It will be Mokou's fault, if a section of the village collapses in on itself, then.
...Or, we could do that anyway, with Shikome's fireball spell. It will obviously be Mokou's fault.
Wait. If we did that, we couldn't have torch lights. We'd really have to control which section gets blasted in. I do like not being blown the fuck up, personally.
Regardless, the first thing we're going to have to do, is set up the underground. I will need a way under Small Packages now as well, and a way to and from governmental abilities and associations during the day. For now, I'll only work in night.
"Let's go." I make Shikome continue to tail me. Our first stop will be the council. We will make fliers for construction workers, as well as do what we can paperwork-wise. I also need to find a translator on the off-event that Aiko is either needed no longer, or refuses. Or, in this event, simply not around.
...Actually.
Let's get rid of Mokou, for now. Reaching into my backpack, I begin to draw that rifle of mine.
Click. Sliding in a stolen nail, I hold it ready, as I prepare the electricity, and the water.
fzt- fzt… The thing makes dangerous noises, as I adjust it up awkwardly. If I don't keep my hands on the rubber stock and my rubber glove on the handle, I'll be in deep shit. Like, death.
But, I've gotten more used to firing it, at this point. Now, to hold this shot steady… and, pull the trigger-
BOOM! The shot rocks my body, and I almost let go of the gun in a rush of adrenaline, from the awkward angle and how loud the gun was.
Mokou's sniper rifle is now tilted back into the air, and she's nowhere to be seen.
I turn to Shikome. "Retrieve her body. Don't eat it." I have no idea what would happen, but it might not be good, considering immortals. I have a plan, for her.
...Shikome romps towards the building, seemingly liking where I was going with that.
Alright. We're probably just going to carry Mokou to the Makai portal and toss her in. That should take care of that.
woosh. Shikome jumps a little experimentally, before eying a lower rooftop next to the Golden Grin.
For some reason, it sounds like someone's running on the road nearby. There's a few well-clothed villagers skirting the road ahead, sort of cautious from what I just did.
I turn behind me- oh, oh, what the fuck…
"Hhh…" It's the earth-green mask wearing zombie, from the other night. Parts of the mask were now fixed with copper, and copper wire was strung through the hole in the middle of its torso.
It shambles for me. As it comes closer, I jab my rifle forward.
ZAP- ZAZAP- ZAP! The copper wire along the shambler begins to glow and fizzle, but all it does is stumble back. "Ngh- hh- hoo~..."
"Shikome!" Help may be needed, with this thing.
WOOSH! It swings its entire arm hard enough to make the air rip, a jagged shortsword in one of its arms, slung from its waist. Even in the midday light, I can see a yellow-green hued light from inside the iron facemask, spreading out.
SHI- SHINK! After I stumble back, avoiding the cleaving horizontal slash, Shikome's tendrils stab into the ground before me.
"Grgh- ghaa~." Down the road, a robed individual raises a large, crystalline staff of some kind, and it glows brighter. This is the necromancer, isn't it...
At this point, the guards that patrol the inner roads really take notice. "Wh- what the hell!?" Three men on this road sort of scramble, to assess each threat. "Someone- uuh…"
The staff stops glowing-
FWAM- BAM! Near us, explosions of flame wash across the village road- I should get out those water scissors, hold on-
Cli- clack! While Shikome thrusts tendrils forward at the swordsman corpse, I splash the water scissors from this rifle of mine, and bend down to get them-
FWOOM- BAM! Fucking- holy shit, fire…! A plume of fire erected next to us- so now-
I douse my exposed flesh first of all, because fuck, and then work on my clothes. Shikome's burning, but she doesn't seem to mind. Ow.
CRA~CK! A tendril from her smashes through his facemask, bending his head ninety degrees to the right in the process. "Ngh- kgh- kgh…"
Ah. Hmm~. There's a jiang-shi talisman on his face. The way his neck turned, I can see his scalp, and part of the glowing, purple incision that was present the last time I saw him. Wait-...
This was the man I stabbed. This is his corpse.
"Aerh- ghh." A grunt came from the undead mage, down the road, loud and oddly airy.
WOOSH! A powerful gale met two guards that came for her. "Who- woaa~h! Agh- nnh!" They came to abrupt halts way down the road, having been sent skidding along. Where'd that third one go, even? He might have left...
The wind blew the cloak back, revealing a woman whose eyes lit up depending on the magic she was casting. Between those eyes was a billowing jiang-shi talisman. The wind whipped around her blonde, shoulder-length hair. Perhaps she is not the necromancer.
"Oh? Would ya lookie here?"
fwish. Appearing in the air near us, an upside-down lunar bunny twirled two faux-crossbow laser guns in both hands. "Looks like I won the lottery." What a time to be alive, hmm. She picked some superb timing to show up.
"Kgh- nng- hhu…" The swordsman was now clawing on the ground when I looked back to him, Shikome having pinned him down with a curling mass of purple bands from her body.
I've- seemed to have put all the fires out… "Who- sent you!?" I might as well incite idle banter, while I collect myself. We obviously can't sit still, at this rate.
The bunny girl sneered. "Ain't it obvious? Y'can't go 'round actin' a fool, without your crap catchin' up to ya."
"Thu~h." The mage raised her staff, and her eyes lit up yellow.
Shikome looked back at me, and her tendrils ripped forward in the air, over my form-
KATHWASH- THWASH- THWA~SH! Holy shit, what was that. I'm-... huh. The light from that actually blinded my eyes.
...Shikome's form lightly smouldered, as she retracted her tendrils. A pillar of lightning had come down, meant for me, but she took it all. Oh.
I draw my sleek scissors of running the hell away. "Shikome- let's move." We're taking to the alleys, and maybe even underground, at this rate.
Shi- shi- shink. Withdrawing her tendrils from the undead swordsman, who was now in pieces, she moved to keep close.
fwish. The lunar bunny was now down the alley we chose. "Let's see how ya dance!"
Fwi- Clack! Her two arrow guns snapped together, forming a purplish, grey sniper rifle.
"Nn- nngh…" Two undead walked the alley before us, jiang-shi talismans glowing alive on their faces.
Stepping ahead of me, Shikome thrust herself forward-
SHI- SHUNK! SHI- SHUNK! Two tendrils came from her ribcage area, curving out and smashing the less-identifiable undead into the walls, squishing them into the cracks her impacts made with the force she did so. "Kaug- alh…!"
TI~NG. A diamond is shot into the air before us, from the bunny assassin sent for us.
"Blizzh!" From above, on the rooftops, there was a wet, vaguely womanly grunt, likely from the mage.
KRIK- KRA- KRA- KRACK! Holy- shit- ice explodes in the air around us, big shards dropping from the walls and Shikome and the air-
FWASH. Shit. "Shikome-..." I'm actually frozen. I had to get wet to stop the fires, so… luckily, it's just a partial freeze. I can at least talk.
She turns to me. Then, she poses herself before me-
THWI- THUNK- THWI- THWICK- THWICK. Fu~ck. Ouch. God damn. That-... was the sound of those red diamond bullets. The sniper rabbit just unloaded her weapon, and some of the initial shots passed through Shikome, into me. I can't even look down, but it fucking hurts.
Lifting me below her arm, Shikome begins to run- really fast, at that, down the alleys. We immediately pass the zombies she stuck to the walls, bound by their own entrails to the wood.
fwish! Everything blurs for a moment. When my vision centers, I realize sections of alley flooring ahead has been removed, replaced by gaps into the soil.
"So? What do you think?" The lunar bunny seemingly asks us for our opinion on the remodeling she's done. They must really want us dead.
Cla- clack! It's not much trouble for Shikome to bound off the walls, or propel herself over the dumb pits.
We're already on east main street instead of north main, Shikome having jetted off with me pleasingly quickly. It's kind of hard for me to make out how exactly she's moving, sometimes.
"HRYH!" What.
kri- krack. Now that my neck is thawed enough, I look back.
SCR- SCR- SCRR~! Scraping along the village alley behind us was a being with only blades for arms and legs. Its chrome dome- or skull-like head- shook as it spiralled behind us, made of some kind of cobalt, azure material.
Along its torso are a series of jiang-shi talismans, and lunar light glows from within its rib cage, black-blue matices of flesh revealing the energy core.
Alright, what the fuck. Was this coordinated? This is the messiest political assassination ever.
Fwii~sh! Stopping, Shikome sends me sliding, before turning back to the scraping being.
SHI- SHI- SHINK! Her tendrils just out from her body, meeting its core.
KABOOM- BOOM- BABOOM! It explodes into a flashy, loud, yet low-intensity lunar flare. Pale blue light bathes the village around us all, the houses only giving a slight shake to the otherwise momentus-looking impact.
Marching from the blast, lunar flames dart from Shikome's clothes and flesh. The thing's rib cage, now of solid teal light, had clung around her form, as if an attempt to bind her.
Picking me up, she moves for the embassy, which is right here.
POWw. Ff- fuck, dammit! Agh… that- wasn't so bad. I just got shot in the arm. It was a blatantly ballistic round.
I see the glint of Mokou's sniper rifle on the roof of the Golden Grin, across the east road. That piece of shit.
Bam! Shikome kicks in the door to the embassy.
/ / / / RAGE OF THE ABANDONED / / / /
Thunk. Shikome planted me on my legs, and-
Cla- clack. Throwing my rifle aside so I wouldn't kill myself with it, I find a chair. God, fucking damn. We need more plants, so Shikome can really go to fucking town. We need a village beautification plan.
Ugh… my arm is open, and so is my stomach. Both my arms have some char marks, and- fuck…
Click. One of the doors softly fans open, and some shambling, clumsy undead bluntly meander in.
Shi- shink, shink. Shikome casually pokes them to death, and begins matting them to the floor before the door one by one.
Sss~. They seem to heat up, and slowly break down, becoming some sort of green gruel. It's like they're decomposing faster-... and, they smell about as bad.
Shikome still has that one lunar skeleton blade thing's rib cage trapped around her, but it doesn't mean a lot without an actual body or purpose. It glows in the brown darkness of the embassy's archive room.
Sss- ssh~. Slowly, she stacks up more and more bodies in the doorway, blocking it off with some kind of mushy, gooey matter that had become of them. That's probably not healthy.
I come up to the other door of this room. We had barged into the paperwork room, where no one was currently residing.
...Nothing is even going on in the front lobby. There's also a different door that leads to the caverns, but that should be safe for now.
...Good. Now then-
Whi~sh. Ah- what the fuck?
"Hello~!" Seiga is here, it seems, drifting through a wall to greet us. "Fancy meeting you two, here…"
"You're- behind those zombies. These zombies, rather." I speak out at her, both in the moment, and because this gunshot is very painful, so I'm much more hasty. "Is there a reason?"
Her smile became mother-like. "Oo~h. Very good observation. Ye~s, they're mine. Weren't they the cutest things? I hope you don't mind me trying to get you fried, and all."
"...Not at all." Bitch. Although- what reason would she have? "Why?"
"It was more of an accident, than anything." She floated closer, looking wry. "I hadn't anticipated, that those jiang-shi felt what they did, nor so powerfully. It was almost like they were alive again. It was really the darndest thing. Of course, I already have experience with this sort of thing, but it's always interesting to talk about…"
Who gives a shit about that. "You'd-..." Ow. Wound pain. "You had better have- a good reason, for all of this."
Shikome is paused, staring Seiga down at this moment.
...Seiga gave me a bored look, almost. "Mmh, I certainly do, actually. You see, I would like to ask for the apprenticeship of Shikome." Oh. Oh? "She is a pool of dark energy, and I do not think you realize the price or value of her power."
She really thinks she can get away with this, like this? "I don't have to do anything for you."
Letting out a snort, she gives me a sideways look. "Mmh? That's perfect, actually. Let me do as I do, and you'll be rewarded with mercy. Your mortality isn't off the bargaining table, yet…"
"Shikome is not your apprentice." I'll make it clear, regardless. "Nor is she your anything."
Seiga's smile intensified. "Mmm? I don't think I was asking your permission."
...Not that it matters to begin with, because I'm not very much of a combatant compared to Shikome, aside from my homemade firearm. And, I highly doubt one person has the force to simply confront her. I'm not sure if this Seiga chick is an actually powerful character in this setting, but even so, Shikome is fast enough to get us out of dodge quickly enough.
Naturally, I use what I know as leverage. Ideally she'll think I see more than she does. "You do realize, you won't be forgiven, for making an attempt on my life."
Seiga just smiled. "Ooh, no. My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined." Nevermind. Intimidation does not work on idiots.
Coming down from her raised spot near the ceiling, she neared Shikome-
WHI- WHISH! Two tendrils snapped up to impale Seiga.
woosh. Snapping from the air into standing before her, Seiga brought her arms up. "Nightmare!"
KRA- KROOFWOO- BOOM! What the fuck. From her arms, an orb of light-eating energy and magma rolled forward, flickering with odd luminosity in the darkness of the archive room.
WHA- WHA- WHAP- WHAP! Shikome simply phased into the orb, moving through it without falter, the darkness coalescing into her. It shrank in scale and became only fire as her being took in the dark energy, letting her wade through the flames without fault.
Behind her, a rainbow portal roared open, an image of somewhere else flickering into materiality between the rainbow seams. Wait…
Drawing my holy scissors, I round their encounter. This shall not do at all. That magic is suspect.
Except, when I neared, Seiga's form was no longer there. It was meters back from where I thought she was.
"Let's see how our pets compare! Spirit Link, Tongling Yoshika!" She cast her arms out, whirling in place with a sweet grin.
Cla- clack. From the rainbow portal behind us, I threw my head to see the purple-skinned flesh of another wimpy jiang-shi. She had a red talisman on her head, like the rest. Her limbs and nails clattered on the floor as she shambled forth, fighting into standing.
SHI- SHI- SHI- SHINK! From Shikome, an innumerable surplus of tendrils came upon Seiga in a wave, as she was already descending into the floor.
CRA- CRACK! Piercing the wood boards in the way, Shikome's reach gave pursuit.
WHA- CRACK! Seiga came up from the floor and ascended, the tendrils ripping from the wood and roaring straight up after her. "Hehehe~!"
KRIK- KRACK! In the next moment, Seiga came down from the ceiling, her form flicking into a wall next. Now, the tendrils came down from the ceiling, and whipped towards the wall-
Wait, this is fucky-
KRACK- KRAA~CK! The corner of the room I'm at begins to give way, and I have to- limp out of the way-
BAM- BAM BAM- BAM- CLACK- KLACK… Well. There goes that corner of the archive. Shelves, cabinets and papers were all crushed by the wood coming down, Shikome's vying tendrils pulling great structural fragments out of place.
"Nngh…" The jiang-shi- who I assume to be named Yoshika- stood ominously to the sidelines of the encounter, eying Shikome, who was scanning Seiga's movements through the ground and walls…
Coming from the floor, Seiga waved. "Aah- Yoshika, retreat before she eats you!" The playful way she does it is obviously baiting and carefree.
Almost as if just now fearful, the shambling Yoshika began to sprint for the portal it had just marched out of-
SHI- SHI- SHINK. Except, Shikome denied her from existing, her tendrils locking onto its torso, piercing through it. About as expected, really.
Thu- thud, thud, thud. But, Yoshika kept marching, able to pull Shikome along, for only a few steps, each plodding motion of her legs denting the wood under herself, nails of the planks coming undone.
But, as Yoshika slowed, she began to glow. "Fuu~..." Seiga held up an articulating hand. "Inexperienced."
Shoo~f. That's when Yoshika's form lit up, and Seiga swept her arm, pulling her towards the portal.
SHI- RII- RII~P! The tendrils, like vines, began to emerge out of Yoshika's flesh, making the skin come undone, her inner organs spilling out, a sickly mix of oddly magical puss and brown bile spilt. Meanwhile, her master continued to pull her body, smearing it across the floor...
Wait, hold the fuck on, now. "Shikome." I began to hold up my arm. "Release her. De- desist!"
They were at the cusp of the portal, just before it. Shikome seemed to begin obeying the idea, gazing back at me in the meanwhile-
Click. Seiga snapped her fingers.
Woo- whish! Ah- shit… I slip onto the ground, a vacuum from the rainbow portal enacting a great pull. As I slide towards it, I latch onto a piece of fractured ceiling. Or, walling- whichever it is. It's big, and it's not going to move.
Thump- BAM- THOOM! Shelve parts, paper and wood pieces roar towards the luminescent hole with alarming speed, my arms taking great strain in a moment's notice as I pull against the force, likely for my life.
When I looked back along my small form at the now whirling, vibrating portal, it shone with a great light, flashes of teal, white and gold pouring out from the rainbow passage. In the midst, there was darkness, which was expanding into the light-
Then, the portal was out. I'm not sure what I just witnessed, but neither the jiang-shi nor Shikome was there anymore. A pile of debris rested roughly where the portal was, the wall there suffering a toll in the form of dents and broken surfaces.
...No one's around. Shit. I mean, have fun with Shikome I guess- considering how much trouble it was to get her into the thing, but holy shit I need to move right now.
"No hard feelings, right?" Seiga's voice comes from behind me, as I march- or limp, rather, up to the wood door out of here. "Just to make it clea~r, you can feel safe. From me, at least. All I wanted was some compensation, you know? For my time, care, and attention."
Creak! Swinging open the door to the caverns, I approach the gloomy hole into the village underside as quick as I can.
"Do not worry!" She called out to me with her bitchy cheery voice. "...And, watch where you step!"
Thu- thud. Fu- fuck, forgot-... the stomach wounds. They made me stumble after landing, which is not… what I need.
I did not furnish this place with medical facilities, or band-aids or anything of the sort. Fuck it, I'll find a way. One of the tourists will probably trade me my life for my wallet, or something, or I'll steal a health potion…
Also, there are no guarantees that bitch won't finish the job. I have to move.
Getting back up, I stumble down the rocks alone, and into the unknown. Well- I know the path, but it's going to be pretty fucking unknown what I do, now that I don't have Shikome with me. This better throw off those idiots, or I'll be pissed.
Nngh-... now that I have a moment, everything hurts a lot more. These burns won't stop feeling numb. A kitten girl shouldn't have to put up with this bullshit.
My fingers caress one char, and I still feel a blistering ache for a moment when my hands brush it. I really need a potion, or something.
Crimson stains the center of my suit, where the red diamond beams pierced me. They didn't go through me, thankfully, or I might have been dead by now. This just-... fuck, does it hurt. Ugh…
This cave… is so dark. Ah- fuck-
Thud. I tripped onto my knees. How un-cat-like of me. Let me just-... damn, my knees are weird…
"Hey." Oh, fuck off-...
I turn, and see the luminescent eyes of a blue and green-clad ghost. Her hair is long and green, and her smile smug. "You're awful cute, kitty." Mima found me again, apparently.
"Wh- what-... kaugh-..." I'm coughing? "What do you want?"
"What do I want?" She drifted it up to me, and around me, playful. "Is that the question you should be asking?"
Yes. "...Yh- yes." My fucking god fuck this wound-
"No~pe." This irritating bitch isn't helping. "If anything, I think you should be asking a favor of me, right now."
"Where- did you come from?" She disappears for like two weeks, and comes back now? "Wh- whatever. I don't-... screw off."
"Hehehe." Giggling, she actually holds a hand out to stop my progress. "You're gonna bleed out, you know."
Fuck off. You're lying. I'll be fine.
I move away from her hand, at an awkward angle-
thud. Damn it. Maybe I can crawl past her.
"...This is pretty sad, you know." She gives me a fucking irritating pitying expression. "A little kitty, hiding herself in a dark cave, as her short life finally comes to an end. Cold, alone, and hurt. You know, that'd make a cool article. Not like a, fun article, but it'd turn a few heads. The time I found a dead cat in a sewer."
"Wha- what the hell's the point…?" Will she just shut up? "If you-... want to kill me…" I already know where this is fucking going, so she might as well get it over with.
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on. I know you really dug yerself into this one, but I actually don't got a reason to do ya in. In fact, quite the opposite! As long as ya hear me out. You don't really have a lot of time left."
Really, now… "I- I'm- kaugh- kauf…" Ugh.
...I look down at my arm. I'm coughing up blood, now.
"...Fine." If anything, you wasted my time for me to get like this, you goddamn skank. "This- kgh- this is your fault…"
"Trust me~. If one of the Makai chicks saw ya like this, you'd be taking mega dick and doing foot stool duty for eons." Mima began to raise her hands. "Guarantee~d. Not to say no one'd just heal ya and leave ya at that, but you know, the dom-girls are like sharks, and no one messes with sharks. At least, that's how it usually goes."
I'm so tired… just, do whatever.
"Heal." Mima thrust her arms at me.
Di- di- di~ng… Green, white light washes around me, and above my head a golden wreath forms.
DI- DI- DI~NG! A loud, ivory bell chimes, flourishing in the center of the bright, lively metal wreath. Below it, under its light, my breath catches itself, a flourish of something flowing through me, erasing my pain. This… this is good.
After a few unnatural flourishes of healthy, herbal laurel leaves, and airy green magic, I'm left in the dark again. The design had departed into nothing but air once the spell was over.
...I stand up. I can hardly even remember the pain I just felt, even though, well, I do.
"All better?" She pursed her lips. "Little kitty kitty? Or- what was your name…?" She stroked her chin. "Fuck, I forgot. You were that dumb outsider guy. Looks like ya took a Shinki deal at some point, somehow. I wouldn't say ya got the short end of it, bu~t…!" Was that supposed to be a height joke?
Hmm. Well, now that I'm fine, I don't need her anymore. "Alright." Let's go.
...When I move away, she floats in my way. "Yeah. 'Alright' indeed, dumbass. I ain't a fuckin' walk-in clinic over here. Now that I've done you a favor, it's time for you to do me some favors."
...I still have my sliding scissors out. "Is that so?"
She says nothing.
...Go!
Fwish! I begin sliding-
"Bind!" Mima yells. "Force! Kneel!"
CLICK! Suddenly, a golden ring forms around me, and I stop sliding.
WHAM! Fh- fuck. I- hit the floor-
fwoom. An azure force runs over me, and I find myself unable to move anything, even though I'm crushed against the floor to begin with. This-... is not comfortable.
"I've been spendin' an assload of time just, well, sittin' on my ass." Mima figured, as she hovered over my form. She doesn't even have an ass to sit on. "But-... well, I'm not quite settled with screwin' around yet. I don't think anyone ever is! You, though, mmh…" She rubbed her chin. "Yer quite serious about settlin' down, and settin' up Nazi Gensokyo over here. S'real cute, I like it."
She, of all people, knows they exist. Although, no one out here fortunately has a reason to get butthurt over it. Or, for all I know, she could be. Maybe that's why this is happening.
"So, since yer so settled with uh, whatever yer doin', I'm sure ya won't mind a few 'a my whims." She reasoned. "And I'll know if you don't do 'em. And you'll know, 'cause you'll be riding some oni dick or something."
At this point, I have twenty different requests from different bitches, and like ten other cougars want me dead. I literally don't think disobeying Mima means anything anymore.
...Her face enters my view, against the floor. She pats my cheek. "Aww~, chin u~p. I'm not just totally riding yer ass. You'll get some hot new winter deals!" She dangled a pair of green mittens before my face. "Tada~!"
…
She tosses them away. "An~d, if you ever wanna take a trip ta Makai itself, I know some fasttracks ta becomin' a tip-top shape mage. Not that I can't help ya out here, of course, bu~t…"
"...What would you even have me do?" I ask her. Because, I'm not capable of fucking anything right now, aside from moving dumb villagers around, who can be bought with money anyway.
She smiles. "Well, fer jobs, that'll have to wait until the heat blows off ya a little. And there ain't no way I'm gettin' seen with a little shit like you. That'd just be uncool. But, for starters, if I tell you to do something in the village government, s'kinda implied you're gonna do it. Everyone wants a slice 'a the pie, and I'm sure no one'd mind me takin' my pickin's."
...I seem to be able to stand. So, I start to.
"'Course, I coulda gone about this any which way, but you seemed like the weirdest person possible." She folded her arms. "Village stuff's nice and all… but I don't really wanna commit. You know? ...S'more like I'm just kinda bored."
"You like to hear yourself talk." She talks a fuckin' lot.
...She smiles wider at me. "Aw, how'd you tell? Well, anyway. You got Seiga, Mokou, and like, the girls 'a Eirin tryin'a stomp you out."
"And you, soon." Undoubtedly. "This is stupid."
"Uh huh." She gives me a blunt nod. "Everyone's also after that little Saigyou hellraiser 'a yours. 'Cause man, when it comes to youkai, she's really out there! She's above even a buncha Makai demons in power, and that raw energy? Wooie!" For some reason, she seems to be getting excited. "...You know the kinda magic I could do, wit' a little fella like that around!? I could cast like, super meteoragagaga! And like, ten other 'ga' suffixes."
...So, that's what she wants. She wants power, from all of this. Just as she says they want power, from all of this.
"I think you all underestimate her." I really don't think anything lame like zombies or rabbits could stop her.
...Mima gives a characteristic shrug. "Mmm. Well, when she gets back, I'll let her kick my ass, then. Just sayin', you need me, kid. I'm like- aw, you ever watch Aladdin?"
How the fuck do you know what that is. Oh, well. "Admittedly, I know not of how she'll get back to me."
I'm pretty sure I'll have to go find her, because especially after her prospective rampage, she's not going to simply find me. Especially if we don't even know where each other are. She may act to protect me, but that doesn't make her psychic, unfortunately, as convenient as that would be.
Snorting, she leaned back. "Uu~h, huh. Alright. Well, while she gets back, we can work on you."
Me? "...It's less that I'm waiting for her, but both that I'd like to simply find her as fast as possible, and I have other things to be doing." There really is way too much I need to be doing. "I need to setup the underground, and at this point, ask around for her, I'll continue my endeavors, and eventually you will be unneeded. The only variable is how much you piss me off between now and then."
...After a moment, Mima simply leaned a little closer towards me. "Me, unneeded? Aw, kid. Be sure not ta gimme heart palpitations now, 'cause yer a real charmer."
"As unneeded as a sack of crap." Let's be honest with ourselves. "You only make things worse for yourself in the future."
...Circling me, she beams even wider. "Ki~d. Like- that's my li~ne. Look, I know a thing 'er two about fryin' crazy tentacle monsters. Suck-you Aya-tooshi or not, I'm kinda a big deal. I mean, tell me this: you think she'd beat Marisa in a straight duel?"
"Considering her audacity, there's a high probability." I'd like to say undoubtedly, but bullshit will be bullshit, and it's more realistic to evaluate risk. They would ideally be in a forest, with lots of trees, and Marisa would very quickly risk being consumed. As it should be, really. Otherwise, we wouldn't probably be in a fight to begin with.
...She gives me a harder stare. "Now, boy, be serious, I'm tryin'a learn ya. I guess a forest'd be pretty bad, but y'know, she could just fly high and drop bombs. Or y'know, not fight so close in a forest."
"The idea is to place her in a situation that would trap her." I argue in turn. "Shikome's prowess in speed and strength is also capable of surprise, particularly the deadly sort."
Shaking her head harder, Mima folds her arms. "Kid- eeh. I mean, while that kinda youkai ain't recent, she ain't new either. She can't even fly. Single inklin' she was a rape-grappler type an' any old girl could just sit around and snipe her, don't take Sun Tzu-tier enlightenment. 'Specially with the kinda dick-wavin' you've had goin' here. If we wanted ta talk context, we'd pro'lly hafta start talkin' about that damn shrine maiden she's pals with."
Reimu? No, I'm pretty sure if even a man surprised her, she could be easily killed. It's just that killing her would be a bad idea.
This is starting to get annoying. "Let's see you try that, then. For her, fleeing is easy."
The torchlight behind Mima is also beginning to get annoying. "Boy- I'd just do the whole 'force, slam bam, whamalam' deal, and she ain't goin' nowhere. Wasn't the point 'taking someone in a fight' an' not 'ability to pussy outta fights'?"
She's pretty arrogant. "Context is important. On that note, I've yet to see her rivaled. It's simple to make a mistake against her."
"Also~." Mima began to look kind of bored. "Be it me, Marisa, or anyone wit' a half a grain of magic, that Shikome's force can be seen from quite a distance. But 'specially me 'n' Marisa, 'cause we hung around in Makai, an' while I said she's got some good greater demon power, she ain't got the technique, and it makes her a big sittin' target for folks like us."
...I suppose it would. "The balance to that is her ability to escape. Above that, she's turned situations around before." I don't even know why I got into this argument, but I feel inclined to defend Shikome's ability. If only because Mima is an insufferable moron.
Letting her eyes flick up, Mima gestured to me unnecessarily as she elaborated. "Suppose I can't slap some bogus non-elemental shit on on 'er. I just up the gravity manipulation. Suppose I can't do that, I trap 'er under a big rock. Suppose I can't do that, I freeze 'er. Suppose I can't do that, I tire 'er, I give 'er all kindsa fuckin' magic aids, cast fuckin' stop on her ass, doom, timebomb, trial and error that shit out. Suppose I can't do that… I just find whatever force that works ta keep her fuckin' stuck in one place, so I can do whatever I want ta her."
"Bullshit." Honestly. "You can't do any of that." What she can do is likely to a more superficial capacity, as most enemies exude. It'd take a combination of holy weaknesses, or Hakurei bullshit to wear her down, surely.
...Mima's stare was blank. "Kid- I was seriously considerin' just offin' ya right now, 'cause you got a real problem. But look, I'm up fer a challenge. Mostly 'cause Shikome's still real worth it- even if she ain't uh, like you think she is. Or maybe she is! Don't lemme tell ya otherwise, boy!"
"You're annoying." I really can't wait for this stupid bitch to get out of my face. I have a bad track record with ghosts.
Reaching out, Mima ruffled my hair. "Aw, alright. We'll iron this shit out later, I guess. I can always throw you away, if yer a real damn pain."
"As can I, you." I assure her.
Giving me another mild snort, she grabs onto my shoulders. "Alright, I'mma take you back to my pad the easy way. Warpinato~r!"
What the hell're-
FWI- WI- WIOU~P! Kroo~m…
/ / / / WARPINATOR TERMINATOR / / / /
KRA- Kroo~m… What the hell did she do?
I stumble from her arms.
We're somewhere dark- and my balance is lost, the pressure here weird…
"Welcome ta my pad on Earth. Well, Gensokyo, Earth. Whatever the hell a street address fer Gensokyo would be…" She mumbles as she drifts off.
There's some oriental structures down here, fixed onto cave walls. Dim green lanterns accent the place, but a bright, white light comes from a tiny, artificial sun sitting in a square cube, in the midst of the cave.
Ugh. "What the hell is the point of this…" It's starting to dawn on me how much of a shitstorm this is going to be.
...Stopping next to the mini-sun, she gives me a worn look. "Yer my towel boy now, idiot. For the next so-and-so, anyway."
This can't happen. "I have things I need to fucking do."
"An' I'll take ya up there ta do 'em." She waved my concern off. "So long as ya fuckin' sit tight and keep your dick in your pants for once- or, labia in this case- 'cause holy shit. ...Truth be told, the village shit don't really even interest me, but seein' a girl with a political an' snakey-sense like you wheelin' and dealin', it made me a little interested. More in you and yer demon child than the dumb shit goin' on up there."
...She gestured to a plain chair, near the mini-sun. "By the way, you're the first guest other than Yukari down here. Go take a seat."
...I am tired. Might as well.
Aa~h.
"This is better than me just leavin' you like that t'be figuratively- or y'know, literally- eaten by the locals." Mima tries to make talk over the sun.
"I can hold my own." I tell her. "Or, at least, run."
She shakes her head again. "Oh, no. Yer retarded."
"Fuck you, too." Please shut the hell up. I don't want to see you anymore.
"No- seriously, if those scissors're the succubus training kind, and you mix up with a real gods-be-damned succubus, sit there and think: what, is gonna happen t'me? T'you, rather." She props her head on an arm really annoyingly.
"I would run, because it's really effective." There's been very few scenarios where it hasn't worked. Considering the type of people who've run me down before, even an actual succubus might need specific augmentation in order to-
"No~!" Mima just yells at me like a moron. "You'd get fuckin' eaten out like the little pasty Kit Kat bar you are!"
Getting up from her own chair- even though she doesn't have legs- she drifts towards me. "Look. Ya may be used ta homicidin' and dodgin' the law 'a Gensokyo, but yer average Makai citizen could make a jump rope 'a yer entrails like, five times in a row. There's fast, and then there's not-fast-enough, an' you fall under the latter. You got the right mindset fer Makai, but none a' the power."
Fine, whatever. "Well, then I die, and Shikome does what she does."
She nods at me. "Yeah, like rot in a cage."
You're seriously retarded. "Like massacre everyone. I've been keeping her from Gensokyo's plant life, you know." I might need to track her down, but the probability of her being brough to her knees, by zombies or rabbit idiots of all things is unlikely.
"Or else Reimu and Yukari woulda dunked ya in a- in a…" She struggled to find a dumb analogy. "Boilin' holy water, whatever. Point bein', you answered ta them. 'Cause they knew, you were just a psychopathic hellraiser. Actually, if Reimu found Shikome, she'd be pushin' up fuckin' undead daisies."
Nice. "You like to underestimate people." Reimu may be bullshit, but Yukari and her would be in trouble, if only I were so simply suicidal enough to have her jumped. It's only because of this land's differences to the outside that I stay my hand, and I could revoke this decision at any time.
"Fuckin', good." She gives me a very vain stare. "God, damn, boy. Look. Reimu sealed me, boy. She whacked Shinki wit' a stick, when she was like twelve, and fuckin' won. She's a goddamn force a' nature. 'Cause really, she's set up to be. She's got a dying greater god's last graces to be the most bitchiest bitch to ever bitch around the bitch, and by that god, she's a pretty big bitch!"
Turning away from me, she exhaled. "...I wonder if that's why she turned out ta be a huge bitch, come ta think it. I don't think rompin' around Makai when yer twelve's super good for yer mental health."
Who fucking cares about Reimu. "Who even brought up Reimu. Will you just shut up?"
...Mima shakes her head, as if blown away by a revelation.
Then, she kept fucking talking. "Y'know- ya say ya wouldn't mind if ya just died… but I wouldn't count out the Makai mind rapers, eithe~r! Aw- how'd you like to be suckin' a pretty lady's fat cock for the rest of your newly vampiric life? Or, y'know, servin' tea forever, with your mind fuckin' wiped, which is kinda lame, an' tame, but whatever."
Anything would be preferable to right now. Please, go away.
"I'm not going to Makai." I argue.
...She let out a breath, again. "That so?"
"Yes. I don't have anything to do there, and I am busy. Shikome may or may not find herself, but I'll expedite that process myself." It seems like she's being oddly accommodating right now. She better be genuine about this, for the effort she's putting into it.
"Oh, okay." She folds her hands, and sits back down. "That's fine. Totally."
...Alright, then. Waste of my time.
"Go right on out that door, there." She gestured to a large crevice in the cave's back. "Cave's actually on the surface. Be free, boy."
Alright. Fin-all-y.
Stepping through the crevice, I stop, and stare out at the-... overcast day. It should be night.
Before me is a huge, purple plain of sand and soot. From these azure crags, the overcast ends, and a lightless darkness spreads across the land. Odd, blue lights shine from edges along an odd rocky structure, standing great, impossible, and stretched across the nearby area and air.
This set-piece was huge, and stood in the midst of a shallow, clear water lake.
"Kaugh- kauf…" And- then, I begin coughing. It's unlike anything I've ever felt. It's like someone poured sand down my throat, and mixed in a water solvent with it, making a grimey, shore-like muck that ran down my body to its core.
"Kau- aauf! Ka- kaugh- kauh…" Sand. My body starts to feel like sand- all over-
WOOSH. A force pulls me back in.
I can breathe. "Ha- aa~h…!"
"Oh, yeah, newsflash." Mima nodded at me. "Already in Makai. Whoops."
I'll see her dead, some day.
"...Truth i~s, I wasn't even lyin'." She gives me a smug look. When'd she get a cup of something. "This cave's on Earth. I've actually just got a portal there right there. Part 'a why you can breathe."
I hate you.
...She looks down at her mug. "Anywa~y. I ain't trainin' ya in anything right awa~y. Like I said, give ya some days fer yer shit to blow over. Then, we can start runnin' around playin' the fools, and gettin' you on a track to gettin' up there and gettin' us our Shikome back."
"You spent the last hour talking her down." Mima is hypocritical, naturally. "Now you refer to her as yours. You make no damn sense."
Mima rolled her eyes. "Pft- holy shit. Guy- girl, whatever- look, she's a damn fine mana engine and a good dark catalyst and mana source an' shit, bein' what she is, but she's also a fuckin' baby, and compared ta all the shit you've never even seen, she's damn vulnerable. Valuable, yes, but an independent force ta be reckoned with? Nnh, nah."
"If you're so powerful, you do it," I tell her. Fucking bitch.
She huffs again. "Boy, you got any cells in that thing ya call a brain, that aren't related ta your own damn situation? I'm playin' it like Yukari right now. Too lazy."
…
"Well, obviously you're emotional, from the loss of yer loved one." Fuck, fuck, fuck. "So I'll give ya a day to cool o~ff."
I'm seriously tempted to go die in the Makai air, but I won't. She probably won't let me. What a cruel-hearted bitch.
"Also… I wanna figure out something." She will never shut up. I need to pierce my ear drums. Right fucking now! And-
She holds out a bag of catnip. That's-... I don't know how I was just able to tell, but it is.
Krink- cri- crack. The bag crinkles as she shakes it, and for some reason, it wakes me up a little.
Pop! Then, the bag casually explodes over me- wow, what-...
This big clump on my arm is really interesting. Like-... wh- wow, that smells nice, actually. Weirdly rich, novel, and-...
I just sit down. "Mmm…" I like how this cave looks, actually. Serene, my own.
Mima bears a large grin. From down here, I can make out the curvature of her breasts. They're not amazing, being the fat lumps they are, but she's not ugly. "Wo~w." Then, she ruins it. "They really did a good job on you. Oh man, I wonder if I can get you to nuzzle my feet, too."
What feet. "You don't have legs."
...I look again, and she suddenly does, fitted with sharp, blue boots. "I'm a fuckin' super ghost, kitty, what did ya expect."
I still hate her. It's just- this catnip… I'll admit, it's refreshing, especially with this… great, goddamn headache I've worked up.
…
"You got a foot fetish?" She asks me, while slipping off a boot.
thud. After a ginger moment, I flop over on my side, splaying my arms out. "I'm going to fucking kill you."
She snorts. "Guess not…!"
==== FREAKIN HAKUGYOKUROU ====
END OF CHAPTER 91.5
PROTAGONIST: Matthew, the Debatably Sane Outsider, Lord of Edges, Scissor-Slinging Slasher, Insurance Fraud Expert, Used Goods Reseller, Evil Spirit Cultivator, Shrine Maiden Evader, Professional Youkai Developer, Legitimate Business Man, Transfeline-Loli
=o=
SKILLS:
Gravity - Basic space magic. Slowly expands a dark, spherical field from above the target, which weighs them down when fully initialized. Only works on the feeble at the moment.
Saw Blade - Advanced non-elemental attack. Summons a saw blade to fall from directly above the caster, which whirls forth into infinity before dying. Very effective slicing on those not resistant to it.
Magic Mark - Magical residue. Of unknown purpose, but likely related to Mima.
=o=
PRIMARY WEAPON: Dash Scissors - Succubus training tool. Doubles as scissors for kinky, cloth-cutting occasions. Or stabbing. Sleek, black design.
SKILLS:
Succubatic Slide Dodge - Slide artificially in a horizontal direction of the wielder's choosing. Spammable, but makes the wielder tired with excessive use.
=o=
OFFHAND ITEMS: [A Single Rubber Glove] - For those moments one needs to touch a live power wire with one hand and fap with the other. Protects hand from zaps.
INVENTORY:
Pocket Mirror - For admiring my loli-ness, and other mirror-related activities. Contained in suit pockets.
[Bag of Holding] - Takes up no inventory space, because it is the inventory space. Has nine slots, and is easily accessible.
Steel Scissors - Sharp, shiny, and to the point!
Quick Scissorang - Non-elemental scissors that are enchanted to return to the owner with ferocity. Not that powerful of a weapon, but combined with strong string it can be used like a powerful grappling hook. Looks like it belongs in a Barbie catalog.
Shadow Hell Scissors - Red scissors accented with elemental gems. Fire elemental weapon. Ignites with every swing. Boosts power of fire spells.
SKILLS:
Fire Aura - Confers forty percent fire resistance when equipped.
Fire - Small, homing fireball of doom. May ignite foes. Doesn't do much damage.
Fira - Sizable fireball with less effective homing and speed, but greater ignite chance and initial fire damage.
Dark Fire - Basic dark and fire combo spell. Very slow, tight homing black fireball. Does both dark and fire damage. May ignite foes.
Dark Fira - Moderate dark and fire combo spell. Even slower black fireball, with even weirder homing. May ignite foes. May reduce target's magic defense.
Hellfire - Low-tier vampiric fire spell; less effective when used by me. Vertical wall of three fireballs, with no homing. May ignite foes.
=o=
Blessed Steel Scissors - Stained lightly with dried blood from a young human female. Sharp, shiny-ish, and to the point! Also blessed...
Steel-alloy String - An experimental item provided by Alice as part of her testing. She uses these herself to manage her dolls, or so I'm told.
A Tuft of Cloth Strings - Pink, regular cotton string. It's soft, and clean.
Danger Scissors Plus - Let's get dangerous. Randomly spawns anything from anywhere at any time at all, dependent on the power of the party or people around it while it is equipped.
(one more space remaining)
[Backpack] - Allows extended inventory, of twenty slots. Can hold larger items, but it takes longer to pull them out. Items inside are safer. It's also baby barf green.
Hedge Cutters - Rusty lawn pruning tool used by farmers to keep the vile hedges at bay. They're also sharp, so they've probably been used more than once in self-defense.
Teal Stone - Cool and refreshing to hold, exuding power of the wind. It's sort of shiny, too. Perhaps usable as a reagent.
Hackjob Rifle - A pseudo-railgun, made from an AK-47 barrel and a mangled toy gun. Laced with duct tape and wires to function, powered by electrical scissors, and uses small iron pellets as ammunition. Explodes violently if fed anything non-iron as ammo. Outside is coated with vegetable oil and must be wetted regularly to avoid violence upon powering up. Quite powerful.
Water Scissors - Scissors that continuously produce water. How troublesome.
Goldfish Snack Crackers - They're smiling. They might make a good snack...
Modern-ish Surge Protector - Protects against surges. Not very useful without unified electrical practices in housing. Can still be used as a paperweight and a brick, though.
[Rubber Pouch] - Stores electrical objects safely. Too small to add extra inventory, but doesn't take up any space when it's filled. Currently holding electric scissors.
Electrical Scissors - Must be held by gloves at all times, lest they cause electrical fires. Can cause severe shocking and electricity-induced stunning in individuals susceptible, including myself if I'm stupid. Unable to be turned off.
Holy Pot - A torso-sized holy pot used as a vehicle by flufflekind. Has holy properties and resistances for obvious reasons.
Financial Officer's Card - A card handed to me by the chief financial officer of the human village. Bears a complex triangular insignia and shines depending on the angle you hold it. Has some Japanese printed on it.
Love Dart - Some dart with strong aphrodisiac mixed into the tip, which pierced me.
Red Organ Cooler - Secure cooler capable of storing ice for great periods of time, as well as organs. Small, but big enough to get a single job done easily.
Officer Hat - Nazi officer hat. Has a skull ornament on the top.
STATS:
50% darkness resistant.
Wearer is immune to instant death.
=o=
Officer's Coat - Nazi officer coat. Comes with pants and boots, too. Has the red armband, too. Not much as far as meaningful medals to make it look pretty, which is appropriate, I suppose.
STATS:
50% darkness resistant.
Wearer is immune to being cursed.
Slightly boosts defense and magic defense.
=o=
Child Eater's Yukata - Navy blue yukata, with warm cloth. Smells of sweat and curves. Really big on me.
STATS:
50% moon resistant.
Wearer is silencing immune.
-50% wind resistance.
Boosts the power of Pizza used by the wearer. Slices of pizza now heal health and mana when distributed and used.
=o=
Mother's Pendant - The pendant of that one child, who was abducted. Brimming with holy energy. Maybe useful as a reagent.
STATS:
50% increased chance to encounter and attract mature women.
=o=
Sigh of the Moon - Unremarkable looking moon-elemental ring, which glows with ominous energy and expands when equipped. Seems to be some kind of strange technology. Found in the yukata that slut gave me.
STATS:
100% percent moon resistance.
Silencing immunity.
Increases defense moderately.
(three more spaces remaining)
==o==
PARTY:
Mima, the Evil Spirit, Ghost - Piece of shit ghost. Versed in a variety of spells, but of unknown strength.
STATUS:
Halved damage from magic attacks.
Immune to purely physical damage. May be struck by enchanted weaponry, but holy and dark arms work best.
Halved duration of all status effects.
Immune to poison.
Immune to magical binding.
Immune to silencing.
Immune to cursing.
Immune to electrical stunning.
Immune to freezing.
Immune to burning.
Immune to tired.
Immune to various other statuses that wouldn't affect something without a body.
Immune to most time statuses.
Immune to spatial statuses.
SKILLS:
Θ Fire Magic
Fire - Slow fireball that roars straight ahead. Weak, but may ignite foes.
Fira - Thicker fireball which homes. Has a higher chance of igniting foes.
Firaga - Dreadfully slow magic bomb, which explodes into a swath of flames on impact with an enemy. High chance of igniting foes.
Firaga * Mortar - More upward shot version of Firaga. Includes a bigger but weaker explosion, more apt for igniting groups of enemies.
Firaga * Swath - Melee-range tornado of flames that protects the user, meant to stagger enemies with intimidating, painful flames. Wasteful, but utilitarian.
Eruption Surge - User creates three geysers of flame to surround themselves, and repel foes.
Ignite - Guaranteed to proc burning on a single enemy. Weak status spell.
Hellfire - Vampiric magic. Summons a swath of flame from a vampire's wing to lay wrath onto their foes. In Mima's case, she just replicates it with a wing of black for this one spell.
Fire Manipulation - User may freely manipulate fire for a number of non-prefabricated fire spells.
Θ Ice Magic
Blizzard - Shotgun spread of chilly, biting cold. Weak, but may dissuade opponents and has immediate crowd control capacity. May chill opponents.
Blizzara - Shotgun spread of huge, icy chunks. Stronger effect, and each impact spreads cold at a superior rate to the last spell. May freeze and chill opponents.
Blizzaga - Immense cone-shaped burst of explosive ice bombs. Has a huge chance of freezing foes, and always chills for a long time. Even clipping foes with the magic has devastating ice-based effects.
Blizzaga * Point - Blizzaga, except all the magic is condensed into a single ice block that becomes a cataclysm on impact with an enemy. Always freezes, for a long time. Chills enemies near the impact.
Force Blizzard - Isolated snowstorm, which encapsulates one foe. High chance of freezing, but only works consistently on still foes. Low power.
Freeze - Freeze a single opponent. Very, very low power, and doesn't last long, but may set up other spells.
Snow - Makes it snow locally. May randomly freeze anyone on the battlefield. Lowest ice damage possible. Stronger in winter.
Ice Manipulation - User may freely manipulate ice for non-prefabricated ice spells.
Θ Thunder Magic
Thunder - Random arrangement of thin electric bolts from above in a small area. Random chance to hit, but extremely accurate when it will hit. Random damage.
Thundera - Wider arrangement of random bolts that explode on impact with the ground. Extremely accurate when it does hit, and does immense electrical damage. May stun foes.
Thundaga - Terrifying electric magic, where randomly descending columns of electricity explode into linking storms on the ground. May stun many foes, and does not discriminate between friend or foe. Lethal to most human-tier biological creatures.
Thundaga Swarm - Once cast, powerful bolts will continuously spawn above all present foes, and also randomly in a grand area around the battlefield.
Thundaga * Zeus - Condenses all the strength of Thundaga into one bolt. Really fucking powerful column of thunder, which may stun if it doesn't just kill something. More powerful as a combo finisher.
Plasma Cage - Very weak thunder spell, which is almost guaranteed to wrap a foe in a cage of plasma, then zap them. Very high chance to stun.
Thunder Manipulation - User may freely manipulate electricity for non-prefabricated spells.
Θ Earth Magic
Gaia Seed - Airy earth spell, which enacts a faint bloom of the land's energy in a foe's form. Weighs them down a little, and makes them tired.
Gaia Bloom - Series of earth-attuned magic circles that release earthy energy all around an enemy, strengthening the land's pull on them. Higher chance to make the enemy more tired for longer.
Gaia Blossom - Lovely bloom of earth magic all around a crowd of enemies, making them all more tired, and sprucing up the neary wildlife.
Earth Shamanism - Free manipulation of earth magic.
Θ Water Magic
Water - Wet orb that douses a target. Very simple status spell.
Watera - Big, deep blue water orb that might stagger a target, and extremely wets them. Useful for fires.
Wateraga - Intimidatingly deep orb of scale similar to a small house. Drenches the being of who it encapsulates, and has a chance to asphyxiate enemies, or bind them inside of it before it breaks.
Hydro Storm * Forest - Non-holy variant of the Hakurei-created spell. Atmospheric water condenses over the user, before roaring down in a torrent that feels like knives or bullets.
Water Manipulation - Free use of water magic. Sees more use in staggering or launching opponents than it does actually hurting anything.
Θ Healing Magic
Cure - Heals most wounds. Strong enough to heal humans to peak performance in most cases. Doesn't work on broken bones, or newly lost limbs, however. Works by making a caring wreath above its target, the relic a surrogate transmitter for a confusing blend of spatial, holy, non-elemental and blood magic.
Cura * Rejuvenation - Slower than Cure, but regenerates more health over a ten minute period, rendering many human users invincible for a short time. Costs an insane amount of mana to use.
Curaga - Heals all wounds. Too powerful for most humans, resulting in accelerated hyper cancer or malformed pieces. Heals the soul, too. Mends newly lost limbs, and broken bones. Works on ghosts. Uses a lot of mana.
Curaga * Sanction - Creates a field of healing energy on the ground, wasting a lot of it, but allowing any being to enter the field and become quickly restored. Safe for humans, at the rate it wastes and distributes its energy. Uses a lot of mana.
Esuna - Cleans statuses from a target. Works when silenced. Does not work on syphon, or Hakurei sealing. Youkai-originated healing spell.
Purify - Cleanses statuses from a party.
Cleanse - Removes all statuses and debuffs from a target.
Θ Spatial Magic
Gravity - Basic space magic. Slowly expands a dark, spherical field from above the target, which weighs them down when fully initialized. Only works on the feeble.
Gravira - Expanding sphere of darkness, which expands over a huge plain, crushing most foes into the ground. Consistently weighs down and wears at any foe, for the most part.
Graviga - Giant world of dark magic which descends upon foes. Is stronger the more health the enemy has. Crushes many environmental aspects into the earth, as well. Ironically works worst on feeble foes.
Force - Weighs down on one foe. Works best on feeble foes, but may be used to debuff any foe for a short time. May shoe-glue the opponent, restricting them from jumping. No dark magic required, either.
Zero Graviga - Removes gravity from the battlefield for awhile.
Telekinesis - Like most users of any magic at all, Mima can move objects with her mana instead of having to use her hands. Pretty important for a ghost. Works a little on foes, too...
Θ Holy Magic
Holy - Orb of holy energy. Not Mima's favorite thing in the world. Homes in an opponent and eats into them spiritually.
Holy Lightning - Summons a weaving, churning grid of lightning from the sky to rotate around the user, defending them and making approach difficult. Launches most foes on contact.
Θ Dark Magic
Dark Firaga - Churning black meteor, which slowly crawls through foes and pierces, dealing both dark and fire damage. May ignite foes. May curse foes.
Dark Blizzaga - Horizontal-restricted spread of sleek black ice that passes through everything. May curse foes. Makes the enemy tired. Chills foes.
Dark Thundaga - Single bolt of unholy, black lightning. May curse foes. Deals dulled damage, more of blunt pain from the dark element than anything electrical.
Terror - Localized spell of horror that frightens foes and lowers their magical defense. Basically a jump scare…
Dark Inferno - Vampiric magic. With a flourish of a bat's wing, magma meteors are unleashed to sear foes and tear through defenses. In Mima's case, she just replicates the magic herself. Really a fire spell, but is constructed through dark means.
Screamer - Party-wide jump scare that lowers magic defense. Mostly an illusion, which wraps around the vision of many enemies and invades their minds just to scare them.
Pulse - A breathing, throbbing pulse of dark energy that erupts from an opponent's being and draws from their essence.
Pulsar - Terrifying dark spell which forms a proto-black hole, crushing space itself and pulling everything around it into it. Group-oriented version of Pulse.
Curse - Curses foes for a little while, making them more vulnerable to holy magic, and slowly whittles away at their defenses. Very weak status spell.
Blind - Blinds a foe with dark magic. Wears off, after some time.
Black Hole - Not a real black hole. Mima's most powerful dark spell next to the Twilight Spark. Creates a pulsing, growing hole that eats light itself. May instantly kill anyone on the battlefield nearby, regardless of friend or foe.
Darkness Manipulation - Free use of dark magic. Practically, it takes the form of cursing objects, removing holy affinities, and casting shadows in the world. Otherwise, it gets complicated.
Θ Non-Elemental Magic
Reflect - Non-elemental magic that temporarily reflects damage. It does this by preventing all damage, then returning a set amount in the form of the barrier exploding after use.
Reflectara - Non-elemental magic that reflects more damage, and explodes in a wider radius.
Reflectaga - Extremely powerful non-elemental magic that explodes into a maelstrom of glossy fragmented magic, that also explodes, making more shards that explode. It explodes.
Bind - Non-elemental spell. Traps weaker foes in place horizontally, restricting them to vertical movement for a short time.
Lucky Star - Single star that bounces off an opponent, dealing raw magic damage. Random damage.
Star Shower - Rain of solid star shapes that bounce off of many opponents. Random damage.
Master Spark - Beam of yellow, non-elemental energy that erases many foes with sheer pain. Exhibition of raw power.
Mana Manipulation - Mima knows how to manipulate raw mana.
Θ Makai Magic
Seduction - Seduces a target. Renders them entranced or aggressively lustful for the caster.
Sorare's Flare - Searing red flare that emulate's Makai's changing sun. Weakens holy beings and humans. Makes youkai and demons stronger for some time.
Glass Gas - The gas that fills all of Makai, in spell form. Incapacitates humans and regular animals. Youkai are immune to the biology-searing, mind-rending effects of this substance.
Pale Horse - Azure beam of spark-like energy. Behests the shade of Makai's moon, ramming beings with raw, realization-inducing power. Silences foes. Very costly.
Destruction Ray - Vampiric ability. Summons blighting, flesh and bone-vaporizing drops of violet magic to descend linearly down on a target.
Θ Legend Magic
Pluto - Nearly invisible orb of reality that floats into person's being and makes them less. Does 3% of a target's max HP, but is very costly mana-wise. Nil-elemental magic.
Whirlwind to the Void - A wind spell that temporarily makes a foe forget learned magic and skills.
Doom - Instant death magic. Curses a target, putting a time limit on their life. If it's not purified by the time it runs out, the person afflicted dies instantly. Can be circumvented with auto-revive, a blessing, purification or cleansing.
Possession - Mima possesses a target. Allows her to override their conscience and use their body, including their skills, even until death.
Twilight Spark - Mima's ultimate magic. Huge beam of dark and holy energy that can dig into mountains. Also does Nil damage, for 30% of an enemy's max HP, in addition to the raw holy and dark power.
Other Magic - Mima probably knows a lot of other skills.
==o==
ACTUAL AUTHOR'S NOTE:
oof holy shit mima has a lot of spells
anyway YEAH
this is a TURNING POINT FOR MATT CHAPTERS, pretty sure… as much as some of us on the team didn't agree to this idea
don't go jumpin' to no conclusions, 'cause this is a real critical moment for matt's character - w - freakin' pushed to the EDGE
also it seems like some things have finally caught up to him
like uh, seiga's trustworthiness, aiko's hate boner for humanity, okita being a business connection, yukari putting her heel down, mokou finally collecting herself after some days of not knowing what to do about shikome
yeah it's kind of deep hole!
BUT with this, i regret to inform everyone that matt will no longer be editing his chapters for FREAKIN GENSOKYO / proofreading the brad chapters - w -
the decision for his character to not be entirely successful from this encounter was admittedly somewhat sprung on him, but that was largely because we had a very game-like situation going on, where i didn't give him information the in-character matt wouldn't know (partially because i was suspicious of powergaming and arguing about these very kinds of decisions instead of actually showing effective consequence / execution of the result of matt's actions). also, matt also withheld information about his plans from me for some reason, which was a little… i mean, i couldn't ever execute them unless he told me, so oof
and really i don't think this jump would have been made had i tried to communicate it to him beforehand, because i feel as though it would have just resulted in an argument about the way i interpret the scale of touhou character's abilities versus shikome's ability
but in the discussions we had, due in part to information not relayed to him, but also due in part to his uninvestment in the details of touhou not pertinent to his situation, it seemed clear we were on very different pages regarding what the setting could actually do, and why shikome was not a catch-all resistance or guard to the situation he'd eventually put his character in
and, realistically, this is just how it'd pan out: he goes about his business until the house of cards comes falling down and the luck dries up all of a sudden; it's really just what happens
plus there were a number of things his character just couldn't learn naturally unless we intentionally shoehorned in the right circumstances, like seiga's senkai portals, mokou's intentions, seiga's zombie people, how much eientei actually cared, and such
but, he really couldn't deal with any of this, and to him this was 110% anticlimactic, bullshit and there's nothing any faction should be able to do about it - w -
and, you know, while it wasn't a very climactic moment- shikome's displacement- itself, i feel like what happens after is pretty new and impactful, particularly because it did leave matt in a very bad place regardless
but yeah matt saw absolute zero potential from this development, spoiled this chapter's contents partially for the sake of arguing about it in our discord (which you can find a link to below!) once the discussion we had wasn't going anywhere, talked down my own artistic intentions with where i wanted to take this, and just basically called it the worst thing ever™ and yeah it was kind of a mess
he also basically called shikome a crutch for matt's antics, but also kinda expressed that he wanted to focus more in shikome than matt, even wanting to remove him from the picture, and… i wasn't really gonna have any of that, because more can be done with the elements presented
as such some of the previous matt chapters will receive substantial revision in the future now that i feel like i have better ideas of how to make them more interesting past some of the more surface level elements, of it being serious man being semi-serious with gensokyo and also a psychopath
i feel like, there would be more impact and morbidity from his chapters if there was something to his character, knowable to readers yet unknowable to gensokyo's populace, to really let the readers in on the mysterious, never-answered persona matt tried to give his own character (which people pretty much were able to tell, from the getgo via disinterest or after some time in which they became disinterested, that it was kinda blowing smoke or hot air about the concept).
i also feel like the later chapters would work better if people's first impression was of someone with an actual degree of depth, because the air of mystery for the sake of a mystery is-... well, the reader is supposed to be omniscient, so it doesn't really make sense if you're not filled in on the character's ride, so to speak; ESPECIALLY if nothing is done with the fact the reader's not, and it's REALLY OBVIOUS that the character hides it in-thoughts from prospective readers
like- normally, when you take a reader on a ride with the character similar to this, you either make it a new experience and share it, or the character has amnesia; it's a fact of life that neither kinda know the past, even if it's a bit tried and cheap
but here it really is just the character intentionally playing up his own mystery, which places it there sure but fails to be interesting; through the virtue that it could very easily be any reason, and therefore no reason
and while i was younger i was okay with no reason because i just wanted to show the feel-bad nature of death, how arbitrary it can be, and so forth-... and, i guess i sorta accomplished that long-term XD but i missed on some key aspects that would have made it work, feel bad, and be interesting at the time
a non-compromising main character lacks vulnerability, and while this saves some kind of absolutist face for the character, if we pretended the man behind the character didn't exist and it was just the character, this means literally nothing and comes across as just… either oddly weak from a reader's perspective; sort of like "why doesn't brad want this one man to show inner feelings wtf especially because brad himself is weirdly like not this much of a brick wall"
SO THAT WAS PROBABLY VERY WEIRD. then if we add matt back into the equation, well, it sort of deflates the mystery because it was so played up and if we chalked the cause up to vague infinite, inexpressible feel, it's-... something more in the realm of poetry than befitting of FREAKIN GENSOKYO, especially if it's some kind of mindset that places the rest of gensokyo below whatever matt has going on, which is probably the express opposite intent of the fic
ESPECIALLY when this personal hype is built in direct spite to gensokyo possibly having any depth, which makes me kinda cringe - w -
which makes this whole exchange personally satisfying for me, even when it shouldn't be
but that's not to say i'll be giving matt's character the short end of the stick, not at all
==== me ranting about writer things over ====
SO YEAH YO
tl;dr me and matt had a hissy tizzy tissy and he won't be involved wit' us no more
so now it's me driving him: tell me if i do a good job dude (although he was here for most of this chapter) (except the bit with mima at the end)
==== DISCORD LINK ====
https SEMICOLON SLASH SLASH SON discord DOHT gg SLASH mcVps2R
this is the link to the discord by the way!
==== OTHER STUFF ====
so yeah feed me feedback!exclamation mark!exclamation mark!
OTHERWISE this was a pretty fun chapter!
we got to see some fun faces, YUKI from pc-98 land, and some of the harsh realities of makai
NOT MUCH ELSE TO SAY, 'cause this chapter was kinda straight-forward thematically - w -
i also wrote it a bit ago at this point…
as always, see you all next time!
