What a scoop! This was one of the few events that warranted an emergency ITP issue all to itself! Not going to do that, obviously, but it definitely deserved that sort of treatment!
What would Hatate do if SOMEONE REPLACED HER AND TOOK HER JOB-
It would begin with a door slamming OPEN with the violence of a maelstrom capsizing an entire mountain. A drunken, half-beaten maelstrom, advancing with the inexorability of time itself and the dangerous determination of a kappa proctologist.
“Yepruna Ba! An entire batch lost just like that! Should have known better than outsourcing distribution rights to some vaguely suspicious goddess… Or signing a contract while drunk off my feathers. But that usually works out! Sort of! Makai, my head… Lackey! Lackey! El-ACK-hey! Your editor and undiscussed master demands your presence! He is very tired, nauseous and severely lacking in the patience department!”
“A-a-aye sir! I’m here sir! Omega sorry ‘bout wasting your time! I was finishing work on this month’s double spread I—we made about them dancinggals…”
“Scrap it! We’re in trouble deeper than Old Hell. I’m back from negotiations with the deity who sold this month’s batch to the Human Village’s firekeepers. It didn’t work out. I think. Frankly, everything past the fifth bottle is a blur. I woke up one hour ago on top of a torii gate. The Moriya’s torii, not my wife’s. She had a lot of questions and her orbs waiting for me when I came back wearing only my tokin and the poms. I am unsure of how I’m even alive enough to be standing here and tell you to find the blocks of the lost issues and send them to the printers by yesterday.”
“That… sounds like you had one helluva day, sir. But err, the thing is… though I don’t really wanna add onto the pile of problems you got going there, the fact of the matter is that the blocks have already been disposed of. Pretty sure they’re feeding some kappa’s machinery right now.”
“Why, that means you will only have to rewrite and carve the entire thing from scratch and your paltry memory, yes? And without needing your benevolent superior to tell you that the result had better be a flawless copy of the original, lest you be fed to ‘some kappa’s machinery’ too.”
“A-a-a-all of it?! You sonnuva—I mean, what! How! Why?!”
“Well, according to this here handy list I keep for such occasions, it’s because you owe me. Or rather, I own you, since I generously went through the trouble of buying that waste of paper you used to call a newspaper, along with its subscribership, assets and personnel, which means you. Not that this cleared up the mountain of debts upon which you’re still sitting… nor will you, if you don’t get started right now.”
“O-okay, okay, fine! Can’t I just, go find if at least one copy’s been left unscathed? Like, for reference or–”
“Emperor Daichi, esteemed ruler of all that is newsworthy, said NOW, and NOW it’ll be, you blitherin’ personification of Poyren-dot!”
“And lest the sorry byproduct of your wasted hands become a feast for my hungry bill, you will return bringing along fresh basketfuls of the crunchiest bread.”
“Yes, sir… yes, Your Magnificient Highness Gosalyn…”
“AS IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIF!”
No more ginger coffee before sleeping from now on.
[[Well, folks, the time has come. As eluded to in a post previously, I am shutting things down here. It might just be a hiatus, if motivation returns in a month or two, or it might be permanent. I’unno… Only time will tell.
Either way, it has been a fantastic experience over the past four years and I thank you all for your words. Keep on writing, friends and fellow shitlords.
Honestly, the dull edge was only on Daichi’s neck because Elly’s scythe had the dull edge on the inside of the blade, rather than the outside like most scythes. If it was a normal blade, he’d definitely be getting a real close shave on the back of his neck. Still, the fact that it was dull was a sign she probably wouldn’t take his head off for keeping up the line of questioning, but props to him for self preservation. It’s almost like he’s learning!
“Oh, I can’t tell you that. And before you ask, it’s not because I don’t want to. Those people don’t have names, or even an existence that someone who isn’t a Yama can perceive anymore. They were erased, in the purest sense of the word.” The emphasis on erased was very much audible. “The Ministry of Right and Wrong tends to have very harsh views on attempting get out of the cycle of reincarnation. It’s generally dealt with very harshly.”
Self preservation? Phooie! We spit on the term! No, Daichi just realized that antagonizing the Shinigami along this particular vein wasn’t going to make her angry enough to speak candidly… It wasn’t the fear of death; it was the fear of not getting to the tasty bits of the story.
Speaking of which…
“Erased?”Awesome how fictional characters can do that, eh? “I’d never heard of the Ministry doing anything like that before!” Shocker.
“Pursuit of immortality warrants such a harsh treatment? Or was it their methods?! How did they try to escape the reincarnation? If it’s so horrible, why aren’t the Hourai subject to judgment? OH! Or were they trying to interfere with someone else’s reincarnation?”
“Simply making observations, miss Hakurei,” she so says, examining her nails on one hand briefly. But hey, you already know everything’s she’s saying, right? So it’s not like she’s making you more unhappy by telling you new information. Probably.
“Then I suppose it’s a good thing you know better. You wouldn’t just attack someone, surely. And certainly not someone who knows you know better. How would that look? I’m not sure if the humans would be willing to forget that, if they somehow found out…not soon, anyway. Not soon at all.”
Well I mean…if you want her to play by rules, she could start. But you probably won’t like it, Mika.
There are simply some truths you don’t say outloud… Mika isn’t fond of those truths. It makes her cranky.
“My, my, Miss Pink, I thought you knew the Humans…” It didn’t take a mindreader to see that Mika’s veneer of patience was swiftly flaking off, but Satori was definitely getting a frontrow seat to a show that would make a bridge Troll salivate.
The halfblood’s smile twisted into something just a bit vicious that might be better suited for a Youkai’s face. “If there’s one thing the Humans down there are willing to tolerate, it’s the beating up of Youkai… Particularly dangerous ones with powers that make them uncomfortable!” She took a step forward, letting a deck of spellcards slip from her sleeve into her hand; a hand that was almost not shaking from a cocktail of anger, fear, disgust, and whatever else might be swirling around the mind of an angry teenage girl.
"You know, I've always wondered what bird-tengu taste like... What do you think?" Yuyuko smiles, hands folded into her sleeves. She's only teasing- but he doesn't need to know that, right?
It was an old story told around a round of drinks with raucous laughter, oh, watch out for the Ghost princess of the Netherworld or she’ll eat you up! Everyone always found it hilarious, especially given the myriad of dangerous Youkai running around Gensokyo, but each and every Karasu had to wonder if there wasn’t just a niggle of truth to the bit…
But it couldn’t be true, right? That’d be silly.
“Ah, M-Ms Saigyouji! I’m sure Karasu tastes awful, since we’re crows and everything, and my word, would you look at the time! I have to be somewhere else! Nuuth’ne, Honored! Bye!” Zooooooom!
“Yes, you’re so utterly consumed with heart-crushing disappointment, and also not lying for no reason at all.” Mika please.
“Mmm…distraction attempt. Degrade the other, put them on them on the defensive. Do you feel attacked, miss Hakurei? Off-balance? That’s no good.”
There is a morbid kind of satisfaction to be had from watching someone fumble around with their only line of defense stripped away.
“How very rude, Miss Pink!” Satori wasn’t playing by Mika’s rules, or seemingly any of the common decency or social niceties, and that was making this all extremely unpleasant. “There are simply some things you don’t say to a young lady! If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you wanted a danmaku duel…”
Hakurei lesson number 414: if attacking doesn’t work, you’re not doing it hard enough.
“Bah! I’m sorry to crush your fantasies kid, but I’m the youngest in my family, so you are stuck with me,” Ritter replied, as on the same moment the waitress came to bring their orders. “Miss, could you leave the coffee pot here? Thank you,” she thanked the waitress and grabbed the cup after the coffee was poured.
Ritter have had a slight headache developing from the lack of caffeine since the wake up at six on the morning, so the first cup of the day was silently blessed in her mind… A sip and she didn’t feel like strangling Daichi over the table anymore and instead, felt like there was sense in the world again. “Besides, if I had a little sister, I wouldn’t send her to play spy in a poker joint with someone like you. That would just be a recipe for a class A catastrophe.” Ritter groaned and took a look of the breakfast plate, which was apparently toasts with an omelet sitting on top of them. It smelled good.
“How about you stop testing my good-natured temper and renown patience, and start playing by the rules; You share, I share and I don’t throw you to the wolves…. So, the names of those girls? Parents? Clients?”
“You wound me, detective.”
The lad sawed into his waffles with a gusto that could only be granted by a couple of days of lean eating. After several mouthfuls of delicious, washed down with some black coffee, he sighed happily.
“Besides,” he followed up with a gamble, “with you keeping all of the pleasant nature, I’d bet your little sister would be a real ball-buster!” That barb delivered, the reporter reached into his vest and withdrew his notepad. A quick couple of flips brought the relevent information to his eyes. “Rodriguez, Susan. Saunder, Tanya. Er… Rouge Kitty. Couldn’t find her real name, but I know her family is local. Kusanagi, Keiko. That’s all I had before talking with you… The only connection I saw was that they all worked at the Golden Ducky.”
Another pause was filled with waffle munching and it wasn’t long before the plate was clean.
“There is daring, and then there’s social suicide. If I had to guess, your opinions of the village residents are very well known.” Give that a beat to let her think about it. “And I’m correct. So no, not surprising. At all, really.”
“Too human. Ask again next life.”
Filed under things that are not okay in Mika’s world: 1. This. 2. Mindreaders. 3. The horse this shit rode in on.
Composure!
“Well, I’m certainly disappointed if the Humans have developed some notion that I don’t like them!” Probably shouldn’t have thought of the Human village and how bad it makes her feel to know that they distrust her nor how resentful it made her just now. The scramble to quickly stow that emotional baggage behind what she hoped was a mentally opaque door probably didn’t help either. Fuck all this! “I guess everyone is allowed their own tastes, yes? Besides, you’re clearly not dressed for courting anyway!”
Hakurei lesson number 413; when in doubt, attack. Even if it’s a clumsy attack and probably not going to have much of an impact.
"Luk ba! This lesser one was named Daichi Yuutamo, and he holds the distinction of being the Senior Editor of Intrepid Truth Press. Have time for an interview, Honored?"
Touhou Tengu OC. Please see Rules and Profile Stuff for more information.
