It struck me as somewhat amusing that I hadn't considered this angle before.
Urgh.
Never.
Never _again_.
Or so I kept telling myself. Not that it ever helped much.
Shrimp pizza at half-past midnight isn't the smartest idea I've ever had, that's for sure.
I stumbled briefly, upon getting out of bed, but proceeded to ignore pretty much everything in the early morning gloom and preambulate towards the bathroom.
Which is why, a little bit later, I was lying flat on my back, staring at the ceiling, and wondering something along the lines of:
'Who the hell put that wall there?'
That's about when I started noticing that things weren't quite the way I'd left them just last night/earlier this morning.
For one thing, my place doesn't have wooden walls. Or wooden wall panels. Not even faux walnut. For another, this was considerably larger than where I'd gone to sleep.
Thirdly, my face felt ... weird. I drew a hand across it, for reassurance's sake, and promptly forgot everything else as I spent the next fifteen minutes patting myself down.
Well, that answers that ... I was in the middle of one of my 'beard' times, and since I'd have remembered shaving it off recently, suddenly feeling smooth skin there was disconcerting.
Then there were the books ... that was about the final clue I needed, because my brain suddenly sparked and realized where this was going. Even if the rest of me took a longer while to shake of the disbelief.
I needed a mirror.
Fortunately, there was one right there, sitting on top of the desk.
I picked it up, and briefly considered not looking.
Then said, to hell with it, and took the plunge.
You know how some people say they wish they'd stayed in bed on one day or another, because they'd just known it was going to suck, big time, and not in the happy fun way?
I experienced a moment very much like that when I saw Matou Shinji looking back at me.
Well, what the hell do you say to something like that?
Rays of the sun filtered through the blinds on the window.
"Good morning, Vietnam, and fuck you too."
Yeah, that felt strangely appropriate at the moment.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
oh my.
I wonder how fake Shinji will deal with Sakura... I just can't picture it.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Quote:
I wonder how fake Shinji will deal with Sakura... I just can't picture it.
Either by repressing, groveling, or descending into such depths of self loathing that are only equalled by Shinji Ikari. I haven't decided. Maybe none of the three.
Mostly, this is just an asspull I came up with a few minutes after putting the END stamp on Foxes Wild, when I thought that most SI stories where the insertee gets shunted into a character's mind still end up with them in the body of a mostly decent person.
I haven't seen any dealing with the trials and tribulations of having to deal with the reputation, memories, and assorted kipple of someone who's not only got an Aura Of Ooze but also is in competition for the Human Douche Bag of the Decade title.
... *dies laughing* even *hehe* have an idea for a genre-name *snickers* for this sort of thing.
I give you, the MSI! For MaSon Insertion.
I tackled the problem with my usual verve, aplomb, and go-getter attitude.
That is to say, I spent the next hour or so alternately down with the shakes, cold sweat, and puking my guts out. Though fortunately, the latter only once I found the bathroom.
How many bathrooms did this place have, anyway? Three? Four?
Hell with it.
I'm too off kilter to deal with this, I realized, before taking quick shower, throwing on some random kipple from the wardrobe, and going off to drown myself in caffeine.
Maybe that'd bring all this into perspective.
Or at least let me find something amusing in this screwed up rendition of 'A Hazy Shade of Winter' and get me out of Maison Matou, where - if memory serves me - I definitely didn't want to spend more time than absolutely necessary.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
It wasn't a matter of being able to 'play' Shinji accordingly or not. Even assuming that I really was who I thought I was and not just a persona Matou thought up for himself in the course of having a mental breakdown for one reason or another.
On the third large mug of mocha, and at around midday judging by the pedestrian traffic, I realized that I _could_.
As in, was able to.
I knew, roughly, what was where in the city. I remembered his acquaintances. Everything was pretty damn clear, too, and oddly enough things only started getting foggy going _forward_ rather than going back.
Even with that, the things I could remember made me realize I'd cheerfully slug myself in the face a time or ten just to see it bloody and miserable.
Excessive, or so you'd think, right?
Um. No.
Not in the slightest.
In fact, I'd rather not go into too many details. Not now, not ever.
If I lived through the crap that was coming, and I knew it was - the few clear memories of the last year had to do with his sister, and they were fairly detailed. They were actually what made up a good number of reasons for my recent bout of 'self'-loathing - Matou Shinji was going to die.
How?
Well, someone once said that the best way to get revenge in some cases was to live well.
Pretty motto, but to be able to get that far, I'd need to assure my staying alive in the first place.
Otherwise, all this consideration ist egal.
... well, that was another nail in the coffin of alternate personality. I was fairly sure Shinji didn't know his ass from his head in German. Not that it was saying much, since it was more or less a normal state of affairs with him. Though it wasn't his ass that he didn't know from his head in that case.
... my, I'm rambling. Well, half a dozen large mochas will do that to you.
At that point, my hands were shaking. Either from the stress, or the massive caffeine dose I'd ingested in the past few hours.
Add to that the fact that the only person I knew I could con into at least some form of assistance was currently ... well, not exactly meaningless, but it would be some time ...
A few weeks, maybe a month ...
... until Emiya Shirou would be a piece in this little play.
And why the hell was I thinking like this? I _don't_ think like this.
Do I?
No, that was enough coffee, I thought. For a small horde of people, really ... or at least a small horde of people who'd never had any before.
... and I don't think Shinji ever did.
... well, at the rate I'was worrying about anything and everything, I'was going to end up insomniac anyway.
And it's not like I could just sit around waiting for a nice and useful Plot Twist, like, oh, say, meeting Bazett Fraga McRemitz on the street on accident.
Right?
Right?
...
Asshole.
Fourth Wall? Timber!
Now if I could convince somebody that an SI into a Brian J. Mason suit is a good idea.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
Okay, I was ready to deal. Somehow.
Falling over myself and practicing the fine art of ignoring everything around me wasn't going to work as an avenue of approach in this case, so I was kinda sorta out of my depth ... before I realized, I didn't really _have_ to deal with it myself.
Or, not directly anyway.
It was roughly two in the afternoon, and it looked like rain, when I was sitting down in a quiet corner of a teahouse - I wasn't about to risk giving in to temptation and hitting another coffee house - and I was in the process of trying to write a letter. Two, really.
Contingencies seemed like a very good idea at the moment.
Fortunately, the stalker tendencies of the former occupant of this body served me well in this. Distasteful as it was, knowing Tohsaka's address and just how to get there would prove useful. For one thing, I could just drop it by her place when she was at school or something.
And really, it was the easier of the two messages. Sprout off some random, semi-relevant lines about things not being how they seemed and impending danger, reference a War of Heroes, end it with a simple line of 'Beware of Kotomine', and write the whole thing in German.
The second one ... well, here's where things got tricky.
I mean, how the hell do you write an all-but-emotionless-assassin hiding away from the world, for all intents and purposes, that you need their help in a matter of life and death?
Without provoking a course of events that will lead to ending up dead in the night due to misinterpretation.
Well, yeah, very very carefully. That's pretty much a given.
It was a longshot, but I was sort of counting on the whole 'teacher' persona to be at least somewhat genuine.
I puzzled over that one for a while, in part because I needed to get it just right, and in part because ... yeah, I was being a gutless coward trying to avoid going back 'home' for as long as I could.
Do you really blame me?
Next, the prodigal grandson returns. Or, an evening at the Matous.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
And here I though this was just a slightly extended oneshot. However I am very glad to see more of this, it's such an uniques SI.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Heh-heh. This is fun.
Oh, and BTW: I think an SI-intoBrian J. Mason would be nifty indeed. *Evil grin*
Black Aeronaut Technologies Group
Aerospace Solutions for the discerning spacer
"But first, let's test it on the penguin."
"Meep?" O.o
Oh, not just Mason.
Insert into a hyperboomer body, at the exact moment that Brian J. Mason and Armstrong G728 download in and merge to form Largo.
And don't kick them out in the process, either.
![[Image: devil.gif]](http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/devil.gif)
--Sam
"Let's fight until one of us is a drooling cripple the rest of his life. It's more fun that way!"
Quote:
Insert into a hyperboomer body, at the exact moment that Brian J. Mason and Armstrong G728 download in and merge to form Largo.
No, no, no, no, no ... we've _had_ semi-insane MPD suffering powerhouses before.
I wouldn't mind the semi-insane MPD part as much as I would the powerhouse part.
What I had in mind was to put yourself into a mostly normal, but deplorable, person. Then turn that around somehow. Mason, other than his (debatable) wetware and his fancy, mobile coffin (aka armored suit) is mostly company clout, reputation, and nastiness.
It's why I chose Shinji for this rather than, say, Kotomine Kirei (which, while fun, wouldn't have been 'new' exactly, going by type), who actually _has_ power of his own. Shinji, on the other hand, is just ... well, Shinji. Theoretical knowledge without practical potential to use it unless he's swiping Maryouku/Mana/Prana from somewhere, the integrity of a sunken wreck, you know.
Other characters viable for this sort of approach would be - Katsuhiko Jinnai (El-Hazard OVAs), Muruta Azrael (Gundam SEED), Mamoru Torigai or Makoto Isshiki (RahXephon) and so on.
"Where were you today, boy?"
You know, I don't think I've ever met anyone to embody the concept of 'dried up old prune' as well as Matou Zouken did.
Not that I was going to tell him that.
Nor was I about to tell him I'd spent most of the day shambling along at random, trying to think up as many ways of getting rid of the old fart as I could.
And coming up blank most of the time.
Still, if I had to choose, I'd rather it be him I have to deal with rather than Sakura.
"Out clearing my head, grandfather," I said, as calmly as I could manage. Which I think took him a little by surprise. "I don't think being jittery with anxiety would have been conductive to getting anything, do you?"
"Idiot child! How do you expect to ever amount to anything if you feel nervous at the very throught of such trivialties," Zouken spat out with some very real malice behind it.
I'd like to say I kept my cool, but that's not entirely accurate.
"What's the point? In a few months I'll either be dead or it won't matter. I'd think preparing for the War would be important enough."
"That is why it would be safer for you not to think at all, boy."
... which was when he jabbed towards me with his cane and I realized I'd just done something phenomenally stupid.
Not that I had a lot of time to take the realization in, since for the next ... oh ... several days I was busy screaming, then wimpering as all my nerves' pain receptors seemed to ignite all at once.
At least, that's what it felt like at the time.
"It's good to see you finally gaining some backbone ..."
Hard cane, too, I faintly noticed when it whapped against my ribs, sending further 'reminders' along my neural pathways.
"... but you forget to
know your place."
I managed, somehow, to haul myself up to my knees and replied with the least-shaky "Yes, grandfather. I won't forget" that I felt up to managing there and then.
"Hmph," I heard the clacking of the cane on wood and footsteps slowly moving away from me. "Maybe there's hope for you yet, foolish boy."
Hope?
Yeah, you old fart, there's hope enough for me here.
And you can bet I won't forget.
Those were the basics of what was going through my mind when I was dragging myself towards my room.
Next? Hey little sister, what've you done?
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
You know, a non-Sue SI as Draco could work well for the purpose too.
*interested*
... was considering scribbling off an Ergo-Proxy oneshot, but I'll be holding off on that for a while still. Instead, here's another bit of DNGGITSN ... and my, that's a mouthful, isn't it?
I woke up with the vague impression of a glass moon, a spire of some sort, rust, for some reason, and the vague idea of climbing lingering in my thoughts ... even as the ache slammed into my mind.
Ache, singular. As in, the whole body.
I hurt in places I didn't know I had places, though it was pretty much dull and muted ... until I decided to move.
Then it was rusty spikes and barbed wire winding along the bones.
Or something along those lines, anyway.
Considering that my last clear memory of last night included writhing on the ground in what amounted to one big epileptic fit that laster ... well, juding by the muscle aches, for quite a while.
Or it was just sympathetic pain from the nerve overload.
Either way, not fun.
I thought I'd dragged myself to bed on my own, anyway, though I could swear it was easier from a point onwards for some reason.
A memory, blurred with exertion, surfaced.
Well, I guess my 'first' meeting with Matou Sakura was one I'd fallen unconscious during. Multiple times.
Explains how I managed to get the door opened and closed on my way in, though. I didn't.
I ground my teeth as I levered myself into the vertical, then sat and panted for a while. Yup. Moving was going ... easier. By no means easy, but it wasn't quite as painful as it had been initially. Good to know.
Meanwhile, my nose was noticing something else, so I turned my head ... slightly, to investigate. Fortunately, my eyeballs didn't hurt. Small favors, eh?
There was a teacup, steaming away on the bedside table ... huh.
Smelled pretty good, too. I managed enough motor control to reach out and grab it, then bring it to my lips without spilling any.
Sipped.
Familiar, but seemed just a little odd on the tongue. Sort of tingly in the aftertaste ...
... my hand whipped out, flinging the cup away and into the wall, where it shattered and splattered its contents over the wood, even as the rest of my body proceeded to ignore pain and half-walk, half-crawl, mostly-stumble towards and into the bathroom.
I nearly fell into the toilet before I managed to steady myself.
And then I threw up.
Yes, this was beginning to be a pattern, a faint voice in the back of it all seemed to comment.
I got up, wincing all the way, flushed, and hit the shower before the shakes could get me again. I think I scalded something before getting out half and hour later.
Excessive?
Maybe.
Paranoid?
Certainly.
Unwarranted?
I thought back to Tsukihime and the excessively polite facade of a poisoner, and could only come to the conclusion I was doing the right thing.
I could feel stupid if it amounted to nothing afterwards, but at least it'd be an _alive_ stupid.
The phrase 'his own worst enemy' springs to mind, doesn't it?
Is it just paranoia?
Isn't it?
Hehehe.
But seriously,
Kohaku freaks me out. Wearing a cheerful smile while planning poisoning people left and right. Is it any wonder the avatar draws some parallels, the situation he's in?
Still more to come.
-Griever
ETA: minor editsu
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
Dawn, huh?
It looked like another habit, this one less ... disgusting.
All the more power to it, I guess.
I wasn't exactly quiet when I went back to 'my' room to dress for the day, but some habits reach across worlds I suppose. Or dementia. One or the other.
I didn't even really _notice_, but my mind was otherwise occupied with other, more important things.
Like how to put one foot in front of the other.
"Ah! B-brother?"
I spent a few moments in looking dumbly at a plum-haired girl about 'my' age, caught half in the process of picking up shards of the cup I'd sent into the far wall.
"I'm sorry. I'll be done right away. I-I'll try to do better next time, I promise."
She busied herself with that, then quickly and quietly brushed past me on her way out, keeping her eyes to the ground.
The door slid shut as she exited.
I resisted the temptation to just sit down on the floor and stare blankly.
Barely.
Shit.
You know, reading about it, even sort-of-half-remembering it, is different than actually seeing.
Somehow, my own position didn't seem too bad, all things considered. After all, I was only going to die, right?
Calmly, managing to press any lingering aches and pains into the back of my mind, I proceeded to dress. Somewhere in the middle of it, Sakura came back and cleaned up the tea spill still left.
"I'm going," I threw out, leaving.
"H-have a good day, brother."
I wanted to run.
Maybe if I went far away, I could just leave all this ... wrongness ... behind?
Sadly, that wasn't really and option.
One can still dream, though.
Right?
After all, there's no immediate need for action.
Right?
Right.
So escapism is alright, then?
In his mind.
Don't worry, though. He'll start getting his shit together soon.
Valles is right, though. Writing Sakura is hard.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
Now with 50% less rat.
"Matou-kun? You're this early?"
I turned slightly.
"Oh, it's Mitsuzuri-taii," I let 'Shinji' grin sheepishly. He did that well. Hell, he did a whole spread of facial expressions, mannerisms, and other such things well.
That was about the only saving grace of this entire situation.
"I just wanted to relax a little, Mitsuzuri-taiicho. Couldn't sleep. You know how it is."
Proving once again that I really should think and consider a bit more before I act. Or speak.
In this case, I'd found myself wandering towards the high school Shinji attended basically on instinct, then figured on getting the lay of the land rather than relying on memories, seeing as the day was still very young and classes wouldn't be starting for a few hours.
Plenty of time to make tracks, yes?
Apparently, no.
Mitsuzuri Ayako was captain of the school Kyudo team, and a real go-getter type of person if memory served me right. Cute, too, in a tomboyish sort of way, but the time was hardly right for that sort of mental wandering.
She also tended to come in early to get some extra practice time in, I recalled in a flash.
"You certainly look well for someone who was ill yesterday," she commented as she came up to the firing line and fell into seiza.
I was a little chagrinned when I realized she was in full uniform, meaning hakama, gi-top, the works. Meanwhile, I'd been working out the lingering pain in my arms by seeing how well I remembered this whole archery thing in the school stuff I'd hastily thrown on that morning.
That she didn't seem to think it was worth mentioning said something about Shinji's usual attitude in going about his business. Though it also made things easier on me.
"Saa ... I got better," I smiled, shrugged, and generally let 'Shinji' do his thing a little more. "Though I may be having a relapse later today."
"You can't just go and blow things off like this ..."
Apparently, even Shinji's nonchalance had limits. Oh well.
"Maybe," it was getting a bit late-ish in the morning, and the place was likely going to fill up pretty soon. Time to make tracks. I set aside my yumi, after unhooking the string, and went to retrieve the arrows. I wasn't a great archer, apparently, but could manage decently enough. The vice-captain position, I probably owed to Shinji's charisma rather than anything else. "You shouldn't worry so much, Mitsuzuri-taii."
And I was off.
Or at least, I'd intended to be, around the back of the archery dojo and out of the school grounds by virtue of a small side-entrance.
I almost managed it too.
"Matou."
Keyword, almost.
Slowly, without making any sudden moves, I turned around.
"Kuzuki-sensei. Good morning."
You know, he looked all the larger in real life. Or was it just the sort of presence he radiated? And cold. Very cold and calculating.
"See me after school."
I felt something ... paper? ... thwapping against my face before I realized he moved, and watched an envelope flutter down. I snatched it out of the air.
Damn, but the postal service in this town works fast.
"Yes."
But he was already walking away.
Hmm ...
I clenched my hands.
The shaking only lasted a second or two this time.
I must have been getting better.
Or worse.
Jury's still out on that, by the way.
Hmm. Yeah, I'm hoping I don't make Scary-sensei too OOC. Oh well.
We'll see.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
the price of bad acting.
Ever notice how a school has serious creep potential after hours?
I've heard opinions that it's because you're someplace that you associate with lots of people going about their business, and they suddenly _aren't_.
Creep out by contrast?
Usually, I consider that sort of thing to be calming rather than anything else, but here and now I was seeing what people meant by that. Though it likely had more to do with the person I was meeting than the ambience of the building.
I slid the classroom door open, stepped in, and got in a way that is quite unique and sudden, why an acquaintance calls this guy Scary-sensei.
And *clink* went the closing door.
"Who are you?"
His martial art is called 'Snake', supposedly for the whipping, chaotic motions of body and arms that disorient an opponent and leave them open for a killing blow. Right then, it was singly appropriate to liken the way Kuzuki Souichiro focused on someone with the way said predator does before springing in for the kill.
"Sensei?"
"It's simple, and no single thing. Multiple smaller oversights," Kuzuki's voice was about as warm as a glacier, and just as welcoming. "You are not Matou. Who are you?"
I had about enough confidence in my abilities to know that, yes, I might be able to choke out a whimper before he caved my skull in ...
... and the realization that this was one particular hole I'd basically dug for myself wasn't helping any either, let me tell you ...
... so, due to lack of, oh, any _other_ possible course of action that would have me walking out of here on my own power rather than being carried out, likely in a plastic bag, I told the truth.
Because I'm making the assumption that Kuzuki can read body language about as clearly as any of us can a book.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
Quote:
I had about enough confidence in my abilities to know that, yes, I might be able to choke out a whimper before he caved my skull in ...
BEST. LINE. EVAR!
As for other bad characters to be incarnated as, Jinaii wouldn't actually be to bad, IF it was at the beginng of the series, when the worst thing he's done is fix the election. If it's later on, when he's been raining nuclear fire on innocent cities, then you've got a problem.--
"There are crazed martial artists out there looking to improve their skills and find inner peace through exterior
violence!"
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all.
Quote:
If it's later on, when he's been raining nuclear fire on innocent cities, then you've got a problem.
Heh. True. Also, worrying about whether or not Diva will bite your head off after ... well, after
![[Image: smokin.gif]](http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/smokin.gif)
. It's a valid concern, you know.
Ahem ... now, where was I.
Small bit only today.
"That is ... highly unlikely."
This was not going well.
"About as unlikely as a blaze suddenly hitting and wiping out the better part of several city blocks in a matter of minutes, then being written off as 'natural disaster'. It still happened."
Not that I'd expected it would. Longshot, you know?
"Even assuming you speak the truth, why would you assume I would help?"
Time for the sale, pitiful as it is.
"You have no reason to. Do you have a reason not to?" Deep breath. "After all, monotonous contemplation and supposed peace of mind aren't really giving you what you're looking for. Or am I mistaken?"
And discover, for an instant, that greatest of treasures which is Hope.
You know it's bad when you're quoting Pratchett to yourself, even if it's just in your own mind.
Mine.
Whatever.
The good news was, I didn't die.
The bad news was, I didn't think Kuzuki-sensei was convinced. He told me he'd 'think it over'. I fully expected my neck being whole and un-snapped to be one of those things he'd be thinking over, though, so no confidence gained here ...
... though, really, I wasn't quite grasping at straws yet.
Or, if I was, I'd started with the most sturdy one.
I walked from the school grounds well after most of the students and staff had left, and headed back 'home'.
I needed a theory refresher, some time to consider getting Shirou involved ...
I remembered Kuzuki's: "You may leave now."
... and a will.
Definitely a will.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
I hunkered down in the underbrush, lowered the binoculars, and decided that it was high time to hightail it out of here.
Here being the forested area outside of Fuyuki, that just happened to be private property of a wealthy European family.
Who put a freaking castle there for some reason.
Two weeks had gone past without a word from Kuzuki, which could be a good or a bad thing, and I'd so far been able to avoid the more morally questionable parts of playing Dutiful Grandson.
Unfortunately, as much of a Douche Bag as Shinji had been, his actions in that case hadn't been entirely without reason ...
... and yes, while I was chiefly trying to save my own bacon, some things you Just Don't Do. Or so I needed to remind myself every couple of hours.
So, after having put the matter out of mind for the past two weeks, and presently making tracks 'thataway', as in, away from Castle Einzbern, I began to deliberate on a matter that could turn out to be very important along the line.
How to get Sakura laid.
Next, on DNGGITSN:
*Shirou, looking on confusedly*
Shinji*crying Manly Tears*: Emiya, you've been such a good friend, even when I was an ass of the first order. In thanks for that, you can ... you can *grabs Shirou's shoulders* do my sister.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
Two things. First, I *am* enjoying the story, and, indeed, looking forward to the next bit.
Second, Bwah? I haven't actually ever had any exposure to the original story, outside of a page or two of description on wikipedia, and I gotta say, I'm *utterly* baffled. This isn't a problem, per se, but it is a somewhat surreal experience.
Quote:
How to get Sakura laid.
Don't you mean getting Sakura laid by the
right person?
__________________
Into terror!, Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell
...and having now read more of the wiki, I have to say, this world is depressing enough that you could put a fully informed self-insert in place as just about *anyone* and they'd have trouble bringing about a happy ending. This world is a creepy, creepy place.
First there was nothing but warm and dark and 'Mmm, sleep'.
Then...
NOISE!
An impossible torrent of images and voices at tremendous volume and somehow all making sense individually except that they overlapped and I couldn't think and I was sure I could do better if they'd only come in slowerclearerquieteroneatatimesoIdhavetimeto-
The world got slow.
That's the best way I can really think to describe it. It was like on one of those TV shows where some guy suddenly finds himself the only person who can still move while the rest of the universe freezes around him.
I took a deep breath - or didn't, since I didn't seem to even have a body but the intent worked for bracing myself anyway - and took another look at the torrent.
Ethnic cleansing in Rwa-ed into the North Atlanti-on't you dare thi- then spread the oil and -s to ashes, dust to d-
Television. All the television and radio in the world. But how in the world was I hearing it, let alone understanding the parts that weren't in English? What could possibly connect me to-
Something deep down at the foundations of my soul - and I use the word both precisely and literally - pulsed in response to the thought, as familiar as my own heartbeat despite my knowing that I'd never felt it before.
I had memories that weren't mine, and when I looked at myself, they told me that I'd been... grafted... into the place of the mind and heart of something - someone - entirely different.
His name had been -
I cocked a mental ear, not to the babble of the world's media, but to something closer.
My name was -
Yep. 'Dirty Laundry'.
Nybbas.
Oh boy.
The setting is the roleplaying game In Nomine. The character is Nybbas, Demon Prince of the Media.
About halfway through writing this it occured to me that he might well be too capable, relative to his enemies, to qualify for the kind of trouble 'Shinji' is in.
On the other hand, nobody is actively looking for Shinji to make a mistake so they can put his neck on the chopping block, either.
*shrug* I leave it up to you.
Ja, -n
===============================================
"I'm terribly sorry, but I have to kill you quite horribly now."
Hey Valles is there any chance of you continuing your SI!Nybbas idea. You don't really have to worry about him being overpowered all that much given the number of beings on both sides of the fence who want him dead...
Dwarven Vow #16: You can do anything if you try! We're dead anyway if we fail.
-Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia)