*runs into wall - but makes the catch*
And, since my computer is out of order by way of cooling problems 'till at least sometime tomorrow morning (and even then, it looks like I might've bought the wrong sort of fan - unless these chips are supposed to get too hot to touch without even running a game), I'll try and get through the rest of episode one in one chunk.
*serves*
So. The first time I met Kuga Natsuki, she pointed a gun at my head.
Which, frankly, I had been sort of expecting, assuming I didn't get a chance to find out first-hand whether or not she would have been able to drive those motorcycles of hers legitimately. (For those in the audience unfamiliar with Japanese motor laws, a person who wants to operate a two-wheeled vehicle is required to be able to lift it back up if it should fall over - and yes, I found out later that she really was that strong.)
"O-oi! You! You were there when that girl was picked up - where is she?" She sounded distinctly flustered, and my train of thought had switched tracks so thoroughly that I didn't realize why until Mai scrambled off of my lap and started backing away, eyes wide.
I eyed the Element in her hand, my first chance to really look at one. (Did Miroku even qualify, or was it something completely different? Or a posession, like Artemis? I still don't know.) The show had been remarkably accurate, although the real one's colors were far more subdued - a cross between a Derringer and a smallish revolver, with what looked remarkably like a two-inch whiffle ball where the latter's cylinder should have been. "Minagi-san, you mean? I believe she's still asleep in the infirmary, Kuga-san, but there's-"
She took a threatening step forwards and cut me off. "What did you say?!"
I held up my hands and put on my best 'please don't kill me, lady, I just work here' smile. "I'll be happy to explain how I know that, but it's... kind of wierd. Even compared to that," and I nodded towards the... gun? close enough... in her hand, "or Duran. I'd really rather only have to do it once tonight, though, so could we go find Minagi-san before we start... please?"
The bad scary gun went away, and her stance seemed to relax. Slightly. "Which way?"
I pulled myself to my feet, then leant over to offer Mai a hand up. "You should come too, Tokiha-san. I'm afraid that you and she-" I indicated Natsuki with a flick of my eyes, "-have something in common."
"You set this whole thing up?!" she hissed, although not quietly enough that our 'captor' couldn't likely hear every word.
Hey what?! "No! I just know a bit - and I wasn't even sure I wasn't crazy 'till I saw her gun. Please - just give me five minutes to explain, and I'll tell you everything I know."
She glared at me for a moment, obviously thinking hard, then sighed and nodded and let me help her up.
Thank god for Mikoto's appetite - offering to buy her dinner if she'd listen first was the only thing that let me calm her down, even after I'd managed to slip in front of Natsuki in going inside her room. Eventually, though, it ended up with me sitting in the cheap visitor's chair on one side of the room and Mai and Mikoto perched on the bed on the other, with Natsuki - still wearing her helmet - leaning against the wall beside it. Her body language was pretty much unreadable, but Mai was giving me a look I can only call troubled and Mikoto looked caught halfway between surly and bored.
"A bit over three months ago," I told them, "someone shot me in the head. When I woke up, more than a month later, most of my memories of the life everyone said I had lived were gone. The doctors told me that that was quite understandable and almost to be expected, given what had happened, although they still couldn't explain why I was alive at all.
"As it happens, I do have an explanation - the problem is that it's completely insane.
"It starts by saying that when I woke up, I found that I had the memories of someone else - an entirely different person, in looks, thoughts, name, even nationality. His memories - or mine, I'm not sure which and don't really care either way - end with his being approached by an older man in a very nice suit, who asked him if he'd be willing to die to save the world.
"And, after a very convincing and utterly terrifying demonstration that this man was, at the very least, posessed of the ability to instantly and totally hypnotize another person into believing that they were having any experience he wished, he - I - agreed. He assured me that the case he had described was suited to my definition of the phrase, which really left me no choice - I could agree, or I could betray everything I believed in. I had to trust his accuracy and his intentions, I thought, not because I had any real reason to but because the consequences of dismissing them and being wrong were too severe to justify any such risk.
"So of course I said yes.
"What he told me was that there were different worlds, or dimensions or timelines or whatever you want to call them, just as god knows how many bad sci fi shows have theorized, and that, further, the existence of one of them could influence an individual or group living in another to base what they thought was their own imagination on that other world."
"You're telling us that you remember being someone who agreed to ditch his entire life and jump into a comic book," Natsuki said.
"I told you it was crazy. What he wanted me to do was help him save the life of the fellow behind a fairly important figure from a television series I had seen. For complicated reasons, the only practical way to do this was to find someone of sound health willing to die in his place - and to do it quickly.
"So he told me what I needed to know, and set everything up, and, since he was prohibited from interfering except through agents, left me to explain everything to the guy." I took a deep breath. "His name, as you might've guessed, was Tate Yuuichi, and there was a complication - his principles wouldn't let him put his own life before someone else's - for any reason. But there had to be a Yuuichi..."
"So he chose to die and let you step into his place," Mai said softly.
"Yes," I agreed. "Obviously, the most likely explanation was that I had gone completely mad."
Natsuki laughed.
"On the other hand, the other options were internally consistent, too, and, as I said, the stakes too high not to take precautions. The show's timeframe had started at the beginning of the school year at Fuuka Gakuen, so I got as ready as I could, then put myself where the show had said that 'I' should be during the first episode... and waited."
Mikoto hadn't said a thing during all of this, but for whatever reason, she definitely gave the impression that she was following along a lot better than her animated counterpart would have. Natsuki sighed and took off her helmet and plonked herself gracelessly onto the end of the bed, while Mai's expression might as well as come out and said 'I can't believe this shit'. "And then I showed up chasing this stubborn girl and proved it was all true."
Mikoto gave her a red-eye.
"Believe me, I was praying I deserved an asylum. Unfortunately, between Kuga-san and Minagi-san and that old man's testimony, we now have at least two data points that suggest that the series got at least some of its events and history right... I apologize, but could I confirm some things?"
Mai shook her head. "You're completely serious about this, aren't you? Stuff like this doesn't happen in real life - but sure, go ahead."
Mikoto and Natsuki agreed, so I took a - hopefully - calming breath and picked one of the examples I'd thought out ahead of time. "All three of you have a birthmark resembling a dot surrounded by a ring, with an odd hooked line connecting the two and going on outside of it. Minagi-san's-"
"Mikoto," she interrupted, and I nodded.
"Mikoto-san's is on her upper right arm, Tokiha-san's on her right breast," (she blushed furiously) "and Kuga-san's on her lower back, correct?"
It was three for three - or six for six, if you included my knowledge of their names.
Now for the hard part - and the one they'd find most convincing. "Mikoto-san... Your teacher died, didn't he?"
She physically flinched, and seemed to shrink about five sizes. "U... un. He... I..."
Mai leaned over and swept her into a hug, and gave me a look like I was the scum of the earth - which at that point, wasn't far from true. "There, there. You don't need to say anything." Then she raised her head and visibly braced herself. "What about me?"
I hesitated, then forced myself to answer. "...Your mother died of a disease she caught... rescuing your brother from a river."
She hid it better than Mikoto had, but that only made me feel even worse. I looked down and had to take a couple of deep breaths before I could raise my eyes to meet Natsuki's.
She shook her head. "I'm convinced. If you really are working off of a TV show about our lives, then there'll be a lot of things you don't know... but what you do have seems to be accurate enough to rely on."
I nodded. "There's... something I'll need to talk to you about, then. Soon. So it doesn't... surprise you. From someone else, later."
Her face was composed, but somehow, she looked a little scared anyway. "All right." She gave my face a closer look, then said, "I'll explain about HiMEs. You need a break."
"Thank you."
Ga. Paper due tomorrow, computer dead... *sigh*
Sleep is productive, right?
Ja, -n
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Quote:Well, besides the obvious appeal, it seemed like it'd be entirely in genre, y'know?
... because, that setup? Genius.
And, since my computer is out of order by way of cooling problems 'till at least sometime tomorrow morning (and even then, it looks like I might've bought the wrong sort of fan - unless these chips are supposed to get too hot to touch without even running a game), I'll try and get through the rest of episode one in one chunk.
*serves*
So. The first time I met Kuga Natsuki, she pointed a gun at my head.
Which, frankly, I had been sort of expecting, assuming I didn't get a chance to find out first-hand whether or not she would have been able to drive those motorcycles of hers legitimately. (For those in the audience unfamiliar with Japanese motor laws, a person who wants to operate a two-wheeled vehicle is required to be able to lift it back up if it should fall over - and yes, I found out later that she really was that strong.)
"O-oi! You! You were there when that girl was picked up - where is she?" She sounded distinctly flustered, and my train of thought had switched tracks so thoroughly that I didn't realize why until Mai scrambled off of my lap and started backing away, eyes wide.
I eyed the Element in her hand, my first chance to really look at one. (Did Miroku even qualify, or was it something completely different? Or a posession, like Artemis? I still don't know.) The show had been remarkably accurate, although the real one's colors were far more subdued - a cross between a Derringer and a smallish revolver, with what looked remarkably like a two-inch whiffle ball where the latter's cylinder should have been. "Minagi-san, you mean? I believe she's still asleep in the infirmary, Kuga-san, but there's-"
She took a threatening step forwards and cut me off. "What did you say?!"
I held up my hands and put on my best 'please don't kill me, lady, I just work here' smile. "I'll be happy to explain how I know that, but it's... kind of wierd. Even compared to that," and I nodded towards the... gun? close enough... in her hand, "or Duran. I'd really rather only have to do it once tonight, though, so could we go find Minagi-san before we start... please?"
The bad scary gun went away, and her stance seemed to relax. Slightly. "Which way?"
I pulled myself to my feet, then leant over to offer Mai a hand up. "You should come too, Tokiha-san. I'm afraid that you and she-" I indicated Natsuki with a flick of my eyes, "-have something in common."
"You set this whole thing up?!" she hissed, although not quietly enough that our 'captor' couldn't likely hear every word.
Hey what?! "No! I just know a bit - and I wasn't even sure I wasn't crazy 'till I saw her gun. Please - just give me five minutes to explain, and I'll tell you everything I know."
She glared at me for a moment, obviously thinking hard, then sighed and nodded and let me help her up.
Thank god for Mikoto's appetite - offering to buy her dinner if she'd listen first was the only thing that let me calm her down, even after I'd managed to slip in front of Natsuki in going inside her room. Eventually, though, it ended up with me sitting in the cheap visitor's chair on one side of the room and Mai and Mikoto perched on the bed on the other, with Natsuki - still wearing her helmet - leaning against the wall beside it. Her body language was pretty much unreadable, but Mai was giving me a look I can only call troubled and Mikoto looked caught halfway between surly and bored.
"A bit over three months ago," I told them, "someone shot me in the head. When I woke up, more than a month later, most of my memories of the life everyone said I had lived were gone. The doctors told me that that was quite understandable and almost to be expected, given what had happened, although they still couldn't explain why I was alive at all.
"As it happens, I do have an explanation - the problem is that it's completely insane.
"It starts by saying that when I woke up, I found that I had the memories of someone else - an entirely different person, in looks, thoughts, name, even nationality. His memories - or mine, I'm not sure which and don't really care either way - end with his being approached by an older man in a very nice suit, who asked him if he'd be willing to die to save the world.
"And, after a very convincing and utterly terrifying demonstration that this man was, at the very least, posessed of the ability to instantly and totally hypnotize another person into believing that they were having any experience he wished, he - I - agreed. He assured me that the case he had described was suited to my definition of the phrase, which really left me no choice - I could agree, or I could betray everything I believed in. I had to trust his accuracy and his intentions, I thought, not because I had any real reason to but because the consequences of dismissing them and being wrong were too severe to justify any such risk.
"So of course I said yes.
"What he told me was that there were different worlds, or dimensions or timelines or whatever you want to call them, just as god knows how many bad sci fi shows have theorized, and that, further, the existence of one of them could influence an individual or group living in another to base what they thought was their own imagination on that other world."
"You're telling us that you remember being someone who agreed to ditch his entire life and jump into a comic book," Natsuki said.
"I told you it was crazy. What he wanted me to do was help him save the life of the fellow behind a fairly important figure from a television series I had seen. For complicated reasons, the only practical way to do this was to find someone of sound health willing to die in his place - and to do it quickly.
"So he told me what I needed to know, and set everything up, and, since he was prohibited from interfering except through agents, left me to explain everything to the guy." I took a deep breath. "His name, as you might've guessed, was Tate Yuuichi, and there was a complication - his principles wouldn't let him put his own life before someone else's - for any reason. But there had to be a Yuuichi..."
"So he chose to die and let you step into his place," Mai said softly.
"Yes," I agreed. "Obviously, the most likely explanation was that I had gone completely mad."
Natsuki laughed.
"On the other hand, the other options were internally consistent, too, and, as I said, the stakes too high not to take precautions. The show's timeframe had started at the beginning of the school year at Fuuka Gakuen, so I got as ready as I could, then put myself where the show had said that 'I' should be during the first episode... and waited."
Mikoto hadn't said a thing during all of this, but for whatever reason, she definitely gave the impression that she was following along a lot better than her animated counterpart would have. Natsuki sighed and took off her helmet and plonked herself gracelessly onto the end of the bed, while Mai's expression might as well as come out and said 'I can't believe this shit'. "And then I showed up chasing this stubborn girl and proved it was all true."
Mikoto gave her a red-eye.
"Believe me, I was praying I deserved an asylum. Unfortunately, between Kuga-san and Minagi-san and that old man's testimony, we now have at least two data points that suggest that the series got at least some of its events and history right... I apologize, but could I confirm some things?"
Mai shook her head. "You're completely serious about this, aren't you? Stuff like this doesn't happen in real life - but sure, go ahead."
Mikoto and Natsuki agreed, so I took a - hopefully - calming breath and picked one of the examples I'd thought out ahead of time. "All three of you have a birthmark resembling a dot surrounded by a ring, with an odd hooked line connecting the two and going on outside of it. Minagi-san's-"
"Mikoto," she interrupted, and I nodded.
"Mikoto-san's is on her upper right arm, Tokiha-san's on her right breast," (she blushed furiously) "and Kuga-san's on her lower back, correct?"
It was three for three - or six for six, if you included my knowledge of their names.
Now for the hard part - and the one they'd find most convincing. "Mikoto-san... Your teacher died, didn't he?"
She physically flinched, and seemed to shrink about five sizes. "U... un. He... I..."
Mai leaned over and swept her into a hug, and gave me a look like I was the scum of the earth - which at that point, wasn't far from true. "There, there. You don't need to say anything." Then she raised her head and visibly braced herself. "What about me?"
I hesitated, then forced myself to answer. "...Your mother died of a disease she caught... rescuing your brother from a river."
She hid it better than Mikoto had, but that only made me feel even worse. I looked down and had to take a couple of deep breaths before I could raise my eyes to meet Natsuki's.
She shook her head. "I'm convinced. If you really are working off of a TV show about our lives, then there'll be a lot of things you don't know... but what you do have seems to be accurate enough to rely on."
I nodded. "There's... something I'll need to talk to you about, then. Soon. So it doesn't... surprise you. From someone else, later."
Her face was composed, but somehow, she looked a little scared anyway. "All right." She gave my face a closer look, then said, "I'll explain about HiMEs. You need a break."
"Thank you."
Ga. Paper due tomorrow, computer dead... *sigh*
Sleep is productive, right?
Ja, -n
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."