[MISSION] Of Jumbled Storytelling Orders and Historical Aberrations (pt. 3)

Warning for in-fic objectionable content: glorified mental and physical abuse, with one instance bordering on psychological torture; glorified war crime; acephobia. The writer of this post does not endorse the content and views put forth by the work of fiction being parodied in it. Additional warning for mild injury and discussion of BDSM.

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The following text is a work of parody/satire that contains literary analysis.

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Momoka put the kitchen knife away, feelings of unrest still unsettled. Before long, the fic events shifted from boring to rather idiotic: the boy Hajime's bit-maidservant showed up and yelled at Takara for making him jump into a pond and ruin his expensive kimono. Why a lowly, unarmed maid thought it a good idea to openly and rudely berate a samurai daughter, then order her own master to extort money from the other clan, the fic never made clear. The squabble was then interrupted by…

She looked for where the voice had come from, and that voice came from the Daimyo, Yuki Harutomo himself. An old man beside the Daimyo approached the boy and asked him, "What happened? Why are your clothes dirty?"

Ishitani made a noise sounding half like a cough, half a gag. Momoka's eyes widened as she beheld him – his rough hands clutched his stomach, his face twisted in agony, a stream of blood trickled out of his mouth.

"Damn it," he breathed out, roughly wiping off the blood. "This fic's history disruption is greater than I thought."

"Are you… okay there?" Momoka asked, hesitant.

"I'm fine. Keep watching the fic, but don't read the Words. Seriously, don't."

Momoka was going to argue about her English proficiency level when Ishitani let out a few more pained coughs. When an actual historical figure was out there defending a hateful Sue making herself home in his clan, it was hard not to see why. Even as Yūki Harutomo and the boy's unnamed grandfather left, the nefarious Suefluence upon real Japanese history maintained a powerful grip, and Ishitani's coughs began to sound like he was about to empty the contents of his stomach.

"What clan do you belong to?" She asked. "The Matsudaira. " he answered. "That's nice. I belong to the Hojo clan." She said. "Well, clan-flan! It doesn't matter what clan you're from! You are an important person to me now because you're now my friend!" He cried.

Having had enough, Ishitani weakly opened a portal before the grandfathers could come back announcing Takara will be engaged to a young prince named Hajime, but he didn't forget to breathe out, "This is against everything TouRabu stands for!"

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Shorts 1

But after this, they never really believed Takara. They all thought that she is in love or has a big crush on Otegine for picking on him a lot. They thought that this is all just a little "tsundere" act that she is trying to portray.

"Like hell that's the case!" despite his condition, Ishitani shouted as though trying to drown out the fic as soon as they landed in the chapter's featureless space of no description; he was steadily getting angrier on top of having a new stream of blood out of his nose. "Let's see if you'd still say that if it happened to you then! Will you still think she's somehow in love with you after she screams at you, insults you, beats you and then locks you up for weeks?"

Momoka was scared. She barely knew this man and was nowhere near fond of him, but she feared whether or not he would survive if his bleeding didn't cease…

Formless Narrator: … but before either of them knew it, the fic jarringly shifted into script format. The readers are free to blame our bird-brained heroes for not knowing how to break free from it, Momoka more so for having attended lessons beforehand. It's fully on them that they're reduced to disembodied dialogue for the remainder of this chapter. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yoshiyuki: *clears throat* So, how are you and Otegine lately? Takara: huh? Yoshiyuki: how r u two doing lately? Takara: Otegine and I? I scolded him. For his disrepect, he's grounded for 2 weeks. Yoshiyuki: *tries hard not to laugh* lol grounded.

Ishitani: This… bitch…

Momoka: Please, you need to calm down. Do you need tissues?

Ishitani: I don't need you to worry for me. We're literally lines of text now, and lines of text can't bleed. Shouldn't you be more upset that the Sue is imprisoning Gine for 2 weeks, talking about torturing him further, and making Mutsunokami laugh at it?

Momoka: Oh, right. Seriously, what is her problem? Gine hasn't done anything to her, and he's the most adorable cinnamon roll in the Citadel. Why would anyone hurt him?

Ishitani: (bitter) Oh, but I bet you're only saying that because you're not attracted to the Sue. If it was a sword yelling at, beating and locking up the saniwa, you'd get all flushed and start bleeding from the nose.

Momoka: … I'm sorry?

Yoshiyuki: gosh. Don't treat your boyfriend like this. Takara: i beg your pardon? Yoshiyuki: i mean it's harsh but if you, you know... like someone that bad, you could just tell him or something. Takara: like him? At this moment, he disrepected me. That's all that matters.

Ishitani: Stories like this don't exist for no reason. I really don't understand the romance genre sometimes, nor why so many people like such characters. Do girls really like guys who treat them badly? Do guys really like girls who slap them and beat them with tables for so much as tripping and falling before them? We grow up taught not to hurt others, especially those we love, and yet…

Momoka: (silent)

Ishitani: That Kaguya guy, I bet you'd like him to beat you up and toss you in a room for weeks, huh? That wouldn't be bullying and abuse, you'd call that being a tsundere and an enticing do-S.

Momoka: (flustered) That's… that's not true! Kaguya-sama has never been anything but nice to me, and that's exactly what I like! Even if he were to really throw me to the ground and insult me until he's blue in the face, I'd know that at the end of the day, he'd never let it get to the point where it would truly hurt me, unlike her. I'd know that he'll always be the one who welcomed me with open arms into his family, who's always treated me like a friend, who wants me to be happy. Though, actually, I've entertained thoughts of seeing him tied up…

Ishitani: ……… You what?

Momoka: (blushes profusely, would have covered mouth if she had one at this moment)

Yoshiyuki: what year does Takara-san come from? Hasebe: ...what was it....She's born in 1932, August*.

Ishitani: (sick of the historical aberration and the script format; portals both past utterly pointless Shorts 2 chapter altogether)

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Chapter 2

No joy over finally escaping the script format was to be had; the questionable artistic choice of event order in the fic struck again, hitting the two squarely in the face with another flashback chapter. Not only that, the reveal of the Sue's birth year made the Bad History that much worse, so much so that Ishitani's face turned visibly green.

"Yūki Harutomo died in 1614, you fool!" he said weakly as the historical figure conversed with a nine-year-old Takara and a slightly older Hajime. A brief glance at the Words later, he told Momoka, "He won't appear again after this chapter. We need to send him back to his proper era. You watch the fic, I neuralyze Harutomo and portal him."

But calamity befell. Not a second after the narrative focus fell off Harutomo and Ishitani sent him out of the badfic for good, the story shifted into first-person without warning, letting Takara's neuron-fryingly grating voice echo in Momoka's head. She collapsed to the ground, covered her ears and clenched her teeth, but none warded off the Sue's blithering about how much she Twuly Wuvved Hajime – at the age of nine and the other eleven – despite their being betrothed earlier than either of them would have liked.

His bronze locks and green eyes that resembles the summer makes me shiver sometimes. I always wanted to know what he thinks about me. Does he really love me even without this arrangement?

Somebody help me, Momoka thought.

But I was glad that I am engaged with Hajime and no one else. No one else was able to make me feel as happy as Hajime did. until he died.

At that moment, something happened, something that took her in profound shock that made her immediately forget all of the agony inflicted upon her.

She was sure she saw the boy's eyes on her for a split second.

(to be continued)

* Note that Harutomo's children died in the 1600s.