[MISSION] Of Jumbled Storytelling Orders and Historical Aberrations (pt. 4)

The writer of this post does not endorse the content and views put forth by the work of fiction being parodied in it.

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

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Chapter 3

Takara married Hajime on February 1945, and the formless narrator has no greater wish than to actually have a mouth in order to Bleeprin all memories of this fic's history fail away. In what was supposedly Japan in the final year of WWII, the Sue and her husband lived comfortably in a mansion as members of a clan that should no longer exist then, no mentions of a devastating war their country was losing in sight. Amidst this residence barely rendered beyond low-poly beige blocks and doors from lack of description, Takara and Hajime stumbled upon something interesting: a super big pole like thing.

The two entered the room where the object was housed, all while being closely followed by two other people. Ishitani and Momoka peeked in from outside the door, now looking completely different: the latter had been turned back into a white-haired, 165cm teenage girl, but dressed in an old-school sailor uniform with a calf-length skirt, while the former ditched the unruly get-up in favour of a simple white button-up shirt and khaki trousers. Once again, Momoka was sure she saw Hajime briefly glancing at her, but soon waved the notion away. The badfic must go on, and Hajime told the Sue this "big pole like thing" was the spear Otegine, forged before she was born.

When was she born, you ask? She said she was born on October 30, 1930, at which point Ishitani pulled from the Bag of Holding the notebook and pencil and angrily jotted down "inconsistent birth date".

I asked, "Have you ever got the chance to touch him?" He said, "Yes i have. Most of the time, I can touch his blade. It's not as sharp as the other awesome spear, Tonbokiri. Tonbokiri is so sharp that even a proaching dragonfly would be cut to half. Awesome right?"

Even as the seventeen-year-old young man yapped the dialogue the badfic assigned him, he kept stealing glances at the door, and Momoka couldn't ignore it anymore. "This is bad, we've been discovered," she whispered to Ishitani. "What are we going to do?"

Ishitani didn't answer.

Panicking, Momoka tried to drag him away but to no avail, thanks to being returned to her real body. As she struggled, the fic proceeded: the moment Takara touched the spear, she heard it speak to her. Hajime no longer bothered keeping up a pretense; even as he still comforted the fretting Sue as the fic dictated, his eyes just straight-up stared sideways at the door, while Takara was too preoccupied with the apparently talking spear to notice.

So freaked out was Takara, she ended up just wandering out of the room via a back door, face looking like she was stoned off her rear, leaving her husband behind. Now out of the Sue's earshot, Ishitani calmly revealed himself and said to Hajime in Japanese, "No need to worry, we mean you no harm."

Momoka just stared at Ishitani in utter confusion. What on earth is he doing?

"Spyin' on me like dat, ya guys got quite da nerve. Reminds me of when I got spied on by a giant fox-thing when I was eleven," the bronze-haired seventeen-year-old young man replied in Japanese, voice a tad deeper and tougher and in Kansai dialect to boot. "Who are yeh? Whaddya want? Howdya get in here?"

"We're here to help," Ishitani said. "You're in great danger, and we're here to save you."

"Danger? Whatcha talkin' about?" Hajime asked, looking about as confused as Momoka.

"That girl you're married to, she's not a good person. She's going to corrupt this world and put lots of people in danger, and we're here to bring you to safety."

"Okay, I dunno what da hell yer talkin' about," replied Hajime, clearly irritated. "Just tell me who da fuck you are, or…"

"Sorry, we have to go," Ishitani interrupted. "We'll come back to see you later."

That said, he left, a deeply puzzled Momoka in tow, an equally puzzled Hajime left behind.

As the two walked through a beige hallway, Momoka finally said something. She asked rather loudly, "What the hell was that for? We haven't even killed the Sue yet! What are you trying to do?"

Of course, Ishitani stubbornly and annoyingly refused to reply again, not even turning around to look at her. And he still hadn't told her one word on the whereabouts of Kaguya…

The fic snapped into fast-forward mode, recapping Takara's increasing fear ever since the encounter with the mysteriously talking spear. At the mention of feudal lords still existing in 1945, Ishitani grimaced and a new drop of blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth. It then jumped into a dream Takara had, in which the whole mansion was burned. Everyone is crying out, everyone is dying. Not only that, there were big black hawks in the red sky sort of pooping and their poop burned the place to the ground, burning a personified Otegine in the process.

Momoka wasn't as terrified of the sight of actual birds literally dropping incinerated excrement as she should be, for she was feeling the first inkling of nausea bubbling up in her stomach. She was not up for fic-induced motion sickness again.

The dream sequence thankfully ended, but it was followed by Takara's storming over to Otegine in spear form to yell at it. Ishitani clenched his fists, Momoka clenched her teeth, and the formless narrator now wishes for an actual hand to administer a slap across the face of the needlessly hostile specimen known as the Sue. Much to the surprise of everyone, the spear talked back, and…

I touched it OH MY GOD!!! WHAT IS HAPPENING?! THERE IS BRIGHT LIGHT OMG WHAT IS HAPPENING. CHERRY BLOSSOMS EVERYWHERE. HHHHHH CALM THYSELF GURL. OMG WHAT.

Momoka covered her ears at the eardrum assault.

"Ah...I can see it now. I will be mentioned in History as the Daimyo's grandchild. Takara Kishimoto, grandchild of Yuuki Harutomo. Born on August 25, 1930. Died on May 24, 1945 of heart attack because of a spear that startled her because it happened to be haunted."

"That is it! I'm skipping this!" Ishitani barked after a fit of guttural coughing, but life wasn't easy. The RA decided to hide itself expertly inside the Bag, forcing him and Momoka to listen to more cringy dialogue while he tried to fish it out: Otegine, now personified, informed a still needlessly hostile Takara that she was a saniwa, complete with a facepalm-worthy Harry Potter reference. He then told her he had come from the future, the entire place plus himself would burn down, and she needed to save herself. Ishitani only got his hand on the RA when yet more blood was shed over the nonsense of it all – but fortunately the two managed to portal past a good chunk of even greater idiocy.

They arrived in the midst of fire and destruction – the fancy mansion the Sue and her husband lived in was on fire, though due to inadequate description, it took on the appearance of a low-quality MikuMikuDance effect that had no smoke and wasn't even hot. Because of this, they could easily stay inside one of the buildings without worrying about burning or suffocation. They hid in the generic built-in closet inside the room Hajime was in – which the latter saw right away. From behind the slightly open closet door, Ishitani shot Hajime a knowing look, while Momoka just stared at him.

Takara burst into the room just a moment later, looking panicked.

"Hajime what happened to you? Ha-Hajime! Hajime you're bleeding!" "I'm alright..." "Hajime, You need a doctor! But first, I'll need to get this wood of you!" "No, Takara...It's too heavy...Just go...Run so you can live..."

Again due to lack of description, Hajime's supposed fatal condition was rendered as a tiny piece of wood sitting atop his head while a measly drop of blood trickled out of his nose. Knowing full well there were two people watching him from the built-in closet, he blankly relayed his fic-assigned dialogue until Takara went away. As soon as she ran off in search of Otegine, Ishitani and Momoka stepped out, the former quickly generating a portal. "It's dangerous here," he said. "You better come with us before the ceiling collapses on you."

After a much puzzled Hajime was safely portalled out of the chapter, there was noise outside the room – Takara failed to conjure the spirit of Otegine to save her and her husband, and was being dragged away by her servants. She had this to say – even though Otegine explicitly warned her he couldn't come save her:

"OTEGINE YOU USELESS SHIT!!! YOU LIED TO ME!! WHY DID GRANDFATHER ORDERED FOR YOUR EXISTENCE?! YOU'RE USELESS!!! STAY THERE AND ROT!!! HAJIME!!!!!!!"

She then closed the chapter on:

I cried so hard that night that My crystal blue eyes turned to red. It became as red as the day that incident happened to me. Where should I go now? My servants are dead too. They later killed themselves because they couldn't take what happened to them. They are as useless as that damn spear. Useless everything is useless. What should I do now? Hajime is gone. Everything suddenly went empty.

"I am definitely going to slay this Mary Sue by the time this is over," Ishitani muttered between coughing blood.

"So am I." replied Momoka.

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Chapter 4

"Wow wow wow, hol' on a minute there!" Hajime exclaimed after certain explanations were given. "Whaddya mean I'm in a story?"

"Not just a story, a badly crafted story. One with disastrous effects that warp and destroy the world the story takes place in," Ishitani continued. "We're here to put a stop to that story and clean up its mess, putting the world back to its rightful state. You however pose no risk to the world, so we're sparing you, and you can even be one of us. From now on, since you're free from the effects of the story, you can define your own appearance. What do you want to look like?"

Before he even finished speaking, the red-haired youth immediately grew to a whopping 188cm and a buff build, towering over both him and Momoka.

An awkward second of just staring up at him later, Ishitani continued, "… And you can also choose a new name. What do you want to be called?"

After some thinking, the young man said, "Tomiyama… Urato. That's it, Tomiyama Urato, ura as in Urashimatarō, to as in 'person'. Howzat sound?"

Ishitani quickly wrote down the kanji for the rescuee's new name, then reached into the Bag for a device to toss to him. "Now that you don't speak the story's language anymore, you're gonna need this to understand anything going on."

The young man, from now on known as Urato, received the Universal Translator, but he was still shocked about everything happening to him, most of all the brand new body that he just seemingly magically wished into existence. Still, what he ended up saying was, "Ya still haven't told me who you are, y'know."

At this, Momoka spoke up, "I am Shigisawa Momoka, of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum. This is…"

"Leave talking for later. The chapter's starting," Ishitani cut her off.

Not far from them, the chapter opened on the Sue sitting alone by a Willow tree. Before Urato could say one word upon seeing a familiar face, Ishitani fell to the ground. The pain the latter was in seemed to grow worse: he coughed up more blood than before, spraying the ground with red drops. "A… are you alright?" Momoka cried, rushing over to his side.

"Look at what that garbage human is doing, just look," Ishitani breathed out, gesturing at the general direction of the Sue. "I just want to painfully kill her more and more with every passing second."

Sure enough, Takara spotted a crying boy nearby. The crying boy informed her he had just witnessed his grandfather's murder a few days ago, to which she quite expectedly responded with an ocean of compassion and sensitivity.

"You're useless." "What?" "YOU'RE USELESS!!!" I didn't know who that kid was. I got so mad at him for not doing anything to save his grandfather. I imagined a situation in my head. I didn't even know who his grandfather is. At the time, I only thought that he's a poor kid, and he did nothing but watch as his grandfather was being stabbed to death. Turns out, the only thing I got right about him was that his grandfather was stabbed to death. I was so mad that I punched him so hard. I remembered that I tried hitting his forehead with a rock. He was beaten so badly, and he was bloodied all over. I didn't cared who he was, where he came from, or how old he is. All I cared about is that he's as useless as that spear.

"She… she's going to kill him! We have to do something!" said Momoka.

He cried and crawled away from me, telling me to stop beating him up.

"See that? That's the kind of human being your wife is!" face still twisted in pain, Ishitani said to an aghast Urato while the boy's heart-wrenching crying grew louder and louder. "How can someone this despicable be allowed to exist? How can someone like this be allowed to become a saniwa? Is the government fine with entrusting history to this disaster of a human being who hurts innocent people willy-nilly, even young, grieving people?"

"Then why dintja stop her?" Urato said while the boy and Takara conversed. "Y'just let her beat 'im up like dat?"

Before Ishitani could answer, the boy named Yuji revealed his murdered grandfather was Oda Nobunaga, yes, that Oda Nobunaga, and Ishitani straight-up howled in agony like a gutted wolf. Takara proceeded to refer to the aforementioned historical figure as a shogun and Yuji praised Takara's nonexistent Kishimoto lineage, causing Ishitani to start pulling his own hair.

Momoka and Urato froze.

Luckily, Ishitani managed to regain composure, even if still bleeding from the mouth. Producing the RA, he said, "You know what, why don't we skip ahead?"

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Chapter 6

The three arrived in the middle of the chapter, amidst undefined scenery where the boy Yuji was left sitting on undescribed debris by his lonesome. This was where both the story and the Sue forgot about him entirely, leaving him stranded without any conclusion. Following Ishitani's lead, the three approached him, but before they could say anything, the boy suddenly cried, "I'm seventeen! I look like a kid, but I'm really not, so don't call me kid!"

"Er," Momoka said, startled. "Are you alright?"

"Of course I'm not," Yuji replied, tears welling in his eyes. "Why? Why does this have to happen? Why must the only friend I have left be her? She beat me and made me call her my sister. She calls me names and made me join some random gang that runs around robbing and killing people, and then she just… left. Now I'm all alone, nowhere to go, no loved ones to turn to, and war is all around. What am I supposed to do?" he broke into a fit of sobbing.

Urato stood stunned. Not that he was ever in actual love with Takara, mind you, but it was hard to believe to what kind of person he was married.

To Yuji's surprise, Ishitani placed a hand on his shoulder. "No need to fear anymore. We'll be your new friends. Unlike her, we'll never hurt you or try to make you a murderer. We'll even give you a new home."

Ishitani then explained to him the same things he explained to Urato. Though still fairly puzzled about it all, the boy acquired wavy shoulder-length brown hair and green eyes, and the new name Akagashi Inasuke. Another Universal Translator was given out, another member joined the team. There was only one thing left to do.

"My friends, the time has come," Ishitani solemnly said. "Time to put an end to Kishimoto Takara's reign of terror once and for all."

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Honmaru 2

back in the fic to leave the backstory and reach the present timeline. They arrived on a Citadel corridor, where Takara was conversing with Uguisumaru. "Hey Mary Sue bitjerkh," Momoka was the first to call out, putting special emphasis on the second sobriquet. "Somebody wants to talk to you."

Takara, being Takara, was already irked by being called a jerk, so she was prepared to throw a punch at this strange white-haired schoolgirl daring to disrespect her. Uguisumaru could only look on in confusion, and Takara found herself greeted by two men.

"Long time no see, huh?" said the tall red-haired man. "Miss me?"

"Who the hell are you?" Takara barked. "Who gives you the right to disrespect me?"

"I'm yer husband," Urato said.

"And I'm your 'brother'," Inasuke continued.

Takara was beyond perplexed. These people looking nothing like anyone she knew were claiming to know her. "Are you saying you're Hajime?" she asked the taller one.

"That's not his name, and I'm not Yuji anymore either," said Inasuke. "We've decided to start a new life, and from now on we have nothing to do with you. You hurt me, you kill people, do you expect us to welcome you with open arms?"

Takara was so crossed, she couldn't say a word. Oh, the disrespect! She was going to beat them to within an inch of their lives when another voice said, "Don't you dare lay a finger on them."

Ishitani stepped forward. What followed took everyone by shock, but Momoka most of all: DORKS in hand, he pressed a button and soon he was engulfed in a beam of light. His body morphed from strong and buff to slender and delicate, and when the light dissipated, he was in his true form: a handsome doll-like man with black bobbed hair, dressed in kimono and a Shinsengumi coat.

To say Momoka was shaken to her core was an understatement.

"I advise you to kindly keep your foul mouth shut," said the young man, whom readers would figure out was no one other than Hazama Kaguya by now, as blood continued to flow from his pretty mouth. "I too am the child and heir of a wealthy, respected family. I too have house servants. I too live with someone who's lost her family and has nowhere else to turn to. I however do not berate, beat and imprison any of them for the littlest slights. I do not think people who had to watch their loved ones murdered deserve to be called useless and get beaten. I think wantonly robbing and killing is not excusable, no matter how tragic your background happens to be. That is because I know of something called basic human decency, which you clearly don't have.

Saibankannokami Takara Kishimoto, also known as Mary Sue. On orders of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, we convict you of serious mangling of history, specifically by making Yūki Harutomo, who died in 1614, have a granddaughter born in 1932 and live to see her; creating a nonexistent Kishimoto clan; making Oda Nobunaga die in WWII rather than in the Honnō Temple Incident in 1582, plus have a grandson living in 1945 and be called a shōgun. All this is made worse by being in a fic set in the Touken Ranbu continuum, which places emphasis on preserving history. You are also charged with living outside of your time without being targeted by the Kebiishi; being needlessly abusive to Otegine and making everyone else find it funny and romantic; being needlessly violent to a young boy distressed by the death of a family member; in fact, being needlessly abusive to way too many people, including your servants who tried their best to save your sorry life and later killed themselves, may I add; mass-murdering people for no good reason; misusing the kami title; calling yourself an arbiter of justice; being unworthy of being a saniwa; misusing the term 'asexual'; messy storytelling order and formatting; having three different birth dates and having colour-changing eyes; and all and all being the worst, most tyrannical Mary Sue to ever walk the Touken Ranbu fandom. For all of the above, your sentence is to die the most painful death there is, forever scorned by the people you've wronged!"

Kaguya's face registered an expression of rage never seen before, not even in the fits of "angry mode" he previously had.

"You… you insolent bastards!" Takara abandoned all subtlety and shrieked. "I'll make you regret dearly for this!"

"Try as you may," said Kaguya. "We are not afraid of you."

Thus, the fight against the Sue began. It was four against one, but no one said taking down a Sue without stereotypical daintiness and delicateness was easy. Urato was the quickest, immediately restraining her with his strong arms, but only to be met with her wrenching out easily. Inasuke tried to help, but his small, weak physique was no match for hers and was immediately sent sprawling.

Not content to let the Sue have the upper hand, more experienced Momoka stepped in. Kitchen knives in hands, she charged at her – but she could only hold her own slightly longer than Inasuke by a margin. A thrust hither, a swipe thither, none landed a single hit on the Sue. She ended up in a lock, both her wrists held in place in front of Takara's face, those glose pupils staring irritatingly at hers.

"Ha, you use weapons," Takara sneered. "What, are you too cowardly to fight me bare-handed?"

Momoka clenched her teeth; she recalled the Sue's treatment of Otegine, and she was nearly blinded with rage. "Shut up!" she screamed, attempting to strike one more time. Unfortunately, both her knives went flying out of her hands and herself was thrown to the ground.

Momoka only crawled up to her knees when Kaguya stood before her, barring the Sue from getting closer.

"You like fighting without weapons, then so be it," Kaguya said. "Try and hit me. I am twenty years old, there's no way you stand a chance against me."

But the Sue punched his stomach and he screamed in agony, collapsing to the ground from the sheer pain shocking through him. "Kaguya-sama!" Momoka cried, protectively holding her master as he slumped against her. He coughed, blood staining his Shinsengumi outfit and her sailor schoolgirl uniform.

The Sue loomed over the pair like an ominous monster. Not far from them, Urato and Inasuke could only look on. "Losers, you're all losers," said Takara. "Thinking you can disrespect me and gang up on me, you do have nerve. Well, for your insolence, you're going to…"

But Takara had no more time to talk, for she felt a sudden pain through her back. Sure enough, she was stabbed from behind, glose-coloured glitter gushing like a waterfall out of the wound.

She turned around and could not believe what she saw: Uguisumaru, just seconds ago happily conversing with her, was standing next to Otegine with spear form in hand, glitter dripping from the blade. "You…!" Takara gasped out. "How dare you free that useless, disrespectful spear?"

"It's over," Otegine said. "Your reign is over. Granddaughter of Yūki Harutomo? Ha! You never existed in history, and my old master was never related to the piece of garbage that is you. You don't deserve my respect, or the respect of anyone in the Citadel. We don't need you to lead us in the fight for history. You are not our saniwa."

Those were the last words Takara ever heard. She fell to the ground lifeless, her nefarious influence upon TouRabu canon officially vanquished.

With the last button presses Kaguya could manage that day, the corpse of the Sue was portalled into the Painting of Hell, from Akutagawa Ryūnosuke's story of the same name. There, amidst "mountains of blades and forests of swords", the glitter-bleeding body easily blended into the background and was soon torn apart by "smoke of splashed ink and sparks of gold dust", never noticed, never remembered.

Everything was over, the mission was a success. However, no one felt like celebrating just yet, for Kaguya was less than well. Struggling to enunciate between ragged breaths, he instructed his maid, "Neuralyze Uguisumaru only. Let Tomiyama and Akagashi sit in the reality room, then take both and Otegine to FicPsych for therapy. Then…"

Before he could speak further, he blacked out.

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Kaguya woke up in Medical weak and achy, but not muddled of mind. As soon as he could open his eyes, he wasted no time sitting up and frantically asking, "Momo? Where's Momo? Is she alright?"

"Kaguya-sama! I'm so glad you're okay," Momoka said as she rushed over to his bed. "Everything has gone well. Otegine has returned to canon, while Tomiyama-kun and Akagashi-kun have moved on to therapy. As soon as they're done, they'll both be allowed to become agents."

"That's great," Kaguya said, but soon he was blankly staring into the distance.

Momoka's mood was instantly dampened. She decided to say something just to break the silence, "Now I understand. The characters ishi 石 and tani 谷 when combined become hazama 硲. Kōga is another reading for Jōga (Cháng'é). Now that's Kaguya-sama, thinking up such a clever wordplay."

Kaguya continued staring in dead silence.

Then something strange happened, something so wild even the formless narrator cannot fathom: Momoka slapped him across the face, the sound reverbrating through the room.

"What were you thinking?" she asked. "I thought you were lost, or worse, dead. Do you know how much I worried for you? Why did you need to do that?"

Kaguya's face stung with pain, but still he explained after the shock wore off, "The moment we were in the introduction chapter, I realized it was no ordinary bad fanfic. As I watched the intro on the screen and read the Words, I couldn't believe there could be a Mary Sue so disgusting, so thoroughly morally bankrupt. She did not annoy me, she infuriated me. The anger I felt was a different kind of anger: it did not blind me or rob me of control over my body. Instead, it was so strong it shocked me back to consciousness, struck me to my core, slowly tore me apart from the inside out. Blood started running out of my mouth when we were in the theatre; I didn't want you to panic or send me back to HQ, so as we free-fell, I DORKS'ed myself into a form that was stronger physically and more appropriate to unload my anger in. Clearly, that failed too; even that body couldn't take the fic's badness as it went on."

At this, he could no longer hold back. Tears, blackened by mascara, streamed unrestrained down his face.

"I am a useless idiot. I am no better than that bitch Bakara," he said, voice cracking. "You have to suffer because of me, and still I continued to make you worry. I'm indeed a horrible master; how can I say I'm any different from a master who beats her underling?"

Momoka quickly regretted slapping her master. "Kaguya-sama," she gently said. "Everything is fine now. You are alive, and that's all that matters. I will accompany you to the end of the world, now and always."

No reply came, no further words were exchanged. Kaguya simply collapsed into his maid's arms and sobbed against her shoulder.

(fin)

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Rescued characters (NOT up for adoption):

• Tomiyama Urato (富山 浦人), formerly Matsudaira Hajime (last name references Tomiyama Tadatsugu from The Golden Demon, first name references Urashimatarō)

• Akagashi Inasuke (赤樫 稲介), formerly Oda Yuji (last name references Akagashi Mitsue from The Golden Demon, first name references the Hare of Inaba)