[MISSION] Of Reader-Inserts and Space Travel

The fic may be a bad reader-insert with language mistakes up the wazoo and a questionable and boring plot, but at least it provides a fun romp for a mission.

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The fic cited in this story, titled "Touken ranbu x reader - New member", belongs to Carmen-chan and they're welcome to keep or do whatever they want with it.

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

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Somewhere in a world built from repeated cruelty to the English language, where everything was hideously beige, filled with equally beige trees and beige architecture from lack of description, two beings were having a difficult time. One was a young male Japanese human dressed in Shinsengumi garb, the other was a tiny palm-sized creature that resembled a TouRabu troop unit. Both were helplessly levitating, the troop-doll struggling to write with a pencil and notebook too big for its size in zero-gravity condition, the Shinsengumi lad spinning in mid-air as though in an invisible human centrifuge, complaining nonstop about poor punctuation and nonsensical characterization.

Such a heart-wrenching sight indeed. But, the formless narrator implores the reader to first find out how we got here.

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Momoka found it amazing how her young master changed within the blink of an eye. She already knew of his "angry mode", but to witness it firsthand was a whole other experience. In the two-room RC 381 that had somehow turned into something resembling two generic Japanese rooms with sliding doors, tatami mats, a tokonoma, the works, Kaguya was just done remarking how cute Momoka was when she blushed at his poetry reciting, but then…

[BEEEEEEP]

Armageddon broke loose. The playful smile on his painted lips disappeared, even his glasses acquired a chilling gleam, his complexion looked like something out of a Tim Burton movie.

"K… Kaguya-sama…"

It was too late. He already vanished before her eyes before she could stop him, then she heard the blanket closet's door shut. Panicking and at a loss as to what to do, she decided to prioritize the console and to prepare a stream of profuse apologies for when her young master came back.

Saniwa or Aruji had brought a human back home because she is Saniwa's discipline . (Y/N) is a simple human that like sword and she is a foreigner so she can't speak Japanese but she understand it . Saniwa introduce (Y/N) to the sword and they were surprise . How would she live with the sword ? She is the only woman . . . .

Momoka utterly failed to make any sense of the summary, but not only because her English was weaker than Kaguya’s. What do they mean by "discipline"? Nevertheless, she called out in the general direction of the closet, "It's a TouRabu fic!"

She was answered by the noise of banging pots.

"Something about the saniwa!"

Tooting oboes and toasters pretending to be frogs.

"And it's a reader-insert! Something about the insert-character moving in with the swords!"

Ducks singing Billie Eilish songs.

Momoka was confused, but she figured there was not much else she could do. Into the Bag of Holding went several pieces of equipment and weapons, two disguises were quickly set. The first-person crash dummy was fully inflated just as the closet door abruptly slid open and Kaguya shot out like a cannonball wrapped in an eye-searingly coloured hula lei, and with a little luck, the dummy was shoved past the newly opened portal right before Kaguya flew into it.

The job was well done; Momoka heaved a sigh and walked into the portal. It closed.

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Ch 1 : The human girl

In the grey pre-fic space appeared two beings: one chibi troop soldier, one normal-sized human who looked like Hazama Kaguya except without the lei he caught himself in, whose flash-patched montsuki haori worn over his kimono was replaced with the trademark blue coat of the Shinsengumi. The fic hadn’t even begun and already they were off to a bad start: Kaguya was head-standing on the soldier’s hand, while the soldier, whom the readers would already figure out was Momoka by now, swayed back and forth and trembled as her tiny frame had to support the weight of her master, who was still kicking and thrashing and angrily muttering (not screaming) bloody murder.

Momoka was in no mood to be wowed by her strength despite her size. At least he can’t wander off this way, she thought.

She barely composed herself when suddenly, [the official artwork of the Katsugeki anime saniwa] appeared as a giant image before them, startling her so profoundly she nearly lost her balance. "What the heck was that?" she said for the first time since entering the fic.

"Charge! Charge!" Kaguya shouted, taking her by surprise yet again – never before in her life had she ever heard him raise his voice. "Totally unnecessary use of image insertion!"

She was fretting over where in the Bag of Holding had the pencil and notebook snuck and what to write when the fic began. The surroundings materialized into a beige bedroom with a beige door from a distinct lack of description – and the dummy came into view. The first-person narration blared ( Saniwa/Aruji ) above them, two Knock ! Knock !sounded on the door, and…

I gently open my eyes and look over to the door . " Come in ", I said , rubbing my eyes . " Ohayo (Y/N) ", Aruji greeted . " Good morning master ", I greeted . " It's time for you to meet your new home ", he said . After he said that he went out the door and close it , waiting for me to change my clothes . I can't wear my normal clothes because Aruji gave me a kimono to wear . I'm not use to wearing this kind of clothes but I like it . I also wore a bell thingy on my head , I like the sound .

As the dummy performed the narrated actions and spoke with as much naturalness as a stoned robot, the agents began levitating off the ground and were soon floating in mid-air. Momoka no longer had to carry her master like Atlas held the sky and there was no way he could wander anywhere without ground to tread on, but she felt disoriented, and the awkward narration and lack of paragraph breaks blasted at them like a barrage of bullets, like a super strong wind.

"Read the Words. Read the Words, why don't you?" Kaguya spat while doing pirouettes in mid-air, startling her again. "Look at the sheer amount of spaces before punctuation marks!"

Neither found out why they levitated for the rest of the mission, but the truth remains that it was the superfluous spaces falling out of the fic and piling up under them that were lifting them up. Also, due to the image abuse, the saniwa appeared not as a humanoid or even a 3D being, but a walking rectangular sheet bearing the official artwork earlier seen.

"But how…" Momoka mouthed.

It sure was already chaotic after just one paragraph, and Momoka's body coordination was sent so haywire by the assault on her senses, not helped by the shout-fest coming from her master and an author's note blaring (Suck at describing) out of nowhere, that she took a while to finally fish out the notebook and pencil to try to scribble whatever her master said that she could remember up to that point.

The dummy finally transformed – into yet another walking poster, this time bearing [an image of someone else's original saniwa design].

This particular blunder, strangely, calmed Momoka down. "Kaguya-sama, I got this." she said even as her tiny size was still giving her trouble with the normal-sized pencil and notebook. "Ripping off somebody else's design claiming it as a design of yourself, all while not crediting the artist. That's a pretty big offense."

Her confidence boosted as soon as she finished pressing a charge of her own, in a handwriting that was just legible enough. She could do this.

The confidence, sadly, vanished as soon as it came.

The fic went on in all its choppy, badly punctuated and badly conjugated brutality: Konnosuke (which the fic only named the fox) appeared and praised the reader-insert, the saniwa ("Aruji is not a name!" Kaguya exclaimed) praised the reader-insert, the saniwa teleported everyone to the Citadel, resulting in a dizzying scene change ("Giving the saniwa non-canonical powers!"), Hasebe was introduced and greetings of Ohayo were exchanged ("Gratuitous Japanese!"). In the midst of rapid events, volleying charges and Momoka's growing increasingly worried about her master, she looked at the Words – and was utterly horrified at what she saw coming.

Soon enough, the image abuse struck again, turning Hasebe into a walking poster of [his own internal affairs sprite].

"What… Why… How?" Momoka blurted. "Hasebe… he… he just… how can… this…"

Right then a loud collective shout coming from the yard nearby drew her attention. The reader-insert was being introduced to a crowd of canon characters, and she after acting all cutesy zomgkawaii shy girl started to…

" Hm . . . huh . . m-my name is (Y-Y/N)(L/N)", I stutter , hoping they understand my Japanese .

Momoka broke out in a cold sweat. She forgot to tell her young master that one important detail. Kaguya had lost whatever restraint he had left, and was soon reduced to spinning in mid-air unleashing barely coherent vocalizations sprinkled with a few actual words, "Can't speak Japanese… protecting Japanese history… why… nonsense… asphalt… roast chicken…"

We are thus returned to the beginning.

Momoka was terrified from everything that happened until that point. She knew not how worse Kaguya's condition would become at this rate. She nearly froze in panic until suddenly she recalled little bits and pieces of the lessons she and her master attended before their first mission. Portal… that's it, we can skip through this, she thought. After much rummaging through the Bag, she managed to get her tiny hands on the remote activator, and once she grabbed a corner of Kaguya's haori, she dragged him through the portal she created.

They landed right where saniwa-poster showed Sue-poster her room telling her "The two room beside yours is Yasusada and Kashuu ." and the formless narrator has no desire to fully describe the body horror that was Kashū Kiyomitsu and Yamatonokami Yasusada turned into rooms.

"Skip! Skip!" Momoka cried at the horrifying sight, and immediately portalled themselves through the first chapter, past yet [another instance of image abuse to show the reader-insert's room] and an author's note that flat-out admitted a lack of knowledge of the personalities of canon characters, which would drive irreparably insane not only Kaguya but her as well.

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Ch 2 : Fieldwork

The chapter took place Next morning, and fortunately the agents found themselves in a beige tree out in the equally beige fields. Though still in zero-gravity, Momoka finally had a branch to grab onto and to tie Kaguya by the corner of his coat so he wouldn't float away. The narration continued around them, but she was no longer fazed; now she had time to collect herself and process the horrors she just witnessed. Turning Hasebe into a sheet of paper, turning Kiyomitsu and Yasusada into rooms and making her young master angry… an inkling of rage began brewing in her, and she was determined. Determined to bring down the badfic harming the men she liked.

It seemed Kaguya regained some of his sanity as well, for he suddenly cried in English, "Show, don't tell! Show, don't tell!"

"I'm sorry?" Momoka said.

"The heroine is said to not speak Japanese, but that's clearly not true!" he yelled as his eyes remained fixed on the Words. "Everyone understands her! She doesn't say wrong words! Nobody asks her to repeat what she says! All she does is stutter! This is all nonsense! Divine retribution! Monaka!"

He could do nothing but thrash about as he was secured to a branch, and that gave Momoka plenty of time to write down what he said, excluding the divine retribution monaka even if they'd make an excellent dessert.

This chapter, fortunately, did not assault Momoka's senses, but it was also unremittingly boring. The farming scene that unfolded below the agents, aside from the fact it turned Uguisumaru, Mikazuki and Kogitsunemaru into another batch of walking posters, made her yawn three times… but all good things must come to an end. She then immediately witnessed Kogi-poster blush at Sue-poster while Uguisumaru and Mikazuki, referred to as two tea man, morphed into two human-shaped masses of tea leaves, who then giggled.

A noise that sounded like something exploded came from the Bag of Holding, followed by a stream of smoke leaking out. The Character Analysis Device had exploded from the Suefluence inflicted onto the three canons.

Momoka had no time to fret over the little accident when Sōza Samonji called his older brother Kousetsu-neesan, and she had to immediately take herself and her convulsing master right out of the chapter before she could explode at the fic's turning Kōsetsu Samonji into a woman.

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Ch 3 : Trying to help

Sheesh, why won’t the fic give me a goddamn break? Momoka whined inwardly when she and her master arrived in the middle of chapter 3, where the reader-insert left the kitchen after an entirely pointless exchange with Shokudaikiri, Kasen and Ōkurikara. It seemed Kaguya was finally exhausted from all the erratic body movements and resorted to looking angry as hell while his limbs hung limp and useless. That was certainly a relief…

… until he abruptly turned upside-down in mid-air and began spinning like a breakdancer. "Stupid! Pointless! Insulting!" he yelled in the middle of zero-gravity-breakdancing. "This is the most disgusting thing so far! The entire fic has been garbage, but this is unforgivable!"

Momoka turned to look at the fic event that unfolded – and her heart nearly stopped.

I came across the sparring room . I blush to see MUSCULAR MALES NAKED ! They still had their pants on . I quickly cover my eyes and my face is heating up .

The fic never failed to outdo itself. Before her eyes was a paragraphs-long scene of Sengo, Nagasone, Tonbokiri, Yamabushi, Masakuni and Nenekirimaru shirtless for no reason in front of Sue-poster blushing all hot and cold. It had to be the most confusing moment in Momoka's life, even after the shenanigans the fic had tossed at her. Knowing she was in a badfic, she was still a heterosexual woman with a marked interest in attractive men, and the sight of a group of them wearing less clothes than usual was still inspiring uncontrollable feelings in her, even as the canons were turned into walking posters one by one.

"Not that! Not that!" a shout from still spinning Kaguya snapped her back to reality. "Watch out for Kashū! Kashū!"

Sure enough, Yasusada and Kiyomitsu, now back in their humanoid forms, showed up to tell the other swords off, but since Kashuu is looking piss, the agents were treated to the sight of him turned into a talking blob of urine.

"Alright, that is it!" Momoka said through clenched teeth. She could take it no more. She gazed up at the Words – one and a half chapter's worth of nothing happening lay ahead before the climactic battle in chapter 5. "We're chopping a Mary Sue head off, ORAAA!"

With that, the agents portalled to the penultimate chapter.

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Ch 5 : First mission

The agents appeared in what was supposed to be the year 1667, floating above a beige-prosed Matsumoto Castle which was built on a lake ("It's a moat!" Kaguya corrected). Below them, the battle between the heroes and the Revisionists lethargically raged in a mess of clunky word use and choppy sentences. The good team consisted of Shokudaikiri, Ōkurikara, Taikogane, Tsurumaru, Shizukagata and Tomoegata and was lead by Sue-poster on her first sortie, which immediately earned three charges of making a team of seven, putting a non-sword on the team ("You're breaking the game!" Kaguya didn't forget to angrily add), and turning the two naginata into walking posters. The horrors did not stop there, however.

" Total concentration , water breathing , second form : Water wheel !", I exclaim .

Momoka's eyes went wide.

" Total concentration , water breathing , eighth form : Waterfall Basin !", I chanted .

She looked at her master. He wasn't even shouting or erratically moving anymore, instead his face turned a shade just slightly lighter than that of a ripe tomato. This was when she knew the time had come, and she called, "Hey, Mary Sue!"

Instantly, the attention of all brawling parties was on the floating chibi troop-unit – but before she could say any further, the Bag of Holding was taken from her. Kaguya had taken it, and in less than a second, he took out a ridiculously long kumihimo cord, which he then flicked as if it was a whip. The cord's far end wrapped around the Sue-poster, and with just one tug, she was yanked off the ground and was soon face-to-face with him.

Momoka was amazed; within a short moment, Kaguya was the coolest being she had ever seen. The way his Shinsengumi coat billowed about him, the way he maneuvered the cord, the steely but calm look on his doll-like face – she swore she could almost hear an epic shōnen anime BGM play in the background.

Catharsis was a wonderful thing.

"Nice to meet you, Ms. Whatever-Your-Name-Is." Kaguya said, loud and clear, in perfect English. "On orders of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, you are hereby convicted of cruelty to the English language, especially poor punctuation and verb conjugation; overusing image insertion in place of description, causing characters to become paper; having a completely stolen character design; gratuitous Japanese; being the saniwa's 'discipline'; giving them the name 'Aruji' and non-canonical powers; having zero communication problems despite not speaking Japanese; for that matter, being the successor to the protector of Japanese history despite not even speaking Japanese; turning several swords into rooms, tea and urine; turning Kōsetsu into Sōza and Sayo's sister; turning the moats around Matsumoto Castle into a lake; breaking game mechanics by creating a team of seven and being sent into battle despite not being a sword; interfering with the characterization of canon characters; being a Mary Sue; and finally having Kimetsu no Yaiba abilities with no explanation."

"Don't forget, you hurt all the pretty boys and you make Kaguya-sama angry. I won't forgive you." Momoka chimed in with her considerably weaker English.

"Yes, that too." Kaguya said. "And for all of that, your sentence is death. Do you have any last words?"

"Hm… err… d-do y-y-you n-need any h-h-h-help?" Sue-poster feebly stuttered.

Both Kaguya and Momoka sighed. Since the reader-insert was a sheet of paper, it only took crumpling her into a ball to kill her. The ball of paper, once free of the Sue, morphed back into a crash dummy cube.

Without the Sue to sustain the bad punctuation, the piles of excess spaces under the agents disappeared, and all at once they fell to the ground with a resounding thud. They were being stared at by swords and Revisionists alike, and there was only one thing left to do.

Out of the Bag came the Neuralyzer. “Cover your eyes, would you?” he told Momoka.

One of the Revisionists decided it was sick of standing around and almost struck the two when a FLASH went off. "Everyone." Kaguya said, uncovering his eyes. "You have never met us, the saniwa has never taken a Mary Sue as a student and you've never met her, and you have never experienced any of her horrors. With that, we shall depart."

One portal opened, two agents out of the badfic for good.

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"It has been quite a grueling mission." Momoka, now the human teenage girl she normally was, said to her young master while removing his coat and the lei that had reappeared around his neck. Having regained his calm demeanour, Kaguya too congratulated her on a job well done and immediately made his way to the second room, where the computers were placed.

"There's a new BunAl event, isn't there? We better get started; you said you want the costume, didn't you?" he said. "That's right, we also need to get some Identity V rank-climbing done too. Onmyōji also has a new pick-up gacha starting…"

"I wholeheartedly apologize." Momoka interrupted.

At that, Kaguya turned around. "What?" he asked.

"I apologize for not being of much help." she continued. "I let you suffer through the mission. You were angry, yet I did nothing. There is no excuse for what I did."

A second of silence ensued, then Kaguya chuckled.

"What are you saying?" he said. "You did well. The mission has been accomplished. It wouldn't have been possible without you. Also, you struggled a lot in chibi form – which was exceptionally cute."

She blushed at her master's playful teasing again, but didn't say anything. Yes, the mission was a success, Momoka reminded herself. Looks like this 'angry mode' is easy stuff after all.

Somewhere high above, the Ironic Overpower darkly chuckled.