[PRELUDE] RC 381's Not-So-Humble Beginnings

How RC 381 came to be. Reprinted as-is from the control prompts in the Permission request.

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Agent backstories have been inspired by the background of the two main characters of The Golden Demon.

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Shigisawa Momoka was a special maid of the Hazama household in many ways.

First, she was two years younger than her young master and the family's then-heir Kaguya. She was the youngest to have ever worked for them, and the circumstances leading to her employment was just as unprecedented. She was just out of middle school when her single father, long acquainted with the wealthy Hazama, passed away from illness. She was sent to live with the family as a result, but gratitude and the need to not feel like she was mooching off a rich family led her to decide to take on the duties of a servant.

Second, she understood the family’s botchan better than any other servants the household had ever had. One could safely assume a combination of age and shared interest in entertainment did the trick; after all, who among the middle-age-to-elderly other servants could go to school, study, play video games and converse with their young master on matters ranging from the subtle beauty of Heian poetry to the hairstyle of a certain video game character?

Third, she was seriously attracted to him. It was hard to believe such an amazingly handsome being could be living under the same roof as her. Kaguya was as lovely as he could be, just like or even more so than the dashing male characters she so often fangirled over. He seemed more like a lacquered kokeshi doll handcrafted by the finest craftsman in Kanazawa than a young male human; every piece of accessory he wore in his nape-length sleek black hair, every stroke of makeup he painted on his face (not when he was at school, obviously) only enhanced the ridiculous prettiness of this kimono-wearing creature. Even if he had a habit of lightly teasing her until she blushed and yelped at him, he could conduct a tea ceremony, write willowy calligraphy and coincidentally had the same taste in video games as hers, that was all she could ever hope for.

Momoka had served the Hazama family and its young master through her high school years, and never regretted one day of it.

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"Actually, I signed up for this."

The words that came out of Kaguya's mouth hit Momoka like a bolt of lightning, immediately sending her choking on her own saliva – one more blast of shock in an already chaotic day. Just a moment ago she had a brief flash of thought that perhaps being portalled out of their lives into this strange "Headquarter" was not so bad after all – even if they were being employed to fight for a mysterious organization, the response centre they were assigned was not as grim as she thought it would be. While the walls and décor were as of yet nothing to write home about, RC 381 – miyabi as Kaguya had taken to call it – came equipped with state-of-the-art computers to play games on. That, as well as the fact she still had Kaguya with her, was all Momoka could ask for.

… until her world was rocked once again by the bombshell that came out of her young master's camellia-coloured lips. "What did you say?" was all she could breathe out.

"I signed up for this. I want to be an agent for the Protectors of the Plot Continuum." Kaguya calmly explained. "I only didn't tell you because I am the only one who should be recruited. I never thought they'd take you along."

Momoka couldn't reply, still reeling from confusion and shock.

A second of silence went before he started again. "Many years ago, before you moved in with my family, I started to have an… an idea, an inkling. I enjoyed my games, I enjoyed the characters and their stories, but I also wanted to see them have more stories, go on more adventures. That was where the world of fanmade stories came in. But alas, my experiences with them were anything but pleasant.

All of the fanmade stories I encountered, in Japanese or English, were sorely dissatisfactory. So dissatisfactory were they, thoughts began to overtake my mind as I read them. This character is stoic and cold as ice, he will neither yell and giggle nor randomly rape a girl he barely knows. That character is blind, he can’t tell what colour your anachronistic dress is. These characters are in high school, they shouldn’t be sipping cocktail. Please don’t write Heian Japan as if it’s medieval France. Male sexuality does not work that way. Those thoughts echoing in my head were so powerful, I became blinded by them; I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing, all I knew was I was deeply annoyed. When I came back to my senses, I found myself somehow upside-down on the roof, a bucket on my head, a monkey biting my left foot, a goldfish biting my nose, a bunch of eggs in my mouth. I didn’t know where the monkey came from."

Little did he know, Momoka had shifted from one kind of speechless to another. Her young master, upside-down? Unthinkable.

"And then it got worse. Over the course of the next few days, I found myself stuffed in a sack in a piano hugging an octopus, balancing on one toe on a clothesline with a sumo wrestler reading manga on my head, wearing a blond wig eating a hamburger, and other such embarrassing predicaments. It soon got so bad that my parents threatened to take away everything I like if the problem persisted: my Internet connection, my electronic devices, my makeup, my kaiawase set, my book on traditional textile, everything. I never read a fanmade story again ever since.

This is why I quietly researched about and eventually signed up for this organization, these Protectors of the Plot Continuum, the second I heard about them; I suppose being able to actually do something about bad fanworks would help me deal with the frustration and be able to enjoy fanmade stories again without weird creatures ending up stuck on my clothes. This is a battle I will fight alone; I don’t want to involve you in my frustration, nor should I. I will negotiate for your release."

He turned to leave, but Momoka stopped him with a wait.

"What are you talking about?" she continued when Kaguya faced her again. "Everywhere Kaguya-sama goes, I will follow. Is that not how it's always been? How can I stand by and not help you in your battle? Besides, I do not like bad fanworks that destroy my favourite games and favourite boys any more than you do."

A second of silence, then a smile found its way on Kaguya's painted face.

"Now that all is settled, there's only one thing I'd like you to do," he said. "… you'd better lay off drooling over me all the time, or a certain Room B9 awaits."

"Kaguya-sama!" she yelped and blushed, while her young master chuckled. All was right in the world again.

Little did they know how naïve Kaguya was for thinking joining the PPC would cure his "frustration", henceforth referred to as "angry mode", and how equally naïve Momoka was for joining him in being at the mercy of the Rule of Funny.