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Team 9 Origins

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The year was ... around 1974. The first attempt was made at uniting the youkai into relatively peaceful (that is, non-human-attacking) endeavors. At least, the lower-powered youkai decided to do this. The results were ... mixed, to say the least.

They were divided into teams, and each team was given a number and instructed to come up with a name. Team 9 was having a surprising amount of difficulty with this.

Cirno, the self-appointed leader, sighed, putting her hands on her hips. "Why is this taking so long!? Yes, Orange, what is it!?"

The young youkai who had raised her hand flinched back slightly and then lowered it. "Er ... nothing," she said. She had privately decided that it wouldn't do any good to suggest that it had been Cirno's own incompetence which had turned a slight disagreement between two halves of their group, with one side prepared to concede, into a full-blown full-scale flaming row with nobody in agreement.

Cirno gave an exasperated sigh, looking at the team, which was now thoroguhly annoyed with one another. It was a mixture of fairies and youkai. "Gimme a break!" she muttered, turning away. "Yeesh, there's only one other who's anywhere near as strong as I am here," she added. She was admittedly one of the strongest fairies in Gensokyo, but that was no excuse for equating strength with competence.

"Which one's that?" asked Daiyousei, sitting in the front row.

Cirno blinked. "Oh. That'd be you, Daiyousei," she said.

Before any of the others could protest this, a poltergeist named Kana Anaberal approached the team, carrying a clipboard. "Okay, what name have you come with?" she said cheerfully.

Cirno looked guilty. "Er ... name?" she said.

Kana blinked. "Um, yes, what were you going to call yourselves?"

"Team 9," said Cirno, looking close to a panic.

Kana frowned. "So, you're not coming up with a name?"

"Ah ... wait!" said Cirno. She took the clipboard, wrote "TEAM 9" in the name box in English, then drew a circle around the 9.

"'Team 9' ... with a circle around the 9," said Kana, furrowing her eyebrows. "Um, that works, then!"

Cirno nodded, beaming as she turned to the newly-named Team ⑨.

The various fairies and youkai frowned. None of them looked particularly enthusiastic, but the consensus was that at least this stopped the argument.


Lily White stood in front of a diagram. "Okay," she said, "the Phantasmagoria competition will be one-on-one, and you'll use your danmaku-abilities. However, rather than attacking each other directly, you will be flying along two parallel racetracks, attacking moving targets that come your way. Yes, Mystia, what is it?"

The leader of Team Avian raised her hand. "Ah, are we allowed to send danmaku to the other field at all?" she asked cheerfully.

"Yes," said Lily White, "but only if you attack one of the gold targets, shown here. Now, only nonlethal danmaku will be used, and if you're hit a certain number of times, or by powerful enough attacks, you will lose the match. Also remember, it's not a race, so if you ..."

Cirno peered at the diagram. It showed a circular racetrack, with several glowing images, as various items with numbers next to them. Crude images of what appeared to be Cirno and Kana were shown flying above the track. Kana was next to item 1, and Cirno was next to item 9. Cirno then looked at the list:

  1. Race participant
  2. Scoreboard
  3. Hit-board (if it reaches zero, you lose)
  4. Small light-target
  5. Small fairy-target
  6. Large fairy-target
  7. Gold target (if you knock down one of these, you will be able to send danmaku directly to your opponent)
  8. Your team's scoreboard
  9. Baka

Cirno stared at this for several moments, then jumped straight up into the air. "W-w-w-w-w-WHAT!?" she yelled, pointing at the diagram.

There was various snickering and laughter from the entire crowd.


"So that's how it happened, huh?" said Chen. The current version of Team 9 was hanging around by the misty lake; Chen was draped over a lower branch of a tree.

"Yeah," said Wriggle, sitting under it. "The competition kinda fell apart, because, well." She shrugged. "It's hard for anyone to get that many youkai to work together."

"It didn't really help that they tried to make a joke at Cirno's expense, either," said Daiyousei.

"Yeah," said Mystia.

"Pah!" said Cirno, glaring at them. She stood up straight with her hands on her hips, an expression of half-scorn and half-triumph. "I'm the strongest! And don't any of you forget that!"

Wriggle grinned. "Don't worry," she said. "We won't."

8 Comments (auto-closed) (rss feed)

PMiller1

Now I got to ask myself, Who've used to be part of Team ⑨ (9 Circle)?

I can see Orange used to be one, But who else?

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

I dunno, I haven't seriously specified that.

(Um, I've also had to retcon it to be Kana instead of Ellen, since Ellen is actually from a manga ZUN liked at the time, and thus she doesn't count in Nekokayontinuity ...)

PMiller1

Main members
Cirno, Mystia, Wriggle, Rumia.

Secondary members
Letty (As a Team Mom), Daiyousei (Cirno Beat Friend), Chen (Just Hanging around), Yamame (Another Team Mom), Kisume (Just always was Yamame), Medicine (Just here to get along), Tewi.

Former members
Orange (Missing), Kurumi (Quit), Sara (Wasn't even a member), Luize.

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

Not really, no.

KuroKona

Heh heh. Fail.

Zemyla

Now that Orange has been unsealed, will she return to Team 9?

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

I dunno. I guess.