Main Page » Old Touhou stuff » Touhou Nekokayou: Scarlet Weather Archive in Japanese Red »

Touhou Nekokayou #45: Death Paradox

Created: / Modified:

Always use secure-HTTP / Unsecure HTTP / Permanent Link

First Previous Random Next Latest

Format: png jpg (quality 25 50 70 90) gif

Touhou Nekokayou: Scarlet Weather Archive in Japanese Red #45

First Previous Random Next Latest

Characters: Sakuya Izayoi, Komachi Onozuka, Sikieiki Yamaxanadu

Apart from Death Note, this is actually largely inspired by a hentai doujin called "Shine Sakuya" (meaning "Dying Sakuya"), in which she meets Komachi, who says that Sakuya's going to die "today," and then Sakuya goes home that night to meet Remilia and yeaaaaahhhhhhhhhh.1

Komachi's job as a shinigami, in addition to just being a cute-girl Japanese-mythology version of Charon,2 also involves collecting souls in the first place. I figure she'd also need to deal with "anomalies" like someone who's still alive even though their time had already come. Sakuya is thus further "anomalous" owing to the fact that Remilia's fate-manipulation isn't compatible with the Shinigami/Enma way of doing things, so i.e. her name3 has been "updated" but her lifespan has not. This is also obviously the first time Komachi has encountered any kind of anomaly like this, since they're not supposed to deal with people who haven't died at their time by attacking them like that.

No points for guessing where I got the actual numbers for Sakuya's lifespan.

Transcript

  1. (Sakuya carries an emtpy basket through a field when she comes across Komachi.)
    Komachi: Dum de dum ...
    Sakuya: Slacking off as usual, I see.
    Sakuya SFX: gone out to do groceries for the SDM
  2. (Komachi turns and reacts in shock.)
    Komachi: Oh, hi there, SakuyaAAAAA!?
    Sakuya: Huh? What?
  3. (Komachi is shocked.)
    Komachi: Your Lifespan ... it's ... It's gone!
    Sakuya: What are you talking about?
  4. (Red-tinted closeup of Sakuya, with kanji and series of numbers above her forehead, yellow and glowing red.)
    Komachi: (off-panel) As a shinigami, I can see your name and Lifespan (your time of death in "Shinigami Time") by looking at your face ...
    Name: 十六夜 咲夜 いざよい さくや (kanji and furigana for Sakuya's name)
    Lifespan: 9 3 31 2 6 3 9
  5. (Back to the field; Komachi brandishes her scythe.)
    Komachi: ... and you were supposed to have died two years ago!
    Sakuya: "Supposed to," hmm?
  6. (Komachi lunges murderously forward, and Sakuya tosses the basket away, getting out a knife.)
    Komachi: THIS ANOMALY MUST BE CORRECTED!
    Sakuya: Hmph ... well, I guess I can't get through to you with words, so ...
    SFX: toss
  7. (Sakuya adopts the Dio Brando pose and stops time as Komachi charges with her scythe.)
    Blue Spell Card: Illusion World 「ZA WARUDO」
    Komachi: RAAAAAAAAWR
  8. (Time stopped, Sakuya launches a gigunja swarm of knives at Komachi.)
  9. (Sakuya resumes time in the Dio pose again, and Komachi drops her scythe in surprise.)
    Komachi: Eep!
  10. (Komachi lies on the ground with the scythe several feet away behind Sakuya. A knife is in Komachi's head.)
    Sakuya: So, when you looked at my face, exactlly what name did you see?
    Komachi: Um ... "Sakuya Izayoi"?
  11. (Komachi gets up.)
    Sakuya: Ah, the name Remilia gave me?
    Komachi: Huh? But ... even if she renamed you, that wouldn't change your "real" name ...
  12. (Komachi brightens as she realizes.)
    Komachi: ... unless ... Of course! She's the devil who manipulates fate without going through proper channels! The Lifespan of a servant of hers would be meaningless!
  13. (Sakuya turns to head off-panel; an infuriated Sikieiki leans into the panel from the other direction, behind Komachi.)
    Komachi: Well, sorry for the misunderstanding!
    Sakuya: Oh, not at all. Now I'm going to the human village ... and you might want to watch out for your *own* master.
    Komachi: Hmm? Why's that?

1Spoiler: In the end, she meets Komachi the next day, the latter having been beaten up by Sikieiki for screwing up, and comes to much the same conclusion they did here.

2According to Wikipedia, the concept of "shinigami" was imported to Japan from Europe during the Meiji period (i.e. right before Gensokyo was sealed away). I can also find bugerall else about them when I exclude "death note" and "bleach" from my Google search.

3Another explanation for this: I didn't want to make up whatever Sakuya's "original" name was, so I went with this instead.

All Touhou characters are © Team Shanghai Alice and/or ZUN; create.swf is ⑨ KirbyM with help from Thefre. "Sakura petals" brush in main/4koma logo was made by Kisara Girl. "Falling leaves" brush in 60-Years logo came with Photoshop.

15 Comments (auto-closed) (rss feed)

Tewi Inonymous

Komachi's gonna get raeped.

Solarn

Random semi-offtopic comment: I tend to imagine Komachi as really powerful, actually. See, she's a slacker and an airhead, but she still gets second and third and Nth chances. That must mean that when she does bother to do her job, she's so extraordinarily capable at it that the Yamas see fit to keep her around even if she needs to be constantly disciplined.

Then again, I have a weird fetish for making the unlikeliest characters in Touhou out to be strong.

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

Now that you mention it, there's precious few other possible explanations for why Komachi's kept on besides "when she does do it, she's really good at it." (Except possibly "'shinigami' isn't what she does, it's what she is, so they couldn't let her go if they wanted to.") I suppose the fact that she's a penultimate-boss for much of the PoFV cast, and that she beats Tenshi in her story mode in SWR, would corroborate this. (And the other theory, too — if they did kick her out, she might make Bad Things happen.)

Falga

This one is operating on the belief from a very amusing comic strip where Koakuma and Komachi are in fact the same person. Her job as a Shinigami is just a temp-job, while she works full-on at the SDM's library with a bat-winged headband.

Facteur Rien

Do you have this comic? I'm interested.

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

That'd be this one.

SuperFush

Link seems to be bork'd.

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

Seems to work fine for me ... :O

Tewi Inonymous

Or she could just get away with slacking off so much because she works in gensenkyo, can't be more than a couple dozen deaths there every day even with the higher mortality rate from the low technology and youkai predation.

Shiki would just get mad because laziness is not virtuous behavior even if komachi does her job well enough not to draw the attention of shiki's superiors.

SuperFish

Hmm, it's working now.

Odd.

Shanghai Alice

You know, I have a really bad habit of making the typical punching bag characters out to be characters that only suck in Gensokyo.

For example, Mei Ling kicks ass. In a fistfight only, unfortunately.

Spirit Tsunami

Hmmm...actually, I'm not sure where those numbers come from. But I like them, because I see my birthday in there! (3/31)

Formica Archonis

Hmmm...actually, I'm not sure where those numbers come from. But I like them, because I see my birthday in there! (3/31)

your birthday, someone else's Death day; type the numbers into a search engine (Note: in quotes) and a bright Light will find out where it's from.

(HEY EVERYONE! I'M BEING SUBTLE!!! LOOK!!!!!!)

Dizzy H. Slightly Voided

They're the numbers that appear over Light Yagami's head when Ryuk (a shinigami) looks at him.

BigB

way to kill the "subtle" hint Muffin. Nice Job Breaking It Hero. XD