When I arrived here on Gensokyo Island more than three months ago, all fresh-faced and thrilled at the prospect of rubbing shoulders with characters from some of my favourite anime and game series, I was whooping with joy. And now, after three months of toil for longer than I have ever lived for the rest of my existence, unable to go anywhere, being forced into drudgery merely to maintain a standard of living, having to put up with this shaky internet connection, and being ambushed by an online stalker who insists on thrashing me in every single game possible when I do get on... Well, it's no stretch to say that Gensokyo Island has started to feel like a second home already.
Which is why I'm sick of it.
Today, another one of the foreign travellers who've come to visit Gensokyo Island has thrown herself to the mercy of the waves in rather unusual circumstances involving a freakish twist of fate. How shall I begin to describe it? Perhaps the first ominous sign was the randomly generated and usually... usually 100% bogus news Gensokyo Island's residents came up with today.
Best title for a news report ever.
Normally, I'd be a little nonplussed at all these random coincidences that happen every day around the island, but today I was especially unnerved. And just when I decided to take a break from my usual desk job (read, whacking some mooks on some MMO or another) I saw a crowd of residents gathered at the foot of the Mii Apartments building in a circle, gazing at something...
Perhaps one of Gensokyo Island's residents had finally reached the limits of their tolerance and decided to take some extreme measures to end it all. However, considering that about half of those residents are mystical creatures or magic users of some sort, all capable of flying, it would be surprising that a fall of any height would phase them - although honestly I have yet to actually see one of them in flight. As for the other half consisting of relatively normal, and by "normal" I mean more person than mythical beast, I can't guarantee that such a plunge would do them any good.
As it turned out, what they were gathered about to see was not someone's bloodied, battered corpse, but rather something else which no one had any great expectation of ever seeing alive again.
Hair dyed the colour of vomit is still hair dye, a triumph nonetheless! Welcome back Chiyoko!
It turned out that Chiyoko, one of the unfortunate eight who were sent out on Massacre Monday in exchange for Edwado and seven corpses, has not only survived but somehow found her way back to Gensokyo Island, no worse for wear apart from the mysteriously mangled pronunciation of her name. And, in what is probably the biggest triumph of all, she managed to get her hair dyed! Indeed, it's the culmination of any traveller's existence, to dye in the service of their home island. Y'know, dulce de leche decorum est and all that.
More important at this moment, however, was the story of how exactly she made it back, like her sister Michiko. The long way around? Impossible - given how much time had passed since she left, a span of a mere two weeks, there was no chance of a pale, impoverished traveller owning nothing more than the clothes on their backs managing to wrangle their way back to their home island from halfway across the world. More likely, but more terrifying, was the possibility that the owner of the island that she had last visited...
If the ability to cast travellers across time and space existed, it should not be a surprise if more than just Gensokyo Island and its dictator Okuu's Look-alike had access to that power. As of this moment, the application of such technology on Gensokyo Island is still unrefined, a sort of hit-and-miss, if you like, given that it's unproven that it has a survival rate of over 50%.
But perhaps someone, some others out there have developed and refined such technology to be able to actually target a specific location or at least someplace close to it. The possibilities are endless. If such was the case, could we send Okuu's Look-alike back to the time of the dinosaurs? I bet she'd fit in perfectly. Especially the rapidly getting devoured by T-Rexes bit of it.
Chiyoko mentioned, just as she was heading back to her chartered boat, that she spotted another craft heading this way at the same time. Perhaps it was another dispatch from the island she came from. Speaking of which, that rich kid Yugen asked me for the loan of the office camera to grab some pictures of her departure, or so he said... hmm...
From England to America to Japan, not bad if I say so myself. And Retro Dresses? The island's owner has some wacky tastes.
Wait... wasn't that girl Rebecca from that faraway place the first in line at the port? Not to mention, she got here through the time-space anomaly, didn't she? So if she ever wanted a chance of going home, she could have tried her luck with Okuu's Look-alike's plans to revive the time-space anomaly again, but... if it just so happened that a ship pulled up unannounced... So! That's quite a journey she's on, from another time and place, here to Gensokyo Island, and then leaving by the traditional method to another place. What can I say?
I don't know how to feel. The reassurance that I'm still alive every day will continue for as long as I'm here on Gensokyo Island, and yet it is the destiny of a traveller to, y'know, travel. And to risk death at every turn, whether it be through natural disasters, malice, or being randomly pulverised into a cloud of blood droplets by an unkind accident of fate. Which path leads to a better chance of survival? Which path leads to adventure? Two conflicting priorities facing every one of us.
Perhaps it needs a moment of stepping out of the box and re-examining the situation from a fresh perspective to come to any sort of judgement on it. Or maybe it's... it's because I still can't stop worrying about her. With Rebecca gone (and we're certainly not talking to Layla the mysterious witch-like waif waiting at the port), there isn't a single female foreign traveller left at the Bunbunmaru News office. If only... if only there was someone I could talk to, who knew our struggles and sufferings as travellers, who had a word of kindness or reassurance.
Well, I suppose I could have asked Rebecca while she was here. But she'd probably tell me to get on with it and bugger off already. And, on her part, she's definitely followed her own advice.
On yer bike, Rebecca.
BUNBUNMARU UPDATES, 24th May 2015
Traveller Updates
Chiyoko returned from Alexandria Island to visit her parents Chiyo Mihama and Shikieiki Yamaxanadu! She has visited 3 islands so far.
A boat from Sakura Island arrived. Rebecca of Caldy Island departed.
BUNBUNMARU UPDATES, 25th May 2015
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