#yumisaki walker

[toushindai]

Sooo @agallimaufryofoddments sent me the short story that Narita wrote to go with the Dengeki Gakuen RPG Cross of Venus! She knows me well and got my attention by saying “so you wanna see something with Ronny’s name in it” and I was like “yes, always” and that is why I read a silly story. It’s a little too silly for me to translate but I can tell you about it at least!

It is a very silly story. The overall story of DGRPG is described by Wikipedia as

Dengeki Gakuen RPG is set primarily at Dengeki Academy, a Japanese private school that the main characters attend. The story revolves around an unnamed protagonist who one day hears a recent rumor that a ghost has been appearing during the night at school. While he does not have any real interest in the occult, he uses searching for the ghost as an excuse to sneak into the school campus one night. However, his childhood friend Kizuna Kasugai comes with him to search for the ghost, and the two decide to search around the bench in front of the campus store. In the silent darkness, the two gradually arrive to open the door of the store and before them they see a person's shadow move in the room. By straining his eyes, the protagonist sees that the person casting the shadow is eating melon bread, and realizes that this must be the cause of the ghost rumor; the shadow is in fact cast by Shana from Shakugan no Shana. This is possible due to one day the reality-based world of Dengeki Academy and the worlds of the Dengeki Bunko light novels to suddenly become connected allowing people from both the real-world and the novel worlds to cross over.

By meeting Shana, the protagonist and Kizuna become entangled in a struggle by the members of the novel worlds to protect their worlds from the unidentified evil organization known as Zetsumu (絶夢) who have been changing story details from the novel worlds and creating disorder in them. Their goal is "to snatch away the smiles from every person". In order to combat Zetsumu, the protagonists will help the fighters from the novel worlds by traveling between the real-world and novel worlds.

The short story, on the other hand, features mainly Yumisaki Walker from Durarara!!. He somehow stumbles into Dengeki Gakuen and is absolutely delighted, first by the revelation that he’s made it into a parallel world... and then even more so when he runs into Shana from Shakugan no Shana. (Though first he bores the heck out of the game protagonist by explaining Dengeki Bunko’s history and publication statistics.) However, he freaks Shana out by a) knowing who she and Alastor are and b) referring to things that haven’t happened to her yet (because she’s from volume 1 and he’s read further than that) and c) mentioning someone she has a secret crush on, I think, and telling her he’s rooting for her on that front. Before Shana can get violent on him, Celty barges in, apologizes for him, and drags him away. (She also asks Shana if she’s a Saika because she has red eyes and a sword. Shana doesn’t know what she’s talking about.)

Yumisaki then runs into Kino (of Kino’s Journey) and Index (of To Aru Majutsu no Index) and similarly manages to freak them out by knowing things about them that people “of this world” shouldn’t--namely, being able to identify Hermes as a motorad and Kino’s guns as persuaders. Once again Celty has to drag him away before Kino decides to use him for target practice. Then he spots Iriya from Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu. He speaks enthusiastically of her battle against UFOs and that, uh, that terrifies Celty and she drags him away more emphatically.

...To Firo’s underground casino circa the 1930s. Which is also connected, for reasons which aren’t explained but are, honestly, probably just “because Narita does what Narita wants.”

People from Dengeki Gakuen have been wandering in all day, and Firo’s really confused by what’s going on, although Ronny is not nearly so concerned. Ronny theorizes that Firo is not able to mentally adjust to the oddities in the same way people from other worlds are because the connection with the Naritaverse is actually from the future of this world, and then muses that he can interfere with neither the matters of other worlds nor the future of this world.

Shortly thereafter is when Celty and Yumisaki come in, with Celty still panicking with the fear of aliens. Ronny says he’ll take care of it, and Firo asks if he knows them; Ronny denies it but suspects they’re from this world’s future. He goes to talk to them.

“You seem to be Ms. Celty Sturluson, one of the headless fairies of Ireland,” he says, to Celty’s considerable surprise and confusion. “What happened to your head? In my era, you always had it with you... well, no matter.”

He’s not too worried about time paradoxes since they’re meeting in Dengeki Academy, which is outside of the normal world. Celty is still very confused. And Yumisaki doesn’t recognize Ronny as a Dengeki Bunko character. Ronny doesn’t particularly explain himself but does note that Yumisaki reminds him of some old alchemist friends of his and offers, “If you’d like to go home, I’ll create a route home for you in the corner of this casino--since you two are merely from a different time, not a different world. Feel free to return home and to your normal lives.”

But Yumisaki wants to enjoy where he is first, which Ronny approves of (since for him to enjoy himself is the most powerful weapon against Zetsumu there is). Yumisaki and Celty go on their merry way; Ronny goes back to talk to Firo. Firo considers “that man in the big head covering” to be suspicions and wonders if he should keep an eye on “him.” Ronny reveals that uh actually that’s a she, and so Firo freaks out at how tight her clothing was. Ronny wonders how fashion will change in the future... and how Firo will cope with that.

Eventually, Yumisaki makes it home to hang out with Kadota et al. He brags about meeting his beloved characters, to which Kadota replies “Okay, time to go to the hospital. C’mon.” But then Yumisaki shows off the autographs he got from them... which Erika can immediately tell from her very soul are real. They squee fannishly for a bit. As for what happens at Dengeki Academy... you’ll have to play the game to find that out.

*

So... takeaways:

1) Guys, I think... I think Celty and Ronny knowing each other was a misunderstanding of this. Ronny is able to know of Celty, since she’s of the same world as him, but they don’t seem to know each other personally, unless there’s some second encounter between them in some other well-hidden piece of media.

2) Draws some interesting, though not particularly unexpected, limits around Ronny’s powers. yes. the limits are not unexpected. the idea that he can create a path through time is somewhat more unexpected and I don’t know how to deal with this being in something so obviously(?) noncanon(??). How dare you do this to me, Narita. How dare you.