Thread 1: >>163303
Thread 2: >>166295
Thread 3: >>170820

New thread, new character! Do your best to put an end to the infinite nightmare!

Also, in case you missed, there's an update in the last thread past the auto-sage limit in >>179106 that you should totally read if you are still following this story.

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<Trapped in the old sewers. My clothes are ruined and the stink is unbearable. #thissucks #worstdayever #sendhelp>

That's what you'd be writing on your phone if it were on, but since the battery is completely dead, you'll have to make do with the old-fashioned notebook. After getting used to the commodity of the new technologies, going back to the pen and paper feels so... weird. Primitive. Not to mention nobody's going to read it in the first place because there's no way you can get a help message out of this "prison", much less your whole self.

But on second thought, the reception here is awful, there aren't many people using the KappaNet yet, there are even less people following your Chirper (they can be counted with just one hand), and there's a high probability that they're tainted and asleep as well. So really, your phone is even more useless in this situation, and you're screwed either way.

Especially with this dreadful premonition you've been getting ever since you ended up stuck in here. You can't shake the feeling that something bad is going to happen, but you just can't put your finger...

"Gah, I'm rambling again," you sigh. "Like that's going to get me out of here! Get it together, girl!"

You slap your cheeks a couple of times, like you do every time you feel stressed. It doesn't relieve you from the burden gnawing at your chest, but at least the itching helps you focus on the task at hand. You don't have anything better to do other than wait for help that you know isn't going to come, so you decide to take this opportunity to begin the draft of your article. If, by some twist of fate, somebody finds you and rescues you, you'll have part of the job done when it's time to write the proper article. If the miracle doesn't happen, at least you hope somebody will eventually find your skeleton and your notepad in a few centuries, which will serve as a reliable source of information for any historian or archaeologist of the whip and cool hat variety. It's a win-win situation!

"... Yeah, no. I'd rather not die if I can help it."

But since you can't, you might as well stop digressing and get writing already. But where should you start? A lot of stuff has happened in these past hours; it's all become blurred in the haze of panic, adrenaline and excitement. What would she do in this situation, you ask yourself. She'd probably say something about the basics of journalism, in that snarky and mocking tone of hers you've come to hate with all of your being.

"Are you daft? That's the most fundamental of the fundamentals! How could you forget?" You do your best impression of the 'pure and honest' reporter. "You must answer the 'Five Ws' first, and then expand on the introduction! But I'm even more of a fool for expecting an amateur to know how to write. Or something like that."

Yet despite the evident scorn she has for you, there's always truth in her words, as much as you hate to admit it. Maybe that's why you've come to depend heavily on that old nosy crow in spite of your escalating rivalry... No, actually, you already looked up to her long before you went freelancer and started your own newspaper. But again, you digress.

This "adventure in search of the truth" has only brought you an ungodly heap of troubles - some of them by your own hand! -, culminating in this mother of all pickles you got yourself into. You should have stayed home like good girls are supposed to do, but noooooo, you had to listen to your "newshound instinct" and satiate your curiosity! Of course curiosity is often the cause of unfortunate accidents like this one, but when everybody is out cold counting sheep in Dreamland, who else is going to get the scoop? Who would cover the newest developments of the taint incident to the masses? Who would leave a record of the events in the Youkai Mountain in these hours of need? That's the job of a reporter, and after spending the last month bedridden with the taint, it was about time you resumed your work. Your newspaper finally had the chance to get the exclusive, and you were all too thrilled to let that golden opportunity pass.

And so you, in your infinite enthusiasm and naivety, decided to leave the safety of your room and explore the mystery in your town. From the moment you woke up, to the untimely blunder you did on-

"No, no no no no no, scratch that," you mutter while you rip the page off the notepad, curl it in a ball and throw it away. "That's no way to start a serious article! I'm a professional reporter, dangit!"

You mindlessly tap the thip of your pen over the rings of the notepad, thinking about the best way to write the article. In the end, after a long deliberation, you decide to sketch it as a chronicle and start from the very beginning. You'll see how it works as you go; for now, you'll just get the first words on paper, which are always the most difficult. The trimming and embellishment will come later.


<<Hatate Himekaidou, reporting the Thunder God's Taint Incident for the Kakashi Spirit News.

The great thunderstorm that followed the loss of electricity in the Youkai Mountain brought with it a terrifying plague that affected the entirety of the Tengu Village, and most of the inhabitants of the Kappa Village. People infected by this taint start losing their motivation, then they lose their energy until their bodies feel heavy and unresponsive, after which they enter a semi-asleep phase, and finally fall into a state similar to coma.

This reporter was one of the first victims diagnosed with the taint, and reportedly one of the first civilians to fall comatose. As the exact origins and effects of this illness were still unknown at the time, there was little hope for a cure to be developed before I lost consciousness. Aware of this, my father lodged me in his house in order to take care of me until the inevitable happened.>>


You spent two weeks of fatigue and agony, sensing your body go numb and heavy without being able to remedy it. The last thing you remember before falling unconscious was that you had made peace with myself, as if you were departing for real from this existence.

You took a sharp breath, making the obscure thoughts in your head go away. It truly felt like you were dying. It was really horrible, something you don't wish anybody to experience. You heard humans go through something similar when they die of old age, but how come they always look so peaceful when they have their final sleep? For you, it was most maddening and terrifying. You heard somewhere that's the fundamental difference between humanity and youkai: the concept of mortality is ingrained in every human soul, while youkai are "supernatural apparitions taken corporeal form" or something like that, and as such you don't truly die.

But again, you digress. That's up for philosophers and religious folk to discuss. You are a journalist, and your goal is to present objective facts.


<<My surprise was great when I awoke in the same room, as if I had just taken a nap and not a month long sleep. The first things I felt were the cramps that squeezed all my muscles tight, but disregarding the mild pain, the distinctive numbness of the taint was gone. There was also a dry, sweet taste filling my mouth, which made me crave for water urgently. When I brought my hand to my lips in wonder, I discovered a sort of yellow powder in the corners.>>


To this moment, you still don't know what it was, or how did it get there, but you have a feeling it was the reason you woke up from the coma, with no trace of the taint left in your body. Someone had fed you the cure while I was asleep - but in your sleepy state, that thought didn't cross your mind until later.


<<I checked my cellphone out of habit, as I do every time I wake up, only to find out the battery had died shortly after the blackout, long ago. The alarm clock was also off. There was no way for me to check the time and the date, so I had no estimation of how long I was sleeping.>>


Your father had apparently forgotten to change the batteries, or simply didn't bother. That was what you believed at first...


<<Still moving automatically, without paying no attention to my surroundings, I dragged my aching body to the bathroom to take a shower and rinse the uncomfortably dry taste from my mouth. However, I found out the was no running water; nothing came out from the tabs.>>


Odd, you thought at that moment, did something happen at the kappa dam that the water supply had to be cut off? That was when your brain finally began to work, and you remembered everything that happened before you fell asleep for good. And you also recalled in your last recollection that your father was beginning to suffer the symptoms of the taint.


<<I hurriedly put on the set of clothes I found on a chair beside my bed and flew downstairs, worried about my father. As I feared, I found him sound asleep in the living room, unresponsive to my frantic screaming and shaking. He, as everyone else in the village, had eventually fallen to the taint too.>>


Could nobody find the cure in time? Was there no hope for the tengu? Despair took hold of your heart, and you almost felt compelled to give up and rock yourself to sleep, hoping everything to be just a nightmare. Then realization struck you: if you were awake, that meant a cure existed! And if there was noone else capable of searching it, the responsibility to find it fell on your shoulders. The opportunity to have exclusive coverage on the incident was definitely just an added bonus.


<<I knew I had to do something, so I took my inoperative cellphone (mostly out of habit), this notepad, a pen (basic tools for a journalist) and my wallet (in case I needed money).>>


You remember you briefly considered taking your father's old camera, but it was too big and bulky to be carried around comfortably, so in the end you decided not to bring it with you. Sure, it's one of the first twin-lens reflex cameras the kappa managed to reverse-engineer from the Outside, and it's of great quality at that, but come on, who carries one of those ugly and heavy boxes nowadays?

In retrospective, that was your biggest mistake today. With your power and a camera, you could have prevented many of the mishaps you went through, and maybe avoid getting trapped in a stinky abandoned sewer. But you didn't, and now you're here, battered and helpless, and it is your fault.

"I suppose I don't have to write every single detail..." You say aloud. "I mean, I have a reputation too! If someone found out the reporter of the Kakashi Spirit News didn't bring a camera with her, I'd become the laughing stock of every journalist in the village!" Not to mention you wouldn't hear the end from her. You know she won't let you forget if she knew. "So, it's okay if I just skip that part, yeah?"

Of course, you don't get an answer back. Logically, because you're the only one in here. There's nobody nearby, eavesdropping you while hiding in the shadows. Nope, nobody at all, right?

Riiiiiight?

"... I should stop scaring myself like that," you sigh again. "I won't get stuff done if I keep panicking over small stuff."

Granted, this is not precisely "small" stuff, but still, your point stands. In fact, why do you need to convince yourself? You're not the kind of tengu who argues with herself when you're alone and nervous. You've been lonely and anxious plenty of times in your room before, and you coped with it fairly well on your own, so this isn't new to you. Who said being a shut-in hadn't any advantages?

"I'd better not continue that line of thought or I'll get even more depressed," You just can't seem to quit sighing today. What's wrong with you? No, don't answer that. A rhetorical question. "Focus, Hatate, focus!"

So where were you? Ah, right, you were writing about the things you took before you left your house. After that, you went to...

[]Fly around town and scout the area. You must assess the situation before making any move.
[]The Eientei Pharmacy branch. There should be clues about the taint and the cure in there.
[]The Garrison. The White Wolves should have reports on the incident that could be useful.
[]The Tengu Palace. If someone has any idea on what to do in this situation, it's Lord Tenma.
[]The Moriya Shrine. You're not of the religious kind, but this disaster asks for a miracle.
[]The Kappa Village. You think there are still survivors and electricity there.
[]The Kappa Dam. It's the likely source of the blackout in town. Worth checking.

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Similar deal to the last two threads. You now control another character with the opportunity to discover more things about the incident, and probably do something to make a difference. However, unlike Marisa and Koishi, you already know how Hatate's part of the story is going to end. This prologue is about what you make the tengu do before she gets trapped inside the old sewers, in a sort of retrospective play.