♥ 001

[cherrybombpie]

[text]

[Flowing, almost archaic script starts to inundate the page.]

Dearest Brother,

I do not know if you will ever receive this letter. All I know is that I have been spirited away to this dastardly, horrid, menacing, troubling, and mysterious place known as Isla Empieza. I am very much afraid – who knows what the people here would do to a young maiden such as myself? Oh, oh, my dearest brother, my virtue is at stake – you must come at once! If I die here, I will come back to haunt you and you will never hear the end of it, so I suggest that you come and fetch me at this very moment! One such man asked me my name, and I threw him off the dock. I am truly helpless, waif-like, and defenseless, and I need your aid!

Please, also let my darling fiance Ranma-sama know that I am longing for him. I will simply not entertain thoughts of any other until I find myself in his arms once more. I know how he grieves, but console him, my dearest sibling. How he must pine for me – it is unthinkable.

Brother, I will put this letter in a bottle and hope that it reaches you. I will perhaps ask a turtle to bear it for me. When you receive this, please come and rescue me!

Love,
The Star of Hope of the Gymnast World
The Black Rose
Your Beloved Sister
Kodachi



[voice]

[Some time later . . .]

I can't rip the page out! I've been trying for hours! It just . . . flies back into the journal . . . !!! Magic exists, but only to taunt me! The fates are against me! I'll never be rescued now!

[Cue shrieks, wails, and sobs. When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions.]

Comments

[Voice]

[wavesoakedlegs]

[...oh, goodness. Well. This is going to be a difficult one to handle. Mitsuhide adopts a soothing, compassionate voice when he speaks.]

I am sorry, my Lady. No matter what, that slip of paper would not help you.

[Better not to mention the 'other world' matter yet. He has a feeling that would not go down well right now.]

This situation must be painful for you, but a letter will not be of use right now.

[voice]

[cherrybombpie]

[There's a gasp and the sound of the journal hitting the floor with a slap.]

The journal - it's talking! It's haunted!

. . . By a very polite ghost!

[A pause, and then - ]

Hello, spirits that reside in this journal - can you hear me?

[A particularly wet sniffle.]

[voice]

[wavesoakedlegs]

[...that's not actually the strangest response Mitsuhide has ever had in response to someone's first experience of the enchanted book, and in some respects, a reasonable one.]

I am not a ghost, my Lady, merely a man. This journal is one of many, and any who possesses one can communicate with any other who has one.

[A pause, and then he adds:]

Be at ease; I most certainly hear you.

[Voice]

[alwaysgrumpy]

Star of Hope of the Gymnast World? That's a pretty lofty aspiration.

[voice]

[cherrybombpie]

It's not an aspiration. It's a truth.

If you have nothing of use to say, then keep your mouth shut, you useless, haunted sheaf of paper.

Re: [voice]

[alwaysgrumpy]

Lady, we ain't ghosts. This is just a means of communication, seriously. We ALL have these books, and we use them just like you. Best way of getting messages from ship to ship.

As for those people you mentioned, I wouldn't bank too hard on them being here. A lot of us aren't from anywhere near the same place, or even the same world.

[voice]

[forthevillage]

I would be careful about what you write in that book in the future. It is a communication device, not simply paper. Everyone else on the sea or the island that owns one will be able to read what you put in it.

[This isn't exactly the sort of person he likes dealing with, but he might as well help out a newcomer regardless.]

[voice]

[cherrybombpie]

Another disembodied voice -

What a curious journal this is!

What spirit are you? To whom am I communicating with? Will more ghosts read the words that I write?

[voice]

[forthevillage]

Not a ghost. A simple human being. Just as you are speaking into your book, I'm speaking into mine. That's all there is to it.

My name is Itachi.

Voice;

[hiken]

Magic isn't really a thing made for our convenience. There's some psychotic old man laughin' at us over it all, I think.

Voice;

[cherrybombpie]

[A sniffle.]

I'm inclined to agree with you, disembodied voice, because if magic had been kind, it would have carried my letter away to my waiting and worried brother!

[You can practically hear the tears forming in her eyes.]

Do you think such an entity exists? If so, he must have been responsible for my kidnap and reprehensible for putting my virtue at stake!

[text]

[cry_brady]

[Actually he thought her reliance on her brother was kind of beautiful. Such a lovely powerful bond between siblings... and such love for her fiance... sniff, sniff...

Have some amazingly fancy-shmancy penwriting with some less than fancy words.]

If there's any guy there trying to hit on you or messing with you, he won't last long! I'm stuck on this stupid island too, but I can still put up a good fight!

[cherrybombpie]

[voice]

Oh, my goodness! Someone is writing to me!

[text]

[A few moments later, her seemingly old-fashioned script fills the page.]

I am guessing that you are not a ghost!

How brave you sound, o faceless one. How courageous in the light of our tribulations! I wish that I could be as strong as you!

[Written]

[redcinemareel]

[Red cursive appears in reply to her...embarrassment.]

Now that is something I would write, or even better! A lovely piece!

Although it's unfortunate that he'll never see this letter, yet all of us have.

[Written]

[cherrybombpie]

The more that people see this letter, the better the chance it has of reaching my brother's ears! In such a hopeless situation, one must simply cry their messages to the wind in the hopes that it will reach a beloved family member!

written;

[to_theleft]

Wow, your brother complex is really bad. Are you sure he'd even want to rescue you?

written;

[cherrybombpie]

[She's getting the hang of this!]

[She writes back in her old-fashioned cursive.]

What is a "brother complex"?

I am certain that he would - after all, we only have each other!

voice;

[windofthephoenixtemple]

In a sense the journal appears to be special. I'm not quite sure how it is but given that it not only lets us write to people all over, it also lets us use voice, a function that one doesn't usually see on a book.

So the fact that the page keeps coming back might be another feature that it has, which I can guess why you didn't want it there in the first place.

voice;

[cherrybombpie]

It's simply magic. However, for all of its useful purposes, it won't let me do the one thing a magicless journal would do - and that is to tear off a page to send as a letter! It is simply taunting me! I would be better off with a normal notebook!

[voice]

[nephilimduke]

[ snort. laugh. he's so rude ]

Magic loves to spite you, and so does those who knows it.

[voice]

[cherrybombpie]

[omg get out you meanie]

Are you saying that there will be no respite from this journal? Or from those behind my dastardly kidnapping?

Why do you give me such bad news? Can't you say something to warm a maiden's heart?

voice

[allendsmeat]

[the text is tl;dr for him but at her distress he

busts out laughing, rolling back and forth]

You're pretty dumb, huh?

voice

[cherrybombpie]

[oh my god luffy you did not]

[Her voice is icy cold. Not that he'll care . . .]

Excuse me?

[voice]

[rebellions]

[While Ragna isn't particularly keen on reading what people have to say in their journals, this one... letter (?) actually manages to catch his attention. Perhaps it's the overusage of the word "brother" that feels so familiar.

Or perhaps it's simply because he can imagine himself in the position of the person whose little siblings have gone missing.]

Hate to break it to you, but your brother's not coming to get you, and not 'cause he doesn't wanna.

[He can't imagine an older brother who wouldn't want to help out his little sibling... he knows he would.

Or used to before his life turned into hell.]

[voice]

[cherrybombpie]

[Another bearer of bad news! Kodachi sighed dramatically, her sniffles heard through the journal. Were the fates so determined to keep her away from her brother, her fiance, and home?]

I can't lose faith in my brother. We've only got each other, you see!

[MIA parents and an unwilling fiance did not a support system make. It was only Tatewaki she could depend on.]