BlazBlue:CT Material Collection Taokaka Short Story "Capricious Us"
The weather today in the Kaka Clan's village located beneath the 13th Hierarchical City “Kagutsuchi” was pitch black as always.
The figure of mister sun couldn't be seen, and the neighbourhood was damp and humid. This situation had been going on for tens of years.
The village people— wrong, the village cats were gathered around the cat-god statue in the middle of the plaza, arguing amongst themselves. A large pot had been installed there, and since it was used for cooking the fire under it was constantly lit, so it was very warm, making it an ideal spot to catch an afternoon nap. In any case, the situation of the sun playing hide-and-seek with the Kaka Clan was a serious problem indeed.
So then, in first place why was the sun's figure unable to be seen? The cause was a giant plate placed over the ceiling of the village.
Long ago the Kaka clan's ancestors, under the leadership of someone known as the“cat person”, found this comfortable and cozy area, migrated here, and constructed the village. At the foot of the mountain the Kaka clan began their unique civilisation.
However those peaceful days didn't last long. One day, humans abruptly appeared and in a blink of an eye they converted the entire mountain body into a Hierarchical City. By the time the Kaka village had noticed it, the plate from the upper level had covered their ceiling, and their village had changed into a dark place where the sunlight couldn't reach anymore. Once that happened, the village cats finally started to realise the seriousness if the situation, and began to chatter amongst themselves. However, it was already too late, and nothing could be done about their current situation. The lamentable end result was that they thought since it was still under construction everything was still alright... still alright... while taking their afternoon nap.
Furthermore recently another danger had appeared. The existence of the “squiggly”. One day, this black squiggly monster had suddenly come to their village. At first the village cats approached it interestedly with wagging tails going “What is that?”, but soon the unnatural aura they sensed from the “squiggly” made their fur stand on end. Responding to their hostility— the previously apathetic “squiggly” morphed into an unnatural shape and started to attack the Kaka clan. The ever free spirited Kaka banded together as one, combing their power to stand against the “squiggly”, and barely managed to succeed in driving it away.
However, afterwards the “squiggly” would still appear in the village from time to time. It attacked several number of kittens, even eating some of them. This was unacceptable— the devouring of victims had to be stopped... was what the cats were worrying about, as much as a cat can worry.
And then, the village cats finally reached a conclusion. In the first place, the reason why the “squiggly” appeared was the “absence of mister sun”.
That the village was dark and damp was why that monster appeared. Furthermore, now that mister sun was gone they had started fighting over all the remainding nice napping spots. Not one good thing had happened.
At the end of the worrying they decided to open a “cat conference”. All the cats gathered in the plaza, and formed a circle around the elder.
“Eh—, ahem. Right then, the first ever cat conference is now in session.”
The elder coughed loudly. The other cats reverently waited for her next words with meek faces.
“As everyone knows, currently our village has lost the favour of the sun.”
“I see meow—“ “It's so dark meow—” “That's terrible meow—” “I'm hungry meow—“ “I wanna go take a nap meow—“
“Silence!”
Dead silence.
“And on top of that, as of late the black “squiggly” thing has been attacking our village.”
“I see meow—“ “That's scary meow—” “That's terrible meow—” “I'm hungry meow—“ “I wanna go take a nap meow—“
“Silence!”
Dead silence.
“In any case, does anyone have any constructive ideas on improving our current situation?”
Dead silence.
The Kaka clan's village cats were always like that. Sighing, the elder randomly pointed at one of the cats and asked for it's opinion.
“The human village upstairs is in the way I think.”
“That's true meow. If that were to disappear then mister sun would come back I think”
“Hm... So then, what do you think we should do to get rid of the human village?”
“If we had 'money” then everything would be convenient”
“Marn-knee?”
“M-o-n-e-y?... Money?”
The first tangible idea brought up generated a buzz of discussion around the surrounding cats.
“I've heard that if you have a huuuuge amount of it you can do anything meow.”
The elder nodded in agreement.
“And where is this money located?”
“I don't know that, but I think it's probably in the humans' village meow—”
“I see, ok then.”
The elder nodded even more vigourously.
“Thanks to everyone's efforts, we've managed to come up with some useful information. First is that the humans' village has to be gone. To that end this money thing will probably go a long way to solving it. However, this money is likely to be in the village itself. Which means someone will have to travel and infiltrate the village...”
The elder surveyed the cats. They had started to push the responsibility to each other with words like “You do it.” “What are you saying? You do it.” “No way it's such a hassle.”. The conference dragged on. Those who slept halfway, those who secretly ate catnip all wanted to avoid the harsh punishment that would come later, so each cat tried their best to shrug off the responsibility, trying to bring the conference to an end. The place grew noisy.
However, with one cat's sentence, the atmosphere changed completely.
“Come to think of it, there's someone who's not here participating in the conference meow!”
“Who is it?” “Who meow?”
… They chattered on. The cats looked at one another in the face. All of them had gathered here for this very important (pain in the ass) conference, so who was the cat that had played truant...?
Here lay a female Kaka deep in peaceful slumber. Knowing nothing of cat conferences and the like, Taokaka curled up in a corner of the village, indulging in her nap.
Always disrupting the group mentality and all but ostracised from the village. After all the cats had finished their investigation, Taokaka dragged her tail and other parts to the centre of the plaza, stopping in front of the cat-god statue.
The elder's paw on her head seemed to be saying “not you again”. However Taokaka didn't seemed to be concerned, and scratched her head with her hind leg, before starting to play with the insects that had gathered by the fire.
“Taokaka, do you like to take walks?”
“Yup meow”
The elder laughed and continued.
“Since you like walks so much I have a job for you...”
“No way meow.”
“What...?!”
With a “It sounds like a drag” Taokaka started to turn.
“Hm. If you were to perform this extremely simple task then I was going to give you a year's supply of top-class catnip but...”
“I'll do it meow! You should have said so earlier meow.”
Thus, the job that was actually supposed to be dignified and solemn, went to Taokaka, who undertook the task of visiting the humans' town. Just maybe, if Taokaka performed her mission admirably, the Kaka village could take back their sun...?
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