Benten was never the kind of chick to handle getting bored well. It's how stuff tended to get broken. Luckily for her, Lum and her fiance were living on this really interesting and backwards planet. They might not have the most advanced tech, but every time she visited they were always up to something strange. Some new quirky magical thing always came up, or some weird new person to make fun of, or maybe something as simple as a social tradition that could really lighten the load on her boredom.
So, down she came upon her flying bike. Cackling and pondering on what sorta weird shit she'd get up to when she landed. That was the fun of it though, no way to know, no way to predict until she got there. As she was about to land, she felt... something odd in the air, but it offered no resistance so she paid it no mind so she could instead focus on her landing.
"Picture perfect, as always!" she rubbed her finger under her nose in triumph. "Now let's see, they'll either be at Moroboshi's place or the school, so let's start by looking for his house in this... Uh... Wha?"
The scenery had changed a bit since last she visited. Benten felt pretty sure she'd remember things like pretty naked women being carved out the sides of mountains and buildings and weird prancing beasts with goofy faces. Not to mention the trees which didn't look like they could have possibly evolved anywhere in the universe. Then there was the grass -
"Go for my thighs again, and I'll eat you up raw," Benten warned without even looking down. The grass shied away, showing signs of intelligence and a keen survival instinct. Which plants on Earth didn't have so far as she knew.
What was going on around here? Had she landed in the right place? Benten scooted over to her bike and checked the instruments. Yeah, this was the right place. Earth. Tomobiki. But it didn't look anything like what she remembered it looking like before.
Most others would've been worried by that observation. This kinda freaky transformation would usually be unsettling, right? She oughta be worried for her friends, for her own safety. Well. For Benten, it was just what the doctor ordered! A bit of excitement. A mystery! Haha! Benten popped open a concealed compartment on her bike, then dug her arm in way, way deeper than you would suppose that she should be able to given the available space, then hauled out a deerstalker and a magnifying glass.
It turns out that some images and ideas are even more universal than we realise.
"Shame Oyuki ain't here, she always gets a kick outta playing Watson," Benten sighed. On went the deerstalker, and in front of her left eye went the magnifying glass. "Time to look for clues!"
Easy to say, but where to start? Aha! A trio of girls went by dressed up in school uniforms. Benten didn't much care for the fashion sense of this planet. The people here were way too prudish about covering their bodies. So, at the very least that much hadn't changed much.
Then the grass struck. Benten jumped forward almost right away. Damned stupid grass, attacking those girls like that! She was gonna give it a piece of her -
"Kya!" the girls squealed as the grass flipped up their skirts. And that was all it was doing. Flipping their skirts. Not trying to hurt them or even touch them. Only their clothing. "Stupid perverted skirt flipping grass!"
Aha, a clue! Benten peered at the grass through the magnifying glass, noting the plant was notably keeping away from her as she walked. Skirt flipping grass? Scenery that looked like naked women? No doubt about it. This was Moroboshi's doing!
"Uh... to be honest, I'm kind of starting to like it when the grass flips my skirt," one girl confessed.
"Ew!" the other two said, though both of them shuddered a bit as well, given Benten the impression they were more saying that for appearances than anything else. "Yep. Definitely the work of Ataru Moroboshi!"
Benten hunched her back, put one hand behind her back and peered through the magnifying glass in a pose most of us would consider quite cliche as she walked in the approximate direction of Ataru Moroboshi's home. Her mind was full of possibilities here: Moroboshi had somehow overwritten local reality, and it was clearly having an effect on the mentality of those nearby. She studied the ground with care, checking to see if there was any sign of how this change had come about -
When all of a sudden her vision was full of the most frightful, hideous thing imaginable.
"I see great fortune in your features," said Cherry the monk.
"Gah!!" Benten yelled, replete with two exclamation marks so you knew exactly how terrified she was. "Don't do that!" she yelled, clutching at her heart. Benten was a tough chick, but being subjected to a magnified close up view of Cherry's features - She'd have to make sure that was added to the list of forbidden weapons of intergalactic war, pronto! It was far too cruel and unusual!
"Hrm... this grass is rather peculiar, don't you think?" Cherry said, plucking up a blade, crunching it up into powder and then blowing it right into Benten's face. "Hrm... yes, no mistake of it. I would recognise this compound anywhere. Each blade of skirt flipping grass is releasing a small dose of a narcotic substance that only affects women. In essence conditioning them to enjoy the experience of having their skirts flipped without them even noticing."
"First off, you just blew that in my - " Woah, Benten had to catch herself there before she fell over. "You blew that in my face, you ass!"
"I am not a donkey," Cherry sniffed, unconsciously crunching up another blade of grass in his hand. He looked at it in annoyance, then wiped it off on Benten's leg.
"C-Cut that - Ooooh boy," Benten clutched her head and tried in vain to hold off a smile. "How do you even know about this stuff anyway?"
"I was a young man once as well," Cherry said indignantly. Now Benten was sure he was bullshitting her. This was the kind of old man who was born an old man. "Aha! I just now realised!"
"Yeah?" Benten asked in spite of herself.
"It's really quite important that you answer this question honestly."
Huh. This sounded pretty serious. "Okay," Benten said, sounding equally serious.
"Are you... cosplaying as Sherlock Holmes right now?"
Benten tumbled over, facefaulting... right into a patch of skirt flipping gra- Oohhh boy that's the good shit. She kipped up onto her feet right away and scowled down at the old pest, making ready to punt him into the distance. "What kinda stupid ass question is that?! How would I know anything about the great detective Sherlock Holmes? It's not like we've been monitoring Earth's radio signals for decades!"
"I only ask because I play a mean Doctor Watson," Cherry calmly answered. Wearing a stethoscope and... was that a water pistol! Cherry looked at it on noticing Benten looking at it. "Well, he was always known for being the one who was armed out of the two of them, after all..."
"Ya call that being armed?!"
"It's full of holy water."
Ugh! Benten threw up her arms and walked off. She could feel the headache coming from a mile away. At least, she hoped it was a headache and not withdrawal symptoms.
"What was I doing again?" she wondered aloud while rubbing her temple.
"You were going to the Moroboshi residence to investigate how he's altered local reality."
"Right!" she yelled, and dashed off to leave the old monk in the dirt. The last thing she needed right now was him blowing more of that addictive stuff onto her!
"The Moroboshi residence is to the left, not the right!" Cherry yelled, and Benten immediately did a U-turn towards the proper direction. Though after she had done so Cherry added in a much quieter voice, "Not that he'll be there at the moment. He'll be at school right now for at least half a day."
- Shinobu discovers the addictive properties of the skirt flipping grass through her investigations.
- Benten arrives at the Moroboshi place, where things are... even stranger than everywhere else.
- Benten runs into another character en route, resulting in a brief misadventure.
- Another character has noticed the oddities in the area and tries to investigate. Tries. Fails.
- Something else.
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