[FFML] [Lucky Star] Ten Percent Ch 1

[Seijio Arakawa]

Brief self-introduction: hello! My name isn't Seijio Arakawa, but
that's how you'll have to refer to me. Given the fact that this is
primarily a Lucky Star fic, I decided to send this one out to to FFML
as well as my usual hangout, in order to maximize the likelihood that
someone who remotely cares about Lucky Star will read it.


This is a rewrite. The original version is somewhere on ff.net, and
was written before I knew what characterization was or why it's
important... yeah, you may laugh... So, yes, a rewrite seemed like a
good idea, and if someone feels like subjecting my rewrite to some
scathing criticism, it would be much appreciated.


And yeah, the title is pretentious as anything. Still, it's there for
a good reason.


# Ten Percent Worth Dying For


## Season 1: This Universe is Experiencing Technical Difficulties


### Chapter 1, in which Legendary Girl A gets hit by a bus


Standard Disclaimer: fanfiction consists of derivative works written
by fans who wish to enhance appreciation of the original works, not
supplant them! Please support the creators of the original works
referenced in this fanfic, particularly Lucky Star.


<hr/>


It was on a bright, clear morning in late February that Konata Izumi
got hit by a bus.


She had walked into Animate's flagship Ikebukuro location that morning
to do some browsing. She was not looking for anything specific, just
trying to stay in the habit. Well, she could acquire the obligatory
third copy of that obscure and irrelevant alternate-universe Haruhi
manga, but her allowance was finite and purchases had to be
prioritized. Konata's best practice for anything she bought was: get
the first copy as soon as it comes out; the second after a timeout of
about a month, to give the prices time to fall; and the third "in case
my house burns down" edition, to be stashed offsite in Dad's rented
storage locker, the moment there was a lull in new releases to spend
money on.


The thoroughbred otaku's visits traced a surprisingly wide circuit
across the greater Tokyo area, checking frequently for
spur-of-the-moment deals that might not have been advertised over the
Internet. A capacious mind was occupied with anything but schoolwork:
scheduling the journeys; finding bizarre loopholes in Tokyo transport
regulations that allowed her to save thousands of yen a year on train
tickets; allocating her allowance a million hypothetical ways among
possible acquisitions, sometimes wheedling on-the-spot discounts out
of clerks; and, finally and most importantly, consuming the obtained
material in many-night marathons of gaming, watching, reading. And she
still found the energy to hang out with her friends, wasting hours and
hours of *their* time in endless conversations about food, the
weather, and assorted other trivialities. Of course, even then Konata
would always try to steer the conversation topic towards anime.


All this and a couple of other traits were what made her 'Legendary
Girl A', famous, and even somewhat sought after as a customer by bored
storekeepers and greasy-faced producers of doujins. The staff of this
particular Animate, however, had a couple of additional facts on her
that were not public knowledge. Facts that explained why they were
particularly desperate to sell something to her. Most days, the had
terrible luck doing this. (Being so close to downtown, Konata
considered the Ikebukuro location fun to visit, but low on her list of
places likely to have good deals.) But on this particular day...


As she came in on this particular day, Konata was spotted by a
brown-haired assistant named Giro. He matched the entering girl to the
description he'd been given: long-haired blunette with ahoge, check.
Short, appears to be about twelve years old (despite being in her
upper year of high school already, the mission briefing had stressed),
check. Perpetual sleepy-satisfied catlike facial expression, check. It
was her!


"Aoi-Tencho-sama! Legendary Girl A... has arrived once more!" he
announced to the back room of the store.


Now, it bears saying that the unnecessarily ridiculous name referred
to Giro's boss "Aoi-Tencho", or the infamous Green Shift Manager,
known to always work tirelessly for the sale, obsessively seek to
satisfy the hidden desires of any and all anime-loving customers, and
relentlessly push his subordinates to new heights of accomplishment in
the field of retail. He was considered by those who knew him to be a
pretty intense guy.


"WHAT!?" Tencho screamed as though being struck by lightning.


He collected his wits soon enough, however. Once again, he was being
faced with the test of a lifetime!


"Now listen carefully, everyone! She may have shaken us off last
time... but today! We must absolutely make sure that she reaches the
goal known as our cash register, do you hear me?"


The staff cheered their leader wildly, and went through a quick
Employee Morale Ritual. It involved pumping their fists and screaming
like maniacs, and it put them in the correct mood to perform their
assigned roles with efficiency and precision.


For the Green Shift Manager could inspire his staff like no one else
could. Most certainly it would be the infamous Green Shift Manager
(and not his stupid rival, the Red Shift Manager) who would
successfully sell Legendary Girl A an item from his store! Any sort of
item would do!! But moreover!!! Green Shift Manager would have to use
his sleight of hand to surreptitiously enclose within this item a
certain artefact. Forged by a staff of trained writers over countless
grueling months of analysis of otaku fads, both inane and
not-so-inane:


The Preferred Ultimate Fanfiction.


Legendary Girl A would find the Preferred Ultimate Fanfiction enclosed
with her purchase when she got home. She would read it. She would
perhaps even be mildly amused at the contents. And as a result, all
would be right with the world. Perhaps Tencho might even get a raise
afterwards for doing such a good job.


Well, he could dream, couldn't he?


"She seems to be at a loss," Giro noted to the Manager as they
observed their target from behind a rack of recent manga editions.


"Then," the Manager permitted himself an ominous-sounding chuckle, "we
shall help her find her way."


Tencho withdrew to the back room, while Giro moved stealthily through
a parallel aisle until he was adjacent to Konata.


Oblivious to the ninja-like actions of the shopkeepers, the young
otaku's gaze slid over the shelves, with no particular objective in
mind.


"Tencho," the clerk watching her reported into a two-way radio,
"attempting to determine Legendary Girl A's objective for the day."


"Good, good," answered Tencho, and turned to his blonde assistant.
"What's the newest comic out?"


What was the assistant's name again? Gero, or something? He cursed the
fact that, for some obscure security reason, headquarters insisted on
replacing his staff every two weeks.


Gero (or whatever she was called) did some lightning-fast Internet research:


"Volume 14 of Sgt. Frog, sah!"


"Excellent!!" shouted Tencho. The courageous and diligent labours of
Animate's logistics department had already ensured that the comics in
question would be waiting in the back. They just needed to be
unpacked.


"Be sure to raise the height of the goods to the appropriate height
for Legendary Girl A, and deploy the supplementary flyers!"


"Tama! Tama!" a third assistant shouted for completely unknown reasons
as she began to rearrange the shelves faster (and far more neatly)
than a tornado ever could.


In the aisle, Konata paused in confusion. Did something just move
past... wait. Were these Sgt. Frog comics on the shelf a second ago?


Whatever. Let's see what's on sale elsewhere in the store.


"Manager!" shouted Giro in panic. "Her objective was not the comics section!"


"WHAT!!!!?" shouted Tencho. All that work had been for nothing?


"Tencho, sir!" came the response. "Switching target to the DVD section."


"Understood. Thank you, uh," he tried to remember the brown-haired
clerk's name, "Giro, was it?"


No matter. The other assistants were in the back room waiting for their orders.


"Just to be sure," Tencho told them, "block all side paths so that
Legendary Girl A will be forced to proceed directly to the new release
section."


Konata was startled to find two female clerks standing in her way with boxes.


"Gero-gero-gero-gero buildup!" one yelled, having first apologized
profusely for blocking Konata's escape.


"Tama-tama-tama-tama buildup!" the other echoed.


"Okay..." replied Konata and indeed found herself with no choice but
to proceed to the new release shelf.


Hmm, here was a promising title. She picked it up, wondering why it
suddenly felt like she was doing something momentuous and kind of
stupid, as though she was Gendo Ikari about to unleash Third Impact.


Taking his position behind the cash register, Tencho nearly gave an
excited laugh, but stopped himself in time. He'd finally become a
winner today!


"Comrades!!" he whispered into the two-way radio, "Let us certainly
have a riotous celebration tonight!"


"Yes sah!" everyone responded enthusiastically.


Tencho suddenly found his focus slipping as a weird fantasy played
itself in his mind of lying on a beach with beautiful girls who were
expressing great interest in his anime collection...


Ennh, thought Konata. On the other hand, I can always buy this DVD
when the price goes down. She put it back down on the shelf.


"**It was a feint!**" Giro screamed.


"**NOOOO!!!!!**" Tencho shouted as he saw Legendary Girl A turn to
exit the shop entirely.


Would he doomed to lose another several weeks waiting for her to show
up again? Not to mention the fact that, in an unusual stroke of
workplace sadism, his boss had wired the displays to explode whenever
they failed to sell something to Legendary Girl A.


No, seriously.


<hr/>


[Tencho had questioned the decision.]


"Sir," he had told his superior the first time this arrangement had
been devised, "I must protest this arrangement! The amounts of C-4
indicated on the mission document are truly ludicrous! Building safety
codes aside, the ensuing explosion would inconvenience our valued
customers and disrupt the careful arrangement of our merchandise!"


"Which is why you are not going to fail this time, Anizawa," he was
admonished sternly. "After all, with this scheme I have devised, you
have every incentive to succeed and every incentive to not fail. The
logic is utterly flawless."


"But... the measure is still beyond any reasonable stretch of the
imagination! The overall profile of the mission... I mean, a simple,
if oddly specific, marketing operation is turned into a high-stakes
gamble! Are you expressing a subtle doubting of my enthusiasm? I do
not need a carrot and stick to give my all for the sake of the
customer! I thought I'd proven that already, even beyond your wildest
wishes! And even against them on many occasions! Now, when our
interests in the area of selling something are so perfectly aligned, I
am ready and willing to perform with a zeal above and beyond even what
I have demonstrated before! I do not need this outdated Skinner
Box..."


Tencho's protest was silenced by an ominous glinting of glasses.


"I've heard it said that an army fights most ferociously when it is
trapped by circumstances, with no chance of cowardly retreat, faced
with a choice between victory and death," came the inexorable reply.
"It is certainly true from my perspective! And so, it seems a useful
principle to try. Perhaps if you fail again I will explain to you just
*why* Legendary Girl A is so important. But trust me, you would sleep
better at night without having to know that awful truth!"


And there had been no arguing with the man. Tencho sweated. If they
were to fail now... they'd have to spend hours reshelving the
resulting mess. Just like the last time this had happened, for this
was not the first time that Legendary Girl A had wandered into the
Tencho's domain!


<hr/>


Thankfully, Tencho consoled himself, Legendary Girl A had at least
shown up during a lull in business and the store was nearly empty;
hence, at least they weren't going to have to answer awkward questions
from singed customers...


And that would have been that, if not for the fact that, before
leaving, Konata paused momentarily before the Bin of Shame.


The Ikebukuro Bin of Shame, as some previous and now-forgotten shift
of clerks had christened it before the Legendary Girl A days, was
where particularly stupid things the store wanted to get rid of were
dumped, to be purchased by severely deranged people at
bargain-basement prices. (It may be somewhat poetic hyperbole, but the
average price of the items in the bin could be compared to that of raw
sewage.)


As Konata suppressed a mild and very easily-suppressed urge to sort
through the Bin of Shame and satisfy a morbid sense of curiosity,
Tencho suddenly saw his ending.


It was silly, but workable. He would have to use his ultimate trump
card for it. It had been installed as a last resort to be used only
after all last resorts had failed. He had been warned that using it
repeatedly would lead to inevitable character derailment, particularly
for a person of his temperament! And yet... the nightmare had to end
today!! He, the infamous Green Shift Manager, would personally deliver
to Konata Izumi the Preferred Ultimate Fanfiction, and with his own
two hands bring about the creation of a brave new world, a world
where, where...


... he would continue having a pretty spiffy time running a store, he supposed.


Still, a noble cause well worth fighting for!


He smiled grimly, wiped some stray drool from the corner of his mouth
with the back of his hand, adjusted his cap, looked Konata directly in
the eye...


(Konata wondered why the clerk behind the counter, who looked
something like Ash Ketchum cosplayed by way of Yu-Gi-Oh by a man far,
far too old for the role, was staring at her. No, scratch that, there
was probably a far more interesting reference she could make at this
point...)


... and activated the full hypnotic power of his Code Geass parody.


*Hey, maybe I could make a reference that incorporates Code Geass
somehow,* thought Konata, seconds before all semblance of coherent
thought vanished from her brain.


"**Now then,**" Tencho's voice seemed to fill the room, overwhelming
the young girl's will immediately, "**you will bring a *super-rare*,
*bargain*, *out-of-print* DVD out of that bin to me and purchase
it**."


He emphasized the nature of the requested product carefully, in order
to make sure he was harnessing the girl's own desire to obtain just
such an item. Hopefully Geassed people didn't pick up on sarcasm.


"**... moreover, you will not notice or question my actions when I
tear the DVD case open and insert a small book that will, trust me,
blow your mind when you get home.**"


That would probably do the trick.


As a bonus, the 'blow your mind' comment would force the girl to
actually *enjoy* Preferred Ultimate Fanfiction. That had definitely
not been a concern of its creators, but Green Shift Manager felt it
his duty to ensure the enjoyment of all his customers.


Even if in this case, he was being forced to resort to such
underhanded tactics in order to do so!


"Tencho. She is picking up the item," confirmed Giro over the radio.


"Excellent. Proceed as planned."


Tencho licked his lips in anticipation.


"Ooh, what a beautiful scene! The invisible crowd within me is
cheering with wild applause at this very moment!"


"We did it!" echoed the female clerks, jumping up and down
ecstatically as Konata grabbed an item at random from the bin without
even looking at it.


It turned out to be a DVD re-release of a cosmically incompetent
English VHS dub of a famous eighties cinematic anime. Very limited
edition -- in fact, only one copy was ever produced, rumoured to have
been meticulously faked by a disturbed otaku for the express purpose
of annoying a certain famous anime director. The director had been not
merely annoyed but also horrified; in a rare loss of self-control, he
expressed his horror by hot-headedly flinging the DVD case into the
ocean while visiting the coastal village of Tomonoura, at which point,
like a cursed Amazonian artefact, it was immediately recovered from
the bottom of the bay by a garbage dredging barge.


Observing this unnatural feat of probability, the director ran as fast
as possible in the other direction, and then formulated the initial
idea for his next movie about a small boy finding a talking tin frog
by the seashore.


As for the DVD, it was saved intact from the landfill by a garbage
worker oblivious to its true nature and given to an otaku running a
local video store. This otaku was suitably horrified, but could not
bring himself to destroy the thing, due to its undeniable rarity. He
simply palmed it off to another otaku as quickly as he could, and from
there it had been handed off from otaku to otaku like a radioactive
hot potato, spreading horror and misery and doing time in various
remainder bins across the country.


Now it had ended up in the remainder bin of Animate's Ikebukuro store,
where Konata had picked it up and was now proposing to buy it under
the influence of Geass.


The employees threw up a little in their mouths when they saw the
title. Tencho was worried. He hoped to God his wording had been
sufficiently precise. Had he doomed the poor girl to actually *enjoy*
this... truly bottom of the barrel DVD release?


There was another slight problem: due simply to the item's rarity, it
was by several orders of magnitude the most expensive thing to be had
in the entire Bin of Shame....


"That will be 1,785 yen," Tencho announced, having scanned the thing,
opened the case, and added the Preferred Ultimate Fanfiction that had
been his real reason to sell something to Kontat in the first place.


Konata emptied all the bills from her wallet, and began wordlessly to
dig in the corners for loose change.


... as it turned out, Konata hadn't come prepared that day. All that
advanced train journey scheduling, and yet she hadn't bothered to
bring a fresh wad of bills? Well, Konata was just that kind of person
sometimes.


She started to put her loose change into the tray, one coin at a time.


The tension in the air could be cut with a knife.


Down to one-yen coins now, clinking down into the change tray. Almost
there, Legendary Girl A! Don't let us down now!


The other employees forgot to put up even the slightest pretence of a
cover. Noses very nearly pressed up against the change tray, they
crowded Konata from all sides. Tencho would have made a mental note to
sternly admonish them later, had he not also been preoccupied with the
scene before him.


Konata rummaged in the corners of her wallet one last time and came up
with nothing.


"Oh, I'm sorry. Three yen short," she noted in an indifferent tone
that (though she did not know it) was pure torture to the clerks
hanging on to her every word.


Tencho could see it. In another nanosecond she would grab the money
back and leave. All that advanced preparation... gone... for
absolutely nothing!


Could he ever look his subordinates in the eye again?


He began to sweat profusely, like a triathlete about to collapse of
exhaustion with the finish line was already in sight. This was going
to require some of the quickest thinking he'd ever done in his entire
life!!


"Animate Salesmanship -- Innovative School Manoeuvre: super advanced
context sensitive discount!!! TAKE A PENNY..."


He telegraphed the motion from a mile away, startling the girl and
thereby buying himself another half a nanosecond during which time his
hand dipped into the open cash register, too fast for the naked eye to
observe....


"... LEAVE ..."


Konata could only counter this sudden assault by sweatdropping, which
was a truly foolish and ineffective tactic against the unstoppable
Tencho!


It had been the closest he had ever come to absolute defeat, today out
of all the days of his miserable life, but no matter, with this ultra
advanced technique he would be able to recover. The sale would return
to territory he would be intimately familiar with, where none had ever
stood against him and left the field with their wallet intact. Nor
would the Legendary Girl standing before him be any different -- the
DVD, and the all-important memetic payload it carried, would make its
way to her anime collection as surely as the sun was going to rise
tomorrow. He would survive! He would overcome!


"... A PENNY!!!!"


He would at last be free of his burden!


He had also just shouted a bunch of Engrish at a schoolgirl at the top
of his voice, knocked her hand out of the way with a karate chop
(thereby defeating the hygienic purpose of having a change tray), and
generally acted in an intimidating manner towards his customer. On any
other day, this would be an unacceptable breach of the basic
principles of anime retail. However, some days one had to make
sacrifices. The basic purpose of the technique had been achieved:
three one-yen coins had miraculously appeared in the tray where none
could be found before.


"Waugh!" Konata took a step back. "Hey, you scared me! What is this
'take-a-penny leave-a-penny' thing?"


Such was the peril of using a forbidden American sales tactic on
someone who had probably never even heard of it before. It worked, but
in the aftermath you had a tendency to look nearly as silly as your
defeated opponent, if not more so.


"It's, uh, huhh, just what we do here!" Tencho recovered lamely.
"Since you're such a valued customer we can surely discount three yen
on this here purchase...."


"Why do you consider me a valued customer if I've never bought
anything from your store?" Konata wondered, tilting her head to one
side.


The scope of the Geass was probably running out. In a moment, she
would probably notice exactly what she was buying and refuse. If only
she had left the store by then! He could parry any subsequent
complaints by stating that items from the Bin of Shame were
non-refundable, and really, how could she not want to buy such a
*rare* item for only 1,785 yen?


"Just take the bag and go! Go!" he whispered, waving Konata towards
the door before she could react.


Good, she was leaving.


He breathed a sigh of relief as he realized the full scope of what he
had just accomplished. Based on the few hints his boss had deigned to
drop about this situation, he had probably just saved the entire
concept of objective reality as he knew it.


In any case, the cheering crowd within him was giving a heartfelt
standing ovation, and he felt a sense of peace and accomplishment he
had not felt in a long time.


Outside the store, Konata stared at the item she'd bought, puzzled.
How had 'Warriors of the Wind' ended up on this side of the Pacific?
For that matter, when did it manage to get a DVD release? Having heard
of the cinematic concoction, Konata was pretty sure that even bringing
the thing into the country would be punishable as high treason against
the Japanese culture. The cover art was pretty laughable. She opened
it to check if the DVD label would be just as laughable, and stared in
confusion at the title on the surprisingly thick insert booklet:


<center>**Ten Percent Worth Dying For**</center>


<center>*The Preferred Ultimate Fanfiction*</center>


<center>*Being a crossover between the animes Lucky Star, Haruhi
Suzumiya, Evangelion, and whatever else the authors thought to throw
in at the last minute.*</center>


What the hell was that about? Konata thought. Curiouser and curiouser.
Moreover, she had never heard of this "Lucky Star" anime, which
personally irked her. She worked hard at becoming the queen of otaku.
Surely she should have heard of every anime and manga ever created!


What if staid, studious lawyer-child *Kagami* suddenly made a Lucky
Star reference one day and Konata didn't catch it?


Konata would never live something like that down.


Something was not right, and she was determined to get to the bottom
of it. She'd have to cancel her other store visits and drop in on the
Hiiragis' an entire three hours earlier than they'd invited her, and
put off that evening's gaming session to make room for an extra long
all-nighter spent scouring the Internet for any details she could find
on this apparently obscure anime!


She removed the booklet from the case, giving it a place of honour in
her bag instead. She'd have time to read it when she got home.


Should she phone ahead to inform the Hiiragis that she would be coming
early? Bah! The Hiiragi twins, Kagami and Tsukasa, would probably
react worse to an advance warning than they generally did to any
situation where Konata showed up at their doorstep completely
unannounced. Which is to say, if given advance warning, Tsukasa would
insist on taking the trouble to bake cookies at triple speed in time
for Konata's arrival, whereas Kagami would grouse inconclusively over
the phone at Konata's complete lack of good timing, then deign to
accept her visitation anyways. Not worth the trouble.


Tsukasa Hiiragi was the absolutely carefree 'younger' twin of the
pair. She baked things, found school intimidating, but otherwise had a
perfectly sunny disposition. A basically complete picture of her
personality could be derived, or so Konata thought, once you added the
observation that she liked to wear a hair ribbon.


Kagami Hiiragi was a more difficult case. It would be most fair to
describe her as Konata's longtime verbal sparring partner. Konata
herself would be more blunt and apt and announce to Kagami's face that
she was a textbook *tsundere*, right down to having her hair done up
in allegedly stereotypical lavender twin tails...


<hr/>


[A hands-on demonstration of tsundere baiting.]


Calling Kagami a tsundere would in fact be part of a concerted effort
on Konata's part to touch a nerve, as twin-tailed girl's response
might be along the lines of: "and what the hell does my hair have to
do with my personality type? In case you haven't noticed, there's not
even such a thing as natural lavender hair! It's dyed, you clueless
nocturnal mutant!"


Oddly, getting accused of being strange things like a 'clueless
mutant' would cause Konata to puff up proudly as though she'd unlocked
a video game achievement and mutter something about a 'new best time',
prompting her sparring partner to deflate correspondingly:


"I give up," Kagami would utter before beating a hasty retreat into
some other topic, "anyhow, did you hear the recent news about the Jet
Alone scandal? Apparently Youkai Group was concealing the full extent
of investment made in the project, and as a result of that, the whole
conglomerate is projected to topple like a bunch of dominoes...."


(Kagami took pride in keeping up to date with current affairs.)


"Wasn't Jet Alone that company trying to make giant robots or
something? Anyone who decides to pursue a worthwhile dream like that
can't be all that bad!"


(Contrariwise, Konata took immense pride in remaining utterly clueless
of real-world affairs, current or otherwise.)


"You should be more concerned," Kagami said with utmost seriousness,
"given that most of our school's funding comes from Youkai. I'm
worried that the place could get shut down over spring break."


<hr/>


Perhaps Kagami's character was due solely to Konata's baleful
influence, always keeping her on edge? But no, that couldn't be the
only reason. For instance, Kagami and Konata were in different
sections at school, which meant hours upon hours of time when Kagami
would be free to express any contrary tendencies not being brought out
by Konata's presence. However, she generally chose to spend that time
acting irritated at the frankly bizarre antics of one Misao Kusakabe,
whom she'd known since grade school. In short, she definitely had the
makings of a tsundere, and was moreover inevitably drawn to anyone who
might bring out her sarcastic edge.


However, Konata mused to herself, being truly tsundere has to involve
an entire character development arc, including a romantic foil who
would eventually crack open the character's spiky shell to reveal a
gentle interior world. In the meantime, constantly goading Kagami was
Konata's one great public service to the world. For the tougher and
spikier Kagami's *tsuntsun* shell turned out to be, the more soft,
gooey, and wonderful her *deredere* inside would turn out for whoever
persevered to crack that shell open. Or at least, such was the otaku
rationalization for the deed; mostly, Konata just found it fun to rile
her friend up. And, deep down, Kagami didn't even mind the routine
*that* much.


Now if Kagami were to have a romantic foil, it would have to be
someone like... someone like....


Konata was coming up blank on that one for some reason.


And it was from this point on that the otaku's thoughts sped towards a
baleful conclusion.


So Kagami Hiiragi was in fact only a proto-tsundere. What else did
Konata know about her best friend? Well, she was also a good student,
that went without saying. Dutiful towards her friends and family...
Indeed! All of Kagami's behaviour followed inexorably from these basic
principles. However! One year from now they would all be graduating
high school. One of the three essential pillars of Kagami's character
would be removed forever. University just couldn't measure up to high
school in terms of automatic character potential.


What forces would shape Kagami's future destiny? Well, whenever the
topic of her future career came up in her school studies, Kagami
proved herself to be one of those "doctor or lawyer" types. Konata
didn't know of any memorable tsundere doctor characters, so that was
probably an inauspicious combination for whatever reason. Hence Kagami
would have to become a lawyer instead. So far, so good. But lawyers
were such ordinary, boring people!


Hence, it would be necessary, no, essential for Kagami's further story
arc that she become bored with lawyering, brilliant as she would
inevitably be at it. She could, for instance, get frustrated with the
poor quality of investigation of some down-on-his-luck detective,
which allowed horrible criminals to roam free. She would become a
detective herself, and show that man how to do the job properly! Cue
unlikely romance, happy ending, and endless series of spin-off shows,
doujinshi, and merchandise.


Konata stepped back in her imagination and admired the chain of
reasoning thus far. It led inexorably to an image of Kagami Hiiragi,
brilliant tsundere lawyer-attorney by day, ace detective at night.


It was the most amazing thing Konata had ever imagined in her entire
life! (Well, overstating a little, but still, wouldn't it be awesome?)
A shame it would never happen quite that way. If only Kagami had a
dark, murky backstory filled with things like a career of
street-fighting in her teenage years! Konata would declare her
eventual development into a tsundere lawyer detective inevitable.
Alas, the girl had a despicably ordinary past filled with things like
studying, hanging out with friends, and nagging Konata about her
unfinished homework!


Huh... well, it was surprisingly easy for Konata to think about her
friends' futures when she imagined them as leading characters in an
anime. It occured to Konata that she wouldn't be able to think about
herself that way, though. Who would want to watch an anime with *her*
as the main character? No, maybe the actual main character goes to
school, or maybe they're a regular at the cosplay cafe Konata works
at, and she's always there in the background, always saying something
ridiculous or interesting, but never actually advancing the plot. So
there was no realistic character arc that Konata could construct for
herself. So there was nothing to do but go home from whatever day job
she'd end up drifting into and do otaku things every day for the rest
of her life.


Well, Konata was quite happily resigned to her own fate, but she still
felt morally obligated to do something to ensure Kagami's further
development! The character potential was there, and it would be a
crime to waste it! The only question was, what could a blue-haired
otaku -- whose very words would not be taken seriously by anyone --
manage to accomplish?


Miyuki mentioned reading this weird thing on the Internet, what was
the name again...


インテンショーン・マニフェステーショーン立場


... "the intention-manifestation viewpoint"? She couldn't remember a
single thing about what that had meant. Storyboard artist, please
insert yet another convenient flashback here if you please!


<hr/>


[One day in class, Miyuki Takara inadvertently teaches Konata how to
ignore the constraints of objective reality.]


"... was on the phone trying to figure out the source of the stink in
the office for that night job I was telling you about," Miyuki was
explaining to Kagami one morning before class. "They're going to come
and have a look at it, though."


"Miyuki-chan, onee-chan, good morning!" Tsukasa called as she and
Konata rolled into the classroom.


"Oh, you're both cutting it a bit close today," Kagami noted
threateningly, pointing at the clock (just over a minute left until
classes started). "Let's see, Tsukasa is off the hook because she had
a cold recently, so it's good to sleep in a little each morning...."


Konata was jumping up and down like a small child, raising her hand as
though to say 'Oh, pick me! Pick me! Say something nice to me too!'


Kagami frowned evilly as she shifted her gaze to the blunette, "You,
on the other hand...."


"All-night gaming session," Konata stated simply, and reverted to her
sleepy eyesmile.


People who interacted with Konata quickly figured out that the reason
she looked perpetually sleepy was because she really was perpetually
sleepy due to endless unproductive all-nighters.


"Well then," Kagami crossed her arms and leaned back contemplatively,
"I'll leave you to flounder and struggle through today's morning
period. Don't ask me to lend you my homework afterwards."


"Kuroi-sensei sure is late today, isn't she?" Konata noted innocently
to the others as Kagami turned to leave the room.


This made Kagami look over her shoulder with mock puzzlement. Weren't
Konata and Kuroi-sensei in the same gaming party or something?


"Honestly," she said aloud, "you're a bad influence on sensei. This
will all end in tears, I just know it. Anyhow, guess I'll see you guys
at lunch," she waved, hurrying to her own class.


There, she would feel immensely thankful to be taught by a teacher who
didn't spend ludicrous amounts of time online with Konata.


"Anyhow," continued Konata, "Miyuki-san, what were you saying about
having a part-time job? Guess that means I'm not the only one with
employment here now..."


"I'm curious too, to hear more about what kind of job Miyuki-chan
would have..." Tsukasa said, putting a finger to her mouth in
wonderment and sizing up her innocuous-looking classmate.


Miyuki Takara was one of those rare individuals who combined several
contradictory traits into an utterly self-evident whole, such that it
is difficult to explain or communicate exactly how the assembly
worked, whether through words or even visually. Simultaneously
ludicrously clumsy and impeccably competent; extremely well-informed
(to the point of being considered the school's walking encyclopedia),
yet with odd gaps in her knowledge; this was not to mention being
simultaneously older and younger than everyone else in the class, both
in terms of looks and in terms of how mature or childish she could be.
Even her uniform was *paradoxically* a shade pinker than any other
schoolgirl's in spite of the fact that they were supposed to be
dressed according to a strict standard. Or maybe that was just an
optical illusion due to her long pink hair.


(Konata was, once again, far more blunt and succinct, and described
her as a textbook *moe* type, with Tsukasa being considered a close
runner-up in that category.)


"Oh, nothing much," Miyuki waved off the enquiries, "it's just a
part-time secretarial position of sorts, at this...."


"MIYUKI-CHAN IS A SECRETARY?" screamed Konata, startling the entire
classroom, the classrooms adjacent to it, and the classroom one floor
below.


In the next door class, Kagami buried her face in her hands as her
homeroom teacher looked up from his blackboard, wondering at the
racket.


The sudden choking noise coming from behind Konata was Minoru
Shiraishi, the designated nondescript dweeb of Konata's homeroom
class. He had, unfortunately for his health, decided to make an early
start on his lunch and been startled out of his wits in the midst of
swallowing.


As for Konata, she was now in a sort of catatonic shock state as all
kinds of potential moe situations flashed before her unfocused eyes. A
bit of foam appeared at the corner of her mouth.


"Umm... so you were saying... which company were you working for,
Miyuki-chan?" asked Tsukasa, deciding to ignore the sudden outbreak of
chaos which culminated in Konata trembling apoplectically while some
Good Samaritan loudly and vigorously slapped Shiraishi on the back to
clear his windpipe.


"Right, I was just getting to that," Miyuki resumed, "it's a part-time
secretarial position with the media distribution group Animate..."


"Wait, Animate?" Konata calmed down a little, "Don't those guys have a
truly insane work ethic? How do you survive in an environment like
that?"


She remembered the generally intense demeanour of the clerks who
worked Animate's retail stores, rumoured to be cultivated through
months of grueling and secret training, and truly experienced a
failure of imagination picturing Miyuki getting involved with people
like that.


Miyuki just adjusted her glasses in embarrassment.


"Actually, most of my work consists of assisting their, uh...
marketing department with field research. When I'm actually in the
office there's very little for me to do. I generally practice my
English skills through recreational web surfing..." she trailed off
guiltily.


"Wow, Miyuki is studying things even when she's wasting time!" Tsukasa
exclaimed in admiration.


"Yeah, most office workers generally just play Minesweeper or waste
their time on forums! I know because sometimes I talk to them on the
forums!" Konata added.


Miyuki became even more flustered at this.


"Actually, Konata-san, during my Web surfing I happened to read a blog
article by an American named Steve Pavlina which you might find
interesting." Miyuki smiled, trying to distract everyone from praising
her embarrassingly. "It deals with an experimental attitude to goal
accomplishment called the intention-manifestation viewpoint...."


She paused nervously.


"The intention... manifestation viewpoint?" repeated Tsukasa slowly,
trying to picture how long these two words would be if you wrote them
out in katakana.


"If Miyuki-chan recommends it... sure! I wish Kagami were here, she'd
back me up that I'm a pioneer of experimental attitudes to goal
accomplishment!" Konata said enthusiastically, "Explain away!"


"Well, I have to caution that I didn't quite understand all of it, and
I'm really not certain if it's a sound idea. But the author seemed to
start from the premise that all of reality is a controllable,
subjective dream that is seen by the conscious mind. It's called a
viewpoint because this is not an assertion that you can prove or
disprove. But if you assume it to be true, the first step to
accomplishing any goal is simply to visualize the desired outcome and
desire it to manifest in reality. Only then will the necessary
resources appear to take action on an objective level. So, in
principle, one can actually rewrite the objective aspects of reality
from this viewpoint, manifesting infinite possibility, and we only
observe a stable reality because most people are very attached to the
notion that there are stable, objective rules that cannot be rewritten
on a whim... although that seems to be sort of trying to twist the
facts to justify a ridiculous premise...."


"..." Konata replied. This Miyuki lecture was turning out to be a
shade more complicated than usual.


"... I'm not even sure myself... but I mean, for instance, most people
organize their time in such a fashion that they would not be able to
spend as much time on recreational activities as Konata-san, while
still being able to interact with her friends as she does. So
according to Pavlina-san's theory, it's possible that the key reason
for this is simply that Konata has become firmly convinced that she
has time to do both these things. The fact that Kuroi-sensei," she
looked at the clock, "is now almost ten minutes late for class might
simply be a coincidence Konata has manifested in order to gain an
additional ten minutes of social interaction time!"


Actually, that sort of, kind of made sense in a looking-glass fashion,
Konata thought. Hadn't she just spent the entire night gaming with
Kuroi-sensei, thereby ensuring she would be completely worn out and
thus unable to show up to teach homeroom on time? And she'd done this
without even consciously planning to!


Hold on, Miyuki was still talking.


"... on the other hand, if Konata were to shift her expectations and
simply think herself capable of finishing her homework in a realistic
fashion, she might find herself suddenly gaining the necessary mental
resources to..."


Homework?? Konata experienced an immediate sense of primal fear and
grabbed Miyuki's uniform in a supplicatory gesture.


"NO! Miyuki-san, I don't want to be a studious lawyer-child like
Kagami is! You'll completely upset the character balance!" she wailed.
"Isn't it enough to have two good students among our number already?
If you're trying to manifest me or whatever to become that way, just
forget it!"


"Ehe," giggled Tsukasa at Konata's sudden movement. She'd sort of
spaced out during the lecture and had been listing names of various
substances in her head. Balsamic vinegar, hydrogen azide, lime
jello... she shook herself to keep from spacing out again.


"Uh... Konata-san... calm down, please! Nobody is trying to force you
to do homework against your will!" Miyuki hastily reassured the
blue-haired girl tugging at her lapels. "It's just an article I read
during some idle web surfing that I thought was kind of interesting...
I'm not certain I buy Pavlina-san's logic in any case, I just thought
it was really interesting how a logical-sounding argument can make
ignoring the objective circumstances of reality seem like a reasonable
strategy..."


"Kona-chan seems to be developing an allergic reaction to homework,"
Tsukasa laughed, "she wasn't anywhere near so bad about it last year!"


(Tsukasa said this a bit sheepishly because, in fact, she did not
number among the 'two good students' Konata had alluded to in her
frightened plea. Those were in fact Kagami and Miyuki. Tsukasa didn't
have any sort of otaku occupation like Konata did to eat away at her
time. Tsukasa's problem was that there was just never enough of her
consciousness present in one place to do homework properly. This was
but one of the reasons why, in spite of being the same physical age as
her twin sister, Tsukasa was considered the younger twin and Kagami
the older.)


"Hold on," Konata let go of Miyuki suddenly, "all in all, I just heard
this stuff about manifesting infinite possibility with your
thoughts... isn't that exactly like in 'The Melancholy of Haruhi
Suzumiya'? So, the gist of your lecture was, this Pavlina guy is like
one of those Haruhi worshippers, except he thinks that *everyone in
the universe is Haruhi*? How does that even begin to work? Wait, is
that *really* what the article says?"


"Well... I mean... as far as I was able to decipher the English...
basically... yes," Miyuki finally admitted, looking suddenly
thoughtful, "it didn't occur to me to make the connection with the
Haruhi novels, though..."


"Jiiiiiii~" Konata voiced the sound effect quietly, staring upwards as
though daring the ceiling tiles to make a thunderous pronouncement
that the people down below were all stupid and it was all perfectly
obvious.


Miyuki seemed to start sweating nervously, while Tsukasa just smiled awkwardly.


"Americans really do have bizarre ways of thinking, don't thay?"
Miyuki finally concluded.


They were interrupted at this point by Kuroi-sensei sprinting into the
room and trying vainly to catch her breath at the front of the class.


"Sensei!" Minoru Shiraishi shouted, "seeing as you're so very late
today, perhaps you could..."


"BAGH! AAAAAAAAHHHH...." Kuroi-sensei took a particularly loud breath,
incidentally overruling whatever he was going to say.


This was Nanako Kuroi, Konata's online gaming partner first and
homeroom teacher second. Word on the street was, the woman was so laid
back she wasn't merely upside down, she'd done a 360 and was now back
on her own two feet. Or something like that. She was in fact
tremendously lonely, and made up for her extreme inner laziness with
extreme outward hyperactivity. The combination was not conducive to a
stress-free existence.


*Gods,* she thought, *I was just planning to catch a fifteen-minute
nap after that gaming session, but then the alarm clock goes and
chooses exactly the wrong time to run out of batteries!*


As vengeance, she resolved to give Konata a particularly hard whack on
the noggin once the girl inevitably fell asleep in class an hour or so
from how.


"All right! Ha!" she shouted, "So, today's homeroom lesson!"


Then she began frantically rummaging through a disorganized binder of
lesson plans.


"Uh, just gimme a sec."


Once she knew what she'd been planning to cover today, it was going to
be all right, but she needed to shift gears first. No, really and
truly it was going to be all right.


<hr/>


Oh, certainly... so that's what it had been. Miyuki had just made the
mistake in giving the lecture that Konata cared to expend brain cells
on such topics as homework, one way or the other. It just wasn't a
worthy cause for Konata.


But ensuring that Kagami attained the pinnacle of her character
development? Now there was a reasonable thing to use frightening
Haruhi-like powers on! There would be tragedy and character
derailment, Konata understood the risks, but the resulting story would
simply be far too amazing to *not* bring about...


So, Konata resolved to herself, she was ready for the necessary
conditions for Kagami to become a tsundere lawyer detective to
manifest themselves, right about...


Now.


She wondered if there was a catch-phrase to shout, or anything else
that Steve Pavlina made you do to access your special manifestation
powers. Erk, she should have asked Miyuki to forward her a link to
that article, or run it through Yahoo! Translate to find out the
details, or something... never mind, there was plenty of time for
that. Right now Konata was in a good mood. Full of resolve, she dashed
out into the street, from behind a parked van...


**SCREE...**


... and right into the path of an oncoming bus that had been speeding
just a little, trying to catch up to schedule.


**EEEEEEEECH!!!**


Improbably, the resulting collision threw Konata about ten metres down
the street, and she hit the pavement hard. *In retrospect,* she
managed to think before losing consciousness, *this was probably a
cautionary lesson of sorts about ignoring too much objective reality
too quickly.*


Having been watching Konata's deliberations from inside the store,
Tencho was horrified. Legendary Girl A didn't look to be at all good.
First things first, he probably needed to call an ambulance. Then, he
needed to get in touch with his superiors; they'd have to scramble to
come up with a plan B before it was too late.


Tencho struggled with a sudden and unaccustomed wave of black despair.
No! He would carry on! One way or another, he would have to see his
task through, for the very safety of this universe depended on it!