Tokyo: Oreimo

"But I'm really surprised that you chose the setting of FSN. This work is very complicated. If you were to write fan fiction, it would take a lot of time just to fully understand the original setting, right?"

"Mage, Heroic Spirit, and stuff like that..."

"Don't worry about that. I'm quite familiar with that work."

Ryosuke waved his hand, but his pen didn't stop moving across the notebook.

He can now multitask, even while talking to Horiuchi Ayumi, he can still write something.

"Since you've already made up your mind, and I happen to have some time now, as a company perk, I'll draw you a few character sketches."

Horiuchi Ayumi shook her head; she had no intention of persuading Ryosuke to change his mind.

After all, the club is just starting out, so maintaining the attendance rate of new members is more important than anything else.

For a normal creator, being able to actually see the characters they created appear in the form of paintings is a very interesting thing.

This also helps to encourage newcomers.

Ayumi pulled out a chair and sat opposite Ryosuke, connected the graphics tablet to her laptop, and casually asked a question while adjusting the brush parameters.

"Thank you so much."

Ryosuke didn't refuse; instead, he raised his head with great interest.

"So, what kind of character is the main character? At least give me a general idea, otherwise it will be awkward if the drawing doesn't match what you wrote."

Ryosuke turned to a new page in the notebook, quickly sketched a few lines in the blank space with a pen, and handed it to Horiuchi Ayumi.

"What is this...?"

Horiuchi Ayumi looked at the contents of the notebook, and her lips twitched.

The crooked and twisted shape looked like a ghost drawing, but it was barely recognizable as a human figure.

There should be a limit to how bad your drawing skills are, right?

Can this even be considered a painting? It's too abstract!

"Just tell me directly, drawing it like this is not as good as me just imagining it."

The female vice president pushed the notebook back, covering her face and saying helplessly.

Is it really that hard to understand?

Ryosuke looked somewhat bewildered.

He was aware of his own drawing skills, but in any case, it was enough to convey the basic concepts, right?

Ling Nai could clearly understand it, but since the other party had said so, he didn't insist.

"A woman, between the ages of fifteen and nineteen, with shoulder-length black hair, wearing a kimono over a red leather jacket, and carrying a short sword."

"A kimono with a leather jacket?"

Ayumi stopped adjusting the brush and looked at Ryosuke with a "you're kidding me" look.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"This kind of eclectic style is quite unusual." She tilted her head, tapping the pen tip twice on the graphics tablet. "But it sounds visually striking. What's the name?"

"Two rituals".

Ryosuke paused for a moment, "The male protagonist is named Kokutou Mikiya. He's a college student who looks ordinary but is surprisingly proactive. He wears black-rimmed glasses."

"Wait, wait a minute, stop right there." Ayumi raised a hand. "You said you were writing a fanfic of FSN, but the protagonist isn't Saber or Rin Tohsaka? And it's not even related to the Holy Grail War?"

"Fan fiction doesn't necessarily have to revolve around the main characters of the original work."

Ryosuke screwed the pen cap back on, picked up the water bottle and took a sip. “The world of FSN has settings like magicians, sorcerers, and the Root. I just borrowed this framework; the story itself is completely independent.”

Ayumi stared at him for several seconds before finally sighing.

"Alright, since it's your creation anyway, you write a scene first, and I'll see if I can draw a picture that matches the feeling. Let's start with the scene where you appear."

"it is good."

Ryosuke unscrewed the pen cap again, and the nib fell onto the paper.

His expression didn't change much, but he wrote much faster than before.

As Ayumi watched him write, she swallowed back the words of complaint that were on the tip of her tongue.

Once this guy gets into creative mode, he becomes incredibly focused, completely different from the other members in the activity room who usually play games and make a ruckus.

The activity room fell silent, with only the scratching of digital pens on the whiteboard and the soft swishing of fountain pens across paper.

About fifteen minutes later, Ryosuke pushed over the few pages of paper he had written.

Ayumi put down her paintbrush, took the notebook, and began to read.

She initially just glanced at it casually, intending to help, but soon her brows furrowed slightly.

That was the first time Mikiya Kurogiri had ever seen Ryougi Shiki.

Not at school, not on a bustling street, but on a snowy night, in a deserted alley.

The girl was wearing a furisode kimono with a black leather jacket over it.

She stood beside a corpse, blood dripping from the sleeves of her kimono onto the snow, staining it a shocking red.

She turned to look at Kanya at the alley entrance, the hem of her kimono spreading out on the snow like a red spider lily blooming on a white canvas.

She offered no explanation, showed no panic, merely glanced at the witness with the same look one would give a roadside stone, then turned and disappeared into the depths of the snowy alleyway.

Ayumi read those pages again from beginning to end, then looked up.

"Is this really fan fiction?"

Her tone was no longer one of questioning, but rather one of confusion.

"This is entirely an original work, right? Apart from borrowing the 'magic' setting from FSN in the world-building, everything else is entirely your own writing, isn't it?"

The word "original" seemed to linger in Ayumi's mouth, as if she herself wasn't quite sure whether she should use it.

Fan works certainly have originality, but generally speaking, they will at least use the characters or core settings of the original work.

She glanced down at the few pages in her hand again. Apart from the "magic" setting, which barely connected to "FSN," the rest of it didn't resemble fan fiction at all.

Ryosuke tilted his head slightly, thinking about how to answer.

"The essence of fan fiction is to tell a story in your own way and from your own perspective. The world view is borrowed, so I think it is correct to call it fan fiction."

Ayumi glanced at Ryosuke but didn't ask any further questions.

“That’s enough. I have a general idea of ​​what’s going on.” Ayumi flexed her wrists. “Speaking of which, Asakura said she was coming today. She was so moved by S;G yesterday and said she wanted to thank you in person for recommending it to her.”

"I'm not the one who promoted Amway."

“But you are one of only two people in the club who have completed the true ending of Steins;Gate. Although Tanaka has also completed the game, he is currently preoccupied with Winter COMI and has no time to talk about it.”

Ayumi had already started sketching on her digital tablet, casually remarking as she drew, "By the way, what kind of tone of voice does this Ryougi Shiki have?"

"Cold, direct, and straightforward."

Ryosuke didn't stand on ceremony and pulled up a chair to sit next to Ayumi. "There are some really sharp lines sometimes."

"for example?"

"I'll kill anything that's alive, even if it's a god."

Ayumi paused for a moment.

Chapter 234 is truly a ghost story.

"Is this a line from the female lead?"

"Yes."

Upon hearing Ryosuke's answer, Horiuchi Ayumi felt goosebumps rise on her arms for no apparent reason.

It wasn't because I was cold, but because I was amazed by the line the other person had just said.

'I can kill anything alive, even a god.'

These lines are just too cool.

It was just a sentence, but she couldn't help but imagine the story behind it.

Ayumi stared at the computer screen in silence for a long while.

“I suddenly realized,” she began to write, “that Tanaka guy seems to be underestimating you a bit.”

"Heh, it's not finished yet, so the outcome is hard to say."

“I’ve seen plenty of writers,” Ayumi said without looking up, “but you’re the first one who can write an opening like this in fifteen minutes.”

Ryosuke paused for a moment, then chuckled softly.

"Vice President, you flatter me."

...

In the manga club activity room.

Ryosuke glanced at the gradually fleshing-out characters on the screen and made a comment.

"The look in your eyes is wrong. You need to have the feeling of taking in something about to die, like someone who has seen death many times before."

Ayumi's hand, holding the pen, hovered above the graphics tablet, not falling.

"Indifferent?"

"Yes. It's that kind of indifferent demeanor after 'accepting everything.' She can kill someone at will, or she can casually collect the body of a dead stray cat. In her eyes, there is no essential difference between the two."

"You've gone to way too much detail in your character design."

Ayumi frowned and quickly sketched a few lines on the graphics tablet. "It's just like seeing the real thing."

Ryosuke didn't reply, but simply watched quietly as Ayumi's pen moved across the screen.

Ayumi's drawing skills are indeed not top-notch; she is still quite far from being able to perfectly recreate complex settings like Ayano.

But she has an intuitive precision in capturing the character's expression. The Ryougi Shiki she drew does indeed have a kind of indifference in her eyes and brows that shows she is indifferent to everything.