Anyways, here we have Sin Judgement by Momotaros Hawking. What is it about? Well...
This is literally my first story, so you aren’t expecting anything special or epic from it. But still spend sometime and read it. Sooooo the story is basically about a boy named Aruma who had been given a mission by his father to protect Gensokyo from an organization that wants to rules Gensokyo.
It's about some random boy that has to protect a pocket dimension, which is unknown to literally everybody except, like, five humans outside of the place, from an 'organisation' that feel the need to rule a place filled with powerful monsters and is filled with obsolete junk from the past. Also we're told from the get-go that the story isn't anything special but we should still read it. It's an interesting marketing strategy, at least.
Well, without further ado...
Being a protagonist of a story was never a good thing, it means you'll have to face a lot of tragic moments
Unless you're a Touhou character, where your most tragic moment will be either "I was sealed away for a thousand years, but it wasn't that bad really. I'll go preach Buddhism now", or... "I had to resolve an Incident, and it wasted my whole afternoon, man."
sometimes Aruma wished he was a side character who can live a peaceful life. Sadly, his wish will never be granted. Because Natsu Aruma was unfortunately the protagonist of this story.
I mean, it's not like side-characters are exempt from tragedy either. Take any given side-character from a Nisio Isin work - they have to suffer with a terrible protagonist stealing their screen time!
Three years ago, a man performed a magic ritual to his 13 years old son.
Oh good, is this going to be a Naruto situation where the totally-well-meaning dad fucks up his son's life by trapping an evil monster inside h-
Turning him into the carrier of all sin.
...O-oh. Well, uh... I guess turning him into Angra Mainyu is about the only way to top Minato's shit-tier parenting.
" Father what are you going to do with me, let go of me! " The white hair boy struggled to try to get free " Don't resist Aruma, you cannot break through my bind spell. This is something I must do, you had your rights to hate me. "
So now he no longer has the right to hate you? This seems like the best time possible to be hating you, dude.
then the man started to speak a paragraph of words, a magic circle started glow under Aruma, within a second the whole place was covered with a strong light, then Aruma was burning in blue flames, the man was not happy with the results " So it failed..."
How do you judge failure of anything here? Were the flames supposed to be ochre yellow? Is Aruma supposed to be screaming in pain and hatred?
Now inside Aruma, there were two souls, one was Aruma's soul, the other one was created by all the sin from the past and the future, burning in cold blue flame, the flame of sins.
It might seem strange to ask this, given all the magic involved, but how the hell do you pack future sins into someone? Those sins haven't exactly been committed yet, have they?
Having the sin taken over Aruma's body, Aruma was attacking everything around him, all the guilty from the sin maker had made him gone in rampage,
...So what was the failure Baddad was referring to, here? His son rampaging around with all the sins ever, or he mangled grammar trying to convey said rampage?
Aruma keep throwing blue flames toward his father, but he dodged every single of them
Looks like Aruma's dad found the blind spot in Flame Fall ~EASY~. See, it's totally a Touohu fanfic.
then Aruma switched to close combat and punch him, Aruma's father block everything attack that Aruma throw toward him with a simple materialize spell, but eventually Aruma break through the spell and hit his father sending him flying toward the wall, smashed into it as he coughed some blood out.
Maybe it's just my lack of imagination, but what is this 'simple materialise' spell that is being used to block sinful punches full of sin? And why are we doing some sort of shounen fight scene now?
-So Craptastic Father is pummelled into paste until Aruma regains his senses-
A bright red flame started to ignite in Aruma's soul, then Aruma was burning in the bright flame " The flame of judgment, so the ritual finally succeeded, after all that years..." his father muttered.
So... having the sins corrupt the host and murder the hell out of the ritualist conducting the whole thing are all just part of the success stage? Good god the failures must have been messy affairs.
Aruma stopped burning, his eyes were now crimson red on the outside while purple in the center, there was a bunch of red and purple hair in front of his white hair, two souls had gained balance.
Pictured: Two souls in balance.
" Aruma, hold this" Aruma's father gave him a key " Opened the door in the room that I told you not to enter when you're small, there will be a suitcase, the suitcase will answer all of your questions that you want to ask me.
Leave it to Minato's role model to pawn off the annoying task of 'explain to my son why I'm going to ruin the shit out of his life' to a goddamn suitcase.
Soon an organization will come and chase you, you mustn't get caught by them. Now leave, I'm getting tired and sleepy, let me have some peace..."
Yeah Aruma, stop bugging the father you just murdered. He's a bit tired. Run along and hide from this mysterious organisation that I guess know all about you.
" Sayonara ... father, I don't hate you at all..."
I can't tell which part of this sentence annoys me more: Gratuitous Japanese, or pardoning an unforgivable act for no particular reason.
Then he burned his father's body then went back to home, he opened the door with the key that his father gave him, he grabbed the huge suitcase, he opened it, there was a set of clothes and a letter.
He... he just burned his body? Why? Was the world's worst father even dead yet? ...Was Aruma only pretending to be sad before exacting righteous revenge?
-Aruma reads the annoyingly long letter-
Dear ArumaI know when you are reading this letter, I'm already gone, this letter will explain every reason behind my actions and what you'll need to do.
So the uncontrollable murder was a known side-effect?
I am sure you would ask why did I perform that ritual that turned you into your current form. Well, it's a long story but I'll still have to tell you about it. Sin made a person to beg for mercy as they feel more and more guilty
It was at this moment that Aruma lamented his father's poor grasp of grammar and basic sentence structure,
eventually the person can't hold those feelings anymore and go on rampage and destroy everything around him, then people who were affected by the rampage will hate that person and revenge at him
THE WRONGED SHALL HAVE THEIR REVENGEANCE THIS DAY
He witnessed the chaos of sin, that's when he decided to perform a magic ritual that will turn himself in to sin itself, then he would also judge them.
Just saying, you can probably judge sins without being a sin itself. However that works. It's not like you have to become a murderer to decide that killing is wrong, after all.
(never mind the part there's already a judge in the setting perfectly capable of judging sins)
But when he got older he decided to perform the same ritual to his son, but it fails.
Fucking good. Is involuntary corruption of one's offspring a family tradition?!
The ritual turned his son into the carrier of all sin, but not the judge of sins, then his son gone rampage, bring a large amount of damage to Gensokyo.
O-oh. So 'failure' is literally the exact same as success in this scenario. That seems incredibly inconvenient.
-Skipping to the last sentence of this utterly massive paragragh because all that's left is 'I escaped Gensokyo for some reason'-
So yeah the ritual is a traditional custom in the Natsu family that I must do even if it means turning you into a monster.
Nowhere at all in this letter does it explain why this family force this stupid ritual on their children, nor why Shikieiki the ancestor can't just 'stay the judge of sins'. Even if he died of old age, this isn't the kind of setting where that would be a major inconvenience, you know.
-He gives a quick explanation about Gensokyo-
I remember I was running away from my home after stealing the ritual formula then I was in Japan, the outside world. Funny right, I can't even remember where my home was.
...Are rituals just formulas? Also, why was this guy running away? I've yet to hear of any incident that would force this kind of thing.
but when I reached the outside world, information of the Natsu bloodline and Gensokyo leaked out to an organization for some reason, they learn about magic in Gensokyo, and they hunted me and the formula as they started to find Gensokyo.
How. How did they learn any of that. Did this 'organisation' happen to see you pop out of a random wall at the Hakurei Shrine's outside world location, carrying a bottle labelled 'REALLY STUPID SIN FORMULA' while you cried about leaving your magical homeland?
-Instead we have to learn how Aruma's dad met his mother-
Then I met your mother, she helped me hide from the organization, then before we know it we were in love and we gave birth to you
Riveting backstory, so glad it's here.
but one day the organization found our hiding place, I tried to fight against them but they got an army of people,
Why does this organisation exist?! Seriously, what was their purpose? It sounded like they either didn't exist, or did fuck-all until Minato 2.0 popped up out of nowhere. What is the purpose of this "army of people"?
you mother died while running away from them, they were about to capture you but I came right in time, I'm sorry that I couldn't save her.
"I came right on time to let them kill my wife. Whoops."
This set of clothes were the clothes your ancestor had once wear on battle, it's said that only the one who's both the carrier of sin and judge of sins can wear it, it was kind of worn and of the fashion so I added few things
Well... fine, let's see what kind of clothes the judge of all sins will wear. Perhaps a fancy, dignified robe? Nah, wait, apparently a few things have been added to make it more modern. So...
Aruma pulled out the cloth, it was a white hoodie with red zippers and thick outlines
...A hoodie.The ancestor from centuries ago, from what was probably the era of feudal Japan, wears a modern-day hoodie. really now? And no, I highly doubt the hoodie part was added, because...
there was few black hexagonal shaped armor with red outlines on the left side of the waist, and there is a long black shoulder armor the wrap diagonally from the left shoulder to the right waist, at the top a shape of a Phoenix's wings and a red gem can be seen, at the bottom a shape of a Ryu's tail and a blue gem can be seen. The pants was a long sleeve black pants with black knee armor and thick red line cutting through the knee armor. There was also a thin bronze cylinder.
...That. Just... all of that. If anything was 'added', it was the disjointed, utterly useless pieces of armour glued on to the clothes.
Believe or not, once you wear it it will let you access to your power of the carrier of sins and the judgment of sins,
So despite undergoing a ritual and clearly being consumed by the power of these time-challenged sins, he still needs to wear a specific set of clothes in order to use said powers?
And the big weird shoulder armor, I don't know much about it, but I heard that the two gems were actually two swords that can be summoned whenever you want when you wear it, also the shoulder armor will appear in your will, so you won't had to wear it in public.
Oh, so he didn't glue the armour on, it was just always there. And it doesn't even need to be there because they can disappear at will? And he's also conveniently 'heard' that the gems on said armour are also swords.
For a guy that ran away before he could undergo this ritual, he sure knows a metric fuckton about all the particulars.
Now the organization knows about the ritual success
How
they will hunt for you and the ritual formula, and they would rule over Gensokyo with your power once they capture you and found Gensokyo.
And they will find Gensokyo by... um... er... they're gonna... well, uh... l-look, it's obvious they'll totally find Gensokyo, there's just no point in thinking otherwise!
-The letter finally ends with Natsu Atlantis telling his tortured son to find his old home in Gensokyo and stick the 'ritual formula' there. And meet his grandfather I guess-
" Don't worry, I swear that I will complete your wish, I'll find Gensokyo and protect it against that organization, and... you never did something wrong. "
Look... if you want to forgive your dad for forcing all this bullshit on you... go ahead. That's your prerogative. Just please don't pretend he was a good person for it.
Then he wear the set of clothes.
Glad we established that immediately before a three year timeskip!
Aruma was flying in the sky in a ball of blue flames,
And he's done a bang-up job laying low, obviously.
He had been looking around the world for last three years trying to find Gensokyo by detecting is there any large amount of energy coming from the Hakurei barrier, but he couldn't even sense a single wave of energy
Probably because it'd be a shitty barrier if it were that easy to detect?
Plus he needs to hide from the organization, there are few times he got caught but Aruma managed to fight back and escape with few injuries.
Just sayin', the amount of times he got caught would be a lot closer to zero if he weren't setting himself on fire and zooming around the open sky, in plain view of everyone.
Suddenly a light beam cut though Aruma's flame but thanks to his reflexes, he managed to dodge the beam, he got caught by the organization again.
oh golly gee willikers how did that happen he was so stealthy
" I'm not going to let you escape from Dan Ouja this time, I will capture you. " a person who's wearing black clothes with grey armor flew to the front with his black hoverboard while the rest of the crew followed and flew up to the sky.
What's with all the armour? What kind of name is Dan Ouja? A hoverboard? I'd ask how these guys also escaped Aruma's notice, but I imagine sitting in the middle of a fireball doesn't do much to help with vision.
As he flew away with max speed, he didn't know where he's heading but he knew that he need to get rid of them, the amount of army had increased again, he knew he can't win,
I feel silly for asking, but... how much army is there, exactly? Is there literally hundreds chasing him right now? Is it, like, a quirky squad of five? What the hell is the point in having super ultra omega sin powers if they do jack-shit to help against the very opponents you're supposed to be fighting?
after a while he stopped, he looks at his back, the organization was gone, he extinguished the flame around him as he floated in the air resting, unaware of the organization was charging up a magic spell aiming at him,
...They're aiming a spell at Aruma... who is so far away he can't see a single one of them in the skyline.
few yellow magic circle formed in the air then a thick beam of light blast out with an incredible speed, it hit Aruma before he even noticed it, it was too fast.
So either that magic blast can travel 400,000 mph, or Aruma has zero awareness of his surroundings. Oh how I wonder which one's more likely.
After receiving the spell without any protection he was knocked out, he started falling down high up the sky. Ouja was excited for the first moment when he saw the person he had been hunting for years finally falls
Exactly how it took three years to accomplish when it was this easy is another matter entirely.
but then a purple gap with lots of eyes suddenly appeared below Aruma, and Aruma falls into the hole and disappeared.
So that's three years of searching completely and utterly wasted. Yukari's trolling is as fearsome as ever, I see.
Ouja's excitement was wiped out in a blink of an eye, he cursed loudly as he destroyed everything around him.
Hey now, those clouds did nothing wrong!
-Aruma wakes up mid-fall-
Aruma smashed into the ground, the bricks on the ground went flying away from the ground " OuchOuchOuch IT HURTS~! " as he tried to get up. " Who are you? " " Do you realize that you just fall from the sky da ze? "
I love how little of a shit Reimu and Marisa give about the random idiot falling head-first into a pile of bricks.
Since the last paragraph is just describing their appearances and Aruma wondering where he is, let's call it a close here. So then... that was a thing, huh?
The author states in their closing notes that English is his second language, so I won't harp too much on the grammar (because we all know my writing is flawless right guys), but the story is... quite a mess. We have the MC being a random guy that has his life ruined bu his shitstain of a father, being okay with that, then doing absolutely nothing to hide from this 'organisation' and presumably being surprised every time he's found.
Also, this whole 'carrier of all sin' thing... I don't think it works particularly well in Touhou? There's already a judge of sin that's well above almost every other character anyways, so Aruma's position is just redundant, at best. And even if it fits the series... what is it about being a 'carrier of all sins' that makes him not only uniquely suited to be used to capture Gensokyo, but that he is both weak enough to be easily captured by Organisation Who and strong enough to capture a pocket dimension that, putting the 100+ characters aside, is run by Yukari Yakumo?
So yeah, not to my taste, shockingly enough. Why can't people write Touhou fanfics more like mine, which had hair-manipulating youkai as the final boss, or some random guy with 'chaos' powers that was totally almost as strong as Yuuka, and a maid with super dancing powers. Everyone knows that was pure literary genius. Literally.
Please don't emulate my shitty fanfics, kids.
