What would Hatate do if SOMEONE REPLACED HER AND TOOK HER JOB-
It would begin with a door slamming OPEN with the violence of a maelstrom capsizing an entire mountain. A drunken, half-beaten maelstrom, advancing with the inexorability of time itself and the dangerous determination of a kappa proctologist.
“Yepruna Ba! An entire batch lost just like that! Should have known better than outsourcing distribution rights to some vaguely suspicious goddess… Or signing a contract while drunk off my feathers. But that usually works out! Sort of! Makai, my head… Lackey! Lackey! El-ACK-hey! Your editor and undiscussed master demands your presence! He is very tired, nauseous and severely lacking in the patience department!”
“A-a-aye sir! I’m here sir! Omega sorry ‘bout wasting your time! I was finishing work on this month’s double spread I—we made about them dancing gals…”
“Scrap it! We’re in trouble deeper than Old Hell. I’m back from negotiations with the deity who sold this month’s batch to the Human Village’s firekeepers. It didn’t work out. I think. Frankly, everything past the fifth bottle is a blur. I woke up one hour ago on top of a torii gate. The Moriya’s torii, not my wife’s. She had a lot of questions and her orbs waiting for me when I came back wearing only my tokin and the poms. I am unsure of how I’m even alive enough to be standing here and tell you to find the blocks of the lost issues and send them to the printers by yesterday.”
“That… sounds like you had one helluva day, sir. But err, the thing is… though I don’t really wanna add onto the pile of problems you got going there, the fact of the matter is that the blocks have already been disposed of. Pretty sure they’re feeding some kappa’s machinery right now.”
“Why, that means you will only have to rewrite and carve the entire thing from scratch and your paltry memory, yes? And without needing your benevolent superior to tell you that the result had better be a flawless copy of the original, lest you be fed to ‘some kappa’s machinery’ too.”
“A-a-a-all of it?! You sonnuva—I mean, what! How! Why?!”
“Well, according to this here handy list I keep for such occasions, it’s because you owe me. Or rather, I own you, since I generously went through the trouble of buying that waste of paper you used to call a newspaper, along with its subscribership, assets and personnel, which means you. Not that this cleared up the mountain of debts upon which you’re still sitting… nor will you, if you don’t get started right now.”
“O-okay, okay, fine! Can’t I just, go find if at least one copy’s been left unscathed? Like, for reference or–”
“Emperor Daichi, esteemed ruler of all that is newsworthy, said NOW, and NOW it’ll be, you blitherin’ personification of Poyren-dot!”
“And lest the sorry byproduct of your wasted hands become a feast for my hungry bill, you will return bringing along fresh basketfuls of the crunchiest bread.”
“Yes, sir… yes, Your Magnificient Highness Gosalyn…”
“AS IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIF!”
No more ginger coffee before sleeping from now on.