Story of Sin, also titled Tsumimonogatari (罪ものがたり) note , is a crossover fanfic between Limbus Company and Bakemonogatari written by NepetaLeijon27.
The story is written in Second-Person Narration and follows Dante, an initially mundane but inquisitive student who has their head replaced by a clock before the story starts. The amnesia that this causes and the fact that there are only 12 people who can understand Dante draws them into strangeness that surrounds their classmates. Every chapter centers around a certain classmate of Dante, and the 'Oddities', creatures that prey upon the emotions of humans, that surround them, and Dante eventually getting caught up in them, whether they want it or not.
The story can be read here
and is updated as the main story of Limbus Company goes along and is thus expected to run as long as that story runs.
This story provides examples of:
- Adaptational Villainy: Happens to Sang Yi, at least initially. Curiously, this also applies to him in-universe; Sang Yi was, like in the original, the imagined ideal version of Yi Sang, but once the Unchanging Crow got a hold of Yi Sang, it took the form of Sang Yi and manifested itself as a Split Personality of his.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Rodion goes from a brunette to...a brunette with light blue tips. This example is justified in that this is caused by her Oddity, the Unloving Spirit.
- Adapted Out: A lot, but primarly the romance elements (including the Incest Subtext, as Dante has no siblings) and the implication that the protagonist has to help girls.
- Art Shift: The references of the first four students were first made in 2023◊ to be remade in 2025◊, with the most notable difference being that the artist has now started to draw two eyes.
- Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Applies to most of the character designs; most invoke some type of Animal Motif while possessed by a monster which is removed once the possession is resolved. For example, Sinclair wears a white jacket around his shoulders to symbolize the bottom half of an egg; which he loses at the end of his chapter.
- Call-Back: Several, too many to list here, but one example is that the school uniforms that are worn by the students are modeled after their Sinner uniforms, with a black vest and pants, a white shirt underneath and a red tie.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Oddities come into being because people believe that they exist, and are directly shaped by their continued perception.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: If a reader has read the story where Heathcliff originally comes from, it will become obvious to them that Heathcliff being implied to be a wolf in a human shape is a metaphor for him being derided as one. The Oddity that he has in this story is just a metaphor for the long-standing internalised verbal abuse, racism and classicism he has from others not considering him to be human.
- Duality Motif: Starts out subtle, but grows as the story goes on until it's obvious with Yi Sang and Sang Yi, Heathcliff and his supposed wolf-like nature, and with Don and Sancho.
- The Fashionista: Rodion is known as the fashionista of the school and has an online channel wherein she shares beauty tips. She comments that she has started a series about nail art lately. This status also helps her cover up her light blue hair tips and her having to dress for winter as a fashion statement.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every story is named "[focus character's given name] [the adjective of their chapter in the original game]," i.e. "Gregor: Outcast," "Rodion: Unloving," et cetera. This adjective is also the first part of the names of the Oddities that haunt them; i.e Gregor has the Outcast Bug, and Rodion, the "Unloving" Spirit and directly refer to what the creatures do - the Bug turns people into outcasts, and the Spirit makes it so that Rodion will eventually feel no passion.
- Image Song: Each story ends with a snippet from a song (which are, interestingly, all by KAF) that directly connects to the chapter and the character. To wit:
- Gregor: "Devouring the Past", which describes Gregor's struggles surrounding his 'mom' and the way she affects him, and his wish to break free from what has happened to him.
- Rodion: "This Lifetime", which describes Rodion's wish for her own life to have meaning to others and to devote herself to those that deserve love.
- Sinclair: "Fledgeling", which describes Sinclair's journey towards adulthood and leaving Kromer and her influence on him behind.
- Yi Sang: "Confused Telepathy", which describes Yi Sang's relationship with Sang Yi in a remarkably intimate manner as it implies that he loves Sang Yi.
- Ishmael: "Becoming the Ocean", which describes Ishmael's inner turmoil as she ultimately decides to just wait for Ahab to come back instead of searching for her and is a Sequel Song to 'Devouring the Past'.
- Heathcliff: "Thread", which describes the way in which Heathcliff has become tied up in all the intentions of the people around him and his mixed feelings towards Cathy.
- Don Quixote: "Monster Girl" which describes how Dante thinks about her by the time the story ends - unsure whether she's an angel or a demon, or neither, but cute and lively either way. It is also the only one out of all songs to feature a "double" voice in the form of KAF singing together with the voicebank made of her voice, KAFU, representing Sancho and Don.
- Hong Lu: "quiz" which describes Hong Lu trying to find his way, this time with the help of his alters, and that he needs to find the right answer to life with their help now that he knows how things really are.
- Ryoushuu: "Scenery" which describes Ryoushuu moving on and managing her grief healthily. While having forgotten Araya, the chorus reads "we" several times.
- Light Is Not Good: Sang Yi, or, more specifically, the Unchanging Crow posing as him.
- Mr. Fanservice: Sang Yi runs around in a Labcoat of Science and Medicine, a long black shirt and...nothing else, which also implies he's a Barefoot Loon.
- No Hugging, No Kissing: For a Bakemonogatari-derived work, all romance has been written out. This is also lampshaded in Chapter 9:[Rodion] nods. ‘Yea. You’d be a great partner, y’know.’ You’re pretty sure that that’s a tease. ‘Hold up, pretty much all of us are minors, let’s not go anywhere near-’
- No Sense of Personal Space: Everytime he appears, Sang Yi has a tendence to stand really close to Dante. Rather obviously, it unnerves Dante a lot.
- Not Brainwashed: Yi Sang in his chapter. The Unchanging Crow might have helped but all the decisions were from Yi Sang himself.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Bloodfiends are powerful Oddities that thirst for blood and can use others as their personal reserve. The older they are and the further back in the lineage, the more powerful they tend to be - with a Second Kindred easily liquifying the bodies of two adult men and an adult Sixth Kindred. They are special in that, in contrast to most other Oddities, they are as smart as humans and might be even smarter. The Bloodfiend we meet, Sancho, is shown to be human enough to develop something normally for humans, namely Dissociative Identity Disorder, and also cares about her alter. This is also noted by Dante in the story as it surprises them that an Oddity would care about the friendship its alter has made with a non-Oddity.
- Residual Evil Entity: Like its source, this series has a recurring theme that simply defeating evil or malevolence will not get rid of it unless the very root of the problem is cured. And in many cases, a problem rooted that deep in the first place is far beyond the understanding of your typical human (supernaturally gifted or not) to deal with.
- Rule of Symbolism: The story doesn't make a great deal of sense or will at best be badly misunderstood if viewed literally or without any knowledge of the original game. For example, Ishmael being followed by a Space Whale who turns the houses she sleeps in white is fantastical and crazy, but is basically symbolic for her being so obsessed with finding Ahab that it continuously follows her wherever she goes and never stopping. Dante muses that its behavior is symbolic for the person it plagues. Almost every supernatural incident is similarly related to some kind of psychological problem the characters face, which is reinforced by Dante not really knowing what to do at first - the characters need counseling, not a knight in shining armor who beats up the monster plaguing them.
- The first chapter has Gregor, a student who would look normal, were it not for one of his arms having mutated into a life-sized bug limb. This gets explained by him being affected by an Oddity that also somehow took away his memories of the event. Should one think about it, it will become clear that the reason why doesn't really make sense until you realize that the real point is that Gregor is denying his past and repressing his feelings of grief and betrayal towards his mother figure. It isn't until he confronts them that he can actually start to heal for real. Killing the Bug would possibly have restored his arm to normal, but that arm was never the thing that mattered.
- Heathcliff, the local delinquent, turns out to be a wolf that hops bodies and lives out its life, shunned by everyone else and also coming to shun them, falling in love with one person only and dying a terrible death of broken heart syndrome as they Did Not Get the Girl, at which point it then reincarnates into the next body and repeats the cycle. Set aside all the weirdness here: What matters is that this is an extensive metaphor for internalised verbal abuse causing Heathcliff believing that he's inhuman and cursed to never love again (as well as adoption). Even if the person who explained this was telling the truth, it's no one's business at all. The only person who has a right to say anything about it is Heathcliff himself - and as far as Dante and their friends are concerned, he's their classmate and nothing else, no matter what anyone says to the contrary.
- Yi Sang spawns an Oddity that represents his repressed stress and trauma. You can't be hurt if you refuse to feel strongly about things. Dante, however, treats it as though the Unchanging Crow is a literal monster and that just putting it on non-active it would make the problem go away, causing them to suppress the Crow with a pill. Dante refuses to acknowledge that he has these kinds of negative emotions because they and their classmates put him on a pedestal and expect perfection from him, and Yi Sang is afraid that he lets his group of friends fall apart again. But he's human like everyone else, so trying to live up to people's impossible expectations is exhausting and unhealthy. Just suppressing the monster with a pill and continuing on as if nothing was wrong would eventually lead to it resurfacing again sooner or later, meaning he needs to actually address the serious problems in his life if he wants to get better - which he luckily does, as he now speaks to Sang Yi as a seperate being.
- Hong Lu is a story about someone who simply keeps running from the trauma he has experienced as a child. There never really was any kind of entity that somehow possessed the power to erase his memory, nor anyone owing him anything from the past. It was all just him, and him alone in a big house and family that all intended for the trauma to happen, and he reacted exactly like they wanted him to. Before the story starts, he coped with the trauma and the struggles of everyday life just by creating alters over and over again until the trauma resurfaces in the form of another alter, getting us to the start of the story where Hong Lu is really just barely holding it together now that he can't just hide behind someone else who is really just him anymore.
- Ryoushuu somehow got an Oddity stuck to her that will pull up all her memories and mentally torture her until it hatches and kills her. This Oddity is also somehow her daughter in a way that isn't really explained. The clue is to just throw aside all the strangeness as usual - the truth is that Ryoushuu hasn't had the time to properly grieve and process what happened with her daughter and this causes the memories to torment her and possibly drive her to suicide. While she is still attached to these memories, they also suffocate her and are liable to end her, and the proper solution is to accept that her daughter has passed on.
- Screw Yourself: If "Confused Telepathy", the song that ends chapter 4, is to be believed, Yi Sang really loves Sang Yi.
- Space Whale: The Evil Defining Whale, the Oddity that plagues Ishmael takes the form of a transparent white whale floating in mid-air.
- The Un-Reveal: Chapter 8 has the plot working towards a certain "evidence" of the Jia's experimentation with Oddities that's hidden within the basement, and Hong Lu needing to find it and uncover it. While he does find the jar that's supposed to be the evidence and it is opened, what's actually in it is not at all revealed.
- Weirdness Magnet: Even if you got your head replaced by a clock and you try to be a normal student, you can't count on having a normal life again. This is obviously a leftover from the original game where instead of on a journey, Dante is just a student who happens to run into everyone's issues.
