Shaking her head, Miyo put down the Seven of Swords and started to gather her cards together, shuffling them once more for good measure. She didn’t care if Akane believed her or not. The youngest Tendo’s actions had no effect on the fortune teller. “Always best to leave fools to their machinations, lest you’re pulled into their delusions.”
Chuckling to herself over the truth to an old saying, Miyo leaned over and dropped her Tarot cards into her small text-book satchel on the floor by her feet... But then something happened...
Miyo blinked her eyes as the card at the top of the deck seemingly slipped off the top of the stack, sliding down along the satchel before landing face up on the floor.
Leaning further, down, Miyo picked up the card. The image was of a night sky, five-pointed stars scattered about in the sky overhead as a beautiful woman with two urns kneeled by a pool of water illuminated with reflected starlight. She was emptying the urns, one into the pool, and the other onto ground.
Miyo picked up the card, knowing very well what it was. The seventeenth Major Arcana of the Tarot deck. “Star.”
It was odd how this was another card which would just keep showing up. Not when the fortune teller was trying to make any readings. It would just be there, as if by chance. The first time had been starting these readings for Ranma with Ukyo reaching for her deck to make a reading, and the card happened to be at the top of the deck. Another had been making a third reading to Ukyo, and not liking what she got, (nearly the same reading three times) the chef threw the cards from the table in a fit of anger. The Star had been the first card Miyo had picked up then as well.
“And now this,” Miyo said softly. She smirked a little. With Aquarius as its ruling sign, the Star was a card that looked to the future. It didn’t predict any immediate or powerful change, but it did predict hope and healing. The card suggested clarity of vision, spiritual insight, and, most importantly, that unexpected help would be coming, with water to quench the thirst of those in need, with a guiding light to the future.
“Perhaps...” Miyo allowed as placed the card back atop of the deck in her small backpack. “This may be a reference to the help that Ranma needs...”
(-----)
Laying across the cot within confines of a jail cell was a young man, who although in his teens, was built more like a mature man, thanks to his rather large and defined muscle and intimidating height of six feet, five inches. This gang-bossed was of definite Japanese descent, but his school uniform was something more unusual than one would’ve expected from a regular high school bancho.
His jacket was mussing all the buttons where there should have been, making it so that his jacket couldn’t be closed, allowing one to see his too tight vest which somehow still allowed one to see he didn’t tuck his shirt in, as the right half stuck out over the two loose leather belts he wore. From the pocket over his left pectoral a chain of five links hung securely, yet didn’t seem to tug on the material. There were bobby-pins aligned the collar of his jacket along with another similar chain.
And finally there was his leather cap. A size too small and only seemed to cover the front half of his head, allowing one to see the back of his wavy hair which was almost done in a mullet style. The small article of clothing was overloaded with different kinds of buttons; a square with a hand, a circle with a six-pointed star, a smiley face button, and another bobby-pin for examples.
“Jotaro!” A female voice called out. “Jotaro!” The voice called again towards the form lying atop the cot in the prison cell. “...Jotaro?”
It was then that the man known as Jotaro suddenly turned his head over his shoulder with cold blue eyes. “SHUT UP!” He shouted harshly. “CAN’T YOU GET OUT OF MY FACE, WOMAN!?”
“Yeeesss!” Jotaro’s mother squealed lightly, surprised by how her son snapped at her. Quickly, she turned toward the two police officers, a tall, nicely-muscled young Japanese man, and an older person, shorter than the younger officer with his hair combed back over his balding head. “I’m sorry, officer! He’s really a good kid! I...” She raised her hands to her face, weeping into them. “I swear! He’s not the kind to do such a thing!”
Snorting, the young man named Jotaro sat up as he slowly faced away from those standing by the door to his the jail cell. He titled his hat downward, the shade covering his eyes. His mother always tended to overreact to everything.
The police chief nodded his head slowly, not that he was quick to believe her views concerning her son, but she impressed him. “I must say, your Japanese is impeccable, ma’am. How long have you lived here?”
“Twenty years,” The woman answered as she lowered her hands from her face, showing tear-stained cheeks. “I moved to the island when I married my husband, JoJo’s father.”
Jotaro’s eyes narrowed. ‘JoJo’ was a nickname reserved for close friends and private moments with family.
Raising his hand to scratch his chin, the police chief muttered, “Ah, so I see...”
Snifflinh, Jotaros’ mother, Holly asked the shorter Japanese male, “How many was it?”
The police chief had to blink his eyes. “Excuse me?”
“Yes!” Holly turned towards the police officer suddenly. “How many people has my Jotaro killed!?”
“E-excuse me!?” The police chief asked, suddenly alarmed.
Raising his hand to slap himself on the face, Jotaro groaned in annoyance. His mother was ALWAYS overreacting.
“No!” Holly said suddenly, hands clamping over her ears and shaking her head. “Don’t say it! I don’t want to know!!” She squealed fearfully.
The police chief eyebrow twitched. “But who said that he...”
“Not at all!” The other officer interrupted
That caused the redhead to blink her eyes in shock. “No one’s hurt?” She seemed relieved as she lowered her hands. “Oh, thank God. I was afraid JoJo had gotten into another fight.”
“Actually,” The police chief spoke up, a serious tone to his fight. “There WAS a fight. Four punks with nunchaku and knives. One was even a former boxer. There were fifteen broken bones between them! You son really busted their balls! Er, I mean... He put them in the hospital.”
Holly raised her hands to her mouth. “Goodness!”
Nodding his head, the police chief continued onto explain, “But what happened AFTER that... Well, your son is very strange...”
Holly blinked her eyes. “Strange?”
“Yes,” The police chief said as he nodded his head. “Strange.”
Turning to the cell holding the woman’s son, the police officer on duty started to rap his nightstick across the bars, making a series of clanking sounds. “Kujo! Get up, you lazy son of a bitch! Your mother’s here to take you home!”
Holly seemed to perk up at that, ignoring the fact the officer had insulted her as well. “You’ll... You’ll let me take my baby home!?” She asked excitedly, hoping this wasn’t too good to be true.
“We can’t hold him forever,” The police chief told the mother of the delinquent.
“HEY!” The younger police officer shouted again, once again dragging his nightstick over the bars. “Kujo Jotaro! How many times do we have to tell you to leave!?”
Slowly, JoJo once again began to look over his shoulder, a dark, intense glare in his visible eye. Slowly he started to sit up, his right hand raising to lift the rim of his cap’s shade, both eyes firmly piercing into the police officer with that cold hard stare.
The three gathered outside the cell door stood there with their collective breath held as the young man turned toward them fully, still sitting on the cot of the cell.
“Go home, mom,” Jotaro said, with a surprisingly calmer voice than they had expected. “I’m staying for awhile.”
Holly blinked her eyes a few times in shock. “JoJo?” She asked slowly.
“I’ve got an evil spirit in me, mom,” Jotaro told her seriously. “And I don’t know what it’ll make me do. That fight I was in... I couldn’t control it, I was barely able to stop the thing.” Slowly, he dropped himself back down onto the cot. “That’s why I can’t be let outside of this cage.”
“...Jotaro...” Holly whispered her son’s name softly. She couldn’t believe what she’d heard. Her son... Possessed?
Patting the woman on the shoulder lightly, the police chief asked, “So you see how it is? He refused to be released! I hate to ask this, but... Is your son all right in up here?” The elderly officer asked as he pointed to his head.
Shaking his head, the younger police officer grumbled, “We can’t just rent a room...”
Holly frowned, unsure of what to make of this. It was too bizarre to believe, but she’d never known her son to be one to make jokes of anything. He was always the sort of person to go and do things, never sit back doing nothing. So why would-
“HE’S TELLING THE TRUTH!” A man who had been sharing the same cell as Jotaro shouted. He and two others being held were huddled up by the furthest corner of the room away from the cot.
Another law-breaker nodded his head. “I’VE SEEN IT! MOVE ME TO ANOTHER CELL!”
“WE’VE ALL SEEN IT!” The third shouted, sounding quite as panicked as the other two. “SOME KIND OF DEMON INSIDE OF HIM! PLEASE MOVE US! I’M AFRAID IN HERE!”
“PLEASE!” The first convict screamed again. “I’LL BE GOOD! JUST MOVE ME TO ANOTHER CELL!”
“QUIET DOWN!” The police officer shouted to the three inmates making a scene. “SHUT UP ALL OF YOU!”
*PFFT*!
The sudden noise caused everyone in the area to turn to the source. There on the bed, sat Jotaro...
...With a beer in one hand and a fountain pen in the other.
Everyone just stared in shock as Jotaro pulled the fountain pen out from a hole at the bottom on the beer can. Placing the pen down, he then used both hands to lift the beer it up to his head and turning it right side up, the hand atop the can popping the flip-tab, allowing him to chug the beer from the bottom.
“A... A beer?” the police officer was the first one to manage to find his voice as he watched Jotaro finish off the alcoholic beverage, crushing the can in his hand.
Slowly raising a hand at Jotaro the police chief shouted. “A beer! He drank a beer from inside his cell with the help of a fountain pen!? How’d he get such contraband into his cell!?”
“I told you!” Jotaro snorted. “The evil spirit. The evil spirit brings me things. Now bugger off!” He shouted as he threw the beer can, managing to aim it between the bars and cause it to bounce off the police chief’s forehead.
Again, Holly raised her hands to her face in shock. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry! Usually JoJo has far better manners than this!”
“No I don’t...” Jotaro muttered from his cell, flipping the fountain pen between his fingers. The banch knew he had to stay there awhile for everyone’s safety. He just wished there was a way to pass the time.
The Japanese man then blinked his eyes as he noticed there was a takuban of Rumic Theater at the foot of his bed. Shrugging, he reached over and grabbed it, flipping the pages to find a particular page that caught his interest. Okay, so maybe this evil spirit wasn’t too bad... He just needed to find out what it was before JoJo could trust himself to be out in public again.
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(Posted Fri, 14 Apr 2006 02:17)
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