Tanenobu Karen opened the front door of the Moroboshi home. "Hai?!"
Awaiting her there was a man dressed in the green dress uniform of a Canadian army serviceman, the wreathed crown of a master warrant officer on his lower arms. He had the phoenix hat badge of the Specialised Warfare Regiment of Canada (though Karen herself wouldn't recognise that) on his beret, the "collar dog" badges on his jacket collar flaps of the same design as the hat badge. On his epaulettes were silver shoulder flashes, they spelling out the letters SWR of C. The "salad bowl" of medals on his left chest consisted of one row, topped by jump wings.
"Good afternoon, ma'am," he said as he braced himself to attention, he giving her a sharp salute. "My sincerest apologies for disturbing the harmony of this honoured household." With that, he pulled out an envelope and presented it to her with both hands, he bowing respectfully to her. "From the commander of my Regiment, with his sincere compliments, ma'am. And his deepest sympathies at your tragic loss."
Karen took the envelope in hand, she staring quizzically at it. At the upper left corner was a colourful interpretation of the visitor's hat badge, words in English and French written beside it. Karen, having spent time abroad with her mother and stepfather, knew enough to be able to read it. "'Specialised Warfare Regiment of Canada. Office of the Commander' . . .?" she read before turning to stare at the man before her. "Forgive me, sir, but I don't understand . . . "
He winked at her before giving her another salute. "Read it in front of your visitor with the webcam, ma'am. You'll understand then." Another bow. "Please have a very good day and I hope to see you again, Miss Tanenobu."
With that, he about-turned and walked off. Karen then noted that a black car was waiting for him, it bearing diplomatic license plates. And the Canadian flag flying from the right front bumper. "Canada . . .?" she whispered the name of the country whose troops came to Tomobiki earlier in the day to take Onii-chan's . . .
Wait!
Troops?!
That was a military officer who just came by!
Then . . .
"Oh, my!" Karen gasped as she turned around, racing back inside. "Everyone!"
"What is it, Karen-chan?" Ikuko asked her daughter.
Karen walked over to Yotsuba Dunn, she handing her part-English half-sister the envelope. "Open it and read it, Yotsuba-chan! Your English is the best!"
"Me?!" Yotsuba said, and then she noted the pictogram on the envelope. Her eyes then read over the notation there, and then she read the flowing Latin script on the main part of the envelope: To the Sisters of the late Ataru Moroboshi. "Wow!" she then gasped. "Sounds like something straight outta Harry Potter, Karen-chan! Did an owl bring it?!"
"No, it was some Canadian military officer!" Karen blurted out. "I think he knew the people who took Onii-chan's body away! Read it!"
"Checky! Checky!" Yotsuba blurted out her favourite catch phrase as she snapped the wax seal on the envelope, and then she opened it to pull out three sheets of paper. Taking a look on the covering page, she then whistled before reading . . .
To Miss Karen Tanenobu,
Miss Kaho Eigo,
Miss Mamoru Itou,
Miss Sakuya Sukeyama,
Miss Hinako Saeru,
Miss Marie Susumu,
Miss Shirayuki Osamu,
Miss Rinrin Hatoyama,
Miss Chikage Hirosaki,
Fräulein Haruka Tenhiro,
Miss Yotsuba Nemain Dunn,
Mademoiselle Aria Claudia Jeanne Michelle des Beauchamps,
Greetings,
On behalf of the officers and non-commissioned members of the Specialised Warfare Regiment of Canada, may I personally extend my deepest and sincerest condolences at his passing from this life yesterday evening due to foul play engineered by alien agents loyal to his would-be 'wife,' the Princess Lum of the planet Uru.
"Onii-tama was murdered . . .?" Saeru Hinako burbled, her eyes brimming with fresh tears, before she turned around to be hugged by her mother, Kyoomi.
Some of the other sisters began to sniff back their own tears. Not officially noticed by any of them was Windtalker, who was filming it all.
Fuuka . . .
"The guy was murdered?!" Tate Yuuichi demanded.
"How terrible!" Kikukawa Yukino gasped, she covering her mouth in shock.
The other people in the room began to mutter . . .
Nerima . . .
"What a tragic fate!" Souun mused.
"Agreed," Nodoka sagely declared. "Ataru-kun was truly a manly man, just like I wish Ranma to be. He didn't deserve to be treated like he did by that alien girl! I only pray that if she ever does come back, she'll be dealt with properly!"
"Ranma can certainly do that, my wife," Genma stated.
Nodoka hummed for a moment, and then she nodded. "A good point, my husband."
Watching the parents speak about this in such a calm voice, the Tendou sisters and Hibiki Ryouga (still as P-chan) could only blink in disbelieving shock.
Was this really happening . . .?
Itabashi . . .
"I would hope Asakura-san goes easy on doing things like this in the future, Chiyo-chan," Nyamo warned.
"If any of those sisters wanted her to leave, I'm sure she would have left them alone," Chiyo noted. "Even if she goes out of her way to bring news about everything she encounters to everyone else, she does understand requests for privacy."
"What do you think about this, Shinobu-chan?" Tomo asked.
Shinobu hummed. "Let's hear the rest of the letter first . . . "
Yotsuba continued to read:
The autopsy of your brother's body is being carried out by the Regiment's Chief Medical Officer, Lieutenant-Commander Melissa A. Phelps MD, and her staff as I dictate this letter to you. An initial report has been sent to me concerning her findings, a copy of which is enclosed with this letter. To ensure your full satisfaction, Doctor Phelps has promised me a full and final report within 48 hours. A courier will present a copy of the report to you at this time. If you desire to make the findings public, we shall be willing to assist you in any way possible.
"Onii-chama was murdered," Kaho burbled before she started to cry.
"Please go on, Yotsuba-chan," Chikage bade her.
"Checky . . . " Yotsuba breathed out before continuing:
Given that we suspected from the start that foul play was involved in your brother's demise, the officer commanding the Regiment's Security Squadron, Major Samuel C. Guthrie, was ordered by me to conduct a full and thorough interrogation of all the Niphentaxian agents of Lum which were captured in Tomobiki this morning by the metahuman adventurers known as Rampage, Warwind, Caltrop, Soul Searcher and Heart Player.
I expect Major Guthrie and his capable staff will find the culprit or culprits. When such happens, and if you, as Mister Moroboshi's next-of-kin, so desire it, we will be happy to extradite the guilty parties to the Interior Ministry of Japan so they can face criminal charges under Japanese law. Or, if you so desire, you may request we place them on trial here in Canada under our law. The choice is, as always, yours.
"Yotsuba-chan, can I see those other sheets?" Sakuya asked.
"Hai!"
They were handed over to the oldest (chronologically) of Ataru's siblings. While her English wasn't as perfect as Yotsuba's or Karen's, Sakuya could understand enough. Scanning the first sheet, she then hummed. "Okay, this is from Phelps-sensei. It says that she confirmed that some sort of poison was inducted into Onii-sama's body through food he ate last night."
Twenty-four pairs of eyes (the sisters and their mothers) -- plus Windtalker's webcam -- instantly locked on Moroboshi Kinshou . . .
Mahora . . .
"He was murdered by his own mother?!" Ayase Yue gasped.
"Terrible," Negi hissed, a disapproving frown turning his lips.
Itabashi . . .
"Hey, Shinobu!" Ranma spoke up. "Do you think she really would do it?"
Shinobu shook her head. "No. Much that I've heard her say time and time again 'I wish I never had you' right to Ataru-kun's face, she'd never go that far. Especially if she ever hoped to stay on Lum's good side. I'm sure that one of those Niphentaxians might have tried to engineer this. Subconscious hypnotic commands would be the best way to go." A smirk then crossed her face. "However . . . "
"Proving that is going to be hard," Yukari noted.
The others nodded.
Minato . . .
"I'm starting to think now that we should've gone to Tomobiki when things went crazy there and helped put a stop to it," Kino Makoto mused as she and the other Senshi watched events play out on her own television.
"Yeah!" Aino Minako declared. "I mean, yeah, a lot of crazy things happened there and Ataru-kun was involved in a lot of them! But do you guys actually buy into what a lot of people in that place said about him being the cause of everything that's happened there?!"
"You sound like you actually liked this guy," Hino Rei mused.
"Well, I don't know," Minako replied. "I never met him, so I can't judge in the long term. But hey, what's the matter with boys chasing girls?! Boys are supposed to chase girls and girls are supposed to chase boys! That's the way it is!"
"It's a pity we never did go there," Mizuno Ami then said.
The others gazed on their studious friend. "Why'd you say that, Ami-chan?" Rei asked.
"The whole thing about these Niphentaxians," Ami replied. "Supposedly, their whole religion was based around worshipping Lum as a goddess, with everyone she interacted with -- both here on Earth and beyond -- as her 'holy company.' In that 'pantheon,' Ataru-kun was made their devil-icon. Atop that, their holy text was built, believe it or not, from purloined copies of the diaries of all of Lum's 'holy company.'"
"I didn't hear that!" Makoto stated.
"Neither did I!" Minako gasped, and then she shook her head. "What a bunch of two-faced creeps! Maybe we should've gone to Tomobiki and zapped these jerks to kingdom go!"
The others moaned. "That's 'kingdom come,' Minako-chan," Rei muttered.
"So what does the other letter say, Sakuya-chan?" Tenhiro Sakurako's daughter Haruka then asked, she adjusting the flap of her hakama top.
Sakuya looked briefly at it. "Oh, it's from Major Guthrie, Haruka-chan. It's a preliminary report concerning their interrogation of the Niphentaxians."
"Anything they've found yet, dear?" Suzanne Dunn asked.
"Of 242 agents captured, they've narrowed it down to about fifteen suspects, Auntie. 'Full interrogation procedures to follow,' whatever that means. Final report to come within 48 to 72 hours."
"Checky!" Yotsuba breathed out. "That's real fast!"
"Let's hope they go hog-wild on those creeps!" Itou Junko's daughter Mamoru spat out.
The others nodded. "Bad people should be punished!" Aria then said.
Fuuka . . .
"Amen to that, Aria-chan! Amen to that!" Yuuichi spoke up.
Grim nods from the others in the room. At the back of the room, Fujino Shizuru took a sip of her coffee, and then she looked up. "Suzushiro-san?"
Suzushiro Haruka blinked, and then she looked over her shoulder. "Hai?"
"Perhaps we can do something about these poor girls," the president of the Fuuka Academy Student Council then proposed. "It's clearly obvious that they do see each other as family. And they have just lost their poor brother. The Academy can certainly welcome all of them in as new students if they might end up being ostracized in their old schools because of their revealed relations to Moroboshi-san. If that happens, we can certainly welcome them here, can we not?"
The heiress of Suzushiro Industries nodded. "Hai, that would be true. And it'll be the decent thing to do, especially if Mendou Shuutarou decides he's not going to take Moroboshi Ataru being so publicly honoured like this."
"You actually know that guy?" Yuuichi asked.
Haruka moaned. "Hai! I met the creep about a year ago, just before he transferred into Tomobiki High and met up with that Oni girl. Pulls this real suave act around pretty women, acting like he's king of the hill and all that . . . " She gritted her teeth as she chased that memory from her mind. "And yeah, from what I've heard, he really has this thing against Moroboshi Ataru. Most likely because of that Oni girl they were classmates with." A nod. "Okay, I can get some of my dad's people to send some feelers out about these girls and see if we can entice these girls here."
The others nodded in approval . . .
"Yotsuba-chan, is that all that nice man wrote?" Hinako then asked.
Yotsuba stared at her youngest sibling, and then she turned back to the letter from the commander of the Regiment:
Once full reports on both Mister Moroboshi's death have been made and released, we will be more than happy to arrange a funeral for him. Given the strained relations he must have experienced with the people in Tomobiki, we will be more than willing to bury him with full military honours at the Regiment's cemetery. You, your families and anyone you might desire to invite to the funeral will be allowed to come, of course. Please express your wishes concerning this matter to our courier when Doctor Phelps' autopsy report is delivered to you.
I would like to end this letter on this note: I do not believe this has ever been expressed in public before, but your brother was a defender of Earth even if he never served in any official capacity as such. Giving him the proper rewards he more than deserved, even posthumously, is the right and proper thing to do. To that end, I will place a recommendation to my superiors that your brother be granted some official recognition for his deeds in both 'tag races.' I expect to hear from my superiors concerning this matter within the next several days.
Again, on behalf of the officers and non-commissioned members of the Regiment, I extend my deepest condolences at your most tragic loss.
Yours sincerely,
Edward A. Mills
Colonel
Commander, Specialised Warfare Regiment of Canada
Silence fell as everyone took that in, and then Aria spoke up, "A very nice man."
"Kaho likes him," Kaho chirped.
"I'd like to meet them," Susumu Chizuru's daughter Marie then declared.
"I think we all would," Sakuya noted.
The others in the room nodded.
Mahora . . .
"Curious that the Regiment is suddenly being so open," Negi mused aloud.
"You know about these people, Booya?" Evangeline wondered.
"Hai, Evangeline-san, I do," Negi replied. "They're the final line of defence, so to speak, when it comes to the safety of Canadians from all threats that can't be dealt with by regular military forces or the police. Magical threats, threats from supervillains, alien invasions, the whole menagerie of possibilities . . . " A pause. "'If it can be imagined by Man, the Regiment prepares to deal with it,' the Magus told me once. And not just on behalf of Canadians. They extend help to other like agencies in countries across the planet, especially when it deals with anything that crosses national borders or comes from space."
"I wonder if Father or Grandfather know of them," Konoe Konoka mused.
"Probably," Negi answered. "At least they might've met members of the Observation Unit based here in Tokyo."
"'Observation Unit?'" Saotome Haruna then spoke up before she blanched as that particular unit's potential function suddenly came on her. "You mean to say they spy on people all across the planet?"
"Of course they do," Negi said.
"WHAT?!" Asuna shrieked out. "And people allow that?!"
"Oh, they're very nice about it," the young wizard assured her. "If you don't present a threat to Canada, they leave you alone. Only when you do present a threat do they take interest in you." A pause, and then he stared knowingly at Evangeline. "And if you become a problem, they deal with you. Quite harshly, I might add. I can only guess what those alien spies working for that Lum girl might be going through right now."
The others in the room gulped as that message sank in. "Negi-bozu, will you please stop speaking so creepy at us?!" Asuna whined.
So now we . . .
(Posted Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:48)
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