"Damn you . . .! Damn you . . .!"
Sitting on the roof of the Moroboshi home, she in a place where she wouldn't be spotted by anyone passing on the ground below, the woman known as Corsair could only shake as a cauldron of rage -- a level of emotion she, as Moroboshi Ataru, had never really felt before -- swelled up from deep within her heart.
"I was your son!" she hissed out, her eyes turning in the direction of the living room. "I was your son . . . "
Tears streaked down her cheeks as her mind began to re-roll over everything she had learned over the last couple hours, ever since she met up with her sister -- her sister of all things! -- in Minato, then was teleported back to what had once been her home and got an even greater shock: she had eleven other sisters!
And then came the big one . . .
The woman Ataru had believed was his mother had been revealed to be his stepmother of all things!
And then . . .
And then . . .
"Tariko?"
Corsair jolted on hearing her name, and then she looked up to see Rampage standing there, a sympathetic look on her face. Taking another deep breath, she then moved to stand. "You heard?" she muttered under her breath, the pain her voice obvious.
"We all saw it," Rampage replied. "Windtalker filmed it all." She then smirked as she moved to make her transformed ex-boyfriend feel a little better. "I have to confess, that was really cunning on your sisters' part. Reading that letter like they did with Windtalker filming it and transmitting it across Japan. If this doesn't hurt that woman down below after this, nothing will."
Corsair blinked, her eyes still awash in tears, and then she smirked. "Yeah, she always did fear being embarrassed all the time. Especially after something I ended up getting involved in." A hoarse laugh escaped her. "Well, she got what she wanted. I ain't in her life anymore. Pity she didn't take time to figure out what might actually have happened after that, ne?"
"Her problem. No longer yours," Rampage said as she walked over to slip her arm around her friend's. "C'mon. It's time for you to start living the life you've always wanted. This place holds no meaning for you anymore."
With that, she boosted her friend into the air, they arcing into the sky towards Itabashi . . .
Later . . .
"Will she be alright here, Mihama-san?"
"She'll be fine," Mihama Kenji -- still in his "Chiyo-chichi" cat-like astral form -- replied as he gently drew the blankets over a sleeping Tariko. "The poor girl should have found some place to rest and gather her wits after she emerged from the Doll House. Exposing her to all that nonsense in Tomobiki didn't do her any good."
"She's strong," Shinobu mused.
"Everyone's got a limit to what they can take, Shinobu," Ranma warned.
She gazed at him. "Even you?"
He returned her look. "Even me." And with that, he moved to leave. "And speaking of which, it's time for me to settle my own business back in Nerima."
"Good luck," Chiyo called after him as he headed out.
"Thanks!"
Just as the sound of the front door opening and closing echoed through their home, Asakura Kazumi then appeared beside Tariko's bed, she dressed once more in her Mahora Girls' Junior High Academy uniform. "Tadaima!" she called out.
Chiyo shushed her. "She's sleeping!"
Kazumi caught herself, and then she stared knowingly at Tariko. Nodding, she then followed the Mihamas and Shinobu out of the room, they heading down into the living room where the remainder of the gang from Azuma High School currently was relaxing. Tokiha Mai and Kuga Natsuki had left a few minutes before Shinobu had brought Tariko to the Mihama home so they could return to Fuuka-jima. "How is she?" Nyamo asked.
"Asleep now," Chiyo declared as everyone sat down around the coffee table.
"What about her sisters?" Sakaki Kiyomi wondered.
"After I stopped transmitting, they elected to leave and head back to their homes," Kazumi reported. "Turns out, they're all living now on an island in the Sagami Sea not too far from Odawara; it's called Oomure-jima."
"I thought Haruka-san, Yotsuba-san and Aria-san all lived abroad," Sakaki mused. "They did say they were from Düsseldorf, London and Lyon . . . "
"They might now be in the process of moving back to Japan," Kazumi said. "I didn't get the full skinny on that just yet, but I should soon." A pause. "They're all pretty nice people, even someone like Chikage-chan. Thought, I have to confess, if the Chosen One's given them their own powers, he might have had something to do with their coming back to Japan now. Especially with what just happened to their big brother." And with that, she nodded in the direction of Tariko's bedroom.
"For someone who wants to turn our planet into a double of your own homeworld, Kazumi-chan, he sure is taking his time making it happen," Kagura noted.
"I think, if what he said last night was true and he was a witness to that mass atrocity you know of as the 'Holocaust,' Destructo wishes to ensure it is to the best advantage of those he perceives as being the ones who might not have received such blessings had this been done in the usual mode revolutions occur on Earth," Chiyo's father then mused. "After all, as your planet's history shows, revolutions ultimately do nothing save change whoever are the controlling parties at the top of whatever social structure exists at that time. Look at the Meiji Restoration here. All that happened was that the Tokugawas were shoved from power and a whole group of other people took their place. Real changes for ordinary people wouldn't come until years later; in fact, for some groups in Japan, they still haven't come!"
"Burakumin, the ex-pat Korean community and the Ainu," Chiyo emphasized.
"Exactly," Kenji confirmed with a nod. "What Destructo wants is evolution, not revolution. That takes time to occur. And the changes that occur inside it are not so easily done away with when they take effect."
"But for an evolution to occur, something must die, Mihama-san," Shinobu noted.
"You are right there, Shinobu-san. And something will die."
"Being?" Yomi urged.
"Humanity's innocence," the cat-like being flatly declared. "The propensity of many to believe what they wish to believe instead of accepting what is. In such an environment, lies and all the other things that have caused pain and death over the years could not exist. From that, the false concepts of power -- where a select few believed they had the right to rule over the many -- rose. Look at what that has done to your race over the years, Yomi-san. It is that Destructo seeks to make war against. That and that alone."
Silence fell as the others in the room took that in, as we then move to look in on . . .
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Thu, 28 Sep 2006 17:26)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.