Dominus staggered back into the pocket dimension. Well, as best a gaseous entity can stagger. After nearly drowning in a deluge of liquid death energy, mind you, that’s quite well.
“Hey, Dommy,” said Sailor Eris nonchalantly. “How’d it go?”
“Sailor Capricorn has recovered her Amulet, the Senshi have discovered a way to become even more powerful, and I lost a considerable chunk of myself. How do you think it went?”
“About what I expected, then,” replied the Senshi of Chaos. “But hey, at least I found the Leo Amulet.”
The evil cloud would’ve blinked in surprise if he had eyelids. “Really? Well, that’s something, at least.”
“Yup. Plus, I found an interesting energy signature, and lo and behold, I found the Leo Senshi.”
“So? Without her Amulet, she’s just another human. A handful of joules wrapped in flesh.”
A handful of joules wrapped in flesh raised an eyebrow at this remark. “May I remind you that my defeat and subsequent loss of this little trinket is still possible? If we want to minimize any potential losses, we should eliminate the girl while she can’t defend herself. That way, even if they can recover the Amulet, they won’t be able to use it.”
“She’ll reincarnate,” pointed out Dominus.
“So? She’ll still be an infant. Even if they find her immediately, she’ll be of no help to them for several years.”
“I suppose. So, what’s your plan?”
“Infiltration. I disguise myself, act all nicey-nice, get her alone, and deliver the coup de grace.”
“This isn’t too different from your plan against Virgo,” noted the cloud.
Eris dismissed this with a wave of her hand “The problem there was that I was acting against familial bonds. Damn things are almost as bad as true love when it comes to subverting them.” She grinned. “Besides, the Herald is there.”
“The Herald!? Are you mad? He nearly defeated you before, and he can absorb your attacks without even trying!”
“Not without some effect,” corrected the rogue Senshi. “I kept an eye on him after recovering the Leo Amulet. He was just recovering from an instability in his gender-changing curse caused by my strike. He may be resistant to chaos energy, but he isn’t immune. With the added power I have now, I should be able to disrupt a few of his organ systems.”
“Fun. Shall I stand by as backup?”
Eris gestured towards the scrying pool. “See if you can find someone with a dark enough soul. If you can, hop on in.”
“Right. Best of luck, in any case.”
The Chaos Senshi smiled. “You’re a sweetie.” She stepped in a direction perpendicular to the pocket realm.
“Hello?” Kasumi opened the front gate to a see a young woman in professional attire.
“Good morning,” the woman said pleasantly. “I’m running a census on martial arts dojos in the area. May I speak to the head of the style being taught here?”
Kasumi considered this. “I haven’t seen Grandfather Happosai recently, but my father is in. However, I’m afraid we haven’t had any students other than my sister for some time.”
“That won’t be a problem, Ma’am.”
“Very well. Please, come in.”
“Thank you.”
The moment the woman stepped over the threshold of the gate, Kasumi stiffened. “I’m sorry,” said the matronly girl, “for whom did you say you were doing this census?”
“Ah, it’s a magazine that will be starting in a few weeks. Would you like me to put you down for a subscription?”
“No,” replied Kasumi, with a bit more force than she intended. “No, thank you. I’ll go get my father.”
Ryoga looked around, perplexed. He wasn’t even going to bother asking where he was. Judging from the shifting colors and textures surrounding him and the way the ground kept almost fading out of existence, odds were there wasn’t anyone who could answer. Granted, that had never stopped him in the past, but the air kept getting unpleasantly thin between the bouts of stifling humidity, and in either case was ill-conducive to agonized shouts.
Against his expectations, there was a voice. Well, it sounded more like a chorus of voices. “Hello,” it said pleasantly. “What are you?”
Ryoga blinked. He wasn’t entirely sure whether his ears had been involved in hearing the legion of salutations. Stranger still, he could only pick out two distinct voices. They were just repeated endlessly. “Er,” he said, trying not to gag on the too-thick, too-thin air, “Hibiki Ryoga. Wha—um, who are you?”
The voice seemed amused. “We? We, Erhibikiryoga, are the Harukyon. We greet you.”
“Thanks, I guess. Uh, what’s a Harukyon?”
“An interesting question. What is an Erhibikiryoga?”
“Sometimes I wonder.”
“I see,” the woman said pleasantly, taking notes. “Adapting nearly anything to your own philosophy and turning it against others. A formidable philosophy. And yet you say your style was first created simply as a way of facilitating panty theft?”
“Yes, well, obviously neither I nor my colleague endorse such actions,” Soun said hurriedly. “Right, Saotome?”
“Of course, Tendo,” the bald man replied gruffly. “I’m happily married and got more than my fill of such things during the Dread Master’s training.”
“So you’ve performed panty raids in the past, then?”
“Entirely against our will,” replied the Tendo patriarch.
“It was a mandatory part of our training, one of many reprehensible acts we were forced to do under extreme duress. Our own schools of Anything Goes do not practice such harsh, illegal methods,” explained the man who repeatedly bound his son in fish products and tossed him into a pit of starving cats.
“You.”
The conversation halted and its members turned. They beheld one the rarest, strangest, and most frightening sights in a neighborhood where the rise of an ancient demon only meant it was the third Tuesday of the month. Standing in the kitchen doorway, a dish towel in her white-knuckled grasp, a glare that could kill a bull moose from a dozen paces in her eyes, stood an angry Kasumi. “You,” she said again, at the interviewer.
“Me?” replied the writer innocently.
“I do not know who you really are or for whom you are really working, but you are not welcome in my house, and I will not tolerate your presence here for another second. You will leave. Now.”
“Kasumi,” began Soun, “That is no way to behave towards—”
“Father, you may instruct me on how to behave in our home when you do more work in it than I.”
As her father began to tear up, Kasumi turned back to the woman who made the Tendo residence’s Wa cry in horror. “Leave this house. Never return. Do so or I will remove you from here myself, by force if necessary.”
The unwelcome guest gave an amused smirk. “I mean no offense,” she said, “but you really don’t seem like the type who would forcibly eject anything larger than a spider.”
Kasumi gave a smile in return. From the nose down, it was her familiar sunny expression. The eyes, however, bore a far more sinister air than normal. “Mr. Saotome,” she said in her usual cheerful tone, “please see this woman out, or Akane will be making dinner for the next few nights.”
By the time the Tendo housekeeper had finished the sentence, Genma had grabbed said woman like a football and was nearly at the front door. Soun was surprised to find himself opening the door so his old friend could toss the woman out unimpeded. Apparently, the very idea of his youngest daughter’s cooking had made his body act out of self-defense.
As the woman cleared the outer wall, Kasumi watched, her usual expression returning with the Tendo home’s usual sense of chaotic tranquility. “Thank for leaving so promptly, Miss,” she said gratefully. “Please do not return.” For a moment, a pale blue symbol flickered on her forehead, but vanished before it could be seen in detail.
Eris landed in a crumpled heap on the ladle lady’s lawn and considered her next move. “Well,” she said to herself, “at least I know who else I’m dealing with. Never, ever fight Cancer in her home.”
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(Posted Fri, 27 Jun 2008 03:17)
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