[Episode 225834] [Episode 225834]Earth morning, Kimitsu…
"A SIX-WAY RELATIONSHIP?!"
Hiromi nodded as she and the others relaxed in the spacious furo to enjoy a beautiful soak after an hour of gruelling exercise in the back yard of the Meguru home after everyone woke up at dawn. The only ones present, of course, were Ranma, Hakufu, Shimei and Kôkin; Hôsen and Kôdai had gone back to the former's home in Bunkyô just before everyone else had gone back to bed. "Tariko-onêsan — while she was still Ataru-oniisan, of course — fell in love with Lum-san right on their first meeting before the First Tag Race started. But as they participated in that, he was quick to sense that she was not heterosexual." A sigh. "Of course, when she declared him to be her husband, he was pretty taken aback by it. It was only after Onê-san met Benten-san at the annual Setsubun celebrations between the Urusians and the Fukunokami that he finally confronted her about it and she confessed the truth." She then gazed in amusement at Ranma. "Shortly afterward, he met you for the first time, Ranma-san. And when he understood your curse and how it worked, that's when…"
"Tariko was born," Ranma finished.
"Hai."
Shimei shook her head. "Incredible. To willingly sacrifice your manhood, your sense of self-identity, everything that makes you what you are — all just to win the love of someone you're attracted to! — that's amazing."
"Yeah, it is," Ranma affirmed with a nod. "Shocked the hell out of me one day when Ataru — as Tariko — came up to me after I got splashed by the old ladle lady near the Tendô place and — right in front of Akane and Shampoo! — swamped me with a kiss!" She then smiled. "Tariko is a pretty good kisser!"
"At least I'm glad that was all she did to you!" Hakufu huffed.
Ranma reached over to give her beloved a very wet kiss to shut her up. "So what happened?" Shimei asked. "Akane and Shänpú were there. Why didn't they jump on Tariko to beat her up for trying to be 'perverted' with Ranma? Much less try to make sure Tariko didn't poach Ranma away from them; I would assume they had started their own little relationship on the side by then."
Ranma shook her head as she pulled away from a smiling Hakufu. "No, not then. Besides, if Akane and Shän were going to do anything, it would have been to me directly; that's the way those two idiots always act when it comes to embarrassing moments like that." She then laughed. "But before they could do anything, they both got zapped hard by Lum's lightning; she had been floating in the sky out of their sight when Tariko came to kiss me." A snicker. "Both of them wound up looking like extras in Return of the Mummies for a week afterward." A shrug. "Neither of them, even now, are used to getting weird injuries like that, so they couldn't recover as fast as I could." A pause. "Later on, Lum took me to her ship and Tariko confessed as to what she did. When I learned about Lum and what Ataru was willing to do for her…" A sigh. "I felt envious of them. Especially after Ukyô showed up and started to play the 'cute fiancée' act while she was fucking Akane and Shän on the side."
"Fortunately, you won't have to worry about them for much longer," Kôkin mused.
"Damn straight about that."
Shimei turned to Hiromi. "So if Benten and Oyuki fell in love with Lum because of their long friendship, how did Kyech and At'at'at' fit into it, Kyôrei?"
Hiromi smiled at Shimei's use of her "battle name," Kyôrei Ryûkô (taken from the posthumous name of Emperor Líng of Han [for the given name], Xiàolíng, and his birth name [for the family name], Hóng Liú), in lieu of her real name. "Onê-san and Lum-san were teleported to the planet Okusei, Noukiios' oldest colony, right after Nengmek'i-sama destroyed the chapel where they were going to get married and Onê-san — then Onii-san — managed to escape from. They woke up outside a spa town…"
Six months ago, the planet Okusei, outside the village of Nuup't'uch…
"Oh, damn…! Someone get the number of the truck that hit me…?"
"Darling!"
Tariko blinked as her eyes opened to reveal a worried-looking Lum, currently leaning over her. "Lum…" she breathed out, and then she blinked on sensing the difference in her voice. A quick slip of the hands down her body revealed one thing. "I'm Tariko now…" She then moved to sit up. "You bring the…?"
Lum shook her head. "When I woke up, I found you this way, Darling."
Tariko took that in, and then she nodded before looking around. Both were currently in a grove near a road that was cobbled stone mixed with sandy concrete. The trees around them were of a type Tariko had never seen before. High in the sky, twin suns — a yellow star similar to Sol and a distant red star, either a dwarf orbiting the larger sun or a much bigger star at a greater distance — and a visible moon were in the sky. It seemed to be late afternoon here, wherever here was. "This isn't Earth or Uru," she stated. "Where the hell are we, Lum?"
"Okusei, I think," the Oni noted, and then she reached over to pull up some folded clothes. She herself was no longer in her wedding dress, but in a plain gi-like two piece uniform with a string of alien letters going down the outside flap. "Here."
Tariko blinked, and then she nodded as she took the clothes and proceeded to dress. "Okusei?! This is one of the planets the Noukiites control, right?"
"Tcha! It's their oldest colony world," Lum said as she gazed appreciatively at that lovely form as it was covered up. "Don't know how we got here, though. Last thing I remember was the chapel blowing up behind me just after you got clear."
Tariko frowned as she slipped the leather belt — it was attached to the top at the back by a thick belt loop — into place, and then put on the nice slippers that came with the clothes. "Last thing I remember was making it to the door to get out," she said. "Everything got fuzzy for a bit, then I got hit in the head and passed out. Next thing I know, I'm here and I'm a girl." She gazed on Lum. "The others?"
A snort. "Don't know. Truthfully right now, I don't care. We should've been given a chance to rest up after getting you off Elle before popping that on you."
Tariko perked. "Who pushed it?"
"Your parents, who else?" Lum said with a frown.
A hum. "Well, I guess they're gonna grow old and die alone if they don't butt out of our business from this point on," she said.
The Oni nodded. Of all the things she hated about what her beloved had to live with day-in and day-out, having a verbally abusive mother and an emotionally absent father to live with was probably the worst aspect of it all. "Too bad for them."
"Any idea who brought us here?"
A shake of the head. "Not a one. Except for that brimstone smell."
Tariko perked, and then her nose twitched. "Hey! I do smell that! What caused it?"
"My friend brought you here."
Both women perked on hearing that soft voice, and then they turned to see a hooded figure nearby, her right hand holding a long staff tipped with a large double-bladed battleaxe. Surrounding here were a pack of alien-looking wolves, about twenty in all, all of them relaxing and gazing curiously at the two strange women that had caught their friend's attention. Lum blinked, and then she moved protectively in front of Tariko as she stood to attention, dipping her head in a bow as she gave the fist-in-palm salute often used by people in the Imperial Dominion. "Heaven's blessings upon you, stranger," she greeted her in Japanese; the woman had spoken the same language.
A nod in return before she reached up to pull the hood away. On seeing that lovely head of red hair and the beautiful face pierced with those deep and all-seeing chestnut-shaded eyes, Tariko dropped to her knees in awe. "Pretty lady…!" she slurred, drool leaking from her mouth as a dizzy look crossed her face.
Lum herself was also dizzy with awe. "You're the Dragonspeaker…!"
A not. "I am Kyech."
Hiromi giggled. "For Onê-san and Lum-san, it was literally love at first sight."
"That must have really knocked them for a loop," Shimei noted.
A nod. "Hai, it did. It took them almost a week before they were comfortable sharing a bed with Kyech-san and nearly ten days before they had sex with her the first time." A hum. "This would be just when they were in Kyukuk, right before they met up with Hup'yech-san, then made their way to the Okusei Academy."
Ranma perked. "That was just before the big fight on the Morningstar Plain, right?"
Hiromi nodded. "Hai."
"What was that about, Kô-chan?" Hakufu asked.
Shimei and Kôkin grinned on hearing their schoolmate's nickname for their new friend and (in their first lives) their former emperor. Hiromi herself was blushing. "Well, the worlds of the Imperial Outmarches have been haunted for a long time with a lot of bandits and other highwaymen preying on the farmers and travellers caught out in the countryside. Free warriors like Kyech-san, Kuohu-san and Kyekkyek-san are always on the move trying to put a stop to them." A sigh. "Well, at Morningstar Plain — this is close to the Okusei Academy — Onê-san and the others stumbled onto this huge encampment of bandits. Over sixty thousand of them. And right at that time, the governors of the three Noukiite colonies closest to Earth — Ch'esyuk-san, Seup'it'-san and Hep'p'yech-san — were travelling to the Academy to meet up with friends there, and then move on to meet with the Imperial Chancellor herself."
"Three planetary governors?" Kôkin mused. "The perfect hostages for bandits to get ransoms from. How many people did these three women have for escorts?"
"Only a company of infantry each," Hiromi responded.
"Three hundred against sixty thousand," Shimei breathed out. "Huge odds."
Hiromi then smiled. "Not with Kyech-san present."
The others hummed. "A woman who can move mountains with her bare hands," Ranma breathed out. "Yeah, I guess that would even up the odds pretty much." She then hummed before moving to stand. "C'mon, Fu-chan! Let's go!"
Hakufu perked. "Eh?! Where are we going, Ma-chan?!"
"Tomobiki," Ranma responded. "I want to see if Tariko and Lum are okay and meet these two other girls who came in after Kyech did." She gazed on the others. "You coming?"
Hiromi smiled as she rose to follow. "Well, I've nothing to do today," Shimei said.
"Why not?" Kôkin added as they all moved to get out of the furo.
Sometime later, five beautiful teenage women — now dressed in normal clothes with nothing that could clue anyone into the fact that all five of them were very proficient martial artists — made their way into Kimitsu JR station to buy tickets for a trip into Tôkyô itself. Much to their relief, the weekend Shinjuku Sazanami trains that connected Tateyama at the tip of the Chiba peninsula with Shinjuku were operating, thus eliminating the need to switch trains multiple times as they rode from Kimitsu on the Uchibô line to Soga, and then the Keiyô line for the trip into Tôkyô and a transfer onto the subway network itself. As they all took up a two pairs of seats in a green car for themselves (much to Ranma's embarrassment, Hakufu insisted she sit in the larger girl's lap, which made the other passengers grin in delight), they relaxed as the train began its fifty minute ride to Shinjuku.
As she relaxed at the window seat gazing on the passing scenery, Shimei remained quiet, trying to ignore the playful words between Ranma and Hakufu across from her while Hiromi and Kôkin chatted animatedly about life in school and what the latter's plans were when she graduated from high school and moved on to university. Hearing that, the blue-haired tôshi blinked as her mind partially interpreted what Kôkin was saying, and then she closed her eye as she allowed herself to relax and think.
It amazed her how quickly things could change in twenty-four hours.
Not more than a day ago, she had been under orders by Kôro Enjutsu (actually forced on her, she had now come pretty much to accept, by Genpô Saji) to seek out a battle with Hakufu Sonsaku, a battle given "imperial" standing as a way of ensuring the Shôhaô would not cause too much of an earthquake in case she proved more powerful than initially expected given her E-level ranking on arriving at Nan'yô sometime before.
But Hakufu had spiritually not come alone to Nan'yô when she transferred in shortly after the start of the school year a couple months before.
She was the girlfriend — and most likely the official fiancée — of Ranma Saotome.
The Godslayer of Nerima.
But Hakufu and Ranma were more than just lovers.
They were training partners.
Thanks to Ranma, Hakufu was clearly A-rank in skill.
Even more, thanks to him, Hakufu also had full control over the dragon Shàobà.
That would put her in the super-A rank category, making her the equal of people such as Unchô Kan'u, Shiryû Chôun, Ukitsu and Shimei's own paternal cousin, Hôsen Ryofu.
Even more so, Ranma himself — or herself as 'Kanami Hayashi' — was about to do something that would have set all the tôshi of the Seven Schools to war.
She was planning to transfer to Nan'yô at the start of the next term.
It could have been a disaster of the first order.
But then Ranma would later show the noble side of her nature. The part of her that made her trusted and accepted by people who knew her story, understood how she had been raised and trained by her father for over a decade on the road. The part of her that, despite her obvious shortcomings in a lot of areas, made her truly the modern samurai.
To Shimei, it could be wrapped up in one statement Ranma made the previous afternoon:
"You want help controlling the dragon, right?"
The dragon.
Zîmíng.
The one thing that made Shimei more scared for herself than anything else, even being forced to fight people such as Unchô or her own cousin in some mad replay of the dark and bloody events eighteen centuries ago in China.
The one thing Shimei was becoming more convinced as time went on…
Would kill her.
Just like an incurable disease was slowly killing her cousin Hôsen.
And just like cystic fibrosis had killed her other cousin…
The cousin who, when she died four months ago, didn't ascend to the next life.
But remained as a ghost for a while until a Shintô priestess named Sakura Sakurambô convinced the young man whom her cousin had a crush on to go on a date with said ghost — he wearing incomplete winter clothing she had been knitting when the clotting of her lungs by excess mucus overwhelmed her at last — to an amusement park until she was happy enough to — quoting the famous poem High Flight by American-born Canadian air force pilot John Gillespie Magee, Jr. — finally slip the surly bonds of Earth, put out her hand, and touched the face of God…
Oh, Nozomi! Why…?! Shimei wondered as she felt tears sting her eyes. Why did you have to die?! You were my last link to the normal world! Why…?!
A hand gently gripped hers and gave her hand a tender squeeze. Shimei perked on feeling that contact, and then she looked right to see Hiromi gazing knowingly at her. A quick glance over told her that Kôkin was taking a nap and Ranma and Hakufu were enjoying a tender kiss. She then stared once more at Hiromi before giving her hand a squeeze in return before turning to gaze on the countryside once more.
At least I'll be able to thank him properly, she mused to herself as we…
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(Posted Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:46)
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