"Gentlemen, can we have an honest discussion with each other?"
The Stormtroopers all perked on hearing that voice, and then they turned as one to gaze in bewilderment at Hiromi. It was the break before final class at school, which would be ethics. Kyech was currently in the classroom chatting with a group of students, including several boys who had been taken away by the wholesome "country girl" beauty the Dragonspeaker possessed even if she was dressed now in something that appeared to be a white-and-slate grey version of a martial artist's gi. Ataru and Lum were together simply enjoying the presence of each other's company, their cheeks slightly flushed as they held hands. Tariko was chatting away with some of the other girls about hers and Ataru's trip to Okusei several months before. And Koshaji Enjō stood at the back of the room, scanning everywhere for potential threats against her reborn emperor. Many times did her dark brown, cat-like eyes fall on them.
"What do you want?" Megane said, trying to keep the angry snarl that was building up from far deep within his heart from appearing in his voice.
Hiromi smirked. "You still do not believe me, don't you?"
"Why should we?" Chibi asked, and then he pointed at the couple currently holding each other's hands. "You really want to convince us THAT is Lum-chan?!"
"Put yourself in her position," Hiromi countered. "Imagine having your very SOUL switched to a new body by something you couldn't begin to comprehend, could NEVER expect and could not protect yourself from. Then, to add insult to injury, you find yourself being treated as a MACHINE by those you loved, all because the sentience of said 'machine' wound up in your ORIGINAL body. And try as people might to convince those you loved the truth — your family, in other words — they never believed you. And thus, you had no choice but to go into exile." She gazed on Lum for a moment. "That is what happened to Lum and her friends."
"And that is a lie!" Megane hissed. "There's just NO WAY that could have happened!"
"What's your proof?"
"What's YOUR proof?"
"Hiromi, why don't you give up?" Tariko then asked. "Trying to convince these four morons about anything concerning real life is next to impossible! We all know that!"
The Stormtroopers as a group all glared at Ataru's other female replica as they sensed that insult hit home. "Well, much that I really believe we have no responsibility to help these fellows finally get a life where they WON'T be drooling over our future sister-in-law like they have her twin over the last year, Onē-san, the idea of them, even now, thinking of hurting Onii-san for his 'crime' of simply defending our planet from overt alien influence does not make me feel comfortable."
"It WAS a crime!" Megane snapped.
"Oh, really?!" Shinobu demanded as she put fists to hips. "You actually say it was a CRIME that Ataru-kun found a way to get rid of Carla's mushrooms and did it in such a way that he didn't have to give in to ECOLOGICAL TERRORISM?!"
"HE BROKE LUM-SAN'S HEART!"
"And Lum's heart is more important than the whole PLANET?!" Momoe demanded.
"OF COURSE IT IS!" Megane asserted.
"Actually, I broke Hensō's heart, not Lum's," Ataru cut in.
"THAT IS NOT LUM-SAN!"
"Again, what's your proof?" Hiromi challenged.
Enjō sighed. "Hiromi-sama, PLEASE!" she pleaded as she waved a fist full of kunai at the Stormtroopers, all of whom wailed on seeing those deadly projectiles in her hand. "For the love of sanity, can't I just KILL THEM and get it over with?!"
"CALL HER OFF!" Perm shrieked.
"It's called 'being cruel to dumb animals,' Kyoko-chan," Tariko said.
"HEY!" all four Stormtroopers bellowed out.
A shrill whistle caused everyone to jolt, and then they turned to see Kyech gazing tranquilly at them. "There is no need for this argument," the Dragonspeaker said as she turned to leave. "Satoshi, Akira, Hirosuke, Kōsuke; I will show you the truth of Hiromi's words. Kyoko, go to the cockpit here and fetch Shūtarō, please?"
In a flash, she vanished. "Where is K'ekhech-dono going?" the school ethics teacher, a lovely woman in her early thirties named Modoki Ginko — her daughter, Mako, had once had quite the crush on Lum's cousin Ten — asked as she walked inside.
"We're still having this argument about Lum actually being Lum, Sensei," Ataru said as everyone straightened themselves and bowed to her before making their way to their seats, save for Enjō, who had run out of the room to do Kyech's bidding.
Nodding to everyone to take their seats, Ginko took a deep breath. "Alright, fair enough, then. Satoshi-kun, why don't you give us your argument against the Lum with us today as being the real Lum. And PLEASE, make it rational!"
"Certainly, Modoki-sensei," Megane said as he stood. "It's the idea of a magical curse having the power to literally rip out Lum-san's very SOUL and placing it in this replica's body, then transferring the replica's soul into Lum-san's original body. If that happened, then by all conventions, both Lum-san and her replica would ultimately be DEAD! A soul can't DO that, not even with the aid of magic!"
"Then explain Ataru-kun, Hiromi-chan and Tariko-chan," Ginko bid.
Megane jolted, and then he sighed. "That, I can't explain. I still find it hard to believe that since he was SIX, Ataru actually played host to this supposed artificial intelligence that was created a MILLENNIA ago! And then right afterward, his soul was touched by the soul of the Emperor of China that was on the throne before the Three Kingdoms period got started in earnest! Maybe soul COPIES, but not true souls!"
Ginko hummed. "Perhaps. But are you an expert in souls and how they operate?"
"No, ma'am. I will admit that I'm not. But can anyone — even Sakura-sensei and her uncle — truly say that they're experts in something like that?!" Megane then stared at Ataru. "Much that I find it hard to admit, I realise Ataru is a lot smarter than he normally lets on! But hell, he can't know something like THAT!"
"Dōmo, Satoshi-kun. Now, Lum-kun, your rebuttal, please."
Megane sat as Lum stood. "Personally, Sensei, even on my home planet — both my birth planet of Uru and my adopted homeworld of Okusei — there are next to NO experts when it comes to understanding what a sentient being's soul actually is. Try as people might, there are still things that simply can't be quantified. And many simply decide to leave it be and not try to quantify it. All I do know when it comes to my case is that five years ago — somehow, someway — my soul was moved out of my original body into the body I have now. And there were enough memory echoes left in my original body's brain that the soul that had once been in THIS body could merge with and, with reasonable ease, act as 'me' from that point on."
"But not exactly like you," Ginko said.
"Tcha!" the Oni replied as she gazed down on Ataru for a moment as Enjō returned to the classroom, fireman-carrying Mendō over her shoulders. "Darling has a good idea about what Hensō was missing when it came to memories of my life before our 'body-swap' happened. In the wake of his return here from Okusei, he deliberately tested her to see if she would remember the most traumatic incident to my life before that time — my being accidentally teleported from Triton to Earth — and see if she would recall the first time Darling and I actually did meet."
People in the room gasped. "And I can say flatly, ladies and gentlemen, that Hensō failed the test," Ataru then said. "Which proved to me right then and there that THIS lady with us now is the real Redet Lum." He waved to Lum in emphasis.
"People forget things all the time!" Megane asserted.
"True, but not something like THAT!" Ataru snapped back. "Atop that, believe it or not, Lum — and her friends, by the way — were taught a lot of ethical things in both elementary school and middle school, especially if they ever found themselves in a position where they would have to deal with a less-advanced culture." He started counting off points on his hand. "The space-taxi incident. If it was Lum that was there, she certainly wouldn't take the whole freakin' PLANET hostage just to convince me to let her stay with me." He then grinned. "Then again, if it was Lum that was there instead of Hensō, I would've gladly opened the door for her."
"Atop that, there was the whole marriage issue," Lum added. "Urusian law is quite specific about this: TAGGING HORNS IN A TAG RACE DOES NOT EQUAL A MARRIAGE PROPOSAL!" She gazed on Shinobu. "Regardless of what Darling said at the end of it — and by the way, I applaud Shinobu for what she did the night beforehand — I personally would have respected the law and not trapped Darling in something like that!"
"What about the clone gun thing?" Ryūnosuke asked as Shinobu blushed.
"Never should have happened," Lum said with a shake of her head. "Ditto also with using spacialisers to go back in time to try to influence Darling's habits to develop a different way when he was a child. And certainly NOT using a spacialiser to steal Darling's very own DIARY so she could look into his own future!" There was a snarl in her voice when she mentioned that. "And I certainly would have come down HARD on Ten-chan to make him realise there are certain things you shouldn't do to another planet's very own BIOSPHERE!" She then perked. "Hiromi, I just thought of something."
"What's that?" Hiromi asked.
"Didn't you ever get hold of a copy of the Book of Lum? If you showed THAT to everyone, no one would question what happened!"
Hiromi sighed. "I didn't want to risk anything concerning the Church until I felt that Earth would be secure in case Ōgi decided to launch an attack to keep everything as is, Lum. I see it just as Onii-san and Onē-san do, Lum: There are SIX BILLION people we have to worry about."
"I brought it."
Everyone turned to see Kyech standing by the front door, a small book in hand. As some people fought down shivers on the Dragonspeaker's sudden appearance, she walked over to place the book on Megane's desk. "Read that," she said before vanishing yet again.
Everyone blinked, and then Megane looked down before the title, written in kanji and kana, leapt out to him. "The Book of Lum…?"
People moved to gather around his desk. "So this is it, huh?" Ryūnosuke mused as she picked the Book up to gaze at it before she opened it to the index. What was written there made her gape. "Holy…!" She then stared at Megane. "'First Book of the Holy Apostles of the Living Goddess Lum, written by Aisuru Satoshi, styled Megane,'" she read, which made Megane jolt in shock. "'Second Book of the Holy Apostles of the Living Goddess Lum, written by Daremo Hiroyuki, styled Kakugari.'" As Kakugari gaped, Ryūnosuke read, "'Third Book of the Holy Apostles of the Living Goddess Lum, written by Urayamu Akira, styled Chibi.' 'Fourth Book of the Holy Apostles of the Living Goddess Lum, written by Shitto Kōsuke, styled Perm.' 'Fifth Book of the Holy Apostles of the Living Goddess Lum, written by Mendō Shūtarō.'"
"WHAT?!"
That was Mendō, who had STILL been in a daze when Enjō had brought him into the classroom. As he surged up to gaze over her shoulder at the Book, his eyes went very wide as the titles of all the chapters leapt out at him. "Impossible…"
"Look at your 'book,' Ryūnosuke-san," Hiromi bade. "Tell us what you see there."
Ryūnosuke blinked, and then she flipped the pages to get to that section. "'The Book of the Holy Friend of the Living Goddess Lum, the Lady Fujinami Ryūnosuke.' Damn! At least they got THAT part right!" She then scanned through the pages, her face clouding over as thoughts and ideas leapt out of her. "Well, other than this bein' written like the Bible — I sure as hell don't use 'thou' in my diary! — this is almost dead on to what I wrote there." She then scowled. "Except…"
"Except what?" Chigaiko challenged.
"All the stuff about Ataru's all damned wrong!" the tomboy asserted. "He never did anything to hurt me, especially after he found out I was a girl! Hell, after the Marchenland opened, he even gave Oyaji a few good beatings every time he was being stupid!" She waved to the Book. "Readin' THIS, it sounds like Ataru was just doin' that to find some way into my panties to turn me away from Hensō! Hell, much that I didn't really consider Ataru and Hensō close friends, I never thought of Hensō as someone I cared for as the 'one true light in'…what the hell IS this shit, anyway?!"
"Some people would call it 'brainwashing,' Ryūnosuke."
Eyes locked on Kyech, who had produced five chairs out of nowhere and filled them with five people (or so it looked like to those in the class), all now covered in blankets to hide their faces and upper bodies. The telltale dark blue skirts, knee-high socks and uwabaki indoor shoes clearly indicated they were woman wearing Tomobiki High seifuku. Silence fell for a moment, and then Hiromi blinked before her jaw dropped. "Oh, merciful Buddha, please don't tell me they're…"
Kyech nodded. "Shūtarō."
Mendō perked. "H-hai?"
"Come here, please."
The richest student in the class blinked before he walked over to stand before one of the covered girls. Kyech then reached down and gently pulled the blanket away to reveal what lay underneath. Seeing that, Mendō looked before he dropped back in shock. "WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE GODS IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!"
"That, I cannot answer," the Dragonspeaker stated. "None the less, their existence was sensed by several of my friends who aided in the cleanup of Tomobiki last week. They alerted me to this. I can only surmise that there were those in the Church who were so concerned about your safety — and knew enough of what templated (yet non-woken) Avalonian bioroids are capable of doing — they saw your 'sisters' created so that, should you die, there would be something of you…" — her eyes then fell on the Stormtroopers as she moved to shift off the blankets from the other girls — "…and all of you as well that would live on."
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
And then…
"Um, why?!"
"Why what?" Ataru asked as he gazed on Perm.
"Why make clones — and FEMALE ones at that! — of us?!" he asked as he waved to the very pretty and slender female version of himself, now seated closed-eyed on the chair Kyech had provided her. "Hell, why create this so-called 'book?!'" He then waved to the book in Ryūnosuke's hand, and then he laughed. "Okay! Okay! I get it!" he said as he waived his hand. "We're on some sort of weird version of Candid Camera! Alright, I get it! Okay, show's over! Where's the damned camera?!"
Ataru sighed. "Dude, you don't get it, do you?"
Megane spun on him. "And what, oh wise one, are we supposedly missing?!"
"Hey! She's got a heartbeat!"
Eyes spun on Kakugari, who had moved over to touch the neck of the stocky yet still quite pretty girl that looked very much like a female version of himself. On seeing that, Ataru and Lum winced as they shook their heads. "Don't blame yourself, Darling," the Oni advised as she gazed at him. "If they can't listen…"
"…Nii-san…you programmed me…"
Kakugari blinked on hearing that soft voice, and then he jerked on sensing tender hands fall on his own. His head robotically turned to stare into her eyes as they opened, revealing sparkling orbs that shone with such innocence, it made everyone looking at her — even a hard-nosed fighter like Koshaji Enjō — gape in awe. As Kakugari began to quake, his whole body breaking out in sweat as his mind began to crash from the overwhelming images and sensations his eyes and touch were now subjecting him to, the girl then giggled as she reached over to draw him into her lap and give him a very warm embrace. "Nii-san, I love you so much!"
Kakugari jolted, and then he melted right out of his arms. "Kakugari!" Megane gasped as the Stormtroopers leapt to their fallen comrade's side to help him back up, and then he spun on the just-woken bioroid, his glasses aflame with outrage. "YOU MONSTER!" he screamed out. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO OUR FRIEND?!"
The poor girl panicked. "KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! YOU'RE SCARY!"
Her hand snared him by the side of the neck and knocked him to her right, directly against Megane's own twin! As people morbidly watched, Megane's head fell on his twin's crossed hands, which jolted her enough to allow the soul-copying (as the Moroboshi siblings, Lum and Kyech could immediately sense) to commence. As the leader of the Stormtroopers moved to pull himself back to his feet, a hand slipped out from under his head and landed on the other side while the other hand twisted around to allow the palm to fall down on his left ear. Sensing that, Megane went stark-white as he realised what was now happening to him. "LET ME GO!" he screamed as he tried to push away, then he gasped as those soft hands clamped down on him with a grip of steel. "HELP! PERM! CHIBI! MAKE THIS MONSTER LET ME GO!"
CRACK! Into the roof he went thanks to a perfect drop-kick by a now very incensed female Megane. "DON'T BE SO INSULTING, ONII-SAN!"
As Perm and Chibi moved to scramble away from the just-woken girl, Ataru walked over to lean out the window and yell up. "Sorry about that, Sempai-tachi!"
"What's the dumbass doing now, Ataru-kun?!" a girl from Class 3-4 demanded.
"He just woke his sister up and insulted her!"
Silence.
"You mean like Hiromi-chan and Tariko-chan?!" a boy hooted.
"Yep!"
"Is she cute?!" another boy asked.
Ataru hummed as he stared at Megane's double for a moment before he nodded. "Let me put it to you guys this way," he said as he yelled back upstairs. "Tokiko-chan here would be PERFECT for the Miss Tomobiki High Contest!"
Whoops and cat-calls answered him. And then…
"'Tokiko?'"
Eyes locked on the just-named Aisuru Tokiko. "Written with the characters for 'child of the season,'" Ataru explained, and then he gazed on Kakugari's double for a moment, and then he hummed. "Hiroyuki's sister…" A nod. "Okay. Mitsuko."
"Um, with what?" the just-named Daremo Mitsuko asked.
"'Beautiful harbour child,'" Ataru said as a grinning ethics teacher moved to sketch the names down on the blackboard.
"Darling, don't forget the others," Lum advised as Mitsuko blushed.
"Already thinking about it, Lum," Ataru promised.
"And speaking of which, we better get them up," Ryūnosuke said as she walked over.
Perm and Chibi both panicked on seeing the tomboy come at them, and then they moved to scramble away from her…and right at the exposed legs of their own doubles! "No way!" the former cried out as he tried to wave the oncoming Ryūnosuke off…
…and then both gasped as their heads slid neatly between their sisters' legs. "There you go, guys!" Ryūnosuke said as most of the girls in the class began to laugh while the bioroids' legs tightened hard against their brother's heads to make sure they couldn't get away. "You sure got the right stuff!"
Chibi's double then sighed before she kicked him away from her. "Personally, Ryūnosuke-chan, Nii-chan here's got some stuff in him, but I'm not sure what it is!" she lamented.
"Ditto here with Nii-kun," Perm's double then announced as she pulled her legs apart so he could get clear and get back to his feet. "Okay, Nii-kun, you're free to go! Thanks for giving me a copy of your soul! I'll be your sister!"
Perm screamed out as he raced out of the class, followed by a wailing Chibi and a stammering Kakugari. "Gee, Nii-san and his friends sure are scared!" Mitsuko mused. "I don't see why not! We're just soul-copies of them, not them in girls' bodies."
Tokiko then stared at Ataru. "So what about them, Ataru?"
Ataru hummed as the just-woken girls stared hopefully at him. "Takako," he said as he pointed at Chibi's sister. "Characters being 'child of the heights.' And Nijiko, using the characters 'child of the rainbow,'" he then added as he pointed to Perm's sister. As Ginko nodded while she wrote them down, he then stared at Mendō. "Well?"
The richest student in the class jolted. "What?!"
"What about Tachiko there?" Ataru asked as he waved to the only not-woken bioroid in the classroom. "You just going to let her sit there with an empty mind?"
Mendō jolted. "WHAT?! What are you trying to say, Moroboshi?! You actually WANT me to let that…that…that THING to have MY…!"
"Be a man, idiot!" a voice snarled from behind him. "Wake your sister up!"
Mendō awked on hearing Tariko's voice from behind him, and then he was kicked in the butt right into the still-sleeping Tachiko's lap. Ataru thoughtfully snared his sheathed katana before it could hurt the bioroid as Mendō's face made contact with her hands, and then they moved to keep him in place as the soul-copying commenced. "What characters would be used for Tachiko-kun, Ataru-kun?" Ginko asked.
"I would assume Ataru-san means 'child of the great sword,' Sensei."
Ginko blinked on hearing that voice escape from Tachiko as she moved her hands away from her brother's head as she stretched herself, and then she giggled as she wrote the name down. By then, Mendô was turning his head up to stare into his sister's face, his eyes wide with disbelief at what just happened. Noting that, Tachiko sighed. "Onii-sama, please don't drool into my skirt! We ARE genetically related even if I am a bioroid, so I don't think Otō-sama or Okā-sama would approve of you taking me to bed!"
Mendō jolted up as he continued to stare at her, and then he collapsed once more to his knees as his brain shut down yet again. As everyone took that in, Tokiko sighed before she gazed on the other woman. "So what makes your brother do that, Tachiko?"
A sigh as Tachiko stood, then knelt to pull up her brother's katana. "He deludes himself into believing that he is in control of everything around him, Tokiko-san," she explained. "Anything that flies out of control upsets him. Depending on the intensity of how much things go out of control, if it appears to threaten him directly…"
"It makes him withdraw into himself," Nijiko finished.
"Regretfully so."
"I can see why your mother's been disappointed in him," Shinobu noted as she came over to stand beside her former boyfriend's new sister, and then she gazed up into her face. "Let's hope she'll accept you very well when we break the news to her."
"Not to mention the others' parents, too," Ataru noted.
Tariko snapped her fingers. "Damn! Knew we forgot something!"
Everyone stared at her, and then laughter broke out as we…
(Posted Tue, 01 Jun 2010 03:54)
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