[Episode 244099] [Episode 244099]"Tariko…"
"I…"
Lum gave her a saucy smile. "Tariko, what's wrong?"
Tariko shuddered. They had got to the captain's private cabin on the deck just below where Shinobu was quartered as commanding officer. Once they were inside, the clothes — Lum's jumpsuit and Tariko's tank-top T-shirt and exercise shorts — had come off amidst a sea of hot kisses, sending both girls into the latter's bed. Right now, Tariko was kneeling over the Oni, her hand stopped from touching the nexus between Lum's legs. "I…" the captain began, and then she sighed as she shifted her hand away from Lum's crotch as she moved to lie beside her. "I'm sorry, Lum. I want to do it with you, but…" She blushed in embarrassment. "Shinobu forced me to make a promise when we went through the Awakening together five years ago just before we went to Fast School." She pulled the Oni closer to her. "'Just because your brother is willing to chase down every skirt that crosses his path doesn't mean that you have to do it as well, Moroboshi Tariko,'" she then quoted the Fort Erie's captain in a very good approximation of Shinobu's voice. "'When it does come, don't do it until the night you actually bond with the girl you'll spend the rest of your life with.'"
Lum blinked, and then she giggled. "Well, there's an easy way to settle that!"
Tariko stared at her, which made the Oni grin as she reached for the other girl's hands and shifted them to rest over her horn buds. "Tag! We're married now!" Lum announced before she shifted herself closer to Tariko as she ducked in for a warm kiss.
Tariko blinked, and then she sighed. "Oh, what the heck…"
Her hands shifted over to allow her fingertips to rest on Lum's face as she allowed her mind to probe into the Oni's body. At first, there was a bit of resistance, but Lum was quick to lower her own psychic guards and allow the Terran's probes to go into her brain. As their eyes closed, their minds began to play a wild kaleidoscope of images before each other's mental "eyes" as their whole young lives — both during the times they were in their birth bodies and later in their Avalonian bodies — replayed.
Lum's life was remarkably simple compared to her new bond-mate. Only daughter of a prominent couple on her homeworld, she was doted on constantly by her loving parents. She made friends quite easily, despite one of them — Aruka Ran — having suffered from the wrath of her mother Chena whenever some accident happened (usually at Lum's instigation) which saw her harshly punished for her "bad behaviour." As she grew up, she began to attend intergalactic elementary school, where she met her two other closest friends, Shigaten Benten of Fukunokami and Oyuki of Neptune, they forming an inseparable bond that would see them survive thick and thin, especially when it came to very harsh teachers that spanned the gamut from crazed cyborgs to defrocked Zephyrite inquisitors. Meeting famous personalities from all over the local cluster, especially the husband-and-wife team of Nassur and Cinba, based on the Home Base asteroid located close to Sakusei Station and Ran's ancestral homeworld of Shingetsu.
And then, just shortly after they entered galactic middle school…
Hensō. Kamen. Mienai. Damasu.
Project: Kamen.
Tariko shuddered as Lum's memories of her Avalonian twin sister's "birth" replayed through their growing mental link. The look of ungodly pain as something seemed to merge the mind of a young Oni girl and an "android" that was quickly discovered to be MUCH more than she had been presented by a grinning Ōgi for a moment before they broke apart. The unholy rage that Lum felt as Hensō collapsed crying in her arms, especially when she noted that NONE of the Niphentaxians who had come to the Invader home on Uru that day seemed to care that a newborn sentient being was suffering like this. Cinba's shocking announcement that Hensō and the others were NOT androids, but perfect bioroid — as natural as one born from a mother's womb — CLONES of their templates, which had stunned Invader and the other girls' parents/guardians until Nassur gave Ōgi a nearly-fatal psychic knife, then mind-probed the Niphentaxian leader to get what they needed to know. And then a call to Okusei, summoning two famous free warriors of Noukiios — including She Who Speaks to Dragons, the Lady Seu-P'ye Yesu-Re Hechnich'-K'ekhech ("Kyech" to her closest friends), one of the local cluster's most famous fighters — to Onishuto to get the horrible truth concerning Hensō and her friends, not to mention a man named Ganzo dai-Louc, the "Arch-Heretic" himself.
The Avalonians.
Life after that became rather quiet as Ōgi — who acted as if nothing he had done was wrong — earned the wrath not just of the Noukiites, but the Zephyrites (genetic cousins to the Avalonians thanks to their shared ancestry from the extinct race that once lived on a dead world named Sagussa) and the Yehisrites (who despised ALL forms of chattel slavery). The attack on Phentax Twelve, which liberated nearly 2.5 BILLION Avalonians from slavery and saw a whole planet of five million Niphentaxian colonists slaughtered…thanks ultimately to a strange curse that had been put on Lum of all people when she had been born! Lum's guilt, which was assuaged by old Ganzo himself, who told her, "The crimes of my guilty race had to be purged with the blood of my people. Thanks to you seeing Hensō as she really is when she was born, you have liberated a whole race from the purgatories of Hell itself. The Eternal Spirit of Creation shines on you, my dear. Live your life in peace and free of guilt."
Lum did. She saw to it that Hensō and her friends were sent to Okusei, where they won coveted spots at the famous university there and eventually met up with four of the legendary Flower Youth of Noukiios, all Avalonians themselves. And while most of the races of the Galactic Federation had "buried their heads in the sand" when the power of the Niphentaxians was badly broken by the Noukiites, she herself began to explore the larger galaxy beyond thanks to the twin sister she got thanks to Project: Kamen. In doing so, she met a man from Earth who had also got a "twin sister" thanks to the technology of the Avalon bioroid factory well over a half-decade before Hensō's birth.
That twin sister being the woman now in Lum's arms.
Tariko's own life began to play before her. Born as one half of the soul of a man named Moroboshi Ataru, she had been separated from him thanks to a legendary being created centuries ago: the Saikō Jinseijutsu mental database of ninjutsu knowledge first fashioned by the immortal Master Hosan, lifetime servant of the Chrysanthemum Throne. How Ataru, when he was close to his seventh birthday, had found a man dying on the streets near his home in Tomobiki. How he was told of his family's great secret — explained as a "poor, defenceless girl that never had a body of her own" — and how the great being's previous host didn't want her to die without gaining SOME way of having her own body. How Ataru had gladly said "yes" to that…and had his soul ripped in half by the onslaught of nearly a MILLENNIUM's worth of martial arts knowledge and the awakened soul of a being that had been condemned to this existence.
Imprisoned for the "crime" of becoming a sentient being.
Luck then came to Ataru shortly afterward in the great visage of the heavenly Noukiite sky-dragon Nengmek'i, blood-brother and closest friend to She Who Speaks to Dragons. The trip to Okusei, where Kyech and friends realised what had happened to this poor child from Earth. How Ganzo — then living in exile on Okusei as he had a price on his head throughout the Galactic Federation — offered the use of two non-templated Avalonian bodies for the two additional souls in Ataru's mind. Then came the strange falling-down-the-rapids feeling Lum had herself experienced when she gained her own Avalonian body a year before…and Moroboshi Tariko awoke in her own body for the first time.
Life for Tariko and Ataru — and their big sister Negako — on Okusei was carefree and fun as the now-free Saikō Jinseijutsu began to teach the two in the ways of their family's ancient Art while she herself began to understand what actually GAINING the prize of her own humanity meant for her. Four years did the Moroboshi siblings remain on Okusei until Tariko's and Ataru's homesickness convinced Negako to take her charges back to Japan to reunite with their parents, Muchi and Kinshō.
It wasn't much of a family reunion.
Rejected by Kinshō because of how she came into being, Tariko immediately (at Negako's suggestion) convened a Council for the Succession, using the Moroboshi Clan's in-house bylaws to make herself the new Matriarch of the Clan. Much to Kinshō's horror, relatives (both blood and adopted) voted Tariko in to take the place of the late Nagaiwakai (Muchi's mother) as Matriarch. Without hesitation, Tariko got her uncle Komeru's ward, Yumoa Reigi, to cut off all access by Muchi and Kinshō to any trust funds set aside for Ataru by Nagaiwakai, which pretty much turned Ataru away from his parents once and for all time. He elected to go back to Okusei to be with Kyech while Tariko fell under Negako's legal charge. During that painful time, Tariko reunited with Ataru's childhood friend, Miyake Shinobu. When Shinobu heard about what had happened to Ataru and Tariko, the two young girls became virtually sisters in all but name.
And then the Avalonians came to Earth.
By then, Shinobu herself was an Avalonian; Tariko didn't like the idea of her best friend growing old and dying when Tariko herself was physically in her early twenties. And since the Japanese government was rather hesitant on the idea of acknowledging two women who had appeared out of NOWHERE, the Moroboshi sisters and Shinobu travelled to Canada, residing in a small city in Ontario while the Canadian government (who had no problems whatsoever with the likes of Negako) began to welcome the former slaves from outer space as new refugees amongst their kind, especially since they also brought incredible gifts of technology with them. Both girls endured the Awakening after Tariko's twelfth birthday, and then were invited to go to "Fast School" — a special version of the Basic Military Officer's Course at the Canadian Forces Leadership and Recruit School in Saint-Jean, south of Montréal — to become officers in the military. Once they won their commissions as brevet reserve officers in the Forces, they took assignment at H.M.C.S. Star in Hamilton, Shinobu learning all the ways of the Navy while Tariko took to flying star fighters like Benten flying her space-bike.
And all throughout that time…
«You stayed single all for me?» Lum wondered as both felt the bond finally settle in and they held each other close as they kissed.
«Well, not initially for you,» Tariko admitted as she reached down to draw a blanket over them as they relaxed. «I did date around and sleep around, especially when it came to girls like Narumi and the others. But it was Onii-chan who convinced me to give you a try should you ever come my way.» She purred as she leaned up to gently lick one of Lum's horns, which made the Oni gasp. «Glad I listened.»
«Glad I listened to Darling, too.»
Tariko smiled. "Am I your Darling now?"
Lum nodded. "You are."
Both gazed on each other, and then they kissed…
*Way to go, Tariko,* Ryūnosuke thought to herself as she relaxed in her own cabin, which was next door to Tariko's. On a corvette, the senior officers' quarters — the executive officer (Azato Miwa), combat officer (Hagiwawa Urara), chief engineer officer (Fujinami Ryūnosuke), medical officer (Narusawa Misako), supply officer (Yamanoue Yuri) and air detachment commander (Moroboshi Tariko) — were all on the same level (sharing the same section of deck as the wardroom), with the quarters for the junior officers and visiting officers one level below in the forward superstructure. And even if Ryūnosuke herself had slept with Tariko several times before, she hadn't felt the primal urge that Tariko now experienced with Lum. And maybe…
*Well, once Negako-nēchan finds some way for that guy Oyaji told me about to cross over and become an Avalonian, we'll just have to wait and see…* Ryūnosuke mused, and then she blinked as her doorbell rang. "Come in!" she called out.
The door opened, revealing Ryūnosuke's immediate subordinates: Lieutenants Akiyama Yūko (combat systems engineer) and Sawada Minako (propulsion systems engineer); plus Sub-lieutenants Sakakibara Chiharu (sensory systems engineer), Minegishi Ruriko (weapons engineer), Kubo Naoko (combat support systems engineer), Taniguchi Mari (ship's systems engineer), Arimori Kei (electrical systems engineer) and Ishida Nagisa (computer systems engineer). "Are we FEELING that, Ryū-chan?!" Minako demanded as everyone moved to sit on the couch and their boss' bed as Chiharu moved to make tea.
"Yeah," Ryūnosuke said as she waited for Chiharu to serve the tea. "Tariko learned about Lum through her brother; Lum's sister lives on Okusei as you all know, so I kinda guess Ataru wanted them to get together if the chance ever came."
"So will Lum go to school with us?" Nagisa asked.
"Probably. Thank the gods that we all go to a Montessori school that can shift around necessary so that we all can get what we need for high school diplomas before we go on to university and get our degrees there." All of Fort Erie's crew (along with the crews of Port Colborne and Humberstone, not to mention soldiers and airmen from various elements of 10th Brigade and the 37th Wing) attended the Aqueduct Montessori Academy of Welland, which had been established in secret by the Department of National Defence on the old grounds of Welland High and Vocational School to the west of downtown so that all the Avalonians now resident in the southern half of the peninsula would get the chance to fit in easier in their adopted homeland. "Systems status?"
"All green," Nagisa reported. The tall, raven-haired woman with the amber eyes was responsible for ensuring that all the corvette's computer systems were running at full strength. "The attempted hack by our guest in the brig was pretty sloppy; he obviously didn't count on our using programming taken from the factory itself in our systems. That hack would've made a mess in a Niphentaxian mainframe, but not ours."
"Thank Lyna for that," Naoko noted; her area of responsibility had overlapped with Nagisa's in this instance. "We have to get in touch with our friends at Leitrim to develop some offensive hacking packages in case we run into more people like this, Ryū-chan. We can't allow ourselves to get confident after this case."
Ryūnosuke nodded before she sipped her tea; she preferred hers flat without the red pepper powder spice Tariko loved to ingest herself. "Get the full readout of that and package it up for my signature," she said. "I'll have it sent to Leitrim."
The others nodded, and then they perked as the doorbell pealed again. Minako opened it to reveal Shigaten Benten. "Is there something wrong?" Ryūnosuke asked.
Benten blinked, her eyes darting to her left. Towards Tariko's quarters, all the engineering officers were quick to realise. Sensing the storm of joy and sorry deep in the Fukunokami's heart, Minako glanced a question towards her superior. Ryūnosuke blinked, and then she nodded. With that, the crimson-haired tomboy with the bright chestnut eyes stepped out of her superior's room. Reaching for Benten's hand, she smiled. "C'mon down with me," she bade, pulling the Fukunokami with her.
Benten gaped, though she didn't resist as Minako directed her to the nearest stairwell. As some of the others watched her go, Ryūnosuke sighed. "Chiharu?"
Chiharu blinked. "Yes, Ryūnosuke-san?"
"Go find the other girl. I could tell they're both sex-buddies with Tariko's fiancée, so she'll be hurting once she finds out what just happened."
A nod, an understanding smile. "Right away, Lieutenant."
"Um…"
Minako smiled as she unbuttoned her shirt to reveal the lovely breasts she had on underneath, held only in place by a very lacy bra. Watching this impromptu strip show in front of her, Benten tried not to drool too much as the lieutenant slipped off her slacks to reveal the thong panties she had on underneath. Damn! I don't think THAT'S normal uniform for these people! the Fukunokami thought as Minako snapped off the bra and slipped off her panties, then moved to sit down beside her on the lieutenant's bed.
"Ah…um, look…"
A finger landed on Benten's lips to silence her. "Sister, you are both happy that our sister is bonded and hurt because you and she are lovers as well as friends," Minako stated. "Even if you fully don't understand our traditions, what I'm doing is proper. I'm not bonded, as are you. You believe now that you'll be alone now that Lum is bonding with my friend. Don't be. I'll be here for you. If you want me."
Benten gaped. "Why?"
Minako smiled. "Because you need it." A sigh. "Benten, once this whole silliness with the tag race is over with, Lum will no doubt take up full-time residence on Earth with Tariko. You and Oyuki-sama both are her best friends. That means you'll be visiting Earth pretty often to see her. And what happens when you get the urge to make love to her?" She shook her head. "Tariko won't share. I know her pretty well. She may not have Ataru's willingness to do it with a girl at the drop of a hat, but she's VERY loyal to those she loves. What we just sensed updeck is the ONLY time Tariko will ever choose a bond-mate. They'll be together for life. I'm sure of it."
The biker-girl from Bensaikyō considered that, and then she sighed. "I'm happy for her. I…" She shook her head. "Hell, I did it once with her brother. Darling's a pretty great guy even if he'll sleep with any girl that wants to do it with him. And when Lum found out about Tariko, well…" A chuckle. "We were all pretty happy for her. She had a boyfriend before; pilot that our pal Ran was crushing on pretty bad. But he…" A shake of the head. "It didn't work out. So…" A sniff.
Minako smiled. "It's okay to cry, Benten…"
Benten blinked, and then she shuddered as tears began to flow. A second later, she was in Minako's arms, sobs escaping her as she held the Terran-form Avalonian close…
So now we…
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(Posted Sun, 16 Jan 2011 00:42)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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