West of Yokosuka, at the Hinata-sō…
An hour after departing from Shinjuku Station, the travellers from Narita arrived at Ōfuna Station, located to the northwest of the downtown section of Kamakura on the northern shores of the Sagami Sea. From there, Ataru, Hiromi and Lum — with Mimōko and Shikuko following them discretely — transferred to the local Yokosuka Line for the trip to Zushi Station, which was three stops down en route to the seaport that served as the Kantō region's main base for the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Forces and the United States Navy's deployed forces in Japan. Exiting from there, they made their way to a local street tram stop for the trip that would take them into Hinata City, located on the western slopes of Mount Ōgusu from the urban part of Yokohama on the western shores of the Miura Peninsula. Once they arrived at the stop at the foot of Hinata-dōri, the travellers got off and headed up the hill to a very picturesque villa located at the end of the street on the slopes of the mountain in question. Following them, the Sebone cousins were quick to take note of where they were.
"The Hinata-sō?" Mimōko asked. "Isn't this where…?"
Shikuko nodded. "That university rōnin who's said to be totally indestructible lives," she finished for her relative. "Why would Ataru-kun live here? And does Lum live here, too? Aren't all aliens supposed to be living only in Tomobiki?"
"Good question," the raven-haired woman mused as she straightened the fighting gloves that normally protected her hands. "Everyone in Tomobiki's been screaming bloody murder for the last month because of Lum vanishing like that, but save for the rich fool that lives there, they haven't done much. None of the aliens who had haunted that place since Lum came here last year have been back. Of course, no one really cares for Ataru-kun…" A smirk. "But if they find out…"
"I'm not saying anything," the green-haired woman standing beside her said.
Mimôko nodded. Like all tōshi across Kantō, the Sebone cousins had cultivated private links to the "normal" world beyond their circles. Such links where treasured with the same passion one might have expressed towards a jade sculpture or something of equal value; having "normal" friends or relatives convinced those cursed by the "madness of the Three Kingdoms" — as those subjected to the Fate of the Sacred Beads often called their particular situation when they were feeling especially vile — gave them a sense of normalcy, a belief that the darkness that threatened to engulf their lives did have a light at the end of the tunnel. Because of that, whenever other tōshi learned of such people, they left them alone; after all, one never knew if a tōshi might come along and take away your "normal" friend or relative in turn.
Uneme Nozomi, fortunately, hadn't fallen victim to that sort of ugly fate…but she had fallen victim to a horrid disease that had forced her to be isolated for the last year or so of her life in a hospital in Tomobiki near the route that Moroboshi Ataru often took to go to school. Seeing the carefree man every day had exposed the dying girl to love for the first time in her life…and the last as well, despite all the attempts by her parents to deter such a crush. But Nozomi hadn't been deterred…and her spirit had remained in the mortal plane long enough for Ataru to learn of her and give her the one date that made her truly happy, thus allowing her finally slip the surly bonds of Earth and reached out to touch the face of Kami-sama…
That their cousin had died happy made Mimōko and Shikuko very happy in turn.
And while they were often distracted by school or the other interesting aspects that living as tōshi in Kantō often demanded of them, the Sebone cousins had come to actually wonder what dating a free-spirit like Moroboshi Ataru was like.
Even if there was a small complication to the issue.
"So what do you want to do?" Shikuko asked.
Mimōko nodded. "The teahouse. Let's go there."
The other woman nodded…
"Tadaima!"
"Okaeri nasai, Sempai-tachi!"
Hearing that cheerful voice, Hiromi then smiled as a younger girl walked into the lobby of the Hinata-sō, a kitchen apron draped over her. "Ah, Shinobu-san!" she said as Maehara Shinobu came to a stop and bowed to her. "I scent something quite tasty in the kitchen this evening! I trust we're in time to enjoy the repast?!"
"Hai!" the effectively abandoned — as both her parents pretty much had done nothing to stay in contact with their child after their divorce — middle school student said as she blushed. "We'll be having some chicken kara'age with onigiri filled with kimch'i and other spiced dishes. It's almost ready now."
"Splendid!" Hiromi declared. "And where…?"
"ONII-CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN…OW!"
Hiromi sighed. "Onē-sama has him still under the Kan'yōgan, I believe."
Ataru chuckled as Lum giggled. "Well, if the little tyke can't understand why Keitarō doesn't want to 'play' with her anymore, there's little else we can do," the former mused as he slipped off his shoes and moved to put on the indoor slippers that had been set out for him. "What about the rest of the girls here, Shinobu-chan?"
A sigh. "Naru-sempai and Motoko-sempai are still sulking over what Taiko-sempai did to them after she was allowed to get out of the Yōkatana Hinata thanks to Negako-san. Of course, since Taiko-sempai is busy with Tariko-sempai, they can't go after her to make the curse she landed on them come off…" Shinobu then giggled. "…but they can't hurt Sempai either since Negako-san let him master the Kan'yōgan. Every time they try to do what they usually did whenever Sempai had an accident…"
"They either hurt themselves or else wreck something that they'll have to pay for right afterward," Lum stated after she had slipped off her own shoes. "Don't worry about it, Shinobu-chan. I had to learn about that. So do they." She then hummed as she looked around. "Where's Hensō?" she then asked as she gazed on Shinobu.
"Hensō-sempai's helping me in the kitchen right now," Shinobu said.
The others nodded as they headed up the corridor into the main lounge, where several people were now relaxing. Chief amongst them was the manager of the Hinata-sō, Urashima Keitarō. He was currently working away on his laptop preparing study notes for his courses at the Sagashi Seminar for the following week. Now lying on the floor nearby after she had tried to drop-kick Keitarō from the area of the stairs to the upper floor rooms was a moaning Kaolla Su, now rubbing her sore butt and muttering something in her native language. Also there awaiting the call for dinner were two of the Hinata-sō's other long-time residents, Konno Mitsune and Aoyama Motoko. The former was currently watching television and the latter was in a chair attempting to meditate…though Ataru, Hiromi and Lum could sense that she was also there to keep an eye out on Keitarō. "Hey, Hiromi! Welcome back!" Mitsune called out as she waved to the traveller. "Did you get what you were looking for down in Hong Kong?"
"Hai, Mitsune-san, I did," Hiromi stated before she gazed on Keitarō. "Keitarō-san, much that I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I believe that the presence of the Lóngyù here at the Hinata-sō might attract the wrong sort of attention this way."
A shocked intake of breath caused people to gaze on Motoko, who was now quite pale. "M-m-m-more t-t-t-tōshi…?" the young heiress of the Shinmei-ryū sputtered.
Keitarō sighed. "Will you get Negako-san to protect it?"
Motoko gargled on hearing that name. "Of course," Hiromi promised.
"Fair enough," he said with a nod as Shinobu headed into the kitchen.
"What's this?!"
"None of your business, Naru-san," Hiromi stated as she gazed over her shoulder as Narusegawa Naru came down from her bedroom, a flash of annoyance on the other woman's face. "Or shall I have Onē-sama discipline you again?!"
Naru jerked…and then she turned quite grey as footfalls echoed from the direction of the main lobby, that followed by an eerie chill — or so it felt to Naru — of a being that, in one sense of the term, well deserved the nickname "The Black Death of the Marital Arts."
"You have returned with the Lóngyù, Hiromi. Was there an incident?"
Hiromi shook her head. "No, Onē-sama. Three other tōshi came down to try to fetch it, but I beat them to the mark," she admitted as she gazed on the figure in the black gi that had just walked inside. "One of them followed us down here from Nerima."
"Yes, Mimōko is currently in the teashop with her cousin Shikuko, no doubt trying to obtain intelligence from Haruka as to what is happening here now that we have taken residence in this inn," Moroboshi Negako calmly stated in that toneless, syllable-perfect voice of hers, one which had made most of the residents of the Hinata-sō soil themselves on hearing it for the first time. Noting the curious look on her adopted sister's face, the de facto grandmaster of the Moroboshi-Hana Saikō Jinseijutsu-ryū added, "They are Uneme Nozomi's cousins." As Ataru and Lum both gasped in shock on hearing that name and Hiromi's eyes went wide, Negako added, "Mimōko is known amongst her peers as 'Ryomō Shimei.' Shikuko is 'Ryofu Hōsen.'"
Silence.
"Why are those animals here…?"
"Motoko!"
A shuddering Motoko jolted on hearing Keitarō's snapped voice, and then she turned to stare wide-eyed at him. "Do I need to call your sister?" he wondered.
Motoko gargled on hearing that threat, and then she shrunk in on herself…
Down the hill inside the Wafū Chabō Hinata…
"So they moved here as a way of getting away from the loons in Tomobiki?"
"Yep," Urashima Haruka said as she placed the cups of tea before the Sebone cousins. "Turns out that when she was a baby, Lum got cursed by some alien witch to never know true love. Five years ago, that curse badly rebounded on her when some idiot from a planet named Phentax Two created a clone of Lum, a girl named Hensō. When Hensō was programmed with Lum's memories, the curse kicked in and merged their souls together briefly before they were literally ripped apart. No one understood what happened and Lum went back to living her life…but without the ability to develop any real sense of self-discipline inside her. Hence, the whole thing with the 'world oil theft' last year, not to mention the whole crap with the mushrooms when her other 'fiancé' showed up last month. And, of course, the fact that she wouldn't listen to a damn thing Ataru-kun said about their actually not being a married couple." She moved to light up a cigarette. "Ataru-kun found out about it six months ago when he got the chance to meet Hensō on a planet named Okusei. But when he learned about a ton of other things, he realised he had to wait until he got a chance to get Lum alone so she could get the help she could. The whole thing with the 'Second Tag Race'…" — she made finger-quotes on saying that — "…gave him the chance to do it. And he did it. Now they're living here."
"Why not Tomobiki?" Mimōko wondered before sipping her tea.
"A whole ton of reasons," Haruka stated. "Family problems on his side; his parents are borderline emotionally abusive when it comes to him. It turns out he had a twin brother who died when he was just three; Kaeru — that's the brother's name — was the favoured child over Ataru-kun. On her side, it's all the idiots who became her so-called 'Stormtroopers,' not to mention the rich fool who lives there." She took a deep pull of the tobacco fumes before relaxing herself. "Atop that, part of what cured Lum of her problems gave her a very strong empathic power. She could feel the lust they all felt for her when she was allowed to visit Tomobiki in secret a week ago. None of the people there — people she once thought of as her friends — cared for her own feelings, especially when it came to Ataru-kun. And given what problems he was going through at the time, she decided that she wanted a chance to be alone with her man and work things out." That wasn't the full truth of what was going on, Haruka knew, but trying to explain the unbelievable emotional and psychological mess that now hung over the lives of Moroboshi Ataru and Redet Lum would cause even an avowed abolitionist to drink.
"Oh…that's too bad," Shikuko breathed out.
Haruka blinked, and then she hummed. "You got a thing for him, huh?"
The Rakuyō senior perked, and then she smiled. "Somewhat. Our cousin Nozomi lived in Tomobiki. She died of cystic fibrosis a few months ago…but her spirit remained in this life until Ataru-kun was asked to go on a date with her."
The café shop owner winced. "I'm sorry for your loss. I've heard of how much tōshi like having normal friends outside their circles."
A nod. "Dōmo." Shikuko then sniffed. "I've been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease." As Haruka winced again and Mimōko reached over to squeeze her cousin's shoulder in support, she added, "The doctors aren't giving me much hope. I…" A sigh. "Well, I want a chance to date a nice guy like Ataru-kun, too. He gladly wore all the stuff Nozomi knitted for him — which wasn't complete, by the way! — on their date. In the middle of summer atop that!" As Haruka gaped and Mimōko laughed, Shikuko breathed out, "Well…if a guy's willing to do that in public, he's okay by me."
"You'll get a chance."
Shikuko blinked. "What do you mean?"
Haruka smiled. "Remember when Ataru-kun crushed Lum's old horns?"
"Yeah."
"That was a sign of divorce amongst Oni," the café owner stated. "In effect, it meant that Ataru-kun totally rejected everything that Lum believed in about their relationship to that point in time." Haruka took a deep pull on her cigarette before adding, "That, of course, was actually meant to shock Lum into realising what was wrong with her. But she does understand now that Ataru-kun doesn't want to be tied down in marriage at this point in his life. After all, the man's just seventeen! That's WAY too young to get married!" As the Sebone cousins nodded, Haruka added, "In essence, they're friends-with-benefits now. And Lum's the same way with Hiromi-chan, too."
"Who is she?" Mimōko asked.
Haruka blinked. "Hiromi?" At the Nan'yō senior's nod, the café owner shrugged. "In her first life back before the Three Kingdoms period of China started in earnest, she was Liú Hóng." A shrug. "Some minor official…or so she says. I…"
"Reitei-sama…?"
Silence.
"What?!" Haruka gasped as she stared at a wide-eyed Shikuko.
The senior from Rakuyō blinked before she gazed on her cousin…
Minutes later…
"MAJESTY!"
Hiromi jerked on hearing the crash! of the front doors being flung open, that followed by the rapid footsteps of two people racing from the lobby into the living room. She then sighed before gazing in annoyance at the Sebone cousins…
…who had dropped to their knees as they bowed their heads to her, their hands forming the right fist-in-left palm salute used by military officers in China two millennia before. Quickly sensing the overwhelming shock both women now were feeling, it didn't take the reborn Xiàolíng Emperor of the Latter Hàn Dynasty long to realise what had just happened. "I take it, Hōsen-dono, Shimei-dono, Haruka-san told you."
Both women looked up. Shikuko looked ready to break down and cry while Mimōko was just too stunned to react. "Majesty, if we had only known…!" the former then moaned as she gazed pleadingly at Hiromi. "Why didn't you contact any of us?!"
A sigh. "Because I did not wish the news of my being alive to unleash this so-called 'fate' that you all believe you must be overwhelmed by, Shikuko-san," Hiromi stated, making the Rakuyō senior gape in shock on noting that the reborn emperor had just addressed her by her birth-name. "Now stand up and take those shoes off!" She said as she pointed at their feet. "Shinobu-san and Keitarō-san both work very hard to keep this place clean and neat! You don't need to be tracking in dirt! The floors were waxed yesterday!"
The cousins awked as they moved to take their shoes off…as a laugh escaped Mitsune. "Damn, Hiromi! Are they ALL going to be like that to you?!"
"What do you expect, Kitsune-san?!" Shinobu noted from the kitchen. "Don't you remember what Karumi-sempai was like when she first woke in her new body?!"
The would-be reported laughed. "Yeah! You got a point!"
"What-t-t ab-b-bout-t-t me?"
Hearing that stuttering voice, the Sebone cousins blinked, and then turned . . .
. . . to see a woman appearing to be about Urashima Keitarō's physical age walk out from a nearby bedroom. She was now dressed in fashionable if somewhat tomboyish clothes, a bronze magatama marking her as C-rank hanging off her left earlobe. A closer look revealed that this girl could easily be the kanrinin's own twin sister, though her hair was a little longer and styled slightly differently than his. She also had glasses over her eyes. "Who are you?" Mimōko then breathed out.
A smile. "I'm Urashima K-k-Kurumi," the newcomer then said.
Silence.
"Tōgai Shisai…!" Shikuko breathed out on recognising the stammer the other woman was now expressing. As Mimōko stared at her, the Rakuyō senior added, "Don't you remember? In his first life, Tōgai always had a bad stuttering problem…"
"Right…" Mimōko breathed out. "So where've you been all this time?"
"Trapped in the magatama she now wears," Keitarō answered for his sister before he gazed in amusement at Hiromi. "As Hiromi-san was trapped in her own before Ataru found it when he was six. Shortly after he had taken the Promise of Bunka Go-nen."
THAT caused the Sebone cousins to gasp in shock, they echoed by a frightened squawk from Motoko, who was now almost about to pass out from the fact that MORE of the accursed tōshi of the Three Kingdoms were now within the Hinata-sō. Before anyone else could say anything more, Shinobu then stepped out of the kitchen. "Hiromi-sempai, will your friends be staying for dinner this evening?" she asked. "We have enough food."
"They will, Shinobu-san," Hiromi stated. "There is much I must speak to these two about. And I sense that Shikuko-san, at least, wants a chance to spend some quality time with Onii-san." As Motoko sputtered out on hearing that and Shikuko blushed, the reborn emperor pointed down. "Ladies…your shoes, please?"
The Sebone cousins yelped before they moved to get their shoes off while we…
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