"So where are you going?"
Benten nearly choked on her own breath before she turned to stare apologetically at Lum. "W-w-well, I was g-g-gonna go to th-th-the heads…" she stammered.
The Oni warlord's daughter — who still seemed ready to break down and cry over what she had just learned about her would-be husband and what had been occupying his life for most of the previous decade — gave her a knowing look. "The heads are that way," she said as she pointed off to her right; Benten had been moving to walk out the aft door into the hallway which would have taken her to the hangar deck where her air-bike was located. "If you want to run away, go ahead. I won't stop you."
The Fukunokami biker-babe jerked, and then she sighed. "Then why aren't you going?" she then demanded. While Lum's father was still stunned silent by the revelations both Albus Dumbledore and Konoe Konoemon had just made, the two visiting archmages were chatting away with each other, trying to bring a frazzled Oyuki into the conversation as well. "You just heard what Moroboshi's been involved with!" Benten then snapped. "Do you think I like the idea of my best friend being close to one of the fuckin' You Know Whos?!" She waved towards the large portal windows of the main lounge into the night sky over Tomobiki. "You saw what Infinity did! You think Moroboshi's gonna let you get away with threatenin' to take away everyone's memories of you and all of us?! He'll get Infinity to zap us with another Infinite Wave and we'll be DEAD!"
"Oh, be assured, my dear, Ayumu would never do such a thing."
Benten jolted before she turned to glare at Dumbledore, remembering that it was this old man who had zapped her with that magic spell. "Oh, really?!" she snarled. "Do you have any idea what those fuckin' things really ARE, old man?!"
"They are Yizibajohei," the headmaster of Hogwarts responded.
Benten, Oyuki and Lum's father all screamed on hearing that name. Both Dumbledore and Konoe were quick to notice that Lum herself hadn't reacted to it. «That, Albus, is a very good sign,» the headmaster of Mahora mused as he stared at his friend, using his magical telepathy to pass on that statement to the other archmage.
«Then let us…» Dumbledore replied, and then he tensed. "Oh…"
"What…?" Konoe demanded, and then he tensed as well as sensing the surge of overwhelming magic now about to appear on the Redet Glory. "Ah…"
Lum perked, and then she blinked. "Harry-san?"
Both archmages nodded…as a virtual black hole in space/time opened up to reveal a rather tall man — a Westerner by looks — with messy black hair and jade green eyes behind reading glasses. Coming in with him was a taller dark-haired man with brown eyes and a physique that put most professional bodybuilders to shame. As Lum gazed on them, she was quick to note the first of the newcomers — Harry Potter, one of two men that Ataru had helped gain Gifts from the Great Crystal of Power — was dressed in the psychedelic pattern jumpsuit with hooded floor-length cape befitting the leader of the Cosmic Mage Guild of That Place and one of the most powerful archmages to master the Chaos, the Warlock. And while Lum knew that the only other man Ataru had helped get a gift was the famous young martial artist Saotome Ranma from Nerima, she was quick to recognise the other fellow — in the skin-tight, flame-trimmed red muscle shirt and black form-fitting trousers of the Sentinel — as Harry's maternal first cousin, Dudley Dursley. Thinking of that, she then hummed. "Um, Dudley-san…?"
The Sentinel perked, and then he smiled as he gracefully bowed to the Oni teenager. "A delight to meet you this evening, Miss Lum," he said in English; the ship's on-board translator fields made sure his words would be understood by all. "My cousin and I only wish that the circumstances weren't so potentially ugly."
"Harry, my boy," Dumbledore said as Benten collapsed to her knees in paranoid paralysis on realising that two of THEM were now aboard the ship. As Invader himself began moaning prayers to make the horrid demons from That Place go away — though Oyuki was STILL staring in wide-eyed awe at the chiselled physique the Sentinel possessed — the headmaster of Hogwarts walked over to take the hand of his most favourite student in recent years in his own. "I trust your family have recovered as well."
"Everyone touched by the Crystal thanks to Ataru is recovered. And their relatives as well," the Warlock stated. "Hermione is already preparing the detection spells needed to find all the idiots that did that to Ataru so we can sweep them up and hand them all to him on a silver platter. I assume Professor Wyszynski took him to Yiziba."
Benten and Invader both screamed out again. Oyuki was still staring like a love-struck schoolgirl at the Sentinel. He himself was quick to sense the Neptunian princess' gaze upon him, and then he politely nodded to her. Seeing that, Oyuki breathed out as her body lost its strength and she collapsed into a dazed heap on the large couch Lum was sitting on. Quickly seeing this, Dumbledore and the Warlock shared a look. «It appears, dear boy, that there is a chance to make Ataru's would-be wife see the light on a few matters. Not to mention Princess Oyuki,» he thought out.
«I noticed that,» the reborn greatest of the archmages of Yiziba noted, and then he turned to kneel down before Lum. "How are you doing?" he asked as he placed a comforting hand on her knee. As Invader — on seeing that one of THEM was touching his baby girl — began to sob uncontrollably, the man born Harry Potter tried not to snap off a quick disintegration spell to make the fat oaf shut up and stop distracting him from what needed to be done. Noting, however, that Lum hadn't flinch, he breathed out. "Lum, you're as much a victim of what was just restored this night as Ataru was."
Lum blinked, her eyes tearing. "Why…?"
"I don't know. I have an idea, though," the Warlock stated. "When the Special Committee — and by extension, the International Confederation of Wizards; Professor Dumbledore and Headmaster Konoe are members of that group — heard your people were coming to 'invade' Earth, they were prepared to fight a war with everything they could get their hands on. Including all the major superhero teams on the planet. The Justice League, the Avengers, the Heroes Alliance of Canada, the Sailor Senshi here in Japan and everyone else. But then your people declared they would hold off on invading the planet unless a Terran faced you in a tag race. When you then told them that you had picked Ataru as the Earth champion — and they found out he was effectively a grandmaster in his family school of ninjutsu, not to mention physically an un-Gifted Yizibajohei…" — he ignored the twin screams from Invader and Benten on his saying that word; again, Lum hadn't reacted — "…they realised that if Ataru beat you in pretty much the same way Jessica Wakefield's past-self beat your ancestor on Yiziba…" — again, he ignored the screams; yet again, Lum hadn't reacted to hearing that world's name — "…well, they saw an opportunity."
Lum considered that for a moment, and then her eyes widened. "They made him do that."
"Most likely." With that, the Warlock shifted over to sit beside her, drawing his levitation cape around him. As Benten gargled and scrambled back from him — Invader was now sobbing uncontrollably at a kilometre a second, "My baby is lost! My baby is lost!" — the Terran-born Yizibajohei archmage took a deep breath. "They didn't want you to win, of course. If you won, it would have been a war on the same scale as what's been fought between all the heroes on Earth and invaders from other worlds in the past. But they didn't want you to be so scared of interacting with Earth that you — and by extension, all your allies in the Galactic Federation — would automatically be hostile to us the day we went out into space ourselves. So all news of our interacting with Yiziba…" — by now, Benten had passed out and Invader was curling in on himself sobbing like a child — "…had to be silenced. Hence, they put a geas over Ataru."
A nod. "Made him forget Negako-san. Made him forget all his friends like you. Made him forget all the pretty girls he met like Jessica-san, Ayumu-san, Molly-san, the Tendō sisters, Ranma-san's other fiancées and all the others." Lum didn't openly react on mentioning them. "And forced him to live with his parents, whom he hated and wanted nothing to do with anymore." She then perked. "Did they know?!"
"They probably did," the Sentinel stated. "Why?"
Lum closed her eyes as she muttered something vile in her native language, and then she turned to glare at her father. "DADDY!" she then barked out, which made Invader bolt up, his eyes wide with shock as his mind interpreted his daughter's shout. "When we were on the Kashin after finding out about Queen Elle, what did you and Mommy talk to Darling's parents about? Why did they agree to move to Uru when they never wanted to leave Tomobiki in the first place?! Much less want Darling to leave?!"
The Oni warlord blinked, and then he shook his head. "They wanted you to be happy with their son! They wanted to get him away from Earth and all the distractions here! They said it'd be good for him! They were prepared to move to be with you…!"
A moan. "YOU IDIOT!" Lum snarled, her body sparking with bio-electricity as she glared at her father, which made him wince. "You stayed in Darling's home when you had that fight with Mommy! That was BEFORE we met Elle! You heard Darling's stupid mother always moan 'I wish I never had him' all the time! You even saw her try to force us out of the house that one time! If they really cared for him as their son, why in the Names of the Maidens did they say garbage like THAT when they met up with you and Mommy on the Kashin for the omiai?!" As Invader blinked in confusion, she moaned. "Tcha…!" she spat out as she lowered her head into her hands. "They practically drove him out of the house when he was six, then when he's forced to come back, they danced between treating him as their son and wishing he wasn't anywhere close to them!" Her eyes then teared anew. "And what did I do when I saw it happen…?"
"You desired to see the best in all around you, my dear."
She looked up. "Kōchō-sensei…"
Albus Dumbledore chuckled as he moved to sit down on Lum's left; the Warlock was to her right. "Lum, it is often quite natural — regardless of what race you hail from — for people to wish to believe the best of all they meet. Only in truly horrific situations when somewhat is growing up — facing betrayal after betrayal again and again — does an automatic mistrust develop in a person's soul. You, I believe, have enjoyed quite a happy life as you were growing up on Uru. Didn't you?"
A nod. "Hai…"
"Then it is natural for you to believe all the people you meet are inherently good and will do you no harm," the headmaster of Hogwarts stated. "You couldn't suspect what was really going on with Ataru after you declared him your husband last year. Those who forced him into that situation did all they could to make him totally unthreatening to you. They succeeded quite brilliantly, I confess. Because he was (by his own experiences in meeting up with girls to help them gain Gifts) naturally inclined to defer to the fairer gender — to borrow his own words, help 'pretty girls be happy'…" — his eyes twinkled in amusement as Lum giggled on hearing that — "…when he was much younger — he would gladly accept you with all your own faults as just another pretty girl he could be friends with. Oh, yes, he didn't approve of your claim of marriage — as you probably will know, the concept rather fell by the wayside on Yiziba ages ago…" — he ignored Invader wail once more as he collapsed to the deck — "…though those who do form parental bonds to bring the next generation into that world tend to remain together for the rest of their lives in something akin to marriage there — but you were someone who cared very deeply for him. He understood that quite well." He then smirked. "My dear, did you know that he had your old horn-buds in the pocket of his gym shorts ever since the current Tag Race began?" As Lum's jaw dropped in shock, Dumbledore smiled. "He may not have been willing to admit what you desired him to admit, but he would do everything in his power to never forget you."
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
And then…
"Then Darling's won," Lum breathed out. "Funny, isn't it…?"
"What's that?" the Warlock asked.
"What would happen if the Memory-Erasing Device Benten launched from the ship was allowed to go off and erase the memories of all of us who've come to Earth since the Tag Race?" the young woman from Uru then asked. "Would it have made Darling remember Negako-san and all his friends like you, Harry-san?"
"No doubt, sooner or later, Grigori Wyszynski would have come back to put things aright with Ataru-kun, child," Konoe answered. "Those who conspired to keep him trapped and weak here on Earth would still have faced retribution. If not from Wyszynski-hakase himself, then definitely from Negako-sama. The Son of Heaven here in Japan never had his memories altered when Ataru-kun was made to forget his past. He would have done all to put things right if the necessity of it demanded such."
"True, old boy, true," Dumbledore breathed out.
"So what do we do about that memory-erasing thing?"
Eyes locked on the Sentinel as he thumbed out the main windows into the dark night over Tomobiki. Barely visible in the distance was a large object shaped like a cartoonish Oni with a club held high; such was floating about a kilometre off the ground near the Mendô estate. "Yes, we will have to dispose of that thing, Dudley," Dumbledore said.
"NO!"
People gazed on Invader. "And why not?" Konoe asked.
The large Oni rose to his full height as he glared down at the frail man in the robes of a senior Shintō cleric. "There are laws that have to be obeyed!" he sternly declared. "If Mr. Groom can't accept my baby in his life, then…!"
"Yiziba!" the Sentinel chanted.
Invader squealed like a pig poked by a branding iron, and then he collapsed to his knees as sobs began to escape him. As all the people still conscious began to chuckle and laugh at such behaviour, Lum then breathed out. "AYUMU-SAN!" she then called out.
A flash of energy. "Yo!" The woman that just appeared nearby then beamed. "Ah! Harry-kun! Dudley-kun! O-ha!" Infinity then called out.
"Is Molly okay, Ayumu?" the Sentinel asked as the Goddess Who Walks Amongst Men came up.
"Oh, don't worry about Molly-chan," Infinity assured him. "Jessica-chan calmed her down. Logan-san's there, too. The Emperor asked him to look in on Ataru-kun." A sigh. "They should've asked either Maria-chan or Xavier-hakase to do that."
"True," the Warlock stated. "Would you mind getting rid of that memory-erasing device that floating off there, Ayumu-chan?" he then asked as he pointed out the main windows.
Infinity nodded as she snapped her fingers. In a flash of light, the Memory-Erasing Device vanished from the skies over Tomobiki…
Forty-five light-years away…
"HEY! WHAT'S THAT?!"
As the Oni soldiers and spacemen looked up, a flash of energy made something that looked like a standard Memory-Erasing Device appear in the skies over the Invader home to the west of the planetary capital city, Onishuto. A second later, said device crashed into the ground close to the main doors of the grounded saucer-on-legs where Lum and her family normally lived. As people were pitched off their feet by the shock of the impact, they then looked at the fallen device, many blinking in confusion…
Aboard the Redet Glory…
Infinity lowered her hand. "It's gone!"
"Thank you, my dear," Dumbledore stated.
A beacon of light appeared close to them. "Ōsaka-san?!" a young girl called out.
"Ah! Chiyo-chan!" Infinity called out. "C'mon over!"
"Hai!"
And the beacon of light grew big enough to allow a girl that came up to Infinity's bust-line to appear. Dressed in the dirty gold jumpsuit with the sideways-turned "C" symbol with the lightning bolts bursting up from the opening that marked the young woman born Mihama Chiyo as the current reincarnation of Prodigy — she was once called "Cerebral Child," but Lum knew that Ataru had convinced Chiyo to change the battle-name to a more befitting moniker — she was followed by two older and taller women. One of them was quick to slip into the shadows close to the door leading to the heads. Seeing her, Lum was quick to conclude that this was Kagura Michiko, classmate to Mihama Chiyo and Kasuga Ayumu and the current incarnation of the Deadliest Woman Alive, Caltrop. The fact that said woman had been dressed in urban camouflage with a tank-top shirt and her normal bandolier of weapons — both guns and knives — had been noted by Lum when she came in, then made herself as unobtrusive as possible…though there was simply NO ignoring that a person who knew hundreds of ways of killing someone was in the room.
And the other woman…
"Does Momoe-san know the truth about you, Nabiki-san?" the Oni then asked.
The woman born Tendō Nabiki — when Ataru had taken her and her sisters to Yiziba four years ago to be Gifted, she had become the Arbitrator — could only grin as she winked at Lum. "No, I don't believe so, Lum-chan. How would you think she would react if she ever knew I had very saucy dreams about your would-be husband?"
"She would probably think you were sick!"
"Am I?"
Lum hummed. "No. Darling may have given some people powers that I personally would say shouldn't have got them — Margo Black, for example — but he really wanted the best for all of you when he took all of you to Yiziba…"
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
And then…
"I said the name…!"
Everyone else laughed as Invader — who hadn't stopped crying when more of Them had come into this place — turned very pale before passing out on the deck. "Now, was that so hard, my dear?" Dumbledore asked. "Fear of a name makes the fear of the thing that name represents more profound…and ultimately for no reason whatsoever. You've clearly SEEN what's happened to those people Ataru took to Yiziba to be Gifted. You've SEEN what happened to them after they received their Gifts. Are people like Harry, Dudley, Nabiki, Ayumu, Chiyo and Michiko there in the shadows as evil as all the legends of 'They Who Must Never Be Named' would make the Warlock, the Sentinel, the Arbitrator, Infinity, Prodigy or Caltrop are said to be?"
Lum shook her head. "No."
"Then don't let the fear overwhelm you as it has overwhelmed your father or your friend by the door," the headmaster of Hogwarts said as he indicated the still-unconscious Benten. "You still stand a good chance at fully reconciling with Ataru and pursuing a relationship with him. One that is now governed by the truth, not lies and hidden agendas. After all, you're no 'same' by Yizibajohei standards."
The young warlord's daughter gasped. "EH?!"
"Your lightning, Lum," the Arbitrator stated. "Is that normal for Oni?"
A shake of the head. "No! It only came out in recent generations…"
"What about young Jariten's flame-breath?" Konoe asked.
"He's the first one…"
"And Rei-san's powers?" Prodigy asked.
Lum blushed. "Ditto…"
"So you are as much of a meta as anyone Ataru-kun is friends with," Konoe stated. "And Ataru-kun himself might soon become given the aftermath of today's events."
The Oni sighed. While she could understand the logic — To believe I'm using THAT word concerning Yizibajohei! she thought to herself before jolting. Tcha! I just THOUGHT that name! — of what the others were saying to her, there would be problems. Loads of problems. "What about the Preacher and the Extreme Archaist, Kôchô-sensei?"
"Don't worry about those two, Lum," the Arbitrator stated as she gave Lum a knowing look. "They may bluster all they want, but sic Negako-san all over them and they collapse like a house of cards. Besides, ever if you are 'unclean' in the eyes of the Preacher and a 'non-conformist' in the eyes of the Archaist, there's a way around it."
"The Crystal," the Warlock warned.
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
And then…
"To…be Gifted?" Lum gasped, her eyes wide with shock.
The Terran-born Yizibajohei around her all nodded. "You have to do it, Lum-san," Prodigy then stated. "There's something you need to know."
Lum gazed on the child genius of Azuma High School. "What?"
A sigh. "Well…"
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Tue, 13 Mar 2012 03:11)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.