In orbit over Venus…
"Ataru-sama?"
"Hai?"
"The signal just came in from Hensō-san. She has her sister and is coming here now."
Hearing that, Moroboshi Ataru — whose face was now covered with a thin layer of beard and moustache as fresh water was something of a scarcity on the bioroid factory at this time — turned to nod his thanks. "I suppose I better make myself scarce for the time being," he stated as he stretched himself. "Computer, locate Inada Mizuho."
"Inada Mizuho is currently in Gestation Tower 98, Section D," the factory's on-board computer dutifully replied.
"Right."
And with that, Ataru nodded his thanks to the smiling girl — who had been a stewardess on a civilian passenger ship — who had come to his personal guest quarters on the upper surface of the giant rectangular structure that had been the birthplace of well over two BILLION Avalonians over the last century. Stepping down the stairs to a connecting walkway, he made his way to the nearest turbolift station, entering a car right away. Calling out his destination, he breathed out in relief as he relaxed against one of the car's walls, closing his eyes.
I need some sleep…
It had been a very hectic seven days. After watching the ch'uokyek chase off Lum and her idiot friends, not to mention her fiancé and his would-be lover — then calling down Relota Ugadese from Yiziba to use the Infinite Wave to clean up the mushrooms and restore Tomobiki to brand-new condition — he had made his way to his family home for the last time to leave a parting shot for his useless parents before beaming up to a cloaked transport for the quick run to Venus and the bioroid factory. Of course, he had been mobbed by screaming, tearful women the instant he had beamed aboard the great vessel; he was the Liberator, after all — for some bizarre reason, his siblings and all the others who had been in on the attack on Phentax Twelve four months ago somehow didn't count! — and a lot of girls wanted to give themselves body and soul to the man who had freed them from a nightmare that couldn't be put to words.
Admittedly, a much better situation than what he had enjoyed in Tomobiki.
Ataru shook his head as he forced the surge of memories of the last year's events out of his mind. He couldn't complain about what had happened in Tomobiki. Until the moment the Promise of Bunka Go-nen was properly fulfilled and the Saikō Jinseijutsu — also known as the "Earth Angel," the "Black Death of the Martial Arts" or "Imperial Special Agent #49" — had become her own person as Moroboshi Negako, he had been bound with chains of neutronium to be a living collector of ki energy to be funnelled to a mana nexi under the Tarōzakura Hill on the Mendō estate in Tomobiki so that, when the time was right, Negako could forge a body of her own out of pure ki and live her own life as she had wanted for over two centuries. Because of that, he had been made to act like a girl crazed loon after puberty set in, hitting on everything that was female and beautiful that crossed his path. And do it in such a way that would make the targets of such "girl-hunts" lash out at him in return; he had never been allowed to learn from his past "mistakes" when it comes to seeking out dates. If Negako hadn't been also working on ways to make Ataru virtually a Yizibajohei-level metahuman in sheer power and strength along the way…!
He sighed. That girls like Miyake Shinobu, Redet Lum and Inu Chigaiko had actually fallen in love with him while he was under Negako's influence still amazed him at times. Yes, Shinobu had literally dropped him when Mendō Shūtarō had come into their lives…and Chigaiko — no thanks to a stupid curse she became the latest victim of thanks to that old fart calling himself the "Red Cloak" — had not wanted to push her luck in the face of Lum's willingness to keep her Darling to herself.
And Lum herself…
Ataru shuddered as he tried to suppress the sense of betrayal and outrage that had exploded from the depths of his soul when Lum's "engagement" to Rupa became public…especially after she had verbally rejected him in the Wedding Hall on Yaminokuni, then had the audacity to claim it was all a lie right afterward! And given her actions right after that — to actually threaten all of Earth YET AGAIN to make him say he loved her — whatever feelings of civility he held for the Oni effectively disappeared…and he realised it was finally time for her to learn that he wasn't as ignorant about a lot of things as she had believed…!
Tomobiki, the Moroboshi home, a half-hour after the Second Tag Race was "won"…
"That was…extreme."
"It got the job done, Onē-san."
Considering that, Moroboshi Negako — who appeared to be a less-tomboyish version of Ataru at about age twenty, with a fuller head of dark brown hair and eyes that were almost as black as pitch — then nodded. "True. Still, I would have simply used Relota to forcibly remove Lum and her friends from the town. Not even acknowledge her demand to conform to the rules of a tag race. By asking Nengmek'i and his friends to come into it, it potentially gives the Urusians a faint ray of hope about forcing themselves anew on Earth."
"Well, we arranged to deal with that, haven't we?" Ataru — who was busy pulling out all pictures in his family photo albums that had him in it to dump into a garbage can — calmly noted. "Let's see how tough they act when they watch their own ships BLOW UP in the middle of space nowhere CLOSE to Earth. If they haven't heard about Lum's so-called 'most faithful' and what we did to them four months ago…"
Also in the living room at this time were Ataru's parents Muchi and Kinshō. Both had been frozen by Negako when she had arrived at the house before Ataru headed off to the Sportsplaza to confront Lum, their voices silenced with shiatsu strikes to their throats. Even so — and even if Ataru had yet to get any sort of blood transfusion from any of his adopted sisters to give him Avalonian psionic powers; the fact that there still had been Niphentaxian observers in and around Tomobiki after the destruction of Phentax Twelve (not to mention a certain annihilation bomb buried in the town Ginza) had precluded doing that — they could still express their emotions through their facial muscles, which were as clear to him as an open book.
Ataru had got a laugh when he had seen his parents after Negako had rendered them as still as statues. Muchi was white-faced with horror; even if he had never wanted to deal with his family's traditional responsibilities as the "Angels of the Night" serving the Son of Heaven, he KNEW what the name "Negako" had meant. And Kinshō — who had long seen herself as the true mistress of this house, having long brow-beaten her husband into submission — was switching between righteous outrage at her idiot son's defiance of her wishes…and horrified shock on realising that she didn't know her son at all, to say anything of what he had been really involved with over the past decade.
"You should have listened to me a couple days ago, Kinshō," he said with a scorn of contempt, which would have made his mother wince hadn't she been able to move anything below her jaw. "I told you you'd grow old and die alone. You think I ignored all the times you said 'I wish I never had him' since I was six? What was the count again, Onē-san?"
"Two thousand, one hundred and thirty-nine times," Negako dutifully answered.
Kinshō turned as white as a ghost as she tried to gaze towards this dark creature that had effectively destroyed her home once and for all. "That would be an average of about once every two days, right?" Ataru then wondered.
"Indeed."
"My, my, my…imagine what everyone in Japan would say once they hear THAT!" Ataru mused, which made Kinshô turn ashen-grey. "You're lucky this isn't Noukiios, Kinshō. There, child abuse — even emotional abuse — is punishable by DEATH of the ABUSER!" As the sound of choked breaths escaped his mother, he closed the last of the photo albums, and then summoned a ki ball to set the pictures in the garbage can alight. "And much that it WOULD make me happy to learn you were sent to the hell you rightfully deserve, letting you wither on the vine works for me just as well. I'm done, Onē-san. Let's go."
Both then moved to head into the hallway, where they would be transported out of the house and not have to deal with the small crowd of people milling by the front gate…but couldn't get onto the property itself thanks to a special blood-charged ki ward Negako had set up when she had arrived there earlier in the day. "Do not protest what was decided in His Majesty's family court," Negako then stated as she coolly stared at Ataru's parents. "If you do, your actions concerning Ataru will be spread broadside across Japan. You have gained the normalcy you desire. You should have considered the price that would have been extracted because of your reckless desire for that normalcy; it has now been extracted from you. The paralysis will vanish in an hour's time."
"Don't expect me to make things better for you," Ataru stated. "Not to mention Hiromi when she comes to town in a day or so. You hurt her, you risk every tōshi in Kantō coming down to give you a whole can full of whoop-ass as a result." He then gazed in amusement at his sister, and then he gazed back at his parents. "By the way…
"Kaeru is alive."
A pair of choked breaths from Ataru's parents; Ataru himself had found that out when he had been on Okusei. "Indeed, Kaeru is alive and well," Negako confirmed. "But he has been informed of your actions concerning Ataru and wishes not to have anything to do with such 'illogical beings.'" She then gave Ataru one of her normally wintry smiles. "I do believe being raised on Nagussa did Kaeru much good."
"Well, he was raised by a pair of gorgeous babes and he's got a hot girlfriend to boot. Pity any children they have won't come here to see the 'illogical beings' their father once had to call parents…until BETTER parents came along!" Ataru barbed.
"Shall we depart?"
"We shall."
A second later, the house was empty save for two frozen parents…
"Why do I still feel guilty about that…?"
Ataru shook his head as he watched the turbolift car traverse the long axis of the factory; his quarters were on the opposite end of the twenty kilometre-long structure from Gestation Tower 98 and it took time to get there. Even if he basically felt no love at all for his parents, they had — in the few times he could recall — been kind to him when he was growing up. But like everyone else in Tomobiki, they had been blinded by Lum's innocence — Ataru personally saw it as a very dangerous sort of naïveté — when she had come into their lives and had been smitten with her…not to mention Lum's cousin Ten when he had come to live with them. And because they clearly wanted the two Oni to remain in their house, they had to do everything to make that home welcoming to them…which had, in the end, demanded that Ataru submit to Lum's desire.
"In a million fuckin' years!" he snarled to himself.
Well, they got what they had always wanted: A normal life in a normal home.
Pity that they didn't have their would-be daughter-in-law and her cousin there, too.
And they wouldn't have any sort of support from their son in their twilight years.
Then again, one couldn't make okonomiyaki without breaking eggs.
What did they honestly expect, after all…?
"Ah, enough of that!" he hissed. "They're gone and you don't have to listen to them moan and complain anymore, Ataru! You got bigger fish to fry now!"
And one of them was coming towards the bioroid factory now.
No doubt believing she still had a chance with her precious Darling.
Even being supported by her adopted SISTER, none the less!
Pity Lum didn't know Hensō as much as she believed she did.
Ataru had laughed long and hard when Lum's twin had revealed her plan when news of the Oni's attempted suicide got out over INN. Yes, making Lum an Avalonian was a way to make her far safer that she would have been had she remained a normal Oni. With the defensive field set up at the Ceres orbit line — Ataru had to stand in awe at the Academician's genius when it came to that system — there could be no attempt by anyone to stop Lum from becoming an Avalonian from anywhere. And once she became an Avalonian, she could be accorded resettlement rights on Earth.
But when one became an Avalonian, one then had to factor in Avalonian GENETICS!
Which meant two things:
One: Lum would now have the empathy to truly "see" the feelings of all those around her.
Ataru knew that would effectively spell the end of any trust the Oni once felt for Mendō or her so-called "Stormtroopers."
Seeing the dreams of THOSE idiots finally torn down would make it a very good day for Ataru.
And Two: Lum would be subject to the same urge to seek out a marei'cha as any other Avalonian or Sagussan felt if the right sort of girl came along.
And while many Avalonians wouldn't want to have ANYTHING to do with the latest "living goddess" to have caught the attention of their former masters over the last century, there were people who DID see the truth about Lum and would probably seek her out romantically.
In doing so, Lum would be too distracted to bother Ataru.
Which right now made him quite happy.
Much that there were still the feelings of love and friendship for his would-be "wife" deep in his heart, Ataru didn't need or want that sort of distraction now.
He could finally experience a normal teenage life.
He could finally go out and date girls.
He could finally try to sit back and decide what he wanted to do with himself.
No more nagging "wife."
No more idiot friends of said "wife" with all their problems.
No more abusive parents.
No more so-called "friends" who abandoned him at the first sign of trouble.
No more selfish clerics trying to make his life as miserable as they could.
He was finally free…
…and it felt good.
Approaching Sol through Noukiite space near Alpha Centauri…
"She's asleep right now."
Hearing that from her best friend, Hensō sighed as she sat back in her chair. "Good. The sooner we get a body templated for her and the soul-transfer done, the better."
Gazing at Hensō, Shigaten Kamen — in the Noukiite style, Eyu-Sikaten Yech'a-Kamen Hechnich'-Sanguk'i of Hich'aparon — could only smirk. "Yeah. The instant the news gets out on Phentax Two that their precious 'goddess' is now a 'mere machine,' all of Ōgi's morons are going to have a collective heart attack." A smirk. "Should knock out the wind in their sails for a long time to come. 'Bout damn time, too!"
"True."
As Kamen adjusted the controls to make sure there wouldn't be any problems making orbit over Venus to dock alongside the bioroid factory, Hensō closed her eyes as she tried not to smirk too much at the subtle deception she was playing with her sister.
A necessary deception, of course.
The whole mess with Moroboshi Ataru was a big sign to all those who could see it.
Redet Lum was just too SPOILED for her own good.
Yes, she had loving parents — far better than what Ataru possessed — but both of them hadn't really encouraged Lum to open her eyes and see the truth of what was happening around her. Insulating her from directly discovering the darker shadows of her native society and what really went on there. Forcing her to stay mum on all the outrages her so-called "most faithful" had done in her name, convincing her that it was alright and the chatty copy-cat barbarians from Phentax Two would one day go away and leave her alone. Not realising that by treating Ataru like she sometimes did, she was setting herself up for a lot of pain in the future; sooner or later — regardless of what was really going on inside Ataru's brain — there would have been quite the blow-up when his resentment at her trying to rule his life finally reached the point of no return and he went postal on someone…
Honestly! Lum's sister mused to herself. Darling was missing for two whole MONTHS and Onē-san never ONCE questioned where he went off to?! That his parents didn't react to it is understandable; Darling vanished from their home back when he was five when Noa-sama brought him to Sagussa to meet the Daishi'cha! All those fools in Tomobiki would have preferred it if Darling was nowhere in sight so they could fawn over Onē-san like they did! Where in Lyna's name were the xenophobes and all the other people who would've wanted Onē-san under control?! Why did the Men In Black let her get away with so much?! What had to happen? Did someone have to DIE to make people wake up?!
Hensō sighed before she perked as Kamen squeezed her shoulder in sympathy. As the Fukunokami-form Avalonian turned back to monitor the ship's systems, her Oni-form best friend and university schoolmate stretched herself.
No. She had no choice now.
Lum HAD to be made to see what was really going on around her.
Too many people's lives and the destiny of whole WORLDS rode on that.
Most Urusians as a whole viewed her as the living symbol of their own future dreams and ambitions. To the Imperial Round, she was the first Empress of a reborn Urusian Empire…even if she would be nothing more than a living baby factory to birth a son to become Emperor as women had not been allowed to rule Uru in the past. To the Unionists — as the daughter of the youngest battlewagon warlord in recent history — she was a candidate for high office once she had been trained and allowed to command her own troops on the ground or aboard a ship. To the Democratic Reformists who wanted to finally finish the work of the Union Revolution and usher in true democracy to Urusians as a whole, co-opting Lum away from the more conservative political factions would be a coup of unprecedented proportions, one that could see the Round destroyed and the military junta that had ruled Uru for two centuries done away with once and for all.
To all Urusians regardless of stripe, Lum had been the woman who had finally opened official contact with Earth. A world that had fascinated Urusians for centuries, the third planet of Sol was the literal holy grail of first contacts…and Lum had been the one who had obtained that grail, actually being MARRIED to a Terran and living on Earth, thus allowing other Urusians to dream of the chance to go to Earth and see things for themselves. Those who wanted that chance wouldn't like the idea of other races "stealing" that grail away from them…and since the Noukiites had — or so it looked — done the "stealing," deeply-held racist beliefs towards the Children of Muchach guaranteed that a war over Earth would win widespread support on Uru.
And that would be a disaster for Uru. Even if she saw herself as Avalonian first, Hensō did care for her adopted race…and having lived amongst Noukiites and interacted with some of their more senior military officers, she knew that the common Urusian belief of superiority to other races made them blind to Noukiios' true strength. A war between the Union and the Imperial Dominion would be a curb-stomp at the same scale as the Mother of All Fight Scenes…and would guarantee that a civil war would be unleashed that would kill innocent people who only deserved to live their own lives in peace. For the sake of Urusians as a whole, that had to be avoided at all costs…
…even if making Urusians eat crow — not the Karasutengu variety, of course — would be next to impossible given how stubborn Hensō's adopted people were.
And finally, there was the issue of Phentax Two. That Ōgi had succeeded in uniting the overwhelming majority of his race under the banner of the Church of Lum had been an incredible feat for a man who was Lum's age…but the whole "church system" on Phentax Two never allowed for any sort of proper political dissent; to even QUESTION the will of the "powers that be" was an act of heresy, to be punished by death or worse. And while the union of the Niphentaxian race within the "one true faith" over the last half-decade had made the Union of Phentax Two seem an unassailable rock that could protect all it considered worthy of protection — thus guaranteeing peace in the local cluster — it had made the governments of all of that world's allies LAZY.
After all, the "Army of Lum" with its 3,000 top-line combat ships was out there!
Why should people spend millions of uniCredits to build their own armed forces?
Ōgi's magnificent fleet would protect them from the evil Ipraedies or Seifukusu, not to mention the Mikado and everyone else who could threaten them.
So let them do what they wanted…
…even if it was as obvious as a sack of coal dumped on a ballroom floor that something was REALLY rotten in Niphentaxian society.
Remembering the apologetic tears Nassur and his wife Cinba had unashamedly shed when they had arranged with the headmaster of the Okusei Academy to take in the four young bioroids the expat Vosian couple had been promised were nothing more than "robots" who could simulate natural growth thanks to nanotechnology, Hensō could only grit her teeth at how much people had wanted NOT to learn about the Avalonians.
Well, it was too late now.
The information was getting out…
…which was guaranteed to attract unwanted attention towards Phentax Two.
If Ōgi somehow whipped his people up to defend their world against a possible alien attack from Ipraedos, the Seifukusu Dominion or Vos…and WIN such a battle…
…then there would be no chance that the Avalonians would gain any sort of restitution for the century of suffering they had endured at Niphentaxian hands.
No!
By making Lum an Avalonian…
…Hensō would help rip the very HEART out of Niphentaxian society.
Seeing their precious "goddess" turned into a "mere machine" would GUT the black heart out of the "one true faith" at the worst time imaginable…
…and all those who had caused the Avalonians pain would pay dearly.
Hensō smirked as she imagined the look on Ōgi's face when he got the news…
The bioroid factory, Gestation Tower 98…
"Ataru-sempai!"
"Hey, Haruka-chan!" Ataru smiled as he allowed Tanizawa Haruka to embrace him after he had passed through the main doors into the gestation tower, a tubular-shaped structure that ran the full three kilometre height of the bioroid factory and that could — when given the right materials — crank out over 66,000 bioroids a month from the gestation chambers within. After a deep, tongue-filled kiss between them, he sighed…though he didn't push her away. "Much that I love to kiss and chat, I need to find Mizuho."
The green-eyed girl with the short-cut deep brown hair — she was a third-year middle school student, just two years younger than Ataru…even if her particular origins were well to the left of the Twilight Zone! — pouted as she reached around him to rub his rock-hard butt cheeks. What the fuck was that Redet girl thinking of in the first place? the former native of Shiroiwa in Kagawa Prefecture — in a different dimension — mused as she leaned up to rub her forehead on his beard stubble. "Why?"
"Why do I like her?" he asked. "Are you saying I don't like you, Haruka-chan?"
Haruka gazed up at him, and then she smiled. "Are we coming on too strong, Sempai?"
"In a way, yes. Much that I understand why you girls feel the way you do, remember who it actually was that saved you all from your would-be 'master' after your souls were shifted through the Te'a to come here," he reminded her. "And much that I do admit that the idea of having eighteen of the most beautiful women in the Universe as my personal harem does make me quite excited, I will NOT take away what Mizuho did for you all."
Haruka hummed. "'Eighteen?'"
"Are you saying I should ignore Sakura-chan's feelings for Kazuhiko?"
"Well…"
"Or Takako-chan's and Kayoko-chan's feelings for Hiroki?"
Haruka blinked, and then she shrugged. "I can't deny what I feel."
Before Ataru could react, a pair of arms wrapped around him from behind as a tender pair of lips touched his ears. "None of us can, Ataru-sempai," a kind voice whispered.
"Hey, Yūka-chan," he said as Haruka let him go, thus allowing him to turn around and warmly embrace Nakagawa Yūka, Haruka's classmate and sister "lighthouse girl." As the stocky — Ataru flatly refused to call Yūka "chubby" or "fat" — girl tried to literally mould herself against the older man, he sighed. "So snuggly…"
"I'll always be snuggly for you, Sempai," Yūka whispered. "We all will."
"Redet's not going to like that," Haruka mused as she embraced Ataru from behind.
"Well, the instant she gets her own bond-mate, she'll have other worries," Ataru noted.
Both survivors of The Program smirked. "Hensō-sempai is SO evil!" Haruka purred before she patted Ataru's butt. "Go on! Go see what Her Holiness wants! The sooner you're done with her, the sooner we can get back to snogging!"
"And hopefully shagging!" Yūka added with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes.
"Girls…" Ataru moaned as we…
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Mon, 15 Oct 2012 17:31)
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.