Ever since she was born, Lum had always believed that her people, the Onis, were the most advanced race -- techologically, socially and culturally -- in the known Universe. Given her parentage and upbringing, this is quite natural.
Oh, of course, there are many other races out there who, in one way or another, could match the Onis, even overtake them in certain places. Benten's people, the Fukunokami. Elle's people. Oyuki's people on Neptune. The Juraians. Kurama's people. And so on...
Coming to Earth hadn't forced Lum to confront the fact that her core belief in herself and her people was, in essence, a big lie.
That is, until she learned of the Great School of the Nendo-kata...
It had been a simple school camping trip to Nikko, in the mountains north of Tokyo, a month ago when it all changed...
While the members of his class had been sitting around a campfire enjoying a wood-fire barbecue, Ataru had wandered off into the woods. Lum, then distracted by some of the boys in class, hadn't thought much about what her Darling was doing at the time. If Ataru's girl-chasing "illness" overcame him, the girls in his class could easily defend themselves long enough for her to put a stop to it.
Night fell and everyone went back into their tents to get some sleep. Ataru hadn't returned by then.
Morning came. Lum woke up in the tent she shared with Ataru alone. Seeing his sleeping bag untouched, the Oni panicked, then warned Onsen-sensei. Soon enough, everyone had gone into the woods looking for their missing classmate.
By late afternoon, Aisuru Megane -- the leader of Lum's unoffical fan club at Tomobiki High School, "Lum's Bodyguards" -- had made a gristly discovery. Ataru's body at the bottom of a ravine, pierced through the back and heart by the branch of a fallen tree. On examination by Sakura, Lum learned that Ataru most likely had died before midnight. Ataru. Dead. Dead...
The grief-stricken alien princess had to be carried screaming and howling back to the campsite (fortunately for her classmates, Sakura had two of the specially-enchanted ribbons Cherry once created to curb Lum's lightning powers). The mood for the rest of the day hovered around the sub-basement level as people began to speculate over what happened. Some said that Ataru must've been enchanted to his death by some forest sprite; in effect, killed by his own libido. Others, including Ataru's former girlfriend Shinobu Miyaki, concluded that it had been a tragic accident in the end. One particular girl -- Lum couldn't recall her name even now -- whispered to some of the others that Ataru might have actually wanted to kill himself. "After all," she mused, "...what better way to be rid of Lum, Mendou and Megane's morons?"
Hearing that sent Lum's heart crashing into the lowest pit of despair.
That is, until everyone heard a familiar voice:
"Um, could someone get me some clothes, please? It's a little chilly out here!"
Seeing Ataru -- alive, unhurt, naked, ALIVE!!! -- standing behind a tree...
Well, it was understandable that Lum would just pass out from the shock.
When she awoke to see her Darling gazing concernedly at her, Lum first thought it had all been a terrible nightmare. But emerging from her tent to see Ataru's shattered, blood-splashed body on a stretcher nearby...! That made it all hit home.
Then, after Ataru psychokinetically disintegrated his old body, he gathered everyone around the campfire and explained.
Lum had NEVER, in all her life, heard a story quite like THIS!
A story of an alien race of molluskoids who gained sentience two million years ago on a water-bound planet at the edge of the known Universe.
Of how this race -- later calling themselves "the Great School" -- developed a worldwide culture thanks to a remarkable evolution of psionic powers, including telepathic, empathy and telekinesis. A culture that, due to it existing one to three kilometres underwater, never had to deal with fire and the harsh outcomes mastering THAT particular element often provoked in other races.
How this race, a hundred thousand years ago, was forced to fight a race of insectoids who were ravaging nearby solar systems, alerted to their galactic neighbours' plight by the empathic cries of pain that echoed across the cosmos. And in engaging themselves in that fight, the Great School discovered the most precious gift from their Mother Ocean: the Crossing Over.
From that day on, almost all of the Great School came to believe they were the Mother's chosen warriors to go forth and protect and nuture the Unity, the belief that all sentient beings in the Cosmic Chain of Life were destined to eventually cast out fear and hatred, then come to love and respect the differences between each and every Great School. And in so doing, create the One True Universal School.
The quest for Unity, unfortunately, got off to a VERY rocky start when a certain fad among several schools of the Great School blew to epidemic proportions. Its proponents called this event the "Great Crossing Over," where male Nendo-kata, wanting to experience the "true joy of propagating the Unity," Crossed Over into a female format which could reproduce via telekinetically-assisted parthenogenesis, thus effectively eliminating the male gender from the reproductive process altogether!
The opponents of this philosophy, however, came to call it the "time of the Great Schism," seeing the Great Crossing Over as an affront to their mother goddess and the fact that the Great School had been created as a diploid bigender race, not diploid monogender! So those who did not want to undergo the Great Crossing Over -- including the ancestors of Ataru's Nendo-kata self -- chose to leave the Mother's embrace, striking out into the stars to find worlds where they could continue the quest for Unity but preserve what they saw as the "true" spirit of the Great School that had fought those savage insectoids.
And, Ataru then gazed fondly on Lum, it was fortunate that a Wanderer -- one orphaned when the rest of his school mysteriously vanished while fighting some alien monster several star systems away -- was close by when Ataru had his tragic accident, thus was able to absorb her Darling's soul into himself in the act of Psi-Unity, then undergo the Crossing Over.
"Nothing ultimately has changed, Lum-chan," he tried to assure her. "Save for the fact that certain modes of behaviour my human-half couldn't bring himself to understand were wrong shall not dominate my life anymore. And..." he closed his eyes, "...because of that, I can now bring myself to admit, in front of everyone here, that I do love you very much."
Of course, almost no one could bring him/herself to accept anything like THAT when it came to Ataru Moroboshi of all people.
After all, this was the same lech who once vowed that he would bed ten thousand girls before he graduated from high school.
This was the same creep who revelled in thumbing his nose at everything that was right, that was proper, in Japanese society.
And this was the same bastard who had, since they day the First Tag Race ended, adamantly denied ANY positive feelings for Lum in public!
So those who doubted the most tried to test Ataru...
...only to swiftly learn that while he was willing to give Lum some leeway, he wasn't going to do the same for anyone else!
Megane and Lum's Bodyguards got it first. When Ataru had volunteered to go get some firewood with Shinobu for the night's barbecue, the four boys had gone after them to ensure that Ataru didn't do anything that might end up hurting Lum in the end (i.e. flirt with Shinobu). As they followed the former couple, they were stunned to hear him APOLOGIZE to Shinobu for his past behaviour towards her. The look on her face showed Megane and his friends that Shinobu was having as hard of a time trying to accept what was happening as anyone else.
It had to be an act, the Bodyguards swiftly concluded. It just HAD to be!
But before they could do anything, the sharp crack! of a tree being telekinetically sheared from its roots behind them made the four boys run for their lives as a giant evergreen seemed to sail right for their heads! As they vanished into the wilderness, Shinobu noticed that Ataru's eyes were glowing that odd burgundy-purple-red shade which indicated his telepathic and/or telekinetic powers were at work.
"Why?" she asked.
"I don't like being spied upon," he replied...
Next came Shutaro Mendou. After returning with the firewood -- it made everyone's jaw hit the ground to see Ataru carrying a pile of chopped wood with the power of his mind ALONE -- Ataru had been called off by Sakura so the nurse/Shinto priestess could give him a thorough physical and meta-physical examination. The school's richest student discretely followed them, determined to find something, ANYTHING, which could justify his attacking and destroying this creature -- after all, it seemed that Lum herself didn't believe ANY of this nonsense about alien metamorphic warriors who could literally merge with other beings to teach their bizarre philosophies.
Listening in, Mendou became more frustrated as Ataru and Sakura conversed. Nothing, NOTHING at all was being said which could hint that Ataru was actually playing some mass prank on everyone else. Everything -- at least in Sakura's words -- pointed to a total and complete confirmation of what the bastard had spewed out the previous night. It was a lie! IT HAD TO BE A LIE!!
There was just no other explanation!
Finally, when it became too much for him to tolerate, Mendou stormed into the nurse's station, brandishing his katana. Before he could even hope to draw it, Ataru snared the blade with his powers, then in front of his rival's face, telekinetically shattered it into shards.
"Some honourable man you are," Ataru sneered before sending Mendou into low Earth orbit with a flick of the finger...
By the time the examination was done, Megane and the Bodyguards had staggered back into camp. Automatically, they sought Lum out, hoping to tell her what happened before Ataru somehow blind-sided her with his lies and perversions. Unfortunately, Shinobu was nearby. As Megane tried to demonstrate to the Oni what sort of monster her Darling was, Shinobu picked up a thick piece of wood and smashed it over his head.
"Why don't you tell the damned truth for a change, Megane?!" she snapped. "You were spying on Ataru-kun and THIS time, he caught you in the act and punished you for it!" She then spun on Paama, Chibi and Kakugari. "And now, you're so scared of the fact that Ataru-kun just MIGHT want to get some payback for all the garbage you've heaped on him, you run to Lum, hoping to make her punish Ataru-kun for something YOU did!! You're no friends of Lum whatsoever! You're nothing more than a pack of THUGS!!"
Unfortuantely, some of the other girls in class had come up by then, yelling at Lum to make Ataru lay off Mendou; they had seen their beloved classmate being flung literally into orbit without any serious provocation. Shuddering, the Oni flew off to the nurse's station, where Ataru was still having a chat with Sakura. Seeing that everything seemed quite peaceful -- save for the shattered bits of Mendou's katana now tossed into a nearby trash bin -- Lum marched up to Ataru and demanded, "What did you do to Shutaro?!"
He paused, gazing quizzically at her, then canted his head to see his other female classmates standing by the doorway. Taking a deep breath, he turned back to the Oni. "He attacked me without provocation. I defended myself."
Lum stared at him, then jolted on hearing a mass cry of outrage from the people outside. Before she could do anything, Sakura was on her feet, yelling "THAT'S ENOUGH!!!!" to make the others calm down. As soon as the people outside shut up, the nurse turns back to the Oni. "It's true. Ataru was attacked without any provocation whatsoever."
Some of the girls outside started screaming denials again, only to find themselves shouted down once more by Sakura. Lum shuddered as she tried to interpret what just happened, then she turned back to Ataru. Before she could say anything, he gazed curiously at her.
"Why do you trust them more than you do me, Lum-chan?"
The Oni jolted. "Haven't you said all along that you love me?" Ataru rose, pointing to himself. "Haven't you declared all along that you and I are married? That all these people out there are nothing more than your friends?" he waves to the crowd by the door. "If that's so, they why can't you make yourself trust me more, Lum-chan? Don't you know that love is nothing, nothing at all without trust?"
Lum froze for a second, then as a storm of fear and anxiety rushed up from her heart, she screamed out, "DARLING NO BAKA!!!!"
Her lightning lashed out -- but as the stunned onlookers watched, it crashed into some invisible force-shield around Ataru, then reflected right back at the Oni. She screamed out as her "divine retribution" nearly burned HER to the bone, then collapsed to the floor. Ataru caught her telekinetically before her head bounced off the hardwood floor, then he gently elevated her to a nearby cot. As soon as she passed out, he lowered his hand, a sad sigh escaping him.
"I see, then..." he shook his head. "She never loved me at all."
With that, he walked out of the nurse's station, everyone fearfully clearing a path for him...
Lum shudders, staring once more at Ataru's picture. From that day on, it had been a losing battle.
And now...
And now...
Now what?
(Posted Wed, 05 Mar 2003 06:42)
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.