"Ominous!"
Ranma jolts as the ugliest face he had EVER seen looms before his head -- gods, and he once called Cologne a "ghoul?!" -- then he staggers back to see that face attached to a diminutive Buddhist monk standing on stilts. "Who the hell are YOU?!!"
Before the martial artist can react, the monk zips up to gaze once more into his face. "I've never seen such signs of bad luck etched into a person's face since I first met Ataru Moroboshi. The Mark of Doom is all over you, son. What sort of kamis have you angered to earn THIS?!"
Ranma blinks as the monk's raving sinks in, then he sighs, relaxing himself. Despite possessing Happousai-like speed, the fellow before him was a devout cleric, thus relatively harmless in terms of martial arts ability. Then again, why was he so surprised? Coming to Tomobiki HAD been intentional from the start. "Sometimes, I wonder what I did to piss 'em off, too," he gazes heavenward, then shakes his head. "Look, I'm wonderin' if there're any martial arts dojos anywhere in town. Can you show me one? I'm new in town and I need a place to stay."
"Martial arts?" the monk blinks surprisedly, then crosses his arms as he considers the younger man's words. "There are no dojos anywhere in Tomobiki, lad. None that I know of." He then gazes at Ranma, surprise flashing in his beady eyes. "You actually CAME to Tomobiki? To actually live here?! Most people, or so I've heard, would prefer to LEAVE it as soon as they could!"
"They'd better not go to Nerima, then."
The monk's eyes suddenly widen. "Nerima?! Ah, so THAT explains what I've seen in your face! Come along, then!" he hops off the stilts, then stows them in hammerspace before waving Ranma down the street. "I think I know a place where you can stay for the time being."
Ranma blinks, then follows...
Sometime later, Ranma finds himself in the main room of a Shinto shrine close to the centre of town. The shrine miko (priestess) -- for some odd reason, this particular shrine didn't have a kannushi (priest) -- waves a spirit-vane over the martial artist's head. The monk who had brought Ranma here sits to the miko's right. After a moment, the miko lowers her vane, then sighs. "Very ominous indeed," she grimly nods. "You were quite right, Uncle. The Mark of Doom this one bears is far worse than what was once forced on Ataru."
"'Uncle?!'" Ranma perks.
"Yes," the miko nods, then waves to the monk. "This is my uncle. His monastic name is 'Sakurambou,' but everyone calls him 'Cherry.' I am Sakura Sakurambou; my mother adopted my uncle's monastic name as our family name on the death of my father prior to my birth."
"I'm sorry to hear that," the visitor nods understandingly. "I know what it's like growing up with just one parent."
"Uncle tells me that you came here from Nerima," Sakura notes. "Why is that? People tend to avoid Tomobiki when they can."
Ranma gazes on her, then sighs. Well, it was best to get the explanation out now instead of the future. "Before I explain it, can you get me a glass of cold water and a glass of hot water, not scalding? There's something I've got to show you."
Sakura and Cherry exchange looks...
"You don't have to leave, you know."
Lum stops, then sighs, placing her Tomobiki High school uniform top into her tiger-stripped dufflebag before she glances at the older woman standing in the doorway to what was once Ataru Moroboshi's bedroom. "It's best that I go," she sniffs as she closes the bag up, then slings it over her shoulder. "Staying here any longer just makes the hurt get worse. It doesn't help any of us if we choose to let it get worse."
Kinshou Moroboshi shudders. "You could still try to...!"
"To what?!" the Oni snaps, then sighs. "To try to force him..." -- they both knew which "him" they spoke of -- "...into being what he doesn't want to be? What he probably can't be anymore? He..." she sniffs again, then breathes out. "No. It's over. I..." she pauses, then walks to the balcony, ready to fly off to her ship and the long trip back home. "Good-bye."
Lum soars away. Ataru's mother watches the Oni princess go, then shudders as she turns away, her mind turning back three weeks to the day where everything had come crashing down all over them...
Three weeks ago...
"YOU CAN'T DO THAT!!!!"
"We can. And we just did, Mrs. Moroboshi," Zed, the chief of the Men in Black, stared intently at the other people in his office in New York City. Beside the Moroboshis, there were Lum and her parents, plus several other MiBs, including the two normal case workers who dealt with Tomobiki's alien inhabitants, Jay and Kay. "Our psychological examination of Ataru warrants it. We try our best to be as accomodating as possible to those from other worlds who peacefully..." -- he ignored the winces that particular word forced from the Onis -- "...come live here on Earth. And seeing that after this 'Crossing Over' process members of the Great School can undergo if they feel it necessary, Ataru is now the emotional equivalent of a twenty-five year old, having him declared a legal adult in Japan is the right thing to do."
Kinshou shuddered, then stared hopefully at her husband. Muchi stayed stubbornly quiet, looking as if he wanted nothing else other than to have his paper in front of him, he sitting in their living room trying to put the past day's events behind him. Ataru remained silent, he not bothering to look at either of his Terran parents, much less Lum or her relatives. Much that he did care for them even now, it was long since time that both Kinshou and Muchi were forced to confront that terrible beast called "Reality." Seeing that he wasn't going to stand up for his family, she gritted her teeth, then glared once more at the chief MiB. "Do you really think people will accept this?!"
"Personally, I think anyone outside of Tomobiki wouldn't really care what happens to Ataru, ma'am," Zed sighed.
"Not that I did much to make matters better."
Eyes locked on Ataru. "Now, that's enough, son," Zed chuckled, then he sat back in his chair. "For your information, Captain..." he stared at Lum's father, "...we contacted several planets both in this galaxy and beyond to see if they have had any contacts with these Nendo-kata. We got some very surprising answers," he reached for a control on his desk, then flicked the switch.
A screen to the left of Zed's rear flicked on, revealling the image of a green-skinned humanoid woman with a furrowed chin and very large, pointed ears, her long hair the same shade as Lum's. "A Skrull...?!" Lum gasped, her revulsion on seeing a representative of the shapeshifting race from the Andromeda Galaxy as loud as neon on her face.
"Lum," her father hissed. "That's their Empress."
"...the Great School?! There is one on your planet now, Zed?!"
Eyes locked on the viewscreen as Zed's recorded voice replied, "Yes, Your Majesty. Have you ever encountered this race?!"
"Have we?!" the Empress's swirling eyes widened, then she laughed. "Oh, several times! An amazing race, that one!! They helped save many people from the time Galactus destroyed our homeworld..."
Click!"The Nendo-kata have gone to your world, Zed?" the Empress of the Shi'ar exclaimed, then she smiled. "Truly, the Universal Fates have chosen to smile upon your race, my friend. I remember a time when..."
Click!"There is one of the Nendo-kata on your planet, Zed?" the Emperor of the Jurai gaped, then a sage nod tilted his head. "Protect them at all costs, Zed. They will be of great benefit for your people, as they were for mine..."
Click!"If the Nendo-kata have chosen to come to your planet, Zed, then we must strongly reconsider our own relations to your race," the bodiless living mind which administered the empire controlling the Magellanic Clouds reported...
Once the dozen or so testimonials from alien heads of state, entites controlling empires which could squash the Onis without much effort, were finally done with, Ataru then stood. "Is there anything else you need from me, Zed-san?"
"No, son, that's more than enough. Kay made arrangements for you to have your own apartment in Tomobiki since you did tell us you wanted to remain there," the chief of the MiBs nodded to the senior agent for the aliens resident in Tomobiki, a silver-haired American.
"Well, it seemed only right. I doubt people in other towns would prefer having someone like me living among them," the Nendo-kata-turned-Terran sighed, then he spared Lum a glance before moving to step out of the room.
"Ataru..."
He stopped, then gazed briefly at his parents before looking away. "You should be happy, Mother."
Kinshou paled. "Happy...?"
"Of course. You always wished you never had me. Now you've got the next best thing."
He walked out. "Darling!!" Lum flew off after him.
Kinshou remained rooted in place, then on hearing a burst of electricity followed by Lum's surprised yelp -- that making the poor girl's parents storm out of the office to see what just happened to her -- she sank back in her chair, her eyes tearing...
Today...
"'You always wished you never had me,'" Kinshou repeats as she stares at the empty bedroom her son once lived on, then she sniffs back a fresh bout of tears as she turns to head downstairs. "Ataru, why...?"
Meanwhile...
"That is a most profound story, Saotome-san."
The back-to-male Ranma slowly nods. After demonstrating his curse, he had given Sakura and Cherry a detailed recounting of what life in Nerima was like for him. "I had no choice in the end, Sakura-san," he crosses his arms. "It's not that I've got anything against gays or lesbians. People hating people because of that or because their ancestors might've been Korean or Chinese -- or hell! Even burakumin! -- that sorta thing's never bothered me!" His hands squeeze into fists. "What I couldn't stand was the fact that regardless of what their personal feelings for me were, they didn't respect the fact that I want to live my life the way I want to live it! That's why I had to leave, ma'am! And coming here was the best thing for me to do! After all, with all the crazy stuff that happens here..."
"Who would notice a top-flight martial artist such as yourself?" Sakura finishes.
"Yeah!"
"That might soon be changing, lad."
Ranma stares at Cherry. "What do you mean?"
The diminutive monk sighs. "One of the primary catalysts of many of Tomobiki's troubles -- some might call her the singular catalyst, I should note -- is planning to leave Earth and return to her homeworld. If she goes, then the 'cover' you've come here to seek might not be as effective, especially if your so-called lovers in Nerima are as determined to track you down as you've indicated to us. Still..."
"There may be a way to help him, Uncle," Sakura warns.
"True, there might me," he nods.
"How so?" Ranma asks.
"Well..."
(Posted Wed, 12 Mar 2003 07:57)
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