"So you're not changing your mind, huh?"
Lum perks, then sighs as she slips her dufflebag into the closet. She, along with her two best friends, now stand in the Oni princess' bedroom aboard her ship high above the Moroboshi home. "Nothing I can do to change things now, Benten."
Benten gazes concernedly at her old middle school classmate, then she crosses her arms. "Well, the idiot brought it on himself, then."
"I personally don't think Ataru-san would see it that way, Benten. Especially if he's re-established a rapport with his old girlfriend," Oyuki forlornly sighs, giving Lum a sympathetic stare.
While the Fukunokami biker-girl seemed only to care about the fact that Lum had lost someone she loved -- yet AGAIN! -- and that there seemed to be no way for her friend to get him back, the Neptunian princess readily saw the far deeper implications of what had happened between Lum and Ataru Moroboshi over the last month or so. It wasn't just the sudden imposition of emotional incompatibility between the two people in question. It was, in essence, a brutal clash between two powerful CULTURES, two old and stable SOCIETIES that Lum and Ataru -- the post-Crossing Over Ataru, that is -- represented. And it was a clash that Lum's people would have ultimately lost.
Oyuki knew Onis were terrible losers.
Yes, at first, the crown princess of Neptune was saddened that things had gone so badly for her beloved friend. And yes, at first, Oyuki put the blame squarely on the shoulders of Lum's "husband." But that was when Oyuki had next to no understanding of what a Nendo-kata exactly was, what drove such a being to be what he is and why. That changed a week after Ataru had moved into his new apartment...
Two weeks ago...
"Darling, you're being unreasonable!!"
"I'm being unreasonable?!" Ataru stared surprisedly at Lum as both, accompanied by Shinobu, walked towards his apartment. "I'm being more than reasonable about this matter, Lum-chan. Much that I understand why you like the idea of having your friends visit you here on Earth, I will not permit Oyuki-san to use her space-warp to travel directly into my apartment just so she can see you. I know that she doesn't like me at all, so I'm not going to impose on her even passively by having her deal with me more than she would want to. Besides, she can use her ship to come here or warp in through your bedroom at the house. Mother and Father don't seem to mind that at all. And I have utterly no intention of digging my apartment out from under a metre of snow whenever Oyuki-san comes by to visit."
"But..." Lum's lips quivvered.
"Lum, Ataru has every right to refuse you, now," Shinobu gave her a condensending glare. "You're not married OR engaged to him anymore, so you have no right -- if you ever did, by the way! -- to demand anything of him anymore."
Lum jolted. "Shinobu, please..." Ataru sighed.
"Konnichi wa, Lum-chan."
The three looked up to see Benten and Oyuki waiting for them by a street corner, the alien teens riding the former's air-bike. "Konnichi wa, Oyuki-chan, Benten," relief crossed the Oni's face on seeing her friends waiting for her.
"Konnichi wa, Oyuki-san, Benten-san," Ataru and Shinobu curtly nodded.
The surprise the aliens felt on hearing Ataru address them so formally was quite apparent on their faces. Before either of them could say anything, a sharp explosion turned everyone's attention towards the town park. Ataru's eyes automatically narrowed as his empathic powers reached out to scan the scene, then he sighed. "Oyuki-san, did you happen to give Ran-san more of your sherbets?!"
"Sherbets?!!" Shinobu gasped, remembering the LAST time one of those little winged balls of fluf had got loose in Tomobiki.
"I...!" Oyuki paled considerably -- she hadn't heard anything about the sherbets whatsoever today -- then she gasped as a black blur raced past her field of view, making her look to the sky to see a flying Ataru soar off towards the park. "Oh, MY!!!"
"Ataru, wait for me!!" Shinobu raced off after her boyfriend, she followed by Lum...
A minute later, Ataru landed in the middle of the park to see an irate Ran blasting away at a dozen or so sherbets with her handy bazooka. Sensing the level of discomfort the tiny creatures now felt being in an environment so ALIEN to their own -- the temperature difference ALONE could drive them insane -- Ataru grimaced as his eyes glowed, his telekinetic powers reaching out to snare the bazooka from Ran and toss it into the air. A "cutter bolt" attack shattered the weapon when it was quite clear of innocent bystanders, the leading edge of that strike detonating the rounds in the weapon's magazine. A telekinetic bubble formed immediately around the exploding bazooka, catching all the potential shrapnel and other fragments, then they are dumped into the nearby Tomobiki River.
Suddenly finding herself weaponless, Ran looked wildly around. Before she could focus her attention on Ataru, five "shells" from the sherbets slammed her face-first into the ground. Ataru then walked up, his eyes picking out a dazed and bruised Rei (in tiger-bull form) lying unconscious nearby, three dozen sherbet "shells" embedded into his fur. "Oh, so THAT explains all this," he shook his head, then stared down at the unconscious Ran. "Ran-san, honestly, didn't you learn from last time?" he sighed, then relaxed himself.
As Lum, Shinobu, Benten and Oyuki arrived on the scene, the sherbets perked on sensing a wave of empathic calm radiate from the strange human with the odd sea-smell eminating from him. Blinking confusedly as their minds tried to interpret what was happening to them, the tiny creatures hopped and fluttered closer to Ataru. Then, sensing he desired not to hurt them -- a wonderful change from that annoying, angry human girl with the hot-cone tube of fire who had been forcing them to feed her stupid, metamorphic mate -- the sherbets all fluttered around him, some landing on his arms, hands and shoulders. Seeing them acting calm and collected around ATARU of all people left Oyuki totally speechless -- until he turned to gaze on her. "Oyuki-san, I really think we should get these poor things back to where they belong," he gave her a disarming smile. "The heat's really starting to get to them, not that these two fools..." he glanced dispassionately at the unconscious Rei and Ran, "...didn't do much to endear themselves to the little ones in the first place."
"I...!" Oyuki blinked, then stuttered, "Ah...! Ha...! H-hai!"
Today...
"Perhaps this is for the best," Oyuki notes.
Lum and Benten gaze at her, then the latter turns to chat with her friend as the Neptunian princess falls silent once more. Watching the Oni and the Fukunokami chat, Oyuki tries her best to keep a rational level of thought over this whole matter.
It is hard, though.
Notwithstanding the fact that it happened to Lum's "husband," someone that Oyuki always had problems trying to respect, much less like, the arrival of these Nendo-kata in Earth's solar system -- which was Neptune's as well! -- meant that things were going to start changing quite drastically in this sector of space. That the Great School had been given a virtual "open doors" invitation to come to Earth by the Men in Black was one thing. That Ataru's adopted race had won the respect of many of the local intergalactic superpowers -- the Jurai, the Shi'ar, the Kree and the Skrulls, among many others -- wouldn't sit well with Lum's people, especially her father. Against any ONE of those other races, the Onis would be outclassed in a war over Earth. Against more than one? It would lead to Armageddon.
What was worse, the Nendo-kata had, over the last thousand centuries, developed a strong moral conviction that, though it was quite flexible in some places, would have come down HARD against some of the antics Lum had been involved with since she came to Earth in the first place. Both Tag Races, the "oil theft" incident with the space-taxi, problems that arose when Benten -- and yes, Oyuki, too! -- came to visit, the times Ataru had been virtually "kidnapped" to attend the Setsubun festival, not to mention when Elle came to try to claim her "Honey" for herself...! And given the fact that almost all of Tomobiki had come to accept Lum despite all her faults -- or did they just simply decide subconsciously to blame it all on Ataru so that their view of the Oni would never be tarnished?! -- what would happen if Ataru decided sometime in the future that Lum's very PRESENCE on Earth was causing more harm than good?
"So what now?" Benten's voice causes the Neptunian to look up.
Lum takes a deep breath. "Well..."
(Posted Thu, 13 Mar 2003 06:44)
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