Soun and Genma:
The First Generation,
SINS OF THE FATHERS!
By Jim Robert Bader
(Based on the characters and situations created by Rumiko Takahashi,
with further additional ideas/inspirations from D.B. Sommer & Others)
Chapter One.
Ill Met in Nerima
"Atsuko!" a shrill voice called out, annoying the young demoness who was watching ITV while nominally doing her studies in Earthcraft.
"What is it, Mother?" she tried not to sound as bored and exasperated as she was, but her elder stormed into the room with a flash of her usual pyrotechnics and cut off any thought of using that line of protest upon her elder.
"Atsuko, you lazy, good-for-nothing excuse for an Oni...!"
"Can we cut to the chase this time, Mother?" Atsuko asked, closing her books and pretending not to be intimidated by the flashing fire in the eyes of her elder, "Instead of listing all my good qualities, how about just coming out and telling me what you want?"
"What I want," the Sorceress Cybelle, daughter of a Major Duke of the Sixteenth Hell replied, "Is that you showed even a trace of having inherited something from my side of the family besides my looks! I swear by all that's Unholy, you're almost as bad as that miserable Ogre you have the misfortune of calling your father!"
"What did Dad do this time?" Atsuko asked with as much patience as someone of her generation had when being lectured on the subject of inheritance.
"Never mind!" her mother snapped, then in a lower, more calculating tone she added, "I'll deal with him in my own good way. What I want is for you to sit up and pay attention, if that's not too much to ask, your royal pain-in-the-
buttox?"
The sarcasm was lost to Atsuko, who merely sat upright with a prim and pretty expression, folding her batwings as she adopted her most Kawaii expression and said, "I'm listening, mother. Really."
"Oh yeah?" Cybelle glared suspiciously, "Then why don't you take those headphones out of your pointy ears and give me your FULL attention. I'm sending you out into the mortal world on a mission of utmost importance!"
"Really?" Atsuko yanked the headphones out of her ears and turned off her Walkman as she gave her mother her honest and full attention.
"That's right, you lazy girl," her mother smiled in a calculated manner, "It seems my scrying has turned up some interesting information that could give us a leg up over our rivals. The lines of destiny have been shifting again, and my magic has determined with absolute certainty that a new Nexus is about to appear in the mortal realm..."
"A Nexus?" Atsuko said excitedly, then paused, "Uh...what's a Nexus?"
Cybelle covered her eyes with a clawed hand, "Don't they teach you younger bucks anything in school these days? I swear they ought to draw and quarter the Principal on general principle, but they probably couldn't get another Oni stupid enough to take the job...oh well. A Nexus, sweet child, is a mortal born at the center of converging realities, who-by his very nature-causes catalytic change in the probabilities lines...are you with me so far?"
"No."
Her mother counted to ten backwards in Babylonian and tried once again, "The Nexus for this generation has not yet been born, but I have determined who will be the mortal father! The boy will grow to be a man and form a new continuity from which other parallel lines will form divergence. We must have that boy under our influence, and for that we require a host in which to plant that seed, a girl who has not known the touch of a man before, who will bear the child that is of two natures, both Yin and Yang, who will carry within him the seed of destiny that will help reshape the future!"
"Oh, I get it," Atsuko brightened, "Then we have to find some girl who can be the mother. Cool. Only...where do we look?"
"I'm looking at her," her mother smiled, "I always knew you'd be useful for something besides an excuse to entrap your father into marriage."
Atsuko lost her smile, "Me? Do it with a HUMAN? Ewwwww! Humans are so...so limited and yucky!"
"Nonetheless," Cybelle conjured with a hand and called up an image of a young man wearing a kind of scarf or turban around his head, "You will obey me and seek out this human to mate with him and produce an offspring. He is young and inexperienced with women, so he will be easy to manipulate, and you should have no problem twisting him around your little finger."
"That's the Father?" Atsuko said with distaste, "Couldn't he at least have been just a little handsome? OW!"
"Don't get snobby," her mother snapped as she slapped Atsuko on the head, missing her horns completely, "In case you didn't know the fact you're no great prize either, even if you are what humans favor in terms of appearance. I'm not doing this as a favor to this boy either, but young Saotome is the father to future destiny, so we need him, and you're going to have his baby. Either you agree to this or...I'll cut off your allowance and ground you!"
"So what?" Atsuko folded her arms over her ample chest and sniffed, "It's not like you ever let me go anywhere, and what allowance? You're always saying it's going to pay for stuff I broke and damages and such like. As if it's all my fault I'm almost as strong as my father..."
"And marginally more intelligent," Cybelle grumbled softly, then softened her tone to the consistency of cotton candy, "It will be your chance to get back into my good graces, restore your line of credit to the Fashion Malls, and allow you to buy nice things for yourself. I'll cancel your debts, make amends with the various people you've injured in the past, and even allow you out of the House on occasions, all if you agree to do this one simple thing for me. That isn't too much to demand, is it, sweetums?"
Atsuko eyed her mother warily, "You'll let me go...just like that? I get to do whatever I like just as long as I agree to have a baby by this mortal?"
Her mother steeled herself for what she knew to be inevitable disaster and said, "If you have a son by this man then all your debts are canceled. I might even be inclined to forget that little fire you set in our last castle, forcing us to take up residence in a tree of all sanctuaries! I am tired of living like a Dryad, it's long since time we made our own way in the world and earned a place of respect among the other Demons!"
Atsuko thought about it, then glanced at the image of the man again, then very softly whispered, "Okay...I'll do it. But under one condition."
"What's that?" Cybelle steeled herself for some unpleasant or foolish demand that she would have to decline as the first salvo in negotiations.
To her considerable surprise what she heard her daughter say was, "I get to do whatever I like, I'm free to come and go, and you won't interfere in any way," Atsuko replied, "I'll go after this guy and get him in the sack in no time flat just so long as you don't try to push me or fix things up or try to make this guy fall in love with me or anything like that. I do this on my own, you got that, Mother?"
The Demoness Cybelle merely sighed and said, "You sound like your cousin, Morgan. Very well, I agree to abide by your wishes. You will pursue and win this boy on your own terms, then your life will be your own from that point onward."
As she said this she kept clawed fingers crossed behind her back, but fortunately her daughter was just dull enough in the wits not to notice as she sat upright with a huge grin and declared, "All right! Then let me at him! I'll have this guy eating out of the palm of my hands or my name isn't Atsuko Hibiki!"
"Ah!" Cybelle stated to say in warning, only to wince as her daughter walked into a closet and was subsequently buried in an avalanche. She sighed, reflecting that Atsuko had acquired many of the worst traits of her father, such as an abysmal sense of directions. It was a side effect of a stealth quality inherent in Ogres that made them difficult to detect by other demons, but there were occasions when this trait could be really annoying, such as when Atsuko got lost looking for the bathroom.
"Uh...mother?" Atsuko said sheepishly as she poked her head up from the pile of boxes and stuff that had been stashed in there, "About not interfering...could you maybe make one tiny little exception?"
Cybelle was already preparing the spell in her mind as she said, "I'll send you on your way. You'll have means to support yourself, but other than that you are on your own my child. Good luck." Silently she added, "You and that Mortal are going to need it..."
Genma Saotome was not a happy young man at the current prospects he was attempting to elude. It had been like this for years since beginning his training under The Master, but there were serious times when he began to get annoyed about always having to leave town running flat out with an angry mob chasing him and Soun with all manner of blunt objects.
"Right this way, Boys!" the little Pervert who was their Master called out, bounding with the seemingly endless energy that a man of his years had no right to claim. Soun and Genma needed no prodding, only a glance over their shoulders was enough to convince them to redouble their efforts.
As they passed a low rise, however, they were spied by two figure perched far overhead, both wearing Chinese style outfits that were quite unlike the dull grey Mao suits normally worn by their countrymen. One girl had long brown hair done up with distinctive Odangos, the other had a matching hairstyle, only her hair was a bright shade of blue-purple that somehow seemed natural for her and not the product of artificial tinting.
"Can you make them out?" the girl with brown hair said in fluent Mandarin, "Are they the ones we are after?
"Difficult to say," the purple haired girl replied, "They fit the descriptions we've been following, but without getting any closer we can't be absolutely certain."
"The little one certainly matches the description of the demon," the brown haired girl remarked, "The other two must be his students, and if that mob is any indication, they follow the pattern we have observed in other villages and towns that they have been to."
"True," the purple haired girl replied, "But do you want to tell Grandmother Cologne that we thought we had the right party after so many false leads and wrong turns that we've already taken?"
"A fair point," the brown haired girl conceded, "Your grandmother, the Matriarch, can be a royal pain about time wasted. Let's get closer to those three and see if they match the descriptions from a closer proximity."
"And if they do," the purple haired girl remarked as she clenched a fist for emphasis, "Then our mission is as good as over and we can be rid of this accursed country and the barbarians who dwell here. The sooner we obtain the artifact the sooner we can return home to Joketsuzoku..."
"Why us, Tendo?" Genma was asking pointlessly as they managed to duck into thicket that the mob would not as easily penetrate.
"The Fates only know, Saotome," Soun replied, shifting the weight of his share of the burden they both carried, "It must be our Karma to suffer..."
"Get a move on it, you two!" Happosai urged as he rode above the sack that Genma carried, "You don't want those people to gain on us, do you? Take my precious belongings and find someplace secure where we can sit down for the evening!"
"Hai, Sensei!" the two men said in immediate chorus as they pushed further into the woods, coming up along parallel to a river and tracing it further into the mountains, all the while unaware of the two sleek figures who were dogging their tracks.
Whether their master knew of this or not was difficult to determine, but some instinct warned Happosai of the nearness of two attractive females, and he smiled to himself, the prospects for an enjoyable evening brightening his mood more than a little.
The same could not be said for his two students. Lazy, good for nothing wretches the both of them, hardly worthy of taking on as his disciples save that there was nobody else whom Happosai could rely upon. It shamed him to think that Genma and Soun were the best that he could do, but he rationalized that a true master made use of the materials on hand, so by the time they made camp he was ready to hop down and enjoy a good smoke while they prepared his supper.
"Ah, get a load of that fresh mountain air!" Happosai beamed, taking a deep breath and exhaling, then sniffing the breeze again as if picking up a faint aroma. He smiled a crafty smile, but aloud all that he said was, "Be careful unloading the merchandise, boys, and don't burn my supper. I'm going to go for a little walk to relieve myself, but by the time I get back..."
"We know, Master," said Soun.
"Everything will be to your satisfaction, Master," Genma assured, "You can count on us."
"Yeah, right," Happosai snorted, then hopped away to find concealment in some nearby bushes. According to his senses the fun would begin very shortly...
"Finally," one of two figures said as they crept up to a point overlooking the campsite, "They've made camp. Now we can sneak up on them and finish this so we can go home..."
"Not so fast," urged her companion, "The small one has wandered off, and he's the one we came to find. These other two are just his servants, or something like that..."
"What has that got to do with anything?" the first asked in disgust, "If we confront the two males they may be able to tell us if the Elder has what we're after. I say we overpower them and force them to tell us."
"Not much finesse," the second shrugged, "But it's hard to disagree with that logic. I wonder why that makes me nervous..."
"Well, I'm going in there with or without you," the first growled softly, "Now are you coming?"
"And let you get into trouble all by yourself, Kho Hom?" the second replied, rolling her eyes as she added, "Why break from a pattern? I'm with you..."
"Did it seem to you as if the Master was looking unusually distracted, Saotome?" Soun asked while using a cup to measure the rice from the bag they had "appropriated" in town and putting it in the metal containers they used for cooking.
"It's hard to say with him, Tendo-kun," Genma replied, "Our Master has the attention span of a hummingbird..."
"And the bottomless pit of a Dragon," Soun said sourly, wondering why he, a man with prospects, should be suffering a life of privation while training to be a great martial artist. He finished scooping the right number of cups of water to Rice from the bucket they had used to draw from the river and closed the metal containers, then sighed, "Eating rice every day to keep up our strength...what I wouldn't give for a nice bowl of Ramen."
"We do have cabbage this time," Genma held up a head that he had "liberated" from a Vegetable merchant, "And I even managed to find us a jar of Mayo, which is luxury after a fashion."
"Luxury," Soun sighed, "Our Great Grandfather will be the death of us yet. This is poor fare for two young men such as ourselves to live by. It seems like years since we ate meat and vegetables stir-fried with our cabbage. What I would give to wish this fate on someone else..."
"Like my brother," Genma said softly, "It should have been him running around training with the Master, not me, but then he had to go and marry your sister..."
"Let's not review unpleasant family history, shall we?" Soun said in soft warning, "I just hope the Master isn't somewhere close by to overhear us...you know what sharp ears he's always had."
"I know," Genma shuddered, picking up the bucket, "I'll go refill this by the stream. You tend to the fire and I'll be back with more tinder."
"Take your time," Soun smiled, "It will be at least a half an hour before the rice begins to cook to the right consistency...that is unless the Master picked out the slow cooking kind..."
"You never know with him," Genma agreed, starting off towards the nearby river when all at once his senses perked up, his combat instincts coming to the fore as he said, "Did you just hear something, Tendo-kun...?"
At all at once a figure came hurtling towards him, making a flying leap for his head, but Genma moved with the speed of someone who was used to dodging attacks, flowing out of the way of the blur that was his assailant. He pivoted and assumed a fighting crouch...
And almost failed to overcome his surprise at the discovery that his attacker was a woman!
Soun had simultaneously detected a second assailant coming towards him and got up from the fire with a speed that made it seem as if he almost flew from a crouched position. Tumbling in mid-air he landed a short distance away as his own attacker turned to orient upon him, flashing a bo staff and assuming an attack posture.
As with the first assailant, Soun was surprised to discover his attacker was a brown-haired woman wearing Chinese clothing!"
"Nihao!" she smiled, then came at him in a blur, her staff moving like a living thing in her hands as Soun gave ground and backed away, attempting to maintain his safe distance.
Genma was also dodging the furious attacks of a Chinese sword in the hand of his Purple Haired assailant. Though more stocky in build then his taller companion, he nonetheless moved with surprising speed to side-step each thrust and assault she aimed towards him. It took him several moments to put enough distance between himself and his opponent, then he bounded up into the trees and grabbed a branch to swing, then vaulted like a gymnast to the next tree, rebounding off the bark like a hurtling monkey.
The woman who had assaulted him took a moment to gauge his speed and allow herself a minor reaction, then she took off after him, vaulting into the trees and almost perfectly duplicating his efforts, slinging her sword back in a hidden sheath for easy transport.
"What's going on?" Soun asked his assailant, "Why are you attacking us? Are you from that village...?"
"Not hardly," the girl replied in accented Japanese, "You travel with the evil Demon, Happosai, which means you are either his slave or his helper..."
"Neither really," Soun replied as he kept dodging the staff, "He's our Master, we're his students..."
"Students of perversion?" the brown haired warrior woman challenged.
"No!" Soun protested, keeping his distance from the powerful thrusts of her Bo staff, "Our Master may make us steal but that doesn't mean we enjoy it like he does!"
"Enjoy it or not," the warrior woman replied, "You're still accomplices to his crimes..."
"Howzaboutitbaby!" a voice suddenly cried from directly in front of the girl's chest, and she froze in mid-motion to find a wizened old figure plastered to her chest, smiling up at her while fondling her best assets.
"Master!" Soun protested at once, "Please...it is not dignified to do that to a perfect stranger!'
Happosai was about to correct his pupil for talking like that to his master when the girl he was feeling up finally broke out of her daze to react with uncharacteristic volatility as she exploded in a furious battle cry of "You PERVERT!" and launched the little old man skyward with an uppercut that just barely managed to dislodge him.
Meanwhile Genma had returned to the ground, having run out of trees to use for platforms. The purple haired girl alighted on the ground near to him and once more drew her sword, taking a position to cut off flight in either direction as she oriented the point towards his heart.
"You no bad at running!" she said in heavily accented Japanese, "But you no run without legs!"
"C-Can't we talk this over?" Genma asked when he saw the girl lunge towards him, and without hardly thinking about it he ducked so low and so fast that he almost seemed to disappear from sight, then as the Purple Haired girl continued forward she found her footing impeded by an obstacle and she went right on tumbling forward, going well past Genma and all the way into the stream behind him.
"Now," the brown haired girl said as she raised her bo staff to just below the chin of the nervous Soun when the splashing noise caught her attention, "Kho Hom?"
Quick as a shot Soun caught the staff and twisted it out of her hand, then tossed it to one side before raising his hands in a deflecting manner, "Please! We don't have to be enemies, not if you're here on account of the Master."
The brown haired girl looked from her empty hands to the man before her, then she straightened out and said, "All right...then start talking..."
"Are you all right?" Genma called down to the sputtering woman as she surfaced from the water, "Do you need a hand getting out of there...?"
"Keep away!" the woman snarled as she fought her way back to dry ground, refusing the hand that Genma offered, "No touch me! I is no frail woman who need help from male!"
"Certainly not," replied Genma, "But is there any reason we need to be enemies? It might help if you told me what you and your friend are here for first."
The Purple Haired girl turned as if in sudden memory, "Silk? Where are you?"
"Over here!" her companion called out in Japanese as she and Soun approached them together, "I think we need to call a truce, Kho Hom...these men don't seem to want to fight us."
"Hmph," the purple haired girl sniffed, giving Genma a sour look.
Silk looked her up and down then asked, "What happened to you?"
"I got wet," Kho Hom said with disgust.
"Obviously," Silk replied, "But how did it happen?"
Kho Hom flicked her eyes towards Genma and said, "He ducked."
"Ah!" Silk smiled, "In other words, you just got yourself a husband."
Kho Hom's eyes got very wide as she reacted with a startled, "Him? No way! He's not my husband! He didn't defeat me!"
"Seems to me like you're the one who took the bath," Silk said with an airy smile, "How do you think your grandmother, the Matriarch, will react when she hears this?"
"..." Kho Hom started to say, then muttered a few choice words that even in Chinese sounded profane, followed by a sharp retort, "Not one word of this to Grandmother! The last thing I need is to have something like this dumped on me..."
"Excuse me," Soun spoke up, "I hate to interrupt you two, but the Master may be coming back soon, and if he finds you here..."
"He what, male?" Kho Hom snorted.
"You don't want to know," Genma replied somberly, "Our Master is like no one else who is alive, and once he sets his sights on a pretty girl he won't stop until he's had his full measure."
"He no would dare!" Kho Hom protested.
"Count on it," Soun replied, "The master would take one look at you and decide you were worth a little sport. There's nothing Genma or I could do to prevent it..."
"Genma, eh?" Silk smiled as she regarded the stockier young man, who had a build like a football player but who wore a cap over his head as if it had been glued to the spot, "Dark Horse...an interesting name for your new husband, don't you think?"
Kho Hom grit her teeth and growled, "He's NOT my husband!"
Silk ignored her protest and said, "Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot. My name is Silk, and the walking bad attitude there is my companion, Kho Hom. We're Amazons from Joketsuzoku, China..."
"Amazons?" Genma smiled, "Oh come now, you don't expect us to believe that you two are from..." he suddenly stopped talking as a blade was thrust just under his chin, "On the other hand, what do I know about it?"
"You no make fun of Nyanichiczu!" Kho Hom snarled as she pressed her dagger without breaking skin to emphasize her point.
"Look...Comb is it?" Soun said carefully, "My friend didn't mean you any disrespect. It's just that we've never heard of any Amazons from China..."
"We're not in the habit of advertising our existence," Silk replied, "In fact we wouldn't even be here except that we were sent by the Matriarch of our village to find something that was stolen from us a very long time ago, something that we have reason to believe is in the possession of your Master, the ancient Demon."
"Something stolen by the master?" Genma asked as he gingerly pressed two fingers on the dagger to persuade the woman glaring at him with crimson eyes that it would not be needed, "Could you be a little more specific?"
"You know where is?" Kho Hom asked with a very sour expression, still holding tight to her dagger.
"Not really," Soun replied, "Our master hides many of the items that he steals in special places, such as at my father's house in Nerima. I'm not really sure where in the house he hides his stash...he doesn't trust us very far, I'm afraid."
"No," Genma agreed, "But he has a knack for leaving us behind to face the consequences for his crimes."
"He does indeed," Soun agreed sadly, "The Master's crimes are without number, and far too many of them fall upon us, Saotome."
The two Amazons exchanged glances, then Silk turned to the two men and said, "Perhaps we should talk some more. Your Master indeed has much to answer for, and perhaps we should begin by inquiring from him the details we need to complete our quest."
"Are you sure that's wise?" Soun asked, "You and your companion are exceptional fighters, but the Master...has very peculiar ideas about proper conduct around women."
"We're big enough girls," Silk smiled, "I'm sure your Master will agree to be civil if we ask him nicely..."
"Are you feeling okay, Silk?" Kho Hom asked her companion, "According to Grandmother this Demon is dangerous and not to be trusted."
"Don't tell me you're afraid of a little demon like that?" Silk replied slyly, "Besides, don't you want to get to know your new husband better?"
"HE IS NOT MY...!" Kho Hom started to shout when she saw her friend's smug expression and just turned away in disgust, "Whatever..."
"Well now," mused Atsuko as she glanced around at the point of her arrival, "So this is the outside world of the humans...not much to look at. All this green...what do they call this stuff? Grass, bushes or something like that..."
She glanced down at the watch dial her mother had given her, in reality a magical device that was supposed to help her find her directions. Like that would ever mean much to her! She could find her way just fine...if only things would stay in one place, that is. They tended to move around a lot when she was not looking...
"Okay," she said aloud, staring at the needle on the watch dial, "According to this the guy I want is...over that way. So that's the way I've got to head to find him. No problem..."
Of course the direction that she took turned out to be the exact opposite from the direction the needle had pointed, but who could rely on stuff like that anyway? Atsuko followed her instincts like a good little half-Oni, and it was something of a minor miracle that she would stumble by accident on the correct path leading to Genma after a search of only three and a half hours...
"Won't be too long now," Genma smiled as he fanned the fire over which the canisters were cooking, "We'll have the rice nice and ready in a jiffy."
"I'll put on another batch once we clean out the first canister," Soun smiled, "We weren't counting on any company, so there may not be enough the first time, but I'm sure you ladies won't mind the wait, just so long as we leave enough for the Master."
Silk and Comb looked on somewhat dubiously as the two males prepared to share their supper, their brief altercation seemingly forgotten. At first the Amazons suspected the men of ulterior motives, but only a few minutes spent in their company was enough to convince even the skeptical Comb that the men were too simple minded to plot anything devious, underhanded or sneaky.
"You live like this?" Silk asked by way of restarting their conversation.
"It's not luxury, but we manage to get by," Genma shrugged, "Years of roughing it have taught us to appreciate our meager share since we're fortunate that the Master permits us to have anything for ourselves."
"Why you put up with him when you no like Demon Master?" Comb asked in confusion.
"Because he's our Master," Soun replied, "He's training us to be martial artists, to carry on the Anything Goes Ryu."
"And because he'd beat us both to within an inch of our lives if we don't do his bidding," Genma glanced down at the fire wistfully, "Believe me, we've thought about leaving him several times, but he somehow always finds a way to bring us back to continue the training."
"So in effect you two are his slaves," Silk reasoned.
"Worse than that," Soun replied, "We're his descendants. The master insists that we owe it to him to train in the family discipline, but all we seem to do is run for our lives from one unpleasant mess to the next one, avoiding mobs like the ones who were chasing us not too long ago."
"His descendants?" Comb blinked, "You two are kin?"
"Can't tell to look, can you?" Genma smiled, "Soun's father and my father were first cousins, and their fathers before them were brothers, and each had the same mother who-incredible as it may sound-we are led to believe actually married the Master...or they were close, or something of that nature."
"You carry the blood of the Demon in your veins?" Silk remarked with surprise.
"Not proudly," Soun sighed, "You can't imagine the shame we bear, the horror we live with constantly, knowing that there once was a woman who would debase herself by lying with the Master, or that we are the result of that horror several generations removed."
"The Master has deemed that we are worthy to receive the training that he supposedly has spent three hundred years accumulating," Genma said gravely, "But the truth is I wasn't even supposed to be the one to inherit the tradition. That honor was supposed to go to my older brother, who unfortunately abandoned his duties and instead eloped with a woman he loved, leaving me to face the wrath of our Master."
"I thought we agreed never to mention that again," Soun gave his friend a sour side-glance.
"Oops," Genma said sheepishly, "Sorry."
"So what can you tell us about the ancient Master?" Silk wondered, "The little guy didn't seem so terrible to me..."
"What?" Comb regarded her friend with askance, "You faced the demon by yourself?"
"It wasn't such a big deal," Silk replied, "He tried to grab me but I gave him a toss that sent him airborne."
"I see," Comb frowned, "And is that where you lost your grip on your staff?"
"Oh no," Silk smiled complacently, "The tall, skinny one took it from me."
"HE WHAT?" Comb reacted, "You mean he beat you?"
"Sadly no," Silk replied with a sigh, "We called a truce before it could come to that, but I was very impressed with him all the same. It's been a long while since anyone disarmed me in a fight, and he's such a powerful fighter...and very handsome," she said the latter part with a pleasant smile that made Soun nervous.
"You mean you want him for your husband?" Comb turned a hard scrutiny at the tall youth in question.
"Well, why not?" Silk replied, giving her friend a friendly leer, "Don't tell me you haven't been thinking about it with your new husband?"
Comb bristled, "He is NOT my husband..."
"Uh, excuse me?" Genma said, holding out a bowl of rice with chopsticks, "Your share of the meal's ready if you want it..."
Comb glared at the stockier male and said, "You no be nice to Comb. We is Amazons, no need outsider males to wait on us..."
"Speak for yourself," Silk replied with a friendly nod to Soun as she accepted her bowl.
"Suit yourself," Genma shrugged, taking the bowl back as he picked up the chopsticks and began to eat by himself, shoveling rice into his mouth as fast as he could chew it.
Comb blinked, then glared to one side as her companion began to chuckle over a half-mouthful of rice. He folded her arms and said, "Hmph!" before turning her nose up to the whole proceedings.
"Saotome," Soun chided, "That's rude. You have another bowl you can spare for our guest. I'm so sorry, Miss Comb, my friend can be a little thoughtless on occasion.
"I no care," Comb snorted, then winced as her stomach growled, contradicting her pretensions.
Genma had finished off his first bowl, then picked up the second bowl and was about to dig in when he caught Soun's warning glare. After a moment of pause he sighed and passed the bowl along to Comb, saying in a casual tone of voice, "You don't have to accept it if you don't want it, Miss, but I think you could use some food after that scuffle we went through."
Comb glanced down at the blanket she was holding around her body, then up at her wet clothing, which was hanging out to dry. Although not very body-conscious and rather contemptuous of any male who might risk looking upon her naked, she had been oddly miffed when the two men had turned away and refused to look upon her nakedness, as if implying that she might have a terminal skin rash or something! She looked back down again, then accepted the bowl without comment, glaring at the male as he turned away from her again, ready to pound on him if he bothered to steal a glance at any amount of skin that she might inadvertently be showing.
She was not sure what bothered her more, the fact that he did not look or that she would even bother to notice...
"Ah!" Atsuko smiled as she sniffed the air, "That smells awfully good...or at least a lot better than Mom's cooking. Now I wonder what..."
She halted in place and sniffed the breeze again. Without quite knowing it she was within two hundred yards of the camp and was only now discerning the distinctive scents of four different human bodies, two of them unmistakably female. That got her attention at once so that she glanced down at the watch dial and-sure enough-it was pointing in the same direction.
Although lacking in a sense of directions, Atsuko's powers of smell were well beyond the range of normal humans and approaching Bloodhound territory for acuteness. Her hearing was also incredibly sharp, so she could just make out the sounds of voices murmuring in the distance. She started moving closer to investigate, allowing her senses to correct for her bad direction sense, and before too long she was within a good twenty meters of her goal when she suddenly ducked for cover, surprised at discovering four people where there was only one on her agenda.
This situation not only complicated things, but the presence of two females near to her objective was not in any way welcome news, given the nature of her mission. Atsuko's nostrils flared as she picked up the scent of at least one of the females registering a strong arousal. In her mind this suggested that someone else was out to claim the man that she had come to find, and such intrusions in her territory set her Ogre blood to racing. Unconsciously she pressed her hands against the bark of a tree and squeezed a little, heedless of the fact that that the wood made a noise in protest as her hands sank into the bark, leaving claw marks in their passage.
Comb suddenly stiffened as she heard this noise and said, "What is that?"
"Eh?" Silk replied, having been less on her guard and thus not as quick to notice the sound as her companion. She trusted Comb's perceptions, however, so she turned to look in the direction of her fellow Amazon's gaze, then frowned a little as if she sensed something amiss. She was about to get up when Genma spoke up.
"It's probably nothing," he said, "Some woodland creature wandering too close to our camp."
"Indeed," Soun remarked, though his expression was not as casual as he said, "The Master is late getting back from wherever it was you sent him. He should be turning up at any moment, which is what should we concern be concerned with."
"Comb know what she hear," Comb said with a sour expression, "That no wood beast, I go investigate what it is..."
She started to throw off her blanket when the two men suddenly reacted with a panic, Genma jumping to his feet as he said, "That won't be necessary! You just wait here, I'll go see what sort of creature we have to deal with."
Comb actually blinked, "But..."
"It's no problem, really," Genma insisted, then he made a hasty bee-line in the direction where Atsuko was hiding.
Atsuko belatedly realized that one of the males in the party was coming her way, and she realized that she had been inadvertently discovered, so she turned to flee rather than be trapped out in the open. Of course she failed to pay attention which way she was headed, so rather than retrace her steps she ran in a tangential line that terminated abruptly when she discovered her path impeded by running water.
Or rather she discovered the stream by the mere inconvenience of falling right into it without looking.
"What was that?" Genma frowned, pausing as he noticed only a blur, followed by the sound of a body splashing into water, then shrugged and took it as a good excuse for returning to the camp, "Like I said, nothing to worry about, it was just a bear or some other large animal, probably attracted by the smell of our cooking."
"You're cooking isn't that good," Comb grumbled without looking directly at Genma, who sat back down where he was and resumed his eating as if nothing were the matter.
Atsuko sputtered as her head broke the water, feeling very much the urge to curse as she growled, "Who put this river in my way? Now I'm soaked to my skins and my hair is a mess!"
She privately was grateful for her hybrid nature. Some Oni could not stand the presence of running water, having something to do with elemental magnetic currents or some such nonsense that they had gone on about in Oni school, Elementary Metaphysics 104. (Of course she mostly slept through that class, but she had absorbed the gist from glancing through the textbooks...)
She was about to climb out onto the bank of the stream when she heard a voice calling out, "I'll be right back, just as soon as I fill the canteen, Tendo-kun. I'll just be a minute..."
Atsuko started as she saw a man come into view...the very same man that she had seen through her mother's conjurings. With a gasp she ducked her head back down into the water as the man approached the water, not having noticed her since the light was slowly fading.
Atsuko could hold her breath for a long time if necessary so she took the opportunity to stare up from beneath the surface at the blurred image of the man her mother wanted her to father a child with, seeing a stocky, balding young man who covered his head with a hat to conceal his defect. The place where he crouched to fill a metal container with water was such that she could make him out from an incredibly close distance while not being visible to him, which gave her an opportunity to study her quarry and examine his Akashik aura. There was something...very odd about him that made her feel very strange about that, so she lingered near at hand, feeling the odd urge to reach out and caress his hand, yet hesitating to do so for some inexplicable reason.
The man got up again and left the stream, but she lingered a full half minute longer before she poked her head out of the water and stared at the space where he had vanished. Her nostrils flared, picking up and identifying his scent as one of the four she had detected earlier, only now she would be able to tell them apart. A very slow smile crept upon her face as she considered following after him, then remembered that he had company and decided that she could wait for the next time that he wandered off by himself. Quite suddenly the hunt had gotten interesting and she wanted to play with her prey before attempting to seduce him...
Unbeknownst to either Genma or Atsuko, Silk had not been satisfied to take the balding male at his word and had gotten up to conduct her own investigation. It had not taken her long to find the spot where Atsuko had observed them, nor was the lighting so bad that she could fail to miss some unusual looking footprints. Silk knelt down to study them, marking them as human in nature but for the unusual claw marks. Though she was no where as good a Hunter as Comb her tracking skills her adequate to the task of visually tracing the path the footprints left by their maker both coming and going, and from the length of the stride she was able to estimate height, weight and dimensions. She started to straighten out again, intending to follow the trail further, when she chanced to rest her hand against the mark of the tree and felt...something other than rough bark with her fingers.
Silk turned to see the handprints that sank deep into the tree and her eyes widened a little. The impressions were human but for the unusual claw markings but the depth to which the bark had been crushed implied great strength had been exerted, far beyond anything within the realm of human potential. An enhanced human manifesting a battle aura might be able to do it, but she somehow doubted that the one who had done this was such a creature.
"What is it?" she heard a voice say from behind her, "What's wrong? Is there something the matter?"
"Ah..." Silk turned to find the tall male confronting her with concern in his eyes, and for some reason she answered, "Oh...nothing, nothing that should worry you. I suppose it was a wild animal after all, just like your friend with the glasses suggested."
"That's good," Soun replied, "But you shouldn't wander off like this. It's very dangerous, and if it is a bear then you could be attacked or possibly even injured."
"I can handle myself," Silk replied, feeling the stiffening in her pride at the inference that she was less than fully able.
To her surprise the man just smiled and said, "I've no doubt about that, but there's no sense standing around here. It's getting late and the Master will be here soon. Please come back to camp and tell me some more about this place where you come from. What part of China is your home?"
"Oh, ah...it's not really all that interesting a place," Silk lied, then wondered why she had done so. It was surprising for her to encounter a man who seemed to be genuinely interested in her welfare. He was handsome and a good fighter, and there was something about him that appealed to her greatly. Perhaps he was worth a closer study, regardless of the details of his relationship with a certain pervert...
Continued.
Comments/Criticisms/Candid Camera of Nerima: shadowmane
The seeds of the future have been planted in the past, now what fruit will it bear for Soun and Genma? Be here for the next installment...
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