JMJ

Haibun

(1)

Winter leaves

Think bitter thoughts

Of summer

"First I give a toast to Ratticate! Yes, he's a pokémon, but I feel it only fitting to toast the mascot of the duo that was us!"

Bounding up and down in his chair, Ratticate beamed with pride, or maybe he simply discovered the cheesecake for the first time, for he seemed far more occupied with the slice being cut for him than to the speaker much less to the champagne set before him for the toast. Merrily he dove into his slice of cake, face-first (well, he was a pokémon, after all), and lifting his head up half way through he beamed once more and let out a cheerful, "Rah!"

"Sure, we only had a mascot because of Yamato's petty rivalry with Musashi, and sure he was always stupid and in the way of things even if he did come in handy with his hyper beam, but hey! What did that hyper beam ever get us anyway? He hardly ever succeeded with it. But all in all when all's said and done, I think he deserves a toast. Someone had to finish off our motto after all!"

Champagne glasses were thus lifted and the drink swallowed with perhaps a little too greedy a hand for a dinner party such as this, but Ratticates were not to be at the dinner table of dinner parties so it evened out that way.

"Next! I want to give a toast to Kojiro. I would have toasted Namba first, but he could not make it due to an unfortunate accident on the way here — through the door, actually."

A small laugh rippled through the company.

"Through the door, I tell ya, with good ol' Giovanni."

Murmurs followed.

"So! Anyway, a toast to Kojiro. The spineless ameba, that insane and worthless magikarp who dared to think himself a gyarados, that dizzied spinda who could not even walk straight, the little squeaky puppy at my partner's rival's heals. A toast to his stupidity and his luck! For even that pipsqueak managed to be better off than me. He would've been dead by now if it had not been for his luck! To his luck, I say, cuz only luck makes him better than me. Second son, my foot. I'll third son him back to forth son! Here's to him!"

Another drink around, this time some spilling past the mouth was involved.

"Then we got Musashi, my dear partner's rival. If only her agent skills were as good as her temper. It was that temper, you know, that was her undoing. That, and her half of a human partner. It had the heat and explosiveness of a magcargo on steroids and the control of a pichu spark. She saved my life, I'm told, but what's my life worth anyway. She would have been better off stealing pokémon, I suppose. A toast to her ADD, anger management issues, and everything that goes with it!"

Half the drink poured did not even make it into the mouth.

"And a toast to Nyaasu! The hacker cat! The two morons' only means of any success they ever had. Without him, they would've been lamer, if that's even possible. If so fact so, they were already as lame as they could possibly be since their leader was a cat. A pokémon! Ha, ha! The lousy talking freak had them both on leashes and was probably a better agent than both of 'em put together. A toast to his unorthodox success. A pokémon to steal pokémon. Imagine the irony of that!"

Most of that somehow managed to reach the throat.

"Then of course, I'd love to give a toast to my partner's brother Nobu! Oh, yes, don't be surprised that I invited you. I'm not surprised you came. I give a toast to you, for if it had not been for you I would not have the same partner, much as that really means, and I give you credit for your hard work. You're starting to sound like me brother, she said to me, and I said, 'Well, somebody around here should.' Actually I don't remember what I said, but a toast to Nobu!"

Ah, the champagne was reaching its bottom now.

"So last of all we got Yamato. My faithful partner. What a partner. Covered in mounds of makeup, I doubt she was really pretty under it. Her hair was bleached and dyed. She wasn't even a real blond. She wasn't even a real partner, for that matter. I hear she's still Rocketing. The new Rockets since Giovanni kicked his bucket. Funny that it ended that way, but hey! She's got her new position in that ninja clan. Now I know you'd say I'm being too hard on Yamato. So let's be fair. What reason would she have to wait for me; she did offer me a place in the new, improved Team Rocket, but I have no interest in ninja-ship. I have my dignity! Can't you tell! Besides, she cared more about that dumb, ol' rat more than me. The way she babied him, fed him all sorts of treats. Made him the mascot. It was her idea to stick him at the end of the motto. It was her idea to make the balloon shaped like his ugly, rat head. I would've been just fine without a mascot! I hate pokémon. I really do. So, Yamato, to you and you adopted son. May you both be happy together, even if it's unlikely you'll ever find the stupid thing. Cheers!"

Nothing. Not a drop remained, and with a low growl of rage, Kosaburo threw the bottle as hard as he could onto the pavement. Yes, pavement, for the table had vanished now that the special champagne he had managed to get a hold of had vanished. The party guests were, naturally dust, and blew away like ghosts with the shattering of the glass.

"Of course," muttered Kosaburo, who was not at all dressed as he had imagined, nor was his hair as styled up as it had been in the Team Rocket days, but long, shaggy and unkempt. "Since I've invited you to this party, I guess I've just reintroduced you. Why, you're very welcome."

He leaned his head back against the wall and groaned bitterly.

#

It seemed a century since I'd last seen Yamato, but it could not have been more than a couple years.

I saw her by accident after I left Orre. After four stinking years living in Pyrite Town. I don't know why I left. I guess I was just getting bored. The gangs in pyrite were just getting to be a pain. I started a war there, you know. Just because. For fun.

But then I saw Yamato. Wandering aimlessly around Johto and Kanto, I stumbled right into the midst of the new Rockets. I think they were planning on ripping me apart, I'm not sure, but bold, heroic Yamato came to my rescue.

"Kosaburo!" she cried like she cared. She shoved the others away, and grabbed me by the arm and said, "What happened to you?"

What happened to me? What happened to me?

I smiled.

"Yamato," I said. "You left me a shadowized freak."

Her eyes clouded and she turned abruptly away. I'm sure guilt had swept through her, and she would have looked pretty if I had sympathy with her. I noticed her outfit instead. Formfitting, black, with dark boots and gloves, not to mention the mask she wore over her eyes. The red "R" was now small and inconspicuous on the corner of her chest like a business logo, and styled as if it had been streaked there in sloppy paint.

"They got new uniforms," I said.

She eyed me over her shoulder, for she was in the process of turning, and with a shake of her head she said, "Don't you know what happened to Team Rocket?"

I told her I knew that Giovanni had been killed by Snagg'em. There was not a person in Pyrite Town who had not heard about it. The Snagg'em agents had already been scheming, and had sent scouts up into Kanto before they knew of the fall of the shadow project. Even if they had, the damage had already been done, and Team Rocket using Snagg'em agents for their experiments would not be tolerated. All I knew was that they had gassed the dear old Boss, and that both he and his daughter had died, leaving Team Rocket open for the taking.

"You don't know the half of it," said Yamato with a shake of her head as if I was to be pitied for not understanding what she understood.

She led me to a small base where there was lunch to eat from cute, little bento boxes. There was an extra one for me, or maybe it was just that someone had not come in time for lunch and Yamato wanted to appear as a good hostess.

"Snagg'em," she said, "collaborated with Polsar to end the war and stop Team Rocket, and they succeeded."

"Team Rocket seems to be thriving now," I said with a shrug.

"Under new management of Athena-san," said Yamato.

"Athena took over!" I laughed. "I would have thought Apollo would've been the one to jump in for the kill."

"He died," said Yamato.

"Him too, huh?" I asked.

The rice was underdone, I noticed.

"Hai," said Yamato. "Everyone who was at Team Rocket Headquarters was gassed not just Giovanni and Domino."

"How'd they manage that?" I wanted to know.

"Trojan horse," said Yamato. "Snagg'em pretended to surrender with a gift of friendship if the old Team Rocket promised to leave Snagg'em agents out of their schemes."

"Well, Team Rocket was bound to fall anyway," I said with a shrug. "But how did Athena manage to slip away?"

"Some say she knew it was coming and left," said Yamato. "She hated Giovanni by that point and had absolutely no loyalty to him, but as you can probably guess, everyone at Headquarters died. Every pokémon in the place was pilfered that had been safe from the gas inside pokéballs. That mostly only left the field agents to regroup afterwards, because they were out in the field, naturally. We formed the new Team Rocket. Run through the clans. We're loyal to each other. It's better than it was before."

"Well, the food was better then."

"Join us," Yamato said with an almost cheerful smile. "You'd be a great asset."

"Join you," I laughed.

Join them, she said. I still remember the look of earnestness in her face. I still remember how her eyes yearned to make up for leaving me when I had been a raving lunatic and wreck left over from the shadow agent plot.

"You're okay now," said Yamato. "They cured you, right?"

"They promised they would," I grumbled, and I told her something about how they had been funded anonymously a great sum of money. I did not tell her that I had this strange, almost uncanny feeling that her old rival Musashi had had something to do with it. It would have made her annoyed, but more importantly it would have made me annoyed, and I could not say for sure if it was her anyway. How would Musashi get so much money?

"Ii wa ne!" said Yamato. "So you'll join us?"

"I didn't say that," I retorted.

"But why?" asked Yamato; she looked as if she had been slapped across the face.

Good. That was how I felt just being in her presence again.

"Cuz if this is what Team Rocket had been before I joined, I wouldn't've joined. It's a ninja clan," I told her. "Just look at how you're dressed. It's run by a woman besides."

"And what's wrong with that?" demanded Yamato impatiently.

"Nothing!" I laughed. "Nothing." After a pause, I muttered, "You wouldn't happen to have anything to drink around here would you?"

She handed me a glass of sake before long, and I had it down before much longer than she had given it to me. Naturally, she saw what the drink meant to me, and she frowned with disapproval and wrinkled her powdered nose.

Let her disapprove, I thought.

At least she was not attempting to stop me or lecture me.

"What about Gakuto?" I asked. "Did he make it?"

"Yeah, he made it, but he's not in Team Rocket."

"There, you see?"

"Only because he's been kicked out," sniffed Yamato. "He made Athena-san angry, so she ordered his head. Gakuto went to the police for protection."

"Your brother then?" I asked her, and I asked her for another glass.

For some reason she complied even with my tone of disdain for her family.

"Oh, Nobu's still in Team Rocket," she said

"And Lance?"

"He's the right hand man," said Yamato.

"Figures," I muttered, "the freak, and I suppose we got Lambda on the left."

"No one knows what happened to Lambda after the old Team Rocket fell," Yamato explained, "Buson and Basho are next after Lance."

"Oh, wonderful," I muttered. I had no liking for any of the three, especially Buson and Basho.

"And Domino. She tried to avenge Giovanni."

"And didn't succeed?" I said. "I thought she died in the gassing."

"No, she was with Lance," said Yamato. "She knew that Athena-san let him die, so she went to revenge herself on her first, but Basho did her in."

"Ah, naturally," I said. "I don't suppose Tatsumi's still in prison?"

I was disappointed that my glass was empty again.

"Tatsumi's with us and I have no idea what happened to his superior Shiranui," said Yamato, and then noting my disappointment, she added, "Joining would be better for you than stealing drink instead of pokémon."

"I think my chances are better with sake than with Athena," I said. "Besides, I'm not part of the clans. I'm not related to anyone."

"I was only related to my brother," Yamato said. "Athena-san likes me too, so if you come as a friend of mine …"

"Gomen, Yamato," I told her quite seriously, "but I'm through with Team treachery."

Yamato actually gave me some money when we parted even though I'm sure she knew what I was going to do with it, but she was still trying to make up for the fact that she left me. I wouldn't have anything more to do with her, but I still took her money. I drowned my memories in a pool of sake at the first inn in town when I left her. Not once did I look back. Not once.

#

Only one lucky person had managed to become a full shadow agent. No one I know knew his name. Someone must have somewhere I suppose. Cipher, did not know him. Not Snagg'em either. I certainly didn't recognize him from Team Rocket, but he had a notorious identity as the Shadow Agent now.

Children were not allowed out after dark in some places. Even hard, old men at the bars would often speak of him in whispers.

He was a dark force like Dracula overlooking his village from his castle. People rarely saw him, but his presence was no less felt than if they had. The people of Pyrite Town and the surrounding area often blamed him for unfortunate happenings such as missing pets, missing children, and naturally anyone found dead even if it was obviously from a heart attack or some other serious ailment, there was at least someone who said it had to be the Shadow Agent.

I joked to myself at times that if I had known how much notoriety I would have gotten in being the second only Shadow Agent I would have almost considered allowing those scientists to have their way with me in completing the shadow process.

I felt him myself more than once. Some presence behind me, but when I would look, of course, he would not be there. I knew it was him nonetheless. I don't know how I knew, but it could be no one else. He knew who I was. I could not doubt that. Perhaps he could smell the remnants of that juice flowing through me. Having run away as soon as I could from that place with Dr. Izumi I probably still had shadow goo floating around inside somewhere.

But only a few weeks before I left the gang did I actually see him; people only saw him if he wanted to be seen. After all, the police had been seeking him since they knew of his existence, and no had been successful in sighting him that I knew of.

I was not even thinking of him and had not for some time. Up just before dawn, I felt the urge to move. Out along the streets I wandered a bit, relishing the only quiet time between the night life and the day life. Then in the silhouette lit by the light of the street lamps I saw him just outside my alley.

His clothes were rags, except for the long coat he had managed to get a hold of, his hair was shaggy but managed, and his face bearded but trimmed. What struck me first off however was the eyes. They seemed to glow like a cat's eyes, and he stood glaring at me. I stood and glared back. I felt no fear because of him. I rarely felt fear at all. Only anger, which the scientists and doctors told me was not just from shadow juice.

Waiting patiently, I expected the Shadow Agent to say something. Why else would he come to see me? If he had meant to kill me, he would have ripped my head off before I could have known he was on me.

He said nothing, and remained still for a moment. Slowly and purposefully he made his way toward me. I let him come and did not run. Only the smallest amount of fear made it past my rising impatience and anger. When he stopped just before my face with intense jaws ajar and eyes blazing like an animal's, and I straightened myself, for I was superior to him in at least the remnants of my humanity. For I doubted he had anything human left in him.

"What do you want?" I demanded.

A glint flashed in the Shadow Agent's eyes, and he straightened as well. He was only a little shorter than I was but he held himself like a massive ursaring might before preparing for a charge.

I could feel his hot, stinking breath on my face in the cold dawn, and he studied my eyes very deeply with a hatred unexplainable. Maybe he was envious of the fact that I had been spared the same fate as him; maybe he hated me simply because he felt me under him and worth nothing but scorn. He did not seem to think I was worth much to speak to, but then maybe speech did not seem necessary to the full shadowized subject.

I thought too soon, though.

"I'll spill your black veins," he said in a voice very hallow like he was already dead and had been in the grave a couple years. "I'll ground you into paste."

I frowned, but did not reply to that.

With an impressive strength he grabbed my arm. I made to wrench my rightful appendage back, but I knew I stood no chance against his synthetic might. He fingers the veins on my wrist and looked as if he may just start to feast on it with bloodthirsty lust, but just as his grip started to become painful, we heard footsteps from behind.

Whipping his head behind him like a startled animal, he spun in the direction of the sound, and releasing me he slipped into the shadows and was no more before some member of the gang ran to see what had happened to me.


Japanese Phrases:

Hai: yes

Ii wa ne: that's great (with emphasis)

Gomen: sorry