A Maburaho fanfic: The Dynasty

Written by Spiritblade

Disclaimer: Okay, this is the first time I'm writing something remotely funny. I may well crash and burn in the attempt, as my humour is blacker than my heart - and that's saying a lot. Maburaho, the anime, does not belong to me. This story happens years after the last episode of the anime. Right, let's get started.

If there are jokes that stay with you for life, I think that this will be one of them. Life has a twisted sense of humour, and its propensity to throw you curveballs has had more than one unlucky man (or woman) screaming bloody murder and shaking his/her fist at the sky at a God who - by all accounts - is on the verge of falling of His (or Her) throne in laughter.

I've heard the old saying that God's punch-lines are killers. You will never know how true those words are until you're on the receiving end of one of them. Unfortunately, I have to see my father on the receiving end of 8 of them.

Oh, where are my manners?

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kazetsubaki Raiha, the eldest son of Kazetsubaki Kazuki and Kazetsubaki Kuriko. I am one of the 4 children my mother has given birth, but by no means are my siblings and I the only children my father has sired. Oh no...it's not as if he had extramarital affairs, but if you consider that there are 8 - yes, EIGHT of them! ALL of them married to 8 different women - you can tell where this conversation is going to go.

My father is a good, faithful man, albeit prone to getting himself into hot water from time to time, but that endears him all the more to my mother. My mother had said to her friends - those who had married the clones of my father - that their husbands were prize catches. Playful, she had suggested that they switched husbands for the fun of it.

8 copies of my father turned red; 7 women turned red either from embarrassment or fury. The most extreme reaction came from my aunt, Miyama Yuna. She blew the entire section of the mansion to high heaven. Had my siblings and half-siblings not used our powers for damage control, the place would look like the Princess Morningstar had held a summer party there.

Regardless, to ensure that there were no mix-ups, each of my father's clones took the names of their wives, and altered their auras so that their wives could tell that the right man was stepping into the house. My father has power enough to split the Earth; 8 of them could fry Heaven and Hell in short order.

And us, his children, have practically the might to reduce the twin divine kingdoms into so much ash and down to its constituent atoms. Sibling rivalry has NEVER been this bad. The damages we were capable of was more than enough to bankrupt my mother's conglomerate in short order.

And if that happened, I don't want to be alive long enough to see what she would do to us.

But, admittedly, I'm happy, but sometimes I cannot help but be amused at how it all turned out. My half-sibling (is that really the right term to use?), Kamishiro Rika, told me that our families were literally all one family, a literal Dynasty. All of us shared the blood of the same father, albeit born to different mothers.

Rika had pointed out that the Dynasty would play Hell with our fathers' family tree. How our parents were going to explain to our grandchildren that a small (Small? Hey Spiritblade, you nuts? -Ed.) accident caused all this is a can of worms I do not look forward to opening. The moment my kids bring that up, I swear to God that I'm going to run away as far as humanly possible. The hands of those electing to stay and fight are negligible. Don't you just love snap elections?

But, none of us care. If you were me, or anyone else related to the Dynasty, would you? You're alive...free...and never, ever alone. My mother had told me once that perhaps the chase that had led my father to her and her rivals had been a blessing. She felt alive, and the sparkle in her eyes - in all their eyes - told a story that I would be living one day.

I'd better not mention this. If there is one thing I learnt, it is NEVER to put ideas in my mother's head! Even if she's already over 30, she still acts like a teenager. She'll only make it worse, and laugh as I try to scramble out of the way. If I get my siblings - or my half-siblings - involved in my mad schemes, they would proceed to sharpen the knives on my hide.

Ah...I'd better be getting back to my parents. It seems that my caretaker has found me. Oh yes, what's your name?

...I see. I hope to see you again. Tomorrow?

All right, I promise.

Fin.