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Nerima, the Saotome home near Hikarigaoka Park, Tuesday, breakfast...
His wife was dead.
Much that there was a part of him that ached at the idea of that beautiful woman being gone from his life — without even a BODY to bury thanks to some arcane curses that had been put on the Saotome family blade decades before — he didn't feel as much sorrow at that loss than he first suspected.
His master was dead.
THAT had been cause to celebrate...especially after the aged matriarch from a distant Qīnghǎi mountain tribe had told him that some living Harbinger of Death itself had swept in to remove that perverted, trollish, selfish monster that had haunted his nightmares even to this day forever from Earth.
His best friend was a total wreck now.
Understandable given what had happened to the Tendō dōjō on Saturday, with some sort of massive ki explosion destroying the training hall and demolishing a good portion of the main floor, nearly killing Tendō Sōun's eldest daughter in the process; even now, Tendō Kasumi was in intensive care.
His best friend's daughters had fully turned their backs on him.
And they had now evolved into what his own errant child became in May.
And if they were like the reborn destroyer that nearly crippled him with ONE PUNCH...!
Saotome Genma winced as he felt his body's considerable ki stores move to heal what was left of the bruising around his groin. While Rose Johnston's fist hadn't rendered him an effective eunuch, it nearly ripped open both his femoral arteries by shock damage alone; it was a miracle he hadn't bled to death on that street where he ran across whom he now realized was his child's mirror replica, now living under the name "Hayashi Kikuko". He still had enough strength to drag his nearly-insensate best friend over to the Saotome home quite some distance from Fūrinkan High so both could recover from that rather lopsided fight with Kikuko, who possessed the strength of the GODS themselves as well as a cruel streak the width of the Pacific Ocean if what happened to Hibiki Ryōga was any clue.
While Sōun had been totally incoherent for the rest of the day because of all the things that had risen against their dreams in recent months, Genma had spent time deep in thought. While some would say such a state was quite abnormal for the now-widower patriarch of the Saotome Clan, it was a reflection of what Genma had learned over the years dealing with much more powerful and much more cunning foes: Pretend to be dumb, kowtow to those who could literally cripple him for life, then move to take advantage of weaknesses that appeared, thus push forward his own position to make his life better.
It had served him so far...
...even if it was clearly obvious that his transformed child's first TRUE friend — the woman who had saved his son from the madness of the Neko-ken, perhaps the most horrible mistake Genma had made in his whole life outside taking Ranma to Jusenkyō the previous winter — had come back sometime in mid-May to offer his child a way out of the rather big mess his father helped put him into.
And that way out led to one place:
Yiziba.
No student of anyone tutored by either the Immortal Master or the Protector of All Life was ignorant of the World of the Forge, the universe's main source point of the Atom of True Life.
His child — saying his "daughter" openly hadn't been safe given Sōun's bullheaded desire to see the schools of Musabetsu Kakutō united in marriage — had become a metahuman of all things.
And while Genma would have preferred his child to stay normal...
...becoming what she had become in the Week of Hell cleared up a TONNE of issues.
One: Kanami no longer suffered from ailurophobia.
The Neko-ken madness had simply been drowned out by the massive input of the average of TWENTY lifetimes' of memories the Gifting granted a person when they took THAT particular step in their lives.
Two: Kanami was a woman mentally as acknowledged by the Heavenly Sovereign and the government.
No doubt in reflection to what Jusenkyō had done to him/her, Genma's child chose a Gift that would make her a woman in body and soul — with full conscious control over her curse, to boot! — thus erase any hopes by her several would-be wives of EVER getting the chance to bed the "wild horse".
Three: Kanami now could not have a child unless it was with another Yizibajohei.
Thanks to an incident during the Starvation Times — even HEARING that phrase made Genma cringe as he tried to imagine what that dark age on Yiziba had been like — there was a cosmic-level magical spell put upon Yizibajohei that blocked any attempts at "Gift thievery", something seen as a MORTAL SIN on that planet. Thus, people like Nǚ Shānpú, Kuonji Ukyō and Kunō Kodachi hadn't a prayer of trying to force Kanami to "request to sire" as a way of entrapping her in something she didn't want.
Four: With the maturity the Gifting gave her, Kanami was able to view the whole world around her in a new light, breaking the constricting mould that Ranma's upbringing forced on her.
While Genma wanted to shield his child from the true horrors of life, the growing ferocity of the torrent of challengers in Ranma's life was going to lead to something quite ugly in the future. Now that Ranma was Kanami and was Gifted, she could face those situations with the remarkable élan natives of Yiziba — including adopted ones such as Tariko Katabarbe, né Moroboshi Ataru; Genma knew THAT secret concerning Kanami's ultimate saviour — always showed in the face of such ugly events.
Five: With that selfsame maturity, Kanami had decided that her situation at the time of her Gifting had grown totally intolerable, thus she decided to break ties with everyone in Nerima.
That, added to the need to keep the presence of people like herself secret from aliens in neighbouring Tomobiki, forced her to leave Japan as a whole, going off to some place unknown. With a side trip to visit Dean Raeburn of all people; shortly after the Week of Hell, a messenger brought a missive from the grandmaster of the Tensei-ryū declaring that she had gladly accepted Hayashi Kanami as her own student, thus freeing her of all training bonds to anyone associated with Happōsai. And given the Canadian's ancient feudal bond of loyalty to the ONE PERSON in Japan not even Genma's headstrong wife Nodoka DARED challenge, there was no way that any of the "Nerima Wrecking Crew" could hope to bring "Ranma" back into the fold and restore matters in this part of Tōkyō to "normal".
Reflecting on all that, Genma could only think one thing: That's my girl!
And while reverting to "Hayashi Genma" clearly wasn't in the cards for the balding middle-aged martial artist, he still retained his married name; given that the curses that haunted the blood descendants of Indiana Jones living in Japan these days — yes, Genma knew THAT as well — there was no realistic challenger that could try to stop him from claiming what little was left of the family holdings and fortune. His wife's relatives were either dead or in the insane asylum now, none of them had heirs who could step up to challenge Genma's own claims to such and Nodoka never wrote a will.
No doubt in her own madness-induced hallucinations, his late wife would want it that way.
"Go out and find someone else to replace our disgraced son, Husband," she would say, he mused aloud before sipping his tea, gazing out on the small plot of property — complete with dōjō — he had inherited thanks to their marriage. "Find someone to restore our family to greatness." A snort then escaped him. Idiots! Being related to Indiana Jones of all people carries its own prestige! Even if your father was born out of wedlock, Nodoka, your grandfather WAS willing to marry your grandmother; why did he have your precious clan sword FORGED in the first place like he did before the Greater East Asia War?!
A groan escaped Sōun as he shifted himself, still slumped by the coffee table before drifting back to a troubled sleep. Out of the corner of his eye, Genma was quick to see his friend's middle and younger daughter depart through the back door, they bounding effortlessly over the back fence wall to hop onto the street and head to school. Gifted as well, eh, girls? the "master" of the "Saotome-ryū" — something he knew now hadn't been worth the piece of paper Happōsai composed years ago granting Genma the right to take on his own students if the attachments to Raeburn's letter to everyone in Nerima hinted at anything — hummed before turning back to his tea. Good for you. Good for you...
Blinking, he gazed once more at the insensate Sōun before he shook his head and turned back to his tea. It was clearly obvious now that Saturday's events were triggered by his friend's sensing something off about Akane, then BLOCKING her from achieving whatever Gift Tariko's move to help her years ago would have presented to her from taking full effect. No doubt, something from the old lech's pile of treasures he stole from the Joketsuzoku, Genma mused. Given what had just been put out in the morning news broadcasts — the arrival of a real fiancé for Redet Lum of all people had emerged from Tomobiki after school yesterday to get the "talking heads" in the media to speak out harshly against the aliens interacting with Earth — the Trickster of the Show was moving to prepare to "clean out the trash" and send her would-be "wife" back to her home planet with her tail tucked between her legs.
About damned time, too...!
If any of the "Nerima Wrecking Crew" ever got involved in THAT nonsense...!
A knock echoed from the main gate. Blinking in surprise — he hadn't received visitors after returning home yesterday, no doubt because the neighbours had long grown tired of Nodoka's warped Tokugawa Era attitudes — he rose from the floor, then slipped on a pair of geta before heading to the closed gate. Opening it, he gazed in confusion at the tall, well-dressed stranger before his eyes went wide.
"The Dragon of Dōjima...!"
"Ohayō, Genma," Kiryū Kazuma greeted with a polite nod. "Can I come in?"
Meanwhile, over in Tomobiki...
"You two are Shōzoki?!"
"We were, tante Shinobu," Matsunaga Stian (né Stian Haugen) answered as he and his sister Tove walked hand-in-hand with Miyake Shinobu down the street towards Tomobiki High School for what promised to be an interesting day of classes. Accompanying them were the newly-Gifted members of Class 2-4 save Fujinami Ryūnosuke, with Marubeya Momoe — using her telepathy to project a "notice me not" field around them to ensure others didn't eavesdrop on this conversation — holding her classmate's bag. "We were built this way two years ago." Here, the boy who looked like your average Scandinavian pre-teen — possessing with wind-swept blond hair, chocolate brown eyes and a bit of an overbite that was utterly cute — grinned toothily. "We made many friends in Tromsø who didn't mind that Tove and I didn't seem to mature like other children did." He scowled. "Then the Qar'to came..."
The older girls all blinked. "Wait! Tromsø?! The Qar'to...?!" Arakida Yui began before her own eyes went wide. "You were there when Bismarck-taisa's sister and her friends came back?!"
"Ja!" Tove gushed as she gave the once-gatherer gynoid a delighted grin. As the older people scowled — being Mor-Tax who had chosen to create artificial bodies to house their real forms, the Qar'to were treated with the same disdain by Shōzoki and Yizibajohei alike — she added, "By the time those stupid cyborgs captured us a week before that fight happened, Stian and I discovered the exact metaphysical radio frequency to summon tante Maria back to service. We didn't expect tante Trudl and tante Eva to come along as well, not to mention our big sisters from Narvik, but we were more than glad for it."
"Didn't appreciate being damaged along the way," Stian noted. "But eldre søster Rinrin fixed me up perfectly!" He gazed knowingly at his long-haired twin. "Of course, I didn't expect Tove here to have bonded with Mor while I was down for repairs, but I didn't mind it in the end."
"Your mother...?" Gekasawa Kumiko breathed out before her eyes went as wide as saucers, then she stared at the two budding child magicals. "You mean Matsunaga Ryōko-sensei?! Ryūjō?!"
"Ja!" both Norwegian-born child AIs answered.
The older girls whistled. The reborn fourth aircraft carrier of Imperial Japan, Matsunaga Ryōko first appeared in late September around the same time Itō Yoiko came to Tomobiki to visit her junior navigation officer's family in town. Remembering the screeching slender woman — who seemed to be of the same general body-build as any reborn destroyer even if her face was that of a twenty-something office lady — as she tried to pound the LARGER adopted native of Maizuru with her fists for "not being there" when she had been needed during the Greater East Asia War had been quite comical at first. Fortunately, Moroboshi Ataru was happy to straighten out the adopted native of Yokosuka — who, for some oddball reason, spoke with a considerable Ōsaka-ben accent — before it turned into a major fight between two reborn aircraft carriers, especially with one an effective onmyōji packing unbelievable levels of magic and the other blessed by Earth's oldest sentient being. Naturally, Ataru's "wife" didn't care for him settling that dispute with a KISS that swept the wide-eyed Ryōko off her very feet!
Naturally still, Ryōko was more than happy to defend her new "admiral" from the "alien hussy".
"How's she handling that?" Momoe wondered.
Tove hummed before she blushed in embarrassment. "Well, I made Mor faint after I kissed her to lock my loyalty programs on her. But after eldre søster Rinrin straightened her around and Stian recovered, we just settled into our own room at Welcome House and became a family." She sighed. "After we were empowered to effectively become Nameless on Yiziba, Mor was happy to leave us with the eldste søstre on Ōmure-jima while she kept an eye on the construction of everyone's starship-selves."
The older girls nodded. They now knew of one of the hidden ace cards the Trickster of the Show and her friends were ready to bring out to play come Friday if needed. Thanks to the liberation of the Avalonians in early June, the lost fleet of the old Fourth Sagussan Republic was salvaged, including an impossibly-big space dockyard where new ships could be built quite quickly. It hadn't taken veterans of the "Army of Lum" long to design ten-to-one scale versions of the many shipgirls who had come back to duty, including what were now warships of the Rengō Uchū-kantai, the Combined Starfleet of the State of Japan. Having seen images of THU Yonaga — shown in scale against Redet Invader's flagship UDFS Kashin — the girls of Class 2-4 could only grin at what the reaction might be.
"You know, your mother can Name you," Shinobu advised. "As she was named by the Conservator on her salvage and Gifting, she has the right to declare you the first incarnations of new battle lines."
"Mor's thinking about it," Stian noted...
...before the sound of wind whipping past a person's body made them all tense. "Ach! There you are, ihr lieben Engel!" a voice with a mixture of Ripuarian and northern Low Saxon accents, making people pause before they turned around and looked up just as someone came down behind them.
Stian and Tove grinned. "Storesøster Wilhelmina!"
Both immediately glomped the reborn fifth of the Type 1936-class fleet destroyers, now appearing to be a slender woman with medium lavender-pink hair tied in cute pigtails over her ears, amethyst eyes peeking out from an impish face. As Wilhelmina Heidkamp laughed as the child-sized AIs snuggled against her face, a derisive voice called out from nearby, "What's this NAZI doing here?!"
The older girls all rolled their eyes as the reborn KMS Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp, one of many like her sunk during the Battles of Narvik in 1940 between the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine, turned to glare at the approaching Stormtroopers. As Stian and Tove added their own angry looks, the adopted native of Herkenrath near Köln and Bremen snorted. "Don't listen to these unhöfliche Verräter Untermenschen, meine Damen," she declared as she gave Shinobu and her companions a knowing look, earning her squawks of indignation from Megane and his friends. "These Idioten can't stand the idea that their precious alien princess is about to be swept off her feet by her gallant prince..." She then lifted herself into the air. "If that hasn't happened already, of course. Guten Tag, meine Damen."
And with that, she flew off high into the sky with her current cargo. "Yeah, that fits you four morons perfectly," Momoe stated. "'Uncouth traitor subhumans'!" she quoted the reborn destroyer who just departed from Tomobiki. "Let's go, girls. These idiots aren't worth any of our time anymore."
"Yeah! Some nice terrorist will deal with them soon enough," Kumiko added.
The four boys gargled in horror as the girls headed off...
The Saotome home in Nerima...
"Dōzo, Kazuma."
"Dōmo, Genma," the Dragon of Dōjima who was also the Grand Poobah of the Golden Springs said with a nod after the cup of warm tea was handed over. After a quick sip, the native of Yokohama in Tōkyō proper gazed on the still-dazed Tendō Sōun. "Your friend's a total wreck. Because of Saturday?"
"Sadly so," Saotome Genma admitted as he spared his oldest friend a pitying look. "You're Gifted. I can tell by your ki aura. Do you know what happened to Akane-chan?"
Kiryū Kazuma smirked. He always knew that the man across from him — they were seated some distance away from the living room table where the patriarch of the Tendō Clan of Ōizumi was laid out on the floor muttering nonsensically — was much smarter than he looked. Given his creation of the Sen-ken forms, that had been apparent even if Genma had made a couple nasty mistakes in his quest to train his son-now-daughter, both with the Neko-ken training in 2005 and the trip to Jusenkyō the previous winter. "She was pre-Gifted in the summer of 2003, shortly after the death of Kimiko-san. Tariko-chan found Akane-chan crying in the park close to the house, then offered her a chance to better herself; even then, your friend was a shambles." As his host grimly nodded, the wakagashira of the Tōjō-kai added, "Akane-chan seemed to leaning towards a powerful FISS-type when she came back to Nerima...which is when Sōun here used one of Happōsai's stolen treasures — most likely touched by the blood of the Immortal Master — to block all her powers and ensure she remained 'normal'."
The other man growled. "Idiot...!"
"Hai. Tariko-chan herself didn't realize what was going on until she was freed from being trapped in Tomobiki on her birthday. You know about that?" At Genma's nod, Kazuma added, "By that time, things surrounding your daughter had got so out of control, interfering would cause more harm than good. Atop that, the situation in Tomobiki was definitely NOT to the advantage of Earth. So she backed off until running across Kanami-chan in the wake of Nodoka-san's last visit to the dōjō in May."
"Just before the Week of Hell. What did my child become?"
A grin replied. "Mustang. Think Superman without the special sensory powers."
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
Then...
A hearty laugh escaped the "master" of the "Saotome-ryū". "That's my girl!"
"G-g-Genma...wh-why...?"
Both men looked over to see a pale-faced, wide-eyed Sōun now staring at them. "Come over here, Sōun," Kazuma bade, he giving the other man a stern look. "There's tea to help you get yourself together. What would Kimiko-san say if she saw you like this? Straighten up, man!"
Gaping on seeing the Dragon of Dōjima seated there, the "master" of the "Tendō-ryū" shook his head before shifting himself over. After Genma handed him some welcome tea, Sōun took a moment to give their guest an appraising look. "You've certainly turned out well, Kazuma!" the patriarch of his family noted with an approving nod. "Your ki's quite different from last time, though..."
"I have a Yizibajohei Gift, Sōun. Just like Akane-chan would have gotten until you used one of Happōsai's stolen trinkets on her, one with the blood of the Immortal Master himself on it." As Sōun gargled in horror, Kazuma gave him a steely look; as he had done with Leno Lu'umlo back in Ziegler's Cove on Saturday, the veteran Yakuza wakagashira made it clear with just a look how much he viewed any action that dishonoured Hozan Hirosuke's memory. "Fortunately, the lady who introduced Akane-chan to that future remembered her, then sent a friend to help your child achieve the true power she wanted. THAT is what destroyed your dōjō and put poor Kasumi-chan into the hospital, Sōun!"
"We can't run away from it anymore, old friend," Genma added as he squeezed his oldest friend's shoulder. Noting that Sōun wasn't rising up in righteous anger at that rather blunt statement, the balding man added, "My son is now my daughter; my stupid mistake at Jusenkyō effectively ensured that. She's now the most powerful physical fighter to live on Yiziba. Hai, that puts the union of the families off for this generation, but with the lech finally dead thanks to one of Tariko Katabarbe's friends, we can finally sweep away the garbage that hangs over both our clans and restore ourselves to something akin to respectability once more. Isn't that worth a sacrifice or two?"
Sōun blinked, then he sighed. "But what of your promise to Nodoka-san?"
"Gone up in smoke, just like her body and that damned sword," Genma grimly answered. "You didn't know this, but Nodoka is actually the granddaughter of Indiana Jones-hakase." As his friend's jaw dropped in surprise, the former Hayashi Genma added, "Hai, her father was born out of wedlock — the sake flowed a little too much one night between Jones-hakase and Nodoka's grandmother before the war, it seems — but he was willing to marry her and acknowledge their son after he learned what happened after the war. Sadly, Nodoka's grandparents were the same type of nationalist militarist fanatics that got us into that damned pathetic war with America in the first place, so they chased the poor man out of their family home with the sword that HE had forged as a bridal gift to them!"
"Once the spirits of the Ark of the Covenant and all the other mystical things Jones-hakase ran into over the years sensed what had happened, they cursed that blade to either kill or drive permanently insane all of Nodoka-san's family who refused to acknowledge their kinship to the man," Kazuma added. "Kanami-chan was quick to learn that connection and accepted it without question, thus she won't be affected. Her transformation back in May was partially driven by the fact that she realized that Nodoka-san was simply far too gone into her own insanity to be worth saving in the end. Even if, by some odd miracle, Kanami-chan was able to reverse Jusenkyō's full curse on her, the 'stain' on her honour would see her either be forced to commit seppuku or become rōnin in her mother's eyes."
"I am as much to blame for that as well," Genma admitted.
"Then why on Earth didn't Nodoka-san renounce you long before she met up with you late last fall?" the Dragon of Dōjima wondered. "I'm one of the few people who has full access to Tariko-chan's special diary that records the names of all the people she's helped over the years, The Book of Pretty Girls." As Genma snickered and Sōun swelled with pride at that unspoken assertion concerning his own daughter, Kazuma added, "Before her transformation, your child was one of TWO boys recorded in the main list of The Book. That was because of the perceived abuse she noted when she witnessed your child undergo the Neko-ken. Given Tariko-chan's experience with her birth parents — you know that, Genma — it didn't take her more than a second to see you in the same light she does Moroboshi Kinshō."
Genma snorted. "I ran across that woman once early this year. Even more greedy than I've been accused of being at times. Does she know now her child is fully Gifted as Tuyuki?!"
An evil grin replied. "She does now." As Genma laughed, Kazuma added, "Tennō released an Imperial Rescript yesterday promulgating the law that renounced Japan's adherence to the Tag Race Treaty of last fall. Tariko-chan's 'wife' and her alien friends will be expelled by Friday morning at the latest. Even more so, Tariko-chan was declared Tennō's very own Shōgun in this manner."
Sōun boggled on hearing that. "You mean this Tariko is...?"
"Was born as Moroboshi Ataru-kun," Genma answered. "Fled his home on his birthday in 2001 because Kinshō ultimately blamed him for the death of his twin brother Kaeru in the winter of 1999; that was an accident and Ataru-kun wasn't anywhere close to where his brother was hurt. Once on Yiziba, Ataru-kun was pre-Gifted as Tuyuki by his new adopted mother. Tuyuki had to be a girl in this incarnation; thus, Ataru-kun became Tariko Katabarbe. Since that time, Tariko-chan has conducted a worldwide recruiting campaign to see others like her Gifted as metahumans, mostly to defend against the aliens as we all learned last fall." He gazed on their guest. "What the hell happened to her?"
"Traitors to Tennō happened, Genma," Kazuma declared, making both his hosts snarl in outrage; despite their own many shortcomings, both men held the Son of Heaven with the proper reverence he deserved. "They're a cabal from the Kōanchōsa-chō who predate even the Kempeitai of all things! Their goal is to allow some interdimensional invader to conquer Earth, one the Immortal Master himself faced back in the Age of Shōtoku, along with a poor maiden named Kazahana Mashiro, who had to fight and kill eleven other maidens to 'win' the right to become this invader's wife of all things!"
"The Fūka Festival?!" Sōun exclaimed.
Their guest's eyes snapped over. "How do you know about that?!"
"The Master had writings about that accursed event, Kazuma. Over the years since Genma and I trapped that monster in the cave, I've read over a lot of his old scrolls." The patriarch of the Tennō Clan of Ōizumi then blinked. "Shōtoku-sannen...that's 1713 on the Western calendar. That event happens every three centuries according to what was written in Master's scrolls..."
"The preliminaries have already started," Kazuma warned.
"So by attacking Tariko-chan...?" Genma wondered.
"No interference in the conquest of Earth by the Obsidian Lord," the Dragon of Dōjima finished.
Hayashi Kanami's father shuddered. "Please tell me that Tariko-chan has friends there!"
"Three people already are Gifted, with more definitely coming," Kazuma assured. "Two of them are actually HiMEs; that's the modern term applied to the would-be wives of the Obsidian Lord, who are blessed with the ability to magically manipulate light energy to create weapons and control 'Childs', beings from the Lord's dimension who are 'given' as 'pets' for the maidens to use in the Festival."
"The price of being so empowered is a proverbial dagger into the heart of the maiden's most beloved person," Sōun then finished with a voice of ashes. "Gods! What an IDIOT I was!" he spat out, pounding his fist into the floor. "When I sensed how powerful Akane-chan became years ago, I panicked and used a lamp Master had that could be used to place blocks on one's ki if required!"
He broke down and wept while both Kazuma and Genma squeezed his shoulders in support...
Closer to the Ōizumi Junction between the Kan'etsu and Tōkyō Gaikan Expressways, that moment...
"Damn! Otō-san and Oji-san CAN learn, can't they?"
Chloe Zitzewitz looked over. "What is it, Admiral?"
The woman many in Nerima recognized as the cursed form of the person born as Saotome Ranma — even if she wore her hair loose to her shoulders these days; it also was beautifully styled thanks to the influence of one Cordelia Chase — smirked before sipping her tea. She and the reborn nineteenth of the Casablanca-class carriers were relaxing by a tea shop a block from the Nekohanten where one of Hayashi Kanami's would-be fiancées normally lived. "Kazuma's letting me listen in to his conversation with my father and Akane's father, Chloe," the would-be "heir" of Musabetsu Kakutō-ryū answered as she gazed out at the street, focusing her now-very enhanced ki sight at the place where Nǚ Shānpú, her great-grandmother Nǚ Kělún and her would-be husband Liào Mùsī had based themselves for over a year. "Turns out Otō-san has finally come around to accepting what happened to me. Even if Rose didn't turn him into a eunuch with that punch yesterday, it made him finally stop lying to himself."
The adopted native of Xootsnoowú in the unorganized part of the Alaskan Panhandle blinked before she concentrated, tapping her own telepathy into the signal being transmitted through PAA link between the Untameable One and the Grand Poobah of the Golden Springs. Allowing the words between Kiryū Kazuma, Saotome Genma and Tendō Sōun to echo in her mind, the rather skittish veteran of the Battle off Samar sighed. "Well, that's a good thing," she noted before sipping some coffee. Even if she was in civilian clothes, she was quite recognizable in Japan thanks to her rather bushy blonde hair in high twintails and shapely twenty-something body. Given how LOUD the Battle of Sunnydale High School had been on Hallowe'en evening when the immortal Mayor Richard Wilkins attempted to transform and merge with the soul of an Old One named Olvikan, such hadn't been fully masked from public scrutiny by agents of America's magical government in Manhattan. Both Captain Chloe Zitzewitz USNR (ex-USS Gambier Bay) and Lieutenant Commander Brooke Roberts USNR (ex-USS Samuel B. Roberts) received the credit for saving HUNDREDS of lives when "terrorists" bombed Sunnydale High School, murdering dozens of city officials — including "Mayor Richard Wilkins III" and several aides — when they had attended a Hallowe'en party being thrown by school principal Reginald Snyder.
Snorting as she allowed herself to come back to the here-and-now, Chloe turned...
...then screeched on seeing a VERY big pair of binocular lenses loom before her face, making her knock the table over as she crawled over her charge. Kanami moaned before looking herself...
...then she herself blinked in surprise on seeing who was holding up said binoculars: A VERY cute teenager with bob-cut brown hair and very pretty caramel brown eyes. She was dressed in a white modern-style battlesuit with blue belt and boots, a big blue snowflake over her upper chest embossed with 雪風 in black. Blinking again on seeing that, Kanami sighed before finishing her tea while the owner of the tea shop came over to clean up the mess. "Oh, it's you, Yukiko-chan," she stated as calm as a cucumber; save for cosmically-powered shipgirls like Itō Yoiko, the Untameable One could easily put down any reborn warship spirit alive today. "Where the hell have you been all this time? Minami-chan, Seiko-chan, Kunie-chan and Chikako-chan are looking for you and the others."
That made the reborn eighth of the Kagerō-class fleet destroyers gape. "Shirē knows what turned Yukikaze into this?!" she demanded as she pointed to her chest in emphasis.
"Hai, I do. Chloe-chan here was transformed the same way."
Blinking on sensing her charge's annoyance, Chloe giggled, her cheeks as red as tomatoes as she got off Kanami, then moved to take her seat. "S-sorry about th-that, Admiral..."
Kanami sighed before nodding to the tea shop owner to bring more tea over. "Are you alone, Yukiko-chan?" she asked, waving the adopted native of Sasebo (where she was built as THG Yukikaze) and Shànghǎi (where she had been accepted post-war into service with the Republic of China as ZMZ Dānyáng) to an empty chair. "We kinda need everyone back in service again as soon as possible."
The reborn destroyer nodded. "Hai, Shirē! Yukikaze came back with Amatsukaze-chan, Hatsukaze-chan and Tokitsukaze-chan when everyone at the Kaigun Heigakkō prayed for us to come back!" She looked outside before cupping her lips with both her hands. "Amatsukaze-chan!" she called out quite loudly. "Hatsukaze-chan! Tokitsukaze-chan! Come meet the admiral!"
Loud whistles of fast-moving air echoed from outside as three more girls the same physical age as the woman Kanami knew as Yuhara Yukiko came down from the sky, landing quite daintily on the street before forming line abreast, saluting the pretty red-haired woman seated beside the obvious American shipgirl. "Shirei-kan!" the beautiful woman with the long grey-silver hair done in high twintails declared, her voice echoing her place of construction at Maizuru. "Destroyer Amatsukaze..."
"Destroyer Hatsukaze..." her sister with the straight light blue-silver hair to her shoulders added.
"And destroyer Tokitsukaze..." the third newcomer, a girl looking as impish as Yukiko, with shaggy dark hair tipped in silver and styled in bushy twintails looking like dog's ears from a distance finished.
After Yukiko got back to her feet, all four newcomers saluted. "DESTROYER DIVISION SIXTEEN! REPORTING TO COMBINED FLEET HEADQUARTERS FOR NEW ASSIGNMENT!"
Kanami sighed, waving them to chairs. "Oi! Oi! Sit down, girls! Oba-chan, some more tea, please!" she called out as the newcomers took their chairs, they briefly gazing in curiosity at Chloe before turning their attention back to the redhead. "I hope that Yukiko-chan here told you girls the war's long since over and that we're at peace with America these days," she mused.
The newcomers all blinked. "Um, Shirē, were you the one who made the Spirit of the Forge give us those human names?" the reborn THG Tokitsukaze asked.
"No, I wasn't. I AM very good friends with the one who did; he's the one who's the 'admiral' for all of you girls," the Untameable One declared before nodding as the owner came over with more tea. After paying for it, she pointed at the reborn destroyers. "Yuhara Amako-chan..." she stated after pointing to the grey-haired ninth of the Kagerō-class, then she indicated the tenth of that class. "Yuhara Tokiko-chan..." she said before indicating the seventh of the class. "Yuhara Hikaru-chan..." she declared before waving to the only one of her class to survive the war. "And Yuhara Yukiko-chan. Use those names instead since it's kinda dumb to use ship names when you're flesh-and-blood metahuman girls. Oh, this is Chloe Zitzewitz-chan, formerly USS Gambier Bay of Taffy Three..."
Chloe awked as Yukiko seemed to lunge over the table to gaze intently at her. "Gamby-chan, did Johnston-chan come back?!" she demanded, ignoring the panicked look on the reborn carrier's face.
"Sit, you!" Kanami snapped, making the woman now known on Yiziba as the Typhoon Blizzard, Rikebo'o ("Yukikaze"), yelp before she took back her seat. "And yes, Rose-chan — that's her name now, Rose Johnston — came back the same day that Chloe-chan and Brooke-chan — that's Samuel B. Roberts, by the way — did. All of Taffy Three are back now." As the newcomers gasped — Yukiko used her telepathy/"secure communications suite" to thrill her sisters from Destroyer Division Sixteen about what happened off Samar — the strongest FISS-type to live on Yiziba added, "Right now, we need all hands on deck because of the aliens next door in Tomobiki. You girls know about that?"
"H-hai, Shirē!" Yukiko answered, nodding her head. "The cadets at the Kaigun Heigakkō told us about the space oni and what they did to Negako-san's adopted brother and all that!"
"Is HE the admiral?" Hikaru wondered.
"Hai, he is! He's on Ōmure-jima near Odawara right now with a TONNE of girls like you!" Kanami affirmed, making the four newcomers instantly relax. "Turns out that Ataru is also the grandnephew of Itō Yoiko-taisa's junior navigation officer." Seeing confusion cross their faces, the martial artist prodigy added, "The aircraft carrier Yonaga? Didn't the people on Eta-jima tell you about her?"
Yukiko blinked. "Is that Yamato-sama's missing sister?"
"She wasn't missing. She just got stuck in an ice cove for seventy years," Kanami answered. "Why?! Did Yasuko-san come back?!" Noting the confusion in the destroyers' eyes, she added, "Yamato?"
"Yamato-sama's missing..."
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
Then...
"Was her wreck salvaged?!" Kanami asked as she gazed on the reborn Yukikaze.
"No!" the adopted native of Sasebo and Shànghǎi answered. "Yukikaze..." Here, she caught herself. "Um, Yukiko went to where Yamato-sama, Yanagi-san, Isokaze-chan, Hamakaze-chan, Asashimo-chan and Kasumi-chan all sank..." — here, a flash of mortal terror crossed her face — "...b-b-because of h-h-HER and th-th-THEM...!" — she shook her head rapidly — "...but Yamato-sama was gone!"
"What about the others?" Kanami asked.
"They came back, Shirei-kan," Amako confirmed, holding up her hand. "They're still at the Kaigun Heigakkō waiting for Mutsu-san to be summoned back right now, then they'll come here..."
"Oi! Yuki?! Amatsu?! Hatsu?! Tokitsu?! Where the hell are you guys?!"
As Chloe shuddered, Kanami sighed. "I think that's them right now," she noted.
"In here, Kasumi-san!" Amako called outside.
Footfalls then heralded the arrival of four more reborn destroyers, one reborn light cruiser and a twenty-something reborn super-dreadnought battleship of the so-called "Big Seven" allowed to serve despite the Washington Naval Treaty. "Ara! Ara!" the beautiful Yamamoto Chiyoko, the reborn second of the Nagato-class battleships, hailed as she gave Kanami an appraising look. "Are you the admiral?"
Now I know how Ataru and the sisters feel all the time! the Untameable One mused. "C'mon in and sit down, Chiyoko-san, girls," she bade, waving the newcomers inside. "I'll call my friend..."
The Saotome home, that moment...
"Ye gods above! What are THEY?!"
Kiryū Kazuma hummed as he allowed his meta-senses to reach out in the direction of the Nekohanten. "One escort carrier, one battleship, one light cruiser and eight destroyers now with Kanami-chan." As his hosts gazed wide-eyed at him, the Grand Poobah added, "United States Ship Gambier Bay — to whom Kanami-chan serves as an 'admiral' to — and Tennō Heika Gunkan-tachi Mutsu, Yanagi, Kasumi, Isokaze, Hamakaze, Asashimo, Yukikaze, Amatsukaze, Hatsukaze and Tokitsukaze to be exact."
Saotome Genma's head snapped over, outrage crossing his face. "Gambier Bay?! The one involved in that 'bombing' in that town outside Los Angeles on Hallowe'en?!"
"Hai..."
A snarl escaped the balding man. "Genma...?" Tendō Sōun whispered.
"Kazuma..." the would-be "master" of Musabetsu Kakutō-ryū then hissed. "What the HELL is my daughter doing living over the damned HELLMOUTH of all places?!"
Sōun's jaw dropped as Kazuma stared in shock at him...
Welcome House on Ōmure-jima, an hour later...
Hayashi Kanami's call to Moroboshi Ataru produced a lot more than Earth's tag race champion.
"Fujita-taishō! Raeburn-chūjō!" Yamamoto Chiyoko declared as she stood before the members of Destroyer Division Sixteen and the reborn warships sunk on Operation: Ten-gō, all formed in line of review. Everyone had been teleported to the old rotunda dining hall of the hostel for this important meeting. "Regretfully, I must report Onē-san has not returned to duty as of this time!"
Fujita Hiroshi gravely nodded as he and Dean Raeburn returned the salutes from the eleven shipgirls present; Chloe Zitzewitz was standing off to one side beside both Kanami and Ataru. As a group of reborn destroyers standing in the main foyer blinked in surprise at the presence of both the would-be commander of Operation Z and the grandmaster of the Tensei-ryū once more within Welcome House, the native of Nagoya breathed out, "We have an idea how we can get both Reiko-san and Sakura-san back to duty, Chiyoko-san." As Chiyoko and Ōkawa Yaeko brightened on hearing those names — the latter was the reborn THG Yahagi, the light cruiser assigned to escort Japan's first super-battleship on her final mission to Okinawa in 1945 — he nodded. "Be seated, ladies." As the newcomers moved to take their seats around the circular table in the room, he moved to sit at the head of the table, with the Canadian general to his right. As Kanami, Ataru and Chloe moved to sit on one of the couches lining the walls, Fujita took a deep breath. "There is much to brief you on concerning what the plans for the alien scoundrels now in Tomobiki that haunted Ataru-san's life for over a year are."
"Are the lar'beke involved, Teitoku?" Akatsuka Kasumi, the reborn last of the Asashio-class destroyers — who didn't have to get used to a new name; it was even written with the kanji of her ship name, 霞 — asked, an eager look crossing the face of the adopted native of Yokosuka.
"Sadly no, Commander," Raeburn answered as she and Fujita exchanged amused looks. "However, if you girls are a patient lot, you might get the chance to chow down on some nice symbiotes."
"How can you say that, Sensei?" Kanami asked.
"Simple, Kanami. Stargate Command isn't the only bunch keeping their ears to the ground when it comes to the Goa'uld," the native of Queenston stated before nodding thanks as Fukushima Shirayuki came into the room with tea. As the new arrivals brightened on seeing the reborn second of the Fubuki-class there, the current commander of CANSOFCOM added, "From what the Specialized Warfare Regiment's active field units have learned so far, it supposedly surrounds Nirrti. She's getting curious about the 'Shatan'af'; that's the Goa'uld name for Urusians as a whole. Wouldn't surprise me if there are infiltrators ready to make life hell for General Lana and his subordinates in Onishuto."
"Because the horn-heads came here to 'invade' Earth last fall, you mean?" Chloe noted. "Since the lar'beke have always seen Earth as 'their' territory, having the horn-heads butt in like they did last fall would deny them the chance to get fresh new host bodies like Apophis did with that one airman after the whole thing Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson did with Ra on Abydos four years ago."
"Nirrti..." Fujita trilled. "If I recall my mythology correct, she's the Hindu goddess of sorrows and misery. What does the alien who dares take the name of that kami do, Dean-san?"
"She's a scientist who wants to create hok'tar," Raeburn answered. "That's their term for metahumans. One experiment that the folks under Jack found out was where she used some sort of bacterial infection to wipe out the population of a whole planet." She winced as all the newcomers shrieked in outrage on hearing that. After coming to understand the brief involvement of the last living flag officer of the Imperial Navy and his flagship's crew with Unit 731 — as so told to them by the people at the former Imperial Naval Academy on Eta-jima — they gladly rejected their late crews' quite racist attitudes towards non-Japanese; such had been very easy for Yuhara Yukiko as she had been a warship in the Republic of China Navy for nearly FOUR TIMES her length of service in the Imperial Japanese Navy! "Only one survivor, ladies. She's currently the adopted daughter of the SGC's chief doctor."
People exchanged looks. "Okay! When we get our hands on this shitty lar'beke, we cook her REAL SLOW over a nice fire!" Kasumi then snarled, her golden brown eyes flashing with anticipation.
Yukiko nodded. "We need some good shirataki noodles to go with that, too!"
"Maybe make some konnyaku paste to coat the whole body over instead!" her sister Tokiko proposed. "Then deep fry over low heat in black sesame oil with loads and loads and loads of vegetables!"
"Ooh! My boilers are already moaning in anticipation!" Yaeko groaned, clapping her cheeks.
"We need LOADS of lar'beke for that sort of feast!" Yukiko's sister Amako warned.
As the others chatted away, Raeburn and Fujita shared amused looks, then the latter gazed on their host. "Ataru-san, would you pick out three destroyers from those who have their starship-selves complete for that mission concerning your 'wife' once Calaway-sensei gets finished with her?"
"Hai, Ojii-san," Ataru affirmed. "Shirayuki-chan?!"
"Hai, Shirei-kan?" the adopted native of Yokohama responded.
"Go get Hatsue-chan, U-chan and Mocchi, please?"
"Hai! Excuse me, please!"
With that, the girl with the twin stubby ponytails behind her ears ran off. "Why them, Ataru-san?" Fujita asked. "I've heard that Hatsue-san and Nozomi-san are both quite lazy. Hai, Utako-san would be perfect for that particular part of the mission since young Ten likes her very much..."
"Ten likes Hatsue and Mocchi just as much, Ojii-san," the male half of the Trickster of the Show affirmed, winking knowingly. "Besides, as you know, I have my own way of motivating them."
Raeburn nodded knowingly as Fujita laughed. "Motivate them a lot, son!" the former affirmed.
"Um...no offence, but how could Teitoku do that?"
That was Yuhara Hikaru, who had a disbelieving look on her face. Taking a deep breath, Ataru rose from the couch. "If you'll both excuse me, please," he said with a wink before walking over.
The silver-haired adopted native of Kōbe tensed on seeing him approach, then she blinked as he offered his hand to her. Reaching out with her own hand to grasp his, she gasped on sensing the powerful ki contained within his body. That made her not resist as he slowly guided her up to her feet, then he bowed to courtly kiss her. That made Hikaru turn as red as a cherry. "T-t-Teitoku...!"
Chiyoko herself looked over, her green eyes twinkling in amusement. "Ara! Ara! I dare say that the admiral is more than capable of leading us as we adjust to our new lives...!"
Raeburn, Fujita and Kanami all laughed at that sly observation from the adopted native of Aomori (the old capital of her namesake province) and Yokosuka (where she was built) while the other destroyers and Chloe blushed. At that moment, a knock from the doors made people turn as a certain reborn heavy cruiser from Germany walked in. "Bitte vergib mir, mein Admiral, Herr Admiral Fujita, Frau Generalleutnant Raeburn, Frau Admiral Hayashi," Catarina von Savoyen called out with a polite bow of her head, making everyone look her way. "I just finished speaking with President Bartlet just now. Unternehmen Wiederbelebung..." Here, she caught herself as Ataru sent her a knowing look. "Um, Operation: Revival has been authorized for both Bikini Atoll and Kwajalein Atoll."
She yelped as eight destroyers zipped over to stand before her, they moving to gaze intently on the adopted native of Paris and Vienna. Then Yukiko reached up to feel the cruiser's superstructure under her cardigan sweater. "HÖR AUF DAMIT!" Catarina shrieked in embarrassment as she swatted the younger-looking girl's hand away. "Only Ataru can touch me there, du perverser Groper!"
The adopted native of Sasebo and Shànghǎi shook her head before she gazed upon her fleet mates. "Yukiko is more than sure THAT is definitely NOT treaty compliant!" she declared.
Catarina fell flat on her face as the normal-born humans there roared with laughter...
Meanwhile, just outside the city of Onishuto on Uru (local time: Two hours after lunch)...
"Video mail?"
"Yes, Dear," Redet Chim stated as she handed the small data disk over to her husband. Right now, both of Redet Lum's parents were alone in their home near the edge of the Terrible Swamps some distance from Onishuto's western suburbs. The elderly Redet Traveller was currently at the capital city's main defence medical facility getting a full work over by the best doctors on the planet to ensure he would recover from his two decades of cryosleep. "Was delivered by special courier just now."
Humming — this sort of communication was rare given how instantaneous live-time forms of signalling had advanced in the last century — Redet Invader took the just-delivered data disk over to slip into an omniversal reader by the main communications terminal in the kitchen. Tapping controls to play the recording, he waited...then snarled on seeing who HAD signalled him.
The last person in the UNIVERSE the battlewagon warlord wanted to hear from!
"Good afternoon," Upa's image declared from a very ornate office, with windows reflecting the eternal night that existed on his homeworld of Yaminokuni. "As promised, I have your daughter now." As Invader and Chim both screamed in disbelief at that declaration, the aged First Patriarch of his kingdom smirked evilly. "The wedding preparations are already underway..."
He screamed out as a familiar person appeared to try to BITE the top of his head off. "LUM!" Invader bellowed, frightened anguish and clear pride fighting for control of his heart on seeing his little tigress of a daughter fight hard to get clear of these monsters and find her way back home.
"I'LL KILL YOU, YOU OLD FREAK! YOU WON'T KEEP ME AWAY FROM DARLING!"
"GET THE MANACLES ON HER!" a voice bellowed from off screen. "SAVE THE PATRIARCH!"
Instantly, a half-dozen well-armed Yaminokuni soldiers appeared before the camera's lens, drawing out stun-sticks to stab the struggling warlord's daughter to overwhelm her with electrical shocks and knock her out. "Why isn't she using her powers?!" Invader demanded as he watched Lum kick a couple of those rather annoying rods of power away from her while trying to smother Upa.
"DEAR! LOOK AT HER HEAD!"
Hearing his panicked wife's scream, the gregarious battlewagon warlord looked.
"What happened...?!" he then croaked on seeing the noticeable LACK of horns on Lum's skull...!
A half-hour later...
"Boss! We're all here!"
Redet Invader turned to see the executive officer of his flagship Kashin fly into the living room of his home. Nodding his thanks as the piratical-looking veteran space officer saluted him before shaking hands, the gregarious battlewagon warlord waved the younger man towards the kitchen. "We're trying to get into contact with Mister Groom or his sisters right now. Even if my little girl's having issues with the man, he'd never allow her to be kidnapped, even by this supposed 'fiancé' of hers," he added, "Fortunately, it turns out the late Lady Nagaiwakai's supporters from Jiyū and other Zephyrite colonies left a transmitter unit in her main farm back on Earth. We got through to someone there; they're trying to call in where the sisters live now since Mister Groom will be in school at this time..."
"If he'll help," the executive officer dryly warned.
Invader chuckled knowingly. Much that he hoped that Moroboshi Ataru would see reason on the issue, the messages from Redet Ten definitely didn't paint a hopeful picture; ever since the so-called "Pseudo War" over three months before, the man was spending more and more time with his sisters and those strange shipgirl beings than his wife! Having confirmed that his nephew had also been taken off Earth by Upa's great-grandson Prince Rupa, there was no sense in trying to contact either his daughter's or nephew's personal ships. Even more so, Aruka Ran would be on her way to school at this time, so she wouldn't be able to pick up her phone in her mobile home. Invader's wife got in contact with Shigaten Benten, who had been travelling to Triton to visit Oyuki in Kōri City. With both of them informed of what was now happening with their best friend, there was hope of a swift rescue.
Now, would Lum's husband help out?
"They're putting us through to Sakuya-cha right now, Dear," Redet Chim said as she exchanged nods with Kashin's first officer. "The few Zephyrite monks who still work for Ataru's family are alerting the Noukiite authorities in case that fool has done something to keep Lum's friends on Earth from helping."
"Good, good...!" Invader growled, nodding.
Much that he long ago realized his daughter's classmates in Tomobiki were a big source of contention between Lum and Ataru — especially those lads calling themselves Lum's "Stormtroopers", much less the rather wealthy merchant's son who was quite popular in his own right in that town — they would be of good use in a potential rescue. While that might risk Yaminokuni retaliation on Earth as a whole, the neighbouring Noukiites had been making noise over the last few months concerning establishing a protective Imperial Commandery over the inner part of the Sol system, something that had caused governments across the Galactic Federation to panic. Of course, the Imperial Dominion of Noukiios wouldn't think of directly interfering in legitimate trade between worlds, much less mutual defence acts; despite their being one of the four superpowers in the local cluster, the government in Suchkyuk was quite understanding when it came to their smaller neighbours and their fears towards Noukiios throwing their own weight around too much. While the establishment of such a commandery — which would see a "no trespassing" zone placed over the inner part of the Sol system that would be vigorously enforced by military forces from the worlds of the Imperial Outmarches closest to Earth — would force longer travel times as trade passing Sol would have to make wider looping orbits beyond the Ceres line to get to either Gomiana or Toshitto, the end result would be much to Uru's benefit...
"Moshi-moshi! Sakuya desu...! Ah! Oji-san! Oba-san! Congratulations!"
The smiling image of the young woman who was now the Matriarch of the Moroboshi Clan of Mutsu appeared on the main view screen. "'Congratulations'?!" Invader repeated.
"Your daughter's engagement to Prince Rupa, of course!" Sukeyama Sakuya declared as she gave them a knowing look. "He's a hottie, that's for sure! I'm so envious of her!" She held up a finger; no doubt, she was receiving this on her cell phone while heading to whatever school she attended. "We got guarantees about wedding pictures, but don't expect us to be there, you know! Wouldn't be right..."
"Um..." Invader tried to begin, realizing this call wasn't ultimately going to get anywhere. "Much that I understand why you'd say that, young lady, but Lum was kidnapped by that Rupa fellow this morning and taken to his home planet! Much that the whole thing would have to be negotiated out and all that, you have to admit that kidnapping the bride isn't the least bit civilized at all!"
The native of Ōsaka hummed before sagely nodding. "Hai, hai! That definitely isn't the least bit kosher," she noted before giving the older people on Uru a knowing look. "Then again, the Yaminokuni aren't the ONLY ones who are guilty of that sort of thing, you know," she added in a warning tone.
Lum's father chuckled in embarrassment. "T-t-true...!"
A tired sigh escaped the teenage matriarch of her clan. "Look, Oji-san, much that I understand why you'd be screaming for help now because Lum's fiancé is being a typical male to jump the gun like that, don't count on Onii-sama to help out, alright?" As Chim whimpered and Invader tensed, Sakuya shook her head. "We've said this again and again and again: We want to respect your people's traditions; that's how lasting friendships form. Which means we can't for an instant support Lum-chan's claim on Onii-sama since it happened in a TAG RACE! Don't you people want THAT to be properly respected?!"
"Um...t-t-true! We do appreciate that...!" Invader declared.
"Besides, we just got Onii-sama finally OUT of Tomobiki once and for all!" Sakuya added, making Lum's parents tense. Given the prohibition by authorities when it came to aliens from Galactic Federation worlds living outside Tomobiki's borders — to be enforced by a big scream for Noukiite intervention by the Men In Black in New York City, with all THAT entailed! — this would make trying to FIND Moroboshi Ataru to ask for his help more problematic. "You haven't seen him as much as we do! He's been emotionally deteriorating more and more since he found out about us back in June!" As Chim shuddered on hearing that — she had always been sympathetic when it came to Lum's would-be husband — the teenage matriarch added, "Those dorks who'd love to date Lum-chan all the time, his moron parents, the idiots who blame Onii-sama for everything under the damned Sun for reasons that are just left of STUPID, all the idiot things he's had to deal with while living there...!" A moan escaped her. "That sort of thing wears down on people! Onii-sama's no metahuman, for heaven's sake!"
The Urusians listening to this all tensed.
To them, it was a very simple equation:
Metahumans = They Who Must Never Be Named!
"Look! Much that I hope you can save Lum-chan, keep us out of this!" Sakuya warned as she gave them a stern look. "Onii-sama needs time AWAY from her and everything that's come down on him effectively BECAUSE of her! So PLEASE! For the last time, already: LEAVE US ALONE!"
The link was cut.
"Bets that Miss Sakuya tells her grandmother's people to not forward calls?" the first officer mused.
Invader moaned. "This is a mess...!"
"BOSS!"
Everyone turned as the head of Kashin's Marines flew in. "What is it, Major?" Invader asked.
"Something's coming down from space, Boss!" the younger warrior warned.
Everyone raced to the main doorway to look up...
"Wh-what the hell's THAT?!" Kashin's first officer demanded.
The skies over western Onishuto and the glens and fields between the city and the Terrible Swamps had now become a very inky black in colour, something that wouldn't be seen even in the middle of the night. After a moment, a flash of low light appeared, making the considerable crowd of Urusian naval personnel and Marines instantly tense on seeing something falling towards them. Shouts of warning escaped the senior petty officers and sergeants to make people ready to dodge clear in case said object — a very large metallic basket, Invader's very sharp eyes instantly detected, such being slowed down from a very uncontrolled fall at terminal velocity by retro-jets — dropped onto someone's head.
After a moment, the basket landed about a hundred metres from the front door of the Invader home. Seeing what was contained within, protected by a special force shield system to protect the contents from the rigours of hyperwarp travel, was something that made the locals all blink.
"Mushrooms...?!" Kashin's Marine detachment commander wondered.
Suddenly, a holographic screen appeared over the package...
"Just dropping off the dowry, of course," the voice of the First Patriarch of Yaminokuni declared as the image of the dwarfish centenarian appeared over the basket. "Do enjoy..."
The naval personnel and Marines blinked before one sergeant tensed. "Ticking noise...!"
Others paled. "IT'S A BOMB!" Kashin's master chief petty officer screamed.
KA-BOOM!
Somewhere in Tomobiki, that moment...
"Y-y-you w-w-won't get away w-w-with...!"
KK-KRACK!
Tariko Katabarbe allowed her eyes to roll as the smirking M'Fashnik demon sent by Wolfram and Hart's Tōkyō branch effortlessly snapped the neck of the struggling agent of the Public Security Intelligence Agency — in truth, an agent working for the mysterious Division One — who had been dispatched to Tomobiki to look in on the missing Ishida Akira and his dead wife. "Wah-wah-wah!" the Trickster of the Show stated as the mercenary from another dimension dropped the fatally wounded spy into a handy body bag for transport to where the demon-run law firm had their local offices in nearby Shinjuku. "Always vowing that the faces will be defeated and the heels will win. So BORING at times...!"
The demon cackled. "Yeah! You Forge Children always get bored easily!" he declared as he threw the body bag over his shoulder. "Excuse me, please, Madame Tuyuki..."
And in a flash of portkey energy, he vanished. By then, one of the Gifted members of the Bullet Deniers was finished with the computers Ishida had used. "Get what we needed, Chihiro-chan?" Tariko asked as she walked over to gaze past Fujisaki Chihiro's shoulder to read what was there.
"Simple as pie, Tariko-chan," the Games Master, Tutotyato ("Vzlómschik"), declared with an amused wave of his hand at the rather standard home computer set up Ishida had. Given that Chihiro was still having issues concerning his sense of gender, he wore a traditional sleeved jumpsuit, that in a slate grey shade with silver electronic wire-like trim, a silver pouch-lined belt and silver boots; his symbol was a stylized silver-and-black sun-like insignia. Naturally given he was a cosmic telekinetic who leaned towards working with information technology, the native of another universe's Yokohama wore modified goggles over his brown eyes that could display HUD images. "Codes would be hard for any internal audit from the loyal members of the Kōanchōsa-chō to break since they have virus programs in other machines to warn them ahead of time, but it would be easy for other agencies to pick up on this."
Tariko snorted. "They actually want to be caught..."
"Doubtful," the alumnus of Hope's Peak Academy countered. "They're just too arrogant to believe that people who'd oppose them could actually detect what's going on. Especially anyone from Earth who was empowered by the Great Crystal of Power. After all, given our reputation out there..."
The adopted native of Kabe-koli smirked, shaking her head. Indeed, the galaxy-wide reputation of "they who must never be named" and their ability to unleash total destruction on a planetary scale if pushed actually made many people who would want to find some way to attack the Children of the Forge using their brains in lieu of sheer firepower GROSSLY underestimate some of the natives of the third world of Kaeyu. While Yiziba had been equal technologically to Earth in the 1930s at the time of the start of the Freedom Parade that was the opening storyline of the Dawn of Power, the following four decades of chaos actually masked a technological REVOLUTION that propelled the planet to levels matching that of the Seifukusu and the Goa'uld at the time the Great Show of Life commenced at the end of the Starvation Times, then reached the levels reached by the Shōzoki, the Asgard, the Anquietas and the Sagussans within five generations. And while those advances could have led to the creation of vast colonies on other planets and great space fleets, such hadn't interested the survivors of the Dawn of Power, who were more concerned about mundane issues such as the need for basic SURVIVAL.
It was no wonder that the old Urusian Empire had sorely underestimated the Free Planetary State of Yiziba in the lead up to the Mother of All Fight Scenes nearly three centuries ago.
Given how utterly arrogant people such as Seq Rei's uncle Yethis had always been...
"Yo, Tariko-chan!"
Tariko looked over to see Chihiro's killer Ōwada Mondo looking outside the window of the apartment located some blocks from the east gate to the Mendō mansion. Walking over to stand beside the man who was now the Never-Ending Rider of the Highways, Huoroluto ("Rocker"), the Trickster of the Show smirked as a certain rich fool's command car raced down the very street where Redet Lum had been snatched from Earth by her new fiancé towards Tomobiki High. Shaking her head as the ultimate bike gang leader from his universe's Kōbe gave her an offering look — no doubt, the technokinetic who was expert in all forms of manipulating ground transportation wanted to force Mendō Shūtarō through an accident as a way of tripping the fool up — she gave him a knowing look. "It'd spoil the plot."
A cackle escaped the "dead" member of the Crazy Diamonds led by his older brother Daiya. "Yeah, even a fool like that would clue in sooner or later," Mondo noted. "So what do we do now, Tariko-chan? Chihiro-chan couldn't find any more of those Division One pukes anywhere in Tomobiki or the neighbouring burgs. Go straight for Fūka-jima and start getting some more people Gifted?"
"No, not yet. Too much to do here still," she noted...before she perked. "Hello..."
She reached out with her own powers towards where Lum had fallen...
...then smiled as a flash of energy produced two little golden bits of cartilage that had been the true source of the metahuman abilities the warlord's daughter from Onishuto had used so indiscriminately on her "husband" and far too many bystanders in Tomobiki and elsewhere. "Lum-chan's horn buds?" Mondo wondered before he perked. "Oi! Chihiro! Didn't this matter in the manga?!"
Chihiro looked over, then nodded after a moment's reflection. "Hai! It was Ataru-kun's holding onto those horn buds that allowed him to convince Lum-san to give up when she forced another tag race on him, then threatened to erase everyone's memories of the aliens if he didn't admit he loved her."
A snort escaped Tariko. "The usual 'rinse and redo' policy," she noted, making her new friends gaze questions at her. "Using memory-erasing devices to make less-advanced peoples forget the presence of aliens is pretty standard across the Galactic Federation. You might not remember this, but the Urusian Empire tried that on us right after the Tag Race when we sent Joth's fools packing. During the Mother of All Fight Scenes, Haddoro-ojiichan found out that it had been the plan to make everyone on Yiziba forget the 'invasion', then try again even after Jessica's past-self won the race." As the two alumni from Hope's Peak laughed at how stupid that idea was, the Trickster of the Show headed over to the desk where Chihiro was seated in, pulling out a notepad and a pen to write something...
A minute later, on Ōmure-jima...
"Huh...?"
Moroboshi Ataru blinked as he felt SOMETHING appear in his pants' pocket, then he reached in to draw from that a wrapped piece of paper around two familiar horn buds. Blinking on realizing these were his "wife's" main source of metahuman power — his eldest half-sister called him after she got the call from Redet Lum's parents concerning her kidnapping by her fiancé — he opened the letter...
A.
Something you'll probably need on Friday morning.
T.
Noting that, an evil grin crossed his face...
To Be Continued...
WRITER'S NOTES
The scenes concerning Saotome Genma, Tendō Sōun and Kiryū Kazuma (Tekiya) were initially written by Dr. Tempo.
Translation list and source language: Eldste søstre — Elder sisters (Norwegian); Ihr lieben Engel — You little angels (German); Storesøster — Big sister (Norwegian); Unhöfliche Verräter Untermenschen — Rude traitor subhumans (German); Idioten — Idiots (German); Guten Tag — Good day (German); Shōtoku-sannen — Third year of Righteous Virtue, the name for 1713 CE as noted above (Japanese); USNR — United States Navy Reserve (English acronym); Shirē — Commander (Yukiko-speak/Tokiko-speak Japanese); Ten-gō — Heaven (Japanese); Shirataki — Literally "white waterfall", noodles made from konnyaku devil's tongue yams (Japanese); Bitte vergib mir — Please forgive me (German); Hör auf damit — Stop doing that (German); Du perverser Groper — You pervert groper (German); Vzlómschik — Hacker (Russian); Zhōngxiào — Literally "mid-rank field officer", rank title for a navy commander, army lieutenant colonel or air force wing commander (Mandarin).
Shipgirls introduced in this part. First, from Germany:
Fregattenkapitän Wilhelmina Mara Heidkamp KMDR (Kriegsmarineschiff Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp [pennant Z21])
Wilhelmina Heidkamp (KMS Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp) takes after her Azur Lane self.
And now from Japan:
Yamamoto Reiko-taisa DNTR (Tennō Heika Gunkan Nagato [DS-23])
Yamamoto Chiyoko-taisa DNTR (Tennō Heika Gunkan Mutsu [DS-24])
Itō Yasuko-taisa DNTR (Tennō Heika Gunkan Yamato [DS-35])
Ōkawa Yaeko-taisa DNTR (Tennō Heika Gunkan Yahagi [KJ-89])
Ōkawa Sakura-taisa DNTR (Tennō Heika Gunkan Sakawa [KJ-90])
Akatsuka Kasumi-chūsa DNTR (Tennō Heika Gunkan Kasumi [KK-205])
Yuhara Hikaru-chūsa DNTR (Tennō Heika Gunkan Hatsukaze [KK-212])
Yuhara Yukiko-chūsa DNTR (later Yuán Lìxuě-zhōngxiào ZHMH) (Tennō Heika Gunkan Yukikaze [KK-213], later Zhōnghuá Mínguó Zhànjiàn Dānyáng [QJ-07])
Yuhara Amako-chūsa DNTR (Tennō Heika Gunkan Amatsukaze [KK-214])
Yuhara Tokiko-chūsa DNTR (Tennō Heika Gunkan Tokitsukaze [KK-215])
Yuhara Izumi-chūsa DNTR (Tennō Heika Gunkan Isokaze [KK-217])
Yuhara Hama-chūsa DNTR (Tennō Heika Gunkan Hamakaze [KK-218])
Kumasaka Asami-chūsa DNTR (Tennō Heika Gunkan Asashimo [KK-240])
And all of the above-mentioned shipgirls take after their Kantai Collection interpretations. As she was the only survivor of the above-listed group, Yuhara Yukiko (THG Yukikaze) also gains the Mandarin name Yuán Lìxuě, due to her being transferred to China as ZMZ Dānyáng after the Second World War in 1947, serving in that country's navy through the civil war that saw the republic government shift themselves to Taiwan in 1949, not being decommissioned until 1966. ZMZ is short for Zhōnghuá Mínguó Zhànjiàn ("Warship of the Republic of China"); this is the ship prefix for all Republic of China warships. The Republic of China Navy itself is formally known as Zhōnghuá Mínguó Hǎijūn , short-formed ZHMH. Like Japan and Korea, Taiwan uses the hull classification symbol system first established in the United States; QJ is short for Qūzhújiàn ("destroyer")
As an aside, DS is the Japanese hull code meaning Dokyū Senkan ("dreadnought battleship").
Stargate SG-1 character notes: Nirrti first appeared in "Fair Game" (third episode of the third season), though she was first mentioned in "Singularity" (fifteenth episode of the first season); this was also when Cassandra Fraiser was first introduced. Note that in "Singularity", Nirrti was identified as being a male-form Goa'uld, which most likely led to a casting mistake when it came to bring her out as a visible character in the series in "Fair Game".
The joke concerning Catarina von Savoyen (USS Prinz Eugen) being "not treaty compliant" is taken from another very popular incomplete Kantai Collection fanfic story, Belated Battleships by TheJMPer, which can be read on both SpaceBattles and Sufficient Velocity.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer character note: The M'Fashnik demons first appeared in "Flooded" (fourth episode of the sixth season).