Hiii! TA's turn for the author's notes! Part 3 of The Tessen Chronicles, wow. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far! Keep it up! Making this short and sweet, HuffPuff and I don't own the tessen. We still don't own anyone from Fushigi Yuugi. So sit back, relax, and please review before you leave! By-e!
Anjali slid into her seat and put her tray down at the table. She stared at the inedible substance in disgust. Shanna sat next to her, enjoying her lunch, whilst River was across the table, poking a fork at the lumpy brown mass.
"So, how was your...um...Fushugi Yuggi thing?" River inquired, mispronouncing the name badly. She didn't know much, if anything, about anime. Shanna rolled her eyes and stopped eating for a moment. "I messed that up again, didn't I?" River blushed lightly at her mistake.
"It's pronounced Foo-shig-ee Yoo-gee!" Shanna said. "How many times do I have to tell you that? You'd think that a show with so many bishies would be worth pronouncing correctly."
"Fushiggy Yougee?" River cringed slightly.
"You're hopeless," Anjali said, smiling and shaking her head. "But Shanna sure got her pronunciation's worth this weekend," she added slyly. Shanna shook her head frantically at Anjali, while River leaned forward. "Do you want to know what she did?"
"Of course!" River grinned. "Blackmail info any day, you know that."
"She handcuffed herself to a guy who was dressed as Nuriko. And she swallowed the key," Anjali said, smirking at the look on her friends' faces. Shanna was on the verge of choking on a bite of food, and River was grinning with delight.
"He's the healer, right?" River really WAS hopeless. But there's just no accounting for people who don't appreciate fine bishies. (Quite literally 'FINE bishies'.) "I know I'm way off, aren't I?" River sighed. "You DID get a picture, right?" River hinted. Her nickname wasn't 'The Blackmail Queen' for nothing.
"Anjali!" Shanna cried, when she finally could breathe again. "Stop it!" Shanna thwacked Anjali in the head with one of her Fushigi Yuugi mangas.
"Oww..." Anjali groaned. "How dare you abuse Fushigi Yuugi like that....OOH! Volume four! Gimme!" Anjali grabbed it out of Shanna's hands and began to flip through it for Tasuki pictures.
"Bad Tama-neko!" Shanna said, pulling the manga back before Anjali could drool over the bandit to her complete satisfaction.
"Tama-neko?" River asked.
"Oh, that's what she was for the convention--a cat! I think that she was trying to get Mitsukake to hit on her," Shanna said.
"Oh! That reminds me!" Anjali suddenly jerked up. "Guess what I got! Though I have half a mind not to let Shanna see it now. Mitsukake! As if!"
"Is it from the convention?" Shanna asked, looking very friendly. "Did you find that Nuriko Gaiden that I was looking for?"
Anjali would have sweatdropped if she were an anime character. "Not...quite..." She bent down to her backpack. "Take another guess."
"Is it something we can eat?" River asked.
Anjali shook her head. "Rekka Shinen!" she cried, pulling the tessen out of her backpack.
River eeped as she ducked a flame shooting over her head.
Shanna's eyes grew wide and starry. "Whoa! You found a fire-shooting tessen! How does it work? …Anjali?"
Anjali lay on the ground staring up at the ceiling. She was too much in shock to answer. "It...it....it's real...." she muttered, over and over, staring at the tessen in amazement.
As her senses gradually returned to her, Anjali examined the tessen more closely. There indeed was not any opening or trick mechanism that would allow the tessen to shoot fire. It was weighty, and it seemed almost to be made of diamond, just as the real tessen was. Anjali turned the tessen over and over in her hand, gazing at it in wonder.
"Sweet!" River exclaimed, watching the fire burning in the cafeteria, her disposable camera getting as much as it as possible. She seemed to be unaltered by the risk she was taking just being there as others ran out screaming.
Anjali and Shanna exchanged glances. "Do you mean it, Anj? It's not some trick or something?" Shanna asked.
"See for yourself," Anjali said, handing the tessen to Shanna. "Though, we'd better get out of here now, before someone reacts to this little fire that I just caused."
"Check out that flame!" River exclaimed loudly. "Just beautiful! Hey guys, can you pose right over there?" River pointed to an area just in front of the burning flames.
"Let's go now, before River gets us into trouble," Shanna whispered. "No one will suspect her, but us on the other hand...we'd be just unlucky enough to get caught."
"We've got to go to class, River!" Anjali called, as Shanna dragged her out of the cafeteria.
By the time they neared the English class that they both shared, Shanna was convinced that the tessen was real. She'd turned it over, tried to pry it open, and even pounded it against her locker.
"Hey! Hey! Don't beat it up! You never know..." Anjali's eyes got big and shiny as a realization hit her. "Oh my GOD! What if Tasuki comes to get it back?!!"
"Do you think that he'd bring Nuriko with him?" Shanna asked, her eyes getting bigger and shinier by the second.
"What are you two talking about?" River asked, popping up behind them. For not knowing anything about anime, River sure could have been a character in one. Anjali could swear she'd caught River looking super-deformed a few times, though River never understood what she was talking about. And whenever River did something rather wicked, her glasses gave off the same evil gleam that those of an anime character might. Deep down, Anjali had her suspicions.
"Well?" River blinked all too innocently. "Gonna tell me or what?"
Anjali shrugged and took a deep breath. "Well, I will, but I don't know whether you will bel--"
"Believe it? I'll believe anything after seeing that thing!" River grinned wildly.
"I might get to meet Nuriko! Waiiiiii!" Shanna cried, happily off in her own little world.
River blinked. "The healer, right?"
"Mitsukake is the healer. Nuriko is the strong cross-dresser," Anjali explained patiently (it wasn't the first time, either).
"Oh yeah...I knew that." River grinned shyly. Anjali could have sworn she saw a sweatdrop form for a second.
I wonder if I sweatdrop. I wish that I could see the back of my own head, Anjali thought.
River smiled again. "So, what won't I believe?"
At that moment the bell rang, and the three girls scurried into the classroom. "Oh, great, Mr. Odelson. Nothing like this crappy class to bring me back down to earth," Shanna said.
"I'll tell you after class," Anjali whispered to River, as they took their seats.
River readied her camera in case of good photo opportunities as she sat next to Anjali. If there was ever a time for me to sweatdrop, it's definitely now, Anjali thought. River was the only person that Anjali could think of who would be interested in taking photos of Mr. Odelson and his bizarre antics. Suffice it to say that English was not their burly teacher's finest subject.
"Wonder what crap he's gonna try and teach us today," Shanna whispered to Anjali.
"Probably how to train our non-existent pit bulls to attack," Anjali whispered back, rolling her eyes. She was referring to a few weeks earlier, when the class had been studying The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway. Bull fighting had been a part of the plot of the novel, and somehow Mr. Odelson had managed to tie actual bulls to his pet pit bull, which resulted in an hour of discussion about dog training and obedience.
"Maybe we'll learn how to paint our toenails," River joked.
"As all of you may know, the SATs are coming up soon. So, we're going to take today's class to study analogies," Mr. Odelson said. The class groaned consecutively, except for River. "Now, I'm not the best person when it comes to analogies... but I do have a trick or two that I can teach you. Open your vocabulary books to page 58, and let's go through a few together. Then, I'll let you practice silently for the rest of the period."
"Doesn't he realize that we'd probably be a lot better off if he just let us practice silently for the whole period," Anjali said, making a face.
"I just wanna see what this 'trick' is," River kept her camera ready for shooting, just under her desk.
"Let's look at the first analogy on the page," Mr. Odelson said.
The analogy read as follows:
Streak:Creep
A) Inferno:Flame
B) Masticate:Chew
C) Run:Walk
D) Zygote:Reproduction
E) Astute:Lugubrious
Shanna stared down at her book before leaning back into her chair and drifting off into her own little world of Nurikos.
"Streak is to creep...hmm...now how should I explain this? Well, let's say that I took off all of my clothes and ran around the room..."
River, from her place, called out "DEMONSTRATION!"
"So, if I did run naked, what would you call what I was doing? Oh, you'd like a demonstration, River? Well, you read my mind. That's what I was planning to do all along. I'm sure that this will help all of you understand," Mr. Odelson said.
River glanced over at Anjali. It was almost clear what was running through her mind. Suddenly, Mr. Odelson began pantomiming stripping his clothes off. Next, he began to run around the room.
Anjali held her backpack up in front of her eyes. The desks were in a semi-circle, and she was in the front of the two rows, so she was quite vulnerable to Mr. Odelson's antics.
"C'mon, use the fire fan thing..." River hissed, camera at the ready.
"You've got to be nuts, River! I don't want to see Mr. Odelson run around at all, and if I burn his clothes off..." Anjali shuddered. "Besides, I just can't look."
"Aw man...." River slumped down in her seat.
As Anjali set her backpack on the edge of the desk, Mr. Odelson made one of his laps and bumped into it. Her backpack went flying, and when it crashed to the floor, its contents spilled out. Including the tessen.
"Shit!" Anjali whispered to River. "Help me pick this stuff up! Quickly!"
"Right!" River got up and moved to the front. As she moved to pick up the tessen, she froze as Mr. Odelson's hand met it at the same time. River clung to the tessen and tried to wrest it from his grasp, but it was no use.
"Let go, River," Mr. Odelson said.
"Sorry sir. Can't let go," River grinned slightly.
"It's a good thing that I'm stronger than you, little lady," Mr. Odelson said, pulling the tessen out of River's hand.
Anjali, River, and Shanna stared at the teacher in shock. "What are you going to do with my stuff, Mr. Odelson?" Anjali asked in a low voice.
"Well, you can clean up your books, pencils, pens, and paper..."
"I ain't little..." River growled under her breath.
"But this bauble of yours now belongs to me," Mr. Odelson said.
"Can I get it back after class, Mr. Odelson?" Anjali asked crossing her fingers.
"Of course not! What kind of a teacher do you think I am? I'll never give this back to you!"
"Why not?" Anjali asked. "What's wrong with it?"
"You don't even know what it is!!" River shouted. "Okay, neither do I... But I have some idea!"
"Of course I know what it is," Mr. Odelson said disapprovingly.
"You do?" Shanna asked.
He knows anime?! Anjali thought to herself in amazement.
"Yes. And I'm must say, I'm very disappointed in you Miss Lakshmanan. Asking me what's wrong with carrying a sex toy around in your backpack. As if you have no idea that that is inappropriate behavior on school property."
Anjali could practically feel the world's largest sweatdrop building on her head. The rest of the class burst out laughing. Shanna was already on the ground twitching.
Anjali felt like crawling under her desk and disappearing. But the embarrassment wasn't the worst part. I've lost the tessen! What if Tasuki comes looking for it and I can't give it back to him? I've got to get it back somehow, but stealing things out of teacher's desks is not exactly my specialty. But then...oh, being unable to steal! I would shame Tasuki even more! Aw man! I've just gotta get it back somehow...
~~~~~~~~~
What will happen to the tessen in the hands of the teacher?!
Will Tasuki come to retrieve it?!
Will Shanna be able to glomp the real Nuriko?!
Why does Mr. Odelson think the tessen is a sex toy?!
And what in the world is he going to do with it?! O.o
Tasuki: MY POOR TESSEN!! NOT MY BABY! NOOO!!!!
Nuriko: This is very funny =D
Will River EVER be able to get Nuriko's position right?!
Or how to say "Fushigi Yuugi"?!
Find out (some of these) in the next installment!