IV: No Need for Thinking!
The record for the galaxy's biggest hangover-induced migraine was instantly broken the second Ryoko woke up. Upon slowly coming to, her skull felt as if it was being pressed under a steamroller or two, and the painful throbbing she felt was like the beating of a gigantic bass drum. Her entire head was moaning out in the worst pain, and she felt just slightly sick in the stomach as well.
Must've been drinking again…
"Welcome back, Ryoko," came a husky voice from somewhere. The one-time pirate used up most of her energy to sit up out of bed, and whatever remained of that was used in opening her eyes. When she managed to shrug off the blurriness of another hangover-induced sleep, she found her headache a joy to endure next to what she saw. She had been lying in a small cot this whole time, and that treacherous bounty hunter Nagi, of all people, was watching over her.
"Mm?" mumbled a slightly-irritated Ryoko--slight because she still hadn't gotten her bearings yet. Nagi, who was sitting in a chair some distance away, smiled faintly and stood up to check on her patient. Ryoko was still too weak from her drunken festivities the other day to move around a whole lot, leaving Nagi a rare chance to closely examine her foe. Burning-maroon eyes dug into Ryoko's golden ones, and the hunter's smile faded.
"Well, I guess you'll pull through," she said flatly. Ryoko tried to snarl, but was still a little weak from her painful sleep. So instead, she flopped back on the cot and somehow managed to groan out a request that Nagi should leave. The hunter gladly obliged, and before she left the area, told Ryoko that they were now both in the bowels of Ken-ohki, and that Ryo-ohki was being kept in "a safe place", and that there was no escaping her now.
But by that time, Ryoko was already snoring.
It's been such a long time, Ryoko… So long, in fact, that I've actually grown to miss you. Ha, I must be going soft… But, if you wanna know the truth, I really have missed you, I really have. It's been ages since I saw you, and though I normally hate your guts……… today, I'm glad to see you. Ha! Hate your guts… I guess it's because of… "that"…
…How am I gonna tell her…? I can tell she's grown up a lot--not physically, sure, but mentally, and emotionally, and yes, even spiritually. She's more mature now, just barely. I just hope that she can handle whatever I have to tell her… I know I couldn't when I first learned about it…
Well, there's only one way to find out!
Nagi had been in a deep trance for the better part of the hour. She had asked Ken-ohki to turn the temperature in her room down to a nearly-unbearable freezing, and was almost to the point of shivering for the warmth. Disgusting, she berated herself. A few years ago, you could've endured a lot worse than this! ……Must be… well… do I care? Ha! Has this beast's icy heart finally melted?
…Nahh.
At the end of this hour, Nagi decided that both she and Ryoko had had enough private time together, and that they should definitely start talking. There was no sense in delaying things, no matter how bad the outcome might've been. This was something that needed to be done fast, and the sooner Nagi got things over with, the sooner……
What? she asked herself. And then what? What'll happen after I tell Ryoko? What'll happen then, huh? Will she accept what I say, and then everything'll turn out great? Will I be able to go back to the man I once loved, and live the rest of my life in peace? Will we… put aside our differences? I… I'd like to say that there's not a good chance of it, but……… I… I still have hope…
Then again, there's only one way to find out…
Nagi took in a very deep breath, held it in for just a few seconds and released it into the chilly air. It became a ghost, and Nagi watched this ghost for a few seconds before turning around and facing her adversary. She was not going to like telling this to Ryoko, and the wild woman would certainly not like hearing it. Nagi had wanted to delay this, but there was just no point in delaying things any longer. After all, this bit of information had been held back all their lives; why bother holding it back even longer?
The former bounty hunter stepped out of her freezing room, steeled her resolve, and stepped into the warm room of Ryoko. As expected, the pirate was still asleep, so Nagi had to shake her a little before anything could really be done. She had been procrastinating long enough; now was the time to bare all.
"Ryoko! Wake up!" whispered Nagi. The pirate let out a moan and did stir, but only fell into an even deeper sleep. Nagi sighed impatiently, and kept on poking her enemy until the woman yawned and opened her tired eyes.
"What?" grumbled the sleeping beast.
"Get up. You've been asleep long enough." Ryoko, who felt about as exhausted as she had ever been, reasoned that with her headache, she would never be asleep "long enough". But when she gazed into Nagi's face, and saw a sharp sense of urgency behind the mask of bitterness and manipulation, she swallowed dryly and slipped out of the cot. Ryoko was a very pretty woman, except when she woke up, and this one time was no exception, either.
"Nnhh, whatizzit?" she grumbled. Nagi frowned, and helped Ryoko stand up. The other woman was in no condition to hear her out; perhaps breakfast and a small cup of sake would cure that…?
Nagi had little in the ways of food and alcohol on her ship. Most of it was emergency rations, although if one looked well enough, one would be able to find something a little nicer. Ryoko didn't care, though. She ate everything like it was her last meal in life, and completely cleaned out Nagi's food supplies. Normally, the ex-hunter would've been thrown into a fury over having all her food eaten away (especially if it had been eaten by Ryoko), but today she merely watched her foe with an empty stare.
After gorging herself on everything Nagi had to offer, Ryoko felt refreshed and ready to--
"Take a shower!!" sneered Nagi, crinkling her nose in disgust. Her fingers were tightly pinching her nose, and her eyes burned with horror. Ryoko's own face was aflame as well, but with extreme anger over having been told to bathe herself.
"Hey! Who are you to--"
"Shut up and do it!!!" snapped Nagi viciously, and Ryoko let out a few extremely nasty phrases as she stormed off to the bathroom. A few quick sniffs here and there told her that yes, she needed a shower very badly, especially after the activities of the previous night.
Now with Ryoko gone, Nagi breathed out a sigh of relief and concentrated on the future. This act alone was strange for her: with the exception of plotting how she would go about killing Ryoko, Nagi had never really given much thought about the future. Sure, there were times when she fantasized about what would become of her once Ryoko was put to justice, but that was it.
How am I gonna tell her? she wondered. How in all the worlds am I gonna tell her? …I have no idea. I'm no good at this sort of thing. …I guess… when the time comes… I'll know, but… Hmm, no matter what, it's gonna be tough to pull off. Not impossible, though--thankfully not impossible.
Even after all this time, I still can't believe that we're…
Twenty minutes passed, and a toasty Ryoko emerged from the bathroom with a fresh change of clothes and a towel around her hair. Nagi quietly thanked her foe for washing up, then beckoned her to come closer for "something important". Ryoko, ever the curious one, figured that now she would finally discover what in blazes Nagi had been wanting all this time. She had been enigmatic enough during her last visit, but now was the time to hear the truth.
"So are you finally gonna tell me what's up?" asked the former pirate. Nagi nodded her head, causing Ryoko to let out a sharp sigh. "Well it's about time! Huh! The nerve of keeping me waiting all this time!"
"You sound just like that princess friend of yours," said Nagi wryly. Ryoko grumbled, but otherwise paid her no response. With a single silent stare, she urged Nagi to finally reveal what was on her mind, and so with nowhere else to go and no more time for delaying the truth, Nagi told Ryoko what she needed to know.
In theory.
"Ryoko, do you remember your mother?" she asked. The question took Ryoko off guard, and the one-time pirate had to wonder if this was what Nagi had wanted her for.
"Huh? Whaddya mean?"
"Do you remember your mother?" asked Nagi again. "Your real mother?" Ryoko made an angry/confused face, shook her head, and tried figuring out why Nagi would want to know something like that.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Just answer me," said Nagi with no hidden irritation in her voice. Ryoko sighed, shrugged, and played her enemy's game.
"No, if you must know, I don't remember her, nor my father. I was too young to remember anything, Nagi. In fact, the first loving face I ever saw was a buncha stiff priests at some crazy church."
"You were raised in a church?" snickered Nagi doubtfully. Ryoko's dead eyes spoke volumes.
"Don't get any ideas, now," she mumbled. "I raised plenty of Hell in that place, so to speak, so they eventually grew tired of me and sent me out in the streets. I was only seven at the time, I think, but being forced to live outside in the cold shaped me up pretty fast. I… begged for the priests to let me back in, but they said that I had blown my chance already."
"…That's horrible," whispered a surprisingly-genuine Nagi. Ryoko glanced over at her enemy with eyes wide open in surprise, and silently wondered if Nagi was really that concerned or not. She shrugged it off, and continued her story.
"Anyway," she said, "I ended up being a pickpocket. I mean, I had no family, no money, no place to stay, no nothing. I took what jobs I could to get by, but… I was always miserable. Then, as you might know, I turned to being a space pirate, and I guess I was pretty good at it if I got some wacko like you to chase after me." Ryoko looked over at her enemy to see if there was any expression behind her face; there was.
By now, Nagi had a… well, not a loving look, but more of a peaceful look to her normally-vicious face. The faintest of all smiles was on her mouth, and as she gazed back at the woman she had been chasing and hating all this time, a momentary spark of understanding was ignited. As unbelievable as it sounded, Nagi could actually sympathize with her enemy to a point. She too knew what it meant to grow up lonely and without the love of a family. Unlike Ryoko, she had been adopted by a man who taught her all the skills she would need to be a successful bounty hunter, but even so…
Nagi's thoughts trailed off for awhile. Her adoptive father had trained her and honed her skills for some kind of destiny, but what was it? To kill Ryoko? He had told her that Ryoko was the one responsible for the death of her parents, and up until very recently, Nagi believed him. She knew now that it had been a lie, and that the entire story was devised so that Nagi's fear of Ryoko would leave her. And now…
"Why do you ask?" said Ryoko, glancing over at her enemy. Nagi was still lost in her thoughts at this point, but managed to mumble out a reply.
"I have no memory of my mother," she said quietly, her eyes glazed over. "I never knew her…"
"Oh…" Another pause in the conversation separated their speech. Then, "Is that what you dragged me all the way over here for?"
"No," replied Nagi in the same quiet, dead voice. "I wanted to tell you something… something that neither you nor anyone else will believe… Something that I don't wanna admit, something that…… is hard to say even now, even after all this time."
"Oh, lemme guess," grumbled Ryoko. "You've had romantic feelings for me all this time?" Nagi's dead face suddenly grew a smile, and she even laughed out loud.
"No! Nothing like that at all!" she chuckled. Ryoko, who was slightly less amused, tilted her head in confusion.
"…Oh. Well, one less worry on my mind. But… what is it then?" Nagi took a minute to calm herself down, and made sure that all the giggles in her system were flattened out before she spoke. She had not laughed that hard in a very long time…
Turning around, Nagi's eyes suddenly grew a little sad, and even desperate. Ryoko drew back in surprise, and her own eyes quivered as Nagi looked right into her soul. The woman swallowed, obviously at a loss for words (and at such a crucial time!), and finally whispered out what she had been wanting to say.
"Ryoko… I don't know how to tell you this, so I guess… I'll just go ahead and say it."
"What?" wondered Ryoko, and Nagi spoke the words that would alter both of their destinies for the rest of their lives.
I'm your sister, Ryoko.
"You're kidding," said Ryoko with a weak grin. The look in Nagi's shivering eyes told her that no, she was not kidding at all. "…Right? …Nagi? You're just messing with my mind again, right? …Right? ……Nagi?"
"No, Ryoko," said the ex-hunter firmly, "I'm not making this up. I'm…… I'm your sister, Ryoko." The space pirate shivered visibly in the warm room, took several steps back, and stared at Nagi in unquestionable horror. Both women had the exact same look on their faces--a look of shock, and confusion, and disbelief, and illness…
"No…" croaked Ryoko, her voice thick with emotion. "No… it… it's not true… It, it can't be true! Nagi, that's not true! That's impossible!!!"
"I'm sorry," said Nagi emptily, and for the first time in many years, she meant it. "I wish it were false, Ryoko, but it's not. It's not false at all--it's very real, though I admit that I don't like it any more than you do…"
"Shut up!!!" screamed the pirate, slapping her hands over her ears. She was now glaring at the hateful Nagi with as much fire and rage as possible, and with Ryoko, that was a lot. "It's not true!!!" she screamed again. "It's not true!!!"
"I'm sorry," said Nagi in the same empty voice. "There's nothing else I can do. Disbelieve me if you want, but it's the truth."
"You're lying!!!!!" Ryoko screamed out at her most hated enemy, her face now exploding in uncontrolled fury. She wanted to rip out Nagi's windpipe with her bare hands, wanted to shove a pike through her face, wanted to pull apart her body one piece at a time…… Anything to relieve the torture and to destroy this wicked liar.
"I only wish it were so," said Nagi with a hint of sadness. "Ryoko… don't think that I'm saying this for my own benefit. I'm a whole lot more creative than this, and if I had wanted to trick you in some way…"
"Shut up!!!!" screamed the pirate again. "Just shut up!!! Shut up!!!!!" She roared out in a rage, and before Nagi could stop her, Ryoko had materialized through her ship, found Ryo-ohki, and blasted off back towards Earth in a tearful rage.
"Ryoko, stop!!!" Nagi's shouting would do little good; by that time, Ryoko was long gone. The bounty hunter sighed once things calmed down again, and sat down on the bare surface of her cabbit vessel. Who was I kidding? grumbled she. Did I just expect Ryoko to rush forth with open arms and give me a hug? What did I expect her to do? "Oh, Nagi, I'm so glad we're finally reunited after all this time!" Ha! I was a fool to think that she'd react any other way!
Well, at least she knows now… That's some solace at least.
I just hope… she doesn't do anything rash…
………Ryoko………
When you're ready to accept the truth, Ryoko… Sis…
I'll be… waiting for you…
Slowly, as Ryo-ohki descended towards Earth, Ryoko began shedding tears.
She had some thinking to do.
Next chapter: Wow! What a revealing secret! But is it really the truth, or does Nagi not have all her facts straight? How will Ryoko find out? And how will everyone else at the Masaki house take it? Next chapter, "No Need for a Sorority!" It's unquestionably touching!