There and Back Again

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Author's Note: I've added a footnote at the bottom of this chapter to cover a point resq188 brought up that I should have thought about. The reason for footnote instead of header note is it contains a rather large spoiler about what happens in Nadesico after the conclusion of the series and is the foundation for the movie which followed. Sorry about that oversight, folks. :) And, yep, you're right Bryan, this one's winding down – I modded the Author's Note at the beginning of chapter 1 about what I'm going to do to the story after I finish posting it.

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Chapter Twenty-Four: One More Fight

Fifteen minutes later, Inu sounded the chime on Ruri's door. "'Come in.'"

He stepped into the room, which was filled with her scent. He suddenly understood what his uncle used to say about going into Kagome-obasan's bedroom. He turned to see her wearing His uncle's fire rat kimono. Though she was still very slight of frame, she'd still had to let it out so that it would still fit her. He set his bokken on the desk and pulled a small package from behind his back.

'Happy Birthday again, Ruri-chan. And yes, Otou-san did do the ribbons.'

She slit the ribbon from the back of the package with a small knife from her desk to preserve the meticulous bow on top. She opened the box to reveal a necklace with a rather large and bright ruby on its pendant. She closed the box again and kissed Inu's cheek.

'Arigato, Inu-kun.'

'Ruri-chan, remember the promise I made you years ago?'

She stepped closer to him and looked up into his face. "'Hai'" was all she could say or think as their faces grew closer. It was that same moment that Hari, The Ever Persistent, summoned the courage to sound her door chime.

Ruri sighed at the sound and thudded her forehead into Inuyasha's breastbone. Inuyasha kissed the top of her head instead. She had waited five years for this and to have some crewmember screw it up-- She paused and took a breath before hitting the open button a little harder than necessary.

As soon as he saw Ruri in the doorway, he grabbed her shoulders. "Ruri-chan I l-"

"Oi, baka, you should address your CO by her rank." Inuyasha let some fierceness slip into his voice which he really didn't feel.

Hari's face was almost on fire with the heat the blood there generated. He had failed to realize his competitor for Ruri's affection was already in the room. This flustered him greatly, but he managed to stand firm and let go of Ruri's shoulders.

"You! I challenge you for Ruri's hand!"

Inuyasha blinked and his mind asked Ruri if she was okay with the fight.

'So long as baka can report for duty in the morning.'

'Hai.' A quote opportunity sprung into the youkai's head, and he shifted his voice into an odd accent.

"Are yoou challenging me to a DUUUUUUEL?"

Summoning strength and courage he really didn't have, the human responded "Yes, if you have the courage!"

"Spleeendid! So, what manner of combat will the challenger choooose?"

Ruri blinked and then remembered the Star Trek episode he got the accent from. It fit the mismatch in power, but Hari wasn't Kirk. The poor guy didn't stand a chance.

"I choose swords! I am a Third Dan practitioner of Iaido!"

Oh yeah. Zero chance.

"I see," the youkai replied, slipping back into his normal voice. "Well, it seems I left all my blades at home, and only brought a bokken. That'll do."

******

Inuyasha and Ruri arrived at the ship's gym before Hari, who had returned to his quarters to retrieve his sword. They found Inutaishou's Lackeys sparring and let the two finish the match. The opted to end it in a draw and vacate the mat when Hari huffed into the room carrying a carbon-fiber shinai. Youkai and hanyou both decided to let it drop that he was carrying a shinai, not a sword.

The youkai languidly stood and moved to a point on the mat a few feet away from his opponent. Ruri stood and held her bokken out as a line between the two combatants.

She looked to Hari. "Ready?"

"Hai."

"Inutaishou-san?"

"Hai."

"Begin" 'the ass-kicking, my love.' She swung the bokken down and quickly stepped from the mat.

The youkai was caught off-guard by Ruri's comment and didn't bother blocking Hari's first strike. Not that it hit him, he just dodged and didn't bother to bring his weapon up. The perceived lack of fight gave the human false hope. Hari attacked several more times, each one being cleanly dodged by Inuyasha.

"What, not going to fight me?" he smirked.

The demon smiled. "I practice Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu."

"So?"

With a sigh and another dodge, the demon elaborated. "The goal of this Ryu is to read one's opponent's attacks and predict their strikes. Then," the bokken flashed and caught the shinai under the tsuba, flicking the weapon out of the human's hands, "and only then, I strike."

Hari dove and grabbed his shinai. "That's pretty weak though, resorting to trickery."

Inuyasha's grin was dripping with evil. "So you want me to attack you straight on?"

"Hai," the boy said, raising his weapon.

"Sorry, baka." He lunged forward. Hari blocked the first attack, parried the second, then took the third in his arm. He was about to comment how weak that third strike was when he felt another tap. And another. A third, fourth, fifth, sixth, ten, twenty. His opponent broke off his attack and bounced backwards. Hari felt the bruises forming on his arms and legs.

"Baka. You broke the first rule you ever learned. Never take your eyes off your opponent's eyes." Hari brought his shinai up before him again. "Concede defeat or visit sickbay."

Hari didn't move. "I will fight. For Ruri."

"Sickbay it is." Hari managed to keep his eyes locked on his opponent, but terror filled his heart when the eyes became blood red as they flew at him with ungodly speed. He didn't even see the strike coming, he only felt a searing pain in his ribs. It was followed by another searing pain from his sword-arm's shoulder. He dropped his weapon and fell to all fours. He felt the edge of the bokken against his neck and looked up to see his opponent. "Concede. And get thine ass to sickbay."

That was the last thing he heard before blacking out. A jerk of their boss' head and the two Lackeys scooped up the inert form and carried him out for a visit to the dispensary.

'I feel bad for going so hard on him.'

'Baka. He's kind of like your uncle. Sometimes sense has to be beaten into him. We should go get ready for the dinner.'

Inuyasha nodded and the two walked out and towards their respective quarters.

******

Footnote: Shuttle Incident? What shuttle incident?

This one's mainly for the Inuyasha folks. If you're into Nadesico but haven't checked out The Prince of Darkness (which should be released Stateside this year) and/or aren't familiar with The Blank of Three Years, you should be advised that a rather large spoiler is coming. Also, I'm going to plug a friend's website here: www.peacefuldays.org. There's an active forum there which can answer any further questions I raise. I post there as Count_Twit. Drop on by.

As the Inuyasha fans should have guessed by now, Ruri isn't actually the daughter of Akito and Yurika. She's actually a test-tube child, if you want to get technical about it. Akito and Yurika are about 6 or so years older than Ruri, so she doesn't really see them as parents per se, but does indeed consider them family. After the events of the TV series, most of the crew go their seperate ways, and Akito and Yurika become a couple when they return to earth. He lives in an apartment rented from the relative of the ship's engineering chief, and she returns home to her father. Yurika wins custody of Ruri. Yurika's father wasn't happy about the relationship between Yurika and Akito, and eventually in frustration Yurika moved out of her father's house and into Akito's apartment with him, taking Ruri with her. It should also be noted that late in the series Ruri develops a major crush on Akito, though she appears to get mostly over it and lets it mature into more of an older-brother love.

Now for the shuttle incident. (pant, pant.) Akito and Yurika decide to get married, and finally obtain Admiral Misumaru's permission to marry. (Check out peaceful days for a bit more detailed discussion of this.) After the couple gets married, they leave on a shuttle for their honeymoon. However, the shuttle explodes in-flight killing everyone aboard. This devastates Ruri. They were the closest thing to family that she had, and she really proves through this that Nadesico's creators gave her a depth of emotion and character that was completely lost on its US audience.

However, to set up for what I've written following the end of this story, the shuttle incident does not kill Akito and Yurika, and is in fact a means to cover up kidnapping them. However, Ruri is unaware of this for the following two years. Yurika's father gives her command of the Nadesico-B and because no one's sure what happened exactly with the shuttle incident, assigns a bodyguard to Ruri – Saburouta, who gets a way cooler haircut in the movie than he had in the series. Through the B, she also meets another experiment in DNA manipulation, Makibi Hari/Harry/Haley. (All three appear to be equally accepted as his first name.) She grows to see him as a little brother, and my interpretation of the movie is that she'll never see him as anything other than that, though I can see him easily desiring to become romantically involved with her later. (Hence how I've written him.) Let me also say one thing flat out. I hate Hari. He's a brat. Decide for yourself though :)

Hopefully that helps things make a little more sense and that I didn't leave out any major details the Inuyasha fans need to know to get what I'm talking about in these last few chapters. There's a vast body of information about Nadesico, but it's all in Japanese, so US fans of Nadesico often get stuck picking up bits and pieces of it's canon from here and there. The aforementioned peacefuldays.org is probably one of the best sources of Nadesico goodness and background, since there's an actual community building within the site. Links are also provided there to other really good Nadesico sites, including www.rurihoshino.com. If this doesn't help, drop by Peaceful Days' forums or drop me an email – iyami-sama@serial-experiments.org