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The characters depicted in this story are not mine. Sue me and you get nada, cuz that's how much I own. Blah.
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Unlikely Companions
A fiction novella by Dave Zhang (dzhang@its.caltech.edu). Comments and criticisms welcomed. Copyright 2003.
[This text is in English.] "This text is spoken." 'This text is thought.'
Chapter 6: A Camelot Knight in Modern Japan.
Yuu dove left and right, hoping to lose the bane of his existence, Rei Hino.
"Come back here! Stop!"
Yuu, still dizzy from the alcohol, but much faster because of his martial arts training, finally managed to distance himself enough, thanks to a few timely red lights and intervening traffic, leaving behind a very upset Rei.
"Damn it!" cried Rei. When Yuu shot out past visible distance, a single drop of tear dropped from Rei's eyes. "Please, Yuu. Come back."
She took her from her pocket the note Yuu had left her two months ago, read it again for the forty-third time, before releasing herself into a full sobbing. "I miss you..."
Yuu, after dashing at top speed for another few minutes, found himself in familiar settings. "Fuji Love Motel, eh? As good a place as any to grab a nap."
Fortunately, he was still had money left over from his time in Camelot. He paid for a room for a night with a penny-sized pure silver coin. The motel-keeper was more than happy to take it as currency.
***
After a long needed rest that lasted almost twenty hours, Yuu woke up in the early morning, pleased with himself that he didn't let Rei catch him. 'Who knows what that crazy girl will do? She still thinks I tried to rape her.'
Over the past two months, Yuu had trained in the early morning with Ranma and Miroku, but today there were other tasks at hand. 'Well, I'm still a junior in high school, so I should go to a high school with Ranma and Miroku. Juuban High, if I remember correctly. It's still early though, I can get a few other things done first.'
First, Yuu walked to the nearest bank to convert half his precious metals into standard Japanese currency, keeping the other half in case they ever visited yet another time/space, which Yuu judged to be extremely likely. Next, he headed to a local store to buy a map of the area, several umbrellas, and several thermos. He then walked back to his room in the motel to study the map for the next hour, memorizing the relative positions and distances of important landmarks. Yuu learned to appreciate a good map after trying to follow the very warped map of the Camelot area, and ending up lost more than once.
Next, Yuu walked to a local fast food place for breakfast, and bought an extra order to go, for lunch. He then remembered that of his companions, only Lancelot possibly had money and would probably not have realized to convert it to yen. Thus, he bought four more box lunches. Lancelot looked to be in his early twenties, and Cherry's now twenty, so they shouldn't be going to high school, but they probably would want to, in order to catch up with current events and knowledge.
He then talked toward Juuban High, and met the other four on their way there as well. After distributing lunches, Yuu listened to a very abridged version of Cherry's tale from Miroku, while Cherry explained to Lancelot again the concept of school.
Yuu lazily noted that Ranma was now in boy-form, Cherry was now a college-aged boy, and that Lancelot was still wearing his armor and had his enchanted broadsword Joyeaux strapped to his back.
As they approached the school, Ranma suddenly remembered the reception the last time he came to this school, and silently cursed himself for not having changed to girl-form. The entire female population of Juuban (faculty included) held there breath at the sight of the approaching group.
"Yeah, Rei-chan seemed kind of upset yesterday," said Minako, "but she wouldn't tell me why not. Hmph! Next time she wants to stay over at my place, I'm definitely demanding a reason." She paused when she realized Makoto's attention was elsewhere.
'Is that a Knight? In shining armor no less?' Minako blinked again to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. 'Nope, he's still there.'
Minako dashed forward as if shot out of a cannon, and latched herself onto Lancelot as if a barnacle. "Oh, hold me, valiant knight!"
Lancelot confusedly turned to his companions, asking, [Is this girl all right? She seems faint.]
'English? He must be really into this knight thing! I'll just impress him with my English skills! After all, I am from Britain!' thought Minako happily. [Oh, good Sir, I have admired you much from afar. Thou, only thou, canst unchain my heart from the darkness of solitude! Spare me a happy smile, and a date, noblest knight.]
Lancelot thought through her words several times, astounded that someone here spoke his language, and implied to be a princess no less. [Sir Yuu, this fair maiden is a princess? What dost date imply?]
Minako then felt a hand caressing her rear, and was enjoying the feeling, before realizing that it was not one of Lancelot's hands.
"Aiyee! Pervert!" Minako quickly dislodged herself from Lancelot and turned, ready to slap the offender, before she recognized a familiar face. "Oh... Hi Mimuko. Where have you been for the past two months?"
"I'm Miroku," said Miroku with more than a trace of irritation. "And I thought you said that I'd be 'the only one ever' for you?"
"Oh. Well, I figured you weren't here, so you were probably cheating on me or something, and a girl's gotta move on and all that."
"Hah! I did not touch a single woman since we parted." declared Miroku. He mentally added, 'Though not out of unwillingness.'
Usagi muttered to herself and her friends, "They're not as good as my Mamo-chan. Right, Ami-chan? Right, Mako-chan? They're not nearly as good!"
Ami mentally debated whether to run up to Ranma as Ami had done with Lancelot now, or to speak to him later since she wasn't supposed to know him in his male form. At the lupine gleams in her female schoolmates' eyes though, Ami decided there can be no waiting.
Ami shyly approached Ranma, and spoke quietly to him, barely above a whisper. "Hello again, Ran-chan. I've missed you."
"Uh..." said Ranma, fervently scratching the back of his head. "Yeah, good to see you again Ami-chan. I've missed you too."
Rampant rumors immediately began forming about Minako's dubiously relationships to Lancelot and Miroku, Ami's questionable (after all, she *is* a bookworm) relationship with Ranma, and the availibility status of the other two.
***
"Class, we have several new students today. New students, please introduce yourselves."
"Hi, I'm Ranma Saotome. Uh, you may know my cousin Ranko; she's sick a lot, but she still might come by once in a while."
"Greetings! I have long since forgot my real name, but you may call me... Cherry!"
"I am Yuu. I used to go to Touyuu High School, and I hope to be an architect some day." Yuu turned to Lancelot. [Sir Lancelot, please introduce yourself.]
Lancelot nodded. [Greetings, fair maidens and noble squires! I am Sir Lancelot of Camelot. I serve King Arthur and his queen, Guinevere. This...] Lancelot drew his broadsword, and flipped it once in his hand. [is my sword Joyeaux.] He quickly sheathed it again.
"Um..." stuttered the teacher. "Could you repeat that in Japanese please? And you're not allowed to carry weapons to class."
Minako raised her hand. "He says that he's a knight from the Court of Camelot, his sword's name is Joyeaux, and that he has been smitten by love for me!"
Ami and buried in her face into her desk in embarrassment at her friend's words.
"Um... the sword?"
Cherry nodded. [Lancey, come with me real quick.]
After Lancelot followed Cherry into the hall, Cherry checked quickly to make sure no one was looking at them, before running his hand down along the sheath of Joyeaux and muttering some incantations. [There ya go, Lancey. The teacher doesn't like to have weapons in the classroom, but I know you don't want to part with Joyeaux, so I casted a spell to make Joyeaux and its sheath invisible to anyone but you and me, as long as it's in its sheath. If you ever draw it though, both it and the sheath becomes visible again. Let's go back now, I need a rest after that enchantment. You should try to stay awake and learn Japanese from Yuu though.]
***
'This whole day has been most confusing to me,' thought Lancelot. 'Sir Ranma and Sir Yuu insisted that I accompany them to this school to receive an education, but Sir Ranma is asleep right now. Also, is not education only for priests? Sir Cherry and Sir Miroku proclaim themselves to be priests, but Sir Miroku steals glances at the damsels of the area most often. Perhaps priest do not have to take celibacy oaths in this land?'
[Do you understand, Lancelot?]
[I apologize most profusely, Sir Yuu. My mind was elsewhere. Pray speak again.]
[I said that you should try to listen to the teacher and other students, and try to pick up pieces of Japanese.]
[It is most confusing, for so many words sound alike. And the words that I do uneqivocally understand, seem to be thrown together in a most haphazard fashion.]
[Japanese grammar is very different from English. We will get to that eventually. For now, just try to memorize these Japanese words.]
[Very well. I thank thee, good sir Yuu, for teaching me the ways of your language.]
A bell rang, and Lancelot assumed that the current teacher would leave, and a new one would walk in. Not that it mattered much, since he received his lessons from Yuu. This time though, Yuu and the other students stood up, and Yuu pulled gently on Lancelot's arm, urging him to stand as well. [Come on, Lancelot. It is lunch time.]
[What, pray tell, is lunch? Is that a Japanese custom?]
'Oh right, in medieval times, lunch was known as dinner, and dinner was known as supper.' [Lunch is the meal in the middle of the day. It is custom to eat lunch out on the grass with one's friends.]
[Very well. Lead on, Sir Yuu. I shall lunch with thou and Sirs Cherry, Miroku, and Ranma.]
***
The five gathered at a tree out on the lawn, only to be quickly joined by an infatuated Minako.
[Hail good sir Lancelot! Would thou be willing to accompany me for lunch? Let's go over there!] Minako was already trying to drag Lancelot off alone to another area when she heard a familiar voice.
"Good to see you too, Minako," ejected a very upset Miroku. He did not have a chance to speak any more though, before a flood of students (mostly girls) rushed to surround the dimensional travellers. Minako smiled, and took this time to drag Lancelot away.
"Yuu! Please try the lunch I prepared especially for you!"
"Hey, I'm your boyfriend here, isn't that supposed to be for me?"
"You've been traded in!"
"Ranma, what do you like to do? I'm sure we have a lot in common!"
"No, get away, you hussy! Ranma needs a mature woman like me!"
"Yuu! You're so beautiful! Can I please be friends with you?"
"Hey, I'm a model! Maybe I can get you a job and then we can work together?"
"Ah! Minako's trying to steal Lancelot! After them!"
Cherry and Miroku, though in themselves decently good-looking, found themselves being easily outshadowed by Lancelot, Ranma, and Yuu. Cherry just smiled good-naturedly, as if there was nothing wrong with this, but Miroku found this situation to be more than a bit upsetting. Fortunately though, with so many girls cramped in tight space around the group, he could easily cop feels and get away with it--that served to cheer him up considerably.
"Ah..." Ranma was starting to feel *very* frightened by the large ranks of girls surrounding him. He was even cringing, since he had long since in Nerima been conditioned to expect a mallet to the head when surrounded by women. Suddenly, a ray of hope shone in his peripheral vision. 'Ami-chan! There she is, with only a few friends by that tree.'
Ranma leapt above the tightening circular cordon of girls, and landed about a foot away from where Ami was sitting, covering some thirty feet in a single jump. Ami eeped in surprised response.
"Oops. Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."
'Hm! Mina-chan might have gotten her hands on a good-looking boy, but Ranma here is no less cute! And he looks like he's a great martial artist too!' thought Makoto as she eyed the new student hungrily. 'This one is MINE!'
"Hi, Ranma! I'm Makoto; call me Mako-chan. Say, have we met before?"
Ranma was starting to get uncomfortable, fearing that she recognized the uncanny resemblance between him and 'Ranko,' when Makoto continued.
"You look a lot like my..."
"Old sempai," chorused everyone in the vicinity, before returning to whatever they were doing.
Makoto cringed. 'I haven't used that pick-up line *that* often, have I?'
"Uh, I don't think I was ever your sempai, since we're in the same grade and all." Ranma turned to Ami. "Hi, Ami-chan. Um... letshavelunchtogether?"
Makoto blinked, and tried to figure out what Ranma just said. Fortunately, she was used to doing this, thanks to Usagi. Then her eyes widened. 'What!? I'm being passed up for the bookworm!? Is there no justice in this world?' Resolving not to lose Ranma to the asexual Senshi of Water, Makoto forced a cheerful smile and said, "Sure! Ami, Minako, Usagi and I always eat lunch together. Well, unless Mina-chan's chasing after some boy like your friend Lancelot. You're welcome to join us."
Usagi finally recovered from the shock of seeing Ranma's superhuman leap. Walking towards Ranma to get a closer look, "Wow are you human? How did you jump like... Oops!"
Usagi tripped over an exposed tree root. That would not have been so bad, except she was carrying a canned drink, and walking towards Ranma.
Ranma gasped as the cold liquid approached him. A martial artist of his caliber really should have been able to dodge it, but because his mind had been in use trying to make a good second impression on Ami, he was akin to a deer caught in headlights, and froze.
Ami also gasped, as she realized that would cause Ranma's curse to be revealed, but she was powerless to do anything about it, when suddenly...
A large broadsword slashed downward, and deflected some of the drink. Lancelot had remembered being shocked at Ranma's transformation, but agreed to keep it a secret for his good friend Sir Ranma. Knights take their duties very seriously, especially so when the knight is question is Lancelot, the most valiant of the Round Table. Unfortunately, as large as the blade of Joyeaux was, it wasn't large enough to block all of the soft drink, and the remainder continued zoom toward Ranma.
The next line of defense was Miroku, who launched his arm forward to try to intercept the liquid with his sleeve. Again, some small amount of liquid passed through.
The remainder that passed through the first two lines of defenses seemed to hit some invisible wall two inches in front of Ranma, and bounced off. Cherry, some distance away, had drawn a circle with his fingers milliseconds earlier, and pointed to Ranma. He dismissed the force shield after the immediate danger passed. Those things were horrendously tiring to maintain, especially if invisible.
Ami blinked. Makoto blinked. Usagi blinked. Minako blinked. And the rest of the student body blinked. Wow, that had been real.
"Wow, is Ranma the twisted demon of the South or something?" commented Minako.
"Um, that's wicked witch of the west," said Makoto, though she was really starting to wonder herself.
"Um... hehe... I guess I just don't like being splashed with water much," offered Ranma sheepishly, as his friends slowly walked away.
***
"Psst... Ami-chan!"
"Yes, Ran-chan?"
"What's for PE today? It's not swimming, is it?"
"No, we're on basketball now."
"Oh good."
And indeed it was, at least for Ranma, as his Anything Goes Aerial Martial Arts kicked into play, and scoring baskets (even from the 3-point line) became child's play. Yuu and Lancelot were assigned to the other side, and while Yuu was a decent player, and scored a fair number of points, it was offset and more by Lancelot's ignorance of the game. Lancelot set a new record for number of fouls in a single high school basketball game at fifty-three, and also a new record for number of different basketballs the team had to use, since twelve balls deflated when the impacted his spiked guantlets.
***
As the school day ended, Ranma suddenly remembered the last schoolday he had in Juuban. "Hey! Ami-chan, Usagi, Makoto! You girls wanna join me and my friends for ice cream?"
"Yay! You're great, Ranma-kun! Let's all go for ice cream!" declared Usagi happily. "I'll call up Rei-chan and have her meet us there!"
Ami smiled and nodded. Normally she wasn't one to indulge Usagi in her sweets addiction, but it was Ranma who suggested, and she did owe him from last time.
Yuu raised an eyebrow at the name 'Rei-chan,' but figured Juuban was a large city, and there were probably tens of thousands of teenage girls named Rei. What are the chances?
[Lancey, Ranma was just saying that we're going to grab some snacks,] explained Cherry. Tossing a look at Ranma, and betting that Ranma didn't know English well enough, Cherry continued with a chuckle. [I think Ranma is staking his claim on the blue-haired one. They do look cute together, don't you think?]
Lancelot turned to the mentioned pair, and saw Ami walking with her head staring down at the ground with a small rosy tinge on her cheeks, and Ranma scratching his head furiously and stammering in conversation. [Verily, I agree.]
A vein on Makoto's forehead throbbed as she listened to Cherry's dialogue with Lancelot. She wasn't great at English, but picked up enough to realize their general meaning. Her only comfort was that Lancelot also seemed to be busy dodging Minako's glomps.
"Oh yeah," Yuu fumbled in his pockets out his produced several clips of money. "I was the one managing our finances in Britain. I converted most of our money to yen, so here's each of your shares."
Yuu continued as he distributed the money, "It's comes out to be about a hundred and twenty thousand yen each. We probably should visit the bank after ice cream. We should also find jobs here at some point; that money won't last forever." [Lancelot, here is some local money. Try not to spend it without one of us around, because otherwise you may be cheated by villains.]
Usagi stared with wide eyes, dreaming how much ice cream that much money would buy.
[How much coin should I give you for that money, good sir Yuu?]
[Oh don't worry about...] Yuu then remembered something. [Lancelot, have much money do you have on you?]
[A decent amount. About four hundred talents.]
'Four hundred talents, so about forty ounces of gold. A bit over a million yen.' Yuu leaned over and whispered into Lancelot's ear. [Lancelot, it may be wise not to ever show anyone else your Camelot money. It is worth substantially more in our world. The money I gave you should last a while.]
***
[This is... very cold,] commented Lancelot as he bit into his vanilla ice cream cone. [And sweet. I've never had anything quite like it. I like it!]
[Hey, Lance! You want a lick of mine?] asked Minako in a seductive voice as she proffered her chocolate ice cream cone.
Lancelot briefly wondered if this would be a breach of decorum, before agreeing when he saw two bystanders trading bites of ice cream. Miroku fumed on.
"You look like one stricken with a very unlucky affliction, Miroku. You look like you're jealous."
"It's not so much Minako in general, Cherry. I just need a woman to bear my child before I die. I told you about my Kazaana, didn't I?"
"I don't think it's that," Cherry replied. "I mean, if all you wanted was a woman to bear your child, I could easily arrange for that. No, I think... urk..."
Cherry found himself unable to continue as Miroku had prostrated himself, hugging Cherry's legs while begging, "Oh please! I'll do anything for you, if you'll just summon a cute one for me!"
Cherry sweated profusely. "Um, that's not what I meant. The priest we we're staying with seems to want to set you up with his grand-daughter."
"Oh." Miroku picked himself up to conserve what shreds of dignity he had, when the said priest's grand-daughter walked into the ice cream store to join her friends.
Rei ordered her ice cream while Yuu laughed at Miroku, both oblivious to each other's presence. It would have been a perfectly peaceful afternoon, except for the actions of one Usagi Tsukino.
Finishing her ice cream first (since Ranma was heavily distracted by Ami), Usagi quickly scouted the group of friends, and saw Yuu to have the largest remaining amount of ice cream.
Usagi quickly approached her target and said in one of her cutest voices, "Um... if you're not going to eat all that, could I have some of it?"
Yuu stopped laughing at Miroku to turn his attention to Usagi. "Sorry, Meatball-head." After taking another small bite, so that more than half his ice cream still remained, Yuu tossed it overhand neatly into the trash can. "If I had given you that, your tummy would have become one big meatball too."
"Wah!!! You're so mean! Yuu, you're as bad as Rei!"
That brought Yuu and Rei's attentions to each other. Yuu immediately jumped out the nearest windows and started running. Rei was about to chase after him when five Sailor Scout communicators simultaneously went off.
"Uh-oh... sorrywegottagonicetomeetyouallseeyouinschooltomorrow!" yelled Usagi as she scampered away.
"Ran-chan? We have to go."
Ranma nodded in understanding. "Good luck, Ami-chan. See you tomorrow."
--End Chapter 6--