DISCLAIMER: Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration.
The End of the Circus: A Tale of the Yizibajohei
Omake: The Mistress of Velocity Claims Her Man!
by Fred Herriot
Including characters and situations from Love Hina, created by Akamatsu Ken; and The Flash, created by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino.
Also including characters and situations from the fanfic story Avalonians at Hinata-sō, written by Fred Herriot
Hinata (west of Yokosuka), the third Friday of August in 2012, mid-afternoon...
"Why is she so CRANKY?!"
Hearing that depressed shout from the resident mad scientist of the former hot springs hotel that now served as a "dorm for maniac girls" — as the residents of the town west of Yokosuka often called the Hinata-sō behind the backs of all its current residents — both Narusegawa Naru and Aoyama Motoko could only sigh. "Su-san, clearly something is disturbing Shinobu-chan and has been for quite some time," the expert kendō-ka from Kyōto calmly stated as she continued to dabble linseed oil on her blade while relaxing on one of the couches in the recreation room. "She has asked you on several occasions to not eat food that isn't served during the meals. You have enough bananas available to you in your dorm room. The food that Urashima has to purchase for all of us isn't endless, you know."
Hearing that, Kaolla Su harrumphed as she sat down on a nearby couch. "I can't even walk into her room now, much less sneak through the vents near her room!" the second princess to the throne of Molmol in the central Pacific — not that her current dorm mates knew of that — complained as she crossed her arms. As the older girls gazed sympathetically at the playful young sprite from "India" — much that Kaolla could be quite the annoyance and didn't comprehend the concept of privacy at all, she was also a great help in dealing with many things — the dark-skinned blonde pouted. Why couldn't Shinobu understand that she just wanted to have fun? "Something's happened in this place that really bugging me! I can't try to get into Onii-chan's room now, much less sneak into Shinobu-chan's room...!"
"Which, by the way, is invasion of privacy, Su-san," a strange voice then said from the main entrance. "When are you finally going to realize this isn't your palace?"
Kaolla awked as Naru and Motoko turned around just as Maehara Shinobu walked into the room, accompanied by a girl of about her age dressed in stylish jeans and a short-sleeved button blouse. Noting the tenné brown hair that was done in beautiful teardrop pigtails behind her ears, both the Tōdai rōnin and the heiress of the Shinmei-ryū gaped. "Mihama Chiyo-chan?!" Naru gasped, her jaw now around her knees. "Shinobu-chan, how on Earth do you know HER?!"
Shinobu gazed evenly at her, which sent chills down the older women's backs; also present was Konno Mitsune, who was as surprised as her friends were that the famous pre-teen genius from Itabashi had come to Hinata to visit. "That is none of your business, Narusegawa-san," the raven-haired native of the hot springs town near Yokohama stated. "Chiyo-san is my friend. That is all you need to know."
That made the older women balk at that cold shoulder their resident cook was giving them; that had been quite a frequent occasion, especially in the last four months after Shinobu had gone out with some friends — as to who these friends were, none of the older residents at the Hinata-sō had any idea as Shinobu hadn't brought any of them to visit — for a weekend camping trip. Before someone could say anything more, a side door leading out to where the hot springs were located, revealing a grinning raven-haired woman of about Motoko's age, dressed in preppy clothes. "Oi! Shinobu-chan!" Takino Tomo called out. "You didn't tell me you had all these cool hot springs here!"
Shinobu yelped before she gazed intently at her friend, thumbing Chiyo's classmate. "Chiyo! What's the bonkura doing here?! I thought you promised me you'd come down alone!"
That made Tomo jolt. "OI! WHO'RE YOU CALLING A BONKURA, MAEHARA?!"
Hearing that threatening tone from the resident wild child of Chiyo's homeroom class at Azuma High and quickly sensing the threat from the other woman, Motoko swept to her feet, grasping her nōdachi. "Takino-san! Don't you even THINK of threatening Shinobu-chan like that!"
Seeing the kendō-ka set herself up to ultimately face down one of the most deadly beings now living on Earth, Shinobu and Chiyo shook their heads. Well, this was going to happen sooner or later. "Don't kill her, Tomo-chan," the latter calmly said as she and her friend moved to walk out of the recreation lounge in the northern wing of the Hinata-sō, making the older residents gape on hearing that instruction. "You can maim her and her friends to your heart's content. Keep the princess and the drunk out of our hair, please." As Kaolla blinked and Mitsune squawked on hearing that, Chiyo added, "I'm sure Keitarō-san deserves a break from her always proving what an androphobic MONSTER Motoko-san is!" As Motoko yelped on hearing that from the pre-teen genius, Chiyo and Shinobu calmly stepped out of the room.
As the other girls gaped in disbelief on noting that their youngest dorm mate hadn't said anything against what her friend just told her classmate, the sudden and quite loud cracking of knuckles caused them to jolt before they turned to stare at Tomo.
Who now had a very hungry smile on her face...
Shinobu's bedroom...
"You do realize there are Niphentaxian observers still here in this town," Shinobu noted.
"Don't worry about that, Shinobu," Chiyo said as she gave her friend a wave of assurance. She was in her battle suit as the Bright Genius of the Young Guns; Shinobu definitely liked Kasuga Ayumu's suggestion over a year ago that Chiyo call herself R'bemguo ("Prodigy") in lieu of her battle line's more commonly-known name. Currently, microscopic nanites that had been deployed by Chiyo from a pouch on her belt were moving to stitch in very complex sensor-jamming filaments in the walls, ceiling and floor of Shinobu's bedroom. This wasn't just to keep a certain nosy young mad inventor of a princess who lived in one of the dorm rooms on the floor above from finding out things she shouldn't, but also helping keep this part of the old hot springs hotel intact from all the damage a certain kendō-ka caused unwillingly when she freaked out at anything the kanrinin did which met her disapproval.
Atop that, given that her current host was also Gifted, Chiyo knew it was prudent to make sure that anything which could set Shinobu off would stay out of her private space.
Given the specific Gift she had, it had been necessary for Shinobu to endure a certain "body-swap" thanks to the Goddess Who Walks Among Men, thus ensuring that the youngest of the Hinata-sō's tenants wouldn't end up DYING because she couldn't control the incredible power she now welded.
That was always the ultimate curse of all the members of the Mintyuo-ruo.
The Young Guns.
But thanks to Chiyo's remarkable classmate from Wakayama...
"Right now, Yomi-san is enjoying making sure all the Niphentaxians who are in that apartment block down the street from here won't even suspect what sort of hell is about to drop down on their heads," Chiyo stated as she monitored the reports from the nanites through a display function in her goggles. She then winced on hearing a sudden cracking noise, that followed by a very painful scream. "Guess Motoko-san just found out that she could be smashed away just as easily as she does Keitarō-san all the time. Honestly, what is that woman's problem?"
"She's jealous of the fact that her sister has found true happiness and that the 'legacy' of her martial arts school has just been dumped on her shoulders when she still hasn't really figured out what to do with her life. Filial piety is one thing, but the Avalonians at Raika Girl's High are starting to get her really used to modern things," Shinobu calmly stated, speaking with the mature cant in her voice that had come to unnerve a lot of her peers at Hinata Middle School since she had accepted the destiny given to her by a kind Tariko Katabarbe two years ago while a confused, hurt Shinobu found herself caught in her parents nasty divorce proceedings. While she accepted Urashima Hinata's offer to reside at the Hinata-sō at that time to get away from such trauma and had cut herself out of her parents' lives once and for all, Shinobu also spent time on Yiziba, where she got the chance to embrace the power of the Mistress of Velocity, Gaekuoruto ("Hyperspeed"), the fastest person that ever lived there...and alongside Mihama Chiyo, become one of the current generation of the Young Guns.
Taking THAT particular Gift would have marked Shinobu for an early death. The true tragedy of the Young Guns was that all of them inherited powers that were just far too great for their young bodies to handle without killing them from sheer energy overload before they could grow into them after puberty began. In previous generations, people who became Hyperspeed often literally ran themselves into fatal heart ruptures before they even hit puberty. Sadly, given the common Yizibajohei attitude about standing up for oneself in the face of a very cruel Universe, previous generations of that team of super-children never got any real assistance in better mastering their abilities before something killed them far before their time. Fortunately in this generation, Kasuga Ayumu struck on the idea of using the synthezoid Battle Dolls stored in the pocket dimension known more commonly on Yiziba as the "Doll House" to help people like her future best friend Mihama Chiyo and Maehara Shinobu better control their powers; the synthetic beings came with a remarkable housekeeping computer that would help the soul inhabiting it to better control her/his Gift in a way that mere experience and knowledge couldn't.
While she was there adjusting to the new reality of her life as the literal fastest woman on two planets, Shinobu had fallen under the effective care of Kaetu Osar'bena, an elderly native of Yiziba's southern polar continent who was the incarnation of one of the most powerful beings on that planet, Latoram ("Stone Mountain"), the Unmovable One. Someone who had never got the chance to bear her own children, Kaetu gladly adopted the effectively-orphaned Shinobu as her daughter, helping her adjust to her incredible power both as Hyperspeed and as a Battle Doll; such a combination had never existed on the World of the Forge and learning what could happen to the current Terran-born generation of the Young Guns was paramount before they could find themselves caught in some nasty fight scenes.
Sadly, Kaetu's time in this life would coming swiftly to a close; around the time Urashima Keitarō had been made to become the kanrinin of the Hinata-sō just before the Tag Race had happened in Tomobiki, the Unmovable One had fallen thanks to one of the more nastier native heels on that planet, who had used an ebony mesonium blade to piece the elderly woman's heart; scant few on Yiziba could survive THAT even if Stone Mountain was as tough as Superman himself in many ways! Fortunately, Margo Black's twin sister Nora Chapelle had been on the planet at the time. Since she was also one of the Young Guns — the Living Dynamo, she was known on Yiziba as Riekbu ("Accretor") — the adopted native of Georgia used her powers to kill the heel down while Shinobu was able to retrieve the fractured Gift crystal that emerged from Kaetu's corpse before it disintegrated and the knowledge and power of Stone Mountain would be lost forever; the fact that such chalices could be wrecked by weapons forged of ebony meson made them effectively forbidden on a world with scan few social rules and conventions governing its population. Fortunately, thanks to both the Goddess Who Walks Among Men and the Archangel of Mortality, the mesonium vessel containing the Gift and memories of all the incarnations of the Unmovable One throughout the history of the Great Show were shielded from dis-corporation. But before it could be returned to the Great Crystal of Power to await the coming of its next incarnation, Luna Lovegood of all people sent a warning from Hogwarts that it would be Shinobu who would be the one that would welcome the next Stone Mountain into the Great Show.
Even if some felt that the current incarnation of Prophecy was just as kooky as Infinity could be at times, not even Doctor Death had argued about that prediction.
Even if doing that would fly totally against seasons and series of traditions...
Even if there was the tragic example of what happened to Tariko when she was a child and forced to change from being a BOY to become the new Trickster of the Show because her adopted mother had totally forgotten that the Gift of Tuyuki always switched genders between the generations...
If the Far-Seer of the Cosmic Mage Gild had Seen THAT...!
"What about Naru-san?" Chiyo asked.
Shinobu shrugged, then she jolted on hearing a yelp of pain from the Tōdai aspirant echo down from the recreation room; no doubt, she had tried to hit the current incarnation of the Wild Warrior of Passion with one of her punches and nearly wrecked her hand on skin as tough as depleted uranium. "She's still got a crush on her old tutor and finds it pretty uncomfortable that some of the older Avalonian observers here in town are taking a keen interest in Keitarō, even with him still thinking she's his promise girl from when they were children." She sighed. "I'll hate to disappoint the Avalonians in town; Eriko-sensei is my tutor in cram school and she's got a crush on him something awful."
Chiyo chuckled. "Lucky thing we got rid of the observers in and around Tōkyō when Tariko-san's sisters visited her en masse at her school right after the fun we all had with the Niphentaxians; that was right after Yoiko-san confirmed Yotsuba-san's and Marie-san's investigations about who their real father was. There's no one in close range who will be able to warn the crowd in Hinata that we're about to crash their scene." As Shinobu giggled on remembering that — the liberation of the Avalonians had been a Mother of All Fight Scenes to remember, way better than that moronic thing with the Urusians over two centuries ago — the Bright Genius of the Young Guns then sighed. "You have a cake?"
"Cooked exactly to Tariko-sempai's recipe," Shinobu said with a playful wink. "I had to smash the princess on the head a couple times with a skillet to make sure she didn't dare take it for herself. She's not worthy of a Gift given what she really is. Neither are the others; Yiziba would destroy them as thoroughly as it would destroy Ataru-sempai's would be 'girlfriend'." She then gazed in amusement outside. "Once he gets back from shopping, we'll have a private candlelight dinner."
Chiyo grinned at her friend's sense of timing. "Lucky thing I made sure I told Tomo-chan that she could indulge herself on ALL of them. It'll be a good warm-up for tonight's fight scene."
Shinobu laughed...
That evening...
"Where are the other girls, Shinobu-chan?"
Shinobu smiled as she walked over with a tray of food, putting it down on the dining room table. "One of my friends was visiting. She brought a friend with her. The others got snoopy as usual and my friend's friend decided to teach them to mind their own business," she said as she sat across from Urashima Keitarō. "They won't be here tonight, so it's just you and me. Maybe now, they'll understand that they're not as privileged as they've always acted as, especially when it comes to you."
Hearing this, the kanrinin and three-time Tōdai rōnin could only sigh, hoping he wouldn't get a headache on hearing his youngest boarder complain yet again about the other residents. Ever since after he had come here and had done his best to cheer up the youngest girl living at the old hot springs hotel, Shinobu had shown a very stern backbone when it came to dealing with the others. No matter what Motoko or Naru did to make Shinobu see they were just simply protecting her from Keitarō's "perverted" behaviour, the younger woman refused to listen, hitting them back with information gleaned from adults in town about how the neighbours these days wondered if the older residents at the Hinata-sō shouldn't be arrested for multiple charges of assault and battery, often with deadly weapons such as Motoko's sword. Keitarō had tried to help moderate things whenever he could, but neither side would bend. It had gotten worse over the last four months, with Shinobu openly calling for Keitarō to evict the older women if they continued to act like "spoiled brats" and not behave like responsible tenants and proper guests of the Urashima Clan of Hayama. That usually shut people like Motoko and Naru up very quickly and made Mitsune back off from trying to stir up the problem further just for her amusement; the "E" word was the most feared word given their personal problems awaiting them back home. That didn't mention Kaolla, who was becoming more frustrated by the day concerning the fact that Shinobu didn't "play" with her and had moved many times to stop the princess from "playing" with Keitarō; since the princess of Molmol had a good home to fall back to if necessary, evicting her wouldn't be a problem.
"Shinobu-chan..."
"Sempai, please! Enough!" she hissed out as she gave him a weary, exasperated look. "You have a heart as large as the Sun...but there are times that your willingness to help people does a lot more harm than good. You've got to stop trying to blame yourself for the others' problems. It's not your fault they can't respect what Obā-chan decided would happen when you were asked to be kanrinin...even if she should have warned you ahead of time that she had made this place a girl's dorm house!" She shook her head as she sat back in her chair, then moved to serve herself from the food there. "Stop coddling them! They need to understand YOU'RE the kanrinin here. You make the rules here, not them."
He looked at her, then he sighed as he moved to get his own food. Much that his mind agreed to everything Shinobu had said about him, his heart was still locked so much on getting into Tōdai and trying to find his promised girl — which his innermost heart declared was Narusegawa Naru despite his recent discoveries concerning Otohime Mutsumi — to concentrate on the practical issues being the manager of the Hinata-sō forced on his shoulders. Much that he had been grateful to his grandmother for giving him a roof over his head after he was forced out of his family home in nearby Hayama after his second failed attempt at getting into Tōkyō University, he didn't want to do anything that would bring harm to the others now under his charge; it would be a betrayal of all he privately promised his grandmother when he become the dorm manager. Yes, he knew the girls had troubles, even Shinobu. To deny them a place to stay by making the Hinata-sō so inhospitable to them was plain wrong!
Yet...
Wait a minute...
No...!
Could it be...?
"Are you an Avalonian?"
That made Shinobu gasp in surprise as she stared wide-eyed at him before she laughed. "Who told you?! Eriko-sensei?! Was it Toshiko-sempai?! Who?!"
"You ARE an Avalonian?!" Keitarō exclaimed.
That made her laughter increase. "Oh, Forge! No! I'm not! Relax!" she assured him before bursting out into another bout of giggles. "Gods! Keitarō, if I was like Eriko-sensei, I'd have a perverted creep as my 'master' and I'd be bound by some genetic 'loyalty lock' in serving a race of umale who wouldn't understand the concept of 'privacy' if it bit them in the buttocks! And if I was old enough, I'd be a living sex toy for my perverted 'master' and definitely not be living here! Forge! They're WORSE than our resident princess is at times! Gods!" She sipped her tea. "Oh, that's so funny! Me?! An Avalonian?! Ugh! They're very pleasing to the eyes, but no thank you! I got a better Gift than becoming like that!"
He took that in. "What are you then?"
That made her gaze his way. "Someone who met a traveller from a world that Eriko-sensei's 'mistress' is so mortally scared of, she can never hear the name of the planet or the people who live there without having a fatal heart attack," she said with a content smile. "Someone who — when those deadbeats I was born from decided I was just going to be a ping-pong ball in their fight over who got what in the divorce — was comforted by people who are more caring and more understanding than anyone I've ever met, even Obā-chan and you. Someone who inherited a special Gift from the place Raeburn-shōsa's Power Jewel was created that made me so fast, I can penetrate into other dimensions if I don't watch myself!" She hummed. "I hope I'd meet Allen-sensei if I do that again! He was such a nice man..."
His jaw dropped. "You're Yizibajohei?!"
She smirked. "How did you find out? Who told you?"
A wry smile crossed his face. "History books."
That made her blink for a moment as that surprising answer registered in her mind, then she breathed out, breathing a locket of her hair away from her forehead. "Right!" she lamented. "I forgot that Raeburn-chūjō explained where the Power Jewel came from in that interview during the Greater East Asia War after she fought those umale worshipping Übermenschen that one time!"
"So what are you?"
She winked before pulling out what looked like a black slate of metal the size of a paperback novel, that with a silver crystal on the surface. Tapping the crystal, she said, "Chiyo? It's Shinobu. We clear?"
"Just got them rounded up and put on ice, Shinobu-chan!" Takino Tomo called back, the noise of many people screaming and shouting in the background. "Chiyosuke's just telling them that Tariko's made their 'Final Solution' inert, all ready for the big time-switch scene to blow up their 'Army of Lum'." She paused as wails for mercy and screams of holy vengeance then echoed in the background, that followed by "YIZIBA!" from Mihama Chiyo, which turned those shouts into shrieks of mortal terror. "I think they get it now!" the Wild Warrior of Passion then lamented. "How are things with the hunkmeister?"
As Keitarō instantly blushed on realizing that Tomo was actually talking about HIM, Shinobu smiled. "It's a slow and steady seduction scene, Tomo-chan," she admitted, which made his cheeks go nuclear on hearing something so mature from the Mistress of Velocity. "Pity I'm still too young for a proper pillow scene! At least in THIS incarnation, I can finally appreciate something like that!"
"What about ME, Shinobu-chan?!" a girl's voice whined in the background.
That made Shinobu sigh as she drooped her head. Oh, Forge preserve her! She had totally forgot about Kashiwamura Moe, a classmate of hers from Hinata Middle School whom she had pegged to be an Avalonian assistant observer to the small Niphentaxian team in the hot springs town four months ago, sometime after the bioroid factory had been yanked off Phentax Twelve and the Avalonians were liberated. "I'm flattered beyond belief, Moe! Trust me on this! I am! But we Yizibajohei prefer to deal with surei'cha before choosing potential marei'cha; our brains aren't wired like yours is! Let me work on Keitarō here first and let's wait for us to mature more before we do pillow scenes, okay?!"
"You gotta be Gifted first, Moe-san!" Chiyo then chided.
"NO! MOE! YOU MUST REMAIN LOYAL TO THE GODDESS...!"
KK-KRUNCH!
"Whoever did that, thank you!" Keitarō called out. "Eriko-san?!"
"Hai, Keitarō-kun?!" the voice of the ashi'cha of the Hinata Avalonians, Yamamoto Eriko, called back.
"As soon as Shinobu-chan's friends from Yiziba..." He then winced on hearing a chorus of frightened screams echo in the background. "Gods!" he called out. "You sure were right about how they hate hearing that name, Toshiko-chan!" he then noted.
"Toshiko! What did you do?!" a man's fear-filled voice demanded.
"Actually, Tarash-kun, that was my fault!" a new girl's voice said.
"You call it your 'fault', Ayumu-san?!" Shinobu asked.
"Well, since Keitarō-kun wanted to help the girls here move into the Hinata-sō, I did an Infinite Wave a couple weeks ago that broke that silly thing Ganzo-ojiichan wanted out of their bodies!" Kasuga Ayumu admitted. "They've been waiting for us to get down here to get them out of their lives! Sorry, girls!"
Chants of forgiveness and acceptance echoed from many women in the background, that accompanied by more screams of vengeance from the Niphentaxians that the Azuma students just captured. "Well, as I was about to say as Ayumu-san there just effectively confirmed, Eriko-san, as soon as Chiyo-chan's friends can send your 'masters' back to their home planet, you and your sisters can move into the Hinata-sō," Keitarō stated. "Much that I've been willing to admit that I'm happy to do whatever I can to help the people who live here already, I'm having issues paying the bills! I need tenants!"
Laughter filled the airwaves on hearing that as Shinobu's eyes sparkled in anticipation. Much that having Moe come to live here was a good thing — not to mention allowing the other bioroids to come live here as well — she'd have to make very sure the older ones clearly understood that it was HER that would be Urashima Keitarō's future wife once she was mature enough to marry him. Much that Yizibajohei didn't bother with the practice of marriage, Shinobu knew of the whole marei'cha/surei'cha process that governed Avalonians. While it would be a sincere form of flattery to watch Yamamoto Eriko and the others choose him as the future father of their children once the Hinata Avalonians were themselves Yizibajohei, Shinobu intended to win the ultimate fight scene for his heart.
Narusegawa Naru and Otohime Mutsumi didn't know what was about to hit them.
No matter what, you're MINE, Keitarō! I will NOT lose that fight scene!
Fin...For Now!
WRITER'S NOTES
As noted in the header to the first scene, this is set around the time of the Tomobiki Pseudo-War, which is what Mike Smith and I called the events in the latter half of the fourth Yatsura movie, Lum the Forever. In Love Hina continuity, this would be set after Urashima Keitarō failed the Centre Test a third time. Since the main part of The End of the Circus is set in the fall, I'd put this before the Love Hina manga story "A Little Lost Sheep on a Holy Night?!" (manga chapter #52).
Translation list and source language: Tōdai — Short term for "Tōkyō Daigaku" ("Tōkyō University") (Japanese); Rōnin — The classic term for a master-less samurai in the old days, this is now the term used for failed university applicants (Japanese); Bonkura — Slang term often implying one's intelligence, the rough equivalent of the English "dimwit" or "dumbass" (Japanese); Nōdachi — Field sword, a much longer version of a katana (Japanese); Kanrinin — Manager (Japanese); Surei'cha — Literally "the one with whom you have a child", this is the genetic co-parent of one's children in Sagussan society (Sagussan); Marei'cha — Literally "the one with whom you raise a child", this is the prospective parent's life-partner, who does NOT have to be a surei'cha in Sagussan society (Sagussan).
The Hinata Avalonians and their masters were all introduced in my story Avalonians at Hinata-sō, which served as a prequel story for Phoenix From the Ashes.
