Beelzebub adventures chapter 20
The SS Yogurty headed straight towards a big island with white beaches and blue vegetation. It's only crewmember, a 22 year old, blond man named Hajime Kanzaki, stood bored.
Sipping a peach flavored yoghurt, the first flavored kind he got a liking to, he drifted from side to side of the ship's deck.
"This shit doesn't even make sense. At least I hope this stupid dream is not too boring." Kanzaki said while tossing away the empty yoghurt box.
After a few seconds, the ship ran aground on sand. As Kanzaki hopped down, a mob of people who (as expected) looked like clones of Oga and the Gang with different hair colors.
"Please, dear stranger, help us! We're on the verge of destruction?'' Dream Oga begged.
"What the hell's wrong?" Kanzaki asks with his usual attitude.
"The Kraka-peach is about to erupt after two hundred years and there's no time to evacuate!" Dream Shiroyama exclaimed.
"But I don't recall seeing even smoke coming out from the mountain a couple minutes ago…oh, there it is." Unamused, Kanzaki stared at the peak of the Volcano suddenly engulfed in flames, roaring. "Ok, folks, just don't screech too much while I handle this. You can cheer me, however."
Smirking, the blond man waited for the last moment, when the peak suddenly erupted, orange magma and black smoke blackening the sky and lighting the ground at the same time. Kanzaki grabbed the ship with newly found strength and threw it up one thousand feet in the air. Following an ample parable, the boat landed inside the volcano crater. The whole vehicle started to melt, until it completely sealed the crater under a hermetic and solid plug.
The crowd stood amazed and speechless for a few seconds before roaring in joy and carrying Kanzaki over their shoulders. A sudden and unwanted contact of hands between his legs drew his attention to his nether regions, where a female hand he recognized was fondling him.
"Senpai! I knew you would make it! You're the shit! Please go out with me!" Dream Yuka exclaimed.
Creeped out by the also recognizable female voice, he hopped down from the arms of the mob and grabbed the arm of the girl.
"What's wrong senpai? Oh…sorry, I overstepped. It was just the excitement, but…please, would you…The orange pompadour protruding over her forehead, the green glasses, the long face and square jaw placed over the neck and body of Yuka were enough to completely freak out Kanzaki to the point of screaming to the top of his lungs and wake up everyone on the camp.
…
"As if it wasn't enough to have to endure your stench and share my breathing air with you, now I also have to endure your faggot screams?" Himekawa said after throwing a backpack to his face.
"Hey love birds! Unlike you, we're actually trying to sleep!" Nene shouted.
"If you don't shut up right now, I'm using one of my tissues to make your sorry asses fly all the way to the top of the Ishiyama Hill!" Furuichi screamed to the top of his lungs.
Annoyed, Kanzaki left himself fall back to the sleeping back. Not being the kind of man who obsessed over dreams, too tired for any brawl and too scared of Furuichi's tissues to attempt to engage Himekawa, he closed his eyes and drifted back to Morpheus's arms.
…
"Well, Kanzaki senpai, no need to worry, since we're not heading anywhere with volcanoes." Yuka happily said.
"I wish we headed somewhere like that so I can throw Duck Butt in." Kanzaki said while eating his bowl of corn flakes with yoghurt.
"You should take a bath in the magma instead. The dirt on your skin will protect you from burns at first before falling off. Ohh, and maybe your feet will not smell as shitty either." The Pompadour playboy answered.
"Where are we going today, Tojo?" Nene asked.
"A place Kanzaki will sure love." Tojo answered.
"What are you talking about?" Kanzaki asked with interest.
"Sorry man, it's a surprise." Tojo said smiling.
"Come on, don't fuck with me. Where the hell are we going?" Kanzaki angrily asked.
"You'll thank me later." Tojo said while putting another jar of orange juice on the table.
"Talking about surprises, it's amazing Nee-san finished a second night with Oga and nothing happened.'' Yuka said while hugging Kunieda, who sat right next to Oga. After Kunieda death stared her, she quickly clarified. "I mean, I thought she was going to freak out and squeal at any moment, but it seems you slept very well."
"Glad to see this Ogre behaves so far." Nene said.
"Nee San, does he sleep bare chested?" Chiaki asked.
Everyone stopped chewing their food while staring at Chiaki's question. Oga, under his mask of coldness, felt uneasy, barely able to understand the fact that the once quiet and calm girl was now the temperamental last leader of the Red Tails.
Kunieda laughed nervously and did the best she could to answer. "Yes, he does… and well…that doesn't bother me…"
"Why would that bother you? Must be a cute sight." Chiaki said.
Chuckles started to sound all along the table. Kunieda kept her cool and handled the situation, trying to defuse the situation by channeling to someone else. "Kouta, I heard squeaking from your tent. What were you doing?"
"Don't blame me, sis. Beel and Futaba would not stop talking and playing around." Kouta answered.
Pieces of food fell down from Kunieda and Kanzaki's mouths, wide open in gasp.
"Hey, you adult scum, don't think we're filthy as you! We just wrestle and chat a bit, what's wrong with that?" Futaba replied, indignant.
"You hugged me and taunt me while you're on top, so they're not too far off..." Beel said grinning.
"Hey! I'm a Yakuza lady after all, and I won't overstep in such a way until we're married, Beelzebub Kaiser Oga! Wonder where you got that lewd imagination from…" Futaba wondered.
Oga laughed to himself.
"So classy." Natsume remarked, amused.
The rest of the meal time continued as usual, until the youngsters finished eating and headed to wash their dishes in the pond Tojo had prepared. After twenty minutes, everyone was on the bus and heading to their mysterious destination.
…
After three hours of travel, saying the Gang was impatient was an understatement.
Kanzaki's ''Are we there yet'' were first mocked by the rest, but as the hours passed, the other youngsters could no longer hide their annoyance.
Finally, metallic large structures started to appear on the horizon. They were only halfway up when Kanzaki suddenly exploded in joy, being able to recognize on of the places he wished to visit the most on Earth. The rest of the gang could barely believe the change of character of their friend.
"Tojo, I…love you… motherfucker…" Kanzaki said.
"Thank me later. Now brace yourself…" Tojo couldn't finish his line before Kanzaki hopped down from the bus and run all the remaining distance towards the factory, leaving a cloud of dust and footprints in fire.
"Oh, look at that power and passion, so much wasted potential…" Yuka mumbled in a tone that left everyone looking at her in awe.
…
The bus stopped at the parking lot of the factory four minutes after Kanzaki hopped off. The blonde man was nowhere to be found while the Gang came down. The place was already full of other vehicles, both buses and family cars with people hopping in and out.
"Can't remember the last time my ass was this numb, but looking it this way, this could be an interesting opportunity to analyze this business." Himekawa said.
"Believe me, it will." Tojo agreed.
"Didn't know this place offered tours." Kunieda remarked.
"They offered them quite a long time ago, but they only started promoting it seriously a couple years ago." Tojo stated.
"Do they offer free samples?" Futaba, Beel and Kouta asked in unison.
"This would not be a tour if they didn't." Tojo added while everyone headed to the entrance, where a security guard performed the check in and notified his colleagues inside.
A couple minutes later, they met a man dressed in a weird costume consisting in a head covering shaped like the giant top of a Yogurty box and a blue overalls. Following him, Kanzaki, wearing the same top on his head, sucked from a yoghurt sample, his eyes wide open and his body shaking in excitement.
"Hello everyone! Glad to meet you all! My name is Akihiro, and I'll be your guide in this tour." His dark and big eyes stared at everyone full of joy, his voice tone and diction reflecting routine and spontaneity combined. "Your friend here, so far, has been our most enthusiastic visitor, and believe me, he's not the first fan that lands in our factory, as you can see." Akihiro pointed around, where several people with box top over their heads and sucking from yoghurt boxes walked around.
"Hey blondie, I bet even these normies would lecture you about physics!" Himekawa said.
"Don't be so rude." Chiaki said punching his arm, to his disbelief.
"Do you think those lame ass taunts affect me? Try again, duck butt." Kanzaki said smiling.
"For this guy to ignore Himekawa's taunts he surely must be quite in a good mood." Furuichi remarked.
"Of course he is, and you'll all be the same by the end of the tour. Now, everyone can follow me." Akihiro asked politely.
The kids were the first going in, followed by the grown ups. Oga didn't bother too much about Beel. Kunieda ran after Kouta before he went too far, while Kanzaki grabbed Futaba firmly by the hand.
"Come on, baby girl. Prepare your little eyes to see wonders." Kanzaki happily said.
"Don't hold my hand! And I'm not a baby!" Futaba angrily yelled.
The joy in Kanzaki's eyes left the little girl astounded. The gang followed the blonde man and the guide inside.
After they reached the end of the entry hall, a front desk led them to the museum. Amazed at the sight of a place that seemed more suited to a site of historical importance, they joined a crowd of people who stood to see big photographs of the first Yogurty factories in the early days of the company, which was founded in 1964. White marble statues of workers stood at both sides of scale models of the first factory buildings. The children were particularly amused at the one that showed two scientists working around a table that simulated the creation process of the first successful recipe. Other statues represented key moments in the history of the company, such as founder Keizuke Kato signing his first international contract to sell his product to Mexico.
Enclosed in crystal, the visitors could see the first yoghurt box designs and their evolution.
"What are those old sheets of paper doing there?" Futaba asked.
"Those are…"
"Those are not just sheets of paper, those are the first drafts Kato sama drew himself for the first box designs. This one shows his first recipe." Kanzaki interrupted Akihiro for the tenth time, reciting the information with a passion they had never seen on him.
"Amazing, Hajime, you could easily work here. Just a bit more practice on diction and a bit more of charisma and you could work here." Akihirio happily complimented.
"I would if my stupid dad didn't want me to help my brother in my family business….Oh god, this note is part of Kato sama's journal, and describes his worst moments of tension, when he feared his company was going to failed and was seriously considering suicide. It even has some blood droplets, for fuck's sake…" Kanzaki said.
"Jeez man, chill out, Kato sama is alive, as far as I know. Besides, you're making people nervous." Akihiro said.
The trip left the museum and continued through the factory, where visitors were shown (with some key restrictions), the process of the making of the number one Yoghurt brand of Japan and the third in the world. After several amusing situations such which Kouta or Beel tried tightrope walks on the handrails of the bridges that passed over huge containers of boiling milk or Shiroyama suddenly getting lost inside a jungle of pipes, and Kanzaki suddenly disappearing with Yuka due to the former suddenly asking her to take pictures of him posing with the statues, the Gang finally reached the end of the tour for the moment most waited for, the gift shop.
The store was built in the fashion of a mall shop, with window displays. The huge interior, a parlor offering every imaginable yoghurt flavor and shelves with Yougurty merchandise most of the Gang never imagined existed: key rings, stuffed toys, action figures and dolls, shirts, partial or full costumes, caps, backpacks, purses, and even pepper spray. Before they realized, Kanzaki was already stuffing everything he could inside store bags.
"Hey, you owe me at least a couple of yogurty after the shit ton of photos I had to take for you, Kanzaki sama.'' Yuka said smirking.
"I don't owe you shit." Kanzaki said continue looking around the gift shop.
"Oh come on, just a sip. I know you don't like banana flavor, so gimme dat oneeee." Yuka insisted, leaning on his back, the blonde man shaking her away while being chased. Natsume, Himekawa and Furuichi chuckled.
''Listen carefully, Aoi. Your little friend could teach you a couple things on how to approach a man.'' Chibi Aoi told her grown up host, the latter shutting her.
"This purses sure look cute for the price." Chiaki commented to Nene,
"Dad, please…" Beel begged.
"Forget it, kid. Not buying you something that makes you look retarded." Oga said when seeing Beel sporting a Yoghurty box costume.
"Well… you could buy him this shirt." Kunieda told him, showing a sport tank top, unable to hide her nervousness.
Before Oga could answer, the sound of an alarm shocked everyone. The crowd in the store looked at their surroundings in increasing horror.
"Dear visitors, we're having safety issues. Please, stay calm and follow your guides to the emergency exits immediately. Please, stay calm." The speakers on the ceiling instructed. After replying through his walkie talkie, Akihiro instructed the dumbfounded members of the gang to follow another guide in the store while he went to look for the guards.
"Guards? Well, seems the real fun is about to begin." Tojo remarked smirking.
"A mall jacking? In Japan? Talking about outliers…."Nene added.
"More like a factory jacking. Whatever, seems our tour will have an explosive endi…"
The ceiling suddenly collapsed. When the smoked cleared, fifteen men in combat gear had surrounded them. One of them was holding Oga from behind, with a knife on his throat. Another man did the same with Yuka. The rest of the gang were being aimed by a squadron armed with submachine guns and shotguns, standing at a cautious distance.
"Ok folks. I'll be reasonable and ask you to leave your wallets on the ground and leave this place fast. We're not interested in you, so just cooperate and let's finish this quick."
"I wonder why the hell we stood motionless like morons when we have hypersonic reflex feats." Furuichi remarked.
"I'm just bored. One shooting every enemy can get a bit repetitive." Oga said from his position.
"Quiet!" His captor ordered.
"Ok, isn't this the moment we just shake them away?" Natsume asked smirking.
"You shut up…"
Before he could finish his line, Oga bit the knife away from his captor's hand, chewed it to pieces, and sent the man flying with a back elbow. The rest of the squad started shooting to no use, being neutralized in less than ten seconds by the group of meta humans. Beel electro shocked two of them while Chiaki shot each one of them on the head after the rest of the gang disarmed them. One of them, however, sent Kanzaki flying through the front crystals with a punch. The bruised and cut blond man stood up and charged back, exchanging several blows with his attacker, which was clearly the only superhuman member of his squad. Sporting ling hair in bangs, a bandana covering his mouth and red star patches on his vest, he looked like a weird cosplayer. His skills with his fists and legs were, however, undisputable. After kicking him back into the store, the man landed over Yuka, who could not step away in time. Standing up before her, he out grappled her and grabbed her from behind, pointing a gun to her head. Nodding at a store bag in the floor near them, he spoke, sighing.
"Now….for the last time …put the cash inside that bag. Don't chase after me. Do it or she's dead meat."
Yuka looked strangely calm. Kanzaki looked at Chiaki, who nodded in response.
"Ok then, you can take my wallet first." Kanzaki threw an object to his head in a slow parable. Before the man could realize it was actually a Yogurty box, he flinched and relaxed his hold. It was enough for Yuka to bite a chunk of flesh out of his left hand. Chiaki shot at the gun on his other hand while Yuka grabbed the man and Supplex him head first to the ground.
The battle of the Yogurty gift shop was over. Akihirio and ten armed guards arrived seconds later. Speechless, the tour guide stared at his guests in awe. He finally recovered his speech after one of the guards shook him by the shoulder.
"Ohh man…who would guess you and your gang would save the day, Kanzaki? Well, this only means good news for you." Akihirio said.
"Sure they do." A short, elderly man, escorted by another group of armed guards arrived on the scene. His thin gray hair, combed backwards, gave way to a gigantic and shiny forehead. The thick eyebrows above his big eyes stared at the gang with curiosity. A smile suddenly appeared on his face.
Kanzaki, mouth wide open, tried to babble. "Kakakaka-Kato sama. It…it can't be you…"
"Oh, you're not dreaming, young man."
"Is that…." Yuka asked.
"He is, Yuka." Kunieda replied.
"Well, since you already know who I am, and you already know I'm more than grateful to you for saving my property, let's proceed to the rewards I'm giving to you. Now, for this handsome folk, you'll get to taste, two liter bottle free sample of my newest flavor and coupons for a lifetime." Kanzaki fell to the floor, sobbing in joy. Helping him back to his feet, Kato also awarded him with an autographed photographed of himself. The scene showed him holding the first Yogurty box after winning his first national competition. You already know all the pain and story behind this picture. Hope it motivates you to be great one day."
"Th-th-thank you sir." Kanzaki said wiping his tears.
"I never thought I would get to see him so emotional…guess I can't mock him this time." Himekawa said adjusting his glasses.
"Trying to hide the manly tears, Himekawa?" Nene said joking, the Pompadour wearer just smiling in reply.
"And for the rest of you, I guess a fifty percent discount on all the merchandise you want to take home and on every yoghurt purchase you make from now on will be enough, right?"
"Please sir! Convince my dad of buying me this costume!" Beel shouted holding the Yogurty white top.
Everyone except Oga laughed. "Like I said earlier, you're not getting that damn costume!"