Episode 7: Ouen Vendetta

"I have to write this quickly!" Christina shrieks as she grabs her head in frustration. She stares at her laptop again, having already written her first sentence.

"She continues to wait for the man of her destiny," the kanji read.

This is the scene were she meets with the first man... Christina thinks to herself, What should I do next?

The three Agents stood in a wide area of the living room, watching as the aging author rubs her chin in thought, then looks towards each other.

"Guess we should get started then," Morris said.

"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Derek asked.

"It's her decision," J said with a shrug, "Even if that guy didn't want us getting involved, I doubt he can get her to think twice about it." He then places his hands behind his back, "We'll have to talk to Ryu when we're done, see what he has to say about this."

The two back-ups look to each other in worry before placing their hands behind their backs and preparing for their mission. With the first note of the song, they began performing movements disturbing similar to Hayato's bold cheer.

SHAWA bukoware mayonaka
Kura no rimokon nigiri shime
zee zee itteta kyonen no natsu

Now then...how should I work this out? Christina thinks to herself as she stares at her laptop. She can picture a younger version of herself sitting in the meadow, picking flowers from a rose.

Waiting for the man of her destiny, she calmly sits; picking peddles to pass the time. She longs for the day that he gazes upon her eyes and becomes mesmerized by her beauty and wonder.

BAIKU no menkyo hoshii na
Soshitara BAIKU mo hoshii na demo
Kekkyoku uda uda shiteta ototoshi no natsu

Suddenly...off in the distance, a man wanders by. At first, he doesn't notice her, but then when he turns to look... Christina drools romantically as her idea began to expand the more she thought about what to write, Instantaneously, his eyes lock onto her, his heart races as he moves towards her, waving as he did. She eventually catches sight of him and, just like him, her heart races as well!

BAKANSU tte kotoba no hanbun wa baka baka baka
Douse baka nara genki na baka ga ii

Christina is interrupted by the sound of her doorbell ringing. She looks over to the door to see a young chef holding a box full of bottles come through.

"Soba delivery," He said, "Sorry it took so long." Christina immediately jumps up and shoots steam from her nose in inspiration.

"Soba!" her mind rings, picturing the delivery man as a handsome, young man with brown hair, wearing a black suit and carrying a gift in his hand. Invigorated, she began clacking away at her laptop as sentences began to form on her screen.

"Come near me," the first chapter title read, "He embraced me with his freshness like fresh soba noodles; what strength. Unable to endure it, I fainted."

"I can write!" Christina exclaims as she continues to write her chapter, "I can write!"

She stops after a minute, staring at her screen again as the sentence, "Her first kiss is probably today..." flashes on her screen.

A normal love scene won't cut it! She thinks to herself.

BABY
BANG! BANG! BANG! Hadashi de GO NOW
Jinrui no shinka ni sakaratte

Needs to be more breathtaking... Christina thinks to herself, picturing her first two characters strolling through the beach, seeming dull and uninterested in everything around them.

After a long day frolicking in the meadow, we decided to stroll along the shores of the beach. I stare at the man who fell for my charms, shy and nervous. What can I do to show my love for him? I can't just flat out scream "marry me". Not only would it sound embarrassing, but it would scare him into running away in fright. I must find the courage within myself to express my feelings and show him how much he means to me.

BABY
BANG! BANG! BANG! Oh! Bakazura de
SUUTSU de umi ni tobi konde
Saa taiyou to uchi awase shiyou

I took a deep breath, clenching my folded hands towards my heart pounding chest as I move closer to him. He seemed to sense that I wanted something and turns around. I was silent at first, unsure of what to say. But he seemed to understand my feelings and clutched my hands gently and pulled me into his arms.

His embrace created a warm sensation so comforting I couldn't help but let him lead me around the beach as though it were a dance floor. Truly, he is the love of my life and I wish it to be forever.

Christina is interrupted by the sound of her window unlocking. Glancing over to it, a cat burglar jumps into her room, chortling sinisterly.

"Hey! I'm a thief!" he shouts.

This would've been a nightmare for victims of house robberies. But all Christina saw in the thief is another inspiration to her story.

"Awesome! I'm enchanted!" she screams, picturing the thief as a dastardly villain, draped in a black cape and wearing a mask and top hat.

"I'm here to steal your heart!" the villain snickers. Love struck, Christina began clacking away at her laptop again.

"Finally, I am an ex-convict," her story read as she pictures her younger self being pulled into a kiss by the villain, to the heartbroken dismay of her first love, "But, but... You are the henchmen of love, and your heart is the wanted suspect I'm looking for! It was then that the fight over me between men had begun..."

Christina stops again, hugging herself romantically, "Alas! I am a sinful woman!"

Otokomae da ne Kimura-kun
Atari mae da yo Maeda-san
Maeda-san nante uchi ni wa inai (maji de?)

As I was being whisked away by my devious love, I saw another man appear before us. A strong soldier with a red helmet and vest who thought I was being kidnapped and immediately took arms. I stood back and watched as my dastardly love pulls his sword out and begins clashing swords with the man attempting to rescue me.

BAIKU no menkyo hoshii na (mada itten no?)
Dakedo haisha e mo ikanakya demo
Kekkyoku uda uda shisou kotoshi no natsu mo

My dastardly love was enraged. He had performed his best moves and the chivalrous man merely dodged and blocked them. The two began to get serious, coming at each other, full force and throwing swings that were blocked with the sounds of metal clashing with metal. Once again, my heart races, watching these two fight for the sake of holding me in their arms; my dastard love out of lust, while the warrior an act of bravery and justice.

"Keikaku doori nanka sumanai"
Sore ga baka no BAKANSU
Uchi ni tsuku made genki na baka de ii

The doorbell rings again, grabbing Christina's attention as she turns to see a man walk in, holding a fish.

"Express home delivery!" he shouts. Steam shot out of Christina's nose as another inspiring idea enters her head, imagining the man as the hero who fells the villain and holds him, incapacitated, in his hands.

"Love is power!" the warrior said as he drops the villain and walks over to the young Christina, taking her into his arms.

"The image of love won't stop!" she cries, running her hands on the keyboards some more.

"And then, I was snatched away," it read, "I'm sorry, men who loved me. My heart and body are different things. Already, I'm a sniper for love. The men I aim for will not escape."

"I am love!" she sobs happily as she hugs herself, "And love is me!"

BABY
BANG! BANG! BANG! Hadashi de GO NOW
SANGURASU atama ni nokkechatte

It was now a three-way battle for my heart. The handsome man, drawn to me by my loving charm; the devious man, who swept me off my feet and took me into his dark, lustful arms; and the warrior, who tried to save me through bravery and chivalry, fired up by my beauty. I watched joyously as they took arms and came at each other, swinging, clashing and pushing each other into submission. Who will win my heart, who will go home defeated and depressed. Only the future knows...and even I cannot sway it to reveal its secrets.

BABY
BANG! BANG! BANG! Oh! Bakazura de
T-SHATSU no suso musunjatte
Saa shashin wa kihon V-SAIN
De koukai to hansei ga omiyage

The book goes on sale later that day. In an instant, all copies vanished like water as a record breaking 100,000,000 copies reached the homes of eager readers around the world.

"Sensei!" several reporters shouted, "A word from your fans!"

Christina shrieks with love as her lustful imagination turns the reporters into dashing young men, each holding a bouquet of roses.

"A word from your love slaves!" they all shout.

Christina giggles as she places a finger on her lips, "Novels are..." she began before blowing a kiss to her vivid imagination, "Simpler than love!"

"This has been a frightening day for us..." Tsuyoshi mumbles as he, Kenshin and Hayato wandered down the sidewalk, "First Kikuchi-sama disappears, and now we have another Western Ouendan making fools of us."

"At this rate, we'll never be able to maintain our reliability in this city," Kenshin sighs, "Maybe we should've started somewhere less troublesome and work our way up the ranks."

Hayato growls, about to say something when he saw Morris, J and Derek climb into a black convertible down the street. His frown tightens in anger as he began marching towards them.

"Do you think anyone's still there?" Morris asked, "For all we know, they could've gone to bed by now."

"Let's check around base," J said, "I'm sure they're still up and about, doing something to occupy themselves."

J presses a button next to the monitor, waiting a few minutes before the screen flickered on, showing the simulative meadow and several occupants sitting around a large picnic. The dogs play fought and groomed each other while the rest sat around the picnic, talking among themselves.

A split second after observing the scene before him, the five dogs jerk their heads up and made a dash towards him.

"Mr. J! Mr. J!" Sabin howls as the five threw their front paws on the holographic screen.

"It's Mr. J!" Lava yips, "He's come to see us!"

"Yo, J!" Spin shouts as the rest of the group turns to the monitor, "What's happenin' dawg!"

"Just fine," J said as he rests his elbows on his knees and looks towards the dogs wagging their tails, "And how about you? Did you behave yourselves while I was gone?"

"Of course, Mr. J!" Mecho barks.

"We were bored at one point!" Diablo said.

"But Ms. Kanda showed up and let us play tag with her!" Vixie yips.

"Wow! That sounds like fun!" J chuckles.

"So, what've you been up to lately?" Spin asked.

"You wouldn't believe the morning we had," J said, "I was just wandering through Asahi with Morris and Derek, deciding what we should do to pass the time. Then this funny old woman shows up and begs us to help her write her next story. She seemed really desperate, so we decided to accept her help."

Shinta suddenly spits out a mouth full of soda and stares at the monitor in shock, "You what!?"

"What? Is that bad?" Lava asked as J suddenly glances towards Shinta in surprise. Spin then turns his gaze back to J.

"This might sound a little awkward," he mutters, "But you didn't happen to run into oppositions, did you?"

"Huh..." J mutters, sitting back, "Well...now that you mentioned i-" before he could finish, a hand shoves him away from the monitor as Hayato stuck his face into it.

"KISAMA!!" he roars. The five dogs freak out and ran behind Spin, pulling their tails between their legs and shaking in fright while everyone else, save Ryuta, stares at Hayato in shock.

"Howerr! What was that!?" Sabin whines.

"He's scarier than Mr. Chieftain!" yelps Vixie.

"W-wait a minute!" Spin stutters, shaken by Hayato's sudden intrusion, "There's a logical explanation for th-"

"Don't even try to give me that, sleazebags!" Hayato snaps, "You think you have the right to just show up, take away everything we worked our blood and sweat off to achieve, and act like everyone would accept you over us!?"

"I don't know, why don't you tell us?" Ryuta snorts as he picks up a small tomato from his bento and tosses it into his mouth. Hayato shoots his glare towards him.

"What was that!?" he growls as Ryuta chews and swallows the tomato.

"You know what I'm talking about," Ryuta said, eyeing Hayato, "Your rival spirit has led you to think the only way to assert yourself into this city is by responding to every call that comes out a person's mouth. I believe the Japanese word for 'hypocrite' is 'nisekunshi'."

Hayato grits his teeth in anger, "Mou oshi! You don't even care that these bastards are ridiculing our tradition and stealing those who've relied on us for centuries!?"

"You're the one who's blind and dumb, thinking Asahi would start relying on you just because you showed up and made everyone turn to you for help. You neglected to realize that those people have a right to choose which Ouendan should encourage them to fight their problems. If they want someone else to cheer for them, we aren't at liberty to force them to change their minds."

Hayato's growling increased, "If you want to dwindle yourselves to word of mouth, that's your problem! But as long as Noble's in charge of this town, people will still come to us for encouragement and aide!" Ryuta's frown increases in unexpressed frustration, "I catch another one of you coming here to do more than everyday activities, I'll see to it that you return to your side of the city with shattered pieces of your pride!" he then hits something off-screen, causing it to vanish.

The entire picnic fell silent as everyone stared at where the screen was. Spin looks over to Ryuta after a minute.

"So now what?" he asked, "That guy sounded serious about tryin' to get rid of us."

"Explaining didn't seem to help much," Ryuta sighed, "We may have no choice but to heed his demands and stay out of their business until they understand the true meaning of dependency."

Shinta compresses his lips in worry as he looks down at the can of soda in his hand.

"Was that really necessary!?" J exclaims as Hayato stood up from his position beside the convertible, "I was going to apologize to you for what happened earlier!"

"Spare me your sympathy!" Hayato snorts, pulling his right glove off, "You think a simple apology is going to wash away the humiliation you gave Noble when we were tossed aside like a piece of trash!?"

"Wha'cha want us to do about it!?" Morris retorts, "We can't just ignore her after she dropped down on her hands 'n knees and begged us to inspire her."

"Staying out would've saved you from becoming another thorn on our side! But since you deliberately waltzed into our territory and treated it like your own backyard, you just invited yourself into our vendetta!"

"Vendetta?" J mutters before Hayato took the glove he pulled from his right hand and slaps it across his face. The impact jerked the BA-2's face to side; a red mark growing on his cheek.

"Hey! What's the deal!?" Derek yelps as he and Morris leaned back in shock.

"I'm sure you remember the old American tradition of declaring a duel," Hayato said, slipping his glove back over his right hand, "Think if it as a reminder of what's going to happen when our paths cross again!" he then turns around and walks off, leaving the three Agents to stare at him, dumbfounded and confused.

Shinta wanders into the dining room of the houseboat the next morning, buttoning his blue coat. He opens the fridge door and rummages through it until he finds a bowl of left over, diced fruit. Not having much of an appetite, he takes the bowl out and heads over to the table to eat.

After chewing on a couple cubes of cantaloupe and a watermelon, Shinta notices a blue laptop sitting near the center of the table with the crest of Noble glued on the center. He eyes around the room before pulling the laptop towards him, opening and powering it up. Activating an internet browser, he types down "urban dictionary" in the address bar, causing a website to appear with the exact name written on top. He immediately drops the toothpick he used to pick up the fruit cubes upon seeing the large list of words taking up most of the screen.

"Hayato read through all this!?" he nearly yelps. Shinta compresses his lips as he starts hitting the random button to see how many words he could learn. Three definitions into the site, Honoka pops up beside him with an impatient look on her face.

"Shinta-kun! I wanna check my e-mail!" she whines. She glances over Shinta's shoulder a second before snatching the laptop from him, "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!! Are these new English words!?"

Shinta tries to explain as Rin and Reika enter the room, overhearing Honoka's gleeful squeal. Upon seeing the website, they crowd around the orange haired Noble Girl, flooding the room with giggles and talk about how some of the words sounded strange to them. Shinta tries to cut in but their loud chattering was thicker than the flesh on their body, forcing him to just sit back and watch in worry.

Suddenly, a hand slams the laptop shut, startling everyone in the room as they stumble away from the table. They turn heads to see Hayato almost tower over them with an aggravated look on his face. Rin, Reika and Shinta shudder in fright while Honoka waves cheerfully to the Noble leader.

"Hi, Haya-kun!" she shouts, "What up, dawg!"

Hayato practically explodes it anger as he nearly gets into everyone's faces, "Don't you dare talk to me in that language!" Everyone but Honoka increased in shuddering as she just stares at him like a curious child.

"But we're learning a new English language," she said bringing her fists up to her shoulders excitedly, "I couldn't wait to try it out to the first person I speak to!"

Hayato yanks the laptop up with one hand, his anger increasing, "You are NOT learning a new language! These are just a bunch of blatant obscenities Americans think would make them look cool if they treat them like compliments!"

"So Haji-kun was right," Shinta said, "You have stumbled across the Urban Dictionary and read the entire site like a kid's story."

Hayato eyes Shinta in annoyance before stuffing the laptop under his arm, "Dragging you to another country and coaxing you into their little gang isn't enough; so they want you to start talking like them!? What next; they hand you a microphone and expect you to dance and sing like a crazed lunatic!"

"B-but what if there was a reason for our rivals learning this kind of slang?" Shinta retorts nervously, "I mean... Tokyo's the largest tourist attraction in Japan. If even the Ouendan lacking in the English language has to at least understand the meaning of urban slang, it must mean a majority the western foreigners would actually uses these words and not even care if anyone calls them offenders out of misunderstanding."

Hayato continues to glare at Shinta before reluctantly slapping the laptop back on the table, "Fine then. But you're only allowed to understand these words! I don't want any of you even THINKING about speaking these slang to ANYONE!" he gives the group one more glance before heading into another room.

The room became silent a few minutes before Honoka threw her arms into the air with delight, "Yata! Now we can learn this new language without worrying about Haya-kun trying to stop us!" she scoops up the laptop and rushes off into another room. Rin and Reika look to each other before heading off after her, leaving Shinta alone in the dining room.

The rookie Noble sat in his seat a while, feeling anxious about the sudden change in atmosphere ever since his return from EBA Central. He knew they were more than upset by how even a couple members of Ouen were mucking up his assertion into the squad and the city they moved to. But after what happened yesterday, he couldn't think of anything but how rotten he felt almost shoving their generosity into their faces after all they did to try and help get him back on his feet.

Shinta stares at what fruit cubes were left in his bowl, thinking more on what had happened when Noble first showed up and got bombarded with facts they had no clue were going to exist in Tokyo; the way he lashed out when Spin tried to be friends with him; and how Hayato worsened the situation by blaming EBA and Ouen for unintentionally stomping all over their territory.

Sighing stressfully, he gets up and heads out of the boat, deciding to just wander around the city and straighten out his thoughts while deciding what he should be doing to benefit his and Noble's time spent in Tokyo.

Meanwhile, in the north-east sector of Asahi Town, Zaiko Company, a shoe wholesale store, is brimming with activity. Zaiko Santarou, the owner of the store, looks through some bills he recently picked up.

"Eh...Now to start calculations," he mutters, "Stocking is 5,000,000 yen, plus cost of fuel and lights, 200,000 yen." His wife sits at her desk, counting up the totals on her abacus as he continues calculation, "Rent is 150,000 yen, and my hairpiece is 200,000 yen; equaling..."

"The cost of your hairpiece means nothing, you idiot!" the wife shouts, socking Zaiko in the jaw. She then picks up a pair of red, oddly buckled sneakers, staring at them in frustration, "Most of the stock is from these strange looking sneakers!" she points to a towering shelf full boxes containing the same footwear, "If we can't sell a mountain of these, we'll be deep in red!"

"Take it easy!" Zaiko mutters nervously as he takes a cloth out and dabs the sweat from his cheeks, "If you are right, then these shoes won't even catch the eyes of aliens!"

"Aliens..." the wife mutters in thought before her eyes sparkle in realization, "That's it!"

"Huh?" Zaiko mutters, his nervousness increasing.

The next thing Zaiko knew, he was stuffed in an astronaut suit and crammed in the pilot seat of a shuttlecraft. He shakes with fright as the engines start to burn, preparing the ship for lift off.

"I shouldn't have said those things..." he mutters amidst the chattering of his teeth, both from his fears and the jostling of the shuttle reaching lift-off.

"Otou-chan," calls a voice from the monitor in front of Zaiko. He glances up to see his wife and newborn child staring at him rather greedily.

"I took out a loan and bought you a departing ticket," she began before thrusting her finger at the screen, her face twisted in anger, "But if you don't sell any shoes, you'll get no return ticket!"

Zaiko's anxiety practically shoots through the roof as the shuttle finally bursts to life, blasting him straight into space. As he frets the outcome of his impending doom, he instinctively begins stuttering one word that could save him and his company from an immediate shut down, "O...O..."

OUENDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!

End Notes:

1. The whole scene where soba led to a guy swaying Christina is supposed to be a pun off of the word "soba" meaning "come near me" in Japanese
2. "Kisama" is a Japanese term of vulgerly cursing someone of hatred or annoyance.
3. There were two Japanese kanji for "hypocrite". I chose "nisekunshi" because it also means "snob", which Ryuta used to insult Hayato's lack of definition of "dependency".
4. "Otou-chan" is the wife's term of adressing her husband.