Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written fiction, the views and opinions in this story are not intended to be viewed as those of the author. Ranma 1/2, Urusei Yatsura, Inuyasha, and Five Pound Gospel are the creations of Rumiko Takahashi, property of their respective rights holders and publishers. Please support the official releases.
CW: This story will contain violence, strong language, sexual humor and situations, drug use, Moroboshi Ataru, and Happosai. You've been warned.
|The Fenced-in School of Beasts|
Tomobiki High School was a place that always had a little infamy. Long before Moroboshi Ataru walked these halls, before he and all his friends were even born, it was already a place that struggled to maintain order. Its students weren't just known for being unruly and defiant, they were outright rebellious, little more than beasts shaved of their fur and stuffed into clothes, waging a conflict with beleaguered faculty and staff that passed on from one generation of students to the next without fail.
The Oni invasion, Ataru's victory over it, and walling off of the Nerima Ward as part of the wheeling and dealing that followed didn't change things much. Though separated from the country, the schools within the Special Administration District and the students attending them were still under the care of Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology until their graduation or dismissal, whichever came first.
No teacher employed at Tomobiki High School was happy about that, and the students even less. So they took it out on each other as another drumbeat to the school's endless waltz–exacerbated by the machinations of idiot students with the wealth and now the freedom to make their delusions seem real as possible.
Enter from stage right Mendō Shuutaro; the heir of the Mendō Zaibatsu which owned a simple majority of land in Japan. While he was a student of Tomobiki like the rest of them–he fashioned himself a wealthy, cultured, and sophisticated young man of high breeding who lavished young women with his fortune while disparaging his male peers. He also made himself readily available to the faculty as a collaborator in their conflict with the students, earning their approval to exert authority on his classmates.
As such, he was unpopular with just over half the school and shamelessly proud of it.
This fine morning, with a sky clear except for the occasional alien and drone, Mendō was hard at work, plotting with the faculty over a burgeoning problem at their school. He stood before the assembled teachers and staff of the school in a darkened meeting room, beside a whiteboard. Projected onto the whiteboard by an expensive film projector were images taken by drone or the odd peon, depicting the students of Tomobiki happily mingling outside of the school.
"Yes, you have seen it before." The handsome and debonair young man, dressed in a crisp white uniform and his jet-black hair slicked back for the occasion to give him a more authoritative look, spoke with a confident eloquence years ahead of him. "Every day for since the beginning of the term as they have the term before, the students have been engaging in a particular egregious delinquent behavior."
The picture displayed the image of Ataru flirting with girls from St. Hebereke as they all sat on the stools of a traditional Ramen shop.
"Ramen from the Neko Noodle Shop."
The projector switched to a picture of Butsumetsu's delinquent gang stuffing their faces at a convenience store alongside Tomobiki students. Soban is lunging towards a clearly disgusted brown-haired girl winding up to punch him. Ataru is there as well, flirting with a distressed cashier.
"Junk food and soft drinks from 7-11."
Finally the projector switched to several Tomobiki and Furinkan girls, one of them Nabiki, eating at an Okonomiyaki cart run by a handsome ponytailed young man about their age. Ataru is just on the edge of the shot, waving towards the girls, as the first arcs of electricity from an enraged Lum are less than a meter away from him.
"Okonomiyaki from Ucchan's." The projector shut off and the lights came on, and Mendō gestured to the assembly of faculty and staff that ran the school. "Every day, Tomobiki's students continue to walk off school property during lunch hours in defiance to school and educational policy."
This was met with grim glowers and seething from his audience. "It is not a phenomenon restricted to this school. As seen many students from different schools are partaking in this illicit activity, and it is causing numerous public nuisances from disturbing the peace complaints to violent confrontations between rival school gangs."
"Che, it's starting to get out of control." Onsen Mark, the English teacher and spokesman for the concerned staff, said with a grimace as he glared at the image of Ataru meddling with students from other schools. "It'd be fine if it was a few but this looks like at least what? Half?"
"Conservative estimates place the minimum number at around 75% of the student body leaving for lunch." Mendō reported, ever studious and charming. The reaction was swift, alarmed murmurs rising among the teachers.
At the far end of the table the school's principal, a thin, bespectacled bald man, regarded the information with a grim silence.
"S-seventy-five?!" The heavy-set, broad-shouldered Onsen Mark shouted as he shot from his chair.
Amidst the yammering "So many!" "How is this possible?" and "Of course that criminal Moroboshi would be involved." one of the staff–a messy-haired man with dramatic sideburns wearing a white shirt and pants and a yellow-brown haramaki around his waist, hiked his shoulders and seethed.
"There's no shortage of reasons why this is happening with such frequency. The disregard for authority this school enshrines as tradition, peer pressure from outside of the school, the fact that the school's store has some of the worst food ever cooked." Mendō declared with all the self-righteous indignation he could.
The man in white with the yellow brown haramaki shot up from his chair. "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY, YOU LITTLE SHIT?!"
"Whatever the cause!" Mendō spoke over him with no small satisfaction, and the irate staff member was hauled down by several other teachers. "It's clear that this cannot continue. The school's reputation… no… the very future of its students is at stake!"
"Something must be done." Onsen Mark said, every adult in the room nodding and murmuring in agreement.
"Over the course of my investigation, the brightest and most respectful students in my counsel have been working on a plan." Mendō assured his teachers, as he turned the projector back on and brought up an image of Lum in her tiger print bikini relaxing on the floor of her room in the Moroboshi residence. It was shot with her back to the camera, and it was clear that the focus was on her lower half.
"Oops!" Mendō hurriedly clicked away to a slide with text that read "Student Delinquent Suppression Operation: Snowy Mountain Wind."
More talking among the teachers began with such items as "That looks like the name of a military operation, are we getting serious now?" "What have Mendō and those kiss-ups been up to now?" and "Hopefully this will give me an excuse to turn Ataru's face into hamburger." Kiss-up comment aside, Mendō was pleased with the warm reception.
The school's nurse raised her hand, a tall and beautiful young woman with long dark hair. When the other teachers and Mendō turned to her, she spoke with a cool, deep voice that set the hairs on the back of the necks of her male peers and Mendō prickling.
"I don't particularly care for what this sounds like," she said as she lowered her hand. "Are you planning on cracking down on all the students with force?"
Mendō's instinct to bend over backwards to please any woman would've tanked his plot on the spot, if he hadn't forcibly restrained himself. He was a young man with eyes on a prize, after all. "It is not an operation to use force, rest assured, Sakura-san. This operation is designed to peacefully round up students who leave the school without incident, by having teachers confront them at the places they've been reported regularly visiting for lunch."
Sakura was unconvinced. "Asking any of our students to come peacefully is like sticking your hand blindly into a box of candy with three chocolates and nine scorpions."
Mendō nodded. "That is readily apparent."
He turned to the projector and brought up an image of a map. It was of the Tomobiki Neighborhood but zoomed out just enough to include the neighboring Furinkan and Butsumetsu. With another click of the projector's remote, he brought up markers over every restaurant, convenience store, and food stand in the area.
With one more click, he brought up arrows representing students leaving the school. "At lunch, the students will be leaving the school to eat out. Before this happens, teachers will set out to these restaurants and lie in wait." He clicked again, showing green arrows spreading from the locations and intercepting the red lines. "When the students arrive, the teachers will confront them and escort them back to school and have their names taken, and their parents informed."
Onsen Mark then spoke up. "It cannot be emphasized enough that this cannot stand further, we must show that we will not be intimidated or allow our students to run free like other schools!"
"While I don't disagree, surely that is a rather radical course of action, Onsen Mark-san, Mendō-kun?" The Home Economics teacher, a brown-haired, gentle-natured man named Hanawa, asked as he adjusted his glasses nervously. "These are young men and women, not Butsumetsu miscreants."
"You are right, they are not Butsumetsu thugs. We hold them to a higher standard of behavior. We grapple with their growing delinquency every day, but the message is not sinking in that they are well on their way towards becoming exactly that out of control." There were nods all around in agreement with Onsen Mark, as many could think of one class in particular noted for leading the chaos.
"Surely we can call upon the other schools and the owners of the stores and restaurants to help us in this case?" Hanawa insisted.
"You're not wrong. But the local businesses weren't receptive to cooperation. After all, they enable the delinquents to further their own profits," Mendō countered.
Hanawa again protested. "We cannot simply go out and manhandle students; there aren't even enough of us to cover the entire district. If we act like thugs ourselves, they will respond violently."
Sakura spoke up again. "Once again, three chocolates and nine scorpions."
Mendō clicked again, and it showed the red arrows leaving the school shrinking to half their size. "Students resisting and even fighting back is anticipated. So a series of containment measures have been arranged to ensure that the minimum number of students attempt to leave as well as plenty of reinforcements to make up for numbers."
"What sort?" Sakura asked.
Mendō chuckled. "A lunch will be prepared for select students, to dissuade them from leaving the school."
"So a lunch for the girls," Sakura corrected.
"So those students who do go out to lunch will lack the numbers to mount a defense!" Mendō continued a little louder, before returning to his lecturing tone. "And be rounded up without a fight."
Sakura was not particularly encouraged. "And if they fight anyway because they're stupid enough to do it?"
Mendō looked off to the side. He brought a clenched hand to his chest and shook his head. "It is my sincerest hope that such an outcome does not come to pass. But for the safety of our students, and the prevention of delinquent behavior, we must act decisively, and I have provided additional contingencies for that worst case scenario."
Now Sakura turned to Onsen Mark, who flushed under her hard gaze. "You know as well as I do, that they're gonna fight. Especially if Moroboshi and the idiots that orbit around him get involved. Tell Mendō this is a stupid plan."
A few teachers began whispering among one another, portents of woe regarding the plan fueled by knowledge of the school they ran and a desire to be seen agreeing with the lovely school nurse. Onsen Mark himself wanted to buckle just as Mendō had moments ago, but looking at the map again, and seeing the border of Furinkan and Tomobiki, he took a deep breath.
"It's reckless, and there's a strong chance it will fail. But we need to make a statement that this behavior is not acceptable, Sakura-san. If for no reason other than to prevent Moroboshi from finding his way to Furinkan High School."
Sakura tilted her head ever slightly. "What does Furinkan High School have to do with all of this?"
Onsen Mark closed his eyes, folded his arms, and sighed. "The details are sketchy, but the school's male students have either dropped out or refused to even attend. It's now just a school full of young women."
And so it was, as the teacher told his tale, that her face at first just ghostly, turned a whiter shade of pale.
Shaking her head, Sakura stood up and faced Onsen Mark. "I respectfully withdraw my concerns. Moroboshi must be contained at all costs."
The specter of dissent faded away with that, mainly out of the hope that the operation could be redrawn to contain just Ataru–besides wanting to be seen agreeing with Sakura. The rest of the teachers began speaking among one another again with such insights as "Does this mean we can kick the crap out of Moroboshi?" "I hope we can clobber those Stormtroopers of Lum's too, they're annoying." and "I personally just want a chance to go eat out for lunch, myself."
Onsen Mark breathed a sigh of relief, before turning to the principal. "Principal. This is the plan we have come to an agreement on. All we need now is your approval to execute the operation, and we shall do so with haste."
The principal mulled over what was to come and nodded. "I wish you the best of luck!"
As the teachers and faculty broke into cheers and got fired up, Onsen Mark breathed another sigh of relief and cast a sidelong glance at Mendō. The little bastard was practically glowing as his plot was met with the approval of the authority figures he sucked up to. Rolling his eyes, he turned his head to gaze back at the projected map and all that it displayed.
He pulled a grimace, barely holding it back, before he tightened up and numbed his senses. This was something that needed to happen.
For as much as things stayed the same in these crazy times, things just weren't how they used to be.
A/N: Episode 46 of Urusei Yatsura is where this story arc is pulled from. It is a hilarious episode, and a much more... chaotic dust-up than in the manga. It is incredible how much it escalates.