The House With No Parents

An Azumanga Daioh fanfic by Aondehafka

Disclaimer: the characters and concepts of Azumanga Daioh are owned by ADV, Media Works, and Kiyohiko Azuma, not me.

"So, Chiyo-chan," said Osaka. "You ever been kidnapped?"

There was a long moment of silence as Chiyo, Sakaki, and Yomi stared blankly back at her. School had already ended for the day, and the four of them were the only ones still hanging around the classroom. For a moment Yomi wondered whether she should have left with Tomo after all. When she realized what she was thinking, she gave herself a quick mental slap and refocused on the conversation in front of her. It might be bizarre, but not as much so as the thought she'd just kicked out of her head.

"You... you think someone would kidnap me?" Chiyo asked anxiously.

"Probably," Osaka replied. "Think about it. You got money. You're small." She turned to Yomi. "Don'tcha think someone would try to kidnap her?"

"Uh, I guess," Yomi answered, not knowing what else to say. Maybe it wasn't so crazy after all to think she should have left when Tomo and Kagura did. She could have made up some excuse about an errand to keep from sharing Tomo's path for too long.

Meanwhile, Osaka had progressed to the physical portion of her act, gripping Chiyo's pigtails firmly with both hands. "And yer easy to grab hold of!" she explained further.

With some effort, Chiyo freed herself. "But... But if something were to happen to me, Mr. Tadakichi would protect me!" she proclaimed. Beside her, Sakaki murmured her agreement.

Osaka considered this, then pointed her finger down and to one side of Chiyo, at just the height of a Mr. Tadakichi target.

"Bang!"

"BANG!"

*BANG!*

Osaka's exclamation was masked by Tomo's, which was only just audible over the slam of the door as the Takino girl made her entrance. The cacophony made Chiyo nearly jump out of her skin, Osaka stagger backward with one hand over her heart, Yomi start convulsively enough to almost lose her glasses, and Sakaki blink twice.

Tomo took a moment to preen at her perfect dynamic entry, then turned her full attention to Chiyo. "Mr. Tadakichi's just been shot."

"What the hell?!" Yomi erupted, shooting out of her seat, drowning Osaka's protest of 'Hey, that's my line!' "You came back here just to give Chiyo-chan a little more grief?!"

"Nah," Tomo said, waving one hand dismissively. "I came back because it's too cold out there to walk by myself, and Kagura remembered an errand she had to run in the opposite direction. So I'll wait for you guys."

"And do your best to speed us on our way," Yomi grumbled.

"Anyway, you shouldn't say such things, Tomo," Sakaki said earnestly. "Mr. Tadakichi is a brave, noble companion to Chiyo-chan. He deserves better than to be dismissed with a pistol-shot."

Tomo considered this, then used both arms to cock an imaginary shotgun. "Ch-chak! BA-BLAM!"

"WAAAUGH!" Chiyo wailed, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Don't worry, Chiyo-chan. If something ever happened, your dad would come for you," Sakaki consoled her. She paused for an instant to eye first Osaka then Tomo, then briskly continued before either of them could say anything. "Yeah, he'd come flying to your rescue, and bullets would just bounce off him."

"Whaat?!" Chiyo gaped up at her tall friend, then, the tension firmly broken, let out a giggle. "You know, Sakaki, you really ought to meet my dad one of these days. He's not very much like you, but he does love to tell crazy stories."

"Like what?" Yomi asked quickly, deciding that it was better to keep Chiyo talking than let certain of the others take the floor.

"Well, like..." Chiyo considered for a moment. "Oh! There's the basement, for one thing."

"The... basement?" Osaka asked, in a tone that sent shivers up everyone's spine.

Oddly enough, Chiyo was the one who shrugged it off the easiest, since her father's story had nothing to do with horror. "That's right. I've never in my life been allowed to go down there. He says it's because that's where they keep the time machine he and Mom used to come back and live here, instead of forty years from now."

"Huh," said Tomo. "I always figured the basement was where you buried your dad's body. You know, since we never see him or your mom and all... Uh oh." This last as she got a good look at her youngest friend's reaction to her words. Chiyo's eyes were welling with tears and she was trembling like a leaf, clearly on the verge of a total crying storm.

"T-T-Tomo, how can you be so cruel?! Bwahhh!" The little genius lost it, and the next few minutes passed awkwardly even for Tomo's life. She and Osaka watched as Yomi and Sakaki did their best to comfort the pint-sized prodigy, with Yomi sparing a bit of effort to fire off the occasional glare Tomo's way.

Eventually, with some composure restored, Chiyo said, "It's one, one thing to t-tease me about being smarter than normal, or, or how I never get much taller. B-But saying I'd k-k-kill my parents?!"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry!" Tomo said frantically, doing the best she could to head off the new round of sobs.

Chiyo sucked down a few deep, trembling breaths, and seemed to get the worst of it behind her. "Right!" she said determinedly. "That settles it. My parents are going on another trip next week, but they're in town now... you guys have to come over and meet them on the weekend."

"Nah, let's go now," Tomo countered. "We'll spend time getting to know them, schmoozing with the rich elite, making connections that'll help us for years to come! Sounds like the best use of an afternoon any of us have made all year!"

"Huh? But, Tomo, aren't you taking your make-up test tomorrow for that big exam you missed? Don't you need to study?"

"Who cares about that?" Tomo asked. "If we go right now, we'll know you didn't have time to hire some random guys off the street to pass off as your long-vanished parents."

"TO-MO!"

Yomi had only halfway believed that there would be anyone other than Mr. Tadakichi waiting for them at Chiyo's home. But sure enough, on entering the house Chiyo had led them down a hallway to a living room they hadn't been to in their previous visits, where they found a man and a woman curled up on a couch watching a movie. The television was oversized and there was a solid silver coffee service on an end-table next to the couch, but other than those trappings of the Mihama wealth it was a nice, normal scene.

"Mom, Dad, I'd like you to meet my friends," Chiyo said. "This is Sakaki Asakawa, Ayumu Kasuga, Koyomi Mizuhara, and Tomo Takino. Everyone, this is my mom and dad, Hideki and Chisato Mihama."

"It's nice to meet you," Sakaki said to Hideki, noting with mild surprise that he was noticeably taller than she was. Other than that there was nothing remarkable in the man's appearance; he had black hair, brown eyes, and clothes of nice but unostentatious quality.

Chisato, on the other hand, would stand out in any crowd any of them had ever seen. She wore a pretty white sundress that wasn't a particularly good match for the current season of winter. Her hair was long, falling at least to mid-calf, and a very light blond. She wore it in a style that made Chiyo-chan's pigtails seem downright normal: long and unbound in the back, with two huge tassels that bunched outward a good fifteen centimeters on either side of her head. Sakaki noticed Osaka's fingers beginning to twitch and stepped firmly between her and Chisato as she continued her greeting, "And you as well."

"The pleasure is ours," Hideki said warmly. "I'm glad to meet girls who've been kind enough to befriend someone so different from them."

"Da~ad," Chiyo whined.

"You don't have to thank us for that," Yomi said, waving a hand dismissively. "Friendship is a two-way street, after all. Knowing Chiyo-chan has enriched our lives in a lot of ways."

"Recalling fond memories of desserts past?" Tomo whispered knowingly.

Yomi calmly set her laptop computer down on the nearest flat surface, then turned back to face Tomo. "DOUBLE CHOP!" she yelled, smashing both hands down onto the head of her friend/nemesis/persistent pain-in-the-posterior.

"OW!" Tomo complained, staggering off to the side. "What the hell?! Is that any kind of way to act in front of Chiyo-chan's parents?"

"It is fine," Chisato reassured them. "Chiyo has told us many stories about you. Please, feel free to be yourselves."

"Reeeally?" Tomo said with a wicked gleam in her eye. "Well, see you when you get back from raiding the fridge, Yomi!"

This time the bespectacled girl didn't bother to call out her attack, just spun and nailed Tomo with an uppercut.

She would have been better off if she'd paused at least long enough to check her trajectory—the blow sent Tomo flying right into the end table where Yomi had set her laptop next to a mostly-full coffeepot. "No... no!" she wailed as she watched the liquid spill and the sparks fly.

"I, I'm fine," Tomo said woozily, standing up and shaking her head. Yomi body-checked her out of the way as she dived to rescue her computer, her hands trembling so badly she could barely open the case let alone turn it on. When she did finally manage that, nothing happened save a forlorn little puff of smoke out of one USB port.

"This can't be happening... this can't be happening!" Yomi begged of the universe at large. "Please... this has to be a dream!"

"Is it the laptop you care about?" Chisato asked curiously. "Or just its data?"

"Huh?" Yomi blinked. "The data, of course! My notes, my assignments... two hundred hours' worth of work for the individual project I have to do if I want to get into the college of my choice..."

"If the data is all you need, I will retrieve it for you," Chisato reassured her. And proceeded to do just that.

"OH MY GOD!" shouted Osaka, sitting bolt upright at her desk. Her heart was pounding, her hands were shaking, and an instant later her head was aching from the impact of Yukari's thrown chalk.

"Osaka, stay awake in class!" the sensei hollered, before turning back to the blackboard.

"A dream...? It was just a dream!" the girl murmured, her gaze falling on Yomi. "That's right, she doesn't have a laptop!"

Osaka's gaze continued to roam around the classroom as she felt her panic giving way to relief. But before she could calm down completely her eyes focused on Chiyo, and a new jolt of adrenaline ripped through her system.

She moved with a speed that nobody who'd watched her on the athletic field would have believed. In an instant she was out of her seat and in the aisle next to Chiyo, grasping the closest pigtail and pulling apart its hairs. She stared down at the wires, circuitry, and I/O ports hidden inside, and fainted dead away.

Chiyo stared blankly down at her fallen friend, one hand absently brushing the hairs back into place. "Osaka? What's wrong?" the Mk2 Chobit asked.

Author's Notes

This story is a complete and utter rip-off... er, tribute to DB Sommer's series of Fusions That Should Never Be. Yes, it's the tale none of you were waiting for: Azumanga A.I.-oh.

The characters and concepts of Chobits are owned by Clamp, not me. The title of this story is a play on 'The Town With No People', the series of picture books appearing in that show.