The next part of the episode... all comments welcome. ^_^
Whee!
All comments are strictly from my omphalos, and offered on an altar of
obsidian. (The Eidolons disclaimer. :)
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Pastpresent
by Susan Doenime
R1/2 characters and backstory are the creations and property of Takahashi
Rumiko. Used without permission. No challenge to copyrights should be
inferred or taken.
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Pastpresent homepage at: http://www.thekeep.org/~mike/pastpresent.html
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Pastpresent 6 - Tourism, Part 2
The trip to Laos stands out in my mind for several
reasons, not the least of which was my own imbecility.
Imbecility is the only label I can apply to having
willingly gone along on a trip with Takashi after the
Sumatra disaster.
{If he keeps grumbling about the Sumatra disaster, we're gonna make you
write it. :) }
Kiri's criminal ties made me somewhat
uncomfortable. It was pretty easy to ignore - she never
flaunted them - but it was always there, in the
background.
{I just can't stop thinking about the implied parentage of Soun's
daughters, for some reason...}
Ignorance is never a defense, especially willful
ignorance.
{Wow. I'll bet that got snickers from Ranma & Akane as they were
reading this.}
And then there were the eight armed guerillas and the
{argh. Had to stop and slay an errant image of octopoid guards, sorry.
Or maybe they'd been forewarned twice? :) Sorry, it's just me, carry on...}
amazing sentient pond slime that served as the crew. That was
really what spoiled the atmosphere.
"...The guerrilla warfare, the communists, the mines and
{Both "guerilla" and "guerrilla" appear to be correct, but seeing both
in one text is disconcerting... :) }
bombs, the human vermin... of course, Kiri-kun. I can see why
Laos was the vacation getaway of your dreams."
"I'm my own inner child," Inji said lazily. "I look at the
world with childlike innocence, wonder, and joy. And a very
sharp knife, of course. I'm afraid my inner child doesn't play
well with others."
{heh. Nicely-turned phrase.}
"Not on your life." She winced. "That perhaps wasn't the
best phrase to use. No. Once was enough."
{"Over my dead body? Er..." :) }
"A bomb, of all things, in my car. It's not a very fancy
car, but I am attached to it." Inji shook his head sadly. "Luckily
it's hard to get good help, and someone sold out the news that
Kiri-kun here had taken the thirty pieces of silver. So I failed
to go up in a ball of flame."
{heh. I figured he wasn't using the present tense for his car by
mistake... it's obvious he survived, of course. }
For one thing, the content of the conversation aside,
Genma doubted he could have drawn a knife with the speed or
{Suggest "wielded" rather than "drawn"... unless you're considering the
orange-surgery to be part of the draw, as in iaijutsu.}
precision Kuonji had just shown. Up until now, he had been
fairly certain he could take the man in the leather jacket.
Now... now he wasn't sure. Judging from the guardedly
thoughtful expression on Soun's face, he wasn't the only one.
Kuonji stood, beamed, and brushed a few crumbs from his
front. "Wonderful repast. Best moldy beans and rice I've had in
ages. My compliments to the chef. Have you decided on a good
story regarding Miss Nodoka?"
"Well, er, ah," Soun and Genma began.
"It appears not. I'll ask again tomorrow.
{Oh, dear. The Marx Brothers would be disgusted with those yoyos. :) }
Good night
gentlemen, Kiritsubo." Inji gave them a mock bow and strolled
Good night, gentlemen, Kiritsubo."
{I notice that he did not say "lady". :) }
off, disappearing from sight down the forward hatch.
"He's good," Genma said. "Faster than me at drawing, but
I'm not an iaidoka."
{ah. You may disregard previous wielded/drawn comment at your
convenience. Well, it may be a bit subtle for some readers, but the heck
with them. :) }
"Everyone but us seems to have had the pleasure of
meeting him before. Just keep on your toes, Soun. That guy's
dangerous."
"So am I," Soun said, miffed.
"Yes, but Inji's a ravening wolf to your irritated bunny
rabbit. Not the same level of dangerous." Soun began to sputter,
and Genma walked off towards the bow. "Just watch out."
{heh! The cheap shots continue... I guess only Inji can afford expensive
ones. :) }
He sat back, confusion mixing with a sort of dull pain.
Drug dealers were supposed to be hateable scum like Inji, not
{suggest "detestable" or "abominable", perhaps?}
your best friend... he couldn't imagine, couldn't picture the
person he knew doing that. "Why?"
"Sure it's me!" Her hand shot out, pushing him back
against the rail as she stared fixedly at him. "Do you think I do
this for a hobby? Like Nodoka and that stupid sword-art thing,
or Soun and his kung-fu kick? The law says I ain't got jack, so
screw it! I'll do what I want so that I can eat."
{suggest} so I can eat."
He barely managed to move his hand up in time to block
her punch. His palm creaked from the impact and slapped back
against his face anyway; she was quite a bit stronger than he
was.
{REally. Interesting. Genma's pretty strong. More musing on
parentage of the Tendo girls...}
He hesitated, trying to pick his way through the mess of
emotions and ethics lying broken in his head. "Do you still do
all that stuff?"
{Wow. I wonder if this is the beginning of the long slide for Genma. He
seems much more idealistic here than the Genma we know later... which
makes sense.}
Kiri went a little grey. "Nothing I really want to go into.
There was a lot of pain, and that pretty much sums it up. But it
could have been worse, in a lot of ways. Nothing permanently
damaged, no major scarring, no, uh, gender-related stuff. And
he didn't kill me, mostly because of his weird sense of honor."
{Hmm. Given the, um, potential implication that Inji is not a "he", I
wonder if Kiri knows it...}
"That's who I am, Genma," she said in a small voice,
looking self-conscious for perhaps the first time since he'd
known her. "I'm out of the really serious stuff, but I'm still in
the game. And even the serious stuff never bothered me all
that much. Can you deal with that?"
He laughed, wondering exactly how much sleep he was
going to lose over this. "I'd hafta be really stupid not to have
noticed that you aren't exactly on the up-and-up, Kiri. I don't
like that either, but the two of us is bigger than that. Just... let
me know if you start to slip back, okay?"
{Whoa. Nice approach. It's gotta be by accident. :) Seriously, this is
very nicely done; it's a lot like the clueless way Ranma says the right
thing every once in a while, but just different enough to be its
ancestor. Applause.}
She chuckled, and shook her fist at him. "Try it, punk."
{suggest} chuckled and
"Huh." She drummed her fingers against the rail, thinking,
and then glanced up sourly. "I hate to say this, but Nodoka's
going to have to room with me. It's the only place on the ship
Inji and his goons won't barge into."
Genma smirked. "Actually, we already stuck her in there.
{ O_O Oh boy. This is gonna be good. :) }
Think you two can last the trip without killing each other?"
{ My very thought. }
Part of him was alarmed by how easily they had fallen back
into the familiar old rhythms, as if nothing had happened, and
he wondered if he could really accept her as what she was. And
he wondered why it didn't really seem to make that much of a
difference.
{ Either it hasn't sunk in yet, or his own code just... uh... adapted. }
"Yes, I know. Forget it." He'd rather just fight Inji, Genma
decided. Seal Nodoka and him up in a small room for long
periods of time, and who knew what might happen?
{ Vince holds up his hand, smirking }
"Of course I do." It was the truth, too; there were few
things he enjoyed more than spending time in Nodoka's
company, just talking or sparring or... or... or doing just about
anything that didn't involve her wrapping herself around his
arm. "But I'm not really at the point in my life where I can
manage a relationship, you know? I'm busy all the time, my
heart's in the Art... if I ever get serious with someone, I'd want
to give all of myself to them. Everything, every waking
moment. I'd want to build my life around them, and I can't do
that yet." He stopped, feeling somewhat embarrassed. "There's
plenty of time. Nodoka or whoever will just have to wait."
{ Huh. I wonder how that'll change... but it sort of describes his
relationship with Ranma, later, doesn't it? Hmm. }
Genma winced, and followed her out of the ropewell. A
drop of water glistened on the rail for a second, catching the
sun and the river, then soaked into the rough wood and
vanished. Another drop, kicked up by the prow, replaced it a
few minutes late, seemingly no different than the first.
later, {?}
The trip had sounded like a lot of fun when she had first
{suggest} when she first
heard about it. Sure, Genma and Soun had sworn up and down
that it was going to be a tour of the less pleasant parts of
hell... but they had a tendency to exaggerate juuuuust a bit. If
they told her they had seen an ocean, it probably meant they
had fallen in a puddle.
No, this was definitely not fun. Although she had to admit
that it was impressive how... comradely Soun and Genma were
being. They'd been acting almost like a team for the entire trip;
back home, the same amount of time would have seen at least
four massive fights, seven loudly-shouted melodramatic death
threats, 28 insults, and at least one instance of fairly
substantial property damage.
{ Echoes of the future... can you call it "nostalgia" when it hasn't
happened yet? :) }
"I didn't mean it like that," Nodoka said, irritated. "I was
serious. My idea of great literature is novels with pink covers
and bare-chested men on the jacket."
{Oh, perfect!}
"But Soun's a lot better than a metal sword." Nodoka
turned purple as Kiri frowned thoughtfully. "Well, probably.
Okay, nevermind, stick with the sword."
Nodoka felt her left eye start to twitch rapidly. She
calmly reached for her iaito.
{Oh, dear. It's a little odd how... sensitive... Nodoka is for someone
with her avowed, er, tastes and interests... but I guess it's more who's
saying it. :) }
"We men probably wouldn't understand," Soun said
gravely. "Women are so much more sensitive than we are."
{ Riiiight. :) }
"Indeed. Now we just must worry about Taka..." Soun
blinked in alarm. "Kasigi! Where did Kuno-san go?"
"Did you, hmm, want something?" Takashi asked.
{ I love the way he does that. }
"It's just until we get to Luang Prabang," Genma said.
"Then Kuonji can go his way, and we can do ours."
can go ours." {?}
"Oh, the name is just a metaphor, of course. For, hmm,
turnip fertility if I remember the journal article correctly.
Safe as houses."
{ Er, would that be the same journal that got their plane shot down? }
"Even if such a thing existed instead of being a fever-
induced hallucination," Takashi said firmly, "It wouldn't be
firmly, "it
anywhere near the place."
{Why do I keep hearing the phrase "famous last words"? }
"Well, that's something," Genma muttered.
"It would, hmm, be far too frightened by the terrible
hideous powers of the equally imaginary gods sleeping fitfully
beneath the surface, only lightly chained and ready to send any
trespasser into an eternity of soul-tearing agony in the cold
lands of nightmare and shadow, where the mad things of fallen
Tsygh-Shadoth lie chained in stygian darkness gnawing on the
bowels of the damned. But, of course, that's all just silly
native superstition." He beamed. "I'm off to bed. Sleep well! Ta-
ta!"
{ ! }
Genma sighed, and listened to the merry gurgling of
someone's head being stuffed in a toilet that was coming from
Kiri's room. "Never again, Tendo."
{ At the risk of igniting another irrelevant debate, I'll cautiously
point out that on ships, the toilet is referred to as the "head"... a
fact with unfortunate consequences for the legibility of that sentence,
so carry on. :) Seriously, I got the feeling that the rooms were a bit
squalid for plumbing; I would have expected a chamber-pot, or even a
hole in the deck if the cabin overhangs the waterline. But up to you. }
They had eventually come to an understanding, which was
that Kiri would hold Nodoka's head underwater, and Nodoka
would make glubbing noises and pass out. Kiri was happy with
this solution, and Nodoka hadn't argued. Not so's that Kiri could
{suggest} Not that Kiri {or} Not so's Kiri
understand, anyway. The spasmodic jerking and glubbing might
have been protest, she supposed, but then again maybe not.
Kiri froze. The heap froze. Slowly, she turned her head to
look.
"I'm interrupting something, aren't I?" Kuonji Inji said
mildly. He eyed the scene with interest. "Although I'm not sure
what."
{ Aiyaaa. Good thing Nodoka has the same relationship to warm blankets
that a hermit crab does to its favorite shell. :) }
Inji looked somewhat dubious. "I seem to recall you
ogling James Dean..."
Kiri started to open her mouth to give a firm denial, and
then the arm emerged from the heap, snaked up her leg, and...
{ BWAHAHAHA! }
"He wasn't buying it!" Nodoka croaked, rubbing her throat.
"He was going to have you take off the blanket in a few
seconds! You think I enjoyed that?"
"It sure sounded like it!"
"I just pretended it was Genma!"
{ Oh my. }
Violence ensued. Down the hall, Kuonji Inji listened to
the crashing, shook his head, and went up to prepare for
breakfast.
{ One wonders exactly what Inji is thinking, but wondering is so much
fun one doesn't really want to be told. :) }
"I do believe in setting a good table," Inji said cheerfully.
"It's only polite. A beautiful morning, isn't it?" He waved a
hand at the sunny expanse of the Mekong. "I take it back,
Kiritsubo. A beautiful place for a vacation. I trust you and your
lover have been enjoying yourselves?"
Genma's eyes bulged. Her WHAT? Soun began to choke on
his scone.
{ Oh dear. }
"Kasigi!" Soun screamed. "This is all your fault! You've
driven her to lesbianism!"
"She is not a lesbian, and it's not my fault!" Genma
snapped back. "He glanced at Kiri worriedly. "Is she?"
"Yes!" Kiritsubo hissed. "You've got one perverted
girlfriend... er. I have one perverted girlfriend, I mean."
{ Climb back up on the chair, Vince... there... }
"So she's Kasigi's girlfriend as well?" Inji said. "I think
I'm getting a headache.
headache." { An excuse not to participate sounds real handy at the
moment... :) }
Inji clucked. "This is getting vexing. Which of you,
exactly, is Nodoka's partner?"
"I am!" Genma said without thinking, and heard Kiri and
Soun say the same thing.
Then he realized exactly what Inji had asked them.
{ Ooops. }
Inji spread his hands sadly. "I'm afraid I don't have any,
no. I do have some Grey Poupon, if you like."
{ Ladyfingers with mustard? Ick. :) }
Genma nodded. "I'll make a deal with you, then. Fight me.
If you win, you can do what you want with us. If you lose, you
and your goons get off the boat without hurting anyone."
"Interesting. Why should I?"
"Because if you don't, it means you weren't sure who
could win," Genma said.
{suggest} who would win,"
The knife moved faster than his eye could track,
whipping out of Inji's jacket in a silver arc and stabbing
towards his chest. Genma desperately tumbled to the size as
side {?}
Inji thrust, one hand jabbing out to try to punch the
archeologist. He felt something cut a hot line along his arm,
and lashed out with a flurry of spinning kicks intended to
shield a retreat.
Inji and Genma both hurled themselves to the deck as
machinegun-fire raked the air. Crouching by the rail, Genma
machine gun fire {I think}
saw Kiri, Nodoka, and Soun all vanish behind the overturned
table. The guerrillas were screaming, running towards the bow,
and exchanging fire with a boat approaching from upriver.
{ Out of the frying pan, into the [machine gun] fire? :) }
"Nice artillery piece," Kiri said. "Looks like they mean to-"
There was an explosion, and a large part of the hostile
ship vanished in a ball of flame and wood splinters.
"Oh. Wow," Kiri concluded, eyes slightly wide. "Big gun."
{ Could be worse: could be a recoilless. :) One of the few weapons which
is almost as dangerous to be behind as in front of... }
"Down!" Genma yelled. "they all went flat as a heavy
They
machine gun sawed off the upper half of the table in a shower
of sawdust.
"Do something!" Nodoka screamed at him.
"Like what?" he screamed back. "Challenge the gatling to
single combat?"
{ Hey, it worked for Kenshin, sort of. :) }
"KASIGI!" Soun bellowed. "Shield Nodoka with your body!"
He paused. "I mean, no! Shield her with someone else's body!"
{ hehehehe! }
They hastily scrambled down the hatch. Above them,
flames began to spread across the deck.
The hatch emerged in one of the holds, where Takashi
{Well, technically it's the characters who are "emerging", so suggest}
The hatch led to {or perhaps} The hatch opened into
was fumbling with a pair of long metal cylinders attached to a
steel rowboat. Nodoka and Kiri had already taken seats inside
it. Lacking any better ideas, Soun and Genma ambled over to sit
across from them.
"Hi."
"Hi."
Silence fell, punctuated only by the not-terribly-distant
{ One might even say insufficiently-distant. :) }
sound of screaming, automatic weapons, and concussion
grenades.
"What is sitting here supposed to accomplish?" Genma
finally asked.
Nodoka shrugged. "Takashi told us to get in. It's a better
plan than ours."
"Why, what was yours?"
"We didn't have one."
{ I dunno, some plans are worse than no plan. :) }
Takashi finished his tinkering and swung agily into the
agilely {?}
boat, a long tube under one arm. "Capital. Shall we depart?"
With a roar, the two surface-to-air missiles intended for
sale to the Viet Cong ignited, lurched once, and then soared
into the inferno, taking the boatload of screaming martial
artists with them.
{ Oh, my. If only you could get the budget to film this. It looks great
projected on the screen of my imagination. :) }
* * * *
The captain of the government patrol boat was not a
happy man.
{ I get the feeling he has not yet begun to anguish. :) }
The second boat in his flotilla was a burnt-out wreck,
one of the support choppers had been shot down, and the
guerrilla craft was still exchanging fire with them. His men
had taken the deck gun out of commission, but the pirates were
stubbornly hammering away with automatic weapons and an
anti-air gun instead of doing the intelligent thing and
anti-aircraft { ? There is a tale, almost certainly apocryphal, of a
telegram sent to the Kremlin by a Middle Eastern, er, client state which
was having difficulties with the Israeli Air Force: "Stop sending
surface-to-air missiles. Send surface-to-aircraft missiles." :) }
surrendering. Well, maybe not so intelligent, since they'd just
shoot them anyway.
"Soon have then settled," his exec said. He nodded. Not
them {?}
much left in this rabble. They were beaten; they were just to
just too
stupid to realize it yet. He would educate them.
"More fire to the aft!" he shouted to his gun crew. The
{or perhaps} "Shift your fire to the stern!"
crew chief snapped off a hasty salute and began bellowing
orders at his men, who swiveled the tiny artillery piece to
bear on the rear of the pirate vessel. A few more hits, and
resistance should be over...
"What does, <AAAAAARGHDAMNYOUTAKASHIYOUBASTARD>
{suggest omitting comma:} does <
mean?
mean?" { BWAHAHAHA! }
The captain opened his mouth to hazard a guess, and then
the horrible screaming thing burst from the water like a
pyrotechnic dolphin, landed upon the surface in a shower of
water, and bounced screaming down the river like a demented
weasel on drugs.
It was a feeling I'm sure you're familiar with, son.
The gut feeling that you're better than this guy, that you
can beat him... but he isn't giving you time to figure out
how to do it. My first duel with Inji was like that. He was
so much faster than I was, and that was it - I had all the
advantages except the one critical one.
{ Ha! The inspiration for the Saotome Secret Technique! }
She'll never become what I'd hoped for; it's much too late
now. I suspect it was done on purpose, though it didn't
completely work.
{ Hmm. Intriguing. }
No, she'll never be what I hoped for, but it may be
that she is something much better.
{ I wonder in what sense of "better" he means that... of course, he's
being deliberately vague. }
The longer you let them fester, the more they will
hurt when the inevitable revelation occurs. Think of the
wounds you and Akane inflicted on each other for over a
year. Think of the day on Jusendo, the second worst
in Jusendo, {I think. "Magic spring cave" may refer to the mountain
containing the cave too; it's hard to tell... }
moment of my life. Take this lesson to heart.
{ Wonder what the worst was. Somehow, I doubt it's Sumatra...}
And watch Kasigi Genma and his friends as they
roar, screaming in terror, down the Mekong. Poor boy. The
trip isn't over yet...
Ours either. Tone was a bit uneven, perhaps, but not detrimentally so; I
was expecting more of the hilarity of the last part, only to be
presented with the urbanely vicious Inji and the serious confrontation
between Kiri and Genma. After a while I began to think that the whole
chapter would be like that. However, the levity returned soon enough,
and was probably the funnier for the change of pace. I will be
visualizing the Flight of the Pyrotechnic Dolphin for some time, I
think, and giggling unaccountably to the consternation of innocent
bystanders. :)
Thanks for writing and sharing!
Vince Seifert Fanfic Analyst FFIRC Frog
Prime: seifertv@csus.edu
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Ideas are worth their weight in gold.