"Improvisational Justice Team Anobashi!"
The Preludes
A story by HKMiller
30 June - 18 August 2003; First FFML posting 19 August 2003
Changes 20 August 2003 to reflect FFML 1st draft feedback
Two preludes rewritten 10 November 2003 & 29 July 2004
Copyright (c) HKMiller. This story may be freely copied as
long as no changes are made and this copyright notice is
unaltered.
- - - - - - - - - -
Bushido Midori swept the feet of her next-to-last opponent, then
ducked the last one's nunchaku swing and followed up with a palm
strike to the chin. Slowly straightening her stance, she surveyed
the results of her pre-school workout. An even dozen hired
sparring partners lay unconscious at her feet, as did their
shattered or scattered weaponry: bokkens, nunchakus, sai,
shuriken. Her parents, over by the dojo wall, checked their
stopwatch, then looked up. As usual, her mother put on her "good
parent" face. "Midori, dear, you beat your best time by two
tenths of a second. Congratulations! I'm so happy with your
progress, especially now that you're beginning high school."
Her father assumed his "bad parent" frown. "The girl still has a
long ways to go."
Midori turned towards her parents and squared her shoulders,
anticipating an argument. "And can I join a club or something,
now that I'm in high school? Or do something after school with
friends, if I make some? Or do I still have to come straight home
after school every day for training?"
Her mother looked at her father. "The school does have a martial
arts club, dear..."
"...which won't have any members Midori couldn't beat blind-folded
while tied down to a chair. No! Her training needs to continue!"
"Maybe if she makes some friends likely to get her into scrapes?"
"Hmmm... a sukeban gang? A little time spent street-fighting
right after school might be good for her, at that." Her father
judiciously rubbed his jaw. "Force her out of predictable
patterns, never knowing what weapons her adversaries might have.
Maybe face some new weapons."
"And if she comes home after dark, she might have the opportunity
to encounter a mugger or rapist," her mother added in an
encouraging tone.
"Little chance any of those would provide her with any contest,
though." Her father briefly rubbed his chin, then continued.
"Right. Good idea. Midori, no clubs, but if you can make some
juvenile delinquent friends, you may stay after school for two or
three nights a week."
Midori nodded, turned, and left, careful to show no sign of how
surprised and pleased she was. Maybe she could actually start to
have a normal teenage life!
- - - - - - - - - -
Otsuge Gin woke with first light as the sun peeked over the
skyscrapers of downtown Tokyo. Their cave faced east,
fortunately; her grandmother's tongue could be rough when Gin
slept late.
Gin unbanked the campfire just as her grandmother returned from
her morning hunt, her hooded falcon perched on her shoulder, her
wolfhound trotting at her heels. "About time you woke up," the
old lady grunted. "Here; I've already found breakfast for us."
She tossed Gin two freshly killed pigeons, slightly marred by the
falcon's clawmarks.
As she cleaned the pigeons and prepared tea, Gin thought briefly
about her coming day, her first in high school. The half-sister
she'd never met would be in her home-room, she knew. They might
meet face-to-face today. Unfortunately, there was no way to prove
their relationship if the other girl disbelieved. Should Gin even
bring it up?
Gin's grandmother clapped twice and bowed in front of a small
photo of Gin's mother, sitting on a small ledge towards the rear
of the cave. Candles on either side give it a dim illumination.
"Fool woman," her grandmother muttered, "falling so badly in love
that you died of heartbreak when the man left you. Men always do,
sooner or later. You have to be self-sufficient in this life!
Gin'll learn THAT if I teach her nothing else!
Looking up from the makeshift shrine towards Gin, her grandmother
asked her, "Is that son-of-a-bitch father of yours in back in
Tokyo today? If I ever get my hands on him..."
Gin replied automatically, "Father is not in Tokyo right now."
Nor on Earth, nor in this galaxy, Gin carefully did not add. Her
grandmother was seldom interested in such details.
Her grandmother grunted, then changed the subject. "We need more
tea and rice. Where can I find some?"
Gin promptly answered, "A box of tea, still good, is midway down a
garbage can in the alley behind the grocer's on Yamaguchi street.
Three blocks west of there, the truck crew that is usually willing
to trade you rice for brandy is scheduled to unload a truckful of
rice at 10 am."
Her grandmother grunted again, nodding briefly. "Are the police
planning to sweep the park today? Or check the cave?"
Gin put on her threadbare school uniform (a discard found in a
large box put out for pickup). "Yes," she replied. "Another
report of our presence reached the local precinct yesterday."
"Right. Since you have school, I'll pack up and clean the cave.
Don't return here before full dark."
"Yes, grandmother." Without further remark, Gin carefully left
the cave and headed for her new school.
- - - - - - - - - -
Odoke Naoko hid her grin with her teacup. Her mother, Yoiko, was
staring at "page three" of the morning newspaper in horror. It
looked like the fake page Naoko had inserted was holding up to
initial inspection.
Yoiko turned to Naoko, still distraught. "Did you see this?
About the asteroid hitting Yokohama? All our relatives are...
Naoko! How could you do this to me?!" She threw the fake page
down in disgust.
Naoko's grin faded. She still couldn't keep a straight face
around her mother long enough to pull off any really good gags,
unfortunately. She put on her "contrite" face and looked up at
her mother. "I'm sorry, Mom. It's just that I finally got ahold
of some real newsprint and ink, and I just had to try it out. I
guess I didn't think about how you'd feel." Naoko hung her
shoulders and looked down, counting off the seconds she need to
hold this pose to get her mother to forgive her.
"Naoko, Naoko, my dear." Her mother walked forward and hugged
her. "You have to stop doing this. Nobody doubts that you're as
smart as they come; do you always have to prove it by pulling
pranks like this? Causing your mother such distress? Why don't
you put those smarts to good use, like your father always did?"
"You do enough of that for both of us, Mother," Naoko replied,
sweeping one arm around to indicate what she meant. As usual,
Naoko and her mother breakfasted downstairs, at the coffee counter
of her mother's "Internet Coffee and International Book Shoppe".
Cozy armchairs and stuffed bookcases covered the front half of
the floor, while the back half held the coffee shop and computers.
The notice board to one side of the counter was full of ads for
do-gooder volunteer organizations and causes, many began and run
by her mother: Japanese Against Whaling (JAW); Stop Paving Our
Rivers and Streams (SPORS); Japanese Press Freedom League (JPFL).
"No! There's no such thing as 'enough'. I've seen what this
world can be, and it's so much better than it is today. And it's
not going to change for the better unless people stand up and
make those changes themselves!" Yoiko's eyes flashed as she
spoke.
Inwardly, Naoko rolled her eyes. Best not get Mother started on
all she'd seen during the two years she'd spent traveling and
adventuring with Naoko's father. Naoko never knew how much of it
to believe; the stories were so preposterous, but her mother had
to have obtained some of her skills SOMEWHERE. And then there
were those two unearthly gadgets hidden away in her bedroom closet
which she thought Naoko didn't know about.
After breakfast, Naoko gave her hair one more good brushing. One
thing her father had bequeathed to her that she didn't care for
was her curly hair. She smiled at herself in the mirror, her
impish face lighting up in almost sinister amusement. She'd
already researched most of her new classmates, and she had a
very good idea of just who would provide her the most amusement.
It had taken very little effort to arrange for the most likely
candidates to be in same homeroom with her.
- - - - - - - - - -
Fumetsu Hisa walked out of the bathroom wearing a light robe,
toweling her hair. Her left foot came down on a bar of soap
just as the hot iron which had been perched above the door fell.
Her foot slipped out from under her and she fell backwards
just in time for the iron to miss her head, but it hit her
squarely on the stomach just as she landed on her back.
Feeling something odd under her bottom, she eased herself up
and reached underneath with her left hand. As she sat
up, she put the iron to one side, on the hallway carpet; a
sudden sizzling sound alerted her to the fact that the iron
was still quite hot. She hastily moved it to the bathroom
tiles. Her left hand held a number of sharp tacks, mostly
bent over now. More tacks littered the hallway just outside
the bathroom door, those she'd stepped on already flattened.
Hisa sighed and got up. Her stepmother would yell at her
if she didn't get all these tacks picked up right away.
Hisa ran her hands back and forth across the carpet, making sure
she had them all, before standing and proceeding to her room.
As she stood, her stepsisters Miki and Cho emerged from their
rooms, already dressed in their respective private school
uniforms. Both girls were slim, taking after their mother,
unlike Hisa, who resolved to resume her diet again.
"Curses," Cho muttered to Miki, not caring if Hisa heard.
"Foiled again!"
"Feeble, Cho, really feeble," Miki replied. "There isn't even
a mark on her robe."
Hisa dropped the tacks into her room's wastebasket, then dressed
hurriedly. She got downstairs just in time to hear her
step-mother order her to wash all the breakfast dishes before
leaving for school. Grumpily, Hisa complied, fantasizing about
how her Akiko-sama would take her away from all this someday.
Soon, she'd be back at school, together with Akiko again!
- - - - - - - - - -
Seigino Akiko posed before her full-length mirror, examining her
uniform with a critical eye: the traditional seifuku, whose
hemline she'd carefully raised to the limit she thought she could
get away with (a precaution in case she needed to move fast).
Underneath she wore a pair of bicycling shorts, just in case of
perverts. She would bring them to justice, of course, should she
encounter any, but in the meantime she didn't want them catching a
glimpse of her panties. Boys her age tended to act really
perverted around her, she reflected sourly, but seldom stuck
around to become friends. She surveyed her shelf of plastic
communicators and henshin wands with a sigh; somehow, carrying
those toys around didn't seem so attractive now that she was in
high school. She would wear the twin glittering hair pins,
though.
Making a final check of her backpack (magnifying glass, check;
fingerprint kit, check), Akiko bounced out of her room, only to
find that her little brother had been peering through the
keyhole.
She stabbed a denunciatory finger at the little monster. "Midget
fiends who spy on their older sisters shall answer to ME! Prepare
to be walloped!"
Her little brother stuck his tongue and lower eyelid out at
Akiko, then turned and quickly dashed down the stairs. Akiko
pursued him into the kitchen, where her mother was just
finishing putting breakfast on the table.
"Honestly, Akiko. You're in high school now. Don't chase your
little brother like that. He's almost big enough to fight back,
you know."
"Youkai, your mother's right," Akiko's father said, looking up
from his newspaper. "Boys your age shouldn't be running away
from their sisters, even if they are older."
"Sis does know judo 'n stuff," Youkai pleaded, in between hasty
gulps of breakfast.
"I'm sure Akiko wasn't in that horrible class long enough to learn
anything so unladylike," her mother replied primly. "Isn't that
right, Akiko, dear," she continued, giving Akiko a meaningful
stare.
"Sure, Mom!" Akiko replied quickly, thinking inwardly that her
parents had sure better never find out about the karate she was
studying now. Champions of justice needed to know this stuff,
she was quite sure, but her parents never seemed to see things the
same way she did.
(
geocities.com/tokyo/dojo/5058) (
geocities.com/tokyo/dojo) (
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