(by Taryn, who admits no ownership of any characters in this story, other than the vodouine (voodoo priestess) and her goat.)
"Darling, I need to step in this shop a moment. You'll stay here," her eyes narrow, "won't you?"
"My dearest Lum, I am hurt you consider me capable of skirt-chasing any more!" I lie. "Do you truly have so little trust in me?"
She blinks, then looks deeply, lovingly into my eyes. "Of course I don't, Darling." With a splash, she dumps her thermos on my head. She leaves me stunned, shivering, with a tiny peck on the cheek. "Bye-bye, Darling!"
I guess she's figured out I can't go girl-hunting now, not like this. Even I, the great ladies' man Ataru Moroboshi, have that much sense. Besides, the girls get even more creeped-out than before!
Before what, you may ask. Well, until recently, I was your average guy. Sure, everyone called me a lech, and I tried to meet as many girls as I could--in case Shinobu, or later Lum, dumped me, mind you. After a few REALLY big screw-ups, I got engaged to that horny--I mean horned--alien chick, Lum.
One day, Lum was off on some "diplomatic mission" with her dad, so I was playing while the oni was away. When I came home for supper, Mom was crying inter her miso soup.
"Oh, my poor son! (sob) Cut down in the prime of youth! (choke) Before he'd truly become a man! Sure, he'd never be a man among men, but--"
"Geez, Mom, what's up this time?" I started in on my meal. Dad seemed as oblivious as ever, except the newspaper he was hiding behind shook a little every so often.
Her usual self, she handed me a pen and a stack of paper. "Sign this. Oh, woe is me, to lose my worthless husband and son to such (wimper) tragedy!"
I glaced over the document. "I, the undersigned party of the first part, most solemnly, utterly and of sound mind avow… yada yada yada," I flipped through several pages, hoping to get to the point before the tofu dried out. Mom kept up her crocodile tears, and Dad shuddered again. "… elimination of the curse of lechery … most honorable seppukku?! This is a suicide pact!"
"You and your father only die in the most honorable manner, and only if you don't dispel this shameful curse."
"Mom, I'm not signing this, and even Dad knows better! I am who I am!"
"Right. Well, then." She picked me up by the back of my collar! To this day, I can't figure out how she did that. "I'll just do it myself."
"What--Hey, let go of me!" My struggles never got
me free.
She took the family sword off the wall and strode to the door. "We'll be back as soon as we can, Dear. Don't wait up for us!"
"Mom, what'cha do that for?!"
"In case you won't commit seppukku yourself. Let's not waste time."
"Gaah! Help me! Lemme go, you crazy woman!"
For weeks, she dragged me all over the world to every holy place, temple, shrine, synagogue, and monastery we could find. Yes, dragged. She must have really thought I had some sort of curse!
Sakura-chan was her normal, wonderful, miko self; beautiful and distracting, but basically useless. She had tried this before, anyway. Her uncle Cherry was even less help, spouting irrelevant sayings and advice. The two of them did give us a few leads, though.
Tsubame's old voodoo master in the West was lost, but we got the next best in his line. She was kinda creepy, with the wavy dagger and all, but her goat was more nervous than I was! "Don'tcha fret none Ma'am, dis 'ere nelly goat gonna eat up de boys sins, ah? An' ya get barbecue afta! Can't beat dat, can ya?" What a freak!
Then there was that fire shrine in Juuban, Hikawa I think it was called. The old guy reminded me of somebody; I wonder who? But what a perv, coming on to Mom like that! (We pounded him like Cherry!) His granddaughter was really cute, though. She can light my fire any day! I was afraid the ropes would interfere with the spiritual energies (not to mention my 'hundred hands technique'!), but she insisted. When she did the flame reading, the "Great Fire" flared up--and vanished. "Greatmeetingyoutoobadyoureallygottagonowandneverevercomebackbye!" She sure was in a hurry to rush us out the door. Strange girl. I wonder if that had anything to do with meeting the Sailor Senshi that afternoon? They attacked me for some reason; I just wanted autographs (and phone numbers, and e-mail addresses, and…)!
Even the cutey near that technical college (Nekomi?), the one with stringy, ash-blonde hair, Bel-something? I wonder what her strange make-up was about. Anyway, she agreed to try something, with almost pity in her voice. She said some super-weird stuff and glowed, spun around and floated--but collapsed. "Oh, the humanity!" I think she said. Her REALLY cute sister served us some tea when we got the first into bed. Shinobu would admire her giant hammer. It (and its owner) were distracting me when I sipped the tea, so I didn't notice anything wrong until I felt a tiny foot in my mouth. "Do ya mind, I'm soaking here!" After the hammer-girl took the little person from me, it grew to a normal-sized, super-hot platinum blonde! Even before hearing about my condition, she administered shock-treatment as well as Lum ever did. (Okay, I happened to be glomming on to this one at the time.) When the youngest one handed me a flash-bomb, saying something about dispelling the darkness that was "attracting bugs in the system," all it did was leave some charcoal marks on my face and hair. And the guy that lived there must've been crazy; three gorgeous babes, and he was in love with the dullest one!
Anyway, nothing had worked, and we ended up trekking through
the harsher rural areas of
"Whatever… water first."
"Ah, hello dere." We
looked at the new speaker, some round guy, with the red star of
Mom answered in a raspy tone, "Yes, good sir. Water, please?"
"Water? Yes is water here." That's when we saw past him: water! Pools of it! Cold springs! Practically filling the valley! In our rush, we didn't see the tall bamboo poles rising from them, not that it would've mattered. "Oh, madam and sir must not get too close! Is famous valley of Training Ground of Accursed Spring, Ju-sen-kyo! Very bad!"
I vaguely remember walking between them, and hearing a creepy, irrational giggling; was that me, or Mom? Some of it stopped after the guide had been talking a few minutes. Something about tragic story (stories?), thousands or hundreds of years ago, and a curse or curses.
Then Mom said, "Cursed? Hm… Well, one's as good as another."
She must have kicked me while I was kneeling, savoring the promise of refreshment, because suddenly I had more water than I knew what to do with. The water should have been messing with my ears, but I know I heard her clap her hands twice: "Such is fate, my worthless son."
I could have drowned in there! Luckily, I did come back up, even if I was coughing and sputtering. "What'cha do that for?! Are you nuts?!" Now normally, I could never bring myself to lay a finger on my mother; somehow, I felt so much more emotional than normal. Mom was staring, stunned, like she was looking at a ghost. She was an easy target for my anger, so I effortlessly tossed her in the water. As I was claming down and catching my breath, I heard Red-Star.
"Why no one listen when guide say, 'It very bad you fall in spring'? All time, find out for self, and guide even finish legend now. Visitor is very silly, no?"
"What are you talking about?" Something sounded off. "And weren't you shorter earlier?"
"No, same height. Sir is shorter."
I did feel kinda odd, but didn't have time to think about it before a reptile climbed out of the spring Mom fell in. "Oh no, an alligator got Mom! …Oh well."
"No, sir's mother fall in Spring of Drown Crocodile. Is same person. Very tragic story of crocodile drown dere one thousand, six hundred year ago, and now person who fall in spring take body of crocodile."
"What? That's the silliest thing I ever heard! And how can a crocodile drown?!" When I felt it gnawing on my leg, I started to consider that it might really have been Mom. It did kind of look like her: black on the top of its head and down the neck, vicious appearance, fake tears; yeah it was Mom, alright.
"Too bad, sir is one in long time to fall in Nyan-nii-ch'uan, Spring of Drown Girl. Very tragic story of one thousand, five hundred year ago young girl fall in dat water. Person who come out of water all look like young girl."
I looked into the nearest pool. There was a girl staring back, a really cute girl, shorter than me, softer, shapelier, with black (raven? crow, at least) hair, but wearing my clothes. Hot, a total babe! She kinda looked like some of Mom's old pictures, I think. Would I have looked like that if I was a girl? Well, she mirrored all my movements when I turned my head back and forth, tilted it, waved my arm around, and even played with my hair. Well, I guessed I was a girl, and that's what I looked like, so…yeah.
Then I noticed her chest. My chest! I had a chest! I sat up and looked at directly, patted it a couple times. Real. And real weird. I was looking inside my shirt, and comparing it to my database, when the croc punched the back of my head.
There you have it. Mom wanted to make me a real man, but it backfired. Oh, she says something about how a real man understands what women go through, and can "communicate" better, and all that nonsense. I'm still girl-crazy, but it gets plain embarrassing trying to do anything about it. At least if I turned into a cat, duck, piglet, whatever, I could use the cute bit on chicks, but noooooo! Worse, the way I used to attract freaky girls, now it's guys too!
In fact, here comes one. One of those cocky, bishonen jerks is walking up, late teens, blond, tall, short hair. "I bet most guys think you're out of their league, but maybe you're not a snob," he chuckles. "Flowers?" he offers a little bouquet, "Something to bring you out of that funk, y'know?"
I don't know what's most disgusting: the cocky-funny approach he uses, the fact he probably has nothing to back up the attitude, or how a lot of girls probably eat this up! Maybe I could learn some pointers, but not in this body. "Take a hike, pal, I'm waiting for my date!"
"Yeah, me too. Too jealous to let you talk to other people?" There's something fishy about this guy.
"Yes, SHE is! She'd give you the shock of your life!" For once, I kinda wish Lum were here, or even one of her alien buddies. "Now scram!"
He smirks and winks. "Is she cute?"
What is wrong with this character?! Desperate, I grab the tea out of the hand he's not holding flowers with, and douse myself. "Ow! Face it, I'm really a guy, mac, so buzz off!"
"Aw, man!" he says, poking my chest (that's annoying no matter which form I'm in!), and finally sighs. "I actually thought you were a girl like me."
"Yeah, well, I'm not--" Wait, did he just say…? I slap myself for being so stupid; something felt weird, because my chick-detector was going off! "Hey babe, can I get your number?" I ask, my confidence back in full force.
She stretches her arms and looks up, faking uncertainty, "I don't know, I'm not really into men. You are half-girl, though, hmm." Suddenly her eyes focus on something, and the perpetual smile disappears. Uh oh.
"Darling!" This is gonna hurt.
Another voice echoes as well as Lum's did, "Haruka! Have you turned on me?!"
"Uh, H-hi, Michiru! I just, um, this isn't what it looks like?" She ended that sheepishly; for shame! Maybe I can teach her a few things, too.
"How could you, Darling?!" Yeah, the fangs are out; this is gonna hurt bad.
"Hey, she started out trying to pick ME up! It's not really my fault!"
"I swear, Mi-chan, he was a girl a minute ago!"
"Not good enough, Haruka!" Her hair is wavy, but, just like Lum's, it seems to flow in a breeze that's not there.
Just as our dates are about to drag us in opposite directions, the blonde gives me a flower from the bouquet meant for the girl with blue-green hair (the one other than Lum). "Some other time, uhh…?"
"Ataru. Yeah, some other time." Is it the fact that I turn into a girl, that I kinda like a girl who kinda likes me enough to give me a flower, or that Lum just gave me a low-voltage zap, why my knees give way? Yeah, I definitely think we'll all see eachother again.