Attached here are Scenes 46 through 49 of Spreading Wings
C&C Welcome.
Thanks in advance for your time and attention,
Don Granberry.
Most of the characters in this piece and the setting for it, were
conceived of by Rumiko Takahashi for her Ranma1/2 series of Manga. All
such characters and the setting are the property of Takahashi-san and
her licensees. All other characters in the piece are purely fictional
and any resemblences to actual persons living or dead are purely
coincidental.
Spreading Wings
Part I: The Burning Ring of Fire
Scenes 46 thru 49
Sato tried to control his fidgeting as he waited in the alley for
the purple haired girl. She would be along soon. He was eager to see her
again. He had special plans for her tonight. For the past several nights
now he drooled over her as she returned home from her job at the
okinomiyaki shop. He delighted in those delicious curves so wonderfully
accentuated by her slinky, silk dresses. Tonight he planned on stroking
her strong, lovely thighs and tasting her plump breasts. And when the
moment of winds and rain comes he thought, I'll plunge my knife into her
heart. I can't wait to see her eyes when she realizes that she is dying.
He shivered in anticipation.
The girl Sato had been waiting for approached, happily talking to
her pet duck. She had it cuddled up against her breasts with both arms.
The duck seemed happy and content. Sato did not blame the duck. He would
like to be where it was at the moment and soon, he would be. He quivered
from head to foot in anticipation. He pulled his favorite knife from its
scabbard. Now! He thought, and lunged out of the alley.
The girl never made a sound. She never let out a gasp nor even
showed sign of alarm. She dropped her pet as she sidestepped his lunge,
then made a funny motion with her right hand. She stepped back from him
and smiled. Something terrible had happened to Sato. So terrible he
could not even scream. All he could do was stare at the girl, his eyes
wide in horrified disbelief.
She bowed to him.
"Good evening!" She said cheerfully as though she had just met
Sato at a party, then giggled that little girl giggle of hers.
Sato turned and staggered off into the darkness with an odd,
straddle legged gate.
Xian Pu dropped down on her haunches, so she could talk to her
duck.
"Look, Mu Suu!" she said, showing him what she held in her right
hand,
"Now Xian Pu is liberated woman! Xian Pu have these to show liberated
friends, yes?"
The duck quacked loudly and shivered. Xian Pu giggled as she
gathered him up into her arms and walked homewards. She began singing a
happy tune from her childhood. She was skipped the rest of the way home
while Mu Suu quacked in time with the tune.
---------
Konatsu was deeply worried about Ukyo. She had gotten into the
habit of drinking a beer with a meal after graduatining from highschool,
but since the night she had received Ranma's note, she had begun to
drink a bit more regularly. Not enough to get sloppy drunk, but enough
that she was good and misty eyed by closing time. He knew that it
helped her get to sleep without crying for hours on end and kept his
silence. Tonight though, she was a little further along than just misty
eyed. She had drunk enough to become clumsy and unfocused, which was not
like Ukyo at all.
"Perhaps you should go get some rest, sensei," Konatsu said, "I
will finish cleaning up."
"Making sure everything is perfectly clean is part of the
heart...I mean art, Konatsu!"
"Then please do me the honor of allowing to me to practice it on
my own, sensei," Konatsu begged imploringly. He was afraid she might
spill the scalding, hot water they used to mop the floors on herself, or
fall down and get hurt.
"All right, Konatsu. But you be damned sure you get it right,"
Ukyo said then tried to unsuccessfully to suppress a painful belch,
"I'll be checking on it in the morning."
"It will be perfect, sensei," Konatsu said with a bow, "I
promise."
"Good! See that it is, " Ukyo said as she took another beer from
the refrigerator and opened it, "I think I'll go get a bath."
"Hai, sensei!" Konatsu said. He bowed and stayed bent until she
had gone upstairs. He listened intently while he worked, ready to rush
upstairs in case she fell.
After two hours of intense effort, the interior of Ucchan's
sparkled. Konatsu was exhausted. He was deeply exhausted. He pulled out
a chair and sat down heavily, his head and upper torso slumped forward.
His weariness stemmed from more than just from the work, much of it came
from Ukyo's ongoing misery. Being around her every day had changed him.
He had begun to think of her as more than just his employer and sensei.
He had fallen in love with her. It had been hopeless from the first of
course. He had known all along that she was in love with Ranma Saotome.
He did not mind that so much. He wanted her to be happy. The trouble
was, Ranma did not love her, or at least, was not in love with her.
Ukyo's pain was Konatsu's pain. He did not hate Saotome. He just wished
that Ranma would have done the right thing much sooner than he had.
Konatsu sat up and listened intently, a faint feeling of alarm
growing in his chest. He did not understand his own unease. There was no
noise coming from upstairs and had not been for over an hour. Konatsu's
eyes widened with horror. He had heard her go into the bath but had not
heard her come out. He threw his rag down with a curse and sprinted up
the stairs as fast as he could go.
Ukyo was not in bed. He ran back to the bath and ripped the door
open without bothering to knock, then breathed a sigh of relief. She was
unhurt. She had simply fallen to sleep in the furo. She was smiling in
her sleep. It mad her look angelic. Konatsu's heart stopped beating for
a long time, long enough for him to become dizzy.
"I can't leave her in there all night," he said softly to
himself, "she's had too much to drink. She could easily drown."
He squatted down next to the furo and spoke softly to her.
"Ukyo-sensei?"
She did not respond.
"Ukyo..."
"Ran-chan?"
"It's me, Kona..."
"Carry me to bed, honey."
"Yes, sensei."
If only matters had been that simple. Ukyo was as limp as a rag
and soaking wet. Konatsu feared she might get sick unless she dried off
first. He pealed off his kimono and stepped into the furo so he could
lift her without becoming too personal. Then held her up and dried her
back and hair.
"That feels so-o-o good, Ran-chan."
"It's...it's...me, sensei. Konatsu."
UKyo's eyes opened wide.
"Konatsu?"
"Yes, sensei."
"Did I really get this drunk?"
"Yes, sensei."
"Get me my robe!"
"Here, sensei," Konatsu said. He had been about to put it on her
when she regained partial consicousness. It might have been more easily
done had she remained unconscious. It took several minutes of wrestling
around to get her into the heavy robe.
"I'm fine now, " Ukyo said, "Leave me alone."
"Yes, sensei," Konatus said, but did not turn loose of her. She
would have crashed onto the floor otherwise. They began walking towards
the door of the bath.
"I said," Ukyo growled as they made it into the hallway, "I can do
fine on my own now!"
"Yes, sensei," Konatsu said. He disentagled himself from her but
stayed close by. Ukyo leaned against the wall and took a step, then
another, then began sliding down the wall. Konatsu caught her.
"I'm not doing too well, am I?"
"You are doing fine, sensei," Konatsu said, "I'll always be here to
help you."
Ukyo looked him in the face for a moment, then large tears began to
well up in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Konatsu," she said, "I...I didn't know you were..."
"Let's get you to bed and covered up, sensie," Konatsu said
forcing his voice to remain even, "you shouldn't be out in the cold like
this."
He helped her upright and guided her towards her room.
"Poor, Konatsu," Ukyo said, "I'm so sorry."
"There is nothing to be sorry for, sensei."
Konatsu did finally get her into bed and covered up, but he was
barely able to hold himself upright after he had done so. It took him a
long time to gather enough energy to go down the hall and get his own
bath.
---------
Thursday morning was dry and clear, promising Tokyo a warm
afternoon as a rare, mid-November treat. Hana Yamakami stepped out her
front door and stopped to savor the clean fresh air. She was old and
grey headed now. She had lived her entire life in Nerima. Her back and
shoulders stooped from long labor in the fields that had magically
sprouted houses where once nothing but rice had grown. She had lived
through some incredibly hard times.
She had an amazingly long police record as well. Nothing serious
of course. Just a long series of fairly innocuous, but embarrassing and
seemingly unprovoked assaults on passersby and the occasional CEO of
large software companies. Most people only suffered from a dousing of
water or some other liquid. The cream pies she usually reserved for
politicians and chief executive officers of software firms.
Her record was long because the spirit had possessed shortly
before the occupation began. She was just a young girl then and never
learned anything of politics or philosphy or even very much history. She
just relied upon the spirit to move her when something needed to be
done. She never failed when the spirit moved her. Security firms and
government agencies from all over the world knew who she was, where she
lived, what she looked like and had her photograph and fingerprints on
file. None of them had ever succeeded in preventing one of her attacks.
For them, she was a source of both frustration and amusement. To the
universe, she was one of its most important counterweights and one of
its gentlest touches.
Yamakami-san stretched and yawned, then took broom in hand and
went to work. She hated having sand and dust on her beautiful, stone
walkways.
---------
Hikaru Takeshita looked at his tie in the mirror and decided he
did not want to wear it. He went back to the closet to see if had
something more suitable to wear on such a sunny day. He was the only
person in Nerima with a police record longer than Hana Yamakami's.
Unlike her record, his was not so amusing. In his youth he had been
charged with fifty assault charges. The record listed his involvement in
at least twenty burglaries and he had been investigated for several bank
robberies though never convicted. He was also suspected in numerous car
thefts. That had been his early record. He had since discovered that he
was an excellent pimp. He had a talent for it. He knew how to subvert
and recruit, and how to manage the girls he recruited. He knew which
ones to drug, which ones to abuse and which ones to be nice to. He also
knew when to get rid of a girl and was ruthless about it when the time
came.
Takeshita took great pride in his work and was a very natty
dresser. He was happy this morning. He and his roomie, longtime pal,
Kakuji Tanaka, had already worked up a long list of probable recruits to
be put to work in Nerima, mostly just by watching the girls chasing
Happosai. He was looking forward to getting started. So far, TheMan had
held them back, but that would change soon.
"Oy! Tanaka! Are you ready to go?"
Silence.
"Tanaka?"
Hearing no answer, Takeshita went looking for his partner. Not
finding him, Takeshita shrugged his shoulders and decided to leave. Once
outside, he decided to walk to the shopping district rather than fool
with the bus. It was too pretty a morning for such nonsense. He turned
right and proceeded north along Canal Street, whistling as he went. A
bucket of cold water spoiled his morning and one of his favorite suits.
The mild breeze turned out to have incredibly sharp teeth once he was
wet. Takeshita became enraged.
"What did you do that for, you old witch?" he screamed at Hana
Yamakami.
The grey headed old woman smiled but her eyes burned with a
ferocity that frightened Takeshita. He did not like that sort of stare,
especially coming from an old woman. A woman too old to be worth
anything to anyone, least of all him.
"I'm going to..." Takeshita forgot what he was about to say. He
suddenly felt nauseated, as though he were seasick. His vision became
blurry and seem to swim around as though he were looking through some
kind of revolving, fish-eye lense. His stomach became much worse when
the sensation of floating into the air hit him. He was floating in the
air! He could tell that he was high above the sidewalk. He felt
stretched out and thin. Suddenly, he began to rush downwards. He was
headed for the bottom of a galvanized bucket. He became conscious of
great pressure, as though his entire body had somehow packed itself into
the bucket. He wanted to scream, but could not. He wanted to cry but the
tears would not come. Then he wished he could whimper, because things
began to grow dark.
Hana Yamakami shuddered as she emptied her bucket into the storm
drain. The spirit had only done that two times before in the long years
since possessing her. Once it had her chant the words to a Japanese Army
officer the day after the surrender. A few weeks later, it made her
chant to an American seargent in the forces of occupation. She hated it
as much this time as she had the other two. She felt no pangs of
conscience though. She had done nothing of her own accord. It was the
will of the spirit that made her chant the spell which turned men into
oily goo. This, the third time had been no different from the others.
Only there was no drainage system to speak of back then. The other two
men had ended up in a nearby cesspool that had long ago been filled in.
She banged the lip of her bucket on the curb to rid it of the last
few drops of what had once been Hikaru Takeshita. She returned to her
compound with a great sigh of relief. She set the bucket under a faucet
and turned it on. She still had some work left to do on her beloved,
stone pavers.
"I wonder what ever got into that little boy who turns into such
a cute girl?" she muttered to herself as the bucket filled with fresh
water, "I haven't had to douse him for almost a month."