It began as all terrible events did: With someone having a good idea. It happens frequently. A person lacks a certain piece of information which leads them into an action which - based upon the information they do have available - leads to disaster, dismay, despair and so forth. It may seem obvious in hindsight. It really might. But to someone somewhere, it all really did seem like a good idea at the time.
In this particular instance, the good idea could be traced back to two of the residents of the Hinata dorm having two very separate but similar ideas one particular breakfast time. Good ideas that everyone living there would soon very much come to regret.
<hr>
So, the thing about bad luck was that it didn’t happen in a vacuum. If a person is forced to sleep on a bed of nails, they get used to keeping their weight distributed. If a person went an average of three steps before slipping on a banana peel, they could adapt to that as well. The point is that on occasion a little bit of good stuff must happen to an unlucky person now and again, otherwise - well, the bad stuff will just roll right off them. Hopes have to be raised before they can be dashed.
Keitaro was instinctively aware of this particular fact even as he entered the kitchen one morning for his breakfast. Shinobu was already slaving away on a gorgeous spread that was probably more than anyone around the table should eat, but given the way it smelled who could possibly help themselves? Kitsune had already arrived as well, and was slumped onto the table as though she was falling asleep once again. Or maybe she was already drunk. The bottle clutched in her hand was a bit of a giveaway to that possibility. Su was also present, running around the room and chasing after a toy airplane she was controlling by remote. Nobody else had arrived yet -
“Do you intend to remain in the doorway all day?” Motoko asked from behind him. “Or will you permit others to leave and enter as they will?”
“Oh, sorry!” he hurriedly said, stepping sharply to the side to get out of Motoko’s way. She strode past without even casting a glance in his direction, and took her seat at the table with her usual air of dignity.
Which is right around when the first “good idea” came into being, as Su suddenly veered left with a laughing cry of “Motoko! Let’s play! Let’s play!”
As quick as Motoko’s reactions might well be, they were no match for Kaolla Su’s exuberance and energy. The seated kendoist suddenly found herself tumbling out of her seat, right around the same time the second “good idea” manifested: Keitaro taking his own seat at the table, only to find that Kitsune had rigged it with a modified joy buzzer.
Soon enough Keitaro was jumping forwards out of his chair while Motoko was trying to bat a pesky toy plane out of the air and placate a particularly hyperactive Su. Keitaro immediately and promptly landed in a location that was becoming increasingly familiar of late, and was simultaneously associated in his brain with pleasure and then pain: Naru’s cleavage.
Now, one might believe that the reaction would be a new hole in the wall, but for reasons beyond Keitaro she’d been pulling her punches lately. Perhaps, he reasoned, it was because she was simply getting used to such humiliation and wasn’t quite as angry as she used to be?
If Naru were asked, she would absolutely deny the idea that it had anything to do with the fact that she was a succubus, was feeding on Keitaro’s arousal after such accidents, and was unconsciously doing everything she could to cause ever-increasing amounts of it because she liked the taste. It must be said that if this were actually the case, then it would be a perfect example of the kind of fortunes young Mister Urashima had: He had gained the lustful attention of a tsundere succubus in denial, with a mildly violent expression of this denial. That’s a pretty special brand of bad luck called “glimpsing heaven, then being cast to hell.”
Unfortunately, we shall have to contend with the extremely (a ten on a scale of one to ten and rising nightly) erotic dreams the two of them were having about one another on some other occasion. We shall have to temporarily bypass the fantasies of one of them playing a naughty teacher or student, or the things they were dreaming up regarding melted chocolate, whips, handcuffs and, in at least one instance, a collection of plush toys. We must regrettably return to the chaos already in progress.
Naru’s slap may not have sent Keitaro through a wall, but it might have been better for him and everyone else if it had. He could survive that. It would hurt like hell, but he would survive it. Easily. However, being spun around in place and landing on top of the still annoyed Motoko was something he might not survive.
“Ah! Sorry about that!” Keitaro said, rapidly extracting himself from one of the only places in the entire building more dangerous than Naru’s breasts. Still not quite as bad as Su’s lab, but then again the whole building may as well be Su’s lab when the mood takes her. “It was an acci- Uh… What’s the glowing thing?”
The scowl on Motoko’s face turned into a surprised blink. She extracted a pendant from around her neck and held it up for all to see. And then something bizarre happened. It took him a moment to realise what that new expression was on Motoko’s face. He’d seen her stern. He’d seen her happy. He’d seen her sad or even scared, but this was a rather new one. Real and genuine excitement.
It was a good look. Made her look very cute.
“This pendant was a gift sent to me recently by my sister,” Motoko said. “It detects when someone has been the victim of a demon feeding upon them in some manner and glows just like this!” All five other people in the room simultaneously swallowed extremely nervously. Not that Motoko noticed as she continued. “Urashima or myself must have recently come into contact with an evil spirit!”
“You don’t say!” Shinobu exclaimed, suddenly looking very faint. Everyone else assumed she was just a little scared of the spirit doing something to her, but that belief was merely misplaced by a single word. Try exchanging <i>spirit</i> for <i>exorcist</i>.
“There is no time to waste!” Motoko declared, carefully placing the pendant around her neck. “We must discover the source of this evil spirit and remove it from the dorm. At once!”
- Everyone makes their own plans to protect themselves from Motoko.
- Motoko decides to bring her sister in.
- She goes it alone. What sort of preparations does Motoko have in mind?
- So, about those dreams Naru and Keitaro are having about each other.
- Something else
4
ReplyDeleteI say 1
ReplyDelete