Story: UY First Impressions

<i>"And so it appears that the Earth is safe and sound. At last, we can return to our homes. At last, we can reflect on the astounding knowledge, the certainty that we are not alone in this universe. We may relax our guard, but only briefly, for who knows what other life forms exist out there that may yet demonstrate interest in our humble blue and green Earth? Now here's Yuki with the weather report."</i>

He'd done it. Even now, sitting here in his family's living room, staring at the television in the aftermath, he could hardly believe it. He'd done it. He'd actually done it. Ataru was barely able to restrain himself. His right hand had made a fist, and his entire arm was trembling. But he held it back. Kept himself from punching the air in righteous, well-earned anticipation. He wanted to yell it from the rooftops. Here he was! Ataru Moroboshi! Behold his glory!

He had himself an honest-to-goodness harem of hot babes! Three aliens and one human. Oh. And also he'd kind of saved the day a little bit by beating Lum in the tag race, ensuring the enduring freedom of his kind, saving them from the unknown fate set in store by the mysterious, enigmatic and powerful Oni aliens, resulting in him accomplishing worldwide notoriety for something positive for a change because he had positively impacted all of their lives and contributed towards the lasting happiness of everyone on Earth, present and future.

But the harem thing was more important to him. Then again, after thinking about it a little bit, saving the human race in such dramatic style might well get him even more tail! Ho ho ho! Things were certainly looking up for him, that's for damn sure!

Instinct told him to move a few feet to the right. It was thoughts like that which practically compelled a piece of the roof to fall on him or something. Nope. Not today. Huzzah! Perhaps he really was invincible now?

"Ataru!" his mother gasped. "Wh-what is that frightening thing on your face? It looks so... So unnatural!"

A quick glance in the mirror revealed nothing. "Where?" he asked. "I don't see anything strange."

"Don't you see it?" his mother gasped, her face a mask of absolute shock and terror. "Your lips! I've never seen them in that shape before! Make it stop, please, Ataru!"

"... Mom, that's my smile."

"It's unnatural!"

So yeah, in case you were wondering why Ataru is so "well adjusted" here was your answer. Ataru slid out of the room, still holding the handheld mirror. He stopped to look again at his face. It didn't seem so unnatural, did it? A genuine smile of real happiness. That wasn't so weird, was it? He stopped to look again -

Then he blinked in absolute confusion at the face in the mirror staring back at him. Had someone put clown makeup on him in the last minute without him noticing? He turned to look, noticing the much bigger mirror behind himself. Nothing there that he could see... Except for the small thing crawling out of the handheld mirror!

"Ah!" he gasped. "Ah, no! Stay back! Noooo! Help meeee!"

"You see?" his mother sighed, shaking her head in the next room. "That's no ordinary smile. It was positively demonic." She let out a frustrated sigh, which was rapidly becoming a reflexive reaction. “I really wanted to have a girl”

<hr>
For some, Friday the Thirteenth was a day of horrible fortune where you had to look over your shoulder just in case something nasty was creeping up on you. Shinobu never really subscribed to silly superstitions like that. Then again, she didn't exactly believe in extraterrestrial life either, nor did she believe that she was a pervert. Until she wound up in an orgy with three aliens and her boyfriend. That was kind of difficult evidence to ignore even for the most obstinate person.

But on today's Friday the Thirteenth Shinobu felt lucky. Really, really lucky! Because for at least a little while she got to have Ataru all to herself. As hot as those alien chicks might be, as amazing as they were in bed, it was her renewed determination that she would use this time to remind Ataru of exactly what was so worth saving about the human race. Drag him out under the pretense of a date, and then she'd have him all to herself.

"Excuse me, miss!" she heard a voice call out. "Please go out with me!"

"No, me!" another boy yelled, and before long a few others joined in too. Now, Shinobu certainly wasn't arrogant enough to think she was the one turning all those heads, but those voices were pretty close and growing closer by the instant, which did rather draw her curiosity about who <i>was</i> drawing that attention. Not to mention that as a freshly realized pervert it was her duty to personally inspect her surroundings for previously undetected hotness.

Hotness had indeed been detected. It was pretty hard to miss and almost as difficult to fail to recognise. Even if Shinobu couldn't see her face, how many people did she know that would walk around in chainmail bikinis? Look at her there, strutting down the street without a care, drawing the attention of everything male that she walked by. Was it any wonder when she was showing off that much bare skin? Was it any wonder when she was sporting a figure models would envy? Was it any wonder when she was exuding an aura of absolute self-confidence?

"Yo, Shinobu!" Benten cheerily called, completely ignoring all the boys vying for her attention. "Fancy meeting you here! Man, Earth is so much more fun than I thought it'd be!"

Before Shinobu could say another word, a black cat hopped across Benten's path, leaped up onto a ladder and the next thing anyone knew Benten had a bag full of compost dumped right on her head.

"A'right! Who the hell thought that was a good idea?!" Benten yelled, pulling a space gun out of thin air and making the boys scatter for the hills. "Gah! This stuff stinks!"

Which is when the paint can fell on her head, leaving her completely covered head to toe in a thin green covering. Shinobu tried her absolute best not to laugh, because laughing at someone eager and ready to pull out some kind of laser weapon is probably not the best person to experience schadenfreude over, and certainly not one to express it over.

"... Is today an unlucky day in your culture or something?" the alien carefully asked.

"Yes," Shinobu said. "Friday the Thirteenth is considered pretty unlucky. Why?"

"Ech! Us Lucky Gods are kinda sensitive to that kinda malarky. I'd try leaving, but my bike'd probably break down halfway into orbit or get hit by one of your flying things or a meteor or crap like that. Here's me thinking I could have some fun while the others are fillin' out the paperwork for living on Earth. Bet Lum'd have a good ol' laugh at this!"

"Is Oyuki here too?"

"Nuh-uh! Between you and me, I kinda tricked her into filling out my paperwork for me. Lucky me, right? You gonna visit Ataru or something?"

"That was the plan," Shinobu said. "But I don't think we should take you there in that condition. Come back home with me. I'll get you a change of clothes."

She was honestly a little bit conflicted over this development. On the one hand, she wouldn't be able to have Ataru all to herself anymore. On the other... Benten needed help and she was quickly beginning to think of the girl as a friend. Not just a lover, but a friend as well. What else could she do but make the most of it, right?

<hr>
Imagine a room cast in darkness with a single focus of light on the back wall. A projector is, well, projecting an image there. An image that becomes a similar but distinct image so fast that the eye barely registers the change. Then another and another, creating the illusion of movement in the phenomenon known as persistence of vision. The audience is a small group of boys who, let's be charitable, would not be within the set for their peer group labelled "dateable."

The reasons varied from the shallow to the more complex. Bad hygiene, personality problems, too ugly, too stupid, but quite often the problems weren't just any one of those four. Or any two, either. The point was that, really, the only way they would be able to get a date is if they didn't shoot so damned high and maybe consider the possibility that it might be better for them in the long run if they considered lowering their standards a little. Or maybe that would be a lesson they'd learn later in life? That they were not <i>owed</i> a cute girlfriend no matter what movies and television told them and that they actually had to work at bettering themselves for such things.

Or they might be single forever. Interact with them briefly and the latter might be a little easier to believe.

Anyway, this kind of makes it sound like they were watching porn on the projector. No. What were they watching? A super hot topless woman fleeing the pursuit of a man until the man produces the missing upper portion of her bikini and tosses it to the ground, prompting the woman to drift towards it in an attempt to retrieve the missing item of clothing. The man tackles her to the ground while she's picking it up, and there's a tremendous climax as the two embrace.

"Congratulations," a reporter says to Ataru Moroboshi, who is attempting to disentangle himself from Lum. "You've just saved the human race thanks to ingenuity and cunning! What are you going to do now?"

"Now he's going to date me," Lum said into the microphone over Ataru's protestations. Then, to the whooping cheers of all around, she kissed him right on the lips. "I've decided that I like you," she said while Ataru reeled. "I'm going to ask Daddy's permission to stay on Earth and date your champion. I shan't be long, darling! Just wait for me, I should be about a week in your time."

The projector was switched off, and now we could see several other important facts about the room. Pictures of Lum the Invader plastered on the walls, drawn from news reports or personal pictures taken from the race. Cropped to only show her, and blown up to the maximum size they could afford between them. The boys themselves had tears streaming down their faces, and their leader took to the front of the room to address the others.

"This is a sad and terrible day," he declared. "If only Lum had asked us, each of us would have gladly sacrificed the Earth to have a chance to be near her! We would have been her stormtroopers among humankind... And now she is gone. Worse yet, she is gone and will only return for Ataru Moroboshi, of all the idiots!"

"She'll see through him soon enough!" another called out.

"Right!" said another. "Then we can make our own move!"

"... Actually, I think I prefer that biker chick friend of hers that showed up that one time," another said, drawing the ire of most others in the room. "Man, that chick knows how to work it! She could rev my engine anytime!"

"Ahem!" their leader coughed. "That heresy will not be tolerated! Lum is our one and only angel -"

"I dunno, man," said another, looking at a picture being held by the first 'heretic'. "The more I check her out, the more she really works for me. She's pretty damn foxy and ain't got no trouble showing it off."

"Not to mention she hasn't tried to enslave us..." said a third. "And she isn't spoken for, like Lum is."

"Yeah," said a fourth. "I mean... How great could she really be if she'd fall for a twerp like Moroboshi? Think I'd rather take my chances with the biker chick."

And that was how two factions of many were born. The first, the Stormtroopers, utterly devoted to Lum to the point they would take marching orders from her. The second, the Templars, who worshipped Benten as a Goddess. This was their story. This was their despair. This was their war.

<hr>
Try to imagine being sick every day of your life. Every day. Without fail. Not as in you're terminally ill. That's terrible. It's tragic. I'm talking, like, say, one day you have a cold. The next severe indigestion. Then the next your arm is sore. Toothache. Mumps. Chicken pox. A tiny dash of scurvy. Conjunctivitis. Each day a new lottery for a different sickness and no way to tell in advance which it would be.

Pretty terrible. Now try imagining that it happened hourly without relief. Now imagine that you would often wind up with more than one at a time. Nothing fatal. Nothing that would necessarily kill you by itself. Just sick enough to suffer constantly, but each suffering different enough that you can never, not for a single second, get used to it.

... Got a bit dark there for a moment, folks, but I promise you that comedy is going to return to the episode.

Anyway, the point is that this poor woman's name was Sakura. Her family was a touch religious with a special talent for exorcism that she balanced against her rapidly acquired knowledge of diseases and ailments and ways to soothe the pain for each. She didn't <i>need</i> training at any kind of medical school. Didn't have the money for it anyway. She was simply exposed to so much of it over her life that she was something of an expert at it without needing the training. She saw more varied illness in her lifetime - and she was twenty-one years old, bear in mind - than a retired doctor for any local practice in the world.

Right now she was sitting in the darkness of her room with a blanket over her head, coughing and spluttering while trying to meditate. Recent news events had been a trifle alarming, but nothing she could do anything about. And so she decided to let the world get on with it. It was outside of her areas of expertise, so why bother getting worried when there was nothing she could do? Call her up if those Oni can be exorcised and not one minute before.

Besides which. Her time was better suited here. Alone. In the dark. Waiting for the call to draw her out so that she could vanquish the very face of pure, twisted evil -

"If all you do is sulk in the shadows," a hideous face suddenly said inside her field of vision. "Then the only things in this world you affect shall be the shadows."

She threw a pillow at him. But it was too late. The little shit had already eaten the sandwich she'd asked Mother to make, and drunk the water brought alongside it.

"Did you want something?" she asked around the coughing fit, punctuating it with a huge, snotty sneeze. "Or are you only here to harass the unwell?"

"Actually, I wanted your opinion on a spiritual matter," that old wrinkled old bastard Cherry said, slurping down the very last drops of water and even licking the glass before actually asking the next question. Disgusting little imp. No wonder she was always so unwell if this was her relative. "You have been watching the recent events on the televised broadcast, of course."

"A little," she conceded, then winced as she noticed an ulcer at the end of her tongue. "I understand that a local boy thwarted an alien invasion through unconventional means."

"Indeed," Cherry said, sadly shaking his head. "I have encountered this boy in person, and can make neither head nor tail of his fortune. On the one hand, it seems as though he has very bad luck. On the other... Perhaps a fresh viewpoint might grant a greater perspective on his case."

"... Are you asking me for help?"

"Not at all, do not be foolish," Cherry coughed. Wasn't a priest supposed to be not proud? "I am simply entertaining the possibility that this Ataru boy might be a rare and special case, and, out of concern for his wellbeing, requesting the assistance of a junior exorcist to maintain a helpful presence."

"In other words," Sakura put together, "he's scared off by the sight of you, you're tired of running after him and this is your way of passing the buck."

"You want a pet male rabbit?" Cherry asked. Another pillow was thrown at him. "My dear, if you wanted me to take away your resting supplements, all you had to do was ask. Niceness travels further than -"

"I'm going out!" Sakura declared.

"Ah, Sakura! I have not given you the address!"

"I don't need it," she replied.

"Of course. A spiritual master like myself can instill in his students the ability to detect quirks in the ethereal field. You shall locate him with that instead! Perhaps you are more advanced than I first believed."

The only reason Sakura didn't roll her eyes was that one of them had developed a stye. No. She wasn't doing her hideous uncle's work for him. She just wanted a touch of fresh air because it was getting a touch too ugly for her tastes in there! Maybe for once going for a walk would make her feel better? Though secretly she doubted it, at the very least it would get her away from him.

"I wish I could be well," she sighed. "Like everyone else. I'd give almost anything."

Well... Even though it was Friday the Thirteenth, one of the unluckiest days on any calendar, Sakura would soon find her wish granted in a way that she would never, ever have been able to predict.

1. Ataru versus an unwanted demon!
2. Shinobu tries to get to know Benten a little better. Which the Templar interfere in.
3. Shinobu and Benten encounter Sakura.
4. Sakura notices the demonic aura around the Moroboshi house.
5. Something else