"Rock the Boat"
Disclaimer : Alas, this is a story that was never meant to be in canon – only in the cesspools of my mind. :D
(About time, too, 'cause my brain needs some serious spring cleaning. :p)
Thanks for bearing with me. Hope you enjoyed the boat ride. Cheers!
Part Three : Up in Arms (and other nasty stuff)
It was a beautiful day. Well, as beautiful as it could be for five saps stranded in the middle of the ocean, anyway. Except for a few smiling wisps of cirrus clouds floating by, the wide open sky hung infinite and clear; and the sun began to trek its eons-worn path through the sail of china-blue with its rays growing in strength as it rose in the east and beat down on the boat bright and warm like the gold of Ginji's hair.
"First thing I do when we get home is to get a deep-conditioning treatment," Kazuki joked as he pulled his hair up into a lady-like bee-hive. "This heat and sea air is splitting my ends."
Emishi and Ginji waited like excited children as they sat cross-legged on the deck while Kazuki used a koto string to gut and fillet a small yellowfin tuna they just caught.
"Isn't this great?" Ginji gushed, gleefully clapping his hands at the sashimi breakfast before them. "A picnic on a boat on a sunny day. What more could we ask for?"
"Gasoline would be nice," Ban snorted sarcastically.
"Wish we had some soy sauce, too," Emishi wistfully added as he popped a slice into his mouth.
The Fuuchouin heir finished dicing the fish and neatly arranged the pieces on the bench. He smiled. "Now, don't eat too much or else we'll get thirstier than we need to be."
"Shido-kun, aren't you going to eat?" the whip expert asked.
The Beastmaster glowered and snidely remarked, "No. I've decided from now on I'm only going to eat inanimate objects. Like rocks. "
Meanwhile, Ban lugged the water container over to the opposite bench, sat down and poured himself a drink into the jug's cap. "No sign of your lackeys, eh? Bet they wised up and decided to quit doing all your dirty work pro bono, you parasite."
"Shut your nagging trap, bastard," Shido bristled. He'd been leaning his head close to the water trying to detect subsonic signals in response to his calls. So far, it seemed no animal large enough to carry out the task had heard his request. "My beast whistle has a range of about two kilometers; more if the vibrations echo through the water and air. It's not like I have every creature in the Pacific at my beck and call. I'm not Aquaman."
"You got that right." Ban stretched out leisurely, bathing in the morning sun like a snake warming up his cold blood. "Aquaman can actually, you know, swim."
"Grrrr…" Shido's hand crumpled into a tight fist. Ignoring his rival's insult, he put his thumb and forefinger to his lips and whistled again.
Ginji stood up and sighed contentedly after finishing his breakfast. As he tied his dress shirt around his head into a bandanna, Ginji thought that if it weren't for the drinking water problem, being castaway didn't seem like such a bad prospect after all. Because unlike on dry land, here he could get breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Plus, he was with good friends (although amongst themselves, those 'friends' would probably beg to differ). In fact, Ginji couldn't think of anything he would really miss.
He swooned as he thought hard about it. Umm… Maybe he would miss candy, and cake, and pizza, and even Paul's coffee. Oh, and it would be nice if Hevn-san and Natsumi-chan could have joined in the fun, too.
Through heavy-lidded eyes, Ginji stared dreamily at the shining white bow and poof! two girls magically appeared, sunning themselves on beach towels wearing nothing but skimpy bikinis.
"Gin-chan…" Hevn cooed, sitting up, wildly shaking her flaxen hair and puffing out her ample chest. "Do you think this top is too small?" Her thin strip of a bandeau dipped lower… and lower… and lower…
"G-g-gaaaahh…" Ginji slobbered.
"Oh, Gin-chan…" Natsumi laid on her tummy with elbows propped and shapely legs swinging flirtatiously. Giggling, she turned her head and batted doe-eyes at him. "Could you please rub some suntan lotion on my back? It's so hard to reach…"
Ginji was now slobbering and panting. "Unnnhhh… Sure…" He blasted off and began clambering onto the front of the boat. A hand brusquely pulled him down by the garter of his shorts.
SMACK!
"Weh! Ginji! What the hell are you doing?" Ban shook his pal by the shoulders and slapped him again for good measure. "It's way too early for you to be seeing a mirage."
The daydream believer touched his stinging cheek and blinked. "I thought I saw – something." Blushing and blinking some more, Ginji veered his view out into the northern horizon and shielded his eyes from the brilliance of the sparkling ocean; the waves' crests reflecting the sunlight as though they were tipped with diamonds. And in this glitter field, he swore he saw a moving tip of dull gray.
"Look! I think something's coming!"
"Stop hallucinating!" Ban flicked Ginji's nose with his finger.
"No. Ginji-san's right," Kazuki exclaimed as he gracefully leapt on the bow and held onto the roof, looking every inch the captain of this shipwreck. Peering from his vantage point as the object drew closer at around fifteen knots, he surmised, "I think it's a dolphin."
Inwardly, what he really meant to say was 'I hope it's a dolphin'.
Then, the discernible outline of a dorsal fin made itself clear. However, unlike a dolphin's dorsal which was small, rubbery in appearance, and slightly curved, and which bobbed in and out of the tide as the dolphin surfaced for air; this fin was a rigid, sharp triangle with rough, serrated edges. It cruised proud and majestic like a mainsail that held a steady course towards the boat.
Five heads slowly turned in synchrony as they tracked the large, pale gray wedge go gliding alongside the craft; the distinct bullet-shaped body attached to it evident under the crystal blue water.
Emishi's sunglasses involuntarily slipped down his nose. "Uh, somebody please tell me that's not what I think it is," he gulped.
Shido reached down into the water and playfully swatted at it. "Thanks for your help, buddy. I owe you one."
"Holy crap!" Ban went ballistic as he tore at his hair. "You summoned a goddamn shark? Not a dolphin, or a whale, or a freakin' giant stingray, but a Great. White. Shark!"
"Listen, you ungrateful idiot! The dolphins are near the coast, the whales' migration is over, and this shark is the only one who answered my call!" Shido blew up in the retriever's face. "Now do you want the arms back or not?"
"Duuude… This thing's nearly as big as our boat," Emishi said, dumbfounded.
Ginji chibi-fied and babbled gibberish as he stuck to Kazuki's leg.
Dragging the tare with him, Kazuki cautiously followed the shark's movements as it patrolled around the vessel like a predator honing in on its wounded prey.
"Shido-san, why is it circling us?" His normally cool, stoic tone suddenly developed a slight trill.
"Because it's waiting for my command!" The Beastmaster shouted impatiently, sounding as close to a sulky child as he ever would be. "Dammit! You think I can't do my job properly?"
Grunting and snorting madly, he posed himself like a raging bull facing up to matadors in a bullring. "You know what pisses me off? You jerks have picked on me all night. If it's not my eyebrows, it's my underwear. If it's not my socks, it's my eating habits. Well, let me remind you that of this moment, it's my skills that are of some use on this crappy joyride…" Shido thumped his chest with the side of his fist (insert King Kong pun here).
"… so we either do it my way or no way, got that?"
The other four crew members sweatdropped at that sudden impassioned outburst from the beast man.
"As long as no one kicks me off my boat, you guys can mutiny all you want. I'm just the driver." Kazuki threw up his hands in defeat and slumped into the captain's chair.
"Shido, I believe in you," chibi-Ginji cheered, waving his fan while still clinging to Kazuki's shin like a koala to its favorite eucalyptus branch.
"Me, too, Shido-kun!" Emishi piped-up spiritedly. "I'm your partner in crime, your comic relief, your shoulder to cry on, your…"
"Way to assert your alpha male ambitions, zoo boy," Ban heckled. Thankfully, he didn't verbalize his next comment, 'You gonna start marking the boat now?'
"Since money is at stake here, fine, you do what you must." Ban gestured lazily with his hand. "Just keep that monster on a leash."
"Yeah, yeah." With that, Shido telepathically communicated with the shark; after which it submerged with its intimidating fin disappearing underneath the waves.
As they waited, Ginji wrapped his arms around his chest as though he were chilled. "Why do I suddenly have a bad feeling about this?"
Kazuki cringed. When the Raitei had a feeling, it was almost always right.
-o-
The boys' breaths caught in unison when the familiar triangle re-emerged at last from the surf. Slowly, it bounded for the boat, and within a few meters before reaching the hull's side, its head poked out.
Everyone except Shido took a step back at the mere size of it. Scarred from years of battle and faded ash- gray with age, the shark's head was as big as a boulder. Its looks were made more menacing by the fierceness in its beady black eyes and the fact that its two rows of saw-bit teeth were dripping with the bloody remains of what the boys liked to assume was its breakfast – non-human they hoped.
"Ugly fellow, isn't he?" Emishi whispered.
"Shhhh! It might hear you!" Kazuki warned. Of course, he was aware this was a fish he was referring to. But with one this huge, you can never be too sure.
Clamped in the shark's teeth was a white pulpy, shapeless mass that was quite literally dissolving before their very eyes.
"What the fuck is that?" Ban impudently asked Shido. "That sure as hell doesn't look like an arm."
Kazuki shuffled forward. "It's… It looks like a bundle of cloth or something."
"I think it's the Aphrodite," Shido inferred, staring hard at the swaddled lump. "Or what's left of it."
"Should we take it anyway?" Emishi wondered.
"Nah. Forget it. It's too degraded and impure to bring back. Besides, we should be happy to be rid of this devil drug forever," the Beastmaster contended. He waved his hand and told the shark, "No, no. This isn't it. The arms are smaller and harder."
As the great white dropped the package and dove back down again, Ban snorted, "You'd think with all the human limbs they bite off every year, they'd know the difference by now."
"Shut up! They do not!"
After a few uneasy, suspenseful minutes the shark returned, this time, bringing one of the correct targets in its mouth.
"Good!" Shido praised. "Now, carefully toss it over."
The shark obeyed as it propelled forward. Except, curiously, its movements were now highly erratic. Sloshing about and careening dizzily, it was dangerously close to a head-on collision with the side of the boat.
"Hey! What's he doing?" Ban shouted. "Tell him to watch it!"
Too late. The impact rocked the boat and the gang off their feet. Ban quickly crawled over to the side where, to his horror, found the shark reacting to its violent run-in by involuntarily biting down on its chew toy.
CRR-UUNCH!
"Haaa-aaacccckk!" Ban gasped as he clawed at his cheeks, not believing he just witnessed a priceless ancient treasure just get turned into a worthless toothpick. As pieces of marble and strips of cloth floated pathetically in the waves, the shark began its retreat in confusion.
"Oi! Come back here, soup stock!" Who else but the Invincible Mido Ban-sama to probably be the only person on earth who would demand that from a great white shark. Impulsively, he picked up a shoe and hurled it at the behemoth, bonking it on the head as it swam away.
"You stupid… What did you do that for?" Shido boomed, appalled most at how the hothead could've pissed-off the shark further; and least of all, that it was his shoe he threw. In retaliation, Shido grabbed Ban's trousers from the railing and tossed it overboard as well.
"Gah! Why you -!" The Jagan master bent over and desperately tried to reach for his pants as they sadly drifted away with the current like a black, two-tentacle squid.
"Go after them, I dare you," Shido scoffed.
Ban actually deliberated over this for a second or two. Shark. Pants. Shark. Pants. Shark. Pants…
Duh.
Childishly, Ban grabbed all of the other pants hanging out to dry on the boat (since he didn't know which was Shido's he took all of them instead) and flung them out to sea. "Ha! Now we're all on the same boat!"
Kazuki frowned. "Could you please stop polluting the ocean with your clothes?"
Never minding for the moment the prospect of facing rescue without pants, he confronted the Beastmaster angrily. "Dammit, monkey trainer! Was that fish drunk or what?"
Shido was as baffled as everyone else. "I don't know what's wrong with him. He's acting strange. Something here's definitely not right."
"You don't say."
Ginji bit his nails; unconsciously taking tiny strides backwards into the more secure roofed driver's section of the boat. "Ban-chan, I think you made him mad." And then…
THUD!
Suddenly, the Venus de Milo's other arm landed heavily on the back of the deck – intact. The five men gasped with amazement at the white wrapped package neatly deposited on their little boat. Yet, for some instinctive reason, everyone – with the exception of Ban – backed off.
"Well, well. Looks like our honorary Get Backers sidekick has finally made the grade," Ban jeered. He moved towards the valuable object.
"Wait!" Kazuki cautioned from the farthest corner of the craft. "It could be a trap."
"Oooh. I'm so scared. What if it's rigged with a bomb?" the rogue kidded exaggeratedly. Jauntily strutting closer, Ban gazed back. "Stop being so freaking paranoid, thread spool. Humans use bait for fish, not the other way arou-"
SPLASH!
Just then, something that resembled a twenty-foot torpedo launched up and head-long into the boat, tilting it downwards forcefully. The heavy slam together with the wet floor caused Ban to slip and stumble onto his ass. And when the cascade of sea water at last fell, he found himself facing humungous, wide-open, razor-sharp toothed… jaws.
SNAP! The chomping snare almost erased his face.
"Aaaaaaggghhhh!"
"Ban-chan!" Tare-Ginji screamed from atop Kazuki's head.
"Eeeee-yaaaaghhh!" With arms flailing wildly and feet sliding in all directions, Ban scooted backwards and clumsily scrambled over the benches to join the rest of the huddled – obviously more rational – group.
"I told you so!" Kazuki couldn't help but rub it in from the safety of his berth.
As the boys screamed and cursed and panicked and plain descended into utter pandemonium, the shark proceeded to swim amok; sliding down and crunching its powerful jaws into the outboard motor. Using it as a grip, he thrashed about and jostled the boat and its occupants turbulently as if it were giant maracas. Ban, Ginji, Shido, Kazuki and Emishi all clung for dear life on anything they could grab hold of: guardrails, struts, steering wheel, console, chair, cabinet handles and – each other.
"Goddammit, monkey!" Ban exclaimed as he struggled to pull himself up by scaling Emishi's leg. "Tell him to stop!"
'I can't! He's not listening to me!" Shido roared above the din of splashing water and creaking wood and fiberglass. "His signals are garbled and his mind's muddled like… like he's high or something."
"High? High, as in drugs?" Kazuki yelled incredulously with chibi-Ginji still saddled on his head. The string master's eyes bulged. "The Aphrodite!"
"He must've inhaled it, swallowed it… I'm not sure!"
"You've gotta be shitting me!" Ban spat.
Emishi groaned loudly. "Oh man! It's 'Jaws' on crack – literally!"
The annaiya fell on the dashboard after a particularly nasty bump. "Mido-kun! Use your Jagan!"
"I'm all out!"
"Who's useless now?" Shido accused. He just couldn't resist.
The shark made one massive wallop to the right, and with a sickening crrraack!, ripped the motor and a large chunk of the stern completely off the vessel. The force swung the boat hazardously onto its side.
"Whooooaaaa!" Everybody shrieked as they were yanked to the right and piled up on top of one another.
Seconds excruciatingly seemed like hours as the hull rocked and rolled. Fortunately, as the shark and the debris pulled off, the craft righted itself back up again. The moaning clump of bodies stirred.
"Your foot is in my face!"
"Move, dammit!"
"Get your hands off my -!"
In what they all presumed was a lull in the attack, the short-winded, sweaty crew began untangling themselves from each other. The boat was taking on water slightly as it bounced up and down on the kicking- up waves, but there was no sign of a menacing fin anywhere.
"Is… is he gone?" Chibi-Ginji stammered, burying his head in Kazuki's thick bee-hive of hair.
Shido shook his head, bracing himself against the roof's edge as if in anticipation of a second assault. "He's still around… I can sense him."
"What the fuck does he want?" Ban griped petulantly. He tugged on Emishi and attempted to push him over the edge. "Yo, sashimi-for-brains! You hungry? Here, take this clown. I'm sure he tastes like chicken!"
"Heh! How would you know I taste like chicken?" Emishi protested as he elbowed Ban away and embraced the roof support beams.
"I think he's ticked off at you, snake bastard," the Beastmaster furiously snorted. "Can't say I blame him…"
Suddenly…
SWOOSH!
"Oh my God!" Kazuki shrieked.
Without warning, the great white torpedoed out of the ocean and through the jagged gap in the boat, landing half of its twenty-foot span into the cabin as its jaws yawned open.
"Yaaaaaagggghhhh!"
The boys never wanted so much in their lives to melt into that poor wooden dashboard as they did then, what with that awful, stinking trap ready to swallow them whole. Then, almost immediately, the wretched, battered boat began bearing the brunt of the killer shark's roughly five thousand pounds and it started to pitch backward violently at a forty-five degree angle.
"We're going under!" Shido yelled.
"Waaaaaaahhhhhh!"
Now, the crew was literally hanging on - half dangling in the air and half fused to the furnishings. No one dared to let go lest he fall into the gaping mouth of that living wood-chipper.
(sad sound of violins drifting from - somewhere)
As their whole lives flashed before their eyes and thoughts of regrets and lost hopes such as "I didn't even get to say 'I love you'" and "Shit! I'm going to die a virgin!" filled their minds; subconsciously, the boys' minds were a tad less sentimental:
Tare-Ginji – (swinging by the ends of Rapunzel's… er… Kazuki's long locks, desperately trying to crawl back up) "Why does Kazu-chan's hair have to be so soft, and shiny, and slippery, and… sniff… Gee, his hair smells terrific!"
Kazuki – (letting the chibi-formerly-known-as-Raitei use his hair as a rappelling rope) "For Ginji-san… For Ginji-san… Oww!... For Ginji-san… Ow! Ow!"
Shido – (looking very sheepish) "No way that shark's gonna eat me! Dammit! I'm the Beastmaster, for crying out loud! Beast. Master. M-A-S-T-E-R…"
Ban – (feeling pissed, though strangely, flattered) "Who the hell has got his arm hooked around mine? Must be yarn ball. He's such a girl hehehehe…"
Emishi – (imagining himself as that anorexic diva singing the theme song of a certain mawkish, highly over-rated Academy Award-winning boat movie. Yes, THAT one) "Near… far… wherever you are…" (Then imagines said diva slipping off the ship and falling on a giant propeller with a loud THUNK!)
"I hate to interrupt your doomsday reveries, but any bright ideas?" Anyone?" Ban finally snipped at the top of his lungs.
"I think I can block us off at least." Kazuki held fast to the steering wheel with one arm. "I hope this works. Hang on, Ginji-san!"
With his free hand, the Fuuchouinryu expert untied a bell from his hair and began harnessing himself to the driver's seat. Adequately secured, Kazuki wove a crude net between the cabin and the shark and the front of the boat (crude, because even for Kazuki, neat workmanship is the least of your worries when Megalodon is in your face). That done, the rest of the gang deposited themselves on this makeshift hammock.
But that still didn't solve the problem of the pesky shark trying to turn their boat into a five-man coffin.
"Ginji! Go out and zap that sonofabitch!" Ban ordered.
The half-naked chibi blond stuck stubbornly to the net like a fat grub on a spider web. "Do I have to? Alone?" He whined. "Who's gonna hold me?"
"Duh, no one? Not while you're blasting half-a-million volts of electricity, dummy!"
"Here! We can use this!" Emishi sprang out his whip from inside his shorts (no, not that whip, the other one).
"Good," Ban said. Picking up his partner by the scruff of his neck, he efficiently snuck him through the weave of the barrier.
"Eep!" Ginji squeaked as the shark eyed him as though he were the last remaining sushi roll. Reverting back to his normal form, Ginji nervously stood still while Ban kept him from sliding into the animal's jaws and Emishi tied the Loulan Dancing Whip around his waist.
Fastening the end to the railing on the side of the boat, Emishi tightened the slack and checked with his former leader. "You okay, Ginji-han?"
"Yup!" he answered as he started consolidating his energy. "You guys clear from any metals and such?"
"Clear!"
"All right! Here goes!" Ginji shot out both arms. "Raaaa –aaaggghhhh!"
The other four men shielded their eyes as the boat was briefly enveloped in a lightning storm of brilliant neon green. Their skin prickled with charged ions. Their hair stood on end.
With a magnificent static wind swirling around him, Ginji concentrated a single energy burst on the shark's snout, hoping 500,000 volts of electricity was enough to knock it out. And in mere seconds, it was all over, the electric haze dissipating as soon as it begun.
Quietly, the kayoed shark flinched once or twice before skidding tail-first back into the water. As it did, it brought the boat listing almost a full ninety degrees before the creature fully submersed and the crippled boat leveled out with a great splash.
But as the fish sank, so too did the Venus de Milo's remaining arm, which was tugged under and devoured by the sea once again.
For sure this time.
The boys took the opportunity to catch their breaths. One could even think the boat was grateful that its occupants managed to shut up for once.
Kazuki finally broke the peace. "That didn't work out well at all, did it?" He currently looked like a hostage strapped to a chair.
"You and your big mouth, Joker. This is all your fault." Shido collapsed on the deck.
"Huh? What did I do?" Emishi's eyes darted around cluelessly.
Huffing and puffing, Ginji relaxed into the net, and everyone touching it received an intense shock. Zzzpt!
"Aaahhh! Ginji!" Ban howled as his mahogany hair sprouted into its usual sea-urchin spikes.
"Oops. Sorry," he chuckled while scooting away and releasing himself from the restraints of Emishi's whip. Exhaustedly, he glanced at Shido through the criss-cross of strings. "So, is it all over, Shido?" I hope I didn't kill him - the shark, I mean. Poor guy. It wasn't his fault…"
The Beastmaster untied his bandanna and wiped the sweat that was dripping like a faucet around his face. "Don't worry. He's unconscious but breathing. He'll probably wake up in an hour or so with amnesia and a bad hangover."
"I guess even animals should say 'no' to drugs, eh?" Emishi quipped as he fanned himself with his hand.
Sluggishly, Kazuki staggered to his feet. With a few flicks of his wrist, he spliced away the trusses of the thread shield and warily stepped into the open cabin area. Sighing dramatically, he surveyed the damage on the craft – the entire stern was gone, the benches were split and off their hinges, and clothes and shoes (or what was left of them) were scattered everywhere. Thank goodness for boat rental insurance, the string master thought. Although putting in a claim for a drug-deranged twenty-foot shark attack was going to be a tough sell.
"Too bad you couldn't get back the arms – again." Kazuki remarked, gazing down at Ban who sat hugging knees to his chest and no doubt, woefully mourning the loss of money – again.
"Curious, weren't you?" Ban dryly pointed out. "About what they looked like."
"The arms?" The long-haired informant gave a faint smile. "Can't say I wasn't."
"Just like art, huh? Having the whole picture right in front of you, yet with the answers, the true meaning; lying just beyond reach," he brooded wistfully.
"Maybe that's the whole point. That we're not supposed to know," Kazuki shrugged.
" – And keeping us guessing, wondering about the 'what if's'. I'd say that's what makes the Venus de Milo – and life itself – an intriguing work of art, don't you think?"
Basking in the much-welcomed calm, Ban and Kazuki regarded each other in understanding and silently agreed on their shared epiphany.
With the tranquil moment passing, the boat driver turned his sights back to the disaster area and continued to scour the vessel meticulously; noting that there was a conspicuous absence of something. Searching around further, he realized what it was.
"Hey. Where's our water?" Kazuki's eyes were suddenly drawn to a spot in the distance where a small patch of orange was floundering its way to freedom.
"Guys!"
No response.
"Hey guys! Our water is escaping!"
"What?" Shido stood up.
"Somebody swim after it before it floats too far away!" Captain Kazuki commanded to his rag-tag crew of buccaneers. "We did not survive a freak attack from a man-eating shark just to die from dehydration later!"
Shido made a disgusted face. "Well, who's the idiot who put the water in that corner in the first place?" he demanded.
Four pairs of eyes settled on a prickly brown head.
"Heh! How was I to know we were gonna be boarded by 'Jaws'?" Ban complained. He then pointed to the slash wound on his shoulder. "Plus, I'm bleeding."
Actually, it was healing up pretty well.
"Oh, shut up!" Shido bellowed as he pulled the smaller man to his feet. "There aren't anymore sharks around, I swear."
Ban shook his rival off. "Like I would trust you, you amateur animal trainer."
"What's the big deal, anyway?" Kazuki queried, a wee glint of mischief twinkling in his eye. Sure, he could probably use his strings to fetch the container if he tried. But where was the fun in that? "A shark's jaws exert about sixty kilograms in its bite. Yours is two hundred. So, no problem, right?"
"Excuse me, but I don't envision myself arm wrestling with a shark's mouth, thank you very much," the fighting genius declared. He stomped his foot peevishly. "All right, all right! I'll get the damn water if only to prove that, unlike you babies, I am not a wuss."
-o-
Mido "I am not a wuss" Ban took his sweet time prowling up to the gnawed-off edge of the boat, surreptitiously spying on all sides and watching out for any vague silhouettes of gray.
"Dun-dun…"
"Hurry up!" Shido nagged.
"Dun-dun…"
Ban let the pleasant sea breeze cool him off for a while as he stood over the threshold. Hesitating, he leaned forward and momentarily admired his distorted reflection in the oscillating mirrored surface of blue. Biding my time… no rush… he thought.
"Dun-dun-dun…"
Skittishly, the retrieval agent dipped his toe into the vast cauldron; then, with bated breath, his whole foot… then his leg…
"Dundundundundundundundundundun… Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water…"
"SHUT UP, Joker! You're not helping!" Ban screeched as he agitatedly snatched his leg away, extremely unappreciative of the fact his deep-sea foray was being scored by the bloody theme song to "Jaws".
Finally, twisting the cricks out of his neck muscles and joints, Ban inhaled heavily and made the plunge.
He popped his head out of the surf to the blinding rays of the sun striking his eyes and realized that he missed his violet specs terribly. Targeting the cause of his troubles bobbing some fifty meters ahead, Ban swam towards it using long, deliberate strokes; sacrificing speed for stealth knowing full well there was a doped-up killer shark dozing somewhere beneath him.
Despite the assignment turning into crap, Ban didn't see why he shouldn't enjoy this idyllic swim, even if for just a short moment. He relished the luxuriant caress of the lukewarm tropical waves as he ploughed right through them and thought if it weren't for the shark, the smallness of the boat, the food-water-gasoline problem, and the rotten company; this could've been a nice Okinawan swimming trip. But nooooo… Typical of 99.9 percent of all Get Backers jobs, this, too, had to be a monumental, catastrophic screw-up.
"Tch!" Immediately, Ban's blissful fancies evaporated, replaced by more grumpiness and incessant cursing. Reaching the orange container, he lugged it behind him like a floatation device as he kicked and paddled his way back to the boat.
Surely, after being stranded in the middle of the ocean and being attacked in one way or another by Akabane, Miroku, the Bald Brothers, Hera, octopi, a giant squid, a great white shark, monkey trainer, and – what the hell – the vocal butcherings of Emishi; it just had to be smooth sailing from here on end, right?
Ban and his precious optimism. When would he ever learn?
-o-
Ban continued rambling off every profanity he could think of (and this being Ban, there were hundreds - in a dozen or so languages) as he approached the paralyzed dingy.
"Hey, Ban-chan! How's the water?" Ginji shouted.
"Perfect," his partner drolly replied. But no sooner had he said that, he felt a sharp prick on his thigh.
"ULP!" Ban froze in the water with bewilderment. Then, his eyes went wide with shock as a burning sensation began spreading up and down his leg. "GAAAAHHH!"
"Ban-chan!" Ginji screamed as he saw his best friend thrash about wildly in the surf. He turned his terror-stricken face to his companions. "Oh no! The shark's got Ban-chan!"
"Impossible!" Shido exclaimed. He was absolutely positive there were no dangerous predators in the area.
"Hold on! I'll save you!" Impulsively and without regard for his own safety, Ginji dove right in. Admittedly, the former Thunder Emperor was not a strong swimmer, having spent most of his life in the slums of Lower Town, which unfortunately, did not even have a local chapter of the YMCA. Yet, hooking his left arm across his partner's back and under his arms, Ginji kicked at the water fiercely; somehow managing to drag and hoist Ban onto the deck in record time – where he promptly fell flat on his face.
"Owww!" Ban gave out a muffled moan.
Then Ginji distractedly lobbed the water jug back into the cabin where, naturally, it bounced off Ban's head.
BOMP!
"Shit!"
The ex-Volts members, expecting to see the Jagan master sporting a dreadful bloodied stump, instead found him with all limbs intact, with no visible injuries apparent.
"What the fuck's wrong with you?" Shido lashed out; trying to hide the tiniest bit of concern he had behind the gruff tone.
Kazuki and Emishi helped Ban over to the broken bench facing the boat's front. "Something bit me and now my leg hurts like hell!"
The four boys' scrutiny traveled the length of Ban's legs, noticing nothing but sparse leg hair and, strangely enough, a cute little boo-boo on his knee. At last, Ban stopped his whining long enough to realize where the pain was centered on and delicately pulled up the left cuff of his shorts.
"Whoa!" Emishi turned away with a grimace. "That's not right!"
Lo and behold, stuck to Ban's inner thigh was a large jellyfish, its tentacles skulking precariously close to his –
"Damn! How in the world did it swim up there?" Shido leaned in for a closer inspection.
"Maybe it wants to have sex with me. How the hell should I know?" Ban yelled sarcastically.
"That's why it's advisable to wear a wetsuit or snug swimwear when swimming in open seas," Kazuki lectured.
"Thanks. I'll remember that the next time I decide to shipwreck myself on the ocean!"
Kazuki crouched down and tried to peep further up the dakkanya's boxers – on a purely professional level, of course – studying the jellyfish like a scientist observing a mutated lab experiment gone horribly wrong. "Seeing as you can move your legs and that you're obviously breathing normally, at least we can safely say this isn't a deadly specie like the box jellyfish."
"Of course I knew that, string bean. But that doesn't change the fact that this thing is killing me!"
"I think if you don't move, it won't sting any further," he suggested.
Aiiii-yeee! Ban thought he felt a tentacle make a move on his tentacle. "Shit! I need to get this fucker off me RIGHT NOW!"
He turned to the Beastmaster. "Zoo boy, can't you communicate at all with this plastic bag?"
Shido curled his lip. "You do know this is a brainless, primitive creature, don't you?"
"Exactly. And your point is?" Ban snorted. "You're useless, I tell you. Useless!"
Shido gritted his teeth and folded his arms tightly. "Hmph! Be thankful I can't talk to it, or else I'd tell it to sting you where it hurts most, numbnuts!"
Blue eyes locked on to the other Volts.
"What do you expect me to do, whip it off your leg? Uh, I don't think so," Emishi rejected outright.
"- And I suppose you want me to wrap it in string and tie a nice, big bow around it, right?" Kazuki raised an amused eyebrow. "Sorry, can't help you there."
One by one, Ban looked Shido, Kazuki, and Emishi in the eye. "All right, if none of you intend to do anything, then that's fine. Now if you don't mind…" Nuclear meltdown.
" … WILL YOU STOP STARING AT MY CROTCH!"
Startled, all three jumped back like scalded cats.
"Oi, Ginji! Show these good-for-nothing morons why you were their boss and lend me a hand here!"
The blond bit his knuckles, increasingly skeptical of what 'lending a hand' entailed exactly. "Uh… Can't you use your Snake Bite or something?'
"No, dummy! Because the second I Snake Bite it, it will bite my snake, if you catch my drift," he bewailed, desperately trying to avoid squashing the gelatinous blob between his thighs.
"So you want me to electrocute it?"
"Fry it! Broil it! Barbecue it! I don't care! Just do something!" Ban almost leapt up, dangerously close to getting the kind of swelling he did not want going on in his pants.
Kazuki, curious as ever, put his hands on his knees and stooped forward. "He has a point, Ginji-san. Maybe if you kill it first, the jellyfish will be easier to lift off."
Ginji showed his misgivings about the whole thing by making pathetic whimpering sounds in his throat. Timidly, he made small steps closer to his suffering partner. "All right, if you say so," Ginji complied.
Kneeling down, the blond poised his trembling hand above Ban's lap. The Jagan master's eyes grew large with alarm.
"Hey! These are sensitive goods we're dealing with, so quit shaking!" Ban gave Ginji's hand a hard warning grip. Releasing it, he growled, "Now stick it up there and get this over with!"
It wasn't quite the kind of reassurance Ginji was looking for, but hey.
Meanwhile, the schadenfreudes watched intently with an expression that could only be described as a mix of pity and indigestion. They knew it was rude to ogle like this, but like seeing a twenty-car pile-up steaming on a freeway, it was just too damn hard to tear their fascinated eyes away.
Ginji steadied his right wrist with his left hand. With his eye nervously twitching, he took a deep breath and then carefully probed his fingers over Ban's thigh, then up into the sleeve of his shorts; slowly gliding inch by inch, one… two… three inches in… until he barely touched something soft, slippery and wet.
ZZZZT!
"Yeee-aaaghhh!" Ban gasped as his eyes rolled back into his head and his whole body convulsed. After allowing a few seconds for the spasms to fade, he quickly regained his faculties and roughly shoved Ginji's hand away.
"Goddammit Ginji! Ease up on the power, will ya? We're not roasting marshmallows and wieners over a campfire here!"
Crowding beside Ban for a better view, Shido and Emishi smothered loud, hacking coughs and snorts.
Ginji dejectedly sat sprawled out on the deck and tangled his fingers into his messy mop. "Sorry, Ban-chan. I'll be gentle this time. But I'm afraid I can't really see what I'm…"
"Aw, geez!" Ban groaned, instantly knowing there was no choice on what he had to do. Irritably, he gestured to the three Volts underlings. "You! To the front! And don't look back!"
Shido balled his fists and made a move to lunge. "Hey! How dare you order us like –"
From his position on the floor, Ginji flashed his former troop a beseeching look that came straight from the liquid depths of his soul. And almost as if repossessed by the same magnetic spell that bound them to their Emperor during the Volts Era; Kazuki, Shido and Emishi obeyed; wordlessly stepping away, turning, and casting their sights out the windshield.
Ginji smiled his gratitude and reverted his attention back to his partner. "Okay, wha –"
RIIIIIPP!
"Ban-chan!"
Unexpectedly, the man with the two hundred kilogram Snake Bite rashly tore open his plaid boxers and let the two halves flutter limply to the sides of his legs. Surely he had no choice. He couldn't have stood up and slid his shorts off lest one false move made the jellyfish sting again. Already, a tentacle had managed to slither around his, ahem… Anyhow, this way, Ginji now had free access to zap away at that sucker.
Except…
Ban realized a second too late that he was trouser-less, and what's more, he had tossed away his crewmates' trousers into the sea as well.
So now, to his great chagrin, he faced the hideous inevitability of co-habiting with these guys for a few days and going back to the mainland without wearing any trousers – and underpants.
The Invincible Mido Ban-sama. Butt nekkid.
Yikes! This was a travesty, he deplored. And definitely not part of the plan. Briefly, he wondered if thread spool could be persuaded to use his strings to mend his shorts for him.
As if.
Oh, what the heck. He figured he could worry about fashioning a makeshift diaper or something later, after getting that glob of gelatin off of his lap first.
Ginji was aghast; himself swiveling his head away and ruddied from the neck up to the tips of his ears. "Ban-chan! What did you do that for?"
"So you'd quit making a sizzling plate out of my privates, dumbass!"
Kazuki tried eavesdropping from the corner of his eye – and regretted it immediately. "My goodness," he murmured and screened his nauseated gaze.
To which Shido and Emishi twisted their heads over their shoulders.
"Holy shit." Shido jerked away and shuddered.
"Eyes to the front, dammit!" Ban shrieked in a strangely high-pitched voice.
"Gladly," Emishi muttered. Instinctively, he clamped his thighs together.
"Ban-chan…" Ginji said unhappily, still keeping his eyes averted.
"For chrissakes!" Ban hissed through clenched teeth. He then hushed his tone. "It's not like you haven't seen me naked in the hot springs or the public baths and such."
"Yeah, but not in front of… you know… and not… " Teary brown eyes were glued to the Volts backs while Ginji struggled for the appropriate words. "… this near."
"I'm not asking you to touch anything."
"I know, but… this is too weird… What if… What if you just guide my hand while I close my eyes?" he hopefully suggested.
"No way am I holding your hand while you're shooting off, you electric eel!" Ban was adamant.
Ginji wretchedly sighed and returned to his best friend. Staring at Ban sympathetically, he knew there was no point in holding it off any longer. Besides, how could he bear not to offer Ban some relief seeing him writhing restlessly like that? That's what friends were for, right?
The blond retrieval agent knelt down and thrust his hand. "Just… just tell me to stop if I start hurting you, okay?" He voiced out his concern.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Ban impatiently said. "Now hurry up! I can't take it anymore!"
Ginji carefully hovered his fingers over the cold, clammy, flaccid creature; and with a soft buzz, zzzpt.
The Get Backers paused and silently waited – for something. Not sure what exactly.
"Did you feel something?"
"No. Do it again."
He obliged, then pulled back.
"Don't tell me it's still alive." Ginji sounded and looked more miserable by the second.
"I don't know! But why is it still… sucking?"
Meanwhile, at the front of the boat, Shido and Emishi's initial revulsion had turned into highly amused fits of stifled laughter – like giggling school girls leering at a dirty beefcake magazine.
"That last one sounded so wrong," Emishi said through gagging breaths, chuckles rumbling in his throat.
"Guys, this isn't supposed to be funny," Kazuki admonished, albeit half-heartedly as he covered his mouth and attempted desperately to keep a straight face.
Ginji wrung his fists in frustration. "Ban-chan, I'm going to try to use an ultra high frequency ray on it," he decided.
Ban's eyes popped out of their sockets as his hands blanketed his lap. "Microwave? Are you insane? You wanna sterilize me?"
"It's the only way I can think of without shocking you. Trust me, I know what I'm doing." Or so he tried to convince himself.
"Shit, Ginji! If one day I find out I'm shooting blanks, I swear I'm gonna –"
Ban's rant was interrupted by a gentle humming noise as an invisible but heavy pulse irradiated into the flesh of the limp mass.
The Jagan master relaxed somewhat. "Yes. Yes. I think something's happening." He stared raptly at his groin with an interest that was way beyond normal.
Encouraged further by the progress they were making, Ginji enthusiastically put a bit more juice into it.
But then, the thing on Ban's loins grew hotter. Too hot. "Ginji. I… I think… ah… that's enough… Ginji…" he stammered, helpless to do anything in his position.
Suddenly, it quivered and began doubling in size; coming close to reaching boiling point as its insides rushed through every vein and artery, straining for release against the mounting pressure. It throbbed… It burned… Finally, it…
"Ginji! STOP!"
SPLAT!
-o-
For a few agonizing seconds, the scene was mute. The last thing anyone remembered hearing was a grossly slick, squishy sound of goop landing everywhere.
With big brown eyes petrified in place and lower lip trembling, Ginji dazedly reached up and lightly wiped his cheek, watching flabbergasted as an unrecognizable mix of gunk and slime dribbled down his fingers.
"Uunnnnhhh…" Ban moaned. His shell-shocked gaze roved down to the exploded mess slobbered over his lap. Somewhere, underneath that spill of seafood chowder, Ban, thankfully, could still feel his plumbing was all there. Well, at least he thought he could feel them; praying fervently it wasn't like some sort of phantom limb syndrome (1), except instead of limbs, it was his...
"Um… You have a tissue or a handkerchief or something?" Ban whispered to his catatonic partner. Never had he wanted a cigarette as badly as he did then.
Zombie-like, Ginji slipped his shirt-bandanna off his hair and held it out to him slowly.
Ban squinted with disdain before grabbing the rag. " – and for God's sake, Ginji, clean your face! You look ridiculous."
Shido couldn't take it any longer and erupted into a great, booming guffaw. He didn't care what Ban thought, he sure wasn't going to miss this freak show for the world.
Whirling around to face the Get Backers, he started to shout, "What the hell are you two do - ?"
The Beastmaster was immediately struck dumb – his silence as abrupt as an asteroid falling on his big head.
First, he was hit by the appalling sight of that sushi carnage splattered all over the Get Backers and the boat; second – and most shocking of all – was the fact that, miraculously…
Rescue had arrived.
A deafening air-horn blew to the tune of "La Cucuracha" as the welcoming sound of chugging engines drew near. Apparently, with all the whining, bickering, shouting, cursing, fidgeting, fretting, panicking, and giggling; no one, absolutely no one, noticed the medium-sized commercial fishing vessel gradually headed their way.
Kazuki and Emishi turned as well, suddenly rendered speechless with surprise that rescue had come so soon - and under these not-so-ideal circumstances.
The trawler slowed to a creep as the driver cut the noisy motors, finally parking a few meters beside the boys' boat.
"Ahoy! You boys need any help there?" A middle-aged fisherman wearing a trucker hat and wife-beaters called out. "We saw a bright green flash coming from this area and thought we'd check it out. Is everything okay?"
Another fisherman, whose eyes were drawn to the lithe, long-haired annaiya; asked concernedly, "Miss, are you sure these men aren't bothering you?"
Kazuki blinked.
Emishi wiped, and re-wiped his pink sunglasses on his shorts.
Shido groaned and pulled his bandanna over his eyes.
"Kaneshiro-san, why have we stopped?" A distinct, elegant, satin-smooth drawl wafted out of the vessel's cabin.
Ginji's ears pinged.
And in an instant, a tall figure shrouded in black perched on the ship's bow, resembling a dark vulture waiting starkly against the vivid blue sky; his open coat (this was Okinawa in summer, after all) flapping around him in the sea breeze like spread wings.
"My, my. What a pleasant surprise. Fancy meeting you boys here." A cold chuckle. A tip of a hat.
Ginji, slimy baby face and all, pivoted on his knees towards that blood-curdling voice.
"A-A-A-Akabane-san?"
"Ah, Ginji-kun. I didn't recognize you looking like that." Akabane smiled.
"Ai-yaaah…" Ginji fluttered his eyelids a few times before woozily collapsing to his side in a dead faint…
Plop!
… revealing at last to a stunned fishing crew, Ban, in all his eye-popping, jellyfish-carcass wearing, buck-naked glory.
Shii-iing! Twin glints reflected from the gleam of a raised scalpel and a mischievous purple eye. He may have lost the battle on Warship Isle, but he definitely won the war. Jackal cheerily chirped.
"Looks like you need a doctor."
-o-
The End
-o-
A/N: "Endless Love," "My Heart Will Go On," and the "Jaws Theme Song" - together. That would be one freaky-ass soundtrack. :D
(1) A play on "Phantom Limb Syndrome" that affects over 70 percent of amputees who continue to feel the sensation (pain, pressure, etc…) of a limb even when it is missing.
Rabid Lola: Sweetheart, you spoiled the 'using urine to clean a jellyfish sting' angle for me. And so I improvised. I think I made it a LOT worse, don't you think? Hhehehehe. And it's all your fault. :p I kid! I kid! But really, it IS your fault. :D The pattern on Emishi's boxers? Um, Yellow rubber duckies on dark blue? -shrug-.
Oh look! I tortured Ban again. :D
Yami Neko Tenshi: Crazy? Insanity? Thank you for the compliment:D Hope you liked the insanity in this chap.
Tastywheat: Thanks for the con crit. Your suggestions were very helpful. I do tend to get a bit redundant, especially on a dialogue-heavy fic as this. Plus, it's set in such a tiny space and it's really hard to describe action that's plausible without getting too trivial. So I think I've unconsciously tried padding up the descriptive scenes so as to settle the pacing down a bit. It's almost like writing a one-act play but with written down direction. :D This is a style I haven't tried before, but with reviews like yours, I hope to improve. :)
The Invader Androgynous: Thanks! I'm so glad you enjoy the fic so far. Ban is wrong. Who says Akabane doesn't do rescues? Just not in Baywatch swim trunks. :)
YunCyn: So happy to hear from you again! Thanks for the props. Yes, I agree, GB needs to go back to its former silliness. Hope I didn't disappoint with this chapter. Do write again, okay? I look forward to it. :D
Ran Ohki: Haha! There's a reason they had to be literally loud. Or else they would've heard rescue coming. And where's the suspense in that? Hee! Thanks for reading and reviewing. Hope you liked the conclusion.
Kitten Kisses : I'm not sure if your review was intended to look that way, but thanks for the R and R. I really appreciate it! Hope you liked this fic as much as you liked "Catharsis". Cheers!