The previous night: *BHWOOOOOOM* The explosion rocked all of Eastwood, rattling windows, waking those who were asleep, and knocking those really horrible ornaments that relatives brought back from overseas to the floor, irreparably breaking them for all time. The unwilling owners of the aforementioned ornaments silently cheered. Closer to the explosion, windows shattered, doors fell from their frames, and one resident of Eastwood said that his roof was lifted from his house for a few moments before falling back into place with a resounding crash. *BOOOOM* *BOOOM* *BOOM* The secondary explosions were quieter and less violent. Save for the houses closer to the explosion, everybody shrugged, and went back to whatever they'd been doing before the explosions. In most cases, this meant going back to sleep. In the other cases, night shift workers went back to work, the undead went back to being quiet and productive citizens, and the mechanicals turned themselves back off for the rest of the night. *boom* The final explosion was so quiet and caused so little destruction that it went unnoticed by all. Well, almost all. The one exception was the Hoshino family, still new to Eastwood. The mother and father and the daughter and the pet dog Watson were standing by the shattered window on the second floor, looking out across the vista of the city, and staring at the plume of smoke in the distance. It was rising from where West Eastwood High - the eldest son Ichiiro's school - used to be. The parents stared at the smoke some more and wondered if moving to Eastwood had been such a good idea after all. The silence dragged on, and was eventually broken by Ichiiro staggering in through the front door and up the stairs. He passed the door to his parents' bedroom and saw everyone standing there. "Ichiiro, where have you been!?" shouted his mother. "Hi everybody. Just been fighting off a demonic invasion." The teenaged boy swayed a bit. "I gotta get to sleep. I've got school tomorrow." "Ichiiro, that's your school," said his father. "How can you possibly have classes tomorrow?" "Moku-sensei is a REALLY fast worker," explained Ichiiro. This didn't really enlighten his father very much, but Ichiiro shuffled off to bed anyway. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- West Eastwood High Part 5 "It's like Ranma 1/2 but without the fight scenes" By Steven Scougall Started by Eslington ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This time, the school was utterly black and had been rebuilt to look somewhat like a European castle. The main entrance had a drawbridge over a shallow ditch, there were crenellations on the edge of the roof, and a crossed-swords flag fluttered from the spire on the clock tower. Ichiiro stopped and stared. He couldn't remember the previous night's action that well, but he was pretty sure that the school had survived the devastation. But obviously it hadn't. He dimly remembered some explosions - maybe they had something to do with it. Despite Moku-sensei's speed, the school hadn't quite been completely rebuilt. As he watched, Ichiiro saw the woodwork teacher place a few bricks in the walls of the ditch underneath the drawbridge, clamber out, and twist a wheel nearby. Within seconds the ditch had filled with murky water, and the head of a rubber monster broke the surface of it for a few seconds before sinking into the shallows once again. "Well," sighed Makoto-kun, "I suppose it's better than the time he redecorated it as something right of Star Trek." "Something out of Star Trek?" "Yes," said Makoto-chan, from his opposite side. "It was all white and shiny with lots of blinking lights and had gun turrets on the roof. Thankfully, it only lasted a couple of days, and then Hagira built a gun in one of the gun turrets." Ichiiro had a glimmer of a suspicion. "It had a self-destruct mechanism?" "Yes. Everything he builds has a self-destruct mechanism." "One of these days," said Makoto-kun, "he'll build a self-destruct mechanism that has a self-destruct mechanism." The three laughed as they walked in the gate. * * * At the sound of the laughter, Aiko looked over at the gate, and saw Ichiiro - with Makoto. At the sight of all three laughing together. "[Hey, that's Ichiiro-kun,]" Uta communicated. "[And he's... Aiko, you're becoming angry.]" "...yes. We were supposed to talk last night!" "[There *was* that evacuation we had to help with. And you said that you were going to call him, not the other way around.]" "He could have still said something! But no, he went straight home! And he's with Makoto right now! Laughing!" * * * "Hey look, Ichiiro-kun," said Makoto-chan. "It's Aiko and Uta." Ichiiro looked, saw, and felt rather guilty. He hadn't talked to Aiko last night, even though they were supposed to talk to each other and work out where they were going on their date. The emergency evacuation had got in the way. But she had to know that - she was helping with the evac herself last night, after all. But this wasn't something he could talk to Makoto about - if Uta was to be believed, Makoto liked him as well. Ichiiro felt more nervous, and then even more so when Aiko walked up the three and looked at him. It looked like a normal look, but there was a hint that it could become a Pointed Look Of Accusation in a nanosecond. "Is there something wrong, Ichiiro?" asked Makoto-kun. "You're looking nervous." "I can't imagine why," said Aiko. Once again, her voice was normal, but there was a hint that it could any moment become a voice of Cutting Sarcasm. Ichiiro was sure he was the only one who heard this, and winced. "The evacuation, remember?" he said. "What about it?" asked Makoto-chan. "Oh, nothing," said Ichiiro, even more nervous than before. The two Makotos looked at Aiko and the three-eyed girl looked back, trifocal vision clashing with duo-bifocal. The bell rang and all three continued looking at each for a few moments more, then walked into the building. "That was weird," said Ichiiro. "[It's very easy to understand,]" said Uta. Well, not 'said', exactly, it was more as if she mentally communicated it, but it was easier to think of it as her just saying something. "[They're rivals, after all.]" So it was true. There was only thing Ichiiro could say in this situation. "Aw, crap." * * * The first class was Chemistry, which Ichiiro felt slightly resentful about. While he wasn't the best at Chemistry, he'd always been decent in other areas of science. He commented on it as he and Uta walked to their classroom. "How come we only ever seem to learn Chemistry? Aren't we supposed to be doing Physics and Biology and stuff like that as well?" "[Well, theoretically yes, but the teachers for Physics and Biology met with... unfortunate accidents.]" "Accidents?" Uta frowned in thought. "[I'm not sure, but from what I've heard, it involved an axe, the wizard's club, seventy-eight kilograms of paper maché, a lighting rod, twelve hundred volts of electricity and a short-haired hamster called Hiroshi.]" Ichiiro was stunned into silence. "Yeah, I heard about that too," said a boy, falling into step beside them. "And ever since then Chem's the only Science subject we've ever done. Though the version I heard involved an Egyptian water clock as well." The longhaired boy looked familiar. Ichiiro racked his brain and his mind provided an answer - this was Hisashi, who had incredible martial arts skills, was a star student of the kempo club, and had almost inhuman anticipation. He was also in Ichiiro's class, explaining his sudden presence. "...wait a minute," said Ichiiro. "If Uta was directing those thoughts to me specifically, then how did you hear them?" "Like Uta, I'm a bit telepathic myself, but in the opposite way." "Opposite?" "If I'm close, I can pick up the rough shape of a person's thoughts. That is, I can't read exact words, but it means I can know what someone is thinking about." He grinned. "It's very useful in sparring, as you can imagine." "...oh." Ichiiro said something he'd been saying far too much of lately. "Weird." * * * Chemistry went by without Hagira blowing up the school. This was achieved by the simple expedient of Kaji-sensei putting him in an entirely self-contained bubble before the class started, to make sure that the school would survive longer than an hour. Apart from that, the class went pretty much as normal. Kaji-sensei lectured, the students took notes, Kyoto finished the experiment and had a report written up in a grand total of five minutes, and Ichiiro's experiment completely failed to do what it was supposed to. Instead of shrinking, the green goop turned greener, expanded, and spilt over the lip of the beaker onto the Bunsen burner. The resultant smell made everyone wish that the school *had* been blown up. * * * Ichiiro would have expected someone like the super-traditionalist Miyamoto-sensei to be teaching Ancient Japanese. Instead, they had Satou-sensei - a young woman dressed in bright pastel colours with a cute bow in her hair, and she flounced into the room in a flurry of sugar-enhanced activity. "HIHIHI!" she said. She looked Ichiiro up and down appraisingly. "You're the new student?" "Uh... yes, sensei." "Oh foo, you don't need to be so stuffy. Just call me Risa. Now, it's Ichiiro, right?" "Yes. I'm Ichiiro Hoshino. Pleased to meet-" "Really, you don't have to be so formal, Ichiiro-kun. Now, normally, in addition to classes both today and tomorrow, we would have had a class on Monday afternoon, but *someone* blew up the school." She glared briefly at Hagira. "Really, Kisaru-kun, blowing up the school and depriving me of a chance to meet a fun new student. That's so nasty of you." Hagira avoided the teacher's glare and concentrated on his Ancient Japanese textbook. "Hmph," said Satou-sensei. "Anyway, make sure to have lots of fun and stuff!" "Uh... I'm sure I will..." "WAI!" cheered the teacher. Ichiiro couldn't help but stare. "Don't stare, Ichiiro-kun, it's rude." She looked at her watch. "Eep! Five minutes already! Okay then, everybody. Open your books to page 64. We'll get through conjugations of verbs today even if it kills us!" The class groaned. Ichiiro, turning to page 64, saw why - it was only ten pages into the conjugations chapter, and there were thirty more to go. He groaned too. * * * The next class was PE. As it was a Thursday, they had Bösekrieger- sensei. Ichiiro was nervous - he hadn't had her for PE yet. But it wasn't just that - for once, he wasn't walking to the locker rooms with Makoto-kun, as the other boy... whatever, Makoto had already left the classroom. As had Uta and Kyoto. Ichiiro looked around and realised that he didn't really know anybody else in his class. "You seem a bit lost," said Hisashi, walking up to Ichiiro. "Yeah. I usually walk with Makoto to the locker rooms, only, he's already left..." "Ah, I see. You guys are going to have to sort this out sometime, you know." "How did you- oh, that's right, you're slightly psycho." "Psychic," corrected the slightly taller boy. "And as I said, I can't really read thoughts, just vague impressions. But sometimes, it's enough." "I suppose." They walked on in silence for a few moments, Ichiiro wondering what he could to talk to Hisashi about. He didn't really know much about him apart from him being a very good martial artist. "Since birth, practically," said Hisashi. "My mother is a martial arts nut and had high intentions for me." "Um... could you please not read my mind like that?" Hisashi looked embarrassed. "Actually... I can't." "Excuse me?" "I can't switch it off," clarified the other boy. "It's always on. I can change the intensity a bit, but I can't truly switch it off. It's really annoying." "Yeah?" Hisashi rolled his eyes. "Just try to imagine what it's like when someone is trying to give you the 'let's just be friends' talk and you know what she's *really* thinking. Imagine that you know what people are thinking about you, *all the time*. Imagine that every time somebody comes near, they tense up and automatically think 'I'd better watch my thoughts'. It isn't pretty." "That sounds horrible." "And the worst thing is, I do have something to stop it, but using it is just as bad, for different reasons." "Huh?" "It's a really silly looking hat." Ichiiro blinked. "I... see." "No, you don't. It's massive, coloured bright green, and has 'let's have fun with Mr. Pooksie' written all over it." Ichiiro tried to picture that, and desperately tried to control his laughter. Hisashi, automatically picking up on the mood, sighed in resignation. Ichiiro desperately tried to calm himself down. "I'm sorry, Hisashi," he said. "Thanks," said Hisashi, smiling slightly. By now they were at the locker rooms - they quickly changed and headed out to the field to where the rest of the class was gathering. Ichiiro did some quick stretches. He heard swishing noises beside him, he turned his head to look - and stared. Hisashi was swinging his leg up in front of his body - and his foot was easily reaching above his head - then behind, similarly reaching incredible heights. And with each swing, his leg was reaching ever higher. Ichiiro looked at how far he himself could stretch and how pathetic it looked in comparison, and sighed. And he couldn't help but notice a few girls staring at Hisashi with starry-eyed expressions. Hisashi didn't even react to them, and just continued with his stretching, demonstrating incredible flexibility. "That's... amazing," said Ichiiro, at last. "You should see some of the other guys in the dojo. They can do this," and this time the leg swung up in front of his body and stayed there, "and touch the back of their head with their own foot." Ichiiro boggled at the thought. "I'll get you doing this sort of thing in the Kempo club in no time at all," promised the silver-haired boy. "Somehow I doubt that," Ichiiro muttered to himself. "You'll see," Hisashi said, chuckling, and then stopped as Bösekrieger-sensei walked up to the class wearing gigantic white pads on her shins. "Oh man, not *again*..." "So, are we all here?" asked Bösekrieger-sensei. After a quick check of the roll, and telling Hisashi to stop showing off, she started lecturing them on the rules of cricket. This lasted for about ten minutes, and then the red tracksuited form of Teashi-sensei was visible as he exited the school building and walked towards the PE class. Bösekrieger's lip curled back in an incredibly feral looking snarl. "Please excuse me," she said to the class. "I have a stupid old man to take care of. Start a game and if you have questions, save them until I'm done." She then produced a battle-axe out of thin air and went to have a spirited discussion with the other PE teacher. * * * After working out what they could from Bösekrieger's short lecture (and her previous ones as well) and Shohei's shaky memories of the game when he'd visited Australia and New Zealand, the class had a passable game of cricket going. It was also, Ichiiro decided as he stood at bat, incredibly boring. All he was supposed to do was whack a ball with a weird bat and then, if the ball was far enough away, run up and down a pitch a couple of times. He wasn't even automatically out if he missed the ball. He much preferred baseball, that was a lot quicker. A girl - he thought her name was Aya - was bowling. She ran up to the other end of the pitch, her arm blurred, and there was a clattering noise from behind him. Ichiiro looked behind him and saw that the 'wicket' had been quite definitively hit by the ball, its 'bails' lying on the ground several meters away. He was quite definitely out. He looked back up at the girl, his mouth an 'o' of amazement. "Ne, Ichiiro-kun, it's my turn to bat!" said Kyoto. Ichiiro wordlessly handed the bat to her, and walked to his spot on the field. Aya ran up and bowled. Kyoto's arms blurred and there was the crack of the bat meeting the ball at high speed, a smashing and crashing noise, and Teashi-sensei and Bösekrieger-sensei suddenly yelling. All the students stopped their game and looked over, and saw that Bösekrieger's axe was lying on the ground several meters away from her, the cricket ball firmly embedded in its blade. Teashi-sensei wasn't much better off, as the blade attached to his left elbow had been smashed in half. "WHO DARES?" shouted Teashi-sensei, brandishing his intact katana wildly. "KYOTO! FOR HITTING THAT BALL INTO MY FAVOURITE AXE, YOU'LL *PAY*!!" screamed Bösekrieger-sensei. "Gottarunbye!" said Kyoto, and dashed away at high speed. The class watched in amazement as the three jumped over the school gate and disappeared into the far distance. "I never thought *I'd* be saying this," said Makoto-kun, "but that was pretty weird." "Shall we continue the game?" "Sure, why not?" said Hisashi. "We were just getting the hang of that." "It's fun, too," said Aya. "And you're not bowling, Aya." "Damn." * * * The bell rang, signaling lunchtime. Five seconds later the field was completely empty, as students stampeded towards the canteen and its yummy goodness. Well, almost empty. Ichiiro remained behind, as did Makoto-kun and Aiko. The three looked at each other. "Something's up," said Makoto-kun. "Ichiiro, can you tell me what it is?" "I asked Ichiiro to go on a date with me yesterday," said Aiko, matter-of-factly. "He said yes." "WHAT?" shouted Makoto. "Ichiiro, you said that rumor was false! Aiko, you did, too!" "What? Can't I like him anyway?" asked Aiko. "You DO?" asked Ichiiro. "Do what?" asked the other two. "Like me," he clarified. "Uh... yes. Why else would I ask you to go out with me?" "Um..." was Ichiiro's witty response. "Ne, Ichiiro," said Makoto, "do YOU like her?" Ichiiro found himself the center of attention. Makoto hadn't come out and said it yet, but from what Uta and Hisashi had said and what had happened this morning, Ichiiro was pretty sure that Makoto liked him. This made things very difficult - he was going to end up hurting someone he thought of as a friend. In his first week at this new school, no less. He couldn't help thinking that even despite the fact that one of the girls involved was really just one body of two that a single mind controlled and that the other girl had three eyes, this was very weird. Back in Tokyo there would never have been two girls fighting over him. Heck, he'd have been lucky if a girl even considered him worthy enough to fight for. So he did the only thing he could - he floundered. "Um... ah... er... that is..." "Um, ah, er, that is, what? Do you like me or not?" asked Aiko. "Um... yes?" said Ichiiro, nervously, nervously aware of Makoto-kun standing there and looking at him. He had his arms crossed and was tapping his foot, and glaring. "What about me?" asked Makoto-kun. "Do you like me?" "Er," said Ichiiro, feeling a large bottomless pit opening beneath him. This was it. Something Tremendously Bad was bound to happen in the next few minutes. "Do you?" asked Makoto-kun. Looking at Aiko didn't help, as she was following the popular trend and also glaring at him. "Can I say yes?" he hazarded. "But not in the way you want, probably. I mean, you're all good friends in a really weird school that I'm still getting used to, and you've helped me out quite a bit, and I can't help but like all of you. But this is all a bit... sudden. I mean, this is only halfway through my fourth day here. I kinda thought that before you started dating you had to know the person for a bit longer than that." He saw Aiko looking a bit sad, and then a bit angry. "Aw man, Aiko! Don't look like that!" "Alright, perhaps it is a bit soon..." agreed Makoto-kun. "But you'll have to choose someday." He then left, leaving Ichiiro and Aiko the only two remaining on the field. "If you think it's all so sudden," asked Aiko, "then why did you agree to go on a date with me yesterday?" "Because I do like you and you're a nice person and you seem like one of the most normal people here," said Ichiiro. "And... er..." "Yes?" "You're cute," he mumbled. "Even when you had those glasses on." "Really?" "Yes, really!" Ichiiro said, perhaps a bit more forcefully than necessary. She looked at him thoughtfully. "Do you still want to go out?" "I don't know. I mean, it's all happening so fast! And I'm also worried about Makoto. He... she... whatever, Makoto's a friend to both of us." "Yes," she said, slowly. "There is that." "So what now?" "I'm sure we'll think of something." She looked at him thoughtfully, and then extended her hand. "Friends?" "Sheesh," said Ichiiro. "From friends to romantic interest to 'let's just be friends' in only four days." But he shook her hand anyway. "Yeah," she said, smiling impishly at him. "As you say all the time, this place is weird." (To be continued) LINER NOTES Satou (or perhaps just Sato, I'm not completely sure) is a rather typical Japanese name. Satou also means "sugar". The irony is rather obvious. ^_^ FANBOYISH PLUG Back in 1991, a Japanese-American girl called Maiko Covington made a series of posts to, amongst others, the newsgroup rec.arts.anime, all about the Japanese school system, as seen by someone who had gone through it. For those writing fanfics set in Japanese schools (such as, say, Heart Heart High, West Eastwood High, and possibly even H!Flash), I really recommend it. It can even be helpful when coming up with ideas. You can find the posts on Maiko's homepage, at this URL: http://wocket.csl.uiuc.edu/~maiko/highschool.html AUTHOR'S NOTES Make sure there's at least a week's break before the next Impro part is due. Buy milk AUTHOR'S NOTES, TAKE 2 A bit short. Oh well. It's as if I've been really stretching myself over the past three weeks, first doing DG#55, then Hell and Back #8, and now this part. Now I understand what Kate Malloy's gone through. ^_^ Much as I absolutely HATE using -kun to indicate maleness and -chan to indicate femaleness, I couldn't find any simpler way to refer to Makoto's unique condition. After all, typing "Makoto's female body" or "Makoto's male body" every time becomes a bit awkward and clumsy and would just look weird. I decided to go with Eslington's schedule, as that provided a bit more space for other subjects to fit in and I could come up with other stuff. CREDITS Many thanks must go to Eslington. The 'fun with Hagira's self- destruct mechanisms' was inspired by a conversation with Eslington, back when we were discussing WEH chapter 1. He also suggested the explanation about the missing Science teachers, and did some prereading too. Let's all hear it for Eslington! (clapclapclap) AUTHOR'S APLOGOY Sheesh, these must be the longest post-Impro notes I've ever written and one of my shortest chapters. I'll try and do better next time. Thank you for reading. Steven Scougall http://www.crosswinds.net/~sscougall/ 23rd February 2000