Title: 'Chabana****'
Parts: 1/1
Author: 'A Gentleman Of Leisure'.
E-mail: <nemo1nemo@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
Summary: Yomi & Tomo take tea, discuss certain extraordinary
events, and Tomo even asks for advice!
Story Type: BTVS / Azumanga Daioh
Rating overall: T (precautionary)
Spoilers: All AzuD series. All BTVS series.
Distribution/Archiving: Ask first please.
Disclaimer: No one here belongs to me - I've just borrowed them
to
play with. All other Patents, Trademarks and Copyrights duly acknowledged.
Thank you.
_____________________________
'Chabana****'
(tea-talk, gossip, chat over a bowl of tea)
by
A Gentleman Of Leisure.
(c)2008
___________________________
An Azumanga Daioh crossover with Buffy The Vampire Slayer
[Sequel to "Kyuuketsuki to ****kei****kkonin" & 'Welcome Committees' etc.
see <http://www.fanfiction.net/~agentlemanofleisure>]
Warning - Low Slayer Content.
Disclaimer: The usual. Not mine. Fun only.
____________________________
"Baka!" exclaimed Yomi, grabbing for Tomo's arm to stop her from falling
over backwards, because she was trying to balance her chair on just its
back
legs. Nearby customers in the kissaten looked round, and she blushed.
"Now look what you've done!" she said angrily. "Everyone's staring at us!
Why can't you behave like a grown up for once, Tomo?"
"Hey," said her friend, "I was only seeing if I could still do it. I'd get
into trouble if I tried that in the office while I was on duty."
"You're still in uniform, you half-wit," Yomi hissed. "Everyone will think
you're on duty now!"
"Calm down, Yomi - you'll bust a blood vessel. Look, I'm sitting up
straight
just like you want now. OK?"
Yomi sighed, and took off her gl***** to polish them. It gave her a moment
to try and relax the muscles in her neck and shoulders - the ones that
always tensed up when her best friend was acting like a total idiot - in
other words, most of the time! Yet again she wondered how she had ever
managed not to kill Tomo, the most irritating girl in Tokyo, bar none.
"Here, have another cake," said Tomo generously. "You probably need the
energy. All those late nights studying, and long days in the office
learning
how to write legal do***ents - they must really take it out of you." She
pushed the plate across the table, then at the last moment, just as Yomi
was
about to select the richest, most chocolaty cake, reached out to pluck it
from right under her nose, and stuffed the whole thing into her mouth in
one
go!
"I was just going to have that one!" Yomi said in a deadly calm voice.
"Sorry, Yomi - you've gotta be quicker! Us police have to eat fast so's we
can be off to the next call-out at a second's notice. No time for
wondering
which one to have - just go for the one you want - like this!" and with
that
her hand dived at the remaining assortment of cakes like a s**** striking,
and another piece of confectionary heaven was gone before Yomi could even
open her mouth to protest!
"Hurry up," said Tomo, "or there won't be any left. I've got to be on duty
again in half an hour. I don't have time to just sit around while you
admire
them. Here," and she put one onto Yomi's plate for her. Hurriedly Yomi
grabbed it and took a big bite out of it before Tomo could change her
mind.
"That's the way, Yomi. Champion cake eater at our station, that's me!"
"I'm not surprised, the way you're going through these," Yomi managed to
say
through a spray of crumbs. Hastily she stuffed in the other half of her
cake
and reached for another one, but Tomo grabbed her wrist.
"Just a minute there, Mizuhara-san. What happened to that diet you were on
the other week? No, don't tell me, you need the sugar to fuel your
brain-cells, right?"
"I need a police crowd control baton to deal with you, that's what I
need!"
Yomi growled, shaking off the restraining hand and snatching up the
nearest
cake before Tomo could. "Anything to keep you away from the plate for a
few
minutes, and give me half a chance!"
"You'll get fat, Yomi!" said Tomo in that familiar, irritating sing-song
voice she used to use when they were still at school. It had been an
annoying habit all the way through their long career from Primary to High
School, and still Yomi hadn't been able to get away from it. It seemed
that
she and Officer Takino were, as the Amerikans would put it, permanently
'joined at the hip'. She sighed again.
"OK, Tomo. Here we are, tea and cakes being consumed at a great rate, but
apart from that I have no idea why we're here. You still haven't told me
why
you wanted to meet me. In fact I think I know even less now than when I
first came in."
Tomo stuffed down her fifth cake and swigged some more tea. Then for a
moment or so she just sat looking at her friend, not saying anything.
Eventually, just as Yomi opened her mouth to ask if she was all right, she
was interrupted. Typical Tomo!
"Yomi, I've got a question for you."
"You? A question? Seriously?" Yomi burst out laughing. "I thought you knew
everything."
"No," said Tomo surprisingly quietly. "It seems not."
"Eh? What the hell does that mean?" Yomi asked, taken aback. This wasn't
like her friend at all. Tomo just sat looking at her for another moment or
so, and this time Yomi didn't try to say anything, because it appeared
from
Tomo's unexpectedly serious expression that she was actually thinking -
perhaps even trying to work out how to ask her question. Eventually she
seemed to decide what she wanted to say, and when she spoke, Yomi almost
fell off her chair!
"Yomi, you remember what happened to Chiyo in Amerika?"
"Huh? Yes, of course I do. Why?"
"Did you believe her?"
"What, her story about being attacked by some sort of monster?" Yomi said,
leaning forward so she could keep her voice down but still be heard. Tomo
nodded.
"I don't know, really. She believed it, obviously, but really... a vampire
demon?" She shrugged.
Tomo nodded again. "That's what I thought," she said. "Who could possibly
believe something like that? Must have been some sort of huge wild animal,
like a grizzly bear or something, mustn't it? After all, who knows what
the
Amerika-jin have wandering round in their forests - like Big Foot and
stuff?
Much more likely, don't you think?"
"Yes, I'd have thought so. She would have been suffering from shock, and
the
mind can play strange tricks after something like that. I've seen some
very
odd witness statements in the office - I could show you if you weren't a
police officer, of course," Yomi replied. "It's bizarre, the things people
can think has happened to them, or to people they were with, or even that
they thought they saw. Just as weird as what Chiyo told us happened to
her."
"That's what I thought too," said Tomo, sounding almost relieved. "We get
the same sort of thing at traffic accidents. I've heard some pretty funny
excuses from drivers myself. 'The lamp post jumped out into the road in
front of me,' is one of the best so far, along with 'I tried to turn right
at a turning that wasn't there'! Great stuff! Absolutely classic!"
Yomi nodded. "That's the sort of thing," she said. "And there I was,
thinking you were going to tell me something weird and impossible." She
laughed.
Tomo just sat there looking at her.
"What?" said Yomi sharply.
"Um... well I was, actually," said Tomo. Yomi burst out laughing again,
and
the whole of the cafe turned round to look at the pair.
"Go on then, make my hair stand on end!" she managed to say eventually.
"What, all bizarre and spooky?"
"Sort of," said Tomo. She paused, then said, "You see, I'm not so sure
Chiyo
was wrong."
"What? Are you serious?" Shocked, Yomi suddenly sat up straight, spilling
her tea. "I mean, she's the most honest person we know, but being attacked
by a wild animal in the middle of a forest in a foreign country? It's
really
not very conducive to accurate observation, is it?"
"Well, it was a good, clear description, with plenty of detail. I know it
was because I wrote it down directly afterwards."
"Really? You did? Why?"
"Because it was just about the strangest thing I'd ever heard in my life.
Knocked any of Osaka's stories right out of the window."
"Well yes, I suppose it was pretty bizarre, wasn't it?"
The law had come naturally to Yomi as a choice of career. You just needed
the right kind of brain for it - the inquisitive sort, that questions what
it's told, looks at all sides of a problem, is analytical and sharp, with
a
good memory. Quite like a detective in some ways. She remembered their
meeting with Chiyo in this very same cafe just three months ago, and she
looked thoughtfully at Tomo.
"What's brought this on? Have you heard something? Is she in some sort of
trouble?"
Tomo shook her head slowly. "Not so far as I know. She's safe with those
Slayer people in England. If anything weird happens over there I think
they'll look after her."
Yomi looked at her friend, puzzled. "I don't understand. You're absolutely
serious, aren't you? You really believe Chiyo, don't you?"
Tomo nodded, and a nasty tingle started to creep up Yomi's spine, and up
the
back of her neck. She could feel the hair on her head trying to stand up.
Even though it was a mild, late September day she ****vered.
"That's how I feel too," said Tomo quietly.
"S-so what's happened now, Tomo? What's made you decide to believe her
after
all? Come on, you can tell Yomi. Share it!"
There was another brief silence. Then...
"OK, then. Now, I'm not supposed to tell anyone about this, so just keep
it
to yourself, Yomi, OK?"
Tomo paused to gather her thoughts.
"Right. About two weeks ago we found a body, just a couple of nights after
we saw Chiyo off at Narita," she said in a flat tone. "It was in
Hibiya-koen
Park, close to the Imperial Palace."
Yomi clenched her hands together. They felt curiously cold. She wondered
what this was leading to. What had this to do with Chiyo?
"An old woman," Tomo continued. "But it was kept quiet."
"Really? Why?" asked Yomi. "I've heard that the older homeless people
living
in the parks are sometimes found dead. What was so different about this
one?"
"You're quick, Yomi. That's why I always wanted to be friends with you.
You
were always the brainy one," Tomo said.
"Ha!" said Yomi. "I remember you as being the lazy one, and me being the
idiot who always did all her homework and then let you copy it! If
anything,
I was the stupid one. And then you got into Azu High anyway, just to spite
me, didn't you? That's not so stupid either, is it? You've got the brains,
you just couldn't be bothered to use them."
Tomo shrugged in the same irritating fa****on Yomi remembered from all the
way back to their first day at school.
"Well then, what was special about this dead old woman?"
"She'd been ripped to pieces by huge claws, and chunks bitten out of her
by
gigantic teeth," Tomo said simply, in the same calm tone of voice as
before.
Yomi's eyebrows shot up, and her gl***** gleamed.
"Did you see the body yourself? It wasn't just somebody exaggerating, was
it? Someone winding you up?"
"No, Yomi," Tomo said, a trifle annoyed. "I just told you - we found her.
Us. WE found her - OUR patrol car. An old man on the pavement stopped us -
waved us down. He was covered in blood, so at first we thought he'd been
attacked by some young thugs, maybe vigilantes trying to clear the park.
That happens sometimes. However, it turned out it was this old woman's
blood. He'd fallen over the body in the dark." She grimaced. "It was like
one of those zombie films we used to go and see - remember?"
"You used to drag me along to see, you mean..." Yomi protested.
"Whatever. Anyway the crime scene examiners came along and floodlit the
place. Ugh!" Tomo shuddered. "You never see anything in the movies as real
as the real thing, I can tell you! There was blood everywhere. Chunks of
flesh were scattered across the grass and the path, and the remains of one
of her arms was up in a tree!"
"What?" Yomi said faintly.
"Yup! One leg was missing altogether, and part of her insides had been
eaten," Tomo went on gruesomely. "And there were teeth marks, Yomi! Giant
teeth marks! They said the mouth must have been three times the size of a
human!"
Yomi abruptly pushed the plate of cakes away. "I think I've lost my
appetite," she said.
"I don't really want any more either," said Tomo soberly.
The two young women sat looking at each other without saying anything for
several minutes. Then Yomi said she didn't remember seeing anything on the
news about it.
"What?" said Tomo, surprised. "Do you think they wanted to start a panic?
Giant wild animal loose in central Tokyo? People would be imagining Gojira
was for real! Just think about that! The army out in the streets? No way
was
the Government going to have that happen! But," she added, "That's not
all."
"Huh? What else?" Yomi said.
"I saw it!" said Tomo.
"What?" Yomi's voice came out as a kind of squeak.
"I actually saw it myself," repeated Tomo in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone
of
voice. "Just for a couple of seconds. My partner went back to the car to
radio in a re****t of what we'd found to HQ. I was just standing by the
body,
****ning my torch round at the bushes, looking for clues, when suddenly,
there it was!"
Yomi was hardly able to speak. It was a minute before she was able to ask,
"H-how far away was it?"
"Right up close," said Tomo. She leaned forward. "Right... up... close! It
appeared out of nowhere, just like that!" She snapped her fingers. "As
close
as you are to me now." She shuddered again.
Then she said, "You know we haven't seen each other since the day Chiyo
left
for England?"
Yomi couldn't make her voice work. She could only nod.
"You know why?"
Yomi shook her head. "Busy? ****ft patterns?" she croaked.
Tomo gently slipped her left arm out of the sleeve of her uniform jacket,
and put it carefully on the table, revealing a neat bandage covering her
entire forearm, from the wrist up, and continuing on above the elbow. It
almost reached as high up as the short sleeve of her summer issue uniform
blouse.
"There. That's how close," she said.
Yomi gasped, and grabbed her hand.
"Ow! Don't rip my arm off!" Tomo exclaimed. "The monster didn't manage to,
so I'd rather you didn't either."
"Sorry, sorry, sorry!" Yomi gabbled. "Are you all right, Tomo? Really all
right? You're sure? How bad is it? How did you escape from it?"
"I ran like hell of course - what do you think?" Tomo grinned broadly.
"Hey,
even Sakaki couldn't have kept up with me, know what I mean? I dived into
the patrol car and stood on the accelerator so hard they say I bent the
bloody foot pedal, and the rubber tyre marks we left on the road were
nearly
forty metres long! We didn't come back until the murder squad and CSE
arrived!"
She patted her friend's hand reassuringly. "It's OK, Yomi. I'm fine.
Honestly, I'm mending nicely. In fact I'm going back on traffic duty this
evening. I've been doing paperwork for the captain all this week, but it's
so-oo-oo BORING!! So anyway, I told him if he wouldn't let me back out in
the patrol car I'd go and stake out the park on my own after my ****ft
ended."
"You wouldn't, would you? Please don't, Tomo," Yomi said anxiously. "You
don't know what might happen to you!"
"Yes I do, and I would too," Tomo said. "Hey, you really care, don't you?"
she added, genuinely surprised.
"No. No I don't!" Yomi said, suddenly angry. "Go and get yourself eaten
alive if you really want to, then! Yes, of course I care about you, you
bloody idiot! We're friends, aren't we? Anyway, how in a thousand hells
would I explain to your parents?"
"You fuss too much, Yomi. I'll be fine - I'm prepared for anything," Tomo
replied, sounding as supremely confident as always.
"You moron! Didn't Chiyo say the woman called Bibi was seriously injured
rescuing her, and it took both her and her cousin Buffy to finally kill
that
creature? You'd be Magnetron-burger meat before you could even blow your
whistle!"
"But what a way to go, eh?" said Tomo, leaning back, trying to balance on
the two back legs of her chair again.
Yomi closed her eyes, and breathed deeply through her nose for a moment to
get control of her temper again.
"So, what did you tell your superiors?" she asked eventually.
"Exactly what I saw, of course. The police surgeon who was patching up my
arm at the time said my injury exactly matched those found on the body of
the old lady. And no - I didn't cry when he was putting in all those
stitches! Police training has toughened me up a lot."
"So what did they think attacked you, then?"
Tomo shrugged casually. "No idea. At least they DO believe I was attacked,
but at the moment they're really not sure what by. Or if they know,
they're
not saying."
"Hmph! So you just described what you saw, and they had to decide whether
you were making it up or not."
"Right."
"So what did you see? What did it look like? How big was it?"
"Well all I saw were huge eyes, teeth, and claws! Hey, it was very dark
out
there in the park! It was very big, it took a swipe at me, and I legged it
-
into the car and ZOOM! Away! You really should have seen me!"
Yomi's mouth hung open, and her eyes were practically out on stalks.
"I really only saw it for a couple of seconds, but it definitely wasn't
just
an animal," Tomo continued. "It was a lot taller than me, and I think it
was
wearing some sort of armour - I rather got the impression of leather.
Honestly! On the souls of my ancestors, it was very like Chiyo's
description
of her demon, only without the sword!"
Yomi managed to get her mouth working again. "S-seriously? And they
believed
you?"
"Yup!" said Tomo, grinning broadly. "I know. Weird, isn't it?"
Yomi could only sit there with her mouth open, shaking her head
disbelievingly. "So," she managed to say eventually, in as off-hand,
casual
a tone as she could manage, "You... er... think maybe Chiyo met something
like that?"
Tomo nodded. "It certainly sounds like it to me," she said.
"Does anybody except us know? About Chiyo. None of us have talked to
anyone
else about it, have we?"
"Well, that's the other thing I wanted to ask you," Tomo said, now
sounding
quite serious again. "D'you think I should tell my boss?"
"About what happened to her? Why? Because it confirms your statement? Hm,
good question, Tomo." Yomi leaned back in her seat and thought hard for
several minutes, trying to decide what would be best for all concerned.
Mercifully, Tomo sat absolutely quiet, waiting for her answer.
"I think the question is really 'is it relevant?'" Yomi said eventually.
"Well, so far as I can see, it's got nothing to do with what happened here
in Tokyo, has it? So, I don't really think you need to tell anyone about
Chiyo. What happened to her was in early May, and thousands of miles away
in
the USA. It's mid-September now, and this was here in Tokyo. When she told
us, I don't think any of us entirely believed her at the time, did we,
except perhaps Sakaki? She told me she'd seen Chiyo's scars. If Chiyo's
told
anyone else, that's up to her. I think we should all just stay quiet, and
mind our own business."
Tomo heaved a deep sigh of genuine relief. "OK. Thanks Yomi, I was rather
worried about what I ought to do."
"You? Worried? Really? Re-ally? Never!"
A wicked little grin flickered briefly across Yomi's face. "You know what,
Tomo?"
Tomo shook her head.
"I actually think you yourself are in quite serious danger..."
"What?"
"...Of growing up after all," said Yomi, and smiled at her friend.
Tomo, shocked, teetering on the back legs of her chair again, overbalanced
and went sprawling on the cafe floor. Everyone turned to stare at her.
"Baka!" said Yomi affectionately.
END
_____________
Baka = Fool, Blockhead, Idiot, Moron, Half-wit, Stupid.
Chabana**** = teatime talk, gossip, chat over a bowl of tea.
12 Nov 2008 [Revised 12, 14 - 16, 23 - 26 Nov 2008]
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