Saturday, November 19, 2005

   When Chibis Attack! Part 20
Previous chapters hide over here.

Part 20: In Which There is Cleanness



Warning: This chapter contains excessive amounts of fan-service. But it's chibi-style fan-service, which is... different.




A thorough wash and a fresh sweater later, the lack of noise starts to worry me.

No noise: no screaming, explosions, thumps, not even cursing.

Outside the bathroom door, all that can be heard is running water. And a clinking noise?




Knock, knock.

Not even the Comically Required, 'Who's there?' from within.

"Everything alright in there?" Perhaps my knocking was drowned out by the sound of running water... constant, quickly flowing water.

Still nothing.



Are chibis water soluble? No, Sanzo took a shower earlier. But maybe soaking is the problem: they're already so small, maybe they prune up into nothing. Or did they just get in a fight and drown each other? That seems the most likely scenario.

Visions of little Smurf-blue bodies floating in my bathtub provoke me to action.

The door's unlocked; I guess they were too short to reach it.

"I'm coming in!" I holler.

Step in.




There is a waterfall in my bathroom.

Steam coruscates through the air as the waterfall splashes into a shallow, tiled pool. The pool is where my bathtub formerly resided in peace for many years. I could measure its age in its rings, and now it is no more, only this waterfall, and a fig tree...



The small wooden bucket that bounces off my head brings my rather limited perception to bear on the other new features of my bathroom. Such as the high-pitched screaming and the hail objects flying towards me.

The chibis, very alive and well, are ducking in the shallow pool and hurling various bathroom accoutrements at my head to the tune of, "Eek!", "Pervert!" and "Get the hell out of here!"

"Wait! Why is there a waterfall in my - ouch, dammit! Where did that fig tree come from?"

The flourishing, leafy fig tree seems to be somehow sentient. It waves its prehensile branches in some imaginary wind, never failing to obscure the ever-moving chibi-nudity with its well placed foliage.

"Ah ha ha ha... we did some re-modelling to make things more... appropriate. But you really must go now." Hakkai sheepishly lobs a miniature back-brush at me.




"What's all the noise... uwah!" Gojyo walks out of a previously non-existent enclosure and into the back of my leg, causing a desperate mass dive to rescue his tray of hot sake from otherwise certain demise. Gojyo, on the other hand, is allowed to face-plant undisturbed.

I cover my face with my hands, though not for the sake of decency, since the fig tree flourishes to wrap the whole scene from view with speed generally associate with predatory felines, not greenery.



My active refusal to observe this situation seems to confuse the chibis. Perhaps when I can't see them, they doubt whether they really exist?

Sadly, no.

"What's she doing in here?!"

"Um... I'm not sure."

"And I don't care. She goes. Now!"

"'C'mon, Sanzo... I don't mind, as long as she takes off her clothes as w-"



The familiar sounds of violence echo up. I re-open my eyes, but only to gaze up at the stately fig tree in its neat pot. Its leaves strain towards the negligible light provided by the bathroom window, yet also swing madly around, following the chibis' short, round fan-service unfailingly. Do they emit light-like radiation, perhaps?

By the time my eyes are dragged downward again, the chibis have found fluffy, white bathrobes. Still, the hail of tiny bath things continues unabated.




Where the hell did they get all that sake? I didn't see it in the groceries, I would have remembered.

But it's really not worth asking, is it?


"I'm going, I'm going! Just... turn off that waterfall when you're done, or I swear I'll charge you for the water bills."

"Oh, no, it's all filtered, internally heated and re-cycled. Excuse me: Eeek!"

Hakkai's explanation... doesn't help.

"Bye bye!" Kougaiji waves at me, then happily throws a bar of soap at me as I retreat out the door.

"There's some lunch on the table for you!"

"Hakkai! There were leftovers, and you didn't tell me?"

"Now, Goku..."

"Click," says the door as I sneak away, oddly guilty.



Sandwich on the counter, carefully arranged with a few pickles.

Help myself to a side dish of rum.



Wait...

They're contained. I could -

- burn the house down?

- or get on with my work.



Look at the neat little sandwich (crusts cut off), and slice of beetroot cut into a heart shape.

It probably wouldn't kill them, even if I did.

Work it is, then.


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