From Sailor Moon Flash!
| Featuring: | Tsurian, Ebba, Kenrou |
| IC Date: | July, 2002 |
| Status: | Completed |
| Summary: | Yoshinaga Tsurian isn't precisely a pool shark, per se; however, she is very, very good. Which is why it's extremely frustrating to her when an incredibly rude gaijin calling herself Ebba Koch spanks her. The only thing to do is call in Boss Amakusa Kenrou, who absolutely cannot lose. |
Yoshinaga Tsurian had lately taken to shooting with her left hand. She figured practice was the only way to get any better, and anyway these days if she used her right hand, the game would be over too quickly.
She sighted along the cue, glared at the cue ball and the last striped, notched, and shot.
Side pocket.
She grinned, and looked up. "Your turn," she said magnanimously. There was some chance that her opponent could catch up, sink his three solids, and then take the eight-ball away from her. Not much of a chance, granted - she wouldn't have given up her last shot otherwise - but enough so that no one could accuse her of being unJapanesely sharkish. No one liked someone who won all the time.
While her opponent lined up his shot - she didn't know what he thought he was doing, going for the one-ball when even sinking it would leave him with no follow-up possibilities - she glanced around the crowded pool hall of the Tokyo Dome. As usual there were groups waiting for a table and pestering the nearby blackjack tables while doing so, and the typical knots of players around their tables, and always the people who'd just stand around and watch and leave without playing. Some of the better players had fanclubs, although it was less of a fan-club and more of an association of people who would favor you for betting.
She noticed that the dark-haired gaijin girl was here again, systematically destroying a line of opponents who'd apparently been waiting since five o'clock to step up to her table. Tsurian raised an eyebrow. That was something else.
"Yoshinaga-san? It's your shot."
"Just a second," she said absently, watching the gaijin girl sink her fourth shot in a row. She had a weird method, one that seemed to consist of staring intently at the ball - not at the table, not at the cue ball, not at the cue - but just at the ball, and then suddenly she'd have shot and the ball would be tipping neatly into a pocket, often taking a friend with it. That was pretty good. That was, in fact, annoyingly good. She wouldn't go so far as to call it Boss-good, but she would admit to being impressed.
"Yoshinaga-san?"
"What? Oh, yeah, ri - oh, what is this," Tsurian said, exasperated. "You didn't get your shot, but you DID manage to bollix my shot. Come on, now, you have to ask yourself, is this the act of a fair-minded, rational person? No. Boss would be so disappointed in you. And look, you didn't even do a good job of mucking me up; I can go around the four-ball and still hit the eight." She did so, winning the game.
"This is what you get for not being a good sport," she said, severely, picking up her cue and heading off.
If she was lucky, and clever, she could grab a place in line over at the gaijin's table. She didn't know that she wanted to play against the gaijin, not yet, but she was getting a bit fed up with players who weren't being serious; if this sort of disgusting silliness kept up, she'd have to go back to playing with Boss, and that got on her nerves after a while.
Ebba Koch's leisure time had been going rather well until she arrived. That woman, with her bright tropical fish hair and clever-and-snarkier-than-thou smirk, had singlehandedly ruined the smooth pace she had maintained for weeks. She tried to ignore the screamingly obnoxious shade of fuschia -- what the hell was that, a zig-zag-hawk? -- in the corner of her vision and refocus on her game.
God spare her. If haircolor were music, that atrocity would be a Rammstein and Celine Dion duet.
Her irritation mounted as the woman simply failed to disappear. The discordant note in her routine began to chafe, making her back start to itch where her bra hooked over her spine. The air was starting to feel thick in her lungs, and the itching began to spread across her back and up her spine, and then she could smell the stale sweat and discomfort of her opponent, and she had to end it now before she lost it completely and flattened the casino with a well-placed worm. She glanced at the table, saw the pattern she needed, and took her shot.
Jump the ten. Four in the side pocket. Bank, between the eleven and twelve to the one in the corner pocket, drawing back along the rail to nudge the eight in the opposite corner pocket.
"Tsugaru," she muttered, trying to enjoy the jerky bow of her rather confused opponent as he backed away. Perhaps her next opponent...
Oh, joy. The eye-searing woman. Apparently, nobody had objected to her claiming her place at the head of the line. Perhaps she could make the crass creature leave by thoroughly embarrassing her with a short game.
"Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" she asked with forced politeness. Not that she expected an affirmative.
"Ich kann nicht so gut Deutsch sprechen," came the reply. "Sprechen Sie Englisch?"
Damn. "Unwell," Ebba replied as courteously as she could manage. "This person's Japanese a sickness is out of the mouth also. Game now?"
Tsurian was left feeling rather nonplussed. Maybe Boss really did have something to say about the abruptness of gaijin.
On the other hand, maybe she did want to play instead of just watch. She put her cue in her right hand, figuring that for the first time in quite a while she'd need to play at the top of her form and not just practice.
"Okay," she said agreeably, being sure to speak more slowly than she was used to. Gaijin thought they knew Japanese, and then the slightest hint of a Yokohama accent could throw them off. "Game now. I'm Yoshinaga." She held out a hand, and felt like a twit as the gaijin only stared. She took it back, and began racking the balls. "I'll break?"
The dark-haired girl nodded.
Tsurian placed the cue ball, decided that she wanted stripes, and aimed carefully. She was gratified that it broke fairly evenly along the left side, and sent the twelve into the right corner pocket. "Stripes," she explained to the gaijin, who gave her the most blank, measured look she'd ever seen in her entire life. It was nearly as off-putting as Boss's Blank We Are Sure That You Merely Misspoke And Did Not Mean To Be Horribly Crass Smile # 84, the one he usually saved for his nephew Mushio or that damn kid Kansou.
She glanced at the scatter of spheres over the felt, and tried to figure her strategy. Obviously, she'd be in real trouble if she let the gaijin shoot with even a smidge of a chance of sinking something, so she'd have to keep sinking her own stripes and keep the solids away from any pocket-vector.
She grinned. This was going to rule.
So, this Naga person thought she could play. Ebba briefly considered simply decimating her with one well-placed (and slightly nudged) shot, but that would be cheating -- not to mention not nearly as satisfying as drawing out the woman's humiliation just a bit.
With that in mind, she carefully double-banked the cue to sink the five, three, and one. She was kind enough to leave Naga a shot.
Tsurian's eyebrows shot straight up. Okay, that was ... ... ... not cool. Three balls sunk. She was now two shots behind and it was the third shot of the game.
Well, she'd wanted a challenge. She just hadn't really meant ... this much... of a challenge.
She narrowed her eyes, glared at the gaijin (it briefly occurred to her that the other hadn't bothered to introduce herself), and then glared at the balls still remaining.
She had a shot - no, wait. She had two possible shots. One would only sink two shots (if she managed to get the tricky backspin off the first carom), but would totally screw over the gaijin; the other would sink ... two shots, and then give the gaijin a clear shot at the four. Not happenin'.
Tsurian sent up a brief prayer to any kami who happened to be lurking around the Tokyo Dome, and also the Seven Lucky Gods for good measure, and then swore loudly as she did NOT get the tricky backspin and missed the ten entirely.
She was slightly heartened to see that there was no way the gaijin could get out of that corner, though.
Well, that's what she got for being kind.
Ebba very nearly glared at the jawed cueball settled on the very edge of the pocket, hating it for not having the good grace to simply scratch and give her free rein in the kitchen. Instead, it mockingly perched at the lip, saved by the friction from three felt fibers.
Damn. Wittingly or not, Naga had made a beautiful defensive move. Not only was she blocked by the jaw of the pocket, the six was parked very nearly at the center of the opening of the pocket. If she fudged her next shot, Naga would gain control of the table. Ebba was not about to let her pride be damaged by a snotty punk with radioactive hair.
She carefully sighted along the cue, adjusting and re-adjusting her aim until she felt that sense of place in her cue.
Deep breath. She adjusted again for her pulse and the rhythm of her breathing, then shot.
The ball staggered sideways briefly, curving away from the pocket as the spin took over its trajectory. On its way out, it struck the six, transferring just enough spin to cause it to twirl gently into the pocket. The cueball banked a couple of times, bleeding momentum into the green surface of the table until it finally rested against the rail.
It wasn't her cleanest shot, or even her trickiest, but Ebba still allowed herself a slight sigh of pleasure.
Tsurian gaped, openly. There had been no way in the actual physical world that the gaijin should have made that shot.
So, what - gaijin thought that, just because they were foreigners, they didn't have to obey the laws of physics? To hell with that.
Tsurian said, as politely as she knew how, "That was a very nice shot," contriving to imply that she was on to these gaijin tricks of ignoring gravity and momentum. She tried to see the pattern of the table and predict how the next few shots were going to go if she went for the eleven instead of the fourteen, and realized that this was pretty lame. Given, you know, the gaijin's goddamned PROPENSITY for making IMPOSSIBLE shots that were TOTALLY unpredictable.
The gaijin was starting to damage her calm. She nocked, aimed, shot, and did not smirk even slightly when the eleven scooted itself into the side pocket and very amiably took the fourteen with it.
This was starting to not be fun. This was starting to feel like the prelude to hitting someone over the head with the pool cue, and Tsurian was horribly afraid that she wasn't sure it was going to be her doing the hitting.
Watching the Japanese woman lose her composure was actually becoming entertaining, in spite of the growing pressure behind her eyes. Ebba was gaining a large amount of perverse pleasure at the thought of seeing just how far she could provoke her opponent before she triggered an outburst.
Well, then. New goal: make this game as painfully embarrassing and drawn out as possible.
With that new objective in mind, Ebba reassessed the layout of the table.
She bridged her hand, lined up her shot, and indulged in a slight smile as she shot.
The cue ball skidded straight towards the ten before its rotation caught the felt and spun it in a graceful arc around the other ball. Its spin wound down as it rolled between the fourteen and fifteen, disturbing neither ball before feathering the two. The blue ball rolled slowly towards the left side pocket, teetering dramatically for a moment before dropping into the pocket.
Ebba backed away from the table with a slight flourish. "Conquer your shot."
Tsurian stared at the table.
Okay, no, her initial impression had been correct.
She had no shot.
None.
There was no shot that she could make that could possibly (legally) end in one of her striped balls settling into a pocket.
Maybe she could -
No, that would be an illegal shot.
She bit the inside of her cheek and looked at the table again, in vague hopes that maybe there had been a minor earthquake and the table layout had changed while she wasn't looking.
No. Oh, no. That would have been too easy. That sort of thing only happened when Boss was playing.
She looked up at the gaijin, whose expression hadn't changed much (had it changed at all? Tsurian was pretty sure not, actually), and with major difficulty smiled. "This is going to be hard," she acknowledged. She was very proud of the way she did not grit her teeth at all.
The gaijin just stared back at her with big brown expressionless eyes. Tsurian wondered if picking up a ball and throwing it at her would make her blink. No, that would be illegal and then she'd lose a turn.
Oh, and the gaijin might take it unkindly, too.
Tsurian realized she was beginning to get pissed off.
That's it. Time to end the game as quickly as possible. The gaijin was only ahead by one point. Tsurian could make it up.
Just as soon as she figured out a way to get past the three balls that were blocking any possible way of hitting one of her own.
To hell with it. She aimed for the nine, with the intention of placing it in a more advantageous spot.
Just as she shot, she paused, her groove broken, and looked at the gaijin.
The gaijin was giving her that same creepy stare.
Tsurian twitched.
And missed her shot entirely, knocking one of the gaijin's solid balls into the side pocket.
Ebba wrestled her emotions into check as she stared at Tsurian. She hadn't expected much from the profoundly irritating woman, but she hadn't thought that her opponent would sink so low as to deliberately sink one of her balls in order to force an opening. It was possible that it had been an accident, but the woman had shown some skill earlier in the game.
Well then. Either Radioactive Head had suddenly gone blind, was unforgivably stupid, or had just made the mistake of delivering an insult by not even attempting a real shot.
Either way, this game was over.
"Seven, corner pocket. Eight, side pocket," she muttered to herself. Aim, shoot, sink.
Ebba fought to keep control of her anger. There was a screaming discordance in the game now that she couldn't complete it correctly. Every beautiful shot, every perfect placement and precise motion that had brought her satisfaction now grated mercilessly in her memory. She allowed herself the small tantrum of slamming down her cue as she turned to face Tsurian.
"Game over, you stupid Godless excuse of a genetically flawed catfish. Come back when you have some actual skill, if your tiny brain can even manage to comprehend the rules of the game."
She roughly pushed her way through the crowd, realizing as she made her way toward the exit that she had spoken in her native language. No matter. Her breath and time had been wasted on that speech, and that woman, as it was.
Tsurian stared at the felt (now cleared of all solids) in disbelief, then up at the departing gaijin.
Only half a lifetime spent around the everyday impossibility of Boss enabled her to take in stride this total affront to reality, and even that was insufficient in the face of being called ... what, a catfish ? in German.
She absently unwrapped a piece of chewing gum and stuffed it into her mouth to prevent her teeth from grinding in pure rage, and considered her options. "Later," she muttered at someone who wanted to know if she'd honor him by playing. "Go ahead, take the table, I'm done for the day."
Okay, first option: take this lesson to heart, get better by practicing and reading up on technique and refining every ounce of talent she had. That was Boss's way, probably the best way, and the most surefire way to ennoble one's self (Banzai, she annotated in her mental Boss-voice, Nippon).
But it wasn't the quickest way, and Tsurian needed, as a moral damned imperative, to see the gaijin's expressionless face break into actual discrete pieces of dismay and chagrin at the soonest possible opportunity. This was also pretty Japanese, she was sure. All of those Taira guys had been all about revenge.
That meant the second option, the fail-safe.
Tsurian grabbed a seat at the nearest bench, pulled her cell-phone out of her pocket, and hit the third speed-dial button. She fidgeted impatiently as she waited for him to answer.
"This is Amakusa."
"Boss," she said rapidly, "as a fellow citizen of Japan and also my best friend and also if you don't do this I will of course never speak to you again, I need you to come beat someone up for me."
"We are, of course, most honored by Tsurian-kun's kindness in thinking first of Us in terms of retaliatory aggression." She rolled her eyes at the neatly-denoted unspoken addendum that he wasn't going to do a damn thing until she ponied up a better label than "beating someone up".
"I lost a pool game," Tsurian explained.
Dead silence.
"I need you to come and redeem the honor of the batsu by defeating her in turn," Tsurian prompted.
Further silence.
"She called me something rotten in German," she added.
"Tsurian-kun will please to remind Us of the rules of pool," Boss said, finally, "and We will see what We can do."
Ebba wasn't terribly surprised to see Tsurian reappear at the pool hall several days later. Her pride had obviously been injured by having her lack of skills so blatantly pointed out to her, and she was guaranteed to seek her revenge. After all, these Japanese people were as excited by the thought of vengeance as those crazy Americans.
What was downright *intriguing* was who the obnoxiously hued woman had brought with her. She decided to be courteous (for now, at least), and removed her foam earplugs.
Tsurian was glancing around the pool hall to find her erstwhile opponent, although when she finally spied Miss Pool Shark Gaijin German Trash-Talker, she supposed she oughtn't to have bothered. She could've just headed for the exact same table that Gaijin had been at last time. Apparently Gaijin liked order and routine. Pffft.
By her side, Boss was looking around with serene interest. She really wished he would have let her lend him her pool cue, but he was probably right in pointing out that it wasn't weighted correctly for his reach. Still, that would have ruled so bad, to have him beat Foreign White Devil Pool Shark with Tsurian's own cue. Kind of regain the honor for poor Cue-chan, so to speak.
"She's actually good, Boss," she warned one final time as they approached the table of doom. "So don't hold back just because she's a little snip of a thing."
"It is a sin against the universe to fail to perform to one's utmost in any undertaking, Tsurian-kun," Boss said gently, and Tsurian grinned like a shark. She occasionally appreciated Boss's annoying habit of being perfect.
Tsurian shoved her way to the front of the line waiting to watch Miss German play - Boss following in his own little pocket of People Scrambling To Get Out Of The Way - and looked around for something to slam down dramatically.
Finding nothing, she said loudly, "He's next," and pointed at Boss.
Amakusa Kenrou smiled, bowed from the neck, and said, politely enough, "We would be most honored by a game, young lady."
Tsurian snickered, unable to help it. She supposed it was not really polite to go around siccing Boss on unsuspecting gaijin, but that'd teach Miss German to go around thinking she could win like that.
"It's rather rude to cut in line, isn't it?" Ebba replied coolly in German. She sighed and rubbed her neck. It really wasn't the handsome man's fault that he associated with a noisy twerp like... whatever her name was. It was beyond her how they ended up in each other's company, tolerating her cacaphony of presence when he possessed such a tranquil bearing.
She might as well start over, and this time politely in his language. "Fifteen pardons, kind conqueror. Slantness that is this one's failing also is blasphemy. I Ebba Koch was." She offered her hand delicately to Kenrou and smiled.
Not a muscle moved in Kenrou's face.
Tsurian understood, and rattled off, "She dissed my cutting in line and then she said something that I think she wants to mean that she'd like to play, yeah, and her name's Ebba Koch." She glanced at Boss, and couldn't resist adding, "She doesn't mind your horrible failure in courtesy by introducing yourself without any references except me."
Kenrou graciously accepted both Tsurian-kun's kind translation of what had obviously meant to be Japanese as well as her so-fulsome praise of the young lady's courtesy in excusing his own rudeness.
He took the extended hand and shook it politely, as Westerners preferred, and said, "Ebba-san's Japanese is very good. It is very kind of her to learn this country's humble tongue. What is her preferred method of determining first player?"
"Challenger shatters," Ebba replied, gesturing with a turn and a flourish at the table. She paused just long enough to ensure he wasn't going to attempt to continue the conversation, then busied herself with readying her cue and setting the mental blocks in place to tune out the rest of the hall.
Too bad she couldn't visually tune out... damn, were all Japanese so rude as to not introduce themselves properly? She shook the thought off, reaching for that calm, focused state of awareness.
At least her opponent this time wasn't hard on the eyes.
Kenrou nodded thoughtfully, after taking a few seconds to parse this interesting choice of words inviting him to break. He calmly set about making himself ready to play, with concomitant removal and folding of his jacket, uncoupling his cufflinks and placing them in Tsurian-kun's care, rolling up his sleeves, and reassuring himself that his tie was securely tucked into his vest.
All of this the gaijin young lady watched with a dispassionate eye and no visible sign of impatience - a most commendable composure on which Kenrou thought to compliment her; it wasn't until after he had spent some few minutes considering which of the house's cues might best complement his reach that she even moved from her calm stance.
Ebba carefully watched the man prepare for the game. It had been a while since someone took it as seriously as her, and watching his movements was rather like enjoying a very well choreographed opera.
Unfortunately, she had not been prepared for an opera.
"Panhandling your forgiveness, but I must needs to experience the women's toilet."
Tsurian said, brightly and mendaciously, "Oh, I totally must needs also!" She hopped off the stool she'd appropriated, and said, "I might as well walk with you, and make sure you don't disappear somewhere." She did not actually say "BECAUSE YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY TERRIFIED HE'S GOING TO WIN," but the cant of her smirk shouted it.
Kenrou smiled benignly at them, and indicated that they might take their time, as he was contemplating the felt and its ways, secrets, and zen.
Ebba had never been quite so eager to try her unofficial duties as a JDE employee before this moment. However, she highly doubted that someone as obnoxious as Naga possessed anything of importance, besides a stunning ability to render a man impotent with her radioactive hair dye.
Instead, she tilted her head slightly to one side and smiled. "How kind of you. One never knows when there will be a need to toss the nearest person in the way of an ambush."
As she began to push her way through the crowd, Ebba felt a chill wash over her. What if she had spoken correctly? She glanced back to the table, where the man was very carefully not watching them depart. Was that what the woman's smile had been about? Was this a trap?
She continued in the direction of the bathroom, opening her senses up ever so slightly to track Tsurian's movements behind her.
Tsurian went along for the sake of keeping the gaijin in sight, because you honestly just never knew with gaijin - one wrong look and they were demanding the ransom of Nanking or something, and this one was, in Tsurian's experience, a damned slinky slippery skink who went around calling people catfish, and also not obeying the laws of gravity.
She had to admit that she was impressed by the gaijin not throwing a tantrum over Boss's ... ... ... Bossness; in her experience, people tended to start with 'wow', then pass rapidly straight through 'um' and 'guh' directly to 'wanting to get out of his presence as soon as possible'.
That just made the probability of an actual billiards match more likely, and Tsurian wanted to see that almost as much as she wanted the gaijin to have to say that she'd lost fair and square.
She finished up her business, pointedly washing her hands twice as long as the gaijin did, and indicated that the gaijin could precede her back to the pool table, where she was pleased to see that Boss had finally about-damn-time gotten himself a cue to his liking and had lined up the balls in their triangle and the cue ball just in front.
Ebba found herself relaxing slightly as she waited for the other woman to finish using the restroom. Anyone who paid that much attention to hygiene clearly had a disorder, and this was coming from someone who was rather attentive herself. Perhaps she had been too paranoid, and the other woman was simply afraid she'd back out of the game.
How absurd. She hadn't lost a game since... goodness, it was eight years and three days ago. She glanced at her watch. Eight years, three days, fourteen hours, and nine minutes. At least the nuns lost gracefully.
As she approached the table, she studied the carefully relaxed presence of her opponent. He studied the table carefully, as if memorizing the minute imperfections in the surface. Ebba was pleased -- such careful attention to detail spoke well of the upcoming game.
Then he noticed their approach, and Ebba nearly froze. The man was actually SMIRKING. She narrowed her eyes slightly and pushed aside the flash of irritation. He wouldn't be smug for long.
Kenrou bowed very slightly to his opponent as she resumed her spot at the head of the table. "The young lady is ready?" he asked. At her curt nod, he leaned forward and nocked his cue.
It had been some - he calculated briefly - five years since he had played this game; he recalled that Tsurian-kun had been mad for it in university, and had often required his presence and his opponentship. It was, he conceded, a fine game, as games go; it required steadiness of hand and eye, and the same sort of awareness of position and form that one brought to kendou.
The desired result was fresh in his mind and his zen; he shot, and turned away from the table, watching Tsurian-kun's face rather than the balls.
He heard one drop into a pocket. Tsurian-kun's annoyed grimace changed into grudging acceptance. "Not bad," she said, in what she clearly intended to be a crushing manner. He approved her modesty on his behalf, and turned around to survey tranquilly his results.
The one was missing from the felt, and all around the table, the stripes had spun into configuration so as to leave his opponent a single shot.
Ebba found herself torn on strategy. Common sense told her that playing easy wouldn't work with her former opponent standing over the table like a psychidelic Easter Island statue, but she feared ending the game too quickly by playing with her full potential.
She stared intently at the table. There was the obvious opening her opponent had provided, or there were the two more elegant options. The first was out of the question -- his companion would surely alert him to Ebba's duplicitousness and accuse her of throwing the game. Cheating in spirit, if not by law. The first alternate option was simply beautiful in its design, while the second took a bit more difficulty in execution but was a little sloppier looking.
Ebba watched Tsurian as she shot, trusting her senses to place the cue where it belonged.
Kenrou observed the gaijin with interest. He had accepted that, as challenger, he must go first and thusly permit the champion to judge his cue-kata before he might see hers; now that she was performing, he analyzed her every motion and tacked her ma-ai the same way he would study an opponent of the sword.
She did not deign to take the opening he had left for her; instead, she had chosen to send the cue ball in a delicate, slow curve that barely scraped the nine and came, at last, to rest against the furthest wall of the table. In its wake, the nine and eleven trembled, and dropped with gentle sighs into their pockets.
Kenrou smiled.
So that was her style.
Without a word - he trusted that the gaijin would take his turn as compliment enough for her skill - he sighted along his cue, made his decision, and took his shot.
Tsurian-kun could not stifle a grin as the cue ball mirrored the gajin's own trajectory in reverse for half the table, slowly spinning off into its own new course and sending the two and five into opposite corners.
He bowed to the gaijin, shallowly, and resumed his spot beside Tsurian-kun's high stool.
The moment he shot, Ebba began to suspect she was being mocked.
When she saw Tsurian's smirk, she KNEW she was being mocked.
Ebba fought down the sour taste of bile and kept her face perfectly still. The rage inside of her continued to build and build, pushing against her barriers, threatening to spill over. She fought the energy down, gathering it and shoving it into the ground.
The earth beneath the hall trembled, setting the lights to swaying and causing a few concerned glances at the walls.
Unaware of the earthquake, Ebba forced her attention back to the table. One opening.
Nock, set, shoot. Try to ignore the fact that this shot could be sunk by a twelve year old with one arm and cataracts. The fourteen obediently settled into the corner pocket, while the cue banked once and settled square in the middle of the table.
"You now," Ebba murmured, her voice raspy with tension.
Kenrou glanced at her, still smiling. He continued to smile, and let his gaze settle on the table.
An interesting configuration. He had not considered that the young lady's choice would fall upon the fourteen, but it had, and in so doing had taken the three out of easy reach. Very well, he would take that one in another showing; at the moment, he believed that the four and the seven would suit him.
The accession of the seven necessitated a move around the eight-ball, which was very cleverly situated: he would not dream of insulting his talented opponent by judging it an accident that she had been skimming it more and more adjacent to the stripes of the felt, away from her own required trajectories.
"That should change," he said aloud, and - still smiling, this time at his opponent who required that he give not only his full attention but his full and deserved zen and kao to this game - neatly sent the cue ball on its way.
Its first contact after striking the wall - per the rules - was with the four, which obediently spun off and caromed against the eight, so gently that its own arc changed but slightly, just enough to slide it home in the corner; the eight, by contrast, moved straight ahead and tapped the seven ...
... to the lip of the pocket.
Kenrou bowed his head slightly. Very well; it was the will of the universe that -
He paused, and watched with great interest as the will of the universe manifested itself in a small tremor, sufficient to keep the seven moving, straight on into the corner.
"Dou-itsu-jin-san is pleased to make her move," he said, and moved aside to let her position herself behind the cue.
Ebba kept her face perfectly still.
"Overstrike the play."
Tsurian was just about to launch into a highly sarcastic dispute about how the ball had still been in motion and she didn't know how they played over in Germany but here in civilized parts they played that a ball still in motion could do whatever the hell it wanted when she stopped, disbelieving.
"BOSS," she nearly screamed, "what are you doing?"
Boss gave her a patient look of indulgence. This was Creepy Zen Smile #41, We Are Pleased To Make Everything All Right Again Simply Because We Can, one of Tsurian's particularly least favorites. "We are," he answered, just as if it weren't perfectly obvious that he was taking the four and seven out of their pockets and putting them back where they had been, "striving to correct the young lady's distress. If she feels so strongly about a mere point or two, We can of course do nothing save retake the shot."
He finished setting the four and seven back in their spots, nudging the eight-ball back to its ominous three inches in front of the left corner, and placed the cue ball back in the middle of the felt.
"Is this nearly correct?" he inquired of the glowering gaijin. Tsurian half-hoped she'd fall dead of a thrombosis, or at least of shame at Boss's effortless oneupmanship. Of course he'd make the exact same shot, but everyone knew you didn't give German gaijin an inch. They took it as an invitation to, as it were, annex Czechoslovakia and the Sudetenland.
Ebba could see right through his ploy. He was attempting to pacify her, calm her down, and gain control of her. It might have worked if the cue hadn't been set down a little too far to the left, but the break was enough to remind her that time hadn't reset itself, and that she was still in control of who she was. It was time to make things very clear about who was in charge at this table.
Without breaking eye contact, Ebba floated the ball a few inches off of the surface of the table. She briefly considered throwing it at him of of ire, but reminded herself that she was attempting to make a point so the game could continue.
Tsurian took stock of the floating cue ball, the gaijin's intent expression, and the slight downturn at the corner of Boss's still-present smile.
Right, then.
"Boss, this gaijin is cheating, in re: the laws of physics," she said conversationally.
"It is not cheating for a demon to obey its nature," Boss said serenely, and Tsurian blinked. Well, obviously a demon. Duh. You ran into those in the pool halls of the Tokyo Dome every damn weekday, twice on Sundays -
"Did the honored sir just say demon?" said someone standing by her elbow. Judging by the expression on his face, he'd also seen the flying cue ball.
"Sure did," Tsurian said. "I'd ... yeah, you might want to clear on out of here."
Amongst the steadily rising exodus of people who had by now enlarged 'flying cue ball moving a few inches' to 'giant fanged billiard-ball youma' (banzai nippon), Tsurian heard Boss ask the gaijin, quite naturally, "Are you, like your sister-demon of the waters, looking for a bright soul?"
Ebba nearly dropped the ball in surprise. By what stroke of luck had she found the bright souls that Trin had discovered and lost? She had been dying to see one since hearing about Trin's report to Boss. According to the rumors, she had to attack the man in order to force the female to transform. She regarded Tsurian with a curious, measured look. If she attacked the female first, would the male transform?
It was an interesting hypothesis.
For the first time in a long time, Ebba genuinely smiled.
Kenrou considered the demon - now faintly glowing with a purple haze - and reflected that most of his early childhood reading had sorely misled him; demons were not, as he had been led to believe by kaidan and popular myth, talkative.
He paused, and glanced at Tsurian-kun. He had known her for some twelve years, and in all that time he had never thought of her as likely to undergo a transformation like unto Chikara's reaction to a demon. He did not think that now was likely to be any different. Thus, she probably ought to leave the area before the demon - which had already shown a dislike for her - could do something unpleasant.
"Tsurian-kun might wish to go and inform Chikara that We will be a bit late back to the apartment," he said.
Tsurian-kun gave him a withering look, and then, amazingly, transferred it to the demon. "Hey. Gaijin. Are you going to play pool, or are you going to fool around?"
"I'm sorry, Galactica, but we have more important matters to attend to."
Ebba's flashed purple, and Tsurian found herself unable to move.
"Boss, that gaijin just called me something uncouth," Tsurian-kun said, without actually moving her mouth. "Also, I can't move. Do something about this right the now or I quit."
Kenrou stepped between the demon and Tsurian-kun, still holding his pool cue casually by his side. "The young lady currently glowing purple -"
"STOP PUNNING!" Tsurian-kun hissed.
"- is under a misapprehension," he said. Briefly he debated whether to call Chikara and inquire if she might spare a moment to come and meet another demon before she attempted to drown him, or do something worse. It was almost certain that he could not do anything to stop her physically; he the August Kenrou had been somewhat less than effective in his last encounter with fey women who wished to know about bright souls. He was not entirely certain why the demon felt that Tsurian-kun had a bright soul, but he conceded that Tsurian-kun was a person of many depths and talents, some of which were doubtless hidden to him at the present time.
Ebba hesitated, unsure of what exactly to do next. The meeting had been rather... uninformative as to the proper way to extract these starseeds. So, she did what she guessed was the most logical course of action.
Two billiard balls rose from the table behind Kenrou. A nine in the left temple dropped him (where she quickly bound him to the floor by weighting down his clothes, just in case), and Tsurian was the victim of a three in the right temple. Ebba left her standing, propped up by a hovering gravitational pull above her head. She considered the unconcious girl's chest for a moment, then pulled out her cellphone.
"Li-Nian? Ebba. Assistance to building of billiards."
An excited Li-Nian, as this Li-Nian was after being informed that Ebba was in custody of Trin's bright-souled Galactica and stripe-haired man, was not easy to talk to. Ebba elected to sit tight and absorb the Chinese girl's flood of happy babble until she said something sensible.
Which, annoyingly, she did after nearly five minutes of ecstatic congratulations and cheerful assurances that "Daddy" would be so pleased at Ebba's initiative and hard work.
"- but you say that Galactica hasn't transformed yet?" There was a pause. Then Li-Nian resumed her inane chirps. "I'm sure that's fine, perhaps she just wanted to give herself up easily because she knows Daddy wants to see her. It's so nice that you could learn from Oneesan's wonderful example and convince Galactica not to transform immediately -"
Ebba hit the "disconnect" and frowned.
The seed of doubt had been sown.
She studied the unconscious woman carefully. It did seem strange that Galactica had gone down so quickly and easily, and Ebba doubted it was because she wanted to meet "Daddy". Granted, it was possible that Galactica really was stupid enough to want to battle Yu-Huang, but it didn't fit the pattern of behavior exhibited by the woman Trin confronted.
In fact, this woman didn't fit the pattern at all.
Ebba sighed. The thought of having to break the news to Li-Nian that this wasn't in fact the golden warrior was enough to give her a migraine. Damn that man for swapping --
Her eyes widened as she saw a possible escape from Li-Nian's wails and Yu-Huang's disapproval. She flipped open her phone and dialed.
"Tacey? Ebba. Do..." She frowned. "Yes, Ebba is. I... No. Is a bug possible to plant on person?" Ebba closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose with her free hand. "Target, Tacey. Remember at meeting? Yes. Ah, good." She hung up without a further word, pulling her thoughts together as she noticed that her counterfeit bright souls were beginning to wake up.
Kenrou's eyelids fluttered, and then snapped open.
He focused his gaze on his erstwhile opponent, and considered the fact that he was again bound by a demon.
This, he felt, was possibly indicative of the universe's will that he was not acting correctly in some manner.
It was admittedly trying to be bound down so fast as to be hampered in the act of breathing itself, but both Zen Buddhism and kenjutsu stressed the importance of the breath in relation to the peace of mind required for any important action.
He drew in a breath, and addressed himself to the demon, who seemed to be studying Tsurian-kun with some concentration.
"The young lady of gravitic forces then wishes to concede the game?"
She turned and regarded him with a very measured stare. "Game is changed," she murmured. She gave one final irritated glance to Tsurian, then quietly picked her way through the damaged hall and out the door.
Kenrou waited, serene in zen, until he felt the invisible weights lift. He picked himself up, and surveyed the wreckage of what had previously been the Tokyo Dome's pool hall. Clearly, it was inadvisable to engage in games of skill against demons who were prickly in their pride.
On the floor, Tsurian-kun went from supine to vertical in a mad and most unladylike eye-opening and scramble of limbs. "BOSS - ow my head. I - what happened to my pool hall?"
"The demon chose to leave without making restitutions or reparations," Kenrou said, and offered her his arm. She glared at him and then winced, rubbing her temples.
"So, you won," Tsurian said. She looked around, and sighed loudly when she saw the totality of the devastation. "I don't even want to think about this. I hope this place is insured - should we leave, or are there some sort of inquiries we should help with?"
"Likely not," Kenrou noted. "It was, after all, more or less an earthquake, albeit an extremely localized one. Tsurian-kun appears to be bleeding at the temple. Perhaps we will return home now."
"Yeah," Tsurian said, without enthusiasm. "I swear, Boss, I asked you to do one little thing for me and it ends up smashing my favorite pool hall. This happens every time."
The real trouble began - as Tsurian saw it - when she slammed the door of Boss's apartment with perhaps a little too much feeling. Boss turned and gave her a look of gentle reproach, which she almost missed because her head was still ringing, and Ishino emerged from somewhere, and took one look at them, and got all glassy-eyed in a way that Tsurian did not care for.
"DON'T EVEN BEGIN, ISHINO," she snapped, calling some attention to the fact that she was bleeding from the temple. "It is NOT MY FAULT that DEMONS FROM ALL THE HELL OVER keep PESTERING BOSS because they are FURIOUS that HIS HORRIBLE MOTHER left them in dishonor and disarray BECAUSE NOW THEY HAVE NO QUEEN or whatever. You can't blame ME for not taking CARE OF HIM because I HAVE NO DEMONIC CONNECT - what?"
Ishino's glassy-eyed prepare-for-a-talking-to look had transformed. Now she was all shiny-eyed and joyful-looking, as if Tsurian had given her a hideous Precious Moments figurine to put on one of her shelves.
"Of course," she breathed, clasping her hands together. "Of course! That explains everything. Thank you, Yoshinaga-san! Thank you, I see it now, it's the only explanation. Oh, Kenrou, don't you see? This solves everything!"
She then disgusted Tsurian utterly by flinging her arms around Boss's neck and actually squeeping.
"I will be in the washroom," Tsurian said loudly. "Tending to my injuries." And also having a handy place to vomit if she heard Ishino actually squee again.
When she came out, having made liberal use of antibiotic cream and bandages, she glared wordlessly at Boss and Ishino, now sitting on the couch and poring over a dusty old tome of kaidan.
"Thank you, Yoshinaga-san," Ishino said, looking up at her. "I am so glad you could have been there with Kenrou so you could solve this for us. It's been troubling me for quite some time."
Boss was actually looking thoughtful. "It is in fact a reasonable theory," he said. "Although I am not sure yet that it is the full explanation. Surely haha-ue would have something to say about demons setting bounties on Us."
Tsurian considered all the things she could say to this, and settled for, "You know what? You're welcome. I'll see you at work tomorrow, and I'm giving myself a raise and a demon-bonus."
"We find this fair," Boss said serenely, and she waved irritably at him.
"Okay, okay," she conceded. "And thank you for winning the game."
The scene unfolded in Ebba's mind: she walked into JDE to deliver her incident report in person, only to be greeted by a hysterical An in the foyer. An would get her version of events all worked up to a frenzy, then take it upstairs to the Boss, who would likely as not get an entirely incorrect version based on whatever twists and distortions An would introduce.
Screw that. Email would be sufficient.
She fed her goldfish and took a nice long bath, imagining the rather satisfying image of Li-Nian's increasing agitation over the delay, then prepared her thorough report, taking care to save her own copy just in case.
As she tucked herself in for the night, Ebba finished the game in her head. Her victory was everything she had wanted in a good game of pool.
