Mulan: A Parody-Chp7

CHAPTER 7 – GOING OUT ON WAR

“Hait!!! Let’s go, girls!!!”

The silence of dawn was broken with Sakuragi’s enthusiastic cheer. Everyone was up and about and was moving towards south, where General Rukawa, Rukawa Kaede’s mother, and her troops were to protect the villagers from the incoming attacks. And it’s all thanks to Mido and Noma.

Well, you see, as Hikoichi went for his midnight shower, Mido and Noma did a little manipulating of their own. With Noma’s feet dipped into the black ink and Mido’s intellectual mind, they came up with an urgent letter from ‘General Rukawa Misae’ to send the troops as backup out to south to a village called Dyna where she and her own troops were defending. Hikoichi was, as expected, shocked to see this urgent letter on his table after he got back from the showers and informed Rukawa Kaede immediately about it. At the break of dawn, everyone was awakened from their beauty sleep and was ordered to pack and go. Haroko and her other friends couldn’t wake Sakuragi but one harsh tug at his ankle by Rukawa immediately awaken him from his slumber. The other girls giggled at that sight; their suspicion went answered after all.

So now here they were, walking up and down hills and through fields and up the hills again. They passed by a cornfield where the men were out there planting the corn. With their straw hats and rolled-up shirts and pants, they look pretty handsome in them. Some of the girls whistled at them and the men chuckled sheepishly. Sakuragi would not do a single thing like they did, which confirmed even more to Haroko and her girlfriends that he had his heart on their Captain Rukawa.

“Hey, Minako,” Haroko moved closer to the ever tall Sakuragi. “Have you done anything yet?”

“Done what?” Sakuragi asked innocently.

“Are you that slow?” Yuki asked. “Don’t tell me you haven’t done anything to let Captain Rukawa know that you like him! Seriously, you gotta make a move before someone else does!”

“Yada~! I told you, I don’t like that baka kitsune, not even if you pay me a hundred thousand bucks!” Sakuragi went into a state of denial, trying to keep his face going from pink to bright red. “He’s not…He’s not my type, OK?”

“Well, whatever you say, Minako,” Fujii shrugged tiredly at Sakuragi’s relentless efforts to deny his true feelings for Rukawa. “But I gotta tell you, this secret won’t last forever. Soon everyone will know that you got the hicks for him.”

“Baka kitsune!” Sakuragi muttered. “Why would I like him anyway? He’s nothing but a self-centered fool who doesn’t care about anything but himself. He doesn’t even tell us who the enemy we’re going to fight is! Who are our opponents exactly anyway?”

“You seriously are here just to be with Captain Rukawa!” Yuki laughed as she clapped Sakuragi’s shoulder playfully. “Have you no idea who we’re up against? It’s the Shirogane Clan who came from another part of a country. The leader of the clan is a 2-meter tall giant whose name is Uozumi, and he could be even taller than Haroko’s brother! And furthermore, he’s a man! In fact, all his clan members are men! Can you imagine other countries having men as the bread-winner and having them entering the war? That is so degrading!”

Sakuragi sweatdropped and remained silent—he was beginning to think that she scolding it directly at him.

“Anyway, they wanted to take over this island and make it theirs because they heard about the abundance of us women here that they can manipulate and use. Well, they’re not going to get us that easily! We’ll fight them till the last of our breath!”

“Do you know who else are in that Shirogane Clan?” Sakuragi asked curiously.

“Well, there are a lot of Uozumi’s men he had gathered from every continent in his country,” Fujii said as she tapped her chin. “There’s Sendoh, Koshino, Fukuda, Kyota, Maki…and maybe Fujima and Hanagata. That’s all I remember. What I’ve heard, they’re Uozumi’s best mates and he trusts them with all his life.”

“They don’t sound so tough at all,” Sakuragi said bravely. He had never feared anything in his life and this Shirogane Clan sure didn’t scare him one bit.

“We’ll see,” Haroko said as she checked to see if her weapons were fit to be used and none of her things have been left behind. “Hey, have you girls ever wondered what it would be like to fight for a man?”

“I sure can!” Yuki said enthusiastically. “I imagine myself often fighting for a man that would appreciate me not for my looks but for my strength and agility. And I want him to be nice and sweet and never underestimate my abilities. I get that all the time during high school.”

“I would want to fight for some man who is as pale as the moon and as handsome as our Captain Rukawa—no offence, Minako,” Haroko said dreamily. “He has to be sweet too, but most importantly, he has to be diligent and willing to listen to my troubles and be there whenever I need him.”

“Your tastes are so lame!” Hikoichi suddenly butted in the conversation without warning. “Back in the castle, I got a woman that loves me unconditionally and listens to whatever I say. She’s none like any other!”

“Yeah, right,” Sakuragi muttered under his breath. “The only girl that would love you is your mother!”

That remark sent a scowl onto Hikoichi’s face as he rode away with a huff ahead of the troops. The girls giggled behind his wake and Sakuragi pulled his tongue at him.

“I don’t really mind how my man looks like,” Fujii said, licking her lips. “As long as he does his housework well and serves me good food. Sugoi-ne!”

“You’re always eating, Fujii!” Sakuragi laughed as he clapped Fujii’s back, making her almost toppling forward. “And you still don’t get fat! How do you do it?”

“Well, it goes the same with you!” Fujii said as she coughed. “You eat practically three times as much as I do and…”

Her words stopped short when she stared what was before her in shock and horror. Sakuragi and the rest of his girlfriends also looked up to see what she was staring at and gasped. They have finally arrived at the village of Dyna where General Rukawa was supposed to defend, but it was a far cry from a decent village. Everything was in ruins. The houses didn’t seem like houses anymore, but a huge pile of rubble and dust. There was fire lit at some part of the houses and fields and there were bodies everywhere. Some were scorched, some were stabbed or hacked and some were terribly mutilated. There was blood everywhere, and the redness filled the corn field.

In the middle of all the blood and gore and rubble, Sakuragi came across a small little Pikachu doll which was smothered with burnt dust and streaks of blood. Sakuragi’s heart ached at the sight of the doll. Whoever owned this doll must be long gone now, back to the earth where the gods have brought him/her out from. He picked it up and held it close to his chest while looking out the village for any survivors. The rest of the troop, including Haroko, Fujii, Yuki and the evil threesome also spread out and looked around for survivors. Unfortunately they found none.

“That’s strange…” Rukawa muttered to himself, his blue eyes searched the area. “My mother is supposed to be here. Why is it so deserted…?”

“Sir,” one of the girls called out as she was standing at a vast unploughed field at one end of the village. Rukawa rushed towards the place where the soldier was pointing and stopped in the midway. His eyes widened at the sight of all the dead bodies lying on the half-snowy field that hadn’t had the chance to be ploughed but already covered with ‘human fertilizer’. Even the horses lay motionless on the ground bleeding to their deaths and some badly mutilated or stuck with millions of arrows.

In the middle of all the dead bodies, Rukawa saw his mother’s sword and her pale hand clutching it tightly. He walked closer towards the sword and had half-expected to see General Rukawa Misae lying on a pool of her own blood with slash wounds everywhere. The slit on her throat was the fatal strike on her. He stood there watching for goodness knows how long before picking up his mother’s sword with trembling hands. His knuckles gone white as he clutched the sword real tight, his whole body shaking slightly in fury. Sakuragi stood from afar and saw everything. He felt truly sorry for him, and this time he knew why; it could’ve been his own mother out there in the snow if it weren’t for him to take her place in this battle.

After looking high and low throughout the village, the troops reported back to Rukawa that they couldn’t find any survivors. Everyone around here was dead. Every single one. And they all died in the hands of the cruel, heartless people of the Shirogane Clan. Sakuragi found it hard to believe that man outside of Amazon Island could be so much more brutal and savage than the rambunctious, high-spirited and tough women of this island. He secretly felt thankful that he wasn’t born in such a world as that.

It was time to move on and get to the next base camp where Rukawa’s aunt, Rukawa Kaoru might be, which is just across the snowy mountains up north. Rukawa still stood among the dead soldiers of his late mother who had sadly but bravely departed. Hikoichi called for him and it took him about 5 hollers (Sakuragi head-butted him for bothering Rukawa in the midst of his mourning) to get the captain moving. He took off his mother’s helmet, walked out of the blood-soaked corn field and up to a small mound of snow. He stuck the sword onto the mound of snow and hung the helmet onto the handle. He knelt down in front of the sword and clasped his hands together in prayer, hoping that the ancestors of the Rukawa family would protect and keep her soul in peace. Sakuragi walked up towards him.

“I’m so sorry for you, kitsu…I mean, captain,” Sakuragi said timidly for the first time at the blue-eyed captain. “Your mother must have been a great warrior and a great mother to you to deserve a son like you.”

“…She was…” Rukawa muttered under his breath before standing up and join the troops to moving up north. Sakuragi realized that he was still holding the Pikachu doll in his hand and walked over towards the sword. He lay the doll against the sword and prayed too, hoping that whoever owns this doll would be in the secure arms of General Rukawa Misae and be able to rest in peace. After hearing Haroko’s call, he got up in a thrice and joined the move.

The Pikachu doll stared its beady eyes at the disappearing troop, as if bidding them farewell and good luck.