Sakura Seedling

"Any more hanami dango?" Sakura asked, her tongue darting out to pick up the few stray crumbs of 'flower-watching dumplings' on her lips. "Er...no." Tsubame answered, turning the picnic basket upside down to indicate to her how empty it was. "Oh well, I suppose we can hanami without the dango." Sakura said. She looked up into the canopy of pink-and-white cherry blossoms that blanketed the sakura trees, her namesake. Her sensitive, spiritually attuned ears picked up only the sounds of the occasional falling blossom, and those of her own body and her fiancee's beside her-- there wasn't a sound otherwise. It was a stroke of luck to get the cherry orchard all to themselves at the height of flower viewing season. A very distant crash broke the silence. Maybe not so much luck, she thought, as the fact that the rest of the city is busy dealing with that hundred-meter mechanical ground sloth that Ataru somehow conjured up while attempting to use Lum's dimensional warp device to worm his way into a harem. That idiot can be worth something once in a while after all, she reflected. His stupidity at least got me an afternoon alone with Tsubame. "Sakura." her fiancee said, looking at her with intense eyes. "You're sure that those four are all busy?" She caught his meaning. They'd never been able to kiss-- well not anywear public anyway-- without a gang of voyeuristic high school students popping up from out of nowhere to ogle them, the chief offenders being Ataru, Lum, Shinobu and Mendou. "Ataru was being strangled by the sloth, the last I saw of him." she told Tsubame. "Lum was chewing him out, Mendou was heading up his family's troops against the monster, and Shinobu was swinging a telephone pole at it. It looked as though they would be busy for a while." "What about your uncle?" "Securely tied up... It should take him at least five hours to chew through the ropes." "You think of everything, my love." He brushed a finger around her cheek. It looked like they were finally going to get some time alone. "Sakura..." "Tsubame..." Their lips touched and she kissed him eagerly, with increasing hunger. In a moment Tsubame's back was against the cherry tree, making him the filling of a sakura sandwich. Any minute now those kids will show up and wreck this... just like they always have, Sakura thought. Any minute... But the minutes passed with no sign of interruption, and soon thoughts of the four absent voyeurs had completely vanished from the young lovers' minds.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

"Oooh, Darling... the trouble you put me through." Lum sighed, pulling the unconscious form through the snow and into the school. Shinobu followed behind in the cleared trail left behind. "Nurse Sakura, Darling got hurt..." Lum started as she dragged Ataru's snow-encrusted form into the nurse's office. "That goes without saying." the statuesque medic replied curtly without turning away from the papers on her desk. "No, he's really hurt. Shinobu hit him with a concrete slab--" "He was asking for it! Did you see what he did?" "You didn't have to hit him with such a heavy object though! I think you might have really injured him." Lum shook Ataru's body to clear it of snow and lay the unconscious form on the examining table. "Please, Sakura, he hasn't moved in several minutes. Could you just give him a check to make sure nothings' wrong?" "All right. I'll do it for your sake, not for his." Sakura braced herself against her desk and, with some difficulty, got to her feet. Tugging her loose-fitting Shinto robes into place, she walked over to Ataru's body and laid a finger on his throat to check for a pulse. Instantly he was up and grappling her like a pro wrestler. "Saaaakuuuraa-chan!" he enthused, throwing his arms around her waist and preparing to work his way up. "Hm? Hey, that's odd, your stomach feels--" "Kuuuuu...sooo... gaki!" Sakura roared, livid with anger. One deceptively delicate-looking fist smashed into Ataru's face and embedded him in the far wall.

"Sakura-- you're--!" Lum gasped. Sakura's loose top had fallen open and a distincty pregnant swell was visible in her stomach. Hastily she rearranged her robes so it was less obvious, but now that she knew what to look for Lum could she the bulge even under the billowing, form-concealing fabric. "Yes... I am." "So that's why you've been wearing your robes instead of your regular work clothes lately." Shinobu said in realization. "And why your wedding was so rushed." Ataru commented. "Ooh, Sakura, you're going have a baby!" Lum said happily. "That's going to be so great! Darling, don't you think that we should have one t--" "So, out of curiosity," Ataru spoke up loudly, "Why have you been concealing this fact from everybody?" "I can't really afford to take maternity leave." Sakura answered. "You see, money has been rather tight lately, what with preparing for the baby, not to mention certain cravings..." "Well, if you ever need someone to satisfy your cravings, I'm the right man!" Ataru said lecherously, pulling himself out of the crater in the wall. He was rapidly socked back in again. "Hey, can't I volunteer to help a woman in need?" "They aren't the kind of cravings you're thinking about!" she responded angrily, mentally adding 'for the most part anyway'. "I'm talking about food cravings... for example, I've been having a recurring craving all this week for the same food." She went to her personal mini-fridge in one corner of the room and pulled out a gallon jug of a viscous brownish liquid. "What's that?" Shinobu asked as Sakura drained the entire jug in a series of large swallows. "It's a liquified mixture of cottage cheese, natto, and chutney." the pregnant priestess answered, wiping a slight spill off her face. Ataru and Shinobu turned a deep viridian shade.. only Lum, with her ignorance of Earth foods, was saved from being nauseated. "I know, but the baby wants what it wants." she explained. "I'll give you what YOU want, baby!" Ataru said, shaking off his nausea. "Must you turn EVERYTHING I say into an innuendo?" Sakura snapped, sending him through the ceiling. "Can you feel the baby kicking?" Lum asked. Sakura's angry features softened into an expression of maternal pride. "Yes.. I have been dying to let someone besides Tsubame, my mother and my idiot uncle feel." she said. "Come here." Sakura pulled the lower half of her robe up, exposing her gravid belly. "Put your hand about there... she usually kicks up a storm when I'm upset so you should have no trouble feeling."

"Hmmm.... I can't feel her kicking." Lum said disappointedly. "I can feel something." Ataru said, putting his hand around one of Sakura's tender breasts. "Kind of like a heartbeat, she's really kicking all right." He gave the mound of mammary tissue a squeeze. "Mo...ro...bo...shi..." Sakura growled, the deep crimson color returning to her face. "Ooh, I can feel it now!" Lum exclaimed cheerfully. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The clanging of bells sounded softly in the distance, drawing Sakura out of her fitful half-sleep. She sat up a bit, with effort. Her stomach was huge-- the baby was due any day now. The bells caught her attention. Who would be making an offering at this hour, in this weather?, she wondered. Only the most dedicated would brave the frigid cold and darkness of a midwinter night to worship at the shrine. Her throat caught as she sensed a powerful force. The ringing of the bells was getting louder. Mama... Even as the sensation increased, she couldn't pinpoint its source. "Honey, wake up..." she said softly, shaking him gently. "Whuzzat? I'll buy a vowel.." "Wake UP, Tsubame. Something's here." His eyes opened. "I can sense it-- there's something here." she explained. I want to get out... A fired clay cup set on the shelf abruptly shattered. Sakura and Tsubame stared at it wide-eyed, and unconsciously drew closer to one another, she covering her massive stomach with her hands to protect it. "You can't sense its origins." Sakura's mother said, appearing in the doorway, "because it's coming from you." "From me?" "From within your body. The child has great powers, and her restless spirit is awakening." Let me out! "Anh!" Sakura cried as she was hit with a contraction. "She wants badly to be born." Sakura's mother explained. "If she doesn't free herself soon, her powers could call down a terrible curse! Bad luck like you've never seen!" An involuntary chuckle escaped her lips.

"What's so FUNNY, Mother?!" Sakura leaned back with a groan onto the pillows Tsubame hastily propped up under her back. Beads of sweat glistened on her belly as it almost vibrated with the contained spirit power. "All that latent bad luck, building up like a negative charge in the earth until it hits like lighting, drawing elements of catastrophe nearer and nearer until--" "GYYYAAAA!" Ataru crashed through one wall, did quick roll-save, and somehow still managed not to last upright, instead taking out several shelves full of antiques. "DAAAAAAAAAAR-Liiiiiing!" Lum's voice called through the storm. Within moments, her glaring, windchapped face appeared in the hole in the shrine's wall. "I'm sorry." Lum apologized. "Who would have thought he'd be out girl hunting in this weather? Especially with the this wind... I could hardly stay aloft. Say, we aren't interrupting anything, are we?" ************* "Sakura? It's over." Sakura opened her eyes to look up into her husband's face. "You're a mother now." he said. "Where's the baby?" she asked weakly. The experience of giving birth had left her feeling as drained as she had back in the years of her chronic illness. "Right here." Sakura's mother answered, handing her a wrapped bundle. "Your daughter." Sakura looked down at the newborn baby in her arms. "Yeep." she said.

"I guess her spritual power wasn't the other thing that she inherited from her mother's side of the family." Tsubame said cheerfully. "It's fate." Cherry said, popping up from nowhere as was his wont. "It's genetics." Lum said. "Recessive genes... Say, Darling?" "What do you think OUR first baby will be like?" "Wha-- er..." "Come on, it's a cold night, just the right kind of night to make a baby!" "Agh! Stay away from me!" Ataru made his escape through the hole in the wall, just barely avoiding Lum's electric embrace. "Darling! Come back!" The arguing continued, fading away into the distance as Lum pursued Ataru through the snowy wastes. The chase was on. --OSHIMAI--