Arsene Lupin IV
Arsene Lupin IV
by Peter Yuthrayard ( pyuthrayar@aol.com )
All characters and story elements in this fan fiction are copyrighted by their respective owners. This story is for the free enjoyment of fans of Lupin and must not be used for profit. All original characters and story elements are copyrighted by Pittaya Yuthrayard.
This story is based on the Monkey Punch manga, 'Lupin III'. Especially the Hayao Miyazaki directed anime from it. I got the inspiration for this fan fiction from a comment by Miyazaki . He said that he wanted to do an anime about a daughter of Lupin III who wishes to succeed her father in becoming a great thief. As might be expected the characterizations in this story are closer to what Miyazaki might do. Of course, I'm afraid they are not nearly as good as what he would do.
This is the first of a series of stories that I am thinking about doing based on some of the Lupin anime available here in the US.
Chapter 1
In the cavernous bronze ceilinged and black marble walled art deco lobby of the exclusive Tokyo City Club the night security guard lazily dozed at his desk next to the main entrance. A furtive figure glanced caustiously through the glass doors at the guard. This darkly clad figure (with black cap, gym bag, jacket, jeans and shoes) looked small and slight especially next to the massive art deco statues towering to either sides of the doors. The night was dark and moonless in the city. The streets were deserted. Still the figure clung to the shadows as if for protection.
With the discretion of a stalked mouse the footed shadow made its way around the compound to the back of the building. Below the fire escape it reached into its gym bag and pulled out a grappling hook and line. Tentatively it began to swing the hook around over its head. With a slightly off balanced throw it tried to cast the hook onto the fire escape railing. The hook missed and instead came tumbling down. The figure gave a startled cry and threw up its arms for protection. The hook clattering noisily on the ground barely missing a cowering head. A pale trembling hand reached down to retrieve the tool. After a few minutes to let a racing heart slow and come down from a chokingly tight throat the hook again began to swing around over head.
Hook finally secured to the railing two soft hands grabbed the rope and tried to pull the diminutative figure up. The muscle of the slender arms strained but the bird light frame made no upward progress. With hushed whimpers of effort the arms and then legs painfully lifted the form.
Every muscle trembling the exhausted intruder collapsed panting and perspiring on the fire escape landing. Blue-green eyes, like the translucent waters of a sheltered atoll that changes in different lights, looked forlornly up the twenty fire escape flights to the top. A fine boned hand brushed sweat and auburn-red hair from a pale forehead behind a slightly lobeless and pointy ear.
The crystalline eyes clouded over with doubt. They comtemplated that the way was still open to retreat. With a dismissive shake of the head the fog was dispelled. Muscles still burning the small figure gingerly arose and began to make its way up the stairs.
The receeding ground alarmingly visible through insubstantial fire escape floors created a vertigo hard to distinguish from the growing doubt and panic of the act being perpetrated.
At the top of the final flight trembling hands that fought to control themselves through the roar of blood in the ears reached into the gym bag to bring out a glass cutter.
It was just as well that this was an older building without newer security systems such as electromagnetic sensors on the glass doors and motion detectors in the rooms as the shadow slipped into the ballroom.
The fuses for the top floor had been turned off and it was pitch dark. A flashlight and crude map appeared from a breast pocket. The figure was momentarily disorientated. After a while it got its bearings and moved towards a private office.
The door was unlocked. After much groping about a safe was found concealed behind some boxes in the closet.
With a sigh of trepidation the figure knelt before the safe. An ear pressed to the safe door. An unsure hand turned the dial click by click. The ear roared too loudly to hear the tumblers. The hand quivered too uncontrollably to precisely work the dials.
The shadow pulled away from the safe in frustration...
Eyes flinched and hid behind hands as they were flooded by an explosion of light! From behind a voice tinged with fear caused hairs to stand on end and stomach to wrench.
"Freeze! I'm putting you under citizen's arrest for breaking and entering and attempted robbery."
Realising too late it had been so preoccupied it hadn't noticed the guard entering the office. A face turned toward a flashlight painfully bright as the sun. It had taken so long to get
to the safe the guard had left his desk and gone on patrol again.
"Please, stay there while I call the police." The guard noticed frustration and humiliation welling up in the girl... young lady's eyes which were as wide and wild as a cornered animal's.
Reaching for the phone he saw a blur come towards him from the corner of his eye! Almost tripping he sidestepped. She crashed onto the coffee table on the opposite wall.
The girl laid there stunned. He thought the fight had been knocked out of her.
"Hanh, hanh...A..are you ok? Listen it's going to be alright. The police'll just release you to your paren..SLAM!!..CRASH!!"
"Ahnn...," the girl moaned as she passed out next to the desk he had been reaching for the phone on.
Eyes wider than they had ever been in his life the guard stood with his back pressed against the wall as if he had just avoided the charge of a Bengal tiger.
As he was reaching for the phone again she had thrown herself with such violence and desperation all control had disappeared. She hit the desk sideways with her shoulder. Momentum flipped her over the desk to land in a heap on the otherside.
He looked at her with alarm. Her cap had come off and straight waist length hair was flooding in torrents onto the floor. Following it were trickles of blood from her forehead and shoulder.
The guard rushed to her and almost touched her. He quickly withdrew his hands afraid her neck might have been broken. Instead he hunted wildly on his knees for the dialtone of the phone in the heap thrown from the desk.
Just as he realized that it would be better to get his flashlight first he ran into a pair of legs standing before him.
Under his nose were a pair of dress shoes. The leather felt slightly worn but quite fine qualitied. Above these were slacks of soft wool covering wiry legs.
Hands like iron claws grabbed him at the scruff of his neck and hauled him up as if he was a goose down pillow. There he hung face to dark shadow. In the split second he hung there he could make out a bearded face topped by a...a fedora?
He did not have time to varify this as a heartbeat later he was tossed like a ragdoll through the door. His trip was interrupted by a stone statue. It was really a human body but he bounced off it like a rubber ball.
The rebound did not last long as an even stronger hand grabbed him by his lapels and jerked back him toward a venomous voice.
"You young cur! How dare you!"
It felt like he was hanging against a granite statue dressed in a samurai shirt and pants. A sword hilt under the sash dug into his gut.
With a jerk he went a meter into the air. A blur from under the sash came at him. He felt pain from all sides as if twenty men with bats were clubbing him at blinding speed.
Before he hit the floor all sense had been knocked out of him.
End of Chapter 1.
Chapter 2
Her earliest memory was when she was three years old. Her Papa and she were at the counter of a jewelry store. She remembered being alarmed at seeing Papa deftly swipe a locket that had been on the glass case. A father just didn't do such a thing!
In stunned silence she walked out of the store with Papa. He knelt down in front of her and said, "Here Kitten, for you." Brushing aside her long auburn-red hair he was about to fasten the locket chain.
In a righteous voice she said to her father, "Papa, you shouldn't steal!" With the locket in hand she ran back to the jewelry counter and handed it to a surprised counterlady.
As they walked hand in hand away from the store a painful expression passed across Papa's kind and gentle eyes as he looked down on her.
Papa's eyes were often kind and gentle when they were alone. When they were with other people he usually had a self satisfied smirk on his face.
The smirk went with his elven build. The close cropped hair and sideburns added to the impishness of his appearance. He seemed as tall and thin as a sheltering aspen.
If Papa was an aspen Mama was a magnolia. Voluptuous and sensually scented. Her canopy of auburn hair turbulently cascading down around the curves of her shoulders and back in curls and eddies to crash above her hips.
She lived contented and safe under their shade in a roomy and nondescript house in a nondescript suburb of Tokyo. Everyone knew them as Arsene Yamada-san (the husband), Fujiko Yamada-san (the wife) and Kaori 'Kitsune' Yamada-chan (the daughter).
Often her uncles would come to visit. There was bearded fedora wearing Jigen Daisuke-jisan and ascetic samurai pantsed and shirted Goemon Suminawa-jisan.
Jigen-jisan was more outgoing and fun to be around. But she liked quite Goemon-jisan best because he always brought the best gifts for her (a walking tea tray carrying doll, embroidered silk ball, beautifully patterned silk yukatas).
And the cousins that they brought. Every year they grew more in number and stronger in body. She didn't like to wrestle and play with all these vigorous and boisterous boys like her Papa and her uncles did. Instead she spent her time with Mama and her aunts. Especially demure Murasaki-obasan, Goemon-jisan's wife.
They would sit in the anteroom and listen to her practice on her piano. It was a grand piano not only in name but also in size. It certainly was grander than anything that belonged in an ordinary Tokyo home. The magnificence of its white lacquer finish and pure majestic tone better suited it to the grand concert halls of London, Paris, Tokyo or New York.
When she was four her family had gone to a classical concert. She looked in awe at the distinguishly garbed musicians with their beautiful shiny instruments. The music washed her in a sea of light as it pulled her out of her seat like a riptide. When the piano solo started the world around, Papa and Mama in seats to either sides of her, seemed to disappear. All she could feel was the majestic voice of the piano pulling her to another place and time.
After the concert she turned to Papa with the glow of the music
still radiating from her and asked with all the earnestness in her soul
for a piano.
Papa knelt down and looked in her eyes for a while, searching for something. Finally, with a resigned smile on his face, he put his arms around her and hugged her deeply. She was a little unsettled because it felt like a hug you gave someone who was going away.
The next day Papa left on one of his trips and was gone for a week. On the morning of his return he woke her up in bed. He told her to close her eyes as he had a surprise for her. In the anteroom he told
her she could open her eyes. Sitting in the anteroom like a Lippizaner stallion stuffed into a broom closet was the grand piano. She lept up to him as he stooped to pick her up. Cheek to cheek their tears mixed. Hers of joy. His of an emotion she did not understand yet.
Papa and Mama often went on these trips. On the morning that they left she would run into their room and sit on the bed watching them get ready. They packed bags and bags of things. Hard metal things.
She had no notion what they were. Mama always told her to keep her hand off them. So instead she would play with Mama's clothes, jewelry and make up.
Even to a little girl, what her mother wore seemed scandolous. The skin tight pants and low cut short dresses that accented her femme fatale body were the talk of the neighborhood gossips. Despite herself, she would bow her head in shame when they were out together. Especially when her mother made a display of strutting her stuff to get all the neighborhood men excited!
Whenever they went shopping for clothes she would drift away from Mama towards Murasaki-obasan. Murasaki-obasan shared her taste in clothes with demure dignity. She also preferred the way Auntie put on makeup. Sparingly and sensibly. Everytime Mama played dress up with her she ended up looking like Jonnbonet Ramsey.
Their tastes in things may have differed but inside she loved and felt loved by Mama. Mama and Papa had a friendly rivalry so she was the only person Mama ever showed the full measure of affection to.
After all the bags were packed her parents would get dressed. Mama in an outfit straight out of a pulp fiction novel. Papa in an outfit that reminded her of a gangster movie.
When she saw Mama helping Papa with his tie she would always beg to do it. Her little hands would always have trouble remembering the knot. Papa would stand behind her in a mirror and knot a tie around her neck to demonstrate.
He had the most wonderous hands in the world. They were as strong as vises but they could be as gentle as a breeze. She would marvel at their deftness when he showed her magic and card tricks. Even her hands which flew like sparrows across the keyboard could not do those tricks so fluidly.
Every night at bedtime he would sing and caress her behind the ears and under her chin until she fell asleep. What she liked best was when he would stroke from the tip of her nose to the top of her forehead. Then she would purr contently as a pleasant shiver went down her spine.
With all the bags packed onto the little Fiat she would jump in the backseat and they would drive to Goemon-jisan's castle. There she would stay with Murasaki-obasan while her uncles went with her parents.
The castle was a wonderous place where she could play with all her cousins. She would pretend to be a courtier and recreate the 'Tale of Genji'. The only annoyance was that she had to practice on a synthesizer instead of her grand. As long as her parents didn't take too long to return she was quite contented.
Days and sometimes even weeks would pass. She would start to get anxious. The more anxious she got the more she would practice. It would get to the point where her cousins would wish their parents would come back just so that they would not have to listen to her anymore.
When they did she was not only happy to see them but also because everybody got such wonderful gifts. Sometimes it was Swiss chocolates, Swatches and dolls. Or it might be Polynesian tikis, wooden swords and masks. Othertimes it would be Stetson hats, toy six-shooters and cowboy boots. The things they brought back never failed to amaze her.
One day when she was eight Papa went on a trip by himself without telling anyone. He only left a note that said, "Dear Fuji-chan and Kit-chan, I'm going to finish something from the past. Love, Arsene."
Nobody was too anxious over this because he tended to do these scatter brained things.
When weeks passed Mama and her uncles began to make inquiries.
She didn't understand the situation totally but it seemed the mysterious sources reporting back to them gave no encouraging clues to what happened to her father.
She began to practice her piano incessantly. Mama would become angry at her. Later Mama would breakdown and cry as she apologized.
After a month passed the adults decided that she would stay with Murasaki-obasan while they looked for her father.
During that time she stood vigil at her keyboard. She didn't even notice when a cousin through annoyance unplugged her synthesizer. Her fingers continued flying as the music carried her to that other place and time.
She was so happy that Mama and her uncles returned. All she wanted to know was when Papa would be back. They just looked at her with pity and sadness in their eyes.
Mama took her aside and said, "Kit-chan, it may be a very long time before your Papa returns. Mama doesn't know where he is but don't worry. I'll never stop trying to find him for you."
Her body became numb and her mind confused. She kept trying to remember a passage from a Rachmaninoff piece that she had been studying. But che could not quite play it out in her head. As the discordant notes sounded her hands began to tremble and her knees feel weak. The next thing she knew she was sitting on the floor. Her whole body quivering from the freezing chill that had suddenly come over the room.
Mama tucked her into bed under a pile of comforters with feet raised on a pillow.
After this her world became a foggy place that slowly but never completely cleared. She would practice her piano every spare second. It was hardly notice when Mama sat down on the bench with a look of regret and sadness in her eyes and gently stroked her daughter's hair.
Mama and her uncles were like spiders on a web. Any encouraging vibration from their network of informants and they would spring on the information and be off on a trip to chase it down. The trips got less and less frequent and Mama returned with a look of greater and greater regret over the years.
At first it was that her mother less willingly looked her in the eyes when they talked. Her gaze would drift slowly down. Then they would talk less often. Finally when she came home from school Mama was more and more often gone from home. She didn't know where to nor did she care. Most of her time was spent studying or practicing.
While still in bed early one morning when she was twelve there was a crash from the living room. It was still pitch dark outside. She was the only one home. A feeling of fear and being utterly alone in the world overcame her. Totally confused she wanted to cry out for Mama and Papa. In despair she choked it down. Her body became numb and her mind left it. She watched herself, as if from the other side of the room, pick up a tiki that her father had given her. Her hands trembling she opened the door of her room cautiously. In the hallway she was afraid the intruder would hear the pounding of her heart. She heard muffled struggling sounds coming from the living room. Her stomach gave a wrenching turn as she thought that her mother had returned without her noticing. Maybe the intruder was in the living room doing heaven knows what to her.
She charged into the room. Sure enough in the darkness by the front entrance was what appeared to be Mama struggling to break loose from a man! She lunged at the man and tripped over an ottoman only clipping him on the shoulder.
The man let out a startled "Ouch!" as she crashed to the floor. a second later the lights went on. Looking up she saw her mother's sinuous legs wrapped around the man's legs. Her breasts almost spilling out of her undone dress. Her lips hovering close to the man's face where it had previously left numerous marks. Their faces were red as lobsters from drink as they wobbled on their feet like tops.
"Da..Dam braaaat whacha do tha foh?" the man slurred.
"Ged owd! Ged owt!" Mama screamed as she shoved him out almost before the door was open.
She looked at Mama in shook. A feeling of relief began to flood her body. She was about to jump up and hug Mama happy that she was safe when a frown appeared on Mama's face.
"Whad yah look'n ad? Yool no dau'ta of mah'n ya shtuck up lil'a prood!"
No longer than Mama said this her face turned white as a sheet.
She tried to say something but only a stuttering sound came out. With a panicked dash she was out the door.
The next morning Goemon-jisan came to take her to live with his family. Her uncles had received a message from Mama saying that she had gone to find Papa.
All the time they were moving her things to Goemon-jisan's castle the pit of her stomach was churning with dread and uncertainty. What had she done to drive her parents away. The weight of guilt and confusion grew on her shoulders.
It was so heavy her hands found it hard to rise to the keyboard. Murasaki-obasan came into the anteroom and sat next to her on the bench. With a gentle hand she stroked the auburn-red hair. The familiar gesture lifted enough weight off the delicate hands so that they could glide up to the keyboard and take off in their flittering flight.
The hands had gone so far they did not notice the exterior wall of the anteroom being broken open so that the grand piano could be moved out.
End of Chapter 2.
To be continued.
Peter Yuthrayard
PYuthrayar@aol.com
Keeper of the AAC Student Page at http://members.aol.com/pyuthrayar/aac.html
