[9mm JULIET TITLE LOGO]

EP05: Misadventured Piteous Overthrows

Tokugawa Ieyasu returns from a meeting with the other daimyo of the other clans hastily convened by Shogun General Meiji. He looks worried but refuses to say what is happening. He only says that the Shogun will make an announcement of greart importance in an hour and that he has tasks for the cast to perform. Hinemuri and Akodo Chuji are to ensure that the Tokugawa compound's defences are sufficently strong to repel any attack. Renshi and Hirotada are to report for duty to their reservist garrison along with all the reservists from the other clans as all military forces are being called up. To Ryouken and the shen twins he gives a special mission - break into the Nobunaga compound and bring back proof of the rumour that Nobunaga Oda has not been just reclusive but dead for the past ten years.

At the reservist garrison, amid a background of tanks being mobilised and heavy weappons being readied for action, Major Momoyma Jinko explains that the city is being locked down and returning to full martial law. Check points are to be established on all street corners and no one allowed to pass unless on military business. Renshi and Hiro' platoon draw a street corner in the centre of the city where they watch the tank, cannon and troop transports roll by towards the docks. At this point, Hiro confides in Renshi that he has a date with Hitomi that he refuses to break. Can he trust on Renshi's support and help to get him to the rendezvous?

Hinemuri and Chuji walks the defensive perimeter of the Tokugawa compound bawling out the guard who are not up to scratch. Satisfied, they checking the less conventional ways into the compound and discover that the three sewer entrances are completely unguarded. Each takes a team to weld closed one grating and they send a another team to weld up the third. As the teams report in, the first signs of trouble become evident. over the radio from the third team, they hear, "That's unusual. Let's have a closer look .... aaaargh - urrrghh!" Rushing to the scene, they find the welding team garotted on the ground. Chuji spots three shadows flitting over the wall into the family residence.

Elsewhere in Neo-Edo, another three shadows dart about a military vehicle park and steal an ambulance. Tienshen tunes the radio to a station she knows her twin sister hates. The Shogun come on air announcing that for the first time since the war 50 years ago, a ship has been sighted steaming towards the port. She refuses to respond to hailing by radio and must be considered hostile. All precautions are being taken.

Renshi is on the phone calling all the gangs he knows, The Kennedys, the Red-faced Clown Gang, the Student Unionists, etc, and telling them that there's to be a huge protest and possibly a riot at the location of his check point to protest the restrictions imposed tonight. He also calls Ryouken and the shen twins.

Hinemuri and Akodo Chuji brust into Hirotada's bedroom to discover Nobunaga Shinobi and two goons slicing into Hirotada's empty bed.

"He's not here, you fools," chides Chuji. "If you had done a proper reconissance, you'd know he's been called up to active duty. Get me a pork roll and I will let you live."

The two goons attack and Chuji fends them off with the walking stick he uses to convince people that he's feeble. The speed and strength of his combat moves surprises the goons. Hinemuri shoots Shinobi, again, and again, each shot from the large-calbire handgun forcing Shinobi back, and back, and finally through the window. Hinemuri rushes to the window to see the state of Shinobi's body on the ground outside. It's not there. How could Nobunaga Shinobi survive the fall?

The gangs arrive at the check point and soon enough the trouble begins. As the soldiers try to restore some form of order, a military ambulance screams to a stop. Renshi and Hirotada jump in and together with Ryouken and the shen twins, they speed off into the night leaving riots and chaos behind them. At the gates of the Nobunga compound, Renshi bluffs the guards about the Nobunga infirmary being requisitioned for casualties from the riots downtown. While Renshi and Hirotada convince the guards, the other three flit like shaows over the walls of the compound and make for the tower at its centre.

Renshi uses his grenades to blow up the van and crate a diversion which he and Hirotada use as cover to make it to Hitomi's quarters. Shortly, they find themselves beneath Hitomi's balcony. Hiro miles that he can take it from here. He sings peotry to Hitomi as Renshi accompanies him on a guitar. She watches the beauty of the explosions rocking the Nobunga compund and a checkpoint somewhere in the city.

Ryouken and the shen twins make it to the tower. Silently, they climb the stairs past technicians bent over all sorts of high-tech consoles. They win the top of the tower and burst into the room marked "Daimyo Nobunaga Oda - Do Not Enter." The room is surrounded by monitoring equipment and other technical gear focussed on the pedastal at the centre of the room. On it sits a brain in a glass container covered in electrodes and attached to a console. Around the room are the trappings of Nobunaga Oda's past, his ancestral sword, his battle armour, portraits of his lineage and other relics from his life before the war.

The startled scientist puts up his hands, trembling in fear. A mechanical, simulated voice issues from the concole on the pedastal.

"I wondered how long it would be until outsiders found me. I am Nobunaga Oda, daimyo of this clan. Welcome to my home."

Stunned, Tienshen politely asks the daimyo to explain himself. Where is his body? Why does he live as nothing more than a brain?

"I grew tired of my old life and wished a holiday. When it came time to die, I made my technicians save my brain while they could develop a new body for me to inhabit."

"You're talking about the female robots like Hitomi?" she asks.

"Yes. I have lived more than 70 years as a man. I want to experience the other side of life incognito. The problem is that the JUL-E-008 series has developed a mind of its own and resists him."

Yukishen calls Renshi and briefly explains what's happening in the tower. She then calls Hinemuri. Both groups rush to the tower. Renshi grabs Hirotada and Hitomi and sneaks towards the tower. Hinemuri and Chuji arrive as the Red-Faced Clown Gang storm the compound and create chaos that the Nobunaga guards are powerless to halt. Renshi holds Hirotada outside the room while the others talk to Nobunaga Oda's brain about Hitomi and the future.

Ryouken pulls his handgun and points it at Oda's brain. The shen twins interpose themselves and prevent him from gaining a clear shot at the pedastal. When Ryouken threatens to shoot through them to destroy his clan's sworn enemy, Hinemuri pulls his pistol on Ryouken, ready to act if he makes a move to harm Hinemuri's sisters.

Akodo Chuji discusses with the technician how to turn off Hitomi, the android, and attach Oda's brain into her metallic skull. The process is particularly easy, thinks Chuji. He leaps over Hitomi and a well-pleased jab to the back of her head hits the switch which deactivates her. Chuji carries her to the operating table. The technician presses a button and the brain begins sinking into the pedastal.

Ryouken, sensing his opportunity to fulfill his clan's honour disappearing, squeezes the trigger. Before he fires, however, Hinemuri's shot hits him in the shoulder and spins him around so that instead of Ryouken's weapon pointing at the twins it points at him. Ryouken's shot hits Hinemuri squarely in the chest. Ryouken and Hinemuri blaze ahay at each other until they both collapse to the floor, dying.

Hirotada, hearing the shooting, bursts into the room. He sees the gun battle and Hitomi collapsed in Chuji's arms being strapped to the operating table. Chuji and the tech are discussing the transfer of Oda's brain into her body. Renshi tries to slap Hirotada out of his building rage. Hiro pushes him away and draws his pistol.

"You never liked my girlfriend, old man," he screams. "And now you've killed her, you must die also!"

He opens fire at Chuji who ducks and weaves to avoid the shots and draw the fire away from the technician who is in the middle of the brain transfer process. Chuji leaps out the window and balances on the poles holding Nobunaga banners outside the tower walls. Hirotada, avoiding the Renshi's grasp, also leaps through the window. e lands on a flagpole, over-balances and tumbles to his death, a broken mess on the rocks of a zen stone garden far below.

Dying, Hinemuri pulls Tienshen, who now hates Yukishen with a passion, closer and lays upon her the burden of looking after Yukishen. Tienshen is torn between her growing hate of her sister and her duty to her family. In spinning Ryouken about, Hinemuri finally succeeds in protecting the two wild twins. He dies completed.

Ryouken pulls Yukishen close to his and whispers that she has put her enemy before her family. She is a traitor, he tells her, and so without honour and worthless. He dies.

Hitomi wakes and struggles to overcome her new brain. "It's ... trying to ... control me. ... Ungh! ... Cannot let it." She staggers to the window and looks down to see her great love dead and broken on the rocks below. "I cannot live in ... a world without Hirotada. I will ... ungh ... join him in death ... before my minds betrays me."

Renshi hands Hitomi the Nobunaga ancetral katana from its nearby ceremonial stand. She plunges it into her chest and belly, circuitry sparking wildly and furiously around her. Her final act is to step through the window, fall and joins Hirotada arm-in-arm in death below the tower.

Before more tragedy can occur, Shogun General Meiji at the head of a company of soldiers files into the Nobunaga compound and the unrest is soon quelled. On hearing of the events which passed in the tower and leading up to the deaths of Hitomi and Hirotada as well as Nobunaga Oda, the Shogun is visibly affected, emotional.

"A glooming peace this morning with it bring.
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, th have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardoned, and some punished;
For never was a story more of woe
Than this of JUL-E-008 and her Hiro.
"

Later, as the sun crests the horizon, a rusted beaten up container ship weighs anchor at the docks of Neo-Edo. Shogun General Meiji stands on the pier in full dress-regalia surrounded by a guard of honour. A door in the side of the hull opens and the gangway lowered. At the top of the gangway, the merchant captain emerges into the light of day. He salutes and the Shogun returns the gesture. The merchant captain descends and the two men shake hands.

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