Life After Molmol (Love Hina Post-Series, Rated T, K/N)

[Gojirob]

Note : I began to post this a while back, but now I've finished it, and have given it the correct rating, T for Innuendo and implied situations, not to mention some harsh feelings, though this isn't a bash-fic.

Summary : In the wake of the series' final big adventure, the ladies of the Hinata-Sou are at odds not with Keitaro, but with each other. Feelings of betrayal abound, and no one is left unscathed as choices and consequences mix with the day-to-day highs and lows of life at the Sou.



Life After Molmol: A Tale Of The Missing Three Years Of Love Hina

By ‘Goji' Rob Morris

Legal Disclaimer : I do not know exactly who owns Love Hina, or the other pop culture entities and works I often reference herein-I only know it isn't me.

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Book One - Sisters At War

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Prologue - The Girl Who Digs In The Sand

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Hinata-Sou, The 1980's


She knew all their scummy, hurtful comments by heart at this point. So it was that a tough girl who prided herself on her emotional control waited till she was well inside the hotel before even allowing her eyes to even begin to redden. Her grandmother was already waiting.

"Your friends need to improve their social graces. Since that is unlikely to happen soon, why don't you go upstairs and look in on your baby cousin?"

She didn't mind the assignment. After all, a baby who had yet to say even his first words couldn't insult her. As she walked up slowly, so as not to awaken the kid (who had the healthiest set of lungs of any baby she'd ever heard), the words that had driven her inside rang in her ears.

*Honestly, it's not your fault. Your looks just don't inspire boys.*

*Boys like you well enough. To them, it's like you're not even a girl.*

*That tom-boy thing will come back in style some day. Not in our lifetimes, you understand.*

*'Ruka, let's be real. You're not a girl that boys will marry. The most you can hope for is that one of them will take you to the beach to dig fro clams in the sand with them. Heh. Don't get crabs!*

Her agitation huge, she saw that her stealth had been for nothing. While not crying, the baby was wide awake. Thankfully, Grandma had positioned his cradle/bed in position to see the sky above, calming him.

"Glad to see you're doing all right at least. Sorry I'm not your two little girlfriends."

She picked the delighted boy-really he was not a baby anymore-up and grew a bit bitter.

"Though you're probably better off without them. As bad as you guys can be, you have nothing on us, when we turn on each other. Why? Because guys go after each other for the stupidest reasons. Girls go after each other for no reason at all."

The boy laughed. His ‘two little girlfriends' weren't even that, really, having only waved to each other across the room so far, like something out of a bad American sitcom based on misunderstandings. The one girl was reported to be very sickly. The other girl, while healthy, had been mistaken for dead on countless occasions.

"Don't. Don't you look at me like that. Don't look at me like I'm some kind of beauty queen, fairy princess, or goddess. Because I'm not. Just ask any girl at school. Or worse, ask any boy. I'm just plain old Haruka Urashima, emphasis on the plain."

But he wouldn't stop smiling at her in exactly that way, and eventually, she was smiling as well.

"Okay, I said stop. Here, you little brat. Take this."

With as little force as possible, she took one finger and swatted him across the nose. She figured to start a crying jag that would end her tenure. She figured wrong.

"Little cousin, are you some kind of masochistic monster? You shouldn't smile when I hit you! Keitaro..."

"O-ba."

His gurgling took her by complete surprise. It sounded like a word.

"What did you just say?"

"Oba. Oba Haruka."

Her eyes went wide, and her eyes never went wide. The first real word out of his mouth had been her name. Her name-prefixed by the honorific ‘Auntie'.

"You little creep. Your Mom's gonna wanna kill me for this! I took your first word, and it was-just for me?"

Okay, so she was a little young to be an aunt. Her pals would surely tease her about this. But that gave her an idea.

"Work with me, kiddo. I want to give those little bitches what for. See where Auntie is placing your hand? Well, when my friends come back, I want you to grab them right there-a lot! After all, they can't punish a baby. And live."

As she moved his tiny hand to the chest she whose lack she was teased about, she briefly mused that this could become a habit that could get the boy punished later on.

"But it's only okay when we're with friends, here at the Sou, got it?"

He seemed to understand. The next day, when tissues came out of one friend's bra, Haruka decided she would always be happy to see her nephew Keitaro.

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August 2001, The Kingdom Of Molmol


"What the hell are you doing?"

She had gotten up to clear her head, and what she saw on the beach astounded her.

"Auntie, I'm just digging."

She pointed at him with a fury.

"Bad enough you mistook my advice to just do it with Naru the first time. But now, having won the woman you love by fighting all the other women you love, you're digging on the beach instead of making love to her?"

Keitaro waved a hand in the air.

"Please, keep it down. She said it was alright if I tell you, but no one else. For the others, I have to use my best goofball routine. I'm to say something awkward if asked."

Haruka grew concerned.

"Is she all right?"

Keitaro nodded.

"She is now. I had to rub lotion all over her. Err-she had rope burns and whip abrasions. I think it happened when Kitsune had her all tied up on the warplane. She took some pain relievers, too. She's tough, but the way this ruined things tonight really hit her hard. And that's not all."

He sat down, and she did likewise. He didn't have his ‘woe-is-me' giving-up face on, but one from a more tangible sort of upset. This one wasn't going to pass with a shake or a punch.

"Go ahead, tell me."

"Auntie, I know the girls are just that way, and that this whole thing was a weird---very, very weird---way of saying that I do mean something to them. While I do wish they'd just told me this was a game, given the benefits of just knowing them, I'm happy to let it all slide. I'm not sure Naru is, though. She did a lot of grumbling while I rubbed her down, and for once, it wasn't aimed at me. Add to that, I think Shinobu feels like the others weren't fully truthful with her on some of what happened here. I'm beginning to think that, right after we settle this thing with Grandma and the Inn, there's going to be some bad blood."

Haruka sighed. Normally, she thought, this would be the time she smacked him and told him to not worry for no reason.

"Pretty damned insightful, nephew. You're finally growing up. Look, Keitaro. If this bad blood crops up, let it. Keep it from getting too bad, but accept that it will get bad. Also accept that you have nothing to do with it. All you and Naru's love did was catalyze some things that have been brewing since before you ever showed your adult face at the Inn. Friends are like this. I had to have it out with mine on occasion, even with Sarah's Mom. "

She half-expected to hear a whining jag about wanting everyone to get along, but it seemed he really had grown up-at least somewhat. Since she was still waiting for her own confirmation of maturity, she accepted this.

"You're right. We guys turn on each other for the stupidest reasons, but sometimes I think girls turn on each other for no reason."

His sudden smile told her he knew damned well where he had gotten that pearl of wisdom.

"Hubby Seta's sleeping off his accomplishment, and the verbal ass-kicking I gave him for dragging you two into this mess in the first place. Naru's not like us, and needs her rest after Mitsune's bout of outdoing herself."

Keitaro's head turned.

"Not like us?"

She looked at her watch.

"It's Three right now. Kitchen opens for Breakfast opens at Four-Fifteen. We'll eat then, and talk about a lot of things you need to know. But first, we dig for treasure. Okay?"

"Sure!"

So it was that a girl now a woman far happier than any of the friends who had taunted her dug happily in the sand with the first man who ever recognized her worth and beauty. For good measure, just before leaving the area, they tossed their shovels over a rise, knocking two overly zealous Molmolian security force personnel silly. Haruka decided anew that she would always be happy to see her nephew Keitaro.

 

[Gojirob]

Chapter One - Breakfast With Auntie

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Shinobu woke up and walked to her bedroom door. But when she opened it, instead of the hallway or some random chaos caused by her beloved Sempai Keitaro's clumsiness (and, she had to admit, the others' predictable over-reactions) there were now steel bars with a lock.

"Hello?"

She looked around as far as she could. There was no one in sight.

"This feels so familiar. But why?"

Though she was growing to hate the damned thing, she grabbed and swung out at the bars with her frying pan. It made a loud clank against the bars that reverberated.

"Shinobu, keep it down! I'm on the phone with my armies."

"Su? Is that you?"

The Molmolian princess closed her phone up and smiled.

"Great news! We've just taken Washington. Ohh-I didn't ask them whether they meant the city or the state. No matter. We'll have both soon. I plan to have the Golden Gate transported back to Molmol, and I'll bury the Statue Of Liberty halfway in the sand, just like in that movie with the monkey men."

Utterly confused and losing patience, Shinobu still tried to keep calm.

"Su? Why am I behind these bars-in my own room?"

Now Su took on a confused look.

"Shinobu! I told you I was going to take over the world someday. Well, last night, I did it. It was so easy, once I found out the secret of Keitaro's immortality, and gave it to my soldiers. But don't worry, since you're my friend, you won't get relocated. You get to stay right here in the Hinata-Sou. I may even make you my bride, along with the others. Motoko first, though, but don't worry. She has second dibs on Keitaro, so we'll still have all kinds of fun! I'm having Beijing made over into one big waterslide!"

Shinobu grabbed at her own head.

"Su let me out of here. I can't stay in my room my whole life. How can you do this?"

Kaolla Su now looked hurt.

"Huh? Aren't you happy that your friend is ruling the world? That gives you an inside track."

Fuming now, Shinobu used her frying pan and smashed through the bars entirely.

"You---you are psychotic! I'm tired of your schemes and insane advice causing me embarrassment. Finally, you show your true face, and you are the most selfish, shallow thing in the entire universe!"

She hated herself even as she thought and said these things, but they felt true. Screaming, she leaped into the air and moved to swing her pan right at Su's head.

"Tell me, Princess? Do YOU have Sempai's immortality?"

"She's going for the Princess! Open Fire!!"

Shinobu looked, and at the head of the Black-suited bodyguards was a familiar figure, one who she saw through the flare of the gun-fire.

"Kitsune?"

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KINGDOM OF MOLMOL, 2001

Waking from the nightmare, Shinobu ran for the bathroom, and splashed cold water on her face.

"It didn't happen like that. They weren't like that. Nobody fired any---"

Yet, she came to realize, that nightmare hadn't come up all on its own. Worse, she could see it happening. Su, taking over the world and ruining countless lives as part of a game. Kitsune, selling them all out, for kicks and sake, more than like. She was no longer even sure if she trusted Motoko, and that made her feel ill.

"They are my friends. Things got a little wild here, but they are my friends. They-"

She hit the wall with her fist.

"They lied to me."

Thankful that she hadn't woken any of them up, Shinobu returned to bed, knowing that they had to leave soon. But she did do one thing before falling back asleep. She took a match, and she burned the oath of loyalty document she had signed, when they joined Su's ‘side'.

"They lied to me."

A girl who didn't hate was suddenly finding it very hard not to hate those she usually loved best of all. Two of those she did not hate, but now worried that perhaps they hated her. Life at the Hinata-Sou was on the verge of becoming very, very interesting in ways that even its harried residents would not believe.


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Haruka set the suitcase down by a river bank. Keitaro chose not to question either this or why she told him to fetch clothes to put in the bag. For her part, she noticed that he was letting this pass, and appreciated it as they went uphill to the breakfast buffet-style restaurant. It was still before 4:30 AM, and the usually-bustling buffet was almost like a quiet restaurant.

Once they sat down, Haruka looked her nephew in the eye.

"First thing, kid. Old business. I'm not that much older than you. Why Auntie? Why not, say, Nee-Chan?"

Keitaro shook his head.

"I first saw you when I couldn't even speak yet. To me, anybody older was a giant of the earth. Also, you took care of me. I guess calling you just ‘sister' would have seemed disrespectful."

She saw something in his eyes. By at last hooking up with Naru, something in her nephew had finally unclenched. He would always be who he was-no one could escape that. But at least a level of relaxation had taken over.

"Listen-thanks for stepping aside, as regards me and Seta. It meant everything."

"Well, I owe you two just about everything, so maybe we're even."

Haruka knew well that, once back at the Sou, this calm young man would be falling into water, and into the chests of young ladies, all while freaking and stammering. But then and there, it was good to see he could be at peace.

"You know that I couldn't stand up for you too much, when you first showed up at the Inn. I wanted to-we are family-but-"

"Auntie, stop. You had a position to protect. Those girls almost threw me out, and Grandma or No, you had to watch out for yourself. I got that, even back then. Besides, turning to you would have made me the wimpy monster they all thought sure I was."

Now, she was really getting flatly astounded. He had seen all that? It actually made sense, but sense was something that Haruka had thought certain the younger Keitaro, freshly thrown out by his parents, didn't have at all.

"Oh, I guess you get everything, don't you?"

"I wish. I have this feeling that if I got everything, my face would have been a lot less sore these past few years. Whatever the girls think I saw on them, my most vivid memories don't involve bare boobs, but bare knuckles."

Her features sharpened.

"You go and say ‘boobs' to your Auntie?!"

When he gained a look of panic, she smiled.

"Work on that, nephew. Otherwise, Kitsune will keep right on playing you."

He smiled, but that faded.

"I think I can deal with her. And I'm not the one who feels played."

Haruka launched into a large part of why she'd taken him there.

"The problem with over-the-top situations like the one we just lived through is not the situation itself. It's all the little things that bubble up once nerves are rubbed raw. That's the bad blood you talked about. It's not the tidal wave this place has been to our lives. It's the undertow."

"But these girls have always gotten along. They're like sisters."

"Keitaro, sisters fight. And the only one more vicious towards a woman than a man of bad intent is another woman. Guys tend to stick by each other and get each other. Women? We're a mystery to ourselves, and the people we fight with the worst are those we love best."

Now, he seemed to be struggling, to Haruka's eyes, but it was a struggle he was willing to take up.

"Auntie, you make it sound like they have to watch out more for each other than some of my accidents."

She nodded.

"What you've never gotten is, before you showed up, these girls were as lost as you were. Maybe more so."

He looked really stunned at that.

"More than me?"

"In some ways, sure. Kitsune had flirted her way through the male population of the surrounding area. Motoko had successfully threatened the privates of every male past toddling. Su had the attention of many older men-all psychology students, looking for a thesis work."

Keitaro could easily understand that last part, but still disputed her on another front.

"Auntie, I know there were tons of boys after them."

"Oh, you know that? From who?"

He realized his position.

"Kitsune."

She took a puff of her cigarette, and then nodded.

"Well, she wasn't lying. But what she seems to have failed to point out is, aside from you, how many guys really stuck around?"

Of course, he couldn't even think of one.

"It got that bad?"

"Story: Shinobu brought home one of her little friends. Future bishie, I'm nearly certain. She wants to introduce him to her nearest and dearest. In short order, he is flirted with well past a 12-year-old's limits, threatened with instant sex change should he break Shinobu's heart, thrown into a giant glass pinball-don't ask, we made her promise to never do it again---and while trying to flee in purest terror, snags Naru's robes as he comes out of the onsen. Shinobu then launches into her hugest crying jag to date."

Keitaro looked lost in thought. Haruka snapped at him.

"Hey, moron? You listening?"

"Sorry, Auntie. I was just trying to figure out if parallel incarnations are possible in the same lifetime. Because that sounds eerily like me."

"That's my point, kid. You weren't the only boy to hit and be hit by the Hinata-Sou. You were just the boy that lived-errr-yeah."

"So what happened to Shinobu's friend?"

"Last we heard, he'd fled to a monastery on a Spanish mountaintop."

He managed a weak smile.

"I think I know the one. I considered running away a few times-I mean besides the times I actually did run away."

She needed to cheer him up, and found the simple words.

"You're also the only one they ever went after to bring back. Keep that in mind."

She now saw a look of consideration on his face.

"You're not coming back to the Sou with us, are you?"

Haruka took a bite of her sausage gravy and biscuits-she'd gotten a taste for them during an Arizona dig with Seta-and then stared at her nephew with something very like new eyes.

"How the hell did you figure that out?"

"Easy. You told me after a prank you pulled when I was little. I was all hurt, but you said ‘Auntie's not a hugger or kisser, kid. Just know that you have my love, and that's enough'. I never forgot it."

He shrugged.

"You were being a little more direct but still with a lighter touch than usual, so I figured you were breaking some big news. Since you and Seta just tied the knot, it only followed that..."

He stopped. The nearly-grown man vanished, but nor did the crybaby teen show up. Instead, he was sounding like a little boy.

"Auntie, I don't want you to go. What will we do without you? What will I do? If the girls start fighting, I'll probably only make it worse, like always."

She took two fingers, and slapped him on his right hand with them.

"This is where you have to learn to trust yourself. You'll be the only one the girls can turn to, when things start to get bad. You will be the one who knows when things have gone too far. That's when you'll step in. This isn't like falling into the onsen, Keitaro. There's no need to stammer or worry. They'll be fully clothed, but in a way more naked than they've ever been, and they'll be counting on you to hand them a towel and get dried off. But act surprised when I tell everyone I'm going."

He shook his head.

"Will I really know when to step in? Didn't I just recently misread your advice about moving things forward with Naru?"

She noted he was calling her ‘Naru' for once, but stayed on topic.

"It's true. I told you to consummate, and you read ‘Do It' as meaning you should propose marriage. That drove me insane when Naru told me. I wanted to choke you!"

Her dour look turned bright.

"Then, it occurred to me. Most guys, and not a few women, would have taken a nudge to get married as meaning they should consummate. But my nephew, so damn sweet and responsible, automatically thinks of doing the right thing, instead of just---doing it. And you've always been that way. Why do you think Kanako fell so hard for you?"

"Umm-because my sister is insane?"

Haruka shrugged.

"Well, there is that. I think your mother dropped her on her head a few times on the way back from signing the adoption papers. But you were sweet to a girl who didn't know what to expect in her new family, just as you were to a sickly girl who, no matter how hard she hits you, kept you in her heart always."

"Auntie, can I ask you some questions?"

"Only if you're good with my leaving."

"I'm good with you and Seta being happy, and I think you're the only one who could possibly raise Sarah. We'll handle it, though I have to find a new manager."

"We'll talk about that too. But what's your first question?"

Keitaro sighed.

"Kanako. Am I so clueless that I didn't see her feelings for me?"

"Well, you are clueless-"

"Hey!"

"---but I don't think anybody saw the depth of her feelings for you. Besides-what kind of guy would get that his little sister has an obsessive complex for him so big, she's willing to kidnap perceived rivals, threaten to blow them and her family's property up, and be the only girl in the Sou to deliberately expose herself to him?"

"Actually, Kitsune did once. She mistook the drain cleaner for Kirin. Lucky for me, no one else was home-and she didn't remember. Instead of telling her that she pulled off her sweater and demanded that I pick a ‘favorite', I said to her later that she asked for warm milk and then went to bed."

Haruka scratched her head.

"I'm surprised you didn't freak out. Then again, I'm not sure there's a man in Japan who hasn't seen her bosoms. So which one did you pick?"

"The right one."

"That'd be mine, too. Next question?"

"Ummm-Kanako, despite nearly blowing up the Sou, was taken back by Grandma in a heartbeat. Do you think that-errr-Grandma sent her for some reason?"

She sighed, he nodded, and they both recited a mantra.

"If one is wise, one does not question the plans of the Great Demon Of Hinata. This is considered unhealthy."

Keitaro shrugged.

"If you were to?"

Haruka looked a bit like she already had.

"Hypothetically, and never to be quoted under pain of death---she wanted to move you and Naru along by sending in a love struck rival that was only a rival in her own and Naru's minds."

"But-she and I were moving along pretty well, even before I left with Seta. It may have taken a little more time, but I think we were closer than not."

"Yeah, but Keitaro-neither you nor Naru are a grandmother seeking to become a great-grandmother. The glacial way you two do things may have made her worry about seeing your kids born-or not. This is another reason why I never speculate on her plans."

Keitaro shook his head.

"I didn't lie to Kanako, when I told her that maybe, if I had never met Naru, it could have been her. But what I didn't say was that such a life would also involve her not being my sister. Adoption or no that is how I have always seen her. Joining the others here in Molmol makes me think that she may never really accept that."

"Then my niece has a problem. As in, it's her problem, not yours. Gently and politely take her aside at some point and let her know that she cannot ever again do something like this without risking hurting her relationship with you as her brother. There are times when it's better to slap a hand then to hold it. Mind you-that does not apply to Shinobu. Her, you go as gently as you can. Promise me?"

"Actually, she came up while I was rubbing Naru down with lotion. We're gonna make some choices, and soon. When we do, she has dinner with Mutsumi, and I have dinner with Shinobu."

"And the others?"

Keitaro looked pained.

"Not before-and this is Naru, not me---she hears some words of explanation and/or apology."

Haruka rolled her eyes.

"Did you point out that two out of the three parties remaining tend to never give apologies, one because she's too mischievous, the other because she doesn't quite live in the same world as the rest of us?"

"Till I was blue in the face."

Well, she thought, he had said there was bad blood. After finishing her fruit and nut oatmeal, she pressed on.

"Next?"

Keitaro took Haruka's lit cigarette from the ashtray, and drove it into his arm. No blister appeared.

"Once and for all-Auntie, what am I?"

She lit a new cigarette, puffed for a few seconds, and then drove it into her palm. No blister appeared. Keitaro breathed in.

"Auntie-you too?"

She looked around to make sure no one had noticed, and only then spoke.

"Sarah's Mom was our Mutsumi in more ways than one, though her rack put both Mutsumi and Kitsune's in the pettanko zone-no joke. She was also kind of---well, not flakey, but off. Brilliant---just like-etcetera. So one day, her me and Seta are on a dig near the Brittany coast, and they find evidence of a Celtic storehouse set up to fend off the Saxons after the Celts fled Britain. They're talking a mile a minute when they swing a spear my way without realizing. I duck, but lose my footing. Boom! Straight into the rocky English Channel below, bouncing a few times to boot. It was a half an hour before our intrepid archeologists realized I was gone. I gave both of them a Naru-punch when I got back."

"But you lived."

"Nary a scratch. I asked Grandma about it when I got back to Japan."

Keitaro's heart began to race. Here was an answer at last.

"And?"

"And-she said ‘You must be very durable. Little Keitaro is like that, too. Now go set the table for dinner.' And that was all she would say."

His face nearly fell into his French Toast.

"Are we the only ones?"

"Honestly? I think one or both of your parents must be like us. They're always grasping those pastry trays straight from the oven barehanded. I think the old demon herself maybe. Seta may have picked it up from me, but it's hard to confirm. Naru probably can from you-hint."

The hint was obvious enough, even for Keitaro.

"But your parents-and my leg. How do you explain that?"

Haruka was starting to get a pained look.

"One night not long after we lost them, I found Grandma drinking. She looked at a picture of my folks, saying over and over that she ‘should have explained things' to them. Maybe it's not automatic. As to your leg? I think Mutsumi broke it."

"Huh?"

"Not on purpose, of course. But to hear her version of that day, you were having a run of really bad luck-and she, bless her, was following you around, saying out loud how you were having a run of really bad luck."

Keitaro seemed to connect the dots.

"I forgot. It's bad luck to even really speak of having it. Especially when you already are."

"Yeah. You three invited the fates down on you with that promise about Todai. Being the male of the group, your strength was tested by means of some really rotten luck and incredibly lousy timing."

"But Auntie, we were kids!"

"Doesn't matter. All the fates heard was a challenge."

Keitaro ate some bacon, and then some breaded fish heads.

"Well, I guess that's all my questions. We better finish up."

"Suit yourself. Pity about the end of the romance, though."

"No, I think you and Seta still have a lot of that left in you. Unless-you meant me and Naru, but our romance is just really getting going."

She smiled, and it was that of a woman smiling at a man.

"No, Baka-I meant our romance."

He smiled, too, but for different reasons.

"You already told me to be ready for Kitsune's games."

She tapped his forehead.

"This isn't a game, Keitaro. You and I have had a thing going on, but now it's over."

He knew what she would say back, but he said it anyway.

"Call me baka and all those great names for dummies, but I have no idea what you're talking about."

In fact she did no such thing.

 

[Gojirob]

"It's okay, kid. It took me a while to realize it too. Go back with me to the Brittany coast and Seta. He had us out so far, even the local fishermen didn't know the area. We were all three of us badly lost, and he broke down."

"Seta?"

"Not the man you know yet. So after a while, and even with that idea TV comedies have that women are any better at finding their way out, we're starting to get in real trouble. Clothes, food, toilet paper-it was getting ugly. Only he could get us back to civilization, and he was a useless lump."

"Did you hit him?"

"Repeatedly. But he just sank in further. Finally, I yelled at him that he was giving up on his dream. More, I told him about my little nephew, who despite setbacks and admonitions, never gave up on his. That seemed to do it."

She drank some apple juice as her throat became dry, then continued.

"He got up and said that he couldn't allow himself to be seen as less in my eyes than a determined little boy, and before we knew it, he not only found out where we were, he even found Exc-ehhhh-an antique Celtic sword the authorities confiscated and swore us to secrecy on."

Keitaro's mouth hung open at the mention.

"Auntie, he found the sword Exc---exactly where he expected to?"

"Not a word, Keitaro, or I will chloroform you and Shinobu, and stick you in bed together for Naru and the others to find. There won't be enough left of you to ID at that point."

His face showed he got the message. Haruka calmed a bit.

"He never told you any of this because he's a forgetful idiot. But you were training him before he ever trained you-in fact, before you even met. Don't you get it? The man I love became that because I came to see him as an older version of the first boy to ever look at me with appreciative eyes. And you? You chose a violent girl whose moods you can never predict but who you know loves you."

Her eyes held the closest thing to touchy-feely Keitaro would ever see in them.

"We provided one another with the template for the love of our lives. I realize now I could never love a man who didn't have at his core your kind of caring and determination."

Floored as he was, Keitaro managed a response that did not end with his face being slapped or punched.

"I could never love a girl who didn't have your strength and yet your inability to get how truly pretty and wonderful she is-because she's just too busy being wonderful to ever notice."

Their warm smiles and quick hand-squeezes started whispers all over the eatery. The pair caught on to this, and smiled wickedly at each other.

"Remember my 13th Birthday?"

"Sure do. It was one of the last times I ever saw you, prior to my moving into the Sou. I'll just update it and improvise for the passage of years."

Leaving the tab and a tip, the pair rose from the table. Haruka adopted a face she'd seen women use in the corniest soaps imaginable.

"We've been together on and off since we were children."

Keitaro removed and folded his glasses, but not before gaining a sense of his surroundings, and deliberately pushed all worry-wart looks from his face as he looked at her.

"Now that has to end. Will your husband allow me to visit you?"

"I can't be sure. You know how he can be."

On Haruka's 13th Birthday, her catty friends had seen her with Keitaro and teasingly asked if this was her new ‘boyfriend'. With a look in her eyes he knew screamed ‘prank alert', little Keitaro played along as she fired back.

*Not just boyfriend. The best lover I've ever had. He's forgotten more things about making a woman feel like a woman than your little-membered boy-toys have ever learned!*

*Haruka, darling, are these your friends? Why are you always so kind to the underprivileged? Let's run off together, before their ordinary looks diminish the shine of your beauty.*

The prank had unnerved Haruka's pals back when, and it unnerved the busybodies now. Keitaro sometimes found it hard to believe he had ever been that bold, even for a second, but realized he had always felt he could do anything for Haruka. Not wanting to fail in her eyes had driven him ever further when the ladies were nearly united in wanting him out of the Inn.

Haruka caught that the busybodies' interest was at its peak, so she kept on.

"I won't let him keep us apart. This has gone on too long for me to allow it to end. You'll come and visit us, and that's settled."

Keitaro put his arm to his head, as though in agony.

"I can't just show up unannounced. Why, in our last battle, he nearly thrashed me!"

The gasps that followed gave the Urashimas the knowledge that they had their targets cold. Haruka feigned suddenly remembering something.

"But what about her? She'll want to come along with you."

"You forget-she's always been-fond-of your husband."

The whispering fools finally became bold enough to move forward. The trap was set. A slightly younger woman pulled Haruka aside, and a man slightly older than Keitaro pulled him aside, grins on their faces.

"He's a little skinny, but I'll bet he's a tiger in the sack!"

"She's a bit of a Christmas Cake, but with that rack, who cares?"

The trap sprang and closed. Haruka and Keitaro adopted horrified looks.

"He's---my nephew!"

"We were just discussing my visit to see her and my new uncle, also my Sempai. His work schedule is frantic, and may not allow it. Uncle is also my girlfriend's sempai."

The crowd began to look both ill and outraged.

"You said you battled him!"

Haruka faked a shudder.

"No! They battled to see who would first declare their love under Molmol's sacred moon at Toudai. My husband won, and he likes to rub that in my nephew's face."

Keitaro brought out his inner crybaby, this time for fun.

"oh, Auntie! These people think the worst of us. If such sick rumors reach the family..."

"No, nephew. Oba-San took care of you as a baby, and she will make it right now..."

She grabbed his hand and ran for a cliff overlooking a waterfall. A large, deep waterfall.

"Auntie will take care of you for all eternity!"

Over the side they went, to the gasps and cries of people who would now always mind their own damn business. Before they hit the water, Keitaro looked over and saw Haruka's smile, and it became his own. He really would miss his favorite Auntie. Then he thought of something.

"Who's going to be the new manager?"

She said a name that hit him harder than the water ever could.

"Kitsune."

--------------

The swirling waters took them almost exactly to the point where Haruka left the suitcase, and looking himself over, he realized this was a good precaution. The water had taken him straight down to his underpants.

"That was great, Auntie."

"Uhh-Keitaro?"

He heard her voice behind him while digging his glasses from the mud.

"Yeah?"

"Ummm-I wasn't wearing any underwear---and my foot is stuck in the mud bank."

His body visibly froze up.

"Look, kid-we are family, and both spoken for. I will even protect you from Naru, if it comes to that. But I can't get leverage here, and it won't be long before people make their way over up the path for breakfast. If it bothers you, just act like we're fifty years older, you're 72, and I'm 80 and..."

He stopped shaking, turned and looked at her. Just for a second, something that could have cost Keitaro a lot of pain normally emerged from his eyes. Calmly, he picked her up, helped her foot loose from the mud, sat her down on the river bank, and then promptly turned his back.

"You, Auntie, are not 80 years old."

Haruka realized that the first male to ever see her as beautiful still did. A forbidden moment? Maybe. But one she would treasure, all the same.

"I knew I couldn't leave you two alone!"

Naru was smiling, belying the angry tone of her words. Haruka, dressed by then, played it up.

"Hey, if you weren't going to make my nephew a man, what choice did I have?"

Naru shook her head.

"You told her?"

"You-said it was alright."

"If it needed to be said, but..."

Haruka cut her off.

"Relax. I asked why he wasn't with you, and I have pull with my nephew. Did you get a good sleep?"

Naru nodded.

"The lotions helped my whip and rope burns. Strangling Kitsune would help a lot more."

Haruka shot a look at Keitaro to keep quiet. He would obey her wishes, until such statements were in danger of being made real. That time was coming.

"You two gotta get back so all of you can get back to the Sou. Let's move."

Haruka overheard a conversation on the way back.

"But you always want me to call you Naru."

"No. For now, keep calling me Narusegawa, and I'll keep correcting you. It'll keep the others occupied."

"We need to keep them occupied?"

"Baka! They just spent the last week showing that when it comes to you, they can't be trusted."

"I wouldn't go that far."

"Keitaro, I don't want to discuss it. Until I hear some explanations and apologies for their little ‘game', then maybe I don't know them as well as I thought. Also, when Kitsune inevitably asks us about last night-tell her we tried, but nothing else. As long as she's chuckling, she's not scheming."

Later, as they prepared to depart in a desperate bid to meet Grandma back at the Inn and confirm Keitaro's choice of wife, Haruka saw further evidence that life back at the Sou was about to become interesting. Well, more interesting anyway.

"Motoko, will there be more lessons when we get back?"

The samurai girl stared down at one she held dear to her heart, but the tenderness was decidedly less pronounced.

"Not for the present, Kaolla Su. In fact, we may need to review old lessons I taught you-or rather attempted to."

"Oh. Okay."

Haruka saw Shinobu mouth ‘Not Okay' silently, and saw her also shoot a glare Kitsune's way. For the moment, no one challenged Haruka's designation of Kitsune as her successor, and Haruka correctly guessed that all the tensions would be buried until Grandma came and went. Mutsumi seemed cheery as ever and at least that was something. The plane took off, and Haruka saw her new step-daughter shaking her head.

"Ya know, I tried to tell Su that, maybe if her people had done a little thinking, my Dad wouldn't have become a fugitive. I mean, I had fun, but being an outlaw from your best friend is a little weird-scary."

Seta had found yet another set of artifacts out of nowhere, so Haruka responded to Sarah's words alone.

"What did she say?"

"Oh, she totally didn't get it. Just said she was gonna build a robot me for when I wasn't around. I'll miss her-heck, I'll miss all of them. Then again, I could really use a little down-time."

A set of sentiments Haruka found herself in complete agreement with. Later that night, when Sarah was asleep, Seta was astounded to see a tear in his new bride's eye.

"Are you alright?"

She shook her head.

"I will be. It's just that, once upon a time, I took care of this cute sweet little baby who thought I was the sun, the stars and the moon---"

She fell into his arms.

"...and now, he's all grown up."

He put a finger under her chin.

"He'll always love you, he'll always need you---"

Seta shared his student's tendency not to know when to shut up.

"---and before too long, he'll make you a great-Auntie!"

In the fury that followed, it was confirmed that Seta had indeed picked up the durability of the Urashimas. Also, the exact phrase ‘Great-Auntie' was banned from household discussions forevermore.

 

[Gojirob]

Chapter Two - Once Motoko Unto The Brunch

--------------------------------------

PRIVATE JOURNAL, MOTOKO AOYAMA, AUGUST 15th, 2001


Grandma Hina came and went, confirming as she did her grandson's choice, celebrating the growth of both Urashima and Narusegawa from a boy and a girl wracked by weakness of mind and body to a man and a woman capable of standing ready to claim a dream. It occurred to me that some might think one or the other's prior weakness to be greater than the other, but only a warrior like Grandma would understand that either weakness can be a grave one.

I half-expected, and perhaps even hoped, that Kanako would remain with us, but her part in our lives seems destined to remain hit-and-run. In her sight, I cut a motion into the air with my blade. I knew she would recognize it as an invocation of protection of the Sou and a warning to her: She must never again assault the residents of the Sou in any way. Though she has been my ally, and I would like to call her an even deeper friend, she skirts the edge of tactics that are inherently dishonorable. One cannot be a samurai woman while also, apologies to Maehara-San, playing the Shinobu. Grandma restrains her before she can respond, telling me much. Kanako is a work-in-progress for the Great Demon, a hurricane she unleashed to blow the mist off of her brother's progress. I wish her well, but there will be no more barrels. I have been imprisoned enough for my lifetime. If I must, I will even find a way to mark her, so as to more easily smoke out her disguises.

As Urashima and Naru walk away from the receding anti-climax (I half-expected Mutsumi's family to assault the compound with giant turtles), Shinobu approaches me. Her look is dour, and not at all what I expect from one so cheery and bright.

"Motoko, I think they're going to the Todai entrance again."

I worry for a moment, and then ask her a question.

"And you wish to stop them?"

For just a moment before she regains herself, her look is purest rage.

"Are you crazy? I just want to make sure no one stops them this time. Help me, Motoko. Because you owe them, and you owe *Me*."

I knew this matter would arise. Lying to her about my intentions in stopping our friends from entering Todai Gate before Seta involved us in Molmol will likely remain one of my lowest moments. I had my reasons, but like much else in my life, those are a bit of a muddle.

"If I do this, will you agree to accept my apologies and hear my explanations?"

"Sure. But let's nail the others down first."

Kaolla Su we found in her room, shaking her head at her many layers of electronic equipment. I had almost been avoiding her, horrible though that sounds, even as words on a page. I am not angry or bitter for her actions in Molmol, though I may be the only one besides Urashima, who it at times seems, simply cannot hold a grudge. But those actions make me concerned for her, and for myself, as her sensei and guide. I vary between returning the very deepest love she has for me and then again regarding it as the crush of a chaotic child whose scattershot affections buffet all about her in winds of mania. But whether she is prospect or daughter to me, to say that she is anything but dear to my heart is a lie I could not survive the telling of.

"Motoko, Shinobu---none of my stuff works anymore! All the chips and hard drives have been wiped. The mechas are down for the count too."

Shinobu's answer was too swift and too certain for my comfort.

"The wiring in the Sou is old. Maybe a power surge came through while we were locked up-locked into finishing up in Molmol."

"NO! I mean, I purchased high-end surge protectors to guard against just this kind of thing. It's like an E-M pulse from an atom bomb hit just this one room."

I personally was glad to see Su divorced from her VR overload, yet I knew well that the time she spent with her computers and video games was a peaceful time for the rest of the household, and maybe even a safety valve for their tolerance. Yet it was the lack of a stream of reassuring words from Shinobu that worried me more than Urashima's blood pressure.

"Well, after all, you're a princess. You have money. Could you afford seven first-class train tickets, cross-country?"

"uhhh...sure? That's no problem."

"Then you can afford all new stuff."

I did not at all like the conclusion I was drawing.

"But I was waiting till the next-gen stuff came out in five months."

"Well, keep checking then. Maybe-"

Shinobu's light shake of the head fooled me not at all.

"Maybe this is fate's way of telling you *No*."

I have come to believe that the true difference between we ladies and Urashima has nothing to do with private parts and curves. It is that he is an honest fool who knows it, and we are all self-delusional fools. Shinobu stood there, not comprehending the cost of what she was doing. Su, despite lessons I had given her in reading people's words, tones and gestures, did not pick up on the painfully obvious clues her friend was all but transmitting. Shinobu I will refer to Urashima and Naru. Su is my failure, and she seems by turns to almost be a complete one.

"Let's check on Kitsune next."

"Shinobu, stop."

Her hurry to find the actively mischievous Kitsune evaporated all too quickly.

"Okay."

Her look held no regrets, so nor did I hold back.

"What did you do to Su's things?"

Her room was right next to us, and without a word, she reached into it and pulled out a metal bucket.

"It's full of magnets. I spread them as soon as we got back. It's her own fault for not ‘rugged-izing' her equipment."

She put the bucket aside.

"Kind of like it was my fault for believing that any of you had any real interest in letting me talk to Sempai Keitaro before their first attempt to reach Todai Gate."

Pursuing a heart-felt goal regardless of any other consideration seems a low thing when the thing you failed to consider was the heart of another.

"You want my apology? You have it. I am sorry, Shinobu Maehara, that I lied to you when I had the ulterior motive of giving Urashima one last chance to choose me. Understand, it was difficult enough for me to admit to loving him in the first place. To simply state that I would run after him in the slender hopes he would change his affections from Naru to me was more than I could bear."

Her face softened before my eyes, but so much doubt and anger still remained.

"What about the Inn?"

This child was tasking me as much as my sister, but she had the right in this case, so I did not correct her harsh tone just yet.

"Not a factor in my choice. I am set to inherit property myself, if you recall."

Her look was now much more typically Shinobu, but still not quite.

"What was up with those Sentai costumes we put on? Why didn't we just call them up? They have cell phones-at least I'm sure Naru does. We could have just asked them to wait until we got there."

I had really been hoping to avoid that one entirely. As my sister always said, Kami only puts them in our skulls, so don't blame him if we don't use them.

"That was just stupidity. We forgot that, when in a rush, its best to not let Kitsune and Su make our battle plans-or really, any plans at all."

Her looks became harsh once again.

"So that's it? They're just that way, and we keep on cleaning up and licking our wounds after their actions? For how long, Motoko? For-how-long?"

"They are hardly the only ones to cause problems in this household."

"No, they're just the only ones to shrug it off. We forgave Sempai Keitaro for lying about Todai when he first arrived, but he still hears about it sometimes, even though it was at least partly a misunderstanding. I can't count how many times I've heard about my kicking him in the ba-err downstairs. You fell into despair over your sister's demands. Sempai Naru fell apart after failing her Todai exam. You're right. We all spend time in the barrel. Only two of us never learn from it or change enough to matter."

The things she was saying had crossed my mind, yet I could not allow it to go unchallenged.

"None of this justifies destroying another's property. Also, you put up with the things they do as much as any of us have. Why is it intolerable now?"

This wasn't as simple as her making an awkward try for Urashima's affections, then running off in tears, proclaiming him a jerk-said jerkdom likely earning him his place among us. Naru may find it irritating that her man in a constant state of over-apology, but at least that has always meant he is quick to own up where he truly is wrong. The ones Shinobu holds responsible for her pain are at least less likely to acknowledge or even realize the toes they stepped on. Again, for one of those I can only blame myself.

Shinobu made the shape of a gun with her right-hand's fingers, then put it to her head.

"Click-Click! Don't Move! Click-Click! Sign The Contract, or spend your life in a comfortable jail! Ok-Shinobu-we're going to Todai so you can say your peace-no, it's so we can force a man into a marriage for a property scam-wait, no-it's so we can bring them back from a kingdom we never heard of before-wait again---it's so we can pay them back for all the public kissing-oops-it's now either to give the couple one last grand adventure---"

She fought back tears as she spoke, and her frustration was mine as well.

"---or finally, it's so we all can state how we really feel and not let him not choosing us go completely unchallenged---or maybe Kitsune had another explanation tucked aside somewhere, I don't know, and I don't care! I mean, state how we all feel? THAT's why we went to Todai in the first place! If everyone wanted a turn, we could have had it, maybe just under the wire before Seta showed up. And you, *honorable warrior*---"

She pointed at me in fury.

"---you had already confessed to him. I know what you said about one last shot, but they weren't getting married-just confirming their love. That was all I wanted, Motoko-was just to state unequivocally to the man I loved---love-that he was just that. To make sure that he knew that and to find out if it changed anything. I knew it probably couldn't, the same as you. But thanks to selfishness and stunts, I ended up bottomless-with all of you slapping him-I ended up running off to someplace its ruler could have phoned the authorities to clear things up-arrested, thrown in jail-and loaded guns shoved in my face. And no, it doesn't matter that the guns weren't fired and the jail was nice-all this was still done by a friend. To win a game."

 

[Gojirob]

I had to redirect her wrath, even if at me.

"Shinobu-several months back I gave Kaolla Su lessons on how to be a truly just ruler. I obviously failed to bring those lessons home for her."

Briefly, I considered how foolish this was to strain old friendships over one man. Then, I realized that at some point, Kaolla Su was like as not to push matters this far in the pursuit of some goal.

"Motoko-all respect, but wake up. She is an absolute ruler with her own money and her own kingdom, and an army of trigger-happy lunatics at her disposal. She never has to be a just ruler. I briefly considered just going to Todai myself. I didn't want to be that selfish, at least in part because I have to live in a world where you don't want your friends thinking you're just in it for yourself. But two of us again, never want to live in that world, and primal selfishness is just doing business. The lessons you taught her are not at fault. The lesson you and I have just learned about dealing with *happy-go-lucky* *free-spirits* is one we should have learned a long time ago."

I came to a bitter realization of my own.

"Where is Kitsune?"

"I saw her leaving your room, and head right for hers. She never left. Probably asleep."

"And Mutsumi?"

"Left to be with her folks. I think they're breeding a turtle they call a Kamebas for one of the newer Godzilla films."

My anger began to rise, at having been so played.

"You already knew where everyone was when you asked me to stop them from interfering with Naru and Urashima's journey to Todai Gate, didn't you, Shinobu?"

She folded her arms, looking quite defiant.

"I said that my goal was to prevent anyone from stopping them. You were the only one I had left on the list."

She then held up one hand while closing her eyes.

"Look, I'm sorry too. But until this talk, I didn't know if you could be trusted. I don't like feeling this way, Motoko. But I realize I can't let my guard down when two of the people I thought really mattered to me and me to them are fixated on where their next chuckle, drink or cheap thrill comes from."

"Shinobu-turn from this path. It isn't healthy, it isn't right, and it isn't you."

Her face showed no signs of relenting.

"You realize I'll have to tell Sempai Naru about how you knew who Su was, ‘months ago' when you taught her those lessons about rulers, right?"

Her mind had done the math. I should have been vaguer.

"I was sworn to secrecy. Let me tell Naru myself."

"You have a day. Motoko-can they change? I mean, we are who we are, but if the rest of us have to, then why don't they?"

I gave her the best answer I could.

"They do have to. Rulers are overthrown, and tricksters find themselves in trouble that being cute won't easily solve. Perhaps we owe it to them to force their evolution, before at last giving up."

"Perhaps. I'm---gonna go and hard-boil some eggs. I don't feel much like cooking a big meal."

She was being unfair, perhaps massively so, and I am certain that if pressed, her memory of wrongs past would prove biased and selective. But each injustice she uttered proceeded firmly from the real and verifiable. I adore Su and hold Kitsune as a sister, but I am on the verge of cursing them both for infecting Shinobu's light spirit with such cynicism. In Kitsune's case, the evolution will have to come from catastrophe. She's too old and too canny to be tricked or guided. But Su? Her I will save from herself-with the aid of the man who is not my destination, but rather my journey.

An hour or so later, three of us cracked open hard-boiled eggs, doused with some pepper, vinegar and a little wasabi. Kitsune still hasn't gotten up, and Su still seems down about the collapse of her electronic world. Shinobu quietly promised never to repeat such an act, and to remit back her Molmolian army bonus. I am still worried for her, and the extremes she went to ensuring our friends made their journey unhindered this time. I think she may not be over Urashima. But it is Su, so deflated by the loss of constant over-stimulation that makes me queasy inside. Is it as Shinobu said? Addicted to instant thrills, her psyche must eventually lapse into unthinking, even cruel acts?

A smiling happy pair enters our home, a childhood dream at last fulfilled. They each grab up an egg, a grateful bow and smile at Shinobu, who seems contented for now-almost. If I am wrong, and she is at peace with her love's rejection, what are the terms of that peace?

"We'll be---"

"Yeah-we'll be---"

Looking sickeningly cute, they say the final word together.

"Upstairs."

I cannot let them just yet, and grab her arm.

"Naru? Please. I need to apologize for the part I played during the events in Molmol."

It was not all my fault, to be sure, and if she somehow holds me so, we have real problems.

Her face holds some anger, but she pulls me out of the kitchen area and speaks gently.

"Apology accepted. Keitaro said you didn't put up the kind of fight you could have on the dirigible. Kanako's gone, and I guess whatever wasn't part of Grandma's plans, she'll answer for from somebody scarier than me. Shinobu is as bad at over-apologizing as Keitaro, and I can't see her being any sort of mastermind."

Had there been time, I would have told her to be not so sure.

"Are we truly at peace, then?"

"I-still have some questions, Motoko. You went against something you all knew was more important to me than anything, and if you were playing a game, you never bothered to say so till the end. But for right now---"

She looked up the stairs at what would now become *their* bedroom, and at a grinning pervert whose company I envied her.

"-fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and bees gotta buzz."

As the wizened Jedi Master said, there is no try, only do. They were about to do.

"Shinobu-"

"Don't go upstairs for a while. I'm not that naïve, Motoko. Heh. Maybe we'll all be Aunties before too long."

She was trying, but I felt that neither her nor Naru's raw nerves were salved quite just yet. Another raw nerve now presented itself.

"Do you think they need help up there?"

"No, Su. They most definitely do not need any help from anyone. What they need to do, they can accomplish on their own."

"If you're sure. Oh, about what you said to Naru about apologizing?"

I took heart and hope at this.

"Yes?"

"Ummm-what did you do to her in Molmol that she's upset about?"

Hope was dashed and my heart ripped out. Even with so obvious and clear a connection, she failed to reason it out. Her brilliance in the sciences and her joy in living still were at odds with a disconnect from basic realities. I sent her to watch the living room TV. Shinobu said something unnecessary as I left to go to my room upstairs-carefully avoiding the increasingly noisy, laughing primates at play in Naru's room.

Shinobu placed her finger against her cheek and half-closed one eye.

"Weee---llll, I guess I'll take a break from world domination for awhile, till I figure out why everyone is so strangely upset about being shot at and arrested."

I felt her distress, but had taken enough of it for then and there.

"Should I now run off in tears, proclaiming Urashima a jerk for failing to get information I failed to give him?"

The peace was evaporating.

"I don't know, Motoko. Maybe I should express my feelings for him via threats of dismemberment?"

I withdrew, and thankfully she said nothing as I did. I heard the noise of their lovemaking as I passed, but wisely chose not to linger. Among Urashima's video treasures I once found a series of cheaply-animated vids wherein a woman made herself merry while spying on a couple in the throes. I may or may not be less uptight now, but I still regard that as pathetic.

"Be well, my friends. Be happy---damn you both."

Inside my room, I elected to toast their dreams having been fulfilled. In a box far inside the closet, I reached for a bottle of sake. The contents of this bottle is only ever to be drunk in smallest doses. It is both too strong and too rare. A master of the art produces these especially for my clan only once during his tenure, and then all must wait until his successor is of age. Wrapped in cloth, kept cool and dry, it is as smooth as it is powerful, and-it is gone.

"How would anyone know what I kept in a hidden recess, out of sight, and never mentioned? Who could find a secret hidden bottle of----sake?"

With stealth, I made my way past the increasingly boisterous lover's lair and into another's room. Ignoring the totally snookered, I obtained the emptied bottle which is rare in and of itself and returned to my room. The contents that should in theory have lasted until the new lovers were new grandparents were gone, and a woman once a sister had in my eyes finally exceeded my limits. Despite hours of meditation with headphones on (those two must each be part elephant), I still said one word over and over, not in friendship but in rage.

"Kitsune!"


END ENTRY

--------------------------

"You were sloppy."

"I know."

"You went way too fast."

"I know."

"You have no technique."

"I know."

"We were both way too nervous."

"Yeah."

She clambered atop him, and looked right into his eyes, squealing one word.

"Again!"

"Oh, yeah."

"Did you just see a light?"

"Probably the sun. We've been at this awhile."

"And so we will be, Mister Narusegawa!"

"Hey! We're not even married yet, and you'll take my name, and...oh who the hell cares?"

Crawling back to her room, a woman not quite cognizant of her immense peril checked the viewscreen on her digital camera.

"I think some glossies are in order. My-how they both have grown!"

Many interesting things were about to happen at the Hinata-Sou. Peace was not among them.

 

[Gojirob]

Chapter Three - Brand Naru Day

----------------------------------------------

HINATA-SOU, EARLY 1990'S

Once upon a time, there was a very serious girl and another very serious girl---who was very serious about never being serious at all.

One was quite intent on her studies, yet also allowed time for dreams and intangibles, this including a promise she wasn't even really sure she made with someone she simply could not remember. She sometimes felt bad about this, because what she could remember of it included that the one she'd made the promise with had been really nice to her when she was in a bad way. But that was the past, and both the promise and her studies pointed to the same future: Tokyo University, called the Harvard or Oxford of Japan, often called by its nickname of Todai.

One was quite the social creature, and her dreams were of yen-or dollars, pounds, marks, francs-tangibles that could be spent. If Madonna had meant a certain song sarcastically, this girl was one of those who took it to heart. She saw nothing wrong with this, and made no apologies for it. Her goals included such things as good food, good sake and lots of guys with big-well big *everything* except guts-and if they had enough dough, the gut thing could be graded on a curve. She did treasure her friends, and she knew she could be and often was a primeval pain in the ass. Her solution was to care about the people she cared about while caring nothing about what they thought of what she did. She had once tried to be cognizant of such things, but she had become one of those nervous wrecks unable to tie their shoelaces and basically apologizing for breathing.

Either improbably or predictably, these two had become fast friends when they had moved into a hotel turned into a girls' dormitory. This wonderful dichotomy, this comic union of opposites, this alignment of opposing magnetic poles is important to note, because the first girl was about to beat the living snot out of the second one.

"Konno-San, you got me in trouble again!"

"Errr-yeah. But, if you really think about it, if not for me, you'd never get in trouble at all."

"Well, I guess you have a point---no you don't! Why do I even bother trying to prevent you from trying to pull your crazy crap? All that happens is, I get in trouble with Grandma and Haruka-San, and then my parents when they call up."

"Maybe you aren't really trying to prevent me-maybe you're just going along for the ride, and using my behavior as cover so you can break out of the box you've built around you."

"Konno-San, why is it that the more outlandish and ridiculous things you say, the crazier the next thing you say always is?"

Mitsune Konno now wished she had gotten a few more drinks in her before a fuming Haruka had dragged them both back by their ears, complaining that a baby cousin whose diapers she had changed had given her less crap. Dealing with her uptight pal would likely drive a monk to the hard stuff.

"I like to build on my previous work, Naru-chan. And for the last time, call me Mitsune. I only put the -Chan on your name at your insistence."

"I don't know. That's awfully familiar, don't you think?"

The sly girl sensed her opening, and for good and ill, it would be something she could never turn down.

"We're friends, aren't we? You moved in this place to be near me. Naru, we're like two sides of the same coin. Night and day. Chaos and Order. Yin and Yang..."

Mitsune pressed up against a stunned Naru, and began to rub just a bit. She moved to slowly caress Naru's hair.

"...Male and Female. I've kept it hidden my entire life, Naru. But my feelings for you won't let me anymore. Everything reminds me of you-except you."

Naru felt her heart race, and could barely stutter a response.

"Y-you-you're a---you have a-aaaa-"

Mitsune pulled away and pointed at her skirt.

"My parents really wanted a girl. It's a lie I've had to live. But for a treasure as priceless as you, Narusegawa-Dono, I must reveal who and what I truly am."

"Price-less? Me?"

She sauntered back up and got close to the shaking Naru.

"Everything about you is priceless. But what's most priceless of all..."

As Naru froze in terror and anticipation of possible seduction or even violation, Mitsune whispered in her ear.

"...what's most priceless of all is the look on your face as you fell for this."

Mitsune pulled back, almost losing her breath as she all but horse-laughed.

"I mean, we've bathed together in the onsen! I must have bent over in front of you how many times? If I had a thing, don't you think you would have spotted it out by now?"

One girl was in her glory, having pulled off the joke of several lifetimes. Another blew off her calm studious demeanor and formed a fist, leaping onto her friend's back, punching her in the head as she screamed.

"I-HAVE-HAD-ENOUGH-OF-YOU!!!"

"OW! Hey! Hey! That hurts! Hey! You're like-OW!-freakishly strong! C'mon, Naru! It was just a-OWWW!!"

Fearing that she might actually hurt her, Naru got off, shaking her head as a stunned Mitsune lay back in bed.

"I just can't take you seriously, can I? I mean, for anything. Anything at all."

The look on Mitsune Konno's face went past the mock-hurt one she was capable of instantly adopting. It was neither as smooth nor as steady as her practiced one, which told Naru Narusegawa that it was very likely real.

"It was just a joke. I'm sorry I tried to break up your planned-out existence. I'm sorry you don't have a sense of humor."

Mitsune turned away on the futon, which led a Naru half-certain she was again being set up to give in and embrace her from behind.

"I do enjoy being here with you, Mitsune-Chan. You make it fun. But it's like you never know when to stop. Even without you around, I know I have to stop studying eventually, and I've seen Haruka-Ryobo go without smokes when she's been through a pack too quickly. There is such a thing as self-restraint, you know."

"Stop, Naru."

"You're still upset?"

Mitsune turned around and looked at her.

"No. But you're making me hard."

Naru's eyes rolled. Mitsune shrugged.

"Like my folks always said - Mitsune is a Kitsune!"

Naru's rage was spent for then, and she prepared to turn in.

"Problem is, foxes get killed by farmers, and turned into fur coats. That could even happen to a fox spirit, if she goes too far. Still waters run deep, ‘Kitsune' Konno-and there won't always be someone there to pull you out-if you know what I'm talking about."

Mitsune prepared to turn in as well. She knew that on that night, there would be no sneaking past both Grandma and Haruka.

"Naru, do you have any porn?"

"Of course not!"

"Damn. We need a guy around here. Guys always have a porn stash you can raid."

"We don't need a guy, and you are changing the subject."

"Meh-I say, just smile for a while and let's get jolly-life shouldn't be so melancholy. Just enjoy the good times while we can."

"That's as empty a philosophy as I ever heard."

"Well, I beg your pardon. Night, Naru."

"Night, *Kitsune*."

When the lights were off, Naru proved herself to be neither so trusting nor so uptight as her friend believed. Mitsune felt something, then yelped.

"Hey! I SAID it was a joke!"

"Just making sure."

----------------


HINATA SOU, 2001

"Is anything wrong?"

After their last and wildest session, she lay on her stomach. Trying to lie on her backside might prove difficult at that point.

"Yes. You are a monster who violated an innocent young girl in the sickest way possible."

"Even though that same young girl rolled around with her back to me, backside in the air, screaming ‘Man Up and just do it---I can take it if you can'?"

Naru managed to turn on her side, still feeling the effects of what she had in fact demanded.

"Welll-I never said I didn't enjoy it."

Keitaro embraced her from behind for the first time in hours without trying to start something.

"Then what's wrong?"

"Why aren't you apologizing, like usual?"

"Because I finally realized you have never been shy about letting me know your moods. Because with us, there will always be a later we can hash things out."

"Keitaro, I don't want to hate her-any of them."

She gently nudged him off and looked at him, ironically affording him a view that, mere months before, would have brought about a flurry of punches and cries for help.

"But in this case, ‘Oh Well, That's Just Us' isn't gonna cut it. I don't expect a hands-and-knees apology. But no guy-even you-justifies screwing around with a sister's dream. I was off balance the entire time I was in Molmol, and the people I count on to help me back up were instead spinning me around and shoving me back down."

Keitaro hated hearing this, and he hated even more seeing her like this, so he tried to take that anger apart piece by piece. Mutsumi had been with them the whole time, so he skipped her.

"Motoko?"

"Offered up a partial apology, promised to explain more. Good enough to take the edge off."

-------------------------

A few hours before, in her room, a girl who felt she was not yet a woman heard a dear friend in theory become one-and a lot more than just once. She was a warrior born, and yet she felt not bold at all.

*Well, at least this time she's not grabbing it, thinking it's soap or a washcloth.*

She tried to think of other things than the motions and laughter tearing through the walls of their home. But the light noises downstairs in the kitchen told her Shinobu had likely been awakened by the sounds of her dream dying on the vine, just as Motoko had by the sounds of her sister's deflowering, prior to fleeing to the Sou.

*You made Shinobu cry, Urashima. Then again, Heaven Help Me, that doesn't seem that hard to do. This won't be your last heart-break, Maehara-Chan-and at least it as by a man who really does hold you in the highest-well, nearly the highest regard and affection.*

The lack of any noise from Su's habitat-like room had to say it all.

*Try and sleep outside your machines' world, my little heart. Have those things you strap to your head and hands stunted your dreaming? Is that why you failed to understand why your friends might be so upset at your behavior in Molmol? I must intervene on your behalf. Yet I am a commoner speaking to a queen. If you choose your rights to ignore my lessons over the love everyone here holds for you, then I fear for us on every level.*

The ornate bottle had been repackaged for shipping back to the Aoyama family shrine. It would not decorate the walls of the one who had emptied its entire precious contents.

*You are not without any conscience and you are not truly cruel, Konno-San. Yet how many times have I had to tell outsiders exactly that? What kind of pass have we come to that we are mooning over one we had dismissed and severely underestimated, while being forced to consider the removal of not one but two sisters?*

Taking sand to blade, Motoko tried like hell to purify herself as well as her sword.

-------------------

"Kanako?"

"Is Crazy."

-------------------------

The Hawaiian Islands Costume Play festival was in full swing. Awards had been given out to a series of brilliant participants. One had gone as legendary racing character Go Mifune, and had easily affected both the voices of the native Katsuji Mori and the American Peter Fernandez when the character was renamed *Speed Racer*. Another had gone as shocking breakthrough character Lucy The Horned Girl, her flesh-colored outfit so well-made that the judges had to check to be sure she wasn't really nude. Three girls had stolen the show as Legion Of Super-Heroes' veteran Triplicate Girl, with two vanishing and reappearing as though by magic. When no less than King Ghidorah appeared, it nearly caused a panic. Scale aside, the people inside had done a master's job at bringing the perennial dakaiju to life. It sneered at several delighted children, and finally at one old woman who was less than impressed.

"Did you never stop and consider that your brother has always been able to see through your disguises, because in his mind, your brother is all he will ever be?"

A dejected girl slid out of the large costume, and the whispers across the convention said the unbelievable, that she had been in every costume that had cleaned out the major awards.

------------------------

"Yeah. She is. Shinobu?"

--------------------------------

It wasn't always a bad thing to be awoken early, she thought, as she diced vegetables as they had never been diced before. She wanted to try a recipe for beef barley soup Sempai had obtained for her from a fancy American restaurant, and now seemed the time to make her first attempt.

The fine powder that had once been the ingredients told her that just maybe she was distracted.

*Couldn't they have rented a room somewhere?*

**Baka! This is a hotel, after all, and he owns it now. Those are both your Sempais. Be happy for them, for they have earned this. Did he ever lead you on? Did it ever really seem like he would choose someone besides her?**

*He had to know how I felt.*

**Then why did you need to confess? You are angry at a man who treated you with kindness and respect. You are angry with the women who you regard as a role model. You are angry with the woman and the girl you wish you were as bold as---**

The second voice in Shinobu's head stopped, then picked up again.

**---okay, those two have been pure assholes and have it coming. But you went along with them, having been burned how many times? Don't let your delight in how free they are keep getting in the way of keeping them from dancing on your feet. You keep this rage in, Maehara, and you will end up like that bespectacled girl on the MTV cartoon.**

*What do I do? What would you have me do?*

**Destroy them all. Make all the Humans pay, for keeping you from your one true love, merely because of your horns.**

*Wha-aa-ut?*

**Just kidding. That speech was meant for another young unrequited. All jokes aside, make this the day. Even if you fall flat on your face, make all of them aware of the way you feel, and how maybe they should have been more aware of it to begin with.**

*I will-and I think I better hit the couch for a while.*

And somewhere across the multiverse of infinite possibilities, an angry young demigod was told by her inner voice to cook up a nice meal for her housemates.

Not that this has anything to do with the residents of the Hinata-Sou


-----------------------


"Shinobu is crazy in love with you, and never shy about wearing it on her sleeve. Part of me wants to slap her for listening to anything Su and Kitsune said, but I've been where she was. Plus, while the rest of you were asleep on the plane back, she tried to apologize for the stunt at Todai being her fault. She thought they were going down so she could confess to you. Like there was anyone who really needed to know where she stood."

"Huh. Even I got her, mostly. Until Molmol, I didn't realize how it was tearing her apart-or really, that I was the sort of guy who could place a girl as cute and sweet as her in that position."

She hit him in the arm.

"Baka! A girl doesn't get over her Sempai."

He made a fist and slowly shoved her in the arm with it.

"Oh?! Should I worry? Should Auntie?"

She lay back, and did a stretch that made the blood vessels in his nose take notice, as they had not for a few months.

"Always."

-----------------

"You called them this early-or late?"

Haruka shrugged.

"Once a House-Moth-errr-Monitor, always one. I only got Shinobu, about to go back to bed. There were-Heh-loud boisterous noises in the background. Squeals and moans of pleasure."

Seta smiled as well, but then seemed torn.

"I hope it goes alright for her. The boy has determination, but often no technique, when approaching new things."

Haruka lit a cigarette, sensing that Sarah was soon to show her American side as regarded attitudes toward tobacco.

"I wouldn't worry. After all---"

She puffed deeply.

"I liked his technique just fine."

Seta began to chuckle along with her, until both heard a noise from the next room.

"Eeeewwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!"

Then came the inevitable, synchronized response:

"Go to sleep, Sarah!"

"Yeah, right-with that nightmare image burned into my tender brain."

 

[Gojirob]

Keitaro went for broke.

"Su?"

Her lovely face shifted.

"I want to feel the same way I do about Shinobu. I try to shrug it all off and say that we did have fun, and I guess we did-but that fun was after, and in retrospect. During it, I began to be terrified that they'd all lost their minds."

She sat up, and brought her legs to her chest.

"How could she do all that? It's one thing to bounce around, be a bit annoying to a lot annoying, and make efforts to help that make a crazy situation crazier-I mean, none of us are going to be casting the first stone on that one."


--------------------------------

She hadn't even realized the cameras were recording all that time. Her video log had been a casualty of her short attention span, and recessed as they were, they had been missed by both herself and the saboteur.

"Oh, No! Please...that can't be true."

Kaolla Su now wished that they had been destroyed as well. It wasn't just who she saw spreading the magnets.

"She's smiling...and muttering."

Was she possessed by the spirits of the annex, or maybe the ancient Molmolian thief? Hadn't Sarah mentioned something about that?

"Shinobu, why?"

Everything was so right now, wasn't it? Her Japanese Onii and Onee Chans were together and happy, just like her Molmolian ones, and hadn't they all had fun in Molmol? Weren't they happy that their dear friend was a secret princess? She also realized that Shinobu hadn't been the only one acting strangely since they got back. They had all been talking with one another, except for Kitsune, who she had meant to tell about a bottle Su saw her take from Motoko's room, but a cardinal she saw outside pulled her attention away. In any event, they had not been talking with her.

"Even Motoko."

The world outside the real world, where there always seemed to be a dozen reasons why you can't tell the people you love that you do, and so many other reasons why you can't just demonstrate that love (just why couldn't Keitaro be all of theirs?), once again overwhelmed the mind of a girl capable of out-thinking most models of modern physics theory.

"If even Motoko won't tell me something..."

She drifted off to sleep, ironically finding the noises of lovemaking a comfort like unto a lullaby.

-----------------------


Keitaro concurred without comment or nod as Naru kept on.

"But she kidnapped us both-was ready to peel you like a grape-used her army to hunt all of us around perdition's flame---"

She lost her train of thought, and he picked up.

"She said she ‘just wanted' to have both me and Motoko forever, and bring the Sou over to Molmol-it's not like she doesn't care about the rules, so much as she still doesn't get the vast majority of them. She's so bright, it's hard to realize that, and she's so sweet, it's hard to see her as a spoiled brat. I don't even think she is, but all I could think while she was taking down my underwear was that at some point, every kid needs to be told a real ‘No', and I don't think she ever has."

"Oh-that's all you were thinking, as the pretty young princess prepared to give you mouth-to-not-mouth?"

Her smile told him he was safe.

"She's as cute as she can be-but the unreality of all that was going on and her casual attitude towards it all was a hell of a focusing device. Naru, give Motoko and me a chance to straighten her out. Now that we finally know her level of disconnect, I think we can drill past all those layers of ‘do what you want'."

"Without crushing her spirit?"

He put a hand on her shoulder.

"She called me Onii-Chan in her sleep. It may be the fight of our lives, but we can get through to her before someone of harsher intent and manners has the chance. Kaolla Su is a pain worth having around."

That left one name.

"Kitsune."

At that, Naru actually began to tear up.

--------------------

*Strong Sake.*

She had no idea. The elixir she had all but chugged was made by a vintner said by some to have an ancestor who brewed the mead that kept Amaterasu The Sun from going back to her cave too often.

*Got really snookered. Have to get some more of that from Motoko.*

Motoko indeed had something to give her, but to paraphrase Bela Lugosi, it was to not to be paid in wine.

*Uh-oh-smells good. What are you cooking up, Shinobu?*

Not breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack. Shinobu was contemplating Kitsune's desserts. Maybe with Kitsune herself as an ingredient.

*Su-wanted to know if somebody was in her room. Heh-don't we all wish-almost all. There was someone-but that show about the four grandmothers talking sex and food was on, so just lock your door next time, kid.*

Kaolla Su was not angry with Kitsune, a fact in which she was possibly unique. That said, she did have a rude surprise waiting for her one-time mercenary commander of forces.

*Use my bonus-to get some mileage on Mutsumi. Then again, saw a picture of Sarah's Mom. May have to go all-out in the boob wars.*

Mutsumi, who was calmly walking to a coastal train station, had no worries at all. One, she could almost sense that her beloved childhood playmates had begun to play in earnest. Two-women in her family had a habit of increasing bust size well into their 50's without a hint of sagging and not much wrinkling, to hear her grandmother's 18-year-old boyfriend tell it.

*Did those two finally stop? Hey, wait-did I do something to them last night? Maybe I peed on the floor outside their room? Something like that. Can't think right now. But I know it must have been a good one. But---maybe they don't need to loosen up anymore. Maybe they don't need old Kit--*

The thought was terminated and she began to have an odd dream where she deliberately exposed her chest to Keitaro. It had to be a dream, because he didn't fly apart when she did.

She was about to have *one of those days*, magnified by enormous psychological and karmic payback. For then and there, the trickster-goddess of the Hinata-Sou slept it off and muttered.

"Why is it always the right one? Nothing wrong with the left one."

-----------------


"I love Kitsune. I know that without her, I would have vegetated in my room, and either studied myself blind or to death. You wouldn't have had any worries about beatings-I'dve never noticed you if you -well, if you took by force what I gave you last night. Where you were just a little while ago is where I had my head."

She closed her eyes, and tried to avoid letting those tears out.

"But it's always been a debt here, a broken promise there, a boy stolen this day, a boy she felt didn't make the cut turned away without telling me the next day, a prank that gets us both in trouble followed up by a prank that just makes me look foolish. Not to mention the countless times she's gotten blasted and done that stupid ‘pick a favorite' thing-or just forced me to drag her sorry ass back to the Sou."

She opened them and looked him in the eye.

"I always accepted her explanations that it was to keep things from getting boring, and to shake things up in a society where the rules always have ten reasons why you can't do anything. Believe me, if anyone had ever said the things I'm saying, I would have defended her tooth and nail-in fact I have. She loves life and living it, and it can be infectious. I know she also loves money, and since it can make life easier, I never really faulted her for it."

They drew closer together.

"Now, though? This wasn't just some boy she tried to steal-and not even because she fell for him. She stood literally blocking the doorway to a dream I'd told her about till she was ready to faint if I did it even one more time. Then, she either used a girl who didn't know better or threw in with a tyrant to hold me against my will-no mention of a game, and no actions to cause me to believe it was just a game. Now, I can't help but feel the crazy greedy idiot who couldn't get that a rope can burn through a shirt and that a whip doesn't care if you meant to crack it near someone without hitting them---"

She finally began to cry.

"---I can't help but feel that, once and for all, this was her true face!"

He let her tears flow, and when they had reached a natural break, he spoke.

"Then you have to confront her. Don't let her shrug it off, or use any defense until you get what you want from her. I don't envy you trying. From losing jobs because of her to attempts to pay rent through boob-grabs to being sometimes four months out on her rent-she's only three right now-to pranks galore, she can be a trip."

"She's been a friend, but she's also been a boil on my butt for a lot longer than you've been around."

"Then lance that boil. Either she can once and for all get why you're upset, or at least figure out that you're upset, or---"

He let the other option go. Banishing one of their friends from their lives was all but unthinkable.

"Well, I have to see her this morning anyway. She borrowed my digital camera while in Toudai, and I need it to take pictures of my classroom to try and figure out the seating arrangements before term begins."

"Okay. Are we on for tonight?"

An option offered up by mistake in Molmol had been offered again-and this time, taken.

"Mutsumi should be back from seeing her family by Five this afternoon. You still have to talk to Shinobu. God---I really don't want to leave your side."

"You? I feel like we just got here after waiting an eternity. Hey? Can I say something to Shinobu? It's kind of over the line, but I hate having her in so much doubt."

He whispered it, even though they were alone, and she now found this caution adorable.

"You better say it to her, pal. If anyone ever needed to hear it said outright, it's her."

They kissed deeply, and then made for the washroom together to save time as well as not part until they had to. Keitaro headed downstairs to talk to a Shinobu who he would, by day's end, understand better than ever. Naru made for Kitsune's room to retrieve a camera that had more than just coastlines and relics recorded on it. It was the break of day, and it would be a breaking day.

 

[Gojirob]

Chapter Four - Kei's Buffeted Buffet

-----------------------------------------------------------

HINATA-SOU, EARLY 1990'S

"I want her out!"

Grandma Hina Urashima sighed at her granddaughter and adopted child's ultimatum.

"Why has this incident become your tipping point, as concerns young Konno-Chan?"

Haruka was shaking so hard with fury, she couldn't even light a cigarette.

"Incident-wise, this almost doesn't rate. Kitsune---"

"Mitsune, child. Calling her a cute name does nothing to change her and instead invests her trickster nature with power she will use against you. In fact, any struggle with one so far your junior empowers them by raising them up in their own eyes."

"Okay---Mitsune-has done far worse, including landing in local constables' lock-up. But Grandma, it is continual. Worse, she either drags Naru-chan along or drives her to distraction. If we start bringing in girls younger than them, they could even see her as a role model. I'll go work in Auntie and Uncle's bakery before I'll raise a whole house of Kitsunes."

Grandma sat down and shook her head.

"All my grandchildren are so troubled. The dour nihilist, the crybaby dreamer and the little drama queen. Heaven allow me to see the day they become the tender realist, the determined goal-seeker, and the stage-mistress. Haruka, if we were to send Konno-Chan away, where will she be in six months?"

It had crossed her mind.

"Pregnant, reduced to slavery-maybe both."

"Indeed. She was sent here largely to ease her parents' blood pressure. I only agreed to take her because of the debt I owe to the one who sealed off the Forbidden Annex. Outside of here, she will be eaten alive by the sort of predator she merely thinks she is. She is much like you were at that age."

"Even during the worst of it, I listened on occasion. She laughs off lessons, threats, and consequences-how am I to be Ryobo with her in a constant state of giving me the finger?"

"You must turn her force against her. A lack of attention will eventually cause a leveling-out of her worst antics. Also, a trickster serves several purposes. She loosens up those who take themselves too seriously. She also serves as a negative example. Far from emulating her, other girls living here will learn what not to be like. They will snicker admiringly sometimes, but at a remove. In time, she will use up even that grudging admiration. Sadly, it will take a Sapporo to bring her to her senses."

Haruka shook her head.

"Sapporo? I'm missing something there."

Grandma got back up and resumed her duties.

"Sapporo was to have been the site of the third atom bomb explosion, had the Emperor not overcome the fascists and issued the surrender. At least, it is one such target on a long list of potential targets. I have always liked Sapporo, and perhaps this influences my belief that it too could have been taken from us. "

Haruka felt a chill that her grandmother read quite easily.

"I've never heard you discuss all that-how you were there for both of them."

"We who lived owe a debt of remembrance to those who passed. But it is not enough to recall the terrible wrath the Americans unleashed upon our land. We must also ask the harder question-would a proud and ancient nation have finally surrendered, without those two sobering fires? I do not know. But Hirohito knew that it was done, and Tojo did not. The wisdom to walk away from any path, even a successful one, is not cheaply earned."

"So what you're saying is, we have to nuke Kitsune? Because I'll gladly join the US Navy to get access, at this point."

Grandma Hina shrugged.

"One would hope that there will never be another such use. At least this is part of my daily prayers. As for Mitsune, it may be that the blows that awaken her will not need to be bone-breaking or earth-shattering, but rather ones that her wary gaze misses entirely before they land. But whether it is thunder in the sky or a thief in the night, that blow will come, because fate demands it. So she stays---but do not tell her this. Lay out terms of a three-month probation of the strictest sort. That will give us some quiet time, in any event."

"Grandma-uhhh?"

"No, the atom bombs are not the explanation for your durability."

Haruka bowed and left her grandmother's presence. As she walked into the room shared by Mitsune Konno and Naru Narusegawa, Naru took the hint and cleared out, meeting Mitsune's gaze with a mixed look of anger and support. Haruka laid out the terms.

"Welll-I'll consider them."

"You'll do them. No give, no leeway. And this is now just Naru's room. I won't burden her with the pointless task of trying to watch over you anymore."

"You can't hold me back, Haruka. At my core, I'm a rebel."

Haruka flicked her across her upturned nose.

"No. I'm a rebel."

Haruka opened the door to Mitsune's new, much smaller room.

"You're an idiot, and what's more, you are one who I just cannot take seriously."

Haruka walked away, not seeing the very hurt look on Mitsune's face.

"Bitch."

Haruka heard, but did not respond. Eventually, she even saw the fullness of Grandma's wisdom. At times, it was easier to see than others.

-------------------------

HINATA-SOU, 2001

If events had been ripe for a while, they were now overripe.

"Good Morning, Sempai."

Keitaro saw the tired look on his dear young friend's pretty face.

"Did we-did we keep you up?"

Her small smile was not entirely forced, but nor was it at its most sincere.

"You two were pretty enthusiastic. But no-I've had some trouble sleeping, since we got back from Molmol. I guess-maybe it's the time zone change-or something. Besides, I needed to clean some of my things after I woke up a few hours ago."

Things like her undergarments and sheets, when the ‘enthusiasm' of the new lovers had finally driven her to distraction. Keitaro didn't pick up on this, precisely, but he now felt worse than ever at having not picked up on the fact that Shinobu's heart was his to break.

"I guess we did get a bit loud. It was our first time, after all."

"No, Sempai-it was your first time, and it was hers. It was not ours."

"Shinobu---"

"I'm sorry. There's something wrong with me, Sempai. Like poison in my blood-and it's not just because of you two."

He put his hand on her shoulder, which was neither bare nor completely covered. That hand felt like a blast furnace to her, and she wanted it to burn on through. She had even thought of greeting him wearing one of *those* kinds of aprons. But she was cooking with grease that morning, and the lack of cover could have proven very problematic.

"Shinobu-I want you to have dinner with me tonight."

Her heart raced. Maybe the dream was not dead after all.

"What if Sempai Naru finds out?"

Keitaro almost wished he were back in the days of his worst cluelessness.

"She already knows. She'll be having dinner with Mutsumi at the same time. We want to tell you both something."

No, thought Shinobu. The dream was very much dead. Though she would still try and revive it.

"Of course, Sempai. I look forward to it."

*Damn you both. Trying to salve your guilty consciences, Sempais Iscariot?*

**Stop. Think. A couple with the biggest announcement possible is making you one of the first to be told-maybe even before blood relations. Save your rage for them that have it coming. Speaking of whom...**

Kaolla Su entered the kitchen, but her beeline for Shinobu was cut off by the new landlord.

"Su, this is important. You have to immediately re-register with Immigration Services, or face deportation hearings."

Her confusion was evident.

"But Keitaro-I have my passport, plus a diplomatic visa, with sovereign immunity status."

He shook his head.

"While Naru-err-segawa and I were headed back from Todai, someone from the government who knew you were living here told us. Due to the violation of Japanese air space by the Molmolian airships pursuing Seta, your government's refusal to apologize for the incident-and apparently, your brother suplexing the Crown Prince in an unannounced wrestling match-relations between the two countries have been severed. When they'll resume is anyone's guess."

Su could not realize that the confused look on her face while hearing these simple facts was deeply irritating both the man she had pursued so fiercely and the friend she had accidentally stripped via rocket-pack and then locked up to keep her and the others from pursuing that same man.

"But we were pursuing a thief who had taken one of our most sacred artifacts."

"No, Su-Seta never took that, remember? Now, he could have called you and said he wanted to turn it in, but still..."

Su cut Keitaro off.

"He did."

"He did-what?"

"He called our embassy and said that he wanted to turn it in."

She smiled.

"That's how we knew to go after him, so we could get it back."

Shinobu very briefly forgot her anger at both of them, and rushed a chair beneath Keitaro, which caught him just as he fell back at hearing this. A look passed between the friends, strained as things had become and would become.

*Thanks, Kid.*

*You are and shall always be my sempai-you love-blind jerk.*

Keitaro got back up, and picked up the phone.

"Auntie? I need Seta. Yeah, it is. Seta? Ummm-Keitaro. Aggghhh-Keitaro Urashima. You married my aunt, my girlfriend is your protégé, you left your daughter in my care, and spent a year with me in the US. How long?-less than a week ago!"

Su laughed gently.

"He is such an airhead."

Shinobu decided she must have already fallen into Hell.

"Yes-no. His housemates are mostly aliens. No-my grandfather never abused me, that was someone else. No! She doesn't have a tail and build inventions---Seta, if you're playing with me, now is not the ---Auntie? Ohhhhh-cleaning off some of his archeological finds---dust in his lungs-plus he's an idiot anyway---no I won't become like him, I promise. Auntie-did he place a call to the Molmol Embassy in Tokyo before trying to return the artifact? His cell phone log says he did. Okay. Yeah, next time, just ask you, got it. Bye, Auntie."

He hung up. He picked Kaolla Su up by the shoulders, and plopped her on the common area couch.

"Su-why didn't your agents simply meet with Seta, fly back to Molmol, and place the sacred item back where it belongs?"

She placed her finger to her cheek, and half-closed one eye.

"They calculated a 98% chance that they could get the artifact back that way. But, they calculated a 100% certainty if we went out in force."

Keitaro knew this girl was often amused by his outbreaks of rage, so he fought to keep it in. Having retrieved the digital camera from the barely-awake Kitsune's room, Naru joined a situation already in regress.

"Hey, Shinobu-what's going on?"

"Sempai and I were each about to tear our own hair out-scalp first."

The conversation between Keitaro and Su rapidly filled in the whys of that statement. Motoko emerged from her morning rooftop katas as he began again.

"Su-listen to me. You could have prevented that entire sequence of events in Molmol. Nothing that happened last week had to occur."

"But-that would have been pretty dull. The way it happened was a lot more exciting!"

In fact, they all did have fun in that small island nation. But that fun was mixed with and surrounded by not a small amount of terror and worry for their lives and freedom. Keitaro also knew that Seta probably could have found a way other than the one he chose to respond to the Molmolian insanity. That said, he had mostly done the sage sane thing in this case, and it was increasingly looking like their princess had played a larger role in events that had seemed random.

"The way it happened may seem more exciting to a psychopath!"

The eyes in the room turned and looked at Shinobu, who shrugged.

"Sorry---to a socio-path."

Su stepped around Keitaro and made her case plain.

"My cameras caught you, Shinobu! Why did you destroy all my equipment?"

Keitaro and Naru were expecting anything except what Shinobu said.

"Did it make you sad when I did that?"

"Yes!"

The small, well-satisfied smile was all the more unnerving for who it was worn by.

"Then that's why."

"But that's so mean! You've never been mean!"

The smile faded as the hurt girl began to tick off a list of wrongs.

"Let's try never telling any of your closest friends except one where you come from."

"I thought Japanese people were private about those things."

"Let's try strapping a jet pack onto me that burns my skirt and panties off, giving Sempai a grand view---for all the good it did."

Naru would remember that one, and not because she wanted to.

"But you've both seen each other naked a whole bunch of times. You told me one time that his thing was so cute..."

"That's not the point!"

"And I could tell this one time he was almost hypnotized by your butt. It was all glistening from just out of the onsen, and you had a tan that made you look almost like Nyamo..."

"You're still not listening, that was...ummm-hypnotized?---No! You're still not listening. All I said before the jet pack was that I wanted to get over to him. All I wanted that day was to get close enough to him to say---"

Shinobu turned and looked at Keitaro, and found that rage and nerves struck her silent, at least as regarded three little words. Keitaro, for his part, borrowed words from an actor who had portrayed among other things, a space smuggler and a fellow archeologist.

"I Know."

At that moment, in her heart, she forgave the man she loved for not loving her back and a woman like a sister for being the one to win that love. But Shinobu Maehara still had mistakes aplenty ahead of her.

"You don't know what those words mean to me, Sempai-Sempais. And I'm sorry that, after such lovely words, said by one of you and approved by the other-I still have to say these words to someone else I once loved."

Su shrank inside.

"Once loved?"

Shinobu's glare was not something her housemates ever wished to see again.

"You treat love and marriage as a game. You treat jailing people-your friends-as a move in that game. You would have forced Keitaro to marry you. Am I right?"

"Well, not forced. I just would have issued an edict. It is my kingdom, Shinobu."

"And we were your friends! You put us in prison---"

"It was a nice prison, and you did damage it when you escaped."

"You had armed guards holding us---"

"They only really fired on Keitaro, and he doesn't count."

"He counted enough to kidnap both him and Sempai Naru-not to mention telling us sign on to your army or stay in prison."

"That was Kitsune's idea, and now you're complaining that I let you out of prison? I guess everyone had fun except you, Shinobu. That's no reason to do such a rotten thing as destroying all my stuff."

"So it really took my breaking your stupid toys to even get into your head that your friends might not approve of the way you abused your power?"

Su folded her arms and smiled.

"ONE of my former friends, who, by the way, will suffer the ultimate punishment---"

Su summoned a stern look, and then raised her right hand in the air, as though to also summon the elements. Her voice was booming...

"Eternal banishment from Molmol!"

...her blow was like that of a couch pillow-a foam one. Shinobu shook her head at this ‘damning' punishment.

"If you think I would ever willingly set foot in that backwater jungle ever again, you must be as clueless as you seem, and that, Princess, frankly astounds me!"

"You-you take that back! Just because you didn't have fun..."

Keitaro finally stepped in.

"Stop it, both of you. Shinobu, regardless of how you feel, destroying someone else's property like that is something I will never again tolerate-even from you."

Before so much as a Yes Sempai could escape her lips, he pointed her back to the kitchen. Then, he turned on Su. To both Motoko and Naru, to see the stumbler and bumbler, however beloved nowadays, taking charge so effectively was both alluring and surreal.


"Su, I don't approve of what Shinobu did. But she was far from the only one upset by how you acted in Molmol. And now that we know you and your people jumped the gun. We love you-"

"Speak for yourself!"

Naru took Shinobu back into the kitchen, and handed her the digital camera.

"I know you're upset, but you're not helping."

"Sempai, I've had nightmares of being locked up."

Naru turned, and raised the back of her sweater. Though lighter now, rope burns and welts were still visible. Shinobu gasped. Naru nodded as she turned back around.

"Tell me about it."

"Sempai, can you forgive me?"

"Shinobu, didn't you let him go so he could save me?"

"Yes---but I didn't want to. I wanted to hold him in there until he-"

"But you didn't. You were the last one to succumb to that madness, and the first one to wake up from it. Plus-"

The bright infectious smile on Naru's face touched the soul of her young rival as surely as it had the man they'd both fallen for despite a dozen mitigating factors.

"To my mind, you're the reason he stuck around, in those early days. Your kindness and warmth may have just negated the contempt and suspicion the rest of us showed. I think I owe you my happiness."

Shinobu felt ashamed, because, while not in a vicious way, she would soon move to at least mitigate Naru's happiness.

"Now-take my camera and review the pictures Kitsune took in Molmol. I only just got it back from her-typical. Automatically delete any out of focus or dark shots, so I can free up memory space. While you do that, I'll ride shotgun on their talk with Su."

 

[Gojirob]

Back in the common area, Keitaro kept on.

"Su, Shinobu is far from the only one upset with you about your actions in Molmol."

"Keitaro?"

"Yes?"

Her eyes looked at him in apparent confusion.

"You're talking like I did something wrong. But everything I did is allowed of Molmol's ruling family."

Keitaro sighed openly. A jog to clear the head had just become a marathon. He looked at Motoko.

"If I reach inside your clothes far enough, can you have my head off quickly and cleanly?"

In times past, such a question, however pleadingly asked, would have had both women present making him sorry he was ever born. But now Motoko merely shook her head.

"You're not getting off that easy, Urashima. This has just become a battle for our girl's very soul. Naru, will you support us in this?"

Naru nodded, despite feelings for Su nearly as tender as Motoko's. She began the sad but necessary assault.

"People aren't dolls, Su. They aren't pieces in a chess game or any other game."

Keitaro felt a knot in his stomach. No man with an interest in women could help but not be flattered on some level by a young beautiful princess willing to go to those lengths to have him. But her response not only lacked remorse, it lacked even the notion that she understood the possibility that she had been in the wrong. He thought he couldn't feel any worse. The day was young.

"You failed to think anything through, from the way in which you assaulted our entrance to Todai, to the way you prosecuted your nation's efforts to recover the artifact, to jailing and kidnapping your dearest friends. These things are wrong, whatever your authority, whatever part you played in planning them, and wherever they are done. Without exception."

If her friends winced at having to verbally slap Kaolla Su, for Motoko Aoyama, it was a pain that exceeded slowly tearing out her heart and spine while reciting the entirety of Journey To The West.

"You have asked to be my student. You have asked me for instruction on how to be a just ruler. It has become hideously evident-that I have failed you. Remedial instruction is required, and what is more, your performance in these new lessons will determine nothing less than-"

*I must do this. This is the time Tsuruko was unrelenting with me. The eggshell in her case is ignorance not fear, and it must be shattered for her to grow into the queen I know she can be.*

"-than whether or not you will be able to remain with us at the Hinata-Sou. This will occur late tonight. Be prepared."

As expected, the news struck her like a thunderclap.

"Please don't hate me!"

The cauterizing of the wound they would rather have died than inflict began with Keitaro, using the crush that had driven many of her innocent but offensive actions.

"Not you. Never you. We hate what you did."

"But we had fun and no one was hurt-you all said that! And I gave up when I lost."

Naru, the one who had in theory ‘beaten' her in ‘the game' stood as a true champion does, without gloating or contempt for a rival, but rather a helping hand.

"What we said was true, but it was also said during a rush of emotions-much like the one you made your choices in. Such words and actions cannot always be trusted. We had fun in your game, Su. But you never asked if we wanted to play. Given a choice, we might very well have, or very well might not have. You made us afraid, a lot more than you made us thrilled, and you shouldn't mistake the fact that no one was hurt to think that no one could have been hurt. You lost when you played a game too large and too wild to guarantee our safety and well-being."

"You'd really send me away?"

Motoko placed her hand on Su's chest, right over her heart.

"You have the power to stop that, but not through edict or armed soldiers. But by rising to the challenge we present you with. Will you fight the enemy? Will you fight yourself?"

Su turned and walked in the direction of her room. Her eyes were closed, but obviously, she was in tears.

"I will. I will rise to your challenge. Please understand-I don't know what you are all talking about, or what has you so angry at me. But I await your judgment and I will accept it---"

She turned back, her eyes opened and reddened but with a regal glint.

"Because I love you all, and it is that love that I acted on. I trust in you to tell me why that's so wrong."

She entered her room, and inside said one word, a name of someone at who she directed her pain and confusion.

"Shinobu!"

Back in the living/common area, Keitaro breathed in.

"Doing that almost made me nostalgic for my first night at the inn, and your angry faces threatening to melt me by look alone."

Naru closed her eyes.

"I pray to God we never have to do that to one of our own kids, someday. But it's good to know we have it in us-I guess. Still, I'd give up half my strength to make that become unnecessary."

Motoko stared in the direction the hurt young girl had gone.

"If I fail, I fail her, we all fail ourselves-and she will not be the only one to leave this place for good."

The nostalgia Keitaro cited for a simpler time of private parts touched and viewed and insults exchanged was felt by all of them. But the time when a stammering explanation and a (sometimes/often) unjustly savage beating could relieve the tension was done with. To save what they had, the battle would have to be fought inside the heart. And the war would get wider.


-----------------------

In the kitchen, Shinobu was calming down, reviewing the pictures of the beauty and splendor that was Molmol. Kitsune actually had a good eye for scenery, and even caught a few action shots of events that at the time seemed insane and terrifying-and still did-though perspective was beginning to creep in.

*Don't get excited, Su. Retrospect isn't going to give you blanket amnesty, this time around. And Kitsune? How about using that scheming mind of yours more often in creating beauty like these photos, than in making all of us hate y---than in raising our blood pressure?*

She didn't like reminding herself to stay mad, and by turns, she wasn't much liking herself of late. But if she let those two off like always, then it was just asking for the next Molmol. What if they decided to kidnap Sempais' newborn child, making them run an obstacle course and being in some kind of insane game show, in order to make things ‘fun'? Someone was going to get hurt. The pain in her heart kept telling her someone had.

Some shots were automatically deleted, as were duplicates. One caught her Sempais just sitting together, with Naru's broad smile (her sexy smile, Shinobu admitted) in view, like she was asking Keitaro a question.

*Damn. You got out of jail again, Kitsune. No one who could catch a moment like that could be all bad. Just please go five months-five weeks?-Go one day without pulling some stunt, and I will climb down from my witchy throne. I can even give you some leeway, Kaolla Su, provided you catch on to the thought that even a well-furnished jail is still a jail, and that putting your friends in it is still a lousy thing to do. That and maybe a tactical description of pulling down Sempai's underwear will go a long way.*

Her thoughts briefly flew back to Molmol. She imagined herself, not Sempai Naru, bursting in on Su's seduction/violation attempt, knocking the clueless Princess back and disarming all her guards. She then walked up to Keitaro, underwear still on its way down. Before she could cut him free and maybe finish the ‘job' Su had intended to start, she looked down and saw Naru, said task already in progress.

***Fnks, Shinbu. I rlly apprcit yur hlp.***

She broke from the fantasy, envying Keitaro a guy's ability to have those kinds of fantasies without losing control of them.

*You shouldn't talk with your mouth full, Naru-err, Sempai Naru.*

She calmed herself yet again. She had found a way to accept her Sempais, to probationally forgive Kitsune, and to keep from caber-tossing Su across the ocean to Molmol. They were back at home, and aside from onsen intrusions and beatdowns, nothing was going to put her off her mark any longer.

As is said, cue sound.

"What's in this picture? That man and woman are leaning awfully close together. It's almost like they're joined at the...Sempai?"

She felt her blood shift uncomfortably. Everything she had tried to put out of her mind was now almost literally in her face-and this time, it wasn't hard to see at all. The angle and the lack of awareness of the subjects meant that it had not been deliberately taken, as if they would. The one who had been most recently using the camera said volumes about the photographer's identity.

She knew her Sempais had been victimized, but to see such a carnal image only roiled up hurt feelings over being the one not chosen. Forgiveness fell away for the uncaring prankster and the girl who had made what was meant to be a tender confession into an insane roller-coaster ride.

*It should be me in there-errr---I mean, there in me---aggggghhhhh*

**But they look so beautiful and happy together.**

*It-should-be-ME!!!*

"It's just a picture of two people who really love each other, who you love, and who love you. You have no right to resent them. The one who took this, on the other hand? Them, you have a right to hate."

After a few minutes, Shinobu again half-tenderly, half-enraged, reviewed a very certain picture and said two things as a result.

"Why me? Sempai Naru-you better have a look at this."

Done with Su for now, Naru took the camera, noting that Shinobu almost seemed reluctant to relinquish it. Recognition was immediate, and so was realization. Motoko saw the looks on their faces as she walked over, and out of curiosity took the camera from a furiously shaking Naru. Her reaction was that of a proper samurai, observing traditions both real and idealized.

"What The F***?"

Even given what was on the camera, heads turned to hear this said by Motoko, who looked now doubly embarrassed. Naru shrugged.

"Well, technically, that is an accurate description of the picture."

"What picture?"

Motoko drew her sword on Keitaro.

"Pervert! You---"

She stopped.

"...were in the privacy of your own room, and had no idea this was being taken."

He moved to look at the camera, and once again Motoko drew her sword on him.

"Urashima! Do not look at that picture!"

Shinobu raised a finger in the air.

"Motoko? I think he might have seen everything in it already."

If sober forethought was not (and likely never would be) a hallmark of the Hinata-Sou's residents, it was very much in evidence here. But since it was born of rage and shock, it cannot be called for a healthy development. Motoko handed over the camera.

"You were right, Naru. It does get to be a habit."

Keitaro looked, and then shut off the camera. He looked upstairs at the door to Kitsune's room. He looked at Shinobu, and bowed-nodded as though to apologize. He looked at the woman he loved, and saw assent for a difficult choice in her eyes.

"Motoko-I must honor Auntie's wishes."

"I understand, Urashima."

"To that end, I have to crunch some numbers. I have to make things one hundred twenty percent clear, so that Auntie will fully understand when the inevitable occurs. Please support Naru in whatever course she pursues."

"I would anyway. I have my own issues with her."

Shinobu felt no more kindly disposed towards the unnamed individual, but looked concerned.

"Are we actually going to do it this time?"

Keitaro punched the wall.

"We'll do this fairly, offer her a chance. But I can no longer believe in her enough to think that she'll be smart enough to take it."

Naru shook her head.

"Keitaro, I can't let this one go."

"No one's asking you to, Narusegawa. Just please leave the final choice to me."

"You got it. She's gonna pull out all the stops, though."

As he turned and looked at the three, the coldness of his gaze could have scared off The Terminator, and this was not the natural state of Keitaro Urashima.

"Let Her."

He marched upstairs heedless of the noise. His loud footsteps as he entered his new room could easily have raised the dead-or one who was now very nearly dead to them. As she at last roused, downstairs Shinobu tried to deal with the raw feelings that had been freshly re-stirred by the photo of her raw friends.

"Sempai Naru?"

"Yes, Shinobu?"

"I am sorry I saw the picture. But I must confess that you were beautiful together."

"Seconded, Narusegawa."

Naru heard the room upstairs open, and heard hangover-driven stumbling she knew all too well.

"I thank you both. But I've had one special night delayed by selfishness, and now I've had one violated-for sake of a-I don't know what the hell she was going to do with it. Your words are kind. But the most any of you should have ever gotten about that night should have come from me at my bachelorette party."

They got up when they heard the footsteps on the stairwell.

"Even if she tricks her way out of this, she is going to hear this morning ringing in her ears when she's 80!"

Shinobu grasped her iron skillet.

"If she makes it to that."

Motoko unsheathed her sword.

"I find that possibility extremely doubtful."

Kitsune stumbled down the steps, smiling and laughing a bit. She saw the grim faces of the three below her.

"Okay-what did Keitaro do now?"

The three were completely silent. Despite senses dulled by rare and strong sake, she began to sense peril, and hoped-vainly-that it wasn't her own.

"That bad, huh? Boy, that moronic pervert. Tell ya what-I'll go and talk to him. I can straighten him out."

As she attempted to turn tail, Motoko used the stairwell railing as a brace and jumped around her, to block her retreat. Kitsune looked briefly over the same railing, only to see Shinobu waiting with skillet firmly in hand. Feigning an air of indifference, she shrugged at Naru.

"Ummm---things to do, people to see, Hello!? Just what is all this about?"

Naru held up the viewscreen on the back of her camera, and then showed the damning picture. Making sure Kitsune knew the jig was up, she then deleted it. Both of Kitsune's eyes went wide and were fully visible.

"O---kay. Now, I know this looks bad---for me. But hey! If I never got to make use of it, then it really isn't a prank, is it? Errr-is it?"

Naru picked Kitsune up bodily, and threw her into a chair Shinobu had waiting. Shinobu and Motoko took her sides, while Naru stood in front, and pointed.

"You Have So Got To Die."

 

[Gojirob]

Chapter Five - Packing A Fox Lunch

-------------------------------------

HINATA-SOU, EARLY 1998

One American balladeer said it: Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes.

Hinata Urashima began a vacation that would take up the rest of a long, loving life full of great-grandchildren (official and otherwise) that happily, she would not have to raise herself (though trying to keep her entirely out of the loop on such things was deucedly unwise, not to mention pointless.)

She had said what was thought to be a temporary goodbye to all her daughters. The oldest of them maybe sensed something was afoot, and girded herself to be Ryobo without back-up.

The sweetest of them wept about having to do without her, even for a little bit. Knowing well how to deal with cry-babies, she predicted the girl might soon have a boyfriend.

The wildest of them was hanging upside down, hoping the blood rushing to her brain would enable her to finally enable a trans-temporal portal, minus the use of a gravity well, the kind that created the Great Crater Of Molmol.

The most fearful and yet the bravest of them demonstrated a series of sword katas she disturbingly called ‘Instant Capon'. Hinata warned her that an opponent with enough resolve could overcome even a seemingly perfect defense.

The one whose destiny lay in this place was in the process of perfect preparation for the toughest exam in Japan, setting herself up for a situation in which even the tiniest distraction would convert all her efforts into over-preparation. Of course, life itself is a distraction, to say nothing of love. A hug from behind and an embarrassed ‘Grandma!' was the sum of their farewell.

As the girl who she always referred to as a ‘work-in-progress' approached her, she was finishing up on the phone with one last loose end.

"If you find that you cannot support this dream of his, then you must lay down precise terms and mean them. While not disowning him, you must make him aware that he must help with the bakery or live elsewhere. One of my schemes? Child, you wound an old woman."

"Who you talking to, Grandma?"

"Oh-just to a parent about a potential new resident. We have lost three recently-as you well know."

"So Ashura's not coming back?"

"Nearly having her head vaporized by Su's ‘onsen-cleaner' left a bad taste in her mouth."

"What about Kanae?"

"If you recall, she tried to fix Motoko up with her brother. A perceived slight on his part almost caused her to get split in half when Motoko broke into the train her family was on."

"And Yung?"

"Sadly, Shinobu's screaming nightmares about being taken away by a giant bug proved too much for her."

Mitsune Konno shrugged.

"The Hinata-Sou is not a house for wimps."

Hinata grabbed the girl's nose between two fingers.

"We nearly had another departure, you know."

"Owww! Ganma!!"

She released Mitsune's nose, but not her attention.

"You should have relented. Naru liked his attention."

The older woman knew there was no drilling through at this point, but she had to try.

"Kenny Sakata wasn't right for her anymore-not since his Dad's portfolio plummeted."

"If he no longer had money, why did you try and seduce him?"

Mitsune shook her head.

"Seduce indicates he was gonna get somewhere. I tease; I never please-until we're talking verifiable billions. Then I might please. Look, Naru will forgive me. She always does. I spared her a guy who got heated up at the first real boob he rubbed up against. Not that I can blame him. It's my service to my sister-weeding out the weak, the poor, the bums and the idiots."

She had seen the good in this girl, and wanted to simply wish her well. But a misbehaving child without even the pretense of remorse required a firm hand.

"Mitsune-Chan, I am very disappointed in you, and now wonder if you are becoming the sort of person that cannot be taken seriously."

Unlike many others who had made such a statement, Hinata Urashima knew exactly what she was saying. She regretted only the necessity of her words.

"Hey! Sometimes, you've got to be cruel to be kind."

"Yes, but only in the right measure. Mitsune, you are not as clever as you think. I have known a prankster far crueler and more infuriating than you could ever hope to be. Pray you never meet her."

Oddly, those random words cut through to Mitsune's soul. Her memory sparked back to arguments between her parents, concerning her disposition.

"Hey, we'll see you soon, right Grandma?"

Her discipline for the moment spent, Hinata left the Sou that bore her name, for the most part, never to return. But before this, she gently palmed the cheek of the girl who was perhaps the least ready for life of any of them.

"Treasure your home and your friends, Mitsune. For these times pass, and during dark storms, their memory is often all we have to sustain us."

"I will, Urashima-Dono."

Her lively nature was often a salve against the dour depression young people fall into, but any salve can be applied too often, causing a rash. As she went up the hill to her car, Hinata prayed Mitsune would figure out when to pull back before she became like the comical coyote, pawing at empty air before realizing the fall was imminent. She paused to look at a small oak tree.

"Stop playing games, and get your ass into the car!"

The oak tree sighed.

"Yes, Grandmother."

*My daughter was always such a butterfingers. This girl is not right!*

With the youngest of her grand-projects in tow, Hinata turned the key, and as she pulled out, spotted a shadow in the forest.

*Leave her be. You who have done exactly one thing for her, leave her be.*

The shadow, if it was ever there, vanished. But it would return.

----------------------------

HINATA-SOU, 2001

"A little harsh, don't you think? It was just a stupid picture, Naru! I've seen the both of you naked I don't know how many times."

Rather than merely scream about how this was different, Naru bypassed Kitsune's efforts to turn this into a quip-fest.

"What were you planning to do with the picture, Kitsune?"

"Hey! I was mostly sloshed when I took it. Can't really say I had a definite plan. Anyway, it didn't go forward, right?"

Naru shrugged, hiding the outrage she knew the trickster before her always saw as a sign of ‘mission accomplished'.

"Blow it up and put it on the mantelpiece in the common area?"

"That's one thought. But hey, both of you would have bigger..."

"E-Mail it to my students?"

"Teacher's gotta motivate them somehow."

Naru nodded.

"I know! You would have shown it off at my bachelorette party and have it passed around before I caught on. Am I right?"

"C'mon. I just said I didn't have a plan. What part of that don't you get?"

Naru leaned forward, and got up in her face where she was sitting down.

"The part that explains what in the hell motivated you to come into my room and film me and the man I love finally doing something right? If you had no plan, Kitsune, then it was the spur of the moment, an impulse, and I honestly cannot deal with you always acting on amoral auto-pilot anymore."

Kitsune's smile surprised no one at all. They almost welcomed it, as something else to wipe off her face.

"I know what this is really about."

Shinobu's tone was not that of a sweet kid.

"Oh, then please enlighten us, Sensei."

She shook her head, trying to regain her footing, despite having not even a lower torso to stand on.

"Naru always wants everything to go perfectly. Now, she finds out that I peeped on her successful attempt at entry, and it reminds her of the unsuccessful attempt in Molmol. Like that was my fault."

Naru was closing in on target, waiting to strike and strike hard.

"And just whose fault do you think it was?"

"You want me to say it? In front of Shinobu?"

"Yeah. Give the kid a cheap thrill."

Kitsune threw up her arms.

"Fine-you asked for it. Guys in the clinch for the first time find that fantasy doesn't actually require him to do anything. Real women do. Either their pal exits the stage before the play is done or he can't get it to go onstage at all. In other words, Big Keitaro could not get Little Keitaro to perform. You had to wait for your pop and play moment till last night, and you're taking it out on me."

Naru turned her back on Kitsune, in more ways than one.

"Motoko, help lift my shirt in back."

Perhaps some part of Kitsune's brain caught exactly what her friend was showing her. Sadly, it was a part of her brain she hadn't used since Kanako's rampage, and then it was more out of self-preservation than friendship.

"Ooohh-our boy and girl are into bondage! How scandal--"

One second later, Kitsune and the chair she was in both went flying, as words Keitaro had rightly learned to fear echoed throughout the Sou.

"NARUUUUUU-PUNCH!!!!!!!!"

Kitsune was not so stunned as to not immediately check her face on the ground.

*No blood? Our girl is holding back on me...just not by very much.*

"You hit me, Naru!"

Shinobu helped her back up, but this was only to place her firmly into the chair. There was no gentleness in the demeanor of a girl whose being was defined by gentleness.

"Shinobu, stop shoving!"

With an eerily familiar smile, Shinobu put a finger under Kitsune's chin.

"Everyone's confessing. Maybe you better join the club before it's too late."

In fact, Kitsune's pre-Todai teasing of Shinobu had been reasonably gentle, and Shinobu would normally be the first to admit that her nerves over missing the opportunity to confess to Keitaro had ridden her more than such teasing ever could. But like so much else concerning Mitsune Konno, even that had become wholly intolerable in the face of so very much Kitsune-ness. For it had been those nerves, ridden over the rails by teasing and Su's ‘seductive costume' (honestly, her burned-off skirt and panties hid more) that had caused her to not question the motives of someone who she really knew she should have. If her motives were mixed, her anger was not. Neither was Naru's.

"Are you asking us not to be such bullies, Kitsune?"

Motoko was showing no signs of being an out from this mess.

"Perhaps our stress levels could be alleviated by way of fine sake---oh wait."

"Is that what this was about? I'll buy you a new bottle. Case closed."

"That bottle may not be replaced so easily and how exactly would one who owes considerable sums of money to every single person in this Sou and most of the taverns in the Greater Tokyo area possibly buy chewing gum, let alone the generational work of a master vintner?"

Naru dragged the confrontation back on point.

"Do you know what happens when you tie someone up and hang them suspended inside a moving plane, and then crack a whip that doesn't care whether or not you're just playing at being villain?"

Kitsune's eyes grew wide in apparent realization. Had she chosen to simply tell her friends that she was sorry for thoughtlessly hurting Naru, it might well have been enough to alleviate her other problems with all of them. It would have been a start to talking the rest of it out.

"Hey, that whole thing was a wild scene. We're all alive, right? And we had fu---"

Motoko sliced off the bangs that normally covered at least one of her eyes. The hair fell into her lap. Motoko then pointed her blade at Kitsune's crotch, indicating the next hair to go would be a tender matter indeed.

"We will now cease using the qualifier ‘at least we had fun' for all time, especially as concerns our recent excursion into Molmol. I will not allow that excuse of a girl like my own daughter, and I will not allow it of one who kept on twisting our reasons for being there to the most selfish advantage possible."

Kitsune at last felt she had leverage, and pressed it.

"So say my partners in crime. You were there right along with me, defending that airship against Keitaro, and you went with me to stop them at Todai. Just like on the airship, you're throwing me into the engine blades when the chips are down."

She thought she was seizing an opportunity, when in fact she had blown her very best one, as she looked at Shinobu.

"Did our fry-pan kawaii warrior tell you that we staged that whole thing at Todai for her benefit? Go on, kid-tell the truth."

The truth hurts. So does a cast-iron skillet. Kitsune again fell back. Shinobu had not made a minor concession that could be used to end the conversation. Nor was she likely to.

"How did I know you were going to pull that? Yes, you all pledged to help me get to Todai. And all of you lied to me. Only Motoko has even bothered to apologize. She at least had motives like mine. Su may have even known the Molmol airships were coming, for all I know. Her we'll deal with tonight. But you? You did all that for a piece of property! You lied to one friend and tormented two others for some hare-brained scheme to get your hands on a deed!"

As she got back up, again, there was no blood, but Kitsune felt far from lucky. She fired off a defense, or rather, an attempt at deflection.

"So where's the righteous rage at Seta, the one who really kicked that mess into high gear? Where's Kanako's intervention? Remember her, the step-cest psycho who also kidnapped us and tried to blow us all to kingdom come? She was there! Su and me are catching crap for your rewritten history lesson, but it seems like the name Urashima erases anyone else's accountability."

As a girl, Kitsune had enjoyed a novelty song about the dog from the ‘Peanuts' strip fighting the German flying ace Baron Von Richtofen. Like many other things in her life, she had perhaps danced with abandon to the tune without ever hearing the words.

*The Bloody Red Baron Was In A Fix; He tried everything, but he'd run out of tricks*

And so she had. Naru now took point again.

"Seta was ripped a new one or three by Auntie. Kanako was sent by Grandma all along, and is now answering to her for anything above and beyond that plan. Please don't try and tell me getting taken to task by those two is getting off lightly."

Had there been any doubt about that, Kitsune would have seized on it. There was none. So she made a desperate attack upon her angriest accuser.

"I am not taking this from a girl who for three years couldn't decide whether she wanted her arms around him or his throat-and who then thought nothing of using her inside track to take the prize. You used your way, Naru-we used ours. I told you-we couldn't make it easy for you."

Naru's fist jerked downward and smashed one of the arms on the wooden chair.

"WHY couldn't you make it easy for us? Like you just said, we've never made it easy for ourselves. The first time we have a coherent unified thought-to go to the Todai Gate like we promised-there you are with your hand in my face. You of all people had to know what that meant, and what he had come to mean to me. But here's your chance out of the hole, Kitsune."

"You mean the hole that I, and only I, seem to have been thrown into, despite having help?"

Naru's sympathy was not in evidence.

"Yup. That's the one. Now do you want the chance?"

"Sure, why not? I mean, this little kangaroo court has been so unbiased."

Naru again bypassed her diversions at blinding speed.

"Why the sentai suits? That was the dumbest way imaginable to try and actually stop us."

The mild question put Kitsune off her guard, though this may well have been Naru's intent.

"Su suggested a grand entrance, to stop you cold. The suits were my idea, and they weren't dumb. They were cool. No one here objected."

Shinobu twirled her skillet.

"No one here was told what we were doing until we got there."

Motoko merely patted her weapon.

"Typically, you told us to put those things on at just the point that arguing would have kept us from our goal."

Naru shook her head.

"As for cool? Hah! The Americans wouldn't have bought footage of that garbage to use in Power Rangers!"

Before Kitsune could fire back, Naru kept on.

"How were you going to get a hold of the Sou? In theory."

"Uhhh-by marrying Keitaro."

"Well, that would meet the terms Grandma laid down in the fax. Okay-how were you going to go about marrying Keitaro? Your expressed interest in him in the past seemed kept to teasing, flirting to flirt, and sweater boob-rubs to try and pay the rent. At times, your interest in him seemed close to nonexistent."

"As opposed to yours, which, more than any of us, was expressed through bipolar incidents of escalating violence-including hitting him when you walked in on him dressing?"

Again, Kitsune found herself ever further down that hole.

"Right. As opposed to my interest, or the interest of others. Now, how were you going to marry Keitaro, who you had not expressed interest in, and who had no interest in you."

A dark spark came from Kitsune's eyes. A line had been crossed, though this misstep on Naru's part would not help her in the slightest.

"You don't know that. You don't know that at all. He could have been as interested in me as you. Like I said, you had the whole childhood promise thing. In a no-holds barred fair fight, you might not have even been a contender."

Naru shrugged.

"I concede your point. He expressed no real interest in you, and vice versa, whatever his true feelings. Fine. But how were you going to marry him, absent past expressed interest?"

"Well-he's not bad. I only ever thought he was bad for you. I would have let him know that a hot girl who could make him really happy was interested in tying the knot."

"And if he said he was not interested? Remember, your offer would have been really sudden."

Kitsune actually held back a virtual ton of innuendo, sensing now that she was in a trap. In fact, she was already skinned and made into a carpet.

"I can be really persuasive and really persistent. I mean, what does it matter now?"

Naru leaned it close.

"It matters. I still don't see how this goal, which had you chasing a man across an ocean and more, could have come to pass."

"Well, Su did end up co-opting my best stuff..."

Kitsune froze. She had meant to say that Su's plans had made all theirs moot. Instead, she had fallen even further down the hole. Motoko nodded.

 

[Gojirob]

"You did talk to her often, prior to our sudden imprisonment. I had wondered how a girl with an eye towards water slides and roller coasters suddenly developed a taste for-as you so daintily put it-little Keitaro."

"Hey-she's a girl, he's a guy. I don't have to put any ideas in her head about what to do with a guy she likes. Eve figured it out without any help."

Shinobu shook her head.

"But that's not all she did, is it? She had him all tied up and in an embarrassing condition just as Sempai Naru found them. And just how Sempai Naru avoided detection entirely kind of made me wonder all along."

Naru picked up on the thought.

"Her plan-the one she got from you-was to have Keitaro in a bad way that was sure to set me off and blaming him-yeah, like I usually do---so that I would run off. Wow. You may not have a man's thing, Kitsune, but you have a thing's accessories. Lots of them."

"I made a bid, and I got out-bid. Why is this big deal? It didn't work, and you won. Gloat, if you have to, but stop lecturing me."

Shinobu shook with fury.

"You lied to me-changed your explanation for what we were doing every five seconds-just when did you supposedly ‘know that we can't stop them' aboard the airship? Because it was just after I let Sempai out that I ever heard of that!"

Kitsune was trying not to lash out. But pride of place kept putting her right back on the defensive.

"Grow the hell up, kid. You were lied to. Life isn't fair."

The hurt in the young girl's eyes hit Kitsune harder than any Naru-punch could.

"No, it isn't fair. But your friends are supposed to be. They're at least supposed to try."

Kitsune met Motoko's glare.

"Oh, go ahead. Weigh in, honorable samurai who changes history to make herself look good."

"I'm not perfect, Kitsune. None of us are, and no one is asking you to be. But if for no other reason than your friends are deeply angry with you, apologize for making a larger mess out of one already quite large enough. Apologize, for trying to steal a man who has not chosen me anymore than he has you. Apologize, for stoking a confused wild girl's abuse of sovereign power, instead of using the fact that she was listening to you-not me-to end that insipid game. Apologize, for using another young girl's breaking heart as part of money making scheme. Finally, realize your position. By themselves, nothing we have spoken of is anything more than a concern to be hashed out among friends. As you have said, we all have things to answer for from Molmol. If our young friend here had objections, she should have overcome her fears and trepidation and either merely helped Keitaro or forced Su to see her wrongs. If I had been more sage about Su's apparent lack of comprehension on many a moral front, I could have prevented all of this. If both Naru and Keitaro had been less hesitant in their relationship and perhaps gone to Todai Gate quietly, again, the crisis is avoided."

"But only I'm being subjected to a floating multiple standard of behavior. Whatever you all do is right, and whatever I do is wrong, whatever our reasons. Great justice, sisters."

Motoko sighed.

"You miss or perhaps evade understanding of my point. You have reached the perfect storm of your behavior. Todai and Molmol by themselves aren't enough to force this battle, because again, we all have things to answer for, and I will bare my soul to Naru later, and actually request that she judge me. My sake is not enough to force this, though such a theft enrages me more than a hundred Urashimas in the onsen, all grabbing at me-touching me---"

She zoned out for ten seconds.

"ummm-more than even that ever could. Think, woman! I have learned to accept both myself and my sister's marriage. Both Urashima and Shinobu are not the crybabies they were. Naru has accepted her own beauty and that the love of her man is sincere and strong. I believe Grandma is aiding Kanako's growth, as we must attempt with Su. Even in their limits, they have seen growth. But you are like a shark-not as a predator, but as a thing unchanging, never evolving. We have all grown more like each other, leaving behind our weaknesses, trading on our strengths. But after all this time, while we have become more like each other, you have merely become more like yourself. More than a dozen selfish acts, debts skipped or foolish schemes enacted, it is that which has made today necessary."

Kitsune sat for a moment, and the words really did sink in. Problem was, they also scared the hell out of her. For Mitsune Konno had in fact once tried to live by what she saw as other people's rules. Going back to that, even partially, was like looking down a dragon's mouth in her mind.

"Hey, sharks always eat, don't they?"

The fear in her forced her to push the chance they had offered ever further away. They had wanted some manner of basic apology, some small concession that Todai and Molmol were not her best moments, and would not be repeated. But instead of even the smallest move in that direction, she charged in the opposite one.

"I find it kind of amusing to be lectured by a girl who tells you she loves by punching and breaking things, another who once lived in fear of men as plague-bringers, and a third who is, let's face it, a loli stalker with a skillet who fell head over heels for the first piece of sausage she laid eyes on."

Naru looked her in the eye.

"I am a violent girl, so meh. Motoko had a thing about men, she's admitted as much. But-uhhh-do you maybe want to rephrase that last one, girlie?"

Kitsune looked at Shinobu.

"Sorry."

She shrugged.

"I should have said---a baby psycho-stalker who's a lousy cook and who went into heat for the first piece of VIENNA sausage she ever glimpsed."

No one hit her. Naru merely nodded.

"We're done."

"Good. Now maybe we can-"

"I said-we're done. You wait down here for Keitaro, Konno-San. As per Auntie's wishes, he will offer you her job and lay down the terms of it. But you and I are finished."

"What the hell? Naru, we've been through too much to let it end like this."

Motoko followed Naru as she walked out to her task at Todai Annex.

"Neither she nor I are the ones who chose to end it, Konno-San."

The pair left. Kitsune pointed at Shinobu.

"Don't act all superior!"

Shinobu put her skillet away.

"My sempai should be down in a minute, Konno-San."

"Shinobu---"

"Shinobu?"

"Su, we're talking here. They just---"

Shinobu ignored one former friend to address another.

"Yes, Princess Kaolla-San?"

Su looked just as impassive. Kitsune felt sick to see the ice passing between two girls whose smiles always brought out hers.

"Which room do you stay in again?"

Shinobu smiled.

"Room 205, of course."

From behind her back, Su produced a bazooka, and fired. Room 205 was not destroyed, though.

"It fires a micro-singularity. All your stuff just went away forever. How do you feel now?"

Shinobu was still smiling. Kitsune was not.

"SU! That was my room-my cans, my bottles-my clothes-it took me years to-do you even think about these things?"

"But she tricked me!"

"You dunce-after all this time, you have to ask her what room she's in?"

"Don't you be mean to me too, Kitsune!"

The pillars of her existence vanishing by the nanosecond, Kitsune tried to calm herself.

"Okay-but you'll have to increase my army bonus. So I can replace my things."

Su was not angry with Kitsune. But she had a blow for her nonetheless.

"Oh, you're not getting that."

"Wa-ha-uut? Su, don't punish me because of the way they're acting. I need that money. I have some debts."

Su shook her head.

"They're getting their bonuses. I keep my promises-unlike some people. You're just not getting yours."

"But I stayed loyal to you in Molmol, while the others all switched sides."

"There's no penalty for switching sides in a Molmolian conflict. It happens all the time. But you disobeyed orders. I told you I was quitting, and you kept on fighting, which forced me to blow up the airship. So actually, you owe us the cost of a new airship."

Kitsune expected to see Shinobu laughing at this, but her look suggested that they could still agree that this was insane.

"Su-from now on you will not use or create weapons in and around any part of the Hinata-Sou. Alright?"

She nodded as Keitaro emerged from upstairs, papers and notes in his arms.

"Yes, Keitaro."

"Shinobu, please make Su something to eat. She'll need to nap before tonight's lessons."

"Yes, Sempai."

The two once-sweet girls could barely look at each other, and Kitsune saw Keitaro's face carried an almost alien look to it. His voice-was cold. Kitsune had one last thought before they started.

*Damn it, how strong was that sake?*

Too strong and not nearly strong enough, for this was no nightmare.

---------------

As Naru took pictures of the available space in her annex classroom, Motoko ran through memories of a friendship now seemingly forever lost.

"It could be said that we were not entirely impartial in our judgment of her."

Naru snapped more pictures and nodded.

"Yeah, I guess."

"It has certainly not been all bad. We have had fun together, and I will admit that her devil-may-care attitude grew on me as surely as did Urashima's determination, or Shinobu's innate sweetness-if that should ever return."

"Well, it didn't go away on its own, did it? That kid trusted her to finally do the right thing when it counted and instead, she stole her dream and tried to steal mine."

Motoko shook her head.

"She could not have succeeded."

Naru turned off the camera.

"Don't tell me that. She knows my temper. If I had walked in on her servicing Keitaro, it would have either made me hate him or lose my confidence. That First stuff isn't important to some people, but it is for me. I need to know certain things from him, and Kitsune knows me. She used that knowledge against us, and then Su either deliberately or innocently used it instead. Maybe it wouldn't have broken us up, but it would have meant another pointless delay. Another year maybe? Another year with us going on and off when we had finally figured it out."

"You are that angry with her?"

"You know that I am!"

Motoko took her friend's hand.

"Then remain that angry, until something in her has changed. Because if you forgive her before that, you will have done both yourself and her a disservice. She must grow, Naru. Like for narcotics, she is addicted to the easy out. A life without being dominated by life's little concerns can be a liberating one. A life without consequences is a slow death. One day, you would have to cast her out again, and she would be even less ready for it. Perhaps the good in the people we now task should have us again turning the other cheek. Perhaps if we did a rational analysis of each and every last incident, we would find mistakes in our accounting and best evidence of our own culpability on matters. Yet I believe that on balance, our cheeks are all sore and that tolerance of both sloth and ignorance must end."

Naru folded her arms across her chest.

"The last time I felt this angry at anyone, Keitaro was making his way into my heart. Now I think Kitsune may really leave it."

"Naru, we cannot do for her what we will try to do for Kaolla Su. She is the oldest of us, and cannot say that she does not understand the culture. Cute is only cute for so long. If you try and hold her hand, she will slip and fall and your kindness will be at fault."

Naru sat down and drank some water before continuing.

"Am I that obvious?"

"She has been your sister since before we met. That kind of bond is not lightly undone, nor is it done with ease. Consider two words derived from the Greek that have made their way into our language. History is taken from historia, an inquiry. Apocalypse, that ominous word so overused, simply means a truth that is revealed-a revelation. While our own unique words exist, the power of these Greek-derived words is undeniable. Kitsune must make an inquiry of herself, and deal with the truth this inquiry reveals. She must deal with her apocalypse, and given the limits of her current nature, she must do so alone. If offered a cane or a crutch, she will use them till her legs fall off from disuse. Do you want that for her?"

Naru closed her eyes, and only opened them again after a minute.

"Tell me the rest of your apology and explanation. I need to hear it now."

Motoko began on familiar ground.

"In the beginning, he was everywhere. I half-expected him to slip-slide into me in the onsen, ending my status as an honorable maiden. I swore I would be rid of him, as nearly all of us did. But he wouldn't go away."

Naru actually broke a smile.

"I know."

"My brother-in-law is also a decent persistent man. But he had my sister's attention; something I thought certain was my province alone. The night I fled to the Hinata-Sou was also the same night I walked in on them. I viewed Tsuruko in what I saw a primally compromised position. He stood as a man-she as a beast of burden. I confronted her after, demanding tearfully to know how she could allow him this liberty. She casually responded that this was her husband. She meant that she and he could do what they wish, but that is not what I heard. I feared that all marriage and perhaps all relationships called for our destruction as strong creatures, our power drained to their benefit. That even the most decent of men had as their goal to stand over us in that sort of carnal triumph."

Naru bit down.

"They-uhh-they probably do. More than probably."

Motoko smiled.

"Yes, but that truism leaves out our own desires. Is such a position a surrendering of power? I still think that perhaps it is, even when our consent and enthusiasm are explicit. But perhaps a better word than surrender is investiture. Yet surrender is easier than investiture. In surrender, if surrender you must, you are basically offered no choice, as women of ancient times were told upon marriage. But still that is easier. Because such investiture calls for far more than acceptance."

Naru nodded.

"It calls for trust. Funny. Last night there isn't anything I didn't want him to do, no place I didn't want him to go. Early on, though, I was going to toss him over the horizon, when he was cleaning the onsen at a typically bad time and keep doing it till he took the hint, because I just knew there was no way his accidents were really just that."

"Why didn't you?"

"We-thought we heard Su spying on us, giggling. But she wasn't even on the premises. The moment was broken, and he got out of my sight in the three seconds I gave him. My rage was never that bad ever again. Err-sorry."

"It's all right. As you said, to allow a man - or anyone else - some of your own power to use to your mutual benefit involves trust. I was not prepared to give this, to my brother-in-law or to my sister's judgment. Despite her skills, I saw her as weakened."

Motoko sighed.

"Time passed, and this little fool who would not leave began to gain my functional trust. How could I deny that a tipsy Shinobu had been returned to us unharmed? How could I deny that my Kaolla Su clung to him in her sleep, also without incident? A monster would have demanded far more of Kitsune than sweater rubs for payment. A fiend would have concentrated his ‘accidents' on Mutsumi's chest exclusively. You-you were in that mixed public bath, backed up nude against him, a mere washcloth separating you from either an early marriage or funeral."

Naru blushed.

"Motoko-you are not to tell this to anyone. Nothing happened that day-he really did try and be a gentleman-but I sort-of added the washcloth in the retelling. Like mental photo shop."

Motoko joined her in the mild laughter, and even envied her a bit once again.

"How many incidents of that sort did we all end up editing or tolerating, swearing each would be the final one? When I truly lost count, I knew that he could be trusted on a basic level, and by that I mean he would not seek to gain unfair advantage over us. Yet he was still a man, and a man, if shown vulnerability, would be like the scorpion that drowned the frog he was floating on, killing them both. He would have to be true to his nature. He may have passed on harming a drunken girl like Shinobu, but if any of us were in a bad conscious moment, how could he not move in for the kill? Even a decent man hears the taunts of those less decent, counting his worth in that simplistic way."

Naru nodded, and tried not to think of Kitsune, fearing she would start forgiving her too soon, as she always did.

"I gave Kenny Sakata the final heave-ho when he complained that ‘the guys' were bugging him about when it would happen. I hate people who give third parties outside of family that kind of say over matters that are supposed to be between two people."

"I never cared for him, even in retrospect. In Ura-in Keitaro's case, the day came that I was a broken thing, wearing that maid uniform, still fearing my sister's wrath for idiocies and little phobias. He tried to help, and as usual, his help ended in disaster. My panties were pulled down, and my struggling legs afforded him the view of me my sister's husband had of her, the night my fears took hold. Rest assured, there was now no secret Motoko Aoyama had from Keitaro Urashima."

Naru hadn't known the view was quite all that. But she remembered that day over a month back, which now seemed a lifetime ago.

"I thought you would take his head for sure."

Motoko opened her hand and stared into the palm.

"The violation of convenience I had so feared never occurred. Instead, my friend restored my panties, helped me back up, and even helped me deal with Tsuruko."

"Whoa! You don't believe he would have ever-and with all of us around, to boot?"

Motoko shook her head.

"Fears are not rational, and at that moment, I felt so weak, I would have not been able to say no. I would not have forgiven him, but I would have waved the rest of you off-those who didn't stand dumbly at the sight."

Naru stood, and gently bonked her on the head.

"BAKA! BAKA! BAKA! He would never have done that. He's---not that sort of pervert. He's touchy-feely, not grabby-pushy. BAKA!"

She nodded.

"I knew that to be ninety-nine percent true. When I learned it to be one hundred percent true-it was then that I also knew that I loved him, more violently than you, more pathetically than Shinobu, more calculatingly than Kitsune, and more giddily than Su. He has chosen you, Naru, and I will act to support that choice in all things against Heaven itself. For I will always love him so."

 

[Gojirob]

"That's why you went with them to Todai, isn't it? To make sure that you presented yourself before his choice became final."

Motoko shrugged.

"I also had concerns about Kitsune's scheming, and Su's sudden brilliant ideas always need to be ridden herd on. But in the final analysis, I aided that mess by my need to have a movie moment, and see if I was the true love that the hero would choose at the last minute. I was not, and I knew that likely I would never be. But I had to know, and part of my rage at Kitsune and my disappointment in Su comes from not even having that moment. Can you, upon hearing this, forgive me for ruining yours?"

They hugged, and Naru nodded.

"I already had. Oh, God---when do I hear this from Mitsune?"

"Be strong, Narusegawa. She is already lost, and only she can find her way back. For now, let us try and save Su-and for that matter, Shinobu, whose disappointment over that stolen moment makes mine seem dim and small."

Two women like sisters in love with the same man started to make for home. As they walked, Naru wondered if dinner with the woman who may have been the real promise girl, who was arguably prettier (at least in Naru's own mind) and who had never once struck Keitaro in anger would go as well as this.

*After all, the moment I stole was the rest of her life.*

But events at the Hinata-Sou were growing new layers with every passing moment.

----------------------------

Kitsune was thankful that Keitaro was neither as cold nor as hostile to her as the others. But nor was he at all warm.

"This is a list of the duties you'll be assuming."

Her eyes nearly shut down at the length and breadth of what she saw.

"Haruka did all this? I thought she mostly sat around, watched us beat you up and smoked cigarettes."

Keitaro nodded.

"That's because she frequently had all that done by Noon-you've tended to get up later than that. This will have to change."

She tried to take this all in.

"There's no differentiation for which day of the week to perform which job."

Keitaro pulled out another list.

"That first list includes only those jobs that must be performed every single day. That one I just handed you includes once or twice weekly and monthly duties. Of course, the unexpected can always throw a wrench in the works."

"What about you? What will you be doing besides Naru?"

He responded to the question, but not the taunt.

"I still bear responsibility for fixing things and hiring repair teams when needed. But those things must first be checked and maintained at basic levels. The spa water level and its temperature have to be checked against changes in the natural hot spring. I will fix any breaks in the hotel floor, for example, but you must first conduct a tour that reveals them. If I am for some reason not available, you might have to perform stopgap repairs, or hire someone in an emergency, then justify the expense to me when I return. It's all there in black and white, Kitsune. Auntie did all this and then some. Nothing has been added."

"So this is how her Christmas cake got baked."

Keitaro's sharp glare cut through her. His remark nearly stopped her heart.

"Having seen the both of you naked, Kitsune, if offered a choice, I'll take inbreeding."

"Hey! I wasn't insulting her. I just meant that all this is a bit much. And as for that second part? Eeeewwww!!"

If she expected him to lapse into stammering once he realized the awkward compliment he had paid Haruka that was to be another disappointment for her.

"Yeah. I'll concede that it'll be rough. Haruka had Grandma to train her, and I'm no Grandma. But sheer repetition will make you faster with each pass. You have organizing skills, Kitsune. I saw that in your bottle and can collection. If you have ideas about how to make this process more efficient, I'm willing to hear them."

Kitsune threw the sheets aside.

"I can do maybe half those things. We'll talk about it."

"We can talk all you want. There's nothing to discuss. That list is, if anything, a conservative estimate of what your job entails."

He wasn't yelling at her, so she merely moved on to the next subject.

"I don't pay rent anymore?"

"That is part of your salary package, yes."

She smiled at what seemed like her first break all morning.

"Then we'll just also wave the three months I owe, as part of a signing bonus."

He shook his head.

"No. Your debt to the Hinata-Sou stands apart from your new job, and must be paid in full. This amount will be deducted from your monthly salary. And it's more like twelve months."

Kitsune got up and pointed at Keitaro.

"No way. You can't just casually increase my debt because your girlfriends are all pissed with me."

The coldness was gone, but it hadn't exactly become tropical in the room, either.

"This has nothing to do with your fight with them. You should have never lied to Shinobu, and I won't forgive you for that until she does. You could have handled going to Todai better, but I don't have room to talk there. Stealing is wrong, and stealing from a hair-trigger samurai is just plain stupid. I'm angry at you myself, but I won't even comment further about taking that picture when you know how Naru is about that kind of thing. But this isn't an instant rise in debt, Kitsune. This is and has been your actual debt for some time."

Her look began to take on one of pure pleading.

"How can that be possible?"

He closed his eyes.

"Kitsune, this is a business. It's a business that has not been operated at its maximum profit potential since it was converted from being a hotel. That means we need every last bit of cash it is supposed to get. You've skirted the edges of the rent time and again. Delays, partial payments never rectified in full-part of the reason Auntie chose you for this was to give you a chance to pay down your debts. Otherwise-we won't have a choice in the matter. Your parents have refused to cover even the three months."

"Keitaro, this is my home!"

He approached her, and placed his hand on her shoulder.

"And I don't want any of you to leave it. I'd miss you. Whatever was said here today, they would all miss you. This is your chance to show them you can change. You can rebuild your credit with your friends as well."

Part of her wanted to reach out and extend back the first tenderness she had been shown on that very angry day. But change for her was scarier than being homeless or even friendless.

"Raise my salary to compensate for the shortfall."

"No. I'm not paying you more than was paid to my own aunt after years on the job. Besides, that would defeat the purpose of repairing the budget."

"Then raise the rent. Your way leaves me with no operating cash. I'll be like a slave."

"No. I'm not punishing those who pay on time. Your meals and then some are covered. Kitsune, your first year on the job is going to consume your life whole anyway. Even if you did only half of those things, you'd never see the inside of a gambling hall, tavern or liquor store. For you to stay, I have to hear yes, and it has to be unconditional and unequivocal to all terms."

She pushed his hand off. A new tack had entered her mind. She would regret this.

"You're just a regular MacArthur, aren't you? You know, it strikes me that your accounting method stinks. It seems to fail to subtract for all the-ahem- special attention I've given you. Or has our boy forgotten all that, now that he done and got him some? Does he want his new employee to remind his new girlfriend of this? She's been known to hit---oh boy, has she been known to hit."

The truth be known, Kitsune had her standards and thought this approach was as low as she ever wanted to sink. But she had already grown tired of people standing over her in judgment, particularly people who had problems of their own. She expected anything from a sigh of basic agreement to the flustered stammer she knew and loved.

"Kitsune, I believed in you and so did Auntie and Grandma. But this is one of my family's businesses, and it bears my grandmother's name. The one who oversees so much of it must be carefully chosen and vetted. This discussion is over. I am very disappointed in you. I can no longer take you seriously on anything."

The young woman who prided herself on not caring what others thought of her realized two things. One, the opinion that Keitaro Urashima held of her in fact meant a great deal to her, far more than she ever before realized.

Two, that opinion was not a good one. In fact, it seemed it could not be any lower.

"Guess you're so cool now, huh, stud? Banging one, you gonna go for seven? You hot for Auntie, you say? Should little cousin Sarah lock the door too?"

His face softened.

"I'm not cool, Kitsune. I'm still the guy who used to fall into the onsen like clockwork, and probably still will. I'm goofy, and when this all blows over, Naru will spend whole days telling you what stupid thing I did last week. But this place where we all came together is now under my charge, and I can't take that lightly. I'll give you until the end of next month to remove your things. I'm sorry."

She tried to hear the better part of herself.

*Take it, Baka! Take the offer. You bet against this day ever coming, and you lost. Don't lose your home and friends trying to scam where you have no leverage. You have great boobs, but don't be one!*

But now fear piled on top of pride and rage, and Mitsune Konno began swinging wildly at Keitaro Urashima. But this wasn't the onsen of three years ago, and even a nervous man who had trained with Seta Soriyama and Motoko Aoyama could easily evade or block the punches she threw.

"YOU!! IT WAS ALL GOOD UNTIL YOU SHOWED YOUR SKINNY, GEEKY FACE!!"

If he seemed calm, he was anything but. He knew he had to wait her out, until her rage was spent.

*But I've had all-out onsen beatings that were shorter and calmer than this.*

For this was not just glimpses of forbidden flesh or face-first falls into private regions driving Kitsune's blind rage. In Keitaro Urashima she saw the violation of a way of life that had for her, worked just fine. Problem was, she was and had always been the only one who thought that way. Whether merely willfully ignorant or enabled by friends that were too kind to speak up, Kitsune had fallen into a pit of her own making, and now she was set to suffocate or drown.

"Stop it Kitsune! You're not as strong as Naru, or as fast as Motoko. I can keep this up all day."

She knew that he could, and even if she landed a blow, he could take it and survive it. This only pushed her red rage on. It was now well into the afternoon, and she at last began to tire

Naru and Motoko had encountered Mutsumi on the way back from Todai, and had yet to really tell her all that had gone on. Su and Shinobu emerged from a tense silent meal in the kitchen. All saw the fight in progress. If Keitaro's life was plagued by misunderstandings from things he should have explained more calmly and clearly, or that his friends should have listened to, this was not the case at that point. All clearly saw who was attacking, and who was just keeping that attacker back without striking back. Keitaro would later wish that they had all assumed the worst of him and just piled on to send him flying. It would have hurt less than what did happen.

Before women and girls fast, strong and smart could react, Kitsune knocked Keitaro's glasses off. He still managed to block her, since Seta had insisted he train without them. As she used up the last of her adrenalin-fueled strength striking harder and wider, Kitsune at last exhausted herself. She raised her fist to strike again, but lowered her arm when it felt like lead.

"All right, you wi..."

To fend off her wilder attacks, Keitaro had switched from blocking her blows with two extended fingers on either hand to full fist. Without his glasses or time to recover them, his vision was limited. Time seemed to slow to an agonizing crawl as Keitaro's fist moved to block a punch that never came.

His punch landed on Kitsune's left cheek just fine, though.

A strong woman, Kitsune did not go flying, and to be fair, Keitaro, whose strength was not awesome but also not negligible, was not in full force behind the attempted block. But she did fall over, striking the floor and again hitting the same sore cheek as she did. Keitaro grabbed back his glasses and saw what he had done, whether accidentally or in self-defense not mattering one bit.

"God, No!"

He crumpled to the ground, looking very much like a man who realized he had violated one of the rules of the universe itself. Seeing this, one who loved him well but not very wisely of late moved in on the fallen stunned Kitsune.

*You bitch. All the games you've played. All the times you pounded on him as much for fun as for modesty, and he cries over one punch when you go crazy? He's too decent to not feel horrible over this. Time to skin a fox alive.*

"Kitsune?"

"He-he hit me, Shinobu."

That her voice contained not a hint of playing victim gave Shinobu brief pause. Very brief.

"Does it hurt?"

"What? Of course it hurts!"

The fox was skinned.

"Well, then. Guess you really are Human, after all."

Kitsune realized she was being mocked, and looked at Shinobu with genuine tears in her eyes. But the girl merely shrugged.

"Good enough for his broken leg, wasn't it?"

Kitsune stood up, a bit of blood trickling down her left cheek. At first, it seemed like she might start in again. But she merely cupped Shinobu's cheek in her palm, gently.

"Shinobu, don't be this way. Please."

"You mean like you?"

"Yeah."

She was out the lobby door at a good pace, still crying. Shinobu saw Su point at her, also teary-eyed.

"You used to be nice. When did you become so mean?"

"Well, Princess, maybe I learned it..."

"SHINOBU!!"

Naru called to her. She and Mutsumi were by the side of the crumpled Keitaro.

"Help us get him into the onsen. He needs to calm down and relax, and we need a third hand to keep him steady while we undress him."

Shinobu saw Su run into Motoko's arms, the sights and the sounds of this unforgiving moment too much for her. Shinobu Maehara realized that she had chosen to crush one wounded fallen friend while ignoring the pain of the man she professed to love. She vowed to never again choose hate over love, even in the name of love.

"Yes, Sempai."

What she saw in the onsen was nothing she had not seen before, and she was numb to any excitement it might have otherwise brought. Naru undressed and remained with him for the rest of that afternoon. Mutsumi sat with a Shinobu now ashamed of herself. The younger girl had to be held back from running after Kitsune in her agitated state. Mutsumi for her part fought the urge to ask what the hell had become of her second home, where perhaps chaos reigned but so had common affection.

Better days would come, but this one was not yet done with them.

-------------------------------------

She looked down on what had once been her home.

"Stupid bastard hit me."

*Stupid bitch deserved it.*

"Standing over me, all superior."

*Maybe it was because-they were superior to you in like, every way there was? Just what the hell *were* you going to do with that picture?*

"Shinobu-little girl kicks me when I'm bleeding."

*Think. When was the last time Keitaro hit anyone, let alone any of you? When was the last time Shinobu stayed this angry at anyone-or even really got this angry period? Doesn't Naru usually just raise her voice and say your name when a prank or such goes down? As to Motoko, you didn't know it would go that way?*

Mitsune Konno reached a devastating but ultimately cleansing conclusion. Its benefits, while real, could not help her in that hellish moment, as the tears started again.

"I finally did it, didn't I?"

 

[Gojirob]

Chapter Six - Dinner, Place, Shinobu

--------------------------------------------

HINATA-SOU, EARLY SUMMER, 1998

Things had now gone too far.

In the short time since he had returned to his grandmother's hotel, now a girls' dormitory, Keitaro Urashima had seen many an awkward moment with said girls, all of which had rapidly become a very painful moment. While his threshold for pain was as high as his ability to not fall apart in the face of anger was low, he had almost begun to see the savagery of the girls as transactional. He entered, they reacted. The math was easy, even if walking the gauntlet was hard. Though Shinobu had never hit him, any awkwardness involving her conversely meant a geometrically harder and more frenzied beating. Again, math.

Admittedly, any man who entered a ladies' bathing area of any kind took a physical risk. He amusedly recalled one time he had been given charge over a group of very young grade school girls for the day, while his family was at the shore. Waiting outside their beach shower area, one of them walked out wearing only a frown, scolding that he wasn't watching over them like he was supposed to-an anger their mothers repeated later that day. If Keitaro needed confirmation that he just could not win in some things that was it.

It had begun the way many such things began during the weeks to months he had been there. A mistaken assumption was that all the girls had left the Sou for the entire day. A sign he had made plainly indicating that he was going to be cleaning the smooth rocks at the entrance to the onsen spa had blown away. He, assuming he was for once completely safe from even a potential scolding, was perhaps overly relaxed as he slid the doors away and proceeded to mop and scrub. Also not as alert as normal was a bathing Naru Narusegawa.

There was originally no reason for this to have exploded quite the way it did. Naru kept a trusty bucket on hand to use as a projectile against the possible intrusions of the ‘pervert', and a mere sighting would have been satisfactorily met, punishment-wise, with said bucket striking some part of Keitaro. Keitaro, for his part, had actually practiced a pivot stance meant to keep his stammering flustered self from hanging around too long in the danger zone. For the record, it never really worked.

Keitaro's glasses fogged up quickly as he worked the edge opposite to where Naru was bathing. Naru was exhausted from her studies, her eyes closed. Comically, this whole encounter could have passed without either of them realizing the other was even there. But it would not do so, and nor would it be at all comical.

The same wind that blew Keitaro's warning sign away now brought it back, and into his hands.

"Whoa-guess I better repost this."

"Repost what?"

"The sign that says I'm cleaning---Narusegawa?"

"Keitaro, you perverted---"

As planned, she had hurled the bucket at a good speed. Keitaro had known something was going to happen, and ducked, planning to use his pivot move to get out of there in a huge hurry. But there was a washcloth beneath his feet. Not just any washcloth, mind you, but the very washcloth Naru had reached for when the pair had met, and when she grabbed-well it damn well wasn't a washcloth, soap or scrub-brush. Realizing this as she entered the water a few minutes prior, she disgustedly threw it away, then kind of smiled to think how the presence of the unacceptable had become the barely-tolerated. Bare she was, but her tolerance was about to be erased.

So smooth and slimy were the stones, and so fast was Keitaro's pivot on the discarded washcloth that he literally spun on it like a ballerina, till at last he lost control and fell face first into the onsen, still in full motion.

"No! NO! Don't you dare..."

Instead of hard rock, Keitaro felt his face hit something softer and-and in need of a shave? Clueless or no, he realized that his time on this Earth was finally at an end.

*Please let this water be deep enough to drown in.*

Legs that had been on either side of his head-and one day would be again-rose like lightning up from the onsen water, and kicked at that selfsame head so quickly, one foot kicked it back while the other met it as it fell. One fist struck him under his chin, and the other slammed down on the top of his head on the rising arc. A full body shove had her elbows also pumping into his solar plexus, till she moved around him and gave the same treatment in reverse motion to his back and spine. As she lifted him up over her head, she heard a tearing sound, and decided she could not care less if it had been the severing of his arm-so long as it wasn't his head. She wanted him to suffer before sending him straight to Hell.

"Narusegawa, you have to..."

"SHUT UP!"

She slammed him over her knee, first on his back, then on his stomach.

"You had your face-your filthy, perverted face-your snot-filled nose---pressed against my precious womanhood! I've been violated!"

"Narusegawa, you have to..."

"I SAID SHUUUUUUTT UPPPPP!!!"

Feet-first, she continually hurled him across the onsen, stomping on his head with each landing. After doing this five times, she picked him up, held him at arm's length with one hand, and backhanded him repeatedly with the other. Still, his mantra would not cease.

"Narusegawa, you have to..."

Before she could silence him yet again, what sounded like a voice was heard.

***Boy, you two really went at it.***

Naru looked about her, and then spoke a name.

"Kaolla Su?"

"Is that crazy Indian girl around?"

"She's not Indian, she's umm-I don't know where she's from, now that I think about it."

"Narusegawa, you have to..."

"What, pervert? What do I have to do? Stop? Who violated who into unmarriageability?"

With halting hands, he pointed at her.

"Narusegawa, you have to put your towel back on."

For just a moment, as she looked at her body and confirmed what he said, she thought and realized that she had let her anger override the basic concern she had become angry about.

"MONSTER!!! YOU GOT OFF ON THAT, RIGHT?"

This rational thought process didn't last long, and the pummeling started yet again. This time, she wanted that head to pop off, and so rabbit-punched him there atop him until her backside brushed against something.

"Oh, like you haven't tried enough of your crap. How did you even get your suit off?"

In the water, she spotted two halves of a man's bathing trunks. The tearing sound from before.

"You mean to say, I and a boy have been wrestling...NAKED?!!!!"

She honestly did not know how long the ‘wrestling' had gone on, and did not care. With her own head ready to pop off, she grabbed up one of the onsen's larger stones, and held it above the unconscious Keitaro.

"I don't care if it breaks Grandma's heart. You have so got to die!"

She looked down, expecting him to awake stammering and shaking, soiling the onsen as he had-well---as he had *nearly* soiled her. But his eyes were swollen shut, his face looked almost featureless, and his head was the size of Kitsune's entire chest.

"I finally did it, didn't I?"

She didn't bother with modesty any longer, though she prayed the others would stay out for a little while longer. This once, fate stopped playing with the pair as they went up the steps. No one arrived to taunt, lecture, laugh or freak out.

*C'mon, perv! I'm starkers, and so are you right next to me. Put your stupid face back together and see me, so I can threaten you and everything will be like normal---please?*

She placed him in her room, dressed herself and fetched him a pair of undershorts from his room.

What usually happened almost instantaneously (or seemed to) took nearly an hour. He rose, dressed again and went to complete his task. He said not a word to Naru. The others finally returned, with Kitsune humorously commenting on the sign warning of the cleaning. Naru couldn't hear exactly what it was. She briefly confirmed that Su had definitely been nowhere near the onsen in all that time. She wanted to chalk it up to how worked up she had been-except Keitaro had heard it too.

"Sempai, what happened to your eye?"

His answer did not implicate her. Nor did it offer her one bit of comfort.

"I slipped and fell while cleaning the onsen, Shinobu."

When both Motoko and Kitsune made disparaging remarks about this, it was Naru who told them to back off-that he was doing what he was supposed to, and should only be given the grief he deserved.

"C'mere, Naru."

Haruka-who the girls had also now taken to occasionally calling ‘Auntie' pulled her aside. Her glare could have taken down an ICBM.

"He's a fool, isn't he?"

"Yeah, Auntie-he can be that."

"He's also my kin, and the first baby I ever held or cared for. Got me?"

"yes---Yes."

Haruka lit a cigarette, and poured herself some coffee Shinobu had brewed.

"I'd offer you some, but you're doing decaf for a while, right?"

Haruka Urashima rarely demonstrated her emotional range. Seta-Sama had been one to bring it out. It was now apparent that her nephew, however radically different he was from Seta, was another one capable of causing this.

"Haruka Ryobo-San, I'm---"

"Was it that bad?"

She shrank inside. Telling Haruka the details might bring her over to Naru's side, but it was a tale she really didn't feel like telling-maybe ever.

"Seemed so at the time-not so much now."

How Haruka knew was not relevant, though Naru wondered if somehow the timeframe on the healing of Keitaro's black eye had given it away. She briefly recalled that Haruka herself had walked away from some seemingly nasty tumbles. Before she could really think about this, Kitsune called her away from where Haruka was sitting.

"Hey! What's with taking the moron's side against us? Since when have you given two hoots about Keitaro Urashima?"

If she had been reluctant to tell Haruka of what happened, there was no way in Hell she was telling Kitsune. Though she loved the trickster dearly, she was not going to be called things like ‘Bride By A Nose' for the rest of her days.

"It's only one hoot. I'm new at this."

As she waited at the onsen door for Keitaro, Motoko observed him cleaning.

"He is being very thorough in his scrubbing of the growth on the rocks. Was it that bad of a fall?"

"Yeah-it was pretty bad. Also, I think maybe he's trying to make it up to us for all the intrusions."

Motoko nodded.

"He is stronger than I supposed. And he takes what he has coming rather well."

*Better than you know, Motoko.*

When he emerged back inside, she stood waiting for him, and noticed his eye was nearly fully healed.

"Narusegawa-San, I offer my deepest apologies."

She wanted to reciprocate, but the way in which this incident had begun was still too bound up in shame and shock, even if she had not been truly ‘violated'.

"Granted-so long as we never mention this happened ever again. To anyone."

"Narusegawa---"

"You could try just Naru."

"That would be-too intimate."

"As opposed to what exactly?"

He blushed, and despite her anger, it was a sweet blush. That night, a dream of hers would have the same incident replay in a very different manner-which promptly made her angry at him again. For then and there, though, a truce was called.

"Call me what you want."

"Narusegawa-are all the things that happen to me really accidents? Even I'm starting to wonder."

The insight and simplicity of the question floored her.

"Well, some subconscious corner of that perverted brain of yours could reason out how to be in just the right spot for your sick fun---but I doubt it."

"I don't think I'm that smart, either."

"Baka---no. You are smart, Keitaro. Your study habits are abominable. But you have the brains. Even to attempt Todai's exam takes brains."

She smiled, and his dour face seemed to light up.

"In my room, I have books on both probability studies and Human Psychology. They might tell us something about why you do---what you always do."

They started up the stairs, but at one point, he nearly fell back. She was ready, with both a hand and a smile.

"It's all right, Baka. I've got you."

------------------------------------------------------------------

HINATA-SOU, 2001

Things had now gone too far.

"It's all right, Baby. I've got you."

He was light in her arms, and despite the onsen, he felt cold.

"K-Kitsune?"

"No. It's Naru. Naru's got you."

"Is she all right? Did I hurt her?"

"She'll be all right, Keitaro. She's tough."

"Not supposed to hit someone you love."

He was half out of his mind with grief. But his words hit hard at a woman who once prided herself on hitting even harder. The intrusions and embarrassments explained some of it. Maybe her emerging feelings for him explained a bit more. But the really wild times? Except for Mutsumi and for the most part, Shinobu, they had all hit him, though Su and Sarah seemed to be chiming in rather than being truly upset. There could be no doubt that Naru Narusegawa had been the star hitter in a league she no longer wanted to be a part of.

*I will use my strength to protect you. From my sisters, and from myself. Sarah I'll just swat across her little ass next time I see an artifact in her hand. Umm-but with Auntie, you're on your own. And Grandma? Just forget it, pal---I-okay-even then. Always.*

He kissed her, briefly, but then withdrew back into himself. As she held him next to places once unthinkable, she wanted to tell him that Kitsune had amped up her bitchiness and irresponsibility to cosmic levels, and that not only had he been acting in self-defense, but that it had been a glancing blow he had never intended to strike.

*Our love is that soul-mate thing, isn't it Keitaro? But I'd have to be a fool to think that, while I have hold of the most special kind of love from you, that you love the others any less in their own way. I don't mind, because I love them too. But why do you feel so fundamentally rotten about accidentally hitting my most difficult sister, while I gladly slammed her a few hours before, and then only felt angrier?*

She knew Kitsune had been in rare form, and had refused to even think of apologizing for Molmol, Todai, the picture, et al. And Motoko's latter-day explanation hadn't entirely satisfied her, either, but it was an effort and acknowledgement at least, and she had admitted that, like Shinobu and Naru herself, love realized had proven a huge distraction.

*Am I some kind of barbaric girlfriend? What if the genders were switched? Easy answer. I'dve been in jail years ago. You-I will make it up to, man of mine. But damn it, Kitsune! You lit your own fire for kicks, and it burned our house down. I should have slugged you years ago.*

Then she recalled that she had indeed slugged her. But just like appealing to her better nature and just about every approach she could name, Kitsune slid around the changes. She had been Kitsune when they first met as young girls, and she had become ever more Kitsune as time went on.

*Maybe confronting her like that wasn't my brightest idea to date. The violence likely didn't help either, looking back. But how else do you get through to someone that determined to keep on being a supreme pain in the ass?*

"I should have found another way, Naru. Maybe given her another month. I was angry about that picture, too-so I cornered her, left her no leeway."

"Keitaro-she had no leeway left because she used it all up. You gave her better terms than I would have."

They were technically arguing, but she praised the Heavens that she had him back.

"But what does all that matter if we've lost her? She can't survive on her own. She's not as tough as you or she thinks she is. You or I could work anywhere. Shinobu is a dream for anyone in need of cooking or cleaning. Same for Motoko and bodyguard work. Mutsumi has her family. But how can Kitsune survive on her skills? I'm a softie. She won't find the world full of too many people like me."

She made a fist, but only rubbed his head with it.

"You got that right. Look, even this morning, I knew I could offer up huge qualifiers on every last thing she ever did that's pissed us all off. I knew that I don't stand so high. None of us do. But whereas most everyone we know gets cornered like that and figures out they better change how they do things, she never has. It's all snarky comments and speeches about how she lives differently, and how we're all hypocritical sticks-in-the-mud. It's all deflection with her. I'll accept a maybe-too-convenient apology from Motoko and Shinobu as long as it's sincere. I can't accept one that's never given, based solely on coming out of that mess in Molmol alive. I don't want to hurt Kitsune or Su. But I feel wounded by them, and I will have an apology."

He breathed in, a little more himself with each pass.

 

[Gojirob]

"Shinobu I always knew the feelings but never the depth. Motoko I probably should have figured out. I thought Su regarded me as a fun footpad, but she never showed malice about it, so maybe that's another one on me."

"What are you getting at?"

"Naru, Kitsune always seemed to despise me early on. When we would start to click, she'd be there reminding you what a catch I wasn't. But whatever she did, good or bad, it never seemed clumsy."

Naru nodded.

"I'd never call her scams, schemes or pranks clumsy. Hilarious sometimes, clever and crazy, greedy, mostly infuriating, but clumsy? Not that girl."

"Usually has her stories straight when she's pulling something?"

"More like she always has all her stories straight."

Keitaro nodded.

"But everything she did from Todai to Molmol was clumsy and blatant. Even sloppy. Shinobu and Motoko said she kept changing plans and explanations. Not like her."

Naru recalled how genuinely offended Kitsune had been by the idea that Keitaro had no interest in her. The accusations she made that Naru had used an ‘inside track' to be with Keitaro.

"It can't be as simple as all that. I mean, she said those things when we caught up with her on the airship, but like they said, changing explanations. Even Su said she was so far into playing villain she ignored orders."

Keitaro shook his head.

"A gentle girl kicks balls and hits with a fry pan. A born warrior considers becoming a maid. A mistress of stealth becomes obviously infatuated with someone who is semi-forbidden. A very smart girl fails an exam she should have aced."

"That wasn't your fault."

"A beautiful princess who can build and have anything she wants plots to drag a whole hotel back to her kingdom. Finally, a smooth operator who for years has ridden the edge without missing a beat risks all she has on a real estate scam and loses absolutely everything. If we hadn't been so angry at how she behaved, I would never have found all those past missed rent payments. The only thing all those circumstances have in common, Naru - is me."

Naru now also felt a little foolish. The complaints to get rid of him, or that Naru could do better, or the endless bouts of near-foreplay-all pointed to a conclusion that was as obvious as Kitsune's chest-maybe even as obvious as Mutsumi's.

*Kitsune, why didn't you just come out and say it? We're all fools for this fool. Was being cooler-than-thou so damned important?*

"She still has to change, Keitaro. Her saying ‘I Love Him Too' would have passed for an apology in my book."

Keitaro stood up, stepped out of the onsen, and began to get dressed.

"We still have dinner with Shinobu and Mutsumi. Kitsune, whatever her motives were, did lie to that kid and it joined with my breaking her heart to form something ugly. We owe her too much to let that light go dim. What will you talk about with Mutsumi?"

Naru had thought long and hard about this.

"I want to ask her why and how she's handling things so well. Then I want to bottle it."

----------------------

Things had now gone too far.

"You even look pissed here, Naru."

A picture kept hidden away, to be brought out in bad moments, was brought out in the worst moment of her entire life. She had a badly flustered Keitaro (there used to be no other kind) pressed up against her chest, Naru fuming-at him-Su on his back, laughing, Shinobu blushing to almost pure red. A wooden sword seemed set to strike Keitaro on the head.

*I give you my bosoms, they hit you-but you hit me. The cutest sweetest kid in the world worships you to the point of hitting the futon if you just hinted at it-but you choose the one who most regularly pounded you into dog meat. Also in the running, a girl with her own freaking country, a mystic samurai who probably knows all those secret samurai pleasure techniques, a girl with gigantic melons-not to mention the fruits her family grows---and-and-*

She looked at the picture again, and crumpled it a bit at the edges.

*---and a not-so-sweet kid who also would have hit the futon with you at just a hint. You could have had Marilyn Monroe, and you chose Lizzie Borden. Geez---do I even know any Japanese examples?*

Naru would, she reasoned. Naru was smarter, had a prettier face and guys seemed to move around her former roommate to be with her. Worst of all, she just didn't get how beautiful she was, which had whatever boy went after her literally fighting to give her compliments.

*Me? I'm just a set of boobs-a magnificent set of boobs-not too big. I mean, can a guy even muster a word around Mutsumi?*

Exactly how many women had fallen for this ridiculous little man? How many women with prospects had turned those away to pursue a stammering, peeping, bespectacled moron?

*Well, I know one at least.*

**I can't take you seriously, Kitsune.**

A parade of people had said that in her life, starting with her own mother and finishing off-maybe literally so-with Keitaro. Call her any number of names or labels, and she could laugh it off, or even dismiss it as it was said. After all, most people just used those words and labels as a means of getting you to do what they wanted, after which they would get indignant and cite ‘tradition' when it was time for them to pony up.

But to be dismissed entirely for yourself? She had to admit, that hurt. And when Keitaro said it? The pain she felt was so great, she felt like her skull was going to split open. Yet hadn't he already dismissed her? He and Naru were kiss/slap, till they started slapping uglies together. He and Motoko were literal love/hate. He and Shinobu were this kind of pure love that was like alchemy, transforming the unrequited crybabies into gold. Mutsumi was the girl too perfect for him to actually get him, if that made any sense. She could even almost get Kanako. When a girl's stunts leave her as vulnerable as they often did, she found out quickly who the really nice guys were. Dragged up drunk to her room, like Motoko, she sort-of waited, sort-of hoped for the poke in the night that never came-so to speak. Not being used made her feel safe, but it also forced up the unwanted corollary-did he even think about it? She wasn't some pathetic ‘oh my no! But it feels so good' honey from one of Keitaro's ecchi vids---and he did have some good ones, she had to admit-but she found it hard to separate ‘he wouldn't try and pull that' from ‘he'd never even consider it with you'.

*Daydreaming about true violation, girlie? Lame. Just how far did this loser drill into my skull?*

The day had gotten even worse when she wandered the circuit of her usual haunts, only to be turned away at each one for tabs unsettled. She was so far into debt, she couldn't even get in any more. Broke, homeless, friendless, without any possessions, and as she would learn, the day had one more surprise she would not care for at all. Finally, she started speaking out loud.

"You all want to hear this? Alright, here's my apologies, but on my terms, without constant interruptions."

There was no one at all around her, and she found she hated this. She wanted to be in the onsen, with her sisters around her and her brother falling on top of her. Then she wanted her brother horizontal. But she had none of this, so she spoke rather than merely sob.

"Su, I could see that you didn't get why what you were doing was wrong. Now you're in trouble in part because I didn't speak up. Exactly why you don't get that a nice prison is still a prison is something I'll leave to them-like I have a choice. But I feel like I could have spared you at least some of it."

"Shinobu-someone was gonna lie to you like that at some point. Maybe it shouldn't have been a friend-alright; it should never have been a friend. Don't use me as an excuse for jumping in the shallow end of the moral pool. You're not a bad girl, and I mean that as a compliment."

"Motoko-I'm sorry about your sake. Even if you kick me out forever, I will tell you why I did it. See, I knew those two were gonna come back from Todai and then start in. Bad enough to be the low one on the pyramid, but to have to hear them going at it? Especially 5:13 AM. That yelp she made a woman only makes if she's been taken where the sun don't shine or she found that one special purse. I couldn't deal with that sober, and only really good sake gets me blasted anymore."

"Haruka-one, watch your nephew, I think he has an Auntie complex. Two, I'm sorry I could be such a pain in the ass, but you could really stand to take a few lessons in basic nice from your nephew. House-Mother, okay? I was already barely-tolerated by one Mom-I didn't need another doing it. I don't know whether to thank you for the chance I blew-because I think maybe you knew I would blow it. But if you were sincere-thank you."

She was fighting against sounding and feeling absolutely pathetic. But even a free spirit can feel chained and weary, and on this day, she had good cause. She tried to avoid the one she wanted to really confront, in reality or in her imagination.

"Sarah, Mutsumi, Kanako---I either don't owe you an apology, or would like to see you under clinical observation-and yes, that is coming from a long-time resident of the Hinata-Sou."

At last, she got to the heart of the matter.

"You always have these plans, Naru, and God help anyone who gets in the way. ‘I'm going to attend Todai. I'm going to achieve all my dreams. I'm going to the Todai entrance with the one really decent guy any of us will ever probably meet. I'm going to confront my oldest dearest friend, then harass and beat her into being exactly like exemplary me.' I don't even blame Motoko for standing with you anymore, because who can stand being on your wrong side?"

She closed her eyes.

"But you didn't play fair. How many times had you said that fool is a bum, and that bum is a fool, and that fool bum is a perverted monster? How was I to know you weren't serious? You said he was an obstacle to your goal. I thought that was it for him. You get in Naru Narusegawa's way, you get pushed aside. No room for goofballs, no room for slacker sisters with no prospects. You never said that-you can be nice when you want to. But I didn't hear room in any of those dreams for me. I'm sorry I tried for your guy, sister. But we had a good balance, and you upset it by choosing a guy who was more than we could have expected."

She looked at the hapless fool with the nose-bleed, buried in her favorite winter sweater.

"You. You didn't have to be so nice. I would have liked you anyway. You've known what it is to be on the outs with those stupid unwritten rules everyone lives to invoke, and once you're unacceptable, that's it. So why does Naru get the puppy-dog eyes? Why do Su and Shinobu get the ‘so cute' shivers? Why does everybody else get your freely given attention, and I have to practically grind my two best pals on your three best pals just to make you uncomfortable? Yeah, I hit you, and told you to clear out. Who didn't at that place? Why couldn't you look me over, until it came time to read off my debts? But I am sorry-for whatever I finally did to make you permanently overlook me. Don't worry about the punch-I won't charge for that."

Was it the job she cost him? Was it equating her ‘attention' with monetary value? Was it just not telling him? But who among them actually came forward and said it? Even Shinobu had to make him doubt her with all that hair-trigger whining. Or was it just that, on more occasions than she cared to remember, she just hadn't been much of a friend?

At that moment, she was well prepared to either sit there staring at the picture or to find a tall enough overlook to be certain of a quick end.

"Hey!"

Something darted past her and grabbed the picture from her hand. Thoughts of becoming either a statue or a memory quickly left her thoughts. She looked at the thief in utter disbelief.

"You-have got to be *FREAKING* kidding me!"

Indeed, a medium-sized fox had the picture in its mouth, and began to move away. Kitsune shook her head as she began pursuit.

"Oh no you don't. Because I love those stupid people, and I hate irony!"

Kitsune swore she saw the fox's eyes do a ‘Groucho' motion before starting the chase in earnest.

---------------------------

Things had now gone too far.

The girl that walked beside him had within a week moved from a model of sweetness and light to a creature of revenge and covetousness.

"Sempai, what is this place?"

Not that she seemed that way at the moment. The décor of the new restaurant, based on 1950's American diners (or their idealized recreations) was perfectly suited to bring out the best in a girl who adored watching the musical ‘Grease'. Yet in this instance, Danny would have to tell Sandi that it was not to be. Keitaro was not breaking up with Shinobu because they had never gone together and now never would. For all that, he had no doubt that it would go over like a real break-up.

*Please, God. You've let me walk with a surer footing these last couple of days. Let me walk as a man here and now, because few people in the world mean more to me than this girl, and I must break her heart in no uncertain terms.*

"It's called a Johnny Rocket's, Shinobu. A franchise that took off in the US. Look, it even has little jukeboxes for each table!"

The delight in her eyes as she viewed the Formica counters, rimmed by stainless steel, and with booths and counter chairs that also mimicked the era, was heartening to a young man who felt like he'd done the worst thing imaginable. As is usual with Keitaro Urashima, he was radically overblowing it-what Mitsune Konno wanted from him was not vengeance. But the thing that hurt the most was seeing/hearing Shinobu pour salt into Kitsune's wounds, and knowing that he had played a part in that twisting by choosing to be happy.

*There were times I wanted to block them-as if I could have. There were even rare times I wanted to let them know how it felt-though I knew that if they didn't just kill me, they would end up stunned and hurt---like Kitsune. But shortly after we met, I knew why my worst beatings were reserved for the times I made you cry-or they thought I did. For there is little I wouldn't do to make it so you never had to cry again, Shinobu. Except tonight.*

"Are we the only ones here?"

"A friend of Grandma's runs this place and a few other restaurants. Oh, Hi, Alice!"

The woman who walked over looked not much older than Auntie Haruka, though Shinobu saw someone else in her face.

"Is that little Keitaro? Oh...when you called I couldn't believe it. How is Haruka?"

"Married very recently. She sends her sempai her best and all her love."

"Feh. All I did was give her a cot and lot of scrubbing when Grandma kicked her out that summer. Riding herd on her was a pleasure...mostly. Still, she was the clumsiest thing. Durable sort, though."

"Alice, this is one of my dearest friends, Shinobu Maehara. I and my girlfriend Naru Narusegawa are both her sempais."

"And does she know you're here with such a sweet beautiful creature, Keitaro?"

Shinobu nodded.

"She does, Alice-San. Sempai Keitaro is treating me. It's been a long week. Is it rude of me to ask...?"

"Why Alice? It's not rude at all. My father attended university at California Berkeley. He was a committed anti-war activist. He even once staged a summer road show version of Go Nagai's Devilman. His favorite song was by the folk singer Arlo Guthrie, called ‘Alice's Restaurant'."

Shinobu smiled.

"He must be very proud of you."

Alice did not frown, but nor did she respond at all to Shinobu's assertion.

"Keitaro please let me know if anything is lacking. We are only a week away from the grand opening, and the opinion of Urashima-Dono's grandson is of immense importance to me."

"Alice! None of your places is ever lacking. I am surprised you're tackling a franchise."

She waved her hand in a pshawing motion.

"Part of the deal is that I get to experiment with the format a bit. I was thinking of opening a vinyl records store in the space I'm currently using for construction supplies. Songs of the era, Japanese and Korean covers of those songs, and of course, Karaoke."

Shinobu seemed to be shaking with excitement.

"What a wonderful idea! Alice-San, we could stage a play here. We've done it before. Maybe even ‘Grease'!"

Now, Alice did smile, and placed her finger under Shinobu's chin. She looked at Keitaro, recalling her last talk with Haruka.

"You chose that violent girl over this treasure?"

Alice immediately sensed the awkwardness the two gave off.

"So-feelings still roil, over at the Love Hina, eh?"

 

[Gojirob]

She sat the two down at a booth. Keitaro saw the hurt on Shinobu's face at yet another unneeded reminder, but now again took joy at how she pored over the menu.

"The Double Tillamook Burger with red sauce, Chili Cheese Fries, Onion Rings, Cherry Lemon Coke, and a Chocolate Shake."

"I'll get you anything you want, Shinobu-but that's a lot of food."

She bit her lip, and in his eyes, even that was beautiful.

"It's not all for me. I figure to take some of it home. I owe someone there."

Alice took their order-Keitaro's was a hot dog and a Patty Melt Burger, small fries, and a Cherry Sprite. When that was underway, Keitaro seized upon what he thought was a peaceful moment. Keitaro Urashima had grown immensely in the last three or so years, and especially in the last three months. But he could still be very very wrong.

"Shinobu, the reason I asked you to come here was that Naru and I have come to a decision about our future."

Shinobu nodded.

"I'm not dumb, Sempai. You proposed to her, didn't you?"

She seemed to be accepting the news well. Keitaro took heart from this when perhaps he shouldn't have.

"Back in Molmol. She accepted last night. We want to try and be ahead of the fates for once. We figured that if we made this move faster than anyone expected, we might confound the bad luck that usually finds us. The wedding itself may not be for some time, as we pursue our studies and well-life comes up with twists, luck aside. But rather than take forever to get engaged and then forever to get married, we decided to confirm what we wanted anyway. Shinobu, we love you, and don't want this news to hurt you. Can you accept what I've told you?"

Her smile was again something easily misread.

"I do. My sempai and Onee-Chan, Naru Narusegawa, will be your wife."

He smiled back at her.

"That's wonderful, I..."

She cut him off in more ways than one.

"And I, Shinobu Maehara, will be your mistress."

Alice walked up with the chili cheese fries and the frankfurter.

"Who had the hot dog?"

Grinning all the while with an almost wicked confidence, Shinobu grabbed the hot dog, and took a large bite before returning it to a stunned Keitaro, swallowed and then wiped the mustard from her mouth with the back of her hand.

*She couldn't have just yelled ‘Jerk' and then hit me in the crotch with the frying pan, could she?*

--------------------------

Things had now gone too far.

Naru Narusegawa knew this, just as surely as she knew that she had played a large part in pushing things as far as they had gone. Her mind again ran through the moments of that morning's calling out of Kitsune. It wasn't that Mitsune Konno wasn't at times a pain in the ass, and hadn't been intolerably over-the-top since Todai. That was the essence of her oldest friend. But she was tired of all the clever deflection, even when backed by valid individual points, allowing her friend to slide endlessly into the next prank or scheme. Yet Naru had still hit her, just as she had hit Keitaro on countless occasions-and Keitaro at least tried to offer explanations. It had also occurred to her after more than one incident that life in a place whose central feature was an outdoor bath meant some awkward moments-though no one quite did awkward like her man.

She needed new solutions to dealing with her life, while realizing at the same time that none of them was likely to change so much as to make these incidents entirely a thing of the past. No one dismissed Keitaro anymore, but while his luck and coordination had improved, some kind of embarrassing situation was bound to rile them. If Kitsune ended up staying, she might lay low for awhile, and might even apologize, but when she felt things were getting dull, Naru saw her pal telling Keitaro there was no one in the onsen, only for him to find the visiting Tsuruko Aoyama, more than her sword on display. As for herself? Well, she hadn't been one for explanations since she was a little girl, listening to a succession of doctors that repeated the same mantra: that her inexplicable illness would keep her bed-ridden for all of what was likely to be a short life. Maybe she was no longer an ingénue-or for that matter, a pent-up virgin-but suppose he came home drunk? What if a bimbo at an office party left lipstick on him, despite pushing her off? She had already decided that any dig with Seta was an automatic out for lateness and not calling-a girl always loves her sempai, but that girl knew her Sempai-Sama could be as huge and thoughtless a pain as Kitsune.

*But Kitsune had a point. I let him off based on Auntie reaming him, and we never really had a chance to corner Kanako. And did Grandma reallly need to send that ninja-girl nuke into our midst? We all owe her, so that's a given pass. But what if she comes up with some weird pre or post-wedding test? My friends made me wonder what was what in Molmol. I've been a pain too, so I'll try and forgive them. But I think I want to never be put through something like that again because someone I trusted decided to play a game. Was I punishing Kitsune's actions or acting in fear against the uncertainty they all created? Cause I hate uncertainty. I hate...*

"Ummm...Naru?"

"Oh, Mutsumi...I'm so sorry."

The only friend to stand by her side the entire infuriating time in Molmol sat across from her in the fish market's eatery. It was a small one known to Mutsumi's family, well away from the bustling world famous hyper-market in Tokyo proper.

"It's all right. Shinobu told me everything."

She smiled, and it was not a rare smile like Naru felt her own had been. Her hands were gentle looking, not pile drivers that childishly needed to hit a boy to say she liked him. Her chest, whatever size it was, stood over a heart that was big enough to forgive an oaf she otherwise cared for, when his face found that same chest. Naru found herself fighting not to run away and once again leave her love to the care of someone who deserved him.

*But he would find me, wouldn't he? Was I calling him an idiot for ever being interested in someone like me? I don't just feel guilt about how I've treated him-it goes way past that. I sit in astonishment at a love that made him choose me over either of the women we're with tonight.*

"Including about Kitsune?"

"Especially about Kitsune. Naru, you had the right to confront her, and the need. No one could just let all those things go."

That she had read Naru so well surprised her less than the fact that the easy-going Mutsumi had endorsed her vengeful approach.

"We didn't exactly play fair ourselves. I didn't let her bring up some things that might have toned it down a bit."

While not calling for blood, Mutsumi again placed herself between Naru and her regrets.

"Friends are not bound by rules of evidence, the last I checked. What's that saying? Sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind? I think that, if you have a fault in this, it's that you all didn't call her on her behavior and pranks and debts well before things got this bad."

Naru had thought about this as well.

"Usually, she holds back after a run of Kitsune-ness. I guess that, up till now, she knew to keep things just below the intolerable mark. This time, though? I even hit her, Mutsumi. I haven't hit her since just after I moved in."

"What brought that on?"

"I-showed her my welts and bruises from being tied up on the damned airship. I could see in her eyes that she got where they came from. But instead of saying anything remotely like an apology, she just cracked wise again."

Mutsumi struck a blow of her own.

"Had you told her before that you had these injuries?"

Naru's eyes widened, telling Mutsumi all.

"Men tell us all the time that they aren't mind readers. But I don't think we are either. Still, while Su is a child from a different culture, Kitsune is an adult-also capable of asking why you were suddenly hostile to her. As for that picture-I might have let it go. Then again, I know how much she resents me for having a bigger bust. The picture in my case would have burned her more than it ever could me. But if you live at the Hinata-Sou, you have to know that invading the privacy of Naru Narusegawa is a losing proposition."

Naru shook her head.

"I can't do that. I can't slide on the defense of ‘that's just how Naru is' and disallow it for her. If she's playing with the rules, I can't. Not again. Not if my righteous stand drives her away forever-like it may have already done."

Mutsumi lightly touched her cheek, and then suddenly bonked her on top of the head.

"There you go again. Retreating to an uncomfortable but familiar situation that you also obviously can't put up with anymore. Naru, it was letting things go for so long that made you so angry at Kitsune. It also told her that the line of what was acceptable was still a long ways off. If you owe her an apology, it's not for the punch, it's for the timing. That argument might also apply to Su. Did none of you ever consider just telling her the whys and wherefores of culture outside her homeland, especially Japan?"

"No. We were all too busy denying being interested in the only boy who could put up with us, and punishing him for having an interest in girls."

"That's still too simple a stance, Naru. Some of Keitaro's intrusions were epic. I think he understands that. Yes, there is justice, and a balanced response is preferable to an over-reaction. But Keitaro invaded your privacy, and while it might be fun, we aren't exactly encouraged to invite boys to bathe with us past a certain age. As for Su, we're told to expect odd things from a foreigner, plus we love her. We love Kitsune, so we roll our eyes, groan and shout her name. Actions have consequences, sometimes even well beyond the actions themselves. Keitaro chose to live in a place with women who all ended up wanting to marry him while mortally terrified that he would by render them unmarriageable by his eyes alone. Su chose to live in a country where the nail that juts out from the floorboard is hammered twice as hard. Maybe you protected her from that reality a little too much. Kitsune rode the edges of irresponsibility in a house full of people who could guarantee she wouldn't have to worry about it."

"So it is on us."

"Partially. But by that same token, she had to realize a day like today might come around. It wasn't any one thing she did that placed her in your sights, fairly or unfairly. It was choosing to let them pile up like papers in the corner. Eventually, a spark can cause all those papers to catch fire. Also-don't discount the idea that she just may have wanted the inn less than she wanted the man holding it. He-has that way about him."


Naru spoke of the reason for this meeting, even if Mutsumi knew it as well as had Shinobu.

"I want to marry him, Mutsumi, and I want those two royal pains there as it happens, creating mechanical turtles while getting loaded. But I live in fear of driving them all away. I can't be this tantrum-prone monster anymore. More than any of them, I'm the one who has to change. I think Kitsune knows it about herself, and is too scared to. I think Su may have inkling, but no idea about how much. I'm not scared, and I know how much. I just have no idea how to do it."

Her oldest and yet newest friend smiled again, raising a finger in the air as she spoke.

"I can help you there, but it means some pain to start off."

"Do it, whatever it is. I can't ask my man to man up and not be willing to----umm-you know, myself."

Mutsumi nodded.

"Alright. How many of your closest friends on Molmol were basically there to get Keitaro in their clutches?"

"Is this a trick question?"

"Sort-of."

"Then----you tell me."

Mutsumi grinned wickedly and gave an answer that, while not Earth-shattering per se, did rock an important part of Naru's world.

"All of them."

Naru took what she was saying in, and indeed, there was pain for her from this revelation. But even as that formed, she echoed her lover some short distance away.

*She couldn't have just fainted dead away and then gotten me arrested for murder, could she?*

--------------------------

Kitsune gave chase to the little thief, not even noticing that the woods were growing ever denser as she ran. She almost had it, though.

*Damn it! A picture I can barely remember taking started this lousy day, and now a picture that may be all I have left in the world...no. Not saying it.*

"You know what, pal? I'm gonna apologize to Naru---by bringing her a fox fur coat!"

The rascal's tongue stuck out two times before it again darted off. Kitsune shook her head.

"Did-that thing just say, ‘Meep, Meep'?"

Running along after it, Kitsune saw dust kicking up all around her. Ahead, the fox had calmly stopped and seemed to be waiting for her. Just short of this with the dust still kicked up, she stopped as well.

"Now give."

The fox looked down at Kitsune's feet. Now, so did Kitsune.

"Crap!"

A small but appreciable gap existed between where the fox stood and where Kitsune had been. Almost as though gravity had waited for her realization, Kitsune fell, and fell hard. But to her amazement, she got up after gaining leverage.

*What the hell? First I survive a Naru-Punch, Shinobu's killer cookware and now this? What am I, Leia to Keitaro's Luke? Not that it would stop me, mind you...oh wow. That's worse than Kanako.*

On a rise just above her, was the fox with the photo still firmly in its mouth. One paw lifted off the ground and seemed to gesture in a ‘come and get me' fashion. Kitsune pointed.

"OH. IT'S ON!!!!!"

Seeing her quarry dart into an opening between two large trees, she jumped at the fox---only to hit the rock right behind that opening, face-first. Before falling unconscious, she managed a brief thought.

*Okay. May-be I deserved to get yelled at. But I really have to object to this. I mean, Naru has this coming so much more than I could ever hope to. I...sorry guys. Whatever you think of me, I lo...*

And in all the time she lay there, the fox did not move so much as a muscle.

----------------------------------------------------

Haruka prepared to end the call. At first, she had dreaded yet another call to or from her former home, but given what was related, she was glad.

"Thanks, Motoko. Well, this was a while in coming. No. See, confronting Kitsune is the dumbest way to go about things with her. Problem is, it also happens to be the only way to go about things with her. Good luck with Su. Take care, kid."

Su. Haruka had tried and broach these matters, but Grandma had flatly said she did not possess the patience or standing with the girl to make it happen. She had been right.

*Let's hope I can do that with her best pal.*

In front of the playground, on a bench, sat a dejected Sarah, holding the remains of an artifact. Back on the playground, a small legion of boys cowered in absolute terror.

"What happened?"

Sarah looked up, frowning.

"They're all a bunch of wimps! They can't take it-not like---like him."

Haruka loved this little girl as she had her mother, and as she did her step-father. She loved all her kin, some more than others. Despite this, she had to fight against laughing out loud as she spoke again.

"Not every boy is going to be quite as manly as your cousin Keitaro."

"I guess not. Think I'll ever get on their good side?"

Haruka patted her on the head.

"You're a blond American surrounded by Japanese boys, destined by genetics to have at least a decent rack. I'd say your future dance card is full."

Sarah smiled.

"Thanks, Mom."

"No prob. By the way, what you just said about your cousin?"

"Yeah?"

Haruka took some sweet revenge on her newest headache. She leaned up in Sarah's face.

"Eeeeeewwwwwww!!!"

 

[Gojirob]

Keitaro took in Shinobu's stunning offer, and tried to keep several things in mind. She was very, very beautiful, and she was the one who had never bothered hiding her feelings for him. Except for a handful of nerve-induced accidents and two recent events, she had never struck him, and certainly never with the abandon and contempt the others had displayed (although he now understood even that a bit better).

This was also simultaneously the fragile crush of a young girl and the fierce love of a young woman who knew who and what she wanted. It was also what Captain Kirk had called The No-Win Scenario, the one that, when he truly faced it, cost him the life of his best friend. He did not want to even risk losing her friendship. If Keitaro had never had much luck with girls, he had also never had many real friends, and these crazy violent girls were all more precious to him in the latter regard than he knew how to say, even absent flustered stammers. He was caught in a situation in which there was no right answer, no way to avoid the pain that had to follow whatever he said.

He recalled every sweet moment with this young girl, including shopping with her, watching ‘guy-stuff' videos with her, and every single instance in which their faces were etched in absolute horror at the sighting of something public morals just didn't allow for. He recalled questioning his sanity as he continued to fix his gaze on a girl who fought him every step of the way rather than someone like Shinobu-or for that matter, Shinobu herself. She was worth waiting for, be it five years or seven, it didn't matter. While they would watch him like hawks, the other ladies could never fault him for choosing the one they also loved best of all, as the years ticked by.

Yet it wasn't her, and it was never going to be her. As cruel as his next action might be or seem, he also recalled the one time he had truly hurt her, when he let a misunderstanding blossom into a full-blown lie. So it was that Keitaro Urashima gave the only answer he possibly could to Shinobu Maehara's offer to become his secret lover while still marrying Naru. One word that hit them both with the force of a tsunami.

"No."

Her face did not contort in rage, nor did she leap across the booth's table, knife in hand.

"I understand, Sempai. You need time to consider all this. But once you've taken that time, the offer stands. After all, if we snuck off so soon after you and Sempai Naru started in, she would get suspicious. My sixteenth birthday isn't that far off. Then it's legal."

Actually, he knew, prefecture law was more like eighteen, but whether she was wishfully thinking or lying, it didn't matter.

"Shinobu, there is nothing to consider, and all the time in the world won't change or modify my answer. That answer is still No."

She now looked a bit put off. Keitaro realized to his discomfort that he would probably be forced to take this all the way to a true confrontation. This time, he swore on his soul, he would cut his hands off before even raising them to as much as block Shinobu.

"So---what you're saying is, you want nothing but abuse and random bouts of turning away in your life. You want, without outlet or relief, to fight with a woman who won't let you so much as compliment her without falling into a rage. You want only to be insulted and belittled, and screamed at for things no sane person could ever call for being your fault? Is that what you're saying, Keitaro? Because that's what I'm hearing."

He refused to dignify her attack with a response, so she kept on.

"I think that you're a good man. I would never tell you otherwise. I think that you are one day going to be a great man. Great men often have both a wife and a mistress. You know, there is no reason per se to keep this a secret from Naru. I think she's beginning to finally recognize your worth-took her long enough. Say the word and I'll approach her-I'll say it was all my idea, and that you shot me down. That'll give you cover and I think she might even see that knowing your eye is confined to her circle would be...a good..."

Her speech paused and halted as she caught what she was saying. The rage began to break through at last.

"But you won't allow that, will you? It's just like Kitsune said. You already have what every guy is after, and you're so spinelessly afraid of risking it that you can't see what's best for you. Is it the age difference between us? Because it doesn't matter to me. Say the word-I'll go with you to that restroom. I would have---uhhhhh-I would have done it the night we met, if I had known that was what made your decision for you!"

"Stop it. You're better than this. Kitsune also urged you to remember who you are. Damn it, Shinobu. This isn't about sex, and it isn't about age. We could have all been doing it like rabbits since that first night, and all been born at the exact same moment on the exact same day---"

His next words surprised even him. They were not forced from an idealized dream or promise, nor did they originate from anywhere but his own truest heart.

"---and my choice still would have been Naru."

"You can't know that."

"Yes I can. I can't prove it by math or alternate history projection, or by anything rational. But I know that. Just as I know that I cannot endorse a plan that ultimately hurts us all. It betrays Naru, it betrays our dreams, and worst of all and it betrays my Shinobu, who deserves a lot better than to spend her life always being second."

"Don't. Don't call me your Shinobu unless you mean to make it happen. Don't tell me what I deserve. I deserve to have your love, after serving as your harmless little pal all this time. Is that it? Shinobu is only interesting, as long as she isn't dangerous? A cute sweet fantasy, a safety net for when your porn stash gets old?"

He shook his head. If she had been anyone else and said these things, he would have contemplated slapping her.

"If you were-normally-twenty times as sweet, exactly my age, and if I were even a bigger wimp when I arrived and Naru forty times as violent-if all of them were-my choice would remain the same. This is that time, Shinobu. Accept what will be, and what will not be. You've always been mature for your age. Be that now."

She wasn't backing down, nor had he expected she would.

"So your dream, blared over loudspeakers into our skulls, gets to come true, while mine dies a quiet death?"

Never the wisest man on Earth, Keitaro knew what she would say next.

"I Hate You."

He got up from the table, and headed for the restroom she had suggested earlier, though this was to get away from her, rather than be with her.

"If that's really how you feel, then you're just being a brat, and we were never really friends, Shinobu."

In the restroom, he took off his glasses and began to cry. He even briefly wondered if his durability extended to self-inflicted injuries. Back at the table, Shinobu crumpled inside, realizing her all-out effort to gain the man she loved had in fact achieved the exact opposite effect. In the chrome on the booth's jukebox, she saw her reflection. The reflection of a little girl who had tried to be what she saw as a sophisticated woman, only to fall off her tricycle.

*Jerk*

-----------------------------------

Naru couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Mutsumi, you were by my side the entire time! You were the only one whose motives I didn't have to puzzle out."

Mutsumi Otohime smiled and shrugged.

"I went with you to Molmol to try and get Keitaro for myself. To get him to be my husband, and if an opportunity had really presented itself, I would have moved on him like a wave hits the shore."

Naru found one of her only remaining pillars crumbling fast.

"That's-that's not how it was."

"No, Naru-that's not how you saw it. What I saw was my last chance to have a boy I've loved for as long as I can remember as mine, and mine alone. This was my time to not stand aside happily, but to make my own happily ever after. You don't even remember those times. Those times when a sick little girl made good use of the sympathy sick little girls always get. I knew I had to let him pay attention to you, or you might get really sick and die. You owe your life to me, but you also get to take the very best thing in my life as your own?"

Naru shook her head.

"You're either joking, or you feel like you have to join in with the others to make me understand something, right?"

Mutsumi smiled, and her hair-tennas rustled.

"Nope! I went there to steal back what you took. I even had a plan."

"What---kind of plan?"

"Hmmm-how should I say this? Su had her own country and armed forces, but I think some Gamera films were better organized, so no threat there. I honestly don't believe Motoko was there for the same reason as the rest of us. Partly honor, and partly pride from having said she already resolved her feelings for Keitaro. Kanako, amazingly, may be the only one of our varied crowd who is actually clinical. Shinobu idolizes him too much to actually pursue him in a meaningful and effective way. Kitsune wants attention more than anything else, and hid behind the Sou's deed to mask how she really felt. As for you? As usual, at the first hint that there even might be someone else for Keitaro, you started to run off. What was the excuse this time? Oh, Yes. A lack of confidence in your looks. Sarah slept mostly. Oh, and Auntie Haruka had Seta."

"Auntie?!"

"You never noticed their romance? Kind of a generational inverse to him and Shinobu. Don't you see, Naru? Your approach was so slap-dash, even a woman we all saw as a mother could have had him in a heartbeat."

Naru began to shake, with both fear and rage.

"Don't do this. You're one of the only sane ones. One of the only things I can count on. The others just turned on me when it counted most. Not you."

Mutsumi blinked, and usually this blink was enchanting to anyone who saw her.

"Turned on you? You think the entire world turns on you. As to my plan-welllll, let's just say I got ‘em, and there's a quick way to use ‘em to make a man your friend for life. I probably would have had to shower from head to toe after-lemon juice is good for getting that stuff off. Heh. I'll bet his eyes wouldn't need glasses, after that."

As if to make a point, Mutsumi bounced her chest twice.

"Of course, given how you handle things, I probably still have a chance. After the next beating for not agreeing with your choice of movie to watch, he may just be in the mood for an upgrade in fiancée."

Naru briefly swore that, in the face of this savage deconstruction, she would not allow herself to react in a predictable manner. This was very brief. No ad-hoc battle-cry left her lips, but she did form a fist. As Mutsumi ate her fish-head soup, Naru's arm pulled back and then shot forward.

"Mutsumi-Block!"

Without looking up from her soup, Mutsumi caught and held Naru's punch with two raised fingers from her left hand.

"And I'm not even left-handed."

Naru almost fell back into her chair, much of the power of her infamous punch channeled back and hitting her as hard as a man intruding into a ladies onsen. Her mind and soul were in not much better shape.

"Why, Mutsumi?"

------------------------------------------------------------

Shinobu sat and stewed. Never had she felt more alone. Like Kitsune, whom she had taunted and condemned, she made a wild gamble and lost everything she had.

"Couldn't he even consider it?"

"No. I don't think he could."

Shinobu snapped back to reality to see Alice sitting across from her.

"Did you listen in on what we were saying?"

The somewhat older woman nodded.

"Hard not to. You looked at times like you might go after him."

Shinobu now felt humiliated as well as ashamed of herself.

"Alice-San, you are my elder and this is your place. But you should not have listened in."

Alice held up a card.

"A free meal for you and all your friends if my explanation for doing so does not satisfy you."

Shinobu felt angry enough to bankrupt this woman.

"Go on."

Alice gestured about her.

"Twenty years ago, another girl about your age came to the old restaurant on this spot with her sempai. He too was set to tell her of his upcoming marriage."

"You?"

"All right, that bit was obvious. But it is all true. Like yourself, I fiercely loved my sempai. I did not take his news well at all. He was a good man, but soft-headed and hearted, and maybe a little too horny for any of our good. So when I made the same offer you did to Keitaro-he took me up on it-in or near the very spot you suggested. I was cramped, and people walked in on us, but I didn't care. I had him, and surely one day I could become his wife as well. For a while, it was fun. He was fun to be with."

Shinobu waited for more, seeing that Alice was in deadly earnest. But another voice was heard first.

"Mother, the neon counter sign has been delivered, as has the pickles and onions. Should I sign for them?"

"BAKA! You interrupt me and our guest? Yes, sign for them, if you know how to write your own name without me holding your hand!"

The boy was about a year older than Shinobu, wearing the franchise's standard 50's Diner uniform, and looked sturdy yet appealing. He also seemed more nervous than her own sempai had been the night he arrived at the Sou.

"Yes, Mother."

The boy seemed to have his gaze locked on Shinobu, and his throat gurgled as though trying to voice words.

"Arlo! Is there work to do in the kitchen?"

"Yes, Mother."

"Then stop molesting our guest with your perverted eyes and get your lazy ass back to work."

"Yes, Mother."

Despite her warnings, Arlo did look at Shinobu again before leaving. Alice sighed.

"Yes, I know. I treat him horribly. No mother could have a better son, but I cannot ever seem to tell him that."

Shinobu did some painfully easy math.

"Does he look that much like his father?"

"Yes. And he is at the age I first met his father. He was skinny-dipping with the girl he eventually married-and still is married to, despite a deluded girl's fantasies."

"She was also your sempai?"

Alice shook her head.

"Worse. My cousin, who I once called Onee-Chan. I don't call her that anymore. What she calls me-is best not repeated. Arlo is a non-entity to them. Remember my iconoclast father? He suddenly became very traditional, in light of what I had done."

Shinobu tried to keep her focus on Alice's obvious pain, but it was bleeding through to hers.

"But what about him? He betrayed his wife, and left you pregnant and alone."

"He was the sort that always got forgiven. I was the sort that always got blamed. If not for Hinata-Dono letting me stay at the Sou off-season, I don't like to think about how Arlo and I would have lived. A small loan from her started my first restaurant. But it's been hard, on me and my boy."

"You---lived at the Hinata-Sou?"

Alice now seemed to smile.

"I stayed in-let's see-Room 201. Arlo was born in there. Hinata-Dono said that she liked having young women as boarders, so perhaps that was why she changed it from a hotel. Shinobu-I am sorry I intruded. But I felt I could not remain silent, and allow you to hate your sempai for showing the decency and wisdom not to abuse a young girl's devotion. Hinata-Dono bequeathed decency to her children and grandchildren. Rather than curse the fates, praise God for that fact."

Shinobu now felt lower than ever.

"I don't hate him. I hate myself. Ever since we got back, I've been a bratty monster. All because I didn't get what I wanted."

"Are these wrongs beyond redress?"

"No. But I can't believe the things I've said and done."

Alice got up from the table.

"I know the feeling. But because your sempai is a better man than mine proved to be, you will have the chance I never did. Treasure it, and the man who is probably your truest friend, for giving not the empty fun you wanted, but the firm answer you needed."

She saw him emerge from the restroom, eyes still red. She heard the angry words of the other ladies back at the Hinata-Sou.

*You Made Keitaro Cry.*

Like a bolt, she ran into his arms, and they embraced. Heartened, Keitaro looked down at her and held her chin.

"It's not in the way you wanted. But never doubt the sincerity of these words."

She had once thought just hearing this from him could change her life in the most wonderful ways. She was wrong-and she was right as well.

"Shinobu Maehara-I Love You."

"Keitaro Urashima---"

She smiled mischievously.

"-I Know."

 

[Gojirob]

Mutsumi put aside her soup.

"You know, you never asked me when exactly I abandoned my master plan to take Keitaro. Or even how long it took me to cook it all up."

Naru prepared herself for another round.

"Alright. How long did it take, and when did you come up with it?"

Mutsumi cupped Naru's cheek.

"On the trip to Molmol, as I got bored out of my mind. I abandoned it five seconds after we arrived, like a good friend should."

Naru pushed her off.

"That's not funny. I ask you to help me figure out why I get so violent, and then as a prank even Kitsune would have turned down, you make me that mad? Mutsumi, why?"

The odd beauty's genius side was showing in full force.

"Tell me how you felt when I made you think I had betrayed you. When I taunted you with a bunch of observations you normally could shut down at any time. When I blocked your super-punch with almost no effort at all."

Naru said the only word that came to mind.

"Weak. I felt weak. How could you do that to me?"

"Stop. Now-when Kitsune and Su kidnapped you, and had you all trussed up?"

"Weak. Helpless."

Mutsumi pressed on, despite the pain on her friend's face.

"Before you realized you cared for Keitaro, how did his onsen adventures make you feel?"

Naru chuckled.

"Angry. Pissed."

"And?"

"Ummm----well, he did seem like he might be some kind of pervert mastermind. So I guess I felt maybe-threatened?"

"And after you realized you cared but couldn't quite put your finger on it, how did that make you feel?"

"I don't know. Distracted. Unfocused. Confused."

"Finally, when I returned and Kanako showed up, and it looked like Keitaro might just like one of us better, what then?"

Naru felt something shift.

"Scared."

Mutsumi took her friend's hand, and squeezed it.

"When in your life did you feel all those things all at once? All at the same time?"

Naru put her hand over her heart. Her breathing halted for ten seconds.

"When I was little. When I was so sick, everyone thought I might die. I hate being reminded of when I wasn't strong."

Mutsumi smiled.

"And who besides me did more than anyone else to lift your spirits during that dark time?"

Naru had studied enough psychology to catch on.

"I-associated Keitaro with my early weakness, even though he helped me overcome it. Since I didn't remember knowing him, I only knew that I thought of weakness when I saw him, and it made me want to demonstrate my strength. Same with Kitsune's tricks. I'm not a violent girl after all."

"Ummmm---I wouldn't say that. You've actually always been a hitter. As a matter of fact, Keitaro and I were the only kids who would go near you, because you would hit, knowing others couldn't hit a sick girl back. You've actually grown less sadistic over time."

Naru's mood swings were getting to be like a space coaster ride.

"Thanks a lot, Mutsumi."

"Well, it is true. But he actually kind of liked it when you hit him. In fact, the very last time we saw each other, he made you promise to get really crazy strong, so you could hit him even harder. Hmm. Actually, that makes him kind of a pervert, even back then. Good thing I backed off in time."

Naru finally dropped another burden.

"Why did you back off? Why did you support us, against the wishes of your own heart?"

"Because, silly! From the time we were all kids together to now, the only thing that makes me feel better than being with Keitaro is watching him be with you. Being with him myself was like a summer day. Watching you be with him has always been like every good summer day rolled into one. I didn't give anything up, Naru. Besides, the wonder of your love proves that if it can happen once, it can happen again. For any of us."

Naru stood up.

"Then let's pay our tab and go collect him. Do you want the rest of my soup?"

Mutsumi leaned forward, in Naru's face.

"Nope. I want your man. It could still work, you know."

Naru then playfully demonstrated why she was and would always be a violent girl.

---------------------

Two people who would always love each other in a very special way danced together.

"Sempai-I am stronger for having known you. I am better for having loved you."

"Shinobu-Chan-above even my Naru, your love showed me my worth when I assumed I simply had none at all. I am better for having watched and helped as you grow ever more beautiful."

She held him close, the better to try and let him go once and for all.

"Then if we love each other, why wasn't it the two of us making all that noise last night?"

"Well, for one thing, I hear that prison food is lousy."

"SEMPAI!"

They both laughed.

"It isn't us because, Shinobu, love doesn't make any sense. Why else would a girl like Naru be marrying the guy who embarrassed and distracted her so often? Why else would I be marrying a girl who used to punch me out for things that I had no fault for, and who made a business out of ignoring my explanations?"

"Wow. I guess it really doesn't make any sense. Maybe we made too much sense to click. Does it always make as little sense as it does in your case?"

"I-like to think that, even by the standards of true love, Naru and I are extreme."

The song from 1958 played as they kept dancing. Both of them had excellent English grades, so they caught every last word.

**Born too late for you to notice me
To you, I'm just a kid that you won't date
Why was I born too late?

Born too late to have a chance to win your love
Oh why, oh why was it my fate
To be born too late?

I see you walk with another
I wish it could be me
I long to hold you and kiss you
But I know it never can be

for I was

Born too late for you to care
Now my heart cries
Because your heart just couldn't wait
Why was I born too late?

Born too late for you to care
Now my heart cries
Because your heart just couldn't wait
Why was I born too la-a-a-a-ate?
Why was I born too late?
Too late **

They separated when it was done. Two visitors clapped.

"They really do make a much cuter couple than you two."

Naru nodded at Mutsumi's words.

"I know. That kid is the greatest danger to my future marriage. So why such a sad song, Shinobu?"

"It wasn't sad, Sempai Naru. It was acceptance of what is, and my chance to move on from those feelings. Besides, the group was called the Poni-Tails. How cool is that?"

Mutsumi put one of the provided nickels in the jukebox.

"This one was called The Exciters. Shinobu-you wanna see these two dance?"

"Oh-I've seen them dance-up close and personal. But let's see them cut a rug."

Keitaro gulped.

"Suppose I step on your feet?"

Naru shrugged.

"You have a few hundred hits pre-paid that I owe you. For now lover-let's dance."

**I know something about love. You've gotta want it bad
If that guy's got into your blood, go out and get him
If you want him to be the very part of you
That makes you want to breathe, here's the thing to do...


Tell him that you're never gonna leave him
Tell him that you're always gonna love him
Tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him right now

I know something about love. You gotta show it and make him
See the moon up above. Reach out and get it
If you want him to make your heart sing out
And if you want him to only think of you...

Tell him that you're never gonna leave him
Tell him that you're always gonna love him
Tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him right now

Ever since the world began it's been that way
For man and woman were created to make love their destiny
Then why should true love be so complicated? Oh...

I know something about love. You gotta take it and
Show him what the world is made of, one kiss will prove it
If you want him to be always by your side
Take his hand tonight and swallow your foolish pride and...

Tell him that you're never gonna leave him
Tell him that you're always gonna love him
Tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him right now **


And as they danced, a hand tapped Shinobu on the shoulder.

"Maehara-San-will you dance with me?"

Sweet and nervous, Arlo looked like he had summoned all his courage to make this request. Shinobu hated to refuse him.

"No. This is their dance. But come by the Hinata-Sou two weeks from today. If all my sempais approve, then---maybe we can have a meal together. But know this, Arlo-San---"

She smiled at the almost-not-clumsy Keitaro as he danced with his future wife.

"-you have a very high standard to live up to. Perhaps the highest."

Arlo nodded in agreement, and his mother's scolding was a little less harsh as he went back to work. Mutsumi nudged Shinobu.

"I approve of him already. Oooh. Are you going to take him up to your room?"

Shinobu smiled, and it was starting to once again become her natural state.

"Actually-he's already been there. He just doesn't remember it."

Since part of her life had been defined by such a memory, Mutsumi accepted this odd statement, but also asked another question.

"Why make him wait two weeks? Playing hard to get?"

Shinobu shook her head.

"No. I-need some time to make up for some things I've done. Some debts to pay. Some promises to keep."

Shinobu stopped Naru after the dance was done, and made a request.

"Keitaro?"

"Yes?"

Naru had her arms around Shinobu from behind.

"This sweet kid who we owe like, everything to, wants you to be her boyfriend."

"Naru! C'mon, I'm not walking into a trap like that."

She lightly bonked him on the head.

"No! She wants you to be her sounding board on all things guys. Even stuff that decorum, culture and tradition don't normally allow for. Short of talking really dirty or physical contact, you are to give her anything she wants to survive in the world of dating you perverted Neanderthals."

He smiled and bowed at three women who could not have loved him more.

"Given. Always."

The bill was paid, and Shinobu's large doggy bag was packed. Back at the Sou, she made an important first step.

"Huh! Is it poisoned? Mixed with laxatives?"

Shinobu put down the bag and hugged the stuffings out of Kaolla Su.

"I'll be pulling for you tonight. Because I want you to stay with us. Maybe even long enough to forgive the monster I became."

Su cried to see her friend back.

"Do I really have to do this?"

"Yes. Even though I was wrong to lash out like I did, some things that happened in Molmol and before were also wrong. We can't let things just hang there anymore, Su. These matters have to be addressed, and you have to learn why it was all wrong."

Shinobu kissed her on the forehead.

"But I know you can do it. So do all your friends."

"Even Kitsune?"

Shinobu assured her of that, but outside Su's room, she frowned. For Kitsune had not called, or been seen or heard from in all that time.

*Please be okay, you lying drunken pain in the ass. Because none of us would know what to do without you. And you and I still have to forgive each other.*

Things had now gone too far. But now they also stood a fighting chance of being made right once again.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kitsune awoke with a splitting headache.

"Please don't tell me it's still here."

Sure enough, the fox still waited there, the picture in its mouth.

"Just who-and what are you?"

The fox dropped the picture, and then turned into mist. The mist reformed as a woman who looked Human and yet not quite as well. Mitsune beheld a woman who looked much like her.

"Three guesses."

Mitsune nodded, and took all this in calmly and rationally.

*I get it now. Motoko knew I'd steal the sake, so she majorly spiked it. Motoko, I forgive you. Now kill me while I'm comatose, and we'll be good.*

The woman who had been the fox shrugged.

"Will you stop with the ‘how strong was the sake' comments already?"

Mitsune realized that her thoughts had been read.

"Ummm-why are you here? With me?"

The fox-woman smiled.

"Copyright protection, kid. See, you've been giving us a bad name, and we need to talk."

Mitsune ‘Kitsune' Konno desperately wanted to be groped, punched, whined at, subjected to crazed inventions, and envy a woman with a bigger bust. But considering the nature of her accuser, she prepared for her worst day ever to get just a little to a whole lot weirder.

Even in that, she had no idea what she was in for.

 

[Gojirob]

Chapter Seven - Cocktails For Su

-----------------------------------

HINATA-SOU, LATE 1999

"Do ya think he looked angry at me?"

Naru brushed her hair and looked oddly at Sarah doing the same.

"Umm-you did hit him."

"So did you. So does everybody-except Shinobu and Mutsumi."

Naru hated this aspect of her life, and she hated explaining it even more.

"We hit him when he puts us in an embarrassing situation-like when he falls into the onsen like that, and ends up seeing us naked and touching us. He should know better by now."

"So Keitaro does it on purpose?"

Naru surprised both her guest and herself with the fierceness of her response.

"No! He's just an idiot, and always finds himself there. Also, he has the worst luck of anyone I've ever seen."

Sarah looked confused.

"So why hit him?"

"To-teach him a lesson."

"But-if it's mostly bad luck, you can't teach him to have better luck-can you?"

Naru fought to come up with a response.

"Well, he should just behave himself better around young girls like you, Su and Shinobu."

"Why us?"

"Well, weren't you upset when he fell in the onsen and saw you naked?"

Sarah looked at her own unclad form.

"I got nothin'. Plus, you two have seen my hiney."

Naru was sensing this conversation heading for a cliff overlooking a waterfall overlooking an alligator pit.

"Well, weren't you upset at seeing him naked when his stuff fell off?"

"No. Sides', my Dad's is bigger. It's all like---"

"THANK YOU, SARAH! I-don't need to hear about Seta-Sama's personal business."

"But Auntie said you used to climb under the dinner table to try and---"

"Sarah-if you weren't upset with Keitaro's intrusion, then why did you hit him? Were you upset with him from something else?"

Naru knew she was engaging in desperate deflection, but being that close to discussing Seta's thing brought that out in her.

*I used to be as bad as Shinobu is for Keitaro.*

"Huh-I've never really been upset with Keitaro."

Naru puzzled at this response.

"Kid-you hit him as much as any of us---maybe more. If you have no problem with his weird behavior, then you shouldn't hit him."

"Oh, like you have room to talk."

"Sarah---I have a lot more than nothing. I hit him because I don't know any other way to tell him to finally figure out how to not do what he does. Also, he never just leaves. Once his bad luck puts him there, he hems and haws staying put, seeing even more than he would if he just pulled out!"

Rather than point out how the prospect of being hit probably made him even more nervous each time, Sarah grinned at Naru's choice of words.

"Pull out? OOOoooooooh!!!"

Naru flushed.

"No---I just meant that he should finish up---errr stop hesitating and come---around---just get out of there before something happens---be firm not soft---uhhhh-cut the whole thing off---before we all get in trouble---uuuhhhhh---"

"Naru---breathe!"

Naru did just that, and briefly wished that Sarah would just hit her with her mysteriously-produced artifacts.

"You---huhhhu---still didn't answer my question. If you're never upset with Keitaro, then why do you hit him?"

She was not going to let this clever sprite fluster her again with sidetracking.

"Well, he's like this real life cartoon character. Like Goofy, or Daffy Duck. They're dorks too, but they're funny-cool like him. Plus, you can hit him forever, but he's still nice to you after."

"I wish you wouldn't use that word. You know what a dork is?"

"Yeah. But if I tell you, you'll start breathing heavy again."

As Naru puzzled and fumed, Sarah chuckled.

"You're like a cartoon character, too. Only it's words set you off."

The girl strutted about, her arm in the air.

"Keitaro, how dare you come in here? Whack!"

Then she cowered and sniffled.

"Narusegawa, I didn't mean to come in here!"

"You dare say ‘Come' to me? Whack! Whack!-You're crying about being hit-Whack! For being a wimp!"

Sarah finally stopped when laughter took over her effort at parody. Naru pointed.

"I-He-WE ARE NOTHING LIKE---"

A hum came from the living room and cut them off.

"Not again. Sarah-get dressed fast."

"What's that dork doing now?"

"It's not him. It's Su."

Sarah gulped.

"Oh! We all had to wear wigs for a month last time. Did all you guys' hair ever grow back on your---"

"SARAH!"

They rushed downstairs, and the hum grew louder. A silvery ball was in the dead middle of the living room, with Su standing befuddled as the sound and the lights emanating from it expanded at a geometric rate.

"It's really not supposed to do that."

Motoko found herself pinned against the wall by the flat of her own sword, somehow magnetized to her by the storm Kaolla Su had summoned. Kitsune was futilely trying to reach the device through the field that kept knocking her back. What exactly she would have done if and when she got there, she didn't know, yet she never stopped trying. Haruka was trapped in the kitchen by swirling pots, pans and utensils. Naru and Sarah hopped over the edge of the stairwell, at an odd angle clear of the wave that had so many of the others pinned. Su still just stood and shook her head, the hum growing into a roar.

"Huh. Maybe I'm not using enough electricity."

To everyone else present, there seemed to be electricity to spare. They were now wondering if they would be spared. Naru, despite her freedom of movement, found herself more than a little afraid, and when she did try and approach the machine, it seemed to roar louder like a cornered animal.

Like Yamato Takeru charging the Orochi itself he came from out of the onsen, where he was cleaning. Keitaro first grabbed Kaolla Su, tossing her to a Motoko who had only just freed herself. His healed leg still showed a stiffness of gait, but nor did he relent in grabbing the device. Mutsumi helped Haruka out of the kitchen, the pair grabbing the struggling Kitsune back from her unwilling pantomime. Sarah ran to be with Su. Naru saw Keitaro heading for the front door, and tried to decide whether or not to follow and aid him. She saw a smaller figure already move with him, and Naru felt ashamed that there was one who didn't need to decide. The two biggest crybabies in the house hefted the threat out the front door, showing clarity and courage that, Naru realized, just might take them into eternity together.

*Her. Not me. Because when the time came, I couldn't decide.*

The explosion came mainly as a flash outside. There was less force and sound than one would have thought, but still it was a loud report. Kitsune's face went wide in horror, and Haruka screamed her nephew's name. Sarah shrank from the front door, and started to cry. Mutsumi looked like she was trying to sense something, muttered something about interference, then sat down, looking actually unhappy. Motoko held onto a Su who looked like she honestly did not get what she had done. Motoko's face looked blank and empty, the sacrifice of a man who had been an annoying but able landlord and a tolerable friend at times hitting as hard as the loss of a girl second in her heart only to Su. Naru knew what she had to do, and headed for the front door.

"Narusegawa, do not go out there! There may not be anything left-or there may be large pieces of them left."

"I have to, Motoko. For Keitaro and Shinobu. I---"

They stumbled back in, wearing only weary, confused looks and nothing else. Keitaro's glasses looked melted. Shinobu's hair was frizzed out in all directions. She leaned up and kissed him absently on the cheek.

"G'night, Sempai."

"G'Night, Shinobu."

Sarah laughed a bit. As Keitaro headed to his room, he was confronted by Motoko.

"Urashima, this is disgraceful! You---"

He seized her wooden staff, and struck himself over the head, handing it back to her when he was done.

"G'Night, Motoko."

"Errr-good evening, Urashima."

"Hey, Narusegawa? Help Auntie clean up outside?"

He was closing the door as she answered.

"Okay, Keitaro. Errr-good job."

"My Dad's is bigger. But he has a nicer butt."

"SARAH!"

Halfway up the steps, Shinobu stopped. Her face looked vacant, and her voice reflected this.

"No, Sempai Naru. She's right. I had a chance to inspect it at about 1000 feet. We kind of floated there for like a minute---then we came down like feathers. Whoooosh! Briefly-I was afraid that, when we landed, Sempai Keitaro had accidentally made me a woman-but it turned out to be one of Sarah's sand castles-and no blood was spilled. Gee. I hope that's not what it's really like. It was kind of a disappointment."

Motoko was shaking with fury.

"Shinobu---he saw you naked! You kissed him while you were both naked!"

Shinobu nodded. Her listless voice never went up so much as one iota.

"Wah. Oh. No. Sempai's a Jerk. Ouch. Murder. Police. Arson. Shotguns. A Thousand White Horses, dogs and cats, living together. Now I'll never graduate from a good wedding school--or something. "

Just as vacantly, a young woman whose modesty often compounded with her feelings for her landlord and senior into blind panic walked back up the stairs, her business in plain view.

" G'Night, Motoko."

"Ummm-evening, Shinobu."

"I'll go-check on her."

Haruka thanked Mutsumi for this, and then pointed at Motoko.

"You talk with Victoria Frankenstein. If this denies her great-grandchildren, Grandma will want heads."

Checking on her nephew, Haruka withdrew. Sarah headed upstairs, waving at Su, who cluelessly waved back, not realizing her friend was doing this in case it was goodbye. This left Naru free to make a beeline for Su-but suddenly she was nowhere to be found.

"Motoko! You can't protect her from this."

Kitsune laughed, but it was nowhere near as confidently as normal.

"It's her pattern, okay? Remember how long they stayed out after Ashura nearly got her whiny head taken off by Su's laser? She does something crazy-big, Motoko realizes this may be it, and pulls her out for a time. Keitaro just forgives-probably why we're not all in stir, and I can't imagine what it would take to actually piss Shinobu off. By the by, you good with little Miss Au Naturel almost flying off into eternity with your ‘Not-Boyfriend'?"

"Mitsune, she's a kid with a crush on a lovable fool. And I think this might be the first time Keitaro was completely not at fault for an incident involving exposure."

"You mean except for all the other times he really was innocent? Nah, we've got some karma going on there, but I don't mind. Plus, at times like today, we actually get some male fanservice! Our little pal is filling out-and so's the rest of Keitaro's body. And don't discount Shinobu's crush. Two girls who might want the lad had a chance to maybe end their days at his side. Only one took that chance. She even snagged a naked kiss-though that's not the cheek I would have kissed."

Naru ignored the innuendo-at least on the surface. Shinobu's boldness in deciding things would not leave her, even if her blossoming friendship with Keitaro had left her in doubt about his once-complete unworthy uselessness as something more.

"He saved our lives, and it's not him I'm upset with for right now-give it time. But Su has got to stop, and the only one who can stop her is Motoko. Where does that kid get the money for all that stuff, anyway?"

Kitsune shrugged.

"Mysteries for another day. One thing's a no-brainer : Motoko will never actually tell a kid she sees with that much affection those magic words even a kid like me needed to hear--*No. Just Because. Or Else*. As a Marine I hooked up with used to say-NGH, Baby! Never Gonna Happen."

"Oh, like you ever took those words to heart. I'll marry Keitaro before you'll ever know self-restraint."

"Motoko-will-never-slap-Su-down. Make book on that---and did anyone get a picture of Keitaro? I'll ask Sarah. She's a good kid."

As Naru had protested, her concern was this once not for her anxiety-inducing relationship with Keitaro.

*Motoko, I know it will hurt. But one of these days, it's going to blow up and even Keitaro's durability won't shield us from the explosion. Isn't it better to take her to the woodshed now than risk Keitaro-or even worse, Grandma-throwing her out? I love that kid too. So does Keitaro. So do all of us. Slap her hand now. Before it's too late.*

Outside and a good ways down the path, a Motoko who planned to do almost exactly that felt Kaolla Su jump off her back.

"Why'd we leave like that? I wanted to find out if Shinobu got Keitaro's thing first. That wouldn't be very fair of her, using that explosion as an excuse to get there first. Naru wouldn't like that, I'll bet. Can I be the godmother, if the rabbit dies?"

Motoko closed her eyes and allowed her fury to build. Dearly though she loved this girl, her antics had at last gotten too antic.

*Urashima and Shinobu-both nearly taken from us. For what, Su? How can one of such fundamental brilliance fail to understand basic rules of safety and sanity?*

When she opened her eyes, Su was scrawling in the dirt.

"The motor was whirring at 88.5 KPH. I should have been able to break the barrier. Darn! I was gonna meet Napoleon and get his pastry recipe!"

"That is not important. Two people whom we all care for-to vastly differing degrees, mind you---were hurt and embarrassed while trying to protect us from yet another of your heedless---"

"Huh?"

Su's head turned to look at her mentor, and in those lovely eyes, Motoko found her will and rage simply dissolved.

"Kaolla Su-we will be staying here for tonight. Okay?"

"YAY!"

In Motoko's dreams, a Keitaro and Shinobu dressed in her own clan's finest Samurai robes bested her in combat, broke her weapons and arms and then called her weak.

She chose not to dispute them in this.


--------------------------------------------------------

HINATA-SOU, 2001

*This time, I cannot afford weakness in my approach. To save a heart, I must slap a face. Su-only later will you find out what this intervention has cost me. But Tsuruko was right.*

She brought only her wooden weapons, a sign that a novice was to be tasked, though in this case, never with the weapons themselves.

"Motoko?"

"How is she, Shinobu?"

"She liked the stuff I brought her, but she's still scared. I think the very idea that you and Sempai are upset with her at all shook her up. Did she really want to marry both of you, while we were in Molmol?"

"Urashima says so. I have barely accepted my own dreams of marrying him. To be a co-spouse along with him? I am entirely uncertain of how to even visualize that. As I attempted to do just that, I wondered if we would be free to be together separate from Su, or only allowed to be at her disposal. In that moment, with that sort of idle speculation, for the first time since I have known her, I grew enraged at a girl I otherwise adore. Control over my own destiny is important to me. How she failed to see this is a puzzle that tears at my soul."

Shinobu shook her head.

"She's crazy-smart, so I don't get that either. Motoko? As she had us led to the jail-one of the guards shoved their gun into my back to move me along faster. In that moment---"

Shinobu breathed in, bit her lip, and then just said it.

"----in that moment I hated her, and wanted to hurt her. That passed quickly, but I felt like poison got into my system then, and I'm not sure it's out just yet. I started hating all of you for tricking me, I hated Sempai Naru for being the one Sempai Keitaro chose-and I hated him for not choosing me. I hit him as hard as I could-I've never deliberately hit him before-because he is Immortal and didn't have a whole army to hide behind. I've been horrible to both Su and Kitsune. But their actions awoke something in me I never wanted to know was there, let alone see. I love him. I've never been shy about feeling it, and I guess to most it was always pretty obvious. I think Sempai is wonderful. But how anyone could think even he was worth spitting on your closest friends is beyond me."

"If this were merely about Urashima, I would let tonight wait, for that matter has been settled. Or has it? It also occurred to me, that, should Naru and he go to Molmol again, Su could choose to use her powers there to hold and annul them after their wedding. Or perhaps even decide that their son should become her future groom, if and when he were born, and whisk him off."

Shinobu looked a bit skeptical.

"Do you honestly believe she would? I mean I'm upset, but those things are way out there."

"The problem, Shinobu, lies not with the thought that she would choose to do such vicious things. My worry lies in the thought that she may believe that she has the right to do such things. If another girl were to taunt her while we were shopping, even if she never so much as responds, what then if she still believes that she could legitimately have that girl and her clan destroyed?"

Shinobu had no answer, but as she left, she did more fully realize what was at stake with Kaolla Su. The bathroom door opened, and Su sprayed some deodorizer in it as she left.

"Shinobu! I thought you told me that food didn't have any laxatives hidden in it."

"Sorry, Su-Chili Cheese Fries can have a bit of a kick. Plus-you do eat about six or seven bananas a day at minimum."

"Huh? What does that have to do with going to the bathroom a lot?"

Shinobu brought her downstairs, and realized this might be a very long night indeed.

 

[Gojirob]

Inside their room (and the idea that it was theirs together still floored them both) Naru and Keitaro also prepared for the battle to keep a girl they both loved. For the moment, they discussed another such tender heart.

"So did I call it or not?"

Keitaro nodded.

"If you hadn't told me, when Shinobu made that offer, I would have fallen off the chair."

Naru wasn't entirely pleased that her advice and warning had proved prophetic, but she realized it beat the alternative.

"I was really hoping maybe she wouldn't. But I remembered when I had the same dinner with Seta-and made more or less the same offer."

"I really never thought a girl who looks or acts anything like her would have to get over someone like me."

"Then-you really are an idiot. But it's forgivably sweet, so I'll let it go."

They kissed, then got back to the subject of Kaolla Su.

"So what are you thinking of telling her about?"

Keitaro had several things he had talked over with Motoko, but wanted to be thorough, so he spoke of one more.

"She's sweet, and pretty, and I know no guy is really going to have problems with what she put me through on that airship. But I have to say-as she started to peel me, I felt not so much embarrassed, flattered, or attracted-as I did angry."

"Angry?"

"I think in that moment I finally understood why all of you reacted the way you did all those times, with the onsen and everything else. When you're just being grabbed at and pawed, and your dignity is compromised by someone who should know better-well, let's just say the fight or flight reaction becomes a lot easier to understand. If I can transmit that to her, that just might be a breakthrough."

Naru held back how much that statement of simple understanding made her love him all the more.

"There's a couple of problems there. One, Su never hit you out of modesty. Kicking you was the equivalent of hugs for her. I think she caught on to your durability faster than the rest of us. I mean, she once asked me-----ehhhhhh---"

"Go on."

"She asked me and Motoko, while you were away with Seta, if she should send you some photos of her like the ones of the girls in your magazines. She figured if you liked those strangers, you'd love seeing a good friend that way. I should also say---she slept in your room a lot. Maybe we should have seen Molmol coming."

Keitaro was very glad he'd been half a world away when Motoko heard that particular request.

"You said a couple of problems?"

"The second one is even simpler---"

She got up and held him close.

"----it's one thing to understand our embarrassment. But there are no valid lessons to be had from a bunch of cowardly bullies."

"Bullies?"

"Hey, you're talking to the Chief Bully here, okay? What, a woman can't be a bully?"

He pulled her even closer.

"You were also the first of the wariest ones to give me a real chance."

They said no more, but Keitaro realized anew that his love's self-confidence still lagged far behind her physical strength.

Downstairs, the hardest lesson any of them would ever teach began in earnest. Su looked very nervous.

"Kaolla Su, we will first demonstrate why we were upset with your keeping knowledge of your heritage from all but myself, who was bound by an oath of silence."

Naru and Keitaro started at the last part, but knew Motoko would keep to an oath, so let it go to keep focus on Su. Motoko pointed.

"You have entered my family's shrine. Not the public shrine we maintain, but the true shrine. It's entrance looks like an ordinary storage room. You were not told of this, and nor were you told that, upon entry, you must shave your head."

Su grabbed at her locks.

"My---hair?"

Motoko nodded.

"Japanese law allows this-or rather it does in this hypothetical example. However, let us also suppose that I decide whether or not this rule can be waived."

"Will you waive it for me, Motoko? I don't want to lose my hair."

Motoko placed her palm on Su's forehead, pushing the visible hair back and covering it.

"All of you have very pretty hair. I wish to impress Urashima, so I will keep my hair on while forcing all of you to be bald and wear formal wigs of great quality."

"But that wasn't what I did. I never shaved your heads."

Shinobu cut in.

"Su, do you remember how Kanako would tie us up and leave us inside of barrels?"

"Yeah. I hated that. That's why I made sure the jail I put all of you in was so comfortable. I would never throw my friends into some old cramped barrels. But no one appreciates that."

Shinobu was both trying to forgive her friend and also earn her forgiveness. Both goals seemed remote in the face of exasperating statements like that. Reasoning that her beloved Sempai kept on in the face of savage beatings that didn't kill him, she also kept on.

"Su, that it was comfortable didn't matter. It could have been more comfortable than your own royal chambers, and it still would have been a jail. You deprived us of our freedom, pursued Seta-Sama and Sarah-your best friend in the whole world-like fugitives-and no matter how comfortable you made it, it was still a jail. In the situation Motoko is describing, you wouldn't want to shave your head, no matter how good the rest of it was. One jail can be nicer than another. But it is still a jail. Worse, we hadn't done anything wrong. So we were stuck in a place that we didn't deserve to be so one friend could force her will on another."

Shinobu felt the fury rise again, and very nearly ended her helpfulness.

"You tried to ra----"

"Shinobu! That is enough!"

"Sempai, that is what she did. Why call it something else when a woman pushes herself on a man at gunpoint?"

Keitaro let Naru take point.

"The ladies in this house have done enough instant assumption of intent and malice to last us several lifetimes, Shinobu. Most of us never gave Keitaro a chance to explain properly. But we're going to give it to Su. What she did was wrong. But to say she meant to hurt Keitaro without hearing it from her is also wrong."

Su seemed horrified.

"Hurt Keitaro? I would never ever hurt him-I love him, and I still want to marry him. Why would you think I would hurt him?"

Motoko knew she was walking into a minefield, and this she did gladly for Su. Still, the subject of sex was not entirely a comfortable one for her.

"Su, when Naru found you on the airship, what were you doing?"

"Taking off his underwear. He lost the strip chess match."

Shinobu painfully bit back a sarcastic question about the fairness of that match. Motoko continued.

"What were you planning to do, once Urashima was nude before you?"

Su now seemed excited.

"I was going to make him really happy! Guys like it when you su---"

"Yes. Yes they do. But how could you not realize that Urashima did not want such attention from you?"

"Hmmm---he always acts like that. But men always have it on their minds, it is the whole of their existence, they plot and plan and ponder every last hair on their bodies eternally, all for the prospect of holding a woman down, or in their wishful fantasies, being held down by a woman, if not several women. Their brains are hard-wired for this purpose alone."

Su was still smiling, and looking directly at Motoko. Then, everyone else looked at Motoko, who gulped.

*Wonderful. My words on a just ruler, she lets slip away. But she remembers a tirade like that.*

"Kaolla Su-did you get this idea from Kitsune?"

"Sort-of. But her idea was for Naru to catch her doing it. And if she hit Keitaro down there-well, guys don't like that at all. Besides, Kitsune could never go through with it."

Even Mutsumi was shaken from her anemic slumber by that.

"I just had the strangest dream. You won't believe what someone said."

Naru asked the obvious question.

"Su-why do you believe that Kitsune wouldn't---try to make Keitaro really happy that way?"

Su looked thrown by the question.

"Because Kitsune's like the rest of you. She doesn't really want to marry or be with Keitaro. Only I do."

Two minutes into the silence that followed, a cricket was heard. It met a nasty end at the flat of Shinobu's skillet.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mitsune looked hard at the woman who had been the fox.

"You're a---"

"Bright girl, aren't we? That would be from which side of the family?"

Mitsune snatched back the photo that had been the whole point of the chase.

"Why did you take this?"

Mockingly, the fox-woman stroked her cheek.

"Aww, poor-baby. Tell ya what, kid-before we part company, I'll give you a special photo of mine, in exchange."

Mitsune (for the moment, she felt distinctly uncomfortable with her nickname) pushed her off.

"Lady, I have had the worst day of my entire life. Every last one of my friends turned on me. I don't need your crap piled on top of it."

The trickster-spirit laughed lightly.

"Let's take that one point by point. Keitaro-what did he do?"

"He-he hit me."

The real hurt in her voice seemed to give the woman some pause, but not very much.

"You were swinging wild at him, and you'd knocked off his glasses. That's not even allowing for the thousand or so times you swatted him good for falling into a pair of boobs you shove him into anyway, just for fun. Do you people have any idea how much of the cosmic community aches for him to just pound on you bunch?"

"Ummm-they care about us that much?"

"Well, it's divided between you and the realities dominated by the Misaki household. That girl with the devil-tail is also catching some attention of late."

Konno felt a headache coming on.

"I have no idea what you are talking about. And as for your cosmic pervs, let ‘em wait. Keitaro isn't like that. He's decent, kind of sweet---"

"A fact you've exploited on how many occasions, exactly? Tell me, chickie, when you missed or dodged or rubbed your way out of nine or so rent payments, did you ever bother to think where he was finding the means to deal with the shortfalls?"

It had hit her, in odd moments. Usually, she'd just have another drink to forget it.

"I never asked him to pay for me. I'm not a---I'm not."

The fox-woman was not impressed.

"The difference between you and a-‘I'm Not' - is that they put out the fire they light. So do tramps. Did you ever so much as think of how much more nervous the poor schlub got from your rub-downs, leaving him in Naru and Motoko's tender clutches? Did you know that one of the worst beatings he ever got was when Motoko spotted the bulge you left him with? Jeez, kid. Even the lowest spirit I know would have at least helped him even some of those out in private, even minus pop and play."

"He added on months of debt with no warning."

"Place of business, kid. You want a responsible position? Take care of the bouncing baby debt you abandoned. As to no warning? Howzabout the picture I didn't steal? The one where two of the most uptight people in all of Human history finally unwound in private, only to find they were on Kitsune Camera?"

When she was done, and Mitsune did not respond, the fox-woman kept on.

"Let's go to Shinobu."

"Let's not. I could see in her eyes, hear in her voice what my lie did. Ok?"

"Ok. That one you get. But Su didn't turn on you. You just ran afoul of the square Earth dimension that is Molmolian law. Believe me, anytime I have to deal with one of their spirits or gods, I get hives. Mutsumi, Kanako, Sarah, Seta, Haruka-all not present and accounted for. Which leaves two favorites."

"Motoko was right there with me in Molmol. Maybe I kept her out of the loop on some of the details---"

"---like dropping the dime on the others when you got re-captured, and setting up that recruitment pardon thing? You know, you could have just talked Su down at that point--"

The fox-woman leered.

"---but you wanted to play the villain, and now that you're being treated like one, it's no fun, is it?"

"Say what you like. But Motoko changed sides and jumped to Naru, just like she accused me of doing."

The trickster unnervingly shifted to Motoko's form, and spoke in her voice.

"I'm not perfect, Kitsune. None of us are, and no one is asking you to be. But if for no other reason than your friends are deeply angry with you, apologize for making a larger mess out of one already quite large enough."

She shifted back to the form that was a little too much like Mitsune's own.

"Samurai Girl doesn't have the strongest legs to stand on in this, and she admits it. Seta, Kanako? Not to mention that scheming little Hina herself? All skating on by, at least as concerns local wrath. On points, you got the charges beat, kid. But your cumulative actions finally unleashed a perfect firestorm. You forgot the first best rule of a Kitsune, of any trickster."

"Which is?"

"Always do the unexpected. You got caught and skinned, and boiled in the pot to make fox stew, because finally, all the sleazy rubdowns, all the whispers, all the ignoring Su's antics to see how far they'll go, all the set-ups, and yes, all the debts finally demanded to be addressed. Everything has a spirit, Mitsu-even debts, and particularly here in Japan, those spirits don't always play fair. You fell into a rut. Tricksters aren't always slacker leeches, or even lovably irresponsible types with a great rack. To keep our friends on our side, and the fates from turning on us, we do community service. The best tricksters get their friends and family out of as many situations as they get them into-maybe more. Isn't it better to be the one owed than the debtor?"

Mitsune did not like being brought to task one bit. But her words made sense.

"Are you saying I've gotten predictable?"

"I'm saying you've become a cartoon character. A deed? Better initiate a wacky scheme. Uh-oh. Wacky scheme brings in Titan Girl to punch you into the next episode. Little Girl with a basket full of dreams? Perfect cog-till she hits you with a frying pan. In one motion, you go from Kitsune to Tom The Cat. And that sake? What are you, Barney Rubble with the pizza pie? You stole from a hyper-active Samurai who until recently, expressed her love for a man by regularly threatening to neuter him? Before that, how many dodged chores, stockings and sweaters, panties-when you wear them?"

A book materialized in the Kitsune's hand.

"You want the real cost of your predictability spelled out? Read this."

Mitsune dropped the book as it was handed to her, in complete shock.

"That's Keitaro's private journal! I can't read that."

The Kitsune sighed, and blanked all but three pages.

"There. But-heh---that one dream he had about Mutsumi, Naru and Shinobu attending him wearing only Hadaka Aprons would have kept you warm at night."

Still hesitant, and feeling like she was again betraying her common sense, Mitsune read words that would haunt her for many years.

**Inside, she's as sweet as any of the others, and how could I not notice that body? I wish I could be one-half as free as Kitsune. I say one-half because some of the only times they're all not pissed off with me is when they're pissed off with her. But unlike me, she makes it work and makes it look damn good. Auntie flatly warned me not to ever cover one of her shortfalls ever again, but how can I let a friend be shown the street?-and she is my friend, like they all are. For all the punches and slams and aspersions, I have never been closer to anyone in my life than these crazy ladies. If it all ended tomorrow, and if I never found that one girl for certain, I could still leave this world happy.**

She smiled for the first time all that day.

"You go, sweet stud."

It would not last.

**I know she does things that make everyone crazy. But in this life, we all have so little room to stand in judgment over another. Yet some things get to me. That one time she told Su and Shinobu they'd hit the arcades by the waterfront, then slept in from too much imported schnapps. I didn't have enough to cover it and her current shortfall. Motoko said I was weak for even trying to do so-and then, maybe for the first time ever, apologized for saying it. Handling Su's disappointment had put her on edge, she said. Narusegawa was on the verge of shaking Kitsune up-but Shinobu begged her not to. Narusegawa actually confided in me---Me!---that there were times she was ready to give up on her dearest friend. Of course, she then promptly threatened me into never mentioning that. I hate saying this, but there are times Narusegawa can be well---difficult.**

"Geez, Keitaro-it's your own private journal. You're allowed to say ‘she can be a bitch'. Except you never would, would you?"

**On occasion, I think outside the dreams of my childhood. Could I earn Motoko's respect enough to make it happen? Could I get addicted to adrenalin in a life on a roller-coaster with Su (Older than now, of course)? Age aside, could I ever be the kind of super-man I see reflected in the eyes of my sweet lovely Shinobu? I think that in all those instances, I could. The challenge would move me to the first. Going with the flow for the first time in my life would pull me in the second. And for those eyes, I would rise to move mountains. Thing with Kitsune is, whatever I may feel for her, I know it's completely unreciprocated. I'm reminded of that every time she rubs up against me or goes out of her way to fluster me. I know then. I could win over Narusegawa, and adjust to life with a beauty almost as clumsy as me, and all the rest I've mentioned.**

"Please, No."

**But in Kitsune's case, she's just playing with the horny nerd. I get these thoughts when she's up against me like that. But I know that even if I asked her to hit the futon, she'd set me up, use it to re-negotiate or even negate her debt, or worst of all-just laugh. A girl as hot and fun as her has no use at all for someone like me. Not that I want to abandon my dream, or that I would ever have the boldness to ask her, but even allowing for all that, it's not even the pipe dream that say Motoko is. That sweet cooing she does when she gets me really good drives me wild, like Narusegawa's strength and focus, Motoko's grace, Su's wildness, Mutsumi's innate calm, or well---forgive me, Kami---just Shinobu being herself. I know who I want most of all, but if I step outside that dream, I can glimpse other dreams. Just not for Kitsune, and that makes me feel bad, till I realize again that I will never mean as much to her as she does to me. I don't even know if she truly considers me a friend, at times. If that's in doubt, then there is not even a possibility of anything between us...**

Mitsune felt the book fall from her hands as she spoke aloud the last visible words.

"---and in many respects, we may as well be strangers."

"Do you want some more? He goes on to say how maybe he was too harsh."

Mitsune threw the book at the trickster, who sent it back to where it came from.

"How cruel can you be?"

"That---you'll find out a little later. But as for right now, well, you had wanted to know why Keitaro Urashima never seriously looked in your direction, and now you have that answer."

Mitsune felt herself falling apart inside. She was a little girl being lied to. She was a friend, tied up and helpless. She was a loyal sort, watching that loyalty constantly abused.

"He doesn't take Mitsune Konno seriously because that's exactly how Kitsune wants it."

As she cried, the woman held her, and for some reason, despite how cruel she had been, this felt right to Mitsune.

------------------------------

 

[Gojirob]

Out of respect, Shinobu allowed Motoko to challenge Su's incredible statement, but it was a close call.

"Kaolla Su, many of the troubles that beset us now arose from a competition for the hand of Keitaro Urashima. How can you say that only you truly wished to have him?"

The princess shrugged.

"Sure, we all competed. But I was the only one who wanted to end the competition. It was all getting a little old. After all those years of us having sex with Keitaro, I felt I had to let him know I wanted to be his wife."

Keitaro's face blanked.

"Su-we never did that. Never. No-Not-In Any Way---"

He felt his hand squeezed.

"Calm down, honey. I believe you."

Naru's affirmation had occurred almost as quickly as had her rages, not so long ago. The sickly girl was trying her best to overcome her last remaining illness. Still, she couldn't help but turn some of her rage on Kaolla Su.

"That's not funny, Su! Even Kitsune wouldn't pull a prank like that."

Motoko hated this, but chimed in.

"Kaolla Su-I have kept a close eye on Urashima for all his time here, particularly as regarded you and Shinobu. I am no longer proud of that fact, but it means that I know for a certainty that you and he have never been together in that way. I kept to my oath, when I swore not to tell of your heritage. You could at least do me the courtesy of not lying."

"I AM NOT LYING! And we all had sex with Keitaro. Not just me."

Shinobu once more found herself about to say something they would all regret. But Kitsune's absence reminded her that a friend could be lost forever, even when a word or action was justified. So she took another tack, and made as wild a guess as her brain would allow.

"Su---when you say sex, do you mean like when Sempai falls into the onsen with us?"

Shinobu felt like she was reaching into another dimension of time and space, but it was a reach that worked.

"Yes-of course. We all practice safe sex, so none of us get pregnant or sick. But I wanted something more."

Mutsumi leaned over and whispered to Shinobu.

"How did you figure that out?"

The young girl shrugged.

"I knew that, if we wanted to find out where Su was at, we had to think like Su. Only now-my head hurts."

Keitaro picked up, since Su still seemed upset with Motoko's accusation.

"That wasn't sex of any kind, Su. I was clumsy or stupid, and the other girls hit me out of concern for their safety-and to keep with tradition. A grown man is not supposed to bathe with or look at young women bathing. I never liked how much they did it, but my presence did break the rules. And you were concerned too-after all, you kicked me to get out of there, just like Sarah hit me with---errr-irreplaceable pieces of history."

Su seemed honestly stunned to be having this conversation.

"Sarah loves you like crazy. She said most guys your age are too cool for their own good. I know what everybody said. But they don't mean it. They said Keitaro had to go despite Grandma, but he stayed. Motoko said she wanted to mount his thing on the wall-and then later she said she just wanted it mounted-I don't remember how. Naru said she couldn't stand him but studied with him. Shinobu said he's a jerk and made her cry, but their love is as beautiful as his and Naru's love is wonderful. I touch him with my feet. Motoko touches him with her weapons, and what greater honor for a samurai to bestow? Naru touched him with her fists, until she got the same idea I did-and nobody has her on trial. Him and Shinobu see each other naked, shriek and then run off and think about what they saw."

She was becoming almost evangelical in her fervor as she continued.

"Mutsumi laughs at the things he does, and falls on him. Auntie hides her smile from him, but she always had one for him. Kitsune leans right up against him, but she's more afraid of getting pregnant than any of us-I think her folks weren't expecting her."

Naru cut in.

"Su-Kitsune has tons of experience with men."

"No she doesn't. I calculated it once. If Kitsune were with as many guys as she always says, she would have been pregnant twelve times by now."

Whether she was deliberately sidetracking them or if her chaotic nature was to blame, Motoko knew that she had to drag Su back on topic.

"Su? Do you accept that jailing your friends is wrong?"

"No. As a member of the ruling family of Molmol, I have that right."

Shinobu looked at Motoko, who nodded. The younger girl had gotten through to Su before.

"Su-how long were we going to be in that jail for?"

"Not long. In fact, as soon as Keitaro agreed to marry me, everyone would have been pardoned."

Shinobu really, almost painfully fought down the urge to shove the intricacies of the meaning of ‘Pardoned' and its implications down Su's throat. She fought her friend, not harder but smarter.

"And what if he never gave in? What if Sempai Naru hadn't gotten there? What if, for the rest of his life, he told you no, and said that he would never recognize your edict? What would have happened to us, Su? If Sempai Keitaro had just kept refusing, how long were you prepared to keep us---including Motoko-in that jail?"

"Not forever. I would have---I would have gotten you separate cells. Even more comfortable. I gave up my game, didn't I?"

A silent agreement to bypass any subject but the ones at hand passed through the others. Keitaro wondered how many times this day would call on him to hurt those he loved best of all.

"Su-I love Naru and I'm going to marry her. She's agreed to this. I was not going to marry you, and certainly never at gunpoint, and I would have instructed Kanako to return and blow up the Sou before letting you take it to Molmol. Not because I hate you. I don't. I love you. But the Sou's place is here, and my place is with Naru. I know you didn't intend to hurt anyone, but that is exactly what you did. A day, a week, a month---it doesn't matter. Being held against your will, whether out of love or as part of a game you meant to be fun, is no fun at all."

He was scared right then as well. The situation with Kitsune had blown up, and Shinobu had been something of a near miss, if not for Alice's words to her. The situation with Su was teetering on the edge.

"But I'm the only one who wanted to marry you. Everyone else just talked around it. Naru would have found another reason for you to not be together, or someone else she thought was better for you. Shinobu loves having a sempai too much to make you her husband. Kanako---welll-I think she's insane or something. Kitsune's too lazy and scared to ask you. Mutsumi might want to, but she faints all the time. Motoko can't figure you out to see clearly enough. Marry me, Keitaro. Naru will back out again. Just like always."

Naru did not want to be cruel to this child. But she felt compelled to lean in close to Keitaro as she responded.

"No. Never again."

Sensing some movement but also a dead end on this subject, Motoko moved to notch things up.

"Urashima, Shinobu-stand ready."

The two friends stood, and exchanged hand squeezes before starting. Motoko stood with them and held her sword to his throat.

"Kaolla Su? Was it alright to place Urashima under fire, including rockets and grenades?"

"Yes. Of course. He's immortal. Weapons can only stun him."

"But what if I cut off his head?"

Keitaro focused on the need to help Su, rather than his discomfort.

"Would I still live? Would I die? I don't even know that I really am immortal, or what kind of immortality I have if I do."

Motoko nodded.

"Imagine my sword is a bouncing shell fragment, angled just so and finding the chink in the armor of his neck."

Su's eyes started to go wide, and so the iron was struck again as Shinobu spoke.

"I am a prisoner on the Molmol airship. I demand to speak to my friend, Princess Kaolla Su."

Mutsumi and Naru stood up and made gun-shapes with their hands.

"Click-Click! I am Sergeant Naru and cannot let you near the Princess."

"No. I've gone crazy from being locked up. I will rush the cell door and run all the way to the Bridge. I don't like this game, no one ever told me it was a game, and I think my friend might have gone crazy, and needs my help."

"Click-Click! I am Major Mutsumi, and I say get back into your cell or be shot."

"I don't want to hurt Su. Just talk to her. But I won't stop. I'm too upset to hear you."

Naru and Mutsumi looked at Su.

"What are our primary orders?"

"Yes, Princess Royal-what is the primary duty of a royal bodyguard?"

"To-to protect the royal family at all costs."

Motoko added on.

"Are their guns loaded with real bullets?"

"Y-yes."

Mutsumi looked at Shinobu.

"Will you stop, and return to your cell?"

"No, Major. I am going to burst in that room and yell like a maniac at my friend. I might even threaten her, though I wouldn't mean it."

Naru shook her head.

"Then we must protect the princess, since we cannot know whether or not you mean it. Princess, perhaps we should threaten the prisoner Urashima with her execution, unless he marries you?"

"NO! I just want him to agree."

"But I'll never agree, Su, and now the game is out of anyone's control."

The play-acting would soon demand a terrible but necessary price. Keitaro spoke.

"Stop this game now, Su-or I will hate you."

Shinobu spoke.

"Stop this game now, Su. Or I will hate you."

Naru shot her ‘gun' at Keitaro's neck. Mutsumi shot hers at Shinobu's chest, then spoke as both fell on the floor.

"Princess, we have neutralized the terrorists who threatened you."

"no-No they didn't threaten me!"

Naru shook her head.

"They said they hated you. We couldn't take the chance-and now they're gone."

Mutsumi then ‘shot' Naru, who joined the others on the floor.

"She infiltrated the ship and started screaming. In all the endless gunfire, I was shot as well."

Mutsumi this once went on the floor of her own free will. Motoko held up her sword.

"Kaolla Su-I have heard the gunfire and must rush the Bridge. Your guards are trigger-happy, sworn to protect you-and I will burst in crying out. What will happen to me?"

"You-you'll die."

"But you didn't mean for me to die. Won't that protect me?"

The lovely girl burst forward, hugging Motoko.

"NO---not my Motoko-Chan! Not Keitaro! Not Shinobu! It didn't happen that way."

Naru now got up.

"Su, guns and bullets don't care about your intent, and your guards' job is not to care about anything but keeping you alive. A jail cell is always a jail cell, a place for enemies that have hurt you, not friends you want to keep out of a game, or even away from someone you want as your boyfriend."

Su nodded.

"I understand now."

Shinobu felt pure joy.

"You do?"

Keitaro hugged her.

"That's wonderful."

Motoko sat down, close to exhausted.

"Excellent, Kaolla Su. Tomorrow, we shall begin a series of lessons that..."

"No, Motoko. No more lessons. I now understand that I can never understand my friends and the world they live in well enough-and that I must leave Japan and return to Molmol-forever. Rather than have you hate me ever again, I must go."

Once more, Su had stunned the assembled group enter an extended silence. Because barring a miracle, they had gambled and lost a dear friend.

----------------------------------

Mitsune awoke in the arms of the Kitsune. She didn't feel like the woman (did that even really apply to spirit-shifters?) had touched her or harmed her. Oddly, it even felt like she never would, however mean-spirited her verbal assault had been-and Mitsune Konno had seen more than a few of those.

"You tear my soul to pieces, then cuddle with me?"

"Not cuddled. I cradled you. Important distinction. It's something I've always wanted to do."

Mitsune remembered the missiles this trickster had shot through her psyche, and pulled away.

"Hey, whatever gives you your kicks, right? You, lady-or-whatever are like every last thoughtless comment everyone ever made about me mixed into one rice bowl-and I mean no spices, oils, cheeses or nothing-and it's that weak Uncle Ben's stuff they had at that cheap hotel Keitaro put us up at---that he paid for by himself and I shouldn't bring up before I get another beatdown, right?"

The shift in the trickster's demeanor now seemed total.

"Like I said, you're a bright girl. Mitsu-we don't have much time. I have to conclude with a few things."

"More drills taken to my gut? What, are you gonna make me sterile next, so my evil ways don't get passed on?"

"Actually-I'd like your promise to let me visit you, when you have children someday. I know they'll be great kids."

"Hey! No problem. You want me to get Shinobu to cook them up for you-or do you like your babies raw?"

The Kitsune nodded.

"I deserve that. In fact, I deserve far worse than you know-yet."

The trickster was trying, but her prior attacks were not easily forgotten.

"Can we conclude our business? I'm no scholar like Naru---"

"Because you've never tried to be."

"Yeah, right. I do know that you don't just end your business with spirits abruptly."

The Kitsune shook her head at Mitsune, who would only later realize she had in fact given the trickster the permission she wanted.

"We're almost done. I have to ask-is the Forbidden Annex at the Sou still sealed off?"

"It's gone. It finally fell apart. Not that I ever believed all that hooey."

The trickster now herself looked puzzled.

"You're talking to a fox-spirit. You're sweet on an immortal, who's engaged to a titan. The most normal girl you know can summon an iron skillet to her hand without realizing it. So what is a forbidden annex in that light?"

"Not what I meant. I meant the rushing passions part. Grandma told the story of two men who suddenly fell in love in there. Just struck me as slightly homophobic, and Grandma was never that sort. I knew she knew people-discrete about it, maybe, but I never knew her to look down on anyone-except maybe me."

"She never looked down on you. She was just disappointed in you. And that was spot-on about the two guys. That was something Little Hina told to throw off her more conservative guests. Ones who were more open on matters just laughed it off the way you did. Clever little thing, our Hina. But then if she wasn't clever, she would never have captured me. She made me cast the spell sealing that old annex to win my freedom."

Mitsune did some math that didn't add up.

"That spell was cast centuries ago."

"Sorry, kid. More like twenty years ago, give or take two or three."

"What does this have to do with us parting ways?"

"Getting there. Be patient. Now where was I?"

Patient was something Mitsune was not feeling, but she also knew she had no choice as the trickster kept on.

"You said it was almost twenty years ago you cast the spell. So if it isn't sealing away some ancient three-headed whatever, why was the spell cast?"

"See, kid-the fates heard a challenge uttered. A challenge that proclaimed that the parties to this challenge would overcome absolutely anything, in the pursuit of a dream."

Mitsune snorted.

" Maniacs planning world domination? Salarymen wanting their own diverse persona harem? Otakus wanting success as a mangaka?"

The trickster may have turned gentler, but it was clear she delighted in her next words.

"No. It was three kids, the oldest barely four. And the promise was to one day enter Tokyo University together."

Mitsune felt her own spirit almost leave her body. She tried to joke.

"Boy, what are the odds that two sets of kids made that exact same oath at precisely the same time at the exact same place----crap."

"Kid, you had better odds on the ponies. So I had to make the annex a repository for fate's most direct efforts to destroy those kids. Nasty stuff."

"Did-did Grandma catch you just to make you do that?"

The trickster now had a look that Mitsune felt on her own face when cornered by Naru and the others.

"I wish you wouldn't call her grandma-but I get it. No, she went out and caught me because of the single lowest thing I ever did. This will tell you how cruel I can be, Mitsune. After, I'll give you what I promised and move on. Try to forgive me. It had to be this way. Because of how both of us lived our lives. I had to go harsh on you-a lot harsher than I wanted to. The others would have done it themselves, and whatever I did---"

"Just tell me your story."