A Sequel to "Yin and Yang"

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AUGUST 3, 2008

Chapter 1:

It was an incredibly warm day in Tokyo, and horribly humid. The cicadas were humming, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Aside from the heat, it was a gorgeous day.

"Stupid FROG!" Natsumi punted Keroro across the living room and growled, stomping over to him after he landed. "What did you think you were doing?!"

It was gorgeous, aside from the failed invasion and the abuse that followed.

It had been so simple, in theory. Send Pekopon into another ice age. They just hadn't counted on the machine overheating and exploding. Kirere had only begun to make her repairs when Natsumi walked in on them, having smelt fire and smoke.

"...Pekopon witch! I'll have my revenge," Keroro grumbled and stood up. "After I finish mopping."

"Ku kuku! Well, that didn't go as planned," Kururu glanced at the screen and gave a laugh, and Kirere looked up sorrowfully at the machine she and Kururu had worked so hard on, a wrench thrown right into the middle of it. "At least it was interesting, ku ku!"

"I almost had it finished, too," Kirere sighed in defeat, and her shoulders slumped. She hadn't exactly wanted a frozen Pekopon, but it was her best work yet.

"Back to the drawing board, ku ku ku!" Kururu laughed and headed back to his chair, and hopped up in it. "...I don't need you here. You can go play."

She knew this meant to leave him alone for the rest of the day, and she did just that, knowing better than to argue.

Keroro was doing the dishes when she reached the Hinata's level, Dororo was nowhere to be seen, and Tamama was at his home. That left her Giroro to bother.

She found him sitting on one of the cinder blocks outside his tent, polishing one of his knives. She grinned devilishly and began to stalk towards him, and was nearly ready to grab him around the neck when she suddenly found herself lifted off the ground and flipped, and a few moments later she was looking up at Giroro, who was upside down. It was apparent after a few moments that she was the one upside down.

Giroro continued to hold her by the one leg, and Kirere felt the blood quickly rushing to her head. She laughed and kicked a little, and he gave a grin and set her back down on the ground.

She rocked back, lifting her legs and tail over her head, then rocked forward and jumped up, attempting to land on her feet but only falling on the ground forward.

She gave a yelp, and Giroro began to lean forward to lift her up, but she managed to sit up, and wiped off her face, "I've still got a lot of work to do, huh?"

"The galactic railways weren't built in a week," Giroro answered with a sigh, and folded his arms. "It took me a longer time to sense your presence this time, you're getting better slowly but surely."

Kirere smiled at this and took a seat next to him, and remained there a few moments, silent and expecting. Giroro noticed this, and looked over to her, "You're not going to stop staring at me until I take you, are you?"

She only answered with an even wider, excited smile, and he sighed and stood, "It will make some good training exercise for me, I suppose."

So he packed a small bag for training equipment, and he and Kirere were off to the junkyard.

"Take a water bottle, a good soldier knows when to stay hydrated!" Giroro said sternly as he tossed her a water bottle. She took a few steps back, nearly falling over as she caught it, and took off running without another word.

Giroro could hear her rummaging through the old machine parts, and gave a small, proud smile. She would make a fine invader yet.

It had been three months since Kirere had come to live in the Hinata household, and she'd managed to find her own place within the ranks.

Keroro saw her as a form of amusement and occasionally a shield when trying to dodge Natsumi's wrath. Tamama saw her as an opponent, and they had formed a sort of sibling rivalry. Dororo saw her as he saw all children, a precious gift to the earth; he either didn't realize her horrible crush or was too embarrassed to comment on it. Kururu saw her as an extra set of hands, mainly, but Giroro couldn't help but to think he'd taken a bit of a interest to the girl, as well.

Giroro thought of her as... Well, it was difficult. It wasn't exactly at a father-daughter level... He felt more like an uncle to her.

He went through his training exercises for the next few hours, reliving his training and past battle situations, and running through the junkyard, occasionally checking in on Kirere.

By the time he went to fetch her, the water bottle had been used, and she was at work on yet another creation. Again he wasn't sure what it was, but at its base it had once been an oven.

"Come on, let's go. You're a mess."

"You, too," she laughed, noting he was also covered in dirt and grease, from his training. He only placed a hand on her head, and they both climbed on his hovercraft, and they headed back to the house.

"Ku ku! Looks like you've been having fun," Kururu commented as she walked into the lab, still covered in dirt. "Clean up before you eat, and don't leave a ring around the tub."

Kirere gave a nod at this, and then after washing off joined Kururu for dinner, which was their usual curry.

She sat at the foot of his chair, watching the numerous screens as he took care of some work on the computer. She looked upward at him, the spoon still in her mouth, and he felt a chill after a few moments of ignoring her.

"W-what do you want?" the pure blue eyes were piercing right through the wicked hacker.

"I started to make an engine today!" she began happily, and it was like opening the floodgates. She kept talking, and talking, and talking about this.

"...I'm not paying attention to any of this," Kururu even threw in halfway through her conversation, but this didn't seem to bother her.

"So what sort of stuff did you make at my age?" she finished off as she also finished her dinner, and set the plate down on the floor while awaiting his answer.

"Mischief ku ku," he answered dully, tapping a few more keys and then turning his attention back to his own plate of curry.

"How about Giroro-san?"

"I didn't know him," Kururu answered abruptly. "I'm too busy for small talk."

"Some other time then," she stood and took her plate.

"More than likely, no," was Kururu's only answer, and Kirere smiled in return. Kururu's one eye twitched a bit; either she was playing a very advanced game of wits with him, or the paint she had eaten as a child had disrupted her rational thought.

"Ugh..." Giroro walked out into the kitchen with a towel over his shoulders and wiped the excess water off of his face, and found Natsumi doing dishes. She was also smiling, and singing lightly a bit to herself.

"Oh, hey, Giroro!" she beamed as she looked down at him. "You look like you got a lot of training in today."

"Um, yes," Giroro nodded, all while a bit confused and flustered at the smile she gave him.

"I just got off the phone with Mama... We're going to go visit Oba-chan this weekend!"

"W-what? That's some good news," Giroro nodded. Natsumi, at the river, in a bathing suit... His mind trailed off a bit.

"I'l have to write it down of the calendar!" she gasped suddenly, turning to leave the sink.

"Eh, I've got it," Giroro answered, walking over to the said calendar and frowning at the post-it notes covering the said weekend. 'Tape Admiral Geroro Special'.

"Idiot. Like he really needs a note to remind himself of his frivolous hobbies," Giroro snorted, lifting the post-it to write upon the calendar. Instead, his mouth dropped open, and the pen slipped from his hand as he read upon the red-lettered scrawl, his own handwriting, with hearts around it, Kirere's doing.

Garuru was coming to pick up his niece that same weekend.