A/N: Hey, guys! I'm currently working on the next Demeter chapter, but I'm taking a break at the moment, so I decided to get a nice start on the FLCL fic while you guys wait!

Disclaimer: I don't own FLCL. I do own Dan and Leon though, and at the moment that's good enough for me!

Have fun reading the chapter!

Chapter One: The Strange Entrance

There's a lonely bar sitting out in the desert, miles from any kind of civilization. It's only company is a thin dirt road, and many sand dunes for miles around. It was one of those places that could only be described as "seedy." It's customers mostly consisted of those who were either avoiding the law or simply looking for trouble. The only people who normally visit the place would either be hardened and weary travelers or criminals hiding from the authorities.

Most of the time, if you had ever been unfortunate enough to have visited the condemned place more than once, you almost never see the same customers twice. In fact, the place only ever had one regular, who just so happened to be visiting the bar today, as she had always done every other day, at the times when the bar seemed to be at its emptiest, for she preferred her privacy.

The bell hanging at the top of the doorway jingled as the door opened, as the young-looking woman with spiky bubblegum-pink hair and yellow eyes, which gave her an aged look, walked in. She was wearing a faded yellow coat and her once brightly colored hair was faded as well, mostly due to the sand outside.

She seemed exceptionally depressed, as she had done every day, and she was the one person who ever garnered any pity from any person in the bar; and that person was Dan, the bartender and owner of Dan's Drinks. He was perhaps the only person who knew anything about her and was probably her only friend. He had always been overly protective of her, being the only person who cared for her at all.

Personally, the woman had always wondered why he even gave a rat's ass. After all, she certainly didn't care for herself at all, even. True, there was once a time when she actually looked out for number one, when she could vaguely remember actually having some kind of purpose; she remembered that she used to be a strong, willful person, who would go to any lengths to get what she wanted.

And she knew exactly what she wanted: power, and lots of it. She had spent many years searching for a great source of energy; a being of god-like power. The only thing she could remember about that being was its name.

Atomsk.

It had been a long time since she had last heard it. She remembered searching far and wide for it until she was eventually led to a back-water land in which it was being held captive by her only other enemy, whose name is yet another thing she still remembered with any kind of clarity, and that was Medical Mechanica. She knew that she wouldn't hesitate to destroy anyone or anything that got in her way, though she also remembered that MM was different…she hated them with a passion, though she can't exactly remember why.

She knew that she met someone in her search for Atomsk in that backwater place…a friend, or, perhaps, a lover? It was hard to tell any more. In any case, she felt a great feeling of loss, and was it guilt(?) at leaving that person behind.

Then, without warning, the Atomsk was gone, and she was never able to find him again. She eventually gave up searching after too many dead ends, and upon learning the relatively shorter life spans of the backwater people, became depressed at the idea that she wouldn't even meet him again. So she drowned it all in hard liquor, until she began to simply forget. Now it's all but a faint ghost of a memory and the only emotion that exists is sorrow at how weak she is. I used to be somebody, she thought to herself. And what am I now? A quitter, a bloated whore who wallows in self-pity for something I can never regain nor forget…Why do I even bother?

It was only Dan who ever gave her any consolation, who was the only person she might ever conceive as something at least close to a friend. At least he gave her a discount on all drinks and gave her a private booth in which to drink herself to sleep.

She walked up to Dan, saying, "Hey, D. The usual, please." Dan nodded empathetically, and somewhat sorrowfully. He pointed to her usual spot and handed her the keycard. "It's all ready for you. Try to go easy on yourself this time, okay?" Though he already knew that she wouldn't really listen to his pleading. The woman somewhat nodded and added a non-committal "Sure, whatever," before heading towards the closed door of the booth.

Upon her approach of the door, she slid the keycard into the lock and when the door closed and locked behind her, she sat down at the table. Once her rear touched the somewhat comfortable cushion of the seat, a recess in the wall opened and a tray carrying a bottle and shot glass entered the booth, which she immediately began pouring for herself.

After only a few drinks, it didn't take long for her surly mood to once again mature into the dark pit in her stomach. This happened every time she first got a buzz. She just knew that in another few drinks her depression would return, and soon after that she would begin crying herself to sleep. A few hours after that, Dan would use his keycard to enter the booth, wake her, and give her a bit of the sobering serum, after which he would console her and give her a ride home.

This was her thing. She would do this during every visit. After the sobering serum, she would head home, where the memories would return to haunt her in her dreams…

She looked out of the window. She saw something flying in the distance. Funny, they didn't usually get birds this deep in the dessert. Then, as the thing grew closer, she began to notice something odd. First, it was too big to be a bird…a ship? Secondly, the closer the thing got, the more the sand began to rise. She knew that if it got any higher, the conjunction of wind and sand would cause a storm, and then Dan would put the place into lockdown. God, as if she didn't need anything else on her mind.

But that was nothing compared to the third weird thing emanating from the flying object. When it got within hearing range, not only did she hear an engine, thus confirming it to be some kind of craft (though it was odd to see one so small), but she began to hear the something that she knew her ears had not been exposed to since before she had started drinking (whenever the hell that was).

Music. Or, more specifically, the sound of an old bass guitar.

Though she knew that she had heard many musical instruments in her pre-drinking time, there was something about this particular sound that seemed….familiar to her. But why though? she wondered to herself.

It was at this point that the music had reached a point where it was almost deafening, and the wind from the craft had stirred up a wall of sand, and the craft took a dive, though not altering its course…it was falling straight towards the bar. Then the intercom in the booth sounded, "Hey, I'm going to put the bar into lockdown, before the dust storm gets here. Alright?"

Knowing that Dan was talking to her, because no one else was here in the lonely bar today, she said, "Yeah, sure." Out in the public part of the bar, Dan mashed the large button next to the back door, which caused the huge protective metal shutters to close themselves on the inside of the windows and doors.

Just in time too it seemed, for within seconds, a deep rumbling was heard throughout the bar as it was assaulted from the outside by high-rushing winds and sand. As if to add to this noise, the bass guitar music grew louder and louder, and the woman began to suspect that the craft was getting closer and closer, a theory which was supported by the growing whine of the engine.

Remembering the descent of the approaching vehicle before the shutters closed, the heart of the tipsy woman began to become filled with fear. What if the craft crashed into the bar and killed both her and Dan? However, before her mind could make her act on these thoughts, a loud explosion sounded throughout the bar, followed by the collective sounds of breaking glass, which suggested that the windows and the glass in the door had been shattered.

The shockwave knocked out the lights and general power, and the rumbling of the wind continued to be heard. After a few minutes however, the wind began to calm down, sort of, and the backup generators kicked in to turn on the lights.

Dan and the woman stood/sat in their respective rooms in the bar, in terrified silence. It seemed that their minds were wiped blank, and were totally devoid of any thought. Then, something happened that made them both jump. As the wind finally died down, three knocks sounded against the metal shutters of the door.

Silence. Neither person dared to make a move. Then, another three knocks sounded, this time accompanied by a muffled shout, "Hey, open up, will you?" It was then that some semblance of thought came to the brain of Dan, who typed something into the lockdown console, so that only the door's shutters would open. Once open, the front of the bar was filled with sand and dust which clouded up (prompting Dan cover his mouth with a cleaning cloth), as the silhouette of a man opened and walked through the doorway.

The bell jingled twice with each swing of the door.

The woman was watching through the view screen next to her door to see what was going on. The man (if the person was, indeed, male) was wearing a suit of simple, but protective black leather, black combat boots, black gloves, and a somewhat spherical black helmet with a silver shutter on the front of it. It looked as though someone had put a goldfish bowl over his head and painted it black. Slung on his back was a long leather case. As to what was in the case was a mystery.

The man said to Dan, in a muffled voice, "You might want to reactivate the door shutters before more dust clouds in." Dan nodded in agreement, and once again lowered the shutters on the door. The man sat down at a stool in front of the bar, and opened the silver shutter on the front of his helmet. His voice sounded through the helmet again, this time much more clearer though. "Thanks," he said in a gravelly electronic voice, which suggested that he was speaking through a helmet speaker and microphone.

Dan asked, "What the hell happened out there? Did you see?" The man nodded, answering, "Yeah, that was me. Sorry about the windows. Landed a little harder than I had meant to." The man reached into his pockets and pulled out a small bag. He opened the bag and pulled out a CP (Credit Pad), dialed something in it, and handed it to Dan.

Dan took it, and gave the man a questioning look. The man answered the unspoken question by saying, "It's to pay for the windows I broke, as well as paying for a drink." Dan nodded, thinking to himself that the sooner he served the man the sooner the man would leave. He got a bottle and poured a shot glass for the man. When Dan got ready to put the bottle back, the man held up his hand. "Could you leave the bottle, please?" Dan nodded.

The man took a pouch out of his shirt pocket and connected an attached plastic cord to a hole on his helmet. Once attached to his helmet, the man proceeded to pour the drink into the bag. Once the man finished the bottle (which was an extremely long ten minutes to Dan…he guessed the man wasn't a heavy drinker), Dan had hoped the man would leave; in fact, he was just about to use the lockdown console to open the door for him.

It was at this point that the woman had turned off her view screen and went back to drinking, believing it to be over. Unfortunately, to Dan's dismay, the man spoke.

"You think you could help me with something?" Anything to get you out of here quicker, thought Dan, who nodded and said aloud, "Sure, what do you need?" The man answered, "I'm looking for someone. A friend. My last sources told me that they were in the area. Here, I've got a picture of her." The man opened a pocket on his chest after putting away the pouch and cord and pulled out a folded picture, which was pinned shut by a small badge with tiny black lettering which read, "Galactic Space Police Brotherhood, Rank: Officer."

That got Dan's attention real quick. Shit, he's one of the GSP! The part of the picture that wasn't folded over with the badge showed a young woman wearing goggles on her head, a sleeveless orange sweater, and holding a blue bass guitar. But what struck Dan most about the woman in the picture was her spiky bubble-gum pink hair, which stood out against the gray skies in the picture, and her live, vibrant yellow eyes. Their was something about this woman that Dan found strikingly familiar. In fact, she almost looked like--

….Shit.

Wishing to protect his friend in the booth, the Dan asked, "Why? Is she in trouble?" The man cocked his head for a second, and asked, "Huh? What do you--" The black sphere looked downwards towards the badge pinning the picture. Humor was etched in his voice as the man's electronic voice laughed.

"Oh! No, no, don't worry, I'm not GSP. At least, not anymore. I quit them a long time ago. In fact, this woman was actually an old coworker of mine, whom I haven't seen in a long time. Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt her; I just want to talk." Dan's face softened slightly, but that didn't make him trust the man any more than he did. After all, the man could just as easily be lying.

"And if I don't know anything?" Dan asked as nonchalantly as he possibly could, which meant he didn't pull it off very well. The man could tell that Dan was trying to get him to leave, but that didn't seem to put a dent in his resolve whatsoever. The man simply said, "Then I'll make tell me the truth. I've come a very long way to talk to my friend, I'm not about to let you stop me."

The man said this all extremely calmly, making Dan thoroughly spooked. There was something about this man which left no doubt in his mind that if the man really wanted to, he could force the woman's whereabouts out of Dan as easily as he could breathe. However, Dan had hung around with the criminal underworld long enough to be able to tell when someone was trustworthy or not, and he could tell that the man wasn't lying, though he could still sense some dishonesty, as though the man wasn't telling the whole truth.

Dan deliberated for a moment, then decided, that if nothing else, he could blow a hole in his head if he tried anything. He fingered the shotgun under the counter at these thoughts. Then, after making his decision, Dan brought his loaded shotgun up over the counter where the man could see it, and set it down. He said, "I'll be watching the cameras. If you do anything funny, anything that could possibly threaten her safety, I won't hesitate to kill you. Understand?"

The man nodded. Dan took out his copy of the private booth's keycard, and handed it to the man, knowing full well that he was placing the woman's fate in his hands. The man took the card, saying, "Thank you. I won't forget this. Know now that your trust has not been misplaced." Dan said nothing, but simply picked up his shotgun and walked up to the woman's booth, pointing at the door. The man nodded, and walked in front of the door.

Before sliding the keycard through the lock, the man turned to Dan and said, "One more thing, this is a private conversation. I don't mind you watching the cameras, but I would prefer it if you didn't monitor the audio, please. Also, if you don't mind, could you please serve us some water? I have a feeling that we'll be here for awhile.

"Also, a question comes to mind: how drunk is she at this moment?" Dan, who was surprised and a bit flustered by the question, answered, "I honestly don't know. If she's still been drinking since she got here, I'd say pretty drunk." The man said, "I'm going to need her sober. Would you mind mixing some of the serum in her water, please?"

Before Dan could answer, the man slid the keycard into the lock, causing the door to fly open. As the man walked in, the door closed and locked behind him, and the indignant woman cried drunkenly, "Hey! Do you mind!? This here's a private booth!" Her words were slurred. The man sat down and the tray came out, carrying two glassed of water, one with a purple mist flowing inside it.

"What? Water?" The woman stared at the two glasses confusedly. The man took the two glasses and set them down on the table, with the purple one in front of her. "Drink it," he commanded. "You're no good to me drunk," he added harshly.

When the woman looked as though she would refuse, the man said, "I'll leave if you do it." The woman's yellow eyes stared drunkenly at him, then at he glass, then at him again. Then, she shrugged, and gulped down the mixture.

After swallowing it, she hacked and coughed several times, and looked as though she might be sick. However, she soon recovered, and then looked at the man strangely, as if seeing him for the first time. "Who are you," she demanded, "and why are you in my private booth?"

The man was silent for a moment before speaking. "My name is Kaze," he said, "and I am in your booth because I have spent a very long time trying to find you." The woman was annoyed enough as it was by this intruder, but she was curious enough to ask confusedly, "Me? Why me?" Kaze said, "You used to work for the GSP, no?" There was no emotion in his voice, or in the black helmet which covered it.

The woman sighed. She should have known. "They still have that bounty on my head, do they? Is that why you're here? Or are you one of their cronies, come to arrest me?" Kaze shook his head, saying, "Neither. While it is true that I once was one of their puppets, I quit before they could gain complete control over me. Just like you."

The woman said, "And how do you know who I am?" Kaze said, "Weren't you paying attention? I used to work for the GSP as well. But even if I didn't I'd still know of you wherever I went. You are pretty infamous among most civilized worlds. I even have a list of some of your aliases, including your real name, if I'm not mistaken."

The woman gestured for him to go on, so Kaze complied. "Krista Firstar, Shaiira Langley, Soryu Sakura, Haruhara Haruko, and finally Haruhara Raharu. The last two names were given to me by a friend of mine, who has met you once. In fact, it is by his request that I come to find you at all in the first place. He said you were once a friend of his."

The woman looked back at him, shocked. Not only had her real name been in that list, but one of those names she knew that she had only ever used once, on a certain backwater planet, during her search for Atomsk. It was at that point when the memories returned to her in full force. She did not cry out, but she did look away from the man called Kaze, so that he couldn't see her tears. Through her crying, she managed to mumble that her preferred name was the second to last one on that list, the alias which she had used on Earth; Haruko Haruhara.

Kaze waited patiently for her to speak. Finally, once the tears stopped flowing, she asked Kaze, "So…who's that friend of yours who asked you to find me?" Kaze took out the picture from his pocket and unpinned the badge so he could unfold it. The picture showed Haruko's arm hanging around a the shoulder of a young boy in a blue jacket far too big for him, with shaggy brown hair and dull blue eyes.

Upon seeing the boy, she gasped. This was the one she met on that backwater planet. This was her tool, her weapon, her friend…her love. Her silent tears returned. Kaze said, "You recognize him? He was the N.O. channeler you used in your attempts to find Atomsk, who was being held captive by Medical Mechanica at the time. You tricked him and his father into allowing you to becoming their live-in maid, so that you may be closer to him. You quickly befriended him, but unfortunately he fell in love with you, while you did not reciprocate his feelings. And then, when Atomsk was gone, and all was said and done, you left him behind to rot on his own boring world…"

"No…Ta-kun…I only wanted him to be safe…" was all Haruko could whisper in response, her tears continuing to flow. "He…Noata hated to be called that, you know," Kaze added cruelly in a monotonic voice before saying, "But of course, his love for you was too great, and it wasn't long before he found a way to leave his planet in search of you…using the only connection to you that he had left in his possession."

Haruko looked up sharply at this. Could it be possible? She recalled the time when she returned to that place on Earth, and his father, now old, told her that he was `gone`. "How?" she asked. Leon replied, "Recall that before you left, you took the hybrid guitar that was his Gibson Flying V and Atomsk's EB-0. However, you left him your Rickenbacker. Using some knowledge gained from past experience, plus his extremely powerful N.O. channel, and he soon found a way to fashion a small starship out of it."

Haruko was in awe at her little Ta-kun's cunning. It was one of the things she loved about him. Well, that, and the ease with which she could make him blush in embarrassment. Just the thought of that brought her to smile at that memory. However, her attention was caught by Kaze when he unsung the long leather case from his back and unzipped it.

Upon opening it, Haruko gasped at seeing her old Rickenbacker again for the first time in years. Thought there were obvious alterations to it, such as a small amount of machinery poking out of the back, next the draw-string motor she used to make it fly, she recognized it almost immediately. Then, she picked it up and turned it over to look at it on the strings side, only to see a word, no, a name written near the strings in cursive, in black acrylic ink.

"Haruka?" Haruko inquired at the name. Kaze explained, "Like how a pilot names his ship, he named the guitar after you. Unless you say otherwise, I have honored his wishes and allowed the name, The Haruka to remain." Haruko, who was deeply touched at Noata's obvious affection for, nodded.

"So where is he? Obviously, if you knew him, he had Earth, just as you said. Why didn't you tell him where to find me, since you knew to look here? Hell, why didn't he look for me himself, instead of sending you?" she asked, a twinge of disappointment in her voice. He replied in a regretful tone, "Actually, he probably would be here himself today…but, unfortunately, he is…KIA."

This time Haruko did cry out. My Ta-kun…dead? No…NO!!! I don't believe it! I won't believe it! Haruko slumped over onto the desk, her face hidden. She sobbed. "No…Noata…No…" It took her a long time to quiet herself, but Kaze said nothing to comfort or console her. He simply stood there and watched.

Eventually, she calmed down enough to ask, "How? Why?" Kaze said, "Are you sure you want me to tell you? It's quite a long story." Haruko nodded. "I must know."

Kaze nodded. "Very well. I shall tell you the story. I will start from the beginning, from a place you know very well. It was three years after you left him behind on Earth." Haruko's tears flowed even more at that memory.

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A/N: Okay, that's the first chapter, folks! So, what d'you think? A little different from my regular work, eh? Anyway, like I said, this if a story that's been in my head even longer than my novel has, so I decided that I would pay homage to it while it still remains in my head.

Noata fan girls: NOOO!!! You killed our Noata!!!

Me: Whoa, relax, girls! It's just a story, after all!

Fan girls: *turns mutinous, and pulls out torches, pitchforks, and clubs*

Me: Meep. *runs away from angry mob*