Fornication Under Consent of King
Ordeal 1: Of History and Geography
By Zenithos
Disclaimer: I don't own Love Hina. Really. I don't.
By the way, this story was inspired by Lord Raa's 'And That's Terrible.', a fine example of high-class literature that belongs in the upper pantheons of fanfic writing.
Notes on resent absence and this new story:
Many Apologies everyone, especially to those of you waiting for updates (even more especially to those of you who've GIVEN UP waiting for updates) to my stories. A lot of things have been happening lately. And I mean LOTS. To the point where the time to write is just NON-EXISTENT. This particular story was written earlier this year, around April (I think...it's been so long) and it's been up on TFF for a while. At first it was just something I toyed around with while trying to get over my writer's block (as usual) and then it appeared to appeal to many fellow fanfic writers (I don't know why...perhaps this kind of stuff appeals to fanboys? XD). Anyway, I started off wanting to write a comedy romance but I ended up writing a...well...uhh...find out for yourself.
Again, my apologies for my long absence. Hopefully I'll be able to begin writing again soon. If I can't, then my apologies in advance. Your patience is much appreciated.
Btw, I have another new Love Hina fic (YES! yet another new one Shrinks under angry glares) titled 'So, What Now, Genius?!', for which I gave a short preview in a previous update for Sister Princess. It's less of a comedy and more of an angst drama fic but with touches of humour (or what I think counts as humour...which isn't much XD). Feel free to look it up if you fancy another...well...harem-ish fic. XD.
ENJOY!
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A day or two ago….
The island of MolMol was a peaceful island, inhabited by peaceful, if rather eccentric, people, who were blessed with peaceful, yet startlingly brilliant, minds, who peacefully endeavoured to discover new technologically advanced ways to wage war….or so it would seem to outsiders. After all, it was all done in the interest of peace. Not that they were designed to wage war in the first place anyway. Slicing bread had never been easier after the domestic application of positron beam rifles. It toasts the bread while it was at it too. Death and destruction was, unfortunately, just a by-product.
They believed that peace was everything. Peace was love and love was peace. Therefore, Love too was everything. It stood to reason.
The flowers in the royal gardens swayed gently under the passing breeze, perfuming the late spring air with their thick rich scent. The trees rustled gently. The birdbath spluttered and gurgled. The birds in the birdbath sang a beautiful, if rather damp, chirpy song. Bumblebees buzzed busily amongst the blossoms. Otherwise, it was all peaceful and quiet…
"WHAAAAAAAAAAT?!"
An angered roar rang through the hazy air.
Birds abruptly took flight. The birds in the birdbath skittered and slipped first before doing the same, albeit dripping embarrassingly in the process. The wind howled. Volcanoes erupted. The very earth shook and cracked.
….Pathetic fallacy goes far here in MolMol…
"DEATH! DESTRUCTION! WAR!"
It was obviously time to leave MolMol….
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Present Day…
The island nation of Japan, on the other hand, was far from being peaceful. In fact, the top brass had rather abruptly declared a state of emergency. The beaches had been sandbagged and fortified. The Air Force were watching every single cloud as if they'd suddenly spawn death itself. The Navy had been restlessly patrolling the coast, watching every little wave for tell tale v-like ripples.
As usual though, the public were kept safely in the dark…well, at least until the darkness turns bright with all the artillery fire….
It had all seemed like a joke. Albeit a rather lame and humourless one, yet still a joke. The Japanese diplomat had laughed uneasily, mostly out of politeness, before being deported on the spot and sent back with a rather dark message, one rather lacking in terms of manners and, perhaps, words, yet more than made up for it in the amount of exclamation marks.
Said letter scared the hell out of the Minister of Foreign Affairs whose poor heart almost gave up at that very instant. Too bad it didn't. Otherwise, he'd have been sparred the embarrassment that followed.
The prime minister had immediately picked up the phone and dialed up all the right people, who, after a brief and confused conversation, didn't seem so right after all. In the end he was left with a choice. Either call Her, or the priest. At the moment lying down to die didn't seem like the best of options and he had the eerie feeling that they'd dig him up and resurrect him just to have the pleasure of killing him personally with their own preferred method, thus the priest was out of the question.
Her it was then.
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Urashima Haruka hadn't had a good day. She had woken up on the wrong side of the bed, that is, the side that had all of Sarah's toys on (most of which she shared with Suu and considering that they too had 'death and destruction' labeled under 'by-products', it wasn't a nice way to wake up), she had ran out of toothpaste and toilet paper (a bit too late with the latter, after which she found that the toilet wouldn't flush), her toaster had spat out a pair of badly burnt pieces of carbonized carbohydrates and even those later fell on the floor buttered side down, the milk had gone sour, which led to the discovery that somebody had stolen her refrigerator's compressor, and, to top it all off, the phone rang.
Just as she was looking through the phone book in search of a repairman and had stopped to look at an add offering a positron beam bread slicer/toaster too….
It was a rather funny conversation too. How funny? It had begun with 'HELP!"
Something exploded in the distance…
It was one of those days…
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Meanwhile,
"Hmmm, that's nice to know. Tsuruko-san's finally expecting." Mitsune smiled as Motoko placed the letter from her sister down on the coffee table with a reverential flourish. "She must be really happy."
"What's 'expecting'? Is it edible?" A voice asked.
It didn't take a rocket genius to guess who asked the question….though from the looks of it, it takes a rocket genius to ask it.
"N-no, not really, Suu-chan." Mitsune said, rather nervously. Motoko, meanwhile, coughed dryly and remained quiet. Some topics were better left untouched. Well, yes, they were merely brushing the surface, but knowing Suu, she'd start excavating said surface sooner or later.
How on earth does one give sex ed to a banana crazed foreigner anyway?
Not in their lifetimes, they decided. Thus they steered clear of the surface completely.
"Well….is it a really happy feeling then?" Suu persisted. Curiosity often kills cats but Suu's curiosity killed off the entire pet shop and burned it down before proceeding to slaughter an entire savannah's worth of lions.
There was, excuse the description, a pregnant pause.
"…wh-what makes you think that, Suu?" Mitsune finally ventured.
"Because you said Motoko's sister was 'expecting' and that she's happy." Suu said innocently.
This came from a mind whose logic bent metal and harnessed lightning into fearsome spawns of insanity…
The two young women gave the young MolMolian a searching gaze.
Motoko finally cleared her throat. "Err…yes, Suu-chan….you got it dead right."
"Yay! I got it right!" Suu shouted in triumph before bounding away. "Expecting, expecting, yay!"
The two ladies shivered slightly in the rather awkward silence that followed. It was late spring and the warmth far from warranted any shivering….but it felt as if an ill wind had just blown by.
"….did we just do something wrong?" Mitsune asked, feeling, as she rarely did, somewhat guilty.
"N-no, off course not." Motoko chuckled uneasily. "What harm could it do?"
…A lot of harm, as they later found out…..
Anyway, the explosion happened next, the same one Haruka heard from the teashop as she picked up the phone.
Yes, it was one of those days….
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"And you called me up for THIS?" Haruka asked, her eyebrow twitching dangerously. Even the hardiest of men would normally start putting as much distance between them and her at the hint.
Indeed, this was the case with the Prime Minister. Unfortunately, the maximum distance he could put between himself and her was the width of his desk, over which Haruka was now leaning threateningly, his retreat cut off by the formerly comfortable leather office chair. He made a mental note to replace said desk with a wider desk if he is somehow spared the necessity of the priest's services.
"Help me Oba-san!" A voice, slightly muffled by all the digital recording systems and circuitry between the source and them, cried out. The form of the voice's owner, cruelly tied up, showed up on a large plasma TV hanging on one side of the Prime Minister's office.
"….is all that necessary?" Haruka asked, giving the rather pathetic form in the plasma screen a brief glance before again subjecting the Prime Minister to a diamond edged stare. Truth be told, she had an awful urge to tighten all those chords currently tying up her nephew, but right now she had to play her cards right. "After all, my nephew's too helpless to even escape a simple locked room."
"…you don't have to be that blunt, Haruka-san…." Keitaro muttered, tears streaming down his face.
"Well…you see….the problem is…." The Prime Minister steepled his fingers in an effort to regain some composure. He's seen lots of great charismatic leaders take up this pose before imparting critical information or commands upon subordinates. It's supposed to give off a strong, confident, charismatic air.
…only, all said effects seemed rather lost on Haruka…
"….the king of MolMol has just declared war on us…" He finished, his voice shaking slightly. Although he'd be the last to say it, Haruka's mere presence had a strongly intimidating aura associated with it, and currently it was toying with him mercilessly.
"What kind of madman would declare a war on a country where his daughter's residing at?!" The Secretary General cried out in a fit of nerves.
"He's rich, isn't he?" Haruka asked, simply.
The Prime Minister and Secetary General both blinked. "errr….yes, he is a monarch of one of the world's technological superpowers after all…." The Prime Minister finally answered, not seeing where this was going at all.
"Well, then he's not mad. If he's rich then he's just eccentric." Haruka shrugged, lighting up a cigarette. "Where's the ashtray?"
The Prime Minister, a non-smoker himself, almost imperceptibly crinkled his nose but asked one of the clerks to fetch an ashtray all the same.
"Besides, he knows that whoever tries to touch his daughter will cease being described in terms of biology and forevermore be remembered in terms of topographical geography." She said, taking a drag on the cancer stick. "….and perhaps general Japanese modern history, in the case of some people here." She added after a thought, accompanying it with a glare that said 'don't you dare hold the girl for ransom'.
The Prime Minister gulped. The thought had occurred to him, but now he realized that foreign affairs really wasn't his field. A small part of his mind fervently prayed that topographical geography and Japanese modern history would never be a part of it either. There was a deadly feel to those subjects.
"Ah…Haruka-chan…" He started.
"Shut up. We're not in primary school anymore." Haruka snapped as the clerk hurried in with the ashtray. After tapping off some ash on the tray she finally asked, "All right….what did WE do to piss off the King of MolMol?"
"It's a….errr…a rather strange reason…." He sighed. "Keitaro-san?" He looked up at the tied up form that was now the plasma screen's main feature.
"Y-Yes?" Keitaro gulped. Something told him he wasn't going to like this…
"Well…I guess you have the right to listen too. This has something to do with you after all…" the Prime Minister conceded. "…Everything to do with you, actually…" He finally decided.
"…yes…?" Haruka said, her voice hinting that if the question isn't answered soon then the King of MolMol wouldn't be the only one pissed off around here.
"Well…you see….the king…."
To put it in a nutshell, the king WASN'T happy….
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"I say we hand over the boy's head on a silver platter!" The Minister of Defense shouted, slamming his fists down on the table. A few of the other ministers seated around said table winced at the idea but found, mostly to their own horror, agreeing with the Minister of Defense's suggestion. After all, the prospect of ending up the by-product of advanced-technology-assisted bread slicing wasn't a very bright one.
After all, better some obscure boy than me…I mean, the entire country, right?
"It's a very delicate matter." The Prime Minister said. "We don't even know what the real problem is."
"It's obvious, isn't it?" The Minister of Domestic Affairs said with a disapproving sniff. "He went ballistic the moment he heard his daughter was staying at an all-girls dorm run by a man."
The entire cabinet assembled went silent, each making solemn vows to pass some sort of law banning male managers from running all-girls dorms if they ever survived this ordeal….and perhaps harem mangas and animes while they were at it. Why they came to that last conclusion they didn't know, but it felt like the thing to do all the same.
"Well then….errr….that's why in a few more minutes we're going to open up a channel of communication with the king who's currently…" the Prime Minister paused to look down at his notes before gulping. "…On board the MolMol Navy's flagship that's currently sitting right outside our borders, along with his entire fleet."
"But the man's daughter is here, isn't she?" The Minister of Education suddenly spoke up.
A glare from the other side of the room made him feel like a really bad pupil who was about to get the scolding of his life. The source of the glare, Urashima Haruka, stood up. "I personally believe that the matter should be resolved by the daughter. It is a father-daughter issue after all."
Everyone looked at one another. If it had come from anyone else, they would have dismissed it as a mad idea, but this suggestion came from Urashima Haruka. They knew the woman, each in their own personal way. Some remembered her as the girl who'd defend their younger nerdy selves against bullies. Some remembered her as the leader of the most feared high school gang who had warded off the even bigger bullies.
This must work. It must.
…just in case it doesn't, every one of them already had the priest's number on speed dial….
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"Suu!" The big, tanned, regally moustached face on the screen gave the young girl standing before it a hearty smile. "Haven't seen you in a while, dear daughter, how are you?" He said, in heavily accented Japanese. It seemed as if the King had taken the time to pick up some Japanese in case his daughter somehow decided to stick with it.
Indeed, she did.
"I'm all fine, papa!" Suu said with a grin. She was somewhat bewildered over the fact that a lot of big men in black suits and shades had stormed the Hinata Sou earlier and kidnapped Keitaro. She was even more bewildered over the fact that some of them, after a royal trouncing from her (might be nice to report that a good few of them had a refrigerator compressor/ultra-deconstipator-o-matic-in-the-making explode in their face), finally voiced their plea for her to come with them. But nothing bewildered her more than the fact that they had asked her to spend a few minutes talking with her Papa.
She just did it anyway, just because they had dragged off Keitaro, deciding that worst come to worst she'd just self-destruct the entire island of Honshu.
"Do you really think this'll somehow resolve the problem?" The Prime Minister asked from behind a one way mirror looking into the transmission room where Suu was.
"Just watch." Haruka shrugged. Personally, she knew this was a gamble, knowing how Suu was, but it was all or nothing.
"So, Suu…I heard you're currently living in a dorm run by a…" He paused to lick his lips. "….a male manager…." He finished, putting on a pose with his hands on his hips reminiscent of Henry VIII but with an option on Henry IX and Henry V as well.
Suu was perhaps the last ever person to ever identify what some may call a luring sentence or a fishing line. Despite the fact that her mind could grasp quantum mechanics and bioengineering and simultaneously juggle it with nuclear physics, her knowledge of the everyday nuts and bolts of social interactions was just as good as her understanding of the word 'expecting'. The King's lure caught with a satisfying snag. "Yes, Papa, his name's Keitaro." She smiled. "He's really nice, and really funny too. You should meet him."
"Err, yes. Actually, Suu, I wanted to speak to you about him." The King rumbled on. "So….do you….get along with him?" He ventured.
Keitaro, who was watching the entire conversation through the screens set up in his chamber by the guards in suits, started to sweat. The matter of his life and death has often rested in Suu's fingers, mostly when they were holding the triggers of some newly developed death ray/deconstipator/something-o-matic of some description, but never have they mattered so much as now. He gulped. If he somehow made it through this, he swore he'd buy Suu all the bananas she could ever wish for.
"Yes, Papa. Keitaro's lot's of fun!" Suu said. The watchers all held their breath. "He's kind and gentle too, and he plays with me a lot. He's especially fun at night!"
The watchers gasped. The Prime Minister could already see Japan crumbling into ruin before his very eyes. Keitaro on the other hand could already see himself being offered up on a silver platter with a slice of lemon and perhaps some tartar sauce.
Narusegawa Naru, who had followed the others to the Parliament building and was currently watching alongside Haruka and the Prime Minister from behind the one-way mirror, found herself clenching her fists at Suu's remark. "At night, eh?" She murmured.
"Suu-chan…." Shinobu murmured beside Naru, her eyes as large as saucers.
"At night?" The King asked, leaning forwards towards the screen, his expression turning into something that, if circumstances were different, may pass for intrigue. Currently, it passed for searching suspicion with an option on severe constipation coupled with painful bowel movements.
"Yes, at night. I sleep with him a lot. We always have lots and lots of fun together!" Suu said innocently in butterfly tones. "Oh, with NaruNaru too!"
Flight of said butterfly tones rained thunder down upon the watchers.
The Prime Minister fell to his knees. "W-we're doomed…." He mumbled. The rest of his ministers had their hand phones out and were in the process of speed-dialing a recently programmed number.
"Lots of fun, eh?" The King nodded.
"Yes, he makes me so happy!" Suu said happily, getting so caught up in her speech that she was starting to loose the handle of the media of said speech, namely language. She had started to pull out words at random.
"So happy that….that…" Suu searched for a word that described it properly before finding one she had just learnt earlier that day. "…that I'm expecting!"
…..
For a split second the Prime Minister fervently prayed that the King's Japanese language tutors hadn't covered that last word.
The King's eyes widened so very slightly.
Apparently, much to the Prime Minister's horror, the tutors were quite thorough….
Many pairs of eyes (the ones other than the King's) turned blank. A number of cell-phones clattered onto the floor before simultaneously giving out disconnection tones. Haruka's cigarette, still hanging from her lips, burned on, forgotten, to the point where an inch's worth of ash fell unheeded to the floor.
Keitaro knew he was dead and had quietly performed a little funeral rite in his mind, entrusting his soul to any deity up there who'd accept him. He knew that no one else would bother giving him a funeral. They'd be too busy cursing his dead body. Right now he was just trying to weigh out who'd give him a quicker and less painful death, the King…or Naru…
Naru's nails had dug deep into her palms. She was now shaking with rage. Somehow the fate of Japan didn't really occur to her. All her mind registered at the moment was the need to pummel a certain pervert to death before chasing him to hell and giving him even further pummeling.
Mitsune, her mouth hanging wide open, looked around at Motoko…who seemed to have disappeared. She ventured a glance downwards and found Motoko slumped, kneeling on the floor, her mouth opening and closing incomprehensibly.
"God…we've just single-handedly brought death down upon all of Japan…" Mitsune thought in horror. Her father had always said she was destined for greatness. Well, this was greatness all right. Not many could destroy entire countries with mere speech.
Motoko had started to laugh quietly, the uneasy hysterical laugh of the utterly defeated.
"Behead the boy, now!" The Minister of Defense suddenly found his voice in some forgotten corner of his throat, cowering and shuddering with utter fright. "NOW!"
A strange, alien sound reached their ear-drums. At first it was so alien, so foreign, that it inspired utter bone-chilling fear. And then, as their minds finally caught up, they somehow started to identify the sound.
It was laughter.
It was a rich, royal laughter, hearty and light.
The all looked up at the screen.
To their utter amazement, the King had his head thrown back, laughing as if the world was all kittens and puppies and everything else that was cute, cuddly, and potentially a source of allergies.
"This is the greatest news I've had in a while!" He boomed.
"What?!" The Prime Minister gasped, his face a riddle of incredulity. The other ministers had done a good job of mimicking it too.
"WHAT?!" Keitaro too gasped. This might not mean the frying pan, but he had a feeling the fire was still down there somewhere, waiting for him.
The door behind him slammed open to reveal an auburn haired girl who was flaming at the edges, giving off a murderous aura so thick that it quickly permeated the room and chocked everyone present including the guards.
"N-Naru, it's all a misunderstanding! Really! I…"
Nobody at the transmission room noticed that the surveillance monitors watching Keitaro's room all went fuzzy for a few moments before turning blue.
"D-does this mean…we're not going to die?" Mitsune tensed, as if watching the last dice spin about on its edge, not knowing whether it was safe to be relieved or not.
Motoko, on the other hand, had lapsed into quiet hiccups.
"I was starting to get worried about you, Suu." The King said in a hearty voice. "You've been in Japan for so long and yet I still hadn't received any news of you finding a man. And suddenly I hear that you have had a man for a dorm manager for a good two years and yet it seemed like nothing had happened." He said, sighing. "That really made me blow my top. How could he be caring for my beautiful irresistible daughter and yet make no moves whatsoever?" He frowned for a bit. "But now everything's cleared up. Looks like the man has lived up to the expectation of his species." He nodded with satisfaction, his generous moustache waving along to amplify the sentiment.
Everyone present was staring open-mouthed at the King.
"Well, it's good to know that my grandchildren are on the way." He said, his face lit up to the point that it almost looked boyish. "This NaruNaru person….is she expecting too?"
"Hmmm…." Suu gave this a bit of thought. Truth be told, she hadn't understood much of what her father had said, but from the sound of it, he seemed happy.
That was a good thing. Despite the fact that Suu had all the social know-how of a banana, she very well understood that a happy King was a good King. It was one of the first things Princesses learn.
Might as well try and keep the atmosphere up. "Umm….there are times when she seems cranky and all….but I think she's expecting too." Suu nodded happily.
Mitsune
"Oh, I've got to call the Prime Minister and tell him I'm calling off the war. I hope he'd accept my apology for the misunderstanding. I mean, now I can see that his government runs one fine country. Look, my dear daughter's living proof of that, all happy and expecting." He beamed.
The awkward silence that followed was broken by one the clerks speaking up, "Sir, do we still need to behead the boy?" He asked the Minister of Defense.
"What? The Boy? Are you crazy, man?! The boy's our insurance policy, our lifeline. No, his head stays on his shoulders. The fate of Japan rests on it." The Minister of defense said.
The room behind the one-way mirrors exploded in cheers and laughter as a wave of pure relief washed over them. The war was called off! Nobody had to fry under the bread toasting positron beams!
Motoko's hiccups gave away to quiet sobs of relief.
Mitsune laughed so hard that she felt as if her gut was about to crack under the strain. She didn't care. Japan was saved!
"But…"
Everyone looked around at the source of the voice, giving it a look normally reserved for the vilest of party poopers, daring him to challenge the outcome of ordeal.
"Err…" The source of the voice, the Minister of Education, faltered a bit under the collective stares, but rallied up, like students at a biology pep rally, and said, "He thinks his daughter's expecting…."
Everyone stared.
The Minister of Culture and Art coughed and asked, "well…isn't she?"
"Weren't you listening?" The Prime Minister sighed. "Haruka-chan has given her complete assurance that Urashima Keitaro has done nothing of the sort."
"Well, she could've laid down her guard one evening…" The Minister of Agriculture suggested, before he found himself frying under the gazes of all the other ministers. "Oops…sorry, Haruka-chan, that's not possible, is it? Sorry…" He mumbled.
"Then….why did she say she was expecting?" The Minister of Culture and Art asked, before gasping, "It couldn't be…"
"No, it's not what you think." Mitsune finally spoke up. She looked down at Motoko who was eyeing her with a look of utter terror. She shook her head and rallied, "It's a rather funny story…." She started with a defiant smile, and when she realized that nobody was prepared to be amused, she decided to tell it as it was.
It wasn't pretty.
Good thing Keitaro wasn't listening. He was too busy dying at that moment. But if he had listened, he'd have probably ended up suffering all throughout his afterlife, even if he did end up in heaven.
Who wouldn't, knowing they had suffered the worst of fates just because somebody had avoided giving sex ed?
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"Ah….that explains a lot." The Minister of Defense nodded in understanding. "So, it's simple then. All we got to do is get the two together and make sure the King gets his grandchild in nine months at the latest, right? How hard can it be?"
It dawned on everyone now why this man was the Minister of Defense. He was decisive, to-the-point, and, for the lack of a better word, mercilessly cruel.
He was perfect for the job and the situation and everybody couldn't agree more.
"That means somebody will have to give the girl some sex ed after all." The minister of education suddenly pointed out.
"Well, how hard can it be?" The Minister of Domestic Affairs said, shrugging.
Mitsune, Motoko, Shinobu, and Haruka all gulped imperceptibly.
"A harem sir?" They all went silent upon hearing the Prime Minister utter these words in the transmission room. They all rushed to the edge of the one-way mirrors and pressed their ears into the cold glass.
"Why, yes, my good man." The King said, eyeing the Prime Minister as if he was somewhat potty to even question it. "Every good man, especially one who will soon be prince of MolMol, must have a decent sized harem. It stands to reason….he DOES have a harem, doesn't he? I mean, I heard my daughter mention somebody named NaruNaru sharing his blanket with her as well as my daughter."
Whatever 'reason' the King was talking about, it absolutely eluded the Prime Minister, but he wasn't about to confess to that, not with the prospect of his entire country ending up a giant piece of buttered carbon. "Why, err, yes, off course, your highness. I'm sure the young man's done his best in that department. He is, after all, the embodiment of everything the Japanese culture is proud of. A great strapping example of what every Japanese man should aspire to be, I always said." He nodded, rather stiffly, mostly due to the pent up tension.
"H-h-harem?" Mitsune gaped, pealing her flaming earlobe off the now rather damp glass. She again looked down at her fellow, for the lack of a better word, 'culprit', and saw that Motoko too had realized what this meant.
They were first in line….they must be. And they can't refuse as they've almost destroyed the nation….or did they just save it? Wait….it was getting rather confusing….
"Hurry, get me a list of every eligible young woman in the nation!" The Minister of Domestic Affairs shouted to a clerk. "And you, get someone to analyze the King's psyche profile and his current harem and find out what sort of women he'd find suitable to be royal harem members!" He shouted to another clerk. "And you, find out what qualifies as 'decent-sized'" He shouted at the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
"Who? What? Me?" The Minister of Foreign Affairs asked, slightly puzzled.
"Yes, you're supposedly the expert on everything foreign, and harems are foreign enough a concept for us as it is without it becoming a domestic affair." The Minister of Domestic affairs said in a decisive tone. "And find this woman named NaruNaru. Get to it! The fate of Japan rests on your shoulders!"
"Well….the more the merrier, right?" The Minister of Foreign Affairs muttered, half to himself. "I mean, decent-sized….well, just to be sure, a dozen…maybe 20-ish…" His voice trailed off.
Nobody had noticed Shinobu who was now lying with her back against one wall, her eyes blank out of utter shock. Everything was happening too fast. One moment Japan was about to go to war. The next the King called it off because Suu was pregnant with his grandchild. Then she found out that this was not so because it was a misunderstanding. And now Keitaro-sempai had to have a harem? A faint "Auuuu…" Escaped her lips.
"Does this mean a polygamy bill will be passed?" The Minister of Education asked. "This will seriously have an impact on religious studies and sex ed." He murmured, mostly to himself.
"Well, who knows? But from the looks of it we'll have to alter the legal age of consent while we're at it too." The Minister of Culture and Art sighed. "This will definitely affect our pop culture ethics….what, with lolicon art on the rise and everything…"
"Good, good." The King nodded with generous approval. "It's been great speaking to you, Prime Minister. Thanks a lot for taking care of my daughter. Your country's one fine one. I always had faith in you Japanese, I always told my wives. You can always trust people perverted enough to set up used-panty dispensers in public bathrooms. After all, love is peace and peace is love, right?" He said with what might seem like a reassuring wink. "Well then, I'll be dropping by in a month or two to check up on my daughter and the prince-to-be…oh, and to see how good a harem he has. They say you can judge the qualities in a man by his harem, you know?"
"Errr, yes, off course, Your Highness." The Prime Minister felt he was obliged to agree with anything at this point. Deal with the details later, he thought.
"Well, that's all, Prime Minister. Thank you so very much for your time. And sorry again for the misunderstanding. Oh, and you've got yourself a seat at the wedding." The King winked again. "Ja ne"
"J-Ja ne…." The Prime Minister said weakly as the screen before him winked out into blackness. It happened in steps. First he sagged, before his knees buckled in, holding up his body at a rather strange angle like a drunken ballerina, before shudderingly giving away and letting him drop to the carpeted floor. A good, long sleep, that was what he needed now, so he thought as he closed his eyes comfortably. He could deal with all the pressing matters later. One of them was to add more used-panty dispensers everywhere…for some reason that felt like a good thing.
Wait…the boy….
He sat up and looked up at all the people who had rushed in to his aid as if they were all aliens before finally finding his voice in his stomach where it had sunk down in relief. "Well, don't just stand there, secure the boy! He's the future of Japan!"
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To be continued…
Next time on 'Fornication Under Consent of King'…..
Keitaro, having gone through enough to shock a herd of elephants in one morning, was perhaps the last person to feel surprised or awed by much for the rest of his life. Indeed, the man before him didn't seem to be the type to inspire said emotions.
Rather, he seemed to have been born with the innate ability to inspire discomfort, even true fear, in the heart of hearts of those he met. Right now, Keitaro was receiving the full blast of said effects. "Y-Y-yes….?" He gurgled, his voice clinging, frightened, to the back of his throat as an adventurer would hang onto a gnarly root over a volcano.
"It's good to see you're alive and well, at the present time." The man before him continued. There was a slight inflection to that last phrase, which told Keitaro that the length of the present time was entirely the gift of the speaker. The man was sitting opposite him, his hands steepled reflectively in front of his pursed lips. While many leaders, case-in-point; the Prime Minister; took on this pose in an attempt to inspire awe and respect in those they were dealing with, it was clearly not the case with this particular man. Rather, it seemed he was the very reason respect, awe and charisma were associated with said pose.
An ancient animal sense told Keitaro that other people were standing behind the comfortable chair he was in, and that it could be extremely uncomfortable should he make any sudden movements. But they couldn't be as terrible as the thin, black haired man, with the suspicious darkened glasses and long black sideburns extending down into a fussy beard, and thin pianist's hands, who was currently giving him all his attention.
"My name is Gendo Ikari, minister of homeland security." The man continued, his tones stressing that this introduction was not out of manners or politeness, rather, it was to make sure that Keitaro knew who exactly he was dealing with. There was something about the way he said his title that made it clear that he had used small letters instead of the usual capitals the other ministers would use, as if his station had no bearing at all to himself as a man.
…If he was a man. Right now, if somebody drooling at the mouth told him this man was a demon king in disguise, Keitaro would believe it wholeheartedly.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Now, for a preview of another fic in progress….
Title: Master! Master!
"Urashima-sama….Urashima-sama…can't we do it today, Urashima-sama? Ko-chan's been waiting for this day for a long, long time, Urashima-sama. Ko-chan wants to do it with you, Urashima-sama. Can we do it, Urashima-sama? Can we? Can we?"
The bright sun light, filtered into a warm shade of glowing gold, fell upon his face, causing him to stir gently. It was so very comfortable…it wasn't too cold, it wasn't too hot either. Just a nice, fuzzy warmth, enveloping him. He buried himself deeper into the material he was lying on. It felt soft and warm. It must be cotton.
He slowly blinked open one eye as his mind began its preliminary startup phase, running through its basic protocols; where was this? What time is it? And most importantly, do I need to go to the bathroom?
'No, seriously, where am I?' He thought again, this time more urgently, as his drowsy eyes started to take in his surroundings. 'And whose voice was that?'
"Urashima-sama…."
'A fluffy white…something?' He asked himself drowsily as he rubbed his eyes. 'Ugh…get…out…of…my…face…' He thought as he raised one hand to bat away the fluffy white thing in front of him. 'Wait…it wags?' he asked, squinting in an effort to drain the drowsiness out.
'And what is this thing….weighing down on my side…?' He asked himself, turning his face around slowly. '…Furry ears? A Dog?' Well, that was his first impression…
…until a cute little face came up, following said furry ears. "Urashima-sama…" The face said in a sing song voice, its big brown eyes blinking up adorably at him.
"WHOAH!" He yelped, scrabbling backwards across what he found to be a bed, the bed he had been sleeping on just a few moments ago. "Wha...Where…Who…?" He voiced out all his questions as he frantically tried to grasp his current situation.
But whatever he did, his attention was always drawn back to the figure right in front of him, crawling on all fours across the bed towards him.
"Urashima-sama…." It giggled.
If he didn't know any better, he'd just have put her down as a girl – simple. But this wasn't just any ordinary girl. The pair of white furry ears poking out of her long, silky raven-black hair was one indication of that, the long, white, fluffy tail wagging excitedly behind her was another.
His eyes slowly scrolled down across the smooth milky skin of her face down to her neck…which was obscured by a…what? A leather collar? It even had a small metal plate on it with a name inscribed on it – 'Konoka-chan'.
What the?
Did he die and wake up in heaven? Is he finally living his dreams?
Wait, more importantly…
"Sorry, but…." He finally found his tongue and his mouth, and simultaneously somehow found out how to use them. "…Where am I? Who are you? And how did I get here?"
He sighed inwardly – Damn it, it was his dream moment, and he had to let his logic take control. DAMN IT!
End - that's all for now!